Tag Archives: injustice

Last Night at the Frederick Peace Meeting

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An impressive group of Frederick citizens exercised their constitutional rights and civic duties last night in thoughtful, impassioned dialogue concerning the planned Fort Detrick multi-agency expansion (which includes the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security.)

 

An articulate lifelong activist expressed her concern that necessary security precautions might screen the illicit activities of a small but powerful paranoid minority. What if a secret few rationalized production of dangerous new viruses? Wouldn’t those new viruses be subject to misuse, terrorism, theft, accidents, and carelessness? Even with past assurances, she thought, bad things can happen. They’ve happened before.

 

A caring, erudite scientist advocated cool heads, citing good intentions, expertise, experience, safety, and the many advantages of the planned diagnostic and protective research for both soldiers and citizenry.

 

A thoughtful businessman offered practical suggestions on how to continue to spread the group's concerns and ideas–where concerned citizens might go and whom they might see–the mayor, Ft. Detrick leaders, members of Congress. He encouraged continued participation in the issue.

 

A young Quaker pacifist asked how everyone felt about working cooperatively with Ft. Detrick to assure transparency and open processes? Did the group still hope to influence Ft. Detrick to reverse itself on the expansion in general?

 

No compromises, urged a war-weary longtime activist, suspicious after many years of uphill battles. What if we collaborate while new strains of deadly viruses are weaponized? What if the Ft. Detrick expansion begins a new arms race in biological weapons as uncontrollable and dangerous in this brave new world as the current arms races in nuclear bombs, missiles, and conventional air, sea, and land weaponry?

 

A retired teacher wondered aloud whether the expansion might attract terrorists to Frederick. What if someone lobbed a bomb over the post perimeter fence from a home in any of the nearby neighborhoods? It’s not only the loss of lives and property, she added wistfully. Wouldn’t there be a national panic over the possible biological contents of floating and falling debris? Would that panic be legitimate?

 

The possibility of a bomb alarmed a tireless peace worker who handles much of the group’s paper and phone work. Nothing in the Ft. Detrick report said anything about a bomb, she worried, passing chocolates down the conference table (the group was temporarily meeting at a nursing home where she was recovering from a stroke.) A bomb. What about all our lifelong Frederick friends, family, our grandchildren?

 

The Peace Resource Center’s founder, a selfless, peaceful activist and community leader for more than twenty years, sought consensus by restating what he had heard from all of us:  Were we still hoping to prevent the Detrick expansion? Or were we willing to continue to strongly share our concerns while working for transparency and openness in all processes?

 

A firm “NO” came from a knowledgeable woman who dons black clothing to conduct public evening vigils in solidarity with women everywhere suffering from violence. What would spending this money tell the world about our national priorities? How could America throw money at potential threats when so many here and abroad are suffering and dying right now from real and present threats, like preventable diseases and malnutrition?

 

A soft-spoken newcomer wondered aloud whether bioterrorism research was at all suited for a military base, especially a base historically synonymous in the minds of the international community with biological warfare. Was it wise to deliberately inflame international perceptions? Why create more fear and anger? Even if U.S. actions are unimpeachable, will anyone trust our intentions, given our bioweapons history, our military presence in hundreds of bases all over the world, the size of our defense budget, our use of atomic weapons, and our current proactive conduct of the war on terror?

 

One powerful citizen offered a European perspective: All this focus on terrorism–wasn't it just serving the interests of those who might wish to divert national attention away from greater threats to our homeland’s  security—our unpopular foreign policies and wars, our national debt and deficit, our lack of living wages, unaffordable health care, housing, and higher education, our troubled education system, our threatened civil and political rights, our beleaguered environment?  And what about our fights against drugs, pornography, alcohol, crime, low moral standards, and imprisonment? Aren’t these threats endangering our beloved country’s security right now, every bit as as much or even more than potential acts of terrorism?

 

A young collegian who had listened in silence spoke out in challenging yet measured terms. If you want young people to support your efforts, he said, don’t water this stuff down. Speak up. Take a stand. Be clear. If you know what you want, go after it. I think we should oppose the expansion.

 

A cacophony of sharing and side-conversations ended the meeting. We can still do some good…. We can support needed work without supporting secrecy and dangerous experimentation…. Let’s talk more at our next meeting about our films-for-peace  project…. You can’t control technology—didn’t you see Jurassic Park?… You just have to be careful…. Are you coming to the peace conference?… Can the rewards match such risks?… Someone should write all this up…. Hugs…warm handshakes…. That new website looks great…. Courage…. How is your family?… Want a ride home?… Here, take this candy…. Good-bye good-bye, until next time.

 

(The people and ideas shared in this article are composites of attendees and opinions exchanged at recent meetings. The Peace Resource Center of Frederick invites constructive participation and objective debate on this and other issues. They meet at 4 East Church St. on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month from 7:30-9:30 pm.)

How I See the World (Today)

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Every person creates his or her own unique “reality.” Reality is not something “out there,” but something “in here,” created (during youth) as each person’s unique brain interacts with its particular environment, attempting to make some kind of systematic and predictable sense out of the relatively narrow set of confusing experiences and nonsense correlations it is confronted with. Thus, each individual arrives at adulthood with a unique belief system and worldview different from any other's. Much of adult learning consists of unlearning what we came to “know” about life in childhood that doesn’t happen to be so.

 

No one’s perspective is complete, or objective, or “right.” No one knows what he doesn’t know. No one ever achieves a complete understanding of anything, nor will anyone ever get anything completely “right” or “perfect”—no goal, no relationship, no choice, no idea—except, of course, that we are all perfect and right in the sense that we are all at every moment just exactly what we were meant to be, i.e., perfectly human.

 

Nature reveals a lot about the way my-unique-view-of-God works. “By the work, ye know the workman.” Nothing in nature or science contradicts anything I think or believe.

 

People are a completely natural part of nature.

 

Every person is born capable of the complete and astonishing range of human behavior, from the depths of depravity to the pinnacles of goodness.

 

It is written in the (very fallible but often wonderful) Bible, that when God “created” man and nature, he declared that both were “good.” I like the wisdom here. Who are we to argue with God, to call ourselves fallen and evil and sinners, when the creation-God of so many cultures has declared us “good,” and the earth good, just exactly as we are, just exactly as it is? We are exactly as God intended us to be—capable of all things, on this best of all possible worlds. We did lose peace, though, when we chose to see ourselves as separate from each other and God/higher power, and thus somehow shameful. (If you don't believe in a higher power, sin and evil and hell and such aren't issues for you….)

 

It’s interesting and fun to try to figure everything out, but only if you approach life as a wonderful surprising adventurous process with no goal at all but what you are doing right now—and not as an impossibly difficult and dangerous maze with a mysterious end  reward or goal. But whatever way you choose to look at life, you’ll still never figure it all out or get it “right.”

 

Since none of us knows what we don’t know, and since we don’t know what part of what we know isn’t so, then with each moment-to-moment choice we make, we act out of a  particular belief system, which is, in a sense, our unique and chosen faith about “how things work.”

 

There are two very general but very different things one can choose to put one’s faith in: fear or love. We all grow up with a mixture of the two faiths.

 

In any given decision moment, we decide to put our faith into either the one or the other–but we can never choose both at the same time, because fear and love can’t coexist in any one mind in the same instant.

 

The word “love” as I use it comprises all the good stuff humans are capable of—caring, hoping, kindness, forgiveness, acceptance, gentleness, giving….

 

The word “fear” as used here comprises all the bad stuff we’re capable of—like defending, attacking, controlling, hurting, hating, anger, greed, pride….

 

All of us have learned a lot of very reasonable, logical, arguable, cultural and personal reasons why we shouldn’t choose to act with faith in love in various situations. However, if we decide we want to, we can learn to recognize and drop each of these barriers to love, one by one, by seeing them as beliefs that don’t serve life very well. We can unlearn them, moment-to-moment.

 

Whichever way we decide to go, both kinds of faith–faith in fear or faith in love–are shots in the dark. In fact, that is what faith is, a shot in the dark. Faith is acting as though you know something to be true, when actually you don’t, at least not unarguably. You never know anything for sure–no matter how strong your faith–but you still have to choose how to act. Faith is choosing to act as if you know something and trust something for sure, when you don’t.

 

You can act, moment-to-moment, as if you know that being loving will out work for the best in the long run for you and for everyone else. Or, you can act as if you know that things will work out for the best if you choose to “fight back,” defending and protecting yourself against all the bad stuff you see in others.

 

All decisions and all actions, large or small, require courage, and all people (even those labeled the most “evil” in history) take only the actions they’ve decided will work best for them, based on what they think they know and don’t know.

 

“Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Being a loving person means having faith in the good intentions and sincerity of all others, all the time. We need to “believe” what others tell us, even when what they tell us seems completely unbelievable–because in some respect, from their viewpoint, they do believe it.

 

As Jesus was crucified, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We need to forgive ourselves and each other all our mistakes, small and large, because we are all  just wandering around and acting in the dark, doing the best we can, and you can never know what choices makes sense from another person’s worldview, or why. Besides, you'll never “forgive and forget” your own mistakes until you first learn to forgive and forget the mistakes of others. And the weight of constant self-judgment is exhausting.

 

When you treat all others as you would like all people to treat you, you are acting out of a faith in love. When you make an exception to this universal rule, which is the foundation of all human ethics, morals, and religions everywhere in the world, you are acting out of your faith in fear.

 

When you come from a mental place of being “right,” (“I am right about this”) you automatically make all the people who disagree with you “wrong,” which doesn’t work very well either.

 

Everyone, without exception, is deserving of our respect for their courageous (or timid) efforts to negotiate a life that is often difficult and painful, and always challenging and confusing.

 

“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord” means, “Vengeance isn’t yours.” Things may not seem fair or just from our own narrow perspectives, but God has a different, bigger, better, longer, more just picture, one we usually don’t get. We can ask him to share it with us, though. When confronted with problems, I often ask God to help me “see” things his way. And so he does.

 

God gives us all the good spiritual gifts we ask for—strength, insight, wisdom, help, comfort, understanding, forbearance, patience, and all the others, which can make a huge, even miraculous, difference. If we feel bereft, it’s because we haven’t asked for help. I don't think that God interferes with nature, but rather, works with it.

 

When we act out of fear, we deprive ourselves of the nicest state in the world, feeling harmless and safe and loved and lovable and peaceful.

 

Others generally will treat you the way you treat them. Others generally will see you the way you see them. So if you want others to start seeing you and treating you caringly, you go first. And be really patient—it can take a long time to change old patterns, both yours and theirs.

 

We can decide to look at the world and people lovingly, or we can decide to see the world and others fearfully, moment-to-moment, over and over again. Our lives and choices are not about “what’s out there.” Everything we see and do is always about “what’s in here.”

 

I choose to live as much as possible as if the past and future don’t really exist. This approach has a lot of freeing implications concerning “identity” (i.e., it’s much more fun to think of yourself as nothingness-full-of-possibility than to drag around a heavy burden of past and future.) The present is the only time I can be happy, be creative, can give and receive, can fully experience life; I’ve also found that whenever I notice I’m afraid or mad or sad, I can be sure I’ve been thinking about the past or the future, not the present. So I try to stay in the present….

 

In this world which often seems hopeless and terrifying, and despite having very little knowledge, and often no reliable human hand to hold—my challenge is to take the next step with love.

 

Sometimes the result of putting our faith in love seems unkind or unjust or unfair to ourselves, but it is always nobler to suffer injustice than to add to it. When we put our faith in love, at the worst we will do no harm.

 

God is what comforts me when I ask for comfort; God is what inspires me when I ask for inspiration, what creates through me, what loves through me, the light I see in the eyes of every person, all the beauty of nature, all that thrills me and brings tears of gratitude, all that connects me with everyone and everything that is, all that is profound, awesome, true, good, meaningful, the highest and best in man and nature. God is all the answers and all the questions, all the pain and all the joy, the beginning and the end of everything. That's as close as I can come to defining my personal God, and my personal belief system.

 

I don’t “know” any of this stuff, except through my individual experience and learning; every time I act with love, I feel confirmed in my faith in love, and every time I act in fear or anger or hatred, I am even more miserable. I choose to believe all this because it works for me in my day-to-day life. It’s also interesting and fun/light. What others learn is often different, what works for others may be different, and what others choose to believe is often different. I don’t think I’m right and I don’t think you’re wrong—we just have different realities, as does each person on this planet….

 

These are some of the things I try to remember as I go through life. I don’t ever get them right, though, and that’s OK too. How I see things will continue to change as I keep learning and growing.

Acceptance 7 – If I accept something or someone, does that mean I have to put up with them?

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Who can foretell the future? Miracles happen all the time. Things change, and the changes often seem miraculous, spontaneous, amazing. So, will you have to put up with anyone, or anyone forever? Maybe not.

Changes have happened before in your life: one morning you woke up and something was different, better than it was, something that was really hard before. If you accept something, just for now, that acceptance will be the beginning of a change, and that change will lead to other changes you can't know about, and some day you'll notice that whatever it was that you were putting up with or fighting or being miserable about just isn't a problem anymore.

What changes can happen if I accept something/someone?

Good question. Here are some changes that have happened to me as I've learned to become more accepting: I'm happier–more often, more consistently. I get over stuff quicker. I spend less time worrying, analyzing, wishing, angry, upset, miserable, frustrated, struggling, wrestling with problems. I spend far less time fussing about stuff that happened in the past, or yesterday, or an hour ago, and much less time stressing about how the future will play out for me and mine.

I get along with other people better than I used to, although the challenges just keep on coming. No one ever (ever) gets anything, or everything, “finally” right, once-and-for-all. Instead, what I've learned about acceptance helps keep me chipping away, making small improvements in things, day-by-day. But my relationships are improved, and continuing to improve, and they're easier, and more fun, and more rewarding, and less often stressful, and less often chaotic and awful, and much more long-lasting.

I don't fall apart at disasters or setbacks or disappointments quite so quickly, I'm less easily discouraged, and I'm more able to learn from my mistakes faster, and I move on afterward more quickly. I'm less sad, and spend much less time feeling depressed. I'm kinder, more loving. Calmer. Peaceful-er. More easy-going. More relaxed. More friendly. Less defensive. Less hostile. Warmer. Happier in my own skin. Gentler.

I'm more effective in the world, and a better advocate for the changes I want to see in it. I'm less shrill and self-righteous and angry and polarized, oppositional, contentious.

How is that for starters? There are other things, but these are some of the kinds of changes that can come with acceptance. And yes, I have more money these days, a happy marriage, more leisure time, too, all of which have come to me as I've learned acceptance. Being me feels so much better now than it did back then, bigtime.

Next: Where do I start with acceptance, on myself or others?

 

Acceptance 6 – Is acceptance Christian? Or is it based on some eastern philosophy or religion?

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Jesus accepted what God gave him to be and to do, accepted the life and death and work that was given him by his father. Jesus's prayer was always, “Thy will be done.” Jesus made acceptance an important part of every prayer. He tried to accept God's will: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

And what is God's will? Well, look around at what he made. If God is all-powerful and all-good, is it likely that he goofed up in his intentions when he made the world and all the beings in it? Or did he make them just as he wanted them to be, in all their diversity and potential, and then called them “good?” If God made you and the earth and everyone else on the planet, then what he made must be his will. He must have meant to make people who were capable of mistakes and failures and weakness, or he wouldn't have done it. You are God's will, and so is everyone else, and so is the earth, just as it is, along with all of its possibilities.

When someone dies and people say, “It's God's will,” what do they mean? Do they mean that God is mean and wants innocent babies to suffer and die? Or do they mean that God made all things possible on this best of all possible worlds, and called that good, and that we must accept any of those possibilities as part of his vision. God meant for the world and the people in it to be just exactly as it is and as they are. If God had meant for each of us to be perfect, to never mess up or suffer or fail; if God had meant for the world to be without pain or problems, he would have made it that way, would have made us different. We are God's will, and so is his earth.

Look and see: God's will is us, and everything around us. You are God's will, and so am I, and so is everyone else, and so is the world, as it is. Because he made us, because he made it so. And yes, God also made us ambitous for happiness, and for goodness, and for love, and that too seems to be his will.

Adam and Eve rocked along pretty happily in their beautiful garden until they started to find fault with everything in it, including each other; until they began to notice with dismay their own nakedness/sexuality; until they ate of the fruit of the tree of good/evil right/wrong, and started judging everything and everyone along those lines. After that, they were miserable, because they started finding fault with everything that God had made, with each other, with sexuality itself, which, it should be quite evident, is God's will.

God gave us the necessary brains and hearts to live in his beautiful garden helpfully with one another. We can choose to spend our lives picking at and poking at and being angry about everyone and everything and ourselves all the time, labeling everything as good and bad, right and wrong. Or, we can accept ourselves and his world and everyone in it as he made us, as is–and along with him, call it all “good.” Who are we to argue with God? And besides, it's a lot nicer and more fun living acceptingly inside his beautiful garden with him, than wandering around outside it in the wilderness of the desert, wailing in pain and resistant to everything and everyone, resistant even to God, maybe even especially to God.

Life is just too lonely without him, without the world, without each other, without our own selves as our best friends. We've all “done” lonely, and it doesn't work.

Next: If I accept something or someone, does that mean I have to put up with them?

Terrorism Shmerrorism: What Are the Real Threats to Our Homeland Security?

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I’m scared of terrorists too. I just wish we’d come up with a foreign policy like Canada’s, that wouldn’t irritate everyone so much. Because as long as we have hordes of angry enemies ready to jump at any chance to die hurting us, then all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put the U.S. safely back together again.

 

Nevertheless, we obliviously continue to spend our children’s heritage to send our forces to every corner of the earth, to shoot and spy our way through problems and opportunities that cannot be resolved by wars or secrecy.

 

It’s the old bait-and-switch game, isn’t it, along with goofy variations on the shell game and the confidence game? Spend gobs of money in futile attempts to prevent potential threats, while we ignore all the other very real and present threats to our homeland?

 

What are the threats that we’d prefer not to notice while we’re dashing around busting into distant homes in search of bad guys?

 

America is threatened down to her very roots by her massive debt and deficit. We’re threatened by our refusal to offer a decent living to those who work hard and play by the rules. We’re threatened by our unwillingness to insist that the world’s richest nation offer all its citizens affordable healthcare. We are threatened by our refusal to offer a quality education to our children. We’re threatened by our refusal to tax our wealthiest citizens, and by our insistence on squandering our resources on foreign wars.

 

Our most fundamental rights and freedoms are threatened by fearmongers demanding increasingly intrusive and oppressive legislation. Our most basic democratic processes are threatened by paranoid demagogues who would trade basic liberties for false assurances of safety.

 

Americans are threatened by the growing suspicions of an increasingly resentful global family which quite reasonably expects the richest country in the world to share their good fortune kindly and equitably. We’re threatened by our reputation as selfish energy-gobblers and polluters and weapons dealers, and by our economic and political double standards. We’re threatened by a world that thinks we’ve never heard of the golden rule–that we don’t care for others as much as ourselves

 

America is threatened by the diseases and conditions with known cures that we aren’t addressing. We’re threatened by a culture of violence that glorifies guns, anger, and vengeance. We’re threatened by our lack of resolve in supporting character education. We’re threatened by weakening bonds of marriage, family, and community. We’re threatened by pornography and drugs and alcohol.

 

We’re threatened by unwise and unhealthful habits and attitudes pressed upon us by an unregulated corporate and media power structure that finds their promotion profitable. We’re threatened by radio and television demagogues who lie with impunity to spread hate, anger, and prejudice, when what we need most is caring, openness, respect, and acceptance–the glue of every culture. We’re threatened by unsafe neighborhoods, and by unaffordable transportation, energy, housing, and higher education.

 

And we're threatened by our indifference to our responsibilities to wisely steward our fragile natural home–our beautiful green-and-blue planet–for the benefit and survival of both present and future generations.

 

So what do we focus on instead? Just like in the old protection racket, first we create a lot of problems and a lot of fear. Then we promise ourselves the illusion of safety, and charge ourselves extortion rates for that illusion. Finally, we fail to deliver the goods—and then charge ourselves even more for another chance to keep hunting those elusive, scary enemies. All this frenzy, while we turn our faces away from all the other real and present problems that daily threaten the security of our beloved homeland.

Acceptance 4 – Why should I accept something that's wrong or bad?

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We were all raised by people who had ideas about good and bad ways to act, right and wrong ways to live, etc. Whether or not we still agree with any or all of those ideas now, we still are stuck with the little judgment-machine they created in our heads that is always talking at you, yelling at you, whining, making demands, arguing with you, scolding you or telling you off. Sometimes our little judgment-machines are busy doing all those same things, except this time they're directed toward everyone else in our lives–not to mention all the situations in our lives, and in the whole world. All those stupid little voices won't shut up about what's right/wrong good/bad about ourselves, about others, about the world. They just never shut up, do they?

And have you ever noticed how some people are still listening to these voices even long after they're all grown up? In fact, that's when the voices kick in bigtime: when you leave home–when you leave the real voices (your family, etc.) that started the whole thing, behind you. It's almost like your brain is afraid to leave them behind, afraid you won't be safe without them. so you bring them along with you wherever you go.

It's paradoxical and frustrating and ironic, and still sad-but-true: most people never quite seem to learn how to outgrow the too-loud, irritating, guilt-producing, naggy, nasty parental voices they accumulated during their first eighteen or so years, even when they long ago outgrew their parents, and even when the parents have changed and are now treating them more respectfully and kindly.

If you're still run by your thoughts, your voices, all it means is that you've never quite outgrown reacting to all the stuff in your life from a judgmental, parental right/wrong good/bad basis. It's as if you were five years old again, and your mother or father or some other person from your past was talk talk talking disapprovingly all the time in your ear. And you haven't learned yet to nod, smile, acknowledge what they have to say with no reaction, thank them for sharing, and then go about your business with a quiet mind.

Until you learn acceptance, you'll always be thinking about everything in terms of good/bad right/wrong. No matter what happens in your life, you will always be about finding fault–with yourself, with everyone else, with your life or the world. You will, unfortunately,  waste so much time and energy noticing how wrong everyone else is, or obsessing about every one of your own little mistakes, or talking about how messed up the world is getting to be, along with everybody in it.

Many people have learned acceptance. They're the ones out there who really don't seem to worry much about any of that right/wrong good/bad stuff. Instead, they cheerfully go about their own business getting along with everyone, liking everyone, getting things done, and being pretty happy in their own skins and in their own lives. People who are accepting seem to pretty much like people and life and themselves the way they are.

Which one of these two types of people would you rather be? Which type has the happiest life? The most fun? Which type is probably the most effective, regardless of what it is they choose to do with their life and time and energies?

Both types of people have to live on this same planet, with the same species, with the same opposite sex, with parents, children, neighbors, bosses, relatives, co-workers. Both types are found in all walks of life, in all races and ethnicities and nations, all ages and colors and genders.

But the unaccepting ones always seem to struggle so much. Too often, they find life and everyone in it, and even themselves, distasteful, even dreadful, all-in-all quite unacceptable. And yet others, the accepting ones, somehow manage to muddle through their lives with a certain amount of cheer and fun and flair, despite their own inevitable set of life's troubles and pain.

The differences between accepting and non-accepting personalities are clearly not differences in wealth. It's not about rich or poor (although money can be really very nice and helpful to have, and not even about who is right or wrong, or good or bad, or better or worse, or luckier or unluckier–although good things do tend to happen to accepting people. The biggest difference about accepting and non-accepting people (and this is a matter of learning, of choosing) is how they deal with the bad stuff in their life–whether they accept it, or fight it. If they spend a lot of time reacting to everything around them, listening to all their own little judgmental voices tell them all about how awful they are, and how awful everything and everyone else is…they're going to be both unhappy and ineffective. People who dwell on the “bad” and “wrong” stuff about themselves and the people around them, who spend too much of their time making unhappy judgments about “what is,” and thinking about how other people should act, and what other people should and shouldn't do, and all the mistakes they and other people have made, make themselves crazy.

Instead of all this crazy-making reacting and judging, some people learn to go through life without continually over-reacting, without judging, and instead, just accepting “what is” just the way it is, and other people just as they are, and themselves, and the world, just as we are, and it is.

Unaccepting people notice every little “wrong” thing about themselves, about others, and about the world, and make themselves miserable over it all. Accepting people don't spend much time worrying about all the right/wrong good/bad stuff. Somewhere along the way, they learned to accept things as they are, and not to waste time dwelling on how things aren't or ought to be. Accepting people have learned to focus on “what is” in life, instead of “what ought to be.” They've learned not to waste time worrying about what other people do or don't do or should or shouldn't be.

Accepting people–happy people–go about doing what they do without bothering to name it or anyone good or bad or right or wrong (i.e., judging everything and everyone.) Unaccepting people spend their life being upset about how awful life is, how disusting, how shocking. They spend life being righteously indignant about how wrong other people are, and how unfair, unkind, unjust, uncaring.

Accepting people rarely bother with all that negativity and hostility, which is not to say that they don't work hard for the changes they want in their life and in the world–we all do. Just like everyone else, accepting people have to work hard to make the changes they want to see in themselves and their own lives and in the world. It's just that they don't get all upset about everything and everyone while they're waiting and working and hoping for change. Which is good, because if they did that, nothing would ever change.

Acceptance is about accepting things as they are right now, while working to let go of your angry, resistive stuff about things-as-they-are, working calmly, peacefully, cheerfully, to change the things you want to be better and different.

Next: Isn't it better to change something rather than just accept it?

Acceptance 3 – What does it mean to accept something?

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Acceptance is easiest to define by saying what it is not. It's not giving up, or giving in. It's not settling or resigning yourself to anything.

Acceptance–the kind I'm talking about–is only about right now, this very moment–or at the very most, only about today. Acceptance has nothing to do with accepting anything at all forever, for tomorrow, or for the future. No one can foretell the future, so why would anyone ever accept anything “forever?” You can only accept stuff for now anyway, since unimaginable turns of events occur, and things often change when we do nothing at all. No one knows what the future holds.

To accept something for now means to take whatever or whoever it is in your life that seems to be causing you pain, and practice non-resistance. Don't resist it. Don't do anything about what has happened. Don't push it away, don't rebel against it. Don't scheme against it, don't analyze it, don't think about it at all if you can. Don't get upset about it, nor do anything about it except just let it be, whatever “it” is. Don't judge it, don't label it–right/wrong or good/bad, difficult, impossible, torturous, terrible. Just let it be what-it-is, as much as possible without any reaction at all, and stay in that space for a little while.

Acceptance is not about sitting and thinking about something. Acceptance isn't about imagining something, nor visualizing it. And it's certainly not about hearing yourself talk about it, or listening to your inner voice or inner voices talk at you about it, or about any of the bad stuff in your life (which would just make you even more unhappy.) Again, acceptance is not about thinking, talking, visualizing, or even feeling. It's about just knowing, being aware, but without all the added resistance.

To accept something–anything–that you don't like about your life, just know it “is,” know all about it, hold it lightly within–without pushing it away. Just be there, be here, with it, for awhile. Acceptance is staying with what you used to resist, staying with it just for now without running away, without avoiding or defending or escaping or flinching or squirming and without fighting back or fighting against anything about it (and/or all the feelings that might come up about it.) Or if the feelings do come up, stay with them, accept them, and be with them for awhile.

You'll find that your reactive feelings will come and go. Accept that. Thoughts may come and go, and images that you don't want, just accept that they keep coming up, and keep letting them go. Just stay quietly with all of your crazy-making stuff, and don't, just for now, do anything about it, nor do anything else. Sometimes acceptance feels hard and sometimes its easy, and sometimes it's scary and sometimes peaceful. Sometimes the hardest thing is slowing down long enough to be still with whatever is making you crazy, when what you want most is to do anything else but that.

What happens when you accept “what is” in the present about yourself, your life? When you stop for just long enough to accept “what is” and who you are–just for the moment, without all your crazy and mental and reactive and stressed and freaked-out non-accepting stuff attached to it?

Try it.

Next: Why should I accept something that's wrong or bad?

Acceptance 2 – I want things to be different! How can acceptance change anything?

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It may seem paradoxical that change can come most easily to those who first accept “what already is” about themselves, about others, and about life. Acceptance is a choice affecting “right now,” this moment. Acceptance does not imply long-term resignation, settling, giving up or giving in, or anything at all that implies “forever.” Acceptance is only about “what is,” just at this moment,  now, today. Acceptance is the step that allows you to move past present pain toward other meaningful activities.

Acceptance is the first step, and perhaps the most misunderstood step, toward making the changes you most want to see in your life. How does acceptance work, and how does it bring about change?

Everyone has unhappiness in life, and some have far more than others. But heartaches and challenges are a natural part of every life, for nature is sometimes cruel, and all human beings are born capable of extremes of both helpfulness and harmfulness.

In addition to life's unavoidable troubles, many people suffer far more than others from the additional problems caused by their own non-acceptance of, or resistance to, what happens in their life. When anyone fights back against the bad things that happen in his or her life, the fighting back itself often causes even greater unhappiness than the original problems did.

Terrible things happen all too often, and many people suffer unbelievably difficult setbacks, heartbreaks, injustice, and tragedy. But in addition to these tragedies, many people suffer additionally a great deal, from their own non-accepting mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical reactions to the sad conditions that naturally occur in every life. Too often, what people find hardest to endure, is not the badness that happens to them from “out there,” but their own unrelenting thoughts and feelings of resistance and struggle and anger about whatever it is that happened to them. This continual internal struggle alone can kill you. It can lead to depression, suicide, high blood pressure, depressed immune system functioning, and it can make you feel like a crazy person.

Another way to understand acceptance is to imagine yourself watching a movie starring yourself. In this movie, you-the-star magically has no negative reactions to any of the long series of bad stuff that happens to you. No matter how awful things get, you-the-star serenely and non-reactively float above everything, smiling an angelic unflappable smile through all of it.

Acceptance is something like that movie. In one sense, nothing is different about an accepting life, because unpleasant things still happen to you. But in another sense, everything changes, because all your reactions–all the reactive mental and emotional stuff you do between the time the bad things happen and the time you move on to other things–are now very different.

Life's unhappiness could be divided into two kinds: the kind of unhappiness that feels like it happens to you from “out there,” or outside you–like a car accident or being kicked in the face or losing a job or a child or a war. Then there's a second kind of unhappiness, all internal. All of this misery happens inside you–it's your inner reaction to all the difficult events and people in your life. This kind of unhappiness includes most of your feelings of sadness, anger, non-acceptance, and every other form of resistance to what-is and to what-has-happened and what-might-be.

Learning about acceptance–learning to skip as much of the reactive/resistant stuff and time, as much as possible, when something bad happens, and move on as quickly as possible to something else, something better–is a good way to begin to make the changes you want most in your life.

Learning acceptance provides an approach to breaking the often-harmful reactive habits that follow along after the many challenging events in our daily lives, the harmful reactions that often create their own set of worse problems. People who are accepting have learned to process the difficult occurrences in their lives differently–more effectively and happily. Instead of pushing away or fighting against the negativity in their lives, they have learned to first accept what is–the bad stuff–and thus to move more quickly from feeling bad and back into productivity again.

Again, remember, that it's not only the bad stuff that happens to you in your life that's making you miserable, although we all get plenty of pretty bad stuff–and some far more than others. A completely secondary source of misery is your own personal struggle against the bad stuff–to push it away, push it out of your mind, out of your heart, to stop it from causing you unrelenting pain. Or sometimes, the struggle to analyze it, change it, avenge it, hit back at it, and other forms of non-acceptance and resistance.

Sometimes, of course, some of these reactions can be useful and appropriate. But many times, resistance is not only futile but persistently damaging. Sometimes bad things happen to you to which you react/respond in ways that make you feel better or that resolve the situation positively.

But too often, too much of life is spent struggling to prevent more bad stuff from happening, or reacting resistantly and defensively to what has happened. To protect ourselves from more pain, we keep pushing the bad stuff away and try to keep it away–from our thoughts, our hearts, our lives.

Unfortunately, resistance/non-acceptance/pushing away rarely works. As a matter of fact, non-acceptance tends to make things worse. People who are often non-accepting of the bad stuff that happens in their lives don't spend very much time feeling good. Sometimes they're so busy they don't notice the good stuff.

No one is perfect. No one will ever be as good or perfect or whatever as they would like to be. Nor will anyone ever get all his/her relationships to work as well as they'd like them to, nor do their jobs as well as they wish they could. No one will ever stop making mistakes, and no one will ever be happy all the time.

On the other hand, what usually does happen, if we keep chipping away at goals we want to achieve, we usually move gradually, step by step, closer and closer to achieving them. But we can't take steps toward a new “present” until we've let the old one go by accepting it.

The first step to making your life work better and to being happier, is to learn how to stop pushing the bad stuff away, to learn to stop resisting it.

What happens when you let down your defenses and accept present pain? Most people think defenselessness would open the floodgates to more pain, but actually the reverse is generally true. When you accept the pain in your life, you can move past it and on to better things. When you resist it, you're stuck.

Acceptance, non-resistance, defenselessness–all these are different words for basically the same thing–and each is very different from what is meant by resigning yourself to something, giving in, giving up, or settling. These are long-term choices having to do with the future. Acceptance is about right now, not about the future. It is something you do right now, during the present moment, so that you can move on to something else, something different–maybe something that will improve a painful situation. Acceptance is about this moment, while resistance is a long-term struggle, and resignation and settling are about forever.

When you learn to accept “what is” in your life, accepting whatever happens just “as is,” you'll get something totally new: real life-without-the-anger, real life-without-the-guilt, real life-without-the-resistance, life as it is without all the stuff you add to it–like over-analysis and negative thinking and upset emotions and high blood pressure. You can do without most of that when you learn to practice acceptance.

What you'll get if you don't learn acceptance–if you choose to keep on resisting pain, pushing it away, and fighting what-is–is just more pain and struggle, with no end ever in sight, and no real-life-just-as-it-is-without-your-big-emotional-reaction-to it, to live in.

Next: What does it mean to accept something?

Why Military Recruitment Is Down. It's Not The War, Stupid

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Used to, you joined up, camped out in the woods some, got to shoot up ammo for a few years with your best buds, and then you went to college free. It's not like it used to be anymore. Pay's pretty good though, I gotta admit that. A lot better than I could get anywhere else around here, what with the economy and all. My wife and kids need it bad. I wonder if I'd be a better dad or worse, if I stayed here, poor.

They sure don't give you much money for dying, though. That sucks. You'd think they'd pay the poor jerks who actually sign up for war, you know, willing to die for their country? You'd think they'd get more for dying than all those office types who just happened to be hanging around the wrong place at the wrong time on 9/11. Or the fat-cat contractors in Iraq. All that's so typical. Never trust the government.

My recruiter keeps on pushing me though, keeps reminding me that America needs brave, patriotic men like me to protect and serve all our ideals and values and stuff. I like all that shit. That is me, for sure. I could use the workouts too, all this work is making me soft. I don't know about the adventure and traveling to foreign lands shit. But he keeps asking me if I want to protect my family, my way of life. You bet I do. There's some scary shit going on out there. My recruiter and I talk about all that stuff a lot.

But none of my friends think I should sign up. My wife? She's not sure. We could sure use the money. But everyone's scared shitless if I join up. Used to, moms and dads pushed their sons into war, but with the TV news and all, it's not like it used to be. Sure, they support the war and all, but…well, nowadays it's pretty confusing.

Everybody tells me I'll probably die, be cannon-fodder is what they call it. They say it's just a bunch of old farts in Washington who never went to war themselves throwing American kids at all their problems. Like they care, it's not their kids dying. My mom says if I don't die on this tour, I will on the next one, 'cause they're never gonna let me out, I'll have to stay in the army forever. Because even the president says the war on terror never ends.

So what if I do join up? How am I supposed to know what to do? What if they tell me to torture prisoners? Shoot someone? How am I supposed to know which Iraqi I hate so much I shoot him in the face, and which one I'm supposed to die for, you know, to give him freedom and everything? If I could make sense out of any of this constitutional law shit, I'd be a bigbucks lawyer for chrissake, not standing here with my thumb up my ass. How am I supposed to know from Geneva Conventions? I'm a black-and-white kinda guy. All this in-between shit? I can't even decide if we're really the guys in the white hats or not. I mean, after you get all rigged up in those soldier outfits like the movies? You sure look like you could stir up some terror.

And who's gonna look out for me when I screw up? Which I've been known to do. They sure saved the big brasses' asses in that Abu Graib thing, socked it right to the grunts. Hell, they should just say screw this citizen-soldier-all-volunteer army shit and hire mercenaries and soldiers-of-fortune. Those guys know what they're doing, and they don't care who they shoot.

And anyway, that's what all those hotshot Brits in tophats did on the history channel. With all that empire money flowing in from everywhere? I guess the Brits were all just too damned busy taking care of their mansions and screwing their servants and stuff to actually go out and fight. So they just started a foreign legion. That's what we should do if we wanna send our soldiers out to every goddam nowhere place on the planet and save them from democracy, or whatever the shit is we're doing.

And screw the damn politcos too. One day they say shoot the sonofabitch and the next day he's sleeping in the bunk next to you, 'cause some fast talkers in Washington negotiated some secret deal. Now won't that just make it easy to sleep at night when I'm…old, god forbid. Not knowing whether I killed the good guys or the bad guys? Not knowing, maybe, even…which one was I?

And what about my friend Jesus? I was taught to do the Ten Commandments, but thou shalt not kill is all fucked up these days, not to mention love thy neighbor. And what about my mom? How can I honor my mom when I go off gallivanting and get my ass shot off? It's just not worth going to hell, if I, like, kill the wrong one, you know, like by accident? Shit. Watching all the war movies made it look easier.

I'd sure volunteer to defend my homeland, but the army isn't allowed to do that job anymore. I don't get it, how that's someone else's department now. Jesus. What does the Department of Defense do with all that money if it can't defend the homeland? Maybe it's that freedom-and-democracy-for-everyone-else crap. I like all that shit, I'll admit it, but I don't wanna get my ass shot off for it. But it's nice, you know, for the A-rabs or whatever they are? At least, anyway, for the ones we don't blow away while we're tearing up the place looking for bad guys. Sure was glad to get that bastard Saddam, though. And I'll admit, I'd like to help out all those big-eyed gals in veils, you know, save them from the creeps who slap them around and shit? My recruiter talks a lot about that stuff. But I can't quite figure out how blowing away their fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers gets the job done. Maybe I need to think about it some more.

Maybe I need to think about all this stuff some more. Maybe I just don't love my country enough. Probably I'm a coward, not joining up like my dad did. I sure wish I'd had a chance to get to know him before he joined up, though. I heard he was a really good guy.

Well screw it. So I'm a coward. I'll join up when they bring their armies over here and start shooting at us. Or maybe…. Who knows, maybe if American soldiers stopped running around all over the world waving their guns and ordering people around, maybe the terrorists would just go home themselves and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet with their families. Maybe if we just stay home and mind our own business, maybe they will too. Just leave us alone, like, too. Live and let live.

I don't want to die. My old lady and me, she's…well, she's great. We got plans. I'm not the lucky type. Sure as shit I'd join up and they'd stick me someplace really bad and I'd get killed the first week. They do that. Or worse than killed. Tortured or beheaded and shit. Or come home with half my parts blown off. I've see those crippled vets hanging out in the street. They don't get shit. Never trust the govenment.

Maybe I won't die, though. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to spend half my life in some nasty foreign hellhole whose name I never even heard of 'til I got there. They don't even get NASCAR in some of those places I'll bet, and the beer's all foreign crap. What is it about fighting wars that everyone's already said we can't win? What's it all for? I've heard stuff about it's for cheap oil, but I can't believe anyone would start a war over that. Who would be stupid enough to die for oil? Fuck this shit, I'm outta here.

 

Social Security Cheats Black People? I Don't Think So

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President Bush claims that Social Security cheats black people because black people die younger than whites. Now whose fault is this? Whose programs make it harder for black people to live long, stay well, and prosper? Mr. Bush chooses to deliberately overlook the fact that the black population has historically benefited more than whites from Social Security. If Bush insists on playing the race card, he should at least get it right.

 

Gambling is already a big enough problem for black Americans. Now Mr. Bush wants us to bet our futures on beating an unreliable stock market. Under Mr. Bush's proposed new Social Security reforms, a majority of retirees will either go broke or become even poorer than they already end up now.

 

A small minority of investment-savvy winners, those lucky enough to die young and flush, stand to gain from President Bush's proposed “personal savings accounts.” Which leaves the rest of the black population twisting in the wind. Under Bush's plan, citizens who invest shrewdly and live long, would receive about the same old-age benefits as they do now, minus of course, all the previously guaranteed lifetime payments, cost-of-living raises, disability benefits, and survivor programs which stand to be cut under Bush's plan. This is reform?

 

How soon we forget how good FDR's great Social Security system has been for American blacks. Grandparents today enjoy a real chance for a dignified retirement, even when they've suffered financial setbacks and have been unable to save. President Bush's proposed changes to Social Security would leave the elderly even more vulnerable.

 

If Bush really wants to help black people, he can offer quality education, a living wage, universal health care, and lower living costs. Instead, he hands out “personal savings accounts” in a disgusting attempt to appeal to a few reckless souls who would abandon their race and put their own futures at risk in exchange for a kind of gambler's death insurance.

  

Because they are often poor, blacks as a group get back a proportionately greater return from their Social Security taxes than do generally wealthier whites. Blacks also benefit disproportionately from the guaranteed lifetime payments and cost-of-living increases which Bush threatens to cut. Current Social Security policy also minimizes the impact of years of unemployment, while guaranteeing support for disability and survivor benefits, all programs which black people rely on even more than whites. All in all, blacks have gained more than whites from the full range of Social Security's present benefits.

 

Bush thinks black people won't care if most of their people lose, so long as a few have a chance to get ahead. Bush has it wrong. Most of us would rather not win a long shot if our gamble requires that everyone else loses big. American blacks have had enough of that already.