Tag Archives: past

Shall We Quibble Over Competing Ideologies? Or Choose Love Over Fear?

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President Bush stumbles over the nuances of that thorny word “ideology,” just as he struggles to understand the concept of “democracy.” Together with Humpty Dumpty, he wishes words could mean just what he chooses them to mean, neither more nor less….

 

Unfortunately, the word “ideology,” a “bad” word he once thought applicable only to evil, foreigner-type “isms” such as Communism, terrorism, extremism, Islamism, and facism, turns out to be nothing more than: “an organized collection of ideas…a comprehensive vision…a way of looking at things” (Wikipedia)— a definition far friendlier than Mr. Bush first envisioned, equally applicable to the many isms he rather approves of, such as Americanism, free market capitalism, Methodism, and certainly the organized collections of ideas constituting “democracy” or “freedom.”

 

Since all political thinking seems to fall under various ideologies, it would seem unwise to let ourselves become so caught up within our own peculiar favorite ideological flavor/s that we withdraw our support for human life anywhere in the world in the name of that ideology—whether it be democracy, freedom, liberty, utopianism, capitalism, nationalism, Islamism, fundamentalism, Zionism, Protestantism, patriotism, conservatism, liberalism…. After all, that's how all the bad guys in history justified their scummy actions, by insisting that their chosen ideologies were “righter” than others.

 

The thing is, one can go so far wrong searching for moral consistency within an ism, because isms and other ideologies always shut out some of the people some of the time, making them less than fully human, less than deserving of humanitarian concern—certainly all those who think differently than “we” do, who aren’t like “us” because “they” don’t think believe as “we” do, etc. Inevitably “we” come to oppose “them,” choosing “us” over “them.”

 

Ideologies can be a useful, interesting, creative way to organize one's thinking, but when taken too seriously–as “the truth”–they are very polarizing. 

 

It is neither possible to decide how rightly to treat other human beings by looking to ideologies and isms for one’s standards, nor safe, nor ethical, to decide on an ideological basis whether to support or reject that highest and most sacred value, the sanctity of human life.

 

“Treat all others as you would wish they would treat you” remains the most widely-accepted, time-honored, one-and-only gold-standard rule of ethical conduct ever conceived; it is found in every world religion and every moral, ethical, and justice code everywhere in the world, superseding all ideologies and isms, and consistently useful in every ethical or moral decision.

 

Ideologues of every stripe, every day, everywhere in the world, try to manipulate people into voting, killing, and even dying for whatever admirable-sounding preferred ideology their audience is familiar with, justifying their most horrific recommendations—invasions, occupations, terror, bombing, napalming, maiming, stealing, starvation, murder, neglect, torture, indoctrination, abuse, imprisonment, exploitation, coercion, manipulation—always in the name of some heart-stirring and noble-sounding aspect of a popular ideology.

 

Whenever demagogues (“those who gain political power by appealing to popular prejudices, fears, and expectations, typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda”—Wikipedia) anywhere in the world attempt to persuade fellow-citizens to act unsupportively toward others, they always cover their dark deeds with a soft, cozy, comfortable cloak of locally-popular ideologies. (H. L. Mencken called a demagogue “one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”)

 

Whenever anyone in any country has done something injurious to any other, or left undone what could have helped another, no matter who we were, no matter in the name of what ideology we acted, no matter how noble we thought our actions, we were wrong. And whenever we chose to support human life, we were acting aright.

 

Politics is as simple—and as complicated—as that.

 

We either contribute to another’s fear, or we offer them loving support. We either perceive their anger and wrong-headedness as an anguished cry for help, or we attack and punish them. We reject them, or we contribute to their acceptance and well-being. We light a candle or leave them in darkness. We offer them war or contribute to their peace. We lift them up or we abandon them. We share their dreams or take them away. We help them or we hurt them.

 

We choose love over fear, or we quibble amongst ideologies to gain power, and end up losing shared life itself on our tiny blue planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please send questions and comments to njcpace@gmail.com

Symptoms of Inner Peace

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About twenty-five years ago, if memory serves, I read the following wonderful passage by someone named Saskia Dasse. I have kept a copy of it, and ran across it again the other day…. I have followed many different paths on my search for inner/spiritual peace, although I believe anyone can learn peace by sincerely, honestly, and wholeheartedly following almost any single thoughtful and disciplined path. I have discovered that inner peace is not a permanent condition; life always brings up challenges even to the “enlightened.” However, I am happy to have moved to what feels like another plane of challenges. I certainly don't expect or desire to live a life without challenges, though. Meeting challenges well and learning from them seems to me to be what a happy life is all about–not at all a riddle to be finally solved, but an adventure to be lived. (If you're alive, you'll still have good and bad days.)

Nevertheless, over the years, as I have made a spiritual search a high priority, and as I have chipped away at self-improvement along my various paths and disciplines of spiritual growth, I have indeed found that (with the help of my Power/Source) I am increasingly capable of meeting and overcoming my daily and even major challenges peacefully, and far less frequently feel upset or at odds with others, or with the world.

As I now read over Saskia Dasse's list of symptoms of inner peace, I am happy to report that I have made considerable progress on all of them, although each is a still-compelling goal; ( I used to be really terrible at all of them, so considerable progress is saying a lot!)

Here is what I read so many years ago. (And thank you to the ungoogleable Saskia Dasse, whoever and wherever you are….)

SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE – by Saskia Dasse

Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world.

Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:

* A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences.

* An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

* A loss of interest in judging other people.

* A loss of interest in judging self.

* A loss of interest in conflict.

* A loss of the ability to worry. (This is a very serious symptom.)

* Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

* Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.

* Frequent attacks of smiling.

* An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

* An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

WARNING: If you have some or all of the above symptoms. please be advised that your condition of inner peace may be so far advanced as to not be curable. If you are exposed to anyone exhibiting any of these symptoms, remain exposed only at your own risk.

That's the end of Saski Dasse's piece.

I plan a blog in which I list at least the major influences, the major paths in my life so far…. Stay tuned! 🙂

 

 

 

 

Please send your questions and comments to njcpace@gmail.com . Thank you!

Another War for Oil?

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The Darfur/Sudan dispute is primarily over who will control the newly-discovered oil-rich lands of Darfur, in western Sudan. As often happens, the indigenous poor there have been ruthlessly pushed aside by voracious corporate and national interests in a typical no-holds-barred international competition for scarce valuable resources.

 

China’s respectful diplomacy toward the legitimate Muslim government of Sudan has given the Chinese an “in” which they are very profitably exploiting. The bumbling U.S. strategy of arming Sudan’s neighbors has won us only suspicion and resentment.

 

A mysteriously (well) funded “Save Darfur” media campaign has legitimately excited the sympathies of people everywhere to help the innocents, perhaps also to “justify” future aggressions. Historically, many illegal invasions, occupations, and wars of greed have been “sold” as rescue missions.

 

China has much to teach the U.S. about win-win diplomacy and trade, just as the U.S. has many important and wonderful things to teach China. May we generously support peaceful international humanitarian efforts to assist the victims in Sudan, and may we use the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing to further mutual peaceful understanding, dialogue, and good will with our trading partner, China.

 

(I wrote the above letter-to-the-editor in response to the following letter-to-the-editor in our local newspaper:)

 

Local Physician Who Volunteered at Torino Won't Be in Beijing

 

I was a physician volunteer at the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. Several people have asked me if I was going to go to Beijing in 2008 for the summer games. As I'm more of a fan of the Winter Games, and as Beijing in the summer is probably very hot, I told them, “No.” Recently, I discovered a much more compelling reason not to go and to encourage everyone to boycott those games.

 

In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, Ronan Farrow and Mia Farrow (he a Yale law student, she an actress) made assertions which, if accurate, should cause a renaming of the Summer Olympics in China to the “genocide games”–and compel all moral people to boycott them. They state that China is “pouring billions of dollars into Sudan,” and that “they,” the Chinese, “purchase an overwhelming majority of Sudan's oil exports.”

 

With this money, the Sudanese buy bombers, assault helicopters, armored vehicles and small arms, most of Chinese manufacture. These arms are used by the brutal Janjaweed militia. The airports that are used by the Chinese, who have repeatedly used their veto power in the U.N. to block efforts to bring in peace keepers to stop the slaughter.

 

To date, more than 400,000 people have been killed and 2.3 million have been displaced from villages by the Chinese-backed Sudanese government. Efforts by our government have been unable to convince the powers that be to stop the killing. To his credit, President George Bush vows to go it alone to take action against Sudan if the other countries of the world will not.

 

A reasonable, moral person would likely conclude that, if the assertions above are accurate, he or she would have nothing to do with these games. What are some prominent people doing? Well, let's see:

 

Steven Spielberg, who founded the Shoah Foundation to allow the testimony of survivors of another holocaust to be heard, is preparing to help stage the Olympic ceremonies in Beijing. Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, General Electric and McDonald's are some of the high-profile sponsors of these games. If accurate, these assertions should cause these people to rethink their positions. Maybe with some forthright action, the Chinese can be embarrassed into changing their ways to allow the killing to be stopped.

 

Specifically, of Steven Spielberg, I would ask: “Is one holocaust worse than another?” And: “Would you have helped stage the ceremonies for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin?” Rabbi Akiva, of biblical times, said, “Where there are no men, Be thou a man.”

 

Hopefully, there are still some men who will do something to stop this tragedy. Anyone who would like a copy of the article can call me.

 

(The author left his name and phone number.)

 

 

 

 

Please send comments to njcpace@gmail.com. Thank you! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soldiers: Partners for Peace

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The following thought-provoking letter-to-the-editor denouncing war protesters recently appeared in our local paper. (My response, as well as the fantastic response of my friend and neighbor, Nancy Arnold, are printed below that letter.)

 

 

LOCAL PROTESTERS DESERVE RIDDANCE, by John P. Snyder

 

 On behalf of the followers of al-Qaida and militant Islamic jihadists everywhere, I would like to extend our admiration and gratitude to those extraordinary citizens who turned out downtown to show support for our efforts and to register disgust with their country’s war on terror.

 

We share a strong common bond. We each despise George Bush, the American military and Western-style democracies. It is imperative that American resolve to fight our cause be diminished. Your assistance in that regard is greatly appreciated.

 

It is, after all, the highest form of patriotism to give aid and comfort to your country’s enemies—especially when our sons and daughters are sacrificing their lives for your freedom. 

 

 

(My letter-to-the-editor, written in response to the above letter, is as follows:)

 

 

SOLDIERS: PARTNERS FOR PEACE, by Nancy Pace

 

Re Local protesters deserve riddance, May 8th:  Some patriots fight, suffer, and die in the cause of peace, while other patriots work to limit the damage incurred by the catastrophically cruel, stupid, wasteful policies of tragically misguided “expert” leaders. Soldiers and peace protesters are not opponents, but courageous, conscientious, selfless partners working together to further the same universal goal of peace. No pacifist ever desired peace more than a soldier enduring war.

 

Citizens throw away the freedom our sons and daughters sacrifice their lives for, when they sit back and trust elections alone to insure good leadership. Unfortunately, as the democratically-elected Hitler demonstrated, it doesn’t always work out that way. Eternal (def.: unending, ceaseless, unstopping, uninterrupted) vigilance (def.: alertness, wakefulness, watchfulness, awareness) is the price of liberty (def.: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority; political independence.)

 

Wise leaders of western democracies everywhere listen attentively to their loyal oppositions, and continually change in response. We cannot avoid all injustices, but we can avoid adding to their sum, by seeking more effective ways to address terrorism, militant Islam, and al-Qaida. The real enemies of peace, the enemies we should never aid or comfort, are fear, and violence itself.

 

 

PROTEST OF IRAQ WAR IS PATRIOTIC EXERCISE, by Nancy Arnold

 

The writer of “Local protesters deserve riddance” appears to suffer from the same malady that plagues the Bush administration. This disease begins as a tiny seed of greed. It reproduces and grows by creating an image of fear and by fueling the need for revenge. Symptoms of this disease include the need to point out all of the un-American Americans who do not succumb to the furor and frenzy of the disease.

 

This tragic disease, where individuals almost instantaneously lose their ability to think rationally about the facts, numbs minds and sharpens paranoia and aggression. Those who succumb to the disease shout buzz words of fear–“traitor!” and “terrorist!”–and show great loyalty to homegrown war criminals.

 

Yes, the lives of our sons and daughters are being sacrificed because the Bush administration manipulated data and dragged us into a war planned before 9/11. Bush and company simply reshaped 9/11, fanned the sparks of fear and spread the disease. The disease now rages and destroys life around the globe. It has consumed our national integrity and made a mockery of America's good will.

 

The writer sarcastically states that, “It is, after all, the highest form of patriotism to give aid and comfort to your country's enemies.” There is tragic and costly irony in that logic: We ARE giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and we let him live in the White HOuse and let him sacrifice lives every day.

 

Americans have the right to protest. When our nation occupies another country and murders the innocent, the patriotic thing to do is protest. To shut down the voices of reason, to shut down an American's right to protest and raise concern would accomplish more than any terrorist could have ever hoped to accomplish on 9/11.

 

 

 

 

Please send comments to njcpace@gmail.com. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Sane Policy Strategies, Both Foreign and Domestic, for a Dazed-and-Confused America

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The best strategy for insuring a reasonable share of post-war oil is for the U.S. to follow China’s admirable (and successful) approach to foreign relations: make friends with every country; don’t try to control events; don’t take sides with factions by using bribes and threats and offering weapons (all of which strategies make more enemies, while making conflicts harder to resolve); offer apologies as necessary; and spread goodwill by generously supporting, in every country, only open, popular, peaceful initiatives of selected proven-peaceful leaders with broad-based, loyal coalitions.

 

We should withdraw our troops from Iraq immediately, leaving U.N. peacekeepers to support the transition, and giving thoughtful consideration to all those we leave behind, financially supporting common goals and peaceful compromises, as well as aiding refugees, rebuilding, and easing resettlement (to the U.S.) of all those U.S.-supporters who might be at post-war risk.

 

We should abandon our war on terror, and support instead an efficient international crime-fighting network, and a peaceful international campaign to resolve future conflicts before they turn deadly. To accomplish these goals, we need to work to end economic injustice/violence, political and state violence (i.e., all forms of war and lawless incarcerations), and the spread of weapons, fully support world disarmament and other cooperative global peace and environmental initiatives, curb violence in entertainment, and aggressively prosecute hate crimes. We should also build a national and global culture of peace through the stated domestic and global initiatives of the proposed cabinet-level Department of Peace (www.dopcampaign.org) .

 

We clumsily attempted to avenge the loss of three thousand innocents murdered on 9/11 by killing and maiming many thousands more innocents (both ours and theirs) on foreign soil, and are now threatening to waste even more lives (both theirs and ours) by sword-rattling in Iran’s direction. We must find a way to forgive others and ourselves, make no more enemies, and recognize and address the grievances of the many who are presently turning from desperation and despair to violence (i.e., “terrorists”).

 

We need to attend to the real “illegals” in American life—not the immigrants who daily seek respite and freedom from the world’s violence and injustice on our shores, but the thousands of prisoners rotting forgotten in illegal dungeons throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cuba, and elsewhere. We must find a way to bring due process of law to these imprisoned and abandoned “illegals” who have been deprived of their most basic human rights, and also end our inhumane criminalization of the inevitable south-to-north global migrants whose only crime is fleeing poverty and terror–by finding hospitable ways to assimilate them into American life.

 

We must resist the partisan temptations offered by Monica Goodling’s immunity to attack the very culpable Alberto Gonzales, Condaleeza Rice, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and other Bush administrative and military bunglers, leave vengeance and blame to God and his horde of very willing historians, and focus instead on uncovering truth, taking right action, and reconciling a nation.

 

Lee Iacocca recently urged the need for courageous leadership during this difficult time. We indeed need true leaders who can move us past our collective darkness toward solving the real problems we must now face: the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, corporate accountability, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, global warming, crime, migration, poverty, war, immorality, cruelty, indifference, terrorism, and yes, violence itself.

 

All the strategies described above depend upon our growing awareness that nothing we may fear is more dangerous than fear itself, and no weapon more effective than love in all its forms—kindness, patience, understanding, acceptance….  It is not hate, but fear which builds up armies and stockpiles nuclear weapons; not hate, but fear which looses destruction upon hapless presumed enemies, and thus upon ourselves. The Golden Rule–treat others as you would be treated–works just as well in international relations as it does with individuals. Just as families and businesses must learn to accept, respect, and support others (just as they are) in order to be successful, so must all political leaders, their party members, and their followers—indeed, all citizens everywhere—learn and teach acceptance, respect, and support for all our brothers everywhere, all God’s beloved children, every one—if we are to survive and thrive together on our tiny blue planet.

 

 

 

 

Please send your comments to njcpace@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Battlefields, Monuments, Graveyards, and the Glorious Call to War!

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Recent news stories by battlefield preservationists argue that our Civil War battlefield sites are fast being lost to development. All soldiers who have ever seen action, been wounded, maimed, or killed while protecting others and acting on their highest beliefs and ideals deserve our deep respect for their idealistic, unselfish intentions, and for their patriotism and courage. For all these reasons, burial sites of fallen soldiers cut down so untimely and tragically on every side of every war are hallowed ground, and should be treated reverently.

 

Parades, picnics, and other such jovial and celebratory remembrances of war, on the other hand, are always inappropriate, even though it is true that survivors of war also share happy memories of youth and strength, camaraderie, laughter, and heroism. But even at its best, war must be remembered as a human catastrophe, a terrible tragedy, a failure of diplomacy which should be consistently remembered and mourned only as such. No one knows how horrible war is better than the soldiers who fought in one. Instead of celebrations designed to lighten or block sad memories, soldiers' reunions can be solemn events reminding all sides that every war, whether past, present, or future, is always only about innocents killing innocents, all equally motivated by loyalties, beliefs, and survival. Reconciliation reunions help everyone accept our past collective darkness, and help us commit our futures to personal and global mutual acceptance, cooperation, forgiveness, and peace.

 

Burial places of war dead, on all sides, should be visited often, and solemnly, by all citizens, who bring their horrified children with them, to show them the fruits of apathy, selfishness, aggression, hubris, ignorance, fear, aggrandizement of power, militarism, hate, violence, and greed, all of which spill so quickly into war. 

 

No glorification or glamorizing of the terrible decision to go to war is ever appropriate. In the past and future, whenever homes anywhere in the world are subject to predation and occupation, no past glorification of heroism or huge standing army is necessary to raise native sons and daughters to protecting their loved ones with their last full measure of devotion.

 

Mankind cannot solve the problems created in the twentieth century by using the same approaches that got us into all this trouble. In this twenty-first century, well-educated leaders with high ideals and loving hearts everywhere know that there are many more humane and rational ways to settle political differences than to throw young men and women, bristling with anger, vengeance, and weaponry, upon one another, until so many are killed that opposing leaders are brought finally, by force, to compromises which, except for pride and stubbornness, they would have made long ago, before killing off a generation of one another’s grandchildren.

 

The era of war is over. War is a social and political anachronism, a relic, a dinosaur, a nightmare memory forever a monument to man’s inhumanity to man. We know better than to use wars now. We know how to avoid them, how to contain them, how to end them. We lack only the political will to insist upon it, and the determination to spread cultures of peace, and non-violent means of resolving conflicts, throughout the world.

 

We need our many battlefields, our monuments, and our gravesites to some day help us remember, above all else, the monstrous insanity that once was war. One person at a time, one conflict at a time, one battlefield at a time, we are all finally learning to rise above war, and to become builders of peace.

 

During the 21st century, our patriotic energies can best be put, not into armies, but into changing our own hearts, and changing each culture of war into a culture of peace, by relying upon the many proven non-violent conflict resolution methods available now, for preventing, ameliorating, and resolving the broad range of human conflicts. We all will endure some injustices during these challenging times, but we need not add to their sum. These tried and true non-violent approaches to conflict resolution are our best, sanest, most accepting and most ethical way to share peace, with justice, with everyone upon our tiny blue planet.

 

Then we can all turn to together toward solving the real problems of the 21st century: the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, global warming, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

please write comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World Needs Healing Now, and So Do We

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The world needs healing. We feel divided from ourselves, from the world, and from God.
 
Yet our own personal healing can only begin when we choose to heal others first; that’s just the way healing works. The magic that happens when we forgive others is the very thing that helps us forget and move on.
 
Minimally, people are irritating. (This includes us!) Many will break our hearts, or even kill us. Yet, when we look at each person and each situation more gently, when we let go of our resentments, give others slack, let up on others' human mistakes, however grievous, we begin to notice that we’re not so hard on ourselves anymore either.
 
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”
 
Why would Jesus say this?
 
He was teaching us how to heal one another and ourselves.
 
So where in the world do we start, in this business of easing up on others, and ultimately, ourselves?
 
We can begin by forgiving everyone else’s indifference to our own lost hopes, dreams, loves, and opportunities, our deepest sorrows and regrets. When we do, our own apathy and indifference to the plight and suffering of others everywhere will begin to dissipate.
 
We can stop fretting about the stupid or terrible ways others obliviously act out their fears of loss, death, suffering, disappointment, humiliation, deprivation, cruelty, and loss of control—and find ourselves bravely facing and addressing our own fears.
 
We can overlook the foolishness people go through to hide behind their masks and walls—and find ourselves extending our hands and hearts outside our own comfort zones.
 
We can stop criticizing the selfishness that tears apart families and nations and our small blue planet, ruining millions of lives—and let go of our own failures of compassion, giving freely instead, as we have received.
 
We can let go of others’ self-absorbed rudeness and anxiety (born of the belief that life-is-tough-and-then-you-die)—and find ourselves peacefully within safe, loving circles of unity and oneness.
 
We can stop being indignant because others think they know, they’re right, they’re sure about how things should work, and how everyone should live—and become secure in our own attitudes of acceptance and humility.
 
We can stop disapproving of others’ mistake-ridden beliefs, traditions, politics, and cultures—and transform our own fallible and all-too-human personal belief systems and institutions.
 
We can forgive all who frighten, hate, and angrily misuse us—and forget our own fear, hatred, anger, and abuse.
 
We can pardon the world its smallness, ignorance, and prejudice—and find within ourselves the loving power of the whole universe.
 
We can absolve all who have killed or maimed our loved ones in the names of mysterious causes—and free ourselves from our own confused complicity in others’ pain.
 
We can respect others’ blind loyalties to tribe, nation, race, ideology, religion, class, gender—and embrace our commonalities: one Life, one Love, one Self, one Source.
 
We can bear with others’ grave and/or foolish past and future mistakes—and live joyously together in the present.
 
We can let pass others’ weak faith—and grow closer in our shared search for understanding and peace.
 
We can empathize with others for seeming so far from God and man—and heal our own sense of separation.
 
We can stop blaming leaders for their many failures, and start speaking out, lifting up, taking risks, and failing and succeeding responsibly, publicly, courageously.
 
We can release others’ guilt for mistreating us—and drop our own defenses, treating others as we wish to be treated.
 
We can stop hating God for messing up our lives and mis-creating the world—and start listening for His guiding Voice, and recognizing His bountiful, diverse Creation, perfect exactly as it is.
 
We can forgive the world, reclaim our ideals and our love, and move on to heal the world as we have been healed.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Saddam Hussein’s Hanging, The Bush Administration, Forgiveness, and Happy New Year

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Saddam Hussein, who is very much one of God’s beloved, fallible children (just like the rest of us) met his death with dignity and courage.

 

If all such world leaders who wreak ill-conceived, reckless, needless mayhem, who destroy innocent lives in their ambitious pursuit of influence and power, deserve such grisly ends, then some of our current world leaders ought to be feeling a bit queasy just about now.

 

A fully-functioning Department of Peace (see www.thepeacealliance.org ) would do much to make such dismal futures less likely for all.

 

There is a lot of irony in the sad fact that we’ve spent hundreds of billions of hard-earned and greatly-needed tax dollars to kill off one violent despotic regime in Iraq, simply in order to install another one equally unpopular and equally dependent upon maintaining its power via the same undemocratic brutish means—armies and secret prisons and assassinations and torture. Why else would we need to send ever more armies into Iraq to prop them up?

 

The Bush administration sold us their disastrously costly war by drumming up American fears of an evil madman imminently threatening U.S. citizens, yet not only could we not find such weapons, we couldn’t even pull off a demonstrably “democratic” (i.e., fair) trial convincingly proving that Saddam Hussein indeed deserved death by hanging for even one single alleged killing spree.

 

The west is absolutely accountable for forcibly creating a country called “Iraq” from out of many original tribes, and for supporting their own preferred despot, Saddam Hussein, with only a single aim: to keep cheap oil pumping west. When Saddam later thumbed his nose in the direction of his original kingmakers (Rumsfeld/Cheney et.al.) they were so incensed that they were willing to do anything and everything to depose and replace him with yet another (hopefully more loyal) crony—regardless of how despotic and evil—again with their sole goal of keeping cheap oil pumping west. (The Bush administration recently reclassified all their original distasteful and disgraceful historical machinations with Saddam Hussein in order to cover up their bloody incestuous tracks.) What a grievous waste in every sense—human, material, political, financial, spiritual—this terrible war has been.

 

And to think that all we ever had to do was humbly stand in line to pay for oil at the market price, just like every other country.

 

The “war-for-democracy-and-for-love-of-Iraqis” notion came up briefly only when the American public (and, probably, our still-innocent and idealistic president) could no longer stomach the evil-Saddam-imminent-weapons-fear-thing. Rather than admit that this had always been a war about oil, Cheney/Rumsfeld used Rice to convince Bush (and the public) that continuing the war in order to spread democracy and save Iraqis (at least the ones who weren’t currently shooting at us) was important and necessary. Now they’re finally admitting, at least to one another and to a few others, that this war is indeed a smarmy geopolitical struggle for power, money, resources, and influence; that admission, however, doesn’t make the war any more wise or moral.

 

Democracy cannot be spread by war, just as peace can only arise from peace. We aging hippies used to say in the 60’s that fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity….

 

We need to begin acting like Americans again. We need to generously support peaceful leaders everywhere, and use our power and influence in ways that demonstrate our highest, most deeply American ideals. We need to stop acting like big bullies, and rebuild international good will with generosity and acceptance and statesmanship and diplomacy. We need to build up our economy ethically, and base our businesses and long-term trade partnerships on mutual advantage, not unbridled greed, power, and indifference. Peace on earth will come only when each of us learns to offer peace. And yes, we need to be the ones to go first, to take the first step, because we are still the most powerful, most envied, most influential nation on earth.

 

We can still use multilateral international police forces well-trained in non-violent intervention as necessary to lock up and re-educate violent criminals of all stripes. But we must simultaneously teach our next generation (every child on this small blue planet) to live peacefully with one another, to share, to love our mother earth, and to live and work morally, generously, and sustainably. (Again, please consider the beautiful Department of Peace proposed legislation already supported by 75+ congressional leaders, at www.thepeacealliance.org ).

 

The world of the future will not be one of vengeance and anger, but one of reconciliation and forgiveness (if it is to be, at all.) Human beings—we ourselves, as well as Saddam Hussein, George Bush, all those we love and all those we fear–each of us–will always make mistakes. Of course we should be held accountable. Of course we should see the grief we have caused others, and learn to regret our mistakes and make amends. But just as I would rather not be condemned or tortured or killed or thrown in prison forever for the harm I’ve done in my life (frankly, I’d really rather be forgiven, and supported in doing better) so too do I hope that in this new year and in all the coming new years, we will all learn to live and love and forgive others their trespasses, as we would have others forgive us our own, and then move on to build a new world, together, with love.

 

 

 

Please send your comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net . Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Thoughts on The Many Useful Uses of Gratitude, Appreciation, and Contentment

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When I married at twenty-one, my grandmother admonished me to feel very very grateful for such a rich start in life. She reminded me very solemnly that many of my contemporaries, some of my cousins even, could barely squeak by during those difficult times.

 

I loved and respected my grandmother, but never asked her my burning question: how does one go about honestly “feeling grateful” when one doesn’t really feel particularly grateful?

 

In fact, I thought myself legitimately entitled to the handsome, charming man I had fallen for, and equally entitled to the many luxuries we enjoyed. My friends were marrying similarly educated, professional men, and after all, my family had made it clear to me that it was my job to marry “wisely.” I never considered marrying any other sort of man. Far from feeling lucky, I felt rather more constrained and obligated to marry a financially solid type. Why, I wondered, should I now feel fortunate to have earned that reasonable expectation?

 

But my grandmother said I should feel grateful, and my grandmother, I always thought, was very good and very wise. So how did I go about cultivating a feeling of gratitude? And, for that matter, why? And who might possibly profit from such feelings of gratitude?

 

I was at a stage in life where I had rejected many of my childhood religious beliefs, and my newly revised version of God was different than the old, unattractive, sycophant-approving sort somehow dependent upon his children’s continual praise and gratitude for his jollies.

 

My parents and husband knew I was grateful for their many gifts—for my education, my life, their love, time, and talents—but that wasn’t what Gram meant. Surely working at feeling grateful couldn’t change anything in my life. Wasn’t gratitude a lot like worry, in that it couldn’t change a hair on my head? If so, why do it? If gratitude couldn’t affect anything, what was the use of it?

 

I finally decided that Gram wanted me to constantly feel at least a little guilty for having so much good in my life while others in the world had so little, which truly seemed like a waste of my time. I mean, what could be good about feeling bad about the good in life? Could she reasonably expect me to feel guilty about being young and healthy and smart and funny and sexy, when, frankly, I didn’t feel like I was to blame for it, but was sort of just born that way? If others were not so, even if many others were living miserable lives, how was that my fault? How could my feeling guilty all the time possibly help them?

 

In fact, I felt already too heavily burdened with guilt to feel grateful about anything, and I wasn’t eager to add on any more guilt. Like many young people, rather than feeling accomplished, I always felt I was falling way behind in what I was capable of, in what was expected of me. Instead of acknowledging my achievements and possessions, instead of noticing the good and the beautiful in my life, and in the-world-as-it-is, mostly I just felt guilty because I hadn’t done more, hadn’t been more, hadn’t acquired more. I was all too clearly aware of every one of the mistakes and misdirections of my brief life so far, and I was certain that, had I been more conscientious, made better choices, been less selfish and more wise, I could have been much further along in attaining the somewhat vague adult state of global perfection I thought I was supposed to pursue.

 

I rarely slowed down long enough to feel grateful for anything I earned or accomplished, aside from the first quick momentary flush of happiness and pride before I dismissed the importance of whatever I’d done. I never even went to any of my graduation ceremonies, but instead, silently accused myself of being a slacker (“I should have done this much quicker…”) before rushing on to focus on the next thing. I had enthusiasm and talent and smarts, but a poor work ethic, no concept of goal-setting or commitment or loyalty or clear personal goals, a belief that I should know the answers already (so don't ask questions) and no understanding of doing my best. So I took little pride in anything I accomplished. Even the fact that I had accomplished something diminished its value, because I knew well my careless habits: surely if I could do something, anyone could have done it.

 

From both my upbringing and the pressures of a materialistic culture, I always felt that much more was expected of me than of most others, certainly more than I had ever achieved. I knew that more was expected of those to whom much was given, and indeed I had been born, if not with a gold spoon in my mouth, at least a silver one. So I always felt rushed and pushed and far behind-the-eight-ball. Taking the time to stop and savor my achievements seemed a little like false pride, considering my advantages, and anyway, although I sometimes felt conceit, I rarely felt proud.

 

I looked at life as an arbitrarily and unfairly handicapped race to a vague and impossible-to-reach finish line that was general human perfection. I was resentful of those who seemed to have an unfair “head start” on me, the girls with more money and character and possessions and direction and good habits and good sense, not to mention more adventures and fun.

 

I rarely looked around me to notice how comparatively very lucky I was, rarely compared my good fortune with those having less than I. I was too busy focusing on all the other people who seemed to have a head start on me. It never occurred to me that life might not be a race, that each person’s goals could be finite and unique, or that where one starts or arrives is far less interesting or commendable than what one does with the time and opportunities one has. All I knew was that my life seemed very pressured, and that the broad goals of generalized human perfection seemed chaotically both mutually competitive and completely unattainable.

 

Ten years later, years filled with gains and losses and an ever-louder drumbeat reminding me that I was falling behind, falling behind, falling behind, screaming at me that all my many impulsive tradeoffs were bad choices or downright mistakes, I felt nearly hysterical about all that still seemed “expected of me” that I hadn’t yet attained.

 

One evening in my early thirties, at a small study group in a church, it was announced that we would do an exercise on gratitude.

 

Finally, I thought, maybe now I’ll learn what Gram wanted to teach me, so long ago. I knew by now that she couldn’t have been thinking of constant guilt….

 

We were asked to draw a word from a paper bag full of words, and then to meditate silently for ten minutes on our feelings of gratitude for whatever item we drew. The word I drew was: “my car.”

 

My car?! My stupid, ugly, old clunky and unreliable car, so embarrassing to drive and so costly to maintain. How on earth could I be expected to be grateful for my dumb car!? I couldn’t possibly be grateful for it for one minute, much less ten!

 

I was indignant, so sure that this idiotic exercise wasn’t going to work at all for me because I had drawn the wrong word, a thing no one could be grateful for. Maybe the exercise would have worked for someone with a nice XKE convertible….. but when I thought of my car at all, it had always been with resentment. I usually mentally kicked its leaky tires and cursed its doggy interior and rusting, peeling paint. What a pointless exercise.

 

But, dutifully, I sat…and thought. And realized, to my astonishment, that there were a million things my dumb old car made possible for me and for my little daughter. I began to count all the things that we couldn’t do, without my car….

 

By the end of the exercise, I was profoundly grateful for my car, and never again drove it without a feeling of deep appreciation. And that same gratitude has carried over to every other car I’ve ever owned.

 

And, as well, to every possession and person and achievement in my life from then on, each of which, I finally recognized, I would be very sad without.

 

Here’s what I didn’t get about gratitude, way back when: As far as happiness is concerned, the important difference between people is not what they do, have, or achieve, but whether they notice and appreciate what they have, do, and achieve. Those who cultivate gratitude (or contentment or appreciation) in their life are always much happier than those who don’t, no matter how materially rich or poor they are. For proof of this, consider how many wealthy bored housewives and restless husbands there are, spending their lives fretting and unhappy, while others far less materially blessed than they seem to find contentment in the tiny satisfactions of their ordinary, everyday lives.

 

I recently learned a little anti-insomnia exercise that never fails to put this me into a contented dreamland. Like the old Bing Crosby song, it’s about appreciation: “When you’re worried and you can’t sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep.” I focus on all the little things in my life, with appreciation for every little detail, right down to my sheets and my country, my pillow, the weather, my dear husband asleep beside me…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

The time I spend deliberately focusing on feeling grateful—counting my blessings—always adds to my happiness, just as the time I spend fretting over negative stuff always subtracts from my happiness.

 

My paean of appreciation, now, today, at this moment, is gratitude for these ideas, the words to express them, the freedom and free time to write them, this computer, the internet, my blog, my home, my husband’s support for all my activities, this cup of tea, my health, education, experiences, my hard-learned lessons….

 

Focusing on losses and worries is an artifact of living in the past and future (which don’t exist) instead of living in the present moment, the only time anyone ever has to live, love, work, to achieve or enjoy or build or celebrate anything. Regrets and envies and fears are always about the past and future. All good things, including appreciation, happen only right now.

 

Having lots of things doesn’t guarantee our enjoyment of them once the newness quickly wears off. Many who grow roses forget to stop and smell them, just as we can become oblivious of the many kindnesses which come our way, unless we stop to enumerate them. In truth, we never really possess anything, unless we take the time to appreciate it.

 

I also now practice a kind of reverse gratitude, something Buddhists practice, reminding myself that all of my blessings, and all of my “curses”—my challenges and heartaches—will all alike someday pass away. One of my favorite sayings nowadays is, “This too shall pass.” Appreciation truly comes with the realization that all things change with time, change being one of the few constants we can count on in this life. No matter what good or bad is in our lives, this too shall someday pass away. God giveth and taketh away. I try to hold in mind, not morbidly, but humbly, that a war or an accident or a natural disaster or a disease or someone’s moment of insanity could instantly take away everything.

 

My mother’s thirty-year struggle with an unusually severe case of rheumatoid arthritis helped me, in retrospect, learn to enjoy what I have, in the present. As her disease progressed inexorably, crippling a new area every few years—first her knees, then her feet, her hands, her shoulders, her jaw–she found it very difficult to see that she still had opportunities in the present moment to use and enjoy the faculties which she still had. I remember how, after each attack, she would sigh, “If only I had appreciated how much I could still do back when I still had my good feet (hands/neck…. )…when I could still chew and enjoy my food….” Although she did her best to protect her children from her sorrows, her very human focus on the negatives of her disease left her frightened and suffering much of her later life.

 

One of her many gifts to me, a gift I cherish, is the reminder to focus here and now, in every aspect of my life, not on my losses, or on worries about inevitable future losses, but on all that I still have to be grateful for, all that I still can enjoy. With every loss, I try to say, “Well, at least I still have (whatever)” and count my blessings for all that is still good and beautiful and worthwhile in this world and in my life at this moment, all I still can do, be, and have, and not what is no longer possible. Bad things have happened and will happen again in my life and in every life whether we worry about them or not, so I try to remember that worrying can only hurt but never help.

 

I also know unarguably, whenever I see a sad face along my path, that I could have been that person. Certainly I have made as many mistakes as most others have made, yet somehow had many second chances at happiness. I’m grateful for my awareness of the fragility of life, and the knowledge that, at least in this lifetime, all my joys and sorrows, my possessions and abilities and opportunities and loves will gradually (or finally) be taken from me. Rather than a depressing thought, this realization helps me live fully here, now, during the only time when life can be lived.

 

No one ever solves this great puzzle of human life, this problem…but maybe that’s OK; because maybe we’re not meant to solve it. Maybe life isn’t a riddle at all, but an open-ended adventure to be lived, different for each unique indiividual, but still, the gift of life….. Maybe I can learn to embrace my one-of-a-kind life “as it is,” in all its complexity and chaos and change.

 

A wonderful scene in Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, shows Emily rising up from her endlessly peaceful sleep on a graveyard hill, to go back and invisibly observe a day in her youth. Of course she sees herself, her parents, her future husband, and all the everyday richness and boredom and frustration and beauty of her life through newly appreciative eyes. In fact, she finds it all too poignant and painful to bear, and cries out, “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you…. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”

 

The answer is, of course: No. We all get caught up in our dramas, delusions, and tragedies and forget to appreciate what is. But even knowing this, we can try, amidst our goals and our strivings, to remember to take some time to bless each person, each flower, each gift we give and receive, each moment, happy or sad, with our awareness and gratitude. Love, appreciation, acceptance, and forgiveness of the world, just the way it is, is the way I wish to walk always, in gratitude. I know my life will be happier, richer, and more alive for embracing such always-available contentment.

 

Another way, perhaps the best way, to notice how much I have, is to give it away—not only money and goods, but also talents, help, and forgiveness. All my gifts demonstrate to me how richly blessed I am, and my sense of wealth only increases with the giving. How much richer Bill and Melinda Gates must feel these days as they travel the world in support of their charitable foundations. And since we are all—in the most profound sense—one, whenever I give, I give but to myself, and it can be but my own gratitude that I earn.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last-Minute Dithering Before I Cast My Ballot

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Leaders throughout history have terrified citizens into going to war by hinting at unverifiable secret knowledge that is so terrifying it can’t be told without compromising national defense, knowledge which insidiously “necessitates” encroachment upon civil freedoms until power finally comes to reside far away from the people.

 

The vote in November really does come down to whether we move rapidly toward a police state, or work our way steadily toward a peace state.

 

As President Bush continues to aggrandize his growing illegal kingly powers through “signing statements” and other such indignities, he is lurking  in the deepening shadows of that police state, where my not-so-brave little blog—and many others far braver—will flicker out, replaced by a cornucopia of Roveish to Limbaughesque blog options.

 

My vote this time will go only to those having track records of resisting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are urging an end to war now.

 

Withdrawing from Iraq while protecting Iraqi allies, and while righting, as best we can, the wrongs we have inflicted upon this tragically exploited nation, is an expensive, complicated proposition we must undertake immediately.

 

Alternatively, if we continue to spend $2 billion a week warring on Iraq, we can:

 

  • “have our troops come under attack every 15 minutes;
  • spawn new legions of terrorists who rise up against the overspending;
  • destroy what was left of the Iraqi infrastructure;
  • create a civil war for our own amusement and then shake our heads at their violence;
  • traumatize the lives of innocent Iraqi children;
  • kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people;
  • secretly set up state-of-the-art torture chambers;
  • use lots of toxic chemicals to ensure that the land and water are destroyed;
  • test our latest weaponry on real live targets;
  • illegally imprison innocent people for years;
  • listen to the fear spin that is the Bush administration mantra;
  • watch our national integrity rapidly erode, and
  • feel the disintegration of our own humanity as we turn a blind eye to the crimes we commit.

 Now is not the time to turn that blind eye or to remain silent. Fear does not have to rule, and peace is a cost-effective and far less deadly alternative.”*

 

I will also be looking for leaders willing to invest heavily in peace, including a cabinet-level Department of Peace (see www.thepeacealliance.org) as well as leaders who will keep people safe at home, outlaw torture now with no exceptions, support court review of all government spying, reduce our dependence on oil, and support safe, legal immigration.

  

*Many thanks to Nancy Arnold of Union Bridge, MD, from whose recent Letter-to-the-Editor of The Frederick News-Post the above excellent quoted points were taken.

 

 

 

 

 

Please send comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net