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Putting On and Taking Off the Pretty Face of War

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The heartrending recent news coverage about the ghastly deaths of defenseless civilians, mostly children, in Qana, Lebanon, tells the real story of the mideast wars: random slaughter, and the relentless ruin of the loves, livelihoods, work, and hopes of thousands of innocent civilians on all sides. Nevertheless, true believers in the necessity, efficacy, and morality of war still churn out article after article arguing war's fairness and positive aspects (“Israeli Military Service Unites Generations;” “'Disproportionate' in What Moral Universe;'” “For Troops, A Sense of Moral Clarity.”) For, in order to sustain the important illusion that war is moral, and to divert public attention away from war's inevitably bloody means and ends, pro-war propagandists shamefully exploit every one of the heart-swelling, toe-tapping, chest-beating moments which arise in the midst of horrific wars—all the gentlemanly charitable acts, the selfless patriotism and bravery, the beauty and idealism of youth….

 

Although “might” cannot make right, fear and influence can be combined fairly successfully to shape public perception to thinking that “our” wars are primarily about camaraderie, adventure, skill, professionalism, physical prowess, pride, and masculinity…and to thinking that wars can be fought cleanly, judiciously, even kindly, in order to rescue the downtrodden, promote democracy, and protect our homes, families, and way of life.

 

Even well-intentioned efforts to ameliorate war’s devastating effects, such as banning nuclear weapons and landmines, and instituting war crimes trials, can be exploited, and held up as proof that war is just and humane.

 

But the fact that war has moments of fineness and decency should not lull us into deluding ourselves that repeated indiscriminate acts of violence against one’s fellow man are anything except wrong. As in Qana, ninety percent of the victims of modern wars are civilians. Soldiers, politicians, and private citizens alike must choose to abandon their consciences for the duration of wars, because war itself is a crime against humanity.

 

Although “wars of self-defense,” a highly ambiguous and arguable term, are still considered to be legal, all that is legal is not necessarily moral. Wars are fundamentally about the use of force to achieve political goals, not about morality. But moral or not, all fighting must relentlessly be made palatable to its funding and fighting public. Any politician or general worth his pay-grade knows well how to drape war in the colors and images of respectability and tradition. Yet no gallantly waving flag, no proud anthem, pledge, nor crisp salute can ever promise that war’s processes or outcomes will be representative, humane, or moral.

 

Every soldier who ever shot, tortured, or pushed a captive out of a plane in order to obtain information necessary to protect his own knows that the cruel reality of war makes a mockery of the prettified versions held up for public viewing, the ones giving lip service to human rights, morality, and a rule of law which rests on due process, presumption of innocence, the right to legal counsel, and a fair and speedy trial..

 

Any soldier who ever fought in a real shooting war knows that legal and moral niceties are suspended during the life-and-death situation that is war, hauled out only as convenient for public viewing. Snipers, for example, act instantaneously as judge, jury, and executioner to their random, anonymous suspects. Bombardiers, and missile and rocket launchers unleash hell, raining fire down equally upon all their anonymous, hapless victims.

 

To hear tell, war crimes are rare aberrations perpetrated by atypical rogues, stray criminal elements within otherwise pristine organizations. The truth is, crimes against humanity happen all the time, on both sides, during all wars, a direct result of the bloody training, means, conditions, and ends of war.

 

When top military leaders find themselves irrevocably trapped in the unwelcome spotlight of undeniable war crimes, they immediately stage a big show of fairness and due process. Military defenders make feeble attempts to drum up sympathy for the scapegoats, calling attention to inadequate training and terrible conditions of battlefield stress, while prosecutors demonize the poor sad crazy grunts who were so foolish as to get caught tarnishing the honor of their noble units, and promise harsh punishments for any freakish renegades who may have mysteriously insinuated themselves into their otherwise holier-than-everyone-else squeaky-clean corps.

 

Officers always protect themselves and one another, limiting, placing, and holding blame as far down the chain of command as possible, leaving a poor few marginalized dupes to twist publicly in the wind. In every war crime trial, the viewing public—soldiers especially—must be newly convinced once again that “our” wars are conducted honorably, that our soldiers are unusually fine and pure, and that the rights of all civilians and combatants alike are protected by doily-white-gloved military justice.

 

Anonymous military judges always announce shockingly lenient sentences, horrifying victims’ families and their countrymen, but comforting fellow-soldiers who require reassurance that they, too, when forced into similar or worse acts, will not be abandoned. Other leniencies are later quietly extended under the table to prisoners who gallantly lie, or who fall upon their own swords to protect the honor (and butts) of comrades and superiors.

 

Although soldiers' advocates repeatedly plead for clarity in Rules of Engagement, Geneva Conventions, and so on, top government and military officials prefer to keep all military rules as fuzzy and vague as possible, not wishing to be handcuffed during wartime. But no amount of “clarity” will ever change the fact that real war is always immorally indiscriminate in its victims. Generals don’t aspire to leading a band of ethicists; they want naïve, malleable young recruits, trainable into lock-step killers able to withstand the moral confusion necessary to blood-letting, troops who will follow any order, march into any hell, and do what they’re told, which is to win wars by remorselessly killing vast swaths of human beings. To prevail in war, soldiers must believe that all is fair, that anything goes, if necessary to accomplish their mission and protect their buddies.

 

Signatories of the Geneva Conventions hope to receive equivalent courtesies when their guys fall into enemy hands. But reciprocity has no value when rules are always discarded as inapplicable during every new war, just because this new latest incarnation of a monster-of-the-moment—whether Kraut, Jap, terrorist, whatever—is touted to be the coldest, least reasonable, most dangerous enemy ever to threaten anyone, deserving of torture, murder, in fact complete annihilation from the earth, along with their families and other similar scum, as quickly as possible by all available means including chemical, biological, and nuclear.

 

After war’s end, forgotten conventions prove once again useful in punishing the losing side and propping up the flagging resolve of a public weary from manning and funding the last war. War crimes trials help portray war’s most recent victors as the most legitimately aggrieved, gentlemanly, and honorable—and not just the most effectively brutal—while urging new spending on military rebuilding against the next, greater foe as once again sweet, necessary, and good.

 

Respect and support for the quality of human life everywhere is the highest value we can hold. This value reinforces every other precious value we may embrace—all conceptions of God, duty, honor, country, organization, mission, brotherhood, freedom, democracy, justice. The business of indiscriminately maiming and killing human beings for profit and power (under however many pretty guises) can never stand up to close moral scrutiny.

 

I would defend myself, my family, and neighbors from armed enemies breaking down our doors and coming in our windows, and would willingly fund armed local militias well-trained in peaceful conflict resolution for that purpose. Other than that, and rather than risk adding to the sum of injustice in the world by going to war, I would instead risk suffering a certain amount of injustice ourselves (a risk always taken in going to war) by devoting the rest of our current defense budget to building understanding and good will among all the earth’s peoples through proven peaceful and generous methods. My first step would be to pass the very specific and impressive proposed legislation (Bills H.R. 3760 and S. 1756) authorizing and funding a cabinet-level Department of Peace.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who’s Enlightened, How You Can Tell, Who’s To Say, What Is It, and What’s It To You?

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My lifelong interest in “enlightenment”—or whatever you want to call that enduring wisdom which offers relative equanimity in adversity, and acceptance of the world and its inhabitants “as-is,” began with a childhood reading of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. I loved the gentle monk and his Little-Friend-of-all-the-World. At about the same age, I was intrigued by the cloistered life depicted in the movie, The Nun’s Story. Reading my grandmother’s Bible, I observed the same spirit of love and forgiveness in the gentle teachings of Jesus, and later, in college, marveled at Gandhi’s and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s writings.

 

As years passed, I also wondered whether the rare, kind, and imperturbable elders, sick or well, rich or poor, whom I occasionally encountered were also “enlightened” beings, and if so, what wonderful secret, what key to peace and acceptance did they possess?

 

I think now that, while everyone experiences moments of clarity and vision and contentment—call it enlightenment if you will—probably no one suddenly becomes suddenly enlightened once-and-for-all forever, as did Kim’s fictional monk, and as the Buddha is said to have done, sitting under the bhodi tree. I’ll bet both experienced some unsettling moments even after achieving enlightenment, just as the Dalai Lama readily admits today.

 

Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama absolutely knows something universal that is well-worth knowing.

 

Yet no single goal, no path, no pursuit, achievement, possession, relationship or experience, no moment of revelation, awakening or rebirth seems exclusively to offer life’s “answer” to the problem of human suffering. And of course, there is no ultimate solution which can finally cure life of difficulty and heartaches.

 

Nevertheless, spiritual wisdom can make life easier if not easy, and definitely more joyful, relaxing, rewarding, manageable, lighter, friendlier, and fun, as well as deeper, kinder, more helpful, and far more meaningful.

 

Enlightened beings are to be found in every culture, religion, philosophy, and walk-of-life. It’s true that they see the world through new eyes, having conquered most of their cultural conditioning that leads to fear, selfishness, guilt, and anger. Spiritual mystics and visionaries really do achieve a remarkably robust internal perspective which consistently supports them in spending more of their present moments awake, aware, and appreciative, undistressed with past or future concerns, and embracing all-that-is, as one, and lovable.

 

The warm, ecumenical vision of these human and fallible saints and seers (who are often disguised as the kind little lady down the street, or the conscientious, cheerful worker down the hall) is available to anyone who wants it more than s/he wants anything else, because enlightenment is less a closely held secret of an exclusive club or church, and more the result of  the desire, perseverance, and time necessary to unlearn the huge amount of cultural and personal mental and emotional baggage most of us acquire in our youth–not to mention even more time and patient effort to relearn the experience of each of life's many aspects freshly, differently. Enlightenment is a continual, never-ending, and sometimes arduous pursuit, regardless of one's particular chosen path to its achievement.

 

You might think me enlightened if you caught me in a moment of lucidity. At other times, I struggle mightily with many as-yet-unconquered habits, including habits-of-mind, unexamined beliefs, and the frustrations and impatience that come from comforts, courtesies, and convenience. My longtime friends would agree that I’ve changed, or at least that I’m suspiciously happier and easier to get along with, although I'm still miles away from imperturbable or selfless. Like everyone else, I grew up not knowing what I didn't know, and knowing a lot of things that just weren’t so. However, I’ve begun to do the work to learn and to unlearn, replacing my old eyes and heart with a more reliable spiritual worldview.

 

The peaceful, positive, and helpful presence-of-mind which I have consistently sought is attainable by anyone–regardless of starting point or particular spiritual path–who sincerely desires and pursues it. It is not magic. It is the same awareness of the unity of God, man, and nature, the same feelings of well-being and rest which everyone experiences from time to time.

 

Yet such moments of peace, clarity, and oneness occur for me more frequently these days; they last longer, and I can find my way back to them more easily. I don’t know whether that’s enlightenment or not, but I know I'm at least on a clear path to it. As I seek to learn what seems universally true—and as I pursue varied paths to truth and apply that learned truth to my daily life, my understanding broadens and deepens.

 

Although I spend more time now in peaceful acceptance, I haven’t yet learned to stay humbly (if metaphorically) on my knees. I keep popping back up to proudly celebrate, and stumble, and fall back down to my knees again….

 

I still waste time struggling with fear, anger, anxiety, and guilt, still succumb to other useless self-created nightmares as I read the daily news and go through my daily tasks. Often I’m oblivious to others’ needs, distracted, defensive, resistant, defiant, sick and tired. But such times are less frequent, and I’m learning to rely more readily upon God’s (as I understand God) strength to help me back onto the path of the seeker of truth.

 

From one perspective, “Life is not a puzzle to be solved, but an adventure to be lived.” On the other hand, some of us like puzzles. But no, we won't ever “figure God out” or “fix” life–but we can move from miserable ignorance to happy knowing.

 

Anyone can learn to manage life better, if they deeply desire to acquire better habits and better ways of experiencing and contributing. It helps a lot to be blessed with the knowledge that, step-by-small-step, over time, I can learn anything I'm willing to work at and persevere for.

 

I find it interesting that the more I learn, the more I appreciate, and also, the harder I work—no longer to keep the wolf from the door—but instead, to take advantage of opportunities to contribute to and enjoy life, opportunities which were always there, even if I didn’t see them before.

 

I revel in the joys my new spiritual insights provide. One clear difference in “before” and “after” has been a newfound delight in the details of life-as-it-is, particularly an appreciation for people-as-they-are, but also with things-as-they-are. It’s such a relief not to always have to attack, condemn, blame, evaluate, analyze, and judge everything and everyone (including myself) (although sometimes I still do.)

 

I love the present-moment rewards that come with a commitment to excellence. I enjoy not only better results, but also considerably more enjoyable processes, as I stay within each present moment, and let go of my attachments to end-results. More and more often these days, I focus on the present moment’s pleasure or pain, without adding to it unnecessary heavy loads of negative, past-and-future mental and emotional “stuff.”

 

Moments, hours, even days and weeks of such “enlightenment”—or at least what feels to me like enlightenment (clarity, unity, peace, oneness, vision)—are more frequent, deeper, less elusive. Each radiant aha!-moment, though precious and sufficient in itself, seamlessly flows from earlier insights into later ones, each reinforcing and enlarging the other. Every day I discover new facets of a larger global understanding, of a unified and universal, if distressingly inexpressible, truth.

 

I find, very often, that doing small, ordinary tasks is completely fulfilling, no one activity more than any other—the primary difference being what I am able to bring to each process on any given day. On some days and at some moments, I bring more energy, love, and presence to various tasks than I do at other times, and that is all….

 

I accept with relief that I’ll never get “it” “right;” human wisdom and insight is never final. In fact, I’ll never get anything completely “right”—no relationship, no goal, no habit of mind. And no one else will either—at least not in this life, and nobody knows what comes after.

 

Human beings can experience, learn about, and attempt to express universal, even eternal truths, yet truth will always defy and surpass merely human linguistic capacities. Certainly, no one ever gets any “explanation of life” “right,” because there is no universal “right” for all to get, just as no one ever “finally” achieves balance, nor maintains it over time.  Life itself seems to be one long intricate balancing act.

 

Spiritual wisdom can be achieved by anyone who aspires to it, with the help of God—or whoever or whatever you personally choose to call that holy spirit, that power-not-ourselves that we each experience uniquely. Enlightenment is to be found along every honest religious and spiritual path, and often along other less apparently spiritual paths as well–certainly through service and daily spiritual practice such as meditation and yoga, and often through scholarship, science, athletics, nature, music, art, literature, psychology, business, parenting, marriage, and other pursuits of understanding and service. Kipling’s Kim and his beloved monk seemed “naturally enlightened,” yet even they had to come to “realize” (as in “realized masters”) the reality of what they had always been, what they could always do, and what they had always known.

 

I’m not discouraged to find ultimate enlightenment elusive. It isn’t daunting to know I may never “get right” my small hopes for doing my little part in saving the world, or caring for myself and the people in my life. Rather, I feel newly free of the heavy obligation to somehow nail that perfect wisdom. Instead, I forgive myself and others for our many shortcomings and trespasses, and focus instead on feeling good about how far we’ve come, and how far we can yet go.

 

Not everyone thinks wisdom is a big deal. I appreciate, respect, and support others’ efforts to achieve whatever it is they most want, all the various pursuits and goals various people choose, as uniquely most important to them. Enlightenment  isn’t everyone’s bag. Some people really want to play very good soccer; others want to stop fighting with their families, or to make a billion dollars. It’s a relief to know I’m not here to judge what others choose to do with their lives, but rather, to love and support all of us, exactly as we are, wherever we are on our roads to learning and growing and becoming.

 

I like to think that, in a spiritual sense, no matter where we begin our learning, we all eventually will learn whatever it is we need to know to return to God. Some people, like me, take a mighty circuitous path. Yet we all need help from one another, and no matter where we began or where we are now on our various paths, we will all arrive together and simultaneously, leaning upon and supporting one another.

 

When I learn to accept and forgive myself and all of God’s creations, when I consistently choose to think positively, and live fully within the present moment, letting the past and future go, I am taking giant steps toward enlightenment. Far more powerful than any particular achievement or activity is the power of my attitude during each quickly-passing present moment, each “now.” Where I’m coming from during this moment, this “now,” determines what I think, where I am, what I do, what I create, who I am, how I am, what I achieve and contribute, my happiness, my peace of mind, my past and future, and my relationships with my fellow man, nature, and God.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

A Home-made Fathers' Day Peace Postcard Starring Eppy, Dad, and Daughter

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Here is my home-made fathers' day peace postcard which I sent out to friends and congresspersons … a good idea started by www.thepeacealliance.org in support of a cabinet-level Department of Peace.(The URL on the postcard is wrong…sigh.)

I wish all of you and yours a very happy Fathers' Day, and hope you'll read the beautiful legislation (www.thepeacealliance.org ) which has already been introduced into the House and Senate, and has many congressional supporters already! I think this work will make a huge difference. (In fact, it has already made a huge difference!) Sorry I'm not so clever posting these postcard/photos yet….

Hey, I miss you and love you, Dad. Thanks so much for everything, but most of all for your peaceful, loving spirit.

Please write your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Santa, Horror Movies, Earthquakes, and Other Childhood Religious Experiences

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I felt hurt when my childhood friends laughed at me for devoutly believing in Santa Claus, and foolish, when they later scorned me for doubting the existence of my childhood fairytale-God….  

All my omnipotent, omniscient household deities such as Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy–all solemnly attested to by the otherwise scrupulously honest adults in my life–later turned out to be a childish embarrassment, mere games and illusions swallowed only by simpletons. On the other hand, unraveling the mysteries of religion increasingly was deemed a difficult and profound thing, to be accepted now on faith, and puzzled out rationally only by hoarier heads than mine, or perhaps in far off adulthood….   

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” (the circular argument legitimizing the commercialized Santa by equating him with the Christian spirit of love) didn't clear up any of my confusions at all…..

The teachers in my elementary schools poked fun and laughed merrily at all the many varieties of “primitive” religious beliefs (i.e., any religion outside of mainstream American Judeo-Christianity) such as the early Greek and Roman myths, American Indian spirituality (in those days, I thought “native” meant “naked,”) ancestor “worship,” many-armed “goddesses,” etc. My classmates and I learned to confidently pooh-pooh photos displaying what we were told were radically important differences in 'foreign” (i.e., “weird”) religious practices and dress and customs, and of course we concluded that western civilization and enlightened religious rationales and practices, such as credentialed religious leaders saying magic words that turned lifeless-looking wafers and water into the actual body and blood of an historical crucified spiritual leader, and then drinking and eating it, were somehow less weird, somehow intellectually superior. Ick.

I remember asking my Sunday School teacher about the confusing song, “Yes, Jesus loves me: the Bible tells me so.” 

“So how does the Bible know?”

“It just does. God wrote the Bible. Everything in it is true.”

“Oh.” That was the end of my questioning on that subject for about twenty years….

One of my (quite religious) sisters, who was a Mormon convert, admitted at age fifty that she had never even considered questioning that particular teaching (the inerrancy and source/s of the Bible), although she had pored over The Good Book daily for enlightenment and wisdom all her life.

Little kids are so innocent, and their minds so susceptible to cultural influences; they swallow whole all that their cultures teach them, including its radically peculiar particularities.

I'm reading lately where horror movies are coming back now, bigger and scarier than ever, sort of…terror-porn…in all its sadistic gore, reflecting, some enthusiastic critics say, what is really happening in “the real world.” Oh, really? Of all that is happening in the world, this is what we're noticing? This is what we want our children to focus on? This is “the way of the world” that we want to teach our children all about? As if violence and fear and terror were inevitable, and not primarily a matter of what and how we are taught, and later, how we choose to see and traverse this life?

If all the world could be raised by enlightened Quakers or Buddhists or Jesuits, in just two generations, all mankind would live in peace. 

(To be sure, all animals experience conflict. Some even feed upon each other. Yet warfare is a uniquely human, cultural invention. The biological connection to war is our very human language-making ability, which makes possible cultural learning and the invention and coordination of ideas, groups, and technnologies. Biology doesn't condemn humanity to war. Just as wars begin in the minds of men, peace also begins in our minds. We who were capable of inventing war are capable of inventing peace. The responsiblity and capability lie in each of us.)

In my girlhood, I worked hard to puzzle out,with my parents, exactly which movie and storybook monsters and dangers might be real; i.e., which were the ones I'd have to look out for and steer clear of? And which were the “made-up” ones I didn't have to worry about?

Grizzlies? Yes. Very real. Very scary.

Ghosts? Well…. Hmmm. Let me think about that one.

Angels? Hmmmm, again. 

Bad angels? Hmmm.

Dragons? Oh, no! Silly girl! Imagine, dragons! No of course they're not real. Whatever gave you that idea?

Dinosaurs? No! Or, well, yes. Or, well, maybe. Sort of, but not, like, you know, any more. (Thanks a lot for clearing that one up!)

The Snow White witch and the Wizard of Oz witch? No. Except of course, the movie star. She's real. (Hmmm.)

Robbers? Well, uh, maybe. They're real, but we don't have to worry about them. (And why was/is that?)

War? Well, maybe there are wars in some other countries, but we never have to fight them in the U.S. (How soon we forget!) (And why weren't they ever fought in the US? Why were wars always something we fought, but only elsewhere? And why didn't all those other people decide to fight their wars elsewhere?)

Death? Yes, death is real. Uh, well, and … well, no. Death is…uh…only sort of real. Don't forget about heaven. Hmmm.

Earthquakes? Oh yes, very real. Where do they happen? Only in Japan, California, and a few other faraway places. But, not to worry…. We don't live in any of those places. Now run along, dear, enough silly questions….

My military family soon got our orders to spend a year in Fort Ord, CA followed by three years in Tokyo, Japan, to my…horror…. (see paragraph above.)

The only earthquakes I knew about were the ones I'd seen in a movie, in which huge, mile-wide-deep chasms opened up and swallowed down whole screaming villages of people, houses, and cattle, all of which went sliding and scrabbling down into the closing gulf to disappear forever…. 

And that was where we were going to live?

My parents dismissed my alarmed, “but…but…but…” with a condescending wave of their hands. “Foolish child. Be a brave little patriot and stop complaining. After all, there are only six or eight real earthquakes in Japan a year. Military brats have to bravely go where they're sent! Now run along …. We're going to get in nine holes of golf before dark….”

Fortunately, the many many earthquakes I soon experienced served mostly just to rattle the tableware.

Although once I crawled across a parade ground nearly all the way to my elementary school, thinking my legs had stopped working. And another time my mother whisked me out of a wildly splashing bathtub and wrapped me in a towel to join the families (and staring friends!) standing outside.

What's really funny is that by the time I had crawled most of the way to school, my legs had “started working again,” so I had already forgotten my troubles (ah, youth!)–when all the teachers rushed up to me, worried about me, and I said, “What earthquake? I didn't feel any earthquake.” I was actually feeling a little aggrieved that I'd missed all the excitement, until I figured out..that…I hadn't.

And sitting in the bathtub during the other big earthquake, silent and still as a stone while the water roiled and sloshed over the sides, all I could think of was how much trouble I'd be in, for making all that water illegally splash so hard and so much with my boisterous bathtub play that it couldn't stop splashing.

Kids have a hard enough time figuring out what's real from what isn't without their parents making their jobs that much more difficult. That is why we parents must often reassure our kids that, “There are no stupid questions” and give them time to follow up on their confusions. I didn't do this very well with my kids–I thought they did have a lot of stupid questions, and felt embarrassed for myself, that I hadn't already taught my very bright children much better long ago…. I'm sure I was worse even than my parents in this…. Consequently, both my children and I often thought many of our questions were too stupid to ask. Now why was that? 

Wouldn't it be nice if children everywhere could get their examples and habits and attitudes and transcendent truths and values and realities from loving adults who held to their highest ideals and principles and didn't meanwhile pollute little minds with opportunistic fables and vague shadowy threatening omniscient eminences and all the terrifying blockbuster media horrors it does no good to think about (which is not to say we cannot add all our loving energy and creativity to the world, and thus help solve many its many problems….)

If I ever have grandchildren, I pray I will teach them all about the highest and best things in life, about goodness and kindness and love. I'm going to equate all that goodness with God/reverence. I'll try to show them how the human need for God and ideals and a spiritual life and a path to God can be found in all the highest forms of all the great religions. I'm not going to be complicit in teaching them distortions and fairy tales about imaginary cultural deities and hobgoblins. The magic and wonder of science and the humanities, indeed, all the wonders of life on earth, will offer them plenty of food for their imaginations, more than enough challenges for their creativity and intellects. Nor will I diss any alternative philosophical or religious expressions, but instead, hope to seek to understand and embrace their highest human and spiritual commonalities.

I will be sorely challenged, though, in this free-for-all world, to protect children from a steady diet of fear–whether political, cultural, media, storybook, or any other kind. But protect them we must–or lose them to a fear-based, instead of a love-based, sense of reality.

Perhaps what we can do best is to help them grow up positively and powerfully, so they can act on every good impulse and shine their lovely lights onto all the dark places in the world.

Perhaps someday, we can together lift ourselves and our loved ones (and that is, everyone) over life's heartaches and losses and disappointments–life's rough and lonely places–and never let anyone fall into feeling lost and separated for very long.

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

Thank you!

 

 

 

 

Let’s Trade in “Realpolitik” for More Realistic (Idealistic and Moral) Politics

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I just read a hasty translation of the remarkable letter written to President Bush by Iran’s President Ahmadinajad, the neocons’ newest target for demonization. In his passionate letter, this bold spiritual leader outlines his perspectives about international relations in terms of spirituality, religion, philosophy, history, and politics, courteously pointing out the west’s moral inconsistencies and asking many hard questions, while offering specific suggestions and proposals for world peace and for resolving conflicts.

 

I wonder whether President Bush will brush off his handlers’ warnings and actually dare read the letter? For just as Americans risk war by listening only to the current angry neocon drumbeat against Iran, so can Mr. Bush choose to risk peace by hearing out Mr. Ahmadinajad. Already the letter has been spun and skewed by war advocates as the usual self-serving drivel. I see it as a profound peace offering by a rising spiritual leader.

 

The letter is certainly must-reading for all wartime decision-makers such as the President, his Cabinet, and Congress. Consider the CIA’s secret overthrow of Iran’s popularly elected leader, Mossedegh, during the 1950’s, which led directly to the Iran hostage crisis; we may similarly ignore Ahmadinajad’s missive now to our peril. Americans who refuse to acknowledge our exploitative past, or to dialogue with our designated “enemies,” may regret such oversight at leisure, as we did on 9/11, when so few Americans understood—as too few do still—why America is the target of so much fear and hatred.

 

Even before this letter, our wrathful right wing media had already enthusiastically rolled out their propaganda machines to denounce Ahmadinajad’s previous speeches and writing. For indeed, our government cannot rouse our soldiers to kill and die, and our citizens to sacrifice for distant wars, unless they first convince us that each new “enemy” is the devil incarnate.

 

Joining with demagogues and fanatics in Israel, fear-mongering spinmeisters have portrayed Ahmadinajad as determined to wipe out all the Jews in Israel. To be sure, he is disgusted with the current regime and its unqualified American support. However, he has said he would support a fair referendum there, and I think he would welcome a regime which treated peaceful Jews, Christians, and Muslims with equal respect and rights.

 

Ahmadinajad has a sterling international reputation as a genuinely pious, erudite Muslim teacher and statesman. His letter to President Bush echoes many perspectives of our own American political left. Yet he is portrayed by the Bush administration as a hardliner, an extremist conservative religious fanatic.

 

This too-familiar pre-war fear-and-hate fest has been so done before, first with Saddam Hussein, then with Moqtada al-Sadr, then with bin Laden, and now with Ahmadinajad. I’m sick of watching my country rush blindly into more bullying excesses, while always draping our aggressions in saintliness.

 

I have no respect for the Bush-Cheney-Rice strategy for solving our energy crises by controlling the price and flow of oil through Mideast political and military coercion. It’s not nice, and has been far too pricey (not, of course, for oil companies) and has never really worked, especially when you count the whole cost of our lengthy dalliance with Saddam Hussein.

 

I’m not alone in my distaste for global bullies, either. No one likes schoolyard bullies who throw their weight around, thinking only of themselves, not caring who gets hurt so long as they get what they want. Powerful bullies may prevail in the short run, may even gain opportunistic allies eager to share in the spoils of easy wars against weaker opponents. But soon enough, everyone on the playground finally gets sick of being pushed around, and all gang up to confront the bully.

 

And the bigger the bully, the harder he falls.

 

Far from offering Americans security and safety, belligerent approaches to international relations create only more enemies, drain our coffers, strain our political freedoms, distract our leaders from solving our real problems, demean our integrity, lower our national pride and morale, ruin our reputation, weaken our alliances, threaten our trade, destroy untold lives, and do nothing at all to make us safer than we were before. We can stand up for our traditional rights and freedoms without insisting that hard, practical considerations and the advancement of our own expansionist national interests are the sole principles of our interactions with others.

 

It is time to retire America’s realpolitik approach to foreign policy. Even if Americans did choose to embrace such an anachronistic approach to international politics—and few thinking Americans would, for we have a strong foundation in a loving, giving Judeo-Christian ethic—even then, realpolitik makes no sense.

 

The only nations fighting defensive wars these days are those with desirable resources, or historically-contested lands of economic significance and/or strategic value. The United States is virtually alone in being so raw, young, and untouched by historical predations as to insert herself in many overt and covert distant wars of aggression simultaneously in many places. Visualize a bull in a china shop…..

 

The time is right for an international, grassroots groundswell, a spiritual/political movement insisting upon arms reduction by all parties, and a strong international policy of peaceful acceptance and coexistence. The nations which will prevail in the world of the future are those which now work cooperatively with others, strive to set a high moral example, and offer leadership in support of peaceful, productive lives for all.

 

The whole idea of fighting a war on terrorism is negative and backward. Why not throw a party instead, hosting it on age-old patriotic American and Judeo-Christian themes so dear to us—the golden rule, and respect and support for all human beings everywhere—and invite everyone? Why not co-opt all the world’s leaders by asking them to join us in fighting, not one another, but the real problems of the 21st century—disease, injustice, depravity, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence itself?

 

The peacemakers in our midst cannot hurt us, whether they be followers of Ahmadinajad or a newly chastened and hopeful George W. Bush. We need more, not fewer, experienced, visionary, peace-minded foreign policy experts, assigned to a new Department of Peace, who can help us realize the best and brightest policies of a new realism which combines hard and soft power in ways that are indeed realistic.

 

Winner-take-all is simply not a political option anymore. None of us will ever be able to climb higher than our lowliest fellow-climbers, for the world is at last far too interconnected. We cannot harm and neglect our neighbors near or far without that harm coming back, sooner than we can imagine, to haunt our own children and grandchildren, like chickens come home to roost.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Have Seen the Future of Latino Immigration—and It Is Good

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The hair on my arms stood up as I tuned in my car radio to the raucous enthusiasm of the immigrant protest rally aired recently on C-Span. It was “déjà vu all over again” as I recalled my own youthful experiences with immigrants and racism in the very hispanic city of San Antonio.

 

For I have seen the future of Latino immigration in America before, and it is good.

 

My military family moved to San Antonio during the late 1950’s, my middle school years. We had already moved eight times before, and I spent five of those years learning in overseas post schools along with a multiracial and multiethnic group of classmates all living middle-class lives. Transferring now into a San Antonio off-post public school situated in a sharply divided socioeconomic setting, I was surprised to be suddenly thrown in among a very large number of poor latinos, and shocked to see how unkindly they were treated by my anglo classmates.

 

My youthful ideals and sensibilities were greatly offended by such discrimination, but like many—perhaps most—youthful innocents, I was confused and easily led by the mean immoral majority, who quickly taught this eager new girl that “we” didn’t “like” “them”—and certainly didn’t mix with them.

 

My parents weren’t much help either. When I protested the injustice I saw so clearly at school, they lamely agreed with my moral indignation against racism, but also strongly registered their preference that I not choose to socialize with children who weren’t “like us”—i.e., clean, educated, privileged, advantaged.

 

A few of my teachers treated all students respectfully, but the general consensus about “meskins” in my school was a sweeping generalization that they were, as a race, all dirty, poor, immoral, violent, sneaky, and “too stupid” to know how to speak English. The convenient filter of race soon blurred my eyes to the many differences among these children, and eventually I clumped them all, even the occasional middle-class and native-English speaking exceptions, into the same rejected bunch I thought of as “mexican.”

 

Through whispered conversations, I soon “knew” what my schoolmates “knew”—that all these kids were children of “illegals” who had snuck across the river, and were now sneaking around in bushes and backrooms doing filthy jobs our parents wouldn't dream of doing, living in hovels, and probably stealing and breaking other laws too. We exchanged warnings about their poor side of town: don’t go near the San Antonio River unless you want to get knifed by a “mex”…. The wealthiest among my friends claimed to “own a ‘wet’ (‘wetback’) or two,” whom their parents kept hidden away on distant ranches in shacks stocked with sacks of beans, to chop cedar and clear brush in the searing sun, at the cost of pennies a day.

 

My classmates generally viewed the influx of Mexican immigrants with suspicion and disgust. Sometimes we sneered at them, even fought them as they grouped together defensively—but mostly we ignored them. I went, too quickly, from feeling righteously indignant, to apathy, to feeling more “in the know” about the “appropriate” way to feel and act—that is, prejudicially.

 

Of course, I knew nothing about how hard it can be to get ahead when you’re poor, or the immense barriers of linguistic disadvantage, or the challenges of a new life in a different culture, especially an illegal life. I saw without recognizing only the commonalities of poverty; indeed, many of my Latino classmates were very dirty, their clothes were smelly, they did seem ignorant, and they spoke English poorly.

 

I’m especially sad when I remember how kind many of the Latino children were to me when I first enrolled. Many seemed friendly, attractive, and fun to this lonely new girl. Too quickly, though, I “knew better” and pulled away from them, frightened by the strong social prohibition against socializing with “mexes.” I had already begun to make friends with some who were probably pleasantly surprised to be greeted initially with no prejudice; I’m sure my transformation and confused withdrawal hurt many feelings.

 

Fast-forward now forty years, to the year my family returned to San Antonio to care for my dying father. To my delight, I found San Antonio completely changed, a bright, working city ornamented by a proud Hispanic cultural heritage. During that difficult year of family losses, all of my childhood prejudices were firmly replaced with admiration and deep gratitude, as I worked my way through a long line of outstanding care-giving and service professionals, nearly all native-English speaking, educated, middle and upper-class Latinos.

 

From that ragtag bunch of schoolmates of yesteryear, no doubt themselves largely parented by penniless, ignorant laborers who dared their way across the border, had come this impressive line of smiling, capable, courteous, faith-driven professionals. Where “mexicans” had previously been relegated only to San Antonio’s lowest social classes, now they were the home-care aides who tenderly washed and fed my father, the capable nurses who treated him, the orderlies who gently attended him in hospital, the capable doctors who set his broken hip, the hospice workers who comforted us, the owners of the funeral home, and the directors who helped us plan his funeral.

Latinos now ably ran much of the city, blending in with the anglo minority attractively—and patriotically. As I hurried through busy days, helpful Latino faces sold me groceries and hardware, delivered our packages, repaired our dishwasher, patrolled the streets, and repaired phone wires. My father’s accountant was hispanic, as was his attorney.

 

I remember my childhood astonishment when I overheard comments about a local “mexican,” Henry B. Gonzalez, was became an influential national politician. Later, I learned that another “Chicano,” Henry Cisneros, had worked to transform the whole city for Hemisfair, refurbishing the San Antonio River Walk, which later became one of the world’s safest and most colorful international tourist draws. A multitude of Hispanic civic and political leaders followed in their footsteps. As an ignorant young girl, however, I found it all much too confusing. How could these apparently benevolent leaders possibly be drawn from that same lowly pool of apparent lowlifes which I had tragically learned to exclude from my own personal repertoire of “nice people”—or, perhaps, “human beings?”

 

The San Antonio of today is a multicultural treat, largely run by courteous, ambitious Latinos. All those I met during that painful year resembled, in their work ethic and attitude, our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales—genial, earnest, hard-working, well-intentioned, people of faith.

 

Welcome to the America of the future, and more power to it.

 

Immigrants break no law they ever had a chance to democratically vote upon. Immigrants are doing exactly what any of us would do for ourselves and for our families, were we faced with an impossible present and future—if only we could find the daring and the support necessary to pick up, move on, and start over.

 

No other country is spending billions to guard its borders from terrorists, although quite a few nations are presently scrambling to arm themselves against our American invasions. No expensive walls are being built to keep terrorists out of Canada, China, Norway, or Sweden? And why not? Each of these countries has a similarly long, porous border, like ours, but unlike the U.S.A., these countries have friendly, cooperative foreign policies—i.e., fewer enemies.

 

When our politicians decide to create fewer deadly enemies with unkind trade and foreign policies, and focus instead on offering generous, accepting policies which embrace the world’s problems as our own, we won’t waste so much money protecting our borders from terrorists. Maybe we’ll pour some of that money into a better life for ourselves and for the immigrants we need to help make this country great again.

 

When I turned off my radio, I said a prayer for all persistent immigrants, for their admirable struggle to make a better life, and for the America we will all work to build together. Because someday soon these adventurers will claim for themselves the same bright prize their audacious countrymen have claimed throughout our history, the grandest lottery ticket gamble of all, the chance to win U.S. citizenship.

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ninety Lives … For What They’re Worth

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My favorite news source is newspapers, but every few weeks I get my ironing done with the Sunday weekly news roundup shows on television. Yesterday, watching George Stephanopoulos, Inside Washington, Face the Nation, and Meet the Press, I became painfully aware that not a single mention had been made, even in passing, of the ninety lives lost in a Baghdad mosque earlier in the week.

 

Reporters and interviewees droned on about “not one more American soldier,” while George Stephanopoulos thoughtfully rolled his register of American lives tragically cut short thousands of miles from home. Hours were devoted to gleeful analysis of what Libby knew and what Bush didn’t. Bernadette Peters made a generous appeal for one of my favorite causes, adoption of America’s homeless pets.

 

Yet during those three hours on ABC, CBS, and NBC, not a single image or voice was raised to note the horrific loss of those ninety lives in Baghdad.

 

The American media—and Americans in general—are simply missing the point. The point is, respect and support for human life everywhere, not just for Americans. It’s as if, by example, we somehow imagine it to be in our best interest to urge all nations everywhere to adopt our own peculiar brand of tunnel-visioned “me-first” patriotism.

 

Apparently, Americans see planet Earth as a tidy jigsaw puzzle where self-sufficient clumps of humanity are divided perpetually into impermeable nations separated by high, immutable stone walls that God himself built, instead of a tiny and fragile living planet where we are all so interdependent that we share the very air we breathe, and every drop we drink.

 

Nationalism and patriotism are just fine and dandy in their place–a very limited place of proud achievement, unique traditions, and dedication to local civic responsibilities. But patriotism and nationalism go too far when they pander to the illusion that human life elsewhere is somehow less important than the lives of “we Americans”—as if it could be possible that lives in one nation could somehow be of greater value than other lives.

 

Since when do traditional American values speak only for American citizens? Since when do our philosophies declare all men created equal, with Americans just a little more equal than all the rest? Since when does Jesus love the little children of the world, especially American children?

 

What does it mean to be an American, a patriot? If it means some kind of Orwellian doublespeak where we turn our backs on the rest of the world, I don’t want any part of it.

 

Americans couldn’t have been more touched by the international outpouring of empathy when our twin towers fell. Attention was paid. Moments of silence were shared. Candles were lit. Prayers from every religious faith were invoked in every language. Helping hands reached across the waters. Schoolchildren collected pennies for victims’ families.

 

For that one moment, everyone cared—not because of, or even in spite of the fact that the victims were Americans—but because human beings were at one moment peacefully pursuing happiness and the next moment they were dead. Human beings. Not Americans, or Chinese, or Hutus, or Shiites. Human beings, upon whom all the highest moral values of every religious and ethical system have forever been built.

 

Every day, in every corner of the world, far more people die hourly from the consequences of economic and political violence—curable diseases, starvation, poverty,  war—than died in that mosque, or in the twin towers, for that matter.

 

But that’s not the point. The point is, it’s not about Iraqis, or Jews, or Americans. It’s about people who are needlessly dying from human violence and indifference, people whose bodies are mangled and lives shattered. People with faces and names, of every nationality, who once had families and dreams and prayers and work that needed to be done. They're all gone.

 

News analysts have a dual role, to both reflect and create public attitude. This Sunday’s weekly news roundup created and reflected total American indifference to the suffering of human beings in the Middle East. Our otherwise distinguished news analysts were so busy interrupting each other over the fall of DeLay and the immigration gridlock in Congress that they couldn’t spare a moment to mention the fact that last week, the equivalent of a whole Shiite village was blown to hell as they gathered to pray to the very same God America prays to, even if we call Him by a different name.

 

And Americans are by no means unaccountable. Because no matter how you read the tea leaves, our violent hand has left its mark indelibly on that anguished region. The tyrannical power of Saddam Hussein was an American creation. The nation of Iraq itself was an arbitrary western notion forcefully assembled from three historically distinct ethnicities. The very fact that these three mutually-distrustful factions are at this very moment bristling with high-tech arms they can hardly resist using to annihilate each other in a civil war, out of sheer desperation and despair, is almost entirely due to the generosity of the American military-industrial complex and its imported violent solutions to the region’s problems.

 

What will it take for the west to recognize and support the majority of Muslims who repeatedly pay the price of decades of violent occupation and interference with almost inhuman endurance, responding stoically with non-violence, forbearance, order, and faith? What does it take to earn American respect and compassion for this vast majority peacefully enduring the fires of hell through no fault of their own?

 

And what kind of unholy armageddon will it take for George Bush to stand up and say, This is not right. This is wrong. This is evil. This will not stand.

 

Americans claim to have democratically decided to throw $500 billion of our hard-earned taxpayers’-dollars—not to mention our darling children and grandchildren—toward the goal of bestowing freedom and democracy upon our beloved Iraqi friends. Or has a tiny extremist group of neocon warmongers managed to misuse our democratic processes so as to herd American citizens around like sheep, in hopes that when Iraq is similarly safely “democratized,” we will be able to commandeer Iraqi oil by riding herd on those citizens, as well.

 

If this is not the case, if we so love the Iraqis that we're willing to put our economy and our progeny's lives on the line, why can’t we manage to come up with just one silent moment of programming time during three hours of major-network weekly news roundups in order to show the minimum of respect for the ninety murdered souls on whose behalf we’re supposedly fighting and dying?

 

The American media goes absolutely crazy, and the American people spare no expense, when a single American miner can be rescued from an explosion, when an American child is pulled from the rubble of a well or a hurricane, a lost American pilot plucked from the ocean. But we harden our hearts, press our lips together, and look away when the victims are “others.”

 

Our own violent culture is the one which stands to lose the most from this terrible attitude. What is it with us? Are we getting bored? Have we seen too many damn mosque bombings to move us anymore? Is it like, ho-hum, more collateral damage, another suicide bombing, please change the channel to a good Schwarzenegger movie? Is this the kind of coldhearted, narrow-minded, mean-spirited world that American parents want to leave their bereft children alone in someday, a meaningless, terrifying one that hates each other?

 

Perhaps some sense can come from this mosque bombing if Americans and all other nations consecrate the ground of these martyrs by insisting that this be the last bombing, the one which finally turns the violence around, that makes everyone realize that enough is enough. Are we waiting for global thermonuclear war to force us into that decision?

 

It’s time to bind up all nations’ wounds, to care for the widow and the orphan, and to dedicate ourselves to a new birth of freedom from human violence, not just for the people of the Middle East, but for all of us, for all our children, everywhere.

 

The world is not the economic and geopolitical chessboard of some tiny extremist splinter group, with winner-take-all the unfair object of their game. If Americans care about all people, as I know we do, we need to play a different game entirely, one with a golden rule which treats all others everywhere just exactly as we would like to be treated. The object of the game is respect and support for the quality of human life everywhere. 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.com

 

 

 

 

 

A Poem About Women In Black by Eppy

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WHAT WE DO

 

Women in black

Witness violence

Everywhere

In vigils of

Silent solidarity

Mourn all victims

All of us

 

Light candles

For the attacked

Abused abandoned

Tortured murdered

Lift

All who hurt

Within

 

A circle of peace

Illuminating night

Leaving

No one

Not one

Outside alone

In darkness

 

 

Comment: We can’t stop tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, heartaches, disappointments, and death. We can, however, teach and learn peace, and finally put an end to violence, the most preventable cause of human suffering.

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Wallis Practices God’s Politics

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Jim Wallis’ rich and thought-provoking exploration, God’s Politics, will stimulate a generation of dialogue at the intersection of faith, politics, and contemporary culture. Wallis’ mental exuberance and hyperactivity are easily balanced by his brilliance, generosity, and love. God’s Politics is a must-read.

 

Wallis argues that values based in faith must inspire American politics, and that this right was guaranteed by our founders when they separated church and state. Wallis feels that the very survival of America’s social fabric depends upon the emergence of political and cultural leaders having a clear vision of justice, peace, environmental stewardship, family, and consistent-value-of-life ethics grounded in the traditions of acceptance, forgiveness, and love preached by the biblical prophets (including, of course, Jesus.) To Wallis, faith cannot ignore poverty, injustice, war, and other attacks upon humanity, nor mean-spiritedly criminalize or marginalize minority voices and choices, nor turn away from those everywhere made in the image of God.

 

I agree with Wallis that “faith…prefers international community over nationalist religion…” adding my hope that he will consider advocating for respect and support now for the quality of human life everywhere as the highest possible ethical stance (similar to the Catholic doctrine of the value and inviolability of human life.) Acceptance of this stance supersedes patriotism and nationalism, which, however noble, engender polarizing fears that lead to ethnocentrism, hatred, war, injustice, unfriendly competition, and indifference to suffering in other nations.

 

Wallis offers a wonderful example of a compassionate prophetic voice and life which many will be inspired to emulate. As a rallying cry, though, the concept of “prophetic faith” is not quite universal enough to provide a satisfying ethical framework for political discourse in a multicultural democracy, injecting instead a degree of divisiveness into Wallis' otherwise effective argument, rather than the clarity and commonality he intended. Just deciding which and whose prophets to include would assure a fractious, ultimately irresolvable argument. Furthermore, the words “prophetic faith” unnecessarily threaten many non-religious citizens, while even religious citizens disagree as to which prophets are foundational.

 

Also, although clearly Jesus spoke with a prophetic voice, many Christians would be confused and offended if Jesus were even temporarily and merely metaphorically reduced to the status of “prophet.”

 

Does Wallis’ concept of “prophetic faith” embrace the teachings of the wide variety of major/minor prophets from all major/minor world faiths—say, Confucius, Mohammed, “Buddha,” Mao, Marx, the minor biblical prophets, etc? On what basis would he include or exclude prophets?

 

Will Wallis include other, often controversial, modern-day (dead) “prophets”–Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billy Graham, Pope John Paul, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others in the prophetic tradition? If so, whom, and on what basis? What about present-day prophets—all visionary moral leaders fitting Wallis’ definition of “prophet”—such as Jim Wallis himself, Jimmy Carter, Pat Buchanan, Oprah, Jim Carroll, Marianne Williamson, the Dalai Lama, Pope Benedict, George Bush, Gordon Hinckley, Bono, etc?

 

A promising alternative framework for moral political discourse offering a common unifying vision acceptable to all philosophical and religious bases would be “respect and support now for the quality of human life everywhere,” a belief that Americans already embrace, i.e., “all men are created equal.” The rest of the world would jump at the chance to move in this direction along with the U.S.

 

No successful political movement would dare reject patriotism; however, a political movement could successfully promote “respect and support now for the quality of human life everywhere” as “the highest moral value,” leaving to individual discussion the various moral implications of this stance.

 

Wallis‘ argument in favor of choosing a consistent ethic of human life, with its important implications for poverty, injustice, war, violence, etc., fits in perfectly with the above-declared “highest moral value.” His excellent “test” question—“How are the children doing?” also fits well. So too would “Golden Rule Politics” (see other essays on Golden Rule Politics at www.epharmony.com ).

 

Mr. Wallis is the founder of Sojourners, a network of Christians working for justice and peace. He edits the acclaimed Sojourners magazine, is a powerful and popular speaker, the author of seven books, a Harvard lecturer, and the founder of Call to Renewal.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transfixed by Lost in Translation

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Lost in Translation is my (all-time) favorite movie. With so many sad movies about sexual exploitation floating around, it’s a refresher to see two nice, interesting people exchange such powerful, passionate, platonic gifts during a brief, innocent time, without taking advantage of or hurting one another, and leaving one another happier and stronger.

 

Sofia Coppola’s complex, beautiful, diverse sensibilities drench each frame with implications… revelations… perturbations…. Like all perfect movies, this one is rich, deep, lavishly-textured, and gorgeously-layered. Coppola adds not a questionable jot nor extraneous tittle, and leaves out nothing necessary to her narrative or contemplation. She attends masterfully to imagery, editing, framing, character, dialogue, tension, narrative, symbol, improvisation, serendipity…a small sampling of her range of talents, may she live long and prosper in the movie-making business.

 

I lived for a few childhood years in Tokyo during the American post-war occupation, and took away beautiful, evanescent impressions, so perhaps I’m more susceptible to the delights of this movie than your typical movie-goer. Watching Lost in Translation, I'm enchanted both by remembered charms and recent technological innovations, as well as by the awkward Japanese embrace of things western.

 

Lost in Translation is perfectly titled, because Copolla shines her tragicomic vision on the challenges each of us, no matter how talented or well-intentioned, face in communicating, caring, and empathizing across the mile-high/-wide/-deep chasm of human individual differences. Copolla’s laser gaze scintillates not only cultural barriers such as language and custom, but universal obstacles as well—differences in gender, age, social class, lifestyle, goals, values, interests, backgrounds, personalities—and even the molehills and mountains of distance and time.

 

Lost in Translation is hilarious, even more-so for Japanophiles. I’ve seen it many times, and still am cajoled into explosive snorts. Like any great lover, Copolla brings knowledge, appreciation, honesty, and a creative, playful intimacy to the peculiar amusements and benefits of relating to the Japanese. Japanese culture has its many endearing and frustrating quirks, as do all cultures; Copolla chooses to laugh equally good-naturedly and respectfully at eastern and western pecadilloes.

 

I cannot imagine a soundtrack more thoughtfully selected or edited in support of the shifting impressions, emotions, and experiences Coppola develops in each new scene.

 

Bill Murray’s unique talents are all on glorious display, as are Scarlett Johannsen’s equally bounteous ones, which have an umplumbable feel to them. She defiantly withholds an illusive, precious, sensuous little secret—like Garbo’s, like Monroe’s—whose unveiling the world will breathlessly await forever. Casting Johannsen, like casting Gwyneth Paltrow, will elevate any movie. Only great direction can account for the consistent quality of all the other “smaller” performances.

 

The fact that anyone could enjoy this movie on the level of a simple, poignant, romantic comedy should not detract from its value as a multifaceted meditation upon the human challenges inherent in connecting with any “other”—whether in “translating” one’s self to another, or in meaningfully “translating” another’s mysterious mumblings and gestures in our own direction. Far too often, we are left feeling all alone in the world throughout most of our lives, feeling quite “lost in translation.”

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net