Tag Archives: resistance

America the Blind … and the Beautiful

Posted on by
Reply

I recently tried to explain to a friend why I often stand up with our local Women In Black in their silent vigils of mourning, witness, and solidarity with victims of violence everywhere.

 

“What violence have you ever experienced?” she asked me, a little accusingly.

 

“Well, before I was born, my father fought in World War II, and…”

 

“War isn’t violence!”

 

Probably my friend was finding it as difficult to articulate her honest beliefs as I was. Hers might go something like this: “America isn’t a violent culture like so many others. We’re a caring and peaceful people minding our own business, and when we fight a distant war, we’re only trying to cleanly wipe out violent individuals elsewhere who would hurt us and others, terrorists who would otherwise bring violence to our peaceful and porous borders. I’m upset that you would protest war, itself, as unwelcome violence, when our brave soldiers are risking their lives to protect us from a war that someone else started. Why aren’t you protesting their violence, and leaving our poor soldiers alone?”

 

How do I explain myself to privileged Americans like my friend, who, from her comfortable, insulated perch, is persuaded that the violence spreading across the globe is neither America’s fault nor its problem, and that finding a peaceful solution isn’t America’s responsibility?

 

And how can I begin to share with my friend and others of like mind, the conclusions that I’ve drawn from a lifetime of study, not only of daily news reporting, but also of the broad field of American history and politics—far beyond the local schoolboard-censored, pride-building high school American History textbook summaries of patriotism we are all encouraged to swallow so unskeptically during our innocent, vulnerable years—often the only history many Americans ever study.

 

I, too, rapturously memorized all the glorious civics-textbook paeans to our truly admirable national ideals and values, during my childhood years on military bases as a “service brat” daughter of a highly-decorated war hero and career officer—and I still hold to all of them, with all my heart.

 

But I’ve also read, in addition, many carefully-documented public records of another long, sad, and well-repressed history of American exploitation, aggression, and injustice, which only recently (thanks to the internet) has become more widely acknowledged—tragic stories of the greatest nation on earth, built upon, not only our many positive qualities and deeds, but also upon military might, invasion, occupation, political oppression, colonialism, tyranny, torture, murder, and all the complex economics of greed.

 

And we’re still at it….

 

And we need to stop. For life on earth itself is at stake.

 

When the twin towers fell, all of America cried out in confusion, “Why do they hate us?”

 

To this day, too few Americans understand why so many around the world resent the beloved storybook America of their childhood experience. Gradually, though, many citizens are coming to a new awareness that our unparalleled economic and military might has as often been used for evil as for good.

 

Americans have wasted a lot of time and lives wallowing in well-intentioned ignorance. We’ve been lied to by politicians and presidents, historians and international tycoons, many of whom themselves were similarly duped. And if we have been too ready to believe them, we can now as willingly move forward, sadder and wiser, to make fewer mistakes.

 

If God expected Americans—or citizens of any nation—to be infallible, he would have made us all that way. The American nation is certainly not alone in having a mixed history. Every other nation, and all other peoples, are equally susceptible to harmful policies and propaganda by the many who would profit from political and religious distortions. The same god, however, who reserved vengeance for himself alone also sent his son to teach of his infinite love and forgiveness. Perhaps people learn best from mistakes; God in his wisdom apparently has decided to let us all make as many as we need to make, in order to learn what we need to know.

 

No solutions to our many current problems can be found in blame, retaliation, or attack. The peoples of our brave new interconnected earth will only move forward together when offered clear moral leadership, strong examples of international unity and forgiveness, and powerful visions of a peaceful future in which people everywhere are free to seek happiness and avoid suffering.

 

We will never overcome ignorance, injustice, or guilt by adding to their sum, just as war can never conquer war, and hatred always increases hatred. Only the light of non-violent cooperation can put out the darkness hidden in so many corners of the world.

 

Senate Bill # 1756 proposes a new cabinet-level Department of Peace, which will help us achieve our highest American ideals. Tell your friends and colleagues about this bill, and call and write your Congresspersons….

 

We can become the world’s greatest exporter, not of war, weapons, and tragedy, but instead, of peace, justice, and the true American way, a way that treats all others as we would wish to be treated, the way of the golden rule, offering acceptance and support for the quality of human life everywhere.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Condoleezza Rice Says Global Harmony Is Not the Business of Government

Posted on by
Reply

At a recent press conference in Great Britain, Condoleezza Rice stuttered uncharacteristically when she was asked about a possible joint commission (of England, Ireland, and Australia) to promote global harmony. Ms. Rice responded that global harmony was not the business of government, but rather, a matter of concern for private citizens.

 

I always thought that the primary business of any state department worth its salt in the twenty-first century was global harmony. Certainly a “secure, democratic, and prosperous world” as pledged by the current U.S. Department of State’s mission statement, implies global harmony. Surely the highly-specialized, expensive training of our immense diplomatic corps specifically prepares them for careers of building and maintaining strong, positive foreign relationships.

 

Considering the many conflicts that daily arise around the globe, promotion of global harmony ought to be someone’s job, someone who is well-staffed, well-budgeted, and high profile, like Rice. I cannot be the only taxpayer disappointed to find out that, despite all that money we spend on the Department of State, no one in government is currently in charge of pursuing global harmony.

 

Perhaps Rice thinks the State Department is in the nineteenth-century diplomatic business of exclusively looking out for only our own nation’s interests, a childishly narrow, anachronistic, and frankly impossible goal that it is time to put away. Unfortunately, Rice still seems determined to strategically split up the world into enemies and allies, and to go about flexing and flaunting America’s fast-waning military muscle to unkindly wheel and deal in patronage, espionage, economic dominance, and power struggles.

 

Which is too bad, since, as Albert Einstein once observed, “A country cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war.” With Rice and others in our current administration busy preparing for war, who is left to prepare for peace?

 

Rice’s tough-cop, saber-rattling approach to throwing around what little unsquandered moral weight we have left can never promote a peaceful, productive America. The only long-term diplomatic relationship that has ever worked successfully has been one established along the lines of the golden rule—in which all diplomats offer one another the kind of justice which they would wish to be offered, themselves. Unfortunately, although Rice is a smart woman who can surely see no advantage to staying stuck in the past, the golden rule is not in her current play- or style-book. We await her transformation.

 

Our current aggressive diplomatic approaches are grounded in old thinking—in fear, selfishness, and greed, which produce nothing but immensely costly blowback in the long term, and anything but peace and prosperity for American citizens. A golden-rule approach to millennial American politics and diplomacy would be far more effective, and far less costly in every sense.

 

Passing the bill currently in Congress establishing a cabinet-level Department of Peace (Senate Bill #1756) will do much to support all cabinet departments in rethinking their roles in terms of global harmony—which is very much the business of government, and of all taxpaying citizens—perhaps even our most important business.

 

 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

A Poem About Women In Black by Eppy

Posted on by
Reply

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 .

 

 

 

 

 

Another Holocaust?

Posted on by
Reply

When Hitler painted all Jews everywhere with his hate-filled brush, many people were caught up in his scary “logic,” and the result was a Holocaust. Today’s Jews should be the group least susceptible to the rampant prejudice that is currently damning all of Islam with sweeping fear-based generalizations. The lesson of the Holocaust for all of us is never again should anyone buy into paranoia and bigotry concerning a whole people, culture, religion, ethnicity, or lifestyle.

 

Yet, here we go again.

 

If you don’t like some Muslims (or Jews or Chinese or Hutus …) well, that’s human. But if you hate and fear most (Muslims) because you think they’re all pretty much the same, that’s ignorance and prejudice.

 

It’s simply not true that most Muslims are quarrelsome, narrow-minded, blood-thirsty fanatics out to dominate the world. Yet I have recently heard that repugnant argument for war from Jews and Christians alike.

 

Of course we’re all frightened, Muslims too. But violent extremists are found in every culture. America had its own bloody civil war, not to mention lynchings, attacks on civil rights marchers and labor unions, gang wars, office and schoolyard shootings, rapes, widespread child and domestic abuse, crime, and murder. We have our own home-grown steady supply of trigger-happy nutcases, D.C. snipers, Unabombers, and Oklahoma terrorists, all continually egged on into fear and violence by faithless media demagogues and opportunistic politicians, in just the same way that Hitler once terrified the German citizenry into insanity.

 

FDR gently reminded us that the only thing we have to fear is: fear, itself. During this difficult time, may we have cool heads, loving hearts, open minds, and an abiding faith in the golden rule, so that we may respect and support all of God’s beloved children, everywhere.

 

Jim Wallis Practices God’s Politics

Posted on by
Reply

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Depends On If You’re Our Good Guys Or Their Bad Guys

Posted on by
Reply

It’s called “terrorism” when they bomb people for political reasons, and “democracy” when we do.

 

They’re madmen when they blow themselves up with cheap explosives to achieve strategic goals, and we're patriots when we do the same thing with expensive long-range missiles.

 

They’re crazy because they kill women and children. We could never do that, ever. Unless it was really necessary, for a just cause, and our patriotic duty. And then, we’d feel really bad about it. They wouldn’t.

 

They’re dangerous monsters who must be disarmed and sanctioned when they protect their way of life from foreign invaders. We’re freedom fighters when we’re invading and occupying foreign lands, imposing our ways upon people accustomed to completely different traditions, and “controlling distribution” of their valuable resources.

 

They have crazy religious ideas about jihad and martyrdom, imagining God might approve their sacrifices. We, on the other hand, are pure-and-simple onward-Christian-soldier-crusaders, marching with God on our side and the cross of freedom going on before, whatever that means.

 

They are violent maniacs who reject foreigners threatening their families and the lands of their ancestors. We would never act so uncivilized if foreigners invaded our country. Would we.

 

We respect all ethnicities, traditions, and religions. Except the really weird ones with all the strange gods, traditions, practices, foods, languages, doctrines, clothing, rituals, laws, customs, and beliefs. Like theirs.

 

Their whacked-out culture, with husbands veiling wives and home-schooling daughters, is definitely messed-up. There’s nothing wrong, however, with our own culture’s rates of divorce, sexual and spousal abuse, abortion, teen pregnancy, prostitution, rape, pornography, incarceration, school violence, unwed-motherhood, alcoholism, and drug and nicotine addiction.

 

They’re nuts, killing their own people. We could never do that. Except for when we kill Rebels…. And Yankees…. And attack civil rights marchers…. And lynch suspicious Negroes…. And murder homosexuals…. And shoot at race and draft rioters and college protesters…. And knife rival gang members…. And terrorize labor union strikers…. And blow away schoolmates…. And abuse prisoners…. And wives…. And children…. And gun down and burn anti-government survivalists and fundamentalists…. And take the lives of convicted murderers…. And then there’s the Unabomber’s victims…. And Timothy McVeigh’s…. And Lizzie Borden’s…. And all the murderers and serial killers….

 

Nevertheless, our stirring history, beliefs, institutions, rights, freedoms, way of life, political traditions, economic system, and patriotic and religious customs are still well-worth killing and dying for. Theirs aren’t.

 

They ought to keep their people unarmed and passive, and never acquire nuclear weapons. We, on the other hand, have to have nuclear weapons, so we can be the world’s unelected policeman. As the world’s only superpower, we're obviously the most vulnerable country, so we have to arm ourselves like terminators, unilaterally start up pre-emptive wars, invade, occupy, shoot up foreign countrysides and cities and villages, interfere with sovereign nations’ internal and political affairs, drop nuclear bombs on civilian populations, disrupt livelihoods and lives, kill innocents, and stockpile enough armaments to kill all life on earth many times over.

 

Although their teensy little country may feel justifiably threatened by our historical aggressions, they certainly don’t need to have “the bomb.” That would be overkill, and dangerous for us, as well. We, on the other hand, need thousands of nuclear weapons, since we are an envied and feared international target. Only an immense arsenal of nuclear weapons can properly back up our huge armies, navies, and air forces, not to mention our defense budget, larger than those of all the nations of the world combined.

 

The lives of children are infinitely precious and of unlimited sacred value to us. Unless of course they’re someone else’s children. Or they happen to live in a poor country, or in a country at war with our country. We also believe fervently in family values, and supporting families. With, of course, the above exceptions.

 

Our enviable five-hundred-year-old culture certainly has nothing to learn from their primitive five-thousand-year-old one.

 

Our ways and traditions and institutions are unquestionably superior to any other country’s. Anyone could tell that, just by looking at our nation’s fabulous prosperity. It’s true we built our success upon genocide of the native Americans who were here first, and then upon the bloody backs of millions of imported African slaves. Not to mention exploitation of the richest swath of virgin land and untapped resources the world has ever known. But none of that really had anything to do with why we’re such a great country—it’s our perfect political and economic systems that are infallible. Everyone should be like us.

 

So please, try harder to see everything our way. Because, frankly, we’re bigger.

 

And don’t worry. Trust us. ‘Cause we’re the good guys.

 

Even though, just for the moment, I can’t quite remember why.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

A Generic, All-Purpose Letter, Ready To Send Out To Your Political Representatives

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Sir (or Madam):

 

The America I see around me is no longer recognizable. Our political and governmental systems are unresponsive to the needs of U.S. citizens, and unrepresentative of their views. Government at all levels seems powerless to resolve present or future challenges. America is increasingly feared, despised, and distrusted around the world.

 

In hopes of clarifying and simplifying your job, I’m asking you to work and vote in the following ways, whenever possible:

 

Against secrecy;

 

Against greed;

 

Against polarization, whether between individuals, organizations, governments, or nations;

 

Against fear as expressed in anger, pain, hatred, war, violence, vengeance, despair, and cynicism;

 

Against blaming anyone, including yourself;

 

For acceptance, support, and respect for the quality of human life everywhere;

 

For social and economic justice for individuals and families;

 

For environmental stewardship;

 

For the strong promotion of positive values and healthy lifestyles and attitudes, especially via school programs and the public airwaves;

 

For easing the day-to-day burdens of working people;

 

For embracing the changes and technologies necessary to make our government once again responsive, representative, wise, and capable;

 

For generously alleviating suffering, in the present and future;

 

For treating every person in every nation as we would wish to be treated;

 

Please give special consideration, in each decision, whenever possible, to its impact upon all children and all small localities, everywhere.

 

Thank you very much for your well-intentioned and devoted service.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

A Concerned Citizen

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Media (of the People, by the People) for the People

Posted on by
Reply

I just watched an old movie popular in the thirties—the William Powell/Myrna Loy version of Dashiel Hammett’s The Thin Man, which later became a television series starring Peter Lawford. My mom and dad often mentioned how entranced they once were by this movie and its follow-ons, how they idealized these suave young couples. They also often talked about Kate Hepburn and Bing Crosby in their respective versions of The Philadelphia Story and High Society.

 

Watching these old movies today, I am once again astonished at the power of the media to impact culture. Rightly or wrongly, these movies glamourized and legitimized—no, actually promoted—social choices considered quite extreme at the time (divorce, choosing a spouse without regard for family opinion, frequent at-home and social drinking of alcohol, associations with people from different classes and values systems, smoking….) 

 

They influenced many young moderns (my parents among them) to eagerly embrace their advocated lifestyles, for better or for worse. I know that my parents found the courage to take such counter-cultural steps from the illusory weight and seeming solidity of the airy fantasies presented in these and similar movies, although I also know that both of them had been well-inculcated from very early on with every reasonable argument against such decisions. Their children (me included) were further influenced by their defensive insistence on the reasonableness and superiority of their choices.

 

How much more are today’s young people influenced by their day-long forced feeding of heavily-marketed television (both programming and commercials,) music, books, games, magazines, movies, consumer goods, etc? The only thing that surprises me at all anymore is that we still recognize our children as “ours,” considering they live in a completely “other” world than ours, a brave new world of tomorrow which, as Kahlil Gibran said, “we cannot visit, not even in our dreams.”

 

All Americans profit when our children grow up in strong families to be good, responsible adults. And we all suffer—and pay—when our youth make poor choices. Nevertheless, we let our public airwaves run amok in their promotion of unhealthy attitudes and lifestyles, while we barely scratch the surface of their potential to promote wise choices.

 

On one sad level, Americans today are relegated to living in the land of the free-to-make-a-buck and the home of the brave-but-stupid, which is too bad, because I don’t remember voting for any such peculiarly modern-American mantra.

 

When we-the-people finally get around to taking our politics and government(s) back out of the hands of big money, I’m confident we’ll find excellent ways to tap into using all the public airwaves for the common good.

 

The Iranian movie industry, currently severely constrained by their reigning theocracy to produce only non-violent, non-sexual movies, has responded with a lovely array of internationally recognized award-winning values- and family-based films which are  poignant, gripping, and thought-provoking. Someday, a responsive and representative government of, by, and for the American people will surely find ways to preserve our most-cherished freedoms, while supporting visionary media output that promotes the great diversity of healthful and positive values, lifestyles, and choices.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Wanted: New Leadership, New Vision, New Courage

Posted on by
Reply

I believe that our future safety and political freedoms will largely depend upon Americans recognizing, hopefully sooner rather than later, that our traditional approaches to national defense usually don't work very well. They alone cannot keep us safe from terrorism or global thermonuclear war. Furthermore, I am convinced that adversarial strategies may actually provoke attacks on our country and our planet. Sadly, the actual effect of pursuing these aggressive counter-terrorism strategies is to increase the likelihood that our worst nightmares will become realities.

The next big terrorist attack on the United States will determine the direction of our political future. As 9/11 demonstrated, Americans will support leaders who offer them reassuring security plans without demanding to know if they really are effective, reliable, cost-effective, or violate our democratic traditions.

To my mind, rubber-stamping endless homeland defense expenditures primarily insures only an illusion of security, since our “homeland” is very difficult to defend from all possible attacks. Likewise, sending our young adults off to fight un-winnable pre-emptive wars is morally unconscionable and fiscally reckless. Creating unwieldy spy bureaucracies oftentimes undermines the very freedoms such actions are meant to save. Focusing media attention on the weaknesses of our perceived enemies, and rattling our sabers self-righteously in their direction, only heightens dangerous tensions. None of these strategies will keep us safe in the long run, and none can truly solve the problems of the 21st century.

What we need to acknowledge is that there is no sure-fire way to provide safety for any single nation, or group of nations, no way to guarantee peace for only U.S. citizens and their allies. There are no constructive pathways to safety if protection is withheld from some–or any–group or nation on this unpredictable globe.

So what's the answer? Only a universally inclusive path of international cooperation and non-violence can offer any long-term safety to one and all. Before the next terrorist attack, we must embrace the ancient wisdom inherent in all religions–that violence engenders only more violence, that war creates new problems without solving old ones, and that hatred begets more hate.

People everywhere want to live their lives in liberty, and to pursue their individual and collective dreams uninterrupted by violence. The only path to the very peace we all want is a path we must all walk together; the path to peace is the path of peace. There is no way to peace; peace is the way. If we want peace and safety, we must teach it, live it, and offer it to all, just as if we lived in a world where everyone is thought of as “next-door-neighbors.”

The night before his death, Martin Luther King Jr., said, “The choice is no longer between violence and non-violence. It's non-violence–or nonexistence.” The world can learn peaceful ways without facing the devastation of terrorist attacks or nuclear annihilation. We can open our minds and hearts now to the practical promise of non-violence, before greater tragedies befall our world. Non-violence has come of age; it is an idea whose time has finally come.

Which path to safety will we choose during our next elections? Will we choose a police state or a peace state? Will we choose a violent, power-based path, or the path of non-violence–Jesus' path, Gandhi's path, Martin Luther King Jr.'s path–the gentle path of all those around the world who are now peacefully resisting tyrants? Either way we will be vulnerable, and will suffer some injustice; however, we need never add to the sum of injustice.

In the past, we elected many representatives based on the old politics of fear and aggression. During our next election, we hopefully can turn away from demagogues who pander to our worst fears, turning instead to leaders who show us peaceful pathways to greater global safety.

Nothing matters more than that our new leaders embrace the universal, timeless, and essential spiritual values of faith, hope, and love….

Here are a few practical suggestions for applying the principles of non-violence in our response to terrorism. We can build new peace initiatives within our Defense Department. We can develop a volunteer force of unarmed citizens to monitor violent conflicts at home and abroad. We can establish a U.S. Peace Academy, equivalent in honor, distinction, and service to our proud military academies. We can found a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to influence policy, conflict resolution, and decision-making at the highest international levels, as well as in our home towns. We can apply cutting-edge peace research to the transformation of our combative diplomatic, justice, welfare, and education systems.

Why do these things? Because I believe that:

Only faithful leaders trust in God's redemptive love for every one of earth's children, and in international dialogue and peaceful cooperative efforts, disavowing the politics of exclusion, polarization, and dehumanization;

Only hopeful leaders join with like-minded light-bearers of other nations, stand with them, work with them, and lift all nations and peoples up, leaving no one behind, and;

Only loving leaders forgive, and let go of the past–and past blame–accepting, supporting, and respecting human life everywhere, instead.

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

The Weather Changes But We Don't

Posted on by
Reply

My father's delightful response to thunder-and-lightning storms and big windstorms was to pour himself a drink, pull a chair up to the window, and watch all the excitement of nature's beautiful fury! My mom always told me to look for the good and beautiful in weather, because you can't do anything about it anyway, so why let it spoil your day?

My husband (a runner) responds to the wind and cold and snow and ice (which used to keep me indoors on such days) by dressing properly so he's never cold; he's taught me how to run every day and not be cold either. (I draw the line at biking below 50 degrees, however!) 

Having lived in Texas for many years, I resist sameness in weather; I want different weather every day, which is what I get living in Maryland. The weather in Wisconsin, Texas, and even San Diego and Hawaii wasn't varied enough for my picky tastes, but many people love those places…. Give me four distinct seasons! Even the kinds of snowy, windy, rainy, warm, cloudy…days in Maryland are each different.

People who don't like to sweat, or who don't sweat often, usually have a hard time with warm temperatures, whether inside or out. A good cure for broadening one's comfort range in temperatures is to exercise/sweat often; sweating gets your cooling system working more effectively.

I see rain as pennies from heaven…..

I'm slowly learning to accept that people's reactions to weather are learned pretty early, and are hard to change, like deep-seated childhood fears, and try to remember that many people are ill, and “bad” weather makes their life that much more burdensome. My goal is to reprogram myself to enjoy all weather and temperatures as much as possible…. 

I hope this comic strip reinforces how important perspective is. We can see the good or the bad–because our minds will put whichever one we tell them to, “out there.” That different people enjoy and dislike so many different things about weather is proof of the importance of attitude….  Weather is one of those “what is” things we can't control, so it seems a waste of time and energy to expend negative energy on it. Good and bad weather is much more about how we are than about what the weather is…. I hope everyone enjoys today's beautiful snow!

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net