Children - The Number One Threat to National Security

"Its use (Passive Resistance*), therefore, is, I think, indisputable, and it is a force which, if it became universal, would revolutionize social ideals and do away with despotisms and the ever-growing militarism under which the nations of the West are groaning and are being almost crushed to death, and which fairly promises to overwhelm even the nations of the East." -'Theory and Practice of Passive Resistance,' Indian Opinion, Golden Number, 1 Dec. 1914 (from The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi edited by Raghavan Iyer)

 As I watch my country try to balance it's budget by slashing money for children, the poor, and the sick, and I hear almost no voices talking about reducing the number of soldiers, guns, bombs, and weapons of mass destruction, I can only hang my head in shame.  The richest nation in the world can keep enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, can develop the most high-tech weaponry for the slaughter of other human beings, can fight three wars, but won't take care of it's own neglected, abused, and orphaned children.

And the irony is, that even if they cut every dollar for every child in this country, we would still have a massive debt because of the money we spend on military weapons to abuse, orphan, or kill other people's children.

Apparently the politicians in this country consider children to be the biggest threat to our nation's security.

This is not higher mathematics.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to figure this stuff out.

The truth is that the politicians in this country are liars and we want to be lied to.  If we didn't want that, we would stop voting for these people.  And it's not one party or the other.  Both parties are in this together.

The Policy of the United States of America:  Neglect, Abuse, Orphan, and Kill Children - ours, other peoples, doesn't matter.

Neglect, Abuse, Orphan, and Kill Children.

*Gandhi explained earlier in the quoted article that the term 'Passive Resistance' was really a misnomer for what he called satyagraha, Truth-Force and what Tolstoy called Soul-Force or Love-Force.

Prayer vs. Protest

"The cry for peace will be a cry in the wilderness, so long as the spirit of non-violence does not dominate millions of men and women." - 'Non-Violence -- The Greatest Force,' The Hindu, 8 Nov. 1926  (from The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi edit by Raghavan Iyer)

In past weeks, the United States saw large protests from teachers, government workers, and concerned Americans about workers rights to organize and bargain and the slashing of government budgets leading to massive lay-offs of government workers.  I participated in one of these protests in my state, Texas, in support of teachers in Wisconsin.

I left this protests, and most of the protests I have ever participated in, feeling empty and sad.  I know that I am not the only one who left feeling this way.  I spoke to friends who were there.  I don't think this is how people should feel when they leave an event like this.  There should be energy and excitement.  There should be community and hope.

When I read the above essay, I began to understand why I feel this way. 

The tactics of non-violence, have become widespread in this country.  The spirit of non-violence abides in almost no one.

I have read a number of Dr. Martin Luther King's speeches.  I have read John Lewis' book "Walking with the Wind."  I have read many more books about non-violence, and yet, I forget that non-violence is not a set of techniques for getting what I want.  It is a way of life.  A way of being.  It is heart and soul and not hand, foot, and tongue.

Prayer is more important than protest.

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

"True humility means most strenuous and constant endeavour entirely directed towards the service of humanity." - Letter to Narandas Gandhi (G.), MMU/I, October 7, 1930

I don't know how to respond to the images on TV of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  I can give money and I may, and every little bit helps, but I want to be on the ground helping rebuild and that is not possible.

My duties are here with my family and my foster daughters and the struggles in my community to keep the government assisting minorities and the poor.

But these duties seem so mundane.

I dream of taking food and water to the people who's lives have been devastated by natural disaster.  I fantasize about being on the front lines of the nonviolent protests in the Middle East.  I want to help the children in Africa or India who have no food or clean water or shelter.

But this is not what God has called me to do.  God has given me a wife who writes grants for non-profit organizations to help the poor and minorities.  God has given me teenage girls who's parents have abandoned them.  God has given me a state government, Texas, USA, that is at the bottom in the way it takes care of its children.

And when I remember that I am not a superhero in tights and a cape, what God has called me to do seems very important.

I pray for the people of Japan.

Smarter than a Fifth Grader

"Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit but at the crucial moment it fails us.  Faith transcends reason.  It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue."  Interview with Dr. John Mott, Young India, 21 Mar. 1929

Exactly which ape is closest to us evolutionarily is a question I am not well educated enough to answer, but that some ape is our evolutionary ancestor, I accept.  Since I decided to believe in a higher power many, many years ago, I decided I wasn't going to believe in a God that played tricks, ergo, fossils are what they appear to be, evidence of life on this planet that is billions of years old, and evolution is the best theory for how humans got here.  For me, it doesn't diminish the miracle of human life, but enhances it.

I believe we are descended from the apes.  How smart is the average chimpanzee?

If apes are our nearest evolutionary ancestors, how bright can we be?  'Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit,'  and, for me anyway, that limit is a very, very short leash.  I'm like a dog chained to a tree.  Too often, I run around and around the tree shortening what little leash I have and then stand there howling and barking because I can't figure out how to unwrap myself.

I have struggled for years to fix my worst character defects.  Plotting, planning, fighting, conniving, tricking myself into trying to do what I think is right and important, and the results have been utter failure.

When I let go and let God, my life changes for the better.

I can't.
God can.
I think I'll let God.

Maladjusted

"...there are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted... It may be that the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted."            Dr. Martin Luther King

 The temptation to anger about...our political system, the environment, the economy, the starving millions, the way we treat animals, the war...the list is endless, leads generally to only to one of two things.  Violence - lashing out at the perceived institution responsible for the injustice, and make no mistake, these are injustices. O inertia, apathy, at the size and number of things that need to be fixed in this world.


Most of us choose apathy.


Oh, we recycle or become vegetarians or vote or use energy-saving light bulbs or stop wearing fur, small gestures that soothe our conscience, but have little effect on our actual ways of living.  

Don't get me wrong - these things are better than nothing.


But...How many of us are willing to stop driving?  How many of us are willing to stop paying taxes?  Hell, how many of us are willing to stop voting Democratic or Republican and look for an alternative to these two sad sacks.


I am not maladjusted.  I drive.  I pay my taxes.  I eat meat.  I have stopped voting for either of the two parties, but I put no money or time into the effort to make a third party viable.


I want to be maladjusted.

Collateral Damage

"We should understand that the less violence a religion permits, the more is the truth it contained in it."  The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Raghavan Iyer, p 103

Translations of the Bible vary on what exactly is meant by the Sixth Commandment.  Many scholars say that the intent was not "thou shall not kill," but rather, "thou shall not murder."  The difference makes killing in self-defense or defense of kingdom or kin acceptable.

Faced with the choice of killing or being killed, I don't know how I would react.  If someone attacked my wife or daughters, I would defend them.  I would like to think that if a neighbor was attacked I would go to their aid.  But what of a total stranger?

And what kind of aid would I provide?  What kind of defense would I put up?  I don't own a gun, but their is a baseball bat next to my bed and on more than one occasion when a noise has waked me in the night, I have taken it with me when I investigated.

And then there is the whole question of the food I eat?  Is it murder to eat a steak for dinner?  I know that I didn't kill the cow, but the cow died for my sins.  I'm trying to reduce the meat I eat, but I'm not vegetarian yet.

But what if the commandment really is "thou shall not kill?"  I don't see any 'if, ands, or buts' in that statement.

My money supports the killing of thousands in far away lands.  People who intend no harm to me, my kin, and my country .  Women and children caught in the crossfire.  I am responsible for their deaths.  Directly responsible.

Lucky Man

"(Modern Civilization's) greatest achievements are the invention of the most terrible weapons of destruction, the awful growth of anarchism, the frightful disputes between capital and labour and the wanton and diabolical cruelty inflicted on innocent, dumb, living animals in the name of science..."  The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Raghavan Iyer, p. 83

I am a lucky man.  I don't have to think about these things if I don't want to.  I can indulge myself with wonderful food, mass entertainment, and tons of stuff to make my life easier, softer.

And I do.

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"Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross"

This morning I read the first half of the Introduction to "The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi" edited by Raghavan Iyer.  I read the book many years ago and have referred to it many times since.

In the first paragraph, Mr. Iyer writes about one of Gandhi's ideals of political philosophy, sarvodaya (universal uplift or the uplift of all), "treat all possessions as if they were sacred and priceless."  Then I look at my messy desk, a clutter of papers, books, computer hardware, photos, and precious mementos.  Some of it is sacred and priceless.  Too much of it is bookkeeping, or simple accumulation due to laziness or fear that I might dispose of something that I will later 'need.'

"It is only through daily moral choices and the meritorious and sagacious employment of limited resources in the social sphere that individuals sustain their inherited and acquired entitlements.  For this very reason, the divisive and dangerous notion of exclusive ownership is systematically misleading and, at worst, a specious and subtle form of violence."

"Daily moral choices" - I'm not good at this.  It sounds like hard work.  I guess that's why the Jacob's Ladder is crowded with angels climbing up and down - to help me with the choices.

"He (Gandhi) translated his painful insights into daily acts of tapas - self-chosen spiritual exercises and the repeated renewal of lifelong meditation in the midst of his fervent social activity."

Does this mean that every scrap of paper is a moral choice?  Every television show I watch?  Every web site I visit?  Every choice is a moral choice.

I have a long way to go.

Duck & Cover

In 1962, I was in the 2nd grade in south Denver, Colorado.  We started having Air Raid Drills during school.  (Much later in life a I put together the facts.  Cuban Missile Crisis and a big mountain in southern Colorado that housed NORAD.)  The drills scared me.  I dreamed of tiny planes dropping black bombs on my school.  The Cold War was in full swing.

Somewhere during my early teens, I started thinking about atomic bombs.  We had thousands.  The Soviets had thousands.  It seemed clear to me that if you exploded that many hydrogen bombs on the surface of the planet that it would probably destroy the atmosphere.  Nuclear Winter became a popular concept some years later.

And when had we as a species not used a weapon in a war.  And when had there not been another war.

I didn't think I would live to 30.  If the balloon went up, I intended to sit on the roof of my house and watch the incoming missiles.

In 1977, my wife was pregnant and I was a college drop out with no marketable skills.  I joined the Air Force.  They made me an F-4E Crew Chief.  My name was spray painted on the left side of the front cockpit.  I followed my "aerospace vehicle" to Germany for an exercise.  In a concrete revetment, on the final day of the exercise.  We loaded a live nuclear bomb on my plane.  We'd loaded lots of dummies during exercises in the states, but here in Germany, a man with a gun guarded us at all times.  I started the engines and taxied my plane out of the bunker and saluted the pilots and prepared for the end of the world.

A month later I was baptized.  I believed we as a species needed a miracle to survive.  I only knew one place to look for a miracle.

In the early '90's, I became involved with a bunch of Episcopal Radicals.  They talked about non-violence.  I didn't know what that meant, so I started reading.  Being a small "f" fundamentalist, I went back to Gandhi.

I've lost my way over the intervening years.  I'm going back to Gandhi.

Join me.