Dealing with it all

I have written and rejected several posts over the past few days.  The shooting in Connecticut has been deeply troubling to me, and I wanted to respond soon after, but found myself unable to make a coherent statement.  So I suppose that I should just remind you to pray, or ponder, or meditate on the lives of everyone deeply affected by this event.  In fact, having read this far, I would ask to to pause briefly and collect your thoughts.
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To date, I have put the prospect for peace in a neat package, with the optimistic, yet I feel sound, belief that we are evolving to a peaceful world.  I can rationalize this belief by pointing to the better governance of nations, the growing access to simple human rights, and, assuming that we are good custodians of the planet, better access to resources.  The process is easy to grasp, but hard to bring about.  That's OK, it is good to have a purpose in life.

I had thought a great deal about what happens when we start to get a handle on the horrendous conflagrations, protracted civil wars to attain dignity to the downtrodden, and all manner of large scale conflict.  Although we have a great mountain to move in that regard, there is still work to be done.  Sadly, we cannot build the bigger peace all the while ignoring our own communities and families.  As I have  said before, peacemaking starts at the personal level and wells up from there.  As we advance civilization beyond wars we will not have a truer sense of peace until we can address the community tragedies that mat be as horrific as in Newtown, Connecticut, or the scourge of domestic abuse, or the violence common among the marginalized in our society.

Yet, if we hold to th principles of a larger world peace,and apply them to our communities, we will see less violence on streets, in schools and in families.  To be sure, we will never eliminate the tragedy of mental illness, or the occasional violent consequences; we probably cannot truly eliminate a social stratification scheme that pushes vulnerable people to the margins, and compels them to lash out; we cannot make every home idyllic.  But we can take determined steps to approach peace for everyone.

There is much more wrong with our stewardship of our communities than manifested itself in the Newton killings.  But if I may, I will address some of the things that might be done which will allow us to avoid some similar events in the future:

• Prioritize mental health - The news reports are awash with our broken mental health infrastructure.  This infrastucture must be rebuilt and cared for.  We also need to care more for one another, and reach out to the lonely, the sad, the bullied, and the poor.  Remember, I said it begins with us as individuals.
• Work for gun control - It's no secret that there is a large segment of society that opposes any gun control.  Often, I find the rhetoric and political tactics of those who would reject all limits of gun ownership as distasteful and dishonest.  Reasonable control of devices designed to kill should be the responsibility of any society.
• Be active - Let your elected representatives at all levels of government know that there is a public safety responibility that they bear, and that we are willing to work with them if they will lead us in building communities which apply common sense laws and reach out to those most at risk as victims of violence, including those driven to cause violence through irrational or desparate means.

Peace to you all.  Please accept my Christmas blessings whether you share in my belief or not.  If you remain troubled, as I do, about this tragic killing, know that you will also see great joy again.

Talking to Iran

I’m going to try to finish my thought on US-Iran prospects for peace tonight.  It’s a good time to reflect, as everyone in the US is preoccupied with domestic budgetary issues (the so-called fiscal cliff), and the Gaza crisis has cooled off.  Sadly, the day following his world premiere into international diplomacy, Egypt’s President Morsi decided he wanted to be the new Nasser, and gave himself extraordinary powers.  I still admire his role is stopping the killing, but what is wrong with Egyptian leadership? 

The new Gaza crisis underscores the fragility of the region, and Iran’s role in making it that way.  But here’s the problem.  If you want to tie all that stuff to talks with Iran, or if Iran does, talks will bog down and stop.  We should be prepared to try to discuss the US-Iran relationship irrespective of Israel, the Palestinians, Hamas, Syria, Iraq, and all of that  We can tell Iran that if they want to discuss regional strategic policy with us, we first need to develop a two way understanding.

Both sides have work to do.  From the US side, we need to acknowledge that we have done a great deal to thwart Iranian national goals, as the primary underwriter of the Shah, and developing the concept of revolutionary Iran as an enemy of the US, using rhetoric like ‘Axis of Evil’ to describe them (well with a couple of other state entities we had issues with).  After thirty years of rule by the Islamic Republic, we should tell them that it is not on our agenda to overturn the Republic, regardless of serious disagreements.

Iran needs to respond in kind, recognizing that we are a nation with a pluralistic culture, part of which embraces Islam among a vast number of other ideas.  We are neither immoral nor amoral.  We need assurances of whatever type they can honestly reply, that they are not going to disrupt the status quo through violent means.

If this beginning feels too ethereal, please understand the amount of hatred which has been hurled both ways.  This basic discussion is to stop the poisonous atmosphere, so that we can lay a groundwork for peace.

With such prerequisite understandings achieved, we need to appeal to Iran over the benefits of non-proliferation.  We need to discuss this with humility as the super-power with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and we need to acknowledge that as a result we are forced into a terrible responsibility to never again use them in aggression.  If we were to hear Ayatollah Khamenai speak to this moral trap of nuclear weapon possession, then we begin to unwrap the distrust.

In the short term, these talks do little.  If they get Iran to adhere to UN resolutions on enrichment, we can start to unwind the sanctions, and stop discussing ‘red lines’.  Even if we don’t achieve that much, we have the basis for a relationship that isn’t based on mutual hatred.  Let the hawks laugh at this as a ‘soft’ approach, but I cannot imagine a path forward from ‘hard-liners’ in any countries achieving better results.

Peace to all of you.

Hope

Today I’m going to take a break from the troubles of today’s world and dwell on an important topic:  Hope

Of all of the higher thought processes we are endowed with, the idea of hope is unique, and perhaps is one of the most important concepts that cause humanity to stand separate from the rest of the known universe.

Hope is a highly evolved concept, because it is purely forward looking.  Before we can have a sense of hope, we need to imagine different futures, and make discernment over the best outcomes.  It is also my observation that when people make outward proclamations of hope, they tend to be heavily weighed toward what we would universally describe as good; a good in the moral sense that also seems to be uniting in raising humanity.

Hope and Peace are inseparable.  The state of our global community is not a state of Peace, though thankfully, most people in the world enjoy a modicum of peace in their personal lives.  When we look ahead to the lives of our children, we discuss their futures in terms of our hopes for them.  Invariably, people invoke peace as a hope for their children and grandchildren.  This is true in the relative safety of Massachusetts, where I live and write from, as it is in Gaza, Sudan, Syria or anyplace else where one would think that Hope would be hard to come by.

Hope makes us ambitious.  It is Hope that informs us that Peace is so much more than safety from violence, but a sense of security, fairness, access to basic needs and rights, and the desire to perpetuate that deeper understanding of Peace.

Hope grows.  It springs from a passing wish of how things could be, and germinates into a belief of how things should be.  Beyond that it becomes inspiration, where we make that transformation from how things should be to how things will be.  Several months ago, I stated that I believe humanity is on a long road toward true Peace.  Whether, as I believe, a divine guidance leads us there, or if you prefer, the natural ascendancy of mankind makes it inevitable, you can draw the same conclusion. 

Informed, perhaps, by my assertion of eventual peace, it is a wellspring for Hope, that we may see it begin during our lives.  If we are destined to wander in the desert of War for our lifetimes, perhaps we will be graced in our final days by a glimpse of that promise on the far side of the river, comforted that it is the inheritance of our children, who will pass over into a world of Peace.