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LightHearted Musings - Lasting Peace Can Come Only to Peaceful People
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on November 16th, 2008
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul.
Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind.
Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
–Jawaharlal Nehru
I just finished the book, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization by Nicholson Baker, about the events during the 1930’s and 1940’s that drove us to a Second World War. What a fascinating book! I found this quote by Jawaharlal Nehru specifically so that I could talk about this, as there were very few leaders during that time who had peace on their minds or in their hearts. I invite you to read this with one eye focused on the past and the other focused on our present circumstances, so that we can continue to learn and grow as a world community.
Before I start, I have a word of warning - this one may not feel so much like a lighthearted musing. However, sometimes the best way to get to the light of our lives is through taking a good look into the shadows of our humanity. As long as these stay in the dark, they have the power to influence our thoughts and behaviors in ways we would never consider acceptable in the light of day, and that is what this particular musing is all about.
For instance, I learned that there was a lot of violence and discounting of humanity during the 1920’s and 1930’s, even after enduring a first World War that should have taught them some lessons about peace and compassion, about the futility of brutality. Before WWII, England was particularly cruel in the Middle East, where they didn’t view Muslims as equal in their humanity and would kill farmers and peasants from planes. Churchill certainly thought of Mahatma Gandhi as less than human and wouldn’t even deign to meet with him when he traveled to England. It was assumed that those from the Middle East and India did not have equal rights under the law, and they were treated as unwelcome guests in their own land.
The peace treaty with Germany after the first World War was more of a punishment than a true peace treaty. It created great poverty, restrictions, and desperation in Germany, resulting in their following a madman that promised them a return of their dignity and sense of control.
I found out that only Costa Rica and Australia would accept, in any meaningful numbers, Jews who were fleeing the Nazis. Even Palestine was turning people away (Palestine was an English protectorate), to the point of shooting at their boats when they tried to land. The United States government, and FDR in particular, definitely ignored their plight. They blamed it on the necessity of honoring the U.S. quota system (only 1200 people from that part of the world a year), leaving the others to fend for themselves. Though Eleanor Roosevelt advocated for opening up the quota during this emergency, FDR was noticeably silent on the matter and his silence spoke volumes. In fact, there were a number of times in Roosevelt’s life when he talked about there being too many Jews around.
All the horror stories fell on deaf ears. England even arrested and incarcerated those who were able to escape Germany under the guise that there might be some terrorists in the bunch (sound familiar?). Did you know that Hitler wanted to send the Jews away but when no country would accept them, he came up with the Final Solution? Germany did not own the patent on anti-Semitism, not by a long shot.
Those who advocated for peace were considered naive at first, and then traitors and subversives, and in some cases arrested for treason. That sounds really familiar!
At the beginning of WWII, England fiercely bombed German cities for many months before Germany finally turned around and retaliated on England. The accuracy of these English bombing missions for hitting their military targets was only 1%. The way they decided to get around that was to bomb the middle of the populated areas so that at least they were killing more Germans. The concept of innocent civilians, women and children was a moot and undiscussed point. You might be surprised to find out that Hitler wanted to end the fighting on several occasions and England (particularly Churchill, the consummate warrior) repeatedly refused.
Roosevelt sent both pilots and planes to China so that they could fight the Japanese more effectively many months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Now, I know that Japan was also being brutal in their fight with China, and so I’m not defending them. I’m just pointing out the lack of a clear good guy/bad guy scenario, as we were aggressive toward them before they were aggressive toward us.
I don’t think anyone would defend the actions of Hitler during that time, but I was very disappointed that I couldn’t defend the actions of Churchill or Roosevelt either. I don’t know how they could have dealt differently with such a madman as Hitler, and clearly, Hitler was the main aggressor in this conflagration. What I do know, though, is that all of them share some level of responsibility for both the build-up toward aggression and the carnage that ensued. Both prejudice and indifference were at least a part of all of their make-ups.
If we can see these people for whom they really were - good, bad and indifferent - then that will help all of us to understand ourselves better. I want to know the reality, not the myth of a person. I want to know their light and their shadow, because it is only in seeing the whole picture of a purported hero that we can find our way to the light of our own heroism. Even more, it will help us to more accurately define what we mean by the word hero and what we mean by peace.
After World War I, we had a World War II and then a Korean War, and then a Vietnam War…the list goes on and on up to and including the Iraqi War…precisely because we have not yet found the peaceful state of mind that Nehru talked about. We haven’t even made it a priority. Just one look at our recent fractious election process will highlight that statement. And what strange twists of self-harming consciousness have to be performed to make war seem patriotic and peace seem unpatriotic?
We seem to keep searching for the next great second-class citizen. In our history, Jews, gays, African-Americans and others of African heritage, Chinese, Japanese and others of Asian heritage, Muslims and those of Middle Eastern heritage, Irish, Italians, Germans, French, Russians, Polish, Catholics, Mexicans and those of Latin American heritage, Native Americans, heavy people, disabled people, old people, women, children, atheists, socialists, communists, immigrants, poor people, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, the Green Party, and those without education or a home have all held this perceived low spot for segments of our society who cling to the wish to be at the top of that hierarchy. I’m sure you can think of others to add to this list, and you are probably a member of at least one of these groups yourself. At the very least, we all remember the indignities of childhood and would like to avoid the similar indignities of old age! The moment we start seeing someone different from us as “less than,” as less worthy of the equal human rights we so dearly guard for ourselves, when we stop assuming others’ good intentions simply because of the color of their skin, their gender, their ancestry, their religion, their sexual preference, or their life circumstances, then we are adding to the violence in our world.
At some point, peace has got to become our firm and stated commitment, not the semblance of peace but a true peace in heart, mind and soul, and yes, in our actions and behaviors as well. We look to the heroes of our past to find some of our answers, and then we simply have to step past them, to dream the world anew. As Nathaniel Hawthorne put it, “Let us thank God for having given us such ancestors. And let each successive generation thank Him not less fervently for being one step further from them in the march of ages.”
Dr.Molly
LightHearted Musings - Silent Gratitude Isn’t Much Use to Anyone
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on November 9th, 2008
Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.
–Gladys Browyn Stern
I have a corollary to this one - a silent compliment isn’t much use to anyone either. My mother used to say never to keep a compliment to yourself, to always let others in on your appreciation. That one act of truthful kindness to a friend or stranger may make someone’s day and who knows, could even change their life. And here’s the kicker - many acts of truthful kindness on your part will help you even more than those who receive your gratitude and appreciation.
It doesn’t have to be big. If you like the color of that shirt on them or you were touched by how kindly they spoke to their child - whatever it might be, it’s worth letting the person know. Imagine what would happen to this world if we all freely shared our appreciation of and gratitude with each other.
I was going to write more, but then I stopped and imagined this myself - ‘nuff said! Namaste.
Dr.Molly
LightHearted Musings - I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on October 31st, 2008
I get by with a little help from my friends.
–The Beatles
I woke up this morning with a dream still in my head. I was outside of the house I lived in when I was a teenager, and the police were there to evict me from the house. I looked down the street and saw that just about every other house had a sign in front of it, some saying “For Auction” and others saying “For Sale”. Clearly, the whole neighborhood was going under. I started talking with the police officer, waxing nostalgic about what a great neighborhood it had been, where we had a neighborhood watch and everyone looked out for each other, where no child or elderly person felt alone.
I told him, though, that the fear of loss had pulled the neighborhood apart, and everyone started looking out for themselves. Once we had all done that, the houses fell to the auction block one by one until the whole neighborhood was swallowed up. There I was in my dream, watching my own home being taken away from me, and mourning the loss of the neighborhood more than my house.
When I woke up, it was this Beatle’s lyric that kept ringing over and over in my head, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” What a great line, and one we so clearly need to pay attention to in these perilous times. If we don’t come together as a community of friends, we’re going to go down as a gaggle of individuals. This is true on just about every level of our existence right now, as families, as workmates, as communities, as a nation and as a planet.
One of the many reasons I dearly want Barack Obama to win this election is that I think he gets this Beatles line. When I hear him talk about his opponent, he starts the conversation with how much he respects the man, how he is a war hero who has given great service to his country. Then he calmly discusses how their views are different. Senator Obama talks about how the problems of our country and our world won’t be solved by one party or one country dominating the others, that we all need to come together in community to hash out our differences and find some middle ground.
Senator McCain has spent his time creating divisions, spreading rumor and innuendo to create questions about his opponent’s character. He has fostered an us vs. them mentality that will have ripples long after the election is old news. Though I am a lifelong Democrat, I have liked Senator McCain in the past and have even voted for him on numerous occasions, so I’ve been sorely disappointed to see that he is not the man needed for these times.
Our collective neighborhood needs a lot of shoring up, and we now have a choice. We can be the hero, the villain or the victim in our own life story, and to have the happy ending we want, we have got to both help each other and ask for help from others. We need to show loving kindness, no matter what political party we come from, no matter what our income bracket is, no matter what our skin color is, no matter what language we speak or what country we come from, what religion we espouse or what gender we choose to love, and yes, no matter who becomes our next President. We need to be the men and women whom future generations will marvel at, because we stepped up to the plate of our times and came through it together, as a community of loving souls.
I want my dream to stay right there, in my head where my fears can have a safe outlet. What I want for my reality is so much more. All of you who read this are my community, and with these words, I hope you are feeling the hug of love and fellowship that I am sending you. If you do, then please, pass the love on.
Dr.Molly
LightHearted Musings - It’s the Journey Not the Destination
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on October 26th, 2008
Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.
–Louis L’Amour
I seem to hike differently from other people. Most people I know hike for exercise, going as fast as they can up the mountain and pushing themselves to see how fast they can get to the top. They are usually up there for just a couple of minutes before they are on their way back down. As much as I have tried, I can’t seem to do it that way.
I must admit that when I hike, it feels rude to pass by the plants and not say hello. I realize how strange that might sound to some of you, but what the heck, Louis L’Amour understands me!
I walk slowly and stop to appreciate how the sky looks through the tree branches, how the ants find their way in perfect synchronization with each other, how the flower buds are just starting to open up, how each plant uniquely feels to the touch. I’m exercising too, but instead of working on my muscles, I’m exercising my connection to Mother Earth, my ability to tap into the energies of all that is around us. I’m exercising my deep love for the world, my amazement at the miracles that surround us, my appreciation for the gift of being able to dream my dreams and climb my mountains for yet another day. I’m exercising my love of life. I may not be the first one to the top of that mountain, but oh, what I have seen along the way!
Dr.Molly
LightHearted Musings - Sincere Forgiveness Isn’t Colored with Expectations That the Other Person Apologize or Change
Posted by Dr. Bruce Roberts on October 19th, 2008
Sincere forgiveness isn’t colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don’t worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time - just like it does for you and me.
–Sara Paddison
I learned some very important lessons about forgiveness from my father. My father was a brilliant man. He was an automotive engineer during the day and spent his evenings and nights working on various inventions. Like many men of his generation, his job was to be the breadwinner. It was the woman’s job to take care of the family and deal with all those touchy/feely emotional things. With his preoccupation with work and his inventions he, sadly, missed out on many of the joys of family life and fatherhood.
My dad carried a lot of anger from his childhood, growing up with a bitter and critical mother. His resentments increased as a Jewish soldier in Germany in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and piled up further as he had one patent after another stolen from him by powerful corporations (see the movie “Flash of Genius”), leaving him with severe financial stress, marital stress, and a sense of failure. His interpersonal skills left something to be desired and he was prone to episodes of rage that distanced him further from those who loved him.
My father was overweight, smoked a pipe, and didn’t exercise. He took 20-minute catnaps through the night while working on his inventions and cracked open 5 raw eggs for breakfast before heading off for his day job. He was a walking time bomb, but it was still a shock when, at the young age of 42, he suffered his first heart attack. Fortunately he survived the heart attack and the subsequent triple bypass surgery. This was a relatively new procedure and I marveled at the medical system that could replace a man’s arteries in his heart. The doctors did an excellent job at addressing his physical risk factors, getting him to stop smoking, improve his diet, start exercising and lose some weight, but the emotional and spiritual aspects of his heart attack were never addressed.
He eventually returned to work and redoubled his efforts to make up for lost time. Ten years later, not surprisingly, he suffered a second heart attack. This time, during his heart catheterization, he coded on the table - his heart stopped beating. I’ve always imagined the conversation my dad might have had with God during this near death experience: “You know Sy, you can check out now if you’d like, but there are still some important lessons to learn. If you want to stay, it may not be easy, but you will have another opportunity to learn those lessons you came here to learn.”
Stand clear! ZZAPPP! The doctors brought him back to life! He survived another heart attack and bypass operation only to begin a 15-year downhill course with Alzheimer’s disease! Now why, I asked myself, would someone choose to come back only to suffer such a horrible, debilitating disease such as Alzheimer’s? What was he thinking?!?
Well, first my father lost the ability to organize his thoughts and was unable to work. This was tough on him, for sure, but it prevented him from spending all of his time working and brought him back home. Next he began to lose his memory in retrograde fashion with his most recent memory going first. He would perseverate for several months about someone who had harmed him in some way, or some anger or resentment, and then suddenly that memory would be gone. Then he’d perseverate about his next resentment, and then the next, until he went all the way back to his childhood. I even got to hear (over and over again!) how his mother had humiliated him by making him play violin in front of company when he had only been playing for six months, while his cousin, who had been playing trumpet for 5 years, had just wowed the crowd!
My father eventually reached the point where he could no longer plan for the future or remember the past. All he had was the present moment. At that point in his life, he had nine grandchildren from newborn to age nine. He still had many challenges, to be sure, but the younger grandchildren didn’t know that he was ill. There were precious moments where my father experienced true peace and contentment, holding the babies in his arms, and being fully present in love. It took two heart attacks and Alzheimer’s disease, but perhaps he had finally learned the lesson he had come here to learn!
So, what did I learn from my father’s life? I learned that anger and resentment are poisons that destroy our health and damage our relationships. I learned that it’s best not to wait for an apology that may never come. I learned that we must find forgiveness in our hearts, not for the sake of the other person, but for our own sake. I learned that our physical and emotional symptoms are messages showing us where our lives are out of balance and that the universe is conspiring in our favor to teach us the lessons we have come here to learn. “Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.”
The biggest lesson that I learned from my father, however, is that all we really ever have is the present moment. Nothing else is real. Most of us spend precious little time in the present moment. We are either worrying about the future or perseverating about the past. It is only in the present that we are fully alive to experience true joy and passion. It is only in the present that our hearts are fully open to giving and receiving love. Let us vow not to waste another moment holding onto old grudges and petty resentments. Let us make a sacred commitment to appreciate each and every precious moment of our lives and be fully present in love!
Dr. Bruce
LightHearted Musings - Forgiveness is an Attribute of the Strong
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on October 13th, 2008
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
–Mahatma Gandhi
I love everything Mahatma Gandhi has ever said! Just reading his words creates an internal shift for me, where I feel myself getting calmer, more loving and more peaceful, as if I am standing in his presence somehow. What a powerful force for love and peace, and yes, strength too, to have that kind of an effect 60 years after his death. His comments on forgiveness bring to mind some of the difficulty in describing what we really mean by forgiveness.
I was recently at a conference on death and dying, giving a talk on how to help couples and families deal with cancer and other life crisis. I was fortunate enough to sit in on a number of other sessions, and in one, we talked in depth about the concept of forgiveness. The discussion was animated as we tried to figure out exactly what we meant by forgiving someone. We realized that forgiveness is a complicated term and that it was important to be clear on what we all wanted to convey.
When you forgive someone, there is the potential to create a power differential between yourself and the person you are forgiving. An example was of one woman who told her abusive mother that she forgave her for being such a terrible parent and then felt good when her mother was hurt by this statement. Forgiveness of this kind may give you power over them and put them in a weakened position, but is it really forgiveness if it is still playing power politics? If the goal is to let go of the psychic energy around an event, that “power to forgive” still seems like a trap capable of keeping you sucked in.
In addition, forgiving someone might be construed as an acceptance of unacceptable behavior. Nobody in the room felt this was the intention. You may be able to forgive a sexual predator from your past, but you would not condone or tolerate them doing this to someone else. When boundaries have been crossed, forgiving someone shouldn’t mean that further boundary violations are OK.
It seemed that forgiveness had more to do with finding internal and external peace with the person and the hurtful memory than simply letting the person off the hook. We decided that the true goal of forgiving someone was to free up the energy you have been using to be angry about the past in order to make it available to help you bring love, peace and joy into your present.
In Gandhi’s quote above, he wasn’t advocating simply bucking up and forgetting about the bad times. Instead, he was discussing the strength needed to tap into the deeper nature of letting it go. For Gandhi, forgiveness comes from finding the strength to embrace both your humanity and your sacredness and then to discover those dichotomies in those who have hurt you. Understanding, accepting, and even embracing these two aspects of our nature is one of the most difficult and important tasks of our earthly existence and well worth the effort and strength needed to live it.
Dr.Molly
LightHearted Musings - The Eye in Your Heart
Posted by Dr. Bruce Roberts on October 6th, 2008
You got to look at things with the eye in your heart, not with the eye in your head.
- Lame Deer, Medicine Man of the Oglala people
It was probably what attracted me to her the most - her ability to see with the eye in her heart. Molly has a unique gift of seeing right to the depths of your soul, and she saw right into mine. She saw past my flaws and insecurities. She saw who I really was - who I was meant to be. If she had seen me only through the eye in her head, I’m sure she would have left skid marks!
I envied her gift of being able to see with the eye in her heart. I coveted her ability to connect with spirit and trust her intuition. Whenever I was unsure I would turn to Molly and ask, “What does spirit have to say about this?” At first she would respond graciously. Gradually she became more reluctant, and eventually she began to pull away. Slowly, and unwittingly, I was sucking her dry!
You see, I didn’t trust my own intuition. I didn’t trust the eye in my heart. So much of my life and my training as a physician was geared toward developing the eye in my head that I forgot that there was another way to see. I was a Cyclops who didn’t realize that my second eye lie dormant deep in the echo chambers of my heart.
I was attracted to Molly, in part, because I thought she possessed something I didn’t have. It took me several years, and perhaps the most stressful year of our marriage, to realize that Molly was simply a mirror reflecting those shadow aspects of myself that remained hidden and undeveloped. I needed to stop looking to Molly for the answers and to nurture and develop those parts within myself in order to become whole. It was only through my own inner work that I was able to become an equal partner and co-creator in the most incredible relationship I could ever imagine.
Often our greatest gifts lie hidden in our shadows. The truth is, we cannot be attracted to something in someone else unless we possess the seed of that characteristic within ourselves. The eye in my heart was there the whole time. I simply had to learn how to open it.
It is time for all of us to open our eyes and see the world as it really is. Yes, we live in a material world. And yes, from a certain perspective, we are all separate beings. But this is a myopic view of the world and, quite frankly, has gotten us into quite a pickle!
We are so much more than we can see with the eye in our head. When we learn to open the eye in our heart, we begin to see all the beauty and grandeur that surrounds us. We begin to appreciate the incredibly intricate web of spirit that connects us to each other, to the plants, to the animals, and to Gaia, our Mother Earth. With both of our eyes wide open we can begin to heal ourselves, our relationships, and our planet.
It is never too late to open our eyes to who we really are!
Dr. Bruce
LightHearted Musings - The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 29th, 2008
The only thing to fear is fear itself.
–Franklin Delano Roosevelt
This is a quote that has been roiling around in my head ever since the recent financial crisis started. Maybe it’s because of our politicians’ continual references to the Great Depression. Maybe it’s because it is one of those lines that I would really like to be true but know is not for many people. Homelessness, unemployment, poverty, ill health, death, even fear of lost dreams or missed opportunities are top on people’s minds at the moment, and for some, these are very real possibilities in their lives. For others, this has become their present reality. There is a lot more than fear to fear right now.
So what do we do with this statement, that the only thing to fear is fear itself? Do we scrap it or do we try to pull out those parts that resonate, those parts that have made this such an enduring phrase? I’d like to take a stab at the latter.
The first thing to comment on is how simply inefficient fear is since it doesn’t fix the problem or even avoid it. If it could help you to be proactive and move forward toward your goals, then that’s one thing, but more often, fear paralyzes. It’s like the deer in the headlights that waits for the car to come and run it over. One of my favorite quotes from my own dark days after a broken neck was coincidentally from Roosevelt’s compatriot, Winston Churchill, ”If you are going through hell, keep going!” That is hard to do when fear is cementing your feet to the floor, cutting off your options for escape simply by narrowing your focus and wallowing you in despair.
Dr. Bruce and I regularly teach people a simple technique for loosening that cement. First, close your eyes and take a few good, deep breaths. Then, think about a time in your life when you felt completely loved, completely happy, when all was right with the world, even if the feeling was just a moment in time. Imagine yourself back in that moment and let yourself bask in that feeling for a bit, holding your hand to your heart while you do so. Now, with that image still in your mind’s eye, bring into your heart the problem you are currently dealing with, be it a situation, a person - whatever it might be. Allow both the problem and the love to sit side by side in your heart and then ask your heart if there is any other way to handle the situation or person that you are dealing with. Your heart will give you the answers that you are seeking, and you may be surprised by the great wisdom that comes from within you. Your heart has been patiently waiting for you to seek its guidance - tap in and see what it has to say to you.
One of the advantages of staying in your heart during troubled times is that it gives you access to your own wisdom. It opens up the box of possible solutions and leaves you free to be creative and innovative. It helps you to find your balance, to think quickly and clearly, and to find solutions that are in integrity with your highest values, all of which cannot happen when you are coming from a place of fear.
Acting from fear often brings with it a backlash of recriminations and anger because it stems from a feeling of disempowerment. People do desperate things when they are drowning, even to the point of pulling down and drowning the one person who had come to rescue them. Some in our society have used fear-mongering for their own purposes, as a method of controlling our thoughts and actions. As a country, fear has gotten us into wars, it has put us into financial peril, it has divided our nation, and it has created many more enemies for us to fear around the world. We are now paying dearly for this - the fear has fed on itself and multiplied.
On the other hand, acting from a place of love is inherently a statement of empowerment. Love creates win-win situations and actions that you can feel good about later. It creates alliances, friendships, cooperation, healing, and yes, even opportunities. Love feeds on itself and multiplies as well.
I have sometimes been accused of being too optimistic, of always looking on the bright side of things, but it is important to comment on that assumption. I have had more than my fair share of troubles and challenges in life, and I know full well what loss feels like. I do see what’s going on out there right now. We have financial turmoil, war, anger, and greed. I know the challenges that are coming up for me and my family in the next few years, and I know that other people I care about will be affected as well. My choice of love over fear is not a case of my sticking my head in the sand.
Instead, I see it as the most pragmatic and efficient reaction to the situation that I can have, much more useful and powerful than fear could ever be. I simply don’t have the time for fear. There is too much work to be done if we are to find solutions out of this mess. In this time of limited resources, I can’t afford to waste my limited energy on something that won’t yield positive results. We as a community hold the solutions to our problems in our collective heart, and what we most need right now is to take a moment, tap in and ask love to impart its wisdom. Maybe the line ought to read, “The only thing that works is love itself.”
Dr.Molly
LightHearted Musings - We Belong to Each Other
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 19th, 2008
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
–Mother Teresa
When I was younger, I really thought I wasn’t going to live past the age of 30, and I am amazed at how many others of my age had the same thought. You have to wonder what that kind of impending doom does to the human psyche.
I and others like me were convinced that we would all be blown up in a nuclear storm long before we would have a chance to grow old and die peacefully in our beds. This was during the 60’s and 70’s, when we were full force into our Cold War with the Soviet Union, when we were told that this “Evil Empire” on the other side of the world was just itching to blow us off the face of the planet. We were told that we were the good guys and they were the bad ones, that they couldn’t be trusted, had no morals or conscience, and wanted only war and destruction.
There was much talk of impending nuclear war and of our leaders having their fingers on the trigger of worldwide destruction. We saw what a nuclear blast did to cities and people in those famous newsreels, we saw movies depicting people who went crazy and set off a nuclear ping pong match that nobody could possibly win, we heard in great detail what a nuclear winter would be like, we saw the news where the latest conflict was splashed all over the headlines whipping up fear, we heard the concern in our parents voices when they discussed these issues – our impending death was clearly right around the corner. And I always knew, even as a young child, that our “Duck and Cover” nuclear blast drills at school wouldn’t save anyone. How is a cafeteria table going to guard me from a radioactive blast? Might as well face it head on and get the dying over with quickly. Those were my 10-year-old thoughts, and 10-year-olds all over the country were right there with me on the firing line.
Well go figure, here I still am, now well into the second half of my 40’s, still intact and free of radioactive contaminants. The dreaded “Big Bang” didn’t happen, I grew up, got well past 30 (!), fell in love, got married, had children, and now our first child has just gone off to college. All my body parts are intact and my kids have no idea what “Duck and Cover” might refer to.
We are now friends with the Russians, and (who knew!) we found that they were just like us, with all the same fears, stresses, joys, loves, and hopes that we have. Sure, there are some bad guys in the bunch, but we have some of those ourselves. The majority of them are good, kind, decent, loving people who want peace and harmony in their lives. They had been hearing the same demonizing words about us, and to them, we were the “Evil Empire.” All it took was for us to talk with them for a while to find out how much we have in common.
Now I hear some of the same talk about the newest in a long line of bad guys, those in the
I see us all as more similar than different on so many levels. As a physician, I know that 99.4% of our DNA is the same in every human being on this planet. I see that we all come from a common ancestral line and as such, we are all brothers and sisters in our humanity. We are a family, dysfunctional though we may be at times, but one worth working on to find more peace in our interactions. Just like family, we are all connected, and our countries can’t harm one another without harming themselves in the process. The same goes for us individually, something that is important to consider the next time you want to yell at your spouse or cut someone off in traffic.
On an emotional level, our needs for safety, physical comfort, love, fellowship, fulfillment, and understanding are common to all. So said the old woman in
On a more cosmic level, I see us all as children of God, all with that spark of the Divine within us. It is that Divine essence that unites us, makes us all One in a far deeper sense than those words can adequately convey. We are all connected to each other and we all have our parts to play in this great collective World that we share. Violence toward one person on this planet energetically creates a ripple effect that harms everyone else. Harming another because they are different is just as irrational as if I cut off my arm simply because it was different from my leg. This recognition of our divine unity is what we need to tap into in order to honor and cherish each other and bring peace to our world.
So much of our collective time over the past millennia has been spent in figuring out how we are different and then attacking that difference in others. It has been the basis of all our wars and conflict. I wonder how much better our world and our future would be if we all just stopped with the demonizing, with the “us vs. them” mentality, with the thought that those “others” couldn’t possibly be like us. I am so dearly ready to hang up the concept of “Evil Empire.” I am so ready to focus on what we all have in common and to highlight our similarities instead of our differences. I am so ready for my children and my children’s children to assume that they will grow old and die peacefully in their beds. I am so, so ready for a more peaceful world.
If you have been overwhelmed by the events of the world, then consider bringing these words into your heart and letting them roll around in there for a while. I know I am not alone in this peaceful wish, and if you are a compatriot in these personal and cosmic hopes and dreams, then please share your thoughts here.
LightHearted Musings - History is a Vast Early Warning System
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 12th, 2008
History is a vast early warning system
-Norman Cousins
Don’t you just love this quote? I do, partly because I’m a history buff (history nut I sometimes say). I think that every Presidential candidate should be a history nut as well. If they were, we would avoid tremendous amounts of pain, war and anguish.
Our ancestors are our greatest teachers, not because they were more brilliant or more noble. In fact, they were no different from you or me, making decisions to the best of their ability and not knowing what impact their decisions would have on the future. They are our teachers simply because they have already blazed the trails of both success and failure. We waste so much of our time reinventing the wheel when all we need to do is turn around to see that wheel already made and waiting for us to make use of it.
There are very few problems in this life that haven’t already happened in some similar form in the past. I will stand by this statement even with the tremendous technological advances that we are all living through because most of our contemporary problems are still mainly related to how well we get along with each other. This is an area with some of our greatest failures, but ironically, it’s also the area where we most shine. We could save ourselves a lot of time and heartache by studying the successes and failures of those who have come before us in order to learn how to “do life well.”
No matter how well we do with this challenge, we will most certainly be our children’s teachers. We are all quite literally the future’s ancestors. So what do you want your own legacy to be?
