Tag Archives: Jesus

If We Don’t Welcome Immigrants Like Cho Sun-Kyung, Randa Samaha, Reema Samaha, Omar Samaha, and Cho Seung-Hui…??!!

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Once upon a time, two admirable immigrant families, the Chos and the Samahas, came to live in the same Virginia town. Their different versions of the American Dream story both ended tragically on the same day, when they each lost a child to fear, in the massacre at Virginia Tech.

 

Both families were truly remarkable. The Chos came to America with little money, managing through hard work and long hours to start their own successful business and buy a comfortable townhome; they sent their two children through college—one even went to Princeton.

 

Like the Chos, the Samahas also made the most of their opportunities, raising three remarkable children all of America now hastens to proudly claim as their own.

 

Both families made the difficult choice to leave their familiar traditions and lifestyles and the comfortable, similar faces of family and friends, for the chance to improve their children’s opportunities in a new country where they hoped to overcome suspicion and prejudice, to make friends, and somehow to find a way to feel at home.

 

When the Cho and Samaha children began attending public schools in Centreville, they doubtless met with two very different kinds of reactions. A small number of new classmates no doubt greeted them warmly and innocently, delighted to have a new playmate. The majority, however—especially as they grew older—greeted them with strained politeness at best, and too often, with suspicion, prejudice, fear, and cruelty, having learned from their parents and peers to avoid or outright reject the poor or “different.”

 

Some immigrant children (like Sun, Randa, Reema, and Omar) are able somehow to find the courage and resilience to take in stride others’ ignorance and fear, enduring such narrow-mindedness without taking it personally, persevering, smiling, reaching out. Some lucky immigrant children are born beautiful, or have pleasant, outgoing personalities. Some have understanding parents who give them time and support. Eventually, many immigrant children win over at least a few of their classmates, no doubt gaining confidence and character in the process, yet paying an enormous psychic price for their pioneering role in the slow and painful peer-to-peer lesson: “I am not your enemy.”

 

Unusually shy and insecure children, on the other hand, particularly those with “different” skin color, features, or speech, or children who are small, awkward, or unattractive, find adjustment doubly difficult, and quickly become targets of teasing and bullying. With unfriendly treatment too difficult to bear, they retreat inside themselves behind high defensive walls which guarantee permanence to their newfound pariah status, becoming impenetrable self-fulfilling little prophets of their own alienation.

 

Sadly, the parents of such quiet, introverted children don't always know how mean many American schoolchildren (themselves saddled with their own troubling sets of social and emotional vulnerabilities) can be to all but a select slice of privileged, popular students (with their own sets of pressures and fears) who nevertheless fit rather more tidily within America’s narrow, TV-driven, consumerist standards of youthful social acceptability. Many immigrant parents, like the rest of us, feel simply too overworked to be sympathetic listeners, too overwhelmed by their own challenges, too confused about their own difficult social adjustments, too sad about their own losses, too powerless to help even their own beloved children. Instead, they often tragically ratchet up the pressures on their most vulnerable and fastest-failing offspring.

 

Sometimes the friendliness and support of even a single individual makes all the difference to a sensitive immigrant. Too often, though, such support is simply not enough to compensate for the many rude, exclusive, indifferent reactions…and worse.

 

Evidently young Seung-Hui Cho was already insecure early in life because of a developmental speech problem. Undoubtedly, he received a number of friendly overtures which he soon learned to strongly reject.

 

With a chance for a do-over of Cho’s life, we’d stock his schools with structured programs especially intended for minorities, immigrants, the differently-abled, and other struggling children—strong programs every bit as financially well-supported as the many programs currently supporting our most-able students, such as sports, music, and drama programs, and other mostly-top-quartile clubs. Perhaps within such a supportive program, Cho would have found relevant and sufficient friendship. With at least one friend, maybe two, or even three, maybe a small group to hang out with when times were tough, maybe he would have come out all right. And maybe not. It’s hard to imagine not having a single friend, though.

 

We’ll never know, and neither will the thirty-two Virginia Tech classmates who will remain nameless and faceless at least to him, because he murdered them in the cold blood of a youth who had no friends, who came to believe that he was all alone, feared and hated, unlovable and incapable of loving, an unwanted “alien” in his family’s chosen promised land.

 

What we can know for sure is that we Americans–immigrants all, unless we’re Native Americans–along with the citizens of most other northern countries, will be happier and safer both as individuals and as nations when we finally come to accept the inevitability of today’s south-to-north global migrations (from starvation, terror, oppression, war…) as a fact of life–while supporting population control; and when we finally decide together how best to welcome and assimilate all the precious already-living human beings fortunate enough to arrive on our shores legally, as well as the many desperate, equally sanctified souls bravely arriving any way they can in hopes of finding the merest sustenance—or an American Dream—for their families.

 

Why do we comfortable Americans daydream about acquiring cultural breadth through travel, and yet overlook our many everyday opportunities to get to know our neighbors from afar, who always appreciate christian-spirited friendliness? Instead, we must learn to treat all others as we would wish to be treated, were we the sad wayfarers, wandering in a new land.

 

Every spiritual leader of every world religion and philosophic tradition has condemned those inhospitable to strangers, and has blessed those offering merciful welcomes. In Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus says: “’Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me…. As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’”

 

 

 

 

Please write your comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net. Thank you 🙂 !

 

 

 

 

 

The World Needs Healing Now, and So Do We

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The world needs healing. We feel divided from ourselves, from the world, and from God.
 
Yet our own personal healing can only begin when we choose to heal others first; that’s just the way healing works. The magic that happens when we forgive others is the very thing that helps us forget and move on.
 
Minimally, people are irritating. (This includes us!) Many will break our hearts, or even kill us. Yet, when we look at each person and each situation more gently, when we let go of our resentments, give others slack, let up on others' human mistakes, however grievous, we begin to notice that we’re not so hard on ourselves anymore either.
 
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”
 
Why would Jesus say this?
 
He was teaching us how to heal one another and ourselves.
 
So where in the world do we start, in this business of easing up on others, and ultimately, ourselves?
 
We can begin by forgiving everyone else’s indifference to our own lost hopes, dreams, loves, and opportunities, our deepest sorrows and regrets. When we do, our own apathy and indifference to the plight and suffering of others everywhere will begin to dissipate.
 
We can stop fretting about the stupid or terrible ways others obliviously act out their fears of loss, death, suffering, disappointment, humiliation, deprivation, cruelty, and loss of control—and find ourselves bravely facing and addressing our own fears.
 
We can overlook the foolishness people go through to hide behind their masks and walls—and find ourselves extending our hands and hearts outside our own comfort zones.
 
We can stop criticizing the selfishness that tears apart families and nations and our small blue planet, ruining millions of lives—and let go of our own failures of compassion, giving freely instead, as we have received.
 
We can let go of others’ self-absorbed rudeness and anxiety (born of the belief that life-is-tough-and-then-you-die)—and find ourselves peacefully within safe, loving circles of unity and oneness.
 
We can stop being indignant because others think they know, they’re right, they’re sure about how things should work, and how everyone should live—and become secure in our own attitudes of acceptance and humility.
 
We can stop disapproving of others’ mistake-ridden beliefs, traditions, politics, and cultures—and transform our own fallible and all-too-human personal belief systems and institutions.
 
We can forgive all who frighten, hate, and angrily misuse us—and forget our own fear, hatred, anger, and abuse.
 
We can pardon the world its smallness, ignorance, and prejudice—and find within ourselves the loving power of the whole universe.
 
We can absolve all who have killed or maimed our loved ones in the names of mysterious causes—and free ourselves from our own confused complicity in others’ pain.
 
We can respect others’ blind loyalties to tribe, nation, race, ideology, religion, class, gender—and embrace our commonalities: one Life, one Love, one Self, one Source.
 
We can bear with others’ grave and/or foolish past and future mistakes—and live joyously together in the present.
 
We can let pass others’ weak faith—and grow closer in our shared search for understanding and peace.
 
We can empathize with others for seeming so far from God and man—and heal our own sense of separation.
 
We can stop blaming leaders for their many failures, and start speaking out, lifting up, taking risks, and failing and succeeding responsibly, publicly, courageously.
 
We can release others’ guilt for mistreating us—and drop our own defenses, treating others as we wish to be treated.
 
We can stop hating God for messing up our lives and mis-creating the world—and start listening for His guiding Voice, and recognizing His bountiful, diverse Creation, perfect exactly as it is.
 
We can forgive the world, reclaim our ideals and our love, and move on to heal the world as we have been healed.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Today’s Muslims: More “christian” Than Christians?

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People everywhere, many Americans included, have begun to think of Muslims as more “christian” than many Christians—in the traditional sense of “christian spirits” that are loving, forgiving, pious, selfless, gentle, kind, and peaceful in their attitudes toward other human beings.
 
While most Americans still aspire to such qualities, we are today viewed globally as both culturally and politically rather more mean-spirited than christian-spirited. Many foreigners now see Americans as greedy and materialistic, and think of America as an arrogant young nation that tries to tell others how to live, that foolishly and hurtfully pushes its culture, economics and politics onto unwilling others.
 
If Osama bin Laden had wanted to increase world awareness of past and present American support for regime changes, friendly tyrannies, and repression of democratic movements around the world, he succeeded brilliantly, even though few Americans are even aware of these sad and distinctly un-“christian” exploitations in support of American corporate interests.
 
And if Osama bin Laden had wanted to stir up empathy for Islam, he could hardly have dreamed up anything more brilliant than our current bloody military adventuring in the Middle East. Ignoring all expertise, we’ve turned a criminal, political, social and economic problem—terrorism—into a military one, barging willy-nilly into a very un-christian war against peaceful people who never threatened us.
 
But Osama’s biggest bang for his comparatively small, if immensely tragic, PR. buck was sending our reading public—most of whom previously couldn’t find Iraq or even Israel on a map—scrambling for best-sellers about Islam. Because, sometime during the last five years, Americans finally noticed that Muslim cultures, although very different from ours, are, in fact, very “christian” in ways we greatly admire—along with having many unique shortcomings, like every culture.
 
For example, many Americans are motivated by their christian spirits to protect women’s rights to equality—to enter any profession, to be educated, to be equal citizens—but they are also sadly free to become drunks, addicts, prostitutes, rape victims, divorcees and unwed mothers. Muslims’ “christian spirits” motivate them to overprotect their wives and children, with the many drawbacks that come with that approach. Future christian-spirited dialogue and exchange between our two cultures will bring us all closer to understanding and agreement about our common, universal, “christian”—if not exclusively “Christian”—values, all those which offer respect and support to all human life everywhere.
 
The single sad silver lining behind bin Laden’s blood-and-publicity-soaked attack was to open western eyes and hearts to Islam. We have finally seen enough Muslims to look past the angry, despairing extremists, past the unfamiliar turbans, suspicious scarves and rough accents, to see clearly the many kind human faces and wise human hearts of gentle fathers, bright mothers, laughing daughters and fierce sons—who are, after all, not really so different from our own.
 
For the first time, Americans are experiencing the christian spirits of this exotic and unfamiliar culture which devoutly prays many times daily, is devoted to family, and which, just like Christians, exhorts its children at home, mosque and school to acts of goodness, kindness, generosity, and peace.
 
When we choose to see them through christian-spirited eyes, we’ll see a gentle people who have suffered greatly during a century of relentless violence from outsiders, simply because oil was discovered on the land of their ancestors, who yet still reach out hospitably to all who come, not as occupiers and invaders, but as peaceful, respectful visitors and citizens.
 
Most Muslims, like most Christians, have “christian” spirits, wanting to raise families in a compassionate culture which nurtures universal values. Yet most Americans today agree that, somewhere along the way, America has lost many of her ‘christian’ ways.
 
Certainly we’re coming off very poorly in our latest war. Our national leadership has acquired a well-deserved international reputation as far-from-christian-spirited religious extremists, unschooled in diplomacy and too quick on the draw.
 
I am not an expert on Islam; I keep up with the news and have a lifelong interest in all world religions and philosophies. But I do know that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, one which accepts Jesus as a great prophet, along with all his teachings.
 
I have closely observed my Muslim neighbors, and know them by what we used to call their “christian witness”—that is, by the way they live their lives. As a group, Muslims are pious, kind, neighborly, civic-minded, charitable and scholarly. Islam, as practiced by its most thoughtful and faithful practitioners, embraces the high ecumenical values espoused in Jesus’ teachings, particularly those about universal brotherhood, peace, charity, service, forgiveness, and love of God.
 
Yet, right after the towers fell, Christian extremists, perhaps fearing their congregations would be pulled away by curiosity about Islam, forgot to exhort their flocks to christian-spirited unity with their global brothers, and instead chose to preach sermon after mean, frightening, televangelical sermon demonizing Muslims as violent, cruel, scheming, and anti-Christian.
 
Muslims everywhere were dismayed and frightened by such un-christian televised messages, not to mention the rude insistence of multinational corporations to hawk materialist values and profitably push distinctly un-christian habits and lifestyles to anyone anywhere anytime.
 
Neither God nor Jesus nor any prophet, philosopher or saint cares which faith you pray to them from, nor what names you call them by, nor what form your prayers take; but they do care that all their many pleading and peaceful messages of acceptance, compassion, and reconciliation are spread everywhere to unify and bring peace to a frightened, suffering world.
 
On C-Span, CNN, and other media, Americans have heard the sad voices of Muslims in war-torn countries pleading to be left in peace, along with the voices of articulate and caring Muslim leaders sharing their concerns and patiently explaining their unfamiliar approaches. Many of us have also enjoyed the brilliant, award-winning family-values films and books streaming out of Iran and other Muslim countries.
 
We have also been terrified by American demagogues that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon and use it against Israelis or Americans. Yet, just as worrisome to many, is the terrifying possibility that our own malleable President, egged on by powerful, trigger-happy sidekicks, will use our own vast American nuclear arsenal to initiate a very un-christian WWIII.
 
Muslims and Christians alike want most to live their lives in peace, in accordance with their beliefs and values. We want our children to grow up in warm, safe communities, in homes and schools that support—or at least, do not undermine—our heartfelt beliefs and values. Muslims and Christians alike think it unreasonable to be under continual attack from commercial and media corporations who use our freedoms and our public airwaves to hammer away at our cherished values.
 
Muslim immigrants come to America for the same reasons all immigrants have ever come: for the freedoms and benefits of good government which serves and supports the quality of all the human life which God created equal on this fragile blue planet.
 
We all want a justice system which respects and serves all people equally, quickly, and affordably. We all want fairly-elected, familiar local public servants who spend our hard-earned tax money on our youngest and neediest citizens, on convenient, quality health care for all, on retraining workers, on offering quality public services and infrastructure, on supporting emerging technologies and creating competitive economic opportunities within a thriving economy offering living wages. We all want well-disciplined, high-tech educational environments and opportunities that offer all children a real chance in life.
 
Instead, Americans seem stuck with a bloated and increasingly indebted federal government which cuts local services to pay for its steady stream of immoral foreign wars, which only line the pockets of corporate war profiteers, while bankrupting average Americans and compromising our children's futures.
 
Instead of offering good local government, where small local militias are well-trained in non-violent conflict resolution and stand ready to assist local communities during emergencies—floods, hurricanes, epidemics, invasions—we have instead a vast, far-flung military machine enforcing hegemonic American corporate interests wherever in the world they see an opportunity to make a fast, if un-christian, buck.
 
Soon—although not soon enough for the hundreds of thousands of dead, disabled, and desperate Muslims and Christians we have harmed—America will retreat from its current un-christian aggressions, will expensively buy peace in Israel and reconciliation in Iraq, and will stand aside while Muslims shake off their dictators and sort out their own political destinies, whether violently or in a more christian spirit, as would better suit all our mutual interests and befit the highest values of all our various religious and cultural traditions.
 
When their oilfields have been carved up among them, may our charitable American christian spirits uphold their right to spend their oil money creating opportunities for their hungry youth, while we refrain from using our own vast stores of nuclear weapons during this most-dangerous era of unaccustomed American humility, as we wait in line politely for Middle Eastern oil like any other paying customer.
 
Hopefully, we will all—Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, and atheist alike—support only leaders demonstrating christian lives and spirits—whether or not they are Christians—leaders who advocate politics which reflect the universally cherished golden rule of treating all others as we ourselves would want to be treated.
 
May Christians and all other Americans join with all people everywhere in making christian-minded personal choices, and may we all support only political representatives having peaceful christian hearts, words, actions and lives—regardless of whether they be Christian, Jew, Atheist, Muslim, Hindu, or any other.
 
 
Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

War Is (Unnecessary) (Wasteful) (Pointless) Hell

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

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

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

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

Please write your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So how does the Bible know?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grizzlies? Yes. Very real. Very scary.

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

Angels? Hmmmm, again. 

Bad angels? Hmmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that was where we were going to live?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

Thank you!

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

And the bigger the bully, the harder he falls.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Can’t Have One and Have the Other

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My military family moved a lot, so I went to eight different schools before college. One early casualty of our peripatetic lifestyle was my comfort level with girls, who were sometimes threatened by my abrupt and probably pushy arrival (military brats learn to make new friends quickly, or spend a lot of time alone.) It took me too long to learn how not to barge into new social situations, and how not to upset everyone’s apple carts.

 

Today I admire and enjoy many women, but I’ve had to work to overcome feeling timid around them, remembering too vividly many times during my youth when girls were downright mean to this frequently “new girl.”

 

I have since learned something very valuable that has helped me in my relationships with women. Here it is: it’s impossible to both be afraid of and actively care about someone—anyone—at the same time. Try it! It can’t be done. Whenever I choose one, I have to let the other go. When I allow my fears to come up, all my caring stays locked inside, hidden away. When I let my caring reveal itself, my fright disappears.

 

It makes perfect sense, doesn't it, that nobody warms up to someone who is apparently cold and fearful, who apparently doesn’t like them….

 

So I’ve learned to actively push away my defunct childhood fears whenever I’m around women. I very deliberately put aside my nervousness, and determinedly replace it by looking for, and focusing on, the good that I know is in every human being. Magically, when I do this, my uneasiness is gone.

 

Friendships with boys were easier for me. A tomboy raised in a family which valued men more than women, I always liked boys, and later on, men—and most people like people who like them, so men usually liked me back. I don’t remember many boys who were mean to me, although I know many women who’ve had different life experiences. (Incidentally, my insight about caring replacing fear, and vice versa, works just as well across opposite genders as it does within the same gender….)

 

My first trusted confidante was, predictably, a teenage boyfriend, rather than the usual sister, mom, grandmother, or longtime girlfriend (my family life was rather competitive, so I rarely let my defenses down there). My most companionable early friendships were with men. It took me far too long to admit to myself that, far from being merely disdainful and “uninterested” in women, I was really just self-protective, because I was scared of women, secretly afraid they would legitimately reject me for my many very real shortcomings.

 

Gradually, though, I had to face the fact that not having close women friends meant I was missing out on half of humanity. I also had to admit that there were indeed many women I liked and admired and wanted to be friends with.

 

I recently heard someone say (on the radio?) that what men want, even more than a “hot” woman, is a warm one—an affectionate and caring one. Truly, warmth is one of the most important qualities in a friendship.

 

But it’s hard to be warm when you’re feeling frozen inside a shell of anxieties and insecurities…..

 

I’ve found that whenever I’m consciously willing to let go of my fears, and opt instead to seek, and then openly share my genuine appreciation for another’s particular gifts, miraculously, all my worries disappear; they are somehow completely replaced by my caring. It seems that there just isn’t enough “space” in my/our little lizard-brain/s for two such opposing emotions to operate at the same time. (Perhaps a more scientific-sounding explanation of this analysis will one day emerge….)

 

What I’ve learned about fear and caring—that they can’t coexist, that when you choose the one, you have to let the other go—has proved to be delightfully generalizable to many other dicey, uncertain kinds of people and relationships.

 

Noting that my relationships with women had greatly improved (I’m much closer now to my sisters, daughters, mom-in-law, and old and new female friends) I started applying my new “fear vs. caring principle” to my other intimidating relationships—because I really do want to be the kind of happy person who doesn’t separate herself, or hold herself back from the rest of humanity, but instead, likes everyone, and relates easily and comfortably (and usefully) to everyone.

 

Here is a list of some potentially uncomfortable relationships with formidable “types of people” that anyone (myself included) can apply my new practice to:

 

People of other races, genders, and age groups; uneducated people; educated people; poor people; rich people; people with different religious beliefs and practices; people from rival schools, towns, teams, businesses, cities, states, nations; people who’ve made completely different choices in life than mine; grieving people; people from different ethnic groups; foreigners; people with different political views; people with different personal styles, values, or linguistic styles; people who (I imagine) don’t like me; people who (I imagine) won’t like me; people who (I imagine) I don’t or won’t like; strangers; really smart people; dumb ones; alcoholics; addicts; “bums”; criminals; people I’ve heard gossip about; mean people; people who seem “stuck up”; quiet people; loud people; popular people; marginalized people; grouchy people; shy people; sad people; lonely people; fat people; slim people; disabled, sick or disfigured people; dying people; confused or misguided people; troubled or needy people; crazy people; “different” people; socially clueless people; rude people; ugly people; klutzy people; angry people; family members; in-laws; people who listen to, read, watch, express, or believe different things than I do….

 

How often during my life will I appear in one or more of the above categories, from time to time? I can’t imagine any situation, though, in which I would prefer to be treated coldly and distrustfully, rather than with kindness and acceptance….

 

Learning to love my neighbor as myself is a hard challenge. It’s too easy to make exceptions, too easy to forget the golden rule of treating everyone as I would wish to be treated–and thus to miss all my opportunities to learn to be relaxed and helpful to everyone (or anyone).

 

Will Rogers once said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” The thousands who admired this delightful humorist knew that his most-famous assertion was completely true to his character. I used to find his statement amazing and enviable. Now I aspire to it every day.

 

I’m pleased to finally be learning this trick of replacing fear with caring, I’m glad to feel so much more comfortable with, and interested in, so many different people, and I’m happy to share this insight with my internet friends—each of whom, I have no doubt, is every bit as lovable, unique, fallible, worthy of respect, and downright scary-weird as I am.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

The Best and the Dimmest

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The other day, changing clothes at the YMCA, I chatted with a delightful stranger, a twin in her fifties who apparently has never competed with her identical twin sister (and best friend) in anything. Not during their childhood, not as teenagers, not as wives and mothers, not even now since their kids had grown. I was flabbergasted.

 

In brutal contrast, I grew up in an extremely competitive household. My three sisters and I spent considerable youthful (and later, adult) energy attempting to best one another in every arena, whether trivial or significant. We carved our egos, our veriest identities, out of what shreds were left after thoroughly wrestling and wringing out every possible family title.

 

We gambled madly for the unpredictable prize of my parents’ attention and approval, and they thus unwittingly encouraged our many rivalries, although they also greatly wearied of our constant bickering. Probably they encouraged us to compete because they thought competition would make us strive for excellence. Or perhaps they generalized that, since competition in capitalism and on the athletic fields of battle was considered so wonderful, surely family competition must be good, too.

 

It isn’t.

 

Whether I “won” or “lost,” my sibling rivalries always left me feeling cold, mean, and alienated. When I triumphed over a sister in some area, I felt a little smug, and very guilty. When I came up short—much more often—I felt inadequate, resentful, defeatist, and again, lonely.

 

I’ve always been fascinated with twins and twin studies, so I peppered my new acquaintance with questions. I insisted that at the very least, she identify some little, unimportant area that she was now “better” at than her twin—some divergent hobby or lifetime interest, some skill so minor as baking a cake, for instance. No. She was adamant that she could think of no examples. None. Neither she nor her twin were superior in any achievements or endowments.

 

I concluded that either these twins had always eschewed comparisons as hurtful and unpleasant; or that their minds just didn’t work in these terms; or, perhaps, that competition was just not particularly interesting to them. Gwen ventured to guess that maybe it was a combination of all three. In any case, no, they had never competed, probably never would, she had never thought about it before, and had never been asked about it, to her knowledge.

 

Wow. In my family, identical twins, on exactly equal genetic starting lines, would have relished the challenge and competed at absolutely everything. I wonder how happily that would have turned out?

 

Either way, Gwen and Jackie’s delightfully mutually supportive and sharing relationship has to be preferable to whatever unfriendly rivalry we would have come up with in our family.

 

Now I’m wondering if perhaps all competition is a bad thing….

 

Having been reared in a family (and culture) which greatly values competition, I never really considered how harmful it might be for me, for my family of birth, my own children, or even for American citizens and other “competing” nations. I’ve never thought about how useless competition really is, especially considering its costs, considering what is lost. Yet few other cultures, many far more ancient, value competition in the way Americans do. Certainly, for that reason, if for no other, we should question the value of competition.

 

If I were raising my own children again now, I would frown on any hint of competitiveness “against” one another, and make sure they understood that friendly competition was a kind gift from someone else who was helping them in their struggle to better themselves. I would do my best to guide my kids to strive for their own personal bests, reserving their comparisons and judgments only for their own goals for self-improvement. I would try to help them see how harmful competition can be to relationships, and how it can also be mutually supportive (as when one encourages others in their striving for self-improvement) or really unkind and hurtful (“besting” or beating someone.)

 

I’ve even come around to wondering whether the loftily unassailable idea of competition-as-intrinsic-to-capitalism, is harmful. We must work hard to convey the message that the only moral competition is the friendly kind that is mutually supportive in helping one another strive for excellence, because the fruits of unfriendly competition are always sad ones—envy, anger, resentment, even for the “victor,” who must also contend with dangerous feelings of overreaching, pride, and arrogance.

 

Here’s what I’ve decided: whenever we compete “against” another, whether as individuals, groups, or nations, that competition works against our highest goals, ideals, and purposes. Any time we move away from simple, personal or cooperative effort, towards something as mean-spirited as hurtful competition, we move toward erasure of mankind’s highest ethical standard, the “golden rule”— treating others as we would like to be treated—and move instead toward “all’s fair in love and war,” a smarmy slogan which conveniently discards morality and ethics as low-priority whenever something newly urgent feels at stake.

 

If U.S. capitalism has worked well in the past, it’s not because of business competition, but because people with freedom and opportunities and resources have pursued excellence, which springs only from friendly competition, which springs from cooperative values such as caring, fairness, and honesty, and personal virtues like hard work and perseverance.

 

Abuse of the idea of competition provides us with a too-handy mask, an illusion of moral nobility or superiority, for the times when we want to feel good about running roughshod over someone else, to get what we want.

 

Our most amazing athletes and athletic competitions are so wonderful because unique individuals like Lance Armstrong and Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods surround themselves with other great athletes in order to challenge themselves—to continually strive for excellence, to achieve their own personal bests, their own highest standards—not to conquer or best someone else.

 

Since I’ve met the twins, I’ve withdrawn my support from any competitions—whether in families, sports, business, or politics, whether local or global—that divide, separate, or polarize relationships, organizations, or nations.

 

Because such unfriendly competition, apparently, has never improved anything—not a single relationship, not a single enterprise on this tiny, fragile, interconnected planet, where every thing we do impacts everyone else, where every thing we think touches every other mind, and where we share the very air we breathe and every drop we drink.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net