Are Global and Personal Peace Possible?

Those of you who have visited this blog and left comments on the past two “peace” postings have written about at least two kinds of peace: global and individual. Anyone who has lived more than seventy years has known the lack of global peace.

In 1950, the United States, as part of the UN forces, entered the Korean War. Daily, the newspapers and fledging television programs brought us news of what was happening on that far-off peninsula. Pusan, Inchon, Yalu River, the Chosin Reservoir and its bitter winter, Seoul, stalemate, armistice, police action became part of our vocabulary.

 

For three years the battle raged north and south of the 38^th parallel. At one point, the militia of the UN got close to Korea’s border with China. A massive number of Chinese soldiers repulsed them. Because MacArthur wanted to invade China, President Truman, commander-in-chief, relieved him of his duties. This caused an uproar in the United States. My father had no liking for MacArthur after his actions in World War II in which, according to my dad, “the general was interested only in the limelight.” So Dad applauded President Truman’s actions. Many didn’t.

On July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed. Tomorrow—Monday—will be the 64^th anniversary of that signing. Officially, that armistice left North and South Korea still at war. Many American newspapers maligned President Truman for conducting a “police action” and not fighting until the United Nations won. According to Wikipedia, “recent scholarship puts the full battle death toll on all sides at just over 1.2 million.”

In college, I met a young man who’d fought in Korea. Like most soldiers, he didn’t talk about his experiences, especially at Chosin. However, everyone who met him during those college years noted a maturity beyond his age.

Since that war, our newspapers and television stations have taken us to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. A college friend wrote a poignant poem about that and about the Oneness we all share. Of course, we then had the years of war in Vietnam. After Vietnam we had the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia and the holocaust there.

Then we had El Salvador and Nicaragua. My poetry-writing friend went to Nicaragua to help those driven from their homes. I feared for her during those months because in El Salvador four social activists from the United States had been murdered as well as Bishop Óscar Romero. Thankfully, my friend came home safe and rededicated herself to peace and non-violent protest.

Between then and now, wars have acquainted us with countries many of us couldn’t find on the map or visualize. Israel, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen, Libya, Syria. And more. So many more.

So the question arises: Is there ever any possibility of peace? One of the slogans of World War II was—“The War to End All Wars.” Instead of that happening, the trenches of 1914-1918 led to World War II. Soon—on August 4, we will “celebrate” the 103^rd anniversary of Britain’s entry into War World I.

Is there no possibility of peace? Ever since World War II, which the United States entered when I was in kindergarten and could read headlines, I have read a great deal about war because I’ve wanted to know “Why?” Why do we take one another’s lives? Why do we send the youth of our countries to fight?

So next week, I hope to share a final posting about my discovery—yours, too, I suspect—about peace starting with one. With me. With you. It is that Oneness that speaks to me of possible peace—perhaps only within ourselves. But if one of us can change, perhaps all of us can. Could that be? Could it? 

Peace.

The "New" Normal

Hello All.

I missed posting the past two Sundays simply because of life happening. On May 28, my oldest niece took me to a Little League baseball game in which her grandson, Kayden, was playing. After two games she brought me home because my energy had gone kaput! This past Sunday (6/4), I enjoyed company from out of town. I hope to blog about that visit this coming Sunday. This mid-week posting is in three parts. Part I helps explain why the next two parts are important in my life right now.

Part I: Background:

Right now I’m dealing with the consequences of four ailments.

1.     Because glaucoma has severely affected my field of vision, I had to give up driving back in October, so mobility is somewhat difficult at times and asking for help in getting to doctor appointments and shopping is stressful because I have only five people to ask and many appointments. Moreover, I am finding three or four organizations from which I can get rides. All that is working out well.

2.     I live in an area known as “tornado alley” so the barometric pressure often changes, causing Meniere’s headaches, which are like migraines in intensity, without the light sensitivity. They come almost every day during this time of year, but I have a prescription that helps immensely with this.

3.     In 2011, I was diagnosed with a form of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. At that time, I needed light treatments—3x a week for nine months. It is now active again, so I’m doing the treatments, which will keep the skin cancer in Stage 1. Mobility, however, is an issue as the clinic is in another area, nearly twenty miles away.

4.     I’m still recuperating from the back operation that has left me prone to feeling down in the dumps on overcast days. Fortunately, that six-month recuperation period will end in mid-September. I am getting better every day.

Part II: A “New” Normal:

Recently I watched a television ad for a cancer drug. It ended with the woman and her collie walking outside into a lovely day. The narrator says, “She welcomes her ‘new’ normal because a lot has changed, but a lot hasn’t.”

That advertisement captured my attention. For me, a lot has changed also—especially the not being able to drive—but I am so grateful that I can still read and write. Also my friends—near and far—and family give me great support.

Part III: Over What Hill?

Recently Arkansas Patti posted an eloquent review of a series of five novels by Effie Leland Wilder, who was 85 when the first one, “Out to Pasture,” was published. At that time, Wilder lived in the Presbyterian Home of Summerville, South Carolina.

I got Wilder’s second book—Over What Hill?—from the library and enjoyed it so much that I’ve purchased a volume containing her first three books. With her humorous stories, Wilder helped me realized that I’ve been concentrating on what’s wrong with my life, rather than being grateful for all that is good about it; I haven’t been grateful for the “new” normal.

I highly recommend Wilder’s books. As the flap of her third one says, “With grace and humor, Wilder gently pokes fun at growing older, all the while reflecting on the challenges and losses that seniors face, as well as the special wisdom that can be gained from aging.”

Peace.

A Poem + A Print + 10 Rugs = Equilibrium

Nearly fifty years—during the years of psychedelic painting—a friend showed me a print of a dense, deep, almost black green, fir-tree forest against the broad sweep of a turquoise sky. A path of pink splotches wended through the trees.

A poem by St. John of the Cross was painted in calligraphy across the sky, among the trees, and along the path. The print and the poem have remained in my mind’s eye and my heart all these years.

The poet, known today as a mystic, was born in Spain in 1542. He studied with the Jesuits—esteemed teachers then and now. At twenty-one, John entered the Carmelites, a contemplative monastic order. A few years later he tried to reform the order, considering it too lax. When that attempt failed, he and several other men established a strict monastic society in a farmhouse.

Because of this, he aroused the animosity of the first Carmelite order he’d entered. This resulted in his imprisonment, during which he wrote the poetry for which he became famous. The poem I’m quoting to you today came from those lonely years of captivity. The “he” of the stanza is, I think, Jesus of Nazareth, whom I think of as Yeshua—his Jewish name.

Pouring out a thousand graces,

              he passed these groves in haste;

              and having looked at them,

              with his image alone,

              clothed them in beauty.

That treasured poem and the rugs in my house brought equilibrium to me this past week. Here’s how that happened: Because of the possibility of falling after I left the hospital on March 23, the rehab department asked me to clear my carpet of any throw rugs, furniture, or boxes that might hamper my walking. “Get rid of anything that could trip you,” I was told.

I’ve always liked wall-to-wall carpeting, but I enjoy having thick, Persian-like, throw rugs scattered here and there on the carpet—in the hallways, under the tables, by the bed. So when my eldest niece brought me home she rolled up ten throw rugs and stacked them on a large table in the garage.

That same afternoon, she took from my cabinets, storage areas, and pantry any food items, pans, or dishes I might need and placed them on the extended counter and the round table in my kitchen. Having everything at waist level would keep me from bending and twisting, which was a no-no for the next several weeks.

I hope you are getting the picture: clutter, clutter, clutter on every table top and counter, and no lovely rugs on the carpet. The poem comes in here. Ever since learning the poem and seeing the print, I’ve thought of throw rugs as the bright blotches of color in the forest through which Yeshua walked, strewing beauty in his midst. Those Persian-like rugs were my path through the forest of my home. They were a path of beauty on which I sought to walk with grace.

Last week I wrote of physical and emotional imbalance. This past week a sudden realization came to me: I was partly imbalanced because my home didn’t seem like mine anymore: All that clutter on the counters and tabletops. No path of beauty on the floor.

My home seemed stripped of who I am and try to be.

Thus it was that two friends came, put down all the rugs, put away the canned good, pans, and dishes and left me with a home that breathed contentment: Space. Beauty. Balance.

So today I’m posting in a much better frame of being than has been represented by my past three postings. Equilibrium has come to my life. I feel as if I truly have come home to myself.

Life is good. Peace.