In the Extreme

Over the past few days, guns have brought terror and death to Norway, Texas and Washington State.

The reasons for these acts of violence are varied and complex, but all have been meted out at the hands of a fellow human being and not one can be recalled, nor their dead and wounded made whole again.

I believe that there is more good than evil in the world.  I believe that this singular truth is what keeps us from the Biblical Armageddon so many predict is our ultimate destiny.  Most of all, I believe that our civilization still has time to rise from its darkness to embrace the light.

In this vain, I also believe that evil will continue to ravage us for some time to come. I believe this because profound acts of violence, while singular in their horror and timing, are symptoms of a deeper darkness that we encounter each day, but never stop to name.

We only need look to Washington DC, the seat of one of the most powerful governments ever known to humankind.  Witness the grandstanding, finger-pointing, half-truths and perpetual division. Consider our political campaigns where real issues always take a back seat to mudslinging and one-upmanship.  

Explain our hostility toward illegal aliens, while we selectively forget that the vast majority of us are descendants of the very same moniker.

Why are gay men and women still denied the full benefits of our Constitution? 

The murders that have bloodied our communities and bowed our heads are not isolated events.  They have grown from seeds so faint and so non-descript that we have lost sight of their relationship to the brutal harvests they bear.

When you degrade another person and do it in front of your children, you set the stage for hatred to live one more generation. 

When you name yourself and your culture superior to another, you perpetuate the idea that equality and tolerance are only for those who meet your standards.  When you believe that your way is the only way, you exclude, disenfranshise and create enemies instead of allies.

The end to violence and terror begins where you live, work, play and dream.  It begins with you and me.  What we sow, we reap.  Sow hate, you will reap hate.  Sow fear, you will reap fear.  Sow intolerance and you will reap intolerance.  Acts of violence are the end result…they may erupt out of nowhere, but they were sown in “fertile soil” long before they saw the light of day.

Love, peace, tolerance, compassion and humanity cannot be preached.  They must be lived!

2011 is Begun

I have not posted for some time. The holiday has come and gone; a new year and new decade begun. A 113 year old woman passed away and a U.S. Congresswoman was gunned down in Arizona. People, who days before were threatening each other in the halls of Congress, have taken a step back to take a look at themselves and the words they speak.

We have cultivated a respectable hindsight as a nation and as a world. In tragedy, we most often step up to the line and do the fair and compassionate thing.

However, it is time for the world to step into the future, not in the sense of knowing what it will bring, but in the sense of fostering foresight. Explorers and inventors have foresight. They imagine the unknown and make the decision to step into it.

The future I speak of cannot be bought with coin or power. It cannot be bought at all; it must be chosen, one person at a time, until more, not less, have made their choice.

What happened in Arizona propelled us forward to say things like, "words carry outcomes." "Free speech carries outcomes". We all bear responsibility for the world in which we live. We all bear responsibility for the good and the not so good things that happen. Individually, we must each decide what is meant by this responsibility and the answer will define our future.

We cannot afford to be faint of heart, even if we are afraid and uncertain. For us to create a world where less, not more, violence occurs, we as individuals must look first within ourselves and then decide how we have and do play a part in the heritage of war that still besieges so much of our planet.

Do not believe that anger and blame only affect the place where you stand and the person or persons you are targeting. Anger and blame spread a mindset and an energy. They provide a spark that is ignited by others of like mind. If you want a different world, then you--You--must take the first step. I must take the first step. It is not up to our leaders. It has never been up to others. It has always been up to us.

Begin, not by throwing barbs at those you disagree with, regardless of how you feel.  Begin with a moment of silence in which you look at your own words and actions.  Until you have made peace with these, universal peace remains an act of hindsight and, my dear friends, peace must be a forward motion.

The Profound

I find that for the first time in my life, I have nothing profound to say.  I will turn 66 on Friday.  I am closer to an ending than a beginning.  Yet I believe age is only a number.  Sixty-six is not a high number in the scheme of things.  Sixty-six dollars will not buy two weeks worth of groceries.  It will not fill a cavity, repair a car, pay a health care deductible, or even come close to a house payment. It will not cover the cost of a college text book or credit hour.  Sixty-six is an even number with no real value except that it falls along the line between one (1) and infinity.

In my mind, I do not feel older.  I feel young.  The irony of aging is that the body zooms along towards decrepitude while the mind that is active, remains at its peak.  Many would disagree with the latter part of that statement, but it is true for me.  I am still unendingly curious.  I bike, I write, I dream.  I continue to believe in the ability of human beings to be compassionate, loving and visionary.  I believe that most of us care for the greater good of our world, but that we too often allow ourselves to get bogged down with survival.  I believe that when one tire goes flat in life, we pump it up or replace it.  We go on.  Humans go on.  We trip, we fall, we forget, we remember.  We learn, we cry, we laugh, we blame, we forgive.

On this the eve of my 66th year, I wish all others who share November 19th as their birth date, a happy, happy day!   Happiness is a state of mind.  It is not a possession, nor can it be found somewhere outside ourselves or purchased online.  If you can read this, you are alive.  If you are alive, celebrate!  You made it to this day.  You scrambled over boulders ten-times your size, you braved life's blizzards and hurricanes (real and imaginary), you picked yourself up and got on with it.  You did it!  Awesome!

It is a pleasure to share this day with you, whoever you are, wherever you are.  Thank you!

Thoughts for a new world . . .

Trust, until there is nothing left but Trust.

Forgive, until all is forgiven.

Love, until there is nothing left but Love.

Copyright L.Lee 2010

Make Peace wherever you are, until Peace is everywhere.

If not you, who? If not now, when?

Who will change our world for the better?  How long will we wait?  Who is best equipped to take us into the future? 

Our leaders, scientists, teachers, intelligentsia, military, philosophers?  The most educated? The most enlightened?

What is the role of the average man and woman?  Billions of them. 

Let's do a little "time travel" and measure the progress of "waiting" for the first set of individuals to change our world.

In 2005 . . .
--5.15 billion people (80%) earned less than $10 a day. 
--Nearly 1 billion people were illiterate.
--One in two children in our world lived in poverty.
--The poorest 40% of the world’s population accounted for 5% of our global income, while the richest 20% accounted for 75%.
--According to UNICEF, 25,000 children died in poverty each day.
--The wealthiest 20% consumed 76.7% of the world's resources, while the 20% consumed only 1.5%.

The greatest question of our time is not how to stop the gap between rich and poor, but why that gap continues to exist.

We can:
--Map the human gene
--Stand on the Moon
--Send cameras to Mars
--Annihilate the world's people with one misplaced flick of a switch
--Cure the once incurable
--Implant artificial limbs and even replace the human heart
--Control the means of communication and entertainment in a handheld device

But we cannot end poverty.  It is on our lips and on our minds, but it is not on our agenda.

How long should we wait?  A day, a month, a year?  Ten years?  Another century?

A new program that gives loans to individuals in poor regions requires each applicant to save $50.  Once saved, this money is matched by progam funds.  It took one woman five years to save $50.  This woman also dreamed of becoming a doctor.  She has settled instead to help care for Aids patients.

What part of that last paragraph stands out in your mind?  In mine, it's the fact that she had to wait five years to save her money and that her dream of becoming a doctor was not possible.

The thing that stands out in my mind is that this set of circumstances is deplorable!  Intolerable! 

Our leaders will not save us.  But we continue to wait and hope. 

I saw a bumper sticker today with a picture of Obama on it.  Under it was the word “Hope”.

Hope is a wish for . . .

Hope is a plea for better times . . .

Hope swells up from the pit of despair . . .

But hope is not action.  Hope is not movement forward.    Hope is the cry of the anguished. 

Have we not cried enough?  Have we not hoped enough?  Have we not waited long enough?

“One minute,” my mother once said, “is a long time for someone in agony.”

Now is the only action that matters.

Now is the only action that delivers on its promises.

Imagine a new economic paradigm

The first circles we humans pondered must have been the sun and moon. For eons we pondered them, even gave them special names and powers. The circle has been with us from the beginning. It can overpower us with its girth or disappear into the invisible building blocks of the universe. The circle is self-contained, meaning that everything that it is, is held within its boundaries. You cannot be both in the circle and outside the circle at the same time.

Today I would like to speak about what I call the "circle of civilization". The circle that defines our world. I would also like to talk abut a "circle of civilization" that might better serve our world simply by moving two of its parts to different locations.

Circle One: This circle is governed by its core, Money.  Dollars and cents. Daily labor for daily bread. Everything around the core depends upon Money for its existence: people, environment, private business, government, healthcare, education, and food/housing. By over-stressing one of the members of the circle, Money becomes scarce. Money holders and lenders, the underpinning of the core, suffer. Therefore, every effort is made to assure that all the parts of the wheel work together to serve Money.

Circle Two: This circle is governed by its core, People. The welfare of all the People all the time. Everything in the circle works to support the core. By over-stressing one of the members of the wheel, the People suffer. Therefore, every effort is made to assure that all the members of the wheel work together to care for the core.

Imagine. Imagine. Imagine. We are fast approaching a time when no matter how healthy our economy, there will not be enough jobs for everyone. We have already reached the point where homes, healthcare (all facets), home and car repairs, education, travel, and a whole host of other costs are unaffordable for the majority of people on this planet. Only by taking on debt, much of it long term, can we survive. We live in a Money world. Money has no ethic. It cannot care. It is a thing. It takes up space, but it does not feel, bleed, suffer, or die.

Imagine a new world. Imagine Circle number Two.

Imagine a "people" centered world

I am days behind in my posting. Life sometimes gets in the way.  I've had company--my oldest son and his family.  We picnicked, we hiked, we swam, we went to the play ground, we had ice cream.  All the things you do when a three and five year-old are involved.  In short, we had a grand time. 

Now it's Monday and I'm playing catch up while my son heads off on the next phase of his vacation.

Today, I must return to a "people" world.  It is on my mind all the time.  On my mind because somehow, somewhere, at some point in our history we set people aside for things, possessions, wealth, advancement, one-upmanship.  Somewhere along the way we hitched a ride on the wrong train with the best of intentions, thinking that if we went where everyone else was going we'd surely be in a better place.

The train was driven by someone else, designed by someone else.  It was a complex train.  Great "engineers" built it.  It took centuries.  Sometimes its workings came together almost by accident.  Like a puzzle that's missing only one piece and suddenly you find it.  A lot of thought went into this train and a lot of modifications occurred along the way.  Today this train, in one fashion on another, monopolizes all the "transport" in our world.  And this train has brought us to today.  August 9, 2010.  The Twenty-First Century. 

All of us with enough life experience have ideas about this century.  Where we're going and what the outcome might be.  But one thing is certain, the train we've all been riding on has not brought us to the destination we envisioned when we entrusted ourselves to its designers.  To be sure, there have been many sights along the way, many adventures, many good and important experiences.  But in the end, we did not arrive at abundance for all.  We did not arrive at security for all, health care for all, affordable education for all, housing for all.  Our final train stop dropped us on the platform of "pay or perish". 

I could add to that last statement, but in truth it is the only one that matters.  The time has come to reroute our train.  We must design a new model, one that considers the person first and takes in all aspects of that person from birth to death.  I.e., natural resources and the health of the environment that sustain human life.  Income security.  Health security.  Educational security.  Shelter (home) security.  Never must or should any of these be neglected for any reason.  Not for any reason.  No one goes without. This is not about entitlement programs or social welfare.  This is about a new system.  This is about turning capitalism (the making of product and profit) to people-ism, if you will.  It's about using the design, but changing its destination.

How you say?  Not how, I answer, but when!!