"Whatever we plan to do tomorrow we should do today and whatever we plan to do today, we should do now."Kabir
I read an old book once called 'The Day that Lincoln Was Shot', can't remember the author but I never forgot one anecdote; that the national newspapers that day hurriedly pulled their nasty editorials and replaced with 'Great Man' copy.
I like most everyone I know, am not convinced about Afghanistan and 'our' role in there, and that hasn't changed. But last night we watched Obama's Nobel speech (in 4 parts on YouTube) after tuning into MacNeil/Lehrer in the car and hearing them speak to the marked absence of early criticism from the various political factions. They spoke about the complexity of the speech and how Obama had quoted MLK's "Isness & Oughtness" (what IS and what we know Ought to be), and how that was way outside the box for a President. They also said that a U.S. President could be no pacifist.
We tuned into the speech late last night and we neither of us felt much like analyzing it when we were through, because there was so much food for thought. I think we took it instead into our night dreams because certainly we both felt stirred up by the reach of it.
It seemed to me that the Nobel Peace Prize afforded an incumbent U.S. President an unprecedented platform to deliver a deep-reach speech that could feed into the paradigm shift we have perceived or dreamed of in our multi-layered realities.
Foregoing euphemisms, Obama said; make no mistake, young men and women go to war and some will kill.. and some will be killed. And they will get the glory for the same but, he said categorically, there is no glory in war.
Since President Obama is the Commander in Chief, the facets of military training could conceivably evolve under his watch to better reflect the Worldview he is describing. Obama's speech brought back full-flood an exquisite tenderness image that spoke straight to my soul from when first I laid eyes on it:
"U.S. Army Sergeant Kornelia Rachwal gives a young Pakistani girl a drink of water as they are airlifted from Muzaffarabad to Islamabad, Pakistan, aboard a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter on the 19 October 2005." U.S. Army soldier humanitarian
The speech also made me think of the verse Jean Houston had on her website:
"Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere
Never to leave us till will take
The longest stride of soul folk ever took
Affairs are now soul size
The enterprise is exploration into God.
Where are you making for?
It takes so many thousand years to wake
But will you wake for pity's sake? "
from Christopher Fry,
A Sleep of Prisoners
We, as a culture are cognizant to varying degrees of the under-belly of an occupying force, from the British in Ireland, to the Americans in Iraq and yet we know; that how 'we' (our soldiers) behave is inextricably bound to why We are there and how We hold the Peoples of that place. Bottom line in the words of one of our own local Veterans; "We Are Not Worth More, They Are Not Worth Less" - (Thank You Brian):
S. Brian Willson: Air Force combat security officer in Vietnam, Bill Motto Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) "Wage Peace" Post 5888, Santa Cruz, California, and of Veterans for Peace.
I never saw television as a child; I never saw that most famous photograph of the terrorized Vietnamese girl until I was well into my 20s. But I had my own horrors and I had had a recurring dream as a post London Blitz child that 'help was on the way' ; that suddenly the whole region was swarming with soldiers, but not soldiers to be afraid of; soldier-humanitarians.
Obama's Nobel Speech has stirred in me the potential of emergence of The-World-We-Want by heretofore unimagined means, akin to the story of the World Peace Flame & the Military:
Military personnel proved to be key to getting seven living flames (lit by prominent peacemakers on five continents of the world) flown across the oceans. High-ranking officers moved mountains, lower in command defied orders, men felt compelled to "guard" the newborn Flame during the long flights from the four corners of the Earth. The story of every Flame's lighting and journey is a triumph in itself; lit, transported, delivered and merged for World Peace. The World Peace Flame acts as a reminder that peace begins with each one of us. The flame serves as a catalyst for a worldwide shift, from thinking about problems to acting out solutions.
The American Flame
Light A Candle for the World, Light a candle for this Republic
"the greatest experiment in democracy in the history of the world." JL Chestnut
"Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships... the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world, at peace."Franklin D. Roosevelt
