Summer Reflections

Friends,

It’s been such a beautiful early summer day today. Above all I would like to just write about how grateful I am for the fullness of life that has flourished and blossomed and now provides, for example, these field-ripened, succulent ripe strawberries I am now enjoying. 

I am writing this evening from Cambridge, Mass., where we are visiting family, and the hotel where we are staying is hosting a number of Scottish soccer fans here to watch their team play Egypt tonight. The buzz of the World Cup fever and the Scottish brogue seems everywhere. I would like to think the World Cup adds up to the world's good will and that most of the world shares a common sense of excitement and anticipation about their team’s involvement. I would also like to believe there would be more of a spirit of community and cooperation than competition, but at least we are getting an education about world geography and can, at least momentarily, share in the national pride of the people in each country as they take their part of a larger web of an ever more connected world. 

But like much of life there is always a shadow side. I have also been aware the last few weeks, and particularly these past few days, of the threatened invasion of Iran. Will we, at the apparent whimsy of apparently one man, unleash the air power and devastating bombs of a giant military apparatus. Given the horrors, death, and destruction of warfare, it seems inconceivable to me that our nation, at the command of the mentally unstable, unaccountable president, would attack Iran if some unclear agreement is not fulfilled by such and such a day and time, especially if the terms of any agreement seem to shift by the day. For the Iranians it must feel like being on death row in prison waiting against hope the worst will not actually occur.

But more than the threat of  war I am even more aware of the contrast between such a beautiful day, the sense of an interconnected and interdependent world that shares a love of soccer, and a world daily threatened by war. My heart aches for those in such a besieged situation. And I long for the assurance that our country, and the world in general, deserves so much better than that. I truly believe that world-wide humanity seeks justice, peace and the well-being of all as has been demonstrated several times now when the people are given the opportunity to oppose war with huge demonstrations.

Understandably a number of my readers find my anti-war commentaries more than they want to continue to take in. The topic is too big, too far removed. And when the war-making is combined with the president's ability to introduce yet another outrageous scheme to keep us distracted and off balance we are tempted to give up caring about political and social concerns out of numbness that there is nothing we can do.  But I think we still need to pay attention to the seemingly unhinged forces that, like it or not, are defining our reality. And then, above all, we need to continue to be more grateful than ever for all that is so incredibly wondrous, peaceful and good. 

I like to think it is possible to be ever grateful for the vagaries in life itself, however they come upon us. Our job is to hold on with gratitude and love and, despite everything, we can and will survive.

Peace,

Tom