Category Archives: Uncategorized

Silence (DOP #13 2016)

I couldn’t bring myself to write yesterday.

It isn’t because I didn’t have anything I wanted to write about, but rather because I didn’t know how to write it.  I suppose in a way, I still don’t how to write what I want to write.

My newsfeed was full of the news that yesterday, the rebels in the city of Aleppo were nearly wiped out.  The conflict in Syria is incredibly difficult for me to figure out.  Rebels and Pro-government forces have been fighting for so long, and so bitterly that neither side is necessarily better than the other.  While it is true that Pro-government forces have used chemical weapons, guided munitions, and artillery bombardments in an attempt to destroy those who are rebelling, those who are rebelling don’t have clean hands either.  Many rebel groups are known for their direct links to organizations we would consider terrorist organizations.  Pro-government forces regularly bomb hospitals and schools.  Rebel forces hide in those places…drawing the fire upon the innocent.

The conflict in Syria is hard to unravel, especially after nearly 5 years of fighting.

No one has clean hands.

My thoughts are filled with what-ifs…what if the UN had found a way to effectively intervene and de-escalate this conflict early in the first year?  What if our own government had enforced the red-line it set to keep chemical weapons off of the battle field?  What if the Russians had not joined the fighting?  What would have happened if Russia and China had not blocked a security council resolution with their invincible vetoes?

What if I had started writing about this sooner?

What if I had found my way there as I feel called to do?

There is plenty of blame for all sides, including myself.

As I watched videos of those who were in the rebel areas say goodbye to anyone who would listen, as they told us they honestly did not expect to live through the next few hours, I can’t even describe what was going on in my heart and in my head.  How could this be?  What could I have done?

(An example is here)

I tried to write for a while, but I couldn’t.

I lay down in my bed, safe from harm, and fought back an overwhelming sense of depression.  A feeling of total failure.  A feeling of loss.  I couldn’t speak.  It was too much.

Yesterday was my moment of silence.

Checkmate (DOP #12 2016)

Politics is anything but peaceful, but I see something coming that I feel ought to be addressed.

You’ve likely heard that President Obama has asked the intelligence community to look into recent computer hacking and its impact on the past election.  One of the most important things to a democracy is knowing that the advertised results of an election are the true results, so the integrity of an election is an important thing to guard.  There are countless countries in Africa that are in a constant state of turmoil because their election results can not be trusted.   They go through conflict after conflict simple because voting results can’t be trusted.

So, whether you agree with a single thing President Obama has done in his 2 terms or not, this is an important thing he is trying to do.

Unfortunately I believe we have been out played.

In chess you win the match by forcing your opponent’s king into a situation from which there is no way to escape to safety.  It requires delicate maneuvering and strategy to achieve this, but once your trap is set, there is no recourse.  The game is over.  The king is helpless, defeated.

We are in a political situation that has brought our country to the brink of a great divide.  Both sides are at fault, we share the blame.  Our country stands at the top of a terrible drop, teetering, poised to fall.  Our opponent has put us in a situation that seems inescapable.

I don’t know if our election results have been manipulated, but half of our country is unhappy with the current results.  They are perhaps predisposed to believe there was cheating.  The other half believes the election to have been won fairly, and will fight bitterly to defend their victory.   It doesn’t actually matter if the results were hacked by our opponents, they only have to convince us that they were, and there will be open war on our streets.

Perhaps results were affected by hacking.  In which case, our democracy is in danger.

Perhaps hacking didn’t successfully result in actually changing the outcome of the election, but it is far easier to plant evidence that it did, than to actually do it.

We may not be in checkmate just yet friends, but we may have only one way of escape.

No matter what side of the politic argument you fall on, please decide now, before the government concludes it’s study, that you will not respond in violence.

Pledge now to seek peace and unity in a disastrous situation.

We may have just one move left.

You’ll notice I didn’t implement a specific opponent.  A skilled opponent would remain invisible until the battle was already won, so perhaps there is a scapegoat being used to hide the real opponent.  There is no hope to be found in fighting against our opponent as destroying his cities and killing his people will not result in peace.  We have been outmatched, our only hope is to find unity where it can be found, before it is too late.  

Glenn (DOP #8 2016)

On my way home today, I heard on the radio that John Glenn, Mercury astronaut, senator, and STS astronaut passed away at the age of 95.   Mr. Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth, and while he wasn’t the first person on earth to do so, his mission was an important one for the United States.  I never knew him personally, but I benefit from his work every day.

NASA, and the space program get a bad rap.  They do incredible things, pushing the leading edge of technology and the human spirit, but since doing incredible things tends to cost a bunch of money, people don’t really care for them.  I believe that many don’t really see the benefit of the work NASA does.  However, If we took away all of the technology that we have now as a direct result of the space program, we would all be left lost and wandering.  (I mean literally…like…GPS and a whole bunch of other stuff just wouldn’t work.)

I don’t want to focus too much on Mr. Glenn today, but I do want to take this opportunity to look at where the space program has brought us, and where it might lead us in the future, especially as it relates to peace.

I wasn’t born until 1984, but as I read history books from the era of the Cold War, it feels like it must have been a dark time.  The United States had developed a weapon so powerful it could wipe out entire cities, and the arms race lead to more and more powerful weapons being developed every day.  During the height of the Cold War, there were planes in the air 24/7, constantly ready to unleash a nuclear holocaust in a moments notice.  I’ve seen clips of the films where school children are trained to duck and cover in case of nuclear attack, and all around it seemed like an incredibly tense time.

It was around this time that the space race was heating up as well.  Obviously the governments of East and West were not going to stand idly by while the other side began it’s conquest of space.  Who knew what weapons could be developed, or new resources could be exploited in the vast reaches of space?  It was important for both sides to be the best in space, if only to ensure the other side didn’t have an advantage.

As the Soviet Union and the United States vied for supremacy, they enlisted the help of the best and brightest minds in the world, and poured vast quantities of resources into their respective programs as they pursued victory.  As history is currently written, the United States won the race by reaching the moon first, and the Soviet Union began to fade into the past, until it eventually crumbled under the weight of it’s own empire.

Supermoon
So what does any of this have to do with peace?

At any point, the East or the West could have used the technologies they were creating to attack each other.  At any point, the East and the West could have redirected their massive resources away from space flight, and into funding a war against the other.  At any point, the best minds on the planet could have been focused on how best to kill each other, instead of how to break free from the Earth that holds us, and do something incredible and new!

The space race seems so innocent until you realize that it may have been the exact thing to save us from a full blown nuclear conflict.  Instead of focusing on death and destruction, we taught ourselves to reach higher than we believed possible!  We used our creative energy to actually create, and not to destroy!  We took men, who since the beginning had been born, lived, and died on 1 planet, and sent them to the moon!

We strove to reach a higher height.

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The space program still fills me with hope for our future.

In 1975, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. shared a handshake between 2 nations in space.  The U.S. visited the Mir space station many many times while it was in operation.  Through our shared endeavors in space, we found common ground.  We brought our resources together, and we shared knowledge with each other.  This gives me hope.  Our best and brightest minds were focused on working together, instead of working to destroy each other.

If we fast forward to now, Russia and the United States have experienced a significant cooling in relations over the last 5 years, and there have been moments where those relations were positively frigid.  Fights over the role of both countries in Syria, Crimea, Ukraine, and Turkey have all been quite tense at times.   I’ve heard talk of a renewed cold war, and renewed conflict between superpowers.   I don’t know what lies ahead for the two nations now that there is a new president-elect, but things have been more than a little touchy recently.

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Through all of this, the United States and Russia have continued to cooperate on the International Space Station.  In spite of the politics on the ground, some of humanities finest minds continue to work together to learn more about the earth we share, and the space that surrounds us.  They are even creating a new language together.

Peace can be found when we focus on reaching outside of our current boundaries, when we focus not on the distribution of limited resources, but rather the development of new resources and ideas.  Peace can be found, when those who are mindful, take the time to learn and understand another culture as they work towards a shared goal.  Peace can be found as we strive together to break the bonds our birthplace has put upon us, and reach for the stars.

I often pray for peace on Earth.

I am thankful for peace in space.

Purr (DOP #7 2016)

I typically end up procrastinating for a while before I post each one of these, sometimes because I don’t know what to write, and sometimes because I just need a few minutes after getting home from a long day.

I was skimming the internet tonight, after getting home rather late and wanting to unwind just a bit.  I somehow stumbled across an article about how cats sometimes purr right before their death.

Crazy right?

I’ve always understood a purr to mean a cat is experiencing happiness and contentment.  To purr right before death…that speaks to me.  A purring cat is a cat at peace.

It turns out that purring is a bit more nuanced than just “I’m happy, so I’ll purr.”  so you can’t be totally sure what a cat is experiencing in those moments.  I mean, cats aren’t people, so attributing human thoughts and feelings to them may be doing them a disservice.  Cats may be more complex than a human construct such as language could effectively describe!  Or they could be pretty dumb in the grand scheme of things.  I’d rather not make the assumption that I am the smarter creature.  It would be quite embarrassing to discover I was wrong!

I digress.

I don’t want to be too morbid here, but I hope to face death in peace, happy, content with what I have accomplished and where I have been.  Even if things didn’t exactly go my way, I hope that I can spend my final moments on earth with the knowledge that I am dying in peace.  That my unfinished business is not unfinished because I was a coward, but rather simply because I ran out of time.  Maybe I won’t be dying peacefully, but I hope to be dying at peace with who I was during my time on earth.

In my heart, I hope that when my time comes, I can face death with a purr.

Tomorrow (DOP #4 2016)

Phillipians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Trying to write tonight has been an exercise in anxiety.  I can’t seem to get anything down on paper.  I’ve actually found myself on the verge of giving up this process.

So in this moment, I will approach tomorrow with prayer and petition, praying for the peace of God to guard my heart and mind.

Until tomorrow friends.