Weighing the Lessons of Love What does love have to do with it? Everything!  If I want to live in a peaceful world I have learned that I have to be loving-everywhere, every place, with everyone.    I’ve been weighing the lessons of love this month when so much has gone on in my life, from the marriage of my nephew to miracles of reconciliation with my family, from the sudden death of a beloved sister, to saying no to a man who wanted to love me. What is This Thing Called Love? What is love? Why do all people, even hardened killers, dream about love? Why do so many people despair of ever finding love and kill themselves when they don’t? Who knows how many human conflicts are rooted in the desire to be affirmed, seen and honored, a hunger that would be immediately sated in the presence of love.  To be treated with kindness and tenderness is, I believe, a universal yearning, counterbalanced by one thing-a great fear of the vulnerability that comes when we are undefended and open to hurt as we were at some point in our past.                                                                                                                                                                   A Wordless Yet Full Emptiness Love, I have discovered is spaciousness, a simple emptiness and fullness at the same time.  I sit and watch the rains of Seattle fall on the tall pines outside my windows.

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 Calming The Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism.  Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press: Berkeley, CA, 2005. On An Idyllic Fall Day In September Seven years have passed since those haunting days in September 2001 when the airplanes hit the twin towers in NYC and Washington DC. As I sit here on this idyllic summer afternoon, it could even be today, and thousands could be going to their deaths.  In fact, in Afghanistan right now, they are. For terrorism is not over. To read the newspapers  it has barely gotten started.

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 Watching Our Thoughts In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, the Thought Police was an external agency that patrolled the inner sanctum of the inhabitants of Oceania. Today, we have to be our own thought police, watching for errant thoughts that wreak havoc on our lives and create chaos and violence in the world. Furthermore, by watching what we think, we will then watch what we say and thereby create. Words hold the thought-form. The thought is energy, and the words give form to that energy. Why is such diligence necessary?

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War Is A Force Which Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.  Public Affairs: New York, 2002. Chris Hedges, a foreign correspondent for 15 years, many of them for the New York Times, has written a passionate, exciting and disturbing book in which he tries to understand the enduring attraction of war. Hedges, in his long career covering wars and conflicts from the Balkans to Central America to the Middle East, has directly witnessed war at its worst. His reflections make for absorbing and disquieting reading. This book cuts through much posturing and folly and goes directly to the heart. An extraordinary writer, Hedges weaves in the stories of people and events he personally witnessed in conflicts he reported on and he mixes these with quotes from the Odyssey and the Illiad and from Shakespeare.

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Seattle, this very nice city in the beautiful scenic Northwest, is still reeling from a rampage murder last weekend, when a 28 year old man killed 6 young people relaxing after attending a rave party the night before. No one knew the man. He seemed innocuous, although some mentioned he had a bad vibe. He was a big man, a quiet man. He attended the rave, was invited to the house party, came, smoked some dope, drank a bit, and then at 7 o’clock in the morning on this quiet, residential street went out to his truck, got an arsenal of weapons and came back into the house and started shooting. He was reported to have a smile of his face and to have said, “There’s plenty for everyone,” before killing himself as a police officer arrived on the scene.The aftermath of this senseless killing has left people groping for something to make the insanity of it go away.

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