Category Archives: collaborating

On Unity

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 16, 2019-

The subjects of who is responsible and of how much should we, as a human race, be working together, have resurfaced, in response to TIME’s selection of its 2019 Person of the Year.   I have discussed that particular matter, in an earlier post, and so will not belabour the point.

Conservatives are incensed that seemingly irresponsible progressives are in the ascendancy, with regard to environmental matters.  Those on the Left, likewise, regard ANY involvement by large business interests and nationalist groups, in the environmental movement, as suspect.

The facts, as always, paint a more complex picture.  A politically conservative team, led by Scott Presler, has made its way around the United States, cleaning up mounds of trash and debris in places like Newark,Baltimore, Los Angeles and Chicago.  One of the most reliable environmental disaster response teams on the planet is Team Rubicon,  made up largely of political conservatives, who also happen to have a solid combination of heart and disaster recovery expertise.   I have been part of a local group, here in Prescott, who cleaned up an abandoned homeless people’s camp, in early Fall of this year.  While they didn’t appreciate my political views, they did appreciate the help.

There are no shortage of people on the Left who help clean up the detritus, as well.  Indeed, Team Rubicon and Mr. Presler’s group hardly conduct political litmus tests of their volunteers.  Politics, simply put, should not be a distraction.  In the end, the Creator put us all here and we all have to live with what is.

There are as many ways to face our planet’s changing climate-which is a cycle, and no more a myth than the cycle which eliminated so much life during the Cambrian and Cretaceous Periods.  Mankind will not be eliminated by this cycle.  We do, however, have the responsibility of stewardship for our world, and there as many ways to respond to the challenge, as there are points of view.  All are needed here.

Two responses that will not accomplish what is needed are: 1. Doing nothing and 2. Throwing money, willy-nilly, at the events. Indeed, the controversial Ms. Thunberg has herself cautioned against a Green New Deal, in the sense that rushing into responding may cause more harm than good.  Plans must be made, and they need to consider as many possible outcomes in advance as is humanly possible.  Conservatives, with their command of Outcomes-based Models, can help greatly in this regard.  Progressives, with their commitment to social justice, can provide the psychological and emotional heft, as well as a fair share of intellectual awareness, to the process.

We can, moreover, do without the divisive extremism-that, “if THOSE people are involved, then count me out. ”   I would have strongly advised Greta Thunberg to so sit down with President Trump (or any other critic she may encounter) and explain her views, as clearly as possible, whilst giving him an opportunity to explain his, in a coherent manner. Neither of them are responsible for the other’s reaction, so it does not strike me as a fool’s errand.  For my part, I do not approach my own critics with anything less than dignified respect.

Unity requires no less.

 

The Real Story of Santa Claus and Coal

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Social

December 15, 2019-

Legend has it that Santa Claus sends his snarky sidekick, Black Piet, to put a lump of coal in the stockings of children who have been naughty,during the year.  I learned, this evening, that this is just not so.

The Big Guy and his Missus put in an early appearance this evening, at a Red Cross gathering.  He told a young man who complained of having received coal in his stocking, whilst he was a young street ruffian, in Chicago.  The young man did tell St. Nick that he had mended his ways, and Santa acknowledged that this was the case.

Santa went on to explain, about the coal.   “I don’t always give children what they want, but I do give them what they need.”, he offered, “When people needed coal to heat their homes, I made sure they got several lumps.”  Children living under hard circumstances, frequently act out, and Santa said he takes care of their home life, first.

That did my heart good, and shows that Santa Claus is not just a purveyor of belly laughs and trips down the chimney.  He really does look out for our best interests.  Black Piet? Why, he is a Red Cross volunteer, who goes down each chimney, to make sure it is firewise.

Rotating the Plates

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

December 14, 2019-

In the late 1940’s, a man named Preston Tucker conceived and produced a modest number of innovative automobiles, bearing his name.  The attitude of the United States government towards entrepreneurs, in the 1950’s, was a far cry from what it is in this century.  Tucker was harassed by the Eisenhower administration, on charges of stock fraud and false advertising, though he was eventually exonerated.  Today, many of his innovations, from disc brakes to air-cooled engines,  are standard features in many lines of cars.

For many of us, change is most easily accepted if it is piecemeal, and even more so  if it mainly involves re-arranging the chairs on the deck, or rotating the plates on a table.  Preston Tucker, with Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Stanley Kubrick, Jackson Pollock and Joe Sample, among many others, challenged the way people thought about everything in our society.  How can machines be made in a different manner and serve mankind more efficiently?  How can music and art be wildly innovative, even whimsical, and still have deep meaning?  The powers that be are averse to asking these questions, even in this national unity,age of deep change.

We are finding this in public service, as well.  Those who propose large scale changes in the way public affairs are conducted, primarily with a view towards bridging gaps, are dismissed by both the nation’s leadership and the mass media as Lost Causes or Just Plain Weird.  The idea that people with liberal viewpoints can find common ground with those of conservative bent has led many with a conventional frame of mind to publicly retch.  The “ruffle no feathers” crowd almost prefers widespread incompetence to warm and vibrant appeals to national unity.  Thus, “minor” candidates are shut out of the process by clever, but putrid, political machinations.

It is thus in business and industry, in the arts and in the halls of government.  It would be refreshing to see the popular will resist these incessant appeals to mediocrity.

 

When Light Seems Dark

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 13, 2019-

Jack was right, to an extent.

The selection, by TIME Magazine, of Greta Thunberg as its “Person of the Year” comes as no surprise.  The attacks heaped on her, by people of a certain age, also come as no surprise.  It’s hard to face up to one’s failings, and even more so, to face up to collective failings.

There is no figure in human history who had escaped the wrath of the froward and despicable.  It’s human nature to despise being reminded of what one has done wrong.  It is human responsibility, however, to address shortcomings and make an effort to correct them.

Jack, of whom I know little, wrote a scathing letter, some five years ago, warning me that my attitudes on inter-gender relations were passe’, and that I would know no peace with women, until I recognized it and changed some aspects of my mindset.  Time has passed and I have meditated, continuously, on this matter, gradually weaning myself of exactly the shopworn attitudes of which he was talking.

There is, however, a greater sense of obfuscation and gaslighting afoot, when critics of not only the great Divine Educators, from Noah to Christ to Baha’u’llah, but also more ordinary people, from the Founding Fathers of the United States, through Abraham Lincoln, to Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Theresa and Fred Rogers, try to focus attention on the flaws, both real and perceived, of such great souls.  The Divine Educators were perfect Beings, so any disparagement of  Them is a pack of lies.  Those who are people of vision and fortitude will always incite anger and attract disparagement from those who prefer to wallow in self-pity.  Light, to such people, is to be shadowed, made to seem like darkness.

There is a difference between the Jacks of the world, who speak truth even when it may be unpalatable, and the minions of moroseness (to quote Spiro T. Agnew, of all people).  Those who wish to redress the wrongs of society are only too happy to see those wrongs corrected.  Those who hate the great figures of the past, or the minor heroes of the present, are banking on the lower aspects of human nature to vindicate their own self-loathing.

Greta Thunberg, at her young age, ought continue to grow physically and intellectually, but ought never shrink from speaking truth-even when it may be unpalatable.

Schisms and -isms

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 12, 2019-

A participant in a recent Baha’i Studies Conference, in Ottawa, Ontario, made the case for a movement she called “womanism”.  The gist of this movement’s philosophy is similar to to the campaign message of the American politician, Tulsi Gabbard:  Bring forward a true ethic of inclusion; the practice of not shutting anyone out, on the basis of their stated beliefs.  The premise here is inclusion, not opposition.

I favour such a movement, as I believe that everyone has a grain of truth to bring to the table.  That does not mean that someone who regards others as inferior should remain unchallenged in her/his pronouncements and certainly, actions that take away someone else’s rights or extinguish viewpoints, contrary to what one believes, are to be seen as counterproductive.  Repressed thoughts and opinions will never disappear.  They may even return, with a vengeance, in the form of counter-revolution.

It also does not sanction violence against one’s philosophical opponents, if for no other reason than to preclude their being seen as martyrs.   I much prefer to maintain appropriate dialogue, with its inherent boundaries, than to shut a person out in perpetuity.  Again, I draw the line at those who threaten violence or demand that I “toe the line.”

Many movements end their names with the suffix, “-ism”.  To wit, besides the above-mentioned womanism, we have “feminism”, “Islamism”, “supremacism” and the more conventional nationalism and sectarianism.  Such -isms, especially the last four mentioned, seem to lead to schism.  The founders of such movements may, or may not, have envisioned such divides, and thus incorporated them in their planning.    Nonetheless, any time one sets out to make a difference, if there is a pre-conceived Other, there is a potential schism.  Even a term as seemingly benign as non- (insert your identity group), is inherently creating a division in society.

It’s time to seriously work on abandoning the concept of “Other.”  Our self-concepts do not need it, in order to appreciate our uniqueness.

 

The Fire and The Rose

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Posted by on in collaborating, distraction issues, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 10, 2019-

The full of night can suffuse one’s mind with a darkness that is equal to, or surpassing of, the dearth of sunlight outside.  The mind, unlike the body, does not cease to move, at a time of physical rest.  For many of us, far more than should be the case, the movement is in a downward location.  Especially, but not exclusively, for those who live alone, the mind is more susceptible to the depredations of inner demons- at least until prayer, meditation and a few drops of therapeutic grade lavender bring on a healing slumber.

I live a fairly comfortable life, with no ailments at present, and a caring, if arm’s-length, circle of family and friends.  I was told, long ago, that a little of me goes a very long way. So be it.  As long as I’m doing right by those around me, that’s hardly the worst of circumstances.  When inner demons, stoked at times by fatigue, hit me in the darkness, my mantra of late has been to self-talk into sleep, sometimes aided by the lavender oil I mentioned above.

I look, though, at those whose demons lead them to continuing depredations of their own. The oppressed who, as I remarked to a reader of my previous  post, learn to become oppressors.  Here, I think, the scene arises from a failure to take self to account, to learn to place all blame for one’s lot externally, and to thus become a violator of others’ rights, property and persons.

We did not learn the right lessons, it seems, from the French Revolution, and thus came the Maoist Cultural Revolution.  The Holocaust of 1915 was, as Hitler predicted, a flickering ember of the mid-Twentieth Century imagination and the Fuehrer’s minions accomplished a genocide that would have made Ataturk blanche.  The Turks felt wronged, hemmed in, and so they lashed out, their targets lashed back and there was a bloodbath.  Post- World War I Germany, and several other Central European nations, were given short shrift by the Treaty of Versailles, clever demagogues found their Others to use as scapegoats, and the horror played out, on the grandest scale since, arguably, the Hundred Years’ War.

Today, there are all manner of others.  Demagogues, having tasted power and wanting it all the more, find target Others, across the world.  Stories of rape and pillaging give rise to hyper-generalization, far beyond the punishment of those actually responsible. One size must fit all.  Thus, we have Twitter storms, back and forth, attacking anyone suspected of taking a pin to one’s balloon. We have the macabre spectacle of a Nobel Peace Laureate, justifying her government’s deadly attacks on people whose primary offense is to adhere to a Faith that is different from her own.  She is, she says, acting on the advice of a “man of peace”, who is after all a Buddhist monk.  Thoughts of Nicholas II and Rasputin come to mind, but  I digress.  We have coteries of sectarian radicals,from India and Iran, to Yemen and Nigeria, stoking their own acts of opprobrium, against those of other Faiths.

T.S. Eliot’s scenario of the fire and the rose becoming one, in his Four Quartets,  is practiced over and over in our world, though not in the way he envisioned.  The Hollow Men, of one of his other great verses, will not endure a world ending with a whimper, but the series of bangs that have been our lot, since at least 1912, could bring it to an alarming precipice.

Bringing oneself to account each day would seem to be advisable, for high and low, alike.

Indelible

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 7, 2019-

Three men remain alive, of the Americans who fought at Pearl Harbor.  It’s been 78 years, since that day that brought the United States into de jure  conflict with Imperial Japan. The de facto war had been going on for some time, with Lend Lease and with Americans enlisting in other nations’ military forces.

The conflict was both the second-worst war of the Twentieth Century, after its predecessor, and the scenario for the hardest choices this country’s leadership has ever had to make.  The contributions of our best service people, the sacrifices of our civilian populace and the courage of underground fighters, across the globe- and on every inhabited continent, all are part of what makes World War II indelible in the memory of a conscious citizen.

Earlier today, one of the last Pearl Harbor veterans was laid to rest, on the sunken remains of the USS Arizona, the prime memorial site of that horrific attack.  Next weekend, our memorials to fallen veterans continues, with the laying of wreaths in each National Cemetery, across the country.   We will maintain our tributes to those who fell, and to those who came back, continued to serve those they loved and, in many cases, struggled with their demons.

Their fight for the common good, however ongoing and difficult, is indelible.

Love’s Many Labours

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Striving

December 5, 2019-

The Shepherd mix, with tan spots on a white coat, sauntered into the room where I was preparing for my biweekly chiropractic appointment.  He’s done this, the past few times I have been there, settling down in front of me, for a few minutes of petting and scratching.  He’s a rescue dog, so I don’t roughhouse with him, the way I did with my Rottweilers, back in the ’90’s.  It’s all very gentle and reassuring.  His labour, as it were, is to let those he trusts know that all is well with the world.

His master, the chiropractor, came in and did a quick, but thorough, adjustment, remarked on the nicety of my newly-purchased pair of Puma Soft Foams and dashed off to his next patient.  His quick and efficient session never gives the impression of being slip-shod.  Chiropractic, from a strong pair of hands, takes little time.

One of the late Bill Tracey’s namesake restaurants had a fund-raising event, this evening.  I went over, and found it was a packed house, despite the persistent rain.  Due to the dearth of  restaurant parking spaces and the vigilance of the landlord, in the adjoining office building (NO restaurant parking, even when the office tenants are not present), I parked across the street, in the lot of an empty building.  A two-seater table, which I often use, when dining there alone, was available.  I was pleasantly greeted by server “#88” (Bill never liked to name his servers, especially the young ladies, on a receipt. The family continues this practice.), and enjoyed the fare of the evening, knowing that a fair portion of the proceeds was going to a good cause.  With no dining companion, I observe how the workers are going about their efforts, as well as the camaraderie of surrounding parties.  Bill’s Grill is a cozy place, and comfortable, despite the enclosed porch structure of the main dining area.  “# 88”, as it happens is a cheerful, endearing young woman, with loving greetings and attention to every one of her guests.  I could see, though, that the heavy workload was starting to wear on her, just a bit.  I had no need of  dessert  and was just as glad when she  brought the bill, without the customary offer.  This woman, and the entire, all-female team, were working with intense, caring efficiency.  I tipped highly.

These are examples of love at work, the result of which keeps the world on an even keel, despite all that we see going on to the contrary.  Outside of the world of remunerated labour, there is what we do for one another, just because it’s right.  In a devotional meeting at a nearby college, after dinner, I consulted the two other participants, regarding a task that has landed on my lap, and which I sometimes find onerous.  They expressed the opinion that careful examination of the actual elements of the task would lend it less burdensome.  So it was, when I found the actual evening’s “workload” was a large amount, but one which could be skimmed, rather than considered line by line, I was able to remark on the most salient points being expressed.

Approaching any task with love makes its completion much easier.

A Bit About Happiness

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Posted by on in collaborating, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving

December 4, 2019-

Yesterday, whilst enjoying a bowl of soup and slice of avocado toast, I was amused by a little girl running gingerly back and forth, from her father’s table to a small shelf that had toys and books.  Her happiness flowed outward-and was contagious.

There is some “back and forth”, on sites like Quora and other online places, as to the part that happiness plays in one’s life.  There are those who maintain that happiness is a goal, or rather, THE goal, of a person’s life.  Others say “No, it is triumph over suffering, that is THE goal of this life.”

I maintain that happiness is a baseline, not a goal, of life.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha would ask people “Are you happy?  If you are not happy today, for what day do you wait?”  Think of the dreariest of mornings-perhaps in the dark of winter, or on an early spring day, with cold drizzle and snow remnants, blackened by soot.  Chances are, you won’t know of this state of affairs until you get out of bed.   So, it is the mood that accompanies a person, when she or he awakes and gets up, which sets the tone.  The outward dreariness does not have to define one’s life.

Of course, physical ailments have much to do with the mood of the day, as well.  So do social circumstances.  These, however, do not have to circumvent basic happiness.  I think of my late wife, bedridden for most of her final year in this life.  Even when she was conveying her thoughts about her condition, her decline, there was an air of  contentment, that she felt caring and love coming her way-this, from a base of happiness.

There is a common theme, in many of the world’s Constitutions, that the pursuit of happiness is an inherent right of  every human being.  Happiness, though, is already latent within us.  It is obvious, in the eyes of an infant, or the joyful run of a toddler, that the state of being happy exists from the inside out.  It is much like love-and actually flows out from the love that also is basic to our existence.

Love brought us into being, sustains us through ordeals and is with us, in the end.  Happiness, whether from quotidian events or from grand experiences, is also enduringly present, if one chooses to recognize its presence.

The goal of life?  To me, that is developing one’s strengths, positive attributes, to the greatest of  one’s ability.

Knowing, and Doing

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Posted by on in collaborating, distraction issues, Inspiration, Personal Values, Striving

December 3, 2019-

I learned, at four, how to tie my shoes.

I learned, at eight, how to size my shoes.

I learned, at 66, that I’d been wearing shoes

two sizes too small,

for nearly two years.

My feet grew, when the rest of me

didn’t.

I learned, at five, how to read.

I learned, at ten, how to read

between the lines.

I learned, at thirty,

how to spot weasel words

in print.

People say what is not meant,

to avoid responsibility.

I learned, at age six,

how to add.

I learned, at age seven,

how to subtract, and

at eight,

how to multiply

and short-form divide.

I learned, at age nine,

how to do long division.

I learned, at age 20,

how to put two and two together.

Most people are more

than the sum of their parts.