Memorial Day approaches.  For many, Memorial Day is nothing but an extra day off from work, or a long weekend chance to get together with family and friends, laugh and chat over a hot barbeque and cold beer, and launch the summer season in style.   Considering how hard people work these days and how precious time off is, I totally get it.

Also, I’m no fan of war, but then, neither are most warriors.  I believe that war is what you do when you’ve run out of options.  I also know that this is Earth, and history is rife with just cause for self defense, and the best defense is often a good offense.   The sad fact is that war is sometimes necessary, and when it is,  when the call goes out to stand up and fight, those who answer the call do so, for the most part, because they want to do what is right.

So the true meaning of Memorial Day is somber and sobering.  The purpose of the holiday is to remember those men and women who, while serving our nation in the armed forces, made the ultimate sacrifice.  In this blog post, I’ll tell you some of the history of the day, and what you can do to make Memorial Day something more than just another holiday weekend.

A Little History

There are competing claims about the birthplace of Memorial Day. and it existed informally long before it became an official ‘holiday.’   It was born, no doubt, out of small gatherings to honor the war dead in cities and towns across the nation following the Civil War.  The first official proclamation came on May 5, 1868, when General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Repulic, issued his General Order No. 11,

“…gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime….let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation’s gratitude,–the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.” –General John Logan, General Order No. 11, 5 May 1868

Memorial Day was first observed on May 30 of that same year, when the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery were decorated with flowers.  Still, the nothern and southern states involved in the conflict were still at odds, and held their remembrances on different days.

World War 1 marked a turning point in the evolution of the day, when for the first time both southern and northern states remembered their fallen soldiers on the same day, making it about coming together and reconciling differences in honor of those who had given everything in service to the nation.

In 1915, John McCrae penned the poem, In Flanders Fields.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

The ritual wearing of red poppies on Memorial Day came about when Moina Michael, inspired by this poem, added these words:

We cherish too, the Poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led,

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies.

Moina Michael had the idea to wear the red poppies now associated with the holiday, and to sell them in order to raise the money to contribute to servicemen and servicewomen in need.  This actually caught on in the world beyond our shores, thanks to a French visitor, Madam Guerin, who observing this, returned to her own country and began making artificial red flowers to raise funds for those orphaned and widowed by war.  In 1922, the VFW began selling poppies nationally.  A couple of years later, disabled veterans went to work making the artificial flowers for fund raising on Memorial Day.

What Changed?

Sadly, many Americans have no idea about the meaning of Memorial Day or its traditions.  Graves are ignored, forgotten and neglected.  Parades are few and far between.  And some folks just assume that it’s a day for remembering everyone who has died, and even in this, they fail to attend to the remembrance.   This is, I gather, a response to an act of Congress, in 1971, when Memorial Day was folded into a three day weekend in the National Holiday Act.

In December of 2000, a resolution for a National Moment of Remembrance was passed by Congress to help remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day. At 3 p.m. local time,  all Americans are called upon

“To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”

How our world has changed.  Now, just asking for a moment, instead of a day, is considered significant.  But it is a step in the right direction.   After all, for the sacrifice that was made, ought we not be at least a moment’s worth of grateful?

I remember classmates who died in Vietnam.  Family who died in the two world wars and Korea.  Neighbors and children of my neighbors who will never return from the middle east.   Though you and I may take issue with the faults and failings of our government, with the willingness of those who have never served to sacrifice those who willingly did serve, still, I have no issue with those who answer the call, who stand and serve, who risk it all so that you and I may live in freedom.   In these brave souls, we have much to be grateful for.  Memorial Day reminds us to stand together in memory and gratitude, and in this way binds us all together in both love and loss.

What You Can Do

You can visit a cemetery and place flags or flowers on the graves of the fallen

You can fly the U.S. flag at half-staff until noon

You can give some support to orphans, widows and widowers of the dead.

• http://www.taps.org/
• http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com/links.html
• http://www.herobracelets.org/

And you can participate, at 3pm local time, in a moment of remembrance and gratitude.

You can listen to an mp3 of TAPS by clicking here.

Lastly, may I recommend a wonderful Memorial Day blog memorial, put together by my friend Steve Kayser.  It moved me, and I believe it will move you deeply too.

Be safe, be well, be grateful.  On this very day, our men and women in uniform are risking, and all too often laying down, their lives for you.  Take time to notice. Take time to give thanks.  Take time to remember.  I’ll not be posting on Monday, the 31st, but will be back for my regular post a week later.

Rick

In this final post of my blog series about getting beyond Us/Them thinking, I’d like to talk about the part we each play in what happens to all of us.

The world is my country.  All mankind are my brethren.  To do good is my religion.
- Thomas Paine

I love that quote.  That’s from ‘the’ Thomas Paine, author of the Common Sense pamphlet that inspired the American Revolutionaries.  And from the quote it seems obvious that his idea was to serve the whole of us, that this was his founding ideal, his big idea, and he was just looking for a place to get the party started.  It’s provides a very different lens than the way many of us think of U.S.

Because I can see my commonality with my fellow human beings, I like to think of myself as, and behave like, a peace maker.  I enjoy resolving conflict, whether it’s between a parent and child, spouses, business partners or team-mates, or a city council that has lost its way.  In fact, a friend recently suggested that I write a letter to the editor of my local paper about what I would do with congress if they invited me to help them resolve their conflict.  And I think I could do it!  I’d likely apply a similar approach to what I did with the Ashland City Council, focusing first on attitude, then behavior, then organization.  But when it comes to peace between nations, cultures and religions, this business of working for peace is a sticky situation.

It is the nature of stress that if you perceive a threat, then you must resist it until you are exhausted. And I perceive some real threats, threats that I take very personally because they are threats to my loved ones, on the planetary level.  Start with terror organizations and nuclear armed rogue nations.   Add in the corporations that have no moral or ethical center, raping and pillaging the future to feather their nests in the present.  Sprinkle generously with too many chemicals to count filling our air, soil and water.  Don’t forget the clear-cutting and overfishing, or the island of plastic that floats around the world strangling the life out of the ocean wherever it goes.  Now, to keep it interesting, toss in some money grubbing politicians and gun-for-hire lobbyists whose work it is to keep change from happening or to make things worse in order to make things better for their soul-less clients.  And let’s not forget that stressed out people can go crazy, and there are lots of stressed out people ready to pick up a gun or climb out on a ledge, and the number is growing daily.

At the same time that I contemplate all the potential threats, I know that fighting or withdrawing from a threat may strengthen it.  It seems t0 me a basic rule in life is at work here.

What you resist, persists.  Said another way, if all you know is what you don’t want, you will get more of it.

Our brains are organized this way. It’s your reticular activating system, and it’s scanning the billions of bits of sensory data bombarding your nervous system looking for relevance to what you care about. If all you can do is identify what you don’t want, your brain thinks that’s what you care most about. So if you tell your brain what you don’t want , it will immediately set to work finding evidence of it. Tell your child what you don’t want him or her to do, and it becomes an invitation for it.  Fighting and withdrawing from a perceived threat only works until you’re exhausted, at which point that threat, if it’s real, overruns and overcomes you.

The only value in perceiving a threat, as far as I can tell, is recognizing it as a call to action. Not the action of mere resistance (though sometimes, like in the Civil Rights movement and Women’s Suffrage movement in the US, the Green Revolution of Iran, or Tianemann Square in China, resistance is a painful yet necessary first step to draw attention to your plight), but of taking aim at a different outcome than the one threatening to happen.   It’s that basic question:  If you don’t want ‘that’, what do you want?   What makes it so hard to answer is that we are too easily blinded by our fears and our answer is usually the first thing we can think of to minimize the fear, or make the fear stop, or make the threat go away.

But identifying a real outcome is essential, because it is the way out of stress, away from exhaustion and death.   Vague generalizations won’t do, either. You have to be specific.  What do you mean when you say you want ‘that’?   And if you’re going to move towards that, what will you do with the habitual behaviors that worked so well to protect you in the past?  How are you going to change what you’re doing in the present in order to get that different outcome in the future?

Since the only corner of the universe I can be sure of improving is myself, primarily because I have no control over anything outside of myself, it’s my choice to make about the part I will play and how I will play it.   I choose to use my short season upon this Earth to better myself, and then put my personal improvement to work for the betterment of the world around me.  I have no guarantees that my desired outcomes will ever come to pass, but I can guarantee my own persistence and determination to do all I can for as long as I can.

And really, just doing my part is enough for me.  I’m doing what I can do.  Who knows? Maybe I’ll inspire you by my example.  Maybe I’ll enroll you through my persuasive communication.  Maybe you and I can pool our resources and share the burdens of our efforts too, on occasion.  But it’s down to me.  That’s where the difference lives.  If humanity is an experiment in the universe’s laboratory, the experiment is running on free will, and that means that it’s up to each of us.  We can choose to work for success, but there’s no guarantee, because how the rest of you play with me determines to a great degree what I can be.  We’re all connected. We almost all of us have a stake in the future.

There is a place where neither us nor them has any real relevance. That’s when the desired state is initiative. Groups can’t take initiative. Only individuals can. It’s one of the things we all have in common.  So I’m taking the initiative.  I’m choosing to work for a future worth living in. I hope you are too.  Because if we’re going to come together, we’ve got to get over ourselves, get past our prejudice, projections, and limiting assumptions. If we approach everything as a potential threat, we’ll be too exhausted to think straight. Better to accept the unacceptable, identify a clear connection, find common ground and build on it, and take small steps forward.  I do my part, you do your part, then we together can play an ever bigger part.

Here’s the alter call.  I encourage you, urge you, and our descendants are begging you, please do your part. Disrupt dysfunctional patterns in yourself. Make some new distinctions so that you can notice that when people have a different view than your own, they have it for a reason they consider a good one.  Notice something you hadn’t noticed before. Understand something in a new way. Recognize that fear is as irrational as it is necessary, and perhaps wisdom is learning the difference  about when to act on it versus when to act in spite of it.

This concludes my series on ‘Moving Beyond Us/Them Thinking.’  But I’ll be back next week with a post on another topic related to persuasive communication and life skills.  Until then, your comments and feedback are always welcome.

Be well,

Rick

Picking up from last week’s post, this time I’ll tell you where I think we all can find common ground.  It’s all around us, and it’s staring us in the face, right here, right now.  We see it most clearly when we face the future.

The common ground of the present moment is the only thing certain in life.  You can’t count on the past for this, because the past keeps changing depending on who is writing the history.   (The Texas School Board has been hard at work on that!)

And the future is a big unknown, a giant question mark.  While we can have some success at making the invisible visible by charting trends and collecting data through time, at best we can make predictions, and our best predictions either overstate or underestimate the case.   The future is even a giant question mark for those who claim to have religious or spiritual certainty, because the deeper meaning of their belief will only be revealed in a coming time of revelation.

But here’s the thing.  If there’s going to be a future worth living in, I think you will find more than enough agreement from most everybody that much needs to change. That’s a promising field of opportunity. It means that connection, communication and persuasion have the mojo, leverage and potential to win the day.

So many years ago, John Lennon invited us to ‘Come together.’ And though some of the world has come together in some specific ways (notably in economics and sports), generally, it has yet to happen.   Yet we also know that war, as a way of settling differences, is becoming increasingly obsolete. That’s because our weapons for waging it against them can also kill us. I do not doubt that many people hope for, wish for, pray for and dream of finding a better and more peaceful way to resolve our differences in this world. What’s stopping us?  What is standing in the way of our coming together?

We are.  Us. Centuries of history, of mistrust and misunderstanding, of ignorance in both our leaders and our role models, have got us to where we are. And much of the world still believes in the necessity of war. Many of us, and by us I mean the human race, hear the word peace and it provokes nothing but fear and terror.  History shows that there are those who use periods of peace to buy time to build up their ability to wage war.  There are those whose definition of peace is to take another piece of us.  In a world where Hitlers and Stalins and Bin Ladens rise up in every generation and, pitting us against them,  dish out the destruction until they themselves are destroyed, it’s a wonder that we get along at all.  Every group and subgroup of us has some foundation for grudges and grievances.  Everyone has a sad tale to tell of being victimized by someone else. Human history is not a happy tale of challenge and triumph.  Much of it is the story of horrible suffering and pain, torture and torment, and with each retelling of that story, new generations adopt old nightmares and terror.

Look up and look around.  It’s not just history, but geology, archeology, and astronomy too.  We know deep down in our soul that, no matter how much we hope and pray it were otherwise, the universe is not benevolent.  It Generates, Operates and Destroys.   We don’t want to expose ourselves and our families to danger, to turn our back only to find moments later that someone has plunged a knife into it.   And so protecting ourselves from each other has become a planetary prime directive that keeps us apart, keeps us afraid, and keeps us angry.

Yet at the same time, I believe it is obvious to just about any thinking person that addressing the urgency of our fears while ignoring the greater importance of the future cannot go on forever.  Something’s got to give.  While we can’t afford to forget, (those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them) we must find it in ourselves to forgive, to go first, to give the benefit of the doubt, to give peace a chance.

One of my personal heroes, Bucky Fuller, spoke of humanity eventually arriving at the end of the womb of acceptable ignorance, a time when we would be faced with a stark choice.  Continue backing into the future by fighting or fleeing from what we don’t want, or turning to face it squarely, realize we will live in the tomorrow we create today, and get busy creating a tomorrow we want to live in. He called it Earthian’s critical moment, and saw it as a pass/fail test as the universe inexorably proves its own integrity. Events like the meltdown at Chernobyl, the events of 9/11, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions have convinced me that we’ve arrived, that this is that moment, that pivotal moment, in which we begin changing the course of human history and bending it towards peace and justice, towards sustainability and general health, or we will face our doom, not at the hand of God, but by our own hand.

I’ll be back in my next post to talk about what can be done and who can do it.  Until then, your comments and feedback are welcome.

Be well,
Rick

Picking up from last week’s post, I begin with the basic rule of human relationship.  Nobody cooperates with anybody who seems to be against them.

If I began this post by talking about where I stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you might take comfort in finding an ally to affirm the rightness of your opinion.  Or you might hear what I say as fighting words, and feel compelled by your own values to take up the fight.  If I began this post by talking about where I stand on government spending, or taxes, or healthcare, or the environment, there’s a real chance I’d lose you, provoke you or disappoint you.

We have met the enemy, and he is us. – Walt Kelly, Pogo

It’s not that I don’t have opinions on these things, because I do.  And it’s not that I don’t think it’s important to speak up sometimes, because I do.  It’s just that I know that where there is no cooperation and no trust, there is no hope.  That resistance is the consequence of our insistence on letting our divisions take priority over our commonality.

Better, I think, that you get to know me enough to know I’m like you, that I’m not your enemy, that we have much in common, much to discuss, and that we can have a respectful connection.  There will always be time for differences.  But I choose first to find the common ground.

For example, as a naturopathic physician who values nature’s medicine chest and was trained in the ounces of prevention that are worth pounds of cure, who learned what the alternatives are to giving people drugs and cutting off troublesome body parts, I’m but one of a relatively small group of doctors who seeks fundamental change in the way healthcare is delivered in the United States.  All of our institution building and networking and learning about the legal system and political system has had this objective as its focal point.   Because we know that to succeed at bringing about that fundamental change, we’re going to have to deal with them.

For us, them is the conventional medical community, the dominant players in the existing system who we tend to view as  the eager purveyors of unnecessary drugs and surgery.   They have a vested financial interest in maintaining their dominant position in the existing system, and we have a financial interest in opening doors of opportunity in that system for ourselves.  But we can only make headway with them when we see their concerns as legitimate, their interests as real as our own, and their position in the system as serving an important purpose at this time.  That’s called respect, and in my experience, showing some respect is the best way to get some in return.  Respect creates conditions for dialog and dialog allows differences to be explored and eventually resolved.

It’s a mistake, in persuasion, to think that someone has to lose for someone else to win.  The basic rule of persuasive speech:   If the first thing you say doesn’t connect with someone else’s map of reality, it will interfere with their ability to understand the rest of what you have to say.  The best outcomes are win/win outcomes, where everyone involved either loses less than they might have, or gains more than they bargained for, or at minimum, we all get our needs met.

When I use a phrase like we all, it’s because I find it a nice alternative to focusing on and talking about us/them relationships.   Growing the we all group is a more effective strategy than us opposing or struggling with them. We all is inclusive instead of exclusive. When I refer to we all,  I’m not talking, necessarily, about involving everyone everywhere all the time in my pursuit of a better health care system, or a better environment, or a better world.   That would ultimately prove to be a tremendous waste of time and resources.

It’s my experience that change happens not by committee, but by and through pivotal individuals who step up in the presence of key external conditions that demand change, who engage and enroll the people around them until an idea becomes a movement and a movement becomes an inevitability.   There may be an entrenched them that is unyeilding in its opposition to what we want.

Still, I would not find much use in trying to leave ‘them’ out of anything, nor would I be too concerned if they opt out of attempts to bring about positive change.  That’s because change happens on a bell curve.  (See the diagram in the upper right corner of this post.)  You have early adopters of an idea, who get it when nobody else does.  They are on the bleeding edge of change.   Most people think that early adopters are crazy. But there’s a somewhat larger group of people watching them and deciding for themselves, and eventually, if the idea is a good one, they join those on the bleeding edge and it then becomes the leading edge 0f change. A larger group is now watching the enlarged group, and eventually, they join too, until the vast majority of them become us by sharing in the desire for the specific change.

At some point, the only ones left out are the dinosaurs. They don’t get it. They don’t want to get it.  They tromp all over everything hoping to slow down or stop change, and don’t notice that what’s changing is their environment as a result of all that tromping around.   And the only way they get out of the way is when they die off.

That’s nature’s way. Before too long, the change happens. The key is that when things change for the better, it’s always about ‘enough’ of us, not all of us.’ Which is why building connections, networks, and alliances of resources and help is how we increase the speed of change.

Next week, I’ll take this idea global!  Meanwhile, your comments are welcome.

Be well

Rick

Recently, I was invited to share my thoughts on ‘us/them‘ dynamics and conflict resolution at a Peace House of Ashland sponsored gathering in southern Oregon.   I relish every opportunity to contribute what I know to the benefit of people trying to live their values and walk their talk.  And because thoughts of such things are a normal part of how I think, I spent a great deal of time thinking about what to say.   I think it’s a very big deal, and I’m going to blog about this for the few weeks.

I am you as you are me as you are we and we are all together.  - John Lennon, I Am The Walrus

First, thanks for the opportunity to share this with you.  Since you’re reading my blog, I’m going to make certain assumptions about you that will allow me to talk more freely to you, more open to talk about deeper things than I typically do.  For me to be comfortable doing that, I must assume that you’re the kind of person I can trust with such openness.

So I assume you are doing the best you can to live the best life you can, that you’re intelligent and discerning to the best of your ability.  I assume there are people you care about and you want them to be safe.  I assume that if you have kids, you dream of a better future for them. And while you and I may disagree on exactly how to attend to these things, I assume that we can agree broadly with the ideas themselves.

I also make assumptions about you as part of us that allows me to interact and make new connections and friends.   Because I see the connection between how we are as a society and who we are as individuals.  I think our collective health and wisdom depend on our individual health and wisdom.  And while I recognize and value the meaningful differences between us as individuals, as cultures, and as nation-states, it is obvious to me that we have more in common than we do to divide us, and that realizing our individual dreams may require that we realize some of our shared dreams first.

Shared dreams and ideals is obviously a broad idea, and the devil is certainly in the details.  Just look at a dymaxion map (That’s one up in the corner of this post.  The Dymaxion map is the first accurate map of the planet when laid out on a flat surface.  It was originally developed by Buckminster Fuller, and you can order your own map and other dymaxion artifacts here) and you’ll see a very different view of things.  You will find that there is simply no escape from a fundamental and increasingly apparent fact of life. This is our only planet and we all have to share it. We don’t have a backup if we make a mistake, if we break it or bomb it or leave it to ruin.  One planet,  with one island,  in one ocean.  There’s one race, the human race, and as fellow passengers on this spaceship Earth, we have a shared destiny.  What’s that destiny going to be?  As far as I’m concerned that’s the one conversation that we need to be having internationally, because without agreement to this, there’s no possibility for a real dialog.

Ironically, peace on Earth and goodwill towards all is not some new idea.  I’ve seen and heard its expression in various forms throughout my travels and reading.  Many, if not most, of the world’s great religions (and I don’t mean great as in WOW they are great religions, but rather as in WOW they really have a lot of believers!)  speak of peace as a desirable goal.   A better tomorrow was what our ancestors worked towards, it’s why we’re here, and it’s what many of my relatives, readers and friends work towards now. And  I think it’s safe to say that for those of us who enjoy our freedom, live with security and strive for a better world, order and fairness are preferable to disorder and arbitrary uses of power.  Given the same choice, I’m guessing that most of the citizens of the world would agree.

Problem is, this is Earth, and life is hard here.  It’s not fair to all, not even to most.  Far too many people live without security, without even their most basic needs being met.  Far too many are occupied too often with the daily struggle to survive for them to give even a moment’s thought to the meaning of peace.

I, on the other hand, am like you.  I have the luxury, and I want both peace and justice for all of humanity.   I want there to be truth and reconciliation wherever people are in conflict (even when it seems impossible, as it once did in S. Africa)  I want everyone to have the freedoms I have, because in such a world shared dreams would not just be a broad idea, it would be a big obvious idea that would be easily embraced.

We, the people, have much in common, wherever in the world you find us.  Indeed, we have so much in common because we’re all in the same boat, and as the size of our problems grows, we’re going to sink or swim together.

There is plenty of room here in our little boat for some serious disagreement, whether we seek it out or not.  That’s because, paradoxically, we are all so very different.   Each of us is unique.  And the near-infinite number of ways we come together demonstrate this, because there are so many subgroups that we have the option to identify with.  There’s culture.  Nationality.  Race. Gender.  Social class. Politics. Sports. Sports team.  Entertainment. Emotion.  Intelligence.  Career choice.  Values. Needs. Criteria.  Pick a profession and you find it has specialties.  Like maturing ecosystems, the longer we hold something together, the more fractions within it form.  And in finding our areas of disagreement, we inevitably must make the distinction between me and you, us and them.

And history shows that, outside of the sports arena, it’s a loser’s game to come at differences as opponents.  More on this in my next post.

Your comments and feedback are welcome here.

Be well

Rick