Category Archives: CAM Original Articles

Armistice Day 2023

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It was Veteran’s Day in Hartford, Connecticut. As members of Veterans for Peace, we greeted the thousands of basketball fans making their way into the XL Center (formerly the Hartford Civic Center) to attend the game between the defending national champion UConn Huskies and their opponents from Stonehill College. The stadium’s main entrance still bears its original moniker: Veterans Memorial Coliseum. It was a brisk but not brutally cold November morning. We met them with our voices, our signs, our flags and a Tibetan singing bowl that one of our members rang throughout the hour as we called attention to the devastation unfolding in Gaza. We wished them an enjoyable time at the game and we wished them all a happy Armistice Day. We also urged the crowd to be aware of what was happening so far away and to take whatever action they could to stop the horror. As it always does, violence begets violence. It becomes its own narcotic.

We wondered how many of these basketball fans actually knew about the history of Armistice Day and how it became Veteran’s Day in the mid 1950’s. Did they know that it was originally a day to celebrate and promote peace as World War I ended? Did they know why it had been renamed Veteran’s Day? The stated purpose of this change was to emphasize the sacrifice of all veterans of all wars in our nation’s history. The actual effect was to shift the focus from peace to war and to equate war with patriotism while implying that opposing war and/or being for peace is somehow unpatriotic.

We noticed how few of those making their way into the XL Center would even look at us let alone react to us as we called for an immediate ceasefire and as we attempted to bear witness to the death and destruction occurring in Gaza. A few people did nod and smile at us. A few thanked us for promoting peace. A few grumbled cynically about the idea of a ceasefire but the vast majority just walked on by as if we weren’t there. It was both interesting and disheartening to experience this apparent indifference.

I wondered why it was so difficult for them to even look at us. I wondered if this avoidance of eye contact was related to an intuitive desire to not feel something too uncomfortable to feel. I wondered.

Many have described what is going on in Gaza as a genocide in progress. Genocide is not a word to be used casually. In 1951 the United Nations held a convention to established a definition of genocide. It put forth a definition which states that “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”:
It then lists the acts as follows:

Killings members of the group.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

You may decide for yourself to what extent these criteria are being met currently in Gaza.

I thought about the Holocaust and the question so many have asked themselves: How would I act in a society under fascist rule? Would I lash out at my oppressors or would I simply try to survive at all costs? Would I actively resist or would I make myself invisible? Would I have hidden and protected Anne Frank’s family or would I have turned them in to the Nazis to save my own skin?

Like most, I tell myself that I would do the right thing. I would resist the coercion and intimidation with every fibre of my being. I wouldn’t cave in to the pressure to cooperate with the oppressors. Or would I? I don’t actually know. I’ve never lived under such conditions.

The question of how we might act while a genocide is under way is no longer a merely theoretical one. It is happening in Gaza now. As of early December, 2023 there have been over 15,000 deaths of people who once lived in Gaza. Many of those were children. How many more uncounted deaths there are remains to be seen. Still more will die as life-sustaining resources have been cut off from the people of Gaza. Many will die of disease and starvation.

Many Americans are looking at their government’s extensive support for what the Israeli government is doing to the people of Gaza. Undoubtably, some Americans believe that the United States’ support of Israel is appropriate and justified. Even so, many others are wondering if the American government’s support is wrong and immoral. Certainly some Americans have painfully concluded that their government is complicit in a genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinians living in Gaza. How bizarrely ironic it is to see one nation that emerged from the tyranny and oppression of the British monarchy in the 18th Century and a nation that emerged out of the Holocaust of the 20th Century teaming up in the 21st Century to try to annihilate an impoverished group of human beings living in Gaza under an apartheid system that the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once described as being comparable to South Africa’s.

It’s easy to understand why many of us feel powerless and disconnected from what our government does. Coincidentally or not, most Americans have become passive observers and perhaps even disinterested non-observers. We have our 21st century version of “bread and circuses” to keep us distracted and mollified. Many complain about being “taxed to death” yet how many of us realize how most of our tax dollars go straight into the Pentagon and then quickly into the coffers of corporations that provide the U.S. military with its weapons and related technology? American corporations provide a large percentage of all weapons of war manufactured worldwide. Death and Destruction: Made in the U.S.A.

How many of us are completely unaware of how obscenely profitable these corporations are and how they grow ever more wealthy and powerful as a result of the death and devastation they deliver? These corporations thrive on war. They incentivize war. War is good for their investors. To put it simply, war is very good for their business.

What language do such corporations understand? What convinces a corporation to stop doing what it’s doing? How do we reconcile the legalized fiction that declares that corporations are “people” while at the same time these “people” are absolved of any moral responsibility regarding their behavior? Are corporations subordinate to government or is government subordinate to them? If it is the latter, are we right to be cynical about the role of government to represent the will of the people and to act in support their well-being? If Big Government is actually the handmaid of Big Business it means that the high ideals of “liberty and justice for all” have been reduced to a marketing strategy to frame whatever government does at the behest of corporate power as something patriotic and justified.

These are some of the things I wonder about. I wish I had all the clear and correct answers to my questions. Maybe my questions aren’t even the right questions.

Our time of bearing witness comes to an end. It’s game time and there are just a few late arrivals hastily entering the XL Center. Our little group gathers and prepares to have lunch together.

It’s fair for you to ask if a small group of peace-mongers attempting to disturb the complacency of the general population is enough to make a difference. In one sense it is obviously not enough. I can easily imagine many of those basketball fans feeling briefly perplexed at why we even bothered to show up and protest the devastation of Gaza. They may think: “No one is listening to you.” They might be right about that. And yet there is something inside that says: “Do it anyway! This is what you need to do.” It says: “Don’t stop! Do more!”

And that “something inside” won’t take “no” for an answer.















Letter to an American President

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Dear Mr. President,

I hope you, your family and all who you love and care about are well and happy.

I write to you today out of deep concern for the state of our country and of the world to which we all belong. We are living in interesting times to say the least and humankind has never been in greater danger.

As I’m sure you know, we are living in a climate crisis that is escalating before our very eyes and it is doing so faster than we expected. The summer of 2023 has seen record-setting heat. Texas is sweltering, Vermont has endured devastating floods, Canada is on fire and the world’s oceans are growing warmer and warmer. I know your administration has acknowledged this crisis and taken some action to address the situation but honestly, so much more is needed.

How can it be that as the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world and with all the resources at our disposal we are not doing so much more? We could be leading the way to a world that will be truly livable for all of us. Is it possible that our government which was meant to be of The People, by The People and for The People has been taken hostage by corporate power? Is this what stops us? It will cost too much money? Prioritizing profits over people is a 21st century Golden Calf. We worship this idol at our own peril.

As if the climate crisis isn’t enough, scientists have recently set the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight. We have never been closer to self-annihilation. The threat of thermonuclear suicide for all of humanity, indeed, for all life on our one little planet has never been more dire. Is it possible, Mr. President, that we have lost our appreciation for the staggering magnitude of how devastating these weapons really are? Do any of our military leaders actually believe that these weapons can be used in a “tactical” manner? Honestly sir, that notion is completely delusional. If we or anyone else uses a thermonuclear weapon we all lose in a very big way.

More broadly Mr. President, how is it that in the 21st century we still believe that militarism is the way to resolve conflicts? We cloak this belief with a faux rationality yet war is arguably the most irrational of all human behaviors. Believing that that we will get peace from war is like believing that if we plant apple seeds we will get trees that give us oranges. We reap what we sow and if we continue to sow the seeds of destruction we will get destruction. And yet…..we persist.

War, of course, cannot be separated from the climate crisis. As I’m sure you are aware, sir, the United States military has a carbon footprint larger than that of several countries. Our armed forces pollute the land, air and water that all life depends on. They do this with impunity. This is unacceptable if we are to bequeath a livable world to our children and grandchildren.

Lastly, Mr. President, can we please stop pretending that America is God? There have been too many episodes in our nation’s history where we have acted as if we were the Almighty wielding the power to end life. In World War II our firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo revealed our willingness to target civilians as did our use of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our use of napalm in Vietnam likewise made no distinction between military targets and innocent civilians. The My Lai massacre remains an ugly stain on our nation’s history. Too many still believe in the pernicious lie of “American exceptionalism” and use it to falsely justify their destructive agendas. They conflate a twisted concept of patriotism with Divine Leadership. This is a highly toxic combination. It is a cult-like dynamic. It is a way of death, not life.

Yes, let us love our country. Yes, let us respect our nation and the high ideals that gave birth to it. But let us not become hostage to the dishonest nonsense of “American exceptionalism” which is nothing but a modern re-branding of Manifest Destiny. It is as arrogant as it is wrong and it is high time that we officially and publicly reject it.

Let us be patriotic but not at the cost of being ensnared by “Us vs. Them” thinking. Our patriotism needs to be fully inclusive such that the full spectrum of human diversity is embraced, honored and respected. Let us remember that any “patriotism” that is devoid of humility and historical honesty is nothing but cheap propaganda.

In 1953 President Eisenhower made a speech in which he said:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

What President Eisenhower said 70 years ago is even more true today. The Military Industrial Complex he warned us about has consumed American society and has made us a nation addicted to war. This addiction has infiltrated virtually every aspect of our society. Our recovery from this addiction is one of our most difficult and necessary tasks. If we do not rise to meet this challenge, we will meet the fate of all addicts who do not recover. We will suffer and die. This need not be our fate Mr. President. Together we are more than capable of meeting every adversity the Road to Recovery puts before us but to do so means that we will need to make room for a new consciousness to grow within us both individually and collectively. We can choose to humble ourselves or we can be filled with pride before our fall. We need to recall and reclaim our true identities as members of a sacred human family whose kinship transcends all the false and superficial barriers that have been the source of so much of humankind’s pain and suffering.

Mr. President, we have so much healing work to do as a nation. I know that this is a very heavy burden for you to bear and it cannot be yours to bear alone. Each of us must shoulder it as best we can. Recovery must happen in the community of America and in the larger global community. None may be excluded. We have many amends to make to our own citizens, to citizens of other nations and to nature itself. It is imperative for us to do this work so that we can truly be free. We will not be free otherwise. We have done great harm to so many and we need to assume full responsibility for our actions. We must make meaningful reparations for all the injuries we have caused. We need to start now.

Thank you sir, for your kind patience and consideration of my concerns.

In Friendship and with Respect,


Paul Nyklicek

Good Friday 2023

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A few weeks ago, a group of peace activists stood in front of a city cathedral on Good Friday to call for an end to War and for the beginning of a Just Peace.

Good Friday, of course, is the day Christians commemorate the death of Jesus of Nazareth. More precisely, his death was a state-sanctioned execution by slow torture. The most powerful empire in the world at that time with an unrivaled military force carried out his death sentence.

A few weeks ago, just over two thousand years after Jesus’ crucifixion, a group of peace activists living in our current world’s preeminent military empire, the United States of America, gathered in front of the Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut. Though small in number, this group sought to disturb the complacency of a society that has become far too numb to its state of permanent war. On this holy day, a day of remembrance of the horrific state execution of an innocent prisoner, we stood outside the cathedral to bear witness to the countless innocent victims of modern warfare. So many have been senselessly killed only to be euphemistically categorized as “collateral damage” by the Masters of War. So many who did not die physically have been deeply traumatized by the raging insanity of War. Death and destruction are the immediate fruits of War while the enduring emotional trauma of War become the seeds from which future Wars emerge. This is the legacy of War.

If one seriously claims to follow The Way of Jesus, to follow his teachings and his example of how to live, one must regard all who are physically killed or psychologically maimed as nothing less than our full brothers and sisters. Their humanity and the sacredness of their lives cannot be diminished by labelling them with dehumanizing language which happens all too frequently in the reporting of War.

The question can be legitimately asked: Why would anyone stand on the side of a city street with a banner proclaiming PEACE IS STARTING and hand-held signs denouncing the madness of War? The pragmatists will ask: “What good will that do? It’s not going to change the minds of those in power.” If one sees our reality from a purely materialistic point of view where reality is composed only of atoms randomly rearranged over billions of years then the skepticism of the pragmatist is well-founded. Such protests, from this perspective, are a pointless waste of time and effort.

The answer to this question by those of us opposing War has everything to do with the rejection of that Old Story of us and its purely materialistic view of reality and of humankind. The Old Story of humanity is based on the mythology of “survival of the fittest” where we are all expected to relentlessly compete with each to have access to resources that we all need but don’t have enough of. This view of human life holds that we are fundamentally separate from each other and therefore declares that we must fight each other for the right to live. In this framework, those who are not “strong enough” or “don’t work hard enough” don’t deserve necessary resources. Ultimately, this means that certain people are not as deserving of life as others.

Which brings us back to the problem of War and the need to resist War in all its forms.

War is nothing less than a trauma factory on steroids. It destroys, degrades, and deforms everyone and everything it touches. War must be opposed for these reasons because ultimately War brings all of us closer and closer to suicide. We see this in terms of the epidemic of suicides among veterans and active military personnel that goes largely unacknowledged by those promoting the United States’ obscenely bloated “defense” spending year after year. It is also suicidal in the form of the very real danger of nuclear annihilation either by human or technological error or by the insane belief by any political or military leader that the use of nuclear weapons would somehow not be catastrophic for all life on our planet. Finally, War is devastatingly toxic to the natural world. Military activity significantly pollutes the air, water, and land that all earthly life depends on. The carbon footprint of the U.S. military alone is greater than that of many nations. This represents the “boiling frog” scenario in which humanity is the “frog” slowly but surely being boiled to death by the constantly increasing heat that Mother Earth is less and less able to mitigate for us.

Opposing War is opposing suicide. That is why we denounce it and reject it. It is not a form of “problem solving” or diplomacy. It is not a way of life. It is only the way to death.

So what is the alternative?

The alternative is based on the embracing of a New Story of humankind. It is an updated and scientifically-based understanding of human nature. This understanding proclaims that we prefer peaceful cooperation and coexistence far more than any inclination toward violence. This New Story of us is based on a conscious shifting toward the Power of Love and away from the Love of Power. It expands our awareness to know that who we is far beyond our mere biochemical physicality. We are not independent from each other but instead we are interdependent with each other. What we do to another we ultimately do to ourselves. Whether we like it or not, we are all profoundly interconnected. This concept is hardly a new one. Spiritual leaders have expressed this notion for thousands of years. Many traditions have some version of the Golden Rule as a key element of their faith.

So we gathered on Good Friday in the long shadow of the crucified Jesus so many years ago. We sought to make a most subversive statement to our present culture: Peace is possible and War is not inevitable. However imperfectly, we attempt to follow Jesus’ instructions for us to become the human beings we were meant to be. We have been invited and encouraged to follow his lead and live the way he taught us to live. He told us to love each other the way he loved us, to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us. He told us again and again not to be afraid. He asked us to follow him. Then and now.

Every voice lifted, every loving action taken for the cause of Peace with Justice is never a waste of time or effort. These actions may not resonate in the surface realms of corporate capitalism, white supremacy, and militarism but they resonate significantly in the greater depths of agape love. Like anyone caught in the riptide of a powerful addiction, those whose drug of choice is the assumed power of financial, political or military dominance will at first misperceive the notion of recovery as impossible or crazy. All who are addicted to the “bottom line” remain functionally blind until something happens, an ordeal is experienced that becomes “eye opening.” Some have argued that such deep-level change happens only when we experience either great pain or great love.

The first Good Friday was full of both.

The Shame of it All

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There is an understandable temptation to shame the perpetrators of the attempted insurrection earlier this week at our nation’s capital. Perhaps even more tempting is the desire to shame all those in power whose rhetoric fueled the eruption of violence we saw. To shame any such person is to forcibly impose on them the label of sub-human (usually with much more graphic phrasing) and to unilaterally declare them unworthy of humane treatment. To shame someone is to humiliate them. There is, of course, a reactive desire for retribution when we feel assaulted or offended and we feel very tempted to “get even” with the perpetrator and we make a case (publicly or in the privacy of our our thoughts) for the justification of the “payback” to be delivered. The Grand Fantasy, of course, it that this will somehow be corrective and healing for us or at least make us “feel better” (translation: a massage session for our ego) and that it will “teach them a lesson” and will “make them think twice before they act that way again.”

Someone from another world might look at us and ask: “How’s that been working for you humans?” I think if we’re honest, the answer is that it isn’t working for us. I suspect that we keep at it because we think it “should work” (because we’re the smartest people we’ve ever met!). So we keep punishing each other and wonder in amazement when those being punished “don’t get it.”

Here’s the thing: Shaming does not produce enlightenment. Shaming does correlate to violence. Significantly so. I contend that this is the case because shaming is violence. It is a direct attack on the human spirit embodied within every one of us (no matter how obscured it might be by multiple layers of “baggage” we have accumulated over time) and attacking anyone in this way does not induce them to become well behaved. When any of us is in enough pain we will tend to either lash out at others or lash inwardly against ourselves. We saw lashing out in Washington, D.C.

I am not in any way condoning or making excuses for the would-be insurrectionists or those who egged them on. I am adamantly opposed to their actions and beliefs. People, however, are not the problem. The problem is the problem. So what’s The Problem? Here’s my answer: The Problem is the belief that violence in whatever form is an effective way to resolve conflicts or heal injuries. Certainly we in America have romanticized and relentlessly promoted the fiction that “violence works.” This fiction permeates our politics, our economics, our legal system, and our popular entertainment just to list a few examples. We have been swimming in this fiction for far too long. We have learned to revel in the defeat of the “other” and to glorify ourselves in our “winning.” This may serve the pleasure center of the National Ego and our little individual ones but it does not serve our actual wellness as members of the Human Family.

It stops when we stop it.

“Patriotic Dissent” book review

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Combat veteran turned peace activist Danny Sjursen just penned his second book, “Patriotic Dissent”. It can be fund here:

Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War – Heyday (heydaybooks.com)

I certainly recommend it, as it captures his movement from neoconservative to dissenter against US foreign policy. Sadly, as too often in these cases, the Catholic Church failed Major Sjursen as well. The Iraq War shook his religious faith, as he initially said a Hail Mary before combat patrols to someone who no longer attends Mass or any religious services. If only the Church in the United States did more to help post-war veterans by not celebrating their service but help them spiritually grapple with it. If only it helped lead the anti-war movement to prevent the wars that create these opportunities for losses in the ultimate battle for the Salvation of Souls? I thank Danny for writing this; it captures much of my feelings as someone on a similar path. I also pray for him, and for Holy Mother Church.

Peace Day

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In 1981 the United Nations declared by unanimous resolution that September 21 be recognized as The International Day of Peace. This is a “globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace.” (see: internationaldayofpeace.org).

Why is “building a Culture of Peace” so hard for us?

Every reasonably intelligent person will say that they want peace and yet a Culture of Peace eludes us. At this point many a reasonably intelligent person will also reflexively qualify their desire for Peace with some form of the following: “…but we can’t have Peace as long as they…”. So the work to establish a Culture of Peace stalls.

“Who do you think you are?” is usually expressed as the indignant rejection of an insult but if we consider it as a serious question for ourselves to answer, it may shed some light on why it’s so difficult for us to establish that Culture of Peace.

Maybe we think we are inherently a violent and warlike species. Maybe we think it’s “in our genes” and that “we can’t help it.” Maybe we believe that, despite our best efforts, we are killers from a long line of killers.

That is the Old Story.

This is the story of us, locked into a world of toxic competition in which some must “lose” in life in order for others to “win.” It’s the concept that supports capitalism as we know it and keeps us in seemingly endless wars.

But is this who we really are?

There is a New Story (see: mettacenter.org) of humanity that is emerging. This story paints a very different picture of who we are. It shows us that, at our core, we are actually good rather than evil. We are inclined to cooperate and help each other succeed in life. We see this truth emerge again and again when some sort of disaster strikes (remember how people treated each other right after 9/11?) and our differences are quickly put aside. For however brief a time, we see each other clearly. We see each other as fellow human beings instead of as members of some artificial category.

Creating a Culture of Peace becomes not only possible but natural when we start to remember who we really are and start letting go of the false narratives that hold us prisoner.

As a means to reaching this end there is the concept of the two hands of Real Peace. One hand is closed and says “I oppose your injustice and destructiveness” while the other hand is open and says: “I’m open to you as a person.” This is a realistic practice. We can affirm the humanity of every person without exception while standing firmly against all systems that oppress any person anywhere.

This Real Peace rests on the foundation of our relationships with each other. These relationships form the bonds of our inter-connected nature. That is where our real security begins and how it thrives. It is not our neighbor’s fear of us that makes us feel safe. We feel safe with each other because, in some way, we see each our neighbor as family. Security is the result of knowing that what happens to any family member happens to all family members. We have defined “family” in an exceedingly narrow way for far too long. That needs to change and change fast.

Building a Culture of Peace does not mean that we will live in a conflict-free world. There will be conflict well into the future as long as human beings are involved with each other. What it does mean is that we solve our problems without resorting to violence. It means we recognize that the problem is the problem and not that people are the problem. It means that we give up the illogical belief that hurting others, or ourselves, is a viable way to resolve conflicts.

Building a Culture of Peace is both realistic and natural for the human family when we understand who we are in relationship to each other. We hold ourselves back from this realization by continuing to cling to our artificial categories of identification. We imagine that we are members of a particular nation, religion, political party, profession or class. No such category gets close to the depth of who we really are as beings. That would be like going for your regular medical check-up and having your doctor assess your health by examining the clothes you’re wearing. It doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.

If we want to establish a Culture of Peace in human society we will need to establish that culture within ourselves as part of the process. We need to heal the injuries sustained by our fragile humanness by claiming the truth of our own sacredness. Not only our own but the sacredness of everyone else as well. There is no one who isn’t. This sacredness is by no means limited to human beings. It encompasses all of creation.

We get to the heart of the matter when we recognize the sacredness of All. There we will find the Culture of Peace.

Moral Equivocation 101

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Father Raymond J. de Souza wrote “The Morality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 75 Years Later” at The National Catholic Register:

https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-morality-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-75-years-later

In it, he said: “It is beyond dispute that nuclear weapons — a single bomb capable of killing 140,000 in Hiroshima and 75,000 in Nagasaki — changed the military dimension of the war. The atomic bomb made it clear that every major city in Japan could be obliterated with a few dozen American sorties. The unconditional surrender of Japan thus followed swiftly.”

He is wrong. Maybe he should listen to members of the military at the time, some with titles like Admiral and General and names like MacArthur, Eisenhower and Nimitz, to understand the “military dimension” of the use of the nuclear bombs on Japan.

It’s sad when we have to rely on the LameStream news of Yahoo/LA Times to help us unequivocally understand the horrors of war, over the FakeNews of a supposedly Catholic publication:

https://news.yahoo.com/op-ed-u-leaders-knew-100525153.html

Cancel Culture comes to Carmel

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On Father’s Day, my longtime pastor Father Ted Rothrock gave a rousing homily reminding the viewing audience at home and the few of us still in the pews that Holy Communion is the point of church (meaning the Catholic Mass).  He also said we needed to preach this from the rooftops.  After Mass, I asked him in honor of his homily if we could have a Eucharistic Procession along the Monon Trail in downtown Carmel on July 4th.  The City had canceled the usual annual Celebration of Secession from the London Crown parade, so I assumed this was a good way to fill that vacuum.  He intended to take his annual July break to boat on Lake Michigan so passed the duty to his young pastoral associate.  The associate happily agreed to do so. 

I called Father Summerlin to start the planning, and we agreed 10am on July 4th worked best.  I started emailing all this lists and contacts I have in the Carmel Catholic Community.  The next day Father Summerlin asked for me to explore whether the City had any permitting requirements for this type of gathering.  I agreed to do so, though since this was small and was essentially a group of people walking together on a public trail, there probably wouldn’t be any permit requited.  I did not intend to block streets or the trail itself. 

My wife humorously asked whether Jesus asked Pilate for permission to enter Jerusalem on the donkey so long ago.  Since this was not about my views on government (I’m an anarchist in the tradition of Murray Rothbard) but about Jesus, I contacted the police department and parks department to determine whether we needed permission or were required to notify.  Both confirmed my original view. 

In the meantime, Father Ted penned his weekly bulletin article; this one would generate national headlines since he made some pointed remarks about the leaders of the BLM and Antifa movements.  In a church with only about 25% of its normal weekend attendance because of the fear of a virus (which is worse, a virus or Satan?), it is somewhat ironic that this one bulletin article of his finally hit such a nerve.  He has written many similar stemwinders over the years.  He is a breath of fresh air in an increasingly irrelevant and milquetoast Catholic Church.  Some people that didn’t like Father Ted’s article announced they were going to protest our church on Sunday.  Father Summerlin said the Eucharistic Procession was cancelled, in light of this, even though it was just a few parishioners gathering together and taking a walk with Jesus on a public trail. 

Our new administrator appointed by the Bishop invited the protestors onto church property. The church also blocked some people, including a Lutheran pastor, from “counter” protesting on church property. Therefore, so these two groups could get visibility, they both ended up largely protesting on the public easements, including a neighbor’s house across the street. They didn’t ask for permission of the city to do this!

In a side note, there were many more of us who prayed in front of the church most of the day around a beautiful St. Elizabeth Ann Seton statue commissioned by Father Ted than there were protestors. Some people walked out during the Bishop’s comments before Masses this weekend about the suspension; my family did not the night before because his message was so watered down either way that it was hard to get so emotional. We are a large parish and I have been asking Father Ted to get the Bishop here. Sad that this is what it took.

Unfortunately, my takeaway from this: John the Baptist said He must increase, I must decrease. The Church did decrease by not having a Eucharistic Procession, unrelated to anything except Jesus, and protestors increased onto church property to celebrate the scalp of Father Ted’s pastorships (this one and his next assignment, at the largest parish in the diocese). This is a site against militarism, but it does not encourage cowardice either by the Faithful or the Hierarchy. I pray that we listen to John the Baptist.

Hitting Bottom

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We are moving through a remarkable period in our history. We are contending with the COVID-19 pandemic. Racist behavior continues to emerge in our country and elsewhere. Authoritarian governments are on the rise both in the United States as well as in the international community. As a nation we have been involved in the so-called War on Terror in multiple fronts in the Middle East for nearly twenty years with no end in sight. People everywhere are facing the consequences of toxic human behavior upon the biosphere that we are completely dependent upon. The potential devastation from this situation alone is dire enough to dwarf all others. In short, we find ourselves in a “perfect storm” scenario.

It is well understood by people in recovery that an active addict will need to “hit bottom” before they are ready to commit to meaningful changes in their way of life. A person, caught up in an addiction process, will resist and deny with all their strength until the painful reality of the consequences of their lifestyle comes crashing through their last layers of denial.

Hitting bottom for an individual can take many forms, among them are: broken trust, job loss, homelessness, losing friendships, being shunned by family members, serious injury, divorce, and the death of a loved one. This is a person’s direct experiencing of the natural consequences of a destructive way of life. The common denominator is that hitting bottom is extremely painful. The painfulness is ultimately what breaks the fantasy bubble of addiction and reveals the hard truth of What Is. The fantasy world of addiction is inherently unsustainable.

This is all fairly straightforward and understandable when we look at it thought the lens of individuality. Any individual person can get caught up in an addiction process if they are in enough pain. The challenge we face now is to see the same process occurring on a societal level. This is difficult because we are heavily conditioned to think in terms of individual responsibility rather than in terms of shared responsibility. In the world of addiction this is exemplified by the active addict’s false assertion that “I’m not hurting anyone but myself.” This is one of the many variations of his or her denial system.

However, what if we take an honest look at ourselves through a communal lens? Would we see that, as a species, human beings are also caught up in an addiction process? Are we as a human community addicted to a destructive way of life? Are we also in a state of denial to some degree?

Obviously, we cannot speak of every individual human being behaving in lock-step conformity. We can instead speak of a “critical mass” of humanity whose collective behavior makes a significant impact on the world. What is it that enough of us do with regularity that would constitute an addiction process?

What is humanity addicted to?

Control and domination. In other words, we play God.

We do it to each other, we do it to countless other animals, and we do it to all sorts of plant life that share this planet with us. We convince ourselves of our superiority in order to justify the way we use and abuse human and non-human life in order to make ourselves more comfortable and to feel special. We get a rush when we imagine that we have “conquered nature,” “tamed the wilderness,” or somehow defeated someone or something. In our addiction to control and domination we act with little concern for the consequences of what we do in the name of “civilization.” In our addiction we care about getting what we want. Anything else is secondary at best.

We are tragically addicted to polluting the air, water, and soil that every form of life on this planet depends on. Humanity does this in so many ways that we simply consider them to be part of “normal” life. The list is extensive: Extracting and burning fossil fuels, industrial waste, plastic waste, nuclear waste, and, of course, the extensive toxicity of our constant warfare. This constitutes an incomplete list to be sure but I think the point is made. We do a lot to try to control and dominate the world that is truly devastating to animal and plant life in global ecosystems. Basically, we treat Mother Earth as if it’s exclusively our species’ Town Dump.

Part of what characterizes an addiction process is the absence of awareness or concern for the natural consequences of one’s actions. While our awareness and concern has definitely been increasing over the past 50 years or so, it has not been nearly enough to significantly change our destructive behavior patterns. Is it possible that, at this point in our collective history, our addiction to poisoning the biosphere so that we can feel dominant and “in control” of “our world” has finally caught up with us?

Has our addiction to believing in “human exceptionalism” and the multitude of quick fixes and instant gratifications we have indulged in for so long finally brought us to the point where we are hitting bottom?

Maybe.

Responsibility is a choice but accountability is inescapable. We can choose to avoid our responsibilities for some period of time but they will always catch up with us. We can choose to accept our responsibilities but if we do not, accountability will be imposed upon us. If this happens and Nature ends up holding us accountable it will be a much more unpleasant process. Being proactively responsible won’t be painless but it will be a lot better than being forced into accountability.

If we willingly choose to be responsible for our destructive behaviors we will need to accept humility. Genuinely humbling ourselves means a lot of letting go. We will need to let go of our assumed “human exceptionalism” and our assumed right to dominate other people as well as other life forms with whom we share the Earth. We will need to let go of our assumed “master-servant” relationship with the world. We need to let go of our belief that Mother Nature is supposed to clean up after us no matter how big a mess we leave for Her.

Maybe the toughest thing to let go of is our allegiance to the materialistic paradigm that has dominated our society for so long. This mindset is something that most of us have been conditioned to see as “natural” since childhood. This is a belief in the primacy of things and that these things must be bought with money. This paradigm claims that having enough things will make us happy and satisfied. Having enough things will make us safe and secure. It says that this is the way we need to live our lives. This is a perspective that tells us that “greed is good.” It spins fairy tales about who is deserving of a “good life” and who isn’t. This paradigm supports an implicit justification for cruelty as a necessary component of a grand competition that rewards the “strong” and punishes the “weak.” This is all logical if we on our tiny planet moving around within an unimaginably vast universe are nothing but a collection of randomly assembled atoms and molecules. Such a premise requires an enormous level of human arrogance. It means asserting that we know all we need to know about our world, what it consists of, how it operates and that we are quite comfortable with dismissing whatever doesn’t fit with what we “know.” That’s a lot of arrogance.

So if we let go of our desire for control and domination, embrace genuine humility, and stop playing God, where does that leave us?

If we can overcome our fear of change we will be able to see something we’ve been blind to just as every addict is initially blind to what recovery is really all about. We will become open to a new framework of a healthy individual and communal life. What might such a new framework look like? We can begin by re-examining the framework of active addiction and ask ourselves: What would be radically different from this?

The unofficial mantra of the active addict is as follows:

“I want what I want when I want it!”

This expression emerges from a particular mentality. This mentality is the problem as well as the point from which real change emerges.

Our growth begins when we addicts finally hear Reality answering us with Tough Love when we beg for things to stay the same:

“Please, don’t make me do that! I promise this time I’ll…”
“It’s too late for that.”
“Wait? What do you mean? Do you actually mean that I have to……?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I mean!”
“But what about…?”
“No!”
“But….”
“No!”
“I promise that this time…”
“I said No!!”

Left with no other option, we relinquish our desire for control, dominance and and our imagined greatness and we finally dare to place our trust in something beyond ourselves. In the language of recovery, we surrender to a Higher Power.

There can be no recovery from addiction without mindful healing from the traumas that sparked and fueled the addiction process itself. As a a nation, we have a number of unhealed injuries that desperately still need healing. A short list includes our history of racism and its fallout, patriarchy that still regards women as second-class citizens, hyper-individualism that shames those who are not “successful”, and our destruction of nature in the name of promoting our civilization. Perhaps most critically, we must understand that trauma is actually a two-way street. Trauma occurs in the act of one injuring another and both parties are negatively impacted. This means that the perpetrator is also traumatized during the act of injuring another. This is most tragically revealed in the current epidemic of suicides by both past and present day military personnel. “Moral injury” is the term that has become recognized as this perpetration-induced trauma that so many of these men and women are suffering from. It’s a kind of karmic blowback and it painfully demonstrates the illusion of our supposed separateness from each other. It similarly shows how we are profoundly connected to each other which means that what we do to another we are also doing to ourselves.

It’s no wonder that so long ago we were advised to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

That continues to be a very difficult lesson for humanity to learn. Thousands of years in our classroom and we are still struggling to get a passing grade.

So the opposite of the addiction mantra might be something like this:

“We know that we can wait for what we want. We know that the needs of others are just as important to them as mine are to me.”

We need a change in our consciousness. It’s actually very possible for us to do that. Millions of recovering addicts have been showing us the way for a long time. It’s ironic that the very people that society has so long despised are the very same people that have implemented this change in their lives. A teacher of mine claims that the universe runs on irony!

One way to begin is to choose to cultivate a consciousness of compassion. It needs to begin as a choice just as one chooses to exercise and eat a healthy diet in order to get in shape. It requires consistent practice and dedication. We have to do the work. Shortcuts won’t get the job done.

What does all this mean for a society addicted to whatever it can get its hands on to feel in control and to not feel the pain of all the injuries it has caused and endured?

It means that we truly appreciate the gift that this world is for every life that shares it. This gift is not just for humans to do with as we please for our exclusive enjoyment. Mother Earth is a gift for all who live on her land, in her waters, and in her air. It is a gift that deserves to be respected.

We are not respecting this gift when we make excuses to keep dumping toxic material wherever we please. When we engage in the state-sanctioned mass murder known as war, when we perpetrate deforestation on a mass scale and destroy whole ecosystems, and when we burn whatever will burn in order to “advance” human society we are not respecting our gift.

It means that we stop expecting others to clean up after us. Healthy adults clean up after themselves. Viewed through the communal lens this means that humanity grows up, stops treating Mother Earth as our town dump, and starts to clean up all the mess we have made.

It means that we accept responsibility for what we have done and hold ourselves accountable for all of it. We need to make amends and reparations everywhere it is appropriate to do so. We need to express our genuine regret and remorse to all whom we have injured. No phony “celebrity apologies” will suffice. It’s got to be real.

We need to continually commit ourselves to growing in wisdom and compassion.

Finally, we need to remember that we are always susceptible to relapsing back to our old addictive ways. We are either busy recovering or we are busy relapsing. We become the process that we invest in.

Have we “hit bottom” as a society? Are we ready to say “Yes” to our recovery process?

We are about to answer those questions.