Udates, stories, predictions, and announcements about Afghanistan fill the airwaves and newspapers as the president prepares his strategy. Amidst all the talk, please take the time to list to a few people from Afghanistan and what they have to say about the future of their country:

Dear Douglas, Mark, Dennis, Adela, Lorri ( Dandelion Salad ), Jazzy, Berd, Ted, Zannah, Carol ( Corvallis Alternatives against the War ), Joan ( Sheridan Peacemakers ), Lesley ( Stand Up for Peace ), Josh ( Contagious Love Experiment ) and Priscilla ( Singapore volunteer ),

The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have just voiced their ‘firmest’ thoughts yet, in peace greetings to Obama’s daughters, Malia & Sasha, as he announces the Afghan troop surge.

Their ordinary, gentle voice of peace arises from love, conscience and human dignity.

It echoes Mankind’s vigil for true peace & reconciliation while recognizing & embracing life’s harsh realities with courageous love.

Standing together in stirring a heart-storm of love,

meekly & resolutely.

Love is how we’ll ask for peace!

Let love refrain from silence.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Martin Luther King

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

Where love is, there God is also.

Mohandas Gandhi

Our 2 other more recent video clips are:

Love is how we’ll ask for peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLKR6iEdZGs

American Thanksgiving and our Afghan winter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uXtO0e0_KE

Love and peace!

Hakim in Afghanistan

On behalf of Abdulai, Zekerullah, Abdul Ali, Raziq, Lala, Faiz, Mohd Jan, Mohd Hussein and Nazuko, Parwin, Rana…..

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog

This story (fortunately not an isolated instance) was forwarded to me the other day. Love is real, real is love, love is wanting to be love…

—————————–

MARIETTA JAEGER-LANE
Cofounder & Board Member
JOURNEY OF HOPE…
from violence to healing™

“Loved ones, wrenched from our lives by violent crime, deserve more beautiful, noble and honorable memorials than pre-meditated, state-sanctioned killings. The death penalty only creates more victims and more grieving families. By becoming that which we deplore — people who kill people — we insult the sacred memory of all our precious victims.”

MARIETTA JAEGER-LANE
DETROIT, MICHIGAN

PROFILE:

Marietta Jaeger’s daughter Susie was abducted at the age of seven during a family camping trip in Montana. For over a year afterwards, the family knew nothing of Susie’s whereabouts. Shortly before the one-year anniversary of Susie’s disappearance, Marietta stated to the press that she wanted to speak with the person who had taken her child. On the anniversary date, she received a call from a young man who taunted her by asking, “So what do you want to talk to me about?”

During the year following Susie’s disappearance, Marietta had struggled to balance her rage against her belief in the need for forgiveness. Her immediate response to the young man was to ask how he was feeling, since his actions must have placed a heavy burden on his soul. Her caring words disarmed him, and he broke down in tears on the phone. He subsequently spoke with Marietta for over an hour, revealing details about himself and the crime that ultimately allowed the FBI to solve the case.

Marietta was to learn that Susie had been killed on a remote Montana ranch a week after she disappeared. Despite her family’s tragedy, she remains committed to forgiveness and has been an ardent opponent of the death penalty for the over 25 years since Susie’s death.

Reprinted with permission from Not in our Name: Murder Victims Families Speak Out Against the Death Penalty, a publication of Murder Victims Families For Reconciliation (Barbara Hood & Rachel King, Editors; MVFR

Marietta Jaeger was a founding board member of MVFR 1992-1996 and is cofounder and board member of the Journey of Hope…From Violence to Healing.

Marietta has been on the Indiana, Georgia, California, Virginia, Texas, Missouri 2001, Tennessee and North Carolina Journey’s. Marietta was a key organizer of the California Journey.

THE JOURNEY’S FAVORITE MARIETTA SITES:

MY WRESTLING MATCH WITH GOD: Catholics Against Capital Punishment by Marietta Jaeger

HE KILLED MY CHILD BUT I DON’T WANT HIM TO DIE: Parade Magazine — By David Wallenchinsky

HOW I CAME TO FORGIVE THE UNFORGIVABLE: US Catholic Magazine By Robert McClory

ABCNEWS.COM: Family Members of Murder Victims Reflect on Execution — by Buck Wolf

BISHOP BRUNETT: Stories of Violence and Responses to It

NEBRASKANS AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY ANNUAL DINNER — 2000

FORGIVING HER CHILD’S KILLER

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT – CREDO

TENNESSEE TAKES STEP BACKWARDS WITH FIRST EXECUTION IN 40 YEARS

FEATURED SPEAKERS

THE HEALING POWER OF REDEMPTION: etc. Magazine — By Allen Mills

SHEDDING LIGHT ON A DARK SUBJECT: — The Quaker Abolitionist — By Tim Lietzke

THE MARIETTA JAEGER STORY: By Shirley Dicks

Dear friends of peace,

The technical difficulties in uploading this video was worth it ; just to hear Nazuko and Parwin’s ordinary Afghan voices of peace raised along with a slowly growing heart-storm of love!

Please watch an Afghan lady & girl stand with peace youth volunteers in greetings to the U.S. Ambassador Eikenberry, who urged for no troop surge.

Zekerullah, “Eikenberry Sir & your wife, do you have time to be with us at the Bamiyan Peace Park?”

Nazuko : “We wish for peace. Love is how we’ll ask for peace.”

This seems a time when we keep asking each other what is enough, what numbers, what measures…

Against the grain, even the decay within ourselves, we stand with friends in the quiet resolution that love is enough, yes, love is enough.

Others may take everything away from us, but they cannot take away love.

Love is how we’ll ask for peace

2nd Cup of Tea Peace Vigil, our second mile of love

Come stand with us for love!

The heart-storm of love is slowly seeding. We thank the individuals from the groups below who inspire us to plod on in Afghanistan!

Olympia Washington Vigil, Douglas Mackey and friends

Evergreen State College Vigil, Olympia Washington, Dennis Mills and friends

Mideast Solidarity Project, Evergreen State College, Olympia Washington

Sheridan Peacemakers, Wyoming USA, Joan Borst and friends

Stand Up for Peace, Laramie, Wyoming USA, Lesley Wischmann and friends

Contagious Love Experiment, Josh Steiber and friends

Corvallis Alternatives to War, Corvallis Oregon USA, Carol & Jane Alexander and friends

We also thank Douglas Mackey, Dennis Mills and staff of Olympia High School for making possible a long-distance tele-conference with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers on the 24th of November 2009.

Peace from Afghanistan,

Hakim

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog

Days 157-158, by Josh

We had stayed an extra day in Ashland to talk with the local peace groups about reaching out and helping soldiers in the nearby National Guard unit set to return in a few months. Inspired to see “support the troops” as far more than a slogan, our extra day set us back on biking, so Don, a retired officer from the Air Force, drove us back to the coast to where we had hidden our bikes in the woods. The Redwood Forest danced on the other side of the windshield as we discussed metaphysics and soon found ourselves in Eureka, CA.

I’d been excited to meet our host, Dave, after reading about him and his work on his blog http://manifestpositivity.blogspot.com/. A few people we had met along the West Coast also told us we were in for a treat when we met Dave.

Arriving in Eureka, Dave emerged from his house and he and Don helped us move all our bike gear inside. Dave connected Don to some Veterans For Peace people and projects and soon we were all headed out the door to a speaking event we were doing at a place called The Ink People http://inkpeople.org/. The Ink People had a large building in this foggy, seaside town, but it’s halls were alive with art displays, after-school centers, and classrooms. In one of these rooms, we met some very interesting, proactive members of the community, but I don’t need to describe it because Dave filmed us talking about the people we met in Humbolt County.

 

While the majority of media has fallen victim to advertising, Dave’s style of journalism had a refreshing twist. Self described as Advocacy Journalism, Dave used his talents and media savvy to promote the work of others… or in other words: to Manifest Positivity. In addition to his blog, several books, and videos, Dave has been working on an internet talk-show.

Hearing about Dave’s projects, I felt inspired and uplifted, but at the same time, a little bit cynical. Not cynical about what he was saying, but for better and for worse, the accessibility of media–through blogs, youtube, etc.–also brings the high potential for overwhelming people, for too many voices drowning each other out (less so locally, but on a national level).

As I expressed my concern to Dave, he calmly shrugged it off… calmly and wisely I should say. Because if that cynicism prevails, positivity will never be manifested. There are many parallels to The Contagious Love Experiment; at times I’ve questioned myself as to whether or not walking and biking across the country can really accomplish anything. Looking back on it though, I never made national news, never talked with a national legislator, have no tangible way to define the experiment’s result.

But in the work of manifesting positivity and spreading love, that IS the beauty of it. When everything is said and done, this work can only be meaningful if it is worth doing even if nobody else cared or listened. A cause that is so internal, that can stand without–perhaps in spite of–recognition and publicity, will then speak beyond numbers and figure and fame. It is not a gift we give, nor a product we sell; we simply attempt to speak from one soul to another. We don’t all need to speak the same thing, that internal spark is more than enough and we couldn’t control if we tried.

As we prepared to roll, Dave reminded us the outlook that has taken us this far: Pronoia. Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia; instead of always assuming the worst is going to happen, it sees the best in even the most dire of situations… a lesson that we had learned continually on our journey:

 

With fresh positivity, it didn’t take more than a couple hour until we met somebody manifesting even more of it: George. George is walking across the country to promote healthier lifestyles.

Speaking the same language as Conor, Dave, and I, George’s website (http://enjoythewalk.org/) sums it up well:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Howard Thurman

(by Conor)

Crescent City is the place where we where to be whisked away from our coastal route to come speak in Ashland, OR, but we got into town and found the bike shop closed and no other options for bike storage left, and our ride to Ashland couldn’t accommodate them. This led to a good bit of our morning being spent scouring patches of woods around the city for their bike concealing capabilities. After scouting a few locations, we came back to the first area we had found for concealment, a nice patch of blackberry briar and head high grass. After throwing our bikes in the briar patch and tossing some camouflaging plant matter on top of them, we were set to go to Ashland. From what I had heard, someone in Ashland wanted Josh and myself to stop by, but Ashland was too far out of the way, with a mountain range in between so we had to decline their offer. The good people of Ashland, however, wouldn’t take no for an answer and found a ride to meet us on our coastal route and to drive us over to Ashland and back onto the coast after a couple of days, so we succumbed to their wishes and with our bikes hidden, hopped in our ride. For a couple of hours, we twisted and climbed amongst some of the most enchanting forest covered mountains I had ever seen. Were we on bikes, I probably would have disappeared into the redwoods for a time period which would have made us late to wherever we were to be next, so being strapped up in a car was probably a good thing.

In Ashland, we were dropped off at the home of Valarie and Edeltrout, two amazing ladies who were  involved in some amazing peace work with a local group called The Peace House. They are also on the board of new group , which was partly the reason we were there. The other part of the reason for our being there was a bit more obvious, and after we had some time to clean up a bit, we were off to Southern Oregon University where Josh and I would have our talk. It seemed the local VFP and Peace House pulled all their cards for this one, bringing in an amazing crowd who contributed to a dynamic discussion after our stories. At the end of the evening, with an announcement that only one more idea was to be discussed, a local VRPer, Hal, stood up and asked the tough one: How had we been affected by PTSD and how are we experiencing healing from it?  This was the other reason we were in Ashland, to answer this question not only for the talk that night, but to help a group of locals better be able to address the needs of their returning national guard unit.

The next night a group of about 7 community members met at Valarie and Edeltrout’s house to begin focusing their efforts on how to help reach out to the returning national guard. Josh and I had been invited to offer some input on the needs of returning soldiers and the challenges they may be facing. Coming home is the obstacle that smacks everyone in the face after deployment, no one expects the simple home life they’ve been dreaming of for months on end to be the most challenging environment they have left to adapt to. I believe a major factor in this is something Josh and I noticed during our time in the military, a separation which we’re told exists between civilians and military personnel. The Marines illustrate this well with the term “nasty civilian,” replacing any actual title for those working outside the military. Before my time in Iraq, I was baffled by this phrase, didn’t we all know and love civilians? My time spent home between tours cleared up this confusion. Now I could understand why these people running around in a huff because they’re five minutes late for pilates, were nasty, living thanklessly in a world far removed from the war I just came home from. I felt alone in my experience, an experience I thought others couldn’t understand or even appreciate, but wasn’t talked about anyways. So, in this group, we talked about these things, how there is a war still going on inside of returning soldiers, and they’re coming home to an oblivious population. There needs to be shoulders to lean on, listening ears responding with empathy, and the sad thing is, many soldiers will not even get that from their own family, as war still rages on inside. The group we were sitting with had been considering the idea of setting up some kind of compassionate listening network to help the returning soldiers simply be able to talk to someone and begin to process what they went through. This seemed like a marvelous idea. We brainstormed a while, and realized that returning soldiers often face problems in the family, not knowing how to communicate what they’ve been through properly. With that realization, the group started to feel that offering the soldier’s family members compassionate listening classes while the soldier is still in Iraq would be another great step towards healing.

It was amazing to sit in a room with a peace community actively developing a way to reach out to the men and women returning home from war. To run into people like this, putting aside any judgment in effort to help someone in need, is always inspiring. Ashland seemed to have a lot of these people around, and during our short stay, we had an amazing time getting to meet and learn from such a wide range of people, from old hippies to high school seniors hellbent on changing the world (which I think they’ll find a way to do that). Sometime things get so inspiring that after a meeting one has to break out in some musical jams, which becomes all the more awesome when others join in. This wasn’t quite the hoedown I may make it to be, but the evening did end pleasantly when the youngest member of the peace group brought her guitar in from her car and we had a good time trying to play together (rather me trying to keep  up).

Dear Friends,

The biking part of our journey has reached an end. The official conclusion to our trip will be at the School of the Americas Watch Vigil from the 20th-22nd.

We will continue to blog about the rest of our trip and the next chapter: involvement in our local communities.

We are also hoping to record our experiences into a book and would greatly appreciate you sharing how The Contagious Love Experiment affected you and any memories you might have if we had the honor to meet you along our way.

Thank you for your support, encouragement, and kindness,

Josh and Conor

 

Dear friends of hearts,

Please watch our Afghan peace youth vigilers say with the world “Love is how we’ll ask for peace.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLKR6iEdZGs

Please take our next small steps with us.

Love and peace from Afghanistan,

Hakim

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog

Our call to stand and act together in

‘Love is how we’ll ask for peace’

Most of us in our disparate world today would hardly believe or be affected by our ordinary, almost mundane burden.

But we’ve always imagined that when people come together to stand for love, life changes.

Most often, changes happen in only a tiny part of the world, a little community, a small fraternity; and though all of which will, like human civilizations do, eventually pass away, the changes are worthwhile for holistic, consistent growth.

In standing for love, there’ll be the un-welcome laughter of cynical disbelief and hopelessness which we’ve seen much of but will not cower to.

We’ll be hurt by self-righteous censure that has forgotten human empathy but we’re ready for that too.

The cold ‘alone-ness’ of such difficulties is common to humankind, but because love is also common to all people, these challenges cannot touch those restful places of love within humanity. We believe it is love that will triumph.

It is this love that would keep us journeying in the snow and the rain, even if we fall.

It is this love that lends meaning to any family or friendship.

It is this love we’re counting on not to fail.

This love is how we’ll ask for peace.

I remember a 12 year old girl dying from leukemia. In her final hours, she urgently asked the nurses to phone her estranged and separated parents to come to her hospital bedside. They did come and she did die but before she passed on, she asked that they would lay aside their conflicting differences and to reconcile, not just for her sake as she was soon leaving them, but primarily for their own sake. That was not an urgency of desperation. It was the clear, sincere urgency of a love that would not let go. There was nothing for her young heart to lose. I’d like to believe that she recognized what many of us may spend all our proud lives denying, that when bodies and tongues cease, love remains.

It is with this urgency of love that we ask fellow human beings all over the world to restore wide-scale humane relations everywhere through love and reconciliation and thus build a kinder future.

We believe that the world is historically waiting (see “Is this our Afghan moment of peace?”), especially those of us waiting meekly in the shadows for light and warmth to arrive.

Yes, we’re asking the Nobel Peace Laureate President Obama to respond to our ordinary message of peace from Afghanistan, the place of wars.

Yes, we’re asking for true peace and reconciliation.

But above all, we’re asking un-ashamedly to raise the possibility of love, with hope that we may smile at one another in affirmative, dignified greetings once again.

Our immediate goal

With love, we request the 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, to answer the Afghan youth peace message ‘Reconciliation of Civil Hearts’, as part of his wider message of peace to the peaceful future of our shared world, on or about the 10^th of December, the day he will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

Our larger goal is to encourage Afghanistan and the world towards concrete love and peace, through wide scale reconciliatory and humane relations.

How we’ll work towards our immediate goal in the next one month ,

before the 10^th of December 2009        

The road had opened before us when the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, kindly visited our Afghan peace vigil group at the Bamiyan Peace Park in Afghanistan on the 28^th of October 2009. During the visit, he promised the Afghan peace youth vigilers that he would get a response from President Obama, to their message of peace “Reconciliation of Civil Hearts”

Internationally, in the next one month before President Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, we will garner the heart-to-heart support of Afghan and international youth peace volunteer supporters by collecting the signatures of supporters with pictures of their individual smiling faces.

We will put them all into growing landscape-style pictures / motages. To rally a heart-storm of love in this effort, we’ll encourage all supporters to blog at the blog-site http://youthpeacevolunteers.blogspot.com/, entitled “Afghan & international youth peace volunteers say together, ‘Love is How We’ll Ask for Peace.’

In Afghanistan, we hope to hold a Afghan national youth peace convention in Bamiyan in the month of November.

All updates can also be found at http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog

Our current partners

Our Journey to Smile ( the 10 Afghan peace vigil youth are part of this peace-building group in Afghanistan, with international volunteers from Singapore )

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog

Contact person : Hakim at journeytosmile@gmail.com

ContagiousLoveExperiment  (2 Iraq veterans’ Josh Steiber and Conor Curran who are actively promoting peace)

http://contagiousloveexperiment.wordpress.com/

Contact person : Josh at desertcamel87@yahoo.com

Olympia WA Fellowship of Reconciliation USA and Iraq Memorial to Life ( who had up to 100 persons who kept the vigil with the Afghan youth peace volunteers concurrently in Olympia, USA )

http://www.olyfor.org/

http://www.iraqmemorialtolife.org

Contact person : Douglas Mackey at douglas.mackey@youthpeacevolunteers.org

This is the group we have now and with this small number of supporters we ask for your support – because it will take more of us to deliver the message to enough people so that it makes a difference.

We know our support will grow as we reach our list of individual personal contacts with international peacemakers and peace groups.

How to support each other immediately

Any individual, young or old, who wishes to stand with the Afghan and international peace volunteers, in support of their peace request to President Obama, can

1. Sign in as a Fan of Youth Peace Volunteers on Facebook ( click below )

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Youth-Peace-Volunteers/206186386153?v=wall

By becoming a Fan, you are indicating your support for the Afghan youth peace volunteers’ appeal to President Obama

1. Send a quick email to youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com

Simply indicate: Yes to Youth Peace Volunteers!

Provide your name and nationality and if you are willing to have your smiling face put together in a collage picture, send us your picture too!

We will begin to compile these hearts of love, peace and reconciliation into landscape and collage-style pictures and watch humanity’s love grow!

Given the global picture of war and peace today, we believe that this is a unique, historical chance for all of us to raise the possibility of love in Afghanistan and beyond.

How to support each other on a wider scale and for the long run

Tell others about our shared effort of love and encouragement towards true peace and reconciliation, that is, let’s seed a heart-storm! We live, love and perish in the same world!

 

You can also blog with us at http://youthpeacevolunteers.blogspot.com/

from San Jose (by Josh)

 

Bandon, Oregon; five incredible months of walking through the rain of the northeast and biking beside cornfields and over mountains had finally brought me from one shore of the US to the other. But the ecstasy induced by the ocean air was a joy I had not had the last time I gazed out at the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

Almost two and a half years ago, I was in the early part of my fourteen month deployment to Iraq. Midway through the tour, each soldier got a two week vacation back in the US. I knew I was not in the psychological state to jump back into the familiarity of being back home in Maryland with so many memories, family members and friends; it would be a tease not a rest. So I headed to the other side of the country and spent my mid-tour leave on the shores of the Pacific, my immediate family meeting me for part of that time.

 

I have always loved the ocean, but the rolling waves with their gentle mists and rumbles did not bring the calmness and timeless bliss it usually had. Instead, it had mockingly become a symbol to the desperation I had found myself in. As I sat on the beach, the laughing and lightheartedness I heard all around me made me feel like I did in high school: everybody carrying on with their (what I judged as) superficial lives, all my friends saying they believed in the war, everybody waving flags, but nothing much done about it. In my estimation, everyone was looking out into the ocean, talking about it, but instead of going in the water, they sat in ignorance on the beach.

 

 

And during my mid-tour leave, as I sat on the beach staring into the waves, they reminded me of the troubles I saw in the world and unable to sit and watch, I had rushed into the swelling waves to protect those who couldn’t or wouldn’t, finding my meaning in the face of the crashing tides. But this dash into the sea that had washed me ashore in Iraq had not united me to those I thought I was serving, they were still laughing on the beach, I was getting tossed in the rough waters, what was there to bond us? I lived wanting bigger and bigger waves, somehow I was going to find meaning, to gain triumph over the greatest challenges. But the waves got bigger and bigger, I stood my ground, but everything made less and less sense. Soon I grew tired with the small waves and the final one to stand up to was the big one: death.

And I literally did try to stand up to it. In Iraq, we guarded the factory we lived in with humvees at the entrances. A turret was mounted on the roof of the humvees and while most guys would duck down and climb out the door, I would climb out the turret, over the roof of the humvee. And there were times when I would stand for a few seconds on the roof, completely exposed in the middle of a combat zone, stretch my arms out and yell things like “I’m the king of the world”. I stopped taking cover when out on patrols. “You’re not being very tactical” my friends would tell me, “you’re going to get sniped”. “If death wants me, it’ll find me one way or another” I would reply, unconcerned. If I could laugh at death in it’s face, if the biggest wave was no match for me, in some vague way I would be stronger than nature. I didn’t know that came after the biggest wave, but I knew what came before it and I didn’t want to go back to shore, I didn’t want to hide from life. But what was life? Why was life? I had left the beach, swam through the water, splashed through the biggest waves, and held my ground and all that achieved was a spitefulness towards and isolation from those still on shore, a vast ocean with no end in sight, and on top of all that, I was afraid of what I was becoming.

That 2007 trip to the Pacific, staring at the ocean, only reinforced all these haunting ideas. It was a living analogy of how I viewed my life. Since that time though, I have seen more of the ocean. I saw that fighting and rolling around in it’s biggest waves was not the final lesson there was to learn and I learned what I was most terrified of: it wasn’t the biggest wave, but beyond it, the calm, tranquil, endless sea. Instead of believing the only way to live a meaningful life was to use every bit of energy to challenge existence, the bigger challenge was letting go, floating peacefully on my back in the open sea… too huge and limitless for me to understand, but I could understand enough to try to become one with it.

No more looking in spite at those on shore, no more needing to prove myself to others, no more needing to prove that existence is meaningless; it was all connected.

 

Laying eyes on the Pacific this time, I still saw the waves beating harshly against the rocks, but they did so as they had always done and I also saw the ocean, the rocks, the beach, the cliff as one. This time on the coast, I had a lengthy discussion with some Vietnam Veterans also reaching beyond the waves who had created a home for the handicap back in Vietnam. Another veteran talked with me about conflict resolution and unlike last time I was here, I knew that resolution was possible. A woman I met told me about her work for detainee rights and instead of cynicism, I was inspired (http://freedetainees.org/). I also stayed a night at the home of a homosexual couple and was–as opposed to most of my life–absent of judgement… the tranquil sea splashes us all.

——————————————————-

Guru, voodoo

 Save your sorcery
There is wisdom in nature
It’s floating in the sea

 

See the waves of life crashing
And I go splashing through
The hurricanes of existence
No insistence on dry land
You’ve got to face these waves too

 

I’m asking will you
Get up off the beach?
There is wisdom in nature
It’s floating in the sea

 

See the waves crashing harder
I go farther, alone
Shouting at the hurricane
Bring the rain, I’m not afraid
Why’s everyone heading home?

 

Chose to face life
Freedom so heavy
Isn’t there wisdom in nature?
Somewhere in the sea?

 

But as the sea roars
The wind whispers to me:
One day you’ll face
Your biggest wave
Then its just open sea
And in that uncertainty
The pulling of the under toe
The hardest move is letting go
–An ocean of peace–

There is wisdom in nature
It’s floating in the sea

 

from Stockton, CA (by Conor)

It took Charlie’s dog, Poppy, a good nights rest curled up beside us, sharing the floor, to finally warm up to us. My sleeping bag felt too nice to leave for the longest time, until Poppy did the job my alarm clock couldn’t do and barked my brain alert from downstairs. It wasn’t long before Josh and I assembled in the kitchen and were met by Charlie, the Dominican Republic Vet we had been staying with, as well as Omar, a foreign exchange student from Yemen. Charlie began making what would turn out to be a delicious egg breakfast, as Josh and I sat and talked to Omar.  Having met him Omar a couple days ago, I was already impressed with the brightness of this high schooler. Our intrigue with the other was apparent, questions rapidly being exchanged back and forth. Omar was curious about soldiers who turned to compassion, not something he saw much of in the middle east. I was curious about how a young man from the middle east viewed the world.

In our conversation, Omar expressed a different kind of nationalism than most of us here in the United States have. “We’re all one people. What your country is doing to the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan is being done to all of us. We all hate it.” I could certainly understand this viewpoint, I was almost expecting it when I asked, but  wasn‘t sure how he would respond to, “What about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict?” Omar’s constant smile disappeared momentarily when I brought this subject matter up, then simply said, “What the Israelis are doing to the Muslims is very bad.” Looking for more clarification on why he felt this way I asked more about it, and an impassioned Omar told me stories of Palestinians being pushed out of their lands and the tragic shelling of civilian areas of the Gaza strip. I asked if he thought things could change, and received an immediate and sullen, “No, I do not.” Omar went on to express that if his schooling didn‘t end up working out, he would perhaps do the honorable thing and go help fight the Israelis himself. I was a bit worried hearing this from a guy whose constant smile, even during much of this tough subject matter, made him impossible to dislike. It’s almost ironic, this common ground that so many young men in Israel, the Muslim Middle East, and America all share, is a myth handed to them saying that the only violence can solve the problems they face. I hope one day we can all look back together as old men, and chuckle at having been so foolhearty in this shared mindset. Not being able to accept that this young man lacked the imagination to avoid violent conflict, I asked if he thought things would change if the U.S. cut it’s support of Israel’s military. “Yes, that would change everything,” Omar replied, as he began to imagine out load peaceful scenarios where resolution might be possible with this obstacle out of the way. It was good to see Omar doing what I knew so quickly what he was good at, thinking. Omar had many other interesting social observations, as when he told us with bemusement that in Yemen, from the hours of 4-7pm there was no chance of finding anybody school aged indoors, everyone was out having fun and playing sports. Here in America, he admitted, with some disappointment, having already fallen into the American video game trap. To be fair, no one would go out and have fun with him, there were already inside playing video games.

After a nice long breakfast, the conversation turned to trying to compel Omar to come with Charlie, Josh and myself to a cider pressing at Cougar Mountain Farm. Sadly our efforts were to no avail, so with full stomachs, we set off without Omar to Charlie’s truck and Charlie’s truck carried us out to the farm. As we piled out of the truck, there was an intense game of two on two basketball playing out on a dirt court not too far away from a campfire and a porch covered with boxes upon boxes of apples stacked near a small cider press. As we slowly made our way around the group of people there, learning new names and having some nice conversations, Josh and I somehow found ourselves mixed into this backyard ball tournament. I think if Josh knew about my basketball prowess he would have never even entertained the idea of playing with me. He knows about it now though, and I’m sure he won’t play with me again. We lost badly to say the least, but I wasn’t heartbroken, I had apples to be working on. I went back to rinsing apples for the cider, and before long, I was tasting a cider which far surpassed any liquid I had tasted before. I definitely will spend my time with cider rather than basketball in the future. After some mechanical difficulties with the press, we took a break and took a little tour of the Cougar Mountain Farm. Originally formed as a hippie commune in the sixties, the farm was being transformed into a sustainable education center and community. Solar panels powered the house, and a newly plated orchard and a hill side of a wide variety of crops provided the food for the farm and for sale at the local market, and Noah, one of the farm owners, was creating a great permaculture with the farm. It’s always inspiring to see people living out a different life, one that involves care for those around them and the land one lives on. My words couldn’t do such things justice, but I would encourage everyone to go check out a local community or farm built on sustainability and draw in some of this amazing inspiration I was lucky enough to experience here. Checking out The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins might be another inspiring  option if you cant find such a place in your area. But before long, we had to pull ourselves away from our tour of Cougar Mountain.  We needed to make it into Coos Bay that night, and we had used up all of our time.

Charlie giving us the Cougar Mountain tour

Our stay in Coos Bay was short, but we had an amazing time with the people we did meet. While our host was giving us a tour of our place for the night, she put in a CD of lovely music by Lynda Cole, a local artist who happened to stop by almost on cue with the music.  She had an interesting story, and we gladly accepted her invitation to spend some time together the next day. In the morning we met again and Lynda took us to a beautiful coastal arboretum, treating us to our first real view of the coast. Smelling the salt in the ocean breeze finally drove in the point that we had reached the west coast. It was clear on a map we had reached the west for a while now, but I think it takes the ocean exciting one’s senses for that realization to truly sink in. We walked along the coast and around the arboretum discussing the healing power of mindfulness. Lynda had many intriguing ideas to share on the subject, and I was overjoyed to hear she just began an interesting combination of performing her music with mindfulness exercises peacefully performed between songs. After listening to her cd the night before, I imagine the experience to be an amazingly calming journey. After a little while, we parted ways and Josh and I continued on down the coast toward Bandon. Mindfully taking in the smell the ocean the rest of our ride created the feeling of being part of the ocean’s breeze, floating along the coast.

Finally there

From Eureka, Ca (by Josh)

 After a morning of steady rains and splashing mud, we arrived in the city of Corvallis, OR. Though dripping wet, our spirits were shining as we pedaled through this university town where my former high school guitar teacher was waiting for Conor and I at a downtown sandwich shop. I wasn’t too sure how the conversation would go; it had been several years since I had seen Doug, my old teacher, and that was on another road trip (motorized) that I’d been on with my dad, who took off work so we could spend some time together just before I left for Basic Training. We didn’t discuss the military at length then, but I do recall Doug, a former army medic, saying that I would really enjoy shooting the weapons in training. But I was probably more concerned with the fact that Doug had also attended the church I grew up going to in Maryland before he moved out to Oregon. And the response from people at my old church about my spiritual journey has been frustrating.

part of my Christian Education

Several people from that church have told me that they are praying for me to find my way back on the right path. Another said by being a conscientious objector, I was being judgemental towards everyone else in the military and needed to understand that not everyone is perfect… ironic. There have been times where everything I said was discounted because I made the unforgivable sin of quoting Gandhi and Tolstoy, not real Christians. Some have simply stated that I’ve “gone liberal”, gone from “us” to “them” because apparently working for peace and nonviolence is on the wrong side of the religio-political litmus test. I was told regularly in church about the dangers of dating and non-Christian music, but never about the dangers of violence; the kids with even the strictest parents still played shoot-em-up video games and laughed and joked about killing people. In the school that was run by the church, we read books like The Faith of George W. Bush. There were also a few Vietnam Veterans who would occasionally bring in war memorabilia from their time in Vietnam and the school hallways would be filled with awe: “Mr. E is so cool, he told me the story of hanging off of a helicopter with one hand and shooting the Vietnamese with the other!”And with this less than pleasant context of how Doug and I knew each other in the first place, I was glad to see him, but wary that this lunch would dissolve into another conversation about needing to “respect the governing authorities” (when they’re members of the correct party). Not to say that I don’t appreciate when people of any point of view want to take the time to have a conversation with me, but I do struggle when people seem to repeat and condemn instead of converse and find common ground. To my pleasant surprise however, some of the first words out of his smiling mouth were “I think it’s really great what you guys are doing, I’ve always wondered why Christians aren’t at the very forefront of things like peacemaking and gun control and things like that… I’m pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t be clamoring for war.”

lunch with Doug

Soon laughing like old friends, our lunch together went by far too quickly and Doug had to leave to prepare for the camping trip he was going on later in the day. So we met up with the local Veterans For Peace who were hosting us, took care of some work, before heading to a potluck/speech. I try my best not to be preachy in my speeches, but I do bring up how religion has affected my growth. I tell the story of guarding a prisoner with a friend of mine whom I had gone to church with before deployment and one night, while guarding this prisoner, my friend started describing some pretty vicious things he wanted to do to the Iraqi man we had brought in (who we couldn’t find any evidence on and was eventually released). I started out with “American values”, saying “isn’t this man innocent until proven guilty?”. My friend scoffed that thought off, “he’s Iraqi, of course he’s guilty of something”. I then appealed to these ideas we had heard in church (or were at least printed in the Bibles sitting in the church) ideas like loving our enemies, praying for those who persecute us, blessed are the peacemakers, not returning evil for evil, and turning the other cheek. “Jesus might have turned his cheek once or twice” my friend explained with certainty, “but he certainly wouldn’t have let anybody punk him around”.

 

That conversation was a huge wake-up call for me that as ridiculous as my friend’s statement sounded, that I was living out the same mindset–I don’t get punked around, I do the punking–but I had a much more sophisticated way of saying the same thing. Another aspect to Jesus’ life that I had been ignoring was his position on killing; he didn’t calculate which wars were “just”, he was extremely far in the other direction warning us not only about physical killing, but even looking at somebody with hatred or judgement. That helped me realize that I was living hatefully and judgemental and that I needed to change. Again, hopefully not preachy, but these instances and thoughts helped bring me to where I am now.One man in attendance raised his hand afterwards and explained how atheists could come to the same position I had. I certainly didn’t disagree with him; I’ve found that I’ve had much in common atheists and people of other religions, just our ways of explaining that common spirituality are different and we can too easily get hung up on terms, titles, and phrases. I talked more with this man, Charlie, afterwards, and a friend he had brought with him, Omar, a high school foreign exchange student from Yemen. Perhaps I had initially thought Charlie was being too harsh on my mention of religion, but he began talking about positive experiences he’s had, including a visit to the Mosque where Omar attends. Along the trip I’ve heard many people ask why there aren’t more young people in these peace groups; Charlie and Omar had clearly become friends, and that is the foundation of peace: friendship and relationships, even when they are difficult.

visiting Charlie and Omar

Among many other things, Charlie mentioned that his house happened to be right about where we were planning on camping the next day, so after a good night’s sleep and a ride along the Oregon roads decorated with multi-colored trees and small mountains, we arrived in Cottage Grove, OR to meet back up with Charlie. Following a quick visit to a local bike shop to fix a broken spoke of mine and to give Conor front brakes that he’d been without, Charlie arrived and we all walked into a small town tavern. We chatted a little while with a man we had bumped into at the bike shop who had invited us to an evening of rum and saunas and with what seemed like half the town who all knew Charlie and his warm personality.We talked further about religion and Charlie took a very forgiving position despite some disheartening past experiences. Over the sounds of the blue grass band playing at the other end of the dimly lit tavern, Charlie told the story of going to a rally held by several Christians organizations with the rally cry of “taking back the country for God”. Charlie said he respected people’s rights to assembly, but also felt it was a faulty message of “taking back the country for God”, because it was never the Promised Land that some make it out to be in the first place. It’s one thing to have a belief, it’s another to twist words and history to garner support in ways it really doesn’t exist. I admire the words of many founding fathers and I admire the life and witness of Jesus, but I would hardly call the two synonymous or even similar. Backed by history, Charlie went among those gathered and began handing out flyers with quotes from Franklin, Jefferson, and several of the other founders to show that part of America’s beauty is that not everybody thinks the same and we can still work together while celebrating those differences. That wasn’t the version of America some of the Christians wanted and Charlie soon found himself taking blows and being knocked to the ground, still being beaten.I learned from my time with Charlie that he and I shared different ways of looking at the world on a number of issues… but that’s okay. The biggest problem, in my estimation, is not a faulty belief, but a lack of even wanting to examine that belief. It could have been easy for Charlie to write off Christianity after he was attacked by followers of the “Prince of Peace”, but he finished the story not with divisiveness, but with understanding. As off track as the message may have been and especially the violence for those not accepting that message, Charlie pointed out that there were some Christians there who did see the contradiction in what was going on and pulled the attackers away. I have heard some Christians say that the world is black-and-white, but I admired Charlie for not returning the same narrow way of viewing things and for confronting ideas when he believed they were untrue and for telling the full story, mentioning the positive and the negative and breaking beyond mere labels and stereotypes.In a world where labels define existence for many, perhaps we can try harder to judge not, lest we be judged and in the process, open ourselves up to inspiring, insightful people from all different backgrounds and beliefs.Or in religious terms…

“Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.” –The Son of Man (Matthew 12:32-33)