Expectation

I've been pretty slow in reading lately. I'm about 2/3rd of the way through the Men of Peace book. There have been a few things that struck me about the last few entries I've read. Most of the men have reported that they think today's world is much worse off in terms of our propensity for war. They also have told stories about their difficulty finding jobs if they reveal their CO experiences. The last few accounts have been stories from men involved in the guinea pig experiments (starvation and Hepatitis experiments).  One gentlemen stated that 400 people volunteered for the starvation experiment which only required 36.  I thought that the number of applicants really showed how much the men wanted to help. They were told that these starvation experiments would help to determine how best to provide aid to countries in need. For instance, do you send meat or just grain?

Side note.  I listen to a lot of pod casts. One of the most recent was about how expectations affect us. For example, the pod cast told the story of a blind boy who never had the expectation that he couldn't do anything. He learned how to climb trees, hike by himself and even ride a bike. He learned how to use echolocation to lighten up the same portions of your brain that light up in visual people especially those areas associated with motion (but not the areas associated with light and color).  His brain created images that he used to map out his environment using the signals he got back from echolocation instead of the images created from sensory data from your eyes. He grew up to teach other blind children the technique. Most of his teaching was for the families who had to learn to let go and allow the child to explore.

It made me wonder how much of society's propensity toward war may be attributed to the expectation that war is the only way to gain a certain result.  It seems like a very ingrained idea or passion similar to the idea that the blind can't lead the blind (proved untrue at least in the story of the man in my pod cast). It was nice to hear a story about how that had been done in a few small cases. I love people who challenge expectations and ask "why?". Why can't I climb a tree? Why do I need to eliminate this person for the world to be a better place?

Food for thought for this week.

Peace be with you

Fathers and Wives

Sorry for not posting last week. I hadn't had time to get through any more of my reading. This week I'm about half way through a book which contains first hand accounts of WWII COs. It was created using the same set of interview questions for each person. So far I'm learning a lot of different things. For one, it appeared that during the 40's it was perfectly acceptable for men and women to date multiple people at the same time. I didn't expect that. I guess I thought that was more of a modern notion. So far, the men whose stories I've read were very involved in their churches and went on to continue work associated with their churches or other social work. Many of them adopted children as well. Very few had told stories about others not accepting them because of their beliefs. I was surprised at that given the other things I've read. It could also be that these interviews were done very late in these men's lives and maybe the good stories outweighed the bad and didn't seem worth mentioning at that time (there's also the scientific side of memory that has shown that every time you remember an event, you change it in your mind).There was one story of a person who  had participated in the starvation experiments and had kept a journal. The journal was later used to write a book solely about those experiments. The interviewee didn't seem to dwell on any sort of hardship from the experiment. Many of them were at odds with their fathers. So far, many of the fathers believed much more strongly in work than in church, college or pacifism. Many also told stories that exemplify the fact that many of the other COs at the camps had very different beliefs and lifestyles. There were a few men who had gone to the same camp as grandpa. They both mentioned having to go to Oregon to fight fires from there. I get the impression that several of them jumped around a little. I don't know if grandpa ever had to go outside of Ohio during his time at the camp. Another interesting commonality among these stories was that they stated that they did not waiver in their decision to be a CO. They were raised in an environment which supported that idea. I would of thought there may be more uncertainty during that time. I also found it interesting that all of the wives worked (mostly nurses or school teachers) and traveled with their husbands working on various social projects. Those are just a few interesting notes and highlights.  More stories next time.

Peace be with you