Baltimore

This will be another personal post. I haven't had much time to finish up my book and a lot has been on my mind about recent events in Baltimore. I went to Baltimore for a quick weekend get-away Friday-Sunday morning and saw some of what has been on the media. From the security of our hotel we saw a helicopter with a spot light and bull horn several times circling overhead as well as 30 or so police in riot gear. We saw 3-4 police cars parked together at a street corner nearby. At that time, the protesters had dispersed from Camden Yards which was a block away from the hotel.

I wasn't a part of the peaceful protest so I will be first to tell you that I don't know what went on. Since we were in the city at the time, I have paid special attention to the news lately. This is definitely something grandpa would have written about.  Social media (like this blog) really impact how these events are portrayed.   I really appreciate people posting pictures and video from the event and explaining what happened around them at the time.  There has been some conflicting stories told by the media vs told by the people who were there. If anyone has been glued to it like I have, I'd suggest looking for youtube videos that don't come from a mainstream media outlet. There were 10,000 peaceful protesters and a few hundred have been arrested for the atrocities inflicted on the city. 200/10,000 is 2% (to put it in perspective). These approximate numbers have come from media outlets and hopefully have been fact checked :(. There have been great numbers of people who have tried to stop the violence and who have cleaned up the city. Hundreds of people volunteered to clean the streets on Tuesday and many people unified during this event to help their neighbors. Many people have spoken up about peaceful protest and violence not being the answer. I feel for their struggle and the larger issues that are part of it. 

Looking closer to home, I work above a city police department and would love to get their take on the situation. I also wanted to find out if conflict resolution annual certification is a requirement for the police force. I'd also like to look into conflict resolution classes for myself as there are a few times that my job warrants having that kind of training. 

Peace be with you and light your way!

https://youtu.be/0HaaRZ8nxd4

Everyday peace

Alright, I have to switch gears a little and post a little something more personal.  I'm 3/4 of the way through the 2nd book of memoirs but a few things happened this week  that I found more meaningful.

So, my friend and I exchange books and internet articles a lot. Recently, I got one about a marine's decision to become a CO and his experience. It was a great article. On that same webpage, I came across another article by an anthropologist trying to figure out how to study particularly peaceful communities. How do you measure a peaceful community? The article had some excellent points. Here is a link http://aeon.co/magazine/society/margaret-paxson-peace-conflict/?fb_ref=Default. The article got me thinking that this peaceful lifestyle that many of these COs have described is a day to day practice. How do you change your thinking about everyday conflict or perceptions that we routinely have?

The same weekend, I read that article, I was hiking with my husband and we got into a discussion about categorizing people. For instance, if you are driving around and see someone on the side of the road, we tend to immediately categorize people based on a number of things; what clothes they wear, how they walk, their age, their skin color etc.  Admittedly, I do this all the time. For instance, I saw a guy in a pair of khaki pants and deck shoes waiting for his car to be detailed and I immediately made a judgement about how much money he must make. My husband's point was that it was human nature to do this and if we put the person in the correct category based on a multitude of observations, then its valid, not necessarily right or wrong; similar to putting several dark cloud observations into the category of storm clouds. I acknowledge that this is a byproduct of evolution.  I grew to feel really uncomfortable talking about it. His point was that there isn't anything inherently "good" or "bad" about categories. They are just ways that we lump data together to try to piece together the world around us. I think my uncomfortable feeling stemmed from all the baggage that may come with those categories.

My other thought was that love and connection can be stronger than all that baggage.  So, if  I take an objective perspective,  instead of instantly identifying people as "other" or apart from me, I should try to think of things that I may share. The article brought up the fact that communities that tend to show the most resilience to conflict are those in which there is a mix of different categories of people, different socio-economic classes etc.  The point was that people will find common ground where there was once an "us" and "them."

My goal for myself is to look at the guy with the khaki shorts and think, "Look, that guy likes shorts. I like shorts or I wonder if he doesn't like socks as much as I don't like socks since he's wearing deck shoes". We'll see if the brain-training helps me to feel more peaceful day to day. I'll keep you posted :)

Depression and love

Happy belated Easter! I thought about Grandpa a lot this Easter. He would have definitely written something about peace and the resurrection or something about sin and hope.  Well, I finally finished the one book of memoirs and started another called "We Have Just Begun to Not Fight." I have to admit, I'm getting kind of burnt-out on memoirs. I need to get back into something else. My dad recently found some old postcards of Grandpa's so I'm looking forward to reading those. If I can, I'll scan some in and post them.

There was one interesting interview in my most recent book from a gentlemen who was actually in NSBRO (the peace church committee that ran  the CPS camps). He said that he didn't think the CPS camps were run the way they should have. He stated that the government's involvement hamstrung a lot of what they could have done. The purpose of the peace churches was to spread the pacifist message and help out with war recovery efforts. The purpose of the selective service was to keep the camps out of site and out of the minds of the public.  These were cross purposes that came head to head quite often. After the war, the peace churches and many of the COs went on to do reconstruction work.  Another interesting point that this new book brought up was the impact to the wives of the men in camp.  Many of them had difficulty holding a job after their husband's CO status had been learned.

Another insight in this new book was that many of the CPS campers had trouble adjusting and became very depressed.  These men were used to being around their families and used to having meaningful work that would support that family.  They had trouble adjusting without that support group and that purpose to which they had assigned self worth. The book went on to describe that one psychologist even had trouble getting the approval to release these men from the camps for medical reasons. The camp's director had to re-write (with the doctor's final approval) many of the patient's psychological descriptions stating that they were a danger to themselves or others in order to get them released. There has always been a stigma of weakness ascribed to mental health patients and this was compounded by the fact that these men were also objecting to participate in a war that many others were willing to sacrifice their lives for (and kill others) which is also seen by many as a weakness.

I've often found it interesting how our culture perceives weakness. Love is often looked at as a weaker alternative to fighting. I know in my relationships, when I get really really angry, it is much more difficult and takes much more strength to not yell or want to strike out, but to stay calm and realize that love is still there which makes it worth the effort to WORK through problems instead of resorting to violence. In my experience, love takes much more fortitude and strength than fighting. Next time you're watching TV, pay attention to how strength and weakness are portrayed and see if it makes sense considering your experience.