Every year the same speeches are repeated on Memorial Day. We hear deep thanks and gratitude for all the American men and women in service who have "fought for our freedoms," who have "given the ultimate sacrifice," who have made it possible for us to live "with peace and democracy" in "the greatest nation on Earth." Without the military service of our veterans, we are told, we would not enjoy the freedoms that all Americans enjoy today. We are "the land of the free and home of the brave."
I would like to offer a different story. This is the one I would tell...
I would like to start with a prayer:
Dear God/dess, Great Spirit, Mystery, Creator,... [whoever the One is for you]... Please help us to open our hearts and minds. Please help us to seek truth. Please help us to be brave hearted enough to embrace whatever it is that we discover with courage, compassion, humility, and tenderness. Please help us to claim our greater wisdom, to learn and heal, and to evolve to create new stories and values to live by, ones which honor, bless, and cherish life. Amen.
*****
I come from a long line of those who were engaged in military service, often for most of their lives. The below are photographs of my uncle Fritz, my grandfather "Super", and my great-grandfather. All served in the military and my grandfather and great-grandfather were both graduates of West Point. Frederick Smith Strong, Jr. taught Eisenhower at West Point, served in both World Wars, and was buried at West Point on his 99th birthday. My grandfather was also a maverick of sorts, made a solo 10,000 mile trip driving around the country at age 90 visiting friends and family, was horrified throughout his lifetime by what he experienced as the senseless horror of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and would be proud to see some of his strengths manifesting in his granddaughter today. He would applaud my relentless questioning and intellectual curiosity, thinking outside the box, the pursuit of truth no matter how difficult to bare, compassion and kindness, bravery and big-heartedness. And Brigadier General Frederick Smith Strong, Jr. would welcome the cultivation of new stories to live by, ones which offer us alternatives to war as the source of peace. Because Super knew that war was not peace.
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| My grandfather, Brigadier General F.S.Strong, Jr. |
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| Major General Frederick Smith Strong |
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| 3 Generations: Frederick Smith Strong III, Jr., and Senior |
What if we were to begin a new way of honoring our veterans? What about if we were to begin with the sad, sad, sad truth...? [I've stopped to weep.]
*****
So here it goes. When I look at military cemeteries, what I see are many who did not die for our freedoms — but who all too often died for a lie. [This is really painful to write about...]
Each and every day 22 veterans commit suicide. We do not hear about this in all the speeches given on this day. And I have a strong sense about why we do not address this horrific tragedy — because it opens the door to the greater truth of what is happening, exposing the lie in vivid color for all to see. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, this heart-wrenching horror will continue, at least in part, as long as our veterans believe that we Americans cannot or will not endure the truth.
The truth is that American wars are all too often about conquest, gaining control over fossil fuels and other natural resources, greed and lining the pockets of the few, dismantling democracies in other resource-rich nations and planting dictators in their place. There is a reason that America has military bases all over the world, and it is not about spreading democracy. There is a reason why much of the world sees the United States as the most dangerous nation on Earth, and it is not because we are the ones fighting terrorism. To much of the world, we Americans — or the ones who promote the false and toxic stories which justify and promote endless war and endless suffering — are the terrorists.
I knew none of this until 9-11 and I had to find out why we were attacked. And I began to follow threads of information and one truth led to another led to another until the whole world as I'd once known it was blown apart. These are the greater truths that I did not learn about in history classes and was not hearing on FOX or CNN or NPR. We are not the most exceptional nation on Earth. We are the most dangerous. This awareness broke my heart...
And again and again I need to remind myself that each time I allow my heart to break open, more space is cleared for love.
*****
I have just returned from visiting my son Kevin, youngest grandson Ethan, and our family in Victoria, British Columbia. And my son Matt, my husband, and I were all struck by the relief we felt crossing the border into Canada. There were no tents and homeless human beings. There's no President Trump. There's no fear of school shootings, and there are no arguments over guns. On the contrary, there is no belief system that guns are what keep us safe. There were not crazy drivers or veterans standing on corners with their "Anything Helps" signs. There is healthcare. Middle Eastern looking people did not look afraid. People smile. There is no daily horror and heartbreak. And for Matt and Ron and myself, we each processed together what a traumatized people we are in the United States.
Living with trauma is not freedom.
And there are many forms that trauma comes in. There is the trauma experienced by veterans after killing other human beings, including women and children, and destroying their homes and communities. This is an injury to their souls that without deep support and healing drives too many to end their lives. There is the trauma of not knowing on any day if children will return home alive from their schools. There is the trauma of not knowing on any day if your parents will be deported. There is the trauma of rampant child abuse and neglect and domestic violence. There is the trauma of no healthcare and being one paycheck away from homelessness. There is the trauma of being Black and Native American, Hispanic and Muslim, gay and transsexual, of being refugees desperately trying to find safety. There is the trauma of protection after protection being destroyed which has been in place to protect our water and air, to protect endangered species and other animals, and to increasingly address the greatest threat to life on Earth — global warming.
There is the trauma of the toxic politics of polarization and the relentless portrayal of us as Republican/Democrat, left/right, conservative/liberal, American/unAmerican, patriotic/unpatriotic, and on and on. And there is the trauma of addressing us as consumers rather than as human beings with hearts and souls. There's the trauma of not having healthcare or school systems rooted in educating and funding which give the clear message that children matter. There's the trauma of blaming poverty on the poor. There's the trauma of the daily stories about this storm or flood or fire and on and on which are giving us the message more and more urgently — we are the frog in the frying pan who will soon burn to death unless we act fiercely and collaboratively to address our warming planet.
There's the trauma of the shootings within ear range of my youngest son's apartment. There's the trauma of the opiate epidemic and the epidemic of a plethora of addictions and depression and violence which haunts our hearts and families and communities. And there's the trauma of knowing that sending our children off to far away lands to kill the children of other people will not solve any of this. War is not peace.
*****
We can create new stories. We can. We can state that from this day forward we are going to do what we can to stop new crosses from being endlessly erected in military cemeteries. We can affirm that we will no longer justify sending our children to war "over there" when we know damn well that freedom cannot be our experience as long as we are strangers to ourselves, to each other, to other beings. We cannot diminish that violence in the world without first addressing the violence that is occurring in our own hearts, in our own families, in our community and nation, in the cultural stories and values we believe in.
We can apologize to our veterans for our part in promoting the lies that war is peace. My heart aches with how profoundly these lies betray the children, brothers and sisters, the fathers and mothers we send off to war. I've gone to Winter Soldier and other veterans events and heard the stories and the poems and witnessed the tears and grief and unbearable suffering — and it's all just busted my heart wide open. Wide open. We need to apologize for telling our loved ones that killing is something to be proud of. Because for those who kill and whose hearts still have any openness at all, they know that killing another human being also requires killing off a part of oneself. And especially when our veterans all too often kill children. That is the reality. That is their truth.
And because — whether we consciously know it or not — we are all related, the experience that our veterans are left with is not that they are returning as heroes, but that they are returning as monsters. That is the story that is all too often not spoken, but which festers in the bodies, hearts, minds, and souls of so many of our returning veterans. It is an incredible betrayal of them that we allow this silent horror to continue to haunt our veterans, often driving them to end their lives.
We need to apologize to veterans, and to all who've been impacted by war, for being sucked into believing the stories of patriotism that in truth are rooted in a toxic nationalism that causes us to disconnect from the wisdom of our own hearts and souls. To the degree that any of us are disconnected from this greater wisdom is the degree that we will be compelled to cause harm to ourselves and others.
Again and again, we can remind ourselves and one another that there is another way.
*****
At long last, we can tell our veterans that we are ready to join with them, heart-to-heart, in creating a more just and peaceful, caring and compassionate, courageous and wise world. We can tell them that we are learning to muster all the brave-tender-heartedness we can to bear witness to them and their deepest truths in order that these stories may ultimately be healed and transformed, making it possible to give birth to new ones — ones which affirm and cherish life rather than destroy it. And we can all commit to increasing mindfulness of when our actions, thoughts, emotions, and belief systems are out of alignment with the values we hold most dear.
And, truly, aren't the values we hold most dear the ones which nourish life? Aren't these the values which open the doorways of our hearts for healing so that we may diminish our fears and grow in love? Courage can be contagious! As can compassion, tenderness, kindness, and love.
And we all need tenderness. There was a time where, for many years, I was deeply asleep and unaware of how much harm I was causing to myself and others, including my own children. I could not have opened the doorway of my heart to make healing possible without (1) support - we'll only go as deep as the support we perceive is available to us, (2) the intention to heal, grow, and evolve, and (3) learning how to hold myself with great tenderness and compassion as I peeled layer after layer off of my illusions, my wounds and trauma, my addictions and ignorance, and my harmful belief systems.
*****
We all have blind spots. We are all wounded in life. We all have strengths and gifts and potentials. And we all have the capacity to grow into our greater wholeness and the truth of who truly are. This is not about self-improvement or any hokey new age quick fixes or any fix at all. This is about waking up and rooting into our heart-paths and engaging in the most amazing journey of all — that of becoming oneself.
Then we will have the courage and love to stand with our veterans and work to end their tragic suicides. We will have the wisdom to dig deep and see the roots of war and then be empowered to choose peace. Again and again and again, to choose peace. And we can remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. — "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Emma Goldman was also absolutely speaking the truth when she stated that "the most violent element in society is ignorance." To honor our veterans — and ourselves and all life — we can commit to weeding out the ignorance we carry in our minds and the obstacles which impair our capacity for wisdom, compassion, and love. We can do this as individuals and together. We all need each other for this journey. We can evolve. We can.
And we can reflect on this: "We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come." ― ThÃch Nhất Hạnh, from Living Buddha, Living Christ
*****
We will, I believe, continue to betray our veterans and ourselves as long as we collude and engage in long-held cultural stories and belief systems which do not honor and respect life. We can awaken from the illusion of separation and experience the deep truth that we are all related, all connected, all family. We can create new stories to live by. Individually and as a species, we can evolve.
As more and more of us awaken to this truth, our world will shift and radically change. One by one, we will become mindful of our triggers and our fears and shed them for the wisdom of our souls. We will no longer buy into stories that our freedoms are bought at the end of the barrel of a gun or through the madness of spending billions and trillions on weapons of war, death, and destruction.
We can uproot the terrorist within ourselves and our culture and claim our true strength. We can do this. We can transform the empty words we too often offer veterans and ourselves on Memorial Day, and every day, into ones which embody the true power and wisdom we possess as human beings who all carry the Light of the Divine which is woven through ourselves and all of life. We can choose love over fear. Again and again and again, we can choose love over fear.
And we can remember this...
Our greatest strength lies in the
gentleness and tenderness of our heart.
― Rumi
― Rumi
♥
Bless us all,
Molly
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