Paris, Peace and Pulling Weeds

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Candles lit in Hong Kong cnnIt is difficult not to respond in some way to the terrible events that happened in Paris on Friday night. I see photos of the victims, most of them smiling profiles downloaded from social media pages. They all seem to be young, a diversity of faces. I see slogans and calls for justice, twitter handles and French flags – Peace for Paris, #PrayforParis, #ParisisaboutLife.

I see that on Sunday night French fighter jets launched their biggest raids in Syria to date, targeting the Islamic State’s stronghold in Raqqa. Taking off from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan and in coordination with US forces, the jets dropped 20 bombs on the city that night.

I see that the French president, François Hollande, said, “We are going to lead a war which will be pitiless.”

Oh God. Where to begin with all of this? Continue reading →

Your Jail Cell Reading List

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jail reading listImagine being at home and the police come to arrest you without any criminal charges. You are taken to headquarters and interrogated; they ask you to describe your work. You answer by offering an elaborate and lengthy description of psychosynthesis. After you finish, the interrogator shouts, “You are a pacifist!”

You try to explain that you are not a pacifist in any political or legal way. “I don’t believe that peace can be secured by making war on war. I am deeply convinced that peace is fundamentally a psychological problem.” More questions come, but you decide to stay present to yourself and remain silent. At that point, you are handcuffed and put into solitary confinement. However, you are allowed to read.

What books do you choose?

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An Understanding Light of Welcome

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A refugee child seeking asylum in Gronau.

A refugee child seeking asylum in Gronau, Germany.

News headlines have recently been shouting about the refugee crisis and Germany’s prominent role in welcoming them. Estimates are that more than 1.5 million refugees will enter the country by the end of the year, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Since I live in a small town in Germany, I thought I might share my personal experience and reflections.

The town where I live is a poor one by German standards and a rich one by world standards. Gronau has a beautiful heated community swimming pool, a Jazz Festival every May, and a well-stocked public library. But the town also has many boarded up factories with smashed windows. Gronau was once a boom town centered around the textile industry. But by the 1970s, all the jobs disappeared, first to Eastern Europe and then to China.

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