Tag Archives: socially

Battalion

Battalion: (n) a large body of troops ready for battleDictionary B

Every once in a while I think about my own death.

It makes me cry.

You know why? I start thinking about all the people I know and how devastated they will be with my absence.

It’s very silly.

But you see, the only life that completely matters in my thinking is mine.

I try to be equally as concerned about others. Sometimes I muster some real mourning for their well-being, but nothing on the level of the compassion and care I have for myself.

I suppose I should feel bad about that–but since it’s not going away, and I am certainly not alone, I will choose to guide it by understanding the value of all human life.

When I was sixteen years old, hundreds of young American men were dying in Vietnam every week. We had a death toll number. It wasn’t like the numbers tallied nowadays over mass shootings, earthquakes or explosions. Many of these young fellows had just been in our classrooms, churches and bagging groceries in our supermarkets three months earlier, and now they were returning home draped in flags.

It seemed surreal but became our reality.

We were experiencing battalions of young American males going off to fight in a jungle and coming home dead.

There was a sensitivity that swept the young generation.

It was reflected in the music.

It was being released from our pores as we stood side-by-side, wondering what in the hell could all this mean.

So gradually, we joined together and became battalions of protestors. We went off to a different kind of war. It was a war waged against war, because the war being executed was killing us.

We had a greater awareness. We asked questions like, “Where have all the flowers gone?”–waiting for an intelligent answer.

Nowadays we speak of war in a clinical Ethernet third person. It is something we launch rather than something that strikes back at us, filling up coffins and alarming us to its viciousness.

We have a professional army with people who have made a profession out of arming themselves and going off to wars that have been created by old men who miss John Wayne.

Nowadays our grocery baggers get to go to college without ever feeling the loss of life.

I would not wish the agony of Vietnam and the deaths of friends and loved ones on anyone, but it would be terrific to have battalions of young people who are socially, spiritually and emotionally conscious of our aching world … instead of battalions of soldiers chasing the errors of misguided politicians.

 

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Anybody

dictionary with letter A

Anybody: (pron) 1. anyone: (e.g. there wasn’t anybody around) 2. a person of importance (e.g.: everybody who was anybody came)

Shall we refer to it as the four different approaches to Earth-family?

1. Family consists of those individuals who share my DNA, live in my house or in close proximity to my home, and in some way have been spawned through my procreative efforts.

2. Family are those born of my passion, but also a few friends that I’ve let in, and consider to be “extended” beings in our clique.

3. Family are those who share a state, country, religion or agreement with me politically or socially, who I embrace as my traveling companions because of our similar value system.

4. Family is anybody.

That’s right–any human who has a body.

I love that word for that reason.

You can see with the first three applications that we promote a cloudy atmosphere of prejudice which doesn’t mind occasionally slipping into bigotry.

Of course, it is risky:

  • You have to stop believing that your little Brian or Susie is more intelligent than the off-spring of the family down the street.
  • You must understand that even though you are very devoted to your rendition of faith, that faith without works is dead, and people who believe and bear fruit are the ones who will survive the test of time.
  • You probably will have to abandon the concept that “America is exceptional” and that the rest of the planet must stand in line in second- and third-world positions.
  • And you certainly will need to run away from preference due to sex, age, beliefs and orientation.

It is scary to love just anybody, but since we all share a common flesh, the true magic in life is to see if we can discover … a universal spirit.

 

 

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Andrew, St.

dictionary with letter A

Andrew, St.: An apostle, the brother of St. Peter. He is associated with the X-shaped cross because he is said to have been crucified on such a cross, and is the patron saint of Russia and Scotland. Feast Day, November 30.

Long before he was nailed down on a multiplication symbol and they started a special holiday in his honor, Andrew was a fisherman in a little town called Capernaum.

His prospects for being prosperous or well-known and his aptitude for upward mobility were less than promising–actually, comical.

Living in a village of less than five hundred people and a partner in a business in which his brother, with a more boisterous personality, took over the entire room, Andrew had little chance of surfacing socially, or even generating a jot and tittle in a history book.

Yet he possessed one powerful personality trait–he was curious.

While his brother probably took the time to sleep off the latest fishing jaunt, which included heavy wine drinking, Andrew was out and about, looking for possibilities. In the process, he met another unlikely earth-shaker named Jesus of Nazareth.

We don’t know why Andrew was impressed or why he was so moved by the Nazarene’s message. But we do know that he was one of Jesus’ early followers, and ends up bringing his brother to the cause.

As often is the case, there is no Peter without Andrew. There are no five loaves and two fishes for the five thousand fed without Andrew bringing the little boy’s lunch for consideration.

And even though after all the smoke cleared of the posturing and shuffling, he did not end up being one of the inner-three best friends of Jesus (positions held by Peter, James and John), we are never made aware that he is slighted or offended in the least.

He did three things that gave him personal salvation and a place for all time:

  1. He stayed interested.
  2. When he found something important, he got excited.
  3. He stuck with it to the end.

In many ways Andrew is the hero of the gospel story simply because he brought the right people at the right time … to the right person.

 

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