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World peace begins in my house
Dec. 18th, 2008 08:26 amA while back, I was on a listserv discussing books and art, and there was someone on there whose signature was my subject heading: World peace begins in my house. It's always stuck with me, and comes to mind whenever I listen to the news: war, pestilence, poverty were on NPR this morning--and likely most mornings.
I live in a town whose expansion has been internal. I think it was once sparsely populated, and as people sold their expensive houses on the coast and went looking for a cheaper place to live, they came here to use their new wealth. As a result, huge McMansion neighborhoods have been dropped into areas of old farmhouses, and spiffy bright paint jobs alternate with peeling siding. (Note to self: never build a house with masonite siding.) On our street alone, there are large, well-kept two-stories of the 21st century at one end, and long, low buildings from the 1960s that have never been repaired and that sport ragged tarps dangling from the porch ceiling to hide the junk on the porch. Not all "poor" houses have junk, I hasten to add. I have been in houses that are clean, but daylight is still visible through the gaps because there is simply not enough money to fix the places that have worn out.
There is a wider range of economics here than perhaps anywhere else I have lived, with the exception of Chile, where I saw governmental mansions and dirt floors in the same town. There are neither of those here. But it's still enough to make me ill when I hear of yet another corporate scandal. I can understand people making economic errors, sure. The economy is going to have its ups and downs. But when we're dealing with a recession, it's hard to see disasters that could have been prevented, had people been honest with the money they were entrusted with. Especially when I walk around town and see the people who bear the brunt of things like this.
The same kind of wealth scale exists within family relationships. So often, poverty and suffering IS tied to a family's functionality. I believe people can change--but dysfunctional cycles are very hard to change, nonetheless. You have to have the knowledge of how to change. You have to want to change, and you have to work. And likely it takes more than one generation. Plenty of people want to change, but don't know how, and so the cycle of misery repeats itself over and over. Those who have the tools at hand don't always want to enough. It's not easy.
As a subset of this, substance abuse is often one of the repeated ills that happen generation after generation. Perhaps you don't ever take a drop. But marrying someone who does, and enabling that addition, perpetuates it. The trouble is, when you're surrounded by it, how do you know any different? How do you know where the exit is? How do you find the key to make your life different than the one you were given?
We all suffer in life--I believe we learn through those things. A novel with no risks is boring. A character who is never tested to his or her ultimate limit never grows. I think that is merely a reflection of how life is meant to be. We all make mistakes. But the difference between those who let those circumstances they're given plunge them over the waterfall and those who use those things as a hand hold to climb the mountain is the ability to let go. To let go of anger, vengeance, and self tight-fistedness and to look for something better. This is called hope.
If we want world peace, there are a few things we can do and pass along to those who come after us:
1. Be honest. Make the decision today to make integrity part of your persona. If everyone did this, I'm positive we would cut the world's economic woes in half.
2. Be respectful of others. As my children would say, is this action selfish, or serving? Am I trying to dominate others, or do I respect their freedom of choice and appreciate what they have to offer society? Love, tolerance, and respect would do a lot to eliminate racism and family violence and genocide.
3. Eradicate substance abuse. Otherwise good people do things they would never do if sober. Decide now not to let chemicals take over your ability to think for yourself. Freedom of choice is a gift; don't give it away.
This time of year is a time to renew hope and make decisions for the future. We're all going to mess up, but let's all allow ourselves hope. Let go of past failings, and see what we can do differently this time. "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." May world peace start now for each of us, just a bit more, in the walls of our very own homes.
I live in a town whose expansion has been internal. I think it was once sparsely populated, and as people sold their expensive houses on the coast and went looking for a cheaper place to live, they came here to use their new wealth. As a result, huge McMansion neighborhoods have been dropped into areas of old farmhouses, and spiffy bright paint jobs alternate with peeling siding. (Note to self: never build a house with masonite siding.) On our street alone, there are large, well-kept two-stories of the 21st century at one end, and long, low buildings from the 1960s that have never been repaired and that sport ragged tarps dangling from the porch ceiling to hide the junk on the porch. Not all "poor" houses have junk, I hasten to add. I have been in houses that are clean, but daylight is still visible through the gaps because there is simply not enough money to fix the places that have worn out.
There is a wider range of economics here than perhaps anywhere else I have lived, with the exception of Chile, where I saw governmental mansions and dirt floors in the same town. There are neither of those here. But it's still enough to make me ill when I hear of yet another corporate scandal. I can understand people making economic errors, sure. The economy is going to have its ups and downs. But when we're dealing with a recession, it's hard to see disasters that could have been prevented, had people been honest with the money they were entrusted with. Especially when I walk around town and see the people who bear the brunt of things like this.
The same kind of wealth scale exists within family relationships. So often, poverty and suffering IS tied to a family's functionality. I believe people can change--but dysfunctional cycles are very hard to change, nonetheless. You have to have the knowledge of how to change. You have to want to change, and you have to work. And likely it takes more than one generation. Plenty of people want to change, but don't know how, and so the cycle of misery repeats itself over and over. Those who have the tools at hand don't always want to enough. It's not easy.
As a subset of this, substance abuse is often one of the repeated ills that happen generation after generation. Perhaps you don't ever take a drop. But marrying someone who does, and enabling that addition, perpetuates it. The trouble is, when you're surrounded by it, how do you know any different? How do you know where the exit is? How do you find the key to make your life different than the one you were given?
We all suffer in life--I believe we learn through those things. A novel with no risks is boring. A character who is never tested to his or her ultimate limit never grows. I think that is merely a reflection of how life is meant to be. We all make mistakes. But the difference between those who let those circumstances they're given plunge them over the waterfall and those who use those things as a hand hold to climb the mountain is the ability to let go. To let go of anger, vengeance, and self tight-fistedness and to look for something better. This is called hope.
If we want world peace, there are a few things we can do and pass along to those who come after us:
1. Be honest. Make the decision today to make integrity part of your persona. If everyone did this, I'm positive we would cut the world's economic woes in half.
2. Be respectful of others. As my children would say, is this action selfish, or serving? Am I trying to dominate others, or do I respect their freedom of choice and appreciate what they have to offer society? Love, tolerance, and respect would do a lot to eliminate racism and family violence and genocide.
3. Eradicate substance abuse. Otherwise good people do things they would never do if sober. Decide now not to let chemicals take over your ability to think for yourself. Freedom of choice is a gift; don't give it away.
This time of year is a time to renew hope and make decisions for the future. We're all going to mess up, but let's all allow ourselves hope. Let go of past failings, and see what we can do differently this time. "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." May world peace start now for each of us, just a bit more, in the walls of our very own homes.
