When I was young, it was considered inappropriate for boys to participate in the “making” process, so that part of the tradition was not passed down to me. However, I did learn to love and appreciate a good tamale; becoming if you will – a connoisseur. As such, this is the “tradition” I’ve passed on to my daughters.

Last night, my daughter Rachel (she turns 17 next month) and a friend took our family’s tamale tradition to the next level. Since there was no one around to teach her how to make tamales, Rachel did what everyone in her generation does, she went online for inspiration and help. Several days before, she had sorted through various recipes, settled on one, and made a list of ingredients she needed us to buy. We did our part and so the stage was set for last night’s tamale making session. I have distant memories of watching women participate in “parties” where the social interaction seemed to be just as important as the tamales they were making. Imagine then, my deja vu moment when I walked into the kitchen and saw Rachel and her friend reenacting the social part of the process as if they had been making tamales all their lives.

Just like I remembered, the center of activity was the kitchen table. There, amidst the masa harina, corn husks, and other ingredients was Rachel’s iPad. As she worked, she flipped back and forth between the detailed recipe and a YouTube video demonstrating the process…it was hilarious!

I helped them place the completed tamales in a large cook pot and went to bed before they finished cooking. This morning I awoke to find several sealed containers of tamales in the refrigerator. In my special “alone” time before anyone else got up (I’m an early riser), I quietly prepared and ate one of my favorite “holiday” breakfasts – tamales and eggs (over easy please!). Unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to describe the overlapping sensations of current and long-remembered sights, smells, and tastes.

I know about heaven and the hereafter…but for just this morning, thinking about my daughter and tasting her fresh tamales…I came as close as we can get on this earth to experiencing heaven. I am full of joy…

It was the early 1970s and the poster on the left was taped to the wall of my room at college. (Parenthetically, in searching for this image, I saw an original poster for sale on EBay for almost $1,000!) As a freshman I had become eligible for the draft and drawn a very low lottery number (around 30). It was said that anyone with a number less than 50 would be inducted and likely end up in Vietnam (in 1971 there were still over 150,000 troops stationed there).   Sure enough, I was called for a pre-induction physical but because I have very flat feet and couldn’t hear high frequency sounds, I was declared 1-H and told that I might be called for another physical in a year. Shortly thereafter, the draft was terminated. Like most of my peers, I was vehemently opposed to the war and to many of President Nixon’s domestic policies. When the Watergate scandal broke in 1972 much of my anger was somehow focused on Chuck Colson, whom I perceived to be the most ruthless of Nixon’s “henchmen” – a characterization shared by many and which he later admitted was fairly accurate (Chuck is pictured above in the second row, second from the right).

I wasn’t alone in greeting the news of his spiritual conversion the next year with great skepticism. From my perspective, it only got worse when he pleaded guilty to the relatively minor charge of obstruction of justice. Nevertheless, I still remember being oddly struck by something he said that day – it was like a hairline crack in the eggshell of my life that would eventually split open. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I can share those words with you today: [pleading guilty was] “a price I had to pay to complete the shedding of my old life and to be free to live the new.” Imagine that…going to jail in order to be free, in order to gain a “new” life…and what a life it would be!

Although I never met him, Chuck Colson was one of my mentors because he had a profound influence on my life through his post-conversion speaking and writing. Time and space don’t permit me to expound here, but one thing in particular stands out from all the others. Through the example of his life, Chuck showed me there really is such a thing as redemption and that no one is beyond God’s reach. I also came to realize that God didn’t say to Chuck: “Now that you’ve been redeemed, I want you to become someone else”.

As with the apostle Paul, God wanted and needed a man with Chuck’s particular qualities to do His work (1 Tim. 1:12-17). His life reminded me that I was also created by God to be a certain kind of person and that He wants me to live that life to its fullest – not try to be someone else. Chuck was a hard-nosed Marine, he was a hard-nosed attorney, he was Nixon’s “attack dog”, and he ended up being hard-nosed guy for God. To be sure, some of his sharp points were filed down over time – but Chuck never stopped being who God made him to be. He was all-in, all the way and while none of us will ever know for sure on this side of eternity - I can see him as someone whom God recently welcomed into heaven with the words “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:31). As for me, I’m still aspiring.

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.

Truth be told, I’ve never been a fan of Mencken although a number of his social/cultural insights do resonate with me – including the quote above. As an avid, albeit amateur observer of culture, I’ve come to believe that in our current “information age” and particularly among those who have grown up in it, we increasingly mistake information for knowledge. I don’t know when Mencken wrote these words, but because he died in 1956, we know it was well before information technology became ubiquitous.

In writing The Wave, Susan Casey spent a significant amount of time with Laird Hamilton, the famous big-wave surfer. Her portrayal of him includes one characteristic that stands in stark contrast to what Mencken described. We are told that while Hamilton appreciates the value of modern meteorological technology (predicting where and when the big waves will appear), he isn’t wholly dependent upon it. He still believes in the “traditional” values of intuition and observation (watchfulness) – based on a fundamental belief that the ocean and its behavior is ultimately “unknowable”.

I see this as a metaphor for our lives. If we fall prey to the concept that everything is “knowable”, we will be woefully unprepared when the unknowable, the unforseen, comes upon us. I’m not speaking thoeretically here, but from the perspective of recent, tangible experience. I wasn’t quite prepared for the circumstances that overtook me and as a result, I got my butt kicked. Fortunately, I found my way ”back to the surface” and survived emotionally and spiritually intact. I truly believe this was only because I had retained some sense of the unknowable and faith that God could bring me through it.

As so often happens with major life lessons, I end up finding the same or similar “things” in the pages of the Bible. In this case, the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Mark describes Jesus talking with His followers about the fallacy of ”knowing” and the need to instead be alert and observant…a good lesson for any age.

Some of you, upon seeing the terms “Bob Dylan” and “anti-war” in the same sentence, may be inclined to bail out at this point…however, if I have any credibility with you at all, please stick around and hear what I have to say.

Throughout my life, I’ve chosen to be neither pro-war nor anti-war. This is because I want to assess each situation on its own merits. I also believe that in this world there are times when we will be drawn into conflict to protect that which we deem essential or critical to life as we know it. You and I may disagree on many aspects of such a conflict, but my goal would be for us to at least have a dialogue about it. I’m also acutely aware that in the eyes of the rest of the world, the actions of our country and its designated representatives ultimately reflect on all of us.

What got me onto this topic today was an article about U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales being charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the recent massacre of Afghan civilians. Bales is accused of walking off a U.S. military base with his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, killing nine Afghan children and eight adults and burning some of the bodies. At this time, it’s unclear what prompted the killings, but the case has drawn renewed attention to the debate over mental health care for our troops, who have experienced record suicide rates and high incidences of post-traumatic stress and brain injuries during repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don’t know what really happened or why and it’s not my place to offer commentary on those aspects of the situation. What I can say is that I found myself emotionally overcome by the immensity of the tragedy – on all sides. For some reason, I remembered that I’d recently listened to the song “John Brown” in my car and something in me clicked. The song is not about countries and conflicts and it’s not overtly political. It’s tells a personal story about a mother who “glorified” war and the toll it took on her son who actually had to fight in it and bear the consequences. I won’t say any more…I’ll simply leave you to your own impressions and conclusions about the song. I’ve included the lyrics below and a live version of the song that was included in the “Bob Dylan Unplugged” album back in 1995.

Here’s the music:

“John Brown went off to war to fight on a foreign shore His mama sure was proud of him! He stood straight and tall in his uniform and all His mama’s face broke out all in a grin

“Oh son, you look so fine, I’m glad you’re a son of mine You make me proud to know you hold a gun Do what the captain says, lots of medals you will get And we’ll put them on the wall when you come home”

As that old train pulled out, John’s ma began to shout Tellin’ ev’ryone in the neighborhood: “That’s my son that’s about to go, he’s a soldier now, you know” She made well sure her neighbors understood

She got a letter once in a while and her face broke into a smile As she showed them to the people from next door And she bragged about her son with his uniform and gun And these things you called a good old-fashioned war

Oh! Good old-fashioned war!

Then the letters ceased to come, for a long time they did not come They ceased to come for about ten months or more Then a letter finally came saying, “Go down and meet the train Your son’s a-coming home from the war”

She smiled and went right down, she looked everywhere around But she could not see her soldier son in sight But as all the people passed, she saw her son at last When she did she could hardly believe her eyes

Oh his face was all shot up and his hand was all blown off And he wore a metal brace around his waist He whispered kind of slow, in a voice she did not know While she couldn’t even recognize his face!

Oh! Lord! Not even recognize his face

“Oh tell me, my darling son, pray tell me what they done How is it you come to be this way?” He tried his best to talk but his mouth could hardly move And the mother had to turn her face away

“Don’t you remember, Ma, when I went off to war You thought it was the best thing I could do? I was on the battleground, you were home . . . acting proud You wasn’t there standing in my shoes”

“Oh, and I thought when I was there, God, what am I doing here? I’m a-tryin’ to kill somebody or die tryin’ But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close And I saw that his face looked just like mine”

Oh! Lord! Just like mine!

“And I couldn’t help but think, through the thunder rolling and stink That I was just a puppet in a play And through the roar and smoke, this string is finally broke And a cannonball blew my eyes away”

As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock At seein’ the metal brace that helped him stand But as he turned to go, he called his mother close And he dropped his medals down into her hand”

Today’s post falls into the “What do you think about it?” category. As I write this, a number of friends from my church are spending their final day in Haiti as part of a 10-day “Missions” trip. If you watch the video from last year’s trip, you’ll see that the focus of the team is both spiritual and humanitarian. The cost of the trip was funded through donations solicited by the participants and through use of their own personal funds. Several team members elected to use vacation time from work to participate. I’ve been receiving their periodic updates via email and know that both they and the people they’re serving have been blessed. The one common thread noted by all who have been there is the overwhelming level of poverty and need.

Yesterday morning, I read an article in the local newspaper (real paper delivered to my door, not digital) about the smaller bonuses paid on Wall Street last year and the impact on high-finance workers. I won’t regugitate the article here – best if you just read it yourself.

I don’t make anywhere near what the man who’s the subject of the article makes, but from my perspective, I do ok. The situation in Haiti and the plight (hyperbole? – you decide) of Wall Street workers reminds me that life often comes down to a matter of perspective. It’s easy to have what we would call “proper perspective” if we’re looking at things from the detached, outsider’s point of view. It’s quite another to be within the midst of either situation and to maintain a healthy perspective. Living in the U.S. and at my income level, I “have” more (materially) than most people in the world. How much does this define what I call the “adversities” of life and my response to them? To me, that’s where perspective comes in.

During the most recent Advent season, I found the Reclaiming Christmas devotional to be particularly meaningful. As a result, I composed a number of accompanying personal reflections during the course of the season. Several of them were focused on a significant life transition that was looming - the potential change in ownership of the small company I work for. The choice I faced was whether to proceed with purchasing the company myself or to accept a high-level position with a large Firm that had been looking to acquire us for some time. I wrote about this decision in my personal reflection of December 28th. I believed then (and still do) that to become a small business owner would have fundamentally altered the shape of my life’s “triangle” as described in that post and that such a change was not what God had in mind for me and my family.

In facing life’s big decisions, we as Christians often put on a “brave face” and declare that we have sought and sensed God’s guidance. While this is to a large extent true, experience has taught me that these things are more about faith than anything else. In fact, it’s taken me a long time but I’ve finally come to disabuse myself of the notion that I can know definitively what God’s precise will is in any given situation. It may sound trite to some of you, but all I can do is step forward in faith and trust in God’s ultimate provision – even if that provision doesn’t look anything like what I expected.

After making the decision not to buy the company myself, I pushed on through the end of busy season on January 31 (think April 15 for “tax professionals”) and our Firm entered the final stage of acquisition talks. Our deal was due to take effect on February 1 and as these things often do, it went right down to the wire. After not having had a day off in three weeks, I was called into the acquiring company’s office downtown for new employee orientation on the morning of February 1. Because the deal had been completed at the last minute, it was not the easiest of transitions. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that we didn’t start working on “integration” issues until the afternoon of February 1.

After ten days, my former boss was called into a meeting and informed that the acquiring company had decided to back out of the deal. The stated reason was that the cultural differences between our two companies had been deemed too difficult to overcome. When I heard the news later that day, the Mark Knopfler song “Boom Like That” immediately popped into my mind…don’t bother asking why – it’s just how things sometimes happen with me.

As I write this, we’ve pretty much returned to business as usual but with a significant difference. A corner has been turned and we can no longer go back to the way things were. I don’t know with any degree of certainty what lies ahead. We will continue to look for a new “suitor” and in so doing, will have to keep ourselves “looking attractive”. For my part, God has allowed me to land on my feet and reminded me that change has indeed come – it’s just not in the way I expected.

I am at peace.

In that regard, I’ve had some recent expreiences with AT&T, Amazon.com, and DirecTV which have reminded me that despite all the marketing hype, the Rolling Stones were right: you can’t always get what you want. The underside of this realization is that in most cases, you can only get what vendors want you to have, the way they want you to have it.

I work out of a home office and have “business” telephone and internet through AT&T. I also have AT&T wireless service (for the whole family) and DirecTV, both under personal accounts. The business account is set up under my company’s name with a “C/O” to me, at my address. This was originally done so that I could get certain services that were only available to AT&T’s “business” customers. The small consulting firm I work for is being acquired but I will continue to be based out of my home office. Because I will no longer need AT&T’s business services and wanted to bundle my landline, internet, wireless and satellite TV for cost savings, I called AT&T to inquire about converting the business account to a personal one. I immediately discovered that really wasn’t an option because AT&T would require me to change phone numbers and re-subscribe to DSL internet service (thus losing my family’s current email addresses). Moreover, if I wanted to stay on DSL, the “transition” could involve a loss of internet access for up to two weeks! When I balked at this, they offered me the option of subscribing to their U-Verse internet service, with the existing DSL not shutting down until after installation. The problem was, we would still have to change phone numbers and email addresses. In addition, the only way they would support U-Verse would be if I agreed to use AT&T’s standard modem/router. I already have a fairly robust home network in place (ethernet and wireless) and based on the poor reputation of AT&T’s home networking devices (including my own past experiences), this was not a viable option. In frustration, I finally asked if the name on the business account could simply be changed to my own. I was told that this could only be done by issuing a new account number, which would require “re-initialization” of all services with no guarantee of retaining the same phone numbers or email accounts. At that point I decided to give up - after about 90 minutes on the phone. I just couldn’t get what I wanted.

LATE UPDATE – 11/19/11: Surprise! The U-Verse service I was offered really isn’t available yet and may not be for some time…

This morning I went to Amazon.com to look into the recently announced Kindle Lending Library. Amazon has been very accomodating in setting me up for automatic renewal of my “Amazon Prime” membership. They have also made it very easy to access Kindle media by providing a free download of their “Kindle for Mac” app. Of course, the clear intent is to make it as easy as possible for me to spend money on Kindle media. Despite the fact that they are already reaching deep into my pockets on a consistent basis, Amazon has decided that the lending library will only be available to those who own an actual Kindle device. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-capitalist and would willingly pay a nominal “rental” fee to access the library. In my case, I simply read too many books and periodicals to pay full price for everything I’m interested in. It’s why I’m an avid user of the San Francisco Public Library and its website. Once again, I just couldn’t get what I wanted.

In last Sunday’s newspaper, a full-page, color ad was inserted for DirecTV. It promised new subscribers free premium services for three months, a guaranteed low rate (for essentially the same package I have) for all of 2012, and a free NFL Sunday Ticket package for the rest of the season. Assuming a new subscriber put together a package virtually identical to mine, he or she would be paying about $35-40 less per month through the end of 2012. Feeling a bit like a sucker, I called to inquire about changing packages (mine is grandfathered and no longer offered) and any other potential offers that might be available to longtime subscribers like me. They pretty much blew me off by saying that at sometime in the past I must have availed myself of a “new subscriber” offer. Because I’ve had DirecTV for almost 12 years, I don’t remember if discounts were offered when I started; but I do know that there are many more services offered today (HD, HD DVR, “Whole-Home”, etc.) that I had to pay full price for when they were first rolled out. What really got me is that they were completely unwilling to offer me anything for having been a longtime customer. For the third time in less than two weeks, I just couldn’t get anything I wanted.

If you’ve come this far, thanks for reading my rant in its entirety and I hope you find it helpful. I guess I’m just an aging baby-boomer who still believes that things should be fair and equitable. Idealism dies hard!

About a month ago, I finally had a chance to view a film I’d been wanting to see since its release earlier this year – Of Gods and Men. The story is about a group of French monks whose monastery is located in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria. It’s set in the 1990′s during a bloody civil war that was being waged between what many believed to be an illegitimate government and various Islamist insurgency groups. I found the film to be a very honest and fair presentation of religion and faith, albeit from an ”outside-in” (observer’s)  perspective. Nevertheless, this approach was actually beneficial because it allowed me to engage the story in a unique, very personal way - from the ”inside-out”  (participant’s) perspective of the monks.

As a Christian who has served for many years in various types of ministries, I was able to project myself into the midst of the story. I understood some of what the monks must have experienced as they grappled with the tension between what one believes and how one subsequently lives. Like the monks, we are often faced with the challenge of striking a balance between what we know about God – through experience; and what we believe to be true about Him – through faith. In a letter written to Jewish Christians in the first century, it says: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Bible: Book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1 – English Standard Version).

In the film, we watch as the monks – men dedicated to the lifelong pursuit of holiness, show their humanity by openly questioning the limits and boundaries of their control over their own lives – struggling to understand in a very tangible way what it means to have free will and yet be subject to God. Are the things we hope for (desire) what God actually wants for us? The monks ask this question of themselves because they know that the assurance promised in the Book of Hebrews comes only when our hopes match what God has in store for us. The monks realize that their projections of what might occur are very limited, but they struggle nonetheless to break free of their own reason. Intellectually, they know that God sees all and will keep them “in his hands”. Nevertheless, they look around the room at one another and wonder if they are actually willing to stake their lives on that belief.

While I enjoyed the scenes where they wrestled with issues of faith, I was particularly moved by how they stepped back from the brink of what would have been a hasty decision, made under duress, and chose instead to “push deeper” into God on an individual level. They could have considered their monastic life and overall “closeness” to God and concluded that they already had all they needed to make an informed decision. That they didn’t do so is a compelling testimony about God and the true nature of mankind.

In case you haven’t seen the film, I won’t give the ending away. Suffice to say that when they each went back and sought guidance and inspiration from God, they returned in a spirit of unity and peace that sent a chill up my spine and brought me to tears. I was inspired, not by great deeds and heroism, but by watching a group of people find true peace and contentment in simply ”letting go”. Talk about a counter-cultural message!

In January, just before leaving office, President Harry Truman announces that the U.S. has developed a hydrogen bomb. Thirteen days later, Dwight Eisenhower takes the oath of office for the Presidency. In February, transsexual Christine Jorgenson returns to New York after successful sexual reassignment surgery in Denmark. In March, Joseph Stalin dies and Jonas Salk announces a vaccine for Polio. In May, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest. During the month in which I was born, June, Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of England and the first Corvette rolls off the production line in Flint, Michigan. In July, the Korean War ended with an armistice agreement and within days, the Soviet Union announces that it also has a hydrogen bomb. Also in August, the CIA helps to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and retain Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (“The Shah of Iran”) on the throne. In October, the UNIVAC 1103 is announced as the first commercial computer to use random access memory (RAM). In December, the first issue of Playboy Magazine is released and just before year-end, the first color television sets go on sale in the U.S.

In the midst of these events, on April 16, 1953, President Eisenhower delivered a speech entitled “The Chance for Peace” to a meeting of the National Association of Newspaper Editors. Because his speech is in the public domain, I’ve included it here in its entirety. I was inspired to follow this “rabbit trail” of thought by a friend’s recent post on Facebook containing an excerpt of the speech. I don’t want to editorialize, so I have no comments other than to say that Eisenhower’s words really resonated with me as I look around at our country today. The speech also brought to mind a scripture from the Bible; one which reminds me that we often need to look back to see what’s ahead:

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again; 
there is nothing new under the sun.  (Ecclesiastes 1:9, TNIV)

Here’s the speech. I hope you also find it thought-provoking.

“President Bryan, distinguished guests of this Association, and ladies and
gentlemen: I am happy to be here. I say this and I mean it very sincerely for a
number of reasons. Not the least of these is the number of friends I am honored
to count among you. Over the years we have seen, tanked, agreed, and argued with
one another on a vast variety of subjects, under circumstances no less varied.
We have met at home and in distant lands. We have been together at times when
war seemed endless, at times when peace seemed near, at times when peace seemed
to have eluded us again. We have met in times of battle, both military and
electoral, and all these occasions mean to me memories of enduring friendships.

I am happy to be here for another reason. This occasion calls for my first
formal address to the American people since assuming the office of the
presidency just twelve weeks ago. It is fitting, I think, that I speak to you
the editors of America. You are, in such a vital way, both representatives of
and responsible to the people of our country. In great part upon you — upon
your intelligence, your integrity, your devotion to the ideals of freedom and
justice themselves — depend the understanding and the knowledge with which our
people must meet the facts of twentieth-century life. Without such understanding
and knowledge our people would be incapable of promoting justice; without them,
they would be incapable of defending freedom.

Finally, I am happy to be here at this time before this audience because I
must speak of that issue that comes first of all in the hearts and minds of all
of us — that issue which most urgently challenges and summons the wisdom and
the courage of our whole people. This issue is peace.

In this spring of 1953 the free world weighs one question above all others:
the chances for a just peace for all peoples. To weigh this chance is to summon
instantly to mind another recent moment of great decision. It came with that yet
more hopeful spring of 1945, bright with the promise of victory and of freedom.
The hopes of all just men in that moment too was a just and lasting peace.

The 8 years that have passed have seen that hope waver, grow dim, and almost
die. And the shadow of fear again has darkly lengthened across the world. Today
the hope of free men remains stubborn and brave, but it is sternly disciplined
by experience. It shuns not only all crude counsel of despair but also the
self-deceit of easy illusion. It weighs the chances for peace with sure, clear
knowledge of what happened to the vain hopes of 1945.

In that spring of victory the soldiers of the Western Allies met the soldiers
of Russia in the center of Europe. They were triumphant comrades in arms. Their
peoples shared the joyous prospect of building, in honor of their dead, the only
fitting monument — an age of just peace. All these war-weary peoples shared too
this concrete, decent purpose: to guard vigilantly against the domination ever
again of any part of the world by a single, unbridled aggressive power.

This common purpose lasted an instant and perished. The nations of the world
divided to follow two distinct roads.

> The leaders of the Soviet Union chose another.

The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear
precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs. First: No people on earth
can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common
hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.

Second: No nation’s security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in
isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.

Third: Every nation’s right to a form of government and an economic system of
its own choosing is inalienable.

Fourth: Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of
government is indefensible.

And fifth: A nation’s hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any
race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with
all other nations.

In the light of these principles the citizens of the United States defined
the way they proposed to follow, through the aftermath of war, toward true
peace.

This way was faithful to the spirit that inspired the United Nations: to
prohibit strife, to relieve tensions, to banish fears. This way was to control
and to reduce armaments. This way was to allow all nations to devote their
energies and resources to the great and good tasks of healing the war’s wounds,
of clothing and feeding and housing the needy, of perfecting a just political
life, of enjoying the fruits of their own toil.

The Soviet government held a vastly different vision of the future. In the
world of its design, security was to be found, not in mutual trust and mutual
aid but in force: huge armies, subversion, rule of neighbor nations. The goal
was power superiority at all cost. Security was to be sought by denying it to
all others.

The result has been tragic for the world and, for the Soviet Union, it has
also been ironic.

The amassing of Soviet power alerted free nations to a new danger of
aggression. It compelled them in self-defense to spend unprecedented money and
energy for armaments. It forced them to develop weapons of war now capable of
inflicting instant and terrible punishment upon any aggressor.

It instilled in the free nations — and let none doubt this — the unshakable
conviction that, as long as there persists a threat to freedom, they must, at
any cost, remain armed, strong, and ready for the risk of war.

It inspired them — and let none doubt this — to attain a unity of purpose
and will beyond the power of propaganda or pressure to break, now or ever.

There remained, however, one thing essentially unchanged and unaffected by
Soviet conduct. This unchanged thing was the readiness of the free world to
welcome sincerely any genuine evidence of peaceful purpose enabling all peoples
again to resume their common quest of just peace. And the free world still holds
to that purpose.

The free nations, most solemnly and repeatedly, have assured the Soviet Union
that their firm association has never had any aggressive purpose whatsoever.
Soviet leaders, however, have seemed to persuade themselves, or tried to
persuade their people, otherwise.

And so it has come to pass that the Soviet Union itself has shared and
suffered the very fears it has fostered in the rest of the world.

This has been the way of life forged by 8 years of fear and force.

What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on
this dread road?

The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.

The worst is atomic war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of
arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength
that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve
true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies,
in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the
hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more
than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It
is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than
8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has
been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of
threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and
cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of
1953.

This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices
must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.

It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their
intentions with simplicity and with honesty.

It calls upon them to answer the question that stirs the hearts of all sane
men: is there no other way the world may live?

The world knows that an era ended with the death of Joseph Stalin. The
extraordinary 30-year span of his rule saw the Soviet Empire expand to reach
from the Baltic Sea to the Sea of Japan, finally to dominate 800 million souls.

The Soviet system shaped by Stalin and his predecessors was born of one World
War. It survived with stubborn and often amazing courage a second World War. It
has lived to threaten a third.

Now a new leadership has assumed power in the Soviet Union. Its links to the
past, however strong, cannot bind it completely. Its future is, in great part,
its own to make.

This new leadership confronts a free world aroused, as rarely in its history,
by the will to stay free.

The free world knows, out of the bitter wisdom of experience, that vigilance
and sacrifice are the price of liberty.

It knows that the peace and defense of Western Europe imperatively demands
the unity of purpose and action made possible by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, embracing a European Defense Community.

It knows that Western Germany deserves to be a free and equal partner in this
community and that this, for Germany, is the only safe way to full, final unity.

It knows that aggression in Korea and in southeast Asia are threats to the
whole free community to be met only through united action.

This is the kind of free world which the new Soviet leadership confronts. It
is a world that demands and expects the fullest respect of its rights and
interests. It is a world that will always accord the same respect to all others.
So the new Soviet leadership now has a precious opportunity to awaken, with the
rest of the world, to the point of peril reached and to help turn the tide of
history.

Will it do this?

We do not yet know. Recent statements and gestures of Soviet leaders give
some evidence that they may recognize this critical moment.

We welcome every honest act of peace.

We care nothing for mere rhetoric.

We care only for sincerity of peaceful purpose attested by deeds. The
opportunities for such deeds are many. The performance of a great number of them
waits upon no complex protocol but only upon the simple will to do them. Even a
few such clear and specific acts, such as Soviet Union’s signature upon an
Austrian treaty or its release of thousands of prisoners still held from World
War II, would be impressive signs of sincere intent. They would carry a power of
persuasion not to be matched by any amount of oratory.

This we do know: a world that begins to witness the rebirth of trust among
nations can find its way to a peace that is neither partial nor punitive.

With all who will work in good faith toward such a peace, we are ready, with
renewed resolve, to strive to redeem the near-lost hopes of our day.

The first great step along this way must be the conclusion of an honorable
armistice in Korea.

This means the immediate cessation of hostilities and the prompt initiation
of political discussions leading to the holding of free elections in a united
Korea.

It should mean, no less importantly, an end to the direct and indirect
attacks upon the security of Indochina and Malaya. For any armistice in Korea
that merely released aggressive armies to attack elsewhere would be a fraud. We
seek, throughout Asia as throughout the world, a peace that is true and total.

Out of this can grow a still wider task — the achieving of just political
settlements for the other serious and specific issues between the free world and
the Soviet Union.

None of these issues, great or small, is insoluble — given only the will to
respect the rights of all nations. Again we say: the United States is ready to
assume its just part.

We have already done all within our power to speed conclusion of a treaty
with Austria, which will free that country from economic exploitation and from
occupation by foreign troops.

We are ready not only to press forward with the present plans for closer
unity of the nations of Western Europe but also, upon that foundation, to strive
to foster a broader European community, conducive to the free movement of
persons, of trade, and of ideas.

This community would include a free and united Germany, with a government
based upon free and secret ballot. This free community and the full independence
of the East European nations could mean the end of the present unnatural
division of Europe.

As progress in all these areas strengthens world trust, we could proceed
concurrently with the next great work — the reduction of the burden of
armaments now weighing upon the world. To this end we would welcome and enter
into the most solemn agreements. These could properly include:

1. The limitation, by absolute numbers or by an agreed international ratio,
of the sizes of the military and security forces of all nations.

2. A commitment by all nations to set an agreed limit upon that proportion of
total production of certain strategic materials to be devoted to military
purposes.

3. International control of atomic energy to promote its use for peaceful
purposes only and to insure the prohibition of atomic weapons.

4. A limitation or prohibition of other categories of weapons of great
destructiveness.

5. The enforcement of all these agreed limitations and prohibitions by
adequate safeguards, including a practical system of inspection under the United
Nations.

The details of such disarmament programs are manifestly critical and complex.

Neither the United States nor any other nation can properly claim to possess
a perfect, immutable formula. But the formula matters less than the faith — the
good faith without which no formula can work justly and effectively.

The fruit of success in all these tasks would present the world with the
greatest task, and the greatest opportunity, of all. It is this: the dedication
of the energies, the resources, and the imaginations of all peaceful nations to
a new kind of war. This would be a declared total war, not upon any human enemy
but upon the brute forces of poverty and need.

The peace we seek, founded upon decent trust and cooperative effort among
nations, can be fortified, not by weapons of war but by wheat and by cotton, by
milk and by wool, by meat and timber and rice. These are words that translate
into every language on earth. These are the needs that challenge this world in
arms.

This idea of a just and peaceful world is not new or strange to us. It
inspired the people of the United States to initiate the European Recovery
Program in 1947. That program was prepared to treat, with equal concern, the
needs of Eastern and Western Europe.

We are prepared to reaffirm, with the most concrete evidence, our readiness
to help build a world in which all peoples can be productive and prosperous.

This Government is ready to ask its people to join with all nations in
devoting a substantial percentage of any savings achieved by real disarmament to
a fund for world aid and reconstruction. The purposes of this great work would
be to help other peoples to develop the undeveloped areas of the world, to
stimulate profitable and fair world trade, to assist all peoples to know the
blessings of productive freedom.

The monuments to this new war would be roads and schools, hospitals and
homes, food and health.

We are ready, in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather
than the fears, of the world.

I know of nothing I can add to make plainer the sincere purposes of the
United States.

I know of no course, other than that marked by these and similar actions,
that can be called the highway of peace.

I know of only one question upon which progress waits. It is this: What is
the Soviet Union ready to do?

Whatever the answer is, let it be plainly spoken.

Again we say: the hunger for peace is too great, the hour in history too
late, for any government to mock men’s hopes with mere words and promises and
gestures.

Is the new leadership of the Soviet Union prepared to use its decisive
influence in the Communist world, including control of the flow of arms, to
bring not merely an expedient truce in Korea but genuine peace in Asia?

Is it prepared to allow other nations, including those in Eastern Europe, the
free choice of their own form of government?

Is it prepared to act in concert with others upon serious disarmament
proposals?

If not, where then is the concrete evidence of the Soviet Union’s concern for
peace?

There is, before all peoples, a precarious chance to turn the black tide of
events.

If we failed to strive to seize this chance, the judgment of future ages will
be harsh and just.

If we strive but fail and the world remains armed against itself, it at least
would need be divided no longer in its clear knowledge of who has condemned
humankind to this fate.

The purpose of the United States, in stating these proposals, is simple.
These proposals spring, without ulterior motive or political passion, from our
calm conviction that the hunger for peace is in the hearts of all people –
those of Russia and of China no less than of our own country.

They conform to our firm faith that God created man to enjoy, not destroy,
the fruits of the earth and of their own toil.

They aspire to this: the lifting, from the backs and from the hearts of men,
of their burden of arms and of fears, so that they may find before them a golden
age of freedom and of peace.

Thank you.”

View from the deck of our cabana

I’m writing today from beautiful Tulum, Mexico – about 130 km south of Cancun along Mexico’s Caribbean coast. We decided to vacation here because it’s one of the remaining “unspoiled” coastal regions of Mexico that has a few amenities (like running water and electricity!). Something happened here the other day that got me to thinking about preconceived notions (PN’s) or stereotypes and how easily they can influence our lives.

PN #1: The highly-publicized “drug wars” in Mexico have made it a place U.S. tourists should avoid at all costs. Virtually everyone I talked to about our vacation asked “is it safe?” and several wondered aloud if it was prudent to bring the family here. REALITY: Mexico is a large country with many diverse regions and subcultures; and most of the drug-related violence is confined to specific cities and regions that can be avoided. Having said that, the various roads we traveled had separate state and federal checkpoints where the police and soldiers were heavily armed. The people we talked with resented these checkpoints as another form of government intrusion into their lives – particularly in a region where illegal drugs and arms are not prevalent and most people’s livelihoods are dependent upon tourism.

PN #2: Crime is rampant in Mexico. Most Americans probably believe this is due to widespread poverty and people’s need to do anything to survive. A corollary to this is that Mexicans are always looking to “rip-off” unsuspecting Americans. REALITY: In the larger cities there are gangs, violence, and criminal enterprises; but the same is true in the U.S. Like at home, most people are hard-working and honest. Vendors regularly joke about special prices for those who speak Spanish; but it’s simply that – a joke. On the other hand, it is a culture where “bargaining” on the price of goods and services (other than food) is expected and in that regard, language is not usually a barrier.

PN #3: There are all kinds of “crawling things” to watch out for in tropical Mexico and one can’t afford to be squeamish. REALITY: That’s right! We’ve already seen flying cockroaches, large spiders, and small geckos in our cabana. The good news is that it’s made our girls particularly diligent about checking their bedding and securing the mosquito nets before going to bed.

PN #4: In an economically-challenged country like Mexico, all tourism is good because it brings needed money and jobs. REALITY: Virtually everyone we spoke to had significant misgivings about the large-scale expansion of tourism in this region. Tulum and the surrounding area focus on three things: cultural history (i.e. Mayan ruins), ecological beauty (including miles of mostly undeveloped beaches), and a relaxed pace of life. At one time, Cancun was like Tulum – only to become highly developed and replaced by Playa del Carmen further down the road. Playa was once “the place”, but as the result of rampant development, has lost its cachet. High-end tourists looking for a resort experience now come to the Riviera Maya – further down the coast from Playa. In this environment, Tulum has carved out its own unique niche – one the people here would like to maintain.

If you’re still with me, I’d like to close with a brief story. Wednesday afternoon, I pulled out my wallet to pay for something at our hotel and was shocked to find that my VISA card was missing. In a panic, I looked all over our cabana, in every pocket of the clothing I’d worn, and in my luggage and backpack – NOTHING! I remembered that the last time I used my card was the previous evening when we had gone into town to get some cash and eat. Since the card was nowhere to be found onsite, I figured that I must have left it in the ATM machine at the bank. I threw on some clothes and rushed to town, hoping to make it before the bank closed at 5 pm. To my absolute amazement, someone had found my credit card and turned it in to the bank. During yesterday’s trip to Chichen-Itza I was recounting the incident to our driver and he wasn’t at all surprised. He told me that the people of this state (Quintana Roo – he was born here) are known throughout Mexico for their generosity and kindness to everyone. In his opinion, it would be unthinkable for a local person to make off with the card and attempt to use it. Thank God he was right. So much for preconceived notions…