At What Cost?

    A simple Girl Scouts trip to the United Nations, a group of fifth graders wanting to explore on a three-day weekend, a Human Rights exhibit commemorating the 40th anniversary of the murder of over 100,000 civilians...

    1985 was the summer I changed from a child who dreams to a dreamer who tries to make wishes come true. The events and experiences listed above were the catalyst, inspiring nightmares and questions.

     Why aren't we the bad guys if we killed so many people in Japan? 

      When we study World War II, we focus on Europe. Why don't they teach us so much about what happened in Asia?

    If a little plane could cause all that destruction on an island of Japan, how can I know it won't happen on an island in New York? (I lived close to JFK Airport. Planes always flew low and close, and that summer they carried fear as an invisible passenger.)

     Then there was the watch.

     In the peace exhibit at the United Nations, there was a watch encased in a glass box. The hands on the clock were frozen at 8:15. For the lucky, that would be the moment everything ended in Hiroshima. For the unlucky, unthinkable pain and torment from fire and radiation would seethe for hours or days before death came. 

      Would there be a clock somewhere that froze at the time of my death? When would that be? I loved the folk song, My Grandfather's Clock, about a timepiece that "stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died."  Old age was scary enough, but natural. Nuclear bomb induced death turned the melody into a haunting, menacing funeral march. In my nightmares, planes began to sing that song, then growl its lyrics. 

    One might say that the Girl Scout trip led to my first mortality crisis. I prefer to think of it as an awakening. Those late nights are the earliest moments when I perceived myself as a thinker and realized I couldn't turn the thinking off. Those sleepless evenings were the first times I look back at and think of me as Me, not as a little wild child or overly zealous whippersnapper.   The trip awakened a consciousness in me.

Even the good guys can be bad guys.

Even the bad guys can be good guys.

We need to communicate so there are no good guys and bad guys but just people trying to create and connect.

That was the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are those who argue that all those lives that were ended in a mushroom cloud were a small price to pay for ending the war and preventing so many other deaths. I love my country but I don't buy that argument.  A great wrong was done, and nothing can excuse it.

However, we must learn from it.

     In Montreal this year, commemorating the 70th anniversary, there was an exhibit of artwork by survivors of the bombing.

     Empathy comes from really listening, really looking, really noticing. 

     Out of empathy come the seeds of peace.

     I have always felt very connected to Japan. I love the values of nature and beauty, the reverence for the aged, the joy of kawai, the patience and work ethic. At the time of my visit to this exhibit, I was not needing empathy for the people of Japan, but I did need to bear witness through the photos, just as I bore witness in Auschwitz through my visit to the extermination camp.  I needed to suffer through painful empathy to keep reaffirming my value of peace, my struggle for open communication, my dream of a safe world.

    People running, people burning, bodies waiting too be identified.  Water-- a goal to stop the pain, but never enough. 

   Afterwards, silence...and then the need to relive it through art and words because that's how trauma works.

    My life is changing this year, just as it did 30 years ago. I am awakening again. I'm so much more aware of the hurt all around the world, but also of the love. I'm aware of the people who want to build walls, but also of those who want to tear the walls down.  I feel a tide pushing me more and more, faster and faster, to see how I can use my gifts of languages and creativity to help.

     Silence is not an option. War is not the answer. Love one another. Grok: really deeply empathize such that you drink from one another's heart-wells. Stay awake. Take the time to notice. Life is precious. Savor all.