Spirituality, religion and Veteran's Day

November 7, 7:08 AMColumbus Interfaith Spirituality ExaminerPatricia Rodemann

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Columbus Interfaith Spirituality Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Why do we celebrate Veteran’s Day? The day is set aside so that Americans may honor those who serve and defend the United States. It was originally known as Armistice Day which commemorated the end of World War 1.  In calling on veterans through chaplaincy work, one hears incredible stories from WWII to Korea, Vietnam and even in listening to homeless vets for whom everything fell apart. A colleague who was working late at a downtown bank building, took a supper break to visit the Wendy’s. A ‘street’ man came up and asked her for money for dinner. Wanting to get rid of him, thinking he’d use it for booze, she gave him a $5 and hurried off. Sitting on the statehouse lawn in the late Spring sunset enjoying her salad, she saw him returning and stabbed at those hard tomatoes with the plastic fork, to bolt down the food and leave faster. But the man came and sat beside her- a respectable distance away. Her mind was racing, full of disparaging thoughts and she wanted to run in fear. He said, ‘The least I could do is to sit with you to share dinner. Isn’t is a beautiful evening? There were nights in Vietnam I didn’t think I’d see another morning, and mornings I didn’t think I’d see another night.’ A veteran! She glanced over and saw him suddenly through a different lens. Her eyes clouded, and working the numbers seemed very shallow. This was a human being with an incredible life story, for better or worse. It gave new meaning to the term: 'Namaste' (the soul in me honors the soul in you).

But think about why people war, and in interfaith spirituality, all the veterans of religious war and persecution. The Baha’i are still being persecuted in Iran, Sikhs still endure violence, and according to a recent Pew report, and sadly there are still suicide bombings in Iraq, India, Afghanistan and other locations. Both Vietnam and China continue to oppress Buddhists, the genocide isn’t over in Africa, and central Europe is still trying to come to terms with the Bosnian-Serb war. Typically war is about usurping the rights of others, marginalizing cultures, tribes and those whose ideas are different from ours and conversely, the defense of one’s peoples, country, honor and freedoms under attack. Religious wars have claimed countless victims and the winners have glorified themselves through-out history.  It’s a shameful misrepresentation of who and what we represent taken to tragic ends; something we’re all capable of and complicit with. It certainly doesn’t represent The Golden Rule which is the common principle among the world’s religions. Visit the link to see the rule across dozens of religions and centuries.

In preparing to write this post following the Fort Hood murders, an unusual dream presented itself where hundreds of martyrs for the faith were marching by and singing (in a foreign tongue) accompanied by music. I could clearly see their ashen faces as the ghostly parade passed by in a locale with the climate of Pasadena, CA. It turns out they were living in my backyard all along (in the dream). And so, taking this metaphorically, we need to realize that none of this war dead/religious war/jihad is remote but immediate and affects us all in the world community (and for Christians, within the mystical body of Christ). We are all victims as much as we are all perpetrators. My taxes go to support this, and it turns out I work until nearly May to pay for all the ‘services’ those taxes provide me, as do you. One of the tired arguments is to ‘get rid of religion’ which allegedly has caused more of the violence than other types of conflict. Yet it is estimated that nearly 100 million were killed under Communism in China, a ‘non-religious’ country and between 20-65 million in the U.S.S.R. where professing religion would result in imprisonment and death.

A Perspective article in Truthout by Bill Quigley, Tuesday 27 May 2008 reported that ‘The US spends over $600 billion annually on our military, more than the rest of the world combined. China, our nearest competitor, spends about one-tenth of what we spend. The US also sells more weapons to other countries than any other nation in the world…The US has about 700 military bases in 130 countries worldwide, and another 6,000 bases in the US and our territories, according to Chalmers Johnson in his excellent book, 'Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic' (2007)…The Department of Defense (DOD) reports nearly 1.4 million active duty military personnel today. Over a quarter of a million are in other countries from Iraq and Afghanistan to Europe, North Africa, South Asia and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. The DOD also employs more than 700,000 civilian employees. The US has used its armed forces abroad over 230 times, according to researchers at the Department of the Navy Historical Center. Their publications list over 60 military efforts outside the US since World War II.’

Our goal as a species should be peace for that day when we wouldn’t need to celebrate or support veterans and work together to advance our survival and the survival of the planet. Not just survival-but thriving and advancing in love and consciousness. A lovely ideal, one that the U.N. attempts to articulate. Many of the Eastern religions hold that the central problem for humanity is unconsciousness, a lack of understanding, a state of under-development in awareness. What would it look like if we spent the money that is being spent to police and kill one another differently?

In a footnote from The Los Angeles Times, Monday the 23rd of June 2008, ‘The United Nations estimates that it would take at least $30 billion per year to solve the food crisis, mainly by boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Over the decade that it would take to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the 862 million undernourished people, that amounts to $300 billion. Congress shelled out $21 billion last year for foreign aid and this week it approved $162 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal 2009.’ . . .

While we remember the heroism, call to duty and righteousness which inspired so many, past and present let us not forget the broken souls, minds, lives, dreams and agonizing memories which are the red thread woven through our collective consciousness.

Local Events and Connections:

Read about the Columbus Nov. 6th Veteran’s Day Celebration held in advance of the 11th at: www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/11/07/parade_day.ART_ART_11-07-09_A1_U7FJNPI.html
There is a Veteran’s Day parade at 7pm in Hilliard on November 11th; Grounds of Remembrance at 11am in Dublin at Dublin Veteran’s Park on the 11th.

There’s a Veteran’s Day program November 12th, 7 pm Westerville Public Library

See the My War History project where you can click on the photo of an area veteran (80 veterans to date) and read their story.
See the City of Westerville photo album welcoming WWII veterans home from their trip to the war memorial in Washington, D.C.
Creating Interfaith Communities  

Meditations for this Post

‘Is it an honour for a man to kill his brother man? If you deem it an honour, let it be an act of worship, and erect a temple to Cain who slew his brother, Abel.’ Khalil Gibran

‘Why do you have to love your enemy? How can you love your enemy? In the Buddhist teaching, this is very clear. Buddhism teaches that understanding is the ground of love. When you are mindful, you realize that the other person suffers. You see her suffering and suddenly you don’t want her to suffer any more. You know that there are things you can refrain from doing to make her stop suffering, and there are things you can do to bring her relief. When you begin to see the suffering in the other person, compassion is born, and you no longer consider that person as your enemy. You can love your enemy. The moment you realize that your so-called enemy suffers and you want him to stop suffering, he ceases to be your enemy.’ Thich Nhat Hahn from p 34-35 Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers

24 ‘Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.’- Jesus in Mark 11:24-25, NIV

‘Mother Nature is all-powerful, and eternity is on her side. What are the inventions of man, the lofty cities which he raises on the borders of the desert, the terrible weapons that he uses to realize and defend his conquests? Nothing, but a little heaped-up dust which the great natural forces always tend to restore to its primeval form.
Forsake the citadel for a few years, abandon the canon or machine gun for a few months in the prairie and soon grass and brambles will have overgrown the stones, and rust corroded the hard steel. In how many former times have vast solitudes been peopled by powerful cities!
Of them today remain no more than the ruins, and the ruins themselves finally disappear back into the eternally virgin earth.
Of what importance are the men who pass? The Spirit has only to blow on them and they will be no more!
Then the sons of the Earth will repossess the Earth. And the past time will begin over again as the new time! Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota (place of the infamous Sioux massacre in 1890)’ p 77 Indian Spirit

‘Through all ages, great saints have remained as living proof that this non-temporary, permanent state of God consciousness can be revived in all living souls.’ George Harrison

‘The world we have created is a product of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.’ Albert Einstein

Here are some sites with a list of all the deaths due to war and armed conflicts:

users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatz.htm#RelCon

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=501208
users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm
religionisaproblem.com/category/deaths/
 

copyright, 2009,  Patricia A. Rodemann