SZ writes: Sometimes  it almost startles me how easy it is to fall back into that mindset. I  was  raised  a Friend (Quaker) and taught to do no harm. Non-resistant Christians. I left the meeting and spent 8 years in the service. Then I eventually returned to the church, saw the wisdom of their ways. I have been a recorded minister for 33 years in December. But  friend, in a heartbeat I can move from the Lord to the Nam and be right  back in that mode.  Once violence is learned it is difficult to unlearn,  if  not  impossible.   Sometimes  I  speak  to students in a Viet  Nam  history  class at the University of Toledo and tell them to think carefully about what they think about war and the military because the first  and  foremost duty of the soldier is to kill the enemy and once one  kills  another,  even if it is done as a soldier in wartime or in self  defense, that person is never “right” again.  It takes something away or adds something.  There is a change.  I do not recommend war to anyone, particularly children. And we were pretty much all children at the time. (04/18/02)
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When I was in medical school learning to be a Doctor, I and my fellow students spend hundreds of hours reading, studying, and drilling each other in our efforts to memorize every fact of human anatomy. I always wondered at the paradox that as we struggled to remember every detail, the answers to all our questions lay just out of reach beneath our skins. One of my readers recently wrote me feeling pretty gloomy. He said he saw little evidence of humanity’s ability to work together, and asked, how could I be optimistic that humanity could become co-Operative? I answered, Life already knows the answer. Life has already invented synergy and co-Operation. We humans just need to look under the skin. Today, Elisabet Sahtouris helps us look under the skin. (04/18/02)
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Donella Meadows wrote: A couple of years ago, while I was doing something else, I heard snatches of a radio program in which Alan Durning, the director of Seattle’s Northwest Environment Watch, talked about the “Seven Sustainable Wonders of the World.” Clever concept, I thought, but afterward I could only remember three of his wonders: The bicycle, the most energy-efficient form of transport ever devised. It doesn’t emit pollution, it runs on renewable energy, it makes its user healthier, it’s easy to repair, it requires little in the way of pavement or parking lot, and 80 percent of the world’s people can afford one. (Only 10 percent of the world’s people can afford a car.) The clothesline even more affordable than the bicycle, runs on solar energy, no wires, no electricity, no pollution, and your clothes come out smelling sweet. (04/18/02)
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