Getting on the Peace Train

This post has been a few days in the making. For context, I included what I’ve written over the past few days about all of this. For the Too Long/Didn’t Read version, skip to the section labeled Conclusion.

PART 1: The Set Up

Last Wednesday, the day before the first Presidential Debate of this election cycle, I shared this on

social media along with some information from a non-partisan, faith-based organization about what to

expect in the debate: MWEG (Mormon Women for Ethical Government).

This has been on my mind for the past week or so.

I love this country. I love the democratic process.

I'm excited for this debate because it will be just the candidates speaking about issues in their own words.

No hype. No spin. Just them.

I'll be watching. Here's details on how you can too.

*Here's details should have been "here are," but it's what I said, and I'm not changing that now. So, la.

...

I stand by what I said. But I also understand why many people decided not to watch.

Debates can be unpleasant, and long, and the benefits don’t seem to outweigh the costs. 

"By all accounts, it doesn't make sense."

I did watch it. And it was ugly and unpleasant and discouraging. 

I have so many thoughts after that first debate. A lot of those thoughts are specific, and I am interested in having conversations about it.

But I am not interested in having that conversation publicly on social media. 

I imagine social media to be a bit like a school multi-purpose space–the kind that has a stage and a cafeteria and maybe a piano and the lost and found. And “posting” is like standing up on that stage with a megaphone. You might only mean to be announcing things to some of the people in that room, or maybe you’re just having fun announcing things for your own entertainment. But really, lots of people you never think about can hear you on social media. Suddenly, you can find yourself having an impromptu, loud-speaker-style conversation with a handful of people who chose to respond to you in view of everyone who might be passing through that space. 

It is a public forum presenting itself as a casual conversation between friends. And, unplanned public statements have tendencies to go poorly at some point. 

…

PART 2: Peace Train

I recently read an old blog post from 2019 (Sunday Devotional, actually from MWEG) called

“Pursuing Peace on the Train” that presents two approaches to making peace in a situation

where there is conflict. The author, Jennifer Walker Thomas, talks about being stuck on a train

on a family trip in Europe. The title immediately evoked for me the 1971 Cat Stevens song,

"Peace Train." I really like the message of the song which also connects to a central idea

in Walker Thomas’ essay – peace is a choice. I especially like these two stanzas from Stevens' song:

Now I've been crying lately

Thinkin' about the world as it is

Why must we go on hating?

Why can't we live in bliss?

'Cause out on the edge of darkness

There rides a peace train

Oh, peace train take this country

Come take me home again

Stevens and Walker Thomas both invite us to choose peace, even though it seems far away--"out on the edge of darkness." But the crucial question is how? It’s all well and good to say, “Glide on the peace train,” but that seems like wishful thinking without practical application. 

On her actual train ride, Walker Thomas explains how she maintained peace by choosing not to engage with an unpleasant, loud, fellow-American voicing his political views and prejudices. 

The man and his companions were also sitting in the seats she and her family had purchased. She would have been in her rights to ask him to relocate. But she chose to avoid the conflict to keep peace. Avoidance is absolutely one path to peace. And sometimes, it’s the best solution when it seems like there isn’t another way out. But it still didn’t sit well with her: 

I did nothing.

I believed that it was the right choice in the moment, because under the circumstances

there was no way to engage peacefully. But in the days following, my mind would return

to the train, and I would mentally argue with someone I had seen once and would never

see again. He had been wrong about almost everything (I am sure of it!), and I was

anxious that in leaving those wrongs unanswered I, too, had been wrong.

 …I felt that the decision to not engage was my only option, because the train was already

filled with tension, because I was never going to change his mind, because I didn’t want

to put my children at risk, because he was clearly a difficult and prejudiced human.

There were countless “becauses,” and all were external to me.

This is where she realizes a second path to peace:

Then after a few days of stewing, it sunk in. The real reason I couldn’t 

engage was simply because I wasn’t prepared. The “because” was

actually internal, and I was the obstacle and potentially also  

a difficult and prejudiced human. There likely would have been

a way to engage with him and bring peace, but in that moment

I wasn’t emotionally and spiritually developed enough to transcend

my  personal discomfort and frustration. My charity had failed.

Two paths to peace are clearly laid out here. And I think there are some valuable

takeaways from Walker Thomas’ experience. 

Option 1: Avoid 

Avoiding confrontation is a safe, self-preservatory response. But as she explains,

walking away from the conversation she so desperately wanted to engage in left her

unsettled and upset. She “stewed” about it for days after. She avoided the conflict in the

moment, but she was still left with inner turmoil over leaving this man’s comments

unanswered. In this case, her external avoidance caused an internal conflict which she

later had to find a way to resolve for herself. 

This can still be the safest path forward. Time and space to process can help us view things with a calmness and clarity after our immediate, often reactionary responses have subsided. 

Option 2: Engage

Walker Thomas’ epiphany is also instructive; “the real reason I couldn’t engage was simply because I wasn’t prepared.” Peaceful engagement in conflict, she suggests, requires two things 

– preparation and acceptance. 

 Preparation

She says that she was not “emotionally and spiritually developed enough to transcend my personal discomfort and frustration.” That kind of “transcendence” requires staying calm and pushing past our comfort zones. Developing those skills takes intentional work and practice. And to be fair, that kind of effort might not seem worth the energy just so we can respond to a belligerent stranger in public or on the internet. 

But this preparation can be worth the effort when it means being able to engage calmly with friends and family who we care about deeply and want to talk with about important issues. Preparation can help us develop emotional resilience and a sense of ‘spiritual’ centeredness that helps us meter and regulate our emotional responses in the moment. With practice, we can apply that filter to our responses in real time.  

Acceptance 

I think the second part of Walker Thomas’ ‘ah-ha’ about her experience on the train is even more important than the first. She says, “I was the obstacle and potentially also a difficult and prejudiced human,” It’s accepting that we cannot always be 100% right about everything and that that’s OK. 

If we’re going to engage in a conversation about something controversial that we have strong opinions about, we have to own that we probably are carrying some unfair biases and that we probably have some assumptions that don’t take into account the perspectives of people on the other side of the issue. 

We have to accept that while we can tell people how we feel and why we think those things, we cannot presume to know what they think or why they think those things without them telling us.

Conclusion

It’s hard to talk about politics without it getting ugly and personal. We saw that on Thursday night in the first presidential debate. We have no good models for civil discourse across party lines on the current political stage. So we have to make our own. And some people have started doing that. And that gives me hope.

BRAVER ANGELS, is one of a number of organizations dedicated to overcoming the partisan divide in our country. (3 Minute Video explaining Braver Angels) 

I’m also a big fan of this group – Mormon Women for Ethical Government. (Here is a link to their 6 Principals of Peacemaking.) 

More and more, I think people are looking for opportunities to engage across the political divide to build peace.

It’s easy to feel discouraged by the relentless negativity of politics right now. And it makes sense why so many people choose to look away. It appears that doing anything else is an exercise in futility. Why bother talking to someone who is a political “other” when they exist in an entirely different reality from you? Why waste time and energy on conversations that can only end badly?

This, in a nutshell, is where I think the majority of us are as a country when it comes to discussing the highly controversial issues that surround us. Things seem pretty bleak. And if perception is our reality, then they are dismal. But maybe we can shift our perception by building a new narrative. 

I don't think it's overly idealistic to have hope for a better tomorrow. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe people with massive differences in opinion and viewpoint can come to better understand one another.

The media cocoons we get wrapped up in share the same objective -- to profit off of our engagement. So smart people design addictive content that provides us dopamine hits every time we engage in incendiary content that reinforces angry, divisive opinions. 

I believe we can break down false narratives that are propped up by people who stand to gain money and influence from our rage and distrust of each other by simply talking with and listening to people who we disagree with. 

So why do the work? Why get on “the peace train?” 

Because we care.

I am not ready to give up on the American experiment. But if we believe we are already divided, and our goal is to defeat those we see as “other,” then we’ve already given up. 

I’m a fan of disrupting the false narrative that half the nation is made up of jerks who want to hurt the other half. The first step toward doing that is choosing to listen to one another. I think most of us want to work towards a better tomorrow. So, I’m choosing peace. And I’m working on choosing to engage instead of avoid. If you'd like to try that with me, we can figure out how to do it together. 

…

Links:

“Peace Train” by Cat Stevens

“Peace Train” Lyrics

“Pursuing Peace on the Train” by Jennifer Walker Thomas

Braver Angels Alliances – I want to get involved in these. LMK if you want to talk about doing that too.

Sche Ne Vmerla, Ukraina

I had left off on my last post shortly before I left on a quick business trip in Gilbert, AZ. Before the war started.

I cannot begin to explain the long history of relations between Ukraine and Russia, except to say that it is long and fraught. One can make a fairly strong case for Kyiv being the spiritual home of the Russian civilization, as it has been known over the last millennium. It was in the Dnipro river that many of Kievan Rus were baptized and accepted Christianity around 1000 AD. Mongolians sacked Kiev around 1240 AD, and Moscow rose in importance to the Russian people afterward. Ukraine briefly fought for independence from Russia before falling in with the Soviet Union. USSR policies led to widespread famine, known as the Holodomor, where about 13% of Ukrainians died. Nazi Germany occupied the country during WWII, slaughtering the significant number of Jews that lived there. Ukrainians, supporting the Soviet army, liberated their territory at great expense. The country was quick to declare its independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Yet somehow, Putin, in extreme COVID quarantine, surrounded by sycophants and Wormtongues, arrived at the conclusion that Ukrainians have become too "un-Russian" and therefore...Nazis. He considers the existence of an independent Ukrainian nation an anomaly. He also plays the fear of NATO encroachment to rally internal support for anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Russia. Offended that his preferred puppet president was rejected once in 2004 (when I first arrived in Ukraine on my mission) and removed from power in 2014, Putin set out to find every reason to delegitimize and erode Ukrainian sovereignty. He funded separatists in the eastern part of the country and moved his army into Crimea following the 2014 revolution. There he staged a phony referendum and claimed that 89% of Crimeans wished to be annexed into Russia. At last, in late February of 2022, he decided that he needed to save all the Russian speakers from the "narcotic-addled" and "Nazi" leaders of Ukraine. He set out to do this by firing missiles and artillery shells into Ukrainian cities.

Cities that I had called home, while serving my mission. My stated purpose for being in the country suddenly has become immaterial to me. Someone I knew as an awkward teenager in Chernihiv feared for his mother's life as Russian artillery proceeded to denazify Prospekt Miru. A friend from Kyiv only narrowly managed to evacuate her mother from the city. My beloved Odesa coastline is littered with naval mines, with sandbags on Deribavska and anti-tank hedgehogs in front of the opera theater, just down the street from the LDS meetinghouse. Every grouchy taxi driver I encountered, every malchik who begged for me to teach them English, every devushka in Bila Tserkva who laughed at me as a kid raised in the American south fell on his butt constantly on the icy footpaths...they are trying to stay alive. Some are fighting the occupants. Some, in all likelihood, have died. Especially vulnerable are the people in the celo, outside of the fortified borders of major cities. Places where you could be instantly transported back over 100 years of history, to literal horse and buggy, where the people have tilled the land for generations. Many of these people are now in mass graves, having been executed, tortured, and raped, having been cleansed of the sin of being Ukrainian.

Perhaps even more disturbing, Putin has framed this "special military operation" as a corrective against the West's erosion of "traditional family values." He claims Ukraine is led not only by Nazis, but also drug addicts. He supported legislation passed in Russia in 2013 that several US states now enthusiastically have taken up, that forbid even the mere discussion of a nonheteronormative relationship. In the same breath, he also put in place legislation that illegalized "blasphemy," severely curtailing the ability of anyone who holds beliefs besides Russian Orthodox Christians. And Ukraine was yet another example of a people destroying traditional family values. Leaders of my own faith enthusiastically support Russian-funded "traditional family values" organizations like the World Congress of Families. It's OK...except for the bad parts...like where being tolerant of different beliefs becomes casus belli. As comforting as it may be to sanitize and dissociate any similarities between the butcher Putin and "traditional" conservative organizations and political parties, the lines between the authoritarian and illiberal Russian leader and right-wing America are impossible to ignore. The war on Ukraine is a war on "wokeness" and to a lot of people...that feels good.

Nothing about this war is good, except for Ukraine's valiant defense. She has not succumbed to the fiery Iskanderi of the adversary. Many free nations of the planet have banded together in support, although all fear the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet state. Nevertheless, Ukraine has bloodied the Russian bear's nose with its own hardware and the donated equipment of NATO nations. I can give nothing less than my full-throated support to my former host nation in her defense against the brutal authoritarian regime of Putin's Russian Federation. May Ukraine survive still.

The Arc of the Moral Universe

It's been a few months. Despite "serious people" claiming that the pandemic is over, it's...not. Folk's expectations don't exactly match up with reality. The coronavirus continued to spread, despite the existence of effective vaccines. The most effective vaccine in the world can't do anything, however, if people don't take it. Notwithstanding the continuing media coverage of American anti-vaxxers/anti-vaxxer-curious, billions of people in poorer nations around the world don't even have access to the vaccine. Thus, the virus, unchecked, mutated into an even more transmissible variant. Pundits yelled at the Omicron variant, calling it mild, as it simply continued to infect and kill at a faster rate than ever before.

We ourselves had a go at the virus. Having narrowly dodged the disease over the holidays (which ended up catching only my sister), John picked it up at school and infected everyone in the family, with the possible exception of myself, as I never tested positive. Tommy, thankfully, endured the disease without any difficulty, despite not being eligible for a vaccine. So does that mean we're done? We're only as done as the virus is...we must continue to control it.

We just went through a season of soccer with John. Despite his claims to the contrary, he enjoyed playing.

Eric, having just gone through intense heart surgery, needed some support at home. I saw him shortly before he went in for the operation, but I had an opportunity to fly out to Dallas to see him and Krystal for about a week and help out.

The trip was nice and Eric appeared to be recovering well. He still needed oxygen assistance when he walked about, but he appeared to be in much better health than before his operation.

We went to a "pumpkin patch" that was set up in the West Covina Mall parking lot. Overpriced, but the kids enjoyed themselves.

A cold, foggy soccer game on an early Saturday morning in October.

A neighbor's birthday party in the park.

An ET-esque California neighborhood trick-or-treat.

John finally got vaccinated!

John exercising his 2nd amendment rights.

Adults exercising their right to have an evening free of kids.

Tommy exercising his right to make a true Italian Thanksgiving.

I got boosted!

I got a (digital) piano!

I got older!

We went back to Dallas, this time for Christmas!

I got there first, so it was Torchy's with E&K&K!

Perfect holiday afternoon.

Alison and her Christmasing.

Kids doing the Christmas 2021 thing.

Turf wars between the doggos.

Splitting the holidays with family in Houston involves a stop at Buc-ee's.

Cousin Graham under assault!

Cousins lining up for pictures.

A balmy post-Christmas Houston day at the pool.

We spent a day at Ross Perot's monument to science (museum).

John had his birthday just before he got sick with COVID-19.

I had a long day trip to Gilbert, AZ for work.

John was baptized the second Saturday of February, but since I was an active participant I don't have any pictures of the event myself. All I have to commemorate the day is a brushfire on the mountain near our home. It was good to have a lot of family around, including all of John's living grandparents. The water was extremely cold; I think the bishopric counselor filling the font overestimated the warm water fill rate and made it up with cold water. John...kind of did ask for it though. Definitely made for a good memory. I had to really push John in deep because he kicked his legs up; Dad later told me I was supposed to block his feed with my leg. Well...it was literally the first time I had baptized anyone, ever. Not in the temple, not on my mission...