The Wise Win Before the Fight

Morhei Ueshiba

Violence surrounds us—in the media, in our entertainment and sometimes even in our homes.  From the streets of Chicago, to video games, to the Sudan, violence is a way of life.

Must it be?

“Those who are skilled in combat do not become angry.  Those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before the fight and the ignorant fight to win.” –Morihei Ueshiba

Anger is a child of Fear.   The bond between fear and anger melded in our long-ago past when many of our choices boiled down to Flight/Fight.  Chronic anger is often a component of depression because our mind/body doesn’t know the difference between a “real” danger and one that originates from our mind and/or body.  I awake from a nightmare panting, sweating, my heart racing.  My fear is as real as if I faced a physical snake crawling up my leg.

When a remark from a loved one makes me angry, I can usually pursue the emotion to its roots of fear.  How dare he say that? –>Does he really love me?–>What if he leaves me?–>I will grow old alone and miserable!  Most of the time, of course, I don’t bother seeking those roots to my anger and pain, as that journey itself is uncomfortable.  It feels better (safer) just to be mad.

In our society, the expression of anger is more acceptable (especially for men) than the expression of fear and seeking power can be a way to manage fear.  Can a whole society be fearful?  As Master Ueshiba implied, fear is born of uncertainty.  In a war zone (of any kind) one’s environment is fertile ground for fear.  More subtle fears can infiltrate their way even deeper into our psyches; our relationships are ripe with fear mines.   Our cultures, as well—in Saudi Arabia and India (particularly for women), in Europe and China, more and more young people are finding their education is no longer an easy ticket to a job.  Highly trained/experienced workers in the U.S. and Europe have found themselves jobless in the recent economic crises.  In many poor neighborhoods around the world, people have always been in economic crises, possessing neither the skills nor the hope of ever having the skills to succeed.  Fear of all sorts is an intimate and constant companion.

Is it any wonder our world is full of tangled expressions of anger and fear?

In Master Ueshiba’s Way (the martial art of Aikido) one learns understanding and compassion for one’s attacker.  Does this make one a “bleeding heart” who allows the blow to fall?  No, but in understanding, one steps aside and allows the attacker’s force to bring him where he can do no harm.  One does what is necessary, not out of anger or fear, but out of compassion and understanding.  Of course, “what is necessary” is not always an easy question to answer.  Perhaps the more fear, the more drastic the definition of “necessary.”  Was it necessary to drop an atomic bomb on Japan?  So many innocent people suffered terribly, yet it ended a horrible war.  I don’t pretend to have the answer, only to suggest that we look behind anger and fear to find compassion and understanding for our enemies and for ourselves, so that we may be among “the wise who win before the fight.”

A Hand; A Fist

What kind of world allows young American football players to feel comfortable making a video about raping an unconscious girl?  A world where the defense against a brutal, fatal rape of a student in India is that “respectable women are not raped?”  A world where a young Pakistani student is shot for going to school?

Today, NPR’s Diane Rehm discussed the political objections and support for the Violence Against Women Act and the daily attacks on women throughout the world.   This while we are all still reeling from the Sandy Hook massacre of children and staff at an elementary school.

What do these two subjects—violence against women and a mass shooting—share?  They are both about power.  In most individuals, the drive to power funnels into positive channels—a determination to make a business successful; craft an environment that ensures the best future for our children; cure disease; explore space or the ocean or the world of the quantum; render a painting that reflects our deepest emotions; or find the words that move a reader.  That is power.

There are also negative channels—the malicious release of a computer virus, the poisoning of trees: the sabotage of a fellow worker; the punch of a fist; the pulling of a trigger; even when the gun is aimed at the aggressor’s own head.  These acts are also efforts to establish or regain power.

Why do we struggle so to be the master of our environment, our emotions, or influence?

Survival.

In the millennia that shaped us, if we were not wired to seek power, we would have been eaten.  In an earlier post, The Most Important Question, I explored the question of whether our basic nature has evolved since we became “human.”  Recently, a research project added to that discussion when scientists found that the human hand, so intricately designed to manipulate and experience the world was also uniquely evolved to become a weapon, as a fist. We aren’t going to erase our nature, and if we did, we might loose all the best that we are or can be in the bargain.

What we can do, what we must do, is civilize ourselves with laws and education and support safety nets. We need to make abusing power, be it physical, emotional or political, unacceptable; to encourage a world where “success” is culturally defined by making the world a better place.

It Started With A Cow

It started with a cow.

Giving is a force of nature at year’s end. The urge is strong to dig into the pocket or pocketbook for a handout or even step into McDonald’s to pay for a hamburger.  Not saying this is a bad thing, but it is giving a fish instead of a fishing pole.  It’s a temporary fix and, in some cases, may even be empowering poverty when that dollar(s) for [name your heart-rending need] actually goes for drugs or alcohol or keeps someone surviving on the street instead of seeking help.

What’s a person to do?

First, research your local agencies.  Your community needs you, but make sure the agency that “gives a holiday meal” also does more significant intervention, or you will be perpetuating the fish/fishing pole conundrum.  You can also participate in supporting an incredible organization like Heifer.  It started with a cow.  A man recognized that people needed a “cow, not a cup.”  The organization not only gives livestock to those in need, but teaches them skills and “empowers them to turn hunger and poverty into hope and prosperity…   [By] linking them with markets in their area, they help bring sustainable agriculture and commerce to areas with a long history of poverty.”

The organization has been endorsed by Fast Company and Forbes, among other places.

I’m in!  Between now and December 24^th (midnight CST) I will give $2 to Heifer for every comment posted here.  You can leverage your words by visiting and commenting at Nathan Bradford and checking out the links to other participating blogs there.

Happy Giving!

Post Script:  Thank you everyone who posted a comment.  I sent Heifer a check for $50–that’s a calf to a needy family!

The Next Big Thing

In school, my study method of choice was “The Cram.”  The further behind I got, the more motivated I was.  So, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself writing two books  at the same time.  (Can somebody get me an appointment for a mental evaluation?)

When I was invited to answer questions about the Next Big Thing, i.e., my “work in progress,” I was torn about which one to talk about.  Of course, I waited until the last moment (see above) to make a decision and get to it, but after staring at the fork in the road for a while, I decided to go with Robert Frost and choose the path less traveled or, in this case, the work less known.

Extra Bonus:  This post is part of a “blog chain.”  That means you get a wealth of blogs and exciting new writers  to explore!  I was invited by Debra H. Goldstein.  Be sure and check out her blog and those of the next links in the chain listed below the interview.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:

1.What is your working title of your book?
Last Chance for Justice:
How Relentless Investigators Finally Solved the Birmingham Church Bombing Case

2.Where did the idea come from for the book?
In 2004, recognizing that time was passing and people from the civil rights era were aging, Birmingham held an event called “The Gathering,” where everyone associated with the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing–victims’ families, civil rights supporters, investigators, attorneys, and the community–came together to tell their stories.  I attended and heard the two FBI investigators who worked the last case (late 1990′s) speak. The inside story was fascinating, and I realized  so many people had misconceptions about this case—the bombing that killed four little girls and had a major impact on the course of history.  There were three major investigations of the bombing over the years; the final one took five years, involved thousands of files, and some real heroes to bring the last two living suspects to justice.  I thought: This story needs to be told!  About five years later, I got that opportunity.

3. What genre does your book fall under?
It’s non-fiction.  My debut novel, Noah’s Wife, is historical fiction so, fortunately, I had experience doing research for a major project, and I certainly called upon it in writing this book!

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Ha!  You are asking the wrong person this question.  I barely remember the names of my family!  I need two determined, but somewhat quirky good guys to play the lead parts.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
In Last Chance for Justice, a Birmingham Police detective and an FBI agent team up as reluctant partners on a 37-year old cold murder case, the last chance to solve a brutal bombing that killed four innocent girls and changed history.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Chicago Press Review is publishing the book!  We hope to have it out by the Fall of 2013, in time for the 50th anniversary of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Three years.  Interviews began in July of 2009 and continued until 2011, when I began trying to organize the notes.  (Just thinking about that task makes me shudder.  The actual writing was absorbing, but I am not an “organizer” by nature.)  The first draft of the manuscript was “finished” in the spring of 2012.  I continued to work on it until late 2012 and expect to do more work when the editor gets his hands on it.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Many people have written on the subject of civil rights, both historically and personally.  Frank Sikora was a Birmingham reporter who wrote Until Justice Rolls Down, a book about  the case, and he went into depth regarding the first conviction (1977).  My book covers that, but focuses on the last case (1997-2002) and the two investigators assigned to it.  It contributes unknown details to the story, because I had the opportunity for in-depth interviews  (approximately 20-25 hours), in addition to critical written documents, and because I was able to bring my own understanding of law enforcement into the writing.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
As I mentioned, hearing the stories of the two men who actually worked the case sparked my interest, along with the realization that one of them was someone I knew personally. More than that, writing this book was a reconciliation of two divergent aspects from my personal background.  I grew up in Montgomery, Alabama and my family strongly supported civil rights. (The Ku Klux Klan burned a cross  on my grandparent’s front yard for their involvement in the bus boycott.) I was only a child during the years of tension, but it is a part of my heritage. I also (to the great surprise of my family) became a Birmingham Police Department officer and spent a career there.  It may seem an odd coupling, but both backgrounds gave me a unique perspective.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
On September 15, 1963 four young girls primped in the basement ladies lounge of the oldest black church in Birmingham, Alabama preparing for their church Youth Day. Without warning, a powerful explosion ripped through the outside wall, snuffing out their futures and setting the community ablaze. Everyone knew members of the white-robed Ku Klux Klan were responsible, but by the 1990′s, over a decade after the bombing, only one suspect had gone to prison. When the homicide case was reopened in 1997, no one thought there was any real chance of convicting the remaining suspects, especially the FBI agent and Birmingham detective assigned to the case.  Over time, their initially chilly relationship grew into a close partnership and together they built a case on the two remaining suspects and helped answer questions that have long haunted the case:

• How  was key evidence  uncovered that convicted the last two suspects, Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton?
• What was the mystery behind the FBI informants who claimed they saw the bomb being planted?
• Why did it take so long for justice to be achieved?

The book should be available in the Fall of 2013. If you’d like to stay in-the-know on it, sign up for my quarterly Newsletter HERE.

Now hop on over to these great writers are doing:

The Sun Singer’s Travels (Malcomb R. Campbell)

Smoky Talks (Smoky Zeidel)

Deborah H. Goldstein

Ramey Channell

Kimberly Conn

Did Jesus Have a Wife?

Did Jesus have a wife?

I live in the Deep South where it is customary to hear prayer “in Jesus’ name” at city functions.   Many people here are startled at the idea that anyone could actually have different religious views.  Not that this attitude is at all mean-spirited; it is just an assumption.  There doesn’t seem to be much debate or discussion about the subject, but an ancient (4^th Century) fragment of Egyptian Coptic parchment has emerged that has stirred the pot.  On it are just a few words—“Jesus said to them, my wife…”  Of course, it is not “proof” of Jesus’ wedded state, only evidence that early Christians believed Jesus was married, as the blockbuster novel The DaVinci Code postulated.

Personally, I don’t find this shocking at all.  Every Jewish mother wants her son or daughter to get married.  On top of that, it turns out that God also had a wife.  I stumbled upon this revelation doing research for my novel, Noah’s Wife.  I set the story at the time of a great flood of the Black Sea, which is likely to have been the inspiration for the Biblical story of Noah and the ark.  According to geologists, that time was 5500 BCE.  The culture of the area (ancient Turkey) at that time included the worship of both god and goddess.  In fact, the Mother Goddess remained an important figure in the Middle East for thousands of years.  Early Hebrews worship included her, even inside the Temple in the holiest place in Judaism!  Archeologists are finding ancient pottery inscriptions that say “Yahweh and his Asherah.”  (Asherah was a Canaanite goddess, who was the wife of “El.”)  It appears there was a systematic “erasing” and redacting of the story (which had never been written down before), when the Hebrew priests blamed their expulsion from Israel and the destruction of the Temple on worship that included the goddess.

History is what those who write it say it is… until evidence emerges that makes us rethink the past.  For a long time, it was absolute “gospel” that the universe revolved around the Earth.  So, if Jesus did have a wife, what does that mean?

The Most Important Question

“Has human behavior evolved?”  The asker leaned toward me, as though I might hold the answer to the most important question in the world.  Not the type of query I normally get at a presentation on my novel, Noah’s Wife, but perhaps because I wrote and researched the ancient past, she thought I might have an clue.

“Are we getting better?” she asked again, hopeful.

With profound sadness, I gave my opinion—“No.”

Can I prove this?  Not really, since I don’t have a handy example of early man to compare.  Were we worse?  He-llo?  Worse than giving Indians blankets loaded with smallpox virus?  Worse than forcing children onto the front lines of battle?  Worse than the Holocaust?  Maybe we have our assumptions backwards.  Maybe we were kinder and gentler in the far ancient past.

Perhaps we are more “civilized.”  After all, it’s not polite nowadays to drag women off the street to your cave.  But how stable is that civilization?  If a disaster suddenly removed access to grocery stores, our veneer of civilization would dissolve very quickly.  Look at what happened in New Orleans after Katrina.  On the other hand, disaster can bring out the best in us.  Look what happened in New Orleans after Katrina.

The two great forces that shape us are self-centeredness and altruism.  A baby’s first awareness is of its own needs—relief from hunger, cold, discomfort.  Probably our distant ancestors were the same, but not for long.  Even ants evolved to work in groups.  Social-ness is also survival.  A pack of hunters do better than one.  Wolves know that much.  A group of women picking berries are safer than one alone.  Why do you think women go to the bathroom in packs?

A delicate balance exists between loving ourselves and loving others.  Swing too far either way and you are in trouble, and society is in trouble.  A total narcissist will soon be isolated but, give away the farm, and you don’t eat.  We can’t choose between individual freedom and protection.  On one end, lies anarchy and at the other, a police state.

Balance.

So, are we ever going to get better?  Do we learn from our mistakes?  Can we change?

Oh, I hope so, because it might be the most important question in the world.

~ ~ ~

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Please leave a comment and thanks for sharing this post!

The Gift

What makes a book one of “The Greatest Books of Our Times?”  I’ve been asked to a Middle School to read from such a book of my choice.  How to decide?

For me, it’s a story:

Early in my marriage, a step-son arrived on my doorstep every other weekend as a troubled 8 year old.  A learning disability imprisoned him as poor reader and student to the point that all his tests had to be read aloud to him.  He didn’t fit in.  He knew it and acted out.  Naturally, he hated reading and books, and all my efforts to read to him were spurned.

One day, a misbehavior earned him time-out, and I offered him his choice—either an hour in his room or sit with me while I read him one chapter of a book.  (I know, I know—it’s contrary to all behavioral advice to make reading a punishment, but I was at wits’ end.)

He considered it and asked how long it would take to read a chapter.  “Probably about 15 minutes,” I said.

Fifteen minutes versus an hour.  He wasn’t bad at math and chose the chapter.  I went to my collection of childhood books, my heart pounding. It thumped away in my chest, warning me that this could be my only chance with him.

The books, stiff and dusty in their rows, whispered of cherished hours. Which to choose?  I stopped at one, remembering pulling it from my mother’s bookshelf, hopeful from the title, though the company it kept was grownup stuff.  By the first chapter, I knew I had found treasure.

Once again I pulled it out and took it back with me, clutched to my still thumping chest and sat with my stepson on the hard cement of the porch (part of the “punishment”).  “Here are the rules,” I said sternly.  “You have to sit still and listen.  I will read one chapter.  After that it is up to you if you want to hear more or go.”

He agreed, and I opened the book.  I read my best, in honor of all the hours my Granny read to me, her voice cracking with the effort to bring the characters to life.  I hoped to reach a young mind with the gift she had given me.  I read and did not look at the boy beside me, afraid to see on his face the boredom of a prisoner doing his time.

When I finished the last word of Chapter One, I snapped the book closed, deliberately keeping my voice matter-of-fact.  “That’s it,” I said.  “What do you want to do?”

There was a long hesitation—maybe it wasn’t so long, but I remember it that way—a silence so deep, you could fall into it, and then one intense word from him—“Read.”

In the years ahead of us, he would repeat that word many times.  We finished the book, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and moved on to many others.  He began to sit next to me, at first to see the pictures, but when there were no pictures, he stayed to move his eyes over the words as I read.  Eventually, I feigned a sore throat and asked him to read a sentence or two, and then a paragraph, and then a chapter, never criticizing as he stumbled and only offering help when he needed it.

One day, I poked my head in his room and asked if he was ready to read Part III of “our” current book.  “Already read it,” he said.  And once again my heart pounded, this time with mixed joy.  He was reading on his own, voraciously, and we were never again to have those special moments together.  But I am not complaining.

He read a lot about ordinary young boys becoming heroes, and I think it helped give him the courage to sign up for the Marines.  Though not a physical boy—he played in the band and was ho-hum about sports—he thrived, and today is a successful career Marine with a wife and a son I hope he will read to.

***

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