Veterans Day "good news"? Heard of the "Contageous Love Experiment"?
Have you heard about the two Iraq veterans and their “Contagious Love Experiment”?
This is Veterans Day, the annual holiday honoring those who served in the military. Here’s how two veterans are honoring their fellow servicemen and women.
Josh Stieber was in middle school on "9/11." He says, “I understood that there were people out there who wanted to destroy my country and hated my religion. My religion (church, religious school) promoted war and I made a deal with God that if the war was still going on when I graduated high school, I would be honored to enlist in the army as an infantryman.”
True to his deal with God, and “somewhat glad” the war was still on when he graduated, Stieber enlisted. He was deployed to Baghdad in 2007. “I learned that the military trains people to hate and dehumanize entire people groups,” he says, “not showing sadness for the difficult task of ‘removing evil’.”
Josh applied for conscientious objector status after he returned from 14 months in Iraq.
“If I am saying no to war, I want to find out what to say yes to. I want to take a negative and invest it into a positive. In a country where war is preached from the churches, I want to do a little to remember the man who those churches are built for, the man who visited the orphans, served the poor, clothed the naked, fed the hungry… and loved. So that’s what I’ve set out to do and I hope that that love is contagious.”
Conor Curran joined the Contagious Love Experiment after two tours of duty in Iraq. As he attempted to readjust to civilian life, he found he couldn’t shake his feelings of guilt and anger. “I saw the potential in each person I passed in the street to carry out harm or some type of negative action… I realized I had been living my life preparing myself to handle anything negative another may do to me, and in doing so I had involved myself in a life of callousness, war and anger.”
“I decided not only would I try to not judge the people I meet," Conor says. "Instead, I would try to love them and see what happens. As I began this new exercise in love, I found my life transformed and refreshed, and the people in my life seemed to be changed and renewed as well. Was love contagious? Could it change the world?”
Their Contagious Love Experiment has them biking across America, having random encounters with strangers and meeting with and speaking to organized groups. This week, according to their schedule, they are in the Bay area—the Metta Center in Berkeley, the Berkeley Friends Center, and the Lafayette Veterans Day Vigil.
What do you think of the efforts?
Care to read more?
First, here's the Web site Josh and Conor have set up for their nationwide experiment.
Then, here's the page in their site where you can see their stops since July—and where they're headed through the end of November.
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Community.
We're all in this together. We've forgotten that. We're so angry and eager to take sides and score points.
I hope you will say something about the haves and have nots. Here in Boston like a lot of big cities we're seeing the extremes of wealth and abandonment. I have friends in Los Angeles and Chicago and they say the same thing. ...
Our church tries to help but how much can any of us do? ...
Also, we need to let people know that it is OK to be honest about needing help. I think that's a value when we don't tell how bad it is for fear of embarrassment or not wanting to burden people or whatever reason we come up with for not asking honestly for help.
Yes, Eisenhower's words are pertinent today. I value his words above any of the succeeding presidents, except for Bush Sr. Both Eisenhower and Bush Sr. were warriors and had seen the results of war and known its' costs.
The surge, although Obama endorsed, has been pending for over a year. The replacement of the commander in Afghanistan (a 3 star of some service) by the current one began the surge. Look back a year, or more, and see that he had inidicated it necessary BEFORE he took command. His plan had been to replace every returning troop with a warfighter: a lot of the people in Afghnstn. are what we termed in Vietnam as REMFs - you just need to know that they were Rear Echelon. The current commander planned to replace REs with warfighters. So the surge is old news.
I have been to and seen Afghanistan, I have been to and seen the Kyber Pass. No one, not the Russians, not the USA, can win a "clean" war in Afghanistan. We are wasting American lives there. Winning will come only with the loss of many civilians.
The Afghans understand the golden rule - he who has the gold, rules. Their tribal lands are situated around the old silk route. Who got protection on the silk route? (see golden rule) Why do they grow heroin poppies? (see the golden rule) Will Al Quaeda or the USA win the hearts, minds and pockets of the Afghan people? (see the golden rule)
We have sacrificed enough already. Put the billions being spent in Iraq and Afgnstn. into social security and our own health care. Become Xenophobes. Then WE win.
I do think that the rapid increase in text messaging and
"crackberryitis" is cause for concern in robbing us of some of our most basic human interactions. A smile from one to another is replaced with a a face looking down and getting that smile in a different way :) The actual exchange of a real human smile person to person is something that stirs our emotions and can uplift an entire day. This :) can't do that. When I see my 13 year old daughter drop everything she is doing upon hearing the buzz of an incoming text, I think to myself, something is wrong here. Why must she be incessantly enslaved to immediatetly answer with an instant reply each and every time, within seconds of receving the text. I do think a whole range of basic yet important day to day social interactions are at risk when we become slaves to these things. I worry that a whole new generation of A.D.D. behavior is imminent. Focus, concentration and deep thinking are are at risk when there are continual interruptions from the buzz of the iphone or blackberry. I think we need to set these things aside once in a while and "just be". Set yours aside for a day and see if you go through withdrawal when you do? When you reach for the side of your belt and notice it isn't there and suddenly feel a small pang of anxiety, then you'll know!
We have an abundance of holiday lights in Peachtree City, GA.
Our economy has not been hurt as badly as the Detroit area, that is probably as good of an indicator as any.
Out in the NE I-85 corridor from Atlanta, there are fewer lights than in past years. In our subdivision, virtually all the houses had lights, now it is 1/3rd, with 1/2 of that being houses in foreclosure or up for sale by the bank or relo company.
White collar unemployment in Atlanta is 2nd only to Detroit. In-laws work at food pantry out here, and more than twice as many people are coming in. Several area churches are sponsoring search-and-pray for jobs seminars for all the laid-off people in the area.
The commercial loan sector collapse is looming. The Hancock Tower in Boston is in foreclosure. Many commercial loans roll over all the time, but now the buildings that are mortgaged aren't worth what the loan amount is. This could shake the system even more. And then there are the environmental people and people who just want to save, that aren't doing things that use electricity. Maybe even less lights next year than this year.
Yes, I noticed there are fewer lights this year. We have our usual out. Last year I had replaced several strings with LED lights, which use very little energy compared to the regular lights.
Wow, based on all the others' comments, I guess the top story of 2010 will be that Obama was elected two years prior...
You see, he was ELECTED in 2008. That would have been the top story of 2008. What brings it into 2009? The fact that a broke nation gave him, like any other president, a party at taxpayer's expense?
2020: top story, Barack Obama elected President in 2008, inaugurated in 2009. Followed FDR precent and is still running and being re-elected.
Move on, people. It was a story LAST YEAR.
I would offer that there was a tie for the top ethics/values issue of 2009 between the election of Barack Obama (our brighter side) and the ongoing, undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (our darker side).
As Americans, we seemed to put thoughtful ethical reflection into the election of Barack Obama, showing that we valued his idealism, brilliant mind, respect of opposing views, compassion, and nuanced acceptance of diversity.
On the other hand, most Americans are going about our daily lives as though our country was not at war, much less two wars in which tens of thousands of civilians (probably hundreds of thousands in Iraq), have been killed. Though law and vital American tradition would dictate that Congress must delare each war we enter, these 21st Century un-declared wars rage on far longer that the wars of the 20th Century.
Just wars? Moral wars? Very few Americans seem to be discussing these questions in indepth and ongoing ways. Even in the religious community.
In a country which has experienced (and continues to experience) such a deep racial divide, the election of our first African-American president is surely hopeful news. I wish it were not the case that we have an issue of equal magnitude that shows how far we have yet to evolve.
Yes, the election of the first African American President in U.S. history was an event of large proportions. Makes you begin to think that God is really getting ready to do something BIG!
"For with God, nothing shall be impossible." ---Luke 1:37
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
I, too, agree that the inauguration of President Obama was the number one value choice of the last year. As the founding pastor of an integrated church that 40 years later is even more integrated--nearly 50-50--I delight that our Nation's voters chose hope over fear!
Back to the question I have to agree with from Gail Vincent in Phoenix AZ (eighth commenter).
CA budget & immigration policies a mess too. Her top ten stories for the year listed better what I would have written.
Thanks Gail for being organized and literate.
By all means, Obama's being elected President is tops on my list. I think we saw an energy and excitement in our country that had been missing for eight years. Has the glow begun to fade? Yes, for some of us. I know he couldn't turn the mess he was left with around immediately, but we are all waiting.
When I was in Washington this past July, there were a number of us that lobbied for money for ovarian cancer research etc. We were told by those in charge of the conference that this (July) was a great time to be asking for more funds, because the Congress was about to pass the health care reform bill. As of today (Dec. 21), unless I missed the latest news--health care reform hasn't happened, and when it does--will any of us understand what it is all about?
The economy is a big concern for all of us--everyday we hear of more people losing their jobs--and I am not speaking of stories about strangers--these are people and their children that we know very well. My own congregation has stepped up to the plate to help those in need. However, not all congregations have that ability.
Global warming--I don't want to leave my grandchildren a dirty world, but have I stopped using plastic and paper products? No. Have my friends stopped? No.
I don't agree that Obama was elected to the presidency based on America supposedly revealing a "better nature" in accepting a black man as our leader. He was simply the candidate of the democrats, so they were going to vote for him, and then he picked up most of the votes of the independents and a lot of the votes of the republicans, who were all mad at President Bush for betraying their conservative values. We need to realize that we don't do things in govt. and politics based on ideals; we are, most of the time, acting politically. Idealistic groups constantly betray their own ideals in order to march to the platform of their preferred party. Probably in the next election, the horrified independents will go back to the lesser evil-the conservatives (republicans), who at least won't sell this country down the river of one-world government and socialism as this current administration is doing. Thanks for listening to my opinion
No one has mentioned the shootings at Fort Hood. We don't know a lot about that yet, or we don't know as much as we should know to tell what really happened, but I can't get that out of my memories from 2009.
And I think on a related issue that we're not taking good enough care of our men and women who are serving us and who have served us in the past. There were stories this year about how we have not kept our promises to them. This is in my thoughts at this time as I look from one year to the next.
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