Syria and the Dalai Lama

At the Unsung Heroes of Compassion Event

in San Francisco 

When I come back, I will come back as bee.

One of the highlights of my life was seeing the 14th Dalai Lama at the Nobel Peace Forum in Minneapolis this year. I was so excited. I even took a taxi, so I'd simplify my arrival and departure. 

With but a few first words from his lips, he became, he was, a merry presence, wise and dear. The audience fell in love, or renewed a love they carried with them. Light, whimsical, amused with his life and a love of honey,...he said...when I come back, I come back--as BEE. 

I've read some of the writings of this wise and meditative man. His thoughts have stayed with me.

Three years ago, I grew increasing alarmed over all the deaths and suffering in Syria. I felt we had to do something, but I knew not what. The toll grew and my anguish grew with it. Why wasn't the world, why weren't we, the United States, somehow saving these citizens of Syria, under the leadership of the unmerciful Bashad al-Assad?

But I have read the words of the Dalai Lama on revenge and counter-attacks. After 9/11, for example, he reflected that one can attack and return blow for blow. But it will produce consequences unforeseen. Events will play out quite differently than one envisions no matter how noble the motives.

With thoughtful reflection which is the soul of his being he says, yes, one can fight back. When we have suffered the loss of life we want to strike back. As one listens you hear: in his softness is his strength.

Can we say the goals of Iraq served us well or served anyone well: the loss of American lives, civilian lives, or the immorality of lies and half-truths? How perfect it was promised to be: Hailed as liberators.

The philosophy of Buddhists and the Dalai Lama is in this moment...like the parable of The Three Questions told by Tolstoy. The questions being:

What is the most important time?
Who is the most important person?
What is the most important thing?

The most important time is now; the most important person is the one we're with; and the most important thing is the good we can do.

Wherever the Dalai Lama goes, I believe he is asked the same questions I heard at the Peace Forum in Minneapolis. What can we do to prevent the violence, death, and destruction in the world?

"Begin with yourself," he answers.
We must model what we wish for--in Syria, in Iraq, the Ukraine, and Ferguson, Missouri.

James Foley, the first American in recent days to be killed so horrifically in front of a
stunned world, had been making a difference in Syria. He purchased an ambulance for one of Aleppo's hospitals to assist the wounded. He answered all of Tolstoy's questions with a vehicle for saving lives.

It seems we turn to war when we have yet to exhaust the tools for peace.

Now we are catapulted forward by the deaths of our journalists, but not in a way many journalists would want. Foreign correspondent Richard Engel spoke on MSNBC that he wouldn't want his death to impact American foreign policy.

And now here we are. We are going to do something in Syria. But is it the right something?

Have we exhausted peace in our rush for war?

I should be happy; we are going to act. But I am uneasy.
Congress wants assurances or a bigger war effort. But I don't think I want war at all.

The Dalai Lama used the word "bully" in his talk on the world & violence.
And Pema Chodron has written Don't Bite the Hook.
Somehow I feel we have already swallowed it.

Let's pray in all the world's religions, yet also--work for peace. We have it in us.

Selfishness and Suicide Updated - A discussion touched off on Facebook. And Continued--Here.

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." 
Mother Teresa

Robin Williams 1951-2014

The best I can say to those who feel suicide sufferers are selfish is that those raising the point perhaps have never known clinical depression themselves. They are fortunately blessed.

Most people fight cancer valiantly so intent to beat this disease. Others can be just as valiant fighting depression, but at times the carrier can't carry the disease any longer, as it is profoundly dark and relentless.

Robin Williams was bipolar: it was inter-woven into his genius and that tell-tale-rapid-fire speech few could keep up with.

The flip side of mania in the disease model is depression. Clinical

depression is chemical. It's like going to the bank for a withdrawal but the money, the serotonin isn't there. Usually medication helps, but not always. Williams was being treated for depression when he died.

Robin Williams wasn't selfish--he was sick. And it is beyond the darkest night you can imagine (if you've never know the disease). In it you lose your mental strength and sometimes the will to fight.

Robin owed his fans nothing--he gave at the office all the brilliance he possessed. He was fighting for his life, his wellness, when he lost it, having recently been in rehab in Minnesota and under the care of mental health professionals. And now through his wife we learn he was in the early stages of Parkinson's disease.

Today all one hears are the millions he raised for the homeless, and how he pulled fellow actor, Christopher Reeves, up from his own darkness. Also today, from across the board, words that Robin Williams was the kindest of men.

My family is nearly one with the illness of despair. But the stigma still remains. 

Yet all that should be left is compassion for this brilliant life, struck down by a disease and for the disease itself.

Often depressives are the least selfish in the room as they have known suffering.

May God teach the love and understanding this, as well as other diseases, require of the compassionate heart.

Robin Williams wasn't selfish...he must have been overwhelmed on two fronts: the loss of health of his body while the additional burden of depression from his Parkinson's diagnosis--challenged his mental health even more.

In my most recent issue of Shambhala Sun magazine there are these words: Don't Figure Others Out. Or, as I've generally heard it: 
Don't ponder others. 

At times we aren't even sure of our own motives, myriad thoughts, perceptions and beliefs. We owe ourselves and others God's Peace.

Thank you, Robin, for your amazing gifts. In heaven rest--Be Well.
Grace, grace to your divine being.

For the Loving Household (to God or To Another) - A Prayer--When I Mess Up

Flock of Sheep - Wikipedia

  

Hold me, hold me,

Resist the need to scold me;

For even I can see 

The mess of things

You gave me--so

Hold me, hold me,

It's YOUR WHISPERS

That own me...

Let me draw on dawn

And breathe You, 

Ever the New Day.

©1998 Connie Nelson Ahlberg

All Rights Reserved.

Feeling Their Presence

Pansies - Wikipedia

Whenever I water my plants or flowers, be they violets or outdoor pansies, I see the face of my aunt or grandmother in each blossom: those who grew them so lovingly before me; and at times, I feel their presence, and wonder if I am tending them, or if they

---are tending me.

Connie Nelson Ahlberg

All Rights Reserved.

Bill Maher on Hillary Clinton and the Bible

Gutenberg Bible - Wikipedia

Bill Maher is losing his moorings. He may be the first person to say he never had any. Lately he's been giving many opinions on Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and what Hillary should do to survive politically.

Reading recently that the President of the United States is a "drop-dead atheist," is as irresistible as it is galling. Bill would know, because, by his own admission, those three words describe himself.

In a free country, one can be of any faith--or no faith, a right we cherish and protect.
Mr. Maher, I fear, is projecting onto the President, his own views, not the beliefs of the President who has stated that he has been a Christian for years.

What got "me going," wasn't so much Bill Maher on Barack Obama, but Bill Maher on Hillary Clinton.

On Comedy Central with Jon Stewart, Maher made fun of Hillary's pick of the book that has influenced her the most: the Bible. Maher -sardonic to the bone, said she was out-of-step.

I grew up with many devout Protestant friends. Their steadfast study of the Bible topped the focus we were given as Catholics to explore the Bible on our own (as we weren't trusted to do that).

One's faith community as you grow up, from church services to Bible study in most Protestant churches is thorough and purposeful.  Maher's contempt of Hillary's faith journey is marred (pardon the pun) by his perception. "Milliannials aren't religious," he said.

In times of trial, legions have sought the Bible for solace, spiritual strength, and inspiration. A best friend's mother found the psalms her path to heaven. I also know many young people who find the Bible very significant in their lives.

"Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not - neither do they spin; yet Simon in all his glory
was not arraigned like one of these." Matthew 6:28

Tiffany's Lilies of the Field

With humor one isn't honoring, I realize, one is putting down. Bill Maher is a funny man; but his perceptions & biases are clouding his views and flowing from his mouth.

Having grown up at exactly the same time as the former First Lady and former Sec of State, I have come to appreciate her life.

When I look at the house on 235 Wisner St. in Park Ridge, Illinois, I see a solid house of bricks. This is where Hillary grow up from the age of three.

Bill Maher, are you wise enough, are you smart enough, to realize your words bristled on the backs of many of us...who have sought the depth of the Bible when we were in our own depths?

Rather than a pat answer, I take Hillary at her word which she shared to the United Methodist Women Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky. Hillary said the Methodist church is a homecoming for her, where she learned about caring for others and social justice. She has not departed far from those beliefs.

I can respect choosing the Bible as the book which has influenced her the most.
For when I'm lost, I seek the wisdom of the ages, and the great literature on the pages
of the Holy Book.

Why Five Candles Burned

An Indian Bride

In one of the holiest of countries in terms of religious sites; a place where Christ may have lived his silent years; a sacrilege, an ongoing nightmare against our littlest women and girls plays on.

If young men gang rape and hang young teenage girls--they must have no fear. No fear of justice or being caught and tried for their crimes. India, O India! 

India, the largest democracy in the world with it's new Hindu leader has more than brutal conflicts against Muslims to amend and heal, or economic woes to rectify in their economy.

It desperately needs to look at the disparity, the Men Only modes of worship, vast crowds of men-only stage shows within adult entertainment, separation of women and girls in families that don't foster equality, mutuality, courtesy, and respect.

How can the rest of the world be guests in a country that commits sacrilege against it's own girls, against it's own women, stoning them, disfiguring their own daughters for choosing a mate not hand-selected by their parents? Bride burning when dowry demands aren't met. How can there even be a term: Bride Burning?

It's the inequality in India that must be examined.

Rapists by karmic tradition or within the vast wisdom of Buddhist zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, realize we aren't separate, we are one. Hence the males have raped themselves, raped their own light no matter the faith tradition.

Karmic views hold they may/or will be reborn to suffer the
carnage they perpetuated turned back on themselves; thereby learning what violation against our Godly souls feels like.

Shrouding women in beautiful or simple cloth in India, whether Hindu or Muslim, keeps women separate and unequal. Few can remain integrated within the minds of their male counterparts when women live separate and unequal lives.

Patriarchy taken to extremes means, yes, stone your daughters if they dare to stand for their own voice, their own decisions, their own choices. In patriarchy, males have all the power. 

Why are only women veiled? 

While honoring all faiths, we have to have the courage and fearlessness to see by treating our women differently, in such comprehensive ways, we can be used by men for the most despicable of human acts. What is meant to be sacred intimacy is changed to violent sacrilege and murder. 

For this the most beautiful--our beloved young girls and women, were not born into the world, whether in the West or in the world's largest democracy.

Women need to be not on a pedestal which can be toppled and destroyed at will or whim, but as beautifully equal as God, all gods, made them.

For this women need to scream from their voices and from their souls:

Let us stand as we wish for who we are, with dreams intact,
integrated in village life, as radiant equals with so much to 
give as peacemakers in the world.

A Woman's Strength - Three Generations

      Tess & Clarence Hanson

 Passing on--An Indomitable Spirit

Years ago I met a vivacious woman named Ann. Some time after that I met Ann's mother, Tess, and father, Clarence. Everyone loved Tess. To keep it simple I could say it all began with her, though Thich Nhat Hanh would have a different view. 

Hanh believes, if say, you had looked at Tess's hands (when she was with us) you would have seen the generations in her past and the future to be. What was great about Tess or Tessie is that she didn't pretend to be anything but what she was. She and Clarence raised their children in a small town, Faribault, MN, where little and big dreams are made. Tess had honesty...to a fault, but it was her wisdom. She had a true joy in living, and common sense. She was a great woman who never shouted her greatness, that was something you knew by sitting with her.  

Don't pass the nonsense--because she'd never pass that on. She had spunk, integrity, gumption, perseverance and the ability to inspire. She had to have the latter as her truth was reborn again and again in her daughter Ann and in her granddaughter Molly.

A woman passes on her strength through the stories she leaves behind and the Spirit of the life she lived: stories of strength, tenacity, and generosity of Spirit. Tess was true as a Lutheran hymnal. Sing.

The invisible becomes real when you look at her off-spring and see the great gift of empowerment before it had the name. Perseverance lives in small towns near the peonies, courage--there with the lilies of the valley bordering the flowerbed, and conquering adversity with acceptance like a spring rain. Green grass grows with the goals and dreams attained. 

The Spirit Grows into Grace that flows on through generations. You see it shine on in her daughter's visible volumes of accomplishments and her granddaughter's indomitable spirit in life and love...backbones strong as an oak that's always been in Faribault.

Tess's daughter Ann Hanson Schrupp and 

Granddaughter Molly Zahn