Wisdom, Paradox, Mystery!

Wisdom, Peace and Love to You! In my most recent "day job" prior to retirement I worked as the Landscaping contact person at our local hospital. Two of our doctors on staff happen to be a husband and wife team. being on the grounds a majority of my time I notice a lot of vehicles in my day. I always chuckled a bit when I saw their vehicle license plate, "Paradocs"! Paradox seems to me to be a very good description of my life, and perfect for a Libra, and a fine one word description of the human condition we need to be more aware of in our perception of most issues facing us. Today's title comes from one of Richard Rohr's books I am now reading, "The Naked Now". It also applies to what I was alluding to in some of my past posts. The fact that we are complicated and at the same time very simple. We have a tendency to justify our positions by defending and judging the "others", to borrow a term from an overworked T-V show. I don't really want to appear too "religious" in my writings and I am really not trying to be so. However it is clear that most of our life and mechanisms we work with ARE founded upon our values and philosophy of life or moral makeup. Like it or not, we are cerebral carbon units and we might as well "deal with it". Paradox to me is a very good word to describe our nature as humans. I believe it is a fair description of our nature which should allow us to be Less polarized and Less "sure" of our place our position in the world. There just seems to be so many poles to deal with. So many paradoxes to be recognized and immersed within to get some sense of a path to Love. In my opinion that clear but fragile "unconditional love" and "unselfish caring" is a key to a vibrant balance of life. Just a very small list of some of these paradoxes would be Liberal and Conservative, Political and Non Political, Religious and Non Religious, Creationism and Evolution, Peace and Conflict.....! I do hope that it is clear and very important to me that I remember to say A and B with the hope and prayer for C and NOT A OR B! Period. I pray that our current administration will be led and function in a way to balance our country and in turn, the world. I pray there will be a path started in the next year or so which will foster an accord worldwide of minimally necessary force and an international posture to "Do No Harm to Life" except in the strict defense of Life itself. At the end here I'm going to post the paragraph written by Richard and also a blog post I made a few weeks ago following President Obama's announcement regarding troop movements in the Middle-East. I hope they both support what I'm trying to say and also point out how both spiritual and political exercises are sanguine and not separate. "A large percentage of religious people become and remain quite rigid thinkers because their religion taught them that to be faithful, obedient, and stalwart in the ways of God, they had to create order. They too are not bad people; they simply never learned much about wisdom, paradox, or mystery as the very nature of faith."(Richard Rohr, The Naked Now). And in response to a criticism of Obama's statement in the "Gods Politics blog":
"In his defense!
I am one of the 17000 signatories on the petition sent to Obama regarding Afghan policy. I am in absolute agreement with the petitions goals regarding a new “progressive” strategy consisting of an “Aid Surge” to counter the effects of decades of conflict. This being stated, I also feel the need to express a disagreement regarding your assessment of the speech Tuesday. The first point on my mind is that it took us as a nation almost ten years to get into the mess we are in over there. We cannot expect to completely overturn that track record in one speech. Most commentators seem to be of the opinion that his speech the other night will continue to be fleshed out over the next few weeks, and having come to greatly respect his ability to see the big picture and not to rely on a dualistic approach of problem solving, I would agree and expect much more to come. As people of Peace and Faith we must continue to press for the higher road in the ultimate solving of this truly international problem. A few points need to be made regarding his presentation. In the first place this was presented not so much as a retaliation for 911 but as an international call to neutralize terror harbored in the holes of the middle east. This is focused on terrorists, not a country or a religion. As a matter of fact he addressed Islam as having been corrupted by terrorist misuse of one of the “worlds great religions”. One of the key marketing ploys of Al Quida et all is to claim we are there to 1. Occupy the land and 2. To defeat Islam. By placing a projected pull out date and outwardly respecting the prevalent religion of the land he has taken a first step toward removing those arguments.
Obama divided his speech into three sections, all of which are equally important. It seems as though most people are only focusing on the first one. This of course is the troop surge. The second is the partnering with other world powers and especially the Afghan government itself, toward rebuilding this war ravaged land. I believe that it is naive to expect that two can take place without one in place as well. The aid needs to be secure to be fruitful. However, with an end date in mind and a well focused (that is our job) aid package in the fore front as soon as possible, the international and in country support for such a package has a prayer.
The third section spoke of a partnership with Pakistan to halt the spread of this cancerous terror. The only way that terrorist cancer will be stymied is if it becomes obvious to a vast majority of Muslims in the world that our motives are only those of love and peace. I am reminded of the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War.” That is a sobering movie; I had to admit that at that time in world history I was not aware of all those dynamics. I hope and pray that this time we will not screw up the end game.
I really respect your witness and your literary acumen in the cause of peace and justice. Bob from Ashland, Oregon"