Life Goes On: Taking Stock at 53

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. – John Lennon

During my sophomore year in college, I took a course on monetary policy taught by a gentle, elderly professor named Dick Liming. Boasting a full head of curly white hair, Professor Liming was a bespectacled, happy-go-lucky sort, a genuinely absent-minded professor straight out of central casting. With a pleasant disposition and friendly, approachable air, the professor would often stop by the Student Union for a mid-afternoon coffee break. One day, the professor invited me to sit down at his table and discuss with him some pressing issues involving macro-economics and the government’s role in the economy. Over the course of the semester, he made it a habit to invite students to sit with him while he held court on issues of national and global import, offering his opinions, knowledge, and at times radical concepts on a wide variety of topics, mostly in an effort to generate a lively exchange of ideas. A proponent of John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, schools of thought that remained influential in the late 1970’s, Professor Liming helped economics come alive for me. From the quiet, tranquil confines of Springfield, Ohio, the professor’s discourses made relevant what was happening in U.S. politics, economics, and the world around us.

I do not recall all of the things we discussed during these talks. But I remember the sense of intellectual excitement I felt as I discovered and developed my own insights on topics about which, only a few years before, I knew nothing. I loved feeling it was possible to make sense of the world and to envision a role in making it better. At Wittenberg, I felt compelled to make up for lost time, believing I had wasted my high school years on the narrow pursuits of adolescence, lacking insight into what life had to offer in the present or foresight into what lay ahead.

One spring afternoon, sensing my uncertainty about the future, Professor Liming discussed his own course in life. “I was a young buck out of Harvard,” he said of his more youthful days, “Full of energy and ambition, I had the world at my fingertips.” He talked of his career in the banking and insurance industries, and later academia; the mistakes he made along the way; and the notion of intellectual contentment he had finally found at Wittenberg. In listening to the professor speak, I sensed he could have accomplished more in his career and traveled in more powerful circles, but in the end he had chosen a quieter, less remunerative, more studious path. He seemed a happy man, content with his life’s choices, overlooking his declining health as he embarked on his twilight years. From these conversations, I desired a life of intellectual fulfillment, perhaps as a professor of economics, teaching and molding young minds at a place like Wittenberg; or a life in politics and government, making policy and changing the course of history for the better. The possibilities were limitless, or so I came to believe during these formative years, though I knew not which path to take or where it might lead me.

Much has happened since my afternoon coffees with Professor Liming. Within a few years, I attended law school in Washington, D.C. – not the direction I previously envisioned – and soon began a career as a federal prosecutor. For eighteen years, I made opening statements and closing arguments before juries in big city courtrooms far from the gentle hills of southern Ohio. No longer the shy kid from central New Jersey, I navigated a world of cops and robbers, crime victims and crackheads, drug dealers and murderers, judges and street-wise lawyers. I argued cases in esteemed courts of appeal in Washington and Philadelphia before life-tenured, Presidentially-appointed judges, some of whom would later serve on the Supreme Court. As a prosecutor and now, for the past several years, a managing director of a corporate investigations firm, I have been involved in many interesting cases encompassing a wide variety of life. I have traveled far from the banal days of my suburban youth, when I lived in a solitary world of imaginary heroism far removed from the realities of everyday life, squandering countless hours shooting baskets in front of the garage, lying on the couch listening to music through stereo headphones, or rolling dice and keeping box scores playing Strat-O-Matic baseball.

I turn 53 this week and cannot help but wonder where the years have gone. “Lost time is never found again,” advised Benjamin Franklin. It is a reality I am powerless to overcome. There are times when life resembles a walk through a museum. Too often, I look around and move quickly to the next exhibit, failing to study and absorb the beauty and wisdom of the object before me. Have I by-passed the essence of my life, taking note only of what is immediately relevant? How much have I failed to absorb along the way? Our memories are like a picture book that allows us to re-examine, in the context of history, the layers of life that so quickly pass us by.

The other night I leafed through my high school yearbook of 1977, the year I graduated, left for college, and never looked back. As I flipped the pages and studied the faces of my past, as if momentarily traveling back in time, I re-lived the happiness, the humor, and the anxieties of my youth, which 35 years later continue to haunt me. More than three decades later, I remain uncertain of my place in life. As I look at the younger version of myself, a part of me continues to feel like that same, socially awkward, introverted teenage boy from the 1970’s. I have come so far, yet continue to feel that I could have been so much more. Have I really failed myself, or is it the confidence in myself that simply fails me?

“Life isn’t about finding yourself,” wrote George Bernard Shaw. “Life is about creating yourself.” There is the life we present to the world, the life of our imagination and expectations, and the life we lead. I have dreamed of accomplishing great things, of changing the world, while leading a life of integrity, intellect, and spiritual fulfillment; it is an imagined life of perfection. Perhaps I set the bar too high. Just like the seventeen year old high school senior who knew he could have done more with his young life, and the twenty-one year old college student, ambitious but undisciplined, lacking a guidepost and a solid notion of what life had in store, there remains a part of me unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Have I simply gone where the ride has taken me and failed to steer the ship? Like E.B. White, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

I don’t know why I am so hard on myself, why I cannot forgive myself for failing to achieve perfection. It is an impossible standard to meet, but one with which I have yet to come to terms. At 53, I still have much to accomplish, but I now understand there are limits to what can be achieved in life. Like Professor Liming in his later years, I am less ambitious these days. I refuse to sacrifice the occasional quiet moment, long solitary walks in the park, baseball on summer afternoons, a good book, time to write and reflect; I value too much the precious time with my kids, my family, and Andrea. “Any fool can make things bigger [and] more complex,” said Albert Einstein. “It takes a touch of genius-- and a lot of courage-- to move in the opposite direction." Only time will tell if I can forgive my shortcomings.

Perhaps I am simply caught up in the emotions of a father who sees his two children growing up, one about to graduate from college and become wholly independent of me, the other preparing to leave home, attend college and start afresh her life’s journey. It makes my heart burst with pride and hurt with anguish all at once. Such is the life of a parent. And yet, it is when I reflect on my children that I am most content with my station in life, for the focus is no longer on me, but my legacy. If my world were to end tomorrow, I need only look back on my experience as a father, on the pleasure, humor, and excitement of watching young minds develop and characters formed, to know that it was all worthwhile. Whatever sadness my life has experienced – and I have been luckier than most in this respect – and whatever regrets about my choices and outcomes, I know that I am blessed, that life has been easier for me than for most. The small joys, the little pleasures, these will have been enough.

“In the long run,” said Eleanor Roosevelt, “we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." Life is a journey and a puzzle. Happiness is elusive for no good reason. It is why I write, and walk, and think. I will always be a work in progress. And for this, I am forever grateful.

A Call for Compassion

Our greatest threat is not the atomic bomb. Our greatest threat is the callousness to the suffering of man. – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

We live in a dangerously polarized world, full of division and hatred, suffering and violence. Conflict rages in places as diverse and far off as Afghanistan and the Middle East, Chechnya and the Sudan. Although the chief causes of these conflicts are political and territorial, they are cloaked in religious terms. The world’s major religions – I speak here of the monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – have failed miserably at countervailing the forces of injustice. In many parts of the world, religious fundamentalists, including many self-proclaimed Christians in this country, have sowed the flames of prejudice and ignorance. Muslim extremists have used their faith to justify and commit atrocities that violate Islam’s most sacred values. The Arab-Israeli conflict has been allowed to fester for generations, turning a secular and political conflict into a “holy” war in which reasoned compromise and pragmatic solutions are victim to intransigence and intolerance.

Every day the news is filled with stories of tragedy and conflict; of school shootings, suicides, and murders; financial institutions in crisis; the growing and shameful gap between the richest and poorest among us. People have lost faith in the political process and have stopped talking and listening to each other. Many young people today are beset with feelings of alienation and helplessness, as the religious and secular institutions around them seem impotent, incapable of solving the world’s problems.

Even the quality of our political conversations has suffered. When I was in college and law school in the early 1980’s, I often argued with my Republican friends and other students about current events. We debated many of the same issues that today continue to divide liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans – the government’s proper role in alleviating poverty and putting people to work; the need for social welfare programs; the pros and cons of government regulation. But even in the most heartfelt and animated discussions, there existed mutual respect and goodwill between us. It was understood that, though we disagreed on the means, we sought common ends; it was an accepted truth that each of us desired a peaceful and prosperous world. We struggled in different ways with issues of fairness and equality, productivity and individual responsibility, but we understood that our arguments were made in good faith. Sadly, in today’s environment, such civil discourse seems less possible.

Something is missing in American political life today. It has been festering like a sore for the past two decades or so, when compromise became a dirty word and the conversation turned bitter and ugly. Political disagreements are no longer principled differences, but instead reflect one’s integrity and worth as a human being. The cultural divide also has carried over into mainstream religious institutions, in debates over gay ordination and marriage, and in disputes over religious orthodoxy and biblical inerrancy. Lost in the political and religious culture wars is the concept of compassion.

In some circles, to speak of compassion is suspect, an indication that one is soft. For persons of power and influence, presidents and senators, civic and business leaders, speaking of a compassionate society suggests weakness. For most of us, in our everyday lives, compassion takes a back seat to cold realism. We do what we must to get through each day, to satisfy the demands of our jobs and of life’s competitive pressures.

Albert Einstein foresaw that as our society grew more modern and technologically advanced, we would need the virtues of our traditions more, not less. He described such tradition-based figures as Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi, as “geniuses in the art of living – more necessary to the dignity, security and joy of humanity than the discoverers of objective knowledge.” In an age of atomic warfare, Einstein knew that the future of humanity demanded compassionate applications to the world’s problems, whether scientific, medical, economic, or political.

In November 2010, Krista Tippett, the host of NPR’s Speaking of Faith (now called On Being), lectured on compassion at a TED conference, rightly noting that compassion is a word of great meaning, one possessed of transformative powers. If properly understood, compassion has the power to change us, individually and collectively. Compassion is not, as is sometimes believed, sympathy or pity for the less fortunate. Rather, compassion consists of genuine expressions of kindness; of empathy for the sorrows and joys of others; of forgiveness and reconciliation, generosity and hospitality. Compassion is not a feeling or an emotion, but is physically manifested, and must be cultivated and practiced in everyday life. Compassion is curiosity without assumptions, a willingness to see beauty in others, including the child with Down’s syndrome, the mentally disabled man in a wheelchair, the toll collector, the police officer, the soldier; all of the strangers in our midst.

Compassion brings us into the territory of mystery and allows us to see the face of God in each other, in the members of our families, our friends, our co-workers; in the homeless women begging for change by the subway grate, and the drug addict huddled beneath the bridge. Compassion is tenderness.

One of the chief tests of our generation is whether we can build a global society that allows people of all religious and political persuasions to live together in peace and mutual respect. Where are the voices of compassion in the world today? The major faith traditions, which often are part of the problem, should be leading the way in helping to make a more just and compassionate world a reality. Historically and theologically, principles of compassion are embraced by all of the world’s religions. It is the essence of the Golden Rule, to do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Judaism teaches tikkun olam, to repair the world; Jesus teaches to love thy neighbor as thyself; and Mohammed instructs, “That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.” And yet, too often the voices of religious extremists drown out the voices of compassion.

Whether in the public pronouncements of Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, the bishops of Rome, or the ultra-Orthodox Hasidim in the West Bank, lately one hears few appeals to compassion; instead, the focus tends to be on matters of sexual conduct or ancient doctrinal disputes, implying that a “correct” view of these issues are the true criterion of faith. “Man has often made a god out of dogma,” admonished Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “a graven image which he worshipped. . . He would rather believe in the dogma than in God . . . [and] be ready to take other people’s lives, if they refuse to share his tenets.”

It is difficult to think of a time when the compassionate voice of religion has been so needed. Krista Tippett has said that she once believed “that all of the important and interesting problems in the world were political, and all of the solutions, too. But I changed my mind.” She has since realized there “are places in human experience that politics cannot analyze or address, and they are among our raw, essential, heartbreaking, and life-giving realities.” The really important things in life, as in death, “how to love, how we can be of service to each other . . . are the kinds of questions religion arose to address.” Have our religious institutions lived up this challenge?

How do we restore compassion to the center of our civic and political life? How can we make it the essence of religion, morality, and civic virtue? Theologian and historian Karen Armstrong, author of The History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Ballentine Books, 1993), and perhaps the world’s foremost expert on the history and traditions of the Abrahamic faiths, helped formulate the Charter for Compassion, an important and potentially transformative document drafted in November 2009 by the leading voices of six faith traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism). The Charter, which affirms that compassion “lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions,” calls upon people of all faiths “to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate; to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures; [and] to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings – even those regarded as enemies.”

Until we are able to see the humanity in each other, to set aside ego and transcend selfishness, to see the world through the eyes of the Other – the strangers among us, those with whom we disagree, our enemies and our friends; until we are able to feel empathy and seek genuine understanding, we are doomed to repeat the divisions and hatreds of the past. “There is no human being,” wrote Heschel, “who does not carry a treasure in his soul; a moment of insight, a memory of love, a dream of excellence, a call to worship.” True compassion breaks down the boundaries of politics, dogma, ideology, and religion. The practice of everyday compassion helps us recognize our interdependence and our shared humanity. “We can either emphasize those aspects of our traditions, religious or secular, that speak of hatred, exclusion, and suspicion,” says Karen Armstrong, “or work with those that stress the interdependence and equality of all human beings.” The choice belongs to each of us.

November Reflections and the Passage of Time

We live, but a world has passed away

With the years that perished to make us men.

--William Dean Howells

It is late November and the leaves have fallen. The trees stand upright, their branches naked and awkwardly extended, but the sun sets early now. The weather was unseasonably mild this past Thanksgiving, the Pennsylvania air providing a warm respite from the cold chill of winter that waits quietly, ready to strike, with the change of seasons. The geese have yet to depart from the lake at Alverthorpe Park near my home, as if wisely discerning nature’s shifting currents. It is a physically peaceful time of year, disguising the anxieties of a weak economy and a troubled world.

In spending time this weekend with my daughters, their friends, and Andrea's sons and nieces, I was provided an opportunity to hear the voices of college seniors discuss their studies and hopes for the future. Soon to embark on a new stage of life, one filled with career choices and financial independence, these young people collectively expressed the same concerns; a deep-seated anxiety permeates the atmosphere. As final exams and papers await their return to campus, more pressing concerns linger; the need to secure a full-time job upon graduation, the advent of adulthood, and the notion of what to do with one’s life. It seems as if not so long ago I stood in their shoes; and yet, I have lived nearly three-fifths of my life since then. The times may keep changing, but the anxieties remain the same.

“Time is not measured by the passing of years,” said Jawaharlal Nehru, “but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.” In talking with our collective children, I am anxious to dispense advice, to show that I am a sage possessed of wisdom and profound insight. But I soon realize that my counsel consists of words with no guarantees, adages and maxims intertwined with the unstated reality of my own life, of choices made and opportunities lost. It seems like only yesterday when my children were just entering school, the canvas of their lives yet to be painted. As Jennifer embarks on her final months of college and Hannah prepares for her college years, their father’s input is filtered through an independent lens. They are young women now, with career paths and friendships distinctly separate from the young girls who once sought their father’s time and attention. I would not have it any other way, but I wonder where the time has gone.

“Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation,” said Albert Einstein. “For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.” It is a comforting thought when I reflect on how quickly life passes us by. Try as I might not to live in the past, I nevertheless think back on decisions made and paths chosen; on what might have been had other avenues been traveled. Living in the present, my time occupied by work, financial responsibilities, and the everyday realities of life, I cannot help but feel that something is missing, that the years run too short and the days too fast. As I grow older, I long for the days of my youth, when backyard football games and basketball shootouts in our family’s makeshift court by the garage occupied autumn afternoons. With the passage of time, those days appear simpler, distant memories replaced by the serious stuff of life; the demands of careers, the costs of medical care, rising mortgage payments and tuition bills.

“Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves,” wrote Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, “We lose as much to life as we do to death.” But words are cheap. It is easy for me to advise others to make the most of life, to take risks for lives of passion and adventure. Looking back, did I do the same? Or have I simply chosen the paths of least resistance? “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live,” admonished Henry David Thoreau. I would like to tell these idealistic, bright-eyed college students to do what makes them happy, that happiness and success awaits them if only they pursue their dreams. And yet, there are so many things I have wanted to accomplish, so many dreams yet fulfilled.

My greatest obstacle has always been the limits of my imagination and a strong aversion to risk. Many of my career choices have been wise and satisfying; my decision to attend law school, my career as a federal prosecutor, even my present career in corporate investigations. I have successfully evaded life in a big law firm, or as a managerial bureaucrat in a large, vastly impersonal corporation. But at the end of the day, have I not merely served the interests of the property classes and status quo? Certainly, my career choices were not risky. And I am as incapable today of predicting the future as I was thirty years ago, when I stood in the shoes of a college senior.

We journey through life in search of meaning and purpose. Bounded by conventional thought, the practicalities of life often stand in the way; concerns over money, the cost of insurance, the strictures of time. I occasionally wonder if life would have been more meaningful as a writer, or teacher, or legal aid lawyer. Is it too late to do these things now, to alter my life’s course? For a moment it sounds grand, and then, conventional thinking sets in and the inevitable, practical and necessary questions arise. How can I make writing, or teaching, or serving the poor my life’s mission and continue to support my children’s education and pay my mortgage? Perhaps if I was truly committed, I could make it work, somehow. The choices I have made in life are my own and, like most, I choose to protect my own interests, and that of my family, first. I don’t apologize for these choices, for the necessary compromises of life, but I cling to the hope that there remains time to accomplish more, to complete my canvas with the colorful brushstrokes of a life well lived, a life of meaning and purpose.

For now, I can only impart to my children and their friends the wise counsel of Carl Sandburg: “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” Too often we fill our time responding to the demands of others, fulfilling societal expectations. In the end, however, we must satisfy our own longings for a life of love and integrity, service and sincerity. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”



A Wish for Peace in a Time of Conflict

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
- John F. Kennedy

As I walked from the train station to work this morning, a cold December wind blew against my face. I pushed ahead, determined to trade the harshness of winter for the synthetically heated warmth of my office building, where I could sip hot coffee and look out over the horizon from my 21st floor window, past the Schuylkill River and the suburbs of western Philadelphia. Securing the scarf around my neck, my eyes focused on the sidewalk beneath my feet, I grabbed the top of my coat to insulate myself from the wind currents gusting violently between the city’s buildings. For three short blocks the cold air stung my face and I desired only to escape the harsh realities of the day’s weather. Meanwhile, a child of a drug addicted mother in Camden went hungry last night, lacking a nutritious meal and, more importantly, the love and support of a loving parent; a homeless man in Philadelphia found warmth on a subway grate and scrounged for food in city trash bins.

Yesterday, 3,500 Africans died of AIDS and 16,000 children died of starvation and malnutrition; another fifty children were killed or maimed by landmines in places like Cambodia, Iraq, and Mozambique; a dozen people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, as drug cartels and corruption overtake major segments of Mexico. Every thirty minutes, someone in the United States is murdered and 60 more are assaulted.

As millions prepare to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, two people are killed every minute in conflicts around the world. Millions more perish from hunger and disease, malnutrition and extreme poverty. And yet, for most of us, as we sing carols and hymns, drink eggnog, and open presents, we know little about the people struggling and fighting and dying every day.

As a lighted Christmas tree adorns the Blue Room of the White House, the Obama administration escalates the military conflict into Pakistan’s tribal areas and continues to fire drone missiles into villages in northwest Pakistan and Yemen in the hopes of making the world a safer place. Air strikes are clean and precise, like a video game, yet the reality of these bombs are tragic.

Last year at this time, as Christians the world over prepared to celebrate the birth of Christ, a U.S. cruise missile struck an alleged al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen. The strike was a “successful” blow against terrorism, as fourteen al-Qaeda fighters were killed. But as The Nation reports this week, an investigation by the Yemen Parliament found that fourteen women and 21 children were also among the dead. One week later, U.S. missiles fired upon another Yemeni village with similar results. The folly of humankind continues.

The more advanced we become, the further backward we move. In an age when all seemed possible, when we invented the automobile and air travel, cured polio, created the information highway, and landed men on the moon, the 20th Century was the most violent in all human history; the nations of Europe and Asia fought wars of unparalleled magnitude, as death, destruction, and unimaginable carnage were the order of the day. In Normandy in 1915, a young man lay on the ground in eternal peace, one of the millions who perished in the war to end all wars. Found among his possessions was a card inscribed with the words of St. Francis, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. . . .” Maybe he held the card for good luck, or perhaps it was a gift from his mother, who decades after suffered silently as she mourned the loss her only son.

Thirty years later, on the morning of August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, a city of 255,000 people. In one blinding flash of heat and light, the equivalent of fifteen kilotons of explosives was dropped by U.S. forces, indiscriminately incinerating the bodies of 66,000 men, women, and children within a one mile radius. Tens of thousands more died from the bomb’s effects over the next few months. Two days after the bomb dropped, a survivor recorded this account in his diary:

Towards evening, a light, southerly wind blowing across the city wafted to us an odour suggestive of burning sardines. I wondered what could cause such a smell until somebody, noticing it too, informed that sanitation teams were cremating the remains of people who had been killed. Looking out, I could discern numerous fires scattered about the city. Previously I had assumed the fires were caused by burning rubble. Towards Nigitsu was an especially large fire where the dead were being burned by hundreds. Suddenly to realize that these fires were funeral pyres made me shudder, and I became a little nauseated. 8 Aug 1945.

--From Hiroshima Diary by Michihiko Hachiya.

A second atomic bomb packing even more kilotons of explosives soon befell the 195,000 citizens of Nagasaki, killing 60,000 more. Casualties are difficult to calculate with precision, however, because the great fires that raged in each city totally consumed many bodies and destroyed the city’s hospitals. It is said that the light emanating from an atomic explosion is comparable to that of the sun, the temperatures and pressure comparable to the sun’s interior. The light rays consist of thermal radiation that burns everything in its wake and penetrates the human body. In the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nearly a third of the population was killed by burns, trauma, or radiation. Those who did not immediately perish developed various forms of cancer; babies born to mothers who had been exposed to the bomb suffered brain damage; the children of survivors experienced harmful genetic effects.

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount,” declared General Omar Bradley in 1948. “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”

As we sing carols on Christmas Eve, three dozen countries around the world will remain in a state of perpetual conflict and violence. U.S. troops will celebrate their tenth Christmas in Afghanistan. War will continue to cause untold economic and social damage to large portions of Africa, with civil strife in Nigeria, civil wars in Somalia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Burundi, and threats of genocide in Darfur. In many areas of conflict, food production is impossible, resulting in famine, starvation, and human suffering beyond description. Many of Africa’s children will be condemned to lives of misery, despair, and hopelessness.

In the time it takes to open presents on Christmas Day, four more children will be maimed or killed by landmines. Many of the victims will resemble an eight year-old Pakistani boy named Shiraz, who lost his leg when he attempted to walk home after army personnel told him that it was safe to do so. “But on the way I stepped on a bomb and it exploded there. My father tied a cloth around it but it kept bleeding. I was conscious so I could see the blood flowing out of my body. Then I was brought to the hospital.” Though he will never again walk like a normal child, he now wishes to become a doctor, so that he can help others.

“Peace cannot be obtained through violence,” said Albert Einstein, “it can only be attained through understanding.” As we celebrate the spirit of Christmas, sing our favorite carols, enjoy the dazzling displays of lights and ornaments, we can only hope for a day when humankind will put the kindness back into humanity, and the world will take stock of its senses. What can we do? We can start by promoting and supporting dialogue, by encouraging genuine exchanges among peoples and cultures that have otherwise convinced themselves they are at war. “If you want to make peace,” advised Moshe Dayan, “you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”

Each year as Christmas approaches, I pray that nations and warriors will lay down their armaments and seek understanding and peace. History offers an occasional glimmer of hope. In the winter of 1914, on a battlefield in the Flanders region of Belgium, German forces were engaged in a fierce battle with French and British troops, when a most unusual thing occurred. With both sides dug deeply in their muddy trenches, some German troops placed small Christmas trees, lighted with candles, outside of their secured positions and began singing Stille Nacht (Silent Night). Soon, British and French troops joined in. A German signboard displayed, in broken English, “You No Fight, We No Fight” as British units improvised a sign containing a German version of “Merry Christmas.” A spontaneous truce soon developed, as soldiers from both sides put down their arms and left their trenches, meeting in the middle to shake hands. They helped each other bury their dead; they exchanged gifts – chocolate cake, cognac, postcards, tobacco – and they sang songs. In a few places, soldiers played each other in games of soccer. It didn’t last, of course, but for a few precious moments, there was peace on earth and good will toward men.