Lord may be substituted with whatever word is reflective of your spiritual guide, be that as it may I have no problem with at this moment taking it from St. Francis and his experience.
To hate is a horrible thing, hate has no empathy and evokes unthinkable acts of violence, segregation and revenge. Hate is an emotional nightmare that spurns resolution. I was recently robbed and my identity compromised. I have anger toward the perpetrators, but I do not hate them. I have hated- the War in Vietnam, people who have raped, people who have tortured and killed. A very wise man extolled upon me the understanding of hate, that it was anger with no outlet and no healing.
I strive now to understand the human psyche from an empathic view and not a view that brings about my own schema (frame of reference).
Of course we hate the Cowboys or the Packers- that is not hate, it is dislike.
Conflicts are inevitable and must not be repressed or ignored but worked through painfully and carefully. We must develop the skills of being sensitive to oppression and grievances, sharing power in decision making, creating consensus, and making reparation....Let us reject the clamour of fear and listen to the whisperings of hope. Quaker Yearly Meeting, 1987 New Zealand.
My Uncle Dugald, died for peace in the great War to end Wars. He was 21 and believed he would make a difference. If you ever get the chance to listen to, "The Green Fields of France":
There is a line:
The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
And the holocaust, the lynchings of black men, 9/11, WWII, Hiroshima, and again and again and again and again.
We confuse peace with maintaining peace. We confuse love for one another with feuds, blame, and methodologies of noble causes that seem right and profound and lose ourselves in the outcome of our actions, thinking that somehow peace is to be won if the battle is won.
But then we must have the message of St. Francis- let me be the instrument of your peace. Let me be a manifestation of the Quaker statement that war, schisms of thoughts, defeating an enemy that may have the same goals is far from being and instrument of peace. Sensitivity to the real problem- death and dying, As was pointed out recently money doesn't decrease smoking or harm reduction- smoking has been the behavior that has always been the one addiction that some people cannot end.
It is the current equivalent of No Man's Land. The unfathomable ANTZ idea that if you just stop and don't start up again, we have no argument- is filled with the fallacy that smokers are somehow weak.
It is time to take our swords and hammer them into tools for mutual combat. Prevention is our instrument of peace, harm reduction, an entry point, and research the eventual goal.
We must all take today as the first day of a crusade of compromise and understanding. What truly will decrease the lives lost and the families shattered.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Let me not have to win the battle of how, let me be a part of the solution, let me understand what I can take from my opponent and let me help my opponent understand what they can take from me.
And I mean all of the above, the problem is that there are profits and motives and self proclaimed demigods who can see nothing but their own self interests and their own agendas. These are the dangerous factions who use fear as their weapon. They have to be right, they see themselves as the grand knights in glistening armor pouring their energies into a cause, a crusade that can tolerate nothing but abstinence and servitude. They speak like Moses and act like Stalin. Their armor is that of deception and supposition. The cause is mighty, their cause is just, their tactics selective and their words made to seem powerful through repetition of partial truths and neglect of evidence contrary to their ultimate solution.
It is an Orwellian stance, thoughtspeak with the Syme's of the world decimated by entering logic and intellectual process into a battle that has no place for any dissent. Black and white, any gray is apportioned to the cause to obliterate the good.
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever. - George Orwell, 1984
There is no conversation in this observation. There is no understanding, there is no place for personal victory defined as an increase in the feeling of wellness of an individual. There is only truth as defined by indisputable science, which in itself would be the first to admit that contradictions and differential interpretations make science fluid and ever altering in its conclusions. Facts can be rendered from data; there is no doubt that smoking tobacco has negative consequences. There is no doubt that complete abstinence would be physically beneficial. There is also no doubt that there is a population of individuals that are dependent on tobacco and that there are less harmful means of addressing this issue. These are realities. Zero tolerance evokes the Prohibition Era and the madness that came forth from essentially medicinalizing alcohol.
As in the Orwellian principal of life, intellectual enthusiasm is dangerous to societal stability. The loyal who question, even enthusiastically for the cause, are a danger to the outcome and as happened to poor Syme in 1984, even those with similar agendas must be vaporized.
Is this overly dramatic? Unfortunately no, for the availability of a means of reducing death, pain, suffering and external exposure is at risk of being removed from access. There is hope in recent studies that point to benefits of alternative nicotine sources that appear much less harmful. The problem of problems is that Harm Reduction is being introduced by people who have tried to stop smoking but have not succeeded. The technology may be external, but the movement to expand non-pharmaceutical nicotine replacements with alternative nicotine access modes- vaping specifically- was a grassroots method. It has been a method to remove the primary carcinogens from tobacco and the dangers of smoke and particulate carried toxins which are the result of pyrolysis- burning. Vaping is a vaporization of a solution of nicotine, FDA approved PG and VG, water and flavorings.
Vaping is a remedy of the desperate that have failed traditional tobacco cessation treatments and have conquered the behavioral and the nicotine pharmacological activity need with this method.
But it was not intended to be a means to quit nicotine, it was intended to replace cigarettes. Many people vape solutions without nicotine as the behavioral habit is soothing. And nicotine is in itself being looked at for the management of Alzheimer's disease, help with concentration and performance. (It is now being looked at by several sports organizations as a performance enhancing drug.
Is it carcinogenic, not in itself. Is it a tumor promoter, in some cases it may be. Is it a tumor initiator, very little evidence.
Intolerance and a mindset engulfed with anger cannot see reality, it constructs its own reality.
The same materials that I discussed above are blasted by the demigods as major reasons for bans, They call vapor smoke, a revelation of their lack of the knowledge of physics. Is there freedom for an individual to use an alternative tobacco form by choice, no say the demigods.
Why? Because it will be transformed into a Pharma product and become prescription and strength regulated. Because it can be taxed heavily, the most irrational idea is to tax an agent less harmful at the rate of a more harmful agent.
And much worse is science in itself, seeing grants and careers built around proof of tolerability.
Banning e-cigarettes destines 500 people die each day unnecessarily.
Big Brother would be pleased. I recall a response to a blog pro-choice regarding e-cigarette use:
"I say give the bloody bastards all the tobacco they need, let them develop their cancers and let them suffer- one less smoker is one step to obliteration of this foul and perverted population".
Lord, make me the instrument of your Peace-
- make me a vessel of love that moves the minds of the ANTZ and allows for tolerance.
- help me be a tool for the compassion man can have to his fellow man
- make my enemy understand truth, that he would join to reduce the death
- we right- are they right. If right is to be loyal to a cause, we must just stay loyal.
Note I didn't say who was right.
We are the Symes of the world. We do not sit idly and be trampled, that is to admit we are not trying to prove a point. We are not perfect, we know the alternatives, medications and patches didn't help.
We are the pioneers, and plead our case and move to find fact. We are grateful to have a means to avoid tobacco smoke.
Being right will take care of itself.
And if there had been more talk back in 1916, then I might have known my Great-Uncle Dugald as a man and not a story and a cross in the green fields of France. and make no man feel forced to return to the world of burned tobacco
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