Happy birthday

Something had been nagging at the back of my mind. There was an anniversary or something coming up, and I couldn’t quite think of what it was. Going back through my “sent mail” folder, I figured it out—it was just about a year ago that former The River Reporter editor, Charlie Buterbaugh, invited me to start this column. So it’s the first birthday of “The Peace and Justice Files,” and an apt occasion for self-assessment.

Putting the columns end-to-end, I see that they don’t seem to build on each other so much as outline a territory, or lay a foundation. Personal relations, public relations, commercial relations, political relations, spiritual relations—I have tried to stake out certain points in each of these areas, and sometimes start to draw the connections between them.

After all, the application of the “holistic” worldview to politics leads to the inescapable conclusion that all these areas of our lives are in fact interconnected in many ways. There are straight lines from inner peace to world peace and back; any action we take, however small, to lessen someone’s suffering lightens the load of the planet.

The society in which we live, on the other hand, seems designed to camouflage those connections as much as possible. Someone, it seems, would have us think that we live in some kind of bubble of isolation, where our actions and choices have little impact on others or, if they did, it’s on some other remote people somewhere who wouldn’t matter anyway. (“Diamond miners in Sierra Leone? Who are they? And why shouldn’t I have this lovely little bauble; it’s so shiny...”)

So that’s been one point of this column so far—to try to illustrate where those connections exist, between our daily lives and world events, between our communities and farflung towns across the planet. But it’s not enough to know what’s going on. We have to have opportunities both for self-education and for action. Otherwise, the mere knowledge of the state of the world can be demoralizing, depressing and even paralyzing. So I try to include Internet sites, books and other resources that offer ways to make positive contributions, right where we happen to be, or ways to inform ourselves and make better assessments of situations.

The last year has been momentous. From Katrina to Tom Fox, Jack Abramoff to Ann Coulter, immigration to Iraq, the flaws in our existing systems have become clearer, the need for fundamental changes more obvious, and the likelihood of such changes, frankly, ever more remote.

This next year will pose some daunting challenges, on personal and political levels. Between now and November, I think “Job Number One” for all of us has to be the restoration of balances between the various parts of our society, balances that have been shattered by the occurrences of the past five years, and that must be re-established if this society is to hold together.

For myself, I’m stepping into a new phase of my life, as my present work arrangements are ending and I’m preparing to enter the risky but exciting world of the full-time writer on a much more serious basis. Writing this column is a big part of that venture, and so I am very grateful to Laurie Stuart and the staff of The River Reporter for the opportunity, especially my editor, Anne Willard, whose thoughtful suggestions have been very helpful as I begin to establish my own effective voice. I also want to thank all the folks who have given me feedback on these columns. People have let me know that they derive encouragement and enjoyment from them, and that’s the best gift they could give me.