Veterans Day Once Again

Veteran's Day 2009
For some reason, this year is the year that I have broken through my disinterest at being a veteran. For many years, I have chosen to separate myself from that part of my life, living with a sense of "why bother." I was in the military service from 1974-1984--three years on active duty and seven more in the active reserve. The so-called "Vietnam Era" ended about three weeks before I enlisted, so most of the men with whom I worked had been to Vietnam. Their anger became my anger, and when we were told that it was still not safe to wear the uniform in public, I felt the same dishonor. When I was called "baby killer" in an airport, I felt the same rage! I was too young to realize that the name calling people were just stupid because women in the combat zones in those days were the so-called "noncombatants"; we were only just beginning to be trained to kill even as we were dying there.

Thirty years later, I am beginning to feel gratitude for the privilege of serving in the military. This is a great country and I am proud to have served it. I still do not like war---I figured that out during a training exercise in 1976 or so while lying in three or four inches of water in a simulated rice paddy while they fired live machine gun rounds over our heads---but I value the time spent in uniform. I feel like that time somehow gives me some ownership over the place I live.

My dad was in World War II, also a non-combatant. He fixed the airplanes which helped bring the war with Japan to its conclusion. Most of his friends did not know he was in the service until his obituary was printed in the paper. He was also very upset when I made the decision to enlist. I wonder if he felt the same way I did, because he was a man of peace. I wonder if his disinterest had to do with his reluctant acceptance of the need for an army. I wish I could ask him that question.

So today I will accept that part of my life. I will not become a raging patriot because those folks scare me, but I can carry in my soul the realization that I did my job for my country, and I did it to the best of my ability at a very tough time in our nation's history. That is enough.

Fear versus faith

I had a conversation with a friend the other day that turned to the subject of fear. As our conversation progressed, I came to the realization that all of my fear is firmly based in the future! Try as I might, I cannot think of anything happening right now that causes me fear; it is all about what might be. Even if there is a rattlesnake coiled in the middle of my living room floor, I am only afraid that it MIGHT strike; if it strikes, I am then afraid that I MIGHT die. So when I am afraid about bills or the weather or whether or not someone likes me, those fears are based in a time other than right now. In the twelve step recovery program, people are taught to stay in the now, to quit worrying about the future or regretting the past. Jesus reminded those who followed him to worry about today and let tomorrow's worries take care of themselves.

So then I thought some more: Can I profess to be a person of faith and be afraid at the same time? That is a tough question, because in a perfect world, fear and faith cannot live in the same person at the same time. If I trust that all will be well, how can I be afraid? If I truly trust that God will take care of me, how can I worry about what will happen in the next hour, day, week, month?

What saves me is that I do not live in a perfect world. I forget and when I forget, I become afraid. The good news is that I don't forget as often as I used to. Prayer and meditation have become a habit rather than a bandaid for emergencies, and I have discovered that regular prayer and meditation feed my faith, banishing fear to the dark corners. Fear is not gone; but it is weakened in the sunlight of faith, and for that I am very grateful!

I really enjoyed my sister's visit. One of the things that often happens to me is that I will travel across the United States to see new things while I am missing the things here at home. My sister had never seen a redwood tree, and had only seen the ocean a couple of times. I live next to the ocean, and I walk among the redwoods all the time. While I love both of these things of nature, I had become so used to them that they had lost their incredible magnificence. I literally could not see the forest for the trees. Spending three days among the trees with my sister helped me to see them once again; to see them for the incredible living beings that they are! Hearing her exclamations of amazement about the size and extent of the ocean caused me to open my eyes to its power and strength.

It is awfully easy to do that same thing with almost anything familiar. George and I have been married thirty years, and I catch myself taking him and our life together for granted. I have a big wonderful family scattered all over the place, but until I began trying to catch up on them in the conversations with my sister, I did not realize how disconnected I had become. I live in a beautiful place, and I often don't see it. I serve a wonderful church filled with magnificent people, and I lose sight of that amidst the little problems which come up because people are people! My prayer for myself (and for everyone I know) is that we all might open our eyes and truly appreciate the world in which we live. It might be a great surprise!!!