I was with my longest-lasting girlfriend, talking about changes in our society in our lifetimes. All America's sacred rules were revamped in the sixties. Our brothers, sons, and husbands could no longer be forced to go to war. Black American citizens could no longer be abused without their abusers facing serious legal challenges. Women were able to plan their professional and family lives through ready access to conception control. Christianity was set on a new course of compassion and respect for other religious views. With such great freedoms, much chaos has ensued.
It is true that many of we women weren't sure what to make of it all. We began experimenting with the way males had behaved, becoming just as irresponsible and irrepressible as many of our men had allowed themselves to be. Our children have suffered. They have very few inherited boundaries with which to guide their own behaviors. All the traditional models of adult behavior were all but abandoned by our flower child, feminist freedoms.
It is time for our America to decide where we want the world to end up, and begin helping to define what boundaries and goals are best for future societies. I believe that the greatest goal would be peace on earth. I also believe that sacred scriptures have a great deal to teach us about ways we have waylaid that process in generation after generation. I believe "heaven" can begin on earth if we stop the competition for the most of everything.
We have reared children who believe in justice. Justice requires fairness and equal partnerships in our complex society. It requires the honoring of the skills of every human and the insistence that we all pull our loads, even from early ages. Unfortunately, we were so busy finding ourselves and community networks, many of us lost our sense of responsibility for the families we created. We also found out that we all need some sort of boundaries to our paths in life or we lose our way. We need, not only boundaries, but an end-point in mind.
Many have been frightened by the drastic changes and want to turn the clock back to the past when neither women nor black people had full citizenship privileges. Many want to continue seeking eternal life without addressing the improvements that we can make in our Sacred Spirits in this life. Many believe that we can create peace by killing and conquering, even though this has only ever created temporary truce with retaliation awaiting the next generation.
Ladies, it is time to grow up and pay our dues. We now have sons who parent our grandchildren in a loving manner, so we could continue to be active in the greater society. We need to be ready to think about and discuss how the old and the new values interrelate. We need to help the new generation direct their energies toward justice and lasting peace. We need to help our own men step aside from procreation, property, and protection and step into partnership. This is new to them, so we must be patient.
I can't remember where I read it, but somewhere I heard that for a business to succeed, one should not invent something new, only improve something that exists by 10%. Perhaps when we look at society, we would all be better off to realize that "getting there" may take more than our own lifetimes. America is still assimilating the upheaval of the sixties. The Girl Scouts taught me that I should leave every place I went better than I found it. If each of us can stop concentrating on the end of our singular lives and attempt to leave 10% more positive energy in the world than what we found, maybe the new goal of peace on earth will eventually come to pass.
We're not done yet, but we have to stop attempting revenge for all our years of oppression. All that woman energy can be rerouted to creating a path to peace on earth. We can start with our own men (fathers, husbands, sons, and lovers) who have been rather lost ever since we stopped demanding that they train as warriors and war lords. If they are willing to learn to love with us, we may have to learn to laugh with them.
The real world is not our "G" rated Pollyanna fantasies of fairies, knights in shining armor, and Prince Charmings. Most men seem to need laughter as a way to scare away their own demons. Lock the kids out of the room and hold each other while you both laugh at the absurdities of real life.
It is true that many of we women weren't sure what to make of it all. We began experimenting with the way males had behaved, becoming just as irresponsible and irrepressible as many of our men had allowed themselves to be. Our children have suffered. They have very few inherited boundaries with which to guide their own behaviors. All the traditional models of adult behavior were all but abandoned by our flower child, feminist freedoms.
It is time for our America to decide where we want the world to end up, and begin helping to define what boundaries and goals are best for future societies. I believe that the greatest goal would be peace on earth. I also believe that sacred scriptures have a great deal to teach us about ways we have waylaid that process in generation after generation. I believe "heaven" can begin on earth if we stop the competition for the most of everything.
We have reared children who believe in justice. Justice requires fairness and equal partnerships in our complex society. It requires the honoring of the skills of every human and the insistence that we all pull our loads, even from early ages. Unfortunately, we were so busy finding ourselves and community networks, many of us lost our sense of responsibility for the families we created. We also found out that we all need some sort of boundaries to our paths in life or we lose our way. We need, not only boundaries, but an end-point in mind.
Many have been frightened by the drastic changes and want to turn the clock back to the past when neither women nor black people had full citizenship privileges. Many want to continue seeking eternal life without addressing the improvements that we can make in our Sacred Spirits in this life. Many believe that we can create peace by killing and conquering, even though this has only ever created temporary truce with retaliation awaiting the next generation.
Ladies, it is time to grow up and pay our dues. We now have sons who parent our grandchildren in a loving manner, so we could continue to be active in the greater society. We need to be ready to think about and discuss how the old and the new values interrelate. We need to help the new generation direct their energies toward justice and lasting peace. We need to help our own men step aside from procreation, property, and protection and step into partnership. This is new to them, so we must be patient.
I can't remember where I read it, but somewhere I heard that for a business to succeed, one should not invent something new, only improve something that exists by 10%. Perhaps when we look at society, we would all be better off to realize that "getting there" may take more than our own lifetimes. America is still assimilating the upheaval of the sixties. The Girl Scouts taught me that I should leave every place I went better than I found it. If each of us can stop concentrating on the end of our singular lives and attempt to leave 10% more positive energy in the world than what we found, maybe the new goal of peace on earth will eventually come to pass.
We're not done yet, but we have to stop attempting revenge for all our years of oppression. All that woman energy can be rerouted to creating a path to peace on earth. We can start with our own men (fathers, husbands, sons, and lovers) who have been rather lost ever since we stopped demanding that they train as warriors and war lords. If they are willing to learn to love with us, we may have to learn to laugh with them.
The real world is not our "G" rated Pollyanna fantasies of fairies, knights in shining armor, and Prince Charmings. Most men seem to need laughter as a way to scare away their own demons. Lock the kids out of the room and hold each other while you both laugh at the absurdities of real life.
