13. The only easy day was yesterday
This will change not only the length of Powerful Peace postings, but also the frequency. (It’s amazing what one can learn just from scanning good blogs.) I will intend to provide more entries, more often.
It’s up to the reader to determine whether that’s a positive or a negative.
In our SEAL training, a common phrase heard was, “The only easy day was yesterday”. If you know anything about the incredible rigors of the course that turns sailors into SEALs, you understand that this phrase is an example of grim humor.
(Brief aside, here, for entertainment purposes: I called my family when I finished Hell Week, the period of five days during which we run, jump, swim, and carry heavy things around – do pretty much anything active, in fact…except sleep. Apparently I should have waited a couple of days to call. The sound of the tattered remnants of my voice - more like a death rattle – was very upsetting to those of a more sensitive nature.)
“The only easy day was yesterday” is not just funny in SEAL training, it’s true - relatively speaking. Each day we’d rise, knowing how very difficult the day before had been…and that it had in fact been easy, compared to what today would bring.
Mother Teresa
Powerful Peace is similar. As Sheri wrote in a comment after the last piece, “In my book the soft road takes A LOT more courage and strength….” I agree. Mother Teresa springs to mind. (That was a link, by the way - P2’s going high-tech.) She demonstrated unbreakable conviction to caring for people in need. She probably suffered incredible hardship over her decades of service in the stench of the trench. Her “soft road” was hard.
On the other hand, I believe that the hard road can be soft. I have witnessed very self-satisfied individuals who display no sense of caring for strangers, and who appear to possess a general disregard for others’ feelings. Life with this sense of entitlement seems to be quite comfortable, and fairly trouble-free.
As soon as I lean toward this criticism, however, I am reminded of my own tendency to judge those who differ from me. Maybe one is self-interested because he learned it and cannot know otherwise. Maybe he is bigoted and insecure because his father was bigoted and insecure. Who knows which moments, out of the millions of moments in each person’s life, carry the greatest weight and most influence his worldview?
It’s helpful to me, when I begin to indulge in self-righteous condemnation, to keep in mind the factors that might lie behind a person’s unpleasant way of behaving. For instance, I know that day is called “day” because I was taught so by people who had learned it from people before them. The same is true in prejudice. Someone may dislike white people because they were taught so by others who were taught so. Where does the chain of blame and judging end?
Jewel Kilcher
It ends at another facet of the Jewel of Powerful Peace: Accountability. Since I know that my perspective is somewhat flawed, and I know that my brother’s perspective is somewhat flawed, it benefits no one for me to try and force my belief on him. If I truly believe in my way (serving in the slums of India, for example), I simply act in that belief. Maybe my deeds, rather than my demands, will soften a hard spirit and gain an ally.
Two caveats: firstly, I know that it was blatantly self-serving to slip a photo of Jewel into a paragraph that has nothing to do with her. I can’t help it. She’s my favorite female singer, followed by Sezen Aksu.
Secondly, I should acknowledge that this was in fact not a brief post, but I would argue that the introduction about SEAL things took a lot of space.
I’ll try to do better next time.
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
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