4/21/2024

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Please call Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. He’s nervous about the junta’s clashes with the democracy fighters. He wrote on X “I do not desire to see any such clashes have any impact on the territorial integrity of Thailand & we are ready to protect our borders & the safety of our people.” Please remind him WINTA!

            How much friction do we need in this world in order to experience joy, beauty & love? I ask myself this because when I turn my eyes to Burma, Sudan, Gaza & Ukraine & see the suffering in those places, I despair. I know that my personal actions cannot end the conflicts immediately & I am tempted to shrug my shoulders & say, “not my problem.”

            Then I remember my grandfather & how he was living a comfortable life in Russia, when all hell broke loose. Violence can erupt at any time, in any place, at any scale. This sense of impending doom fuels fears. We recognize that our lives are always in a precarious balance & any perturbation could mean the end.

            We each grapple with this existential challenge in our own way. Benedictine Sister of Erie, Joan D. Chittister, put it this way, “All war starts within our own hearts. When our egos are inflated or our desires insatiable, we go to war with the other for the sad joy of maintaining our one-dimensional worlds.”

            If I want to see the end of war between armies, I need to acknowledge the war within by accepting my imperfections, my self-destructive cravings & ultimately, my mortality. How do I love my life, when at some point, I will lose it?

            BYBS,