The hole cost

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight_d_eisenhower.html

I really don’t know enough about Eisenhower, but I do know he had some excellent quotes.  Whoever, or whatever else he might have been, he had that going for him.

The above quote brings to mind much of what I am seeing today.  We have a warmongering leadership, and have had one, for quite some time.  Our response to societal discord and discontent is violence.  We glorify it in music and movies – the righteous response of a man done wrong.  We romanticize it.  Indeed, we dream of one day doing it.  “Tear it from my cold dead hands!” exclaims Charlton Heston during an NRA rally.  Whether it’s a burglar breaking in to our house, an armed lunatic in line at McDonald’s or the ever present Government, we know what our response will be and we are primed for it.

There is a parable I am fond of remembering.  I try to keep it in the forefront of my mind at all times; a golden rule, you might say.  The bare bones of it is about a father who has a son that is always losing his temper and lashing out at the people around him.  He is admonished, feels guilty and apologizes to those he has lashed out at, but he continues to lose his temper, failing to change his ways.  One day the father brings his son a hammer and nails and directs him to hammer a nail into the fence surrounding their yard every time he feels the desire to lash out come upon him.  At first there are many, many nails, but over the weeks there are fewer and fewer nails, until one day the son does not add a new nail to the fence.  He has learned the first step to peace.  The father then instructs the boy that for every day he does not put a nail into the fence he may take one out.  Over many months the son slowly removes all the nails until there are none remaining.  He has learned the second step to peace.  Standing there with his father, looking at the fence, the son notices how many ugly holes are now all over the fence, marring its appearance.  His father explains to him- “The nails were your anger, damaging the fence with each new nail you added.  When you removed them, that was your apology.  The holes that remain is the damage left in your wake.  An apology removes the nail, but only by controlling your anger can you prevent the harm.”  The son began to understand the why of peace.

We cherish our anger, proud of how we might use it, but we do not see the holes.

By Dan Granot

I chose the Shorter Whitman because of his work, "Song of Myself" and because of my self-deprecating sense of humor. I am under no illusion that I can write successful essays or poetry, but I have been known to write them anyway.

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