Organized Belief

I was once at a panel discussion among Jews, Muslims and Christians.  At one point, the Rabbi, in an effort help us to understand his tradition said " If you don't like organized Religion, join us - Judism is definitely not organized.  He got a good laugh, mainly from the Jews in the room.  He went on to describe Judism as an evolving religion with debate about beliefs encouraged.

It causes me to wonder if, indeed, vigorous exploration and debate is possible in an "organized" format.  That is, is it necessary for a group to have "agreed upon" beliefs in order to provide a community and companionship and a viable search for God.  Or are agreed upon believes part of what keeps churches and religious institutions stagnant, and actually avoid an evolving understanding of God.

And further - is it even possible to "believe" what one is told to believe, or does this build hypocrisy into the system.  Hypocrisy in belief (often suppressed in oneself) in the pursuit of the other benefits of being part of a community that is otherwise comfortable.

Fear

My plants are not afraid.

I regularly come at them armed with all manner of sharp objects and there is not a quiver, no tears, no wringing of the leaves.

All plants are this way. Redwood trees that have lived for thousands of years stand patiently while creatures 1/1000th their size chop away at them, cutting off their life sustaining mechanisms, and let them fall – sometimes just for the brief thrill of the fall sometimes to make picnic tables.

The cynical will say that, duh, they have no central nervous system, no brain, not thought process etc. etc. etc.
True enough. But why not? Why do they have no capacity for fear while it often dominates our lives.

I’ve decided its because they can’t do anything about what threatens them. We can. We are not held in one place. We, and the vast majority of animals, can generally have some influence on our own survival with some kind of motion. But to get us into motion, se need a motivator. Fear is the answer.

Over the eons, clearly he who has developed fear has survived – to reproduce other little beings who have inherited this capacity.

Traditionally fear has motivated animals into a “fight or flight” mode – response denied to our herbaceous friends. This reaction is immediate, and basic to animal life and it takes significant maturity and courage to get beyond it.

At a recent holiday get together, my 18 month old granddaughter, lost in a sea of legs, cozied up to some denim clad ones she assumed were her dad’s. When an upward glance revealed her uncle Sam instead she made a quick spin around and flew down a hallway as fast as her 10 inch legs could propel her. At this age she had the wisdom to know fighting was not an option, her prospects were no better in unknown parts of the house.

Her reaction was primal. It was a visceral reaction to the unknown and the strange ,that had kept her ancestors alive long enough to reproduce. No small thing there.

At the same time, it was unnecessary as she learned over the course of the evening. Not only was her Uncle Sam no one to be feared but he could be fun. It took courage on her part to find this out beginning with the courage to be in the same room as him, warily and then enthusiastically share a good game of “peek-a-boo” and finally engage in a free for all “chase” around the coffee table. The ultimate acceptance, of course, came with the “breaking of bread” (in this case a carrot stick) together. There is something about eating together that brings about bonding.

Fear, while clearly a gift from god than can preserve life, unfortunately brings with it challenges that can be just ironically threaten life.

If we do not show the courage that my granddaughter did, if we are unwilling to face our fear and evaluate them fear breeds hatred and hatred can make us do all kinds of dreadful things.

Fear, and ultimately hatred, of the maggots in my compost pile very nearly caused me to take rash action that would have been detrimental to both these little creatures and myself. To overcome the fear, I had to overcome ignorance, I had to broaden my outlook, I had to include brown wiggly maggots within the context of God’s creation. Note – I did not have to find them appealing. But to assume I had a right because of my mindset, my pupa prejudice, to eliminate the source of my discomfort is a big leap and I’m pretty sure that god would not approve – metaphorically speaking of course.

But OMG how we humans do this. Diversity is not something any of us is initially good at. Again, for good reason. Fear of the different is deep in our genes. But we have some other gifts floating around that brain of ours – the gifts of reason and courage. In my experience, if I use them I will

This is not a concern in my little garden. Nobody is fearful of anybody else

War

Reading "Half the Sky" which reminds me of the terrible things people do to other people very often in the name of God. Reminded me of this piece that I wrote in 2005 as we were getting entangled in Iraq. (Not much to do with Gardens, oh well).


February 24, 2005

Deja Vue

The U.S. began bombing Vietnam with B-52’s in 1966. Twenty thousand combat soldiers were on the ground at that time, a small percentage of what was to come. That summer I lived on an Army base in Colorado. What I experienced there it broke my heart and changed me as a person. Today, to the tune of the same rhetoric, the same politics, the same promises of freedom, we again send our youth to fight, sacrifice and die. My long ago summer seems like it was yesterday.
I was a student at UC Davis, majoring in nutrition with the intent of becoming a Registered Dietitian. The Army, interested in recruiting dietitians, offered us an all expense paid July at one of their hospitals where we would serve as “trainees”, and hopefully become enamored with what the Army had to offer.
Resistance to the “police action” in Vietnam was beginning to build; it was enough to cause most of my classmates to look askance at the military. I, on the other hand, had no trouble leaving decisions about the protection of our freedoms to the wisdom of elected officials. I was happy to consider being of service to my country, and anyway, was pretty confident that they weren’t going man the front lines with dietitians.
My assignment, along with seven other student dietitians, was Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver Colorado. We met, worked and learned from a variety of people of all ranks and responsibilities. We celebrated my 21st birthday with a party at the officer’s club complete with inexpensive drinks, great hors d'oeuvres, and good company. While we spent many evenings at the club, we also had nights on the town in Denver, which, for this newly minted adult, was pretty exiting stuff. We lived in officer’s quarters, walked around in our white wannabe officers uniforms, and in general enjoyed a heady sense of being “special” people.
We were young and war was fun.
Darkness, however, quietly crept in. Our responsibilities included meeting with patients to discuss food preferences and any special dietary restrictions. One wing, “Four East”, filled even the most stalwart young dietitian with foreboding. This wing consisted of a large ward with dozens of barracks style beds and a few private rooms for officers. The patients were all, essentially, healthy teenagers and young men. Walking in there was like walking into a spirited fraternity house whose members had way to much time on their hands. Bare in mind, this was pre women’s lib.
Why were these fine representatives of manhood housed at Fitzsimmons Hospital? Most were missing something: legs, arms, hands, parts of this or that. Some had spinal injuries. This was an orthopedic ward and these kids were returnees from Vietnam recovering as best they could from debilitating injuries. I came to the sad realization that the macho fervor demonstrated by these guys was, in fact, a desperate effort to convince themselves that they were still whole. Once in awhile the facade would crack, exposing a scared little boy. Over the month I was there, the rows of disfigured, maimed bodies increasingly weighed on me.
One man I remember did not display any bravado. He was a new admit in a private room so he must have been an officer. Probably in his mid twenties, he seemed quite mature by my standards. Sitting up in bed, he was naked to the waist. His chest and arms had a number of superficial injuries on them. His dark hair was long enough to be in disarray and there was a bit of a gloss to his skin. Staring straight ahead when I entered the room, he did not acknowledge my presence. I thought he had a drop dead gorgeous body, all the way down to where it ended, right above where the knees should have been.
I began my introductions in my standard cheery manner that was no doubt grating to someone who did not feel particularly cheery. When asked about his vegetable preferences, he slowly turned his eyes to me: they were dark, and deep, and did a poor job of hiding a crushing sadness. He responded, very politely, “I don’t really care”. Although the voice was quiet, I had a sense that another idiotic question was going to induce serious anger. I was being summarily dismissed, and I took my exit.
There was a 19 year old who passed his days chest down on a gurney and maneuvered himself around the ward with the use of a small child’s crutch in each hand. He could only be described as insensitive and crude, making salacious comments to women and going so far as to maneuver his gurney to trap an occasional female in a corner and make sexual propositions to her.
After such an encounter I complained to one of the staff nurses. She was a statuesque blonde who had also been the victim of this behavior, but who seemed to take it in stride - odd even in those days. Her response was brusque. “That boy may have never had sex in his life, and now he is dead from the chest down. Let’s give him a break”. Hot tears welled up in my eyes, a result partially from the embarrassment of my own naïveté, but more from a painful empathy that I suddenly felt. Whatever splendor I had once seen in war was dissipating rapidly.
At Fitzsimmons hospital that month I began a process of questioning that was to change my outlook on war. While our leaders squabbled for months over the shape of the negotiation table, the despair in the dark eyes of that young officer haunted me. I could not listen to the continual assurances that this “war is necessary to protect our freedoms”, or brave political declarations that we would “stick this out until we liberated the Vietnamese people from the communists” without seeing the rows of deformed boys and young men. And the humiliating way we finally ducked out of that country, after so many years of horror and destruction, was as excruciating as it had been inevitable. Nothing was gained. The losses were huge – I had been witness to some.
It was a funny thing about that war. Statistics about “casualties” – those Americans that died - were commonly available, as were the highly inflated figures of “enemy” deaths. But the injuries, the maiming, those weren’t often reported. Death is tidy, over, done with. It is even conveniently wrapped up in boxes covered with pretty flags. Maiming isn’t tidy. The personal losses, the daily struggles, the chronic pain, and the indignities, grind on day after day, year after year, decade after decade.
War, which had always been billed to me as the way good people protect their freedoms from bad people, showed itself as archaic, bizarre and just stupid. The more I questioned, the more realized that it has never been a way to end disputes, but in fact, like most fighting among human beings, it is a contest for power. And, as President (and General) Dwight D. Eisenhower so dramatically warned, the other impetus is profit.
The profundity of the phrase “violence begets violence” is masked by its triteness. Nonetheless, centuries of experience demonstrate its validity. Just ask the Irish, the Israelis and Palestinians, or any street gang in Sacramento. Violence only plants the seeds of more violence and only ends when the hearts and minds of the mutual enemies are reached.
Thirty-eight years after my Colorado summer we again brandish our big stick and scoff at the idea of talking softly. Power and profit are sought for the powerful and the rich while the rest of us anesthetize ourselves with the nobility of war “for the sake of freedom”. Once again we don’t bother asking if we aren’t just making things worse. Once again we show remarkable unwillingness to put effort, and resources, into seeking mutual lasting solutions to our formidable global problems. We fall in formation as the “military-industrial complex” and the power hungry beat the drums of this barbaric custom.
In October my first grandchild was born. Named Colin for his great great grandfather he is a reminder to us of our responsibilities toward the future. He looks into my eyes with the unquestioning trust of a newborn. The thought of this perfect child, someday face down on a gurney, propelling himself with tiny crutches and dealing with unimaginable losses – because of someone else’s power trip or bottom line - brings tears to my eyes and I feel connected with all the families who have seen their loved ones slip into oblivion, and found themselves haunted by the word “why?”

Avarice

In the back of my garden – at the pointy end of the pie shape are two small peach trees. Bred to produce lots of peaches, they sometimes outdo themselves. They inevitably produce more that we can use in the short time they are ripe. On more than one occasion they have produced so many peaches on a branch that the branch has been broken and it, and the peaches have been lost. I could have removed some of the peaches when they were small. I knew I should have at the time. But there was something about all those lovely peaches. I wanted them all. And of course I paid (and my little tree) the price.

There is something about more. I love my tomato plants covered with tomatoes, far in excess of what we than we can eat. Vines heavy with green beans, and the very satisfyingly overproductive zucchini, appeal to something within me. If I am honest, I recognize it as a familiar feeling – avarice. Having more is, at some level, exciting, delicious. More than what? Just more.

Assume for a minute that God is a Grandfather-like guy, with a long white beard and flowing robes, enthroned in the clouds. If there is one human trait that keeps him up at night, it is avarice.

We tend to think of avarice as just concerning financial matters – and that is a major destructive force to be sure. But I prefer the more technical, broader definition roughly conveyed as “This ain’t good enough, God!”

More than any other human failing, this is the one that will bring us to our last days as we drain and pollute our Garden of Eden in search of more, more, and still more.

Regardless of our wealth, or culture, humans typically convince ourselves that what we have is not enough. We see something we want, we hyperventilate. We buy. Very often we go into debt to buy. We possess. We store and dust and fill our shelves and our closets and our garages and we stack boxes in corners, and we buy things to store and display the things we have and we and rent storage units, and then we buy more to replace the things that we already have but we forgot we had, or we can’t find them.

It’s all very human. I suppose some rodents are known for putting up supplies for the winter (and occasionally forget where they have stored them which accounts for a lot of new trees in the Spring) but by and large the rest of God's creatures do not seem to have this drive to accumulate beyond their needs.

Oddly – the way we show love or congratulations or appreciation or, for that matter, any excuse, is to give something.

Imagine what life would be like if we cut back to what we need, and/or, as someone suggested, really love. (I have to say that because otherwise I’d have to exclude chocolate and I don’t want to go there.) All those hours in the mall, all the time moving, cleaning and deciding what to do with stuff not to mention coveting other people’s stuff.

This human trait and does not have any basis on our real needs, or our economic status. The need for more is just as powerful in the wealthy as the poor. Somebody did a “study”. Someone is always doing a study. But this one was interesting.

They interviewed lots of people and asked how much money would make them comfortable – would be enough. Regardless of culture or economic status, people pretty much said the same thing. They would feel satisfied, and at ease if they had 2.4 times as much. If you had $10,000 you wanted $24,000. If you had $100,000 you wanted $240,000. If you had a billion – well you get the idea. Very few of us are happy with what er have now, but among the happy, you would be just as likely to be poor as rich.

This was also a moving target. If you reached your 2.4 times, goal, it transformed itself. Now you want wanted 2.4 times what you now have.

And yet there is plenty of evidence that, beyond the basic needs, having more does not bring happiness. It is common to give lip service to that idea, but how many of us really are willing to live our lives at a simpler more basic level?

What if we didn’t have 10 or more pairs of shoes? What if we actually wore our clothes out? What if we didn’t keep replacing and started repairing. What if we learned to enjoy simple food in reasonable portions? What if we stopped buying, buying, buying? What if we had room for what we own and I don’t mean by buying a bigger house. What if we left a little for our grandchildren?

When I picture God in his kindly anthropologic form, I see a tear in his eye. I do know this – refusal to be happy with the gifts God has given is not the way to love God.

When I am sitting in my little garden with the bees and the bugs and the birds and the plants with their leaves turned toward the light I am struck by the simple satisfaction that comes from appreciating the abundance of nature, and pausing ever so briefly from a life of accumulating and collecting stuff.

It is complex and it is simple. It is all a wonderful gift but so common we usually fail to see how generous nature is to us. The plants collect water with their roots and carbon dioxide with their leaves and use the sunlight to produce sugars that are the basis for their structure and our food. They don’t complain. There is plenty. Each plant provides far more fruits and seeds and roots that are needed for its own reproduction and so provides food for animals. It is simpbeautiful. It is breathtaking. And when sitting in my garden, at least for a few moments now and then, I realize it blasphemous to be anything other than grateful or to ask for more.

There are two major threats to the survival of the human species. One is environmental degradation which would include climate change. The other is war, increasingly war over resources. Both of these threats could be significantly reduced if not all together alleviated if we could control our avarice.

Today we need to use another divine trait we have been given - the ability to see beyond, to project forward, to see ourselves as part of a single living organism. We need the wisdom to say enough is enough, to trim back the peaches, to share the tomatoes, to rejoice in the generosity of nature and stop demanding more.



“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed”

All God’s Creatures – Maggots

Sometime in August I went through my morning ritual of putting the kitchen scrapes in the compost pile, when, in one of those ghastly horror filled moments, that are usually best presented on the silver screen, it became apparent that everything was moving. A cautious push of the top layer of debris revealed a huge tangled mass of grayish brown, wiggling maggots! Clearly there were thousands, or at least hundreds. How does one count these things?

I jumped back, let out an entirely too loud shriek, and ran back to the safety of my kitchen. Michael Pollen did not mention this charming aspect of food production. A quick peruse of my gardening library offered no assistance whatsoever. Many descriptions of the loamy texture and comfortable fragrance of well kept compost, much admiration of the unity one feels with nature. Not word one on Maggots.

Clearly, I had a problem that no one else had – or that no one else wanted to admit to, which I understood. No way was my husband going to learn of this development.

So, in my lonely shame, I poured a cup of coffee and hit the internet. Two words on Google “compost and maggots” yielded some surprising results.

Turns out, these things do appear in the best of compost piles and, as Martha would say, are “a good thing”. They are not the meat eating maggots we associate with dead animals, but strictly vegetarian pupa of “Black Soldier flies” (Hermetia ilucens), that speed up composting and conveniently will die off in Fall with regular turning of the pile. Apparently, some people even pay for the things. Imagine that.

Reluctantly, I took another peek at my redeemed co-gardeners. Sorry to say, they were still wiggly maggots and my response to them was still, well, aversion at best. Nonetheless, we came to a truce of sorts – they could enjoy themselves in my compost and I would do my best to appreciate their contributions to the process.

This, of course, is not a well publicized part of composting. It can have its embarrassments. My son’s family was visiting for a few days when, after showing his children the garden he took me quietly aside and whispered (yeah, whispered) “Mom, do you know there are maggots in your compost?” His 4 year old son, did not share our uneasiness. Several times a day he would run out to the garden and watch the “worms”. After his fourth birthday party I found assorted wrapping paper, cardboard and plastic packaging added to the pile – his contribution of “garbage” to feed them.

I think small children are more in touch with the sacred, with the astounding reality of the universe, than we are. Not intellectually but in a visceral fundamental sense they get it. They are still innocent enough with the world to be fascinated by what we have labeled repugnant.

Children understand, at some level, that these little beings are God’s creatures, just as the jays that I love fluttering around my garden (and helping themselves to my strawberries), just as the worms that maintain the soil, just as we all are. Where to I have the right to label these creations as “good, or bad”, “beautiful or ugly”, acceptable or unacceptable”. Talk about hubris.

Of course, this si something we humans do all the time, at least those of us beyond the age of five or so. It so dreadfully complicates our lives just as predicted in the story of Adam and Eve where they bring sorrow into their lives because they ate the fruit of the tree of “Knowledge of Good and Evil” and dualism entered into our psyche. Traditionally this described as a “Fall”, a wise friend of mine named Harry said it was a fall “up”. We gained knowledge. But we also gained the ability to judge and cast dispersions on ourselves of being good and being evil.

We judge things that make us uncomfortable or cause fear in us, say maggots, or different kinds of people, or sharks, or bad hair cuts, as evil. And regrettably, we humans, all too often, take the next step – to sanctimoniously disparage or even eliminate the “evildoers” and, oddly in the process , validate ourselves, because we are “not them”.

We are funny creatures.

Did God forbid us to gain consciousness of “good and evil”. In other words, is it a bad thing that we make these divisions. Tough one. But those who first told story certainly understood the problems of such knowledge and how it separates us from the rest of life on this planet. Life has roared on and evolved and filled niches and expanded both in diversity and shear quantity over the last several billion years and probably would for several billion years longer. But a new comer, Homo sapiens with big brains and the willingness to divide God’s creation into acceptable (and not bothersome) and unacceptable (and therefore dispensable) has certainly put life on this planet in peril.

Is there evil in God’s creation?

Of course, one needs first to define evil. A friend of mine, now deceased, said that ‘evil” is that which is contrary to the continuation of Life (capital L intended). That would be life the big picture – the whole thing, the creepy crawlies, the algae, the carbon cycle, photosynthesis, frogs and maggots.

It doesn’t mean “little picture” life, that being me and the people I like and my “way of life”.

To preserve and respect life – to do good, not evil – I’m convinced requires us to accept and promote life in the biggest sense, on God’s terms, not on our own.

Killing

There is a lot of killing in my garden. Not the least of which is done by me – ripping up carrots, tearing out lettuce by its roots, digging up potatoes and cutting of asparagus plants shortly after they emerge to search for light.

Careful observation reveals that others are involved in this distasteful activity. There are the ubiquitous spider webs – instruments of execution. Birds nibble here and there, various insects dine on others and then there is the feral cat that wanders in from time to time; I know he is eating something.

All of this is, well, natural. Part of God’s plan. Interestingly, all the major religions have some sort of admonition against killing. Whatever is meant by that?

Religious people throughout history have had remarkably different interpretations of this “commandment”. You have Sikhs who wear masks to avoid inhaling, and thus killing, an absent-minded insect. Certain Buddhists have been known to carefully dig up and find new accommodations for worms in an area that is to be excavated. At the other extreme are many, probably most of us, are willing to kill most anyone whose lives we find inconvenient.

The Dalai Lama was once asked if he would kill a mosquito. He replied that he would probably let the insect take a first bite, but if it came back for a second, it was toast. ( I’m paraphrasing here.) I’m not so inclined to be generous with that first nip, but I do understand the sentiment. We need to be disciplined and thoughtful about our killing. Taking out a mosquito, frankly, is not a challenge to the big picture. On the other hand, eliminating mosquitoes entirely, as we often want to do for “bothersome” creatures, is damaging to God’s ecosystem and ultimately to our own well being.

I think the Dalai Lama was suggesting that there are no “up or down” rules. We will all kill on a regular basis – animals, plants, mosquitoes, gut bacteria. Whatever. But when we choose to end life that is part of the divine fabric, it behooves us to be aware, to be mindful, to do it with care.

Some argue that “killing” in religious texts refers only to humans. While that seems a little chauvinistic I have to agree that there is something more serious about taking the life of conscious beings, including ourselves. Even within this narrower focus, however, a clear rule is not apparent. Many see an absolute prohibition against homicide of any form. Most of us, however, seem to interpret the killing of people from other tribes, countries, gangs, ethnicities, or religions as still permissible and within the providence of “gods will”. In addition, it is suggested, God makes allowances for dispensing those from our own tribes if they are really irritating or we don’t agree with them or for some other equally important reason we judge them unworthy.

While there are the conscientious objectors who are willing to be jailed or die before they will kill a human, there are those who put bible verses on weapons they take into battle. How is one to make sense of this?

For a long time I felt that unyielding non-violence was a firm rule. In the 1980s I saw the movie “Gandhi”; then I read Gandhi; then I tried to be Gandhi. In the basic teachings of every major religious there is a reminder that “killing begets killing, hatred begets hatred” etc. History over and over has proved this to be true. Humans must not harm other humans. For their sake, for my sake. I honestly felt that given the opportunity I would be the one to nobly sacrifice myself in the interest of peace - just like Gandhi.

Then I had grandchildren. Game change. Don’t mess with my grandchildren. I don’t pretend to be a fighter or even know which direction of a gun is up, but I am not beyond serious whapping with a rolling pin or similar lethal weapon, in defense of my grandchildren.

I’m not proud of this and I’ve had some serious talks with myself about this, but in honesty, I can't excape this un-Gandhian attitude. I might be willing to take some blows myself, but I won’t stand back when my grandchildren are in the line of fire. This doesn’t make me unique. Recently, in Sacramento there was a grandfather who ran in front of a moving car to push his grandson to safety. In the process the grandfather was seriously hurt. Everyone got all excited about the guy –how brave, how selfless, all that stuff. Well, I’m on to him. That’s what grandparents are programmed to do. We’ve done that forever. He was running on instinct.

Here's the thing. If I am willing to commit violence against another human being to protect my grandchild, what about someone else’s grandchild? What about someone else’s grown up grandchild? If I believe in the interconnectedness of life doesn’t that make me willing to kill for just about anyone?

It gets so messy.

Just give me a rule that I can make fit my needs, and let’s be done with it.

I remember a discussion with a dear, wise old friend, a teacher and follower of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and a life long pacifist He was asked that ubiquitous question “what if someone is about to shoot an innocent person, cause mayhem, blow up the world etc., would you just let it happen rather than kill the person”. His answer “I’d shoot off his trigger finger”. I’ve always loved that answer.

This man was in his late eighties when he said this – I doubt he was capable of “shooting off his trigger finger”, or much of anything else. Furthermore, I know for a fact that he would be willing to put his life on the line before he would engage in violence or killing.

So what did he mean? What he was saying was that a person who respected the divinity of the universe, of life, would do what was necessary to preserve life in the largest sense, but with as little damage as possible. No rationalization or neither is passivity. There can be no hint of self righteousness. One must be an active participant in the fabric of life, but in the gentlest, most generous and most life-enhancing way possible

Religions tend to talk a lot more about hatred than about killing. That’s because hatred is the source of the problem. Hatred with all its siblings, fear, anger, vengeance, maybe pride is in here somewhere. I think ego comes in. This is where killing goes bad.

My garden, like all living, vital things, is full of killing. But missing from the mix is hatred, vengeance, and death for the sake of emotional satisfaction. Death among the tomato plants is not necessarily pretty or nice. I don’t think it is painless; truthfully it’s hard to tell for the small animals caught in this drama. But it is not based on retribution, revenge, hate. It goes on because it is necessary for the survival of life and it is part of the strangely poignant dance of life.

The spider does not go after the fly because the fly is an “other”. Spider is hungry; fly is tasty, Nothin’ personal here.

Erma Bombeck wrote a hilarious column making fun of those psychologists who suggest you should never hit a child in anger. No, she suggested, “wait until they are tucked into bed, smiling cherubic smiles, and telling you how much they love you – then, let them have it.” Of course, she made the point. When the anger dissipates, it is difficult to imagine yourself doing violence to your child or, for that matter, anyone else. Perhaps this is why we are told to make peace with our brothers before we come to the altar of God.

Of course, this is no easy task.