Joe Niemiec

I really enjoyed Saturday morning’s Coffee Talk with the panel and the comments of everyone there. The one thing I did leave bothered by was what seemed to me to be a defeatist idea of humankind. I deeply believe that if one person is able to transform their behavior and beliefs then it is an example that the possibility is there for everyone.

This question has been asked for years within our culture. The one constant has been that American men have found it their job to “protect” our women, as much as possible, from the horrors and physical depravities of war.

I find it interesting that there is even a question of the use of violence in context with the sacred.

In the last 250 years, we have seen people in our country interpret “sacred” text to give license to slavery, persecution of the Jews, Mormons, Native Americans, seemingly any religion that doesn’t hold to the local religious beliefs, the domination of women, and other acts of violence against groups that we have thought to have the need for a “stern hand of direction.”

There are legislatures that cannot pass budgets that adequately fund public education, health and welfare but have the time to debate laws that have been in effect for 40 years. We have crippling debt from war and we are one of the few, if not only, industrialized countries that still has the death penalty.

I watched the Inauguration and then later looked at Facebook and was not at all surprised at some of the comments I saw.

There may be room for anger, if you wish to participate in that behavior, but rather than directing it toward a person elected how about toward the real place it should be aimed?

The single most important spiritual lesson I learned was that of mindfulness, of others opinions, rights, and the knowing that they are exactly where their life has brought them.

The conscious choice to allow life to end by voluntary withdrawal of medication is a personal choice for the individual to make. I have no more right to tell someone they must continue to suffer “in hope” of a cure than I have to tell someone they should leave to make room for the rest of the population.