Category: World Journey

We all live with constant change. These intense times present to us a wide range of “new normals” that change in quick order. Even the term, “New Normal” (especially when the word “normal” is used as a noun) may lose its meaning for us at times when changes are moving at untrackable speeds!

Currently, there is a prolonged pandemic worldwide, record-breaking hurricanes and wildfires, political unrest and mistrust — all bringing change to what has gone before. Experience has repeatedly shown me that — whenever we face changes, whatever their nature and magnitude — it is how we greet those changes that is, in all ways, essential. 

While change is always moving in this, our time/space continuum, the cause of change has not often been fully discovered, acknowledged, and accepted by us human beings.

I, for one, am in wonder of the phenomenon of change. Change not only makes living in this present moment real for you and me; it is the cardinal essence of Life itself!

The very nature of our existence in this earthly dimension of manifest Being IS Change — The eternal (unending) unfoldment of the present moment (the ongoing “here & now”).

How is this practical for you and me? I will speak to my own awareness and intentions: 

— I treasure and respect my life here on this Garden Earth, with each sunrise granted.

— I do not fear death, having lived through a so-called “near death experience” (Albeit I’m a bit squeamish about long-term pain & suffering; hence, I intend to give that a miss!) 

— My thoughts, words, and deeds have power; thus, they abide my constant discipline.  

—  Everything else I entrust to the Eternal Present Moment’s ineffable manifestations.  With You, it is my privilege to relish the creative Change that never ceases! — PenDell

I have always had an admiration and interest in Oratory. In a BBC News Magazine article, titled “The Art of Oratory”, it was said that “Oratory is as much about the performance as it is about persuading others of the merits of one’s argument.”

 As one who has been a student of oratory for decades now, I agree with that statement, and I do so without cynicism. However, I did not start off as an Orator.

My first “professional gig” earned me $5 cash paid from the Dallas Zoo. (In specific, it was a “Lincoln” bill peeled off the PR guy’s money clip.) I was five years old back then. I sang a jingle with these words:

“All the animals in the zoo are jumping up and down for you,
Asking you to be sure to plan to visit the zoo as soon as you can.”

Twenty-something years later: After I (a “workaholic” at the time) had completed three college degrees in Performing Arts; trained to sing opera and musicals; and won that year’s Metropolitan Opera “National Council” Auditions — I traveled around North America on a six-month concert tour as a featured vocal soloist.

Yet, late-night ground & air travel circuits — from one distant city to another for the next evening’s performance — left me with a palpable sense of loneliness, and a longing to discover a greater purpose for living Life beyond my momentary displays of celebrity. 

In a cathartic moment early one morning, I grabbed my personal diary and wrote this: 

“Whereas I have been so privileged to perform the music of some great composers, lyricists, and other singers — I earnestly ask You now, O Universe, to guide me toward actuating whatever is my destiny.

“My intent is to author, compose, perform, and produce my own original artistic creations. In return, I pledge to live, work, and artistically serve in each and every facet of ‘my world’ on Earth.” 

Resulting from my passionate launching of those sincere “rockets of desire”, a remarkable sequence of events began to occur smoothly and quickly. And, along the way, I found myself nurturing a respect and a sense of protection for the art of Oratory.

Oratory calls for precise communication by which one can conscientiously express one’s own unique, self-governed thoughts with crystal clarity and powerful intent. An historic example of someone who nurtured the specific rationale and practice of self-governed thought and compelling public speaking was the 19th-century orator, Susan B. Anthony.

Due to her highly developed ability to put forth iron-clad, logical and reasoned thought, and then powerfully present it, she advanced the course of women’s voter rights from the entrenched past to her present day. Her legacy remains a tribute to the power of Oratory. 

I believe that we follow in the footsteps of tremendous orators. Why does that matter? Because each of us is, by our very nature, capable and hence responsible to bring forth our own individually specific, self-governed thoughts, as voiced through our own unique forms of expression. Those are essences that can and will steadfastly center all the unique facets of our own individual worlds.

And, while at it, as a matter of course, we can and will persuade others — to do what? … To, in turn, focus their own logical, self-governed thoughts, and express themselves by way of their own one-of-a-kind creative voice.

As the ancient voices have always intoned, with each and everyone of us in mind — “So Let the Eternal Word Be Spoken; So Let It Be Done …”

In 1964, when I was 12 years old, new to junior high school, and soon preoccupied with getting good grades, while chewing gum and obliviously gaping at girls, the U.S. Selective Service was  bringing the Vietnam war to the American homefront, by way of its military draft process. 

As I turned 16, new to high school, and quickly becoming consumed with my first girlfriend, the Vietnam war’s largest military campaign was coming into play.

The “TET Offensive” — an unprecedented assault coordinated for nine solid months by the North Vietnamese against South Vietnam — prompted the US military to accelerate its mandatory drafting of male Ameicans 18 to 25 years old. 

Meanwhile, the US media made Americans clearly aware that an overall victory in Vietnam was not at all imminent. That was when my attention turned to media sources that followed the latest news about fellow Americans fighting non-stop in what ended up as a 19-year-long marathon of warfare.

Many of them were only two years older than me, including locals — some of them, big brothers of my high school friends. Scores of men from every state in the Union were called up by means of a lottery process — the first lottery for military drafts since 1942. (In the period from 1964 to 1973, the U.S. military enlisted 2.2 million of those young American men.)

Well, lo and behold — 6 weeks after I was 18, and a registered draftee — I watched, with rapt attention, as the lottery numbers were revealed. I was shocked to receive a startlingly low number which made me one of the first who would be called. Instantly, I saw my college years disappearing, for active duty to my country nearing!

After two solitary weeks of panic-stricken worry and pensive soul-searching, I decided not to petition for “Conscientious Objector” status, out of concern that, in doing so, I would be disloyal to many friends who were dedicated to heartfelt, selfless duty to Country.

Two days after I made that decision, I was grateful when my parents invited me home for dinner. When I arrived, they both were alight with excitement over some good news!

The short version of the “good news” that Mom and Dad were about to tell me is this:

My quite influential grandfather (by some mysterious means not ever to be discussed), had seen to it that my mandatory draft status disappeared, while active study for my college degree  reappeared!

On the one hand, I immediately floated into a blissful trance of grateful relief!

And yet, on the other hand, a few days later, I experienced a deep, self-consciousness shame: I asked myself, “Why am I spared from military service, when many of my friends are already heading for an inescapable “running of the gauntlet”: “Either kill others or be killed yourself”?

Powerful, unresolved emotions profoundly challenged my deepest senses of both mortality and  morality. Each led me to mistrust myself, and at times, to question why I continued to live at all. 

Well, that was “then” (50 years ago); and this is now …

And I find myself recalling those times in a new light, because I recently came upon a mental health condition called “Moral Injury.” That awareness let me know that signs of moral injury had visited me at times; Yet mine were quite mild as compared to those of soldiers active in combat.

In that wise, Rita Nakashima Brock, Director of the Shay Moral Injury Center at Volunteers of America, speaks of moral injury, as follows: 

“‘Moral injury’ is a relatively recent term used to describe the internal suffering that results from breaking one’s own moral code — a wounded conscience that soldiers have faced for centuries. Imagine a soldier who takes a life in the line of duty. No matter how much good he does, he believes he is a bad person. He hates himself, hurts himself. Yet anyone can experience it.

“Moral Injury breaks the spirit. It is an ‘undoing of character’ that makes people question their ability to do the right thing and leaves them contaminated with the feeling that they’re ‘bad,’ ‘disgusting,’ or ‘beyond redemption.’ That often leads to self-harm. People turn to alcohol, drugs, and self-isolation to avoid the pain of feelings that leave some emotionally dead.”

I now see that moral injury may well be as perilous to the internal wellbeing of a person as any major chronic disease is to one’s physical body. Maybe more so … 

As to the question of whether conflict is ever a good way to engage with fellow human beings:

I’ll go with the vision of Abraham Lincoln — a man of honor — just, moral, and ethical.

At his first inaugural address, President Lincoln spoke, with a spirit of beneficence and reconciliation, to the Confederate States of America and to people of the South at large, at a pivotal time — similar in so many ways to ours here and now — when political ideologies were polarized, and racial injustice was intransigent. His message was this:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, It must not break our bonds of affection.

“The mystic chords of memory will yet swell the chorus of our Union, when again touched, as Surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”