International Military Chief of Chaplains Conference

International Military Chief of Chaplains Conference 1-4 February, 2008
Cape Town
South Africa

Fr Michael Lapsley,SSM
Director of the Institute for Healing of Memories


A Community Based Reconciliation and Healing Model

Dear Friends

May I add my own small voice to those of my leaders who have all welcomed you here to our mother city at the tip of the mother continent of the human family.

I would like to honour you for the front line work that you do as chaplains and stress its importance for creating a peaceful world.

It is not everyday, that a former chaplain to a liberation movement, gets to speak to a world conference of military chaplains. Or for that matter someone who for years was a committed pacificist who eventually became a victim of state terrorism. Today I speak to you as someone with a profound commitment to healing wounds and transforming memories.

As I thought about what I might say to you, I couldn't help wondering what are the concerns you have as military chaplains and what are the concerns brought to you by the chaplains who are accountable to you. I wonder how you deal with the complex relationship between your identity as religious leaders who are part of worldwide faith communities, and your identity as disciplined members of military formations of a particular nation state. How do you live with what some would say is the moral ambiguity implicit in the notion of a military chaplain? Especially if we don't believe in tribal gods.

Please allow me to share a little of my own journey to illustrate what I would like to say to you today.

One way I like to think of my own journey is from being a freedom fighter to becoming a healer.

I was a member of the African National Congress and one of its chaplains for many years during the time of the armed struggle.

Our battle in this country was also a theological battle. The apartheid state claimed divine guidance The world said apartheid was a crime against humanity whilst the international Christian community said it was a heresy. Officially the churches only provided chaplains to those supporting apartheid and never to the forces for liberation. My own view was that apartheid was an option or a choice for death carried out in the name of the gospel of life. For a number of years during the time of apartheid I was on a South African Government hit list,

Three months after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, in April of 1990, I received from the South African government, a letter bomb, hidden inside the pages of two religious magazines. Among other injuries, I was left with no hands and one eye. For me it is always important to say that I had a sense that God was with me – that the great promise of the Christian scriptures had been kept – “Lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.”

What enabled me to heal? To travel towards wholeness. Excellent medical treatment both in Zimbabwe and in Australia, Yes.
But also I received messages of prayer, love and support from across the globe.

My own story was listened to, acknowledged, reverenced, recognised and given a moral content.
Every person has a story to tell. Every story needs a listener.

I would like to emphasize the difference between knowledge and acknowledgment and its importance for healing individuals, communities and nations. Families can have guilty secrets. There is abuse in a family. Everybody knows. There is knowledge but no acknowledgment, perhaps even denial. What is true of individuals and families is also true of nations.

Where torture has taken place, the torturer will tell the tortured that no mark will be left so no-one will believe that they have been tortured. Finally healing begins, when it is publically acknowledged that yes, you were tortured, and it was wrong. Torture inverts the moral order. Acknowledgment helps to recreate the moral order.

I have spent some time with the Sami people in the northern part of Sweden. There the church has acknowledged its role in oppression. However the wider community has not been educated about the history of the oppression. So knowledge and acknowledgment are both important on the journey to healing.

When I received a letter bomb, I became a victim. I physically survived so I was a survivor. I realized that if I was filled with hatred, self pity, bitterness and desire for revenge, then I would be a victim for ever.

One of South Africa's great leaders, Chief Albert Lutuli, once said, “those who think of themselves
as victims eventually become the victimizers of others.” This is as much true of what happens in intimate space as within nations and between nations. We don't have to look very far to find dramatic examples. People give themselves permission to do terrible things to others because of what was done to them. Of course sometimes there is competition for victimhood.

There is also the relationship between political violence, legitimized or not, and what happens in the privacy of the bedroom. Armed conflict comes to an end for the society or the individual but does not necessarily end in the home where there maybe self harm or harm to others in the form of domestic or sexual violence.

The life giving alternative to victims becoming victimisers is that victims should become victors, not in a militaristic sense Rather those who have become objects of history, become subjects of history once more. The key as to whether victims becomes victimisers or victors often lies with whether or not there has been acknowledgment.

Here in South Africa, we did have a considerable amount of acknowledgment in terms of the role of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission which you have just heard about.

My question was what about those who did not qualify to come to the Commission. What happened to their stories? When horrible things happen to human beings, it is normal to harbour feelings such as bitterness, hatred and desire for revenge. The problem is that those feelings destroy us. For our own sake, we have to find the way of detoxifying, of vomiting out the poison.

It was in the context of reflections of my own journey and that of the nation that some of us developed an intervention, which we call a Healing of the Memories workshop. This particular intervention takes two and a half days. We promise people one step on the road to healing. However for some the step maybe life changing especially if a story is being told for the first time.

We know that in situations of conflict there will be those who need clinical interventions. Relatively speaking this is often a very small population. There is often a much larger group of people who are sub clinical, but still have unfinished business from the past. They need a safe space where events from the past can be addressed and where they can begin to let go of destructive feelings. Even in situations where many have suffered, people often feel very isolated as they don't know what others are feeling. A new sense of belonging emerges when I tell my story and there are multiple witnesses.

I have to tell you that I am pleased that those who engage in war are affected by it, that they get PTSD, have nightmares. Wouldn't it be terrible if we could do terrible things to other human beings and remain unaffected. As a human family we are not hard wired for war We were created for peace.

Personally I am also very encouraged when I see military forces, not engaged in fighting wars, but in conflict prevention, peace keeping and peace makers.

In preparing soldiers for such a role chaplains have a major role to play. Not least when it comes to
attitudes to local populations. In this regard as well, one cannot stress enough the importance of troops, having knowledge and respect, even reverence for other peoples cultures and religious beliefs. Fundamentalist attitudes, be they Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, cultural or secular, can help foment conflict rather than prevent it. It will help the soldiers if they also know the history of present and past conflicts especially if the military of their own country may have played a role in the past.

Chaplains are people who have a concern for the spiritual and moral welfare of the armed forces. Chaplains have an important role in helping prevent human rights violations such as torture and sexual violence. Even in war it is the chaplain who must insist that the enemy is a human being.

Precisely because of their concern for their own troops the chaplains should be the first ones to object against any attempt to dilute or circumvent international treaties and laws such as the Geneva Convention, the overarching definitions of all people as either combatants, or civilians with no exceptions. Equally justifications of torture should never be entertained. Failure to do so is not only a moral betrayal but in the long term opens ones own troops to similar abuses without protection.

When a war has been popular, soldiers are regarded as heroes. When a war has been unpopular no-one wants to listen. But actually in neither case do people want to listen to the stories and give space for the feelings that soldiers carry inside them. I always remember a workshop with a young freedom fighter. He was regarded as a hero in his community for good reasons. He told us “That is not what I wish to speak about. I want to speak about that of which I am guilty and ashamed. Being just a hero did not give space for the fulness of his humanity.

Allow me to raise another issue. All of us know that chaplains, even perhaps some sitting in front of me today, as well as those who serve under our command, may carry within us enduring damage as a consequence of our own participation in conflict. We often say in our Institute, those who would be the healers of others must be on their own journey of healing. Permission and space is needed for chaplains to deal with their own stuff, and the impact of the lives we lead. Lest we too become victimizers rather than victors.

In conclusion may I just say that the Institute for Healing of Memories has worked in a variety of contexts across the globe, with combatants and civilians, in post and present conflict situations, in relation to HIV and AIDS, with refugees, prisoners, victims of war here in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, Uganda, the US, Northern Ireland, Fiji, Ausralia, Germany and the UK.

Every context is unique with its own particular history and circumstances. But at the deepest level, we are one human family, capable of beautiful and horrible deeds, sharing the same destructive and lifegiving emotions and feelings.

ends

Message to all friends of the Institute

"There are two strong feelings which human beings share - anger against
injustice and hope for a better world"

I heard these words this weekend on Al Jazeera in an interview by David
Frost with legendary retired British Labour MP, Tony Benn.

I had been thinking about what I might say to you all before the end of 2008
and how I might frame my own experiences this year.

2008 was a very full year for the Institute. There were a number of
highlights It was the year we opened our office in KwaZulu Natal coordinated
by Mpendulo Nyembe and assisted by Thuthukani Shazi and later by Naomi
Anthony from Melbourne. We published the report on our 2007 conference:
Reflecting on the Journey to healing and wholeness: Toolkit for Facilitators
which has been very well received.

My own personal blog has recently been added on the Institutes's website.

It was also a year of shame for South Africans when attacks took place
against foreigners.living in our midst. Already working with refugees we
have sought to contribute practically to the fight against xenophobia. One
group of wounded victims attacked another group of wounded victims. A sign
that our own past still infects the present.

Motivated by revenge, our venerable liberation movement fired the president,
just a few months before his term ended, and dented our international
reputation. Now we have the birth of a new political formation called the
Congress of the People. As I travel the world I have been asked countless
times to explain the current situation in South Africa - I recalled how
during the negotiating period in the early 90's, we used to say that if you
were not confused you had understood nothing.

Many South Africans no longer look to politics as a source of hope

Together with my colleague, Thulani Xaba, I was in the US for six weeks
including the time of the Presidential election. It was an exciting time to
be there. Barrack Obama's election has brought renewed hope and joy to
millions of Americans and countless others across the world.

The US had become the pole cat of the world; a place occupied by the
apartheid state for many years. People of goodwill across the globe are
hoping and praying that the Obama presidency will begin a new chapter of
building a multilateral world committed to negotiations rather than war.
Time will tell

We are inching our way towards opening a new office in New York and
developing old and new partnerships across the US including work with abused
women and war veterans.

Australia made world headlines, when their Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd made
an unequivocal apology to indigenous Australians - an example the US and
others would do well to emulate...

After the US, I was privileged for the second time to listen to the often
painful stories of the Sami (the reindeer people) in the northern part of
Sweden. After a stopover with the St Ethelburgas Centre for Reconciliation
in London, I spent several memorable days in Luxembourg with ACAT -
Christian Action Against Torture as part of the celebrations of the 60th
Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Last week I spent 3 days in Harare - with all the signs of a disintegrating
failed state. Like all unjust situations of great suffering and oppression,
there is a class of beneficiaries. Horrible situations bring out the worst
and the best in human beings. Spreading cholera and frustrated soldiers
rioting are ominous signs of what may still happen in Zimbabwe.

Hopefully the day will soon dawn when Zimbabweans can begin to rebuild their
country. A key element must include addressing their layers of woundedness,
lest the cycles of hatred and violence continue across the generations: "the
elders have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge"

May 2009 also bring the people of Fiji a step closer to the return to
democracy.

Many years of unfettered greed in the financial markets is having its "come
uppance" with great suffering for many millions of people across the globe.

The financial collapse together with the consequences of climate change, has
brought into stark relief our interdependence as a human family

All the great faith traditions encourage us to value ourselves and have
compassion to others.

In 2009 we are planning a youth conference focussing on leadership and
preparing young people to live in an inclusive society. All going well 2009
will see the Institute not only doing work in South Africa but also in
Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Australia, Uganda, Canada and
the US.

On behalf of all of us at the Institute for Healing of Memories we thank you
for the opportunity to journey together yesterday, today and tomorrow.

May this time of celebration be a time of renewal for each of us.

Let our anger against injustice inspire us to act and may we all
increasingly become signs of hope for a better world .

15 December 2008

Institute for Healing of Memories
Director: Fr. Michael Lapsley SSM

Visiting Zimbabwe December 1 to 4 2008

We arrived in Zimbabwe on Monday evening from Johannesburg. I was accompanied by Brother Samuel Monyamane, SSM, a member of my community who is also a healing of memories facilitator. Along with a significant number of passengers, our luggage did not arrive. A number of people told us that this is a regular occurrence. Because the plane cannot refuel in Harare they have to carry enough fuel for the return flight. To keep the plane lighter, a percentage of the luggage is deliberately left behind.

There was a constant refrain from everyone we met from the moment of arrival that things are bad, life is very difficult and getting worse by the day.

Our media in South Africa told us that the cholera epidemic is on the border with Zimbabwe and that there is now a health crisis in that part of South Africa. Only when we arrived in Zimbabwe did we learn that there is already cholera in the high density suburbs of Harare.

We learnt that there in many parts of Harare there had been no water in the taps for the last 7 months and in some places for the last seven months and two years in others.

Fear was expressed that when the rainy season comes the lack of hygenic sanitation could lead to a very rapid spreading of cholera with devastating consequences in a malnourished population

Our first meeting was with Fr Paul Gwede, of the Harare Diocese of the CPCA under Bishop Bakare. He is the parish priest of Waterfalls and has also been asked by Bishop Bakare to focus on projects. We had met briefly once before when I was a speaker at the Christian Counsellng Centre
He has a vision of setting up a Centre/Institute for human security. Because of the conflict between Bishop Kunonga (who has the support of the police) and the Anglican church, his congregation meets in the local Methodist church

Paul expressed interest in being involved in future healing of memories work in Zimbabwe.
We promised to send him a DVD.

We were joined by Christina Anderson, a storyteller married to William Anderson, the country representative of UK's Christian Aid in Zimbabwe who had assisted us in a workshop with the majority of the Angican Dioceses in Zimbabwe in December last year.

Several people told us that on the day of our arrival soldiers, frustrated that they cannot draw significant amounts of their own money from the banks had begun to riot and loot. It was suggested that this was an ominous sign of what may lie ahead for Zimbabwe in the not too distant future. Outside every bank we saw hundreds of people queuing for many hours (without safe water to drink) in soaring summer temperatures.

On our first evening we were invited for dinner by the Swedish ambassador, Sten Rylander and Kirsten a member of staff of the embassy focusing on conflict resolution. I had met him a couple of weeks previously at a Human Rights seminar in Lulea in Northern Sweden. He has been much pilloried for his outspokenness about all that has happened over the last few years in Zimbabwe. Sweden was very active in supporting the liberation struggle and has remained committed to development in Zimbabwe. It was good to get the perspective coming out of diplomatic circles, particularly someone with more than twenty years of experience in the region.

The main focus of the second day of our time in Zimbabwe was a memorial service for Hugh McCullum, an extraordinary Canadian journalist. Hugh had died in Toronto a few weeks previously. Both Sr Janice McLaughlin, a Maryknoll sister, and I had known Hugh well and we were both in New York at the time of his death. We both opted to be at the Harare memorial He and his partner Rebecca Garrett took me to the hospital the night I opened a letter bomb back in April of 1990. My visit to Zimbabwe was deliberately timed so I could be present to lead the memorial service for Hugh. It was a simple but poignant event which took place at the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) where Hugh was employed on two separate
occasions. Some of the staff had been profoundly shaped as young writers and journalists by Hugh whilst some had joined more recently but were exposed to his vast journalistic and research output on a wide variety of issues affecting Southern Africa.

We began the event by playing the same DVD which was played at the Toronto memorial service of a recent interview of Hugh by Rebecca with a particular emphasis on the profound impact of the Biafran war and its underlying effect on Hugh's life and outlook We also read excerpts from the Globe and Mail obituary. Several staff members of SARDC spoke. Munetsi Madakufamba, Deputy Director,of SARDC spoke and also produced a cd with a collage of photos set to music. Justin Gope a well known Zimbabwean artist was present but did not speak. Professor Reg Austin spoke of the witness Hugh provided of someone living out their faith in society and of people like Hugh who had come from other quarters of the globe and made common cause with African people. Val Thorpe and Sr Janice spoke of their friendship with Hugh. I shared my own experience of both Hugh and Rebecca and all they meant and still mean in my life.

One of the people we met at the memorial was an old friend Val Thorpe with whom we met the following morning. She raised the possibility of doing healing of memories with a group of women who had suffered from political violence.

The final meeting of our short visit was with 3 members of the leadership of Zimbabwe Christian Alliance lead by the Revd Useni Sibanda. We began to explore the possibilities of a long term relationship.
We left them material including our dvd of the healing of memories process which they could use to prepare people for a workshop

We have proposed a full healing of memories workshop in February followed by a day of strategic planning to see how we can take the process forward.

Zimbabwe and Harare in particular remains a place of great contradictions. Staying as we were at a 3 star hotel you are sheltered from the increasingly grim life experienced by most Zimbabweans.

On the day of our departure we heard about the abduction of Ms Jestina Mukoko by Zimbabwean security forces from her home in Norton Harare in the morning of 3 December 2008, at approximately 5:00 am. Jestina Mukoko is the Project Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), an organisation monitoring and documenting violence and human rights abuses across the country through a network of peace observers.

As we left Zimbabwe we were also told that not only is there no medecine in the hospitals but school are closed.

For those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see there are all the hallmarks of a failed state with immense and increasing suffering for most of its citizens.

Those who have dared to speak out and resist the Mugabe regime have been treated mercilessly and brutally.

I was reminded of the words of Bertolt Brecht. "Woe is the land that has no heroes, Nay, woe is the land that needs heroes". To be a decent human being in
Zimbabwe today requires heroism

Tribute to Hugh McCullum by Father Michael Lapsley,SSM
Director of the Institute for Healing of Memories, Cape Town, South Africa
In 1983 I came to Canada on a joint SWAPO - ANC speaking tour.
That was when I first met Hugh McCullum. He was Editor of the United Church Observer and also the Chairperson of CANSAS which was a Canadian Solidarity organisation during the darkest day of apartheid

When Rebecca Garrett and Hugh moved to Zimbabwe we immediately became firm and close friends.

On April 28th 1990, Rebecca and Hugh hosted a welcome and farewell party for me.. I had just returned from another speaking tour of Canada and was about to relocate to Bulawayo. Shortly after returning to my house from the party, I opened a letter bomb. Hugh and Rebecca took me to the hospital. They helped to save my life.

At the time of the bombing I was wearing a cross of horseshoe nails which somehow disappeared.
Whilst I was in hospital Hugh and Rebecca brought me a small Coptic cross which I have worn every day since.

When I returned to Zimbabwe, from hospital treatment in Australia, it was to Hugh and Rebecca's home. When I returned from exile to live in South Africa, that farewell party was also at their home.

I have no doubt that other speakers will pay tribute to Hugh's extraordinary contribution as an advocate for Africa and all her people. Dare I suggest that it was in Africa that Hugh was most fully alive.

Thank you Hugh for all that you did in your life, in multitudinous ways, to make the world a fairer and more just place.

Thank you Hugh for all that you meant in my life.
I am a better person because I knew you.

Today I thank God for your life and pray that you rest in peace.

I pray for consolation for all who grieve your passing.

ends

St Ethelburgas Centre for Reconciliation London UK November 2008

Obama, Healing of Memories and Hope

I started to cry during the speech of John McCain accepting defeat and congratulating Barack Obama as the President elect of the United States.

The tears continued as we watched Obama speak. Obama said "tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope."

And he continued:

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one thats on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. Shes a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her could n't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that shes seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we cant, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when womens voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made"

The impossible had become possible

If you had said to me two years ago that it would be possible for an African American to become the President of the United States, I would have said "Dream on, not in the US."

I have been in the USA since September 29 accompanied by Thulani Xaba, one of our faciltators from KwaZulu Natal. We began in Kansas city, spent nearly a month in New York went to Minneapolis, then to Los Angeles and finally flew to Oakland in California on election day

After watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech before a rapturous crowd in Chicago we drove to where we were staying, passing numerous street parties and ecstatic people, dancng in the street.

In California the overwhelming joy was mixed with great pain for many as many of the same voters who supported Obama had voted to reverse the right of same gender loving person to marry. More

than 18000 people had already committed matrimony under the new provisions and are not sure what will be the status of their marriage certificates. How terrible that rights which have been given are then taken away.

I remembered another election when the world stood still – 1994 – South Africa's first democratic election when Nelson Mandela became the president.

1994 was the second time I voted – the first time was in Australia, in December of 1972 – on a ticket of taking Australian soldiers out of Vietnam.

Now a black person was finally becoming president of the United States. McCain, Obama and Bush made reference to the history of slavery in their speeches immediately following the election victory.

Perhaps finally the US is edging towards acknowledging its past but there is still a road to be travelled both in relation to slavery and to Native Americans.

I have a sense that what has happened in the US has brought healing of memories more on to the world stage than ever before.

3 days after Obama's victory we began a healing of memories workshop at the Wright Institute – a Psychology Graduate school in Berkely, California. The events of the previous days provided a frame for the workshop. Noone was in any doubt about how the nation and its past had affected us as individual

During the final liturgy our colleague Steve Karakashian read the following letter from Alice Walker to Barrack Obama.

Open letter from Alice Walker to Barrack Obama

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,