We, Who Are About to Die

Fortuna Audaces Iuvat - Fortune Favors the Bold
"Who Dares, Wins" - Special Air Service motto

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the Challenger shuttle disaster. On that cold January morning the space shuttle Challenger rocketed into the sky, its solid rocket boosters burning rapidly towards a failing joint and rubber O-Ring seal that had cracked in the cold. Seventy-three seconds into the flight when the fire hit the joint it blew out the side, and hit the fuel tanks like a blow from an angry and fearful god of the skies. The explosion took the lives of seven crewmembers, six astronauts and one civilian who were daring to follow mankind’s dreams of the stars.
Astronauts Ellison Onizuka, Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Greg Jarvis, Ron McNair and Judy Resnick, and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe experienced one minute and thirteen seconds of the dream before their lives were cut short in a fireball and they took the bigger journey into the greater unknown.
But they were not the first to die chasing that dream, nor would they be the last.
On January 27^th 1967 Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee died aboard Apollo 1, still on the launch pad, when a spark ignited the pure oxygen atmosphere of the sealed capsule during pre-flight tests.
On April 24^th 1964 Vladimir Komarov reentered the earths atmosphere in the malfunctioning Soyuz 1 capsule and died when the parachute lines tangled plummeting Soyuz 1 into the earth at two hundred miles an hour.
In May of 1967 the crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov, died when a malfunctioning valve caused the capsule to depressurize just prior to reentry.
No astronaut or cosmonaut would die engaged in a mission again until the Challenger disaster, and then it would be fifteen years before another sacrifice would be demanded by the fates of dreams and the sky.
On February 1^st 2003 the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Dr. Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark and Ilan Ramon, died when the shuttle, suffering damage to its protective tiles, blew up over the western United States during reentry. It is quite possible that these seven people knew or at least suspected they were going to die, well ahead of time, and proceeded ahead, chasing the dream to infinity.

We live in a world of sports hero’s, movie stars and rock gods. People who, on whole, are shallow, fatuous, and often as not disgusting and disagreeable people, more concerned with image, money and whatever “cause of the month” will get them the most attention. Among them are rapists, thieves, murderers, people who use drugs to avoid the really real world, and narcissists of the highest order who have no greater dream or vision, and no desire to live for something greater, and certainly, perhaps most certainly of all, no strength to die for something greater.
While those people are made hero’s there are quieter, smarter, stronger men and women who dare to brave the unknown, the unknowable, and the dangerous to chase down what may be the greatest dream of the human race: The secrets of the heavens - The glittering lights and shimmering sights of that great expanse of space, the realm of new worlds and gods.
In the end, it will not be the movie gods and rock stars who will carry mankind into the future, into new hope, new worlds. It will not be the sports hero’s who open the doors for us all. It will be these quiet people willing to serve a dream, live a dream, and die for that dream.
It is my prayer, whispered desperately to those heavens, that we will hold on long enough, that they may deliver that dream to us before it is lost to the murky depths of forgotten consciousness.
”Go! at throttle up” the stars are ahead.

Unity

"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" Dr. Martin Luther King

Today we have lost sight of the real meaning of this speech. It has become a talismanic icon, not an actual message, not a manifesto. Come Monday this will be truer than ever as we hear about the need to celebrate diversity, and how far the diverse minorities in America have come, and so on and so on.
And not half of it will be true to what Dr. King wanted, what he preached, what he spoke for in that famous speech.
Dr. King did not preach diversity. He did not preach minority. He preached Unity. Unity is something we have not achieved. We are still classifying people by colour and by creed - Celebrating diversity, encouraging minority development, all of these things sound good but in the end, in truth, they are simply polite ways of maintaining racial barriers.
Diversity is not a good thing - It says "We are different - We cannot be alike - We are not brothers". Minority implies that some people are less than others because of their ethnicity, it says "You are Black, Asian, Indian, or White, and I am not Black, Asian, Indian or White - We cannot be brothers".
This is not what Dr. King wanted.

"The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'"

That is what Dr. King wanted - Unity, Not Diversity.

Spiritual Views on Violence and Killing

I was speaking with a friend the other day about some of my interests, things I am curious to pursue as careers in my future, namely tactical medicine (SWAT Medic) or the military.
We had, earlier in the same conversation, been speaking about our spiritual beliefs, and the idea of “life vs. death” (Life, in this context, being walking a road in harmony with the infinite, and Death being willingly walking a road out of harmony), and she asked me a rather poignant question, I didn’t really have an answer for – “Is a dedication to violence, conducive to ‘life’”?
(Not that I wish to pursue either of those things simply to be violent, and I know there is more to it than that – but I would be a fool, a damned fool, to pretend that the things I want to pursue don’t involve force.)

Personally, I believe violence can be necessary and in harmony – But I had no really good way to explain, even to myself, why I feel that some violence, some killing, doesn’t take someone out of harmony.
So, I’ve been thinking about it – a lot – in recent days.

I believe in the necessity of violence and killing. I believe that someone who violates the social contract (a sort of harmony) by deciding to pursue gains through unprovoked violence has forfeited their physical life should it be necessary to take it in order to stop their violence. I also believe that this is not so much a judgment, merely a part of survival and that survival can be in harmony. Violence happens every day in the natural world, and it is arrogant to believe that man is that much above any other animal.
Also, the death of someone who uses violence for criminal pursuits is a release of energy from the physical shell, a separating of the negative and temporal with the pure, to have another chance at life (whether you believe in reincarnation or not, physical death is not the end of life. No energy every truly ceases to exist, it just changes form).

But what about making a career out of being one of the people who stands on the line between everyday life, people and society, and the forces of violence for pleasure or gain?
It is hard to articulate, but I believe that is also necessary. Everyone has a calling in life, everyone has a role to play in the natural order. I think it is necessary that there be some people, who possess strong dualistic characteristics (what psychologists the Survivor Personality) and an emotional and moral constitution for witnessing and delivering violence and death – to stand the line between those who don’t, and those who would deliver cruelty, and seek to bring chaos to everything.
For those people I don’t think a dedication to that is counter-productive to a dedication to “life”. They are, simply, different – Their role in the order of all things is different and they were built different, to operate on a level of chaos and destruction when necessary and to return again, un-tainted, when their work is no longer needed.
I actually wrote a prayer awhile back, a battle prayer, that says this fairly succinctly I think:
Bless me,
That I may have Fluidity in Violence,
and Ferocity of Strength
That I may become as Death
and Return Again.

(Note – This is not to say I am one of those people. I don’t know. Being certain I am, or am not, and the subsequent decisions from those certainties, is part of my journey, as yet un-made. I simply wanted to use this blog to at least begin codifying my thoughts on this particular issue, and to share them with others.)