Tag Archives: Martin Luther King Jr.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

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It is fitting that President-elect Barack Obama’s victory speech tonight took place in Chicago’s Grant Park, named in honor of Civil War general and former President Ulysses S. Grant who led the Union Forces to victory in a war fought, in part, to free the slaves.



When I realized tonight that Barack Obama would be the next president of my country, my mind and heart turned to those who gave their all and in too many cases their lives so this day would come. I think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Medger Evers, Rosa Parks and Coretta King along with so many others, of all cultures and colors who fought so hard and for so long so that we, as a people, would learn to measure each other, as King said, “by the content of our character and not the color of our skin.”


If you are an American, then I gently encourage you to reflect on something for a moment. Whatever your political views, whether your heart is soaring, broken or ambivalent by the results of tonight’s election, allow yourself a nice dose of pride in your country. The finalists in the race for the presidency were a courageous man who is a senior citizen, a woman, a hard nose scrappy fellow from a blue-collar Pennsylvania enclave, and a man whose mother was from Kansas and father was from Kenya. If you are not American, please reflect too that today’s election in my country, a country I truly do love, shows that the real spirit of America is alive an well.


I believe the dynamics and realities of today’s election may be the first step in healing our country and in healing our country’s relationship with the rest of the world. We have passed through eight years with a president and vice-president who deserve neither title and should , in my view, be tried as war criminals. They have trashed the constitution, turned the justice department into a complete and utter farce, and have done so without a sliver of conscience between them.


Yet, despite all they’ve done, the extraordinary truth that is the American people has spoken. Perhaps now we can get back to being the country our founding father’s and the constitution intended.


God bless America.

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STRENGTH & THE ART OF ACCEPTANCE

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The true measure of a man’s strength is not where he stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”



Dr. King has been a hero of mine for as long as I’ve had memory, and I have tried to follow his example to the best of my ability. Have I always succeeded? Not even close. But, I am doing my best.


Life happens to us whether we like it or not. We are naive, foolish, arrogant or a combination of all three to believe any differently. Given that I am presently in a struggle to avoid homelessness, now is the time for me to help others. Perhaps the most effective way I can do that is to talk about some of the (forgive the overused word) strategies I use.


I believe we have a relationship with everything in life. Therefore, like a relationship between two people, these relationships can be healthy or unhealthy. Remember too that healthy does not mean free of pain, fear or anxiety. It means, I believe, that honesty in our hearts must be present.


In order for that kind of honesty to be front and center, we must begin by what I believe is the most important step of all. Acceptance. We must accept the reality we are in, the challenge we face. We must accept our experience of the reality in which we find ourselves. However, acceptance does not mean we are giving in. Let me repeat; acceptance does not mean giving in.



The acceptance equation goes like this; you have to accept it in order to manage it and you have to manage it in order to be free of it, in order to develop a healthy relationship with whatever the challenge or problem might be.


If you don’t practice the art of acceptance and avoid it, whatever is getting in your way of your right to be who you are safely in the world around you is likely to control you and, in Shakespearean parlance, Kick your ass for the rest of your life.


Acceptance takes courage, strength. Not the Hollywood definition of strength, or the bullshit strength myths believed by many in my country and I suspect other countries too. Myths like strength means don’t cry; strength means don’t admit you’re afraid; strength means don’t ask for help; strength means don’t admit you can’t do something by yourself. All not true. After all, if it is act of weakness for you to cry, then why is it so hard to do? If it is an act of weakness to admit you’re afraid, then why is it so hard to do?


More often than not, real strength is not a pleasant experience. But the results of giving yourself permission to believe and discover the wealth of real strength within you will bring remarkable and wonderful change and growth to your life. If you allow yourself to use your real strength to enact the art of acceptance you will get to be you in life, and that is a glorious thing. You deserve the experience. We all do.


The strength needed to practice the art of acceptance means allowing yourself to go through the emotional experience. Go ahead and feel the fear, the sadness, the confusion, the anxiety…like most things in life they run their course. And once they have and you come out the other side you realize that you did it, you made it. You are, in a very real way, free. Free to be who you are.


It doesn’t get much better than that.

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2007: WOUNDS, BLESSINGS AND A THANK YOU

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It would be inexcusable of me to end this year without thanking the more than 160 regular members of the Kahrmann Blog as well as the thousands from my country and around the world who have visited the Kahrmann Blog in 2007.

It is a humbling thing to know people from my country and from around the world think enough of what I write to read it. It is my sincere hope that all your lives are going well and, if not, that things get better for you. We all deserve to be ourselves in the world safely.

I thought I’d touch on a few things here at year’s end.

WOUNDS AND BLESSINGS

WOUNDS

Like any year, 2007 has had its share of both. As some of you know I work throughout the year with trauma survivors, primarily survivors of brain injuries but other traumas as well. Moreover, many of those I work with battle with the demons of addiction, alcoholism. One young man I worked with died this year as a result of the latter and another man my age left this world because of cancer. Not to be left out, I almost died last June when, among other things I discovered I had a heart condition, which is manageable but there nonetheless.

This year has again reacquainted me with the reality that I will not be able to have any real relationship with my 30-year-old daughter and my two grandsons, at least not now. I’ve also had to disengage from a woman I care about deeply. She and her two sons (I love them both) have a safe place in my heart, but whether the friendship resumes is yet to be seen.

Professionally I have gone through some rings of fire but so it goes when you are a human rights advocate. I’ve been one long enough to know there will some blows to endure. And I’m okay with that.

BLESSINGS

– Best of all, I am still sober. There is nothing more precious to me than my sobriety. Without it, I am done, and I know it. As a sober man for more than five years now, I am finally living life as me. My father’s death when I was 15 robbed me of sacred gift of being myself safely in the world. Sobriety returned it.

– Michael Sulsona. Michael and I have been friends for more than 30 years now and in recent years have realized and voice to each other that we have become brothers.

– Philip and Vincent Sulsona. Two young men that have called me Uncle Peter since they could talk.

– Frieda Coloccio. Frieda is Michael’s other half. She is a miracle in life who knows what loyalty of the heart means; she lives it.

– Atticus and Rowan: Two young men that will always have a place in my heart.

– Bruce Springsteen: God bless you, sir. Many times in life, your songs have helped me through the darkest times. Saw you twice this year and will see you twice next year. I hope someday we meet so I can thank you in person.

– The Kolbowski Family, for letting belong for a time.

– My three dogs: McKenzie, Milo and Charley.

– My survivors: To all the survivors I have worked with and spent time with through this state and beyond. You do more for me than I can ever hope to do for you. I love you all.

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela: For continuing to be my guiding lights through advocacy’s toughest days.

– Bill Buse. Thank you, bro, for being the greatest therapist on earth for me, and for believing in me all these years.

– For my daughter, Jennifer and my grandsons, Daniel and Adam.

– For my Dad, who has been my guiding light all my life, even though he left this world when I was 15. You saved me when I was a boy, during the dark days of homelessness and you got me up off the ground when they shot me down, Dad. I love you, I love you, I love you.

REMEMBER TO LIVE AND LOVE YOUR LIFE

This would be my message to you, my reader.

Remember to live and love your life. Don’t miss it. It’s yours. A sweet spring rain, a soft winter snowfall, the laughter of a child, the soul warming taste of good food, all these things are as real as the reality of bills, job titles, income, your looks, your weight, your height and on and on.

Remember to live and love your life. Enjoy the buds of spring, a piece of jewelry just made, a song just sung, a guitar chord played, the rhythm of Latin drums or the soft delicious cadence of a baby laughing.

Remember to live and love your life. Enjoy what’s in the cup you have, don’t let what you think is missing stop you from enjoying what is not.

Remember to live and love your life. Don’t forget to tell those you love that you love them. No such thing as saying it too much.

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Have a wonderful New Year…my love and respect to you all.

Peter

STRENGTH FROM KING, NOT BUSH

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There was a rare instance of unfettered presidential honesty in George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech last night. Take note and be grateful because it doesn’t happen often anymore. To his credit, Bush refused to be restrained by political spin artists and in no uncertain terms came from the very center of his soul when he addressed the deadly carnage inflicted on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. He never mentioned it.

Bush is a reminder that racism and classicism are alive and well, that the poorer you are, the darker your skin, the more disabled you are, the less you count. He is a reminder us that the struggle for civil rights in our country is, sadly, far from over.

Tragically, Bush is a reminder that far too many of us have forgotten the dream so majestically set forth by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

To be fair though, many business and political leaders have their own dreams. For instance, they have dreams rooted in greed, dreams rooted in the lust for power, dreams whose success rests on a willingness to send the poor and socially vulnerable off to fight and die. While we might not use suicide bombers, we have a society designed in a way that assures that the military is largely comprised of the economically less fortunateand most vulnerable. Were there even an iota of honesty in Bush’s we-must-fight-the-terrorists-or-we-will-all-die scenario, then why aren’t his daughters actively involved in the fight? If not in the military, why not in some volunteer effort to support the troops? Mary Todd Lincoln made it a point to visit wounded Civil War veterans on a regular basis.

The dream pursued by Bush is absent the presence of equality for all. It is absent the basic tenet that all members of the human family have the right to be who they are safely in the world around them. In truth, the Bush dream is missing one key element: the American Dream.

If New Orleans had fewer people mired in the merciless grip of poverty, the government’s assistance response would have been faster, more comprehensive and far more effective. If there had been more whites and less blacks and Hispanics when a category 3 hurricane (with a storm surge of a category 5 hurricane) ripped into New Orleans on August 29, 2005 flooding 80 percent of the city, the response would have been better. On April 18, 2006 the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals reported 1,464 people had died. Thousands lost their homes and livelihoods. Bloated bodies of the dead were seen floating everywhere. Yet not so much as a syllable in the Bush speech.

Now I would be hard pressed to say anything about Dr. King that has not been said before. He has been a member of my heart since I was a small boy. Yet, as a boy, and later as a young man, I was disconnected from King’s accurate recognition that the power of love combined with non-violence required a form of intellectual, emotional and spiritual strength that not enough of us aspire to.

Now I am certainly no choir boy and have never been in the same room as perfection. Even though as a boy I intellectually and even emotionally believed and understood King was right, I wounded others with emotional and physical violence and dishonesty. Even though it has been many years since violence has had a home in my character, the memories of the pain I caused others can halt me in my tracks and fill me with pain and heartbreak.

It takes strength to turn the “ship” around for a person or for a country. It takes strength to step into the light of honesty and tell the truth. It takes strength to apologize, to admit you are wrong or made a mistake. There is no shame in doing this. In fact, there is a kind healing that takes place in the gentle glory and sweet joy to be found in world of honesty. But it takes strength to get there. All too often we get the message that admitting a wrong or a mistake or apologizing are acts of weakness. Well, if they are, then why are they so hard for so many to do?

If we let King’s accurate view of the human character die, we ought to be ashamed. King dreamed of the day when his children would be “judged by the content of the character, not the color of their skin.” But the dream does not end there. The dream believes in the possibility of a day when we are judged by the content of our character, not whether we are rich or poor; by the content of our character, not whether we are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist; by the content of our character, not whether our country or any country has oil; by the content of our character, not whether we are male or female; by the content of our character, not whether we are gay, lesbian, straight or bi-sexual; by the content of our character, because society has learned that our value is in our humanity, and nowhere else.

Keep the dream alive.