Date sent:        Tue, 22 Jun 1999 07:12:45 -0700

Dear Jerry:

It's nice that you wrote back.  Two things come to
mind:  (1) you value your word and strive to keep it
and (2) your mind is open.  Those are qualities that
too great a number seem not to achieve.

I lived in England for a year during 1981 and  I
visited Stonehenge.  The British government had limited
access to it in such a way that you couldn't get too
near.  It was one of those few places that leaves you
in awe and wonderment.  (For me, Monument Valley has a
similar effect.)  I think it is a mistake to think that
those who came before us were primitive or, to put it
another way, to think that we have somehow surpassed
our ancestors (because of our technological
advancements).  We, i.e., modern peoples, are no better
than the ancients when it comes to advancement of peace
and individual awareness/consciousness.  Why?  Because
that is not our primary focus.  And, it must be the
primary focus of each and every human being on the face
the earth in order for peace to reign.

It's hard to believe that an aggressive move isn't
underway to arrest Milosevich.  The same can be said of
Sadaam Hussein after the Gulf War.  Yesterday, I was at
the local canned food store stocking up for future ???
and guess what?  They had imported meats from Croatia.
They had imported cat food from China.  Since when does
America need to import food?  Oh, I know we've been
getting fruits and vegetables from Mexico and South
America.  But, canned goods from China and Croatia?

Rory Fitzgerald in his Natural Law article outlines a
hierarchy of values.  Without going back to that site,
as I recall, it is structured from the least important
to the highest importance like this:  the inorganic,
the biological, the society, and the idea.  He then
asks questions like:  "Why is it okay for a doctor to
kill bacteria within a human body?"  The answer:
"Because the human organism exceeds that of bacterium
within the hierarchy of values."  In this way, he leads
to the conclusion that an idea can kill society.  And,
one example of this thinking is the idea of Mutually
Assured Destruction, MAD, i.e., the belief that we will
never fight a nuclear war because nobody will win.
Another example is the idea that we can continue to
rape this planet of it's resources at the pace we
currently do (without suffering any ill effects).
Unfortunately, too few people have a perspective which
includes a sufficient period of time to even realize
that our current course in unsustainable.

I recall the state of peace I felt when I first entered
the Columbine group on April 21st.  It was very easy
then for me to reach out, even to angry, hateful
people.  I don't feel that way now.  Now, I think we've
gone too far in an unhealthy direction to correct
ourselves without strong leadership.  And, since our
leadership has sold out, we don't have a chance.  Can
you believe that Congress actually voted to post the
Ten Commandments in public schools and buildings as a
means of correcting the school violence problem?  What
a disgrace!

Yes, I'm just rambling.  I feel helpless and hopeless
and, although I may attempt to enlighten others, I
really don't believe humanity has much of a chance.  If
what happened at Columbine wasn't enough to bring this
nation to its knees, I doubt anything will short of a
nuclear winter.

I would like to hear more about the Druids.  I've
haven't read much about them although I did understand
that Stonehenge was some kind of tool to read the
stars, like a calendar of sorts.  Maybe that's wrong.
Will you tell me more?

Well, I'd better sign off with that.  You have been
such an inspiration throughout the Columbine group.  I
wonder...what is your impression now?  What conclusions
have you reached?  What is your overall feeling?  I
really want to know.  Please write back.

Ms A.

Date sent:        Wed, 23 Jun 1999 20:26:52 -0700

Dear Jerry:

Thanks for the reply and the history of Stonehenge.  I
had always thought the Druids were credited with
building it and that they had been around since the
first millennium.  If they didn't build Stonehenge, who
did?  And, one question I've heard asked is how did
they get those stones there to begin with?  I guess a
team of horses and men could have done it.  Have you
gone there?  It is an eerie place.  You get a sense of
your own smallness there just like in Monument Valley
or at the Grand Canyon although the last 2 occurred
naturally.

Also, the Louisiana legislation cracks me up.  I was in
the Army in 1974-1977 and before that my parents taught
me to address elders and sir and madam.  It's something
I still do to this day (at age 43).  But, like you
said, you can't legislate morality or good manners.
This is another example of how messed up our leaders
are.  The apathy I've witnessed since Nixon was
president has brought us to this point and it appears
to have exceeded the point of no return.  We have only
ourselves to blame.

Maybe I'm neurotic but I think we, as members of this
society, are also responsible for the outbreak of
school violence.  Every time it happens, I feel like I
should do something.  When Columbine happened, I
thought the time was ripe for us all to come together
and find common ground from which to make positive
changes in order to prevent this from happening again.
I knew there would be new calls for gun control but I
don't believe that's the problem.  There are no guns in
this house but I would never sanction their forfeiture.
The problem goes deeper than that.  Blaming it on guns
is taking the easy way out.  I believe if we disarm
innocent people that criminals will still find a way to
get guns.

I think it's a spiritual deficit.  I don't believe in
god but understand why people do.  And, I do have an
active spiritual life without believing in god.  I
recall one of your posts and even at your web site
where you quote several different religious principles
which all amount to the same thing.  I never could
understand how there could be so many gods and so many
different religions.  Finally, I settled on the belief
that man created the idea of god and I think we did it
because it's so hard to accept responsibility for our
own actions, etc.  It appears to be equally as hard to
accept that we have choices and that we can choose to
think, talk, and act however we see fit. It is the
responsibility of the individual to expand his/her own
consciousness.  The sad fact is that people are
inherently lazy and think that taking the easy way out
will serve them best in the long run.  That's
short-sightedness, in my opinion.  It may be more
painful to accept responsibility (at first) but, as
time goes on, the process of accepting responsibility
deepens character and the benefit is that it adds
greater value to life.

The Metaphysics of Quality really inspired me when I
first read it, especially the Natural Law article by
Fitzgerald.  He seems to be onto a method of developing
a true science of values.  Relativism has caused a lot
of regression in modern thinking, I think.  And what
Fitzgerald seems to be trying to accomplish is a way of
establishing universals.  I think the possibility of
that is an exciting prospect for humankind but I don't
expect it to be adopted by the masses.

Ms A.