Two months ago, I read Lou Zamparini's amazing WWII biography, "Unbroken." As is always the case for us haven't-been-around-the-world types, I was transported and transformed by what I read, stunned by what so many people endured and how so many people went on to live good lives, despite all that devastation.
Reading the book also made me understand why the U.S. decided that using atomic weapons could help end the war. There is no question that what happened to Nagasaki and Hiroshima accelerated the ending of WWII, not to mention accelerating the end of over 300,000 Japanese citizens' lives, over time.
One month ago, I was contacted by a former student and current friend, Holly Davis, who works for Global Zero, an organization dedicated to ending the use of nuclear weapons.
She invited me to learn more about her organization and, ultimately, help establish a Global Zero club at East High.
And so, next Friday, one of my students and I leave for Yale, for a Global Zero conference that includes speakers such as Valerie Plame, the outed CIA agent, and United Nations' representative Hans Blix, who went to Iraq to look for nuclear weapons.
The irony does not escape me.
And yet, I have made my peace with such juxtapositions in my life. How else can I navigate this complicated world, except through ocassionally allowing complicated and contrary thoughts to reside inside my brain--at the very same time?
I refuse to feel unpatriotic or hypocritical or even guilty for cramming my head full of thoughts and beliefs that do not live in accord with each other. I will not apologize for posing questions to both sides of a coin, any more than I will feel bad for the sloppy evolution that is me.
I have yet to figure out any other way to live life than to wake up each morning and walk into it, contradictory warts and all.
It is this approach that'll take me to Yale, as well, where, I imagine, I will once again be transported and transformed by what I hear.
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