Sharing with Gratitude

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

I truly believe everyone in her or his lifetime comes face to face with a bit of magic. It’s the kind of magic that reminds you of a simple act that can easily be forgotten – sharing with gratitude.

Every so often I take a morning walk through the residential streets of the city where I live. Our street is lined with olive trees that were planted there by the city in 1964 when the area was first being developed. There is grace and antiquity among these trees with their twisted trunks and boughs that spread out as well as up. They remind me of the olive trees that surrounded the area of my high school in the suburbs of Beirut.  Except, here in the suburbs of Los Angeles,  some of these trees have been “shaved”, “manicured”, trimmed and cut to resemble ornamental trees sculpted like French poodle heads and tails. I pass by these trees with a quick pace lowering my head as though to apologize to them for man’s lack of appreciation for their natural beauty. They have become ornamental, decorative pieces of earth born sculptures bearing witness to man’s changes in taste, technology, and industry.

That morning, I took a turn onto a street which led up the hill to open fields where most of the homeowners are prairie farmers with small orchards and groves. These were lemon groves. The lemons were ripe and ready for harvest with hundreds of fruit fallen from their branches and scattered around the field. I could not resist the temptation and bent down to take four lemons from the earth (two in each hand). Within minutes of having done so, a police car drove up and stopped me and asked that I return the lemons back to the grove. Taken aback, I argued that I had not picked the lemons from the trees but had taken the ones fallen onto the earth. Regardless, because I had taken more than one, it was considered stealing from the owner’s livelihood. I returned all four.

As a child in Lebanon, I was privileged to spend summers in the mountains where afternoon walks on hillside roads and trails became common everyday pleasure. Sometimes, we walked the usual paths through pine “forests” collecting sundried pine cones with pine nuts just waiting to be cracked open. Often times our feet carried us to trails that led to a lonely walnut tree, with fruit just ripe for the picking. At times, we came across an apple or pear tree where we’d pick one or two to snack on as we continued our merry way.  We’d spot a cluster of thorny wild berry bushes. The ripest black berries were usually the hardest to reach, in the center of the bush, underneath a maze of prickly thorns. I always returned home with tell-tell signs of having triumphantly feasted on berries with stains on my fingers, lips and tongue, (not to mention my clothing), and deep scratches on my arms. However, my fondest memories of childhood were in the village of Anjar where my great uncle tended to an apple orchard by the creek. The orchard was surrounded by a wire fence that marked the boundaries of his land. Outside the fence, near the entry to the orchard was a single tree. As a child I noticed that villagers and visitors, children, adults, young and old would often pick a few apples from that tree. I asked my great uncle why he had that tree out in the open. He said that those within the boundary were God’s gift to him and his livelihood, and the tree outside was for sharing God’s gifts with his world. I recall a few years later, another tree had been added outside the boundary. To this he explained that the village was growing and accordingly, God’s gifts needed to be shared. In his own village and in his own way, my great uncle was contributing his share of gratitude into the treasury of humanity.

I walked another residential street in my city. Hanging over the sidewalk from above a fenced front yard of a home full of fruit trees was the most beautiful pomegranate tree with fruits of deep red that had split the skin to reveal beads of luscious ripe sweetness. Remembering the incidence with the police, I stood there for a moment, contemplating, when the lady of the house came out with a small bag for me to fill with pomegranates. “Take,” she said. “The tree’s been good to me. Share.”

A simple act…a bit of magic…sharing with gratitude.

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The Rule Of Laws

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

(As published in The Armenian Observer, October 8, 2014)

I sit in front of the glare of a computer screen with my hands on a keyboard trying to sort through a maze of thoughts that run through my assumed three pounds of brain mass, which sometimes weighs me down. Thoughts run wild in the midst of the chattering background of the television tuned to a news channel. There is too much going on in the world for me to ignore. There are news reports and footage of ISIS/ISIL, their devilish ways, and the excitement over the growth of a coalition to destroy it. Whoopee, we will fight evil. In March of 2003, we invaded Iraq to get rid of evil, or what we thought was the worst of evils. Today, ISIS tops the chart that defines evil. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s definition of evil “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  gives me food for thought. It appears I must thicken or broaden that fine line that divides the good and evil in me and in all of us. Abdu’l-Baha’s definition puts me a little more at ease. “…all the qualities and admirable perfections of man, are purely good, and exist. Evil is simply their nonexistence.” That’s wonderful, I think to myself, I cannot be evil because somewhere inside me exist qualities stemming from good thoughts to be admired. Then I read Buddha who defines evil as, “Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil: envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil.” This one makes me think a little deeper. I know that I have lied at some point in my life (who hasn’t?); and gossip? Much as I shy away from it, I am surrounded by it.  “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing,” said Albert Einstein. In his words and by his definition, the Coalition of countries cannot be evil if they are doing something about the current, depraved rancor, heinous, poisonous contagion of ISIL.

For the most part, my personal belief on this, or any subject, is not of particular importance to society. But I do believe it is important to the values that make me accountable to the principles that govern us. I have to believe in the rule of law. I have to believe that good abides by rules and laws, and that these laws are the treasury that govern us, safeguard our values and ultimately crown a victory over evil.

My thoughts are interrupted as my eye catches the split screen on my computer alerting me to an email that comes in. It is from my friends in Armenia. “Rally in Yerevan: Domestic Violence Awareness,” reads the headline. My friends from Datev Outreach, and the Women’s Support Center are working with the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women to bring about a change in legislation that recognizes violence toward women (and men) as unacceptable. I am pleased. Changes are being made, albeit slow. Public awareness is increasing. Young women and men are going against the tide of what was acceptable by challenging the status quo, and by refusing to take as an answer “that’s just how things are.” The truth is that domestic violence has neither geographic borders, nor social hierarchy. It touches us all. We hear of it in the news on a daily basis, and very possibly, we each know of a friend, sister, daughter, mother or colleague who’s experienced or is experiencing abuse. This violence has long been considered a “family” problem, private, behind closed doors, shielded and hidden. Protected by silence – everyone’s silence—it only intensifies. However, with all the recent abuse and violent behavior situations surfacing in the social media, it has become identified as a social problem, and public awareness is beginning to demand a better explanation than “that’s just how things are.”

I believe in standing up and accepting nothing less than changing legislations that protect under the rule of laws. I believe in a unified front, a coalition that does not stand alone against “those who make this world a dangerous place.” I believe in the rule of law meant to guard and keep our values safe.  I believe in the words of Edmund Burke:  “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

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Ground Zero

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

It was hot. It was muggy. It was 2001 and I was in New York City on a mission. The morning started early with map in hand and a determined objective to walk from the hotel in lower Manhattan through the easily marked streets and avenues of the city toward the Financial District to the site where the twin towers had once stood.
At first I walked and crossed streets like a good citizen waiting obediently for the pedestrian light to turn green before hurling myself swiftly onto the busy intersections. It wasn’t until after five blocks into my “mission” that I stopped at a street corner and realized that I was the only one waiting for the green light, making it very obvious that I was the outsider. So at the next light, I followed the New Yorkers and crossed the streets pretty much the way people cross streets in busy cities around the globe….without regard for the crosswalk sign, look left, right and left and if all clear, just cross.
“Your breaking away from your norm?” questioned Soul in utter amazement.
“Yes, I am,” I said with a smug grin. “We’re in New York. I don’t want people to know I’m a tourist. I want to blend in,” I continued as I followed a crowd of pedestrians.
“Well for starters, you might want to get rid of the map,” chirped Soul, whose childlike consciousness was to become my sole companion on this mission.
“Point well taken!” I heeded her advice. We mapped the route from here to there clearly in our minds, and confidently, I put away the map, feeling very much like I owned the city.

We walked for hours allowing ourselves to ‘color outside the lines,’ as it were. We were unstructured and it felt good. We passed through Times Square, then in front of the Empire State building, through the garment district and antique shops, across a section of Murray Hill to take a picture of the Armenian Consulate on 36th Street, then down to Chelsea, through Gramercy, Greenwich Village, and Soho, all the while ignoring street vendors who were selling umbrellas with catchy signs that amused me. “$3 while it’s sunny. $5 when it wet and you’re sorry,” said the sign. I laughed. Sure, a few clouds had started to roll in but it didn’t look like rain.
“Don’t you think they know something we don’t?” nudged Soul. “Perhaps you should buy an umbrella.”
“Nah,” I said. “Besides, what’s the harm in a little water on our heads?”
Off we continued to Little Italy, then Chinatown and onto Tribeca before a thunderstorm rumbled in and burst open the skies above. Raindrops, the size of pennies, river danced their way on the streets as we entered Tribeca. We were soaked to the bone in our light summer dress and open toe sandals. Leaping long under eaves and canopies, if any, of store fronts and cafes, we too danced our way on pavements and into a small Greek restaurant whose name I cannot recall, and had a bite to eat. What I do recall are the bubbles of laughter that Soul and I shared as we waited for the downpour to cede and for us to resume our quest.

“Perhaps we should take the underground,” I suggested. I was tired, and the map I had folded and put away was beginning to feel like a two ton weight in the purse strapped across my chest.
“That’s so unlike you.” Soul was quick to reply. “We did that yesterday at Penn Station, and remember what you said? You said people gathered there looked like pigeons who, waiting for their feed, huddled together and fed into open doors of subway trains instead of dispersing at the sound of an approaching train. You said you didn’t want to be one of the masses. Yet this morning you wanted to fit in and not look like a tourist. Which is it?”
“Do you really listen to every word I say?” I asked somewhat annoyed but at the same time amused by her gait.
“There, see that,” said Soul, ignoring the question and pointing to a church across the street. “That’s where we should go. You can get some rest there.” Her voice was encouraging with new found energy.

Shadowed between tall buildings, the church appeared to be a sanctuary to my tired and aching feet and to a Soul that refused discouragement. We walked in. It was delicately beautiful and somber. It took but a moment for us to realize we had accidentally stumbled upon St. Paul, an old Episcopal church, which had served as a refuge for the policemen, firemen, rescue teams and the injured after the collapse of the twin towers. Miraculously, it had remained intact and undisturbed throughout the chaos of 9/11. The interior was full of memorabilia from the catastrophe. Letters and notes, personal belongings and objects, even prayers of love and gratitude graced the walls from floor to steeple of the chapel. I was touched. But it was Soul who touched me more. “The irony is that some places of worship become sacred shrines through the evil of mankind.” She sounded so innocent, so guileless, like an injured child whose belief and trust in the goodness of mankind could not be shattered.
“The air is thick with sadness here,” I sighed and shook my head.
“The air is rich with kindness here,” she observed.
Tears welled in my eyes. After a weighty pause, I asked, “How can you talk of kindness and goodness when evil is clearly dominant and more powerful?”
I felt her wrap herself around me. “Of course, evil is powerful because it abides by no laws except the ideology to win fast.” Soul had captured my complete attention.
“You mean to tell me that good doesn’t share the same ideology to win!?” I challenged her.
“Oh yes it does,” she affirmed even more adamantly. “But good also abides by rules and laws, laws that are wonderfully strong and at the same time terribly fragile. In times of threat and crisis, we think that these laws weaken us through their limitations, but in reality, they are the strongbox that govern us, safeguard our values and ultimately crown a slow victory over evil.”
“That’s the problem, right there,” I said. “SLOW victory. By the time ‘good’ works its way through the rule of laws, the ideology of winning is so far into the future that it becomes moot to say ‘mission accomplished.’”
“Let’s hope not,” she smiled.
Our whispered words and soft footsteps echoed from the stone walls as we left the chapel and onward toward our “mission.” We made our way around the corner and in a sudden moment of reality, there it was, an immense block of empty space…ground zero…a dug out of massive broken concrete and metal that once formed the foundations to two towers that had graced the New York skyline and which now would be found only in history books that document the rise and fall of empires.

Amid the deafening din of a city in motion, we were silenced, my Soul and I.
This I humbly write with faith in the rule of laws.

(Ten years later, on May 1, 2011, President Obama announced the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden whose organized attack on the twin towers claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians.)

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Grounded

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

Once again and without fail, as I prepare to leave a city other than the one I call home, I sort through a whirlpool of emotions that cling to my heart; emotions that defy logic. In between attempts at packing a suitcase before an early morning flight across the seas and ocean toward my permanent home, I am struck with a profound feeling of sadness. I feel grounded. Not grounded as in “feet set firmly on earth, head on my shoulders, well-rounded, steady” kind of grounded. What I feel is the kind that restricts me; that confines me; that tells me I’ve lost my ‘freedom.’ The grounded that says I’m punished, trapped, and I have reduced privileges. I am on my way back home, yet instead of rejoicing, I can hear my heart sink audibly as I fear disrupting my comfort zone by returning to “normalcy.” I am on my way back home to a world of structure with challenges and obligations, and for those last few hours, I allow my internal compass to lose its ground. I am bombarded with the feeling of being grounded like a teenager, caught in the middle of a wrongdoing and punished within the boundaries and confines of her responsibilities.

I have never been one to shy away from responsibilities, so why now? Perhaps I’ve been away too long. Perhaps idleness has allowed me to indulge in my emotions that keep me in the past or future and cause distraction and give way to being ungrounded.
On board the plane, I watch the temporary city of my stay diminish in size as we take off to climb the 31,000 feet into and above the clouds. The beauty of the buildings resonates with history as my range of view becomes panoramic. We distance ourselves further into flight; mosaics of colors blend all geometric shapes and forms creating an esthetically pleasurable picture. I close my eyes.

I open my eyes. Los Angeles is not a pretty sight. Grey concrete blocks. Dry squares, rectangular shapes, Rubik’s cube divided into intricate spider-webs of symmetry that look like flat non-dimensional drab lines on a cold, celluloid screen. These are supposed to be homes in between vast blocks of concrete that divide the patterns, shaping the magnitude of the industrial zones that separate and circumvent residential areas. There is no human or artistic consideration in the whole. With endless duplication of the same pattern, it is a bleak picture. Perhaps the drought has contributed to the lack of luster and dimension. Perhaps the vastness of the land makes me uneasy. Perhaps the all too familiar structure of routine is what makes my heart hiccup.

We fly lower. Soon enough the darker greys appear as a network of roads and freeways that stretch and meander in and around areas, as rivers do elsewhere in other cities. I notice the subtle shades of grey turn to dark green, differentiating between the rows, and soon take shape to form tree-lined streets. I see movement on those rivers of asphalt; cars, like ants, come to life, moving to and fro purposefully and in harmony. We fly lower. Sure enough colors begin to spring forward. The drab of grey that once was, changes to browns, to greens, and gradually a metamorphosis of emotions realign my internal compass to point home. Homes, block shaped protections; green lawns, manicured to perfection; trees and hedges bordering residences; cars of all colors on driveways; children playing in fenced playgrounds; the symmetry of order in the visual composition; the comfort of the familiar; beauty in the bland, all that I know, all whom I love bring me to the ground to be fully present, right here, right now, physically, emotionally, and energetically.

My mind is no longer wandering and pulling part of my energy away from me. My heart and soul are not searching somewhere in the past, or looking into the future, and my body is present. I am grounded by the challenges that will greet me. I am grounded by the friends and family that surround me. I take a deep breath, plant my feet on the floor. There! I am fully present to myself. It’s as easy as breathing to be present to this moment, and it is an act of power to be aware of it. I am grounded!

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Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

The world watches as people from all three of the Abrahamic faiths wait to resolve the Palestinian—Israeli conflict in the Gaza. The children of Isaac and of Ishmael, ancient cousins, stand face to face in enmity and warfare while Christians watch, agonize and argue over the conflict. All three faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Islam recognize the quote from the Old Testament: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Yet they misconstrue its meaning and forget the true context in which it was used by Cain in reply to God’s questioning of the whereabouts of his brother Abel.

Yes, we are our brothers’ keepers. We bear responsibility for each other, and in those three faiths, religious leaders have the responsibility to practice their true religion. When ultra-Orthodox Jews build settlements in disputed territory, it is the responsibility of the rabbis to help repair the damage the extremists have caused and to recall the ethics of their history of oppression. When radical Islamists resort to violence in opposition to settlements and oppression, it is the responsibility of the Imams to boldly speak against those who pervert the true teachings of Islam. And when fundamental Christians forget that the true teachings of Christ was God’s most important commandment– love one another and to forgive one another— priests and minsters must bear the responsibility of the true meaning of their faith to help heal the rift.

Who is wrong? Who is the victim? Can something be done? What is the answer? Time and again, our best attempts are met with brick walls. “A two-state solution,” says the United States. But there can be no political solution until we open our hearts as nations and, (at the risk of sounding naïve and too religious) forgive. Anything short of that will fall short. The internal wounds that continue to cause decades of this geographic insane dispute need to be addressed before the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can be resolved. This is not difficult to understand. And yet we wrap the Arab-Israeli conflict in complex nature, about “The Arab Mind”, about “Islamofascists” who “hate us for our freedoms”, and about mindless, irrational anti-Semites who hate Israel just because it’s Jewish and not because the overwhelmingly non-Jewish population there has to be destroyed in order to make it, and keep it, Jewish.

Simply put, the whole situation is like watching children in a playground fighting (very dangerously) one another in groups. They keep hitting each other first with stones and then as adults with rockets and mortars and other artillery claiming, “You (the other side) hit me first!” Even their cease fires are like children playing a game. It’s like making a New Year resolution to quit smoking and lighting as many cigarettes as possible and puffing away before that clock strikes midnight. So each side shoots a barrage of artillery before the cease-fire, and then every second that passes “past midnight” with respect to the cease-fire is a triumph for each side. The Jewish people feel victimized dating back to the Holocaust, and the Palestinian people feel victimized by the Jews and react to the Israelis. Two groups of God’s children, Isaac and Ishmael living with unresolved pain, feeling abused and so self-absorbed, that they are unable to feel the suffering of the other. And like children they keep hitting each other, as though to say, “You stop it first! No, you started it first! “And so it goes.

Somehow, somewhere, our religious leaders need to become involved and the politics of it all should evolve into supporting forgiveness. Both sides have been wronged and both sides have a great deal of apologizing to do. The concept of brotherhood is not foreign to those who truly wish for peace. There are many Israelis and Palestinians who understand this and support this; many who live in harmony with one another within the region and in the diaspora. Yet, Muslim clerics, Rabbis, and Christian ministers are failing their communities. They should be the ones debating less about the minor theological issues and teaching more the young, angry men of all three faiths the practice of becoming their brother’s keeper. And the United States needs to support this instead of trying to find military and political solutions which continue to fail. The US should start conversations to extend ethical and moral responsibilities in political, social, and economic issues to promote justice and peace, thus paving the way for serious negotiations, away from photo opportunities and lip service, proving we are our brothers’ keepers.

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Choices

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

It was one of those weekend mornings. I had many things to do in and around the house but given the option of “let’s go out for breakfast,” or stay in to catch up with my responsibilities, I chose to go out for a real American breakfast at a diner close to home. As I placed my order in between questions of “how would you like your eggs cooked?, bacon, ham or sausage?, cottage fried potatoes or hash brown?, wheat, white, rye or sourdough toast?” I couldn’t help but laugh as I recalled my first time in the United States (some thirty eight years ago) when I was first introduced to the multiple choices and decision making process of ordering toast. At the time I had stared the waitress in the face, completely confounded, not having understood that I had choices of different breads available and had to pick a) b) c) or d). I disliked multiple choice questions during school and college and there I was at a diner being given a multiple choice of breads. After much hesitation and debate, I remember picking b) wheat, feeling somewhat unsure not knowing if I had made the right choice, and then suddenly feeling quite smug that perhaps I had made the right choice because the waitress had smiled and had said “excellent choice,” as though there was a right or wrong answer to her question of my choice.

Therein started my exposure to the many consumer choices I had to make. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that we didn’t have choices presented to us in our days of decision making that guided our lives and built our futures. We had that, and to top it all, we had the added responsibility of being aware of our God given free will to make choices and be held morally responsible for our actions. We just never were that inundated with the plethora of choices in the market as is available today. And I’m not quite sure that having all these choices available is actually to our advantage. Our brains, already over-worked and exhausted, cannot cope with too many choices, at least mine can’t. We’re asked if we want small, medium or large; full fat, non-fat, half & half, soy or almond milk; vanilla, strawberry or chocolate; skinny, bootleg, boyfriend or bellbottom. Americans have come to expect a wide array of choices, and most companies, be they car companies, clothiers or coffee shops, have been more than willing to pony up. But more choices do not always equate to happier consumers.

Actually, a study published in 2008 by the American Psychology Association claimed that being presented with too many options stresses our brain. It gives it too many things to compare, and the problem is, that we simply don’t have the time to research or investigate all of them… and then we feel like we have failed. It is not that we are saddened by the decisions we make in the face of abundant options, but rather that we are rendered unsure, burdened by the responsibility of choosing optimally. In fact, some studies show that having to make too many decisions can leave us tired, mentally drained and more dissatisfied with our purchases. It also leads us to make poorer choices — sometimes at a crossroad when the choice really matters.

For earlier generations, the ideal of making well-informed decisions meant simply looking things up in a reference book. Today, with Twitter and Facebook and countless apps fed into our smart phones, the flow of facts and opinion never stops. That can be a good thing, as when information empowers workers and consumers, not to mention whistle-blowers and revolutionaries. Yet, researchers from several universities have determined that even though humans’ ability to weigh choices is remarkably advantageous, it can also come with some serious liabilities. People faced with numerous choices, whether good or bad, find it difficult to stay focused enough to complete projects and handle daily tasks.

That an excess of choices and a surplus of information is changing the way we think, and not always for the better, is a truth. That there are no wrong or right answers to the choices we make; there are only consequences to our choices and actions, especially in the bigger picture of life, is yet another truth. But where does that leave me with my choice of breakfast bread?
“I’ll have option e) English muffin,” I said. “Excellent choice,” said the waiter.

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Fatherhood

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

In June of every year, we honor fathers.

The importance of my father in my life has never been more vivid as it is now with the growing statistics of damage done by absentee fathers.  My father was a proud family man, who believed that a father should provide for his children. He grew up in poverty, but managed to educate himself at a later age through savings accumulated by odd jobs on construction sites. He revered his hard working mother. She washed, mended and ironed shirts for generals and officers of British and German military who were “guests” at the Le Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria, while his father was absent on many occasions throughout his childhood. Yet, dad managed to turn himself into a man of the world vowing to be different than his father.  He studied at nights under the flickering light of an oil lamp and became a contracting engineer. He believed in helping his heritage and employed Armenians with every opportunity presented.  Dad never sweated the small stuff. Come to think of it, he didn’t sweat the big stuff either.  His faith was firmly grounded in God.  My father was a romantic and an idealist. He wrote poetry and short stories, exchanged letters with other Armenians of note and foreign political and religious leaders stirring responses re the Armenian genocide. He believed in education as key to self-improvement.  His definition of a real man was “one who is so secure that he needn’t prove his masculinity by raising his voice or his fist.”

The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane in 1910. The idea for Father’s Day is attributed to Sonora Dodd, who was raised by her father after her mother’s death during childbirth. While listening to a sermon at church on Mother’s Day, she thought about all her father had done for her and her siblings and decided fathers should have a day, too. Because Dodd’s father was born in June, she encouraged churches in her area, Spokane, Wash., to honor fathers that month. Over the years, the idea spread, and people lobbied Congress to establish the holiday. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson, who had signed a proclamation establishing Mother’s Day, approved the idea. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge made it a national event to “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations.” However, a holiday honoring fathers did not become official until 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson declared that the third Sunday in June would be Father’s Day. President Richard Nixon made this proclamation permanent in 1972.

As societal patriarchy is slowly diminishing, especially in countries where men and women are equally educated, as masculinity continues to undergo a constant process of redefinition, fatherhood has never mattered more than it does now. The old rituals or methods of proving yourself by making a living, owning property, wooing and romancing, being head of  household, even combat itself is now gender-neutral. What remains indisputably masculine only is fatherhood (just as motherhood is indisputably feminine). Fatherhood should be the one truly binding connection among men.  It’s too important, especially now. According to research from the Pew Research Center (2011), fathers who live with their children have become more intensely involved in their lives, spending more time with them and taking part in a greater variety of activities (tripled since 1965). However, the number of fathers living at home with their children has decreased significantly in the past half century, which means “fatherlessness” is a real crisis even as fatherhood gains significance. In 2008, 41% of births involved unmarried women compared with 28% in 1990. Fatherlessness as a condition has been linked with virtually every social ill you can name (the big exception being lesbian families): Young men who grow up without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail, 63% of youths who commit suicide are from fatherless homes, and 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.

While I understand that the statistics presented do not reflect all ethnicities, and today’s fathers of the Armenian culture are perhaps overwhelmingly stronger in their personal transformation when they become fathers, we cannot ignore that we have many absentee fathers among  Armenians at home. My hope is that we have the courage to talk about it and to work collectively to find the real man in each of our Armenian male patriots.

Happy Father’s Day.

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Motherhood

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

There is no other way to say this. Motherhood belongs to all women as a sacred trust from God.  It is every woman’s reality, not just entrusted to a privileged few.  Even Eve was called “the mother of all living things” before she ever bore a child. Mother is the word that best describes the essence of who we are as women. It defines our identity, our divine nature and the gifts with which we have been endowed.  Women are the keepers of the balance of humanity, the conscience of nations, the flame and primal homemakers that light the hearth of homes, and rise up the next generations. There is strength in women that comes from within by the sacred trust, and with the advantages of modern times, women are fiercely powerful.

Who better than a woman will fight for the welfare of her child, or any child? And if we used our powers gained collectively from outside sources, we could insist that the children of the world no longer bear hunger; that the millions be given a basic education; that our children seek and know true and everlasting values; that punishment for child trafficking be seriously enacted; that the abduction and brutalization of children be addressed; that every child have shelter; that wars be diminished… and the list is endless. Yes, we are the homemakers of the world, the mothers of the children of the world, and the greatest power that lies within us is the ability to protect the primacy of our sacred mission and guard it with pride, making the welfare of our children our bottom line.

I am almost certain that there is no one who cannot name his or her grandmother, mother, aunt, sister, godmother or teacher, as his or her personal inspiration –good or bad, directing the course of the lives she touched.

motherhood

To the women who cry with joy when they hold their baby in their arms for the first time and to the women who give birth to babies they will never see. To the women who gift babies to other families and to the women who adopt children. To the women who have milk stains on their dress and ketchup on their knees and to the women impeccably dressed in suits. To the women who turn their heads when they hear the word “mama,” even though their kids are nowhere near and to the women who make heads turn. To the women who sit up all night with a sick child, compassionately saying, “it’s ok, I’m here,” and to the women who sleep through the night. To the women who pray and to the women who ask for a prayer. To the women who yell at their kids and to the women who speak tenderly. To the women who read “Love You Forever” each night and to the women who read text books and documents in preparation for tomorrow’s challenges. To the women who hold a child’s hand for encouragement and to the women who let go to instill independence. To the women who teach children to tie shoelaces and to the women who use Velcro. To the women who suffer separation anxiety on the first day of kindergarten and to the women who suffer the same as their child leaves for college. To the women whose hearts miss a beat each time their child drives off in a car and to the women whose hearts miss two beats at each sight of a paramedic.  To the women who watch their child perform and proudly proclaim “that’s my child/grandchild.” To the women who bake cookies for a bake sale and to the women who don’t. To the women who car pool kids on the block and to the women who drive their one child.  To the women of soldiers and to the women soldiers. To the women who silently anguish for a child gone astray and to the women who crush remorselessly the odds of finding that child. To the women whose hearts ache for a child’s disappointments and to the women who boast their successes. To the women who’ve lost a child and to the women who share the burden of loss. To the women of victims of tragedies and shootings and to the women whose children are involved in the shootings. To the women who hug their children in relief for their safety and to the women who watch in horror, clinging to the last thread of hope of survival. To the women who do their share in law enforcement and to the women who bend the rules. To the women who lead and to those who follow. To the women who teach and to those who learn.  To women young, middle or aged, with or without child, working at home or out of the home, married, single or divorced, with money or without, who use their strength and their powers to become mothers of all living things, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.

 

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I Abhor War

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

When I was little, I heard snippets of accounts of atrocities against Armenians and my grandparents’ generation.  I said to my father that I thought war was wrong. “It’s not that simple,” he had said.  As I grew a little older and realized during grueling history classes that wars were fought for land between kingdoms and countries, between the haves and have not’s, I said to my father that I thought war was wrong.  “Were I Queen of the World, I’d make war an act against the law,” I had said.  “Wish it were that simple,” he had said. By the time I was in high school in England, my thoughts of war being wrongs of history past were shattered as war raged in Ireland. I couldn’t understand how life could go on normally in other parts of the British Isle while bombs were blasting in Ireland with such geographic proximity. I still thought war was wrong. “How can you justify war when peace is the answer?” I had said. “Sometimes, you have to fight for peace,” said my father. Later, I found myself in the midst of a war in Lebanon. It was then that I understood how life could be lived in a country while her people and neighbors were at war. Rockets blasting from different quarters of the cities, gunfire ripping the air through street combat between various factions, and car bombs all took their toll. It was war. Yet, what actually stole my innocence were the intentional massacres triggered by fear and deep rooted hatred, massacres that targeted people of Palestine and Lebanese Shiites.  Slowly, the stories I had heard, when I was little, of massacres and exile and genocide against the Armenians began to take shape and form roots in the folds of my mind.  But the most horrific awakening was the thought that these crimes, these long term atrocities were being inflicted by human beings much like me. Example: The Sabra-Shatilla massacre of 1982 in Lebanon was facilitated by a man who once was a child with whom I had played. We were next door neighbors sharing a narrow stairwell to our apartments where our tricycles and toys were stacked and kept. We were friends who laughed together, ate together, celebrated Christmas together and ran up and down stairs together, often skipping and jumping two by two.

I have been raised by victims of genocide who have spiraled through the chaos of its labyrinth, persecuted and exiled.  They were once children who grew up with harsh realities of trauma and hardship that come with the responsibility of a culture trying to survive with the “baggage” of its history.Realities of horrific experiences and destructive violence, loss of homes, separation from parents, being forced to flee, witnessing death and atrocities, and eventually harboring non-reconciliatory resentment.

War is wrong. Defensive or offensive, it leads to killing human beings. War is violence and its outcome unpredictable. Can anyone tell me how any one side will benefit from war when its true victims are the children…the future of humanity? Life and teachings of all Holy books are intended to move humankind forward, evolve, and create. It is not intended to halt our journey and meet our demise in a hail of bullets or shrapnel.

It is appalling to know that during the 20th century, more than 50 million people perished under the guise of war in genocidal campaigns around the world — from the Armenians in Anatolia to the Jews in Germany to the victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, to the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, and Bosnian Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, to the persecution of the Kurds in the Middle East, and most recently, the persecutions in Syria, and currently the intentional persecution of Christians and Armenians from Kessab.

I abhor war. But now I understand that we live in a world where the forces that seek to divide us are stronger than those that unite us. We must do more than stand in silence next to each other. “Sometimes, you simply have to give up who you are in order to be who you are,” had said my father. I didn’t understand him then, but now, I, who abhors war, say, “Sometimes, we must go to war to make the grandest statement about who we truly are.”

The month of April has been declared Genocide Prevention Month since the Armenian Genocide, Holocaust, Rwandan, Bosnian, and Cambodian genocides are commemorated during this time. The commemoration combines genocide remembrance with prevention and awareness.

It was in April 1915 that the Ottoman government began rounding up and murdering leading Armenian politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals, leading to the extermination of one and a half million.

In April 1933, the Nazis issued a decree paving the way for the annihilation of 6 million Jews of Europe.

In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Cambodia’s capital city and launched a four-year wave of violence, killing 2 million people.

In April 1992, the siege of Sarajevo began in Bosnia. More than 10,000 people perished.

In April 1994, the plane carrying the president of Rwanda crashed and triggered the beginning of a genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in 100 days.

In April 2003, innocent civilians in Sudan’s Darfur region were attacked; 400,000 have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in a genocide that continues today.

It is April 2014, and the Syrian government continues to raze cities at an alarming rate with over 130,000 dead. Genocide Watch warns that massacres and mass atrocities against pro-democracy protesters and the civilian population are being committed by Syrian security forces under the command of the al-Assad government.

“April is the cruelest month. We must ensure that the list of April’s genocides grows no longer.” (Ellen Kennedy, Executive Director, World Without Genocide.)

 

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He, too, Can be Bossy

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Silva Katchiguian

The use of gender based language defining masculine and feminine roles has changed our perception of what defines us and will continue to change across time, culture and place. Just two days after the United Nations and women of the world celebrated International Women’s Day, the Girl Scouts and Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) teamed up with women of fame to ban the word “bossy” because it is “symbolic of systemic discouragement of girls to lead.” According to them, the word bossy is used as a negative message when referenced to girls/women and not negative when referenced to boys/men. While some argue that accepted gender identity must be reexamined in order to eliminate socially constructed traditional gender roles, I remain untroubled by traditional gender language and see no reason to change descriptions and gender explicit pronouns. I am of the personal conviction that it is not the language that determines behavior. It is the culture, the support systems in place and the opportunities, (and unfortunately, the economic and power politics at play). Language will not change gender bias. It is an entire culture of changing habits and behavior that will alter the way we look at gender equality.  If the word bossy offends a woman into stereotyping her as the female gender with a negative message that holds her back, then she must teach the children and adults to use the same language on boys and men. He (They) too, can be bossy. Do not change the language. Use it; share its true meaning with both genders alike. Eliminating certain words or banning their use will not change the culture of gender stereotype.  For years, men were asked to help around the house and with the children, stereotyping the woman with designated home/family chore responsibilities, while women were asked to help bring home the bacon stereotyping the man as the designated breadwinner. We changed how we use the word “help” (not prohibited it’s use as there are still some who prefer to use the word as it implies) into “share” in the responsibilities. Progress in eliminating gender bias is to be made through proper use of language and changes in behavior…giving the same opportunities to all children, to pursue their individual interests without judgment based on gender.

Two years ago a pre-school in Sweden, “Egalia,” took the elimination of gender pronouns to unusual extremes by avoiding the use of “him” and “her” and addressing the kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys.
It is one thing to create programs that make sure children do not fall into gender stereotypes and it is another to become obsessed with obliterating gender. The fundamental issue here should be equality of possibilities between the sexes and not the nullification of gender. The world doesn’t need gender-neutral pronouns. It needs gender neutral approaches to teaching all subjects with equal enthusiasm to boys and girls.

gender

I am a girl. I am a boy. Let me run around and turn whisks and sticks into swords and play rough. Show me how to cook and bake and how to build with blocks. Hand me a hammer and help me use a needle and thread. Allow me to cuddle a puppy and play with dolls; at the same time show me the mechanics of construction vehicles. Teach me science and teach me art. Show me that I can be a model and a truck driver. Tell me I can be a plumber, or a judge, or a wait staff. Teach me to value being a doctor, nurse, and lawyer. Cultivate in me the joy of being a homemaker, an engineer, physicist, or nutritionist. Make it possible for me to become a farmer, firefighter, senator, president, a pilot, police officer, teacher or a nanny. Allow me to cry when I’m hurt or afraid, and to laugh boisterously among friends. Open my mind to revere beauty and have respect for the preciousness of the earth. Expose me to Cinderella, the Paper Bag Princess and Don Quixote. Teach me universal chivalrous conduct and let me know the difference between that and sexual harassment.
I may be strong in some things and weak in others. I may be good in math, acrobatics, and/or writing. I may be weak in art, basketball, home economics. Allow me my weaknesses and encourage in me my strengths. I am entitled to the same laws, the same respect, humanitarianism, social power, and prestige as my friend next to me.
You and I should be exposed to all things, and you and I should decide what of those things we want. And in all these things, I am equal to you. There is no hierarchy in my forte and choices. Yet, as important as all these professions and choices are, there is one thing that matters more. I am biologically different and my body chemistry is different. You and I, we both produce the hormone testosterone but if you happen to be (allow me to say) she or woman, you produce around 70 percent less than (allow me to say) he or man. You and I, we both produce oxytocin, but if you happen to be him or man, your testosterone hormones counteract the effects of oxytocin whereas her or woman’s estrogen hormones will enhance the oxytocin that promotes affection within relationships especially during childbirth and breastfeeding. Similarly, I either produce ova or I produce sperm.
I am She.  I am He.

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