Compassion

Dear Friends;

It's time for me to update this record of my deployment. We just completed a visit to Al Asad and Balad Air Base. This completes the sites we will be visiting on this deployment. From this point on we will be revisiting sites beginning with Afghanistan. During the second round I am offering a course on communication based on Marshall Rosenberg's, Non-Violent Communication, A Language of Compassion. This is to facilitate communication among deployed members and deployed members and their families both while they are deployed and as they return home. A significant lesson I have learned on this deployment is the anguish military families suffer due to extended separations due to deployments. I am involved in a long tour for the Air Force which in all will be 7 months. Most Air Force tours are 4 months. However, the standard Army tour is one year which includes two months of preparatory work in the United States for a total of 14 months of service. Much of my work is working with individuals has to due with back home relationships.

Karl Menninger once said that the mentally ill are like everyone only more so. I think deployed military members are like everyone else only more so. The divorce rates in America continue to soar due to what I believe is a loss of faith. Faith is trust in the transcendent power of GOD. For a significant majority of military members faith in a matter of indifference. My perception of the national scene in America the practice of authentic faith traditions seems to be a matter of indifference for most American. Many have a religious affiliation but few practice the disciplines that are a part of most faith traditions.

So how can we help military families move into authentic faith practices? How can we strengthen the blessed ties that bind hearts together in LOVE! The key is for people of faith to practice their traditions; pray daily, study spiritual writings, worship in community, support the community in prayer and service and to serve the community of faith and the local, national and international communities. While people of faith are growing in these faith practices they are able to welcome others into their practice. St. Paul writes, "Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you." We share a life in community that flows to us through the power of the Spirit as a gift. Extending hospitality to people welcoming them, to share in our faith journey . I think we can find a way to welcome military families especially as they endure deployments so that the time of deployment can be a time growth.

In other words, the core processes of worshipping congregations are what all people need in order to experience peace in their relationships, and especially deployed military members and their families. I am posting a picture from our helicopter flight from Balad to Speicher.

Peace be with you!

DAVE