An Angry Giver

I am angry. Actually livid is a better word. I am heartbroken. I cringe in shame.

I’ve read my share of and books on our current wars, but none have touched me at the depth and stirred such emotions as Megan Stack’s book Every Man in This Village is a Liar. With horrific near-poetic language she tells stories-stories of her years as an LA Times correspondent in the Middle East. She tells of the terror of a young man and his girlfriend who were spotted and threatened prior to meeting with her. She was never able to contact them again. She tells of the time she spent in Southern Lebanon under the bombing of Israel. A rigged Egyptian election, observed up close and personal, fills another narrative.

My anger, shame and heartbreak are not just for the acts we humans inflict on one another, but for the red, white and blue threads that weave their American patriotic pattern through the stories. In the rigged election, for example, the tear gas canister lobbed at would-be voters said in block letters: “Made in the USA.” We don’t get it that what we do “over there” effects us directly and indirectly. As Ms. Stack says, “One war breeds another war. We create that which we try to kill.1”


You may well ask, “What does this have to do with giving-the stated purpose of this list?” Good question.

My initial response to the book, as I said at the beginning, was a mix of negative emotions. I wanted to do something, change something or somebody; make a difference. I wanted to be against war, I wanted to strike out at injustice and poverty. OK, I’ll be honest. I wanted to hurt somebody or many somebody.

Reality raised its ugly head and said, “And how much of a difference will that make?” I’m only one and not a very action-oriented one at that. What can I do or say that would make any real difference? The one time I wrote my congresspeople about Guantanamo, I received one reply, “I’m on your side in this.” But Guantanamo still exists.

Then the thought came to me, “But at least you’re one.” This was followed by another, “Do what you’re doing-make a little difference; love a little even though you can’t resolve the tensions in the Middle east.”

So I’m going to do the little I’m doing with a little more vigor, a higher sense intent, a desire for an influence bigger than these few words.

May the vast improbability of human greed which spawns wars be brought to its knees by the little Davids throwing their little stones against the weapons of mass destruction which we hurl around the world so freely. May we soften the hearts of those who have come to hate us for our wealth, our arrogance, our naïve assumption of our superiority, our glib pronouncements of simple solutions to complex millennium-long discords, our bully presence around the world. ,

My stone is etched with “Giving.”

1 Every Man in This Village is a Liar, Megan K. Stack P. 227