Marquette University 2010 Presentation

Hi Mike,

Overall, when it comes to teaching I'd say you are ready to put me out of a job.

In subsequent lectures to your visit I emphasized the Christian theology of how Jesus of Nazareth suffers and dies and then spends three days "Harrowing Hell." The dying and harrowing of hell are the bottom out section on your graph. The resurrection, turning into a free spirit, is the section where one comes out of the pit and into new life. Jesus comes out of it as the Christ and no longer just "of Nazareth." In many ways, you and I are no longer of a place, we now try to help others in need (in Mahayana Buddhism, this is the Bodhisattva; in Christianity it is the Wounded Healer, in native cultures it could be the shaman).

The point I made to my students on this is that while I have a specifically Catholic view point, that should be acceptable to most Christians, you showed a very similar model to what I teach that was not tied to a specific religious tradition. Here, I find that the truth of the process works, regardless of how one understands it in terms of traditionnal religion.

The presentation on what life was like in the sixties was also very valuable. I teach about something that I call "Safe Hates." There is often something we as individuals as a society and as individuals can safely hate. It allows us to scapegoat someone else and not to really have to examine our presuppositions and actions. For Germany, leading up to WW2, it was the Jews.

You made it clear that after WW2 for the USA it was Asians. That allowed us to get into Vietnam a lot easier than we would have against non-Asians. I recently read James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific set in WW2. One of the characters says, now that we are here we will never leave, we will have another war after the Japanese with other Asians. The book published in 1947.

You may want to ask the Church folks for a chalkboard or block of paper. Part of the strength of your performance lies in being able to visualize the elements under Primary Integration, and also seeing the graph. Some churches I have spoken at have all sorts of teaching equipment, others just put me in front of the chapel and said talk. Might want to have plans for both.

Lastly, one of the real values you indicated was that the same things that happened to the Vietnam generation in terms of PTSD and suicide is happening to the current generation. You are doing splendid work. I am done teaching mid May. I would value a chance to meet somewhere for coffee and some conversation.

Semper Pax,

John D. Zemler

Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Theology Marquette University

www.PTSDspirituality.com

"And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, 'Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.'" ~Jesus of Nazareth (John 8.7)