Chapter 10
At 3:30 am of Monday, 20 November, Bian began driving Jon and herself to Logan Airport to catch their flight to Lima, Peru.
Jon was thinking about Minh Ly. Jon knew he was beyond genius, but more importantly, Ly made Jon think of what Jorge Luis Borges had once written, that every person’s most important task to be successfully completed during her/his lifetime was to be able to transmute her/his pain into compassion. Ly had been the youngest General ever appointed by ** Chi Minh, and, in short, General Ly had had to order North Vietnamese soldiers into battle. 1,100,000 of them had died during the long, ugly, brutal Vietnam War. Minh had spent many days in tears. That he had had the fortitude to persevere and ultimately transmute his unbearable pain into compassion is what Jon most respected about Minh Ly. Because he was so brilliant, Ly initially threw himself into the throes of worldwide business at war’s end, amassing, over a number of years, massive wealth: billions and billions and billions of dollars. Concurrently, however, Ly, overtime, experienced a life-changing metamorphosis. He came to realize that wealth was not worth, as Jon had written in his commentary PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE, that compassion was humanity’s most important goal, that only love could save Earth. And that was why he ultimately decided to use wealth not to buy as much of Earth as he could, but to use it to save Earth, to eradicate all the vicious inequities that had ineluctably killed billions of human beings over many millennia. Moreover, he secretly went around the world and met with his mega-wealthy friends, asking them to join him in this lifelong endeavor that he titled SOCIETY FOR PEACE, and many of them did join him. Now Ly and his friends were warring against war, fighting every injustice that caused horrid hell into which all the poor, all who suffered from myriad forms of racism through to torture and death, fell. Ly was hell-bent on saving Earth and all living creations upon it. Then he met Jon.
Bian, thought Jon, was as incredibly intelligent as her father. Of course, she was soft-spoken, but that belied her brilliance. After all, Bian has just completed the most rigorous, as well as the best, undergraduate liberal arts education to be found on Earth, graduating Summa *** Laude, an incredible academic achievement. Jon knew how much she loved her father, and he believed as well that his wife yearned, probably unconsciously, to emulate him. That notion alone was enough to cause Jon to fall in love with Bian, then propose to and marry her. Now she was a co-parther with Jon and her father to realize her wish: to heal Earth.
“I wrote a new poem yesterday, Bian. Would you like to her it?” said Jon.
“Of course,” said Bian.
“OK,” said Jon who then reached into his satchel and pulled out the new poem and began reading it.
SOLITUDE AND GRACE
I will wander
into wilderness
to find myself.
I will leave behind
my accoutrements,
memories of medals,
of past applause
and accolades,
accomplishments that
warranted degrees
and diplomas
portending future
successes. I like
who I am, who
I have become. No,
I love myself, and that
is my greatest achievement,
the acme most men
are blind to as they
mistake wealth for worth.
Most would say
I will be lonely,
but they are wrong,
because I will always be
with my best friend ever,
my real self. And I will
share my joy with
squirrels and rabbits
and deer, with bushes
and broken branches
and brush, with rills
and rivulets and rivers,
with rising and setting
suns and countless
stars coruscating in
night's sky. I will say
prayers to piles of pine
and sycamore limbs
that once were live,
but now make monuments
I worship. I am at one
with all I prize. My eyes,
even when they are closed,
see their beauty. I know
I will be blessed forever.
I lie on my bed, Earth,
and wait to join all
in solitude and grace.
“That was beautiful, Jon,” said Biad as she sped toward Logan.
“Thank you, my dear,” replied Jon.
Chapter 11
At 10:30 am Lima, Peru time, Jon knocked on the door of Room #608 of the Casa Andina Premium Milaflores Hotel. The door opened slowly and there stood Minh Ly, smiling.
“Do come in! How wonderful to see you both again! Your visits are becoming the highlight for me every month,” exclaimed Mr. Ly.
Bian, before she said a word, rushed forward into her father’s open arms to be hugged by him. For almost a minute, Bian stayed silent in her father’s arms. She did not want him to stop hugging her; it felt so good. Finally, Bian stepped back and, almost in a yell, said, “I love you!”
“My dear Bian, I love you too, with all my heart,” said Mr. Ly. “And you, Jon, it is always special to meet a person like you. You are my only son and I am blessed to have you now as part of my family. Please, both of you, have a seat.”
“Thank you, Mr Ly. I am honored now to be a member of the Ly family,” said Jon, then joined Bian on the sofa.
Jon spoke again.
“Mr. Ly, I have for you the information you will need to prepare the press releases you will send to all media and people you wish to inform about our imminent sojourn 2 January 2024. Here it is,” said Jon, and handed the pages to him.
“Thank you, Bian and Jon, for this cogent information. I need to tell you, Jon, I now have, with the help of my friends, the names of all members of every family you will meet on your forthcoming trip from Mexico through to Brazil. I will send these names to you at your cottage on Cape Cod,” said Mr. Ly.
Mr. Ly continued.
“Bian and Jon, I need to share with both of you the following. My friends and I will create our own Starlink-like internet company so no “Citizen of Earth”--as you, Jon, call all 8 billion human beings on Earth–can be blocked when each votes on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Furthermore, we will provide cell phones to all Citizens on Earth who participate in this endeavor, the most glorious moment of love and liberty ever on Earth. And Bian and Jon, you will be able to visit a family safely in all the more than the 50 totalitarian nations. How is this possible, you ask? It is possible because I and my friends have our ways. In addition, we shall translate your commentary PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE into all 7,000 languages and dialects and, beginning 1 January 2024, will send it monthly to all media according to which each uses. This will continue until the vote on CAMPAIGN ON EARTH takes place during the first two weeks of 2026.
And, as you have told me, Jon, only love can save Earth.”
“Mr. Ly, you are, with the exception of your daughter, the most intelligent, the most compassionate, the most self-effacing human being I have had the honor ever meeting. You know, I’m sure, the difference between personhood and behavior. Everyone’s personhood is sacred, inviolable, intrinsic, whereas so many people’s behavior is often uncaring or hurtful, or even much worse. It is not unusual to react to one’s untoward behavior with at least displeasure if not outright hate, even on rare occasions with violence. But this latter response is unknowing. When one encounters bad behavior to any degree and wishes it were not so, do not exacerbate what is already deleterious by making it even worse through punishment. Instead, constrain this negativity, but love this forsaken person. Love is the cure for all those who suffer pain. It may take a lot of love to heal a hurting soul, even a lifetime, perhaps even longer. But love is the antidote for all emotional maladies. But for one to be able to love others, one must first be loved, preferably by one’s parents. This dilemma is what our world most suffers from. Wealth, fame, power–all are illusory and therefore feckless. They are but unconscious efforts to compensate for lack of love, and that is what our world has been turned inside-out for millennia. Only being loved, and then being able to love, will we be able to turn our world right-side in. Then and only then will we have Peace on Earth forever, and for the first time.
“I lavish praise upon you, because you are a beyond-magnificent human being, Mr. Ly,” concluded Jon.
Mr. Ly sat in silence, stunned. Finally, he said, “Thank you, thank you, Jon.”
