Hello, bloggers!
My mother Margaret was the historian in our family, and now my brother Richard is. They keep frack of our origins, where we come from, and who does what.
Dick is just finishing his second book chronicling all the members and extended members of our family. He called me yesterday and said he has many statements and articles about me, did I want to say anything personal for his chronicle.
On Sunday morning, I went to a synagogue, where I spoke to about 300 people, old and young, about how we can make this a more peaceful world.
As I said to them, I am such an unlikely carrier of a message of peace. In my first life I was an undertaker and entrepreneur. I weighed too much, smoked too much, drank too much, ran around like a fool too much...
Then I quit everything and decided to become a carrier of a message of peace.
Contemporary logic will tell you that peace is next to impossible to make our species peaceful and to try to change the things in life that can be changed.
My pilgrimage from an undertaker to an artist who paints for peace was a huge change. I’m still a man, still Roman Catholic, and still white, but almost everything else has changed. As someone said who was interviewing me said, when I made that change, it was as if I had died; I just didn’t get buried—I just changed my whole life.
Right now one of the projects we’re working on is an art show honoring the Martin Luther King, Jr. “I have a dream” speech and analyzing what it did to change the United States and the world. This will be done through painting, sculpture, poetry, music and all the other arts.
As we think about dreams, I would never have dreamed that my life would be like this as I get close to 80. When Rose and I were married 55 years ago this year, we never dreamed we would be nomads roaming the world, speaking to every religion, color, culture, nationality, about a common denominator, which is art, and painting “Umbrellas for Peace.”
My message for anyone reading this is that family is the most important thing in life.
I’d be long in my grave if it weren’t for Rose. The family has supported and encouraged me with acceptance and tolerance.
That’s the strength, I believe, of the human species. We aren’t only a pack; we aren’t only a tribe or a nation. We are primarily members of a family.
That’s why I always felt that the term “family business” is an oxymoron. A business is about following the rules, staying in line, being intolerant, making money. A family is forgiving, accepting, welcoming back, and not being judgmental.
Because we were in a family business, my brother and I always walked a fine line, and we walked that line together. I think it was the beginning of the realization that even though Dick looked at the world one way and I looked at it another, we both looked at it together and built something we could be proud of. We were able to forge this alliance and accept each other and happily go on together.
Dick and I and our sister Peg are very blessed that we’re all three still on top of the earth and not beneath it. We really enjoy meeting with one another and our spouses in Chicago.
The same way with all of my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We have been so blessed with being able to see the wonderful lives that our children have created with their spouses and children and now their children’s children. That is another one of our great blessings that we savor. We look forward to coming back to Chicago and visiting everybody.
The position that I’m in now—striving for peace, hope, tolerance, understanding, and love—is, according to all logic, impossible.
From the beginning of recorded time, might was right. The person with the biggest army controlled everyone else. In July of 1945 our species developed the ultimate weapon that could blow up this world.
Today, my whole mission in life is to call for a New Los Alamos, where people change the way we live from being warriors to being lovers, to change strife into tolerance. So my mission is more or less Don Quixote.
But I can tell you that almost every week I meet with groups and talk to them about peace, and they accept it, talk about it, and paint their umbrellas. They are peacemakers, and I have great hope that through my impossible dream, my life and the lives of all around me, we together will make a little bit of difference in this crazy world.
The most personal thing I can say is to cherish your family. Don’t prejudge who and what your family members are going to be. Accept them, love them, tolerate them just as they do the same for you, because without them, we are poor little lambs who have lost their way: “Baaah baaah baaah!”
As for me, I am a poor little lamb who’s following my road, and I’m happier than a lark, singing, dancing around the world with my lovely Rose and our friends and family.
Our friends around the world welcome us with the same greeting: “Welcome home.”
We have been blessed greatly by the Almighty God, and we have also been blessed with such a wonderful accepting and doing family.
Onward and upward,
Matt Lamb
November 15, 2009