"No, no!" protested our tour guide who was also a member of the panel.

      "Then, let's discuss terrorism, Soviet terrorism," shouted another man from the back.

      "And what about the West's capitalist terrorism against all the poor countries in the world?" shouted someone else with a Russian accent. "If you want to compare the body count of the dead, capitalism will show up as the number one enemy of humankind."

      "Yes, but who has his fingers on the pulse of economic terrorism? Who wants to wreck everything that is decent and good? Who but the Soviet Union and its cronies would want that?" The outburst came from an American sounding person at the back of the hall.

      Most people didn't even bother standing up as they spoke. After this diatribe, Vietnam and Afghanistan were both brought up together.

      Our tour guide stood up and waved her hand as someone who would be firm in this matter. Still, she spoke in the gentlest manner. She said that this meeting shouldn't concern itself with such contentious political items that cannot be resolved on this kind of platform anyway. Rather, the conference should explore the principles can counter the underlying mental forces that invite conflicts; the forces that divide us and isolate us, which are the forces that drive us towards war and are killing mankind. "We are not here to 'rape' each other mentally, emotionally, and politically, and to tear each other down. We are here to do the opposite. For this we need to develop the technology of grace that brings the humanity of the human being to the surface that is rooted in all of us."

      I nudged Fred. "Did you hear that?"

      Fred nodded and smiled.

      "I don't know when I had last heard the world, grace, spoken aloud," I said to him. "But here, it was practically the first thing she said," I said to Fred while our tour guide was still speaking.

      "Let's be clear about one thing," said our tour guide at one point, gently, in closing, "there is not a single person on this panel that is authorized to discuss contentious political matters anyway. Let's also be clear that even if we were authorized to discuss them, the hysteric battling that would result, would be of no practical value to anyone. So why would we waste our time with that? Instead, let's do something constructive that profits us all in a practical way. Doing that might even uplift the world a little."

      I nudged Fred again. "Did you hear that? She is talking like Steve would, or like you sometimes talk." I told him that I also liked the firm control she had established with her gentle manner, and this in spite of the fact that there was apparent disagreement with her guideline proposal even among the panel.

      Ushi stood up in to support of our tour guide. I felt that her help hadn't really been necessary. Still, I was looking forward to hear what Ushi might say that would raise the platform still higher as I knew she would attempt.

      Ushi raised her hand when she got to the lectern. "I, too, would love to see the Afghan war ended," she said softly. "But ask yourselves, what can we expect to gain from discussing war as an issue? By its very nature, war is something totally illogical. Believe me, I know. I have spent two months in Afghanistan as a journalist. I have seen the whole tragic effort first hand, and I've been trying my damnedest to understand the meaning of it. In my courier as a journalist I've seen countless atrocities committed by all sides. I have experienced horrors that most of you cannot imagine, and witnessed immense pain and also the raging anger that unfolds in the heat of the battle. Believe me, I've heard too many of the battle cries, and cries of the heroes fueling the flames, and I have also seen too many people die in those flames to find any sense in it all. Believe me, those kinds of issues are far too deep to be addressed via a round table discussions."

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche