ANOUNCING AN INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE MEETING—A blog of sorts
By: Ronald J. Unterreiner

I have decided (in my mind) to hold an International PEOPLE meeting.

Details are still unfolding in my mind but I see the event taking place at the Hard Hat Café in the former Alberici headquarters building in Wellston—date to be announced. Sure, we would have to use a bit of the parking lot and perhaps hire an extra guard but I think we can make it work. My goal would be to have every person in the entire world attend. Not sure of the time, but I may just stick with my standard time of 4:00 to 5:30 realizing of course, that an extra hour or two may be needed if we are to work out all of the problems that are on my mind.

In keeping though with my initial concept of PEOPLE, we would not expect to solve all issues at the first meeting so there is high likelihood that additional monthly meetings would be required. Realizing that travel is an issue for those from North Korea, India, Syria, Afghanistan, Israel and a few other countries and nations and continents that I would like to see in attendance, maybe we just come out up front and shoot for six meetings in 2018 and then re-assess.

I may just leave Australia and New Zealand off the list as they seem to have things fairly well together being the fun loving and understanding people they are. We can discuss this further before the invitations go out. Just like a family wedding guest list; you have to draw the line somewhere.

Not quite worked out the details on the invites but I am sure Elmer Rhodes at Cross Rhodes and Tom Finan at Construction Forum will figure something out. They have not let me down yet.

At this PEOPLE meeting I would start by welcoming everyone and inviting them to mingle a bit and get to know everyone in the room—and the parking lot—and eventually find a table to sit and relax and prepare to express their thoughts. I would start by self-introductions—which could very well take a while given there will be over a zillion folks in attendance. I need to think about limiting the time each person has during this phase of the meeting.

I would then throw out a few topics that are on my mind and see if we can start the process to work things out via active discussions of opposing sides and end up with some form of compromat—I’m sorry—compromise. (I have been watching too much political news lately in preparing for this meeting).

Those topics would include the following:

Let’s forget any further discussion anywhere, anytime on the subject of Gun Control. Some people want to control the ownership and the use of guns, some do not—easy enough, let’s quit talking about it.—leave it as is–whatever that may be–and we can return to this subject at a future International PEOPLE meeting. Guns are part of our culture, part of society; part of our entertainment; part of our needs—whether you own a gun or not, you surely know someone who does. Besides, we have that First Amendment thing.

Let’s focus instead on “Weapons Control”. Weapons are relatively new to the scene; have no real purpose other than to kill and kill fast and kill many; and truth be told, I doubt if many of us know anyone who owns an AK-47 or sub-machine gun complete with thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition or have actually seen such a weapon in action. (Other than, of course, watching our current governor’s political advertisements)
I mean, let’s face it, is there anyone reading this that really wants to mangle a deer or rabbit with 357 rounds of internally mass exploding bullets? I realize there are a few exceptions but seems that we could get this crowd to agree that “something” needs to be done to further limit, control or eliminate WEAPONS in our society. We could form an Ad Hoc committee to start the process of defining WEAPONS and working on a list of no more than ten bullet points as to how to limit or control WEAPONS—however they may define WEAPONS.

Maybe assign ten people on this committee, each from a different nation, surely we can come up with something reasonable by the next PEOPLE meeting or before? That is why I am thinking of leaving Australia and New Zealand out as they could never wrap their head around the fact that we allow this type of WEAPON to permeate throughout our society in the first place. Why would we do that, they would ask? Would that not cause fear in the hearts and minds of many attending large public events such as country music concerts, church services on Sunday, nightclubs, schools, etc.?

About this time, I fear the crowd will be pretty worked up so I would quickly switch to a more peaceful topic. I would ask everyone to get to know their neighbor. The people next door; the people they meet during the day; the guy that sits next to them in church; the gal who checks them out at Shop n Save; and that cousin you forgot about years ago. You may discover you do not like them all that much and you may or may not want to have them over for dinner, but at least get to know them. See if you can make them smile; most of the people we encounter during the day appear to be a little stressed. Bake your neighbors some bread or cookies, send them a note, ask about their kids, shake their hand, understand their pain and share their joys. My belief and hope is that reaching a better understanding of our neighbors will help us formulate better ideas and more acceptable practices for our self.

Surely this topic will not be controversial and bring the crowd back in control.

Along this same line, I would ask everyone to do something, anything, for somebody–anybody–each and every day. It could be simple or it could be game changing—try one of each. This will be hard for many and I accept that. But so very rewarding; I am not sure people realize how rewarding internally it is to be nice. This is a concept we must share with all nations.

Then, I will probably return to a more divisive topic just to keep the juices flowing of the crowd. Since we are all together why not talk about religion and politics. Man, I can’t believe I even said that?

I would nicely suggest that everyone should find faith of some sort and go to some sort of organized church service once a week—ok, month? We need more community and faith in our lives, regardless of our beliefs. My daughter goes to Flatirons church in the Denver/Boulder area—one of the fastest growing churches in the United States–and their idea with their somewhat rogue preachers dressed in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers is to get all people together in one large room and sing, talk, be happy, hold hands—or maybe just sit and listen. (Sounds like a PEOPLE meeting to me) If per chance you happen to bump into Jesus while there, that is great. If not, you just spent a most positive hour and you cleansed your mind of the stresses of everyday and no matter how you felt when you walked in the front door, you leave happy. Maybe you are flat out an atheist, well, that is fine as well, just come—the music alone will make you happy. We have churches like that in our area—try one I will tell the crowd. I fully expect a little push back on this so I will quickly switch to politics.

My idea on politics is to simply forget politics. The two party system currently on display in our country is becoming quite unworkable. What other organized groups do you know where one side votes 100% one way and the other side 100% the other way, regardless of the merits of the issues they are discussing. I am beginning to think that the integration of republicans and democrats is even more challenging than the integration of races and cultures. Besides, seems like we have enough going on with North Korea and some other spots on the globe that discussing international politics in the Hard Hat Café at Alberici is probably not a good idea. I know my limits.

With politics out of the way—or at least on the shelf for a meeting or two–it would be getting close to 5:30 and I would begin thinking about wrapping things up. I always like to leave a little time at the end for more mingling; more brotherhood; friendly, spirited discussion as to the topics covered; and simply getting to know each other better. Besides, there will be a lot of flights to catch out of Lambert and the Alberici guards start to get a bit nervous around 6:00PM.

In my mind, I see ending all this in song. Peter, Paul and Mary used music to heal and unite in the sixties and seventies; maybe it is time to return to songs of freedom, songs of justice, and songs about bringing our brothers and sisters together all over this land. Yes, that is what I will do, I will end this International PEOPLE meeting in song.

I would choose the Christian singer/songwriter, Matt Maher’s song AND ALL THE PEOPLE SAID AMEN.
“We are all broken, but we are all in this together. God knows we stumble and we fall…”
And all the PEOPLE said AMEN!

Meeting closed, next meeting in two months, book your flight. Thanks for coming.

I would think six or seven International PEOPLE meetings would do wonders for all nations and could well bring the answers we are searching for—we will see.