A Journey Unto Peace

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr Philip Stack is a Pennsylvanian by birth and son of refugee parents. He is currently a resident of Spring Hill, Tennessee. As a Clinical Psychologist he considers the happy, intact family a crucial part of a healthy society. He and his wife are parents of one girl and five boys. They have twenty grand children and arc married 57 years. Dr Stack has practiced in several mental health facilities over a period of 35 years. About his book "How To Do Family Therapy" Hans Selye writes: "Let me congratulate you upon having written a tine and enlightening work." Dr stack identifies The Love Force as a primary agent in healing the malfunctioning family group. The Love Force exists everywhere in nature and it's healing power may be transmitted mainly from one person to another. Dr Stack identities the improvement in family relationships as "change through no change." Psychological needs are identified and accommodated. Offering acceptance, reassurance and understanding is an effective and necessary requirement. In his philosophy, Dr Stack offers a simple guideline: "Give the therapeutic power of your compliments generously to the world that the Love Force may enter people's lives and allow peace and happiness to flourish. Dr Stack is author of "How To Be Good," "Hail to the Second Best," "Secrets of a Romantic Man," and "How we raised our children to serve the Lord." ---- How much good is required for peace to exist? And how many persons arc needed who will give more and sacrifice more and receive less to sustain peace? How much good in giving is required when giving is offered to accommodate many needs? And forgiving? How many are willing to forgive? And how many will have sufficient goodness to be caring, listening to others, and to be understanding and accepting of others? The time has come, A JOURNEY UNTO PEACE. I invited five, a Presbyterian, a Lutheran and a Catholic, all pastors. And there were two more, a female teacher and myself, a Psychologist. The five were seated in the rectory of St Wenceslaus Church on a cold wintry afternoon as beautiful chimes of some unseen timepiece enchanted the adventurers. What was the plan? We were coming together without an agenda. Just to be. The female member of the group was first to speak: "I constantly have to smile at myself since a long time ago, and in many places where I find myself, I find men saying to me, "you do a good job for a woman." It took me a long time to overcome that, having become a little bitchy in the process. Fortunately, I am mature enough now to know who I am and what I want to do, and it really doesn't matter what they think of me. 1 think others have great difficulty in being accepted and being loved in their meanderings through life. I sometimes have difficulty with people who precede me, who achieve a status before I get there. They attach a label on me, "A minister's wife." It is as if I must wait until they are able to see me as a person, without labels." "We love you because you are a special person," someone said. "I'm a good teacher, but not a scholar. If I should count my talents..." "You have many, many talents," the voice of one of the men interrupted, "Many, many," another concurred. "Actually, the label doesn't bother me as it once did. If you say, 'you arc Ron's wife, ' I accept that. I don't consider being married to a profession or a house. Such pigeon-holing used to bother me. but my husband had the guts to let me be me." "Well, you are a very valuable person; you are the best, right now." (more inside)