None of us at birth knows anybody. At our moment of birth, everybody in the world is a possible friend. But these possibilities are quickly limited as we learn the many adjectives that describe our gender, our faith, our race, our nationality, our politics, our social standing and all the other adjectives that separate us.
HateBusters longs to bring us near again to those limitless possibilities for wide-ranging friendships that were ours at the dawn of our life when we could have been friends with everyone we met. Seems to me the purpose of life is to meet every person we can and learn to like every person we meet.
My students and I started the Human Family Reunion in 1976 to help this happen. We started HateBusters in 1988. Since 1996, we have been helping everyone we meet become what we call World Class Persons, able to go anyplace at anytime and talk to anyone about anything and feel safe.
I spent the summer of 1987 riding my bicycle alone and without money across America. I was looking for that spark of goodness and genius I see in every person. From Disney World to Disneyland, by way of Seattle, I found it. I find it still in every person.
I find it in each of you who will be at our Human Family Reunion held at William Jewell College on Tuesday, April 24 at 6:30 in the evening. This evening HateBusters will award our Doctor of Humane Living to those among us who work daily to help us all live peacefully, pleasantly and productively together.
My small office is just beside the washing machine in the basement of my home. With two fingers, I hunt and peck all the messages I send my email and snail mail to all the folks whose addresses I have. When I am not at my keyboard, I am aboard my bike.. If I don’t ride, I can’t walk. If I ride, I can run. So I ride. A lot! Always with a destination in mind. Some small town café in this place I call Greater Liberty, where I sit with local folks and listen to their stories. Comfort food in abundance I find here. For body. And soul.
I’m now 71 years old. I’ve been living with a diagnosis of MS since 1981. But even as I grow older and more physically infirm, my mind races at warp speed to embrace the Impossible Dream captured in Don Quixote’s words: “Too much sanity may be madness, and the greatest madness of all may be to see the world as it and not as it should be.” My world is a place where I long to meet every person I can and learn to like every person I meet.
Please come to our Human Family Reunion. Meet all the other folks who come. A night you will remember for the rest of your life.
Below is the wording of our Doctor of Humane Living Degree. Actually two copies. The first contains the feminine pronoun; the second, the masculine. Please fill in your name where it says “your name here”
Please email me a copy of your completed degree with your name inserted. I will then make a master list and send a copy to everyone. All of us will then be in touch with one another. Who knows what great things might come from our awareness of our common tie, our being Doctors of Humane Living and on our way to World Class Personhood.
Should you for some reason be unable to come to our Human Family Reunion, please complete the degree form and email it to me. You will be included in our first ever class of Doctor of Humane Living.
Feminine
Be it known wherever people might hear
That in this month of April
in the year of our living large
Two-Thousand-Seven
at this magic place known as Greater Liberty
that
,(your name here)
having invested her life in the doing of good deeds
and having dedicated her boundless energy
to the righting of all wrongs
that make themselves known to her
is hereby awarded the rare and distinguished degree
Doctor of Humane Living
Given this day by all HateBusters
Living in the land of Greater Liberty
and signed by our leader in the impossible quest
to bring our little piece of This Good Earth
to the place it should be
where we all live as beloved members of
The Human Family.
Ed Chasteen,
The Pedalin’ Professor
Masculine
Be it known wherever people might hear
That in this month of April
in the year of our living large
Two-Thousand-Seven
at this magic place known as Greater Liberty
that
, ,(your name here)
having invested his life in the doing of good deeds
and having dedicated his boundless energy
to the righting of all wrongs
that make themselves known to him
is hereby awarded the rare and distinguished degree
Doctor of Humane Living
Given this day by all HateBusters
Living in the land of Greater Liberty
and signed by our leader in the impossible quest
to bring our little piece of God’s Good Earth
to the place it should be
where we all live as beloved members of
The Human Family.
Ed Chasteen,
The Pedalin’ Professor
HateBusters
Box 442
Liberty, MO 64069
Phone: 816-803-8371
e-mail: hatebuster@aol.com
No Boundaries On Our Soul!
