37days

What would love do?

Sometimes we get the message we need. Reading zena musings this morning, I found Carla's link to this: What would love do? It was written for me. And, perhaps, for you?

[perhaps a knitted heart is the perfect image for this message, considering the ways in which knitting can ravel, or not. Image from here]

H is for human rights

Most people, no doubt, when they espouse human rights, make their own mental reservations about the proper application of the word ‘human.’ –Suzanne LaFollette

In 2008, I will fight for the rights of human beings I see being dismissed and excluded and not listened to. And killed for who they are.

And I will remember that H is for human rights. Not white, middle upper class, straight, fine brick home rights, but human rights.

Not different-but-enough-like-me-that-I-feel-comfortable rights, but human rights.

Not multicolored-but-white-inside rights, but human rights.

I will believe in equality, not just with my superiors—which is easy—but with those people I judge as inferior to me. I will believe in equality, not just with people who agree with me--which is easy--but with people who don't agree with me--which is more difficult.

I will remember that it takes action to ensure the human rights of others, not weariness, and not just talk. That it takes being for something, and not just being against something.

And I will remember that being neutral isn’t. As Paulo Freire reminds us, “Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."

I was delighted to hear a college professor of mine, Jerry Caris Godard, speak this past Sunday. What a joy to reconnect after these many years out of school, to come to know former professors as adults, each of us grey-haired now. His topic was William Blake; he offered ten “angles of vision” into his “passionate entanglement” with Blake. It was number eight, among others, that caught my eye: “As my lifelong openness to others is amplified, I recognize (more explicitly than Blake) that ardent advocacy of gender equality is a necessary but not sufficient condition to set sexism aside!”

“So too,” he remarked, “with racism.”

It is not enough to want something.

It is not enough to want a portion of something. As Desmond Tutu said, “I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”

And it is not enough to look away from what is right in front of us, as Carl Rowan reminds us: “It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.”

Intentions: Let’s start here. Now. Consider yourself part of the solution. Grant specificity and humanity to the Other.

From the last alphabet challenge: H is for horse

Release a dove for Meta

Dear Friends,

Meta's story touched many people. Her too-young death and the extraordinary leave-taking given to her by her family and friends brought lessons and insights to me, to many.

On February 25th at 5pm EST, her family and friends will gather in the mountains to release a dove in memory of Meta and in celebration of her 21st birthday, which will be the next day.

I'll be too far from home to join them, but have committed to Meta's mother, Mary Anne, that I will light a candle at that same time, to send energy to them all - and to the world - in Meta's memory. Please join me if you can in memorializing Meta and holding her family in peace and in love at 5pm EST on Sunday, February 25th. Mark your calendar, join me.

If you'd like to send a birthday greeting to Meta, leave a comment; I'll gather them all and send them to her family.

Break stride

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." -Anais Nin

Coming home from Chicago two weeks ago, I was struck irretrievably ill in the cab on the way to the airport, that kind of I’ve- eaten- an- alien- food- poisoning- I’m- unable- to- stop- shaking nauseous kind of ill, the sort where you focus all your attention on staying upright, in which not vomiting becomes the only measure of success you can muster. An immediate, swift, and unstoppable sick that--like a train in a tunnel--just keeps barreling toward the light of day.

Replace "they" with "we" with "I"

We all believe in equality, as long as it is equality with our superiors.

What is the tipping point?

I’ve long been fascinated by the fact that our Social Contract works—that people stop at four-way stop signs and allow the person to their right to move first, creating a sweet dance of understanding and civility. By the fact that social anarchy doesn’t occur more often at Labor Day Sales, by the fact that people generally queue in straight lines and take turns to buy their Big Macs, that we muster the wherewithal to tell people when they have spinach stuck between their teeth, and that we are a nation of givers and volunteers.

Consider yourself part of the solution

“In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.” – Flora Edwards

Do something. Extend yourself.

This is no way to say goodbye to someone who has been your cornerstone, your love, your driving force, your partner, your rock.

Xavier Bowie was 57 and had lung cancer. Finding no one to take them out of New Orleans, he and his wife hoped the storm would spare them. “I’ve got electric and stuff right now,” she told herself. “I can keep going. I’ve got oxygen. I can keep going.” But the oxygen ran out.

Hand one another along

 

“Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you read last week’s 37days, you’ll know that my older daughter is at summer camp for almost 6 weeks. And if last summer is any indication, I’ll bet you a year’s worth of Gerber daisies delivered in tall cylindrical vases on the first day of every month that I’ll receive 2 letters of approximately 12 words each from her while she’s there. Not that I’m counting, of course, because that would be to quantify that which is unquantifiable, make tangible the intangible, hold her hostage to word count as if syllables equaled love, blah, blah, blah. I’ll just pretend she’s an accomplished (though as of yet undiscovered) Haiku artist, packing a whole expansive universe of meaning and devotion and unlimited love into 17 significant syllables.

Love unlovable people

“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” -Albert Schweitzer

It’s easy to love people when they’re lovable. It’s harder when they’re not.

In high school, I learned intricate details of the battles of the Civil War. I knew the U.S. presidents, frontwards and backwards. I could recite the Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and William Faulkner’s remarks when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. (Alas, age has diminished my photographic memory, once a real asset…). I could wax poetic about the drafting of the U.S. Constitution: who was there, who wasn’t (women, for example, but don’t get me started).

Why did I know so much about history?

Squeeze in next to someone, arm to arm

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”–Albert Schweitzer

Well, I was going to write about convertibles and fuzzy boots until I watched this week’s installment of videos from keynote speeches presented at the 2004 Omega Institute “Women in Power” conference. (Never fear, "Always rent the convertible and wear fuzzy boots" will get to your inbox sometime soon).

It was 77-year-old Jungian analyst and author Marion Woodman who captured my imagination with her address on “Women, Power and Soul.” Even the introduction she got from the conference organizers was compelling. Described as having “unrelenting intelligence” and being both “sweet” and “formidable,” I settled into my folding chair to hear her talk to me about the loss of relatedness and recognition in our patriarchal world, and about surrender.

Save face for someone else

“Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.” - George Santayana

When I was in high school, I had my dream job.

Mrs. Barnett, the head librarian at the Morganton-Burke Public Library, had literally watched me grow up there. As a child, I was in the library every Saturday. And every Saturday, I checked out the same book, year after year. You could set your watch by it.