Exploring Ways To Make Peace Within
Ourselves & the World

Women In Black Denver, Colorado

Join us Saturday afternoons from 12:30pm - 1:30pm, as we stand in silent vigil for peace. Click here to learn more.

Recent Posts
Friends

Powered by Blogger

Why Do I Write This Blog???

The easiest (and probably the most honest) answer to that question is: I don't know. It all started in the summer of 2005, when I went to Crawford, Texas ( a.k.a. the home of the prez's ranch, a.k.a. the home of Camp Casey) to support Cindy Sheehan. I wanted the world to know that, contrary to what one could read in the mainstream media, the peace movement was alive and well and large numbers of Americans did not support the war in Iraq. I wanted people to know that thousands of Americans were willing to travel to Texas and tolerate the heat, humidity, and bugs in order to support a grieving mother whose new purpose was to shine a light on the lies that led to the war and to bring home our troops so that no other mother would have to know the pain that she felt.

Over time, this blog has become more of an exploration of who I am, my spirituality, and how life works. I love life's complexities, exploring the shades of gray. I want to, as Rainier Maria Rilke said,

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

Maybe my blog is just one big question about what is needed in order for people to take the time to love and cherish each other and our earth. Maybe someday, I will "live along some distant day into the answer."

In the meantime, thank you for joining me on my journey. I welcome you to share yours with me

 

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Don't Vote For Dummies!


During the last election, I canvassed neighborhoods to get voters out. I had yard signs on my lawn that I took down when my clients came (didn't think politics belonged in a massage) and put back up on non-client days. I made phone calls for candidates.

This year, I just can't get in to it. I figured that I should support any candidate that I deem worthy by NOT putting up a yard sign with his/her name, since I seem to be bad luck. I am cynical about our voting process, but I voted absentee anyway. If everyone votes, and the exit polls come out different than the counts, I HOPE that we will all be in the streets, because we will have one more confirmation that we have lost our democracy.

In elections past, I have hoped for my desired outcome. I have done my way of praying for it. This year, I am more relaxed. It is important to try to get our country back to at least a two-party system (with the goal of maybe working our way to at least three), but stress and prayer do not a just country make. If that were true, the Broncos would always be Super Bowl winners (okay, maybe the Steelers would be - they might pray harder), I would still be 30 years old, and God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven, since millions pray for that weekly.

Oh, maybe we are seeing God's will being done on earth...

Or maybe we are what bring about justice on earth via our work and actions done with education, integrity and compassion.


Some insights about this election from BBC writer, Gavin Esler:


Who's not Bush?

Gavin Esler
7 Nov 06, 04:08 PM


Here in Washington over the usual heart-attack-on-a-plate American breakfast this morning I turned to the Washington Post for a summary of the elections.

"Has there ever been a more negative, dispiriting election?" asks columnist Eugene Robinson, clearly not expecting an answer. So I switched to the New York Times. Columnist Barry Schwartz called these elections "the sorriest, sleaziest, most disheartening and embarrassing in memory." Then I switched on the TV just to cheer myself up. The presenter was asking a pundit from the Los Angeles Times what it would be like if the Democrats failed to win the House of Representatives.

"Jonestown," replied the pundit, referring to a bizarre cult involved in a mass suicide many years ago.

So it all sounds fairly promising, then. The television advertisements I've been watching have almost all been negative. The overwhelming impression is that hundreds of criminals, rapscallions and ne'er do wells are currently on the loose on the streets of the United States all seeking election for the opposing political party.

The Democrat campaign seems to boil down to one phrase: "We're not George Bush." And the Republican campaign is similarly taut: "We're not George Bush either."

Somehow, however, American voters will sort it all out.

.

posted by Carol at 10:20 AM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home