the people coming together in Gaza

I just received this from the Santa Fe Friends Meeting.  It was sent
by a former member now living (I believe) in Palestine.  These might
sound like small actions compared to the enormity of the situation. 
Although, taken all together, it'd surely take a pretty cynical
person to say these actions were meaningless...

*****************
Hello friends and supporters,

While most news you receive from the Holy Land in the aftermath of
the Gaza war is awful, the peacemakers continue their work, invisible
to the eyes of the world.  This has been a difficult time, the gap of
mistrust and anger between the Israelis and Palestinians is as wide as
ever.  In the face of all of this though, we have deepened our
commitment to work for peace. As Elias Jabbour, director of the House
of Hope puts it, "its up to us to keep the torch of hope alive, we
have no other other choice."

Take the time to read this update about the sacred work of our family
of peacebuilders, hope you will be inspired.

ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS GATHER FOR SOLIDARITY AND CELEBRATION AT THE
DEAD SEA, January 30-31

Eighty Palestinians and Israelis came together for the Gathering of
Light and Unity on Metzukei Dragot beach, an oasis of beautiful fresh
and saltwater pools on the Dead Sea shore. This area is easily
accessible for both Israelis and Palestinians who came from across the
West Bank without the need for travel permits. For two days we shared
meals, music and dance, prayers and speaking from the heart together.
This gathering, organized by Ilana Meallem, brought together many
people yearning to connect as a family of human beings in light of all
thats happened recently.

HEALING ABRAHAM'S FAMILY PRAYER AND HOSPITAL VISIT, AT TEL HASHOMER
HOSPITAL, TEL AVIV, January 26

Forty people came together as Jerusalem Peacemakers joined with Rabbis
for Human Rights to organize a prayer gathering at Tel Hashomer
hospital in Tel Aviv. This event was advertised in Israeli media:
"Muslim, Jewish and Christian Religious Leaders Raise Their Voices
Together for:   A Cry of Mourning; Affirmation of Responsibility to
work for Reconciliation, Human Rights and Peace, a Future of Hope and
Healing of the Wounds between our People".  We read traditional
prayers for mourning of the dead in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim
traditions and offered personal prayers followed by a group prayer for
peace in Hebrew and Arabic. We then split up, some going to visit a
wounded Israeli soldier and many others visiting Izzedin Abuelish and
his daughter, the Gaza doctor whose 3 daughters were killed in the
Gaza violence, with a fourth daughter being treated in Tel Hashomer
hospital.  Read more about our event in this LA Times article:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/01/israel-interfai.html

JERUSALEM PEACEMAKERS WEST JERUSALEM CENTER HOSTS TALKS AND PEACE
GATHERINGS

At our West Jerusalem peace center recently, we hosted study sessions
with Rabbi Marc Gopin on 'The Source of Peace' and a text study
session with Rabbi Daniel Roth from the Pardes Institiute.  On
December 22nd we hosted an inter-religious Hannukah peace celebration
with over 50 Israelis and Palestinians joining for dialogue, music and
prayer.

THIRD WORLD CONGRESS OF IMAMS AND RABBIS FOR PEACE IN PARIS, FRANCE,
December 15-17

We joined the Third World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in
Paris, organized by Hommes de Parole.  One hundred Imams and Rabbis
came from all over the world to bring the voice of Judaism and Islam
to build a bridges of dialogue and help solve conflicts motivated by
religion in the Middle East, Europe and the world.  Leaders included
Sheikh Abdallah Nimr Darwish, founder of the Islamic movement in
Israel and Rabbi Avraham Yosef, son of Sephardic rabbinic authority
Ovadiah Yosef.  There were plenary sessions, a visit to a Paris peace
monument and a mosque and synagogue. Politics tended to divide us, the
evenings of sharing in the music of Andalucia, the mutual Jewish and
Islamic heritage, brought us together.

See great pictures from the Tel Aviv prayer event, Hannukah peace
celebration and World Congress of Imams and Rabbis at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerusalem_peacemakers/sets/

SHEIKH BUKHARI HELPS FAMILIES IN GAZA REBUILD THEIR LIVES

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari has a wide family and community network in
Gaza. His wife is from Gaza, his sister and his daughter are both
married and live in Gaza. They are part of the Sufi, Uzbek and wider
communities in Gaza that have seen their homes and lives shattered in
the recent fighting. Sheikh Bukahri has been collecting donations and
sending it directly to families in need in Gaza.

RABBI MENACHEM FROMAN CONTINUES HIS WORK FOR A CEASE FIRE AND DIALOGUE
WITH HAMAS

Throughout the Gaza war, Rabbi Menachem Froman was working on efforts
to bring about a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. Please read this
article about his call for for dialogue with Hamas, and a new chance
for peace in the wake of the recent war:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058461.html

Rabbi Froman was also recently featured in the New York Times, calling
for Barack Obama to involve Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders
in the renewed peace process:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/world/middleeast/06froman.html?_r=1&emI

IBTISAM MAHAMID CONTINUES HER PEACEMAKING WORK

Ibtisam Mahamid is building a new peace center, the Tent of Hagar and
Sarah in her town of Faradis in northern Israel. She initiated a
project to train and empower Muslim Arab women. These women formed a
women's council and got their chosen candidate elected mayor of
Faradis. During the Gaza war, Ibtisam spent hours visiting wounded
children from Gaza in Israeli hospitals and joined a delegation to
visit the Israeli town of Sderot. Ibtisam was chosen to receive an
award, "Unsung Heroes of Compassion",  by the Dalai Lama in San
Francisco in April.

A message from Ibtisam:  "We are the children of Abraham, family.
Every day I light a candle in my heart-- no anger, no hatred. We want
peace, we will take peace by the hands, for the sake of our
grandchildren. As a peace activist, I give compassion to myself and to
the world... if you dont have inner quiet and peace in your heart, you
cant give it to the world."

A MESSAGE FROM IBRAHIM ABUELHAWA

We are asking God to stop the war and fighting especially in the Holy
Land between the seeds of Abraham. We have to go back to God, and to
study the word of God, which it is that we are all one, and we have to
love one another, and especially to love our neighbors as our brothers
and ourself.  Thats the key for everything between the children of
Abraham.  Is really been hard and tough time with everyone in this
land, and we wish everyone to be healthy and safe in his own home.


We are doing all this work with almost no budget. Please make a
contribution, small or large, to support the work of the Jerusalem
Peacemakers.  We count on your support, in its different forms--
prayer and financial support --to empower us to continue this work in
the Holy Land.


In the USA, in order to make a tax-deductible contribution, write a
check to:

'Rising Tide International', make a note on the memo line: 'for
Jerusalem Peacemakers' and send it to:

Rising Tide International,  5102 Swiss Road,  Sarasota, FL 34231



To make a donation by check in the UK,

AND to make a donation by credit card with Paypal from anywhere, click
this link of Jerusalem Peacemakers UK. Calculate your donation in its
equivalent in British pounds:

http://www.spiritofpeace.co.uk/jerusalempeacema.html



To send support directly and to contact us by mail:

Jerusalem Peacemakers, PO Box 31894, Jerusalem, 91316 Israel



For making a direct donation to help the people of Gaza, Sheikh
Bukhari is collecting donations. Contact Sheikh Bukhari by email for
info of how you can contribute: azizb17@hotmail.com




Shalom, Salaam,
Eliyahu McLean,

Jerusalem Peacemakers, co-director
www.jerusalempeacemakers.org
***********

Friends statement: immigration policy

American Friends Service Committee
Statement on Immigrant Detention

The Quaker vision of justice is grounded in our core
belief that "there is that of God in everyone" and the
Biblical call to welcome the stranger. Our vision, as
it applies to immigration, draws on years of experience in
international human rights work and with immigrant
communities worldwide. Human migration is a global
phenomenon driven by political, social and economic
considerations that demand not just our attention, but
our humanity and compassion.  We are all God's people, no
matter our circumstances.

And so we react with dismay to the increasing
criminalization of individuals with tenuous legal status
in the United States. In particular, we see the
increasing overuse and abuse of detention as a
demonstrably failed policy and practice. The U.S.
government's punitive focus on arrest, detention and
deportation diverts attention from more compelling human,
civil and labor rights issues and from the complex causes
of immigration. This punitive focus, in its harsh and
capricious application, shatters families and stokes fear
in communities; creates incentives for individuals and
businesses to profit by the incarceration of others; and
shames our highest ideals as Americans and our deepest
convictions as Quakers.

We envision an immigration policy free of imprisonment, a
policy that offers humane treatment to asylum seekers,
refugees, and economic migrants, and that provides for
legal status for undocumented immigrants.

We call for the end to the misguided and profoundly unjust
policy of detention in our immigration system.

Approved by the Board Executive Committee, January 10, 2009

2 local events

Okay, this is more the kind of thing I meant to post here. Local, accessible, hopeful, doable. Don't know if these will reach anybody who will find them of interest. But this is the kind of thing I want at the least to pass along, and give witness to: it's happening. Right here, we fellow humans are coming together, now and then. Thanks to my old friends at Abq Mennonite for this information.

1. Faith Community Climate Change Breakfast: New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light is hosting a breakfast presentation with discussion on the topic of climate change as an ethical and spiritual matter, Wednesday, February 4, 7:30-8:45 p.m. at Congregation Albert (3800 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque). Larry Rasmussen, author of Earth Habitat and Earth Community, Earth Ethics, and past Reinhold Neibuhr Professor of Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, will offer a presentation and opportunity for discussion. For those able to stay for a second course, after breakfast we will spend about an hour in follow-up with more detailed discussion exploring how to reach the faith community. Suggested donation of $10 includes breakfast and resource materials. For more info call 266-6966.

2. The Jewish-Catholic Dialogue of New Mexico 16th annual Interfaith Spring Colloquium. Abraham's Sacrifice: Perspectives of Three Religions. Tuesday March 3, 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Congregation B'Nai Israel, 4401 Indian School Rd. NE, Albuquerque. Presenters: Michael Nutkiewicz, Ph.D, Fr. Hilaire Valiquette, OFM, Ph.D, and Dr. Jamal Martin, MPH, Ph.D. Info at (505) 299-3807.

politics postscript

Here, courtesy of a few of my other inner voices, is the unabashed, heart-defense of a not-really-activist who, however futile, can't seem to let go of the idea entirely.

It's been 8 years of what, at the global level, was in most ways a tragedy. And what, at the personal level, I think can be compared to a long-term dysfunctional relationship. Hear me out here, if you will. Maybe others who have lived any of the struggles I described in last night's other post - with a parent, with a partner, with a close friend - can relate. It's not just the larger-than-life drama and chagrin of fights in public places, beloved voices sharpened into weapons, words beaten into swords. It's not just the feelings of alienation, depression, disappointment that set in. It's all the little things, the really not-okay things, that you come, over time, to take for granted. Not being listened to. Being asked to sacrifice wants, and then needs, and then security. Losing the confidence that the word spoken is the word you can believe. Accepting the insensitivity, not only to your own soul's asking, but by outward extension to the people and the things that you love. Any of this sound familiar? At the heart or soul level, haven't we been hanging on in a dysfunctional relationship with our government, for the last several years? Sure, there are a few people who walked out on it (and that's their right to choose). And a lot more who learned to just shut their mouths, power down their hearts, and sit tight. But for us who can't seem to not give our hearts to relating - at all the levels in which it manifests - it was a soul-depleting struggle, and yes maybe a ridiculous and futile one, to stay and "try to make it work".

So. In the last couple months, and the last week, it seems obvious that we would experience what you could only call a "honeymoon phase", with President Obama's election. I was feeling silly for thinking of it this way, and then I heard an NPR commentator compare inauguration day festivities to a wedding for the people, with Obama as the bride. See. And, like all honeymoons, this one will surely end, in at least some respects. He won't be willing, or able, to make every one of us happy. This president, and this round of government, will let us down. Will embarrass us in public. Will deny us some of our basic needs. Will in fact, turn out to be human too. But for the moment - again, at the heart-level - it is just sweet news to believe that it's okay to feel again. To think that somebody's listening. To be safe enough at least to turn some energies from the center outward, direct them toward what we desire, instead of against what we need defend ourselves from.

Yes, this is a phase. But some of us really needed this phase. I'm not staking all my hopes on what my national or state or even local government can do with the next few years. I don't need to base my faith (in world, in people, in systems) on political ideologies or political actions. Whatever my religion is, it's not activism. But it is so sweet to stretch those cramped muscles of body and heart for just a moment, look around, and speak my soul in a larger world context again. And to affirm something.

what is this

Do I serve any purpose at all, in the little writings and forwardings and recommendings under this particular heading?

Does everybody have more than enough of the Real World already without my adding to the equation? (saying that with just a little sarcasm - not that I believe for a minute that what's on the news is the Real World...)

Maybe I just wanted a chance to think - and talk - about something besides myself, for a change.

Maybe I wanted my soul to take in more, give out more, reach compassion more. Maybe even to think others would join me. Maybe others are already doing all they can. And maybe sharing information and being informed doesn't go that far toward such give and take of life.

I'm gonna go back in my head now. Or my heart, as the case may be.

Other

My other half wrote earlier of the wish for an end to the habit of Other-bashing, with this change of administration and hopefully of direction. Our TV-sedated acceptance of "polarization" as a social norm seems to have excused all sorts of embarassing manifestations of opposition, judgment, and petty name-calling, over the last 8 years, even among some of the most intelligent, tolerant, and peace-seeking people I know. Of course, there will always be an Other. And maybe, probably, there will always be a degree of polarization. Even in this purportedly enlightened, certainly privileged, and ideologically spacious country. It's a challenge to accept the humanity, the dignity, the motivations of those who are Other. It's hard for many, apparently, to realize that diversity actually exists. And there's almost no group or perspective that I ain't talkin' about here.

My wish today simply speaks to the same recognition that Melissa Etheridge pointed out, in that interview 2 weeks ago : now is our chance not to be them. Whoever They are. Even better, Now is our collective opportunity to stop being Us and Them. That being, quite practically, the only way we can make Them not exist. And of course I'm not talking some sappy sentiment or covering the eyes or glossing over. I'm talking having the courage to LOOK, and to accept that we share our privilege, and our now very immediate responsibility, of citizenship in this country with a whole lotta people we don't personally want a thing to do with.

But, if not everybody can do that (and of course, not everybody will): at the very least, it's an opening to be better, clearer, more free, than whatever traits we despise or despair of, in whoever we see as the Other. If we don't have it in us to be better, to act with more integrity, to speak with more purpose, to be We The People guiding this supposed democracy back into its humanity, then what have we made this change for? And if we can't come up with anything better than boos and jeers, distanced complaints and vague fears and armchair condemnations (of those who lead, of those who live here)...with what our history's just given us, with what we've just asked for, with - its and our eventual imperfections guaranteed - what as a whole we are embarking on...if we can't be more and better NOW, then when?

end torture on Day One

Received this from Friends Meeting. Another really easy,
tangible action to take in the Here and Now.

Ask Obama to end torture on Day One of his presidency

In August the Meeting endorsed the Declaration Of Principles of the
National Religious Campaign Against Torture, which urged the next
president to issue an Executive Order ending torture on Day One of his presidency. NRCAT sends this appeal:

Dear Friends:

NRCAT leaders met yesterday with members of the Transition Team and urged President-elect Obama to issue an Executive Order ending torture on Day One of his presidency. (See the article about it in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/us/15torture.html)

We're optimistic, but we'd be thankful for your help in reinforcing our request.

Please take a minute to email President-elect Obama's Transition Team and ask him to end torture on Day One of his presidency. Just take these three easy steps:

* Visit his transition website at http://change.gov/page/s/ofthepeople.
* Fill out your contact information. Write "torture" in the "Another issue" box.
* In the "Your ideas" box, write something like: "Please issue an Executive Order ending our use of torture as an interrogation technique on Day One of your presidency. As a person of faith, I have been deeply troubled by our country's use of torture as an interrogation technique.
Torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees is wrong, and it is contrary to American values."

Thank you for your help!

Rabbi Lerner: memo to Pres. Obama

Over the last month or so, Tikkun has been publishing a wonderful series of memos, written by concerned and thoughtful citizens to President-elect Obama. Here's an excerpt from one of Rabbi Michael Lerner's recent letters to the President. Furthering my earlier thoughts on what those words "be realistic" are allowed to mean. And fuel for the hopes of us idealists, who still hope to see this new administration help to set in motion changes in paradigm, as well as in legislation.

"People who have bought into the dominant worldviews in American society think of success in primarily material terms....
President Obama, the most important challenge you face is to reverse that notion of what it is to be rational in the contemporary world. You must reject the current vision of “being realistic” and explain to Americans why that notion is based on a mistaken calculation of our interests as Americans and as members of the human race. You must help people understand that the old way of looking at the world, the Old Bottom Line, is dysfunctional and leads to the dissolution of American society and to the destruction of the planet....
Sound like a daunting task? It doesn’t have to be if you turn to the American people...There are already tens of millions of people who share this consciousness, but they have no way of recognizing each other and moving together as a political entity...
(read his very practical suggestions toward this end, and the entire article, at http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0901/frontpage/ml)

farewell at last

Did anybody else listen to George Bush's farewell speech Thursday night? As with most relevant or breaking news, it came to me in bleeps and blips, between deliveries. I had to watch the whole thing on youtube the next day. But my first reaction, coming in on the middle of it without any introduction, was: they're doing a recap of one of his older speeches, right? This is like, Bush's Greatest Hits? A replay of a speech from what, '02? '04? Because the first thing I hear is a reference to Sept. 11. And what a dangerous place the world is. And how terrorists are the most relevant threat we currently face.

No, it's live coverage, or almost. Wow. It's actually his current speech. It's still here and now. (But not for much longer, thank God.) Here's our Homeland Insecurity, still on full display to the world. Though with some astonishing bits of optimism, it seems, attached to it:
“...leading the world toward a new age when freedom belongs to all nations...expand opportunity and hope here at home...America's air and water and lands are measurably cleaner...decisive measures to safeguard our economy...”

Wow. We're still operating in 2-D. In wishful thinking tied to fearful reaction. In Good and Evil. In black and white. When do we go color – in another month? (No, that's digital.) We go full-color –- back, at least, to a broader spectrum of democracy, humanity, possibility -- in only 3 more blessed days. Oh, let it be so.

And may we all remember more of our individual and collective humanity, in the coming days, as we begin to be relieved of 8 years of defense and discouragement. Our ability both to hope and to act. There are those who have used words like oppression, to talk of the policies and actions of these years, but I can't. We haven't ever known oppression, in this country. We've struggled for rights, freedoms - not for our lives, or our souls. Depression, maybe, we've known. What any healthy soul would experience, were its efforts toward life, sharing, peace and justice so continually suppressed. But we can ascend again from this. We are already ascending from this, in so many local and ground-level efforts. In so many places where we share our humanity, such as it is, within the broken and corrupted American dream, such as it is. We are ascending, and can continue, within and together. Yes we can.

disarming

"As long as we stay trapped in the paradox of fear, we can't even use our intelligence to save ourselves. We have employed it to serve only our self-destruction.

Only if we disarm our intelligence do we have a chance to find wisdom. And only wisdom can save us."

Robert C. Koehler

(http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/15)

an image of Obama in N.M.

Just came across this in a NY Times article on President Obama's reception among Native American communities. Wish I coulda been at this event - the kinda thing that makes me proud to live in New Mexico:

"When asked about immigration concerns in New Mexico, Obama pointed to a handful of elderly natives in the front row of a high school gym.

“He said, ‘The only real native people in this country are sitting right in front of me,’ ” recalled Joe Garcia, who is president of the National Congress of American Indians. “You should have heard the applause.”"

acupuncture for all

Our local paper, The Reporter, gives notice this week that a new acupuncture clinic is celebrating their opening with free treatments on Saturday. Wish I knew more people here to pass the information to. It's called "We The People Community Acupuncture" (www.weacupuncture.com). But their website also connects with a larger network, whose goal it seems is to connect working people all over with the benefits of acupuncture (to which I for one can testify). That site is:
http://www.communityacupuncturenetwork.org/
Here you can look up affordable treatments in your area (Portland, of course, has 7 locations!), and read some hopeful articles on making acupuncture, and "alternative" health care in general, available to all people. Here's an excerpt from one, titled "The Art of the Sliding Scale", by Lisa Rohleder. It's directed at holistic care givers, but it lifts my spirits for sure, to know that a conversation like this is actually going on out there:
"Recent estimates suggest a typical American CEO makes 475 times what a factory worker makes. What people are paid increasingly has no relationship to the usefulness of what they actually do. One of the most important jobs imaginable - caring for young children - is typically compensated at $6 to $10 an hour, without benefits. A sliding scale is not a form of charity. It's a way of acknowledging that life is not fair, and adjusting your business plan accordingly. For a business to be successful, it needs to be based in reality, not in wishful thinking...

The function of a sliding scale in the day-to-day operation of your business is not only to broaden your potential patient base by correcting for certain societal inequalities, but also to reduce stress for you and your patients by separating the issues of money and treatment.

Making such choices also points to an appealing aspect of social entrepreneurship, which is the power to respond to social problems by creating a kind of alternate universe - your own - which operates by different rules...Health care as a whole is deeply divided along class lines; my practice isn't. The best part of my day is looking around my clinic when it's full of people of all races, classes, backgrounds and ages, all at rest in a rich, shared stillness. Thanks to a sliding scale, I get to spend most of my time in a world where people get the care they need, regardless of how much money they have. And that, all by itself, is valuable to me."

A fine example, in my opinion, of building the new world in the shell of the old. And also of the kind of dialogue I admire the most: affirming the ideal, and inviting others to do so, saving the time that would be used on casting blame for creating more images of justice. I hold this woman and her efforts (at healing, and at conscience-raising) up to the Light.

Zinn and the art of plain speech

Another forward received, that I want to keep channelling into the conversation: Howard Zinn's recent speech, “War and Social Justice”, featured last week on Democracy Now. (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/2/placeholder_howard_zinn)

Zinn reminds us, in his easily accessible way, of a few of the basics of What It Is right now. Of why the American scene has the concerns that it does at hand. These are familiar statistics, but he gives them their place in the context of inequalities. A step back in perspective that we need a lot more often. For example:

- 40 million citizens of this country, who are doing their best to keep themselves economically stable, still don't have health insurance. Although 1 million members of the military have government-provided healthcare now, and it seems to work pretty well for them. (What blows me away about this statistic, every time I hear it, is that it's only 40 million.)

- 200 of the richest corporations pay no taxes. (I can barely stomach this one, even after hearing it so many times)

I like how he keeps it simple, with purpose. Not so much time wasted on inflammatories or abstracts. A few remarks from the speech that resonated, for me:

“Private enterprise is not going to create jobs.” (Yeah. That wouldn't be in its interest, would it? Hadn't thought of it that way...)

“The thing about war is the outcome is unpredictable. The immediate thing you do is predictable. The immediate thing you do is horrible...truth is, you never know what this is leading to...You know that the present is evil, and you’re asked to commit this evil for some possible future good.”

“We don't have to be a military superpower...We can be a humanitarian superpower.”

“We have an educational job to do about our relationship to government, you know...”

a few appointments with hope

There IS a little hope out there. I have voices in my head that want me to censor it - " Be Realistic!" they admonish, which apparently means, give in to fatalism and despair. And they gain strength, and steal mine, any time I tune in to media (which is why I call it "mediation", just like "sedation"). But, I need the hope, because I'm human. And I think others do too. No matter how insignificant or unsophisticated it may look, next to the Real News. These few notes, then, from today's Common Dreams listing:

"Obama Picks a Conscience for the CIA"
www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/09-3.

"Let Justice Roll: National Faith Leaders Call for Lifting Economy by Raising Minimum Wage"
www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/01/09-0.

"Be the Peace": a thoughtful, almost prayer-full opinion piece, on Gaza/Israel and our larger choices regarding war or peace, by Chicago journalist Robert Koehler. The kind of contemplation and open-endedness that I would love to see more of in the public conversation:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/08-2

And last, a photo on the site's homepage lifts my spirits, irrationally maybe, but offering proof that yes, this change of administrations really is going to happen...the caption preceding the article reads, wonderfully: "President Bush speaks as President-elect Barack Obama looks over his shoulder", and that's just what it depicts.

2 worthy requests from Tikkun

I gotta be honest here: I'm in way over my head when I try to be at all aware of Middle East politics. Most of a life without television, crap for history classes in school, and (most of all) the inability to bear the empathetic pain required to keep up with this world's struggles. So, I'm hesitant to speak on the subject because I don't want to oversimplify. But I can say this: the efforts of the Tikkun organization and its sister effort, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, continually get my attention and my admiration with their voice for dialogue, healing, and transformation among those willing to look at the whole sphere of humanity (spiritual as well as political) as one reality. I deeply respect their intentions, and am trying (slowly) to match that with knowledge. I don't know if I can properly introduce these two worthy requests they're making right now - except to say, if we still remember our hope at President Obama's election, and our crazy beginnings of belief that change is coming, in our nation and our world, and our intention to stay involved past just voting: in that case, Rabbi Michael Lerner and others at Tikkun are offering some very easy ways to make good on all those good intentions. Below are very brief excerpts of both, with links where you can take quick and direct action.

1. Call for cease-fire and international peace conference in Gaza:
It breaks our heart to see the suffering of the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, the Lebanese people and others in the region when we know how unnecessary it is. The basic issues can be resolved. No matter how maximalist the fantasies are on each side about eliminating their enemies, the truth is that the majority of the people on all sides of the struggle would embrace peace if they thought it could be established in ways that provided for genuine security from military assault and terrorism for everyone, real justice for Palestinians, and acknowledgment of the wrongs that had been done to each side as a first step in healing the humiliations and huge psychic woundings that have happened to Arabs and Jews throughout their histories...

To sign this petition (or to donate to funding for the ad), go to
http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php/gaza

2. Call for a Global Marshall Plan, toward economic and spiritual justice:
The Global Marshall Plan is premised on the notion that generosity and solidarity with all peoples are better routes to homeland security than are domination and control....

Under the Global Marshall Plan, the United States would lead the other G-8 nations in dedicating an amount equivalent to 1-2% of each country's gross domestic product each year for the next twenty years to eliminating poverty once and for all and to healing the environmental crisis. We are currently soliciting endorsements from as many individuals and organizations as possible, and we are working with legislators to introduce an initial resolution into Congress....

To sign this petition, go to
http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20071220085221851

I've signed both, with prayers for justice, courage and intelligence to prevail among those with the power to make it be. And also with thoughts of the conversation I never got to have with that Palestinian clerk in Albquerque, the one whose beautiful eyes and friendly/flirtacious words always brightened my workdays last year...

what happens to our food happens to us!

This was forwarded to me, and seems well worth consideration. The petition is very easy to sign (at the first link) and accompanied by valuable and easily accessible information on what's at stake.

*********
Friends,
In a bizarre and apparent contradiction to Senator Obama's
announcement that he wants an organic garden at the White House,
Senator Obama has chosen Tom Vilsack, a strong bio-tech proponent
supporting genetically engineered crops, cloned animals, etc., to
run the Department of Agriculture.

As you will see below, Vilsack is truly Monsanto's boy. He
pre-empted the local votes of towns and counties who had voted to
disallow GE seeds!

It's still possible to block Vilsack's confirmation with a massive
support of the petition drafted by the Organic Consumer Association.
It's easy to sign on at this link:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1783

or from the Organic Consumer Association website

http://www.organicconsumers.org/

Your email will be sent to your Senators and the President-Elect's
office.

THIS
IS THE VERY SAME MOMENT
WHEN WE COULD DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
- Pema Chodron

praise for Melissa Etheridge

I want to commend Melissa Etheridge, for an action that some might be disparaging her for right now. I admire her already for her honesty - on emotions, on cancer, on sexuality - and her general affirmation of the Life-force, in music and speech. But I admire her right now for an interview I heard on NPR a couple nights ago, in which she confirmed her support of Barack Obama, including his choice of Pastor Rick Warren to speak the invocation at his inauguration this month.

I don't really want to get into politics here, much less religion. I don't really know anything about this pastor other than what I heard in this short interview, and he doesn't sound like someone whose views would make me at all comfortable (he apparently is known in part for speaking against gay marriage, and other untraditional things). But that's exactly what I want to praise her for. Choosing to be greater than her own perspective (without making _less_ of her own perspective, in any way), in the interest of the greater need and opportunity this change of administration presents. Here are a few of her words:
“It is ABOUT reaching across. We cannot say, this is us, and this is them...I believe that Barack Obama wants to be the president of the Entire United States..."

"...we can disagree on things, yet we can still all move forward... [to say that] “_ they_ have to stay over here, and we're not going to let _them_ in -- that makes us no better than the last administration."

“[Obama] is trying to include all Americans, because that is the only way we're going to move forward...I see him doing that, and I would like to join him.”

Courageous words, I say. Simply because they acknowledge the America that is, scariness and all. And the need right now for greater agendas than only our personal ones. Etheridge's words are not only an affirmation of human strength, they're an unspoken challenge to those who might see her as "one of THEM", to reach within their own humanity and find a similar strength. I hope more people from all perspectives can find the guts to follow her lead. The audio of the entire conversation (just under 5 minutes) can be heard here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98982348

caregiving as a second language

I just spent most of December helping to plan, coordinate, and support a visit from my grandmother. My sister is her full-time caregiver, and the visit, assisted by several family members, made an annual vacation possible. The greatest part of the caregiver role was held up by my uncle - a paramedic - and a friend who by training is a nurse, and by life experience knows a great deal about struggle and support. I was the backup person, over the week and a half my grandmother was in town. In conversations, with the nurse and with my sister, I found some surprising parallels between caregiving and my other new effort: tutoring a young woman who is learning English. In essence, both endeavors ask for a profound availability, and a generous sharing of power. Each of which, in its own right, is also (in my view) an essential ability of one who would work for peace, whatever the field.

One has to be deeply available: not only to the unexpected questions, needs, and wishes of another person, but for the way that these things will stretch and expand the time the two of you will share. On the toes, in the moment, go-with-the-flow flexibility is requisite. Detachment from rush, from too much scheduling, from whatever happens an hour or two hours from now. Speech slows, becomes more spacious: not to condescend, in either case, but to be completely accessible, and present. Clarity of communication includes advance notice and followup or feedback: no room for assumptions. Listening, too, becomes more active, participatory, inclusive: the conversation is a flickering new fire that you both feed, with greatest care, so that it doesn't go out. Repeating or rephrasing if needed: again, to uphold the story being translated from the mysterious language of one soul to another. Our experiences are unimaginably different, but our words will link us. There is only now, and we are using it fully.

Not just the ego, but other aspects of soul are challenged by the issues of power that arise. The sharing of empowerment becomes a matter of the simplest actions. Of detachment from expectations, even the most benevolent ones. Of starting where the ability is, and moving outward from there. In the company of my English student, we might talk about our daily actions, her children's schooling, a shopping trip. I might alternate between English and my faltering Spanish, even though I'm not supposed to, to put us on more level ground. With my grandmother, I may sit and sing her favorite old hymns with her (when nobody else is there to hear). Remembering, with her, her love of religious life and small-town community is, for me, like reverting to an original language that I don't speak any more: it's rusty, but the words will come if I try. In either situation, we start at the beginning, or wherever in relation to the beginning we both may be. We accept each other's limitations, whatever they are: finishing a sentence on the one side, patience that allows the sentence to be finished, on the other.

There's much to be learned for both of us. This is far from a one-way street. At any moment that I think I'm the only "teacher" or "giver", I miss half the lessons. If I forget that my partner in this effort has her own journey, her own story flowing with her into the now, I risk many of the moment's potentials. I have my doubts about how much I can help another woman to learn this crazy language of English, though she's keen and good-humored and ready to try. I definitely have my wit's-end points, and at-a-loss moments, even with my grandmother who I love, and who was the one source of unconditional love in my early life. But I'm up for the chance at further fluency in the vocabularies of patience, empathy, presence, and even insufficiency. All part of the nurture and care that's not always first nature, but which I hope to learn as a second language before I'm too much older.

no idea

That last post wasn't any more important or emphatic than the others. Just couldn't resolve a conflict of fonts. What a bother. Looking at it I get the same feeling as when I start to talk in a noisy roomful of people, thinking I'll blend in, and suddenly right as I speak the room gets quiet and, unintentionally, I'm shouting to everyone...I got no wish to shout....

"yes we can! but will we?"

On the occasion that I climb out of my apathy, pessimism and sleep deprivation enough to care about what's going on in the (tangible) world, commondreams.org nearly always gives me some reason to hope. As well, of course, as ready rationale for further moroseness, but that's always the choice of waking up, right? This article's a perfect example of both - but mostly of the up-side of the process. I particularly like their habit of linking source articles to the main points, so you can read further for yourself if so inclined.

10 Reasons to be Hopeful about 2009, and 3 reasons to be Terrified

by Sarah van Gelder (executive editor, YES! Magazine)

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/02-4