politics

people with nothing…give

peoplewithnothing

emerging compassion

Kevin Sieff, a writer for The Washington Post (May 31, 2017), identified how people within Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan have taken it upon themselves to offer assistance to others even though they themselves struggle to survive the hardships within poverty.

Elijah Karma, who over the past three years has (in addition to providing shelter to 20 members of his own family) been offering his home to 50 people at a time who were displaced by the Boko Haram conflict.

The families of the South Sudanese town of Ganyiel offered portions of their own  food, gave their beds to the elderly, and shared space within cramped huts to some of the thousands of displaced families who had escaped the fighting and possible starvation in nearby villages.

The people of Baidoa “gave and gave, food, clothes, shelter” to Mohamed Iman, a farmer, who now finds himself living as a beggar.

In Maiduguri, “the vast majority of the displaced aren’t living in U.N. camps.”  The residents within this community have opened their doors to the newly homeless – “the poor housing the poorer.”

Sieff notes that these examples of compassion are emerging from “sites of the three largest hunger crises in sub-Saharan Africa. In each country, overstretched humanitarian organizations have failed to raise sufficient funds to feed and house all of these in need. An untold number of people, most of them children, have died of malnutrition and preventable diseases.”

 

 

 

 

thursday’s special: pick a word

Continual…frequently recurring…a service disrupted by continual breakdowns.

Within the shadows of today’s political discord and emotional-driven social media postings, there is a continual theme I have encountered in the past several weeks…a grass-root movement providing a basic need…food.  No, not $1,000,000-3,000,000 weekend golfing trips or $50,000 jackets…food, simple, over-the-counter food.

The first time was the poster in my doctor’s office which informed patients, “we have food if you need.”  The second was an alteration to the random small wooden book exchanges that invite neighbors to share books; that is, the Lutheran Trinity Church offers…a mini food pantry.

signofthetime

Jump on over to Lost in Translation to participate.

 

the untruth…the greatest truth

anovelistMilosz

“…the power of attraction exerted by totalitarian thinking, whether of the left or of the right, does not belong to the past…

When a writer strives to present reality most faithfully he becomes convinced that the untruth is at times the greatest truth. The world is so rich and so complex that the more one tries not to omit any part of the truth, the more one uncovers wonders that elude the pen.
…
Eyes that have seen should not be shut; hands that have touched should not forget when they take up the pen.”

~Czeslaw, Milosz: The Captive Mind

 

an uncertain weekend

Angry in the ultimate dimension

I close my eyes and look deeply

Three hundred years from now

Where will you be and where shall I be?

~Thich Nhat Hanh*

abnwstudy

While Thich Nhat Hanh’s words are of anger, I believe they also apply to today’s uncertainty in that “…we are living in the most fear mongering time in human history. And the main reason for this is that there’s a lot of power and money available to individuals and organizations who can perpetrate these fears.”

…where fear is about danger that seems certain; anxiety is…”an experience of uncertainty.”

If there is a crack in human psychology into which demagogues wriggle, it is by offering psychological relief for the anxiety created by uncertainty…this is where a good scapegoat comes in; for example, There’ us — real Americans – then there are…”**

May equanimity fill the minds and hearts of all this holiday season and end this dangerous game of brinkmanship.

*cited: No Death, No Fear, Thich Nhat Hanh

**cited: Why We’re Living in the Age of Fear, Rolling Stone

black and white sunday: traces of the past

Generally speaking, Heaven and Earth endow the generality of men with the same mediocre qualities, so that one is hardly distinguishable from the other.  Not so, however, in the rare instances of the Exceptionally Good and the Exceptionally Evil that flash through the pages of history. The first embodies the Perfect Norm of Heaven and Earth; the second, its Horrid Deviations. The first comes into the world when Harmony is to prevail; the second, when Catastrophe impends. The first ushers in peace and order; the second brings war and strife. Examples of the first are the Emperors Yao, Shun, Yu, and T’ang, the Kings Wen and Wu, the sages Confucius and Mencius, and such philosophers as the Ch’eng brothers and Chu Hsi; examples of the second are the tyrants Ch’ih Yu and Kung Kung, Chieh and Chou and the First Emperor, and such usurpers and traitors as Wang Mang, Huan Wen, and Ch’in K’uai.

window

Today, under our divine Sovereign, peace and prosperity reign…which manifest itself in the form of sweet dew and gentle breeze.  …there is no place under the clear sky and the bright sun for the Deviations from the Norm; these had to hide their ugly heads in the abysmal chasms in the bowels of the earth, where they lie inert and powerless. But occasionally, pressed upon by the clouds or wafted by the winds, traces of these evil elements find their way into the upper air and clash with the traces of the Norm, causing violence storms and thunder and lighting. (Trans: Chi-Chun Wang: Tsao Huueh-Chin, Dream of the Red Chamber, pp. 22-23)

I began the day with the intention to nourish myself by avoiding the Twitter Wars by engaging in literature; that is, Dream of the Red Chamber which was written sometime around 1742.  Yet, as my eyes fell upon page 22 I stumbled out of historical China and into the present time, this time of Horrid Deviations.

This passage and image are  submitted in response to the”traces of the past” challenge posed by Lost in Translation.

day without immigrants

I have chosen to remain home today, the 16th of February, to participate in the day without immigrants protest.  Why?

My family history includes incidents in which they encountered resentment, hate, and violence as they sought a new life on this American soil.

In the 19th century, my father’s paternal family heeded a call to “gather to Zion” and thus immigrated to the United States from Denmark as newly converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints  (LDS).  His maternal family left Ireland to settle in Virginia before relocating to the west coast in the 1860s.

My mother’s maternal and paternal families left England in the 18th century and settled in the northeast part of the United States.  Their relationships with Joseph Smith resulted in their relocation to Nauvoo, Illinois before seeking refuge in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

Have you chosen to give voice to this issue?  I would enjoy hearing your thoughts about the events of today.

history repeats

Photojournalist Edward Crawford is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this social documentary photography. From his project ‘Au revoir la Jungle‘. To see Edward’s portfolio and stories click on any image. In September 2016 Francoise Hollande on his first visit to Calais as the French president made a statement many had been anticipating. […]

via The Evacuation And Dismantling Of The Calais Jungle — Edge of Humanity Magazine

weekly photo challenge: path

I believe that in order to move forward, to identify one’s own path and not another’s, requires time to contemplate where one has been, one’s regrets and celebrations; as well as a review of one’s beliefs, values, and guiding principles.

The state of the world today leaves me unsettled in that my own grounding principles seem to be shadowed by the ramifications of war, negation of principles, righteous anger, and divisiveness.  All of this leaves a world formulated less and less by rational thinking and more and more by emotional reactivity.  Therefore, I find that my path is not an earthly one, but one drawn from the words of Buddha:

path
Path

Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing, nor upon tradition, nor upon rumor, nor upon scripture, nor upon surmise, nor upon axiom, nor upon specious reasoning, nor upon bias towards a notion pondered over, nor upon another’s seeming ability, nor upon the consideration ‘The monk is our teacher.’
When you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad, blamable, censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them.

When you yourselves know: ‘These things are good, blameless, praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.
                                                                                                                                                          

This ain’t right!

The church of my childhood and of my mother, her mother, and my grandmother’s mother taught me that the body, the family, and the church were sacred and thus any choice I made in my life was to be drawn upon that guiding principle.

My choice to participate in this past election came after hearing how Trump used social media to shame women…and now to hear that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be performing at Trump’s inauguration brings my soul into a deeper disbelief that began on the darkest of dark nights…election night.

So…I have given my voice to “this isn’t right.” I may have to find some kind of resolution for the next four years, but I will not accept the church’s celebration of human negation and shame.  If your beliefs are similar to mine, please sign the petition at change.org.

https://www.change.org/p/the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-mormon-tabernacle-choir-should-not-perform-at-trump-inauguration?recruiter=20691342&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Thank you.  My daughter, granddaughter, and soon to be great granddaughter also thank you for validating the right of all human beings to be respected and honored.