Recently in Daily Blog Category

           
From Amnesty International

"Last week, two men were hanged after being accused of inciting the post-June 12 election violence that erupted last summer in Iran. The Iranian government failed to answer one key question - how these men could have been responsible for the violence when they were being held in detention long before it even occurred?

As if this injustice wasn't enough, now the lives of 9 more men hang in the balance on similar charges. We fear some of them may be executed before February 11th - a date holding much significance in Iran and one that could signify an end to these abuses.

February 11th is known as Victory of the Revolution Day - equivalent to the Fourth of July in the United States; it is meant to symbolize liberty, independence and freedom. Authorities in Iran fear that February 11th will spark a wave of massive protests and unite Iranians in their calls for change and accountability.


That is why on February 11th we intend to do all we can to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people on this important date, but we need your help.

In the days following the contested Presidential election, Iranian authorities took aggressive measures to stifle dissent and stem the flow of information. No outside reporters were allowed in. Iranians were not allowed to freely report out.

Virtually the only way the Iranian people could expose the horrific treatment being inflicted on them was to share their stories online, using blogs and websites like Twitter and Facebook.

We expect Iranians will once again rely solely on the Internet to carry their messages during next week's expected demonstrations. That is why we are asking everyone to show their solidarity online on February 11th - whether it's on your blog, website, or social networking profile. Help us raise the voices of those calling for freedom and justice inside Iran.
Bloggers Unite: Join our network of blogger's covering Iran and the events on February 11th.
Twitter Followers: The hashtag #iranelection was one of the most widely-used in the post-election aftermath. Since the violence is still unresolved, we'll continue to tweet using this hashtag. Make sure your related tweets include: #iranelection.
Share Online: Help share the message of February 11th by adding our solidarity image to your blog, website or social networking profile.
We will be keeping a close watch over Victory of the Revolution Day events. Our collective voices can help keep high-level Iranian officials in check. If authorities yet again brutally suppress people's right to peacefully express their opinions, we will harness the power of the Internet to push right back!"

Let us join in however we can, as well as hold the Iranian people in the Light. This matters.  Your prayers matter. so be it.

Amy
<a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/iran"><img

I got the following chain letter in via email.  I am a breast cancer survivor- not yet 5 years out.  I pass it on with a caveat and commentary:

What a lovely story! My cheeks are still wet.  But oddly enough, though I don't mind if folks want to do something by buying the stamps, I have mixed feelings about breast cancer research.  I have a conviction that the "cure" to cancer will only be found by prevention. Things like cleaning up the environment, restoring the Earth to vibrancy, and eating healthy organic food, and not all that stuff in process precooked food that isn't actually meant to be eaten (all that phood). 

The increasingly expensive and sophisticated protocols once someone has breast cancer )or any cancer, really), such as chemo and radiation therapy, will never be available to all who need them. But that's not really what I am trying to say.   What is it? What touches me about the story is the love and sweetness and caring that the children and teachers had for this principle.  It seems that either she is an extraordinary person or the children and teachers are- or both.  What I want to "fund" or spread around is that love and caring and sweetness.  But how do you do that? How do you provide the opportunities and the encouragement? how do you enable people, children, teachers and administrators who are ordinary to aspire to this kind of action?

I do believe that everyone has that which is extraordinary in them, that of God, the light, a spaciousness that can lead to this kind of behavior. Maybe just passing on the story, itself, will help.


Please read the following story...

   Like most elementary schools, it was typical to have a parade of students in and out of the health clinic throughout the day. We dispensed ice for bumps and bruises, Band-Aids for cuts, and liberal doses of sympathy and hugs.  As principal, my office was right next door to the clinic, so I often dropped in to lend a hand and help out with the hugs. I knew that for some kids, mine might be the only one they got all day.
   One morning I was putting a Band-Aid on a little girl's scraped knee. Her blonde hair was matted, and I noticed that she was shivering in her thin little sleeveless blouse. I found her a warm sweatshirt and helped her pull it on. "Thanks for taking care of me," she whispered as she climbed into my lap and snuggled up against me.
   It wasn't long after that when I ran across an unfamiliar lump under my arm. Cancer, an aggressively spreading kind, had already invaded thirteen of my lymph nodes. I pondered whether or not to tell the students about my diagnosis. The word breast seemed so hard to say out loud to them, and the word cancer seemed so frightening. When it became evident that the children were going to find out one way or another, either the straight scoop from me or possibly a garbled version from someone else, I decided to tell them myself.
   It wasn't easy to get the words out, but the empathy and concern I saw in their faces as I explained it to them told me I had made the right decision. When I gave them a chance to ask questions, they mostly wanted to know how they could help.
   I told them that what I would like best would be their letters, pictures, and prayers.
   I stood by the gym door as the children solemnly filed out. My little blonde friend darted out of line and threw herself into my arms. Then she stepped back to look up into my face. "Don't be afraid, Dr. Perry," she said earnestly, "I know you'll be back because now it's our turn to take care of you."
   No one could have ever done a better job. The kids sent me off to my first chemotherapy session with a hilarious book of nausea remedies that they had written.
   A video of every class in the school singing get-well songs accompanied me to the next chemotherapy appointment. 
   By the third visit, the nurses were waiting at the door to find out what I would bring next. It was a delicate music box that played "I Will Always Love You.."
   Even when I went into isolation at the hospital for a bone marrow transplant, the letters and pictures kept coming until they covered every wall of my room.
   Then the kids traced their hands onto colored paper, cut them out and glued them together to make a freestanding rainbow of helping hands. "I feel like I've stepped into Disneyland every time I walk into this room," my doctor laughed.
  That was even before the six-foot apple blossom tree arrived adorned with messages written on paper apples from the students and teachers. What healing comfort I found in being surrounded by these tokens of their caring..
   At long last I was well enough to return to work. As I headed up the road to the school, I was suddenly overcome by doubts. What if the kids have forgotten all about me? I wondered, What if they don't want a skinny bald principal? What if.
   I caught sight of the school marquee as I rounded the bend. "Welcome Back, Dr. Perry," it read. As I drew closer, everywhere I looked were pink ribbons - ribbons in the windows, tied on the doorknobs, even up in the trees. The children and staff wore pink ribbons, too.
   My blonde buddy was first in line to greet me. "You're back, Dr. Perry, you're back!" she called. "See, I told you we'd take care of you!"
   As I hugged her tight, in the back of my mind I faintly heard my music box playing . . . "I will always love you."

{Breast Cancer Stamp Booklet
 
 It would be wonderful if 2010  were the year a cure for breast cancer was found!!!!
 The notion that we could raise $35 million by buying a book of stamps is powerful! As you may be aware, the US Postal Service has the "Fund the Cure" stamp to help fund breast cancer research. The stamp was designed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda , Maryland . It is important that we take a stand against this disease that affects so many of our Mothers, Sisters, Friends, Coworkers, and Spouses of Coworkers.
Instead of the normal 44 cents for a stamp, this one costs 55 cents. The additional 11 cents will go to breast cancer research A "normal" book costs $8.80. This one is only $11.00. It takes a few minutes in line at the Post Office and means so much. If all stamps are sold, it will raise an additional $35,000,000 for this vital research. Just as important as the money is our support. What a statement it would make if the stamp outsold the lottery this week. What a statement it would make that we care.

1. Go out and purchase some of these stamps.
2. E-mail your friends to do the same.

Many of us know women and their families whose lives are turned upside-down by breast cancer.
It takes so little to do so much in this drive.

We can all afford the $11.00}


While your at it, spread the love.  Don't forget that someone near you might need your caring and your smile more than you can tell.



 

 

 

How many times do we have to be told that we need to eat more vegetables? Vegans exhort us to treat animals as our siblings rather than food, nutritionists exhort us to eat less meat, more fruits and locavores act as if money grows on trees! Why can't humans be more like trees, anyway?  Why can't we get our energy, our fuel, directly from the sun like plants?!  If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride, as my Gramma would say.

Yesterday outside of Reading Terminal Market, there were 3 guys asking for spare change, but I only noticed two.  I had dropped a few coins in the one man's cup and was headed across the street to put some quarters in the cup of the one playing beautiful drum music, when I nearly bumped into the third.  I hadn't gotten my money out yet, and there was a crush of people since it was lunchtime; I barely had a chance to greet him as I swept by, let alone give him some change.  He looked at me and instead of asking for a handout saw my cocky hat with the polka-dot feather and exclaimed," that's a fine lookin' hat!" Despite myself I grinned and said, "thanks."  Now as I am writing this I wish I had gone back and given the hat to him. I don't even know where it came from- so many things get left at our house- perhaps it was Grampa George's...

 

 This is the time of year when many of us think about giving. Though it may be fiscally illogical to give more than usual when you are having financial trouble yourself, it makes a different kind of sense to be more generous when times are tough for everyone.  Did you know that research has shown that the less you have the more you give, percentage wise? This may not be true for folks who are not used to having less, but is true for those who have never had much. At this time of year it might be good to recognize the Scrouge-like tendencies of those of us accustomed to having more. The more you have the tighter you hold on to it, or so it seems.

 

A while back my mother told me a story about her mother and the depression. My grandmother, Sara, was famous for the buns she made. I remember them well myself, though this story takes place when my mother was little. They were just plain, but delicious, white bread buns, kind of like hamburger buns, but chewier.  She came from a large working class family, the oldest of 12. She had been working for wages since she was 11 or 12 herself.  She was real smart and went to school until she was 15, then got a fulltime job as a lab assistant during WWI. The owner of the lab was so impressed with how quickly and well she learned that he offered to send her back to school and pay for college- but her parents declined because they couldn't do without the income she made.

 

Sara married at 18 and had 5 kids of her own. Her husband though a charmer, I believe would be diagnosed with ADD today, but back then was called irresponsible and had a hard time keeping a job. So Sara became the most consistent breadwinner of the family. She did various things from teaching at a private elementary school to sewing fine tailored cloths in her own small business.  Of course she also did all the cooking, cleaning and childrearing as well.

 

Not only that, but during the depression she never turned anyone away from her door empty-handed. All she gave to the hungry men who came to the back door was a bun or two, but word got out that she never turned anyone away and also that the buns were delicious. My mother claims that the appearance of men at the back door asking for food was a daily occurrence.  All they ever got was a couple of buns- but they were tasty, homemade and often fresh out of the oven!

 

I am not sure what the modern day equivalent  of my grandnmother's generosity would be- but I am trying to follow her example.  Mostly I give $$ to organizations like Project Home, Philabundance and World Vision- but it doesn't seem to quite measure up. Sometimes when I have the time and think of it I make soup and take it over to the local homeless shelter.  In some ways the most effective thing that can be done is to work for more equitable sharing of the worlds resources. We, Quakers, have an organization dedicated to this. Try proclaim:  "God calls us to the right sharing of world resources, from the burdens of materialism and poverty into the abundance of God's love, to work for equity through partnership with our brothers and sister throughout the world."

 

Times are tough, here at home and around the globe. Be more generous than you feel you can. Research has also shown that it lifts the spirits of the giver as well. Generosity is also good for the heart and the soul despite the misuse of the admonition that it is better to give than to receive, which most of us had shoved down our throats inappropriately when we were too small to distinguish when that was true and when it was an excuse.  So give till it hurts, or makes you feel good; let's not forget that venerable karmic truth, what goes around, comes around.  Happy Holidays and here's to your generosity!

 

 

I have tried seriously to be a vegetarian twice in my life.  The first time was when I was in my twenties, in the 1970s. I read Fracis More Lappe's book, Diet for a Small Planet and took it quite to heart. Accordingly, then it was not about taking or not taking life- but about food distribution and poverty.  Feeding all those chickens and cattle all that grain that could and should be used to feed the starving folks in the third world was not OK with me. Just a few short weeks later I found myself in Kenya as a college student learning experientially. 

Growing up, in my family, certain things were given.  Preaching was bad, art was a common, almost insignificant, part of life, and performing was OK, as long as you were good at what you were doing. Let me explain. I grew up in a liberal Quaker household, my father was an artist, though teaching was what he did for a living, and both parents were fabulous dancers, especially my Mom. Our home was filled with paintings by my father and we ate and drank from the pottery he made.  Liberal, unprogrammed Quakers do not have preachers or clergy of any kind based on the experience that all people can have a direct relationship with the divine.

I saw a movie last night, a documentary, called the Horse Boy, that has set me pondering questions, like the title above. Some of the questions make me uncomfortable, for they challenge some of my political correctness and my perceived need to please everyone. But I feel compelled to ask and to pose some possible answers.

 

Why is there an epidemic of autism? What do people with Down syndrome have to teach us? What is the role of transgendered folk, especially those that remain physically one gender but feel an inner compulsion, or a command from a higher power, to dress as the other? And what does any of this have to do with the oldest religion in the world?

 

What I learned last night:

1. Some of the most respected professionals in the field say that it is seeming more and more likely that autism has a genetic component, but that environmental factors, including environmental pollutants, such as heavy metals, may be the triggers for autism to express itself in an individual.

2. In the surviving cultures that still practice shamanism, virtually all of the shamans exhibited austistic-spectrim behaviors  and/or had an early illness that they survived which left them 'different' from their peers.  However, in these aboriginal cultures the differences were/are revered and these children were/are then apprenticed to shamans.

3. People with autism often seem to have a special connection with animals.

 

Some other things I have recently learned:

1. In some Native American cultures transgenderd/cross-dressing folk are revered and are often also shamans.  They were/are, especially, helpful to couples that are having marital troubles since they experience life as both male and female.

2. In her newest book, The Case for God, Karen Armstrong starts off with a chapter entitled Homo Religiosus and a look into the most recent understandings of the religion of our oldest human relations, shamanism. "From the very beginning, it seems, religious life was rooted in acknowlegdment of the tragic fact that life depends on the destruction of other creatures." (1)   " In these traditional societies hunters do not feel that the species are distinct or permanent categories: men can become animals and animals human. Shamans have bird and animal guardians and can converse with the beasts that are revered as messengers of higher powers." (2)

 

One thing I know from my own experience raising a daughter with Down syndrome: Her disability, including the limits that seem to come with it, have taught me much about being human and challenge some of the basic assumptions of our fast-passed, competitive culture that values doing more than being.

 

Perhaps these folk at the margins, whose abilities seem lacking, or tendencies seem suspect can help us recognize what is most needed now as we head into this next era of human culture and endeavor. It is clear to me that we must now learn how to live with our animal and plant brothers and sisters in a way that does not denigrate them to mere objects meant for destruction or extinction, or to be turned into stuff for human consumption. The very Earth, itself, which is withering before our eyes, is calling us to think and act and BE in new ways. 

 

In my view, one thing this does not mean is for those with autism, or Down syndrome, or even those who are transgendered, or called to be transgendered,  should be made to fit in, or be as like 'typical' folk as possible.  There are gifts and talents and ways of seeing as well as ways of being among these folk that need to be appreciated, if not revered, respected and learned from. Some of the lessons could save us from destroying this beautiful planet that is our only home.

 

My daughter has made it clear that she does not want to have children.  We humans are now called to restrain ourselves in this department. Could the attraction toward same gendered folk be a sign and a model for us to lessen our procreation as a species, while upping our creativity in other areas? We need so much creative energy to solve all the problems facing us today- economic, environmental and human relations-wise. (Adoption may be the best option; I'm talking cross species, cross cultural, even parts of the planet like streams or lakes- not to mention our next door neighbors! But this for for another post!)

 

In some ways my daughter functions as a 5 or 6 year old, though she is 26. Her intellect is not her most obvious gift. Her pace of life can drive me nearly crazy- I call it, "leisurely in the extreme", but when I slow down to her speed, life really is more manageable AND more enjoyable. Isn't that one of the things the world needs now?  Sure she is great at loving, and we sure as heck need that- but slowing down may be even harder to do!

 

Maybe I'm trying to draw too many conclusions.  Maybe I am lumping things together that don't belong.  Maybe I am out of my mind... but one thing I am sure of is that all people - no matter who they are- have something of value to offer and it usually has to do with their differences.  This is true, even for us folk who think of ourselves as normal, or typical.  My close association with Kate, my daughter, who happens to have Down syndrome, has helped me see that in some way we all try to pass.  We try to hide our differences and especially our difficulties, but it is just those things that are often our most precious gifts to each other and the world.

 

And, NOW, we need those gifts, perhaps more than ever before.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

 

(1) The Case For God, Karen Armstrong, p.6

(2) The Case For God, Karen Armstrong, p.5

 

 

If you have the time.  I have had that sticker on my door, placed so I can see it on my way out.  EVERYWHERE IS WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE, IF YOU HAVE THE TIME. It makes me smile, mostly at myself, for I, often, don't make the time and then see it as I am rushing out the door, too late to even take the trolley, let alone walk.  Still over the 4 or 5 years its been there I have steadily increased the umber of places I walk to, while lessening, or consolidating the ones I drive to.

Yesterday morning my 17 year old asked me to edit the draft of her history paper due upon arrival at school. It was about the relationship our country, the US of A, has had with a certain democracy in a region where democracy is rare and the country in question is surrounded by hostile states. I made gammer corrections and offered a few stylistic suggestions. While doing that, I began to wonder if this particular country was a democracy. Since I was doing so out loud, my daughter expressed her annoyance, stating clearly that whether or not this  country was a democracy was not the subject of the paper. I couldn't deny the truth of that, but I could not stop myself from pondering this question.  When a country denies basic rights to some of its citizens, can it still claim to be a democracy? If you are required to be a member of a certain religion in order to have rights, can it still be a democracy? Are theocracy and democracy necessarily at odds with each other?

My 20 year old daughter had to practically drag me kicking and screaming to Blue Cliff Monastery for a retreat in January. Well, the kicking and screaming was all internal, since I was supposedly doing it to support her. Much to my surprise, I found it meaningful, refreshing and FUN! I also realized that ten years ago, when I stopped having a mindfulness meditation group meet at my home in favor of devoting myself to my Quaker Meeting, I had thrown too much of the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.