... for they shall be comforted.
Comfort: From the Latin confortare "to strengthen greatly."
The Turning Point
(Gouache and watercolor from the late 1980s, revisited)
... for they shall be comforted.
Comfort: From the Latin confortare "to strengthen greatly."
The Turning Point
(Gouache and watercolor from the late 1980s, revisited)
An African Violet that was given to me last spring has been dormant for several months. In recent weeks I noticed a few buds. Today on the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., the first bud has opened, and there are many more blooms to come.
Tomorrow Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been 92 years old. The message he carried does not die. Last night I had a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep due to a flood of fearful thoughts arising from tangled roots in the past, strangling the present and threatening any peace of mind and heart in the future. As I tossed and turned, I remembered being a child and having the same troubling experience of sleeplessness again and again without the hope that came into my life when I was nearly 40 years old.
In an unforgettable moment in 1987 came the realization that I was not alone and had never been alone and that there was at least one person, a Lummi woman who was ten years younger than I was and who had experienced severe trauma in her life and who carried a message of hope, a woman who had come to know that she was not alone, that she was part of a community that I now think of as the beloved community.
Last night when I suddenly became aware that I was not alone in facing fearful thoughts, I was able to fall asleep and stay asleep. I dreamed that a man I know who is in his fifties and who has survived against all odds told me with deep joy that he was going to be a father.
This morning I found these sustaining quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
*
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
*
Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.
*
I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.
*
This day before Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday is an opportunity to revisit this Lummi story of infinite hope:
(Note: When you click to start the video, it will not start but will direct you to click on a link to YouTube)
"... Hunger pays a heavy price to the falling gods of speed and steel ..."
*
Thank you to Sabine for drawing my attention to Michael Blumenthal's poem, "Be Kind," which led me to his talk on the value of art.
"Do you remember the happiest day of your life? What about the saddest? Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn't have to live on one side or the other?"
Ocean Voung
*
Looking east in mid-December:
And if you have time, listen to this music from the county where I live (population 229,247 in 2019). Whatcom County took its name from a Nooksack word meaning "noisy waters."