January 1, 2023: Love in Action / Rerun from January 1, 2007: Girl with Mask

Grateful for the calendar art work of Nikki McClure, which has accompanied me through many years, keeping my sense of hope and wonder alive.

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Girl with Mask (1983), by am

January 1, 2007

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Love to all, near and far, in 2023 and always.

June afternoon sky / More listening during yoga practice

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John Lewis:

... And you live that you’re already there, that you’re already in that community, part of that sense of one family, one house. If you visualize it, if you can even have faith that it’s there, for you it is already there. And during the early days of the movement, I believed that the only true and real integration for that sense of the beloved community existed within the movement itself ...

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... Because in the final analysis, we did become a circle of trust, a band of brothers and sisters. So it didn’t matter whether we’re Black or white. It didn’t matter whether you came from the North, to the South, or whether you’re a Northerner or Southerner. We were one.

But at the same time, I would tell my members of my own family and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and members within the movement, within S.N.C.C and S.C.L.C and others, I’ve always said, “Pace yourself, pace yourself.” I would tell my wife and say, “Every fight is not your fight. Pace yourself.” And I would say it to the young people and others sometime, “Don’t get in a hurry. Our struggle is not a struggle that lasts for one day, one week, one month or one year or one lifetime. It is an ongoing struggle.” ...

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... Well, I think about it, but you have to believe there may be setbacks, there may be some disappointments, there may be some interruption. But, again, you have to take the long, hard look. With this belief, it’s going to be OK; it’s going to work out. If it failed to happen during your lifetime, then maybe, not maybe, but it would happen in somebody’s lifetime. But you must do all that you can do while you occupy this space during your time. And sometimes I feel that I’m not doing enough to try to inspire another generation of people to find a way to get in the way, to make trouble, good trouble. I just make a little noise ...

A Play in One Act: "The Path of Return Continues the Journey"

 Thich Nhat Hanh at 16, in Hue, Vietnam

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95 years:  A Life Story

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A second edition of Love in Action is being released on June 21, 2022.  The book, first published in 1993, begins with a play by Thich Nhat Hanh called "The Path of Return Continues the Journey."  

In writing about his play, Thich Nhat Hanh said:

Love enables us to see things that those who are without love cannot see.

One of the characters in the play is Tuan, a student in Thich Nhat Hanh's School of Youth for Social Service.

Tuan:  ... When I worked hard, it was not because I had any illusion about my ability to change the situation.  That would have been like trying to extinguish a forest fire with a cup of water.  But I did have faith then, and I still have faith now, that our work was of value because it sowed seeds of tolerance and love in people's hearts ...

It is an extraordinary book worth re-visiting again and again. 

Talking about love in action / Introducing a timely book of poetry

NORA

She rides a bicycle in her dreams
on the country lanes of County Meath
pedaling her way to dances:  gossip
with the girls, flirtations with the boys
smelling of soap, hair slicked back,
shyly standing across the dance floor,
jostling one another as young men
will do.

She rides a bicycle in her dreams
the season is always springtime
the hills are never steep
she speeds along, until a cock's crow
creates a schism splitting the
dream world into memory,
she awakens with a curious
longing, at home, but far from home.

She listens to the hum of the Interstate,
contemplates her morning cup of tea.
Once more the rooster sounds his
rousing call, turning the world into
countryside, but nothing like the
country lanes of County Meath.

THE CARE CENTER

Afraid they'll be scolded,
they want to go home.
Fearful they'll be late for dinner,
they edge towards the door.
The passage of time has been reversed,
twines back on itself to yesteryear
with decades lost along the way.

The family home, wherever it was,
has a powerful pull and draw.
If we could only take them there,
delivering them from their longing,
in an instant we would.
To give them that pleasure,
to give them that solace.
To give them bounding steps
to replace their shuffling gait,
to once again race down that
familiar street, turn at their own house,
spring up the front steps, bang
the screen door behind them,
call out loudly, I'm home, I'm here."

Steering them back to their rooms,
sometimes feeling more like wardens
than nurses, "Home Sweet Home"
stitches through our hearts.

Christine M. Kendall's blog is here.

"The Care Center" is from her first book of poetry, self-published in 1998.  I treasure my copies of both books and visit her poems again and again.

The power of love in action

Jacob Lawrence.



From whiskey river:

"We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as humans is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks we take a long time to accomplish, that's all.

Let us know our aims then, holding fast to the mind, even if force puts on a thoughtful or a comfortable face in order to seduce us. The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. "Tragedy," D. H. Lawrence said, "ought to be a great kick at misery." This is a healthy and immediately applicable thought. There are many things today deserving such a kick." (Albert Camus)

Rosalinda Guillen / A Local Voice of Love in Action

"... We are not saying, like many other organizations and many other political leaders and farm worker leaders about moving farm workers out of farm work into career enhancement or success, which is only translated as out of agriculture.  What we want to do is ensure that farm workers are respected within agriculture for what we do, which is helping the industry to raise food.  We are core to the production of food.  Farm workers have keys to improvement of the food system in the United States, to protect the soil, protecting Mother Earth but also feeding people in a healthy manner.  I believe farm workers should stay in farm work, but they should be respected for it, valued for it, and paid for it.  We need better wages, better treatment, to be recognized in this country, just like farmers are recognized."