On civil disobedience

Dissent is democratic and civil disobedience is a courageous version of it. It has given women the vote, ended legal racial discrimination, toppled colonial rule and recently, autocratic oppression.

It won't work without the press though. We need the press to share the news, show the courage of dissenters and cruelty of power. Hooray for the press.

I get a lot of my news through friends on Facebook. So I don't use mainstream media the way I used to. Still I cherish my local paper, though I ignore a lot of it.

I see things coming to a head. I am asking myself for what issues am I willing to be arrested. I don't have an answer yet but there is a lot of value in asking.

The first thing thatccomes to me is gratitude, for the press, for my FirstvAmendment rights, and that I have enough years and money to be able to contemplate earning a criminal record without fearing it much

Peace, y'all

Molly

A moving prayer for peace

This was in my email inbox this a.m. and I am moved to share it. Enjoy. Peace, y'all


MY MESSAGE FOR PEACE AND HARMONY

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

We all need to pray for one another, and to love one another. We should always pray for the safety, peace, love and brotherhood for people all over the world.

Too bad we can't have an independence day for the entire world. A day of freedom from ignorance, hatred, war, illusions, power and control. A day where we can all love each other as human beings and toss away the weapons of war, and cast out our fears and hatreds from our hearts into the graves. We must mourn the graves of the innocents all over the world, and give the children of the world the hope of a peaceful, loving and beautiful world.

A world full of love and without hatred or fear. A world where we can join hands together and accept one another, regardless of our skin color, ethnic divisions, religion or nationality. If we don't unite as a human race, then we have condemned the future generation of children a dark and very grim future.

Think of love, compassion and peace always...


MY PRAYER FOR PEACE AND HARMONY

Merciful God, You made all of the people of the world in Your own image and placed before us the pathway of salvation through different Preachers who claimed to have been Your Saints and Prophets. But, the contradictions (made by us) in the interpretation of Your teachings have resulted in creating divisions, faith based hatreds and bloodshed in the world community. Millions of innocent men, women and children have so far been brutally killed by the militants of several religions who have been committing horrifying crimes against humanity and millions more would not be butchered by them in the future, if You guide and help us find ways to reunite peacefully.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL, look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the controversial teachings of arrogance, divisions and hatreds which have badly infected our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; reunite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish Your purposes on earth; that, in Your good time, all nations and races could jointly serve You in justice, peace and harmony. (Amen)

Regards,
S.A.Rehman
Peace Activist
PAKISTAN

More dividends from the silent weekend

Daily life has resumed but the weekend's ideas are still in me. I carried out one of them yesterday (a simple one), and have begun a few others (gently nudging my husband toward one green action and another that supports a nonprofit and issue we care about, talking to conservatives, practicing good listening skills). Also I am working on reducing my personal chatter.

I had some stuff to feel contrite about--I was immersed in a Tom Clancy novel, and shirked my tasks and stayed up too late. Finished the book today and plan to sleep well tonight!

And the spirit brought me more gifts! My coworker Ginger met a man who attended Westtown and identifies as a Quaker. Another Quaker in my town!! This is exciting.

Ginger is brimming with ideas and I am going to help her.

How is this for a cool idea. Does your city have a sister city? If so, why not set up a student exchange with that city and have the students learn about the green and sustainable practices the host city is doing!? And participate in a community forum to share the status of carbon reduction, alternate energies, local food, whatever, from their home country! Then when the students return home, they hold another forum to share what they have learned. And somehow (haven't figured this all out yet) find ways to implement what the student ambassador learned from sister city.

How else can we build peace with sister cities? I am glad my city has a sister city and I hope we can use that mechanism to increase the level of harmony in the universe.

Peace, y'all

Molly

Thank you Carrie Chapman Catt and United Nations

It's really cold here (Spokane), and the snow is high in a lot of places. It's snowing. The sparrows are taking shelter in a shrub and under a car. Yuck. I now their caloric requirements must be sky-high and doubtless many die when they can't get enough to eat. That's enough to kick in my gratitude reflexes.

150 years ago yesterday was the birth of Carrie Chapman Catt. This woman worked tirelessly to bring the vote to American women. If you are a woman, you should thank her and give her honor and credit. You should do so even if you're male, because having women participate in the voting process makes things better for all of us.

63 years ago today was the first assembly of the United Nations General Assembly. Now the UN's ability to foster peace has a few blemishes but on the whole it does a LOT of good. When I was a kid all the kids carried cardboard UNICEF containers when we trick-or-treated. I wonder why they don't any more?

Thanks, Nebraskans for Peace for your wonderful calendar.

Feeling lots of gratitude today.....

Peace, y'all!

Molly

I am going to Costa Rica

Today I decided to go to Costa Rica this spring on a gonzo birding trip. I like bird-watching, but this is the big leagues. I expect I will love it, with guides and birding pro's to help me find birds and learn what they are. I want to bring my daughter along so we can enjoy each other and experience this together, and she may learn to like birding more--and practice her Spanish!

What has this to do with peace? It's a dividend of peace that we can contemplate such a trip. And one reason Costa Rica is such a mecca for eco-tourism is that it has no military sucking up its budget and terrorizing its own people. Costa Rica is a functioning democracy that lives in peace. No civil wars. Nearly universal literacy, though it's defined fairly liberally.

I am thrilled. I am grateful.

Peace, y'all

Molly

cat lovers for peace

Our very good friend gave us a calendar for Christmas--Cat Lovers for Peace! It's full of great milestones for peacemakers across the decades and centuries, and across the globe. Plus pictures of cats. I will never lack for peace-related things to share, at least in 2009.

At the real risk of repeating myself, I am filled with the grace from gratitude. Life is good.

Peace y'all

Molly

Gratitude during the Christmas hustle and bustle

Hmmm

The Saturday before Christmas and there is lots to do. In this culture, anyway. Thanks to God I don't have to add finding fuel and food to the list. Or finding my loved ones (okay, I do need to retrieve my kid from a sleepover).

Thanks to God I have the tools I need to do my chores--health, money, safe wheels for the driving errands, a full tummy and strong back.

Thanks to God also that I don't really have to worry about my daughter getting sucked into a civil war between the people and the government, which is in the hands of multinational oil companies. This is the situation for a classmate of mine who lives in Nigeria. He could have been your classmate too. There but for the grace of God......

Gratitude is a great habit, and helps ground me in this time of year.

Cheerfulness is with me today and I will share it.

snow, and peace

Snowwwwww we have had some, which is unusual. It makes me appreciate most intensely that I have a warm and dry place to sleep.

Not everyone does. This too makes me grateful for what I so usually take for granted.

Gratitude is good.

Peace y'all

Molly

what I am grateful for

Here's a quick list, by no means exhaustive

1. My cousins visited us! It was very pleasant and gave me the chance to cook like crazy. I was glad to spend time with their baby, who is a darling little boy of 6 months, 14 pounds, and one extra chomosome.
2. I am grateful my baby (now 14) was easy in just about every way, and has been healthy and normal (more or less).
3. I have done a pretty good job of exercising for 3 months now!
4. My health is good. Maybe even great.
5. My family is healthy. My spouse is in far, far better shape than one year ago, when he was in a walker, getting food and meds through a tube to his stomach, and we were between surgeries.
6. My cats continue to give me immense joy.
7. We live in a peaceful state. Not perfect but I am grateful for a warm dry place to sleep, and food in my belly. And no shells hitting my home.
8. My wonderfully generous neighbor bestowed more coffee on me, and I have not spent $ on coffee at home since Feb 2006. Thanks, Eric.
9. Strangely, I am grateful to be free from eldercare worries since my parents are long gone.

That's it for today.

On the very verge of a hhhhhhhhh HOLIDAY

I am about to plunge into a holiday weekend and hope I enjoy every moment of it. I doubt I will enjoy every moment but expect to have quite a few good ones.

I hope you do as well.

I also invite you to tell me what you are thankful for this Thanksgiving. I will do likewise, but not right now

Peace, y'all

Molly

Pride vs Gratitude

Today lots of people I work with wore costumes. One man became a US citizen last year, and wore a "Proud to be American" t-shirt. (This man was born in Arkansas and lost his citizenship on a technicality, and was Canadian for many years.) I told him I didn't feel proud to be American, I felt grateful and thankful. He asked me if I didn't think there was much in America to be proud of. I agreed but quickly pointed out there was also much to feel shame about. I also noted that pride was a 'sin."

This seemed to shut him down, which surprised me. Did I exercise a moral nuclear option? Is there no rejoinder to the claim of sin? I am curious, and wonder if the other sins have as much power. Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, greed, sloth, anger. What about selfish, thoughtless waste?

I hope this finds you well, and thankful

The attitude of gratitude

This old phrase sounded new again to me yesterday. At the beginning of a "now hear this" lecture about civility, the boss reminded us we do have a lot to be grateful for in these troubled times.

How true! How does this connect with peace? A few ways.

First, a thankful heart limits the danger of pride, and lets us remain humble and open.

Second, when we consider what we are thankful for, we are actually articulating the dividends of peace which we enjoy, and are naming what we need to share with others in the world.

Third, if we remain thankful we can avoid the paralysis of despair and helplessness that so often attend the focus on current events and personal woes.

I have a new thing to be thankful for: only 21 more days till this election is over.

These challenging times make call for different kinds of prayers. Besides prayers of gratitude, which I believe in offering several times a day, now also we pray in supplication, seeking comfort, guidance, and wisdom in facing the difficulties of the day. In this prayerful mind set I have been browsing in Quaker stuff and found this worth sharing.

http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp/Messages.html#Christians

This is a collection of contributions from a Friend named Steven Travis Pope. They are short essays from a Christian Quaker, and they speak to this non-Christ-centered Quaker as well.

http://quakerquaker.org/ is a collection of Q-related blogs and news. I invite you to have a look.

A Christian response to the economic crisis, and a prayer of thanksgiving

I feel inspired by the Sojourners email which asks about the Christian response to the deepening economic troubles our nation and our planet are facing.

First, my personal perspective. I am grateful and prayerfully thankful for my home (paid for), my job (good and steady), and my health (so far, really pretty good). I’m grateful my only debt is a car payment and I have no trouble making those payments. So at my personal ground Zero, all is well.

But I sense and feel the stress around me. I certainly hear it and read it anytime the radio is on or I glance at the newspaper or TV. I also hear it on the lips of my friends and coworkers. Gas prices are still high. Food prices are high. True! Again, I am thankful they are not so high that I must make difficult choices.

I admit I agreed with one (probably only one) of Sarah Palin’s remarks during the debate on October 2, when she said we average folks need to tighten our belts, review our expenditures, and up our savings. Something like that anyway. I agree. It’s a good time to remember to live within our means, and to save something for another day (or for another needy person).

Sojourners has a leading (Quakerese) to pursue the question of the Christian response to the economic crisis, and I am glad of it. Join me in visiting God’s Politics blog.

Pride

I don’t have a lot of pride but the little I do have gets me in trouble.

I am proud to be a Quaker, while at the same time flinching because pride is a sin.

I am proud of my writing skills. But this makes me extremely sensitive to comments on my writing, which does not go over too well at work.

I am proud of my extended family’s unity—but acutely aware of all the warts and flaws, and know that I would not choose to socialize with many of my cousins.

I am proud (I think) of my extended family’s academic prowess—and realize, however belatedly (I was in my 20s), that intelligence does not equate to virtue.

I am proud of my daughter, so is so eerily like me, and who has turned out so very well in so many ways. But I know that I had little to do with it, just my DNA and womb and doing my best.
Back to the gratitude thing: I am not proud to be American; I feel grateful to be American. I am quite lucky to live in a country free of the threat of war, in safe neighborhoods, with opportunities to improve my life and live well, with ample food, with clean water and air (relatively speaking of course).

Maybe I should practice more gratitude, and thank God for the ability to write fairly well, to thank God for putting me in a Quaker family, thank God that my father, as poor a father as he was, gave me the DNA to be healthy, intelligent, and a member of my extended family. And I do feel gratitude to historical Quakers for all the good they did. I didn’t do all those things. And I am deeply, deeply grateful that my daughter is so easy for me to love and raise.

Next time I feel some pride, I will not flinch or flog myself, I will quickly restate my thought to put gratitude into it.