"Let the River run..."

"Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem..."
- Carly Simon

Okay, I admit it…I love Facebook.  But not for the all the reasons you may be thinking…well, maybe some of them, too.  But in addition to the social networking--staying in touch with friends from camp and from my work at the college--there is "a something more" about this site that makes me feel like I am back in the 60s and we are rallying a movement.

Take my friend Joe…he's just out of college and has such a deep and abiding commitment to social reform that he has started a green initiative "group" on Facebook.  This young man and his ideas have great potential for becoming an environmental movement of global proportion. He's found a forum for his activism that is limitless in reach.

Or consider Warren and Megan, long known for their skirmishes with the politically apathetic. They campaigned tirelessly in 2004 for Dennis Kucinich. Today they find a new meeting place to connect with those who share their "voice of reason" (and to introduce their ideas to those who may not) on this remarkably facile online social network.

On Facebook I can hear the roar of grass roots lobbying every time I log in.  I can almost feel the wet paint on my fingers as virtual placards and signs for one candidate, movement, cause, or another is painted, and posted, each day.

Part of the fun for me is to visit the pages of those causes or groups that either interest me or confuse me…and I can wander through the virtual halls of their leaders and acolytes weighing in on issues, or just quietly listening to their debates.  This is the place I go when I want to hear the cry of the people or take the pulse of the world today.  This is where I get my prayer agenda each morning.  If something is percolating in global consciousness it is may just surface here first.  If there is going to be a Woodstock today it isn't going to find its roots in a cornfield in upstate New York…no, I think it will rise from the fertile valley of Facebook where seeds of social responsibility and global ethics are sown each day.

Yesterday I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the live coverage of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker's visit to the Senate.  The level of political maneuvering was toxic.  The live coverage (even on NPR, a network which usually leaves me feeling informed) left me instead feeling a bit schmarmy.  I didn't know whether to trust that the questions being asked by Senators, who are also 2008 presidential hopefuls, were part of a political strategy or came from a genuine desire to bring transparency about the war to their constituency and inform them in making wise decisions.

Normally I would have just hoped that The Christian Science Monitor would help me find some perspective the next day…while I continued to pray that my hard-won sense of hope hadn't been crushed.  But instead I decided to go to Facebook and "listen" to the hearts of young activists who were thoughtful and cogent in expressing their perspectives, concerns and, yes, wise "next steps" for us as voters, global citizens...and spiritual thinkers. And, I could do it at 2 in the morning when all the coffehouses and student unions were closed for the night. Here I could find a community of political night-owls still ready for discourse and action.

Mary Baker Eddy once said that, "This age is reaching out towards the perfect Principle of things; is pushing towards perfection in art, invention, and manufacture.  Why, then, should religion be stereotyped, and we not obtain a more perfect and practical Christianity?  It will never do to be behind the times in things most essential, which proceed from the standard of right that regulates human destiny.  Human skill but foreshadows what is next to appear as its divine origin."

Facebook is one invention that I was very grateful for last night.  I love the fact that spiritual, political, global, environmental, and social activists are finding a larger forum for their rallying cry.  I am grateful that as a once-upon-a-time (heck, still) bra-burning, draft-resisting, war-protesting hippie, I can weigh in, listen up, drop in, sit in, attend a love-in, or march with these extraordinary young thinkers on a global scale every night...and not get arrested. 

To be able to watch the numbers climb as groups, set up to champion candidates, swell with supporters is invigorating.  I don't feel the loneliness I often felt in the early 70s when returning to campaign headquarters (after getting door after door slammed in my face), I found the office dark and the mimeograph machine quiet.  Student campaigners today can discover, with a click, that the rank and file of supporters has risen by the hundreds between classes.  With that kind of encouragement there is so much reason to stay the course. The calvary isn't just on its way…it has arrived!!!   I can almost hear Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan singing in the background.   Well, actually they are...on my iTunes...isn't this a great time to be on this planet!

So, here's to Facebook, an "invention" that, for me, foreshadows the grandeur of Mind…the all-inclusiveness of Spirit.  This is a forum that knows no hierarchy and silences only that which is mean-spirited...or unkind. 

If you haven't visited this online peace movement that knows no political color, either red or blue (and I am convinced that both want peace no matter how different their approach to reaching that goal may be), ask your child or grandchild to show you.  Ask them to give you a guided tour of this virtual Washington monument pool filled with flower children….and policy-wonks, and lobbyists...and me.  And if you are a Facebook regular, feel free to "friend" me.  I'd love to get to know you…and your ideas.

"We the great and small
Stand on a star
And blaze a trail of desire
Through the dark'ning dawn.

Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.

It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.

We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem."

See you there,
Kate