"stand up and show your soul..."

"there at the table
with my head in my hands..."

I know I have used Carrie Newcomer's beautiful, "You Can Do This Hard Thing before. But it is the only song that feels right for keynoting this guest post by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, which speaks so perfectly to the challenge of these times -- and what we are capable of.

I was sitting there at the kitchen table.  It was well before dawn on the day of Martin Luther King's birthday. I just couldn't sleep. This week would make unique demands upon us for a deep spiritual poise.  I could almost feel the heart of humanity pulsing in the quiet. I believe that many of us are wrestling with some hard questions about this moment in history.  After hours of prayer, I opened my laptop, only to discover this remarkable piece. It was the perfect answer.

I can't remember -- in more than 750 posts on this blog, stretching over 15 years -- ever re-posting someone else's piece - in its entirety. But Estes' article, "We Were Made for These Times," copied below, says it all so beautifully - and with such profound grace - that I needed to share it with those I love. I hope it edifies your hope, strengthens your resolve, and reminds you that you, too, were made for these times.

We Were Made for These Times
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

"My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."

I am so grateful to Clarissa Pinkola Estes -- author of Women Who Run with Wolves -- for sharing her heart, her wisdom, and her compassion with us through this piece. I will let it seep into my heart and refresh my holy purpose.  We can do this hard thing, because we were made for these times.

offered with Love,

Kate

"under His wings..."

"How can you run
when you know?"

Today on Facebook, a friend shared this video of Crosby, Stills, and Nash's  "Ohio."  It is still a chilling reminder of a day I will never forget.

It was Monday -- a beautiful, early spring day in rural New Jersey. I was in typing class when our Assistant Principal came to the door and called our teacher into the hallway. He returned ashen-faced and visibly shaken. He announced that when the bell rang we were to go to the school auditorium.

I remember looking down at the rows and rows of "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" that I'd just typed, as a warm up for that day's dictation. When I looked up, there were tears streaming down our teacher's sideburn-framed cheeks. I was terrified. We'd lived through the Kennedy, King, and Kennedy assassinations, what could possibly evoke a teacher's tears -- again?

I looked across the room and questioningly caught a friend's eye. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. I returned to my typing, but all I could think about was, "what now?" The windows were open and the scent of peonies wafted in on a soft breeze. To this day, the scent of peonies is the scent of paradox.

After the bell sounded for a change of classes, we filed into the hallway and made our way like lemmings towards the auditorium. For some reason, I needed to find my sister. She was a year younger, but she was my rock. I thought if I could sit with her, whatever news we were being gathered for would be less frightening. But when I finally caught sight of her, she was on the other side of the auditorium surrounded by friends.

The room was eerily quiet. We didn't talk as we waited for the principal to take the stage. When he did, although his suit was its normal crisp perfection, he seemed disheveled. He ran his hand through his hair as he paused at the microphone. It made me feel frightened. Like when my mother cried, or my dad sat staring out the window after paying the bills.

Before he spoke, he cleared his throat, paused, and cleared his throat again. Then he explained that there had been a terrible tragedy at a university in Ohio. The National Guard had opened fire on protesting students and four of those students had died. Others had been injured. We were instructed to return to our next period classes.  I noticed that our principal's shoulders shook - I assumed he was quietly weeping - as he left the stage with his head down.

We were in shock. We'd never heard the story of Kent State - it hadn't happened yet.  It wasn't in our rolodex of possibilities.  We'd heard of recently graduated classmates being killed in Viet Nam, but this was in Ohio - only two states away.  We'd never been exposed to news of our own government killing college students.  We were so close to being college students ourselves. For me it was only two years away. For the youngest among us, four years. We didn't speak, we didn't move. I remember thinking, "this is what shock feels like."

This was 1970. There were no trauma counselors. We were dismissed from the auditorium and told to go to our next class. At the end of the day, we boarded school buses for home, changed into gym clothes for track practice or field hockey, or we made our way to the same auditorium for play rehearsals.

It felt like walking through water. We had no further information. We wouldn't have any more information unless our parents let us watch the nightly news, on one of three channels at 6 o'clock. The newspaper wouldn't arrive until morning. There was no cable news, no internet, no online resources, no Facebook posts, or breaking news updates. Just the 6 o'clock news and the morning paper.

Had there been a coup? Had war been declared in Ohio? Were children -- and yes, we still thought of our friends in college as children -- now the enemy of the state? Was the consequence for disagreeing with your government, death by firing squad?

It would be days before we saw photographs. It would be months before we'd get anything more than cursory information. It would be years before we'd know how that day in May, would change the landscape of our collective experience as students - and parents.

The massacre of student protesters on a grassy knoll at Kent State University would alter the course of history. Within a week millions of high school and college students went on strike, others marched in protest at the Capitol, and many of us wrote out our grief in poetry, songs, and essays.

As with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, I turned to a resource I'd come to trust -- my Sunday School teacher. I had to wait six days, but I knew she would give me a spiritual way to process what I'd been living with for almost a week.

On Sunday, she too was still shaken by the event. I loved that she wasn't stoic and matter-of-fact about it. Her response was honest. She told me that she'd been praying all week about how to talk with us about what had happened in Ohio. And then she asked us how we had been feeling. She didn't tell us how we should feel.

I don't remember all of what we discussed that morning, but I do remember leaving church with a sense of courage about standing up for what is right and good. I also left with her encouragement to memorize the 91st Psalm. And I did. It has stood the test of time. It reads:

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and fortressL my God; in Him will I trust.

Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flight by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that casteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

"Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."

Over the next two years I would participate in a number of protests, and this Psalm would be my marching song. In the ensuing years it has been my companion whenever I have felt threatened or afraid. I do not run when I know that something needs facing. I stand with angels -- who have charge over me, and mine, and all.

offered with Love,

Kate

This video from Dan Rather's report on the event is helpful in understanding what happened that day  "Kent State." 

"we were made for these times..."

"there at the table
with my head in my hands..."

I know I have used Carrie Newcomer's beautiful, "You Can Do This Hard Thing before. But it is the only song that feels right for keynoting this guest post by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, which speaks so perfectly to the challenge of these times -- and what we are capable of.

I am sitting here at the kitchen table.  It is well before dawn on the day of Martin Luther King's birthday. I just couldn't sleep. This week will make unique demands upon us for a deep spiritual poise.  I could almost feel the heart of humanity pulsing in the quiet. I believe that many of us are wrestling with some hard questions about this moment in history.  After hours of prayer, I opened my laptop, only to discover this remarkable piece. It was the perfect answer.

I can't remember -- in more than 700 posts on this blog, stretching over 12 years -- ever re-posting someone else's piece in its entirety. But Estes' article, "We Were Made for These Times," copied below, says it all so beautifully - and with such profound grace - that I needed to share it with those I love. I hope it edifies your hope, strengthens your resolve, and reminds you that you, too, were made for these times.

We Were Made for These Times
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

"My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."

I am so grateful to Clarissa Pinkola Estes -- author of Women Who Run with Wolves -- for sharing her heart, her wisdom, and her compassion with us through this piece. I will let it seep into my heart and refresh my holy purpose.  We can do this hard thing, because we were made for these times.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Let peace begin with me..."

"Let there be peace on earth,
and let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on Earth,
the peace that was meant to be.

With God as our Father,
brothers all are we,
Let me walk with my brother,
in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me,
let this be the moment now.
With every step I take,
let this be my solemn vow,

To take each moment
and live each moment
in peace, eternally.
Let there be Peace on Earth,
and let it begin with me."
-     Jackson/Miller

In 1972 our graduating class of high school seniors sang this song as we took our place on the bleachers beneath the same lights our boys had "beat Central" for the State championship earlier that fall. 

We were graduating from a small regional high school surrounded by dairy farms, large summer estates, and the small pastoral villages that fed our student population with its "best and brightest."  

We were Woodstock wannabes.  We wore the requisite pumps and hose, but went bra-less under our white sundresses, and had a pair of tattered jeans and a halter top in the backseat of our get-away car for wearing to graduation parties after dinner with our parents and "honored guests."

We wore hope for the future on our faces and tried to keep our fear of the unknown hid well beneath a deep layer of optimism and folk music.   We were a generation of activism and protest.  We had watched our brothers, cousins, and friends be drafted into fighting a war we didn't believe in and die for a cause we were confused about.  And soon, as we knew all too well, some of us would no longer be protected from this system (of drafting young men once they graduated from high school) by our childhood and youth. Soon, someone's boyfriend or best friend would volunteer, or be asked, to take an oath, don a uniform and travel to a place with jungles and monsoons to fight an enemy we weren't sure we hated.  It was our last moment of childhood…and we knew it.

I remember walking up the steps of the platform where we would sit…waiting for the principal to make his remarks, the valedictorian to give her speech, and our names to be called in alphabetical order…and wondering how we could stop the madness of a war that took fresh-scrubbed boys from farms and small towns and turned them into fighting machines…or worse yet, the unthinkable…fallen heroes sent home to weeping mothers and girlfriends, fathers and teammates.

It was one of those moments burned into my memory like the initials my sister and I carved into an old beech tree…not faded by time, but remarkable for it's clarity "after all those years."

For the first time that I can remember, I actually listened to myself think what I was thinking…and then I listened to the words that were coming out of my mouth while I was thinking those thoughts…and the "coincidence" was staggering.  I was terrorized by the thought that my friends and I were being launched into a world at war, a world where we felt hopeful, but somehow--in the deep recesses of our fears--powerless to make a difference, and yet the answer was falling from my lips with such clarity.

"Let it begin with me…"  

I was very angry with a family member that night.  I was hurt by what I felt was negligent disinterest.  I had vowed earlier in the day that if this person actually showed up at graduation, I wouldn't even acknowledge their presence beyond the polite, "hello, thank you for coming."  I had actually practiced being elegantly aloof.  I would be above it…on the surface…but I would continue to seethe deep inside.  I had the right…right? 

Walking up to my place on stage that evening I suddenly realized that I didn't have the right to harbor a war within my heart….even one that seemed so reasonable and justified.  I did have the right to let peace begin with me. 

Sitting down in my place and looking out at my family taking up two whole rows near the front, I felt all that anger and hurt wash away.  They were there.  They had come to celebrate a milestone in my life.  My parents were proud and my seven siblings were fresh-faced and dressed for a party. My grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins and one great-aunt were smiling up, each with their own memory of me as a child skipping through their hearts as they waited for my name to be called.

I decided to actually think about what I was seeing.  They were in the one of the closest rows to the stage.  This meant that my family, who were customarily late for most appointments, events, etc., had arrived en masse early enough to get premier seating.  My parents had driven 60 miles, from where they had moved earlier in my senior year, with a car full of seven children from age one to sixteen, and had kept them neat and clean, on a very warm June afternoon with no air-conditioning.   My grandmother had driven with my great aunt almost as far, but very slowly, to be there.  And my aunts, uncles, and cousins had carved out this evening from very busy schedules to gather on a football field, sit on hard metal chairs, listen to a guy they didn't know talk about a bunch of kids they would never see again, only to watch me walk a dozen yards, shake the principal's hand, accept my diploma and return to my seat.

Where was the war I was so hell-bent on continuing to fight only hours before?  Where was the disinterest I was willing to sacrifice my own grace for?  Where was the hurt I felt so justified in wearing like a badge of honor?  It was not "out there" in the smiling faces of my family and friends.  It only had a life if I gave it one…in my own heart.  I suddenly realized that by perpetuating that war within, I would be the one missing out on my own "party."  I was the one who, although I might get to parade around in my practiced aloofness, would miss out on all the warmth, affection, and joy that had brought my family to my graduation in the first place. 

When the ceremony was over, and my friends and I had turned our tassels to the other side of our mortarboards before throwing them high into the air, my family crowded near the steps of the stage to congratulate me with tears (Mom's),  hugs, kisses and my uncle's bearlike grip around my shoulders.  

Instead of the cool "hello, thank you for coming" that I had practiced, they got the real me.  I cried in my mom's arms, I jumped up and down waving my diploma with my sister and cousins. I was the oldest, so the first to graduate from high school in our generation. I picked up my little sister and carried her around as I introduced my family to the teachers, administrators and friends who had made my years of high school so wonderful.

As we headed off for a surprise graduation party at my aunt and uncle's house--something I would have been mortified to discover had been planned all along if I had been aloof and distant as planned--all the warring in my heart had ceased and there was a great peace in me as I squeezed into my place in the way-backseat of our 9-passenger station wagon with my sisters.  It was a great night. I would join my friends at a graduation party later, but this was family time and I was ready to celebrate my first post-childhood lesson in being a real peace-activist in their warm embrace.

This would be one of the most important lessons I ever learned…one that I am still working for mastery in…but grateful for each "refresher course" along the way.  

As I watch a new generation of young men and women march off to a questionable war, I can vote, I can protest, and I can write my congresswoman and senator. But I am still convinced that the most effective way to make a difference is to go to battle with any wars that may be raging within my own heart…with peace…."peace that floweth as a river, from the eternal source alone…" (hymn 276 - C. Wesley)

With peace,
Kate

"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

"...all over this land..."

"...If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land..."
- Hays/Seeger

Do you ever watch the news…CNN, MSNBC, or my favorite BBCNews on Public Television, and feel overwhelmed by the barrage of mind-reeling images and heart-wrenching information that comes out of that black box…flat screen or now, almost antique tube-style?   Have you ever wished that the NY Times you have delivered to your doorstep on Sunday mornings, pieced together from random pages scattered through the coffeehouse after church, or read online after midnight, would come wrapped in a "the contents of this package may be hazardous to your peace " disclaimer?

This past month, NPR, CNN, BBC, and NYT have had me on my knees in prayer.  My favorite news source, The Christian Science Monitor, has been like a good friend standing over me in the bathroom holding my hair, whispering messages of comfort, hope and encouragement when my stomach is unsettled…but still, I am a venerate news hound and I want to hear more perspectives...however disquieting.  Thankfully, I am also a passionate metaphysician and when I can stay clearly focused on seeing that every image, every piece of news coming at me is just an opportunity to "hammer" out each dull cold lump of information into an exercise in using my spiritual ocular muscles more effectively in seeing God in all things…I feel, not overwhelmed, but empowered.

Finding God expressing Himself as compassion in the tenderness of a soldier who is caring for an Iraqi child, finding Him as Mind when I hear about a senator who has been inspired to sponsor a wise bill, finding Her as Soul when I see beauty in the face of a mother who has expressed mercy at the sentencing of her child's murderer…these are small ways that I can ring my own bell of freedom.  In those moments, I am no longer the victim of my world, but sitting at the feet of its Master, letting his calm eyes hold my gaze and His strong hand on my shoulder tell me He is there…I need not be afraid. 
As most of my readers know there is always a song behind any mental image I hang onto and find useful as I navigate this spiritual journey.  My news feasting experiences are no different.  As a veteran of the anti-war 60s and the bra-burning 70s, my songs of protest are usually folk songs.  Joni Mitchell, The Weavers, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, and Pete Seeger fill my sign-carrying, chain-myself-to-the-front-columns-of-the-Pentagon heart.

"...If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening
All over this land
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land..."

As part of our Sunday routine, Jeff and I start our morning with a two hour walk in the park, which includes a detour for church and then back onto the pathways through our neighborhood's large university campus, down to "The Loop."  This is our city's happening stretch of coffeehouses, performing arts venues, restaurants, galleries, cool shops and your "throw one in for good" tattoo parlor (it's where I got mine!), and arts cinema.  We make our way through the neighborhood on a pathway that literally pours us out onto "The Loop" like small children coming down a slide into a university playground…music, costumes, discourse…a paradise for old hippies…like us.

Our favorite Sunday morning coffeehouse (as opposed to our favorite afternoon and evening coffeehouse a block from our home) is Meshuggah.  It's eclectic, political, quirky, and they make a great cup of hot chocolate.  But most importantly, they offer a first glance through the Sunday New York Times…if you can gather its crumpled and coffee stained body parts and put it back into some sense of order.  Rather, to use a metaphor inspired by my friend Maria, like picking up pieces of straw from the picked apart scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz" and poking it into the right places so that he can stand up and find his voice. 

As I retrieved a bit from one table with my "Hi, are you finished with the front page..." the man who handed it to me said, "I hope you haven't eaten this morning…it's a tough day for news and it might upset your stomach."  And I replied with a smile, "Oh, I'm going to pray my way through this one, I'm sure there's something there to remind me that God is present in the world today!"

As I returned to our table my folkie roots took hold and the first strains of Lee Hays and Peter Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer" started popping through the dark soil of my news day.  I felt empowered by what I could bring to the table…I could hammer out, from the steely images of apathy and hopelessness, some instance of compassion strengthened by a harsh experience on the Gaza Strip revealing the tempered steel of humanity's potential.  I was going to hear soft the "bell of justice" in the way a judge ruled fairly even when the world would have applauded a harsher response.  I would sing a song that warned of the danger of losing our "true north"…kindness, trust, respect for free moral agency…by singing about the love between my brothers and my sisters…rather than celebrating the kind of gossip-mongering, judgmental cannibalism I could have become disheartened by on the society and opinion pages.

"...If I had a song
I'd sing it in the morning
I'd sing it in the evening
All over this land
I'd sing out danger
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land..."

So, for this folkie, I have a hammer, a bell and a song…but most importantly, I have what each of these instruments of change represent to me…I have a prayer….so does our world.

"...Well I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land."

This Sunday--when you read the paper or watch "Meet the Press"--sing, pray, ring, and hammer…"about the love between your brothers and your sisters…all over this land."

I'll be listening,
Kate