William Ayers: Educator

The following is a Letter to the Editor of the Norfolk Daily News, written by my Aunt Peg Timmer-Kathol, to our hometown newspaper. This came across the Borgmann-Family List-serve, and made me so proud of my auntie. Below, you'll find some family responses to my aunt's courageous writing.

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Saturday, October 18, 2008, 9:24 AM William Ayers: Educator

Where do I begin??? When I realized that the Bill Ayers, who is the subject of concern in the Obama campaign was the same William Ayers, professor of education at the University of Chicago, innovative school reformer, inspiring speaker who I heard and met at a graduate school reunion in Chicago, I was upset, and angered. First of all because people were overlooking the good that he has done since he was 17, and involved in anti-war uprisings, and secondly because there did not seem to be much research done about him before public speakers picked up the ex-terrorist chant against him. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not advocate bombing, but I do advocate forgiveness. Seventeen, to say 57 is a long time to be unforgiven.

I did my graduate school work at a progressive education college in NYC called Bank Street College. On our list of books to read was "To Become A Teacher, Making a Difference in Children's Lives," edited by William Ayers with a Forward by Jonathan Kozol. Anyone in Education who has read anything about public school reform has read "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol. William Ayers, coupled with Jonathan Kozol, along with many well-known educators put together an inspiring handbook for beginning teachers and graduate students. Now, according to the Norfolk Daily News dated Friday October 17, 2008, Bill Ayers had been invited to speak at UNL on Nov 15, 2008, last February, long before he became controversial in the Obama campaign. He will speak to a group of graduate students in the education department. That is, he will speak to them if his appearance is not canceled because UNL supporters are threatening to withhold funds. Also, our senator is suggesting that it is not a good idea to have him speak.

My concern with all of this is where is our freedom to speak and learn? Why are we sitting back and allowing someone to tell us who can and cannot speak, but we are all being asked to wait and see what happens to investments and retirement funds that are being sucked up by friends of politicians and government officials? Why is thievery more moral and accepted than freedom of speech?

I have just retired from teaching art for 20 years at Norfolk Catholic Schools and my history as an innovative teacher did not come from the "normal" college classes that we are all asked to take in our undergraduate programs, but from Bank Street College in NYC where we were asked to look at reformers like William Ayers.

Peg Timmer-Kathol

Responding to Hate-Speech in Senator Obama Email

The following was composed in response to a hateful email passed on by my aunt to our family, with the introductory remark, "Just thought I'd "spread the wealth" info." In the comments section, I've posted the follow up communication between my aunt and myself. To read the original email, click here.

I find this sort of thing deeply disturbing, but always an opportunity for questions and education; that is, when we take the time to address this kind of communication. I offer my response for any of you also navigating hate-speech and such fear-tactics within your families, friends, correspondents.

Peace,

Melissa

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"A phrase that keeps ringing in my ear -'Beware of the enemy from within!'"

This is the most powerful line in this email to my spirit.

***
Auntie,
How serious are you in forwarding this?

As I read this, the fear of Senator Obama as a Muslim, whose life has been funded by people of middle-eastern upbringing, education, wealth, seems to run rampant. (Beyond "seems.")

I'm cognizant of this, and the intentional fear-tactics employed in these words...

drugs
Barry' (that was the name he used all his life)
had two roommates,
Muhammad Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid,
both from Pakistan.
Indonesia,
next Hyderabad in India,
three weeks in Karachi, Pakistan where he stayed with his roommate's family,
then off to Africa
Barack - not Barry.
Rezko,
born in Aleppo, Syria
Arab-American Nadhmi Auchi,
an Iraqi-born Billionaire born in Pakistan

Which makes me ask questions....

What happens to you when you read this?
What stands out to you?
Are you aware of the repeated slurs against middle eastern people?
What are the fearful stereotypes of Muslims?
What are the fearful stereotypes that govern any violent and horrific action?
What does it mean for a man to travel?
What does it mean for a black man to revert to his given name, after a trip abroad?
How does any of us grow in our identities?
Is it helpful to perpetuate fear-based or fear-inspiring tactics?
Have you ever studied how Hitler was able to rise to power through such an economic and fear-based appeal?
Do you see the similarities employed here, (and recently by Hannity on Fox News)?

What is the truth of Barack Obama's life?
What is the truth of John McCain's?
What is the truth of ours?
How do any of us know anything for certain? What responsibilities do we have to read, discern information and recognize how they inspire or move us?
What responsibilities do we have when we recognize hate and fear-based speech?
How is this hate and fear just not helpful for any of us?


Respectfully,
Melissa

Toward Africa: Forms and Finances

It is Tuesday. I am running errands as part of my preparation for Africa.

• I must have my new contacts and glasses.
• I must have letters from my bank certifying I have enough funds to travel, (in order to enter certain countries).
• I must have my Visa applications complete and my Passport returned from the Ghanaian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

I am simply trying to go about my business as efficiently as possible, checking these items off my "To Do" list and happily engaging all that I encounter in this process of "doing."

So. First things first. Pearle Vision in Highland Park. I have had new contacts and a lens on order since the last week in July, when my eye sight went to pot, (all conveniently in the midst of trying to prepare for a wedding for two African friends). My eye doctor announced then that my vision in one eye had changed drastically. Just in one eye. He wrote up a new prescription, gave me replacement contacts and instructions on caring for my aching right eyeball. (My friend April, the reggae-loving-dancer in my life, joked, "Ah! It's your Rastafar-eye! You must look at the world in a new way!" Jokes!)

I return on Tuesday. I try out the latest contacts, and then the doctor announces, "But your vision has improved! It's changed again since July. This right eye is better! " I laugh. I am annoyed. I am happy. I am not sure what to make of all this. I leave with new contacts in, and a strangely altered perception of things....What is correct vision anyway?

***
Next is the Bank. Teacher Federal Credit Union in Roseville, MN. Following the advice of Ernest Darkoh in South Africa, I decide not to send my entire bank statement (sans account numbers) to the respective African Embassies for Visa approval. Instead, I am simply forwarding them an official letter stating I have sufficient funds for traveling there and home. (No one wants a squatter in their country, right?) Melissa, the bank teller who accommodates me with this, is happy to do so. She was born in the Phillipines. She knows all about such letters for travel. The letter is waiting for me when I arrive.

What I am not expecting is this latest news on the accessibility of funds. I have been watching the economy, I have been thanking God daily for my own financial situation (that I sold my house, paid off my debt, and have a chunk of change for retirement and investment that hasn't dropped one cent since this gigantic downturn in the market occurred.) I have been curious about economic philosophy and about how all the market driven policies have been turned on their ears. I have wondered about how this has affected people in the world, in my family, in communities outside my own, who have planned or not planned for such events. I have wondered about the practical applications of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae failing and the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions and lending companies.

On this day, I glean this much: My deposits are not accessible for five days from date of transaction.

What?

I am there to deposit two checks, in addition to gathering my letters for travel. I have a routine business check, and my federal "stimulus package" check (which only just arrived) to deposit. I hear from the teller, "Just so you know, the Federal check is available now, but this other one will not be available for five days. It's our new policy, since the market crashed."

Have you heard of this? Have you experienced this at your own lending institutions?

I am okay. I am simply curious about this and how it might affect anyone else. I am thankful I have enough money to not be crippled by this five day freeze or hold on assets.

"Yea, I know it's tough," Melissa says, as if reading my mind. "It's been a law for quite a while, but we just never implemented it, as this credit union hasn't had problems with its members...until recently.. People are coming in and depositing bad checks, and we are losing money, so we had to enforce this."

Okay. I feel bad. I feel full of questions. I feel fortunate to be where I am financially.

***

Next, I am headed to the Post Office -- to finally get this blasted Visa Application in the mail, so that it can return to me before I need to leave the country. I walk in to the familiar long lines, and start to search for the proper table where I'll assemble my quadruple forms to the Ghana Embassy. I have all my Africa Documents in one folder. Visa applications, a certified check, multiple current passport sized pictures of myself, records of my immunizations, print outs of my flight itinerary there and home, these letters from the bank, copies of my bank statement, my one and only passport. There's a LOT in this file to keep straight. If you know anything about me, too, you'll know that I am not one passionate about holding such a random stack of information. This is my organization at its finest: all in one folder!

I set it all down and try to positively assemble, what to me is, this highly sensitive and valuable information. I am reading the instructions about how to mail it to DC, I am looking for the proper certified or express delivery envelope, the proper address label for this envelope. I am looking for the proper envelope and label to fit inside this package that will then return this sensitive and valuable information back to me. I am filling out forms. I am mindful of the line. I am mindful that if I dropped any of this, or left any of it behind, someone could steal my identity, or make my life a mess. I am trying to be careful. I am trying to print clearly. I am taking note that someone else has just left behind their own slim yellow note sheet with an address scribbled on it. I am taking deep breathes, hopeful that I'll have this in the right hands with the right postage in a moment, and I'll be all that much closer to having my passport back and on my way to the Motherland.

I return to the end of the line and smile, happy with my hands full and all items accounted for. I turn to my right, and I recognize this gentleman next to me. "You are my economics professor from St. Thomas, " I say. I don't take a beat. I just know this man -- though I've not seen him in 20 years.

"Why, yes, I do teach economics at St. Thomas" he says and then inquires about my name and years I was there with a big smile on his face. Professor Stein. I can't recall if it was Macro or Micro economics that I had with him, but I recall his vests and the bicycle he'd ride to class.

"Professsor Stein, I've been thinking about you, about all economists lately, about what I learned in college, and wondering.... Well, how do you make sense of what's happening in our market place?"

He nods, he laughs, he says,

"Oh, none of it makes sense. We are all scratching our heads and throwing out our theories."

We visit the duration of our wait in line. I learn he's now working with the MBA students. I glean his dissatisfaction with unmotivated business types - "just doing this to advance their career, but not really caring about the work." I learn of his daughter - who graduated from Cretin Derham Hall - and who is now a public school teacher on the South Side of Chicago. I share with him my own journey through St. Thomas, public education and now the world of his MBA's in downtown St. Paul.

We visit. We laugh. We marvel at where we stand. We part ways. Who can predict any of the journey? What theories do we have to govern any of our navigations?

I turn back to the line and the open counter where Mark, the Postal Clerk, works, and I present to him the package that I need to send off. I'm getting so close to breathing easier.

But Mark tells me I have failed. "You have express address forms on a regular mail envelopes. You need to start over. It's okay. You just need to fill this out." He rips things apart, and I feel a whole wave of nausea come over me. "What?"

I start filling out things again. I am not asked to return to the back of the line, which makes me grateful, but I am anxious again with all this documentation - as I scramble to get this right. I am not sure why, but I feel I am really close to crying. I am trying my best, but it just seems I can't quite get this all straight. Forms. The world. Love. Finances. (Silly, silly, silly, I know, but this is what goes on in my body and mind.)

Mark returns to take my now, almost-complete document, and he notes another snag. "Are you sure this is your address? You have the wrong zip code written in here."

"What? How do you know?"
"It's my job. I'm a trained mail professional, right?" he says smiling.

I am embarrassed now, and realize that I have been filling out my address incorrectly on all recent applications and forms. My zip code is off by one digit. I have been putting on the number from my St. Thomas-college-days' dwelling zip code, rather than my current location. I pull out my new driver's license and confirm Mark's correction.

Ack!

The postal clerk is the most patient and sweet fellow you can imagine. He counsels me on the safest and most inexpensive way to mail these documents. I think he senses my tears and frustration, and my embarrassment. He is kind. He seals all the envelopes and forms, one at a time, putting them like nesting dolls inside each other, and now all together. "This is ready to go." As I pay, he assures me I have done everything correctly. He underlines his number on the receipt and guarantees me I will be getting my passport back, but I can "call and double check on things here at the office." He sends me on my way.

***

And it's a day of errands to prepare for Africa, you know? It's a day of errands that are about living right now. It's a day of navigation around seeing, gleaning, learning, reflecting, holding, connecting, wondering....
How do we know we are doing things right? Seeing correctly? How lucky are we to have any resources and information and support for our journeys? But what about people who don't? What then?
Do we all get bank tellers and professors and mail clerks who show up and are like angels? How do other people see and make their way?
How do you know if you are you in the right zip code? And -- what is the right zip code?!
What economic point of view is one that will help us move forward successfully? How do you make sense of your day and your tasks at hand, when things don't go all according to plan? What theories are we to apply? hold?


I wonder a lot of things.

I am thankful to be exactly where I am. And to know you are on the receiving end of this.

Contemplatively,
Melissa

Michelle Obama, Baby!

Good times in St. Paul, MN, yesterday. Thanks to my friend Cynthia and Tanya and Alisa and new friend Jen -- all rocking moms who clued me into this event at Macalester yesterday.

What a time in our lives! What an amazing and inspiring backdrop for so much unfolding in the foreground for ourselves, our children. Michelle Obama is an inspiration for all of us. It was a total privilege to attend this, and to do so next to these equally amazing moms.

Enjoy the pix!

Meditating on Job: My Sunday Prayer

Then Job answered the Lord and said,

"I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be hindered.
I have dealt with great things that I do not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know.
I had heard of you by word of mouth,
but now my eye has seen you.
Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes."

- Job 42: 1-6

I have found this passage particularly helpful as of late. Sr. Mary Margaret, my spiritual director at the Visitation Monastery in North Minneapolis, has had me meditating on the book of Job.

Everyone knows of Job right? This fellow who knew some serious trials and tribulations! A good guy in the Old Testament, who loses pretty much everything: home, family, a content demeanor. This stand up fellow, who is prosperous and sort of "jolly," I think you'd say, is struck by a run of cruel events that include a horrible skin affliction from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. Yea. "This skin affliction?" you might wonder: Boils. Were I him, I think I would have personally been done about the time that the boils showed up all over my body. (I'm a wimp when it comes to pussy lump infections on skin!)

You know what happens, too, with Job and his wife and friends? They look at all his trials and tribulations, and since they make no rationale sense, they believe Job must have done something to deserve them! They blame him for his woeful circumstances....Now: how helpful do you suppose this is?

Ack! Not so much!

But it's all just blessed humanity!

The book is an awesome one, as it gets at the very heart of the human condition, the heart of human suffering. It reveals beautifully our attempt at trying to understand our circumstances, (our broken hearts, our lost jobs, our failed performances, our ailing pocketbooks, our aching earth, our passing-away or departed loved ones) and provides us all with this beautifully rich and miserable protagonist: Job!

I have not had boils, but I have known the equivalent of pussy gross infections in my spirit -- this ugly and ouchy thing that is like doubt and dejection and uncertainty beyond uncertainty where Love is concerned. Whew! Not fun! Not pretty!

But what is sort of fun, or at least reconciling, given Mary Margaret's assignment: is reading the book of Job, and coming to this part in Chapter 42...Coming to this other side, where there is a
realization that there are things "too wonderful" to really get. But we don't have to. I don't have to. Because some benevolent and loving thing that I call God, does get them. And God can do all things. No purpose of this Loving Creator can be hindered.

How awesome is that?!

And all my cursing and questioning, I can release. I can ask this to be dissolved -- like dust and ashes -- so that something a new might be seen, born, realized.

Yes.

I rest on this last image of dust and ashes...And I think of a phoenix. Of a bird rising from the fire and ashes, and I look to the restoration of Job, and I know: no matter how long suffering persists, there is love. There is something good my eyes will see. There are wonderful things this very minute. Yes.

Do you believe this?

In Peace, Contemplation, Prayer,
Melissa

Response: Obama/ Abortion Rights

The following is a response written to my mom's cousin, Gloria, with whom I have been corresponding on Pro-Life issues. It's in the same vein as the Borgmann-Family-List-serve-e-political-writing. I share it today, because of the feedback I've gotten from numerous friends who wrestle with this topic. How do we all struggle in our communication, in our discourse with family and friends over the complex topic of life and faith and legislation and love?

***

Hey Gloria,

Greetings.

Sunday greetings. This is where I'm at, after prayer and reading, and reflection....

1. I thank you for your information and for your emails and your passionate involvement in politics toward the reduction of abortions, asserting the sanctity of life for unborn babies. Amen.

2. While I respect and admire your work to support the unborn, I have come to this clarity around the issue: I do not want to overturn Roe v. Wade. This comes back to my own simple notion: I cannot ask to rule on a law that I myself would not be able to follow. I return to my own lived experience, trying to navigate a perceived unwanted pregnancy at 19, and my own discernment to seek an abortion. If I myself would have sought this, I cannot ask another to not choose this.

3. What I can do: is acknowledge the root failure in seeking an abortion. (For me, as a young adult/ teen: lack of imagination and deep fear.)

4. I can then continue to work to inspire the imaginations of other women, and teenagers, and support their bringing life forward.

5. Taking away abortion, doesn't prevent them sadly. Providing choices, doesn't prevent them.

6. I will continue to work for the common good platform, that in my understanding and prayer, and from the spiritually engaged and politically active community I belong to: recognizes the fullness and complexity of the many issues present to sustaining and honoring the sacredness of all life. (Unborn, born, all nature, the earth, those most vulnerable -- without a voice.)

According to Mr. Doerflinger, and the article below, I operate according to a myth, that working for the improvement of life and well-being for all people doesn't impact or reduce abortions.

Where does this get me? Us? People trying to lead or inspire change?

Reducing me to a sinful person, or grossly mislead one, based on my own lived experience is not helpful. Just like reducing you to a one-issue voter, is not helpful. Reducing Obama to a candidate whose "top priority" is the "killing of unborn babies" -- not helpful. These are simplistic judgments that are diminishing to our fuller capacities to dialogue and be about making change that is for the greatest good.

I can, in accordance with Mr. Doerflinger, request that public dollars not go toward abortion. I can ask for public dollars to fund health education and programs that inspire the imaginations the development of young men and women, toward their greatest gifts, so that they can have lives that sustain a child coming into being. This is pro-life legislation, in my understanding. I can ask that dollars for military spending, and war, also be redirected toward education and peace - preventing war and death. The fact that your pro-life candidate will fund war to the tune of seven times what he will spend in education, is the most-anti-life stance, and in my understanding: diminishes any legislative efforts around life.

I believe we both are about the greatest good, Gloria. And we differ here on the topic of legislation that is about trying to have our government legislate love vs. justice.

I'll cast my vote for Obama and Biden, as their candidacy, in my opinion is about the greatest good for ALL life, over the McCain and Palin ticket. I know you will cast yours for McCain and Palin.

We will both continue to be about helping to support all life, no matter who wins. I will go to Africa, and continue to try and live Love as I understand my call to do so. You will continue to be a rocking mom and grandmother and live your calling --working to decrease abortions, and increase life for all.

God Loves us, as we work to honor all.

Peacefully, Respectfully,
Melissa

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Good Morning, Melissa—No doubt you're aware that Barack Obama makes passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would seal abortion rights into our Constitution, a top priority? How can that possibly reduce abortions?--Gloria

What Reduces Abortions?

by Richard M. Doerflinger

Sometimes election years produce more policy myths than good ideas. This year one myth is about abortion. It goes like this: The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision is here to stay, and that’s fine because laws against abortion don’t reduce abortions much anyway. Rather, “support for women and families” will greatly reduce abortions, without changing the law or continuing a “divisive” abortion debate.

Various false claims are used to bolster this myth. It is said that over three-quarters of women having abortions cite expense as the most important factor in their decision. Actually the figure is less than one-fourth, 23%. It is said that abortion rates declined dramatically (30%) during the Clinton years, but the decline stopped under the ostensibly pro-life Bush administration. Actually the abortion rate has dropped 30% from 1981 to 2005; the decline started 12 years before Clinton took office, and has continued fairly steadily to the present day.

The steepest decline is among minors. Is it plausible that economic factors reduced abortions for teens but not their older sisters, or their mothers who support them?

The reality is this: In 1980 the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde amendment, and federally funded abortions went from 200,000 a year to nearly zero. With its decisions in Webster (1989) and Casey (1992), the Court began to uphold other abortion laws previously invalidated under Roe. States passed hundreds of modest but effective laws: bans on use of public funds and facilities; informed consent laws; parental involvement when minors seek abortion; etc. Dr. Michael New’s rigorous research has shown that these laws significantly reduce abortions. In the 1990s, debate on partial-birth abortion – kept in the public eye, ironically, by President Clinton’s repeated vetoes of a ban on this grisly late-term procedure – alerted many Americans to the violence of abortion and shifted public attitudes in a pro-life direction, just as growing concern over AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases was giving new force to the abstinence message for teens. Now the Court has upheld a partial-birth abortion ban, and signaled that other laws to save unborn children and their mothers from the horrors of abortion may be valid. If Roe is reversed outright, that will allow more laws that can further reduce abortions.

By contrast, a pending federal “Freedom of Choice Act” (FOCA) would knock down current laws reducing abortions, and require public programs for pregnant women to fund abortion. No one supporting that bill can claim to favor reducing abortions.

Many women are pressured toward abortion, and they need our help. The pressures are partly, but only partly, economic in nature. Women are influenced by husbands, boyfriends, parents and friends, and by a culture and legal system that tells them the child they carry has no rights and is of no consequence. Law cannot solve all problems, but it can tell us which solutions are unacceptable – and today Roe still teaches that killing the unborn child is an acceptable solution, even a “right.” Without ever forgetting the need to support pregnant women and their families, that tragic and unjust error must be corrected if we are to build a society that respects all human life.


Mr. Doerflinger is Associate Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Go to www.usccb.org/prolife to learn more about the bishops’ pro-life activities. For more on FOCA see www.nchla.org/issues.asp?ID=50.

Happy Birthday Thich Nhat Hanh!

Thank you Writer's Almanac for this information! I love this fellow who lives half way around the world and speaks so directly to my heart. What follows are the biographical info from Garrison Keillor's broadcast on NPR, a You Tube Video link, and a Thich Nhat Hanh poem. Enjoy! Happy Birthday to this Peaceful Man!

It's the birthday of Vietnamese monk, writer, and activist Thich Nhat Hanh, (books by this author) born in 1926 in Tha Tien, Vietnam. He became a Buddhist monk when he was 16 years old. During the Vietnam War, he decided that monks shouldn't just stay in monasteries and meditate all day long while a war was going on. So he founded an organization that helped rebuild bombed villages, set up schools and medical centers, and organize agricultural cooperatives. He traveled to the United States to urge the American government to withdraw its troops, and he persuaded Martin Luther King Jr. to publicly oppose the Vietnam War. But both the non-Communist and Communist governments banned him from Vietnam in 1966, and it was just a few years ago, in 2005, that he was finally allowed to return for a visit. Since he was banned from Vietnam, he set up a monastic community in southern France, called Plum Village.

Thich Nhat Hanh has published more than 100 books, books of poetry and Buddhist thought. About 40 of them are in English, and many of those have been best-sellers, including Peace Is Every Step (1991), Call Me by My True Names (1993), and Living Buddha, Living Christ (1995).

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A You Tube Video Link on "Surrendering to the Now."

***

Interrelationship

You are me, and I am you.
Isn't it obvious that we "inter-are"?
You cultivate the flower in yourself,
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself,
so that you will not have to suffer.

I support you;
you support me.
I am in this world to offer you peace;
you are in this world to bring me joy.


1989. Written during a retreat for psychotherapists held in Colorado
in response to Fritz Perls' statement, "You are you, and I am me, and 
if by chance we meet, that's wonderful.  If not, it couldn't be helped."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Fear and hate at Republican Rallies --Toward Transformation?

Friends, Family, This deeply saddens me. It is frightening. So, how to tune this out? Is it responsible or irresponsible to forward such messages? Responsible or irresponsible to tune in or out? The news coverage linked above and in my friend Reggie's message below, features a compilation of (mostly) Gov. Palin's rally's where she repeats this hate-speech, over and over and over again. I don't know...I think it's fair to call it "hate speech" --when you intentionally refer to another as a terrorist and knowingly work to incite the anger of a crowd....Evoking responses like, "treason" and "kill [Obama]".... Yea. It's deeply disturbing, and as Reggie says, "scares me in a profound way." What can I do? To combat fear? Not perpetuate terror? NOT FEAR? BE LOVE? ACT COMPASSIONATELY? PRAY? STAY VIGILANT? Vigilance seems, to me, so fear-based in my mind, but what if my prayers were vigilant prayers? To be tuned into love, transformation, hope, the truth, and simply trust that this kind of stuff doesn't hold, doesn't last, isn't sustainable, since it's not rooted in love.... Prayerfully, Melissa --- On Fri, 10/10/08, Reggie Prim <reggie.prim@gmail.com wrote: Dear Friends, I have not previously sent out any political messages during this campaign, as I know you've seen plenty. However, I have been concerned in the past week about the dangerous turn of events at republican rallies. Inciting hatred and violence are extremely dangerous tactics and are deeply anti-democratic. This scares me in a profound way. Please watch this video and share this with friends. There are historical precedents to this kind of rhetoric that are extremely dangerous. We must remain vigilant and demand that this stop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXs_u4f2ZD8 Thanks, Reggie Here's a quote worth noting... "What [Palin] does bring [to the political arena] is a noteworthy skill with extreme, often violent populism. As a result, she has succeeded at creating intense loyalty to her personally, and deep antipathy for Sen. Obama--also on a personal level. And while this populism has succeeded only amongst small core of the Republican base, the fervency of Palin's supporters has been amplified a thousand times over by the obsessive media coverage that she enjoys. So, Sarah Palin is not 'fascist,' but that does not mean her language and her events have not had a dangerous impact on our democracy. Beyond adding populism to the campaign trail, Palin has also done something else: she has re-framed the McCain campaign in violent terms--terms that had been used predominantly by right-wing shock pundits on TV and radio." Jeffrey Feldman Palin Rallies Ignite Widespread Talk of 'Fascism' Posted October 10, 2008 | 12:08 PM (EST) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/palin-rallies-ignite-wide_b_133621.html

What is the Cost of the Common Good?

"What is the cost of the common good?"

"What is the common good?"

"What does it take for a community to thrive? A nation to thrive? A planet to thrive?"

What are the resources it requires to see this into being?"

In an email to my brother in law, Chris Johnson, last Friday, I wrote: "We all need to develop a capacity to talk about the common good and how that is funded!" This gives rise to my questions today. I have a deep deep desire to challenge our society's conversations about the economy, economic policy, economic philosophy, government, taxation perspectives, political party reductions, to a more complex level. Yes.

If we are going to see a shift in the simplistic labeling, understanding and reduction of Democrats as the "Tax and spend" folks and Republicans as "Less government" advocates, we have to encourage a more critical discourse around this idea of the "common good."

What does it cost to sustain the common good?

I've coped this here before, but I believe these are helpful links to promote this thinking, or to increase education on the complexity of this topic....It's JUST A PLACE TO START.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_good

http://www.catholicsinalliance. org/

Sr. Mary Virginia Schmidt, VHM, attended this conference about the Common Good, and gave me the platform hand out. I went to the website and found my home as a Global Citizen. (A Global Citizen who understands her citizenship, her responsibilities by virtue of her faith and being Catholic). Yes. Copied below is an excerpt from this website that provides another lens to view this, and to hold the complexity of this time.

****

"Reading the founding documents of the United States, one has to be impressed by the concept of freedom they enshrine: a freedom designed to enable people to fulfill their duties and responsibilities toward the family and toward the common good of the community."

- Pope John Paul II

Address to Ambassador Claiborne Boggs, December 16, 1997

What is the Common Good?

In a country where everything seems less secure - our jobs, health care, pensions, national defense, the environment, and even our marriages - it is easy to lose sight of the common good and the call to care for our neighbors as ourselves. A culture of the common good is one in which people look out for each other and concern for one another is reflected in our corporations, communities, and government.

A culture of the common good provides for the health, welfare, and dignity of all people, regardless of race, gender, religion or economic class. This central goal of Catholic Social Teaching expresses our faith's understanding that society functions best when decisions are made with an eye toward what benefits everyone, and not just the few. In the words of Pope John Paul II, the common good refers to the "good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all."

Concern for the common good is deeply enshrined in the values of our nation as well. The first three words of our Constitution's Preamble, "We the people," remind us that the United States is first and foremost a community of human relationships. Unlike many nations, that bond comes not from a common ethnicity or religion but from our common humanity and our shared belief in the freedom and dignity of all people.

This balance between self- and shared-interest should not be understood only as a summons to perform works of charity. While we should work to help the least fortunate, the common good is best served when all are able to make their own contributions to social and economic life. In this respect, our Christian and American understanding of the common good impels us to seek a world where all have the opportunity to realize their full human potential, engage in productive work, and lead fulfilled lives.

The erosion of community life that accompanies this era of greed, materialism, and excessive individualism ranks among the most imminent threats to our national well-being. In fact, one Zogby poll found that "greed and materialism" topped a list most urgent moral crisis in the US. Lost retirement savings due to recent corporate accounting scandals, dissolution of family life under the weight of overworked and underpaid parents, and growing fears about the long-term effects of global climate change are reminders that individual decisions can have painful and far-reaching consequences. In answering this call to the common good, we express our understanding that rising tides should lift all boats - we are better off individually when all are better off as a whole.

"Catholics In Alliance for the Common Good." http://www.catholicsinalliance. org/

In peace,

Melissa

"Now" - A Poem by Greg Watson that I like....

Now
by Greg Watson

I told you once when we were young that
we would someday meet again.
Now, the years flown past, the letters
unwritten, I am not so certain.

It is autumn. There are toothaches hidden
in this wind, there are those determined
to bring forth winter at any cost.
I am resigned to dark blonde shadows

at stoplights, lost in the roadmaps of leaves
which point in every direction at once.
But I am wearing the shirt you stitched
two separate lifetimes ago. It is old

and falling to ash, yet every button blooms
the flowers of your design. I think of this
and I am happy, to have kissed
your mouth with the force of language,

to have spoken your name at all.

"Now" by Greg Watson from The Distance Between Two Hands. © March Street Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

On Rage: Some Thoughts on Recognizing Fire

This is a working draft of a story that I'm interesting in exploring for thematic purposes. Rage, Fear, Love, Compassion, Desire, Anger are so closely connected in my spirit. This is my attempt at simply seeing some of this in a healthy light...

***

I just came from having dinner with my friend April. April is amazing. April is a dancer. She's a choreographer. A visionary. An artist. A seer. A communicator on so many levels. Words. Body. Spirit. Jah! Amen.

April is having an interesting go of things. As a Professor of Dance at a Minnesota university, she's faced some interesting times this past year. In the midst of the dance program being cut, on the last day of her teaching in the spring semester, she fell in her classroom, tore all the muscles in her shoulder, and ended up having to wear a brace for the better part of the summer. She has not been physically free to make dance, to do the one thing she is most passionate about on the planet. She has not been free to do the one things she feels most called to do. It's frustrating. And now, five months after her injury, though she's back at work teaching, she has learned that for her body to heal, she must have surgery. She must have 3 screws put into her shoulder. And again: her body is not allowed to do the thing that her spirit and mind want to do the most: dance, make art.

We are talking this eve, April and I, at Mid-town Market, over a Ramadan Special and Pham Vietnamese Deli dinner, and I hear in this good friend of mine, these words that I find so utterly resonant: "I'm just kind of bored. I can't get excited about anything. Not the election. Not dating. Not getting a new job. No, the one thing I want to do: I cannot."

I start laughing. Not at my friend, but at life. At circumstances. At the jacked up nature of how this world goes. At how these words of hers ring so utterly true in my own body.

For years, I have felt clear. I have been on fire. I have been passionate about what I am to do. I have felt God calling me and pointing me toward one thing: Partnership. One. Person. Male. Lover. Sharing a life. With me. Building something. Committed. One thing. That's it.

And it makes me laugh, at how ludicrous it all is. This desire business. I can do a lot of things. I can teach. I can write. I can temp. I can travel. I can go back to school. I can volunteer. I can babysit. I can clean houses. I can read. I can meet new people. I can go dancing. I can date. I can clean my closets. I can simplify and downsize. I can renovate my house. I can plant a garden. I can pray. I can sell my house. I can budget. I can learn about retirement planning. I can study the economy. I can study politicians. I can meditate on leadership. I can work out. I can be the best woman I know how to be. But can I make a partnership happen? Somehow, it seems it's the one thing that just is outside my "control" - my grasp. And that little fact, has left me dejected in a way that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to give words to. Dejected. Rejected. Feeling utterly outside the realm of God. Outside of God's love and light. That's what it feels like. Whew. Dejected. Ain't no joke, this experience, this emotion.

When April is talking, I recall all of this. I hold the fullness of my past nine month's on this planet. And I feel overwhelming empathy. Whether this is really April's experience or not, I am cognizant of mine.

I recognize, still, somewhere, in the midst of moving to my new apartment, and getting clear about my trip to Africa, this kind of dejection has subsided. Perhaps I've let it go. (Mind you: the desire to partner is still there, but I've gotten back on this track to simply do what I can: Remain positive. Be faithful. Be a good woman. Be as loving as possible, be as studious as possible. Be as engaged and service-oriented as possible. And take my little steps. Hold my little light. Move forward.)

What comes to mind next, in this conversation with April: is my rage. I find myself talking out loud about terrorism. About my own inner terrorist, inner anger. (No lie!) About my disgust with today's news. About Governor Sarah Palin. About John McCain. About the most recent smears that Obama associates with terrorists. About my own desire to blow things up..... It's sort of surreal thinking on this conversation as I write this. I can see myself almost screaming. Mid-town Market. Holy Land Restaurant, and I'm enraged, going off about Governor Palin and the notion of Obama being linked to an angry 17 year old named Ayers who will go on to become a professor and help transform Public education in Chicago. I am pointing a finger and cursing.

Really?

Really.

April, quiet, listens, waits, and then says, "Yeah, how's that feel? Can you see your anger? Can you see it? Can you hold it? Can you hold your rage? What does she look like?" And in this one subtle gesture, she models for me what it is to hold this red hot emotion, as if it were a small child, in my palms.

And I start to cry.

We talk a bit more. I get clearer and calmer about myself. (My feelings of responsibility. My desire to make change. My need to communicate.) I listen to how this woman, my friend April has compassion for Governor Palin and the rest of the candidates, how she has compassion for me. And I am in awe of how she is able to be so wise and calm and tender and detached.

On the way home, driving down Lake Street, still reeling from all of these thoughts, I wonder,

"Where does my rage come from? Is it fear? Is it feeling separated from God? How connected is rage to arrogance? What? Do I think I know what is right? Do I have all the answers? Do I know that I'm supposed to marry? Do I know that Sarah Palin is unfit for office? What do I really know? Who am I? Who is God? How big is LOVE?"

I'm thinking this, and marveling at how alive rage can be in my body and what it does to me, how I feel on fire.

And then I hear sirens.

I'm driving down Lake street and behind me about 4 blocks are red fire truck lights swirling and sirens going off. And I wonder if I'm far enough ahead of the truck. If I can just drive ahead and avoid a pull over. But then I think better of it. We have to pay attention to such things. It's the law. It's good practice. And I ease myself to a stop, pulling to the right. And what happens? The fire truck pulls over the left, across from me and turns off his sirens.

"Oh, really?" I think. You just needed to catch up with me, eh? Just confirm the crisis that is so near, eh? I laugh to myself, and start to pull forward. Then, just because I think the universe likes to really kick my ass, or sort of kick all of our asses, the truck turns across the four lanes between his position and mine, and pulls directly in to park in my pulled over and paused spot.

Really? Really.

I think this truck came to the call of a fire, just like my friend April invited me out this evening and helped me see what has been so powerfully burning within me. Anger. Love. Rage. Desire. Fear. Hmmm.........

I am thankful for fire trucks. I'm thankful for my friend. I am thankful for pulling over. I am thankful for being so close, and yet safe, by these flames.

Toward Africa: Needles and Nuns

Hey Fam, Hey Friends!

Just a little report, as I make some headway toward this next journey abroad.....

Today, I got my shots! Woohoo! Two of the four injections that I'll have to have, thank you very much, before traversing the diverse landscapes of Africa. (South Africa, to Tanzania to Zanzibar to Kenya to Uganda to Ghana. Really? We shall see...!?)

After hearing this line up of countries, Dr. Raje at Open Cities Health Clinic advised that I have a Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis), Hepatitis A, Yellow Fever and Typhoid vaccinations, along with Malaria meds. Thanks to Latitia, the lovely nurse I've developed a nice rapport with in the past couple years, I received two of my shots pretty pain free. (Though not without tears! The needles don't hurt, but I just wasn't expecting that we'd have to shoot into both of my upper arms.?! Thanks, mom for your text message of support!) ....

I have to make a small note here about Latitia, because I'm not sure how many other people really get to know or feel comfortable with their medical practitioners. Latitia is like a former student of mine. In reality, we discovered she used to date a former student of mine. She is young and sassy. She is sweet and clever, and though sometimes seemingly overworked, she is honest and kind with me. And in the last office visits I've paid to this clinic, we have found our way to this comfortable place of being prayerful in any medical treatment approach. Our conversations have taken us all over the place, from education to politics to faith to love, and ultimately, we have shared some kind of spiritually-calming experience.

Today, after learning that Latitia did not watch the Vice Presidential debates, because she was at church planning for her pastor's and grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary, we talked about this gift of her faith community, and the gift of marriage. I did my "Thank you, God" litany for these people and circumstances in her life, as she proceeded to prep my right arm for injection. Whew. I started up again then when she grabbed the needle.

"Thank you, God for nurses. For vaccinations. For clean needles. For clinics. For being able to travel abroad. For..."

And she jumped in, "Thank you, God, that Melissa has the money to travel and see the world!"

It was so freaking sweet. Okay. I just had to share that.

Next: I drove downtown to the Department of Public Health to get my Yellow Fever, Typhoid and Malaria meds. I remember this from the last go round, but I forgot that they only give out these shots during specific hours of the day. (Do other people have to go to the Department of Public Health when they travel abroad? This strikes me as funny, now. Why didn't my clinic have these vaccines? Is it an insurance thing? A public health issue?)

Anywho: Then I was onto the nuns in North Minneapolis. Mass and lunch with the Vis sisters and spiritual direction time with Sr. Mary Margaret. God bless me! Visiting were a brother from St. John's, a monk from Collegeville, MN, who said mass, and then Fr. Bill Donnelly from Villanova, PA. I love who shows up at this place! I was just at mass on Tuesday, and sharing a bit more of the unfolding details of my trip to Africa, when I asked Sr. Karen about her friend who lives someplace on the southern end of the African continent. She promised to look this info up for me, as she didn't quite recall where this priest was....Well, don't you know that this visiting Augustinian from Philadelphia, after learning of my ensuing Africa-travel- plans says, "Oh! You must look up Frank Doyle! He's a good, good friend of Karen and mine who lives outside Durban. Yes."

(http://www.augustinian.org/missions_africa.htm)

I mean how cool is that? This guy Bill is in town for less than 24 hours (after escorting a sick friend to the Mayo Clinic) and here he is: pointing me in the direction of a guy I was looking for earlier in the week, across an ocean? I love the convergence, or connecting information!

So: Fr. Frank Doyle. Augustinian outside of Durban, South Africa. I make a note of this. I say "thank you;" I move on.

Spiritual Direction with Mary Margaret is like the most sacred thing a being might have the privilege to do on this planet. An hour, 90 minutes, with a wise woman of God, who just wants to hold open the space for you, as you reflect on how you hear God, feel called by Love to be, serve, act, travel, ask questions!? It's a privilege! Pure privilege! I highly encourage everyone to get themselves into spiritual direction! It's simply an amazing, amazing gift!

Sr. Mary Margaret and I discussed this current space, this current plan to travel, and we prayed. And like those vaccinations I got earlier to ready me for travel, I felt just as prepared by this wise woman's council and spiritual medicine, as I did receiving the literal injections of medicine.

Yes!

Final note: I BOUGHT MY TICKET! I leave November 10, flying into Johannesburg, I return December 21, flying out of Accra, Ghana.

Stay tuned. As the unfolding of events shall continue.

November 4: Election

November 8: I turn 40.

November 10: I depart.

In there, there are parties! As I make my way and lean into this call to love, be change, build relationships, learn and serve.

Amen. Peace,

Melissa