Not On My Watch

This morning there was some yelling in the car when the news reported some high-up-somebody trying to fly the Sept. 11 flag to convince me why we had to shut out foreign visitors and refugees. Yeah there was yelling. STFU. You don’t get to fly that flag. Not that flag.

On the way home tonight this popped up in my playlist (see below) and I thought about what’s going on. Yes I was very sad in 2001 and I’m still sad – at all the innocent lives lost and the state of the terrorists’ world that would allow them to bring such violence.

But I’m not shutting down my hope and belief in freedom and peace because of an idiot’s yelling about fear and terrorism. That’s not what our country and people is all about. My facebook feed is pretty much all news reporting, suggestions on actions to take, who to write, where to go, opinion pieces, with some breaks for funny (or biting) cartoons and some art and kittens.

So yelling big-wig (ha! ha!), not on my watch. No more doing things in my name without my approval. I don’t approve.

I signed up for “World Peace Poetry Postcards” for February and hope to send postcards not only to the other writers on my list but to people who are supposed to be watching over the country, doing what’s right for the citizens, protecting the core values of the Constitution. I’m sure there all so overwhelmed that none of them will read my postcards. My hope is that maybe a postal worker will. Maybe a congressional staff person.Maybe the person who takes out the trash. Maybe that card will bring them a moment of peace, a little bubble to surround them even briefly. To give them strength.

We all need it.

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Bending Towards Justice

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. — Martin Luther King Jr.

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Quote for @POTUS

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it. — Abraham Lincoln

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From: The Power of Kindness

In the political arena, kindness is the giving up of domination and vendetta, and the recognition of others’ points of view, their needs, and their history. Violence and war, on the other hand, appear more and more as remarkably gross and inefficient ways for resolving the world’s problems — a method that generates rage and thus new violence, chaos, waste of resources, suffering and poverty. — Piero Ferrucci, The Power of Kindness, The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life

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Being Present For Others

What happens when you get out of your own thoughts and pay attention, via The Writer’s Almanac, commemorating the birthday of W. Somerset Maugham. He’d become a doctor and practiced in the slums of London.

I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief; I saw the dark lines that despair drew on a face; I saw courage and steadfastness. I saw faith shine in the eyes of those who trusted in what I could only think was an illusion and I saw the gallantry that made a man greet the prognosis of death with an ironic joke because he was too proud to let those about him see the terror of his soul. — W. Somerset Maugham

They also quoted him as saying this, which is a strong argument for a solid education system that fosters a love of reading:

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. — W. Somerset Maugham

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