The only word that comes to mind as indescribable this morning is Paris.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream for Consciousness Saturday this week is “Indescribable.” Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/11/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-1415/
My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Paris in the aftermath of such horrific violence against them.
If I were at home, I would be watching what I am sure must be 24-hour television coverage, knowing that early reports are often unclear and certainly incomplete, but unable to concentrate on other matters in the face of such heart-breaking suffering.
Here at our poetry residency/workshop, we are meant to be unplugged, but I have used our internet access to read a bit of the coverage online and have decided to write this very early morning post before turning my mind back to poetry as best I can.
For months, those of us in the environmental movement have been using the word Paris as shorthand for the critical international climate summit due to convene there on November 30th. Many world leaders, including President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau, are due to attend. I have no idea if it was part of the intent of the terrorists to disrupt what is the last, best hope for international accord to protect the earth, but to attack Paris only two weeks before the talks feels like an attack not only against Paris, not only against France, not only against Europe, not only against world governments, but also against the planet itself.
We are all Paris. All bloodied. All in shock. All in mourning. But also united in strength. United in resolve. United in solidarity.
We must be.
The future of humanity and the planet depend on it.
On my way to church this morning, I heard a report on NPR about the fiftieth anniversary of the Vatican II document “Nostra Aetate” which was a declaration on the relationship of the Catholic Church with non-Christian religions. The report also reviewed the horrible treatment that the Catholic church had inflicted on other faiths, especially the Jewish people.
I am very grateful to have been born at a time when I do not remember the church being against other people because of their religious beliefs or lack of belief. It saddens and upsets me that not all Catholics have accepted this now fifty-year-old teaching. This gives the impression that Catholics are still condemning others for not being Catholic or Christian, even though most of us do not. Rather, we accept all people of good will as together we strive for greater love and peace in the world.
One of my favorite things about Francis is that he shows this attitude to the world. He regularly meets with people of diverse faith traditions, agnostics, and atheists. He often prays in silence in settings that include people of many traditions so that he does not seem to be pushing Catholic prayer onto others. When he spoke in Washington on his recent trip to the United States, he asked the crowd and television viewers to pray for him or, if prayer was not part of their own belief system, to send positive thoughts.
People around the world recognize Francis as a spiritual leader, not just a Catholic leader, because he does care about every person and, as he terms it, “our common home.” Although he was brought up in the pre-Vatican II church, he fully embraces and lives the council’s messages.
The message is needed now more than ever. There is so much to do to improve the lives of people and the planet. We, all people of good will, need to move forward together.
In my faith tradition, we are called to welcome the stranger and extend hospitality. Welcoming the stranger is also part of the civic tradition in the United States, exemplified in the Emma Lazarus poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor, although I must admit that we as a country often fail to live up to our highest ideals.
I was heartened to hear, however, that a meeting called to see if there were people interested in aiding the re-settlement of Syrian refugees in our area was so crowded with local folks wanting to help that they had to expand the meeting room to accommodate them all.
Our Greater Binghamton (New York) community has a long history of welcoming refugees and is an official re-settlement area. Over decades, there have been refugees here from diverse countries, such as Laos, Ukraine, and Iraq. It would be an honor for some of the Syrian refugees who have suffered so much to find a new home here with us as well.
I get a bit choked up thinking about new refugees arriving because one of the main organizations that will help them is the American Civic Association, which suffered a mass shooting as few years ago. Despite that, they continue to do great work, welcoming the stranger, helping them to learn English, teaching them about the United States, and helping them create a new home here.
I truly appreciate their work and their example of what “welcoming the stranger” really means.
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Linda’s prompt for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: strange/stranger/strangest. Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-3115/
A friend posted a link to this article: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/gloria-steinem-hillary-clinton-white-house?CMP=share_btn_fb on Facebook a few days ago. Gloria Steinem writes about her reactions to Hillary Clinton as she ran for New York Senator and for the Democratic nomination for president and about some other women’s reactions which were not as positive as hers. Her article inspired me to add my own viewpoint.
When Bill Clinton was running for the Democratic nomination for the first time, he was in trouble for reports of him having affairs. Bill and Hillary appeared for a joint interview on 60 Minutes. I remember thinking that the wrong person was running for president. While Bill is undoubtedly the more charismatic, Hillary struck me as being the more intelligent of the two. Being first lady of Arkansas and then of the United States didn’t really give her the opportunities to reach her full capacity in service and in leadership.
I appreciated that when she ran for Senate in New York she did a lot of listening and I was proud to be able to vote for her. She did a good job as Senator and gained valuable experience. When she ran for the presidential nomination in 2008, I felt she was the stronger candidate than Barack Obama because she had more experience, as Steinem notes in her piece. Because I am an independent and New York has a closed primary system, I wasn’t allowed to vote, though.
The experience Hillary gained as Secretary of State in the Obama administration makes her even more experienced as a candidate now. I do have a problem, though. Because she had to spend so much of her time in the public eye supporting someone else’s vision and having to play the game that women often have to play to prove that they are “tough” enough to participate in predominantly male environments, it is hard to pin down what policies she believes in herself, as opposed to positions she had to take on for other reasons.
While I am excited by the prospect of a woman president and believe that Hillary will gain the Democratic nomination and the presidency, at the moment I am supporting fellow independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Bernie’s progressive views most closely match my own and he has been amazingly consistent in his vision over the decades. I believe his candidacy has been good for Hillary, helping her to articulate her own progressive views that had gotten buried in the years of having to follow the lead of her husband, her party leadership, and President Obama as a member of his Cabinet.
I do deplore the amount of snark – and worse – that women candidates have to endure. As Steinem points out, some of the disapproval comes from other women, where it is often a reflection of dissatisfaction with a woman’s own life rather than an actual disagreement with the candidate. Further, Clinton has to contend with actual hatred directed at her by some partisans. No Congressional committee would have questioned Sec. Colin Powell for eleven hours as the House Benghazi committee did this past week with Clinton. I agree with Steinem that, had I faced the choice to run for Senate that Hillary did, I would have said no. Running for president – twice – is even more punishing.
It feels odd, as a feminist, not to be on Hillary’s bandwagon yet. I am again faced with the situation that I don’t have a vote until the general election, when I fully expect that I will be casting my vote for Hillary Clinton and her running mate. Meanwhile, I will back the candidate whose positions I share most closely, Bernie Sanders.
Dear Speaker Boehner,
Thank you for your service in what has become an increasingly untenable job.
I implore you in your remaining days as speaker to lead in a new direction. Please search through the Republicans in the House and identify those who want to govern, rather than obstruct.
Speak to House minority leader Pelosi about forming a governing coalition so that the legislation that the country and all of its people need passes, among these being a clean debt ceiling raise and a just budget, which puts human needs first.
Nancy Pelosi, as a former speaker, would be the natural choice to lead this new coalition, although another person outside of Congress would be a possibility.
The country cannot afford to be made ungovernable by a few dozen representatives who refuse to do their job, which is to govern for the good of the country, not just their district, not just the people within their district who voted for them.
Pope Francis eloquently called on the Congress to work together, in keeping with the ideals of our Constitution.
I know you believe these ideals and ask you to put the common good above partisan politics to craft a solution that will move the Congress and the nation out of its current dysfunction.
Sincerely,
Joanne Corey
So, the US Republican party is in disarray.
The current House Speaker John Boehner’s resignation goes into effect on October 30. House majority leader Kevin McCarthy has just withdrawn his name from consideration as the next Speaker, as a sizable chunk of the party would not support him.
The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone that the whole Republican caucus agrees on for the post, which is incredibly important to get legislation passed into law and is also third in line for the succession of the presidency after the vice president.
My solution is that Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker and current House minority leader, should be the next Speaker, supported by the Democrats and those Republicans who actually want to govern rather than be obstructionist.
There is vital legislation for the debt ceiling and for the budget that must be passed to avert severe negative economic consequences. If the Republicans can’t get their act together to govern effectively, they don’t deserve the speakership.
This afternoon, I attended the first in a series of six sessions studying Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ (In Care of Our Common Home). In a small group and then with the whole room, we had been discussing access to clean drinking water as a human right and how that right is denied to so many now, either through the mechanism of climate change or through inequitable distribution and use of water resources.
I was listening to the radio as I drove away and heard a story about how most McDonald’s restaurants are now serving breakfast all day, but, due to kitchen limitations, each had to decide whether to serve biscuit sandwiches or egg McMuffins as part of all day breakfast, as there wasn’t room for both.
The contrast was stark.
I wish that we were hearing more, speaking out more, and doing more about water rights, here in the United States and around the world, especially the access of those who have limited financial means. Also, climate issues, peacemaking, social justice, and global initiatives to end poverty.
Egg McMuffins versus sausage biscuits? Not so much.
This past week’s calendar was filled with lots of expected tasks and commitments, with fall activities back in full swing after summer hiatus. Of course, the unexpected has a way of springing in. Here are some of the unexpected things that cropped up this past week.
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. This week’s prompt was “expect/unexpected.” Please come join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-315/
Today, we received the happy news that Shell Oil is pulling out of drilling for oil under the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska.
Too bad that they didn’t spend the $7 billion they just wasted on Arctic drilling on diversifying into renewable energy options such as wind, solar, or tidal.
The fossil fuel companies remind me of the last whaling ships, desperately clinging to producing an energy sources whose heyday is rightfully over.
They need to adapt and re-make their companies to meet the clean energy needs of the present and future or they will become fossils themselves.
Joanne Corey 