Peace does not mean appeasing those powers that perpetuate social injustices and environmental degradation. Rather, peace means nonviolently but actively confronting all such institutionalized principalities. And for inspiration and guidance on how to do just that, I turn to the wisdom in my own faith tradition of Unitarian Universalism, and I begin with Ralph Waldo […]
I sit in the back of the class of fifth graders. We are all on the floor, listening to Mr. S explain the topography of the Grand Canyon. We recently spent two days there on a field trip; I went along as writer-in-residence. Now it is after lunch. Like me, many of the children (the […]
Sister Megan Rice Holding Up Sister Megan As Southern Nevada endures record-setting summer temperatures (oh, but it’s a dry heat!), Sister Megan Rice is experiencing the not-so-dry heat of a summer in Georgia, where she’s in prison awaiting a September sentencing. Her latest Transform Ploughshares Now action at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nuclear weapons facility, […]
Growing up back in the 1950’s, I didn’t get hooked by the dinosaur craze that gripped my brothers; it was enough to watch the Flintstones and their pet Dino sell cereal, vitamins, and whatever else wanted to sponsor their television show. I was just glad that my brothers stayed out of my stuff while they […]
Approaching the solstice, we make our way to a nearby field of stubble, bottles of water and a trowel stashed in Milt’s backpack. Weeks earlier, this spot had been as a lush meadow, refulgent with wildflowers. Vivid red Indian Paintbrush spread like wildfire across the whole area. And that was the problem, of course: this […]
My name has come up, but not my number: I am to check in every day after 4:30 to learn if/when I am to report. So with my life literally ‘on hold,’ a neighbor tries to assure me that once I turn seventy, I will no longer be expected to serve. If that is true, […]
The Sandy Hook school shooting so undid me that I frantically started knitting. I gathered up all the yarn left over from previous projects and began making child-sized scarves. I didn’t know what else to do in the face of such tragedy. Of course I signed every on-line petition that called for dealing with the […]
If one day we stand together at the Pine Creek trailhead, looking down the steep gravel slope, and think we see nothing….utterly nothing…but a desolate desert landscape, we’ll head down that trail that will take us to remnants of yesterday’s Ice Age, slip on the gravel until we come to the smoother multi-colored layers of […]
For the Beauty and Bounty of the Earth and the celebration of it by our Paleo-Indian ancestors
While journaling in this morning’s pre-dawn (I ‘pray’ with a pen), it ‘came’ to me: Mother Nature herself is participating in this election cycle, from Hurricane Isaac’s disruption of BOTH political party conventions to Super Storm Sandy’s devastation. Might this suggest that the 5000 year battle between the Mother goddess and a Father god has […]