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WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
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The Walls of Berlin and Bil'in |
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 Garth Hewitt: From the Broken Heart Of Gaza |
FACTS ABOUT THE WALL from friends in Bethlehem
Read the truth about the Wall and what is happening today in the Holy City of Bethlehem. |
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Eileen Fleming's Biography
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"We're on a mission from God."
The Blues Brothers "Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."
George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796 "My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast."
Unamuno
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Emma Goldman
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Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again"
Tom Paine
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John 8:32
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Declaration of Independence |
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We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence |
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Home  Blog March 2009 March 19, 2009
March 19, 2009: Compassion: sorrow for the suffering of others accompanied by the urge to do something to help
A reflection on Iraq I wrote shortly after the USA bombed Baghdad
Excerpted from KEEP HOPE ALIVE
Chapter 13: CATS AND COMPASSION
Terese
absentmindedly caressed the pristine one hundred sheet Official Mead
Composition notebook during breakfast. Terese had been writing poetry
for years, but refused to let anyone read any of it. She even refused
Jake and had a secret ritual. The first full moon after she completed a
book, she would light a fire at 1 a.m. in the fire pit where Jake
barbequed. She would read her words one last time by the light of the
moon, then toss in the Official Mead Composition notebook. She would
walk in circles as it burned, and only after the embers died did her
ritual circular walk.
After
breakfast, she brushed her teeth, grabbed her backpack, and set off
into the woods, pondering, “I have been wrestling with this idea for a
book for too long. Will this try end up in the fire, too? As always, I
do not know; I never know anything before I begin, and as long as I
stay open to learn as I go, it will be okay, okay. Christ have mercy on
me and help me, please! How do I explain concrete walls to little
children, and why men choose violence? How do you explain irrational
adult behavior to little ones? Why do men choose hatred, injury,
discord, error, and darkness to love, pardon, unity, truth, and light?
Why is that? Christ have mercy on us all!”
Terese
sighed deeply and immediately became aware of the sun’s rays filtered
through the thickly canopied trail, and sensed the scurrying of small
creatures around her, who were camouflaged beneath the thick carpet of
leaves she tread upon. At the end of the trail, a gazebo had been
erected in memory of a fallen soldier in a long ago war. Terese blessed
herself as she entered, then opened her backpack, removed three gel
pens and the one hundred sheet Official Mead Composition notebook, and
groaned, “Okay, okay.”
Terese
stared at the upper left corner of the virgin leaf of paper in her
Official Mead Composition notebook and sighed as she chewed the end of
a gel pen. After a few deep breathes, she set the tip down at the
uppermost intersection of the red vertical line and the first of
twenty-four horizontal blue lines, and watched in amazement as words
filled the page:
I am an old crone now, but I once was your age.
I
remember, when I was seven years old, I saw a picture in the newspaper
of a little naked girl running in terror from a mushroom cloud, and I
wondered, why did that girl have to run for her life in her hometown,
when in mine, everyone was safe and happy?
That girl in the picture wasn’t safe, and she was not happy. I wondered about her, and me, and my hometown, and America.
I am an old crone now and I still wonder...
When
images from Vietnam were on the TV screen, I was a mom of three and
seven months pregnant with twins. I went into early labor on that day;
a shot rang out in my hometown, and America’s prophet bled on the
concrete of Memphis.
Terese
sighed, flipped to a clean page, and wondered, “I am getting nowhere. I
want to explain why there is war to children, but I don’t know how to
go about it.”
She
chewed the end of her gel pen and stared into the pistil and stamen of
a white and violet day lily that grew next to the gazebo. A gunfire
round of riveting from the redheaded woodpecker above her head brought
Terese back to her empty page, and she sighed, “Christ, have mercy on
me. What’s the deal with me? How could I think I could write a story to
explain war to children, when I don’t understand why war has to be?”
She
bit her lip and sighed a few more times, before putting the gel pen
back to the paper. She lit up like a Christmas tree as the words flew
from her fingers:
Have you heard the one about Dorothy and her cats?
Dorothy
was about your age when her tiny orange and calico cat named Peachez
met with an early demise. You see, little Peachez, barely a year old,
got too big for her breeches, and snuck out Dorothy’s front door.
Nobody knew except Rikki, the deer dog who lived next door.
Rikki
could not resist his nature to hunt, and Peachez was most exotic fare,
for in this neighborhood, cats lived inside. Little defenseless Peachez
never had a chance, for Rikki bit right through the neck of that tiny
orange and calico cat.
Oh,
how Dorothy mourned; oh, how she grieved; after a week, her mother
could take it no more, and told her, “Girl, you need a new kitty!”
Dorothy agreed.
“Then, I will call the cat league and see what they have in stock, okay, Dorothy?”
“Okay, okay, do it for me, please.”
“Happily,” her mom replied, as she dialed the animal league.
Dorothy could not believe it when she heard her mother say, “Hi, have you got any kitties that need a home?”
Dorothy
exploded, “No, not just any kitty, I know exactly what I want. I want a
pure white cat with blue eyes the color of the summer sky, and I’ll
call him Bob.”
“Okay, okay. Did you hear all that, lady from the animal league?”
“Yes,
I did, and, ah--good luck with it. I have a lot of cats that could be
Bob; some have pure white fur, but not a one has blue eyes.”
“Okay, thanks, we will continue on,” Dorothy’s mom sighed, as she hung up the phone.
“Girl,
I have to pick up the dry cleaning next to the veterinarian’s office.
Come with me now, and maybe someone there will be able to help you find
your Bob with blue eyes and white fur on.”
For the first time since Peachez demise, Dorothy smiled when she said, “Okay, okay.”
Dorothy
and her mom stood in line at the vet’s office for an interminable time
before a doe-eyed brunette, as thin as a French-cut string bean,
noticed them and inquired, “Hi, can I help you?”
Dorothy
replied, “I am looking for the cat of my dreams; he has pure white fur
and eyes the color of the summer sky, and his name is Bob.”
“Well,
this is most numinous. You see, I have a five-year-old cat back in
storage that needs a home. He is very sad, for he has been in a cage
for almost seven months. He has licked off all his hair, and he pouts a
lot.
“You
see, it was Thanksgiving week when his first family dropped him off.
They didn’t love him. They tossed him away. They wanted the doctor to
give him a shot, to put him to sleep. But I said, ‘No way! I’ll put
that cat in storage, and one day, someone will come in here and take
him away.”’
Dorothy’s mom interrupted. “There must be a reason that family tossed that cat away.”
The
doe-eyed string bean replied, “Sister, let me tell you, this cat is no
more neurotic than any other cat I have known. I will not lie to you,
for he is indeed one neurotic cat, who never was a beauty. But he did
have white fur when he came in here, and his eyes are still as blue as
a summer sky. He is most definitely OC; you see, he licks himself a
lot, and so, is now as bald as a bat.
“Oh,
by the way, he whines like a banshee and paces about. You see, after
his upsetting Thanksgiving holiday, the vet fixed him for Christmas,
and no doubt you can imagine why he is naturally still quite upset
about that. Oh, by the way, he has claws, and since he is too old for
surgery, they must stay. But, sister, I assure you, he’s no more or
less neurotic than any other cat around. Follow me into the back room,
and you will see that he really is a cool cat; you should take him
away.”
“I
think Dorothy wants a blue-eyed baby kitty, not one so worn-out,”
Dorothy’s mother pleaded, looking hopefully at her daughter.
“I
don’t care how old he is, as long as he is my Bob,” Dorothy shouted
over the cacophony of barking and yelping, as the doe-eyed string bean
stopped in front of the center cage and announced,
“Surely, I told you--this cat has always been called Bob.”
And
with that, she turned, and with one smooth motion, unlatched the cage
and pulled out a long scrawny cat, with a few patches of white fur, but
mostly skin showing. His enormous blue eyes, the color of the summer
sky, looked into Dorothy’s, and he moaned like a baby in pain; Dorothy
proclaimed, “He’s the one!”
Dorothy
took him home on her shoulder as her mom drove the Crossfire, and Bob
never moved a muscle, nor made a sound. Dorothy’s mom thought, This
won’t be so bad, right?
As
soon as Dorothy put Bob down in her room, he wailed and moaned, and
Dorothy did not know what to do, until her mom told her, “He’s just
like a baby, and you may have to walk the floors holding him all night.
Welcome to motherhood.”
Dorothy
gleefully picked Bob back up and carried him around on her shoulder,
just like you would a little baby. Every single time she put Bob down,
he would whine, kvetch, and pace all around, and would stare at her
with his blue eyes the color of a summer sky. Dorothy swore she heard
him say, “Sister, I’ve got the blues bad, and I can’t calm down unless
you carry me around.”
The very next night, the bombs hit Baghdad.
All
night, Dorothy walked the floors with Bob, the blue-eyed cat on her
shoulder, and a heart breaking, breaking, breaking for all the
innocents caught up in the crossfire. She knew she was connected. You
are too.
In the 11th century, Hildegard of Bingen knew:
God
responds speedily whenever the blood of innocence is being shed. Of
this the angel choirs are singing and re-echoing their praise. And yet
at the loss of innocence clouds are weeping.
Bob,
the blue eyed cat, has now calmed down. He doesn’t want to be held, and
he never makes a sound. His hair has grown back, pure white and coarse
as grit. Into his summer sky blue eyes, clouds of cataracts have moved
in. He moves slowly, slowly, slowly. Bob tucks his front legs under his
chest and gently bows as he gets down. What a contemplative Bob has
become, for deliberate movement is prayer.
A
new kitty has moved into Dorothy’s house, too. A black and white
long–haired, green-eyed feline named Oreo. Dorothy found her when she
was only a week old and abandoned by her cat mom, who left the litter
and never returned. Dorothy fed the baby kitty every three hours for
three weeks with an eyedropper, and kept her warm.
Oreo
has now grown big and strong, and likes to play, but sometimes can be a
pain. Bob always treats her gently, even when she bites his tail; he
either plays or he walks away.
Terese stretched and moaned, “That’s as far as I can go today."
A few more reflections:
A Revolution of Love + Reflection on the 63rd Anniversary of USA Terrorism
It's a God Thing about Trees, Doors, Day and VanunuWWDDS? What Would Dorothy Day Say?
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"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas |
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"Memoirs of a Nice
Irish-AmericanGirl's Life inOccupied Territory"
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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
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The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway. © 1968, 2001 Kent M. Keith " In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
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“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946 |
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The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright |
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“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK |
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Establishment of Israel |
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"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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