My sister told me to look up a remarkable woman, Jane Marczewski, yesterday. I listened to her songs and wisdom all night. Her joyful vulnerability, as much as her beautiful ballad, "It's OK," won the hearts of the judges and audience of America's Got Talent in the summer of 2021.
It’s a sobering day. Twenty years ago, on September 11, 2001, 19 hijackers took control of four planes and crashed them into a field in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon in Virginia, and the World Trade Center in New York. The Twin Towers were completely destroyed, and with them, thousands of lives, and life as we knew it. The effects are still being felt today.
How can those charged to serve and protect
kill an unarmed man with a knee to the neck?
Why do brown people fear the men in blue
when there is no difference between me and you?
It’s not right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human rights
Why do people living off their last piece of earth
get sold out and silenced as if they’re of no worth?
Who gave away the land of their forefathers?
I won’t profit off of it any longer
It’s not right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human rights
I have a dream – that our tears over oppression will motivate cries for justice that become shouts of joy as justice flows down like rivers, and peace like everlasting streams.
75 years ago today, the USA dropped the first nuclear bomb ever used in conflict on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. Three days later, the they dropped the last nuclear bomb used in conflict on Nagasaki, Japan. The resulting carnage and immediate deaths of up to 210,000 people were just too horrifying and indescriminate ever to justify again. But today, after over four decades of controlling and reducing nuclear arsenals, the USA is cancelling or letting nuclear non-proliferation treaties expire, and budgeting $1 trillion for new nuclear weapons.
At the 2018 Parliament of the World's Religions, I had the privilege of hearing Arun Gandhi speak of his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, who guided Arun in his formative years. Angry at racism in South Africa, Arun was sent to live with his grandfather in India to learn how to transform his anger into positive action. Two powerful practices were journalling about anger in order to find peaceful ways to address it, and reflecting on the overt and tacit violence he saw or committed as a 14 year old. What wonderful life lessons in peacebuilding for us today!
They were humiliated and mistreated, and they couldn’t take it anymore. So they took a stand. They went into extensive training for the fight. They knew it would be hard and long. They had to be mentally, spiritually, and physically prepared. When the day of confrontation arrived, every hour of training was worth it. Although they were shouted at, pushed, spat upon, and beaten, they did not fight back with angry words or fists, but with love. They won, peacefully.
Divine providence brought me to Atlanta, Georgia today, April 4, 2018, exactly 50 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was born, raised and buried in Atlanta, although he became a civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama. I read his book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, in preparation for this trip. It describes the formation and application of his nonviolent resistance philosophy in the civil rights movement’s first major action, the Montgomery bus boycott demanding desegregation of public transportation.
I just received wonderful news — CryPeace won the 2018 Wilbur Award for best faith-based blog for the story, Motorcycle Diaries: Friday the 13th Motorcycle Rally! I am personally encouraged by this recognition, but more importantly, it will help share the stories people entrust to me more widely.
