A New Year: Moving again!

This is what usually happens when someone starts telling me about their blog:

Person: Hey! I have a blog! Go read it!

Me: Oh, yeah? Coool....

(Me, really thinking...:aaaggghhh...I think I am going to eviscerate like a sea cucumber*)

A sea cucumber, not eviscerated.

Maybe this is how you feel, too?


So Why Do I Keep Torturing You With THIS Blog?

Because:

for whatever weird, World-Order reason...

I am frequently in places where

I see things and
witness things and
hear about things

that are related






to what people elsewhere
do and buy,
and desire,
and to the change
that I believe they/we can effect,
if they/we try,

and so I feel
that I have an
obligation
to talk about this.

Possibility.
Suffering.
Hope.
The things that bring
Peace

Because,
it turns out that the regular news
that we watch
and magazines
that we read

generally

do not.

(they are static:
and who wants to mess with the
static(us) quo?)

Because
if we do not
talk about it,
and do something about it
I really believe - meaning no idealism -

that nobody else is going to.


Because,
we are the ones who are here.

So, hello.

Welcome.

Can we do something now?

A Lot of Times I Feel Like This

But Seeing As How It Is A New Year


I feel that it is time
to ignore that fact and
Keep Moving!

(Which is, I guess,
what we do anyway,
most of the time.)

So I am heading to Kivu.

Kivu Is

a region
of Eastern Congo
where many
Bad, Sad and Terrible
Things
have happened
and are
continuing
to happen.

(It is also the first name
of a really cool filmmaker
that you should check out)

Many experts on the region
consider it to be
in the throes
of the third world war.

I should admit that this scares me

Contrary, perhaps, to
what my friends and family,
and nice people at my father's church,
believe,

I am not very brave.

Yesterday, for example,
when a Dutchman in Amsterdam
(that's where I am)
started to explode a line
of red
firecrackers
in the middle of a crowded
street

I thought of Syria

And wanted to

Get
The
Hell
Out
Of
There.

Dude.

The Problem Is...

her...

and her...

and her....

When I think
about them,
and the things that are happening
to them,
I feel
like this...

And think that life,
is not very fair.

Although these days it feels as if I am about 86 and a half


the truth is that
I am not Very Old.

But I once had
a very cool
grandmother
who was, at that time,
rather
Up There
in Years
(though she did have
astonishing hair).

For some reason,
that has never been entirely clear,
she thought from Day 1 that I
was pretty much

The Bees' Knees.

And she told me this

Every
Single
Time
She
Could

After
a while
I started to think that I might
at least be related
to the phylum.

People and Situations Are Rather Complicated

But does that really
matter?

Since we have to just
start somewhere,
I think we should start

by believing in the beauty,
and limitless ability,
of our
deepest
potentialities.

It sounds complex.

But all it really means is that we choose 
to not leave anyone, who needs someone, 
alone.


It means that when we see someone
out in the storm
of life and suffering

We go and help them.

I Am No Heroine

and I am not very
sure of how to fix things.

and I do not know
the answers
to all of life's questions**

But it seems to me
that starting by believing
that we really
(really, really)
CAN

improve this world

is as good a place as any.

And for me this means that I must 

go and witness
and testify
and try to do

What I can
Where I can
When I can

To see if
just maybe
we could build
a more beautiful World.

For her***...

and her....

and her...

and them, too...

And so that is why I am writing this blog

A strange and new
technology
that is really just
the modern way to say

Hello. Welcome. 

Could we please,

go do something now?

"When we bear witness, when we become the situation — homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death — the right action arises by itself. We don’t have to worry about what to do. We don’t have to figure out solutions ahead of time. Peacemaking is the functioning of bearing witness. Once we listen with our entire body and mind, loving action arises.

Loving action is right action. It's as simple as giving a hand to someone who stumbles or picking up a child who has fallen on the floor. We take such direct, natural actions every day of our lives without considering them special. 

And they're not special. Each is simply the best possible response to that situation in that moment."

—Bernie Glassman

Related reading
1) Books:

 - Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jason Stearns
 - King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

2) Blogs:
 - CongoSiasa by Jason Stearns

3) Posts from "Throwing Down the Water"
 - Gender Equality In A Changing World
 - On Complacency

Photo and drawing credits

1) sea cucumber anatomy: www.tolweb.org

All other drawings and photos are my own.

*definitely one of the coolest defense mechanisms of the animal kingdom. Also my standing internal reaction to things that disgust me; so, like, if you say something like, "My life goal before I am 30 is to make a million bucks," or, "Aren't all these African babies sooooo cuuuuuute???," this is what I am imagining doing...barfing my internal organs all over you.
** 42 seems like a good beginning 
*** these are women from Haiti, not Congo, just to be clear... and they are also doing just fine in a lot of ways, also to be clear and to try to avoid the white angel savior stereotype thing...