notice

What Shall Our Acts of Resistance Be?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment


So: What
–today–
shall our acts
of resistance
BE?

I will do my Work
with a will.

I will notice beauty
all around me.
I will bless
the passage of a bird across the sky.

I will create one thing of Beauty.

I will elevate my speech.

Going forward,
I will be the one in the room
who speaks up
when men of power
(or women)
turn the conversation
from the human course.

I will do battle with the big lie.

Doing battle with the big lie is a phrase that came to me in a dream a few weeks ago. Somehow it has been trailing me these past few days, knocking on my consciousness. What is the Big Lie? How do we battle it? Certainly in these days, the Big Lie is about white supremacy, about cultural and national superiority/inferiority.

May we all, on this MLK Day, commit to acts that strengthen our communities, that speak Truth to the lies. May we all increase our own work in our own circles to dismantle the system of white supremacy that continues to cripple our nation.

Quotations for MLK Monday:
“Beauty is a form of genius—is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.” —Oscar Wilde (thanks to Ranita Hurst)
***
“Regardless of our beliefs, we all suffer from ignorance, and we all have projected our losses and fears onto each other in one way or another. This is my dream of the beloved community: that we can at least find a way to talk to each other, to talk past the fear, the separation, and find another way to live.”
—Sallie Jiko Tisdale, “Beloved Community”
***
Variation on a Theme by Rilke (from Denise Levertov)
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me—a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic—or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
(thanks to Karen Salyer McElmurray)
***
“Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it is not satire, it is bullying.” —Terry Pratchett (thanks to Craig Sottolano)

Gratitude List:
1. The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and all those who fought with him. We clearly have much work to do.
2. Beloved Community, in all its forms and variations. May we become ever more conscious of our connections.
3. This day. This hour. This moment.
4. This silence. My brain needs this silence.
5. Magic/prayer/intention: whatever it is that we place into the hands of the Great Mystery. Right now on my plate, it is an all-out call to stop the harm, to halt the destruction, to protect the vulnerable.

May we walk in Beauty!

Whose Eyes?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

 

DSCN8741

 

Robert Brewer suggests a “We’re Being Watched” Poem today:

When you walk in the fields,
when you wander in the woods–
sometimes you will feel it.

When you are looking closely
at the way the fern curls or
at the obscure twittering bird
hopping just out of sight
in a leafy bower or
at the way the ladybug
race-waddles around the tabletop,

when you are in the act of noticing
the way the minnows dart
in seemingly random chaos
before they form up
into an ordered school or
the way the sun illuminates
the golden of an autumn afternoon,
or the way one piece of quartz–
just one of thousands–
suddenly sparkles from the field row

Have you also noticed
that you are being noticed, too?
How the looking goes out
while drawing other looking in?
How the inner knowing eye
of all that is
is bent upon observing
the awe-inspiring creature
that is you?

 

Gratitude List:
1. The shining faces of those students last night after the play, thoughtfully and fervently discussing race and change, personal accountability, and the power of a good story to make us more deeply, compassionately human.  I am so proud to know them.
2. Story.  The power of story to bring us all to the table.
3. Grace.  Restoration.  Redemption.
4. Rose hips
5. Systems

May we walk in Beauty.