workers

We’re Not Alone

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment


I haven’t seen any toads this year.

I wrote this on a Gratitude List last year:
“We are not alone. The world gets so heavy sometimes, but it’s at the heavy times that you can look around you and see all the people who are stepping out to the front to get the Work done. Sure, there’s a lot of fluffy and ranty clamor that distracts, but keep your eyes and ears open. They’re there, stepping into the fray, holding people, presenting clear and thoughtful ideas, loving their neighbors and the world. Often, they’re keeping their mouths shut, though sometimes they are the ones writing cogent and articulate pieces that help to shape the conversation. Listen and watch. The Workers are out there.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider
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“To disobey in order to take action is the byword of all creative spirits. The history of human progress amounts to a series of Promethean acts. But autonomy is also attained in the daily workings of individual lives by means of many small Promethean disobediences, at once clever, well thought out, and patiently pursued, so subtle at times as to avoid punishment entirely.” —Gaston Bachelard
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“Walking. I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.” ― Linda Hogan (Always a favorite)

Gratitude List:
1. Being in a body. Sensory experiences. I think we have more than five senses. I remember talking about this with Ellis when he was five. I think he came up with twenty or so. Sense of direction. Sense of individual self. Sense of heat. Sense of impendingness. . . What other senses have you honed?
2. Ice Cream. Even while I am trying to be a little careful in my middle age about what I eat, I cannot give up ice cream, especially when it’s Turkey Hill’s Natural Homemade Vanilla. This sounds like an ad. Sorry. But there are only four ingredients! I could eat it for breakfast.
3. Tomatoes. And basil. And dill. The flavors of summer.
4. Having too much to do is better than being bored.
5. Speculative fiction: how it makes me look at what it means to be human, what it means to exist in the context of human society

May we walk in Beauty!

Happy May Day!

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

CRANE_a_garland_for_mayday_1895
Today is May Day, celebrated around the world as the day of the workers.  Today we honor the people who fought–and still fight–for workers’ rights, the people who contribute their sweat for the good of a (hopefully) well-run society, the ones who get the job done.

It is also the day of Beltane, one of the ancient celebrations of spring and fertility.  Look around you, at all that is growing so wildly, so full of life force.  What forces within you are pushing their way toward the sunlight?  What will not be contained?  What is exploding into bloom?  What vines curl outward from your center?

Gratitude List:
1. The way life sometimes brings you exactly what you need. Two years ago on this day, I received a message from a friend saying that he had heard there was an opening on the English Faculty at Lancaster Mennonite High School.
2. The workers.  All the unsung people who make things run, and often without much thanks.   And all who work to make a more just society, not simply because it will benefit them, but because it will benefit all.  Happy May Day!
3. Daniel Berrigan, who died yesterday at 94.  A good man who lived his faith.
4. The certainty that the wheel will turn and a new thing will always come around again.  May comes again.  Happy May Day!
5. The richness of the pink on those dogwood trees in the rain.

May we walk in Beauty!