May-day

On Saturday, May 5, Jack and I did not drive. It was a very pleasant day, conducive to other forms of locomotion. We took a bike ride in the afternoon--my first in about a year, so I was happy and relieved that though I hadn't used it, I hadn't lost it.

In the evening we were signed up for a fund-raising dinner at our church. It's only 7 minutes away by car, and a short-cut through a nearby park (Bartley Ranch) to a trail that comes out behind the church makes it a very pleasant, though hilly and dusty, walk. We had a fine time at the dinner and a lovely walk back. As we left Bartley Ranch Park, we realized it had "closed" a few hours earlier. Speculating on what we would have done had a ranger come along, we thought our defense that we had had two drinks each, thus shouldn't have been driving or walking along the narrow semi-rural roads, would have been adequate.

Jack had again fasted all day, as well as not driving, until the dinner.

This weekend I had a chance to speak out publicly against the war. Senator Harry Reid's office had called a couple of members of the local interfaith clergy group which I attend, and asked them to put together a Clergy Speak-out against the war on Friday, May 11. I did not formally enlist as a speaker, but John Auer, the very gracious minister of the downtown Reno Methodist Church, on whose steps it was held, opened it up for me and any other religious leaders present to speak after the planned speeches.

In an extemporaneous speech, I said something like this:

"I am Betsy Darr, the Director of Religious Education at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada. I am proud to claim Julia Ward Howe [whose Mothers’ Peace Day proclamation had been read to open the speak-out] as a foremother in my Unitarian faith.

I am tempted to say, “I told you so.” Though we don’t claim to be great analysts of world affairs, before this war was started my husband and I were pretty sure it would be a big mistake. So we marched, along with friends from the San Francisco Unitarian church, and a few hundred thousand others, in at least two marches in San Francisco. We believed that this war would stir up more antagonism toward our country and that it would further alienate us from the international community, which is probably our greatest hope at this point.

[We think we have been proved correct. But it is not fun or satisfying to say I told you so. (I forgot to deliver this punch line!)]

I waffled for a couple of years in my attitude toward the war—on the china shop rule—if you broke it, you fix it. But now I am convinced that it is time to pull out, on a very rapid timetable. [Not to mention all the suffering that is occurring in Iraq right now,] we are creating death and suffering in a huge number of young women and men, for which we will pay for many years to come. I don’t know what will happen in Iraq when we do, but it is no riskier than what we are doing now."

This was my speak-out weekend: A column I submitted to the local paper (Reno Gazetter-Journal) on global warming was printed today on the Faith Page.