I noted that this was to be a big weekend for protest against the war in Iraq, but I didn't see any events listed in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, where we are now living. So I recalled a a small group I had seen on a busy corner in Santa Rosa a week or two after we moved here--Women in Black. I checked their website for place and time, donned all-black clothing, and joined them today for their weekly demonstration from noon to 1pm. It was a small but very welcoming group, the core of them Quakers. I learned that it is an international movement which started in the Isreal/Palestine area, not to protest any one conflict, but to promote non-violent solutions and to mourn victims of all violence. I felt privileged and happy to be among them.
I don't know how soon I will be able to join them again, with a trip and a major surgery coming up in our lives, but I intend to when I can.
The messy fighting and in Iraq continues. Is it a war? Is there such a possibility as victory or success? I can't conceive what it would be. As a NYT columnist said, there are no good outcomes there. We must now choose among bad ones. For the record, we had drive-out days in July (a movable day, due to vacation travels), August, and September. I hope others will post their experiences and thoughts.
Blessings.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Another drive-out day--"early June"
Jack and I will not be driving today. For different reasons, neither of us can avoid driving next Saturday (first Saturday in June), so we are making up for it in advance.
It is again a beautiful day in Reno, and we will enjoy staying around our apartment, or taking a walk or bike ride.
The bill signed this week means that this war will not start winding down for several months, at least, but we should not give up. And we can work all the harder against global climate change! I note the work at the Environmental Defense Fund website on a Declaration of what it now means to be a patriot. I call on all you patriots to chime in!
My heart is full as I hold in it several things:
It is again a beautiful day in Reno, and we will enjoy staying around our apartment, or taking a walk or bike ride.
The bill signed this week means that this war will not start winding down for several months, at least, but we should not give up. And we can work all the harder against global climate change! I note the work at the Environmental Defense Fund website on a Declaration of what it now means to be a patriot. I call on all you patriots to chime in!
My heart is full as I hold in it several things:
- Jack's 98-year-old aunt, who was hospitalized yesterday with what is likely terminal heart failure.
- His other coastal Georgia relatives and my coastal Florida relatives (East Coast), with the prediction of a very active hurricane season, fueled by the warming waters of the Atlantic.
- Our oldest son's birthday tomorrow, which several years ago his brother made into a new holiday--ThanksBrian Day--just half-way around the year from Thanksgiving Day. May 27 is a day to seek out ten people in your life and tell them that you are thankful for what they have done in the past year (or better yet, invite them to a potluck party, to which they may invite the ten people they want to thank).
Thank you to all who are with us in driving out war!
Saturday, May 12, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Drive Out the War, and Fast!
On the March "Drive Out" day, I was in Florida helping my mother-in-law in her recovery from surgery. I knew that her one opportunity that week to go out to dinner with her daughter and son-in-law was Saturday night and I knew that I would need to be her driver. So, to facilitate her, I did drive two miles that day. But I did it only at the end of a 24-hour fast.
I found that fasting was more personally significant than not driving (because I minimize my driving most days) and it brought the solidiers and their families to my mind more often (like every time a pang of hunger struck) than did failing to drive on the first Saturday of February
Tomorrow, April 7, I plan to both refrain from driving and fast.
I found that fasting was more personally significant than not driving (because I minimize my driving most days) and it brought the solidiers and their families to my mind more often (like every time a pang of hunger struck) than did failing to drive on the first Saturday of February
Tomorrow, April 7, I plan to both refrain from driving and fast.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Drive-Out 2nd Try
I must admit, I didn't write the February Drive-Out date in my calendar and spaced on it. Whoops! However, I did "drive-out" on March 3rd. I stayed home reading all morning and went for a walk in the neighborhood with a friend in the afternoon. We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. I later walked to the video store and rented some Sopranos episodes. I enjoyed utilizing the resources directly around me and spending time with the friends who live close by. I wrote next month's drive-out date in my calendar and plan on doing it from here on out until the U.S. caused deaths in Iraq end.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
drive-free day
I had a pleasant, quiet day on February 3. I had takend care of necessary errands on Friday. Being quietly at home, I was able to be more mindful of the war and how sad--sometimes angry-- I am that we are in it. As we have remarked to each other, there is no pleaseure in having been right about this war back when we were protesting it in early 2003. And then we had no idea it would go on so long or be so awful.
We stayed at home here in Reno until dinner-time, when we walked to the nearby strip mall for Thai food at a place we really like.
My only regret is that I didn't get my car washed. But it is likely to rain or snow here tomorrow or the next day, so it will either get cleaner or dirtier very soon.
We stayed at home here in Reno until dinner-time, when we walked to the nearby strip mall for Thai food at a place we really like.
My only regret is that I didn't get my car washed. But it is likely to rain or snow here tomorrow or the next day, so it will either get cleaner or dirtier very soon.
Fasting in the Dark
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The fast went well. We did a 24 hour fast to drive out the war. Just water. We also unplugged from the grid (everything except the refrig) for 24 hours, again to drive out the war. We plan to do this with Jack and Betsy and everyone else every first Saturday of the month as long as the war goes on. Will you be joining in? The steady withdrawal of support for the wrong has a long tradition going way back to the Luddites and beyond.
A relatively modern day Luddite, Lewis Mumford, put our struggle in perspective:
"Though no immediate and complete escape from the ongoing power system is possible, least of all through mass violence, the changes that will restore autonomy and initiative to the human person all lie within the province of each individual soul, once it is roused. Nothing could be more damaging to the myth of the machine, and to the dehumanized social order it has brought into existence, than a steady withdrawal of interest, a slowing down of tempo, a stoppage of senseless routines and mindless acts." ( in Pentagon of Power p. 433)
Best Wishes,
Irv and Cynthia
The fast went well. We did a 24 hour fast to drive out the war. Just water. We also unplugged from the grid (everything except the refrig) for 24 hours, again to drive out the war. We plan to do this with Jack and Betsy and everyone else every first Saturday of the month as long as the war goes on. Will you be joining in? The steady withdrawal of support for the wrong has a long tradition going way back to the Luddites and beyond.
A relatively modern day Luddite, Lewis Mumford, put our struggle in perspective:
"Though no immediate and complete escape from the ongoing power system is possible, least of all through mass violence, the changes that will restore autonomy and initiative to the human person all lie within the province of each individual soul, once it is roused. Nothing could be more damaging to the myth of the machine, and to the dehumanized social order it has brought into existence, than a steady withdrawal of interest, a slowing down of tempo, a stoppage of senseless routines and mindless acts." ( in Pentagon of Power p. 433)
Best Wishes,
Irv and Cynthia
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