Q: Why do you think authoritarian leaders go after people like you, people who deal in ideas? When you said there’s a playbook, we’ve seen that in places all around the world.
A: From time immemorial.
Q: But as someone who’s the subject of that kind of censure, I’m wondering why you think it happens.
A: They are terrified of people who they feel can communicate, not just cerebrally, but emotionally. However small they are, and even however little access they have to the mainstream or to the thundering, pulpit-thumping television anchors, they know there are some people who people eventually do listen to. They know who is read. They know who is loved. They also know who is not invested in the things that everyone else is invested in — fame and money and awards. There are a lot of people like that who they know will not bow down. We are just people who look at things and say it how it is.
From a NYT interview with he Interview with Arundhati Roy on “How to Survive in a ‘Culture of Fear,” Booker Prize winner for God of Small Things.
This final quote in a wonderful interview with the courageous Roy who has spent decades of her life speaking out to an authoritarian government about justice, freedom and the right to write so inspires the writer in me. Even when I feel small in the face of the vast injustices being perpetrated in the U.S. now, I have to write, to speak out, to let my small voice add to many others. Dictators are impermanent, however solid and powerful they seem today. Love is more powerful than hate, courage more true than silence in the face of injustice. One commentator told Roy that she speaks out as if was already killed, therefore free to be and do as she wished. Let’s imitate her freedom and courage, but speak our own truth.
Shrubs and flowers persist through the old stone walls, Gulls perch on top of the steeples and church crosses Children laugh in a garden carved between two old factories.
People here a couple of thousand years, so different from the US (where Europeans came only 533 years ago, though there were people 40,000 years before them. People the Europeans killed to steal resources, to put names on land that couldn’t be owned.
Nature prevails over ownership and occupation. Children continue to be born everywhere Life is powerful.
At the end of my journaling each morning, I do an affirmation. It’s supposed to be a positive, powerful, personal, possible, present statement that helps me reach for a goal and motivates me to do the next thing to get my book published. I write it 10 times at the end of my journal each day for 21 days (based on instructions in Ruth Fishel’s How to Change (Almost) Anything in 21 Days).
In November, my affirmation was “The Universe is sending me the right publisher.” I’ve already sent queries or proposals to about ten publishers and am now working on one that I’d love to have. I like their experience, the editors, the process they use working with authors. Perhaps they are the right one? I won’t know until they answer the query or until I send the full 50 pp proposal. Each publisher has different requirements for what they want.
How about this affirmation for December? “Angels, help me write for people who need my book.”
Most publishers want clarity about our target audience. Who is that? My granddaughter? Her friends? I sometimes feel like I’m the only one who cares about getting this book out to the world. Do many mothers feel that about their babies? Is it all an ego-based project? Or are there people who might be encouraged to act on their convictions by reading my book? I don’t know.
I want to be a voice of courage, of speaking out against violence and injustice. I want young people (I was 28 at the time of the DC9) to see that they have an important role in shaping our country and our world. We need them to follow their vision, their hearts. I write to them. I respect young people, taught them for twenty-seven years in classrooms, and rely on their insights, energy and tenacity in working to make positive changes in our world.
The title of this post has been my “affirmation” for the last 21 days of the month of November 2024. the idea of writing affirmations for 21 days comes from my friend and mentor Ruth Fishel, who has published over 25 books and is presently publishing three books at the same time (with different publishers!). She’s 89. She inspires me to keep trying to find the right publisher for my book The Power of Love: How a Nun Became a Revolutionary.
I finished the first version of this book in 2011. It’s about my participation – as a nun – in the DC9 action against Dow Chemical’s production of napalm, nerve gas and defoliants in Vietnam, our subsequent trial and a difficult decision I had to make before our sentencing in 1970. Family members had good reason to ask me to delay publication when I had the book in the hands of an agent and potential publisher.
Since then, they have lifted their objections, and I have revised and re-edited the book as a narrative non-fiction story (254 pages/81,889 words), including photographs, trial transcripts, personal letters, poetry, and prison journals.
I’m ready to submit the book to the right publisher. In preparation, I hope to merge this original blog, began in 2010 to promote The Power of Love with a more recent version of the blog.
Please let me know if you have worked with WordPress to merge blog files! I hope to solve this puzzle today, so the next publisher I approach will see a fresh, current blog! Comments are welcome!
We had a full mindfulness day yesterday, a very deep, healing recitation of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings, with Kaira Jewel as our dharma sharing leader. She suggested that the topic for our sharing was to select a phrase from one of the trainings that spoke to us that day about how to deal with the election reaction. Very democratic, with well over an hour for us to share.
The MT that hit me and challenged me was #3 -The Third Mindfulness Training: Freedom of Thought “Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our views on others, we are determined not to force others, even our children, by any means whatsoever — such as authority, threat, money, propaganda, or indoctrination — to adopt our views. We are committed to respecting the right of others to be different, to choose what to believe and how to decide. We will, however, learn to help others let go of and transform fanaticism and narrowness through loving speech and compassionate dialogue.”
It was the last two sentences that I shared about. What did I say? That I spiraled into deep depression and increased drinking in 1980 when Reagan was elected. I thought we were on the verge of revolution! That the working class would never elect such a right-wing movie actor as President. I was wrong. With my years of union and community organizing, my work to end racism and oppression, that election depressed me and led to the dissolution of our revolutionary group.
Getting sober was the most difficult thing I had to do in my life, and I couldn’t do it alone. I found sobriety and new communities of support both for recovery and mindfulness meditation. I had to face the arrogance and narrow leftist thinking that had led to near death. I had to recognize that I can’t dwell more than a few moments in feelings of grief, sadness, anger or despair without it sending me back to that dark place where I drank. I feel the feelings about the election, the disappointment, but I can’t afford to stay there. I have to nourish positive seeds in my consciousness of love, compassion, healing, joy and hope. It’s a matter of life and death for me. Hence a dedicated practice of mindfulness.
I have never given up my passion for justice, my desire to build strong communities that protect the vulnerable, and operate on principles of love and service. But the mindfulness guidelines now emphasize the “right of others to be different,” to have different views, political opinions, and goals. I don’t understand the whole world (as I thought I did with a Marxist framework). Others are not separate from me. There are no “good guys” and “bad guys,” just other humans like me, capable of anger, fear, ignorance, insanity, and killing, I am in them and they are in me, all learning from our experiences, growing and changing one day at a time.
Those of us who voted for Democrats in this last election and lost the presidency must LISTEN. Listen more deeply to the frustrations of people who can’t afford food, gas, and housing. They want a change, apparently badly enough to vote for a twice-impeached, convicted felon who admires dictators and promises to destroy our democratic form of government. Some of those voters are blood relatives of mine. I need to listen more closely, understand their concerns more deeply, and do whatever possible to keep building community where all views are heard. This doesn’t mean we stop protecting the immigrant, prisoners, LGTBQ friends, our children’s education, healthcare, and rule of law. We’ll have to organize, demonstrate, stop the wars against Gaza and Ukraine, and work constantly to preserve democracy.
As the 12th Mindfulness Trainings says, “We will not support any act of killing in the world, in our thinking, or in our way of life. We will diligently practice deep looking with our Sangha to discover better ways to protect life, prevent war, and build peace.” And the 10th MT – “As members of a spiritual community, we should nonetheless take a clear stand against oppression and injustice.”
That evening at WMC we did the Eve of Remembrance, honoring loved ones who have died recently, which was also very lovely and moving. I showed photos of the six friends who’ve died this year.
I feel strong this morning, knowing I am never alone, that I am part of powerful, loving communities.
What a two-week period in American history! Three major “I’s” on three January Wednesdays – Insurrection on Jan 6, Impeachment on Jan 13, Inauguration on Jan 20!
Today’s official celebration of MKL’s birthday gives us some perspective from which to view all three. The 264 years of slavery did not end with a few minds changing but with the Civil War. Since then violence against African Americans has continued with lynchings, “legal” executions, the destruction of the Black Wall St. in Tulsa with over 200 deaths in 1921 and police killings today. Racism has not ended, as seen in its extreme destruction in the attack on democracy and murders at the US Capitol on January 6. Cruelty, injustice and violence were the foundation blocks of our nation and will continue until we transform them.
Yet throughout that history, voices and actions of courageous men like Martin Luther King have encouraged the other side of our national character – hope, equality, tolerance and unity. We have a choice always to transform the violence and hatred into peace and love if we choose to expose and demand accountability for wrongs done and forge ahead with concrete plans to end this pandemic, its economic suffering, the divisions of racism.
The next step is acceptance of the reality of the Biden/Harris executive power to make progress in extending the Covid vaccine and healthcare benefits, granting economic help to the poor and unemployed, and mending divisions in our political system.
Americans are great at making “lemonade,” at seizing opportunity, at rising to our “better selves.” Martin Luther King urges us still to see the stars through the darkness, to take the hand of our neighbor, to help ourselves and our country survive these crises with renewed strength and a vision of the “sunlight of opportunity.”
When is a good time to practice Qi Gong? Daily, early in the morning, outdoors, especially at the beach is our favorite time and place. But the best answer is ANYTIME, ANYPLACE, every day – especially NOW.
In these last few months, and increasingly in the last two weeks, our country has experienced intense health, economic, political and social upheaval. We are all affected by these crises at a physical and psychic level. If you have been feeling more agitation, anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, isolation or despair, you are not alone. Each of us, consciously or unconsciously is affected on some level by the pandemic, racism and attacks on democracy.
Qi Gong is a practice that will help us to touch our energy, release negative energy that blocks us from free movement, and nourish positive, healing, hopeful energy in our bodies, minds and spirits.
Join us every Tuesday from 7:00-7:30pm on zoom to practice Five Animal Play Qi Gong. Enjoy becoming more rooted on earth, solid and powerful with Bear energy, more peaceful, confident and majestic with Deer energy. Become an alert, agile, focused Monkey, and a graceful, flexible, concentrated Crane. Feel the strength, power and courage of the Tiger in your arms, legs and torso.
Someone dear to me must pass a test tomorrow in order to carry out a huge creative project. Please pray for her! I stopped praying for a long period of my life when I decided I had no faith. Then life crashed, got unbearable and some sort of prayer must have escaped my hard heart. It was answered. My life changed 180 degrees.
I believe in prayer again, have now for decades. Being cynical about its power when urged to take it up as a daily practice, I chose the ‘parking god’ to whom to pray. Dang! I started getting parking places like magic, got one in front of the passport office in DC! “I’ll take this god as mine,” I said. I found that invoking the parking god worked for anything related to cars, even extended to airplanes, travel, finding great vacation spots, sunsets, sunrises, a beautiful life.
So, will you please join me, just this once, in invoking the parking god on 1/14/21 for my friend? Thank you, you won’t regret finding this new power!
Details of the January 6 assault on the US Capitol continue to emerge as more arrests take place. The Capitol police should have been better prepared with all the advance notice of the planned armed rally. They should have sought reinforcements earlier. The DC government should have had the power to rouse its own National Guard. No officer should have aided the invaders. One of them should not have had to die defending lawmakers.
Today we are left the realities of a president in office who has committed treason and incited a riot on Congress. Can he be impeached again? Will Pence have the courage to invoke the 25th amendment? Or should attention be turned to affirming Biden’s cabinet appointments, inaugurating him in 10 days? Stemming the Covid-19 pandemic that claimed over 4000 lives in just one day that saw over 300,000 new cases reported on that same day?
My heart flips between calming my heart and hearing the voice of reason saying, “He must be stopped!” Two beings guard many Buddhist temples, one loving and compassionate, the other a Niō who defends the Buddha from harm.
Perhaps we need some of the Nio’s energy at this moment to balance a certain naïveté in our hope for a peaceful transition of power in these last days of white supremacy’s stand against the wave of multiracial, multicultural, antiracist energy enveloping our country in reaction to the injustice of three days ago.
Yet, as I edit my chapter on “Just Mercy” in Awake to Racism this morning, I reread this powerful statement: “The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that it’s most potent – strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering. It has the power to heal the psychic harm and injuries that lead to aggression and violence, abuse of power, mass incarceration.” ( Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014),294.
It reinforces my deep-seated belief that LOVE trumps Hate. Never as quickly as we wish.
Congratulations to all my fellow authors! What a joy to celebrate with you yesterday at our “Commencement,” the beginning of our next book!
Only 11 more days of the Trump reign, or less if he is removed under the 25th Amendment (which might prevent him from running for office again) or impeached for a second time.
The win of two Senate seats in Georgia.
Many former Trump supporters speaking out against his treason and promotion of insurrection.
So much has happened in the last couple of days here in DC that will affect my book, AWAKE to Racism: Listening, Connecting, Acting. I need to update the Introduction and add more to the Conclusion since the “Last Stand of White Supremacy” at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
Michelle Norris expressed some of my reflections so well in an editorial in The Washington Post today: “The common refrain is a fear of an America where white privilege is challenged and whiteness as the gold standard of beauty or power or value or provenance is no longer the automatic default… if that mob had been Black, participants would have been called savages, thugs, hoodlums, and eventually inmates. There would have been no fist-pumping parade out the door. Looting would not have gone unpunished. The day would have concluded with handcuffs and mass detention. We would likely have seen tanks in the streets. We would almost certainly have seen more bloodshed.”
Other articles detailed the long advance public notice that this ‘rally’ was planned, advertised as violent, that participants were encouraged to bring weapons. That it was stimulated and urged by a sitting president is appalling but not surprising. At least four people died. The Pentagon, with the power to call up or detain the DC National Guard, refused to do so when begged by Congresspeople and the Mayor of DC.
This event was a display of white supremacy in the very bones of our most basic institutions. Not a ‘fringe group’ of ‘good ole boys.’ A structure that must be dismantled, so true equality, justice and hope can flourish. Now.
Still “breathing in/breathing out” in Washington, DC, six miles from the Capitol.
The Power of Love2 
