"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."-John Lennon
::::::::
"Life is what
happens while you're busy making other plans."-John Lennon
I make my plans anyway but always stay flexible for change.
Next week at this time, I plan to
be in
Tennessee among the participants celebrating 30 years of NONVIOLENT
civil
disobedient actions in pursuit of a Nuclear Free Future http://www.nukewatch.com/
I had planned on getting arrested
on
July 4, 2010 for a NONVIOLENT civil disobedience action at The Y-12
Nuclear
Weapons Complex, to declare independence from nuclear weapons and
nuclear
power.
I desired to take that step for I
want
to follow more deeply in the footsteps of my heroes who all have been
arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience such as Jesus, Nobel
Laurette's
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mairead Maguire, Nobel nominee
Mordechai
Vanunu and most especially Dorothy Day-
who happens to be the 'patron saint' of WeAreWideAwake.org.
But I changed my mind as it was
stressing
out my husband who also raised two important points:
A federal offense would inhibit
my Traveling Jones
for doing jail time
would prevent me from going to Iran with FOR: Fellowship Of
Reconciliation this Fall:
http://www.forusa.org/
And it would also be the end of
my
dream to run for House of Representatives!
And daily, I wonder just WDDMS:
What
Dorothy Day Might Say today:
Dorothy
Day
Documentary: Don't Call Me a Saint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKiLCDaCAOU
When
I gave food to
the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor had no food,
they
called me a communist.-Dom Helder Comara
Writing is
hard because you are giving yourself away, but if you love; you want to
give yourself. You write as you are impelled to write, about man and
his problems, his relation to God and his fellows"The sustained effort
of writing, of putting [words down while] there are human beings [with]
sickness, hunger, sorrow"I feel that I have done nothing well, but I
did something.-Dorothy Day
Dorothy
Day lived a diverse 83 years that culminated in 1980. She spent her
youth amongst anarchists and bohemians, in bars and through unhappy
love affairs. She ended life with a mile high FBI file and a paper
trail that testifies that what she wrote, she believed, she did and
lived.
As
an unwed mother she shocked her progressive friends when she entered
the Roman Catholic Church, and from the inside, she began to critique
it. She called herself a journalist, but she was also like St. Francis
of Assisi, a lone prophetic voice of wisdom that challenged the
corruption of the gospel/good news that Jesus said was non-negotiable
for his follower's; you must forgive to be forgiven and you must
love-even those who do not love back.
In a 1994 issue of The
Progressive,
Erwin Knoll reported
"the day after the Japanese attack on the U.S.
naval base at Pearl Harbor [was] a day when even the most committed
pacifist might have been forgiven for maintaining a discreet
silence"There was nothing discreet about Dorothy Day."[1]
On
the Sunday after Pearl Harbor, Day spoke out, "There is now all this
patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and
Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and
European colonialism in this same area. We, the British, the French,
and others set up spheres of influence"control national states-against
the expressed will of these states-and represent imperialism"We dictate
to [all] "to where they can expand economically and politically, and we
declare what policy they must observe. From our nationalistic and
imperialistic point of view, we have every right to concentrate
American military forces [Everywhere we chose]"But I waste rhetoric on
international politics-the breeding grounds of war over the centuries.
The balance of power and other empty slogans inspired by a false and
flamboyant nationalism have bred conflict throughout 'civilized'
history.
"And
it has become too late in human history to tolerate wars which none can
win. Nor dare we quibble about just wars"All wars are, by their very
nature, evil and destructive. It has become too late for civilized
people to accept this evil. We must take a stand. We must renounce war
as an instrument of policy"Evil enough when the finest of our youth
perish in conflict and even the causes of these conflicts were soon
lost to memory. Even more horrible today when cities go up in flames
and brilliant scientific minds are searching out ultimate weapons.
"War
must cease. There are no victories. The world can bear the burden no
longer. Yes, we must make a stand. Even as I speak to you, I may be
guilty of what some men call treason. But we must reject war: Yes, we
must now make a stand. War is murder, rape, ruin, death; war can end
our civilization. I tell you
that
within a decade we will have weapons capable of ending this world as we
have known it." [IBID]
Day's
prophetic voice is also a friend of wisdom and "Wisdom is a spirit
intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained,
and certain. Not baneful, but loving the good, keen, unhampered,
beneficent, kind, firm, secure, all-seeing and pervading all spirits.
Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion and SHE penetrates and pervades all
things by reason. SHE is the aura of the might of God and a pure
effusion of the glory of The Almighty. SHE is the refulgence of eternal
Light, a spotless mirror of the power of God. And SHE who is one, can
do all things and renews everything. And passing into holy souls from
age to age, SHE produces friends of God and prophets." - WISDOM
7:22-8:1
Day
took
Jesus seriously and understood that for a Christian the higher law
is God's not man's and for a Christian, God is love and "love is not
the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of
cities. Love is not killing...Our Manifesto is the Sermon on The Mount,
which means we will try to be peacemakers."
Day challenged church,
state and corporate media via her publication The
Catholic Worker, which gave voice to the voiceless and persists today. Everyday
when I sit in front of my keyboard to write; to give myself away
impelled by love in response to a sense of mission or is it duty? This
need to write about man and his problems, his relation to God and his
sisters and brothers, provokes me to daily wonder:
WWDDS?
What
would Dorothy Day Say about America today, our media, government and
churches?
What would she publish about Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Israel, Gaza-Palestine, and the
fact that 2008 was the 60th Anniversary of Israel, Nakba, and the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights upon which Israel's very statehood
was
contingent upon upholding?
Might she have said:
For
every misunderstanding, every condemning thought, every negative
vibration, every tear torn from a heart, every time one grabbed and
wouldn't let go, and they only did it because they did not know:
The Divine is within all creation and within all women and men.
And
every tiny kindness you have ever done, every gentle word spoken, every
time you held your tongue, every positive thought, every smile freely
given, every helping hand that opens, helps bring in the kingdom. And
the kingdom comes from above, and it comes from within.
Imagine a
kingdom of sisterhood of all creatures and all men.
VERY RELATED:
It's
a God Thing about Trees, Doors, George, Day and Vanunu
1.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n4_v58/ai_14951440/pg_1
Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin
the world again."-Tom Paine
Authors Bio:Eileen Fleming,is a Citizen of CONSCIENCE for US House of Representatives 2012
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
Staff Member of Salem-news.com, A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" and "BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010"
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming