write and share a "This I Believe" essay

(kind of) and shared it(kind of).

Does need more work however it will do for a start and it will continue to be developed in my journal.

I believe i need to focus! ;)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90368555

Very informative!

After kicking around a rough draft for months, I finally submitted my essay tonight. Supposedly they all end up on the website. Mine is called “Commuting with Possums” if you are interested in finding it when it’s posted in the next month or two.

one year later…

I’ve been thinking of how to put this into words for a while now. Here is my rough draft, any feedback would be appreciated!

I believe that whoever said “Live and let live,” had it right. I believe in allowing others to live their life in the manner they see fit. I believe that nothing in the world means more than acceptance and compassion towards all other life on earth.

As an “alternative” kind of girl with an “alternative” kind of lifestyle, I have heard plenty of peoples’ opinions about my life and appearance. I have patiently tolerated innumerable lectures from those who wished to impose their will and morals upon my life, knowing that I am not the kind of person they think I am.

Growing up as the “baby” in a well off family made it easy for me to maintain the self-centered impression that the judgment I experienced because of my crazy hair and clothes was the worst kind of judgment there was in the world. Until my senior year in high school – the day my friend walked into class with two black eyes and a split lip. Derek was my best friend, and a gay boy who had come out of the closet about three months before. Since the day he came out, he had been teased and ridiculed, but as we saw it, it was no worse than what we had already experienced over our punk rocker looks. That day opened my eyes to the things that we humans are willing to do to those whose ideals do not match with ours.

When I think of the torment, the hate crimes, the wars and the genocide that exist in the world today, it is not hard for me to see what lies at the root of it all. I see the injustice imposed by the majority on those in the minority. I see the injury inflicted on the weak by the powerful. It is painful to think that to some, the idea of a difference in beliefs, a difference in opinion, is so intolerable that it is worth taking another human life.

More and more often, I find myself wondering how many lives could be saved – how many brothers, daughters, mothers and husbands might still be alive, if we could all just learn to live and let live?

I hope to have one of this by next week end..

In the mean time.. I believe that I will get this together wtih God’s help

but I believe that the lord will help me do what is right for my kids.. working on this one

and it actually has to do with our (former) dry cleaner!

I have really backburnered this goal, but I suddenly realized that I usually write in response to something I’ve read, so I bought a collection of James Thurber’s writing, and a collection of E.B. White. White’s been one of my heroes forever, but his essay “Here is New York” knocks me flat in an entirely new way. What he had to say about NYC in 1948 is true, true, true nearly 60 years later. What a mind he had.

as I’m trying to focus on my most important goals & priorities