hope

Yesterday I watched Obama’s “More Perfect Union” speech. Not a “fired up and ready to speech” but one based on 30 years of thought.

I watched Obama’s speech on security and Guantanamo Bay last night.

This is an amazing thing that I found about myself. I told my friends that I was a pessimistic person, And I often thought of the bad results. I don’t know when and where this situation changed. But it is really good for me.

where do we go, after all?.......

& probably sometimes I’ll post under this goal. But as part of my New Year reorganization, this is going over into the “done” column.

(see previous entry under this goal) at the conference last night. It had been kind of wonderful throughout the weekend to notice how many elements in the poem were being stated in more expository form by various presenters.

“Ingredients” was the penultimate item on the program (afterward an interpretive dance closed the conference). People (about 200 were present) listened with care, & their silence endured as I finished reading & sat down, & even longer. It was the only presentation in the whole conference that wasn’t applauded! But the silence felt right.

Many people approached me afterward (including this morning at church) to let me know that they loved it, & some asked for a copy.

I actually feel ambivalent about posting this, because it was a holy moment that those of us who attended the conference got to share. Describing it feels almost like a desecration, as if I were reporting a personal triumph. Do you know what I mean? Still, I have a lot of caring friends here & I know you want to know how it went. So I will go ahead & hit “save this entry” now. :-)

Early next month I’ll be attending a conference, Cynicism & Hope, organized by some of the younger members of the church I attend. The idea emerged out of intense conversation they had on a bus returning from an antiwar protest in Washington, DC, earlier this year.

The sessions will be introduced with music, dance, & other art forms. I’ve been asked to read a poem.

I knew that I wanted to write a new poem rather than reading an older one that might fit the theme. But recently my poetry writing has been quite desiccated, mostly because I’ve been struggling with a cold virus that has left me weak & uninspired.

I’m getting better now. And I’ve been thinking, how do I write about an abstract notion like hope? Usually I start with an image rather than an idea.

Suddenly yesterday images started coming & I wrote furiously. On the train today (my normal writing time is on my morning commute) I didn’t want to stop. As it happened, I had forgotten to put a fresh book in my bag to read on the commute home; so after work I just wrote wrote wrote some more.

I finished the poem after supper. It’s two pages long & is called “Ingredients”; it begins with a list of the ingredients of Coca-Cola.

I’m so buzzed.

I thought you would like to know about this urgent campaign to free 23 South Korean aid workers, most of them young women, who have just been taken hostage by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The Taliban are threatening to execute them this week, an action that could trigger a mass evacuation of life-giving humanitarian aid from all of Afghanistan.

The situation is desperate, but there is hope. The Taliban are all from the Pashtun ethnic group and observe a strict code called Pashtunwali. This code demands, above all else, “hospitality to all, especially guests and strangers.” There are rumors of infighting among the Taliban over the kidnapping, because it clearly violates the code.

A global outcry for the Taliban to follow their own code would certainly be covered by media in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the Taliban are based –- creating massive local pressure on them to free their prisoners. But these hostages are living under a 24-hour death sentence. We have seconds, not minutes, to act. Sign the petition below and then spread the word:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/honour_the_afghan_code/tf.php

Pashtunwali has real power among ordinary people in Afghanistan. In 2003 Bettina Goislard, 29, was shot by Taliban gunmen while she was working for the UN High Commission for Refugees in the town of Ghazni, near where the Korean aid workers were kidnapped. Incensed by her murder, local people chased down the gunmen and beat them before handing them over to the police; then they gathered up her body and marched several hundred miles to Kabul to show their sorrow to the world.

The above is from avaaz.org. Pass it on!

I think hope is the one thing that keeps me going during the dark times. Without it, I couldn’t ever imagine things improving, yet they do! And I strongly believe the do because I hope.

I’m marking this done although I will continue to hope that things remain positive and healthy and happy, for me and mine. So that we can continue to add positive energies to the universal consciousness.

Hope pays off! I’m very happy and thankful to have met someone that makes me feel that way.