Speech for the Women’s March 2020

I long for Peace with all my heart.  Peace is a word bandied about on Christmas Day when everyone pays lip service to it saying, “Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men.”  But what about the other 364 days a year?  Do Americans really want Peace?

There are 2 ways to achieve Peace.  One is for a repressive dictator to brutally kill all the dissidents.  We wouldn’t like to see that here. The other is for there to be Justice.  That’s the one I want.  There can be no Peace without Justice.  I had to reach university level education to even learn what Justice means.  It isn’t just retaliation for harm against you.  There are many kinds of justice: social justice, racial justice, economic justice, environmental justice, and more. 

Yet, in today’s world, there is no Justice in the Justice System.  We see multitiered justice different for Whites, Browns and Blacks; different for males and females; different for rich and poor.  How did it get this way?

There’s no Justice in a system that cuts school funding, cuts public assistance to the poor, cuts funding for women’s health, cuts funding for contraception, then provides no other career avenue for the resulting youths other than being cannon fodder for unending wars.  How did it get this way? 

There’s no justice in a system that allows giant corporations to exploit our natural resources desecrating the Earth and polluting the water, air and soil on which all life depends.  Meanwhile, we see our children’s health become damaged, sacred burial sites unearthed, and our property values destroyed.  How did it get this way? 

Don’t believe a word if someone says, “There’s nothing we can do about it.”  BULLSHIT! 

We still live in a Democracy; a Democratic Republic.  That means the PEOPLE RULE within the limits of the Constitution.  The President is not a king and the United States of America is not for profit!  The government derives their just powers from the consent of the governed!  Our public servants exist at our pleasure to serve us, the People.  And especially the least of us, the children, the poor and the disabled.  And to justly manage our public lands for us, the People. 

Incidentally, did you hear?  Talk about gender justice!  Virginia just became the 38^th State to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Finally!  After 97 years! Women might become equal to men in the eyes of the law.  Believe it or not, it’s still not a sure thing! How about that? 

So, what can we do to achieve Justice and Peace?  A lot! We can march in the streets.  We can join groups of like-minded people and together we can storm the offices of our elected representatives.  We can demonstrate on the steps of the capitol.  We can write letters.  We can run for office.  We can pass local ordinances to protect our cities and county.  We can make sure everyone gets out to vote.  Or we can join a phone bank and call people, like we did for Virginia a few months ago, to turn the Virginia House of Delegates blue so they could ratify the ERA.  We are the People.  Let’s grab the bull by the horns and Rule!  Now is the time to take action!

A Moment of Joy

In my creative writing class with Ellen Weed, in the 4th week, we were assigned to write a piece about our most joyous experience.  It posed a problem because which of several joyous experiences should I choose, and what exactly does she mean by "joy?"  Most people feel joy when they look at their newborn baby or the day they get married.  Those didn't jump out at me as one of the most joyous experiences of my life.  Every time I speak to my centenarian mother on the phone and she tells me she loves me, I feel joy, but only a small joy.  What were the most joyous experiences I can remember?

There was that time my slave Master kicked me out and told me I was now free in the middle of India.  But too many of my stories took place in India over 4 decades ago; aren't there any more recent?  One divine afternoon of sexual union in the shower was certainly one of the memorable and more recent joyous experience, but X rated was not appropriate for this class.  So I thought about the several times that I have been touched by Grace, and decided to work up a piece on the joy of being filled with God's Grace. 

Here it is:

A Moment of Joy

As a Jew, the holiday of Yom Kippur has had great meaning for me.  It is the one day each year that Jews come face to face with our Creator to be forgiven.  Elul is not only the name of the month before Yom Kippur in which Jews practice many forms of ritual forgiveness and charity, but also the name of the process of purification.  We recall all our unskillful words and deeds of the last year and spend a month and then a week forgiving ourselves and letting them all go in preparation for the big day.  We beg forgiveness of others, and forgive them for trespassing against us.  On the day of Yom Kippur, we fast as we spend the day with our congregation turning and returning to the One. 

After a month, and then a week, and then a day of sacred fasting, we prepare ourselves to be face to face with HaShem.  As the day of purifying rituals moves along, we reach the culmination.  We bow down to YHVH in full prostration. During the first prostration, we culminate the period of purification by begging forgiveness for ourselves, and then we forgive ourselves of our sins.  On the second full prostration, we forgive our neighbors, relatives, community for the unskillful words and actions they have done toward myself and toward others.  Included in the 2^nd prostration is begging God’s forgiveness for the State of Israel and what they are doing to the Palestinians, and for fomenting war profiteering around the world.

On the third prostration, we have to forgive every murderer and despot in history.  I recall working hard to forgive Hitler, Bush, Cheney, Idi Amin, the instigators of China’s Cultural Revolution, David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, Queen Isabella, and every other genocidal maniac that we recall from history.  Hardest, of course, is forgiving the man who killed my daughter. 

Part of the process is to make oneself empty and receptive to God’s Grace.  As my face presses on the floor in full prostration, if I have been effective in the forgiveness exercises, I will be taken over with such a passion that I wail and sob while tears stream out of my eyes.  These are not tears of anguish or despair.  These tears are for the release of hate, resentment, blame and injustice.  These are the tears that flow when I am touched by the finger of the Creator and filled with her Grace. 

A few years ago, Yom Kippur fell on the same day as the Mendocino Environmental Center big street fair fundraiser.  I was able to get there in time to hear Clan Dyken, the last band of the lineup.  I arrived directly from the break fast terminating Yom Kippur.  I had culminated a month, a week, and a day of purification, and had just finished forgiving every murderer in history.  I felt spent.  I didn’t feel like dancing.  I sat on a hay bale wrapped in my meditation shawl and listened to the band sing “Imagine” by John Lennon.  I began to imagine all the people living life in peace, and then it happened. 

I was using my skills at sending lovingkindness around the world, but instead I was sending Peace all around the world.  My inner being emptied out and was filled with a rush of rainbow light.  There was a pillar of rainbow light coming down from heaven on the whole scene and exchanging energy and going back up again.  With each breath, I amped it up and focused that rainbow light and spread it enveloping the entire planet.  The sense of thrill and joy as I focused the rainbow light passing through my empty conduit up and down and all around the Earth was overwhelming.  Once again, touched by Grace, I sobbed uncontrollably with tears of utter joy. 

Germany in the 30’s

September 23, 2005

George Bush and the neo-cons remind me of my x-husband: they do "whatever the fuck they want whenever the fuck they want to.” Agreements, promises, treaties, marriage vows, etc. need not be honored. "Rules are made to be broken." And if you don't like it, we will fight. Either "he who yells loudest wins the fight." Or those with the biggest nuclear arsenal win the fight. Or those with the hardest punch win the fight.

I often think of the decent, ordinary Germans back in the 30's, trying to live a peaceful life while all around them they could see a political storm brewing. The youths were all indoctrinated early, but many adults could see what was happening. Any church pastor who didn't preach Nazi divine racism was incarcerated in a concentration camp. Anyone who aided a Jew could be killed. No wonder the whole population of the Third Reich was in unity!

And yes, Hitler made the extermination of Jews into a holy Christian act, just like the South Africans made apartheid into a Christian policy. Now, as during the Crusades, the Muslims, who do worship the biblical ONE G-D and circumcise their sons, have become the enemy of good Christians. Now good Christians believe it is their Christian duty to kill Muslims.

I see only one way out of the quagmire the USA has gotten into. At first I thought it would be an armed revolution. But the thought of peaceful, cooperative people taking up arms was to me an oxymoron. Anyway, the rebellion would be instantly crushed and many good people would lose their lives. But recently, I have understood a superior way. It is by the peaceful people within the USA making allies with peaceful people in other countries and applying pressure on the US Government from abroad, both diplomatically and in the courts. Our government has been seized in a bloodless coup and the US Constitution is about to be trashed once the illegal leader appoints an ultra right wing justice to the Supreme Court. The American Dream has ended and the fascists have taken over.

I suggest that Canada ally itself with Japan, Italy, and a few other European countries to pressure the USA to comply with both common decency and its agreements/treaties. (It didn't work with my husband. He chose to end the marriage rather than curb his arrogant, remorseless behavior.)