For very woman who has wanted to be strong/er

On By MaryIn poetry, strong womenLeave a comment

Who among us has not spend a moment or two feeling tired, over wrought, overwhelmed, inadequate to the demands of the situation, feeling just not enough, feeling weak? Well, for those of us who have, I offer up this most wonderful of poems by Marge Piercy.  May it touch your heart with a gentle hand, even as it binds up your wounds and strengthens your soul!

For strong women by Marge Piercy

 

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.

A strong woman is a woman standing

on tip toe and lifting a barbell

while trying to sing Boris Godunov.

A strong woman is a woman at work

cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,

and while she shovels, she talks about

how she doesn’t mind crying, it opens

the ducts of her eyes, and throwing up

develops the stomach muscles, and

she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.

 

A strong woman is a woman in whose head

a voice is repeating, I told you so,

ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,

ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,

why aren’t you feminine, why aren’t

you soft, why aren’t you quiet, why

aren’t you dead?

 

A strong woman is a woman determined

to do something others are determined

not to be done. She is pushing up on the bottom

of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise

a manhole cover with her head, she is trying

to butt her way though a steel wall.

Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole

to be made say, hurry, you’re so strong.

 

A strong woman is a woman bleeding

inside. A strong woman is a woman making

herself strong every morning while her teeth

loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,

a tooth, midwives used to say, and now

every battle a scar. A strong woman

is a mass of scar tissue that aches

when it rains and wounds that bleed

when you bump them and memories that get up

in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

 

A strong woman is a woman who craves love

like oxygen or she turns blue choking.

A strong woman is a woman who loves

strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly

terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong

in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;

she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf

sucking her young. Strength is not in her, but she

enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

 

What comforts her is other’s loving

her equally for the strength and for the weakness

from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.

Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.

Only water of connection remains,

flowing through us. Strong is what we make together,

a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

On Learning from His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew about ecology

On By MaryIn environmental rightsLeave a comment

The other day I was at a Greek Festival, and yes we were there for the food. But after I had eaten all of the baklava any one human being could possibly ingest in one day I set off to explore the various and sundry tables where concessionaires were hawking their wares.  As I prowled, I came across a woman who was ‘selling’ solar energy. As a nod to her location at the festival, she had two placards with quotes from His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Of course given the sheltered life that I live, I was unfamiliar with this particular Patriarch of the Orthodox Church and his commitment to the environment. . . .  I do have a lot to learn!  And what a joy that I do. So, here is some of what His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch has to say:

Climate Change and Social Justice

“If human beings were to treat one another’s personal property the way they treat the natural environment, we would view that behavior as anti-social and illegal. We would expect legal sanctions and even compensation. When will we learn that to commit a crime against the natural world is also a sin?”

“The way we respond to the natural environment is directly reflects the way we treat human beings. The willingness to exploit the environment is revealed in the willingness to permit avoidable human suffering. So the survival of the natural environment is also the survival of ourselves. When we will understand that a crime against nature is a crime against ourselves and sin against God?”

Poverty, Protection and Preservation

“Poverty is not caused by the lack of material resources. It is the immediate result of our exploitation and waste. There is a close link between the economy of the poor and the warming of our planet. Conservation and compassion are intimately connected. The web of life is a sacred gift of God — ever so precious, yet ever so delicate. Each of us dwells within the wider ecosystem; each of us is a part of a larger, global environment. We must serve our neighbor and preserve our world with both humility and generosity, in a perspective of frugality and solidarity.”

“All of us have to work, each from his or her own place in the world; indeed, we must work together, irrespective of religious conviction, racial origin, and professional discipline. Our efforts will remain meaningless and fruitless if they remain fragmented and isolated. For, the protection of the world’s natural beauty is one consideration, one concern, one song, to the glory of God and all creation.”

“Climate change is much more than an issue of environmental preservation. Insofar as human-induced, it is a profoundly moral and spiritual problem. To persist in our current path of ecological destruction is not only folly. It is suicidal because it jeopardizes the diversity of our planet. Moreover, climate change constitutes a matter of social and economic justice. For, those who will most directly and severely be affected by climate change will be the poorer and more vulnerable nations (what Christian Scriptures refer to as our “neighbor”) as well as the younger and future generations (the world of our children, and of our children’s children).”

Healing and Repentance

“It is a qualitative element of our faith that we believe in and accept a Creator, who fashioned the world out of love, making and calling it “very good.” Tending to and caring for this creation is not a political whim or a social fashion. It is a divine commandment; it is a religious obligation. It is no less than the will of God that we leave as light a footprint on our environment.”

“It is never too late. God’s world has incredible healing powers; and human choices can change the tide in global warming. Within a single generation, we could steer earth toward our children’s future. With God’s blessing and help, that generation can begin now. For the first time in the history of our world, we recognize that our decisions and choices directly impact the environment. It is up to us to shape our future; it is up to us to choose our destiny. Breaking the vicious circle of ecological degradation is a choice with which we are uniquely endowed, at this crucial moment in the history of our planet.”

“Ecology cannot inspire respect for nature if it does not express a different worldview from the one that prevails in our culture today, from the one that led us to this ecological impasse in the first place. What is required is an act of repentance, a change in our established ways, a renewed image of ourselves, one another and the world around us within the perspective of the divine design for creation. To achieve this transformation, what is required is nothing less than a radical reversal of our perspectives and practices.”

Fear and Love

“It should not be fear of impending disaster with regard to global change that obliges us to change our ways with regard to the natural environment. Rather, it should be a recognition of the cosmic harmony and original beauty that exists in the world. We must learn to make our communities more sensitive and to render our behavior toward nature more respectful. We must acquire a compassionate heart – what St. Isaac of Syria, a seventh century mystic once called a heart that burns with love for the whole of creation: for humans, for birds and beasts, for all God’s creatures.”

“The fundamental criterion for an ecological ethic is not individualistic or commercial. It is deeply spiritual. For, the root of the environmental crisis lies in human greed and selfishness. What is asked of us is not greater technological skill, but deeper repentance for our wrongful and wasteful ways. What is demanded is a sense of sacrifice, which comes with cost but also brings about fulfillment. Only through such self-denial, through our willingness sometimes to forgo and to say “no” or “enough” will we rediscover our true human place in the universe.”

Sacrifice and Waste

“This sacrifice for the sake of sharing means learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is learning to share and to connect with others and with the natural world. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what God’s world needs. It is liberation from fear, greed and compulsion. It is regaining a sense of wonder, being filled with a sense of goodness, seeing all things in God, and God in all things.”

“If we are guilty of relentless waste, it is because we have lost the spirit of worship. We are no longer respectful pilgrims on this earth; we have been reduced to careless consumers or passing travelers. This spiritual vision of worship guides us to a life that sees more clearly and shares more fairly, moving away from what we want individually to what the world needs globally. Then, we begin to value everything for its place in creation and not simply its economic value to us, thereby restoring the original beauty of the world, seeing all things in God and God in all things.”

“We have been commanded to taste of the world’s fruits, not to waste them; we have been commissioned to care for the world, not to waste it. When Christ fed the multitudes with a few loaves and fish on a hill in Palestine, he instructed his disciples to “gather up all of the remaining fragments, so that nothing may be lost.” (John 6.12) This instruction should serve as a model in a time of wasteful consumption, where even the refuse of affluent societies can nourish entire populations.”

From https://www.patriarchate.org/bartholomew-quotes

On mirror gazing

On By MaryIn compassion, growth into humanityLeave a comment

So I was reading this book “The Hidden Lamp” which is a compilation of stories about Buddhist Awakened women.  Lots of very cool stories that make me want to stop, scratch my chin and think for a bit. And when I do, I often find myself looking at the world just a little bit differently.

The story du jour is about a convent where the abbess would meditate in front of a great mirror in order to see into her own nature.  Over time each generation of nuns would meditate in front of the mirror concentrating on the question “Where is a single feeling, a single thought, in the mirror image at which I gaze?” The good sisters were searching for the purpose of their lives, looking to discover who they were as human beings.

Well reading that story got me to remembering a moment in my life when I was maybe in junior high school, maybe 7th or 8th grade, so just about 12 or 13 years old, just starting to realize that there was something to this becoming a young woman stuff.  I was in a small department store with my mother, wandering around waiting for her to be finished with whatever it was she was doing, and I walked past the jewelry counter. Of course there was a mirror on the counter that caught my eye – that is exactly what mirrors in department stores are supposed to do. I remember looking into it and noticing the zits on my chin – remember I was just barely 13 and not really conscious of much at that point in my life. So, just as I’m starting to notice these fatal flaws on my face, the sales person puts her hand over the mirror, moves it away and says to my mother, something like “these girls are so full of themselves all they want to do is look at their pretty faces.”  Funny, I never really resonated to the pretty faces part. Truth be told, I don’t think of my self as particularly pretty. I’ve always thought of my self as someone people liked because I have “a nice personality” but, anyway, what I resonated to was the critique of looking in the mirror.  So the story about this meditation resonated with me.

The commentary on the meditation included notes from a contemporary Buddhist practitioner who took up the meditation for a week. She brilliantly describes the her distractions from the first several days.  By the seventh day she was able to look into the mirror and see a courageous woman who was at least willing to look at herself.

And that really resonated for me. It took me from being critiqued for being curious about what I look like to an affirmation that it is not only OK, but a good think to take a good long look at who you are – and to find some peace and comfort in it.

So, maybe we should all try this?  Have a look at yourself in the mirror – 5 minutes a day for a week. What do you see? What are your reactions?  Do remember to look with the eyes of compassion!

In celebration of Flamingos

On By MaryIn happinessLeave a comment

Ah, flamingos! Those bright pink birds that signal summer time – summer time anytime of the year.  There is just something about them that touches my heart and makes me smile.  I LOVE pink flamingos – you know the glow in the dark plastic ones that the word kitsch was invented to describe. Yes, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them!  There is just something about them that makes me want to stand up just a little taller, put my hand on my hip, grin an half grin, and say, “lead me no into temptation? Hell no! Don’t bother, I am the short cut!”  Somehow I look at a pink flamingo and I find myself channeling Mae West and Yogi Berra all rolled into one.

So, you know I was so very sad earlier this summer when I learned that Don Featherstone had died. At the ripe old age of 21 when Mr. Featherstone was working for Union Products in Massachusetts, he invented the pink flamingo lawn ornament for his company. Imagine! At 21! What insight! What genius! What joy he brought to the world! . . . well, to me anyway.

So, here’s to you Mr. Featherstone! May you rest in joy, cradled in appreciation for the color and delight you brought to our world!

And here’s to the flamingo! A gregarious wading bird, child of the crane family, symbol of individuality and balance (go watch one calmly standing in the water on one foot), always outgoing and maybe just a little flirtatious, ever true to self while loyal to the flock – flamingos like swans mate for life.  I have read that the spirit of the flamingo is a healer of the heart and of emotional imbalances – and who can’t use a little bit of healing and emotional balance in their lives?

In the spirit of perpetual summer, let us all raise a glass with a little umbrella in it to Don Featherstone and the pink flamingo!!

 

Song of Creation

On By MaryIn happiness, music of life3 Comments

The other day I was driving along on a side road and I saw a sign advertising a Jefferson Starship concert. I pulled off to the side of the road and stared at the sign. Then I got my cell phone out and checked, and yes it was still 2015, but some iteration of Jefferson Starship was indeed still performing.

Now, to appreciate the significance of this for me, you have to realize that Jefferson Airplane, the group from which Jefferson Starship evolved, was my most all-time favorite group in the universe. I really wanted to be Grace Slick (their lead singer) when I grew up. Then I realized that in order to be Grace Slick I would need to have self-confidence and be able to sing with full throated exuberance.  Two strikes, so I set that dream aside.

But still, Jefferson Starship still performing in 2015! And then, of course, some of their tunes started to play in my head.  “You are the sound of creation.”  And then I thought, no, it is “you are the soul of creation.” And then I thought “you are the song of creation.” And then I thought, “Oh, just go google it.” So I found the lyrics.  Not sound nor soul nor song, but crown. “You are the crown of creation.” Recorded by Jefferson Airplane 47 years ago in 1968. Sung by yours truly on way too many car trips, with the windows rolled up nice a tight – because if the car windows are rolled up, no one can see you or hear you, right?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane ….

 

“Crown of Creation” Jefferson Airplane 1968

 

You are the crown of creation.

You are the crown of creation,

And you’ve got no place to go.

 

Soon you’ll attain the stability you strive for,

In the only way that it’s granted:

In a place among the fossils of our time.

 

In loyalty to their kind

They cannot tolerate our minds.

In loyalty to our kind

We cannot tolerate their obstruction!

 

Life is change.

How it differs from the rocks.

I’ve seen their ways too often for my liking.

New worlds to gain.

My life is to survive and be alive

for you.

 

You know that being who I am now, I have to ponder the lyrics for a bit – just a little bit. But, think about it. To be the crown of creation – the crown, the summit, the culmination, that is something, yes? And, life is change. Would that we could remember that! Change really is the only constant. We are the crown of creation, an ongoing every changing creation. Nice, yes? But hang on for the ride, because changes are rarely smooth or easy. But, oh my they can be fun and exciting! So, in the spirit of Manny Gordon: Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy!!!

Katharine Lee Bates

On By MaryIn strong womenLeave a comment

My interest in finding women heroes continues unabated.  Recently I was reminded about Katharine Lee Bates and thought I would share a bit of her life with you. She was born on August 12, 1859 on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Bates died in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on September 28, 1929, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery at Falmouth.  She lived just 69 years, but what a 69 years they were.

Katharine Lee Bates is best known for the song, “America the Beautiful,” but she was also an accomplished author and educator. She also popularized “Mrs. Santa Claus” through her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride (1889).

She graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in 1880. In 1888 she returned to Wellesley as a member of the faculty, first as an English instructor, later to become the head of the English Department.

In 1893 Bates spent part of the summer in Colorado where she lectured at Colorado College. During her visit, she went on a hike to Pikes Peak. Later she remembered:

“One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.” That view inspired her to write “America the Beautiful” her most famous poem. She quickly wrote the first draft in a notebook she had with her on the trip.  “It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind,” she later said, according to the Library of Congress web page on “America the Beautiful.”

Bates’ teaching career was the central interest of her adult life. She believed that through literature, human values could be revealed and developed. She wrote for popular magazines to supplement her income and was quite prolific. She was also involved in social reform activities, working for labor reform and planning the College Settlements Association with Vida Scudder. Over the years, she became an accomplished academic and a respected scholar of English literature. She retired from Wellesley in 1925.

Bates never married. But for 25 years she lived with Katharine Coman, who was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College School Economics department. Bates and Coman until Coman’s death in 1915.

In 1910, when a colleague described “free-flying spinsters” as “fringe on the garment of life”, Bates answered: “I always thought the fringe had the best of it. I don’t think I mind not being woven in.”

Of course some of us describe the couple as lesbians citing as an example Bates’ 1891 letter to Coman: “It was never very possible to leave Wellesley [for good], because so many love-anchors held me there, and it seemed least of all possible when I had just found the long-desired way to your dearest heart…Of course I want to come to you, very much as I want to come to Heaven.” Others people will contest the use of the term lesbian to describe what they see as a “Boston marriage”.  Those who contest the use of the word lesbian say that we cannot know the sexual activities of a couple. Maybe so. But to be a lesbian is not only about sex. We do know that Bates and Coman live together for 25 years. After Coman died, Bates said, “So much of me died with Katharine Coman that I’m sometimes not quite sure whether I’m alive or not.” We know that they were intellectually deeply engaged with each other, that their letters and Bates poems expressed love between them.  For me that is enough. As I have often said to my life partner, I always assume the best of everyone I meet. I always assume everyone I meet is lesbian or gay. And I can count on heterosexual to declare their heterosexuality within the first 5 minutes of conversation. Given these threads of evidence about the relationship between Bates and Coman, I will continue to assume the best about them and will believe that they were women who loved women and were lesbians who lived together for 25 years.

In 1922, seven years after Coman’s death Bates published Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance, a collection of poems written “to or about my Friend” Katharine Coman, some of which had been published in Coman’s lifetime.

So, the next time you find yourself singing “oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain  . . .” do remember that it was written by Katharine Lee Bates of Cape Cod, a professor of English, and the life partner of Katharine Coman.

 

If you find yourself on Cape Cod, be sure to stop by the town of Falmouth were the Bates family home on Main Street is preserved by the Falmouth Historical Society.

 

Hannah Arendt and Banality

On By MaryIn Choices we make, Shoah, strong womenLeave a comment

There is something about the word banal. I just find myself liking the way it feels in my head, on my tongue. Banal – for an ordinary, common, cliché, overworked, overused, kind of word, there is just something about banal that feels fresh, original and interesting to me. But that probably has to do with my earliest substantive encounter with banal. I was introduced to the word through Hannah Arendt, and her use of the phrase “the banality of evil.”

Hannah was a Jewish German born political theorist. She escaped Europe during the Holocaust and became an American citizen. Her theoretical work dealt with the nature of power, democracy, authority and totalitarianism.

In 1961 she was working for the New Yorker, and was sent to observe the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Her observations and reporting evolved into the book: “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the Banality of Evil.”  That was where she coined the phrase “the banality of evil.” In the book she wondered if evil is always intentional, or if perhaps some people thoughtlessly obey orders or follow group opinions without critical evaluation of the consequences of their actions and inactions, none the less, leading to the perpetration of evil in the world.

Here are two of the many quotes from Hannah that resonate for me

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

So, for all of this? Let us always remember to be awake, to be aware, to think about the long and short term implications of our everyday actions. What we do, what we choose to do, it all makes a difference. Life lived fully, life lived well is anything but banal.

 

 

Corrie ten Boom and forgiveness

On By MaryIn forgiveness, Shoah, strong women2 Comments

Sometimes being ordinary is enough. Sometimes being ordinary is extraordinary.

On April 15 1892, Cornelia ten Boom was born to an ordinary family in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Ten Boom family was devoutly Christian and they were serious about putting the principles of their faith into practice. Family, friends and neighbors were always welcomed into their home and at their table. After May 1940 when the Nazi’s invaded the Netherlands and began arresting Jewish people, the Ten Boom family remained an ordinary family who welcomed family, friends and neighbors into their home and at their table. They did not discriminate based on religion. If someone came to their door, the Ten Boom family welcomed that person into their home.

So one day in 1942 a Jewish woman appeared at their door, suitcase in hand. Her husband had been arrested. Her son had gone into hiding. The police had already questioned her, and she was afraid to return home. She had heard that the ten Booms had helped other Jewish people, and so she came asking for their help. Corrie’s father Casper welcomed the woman into their home and promised to help her.

Corrie managed to acquire extra ration cards, and they became very active in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish families and helping them to escape to freedom.  In February 1944 a Dutch informant told the Nazi’s about the Ten Boom family’s work. Later that day the entire Ten Boom family was arrested and sent to prison. Casper, Corrie’s father died ten days later. Corrie’s brothers were released, but Corrie and her sister were to Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany. Betsie died there on December 16, 1944.  Corrie was released on December 28, 1944 through a clerical error.  Shortly after her release, all of the women in the camp were executed.

All of the Jewish people that the Ten Booms had been hiding at the time of their arrest remained undiscovered, and all but one, an older woman, survived the war.

After the war Israel honored Corrie ten Boom by naming her “Righteous Among the Nations”. She was also knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands in recognition of her work during the war. Sometimes being ordinary is indeed extraordinary

But this story that Corrie tells about her experiences after the war is what I find most extraordinary. She says that she was traveling in Germany in 1947, giving lectures on the importance of forgiveness. After one of her lectures she was approached by a man who she recognized as one of the cruelest of the guards from the Ravensbruck prison camp. She understandably felt a myriad of emotions – forgiveness not among them. Having lived all of her life as a devout Christian, Corrie did what she had done all of her life. She prayed. She took the hands of the former prison guard, and she prayed from the depth of her heart. And she found the grace to forgive him. That I find most extraordinary.

She also wrote that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi inhumanities, those who were able to forgive were best able to rebuild their lives.

In 1977, 85-year-old Corrie moved to Placentia, California. In 1978, she suffered two strokes, the first rendering her unable to speak, and the second resulting in paralysis. She died on her 91st birthday, 15 April 1983, after a third stroke. Corrie ten Boom was an ordinary woman who did extraordinary things. I think we can all learn a lesson or two from her – forgiveness among them.

Corrie ten Boom wrote a number of books, perhaps her most well-known book is The Hiding Place, which describes the work of her family during the war years. You should give it a read.

Emily Greene Balch a Woman for Peace

On By MaryIn Nobel Women, Peace, strong womenLeave a comment

Time and place do matter. Where and when you were born, who you know and associate can make all the difference in how your life plays out, and in how your actions and work are regarded and remembered. Sometimes even monumental greatness is overshadowed by another person’s fame.

For example, Jane Addams comes as close to achieving household recognition as is probable for any social worker. And rightly so. She is a grand mother of the settlement house movement in the United States. Her Chicago based Hull House was the home to dozens of nationally recognized reform minded women. She helped to found the Women’s International League for Peace and freedom, and she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

And then there is Emily Greene Balch. “Who?” you ask.  To which I reply, “my point exactly!” Emily Greene Balch, born on January 8, 1867 in Boston, MA; died January 9, 1961, 94 years old. And what a 94 years they were.

Emily Greene Balch won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 when she was 79 years old. It is interesting to me that even discussions of her as one of very few women Nobel Laureates often begin by noting that she was a colleague of Jane Addams.  But, Emily Greene Balch stands as her own woman who warrants recognition for her contributions and accomplishments.

Emily Greene Balch graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1890, a member of the college’s first graduating class. She was awarded Bryn Mawr’s first Fellowship and used that to study Paris’s economy which led to the publication of her first book, Assistance of the Poor in France. She was 26 when the book was published.  She then returned to the United States, took a job as a social worker with the Boston Children’s Aid Society, and founded the Dennison House Settlement. After further studying economics, in 1897 she became a professor at Wellesley Women’s College where she taught for 21 years until 1918.  Of course while she was teaching she remained internationally active, working to improve economic and social living conditions, and actively advocating for peace throughout the world.

So, she ‘left’ Wellesley in 1918. Why would she leave an academic position when she was only 51? Clearly that was too young to retire. Depending on how you read the story, the long and short of it is that she was ‘let go’ by the college for her outspoken peace work.  Emily had taken a leave from Wellesley to study the living condition of Slavic people.  As the conflict of World War I spread throughout Europe in 1914, she became more vocal and active in her work for peace, working with Jane Addams and Alice Hamilton.  Emily asked Wellesley to extend her leave so that she could continue her work for peace, and Wellesley not only declined to extend her leave but choose to terminate her contract instead.

Undaunted – well, daunted but undeterred, she took an editorial job with the Nation and continued to write books analyzing economic and social conditions and advocating for peace.  She was active with the International Congress of Women and helped to cofound the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She remained active within the women’s peace movement throughout her life.

Her Nobel Prize acceptance speech is titled: Toward Human Unity or Beyond Nationalism. If you are of a mind, you can read it at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1946/balch-lecture.html.

It is worth the read.  Here are the last few paragraphs:

I have spoken against fear as a basis for peace. What we ought to fear, especially we Americans, is not that someone may drop atomic bombs on us but that we may allow a world situation to develop in which ordinarily reasonable and humane men, acting as our representatives, may use such weapons in our name. We ought to be resolved beforehand that no provocation, no temptation shall induce us to resort to the last dreadful alternative of war.

May no young man ever again be faced with the choice between violating his conscience by cooperating in competitive mass slaughter or separating himself from those who, endeavoring to serve liberty, democracy, humanity, can find no better way than to conscript young men to kill.

As the world community develops in peace, it will open up great untapped reservoirs in human nature. Like a spring released from pressure would be the response of a generation of young men and women growing up in an atmosphere of friendliness and security, in a world demanding their service, offering them comradeship, calling to all adventurous and forward reaching natures.

We are not asked to subscribe to any utopia or to believe in a perfect world just around the comer. We are asked to be patient with necessarily slow and groping advance on the road forward, and to be ready for each step ahead as it becomes practicable. We are asked to equip ourselves with courage, hope, readiness for hard work, and to cherish large and generous ideals.

 

Shortly before she died, Nobel Peace Laureate Emily Greene Balch wrote a poem she addressed to the “Dear People of China.” The last stanza read as follows:

Let us be patient with one another,

And even patient with ourselves.

We have a long, long way to go.

So let us hasten along the road,

The road of human tenderness and generosity.

Groping, we may find one another’s hands in the dark.

 

Let us all hasten along the road of human tenderness and generosity, groping to find one another’s hands in the dark!  Not a bad way to spend a life, I think!

On Aging and Heaven

On By MaryIn Choices we make, laughter2 Comments

Yesterday MaryLou and I went to a ‘free lunch’ to hear about a program that provides in home services to senior citizens who cannot perform one of basic the activities of daily living (things like bathing, dressing, hygiene, transferring, walking, eating, shopping, cooking, managing medications, or managing finances). Well, it is true, there is no free lunch. It was a sales pitch for a kind of insurance program: you pay them lots of money and they provide a case manager who will see to it that you get the services you need in your home. Or so they promise. As the guy talked, I kept hearing this voice in my head saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

So we left the lunch feeling mopey, and wondering about how we will cope with those days when they come – the days when we can’t manage on our own, those days. Both of us are realistic and pragmatic enough to know that those days will inevitably come. We both have seen each of our four parents weather those days. And we were there for them. But … oops, we forgot to have kids! So, we know we have to figure something out, we need to have a plan, a backup plan, and a couple of contingency plans. At some point we will likely move into a condominium or town house, maybe down the road (way down the road) into an independent living senior community. But that is about as far as we have gotten in our planning. That and to say we – we as a society – we need better options and alternatives for the graying population who are moving ever more steadily into our golden years.

As I pondered the pragmatics, I eventually (OK, fairly quickly) found them too much, and so I retreated to philosophy and stories. And it occurred to me that the long and the short of it is that all that really matters is love and the love that we give and receive. The rest can be dealt with somehow, someway. And then I found myself thinking about how along with the vicissitudes of aging, so many of us fear death that great unknown. And THEN I remembered this story:

There was a 90 year old couple who died in a car crash after having been married nearly 70 years. They had been in relatively good health even the last 15 years mostly due to the wife’s insistence on healthy food, including liberal doses of bran and daily exercise. When they reached the pearly gates, St. Peter took them to the mansion which was to be their heavenly home. It had a beautiful state of the art kitchen, living room with a gianormous wide screen TV, luxurious bedroom, bathroom and spa. They oohed and aahed about their accommodations, and then the man asked St. Peter how much it was going to cost, and St. Peter, said, “this is heaven. It’s all free.”

Out behind the house was a lovely swimming pool and expansive gardens. The man asked St. Peter about the maintenance costs. And St. Peter said, “this is heaven, it is all taken care of for free.”

Then they went back into the house and the man looked in the refrigerator. It was stocked with all of his favorite foods, wines and deserts. The man reluctantly asked St. Peter where the low fat and low cholesterol foods were.

St. Peter laughed and said, “you are in heaven. That is the best part. You can eat as much as you like of whatever you like and you never put on weight and you never get sick. This is heaven.”

Hearing that the old man went into a fit of anger. He threw his hat on the floor and stomped on it shrieking. St. Peter tried to calm him down, and finally asked him what was wrong. The old man looked at his wife and said, “This is all your fault! If it were for your darned bran muffins and low fat yogurt, I could have been here 15 years ago!”

 

And so the story goes. Kind of makes the next life look pretty good. But who knows? There really is no way of knowing what comes next. And yet, we do all have our beliefs and hopes.  Here’s hoping that the best of all our hopes and beliefs do come true. And here’s hoping that when we all get to ‘those days’ the days were life here is a bit more demanding than our abilities, here’s hoping that we are able to find and manage the resources to life with dignity and grace.

Anyone have any plans you are willing to share?