"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Thursday, August 26, 2021

John Roedel - Poetic Shorts




What Do We Control?
by John Roedel

Me: Hey God.

God: Hello, My love.
Me: The world is completely out of control!
God: I know. It's such an adventure, right?
Me: No! It's like being on a runaway train! I need to feel like I am in control of my life.
God: You want to be in control?
Me: Yes!
God: You are living on a spinning wet rock of a planet that resides next to a constantly exploding fireball in the middle of an ever-expanding universe that is filled with mysteries beyond your wildest imagination.
Me: Um, okay....
God: And on this planet that you are hurtling through the great expanse in - you are co-habituating with billions of other people who have free-will and their own experiences that shape their perspectives and beliefs.
Me: Yeah...?
God: And while all this is going on your soul is residing in a physical body that is such a miracle of delicate engineering that at any given moment could produce its last heartbeat.
Me: Right...
God: What is it about your existence that you think you have any control of?
Me: Um…
God: Come on - you know the answer to this. What can you control?
Me: How kind I am to people?
God: Yep and one other thing.
Me: What's that?
God: How kind you are to yourself. Aside from that - most of everything else is a bit outside of your design.
Me: That's a bit terrifying...
God: All great adventures are!

John Roedel (johnroedel.com)
August 23, 2021

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Scribbles, by John Roedel



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photo credit: John Roedel


Quitting
by John Roedel


“Why haven’t you quit yet?” My Depression asked me as I sat fully clothed in my empty bathtub.
I didn’t answer.
Instead I just stared at the janky image of myself that was being reflected back to me from the porcelain of the tub.
My Depression knelt down beside me and ran it’s thin fingers through my hair.
“Why are you resisting me?” It asked with a bit of a hiss. “I’m just here to help you feel safe.”
I shook my head ever so slightly.
Subtle gestures like this were how the two of us usually communicate with each other.
However, today my Depression was being a bit more overt. Today it was motivated to destroy me. It smelled blood in the water. My Depression could see the weakness in my eyes. It knew it has a chance. If it tried hard enough - Depression thought it could finally bury me today.
With it’s icy breath blowing in my ear Depression spoke again with a sing-songy voice:
“It’s okay, my sweets. You’ve already made it so much farther than anybody would have ever expected. You’ve endured so much suffering. It’s okay to give up. Just for today try giving up. You’ll feel so much better. The pain will go away. The lava in your veins will cool. The knife in your stomach will stop being twisted. The rat chewing through your heart will fall asleep. If you just give surrender you will stop feeling these holes being put in you. If you just lay with me for a bit you’ll go numb. Imagine how wonderful that will be? To just be cauterized to it all? Don’t you want to be done with this world? Dont you want to become an empty page? Don’t you want to be safe from people who do nothing but hurt you. I can give you all of that. Stop resisting me and everything will be okay.”
I shook my head again - this time a bit more forcefully. I curled up my legs tighter up against my body. I felt like a turtle hiding inside if it’s shell.
My Depression’s long pencil-like fingers stopped moving through my hair. It pressed it’s face up against mine. I could feel the worms move under it’s clammy cheek.
“Don’t you want to know the peace that comes from giving up?” My Depression asked me.
I broke my silence.
“Numbness and peace aren’t the same thing,” I replied.
With that my Depression’s tone with me quickly changed. I could feel it grip my hair and try to pull it out from my roots.
“Listen to me you little failure.,” it wheezed. “You are nothing. You are broken. You are sick. You are only a disappointment to people. There is nothing you can do to get away from me. I will own you someday. You can’t stop me. This is a battle you that you will never win. You will never be rid of me. You are stuck with me!”
As a fat daddy tear grooved it’s way down the bridge of my nose and I said with a trembling voice:
“I’m stuck with you?”
Depression lips formed a frown that nearly touched the bathroom floor.
“Yes...” it said.
“If that’s the case then maybe we should go get some tacos...I’m starving.”
My Depression let go of my scalp and slumped down on the floor next to me and sighed loudly.
After a few minutes of silence between us it spoke again.
“Chicken tacos?” Depression asked.
“Sure,” I said as I stood up. “I know how you love them.”
My depression and I went for an awkward lunch together. We didn’t say much to each other but at one point toward the end of our meal it asked me one last question for the day:
“Why won’t you just give up?”
I took a long sip from my straw and I replied with:
“I guess I’m just too curious about what comes next,” I replied.
My Depression nodded ever so slightly.
Subtle gestures like this were how the two of us usually communicate with each other.


John Roedel (johnroedel.com)
August 25, 2021

The National Suicide Prevention Line: 1-800-273-8255




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Willing to Try
by John Roedel


remaining delicate
doesn't make you weak
it makes you willing to get
shattered every now and then
in order for you to transform
into whatever
you need to become next
some of God's best
artwork
are things that were
once broken
that became a new creation
if someday you
have to become
completely undone
~ don't fight it
because that is just a sign
that the divine isn't done
working on you yet
if someday the forest
of your life has to
be burned to the ground
~don't cling to the ashes of what once was
just stand still and wait
patiently for the
saplings of what comes
next for you
~ emerge emerge emerge
being willing to
start over
again and again
is the opposite
of weakness
it's the toughest
thing I can think of
resurrection is only
for the strong
and you my love,
you are the strongest
person I have
ever met


John Roedel (johnroedel.com)
August 25, 2021



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photo cr: Rhand McCoy


insomnia poetry
Late Summer Sermon on Love
by John Roedel

don’t you believe them
the shape of love
isn’t a heart
with an arrow
running through it
that’s a myth
~that’s a hallmark card
that’s a cliche
the shape of love
is a wine glass still
marked with your lipstick
the next morning
the shape of love
is a billowing white cloud
over a lover’s soft blanket picnic
the shape of love
is the petite hand of a newborn
wrapped around the finger
of her mom
the shape of love
is a warm bath
that has been made into
a makeshift chapel
adorned with candles
and floating rose petals
the shape of love
is an scarf
I found under the
couch that still
carries your scent
the shape of love
is the tear drop
reclining on your fingertips
that you lifted off my
flushed cheeks
the shape of love
is the formation
your lips make when
you absolve me
the shape of love
is the silhouette
of your body when
you walk in front of
the dripping moonlight
the shape of love
is a cold hand on a
fevered forehead
the shape of love
is a book of poetry
that vibrates whenever
you hold it to your chest
the shape of love
is the look on the
face of a child playing
in the snow for the
first time
the shape of love
is an old soul
living with a
new passion
the shape of love
is a deathbed
surrounded by
singing angels
the shape of love
is a scratched up
wedding ring
the shape of love
is the feel of a
still pen between my
shaking fingers
the shape of love
is a bedroom
with no clocks
where time moves
and tastes just like
maple syrup
the shape of love
is the way you
unknowingly sway
your hips along with
to the rhythms of
a summer rainstorm
the shape of love
is red pasta
red wine
red tablecloths
red lips
red curtains
red wax
red dresses
red skin
Red rain by Gabriel
&
red velvet cake
the shape of love
is a friend
across the table
telling you how
beautiful you are
the shape of love
is not surrendering
to the darkness inside
of you
the shape of love
is a gravestone
covered in post-it-notes
the shape of love
is both the valley
and the hilltop
the shape of love
is watching you
sleep
the shape of love
is a wildflower
coming up through
cobblestone
the shape of love
is how I unconsciously 
write your
name on my arm
whenever I think
of you
the shape of love
are the embers you
leave in my hair
whenever I fall into
your gaze
the shape of love
is the coin we place
into the hands of a beggar
the shape of love
is a tree that
becomes the vertical altar
that blooms mercy
the shape of love
are the scars of
every victim that have
been turned into violin strings
the shape of love
is a “do not disturb”
sign on a hotel door
the shape of love
is the word
“Gratitude”
written over
and over
and over
and over
and...
the shape of love
is the way you look
at me when we continue dancing
long after the music has stopped
the shape of love
is a text from
just the right person
at just the right time
the shape of love
is how you taught me
to believe in hope again
the shape of love
has no official form
it’s the smoke of your fire
it’s the rainwater of your heartbreak
it’s the nebula in your touch
&
it’s the apparitions you leave on my tongue
love can look like everything
and everything can look like love
love is neither organized or tidy
love is a brilliant mess
of stained carpets
broken windows
and healing wounds
love isn’t a museum
it’s a living breathing
muddle of
scent and sound
and sight and seduction
and service and sympathy
and soft embraces and striking thunder
and small mercies
and fierce words
and whispered promises
and rising purpose
and soft skin
and jagged laughter
and the space between us
and the way we all get tangled up together
and everything else in between


by John Roedel (johnroedel.com)
August 26, 2021



John Roedel, poet



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Hey, God
by John Roedel

 

Me: Hey God.

God: Hello, My love.

Me: I quit. I’m done. I’m finished.

God: With what?

Me: This. Talking with You. Writing. Whatever this is I’m doing. All of it. I have nothing left to say. I have poured out my heart to You and nothing has changed! I have tried to build a compass out of words and poetry yet I’m still lost. I have done my best to let my heart become a torch but I’m still afraid of the dark.  I’m still a fraud. I’m still - look, never mind...I don’t want to talk about it anymore. 

God: I understand. 

Me: Goodbye.

God: I love you.

Me: If You loved me You wouldn’t let me feel so broken.

God: If you would quit resisting My love for you than you wouldn’t feel that way.

Me:  What?!  That’s ridiculous!  I am not resisting any-

God: It’s because you don’t really know what love is.

Me: Of course I do!

God: Do you love yourself?

Me: What? What does that have to -

God: Do you love yourself?

Me:

God: Do you love yourself?

Me:

God: Can you answer the question? Do you love yourself?

Me:

God: How can you know what love is if you refuse to show it to yourself?  How can you receive love from Me or anyone else if you can’t even offer a morsel of it to yourself?  Loving yourself is the first step to being able to recognize it when it’s coming from somewhere else. To know love you must first love the gift of your own life.

Me: I can’t hear this today...

God: That’s what you always say but today is the day when you have to stop treating your life like it is some cosmic mistake and to start honoring your existence like the miracle it is.  Today is the day when you have the choose between the horrible lies you tell yourself about your worth and start believing the truth of how much of a marvel each and every breath you take is.  Today is the day when you must finally love yourself before it’s too late.  Quit squandering your life on self-loathing. Learn to love yourself and feel your heart bloom like a spring flower.

Me: I can’t. I quit. I’m leaving.

God: I’m not.

Me: Goodbye.

God:

Me:

God:

Me:

God:

Me: God....?

God: Still here.

Me:

God:

Me: (whispering) thank you

****

I keep saying
goodbye

God keep saying
“still here.”

“goodbye...
goodbye”

“still here
still here”

in the shadow
of my despair

Divine Love
brings a candle
and a mirror
to me as I lay
on the floor

“I can’t wait,”
Spirit says with
a voice that
whispers lightly
in my heavy veins

“For what?”
I ask under
my jagged
breath

holding the mirror
up to my face

God says

“For you to
finally see
how beautiful
you are.”

“goodbye...
goodbye”
I weep

“still here
still here.”
Divine Replies


by John Roedel (johnroedel.com)
August 26, 2021




Friday, August 20, 2021

With Malice Towards None... A World in Search of Peace

 




An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
- Mahatma Ghandi


One doesn't have to operate with great malice to do great harm.
The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.

- Charles M. Blow, journalist


Twenty years of American foreign policy incompetence has led to an expected ending of disaster in Afghanistan which only U.S. State officials and the military chose not to see in their contingency planning, all the while the American public and a world of outsiders saw all too clearly. America should never have been on foreign soil, and in leaving, left only more death and suffering as violent ideologies took over as living legacies to America's unwanted presence. As a "Christian" nation we are takers, not builders. Our mirror is pitiful and must be broken in order to see again. May we finally learn the ways of peace and love, the ways of grace and forgiveness, towards a world as hardened as we are towards the other.

R.E. Slater
August 20, 2021










Addendum

Yesterday and the day before yesterday I participated in a forum speaking out against White Christian Nationalism having sensed little difference between it and Islamic Jihadism. Both speak death. Both force upon people unwanted laws and restrictions. Both take away personal freedoms and rights (which I find ironic with the anti-vax crowd and facts deniers). Both harm the other, belittle the other, despise the other, and do not see the other. And both speak a religion ugly and deadly to the soul.

I'll say again, the human heart is deeply corrupt. It speaks death before it speaks life. The God of all religions and nations says to us to learn to hold in our heart the attitude of "Malice Towards None." This is our task as humans struggling to become fully human as God intended (or as our spirit-souls long for deep within our minds and bodies, hearts and spirits). We share together a deep, deep  sense of existential struggle of contrition before others, repentance from evil, humility and respect towards all.

We feel it deeply in our bones the necessity to learn to speak peace, goodwill, honor, and love to one another. This the truest core of the Christian faith. Not its legalism, perversions, and enforced religious structures. When Christians speak war, vengeance and harm we do not speak the life-giving word(s) of God. Just our own selfish, prideful, words. Words which make us blind, deaf, and dumb to one another. Those we no longer can see, hear, or speak to....

Mahatma Ghandi once said, "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." Let us then cast off the weight of hatred and malice towards one another and make this next millennium of human civilization about peace and goodwill. Let all nations learn the language of love by beating their metaphorical "swords into ploughshares" by seeking faith and trust with one another. Honor and respect.
The ways of the world can be the ways of beauty and joy if we allow it to be - which is the essence of John Lennon's songs. Chose then this day a new God, a radical God, One who has invested Himself in a radically new religion reviving the souls of the other. And a new social politick which heals, makes beautiful all around it, and nurtures every human benumbed by sin and evil.

And finally, to move forward we must repent of our wicked ways, learn to forgive one another, be merciful to the ones we no longer see, and learn to reach out to the ones we have dismissed and despised.
Importantly, America's newest foreign policy and diplomacy must deploy a radically new motto: "To care for the other and this good earth." Let us learn then the language of grace and forgiveness as Jesus had taught us centuries ago. Which we have witnessed again-and-again in the lives of remarkable human beings filled with God's light and love given to us to guide us in renewing ways of caretake, wellbeing, and nurture for one another.

Peace,

R.E. Slater
August 20, 2021


John Lennon & Yoko Ono: WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It)




HAPPY XMAS (WAR IS OVER). 
(Ultimate Mix, 2020) John & Yoko Plastic Ono Band
+ Harlem Community Choir




John Lennon & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mashup at MLK Day in Greenville, NC




Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech




Martin Luther King Jr. –

Acceptance Speech

 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/26142-martin-luther-king-jr-acceptance-speech-1964/


on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize
in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 1964



Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice. I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.

Sooner or later all the people of the world will have
to discover a way to live together in peace …

After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights Bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a super highway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.” I still believe that We Shall overcome!

This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.

Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.

Every time I take a flight, I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible – the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man’s inhumanity to man. You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people will never make the headline and their names will not appear in Who’s Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvellous age in which we live – men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization – because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake.

… peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.

I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners – all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty – and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.
---
*From Les Prix Nobel en 1964, Editor Göran Liljestrand, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1965. Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1964


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"An Indictment against American Foreign Policy"

"We came in as a wrecking ball
then realized others had come in before us
taking what they wanted
leaving their own death and destruction
as we would too."

- R.E. Slater
August 20, 2021







From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists
Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy

Illustrated, April 24, 2018
by Sarah B. Snyder (Author)

The 1960s marked a transformation of human rights activism in the United States. At a time of increased concern for the rights of their fellow citizens―civil and political rights, as well as the social and economic rights that Great Society programs sought to secure―many Americans saw inconsistencies between domestic and foreign policy and advocated for a new approach. The activism that arose from the upheavals of the 1960s fundamentally altered U.S. foreign policy―yet previous accounts have often overlooked its crucial role.
In From Selma to Moscow, Sarah B. Snyder traces the influence of human rights activists and advances a new interpretation of U.S. foreign policy in the “long 1960s.” She shows how transnational connections and social movements spurred American activism that achieved legislation that curbed military and economic assistance to repressive governments, created institutions to monitor human rights around the world, and enshrined human rights in U.S. foreign policy making for years to come. Snyder analyzes how Americans responded to repression in the Soviet Union, racial discrimination in Southern Rhodesia, authoritarianism in South Korea, and coups in Greece and Chile. By highlighting the importance of nonstate and lower-level actors, Snyder shows how this activism established the networks and tactics critical to the institutionalization of human rights. A major work of international and transnational history, From Selma to Moscow reshapes our understanding of the role of human rights activism in transforming U.S. foreign policy in the 1960s and 1970s and highlights timely lessons for those seeking to promote a policy agenda resisted by the White House.

* * * * * * * * * *


PHOTOS OF THE TALIBAN IN KABUL, AFGHANISTAN,
AND FLEEING AFGHANIS

Mid-August, 2021









The way of peace is hard
but its joys last forever.

- R.E. Slater
August 10, 2021


Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Romans 14:19 So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

James 3:18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Ephesians 6:23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulations. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Luke 1:79 To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Mark 9:50 Salt is good, but if the salt looses its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

James 3:18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.


Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819)


Pablo Picasso, Massacre in Korea (1951)


Banksy, The Flower Thrower (2003)


Jaune Smith, I See Red: Migration (1995)


Activists in Exile


Samuel Bak, Open Book