pjthompson: (Default)
This is a good, balanced article on the subject of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, from the perspective of a wide range of 9/11 families. Here's an excerpt, but I urge everyone to read the entire article.

Why do I keep posting on this? Because it infuriates me that certain cynical politicians are using this issue as a political football and using the pain of these families for their own ends—whipping up a frenzy just before election season. Take a look at the comments following this article if you don't think the nutjobs are stirring and hate is seething. This is not about Islam, this is not about respect for the pain of these families, this is about politics. If even Karl Rove thinks that tactic is wrong, then really, shouldn't we take a second look at this?

I was not at all a fan of George Bush, but at least he never tried to make 9/11 about all of Islam. He blamed the terrorists, not the entire religion.

Enough said. I won't post again on this. Unless someone else makes me furious.


Mosque near ground zero divides Sept. 11 relatives
By SAMANTHA GROSS, Associated Press Writer Samantha Gross, Associated Press Writer – Fri Aug 20, 10:19 am ET

Charles Wolf, who lost his wife, Katherine, at the trade center, says emotions among family members are especially raw right now.

"This is anniversary season. It's really, really hard," the Manhattanite said. "Passions are up and this is bringing up a lot of hurt in people."

He says he worries that any decision to respond to public pressure and move the mosque would be used by extremists to paint Americans as intolerant.

"The powers of evil were piloting those airplanes," he said of the Sept. 11 attackers.

Now, with the mosque dispute, "here is where we're falling into the terrorists' trap ... trying to tear each other apart. Good people fighting other good people — does that sound like evil at work?"
pjthompson: (Default)
Love is the most heroic choice of all in light of what the world can do to you. Cynicism is the easy way out. If you want a challenge of epic proportions, try practicing unconditional love. Unconditional love doesn't mean accepting bad behavior and doing nothing, it means acceptance despite the bad and enough love to try changing the bad without judging or returning hate.

I wish I could tell you that I practiced love all the time, but I don't. I still have so many dark places inside me, those patches of non-forgiveness, that deep cynical well of betrayed hope, the unappeased anger, the palpitating presence of the imperfect past. The most I can muster is an intermittent flare of love, a moment here and there of something beyond myself and my grievances. I succumb to the dark far more often than I succumb to love.

I keep trying. I have so very far to go, but the fight is worth it. I am not a hero, probably never will be, but the fight is worth it: love in the face of hate, non-judgment in the face of judgment. If I could find a little more of it in myself, it might start radiating outward. If we could all find a little more of it in ourselves, we could truly change the world.

I imagine I'll be calling someone an idiot again soon, or carping about something, or railing or ranting. It's easy. It comes naturally—and I can resist anything but temptation, as Oscar Wilde once said. My knee jerks up and off I go, forgetting all about those fine meditations and aspirations, hip deep in the hurly burly of a harsh and unforgiving world.

But I sure wish I had enough courage to be a hero of love.
pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


“To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody."

—Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant







(Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] matociquala.)






Illustrated version. )


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Resurgence

Mar. 1st, 2010 11:19 am
pjthompson: (Default)
My one and only poem having to do with hockey.


From the notebooks, April 10, 1981:


Resurgence

They in the stands have never known
the lumbering wild across the ice
in pursuit of a small black disk,
almost lost amongst the boots and blades.
They do not know the thrill of crashing
and thrashing sticks in a rapid weave of air,
the reaching beyond breath and muscle,
the yearning towards the goal, the burn of ice
if any skin should touch, the taste of exertion
rolling down the face and onto the lips.
They have never known the pride, determination,
the struggle or the victory. They know only
that his skin is black, and knowing that
all other knowledge stops.

Just as time has stopped and reversed: it is 1952,
but instead of jeers and hate on the baseball diamond,
it is the ice that is consumed with rage.


An historic and personal note about this poem. )
pjthompson: (Default)
"Compassion is hard because it asks us to dethrone ourselves from the center of our universe."

—Karen Armstrong, theologian


Here's to a new year in which we're not afraid of compassion and of feeling the things we feel.
Here's to a new year in which we say the things that need saying and do the things that need doing.
Here's to a new year in which we aren't afraid of hope, even if things seem hopeless.
Here's to a new year in which we work towards peace, even if it's the most elusive thing in the world.
Here's to a new year in which we strive for tolerance, even when intolerance is the reigning glory.
Here's to a new year in which we listen, really listen.
Here's to a new year, a new chance, a new opportunity.

I wish you all new chances, new opportunities, new hope, new glory, compassion, peace, tolerance, courage, and someone who really listens.

Burn all your regrets and leave them behind in the old year.

Happy New Year.

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