My little family has really had a nice start to 2007. It just seemed like one good thing after another happened this past week and I have an overall sense of an upswing, of a surge of positive energy, of promise. I smiled at each pleasant surprise, thinking of the lovely construct relayed in a New Year's Day post by Psycho Therapist:
The Bulgarian master Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov said the first 12 days of January represent the whole year.
January 1st stands for January,
January 2nd stands for February,
January 3rd stands for March and so on.
By practicing loving kindness, openness, and generosity while giving thoughtful attention to the significance of each day, you will thereby consecrate the coming year.
I think it's the loveliest notion and I have so enjoyed sort of centering into it as 2007 unfolds with promise, without forgetting that life always, by definition, includes challenges and crises, and that what we think we want is not always what is best. Still, as wonderful as our little lucky streak feels, my heart is so heavy for my friends in New Orleans. There is an Obi-wan Kenobiesque "great disturbance in The Force."
There is palpable pain among the NOLA bloggers, as if they've been punched in the gut, and they're talking about it, angry, committed. No longer the elephant in the living room, the unabated surge in violent crime has crested, tragically, finally way too close and they're angry, erupting in a clamor for action. I admitted in a comment on Bart's blog that I check the T-P every morning and map the shootings and the locations of those found shot. It's a paranoid mother thing to do, to worry about the safety of my son and his friends, because college students are prone to wandering stupidly (or drunkenly) into dangerous circumstances. My remark, intended as a personal expression of empathy, was picked up, slightly out of context (Bart knows I live in Atlanta and have a son in New Orleans), by the Toronto Globe & Mail (h/t Hollie Michelle).
I am so sorry for their loss, for every loss to this wave of violence fueled by desperation and poverty, addiction and the criminal wild west enterprises that accompany the illegality of street drugs, fueled by easy access to firearms and a complete leadership void. In fact, I can't recall a time in our nation's history when one group of citizens has been so completely and wholly failed by their government in so many different ways as have the citizens of New Orleans (neither can I think of another time in the history of the world when mothers of young children were sent into combat, but that's a different post).
As if that wasn't enough, there's the 800 pound gorilla, melting ice caps and rising shore lines, which threaten urban centers far beyond those situated along Louisiana's coast. Are we to abandon all coastal development while we continue to fuel global warming, oblivious to the connection? Will our approach to this crisis as a nation be proactive and based on foresight, or reactive, defined by the inability to admit and correct our mistakes?
Show 'em some love, ya'll. Visit their blogs and read. Learn what's really happening. Our fellow citizens, whose homes or jobs or families or universities or histories happened to land them in New Orleans, have been abandoned by city hall, by Baton Rouge and by Washington, and, in response, they are defining citizen action for the new century. History is unfolding online. Visit Adrastos, Dangerblond, Dale (who brings hopeful news and fine pics of his newly repaired home), American Zombie, Loki and Lisa. Visit da po' blog, TM, Mark, Oyster and Schroeder. Show 'em some love, because they're doing it, walking the walk, jumping in to lead when those who have been elected or appointed to do so, fail, calling for action by acting, clamoring for change, a wave resembling or perhaps preceding a movement, change coming in a new year. Consecrate.
Peace, out, ya'll.
Update: Bart's post to the child, Francis.
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