Honor, Duty, Memorial Day--Only One Defensive War in 500 Years

We seek to live in memory--to remember--those who served, suffered, and died in the past that we might not forget...

Let us honor those who went to war, not to kill, not to slaughter, not to conquer, but to defend, to protect, to rescue.

Tragically, too often in our nation's past, the U.S. began and/or supported unjust wars.

Of the 100 or so wars and conflicts, ONLY one of all of our wars was defensive!

We humans, seldom, are angelic, but always seem to find new angles,
or recycled propaganda from wars of yesternight, so many dark nights of the 'sold.'

However, even in those offensive wars, there were many Americans who served though they passionately opposed their country's immoral actions.

Let us honor, today, all men and women who sought to limit, to change, to rescue others in the midst of the destructive evil of war.

That is the true duty.

That is the true honor.

Secondly, let us forgive our nation and those millions of us who chose so wrong--who engaged in, or supported, killing in wars which were immoral and unjust. Soldiers of the past who caused so many countless woundings, sufferings, and killings such as Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Jackson, Chamberlain, Alvin C. York...

They killed for God, killed because of war fever, because they had been misinformed by their leaders.

We need to forgive them.

Of course, there are always millions of people who claim their country isn't wrong, or even worse the ones who declare, their country right or wrong.

Shall I list each unjust war by name, and how we were so deceived?

Not today...but

We are slow learners, we humans.

Let us on this Memorial/Remembrance/Decoration Day, then also, remember not to forget.

Let's stop repeating the past.

Forget about political bombast and intentional lies and empty slurs such as "defending our freedom" and the bombings that those empty slogans always begin to destruction.

Vote to end our warring in Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and our support of dictators, warlords, and Islamic jihadists.

Please work instead for peace.

And remember those men and women who fought to defend, to protect, to rescue, but not to kill...

They are the noble humans for whom Memorial Day ought to be.

Thirdly, this Day of Remembrance ought not to be an honored memory of war in general, of nationalism.
The basis for the first Memorial Day was tragically that--about memorializing those who invaded, attacked, and destroyed.

Let's seek a change of heart--those of us who have gloried in our country's past wars. There is nothing glorious or heroic in going off to war, even a defensive war.

On the contrary, war is the greatest evil we humans commit.

In the Great War, 16 million people were killed and 21 million people were wounded or disabled.

And contrary to what government and religious leaders promised-- that the war would end war, the Great War only led to World War ll and more wars, including the wars at present. See The Great and Holy War: How WWl Became a Religious Crusade by historian Philip Jenkins and Preachers Present Arms by Ray H. Abrams.

When we choose war, inevitably, all the other Commandments also get violated.

Try to think of a war without any lying, without any stealing, without any cursing, without any profaning, without any fornicating, without any destroying, without any killing of civilians,

Without any suffering for the innocent...

It can't be done.

So let us, today, remember those multi-millions of humans who have fallen in the past to this most destructive and unjust of all acts.

Particularly, I think of my own father who went to war to protect and defend. He hated violence, even movie and gaming video violence.

We bow today to those who sought to serve and protect.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Lyric Journey of 240 Years of Seeking

"America" by Simon and Garfunkel

Let us be lovers,
We'll marry...
And walk.. off
To look for America.
"Kathy", I said,
As we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
Michigan seems like a dream to me now.

It took me four days
To hitch-hike from Saginaw.
"I've come to look for America"...

So I looked at the scenery,
She read her magazine;
And the moon rose over an open field.
"Kathy, I'm lost", I said...

Counting the cars
On the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come
To look for America,
All come to look for America,
All come to look for America.

-

"Money" by Pink Floyd, from Dark Side of the Moon

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you're O.K.
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream...

Money, get back
...
Money, it's a hit
I'm in the hi-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet...

-

Yeah, yeah,
Alright,
Alright.

I'm a wheeler, a dealer, the man who's in control,
Don't talk about my feelings, don't talk abut my soul,
Well, you know my time is money, so I've got no time to spend,
But when you got some business, won't you come on by again.

I'm the winner and I made it to the top,
And I took it all, just like I planned,
I'm the man who holds the high card in his hand.

I'm an owner, a loaner, a master at the game,
And I've got that golden Midas touch; people know my name,
There were times I held the low cards, baby, well, I knew they weren't enough,
So I just kept my poker face and won it on the bluff.
...
I'm the man who holds the high card in his hand.

Hey, hey,
I'm the winner,
Hey yeah,

"The Winner" by Randy Stonehill
-

"Richard Corey" By S.& G.

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a banker's only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he's got.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."

-

There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly saying, "hooray for our side"

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

"For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield

-

The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
...
With guns on their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
...
[More wars have come]
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons...
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

"With God on Our Side" by Bob Dylan

-

Oh, you rush to and fro to attain
Though you dwell upon the shore of history
The voice you should have heard in is the letter of the word
Come with me, dear friends, and you'll see

See my life, as it was yesterday
See my life, as it was today
Take my hand and I will show you
Within the moment lies the mystery

Oh, you seek here and yon in your quest
And arrive at the hour of regret
Come fly without distress to the shelter of the nest
Close your eyes, your ears, and forget

Forget life, as it was yesterday
Forget life, as it was today
Take my hand and I will show you
Within the moment lies the mystery

"See My Life" by Seals and Croft

--

I used to dream of being famous
Well, my name would be a household word
...
Now it strikes me as a little absurd

I used to dream of being Don Juan
Of having all these pretty girls on my mind
It made shambles of my mind, so I found myself a wife
Who's a lover and a friend of mine

As the world, keeps turning 'round
You either learn to bend with the wind or it knocks you down
Turn your back on the gods of men
...

I used to dream of being a rich man
Yeah, I swore I'd have it all someday
Once you chase it you will find that it isn't worth a dime
Until you're free enough to give it away

And I used to dream of chasing vengeance
All my enemies would crawl and sweat
Well my happiness was drained from reliving all the pain
Now I'm learning to forgive and forget
...

Turn your back on the gods of men
And the Lord, who is true, will give life back to you again

"The Gods of Men" by Randy Stonehill

-

If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning,
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land,
I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a bell,
I'd ring it in the morning,
I'd ring it in the evening,
All over this land,
I'd ring out danger,
I'd ring out a warning,
I'd ring out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
...

Well, I've got a hammer
and I've got a bell
and I've got a song to sing
all over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's a song about love between my
brothers and my sisters
all over this land

"If I Had a Hammer" by Peter, Paul, and Mary


If we follow the versed lyrics of songs from the 1600's to today, we hear what a lyrical, but tragic, often absurd journey we humans traverse.

May we heed the call and the warning, the failing and the rising of these musicians.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Artesian Well

In the midst of all of the current political rancor, religious intolerance and horror, and the negative negation of atheism...

Look back to an earlier, more joyful time--



Artesian Well

I can’t carry a basic tune
Anymore than a bat can sing Hebrew
Or envision hieroglyphics,

But once I welled up bursting forth
Beyond all melodious barriers
Of sensuous fountaining,

Songing the voice of all singing.
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest,
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate

Usually, I vocalize low and hestitant
With insecure, stressed effort
But on that humid evened night

In the crowded chapel meeting hall
In the midst of a thousand voiced joyfulness,
I not only caroled the Keys but was mused,

Songing the voice of all singing,
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate

We human instruments, fluting beautifully
One glorious open canticled Magnificat
With so much climatic passion;

Me, a human oboe in a great orchestra of tone
Being Bached and Beethovened,
To the alleluiaed heights,

Songing the voice of all singing,
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate.

Lava-hot harmonied, a chorale of joyous, exultant
Praise, the Spirit’s artesian well bursting forth,
Geysering up in ecstatic adulation,

Welling skyward beyond all measuring
To God, our lover,
So divine.

Songing the voice of all singing,
Hosanna to the Highest and Deepest
All-embracing universal cosmic Ultimate.


Daniel Wilcox

First published in
The Clockwise Cat in different form;
also in poetry collections--Psalms, Yawps, and Howls
and selah river



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Once Upon Books Which Are Youer than You

Once in a while, upon a time,
a weighed-down thinker,

needs to take a surf-break
from 800-page tomes of history, science,
and philosophy


TO (yes, you)

Roll down a high green hill
of grassy words and pictures,

letting their ticklish humor
and ridiculous stems tickle your face:-),

swirling your mind
into dizzy
laughter...

Especially when you and a young grammy have 4 adorable grand kids to read to, (you who!)

So without further ado, let's
you and I list our favorite children's books
from long ago

and faraway flying up to ever--
ever land present:

In no certain order-

#1 The Berenstain's B Book by Stan and Jan Berenstain

In those immortal;-) words: "Big brown bear, blue bull, beautiful baboon blowing bubbles biking backward,
bump black bug's banana boxes and Billy Bunny's breadbasket and Brother Bob's baseball bus..."

#2 Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

#3 Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman

#4 The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss

#5 Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss

#6 Oh, Were They Ever Happy! by Peter Spier

#7 Gobble, Growl, Grunt by Peter Spier

#8 Bored--Nothing to Do! by Peter Spier

#9 What Do People Do All Day? Richard Scary

#10 Old Hat, New Hat by Stan and Jan Berenstain

#11 He Bear and She Bear by Stan and Jan Berenstain

#12 People by Peter Spier

#13 The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

#14 The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper

#15 Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola


#16 Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel

#17 Curious George by Margret Rey

#18 Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish

#19 The Dot & the Line by Norton Juster

#20 I Spy by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick

#21 The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce

#22 Max and the Big Fat Lie by Michael Waite and Gary Trousdale

#23 Handy-Dandy Helpful Hal by Michael P. Waite and Gary Trousdale

#24 Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by All Perkins and Eric Gurney

#25 The Chicken and the Pony by Doug ? and Terrence McConnell

ADDED by others:

#26 Love You Forever by Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw

#27 Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

#28 One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss

#29 The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak

#30 The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco and William Nicholson

#31 Hot-Air Henry by Mary Calhoun and Erick Ingraham

#32 The Girl Who Never Made a Mistake by Mark Pett and Gary Rubinstein

#33


Please add to this short list, less we miss the best:-)

To kids of all ages.

In the Light-hearted wonder,





From grampa to children everywhere,


Daniel Wilcox

Oughter?

Huh? No this isn’t about “an animal with dark brown fur and webbed feet with claws that eats fish.”

That’s a fact of the natural world—an otter--if you’ve been to the Central Coast, Sea World, or to an aquarium lately.

We’re dealing instead with that highly controversial ideal of ultimate reality--the Transcendent.
Speaking Enlightenment talk like Thomas Jefferson and his buddies.

To use slang, “God, not facts”—as a yokel might put it. And then add when doubted,
“Heck, God ‘ott’r exist”;-)

But the famous atheists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Jerry Coyne, and all manner of various other
non-theists including some Quakers,
claim the Transcendent doesn’t.

To them, the Enlightenment was delusion.

But for Enlightenment thinkers, God is essential--primary before existence, and exists more than any-- ‘thing.’

Yet, Deity ("ultimate reality" to quote the definition in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary) doesn’t exist as a brute fact.

Sound like a contradiction?

It's not.

If God existed as a brute fact, say, as an otter, then everyone would be a theist, everyone would know that the Enlightenment is true, would agree—yes otters and God are.

Even Dawkins would think the Divine is real then. One could prove it mathematically and scientifically.

Ultimate, transcendent reality would be as observable as the big black nose of an otter.

But ultimate reality comes from another non-place--is invisible, isn’t factually discernible in the physical world.

God exists in the sense that the transcendent ideal exists, in the sense of Ought, in the sense of Human Rights, in the sense of the Creative Good.

Again--the Transcendent Ideal, isn’t in the physically testable, observable, measurable universe.

Consider an ethical example: “All humans are created equal.”

Well, that’s simply not a “brute fact.”

Most humans aren’t created equal.

If you’re in doubt, get thee hence to a science textbook or the international news or do an in depth analysis of a large group of individuals.

Check out all the facts showing the incredible amount of inequality in humanity and the natural world.

Unequal at birth--mentally, physically,emotionally, socially, psychologically...

If everyone were equal in a brute fact sense, like “2+2=4” or “water is wet” or “otters swim,”
then that ethical ideal—equality
with its “certain unalienable Rights”--
wouldn’t have to be hoped for, sought after, striven to achieve.

But millions of men and women in history and at present DO think everyone is equal in an ideal invisible unprovable sense.

At least since the Enlightenment, many thinkers have held to equality, justice, free speech, and other human rights.

They claim all humans OUGHT to be equal, ought to be free, and ought to be treated justly.

An "ought" is a very powerful word representing transcendent truth.

Just as Immanuel Kant and many other brilliant philosophers stated.

Most of thinkers throughout the ages from Plato to Whitehead, have thought that the “Ought” itself is more real than any puny brute fact—
that indeed,
the cosmos came about because it “ought” to be created.

Many horrors of “can” exist, are in some cases brute facts, part of ruthless evolutionary history.
Besides, most scientists think that life, evolution, and the cosmos don't operate according to "ought," but are unguided.

Indeed, we humans--even sensitive individuals “can” and often do ignore the plight of children born into impoverished countries, but we OUGHT not.

That Creative Ought is Divine; God is the Creative Ought.

The Conscious Good and Creative Will behind/above/beyond this matter and energy world.

You say, you don’t believe that?

You ott’r. :-)

Only in the Ought is there hope, equality,
and all those other good things, which aren’t things, not facts--
but sought-for ideals, the transcendent truth.

In the LIGHT, the enlightenment ought,

Daniel Wilcox

Living Despite Tragedy, Into Laughter and Joy

Hilarious, so fantastically funny!

Yet this and many more creative ventures, filled with childlike wonder and humor, are created by William Joyce in the midst of tragedy, despite terrible loss in his own family. So much sorrow, so much loss.

from wikepedia:
"William Edward "Bill" Joyce...is an American writer, illustrator, and filmmaker. His illustrations appeared on numerous New Yorker covers and his paintings are displayed at museums and art galleries. Joyce won a 2012 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with Brandon Oldenburg--The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

Joyce has received three Emmys for Rolie Polie Olie...created conceptual characters for Disney/Pixar's feature films Toy Story (1995) and A Bug's Life (1998).

Bill Joyce lives with his son Jackson Edward Joyce in Shreveport, Louisiana. His daughter, Mary Katherine, died from a brain tumor at the age of 18 on May 2, 2010.

Rise of the Guardians, a film inspired by stories Joyce told her while young and later resulted in the The Guardians of Childhood book series, was dedicated to her memory.

His wife, Frances Elizabeth Baucum Joyce...died on January 20, 2016 at the age of 55, after a long battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis."
from wikepedia

Live up, despite tragedy, despite heartbreak, despite loss. Give your best in memory of those you have lost.

Live in childlike wonder and the joy of laughter,

Daniel Wilcox

To Us an Infant Is Given

See this powerful video by Hashem al-ghaili of the relationship between a pregnant woman and her pre-born infant:


https://www.facebook.com/ScienceNaturePage/videos/vb.693504594115135/825939267538333/?type=2&theater


https://www.facebook.com/ScienceNaturePage/videos
https://youtu.be/oH1kvXOsggw

Live in the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

Combatants for Peace--Sharing the Pain, Building the Hope

Participants of the joint Israeli- Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony in Tel Aviv. (photo credit:HAI ASHKENAZI)

"Some 3,000 Israelis and Arabs, including hundreds from the West Bank, participated in the Israeli-Palestinian Remembrance Day ceremony – held for the 11th consecutive year – at the Shlomo Group Arena in the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds."

Co-Founders Palestinian Sulaiman Khatib and Israeli Gadi Kenny

"The ceremony on Tuesday was organized by Combatants for Peace Movement in cooperation with the Parents’ Circle- Families Forum."

See also:
http://www.peoplespeacefund.org/Co_Founders.html

"The ceremony included speeches by bereaved family members who are active in forums promoting dialogue, reconciliation and nonviolence.

There were also performances and speeches by notable artists including Ohad Naharin, the artistic director and choreographer of the Batsheva Dance Company; Sha’anan Streett, the lead vocalist of Hadag Nahash; and the Arab-Jewish women’s choir Rana. MKs Zehava Gal- On and Esawi Frej of Meretz, and Dov Henin from the Joint List, were in attendance.

The ceremony first took place 11 years ago as an initiative of Buma Inbar, who lost his son Jotam in 1995 while serving with the Golani Brigade in Lebanon. Since then has it provided an alternative for bereaved families to the official ceremonies.

In a meeting before the ceremony, Combatants for Peace activist and co-founder Suliman Khatib said the movement is facing challenges at home.

“The main opponents we have in the Palestinian society are the anti-normalization’ advocates,” he said.

“There will always be people who would prefer to stay in the comfort zone and stick with old habits.” Khatib referred to the inauguration of the Nelson Mandela Square in Ramallah last month, and stressed that “his way is the way of movement – combating without violence.”

Dozens protested outside the ceremony, shouting, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” and, “Traitors,” at the participants exiting the building. Nir, one of the protesters, told The Jerusalem Post he thinks that having such ceremony is unacceptable.

“I am shocked,” he sad. “I can’t believe that on the day that we mourn our soldiers, some of us find it right to mourn the loss of Palestinians.”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israelis-Palestinians-participate-in-joint-Remembrance-Day-ceremony-in-Tel-Aviv-453672
--
from Wikepedia:
"Combatants for Peace (Hebrew: לוחמים לשלום‎; Arabic: مقاتلون من أجل آلسلام‎) is a bi-national movement of Israelis and Palestinians who lead a non-violent struggle against the occupation, and support a peaceful solution of two states for the two peoples: Israeli and Palestinian.

The movement was formed in 2005 by Palestinians and Israelis who had taken an active role in the cycle of violence, and decided to drop their arms and work together to promote a peaceful solution through dialogue and non-violent action.

Originally, the activists on both sides were solely ex-combatants: the Israelis as soldiers in the Israeli army and the Palestinians as participants in the violent struggle for Palestinian freedom.

Today, members of the movement include also men and women who have never taken an active role in the violent struggle in the area. They received the prestigious Courage of Conscience Award from the Peace Abbey in 2009.

The goals of the organization are:
To raise the consciousness in both publics regarding the hopes and suffering of the other side, and to create partners in dialogue.
To educate towards reconciliation and non-violent struggle in both societies.

To create political pressure on both governments to stop the cycle of violence, end the occupation and resume a constructive dialog.

In view of these goals, the movement operates in the following ways:
Holding ex-combatants' meetings, allowing each side to understand the other's narrative.

Holding in-house meetings and educational lectures in public forums on both sides (universities, youth groups, schools etc.).

Direct actions and protests against the policy of occupation and its outcomes such as road blockings, house demolitions, limitations on Palestinian farmers and confiscation of land by Israeli settlers.

Organizing joint daytrips and educational tours of Israelis to the West Bank.
Solidarity actions such as joint olive harvests and agricultural work, to help Palestinian farmers who have difficulties in working their lands near army posts and Jewish settlements.

Producing special events such as the joint Memorial Day ceremony for victims of the conflict on both sides: Palestinian and Israeli.

Combatants for Peace has organized a series of meetings between veterans from both sides, most taking place in East Jerusalem in the early years, but have expanded now into three local groups operating between Tulkarm-Tel Aviv, Beersheva-Hebron and Ramallah-Jerusalem.



In 2007 they were awarded the 2007 "Search for Common Ground" Award."
Wikepedia

http://cfpeace.org/
--


Live in forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, and peace in the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

Reflections on the Transgender Conflict

The transgender conflict is currently breaking hearts and confusing minds,
another tragic case of how an important concern can be twisted by politicians
and the media until all that is left is smog, and no one is helped.

Suggestions:

#1 Keep politics, the media, non-medical people, and others out of the transgender subject. Leave this concern with the individual!

It would seem that if an individual's gender was wrongly assigned at birth, that this is a private matter, the business of no one but the individual.

If a person's gender doesn't match his/her body, and so she/he has transitioned, who is going to know when she/he visits the restroom stall of her/his gender identity?

No one!

#2 Inform ourselves on the topic by reading scholarly articles, books, and by talking with a transgender individual IF she/he brings up the concern.

I am gradually learning about the concern, despite the media, politicians, social rumor, propaganda, and so much popular drivel.

Get our learning from scholarship, not from popular leaders.

I've read one good scholarly book on sexuality related to gender, same sexuality, etc. That's not nearly enough I realize. So I continue to learn and to seek to understand.

Personally, I don't know anyone who is transgender, at least no one who has identified thus. Hopefully, I will be able to discuss this with such an individual soon.

#3 Live in empathy, compassion, social concern, equality, and justice for all humans.

And keep seeking for what is true, what is just, what is right,

and what is good in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"No Wind Is Strong Enough..."

"Tonight I bring you a light: a bright yellow poem—
because no wind is strong enough to blow out
the flame of memorized lines"

from "Yellow Poem"
by Geoff M. Pope

And no bad wind is strong enough to blow out the flame of lived lines and lived lives of Light.

One Example:

1846-49, New England, U.S.
After spending a night in jail protesting against the Mexican War and slavery, an American Transcendentalist gave a lecture and then wrote his vision up into a brief essay, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience."

In 1849, and ever since, it has become a world changer, a brilliant light which has lit millions of individual humans
into seeking human rights and justice--

|
1920-1948, India
Used by Gandhi to obtain freedom for India from Britain. It was a very long campaign lasting from the early 1920's to 1948.
|
1938-1943, Germany
Considered by Bonhoeffer to oppose Hitler.
|
1950's, the World
Banned by every U.S. library around the world during McCarthyism.
|
1954-1968, USA
Martin Luther King wrote that the essay was the central factor that moved him to start the Civil Rights Movement.
|
1963-1974, USA
Used to oppose the Vietnam War.
|
1955?-1992, South Africa, USA
Method of opposition to oppose Apartheid of South African Government by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and others.
|
1960-1990's, California
Adopted by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers to seek just working conditions and pay.
|
1960's-2016, USA
Practiced by both pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups.
|
1950's-2016, the World
Used by people opposed to nuclear weapons.

1972, France
Farmers protested against a military base being extended into their farming area. They used civil disobedience including hunger strikes. President Francois Mitterand cancelled the extension after he was elected in 1981.

1983-2016, Palestine
Mubarak Awad founded the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence. He and led nonviolent actions including the planting of olive trees on Palestinian land that the Israeli goverment was confiscating.

The Israeli government arrested and deported Awad even though he had been born in Jerusalem.

1984-1990, Central America
Civil disobedient actions against U.S. war polices and actions of President Reagan in Central America, especially Nicaragua and El Salvador.

1997-2011, U.S.
Used by various groups of environmental demonstrators including tree huggers. One woman, Julia Lorraine Hill, lived in a tall 1,500 year old Red Wood tree for 2 years to save it from being cut down by Pacific Lumber Company.

2003-2011, Iraq
Acts of civil Disobedience carried out by those opposed to the First-Strike War and Invasion of Iraq by the United States

2003-2016, Cuba
The "Ladies in White" civil protests against the wrongful arrests of journalists, librarians, and human rights defenders by Cuban Government.

For their perseverance, they won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 2005. When President Barack Obama was scheduled to visit Cuba, the government arrested 50 members of the Ladies in White because of another protest.

And so many other civil disobedient actions and campaigns.

Also, here are some other human leaders who were influenced by "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience": Leo Tolstoy, Martin Buber, President John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and William Butler Yeats.

Three brief quotes from the short essay that changed the world:

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison..."

"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible."

"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

from Henry David Thoreau's brief essay, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" and from his 1848 lecture, "The Rights and Duties of the Individual to Government."

No bad wind is strong enough to blow out such a brilliant Light of great lines and lives.

Daniel Wilcox

LightWaves

Way Light

Dropping doctrinal delusions,
Secular political ire,
Finite angled loss

And way too empty-full
Loaded historical
Backpack weighted-
Warring, dropped tonnage
Of endless weigh-lied syn-onymed
Carnaged Earth.

Leaving the fallen past,
Side-step jumping atheism's negation
Traveling instead up across
Waved light-weighed
Heaven-reaching,
Ever rising,
Ascending

Spiraling
Upward
Burnished
Jesus-following
Daybreak-lightning
Dawned
Skywalk.


--Daniel Wilcox
First pub.
in The Mindful Word

--


Retina Shadow

The blinding resplendent brilliant
Blaze of sun-firing
In the translucent window at the 'peak' of our old stairs,
Lighting to my eyes glaring defects
In the polished stairstep well-walls.

And afterward, for an hourglass,
The irised rectangle of remembered light

Luminous shining
Like an euclidic spirit in front of my vision.

The 'optic mystic' nerve gleam
Of photoreceptors

Turned into images in my mind
As I trudge through our hectic scurry of my hour'd-day,

That brilliance of aperture at the cosmic center
Blaze-blinding
Me, this muddled primate

In this pit-caved depression
Of emptiness, and not.

Now allegorizing—

Yes,
The after-shadowed light of One
Far brighter
Than nature's harsh survivor’d death glare
Or the gray-dusted rituals of our
Cultures of shame;

Look, not to this dark, delusioned cavern,
But to the sun-resplendent

Transcendent GOOD

Oh, such after-glowed
Radiance!


-Daniel Wilcox
First pub. by
The Greensilk Journal



In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

Strike Matches of Light Against War

"War is Hell!" said General Sherman, but he instituted one of the first intentional total-war attacks in modern history, where his invading army ravaged the American South. And he never regretted or admitted his war crimes.

They killed, burned, destroyed and stole food, animals, and treasures from impoverished civilians. A few of his Union soldiers even stole shoes from poor slaves! What an irony.

And in every generation since, millions of Americans, too, have strongly condemned war as wrong, but yet
contradictorily avidly defended
all their country's many war-attacks,
including the intentional slaughter
of hundreds of thousands of civilians,
as necessary,
even good.

What an absurdity so vividly captured in this dialog from MASH:

Just war is just injustice,
just slaughter,
just torture,
just cruelty,
just suffering,
just inequality,
just theft,
just lying,
just poverty,
just intolerance,
just harm,
just destruction,
just negation
just wrong...*



Let us fight against this Darkness

And strike matches of Light,

Daniel Wilcox


*from MCC poster