Looking into 2024, here's my last Life-Stance views in one page about Reality, Life, and History

MY LIFE-STANCE in one page --JANUARY 2024

1 REALITY—is MEANINGFUL--the Cosmos, Life, Natural Laws, Moral Truths, Math, Reason, Scientific Method, Technology, Creativity...

All humans have worth within themselves!

And to a lesser degree, other primates and sentient animals, worth in themselves...

I suppose one could say that plants, bugs, rocks, asteroids, planets, solar systems, quasars, Black Holes, gravity, relativity, etc. have worth in themselves, but since none of those are conscious, aware, rational, etc., it’s probably a category error to make such a huge judgment about inert things or unconscious processes.

Despite the ruthless, impersonal nature of Deep Time evolutionary change over at least the last 3.7 billions years of survival of the fittest, and the luckiest...

And the large number of human thinkers who advocate atheism, naturalism, materialism, anti-realism, and others who claim revealed religions, ideologies of extreme left and extreme right...

Those are false, bind alleys into nihilism, denying all human worth, purpose, meaning, morality, reason, math etc.

2 Instead, Like many brilliant famous scientists have emphasized (including Albert Einstein), Ultimate/Essential/Transcendent Nature of Reality is unknown to all finite, limited humans-FAR beyond anything we are capable of thinking or concluding.

Who knows if there are advanced species in the Cosmos like the science writer Carl Sagan speculated?

HOWEVER, many brilliant thinkers have SPECULATED on possible answers, one of the most recent being that the nature of REALITY is PROCESS, Not substance, Not Irrational, Not Chance...

And that seeking the ultimate doesn’t come by reductionism down to only tiny particles like theoretical physicist and atheist Brian Greene states (in The Elegant Universe) and others such as Sean M. Carroll.

Other theoretical physicists think we need to focus upwards to the possible Multi-Verse for finding ultimate significance.
Different views come from other famous cosmologists such as Paul Davies, George F. R. Ellis, the South African theoretical physicist “who is considered the world leader in relativity and cosmology. He co-wrote the book, The Large Scale of Space-Time with Stephen Hawking.”
https://royalsociety.org/people/george-ellis-11396/....

3. When all has been said and done in my 77-years-of-life, I realize now that Family, Friends, etc. don’t care as much as we old guys would like.

BUT, I do know that Life isn’t about me.

Heck, over a million Americans AS IMPORTANT AS ME died in the COVID pandemic in only a couple of years. Does anyone in particular care?

NO!

Many current American leaders even deny social distancing, masking, and the vaccinations’ worth and claim, instead, that COVID was all a “Democratic scam” and the completely false huge lies about alleged massive fraud in the 2020 election (of which there is not even a single shred of evidence. Even some Republican leaders such as those in Georgia emphasize there is no basis for the false claims)!

--

I’m just one of billions of humans inhabiting this tiny planet in a minor solar system on the edge of a galaxy among billions of galaxies...

And, I know for a fact, though I can’t imagine it, that my brief important time is almost up. Like my beloved dad 10 years ago, I will in the not to distant future, breathe my last.

And 2 undertakers will arrive like orderlies, will wrap my corpse in a winding sheet, bag my body onto a rolling cart, and haul it out.

BUT I AM THANKFUL FOR ALL THE WONDERFUL TIMES I’VE EXPERIENCED, THE OTHER HUMANS I’VE CARED FOR, AND THE AMAZING FACTS I’VE LEARNED IN MY LONG LIFE.

HOPEFULLY, the TRUE GOD WILL REMEMBER ME, and some humans I’ve known will think of me once and a while as they continue to live on into Reality’s FUTURE.


Dan Wilcox, the aged stroked mutant;-)

12/27/23

Senator Mark Hatfield to Congress on THE FALLACY OF "PEACE TROUGH STRENGTH"

The current leaders of Congress and Presient Biden need to hear these words of warning from 1989 against excessive spending on weapons and war preparation. from Address to the President and Congress from Republican Senator Mark Hatfield in 1989
Short Bio:...a Lieutenant J. G. in the Navy, Mark Hatfield commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. He was one of the first U.S. military personnel to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.
These experiences, coupled with a deep religious faith and steadfast belief in the progressive principles... [and] Despite warnings of political suicide, as Oregon's Governor, Mark Hatfield cast the only vote at the 1965 National Governors Conference in opposition to a resolution supporting President Johnson's Vietnam war policy.

In 1981, Senator Hatfield cast the lone vote in the Senate against enormous increases in the Department of Defense budget.

Known as the father of the Nuclear Freeze, Senator Hatfield joined with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) to force a halt to the nuclear arms race.
In 1981, he sponsored the first prohibition against U.S. combat troop involvement in El Salvador and in 1984 authored the amendment which successfully deleted funds to conduct the so-called "secret war" in Nicaragua.

In 1984, he was credited with single-handedly preventing renewed production of nerve gas weapons.

WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1989
Vol. 135 No. 107
Congressional Record

"Peace through strength is a fallacy..." Senator HATFIED: “People wanted to believe that victory was right around the corner, and they wanted to believe that our massive war spending would one day end. And so at least for a couple more years the money kept flowing into the military.

Mr. President, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to the Spanish-American War through World War I, through World War II, through Korea, through Vietnam, and through the cold wars in between:

At no time did the spending for military purposes reduce or diminsh after those wars. They reached a peak during a war, and then remained at that peak following the war. No build down-only a build up. And no peace dividend, Mr. President. None at all.

And as we entered this decade, the clarion call went out: despite one of the largest and best trained militaries in the world, despite a nuclear arsenal of unprecedented destructive power, we're somehow vulnerable. A spending gap is what they called it and so we began a massive buildup; bil- lions and billions of dollars to catch up.

Nevermind that this spending gap was a phony as the bomber gap of the 1950s and the missile gap of the 1060s-Democrats and Republicans alike dutifully lined up and marched to the drummer of higher military spending.

And so it is that we have gathered here every year since only to play on. the margins. Oh, we sound reasona- ble-and we like to think that we sound responsible. We go to hearings and briefings, we have long debates over this program and that program, this weapon or that weapon, and we cast our votes on amendment after amendment.
But when it comes right down to it, Mr. President, we are only playing on the margins. This Congress-a bipartisan majority of this Congress-has approved $2.2 trillion of the $2.3 trillion requested for defense spending during this decade alone.

We have played on the margins for so long, Mr. President, that I am afraid we do not even know what the real issues are anymore. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that many of the programs we have authorized- and are authorizing again here today- are intended for one purpose and one purpose only; mass destruction.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that every dollar we spend on bombs and bullets means that we are underfunding programs to meet the Nation's desperate human needs: health care, education, our war on drugs, low income housing, prison con- struction, AIDS research-all of these things are part of our national defense.

Sometimes, Mr. President, we even lose sight of the margins. Several days ago, the Senate considered an amendment earmarking money for the devel- opment of more lethal weapons for our ground troops.

More lethal? Even the words have begun to lose their meaning.

what is more lethal supposed to mean when some of our troops already carry tactical nuclear weapons on their backs? But nobody else even raised an eyebrow: the vote was 98-1.

I remember, back in 1981, when 10 subcommittees of the Senate Appro- priations Committee were forced to make $9.9 billion in cuts from domestic spending-so that defense spending could be increased by $7.4 billion.

We can no longer afford to fool ourselves, I said in the full committee markup- but oh, how wrong I was. The Nation's defense budget has almost tripled in the past decade with our bipartisan blessing and spending to meet the desperate human needs throughout this country has been cut and cut and cut again to pay for it-some 33 per-cent reduction in the nondefense discretionary programs in the last decade.

Could somebody tell me if there is some secret strategy-some finite figure that we will one day reach and then suddenly be secure? Will we ever have enough?

I do not think so.

We are, Mr. President, like the thirsty man in the desert who thinks he sees an oasis ahead but when he moves closer, it moves too. Further and further-or for us, higher and higher. And as his thirst finally kills him, our lust for bigger and better weapons of mass de- struction is going to destroy us one day too.

Peace through strength is a fallacy, Mr. President, for peace is not simply the absence of a nuclear holocaust.

Peace is not a nation which has seen its teenage suicide rate more than double in the past two decades. Peace is not a nation in which more people die every 2 years of gunshot wounds than died in the entire Vietnam War. Peace is not the town in Pennsylvania which last year was forced to cancel its high school graduation because officials believed that a group of students planned to commit suicide at the ceremony. And peace is not here in Washington where
after leading the Nation in murders last year, children are beginning to show the same psychological trauma as children in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Can we really believe that the decisions we have made--and are making--do not have a direct relationship to the violence which plagues our Nation? I suggest that we consider changing the motto on our coins, Mr. President.

It now reads: In God We Trust-but by blindly pursuing the nuclear arms race, by putting the destruction of life over the preservation of life, we have foresaken our trust in God. We have shaken our fist at God as E.B. White once put it, we have stolen God's stuff. Our motto ought to be:

In Bombs We Trust. That is our national ethic-that is the example we are setting here, on this floor.
...is there no ethical dimension to the arms race, to our abuse of our natural and human resources, to our waste of scientific genius, to the bankrupting of the Federal Treasury to pay for weapons of mass destruction?

Is there no ethical dimension to our decision, our conscious decision, to add more and more weapons to our stockpiles, while millions of people in our own country have no roof over their heads,

when we cannot fund our homeless programs, when we cannot fund our war on drugs?

Is there no ethical dimension to the violent examples we are setting for our children? Is there no ethical dimensions to the definition of national security that we are passing on to the developing nations of the world, where arsenals are now as bloated as the bellies of the Third World's children?

... who accept the twisted logic which says we must produce nerve gas to negotiate a treaty; which says we must continue nuclear testing to ensure safety. A safe nuclear weapon? Mr. President, I wish George Orwell could sit in on these debates.

...the United States and the Soviet Union deployed more nuclear warheads than will eliminated under the treaty. That is right. We spent and spent and spent, so that the adminis- tration could negotiate from strength. For all our money, all our weapons, the only thing we received in return was a tiny little dent in the stockpile we had just created.

... To those who may suggest that I am naive, I respond: I have been there. As a young naval officer, I walked through the rubble of Hiroshima-a month after the bomb was dropped. I saw the death-the slow, agonizing pain-and the charred bodies.

As we stand here playing on the margins, Mr. President, as we stand here voting 98 to 1 for the development of more lethal weapons, the stench of death haunts me still.

Forty-five years ago, we could legitimately say that we did not know. Now we do. Let me read just a few lines of John Hershey's "Hiroshima:" He found about 20 men and women on the sandspit. He drove the boat onto the bank and urged them to get aboard. They did not move and he realized that they were too weak to lift themselves.

He reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glovelike pieces. Then he got into the water and, though a small man, lifted several of the men and women, who were naked, into his boat. Their backs and breasts were clammy, and he remembered uneasily that the great burns he had seen during the day had been like: yellow at first, then red and swollen, with the skin sloughed off, and finally, in the evening, suppurated and smelly.

With the tide risen, his bamboo pole was now too short and he had to paddle most of the way across it. On the other side, at a higher spit, he lifted the slimy living bodies out and carried them up the slope away from the tide. He had to keep consciously repeating to himself:
"These are human beings. These are human beings."

SDI, Asat weapons, the Midgetman, the MX missile, the Stealth bomber, nerve gas, the D-5 missile, the Trident submarine: I will cast my vote against them all.

Since 1980, Mr. President, I have given more than 30 speeches during our annual consideration of this bill: 7 against nerve gas production,

5 against underground testing,

3 against ASAT weapons,
3 against the MX missile,

3 against the draft,

2 against SDI.
The list goes on and on. But I have felt over the years like I am speaking in a vacuum; we have approved them all.

And I speak in a vaccum today; my colleagues will listen politely and then vote for it all. I will feel that way too-as I have for many years now-when I cast my vote against final passage of this bill. For I too am playing on the margins.

In the absence of political will-on this floor and across the country-in the absence of the kind of political will we seem to be able to muster when the Department of Defense needs another increase but not when children go hungry, anything more is impossible.

Mr. President, unfortunately we only have had one President of the United States who, in my view, understood national security, national de- fense. He was a five-star general: Dwight David Eisenhower.

Mr. President, these are his words:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is hu- manity hanging from a cross of iron."

This was the man who led the Allied troops in World War II; he understood war, but he also understood peace.
We are kidding ourselves, Mr. President. Today we are vulnerable. The national defense of this Nation, has left us vulnerable, but not because we lack an arsenal.

The vulnerability of this Nation today is that we rank at the bottom of the list in math and science, and that at least 20 million Americans cannot read or write. The vulnerability of our Nation is the deterioration and the erosion of our infrastructure, our highways, bridges, air- ports, our ports.

Our vulnerability today is a nonproductive economy, noncompetitive economy. Our vulner- ability is the people who are without homes, nutrition, education, health care.

Ultimately , the security of the Nation is not found in its materialism. It is found in a spirit. It is found in a strength of heart and mind. It is found in its people-we the people.

We the people are vulnerable today. Let us at least be honest: we are not addressing those vulnerabilities with this bill or any other bill."



BIO: As a Lieutenant J. G. in the Navy, Mark Hatfield commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. He was one of the first U.S. military personnel to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

These experiences, coupled with a deep religious faith and steadfast belief in the progressive principles... [and] Despite warnings of political suicide, as Oregon's Governor, Mark Hatfield cast the only vote at the 1965 National Governors Conference in opposition to a resolution supporting President Johnson's Vietnam war policy.

In 1981, Senator Hatfield cast the lone vote in the Senate against enormous increases in the Department of Defense budget.

Known as the father of the Nuclear Freeze, Senator Hatfield joined with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) to force a halt to the nuclear arms race.
In 1981, he sponsored the first prohibition against U.S. combat troop involvement in El Salvador and in 1984 authored the amendment which successfully deleted funds to conduct the so-called "secret war" in Nicaragua.
In 1984, he was credited with single-handedly preventing renewed production of nerve gas weapons.

3 Sons OUGHT NOT SLAUGHTER each other's families!

Three Sons OUGHT No Longer Fight

Disking the rock strewn
Objected earth near Bet Shean,
Underneath the Middle Eastern sky
Rows of mean earth riven by the blades,
We cut away our anger, hate, and pride,
Stopping to drink, not from the liquor

Of fanatic corruption but from
The precious water welling up,
Our oasis of Jacob'd sharing,
In this Hanukkah season
Of Christ's mass after
Ramadan.

Allah

We three sons of Abraham,
Muslim, Jew, and Christian,
Fight the true battle
Not each other but
To be found worthy
In compassion
Giving,
And purity--
The true Submission
To God
Over
All.

Selah



First pub. in
outwardlink.net

Review of The LAST CALL: RISE and FALL of PROHIBITION--1870 to 1933 by Daniel Okrent

A meticiulous, highly detailed accounting of how PROHIBITION came about along with other Reform movements in during that dramatic, controversial, and tragic period of time. What odd bedfellows though.

The huge effort to ban the importation, making, and using of acoholic beverages in the U.S. came about along with the Progressive era efforts at Moral Uplift by government force, for the restricing of immigration of eastern Europeans (Italians, Poles, Slavs, etc.), and Asians, Jews, and so on, many efforts to 'clean-up' corrupt government, attacks against other modern reform movements...

And, weirdly, a very strong support for the Ku Klux Klan (since it also was against alcoholic drinks, Roman Catholics, Jews, Blacks... The 1920's beginning in about 1914, there was an incredible 20thc century rise of that racist organization! The KKK was strongly
supported by Methodists, Baptists, even some Quakers (such as a large Quaker meeting in Indiana, where the lead pastor, a woman, invited about 30 white-robed KLANSMEN to the front of the meeting house!)

Of course, even President Woodrow Wilson supported Jim Crow laws! As a southener, when he came to power, he quickly SEGREGATED the Federal Government and soon violated 'freedom of speech' rights, etc.

Very strange. If you want to understand how all of this could happen, read this tragic very suspenseful 60-year history, The Last Call by Daniel Okrent.

Photos:

Will You Back Me Or Booze?” Propaganda Poster; with a photo of New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid during the height of Prohibition
Women’s Holy War, published by Currier & Ives, 1874, via Library of Congress, Washington D.


Before settinly into weeks of intense reading, I had already known quite a bit about Prohibition.
But I very quickly learned how little I actully knew of the specifics--how it came about, of why it happened, and of why it so woefully failed--the only time an admendment to the Constitution was later repealed!


Another shocking

Door of HOPE, Gaza Children's music video 8 years ago; Warring M.E. leaders need to stop and seek that hope Now!

https://youtu.be/sBpjIyXktPw?si=2yXcXL_jFovbbrAZ
Lyrics: "...With forgiveness and a big heart we eliminate darkness
no matter how long it lasts
Together we overcome hardships
and the hearts are comforted with love,
We light our ways with goodness,
it's within us and we are the torch."

"Inspired by the children at the Child Friendly Spaces in Gaza, the idea to compose a song and create a music video was put together in order to emphasize the importance of hope, peace and a better future for children in Palestine.

Forty children from the CFSs sponsored by the Government of Germany, with the help of seven staff members, worked together on writing the lyrics, composing the music and designing the choreography for the music video. This music video is a testament to the resilience of the children in Gaza and their love for life."

World Vision Gaza had to be paused because the right-wing government of Israel falsely accused the WV leader of Gaza of terrorism!

World Vision has been working in the Holy Land since 1975 serving the poor and marginalized and is committed to advocating for the improved well-being of children as well as empowering Palestinian and Israeli voices that advocate for peace and justice. World Vision is currently working in Jerusalem, West Bank."
http://www.wvi.org/jerusalem

--

Work in the Light of Peace, Justice, Equality, and Human Rights, Daniel Wilcox

Concerning the Crisis in Gaza and Southern Palestine-Israel--TRAGIC!

This short meditation on GAZA and Palestine-Israel was written 15 years ago during another war:-(

But, here now, in the 21st century, both sides are even more extremist, more self-centered, prideful, intolerant, unjust, war-gung-ho, abusive, dismissive of civilians' lives--all in the name of orthodox Judaism and orthodox Islam or at least cultural religion...

Please stand up for the True and the Compassionate when it comes to Palestine/Israel,
where the slaughtering by both sides is punishing the innocent as well as the guilty.

Photo of Ramallah Friends School

Hold all people in the Light.

The whole situation of Palestine/Israel in the last 150 years is so very convoluted and complicated.

NO ONE has any quick answers or solutions for the extremely complex tragedy.

NO HOPE IS POSSIBLE UNTIL BOTH SIDES CHOOSE to FORGIVE and agree to compromise!

The ultimate irony is that both the Palestinians and the Israelis genetically come from the same ancient peoples of the region!
What divides these multi-millions of haters isn't biological but religious and political and cultural.

It was tragic when I lived in Palestine/Israel in 1974, worked on a Jewish kibbutz, stayed briefly with a Palestinian Muslim family who befriended me in Nablus. And for many years since, I've followed the daily news there and read many books from the perspective of both sides.

Please support some of the groups that seek to bring light and reconciliation there-- the Quaker/Friends School in Ramallah, Palestine for the last 100 years.

And in the past, Christian Peacemaker Teams and Brother Andrew's involvement in bringing Jew and Palestinian Muslim together, even going to HAMAS to share his perspective with its leaders (when the government of Israel had dumped them midwinter into Lebanon years ago.

Support Eli Chacour a Palestinian/Israeli Palestinian priest who shares the true, the good, the kind, the just with both warring sides. Chacour has worked with and started a school/university for all peoples of the area--Christian, Muslim, Druse, and Jew. He has also befriended seculaerists and non-theists.

That is a start.

Here are several books that might assist in helping everyone to better (and more historically accurate) understand the complexity, hatred, intolerance, of the area:

Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh and Anthony David

Blessed are the Peacemakers
by the former assistant mayor
of Ramallah, Audeh Rantisi who co-wrote it along with Ralph Beebe of George Fox University and Northwest Yearly Meeting.

Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour
We Belong to the Land by Elias Chacour

Chacour's father, a Palestinian Christian said that they needed to love
the Jews (when the Jews were escaping lethal violence in Russia and Europe to the M.E.).

Yet later
the Israeli army kidnapped him and Chacour's brother
and dumped them in a foreign country.

Then the Israeli Army blew up
their Palestinian Catholic church and drove all of the Palestinians
out of their homes and town.

The Israeli government has never allowed Chacour and other Palestinians to come back to their home.

Yet Chacour still shows love to the Jewish people, and to Muslims, Druze, and all others.

Sounds like the "Lamb's War--a war of love, justice, and peace! --the only war worth having.

Peace in the LIGHT--the Caring, the Good, the True, the Just,

Dan Wilcox
http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/

selah river: Poems of reflection, remembrance, transcendence

"I've known rivers...my soul has grown deep like the rivers."* Langston Hughes

Yes, travel rivers of the world
and rivers of the soul
and rivers of the mind.

Selah.


Presence transcends

Drowned in family tragedy, despairing, distraught--
that morning earlier;
thus down encumbered,
he came to Quaker meeting, but not speaking
of his family’s severe circumstance, kept hidden;

But in the midst
of open expectant communion, Transcendent Light
shown forth in a stranger’s sudden
a cappella spiritual chorus--
a deep songing deepening within;
intense meaning lifted us gathered in communion--
vivid encouraging Hope;

That sacred chorus didn’t take away our shattered glass
lives, nor end many distraught
circumstances and tragedies--
but
Oh, what Hope fulled within.

--Dan Wilcox


a beachcomber of Beauty

a why-ing kid
up
with go-vision eyes stretching and out,
rambling
meandering rocky-rubble farm roads
and roaming over creeks, through timber strands,
brief forest, and out across pasture lands--

I discovered beautiful bits and lumps that matter
--pebbles, stones, and rocks
(especially when wet)
and odd ugly ones, to boot

on fun nature hikes
wide-eyed adventures--
outside of our minor village
in 50’s southeast Nebraska;

Put those bright objects, small hunks, in my pockets
where they lay heavy
or in my overloaded baggish hands,
carrying them home,
my free treasures of early/pre-youth

enlarging my throng of wonder
in my pine-walled basement room--
Yes, I became a rock-mongrel mutt;

And later found others, mostly bits of minerals,
my boyhood keepers
in the Black Hills, Rockies, Sierras,
and a small chunk of copper ore
from an open pit mine in Bisbee, Arizona,

and a few parched white bones from
a long-ago bison jump
near Lame Dear, Montana.

I became a boarder of pebbles, quartzes, feldspars, agates,
granite bits, and mica, sea-glass, iron pirate,
and who-know unknowns,
and fascinating shells and other sea life from 3 coasts--

a life-long beachcomber of minor Beauty,
a voyager through this washed-up-n-down of life,
Adrift explorer, searcher, curious wanderer.

But now in receding elder age, mutated
by a stroke of bad luck,
I hesitently hobble about with a rolling walker alone
along Pismo sand dunes and Morro Rock shores
still searching, seeking for more special riff-raff,
to add to my ‘treasured things,’
our rooms’ shelves;

Here they still lay waiting
inert for another
I/It encounter...

Oh, the aesthetic depth of minor things,
bits that matter which sometime
transcend
into present
WONDER!

Yes, objects of beauty that exist in Deep Time...

In not too many years,
I will leave them behind;
and those long-enduring things will
exist others of the future.

And this long rumination of my life-long collections
Reminds me of a pebbled thought of beauty for present living--

We humans get washed up
on this shore of existence,
surrounded and crowded

by things and circumstances
we didn’t choose--

We all get roughed down and polished by adversity…

But the wonder of our human brain’s neural plasticity--
is we all get to choose
how we respond to life’s circumstances,
harsh trials, and horrific tragedies--

Yes, until our death, we get to create anew
Each moment,
If only briefly
--
Conclusion:
What has washed up on your shore today?
What beautiful pebbled moment of wonder?
Or what irritant, ache, troubling circumstance, or tragedy
has gotten lodged in your
oyster mind and heart?

What can you do to turn this troubled moment into a precious
gem/pebble/stone/agate?

-Dan Wilcox


Awake at dawn

upending my camping mug
for a drink,
at dawn,
but no water slurp;
almost empty--

except for a gray web’s net
rim to rim;
below, a dark spider
silent dwelling
--


Retreaded, not yet board and carded

I’m retreaded but road-tired,
Rolling across cantankerous land
Though, thank heavens—knock around
On pavement
And redwood,
Not yet sent off to a ‘board and card’ mansion,
Rehearsing...

You know where decks and bingo
“Was a dog…” chips or
Markers
Define the tokened measures of your/our life--

Or where, too
Reclining and breathing entertain you/us.

Or tipped-wobbly with 4-wheels and unfeeling-ed feet
I walker along the wet sand at Morro Strand beach
Staggering in wonder at this breathtaking coast...
Here
Until my brief spark of awed experience embers out

Gone...

Yet
Reality Ultimately
Transcendent
--


Meditation on Shimmering Palms

On more days and nights, an invalid,
In pain and loss, I often just want to go...
Unconscious;
But then, again, I stare out
To the wind and sun
From our upstairs
Window;

There tower above, 2 lone palms
In sight from my weak haven,
Swaying in that blue expanse
In a lively coastal wind,
Their mop-tops of slender fronds
Shimmering
Like flashing magnesium flares
From brilliant reflecting
Sunshine.

Those two undulating sentinels dance
over/above my fading consciousness,
Ailing awareness--
A duo/two unconscious guards,
While I lay here filled with sacred
Remembrance, mindful
Of my former festive living,
Becoming, and doing….

Yes, the wonder of being a human primate
Living, but finite, so brief, and this
Gift, this Present
Shimmering--
Then we’re gone.

-Dan Wilcox,
--

FLOATERS--a poetic reflection on autumn and life

I’m spent to despair,
For lost hope yearning,
Tried for years to rescue others
Caught in tangled news hours
Of hellish hate, intolerance, despair,

Wrong right-leftist spinners,
Those creedalists and secularists
Both deniers of the morally real--
Their abyss of modern sheol winter
Stop!
Abandon this somber cellared lament!

Instead,
My sweetheart suggests, Let’s visit
A coastal winery,
Say, I do,
We do.

Driving along a winding river valley,
We arrive, expectant,
Hoping for respite;
Then, listening to soft music,
Sipping small glasses of moscato and merlot

Enjoying a glad lackadaisical day,
Mellow and casual,
Light of heart,
Carefree, contented
In California’s autumn’s wonder
Below tall sycamores and elms;

After Thanksgiving before winter;
We bask in 86-degree warmth,
When unexpectedly a slightly curled
Leaf floats down before
My eyes,
And lands gently on my lap,
A died wonder for us to behold;

Then another drifter
Lets go from a large limb above,
A deep rust-brown leaf spattered
With light tan highlights and vein-lines,
Descends in front of us,

Swaying back and forth,
Languid,
Lightly
Floating down
Inches away from us,
Landing nearby
On the lawn;

I lay with my head way back,
Gazing up to the sky's azure blue,
As other gifts let go every few moments
From high above,
Swinging wide and gentle,

Falling beauty in slow motion,
Floating, swaying;
I realize—here, now--
With this Present--
I could die free, released.

-Dan Wilcox


Color Me Fiery Intense Red

As a kid, expressive, creative, rambunctious,
something of a wild card
long into adulthood
I loved vibrant Green--
for abundant life, for exuberant energy, vividly alive
for beauty like in colors, emerald or jade,
for the natural world from creek to patch of woods
behind our house on the edge of Adams village,
to verdant forest green glens of the Sierras, Sequoia and Yosemite

But--
then, suddenly, unexpectedly, without conscious why;
spontaneous, impulsively one day in middle life,
I awoke
not liking green anymore...
viewing green instead as dull, insipid, sickening, repetitious, odd, over-done, humdrum...

Color me instead--RED riveting, intense, striking sparks of light
cardinal, crimson, scarlet burst into my eyes and consciousness
—passionate, dazzling, blazing, heated, different...

as in exploding firework sky rockets,
as pulsing red coals in a bonfire,
as an amazing psychedelic quilt by my sweetheart
like an Impressionistic painting, luminous in our house
to ruby red lava in Hawaii’s volcano,
intense sunsets, and Utah’s red rock

RED forever

--Dan Wilcox


A Psalm of Late Life

Pessimist of my oldering years
Preyed upon by lamentable loss
I find no balmy psalms to lyre
But after discovered liars
Only this harp
of yawps and howls,
I pray for transcendence,
​This my modern yelled holler
My psalm of life end's exit
Dance in this sorrowing starred night



bidingTimeabiding

bite my teeth on famous lines
a hole lot of fragmented shells;
hunger hollows within--
deepening abyss
of lost longing
lone-ranging, reigning the distance
of a round heartless night

of a round heart-last light
lane-ranging, raining the day-stance
of last longing
steepening a-bless
fulness hallows within--
a whole lot of fragranced shalls;
bide my heart on famous lines
--


a time for…

in the fall a time for springing
childhood,
festivals of Monet-splashed leaves
that my sister and I raked and piled high
in the deep ditch in front
and jumped down into,

and our large garden behind the parsonage
with pumpkins, melons, and withered corn rows...
and lightning bugs on the wane,
flashing on and off

full of fall...
--


bolder utah

utah boulders,
eye widening rock
pastels bold in harvest's sun--
basalt garden wonder
--


at the park's bat box

my grandson scooping up handfuls
of dust
and swinging it loose--
fogged clouds
lighted by sunshine
that disperse
back to cleated ground

--

gull wings

gull wings
lightly spraying over gray clod fields
6-year drought--
so 'irrigating'!

--
Experience the awe-widened beauty of the Columbia Gorge:

MORNING GLORY

http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/2017/10/morning-glory.html
--

Want to be conundrummed? Live in the starbacked night?
Visit Clockwise Cat Poetry Magazine: Klox and Katz Ink Issue, for my two new poems:
conundrumming
Starbacked
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/59489337/klox-and-katz-ink

Check out a brief poem on summer gloom, a haiku at vox poetica:
http://voxpoetica.com/dripping-rain-drizzles/

Then leave sorrow and war and memory behind. Journey love and romance in "Moon River" at Poetry Pacific.
http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2015/02/2-poems-by-daniel-wilcox.html

Need a little bit of humor in the midst of so much human tragedy and political chaos?
Try "The Pullout Coyote" at the fine poetry magazine, vox poetica.
A true but funny poetic story of our encounter with a wild critter in Yosemite last year.
http://voxpoetica.com/pull-out-coyote/
-

For Daniel's previously published writing visit http://www.psalmsyawpshowls.com/
Also, check out his new speculative novel, The Feeling of the Earth.

Get caught up in the joys, trials, and tribulations of 3 alienologists who warp into our solar system in 1842.
They become deeply involved and a mutation occurs in the human species. Journey through the years with them to 2074!
Available now at Barnes Noble, local bookstores, libraries, and Amazon.

Deal with the moving film over your eyes in "Film Over Our Eyes."
Is it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a poem....?

Experience Hollywood's wild ire, the roller-coaster excess of youth,
growing up fundamentalist Baptist, all that rollicking rock crazy Oz of the 60's, and Life itself.
http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/2013/11/film-over-our-eyes.html

There are 3 collections of Daniel's published poems,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls,
Dark Energy
and selah river.
All 3 areavailable at Amazon, Barnes Noble, local bookstores, and coffee shops.
For Daniel's speculative writing, futuristic poems and stories warp over to
http://lastthings.weebly.com/.

Other websites include
http://lightwaveseeker.weebly.com
http://planktonpelican.weebly.com/


Do a Google sleuth and find washed up pieces of his poetic driftwood on the vast shores of the Internet.

His wild lines have fallen to print in many magazines including vox poetica, Fish Food Magazine, Contemporary American Voices, The Camel Saloon, Ascent Aspirations, Poetry Pacific, Dead Snakes, Paradise Review, The Mindful Word, Enhance Literary and Art Magazine, Knot Middle Eastern Literary Journal, Mouse Tales Press, Mad Swirl, Ancient Paths Literary Magazine,hotmetalpress.net, Front Porch Review, The Greensilk Journal, Bigger Stones, Lyrical Passion Poetry, Eunoia Review, The New Verse News, Decades Review, Quill and Parchment, Poydras Review, Counterexample Poetics, The Copperfield Review, Rubber Lemon, amphibi.us, Poetry Super Highway, Three Line Poetry, The Clockwise Cat, Liturgical Credo, Willows Wept Review, vox poetica, Structo Magazine #4, Four and Twenty, Gloom Cupboard, Clutching at Straws, The Centrifugal Eye, Wild Violet Literary Magazine, Lyrical Passion Poetry, A Handful of Stones, Haiku Journal, Right Hand Pointing, The Bicycle Review, Leaf Garden, The Recusant, Calliope Nerve, Static Movement, Unfettered Verse, outwardlink.net, protestpoems.org, Word Riot,
and
Moria Poetry, MediaVirus Magazine, Lunarosity, Hanging Moss Journal, The New Verse News, ocean diamond, The Writer's Eye, Mad Swirl, Abandoned Towers, Writer's Ink, The Scruffy Dog Review, Oak Bend Review, Crossing Rivers Into Twilight, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Cherry Blossom Review, Word Catalyst, The Houston Literary Review, Lucid Rhythms, Identity Theory, Halfway Down the Stairs, Frame Lines, Full of Crow, The Externalist, The Driftwood Review, Western Friend Magazine, Flutter Poetry Journal, Frostwriting, Words-Myth, Ink Sweat Tears, Erbacce Print Journal, Sentinel Poetry Online, The November 3rd Club, the poetry warrior, The Shine Journal, Mississippi Crow Magazine, The Cerebral Catalyst, Anthrozine, Ink, Sweat, & Tears, Stylus Poetry Journal, Idlewheel Literary Friction, The Indite Circle, The Rogue Poetry Journal, The WriteSideUp, La Fenetre International Literary Magazine,The Other Side Magazine, Gambit, etc.

Photographs by Dan and Betsy Wilcox

​

CAT DAY--our master, the SPHINX who lords it over us; and now, just in time for ALL HALLOWS EVEN, another one, POE!

On a sad day over 2 years ago, Smoke, our past stray master, suddenly, took grievously ill and died.

Being the subservient humans that we are, we diligenty searched animal sheters to find a new master, but then out of the river bed near our house on the coast of California,
(where we sometimes spot opossums, a raccoon or lost dog, even a coyote),
the SPHINX arrived and sat, day after after day, attentively out in our yard with paws out front, watching us (like his namesake, the SPHINX of ancient Egypt, where cats first ruled).





NOW ENTER, this autumn, a new stray, black as pitch, POE, just in time for ALL HALLOWS EVEN.

Pic from Silky Sally Friends For Life Animal Rescue

May the Great Pumpkin bring you a new lord to order you around at this hallowed time of year;-).
How CATastrophic your evening could be.


You may even want to go online and read, "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.

Dan Wilcox

BRIEF HISTORIC explanation of CAUSES of current HORRORS in PALESTINE-ISRAEL

WHO’S to BLAME for murderous crises in PALESTINE-ISRAEL this month?
(in half a page! based on extensive histories by JEWISH and other historians)

1. The CORRUPT-INTOLERANT Ottoman Empire
2. The BRITISH AND FRENCH GOVERNMENTS—especially the BRITISH WHO IN 1917 PROMISED 2 COMPLETLEY DIFFERENT, CONTRARY GROUPS OF PEOPLE—JEWS and ARABS,
the SAME PIECE of LAND that the British had liberated from the Turks, ending the Ottoman Empire.!

PHOTO of Hamas MURDERER by Hamas of its attacks on social media. Photo: Israel Defence Forces via AP

3. The intolerant, anti-democratic, raiding MUSLIM PALESTINIANS who often ATTACKED and MURDERED INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS beginning in the late 1800’s!

4. THE IMMIGRANT—often illegal refugee JEWS (from Russia, Germany, etc.) WHO FROM THE BEGINNING in ABOUT 1915 WROTE that THEY PLANNED to EXPEL ALL PALESTINIANS, and TAKE ALL THEIR LANDS for EUROPEAN JEWS.

5. The RIOTING MUSLIN PALESTINIANS WHO in the 1920’s and 30’s again MURDERED many INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS (even Jews whose FAMILES had lived in Palestine for many centuries)!

6. The JEWISH TERRORISTS such as the IRGUN WHO in the 1930’s and 40’s bombed INNOCENT PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS and murdered British soldiers including their infamous BOMBING of the KING DAVID HOTEL in the 1940’s.

7. The CURRENT EXTREMIST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT WHO REGULARLY STEALS LAND, WATER, etc. from poor Palestinians, CUTS DOWN THEIR ORCHARDS, as DID the ISRAELI MILITARY of a CHRISTIAN PALESTNIAN FAMILY’S ORCHARD even though that family has owned their land since back when only about 5% of PALESTINE-ISRAEL was JEWISH!

And the EXTREMIST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT supports INTOLERANT, RAMPAGING EXTREMIST JEWISH SETTLERS when they torch innocent PALESTINIANS’ CARS, DAMAGE THEIR HOMES, CUT DOWN THEIR OLIVE TREES:_(((

8. INTOLERANT, anti-democratic MUSLIM HAMAS who constantly HAS INTENTIONALLY MURDERED MANY THOUSANDS of INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS, even murdered their own Palestinian people!

WHAT IS the SOLUTION to this HORRIFIC TRAGEDY?

NO ONE KNOWS, just like no one knows what to do about the millions of refugees who now are without a home in the world today!

Guest Post: Fairly Objective Overview of the Tragic History of Palestinians and Israelis

Here is a fairly objective overview of the tragic history of Israelis and Palestinians in the last 120 years. It summarizes well the many, many books on that history.

FROM ALJAZEERA:

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people and has its roots in a colonial act carried out more than a century ago.

With Israel declaring war on the Gaza Strip after an unprecedented attack by the armed Palestinian group Hamas on Saturday, the world’s eyes are again sharply focused on what might come next.

Hamas fighters have killed more than 800 Israelis in assaults on multiple towns in southern Israel. In response, Israel has launched a bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 500 Palestinians. It has mobilised troops along the Gaza border, apparently in preparation for a ground attack. And on Monday, it announced a “total blockade” of the Gaza Strip, stopping the supply of food, fuel and other essential commodities to the already besieged enclave in an act that under international law amounts to a war crime.
But what unfolds in the coming days and weeks has its seed in history.

For decades, Western media outlets, academics, military experts and world leaders have described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as intractable, complicated and deadlocked.

Here’s a simple guide to break down one of the world’s longest-running conflicts:

What was the Balfour Declaration?"

CONTINUE at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/whats-the-israel-palestine-conflict-about-a-simple-guide

Please hold the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Light.

Do what you can to help people see the real facts about this historic tragedy.

NOT the twisted and distorted ideological claims by both sides!

And support organizations that work for peace in Palestine-Israel such as Ramallah Friends School.

BLOOD BROTHERS: Christian Palestinian-Israeli Memoir by Elas Chacour

The LADY in the GARDEN

On a picture-post-card date near the swirling
Serpentine sway of the wide Schuylkill River
Meandering through Central Philly's park garden,

Towered over by leaning elms, while 3 long canoes
Swift by to the paddling of Ivy League rowers.
Gazing at my dear partner in this verdant garden;

My Friendly girl, Karen--ebony caped-round
In waist-length hair like a swaying black cloak--
She's an aspiring concert violinist and rights activist;

Vivid in her red chambray shirt and Levis, she
Converses intensely of King's D.C. March in 3 weeks,
Me listening intently to my companion in the garden.

I, the drafted conscientious objector, work for Uncle Sam
With forsaken kids confined to sterile mental wards,
Disturbed by parents' wrong living; but still am

So youthfully focused on my comely girlfriend’s
Figured shape more than humanity’s ship of state.
A warm date with my dear companion in the garden.

We sit cross-legged on a wide lush parkway green,
Getting ready to munch our carefully bagged meal
Of 2 peanut butter and grape sandwiches,

Yet we discuss war’s ravages in far-off Nam
And Bob Dylan's 'hard rained' croons.
Loving my dear concerned friend in the garden

But then I inhale a fuming putrid odor;
Twist my neck and see this bagged lady in a filthy rag
Of a dress lunging slowly forward, hanging

Onto her trashy mesh of a shopping bag, her rancid
Stench to high heaven wafts, and I pinch my nose;
Turn back to Karen, not this intruder in the garden.

But lo and hold--my violinist, instead, rises
And welcomes the old hag, “Hi Lady, will you join us
For our little Sunday snack here in the warm sun?”

The homeless stranger sprawls haggardly on our grass,
Her grimy shift wrinkling on her scraggly legs.
Karen gazes warmly at this unknown one in the garden

I'm all upside-down in my face as this invader,
Reaches out her grubby hand to our blanket,
Grabs one of our 2 sandwiches, and half crams

It in her narrow jaws, chews open-mouthed and teethed,
While I fume, separated from my date
By this chomping vagrant in our parked garden.

But then I awake, remembering almost too late,
The very deep story about the least of these; I turn,
And finally join my dear musician's caring psalm,

We now communing 3 of human kind,
Under these verdant swaying trees of warmth.
Sharing friends,--in this present park garden.


--Dan Wilcox

First pub. in The Oak Bend Review
in different form;
in Selah River, a collection of Daniel's
published poetry,
And before, in Dark Energy, a book of poems by Daniel
published by Diminuendo Press


In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

My Lifestance--in brief-: a Transcendence Seeker

A TRANSCENDENCE SEEKER, living for Moral Realism--
the True, the Just, the Caring.
Living for Jesus' moral truths in the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, Galatians 5:22...

Living in the worldview of Liberal Quakerism (within the movement, not so much the organization),
especially communing with others in expectant openness and hope and peacemaking;
oppose violence of speech and action.

In philosophical speculation, probably Process Deism;

In method of living, the primacy of reason and the scientific method;
and a focus on individual creativity in literature, the arts, and technology

in politics, leftist with libertarian leanings;
in economics, free enterprise, though with very strong social caring and practical help for impoverished,
dysfunctional, troubled, lost, etc.;

In government, voting democracy, (not electoral college).
Require meticulous honesty, moral leaders who while standing strong for the good and just,
also seek to work across political divides with opposing leaders of opposite parties;

In society, equality (not equity), consensus; generosity; creativity;
Avid support for human rights, "I Have a Dream" integration and reconciliation;
Very strong support for Monogamous marriage, the Nuclear family
including support for same sexual marriage for gay and lesbian couples;

Opposition to ideological falsehoods and social contagions including Trans and Nonbinary delusions--and their denial of the biological reality of the binary nature of human sexuality. Over 98% of humans are born either boy or girl.
Help those tiny percentage of humans who are born with physical errors such as intersex or who have illusionary feelings contrary to actual facts.

Against PRIDE Parades that glorify sleazy and immoral sexual behavior,
Drag Queens that demean actual women, harm the innocence of children, etc.
LGBTQ+ Propaganda and flags, promiscuity, kink sexuality, polyamory;

Opposed to the twisting of language such as the claim that a human can decide whether or not to be a man or a woman,
and that sex is "assigned at birth."
Of course that is an Orwellian falsehood. Infants aren't "assigned at birth." Baby humans come out of our mother's womb either boy or girl. And that actual fact is written down.

Against Trumpism, Augustinian-Reformed Christianity, Marxism, CRT (that distorts actual history), BLM (that is against the nuclear family and falsely blames whole groups of humans,and makes false claims of "systemic racism" in contemporary society). Of course, there have been cases of systemic racism such as segregation, "Jim Crow," Sun-down Towns, Apartheid, etc. And BLM attacks all police officers as racists, even though most officers are fair, just, and against racism.


To be continued...

In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

WHY WE HUMANS NEED to RETURN to BIOLOGICAL FACTS about HUMAN SEXUALITY and DISMISS "social constructs" such as Gender

DISMISS the ideological, fallacious term, “GENDER”—when it conflicts with the actual biology of infants born either girl or boy.
Most, if not all, "social constructs" are immoral, contrary to facts, and often very harmful to humans.
Note that “gender” isn’t an actual fact of human biology, but a “social construct” of various societies.
"the male sex or the female sex, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones, or one of a range of other identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
"the singer has opted to keep the names and genders of her twins private"
https://www.google.com/search?q=gender%20definition...
-
"Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other.
World Heath Organization
https://www.google.com/search?q=gender%20definition...

Trans--Drag Queen--Daytona [2nd part obscene]

-
"Gender can be broadly defined as a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits.
National Institute of Health
-
"All humans are born with biological characteristics of sex, either male, female, or intersex. Gender, however, is a social construct and generally based on the norms, behaviors, and societal roles expected of individuals based primarily on their sex.
Psychology Today
-
"Who was the first to define gender?
Sexologist John Money
The term gender had been associated with grammar for most of history and only started to move towards it being a malleable cultural construct in the 1950s and 1960s. Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955.
Enyclopedia.pub
-
"Since the 1990s, Money's work and research has been subject to significant academic and public scrutiny.[7] A 1997 academic study criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer, and Money's sexual abuse of Reimer and his twin brother when they were children.[8][9] Some of Money's sessions involved Money forcing the two children to perform sexual activities with each other, which Money then photographed. David Reimer lived a troubled life, eventually committing suicide at 38; his brother died of an overdose at age 36.[10][11]
Wikipedia


ln the LIGHT of the TRUE, GOOD, AND JUST,

Dan Wilcox

In honor of the 60th Anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech--but caution

The FALSEHOODS of some Extremist Blacks’ Ideological Claims that All Whites are Guilty of Whiteness and White Supremacy
---Heck, some of these famous ANTI-RACIST ideologues criticize Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights leaders of the 1950-60’s as being guilty of some racism!!

For example, "anti-racist" Ibram X. Kendi's book, Stamped from the Beginning contains many historical falsehoods and is driven by immoral ideology.
Instead, Kendi actually claims that the only anti-racist leader was a pro-Soviet communist! Even worse, she refused to condemn the horrific evils of the Soviet Union!
MLK Book Image--Amazon

And ANTI-RACIST ideologues claim that NO Blacks can be racist--None, and that even criminals if they are Black have been imprisoned because of--not their crimes--but police racism and America's systemic racism!

The doctrine of ANTI-RACISM is one of the worst FALSE claims ever! It opposes reconciliation, integration, and condemns whole classes of people just like the Germans and the Soviets did in the 20th century. This unjust doctrine is Orwellian:_(
1. CAUTION! It is horrifically true that for several hundred years Europeans invaded, settled, dominated, and enslaved People of Color in the Americas (multi-millions of Native Americans, Black Africans, Asians, Mulattos,) etc.

Though keep in mind, that many of the Blacks sold into slavery were sold to White Slave Ships by Other Black Africans! That in America, many Native Americans, freed Blacks, etc. also owned slaves!!
And it is very immoral and bad that President Woodrow Wilson and other former presidents were guilty of Segregation, prejudice, and discrimination, etc.

And it is true that into the 20th century cities in the North of the U.S. had racist Sundown Towns, that Segregation lasted in the South until about 1970’s, etc.
And that SOME Americans of European descent are still racist even in the 21th century:_( I've met a few. HOWEVER
The general claim that all Whites in America, all police officers are guilty of racism and America is white supremacist is completely wrong.

IF in doubt of what I state, read objective histories of the Americas, check out millions of actual real Whites, MLK's emphasis upon reconciliation (not the color of people's skin!), Langston Hughes' Daybreak in Alabama, etc.

Heck, I know a family who has been condemned as racist! YET THEY ARE ACTUALLY A UNITED NATIONS--of various racial, ethnic groups including Black!
Or watch Black country singer Coffee Anderson's satire against these ANTI-RACIST IDEOLOGUES.

Also, this wondrous poem, "Daybreak in Alabama", by Langston Hughes, which carries the same Light-centered truths as MLK's speech.

Daybreak in Alabama

When I get to be a colored composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama

And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew

I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it

Touching everybody with kind fingers
Touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a colored composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

Langston Hughes, "Daybreak in Alabama" from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.

-- Haiku Deck image


In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

8/21/23

On improving Criminal Justice System

1. The U.S. has a broken criminal justice system, one with a high rate of repeat offenders and which often fails to protect law-abiding citizens.

2. There are no easy answers, certainly not the quick-fix claims of politicians of the right and left.

3. Start by putting into practice nation-wide the heroic elderly woman's strict-altruistic response to a teen crook who steals her purse in "Thank you, Ma'am" by Langston Hughes.

4. Stop treating law breakers as victims, blaming others or the 'system', etc. for their crimes; stop letting law breakers off with light sentences or no sentences!

The latter has happened a lot; for example many law-breakers in Portland, Oregon 3 years ago were let off by the Multnomah County District Attorney, given no penalties, given no required restitutions because their violations weren't as severe as others.

"Protesters march through the streets after rallying at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on August 2. Part of this photo has been blurred because of profanity.) Photo by NOAH BERGER/AP
Yet the law-breakers were part of a mob of protestors, who night after night, attacked the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse causing over a million dollars in damages, the Portland police, other government and privately owned businesses and set arson fires, etc.)

It's very sad also to see that the Mennonite Church in Portland defended the law breakers, and instead blamed the police who were trying to protect and to stop the law-breaking protesters.

5. On the other hand, we do need to be careful not to dehumanize those who commit crimes and are arrested. But they need to be held accountable, and focus needs to be on finding new ways to help such law-breakers overcome their criminal patterns.

6. Check back with Quaker Elizabeth Fry and others' methods, who engaged in major prison reform in the past. And study various other nations who allegedly have had better success with helping criminals reform, such as Finland.

7. Isolate only lawbreakers who keep harming others. For nonviolent crimes, use methods of rehabilitation in the midst of regular society.

8. Of course, keep in mind, that very different methods will need to be employed against sociopaths, the minority of crooks
who only see those who try and use redemptive justice (such as displayed by the elderly lady in the Hughes story) as weaklings, easy marks to be conned, attacked, and murdered.

What new ways do you think might help improve our broken system?


In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

Again, that Wondrous Spiritual 'Pick-up' Line of Light-centered Hope

Remember back to our young teen years when many of us were dying to talk to the individual we had a crush on, and kept trying to figure out what we could say that sincerely stated our care and hope?:_)

Religions, too, sincerely, speak words of love, sacred pickup lines, heart-centered--
in Judaism
(Jewish Bible's extended metaphor of God saying 'He' is Israel's lover),
in Christianity, especially in Quakerism and Pietism
(Christians are Christ's bride),
in Sufi Islam,
in Bhakti Hinduism,
in some forms of Mahayana Buddhism,
in Unity/New Thought,
and so forth...

According to Quakerly, Wesleyan, Pietistic movement, God infinitely loves every single human
who has ever existed, and loves every single human
who will ever exist in the future.

"I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love,
which flowed over the ocean of darkness."
--George Fox

Talk about spiritual hyperbole...
up close and personal
but as a young, naive, troubled teen, I loved this hope, this spiritual pickup line
(made famous by spiritual crooners from George Fox
to John Wesley, John Woolman, D. L. Moody, Billy Graham, Thomas Kelly, Henri Nouwen, etc.)...



--

I Love This Line
“For God so loves everyone."
I love this line

That the Light, the Divine, Transcendent Reality, the Good--
the inexplicable TRANSCENDENCE at the center of the whole cosmos
cares for each of one of us
to the utmost!



What a wonder, what a hope, what an Everest height
that ultimate linguistic sign.
Yes, I love this line

Yet born with a constant why in my mouth
always seeking,
always looking beyond every belief, every doctrine,
I struggled far past usual doubt

Got gore-baptized by the horrors of Christian history...
heck, even rich Quakers owned slaves until 1776
though they bespoke that heartfelt spiritual pickup line,
their many brutal actions belied their spiritual romantic claim.
Yet I still love their line.

Despite Fox supporting the slaughters of Cromwell;
despite early Jesus wars in the 4th century
and ever since down to this troubled present;

and endless doctrinal horrors:
Augustine claimed Original Sin
in human sexual love-making, then
abandoned his long-time common lover
for God and, seeking for a high class woman,
he lined this line to eternal death.

And most Christians, including some Friends, while lipping "For God so loved.."
spoke darkly of God's hidden foreordinations to hell for God's glory,
total depravity, limited atonement, forced adoration,
and His constant killings for His own "good pleasure."

So many billions of religious folk lie that Lightful line--
with Biblical infanticide,
the Inquisition, heresy trials, burnings-at-the-stake,
multi-millions slaughtered dutifully for God and country,
Trinity, Jehovah,Allah,Shiva, Shinto, Buddha...

And Black Deaths, influenzas, plagues and famines
tsunamis, floods, and disasters,
and 30,000 children
dying daily--21 each minute;
such glaring harsh facts
bloody and leech all hope
from that lied line.

It does appear that Love’s not an endless YES,
never an the transcendent sphere,
not our Beloved’s ring,

No, not a never ending line of peace and mercy
but only a paltry pickup conning.

Now at 76 years, I hate this false line, the constant
come-on starter by Jews, Christians, Muslims and other con crooners.

How do we ever truly trust again?

Heck, some American and British Quakers even claim
there is NO Light, that only matter and energy exist!

Is there only Mere--as these Friends claim, no Transcendent myrrh?

What of the "impossible possibility" of a Niebuhr,
of the romantic one-liners of George Fox
and Margaret Fell?
That God never says never?

But only,
(to quote Tillich and St. Paul),

Yes, and Yes, and Yes.

But critical assessment of existence
cleavers God’s promise line--
I love you!

Still, I refuse to bow to that despairing cut
The slash of Never--
by creedalists, nontheists.

Let us hope against the brutal facts of religious history...
as did early Quakers though persecuted, abused, and killed--
that ever Past is
never
always Future.

Despite all negation, somehow,
let's still love this LIGHTFUL line--
Love wins.


In the Transcendent Light,

Dan Wilcox

No comments:

Why Be a Quaker? Transcendent open worship--a powerful example from Pacific Yearly Meeting

Our worldwide Society of Friends has seriously splintered in the last 150 years into very different camps, most of whom have very little in common with the early founders of the spiritual movement. Quite a few of us have often pondered over this severe quandary.* Many books and conferences over the years have struggled...

Instead of dwelling in that past, let us be Present now. Here is an actual Transcendent experience of the Light at a Pacific Yearly Meeting for worship in California.

OPEN WORSHIP TRANSCENDS

Drowned in family tragedy, despairing, distraught--
that morning earlier;
thus, down encumbered,
he came to worship meeting, but not speaking
of his family’s severe circumstance, kept hidden;

But in the midst
of open expectant communion, Transcendent Light
shown forth in a stranger’s sudden
a cappella spiritual chorus--
a deep songing deepening within;
intense meaning lifted us gathered in communion--
vivid encouraging Hope;

That sacred chorus didn’t take away our shattered glass
lives, nor end many distraught
circumstances and tragedies--
but
Oh, what Hope fulled within.


In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox


In a later article, I could give my own understanding
of some of the complex series of tragic evidences of how it came that the Society kept breaking into contrary groups...
or of the equally troubling 'quietistic' era before that when there were many rigid religious restrictions on Quakers, including that no Quaker could marry a non-Quaker and remain in good standing.

We are in this sometimes disagreeable patchwork/collage called Friends, Quakerism, and
on why to continue to move toward the Light within this small 380-year-old movement.

1. For me personally, I visited a Friends meeting one Sunday and was drawn to its less-ritual, more open experiential worship.
Side Note: Besides the experiential factor that I came to Quakerism because I was a conscientious objector to the VietNam War serving my drafted time working in a mental hospital.

This was with other pacfists in the Fall of 1967 near Philadelphia, PA. I was helping pay the rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Trevose, PA. 3 Mennonite/Brethren C.O.'s slept in the bedroom on cots, me on a mat behind the couch in the living room:-).

I greatly valued creativity, openness, experiential spirituality, so one can see why the Society of Friends meeting was a wonderful new experience.

Before being drafted, I had been a Creative Writing major at Long Beach State in California. Now in September 1967, I was newly arrived in Pennsylvania near Washington's Crossing, and wanted to find a new church.

I had admired the Quakers in the news 6 years before back in 1961 for protesting against nuclear weapons, so I decided to give their meeting a visit.
After one Sunday going to a nearly empty meeting for worship near Newtown in September, I eventually began regularly attending worship in downtown Philly at Backbench Young Adult Friends gathering. Though as a mental health worker, I worked 10 days on, 4 days off so could only take the L-Train into downtown Philly 2 times a month.

How powerful those times of OPEN WORSHIP were!
I’m not into forms, not sharply, rigidly, traditionally, ritually-structured forms. As all artists and writers know, “form and freedom” are 2 contrary characteristics of any creative endeavor.

One needs both freedom and form. Not either or. Too much freedom, chaos and havoc and destruction rule, too much form, slavery and rigidity and still-death reign.
Quaker meeting for worship seemed the perfect combination of freedom and form!

2. While actual spiritual experiences--vivid stories that happen to us humans don't prove our views are correct, there is GREAT inherent worth in such transcendent experiences,
as shown with the poetic sharing of the Light-filled worship one First Day at Pacific Yearly Meeting in California.

Long reflection on Life and natural objects: a Beachcomber of Beauty

a beachcomber of Beauty


a why-ing kid

up
with go-vision eyes stretching
and out,

rambling
meandering rocky-rubble farm roads
and roaming over creeks, through timber strands,
brief forest, and out across pasture lands--

I discovered beautiful bits and lumps that matter
--pebbles, stones, and rocks
(especially when wet)
and odd ugly ones, to boot

on fun nature hikes
wide-eyed adventures--
outside of our minor village
in 50’s southeast Nebraska;

Put those bright objects, small hunks, in my pockets
where they lay heavy
or in my overloaded baggish hands,
carrying them home,
my free treasures of early youth

enlarging my throng of wonder
in my pine-walled basement room--
Yes, I became a rock-mongrel mutt;

And later found others, mostly bits of minerals,
my boyhood keepers
in the Black Hills, Rockies, Sierras,
and a small chunk of copper ore
from an open pit mine in Bisbee, Arizona,
and a few parched white bones from
a long-ago bison jump
near Lame Dear, Montana.

I became a boarder of pebbles, quartzes, feldspars, agates,
granite bits, and mica, sea-glass, iron pirate,
and who-know unknowns,
and fascinating shells and other sea life from 3 coasts--

a beachcomber of minor Beauty,
a voyager through this washed-up-n-down of life,
Adrift explorer, searcher, curious wanderer.

But now in receding elder age, mutated
by a stroke of bad luck,
I hesitently hobble about with a rolling walker alone
along Pismo sand dunes and Morro Rock shores
still searching, seeking for more special riff-raff,
to add to my ‘treasured things,’
our rooms’ shelves;

Here they still lay waiting
inert for another
I/It encounter...

Oh, the aesthetic depth of minor things,
bits that matter which sometime
transcend
into present
WONDER!

Yes, objects of beauty that exist in Deep Time...
In not too many years,
I will leave them behind;
and those long-enduring things will
exist others of the future.

And this long rumination of my life-long collections
Reminds me of a pebbled thought of beauty for present living--

We humans get washed up
on this shore of existence,
surrounded and crowded

by things and circumstances
we didn’t choose--

We all get roughed down and polished by adversity...

But the wonder of our human brain’s neural plasticity--
is we all get to choose
how we respond to life’s circumstances,
harsh trials, and horrific tragedies--

Yes, until our death, we get to create anew
Each moment,
If only briefly...

--


Conclusion:
What has washed up on your shore today?

What beautiful pebbled moment of wonder?

Or what irritant, ache, troubling circumstance, or tragedy
has gotten lodged in your
oyster mind and heart?

What can you do to turn this troubled moment into a precious
gem/pebble/stone/agate?



In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

UPDATED 7/19/23


​

MEAT-EATER OR VEGAN? The Danger of the EITHER OR FALLACY

Part 5 Moving Toward Vegetarianism


There are many health reasons and moral reasons for all humans to become non-meat eaters. (See my previous blog articles on this controversy for the reasons.)

So, ideally, not eating meat would be good for humans.

But it all gets more complicated—like so many controversies--when one gets down to the real daily level of life for specific humans.

For instance, years ago, I decided to try out being a vegan like Murray Rose, the famous Olympic gold medals winner. I read a biography on his amazing life.

Very bad, tragic results however! I lost 50 pounds and suffered malnutrition! Was put under a health doctor’s care who was a vegan, and she tried various methods to help me. None worked.

Another medical profession, head of the hospital in Pennsylvania where I worked told me that veganism wasn’t beneficial, for me at least, but the entire hour she talked to me, she chain-smoked!

Clearly, it seemed lucidly obvious that I shouldn’t take her advice. Why was she smoking cigarette packs a day as a medical professional?!

HOWEVER—HERE is a vivid CASE of the EITHER-OR-FALLACY!

Just because, the hospital chain-smoker wasn’t wise in her choices didn’t automatically mean that then my vegan health doctor was correct her views.

It turned out that both were drastically wrong.

While the famous Olympic star Murray Rose won gold medals as a vegan, that didn’t mean that everyone else ought to follow his views.
Some humans can’t digest plant protein well, some can’t get enough protein from vegetables, fruits, and nuts alone.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that everyone ought to go whole-hog in meat eating, either. And then there is also, ‘foul’ food.

I’m am still a work in progress, especially after the very severe stroke of the spine I got 4 years ago.

While I quit pork years ago (how can anyone continue to eat a sentient animal smarter than dogs and cats?!)...
And in the last 15 or so years ago, I stopped eating beef.

Not that I am harming beef raisers. I grew up in rural southeast Nebraska where we got ¾ a cow every year from my grandparents and have worked on a huge ranch as a cowhand in Montana, so I’ve done my bit for cattle owners and for being from the Beef State (though I am still a Corn Husker;-)—that’s the other mascot of my childhood home. Go Big Red!

At present, I am a cheesy-fishatarian, on my way to get back to the Garden;-)

More in the next section...

In the LIGHT

Dan Wilcox

LIGHT-centered VIEW of REALITY

1. TRANSCENDENT—the GOOD, TRUE, JUST, CARING is the ULTIMATE CONCERN.

2. EVIDENCE based in the scientific method and facts about the cosmos is the authority.

3. DEEP TIME-SPACE is the true story/narrative.

4. MORAL REALISM is the true way of action.

5. LIVING for the ‘oughts’-- the good, true, just, caring--for the future for all humans, other conscious species, and all of nature is the purpose.

Image: Hiker enjoying the night sky at Craters of the Moon. The Monument was designated as an International Dark Sky Park in 2017. NPS/Jacob Frank
In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

One Controversial Dialogue about whether or not Quakers' Nonviolence was the Best Way to End Slavery

AGAINST QUAKER NONVIOLENCE, FOR WAR INSTEAD:

"Was...Quakerism the best route to abolition?

In the USA, slavery was abolished by a war - which remains America's bloodiest even in absolute terms despite the subsequent growth in American population.

Quakers were and are pacifists and conscientious objectors, so at least in the USA they did not contribute directly to abolishing slavery as much as the (mostly) men who died to eradicate it.

Also, Quakers initially opposed Darwin, and about half of Quakers today remain creationists according to Wikipedia. So the question is whether the good done by Quakers verbally objecting to slavery (while not shedding any blood for the cause) outweighs the harm done by their science denial.

That's not an easy accounting job so I would hesitate to call the Quakers "good."

And not to mention that Quakers continue to promote the bible, which itself on plain reading promotes slavery or at least conspicuously fails to condemn it. According to the bible, picking up sticks on the Sabbath is a capital offense while slavery is A-OK as long as you follow the directions laid out.

Imagine there were some liberal anti-Nazis who continued to promote Mein Kampf as the source of all truth. They would come with opportunity costs too. There are better ways to oppose the evils of Nazism than by teaching people to take its sacred text seriously.

I don't deny that some theists in some circumstances have done some good things. Hamas for example peforms lots of charity work among its folk while calling for Israel to be eradicated.

Even some secular drug lords provided jobs and support for the impoverished Latin American communities where they operated.

Drugs and religion have many parallels. They are both harmful businesses built on a foundation of lies, often accompanied by a window dressing of conspicuous benevolence."

-
English Quakers on a Barbados plantation. / Image courtesy of New York Public Library


FOR QUAKER WAY OF NONVIOLENCE AGAINST WAR: Yes, the British Quaker movement and their U.S. abolitionism, Underground Railroad, etc. was "the best route to abolition"
NOT the horrendous vast slaughter of the U.S. Civil War, (which wasn't even intended for abolition but for forcing seceding Southerns back into the Union).

HOWEVER, as you point out...

1. Quakers in history and now are a very diverse and contrary group--have been all over the place. Heck, rich Quakers, such as in the Caribbean owned slaves. However, because of their original emphasis upon equality for humans, they finally--many reluctantly--rejected and opposed slavery in the latter part of the 1700's (as I already stated, my original point).

They did lead the movement against slavery in Britain. And in the U.S. by 1776, they totally opposed slaves and eventually helped lead abolitionism, were part of the Underground Railroad, helped lead the political movement for women's rights, etc.

2. However, the central founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox in 1640 strongly supported Cromwell and his slaughter of the English Civil War!

3. The majority of Quakers at present in the U.S. are mostly fundamentalist-Evangelical! Heck, I couldn't have been a member, nor would I want to be.

4. Historically, some Quakers have held horrendous views. In Indiana in the 1920's a very large Quaker meeting was a very strong supporter of the KKK. In one infamous picture, the KKK in their robes are all standing down at the front.

Quaker Yearly Meeting in Southern California in 1980 came out strongly for nuclear weapons.

5. Early Quakers were charged with heresy. Good grief, William Penn was jailed because of his book that cast doubt on orthodox Christian creed.

6. in 2012, a Quaker meeting in South Carolina strongly promoted Calvinism.
ETC.

7. I think you have a serious--though common-- misunderstanding of the U.S. Civil War, one that I, once, held, too. Until I had spent years studying too many tomes on the Civil War era and teaching it in secular public high schools.

While plantation leaders of the South did fight the war to retain slavery--they wrote into their Constitution--most of the millions involved in that horrific conflagration weren't fighting about slavery.

Lincoln specifically stated that he invaded the South, Not to end slavery, but to force the seceding states back into the Union.
Lincoln, even in 1863 wanted all Blacks to leave the U.S. and move to another country. He had specifically emphasized that if they returned they could keep slaves.

Not only that, but when Lincoln declared all slaves in the South freed in 1863, Lincoln continued to enslave Blacks in the Union! The Union's slaves weren't freed until 1865!

Also, keep in mind that as a lawyer, Lincoln had gone to court for a slave owner against a slave!!

And Lincoln and many others in the Union held that Blacks weren't equal to Whites, etc.
ETC.

Contrary to your point in favor of war, the Quaker method of abolition was far superior to a war that slaughtered at least 800,000 individuals, wounded millions, intentionally attacked civilians, etc.

Did you know that according to historians, Grant's wife continued to use slaves (her father owned them) even while Grant was shelling and killing civilians at Vicksburg?!

8. Your comparison of Quakers to HAMAS is very unfair and untrue.

HAMAS is a horrific terrorist organization, who even murders other Palestinians!

In contrast, there are Palestinians who are kind and caring. I've lived and worked in Palestine-Israel; our family has helped 2 impoverished Palestinian families, etc. And I was a guest of a Palestinian family in Nablus (where some of the killing is going on).
I used to teach about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Holocaust, etc.for years

BOTH SIDES of that horrendous conflict for the last 100 years are partly right and partly wrong.

BUT HAMAS and the Jewish settlers who regularly steal Palestinian land, destroy orchards, go into Palestinian towns and torch cars, houses, etc. are doing what is very wrong.

In contrast, the Quakers have had a school in Ramallah for 150 years that teaches reconciliation, peace-making, etc.

Yes, HAMAS and other terrorist organizations do charity work, BUT that is ONLY for other Muslims, NOT for Jews or others. Instead, they slaughter innocent Jewish civilians intentionally.
Several years ago, Palestinian leaders hailed a Palestinian who snuck into a 13-year-old Jewish girl's bedroom and knifed her to death. He was declared a patriot, a martyr!
Instead, Quakers emphasize helping those outside of their group, even those contrary to their way of life!

9. Let me emphasize again. I already knew all the terrible wrongs that you pointed out about some Quakers' bad actionsin the past. And there are plenty more that I could add to your list. I used to teach Quaker history and views of Reality to our Quaker meeting in the late 1970's.
And, by the way, when I did that, I was an extreme liberal, as I have already emphasized never thought Jesus was God, etc.

Since you don't accept my example of the Quakers leading abolition, here's another one:

Martin Luther King Jr. and other Baptists, etc. led the Civil Rights Movement. And one of his advisors was a Quaker and one was an Atheist.

And yes, I know that he was a gross adulterer, probably cheated on his thesis for PhD. etc.
My point isn't that the Baptists are in general, or MLK, specifically, are paragons of virtue and goodness.

My original point is that sometimes some religions (just like sometimes some atheists) lead the advancement of the good, the true, and the just in human history.

That was my ONLY point.

I know all too well, that all humans including us, have some good and some bad in our actions.
-
Against Quaker: wrote, "Was it their religious proclivities that drove their abolitionist ideals, or was it a sense of what was right?"

For Quaker: BOTH. It was a particular "religious proclivity"--that of equality--which led the Quakers to end their slave-owning and to help lead the abolition movement.

In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox