[From The Season for Nonviolence, 64 Ways in 64 Days pamphlet]
Feb. 7 — Dreaming–Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. What is your dream of peace? Write it down. What is one thing you can do to honor that dream? Do it today.
Is it just me or do my readers hate my season for nonviolence? I think you miss the days at the DMV. Maybe I’m being too sincere. It’s hard for me to find my voice here. I’m bridging so many worlds, I have got my leftwing warriors in the political trenches readers (who are maybe ostensibly nonviolent, but constantly “fighting” and may not be at all spiritual about it) and I’ve got my spiritual warriors, fighting for their recovery, or surrendered to the will of God, which may be their own, expressed only through them.
By the way, here’s a question, is surrender a peaceful or a warlike term? On the one hand, you’ve stopped fighting, but on the, you’re still envisioning an enemy to whic to surrender.
So, what is my dream of peace? Sometimes, frankly my dream of peace is just a social welfare state, a government that actually protects its people through good education, quality health care for all, a guarantee of a living wage and a roof over your head. Most if not all of the developed nations in the world provide that, the U.S. does not.
A friend of mine recently moved to Toronto, Ontario. She and her husband were trying to decide what neighborhood in which to buy a house. They asked their new colleagues, where are the best schools? Where do we want to live? Their colleagues literally did not understand the question. And my friend couldn’t understand that they didn’t understand.
In Toronto, if not all of Canada, the quality of education does not vary by school or economic tax base or who happens to be the PTA of the school. Every school provides the same quality education: it all completely sucks. No. I’m kidding. It’s good and it’s all the same. The same is true for Canadian health care. It may matter a little which province you live in, but it doesn’t matter who you for, whether you’re married, how much money you make, your health care is covered and you have a Canadian insurance card and you can take it your doctor and be seen with little or no out of pocket costs.
That’s my dream of peace today, that we can finally begin to take care of our own people, that people can relax and breath because we’ve got their back. No better, that’s not a peaceful metaphor because it implies we’re under attack. No one has to have your back. You’re safe.
What can I do today to honor that dream? How about write about it here?
Okay, YES! I did rather enjoy your DMV blogs. So why do I feel like I'm at confession? Now I find myself asking: am I an anti-intellectual because I'm not thinking or blogging about nonviolence? Is it wrong to enjoy the real life, day-to-day humor, you crafted so well? I'm also pretty sure there was a nonviolence blog opportunity at the DMV.
I just learned in my anthropology class today that man lived in bands/tribes for millions of years before developing the concept of 'states' about 20,000 years ago. Some anthropologists believe that man's evolution has not well prepared him/her to live in large societies. This makes sense to me. It also explains why countries like Sweden and Canada can take care of their people: they have much smaller populations.
I would love to live in a country that 'had my back.' I'm not sure if that's ever going to be true in the USA, but I can keep praying.
Mark