Blogblast for Peace

On Thursday of this week we will find posts from bloggers in dozens of countries worldwide, all titled Dona Nobis Pacem (Grant Us Peace). They will be accompanied by Peace Globes, designed by each blogger.

Please join us if you have not done so already. Encourage Peace in your world, in your country, in your town, in your home, in your heart.

It isn't too late. It's never too late. You will find a peace globe waiting for you HERE.




And please make time to vote today, if you haven't already.

20 Days and Counting

Message from Mimi:

November 5, 2009
Bloggers from all across the globe will blog for peace.

We will speak with one voice
one subject
one day




Peace Globes have been designed by people from
48 countries so far. They will all post for peace Nov. 5th.


Want to get your own Peace Globe? http://mimiwrites.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-get-your-peace-globe-2009.html

Want to watch the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fzLLbMxzZo
.

Casualties of War

Each morning I check iCasualties and change the totals on my sidebar. The U.S. casualties in Iraq and slowing down of late. But those in Afghanistan are climbing every day. Nothing surprising. We are all aware of what is going on. But each time I have to change the numbers, it hurts. And each time I think of the other lives lost that we are totally unaware of - the children, the parents, the frightened people who live with this every day.

Please pray for peace. Please consider joining the Blogblast for Peace. You can learn about it, and get your own Peace Globe at: http://mimiwrites.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-get-your-peace-globe-2009.html

Dona Nobis Pacem


.

Blogblast for Peace

If you need another reason, find the statistics on my sidebar for both Iraq and Afghanistan. But you shouldn't need statistics. Look into your hearts.

Were We Listening?

Today's Huffington Post asks this question. It goes on to make some excellent points. Our President was speaking to the Arab world. How closely were the American people listening? We would like to ask a great deal of Islam. How ready are we to open our minds, and recognize their needs too? Can we bring ourselves to appreciate, as Mr. Obama obviously does, just what the true teachings of Islam are, rather than what so many of us have come to think is true after observing the actions of the radical fringe? Terrorists do not represent those teachings. They have developed in their own minds, something quite foreign to the teachings of the Koran. Mr. Obama quoted the Koran in his speech, "Whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind."

To my way of thinking, that quote and its obvious difference to what the radical terrorist believes is all too similar to the anti-abortionist terrorist in our country who blinds himself to the fact that killing those who work in abortion clinics is just as evil as he considers those he has killed to be.

Mr. Obama also pointed out that our country was NOT founded on Christianity. It was founded on freedom of all people to practice all faiths. - "Out of many, one" - Christians are supposed to believe they should "Do unto others..." We find this teaching in the Bible and in the Talmud as well.

Can the vast majority of the American people manage to put aside their prejudices built on misconception of the Arab world? And, indeed, can the Arab people put aside the same sort of prejudices and misconceptions of us? I believe that our President is doing his darndest to bring this about. I pray that both the West and the Arab World are listening.


Meantime, the toll of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so many other places continues to climb. Please consider joining the Blog Blast for Peace.

A Couple of Good Ideas

Do you read Kenju's blog, Imagine? If you don't, go on over to see her today. She has a wonderful idea that could make life easier for you - or could even save your life one day. She's tried it. So have I. It works!

................................

My other thought concerns the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers of our troops killed keeps rising every day. Iraq - 4284. Afghanistan - 684 so far. Sobering, isn't it?

If you long for peace as I do, why not join the Blogblast for Peace this year? Go to Mimi Writes to learn about it. Design a Peace Globe to accompany a post in November 2009 to tell why you feel that our world needs peace. You will be joining with hundreds of other bloggers from many countries around the world.

...................................

Guess that's all I've come up with today. I hope your day is sunnier than ours. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Cheating Death

After my post of March 4th, I started thinking of how many times I have been in the position of believing I was about to die. A surprising number. All of them have occurred since I became a widow. During my marriage, such a thought never entered my mind. Ralph and I were going to live forever - or at least a very long time. We sometimes talked of "...when we celebrate our 50th anniversary" or of what life would be like then. (Our 50th anniversary was October 26, 2007, when he had been gone for 32 years.)

If you find it tiresome to hear older people talk about their medical experiences, stop reading now.

In 1980 I was out in the woods with my friend, Wyetta. We had seen a nice little tree that I really wanted to have in my yard. She owned the property we were on, and encouraged me to dig it up and carry it home. I had a small, long handled spade, and started to dig. I felt fine until I paused for a moment in my digging. Suddenly I broke out in a cold sweat. She told me I went very pale. I couldn't get my breath, and my vision started to go into a tunnel. It wasn't a dark tunnel, it was sparkling like gold, but I could no longer see. I thought I was going to faint, which was a first for me, so I sat down on the ground. I was quite sure that I was having a heart attack, and that I was going to die. I could hear Wyetta's alarmed voice asking what was wrong, and despite my certainty that I was dying, I wanted to reassure her, but I couldn't speak. As in the incident in the car, I was not afraid, but was annoyed because of our location. I pictured the Emergency Squad trying to carry their equipment along the narrow, brambly path to get to me and then carrying the stretcher back. The poor guys!

Eventually, my vision cleared and I regained my breath, but I was so weak that I couldn't stand up. At last I could speak to calm Wyetta's fears, but I had to just sit there for a long time. After some time, I sort of climbed the handle of the spade, to a standing position. I started walking back toward my car, but could only go a few steps at a time, resting between efforts. When I reached the car, I sat there a while, then finally drove the short way home, and sat some more in the garage. I made it to the sofa, where I stayed for a solid week, too weak to climb up to my bedroom. The girls brought me food and took care of things until, at the week's end, I felt I could move around more. At the time this happened I had no insurance, and money was tight, and I never went to a doctor. I remembered my husband's first heart attack, when the only thing the doctor prescribed was complete bed rest, so that's what I did. Years later, when I was working and did go to doctors, I told them about this incident. They agreed I probably had a mild heart attack, but we'll never know for sure.

A few years later, I was in Cape May City when I saw the beginning of a gorgeous sunset developing. I grabbed my camera and hurried as fast as I could toward a spot which I knew was ideal for viewing the sun going down. I jumped out of the car and started toward the shore, through deep, soft sand which dragged me down. Suddenly I felt exactly as I had those years before. I stopped immediately and sat down. This time the feeling passed quickly, without further incident.

In the year 2000, I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctor didn't try to sugar coat it. But again, I wasn't particularly worried about it. What would happen, would happen. My children were worried, but I was not.

In 2002 I had a pulmonary embolism. The nasty doctor kept telling me, "Don't move! Lie perfectly still! Don't stretch, don't massage, don't exercise in any way, just lie still or the clot will move and it will kill you." I was miserable - not because I worried about dying, but because of the terrible doctor whose thinking was stuck back in the Middle Ages I think. I shrugged off the thought of death. Again, if it happened, it happened. So what.

Then in 2006 I had a heart cath, and they tried to talk me into a by-pass. I said no to that. Then they said at least I needed angioplasty. OK. The doctor let me know that he wasn't sure I would make it through this one. At 74, I figured I'd had a long, full, happy life, so that was OK too. I don't understand why people are so worried about dying. I never was, but once having reached the seventies, most of your friends have gone before you. How can you be surprised that it might be your turn? That's the way things go. You live your life, and then you die. It's the natural order of things.

If I were very young, or if my husband were alive, or if my children were still very small, I'm sure I would feel differently. But those things are not so, and I'm not going to waste my time wondering how it would be in one of those situations. You start from wherever you are, and go on from there. If and when I literally "go on" I will welcome it. I think of it as life's last great adventure. It's rather exciting to think about. I'm in no hurry, but when the time comes, I'll go happily enough. There are many people ready and anxious to tell us what comes next. I don't believe anyone on this earth knows that for sure, and am really rather curious to find out. Not curious enough to find out prematurely, but it will be interesting to learn for myself, all in good time.

-------------------------------

Speaking of life and death, have you noticed how the numbers on the sidebar for those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to climb - ever so slowly, but still climb.


The next Blogblast for Peace will be on November 5. Why not give it a try?

Peace

On this day, when we honor those who died in war, perhaps it is appropriate to address the subject of peace.

On November 6th I participated in the Blog Blast for Peace. Mimi, who hosts this peace movement, tells us that this time there was a participant from Japan. He called himself Jumping Neko Punch. I believe there is a language problem here, at least for me. I do not really understand that name. Nor do I understand his theme: Cats Save the World? But I definitely understand that he translated for us Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.


It reads as follows:

1.) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

2.) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.


Can you imagine what it would mean if all nations possessed a constitution like that one?

He also designed a video to go with his Peace Globe. When Mimi asked him to clarify what he had written, he even designed an English blog for us. If you would like to see it, and to see the video, please use this link: an English blog

Dona Nobis Pacem

Grant Us Peace




Today, bloggers all over the world will publish posts asking, "Dona Nobis Pacem" which means "Grant Us Peace", and each of them will display their own version of the globe. Mine is a simple, home made one, as you see. But that's fine, because Peace, like Love and Happiness, is home made - or should be. Today is the Blog Blast for Peace. It is the beginning of the third year that this has taken place, twice a year in June and November, when people from at least forty- four countries around the world will participate. That's a lot of countries. And that's a lot of people. It must be catching on.

The whole world is praying for Peace. Please, do your part in any way you can.

Martin Luther King, Jr. told us, "Peace is not a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal." We cannot expect to arrive at the goal of Peace unless we hold Peace in our hearts and keep it foremost in our minds. The world offers us many barriers and detours and frustrations along our way through life. In the United States of America we have just held a Presidential Election. The results of that election were, to some of us, a victory, bringing hope for tomorrow. To others of us it was a disappointment which leaves behind it bitterness and despair. Nevertheless, all of us must hold in our hearts the hope and belief in Peace, and work toward that goal, each in his own way. I do believe that if there is disappointment and despair, those citizens will soon discover that our new President will, after all, prove himself to be worthy of the confidence the rest of us and apparently, most of the world feels for him.

We must never give up the Dream. We will achieve it. We will do it through faith and love and understanding and every day kindness toward one another. We will do it through thinking before we speak, through showing respect for one another - yes, even for those we don't really believe deserve it or those whose life styles we do not understand or approve.

Am I an idealistic dreamer? Yes. Please, God, I always will be. If there are enough of us, wonderful things will happen.


The names of those participating in Blog Blast for Peace can be found here. Perhaps next time, more of you will participate. Everyone, world over, is welcome. Everyone, world over, is needed.

Peace

Here in the U.S. we are all concerned with the November 4th elections. But on November 6th there is another event taking place. It is called the BlogBlast for Peace. You may have noticed the globe on my sidebar, and found on so many other blogs recently. People from countries all over the world will be participating, and You are invited.


The desire for Peace is universal. Why not join your fellow bloggers in this demonstration? It's been happening for two years now, twice a year, in June and November, that means it has had five launches, and it is growing each time. Just click on the link to learn more.