[Dialogue] Sunny re Kerry's Wife

[David Dunn]

On 7/18/04 5:58 PM, "jim rippey" <jimripsr at qwest.net> wrote:

> I hope some of this is useful to someone. At least I've learned a lot. Jim
> Rippey

Jim and others,

I second the suggestion that we work on this matter of bearing witness to
broader, deeper possibilities together. I found all of Jim's suggested
responses germane and helpful.

I take issue with one thing that Jim wrote and my issue exactly defines my
anguish these days.

Jim wrote as a suggestion for 'the reply to the mother':

> Even though we disagree on this political matter, I still love and respect
> you. I want to honor all the good we've shared. Can't we just avoid this
> subject?

It's the 'can't we just avoid this subject?' that I don't believe is
satisfactory these days. My perception of our situation in American is that
it is a moment with more dire outcomes than permit 'avoiding this.' Are we
not at  a moment of life and death choices for our nation?

It is not satisfactory to live as vacant-eyed thralls of this preposterous
emperor without clothes and his hangers-on and minders.

(Yes, yes. I admit it; I began to play with words.)

This illustrates my predicament. I am caught in a dilemma, perhaps like
Sunny. It is my son-in-law who has neither eyes to see that our nation is
headed on a disastrous course nor that it is the result of voters' choices
that we have headed down this dangerous path. In the face of such dismay, I
try to puff myself up like a blow fish to seem bigger and more effective
than I am, as if to catch my son-in-law's attention and to scare him into
seeing what I see.)

Yet I know that I am so appalled that others appear blind to reality that I
am virtually unable to keep my calm and speak quietly as Proverbs counsels.
There is such high heat in me that my energy fairly spits my understanding
as indisputable fact.

So here is where I need help and where I think we need to work: I believe
that we need to figure out how to identify the people in our lives whom we
can help awaken to what I perceive to be the truth, namely, that though the
Democrats are no salvation, the Republicans in charge are a truly disastrous
force in the world today; we got to 'throw the bums out.'

I believe that I must work out in my soul how to be 'wise as serpents and
harmless as doves.' (Is that how that goes?) To my mind, the moment calls
for ferocity without anger and light without scorching heat.

How do we awaken sufficient numbers before the election to become an
effective force that follows mystery's lead--interdependence, collaboration,
global equity and human development, the transition from militarism and
empire to shared security forces and effective diplomacy, etc.?

David Dunn