[Oe List ...] Women of the World -- INCREDIBLE CONTEMPORARY CONFIRMATION

Isobel and Jim Bishop isobeljimbish at optusnet.com.au
Sun Jan 29 15:57:00 EST 2012


Many thanks, Jim for posting this.

Cheers,
Isobel BIshop.
On 28/01/2012, at 1:49 PM, James Wiegel wrote:

> http://blog.onbeing.org/post/16460357062/moms-are-solutionary- 
> revolutionaries
> Moms are Solutionary Revolutionaries
>
> by Barbara A. Stachowski, guest contributor
>
> Grace Lee Boggs speaks at Hull-House in Chicago. (photo: David  
> Schalliol)
>
> This past summer, I drove to Chicago with Grace Boggs and Myrtle  
> Thompson of Feedom Freedom Growers for some book-signing events and  
> radio interviews. During the four- to five-hour drive from Detroit,  
> Myrtle and I shared stories about raising our children. Grace  
> didn’t say much.
>
> But, in her speech the next day at the Jane Addams Hull-House  
> Museum, she told a very responsive audience that Mom solutions are  
> at the heart of the next American revolution. What comes naturally  
> to Moms in raising our children, she said, is an example of what  
> all of us can be doing in our communities to make our country a  
> force for good in the world.
>
> Visionary Buckminster Fuller once observed that “Geniuses are just  
> people who had good mothers.” These geniuses are everywhere in our  
> communities.
>
> Moms are the ones who can grow the souls of our children. Moms are  
> the ones who can provide them with the spiritually safe  
> environments so that they can make the choices that help them  
> discover their talents, passions, and values. Moms are the ones who  
> empower them to go beyond being mere cogs in the capitalist system  
> to become creators of what Dr. King called the beloved community.  
> Moms are the ones who nurture emotionally intelligent global  
> citizens. Moms are the leaders we’ve been looking for.
>
> Vandana Shiva, the internationally acclaimed physicist/feminist/ 
> activist, recalls that at age 13 she asked her mother for a nylon  
> dress so that she could keep up with her friends’ fashion trends.  
> Her mother, who had supported Gandhi’s struggle against British  
> colonialism and wore clothing of homespun cotton, replied, “If  
> that is what you want, you can have it. But remember, your nylon  
> frock will help a rich man buy a bigger car while the cotton dress  
> you wear will buy a poor family at least one meal.”
>
> “Of course, I did not get the frock,” Shiva recalls. “I kept  
> thinking of some poor family starving because of my dress. My  
> mother had given me the information necessary for me to make a  
> socially just decision by thinking for myself and at the same time  
> thinking of the global community.”
>
> Loving our children unconditionally does not mean enabling them to  
> act out self-serving behavior. We must commit to the consistency  
> and constancy necessary to grow compassionate souls. We acknowledge  
> our young people when they do well, but we are also there for their  
> mistakes and disappointments. We are there to say, “I love you.  
> It’s okay. Let’s try again.”
>
> This maternal labor of love is a lifelong struggle — the kind of  
> protracted struggle that Hegel called “the labor, patience and  
> suffering of the negative.” Linda Wooten explains, “Being a  
> mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and  
> dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.”
>
> Moms are true bodhisattvas, nurturing without watching the clock,  
> not expecting compensation, not putting our needs before the needs  
> of those we compassionately love into authentic existence.
>
> Our Mom skills seem so simple. Unconditional love, compassion,  
> patience, and listening. But having acquired these skills in  
> raising my children, I find myself using them with the souls I  
> encounter in my daily life and in my community organizing: with  
> family members, neighbors, comrades, mayors, chiefs of police,  
> refugees and victims of violence. We all want and need to be nurtured.
>
> My Mom memories of holding my children when they were sick with  
> fever bring home to me the fragility of our precious work.
>
> During the drive, Myrtle recalled how fragile she felt during those  
> early days of mothering her children. Embracing our own fragility  
> is transformative because it reminds us of the wondrous girl-child  
> inside ourselves that must be birthed along the way of revolution.
>
> This maternal instinct is not restricted to biological mothers. All  
> women (and men) who nurture are modeling sustainable activism in  
> the 21st century.
>
> Barbara Stachowski is a social justice consultant and member of the  
> Board of the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. She  
> lives in Clinton Township, Michigan.
>
> We welcome your original reflections, essays, videos, or news items  
> for possible publication on this blog. Submit your entry through  
> our First Person Outreach page.
>
>
> Jim Wiegel
> Jfwiegel at yahoo.com
>
> Il faut reculer pour mieux sauter.  Montaigne.  (You have to step  
> back in order to jump).  as people in Mali like to say . . .
>
> On Jan 27, 2012, at 13:47, Jaime R Vergara <svesjaime at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Priscilla, sometimes we manage to leave some footsteps in the sand  
>> dunes of time.  Thanks for letting us see yours.
>>
>> Enjoy the move to the retirement center.
>>
>> j'aime la vie
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Wilson Priscilla <Pris at TeamTechPress.com>
>> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
>> Sent: Fri, Jan 27, 2012 4:50 am
>> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Women of the World
>>
>> How wonderful to see and listen to The Women of the World again.  
>> Lost in the mists of time is the ancient history of that project.  
>> Sunny (before she was Sunny) and I went to NYC to go through  
>> Marshall Jones collection of slides. Then she and I spent hours  
>> putting together that program. The original slides were here at my  
>> house...and I must have done 15 or 20 presentations across the KC  
>> area for women's groups. I'd say that was early to mid-80s, but  
>> not sure about that.
>> What wondrous memories it stirred to see the show again. I  
>> recognize still a bunch of the pictures that either Rodney or I  
>> took. One is even hanging on my guest room wall...from El Bayad.  
>> Thank you, Sunny and Frank for making this happen.
>>
>> Last year I sent boxes of carousels of slides to the archives in  
>> preparation for moving from this house. Rod and I put our name on  
>> the list for an apartment at a retirement center months before his  
>> death. An apartment became available last week...and I will  
>> probably be moving next fall. Glad the archives are making use of  
>> slides I sent. Among others I sent are IERD, HDPojects, NSC and  
>> general Order stuff.
>>
>> Bless all who are working on the archives.
>> Priscilla Wilson
>>
>> On Jan 26, 2012, at 5:39 PM, LAURELCG at aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you, Frank and Sunni. It's wonderful. Holds up very well  
>>> after all these years.
>>>
>>> Jann
>>>
>>> In a message dated 1/26/2012 3:25:09 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
>>> frankknutson at verizon.net writes:
>>> The Archives Project presents WOMEN OF THE WORLD.
>>>
>>> Around 1985 Sunny Walker, over a period of a year, wrote,  
>>> narrated and produced this presentation using a carousel  
>>> projector.  The tape she recorded was found in the archives along  
>>> with many of the original photos.  Using modern technology, the  
>>> program was enhanced with other photos from the  archives and  
>>> made into a short movie.  The movie has been posted on YouTube  
>>> for your consideration.
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BvL8bAkRDE
>>>
>>> This is one of several projects being looked at by the Archives  
>>> group.  Any contributions toward that effort will be greatly  
>>> appreciated.
>>>
>>> Love the earth and sun and the animals . . . [and] the people,  
>>> read these leaves
>>> in the open air every season of every year of your life, re- 
>>> examine all you have
>>> been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever  
>>> insults your own
>>> soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem.
>>>            ~Walt Whitman, from Preface to Leaves of Grass, p. 8
>>> ♥ <image.jpg>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> OE mailing list
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>>
>> Priscilla H Wilson
>> Pris at TeamTechPress.com
>> 913-432-2107
>> www.teamtechpress.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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