...a sacred day?

It is Memorial Day weekend....

..Among my family and friends I haven't heard anyone express why Memorial Day was enacted way back in 1868....It was meant as a day for us to take a moment  and reflect on the men and women 
who have given their lives for our country. 

And I think we should include all the military who are wounded in ways we see and in those we don't....

I think during these times when the USA has approximately 1000 bases in 57 countries around the world  and is engaged in 3 wars, it might be time to turn Memorial Day into the sacred and solemn day it was meant to be.

6013 US military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and an estimated 320,000 with brain injuries..

Why?


is it really all for this?

 


....and if we can't come together to mourn the human cost of war....maybe the effects on our quality of life might get us up and protesting, 
demanding an end to war.
Infrastructures, education, medical care, food costs, homeownership, gas, are all taking hits as a direct result of our trillion dollar war bill.  The attempt to balance the budget will be done on the backs of those least able to endure it.
Our children and grandchildren will forever be paying for our folly and disconnect.  
Because of our apparent disregard for what is happening 'over there'.
Being the optimist that I tend to be I can't let go of my belief that there are many of us who don't believe these wars are to spread democracy or to help the countries we decide to bomb back to the stone age....or to even keep us safer....the USA is has become an Empire...all Empires fall...
 I believe many of us care and care deeply...
but we have to make our voices heard...

http://www.opefe.com/living.html

......a moment silence?

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

....a moment of silence? or are we too silent?

This verse made its way out after President Obama announced

there would be a moment of silence for the victims of the Arizona shooting.


We are not the headlines....we can be the change we want to see in the world..

A moment of silence: it honors, is reverent
Yet perhaps now, today, ever-so-slightly irrelevant
In the silence is wisdom, reflection, and prayer
Yet also ambivalence (shrug shoulders) who cares?
A moment so brief and then back to distraction
A fleeting outpouring then default contraction –
The pain may be numbed, the sorrow diminished
Feelings reined in and perfunctory rituals finished
Yet who will sooth say that we’ve earned ourselves closure
By momentarily donning pale masks of civil composure?
Perhaps something different, a more earnest resolution
Might beget quantum leaps in our human evolution

Can we not connect up naked hearts everlasting
For the whole of existence, not simply in passing
Perhaps not a moment but lifetimes instead
To carry flowers to the living, light for the dead
And in place of the silence, the gesture outspoken:
Sweet kisses beyond tender, hugs that transcend the token
A touch beyond custom, a gaze caught, then lingered
Compassion and caring truly wrought, not malingered,
Collective blaming, decrying will not carry us forward
There are steps to be taken – not away from, yet toward
The first is to allow yourself fully to feel
The next to acknowledge your desire to heal,
Soon you let others know in true kindness expressing
That you recognize all that they carry! The blessings,
The pain, the loss, the joys scarcely known
And in their tearful eyes, you see mirrored your own.

In one moment of silence, untold songs can be sung
Words of love embosomed gently on the tips of searching tongues,
Unrestricted weeping melts away the frozen face of fear
And brings new life to barren blooms here, and here and here
Within the silence you will reap new treasures found within

And then you’ll find within the moment,
all begins and nothing ends.

Link for Rachel's Snyder's Blog....be whole now  I'm posting here with her permission..
but I found it at Stone Soup...