King, Jesus, Gandhi... CRAZY!x?!* KNOW WHAT THEY WANT?!?!?!?

They suggest we discard all selfish thoughts and turn ourselves over totally to serving all of humanity!!!!!!

:-) :-) :-) :-)

Overwhelmed. In the hands of the Almighty.

I don't know how else to describe how I feel right now. It is Awesome. Heaven.

It is no one thing, but a product of things as I sit here today:

• A morning of listening to the Divine "This I Believe" by Leo Tolstoy
• An hour listening to quotes from the Divine Dr. ML King
• Chronic pain on my feet from all the marching for Darfur
• Chronic pain we in Darfur feel
• Beginning to "get it," what Jesus died to teach us.
• Agonizing over the UN / World / Bashir haggling over Darfur.
• Hopeful: UK, France modify UN text on new Darfur force
  Mon 30 Jul 2007, 16:05 GMT [-] Text [+] By Evelyn Leopold

Oh God. It is Divine to be near Your will. Bliss. Agony.

LOVING. THE ONE, TRUE RELIGION

OK.
What was Jesus' religion?

What was Jesus "religious" about?

And Gandhi?

And Dr. King?

And Assisi?

Eleanor Roosevelt?

LOVING
The one true Religion
of all the human "greats."

THE LESS I'M "A" CHRISTIAN THE MORE CHRISTIAN I BECOME

Yes, yes I've been yammering on this topic for a long time. But I'm trying to really grasp the truth of what gnaws at me.

"A" Christian and Christian
are direct opposites.

THE CHOICE: MAN AS "COG"
OR MAN AS "SON OF GOD"

Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel Quotes

• “In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves”
• “A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”
• “Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy”
• “When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
• “Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.”
• “Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.”
• “To be is to stand for.”
• “A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.”
• “The course of life in unpredictable. No one can write his autobiography in advance.”
• “Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.”

IGNORE THIS SITE AND READ TOLSTOY

As I march at the Sudan Embassy with an MP3 Player I can study. This week it was Tolstoy.

IGNORE THIS SITE AND READ TOLSTOY

• What I Believe, by Leo Tolstoy et al.


• The Kingdom of God Is Within You by graf Leo Tolstoy - Project ...

DO IT. NOW.

WHEN IS IT HUMANE TO NOT DO "GOOD?"

WHEN IS IT HUMANE TO NOT DO "GOOD?"

• When I don't feel like it?
• When I want to just think of my "family?"
• When it is unclear that I am "really" not doing good?
• When it is hard to tell?
• When everyone else is doing no "good?"
• When it is "normal?"
• When it is OK according to the "church?"
• When it is the same as what everyone else does?
• When it will cost my life?
• When it will cost my comfort?
• When it might cost my "family?"
• When it might cost arrest and Prison?
• When it might get me shot?
• When it might confuse or upset others?
• When I have not support or accomplices?
• When no one agrees with my actions?
• When my actions break the law?
• When property is damaged?

WHEN IS JUST A TINY, HIDDEN MURDER OK?

Murder:

1. I point a gun and fire.
2. I walk away from an extreme risk, extreme cost opportunity to Save(Darfur when my action might spur others to stop a Genocide - BY COVERING WITH BLOOD THE CHINESE OR SUDAN EMBASSIES, FOR EXAMPLE. Sudan officially rejects revised UN text on Darfur force)

When is it ok?

• I've been really good.
• I've served Darfur heroically.
• When I don't feel like it?
• When I want to just think of my "family?"
• When it is unclear that I am "really" not doing good?
• When it is hard to tell?
• When everyone else is doing no "good?"
• When it is "normal?"
• When it is OK according to the "church?"
• When it is the same as what everyone else does?
• When it will cost my life?
• When it will cost my comfort?
• When it might cost my "family?"
• When it might cost arrest and Prison?
• When it might get me shot?
• When it might confuse or upset others?
• When I have not support or accomplices?
• When no one agrees with my actions?
• When my actions break the law?
• When property is damaged?

MURDER IS NEVER OK.

IT IS NEVER OK TO VIOLATE: "Do unto others ALL that you would have them do unto you."

WHEN'S IT OK TO IGNORE THE ALMIGHTY?

WHEN'S IT OK TO IGNORE THE ALMIGHTY?

• 1 minute per day?
• 2 minutes per day?
• 364 days per year?

When's it OK? IT DEPENDS:

• What kind of life do you want?
• What kind of world to you want?
• What kind of world and life do you want for others?

GETTING KILLED FOR PAINTING THE EMBASSY

Sudan officially rejects revised UN text on Darfur force

For days I've been praying / comtemplating / pondering over the idea of expressing my views about the Darfur situation (above article) by making the Sudan or Chinese Embassies "ugly" and "awful" like Bashir's goverment describes the UN Peacekeeping agreement wording - "ugly," "aweful."

As I envision doing the painting, it could happen that the Secret Service (the patrol the embassies) would come upon me in process, cry "Halt," and shoot me when I do not.

MY BIG CONCERN REGARDING THIS IS HURTING THE OFFICERS. IF IT TRANSPIRES THAT I AM SHOT AND KILLED, PLEASE MAKE IT KNOWN THAT I LOVE THE OFFICERS, THEY ARE MY BROTHERS, AND I HAVE GROWN TO EXTREMELY RESPECT THEIR SELFLESSNESS, PROFESSIONALISM, RESPECT, AND SENSE OF DUTY.

WHAT IF 100% SERVICE / SACRIFICE IS THE GREATEST JOY?

WHAT IF 100% SERVICE / SACRIFICE IS THE GREATEST JOY?

How would one live if one perceived this?

How would one parent?

SELFISHNESS PERSISTS ONLY WITH FORCE OVER OTHERS

• Cheep US banana's require death squads.
• Cheep fast food labor requires police that would kill Americans forced to such jobs through deprivation of childhood nurture who otherwise stole for existance.
• Cheep, plentiful oil requires armies threatening to kill the poor in oil countries that otherwise would demand resources for a decent life.
• "Care Free" normal middle class lives require police and armies to keep the poor, uninsured masses in their places.
• Etc.
• Etc.

Thank you Howard Zinn, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, TOLSTOY.

THE CHOICE: MAN AS "COG" OR MAN AS "SON OF GOD"

THE CHOICE: MAN AS "COG" OR MAN AS "SON OF GOD." TOLSTOY DOES A DIVING JOB OF REVEALING THIS IN BETTER LANGUAGE THAN MINE.

What I Believe, by Leo Tolstoy et al.
The Kingdom of God Is Within You by graf Leo Tolstoy - Project ... (LAST 2 CHAPTERS FIRST AS TOLSTOY SUGGEST.)

SELFISHNESS, TO FLOURISH, HAD TO CO-OPT THE CHURCH

SELFISHNESS, TO FLOURISH, NEEDED TO COOPT THE CHURCH.

TOLSTOY DOES A DIVING JOB OF REVEALING THIS IN BETTER LANGUAGE THAN MINE.

• What I Believe, by Leo Tolstoy et al.
• The Kingdom of God Is Within You by graf Leo Tolstoy - Project ... (LAST 2 CHAPTERS FIRST AS TOLSTOY SUGGEST.)

The future of... Darfur... Earth? PRICELESS.

What should a human being consider more "priceless" than the future of Darfur? Earth?

JESUS DIED TO ELIMINATE FORCE IN SOCIETY.

JESUS DIED TO ELIMINATE FORCE IN SOCIETY.

TOLSTOY DOES A DIVING JOB OF REVEALING THIS IN BETTER LANGUAGE THAN MINE.

• What I Believe, by Leo Tolstoy et al.
• The Kingdom of God Is Within You by graf Leo Tolstoy - Project ... (LAST 2 CHAPTERS FIRST AS TOLSTOY SUGGEST.)

BOTTOM LINE: WHAT KIND OF 80 YRS DO YOU WANT?

Beloved friend,

THERE IS NOTHING ELSE. NOT:

• JESUS
• CHRISTIANITY
• ISLAM
• RIGHT
• WRONG
• ETC...

BOTTOM LINE:
WHAT KIND OF 80 YRS DO YOU WANT?
THAT IS ALL THERE IS.
THERE IS NO OTHER QUESTION.
EVERYTHING ELSE IS TACTICS AND STRATEGY.

KINGDOM'S CONSTRUCTION SITE: THE MIND

It will take me years to grasp and be mastered by the implications of this:

KINGDOM'S CONSTRUCTION SITE:

THE MIND

JESUS EXTOLS FEARLESSNESS; BUSH - FEAR

JESUS EXTOLS FEARLESSNESS; BUSH, WESTERN-FREE-MARKET-CAPITALISM AND "CHRISTIAN ETHICS" - FEAR.

KINDNESS

Dedicated to our brother Nick. Let us pray that the warmth, Love and Joy he delivers to others in such need, is felt intensely by him as this divinity of our Father flows through him.

Garrison Keillor reads - Listen (RealAudio) How to listen

Poem: "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye, from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. © Eighth Mountain Press, 1995. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

"Brother" is how Start is most frequently addressed. :-)

I've been told that Don Quixote was a farcical, disrespectful look with riducule at the last days of the time of Knights and Chivalry.

Don Quixote looked the fool.

I looked in the mirror several days ago. I look a month more disheveled than the photo at right. I thought of Don Quixote as I looked.

Yet, in stuffy, image conscious, snooty, prissy, upscale, wealthy Washington DC only once have I been aware of truly being viewed with disrespect. This is amazing. THIS IS AMAZING.

Many, most of those who drive by, and walk by me at the Embassy are obviously "professionals."

When people stop their walk or drive to communicate with me "Brother" is a word very frequent in how they refer to me. :-)

[photo courtesy of White Courtesy Telephone: Darfur Hunger Striker Speaks Out on ... Roving WCT reporter Albert Ruesga interviewed Start Loving this past June 11th. We post excerpts from that interview below. WHITE COURTESY TELEPHONE: What ...]

Aldous Huxley Quotes

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/aldous_huxley.html

1. One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
2. It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'
3. Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.
4. Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know.
5. A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.
6. A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.
7. An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
8. An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.
9. Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
10. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.
11. Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.
12. Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
13. Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
14. Experience teaches only the teachable.
15. From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.
16. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.
17. Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.
18. Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness.
19. Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.
20. I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
21. Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.
22. Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
23. Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
24. Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.
25. My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.
26. One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
27. One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.
28. Orthodoxy is the diehard of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget.
29. So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.
30. Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
31. That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.
32. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
33. The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred.
34. The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.
35. The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
36. The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
37. The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.
38. The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.
39. There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
40. You learn to love by loving - by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.
41. There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.
42. To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
43. To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
44. We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.
45. What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
46. Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.
47. Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

MADNESS: ARGUING VICTORY BASED ON YOUR GYM

Can you imagine?

• Two Olympic runners arguing who is the faster athlete based on what gym they go to?
• Two models arguing who is more attractive based on which diet plan they use?
• Two people arguing who will achieve entrance to Heaven / Joy / Peace / Love / Life based on what church / religion / denomination they each use?

WE ARE DROWNING IN MADNESS.

WE ARE DROWNING OUR CHILDREN
IN MADNESS

IMAGINE YOU FOUND HEAVEN, AND NO ONE WOULD FOLLOW

:-)
IMAGINE YOU FOUND HEAVEN!

The Extacy.

;-(
AND NO ONE WOULD FOLLOW.

The Agony.

YET.

That's how it is with me. So much to do. So much at stake. So little time.

CATALYTIC, CHAIN REACTION. OUR ONLY CHANCE.

Chain reaction! I've been searching for so long for the right concept to grasp the nature of what I believe is our chance.

In studying the monumentally important Peace and Nonviolence essays compiled by Ed Guinan, this term has hit me as right - CHAIN REACTION.

"Only love and sacrifice can engender love and sacrifice. This chain reaction is essential to the non-violent struggle."
from LOVE IN ACTION, Thich Nhat Hanh

"The problem of our new revolution is to find how best to eliminate exploitation, murder, the investment of energy in weapons of destruction—how to provoke chain reactions not of hate and death but of new constructiveness, of new quality of life."

from Nonviolence VS the Mafia, Danilo Dolci

STANDING IN SOLIDARITY: ARE THERE DEGREES?

Are there degrees of turning on an ON/OFF switch?

Are there degrees of pregnancy?

Are there degrees of "enough fuel" to get across Death Valley desert?

In the case of solidarity why is this so; why is ABSOLUTE SOLIDARITY necessary? It is as though there is an on/off switch, or threshold, or quantum orbit within our nervous system that only is "tripped" in the presence of ABSOLUTE, PAY ANY PRICE COMMITMENT. Reflect on your experience and reading and you will come to the same conclusion.

Yes, from the perspective of the "switch" or "fuel tank" there are degrees. From the murderously selfish perspective of a Darfur activist there are degrees. But from the perspective of success / goal achievement / recruitment of a Brigade of PeaceMakers for Darfur, RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR NOW ... only ABSOLUTE, PAY ANY PRICE COMMITMENT ... or nothing.

LOVE IS EVERYTHING. LOVE IS THE HOPE.

I scarcely know how to express what I mean. But I stand by this nonetheless:

LOVE IS EVERYTHING.

LOVE IS THE ONLY HOPE.

Now I should qualify. Love is neither of these from the perspective of Pleasure / Selfishness / Disconnection / Exploitation.

But, from the perspective of Global Family / Joy / Solidarity / World Peace / Justice / Elimination of Poverty / Elimination of Suffering - Love is Everything. Love is the only thing.

How can Love be the only thing to Global Family / Joy / Solidarity / World Peace / Justice / Elimination of Poverty / Elimination of Suffering? It is in the same way that opening your eyes is the only thing to navigating across the room; or breathing is the only thing to avoiding passing out in the next three minutes.

Buddhist Nhat Hanh captures this brilliantly in his must read essay: LOVE IN ACTION.

"The usual way to generate force is to create anger, desire,and fear. But these are dangerous sources of energy because they are blind, whereas the force of love springs from awareness, and does not destroy its own aims. Out of love and the willingness to act, strategies and tactics will be created naturally from the circumstances of the struggle. Thus, the problems of strategy and tactics are of secondary importance. They should be posed, but not at the beginning."

It would be a lie for me to qualify this extremist statement:

LOVE IS EVERYTHING.

LOVE IS THE ONLY HOPE.

Everything in my personal, scholarly and professional life of 56 years leads to this conclusion. I suspect that your experience is the same.

THE ALMIGHTY SUFFERS FOR ALL GENERATIONS, EQUALLY. UNBORN INCLUDED.

The Almighty Powers, Our Father loves ALL generations, including FUTURE, EQUALLY. No? SO MANY PEOPLE.

This is an incredible revelation for me. I've never before seen it. Current generation, yes. Unborn generations? I just saw it now.

Now that I see this I can much better see my "daily bread," I can much better see how to serve, where, when, and WHY.

There is so much at stake with how we use our lives.

IT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU ARE ALIVE.

MAKE YOUR LIFE COUNT.

MOST PRAYER SEPARATES US FROM THE ALMIGHTY POWERS

It is with desperate sadness, not triumph that I say - the absolute perversion of Jesus' teaching we have achieved is unfathomable.

Prayer is what I am thinking of. The Our Father is said in every "church" service right? "Our Father, who art..." Takes about 60 seconds, right.

YOU CANNOT BE PRAYED BY THE "OUR FATHER" IN LESS THAN 5 MINUTES. IMPOSSIBLE. THE "OUR FATHER" IS A TOOL TO HAVE US LISTEN TO AND HEAR "OUR FATHER" BY USING OUR IMAGINATION TO THE OPTIMUM.

But by belching the words "Our Father...,"

all that anyone does,

instead of exercising the imagination,

WE CLOG AND BLOCK THE IMAGINATION,

ALL THE WHILE TRAINING OURSELVES

AND FUTURE GENERATIONS

THAT THE "OUR FATHER"

IS TO BE USED IN THIS WAY.

IS THERE ANY GREATER VIOLENCE PERPETRATED ON EARTH?

PROBABLY NOT.

"Our Father..."

"SAVED" FROM OUR "FAMILY" EXPECTATIONS, AS MUCH AS ANYTHING

To say that I don't feel like I'm receiving oxygen after a lifetime of suffocation would be a lie.

In the last year or so, every second, EVERY SECOND OF MY LIFE, day in, day out, week in, week out - feels like finally being "Saved" from suffocation.

So what is the tight cable that was binding my chest, preventing me from breathing?

Few people were / are as blessed as I with their upbringing from the most important perspective - spiritually. My father in the flesh was a Spiritual Giant. But he was far from perfect, far from mature, and he and I existed in the toxic-waste-pool of our society which too, seeped into my pours, and his.

Despite all my blessings,

my Soul, the Almighty Powers within me

have been bound

to the point of asphyxiation

by "family" and "social" expectations.

Now I'm Saved.

I freely inhale the Will of the Almighty.

I weep with joy, gratitude, gladness.