***** Your help needed: Exploring for Life in America, part one, South to Florida and back. Late August through late November. The free Palestine, wagers of loving, solar bike car and me.
(There is much to do in the next several weeks before my departure so this rough crude correspondence will have to do.)
I think it likely that after my next cancer exam Sept 1 I'm Going In Search of Life. I don't share this lightly. Life is that of Amazement, Wonder, awe. I find none of it in Washington DC. Virtually none. Do you see it in DC? Do you see it around you Where You Are? I find little to none of it among we
advantaged anywhere where the gods of data, infotainment, Dogma, affiliation, fear, competition, Comfort, safety, wealth, greed, self-centeredness, reasonableness, practicality, responsibility... displace them, Wonder awe amazement, that uniquely and always are the ever present features of the God, Creator. Wonder, awe, amazement, Inseparable from if not the same thing as the penultimate moral concept from Albert Schweitzer, reverence for life.
I don't know that those with the potential for, or the being of, Wonder and awe and amazement, exist elsewhere in the country ( Beyond most children below the age of two, and among all members of other lifeforms ) but I feel that the most important task on earth for me, for us all… all hope depends on, finding and or kindling these.
I think that if I can find them, encounter the potential, possibly Kindle that potential, it is through undertaking and undergoing and enduring trips like this. Time for part one.
Some of this happened on the 6 week 800 mile Journey last August September over to Ocean City Maryland, Virginia Beach, Durham North Carolina and back to DC. In rest stops, on country roads, at grocery stores, at fast food cheap food stops….
What about my ongoing work in Washington on policy, politics, Civic planning, working through churches, activist on behalf of the homeless and or poor in this region?
Spirit is everything. It is not that groups I've been working with are bad or useless per se, but in this last decade and throughout my lifetime I find no spirit in these, not yet, anyway. Not since dr. King was assassinated back in the sixties. Groups and organizations and activities like these are instead of spirit in charge. No magic comes from these. Magic happens, Revolution happens, in the spirit of Wonder and amazement and awe. In my prior quarter Century successful business life and in my life-long studies I find no exceptions.
Magic, the spirit of life as we've all but never seen it in our lifetimes, is all that will save us. A new ocean of it, a global infection of it.
I'm quite sure that in September and October I need to go on the first leg of a search, down to the southern tip of Florida in back on the byways and back roads, cities and campuses, churches, synagogues, Mosques ...
What? Too risky. Too difficult for a 65 year old. Too dangerous. Too exhausting. To impractical. Stay in your nice safe apartment in DC and continue your work there uninterrupted… . All life on Earth, all goodness, all decency is in the final moments where Extinction can be avoided. The only hope is to start a fire of spirit, Humanity, decency starting with Wonder and amazement. I came to bring a fire, and oh how I wish it were raging. Jesus. Me too.
The theory that I'm operating under explicitly, is one that I have implicitly held Central for my entire adulthood, the need for, and the need from me to be, catalytic change. My sense is that catalytic change is the most dramatic, transformative, powerful available in nature. A miniscule amount of an element is introduced into a system, the right type of element, and the right type of system and the entire Mass transforms almost instantaneously. This notion was Central to Leo Tolstoy’s ideas expressed in his book, the kingdom of God is within you, that was read by Young Gandhi in England that caused Gandhi to totally change the course of his life, 180 degrees. Tolstoy was that kind of catalyst for Gandhi, and Gandhi became that sort of catalyst for India and the world for a brief period in time.
That I am explicitly pursuing this strategy in no way is a statement that I think I'll succeed. Quite the opposite. Few people in history have succeeded at this although few have tried. But I pursue it of necessity and I think you should consider doing the same. Unless some small element, some minuscule elements, evolve and emerge quickly that cause a massive immediate catalytic Global transformation.... the game's over. Understanding how Central this is is necessary to understanding when Gandhi says, Be the Change you wish to see in the world. Be the catalyst.
Your help is needed. There are currently no resources for lodging along the way, and only partially for food, and I'll need about 3800 calories a day, I pedal 100% of the time and I anticipate 6 to 8 hours per day of that. In the Six-week trip last August September of 800 miles there also was no money for lodging, and little for food. Walmart parking lot every night was my lodging. That again is my plan A, but it is pretty rough psychologically and physically to do every night with no brakes. Unsolicited donations along the way when Wonder awe and amazement were kindled and or encountered provided barely enough food.
Who do you know? What organizations be they church, mosque, synagogue, Civic organization, activist groups, friends, family, business, Facebook, other social networks, schools... could you tap into that might want to provide a garage floor for a night, an or a brief shower, opportunity for laundry, a spot in the backyard for in a church synagogue or mosque corner... where I could go unconscious for a night, a day or two to recover…, and or a meal?
I'll be honest, my expectations that anyone will help with this, take action based on this communiqué, are zero. Zero. This is what my experience tells me. I'll proceed regardless. My ability to complete it, physical well-being, psychological well-being, safety (storm season is by then upon us) will be far less if no one steps up this time.
I will do my part. I can't control whether others do theirs and my only business in that regard is to make the opportunity known, and with this communiqué I am feeling that Duty.
Feel free to share this. My contact information is start underscore loving at yahoo.com, Facebook startloving1, 202-749-2158. I have zero time for idle questions or tire kicking. I only have time for those who find that they have a fire for this journey to take place, already know that they are going to help, and simply want to briefly explore the best way to do so.
So, what I am quite sure we can all count on as long as I last is that I'll be peddling about 60 miles a day south as far as I can get with the ability to return by mid to late November before the weather turns too bad. Unless some of you step up and through your networks come up with alternatives… each night I'll be in Walmart parking lot and each day consuming far too few calories. Oh, and I’ll stink to high heaven and be filthy. Or, one of you, some of you, line up one, two, three... folks, organizations, institutions, friends, family... Along the way that when I am in their area would like to help. Would love to help. Needs to help. Has to help. Is on fire to help.
But if not, not in Creator's eyes I won't be filthy, bedraggled, weak.... And not in Creation’s eyes I won't be filthy. And not in the eyes of our sisters and brothers who are suffering or on the verge of being crushed by our Mass, cultural, pathological, suicidal, Ecocidal, and all but now irreversible inaction and cowardice and self-protection and selfishness and timidity, and indecisiveness, and prudence, and ‘responsibilities’, and denial, and delay, and procrastination and excuses....
Whether or not you help doesn't matter to me. I'm just being honest. This isn't about me. Whether or not you help is about the mission, it's energy, it's ability to continue, it's ability to persist, it's ability to survive, its potential to contribute. Its ability to discover and or kindle life.
There is not and may never be a route map. It will be an interactive process. Spirit number one, and if and when people step up with a place where I can throw down for the night in a garage or whatever then they and their location will become part of the planning process. They're very spiritual, very organic, very pragmatic. So if anyone says, hey, I'm south of DC in Florida or between comma if you're in my area you're welcome to a corner of the garage, then they become a pin on my map and stay on my radar screen.
If this plan holds September through November will get me to Florida and back. If there are Parts two, three, four... as I suspect there are then all of the states may be in the cards. Right now what's needed is people tapping their networks as creatively as possible for part 1.
James
