A big stressful mess

Part of this problem that I have somehow gotten stuck
I think probably started this past spring, when I
filled out my paperwork for financial aid for school
and mailed them copies of my state and federal tax
forms. They must have lost the copy of my federal tax
forms, which really sucks for me. In October the
financial aid office in Augusta sent me a letter
notifying me that they needed my federal tax forms.

I sent in another copy of my tax forms, but by then
it was too late to get granted financial aid, since
the semester had obviously already commenced by that
time. Later, they proceeded to send me a letter saying
that I owed the full amount of tuition. Mind you, this
was around the same time that I started working at my
internship placement agency. That meant that by then,
I went from working full time, to only part time in
order to have time during the week to get hours in for
my internship, which has only been twelve hours a week
so far, because of the hours for the day program that
I work for. My classes for this semester are only two
days a week, on Thursdays and Fridays, right during
the time that the day program at my internship is
going on.

On top of this, as a result of being able to work
only part time, I have had less money to go towards
paying bills and often end up with less than ten
dollars in my checking account by the end of the
week, before getting paid again the next Thursday.
It's hard enough trying to pay bills on less than
eight dollars an hour while working full time, but
it's even worse trying to pay those same bills with
10-25 hours less of pay.

Part of the situation with the lack of finances is
due to going to England for the World Gathering of
Young Friends (an international Quaker conference).
Before leaving, I spent about six hundred dollars
just on traveller's cheques, and it still didn't
end up being enough, no thanks to the harsh
exchange rate. Damn, England is an expensive
country to travel to, but before going, I didn't
realize it was quite that pricey.
Now I'm dirt poor, trying to pay my bills on time,
and not go crazy with the whole Christmas season.
I can't stand it when holidays get so secular,
like Christmas has slowly become over the past
century.
Now I'm suffering from major burnout as a result
of my internship; major stress from work, because
no matter how many hours I work, I'm still not
caught up in life; and financial drain to my
checking account, with my last expense of the
week usually being gas for my car.
This is why I'm glad that I was buying extra
non-perishables over the summer, despite the
fact that my roommates have been teasing me about
it, because otherwise I would practically be
going hungry every week because of not being
able to afford to buy food.

So that's a synopsis of the fall semester for me.

Learn some Bahasa (Indonesia and Malaysia)

selamai sore: good afternoon
apa kabar: How are you?
kabar baik: I am fine.
senang bertemn anda: nice to meet you
berapa: how much? (when talking about money, objects, etc.)
dimana: where? (when asking directions, etc.)
siapa namamu: What is your name?
nama saya...: my name is...
halo: hello
berapa usiamu: How old are you?
berapa hargahya: How much (price)?
terima kasih: thank you

Learn some Nepali

namaste: hello/ goodbye
tapae kasto hunuhuncha: how are you?
malae sanchi cha: I am fine
mero name ho: my name is...
dhanyabad: thank you
tapae ko nam ke ho: What is your name?
sagarmatha: Mt. Everest

An African song

Kwa uwezo wa mungu
tutafanya hivyo
(With God's grace we
can do this)
Bwana asifiwe!
(Praise the Lord!)

Lucky Day

Today I woke up at 7 am when my alarm went off.
Over the past weekend I didn't get much sleep,
so I was highly considering going back to bed,
but instead I got up, beckoned by my laziness
to get dressed and take a walk.

For most of the summer I was getting up in the
morning and taking a walk, but since getting
back home from the World Gathering of Young
Friends in England and with the decreasing
amount of daylight in the northern hemisphere,
I haven't been sticking to getting up to take
my daily walk. I'm still eating about the same
amount as I was during the summer, but with less
exercise, which has obvious results.
I'm really glad after the fact that I didn't got
bak to bed this morning. Today became my lucky
day when I got outside to start my walk.

My regular walking route now is: walking to the
end of Wood St. (it's one way so I walk down,
facing traffic), turn left onto Main St., turn left
left ono Center St., turn right at Jefferson St.
(near where I used to live from ages 4-12), turn
left and go down Oak St., turn right onto Brunwswick
St., turn left onto Bowdoin St., turn left onto Main
St., go to end of Main St., turn onto other end of
Brunswick St. and then turn left onto Wood St.

Somewhere less than halfway down Main St. I found a
twenty dollar bill sitting on the side of the road,
wet and dirty from the melting snow and road sand.
Ipicked it up and dried a little bit of the water
and dirt off it and stuck it in my sweatshirt pocket.
Yes, it's warm enough for just a sweatshirt here in
Maine right now.

I can tell already that today is going to be a good
day for me. Now I know there was a reason, because
getting exercise, to go on a walk this morning
before breakfast and my internship. Praise God!
Amen.

Rent

Somewhere I still have my ticket stub from when I went
to see Rent in New York City at the Nederlander Theater
208 W. 41st St., between 7th and 8th Avenues. I was in
New York City for an exchange that Orono High School
had started with Walton High School, in the Bronx. I
was staying with Milagros, who at the time was a
senior in high school as I was also. Since neither of
us knew how to get to the theater, but had the address
of where it was, we set out early from her family's
apartment up on University Ave. All we had was the
street it was on, and knew that it was between 7th and
8th Aves. To get to midtown Manhattan from her apartment,
we had to take both the 4 and D on the subway and got
off at the 42nd St./Times Square stop. Once we figured
out where we were going, we got to the theater just fine,
an we were early, being the first ones in our large
goup, a mix of students and chaperones from Orono and
students from Walton.
I had some background information about the play before
we went to NYC, but not too much. I knew that seeing it
would change me, and it did. It was the first Broadway
type play that I had seen with a compilation of topics
ranging from poverty and homelessness, to drugs, AIDS,
and homeosexuality (a shunned, feared, and purposely
avoided topic in American society, but still ever prevalent).
One of my favorite scenes from the movie is when they are
all in the cafe after going to Maureen's protest to raise
awareness about homelessness. They go in hoping to relax
after seeing and talking to Benny at the protest, but
they discover that he is also in the cafe, at a table
beside them. Through this they are dancing on the tables,
singing and having a jolly good time. At first the seating
host doesn't want to let them in, because they have had
a reputation for coming in and ordering nothing, or
ordering and then not paying because of having no money.
They get let in really quickly when Angel flashes him a
$100 dollar bill. During that part, when I was at the
movie theater, I was laughing so hard that I was crying.
It's kind of hard to deny the hilarity of the situation
at the cafe and the events that unfold.
One of the saddest parts, as with the musical, is when
Angel is dying and then eventually dies from AIDS. It's
like the scenes from Angels in America: Millenium Approaches
when Louis visits Prior after the physical symptoms of
AIDS begin to show on his body, the dark reddish lesions
all over him. Collins, being his most recent boyfriend,
is with him in the hospital and on the subway when he is
going through the cold sweats and fevers and trying to
comfort him the best way he knows how, all the while
knowing that the inevitable is drawing closer and closer.
My favorite line of Angel's is actually heard after he
has already died: "I'm more of a man than you'll ever be
and more of a woman than you'll ever get."

My First Funeral --- for a high school classmate

This weekend I will be attending my first funeral ever.
Ironically, it happens to be for a high school classmate,
and someone who went to University College of Bangor with
me, though not in any of my classes or my degree program.
The really weird thing about this is that I just saw her
at school about three weeks ago. Since then, she has
gotten into a bad car accident and died from severe brain
trauma. She was one of the several people who was nice
to me in middle school while others either made fun of
me, or ignored me. We played basketball on the same team
in middle school too. Even though we were never on each
other's list of friends, I'm going to miss her. I'll
miss seeing her at class reunions and on the University
College campus.

Pendle Hill

This is what Pendle Hill looks like from a distance. Up close,
at the base, it is very intimidating and large.
We took four coach buses up to Pendle Hill, leaving from
the courtyard at Lancaster University that sits about halfway
between where our accomedations were, and where the dining hall
and Great Hall (where we met for daily worship, and had the
international dance) were. It took about an hour to get there
from where we were staying in Lancaster. On the way there we
passed dozens of pastures filled with cattle, sheep, horses
and some pigs. As we proceeded closer, the buses made a
gradual ascent up the terrain, which after a while turned
to very steep ground. By the time we emptied the buses,
we were upon a quite high altitude (for England anyways).

As we began the climb, it wasn't too hard. There were
Quakers from local meetings there leading the way for us,
and upon meeting them, we could shake their hand if we wished.
It was pasture-ish still in this area that we were in starting
out, but the path after a little while turned to rock. (No,
it didn't morph like that in front of our eyes, it was made
that way!) During the part where it started getting really
steep, I was feeling like I was dying, because I couldn't
breath, as the result that my exercise-induced asthma has
on my lungs when put under such stress as hiking, swimming,
or running. Of course I didn't have an inhaler with me,
and the one I still had from my previous prescription was
sitting at home, empty. I did take short breaks, as others
did, but didn't stop for too long because I didn't want to
give up.
I have done this before with the not giving up stuff,
like when I was on the track team my senior year in high
school and was at a track meet. I had just finished my
running event, the 1600 (aka the mile), and then was
whisked quickly off to the long jump (my other event),
still out of breath in the meantime. I was the last one
to do my jumps, and that day, despite being out of breath
and exhausted, I got my best distances that I ever had for
the long jump that season.
Back to more about Pendle Hill. I was wheezing the whole
way up, but didn't stop for more than a few seconds,
before proceeding on again. The feeling of relief and
accomplishment was so great when I finally got to the top.
I felt like Atlas lifting the world on his shoulder. On
the other hand, my outcome of this wasn't quite like the
one George Fox had many years before on this exact
location.
We got to the top and were greeted by about a dozen or so
mountain sheep. The sheep chased some of us, while some
of them ate the lunches of others. These weren't generic
sheep...they were armed with horns, so I don't think that
they were Quaker sheep. Oh well! Not every creature in
the world can be a Quaker, but wouldn't it be nice if
they could!

The Laramie Project and my tribute to Matthew Shepard

The Laramie Project is a play based on over 200
interviews. It chronicles life in Laramie, Wyoming
after the brutal killing of Matthew Shepard, a young
gay college student, who died bound to a fence in
the hills outside the town.

Quoted from Time Magazine (Oct 26, 1998): What people
mean when they say Matthew Shepard's murder was a
lynching is that he was killed to make a point. When
he was 21 years old, the world's arguments reached him
with deadly force and printed their worst conclusions
across him. So he was stretched along a Wyoming fence
not just as a dying young man but as a signpost. "When
push comes to shove," it says, "this is what we have
in mind for gays."

Three days after Shepard died, a crowd of around 5,000
gathered in the night on the steps of the Capitol in
Washington, in a candlelight vigil that struggled to
make another argument and extract another message from
his death. Ellen DeGeneres, Ted Kennedy and Barney
Frank, the openly gay Massachusetts Congressman --
all the expected speakers took the microphone. What
was less expected was the sheer turnout of lawmakers at
a moment when Congress was embroiled in the crazy
closing hours of the budget deal. So many members
showed up to voice their grief and anger that House
minority leader Dick Gephardt had time only to read
their names. "It speaks volumes about how much progress
we've made," says Winnie Stachelberg, lobbyist for the
Human Rights Campaign, the nation's biggest gay-rights
group. "Yet Matthew's death shows how much farther we
have to go."
Jeff Korhonen, 27, can explain the situation as well as
anyone else. He was raised in Cheyenne, his father a
career military man, his mother a Mormon, his grandfather
a First Assembly of God minister, and there was no dinner
conversation long enough for Korhonen to slip in the news
that he was a different kind of cowboy. Not until his
early 20s, as an exchange student in Florida, did he
come out, and there is something to be learned about
diversity in Wyoming when you hear Korhonen say,
"Orlando was like a gay Mecca to me."

The program done in Orlando, he went back home and began
his coming out. He moved to Denver for a while, which for
him was heaven on earth, but he wanted to finish college,
and the only way he could afford it was to go to Laramie.
His family by then had dealt with who he was and accepted
him.

"When I left Cheyenne for Laramie," Korhonen remembers,
"my father said, 'I know you're very proud of who you are,
but please, please watch yourself because there are people
who will want to destroy you simply because of who you are.'
I gave him a big hug and said, 'I know.' And then the first
thing I saw when I got to Laramie was a bumper sticker that
said HATRED IS A FAMILY VIRTUE."

Travis Brin, a 24-year-old welder, remembers being at parties
with Aaron McKinney, who was like a lot of people who talk a
lot. He had nothing to say.

"A total redneck," says Brin. "He'd say crazy, stupid stuff
about black people and gay people... One time he said we
ought to get all these people with AIDS, stick them in an
airplane and blow it up. But if you got up in his face, he'd
back down, because he was a punk, like any other young punk
you see on the street."

Police say it was McKinney, 22, and his quiet-man pal Russell
Henderson, 21, both high school dropouts, who met Shepard in
Laramie's Fireside Lounge. "After Mr. Shepard confided he was
gay, the subjects deceived Mr. Shepard into leaving with them
in their vehicle," reads the Albany County court filing of
first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery charges
against McKinney and Henderson.

In addition to being an unspeakably gruesome crime, it was a
profoundly dumb one. After allegedly leaving Shepard hanging
on the fence on that rocky ridge just outside of town, McKinney
and Henderson drew attention to themselves by getting into a
fight with two other men. It was then, police say, that they
found a bloody .357 Magnum in the pickup truck, and Shepard's
wallet in McKinney's house. McKinney, by the way, was awaiting
sentencing for burglarizing a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Those who squirm over Shepard's life-style might have felt
more righteous last week when it was reported that he'd made
a pass at a bartender in Cody last summer, got punched in the
face and falsely reported to police that he'd been raped.
(No charges were filed.) If only a punch in the face were the
stiffest penalty for making a pass.

There's a touch of homophobia in the Wyoming legislature,
state representative Mike Massie of Laramie tells you. It's
a religious thing, he says. God has apparently channeled his
thoughts on gays through a few good ole boys in Cheyenne.

Four times this decade, Massie has co-sponsored antibias
bills; four times they've died. There's no problem with
enhanced penalties for crimes against race, religion or
ethnicity, he's been told, but if he doesn't drop sexual
orientation from the list, there's not a chance in hell.
Other opponents argue against special legislation for any
group or contend that existing laws are sufficient.

"I am so angry over the fact that it never passed," Massie
says, because now the nation can wonder whether, "gee, maybe
Wyoming tolerates this kind of thing."

And that, for all the legalistic hand wringing, is the most
compelling reason for such a bill. The symbolism. Politics
is at least half symbolism anyway.

"You know the quote: The only prerequisite for the triumph
of evil is that good men do nothing," said Graham Baxendale,
an Englishman who came to America in August to study, of all
things, hate groups. He teaches a University of Wyoming class
on "the implications and ramifications of hate crimes."
"Unfortunately," he said at a teach-in last week, "my job
just got easier." There's no telling how long it will last,
Baxendale says, but there is a dialogue in Laramie where
there wasn't one before, and it has spread through Wyoming
and beyond.

Shepard's body was taken home last week to Casper, where he
once played Little League and acted in local theater and was
always the littlest kid. Annie Spitzer, a Shepard family
friend known as Sister Annie at a Pentecostal ministry,
remembers a trip downtown with Matt when he was in elementary
school. "He saw a flag at half-staff, and he asked me, 'What's
wrong with that flag? Why isn't it all the way up?'" And she
told him, "Oh, that means that someone very important has died."
As she explained mourning, Matt hugged her legs.

Snow fell Friday at Shepard's funeral in Casper, where the
flags flew at half-staff and hate groups demonstrated not
far from St. Mark's Episcopal Church. Winter, beautiful and
wicked, is coming to Wyoming.

Quaker jellyfish

Hands up,
wrists together,
a jellyfish, a jellyfish, a jellyfishfish.

Sorry, but you just wouldn't understand.

Cancun and the Yucutan Peninsula

Known as a popular location for college
students to go for spring break, Cancun
(along with the areas of Cozumel and Isla
Mujeres) are destroyed at the wrath of
Hurricane Wilma. This is what occurs with
the increase of global warming and the
greenhouse effect.

The Meaning of Life

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
I can remember the first time I ever saw this quote,
from a Mary Oliver poem titled "The Summer Day". I was
a naive, shy, unaware and uneducated freshman in school at
Orono High.
Tamra Philbrook, a teacher in the English department
(my favorite place besides the library, my niche) had this
quote on her classroom wall, to the left as one walked in.
I am constantly challenged and provoked by this quote, trying
to figure out the meaning to my life and what I'm supposed to
do with what I have to work with. I think that I might have
had an epiphany, an ah-ha moment today while in the library
at school, and I don't even think that I realized it. I was
on one of the computers, looking up books. I wasn't doing
this as an ordinary task though. Usually, when I'm looking
for something to read, I do something that any average
Jane or John Doe wouldn't do. I type a topic or subject
into the database search box, intent on coming up with
several results. Today, for the heck of it (and also an
interest), I typed in Native Americans, and came up with 737
results; books, electronic books, microform, government
documents, and videos.
I now know what I'm supposed to do with my random library
book searches. I'm supposed to be doing humanitarian work
in life, and not necessarily just with one group such as
Native Americans, but many groups: Hispanics, Black
Americans, Asians, WASPs, and everyone else in the world.
I feel that I am directed more towards minorities rather
than greedy, over-priveleged, egotistical WASPs who tend
to not give a shit about the rest of the world, they just
pretend to.
This is how I can work my need for travel into having a
job. I could travel to remote villages around the world,
spreading humanitarianism and the faith of Quakers.
Somehow I always feel like the majority of my blogs are
like term papers or novels, they turn out to be really long.
That's okay, because it gives me even more practice with
articulation onto paper.

Flooding and heavy rains hit Central America and Mexico

Prior to the tragedy of the earthquake in south Asia
heavy rains and flooding ravaged in southern Mexico
and Central America. Landslides have occured in
various locations and towns are being declared as
mass graves for the dead. Over the weekend, when I
asked those from the World Gathering to pray and
hold in the Light those in south Asia (where we
have a few Quaker brothers and sisters), I also
asked them to pray for and hold in the Light those
victims in southern Mexico, and Central America,
where we have even more Quaker brothers and sisters
from the World Gathering. What saddens me is that in
many cases, whole families have been wiped out, all
dead as a result of the flooding and rains. There
are many families also still in existance that only
contain a few members now. On Sat. 8th October I
read a news article on the internet about one man
who buried his whole family. Yesterday (Tues. 11th Oct.),
I received an email asking what we thought about these
tragedies and whether we believe that they are acts of
God and some sort of punishment against humankind for
something. I replied back to her that I believed there are
both scientific and religious reasons to what caused these
said atrocities. The scientific piece involves excessive
stress on the environment, the air and the world as a whole,
excessive and prolonged air, water and land pollution, and
abuse of the environment (which was not included in my email).
It's like if you over pressurize a bottle of water,
eventually it will explode.
The religious reason that I came to the conclusion of is that
God doesn't like what's going on in the world: wars, global
warming, etc. so he decided to punish some of humankind. On
the other hand, I don't think that when he does this sort of
thing, he targets specific areas or populations of people.

Autumn is upon us

Autumn has arrived.
There is a cool crisp feeling in
the air. It gets dark at 7pm.
Leaves on the trees are changing colors,
as the result of the lack of chlorophyll.
It's cold in the morning, enough to
actually have to turn on the heat in my
car on the way to early morning work shifts.
One thing that I particularly enjoy about
this time of year is when it's cool outside,
but still warm enough to not be able to call
it late autumn, or winter yet. Sweatshirt
weather, but not quite jacket weather.
Temperatures in the 50's and 60's. The
look of the sun as it shines through
the transforming leaves. The light breeze
or blustery wind swirling around. Walking
through rustling leaves on the ground,
through the deep woods for hours at a time.

Life

I started back at school last Thursday, and my
life has been even more of a whirlwind of tasks
that need to get done, going to work Saturday
through Wednesday and then school for Thursday
and Friday, then the crazy, systematic, and
almost out-of-control pattern occurs again....
and again. My life is now way too consistant
and dry. I need to find something, some activity
to get my mind off life and it's craziness,
otherwise I'm going to burn out very quickly.
I got two books from the library at school
last week, but haven't had much time to
read because I spend most of my days at work,
and when I'm not at work, I'm at school. I
need to slow down, to catch my breath, and
live a little, have some fun.

Tears for Hurricane Katrina victims

Today after lunch I was on the CNN website,
a link on Peterson's blog site, and saw all of
the little children who now have no homes, the cute
water-soaked pets that had to be left behind, and I was
almost in tears here in the library at school (as I am now).
I want to go to Louisiana to help out in the relief efforts,
donate blood and platelets, see first hand what the situation
is really like, what's really going on there, but alas, I
have no way of getting there. This is mainly because I just
recently was on a trip to England for a conference, and spent
over $2000 dollars on the program fees, flight tickets, and
traveller's checks (more than half of them used on paying for
train fares to get around the country: from London to
Bradford-on-Avon, Bradford-on-Avon to Lancaster, and then
Lancaster to London. Now I can say that I'm seriously shit broke.
I got greeted by several bills and a rent payment when I got
home, and with all of my savings bonds now gone (to pay for rent),
and $200 in my savings account, I'm now extremely desperate to
find a second job, one that pays more than I make now at Burger King.
Once I get a second job, I'm going to start my own collection jar
for donations for the Hurricane Katrina relief. I have already
contributed about $25 with money that I can't afford to use on
things other than bills. I'm taking that chance though, the
one on being able to help those in need when I'm also one
of those in need. Once I start my internship this fall,
once again I have to cut back on hours that I'm working at
Burger King to have time for my 16 hour a week internship (unpaid),
which means loss of money a.k.a money for rent, food, gas,
and paying other bills.
The financial sacrifice of going to England isn't one that I
would reverse any day. I'd rather be poor than know
that I could have missed out on a life changing experience,
a trip that connected me with other Quakers all over the world.
I now have fellow brothers and sisters (as quoted by another
WGYF participant) across the globe. I feel so priveleged to
have had the opportunity to have this experience and all
of the memories that go with it.
I can still hear the voices of these individuals echoing
against my eardrums on a daily basis, the laughter, the
smiles, the strong Irish accents and multitude of skin
colors, races, nationalities and cultures. I hold on to these
very tightly, not letting them to disappear or waver from anything.
I go out into the world with a bold conviction of God on
my right shoulder, and the need to live a Quakerly and volunteering
life in today's society.
I am appalled that government officials turned down assistance
from various countries who want to help the United States with
the relief efforts, but what astounds me even more is that this
morning I read on the internet that Bush wants to give more tax
cuts to the rich, 1% of Americans. How ruthless, heartless,
selfish and egotistical he is. In a national crisis, who does
he care about BESIDES the rich?
What an unchristian-like asshole he is! Just think of what
international countries are going to think of the United
States now! I am in horror by this, and continually and
increasingly disgusted by the government of this country.
Maybe we as the American public should take away some of
is amenities: White House servants, cooks, gardeners, his
clean water supply, his never-ending supply of food, paid
for by the American public ourselves thank you very much.
And lastly, take away his gas guzzling vehicles, because
I know he probably has several right with him at the White House

Mr. Salvat's Tearoom

On a two and a half hour stroll
through the countryside
on Sunday (8/14/05), along
the way I gotinto some nettles,
we walked along the canal system that
runs right through the center of Bradford-on-Avon
(originally known as Broad ford on avon,
avon meaning "on the river" in Celtic.
Walking through fields, river boats dotting
the canals and sailboats on the river.
On the way back to the meeting house,
we stopped at

Mr. Salvat's Tearoom

and for the first time in my life I
ordered a fruit scone with butter,
clotted cream and strawberry
jam with my second cup of Earl Grey tea.
since arriving in Bradford-on-Avon.
That weekend was also the first time
that I have tried fairtrade chocolate,
and I think I'm addicted. It even comes
in a variety of flavors: orange & spice,
mik chocolate, dark, white and many others
I had some more at the World Gathering, and
then brought a few bars home with me.

Meeting for Worship

It's time for meeting for worship
again at the World Gathering of Young Friends
here in Lancaster, England. Across the landscape of Great Hall
I see a variety of colors, colors of their skin.
Many countries represented here
and six continents. Many languages, from
Spanish and French,
to Nepalese, Russian and Bahasa (the
language that Indonesians speak).
It's interesting watching how Quakers
on an international level
act and react to others around them. Despite ranging
views and beliefs on Quakerism,
they act in a peaceful manner,
solipsistically, and cyclical, rewriting history
once again, only to be told in thousands of years
to a much different group of individuals. Programmed
meeting is interesting, lots of
messages being relayed to the audience, spectators of the crowd.
Silence,
the sound of the absence of sound. Peacefully
awaiting the
word of God, prayer, knowing that there is a higher power that hears
everything and takes it into consideration. I wonder, does God use
Quaker process to conduct his business? Does he set
up a business meeting to discern which prayers to chose to grant to individuals.

Hush, go quietly.

The religious and spiritual challenge

Many have challenged us young Quakers this week.
All four of the speakers (Deborah Saunders,
Ute Caspers, Oliver Kisaka Simayu, and Colin
Saxton) have urged us to go out into the world
and live the lives of activist Quakers and
travelling ministers. Benny (from Cuba YM)
and several others have challenged us to visit
and stay with Quakers from other yearly meetings
around the world to learn more about their practices
and beliefs and to help us become both closer to
each other as Quakers and closer to God. To have a
better understanding of each other we must interact
on a regular basis with international Friends from
every corner of the world. We must visit and attend
the monthly meetings, yearly meetings and evangelical
Friends churches to acheive this goal, to attain a
oneness and unification among us and through us. When we
all depart, we are urged to stay connected to each
other through these intervisitations and exchanges.
Twinning (having two yearly meetings connecting to
each other, similar to NEYM and Cuba) with a bridge
of love is nescessary to help us with this. This is God's
calling of us, to stay together, to communicate amongst
ourselves on a frequent basis, to go do work projects
with Quakers in other countries. To live with Quakers
in countries other than our home country. To never give up
on the hope that someday Quakers will have an understanding
of each other, regardless of geographic location, culture,
language, and economic status. God gives us this message,
and all we must do now is put it into action.

London Bombings

They think that they can scare me enough to not want to go
to London. I'm still going though, and
nothing can stop me.
It will be my first time to Europe,
and the third country I will have

stepped foot in (Canada and the Bahamas being the other two).

I knew since I was young that I was born to travel
and now I'm just trying to fulfill my destiny.

Saint Christopher will be coming along for the ride. He'll be my
traveling companion, and also serving as my protector, being the patron saint
of travellers and all. Catholics have a strong belief in the powers and gifts of saints............ but I'm not a Catholic, and don't attend confession or go to mass multiple times a week, yet I believe that there is
some truth to this stuff about the saints.
There are individuals and groups of people everywhere who say that they have
experienced a miracle,
and after coming back from England, I might be one of those people that can say the same thing.

The fire of God that resides within me

is what keeps me going,
striving for more,
longing to see more,
learn more,
travel more,
be more that I can ever imagine.

For Malcolm

For Malcolm by Peterson Toscano


I am your younger, lighter brother.
You exited in a bloody burst of gunfired four days
after I
Endured my own bloody ordeal called birth.


You're buried,
Yet live.
You resound in my students,
Young, displaced Africans.
You are their shining prince;
A fortress of a Black Man.


But were you a man like I am a man?


Were you ever unsure?
Confused?


Did you ever speed recklessly down?
Riverside Drive in the summer with
the windows closed so tight no one
heard you screaming?


Did you cling to Sister Betty, a
climber grasping a jutting rock on
a barren mountain face?


Were you a man like a I am a man?


You drove truth daggers into weary, Black souls.
You proclaimed what silently festered within.
You diagnosed the sickness.
You grouped for a cure, then
You left us like the cheetah bounding into the
forest.


It is your fierce manhood we crave.
It is your proud manhood we miss.
It is your profound manhood we must have.


You are a shining prince;
A fortress of a Man.


Will we be men like you when you were just a man?



Peterson's literary metaphors resonate over and over for anyone who knows anything about Malcolm X, or who was alive when he was and remembers reading about him in the newspapers and hearing about him on the evening news. Malcolm was an intelligent, sophisticated and articulate individual and created crowds to gather around him to listen to what he felt was important for others to know about.


"My alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity." - Malcolm X

"Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world." - Malcolm X

Vietnam

The Vietnam Wall by Alberto Rios (1988)


I
Have seen it
And I like it: The magic,
The way cutting onions
It brings water out of nowhere.
Invisible from one side, a scar
Into the skin of the ground
From the other, a black winding
Appendix line.
A dig.
An archaeologist can explain.
The walk is slow at first,
Easy, a little black marble wall
Of a dollhouse,
A smoothness, a shine
The boys in the street want to give.
One name. And then more
Names, long lines, lines of names until
They are the shape of the U.N Building
Taller than I am: I have walked
Into a grace.
And everything I expect has been taken away, like that, quick:
The names are not alphabetized.
They are in the order of dying,
An alphabet of-somewhere-screaming.
I start to walk out. I almost leave
But stop to look up names of friends,
My own name. There is somebody
Severiano Rios.
Little kids do not make the same noise
Here, the junior high school boys don’t run
Or hold each other in headlocks.
No rules, something just persists
Like pinching on St. Patrick’s Day
Every year for no green.
No one knows why.
Flowers are forced
Into the cracks
Between sections.
Men have cried
At this wall.
I have
Seen them.


The archaeologist goes back in the past to document history and statistics. He learns how things were before the bloodshed and guerilla warfare, the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ridden veterans, those who have suffered from Agent Orange, various types of cancers and constant reoccurring dreams, hallucinations, and feelings. He learns how things were before the veterans became addicted to alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. Before the homelessness and the drug rehab programs that constantly fail because the Vietnam veterans are permanently traumatized by their experiences, so their addictions continue, month after month, year after year.
At this wall, it is even socially acceptable for grown men to cry, and there are plenty of them too. There are those who go to visit brothers, uncles, fathers, sons, nephews, cousins, grandfathers, and best friends, and then there are those who just go to pay their respects, even though they might not know or be related to anyone whose name is engraved on that vast black marble wall that seems to stretch for an eternity.
Individuals take pieces of paper and crayons or a pencil with them when they go to the wall in order to etch the name of their loved one or friend onto the paper to save so as to remember the person who died.
Vietnam was a vicious place to fight and both sides had hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered, wiped off the face of the Earth forever. The people that were killed in Vietnam weren’t just men either, they were women and children also. Whole villages were being ransacked, destroyed and obliterated, and bodies strewn everywhere in the landscape.

Walking

Walking softly
not making any sounds,
but still leaving those distinctive
footprints in the sand
all along the beach.
The shadows dance lightly and
quickly to and fro.
Palm trees wave in the slight breeze up above
and the ocean beckons to me. I sit and
meditate
in the cool dawn air and wait ......... peacefully
for sunrise and all of the possibilities that this
new day will bring to me.

Florida

Walking,
sand between my toes,
sunshine upon my back,
luke warm ocean water,
so clear and blue, like the sky above,
ahead cars zoom on streets, highways
hot pavement in February, palm trees line roads,
canals through cities, looking for alligators, but, alas,
unsuccessful,
snakes and lizards on concrete sidewalks
the sweet taste of a fresh orange in my mouth, untainted by chemicals
orange and pink pastel painted houses,
like the sea shells beneath,
one pina colada and a day of snorkling
swimming with the rainbow colored fish
some call it vacation in paradise,
I call it my life, after all, I wasn't born for harsh Maine winters.

Jack Kerouac

I was first introduced to Jack Kerouac during my
English class freshman year in high school. My English
teacher that semester spoke of books, writers, poets and
poetry. He taught me the wonders of reading and
writing poetry. He was the first poet to join what would
end up eventually amounting to quite an extensive
collection of books, lots of them being poetry, but also
including novels, high school yearbooks, and a few comic books.
I learned a lot from Alex McLean in high school, including how
to write sophisticated, intelligent, and articulate poetry.
Now I have started to write a book, and I will partially credit
that to Alex and partly to a professional actor by the name of
Peterson Toscano (Shhh.... Peterson doesn't know about this yet.) .
Jack was quite like I am now, wacky, creative, and intelligent.
Soon to join Kerouac on my bookshelf at home were Ginsberg,
Whitman, Dickinson, Neruda, Snyder, Wormser, Clifton and
many others. I even have a few anthologies already. It's
amazing what one can do with their life in such short
amounts of time.



http://www.jackkerouac.com/index.php