Pedals and Seeds

I am angry every day.

Angerr. G r owl ing. I am. Grr ow ing.

Anger.  An’ grrrrr.

I am not angry all day, but every- EVEry,  e-very-day.
This is not a rant, so hear me out.

Anger is a spiritual teacher but can be poisonous.  I can’t live out of anger, and I can’t live without anger. Anger is confounding and usually a compound like asphalt not a simple element like copper.

I am striving to create peace more than anyone I know. So every day I meditate to carve myself into a vessel of peace. Still I’m furious. I’m mad at the soda and water bottles that blow onto my front yard. I’m pissed that for centuries women are second class citizens. I’m rip-roaring angry that the US car industry keeps designing gas guzzling cars.

Should I point the finger at Mitt Romney, a supreme capitalist? Should I blame the parents for trash in our streets? The kids? I had a beer last night, so should I be angry at the plastic cups I use? Yes we all recycle plastic, but it isn’t sustainable, is it? Many mornings I see 6 or 8 rovers sleeping near bridges along the river. My father calls them tramps. Their brown bags and dirty paper is an eyesore. I’m disgusted we can’t offer them a house. I’m angry at the tornadoes, at the endless war blitz, at the discrimination against immigrants,  the tragedy in Haiti, and the war authority act in Congress. I’m hyperventilating.

Golly gee willikers. Can rage be healthy?  At least my anger staves away depression. I’m serious. Women get depressed in this country and men get aggressive. And me? I refuse to be aggressive nor will I allow myself to slip into depression.

What’s a Quaker to do with anger? Praying to stop anger is banal. Of course I seek to live out of Loving Mystery. Anger and love must become like the inhale and exhale of the same breath.  James Nayler, the eminent Quaker, explains how to pray when angry. “Art thou in the Darkness?” or in other words are you consumed with fury and confused by negativity. I’m defining Darkness as hurt and anger. He says, “Mind it not. But stand still and act not and wait in patience, til Light arises out of Darkness and leads thee.” Anger motivates, anger points to injustice, anger is righteous. But when it comes to how to respond to anger, Nayler  says be patient and act not out of the Darkness.

I work and give money to groups like the Homeless Empowerment Project. More than giving money, I spend a day a week teaching immigrants, half of these adults only have a 4^th grade education. More than volunteering, I meet with others who have spare time and legal rights, to discuss how to change our behaviors in these cataclysmic times. More than organizing people of privilege to work for a just world, I ask our Higher Power to show me the way. So channeling anger uses these steps: giving of yourself, teaching the illiterate, organizing to stop injustice, and praying. I’m looking for ways to create what followers of MLK call the Beloved Community.

To me the Beloved community includes Pat Humphries, Desmond Tutu, Lady Gaga, Dennis Kuchinich, Melinda Gates and Rupert Murdoch. In this community we want Pete Seeger singing This Land is Your Land, this Land is My Land.

Who is the Beloved Community? My older brother tried to trip me as a child going down the stairs. I need to include him, the people who hurt me. And definitely we belovedly reach out to Barack, Michelle, Michelle’s mother and the two girls living at the White House. But would we be willing to live next to Muamar Quadafi and his family? The Community has many doors and is welcoming to all. I know that. Accepting even those I’m upset with as children of God, as worthy, as my brother is so elementary but important. Maybe I’ve passed to 4^th grade in the peace achievement test scores. Anger and peace aren’t opposites, but they sure are painted to be enemies.

This March, the US and Europe entered into the Libyan civil war. Western civilization has a long history with Libya and only a pittance is studied in classrooms today.Libya plays a stellar role in ancient mythology. Does Libya play the dark cousin to Greek and Roman philosophy?

Five thousand years ago, Libya was covered by lakes, forests, and grasslands. Now it’s 90% desert with nomadic Berbers. Eastern Libya in 500 BC, with its famous 5 cities (near Benghazi), was a magnificent mecca for fine arts, learned academies and medical schools. Can we appreciate the magnificence of this civilization where we currently drop cluster bombs? During the Roman Empire, Tripoli reached a golden age about 200 AD. Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were part of a cosmopolitan state with language, Roman forums and legal courts. Libyans exported olive oil, wines, horses and ivory to European cities. Libya has been ruled by Greece, Rome, Turkey (Ottomans), and Italy. Finally in 1952, the UN declared Libya to be a sovereign nation.

According to the Pelasgians (who are early Greeks), the goddess Athena was born in the womb of Lake Tritonis in Libya. How fascinating. I found that Athena, Medusa and the magical horse Pegasus all were born in Libya. Athena was raised by three nymphs there. Tritonis means Three Queens or the Triple Goddess. Was she Libyan? According to an ancient tradition (Herod, Apollon), a nymph of Lake Tritonis in Libya and Poseidon were the parents of Athena.Later Greeks claim Athena sprung full-grown out of Zeus’ head, after Zeus swallowed Athena’s mother, Medea aka Medusa.

What about Medusa? She also lived in Libya, which in Homer’s time meant the land west of Egypt. We are taught only that she was a fearsome gorgon monster who turns men to stone. She was a power house and a ravaging beauty. Medusa means “royal female wisdom” in Sanskrit. Libyans worshiped Medusa and Athena. The earlier stories from Libya show Medusa with snakes curled around her waist, in a sacred knot. Snakes refer to healing like the spiral snakes formedicine Athena was a warrior and also a symbol of wisdom. Athena punished Medusa. Her dred locks turned to snakes, her beauty to a hideous face according to Homer. All who look at her directly turned to stone (as happened to enemies of White Witch in Narnia).

Perseus, on a quest, beheaded Medusa and bags her head as a trophy. But the myth has 2 interesting births from her beheading. First, at her death, the winged horse Pegasus is born. Second as Perseus flies over Libya, blood drips from Medusa’s severed head. Drops of blood become poisonous snakes infesting the Mediterranean coast of Libya. The horse, white with bright wings, carries off Perseus who delivers the head to Athena. Death does not defeat Medusa. She retains the power to paralyze others (stonewall them); even in death she gives birth (a horse).

Fast forward 3,000 years. In 2011, NATO has entered into the fight of a desperate dictator with Tomahawkmissiles and GPS guided bombs. Why? We are not on a humanitarian issue, there is no threat to the US. Obama says, “We are answering the calls of a threatened people” and he claims that “it’s for the good of all.”How can I believe such pig slop? It’s clearer every day that our stage entrance 6 weeks ago in Libya ago was to wage war against Muammar al Gaddafi. Gaddafi has been in office since 1969. Many Libyans want him to exit. But under what authority can NATO bomb a proud leader, a senior citizen, and the father of 8 kids. We have bombed his compound several times, and killed his grandchildren. We bombed his compound again in May 2011 with the death of his youngest childSaif al-Arab.

Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser warned against the assassination of Gaddafi. “The narrative we want to come out of this is that the Libyan people overthrew a dictator – not that the UN toppleda despot,” he told CNN.

My plea is that the US let go of bullets and bombs. I plead for respect. I plead that we stop turning our children into murderers of strange people. Can the US stop dropping blood which turns the land into a place of plague. If Libya is filled with writhing snakes, it’s the snakes of European missiles. England, Italy and France sell millions of weapons to Libya. Now we are sending troops to Libya to be killed by those exact same weapons. NATO is strapped alongside its own weapons, rather like suicide bombers.

The US and its allies are re enacting a long battle of murder. We are not under Athena’s orders to kill any monster in Libya. We have spilled blood in the dessert. Our moral compass is lost in the Libya and the Middle East. The people cry- Get NATO out of Libya. We are not rescuers in Libya.  Let’s fly out of there. Let’s transform our venomous weapons into winged horses. Like Icarus NATO has too much hubris flying so close to the penetrating North African sun.

As a Quaker I vehemently disagree with Obama’s killing of bin Laden. It is immoral and believe it or not, illogical. Barack Obama said on May 2, “The world is safer; it is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden. …Today, we remember the sense of unity that defines us as Americans.”

First, the world is less safe now. Was it a death? No. It was murder, even an assassination. Secondly, there is no unity.” I and thousands of other Quakers cry out, “Stop. Treat your enemies justly, even if you do not follow Jesus’ example of loving your enemy.” Venomous violence against anyone contributes to a world living by vengefulness. If blood has been spilled by bin Laden, why not take him to the world court for justice? The Pentagon is not just nor do its actions speak for me. I as a person who yearns for justice I see no fairness in the furtive killing of a charismatic leader. By knocking off him with his wife, son and associates, I only see more pain. First of all, his loved ones witnessed the bloodshed, his followers have more reason to hate the US, and our country is continuing the chain of violence. If Al Queda kills US citizens, our Navy can’t unilaterally kill Al Queda. That’s the law of thugs and gangs. Our killing gives Al Queda more reason to retaliate. Is that not obvious? Bin Laden is not the anti-Christ. Vipers and moles act with more moral courage than the Navy Seals and its generals.”

I used to think when watching the world news the US had a mob case of ADHD. Like a child with a Christmas stocking of GI JOEs and cowboy holsters, our army invades Iraq, in 2010 it pours in troops to Afghanistan, and then gleefully adds its deadly cluster bombings to Libya. We are mad buffalos tramping over the middle east. Starting in 1950s for 30 years the US stayed in the quagmire of the Korea-Vietnam-Cambodia war bringing poverty and habitat demolition. Now the US bounces around the Middle east firing the first shots and adding fuel to the wildfire. In 2011, we are involved in 3 countries, while supplying Israel annually with $3 billion for its arsenal, the biggest powder keg in the region.  I am angry. I apologize if I’m ranting. I’m not ballistically violent. I’m trying to use words, not Tomahawk missiles.

Didn’t Christians in the US just honor Jesus on Easter 10 days ago? Now we want to return to barbarian ways of destroying someone demonized as an enemy. All those memories of forgive 7 times 70  and Thou shalt not kill. Does the bible say, Don’t murder except in cases of terrorism? Does killing a murderer repair anything? Nope. It increases hatred and makes the US the murderer.

The USA is built on the principals of Life, Liberty and a pursuit of Happiness. This started in 1775 with a group of scattered patriots up and down the Eastern Atlantic Seaboard. The patriots were largely (exceptions like Crispus Attacks) Europeans who were illegal aliens. We were poaching on Algonquin land. In our land grab, didn’t we kill and pillage the Indians for decades?  But we weren’t terrorists, we were moral citizens. How fickle is history. Do murderers get forgiveness?

I hope so because many Americans seem to think killing is a good punishment. Secondly, Obama implies that all Americans are enthusiastic at this violent act. Really? The murder is wonderful and it’s time to celebrate. It seems a bit bizarre almost gluttonous to cheer because of killing. I would like to mourn for all of us, especially for how far we’ve fallen from our beliefs that all humans are able to pursue happiness, work for Liberty, and LIFE. When there’s life, there’s hope. Death, like zombies and phantoms, only destroys. What Jesus says is — attacking the attacker only destroys us. Get it? Please send me your response.