VaYera, and advocating for others

     So, this week’s parashah is Parashat VaYera, literally “And he appeared” to Abraham.  This week’s parashah contains the famous bargaining session for the lives of people who lived in the two cities least known for hospitality.  

   But what about folks with no one to stand up for them, no one willing to speak for them, especially kids?  How do we protect children who have no one to properly care for them, let alone family?

What would you do, and how would you solve this thorny problem of protecting kids, not to mention vulnerable adults, Thoughtful Readers?

Would you flee the danger, sensibly, if a powerful being were threatening a smaller one, someone you did not know?  Or would you stand with that stranger, not knowing whether you would be punished, too, for offering your help? 

Is this the same as what Abraham did for the cities of the plain?

Action Items:

1.)  Share your thoughts on the how to keep all kids safe, please.

2.) Share your thoughts on how we Human Beings might start to build a more fully inclusive society for all of us.

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses these thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for COVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

           by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

                         help build a kinder future: Do Better: a Vision of a Better World

(Online pdfs of 5 month GED lesson 12 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story inspires learning…

l’Shalom

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira Destinie Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Lech Lecha, or, when your get up and go has got up and went

     So, this week’s parashah is Parashat Lech Lecha, literally “Go to yourself” obviously translated as just Go.  The command to leave country of birth and land where family lives, going just in one mostly nuclear group, ok, with a nephew as well as wife, and a large retinue, feels like an uprooting.  

   But what about folks with no spouse, and no retinue:  how do those folks find family, and where is home, birth place or otherwise?  How does one decide where home is when one has no family of origin, either due to abusive childhoods, or other reasons, and no place that calls to one as home?  How does one even begin to find community, let alone family?

What would you do, and how would you decide where to go, Thoughtful Readers?

Would you trust the call, as Sojourner Truth did, saying that “The Spirit calls me, and I must go” despite the danger?

Action Items:

1.)  Share your thoughts on the how to find family, please.

2.) Share your thoughts on how we Human Beings might start to build a more fully inclusive society for all of us.

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses these thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for COVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

           by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

                         help build a kinder future: Do Better: a Vision of a Better World

(Online pdfs of 5 month GED lesson 10 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story inspires learning…

l’Shalom

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira Destinie Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Sacred Study Saturdays, Torah Portion Judges, or Shoftim, and Community

Parashat Shoftim / פרשת שׁוֹפְטִים

Read in the Diaspora on 14 August 2021 (6 Elul 5781). 

   Please accept my apologies as I am not feeling well this week, so the next few days posts will be rather brief.

I taught a class on Parashat Shoftim and Community with a follow up on  this the next year in last week’s parashah at the DC Beit Midrash, some years ago. 

Given the fact that one is not allowed to live in a place with no court, we are all part of a society in which a system of justice must be looked after.  The existing justice system must become more fully inclusive for all of us.

Action Items:

1.) Search for two different sources related to this week’s section of the Bible, or, if you prefer, to the Holocene Epoch and to the Holocene Calendar.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts on how a calendar based on the Holocene Epoch might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking,

4.) Write a book, blog post or tweet that uses an alternate calendar, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. If you write a book, once published, please consider donating to your local public library.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write -one can add Stayed on Freedom’s Call via this GR button:  , 

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plans offline)

and

my Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction,

and

a proposed Vision on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…

   

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

our year 2021 CE =  12021 HE

(Lesson plans:  Day 1 … Day 5)

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free copies at: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.  We’d love to hear about your review here, too, if you do!

Shira Destinie Jones by ShiraDest is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Language Learning, Local Education, and 4 Inexpensive Ideas

Spanish has always been my favorite language, especially after moving to the bilingual South West. Technically, I was hired for my experience in Unix which led to my MAT in mathematics, but on the ground, my love of learning languages proved to be more important in the classroom. As an adult education instructor at the Continuing Education division of the San Diego Community College District, my fluency proved helpful for many of my students, and also, of course, the ESL classes help our students from many nations contribute in the USA.

Every local educational institution has room for improvement, particularly when seen from both faculty and student perspectives. I posed some questions recently about ideas for implementing low-cost projects that would have been helpful to our students when I taught in North campus involving

1.) a small library or study area,
2.) workshops by CA Promise Program graduates,
3.) an on-site nurse paid for by medi-Cal, and
4.) access to public transportation:

1.) Many of my students told me they didn’t have a quiet place to study.  While I know that space is in very short supply on the North campus, I wonder if a small area, possibly in the multipurpose room when it’s not being used, could be set aside with cubicles or movable small desks and a small movable lending library like the tiny libraries?

2.)   I wonder, on the assumption of course that having graduated and started a new career as a professional with a bachelor’s degree anyone can be found who will have time, if any students having graduated with a bachelor’s degree after getting their first two years of community college paid for through the California promise program or with the San Diego promise program, could be persuaded to come back either as tutors, mentors, or even just to give workshops in the areas in which they got their educations?  Particularly accounting majors or paralegal/pre-law majors who could give small workshops on dealing with debt in California including, California statutes of limitations, or financial planning workshops or how to do your own taxes if you only need to do the 1040EZ, etc?  One-on-one tutoring, and also mentoring,  that supportive help, especially for our high school equivalency students, could be both useful and inspiring.  Seeing successfully graduated professionals with a bachelor’s degree who came through the community college system and are willing to spend individual time with them, even if only a couple of hours a week, could make a difference.  Could interns or SCORE volunteers put a program like this together?  Do we track or stay in touch with students who finish the California or San Diego promise program once they finish their bachelor’s degrees?

3.) Many of my students worked two jobs or for other reasons never had time to see a doctor even when they were ill. I wonder if it is possible to pay, through the Medi-Cal system, for a nurse to be on-site, perhaps based out of the office  of each campus, a couple of days/evenings a week?

4.)  One of the biggest problem areas that I saw for my car-free students was that neither the Continuing Education division, nor the CE faculty Union was able to get the transit authority to enforce acceptance of CE student IDs for the monthly bus and rail pass discount.  In planning for post-#Covid-19 classes, will we have any resources to address public transportation discount and access issues?

I imagine that some of these ideas may be a little overwhelming, because I understand that time and resources are extremely limited, but once in a while, as Dr. Rivera-Lacey noted: we do have to dream.

Please share your ideas for improving local education, or for supporting any other parts of our critical Public Domain Social Infrastructure!

Action Items:

1.) Consider some ideas you may have on how having these ideas implemented could help your local community,

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please, and

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those sources and your thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at LEAST for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write -one can add Stayed on Freedom’s Call via this GoodReads button: ,

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plan Book)!

and

my Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction,

and

a proposed Vision on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

our year 2020 CE =  12020 HE

(Day 1 … Day 5)

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free copies at: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira Destinie Jones by ShiraDest is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Turkish Tuesdays, Arts/Media and Public Policy, and how Time Banks can help!

When I lived in Izmir, a Turkish TV spot shocked me: it showed an image of an elderly Black man, evidently homeless, sleeping in a stairwell directly beneath a sign that pointed up the stairs and read “White House” followed by the caption “Yorum Yok” or “No Comment.” This was about the same time that a major Turkish newspaper criticized the Erdoğan government over the death by hypothermia of an elderly homeless man up in Istanbul, sparking outrage among my Turkish coworkers. These two media pieces, taken together, led me to wonder about the links between the media and public policy.

When I was a kid, PBS School House Rock spots taught me things like the Preamble to the US Constitution, and how bills become law.  These and other PBS shows like Sesame Street demonstrated the concept of cooperation and taught a generation of kids ideas of fairness, social justice, and may have helped pave the way for later laws passed once we became adults on issues ranging from birth control and same-sex marriage to the Affordable Care Act.

In like manner, shows like El Ministerio del Tiempo, in Spain, provide social commentary and critique, while framing various often opposing views on social justice, cooperation, and the policy elements that can encourage those values. Similarly, the Turkish family show Sihirli Annem also showed a generation of kids in Turkey respect for women, social justice and cooperation. That generation is now part of the push-back against radicalism in Turkey today.

All of these shows are examples of how the Arts and Media can influence Public Policy, and vice-versa. Time Banks, when encouraged by local government and community-based organizations, can help in facilitating access to the arts through Open Access Cable, local arts organizations, and extending Time Bank credit to local artists through mural projects and other local culture projects, for the benefit of both local and extended communities.

Join or start one in your community now!

Read, Write, Dream, Walk !
ShiraDest

orig. posted: October 18th, 12017 HE

Adulting for the Common Good, Black and Jewish Americans fought together in Spain

They went to fight for the Spanish Republic, and for equality.  A friend from my synagogue in Albuquerque, NM, mentioned, speaking of a TV episode about the Spanish Civil War, her personal connection to this war:

–

As we discussed my all time favorite show, El Ministerio del Tiempo (sorry B5!!), a friend recently told me that one of her relatives had fought in the Spanish Civil War as part of the Lincoln Brigade which turned out to have been known officially as the Lincoln Batallion.

Looking into the history of the Lincoln Batallion, I found, among others, Oliver Law, a Black man who had to leave the USA to become the first African-American in US history to command a military unit (not counting NCOs during the US Civil War like Robert A. Pinn, who picked up the standard and command after the deaths of all of his officers), during the Spanish Civil War.

In total, one Black woman and 54 Black men volunteered from the United States, where they were treated with disdain, to fight racism and oppression on the other side of the Atlantic. They hoped to change things back home in the US, and they were following the calling of their consciences, to fight racism and oppression where they could: in Europe.  For Tom Page, it was the first time he was treated with human dignity, and for Salaria Kea, the only Black woman to volunteer, it was a dashing of hopes upon returning home.  But for all, it was honorable service to humanity.

Like Delmer Berg, the last surviving American to travel to Spain, 1/3 of the volunteers were Jewish. This was in keeping with a long but little-known tradition of cooperation between the Black and Jewish communities well before the 1960s.  In that sacred tradition, led by Dr. King, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Gandhi and many others, we must continue the cooperation between individuals, families, communities and states that so desperately needs to continue, to move us all forward as a united human race.

May all of their memories be a blessing to us all, and a reminder of Human Cooperation
Zichronam LiVrachah,
Shira Destinie Jones

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !
ShiraDest
March 16th, 12017 HE

–

So, it turns out that Langston Hughes also fought Franco, and lived to tell about it:

“90 African-Americans who took up arms in Spain under the banner of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. … Baltimoreans who read the Afro-American would have learned about the war from its correspondent Langston Hughes.”

Continuing self and pro-bono education (aka Adulting Ed.) is part of Phase I of the Four Freedoms movement and part of increasing cooperation for the common good.  Now, rather than going off to fight, we can help to build:

Action Items:

1.) Search for two more examples of community cooperation.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts on how you feel such cooperation increases the Common Good,

4.) Write a book, blog post or tweet that uses this history, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, if you wrote a book, please consider donating to your local public library.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write -one can add Stayed on Freedom’s Call via this GR button:

, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

 

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

ShiraDest

Dedember, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Shira Destinie Jones by ShiraDest is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Moody Mondays, Community Cooperation, and Adulting Education

As part of the responsibility for knowing how cooperation had previously taken place in order to improve cooperation in our present and future, I recommend that you read my free and short book:

–

Seeking reviews for my second book, available for free, on Community Cooperation and shared history in the Nation’s Capital (applicable all across the USA):

GoodReads (the Archive link is in the GR book description)

Open Archive: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnFreedomsCall

WP : https://shiradest.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/stayed-on-freedoms-call.pdf

ShiraDest, in the year 12015 HE

Edit:  1st Walking Tour: Early Integration Neighborhoods of DC -Shepherd Park
Many thanks to those who joined us for this tour today!
Join us, if you missed this one, or again!, on Sunday, 8 Jan. 2012!!
Please feel free to leave feedback and suggestions for me on the reply comments below!
Peace.  Join us for a musical walk back in time, to the turbulent times of BlockBusting and Cooperative struggle to integrate neighborhoods, drawing together White, Jewish and Black neighbors to form a new and unique thing of beauty.
(The response to this tour, particularly by Andra, inspired me to continue with the Black-Jewish Cooperation Tours, and then to write the book…)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
23 February, 12016 HE

–

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Download Stayed… in your favorite format from the Archive (see GoodReads description for the link),

2.) Share your thoughts on the book  with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts as a review on your GoodReads please!

4.) Write a book, blog post or tweet that uses something from Stayed, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

NaNoWriMo 2020 CE

November, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Sacred Study Saturdays and dream journaling as Adulting Health Care

If a dream is 1/60 of prophecy, doesn’t that make it nullified by 60 parts, and what do you do, anyway, when it’s about a dead relative?

—

When I hear 1/60th, I always think of “butel b’Shishim” or nullified by 1/60, which is a concept behind why we (back when I was in the Orthodox Jewish community) boil eggs in odd numbers of at least 3 at a time, if I recall correctly, but applying the concept to dreams as part prophecy seems to wipe the whole idea out, no? And why write down a dream, anyway, if it is nothing but “a bit of undigested potato,” as Scrooge retorts?  (‘Tis the season, right?)

If “Adulting” includes taking care of one’s mental health, then it would seem, to me, to be imperative to use every tool at one’s disposal to take care of that health.  Journals have long been ack’d as such a tool.  Poetry, not so much, but possible also useful.

In any case, if the heat coming on can recall the cigarette smoke of one’s dead parent in a DC summer, and thus (presumably) force a dream about being in a sinking boat with that parent as dead weight (no smoking in the dream, oddly), then maybe it is less prophecy, and more therapy.  (Need I add that accessible and affordable long-term trauma therapy would help millions of people who are merely coping to actually thrive??)

I’ve always kept a dream journal, even when I had to hide, cipher, or destroy it.  I find that the act of writing something down by hand does two things for me:

1.  I never need to look at it again, as I remember what I write down (came in handy in university), and
2. I seem to think far more clearly with a pen in my hand.

With Shabbat coming, I’ll have more time to ponder the question of whether this question is still worth pondering, and how to attack the issue of useless disappointment with the failures of  failed parental units, and anger with the one that threw you under the bus.  At least the lockdown makes it easier to deal with the constant expectation of smiling and looking happy, so that being alone allows time to sit with the emotions and sift through them, seeking to solve the problems, or to engineer solutions.  Mine have involved seeking a community (does that make me a True Seeker, and can I join the Anlashok, please?)  that will enable me to build family connections who can help me believe that this world is worth bothering with, and who will not condemn my decision, 38 years ago now, to refuse to bring any new life into this world until it was safe for every possible child I might bear.  We’re not there yet, and I’m gladly awaiting the end of my potential to bear new lives, even if Mother Nature still seems to think it’s a good idea (I’ve been telling her for years that my uterus is useless, to no avail most months, except the 6 month stretches that I went without, notably at Annapolis, when I was at least trying to eat!).  Sorry for this ramble, which was meant to say that keeping a journal can at least help in processing some of the debris of a broken life, and more importantly, a journal tells you what your emotional processes look like, less subjectively than your memory, and a journal keeps a record of how others have treated you, which I’ve found crucial in more than one abusive relationship.

The dreams, I guess they will keep until I review them later, in a different frame of mind.  For now, time to finish getting ready for Shabbat (this post I’ll schedule for a less busy time…).

Shabbat Shalom     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different resources to translate the word “dream” into Hebrew.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts on how you think the USA having EU style health care might change American society,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that uses a Hebrew word, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

 

ShiraDest

NaNoWriMo 2020 CE

November, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

– Moody Mondays and Adulting ed via GED: Day 45/67, High School Equivalency in Five Months:

Day 45/67, HSE in Five Months: Middle of week 12/18

—

Week Twelve:

Day 45 lesson plan

Grammar: Coordinating conjunctions

Simplify Roots

Day45ExitTicket

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different reps in your state for whom you are a constituent.

2.) Email them to ask for increased Community College funding.

3.) Share  how each of the reps responded.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

NaNoWriMo 2020 CE

November, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Thoughtful Thursdays, Health Care, and a sense of honor

Self-worth, a sense of self, and a sense of meaning or purpose, are all closely tied up with both mental and emotional health, as well as another reason that we need a Universal Health Care system that includes full mental health services. These things do not come easily nor quickly, the thorny problems that we think about when looking at reasons to live or die. Reasons to stay, reasons to simply stop, let go, and give up, permanently. Some find inspiration to live in art, or in religion, or in happiness, but what about the longer term view?

It was a tumultuous time when the General spoke these words, as we have again now. 1962 seems to have come again in 2020, and I do not agree with all of his words, but with his sentiment that we have a duty to uphold our commitment to community and to humanity, I will always agree and work toward fulfilling.

 

Honor, Duty, and … Community:

These are still sacred concepts for me.  Quoting from one of my favorite speeches (The Long Grey Line, Gen. Douglas MacArthur‘s speech to the Corps of Cadets
at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., May 12, 1962):

“to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness; the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.”

These words inspired me, as a CAP and Jr. ROTC cadet, to a life of service towards Duty, Honor, and Loyalty to equality for all… Shira

Here is why I am thinking of this topic now:

–

Much of my life has revolved around the ideals of service, duty, and honor embodied in the General´s West Point address, which I first read and found so inspiring as a cadet in both the Civil Air Patrol and Jr. ROTC.  The text is available here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1068922/posts

That speech and the ideals it represents may be what got me kicked out of Annapolis, in fact. When I arrived at the Naval Academy, I expected the ideas I had been taught as a cadet to continue to the Brigade of Midshipmen and to the officer corps: Nobless Oblige, defend and support the weak, work together to serve the ideals that make our democracy great. But I found a very different reality there, and in questioning, earned the ire of both my upper classmen and several of my classmates to boot.

Contemplating the meaning of friendship, and the twilight of one´s life, I find that I have been told that I was out of touch, or had my head in the clouds, or lived life as the world should be rather than as it really is, been called a Crusader, over and over. The courage of my convictions remains with me, yet I tire of the struggle. What do I want from my life? Only to make that contribution which only I can make, to be a bridge, to help re-create the cooperation which existed, not only between communities, but to inspire people to recall and rebuild what was old Al Andalus, and the cooperation of La Convivencia. To gather and encourage people of good will and decency to promote cooperation and community for the sake of us all.
Peace,
Shira
 April, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

–

I later added, regarding Community Cooperation, that as Hillary Clinton pointed out, it does indeed take a village, a united sense of purpose, and conviction to give meaning to life, and to our way of life. We should learn to ask why, before we arrive at the twilight of our lives. A newly revived Civilian Conservation Corps would help accomplish that, mingling various classes as mandatory military service once did, but with the goal, now, of building, rather than destroying.

 

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

 

ShiraDest

Preptober for NaNoWriMo 2020 CE

October, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)