Change is Coming House Meeting, Brandon, VT, December 13, 2008
We had five attendees and made plans for two events:
1. We are going to set up an "Obama" booth at the First Night Celebration on New Year's Eve in Rutland, VT and ask people to submit their opinions as well as make them aware of Change.Gov and the willingness of the Obama administration to solicit and implement the changes expressed through that website. Our group name is Rutland County Citizens for Change, which Brandon for VT has morphed into.
2. We plan to hold a forum and ask local representatives to discuss integrity and accountability in government and our ability to influence change in government.
a. We will invite new members to get in touch with us and hold a meeting to discuss the forum, assign tasks, and set up volunteer schedules.
b. We will invite the local representatives and ask them to commit to coming.
c. Once we have the forum in place, we will do free advertising as a nonprofit community event on 211 (a Vermont state toll-free call-in line that people can call and find out about services), local radio stations, local TV stations, Rutland-area newspapers, email, O-mail, word of mouth, and also by distributing and hanging up fliers at local community buildings, such as the library, schools, medical center, grocery stores, senior citizen centers, theaters, art centers, etc.
Please join us! We can use any and all help you can give!
On Religion
And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion.And he said:Have I spoken this day of aught else?Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever sprining in the soul, even while the hands hew the stones or tend the loom?Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?"All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.The freest song comes not through bars and wires.And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.Your daily life is your temple and your religion.Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.Take the plow and the forge and the mallet and the lute,The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.And take with you all men and women:For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.Rather look about you and you shall see HIMHER playing with your children.And look into space; you shall see HIMHER walking in the cloud, outstretching HisHer arms in the lightning and descending in rain.You shall see HIMHER smiling in flowers, then rising and waving HisHer hands in trees.by Kahlil Gibranfrom The Prophet, pp. 69-70
"Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.And he answered, saying:You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and a labor, a misfortune.But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,And in keeping yourself with labor you are in truth loving life,And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in pain call birth an affliction and the support of flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away what is written.
You have also been told that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what is said by the weary. And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,And all knowledge is vain save when there is love;And when you work you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often I have heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes sandals for our feet".But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all blades of grass;And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
WORK IS LOVE MADE VISIBLE.And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.And if you grudge the crushing of grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
-Kahlil Gibran
Hi,
I am a 56-year-old woman living in rural Vermont with a masters in psychology who has been in deep despair about the future of our country and our planet for many years. I have learned in school and out that when people have been oppressed, traumatized, lied to, and had their power to make change stripped from them, they undergo PTSD and give up in despair. I have also learned that the way to health again is through hope, believing that the future will be better than the past, and that we have power over the future. Barack Obama fills me with the sense that no matter the amount of trouble, no matter the depth of despair in our country, we can and will make it better. We can heal ourselves, our country, and our planet by believing in ourselves! No, it won't be easy, or quick, or without cost. I, for one, am willing to work hard, to wait with patience, and to pay the cost economically and personally to reverse the damage done by those before us. I know that Obama is the leader we need at this time. I know that we must be ready, because I believe that "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." Our time is now. Please join us.
Lois in Sudbury, Vermont
