LOL Herecatz

Apparently this blog o' mine would fit in either way!

"We Acted From Our Hearts"

Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya

Meet the two Catholic Worker activists who secretly sabotaged the Dakota Access Pipeline. In late July, 2017, they came forward publicly about their actions.  

Excerpt from Amy Goodman's interview:

AMY GOODMAN: So, the investigation into the damage to the pipeline has been ongoing. But, apparently, the authorities did not have leads into who committed these acts of sabotage. So, Jessica, why did you decide, you and Ruby decide, to come forward on Monday?

JESSICA REZNICEK: Well, I guess one of the main reasons is Ruby and I felt very disheartened by the fact that oil is now flowing through the pipeline. Obviously, we cannot pierce through empty valves anymore. They are not empty. We halted construction up and down the line for several weeks, turning into months. And we’re now at the phase where we have to deal with the reality that this pipeline—that we failed, as resistance here in Iowa goes. And now oil is flowing through it, and there’s really nothing more to do now than come forward and let the public know that—and continue this public discourse about what that means, where we’re heading, and the consequences of it.

Click here to read the complete interview / see the Democracy Now video about Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, who were inspired by the Plowshares movement to use nonviolent direct action in an attempt to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa.  

Oh, To Live Beautifully

In the aftermath of a dear friend's death, decades-old memories have re-emerged. My friend, a gifted writer and a deeply compassionate woman, once asked in a poem: "What if happiness traveled like light from the stars? What if that happiness emitted toward me so long ago finally reached me? Small particles of spontaneous luminosity settled into my very being. I begin to give off light, am clothed in color. What if not only the world is beautiful (so beautiful that the scent of a small piece of sage can save you), but what if, at last, my life achieved a kind of beauty?"

At my friend's memorial, her husband and children explained how she began to "talk to angels" in the months before her death from brain cancer. They believed this to be due the effects of medicines and changes in her brain chemistry. But they had no explanation for the glow, the golden aura that she radiated during her final week of life. She was in a coma, but became more beautiful with each passing day. On her dying day, she was at her most radiant.

In a spell of grieving, I recalled some lines from a song sung in grade school choir. I'd hoped to find the actual song from an internet search -- it had such an exquisite, but melancholy, melody. What I found instead was the poem on which the song was based:

Oh, to live beautifully
For my brief hour
As does a wayside flower,
Unperturbed by the strange brevity
Of time allotted me;
Undisturbed by the overshadowing shine
Of tree and climbing vine;
Bravely stemming the wind and the beating rain.
Bowing and lifting again;
Within me some strong inner force as bright
As a poppy filled with light;
My feet firm-rooted in the earth’s good sod.
My face turned toward God
Yielding some fragrance down the paths I know
A little while . . . then go
As a flower goes, its petals seeking the ground
Without a cry or sound.
But leaving behind some gold seed lightly thinned
To blow upon the wind.

—Grace Noll Crowell

May the wind catch and spread the gold of our grace-infused lives.