Is the world nucking futs, or is it just me?

[Please forgive the coconut photo. I could not find a clipart picture of a nut that I could download, after trying for over an hour. Every time I hit “Download” on the MS Office website, the acorn cartoon I was trying to capture went somewhere and became an unopenable “wmv”, whatever that is. This meant either going with what clipart I already had on my MacBook Air HD, or making the dreaded Call to My Husband, who understands all things Mac, or throwing something, or eating chocolate, or drinking mucho Margaritas, or making a vulgar Italian gesture – and I’m not even Italian. So I went the path of least resistance and pasted the coconut photo. I think the coconut does add a certain Marxian (Brothers) je ne sais quoi.]

[Ok, just imagine a coconut photo above. My apologies to Fay, who suggested I add pictures to my blog. I’m an effing idiot.]

So, is the world just nucking futs, or is it just me? On today’s Salon.com is an article entitled “Pancho’s Message to the World.”

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/18/panchos_message_for_occupy_wall_street/

I could not help but be profoundly touched by Pancho’s photo of him meditating at Occupy Oakland. There was something Christlike in his pose. After being arrested, he witnessed to the police that while he was behind bars, they had shackles on their souls and only they had the choice to unlock their bonds. I found his message of love, nonviolence, peace and respect for all to be powerfully moving. But it is also extremely disturbing and threatening to the status quo, make no mistake.

It made me think about choices we make, and paths we take, and how choices we don’t make or paths we don’t take compose our journey. What kind of world do we want? I know what kind of world I want.

I want a world where phrases like “strapping young buck,” “welfare queen,” “drinking the Koolaid,” “dirty hippy,” and the “n,” “s,” and “kkk,” words have to be explained to our children by their teachers, and appear as quaint and distant as the Old and Elizabethan English in works like “The Canterbury Tales,” “Beowulf” and “Romeo and Juliet.” I want a world where skin color is seen as a simple genetic variation of the human race, because everyone knows that mitochondrial DNA proves our mother (Eve) walked out of Africa 50-100,000 years ago, and she was black and beautiful. I want a world where famine, war, violence, rape, torture, penitentiaries, bullying and every other assault against human dignity is unthinkable, even unimaginable.

I’m not a child, and I believe that there are positions worth fighting for, just not with violence. Jesus said, “Turn the other cheek.” I often think he could have said it with a sly smile, because it could have been a Chaucerian (the Wife of Bath) or Pythonian (“Pah! I fart in your general direction!”) cheek. Perhaps sometimes that’s all the rejoinder some assaults deserve. This is not to say you should allow evil to flourish, just that there are countless ways to resist and vanquish it. You pick your battles and your weapons. Choose wisely.

War is over, if you want it. You might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Imagine…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xB4dbdNSXY