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Listen! Protest!

My mind is popping from the many good articles in the WP this morning. The Columbia U radio station WKCR journalists stayed up all night, risked arrest and live-streamed reports on the brutal police arrests of their fellow students barricaded in Hamilton Hall. The protests against the continued slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and a call for the university to divest from support of Israel’s military have now spread throughout the country with over 2,000 students arrested, many facing the loss of diplomas and expulsion.

A dear friend from Senegal called me yesterday afternoon wondering if I knew how to support her daughter, a senior at Princeton who might be arrested that afternoon for similar protests demanding a cease-fire and peace between Israel and Palestinians. I checked with another activist friend in Princeton looking for possible lawyers who might be available there to assist the students.

I have also read and heard from many friends about Jewish students who have suffered backlash and antisemitism on their campuses. Support for the families of over 35,000 Palestinians killed and 77,000 wounded does not, should not become attacks against Jewish people. It’s the government war policies of Israel, not Israeli people, definitely not Jewish people everywhere who are being criticized. Many Jewish people all over the world are leading the protests to stop the killing, release hostages and restore food, medical supplies and safety to Palestinians. To make it possible for both sides to TALK instead of kill.

Yet extreme speech seems to arise in the heat of protests and political arguments – lines are drawn, friendships threatened, people harmed. I saw those extremes inside Israel when I visited Jerusalem, Ramallah, Tel Aviv, and Birzeit University in 1991 with my Jewish son who worked in a Palestinian Rights organization for Political Prisoners. Over thirty years ago there were groups of Israeli and Patestinians working for dialogue and peace for both peoples.

I remember the extreme emotions of the protests against the war in Vietnam in the ‘60s-’70s. May 4, 1970 four students at Kent State were murdered and nine wounded for protesting the bombing of Cambodia. At Jackson State on May 14, four African American students were killed by police and twelve wounded. On May 7, 1970 I faced 35 years in federal prison and was sentenced to 4 years for acting against Dow Chemical’s profits from napalm, nerve gas, and defoliants in Vietnam. The next spring, I carried my infant son in protests at the White House where orders to bomb Cambodia originated…while his future wife and her family were being bombed in Phnom Penh.

From the vantage point of my 83 years and decades of activism to bring more peace and justice to our world, I value calm moments of deep listening and courageous, honest speech between people with opposing views as much as the excitement of protests. I just spent a week with friends committed to “Engaged Buddhism,” standing up to injustice, war, and oppression from a place of calm, compassionate love and peace. Many of them are Jewish, some Arab, Vietnamese, European, Canadian. We sometimes disagree about how to do this. We carry the baggage and the courage of our ancestors who lived through world wars, poverty, exile and loss. But we continue to practice together to build communities where every person is respected, cared for, listened to, fed, housed and nourished to transform suffering into courageous action.

I know peace is possible. Here. Now. In the next breath I take. The next word I utter. in the prayers for my Jewish friends who suffer and my Palestinian friends who suffer. If peace is possible among us living in relative safety and freedom to protest peacefully, then peace is possible in the whole world.

Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America

Excellent choice for our Takoma Park Mobilization Book Group! A deep look into the unbreakable love between Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie that fueled and supported their struggle for civil rights for African Americans in Mississippi in the 1950s-‘60s. Medgar’s murder inspires an escalation in the movement, pushing other leaders to take stronger stands, including organizing the March on Washington of August 1963 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A powerful book, deeply researched, about a critical time in US history that is useful for today’s continuing fight against white supremacy.

Just finished discussing the book with my co-leader Carol F. I think we were moved by some of the same themes of the book and came up with questions:

1)How did the role of women in the CR Movement change and what were some of the effects that direct action had on Myrlie and on families?

2) What effects did Medgar Evers death (and those of Emmett Till, MLK, Malcolm X, JFK, RFK) have on other actions and changes in society?

3) The conflict between violence and non-violence in the CR movement…within Medgar? In your experience?

4) How were these conflicts and others manifested within the CR organizations (NAACP, CORE, SNCC, SCLC, etc), especially in Mississippi?

Great interview of Myrlie by Joy-Ann Reid on the 60th anniversary of Medgar’s death in June, (12), 2023. As far as I know, she just passed her 91st birthday on 3/17/24. She was born 3/17/1933.

4) How were these conflicts and others manifested within the CR organizations (NAACP, CORE, SNCC, SCLC, etc), especially in Mississippi?

Higher Powers

Yesterday’s meeting topic was “What is your Higher Power?” When I got sober, I had let go of the religion of my youth and felt “on my own” with my problems.

Someone suggested just starting my search for a new Higher Power with anything that gave me a sense of awe and peace. “Mountains,” I thought…“being on top of Old Rag Mountain.” Even alone on top of a mountain, I felt close to sun, sky, and clouds and saw the apple blossoms in the valleys below and ridges of further mountain ranges in the west.

“And the ocean!” I feel right-sized there too and part of something far greater than myself and my little complaints.”

“Whatever works for you,” my friend said. “Immerse yourself it it!”

Pat woke me at 5:30 to journal and have a cup of coffee before one of those slow-motion, triple sunrises amidst clouds that made those Higher Powers feel very present.

No Cluster Bombs! Anywhere!

NO Cluster Bombs to Ukraine!

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Photo by Malcolm Browne

These horrible weapons built to harm civilians, even years after they are planted or dropped, have been outlawed by 123 countries, including 23 NATO allies. US Senators Patrick Leahy and Jeff Merkley share experience of traveling to Vietnam and Laos to witness the effects of tens of millions of unexploded US cluster munitions harming and killing children and others there even 50 years after they were deployed.

Whose interests do these weapons serve? ONLY defense contractors, and they only financially, not as human beings killing other human beings.

Again, I must breathe, focus, calm body and mind to begin to cope with this level of idiocy, cruelty and cupidity.

See What are cluster bombs and why are they controversial? | Ukraine | The Guardian.

Love Never Dies

Family birthdays celebrated 2018. MaryElla, Leakhena and Lynda

My mind can hardly wrap around the notion that the youngest two in this family birthday gathering have recently died. MaryElla (on my shoulder) on June 5 at age 36 and Lynda (far right in the photo) on February 2 shortly after her 41st birthday. We are just concluding a period of deep mourning, travel to memorials and intense connection with family members.

A week after MaryElla’s passing, I helped her husband Mike, her brother William, their dad/my brother Bob, his ex-wife Judy and Mike’s mom Mary work on Mel’s “to do list.” As most of us will, she died with many plans, home repairs, visions of travel, writing, teaching and framing family photos yet to accomplish.

As I drove up to the house in northern Virginia, Mary was painting the poles on the front porch. We agreed to hug later. Mike and Bob met me at the door for long hugs, then resumed their tasks of purging stuff from dining room and library shelves. I helped my nephew William sort some of Mel’s teaching materials, thank you notes, and endless family photos. I found a little book her mom had written to her based on a series of questions and read parts of it to William and Bob. There was also a letter about Judy’s own experience giving birth, sent close to the time MaryElla delivered Vivian in 2018. I handed that back to Judy unread.

It was good to be helping the family sort through unfinished projects, sharing stories and memories of favorite dogs and a wild trip to Alaska, saving photos for the memorial.

Then a couple days later, we flew to Minnesota for the hundred day Cambodian ceremony to free Lynda’s spirit to depart. Again, family and friends gathered to hug, hold one another and ensure us that her powerful, beautiful spirit would live in our hearts forever.

Life continues. MaryElla and Lynda live in our minds, in their actions of kindness, in the love they have for us and we for them that is greater than any human lifespan. The continue to guide our thoughts and inspire our actions. Love is greater than any lifetime. Love can’t be contained or ended. These two young women are like clouds…they’ve transformed but can never die. They live on in us.

The Power of Love turns 13!

One of my names for God is QI or Energy. Another is Love, an energy that has upheld, informed, consumed and driven me most of my life.

I named this blog The Power of Love after the title of my first book – The Power of Love:How a Nun became a Revolutionary. I intended to publish the story of my transformation from Catholic nun into a civil rights and peace activist facing thirty-five years in federal prison. I had an agent and a potential publisher when some family members realized I was serious about publishing and asked me to wait. The blog had been an effort to build an audience for the book, so I continued it as a form of sharing my continuing transformation and search for ways to express the Energy of Love. These efforts have taken many paths – teaching Peace Studies, participating in demonstrations, building mindfulness community, leading women’s retreats for alcoholics, teaching Qi Gong for the last eleven years and recently writing three books with the help of Writing in Community.

Today marks the thirteenth anniversary of my blog and also the end of our latest Sunlight Qi Gong class, one of my current ways to cultivate and offer to others a very physical form of loving Energy. My husband and I feel honored to teach this beautiful series of movements, created by our teacher Nianzu Li, to local students and now some on zoom from as far away as Italy. Sunlight Qi Gong increases the practitioner’s connection both to the warmth and joy of spring sunlight, but also nourishes the awakening energy within our own bodies.

We are so connected to all of nature, the wind, the sun, the clouds, the blood coursing in our veins with the rhythm of the ocean’s waves! How foolish to miss such opportunities to experience life, joy and freedom within us and around us.

I bow in gratitude to the sun and to all the teachers in my life who have helped me turn my face to its beauty and power.

You are as wondrous as the sunshine and blue sky

Do You Love Yourself Yet?

“If you don’t respect yourself, it will be difficult to love and respect others or the Earth. When you’re caught in the idea that this body is you, or this mind is you, you underestimate your value. But, when you can free yourself from the notion of self and see your body and mind as a stream of being of all your ancestors, you’ll begin to treat your body and mind with more respect.

You may feel that you don’t deserve love. But everyone needs love—even the Buddha. Without love, we cannot survive. So, we shouldn’t discriminate against ourselves; you need love, you deserve love, everyone deserves love. Your ancestors in you all need love. So why deprive them of love? They are still alive in every cell of our body. Perhaps in their lifetime they did not get enough love. But now we have a chance to offer them love by loving and taking care of ourselves.”


Far left is my great-grandmother Louisa Berg, and behind her my mother’s mother Mary Berg Fitzsimmons at the wedding of my mother Ann Fitzsimmons and my father Thomas Lyle Malone. Three of his brothers are in this photo, including Don, Leo and Father Edward Malone, O.S.B. who married my parents in October, 1939.

You are one of the wonders of life, even if you believe otherwise—even if you despise yourself or think of yourself as nothing but suffering. The maple tree outside is also a wonder, and so is the orange you are about to peel. And you, who are about to peel the orange and eat it, you are also a wonder. It is only your anger, fear, and complexes that prevent you from seeing it. You are as wondrous as the sunshine and blue sky.

It is possible to train ourselves to be able to breathe in and out mindfully and recognize the many good things that have been transmitted to us: the seeds of compassion, understanding, love, and forgiveness. We can have confidence in ourselves because we can see our ancestors in us. There is democracy today because our ancestors fought hard for it. We have beautiful cities, art, literature, music, philosophy, and wisdom because our ancestors have created them. Your ancestors are there in you. If they can do it, you can do it. You believe in yourself, and you trust that you can continue what they could not do in their lifetime.

In Vietnam every home has an altar for our ancestors with images of both spiritual ancestors and blood ancestors. Every day we light a candle and a stick of incense, or offer flowers, and remove the dust. We tell our children about how they lived and the qualities they had and it inspires and unites us. Each one of us can go home to our roots to rediscover the values of our heritage.

Master Linji taught that we have to have confidence in our own seeds of awakening, liberation, and happiness and not go looking for them outside of us. In your body, your mind, your spirit, you have all the elements you need to heal. You already have the elements of awakening, enlightenment, and happiness in you; you just need to come back to yourself and get in touch with them.”

From our reading this morning at Stillwater – Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh

Stop the GUNS, the fear, the senseless KILLING!!

Protests in my home town over the murder of a 16-year-old African American youth looking for his siblings by an 84-year-old white man.

Then Friday another insane murder of five people, including a 9-year-old in Cleveland, TX by a neighbor with an AR-15. He is still at large.

There seems no crime horrible enough, no number of children dead from assault weapons to convince some politicians and citizens that NO ONE has the right to kill just because they think they have that right.

I walk slowly around my block, knowing and caring for so many of my neighbors, for the 14 children who live on our one short block alone. I vow to do everything in my power to keep them safe, to continue to speak out, march, protest, whatever it takes to keep them away from gun violence, from the fear, anger and racism in the hearts of those who carry guns.

And I work daily to quell my own fear, prejudice, anger, violence, to transform these feelings into faith, inclusiveness, calm and peace for myself, for all suffering people.

Sunlight QI

Spring energy is pumping through our veins, urging us to move, get outdoors, and turn our faces to the sun.  Please join us in celebrating spring by practicing  Sunlight Qi Gong.  This beautiful form fills our bodies, minds, and spirits with healthy energy, encouraging agility, mobility, and calm focus.

Although the eight sessions will be held on zoom, we hope to also meet those of you who are close to Takoma Park in person in a local park during this class. And the classes will be taped for you to practice with during the week.

Register with Takoma Park today by clicking on this link.

Enjoy the blossoms and warmer days.

Walking in the Present Moment

On the two challenging hikes, one Thursday with my husband in White Oak Canyon and Friday with my son above Skyline Drive, I had to pay attention to each step, to place my foot carefully to avoid a fall. To use my sticks and have three points solid before I lifted one leg to move forward. I paid lots of attention to my breathing, pacing myself, resting when it became labored or short. I was alone many times, letting my younger companions sprint ahead, thinking of the Caminos that friends walked for many miles a day, also one step at a time. Their hikes might not be this steep, but they were also walking slowly, just walking, mindful of each step. I found myself letting go of worries, letting go of the fear of falling. I felt so alive and vigorous doing something beyond my capacity.

I also tried to look carefully at what was in front of me and around me – the distinct green of laurel leaves, the twists in the branches, the majesty of boulders thousands of years old, the vistas of mountain sides when sunlight lit them in all their glory, the tiny “stick mantis” that crawled up my son’s pant leg, the rare sound of a bird. It was necessary to keep the focus on the next step, the solidity of the rock in front of me, then to look wide and far when I stopped to rest. It was a powerful practice of staying in the present moment. What more wonderful moment could I imagine that this one – hiking a new trail high in the mountains, with my beloved son. This moment a gift, his life one of the greatest gifts in my life. We celebrated it by stretching our bodies and minds to new heights together…one step at a time, one breath at a time.

Happy Hallowe’en!  Hope you are enjoying fall also!

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