Once Upon a Time in America

B.C., before Covid, before 9/11, There was an "American Dream"narrative many believed. That dream followed Americans from childhood all the way through adulthood then well into the "Golden Years." We lived on a consistent message that these United States of America held a certain promise that was guaranteed by the words written into the U.S. Constitution before we were born. Before now, we took that promise for granted and literally, assuming it would stand the test of time for all time, or at the very least, for our own lifetime!

In 2016, on a frigid, snowy Sunday morning in an historic, New England church where many sermons and hymns had been heard before, a retired minister stood up unapologetically to say that although it had not been his practice to speak politically from the pulpit, this day he knew he had to. He was about to send up a warning flare like the night the Titanic did so. In vain.

In the 1960's, his mother had been an activist. She had spoken up and worked against those who tried to oppress all others who belonged to the "protected" classes* under the Constitution. She had taught her son to speak up and that brought him to where he was standing on this day before a small congregation in one of the poorest, most depressed cities in the State of Massachusetts. He told us that when his mother passed away, he discovered a full dossier of her activism assembled by the FBI. He, too, as a young man had been documented for his affiliations with his mother! That didn't stop either one of them from speaking up, out, and outloud about the injustices many Americans suffered on a daily basis.

Their words and actions, along with many others, were instrumental in making it possible for everyone to vote, regardles; making it possible for women to receive safe, legal reproductive health care in their own community; making it possible to find asylum from brutal dictators elsewhere; making it possible to become an educated citizen through local schools; making it possible to breathe clean air and drink safe water; making it possible to attend synagogue or mosque or church without fear. This was the short list of possibilities that the minister juxtaposed against the long list of Presidential candidates that Spring in 2016. Then, this retired minister living out his Golden Years, spoke like a prophet that morning:

"We thought we had addressed and resolved many of the wrongs. We were the ones who were wrong! All the hatred, all the prejudice, all the evil, had just gone into a Pandora's Box. Now, in 2016, someone has the key and is about to open it in the next four years."

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By 2024, those prophetic words were written into our American story. We American citizens were faced with this truth that it soon might be too late to speak freely, to write freely, to read freely, and to vote freely, which is becoming as precarious as in dictatorships that so many flee against all odds.

In 2025 , NO KINGS! became a rallying cry when an estimated 7 million people across the U.S. decided it was time to do something. Political scientist tell us that a critical mass is required to stop a regime from carrying on. We must reach 11 million people to successfully stop the government bent on stopping us.

Ten years after that minister's warning the truth has come to bear down on us in ways we could never have imagined.

In 2026: The future is now! Our collective hands and voices are needed to say loudly and clearly that we do not want to live in a country without hope for a better life for everyone---A country without possibilities. We want to live in a country where once upon a time the promise of an American Dream might still come true.

In the end, Pandora did open that box unleashing all that was evil on an innocent world. But, the preacher told us not to forget that inside the box, there was also Hope!

Hope is the key that opens and protects what we hold dear and dare to dream.

*PROTECTED CLASSES:  race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history). www.eeoc.gov

Bigger than life.

Some historical figures take on a bigger than life persona and encountering their legacy brings them to life again. It feels that way for me with Martin Luther King, Jr. because I have walked in places where he had---not once, but three separate times---first as a graduate student at Boston University School of Theology.

Sometimes when the halls were quiet, say on a Friday afternoon, I would imagine him bounding up the stairs, two at a time, when he studied in those same classrooms. I wondered if already he had sense of his profound destiny to come. What would it have been like to be there when he took his PhD, and then,Senator John F. Kennedy delivered the Commencement address? Sometimes, I would stop to think about the day I heard MLK was shot and killed. I was fifteen years old. My mother always had the TV on in the living room, and that evening I was standing there as she sat on the floor with needle and thread and yardstick to measure a hem on my new floral dress when the news broke. I watched the black and white screen flickering chaotic scenes. He was dead. My mother was silent. I cried.

Years passed, and I came to live in St. Augustine, Florida* where Dr. King had been jailed during the Civil Rights movement. He had come to sit with young, Black students who defied authorities by sitting at the local segregated "Whites only" lunch counter. The St. Augustine Four were not served lunch, but were arrested and jailed by local police. King himself was jailed when he sat down at the same Woolworth's lunch counter to eat.

When I first arrived in St. Augustine, that lunch counter memorialized the legacy that had led to violent outbreaks against Black people by the Ku Klux Klan in the Plaza de la Constitucion across the street. Today, Woolworths no longer exists and the memorial is long gone. For the past 41 years, each MLK Day, community organizers have led a silent march to that Plaza to commemorate the man who walked with hundreds of other Black people--- eventually resulting in the Civil Rights Act.

A few years ago when I visited Atlanta, I sought out the Ebeneezer Baptist Church where MLK had been a preacher alongside his father---and where he was baptized, ordained, and eulogized. His ethos fills the space. His voice recordings play in the silent sanctuary for visitors to sit and hear what he said when he moved through his life with purposeful hope that we need from a leader today:

All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.

The Ebeneezer Baptish Church is a National Park* as is the MLK memorial in Washington D.C., which up until today, offered a "fee-free" day for visitors on MLK's birthday (now replaced by DJT's own birthday). If you go, your spirits will be lifted by one man who spoke truth so eloquently.*** Martin Luther King's words ring in our minds just by thinking them: "I have a dream. . .I've seen the Promised land...I may not get there with you". . .

"Let Freedom Ring"

*https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/st-augustine-florida

**https://www.nps.gov/malu/planyourvisit/ebenezer_baptist_church.htm

https://www.nps.gov/mlkm/index.htm

***https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm

Once again.

St. Augustine, FLorida

It's gotten to be a regular thing for a lot of people: Make a sign, meet and march. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor heat of day or "heat" on the ground has deterred anyone across the country and around the world. It is what we do together.

"I feel like I have done something afterward", says one vigil keeper in New Hampshire. "My sign is not my words--it was written years ago by Orwell", says a woman in Florida. Two voices in conservative states speaking up FOR something. Being for, is a bit different than being against. What we stand FOR matters as much as what someone is against. Standing with neighbors FOR---not against others---creates solidarity.

Solidarity started in the 1980's as a movement FOR the rights of workers in Poland. It grew and grew until it was 10 million strong (critical mass in the USA is 11 million) marching in the streets. The then, Communist Party tried to stop the marchers with martial law and political oppression.

A leader, Lech Walesa, emerged like a Phoenix rising, successfully negotiating with the government FOR a first-ever pluralistic election that resulted in his election as Poland's first democratically-elected President since 1926! Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. He said the following in his acceptance speech:

"“Solidarity”, upon the people and the ideas for which we have fought and shall continue to do so in the spirit of peace and justice. And there is nothing I desire more than that the granting of the award should help the cause of peace and justice in my country and the world over.

My first words which I address to you, and through you to all people, are those which I have known since my childhood days: Peace to men of goodwill – all and everywhere, in the North and South, East and West.

I belong to a nation which over the past centuries has experienced many hardships and reverses. The world reacted with silence or with mere sympathy when Polish frontiers were crossed by invading armies and the sovereign state had to succumb to brutal force. Our national history has so often filled us with bitterness and the feeling of helplessness. But this was, above all, a great lesson in hope. Thanking you for the award I would like, first of all, to express my gratitude and my belief that it serves to enhance the Polish hope. The hope of the nation which throughout the nineteenth century had not for a moment reconciled itself with the loss of independence, and fighting for its own freedom, fought at the same time for the freedom of other nations. The hope whose elations and downfalls during the past forty years

We desire peace – and that is why we have never resorted to physical force. We crave for justice – and that is why we are so persistent in the struggle for our rights, We seek freedom of convictions – and that is why we have never attempted to enslave man’s conscience nor shall we ever attempt to do so."

Solidarity is a recipe for success. Until a new leader emerges, we the people--- together ---are leading the way each time we meet, and march with our homemade signs held high.

St Augustine, Florida

 "What we need in the world more than anything else today is living examples of models---people who work, settling within themselves without running around whining and complaining...."

-Zen Master, Kosho Uchiyama, Deepest Practice, Deepest wisdom, page 245

Walk For Peace – Day 76 – Gilbert & Lexington, South Carolina

|https://dhammacetiya.com/category/activities/walk-for-peace/

🙏 Deepest Gratitude to Lexington County Sheriff’s Department

We are profoundly grateful to Sheriff Jay Koon and the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department for welcoming us into Lexington County, South Carolina on Day 76 of our journey.

Sheriff Koon welcomed us as we entered the county, and his department has assigned deputies to travel alongside us, ensuring our safety as we walk through the beautiful community. Their dedication to support means everything—not just for our protection, but for the peace of mind of everyone on the road.

Thank you to every deputy, every officer, and every member of the Sheriff’s Department who is working behind the scenes to support this journey. Your support, your professionalism, and your care do not go unnoticed. We are honored to walk through Lexington County under your protection.📸 Photo credit: Lexington County Sheriff’s Department

May you and all beings be well, happy and at peace. 🙏💙