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Sheltering Walls

Bare Trees in Fog

Be like water . . .

At this crtical juncture in our American story, we find ourselves facing monumental consequences for our children, their children, and life as we know it today.


Tearing down a society does not require leadership anymore than clear-cutting a forest for the sake of replacing what has existed for centuries. Who doesn't know how to do that? Get yourself a large bulldozer and off you go. In essence and fact, this is happening before our very eyes: "Now you see it; now you don't" as systems succumb to the bulldozer of autocracy without regard or respect for what actually makes America "Great"!


There is a difference between the words "great and first". Great means "above average" as in your kid getting the best report card because she/he/they is "above the average" within the class. Kudos! The word "first" means "preceding others" as in your kid cutting to the front of the line before all the other kids. Boo!


As the world watches bullies in the playground of these United States of America, the difference is obvious between making America "Great" and intending to cut to the front of the line, no matter who or what has been standing for centuries, be it a shared borderline, or a sovereign Constitution. It is not a pretty sight to watch any more than seeing hundreds of felled trees their root systems exposed, intentionally left to die. Die they do. Replacing a two-hundred year-old living and breathing thing whether trees or countries, will take another two-hundred years of growing pains just to recover from the self-imposed destruction. That's where we are in 2025, believe it or not.


Our homeland is somewhere in-between autonomy and autocracy. Autonomy means "the right or condition of self-government". The word autocracy means "a system of government by one person with absolute power". This is basic fifth-grade civics that every American who went to public or private school learned is our foundational understanding of the country in which we live. While we were not all "great" students, we were all taught the right and wrong of being a bully pushing out whatever or whomever to be "first" regardless of others. Bullies were punished by the principal to teach that fundamental difference between being "Great" and being "First": Striving for great will never hurt others, and will enhance oneself. Pushing to be first, destroys others, and harms oneself . . . greatly!


We are an autonomous society under pressure by an autocratic faction. Autonomy was granted to all free citizens who with hand over heart pledged an allegiance to one country, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That has not changed. That is a pledge that cannot be taken back. It is our pledge of freedom.


This freedom is worth protecting for it is our future. The cavalry is not coming to save us. Leaders are not rising up to guide us. It is up to each of us for all the individual and collective reasons we can think of to speak up, speak out, stand up, but never to give up. Be like water, find a way. We must.


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Voice of America


“Of course you’re going to have your handful of politicians, a small group of activists and a lot of paid bots on social media trying to gaslight you,” Perez told [Florida] house colleagues.

“But we know that truth matters, and simply saying that something is terrible over and over doesn’t actually make it true. Threatening others to get your way isn’t leadership, it’s immaturity.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/01/ron-desantis-florida-immigration-schools

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"Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said he would ban US companies from provincial contracts until the tariffs are removed.

He added: “US-based businesses will now lose out on tens of billions of dollars in new revenues. They only have President Trump to blame.

“We’re going one step further. We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with [Elon Musk’s] Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy.”


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"In 2023, the first full year after Roe fell, the US saw more than 1m abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortions and restrictions on the procedure. It was the largest number recorded in more than a decade . . ."


"The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says doctors should advise patients about “reversible alternatives” such as vasectomy or other forms of birth control, . . .Respect for an individual patient’s reproductive autonomy should be the primary concern guiding permanent contraception provision and policy,” the ACOG says.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/30/sterilization-women-roe-v-wade-trump

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“If you can see in the social media, people are angry, angry, and writing: ‘No way – this is not gonna happen again’.”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/26/panic-and-defiance-in-panama-after-trump-threatens-to-take-back-canal


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These quotes are taken from full-length news reports not sensationalist headlines used to distract from the truth. It is incumbent upon each of us to seek the truth to set us free from fear. In so doing, we will find each other to join hands with across our country.


This fifteen-year-old sang her heart out rising above angry boo's, then the game was played as always. We are the VOICE OF AMERICA!


The Capitol where our representatives work has a main phone number to directly connect you with each Senator: (202) 224- 3121. Put in in your speed dial!


As my Spanish teacher used to say before each exam: "Don't be a-scared".  The more we speak, the easier it becomes. You are welcome to test the waters in the comments section to join in solidarity with those who are "hellbent" on speaking the truth.

 
 
 

One Lone Voice

One!


On January 21, 2025, one lone voice said what so many others were thinking. Demonstrating that old cliche"Truth to Power" while the world stood as witness, Bishop Budde from high in the pulpit spoke truth to a powerful bully*. She went first - alone - out on that proverbial limb before being followed afterward by a letter written to the membership by the Episcopal Church.** The following day, the National Catholic Reporter headline read "Bishops condemn Trump's immigration orders for stoking fear, anxiety". ***


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The one and only who spoke that day did so with one voice as a means of uniting against wrongs and standing with others about to be (and since) torn from their own lives. Just like that!


Bishop Budde has smiling crystal blue eyes, but her tone conveyed and contained all that she knew in her heart that goes against the principles of a free country and a powerful institution that she herself represents. I wonder if she saw herself as a lone woman that day?


Powerful institutions have a moral obligation to speak up for the weaker voices among us. It has been months on end waiting for them to do just that! How come?


While these very powerful church institutions have been bearing witness to injustices forever, most recently those holding positions of power within the institutions have been silently watching as a faction and a fraction of people tote wooden crosses up the stairs of OUR Capitol in the name of Christianity like twenty-first century crusaders on a crusade to avenge themselves. The capital "C" church has always had much to answer for with its bloody history. There have been some inroads into righting past wrongs for which those in power ought to be held accountable, but not nearly enough. Scandals at the highest level weaken the authority of any institution. And, here we have to imagine that keeping silent against blatant co-opting of their own symbol, i.e., the Cross, is in part due to a loss of moral authority. What if your "brand" was being used to align with hatred and malign through violence? Wouldn't you speak up against this with all your might?


One voice in the wilderness can move others to respond. The institutions found their voice because of Bishop Budde's unflinching courage when she showed us what it actually looks like to speak Truth to power. I am reminded of the young man known as "Tank Man" standing in front of a moving tank in Tianenman Square against the Chinese Government in

1989**** Bishop Budde did nothing less.









 
 
 

© 2023 by Marie Laure

​Six Stages of Pilgrimage:

  • The Call:

  • The opening clarion of any spiritual journey. Often in the form of a feeling or some vague yearning, a fundamental human desire: finding meaning in an overscheduled world somehow requires leaving behind our daily obligations. Sameness is the enemy of spirituality.

  • The Separation:

  • Pilgrimage, by its very nature, undoes certainty. It rejects the safe and familiar. It asserts that one is freer when one frees oneself from daily obligations of family, work, and community, but also the obligations of science, reason, and technology.

  • The Journey:

  • The backbone of a sacred journey is the pain and sacrifice of the journey itself.  This personal sacrifice enhances the experience; it also elevates the sense of community one develops along the way.

  • The Contemplation:

  • Some pilgrimages go the direct route, right to the center of the holy of holies, directly to the heart of the matter. Others take a more indirect route, circling around the outside of the sacred place, transforming the physical journey into a spiritual path of contemplation like walking a labyrinth.

  • The Encounter:

  • After all the toil and trouble, after all the sunburn and swelling and blisters, after all the anticipation and expectation comes the approach, the sighting. The encounter is the climax of the journey, the moment when the traveler attempts to slide through a thin veil where humans live in concert with the Creator.

  • The Completion and Return:

  • At the culmination of the journey, the pilgrim returns home only to discover that meaning they sought lies in the familiar of one's own world. "Seeing the place for the first time . . ."

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