WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a civilian journalist who has journeyed six times into Israel Palestine since June 2005. WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole truth.
We who are Wide Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land, and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist POV.
FACTS ABOUT THE WALL from friends in Bethlehem
Read the truth about the Wall and what is happening today in the Holy City of Bethlehem.
"We're on a mission from God." Jake Blues/John Belushi
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
In 1998 I began to practice The Presence of God as laid out in a book by Brother Lawrence, a monk of the 17th century. Learn More: THAT DAY and This 9/11
Prior to that I was a Stephens Minister [a prayerful person who listens with their heart to another who is trying to discern what God is asking of them] and a one year student in an Episcopal-Methodist Formation Program for Spiritual Directors. I knew going into the program that I would NOT be hanging out a shingle as an SD; that I was there for the curriculum; studying the saints and ways of prayer.
That is also when I began to write creative spiritual literature.
Before 9/11, I did not give too much thought for another beyond my rural community. I was apolitical, thought the world had already gone mad and there was nothing much anyone could do or say to change it. I lived a simple contended life in the rural South and have always been grateful to be an American.
But after 9/11, I wanted to learn why did a few-and back then it was but a few-people in the world hated Americans so much that they could cold bloodedly murder innocent people. I also wanted to do some good in the world and that lead me to the Interfaith Olive Trees Foundation for Peace and then to journey five times into Israel Palestine.
When I was a child, my dream was to grow up and become Brenda Starr, the red headed, ace investigative journalist, who was smarter than the guys, glamorous and headstrong.
Star reporter for the metropolitan daily, The Flash, Brenda traveled the world solving mysteries and unearthing scoops. Brenda intuitively knew when somebody was not telling the truth. Brenda boldly went around the world searching for unusual and usually dangerous stories.
While Brenda Starr, is my muse, my role model and mentor is Dorothy Day, who agitated church, state and media in her time through her publication, The Catholic Worker, which persists today.
My first book, KEEP HOPE ALIVE, was released as a hardcover September 2007 and book stores receive a 45% discount from the publisher. Please ask your local outlets to order it and pass some of that savings onto you. ALL proceeds to me for Keep Hope Alive go directly to the 501 3-c Olive Trees Foundation for Peace.
Keep Hope Alive is based on the memories of a 1948 Palestinian Muslim refugee from the Galilee, who does not have Jesus is his head; but in his heart and actions. Keep Hope Alive is also my spiritual journey as a child of the '60's and a brief history of what happened to the indigenous people of the Holy Land after civilized white men carved it up in 1947-see map below.
I entitled my second book; Memoirs of a Nice Irish American Girl’s Life in Occupied Territory: Third Intifada/Uprising: Nonviolent, But with Words Sharper than a Two-Edged Sword, because the following words ran through my head all during my fourth journey to Palestine in November 2006:
“The word of God is living and active. Sharper than a two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him whom we must give account.”- Hebrews 4:12-13
Education is The Way to Compassion; Compassion is The Way to Change and:
"HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
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"We'll make a pastrami sandwich of them. We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlement, right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years time, neither the United Nations, nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart." -Ariel Sharon to Winston Churchill III in 1973
Palestinian Loss of Land 1946 to 2005
Info-map orders: PIAG < >
You don't need no love in You don't need no bed pan You don't need a horoscope or a microscope The see the mess that you're in If you open up your heart You will know what I mean We've been polluted so long Now here's a way for you to get clean...
The lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see The lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
You don't need no passport And you don't need no visas You don't need to designate or to emigrate Before you can see Jesus If you open up your heart You'll see he's right there He always was and will be He'll relieve you of your cares
If you open up your heart You will see what I mean You've been kept down so long YOU think that we're all green
The lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
The lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
The lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
-George Harrison, 1971
Sacred Logo by Sherwood Akuna
A Franciscan Benediction:
May God bless you with discomfort at: Easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships- So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at:
Injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed: For those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world; So that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. -Article 19.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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