Life after snow

The snow stayed on the ground for a long, long time. We began to think it was never going away. Even the sun coming out and the temps hitting 40 couldn't make it disappear. We continued to have a running dialogue about it here in our little love nest. I saw the snow as this incredible brilliance lighting up the otherwise stark gray winter. Courtney saw it as a personal assault on his well-being. We went round and round about it and still the snow sat on our deck, and the yard and the wood pile.



Courtney had to admit it was invigorating (maybe just to shut me up) and we both felt pretty darned hardy (and frostbitten) standing out at the vigils lately with the cold wind whipping our signs and banners. It is truly amazing to me that the Alternatives To War group here has stood in front of the Courthouse from 5-6pm every day for more than five years. We try to keep that in mind when we're shivering and ready to go home.



At least the sun has been out lately and it's been clear and beautiful. It's the same kind of cold crisp blue sky weather that Aaron had this past weekend in Tahoe where he went skiing (for his first time!) with kids from his middle school. He had sooooo much fun and could only say how awesome it all was. He's a natural athlete so skiing came pretty easy for him. When I asked him how it was to be back at school on Monday he said "Fine, but I'd rather be skiing!" Looks like the next generation of ski bums is born.




Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we're having to contain Ben as best we can until we child-proof our place. But as one comedian said, no matter how much you child-proof your house, they always find a way in!

Now, seriously, folks! Ben is crawling! Our lives have changed forever. The days of setting him some place and adoring how precious he is are over! When we set him down now, he's onto his knees and off he goes! Cute as a bug, but what are we to do? We have an eensy, teensy place and it's no distance at all from one electrical outlet to a kitchen drawer full of knives to.....you get the picture. What's to become of my Buddhas and potted plants and shell collections and river rocks in pottery saucers--all on the floor and very interesting. Now his naps are shorter too. Yikes!




Below is a shot of the side of Courtney's car (though we've now taken the Bush poster down out of fear of retribution!) We'll take up calling our reps again tomorrow as follow-up to the big peace demonstration in Washington, DC, this last Saturday. Many people, including some friends from here, stayed in Washington to meet with our congress people.

Rabbi Michael Lerner gave a great opening speech at the rally before the march. You can read the text of his speech at www.tikkun.org. He said he's used to speaking in front of 300-400 people, so addressing a crowd of possibly 300,000-400,000 was a new experience for him. But, God bless him, he led all those demonstrators in a guided visualization and they did it! Well, the times they are a'changing.




What else has happened around here in the past two weeks? Students at OSU organized an event called "Your Voice/Your Conference." They put on some good workshops on direct action, effective organizing strategies, Oaxaca, hiphop as a tool for social change, addressing white priviledge, permaculture. Courtney went to workshops all three days of the conference. He and I both want to bridge the gap between community activists and student activists and Courtney is really doing it. I, on the other hand, have been on campus much less than he. But I made it to workshops on the last day of the conference and then to hear Angela Davis speak at the closing ceremony. She made some good points about thinking in terms of the collective good, rather than individual achievement, and slyly re-named the event "Our Voice/Our Conference."

Also last week, a young human rights activist (from Corvallis but now living in Ashland) named Josh gave a report back from his recent trip to Israel/Palestine to our Friends of Middle East Peace group. He was part of a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation. He of course had plenty to say, good slides and maps, distressing stories to tell. We had a good turnout of students for his presentation. Josh's father teaches Greek and he had coerced his students to come! They were obviously intrigued to hear Josh's experiences and affected by the injustices he described.

He showed slides of Bethlehem, completely surrounded by the new Separation Wall; the only entrance to the city is through military checkpoints. An enormous Jewish settlement looms over the city from the adjacent hillside. And yet there's a Bethlehem Peace Center on Manger Square in the center of the city. Josh had a slide to prove it.

Josh and other Peacemakers stood with Palestinian workers from Bethlehem in line 3-4 hours, waiting (as they do daily) to enter East Jerusalem to work. Josh pointed out that these workers were only trying to move from one place to another within the Occupied Territories, not even trying to enter Israel proper. His observation is that there's no way for the Palestinians to have a stable economy, much less a viable state, with the current set-up.

He described Hebron, a city inhabited for centuries by Palestinian Arabs, where the Israeli government has, in recent years, moved in hundreds of militant settlers (and thousands of Israeli soldiers to protect them) to the center of the city. Entire apartment buildings in Arab neighborhoods are occupied by the most aggressive and zealous settlers. Essentially all Palestinian businesses have closed because of the danger and the tension in these areas. It's incredibly complicated to go from one part of the city to another because of the hundreds of huge concrete cubes blocking roads everywhere.

Part of the work that Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) do is escorting Palestinian children past settler outposts and safely to school. They document (by video) attacks on the children and report them to the local military authorities who are supposed to protect the local population (Arabs and Jews). When asked if the Peacemakers would protect Jews who were threatened, he said yes, the motto of CPT is: "We stand beside whoever the gun is pointed at."

Josh also talked about olives, which is an enormously sensitive issue in Palestine. In the West Bank, 40% of the cultivated land is olive groves. (The Palestinian economy, before it was destroyed, was based on agriculture.) Olives still provide the primary income for 100,000 families. But the Israeli military sabatoges their harvests by imposing curfews; and more and more Palestinians are cut off from their groves by the Separartion Wall. Then their land is declared abandoned and then confiscated. Already 2.5 million olive trees are on the other side of the Separation Wall from the Palestinians who own them, but now have no access to them.

Thank you, Josh, for your desire for peace and justice in this world, for making this trip to the Middle East and for returning to tell us what you saw and how you felt.

For those interested in knowing more about Christian Peacemaker Teams, go to www.cpt.org.

And thanks to all of you reading this for wanting to know about our lives,

Valori