I found a wonderful blog today, written by a Quaker from Sacramento, California who pursues a QiGong-based prison ministry inside some of the state’s biggest and most inhumane prisons. It’s called Qigong Prison Ministry. (How hard is that?)
The blog’s author, Judy Tretheway, writes in a very straightforward, intimate , and inspiring way about her work. I particularly enjoyed the following recent posts:
- Let my life preach
How do I… protection
Cell visits and holiday cards
The value of prison work (and the download there)
“Do we matter?” an inside student asks, and
Holiday Prayer.
Also, this one from November, which says:
- The Ultimate form of Worship is Silence.
After meditating Saturday evening, preparing for Sunday Meeting for Worship.
I can not offer myself in a greater way
to the service of another,
to God,
than to listen silently,
setting my own ideas and needs aside,
to wait upon their direction;
to hold them in highest esteem,
to be in Worship.
To be in awe
is to be wordless.
Not words, nor music; no scent, nor image
can reflect God, name God or approach God.
They are self-serving scratches
at a keyhole so vast
only the unbounded silence of expectant waiting
might have a chance at opening the lock,
that was never locked,
And open the door
that has always been open.
Come put your silence into the lock,
Open the door into the heart of God,
Lay yourself in the doorway.
Offer all that you might ever be
And always have been.
Thanks so much for everything you do, and everything you have put on this blog, Judy.
Dear Helena this is such a lovely project, something everyone, left, right and center can help would you put it on your blog…in silence.
I got an e-mail from a Moslawi citizen living far away, he was suggesting few projects for Iraq. One was to collect books for Mosul University’s library. I read the e-mail to mom, hoping to get satisfaction, and she said that the university’s library is so out-of-date.
And so dear readers, I ask for your help. I’m planning to collect books in enviromental engineering at first, since that’s mom’s majority. She asked the head of the department and he gave her the department e-mail, and agreed on the project. If anyone has books in reach, on the enviromental engineering field, it would be great if you could mail them to the department. I am also planning to collect donations to buy books of choice by the head of the department and mom, and to subscribe to magazines depending on the amount of the money I collect.
If anyone would like to participate in anyway, or have suggestions, please e-mail me.
I also wrote to Nancy, I remembered her saying that she was going to do such project and she said that you might be able to help in calingl for different universities to hold drives in their schools at the end of the year to collect books and send them here. Can anyone do that?
It is my #1 step to change.. Hope it goes well. I have already tried the mailing service in Iraq, and it works, but since we’re going to subscribe through the Internet, I think I’ll set a Paypal account.
http://astarfrommosul.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-happened-this-week-and-my-1.html
I’m not keen on quietism or silence, Helena, and I only know you from your words.
In the beginning was the word, wasn’t it?
And pretty soon there was dialogue. Dialogue is the good thing. Give and take. Not give, give, give, or take, take, take.
Hey, Evo Morales is coming to South Africa! (See my site for details). We’ve got LOTS of talking to do on BOTH sides. This is no less than the first South American “Uhuru”! It’s a huge, wonderful thing.
I’m not keen on quietism or silence, Helena, and I only know you from your words.
In the beginning was the word, wasn’t it?
And pretty soon there was dialogue. Dialogue is the good thing. Give and take. Not give, give, give, or take, take, take.
Hey, Evo Morales is coming to South Africa! (See my site for details). We’ve got LOTS of talking to do on BOTH sides. This is no less than the first South American “Uhuru”! It’s a huge, wonderful thing.
Dominic, your site is looking better every time I go there, Congratulations!
I am (cautiously) very excited about Morales’s victory. If you see any great reporting of what’s going on in Bolivia– or when Morales gets to SA– do let me know so I can post or cross-post something about it here. I really haven’t had the chance to follow anything there since the election.
Personally, I don’t equate the great benefits I get out of silent worship in any way with “quietism”. Any more than i equate pacifism with being passive. (In both cases a lot more is going on than meets the eye.)
And you’re right: the people we meet in the blogosphere, like most of the people we meet in the world, we know from their words as well as their other actions. (Except that in the blogosphere, you don’t really know anything about other people except what they choose to tell you.) But the dialogue we’ve all been able to build up here on JWN has been, in general, a really fruitful one.
So I’m not about to go and take any vows of total silence just yet! But I do like to get my “fix” of it once or more per week, and Judy’s poem there explained something of the way I feel about it. I mean, especially for a slightly over-the-top explainer like me, engaging in regular silent worship of the sort we hold is a good and rewarding discipline.
Happy New Year, Helena.
I think I get it, sort of. Actually I love silence. It’s a rare thing, hard to get and precious.
There’s a cracking short speech of Evo Morales at http://www.counterpunch.org/morales12302005.html
He doesn’t seem to be wasting a moment.
Don’t you love the way he shows up for his first international visit as President wearing an
open-necked shirt and a pullover?
CSH Wrote,
I got an e-mail from a Moslawi citizen living far away, he was suggesting few projects for Iraq. One was to collect books for Mosul University’s library.
The DEMOCRACY beheads the students!
“Thousands of students and professors from the University of Mosul in northern Iraq took in the funeral of a student leader found dead along with another student after they were kidnapped by unknown assailants.
The body of Qusay Salaheddin, president of the student union, and Ahmed, his deputy, were identified although they were beheaded Sunday morning. Salaheddin was elected this year by a 3,000 student. .
Prior to his kidnapping the both led two demonstrations protesting the results of the elections and the increasing of the fuel prices…
During his funeral, student chanted slogans accusing Kurdish and Shiite elements of the police force of involvement in his kidnap and murder.
The both shouted against Jafari, the Shiite transitional prime minister and Talbani, the Kurdish president.
The angry students swore that they will not forget and will take the revenge of killing their fellow students.
WHO are the terrorists in Iraq? Long live “DEMON”RACY”
I wish your project get ground their! After destroying the main country’s largest fuel refinery sat idle in Baji
, also there is a Electric Power Station in Baji
” Baji power station, 225 km north of Baghdad, is one of the biggest plants capable of producing electricity in the country but it is not producing to full capacity, due to neglect following conflicts in Iraq, UN sanctions and recent disruption. “
That makes power crises worse, now days each house get 10Amper limited current from the national electric grid for ONE HOUR/DAY.
So what’s a beauty of building a library when most of the libraries stolen or burned or demolished. How the student in the universities can continue with this environment to study and gain degree with this?
Wish you good luck in your friend’s “ الموصلاوي “ project…….
Dear Salah, its not about a building or burning paper, its about hope alive in a young student’s heart. Its about the will to learn and offer her country something tangible, its about living prayer, like your name. All the best Salah, may your dreams come true too.
Friend CSH,
Dear Salah, its not about a building or burning paper, its about hope alive in a young student’s heart.
We see now days the distraction of the country and culture of Iraq, I quite agree with you not because I am Iraqi but I have faith in my heart and I knew from 5000 years of my country history we are determent people and smart our history tell this.
But with living time what we saw from demolishing building and sweeping towns with relocating communities make hard to our kids to learn what we learned in our days when all things was setup.
In addition to Iranian influence this my view may you agree or not but I have this to say what these Mullah brings to Iraq just chaos and sick thoughts, learning and educations threaten those Mullah they new the education of the people of Iraq will thorough their thoughts and their litters out of the country from Alhussaniyah to the all the rubbish they talking about we are Muslims we believe in Islam not the rubbish they bring with them.
Hussein Bin Ali Abe Talib should be our light in or live not using his story to fake and littered people minds by those Mullahs who set sick personal goals using Al Hussein Bin Ali story and they forget that Islam is the stare that every Muslim should follow in our life.
Dear Salah, “its not about a building or burning paper, its about hope alive in a young student’s heart. ”
I continue to be amazed at the arrogance of our occidental world. Iraq has been through this before thought not on a level this destructive. The utter destruction of infrastructure is beyond anything Iraq has suffered, and of course the population is much larger, so much suffering.
I remember when Iraqis were one, Sunni or Shia, both Iraqis, I am devastated by the divisions created by the US and Iran. I know families whose parents are Shia and Sunni, lovely families.
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”, the previous constitution, disregarded by Saddam, was the most advanced in the Middle East.
Salah, what can I do, I can help gather books to send to Iraq, not an earthshaking solution, I know. It’s just a grain of sand. Hopefully, it will help sustain a little ray of hope for one young student in Iraq who touched my heart.
Salah, what can I do, I can help gather books to send to Iraq, not an earthshaking solution,
CSH, Please do so and send the books, this is good I hope this is starting point from some to heal Iraq.
But there are many ways other can help iraqi either inside US and out.
thanks CSH..