Dear Ones,
Already down this past weekend by the news that Rev. Orah Gibbons had passed away, quietly in her sleep, I was even further upset by recent happenings in NJ. A suspected Militant Muslim, from Elizabeth, NJ, has been taken into custody after a shoot out in Linden, NJ…the next town over. What hit me so hard was my connections to NJ., particularly, Elizabeth, although not exclusively. It is now coming out that the suspect has been living in an apartment upstairs from a candy store which was one of my haunts as a child, as it is a neighborhood place.
My beloved Aunt Chick was residing in a nursing home just blocks from the Elizabeth train station, near which two homeless men found the pipe bombs and called the police before anything else could happen. However, that is the train station that my cousin frequents often. And then, it is believed the same man planted the bombs in Seaside Park, within shouting distance of my brothers. And then there was an unsubstantiated report of more devices at the Rutgers’ train station, a station that my son sometimes frequents. All this was just too much for me to handle. Luckily all is well at the moment.
But no, all is not well at the moment…for our world is in a sad state that “war” has touched every corner of the globe and continues to do so. I am not writing this to lay blame. I do not think anyone is to blame or not to blame, except for the children, the innocents, who have no voice. But I do know one thing for sure. It has been a good 50 years since I joined Another Mother for Peace in the midst of the Viet Nam crisis. And it doesn’t look like much has changed.
And through it all I keep seeing the same themes rotate around each crisis. Who stands to gain…whatever the gain is. Who stands to lose…what ever the loss is.
Wake up world. There is only one mudball for us to share…all 7 billion of us. And as long as someone is losing, no one is winning.
B&L, Rebba Raine
