The Evening with Marianne Williamson at the A.M.E. Church was well-attended and well-received. Her speech was less than an hour long and mostly promoted her books about her views on spirituality. I was surprised to learn that she came from a Jewish background; she talked about Jesus a lot - not the guy the local fanatics pound their pulpits about, but the radical who preached about love and forgiveness and feeding the poor and healing the sick. She spoke of the crucifiction and resurrection as a metaphor, and about how differently the story would have "played" if Christ had condemned his persecutors instead of asking forgiveness on their behalf. This illustrates the radical nature of her pacifism; to her, pacifism extends even to language - a topic after my own heart - and to oneself.

(continued, click "read more" below...)

The Q&A period was much longer and most of the focus was on the DoP. I couldn't hear the earlier questions, but they were answered at length and related to her spiritual stance. I heard her say that she uses the word "God" as a convenient name for that which is divine and is made of love. I also heard a quote that I really liked, but I can only paraphrase here because I've forgotten the context. It was something like this: The power of love is MUCH greater than the power of hate - it's just that hate has more courage.

About halfway through Q&A, she called me in from the foyer area where the table was so everyone could see who I was. I was only slightly late for my cue, and I smiled and waved like a good politician. I ended up being glad she did that because it gave me an excuse to get inside the sanctuary so I could more easily take in what she was saying. For example, she gave a very nice talk on alternatives to incarceration that have actually had successful pilot programs elsewhere in the country. That was good news to me since I don't even believe in caging animals, much less people. (I'm a bit radical there; I think people should be rehabilitated, exiled, or executed - the latter reserved for mass murderers, hijackers, etc.) She also had some witty but insightful comparisons to make between Europeans, who are better informed than we are but not nearly as active politically, versus Americans, who don't have a clue but are eagerly awaiting a band wagon to jump on.

Mine was the last raised hand she called on, and I asked her to please say a word about the Mother's Day activity. I was surprised that she didn't talk about Piece Wants a Piece of the Pie but only about Julia Ward Howe and Mother's Day as a Day of Peace. I was glad I opened my mouth, though; it sort of identified me as a participant so that as the people were leaving, THEY were reaching out to ME to get the flyers and post cards. I found myself wishing I had business cards, but I made two important contacts anyway just by scribbling my name and email address on the top of the flyers. These were both women who asked for extra flyers because their own groups would be very interested in the legislation, and I asked to be invited to their meetings.

I was disappointed with the material from Matthew. He didn't send NEARLY enough of the post cards, although I still have a few (very few!) flyers. I tried to go to Kinko's to get more made, but they were closed! (I had thought they were a 24/7 operation.) So I'll have to go before tomorrow's workshop, which starts at 9:00, and they don't open until 8:00, and I DO hate time pressure. I had thought he would send a few posters for any office manager types who could maybe hang them in the breakrooms at their workplaces, if not in a more public place. And I was expecting some sort of contact list and clipboard with attached pen so that I could get people signed on to lobby in our state. He had hinted that I might even be able to identify District Coordinators as a result of this workshop. It bugs me because when we spoke on the phone, I repeatedly asked him if I needed to prepare anything, and he kept telling me to "just show up."

I am having a meeting at my house on Sunday afternoon to bring Nancy's husband up to speed and to report on the Williamson event. It will be attended by both of the Heslers plus George Lembke. I'm the only one with a functioning computer, and I want to show them Purple America. And, since I've delayed my trip to Asheville, I'm going to promote the Peace Wants a Piece of the Pie action, too. Especially now that I have that contact with the editor, we might even be able to get some press coverage. So we need to decide where and when we're going to do this, and whether we have the time and resources to do Districts 2 and 6 as well as our own District 1. I don't think we'll approach the Senators until there's a Senate bill out there. I was asked about that, actually, and I cited Barbara Boxer (CA) and Mark Dayton (MN) as possibilities.

I've got a couple of other contacts for Dennis Kucinich and/or The Peace Alliance as well; I'll put them here before I forget in the hope that this will be read by the right set of eyes. One is the source of the article I did on Military Recruiting; that article gives three other ?Senators who might be approached as possible sponsors. The other is at www.warresisters.org; they have a much more astonishing pie graph to use on these ultra-whatever politicians around here. (Of course, I'll make it clear that this graph does not come from The Peace Alliance; in fact, the one The Peace Alliance uses is also shown for comparison.) Their graph shows the military portion of the interest on the national debt (80%), it shows projected "extra appropriations" from discretionary funds, and it also does not include trust funds such as Social Security, since we all know now that there is no trust fund. LOL!! (Don't let them have it both ways, folks!) With Social Security out of there, the military Piece of the Pie is HUGE!

I guess I'll check my email real quick (LOL) and go to bed since tomorrow is going to be a long day, and I'll need to keep my energy and enthusiasm levels up. I sure hope they plan to feed me!