Flo is a seducer. She seduced me into feeding her when she lived in the woodshed. She seduced me into scratching her when I went out for wood. She seduced me into letting her into the farmhouse when it was bitterly cold. She still seduces me whenever I go to sit outside, she flirts and squirms and shows me her belly. She is a charmer, the first cat who has ever seduced me.
Fate may not turn out to be a serious working dog, but she loves hanging out with the sheep and she is making wonderful progress in her training. She comes, stays, lies down and is learning to control her intense instincts. She is loved and accepted, but is also asked to grow and learn and live safely and wisely with us. Come and see.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell said perhaps wars would end when we honored the people who refused to kill one another as well as the people who did. I can’t imagine the bravery and suffering of men and women who die in wars and combat, but it is true that voices for peace are weak and marginalized, you do not ever see them on their news or debating on their cable channels or speaking at podiums on national debates.
Pacifism is very much out of fashion, people compete on television to be more bloodthirsty and unforgiving and angry than the other, and are rewarded and applauded for it. People who seek a different way of resolving conflicts are pushed to the edges of public life, dismissed and ridiculed and ignored.
On my blog, on this Memorial Day, I pray for peace, and hope that these other voices rise up and are heard.
In my local cemetery, Woodlands Cemetery, a friend and I were waking, we found a marker in the heart of an old tree, perhaps it was a child, it was an extraordinary place to find a marker and touching. I can’t think of a safer place to mark a life than in the bosom of a proud old tree.
I call this statue Remembrance, she inspires me on Memorial Day to remember all those who have lost their lives or suffered through the countless wars. cruelty and butchery human beings have always inflicted on one another. I hope my daughter and grandchild live to see a world where Memorial Days are ancient history.
