#nonviolence — Public Fediverse posts

Proselytization in Rome, World Religions
https://www.primevideo.com/region/na/detail/0I9WUIBFVBXWET87Z3XS0FAWSQ?ref_=atv_dp_amz_c_pZqpc5_1_1

#documentary #history #Israel #Palestine #nonviolence

No Melek Dictators, No Crusades, No Caliphates
https://pastebin.com/w80wPfy2

#text #scriptures #foundation #logic #nonviolence

Wrote this today and felt good about it. #nonviolence #books #religion #writing #Trump #government #StateofIsrael #Israel #Netanyahu #WeResistWar #Palestine #Gaza #Sudan #Iran #Myanmar #Ukraine #Russia

Religious books
https://pastebin.com/3BC9JFEx

Wrote this today and felt good about it. #nonviolence #books #religion #writing #Trump #government #StateofIsrael #Israel #Netanyahu #WeResistWar #Palestine #Gaza #Sudan #Iran #Myanmar #Ukraine #Russia

Religious books
https://pastebin.com/3BC9JFEx

#singapore #israel #palestine : #gaza / #humaneights / #ngos / #nonviolence / #protest / #repression

„Human Rights Watch ( #HRW ), #AmnestyInternational, and #CIVICUS on Thursday urged the Singapore government to drop charges against several human rights activists involved in peaceful assemblies in support of Gaza and to challenge the #deathpenalty.“

https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/09/human-rights-organizations-call-on-singapore-to-drop-charges-against-activists/

#singapore #israel #palestine : #gaza / #humaneights / #ngos / #nonviolence / #protest / #repression

„Human Rights Watch ( #HRW ), #AmnestyInternational, and #CIVICUS on Thursday urged the Singapore government to drop charges against several human rights activists involved in peaceful assemblies in support of Gaza and to challenge the #deathpenalty.“

https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/09/human-rights-organizations-call-on-singapore-to-drop-charges-against-activists/

#singapore #israel #palestine : #gaza / #humaneights / #ngos / #nonviolence / #protest / #repression

„Human Rights Watch ( #HRW ), #AmnestyInternational, and #CIVICUS on Thursday urged the Singapore government to drop charges against several human rights activists involved in peaceful assemblies in support of Gaza and to challenge the #deathpenalty.“

https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/09/human-rights-organizations-call-on-singapore-to-drop-charges-against-activists/

#singapore #israel #palestine : #gaza / #humaneights / #ngos / #nonviolence / #protest / #repression

„Human Rights Watch ( #HRW ), #AmnestyInternational, and #CIVICUS on Thursday urged the Singapore government to drop charges against several human rights activists involved in peaceful assemblies in support of Gaza and to challenge the #deathpenalty.“

https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/09/human-rights-organizations-call-on-singapore-to-drop-charges-against-activists/

The Geometry of Breaking or Healing

Those are the two options.

To be part of the destruction of that which is precious,
even the life of the enemy.
Or a conduit for the substance that binds up wounds and the broken-hearted.

Even when flaws cause me to hurt those around me or engage in broken thoughts and so, for a time, join with the razing power,
if I am repentant, make the necessary changes, and return to the healing stream,
then the danger of losing my humanity is minimized.

And, if at the end of my life when I am weighed in the balance, and my contribution to fixing outweighs the breaking, then I will be satisfied to rest easy in the knowledge that in some small way I was an addition to the healing sum.

September 10, 2014

The Geometry of Breaking or Healing

Those are the two options.

To be part of the destruction of that which is precious,
even the life of the enemy.
Or a conduit for the substance that binds up wounds and the broken-hearted.

Even when flaws cause me to hurt those around me or engage in broken thoughts and so, for a time, join with the razing power,
if I am repentant, make the necessary changes, and return to the healing stream,
then the danger of losing my humanity is minimized.

And, if at the end of my life when I am weighed in the balance, and my contribution to fixing outweighs the breaking, then I will be satisfied to rest easy in the knowledge that in some small way I was an addition to the healing sum.

September 10, 2014

The Geometry of Breaking or Healing

Those are the two options.

To be part of the destruction of that which is precious,
even the life of the enemy.
Or a conduit for the substance that binds up wounds and the broken-hearted.

Even when flaws cause me to hurt those around me or engage in broken thoughts and so, for a time, join with the razing power,
if I am repentant, make the necessary changes, and return to the healing stream,
then the danger of losing my humanity is minimized.

And, if at the end of my life when I am weighed in the balance, and my contribution to fixing outweighs the breaking, then I will be satisfied to rest easy in the knowledge that in some small way I was an addition to the healing sum.

September 10, 2014

The Geometry of Breaking or Healing

Those are the two options.

To be part of the destruction of that which is precious,
even the life of the enemy.
Or a conduit for the substance that binds up wounds and the broken-hearted.

Even when flaws cause me to hurt those around me or engage in broken thoughts and so, for a time, join with the razing power,
if I am repentant, make the necessary changes, and return to the healing stream,
then the danger of losing my humanity is minimized.

And, if at the end of my life when I am weighed in the balance, and my contribution to fixing outweighs the breaking, then I will be satisfied to rest easy in the knowledge that in some small way I was an addition to the healing sum.

September 10, 2014

The Geometry of Breaking or Healing

Those are the two options.

To be part of the destruction of that which is precious,
even the life of the enemy.
Or a conduit for the substance that binds up wounds and the broken-hearted.

Even when flaws cause me to hurt those around me or engage in broken thoughts and so, for a time, join with the razing power,
if I am repentant, make the necessary changes, and return to the healing stream,
then the danger of losing my humanity is minimized.

And, if at the end of my life when I am weighed in the balance, and my contribution to fixing outweighs the breaking, then I will be satisfied to rest easy in the knowledge that in some small way I was an addition to the healing sum.

September 10, 2014

The Archer

In the high sea of clouds,
in willowing wisps of white,
an evil lurks.

The winds of the world bring
the first whisper of change,
an alien thing.

A dragon.

Red as blood, gleaming darkness,
its armor, invincible?

Heavy metal talons, drooling jaws,
acid falling, burning earth below.

It screams through the sky,
wings creaking, flapping furiously,
breathing flame.

Men flee,
like tiny ants scurrying
from desecration
into it.

Only One holds his ground,
a bow and one arrow
in his hand.

The Prince awaits,
as if to allow the dragon to
devour him.

Then with a flash,
he looses his arrow.

It soars through the air.

Blood gushing,
the dart buried deep,
the dragon crashes to the ground.

Landing on the One.

From amongst the dragon’s corpse,
amidst dying coals and wisps of smoke,
a figure crawls,
stands.

It is the Archer,
the One,
Him.

From the collection “Words at 16 (1983)”

It’s in the Blood

In 1539, a fugitive former-priest-turned-Anabaptist, in his seminal work “The Foundation,” penned the following words:

“Christ is our fortress; patience our weapon of defense; the Word of God our sword. …Iron and metal spears and swords we leave to those who, alas, regard human blood and swine’s blood of well-nigh equal value.”

So said Menno Simons, principal leader of the Protestant sect which then became known as the Mennonites.

More than 500 years later, his words still resound with a mighty truth.

At the risk of sounding morbid, it has to do with blood.

While Menno specifically refers to the difference between human blood and that of an animal, his larger point is the “value” we place on the blood of another.

My point is quite simple.

Killing will not end through education, conflict resolution, or disarmament, though all of these are important and can help. Killing will end only when there is a fundamental shift in the mind and heart of those who kill.

For how can you kill someone if you believe that their blood is just as valuable as your own?

Let’s call it – for lack of a better term – bloodism.

The other – their humanity, life, blood – is somehow less than I, and therefore, their humanity, life, blood, is not as valuable as my own. It becomes quite easy then to justify killing the other, ie. spilling his/her blood.

The directors of death throughout history from every nation, tribe and religion have understood and disseminated this concept quite well. A person (and those like him/her) is described as having the wrong beliefs, the wrong skin color, the wrong gender, the wrong age, the wrong station in life, the wrong land, the wrong possessions, the wrong clothing, the wrong language —- the wrong blood. These others are not as valued as you are, the leaders of the macabre scream, though they couch their speech in terms such as vigilance, freedom, history, security, and truth.

Then the killing begins.

The Nazis did it to the Jews. Israelis do it to the Palestinians. Hutus did it to the Tutsis. Shiite do it to the Sunni. Palestinians do it to the Israelis. Sunni do it to the Shiite. Muslims do it to the Christians. Christians do it to the Muslims. This country does it to that country. That neighborhood does it to this neighborhood. This race does it to that race. That religion does it to this religion.

And any one of a million other combinations.

STOP!

Do not allow your mind and heart to be filled with bloodism.

We are made in the image of God.

ALL of us.

And that divine DNA resides in the very marrow of our bones and flows through our veins.

It’s in the blood.

July 28, 2014

KARMA-FREE TRUMP 💎

Donald Trump does not need to be hated in order to be seen clearly.

There is no need to imagine that #karma will #punish him.

No need to turn him into the #supernatural embodiment of #evil
No need to diagnose his soul.

His vanity, grievance, cruelty, #fear ,appetite, and enormous need for #attention are serious enough.

#Hatred does not improve our #perception.

It distorts it.

It makes the hated person larger, darker, and more #powerful in the #mind than they already are.

It also gives them permanent residence in the #nervous #system.

Trump should be opposed when he lies, harms, corrupts, intimidates, degrades institutions, or participates in or encourages cruelty.

That opposition can be #firm.

It should be relentless.

It can name exactly what is happening.

But hatred is not required.

Nor is #spiritual #fantasy.

No one knows what happens to Donald Trump after #death.

No one knows whether the #universe keeps a #punishment #ledger.

What is known, though, is that actions have consequences here.

People are harmed.

Truth is weakened.

Fear spreads.

#Cowardice becomes #contagious.

But cruelty does not have to set the terms.

#Kindness as strength can be encouraged in the face of cruelty.

#Courage in the face of intimidation.

#Truth in the face of deception.

#Decency in the face of degradation.

Restraint in the face of vengeance.

#Clarity in the face of confusion.

The task is not to hate the man.

The task is to see clearly, speak plainly, protect those being harmed, and refuse to let cruelty decide who we become.

#DonaldTrump #Trump #USPolitics #PoliticalClarity #Cruelty #Kindness #Courage #Truth #Decency #Restraint #Clarity #Nonviolence #NoHatred #MoralClarity #Humanity

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #MahatmaGandhi #NonViolence #Revenge #Violence

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Guangxi #China #LiRiver #LiJiang #TowerKarst #Geology

The Sabbath Sabotage

They told us
holiness was neat,
pressed flat like Sunday clothes,
folded into bulletins,
spoken in indoor voices,
kept safely between hymns
and handshakes.

They told us
Sabbath was a soft thing,
a nap for the soul,
a gentle pause
before returning
to the holy machinery
of earning, buying, proving, becoming.

But Sabbath was never safe.

Sabbath is a wrench
thrown into Pharaoh’s gears.
A door barred against the market.
A candle lit
in defiance of the floodlights.
A refusal
to kneel before the stopwatch.
A holy no
rising like thunder
from tired bones.

Six days, they say,
you shall labor.
And the seventh?
The seventh is mutiny.

The seventh day
the fields are not your masters.
The ledgers do not own your name.
The inbox may howl
like a beast outside the gate,
but you will not feed it.
The empire counts bricks.
Sabbath counts blessings.
The empire demands output.
Sabbath gathers manna
and says, enough.

Enough for today.
Enough for this body.
Enough for this earth.
Enough for a life
that was never meant
to be fed into furnaces
just to keep the towers warm.

Sabbath is not laziness.
It is revolt
with bread on the table.
It is trust
with dirt under the fingernails.
It is the slave
remembering he is human.
The widow
remembering she is seen.
The ox
remembering grass.
The land
remembering how to breathe.

And maybe that is why
they sabotage Sabbath.

Because rest breaks rank.
Because silence interrupts slogans.
Because delight cannot be monetized forever.
Because a people
who learn to stop
may also learn
they can refuse.

Refuse the lie
that worth is measured in production.
Refuse the sermon
of profit without mercy.
Refuse the fear
that if we cease for one day
the world will fall apart—
as though we were the ones
holding up the stars.

No.
Sabbath is the admission
that we are not God,
and the miracle
that God is still good.

So let the engines choke.
Let the schedules stutter.
Let the tyrants call it weakness.
Let the anxious call it waste.
Let the merchants stand bewildered
before shuttered stalls
and unhurried hearts.

For this is the sabotage:
to rest in a restless world,
to feast in a famine of joy,
to loosen your fist
when all of history
has trained it to clench.

To stop.
To breathe.
To bless.
To remember
that we were not made
for endless extraction,
but for communion—
with God,
with neighbor,
with creature,
with soil,
with our own forgotten souls.

And so, on the seventh day,
we commit our small rebellion:
we light candles against consumption,
set tables against despair,
sing psalms against the grind,
and call this shattered life
still sacred.

This is no small thing.
This is how the kingdom enters:
not always with trumpets,
but with napping children,
unbought hours,
shared bread,
and a people audacious enough
to believe
that the world can turn
without their frantic striving.

Blessed are the saboteurs of empire.
Blessed are the keepers of Sabbath.
Blessed are the tired
who lay their burden down
and find, beneath the weight of all they carried,
a joy the masters could not confiscate.

For every Sabbath kept
is a crack in the idol.
Every prayer whispered at rest
is a seed beneath the pavement.
Every holy pause
is a hammer blow
against the myth
that Caesar owns time.

He does not.
The clock does not.
The market does not.

Time belongs to God.
And God,
in mercy,
has given some of it back to us.

Resistance, Remembrance, and Comunidad: Cinco de Mayo, Mount Pleasant, and the Rebuilding That Erases

Cinco de Mayo is often misunderstood in the United States. It is reduced to a marketing holiday, a day of beer specials, paper flags, mariachi clichés, and the shallow consumption of Mexican culture without the burden of remembering Mexican history. But the heart of Cinco de Mayo is not consumption. It is resistance.

The day remembers the Battle of Puebla, May 5, 1862, when Mexican forces defeated the French army, then one of the most powerful military forces in the world. It was not Mexican Independence Day. It was not the founding of Mexico. It was a day when a people under pressure from empire stood their ground. It was a day when the powerful were resisted by those who were supposed to lose. It was, at its deepest level, a day about memory, dignity, land, sovereignty, and the refusal to be swallowed by imperial appetite. (MySA)

That is why, for me, Cinco de Mayo cannot be separated from another May 5: May 5, 1991, in Washington, D.C.

I was there.

Read the rest of the essay at PeaceGrooves.com.

Who Will Be Romero Today?

On this day we remember Archbishop Óscar Romero, murdered on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. The church remembers him not simply as a tragic victim, but as a martyr whose blood was joined to the blood of the people he refused to abandon. Vatican sources still name him what so many already knew him to be in life: a “voice of the voiceless,” assassinated at the altar because he would not stop speaking for the poor.

Romero was killed soon after one of the most fearless sermons of the twentieth century. Addressing soldiers and police, he said that they were killing their own campesino brothers and sisters, and that God’s law stood above the commands of violent men: “Thou shalt not kill.” He declared that no soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God, and he ended with that thunderous plea: “In the name of God… cease the repression!”

That is why Romero remains dangerous. He did not speak in abstractions. He did not bless power from a safe distance. He did not soothe the conscience of empire. He named the sin directly. He named the victims directly. He named the moral responsibility of those ordered to carry out injustice. And for that, he was silenced by a bullet at the altar. Yet even in death he was not silenced, because martyrdom is a form of speech the powers of this world do not know how to answer.

Ten years later, in 1990, his name was still summoning people into the streets. The flyer for the Washington march commemorating Romero’s assassination called for an end to U.S. war in Central America, a march from the Capitol to the White House, and even nonviolent civil disobedience after the rally. It named the demands plainly: end U.S. aid to El Salvador, withdraw U.S. advisers, stop repressing the people, end the war against Nicaragua, lift the trade embargo, normalize relations. That call was real, and it was public. It survives in archival collections even now.

And I remember that day not as a line in a history book but as something lived in the body. Ten years after Romero’s assassination, I was arrested outside the White House after I and other activists built a miniature Central American village there. We were trying, in our small and vulnerable way, to make visible what policy papers and patriotic speeches tried to hide: villages, families, campesinos, the poor, the disappeared, the threatened, the dead. We were insisting that Central America was not a chessboard for Washington, but a place of human beings made in the image of God.

Read the rest of the essay at PeaceGrooves.

🕊️✨ Today we celebrate Gandhi Jayanti — also the International Day of Non-Violence.
May Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy of peace, truth & courage be carried with us, like the lotus on water. 🌸☀️

#GandhiJayanti #InternationalDayOfNonViolence #MahatmaGandhi #Peace #NonViolence #ArtForChange #Illustration

Rummaniyeh - a Palestinian lentil-aubergine-pomegranate dish - with stuffed vine leaves, toasted olive bread, vegan yoghurt etc 🌱

(all credit to my partner, who is on a cooking spree 🙏)

#PalestinianFood #Lentils #VineLeaves #Aubergine #Eggplant #Pomegranate #Palestinian #HomeCooking #Cooking #VeganCooking #Food #FoodPorn #Vegan #VeganFood #Veggie #Vegetarian #DairyFree #EggFree #EcoFriendly #Eco #LowCarbon #WhatVegansEat #Veganism #PlantBased #NonViolence

"Lorsque nous examinons les mouvements contemporains de défense des droits civiques, nous voyons la police qualifier ces actions de violentes pour avoir endommagé des biens ou résisté à l'arrestation. Les blessures subies par les firmes ou la police sont enregistrées et punies comme des pertes, tandis que la perte de vie subie par les personnes noires, le meurtre par la police et la perte de liberté et de sécurité des manifestant·es sont traitées comme n'ayant pas d'importance."

in La question de la non-violence et des briques jetées : (en) https://www.joscelyntranspiring.com/post/non-violence-and-thrown-bricks par @JoscelynTransient @[email protected] @[email protected]

#danser #police #rebelle #autorité #pouvoir #pouvoirDÉtat #violenceDÉtat #émeutes #deuil #precarité #homosexuel #LGBTQ #trans #transGenre #queer #Stonewall #nonViolence #paix #JudithButler #droitsCiviques #droitsHumains #1969 #citations #citation

Rice & peas, fried plantain & Jamaican-style greens* 🥥 🫘 🌱

#Veganuary is proving very productive 💪

*spring greens and kale (callaloo is hard to come by here). It works! 🥬

#Kale #Greens #RiceAndPeas #ScotchBonnet #Peppers #Plantain #Rice #Coconut #HomeCooking #Cooking #Food #FoodPorn #Vegan #Jamaica #Caribbean #CaribbeanFood #Tropical #Bacon #VeganFood #Veggie #Vegetarian #DairyFree #EggFree #EcoFriendly #Eco #LowCarbon #WhatVegansEat #Veganism #PlantBased #NonViolence

A re- #introduction

I'm a #writer and working on yet another draft of a novel. I post about things that interest me and will engage with thoughtful people.

For mental health reasons, I don't post about #politics much. The #worldonfire and I grieve over it every day, as well as show-up, contribute, protest, and vote. I respect people who know the source of their news & cull out misinformation. I read a minimum of 3 newspapers a day. (IMO we have to keep #journalism esp. #localnewspapers alive.) I'm a member of one of the groups our (USA) House Speaker would like to get rid of: #LGBTQ

I'm a #breastcancer survivor. I hate war, nukes, guns, nazis, and bullies. I love my wife, my #dog, the #cats across the street, my friends, #theatre #musicals #films some #tv #nonviolence #qigong and #taichi #greenchile and #NewMexico .

Books: I'll read most anything. Esp. #mysteries #scifi #poetry #haiku #history