Remembrance

Without Compassion, What Hope?

Q: Is there any cause for optimism?

A: Well, personally, yeah. Everybody's got a life to lead and they've got a bodhisattva tendency, everybody wants to do good, so I just think on a personal level, yeah. On a larger scale, there doesn't seem to be any hope unless compassion becomes a more widespread important teaching on how to live. Compassion to self and others.
(Allen Ginsberg, Tricycle, Fall 1995) (Tricycle.com)

We have Not Come To Take Prisoners

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and
Light!
Hafiz

Joan sent us this:

Look carefully at the painting of the B-17 and note how shot up it is - one engine dead, tail, horizontal stabilizer and nose shot up... It was ready to fall out of the sky. (This is a painting done by an artist from the description of both pilots many years later.) Then realize that there is a German ME-109 fighter flying next to the B-17.

Now read the story below.

Charlie Brown was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called "Ye Old Pub" and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.

After flying the B-17 over an enemy airfield, a German pilot named Franz Stigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he "had never seen a plane in such a bad state". The tail and rear section were severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was dead on the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed and there were holes everywhere.

Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.

To the right are photos of BF-109 pilot, Franz Stigler and B-17 pilot, Charlie Brown

Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to, and slightly over, the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe. When Franz landed, he told the CO that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.

More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.

They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns that day.

This photo shows (L-R) German Ace Franz Stigler, artist Ernie Boyett, and B-17 pilot Charlie Brown at that reunion.

When asked why he didn't shoot them down, Stigler later said, “I didn't have the heart to finish those brave men. I flew beside them for a long time. They were trying desperately to get home and I was going to let them do that. I could not have shot at them. It would have been the same as shooting at a man in a parachute.”

Both Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler died in 2008.

This is a true story. http://www.snopes.com/military/charliebrow

Video: One Day by musician Matisyahu. http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1753

Sunrise

You can
die for it --
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.
Mary Oliver
(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Sunrise.html

Video: Well worth the watch. Sand Artist Kseniya Simonova
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6208721/Sand-artist-Kseniya-Simonova-winner-of-Ukraines-Got-Talent-becomes-internet-hit.html

The Great Work

Love
Is the great work
Though every heart is first an
Apprentice

That slaves beneath the city of Light.

This wondrous trade,
This magnificent throne your soul
Is destined for-

You should not have to think
Much about it,

Is it not clear
An apprentice needs a teacher
Who himself

Has charmed the universe
To reveal its wonders inside his cup.

Happiness is the great work,
Though every heart must first become
A student

To one
Who really knows
About Love.
Hafiz
(Theift, versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

____________________________________________________________________
Global Warming is the greatest threat to life on Earth. Please consider signing the petition below and encourage others to sign it, as well, by going to the website.

Why a Petition? "In 1999, the Canadian government signed onto the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement promising to cut back our Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs) 6% below 1990 levels. The Kyoto Protocol's commitment period runs from 2008 to 2012. Canada is now actually 26% above 1990 levels (and 33.8% above its Kyoto target) with no viable plan to meet its Kyoto commitment.

"The international community is coming together again this year from December 7 to 18 in Copenhagen to hammer out a post-Kyoto framework, which will begin in 2013.

The Kyotoplus petition is a way to get all Canadians involved in addressing the issue of climate change through demanding that the Canadian government does the right thing in Copenhagen. We hope to have at least one million signatures to impress on the Canadian government that the public is serious about tackling climate change both at home and abroad." Kyotoplus, Kairos

Click onto: http://www.kairoscanada.org/en/get-involved/campaign/kyotoplus-petition/

Want to learn more? Want to do more? Visit: http://www.kairoscanada.org/en/

Earth Family First
maureen
Photos from Google Images