Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Ecuador, Sweet Ecaudor

Four years ago at about this point in the presidential campaign, I was one of the many people making noises about moving to another country--Ireland, England, Canada all seemed like decent possibilities. This year, I am decidedly NOT entertaining such thoughts myself, preferring instead to redirect fears into positive visualizations of an Obama-Biden victory on election night (I can hear the cheers, feel the excitement, even shed an anticipatory tear of joy). But today I found my new home country if ever I need one: Ecuador. 

Why Ecuador (since I know little about it and speak no Spanish)? Here's why: Ecuador has recently approved a new constitution granting inalienable right to nature. Among other things, the new document declares: "Nature...where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions, and its processes of evolution. Every person, people, community, or nationality will be able to demand the recognition of rights for nature before the public bodies."

That's my kind of country.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Harder than it sounds

I'm starting over, for the second or third time. To blog, that is. I'm hoping that in the intervening months since my last blogging attempt my voice has gotten stronger and clearer, which is to say that my vision has gotten stronger and clearer. Which doesn't mean that it's all clear all the time by any stretch of the imagination.

So...about the title that I plunked in the rectangular box on the posting page: "Harder than it sounds." I meant that "trusting delight" is harder than it sounds, and so is blogging, really, or else I might have stayed with it longer the first time. What was hard for me then was simply blogging, simply saying what I felt like saying without thinking in some way of my "audience." I think that comes from having regularly  and predominantly and for twenty-two years written stuff that was designed to be spoken to a live "audience" (aka, congregation) and always having them in mind, even particular people--imagining how they would hear or receive what I wanted to say, and sometimes of course changing what I wanted to say because of my imaginings. 

This time, without pretending that I will never even think about who might be reading this, I am going to try not to, to try instead simply to put down what seems to want to be put down.

And trusting delight will be a recurring theme, sometimes overt and always somewhere in the background. More on that soon.