What do Mrs. R. and Ms. W. and another Mrs. W. have in common?
Love of peace, education and activism.
I'm preparing to take the peace quilt to Lake Oswego for the Spring A.A.U.W. luncheon on May 15. Eleanor Roosevelt will be the guest speaker, or at least, I will try to enact her persona once again. Previously, I've taken my Eleanor routine into my classroom and beyond to a state garden club meeting and a national DKG convention. This visit will be different. I'm going to have Eleanor, my 6th cousin, once removed, share the butterfly peace quilt. She would have enjoyed the symbolism of the butterfly quilt if she were still living, and she would have added her vision of peace on a postcard to Oprah. I know it.
As people continue to send cards to Oprah Winfrey, my travels to schools, churches, civic groups, and small groups continue also. Goal: Send 1,000,000 vision-of-peace postcards to Oprah. Five months of travel left. The peace stories of change in individuals mount as they listen to children's visions of peace calling for active involvement in making the world a more peaceful place. Would Oprah want to add her vision of peace to the peace quilt? Surely?
Remember Marge from Spokane, Washington? She took 100 completed postcards gathered from her friends, her neighbors, strangers, and contacts in Croatia to the Oprah Show on April 23. Did they actually reach Ms. Winfrey's hands? Nope. The cards were taken out of Marge's purse although later returned after the show. (At least somebody saw them.) Did that dash Marge's hopes? Absolutely not. She brought them home with a renewed purpose. She will engage others to help with postage so that each one can be mailed individually. She will also find 200 more people to fill out postcards because Kinkos generously donated extras just for the fun of it. As Marge came to recognize, this whole peace vision thing wasn't as much about getting those cards to Oprah as about working on her own peace vision: "People need to listen to each other." A hundred more peaceful ways are fluttering like butterflies to Oprah's mailbox because people listened.
I'm reminded of a fabulous talk I heard two weeks ago when Jody Williams, U.S. Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke in Corvallis. I sat on the second row listening to her public talk before an upcoming Peacejam event for young people over the week end. Although jet lagged, she passionately reviewed the history behind the winning of her award for helping to ban landmines in 1968. She added details about her present vision of peace concerning gender inequities around the world. She had just come from Mexico where she had joined with other world women Nobel winners to continue her activism. (As she jokingly commented, "You can't retire from being a Nobel Peace Prize winner.")
...And then with a significant verbal punch, she reminded us that by living in the United States, most of us are privileged. Because of that very fact, we have no excuse to practice inertia. We can do something about a vision of peace we care about that will make a positive difference in the world.
" Find that passion. Volunteer an hour a month. Everyone can do that. No excuses, " stated Jody.
Marion Little, a friend who listened to Jody that evening, came away thinking a lot more about the plastic accumulations in the bottom of our oceans. I will write Jody about the peace quilt journey. She'll like it.
Postscript:
I also enjoyed an Arlo Guthrie concert last week. What an ending gift he gave to the crowd and unknowingly to me. He sang the unrecorded Woody Guthrie song my class often listened to on YouTube: My Peace. "My peace, my peace I give to you. It's all I really have...It's all I ever knew...It's all I can give to you." Would Arlo have understood the importance of spreading peace in song or quilt? Yup.
