Feeling Their Presence

Pansies - Wikipedia

Whenever I water my plants or flowers, be they violets or outdoor pansies, I see the face of my aunt or grandmother in each blossom: those who grew them so lovingly before me; and at times, I feel their presence, and wonder if I am tending them, or if they

---are tending me.

Connie Nelson Ahlberg

All Rights Reserved.

Bill Maher on Hillary Clinton and the Bible

Gutenberg Bible - Wikipedia

Bill Maher is losing his moorings. He may be the first person to say he never had any. Lately he's been giving many opinions on Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and what Hillary should do to survive politically.

Reading recently that the President of the United States is a "drop-dead atheist," is as irresistible as it is galling. Bill would know, because, by his own admission, those three words describe himself.

In a free country, one can be of any faith--or no faith, a right we cherish and protect.
Mr. Maher, I fear, is projecting onto the President, his own views, not the beliefs of the President who has stated that he has been a Christian for years.

What got "me going," wasn't so much Bill Maher on Barack Obama, but Bill Maher on Hillary Clinton.

On Comedy Central with Jon Stewart, Maher made fun of Hillary's pick of the book that has influenced her the most: the Bible. Maher -sardonic to the bone, said she was out-of-step.

I grew up with many devout Protestant friends. Their steadfast study of the Bible topped the focus we were given as Catholics to explore the Bible on our own (as we weren't trusted to do that).

One's faith community as you grow up, from church services to Bible study in most Protestant churches is thorough and purposeful.  Maher's contempt of Hillary's faith journey is marred (pardon the pun) by his perception. "Milliannials aren't religious," he said.

In times of trial, legions have sought the Bible for solace, spiritual strength, and inspiration. A best friend's mother found the psalms her path to heaven. I also know many young people who find the Bible very significant in their lives.

"Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not - neither do they spin; yet Simon in all his glory
was not arraigned like one of these." Matthew 6:28

Tiffany's Lilies of the Field

With humor one isn't honoring, I realize, one is putting down. Bill Maher is a funny man; but his perceptions & biases are clouding his views and flowing from his mouth.

Having grown up at exactly the same time as the former First Lady and former Sec of State, I have come to appreciate her life.

When I look at the house on 235 Wisner St. in Park Ridge, Illinois, I see a solid house of bricks. This is where Hillary grow up from the age of three.

Bill Maher, are you wise enough, are you smart enough, to realize your words bristled on the backs of many of us...who have sought the depth of the Bible when we were in our own depths?

Rather than a pat answer, I take Hillary at her word which she shared to the United Methodist Women Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky. Hillary said the Methodist church is a homecoming for her, where she learned about caring for others and social justice. She has not departed far from those beliefs.

I can respect choosing the Bible as the book which has influenced her the most.
For when I'm lost, I seek the wisdom of the ages, and the great literature on the pages
of the Holy Book.

Why Five Candles Burned

An Indian Bride

In one of the holiest of countries in terms of religious sites; a place where Christ may have lived his silent years; a sacrilege, an ongoing nightmare against our littlest women and girls plays on.

If young men gang rape and hang young teenage girls--they must have no fear. No fear of justice or being caught and tried for their crimes. India, O India! 

India, the largest democracy in the world with it's new Hindu leader has more than brutal conflicts against Muslims to amend and heal, or economic woes to rectify in their economy.

It desperately needs to look at the disparity, the Men Only modes of worship, vast crowds of men-only stage shows within adult entertainment, separation of women and girls in families that don't foster equality, mutuality, courtesy, and respect.

How can the rest of the world be guests in a country that commits sacrilege against it's own girls, against it's own women, stoning them, disfiguring their own daughters for choosing a mate not hand-selected by their parents? Bride burning when dowry demands aren't met. How can there even be a term: Bride Burning?

It's the inequality in India that must be examined.

Rapists by karmic tradition or within the vast wisdom of Buddhist zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, realize we aren't separate, we are one. Hence the males have raped themselves, raped their own light no matter the faith tradition.

Karmic views hold they may/or will be reborn to suffer the
carnage they perpetuated turned back on themselves; thereby learning what violation against our Godly souls feels like.

Shrouding women in beautiful or simple cloth in India, whether Hindu or Muslim, keeps women separate and unequal. Few can remain integrated within the minds of their male counterparts when women live separate and unequal lives.

Patriarchy taken to extremes means, yes, stone your daughters if they dare to stand for their own voice, their own decisions, their own choices. In patriarchy, males have all the power. 

Why are only women veiled? 

While honoring all faiths, we have to have the courage and fearlessness to see by treating our women differently, in such comprehensive ways, we can be used by men for the most despicable of human acts. What is meant to be sacred intimacy is changed to violent sacrilege and murder. 

For this the most beautiful--our beloved young girls and women, were not born into the world, whether in the West or in the world's largest democracy.

Women need to be not on a pedestal which can be toppled and destroyed at will or whim, but as beautifully equal as God, all gods, made them.

For this women need to scream from their voices and from their souls:

Let us stand as we wish for who we are, with dreams intact,
integrated in village life, as radiant equals with so much to 
give as peacemakers in the world.

A Woman's Strength - Three Generations

      Tess & Clarence Hanson

 Passing on--An Indomitable Spirit

Years ago I met a vivacious woman named Ann. Some time after that I met Ann's mother, Tess, and father, Clarence. Everyone loved Tess. To keep it simple I could say it all began with her, though Thich Nhat Hanh would have a different view. 

Hanh believes, if say, you had looked at Tess's hands (when she was with us) you would have seen the generations in her past and the future to be. What was great about Tess or Tessie is that she didn't pretend to be anything but what she was. She and Clarence raised their children in a small town, Faribault, MN, where little and big dreams are made. Tess had honesty...to a fault, but it was her wisdom. She had a true joy in living, and common sense. She was a great woman who never shouted her greatness, that was something you knew by sitting with her.  

Don't pass the nonsense--because she'd never pass that on. She had spunk, integrity, gumption, perseverance and the ability to inspire. She had to have the latter as her truth was reborn again and again in her daughter Ann and in her granddaughter Molly.

A woman passes on her strength through the stories she leaves behind and the Spirit of the life she lived: stories of strength, tenacity, and generosity of Spirit. Tess was true as a Lutheran hymnal. Sing.

The invisible becomes real when you look at her off-spring and see the great gift of empowerment before it had the name. Perseverance lives in small towns near the peonies, courage--there with the lilies of the valley bordering the flowerbed, and conquering adversity with acceptance like a spring rain. Green grass grows with the goals and dreams attained. 

The Spirit Grows into Grace that flows on through generations. You see it shine on in her daughter's visible volumes of accomplishments and her granddaughter's indomitable spirit in life and love...backbones strong as an oak that's always been in Faribault.

Tess's daughter Ann Hanson Schrupp and 

Granddaughter Molly Zahn

A Walk as Wood

I started as a piece of rounded firewood

Resting before surrender to my master's axe;

He said: You'll always remain You, ever intact,

As I swing my deliverist arm 'n axe;

So I gave myself up for a bigger cause:

Warming my master's house as firewood;

Yet I found in sacrifice
Torn from wholeness, splintered twice;

If I had the chance to avoid the axe,

I'd say leave the bark, my grains, my heart

From axe as divining rod;

Let me lie untethered whole on my master's

Woodpile staring up just so;

I found I wish to see the sky unbound,
Than being taken and broken up
Even to serve my master's cup;
As you go forward you don't know

What it will like to learn and grow;
How to be still the authentic tree;
And keep the rain, sun, & budding leaves,
And the Forest floor just beyond
The cathedral's door;

Sacrifice is very grand,
Unless you'd rather breathe & stand
The way, the way you always were:
Simple bark and holy grain,
Rings from years
And forest's rains.

By Connie Nelson Ahlberg
All Rights Reserved
April 11, 2014

Honoring Spring
Honoring Renewal

Stephen Hawking - Here and the Hereafter

Stephen Hawking - Child Star

I so wanted to watch the PBS special on Stephen Hawking. I did catch the broadcast but almost missed it. As it was, I tuned in about ten-15 minutes into this superb documentary.

I was transfixed watching this brilliant man tested by a body increasingly impacted by a motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a condition that has progressed over the years. His persistence and sheer grit to triumph despite his handicaps is now legendary. And thankfully he is with us still!

As a poet I obviously don't have his mind that has changed how people see the universe. But I am most intrigued & fascinated in the quotes I see of Stephen's thoughts on the afterlife.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he said in an interview which ran in The Guardian May 15, 2011.

There is, however, quite a bit of documentation now about the soul level before we come to Earth taped in past-life regressions and after-death communication (ADC),

Years ago I learned in a business women's group (most of whom were in the counseling field) that we choose our parents. Stunned I asked two women about it again as the room emptied out. They each nodded yes to my question and looked at me as if I had been living under a rock.

I had to go home and chew on that one! However Carol Bowman, who has written about children and past lives, narrates a true story of a child telling his mother that he picked her and his father when they were on a beach near a pink hotel. And the truth is, his parents honeymooned in Maui near a “pink” hotel.  He was born nine months later.

Authors Judy and Jim Guggenheim in Hello From Heaven, attest that one needn’t believe in heaven to get there! As many who didn’t believe have communicated to the living: I was wrong about not believing in the afterlife.

I see parallels between Stephen Hawking's incredible life and his choosing the life he has on the soul level. It is inconceivable that Stephen would choose his parents yet not know of the profound handicap he would be met with as a young man. Choosing a life this arduous sets in place deeper spiritual growth and development were he not in a body limited by a degenerative disease.

Thus while Stephen has profound accomplishments in his life as a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, he has also chosen to deepen his spiritual progression at the same time. The fact that he doesn’t remember his commitment on the soul level doesn’t matter.

Stephen’s belief that heaven isn’t a fairy tale will be wondrously disproved to him, as he embraces (one day) what he’s always known as a soul going home.

400,000 Untested Rape Kits - College Campuses: Women and Social Justice

Taking a Stand 

Yesterday President Barack Obama took a pledge to make our college campuses safer for women in the fight against sexual assaults. He's created a task force from his senior administration to coordinate enforcement on college campuses.

College sexual assault is now an epidemic: one in five women have been assaulted, but only 12% report the crime. 

Below is an article the Boston Globe ran January 22, 2014...with a telling poster of one young woman's story.

Obama pledges stand against college sexual assaults - via @bostondotcom http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/babson/2014/01/obama_pledges_stand_against_college_sexual_assaults.html

All the acts against young women leave forever scars. In looking at the chart posted by the Boston Globe, Harvard leads the Eastern universities in the number of assaults. It's chilling. Residential halls are the main areas where the attacks/rapes take place.

Surely ivy-league young men have had every advantage by-in-large in terms of a better background as candidates to this esteemed university. But as we know, status, income, means, and background clearly don't seem to matter. 

But abuse of power is all around us; and many male students take assault pretty lightly. Some schools are not taking action against tenured professors (as noted on the poster in the article from the Globe).

Having written about many Minnesota female victims of violence, I applaud the President taking this stand. His visibility is needed. And he has a heartfelt reason to do so: the President and the First Lady have two beautiful and bright, gracious daughters.

I'm taking a stand, too. And I'm going to need your help. There is a number that is so appalling that I can't forget it. That number is 400,000. 

As we stand for our precious, young women planning for tomorrow, we need remember over 400,000 women who lost yesterdays. Four hundred thousand is the number of untested rape kits lying around across the country. Some kits go back nineteen years.

Today I contacted the White House and Minnesota's two distinguished Senators, Sen Amy Klobucher and Sen. Al Franken to bring attention to this incredible injustice.

This backlog sends a message to many that a male perpetrator may never be charged: indeed--if we haven't marshaled the strength, will, and monies needed to stand for crimes going back years and years.

As we know, after an assault or rape, lives frequently don't get put back together. Goals are abandoned, and shame and guilt: all the residuals of being violated can remain for years.

We have to summon the will to rectify this injustice and honor our women and girls. For if we don't...what message are we sending? We're saying...it doesn't matter. Sorry. Red tape, no tape, no justice.

I plan on contacting women Congressional leaders first and foremost. We need to ban together and honor our women and girls.

I have a beautiful granddaughter. All the young women are and were beautifully wonderful spirits with everything ahead of them. And then a horrendous abuse of power took place. We have exacerbated their pain, and delayed healing by allowing the backlog to build and build. 

If we now have the attention and will to focus on our college campuses to prevent further rapes and assaults, Heaven Help Us, let's honor the women who wait for justice. 

Contact your female Congressional leaders in particular, as they may better understand what must be done. We can do it. We just need the compassion and the will. We have to demand that justice is served.  (This isn't about blame, but about galvanizing action.) Forward this post/& ReTweet it.