because sadness can almost always be allayed by action. After writing this morning's blue post, I was mournfully knocking around the house without much to do, so I went over to the local coffeeshop for my favorite drink, a 12 oz. sugar-free vanilla latte, ran into friends there and spent a lovely hour kicking back and having a great getting-to-know-you conversation with a person I have not known well before this.
From there, I headed up to the church for an organizational meeting of a group I hope will turn into an "Island-wide Interfaith Association" of some kind. We are joining together to offer a Compassionate Communication workshop ala MLK, Gandhi, and Marshall Rosenberg in the spring. The co-sponsors of the workshop are us UUs, the Unity congregation, the Methodists, Episcopalians, and the Quakers, as well as some non-affiliated folks. We hope to help reduce the "us vs. them" atmosphere that separates the conservative North end of the island, with its Navy base, from the artsy progressive South end.
Home for a little lunch and a nap, then off to set up for the first of several gatherings of the Veterans Resource Center, an effort to help the 2000 returning vets on the island find healing and re-entry into civilian life more easily. We had 14 people come to this first gathering; we all had stories to tell about the vets we knew or the vets we were/are and some were heart-wrenching. Interestingly, it's the Vietnam vets who showed up most strongly; no Iraq or Afghanistan vets were there. It's the Nam guys who are at a point of being able to deal with their ptsd; the younger ones mostly aren't ready.
What a day it's turned out to be, from sorrow to exhilaration!
4 comments:
Well as long as it wasn't from depression to mania. . . ;-)
Glad to hear that your day ended on a high note anyway.
Thanks, Robin.
Worthy Veterans' Day activities. Not *celebration* but service and honor of the very sort they sacrificed to demonstrate in their own lives.
My thought too, PW. Thanks for checking in.
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