At the Practice of Peace conference last week, there was a lot of laughing going on. There was an offering on laughing as practice, and Alexander Kjerulf offered a session that, from my vantage point through a window, looked like a battle between two sides of hysterical fighters, trying to out-joy each other.
And now comes news from Flemming Funch that an Ethiopian man named Gima Belachew has broken his own laughing record.
The story is quite a read, including this great quote:
“Our slogan is ‘laughter, love, peace for all human beings’.”
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I want to draw your attention to a community Open Space unfolding today and tomorrow in Oftringen, Germany and posted online in real-ish time.
I’m back from the Practice of Peace conference on Whidbey Island which featured Harrison Owen and friends and colleagues opening space for peace around the world. Have a read of the proceedings at the conference website.
And lastly I have spent the last two days in Open Space at a forum for Emerging Aboriginal Leaders. The procee4dings from that conference will be posted at the openspaceworld.net wiki site in the next few days.
Phew.
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I’m on the road for a few days. In the meantime, dig a few poems from Sherman Alexie, whose home state I am visiting:
Basketball is like this for young Indian boys, all arms and legs
and serious stomach muscles. Every body is brown!
These are the twentieth-century warriors who will never kill,
although a few sat quietly in the deserts of Kuwait,
waiting for orders to do something, to do something.
God, there is nothing as beautiful as a jumpshot
on a reservation summer basketball court
where the ball is moist with sweat,
and makes a sound when it swishes through the net
that causes Walt Whitman to weep because it is so perfect.
There are veterans of foreign wars here
although their bodies are still dominated
by collarbones and knees, although their bodies still respond
in the ways that bodies are supposed to respond when we are young.
Every body is brown! Look there, that boy can run
up and down this court forever. He can leap for a rebound
with his back arched like a salmon, all meat and bone
synchronized, magnetic, as if the court were a river,
as if the rim were a dam, as if the air were a ladder
leading the Indian boy toward home.
Some of the Indian boys still wear their military hair cuts
while a few have let their hair grow back.
It will never be the same as it was before!
One Indian boy has never cut his hair, not once, and he braids it
into wild patterns that do not measure anything.
He is just a boy with too much time on his hands.
Look at him. He wants to play this game in bare feet.
God, the sun is so bright! There is no place like this.
Walt Whitman stretches his calf muscles
on the sidelines. He has the next game.
His huge beard is ridiculous on the reservation.
Some body throws a crazy pass and Walt Whitman catches it
with quick hands. He brings the ball close to his nose
and breathes in all of its smells: leather, brown skin, sweat,
black hair, burning oil, twisted ankle, long drink of warm water,
gunpowder, pine tree. Walt Whitman squeezes the ball tightly.
He wants to run. He hardly has the patience to wait for his turn.
“What’s the score?” he asks. He asks, “What’s the score?”
Basketball is like this for Walt Whitman. He watches these Indian boys
as if they were the last bodies on earth. Every body is brown!
Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
Walt Whitman dreams of the Indian boy who will defend him,
trapping him in the corner, all flailing arms and legs
and legendary stomach muscles. Walt Whitman shakes
because he believes in God. Walt Whitman dreams
of the first jumpshot he will take, the ball arcing clumsily
from his fingers, striking the rim so hard that it sparks.
Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
Walt Whitman closes his eyes. He is a small man and his beard
is ludicrous on the reservation, absolutely insane.
His beard makes the Indian boys righteously laugh. His beard
frightens the smallest Indian boys. His beard tickles the skin
of the Indian boys who dribble past him. His beard, his beard!
God, there is beauty in every body. Walt Whitman stands
at center court while the Indian boys run from basket to basket.
Walt Whitman cannot tell the difference between
offense and defense. He does not care if he touches the ball.
Half of the Indian boys wear t-shirts damp with sweat
and the other half are bareback, skin slick and shiny.
There is no place like this. Walt Whitman smiles.
Walt Whitman shakes. This game belongs to him.
More like that at the Beloit Poetry Journal, where this one came from.
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There is something otherwordly about the National Rifle Association sponsoring Postal Matches. Upon first seeing the link at the NRA website (don’t ask…) I thought it had something to do with post-office shootings.
Guess not.
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Folks, I need someone to take my otherwise steady hand and lead me through the easiest way to create an RSS feed for this blog. Can anyone help?