Think Globally Act Locally

Unity of Country Souvenir Silver Sculpture
one of my favorites
at the
President`s Center of Culture & Museum
Astana, Kazakhstan
[more from this museum]

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D. Patrick Miller:
"The extent to which we think 'world peace' is possible is exactly the extent to which we think our own minds can someday be peaceful through and through. If we cannot understand why distant warring nations fight over territories, national pride, or religious beliefs, then we need look for insight no further than our fight for a parking space, the struggle to procure a prestigious position over our competitors, or the aggressive ministry to convert one more soul to our church."

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Patricia Henley:
"They toss little scraps of origami wishes into the fire. June thinks she should wish for World Peace, but she doesn't. She wishes for Local Peace."

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Denise Levertov

"We are the humans, men who can make;
whose language imagines mercy,
lovingkindness we have believed one another
mirrored forms of a God we felt as good . . .

nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness,
the deep intelligence living at peace would have."

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Rotary Connection: "If Peace Was All We Had"
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Maya Angelou:
"I believe that there lives a burning desire in the most sequestered private heart of every American, a desire to belong to a great country. I believe that every citizen wants to stand on the world stage and represent a noble country where the mighty do not always crush the weak and the dream of a democracy is not the sole possession of the strong."

Throwback Post: "On This Day"
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Jill Jackson-Miller & Sy Miller

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow

To take each moment
And live each moment
To take each moment
And live each moment
To take each moment
And live each moment
In peace eternally

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me

Let There Be Peace On Earth

Photo taken 4 December 2014
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And lastly:

So sad to see such blatant racial profiling.
Was the intent really to raise awareness or merely to
stir up resentment and reinforce hurtful stereotypes?

See also:
A Song for MLK Day
Think Globally & Bee-Man

Kent Haruf Celebration

Kent Haruf ~ Literary Celebration
Centerpieces ~ fall flowers, pages from Haruf's novels
& cream - colored scrap paper that he used for rough drafts.

This Little Light of Mine

"If I had learned anything over those years of work and persistence, it was that you had to believe in yourself even when no one else did. And later I often said something like that to my graduate students. You have to believe in yourself despite the evidence. I felt as though I had a little flame of talent, not a big talent, but a little pilot-light-sized flame of talent, and I had to tend to it regularly, religiously, with care and discipline, like a kind of monk or acolyte, and not to ever let the little flame go out."

Kent Haruf (1943 - 2014)
From "The Making of a Writer,"
his autobiographical essay in Granta

See also "The Complete Final Interview"

Gerry had an interesting idea as we were driving back to the airport: comparing Kent's life to that of George Orwell, and then moving on to compare Kent's imaginary Holt, Colorado, to the town of Lower Binfield, near the River Thames, that Orwell creates as the setting for his novel Coming Up For Air.

What crossed my mind was the fiction of Patricia Henley (both novels and short stories) particularly the opening story "Rocky Gap," in her collection Other Heartbreaks. At a campfire ceremony, "They toss little scraps or origami wishes into the fire. June thinks she should wish for World Peace, but she doesn't. She wishes for Local Peace" (more on my book blog).

I can definitely see that "local peace" is a priority for the many of the citizens of Holt and the focal point of their choices and of their narratives.

See also:
Almost Equinox Birthday
Haruf (Rhymes with Sheriff)
Not the Husband, Not the Father
Everything by Kent Haruf

Favorite Passages From Patricia Henley

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PRESS RELEASE
Engine Books is offering a discount on bulk orders of Other Heartbreaks for reading groups / book clubs. In addition, Patricia Henley would be happy to SKYPE with book clubs who read the book and want her to talk about it. In fact, if there are groups in our local area, she would be happy to attend.

Please feel free to contact Patricia Henley via facebook,
and THANKS for spreading the word!
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For my review of Other Heartbreaks
see my blog post ~ "Local Peace"
on my sort - of - monthly book blog ~ Kitti's Book List
Favorite passages from Other Heartbreaks:

16: "They toss little scraps of origami wishes into the fire. June thinks she should wish for World Peace, but she doesn't. She wishes for Local Peace."

69: "On Sunday afternoons, in the bittersweet hours from three to seven, they held an open house for friends and students and neighbors."

81: " 'We've been building a bridge, right? . . . I thought -- when I saw you -- that the last little bit of the bridge would click into place. . . . But there's still a gap.' "

101: "Her house was like a Carl Larsson watercolor, homey, cheerful, some earthy potpourri simmering atop the woodstove, the colors of her second-hand linens and furniture Swedish-pastel, chosen to ward off the chill of the long winters."

148: " . . . it's a fallacy to think that a mother can travel alone. If you have children, you're never quite whole again. There's a reason why they're called your flesh and blood . . . "

Another favorite from long ago:

"Sandra's love for Kelly is not the sort you hear about in songs on the jukebox. It's not desperate or crazy. They met three years ago and it was one year before they made love. Kelly said he wanted to get to know her first and Sandra thought that was a novel idea. When she remembers that year going by, she imagines ranging in the high country on a long hike, when it's tough-going at first and you don't know what to expect. Maybe you slip and fall when the trail crosses a creek bed, maybe the first lake is small, disappointing, but you push yourself, you glory in the little things along the way, the shooting stars and glacier lilies, the marmot whistling, and before long, just as you are simply traveling, putting one boot in front of the other, for the bliss of it, you come upon grand peaks and a string of alpine lakes so rare and peaceful that you imagine no one else has ever been there before you. It's where you belong. That's what being with Kelly is like. Easy, once you reach cruising altitude. Paradise, kind of. And ordinary. Common pleasures renew them. Razzing one another; watching a video in their bathrobes; dividing a foxglove in the fall; lying awake in one another's arms at midnight, waiting for Desiree [Sandra's teenage daughter] to come in from some breakneck double date. Love you can't imagine when you're young, when you think that love is you winning him over, a treadmill of pursuit and chicanery."

from the story "Love You Can't Imagine"
by Patricia Henley

Who doesn't love Carl Larsson!
Trying to achieve the Larsson Look in my own kitchen . . .