{"id":321,"date":"2010-06-10T00:11:21","date_gmt":"2010-06-10T04:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/?p=321"},"modified":"2010-07-08T18:28:15","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T22:28:15","slug":"321","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/10\/321\/","title":{"rendered":"Wise Straight Forward Honesty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nYesterday while riding bikes with my daughter, Julita, I watched the oil clean-up workers. I realized that these\u00a0stressed workers\u00a0covered with grimy, late afternoon sweats must have some very valuable perspectives. As I listened to several cough, I wondered about their health. I wondered also how their lives and their relationships with nature, people, and God were being affected by this catastrophe.<\/p>\n
\n

Today I tried several interviews. Here\u2019s the first:<\/p>\n

Question: “What\u2019s it like being a worker here?”<\/p>\n

Worker: “Work, work, work!”<\/p>\n

Question: “You, workers, understand things that the rest of us don\u2019t about the spill, don\u2019t you?”<\/p>\n

Worker: “Yes.”<\/p>\n

Question: “Like?”<\/p>\n

Worker: “I\u2019m really sorry, I can\u2019t talk about it, it\u2019s against the rules.”<\/p>\n

Over and over again I heard the same response: “I\u2019m not allow to talk with anyone.” In several places, security officials would not allow me to take photographs. Near the public beach, the school\u2019s playground was no longer available for children to play.<\/p>\n

At the public beach, I met Mark from Chicago who reflected, “It\u2019s about time that we start thinking of alternatives to gasoline engines. But of course that\u2019s how I got here.” Like Mark I too was traveling by car.<\/p>\n

I spoke with the handful of families visiting the public beach. At one point, I asked a few adults what they thought of all this. No one knew what to say until a small child began running circles around me, crying out over and over again, “How are we going to save all the sea animals?” A voice from on High had spoken.<\/p>\n

At the public beach,\u00a0others expressed shock that there’s another\u00a0nearby drilling rig, the Ocean Saratoga, which has been leaking oil\u00a0since at least April 30.<\/p>\n

Right now I want to forget\u00a0all the “blame games” and all the “powers that be.” What about me? … us?<\/p>\n

What is the Spirit\u00a0crying?<\/p>\n

What needs to happen with each of us?<\/p>\n

Where are our creative thoughts and actions?<\/p>\n

“How are we going to save all the sea animals?”<\/p>\n

\n

Volunteer information and other important information can be found at Alabama Coastal Foundation<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday while riding bikes with my daughter, Julita, I watched the oil clean-up workers. I realized that these\u00a0stressed workers\u00a0covered with grimy, late afternoon sweats must have some very valuable perspectives. As I listened to several cough, I wondered about their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,98,28,27],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-real","category-divisiveness","category-nature","category-oil-spill","tag-oil-clean-up-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}