February's snow and cold outside my window

Bloomington Township Trustee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Township_Trustee

Primary 2014 Season Begins - Filing for Re-Election as Township Trustee

A campaign photo

This morning I filed for re-election as Bloomington Township Trustee.  It was a warm friendly process on a cold winter morning.  As I walked through hall outside the County Clerk's Office, I paused for a moment. A soft but unmistakable smell of cigar smoke was in the air. I smiled to myself and continued on my way.

Here is the statement I submitted to my party - the Democratic Party - for posting on the website.  The beginning of many I will draft in the next few months, I am sure.

Lillian Henegar is seeking re-election as Bloomington Township Trustee.  The Democrat precinct chairs elected Henegar in March 2013 to finish the current term for Linda Sievers, who resigned early due to family issues.

 

Henegar said “I want to continue serving Bloomington Township residents.  The Township has many challenges ahead. I want to address the myriad conditions arising from a widening income gap in creative and collaborative ways that empower and respect individuals and families. In addition, funding stability is crucial to providing the quality of fire and emergency services the Township’s residents expect and deserve.  Ensuring this stability into the future is a priority of mine.”

“My diverse combination of experiences, talents, and education qualify me to tackle the responsibilities of the Township Trustee. I am dedicated to public service and Democratic values – striving for a compassionate equitable society and for sound stewardship of public resources and responsibilities.”

Henegar grew up in Monroe County and has been involved in the Democratic Party since a young teen. She has lived in diverse communities across the country, earned a master’s degree in public administration, and held professional and volunteer leadership positions in government and nonprofits serving local government and low-income communities.    

Did the Inner Dome of Heaven Fall?

Photos of Meteorite Falling Over Urals' Chelyabinsk

"Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen."

                                     Excerpt from the poem, Birches, by Robert Frost

Clean up after Meteorite Falls to Earth in Siberian town

Cosmic Activity

 

Be your true self - Be cold in winter

"[Merton] ate, worked, walked in the woods and prayed. In the winter he was cold and in the summer he was hot. And that is the true self. It is the self that is nobody, that is ordinary and poor.  It is this ordinary self that is extraordinary for it is this ordinary self one with the moment, one with concrete reality of everyday life, that is the self God creates, the poor self made rich in the poverty of the cross."

"Merton's message is that each of us lives in the hermitage of our daily self. Beneath all our achievements, plans, travels, and conquests we have but life."

page 113, Merton's Palace of Nowhere by James Finley

Rural Route Mail

Here's a poem for those of us who grew up in the country and addresses were assigned Rural Route numbers. We lived on Rural Route #4, I believe.  The poem is by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurette 2004-06,  and appeared in Sunday's Herald Times.

Christmas Mail

Cards in each mailbox,

angel, manger, star and lamb,

as the rural carrier,

driving the snowy roads,

hears from her bundles

the plaintive bleating of sheep,

the shuffle of sandals,

the clopping of camels.

At stop after stop,

she opens the little tin door

and places deep in the shadows

the shepherds and wise men,

the donkeys lank and weary,

the cow who chews and muses.

And from her Styrofoam cup,

white as a star and perched

on the dashboard, leading her

ever into the distance,

there is a hint of hazelnut,

and then a touch of myrrh.



Photo credit to Hilary Henegar

Beloved Children of God

We all started out and live as "beloved children of God." As a Quaker, I am asked to speak to that of God in every person. And, recognizing our common humanity and divinity is not just for those times when it's easy. It is also when the good in another seems most difficult to find.  Jesus didn't qualify his urging to "love one another."

I feel very sad for the loss of all lives. I can't help feeling that we failed Adam Lanza and his mother, and therefore 26 people in Connecticut. Gun control and mental illness and our health care system are overripe for public discussion, and action.

"With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation's largest treatment centers in 2011."

This is morally wrong!

P.S. Photograph from Washington Post article about Mister Rogers' quote and photo gone viral