There is a lot going on in the world. My sister Amy is not healing well after her surgery.  Her pain is terrible and she keeps getting headaches. I am taking her an hour away (the other side of Cleveland) for another appointment with the surgeon. She insisted, because I insisted. I am doing ok from my procedure. One of my sons in law was in Oklahoma City and last night an earthquake knocked him from the bed to the floor.

The world is a mess in many ways. Racism, bigotry, intolerance, meanness, unkindness. I am stopping here because there are pockets of love and caring all over the world. There are places where people try to understand and accept each other. I believe that blogging is a wonderful way to expose yourself to new people and new ways of thinking. In America, we are being sorted. Many Americans live with people who look like them. They work with people who think like them. They spend leisure time with people who are like them. Without exposure to others we become insulated and all we experience reinforces what we see, hear and think. But we need to be open. We need to listen to people who look and sound different.

There are many people all over who want to control what we do and how we live and love. We can’t let it happen. Many things have been rewritten and are not true. People of different faiths are everywhere. There are misconceptions. Jesus was not a white man. He was Jewish. He lived in the Middle East. He never advocated war, he never turned his back on anyone who needed help. This Jewish man, who was raised Jewish, interacted with Arabs, Romans, Bedouins, Syrians, and Persians. He taught what he believed to everyone including the Jews.  Was he right or wrong? Was Mohammed, Buddha, Zoroaster,  Sufi mystics, Shiva, or any other cherished facets of Divinity right or wrong? We all have our beliefs and we should. What they have in common is love, forgiveness, respect for the sacred, and tolerance for all the Aspects of God/Goddess/Divine Energy.

I would ask each of you who read my blog to help make peace, tolerance, love, acceptance, understanding in your world. Your special place in our world. I would ask that for one day, everyone lives by these principles and see if you don’t feel renewed. Finally, I am sharing this video because no matter how bad life can appear, there are always pockets of such brilliant loving goodness that they outshine the deep darkness that seems to be everywhere. It isn’t. I repeat, it isn’t. It never will because whatever aspect of God/Goddess/Divine Energy you believe in it is stronger than the sadness and darkness in the world. Every prayer, of any kind helps, every act of kindness, every act of forgiveness, every moment of generosity shines so bright that it chases away the darkness. Namaste.

Angelic woman working for peace

Hello again, this is Barbara’s Sister, letting you know that the Rebel will be taking a brief hiatus while she recovers from injections in her back.

She is doing well after the procedure, but sitting up for extended periods of time is temporarily uncomfortable, so she will not be blogging today, and possibly for a couple of days after.

On the plus side, she’s already walking better and the medication made her so silly she giggled all the way home.  To be honest, so did I!

This will be happening again in 2 weeks and frankly, I can’t wait for her to have permanent relief, and to hear that silly giggle again.

I have been thinking about the events happening in our world. If you focus on all of the negative news, you could have an anxiety attack. There are a lot of negative things happening. The world does not know equality. There is no justice or fairness for many people in  many countries. Jews are being required to register again. We have done this before and not that long ago.  In World War II German-occupied Europe, six million Jews were killed after being forced to register with the government. So were Poles, Serbs, Croats and Gypsies. Now, women and children are being sold into human slavery. Many will be sold to provide sexual pleasure to rich immoral men. Some will be sold to sweat shops and forced to toil eighteen hours a day. Meanwhile, the Middle East is a never-ending nightmare.

People are angry. People hate others. People are greedy.  People want to kill entire races. People are not trusting and often it would be folly for them to be trusting. People are afraid of changes and differences. They forget that difference does not mean unsafe.

Tolerance grows with familiarity. Familiarity grows from knowledge. A lot of people don’t look the same or think the same but really do have quite a bit in common. Every person, male or female, young or old has a story. Learning people’s stories is what ends the fear, makes the other person seem more like you.  No matter who you are or what you have survived, there is always someone who has suffered more. There are people around who have faced as much pain as you have or more. Many people have been abused, or raped; people have been humiliated and bullied; and millions of people on our planet have been homeless at least once in their lifetimes.

Hunger is everywhere and it is a sadness that I don’t think people recover from easily. The face of a child who is slowly starving should bring compassion and action to our hearts and minds and not indifference or satisfaction. So a key to increasing tolerance is, I feel, listening to people’s stories. Really listening. Opening up our hearts and allowing yourself to feel some of what they may have felt. They may look different, but they are your sister or brother in the family of man.

One person is beaten, another ends up homeless, fire takes someone else’s home. Some people are mugged in Central Park and some are attacked in Syria. If we can learn to remember how much other’s stories parallel our own we become more tolerant. We begin to care about others. Not just the others who are like us but the others who are different. Different education, different religion, different skin, different ages, different countries split people apart but they shouldn’t. There is only one world for us all to live on, there is no one being who never suffers or never causes someone else pain without meaning to.

Before we start a third World War, or a virus surfaces that makes the Black Plague look benign, or  we wipe out an entire race of human beings, we need to stop and to learn to love one another. We need to accept one another and to live with Truth. The Truth being that we are all the same. We were created by Divine Energy. We are filled with the ability to live filled with Divine Love.  We just need to change ourselves. We need to accept our lives, accept the people around us and work with others to make the world a better place. Here is to everyone who believes in love, peace, and acceptance. We will all die if we don’t learn to do these things. My friends, my brothers and sisters, I love you, I accept you, I forgive your mistakes, I offer you support in the changes you want to make to yourself. I just ask for the same from each of you, and I wish the same for each of you.

Non-stop begonias and irises. Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

Purple velvet Irises. Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

          Rio rose. Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

Pink rose. Photographed and copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2014

My garden is flourishing. Photographed and copyright by Barbara Mattio 2014