Today a few friends gathered together to make SoulCollage® cards and I produced three, but this first one is the one I want to share on this Memorial Day. I am fortunate that the library I volunteer at lets me go through books that don't sell over time and will be recycled. I get some very good images from there. The background for this card came from an old book about the Vietnam Memorial which I did see in 1989. It was a very moving experience. This is what I wrote today about this card:
I am the one who was young when the Vietnam war was going on--and I was vehemntly opposed to it. I even marched in a protest once with son Tony who was in a stroller. All of us who were opposed felt so angry and helpless; the newspapers and the television news gave the daily body count. I had long been an admirer of the work of the Benedictine monk Thomas Merton who was very opposed to the war. He went to an ecumenical conference in Thailand in 1968 and was electrocuted accidentally by a fan that fell on him. I am the one who later wrote her M.A. thesis on Merton and there were those who felt that Merton had been killed by "someone" because of his anti-war activism. I am the one who would later see Ron Kovic writing in the coffee houses in Hermosa Beach; he was the author of Born on the 4th of July. When I moved to Redondo Beach in 1988, I was utterly surprised to see Ron in his wheelchair cruising through the neighborhood. He would stop to talk and I've heard he occasionally still speaks at anti-war rallies. I haven't seen him for a long time, however. I hope he'ss OK. He lives only six blocks from me.
So, here I am smelling BBQ smoke from the party folks down at the beach on this holiday and feeling very grateful for those who have served our country. I am the one who is basically opposed to war, but still hold in reverence those men and women who were drafted or joined the military, and for those who have given their lives for our country.
