Debate Party afterthoughts...

Last night Dan and I went to the first Obama-McCain presidential debate at the home of a welcoming couple from Narragansett with a very large screen TV.

This is one of the things I love about Obama - the way his campaign uses the web to make it easy for people to connect and communicate. Democracy comes alive! We were about fifteen people, mostly strangers when the evening started, making connections, sharing insights, offering our heartfelt support to our amazing candidate, Barack Obama.

I think it's fascinating - how men and women see the debates in terms of winning or losing on the intellectual debate points themselves. Dan thought McCain won last night's debate on that basis. Not me. During the primaries, he thought Hillary won - again and again. Not me. The candidate who gets my vote is the one who can make me feel a future I want to live in, a diversity that is a joy to be a part of, a clean energy economy that will free us from oil and oil wars, the one who helps me come alive to my very own job - as Citizen Gail.

Yes we can!

I love the open-ended future this photo expresses - and this election represents.

Uneasy with Politics

I just deleted a previous blog post on Sarah Palin since I cannot confirm that the photo is authentic - a rifle-toting beauty wearing an American flag bikini. Some have suggested Palin's head could have been photo shopped onto the image of another woman's body. But the photo certainly made me uneasy.

Time to think on more positive aspects of life in America, life as a woman and grandmother, life as a spiritual being having a human experience on our dear planet Earth.

Somehow many of the political words and slogans flying through the air these days have nothing to do with the real potential that we have. Not that we should look to politics for spiritual nourishment, but we do look for truth, for hope, for respect.

Personally, I find that Obama has the qualities we most need as a nation at this critical time. But I am not waiting for November to see the change. I am going to see it everywhere, by using my spiritual vision now.

This means appreciating every sign of good in my life, and in your life too. Feeling that welling up of gladness at every recognition, no matter how fleeting, that there is a great and unseen power for good operating at every moment, on every level, of this earthly spiritual experience.

Having true thoughts changes me, and my thoughts in turn affect the world around me. It is an intimate process of give-and-take, signals received and offered, all in a day's living.

Gail 9/4/08