Come on into our kitchen and have breakfast or brunch with us! We’re all donating a little bread – the cost of a coffee and doughnut – to save a member’s home!
Thanks to Victory Coffee for this great pic!
Our fundraising deadline is before the end of February 2008. Just since Thursday evening, Progressives have already raised $440 – Yay!!!
Richard Farina and Mimi Baez, PACK UP YOUR SORROWS
A Parable of Heaven and Hell
There once was a devoted priest who wished to see both heaven and hell, and God gave way to his pleading.
The priest found himself before a door which bore no name. He trembled as he saw it open before him into a large room where all was prepared for a feast. There was a table, and at its centre a great dish of steaming food. The smell and the aroma inflamed the appetite.
Diners sat around the table with great spoons in their hands, yet they were shrieking with hunger in that terrible place. They tried to feed themselves, and gave up, cursing God, for the spoons that God had provided were so long that they could not reach their faces and get the food to their tongues. So they starved, while their dish of plenty lay amongst them. The priest knew their screams were the cries of hell, and as this understanding came, the door closed before him.
He shut his eyes in prayer and begged God to take him away from that terrible place. When he opened them again, he despaired, for the same door stood before him, the door that bore no name. Again it opened, and it gave onto the same room. Nothing had changed, and he was about to cry in horror. There was the table, and at its centre the steaming dish, and around it were the same people, and in their hands the same spoons.
Yet the shrieking had gone, and the cries and the curses had changed to blessings; and nothing had changed, yet everything. For with the same long spoons they reached to each other’s mouths and fed one another, and they gave thanks to God.
And as the priest heard the blessings, the door closed. He fell to his knees, and he too blessed God who had shown him the nature of heaven and hell, and the chasm – a hair’s breadth wide – that divides them.
Author unknown
On Thursday last, members here responded to Diane W’s diary:
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
I think the goal is $2k before the end of the month. Below, Davidseth wisely suggests we go higher than that – perhaps $3k?
Some sent donations, and others have promised further help.
Please donate at Diane’s website here:
http://wildwildleft.blogspot.c…
After the PBWH initiative, we know we can do this.
And probably we can do much, much more.
We (DD – OTB) could set up a ChipIn account for this.
What are your ideas? What would you like to do?
And, Diane, please check in and tell us how we are doing.
Please crosspost – let other bloggers know about this initiative. THANK YOU.
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a little donation ($10, $20) can go a long way. Sure there are folks who could write the entire $2000 and not sweat it, but in many ways it is much more fun to fund $2000 in little bits. That way the donors hardly feel it, but they know they helped out.
The key thing in this is to keep us posted on how much has been received so that if we have to come back and do it again in small amounts we can.
“From each according to his/her abilities, to each according to his/her needs.” Who was the bearded guy who said that?
a link so I can send a donation?
one big, huge piece of land and commune together?????
It would be so much more simple….we’d all use less electricity to supply the damn computers we communicate with!
I think it will happen.
Love your graphics, and the pootie. 🙂
that as long as our ad slots are free we could put up a NOLA Ad and include links to NENA and other orgs too.
Tigana, could we use your tabasco graphic you showed us last night? It would need to be formatted to fit in a 150×200 space and 16K or less. Is that possible? That blue bowl with the eyes is pretty cool too. I could easily resize that to fit.
all day. I’m behind on getting moving so will donate tonight and perhaps when my family goes to NOLA to help, the person we can labor for is Diane W. My husband would love it having someone line up honeydo’s for him.
I just woke to this and I am speechless.
I had to work yesterday, housecleaning & such for a client, and then took some time away from the blogs and the thinking about it all, after two days of emotional hell.
Lemme get the kidlet off to school & I will come back with more to say, although I have no idea how to even begin to express my awe and gratitude for the amount of love and heart you’all have shown me here.
Where I am at?
Less shell-shocked now, trying to deal.
You all (mlw included) have raised around $340.00 for us, bless your hearts! I am overwhelmed, still by all your love and support. It is not what I expected.
In fact, I originally wrote my essay only to put on my blog, but when I finished, it was the first thing I have written in a couple months that I felt was remotely good, you know? I guess my vanity overtook my fear of public bleeding, my fear that it would be taken as begging, because looking at how bad other people have it resonated for me, and I just couldn’t NOT share it, hoping it would make everyone else appreciate what they have, like it did for me.
My husband is working on trying to borrow the rest, for a few weeks from a couple people he knows… we need about 2,000 in less than 2 weeks.
OY.
My son turns 9 the 24th too, and is wheedling for a party at one of those kiddie indoor quarter-sucking arcades that have become the guilt/bane of parents everywhere, too.
he doesn’t “get” (nor do I want him to) that we live in an area where people are either really wealthy or really not; and which one we are.
I think I am going to let him have a sleep-over instead.
God, I am rambling….
Today, I have to go to another “sometimes” clients house.. (he is unreliable on any regular basis) to get all his silver (a shitload) and polish it over the weekend for some big brouhaha he is holding next week. I don’t mind doing it at all, polishing silver, though hard on the hands, somehow feeds some o/c thing in me. You take something ugly and make it beautiful in moments, and his things are so damned pretty. It also lasts longer than, you know, cleaning his bathroom. Maybe I am just distracted by shiny things, LOL!!! But he pays me pretty well, too.
That should be good for grocery money & dogfood! Bonus, couldn’t have come at a better time.
Thank you all so much for this.
Again, words cannot express.
It does seem like you’re feeling a little stronger.
I have good feelings that everything’s going to be O.K. very soon — have my fingers crossed.
Courage!
P.S. As Alma says, I, too, think a sleepover for your son should be a lotta’ fun and little expense.
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and look forward to Diane’s next report on how it is going!
A widget that shows the total so we can know how far we’ve come and how far to go. I think the goal should be $3,000 so we don’t cut it too close; $2,000 + interest and penalties and the like is really $3,000.
I don’t want to bother Diane, but could be know whether we’re still t around $350 or whether it’s more?
…you are the coolest…and, i really love the artwork…is it just me, or when one scrolls past the chop-stick one, they seem to move off the screen, sort of…
no, i am not on acid; some say i am crazy, however. does anyone else see this optical illusion?