The Ruminations of Dean Leh

Since the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued its 2010 plan to capture 12,000 wild horses and burros, Kinship Circle followers have persistently urged the Obama Administration and U.S. Congress to intervene. Once free to roam in family herds, horses are corralled into pens to await adoptions. Too many horses with nowhere to go means some are sold to foreign kill floors -- a grisly end for these magnificent creatures. A RAY OF HOPE? In Defense of Animals (IDA) reports that Washington DC officials have ordered BLM to suspend a January roundup of 200 horses (until July 2010) in Utah's Confusion Mountains. BLM says it will gather public comments during this time. THEY'RE LISTENING! "Clearly, BLM's complete about-face...is directly related to massive public outcry," said Eric Kleiman, IDA's director of research. YOU are that public, and now more than ever, you must lobby for horses with vigilance. Rest assured that anti-horse interests such as ranching, big game hunting, mining, oil drilling and development are invested in horse removal.


Sign the Petition Here:
http://animalwelfare.change.org/blog/view/roundup_on_the_illegal_horse_roundup

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2009, S. 678, has been introduced and was approved by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 12-7 on December 17th, 2009. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), was first enacted in 1974 and provides federal funding to states that comply with a set of best practices aimed at avoiding the detention and incarceration of young people in juvenile and adult facilities.

It's a good law, and is needed now more than ever to end the over-incarceration of young people of color in the justice system and stop the inappropriate use of adult jails for warehousing children charged as adults.

If you believe that it is urgent to stop putting youth in adult jails and prisons, to end the over-incarceration of youth of color in the justice system, and instead to devote more resources to effective juvenile justice programs such as alternatives to detention and incarceration, contact the Senate now and urge them to move the bill on the Senate floor now!

Send the letter below (click on the link) to urge your Senators to move the JJDPA bill now to take positive steps to fix our juvenile justice system!

http://www.change.org/actions/view/tell_the_senate_pass_juvenile_justice_reform_now

No Hunger from Action Against Hunger USA on Vimeo.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18 is prohibited under international human rights law, yet some countries still execute juvenile offenders. Such executions are few compared to the total number of executions in the world. Their significance goes beyond their number and calls into question the commitment of the executing states to respect international law.

This viral shows the faces of Atefeh Rajabi, who was hanged in public in 2004 when she was 16, and the faces of Delara Derabi and Abbas Hosseini both child offenders currently on the death row.
© Amnesty International, 2007

A Manger. A place where a cow or goat places its mouth to eat food which has been on the ground and raked into a feeding bin at feeding time. Have you ever seen a cow eat? There is saliva dripping everywhere. Saliva dripping into the food. Into the manger. Where Jesus lay. It was here that Jesus was born. Lying in a manger. How did we move so far away from that gritty, grim reality and morph into the corporate, commercialized, organized, wealthy, empire-building, institutionalized, religion that we have become? Christmas is about God identifying and standing with the poor and the marginalized on every level of existence. Jesus continued this tradition throughout his entire life. He ate with sinners on the fringes of society. He spoke with women and associated with them in a social manner, although this was strictly forbidden. He befriended the Homeless. He WAS homeless. He lived with the Poor. Yes, the Poor. The Sick. The Marginalized. The Forgotten. The Cast-Aways. The Throw-Aways. He healed blindness with spit and mud mixed together. Very earthy stuff. Poor stuff. Stuff of the Earth. He did not set up shelters and charities to dispense his healing love toward them. He did not go home to his warm mansion or his church building. He became one of them. Completely. Very, very, messy stuff, indeed. He lived with them, ate with them, cried with them, bathed with them, dreamed with them, WAS one of them. To be a Christian is to be a follower of this man. Most of the world goes to bed hungry each night. Thirty thousand children died today of malnutrition and starvation. No, we cannot change the problems of the whole world, but we can change the life of one person who exists in our little part of the world. Maybe it's the person we pass on the street each day. Maybe it's the elderly person down the street with no one left to love them. Maybe it's the person who simply drives us nuts. That's the Great Mystery of Christmas, my fellow Christians. We are all on the journey of becoming who we are each meant to be. If we exclude anyone, then we are not following the Christ of Christmas. Yes, let us keep the real Christ in Christmas. The REAL Christ. The Christ who turns away no one. . . The Christ of the streets. The Christ of the poor and broken. The Christ of the manger surrounded by salivating cows and homeless people. Let us exclude no one at all. Let us reach out to the marginalized ones who live among us. May we walk in Beauty toward the Manger.

This past week, I went to my Facebook account and tried to look up an old teacher of mine from over twenty years ago. For some reason, she had been coming to my mind for the last couple of weeks in a profound way. This particular teacher had played a very positive and nurturing role in my life when I was a senior in high school. I could not find her name on Facebook, so I went to the website of the Sisters of Saint Joseph to see if I could contact someone who would be willing to give me her email address. I don't know why this matter seemed so urgent as I had unfortunately let more than twenty years slip by without ever trying to contact her. Now that I am in my mid-forties, I am perhaps just now beginning to truly appreciate those dedicated, special people who have come into my life and taught me, challenged me, shaped me, guided me, and helped to form me into the person I am still becoming. As I wandered through the SSJ website, I stumbled upon the most recent posting of all the sisters who had recently died. I clicked on the link. My jaw dropped. There she was. As soon as I saw her obituary photograph, my heart melted as I saw that beautiful face that had encouraged me so often twenty-seven years ago. I was too late in trying to find her. She had only died a few weeks before my search. I was reminded of that scene from "Somewhere In Time" when Christopher Reeve realized that the old woman was long dead when he finally discovered who she really was. I was surprised to find that there were tears streaming down my face as I realized that I had missed my opportunity to reconnect with her and to let her know how important she was to me. Over the past six months, many of my own former students from over the years have contacted me on Facebook and "befriended" me. It actually gives me great joy to be connected to them. Not only do they remind me of my own past and life journey, I can continue to be present to them if they choose to invite me into their lives. There is such an awesome power to being a teacher. Being a teacher is not a job. Being a teacher is a vocation, a presence, a calling, a way of being in relationship with the world. I keep a Book of Names. Every student I have taught over the past twenty years is listed in that book. Most I remember. Some, I do not, but their names are there, and that makes them present. I only hope that I can be half the teacher to my students that Sister Marie Brigid always was to me. I do believe that I shall see her again someday after I have made the journey myself. I am actually wondering if it was Marie Brigid herself who actually "prompted" me to think of her and to begin my search for her just weeks after she had actually died. Who knows? She is a part of who I am and the person that I have chosen to become. Perhaps, someday, there will be students out there who will remember me with the same sense of fondness and appreciation. "A teacher affects eternity" (Henry Brooks Adams). "Teaching is leaving a vestige of one self in the development of another; surely the student is a bank where you can deposit your most precious treasures" (Eugene P. Bertin). Sister Marie Brigid, I love you and I will not forget you. Thank you for everything. May you walk in Beauty.