"The best gift you can ever give is the gift of self." Kathy Green

"The best gift you can ever give is the gift of self." Kathy Green

"Life is what happens when you are out trying to change the world." Monica Lovell

"Life is what happens when you are out trying to change the world."  Monica Lovell

***** EFLIUS Day 18 ND. "You inspire others to do more. We can always do more. I so love you, brother!" I replied: What deeply touching and encouraging.........

"You inspire others to do more. We can always do more. I so love you, brother!"  I replied: What deeply touching and encouraging words. So very kind. You move me. I do what I do simply because it is where the joy is, serving from the soul in solidarity our neediest sisters and brothers. But it's also the only place that hope is, for any of us to find peace and joy in each moment of the attempt, and collectively as a species in all creation. If I understand anything it is simply that every healthy successful bit of tissue, in any plant or non-human creature,  any and every organ,  any and every individual member of a species,  does this from the instant of its creation until the instant it expires, Devotion to the neediest among it. Except for cancer, the form of existence that we westerners have embraced long ago and is now in the final stages of killing everything, unless one by one we learn to turn in a different direction. This is the entirety of what Gandhi intended when he said, be the change you wish to see in the world. We have no other responsibilities than this. And in exercising this responsibility, Breath by breath, one by one, we become a hope for the future. Each moment that we do not, we contribute to the now all but certain Doom of the future. James 

***** James, you are on your true path. People who meet you can feel it." My reply: With all due respect I will respectfully disagree because......

" James, you are on your true path. People who meet you can feel it."  My reply: With all due respect I will respectfully disagree because I think this is a profoundly important point. I think they are responding because I have taken A path, a path with my whole life. There are many if not infinite ways I could have done.  I think what they are responding to is seeing someone choose a path and March it with everything they are and everything they have. I know, and I'm explicit with people, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't expect this to make any difference at all. All I know is it's the best shot I can see and I will not sit on the sidelines. This is the best way I can see to put my body in the way of the harm to the Future and to keep it there, so I will do this with every breath until I can see a better way. This is what I think they are responding to. This is what I think every one of us should be doing. This is where the joy is. If there is any hope this is where it is. Selma was not the right bridge, on the right day, in the right way. Selma was people saying I ain't going to sit on the sidelines anymore, I'm going to get in the way of the harm, I ain't going to sit down till it gets better. This is what people saw. This is what woke them up. I may be wrong. I'm certain this is correct.

To a kind soul that said, when I get tired I think of you, James, you inspire me. I replied: I'm glad......

To a kind soul that said, when I get tired I think of you, James, you inspire me.  I replied: I'm glad if I can be an inspiration because what I value in my life has come from being inspired by others. I remember one hunger strike in Washington DC when on my several mile walk to Capitol Hill on no calories for many weeks it was all I could do to put the next foot forward, and I would think of my brother the man Jesus, and his face would come to my imagination, and he would smile, and I would smile, and I would take the next step.

***** What I think Millions need to do differently is to realize that mindless greed is literally the weapon of mass destruction, the army of mass destruction, that is destroying everything decent on Earth. What millions should do......

What I think Millions need to do differently is to realize that mindless greed is literally the weapon of mass destruction, the army of mass destruction, that is destroying everything decent on Earth. What millions should do is stop hiding behind the skirts or trousers of their spouse, the diapers of their babies , and do what my father's generation did, go put their bodies in the way of the harm that is in the process of destroying the future of those who depend upon them. This is certainly not directed at anyone in particular, it is directed at everyone of us collectively.

When you find people suffering enough, that you love enough, you can do, you do attempt, pretty much anything.

When you find people suffering enough, that you love enough, you can do, you do attempt, pretty much anything.

EFLIUS: We're lost, the future is lost, I can't just sit and watch, not as long as I have breath. I'm exploring US for others that are the same.

EFLIUS: We're lost, the future is lost,  I can't just sit and watch,  not as long as I have breath.  I'm exploring US for others that are the same.

There have been some extremely significant exceptions, but a central story of my adulthood has been a pattern of extremely intense leadership actions in dire human circumstances, attended by at least a small Cadre of excited colleagues only........

There have been some extremely significant exceptions, but a central story of my adulthood has been a pattern of extremely intense leadership actions in dire human circumstances, attended by at least a small Cadre of excited colleagues  only to find that in the midst of battle there was just one person out on the field of battle actually taking the risks, paying the price, fighting, me,  alone,  colleagues safely and immovably, with all the excuses in the world, on the sidelines.

Soon I expect to be unfriending those who have shown through their inaction that they are not. Through our Mass delusions we......

Soon I expect to be unfriending those who have shown through their inaction that they are not. Through our Mass delusions we are killing ourselves and killing all decent future. None of us should enable that, none of us should support that, should we? Let's be honest.

As I spoke of the upcoming 3000 mile fishing Expedition the elderly man began crying. His soul got it. His soul was moved. Any hope for a habitable planet requires moving the soul.

As I spoke of the upcoming 3000 mile  fishing Expedition the elderly man began crying. His soul got it. His soul was moved. Any hope for a habitable planet requires moving the soul.

Throughout my entire adulthood I disallow myself the luxury of optimism, or pessimism. I demand of myself.....

Throughout my entire adulthood I disallow myself the luxury of optimism, or pessimism. I demand of myself to enable my mission with reality as close as I can get to it and that tends to be extremely harsh, so harsh that few have learned how to deal with it. Any role I've played as transformational Catalyst throughout my adulthood has entirely relied on this willingness to face and bear harsh realities that virtually no one else will. Reality will assert itself. The sooner I can find it and face it the more time I have to change it. I refuse to sacrifice that advantage. I'll continue to the pay the price of increased isolation to do so.

***** Little if anything has the power of the catalyst, miniscule entity massively transforms an infinitely larger whole. It pays the price of total isolation, never becoming part of the larger whole.

Little if anything has the power of the catalyst, miniscule entity massively transforms an infinitely larger whole. It pays the price of total isolation, never becoming part of the larger whole.

***** Your help needed: Exploring for Life in America, part one, South to Florida and back. Late August through late November. The free Palestine, wagers of loving, solar bike car and me..........

***** Your help needed: Exploring for Life in America, part one, South to Florida and back. Late August through late November. The free Palestine,  wagers of loving, solar bike car and me.

(There is much to do in the next several weeks before my departure so this rough crude correspondence will have to do.)

I think it likely that after my next cancer exam Sept 1 I'm Going In Search of Life. I don't share this lightly. Life is that of Amazement, Wonder,  awe. I find none of it in Washington DC. Virtually none.  Do you see it in DC?  Do you see it around you Where You Are? I find little to none of it among we advantaged anywhere where the gods of data, infotainment, Dogma, affiliation, fear, competition, Comfort, safety, wealth, greed, self-centeredness,  reasonableness, practicality, responsibility... displace them,  Wonder awe amazement, that uniquely  and always are the ever present features of the God, Creator. Wonder, awe, amazement, Inseparable from if not the same thing as the penultimate moral concept from Albert Schweitzer, reverence for life.

I don't know that those with the potential for, or the being of, Wonder and awe and amazement, exist elsewhere in the country ( Beyond most children below the age of two, and among all members of other lifeforms ) but I feel that the most important task on earth for me, for us all… all hope depends on, finding and or kindling these.

I think that if I can find them, encounter the potential, possibly Kindle that potential, it is through undertaking and undergoing and enduring trips like this. Time for part one.

Some of this happened on the 6 week 800 mile Journey last August September over to Ocean City Maryland, Virginia Beach, Durham North Carolina and back to DC. In rest stops, on country roads, at grocery stores, at fast food cheap food stops….

What about my ongoing work in Washington on policy, politics, Civic planning, working through churches,  activist on behalf of the homeless and or poor in this region?

Spirit is everything. It is not that groups I've been working with are bad or useless per se, but in this last decade and throughout my lifetime I find no spirit in these, not yet, anyway. Not since  dr. King  was assassinated  back in the sixties. Groups and organizations and activities like these are instead of spirit in charge. No magic comes from these. Magic happens, Revolution happens, in the spirit of Wonder and amazement and awe. In my prior quarter Century successful business life and in my life-long studies I find no exceptions.

Magic, the spirit of life as we've all but never seen it in our lifetimes, is all that will save us. A new ocean of it, a global infection of it.

I'm quite sure that in September and October I need to go on the first leg of a search, down to the southern tip of Florida in back on the byways and back roads, cities and campuses, churches, synagogues,  Mosques ...

What? Too risky. Too difficult for a 65 year old. Too dangerous. Too exhausting. To impractical. Stay in your nice safe apartment in DC and continue your work there uninterrupted… . All life on Earth, all goodness, all decency is in the final moments where Extinction can be avoided. The only hope is to start a fire of spirit, Humanity, decency starting with Wonder and amazement. I came to bring a fire, and oh how I wish it were raging. Jesus. Me too.

The theory that I'm operating under explicitly, is one that I have implicitly held Central for my entire adulthood, the need for, and the need from me to be,  catalytic change. My sense is that catalytic change is the most dramatic, transformative, powerful available in nature. A miniscule amount of an element is introduced into a system, the right type of element, and the right type of system and the entire Mass transforms almost instantaneously. This notion was Central to Leo Tolstoy’s ideas expressed in his book, the kingdom of God is within you, that was read by Young Gandhi in England that caused Gandhi to totally change the course of his life,  180 degrees. Tolstoy was that kind of catalyst for Gandhi, and Gandhi became that sort of catalyst for India and the world for a brief period in time.

That I am explicitly pursuing this strategy in no way is a statement that I think I'll succeed. Quite the opposite. Few people in history have succeeded at this although few have tried. But I pursue it of necessity and I think you should consider doing the same. Unless some small element, some minuscule elements, evolve and emerge quickly that cause a massive immediate catalytic Global transformation.... the game's over.  Understanding how Central this is is necessary to understanding when Gandhi says, Be the Change you wish to see in the world. Be the catalyst.

Your help is needed. There are currently no resources for lodging along the way,  and only partially for food, and I'll need about 3800 calories a day,  I pedal 100% of the time and I anticipate 6 to 8 hours per day of that. In the Six-week trip last August September of 800 miles there also was no money for lodging, and little for food. Walmart parking lot every night was my lodging. That again is my plan A, but it is pretty rough psychologically and physically to do every night with no brakes. Unsolicited donations along the way when Wonder awe and amazement were kindled and or encountered provided barely enough food.

Who do you know? What organizations be they church, mosque, synagogue, Civic organization, activist groups,  friends, family,  business,  Facebook,  other social networks,  schools... could you tap into that might want to provide a garage floor for a night, an or a brief shower, opportunity for laundry, a spot in the backyard for in a church synagogue or mosque corner... where I could go unconscious for a night, a day or two to recover…,  and or a meal?

I'll be honest, my expectations that anyone will help with this, take action based on this communiqué, are zero. Zero.  This is what my experience tells me. I'll proceed regardless. My ability to complete it, physical well-being, psychological well-being,  safety (storm season is by then upon us) will be far less if no one steps up this time.

I will do my part. I can't control whether others do theirs and my only business in that regard is to make the opportunity known,  and with this communiqué I am feeling that Duty.

Feel free to share this. My contact information is start underscore loving at yahoo.com, Facebook startloving1, 202-749-2158. I have zero time for idle questions or tire kicking. I only have time for those who find that they have a fire for this journey to take place, already know that they are going to help, and simply want to briefly explore the best way to do so.

So, what I am quite sure we can all count on as long as I last is that I'll be peddling about 60 miles a day south as far as I can get with the ability to return by mid to late November before the weather turns too bad. Unless some of you step up and through your networks come up with alternatives… each night I'll be in Walmart parking lot and each day consuming far too few calories. Oh, and I’ll stink to high heaven and be filthy. Or,  one of you, some of you, line up one, two, three... folks, organizations, institutions, friends, family... Along the way that when I am in their area would like to help. Would love to help. Needs to help. Has to help. Is on fire to help.

But if not,  not in Creator's eyes I won't be filthy,  bedraggled, weak.... And not in Creation’s eyes I won't be filthy. And not in the eyes of our sisters and brothers who are suffering or on the verge of being crushed by our Mass, cultural, pathological, suicidal, Ecocidal, and all but now irreversible inaction and cowardice and self-protection and selfishness and timidity, and indecisiveness, and prudence, and ‘responsibilities’, and denial, and delay, and procrastination and excuses....

Whether or not you help doesn't matter to me. I'm just being honest. This isn't about me. Whether or not you help is about the mission, it's energy, it's ability to continue, it's ability to persist, it's ability to survive, its potential to contribute. Its ability to discover and or kindle life.

There is not and may never be a route map. It will be an interactive process. Spirit number one, and if and when people step up with a place where I can throw down for the night in a garage or whatever then they and their location will become part of the planning process. They're very spiritual, very organic, very pragmatic. So if anyone says, hey, I'm south of DC in Florida or between comma if you're in my area you're welcome to a corner of the garage, then they become a pin on my map and stay on my radar screen.

If this plan holds September through November will get me to Florida and back. If there are Parts two, three, four... as I suspect there are then all of the states may be in the cards. Right now what's needed is people tapping their networks as creatively as possible for part 1.

James

***** After all these years I think I figured out how to offer a way that I don't waste people's time. For those who find a deep Envy for the quality of life of a Martin Luther King jr., a Gandhi, Malala, Jesus..., and yearn for such a quality of life for themselves and those who they love, I think I have ideas and example to offer. For those who do not feel such deep Envy for the quality of life of the likes of these I think I have nothing of value to share.

***** After all these years I think I figured out how to offer a way that I don't waste people's time. For those who find a deep Envy for the quality of life of a Martin Luther King jr., a Gandhi, Malala,  Jesus..., and yearn for such a quality of life for themselves and those who they love, I think I have ideas and example to offer. For those who do not feel such deep Envy for the quality of life of the likes of these I think I have nothing of value to share.

### To those of us confronted by our sisters and brothers in uniform: We have a 100x greater Duty incite, to encourage, to applaud any decent, to express appreciation for any humane, dignified behavior on their part, then we do to antiviolently place our selves in the way of any bad behavior. Morally, there........

### To those of us confronted by our sisters and brothers in uniform: We have a 100x greater Duty incite, to encourage, to applaud any decent,  to express appreciation for any humane,  dignified behavior on their part, then we do to antiviolently place our selves in the way of any bad behavior. Morally, there is nothing they can do that stops them being our beloved sister or brother actively in our soul, unless and until we become the violence,  ignorance and hatred that we purport to stand against. Strategically, anti violent struggle throughout history, as rigorously studied by Erica Chenoweth, does not succeed until the people in uniform come on to the side of the revolutionaries. For the sake of all creation now, think. Is our priority on throwing a righteous tantrum, or on maybe securing a slightly better future for everything?

### Yes, I am usually so scathing , so critical , so pessimistic about the future. Yes. But I think I am seeing a level of Citizen work that I certainly have not seen in fifty years or more. Millions.......

### Yes, I am usually so scathing , so critical , so pessimistic about the future. Yes. But I think I am seeing a level of Citizen work that I certainly have not seen in fifty years or more. Millions of citizens here and abroad turning attention away from selfish short-term pleasures to matters of Greater importance to the collective. This is important at least for themselves and for those around them. Joy is in the attempt to reduce the world's suffering. The individuals devoting more of their lives to this task become a demonstration of the path to those around them.

***** pic. Only an infinite torrent of loving balms will bring peace.

***** Eureka! The missing proof that justice is a necessary but entirely insufficient anti violent goal: throughout my life I have wanted Justice to be a sufficient goal. 15 years ago I was.........

*****  Eureka! The missing proof that justice is a necessary but entirely insufficient anti violent goal:

Throughout my life I have wanted Justice to be a sufficient goal. 15 years ago I was told by someone that didn't like me so much, an African American  female pastor in a prestigious completely White Main Line Philadelphia Church, ''James, you love Justice more than anyone I have ever met.'' ''No,'' I respectfully replied. ''Thank you, and I can't explain just why, I know what you're referring to in me, but that isn't it. I think what you're seeing is that I may love living beings, all of creation, more than anyone that you have ever met.'' I couldn't explain why better than that. I couldn't explain why to myself, but I knew it deep in my spirit.

Several years ago in an extremely deep study of the theological scholar Dominic Crossan on the historical Jesus I almost became persuaded he was correct, when he asserted, as later has also done Harvard African American Scholar Cornel West, that Justice is loving made publicly manifest. Subsequently I realized that that is sometimes true but not necessarily true. Think of those that wield Justice, True Justice out of hatred, out of blind self-righteousness, arrogance, evil. Think of Inspector Javert in Les Mis. 

But that was not sufficient proof that justice is an insufficient goal of the anti-violent warrior.

The proof, not the proof to you, the proof to me, just clicked into place as I pedaled this 200 lb ELFusion vehicle from the Washington Monument to my abode 3 miles away. In the 90-degree heat, dehydrated, mostly uphill and with a debilitating chest cold in its third day.

Several pieces clicked into place.

1. Gandhi said that physical force is a superior choice in the case where one's wife is being raped and the only way that the husband can stop the rape is with physical Force. Gandhi cited this example many times. What clicked into place is that he never said that physical Force was justified in protecting oneself, and he always behaved as though it absolutely was not. This may be an oversight but I think not. Why would that be?

2. Gandhi was not about his own life, ultimately he was not about the life or even the Dignity of the wife being raped, nor of the husband. He was about achieving an infinitely larger good, a prevailing Justice for All of humanity, indeed for all of creation. In being about winning that greater good it is necessary to tap into the ultimate power in the universe which he described as Soul Force, truth Force, the love of a mother for her child. He cited the love of a mother for her child as the ultimate power that he tried to tap into. He never said the love of a mother for justice. He never said the love of a mother for herself. Why? Because neither of them are as powerful a moral Force for the engagement of the mass of passive onlookers as the love of a mother for her child, which involves self-sacrifice.

3. That shows the third proof which you can prove to yourself I suspect. Ask yourself which moves you more, the mother protecting herself, or the mother sacrificing her life for her child? I did not ask if you were unmoved by the mother trying to protect herself. Of course you are, of course you should be as am I. But which moves you more? The Mother Out of Love sacrificing or risking her life for her child! The Ultimate Force in the universe that the anti-violent, loving, nonviolent Warrior devotes their very being to embodying for the joy of it, because they can't do otherwise, tapping into is that Force which can only be activated in the onlookers, you in the question I asked you a moment ago, can only be tapped into in the onlookers when they witness someone offering or giving their life for a cause Beyond and greater than themselves equivalent to a greater good for another or a greater good for others. The Selma Marchers were putting their body In Harm's Way for their children, for their race, for their brothers and sisters.  The Freedom Riders, Alice Paul and her sisters,  the tens of thousands of Egyptians in Tahrir square, Malala, the school children in Soweto. And finally, number

4.  The anti-violent Warrior  the loving Warrior,  cannot tap into the ultimate power within them self  for justice, neither Justice for everyone, or just just for their self.  We don't work that way. We're not built that way. It's a function of our DNA.  Justice is a motivating force. It is not as motivating a force  as the heart connected to the well-being of another(s)  and thereby being engaged to protect the life or the Dignity of the other.  'Man hath no greater love than to lay down his life for his brother.' The ultimate need, the ultimate motivating force, of the healthy human being is meaning,  the potentially great meaning to the life of another. The definitive work on this is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for meaning.  Whether one  got out of the death camp alive in Nazi Germany he observed was not a function of how healthy and strong the individual was coming in. It was a function of how desperately important  the inhabitant perceived it to be that they survive  so that they could get out to help someone else,  the wife,  or in the case of Frankel,  a much larger Community by publishing his psychological treatise.

The ultimate motivation that mother nature gave us was not  the desire for self-preservation, or for justice, even for justice  for the larger group.  It is to protect the very lives and dignity  of others.  Yes, she gave us the desire for justice, and the drsire to protect oneself. But if that's all she gave us, we essentially socially dependent species from the very beginning, then we would not have survived through the Millenia.  She gave us the ultimate motivation  of caring more about the group then about our own lives.  This is the only Force sufficient  to enable the anti violent Warrior  to go as far and as deep with as much courage and selflessness as an Alice Paul, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali,  and the others that we Revere have to go. This is a huge step for me.

In part I departed from the Democracy spring action a month ago because I sensed it was only about Justice. I do love justice, immensely, but I knew even then Justice is not enough. It's too little too late. Part of my long hesitation to get involved in support of what Bernie Sanders was doing was because although my soul realized that he was going for a much greater good for and all of creation , many most or near all of his followers were simply pursuing Justice and in large part Justice for themselves. I'm not opposed to that per se. I don't deny their right to do so. But I knew deep in my soul it was too little too late.

Now I have the proof I was looking for. The pursuit of justice as an end goal now is way too little way too late. These are the final nanosecond on the clock and they are ticking down.

### I would say that in my learning, experience, practice, observation, the true activist devotes their every breath to attempting to pay as much as possible of the price NOW, whatever price, including the ultimate price, for a better world... for others. I can think of.......

### I would say that in my learning, experience, practice, observation, the true activist devotes their every breath to attempting to pay as much as possible of the price NOW, whatever price, including the ultimate price, for a better world... for others. I can think of no exceptions. This is what they showed with their choices without hesitation. This is what they prepared and prepared and prepared and prepared... to do. Gandhi's words on the subject, 'I'm talking about the love of a mother for her child.' Anyone that is seriously interested in this topic that has not watched the PBS documentary, Freedom Riders, has really disabled themselves.