Social Networking Revisited

‘Morning Sunshine!

I started out this drop-dead gorgeous morning, too fast and too hard. And I knew it. I had jettisoned some weight from my pack in favor of adding a few more miles to the trek. In the process, and in my rush to clear my head, I could hear all sorts of things banging and clanging as I humped up the first big hill. Midway I was huffing and puffing. When I reached the top I was nearly apoplectic. Whoa, partner. This is not why we go into the woods.
I stopped at the first friendly log. Time to rearrange things, including my head. I had taken a look at Face Book this morning and could not believe the comments of a camo-clad racist posted there. The issue was President Obama’s visit to an elementary school. Why was this even an issue? I read through other opinions in the poll. I could not believe people were so upset because Mr. Obama feels it important that children take responsibility for their own education and other critical issues. One person opined that Mr. Obama’s visit, to take his message to the children of this country, was unpatriotic!
Oh, my. My good friend, Dr. Pat Coy who directs the Center for Applied Conflict Management (http://www.kent.edu/cacm/, "Contesting Patriotism: Culture, Power and Strategy in the Peace Movement," Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008, with Lynne M. Woehrle and Gregory M. Maney), has noted that patriotism is not just about guns, flag-waving and sticking yellow magnets on the ass-end of a gas guzzler. It’s about your relationship with your community. It’s about helping at the soup kitchen or taking a turn on the phones at the battered women’s shelter.
The first distraction that helped put me on the road to recovery came from four Dark-eyed Juncos. These birds were out of place and out of time for early September. They worked their way past me, chattering and discussing some issue of import—to them.
I shrugged into my near-30-pound pack. As I was fine tuning the fit, a House Wren popped up on the log where I had been sitting. He looked me over, rightly assumed I was not a threat, then began to chatter and chortle as only wrens can. Had this been spring I would have assumed he was warning me off his territory. But this is late summer and he’s probably heading south. So what was he vexed about? I took a few photos since he seemed to want to pose. That wasn’t it. He hopped back and forth with a sense of urgency; an important message for the big guy with the fuzzy face.
I listened closely to what he, and the voices in my head, were saying. I asked a few questions. Here is what the wren was telling me, I think: Anyone who wears his war wounds like a crown should not be followed. They are not leaders. Their defining moment is about them and death they have wrought. You cannot reason anything out of people when their opinions were not reasoned in. We can only hope they will die a natural death and their space on Planet Earth be occupied by children who do listen to the message of Barack Obama.


Listen to the wisdom of the wren