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The whole thing is very much worth reading and here are some excerpts.
Thanks, Lane deMoll for sharing.

Believe in LOVE

Barbara McLaughlin
Nehalem

In 2019, Marianne Williamson stood on a Democratic debate stage and said something that should have stopped the country cold. Speaking to Donald Trump, she said, “You have harnessed fear for political purposes, and only love can cast that out… I’m going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win.”

Much of the political-media world laughed.

Cable news smirked. The internet memed. The caricature hardened: orb lady, crystal lady, woo-woo, not serious. The moment became a joke before it could become a question.

But years later, after watching her campaigns, listening to her speak, reading her political books, and seeing how people reacted to her, another possibility becomes harder to ignore:

Maybe Marianne Williamson’s campaigns were not merely failed campaigns.

Maybe they were diagnostic events.
Maybe they revealed something America badly needed to see about itself.

Because the strangest thing about Williamson’s presence in American politics was never that she talked about love. It was how aggressively the political-media system needed to make that love look ridiculous.

The accusation was always some version of the same thing:

She was unserious.

But if you actually read Healing the Soul of America and A Politics of Love, the accusation collapses. These are not vague books. They are not clouds of pleasant spiritual sentiment floating above the real world. They are books about war, poverty, children, trauma, racism, reparations, corporate power, immigration, greed, civic responsibility, moral repair, and the unfinished promise of American democracy.

Real seriousness is not the ability to sound hardened, cynical, or institutionally approved. Real seriousness is the willingness to face what is actually happening and ask what truth, love, and responsibility require.

So the question is not simply: why did people dismiss Marianne Williamson?

The deeper question is:

What kind of society hears a call for atonement, peace-building, child protection, racial repair, economic justice, immigrant dignity, and love as public power — and calls it unserious?

That is where the mirror begins.

The great mistake is thinking love was the soft part of Marianne Williamson’s politics.

It was the hard part.

Love is easy when it means being pleasant to people who already agree with you. It is much harder when it means telling the truth about slavery, genocide, racism, war, poverty, addiction, greed, and democratic failure.

It is harder when it means reparations. Harder when it means forgiving without denying harm. Harder when it means protecting children who are not yours. Harder when it means welcoming the stranger you were taught to fear. Harder when it means telling a nation that its economy is morally disordered. Harder when it means asking citizens to stop spectating and participate. Harder when it means saying peace must be built as seriously as war. Harder when it means giving up contempt. Harder when it means admitting the system is not merely broken, but breaking people.

In Williamson’s framework, love does not mean politeness. It does not mean conflict avoidance. It does not mean pretending injustice does not exist.

Love means telling the truth. Love means repairing harm. Love means protecting children. Love means feeding people. Love means facing history. Love means refusing to scapegoat immigrants. Love means building peace instead of merely funding war. Love means recognizing that democracy is not just a system of rights, but a sacred field of responsibility.

Love, in Williamson’s politics, is not the opposite of seriousness.

Love is what seriousness looks like when it remembers life.

But America has been trained to hear the word differently. In a culture ruled by money, love sounds naïve. In a politics ruled by fear, love sounds weak. In a media system ruled by spectacle, love sounds boring. In a nation addicted to conflict, love sounds like withdrawal.

And that may be the point.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING,
Barbara

We again ask for your help to strengthen food security in our area. Seniors, families, and children in our community are going hungry.

Food bank and SNAP assistance have been reduced, and some programs have been cut altogether. We ask for your continued support in strengthening food security.

Cash is the most effective way to help, though food donations also make a real difference. Local organizations such as the North County Food Bank in Wheeler, Nehalem Bay Community Services, and Meals for Seniors in Rockaway Beach can often buy food at a discount and stretch each dollar further.

The North County Food Bank is open Tuesdays, with food donations accepted from noon to 2:00 PM. It is located at 230 Rowe Street, on the hill at the former Nehalem Bay Health Center site. Donations may also be mailed to NCFB, PO Box 162, Wheeler, Oregon 97147. The food bank currently serves more than fifty families each week.

The Nehalem Bay Community Services is operated out of the Methodist Church in Nehalem and is open Monday, Friday, and Saturday from 10-2 and Wednesday from 1-5. This location also has a clothing bank where you can leave clean, gently used clothing for all ages. Mailing address is NBCS, PO Box 232, Nehalem, Oregon 97131.

Meals for Seniors operates out of the dining hall at St. Mary by the Sea Church in Rockaway Beach. They serve and deliver meals every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Meals for Seniors mailing address is Meals for Seniors, PO Box 852, Rockaway Beach, Oregon 97136.

If you are part of a group, church, or other organization that meets regularly, please consider holding a collection for one of these 501(c)(3) nonprofits. If you cannot donate during open hours, call me and I will help get your donation to the organization you choose. Patty: 503-368-6081 (message phone).

Please help support our neighbors during this challenging time.

Thank you so very much for helping others.
Patty Rinehart

This year when I came down Laneda towards the Hoffman Center I was shocked to see a large Gay Pride flag flying beneath the weathered and smaller Stars and Stripes.

I have good friends, clients, and relatives who are gay, and others who have switched sides. It might not be my “cup of tea”, but everyone these days has their right to choose as they please. I certainly respect that. To blatantly display a brighter, larger flag of any kind under our flag disregards its patriotic meaning, let alone national flag etiquette. The Hoffman Center is a community family center for the arts and as such should be gender neutral. My feeling is that displaying that flag in any form there is wrong. To display it there larger and brighter is unpatriotic and disrespectful.

Tom McCallum

www.manzanitatoday.com/