Yes, I admit, NCIS is my favorite TV show to date. Quite often this Navy based television series tackles real world military topics. Indeed, “Shooter” takes a look into the troubling subject of homeless veterans.
Hardly the poster boys and girls for public perception of what it means to be homeless in America, this episode strives to break the stereotypes of homelessness and joblessness. And while examples given in this article are pulled from the television show, there are countless stories of real vets in real situations clamoring to be heard.
This NCIS episode gives voice to the problem in a way that is easily assimilated into the mindset of our mainstream population; offering entertainment with thought provoking moments written within the scripted dialogue. Continue reading
Category: Social Commentary (Page 9 of 9)
On the wall overlooking the sewing table in a far corner of my studio hangs my latest cut & paste collage.
These collages come and go. Serving as conduits of expression, they bring to light brewing intangibles. Those yearnings, thoughts, and insights within the inner self find their way and ‘voice’ through spontaneously selected images and words gathered from a myriad of sources.
This one emerged late in the year 2014, after more than five years of silence.
The lower left corner of the poster board backing reveals a magnificent tiger walking amidst snowy territory. His eyes speak – Survival, Determination; his body encompasses – Beauty, Dignity. The text reads – Be the voice for those who have no voice.
While this visual encompasses the overall view of this newly launched blog category regardless of actual topic, I can’t help but put a human face to that tiger. Walking amidst cold and snowy circumstances, I see human eyes speaking the same message; a human body reflecting unexpected grace while journeying a similar path.
When confronted with a potentially volatile subject matter, I tend to err on the side of documenting sources to support my findings. Unfortunately, that often kills the very (he)art and passionate force behind one’s need to Be the voice when done to the extreme. In that respect, the debut of this ‘ongoing series’ reflects my own attempts at balanced writing. Admittedly, the first subjects I have slated for exploration I find difficult to keep an objective tone. Yet that splash of subjectivity or personal investment is the very life blood of why I’ve been trying so hard to put this long promised ‘serious series’ together in the first place.
My sincere hope is that each Giving Voice post will be thoughtfully considered by the readers of this blog. Giving Voice in no way assumes to be an exhaustive reporting of issues. Balancing experience and exposé, feeling and facts, I am but one voice, with a very small reach.
As always, I welcome any genuine comments you may have to share, either in the comments area below, in an e-mail via the contact button or message via personal e-mail.
Agreement is not the goal; engagement/awareness is…one voice at a time.
One of the fun things about doing NaNoWriMo (besides being a month devoted to writing and a great excuse to down gallons of coffee) is all the geeky stuff that’s available for use during the event. There are word count widgets (yep, got that!), banners and badge buttons (done those, too) to install on one’s website/blog. On-site, there’s even push-button access to upload images for use as one’s novel cover (pretty cool, but haven’t done that yet; maybe this year) … just to name a few techie toys.
Then there’s the personalization of one’s NaNo presence. Along with the usual profile set up, there are numerous ways one can do this. Over these three years of participating in this creative endeavor, I’ve pretty much kept my moniker (desertmountain) and gravatar (a photo of me and Leggy Lady on the compound, sized-down real teeny tiny) the same. Mostly just to maintain a sense of continuity within and between each year’s NaNoWriMo.
However, each year’s signature quote has been different.
Interestingly, they reveal something about that year’s novel/project while not specifically chosen as such…a sort of foreshadowing of whatever wanted to be written/worked on during that year’s NaNo.
For NaNo 2012 I pulled a favorite quote from a snippet of Carl Sandburg’s poem, Lesson. 
“Come clean with a child heart. Laugh as peaches in the summer wind. Let rain on a house roof be a song. Let the writing on your face be a smell of apple orchards in late June.” – Carl Sandburg
Little did I realize my novel for that premier year would revolve around the lessons and seasons of life within The Peach Orchard Project or My Life as a Peach.
My second NaNoWriMo, I found a quote revealing the effectiveness of fiction as a form of literary social commentary from a favorite author.
“A book, too, can be a star, ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,’ a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” – Madeleine L’Engle
I plunged deep into the realm of my characters. They cried out for justice in an unjust world while I grieved the passing of the ugliest and hardest of my street people characters who died a hero, defending The Woman Who Didn’t Belong.
This year’s signature quote jumped out at me while reading, When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams. It gives me hope that the creation of (he)art as truth is an important endeavor; one which compels me to soldier-on in doing.
“To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others openly and honestly is also power.” – Terry Tempest Williams
Me & Leggy Lady on the compound ~November 2010
Honesty is an undeniable foil, it flashes whether bidden or not. In order to be true to myself, I have to speak. I must share my words, my music, my (he)art, my Musical Non-Fiction, regardless of whether or not it is seen, heard or read.
Peace, love and happiness don’t just happen.
These qualities arise from a life of intent, purpose and passion.
Passion leaves scars. Scars are not bad. Scars are proof.
Imagine the scars of love on the risen Christ while walking the road beside Thomas.
“Reach here your finger, and see My hands; reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.”*
Proof that it is He.
Passion leaves a legacy.
Consider the statues of Easter Island. 
Long thought to be created using slave labor, researchers now believe the Moai were fashioned as part of a community ‘Passion Project.’ Many generations hauling and carving stone, raising the giant heads all to honor those who had gone on before them. Passion to make those they loved ‘known’ beyond their short time on earth.
Peace, love and happiness don’t just happen.
Passion is not without its costs.
Passion leaves scars. Scars are not bad. Scars are proof.
*John 20:27
Credits: Photographer Peter Steele’s latest body of work, Passion Scars Peace, Love and Happiness documents the carving in aspen trees from Steamboat Springs to Telluride, Colorado. Steele has identified four groups of people who carve in the aspen trees: sheep herders, elk hunters, the casual car camper, and homesteaders.Steele’s image of the oldest carving in the collection, dated 1922, was taken in an old growth aspen grove outside Telluride, CO. While Steele does not condone the act of aspen graffiti, and does not carve in trees, he enjoys searching and documenting these sacred messages that people have passionately expressed on the smooth canvas of the bark of the aspen tree. Peter Steele’s collection consists of 2000 tattooed aspen photographs recorded while hiking hundreds of miles of trails throughout Colorado.
‘Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever.’
Brennan Manning
4/27/1934 – 4/12/2013
Triage by Lisel Mueller
from: Alive Together (new and selected poems)
“Bertolt Brecht lamented that he lived in an age when it was almost a crime to talk about trees, because that meant being silent about so much evil. Walking past a stand of tall, still healthy elms along Chicago’s lakefront, I think of what Brecht said. I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. 
But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another. When I talk about myself, I cannot talk about you. You know this as you listen to me, disappointment settling in your face.”