Video and Book: John Lewis

My bestest friend, M. Yvonne Taylor the writer, shared the following video with me today-
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11903430. I really connected with the video bc it speaks to the power of spoken words to heal. I believe you should say what needs to be said regardless of how uncomfortable it may make you feel or the length it takes you to say it. In this video one man wronged another man and 28 years later he apologized for his horrible actions. Through two words- I'm sorry- both men were able to put some closure or acceptance to chapters in their lives. So, next time you see someone you value take a minute and say, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know I appreciate you." It may be uncomfortable but words like those really touch the receiver and help to bring purpose and value to their lives.



* For more about John Lewis read his memoir Walking with the Wind. Here's a link
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11903430
Other books on freedom riders and the civil rights movement
Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch
http://www.amazon.com/Parting-Waters-America-Years-1954-63/dp/0671687425/ref=pd_sim_b_2
The Children by David Halberstam
http://www.amazon.com/Children-David-Halberstam/dp/0449004392/ref=pd_sim_b_7

**Read more on the issues U.S. Congressman John Lewis supports
http://johnlewis.house.gov/

***Those parts of history that are the ugliest and most disturbing are the most important moments to educate yourselves about because those are the moments in history we don't want to repeat.

****Have you touched base with your Congressperson lately? Click http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/and find out who represents you and you can even send them a message by clicking their name. (Note: if you live in a metro area you may need the four digits that go after your zip code. You can easily get that by looking up your address on http://www.mapquest.com/ bc when it pulls up the map it will have your complete zip.) Also after you click congress.org and have entered your zip and you see your reps look on the right hand side and you can sign up for Vote Monitor: Get Your Representatives' Votes sent to you by email weekly. How cool is that? If you don't like something you see you can use that same link above click the reps name and fire off a message or you could email the issue to all our your friends and start a riot! See it doesn't take a lot to be involved you can be like me and be an armchair crusader, lol. It's interesting to see what issues your reps are supporting or not supporting for that matter. You might be surprised.

*****Funny for the day: When life kicks me it kicks me so hard I have to laugh ... Tomorrow the appliance repairman is coming to fix my fridge (which isn't cooling bc the freezer is freezing over), the yard man is coming to do my yard (and possibly fix my fence since part of it fell down that is if he does that sort of thing), the phone man is coming to put in a phone jack (my guest room doesn't have a jack, what's up with that?!?) and the cable man is coming to install cable allegedly, lol ( he was a no-show last weekend) ... so see I am lucky to have enough change in my pocket to pay for these things and all of them are not life threatening,lol.