I woke up this morning after a great night of sleep and I was so excited to see that a light snow is falling here in Potomac, Maryland, where my family and I have been living for the past 9 and one half years.
As I was wrestling with how to start my day, so I choose to make a personal commitment to write a daily personal blog on my perspectives and experience the birth of the Justice Movement. Let me quickly share how this all started on Thursday December 9, 2010.
Sometime in late November 2010, I was informed that the students at George Washington University, Center for Global Health, had selected me to receive the 2010 Global Health and Development Achievement Award. I was really honored to be acknowledged by the next generation of leaders. Here is a link to the announcement.
On Thursday morning December 9, 2010, I asked the Director of Strategic Communications at the Global Peace Action Network (GPAN), where I serve as the President and Executive Director, if he would help me draft a speech for the award ceremony that night. I had back to back meetings, so I asked him to provide a draft and I would start working on it at 4:00 pm. I then rapidly downloaded what I wanted to say! I was excited about giving this keynote address because I feel it is important for me to share my experiences and inspire others. Also, I realized the venue allowed me to openly and honestly share my vision and ideas for the future, without fear! -- and I always like to demonstrate doing "waging justice" in real-time. I reviewed several drafts and added ideas throughout the day. On the way to event, my Mom, my middle son, and I stopped for a snack. I read them the speech, as I always like to do at least one out-loud practice. They made some great suggestions and then I had my final version. In front of about 100 student, faculty and a few members of my family, I gave a keynote address entitled: "Introducing an Era of Justice: How to Take Back America and Usher in a New Political Age":
1st Request: Please share this link on Huff post with other friends and colleagues in your communities and networks!
On Friday, December 10, 2010, I woke up inspired as I felt like I was becoming happily unreasonable in waging justice. I felt good about that because this day marked the 60th commemoration of International Human Rights Day in recognition of the signing of the International Declaration of Human Rights in the aftermath of WWII. Here's a link (pdf) to the Declaration:
I spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday talking with dozens of friends and colleagues in the USA and around the World about the possibilities of Justice Movement and the March for Justice. My team at GPAN miraculously put up a website on Friday after only 6 hours of work. I was moved to utter silence as I had not imagined this happening so fast! This was a miracle to experience.
2nd Request: Please check out the new website: www.justicemovementnow.net
3rd Request: If you are planning to join the March for Justice in Washington, D.C., please register on the website, so we can start getting a sense of how big the will be. When people ask me how big I want it to be, I respond by saying, "How big, great, and successful can WE make it be?"
Now, I want to share with you some of the major miracles that are occurring in support of the Justice Movement and the March for Justice after just 3 days:
- A colleague is reaching out to a network of US-based colleges and universities to see students want to join the Justice Movement.
The greatness and potential impact of the Justice Movement depends on what people choose to do!
As I've gone through these past few days (and my whole life), I have realized that sometimes I'm very, very reasonable and sometimes I'm unreasonable. When I'm unreasonable, I feel happier, freer, emboldened and I'm living more as my true self. When I'm reasonable, I usually feel frustrated, cynical, resigned, and hopeless. From my perspective, every human being chooses whether to be unreasonable or reasonable ... and this is a moment to moment phenomena. Here are some of the traits that I have learned from myself and others over the past week on what they feel when they are unreasonable and reasonable as we are grappling with Being Unreasonable for Justice and Overcoming Hurdles of Disbelief:
UNREASONABLE
Acting with Zeal; Action-only mode; Artists; Assertive; Bold; Calm; Champion of possibility; Charismatic; Child-like requests; Commitment; Confidant; Courageous; Creators; Creating possibility; Deep appreciation; Doers; Drum major for justice; Dynamism; Energetic; Enrolling; Faith; Fearless; Fierce; Forward; Grateful; Hopeless romantic; Idealistic; Listening; Love for human beings; Motivating; NOW energy!; Optimistic; Peaceful; Perceptive of where others are at; Persistent optimism; Playing for the dream; Purpose; Relentless; Requests in context of other; Scary; Seeing others as their highest self; Single-minded; Stand for the other; Stand for what isn't now; Stand for possibility of requests made of me; Taking a stand; Thinking outside of you; Unstoppable; Urgency of NOW!; Vision.
REASONABLE
Already busy; Critical; Concerned; Doesn't matter; Don't want to; Don't want to impose on others; Family obligations; Friends obligations; Going out of town; Holidays; I don't belong; I don't have integrity; I don't matter; I may fail; I need to be careful; I'm afraid it will work; I'm afraid this is foolish; I'm busy; I'm just a drop in the ocean; I'm not good enough; I'm not ready; I'm not qualified; I'm over committed; I'm overwhelmed; I'm tired; I'm too passionate about making change; I've done enough; I've got my own stuff; Insufficient response; It may fail; It's just a drop in the ocean; It's not possible; It's too complicated; It won't work; No one cares; Not enough time; Not ready; People don't want me to bother them; Resistors; Some one taking the glory; Something stopping me; They don't accept me; They shot JFK, RFK, MLK; Too dangerous; Too difficult;Too much going on; Too much resistance; Traveling for the holidays; Trying to help out; Waiting for the inspiration to come back; What will they think of me?; Why bother?; Will try to help out; Worried
4th request: Be unreasonable in ways that work for you to support the Justice Movement and the March for Justice on Monday, January 17, 2010.
I'm off to New York City for the next two days, and I'm hoping for more miracles today!
In peace and solidarity for bold action now!
Paul S. Zeitz