Dick Bernard: The Women's March, en avant!*

In my post on inauguration day Jan. 20, I said we planned to go to the Women’s March in St. Paul last Saturday. I’m getting over a cold, and the day was drizzly, and common sense prevailed: we took one of my daughters and two granddaughters to a movie, Moana, whose heroes (heroines? sheroes?) are a little girl and her grandmother. The kids suggested it. It was a great use of time. Put it on your list of films to see.
You need to be a hermit in a remote cave somewhere to not know what happened on Saturday, not only in Washington. The Women’s March link (above) makes suggestions for keeping Saturday alive past this week.
A number of people in my own network noted that they or someone they knew were at marches in places like Billings, Portland, Madison and on and on. Young women were especially well represented. We were sitting at a church gathering on Sunday and a retired woman we know said that my blogpost on Friday inspired her to go to the march in St. Paul.
A coffee friend, a male, noted the immense size of the St. Paul march in which he was a participant. There were so many marchers that it literally came to a standstill.
The event was worldwide.
Campaigns come and go. Like diets, successful campaigns take lots of determination and effort and stamina.
I hope Saturdays marches endure and, indeed, intensify. Again, the ideas are here. There are other activist suggestions, more broad based. You can access them here.
This single person, me, wonders where I fit into this conversation, ongoing.
Actually, another event yesterday helped bring some clarity. Some men in an oval office set about to slay the abortion dragon in a signing at the White House.
It caused me to think back to a years ago personal experience in 1965. You can read it here. They should put themselves in Barbara and my shoes, as we lived it at the time.
The White House edict will probably increase abortions rather than reduce them worldwide. So goes the ‘right to life’.
It is easy to pontificate about big issues, pretending that personal realities can be ignored through edicts issued by church and state. It is one thing to suggest ideals; another thing entirely to require them, under penalty of law.
There is need for a dialogue, not command.
I wonder what will happen. I plan to stay engaged, even if I couldn’t be at that march on Saturday.
* En Avant. Forward. Among other uses, the motto of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Related post Jan. 25, here.