Pertinent to recent events and related posts (NCU)

[Emproph]

I came across this yesterday while looking for something else but it seems especially pertinent to recent events and related posts.

This article (link below) is an excerpt from the book Shirt of Flame: The Secret Gay Art of War. -Always looking for new and better strategy it was interesting enough to order a copy, anyone familiar with it?

Just from what I read in the article it appears to be a refinement of the non-violent principles of activism (Ghandi/King).

-I’m not as versed on the specifics of those techniques, other than the common knowledge that rioting, burning cars and Molotov cocktails are generally not the best way to establish the legitimacy of one’s cause.

I’d be especially interested to hear from those of you who preach and practice non-violent resistence better than I and see some comparison views as far as principles go.

From Gay Spirituality and Culture March 29th, 2006

“Regarding the Equality Riders”

{For what it's worth: If non-violent resistence is the Bible, then this seems like A Course in Miracles}

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by Emproph

This article (link below) is an excerpt from the book Shirt of Flame: The Secret Gay Art of War. -Always looking for new and better strategy it was interesting enough to order a copy, anyone familiar with it?

Yes. I have this book.

The author, Ko Imani, has taken the book's subtile, The Secret Gay Art of War from the ancient Chinese manual of miltary strategy, the
Sun Tzu, or The Art of War, but the "methods of a 'war' fought with a Shirt of Flame are purely constructive , not destructive."

A few quotes from the book:

"Adopting a Shirt of Flame method means that we choose, instead, ot affirm our constituent and responsible function as part of the body of society. After we have transformed the thorns society gives us into plumage, our outsider status can empower us. We then have the strength and agility to stand up in the boat to challenge groupthink mentality, to boldy point in a new direction across the waters towards the island of a Beloved Community."

"...King, like Gandhi before him, continues to be for us a pillar or fire into the darkness to light our way." The LGBT movement must carefully consider the past in order to mindfully perpare for the future. Each of us must, in her or his own being, model the change she or he wishes to see in the world by including and transcending the lessons of history- both in stuggle and in strategy."


"We have the chance at this point in our social evolution, as queer individuals and as an LGBT community, to claim for ourselves freedom's promise of full, joyful and abundant life. No one else can do it for us; no law and no amount of parading and shouting will get us there. The only tool to end bigotry, to end hatred and violennce, to end Fear- the only tool we can use to build the Beloved Community- is Love."

"We must become the presence of that alternative.
The time has come for us to wake up from our narcoleptic lives.
It is time for us to choose.
Time to take up the weapon of Love.
Time to strip naked on the mountaintop and don the Shirt of Flame."



Here are two reviews of the book:

http://www.ashe-prem.org/seven/shirtofflame.shtml

http://www.whitecranejournal.com/58/art5814.asp

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by Emproph

{For what it's worth: If non-violent resistence is the Bible, then this seems like A Course in Miracles}

Yes. I would agree with you here (I didn't want to insert my comments within Imani's text and thus confuse matters). Having been a student of the Course, I see many of the same- if not identical- concepts and principles expressed within the work of Gandhi, King and the Imani as well as Buddhism and other Paths.

I don't mean to argue that every Path is alike, just that the Way Imani writes of is geared to GLBT folks. The principles he invokes are sprinkled throughout many traditions.

Whatever the Path that one follows, my experience has been that the 'practice is the preaching'. A subtile, yet powerful distinction. That's something that was lost on me during my undergraduate AG days, when my head was full of sin this and sin that. Sin, for its sake, hardly seems the issue those make it into when seen from this perspective. The rules of love, as it were, are written on our hearts and not in our heads where judgment lies in wait.