This Web Blog was haphazardly produced without using Spell Check one danged time. We like it that way.

ESOTERICA: In the coming weeks, expect our partnership with CinemActivist.com to provide you with reviews of great documentaries from Cinema Libre Studio, PBS, the History Channel, the Visioneerng Group and Working Films that provide you knowledge and move you toward activism. Just so you know.

Depending on the events of the day, we'll likely be bringing you information about a great new film on New Orleans from independent director Alex LeMay, "Desert Bayou," slated to appear in New York City and New Orleans in early October before rolling out across the country. Cities and dates TBA.

24 September 2007: You see the headline for this final movement of my word-symphony. I believe that. I think you do, too.

When we look into each other's eyes, we see - at least I see - that there is still the hope that we had as children that the world would be just and fair. Yeah, bad stuff happens but every now and then we get a good laugh, a fair break and we know that we're all in it together.

"Good Lord, Rod, you're going Frank Capra on us!"

Not exactly. You should know my thinking is too complex for that. So stay with me.

I say that our hope for justice is a prayer because - in th e real world - justice is both misunderstood and too seldom achieved. As I've written at CrimeNZ too many people mistake retribution for justice, when true justice is recompense. Who has not made a mistake, hidden or public? Who has not felt the need to make amends?

I'm supposed to build to my crescendo now, if I follow the model I'm supposedly following. Bear with me.

Were this a musical composition, I would bring in the violins I used in the second movement and - right about now - brought up the horns I used in the last movement.

I am, nonetheless, leaning toward the sound of the oboe at this point. I want soft notes to take you toward the end of my composition. (Yeah, yeah, I promise you a fanfare for my finale.)

When I look into your eyes, when you let me, I see that child who believed that justice was possible. I see the person who would take a chance to trust me and expect I would give me trust in return. When I look into your eyes, I see a hope - and, yes, a prayer - for a world without so many sharp edges. When we fall down, someone will help us up. When we scrape a knee, someone will kiss it. I see that in your eyes even now.

But I also see something else: unmet expectations, regrets, and the anger of unfulfilled promises. I believe those are what taught you to believe in the doctrine of retribution.

That, when the child in you died, is where you went wrong. Suddenly the cry, "Kill them all!" made sense to you. You accepted the notion of "an eye for an eye" and became part of the Kingdom of the Blind.

Even that is not an irrevocable error. You are better than that.

I remember standing at Plymouth Rock, in Massachusetts, approximately thirty years ago with my compadres, Michael Taft, a direct descendant of Nathan Hale ("I regret that I have but one life to give for my country."), Edward Sanchez, a Puerto Rican from New York, and I a Black man of British and American heritage.

All of us were there because of the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, of the notion of the great dream of what America could be.

The fact that the three of us, from such diverse backgrounds could be so close friends, spending each day together, spoke to that dream. We had become a joke at our Ivy League school because we were invariably and always together.

The fact was, we knew, we were the new America. So are you.

Our parents, and their parents, had created an America where the children of slaves could meet with the Mayflower scions and the Latino immigrants who built this nation. We could recognize the Japanese and Chinese who forged railroads across the continent. The Jews who got their heads busted fighting against pogroms against Blacks could stand tall and with honor.

We could all live together.

Mike, Eddy and me hear the music that day, as we looked out at the Atlantic Ocean.

I know you can hear this music. You hear it as I do. A divine voice moves in your hearts as it does in mine. Listen!

Our destiny points toward loving each other, being kind to each other, turning away from hate and retribution, revenge, punishment and toward redemption. That last cannot be said too many times. Our hope for justice is a prayer.

So ends my first symphony.

BIG NEWS! You can now and henceforth find all of the G21 PODCASTS over at Blip.tv. Just click on the link http://blip.tv/users/view/g21guy and you can download to your iTunes or iPod and hear some of the thought leaders for this new century that I mean to bring to you. It will be updated with new episodes regularly, as you must know. You're welcome.

Here's your music vid for this post (IF you don't get it on the first click, click again and you'll be taken directly to YouTube, where it should work. This is magical!):

Cheers!

Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

Thanks for visiting.

Talk to you in a day or so.

Be well.