All Praises to the Pause

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• Reader Comments (6)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  Intensely thought-provoking. It does give one a pause, for reflection, does it not?

  Thank you.

  Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 22, 2006 at 3:17 PM

  Good stuff, I needed that.

  Posted by theloneous on Nov 22, 2006 at 6:30 PM

  Ya know I have that book ( I Ching ) and have read parts of it, but have not studied it….Ms.Walkers thoughts on the womens movement can also be applied to the civil rights movement and integration…The ability and opportunity to gain access to positions and resources that were not available in the past has brought much prosperity to the afrikan amerikan community…but the sense of community and survival techniques that have stood by the black community in the time tested , tried and true past have been for the most part discarded….This is the problem with the young folk ,the lack of direction and insight not given; that was all too present in the past….I would estimate that any person of color born after 1955 or thereabouts…has never seen how the black community rallied around itself in troubled times and faced the challenges of community development , building hospitals and schools,churches…providing for the elderly all without any gov’t assistance or intervention.We are probably 2 or 3 generations removed from that knowledge…People may not have had much, but it seems that they had each other…These days…I don’t know….?

  Posted by Redhorse on Nov 23, 2006 at 11:04 AM

  Dear Ms. Walker,

  I read THE COLOR PURPLE 25 years ago, and I never thought that i would have the opportunity to tell you how positively it affected me.  Brought lots of tears in my newly painted pink walls in my apartment. My first, solo apartment. 

  The PAUSE you mentioned is a necessary slowing down of time that i think that everybody needs after completing something worthwhile or something not.  Myself, I think of it in posititve terms of completing artwork, a painting.  For the greater society that i belong to, I consider it a necessity to reflect on the negative or positive power that we are exerting on our local and global neighbors.

  Pause is a time for reflection, and i fear that it is something that men do not generally possess.  Regarding that, I agree with you. 

  Edna Lorri Shipp

  Posted by edna lorri shipp on Nov 26, 2006 at 3:45 AM

  When are we going to STOP…

  and reflect…

  upon questions like…

  -what are the implications of referring to your country as ‘the only remaining superpower’?

  -what makes it acceptable for 6% of the world’s population to consume 25% of the world’s energy resources, each and every year?

  -what will be the lifestyle choices our grandchildren’s generation will have, if we continue to consume energy as we are now?

  -what can be done to make people of different ethnicities able to see each other as countrymen and fellow citizens?

  -what are we really accomplishing with all this arms trafficking?

  We always seem to want decisiveness and an air of certainty in our leaders. Maybe we ought to admire more those who are willing to hesitate just a bit, think things out, try to foresee consequences (esp. negative ones) without feeling the burning need to deliver tonight’s sound-byte to the 24-hour “news” channels on time.

  Posted by Kuya on Nov 27, 2006 at 8:46 AM

  Dear Alice,

  I received an email tonight from by partners husband, Steve Perlman. The email contained your amazing article, I quickly emailed him back telling him that I had just sent you two of our decks, Wisdom of the Crone and Journey of the Maiden.  He nor his wife knew that I had sent them, and tonight was the first time I had seen this article, the path is amazing, the pause absolutely perfect.

  Thank you for the exact words I needed to hear.

  Lani Phillips
  Wise Women Ink

  Posted by onecronette on Nov 29, 2006 at 7:00 AM

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Also by Alice Walker

• An Open Letter to Barack Obama
  
• All Praises to the Pause
  Alice Walker wants us to enjoy "the pause" - the moment when something major is accomplished and Wisdom requires us to stop and reflect.