MANILA, Philippines – Former President Corazon Aquino, who swept away a dictator with a “people power” revolt and then sustained democracy by fighting off seven coup attempts in six years, died on Saturday, her son said. She was 76.

The uprising she led in 1986 ended the repressive 20-year regime of Ferdinand Marcos and inspired nonviolent protests across the globe, including those that ended Communist rule in eastern Europe.

Most of you have probably shed tears over the death of someone you never knew, and this was the case for me as I read the news of this amazing woman and one of my heroes of democracy.

Cory (as she was called) Aquino was a Christian and a deeply devout woman of prayer. I do not pass lightly over that fact. She trusted in the mighty God of all nations to end the repressive dictatorship in her beloved Philippines. Cory had to trust God through many trials. She had been a homemaker, raising four daughters and a son. Her husband was imprisoned by President Ferdinand Marcos because of his outspoken criticism of the regime, for the long years of 1972-1980. She was then widowed, with her husband Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., the opposition leader, being assassinated as he stepped off a plane in 1983. She was suddenly thrust into a very different role.

Her presidency was not perfect, but what she did was to bring a gift to the table that echoed around the world. Freedom is like that. What happened in eastern Europe in the late 1980s is one of her legacies. The relatively non-violent overthrow of Soviet-style communism (and the ending of the Cold War), beginning in Poland, moving on to Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, can be traced to the inspiration of Corazon Aquino, and what she called “Prayer Power.”

Here is a short excerpt from a 1995 University of Oregon Commencement Address given by Corazon Aquino:

I found in public service qualities I did not think I had, and because of Prayer Power, reserves and strength and faith I never suspected. Perhaps, not all of us can do it all the time. And I am greatly relieved to be able to live my own life again. But I believe we must all serve others some time. Service to others, service to our communities, and to our brothers and sisters throughout the world can be fulfilling and addictive. The next time your neighbor, your community or someone somewhere in a country less fortunate than your own calls for help and tempts you again to serve - take my advice - just say yes and find yourself.

Technorati Tags: Corazon Aquino, Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, democracy

We enjoyed the most wonderful morning at Smith Rock State Park a few days ago. There by 7:30 a.m. to avoid the scorching afternoon sun, we hiked, played, and splashed our way around to the backside of the mountain.

My children all had a fun time, especially the youngest. Big-eyed and four years old, Little L looked right out of Norman Rockwell’s sweet scenes of idyllic American childhood.

Balancing on a rock, he peers into the shimmering Crooked River, on the verge of discovering his own reflection. He eventually collected a shell, a feather, and a crawdad leg.

Will he remember this moment? Perhaps when he’s a young man passing a river he will have a sense of joy that can’t be explained, and when he’s an old man he will recall this experience in nature with clarity, unable to resist the urge to skip a stone across the water.

Technorati Tags: Central Oregon, nature study, Smith Rock

I planted dozens of seeds in little plastic containers, wanting a head start on the short growing season in my region.

The weather warmed up but I got busy. The seedlings outgrew their tiny containers and were silently begging to be placed in the spacious garden where their roots could dig down deep. Instead, the roots grew the only way they could in their rigid pots - in circles.

The day finally came when I had time to transplant these precious seedlings into the garden. They had already looked wan and peaked, but surely, I thought, they would be fine in the garden. I had so much hope, but to my sorrow, every one of them died within days. I remembered how lively and promising they had looked those first days of breaking through the soil.

With no way for the circular roots to quickly retrain and move into the surrounding dirt of the garden bed, my plants gave up and faded away. Had I been an experienced gardener, perhaps I could have worked with the root ball, done some corrective root pruning, and sent them on their healthy way. Alas.

I made a mental note to myself. If ever the circumstance is such that I am like a vigorous new plant trapped in a too-small and unyielding pot, running in circles for lack of latitude and destined for stunted growth, I need to make immediate exit plans if I want to survive.

I wrote about Lafayette’s triumph in the American Revolution, and while he returned to France a hero in 1792, the embodiment of hope for France and a French Revolution, he did not live to see France become an independent republic.

Lafayette had seen what revolution could accomplish. He had witnessed the freedoms enjoyed by the new America. His legacy could be that he brought this light to France, but he ended up losing the public’s confidence and becoming an ineffective revolutionary.

In the years leading up to 1789, Lafayette became a leader in the campaign against the monarch. But here is what I think went wrong. First, the French had been too horribly oppressed for too long. The revolutionary movement became extremely radical and vengeful, and Lafayette didn’t know how to turn this raw, bitter force into something controllable and beneficial. He went for a more moderate course, and this ended up killing his popularity and driving him into exile. I think an extraordinary person was required for this job, one who could move beyond the compromise of a constitutional monarchy into true democracy. Someone with preeminent diplomatic skills who could harness lightning like Benjamin Franklin.

Second, when Lafayette became a member of the French legislature, he wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (similar to the Declaration of Independence), and I believe he made a grave error. While the declaration stands as monumental in terms of setting forth fundamental human rights for all men, a first for France, it makes no mention of God as the source of human rights. The U.S. Declaration of Independence asserts that human rights are derived from the “Creator” and the duty of government is to protect these God-given rights.

The problem I see with not being specific about the source of human rights is that it de facto becomes the realm of the state. France struggled in emerging from the French Revolution with a democratic republic firmly in hand in part because France, while willing to completely turn its back on the Ancien Régime, the old order, it held onto bits that denied true God-given human rights. The country suffered through the bloody Reign of Terror, in which the guillotine was used for mass execution of “enemies of the revolution,” then France allowed herself to be swept under the dictatorship of Napoléon for a time, and then a constitutional monarchy under Louis Philippe (unfortunately and regretfully with the help of the Marquis de Lafayette).

The first stable republican government wouldn’t happen in France until almost a hundred years after the French Revolution began, the Third Republic, and even this was wrought with crises and controversies. France is now in the Fifth Republic.

The Marquis de Lafayette did continue to fight for democracy for France and his dying desire was for a pure republic in France. No two revolutions are the same and Lafayette is blessed among men in history to have lived through the many uprisings and changes in paradigms.

Technorati Tags: Bastille Day, France, French Revolution, Marquis de Lafayette

Sadly, she discovered this morning that her lizard was dead. She was curious. And maybe she could save the eggs. Frankly, I know nothing about lizard anatomy and may not know a lizard egg if I saw one. But I’m sure this girl would know. She has an instinctive nature when it comes to the study of living things. She loves animals, and her desire to cut open the lizard is inquisitive not cruel.

“That’s a-skusting!” cried the little brother. “Not while we’re making muffins!” asserted the little sister.

JJ brought me a paring knife. She’s a persistent girl, a trait that alternately drives us crazy and makes us proud. Am I ready for a dissection? Do I let her explore?

Technorati Tags: Central Oregon, children’s biology, creation, lizards, nature study

It’s time for another sports giveaway. I haven’t done one in a long time, but judging from the hundreds of hits I still get on my old sports contests, folks like them. And baseball is the theme, given the season is well underway and what is summer without baseball? What is America without baseball?

Today in baseball history, Satchel Paige was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1906. On his 42nd birthday, July 7, 1948, he was signed by the Cleveland Indians, a historic first for this amazing veteran Negro League pitcher. What a birthday gift. In honor of this great moment from the archives of baseball, TeamMASCOT.com is giving away a baseball.

Visit the TeamMASCOT baseball page to pick your team, and leave a comment right here on this post by Saturday, June 11, including your team choice. Two winners will be randomly chosen. Be sure to leave an email for me to contact you. Your information is secure and is never shared.

Historians all agree on the fact that without the significant economic and military aid of the French government, the fledgling United States of America would have likely lost the Revolutionary War against the British. And this particular Frenchman, the Marquis de Lafayette, was perhaps the most crucial piece of French support.

Born in 1757 as Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, he suffered the death of his father before he was two years old and the death of his mother at age 12. His family belonged to the French nobility, so he was left with quite a fortune. In addition, at the age of sixteen, he married into the very wealthy de Noailles family. There was no need to seek fame and fortune in a faraway land on a dangerous mission, so why on earth would this young man, only 19 years old, be so resolved to volunteer for the colonies in the American cause of freedom, a land he had never seen, a people he did not know?

I’m sure the reasons for Lafayette’s service in the American Revolutionary War are complex, and I’ve tried to search out some of his motives. The first thing that comes to mind is his youth. While at first glance it’s his age that strikes me as so uncommon for such a glorious cause, there is also a freshness and vigor and sense of invincibility that comes with youth. However, he did have a wife and young son he left behind when he first landed near Charleston, South Carolina in June of 1777. Being orphaned at a young age and married with child certainly matures one beyond his years. There must be more.

I turned to the issue of revenge. I considered the tragedy of his father’s death–his father was killed by a British cannonball during the Seven Years’ War. For a young man who likely longed to know his father and who he must have revered as a hero, I wondered if Lafayette had found vengeance for his father’s death. To support the American cause of liberty was to defy and destroy British domination. Revenge can only carry one so far, however, and reflecting on how Lafayette put his very life on the line, as well as spending his personal fortune to buttress the American forces, I searched still deeper.

When considering the whole of Lafayette’s life, well beyond the American Revolution, I found in him a profound and immense freedom-fighting spirit that must have propelled him even from youth. Were the American Revolution just about personal glory or youthful fantasy, Lafayette’s quest would have likely ended there. However, as we see him fight for representative government in the French Revolution, it’s clear that Lafayette was one of those unique persons in human history who was born to fulfill an instinctive yearning for freedom, no matter the time or place.

Independence and self-government are ideals that simply resonated with Lafayette. As he served under General George Washington, these two men developed a life-long friendship and considered one another as father and son. Great people like these do find each other, invisibly drawn together by the same passion and intellect.

Lafayette participated in key battles of the Revolution, including those at Brandywine and Yorktown. In addition to military expertise, he exercised great diplomacy in convincing the king of France to increase his support in substantial excess of his original intent.

As Americans celebrate their Independence, I do hope they remember France and one particular Marquis de Lafayette.

sources:
Lafayette, Hero of the American Revolution
Who Served Here? The Marquis de Lafayette

Technorati Tags: American Revolution, Fourth of July, France, French Revolution, Independence, Marquis de Lafayette

Hello Summer! We’re done being sick and we are ready to enjoy this beautiful world. I’m listening to Little L read a book to himself, I’m feeling anticipation about the days ahead, I’m smelling the fresh garden dirt, and I’m seeing a clear blue sky out the window.

Today, I need to accomplish: cleaning all the bathrooms, vacuuming the upstairs hall and guest room, washing about five loads of laundry, and supervising the kids’ chores. I have a visit from Elisabeth today, the gal who arranges the French Exchange Program. I’m also expecting a friend from out of town to stop by on her way through to Idaho.

What’s on your plate today? Many blessings to you as we head into a celebration of Independence this weekend!