I listened to tonight’s State of the Union address while driving in my car. Though I stay away from politics in my blog posts for the most part, I do want to mention something that I heard in this speech which heartened me very much.

Describing Kibera, the largest slum in all of Africa, to a friend recently, I told him that it is very hard to reconcile how we let such situations happen as humans. People get pushed so far into the margins. It is almost impossible to for me to grasp how we let this go on, how people who can do space exploration and invent computer chips can’t seem to solve the problem of our brothers and sisters living in illness, filth and hunger. The friend I was speaking to is also a great fan of Buckminster Fuller. He quoted Bucky. The energy is going toward weaponry rather than livingry.

Bucky spoke about this regularly. If we were to put all of the resources that we invest in war into improving the quality of LIFE – just imagine. What couldn’t we do? I have been turning this around and around in my mind since that conversation.

Tonight I felt a genuine rush of feeling and relief to hear Obama say that a huge chunk of the budget from the Department of Defense for the first time will be put toward finding clean energy in our country. Funds for weaponry now to be invested in livingry! Later in the speech he mentioned rural peoples who need greater broadband equipment so that they can sell their goods internationally just like urban people do. Being a mountain person who suffers constantly with that neglect in the budgets, I felt that! He spoke of our roads and bridges in need of repair. Then came the magic words for me once more – funds that had been put toward war will now used for addressing these needs. My heart jumped. Livingry rather than weaponry.

Please hear our prayers, You Who listens, help us to stop spending on weaponry. Why must it be so? Let us put all of that gorgeous innovation, energy and motivation into solving needs for living well, for all living things to live well. We humans make it seem so complicated, but maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe it can be simple.