SPOTLIGHT san diego pride Marianne Williamson
and Ross Mathews BRINGING ON A WORLD OF CHANGE
by david vera
Being a source of inspiration for millions of people is a 24-hour job, and getting there is nearly always a heck of a story. But one thing that is common among successful public personalities is the drive to advance society to a better condition than how they found it. This is especially true for two of this year’s special guests for San Diego Pride. Marianne Williamson and Ross Mathews will grace the weekend of July 15 through 17 as Pride season blazes onward. Brace yourself for a progressive torrent of social change because this year, it’s all about the love.
L.A.’s Project Angel Food has been a source of good since 1989, but few of us know
who’s behind the generosity. Meet Marianne Williamson: bestselling author, international speaker, founder of Project Angel Food and originator of the famous “Our deepest fear” quote which is often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela. Really, is there anything she didn’t do for us? “Well, I’ve been around a long time,” said Williamson with her usual charming
humility. Another title she has earned is that of “spiritual teacher.” For those of us who haven’t yet given much thought to any focused faith, Williamson describes spiritual- ity as living a more loving life. “There’s a line in the study guide, A Course in Miracles, which says, ‘Some people
conspire with God who do not yet believe in him.’ I think everybody is on a spiritual path. A lot of people just don’t know it, or contextualize it that way. Other people feel strongly about religious principles and yet they haven’t quite reached down into the love that makes it all real.” When Williamson started lecturing in the early 1980s, the AIDS crisis had just burst
onto the scene. Western medicine had nothing to offer at that time and religious institutions took their time, working through their own homophobia to get out a compassionate response. While speaking at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles about miracles and an unconditionally loving god, Williamson unex- pectedly found her new calling. “Gay men in Los Angeles gave me my career in a very real sense. I was just talking about these subjects to a handful of people. I was ‘discovered’ by a community in pain. Also at that time, my sister was diagnosed with cancer. I felt moved to start some sort of free, non-medical support service for people dealing with life-challenging illness. I told all the people at my lecture, ‘Let’s do this.’ I looked around on that night of very successful fundraising with electricity and excitement in the air. I saw the people who had planned the party, who had put it together, who had bought the food and the flowers, who had gotten all dressed up. I realized, ‘These are gay men. This is about AIDS. I never thought it wasn’t about AIDS, but my original concept was to ease life-challenging illness. That night it was clear who had shown up to make this happen.” Upon Williamson’s initial proposals for a new “meals on wheels” program for
home-bound people with AIDS, the local AIDS organizations at that time weren’t terribly supportive. “I remember they said, ‘Oh we don’t need that.’ We clearly did. So many of the people attending my lectures were people who had AIDS. I think that’s part of what gave it such spiritual force. It was very different in those years than it is now—it’s not the death sentence now that it was then. Our conversation at that time was, ‘We
38
RAGE monthly | JULY 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100