Palm Tree in Poland

Team spirit

2012-01-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

We could at least start with name tags; I hate name tags.

But I suppose I might be persuaded to wear one if everyone else did.

I was thinking tonight about pulling together instead of ripping apart.

The President's reference to uniformed soldiers got me to thinking, maybe we should all wear uniforms.

But my friend went to North Korea and that's what they do there and it creeped her out. So, never mind. But.

What if we wore name tags, so we at least could be known by name to one another? Would that help? Am I grasping at straws? I just want us to pull together. To get in the mindset that we need to find common ground. To all pitch in and work in some semblance of cooperation.

Not in lockstep, like the North Koreans. No!

But can we find a way? Calling one another names, calling one another stupid --- what does that accomplish?

My friend, Carole, pastors a blue collar congregation near Chicago. Its members used to work in manufacturing. Now, 9 - 15 new families per week are showing up at the church's food pantry.

We have a lot of hard work to do. If we all wore boy scout or girl scout uniforms, or football uniforms or cheerleader uniforms or streetsweeper uniforms, would we feel more united?

We sure need to do something.

If I Hate You Will You Just Go Away?

2012-01-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

Or do I have to kill you to make my point?

I am not by nature an alarmist. I take chances. I generally assume the best of people.

But I am seriously concerned.

The hateful rhetoric in this country has been racheted up to a frightening degree. There is too much hate.

NEWS FLASH FOLKS: Barack Obama is a Christian, JUST LIKE ME. Barack Obama is a capitalist, JUST LIKE ME. Barack Obama is a generous and kind human being who is undeserving of the horrid rhetoric that circulates around the internet and shows up on talk shows and even by presidential candidates in their debates.

These attempts to dehumanize "the enemy" are the first on a slippery slope that goes nowhere but down. Down, Down, Down. For you too. You are what you hate. It's opposite, but the same.

Please, stop. Think. It grieves my heart that you circulate this hateful tripe. It is without basis, it is mean, it is dangerous.

As the recipient of a potentially deadly attack motivated by baseless hysteria, I speak with some authority. It is far too close from Hate to Action. Don't be among those who stir up the lunatics to outrageous behavior. They are waiting to know you sanction their acts. Don't do it.

I am so grateful for my parents who taught me tolerance. They weren't perfect but they taught me that people around the world are the same, only different. That no one deserves to be hated and no one deserves the kind of vitriol we hear now.

You are Christians, just like your President. Please rise to the standard of your call in Christ; as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him.

Peace and grace to you all!

Colorado Dreamin'

2012-01-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

a dream deferred is a dream denied

___Lorraine Hansbury

Today we are all about dreaming. Specific dreaming. "I have a dream today..."

We are so far from fulfilling that dream.

It is hard not to lose heart, become apathetic, depressed.
I confess to all the above.

Is there something we can do? Always. Always. Big, little, stupendous, simple.

What can you do?

For starters, listen or watch the Tavis Smiley special on Poverty tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday on PBS. It is a sparkling, fire-cracker, stunning conversation between Cornel West, Suze Ormann -- that's right, a Suze Ormann like you've never heard her before! Barbara Ehrenreich, Roger Clay,
Roger Moore and others. Very profound discussion.

What else can you do? It's a beautiful day for dreaming.

First of all, it's "pundit," right?

2012-01-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

We spent the evening, pre-bubbles, wondering what a pundent was.

Great speller, am I not? What is a pundent? Someone should create one.

But the real question for today is, "Why is there air?"

"To blow up volleyballs with."
___Bill Cosby

I like simplicity. I like it a lot. But life is not simple. Complexity is a gift.

Cosby's humor may remind us that there are a lot of answers, some quite simple, some simplistic, to life's biggest questions. Or to our most urgent questions.

I'm wrestling with a few big ones. And simple answers would be wonderful. But they all ring false. Perhaps there are true, simple answers to some important questions. But the most of the time, we have work to do.

Questions don't beget answers; they give birth to other questions.

As you walk, run, plunge, waddle or scoot into this new year, what questions do you need to ask, to guide you to where you may be going?

What is the question?

2011-12-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

What is the question?

Waddling in to this new year (hey, I had pasta for dinner), it is time for a new approach to this resolution business. No resolutions, questions instead.

A pundent on television last week suggested that we find those things we are drawn to, perhaps know we should do, want to do, hope to do and find questions to ask ourselves about them.

So, What do you want in your life this year? What might you do to bring it closer?

Rather than resolve to lose weight, I am asking myself what steps I can take to be healthy?

My greatest hope for this new year is to continue to be covered with grace and to extend grace to others so they feel covered by it, too. What shall I do tomorrow to put myself in the pathway where grace might find me? What can I do to share the grace of unconditional acceptance and forgiving energy with others?

So, as you approach this new year -- waddling, running, skipping, sleeping or otherwise -- what are your questions of yourself?

Milestone marks momentum

2011-12-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

I forgot to notice the anniversary of the the Declaration of War in Poland.

On Sunday, December 13, 1980 -- thirty years ago -- Poland declared war on itself. We called it Martial Law. They called it war.

I woke to the news and was traumatized like everyone else in and in love with Poland. Tanks on the streets, three-man patrols marching in lock-step on the sidewalks. It was the start of a terrible last chapter of Moscow-heavy, thug-driven rule in Poland.

Most significantly, it shut down Solidarity, the rogue labor and social movement that had been growing through the past months. It was viewed as a serious threat to Communist rule. Hundreds were sent to prisons and draconian regulations were imposed on society. Months later, my good friend told me, "I don't think at all."

Those are the words of a man suffering from a traumatic distorder. I recognize those words, and know them all too well.

This year is the 30th Anniversary of Martial Law, or Poland's war on itself.

And I was so busy celebrating Sancta Lucia on that same time, I forgot!

I count this a victory. In an odd way, it feels like I'm moving on. It takes away nothing, none of my empathy for Poles. But it is a positive sign of looking forward, looking and diving deeply into life, rather than looking back and focusing on trauma and sadness.

For the first time in 30 years I didn't feel it in my bones, in my senses, my body. I was too busy living. I hope that we never forget the sacrifices others make but I hope the Polish people can get to where I am, so deeply in love with living that death doesn't hold as much power as it did.

The light returns!

Belated, and sincere, Happy Lucia! Happy Light!

In honor of Kaia's birthday, call your Congressman

2011-12-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

Kaia is lucky: Keith Ellison is her congressional representative.

He will vote on behalf of the 160 million who will be devastated by the failure of Congress to act on the payroll tax, and for the 6 million who are about to lose their unemployment benefits.

Kaia came to this world 24 years ago already an activist. She was here at her time, on her own terms and she has made an impact wherever she's been. An impact for kindness, justice, equality, education, and goodness. We saw it in her as a young child. We saw it grow and become more sophisticated, nuanced, developed, confirmed. She always looked for the "least of these" and always sought their best interests. She gave herself, her time, her sacrifices to love and care for sweet children in Estonia, young girls in South Africa, and immigrant kids in Denver.

Now she is committing herself to a lifetime of medical service among the poor and underserved.

Let me be blunt, if you care of such matters, as I do, "what would Jesus do?" Jesus would not be acting as we're seeing the GOP act right now. It is partisan because they have made it so. Anything to make Obama fail. Jesus would not be about that. He would be with the poor. He would be forceful in his payroll tax fight.

I'm sure Kaia will love to receive your greetings. But I'll bet she would rather we all do right, make those calls, and pray for a compassionate Christmas for God's people. Compassion has a clarity of focus that takes the form of legislation, tax cuts, benefits. Compassion is Christmas.

And Kaia loves LOVES Christmas!

Kaia, Happy birthday, wonderful woman! I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for all you've taught and challenged me to do. Love you lots!

Ralph Waldo Gingrich, no, Perry, no, Palin, no Romney

2011-12-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

My poor head has been banging against this piece of paper all week.

It's an article from last Sunday's New York Times Magazine by Benjamin Anastas. If I weren't so damn determined to be self-reliant and refuse to ask for help, I could find how to post the link. But look it up on Google, how's that. Great article: "The Foul Reign of 'Self-Reliance'."

Ralph Waldo Emerson is the ultimate non-conformist, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." The movement with which he was associated is known as Transcendentalism and is generally viewed with grave suspicion by those who might be known as the Religious Right for its emphasis on the primacy of the individual's conscious and desires, even happiness, at the cost of following the tenets of their claim of the Bible's supreme truth.

Now the irony. The behavior and ideological orientation of the GOP and the Right looks an awful lot like "foul self-reliance" and individualism. Emerson wasn't big on responsibility to the community, or to one's neighbor, for that matter. Take care of yourself. Love yourself above all others. NIMBY.

The issue raises its pesky head especially as we grapple with "the issue of our time" (Pres. Obama), that of the inequality of wealth in this country (to say nothing of the rest of the world). The traditional transcendentalists, those Harvard liberals, would be expected to say, "Who cares?" about the poor. Or, in other words, "Let them eat cake." Some say that.

But what is surprising? The Bible Belt says "Let them eat cake." And, "who cares?" Newt Gingrich this week sounded just like old Ralph Waldo himself as he proposed having poor children go to work. And he appeals most to religious (Christian) voters.

Go figure.

What makes your head spin?

I like grown-ups (Alec Baldwin listen up)

2011-12-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

I am in favor of grown-ups.
I am in favor of grown-ups behaving like grown-ups.

Alec Baldwin comes to mind.

I confess, I found his rants funny; snarky humor is right up my line. And so I covered my mouth and quietly laughed while those around me were appalled by his irreverent raving.

But, I believe we call this "indoor speech," that is private, rather than public. And I believe a bit of anger management is called for.

There are other grown-up behaviors that I've noticed lately, as in noticed them lacking.

Like owning up for one's behavior. Honesty. Kindness. Courtesy.

The non-grown-up behaviors pop up in the most peculiar places. Even in familiar places (I'm not referring to any family, just in case you're wondering).

Yeah, grown-ups. I like when they act as if they have figured out what that means. And do the hard work, or not always so hard work to be responsible, kind, honest.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying deleting annoying spam. And I'm waiting.

What bugs you?

How far is it?

2011-12-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

The part that gets me every time I think of it is the three-month-old baby.

My grandmother was three years old when her family sailed to Amerika from Sweden in 1886. They spent at least two weeks in steerage, with just a few meters each for themselves and their stuff. Hannah, my grandmother, was three and she had four older brothers all under eleven. I suspect they were not content to stay quietly and still within their few meters. My poor great-grandmother, can you imagine? Riding herd on five restless children in quarters that, let's just say, were less favorable than flying coach.

But the part of the story that gets to me every time I think of it is that Hannah's mother had a three-month-old baby along too. Nursing. Was there milk enough? How did she manage to keep track of the boys, and little Hannah, and nurse a baby all at the same time? Holy mothers.

Of course, she had a husband to help and I'm sure he did. But mothers feel it, that lock on the heart, that stretching out of shape, that radar that makes them crazy.

All that and now, here we are. I fly to Sweden in a few hours. I drink Starbucks enroute. I am in a reasonable chair, even in coach. I get a warm washcloth as we approach Stockholm to soothe my brow. And we eat pretty well.

How far is it, from Sweden to Amerika? From America to Sweden?

Starting over over and over again

2011-12-05T00:48:00.000-07:00

It is almost time to start over, over again.

Or, as the great philosopher says, "It's deja vu all over again."

We are waking to darkness. We walk home in darkness. The sun is a stranger. Night is long. Twilight is about as good as it gets.

Not here, of course. On behalf of the Colorado Tourism Bureau or Department or Agency, I must remind you that our days, short though they be, are spectacular with sun so bright one can drive a convertible with the top down through a foot of newly fallen snow.

But, apart from that, it is the season that is the reason someone invented Prozac. Light is missing.

Now there is a truth for the ages. Light is missing.

We wait for the light and while waiting we create diversions to remind us that reality is not always real, not always the same, that things cycle and change and light returns.

So we Swedes celebrate Lucia. Our family started the Lucia season yesterday with cousins here laughing and telling stories and maybe even making up stories of ancient lore that bind us together and point us to something coming, to a future of light -- even if it is a past with its darkness that connects us most primally. Dreams that set families out on boats across wide oceans to settle in barren valleys and find life harder than they bargained for.

We are heirs of these immigrants who walked in darkness and waited for the light. We begin the cycle over, and over again, again, now in these days of waiting for the nadir of the year and the slowly arising gift of new light.

I am a sucker for new beginnings. I celebrate them all. Chinese New Year. Rosh Hoshanah, Opening Day, Easter. But most of all, this solstice and its reality of darkness, dim twilight, a descent into a depressing (for me) place of gloom, this is the real beginning of a new time.

I know I know, it is not here yet. We have a ways yet to descend. Even here in Chamber of Commerce perfection Colorado, I will go kicking and screaming. (Not literally; there is Prozac for that.) But I will be waiting. And in these days of increasing darkness, of short days, twilight, I will plan and dream and think of the promise that is as sure as the rotation of the planet.

Light will come. And boy, howdy, do we need it.

I do, at least.

The best thing I ever did

2011-11-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

The best thing I ever did as a pastor was to kick a guy out of the church. Pastors are generally in the business of bringing in the sheep. It's what we do.

Bring 'em in and care for the flock.

So I did.

And, ironically, in this one case, caring for the people of God meant asking a young adult man to leave.

"Bud," (not his real name) I said, "you gotta go. Our church is not safe with you in it."

This is the thing. I watched him spending too much time with a couple of young boys, barely adolescent, from single-family households, vulnerable and isolated in a variety of ways.

I spent ten years working full-time professionally in the sexual abuse field. I knew what it looked like, as many of the experts you've heard this week on TV have testified. There is a pattern. Grooming. Setting up a situation where the person becomes even more isolated and dependent upon the predator. Flattery. Sometimes blackmail. Bud was already at work when I arrived on the scene. A couple of folks mentioned to me that it felt "off" -- the way he interacted with these boys. So I paid careful attention. And agreed.

"Bud," I told him, "you gotta go. And if I could, I'd call the police now." But there were no actionable crimes I could report. He told me he was moving to another state. A few weeks later I got a letter requesting his transfer of membership. I didn't sign it. But I wrote a letter. "Watch. Like a hawk."

Keep your eyes open. Watch. And, as they say, when you see something, say something. Ask a friend to watch with you. Don't prejudge but be wise. Be careful. You can save a child. You can save a child.

You are part of the team that our kids count on. You. Don't let them down.

Inspiration Point

2011-11-18T01:51:00.000-07:00

I remember that his car was light blue, a Volkswagon bug. It was 1968. A big election year.

My picture was in the paper. A very big deal. My dark page boy behaved for once, the weird wave hair-sprayed into compliance. For once I wasn't wearing tennis whites but a respectable outfit and my impossibly long legs and big feet were nowhere in few. The only humiliation was my geeky glasses. They even airbrushed my acne. Copies of the photo and the article were collected and sent to far-away relatives and I was proud that for once I seemed to have done something to please my parents. And most certainly, Aunt Elsie was over the moon.

Time to get down to work. The adult sponsor of TARS, an up and coming attorney in town whose name wasn't Ron but we'll call him that for now, invited me for an afternoon of orientation and milkshakes. He drove up to the top of Inspiration Point, quiet on a late summer afternoon. He parked and began to tell me about my new responsibilities. Running meetings: piece of cake. Working on agendas and deciding on the issues we would take on: I got that.

And then he explained the realities of the upcoming State Convention. I had to go. I was the Chairman. It was my job to see that the issues our chapter wanted to be included in the State Platform would be affirmed. Okay.

Well, he said, there is always some horse-trading, if you know what I mean. I didn't. Bargaining. I'll give you this and you give me that. Oh, I said, I'll support your issue if you'll support mine. Hmmmm, possible.

Well, he said again, no. That's not exactly how this works. You see, sex is the currency of choice. You sleep with Brad (not his real name) and he will support you.

My milkshake slowly melted and my hands trembled.

He put his hand on my bare knee. My thigh. And offered to help me "prepare" for the convention. He could condition me, give me lessons. In other words, we could have sex. Me and Ron. Not right then and there but he would work it out. That week. He touched my page boy. He looked beyond my geeky glasses into my dark brown eyes. I was supposed to be moved.

I felt sick.

I told him I had to get home. The light blue VW bug slowly wound its way down Inspiration Point. He dropped me off and winked, I'll see you tonight. We can make some plans for the convention, if you know what I mean.

What happened next was what often happens when a child --- I was very much a child, however old I was --- is sexually propositioned by an adult. I went inside and played perfect to my parents who were so proud. I told them I had a fine time and commenced the process of denial. Second-guessing myself. How dare I presuppose he had stooped so low. Surely it didn't happen.

I got ready for the evening's meeting, the first over which I was to preside. I had printed agendas, nametags, folders for all the returning members and information sheets for prospects. I was ready!

I got to the meeting, my mom dropped me off. I felt an out-of-body sort of experience as the other kids arrived. I play-acted my role, pretending an enthusiasm I didn't feel. I faked it well.

Then "Ron," the sponsor arrived, he of the light blue VW bug and the offer of sex lessons.

Without even thinking, I ran into the bathroom and vomited. And vomited some more. And more. "I'm sick," I told a friend. I asked her to call my mom to come pick me up. I made sure the materials and the responsibility got handed off to the duly elected Vice Chairman and, as I was being formally installed I answered "no" instead of "yes." And quit the whole operation on the spot.

My mother came and got me. I told her nothing. I was too humiliated. And distraught.

And that was the end of my career as a Teen-Age Republican.

I don't even remember how I explained it to Aunt Elsie but you can bet real money that I went no where near the truth. Are you kidding? My word against his? Not even close, not a chance.

I wonder these days how many stories like this one are re-surfacing for people, who were once young people and sexually harassed and abused by adults they trusted and admired. It all comes back.

To you who remember, peace be with you. Real peace, healing, comfort. It comes. It does. In time.

Meanwhile, it doesn't hurt to vomit again if you need to.

What then shall I buy?

2011-11-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

Nothing to buy?

That's what I heard the other day from a woman who was feeling sorry for the top 1% because they have nothing to buy anymore.

Hello?

I am billions away from that demographic but even I have a long list of things to buy. Shampoo. Scallops. More books (well, duh). Oh, and the mortgage.

I have thoughtful, kind and generous friends who live in or close to that top 1% of Americans. This is not about knocking them. This is for the lady who felt so sorry for her peers. Buy turkeys for the Rescue Mission. Buy clothes for the women trying to get back into the job market and need more than sweatsuits to wear to interviews. Buy books for urban libraries. Buy dog food for the animal shelter.

"We have nothing to buy."

I don't quite get how that is an argument against raising her taxes. But it is. Maybe she's worried about the rest of us choosing to use her money to buy turkeys for the Rescue Mission.

In the likely event she gets to keep all her money, there was a yacht for sale in the Nantucket Harbor with her name on it.

KAIA ACCEPTED TO MEDICAL SCHOOL

2011-11-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

That's it, all the news that matters. Kaia is accepted, ACCEPTED, to the medical school of the University of Minnesota. First choice, first try, first go 'round.

She SO deserves this!!!!!!! What a wonderful day!

Mom is thinking back to the pre-schooler with her toy stethoscope around her neck, doing exams on Betty and Betsy. And to the stellar science and math student in PIP in grade school. And winning the science fair award with Jenna two years in a row. I'm thinking of how happy her grammar school teachers will be. And how thankful I am to them for teaching my child well.

Kaia has been accepted into med school.

If this is over-the-top, pardon me. But reaching a long time goal is well worth yipping and yowing about!!!

Let the parties begin!

Leaping Greenly Spirits of Trees

2011-09-28T08:57:00.001-06:00

i thank thee god for most this amazing day
for everything...

Rosh Hashanah has come to us once more, the day of beginnings, summing up and bringing together our reflections for living more graciously, more freely, more deeply in the new year.

Happy New Year!

What are your new year resolutions? What do you want to do to live more fully?

I always wondered, not being a Jew, why Yom Kippur followed Rosh Hashanah when it seems more logical the two would be reversed. We would confess and then make our new plans. But now I see how it is and I love it.

Today is the day to begin to articulate our goals for the coming year, to walk more, to be kinder, to share more of what I have with others, to not use the "F" word so much, etc. And we are reminded of the freedom to walk into this new future. It is possible.

Then, on Yom Kippur, we gather up our contrition, we confess aloud all we have not done, all we have done that is harmful to others, to the planet, to our culture and the world, and to ourselves. Sounds like a pretty long day for me.

But in this intervening period of about a week, we are also reflecting about the tension between who we are and who we will be. And finding real strategies, articulating measurable, visible ways to bring into life that which we intend. Intentions aren't enough. Action plans are where it's at.

And as a part of the Yom Kippur reflection, we commit ourselves to these new solemn intentions. We will do them. And, frankly, not doing them will bring us back here next year and be a basis for what we must confess, our failings to be what we promised ourselves and the world and the Spirit that is "I AM" we would do and be.

I wish you a meaningful day of reflection, of looking forward, not back. A day and a week of making plans and finding strategies to enact them.

I'm starting with a promise I made earlier. In a few minutes I shall enter the doors of the Art Institute of Chicago, making my way between the majestic lions and up the stairs, and I shall revel in the genius of the painters I most love. The Chagall Windows are back up and have been restored - a fitting image for today - so that's where I'll start. And, likely, be back to complete the day.

Peace be with you in this New Year! Happy Roshanah and may you find joy in the leaping greenly spirits of the trees as they give up that color and become gloriously red and gold. It is the way of nature. It is the way of the world! Be glorious! Show your color!

"Moments of rest, glimpses of laughter are treasured"

2011-09-10T22:22:00.000-06:00

Moments of rest, glimpses of laughter are treasured along the road.

"Cursing the quest, courting disaster, measureless nights forbode."

In Dan Fogelberg's song those two lines are reversed. But I am so taken by the gifts of laughter and rest, I have to use that as the title for this post.

I take risks. I drive through blizzards. I get up when I should stay down. I persevere when I should get the hell out of Dodge. So it may not surprise you that I left on this long trip without all of the necessary funds in place. The proverbial check was in the mail. It really was.

But it wasn't. And it isn't. That was not the motivation for staying with people. The people, these very ones, were the motivation for staying with these people, to learn from them more about the gifts of grace and graciousness. These wonderfully gracious hosts and friends were the point and the impetus for the trip.

I did not, however, have arrangements for every night. I wanted it that way. Indecision is the key to flexibility. A lack of planning creates open space.

Flexibility, I've got it! Open space, open indeed.

This is a good thing and a bad thing. I couldn't live with it all the time. But I'm living with it some of the time and it is reminding me of the power of synchronicity -- of recognizing the magical mystical quality in an unexpected moment, a new friendship, chaos. The power of putting two unpredicted people or qualities or moments together and seeing something totally new, absolutely brand new! come to life and grow.

My life has been changed irrevocably already in these two and a half weeks. And not in the ways I might have anticipated. I have cursed the quest: the empty wallet, the skipped meal, spending the night in a Service Plaza/truck stop and my car. And I have courted disaster: driving in Boston! taking all the roads not taken, normally.

What have I learned? It's more fun if you have the money to play mini-golf, or watch the whales, or sleep in a bed (or sofa) every night. But I've also learned that it is survivable to just sit on the bench and watch the golf, to anticipate whale-watching on the next trip, and to become one with my car.

And most important, I've learned that people are kind. Generous. A guy just gave me three quarters yesterday to park in Harvard Square instead of trading me for my times. I left Nantucket with one mongo cinnamon roll to last for days. Friends missed work, drove across town, complicated their own lives in order to enrich mine.

After experiencing great evil, this is no small thing: to learn that people are kind, more than kind, generous. That people will go far out of their way for you. That even though you learned to not be trusting, there are more trustworthy people in the world that you ever dreamed.
When one encounters great mercy, gutsy generosity, and pure grace, one relaxes, leans into life in a more trusting way, gives away more because more is coming in. And then, it is simply inspiring.

Pretty cool.

This is an advanced degree program, if you want to put it that way.

We have to know these stories

2011-09-10T21:46:00.000-06:00

Memory is a fickle partner in the keeping of our life's book.

Certain facts can be observed, verified, written down. What time it was. What was said (and that is not always reliable memory). But history messes with us. And we mess with it.

I spent September 11, 2001 in a room that I remember being dark, with a revolving group of sometimes only three, sometimes a crowd of fifteen, two of whom were, I believe, in official uniforms but maybe they weren't and maybe it was three not two. I remember parts of conversation, whole bits at times, and I remember spending time walking around in a fenced back yard trying to comprehend what was going on.

That is a part of the history I remember. But what is more important is not what I remember -- though it is not unimportant either -- but how this history is connected to larger history, ancient history, future history. And what is that?

Stories. Always we are connected by stories. Stories that remind us and join us to other actions, stories that link our lives to those of women and men who paid a similar price or responded in a likewise courageous manner or assessed reality so quickly and with such devastating precision that they, too, could and did act to change history. Stories that teach, inspire, challenge, light a way.

Matthew, if I were your pastor today as I was ten years ago, I would affirm your quickness to link your father's story to that of other heroes who struggled against evil and, in their own way, won. You knew already on that morning what was at stake in your father's death and in the last moments of his life. You know what he did, what he chose.

His life is linked to that of others who, as the poet said, "choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."

To choose what is difficult -- as if it were easy -- that is our common test. And our common task.

But our story is not just our own, or Jason's or Mark Bingham's or the others on Flight 93 whose courage inspires us. Their acts are almost, if not entirely without precedent in this country but they are not unprecedented in human history. In fact, one of the waves that washes over all of us is this call to "incalculable" acts of sacrifice and salvation. We are part of a long story of giving and giving it all, and in so doing, saving. It is a rich and deep part of who we are as humans and who we are always being called to be.

"To choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."

And so we live on.

(W.H. Auden's poetry)

The top deck is mine!

2011-09-06T10:08:00.000-06:00

It was. Nobody else was on the boat.

A family of German tourists who were cold and stayed inside. A honeymooning couple who had the First Class lounge all to themselves. And me. Out on the top deck.

All the way to Nantucket.

And now that I'm here you will have to pry me off the island with a crowbar.

This is the Nantucket I had always hoped for. Rainy day, hydrangeas struggling to stay in bloom, a room of white, all white. And shingles as far as the eye can see. This is the little village of Nantucket. The nature beyond is beyond believing.

Nantucket. One of those places that has been alive in my imagination since childhood. Along with Nova Scotia and Siberia (go figure), this place has had an almost mystical allure. It's not the celebrity or elite qualities but the beauty and the fierce wildness, its collision with the storms of the sea and survival.

A guest at this bed and breakfast called last week to ask, given the hurricane, will the house will be standing? Will it still be all right to come? Jen, the manager, assured him that this house would be here. "It was built in 1725. It has seen a few storms. I think you don't need to worry."

This goofy computer has not been quite as reliable. It seems unkind to dump two weeks of blogs on you all at once so I'll try to find a way to integrate the catching up with the new news. There has been an awful lot of graciousness along this journey. Extravagant hospitality at almost every turn. And it becomes contagious. Even changing me.

Yesterday. Yesterday morning. Not a good time. A selfish, intransigent, unbending, rigid, mean, Cape Cod hotel owner refused to budge on a very reasonable and, to me, expensive, point of contention. He even acknowledged I was right but said it was "against his policy" to compromise. It was one of those moments, "cursing the quest, courting disaster, measureless [days] forbode." I was furious. And more than a little nervous about the financial consequence.

Eventually, he met me half-way. Still unfair so far as I was concerned but given his incongruous threat to call the police --- to do what? --- I decided to take the money and run.

As I did, I found him sweeping up leaves near my car. I rolled down the window and told him, "You do not deserve fairness. And a day will surely come when you will need to depend upon someone being fair, even kind to you. I could wish you all the bad karma you have coming to you after this morning. But instead, I hope you are surprised by grace. I hope you get what you don't deserve: generous, gracious, better than fair kindness. I hope karma comes at you from the blindside and is good to you. I wish you grace." He smiled and had a tear running down his cheek as I drove away. No kidding.

That is not me. My initial notion was to give him one more piece of my mind.

I offered him a bit of my spirit, more gracious thanks to you all, instead and what a difference it made. For both of us. I was free.

I hope he felt free too.

Light, but not lightly

2011-08-26T19:58:00.000-06:00

Kindness, compassion, grace may be offered with a light touch but are never tossed off lightly.
It costs. It always costs to give. Perhaps not too much, but cost it does. The phone call in the middle of the night: time to get over to St. Francis Hospital to deliver a baby. There are guests who show up (with warning)on your anniversary, two days before you're leaving for a seventeen day vacation and you still have to get the boat out of the water and take down the dock.

And the response is to give with a light touch, naturally, easily, graciously.

Grace, that's grace. To be so possessed by it oneself that it is simply what you do, graciously share your gifts, your joy, your wisdom with others.

I am so grateful for everything Kathie and Phil taught me about grace this week. They let me help pull the boat out of the water and onto the trailer, a brave move. They trusted me with Molly the golden retriever and Fluffy the bird.

What does grace look like? Salmon without pepper if it's pepper you don't prefer. Candles on the anniversary table. Long hours at the medical practice followed by long hours on the internet searching for pertinent information. Facilitating a hospice group conversation.

It all sounds sort of ordinary. But it isn't. Not ever. Every act of grace is a choice. Every act of grace has an opposite. Grace is a choice.

With a light touch, lots of laughter, and bowls of blueberries, Kathie and Phil choose grace.

What a gift!

Are you a bird?

2011-08-26T19:30:00.000-06:00

“Are you a bird?”

Fluff is still as sharp as ever. Fluff is an African Grey Parrot and I remember the day he came home, to his new home anyway, from quarantine. Fluff is from Zaire/Congo. Phil brought Fluff home thirty-seven years ago. That’s a long time to have a pet. And he’s not even to his typical half-way point yet.

Fluff came to live with Phil, Paul, and my then-boyfriend, now husband, Dave. During their years together the guys taught Fluff a number of clever phrases. They also used Fluff to ‘goose’ each other, if a parrot can be said to do such a thing. “Wake up, Paul” was quickly countered by “F you, Phil.” This became a problem. No parent comes to Chicago to visit and likes to be met by a swearing bird. Fluff eventually lost his irregular vocabulary through lack of reinforcement and use.

So I worried that he had forgotten what I taught him, too. After over 25 years of absence, I was thrilled to encounter Fluff again this week. Don’t tell her this but I’d forgotten all about her until she whistled to get my attention. I like being whistled at. Even if it takes a bird to do it.

“Are you a bird?” Funny thing: I say this all the time, “are you a bird?” It is rarely germane to the conversation at hand but that doesn’t stop me. I say it in Fluff’s voice, “Are you a bird?” So the big test. Would Fluff remember it. Phil said it had been years since they tried it. Fluff has a clear identity of his own; he is excellent at telling us, “I’m a bird,” and he also knows that “birds can’t talk.” He says so.

The moment of truth. The Cheerio box was rattled, the treat in my fingers. “Are you a bird?” I asked Fluff.

“Are you a bird?” he asked me back.

Yes. Of course. “I’m a bird.”

Okay, this is confusing!

2011-08-25T18:51:00.000-06:00

You're confused? I lived these vignettes in a different order. Let me explain.

Several posts on one day, August 25 I believe it is, Phil and Kathie's 32nd wedding anniversary, by the way. It was the only time in my life I saw my husband without his beard. Anyway, I digress, already.

The Odyssey.

Roughly 6500 miles it looks to be. Homer couldn't touch that.

An odyssey of, oh, about a month, out visiting friends, family and the folks from whom I am certain I will learn something more about grace. It is time.

The series of posts I put up today start from one about five or six entries back. The last is first. I posted several all at once and the first one of the series (go to Older Entries) is titled, "I'm on the hunt." Wild horses are involved. Did this just make any sense?

Find "I'm on the hunt!" by clicking on Older Posts until you find it. And then read forward in order until you get back here. And we'll all be caught up.

It's all about being gracious. And I look forward to finding out more of what it means, how it looks, what it feels like - to give and receive.

For now I know this, grace is a perfect waffle, an extravagant act of forgiveness, a hug from the server who brought your breakfast, lingonberries, drivers who let other drivers merge, over-tipping for a small meal. I wonder what else is out there?

"Just lovin' on ya, Jan"

2011-08-25T18:28:00.000-06:00

The Entrance of the Queen of Sheba was playing as I walked through Betty's daughter-in-law's door. Seriously, you would have thought so.

Have I ever felt so welcome, anywhere? So loved? So appreciated? And for why?

'Cuz I was me.

No reason.

Big reason.

Betty Shadle has a wonderfully loving family that cares for her now that she is in skilled care with Parkinsonian Syndrome. Jack is, well, let's put it this way, "Let me at 'em." He is also very funny, whether droll or hahaha. Jack, Junior, is, well, very smart and strong and yet very tender when it comes to the things that matter in life. If you want an intelligent discussion with someone with whom you are going to disagree, talk to Jack.

And Ann. Ann is God's work, our hands. She not only does it, she embodies it in spirit and action. Talk about faith active in love. And grace. And grace. And more more grace.

Their gracious care for me, on the first leg of this 6,500 mile odyssey, was abundant and free.

In Texas parlance, or Ann's anyway, they just loved on me like I was the queen herself. Better, no stiffness, no protocols, no coy discretion. Just grace. Acceptance. Affirmation. The gifts of kindness and extravagance.

Quite frankly, it was their gracious reception that inspired not just an odyssey but an odyssey of grace. Grace. I had no idea how needy I was for it. Again. And how completely they cared for me.

I decided, hey, if you want to know something, go to the masters.

Hence, this odyssey (Okay, I'm just ripping off Homer but I do love the story, and a poem about it I'll post here soon) to the masters.

Not everyone who is a master of graciousness can be visited by one soul in one Subaru in one month. So if I don't show up, it's not because I don't find you to be a tremendous example of grace. If you read this, odds are, I already do.

But if I do show up, know this. It is because you are a gracious sign of mercy and kindness and love in this world. And I want to watch, just for a little bit. Just to see you in action. Not toward me, but in everyday life. I want to apprentice myself to you for a day or so and learn.

How to be grace. How to be gracious. Thank you in advance for all I will receive. I hope you get something from me, too. I intend that, pray I deliver.

The memo for moms

2011-08-25T18:06:00.000-06:00

The memo for moms. Whatever it says, my mom didn't get it.

Not in time for me.

Sadly, my family home was a nutty mess. You don't need the details. There are enough of them that if you can't picture it from your own, a neighbor or friend's experience, you've seen them on TV.

I got lost in my family's house. Not that it was terribly big but there didn't seem to be a place for me and my parents did not see me. They didn't know me, or want to. My loneliness was of proportions far beyond what we may think young children are capable of. My despair was desperation. Did you know seven, eight, nine year old children contemplate suicide? I did.

Then Betty found me. Somebody found me. A human being, an adult who cared, who SAW me, who listened and laughed and took me seriously. A person to whom I could bring my questions and observations and opinions (lots of those) about life.

To her mind, she simply stood at her door and talked to me for an hour.

To my mind, she saved my life.

When I was ready to give up. She saw me. And cared.

She told me last week that it had "worried me terribly what I did to save your life."

"Worry?" I asked.

"Yes, I worried, after you wrote a few years ago and told me I saved you I wondered and worried what on earth it could have been that you needed saving from, and what was going on. I was terribly worried about you."

Not without reason. Bless her heart, she worried about me. Had anyone ever really said that to me before? Really. Had I ever heard it?

So I told her what I don't need to tell you. And she understood. And she was grateful herself for all the hours --- one a day --- she spent standing in that hot sunny doorway of hers, with the powder blue carpet underfoot, simply listening to me being human. She saw me. And heard me to speech.

She listened, as Lily Tomlin wrote, "with the same intensity most people reserve for speaking."

And so I survived.

Getting going

2011-08-25T17:51:00.000-06:00

This started in Texas.

I have been meaning to go and visit Betty Shadle for years. And just now I finally got to it. From Denver to Longview, Texas.

I wasn't sure if I needed, or would need by the time I left to go home, a passport but I brought all the Texas-looking paraphenalia I could muster --- my cowboy boots, jean jackets, stick horse (okay, no stick horse), and I wore my cowboy hat practically to bed the nights I was out on the road traveling.

The New York University and Macalester decals on the back window of the car made me nervous. I didn't want to stick out. So I took my dirty Subaru through a few fields, got some straw sticking out under the doors and hoped for the best.

Well. Was I a goof nut or what. Every person I met looked me square in the eye with a gracious gleam and gave me welcome.

I LOVED Texas. I loved my visit with Betty, I expected that. What I was not expecting was loving Texas, loving Texans. Okay, so there are some places I did not go that might not have been so friendly but driving across practically the entire state, grace. Just grace.

And then, Betty. Betty is a story unto herself. And so is her remarkable, wonderful family.

For here, for now. Let's just saw that if one didn't know the gifts of grace before, one would after.

What they gave me: sheer grace. All of it.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

I am on the hunt!

2011-08-25T17:26:00.000-06:00
A journey of a single ice-blue Subaru headed out on an odyssey searching for signs of grace begins with --- a detour. Or two, or three. And road work. Lots of road work. And a herd of wild horses.

Now, that is grace! Right there. Right at the start. Stopped for road construction, the wild horses are right out my window. A couple of dozen beautiful horses nipping and sipping from the pond, chewing grass, posing for pictures. A gleaming palomino, the horse of my dreams was alive before my very much alive and watchful eyes. A gift of grace, those horses.

And so the day continued. Little bits of grace, like this one: a "hey, no problem! We're good! Really, it's okay, we're good!" response from the gas station manager when I -- for the first time in my life -- pulled away from the pump with the hose and nozzle still very much attached and in my car. "No biggie. We're good."

I envisioned my odyssey ending right there in tiny town Kansas. But no. Grace.

It is time for grace. It is time for gracious signs that the universe is full of good.

And it is time for me to experience grace, and gracious acts of welcome and kindness, most especially from myself.

I am on an odyssey that currently looks to last through September and take me roughly 6500 miles across the U.S. From Colorado to Connecticut, the coast of Maine, and back. Up and down, over and around. Searching for, finding, being delighted by grace.

In this process of healing and redemption from injury I've pushed and challenged myself. My motto is "The lines are there to be hit," and "Lean forward," all intent on urging me on.

What I realized was missing was grace. Gracious care for myself. The reminder that I am more than I was reduced to. That I am still a part of all I have been, have seen and experienced and loved. That I am still part of what I accomplished. That the strong, worthwhile, and, yes, even gracious person I have been is not gone, just was MIA awhile.

So, the next thirty days or so will be about this odyssey of grace. And I would love it if you would respond by telling us about your experiences of grace and graciousness too!

A herd of wild horses couldn't stop me.

Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Palm Tree in Poland: An Israeli, an Iranian, an Afghan, and an Irishman...

2011-07-23T17:05:00.000-06:00
Palm Tree in Poland: An Israeli, an Iranian, an Afghan, and an Irishman...: "An Israeli, an Iranian, an Afghan, an Egyptian, a Pakistani, an Irishman and a Syrian walked into a bar ... and it was just another normal..."
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

An Israeli, an Iranian, an Afghan, and an Irishman walked into bar...

2011-07-23T16:54:00.000-06:00
An Israeli, an Iranian, an Afghan, an Egyptian, a Pakistani, an Irishman and a Syrian walked into a bar...

and it was just another normal, hilarious night at the bar.

My favorite scenes from Aspen this summer so far (and I'm betting they won't be beat) are the ones described above.

I will never forget. Never. I saw the future. Dare I believe it? I do.

Oh, and American or two. Given everything, we're the toughest ones to add into the mix. Odd, isn't it. Ironic. Given our view of ourselves, and our views of the world.

True confession: I am a bleeding heart liberal, if by that you mean a sentimental idealist who believes all things are possible EVEN given the complexity of human personalities and global politics.

My sentiments have been sorely tested. By all the usual things we could tick off right now. And also, sadly, by friends who give up on friendship or choose not to be bothered by those who are too different than themselves. It's a tough world out there. Wear a helmet.

But. Still in all. I saw it with my own eyes. Now, to be clear, it was only a small group. And an elite one at that. I did not see just any old Israeli, or Iranian, or Afghan, or Irishman, or American walk into a bar, I saw particular ones with a particular slant on things. A slant that says "yes" to being open, who says "yes" to listening, to speaking carefully, to being generous in their assessments and looks with new eyes at the habitation of his or her neighbors. And their needs.

I saw it. And it was the most beautiful sight in the world. The laughter, the silence as everyone thoughtfully considered another's idea, the more laughter, and more laughter. The eyes that looked carefully into another's. The ears that in some cases were rather larger than others but that mattered not at all, only what those ears did was important. And mouths that smiled big and long and crazily and lovingly, or kindly.
It was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. After that I decided I'd skip my usual trek up to the Maroon Bells and then to Ashcroft. I'd seen it all.

Last night I saw and heard and felt the opposite. At my favorite bookstore. Pro-Israeli Jews insisting "there are no good Arabs," "there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim." When asked about Arabs in general, the speaker could only make reference to terrorism, nothing else. When asked if a positive Arab character could appear in one of the author's books, as a collaborator on a project with his clearly Israeli protagonist, he laughed at me. "No!" When asked if he could write a scene in which Arabs and Jews were depicted in one of their many cooperative, peace-making ventures he laughed again. I thought I might need a body guard. Daggers. The rest of the audience shot daggers with their eyes. Not quite the picture I was going for. Or expected, frankly, in this relatively well-educated community. Who knew.

As I reported in my last blog post, I walked out of my local indie book store and blah blah blah... whatever it was.

Last night I walked out of my local indie book store. Period.

I'm not sure when I'll go back.

I would much rather gather up an Israeli, an Iranian, an Afghan, an Irishman, an Egyptian, a Syrian and an American and walk into a bar.
There would be sisterhood and brotherhood and a lot of laughter.

Of course, we could meet up at the Tattered Cover. I just hope Gabriel Allon won't be around.

Salaam. Shalom. Paz. Peace.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

On the Borders

2011-07-18T22:24:00.000-06:00
Now what?

Amazon.

I walked out of my local indie bookstore tonight, The Tattered Cover, after learning that a book a wanted was long out of print, and thought, I'll check Amazon.

Amazon. It is a great resource for occasions like mine. And, I confess, I'll order a bucket of used books from time to time when I simply cannot afford the list price, or, more likely, when the books I want are indeed old and out of print. And of course, it is convenient. It's a great place for folks who live nowhere near a bookstore.

And it sure beats the heck out of counting on Costco to tell us what is worth reading.

But that's the point, the problem, as stores with actual books with actual covers and jackets and pages with words close. One doomsayer claimed today, "The bricks and mortar bookstore is dead."

Over my tattered body.

This is what I can do at The Tattered Cover -- our Indie bookstore -- that I cannot do at Amazon.

1. Chat with the friendly staff about everything from books to sunsets.

2. Ask for advice about which translation of Chekhov is most authentic.

3. Watch little kids play with pop-up books and make their own choices.

4. Drink cappuccino.

5. Sit in an overstuffed chair and read from seven different books that I'm considering purchasing. There are no missing pages, and holding the book in my hand makes me feel connected in an odd way to the author.

6.My daughter and I browsed together for a bit and picked up books that intrigued us and discussed recommendations we'd heard. We would not be browsing on Amazon together.

7. I discovered a used copy of one of my favorites for $3 and no shipping fee.

8. I picked up and considered books I'd never heard of and would not likely be directed toward even though I have an extensive Amazon "like this" list. I bought one. The store itself is educational -- pointing out ideas via book titles and the books themselves.

9. I ran into a friend.

10. We walked out to another spectacular view of the mountains and a gorgeous sunset.

When I order a book they don't have in stock, it arrives within a few days, often the next day, and I don't pay a cent for shipping.

When I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for, I wander around actual floors filled with shelves holding actual books and I pick them up and read the jacket covers or the backs, and I have an entire array of books in front of me to consider.

The store does the work for me when I am in a fog.

It sells used books for practically nothing.

It gives me a wonderful place to sit and write with friends. And to talk with other writers about our work. And to sit in comfy overstuffed chairs and peruse magazines, books, and eat scones.

There are lots of good features about online bookselling. It is here to stay. And there are lots of good features about e-books. They're not going away either -- not until the next generation replaces them.

But,like movie theatres when VCR's and DVD's came out and we all shouted doom to the places with popcorn and Twizzlers and JuJuBee's, life wil change. Our options will increase. And, I bet you a pile of books, of whichever variety you wish, 'real' bookstores will not go away for good.

Amazon has not ever, not once, given me a comfy chair in which to sit and drink a cappuccino and chat with Christie.

And heaven forfend the day that the only books we have to buy are those Walmart has decided we'd like to read. Can you even imagine?
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Storming the Bastille

2011-07-14T17:18:00.000-06:00
da da da dum dum dum dum dah de dum ta dum dum do dum dee dee dum

Oh to be young and whimsical again. Why have we stopped doing this? Dang.

Bastille Day. Precisely at six o'clock a.m. our radio would wake us -- loudly -- to La Marseillaise. Talk about a wake up call!

We'd sit right up, and salute, right there in bed.

"Allons enfants de la Patrie Le jour de gloire est arrive!

Come! Our day of glory has arrived!"

Those days of glory are always also days of blood.
Of death.
Risk.
Sacrifice.

One need only remember Les Miserables to be clear on this.

There are no days of glory without days of sacrifice and risk.

Lest these pages seem morose and bleak,let's remember the essential:

There are days of glory that follow those days of sacrifice, risk, and even blood.

* * *

Fourteen years ago today, July 14, 1997, was a Sunday. I have no memory of what we Erickson-Pearson's were doing, oblivious.

My brother Jim, fifteen miles away, was almost beaten to death with a brick. He escaped and ran down the street out of his house to summon help. The stains of dark red blood on his white shirt and shorts haunt my memory to this day.

The next several weeks were frightening for all of us, as his assailant threatened to finish the job and even harm others most precious to him.

I confess, I feared for my brother's life constantly. And for my children. Constant vigilance. It was exhausting. And excruciating. It continued to be a threat for several months. Tragically, the man who attempted to kill my brother succeeded at killing himself on Thanksgiving.

"Out of the rot and the ruin come the rumors of resurrection,"
and not only rumors.

Jim is more alive and more healthy today that he was for many years even before the attack. He is claiming the gifts of life every day.

Of course, it doesn't come quickly. There is no Oprah magic to this healing process. We want it to come on our terms. Quickly. And those around us want us to heal up fast. Move on.

It does not work that way. We each have our own narrative. And our own histories that factor into our new experiences. You can imagine that my trauma was made even worse after having gone through this experience alongside my brother. Trauma piled on top of another. And likewise mine triggered his "stuff," a few years later.

Jim can celebrate his recovery, ever vigilant, and today is a very significant day for us, one we remember with somber sadness and with deep gratitude for the gift of Jim's life, flowing freely and lively along with us, as he says, in the flow of the circles of life. It is a beautiful thing to behold! Life!

Storming the Bastille involves going up against abuse and structural violence. It feels like glory for about half an hour before dawn. Then it gets ugly. But eventually, France was free, and so are we.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

I got new ears!

2011-07-14T00:22:00.000-06:00
My ears are new.

Who knew?

My ears are hearing differently.

Very simple: last night when Jay Leno was making fun of Iran and then said, given the lack of laughter in response to the joke, "I guess there are a lot of Iranians here tonight," I heard something I hadn't noticed before.

His words hit me as all wrong. Offensive. Making fun of my friends.

My Iranian friends. And, while I'm at it, I hear Iran differently now too. The name. I notice when it is mispronounced, I -ran.

I'd like to respect my friends and say it right, Ir-ron. That's not so hard.

Lots of words on this blog lately about speaking out. Betty Ford, spunky ladies, brave courageous women and men speaking the truth. Words. Using one's voice. Speaking for others.

But listening ranks right up there. Higher, maybe. I want to use my ears too. To hear truth, to hear the stories of those we ignore. And to hear with ears that are sympathetic to the concerns, hopes, and ideas of others, especially, for example, Iranians. My ears pick up the static now. And the put-downs.

To be honest, it would be good, to my mind, if lots of people got new ears. I think they're available. For free.

And, as a tribute to the spectacular friendship I experienced today, from someone who had no need to care about me, but did, I offer these wise words of Emily Dickinson,

"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain: If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain."-Emily Dickinson

Given in a card by the Betty Ford family to all those who made the pilgrimage to pay our respects to the church where she was in repose. (shared from my brother, Jim)

I am one cool robin back in the safety of the nest again.

Pass it on.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Hello, My name is Betty and I'm an alcoholic"

2011-07-12T16:08:00.000-06:00
"Hello, my name is Betty and I'm an alcoholic."

Courage. Honesty. Kindness. Spunk. Determination. Speech.

Betty Ford made it okay to talk about the untalkable. To speak about the unmentionable.

First, it was breast cancer. Women in my mother's generation felt shame at a cancer diagnosis. It was whispered but not spoken aloud. Not only breast cancer but any cancer, the name that shall not be spoken.

No more. No more. No more.

Betty spoke and all of us began to. Be honest. Speak out.

Addiction. An abyss from which there was almost no relief, no cure, no recovery.

We joke about celebrities checking into the Betty Ford Center. It is no joke. I know people whose lives were literally saved at the Betty Ford Center. Scared, broken, lonely.

Renewal, recovery, the rooms, meetings, group, healing, confidence, new life.

Can you even imagine a nation without the influence of these institutions, these words, these inspirations?

People ask me why I blather here about my injury, my experience. Why I write about the abuse of power, about the scourge of clergy sexual abuse.

I take power and confidence and inspiration from Betty, from women like Betty who dare to speak truth, the unmentionable, the damnable.

She changed the world. She changed the world. She changed the world.

This is not to idolize a woman, but to pay respect and to be clear that some of us spunky, uppity, courageous women are not going to stop speaking the truth. However inconvenient. It's gonna keep coming.

About all manner of important, unmentionable but essential issues.

Bless you, Betty. And thank you. For everything.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Memories, dreams, reflections: "Don't challenge the USA on July 10"

2011-07-10T13:43:00.000-06:00
Memories, dreams, and reflections

Our hearts were so full, our minds on fire.

Kaia was the world's number one US Women's World Cup Soccer Fan. She knew all the players' statistics, their backgrounds, their strong points. She was one of the thousands of little girls who looked up to these young women and counted the hours until her own next soccer practice and the next televised game. She was good. Had a strong leg, a mean mid-field boot. She could score from there, and was a master at corner kicks.

Kaia and Annika both wore their autographed World Cup tee-shirts. They'd met Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilley and I forget who all else.The girls had watched the US Team practice at a field close to our house, fell in love with the whole phenomenon.

We'd gone to the teams' hotel, also nearby, collected more autographs, met Swedish and Brazilian players as they headed out to the bus; Annika -- at age 6 -- was interviewed on Brazilian TV. Marta impressed us then.

Dave and Kaia were at Soldier Field in Chicago when the US played a penultimate game. We scheduled our lives around tournament matches. We did not miss even part of one. There is still a special box of memorabilia -- programs, tickets, autographs, noise-makers, souvenir mini-balls -- in Kaia's closet. Her passion and joy were so infectious it could not help but capture and move us all.

July 10, 1999. The Finals. The Rose Bowl, Pasadena California. 90,000 in the crowd in Pasadena, millions of us completely enthralled at home. Even I remember all the names of all the starting players. We had finger foods to munch on while we watched in the family room but none of us could manage a bite. Too much excitement, tension, uncertainty. Each one of us had our spot. And I don't think we moved so much as a finger. The telephone went unanswered. A thief could have driven off in the car. We were there. In the zone. All in. Just the four of us. No distractions.

The game itself was a thrill, tight, tense. China seemed to have our number. Kaia was curled around a commemorative soccer ball of her own. Annika had her game face on.

Dave and I had our own reason for sweating bullets. We were as eager as anyone to see the US win. And, as parents, we couldn't imagine the heart and soul our daughters were pouring into this and their heartbreak if the US lost.

But we were down to the wire on another front. Today was T-Day. The day we had put off and off. The day we finally had to Tell the girls we were likely moving to Littleton. Kaia with her best friend, Jenna, would be crushed. She had such a wonderful, full life in Naperville. It was wrenching, awful to think of pulling her away from friends, her soccer team, her special school programs, church, piano lessons, oh, STOP! Jan. Really. I can go downhill fast when I think along that line. I felt guilty as all hell.

But moving felt right, overall. Annika seemed more flexible, I wasn't as worried about her transition as I should have been. Annika would be in 2nd grade that fall, Kaia in 6th. Oh, the whole thing felt unreal.

Today, that day, July 10, 1999, however, was the day we HAD to tell them. We were all making a trial, audition trip to Denver in two weeks. They needed time to get their heads around the idea and we had to make specific plans. So Dave and I had an extra reason for hoping and praying the US would win. A loss and bad news, both on the same day would be really bad news. We had our hearts in our throats. Or whatever it is we say about those moments. Sweating bullets seems to cover it.

And the US won. In the most dramatic way possible. The ecstasy. The whooping and hollering we let go on and on and on and on.

Then, later in the day, we told them. They were more sanguine than I expected. We talked about the details.

Today, July 10, 2011. We watched another miracle finish by the US. There is no big news looming. Kaia has graduated from college and is living in a lovely house in Minneapolis. She even had her grandparents over for lunch today. Annika is visiting her and the two girls are doing well. They watched the game together with Grandma and Grandpa and life goes on.

Moving to Littleton was a good thing and a bad thing for them, for us all. It took me a longer time than anyone else to get used to all the change. And then I got whomped. Who ever could have foreseen, or even imagined that? No Hollywood screenwriter would have accepted the script; too over the top.

In truth, it is a painful memory for me. All that followed. Too much pain, too much hate. Too many encounters with evil. As much as we protected the girls, it has had an impact on them both. But they are doing well. And they learned more than we ever bargained.

Despite Oprah's insistence on "moving on" and catharsis and just getting on with your life, the centuries before her wisdom hit the small screen suggest to us that there is a time for letting go, AND a time for holding. A time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to get over it and a time to linger with the grief long enough to learn its lessons.

My body woke up grieving today before my mind even had a clue what for. It took hours and an explicit reminder before my heart and mind caught up with my emotions and my guts. "Oh, that day." Some bodies have a mind of their own. Mine does. It told me to take time, for the memories, the dreams, and the reflections.

Nothing can excuse hateful, evil actions. It takes time to absorb the blows. But now, here we are. Not immobilized anymore. Not overcome by grief. But mindful, reflective. Sober. And, having counted the cost, all in all, grateful to still be here.

And ready for a nap. I'll go conquer the world tomorrow. You can be on duty today.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Palm Tree in Poland: Land of the Titans

2011-07-08T10:52:00.000-06:00
Palm Tree in Poland: Land of the Titans
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Land of the Titans

2011-07-08T10:41:00.000-06:00
"Lift off

Titan Road begins just three miles from our house. Our neighborhood and the ones surrounding it are filled with engineers and project managers, inventors and technicians who work at Lockheed and, for the past decade or two have been at work to send space shuttles into space, create deep space vehicles (Mars), and prepare the Orion space capsule for eventual use to carry humans into deep space.

There is a bitter sweet feeling all around this morning. Pride in work well done and remarkable accomplishment. Concern for the future of a mission they believe in and, frankly, for their own jobs. Will we see more For Sale signs soon?

Consider me naive. Dumb, head in the ground naive. During the entire period of time that these same Titan missiles were developed and built a few miles away and being prepared to carry unfathomable nuclear destruction across the globe, when another generation was immersed in the Cold War mission of annihilation -- or Mutually Assured Destruction, as the official policy was called, or MAD -- I spent dozens of weekends here in Littleton and had no clue.

In the 1950's, the Martin Company of Baltimore, sent a man I met and really liked, a spunky soul, to find property in these foothills for a plant at which to create the Cold War hardware. Especially the Titan missiles. He nailed it. A perfect site so out of sight, tucked in behind the hogback in a pristine valley, before suburban sprawl encroached, that many of us had no idea it was here. You heard about Rocky Flats and their production of plutonium triggers but not as much about The Martin Company. Then it became Martin Marietta and word spread, and then eventually Lockheed and now we all see its signage as we drive past to favorite hiking spots.

The incongruity of the world. We don't, we can't separate danger zones, dare I say immoral zones from the rest of life. It is all mixed up together.

I had no idea Martin was nearby, no idea that Littleton was the source of the ICBM's I protested long and loud in the late 60's and 70's and 80's. Consider me naive. My cousins lived here. What I knew about Littleton then was Barbie dolls in their spacious basement, a model train set created by my cousin Bert, the Rexall Drug in the shopette on Orchard near University, and racing popsicle sticks down rain swollen gutters in front of my cousins' house.

I had no idea that their neighbors were living in homes built on paychecks that came from destructive creativity. Or that the church I would eventually come back to serve was full of men who made their living planning for the killing of millions on the other side of the world.

My uncle had no such job so I was oblivious to it all. Perhaps my cousins were too. But I've often wondered about what it does, did, to one's soul to spend all of one's creative energy on the minutiae of death. Delivery systems, guidance systems, triggers, all of it perfected in those years of the "hot" Cold War.

The shuttle is the happier outcome of their labors, and the Mars Lander, the Mars Rover, and other reaches into deep space. The generation at work now has had a much more constructive mission. I only imagine they sleep better at night.
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Take all the lost home

2011-07-06T14:23:00.000-06:00
Take All the Lost Home

One of these days I'll become proficient enough at this techie business to know how to link the song to this post: "Take All the Lost Home by Joe Wise

Why do I do this?

Blog. Write what and as I do?

At the recent Aspen Writers' Conference we talked of the variety of reasons for tweeting, blogging, and using other social media. It was easy for me to articulate my purpose. Let me say it again here.

You. You. You, any, all of you who have become victimized by the abuse of power.

Clergy sexual abuse is the particular area of my expertise. I have not myself experienced it but I speak at the request of, and on behalf of many who have known this shredding of their soul. I encountered those victimized over a period of fifteen years, directly, and realized in the meanwhile that I'd known victims of clergy sexual abuse all my life.

It is hidden. It is misunderstood. In Protestant, or non-Catholic churches, where most of the abuse occurs between a male pastor and an adult female parishioner, it is often 'simply' thought of as an affair. Women are most generally blamed. Pastors are viewed as the victims, seduced by the 'wiles' of manipulative, needy women.

Not true. Not true. Volumes of data, rooms of statistical evidence, acres of women could stand together and bear witness to the truth. They were manipulated. They were used. And then cast off. Blamed. Ignored. Thrown away.

"All the perpetrators ask of us is silence," says Judith Herman in "Trauma and Recovery."

I will not be silent.

These women and men, children and teens rarely get a voice. They get lost from our midst, frankly, by our own decision. We don't want them among us as a reminder of what, at some deep place, we know to be true. Or could be true. And so they are lost. From us. From the church. From their faith. From the joy of life.

My mission is expressed by Joe Wise in his beautiful simple song, "Take All the Lost Home." I won't be able to find all who are lost but I will be here, "a voice of the living God, calling them all to live," and calling the rest of us to repent. To welcome, to love, to care, to embrace.

"Their faces are grey 'til you call."

I speak of my own experiences as a victim of a different kind of abuse of power for one reason: what happened to me occurred to shut me up. It is not my own pain I express most deeply. It is yours, it is theirs. I speak not for myself but because I am called to use what voice I have to tell the truth of abusive power, to be a voice for the silenced, and to do whatever I can to reach out with strength and empowerment to those who are shattered and lost.

More of this to follow in the days following.

Meanwhile, will you be a partner, to take all the lost home?
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Chaos, in theory

2011-06-29T23:14:00.000-06:00
I don't recommend getting hit in the head but it worked for me.

Seriously. That's how the light got in.

Don't bother looking up Clary, Colorado. I invented it, but not its view: a sweep of Rocky Mountains from Long's Peak to Pikes Peak, a good hundred miles. It's that long view, the big sky, and a hot winter sun that keeps me rooted.

I'm writing about Chaos, in Theory. It is about getting hit in the head and having your perfect offering broken in bits and then, crack, that's how the light gets in. (Thank you Leonard Cohen!)

I hope you find here some crackpot notions that stimulate your own thinking and your gracious, creative response to the world's chaos. Chaos is great, in theory. Living with it, not so much. Let's talk about how to be creative, gracious and constructive humans. Old-timers will see how this blog has morphed. Even as that funky palm tree in Poland still makes me smile, there is more weird and significant stuff to talk about. More places to embrace the chaos and let it teach us. So. Welcome to the even more new and cracked open Palm Tree in Poland.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Butterflies and kittens:Lost in Bubbles

2011-06-15T18:09:00.000-06:00
Lost in bubbles.

Don't try this at home. Not unless you happen to have a bath tub that is completely surrounded on three sides up to a height of about six feet.

Pour in a bottle of one of Victoria's Secret bubble bath. The entire bottle. And an ample supply of bath water. It's more fun if you are already in the tub as the cocoon develops. Allow bubbles to billow up as high and as full as possible.

You will become lost in bubbles. And it is pure delight. Lean back on a pillow and soak. And stay.

Lost in bubbles.

Of course, you can get lost in other bubbles.

Less worthy, not the least bit honorable. But even more tempting.

I torture myself periodically by reading the news from my old church. For the longest time they hadn't managed to join the modern era and have an actual web site with actual information on it. But now they do. And oh, my goodness, what a bubble.

I'm telling you, they are pooping butterflies and, like Dairy Queen, they not only blow bubbles, they blow bubbles with kittens inside (I actually find that rather creepy). It is peaches and marmalade. They are burping bunnies and farting feathers. What a place! Everything is wonderful!

Now. It might be viewed as churlish on my part to be disdainful of their delightfulness. It might be viewed as mean and short-sighted of me to not rejoice in their good works. A wet blanket. To be sure, it is wonderful whenever, and for whatever reason, people care for the poor and the refugees and the homeless and the sick and those in prison. It is impressive and blessed work. So of course, it's great to see all of these important ministries.

They write to each other about how wonderful and kind and caring they are, in thank you notes, for example. 'We are amazing, we are remarkable.'

And, one could add, "we are living in a bubble."

Judith Herman, whose book, Trauma and Recovery, is the seminal book about the topic, writes that all perpetrators require of the rest of us is silence. Silence.

As long as there is a tacit or explicit promise to say nothing about abuse and wrong, the bubble is sustained, billows up and grows.

One parish living in a bubble. A minority among them who felt a decade ago that they still depended upon silence, hated and attacked me because I made no such promise. I made no declaration to 'out' their secrets and blab either. But lacking a promise of silence, they put a target on my back. And shot.

Churchhill is famously known for exulting that "there is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at. And missed." (He wasn't the first to say it and I suspect he borrowed it from someone who was not actually shot at, either.) Because it is not exhilarating to be shot at. It is devastating. It is terrible.

It is traumatic. And, as I was reminded again today, again, again: trauma changes your brain.

The same people who are blasting rainbows out their ears today tried to kill me nine years ago. Because they were afraid. Of truth. Of a word. Of the unknown.

Jesus said, "you will know the truth and the truth will make you free."

Agreed. Just watch your back if you're the one called upon to announce it.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away"

2011-06-05T17:23:00.000-06:00
Sail away, sail away, sail away...

And so ended the memorial service for Ty. I cherished the vision of him sailing on his way to a place free from suffering, wasting away, being drawn away from us on a quiet tide. Sail away, sail away, sail away. I hear it now in my heart and my head and it brings tears, as the song always does.

Thirty years ago this week five men were identified as "patient zero's" -- two of them had already died -- men suffering with a mysterious kind of pneumonia and others with an unusual cancer, origin unknown.

Thirty years. 1981. Young men were dying. Thirty years of grief and loss. I'm not even going to write about numbers of deaths, there are too too many. Young wonderful vital creative and loving men who were dentists and chefs and neuro-scientists and musicians and playwrights and football players and salesmen and physicians and engineers. They were sons and brothers and lovers and fathers and uncles and husbands.

And nothing they did made them deserve the excruciating deaths. Or their sickness.

Because of where I lived at the time and with whom I hung out, the nature of the church congregation I served, our location in the midst of the epidemic, and our choice to host support groups and information sessions my primary association with AIDS and HIV was with gay men.

Too many hospital visits - but they were better than the home visits only because by the time my friends were at home they were in a basically hospice, palliative mode, near death. It was a terrible death. Terrible.

And they are gone. Gone.

But we remember. We remember. We remember Ty, and Dan, and so many more.

And we remember their loving families. Frank and Elise and Mary and Colleen epitomize the extravagance of love that was given to brothers, uncles, sons as they died. They enacted the story of the woman who lavished her love, her perfume oil on Jesus as she washed his feet. I remember being there as Frank cared for his brother and feeling I was as near to the presence of God as I'd ever been. This was the heart of God.

So, blessedly washed, oiled, and dearly loved, Ty and too many of his peers sailed away from us to a far shore where, one so wants to believe, their bodies are free from sores and scars and lungs filled with fluid and painful, ugly lesions, from disease and hurt and isolating existential loneliness.

May they all be one, gathered together at feasts of abundance (think of the food!) and spectacular music and excellent wine, and at peace.

And may all who live with grief know how much they mattered, how they too are remembered for their lavish gifts of love upon their loved ones.

We live with loss. But we can remember. And be grateful for the time we had. The lives we shared.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

What makes it last?

2011-05-29T11:56:00.000-06:00
R E S P E C T

Dave and I are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary and Barack Obama has just completed his first visit to Warsaw.

Tell me, how am I going to weave those two topics together?

Respect. Laughter. Intense interest. Listening. Kindness. Humility.

How do you sustain a relationship for 35 years that begins when two young adults, one of them barely 21 and a day away from her college graduation, take a big gulp and jump half-blind, mostly-blind, into a lifelong commitment?

How do you sustain a geopolitical partnership over long years when two parties, one with presumption and comfort with power and the other with a terminal inferiority complex that is masked by the pride of occasional churlish grandiosity, are thrown together to make common cause of causes that are only vaguely understood and agreed upon?

What in the heck did that mean? United States, still the superpower. Poland, still struggling to find its voice and its place in the modern configuration of power. Polish history has caused Poles to call themselves, without a shred of irony, "the suffering Christ" of Europe, devastated again and again, scapegoated and wiped so far off the map that we forget all about their brave and noble history.

Once more this week a significant step was taken, only coincidental with Obama's visit. Once again, the point was made emphatic: there were no Polish death camps. No Polish Concentration Camps. They were Nazi camps. They were established, controlled and determined by Nazi policies, personnel and ideology. Poles suffered along with Jews in those camps and were killed in almost equal numbers during World War II. Poles carry an inferiority complex from this and other misunderstandings and humiliations over long years of European history.

At the same time, Poles are rightly proud of their early establishment of universities and their wide access to education for all, their Constitution, the first democratic Constitution in Europe, following the U.S. Constitution by only a few years. They are rightly proud of their resilience and cunning and heroics. And, as you've read here before, they are justly proud of their Solidarity Trade Union Movement and their Pope, John Paul II, who together were as responsible for the withering away of communism than any other factor and far more than the last dramatic act that gets all the attention, in Berlin. They brought down the Berlin wall.

Now Obama shows up. And this noxious mix of traits within the Polish personna pops up. For the most part, it wsa productive meeting. Obama had no big toys to drop in their lap. He came to 'make nice,' if you will, to confirm the intentions for future collaboration. He was courting. He was respectful, he was kind: The ingrediants required for any long-term relationship. He made some concrete offers, meaningful offers and promises. But he did not tell the Poles they were the center of the universe. And one often gets the impression that that is exactly where they believe they deserve to be.

How to sustain a long relationship? Respect. Kindness. Humility. Intense interest and earnest listening. On both sides. And laughter.

I'm not sure the Poles could relax quite enough to engage Obama at that level. And, given the history of recent times, I'm sure the President was walking on egg shells. And then, of course, there was the ever churlish and, frankly, tiresome, Lech Walesa. Walesa snubbed Obama. Went to Italy and declined their meeting. The speculation runs that he was angry that it was not to be a private -- messiah to messiah -- meeting but only one that would include other leading Polish anti-communist activists and leaders.

So of course the big world headline, no, there is no big world headline --- you were hard-pressed to even find mention in the Times, the Post, of Obama's visit to Wawsaw --- but such as it was reported, it was reported that the big news was Walesa's churlish (my word) behavior. Too bad.

Because, there was a spirit of respect and kindness, there was as much good feeling as one could hope for between President Obama and the Polish leadership. There is a promise of future collaboration and growing respect. If Obama was there you know there was laughter, and he is a good listener.

Respect. Humility. Kindness. Listening, Intense interest. Laughter.

I am blessed to have enjoyed 35 years of partnership with a man who took me as I was -- talk about your leap of faith! -- a naive, raw twenty-one year old child bride, and has given me the gifts that enabled me to continue to grow, to thrive, to venture and fail and venture and fail better and accomplish, succeed, and keep on going. It is an alchemy of unknown ingrediants, as well as the common ones. We've created something, two wonderful daughters, and a life that just keeps pushing us to be better than we are. And yet with grace enough to accept us as we are.

One can only hope that, in some miraculous way, the geopolitical partnership of Poland and its presumptious partner, the U.S., can find their way to such a productive and fulfilling, and maybe even fun long-term run.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

POLAND! A Post About Poland Finally, and Obama

2011-05-26T00:43:00.000-06:00
Talk about your boring state visit.

Barack Obama will not be drilling for shale oil on his visit to Poland this weekend. Talk about your bummer of a trip.

Presidents have such boring jobs. Meeting this, meeting that, speaking here, greeting there, policy speeches to joint sessions of Parliament. You can only hope the food and wine are worth the trip. And you be sure that in Warsaw it will be. Exceptional cuisine. Why am I not invited?

The thing is, all Presidents do is meet and talk and meet and talk and figure stuff out. Most of it is figured out already by their aides (or minions as we like to call them). So President Obama will tell the Poles that there are still no missile shields coming their way. But F-16's, perhaps. The news is already in print, the outcomes predetermined.

The Poles desperately want missile shields aimed at Russia. The Russians desperately don't want the Poles to have them. Guess who wins that tussle.

The Poles also want U.S. assistance with extracting oil shale. And the thought was, President Obama could do a bit of the work himself. But no, it's all meetings all the time. Why?

I don't know. If I were the President, I'd want one of those giant sized Tonka trucks with a steam shovel on the front end. And I would like to move some dirt around. Can't we give the guy a break?

Because I don't believe in shale mining, I'd prefer to give the whole group of Central and Eastern European Presidents meeting together with Obama this weekend a shot at a playground I have in mind, a very big one up in the Zoliborz District. They talk enough. I say let's let them do some digging for a change.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Dream On"

2011-05-22T20:19:00.000-06:00
Dream on!

It is so quiet around here. Something is missing. What's gone?

Oh, that would be the 173 family and friends who came to Kaia and Annika's graduation parties a year ago. The watermelon fruit bowl. The five-foot long submarine sandwich. Bowls and bowls of chips. Paper plates and napkins that blew from kingdom come in a record windy afternoon. And confetti that filled the park and lodged in such odd spots that I'm guessing some soccer goalie chasing a ball found some yet this spring.

What a wonderful, noisy and loving celebration! A whole year ago.

And in that year, dreams have come true. Dreams have been deferred. Dreams have been dished, dumped, and alterred.

And some dreams have been dashed. I have nothing at all specific in mind but it is always inevitable. It happens to all of us. We don't see all of our dreams, large or small, exotic or common, profound or banal come true.

While I was whooping it up yesterday, poking back at the nightmares that had kept me up nights as a kid, the Rapture and that not all would be ready, others were feeling the devastating deflation that accompanies a dream that is dashed. Truth be told, a part of me wants to say, duh. Or, what fools you mortals be; presuming to predict a plan that is far beyond our designs.

And a small, compassionate corner of my heart has been claimed by a surprising sense of compassion. What do you do the day after you've been dumped? Defeated? Deflated? After you sold all you had to print pamphlets and put up billboards. There will be recalculations, the math was off, and recriminations -- we liquidated our kids' college funds for what? But somehow for all those whose hopes are turned to ash, life will go on. They will figure out a way. A way to go on. Rationalizations. New passions. Denial and numbness. Nose to grind stone.

We all know something about having our dreams dashed.

And that is yet another reason to be tender of one another, to be kind, gentle, patient, and, still again, hopeful.

What do we do when dreams die? We go on.

The dream has died. Long live the dream.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Carried Away

2011-05-21T15:01:00.003-06:00
I have been carried away.

Not to heaven, heavens no. But I've been carried away about this craziness of the Rapture occuring today. A strict scientific study concluded that of all the users of social media, especially facebook, I have made a bigger to-do of this goofiness than anyone else with the possible exception of my friend who-shall-not-be-named Stuart. He posted the "Blondie" video; I passed.

One might wonder, reasonably wonder I would add, why I am so obsessed with this nonsense. I have a clue. Two of them, in fact.

First of all, from as early as I can remember, my mother told me about her love of hellfire and brimstone sermons. Seriously. She ate them up. I think they must have been the 1935 equivalent of Nightmare on Elm Street, The Omen, or Friday the 13th. She lived for that crap. She said she sat in the front row of the balcony at the Evangelical Free Church and was thrilled to her toes at the fright of burning and steaming and pokers with fiery embers.

My primary memory of hearing her tell these stories was thinking, 'what the hell is wrong with my mother?'

2) The Rapture was not a really big topic in my church but it sure was at camp. Before "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" (the song) and its accompanying movie came out in 1972, I saw another movie at a junior high retreat weekend with the same basic theme. Kid is left behind. Alone. Scared the living shit out of me. Didn't scare me straight, just scared me out of the church. I was smart enough to know manipulation when I got mowed down by it. It made me mad.

Then I went with friends to see the Late Great Hal Lindsay of the Late Great Planet Earth speak. And a host of other cool surfer dudes who made the Christian Youth group circuit in the 60's and 70's and to use their humor, virility, and implied sexuality to attract/terrify all God's children into the peculiar corral they were tending in the great Kingdom of God. What a pile. We sang some song in Sunday School about "one will be ready and the other left behind," and that always merited a sermonette to go along with it. We made a joke of it and someone always stepped behind the rest and made a sad dog face.

Anyone out there on the same page?

And of course, we sang, "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" a million times around the campfire and watched that movie too. I loved camp because I got to spend my days there cleaning toilets and sweeping out the dining hall; I didn't love camp because of the mush-brained swarmy Jesus theology we heard.

I was SO ready for the reasonable study of theology and philosophy when I finally got to college. No more God the Puerto Rican laundry attendant indiscriminately, capriciously moving us around like toys. But God, a gracious giver of life, of love, of mercy.

No Rapture. No Tribulation. No manipulation. No more scare the shit out of 'em. I'd figured that out already; it was just good to be free from the crazy-making influences that tried to cram that stuff in my head.

So. This mock-the-Rapture obsession of mine. Maybe it's payback. Catharsis. Maybe it feels good to make fun of the devil -- because these scare tactics are devilish. Maybe I have a really warped sense of humor after all these years. Maybe it's yet another form of rebellion against my mother (added to, 1) be happy; and 2) make the most of life.)

At any rate, I apologize to anyone I've offended but I also stand by everything. I won't be played with. I will play with the plotter of the panic theories.

So, in case you notice my empty shoes on your front porch tonight around 6 MDT, dry ice steaming out of them, or a pile of my clothes left behind by the mailbox, I'm not making fun of God. I'm making fun of the mockery of God.

And just in case I am totally wrong about all this, and my mom was right, and Freddy Kruger is actually in charge, I don't know where I stand. If God is gracious, as I expect, then it's not to worry. I'll be hoovered up with the rest of y'all. Pie in the sky for dessert.

If all of the rules in Leviticus really count, God will need only a very small bus. Very small. A micro-mini. Just for Herself.

If I don't make the cut, I get your car. That's you, I mean, you with the sweet gold Jaguar convertible. But I won't take care of your pets. Sorry. Oh, wait, I want a horse.

Meanwhile, depending upon how this goes, I would like to thank all of you for being such great earthmates. It's been fun sharing the planet with (some/most of) you. Thanks so much for all your support and friendship and maybe we'll get assigned to the same dorm or whatever it is up there. At least I hope we can go out (well, not way out) for coffee sometime.

For those of you in earlier time zones, you're in big trouble if you don't save some chocolate mousse for us latecomers.

Dave mowed the lawn so it will look nice left behind for the (pagan) neighbors. And I'm getting highlights so I look good for eternity.

The other good tip I got was to wear loose-fitting clothes. You really don't want your pants to pinch for all eternity.

And Jennifer, just in case, since we'll miss your bridal shower, I got you a

__________THIS TRANSMISSION HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED____________________
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Stories of the spotted brain

2011-05-19T23:05:00.000-06:00
Take my word for it. Getting highlights are easier. Brain spots are more useful but a whole lot harder to come by.

I do not in anyway mean to make light of this process. It is life-giving, probably life-saving, and certainly a change-maker. Brain spotting. (See yesterday's blog.) A treatment for PTSD. Nobody knows quite why it works, or how, but it does. It clears out a safe spot in the brain for when the inevitable traumatic memories return.

I have one simple, disturbing and sad word from my work today.

Some violence is so intractible there is virtually no way to get free from it. I will be honest. It isn't good. Trying to visualize a resolution to a violent encounter I let my mind range over a variety of peaceful responses. Tried to be reasonable. Talk facts. Talk sense. Didn't matter. I visualized being in a blue dress and being told it was red. It was very frustrating. Exactly the situation itself back when it happened.

Finally, my therapist suggested I visualize bringing in a friend to help. That didn't sit well with me at first. I'm supposed to do this on my own, right? Back at the time of the actual events, I was terribly awfully alone. My therapist assured me that's one of the good things about life. We get to ask for help. And we can get help. So I called in a friend. Two of them in fact. Visualized them standing on either side of me.

They didn't waste time being nice. They just hauled off and yelled, swore, let their tempers fly and finally, after that had no impact to stop the violence, one of the guys socked her in the face.

That's terrible. To feel like it had to go that far. Violence. For violence. I don't believe in it.

So I'm going to say this was symbolic. The basic, sad, disturbing fact of the matter is sometimes violence has to be stopped. Just stopped. Stopped cold. No reasoning. No nice rationalizing. No explanations, facts are irrevelent. No trying to make sense. Just stop it. Bam. Bam. Not a punch in the face I hope. But something strong and compelling. And then go.

When I hear about pastors being bullied and mistreated, the only advice I can offer is to get the hell out. There is no point trying anything else. If it goes on and on and a critical mass of folk are involved, and you don't have support from the higher-ups, and you won't because they never have the balls to kick butt and take names, you are toast. Sad to say it. But it is true. Just get out. You won't win.

I don't want you to have to sit in a therapists' office in three years and visualize a woman getting knocked in the face in order to exorcise the demons. Just leave her behind and get out now.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Snow leopard? Dalmatian? Spotted giraffe? Lady bugs? Appaloosa?

2011-05-18T21:25:00.000-06:00
What sort of spots should I get for my brain?

The next time you see me I will have a spotted brain!

It is hard, though, to decide what sort of spots to get. There are more spotted animals than you would imagine. Pigs, sheep, frogs, owls, horses, even giraffes. Cats and my new favorite, moiled cows.

I do believe I've written a bit about this before. It involves a wand, remember? Actually, it's just a long pointer and my therapist will not be wearing a pointy hat.

This is an ongoing aspect of my therapy for PTSD, a new means of neutralising the impact of traumatics incidents. I will visualize the event or experience, allow myself to feel its awfulness for a brief moment or two. And then we will look for a spot in my range of vision where the impact of the traumatic event is not so intense.

Like so much of the treatment for PTSD, nobody is exactly certain how, or why, it works but it beats the heck out of walking around the planet in a state of shell shock as the WWI veterans did for decades.

I really hope these new modalities of treatment (see, I can use big words, just not emotionally stand to be near anyone at the time) are helpful not so much for me but especially for all of the Iraqi and Afghani war veterans returning home. And I hope it is helpful for the victims of rape and abuse and other kinds of domestic violence.

We have to take these afflictions more seriously. Mental health issues must come out of the closet and be treated with the same respect we give to diabetes, leukemia, heart attacks. They are just that deadly.

Life is hard. And we make it harder on others when we're just shitty people and treat others like crap. It is normal to respond the way many of us do. The brain is resilient and clever but it wants to work. It doesn't want to be screwed up and blown up and completely mixed up.

I am so grateful for the patience and creativity of medical folks who are trying new means of helping to get our neural pathways moving along their natural courses again. If you know someone who is struggling, don't judge. Encourage. Be kind. Be gracious, generous, compassionate. Not patronizing. But friendly. And try, if you can, to encourage them to find help.

Help helps. It really does.

I'm partial to spotted snow leopards, so that is what I'm going for. But a spotted giraffe? That sounds way cool. I guess we'll find out which it is around this time tomorrow.

Next time I'm asking for some neon.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"To the rescue: Kamchatka!"

2011-05-11T00:13:00.000-06:00
"To the rescue, Kamchatka!"

What an amazing world we live in! I love it.

I'm reading Ian Frazier's wonderful "Travels in Siberia," and enjoy his wry humor and his very basic introduction for us to the basic concept of Siberia. Describing the goings on in a Russian grade school, the very back of the room was deemed, "Kamchatka," the back bench where the slowest learners sat.

When all else failed and none of the brighter children in the front of the classroom could come up with the right answer, the teacher would point to the back bench and, vainly, say, "To the rescue, Kamchatka." Even in Siberia, Siberia is Siberia.

To travel through Siberia has always been one of my life's goals. And I'm not giving it up yet. The whole sanitation/hygiene thing worries me -- to say it's not a pretty sight is to fail to even yet begin to describe the, well, disgusting yuck out there. So that will be a challenge. But, Siberia. My whole life, even before I knew about geopolitics, I wanted to travel in Siberia. Maybe it's the effect of growing up out here in the empty plains, steppes, of northern Colorado, no mountains yet, just vast space, like empty pages to be written on. What is out there?

So far I've been as close as a town several kilometers east of Moscow. I've got a ways to go.

This fascination with Siberia and the great unknown, new cultures and different people seems to connect with what I just noticed on my Facebook wall. Several people "like" a link I just posted. And these several people live in Japan, Germany, Finland, Estonia and Madision Wisconsin. And that's only so far. The woman from Japan is Japanese but she grew up in Beirut and studied at Harvard. The friend in Finland is from Rockford, IL but married and living in Finland for over a decade. Bill, in Berlin, is also an American but Heino is really from Estonia, a native Estonian who was pastor in the smallest village in the entire USSR and whose entire population was deported to Siberia during WWII. Heino studied at Princeton. Is this a great world or what?

What a mixed up mass of migrants we all are. Before it's done I expect friends from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, maybe Mexico and Milwaukee to also "Like" my link. A BBC headline tonight reads, "Obama Calls for Migrant Overhaul." I guess that means I'm going to get work done! And you too. Because we're all on the move.

And the link itself is grand news. The Presbyterians have (finally?) joined the ELCA in removing the barrier to gay clergy serving in active ministy. That is gay clergy who are in relationships, not celibate as was required before. So, from the front of the room, Finland, Berlin, Madison, Tokyo, Tartu, the globalized room that doesn't even consider Kamchatka remote anymore, friends are popping up to celebrate together this good news.

What a privilege. To be connected. Even to Siberia. I'll hear from Novosibirsk, I bet. Nobody is beyond the pale anymore. Nobody is in Siberia. Except of course the people actually in Siberia and that's not quite Siberia anymore, not like it used to be.

Amazing.

Who's up for the Trans-Siberian Railway with lots of side trips thrown in? Kamchatka is on the agenda.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Homage, tribute, bravo, viva! to my daughters

2011-05-07T19:24:00.000-06:00
"There is pedagogy in our practice.

A fancy way of saying, we teach by example, we learn by watching the behavior of others. How we are is what we pass on. To our children, to a whole host of people, strangers and neighbors, family and friends.

Mother's Day. My first without having either of the girls at home. But they're here. They are here in heart and spirit, in laughter and looniness. I will know their presence. And it will be good.

I just made the mistake of reading the bishops's reflection in The Lutheran. "There is pedagogy in our practice." He is right. We've known this for years, those of us who read John Westerhoff, Fran Anderson, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer with our mother's milk. But it really struck me, reading this article.

Our daughters', Dave's and mine, did indeed learn from the behavior of others. There was pedagogy in their practice. When Annika was barely in 3rd grade, and Kaia in 7th, the girls began to learn about the life and witness of the church. And from this bishop's example they learned more than they could take in, more than they could believe and process of the duplicity, deceit, betrayal and indifference of the church. They learned about the power of evil to twist hearts and minds. They learned by watching this bishop and others around him of the faithless and ungracious behavior that tore down, broke apart, ruined communities and individuals. Pedagogy in their practice, all right.

"There is pedagogy in our practice." The girls saw and learned during those few years how NOT to be, how NOT to behave, how NOT to think about God and Jesus and church community, and how NOT to worship. They learned about hypocrisy and hardheartedness. They learned about faithlessness most of all. They too were used, manipulated, hurt, and betrayed. Lied to, mistreated, and broken. There was indeed pedagogy in the bishop's meanspirited practice and they learned so much about the dark side of the life and witness of the church that we despaired of their ever finding any use for it again. And even of their knowing a life of faith.

However, there is pedagogy in our practice too. HA! On this Mother's Day I am over the moon about my girls. Because of the pedagogy we practiced, the behavior and example of saints and strangers, neighbors, friends, and family, these two young adult women are gracious and generous of spirit. They are tender of heart. They are loving and compassionate, longsuffering, wise, honest, and have the will and intention to live lives of service.

It could have been different. I just need to say that. They could have learned and grown up to be bitter and indifferent, to be reclusive and rebellious. They could have grown up feeling angry and lacking in charity, kindness, and grace. But they didn't! Not even close.

"How we are, together, is a witness to what we believe to be the core of our life and faith," writes the bishop. So true. Pathetic witness, that.

But thanks to the pedagogy of our practice, and yours, my friends, our daughters saw an alternative vision to the one that surrounded them.

They have learned to be forgiving and merciful. They have learned to be honest and patient and true. They have become strong, bold examples of what the Creator intends for all of us, to live authentically, with integrity, and lovingkindness. They know about reverence, largesse, faithfulness and service. And they've even learned about vitality from two parents who were often weary and distressed. They learned that from you.

And of course, they learned to laugh. There was no getting around that. They learned that looniness is next to godliness and humility involves regular laughter at one's own (or anyway, mom's) expense. They have learned from us. By God, they have learned from us. Holy shit, can you believe it! They have learned from us! And from you. And you, and you, and all the you's out there that won't be reading this blog. Friends, family, teachers, roommates, those they admire from afar and those they have watched up close. Because, "how we are together is a witness" to life itself and how best to engage it.

And all this in spite of having a wounded healer for a mother, a woman who is herself unserious enough to have a magnet on the refrigerator that says,
"Somebody has to set the bad example."

Oh yeah, we're good. Even when we're good at being 'bad.'

Oh yeah, I am SO celebrating Mother's Day this year.

Thank you, Kaia, thank you, Annika. You are the best!
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Guest blog at my invitation from Rick D. Bailey

2011-05-05T20:50:00.000-06:00
The capture or killing of Bin Laden was a necessary and rational military response to 9/11 and the many other atrocities that he and al Qaeda have committed. But we let the chance slip in 2001 and it has taken 10 long years to finish that job.

In the meantime, Bin Laden achieved his objective of sowing the seeds of hatred, mass psychosis and endless war.

Pinpoint military action to break up the terrorist network was the rational response.

Instead, we invaded and occupied Iraq and thousands of innocents died in the process.

Quiet, persistent intelligence, interrogation, police work and prosecution was the rational response.

Instead, we resorted to torture and the suspension of civil liberties.

Our children, who are now young adults, watched their illusions of safety disintegrate with the towers of the World Trade Center. Then they watched their country go crazy with "shock and awe". They have watched a radical right-wing arise that is foaming at the mouth to persecute all Muslims for the evil fomented by this man and his jihadist friends.

Can we blame Americans for celebrating that the United States at long last prevented Bin Laden from doing more harm? Can we blame Americans for celebrating that finally we gave a rational mission to our intelligence and military professionals, a mission that was possible for them to fulfill with honor? Can we blame Americans for taking pride in the spectacular professionalism, diligence and bravery shown by those who found Bin Laden and carried out the mission and the strong leadership provided by President Obama?

We took the long overdue pinpoint military action, with no innocent casualties, rather than carpet-bombing Abbottabad. I say hurrah -- and I hope this is the beginning of the end of our mass-psychosis.

Like Bonhoeffer could not live in a world with Hitler, we could not live in a world with Bin Laden.God forgive me.

Rick D. Bailey
Radio Open Source on Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Martin Marty
www.brown.edu
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(This was a comment Rick posted after my blog from the other evening. I found it to be a compelling perspective and worthy of wider consideration. Given that we often don't see the comments, I asked his permission to reprint it here as a "guest blog." Thanks, very much, Rick. And for the Bonhoeffer link (assuming I get it to link).
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Transference

2011-05-02T16:56:00.000-06:00
The first I heard of Osama bin Laden was from a fourteen year old boy.

bin Laden had just murdered his father. Not directly but by directing, funding, inspiring and organizing the action of others.

As I took in the flood of news last night I was myself flooded with the memories. A dark room on a bright morning, a television quietly slipping details into our midst but no one paying attention. People coming and going, airline officials, neighbors, friends, phone calls, sheriff's deputies. I remember late in the afternoon answering the front door to a deputy who shyly asked if he might come in and use the restroom.

Osama bin Laden. An overwhelming flood of data that could barely be attended to. I remember a young teen saying, "we'd better not go to war over this! Find another way."

Darkness. A darkened house. To a darkened house. By the time I got home late at night, my house was dark too. It went on this way for days, weeks. I went from darkness to darkness. My own fault. I got sucked in. Pastors sometimes do. I have no regrets. It's just the way it was.

I commend to you the logical, compelling, lucid comment to my previous blog post. Of course this day had to come. And it should have come 9 and a half years ago, before and without the "national psychosis" stirred up resulting in two wars and mass craziness. I agree with the comment.

This is where my own thinking went off the rails: terrorists are domestic as well as international, familiar as well as strangers, right under our noses and in caves half a world away.

At the time of 9/11 when I became immersed in the pastoral care of two families who lost father, brother, former spouse, I was already dealing with terrorists close at hand. In our church. Someone even commented at the time. "Wow, this is just like...." Crawling out from under a rock to lob their bombshells, to crash their planes, to wreak devastation and then scurry back under into the murky darkness where they regrouped and emerged only to attack again. I already knew more about terrorism on 9/11 than I ever expected, or certainly wanted. And it went on and on and on.

It was MY story I was writing last night. Not America's. It was not my privilege to exercise vengeance on the terrorists who created a catastrophic situation under which I collapsed. But I can't transfer that situation automatically to this national/macro one.

The weeping, I have realized, was my natural regression back to the beginning of that 9/11 experience. Pastors can relate easily to this: I didn't cry for two weeks. I saw the experience almost exclusively through the eyes of people for whom I cared deeply. I saw 9/11 entirely through the experience -- empathy -- of a 14 year old boy. A 40-something mother. A 60-something sister. Especially the boy. Who is now a man! It took the easing of the first phase of the pastoral care process for me to step back and feel for myself. And finally to cry.

Every night I would come home late and sit in a dark family room, the family having gone to bed. Sit. But not think. I was too tired to think. I was, in fact, numb.

Finally, two weeks later, after the funeral - or memorial service, the TV news cameras gone away, a quiet evening, when Saturday Night Live returned to the screen, Paul Simon began to sing "The Boxer." And I began sobbing and didn't stop.

That's my story. Not everybody's. Transference. In the passing years I have railed against the waste of the wars, the terrible injuries to our military, the losses upon losses that have screwed with the hopes and minds and money that is now our legacy to our children.

Discernment. Discretion. Perhaps as we move through this new period in our history, we can teach those lessons to our children. Oh, I hope so.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Here am I. Send me."

2011-05-02T11:51:00.000-06:00
Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.

In the days after 9/11, as we ramped up for war, I was haunted by these words from Scripture. Stopping evil, one thing. But revenge? No deal. Not our prerogative. But this led to a slippery slope of questions and dilemmas. How to discern what is what?

Then, of course, the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who did not condone violence or vengeance but did participate in a plot to assassinate Hitler - and was hung for it. He said he could not justify his actions morally but was obliged to stop a madman from killing others. Moral purity was a luxury he determined he could not afford.

That is a far reach, however, from the blood lust and hatred and gloating over the death of an enemy. Reading the wide range of reactions on the social media last night, and watching the celebrations, "We are the champions!" on television, I was troubled by the spirit of "Nah na na nah, hey, hey, good bye." This wasn't a game that ended, as one sign said, "Obama 1, Osama 0."

I can't even begin to tell you how powerful is the urge for revenge. In the days after I was violently attacked and left broken, and there was no recompense, no justice, not even a word of acknowledgement or regret --- from the bishop of the church, for god's sake, I was furious. The furies ruled.

And I kept these two Scripture texts together in my mind, "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay." (Romans 12: 19-20) along with a second one, that I put right after, "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?' 'And I said, 'Here I am, send me!'"

I'll do it! I'll do it! Vengeance, you need help with that, Lord? I'm your girl. Let me at 'em. I'll take care of it. Like you've never seen. It will be done.

That was my joke, but I wasn't being entirely funny. I'd have done it. Well, the bravado said I'd do it.

Not an admission I'm particularly proud of. But there you are.

Taking matters into our own hands when they are best entrusted to wiser ones. I'm glad I've taken that route.

And now here we are with mucho mongo blood on our hands. Repaying evil for evil. One government analyst/official admitted as much this morning, "there was never any plan to take Osama alive. It was, from day one, to bring his head home in a box."

And we are the Christian nation.

When it suits us.

My daughter Annika went to Ground Zero last night, just a short distance from her dorm room at NYU. She went to pray, to reflect. She took the photo of all the kids flashing the peace signs. And she posted this,

‎"Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble do not let your heart rejoice" Proverbs 24:17 BUT there is much respect to be paid for those that unfairly lost their lives. It's a hard position to judge. Myself? I didn't go to ground zero to celebrate the death of one, but to observe perhaps what could be the beginning of peace.
11 hours ago · Like · 5 people

Vengeance is not safe in human hands. Ever. Ever.

Grief is, though. And so I'm sticking with that. Like many with personal connections to 9/11, who were too numb to cry for days and weeks after the actual loss, last night began and ended with weeping. And it goes on.

Grieving and comforting. I can do that. We can all do that.

http://nyulocal.com/city/2011/05/02/

we-were-there-photos-from-the-celebration-at-ground-zero/
We Were There: Photos from the Celebration at Ground Zero
nyulocal.com
For many, as students and Americans and New Yorkers, there was only one appropriate response to the news of Bin Laden's death-- a return to where it began
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"It Was White."

2011-04-29T21:37:00.001-06:00
"White," I wrote. "The dress was white."

I have changed in 35 years.

I was loving all those hats. The wedding guests' hats. Victoria Beckham. Princess Mathilde of Belgium. Tara Parker Tomlinson (socialite and TV presenter). Her brilliant blue was a knock out. Carole Middleton. Even the Queen in lemon lemon lemon yellow. Zara Phillips. Princess Letizia of Spain. Lady Frederick Windsor. Sophie, Countess of Windsor. I was all over those hats. In fact, I have a fun little "fascinator" myself. I planned to wear it while sitting up here in bed watching the wedding in my pajamas, but really, it felt ridiculous. The cowboy hat seemed a better choice. Or the NYU Mom cap. Or bed head.

Some things have changed. I now officially enjoy fashion. Not always so.

When the wedding program was provided to the public yesterday, my fascination was with the music. Rhosymedre. Bach. Vaughn Williams. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling. Ubi Caritas. I was excited. The thing was, we didn't get to hear most of it. I would have traded a half hour of chats with the crowd in the park for the chance to hear the prelude. All of it. Oh well.

It feels good to know that I've grown, expanded my senses, my sights. I like music and hats!

When I was married 35 years ago next month, the town my parents still lived in, where I had grown up, printed elaborate wedding stories in the local newspaper. They had a form I was to fill out, describing the details. There were several lines for a description of the wedding dress, the attendants' dresses (God-awful would have covered it), my mother's dress (yellow), and other details of the cake and reception.

I didn't care about any of that. Requested to describe my own wedding dress, I wrote, "White." That's it. "White." It was a beautiful dress. Lace empire style with cap sleeves, a flowing skirt with a short train. Lovely. I wrote, "white."

What I did write about in detail, however, was the music. Every piece of the prelude, the anthems, the congregational hymns, the postlude. That's what I cared about. It was the substance, not the style that mattered.

Well enough. But what I have come to understand over these years is that both -- or all -- have their place. And that style can represent substance. And vice versa. All the senses. I would wear a brilliant blue hat. And describe it gladly. And I'd tell about my dress. And every piece of music. And the liturgy (as in, no "Man and wife!). It all matters.

We are created to delight in all of it! Every bit of it! It feels so good to know that now.

I especially loved the trees! The trees were green. "Leafing greenly spirits of trees."

_____(e.e.cummings)
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Out of the rot and the ruin comes a rumor of resurrection"

2011-04-24T15:10:00.000-06:00
Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed!

There is no other story.

This story of death as the door to new life is the paradigmatic human story. We can't get 'round it. This is the way it is done. New life.

Choosing death, choosing one's own death as distinct from insisting on pimping off the death of others. The gate, the way, the door. Dying to death, to deadly half-life and allowing oneself to be swept under. Only to be risen, to be in the flow of rising and lifting and, my favorite way of putting it, "auferstanden." Does that not sound like it is, standing up again.

I believe I've written it here before, I'm pissed at Jesus for making it look so easy. Not the dying. That is pure hell. But the rising. An angel, so the story goes, rolls away a big rock trapping him in a tomb and by some divine power, tada, he's up.

Not always how it works for us. Not often how it works with us. Slow, up and down, in and out, back and forth. But it is, nevertheless, relentless.

Relentless. The trajectory of our lives is resurrection. That is the way we're moving. It's the road we're on. Some days we run, some days we may sit on a bench and simply trust that the next steps we're ready to take are headed that way. Resurrection. Auferstanden. Getting up. New. Life.

Whomever we are, however we walk, we are connected to this paradigmatic way of being. It has claimed us. Set our feet on the path. Or set our butts on the bench along the path. But in any case, it's a gravitational pull.

"Out of the rot and ruin comes a rumor of resurrection." That's us.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

No signs of trouble here

2011-04-22T17:35:00.000-06:00
The people all look so normal.

Kids are laughing as they flirt and wander home from school. They stop at the corner store and get a snack, joking and boasting as kids do. David lingers a little to walk with Rachel. He's clearly hoping for more.

The Schmlzers are dropping off a casserole at the neighbor's, helping out while Amos is laid up. Old Joe offers to fix the Meyers' fence. Eunice and Eva are over cleaning things up getting ready for the weekly services.

You ride through town. Everything looks just right, as it should. Tidy, even clean. Well manicured, the people and the houses. Nothing menacing or scruffy. On this lovely spring day people are out sprucing up their yards and weeding their gardens.

You go to the market, mill around, everyone is polite. Nothing seems amiss. Even the fruits are perfectly ripe and the vegetables firm and crispy. The meat is fresh and the butcher, Ruben, has a big smile and an extra bone for your dog. The day is feeling mighty good.

Traffic moves right along. Nobody gets cut off, nobody flips the finger. No one is being too noisy. The sun is out, the sky is clear. The wind is a pleasant breeze, no more, no less. Idyllic, really.

No one acts rude or impatient, life moves along smoothly. Men go to work. Women share their news. The children are in school or out kicking a ball down the street.

To drive through, to be part of it, you think, no signs of trouble here. All is well.

But the day goes on. Stories circulate. Not many, certainly not most, but a small crowd gathers. They're easily stirred up. At least today they are. And before you know it, a larger mob is shouting, "Give us Barrabas."

But looking at it all, before, you would never have guessed. No sign of trouble here.

And so it goes.

"And the crowd cried, 'Crucify him!'"
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Love me tender, love me true"

2011-04-21T23:36:00.000-06:00
"Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go.
You have made my life complete and I love you so."

Maundy Thursday. From the Latin: commandment. And that commandment is,
Love each other. That's all, That's it, That's enough. That is everything:
Love each other.

"Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfilled.
For my darlin' I love you and I always will."

Love. And imagine this. Sing this softly and imagine the Spirit of Life,
the Love of the Universe, G-D, Life itself, singing this to you:

"Love me tender, love me long, take me to your heart.
For it's there that I belong, and we'll never part."

You. At the center of God's heart. At the heart of God's love. Hear
the lullaby, drift off knowing that the One who is all is all about you.

"Love me tender, love me dear, Tell me you are mine.
I'll be yours through all the years, 'til the end of time."

Not sure Elvis ever had this quite in mind, nor Vera Matson as she wrote the text, but it works, it carries the message we all need.

"Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfilled.
For my darlin' I love you and I always will."

May you know deep in your bones the lovely sense of being loved, of being the one who fulfills God's dreams, makes God's life complete.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Southern Exposure

2011-04-20T20:58:00.000-06:00
It comes without warning. No alarm bells, no whisper in the ear. Just boom! And there it is.

I am writing to you from inside a full-blown post-traumatic attack. If you can imagine a person writing from inside the fetal position, circled around a laptop, on her bed, under the covers, subsiding bursts of sobbing, aqua towel at hand to dry the tears, you've got the picture.

I blew it, actually. I talked about my trauma. What happened. How it felt, feels, some consequences. To the safest group of friends I could imagine. Implicit trust. So what's the problem?

At first, driving home, yes, I did drive the four blocks home, I thought it was the awkwardness of exposure. Period. We all feel awkward and uncomfortable letting pieces of our stories out into the ether of conversation from time to time. You don't have to be drunk or have PTSD to come to your senses after and think, "Geez, did I tell them that?"

Even with people we know well, or have known a long time, we withhold significant bits of information, whole chunks, whole continents even. And a time comes when it seems right to reel ourselves out slowly, revealing more and more. As I did tonight. And it felt safe. I felt heard, respected and caringly received. I didn't wallow in my stuff any more than anyone else did. In fact, I spoke less than most. But what I said was significant. Exposure. What it's like to be me.

The thing is, our book group read two rather different books about Alzheimer's Disease. And tonight we discussed them. And that led to lots of rather personal conversation about end of life decisions, living with a terminal disease, living with awareness that you aren't yourself anymore, "I miss me," one of the women in the story said about living with her Alzheimer's shredding more of herself everyday.

I said I could really identify with her comment.

And here and there, popped in and out among others' comments I said a few more things. About brain injuries. About dignity. I don't even remember what I said. Simple things, though. No details about an attack, no images of bloated raging red faces in mine. Just a few comments about being totally "out of it, not knowing who I was," for awhile.

Turns out there are a few things about PTSD that might raise the matter of Alzheimer's to mind. For example, just a few,

Cognitive and conceptual gaps, holes, failures. For the life of me I couldn't process the concept of what a number was for months. Numbers are abstractions, symbols. They meant nothing to me. And tonight, back in the heart of the beast, they are impossible to connect to anything real.

You think your computer processes material slowly sometimes? Let me tell you, I could take an hour to get from "In" to "the" and by then forget all about "cabinet." It took an age to reboot, if rebooting was possible at all.

Continuing the computer analogy (see, now I'm capable of some sort of complex thinking!), files were scrambled and lost, wires were all haywire, going in the wrong directions, or no directions at all (oops, mixed metaphors). My memory was shot. Did I already say that for periods of time I didn't know who I was?

Scary stuff. And that's in addition to the basics: feelings of constant panic, anxiety, the sensation of cortisol or adrenaline filling up my limbs to the point of bursting, inability to tolerate light, sound -- including voices of my family talking, noise, inability to concentrate, failing muscle strength, lack of coordination -- how many times did I fall down the stairs? and this, the worst, no trust.

Beyond the narrowest circle, of three, Dave, Kaia, and Annika, I trusted no one. No one. Including myself. Isolation was my goal as much as possible. And I was in a constant state of terror. Of another attack. Of bad people, bad behaviors, danger, threats, death.

The only thing that survived intact was my sense of humor, though it warped severely. But that surviving sense of humor is the reason I survived at all. To somehow laugh at the absurdity of what I had become, what had happened, was my salvation.

Good Friday fell on April Fool's Day one year and I thought that was perfect, the ultimate God's "gotcha" on the devil. "You think you be winning, kid? No way in hell."

I'm writing through this tonight for one specific reason. Our book club, these witty wonderful women, every one of them a diamond of wisdom, decided that people really need to talk about the hard things more often. Tell the truth about ugly realities like Alzheimer's and ALS and strokes and how it breaks your breast bone when they use the paddles on your heart to restart it after you code, about living for days or weeks or months intubated so you can breath, when the diagnosis is terminal and the patient is begging to be let go, about the noxious awfulness of chemo, about death, and dignity, and decisions that create space for truth and intimacy and, yes, dignity, even in the most dire situation.

This is but one example of the hard things we need to talk about. So we can understand each other better, respect one another more, care more tenderly.

My arms are pulsing so strongly right now that I have to stop writing and let them calm down. Dave has made me some tea and that helps. I am back in my safe place. There is classical music, barely audible and lights that are dim. I am beginning to calm down. I might be able to add up 4+6 before the hour is up.

I had another reason for wanting to write this now and I'm forgetting what it is. Hold on, it was important. I'm not looking for pity, god forbid that, or sympathy. I'll be glad to be empathic with those who know from the inside just what I'm talking about. Oh, it's coming, this other reason, had it close a second ago.

Oh, this. I am learning from my highly skilled, expert new therapist that it is actually not good for someone who has been traumatized to talk about the trauma. Just talking about it is retraumatizing.

Here, I thought the cure for everything was to blah blah blah. Get it out, get it out, get it out. Well, there is a way to get it out but it is not the casual blah blah blah. Or even the well-intentioned blah blah blah.

The way I'm learning to process (god, I hate that word) the trauma I experienced is in structured settings where talking about it is done within safe perameters (therapist, doctor) and with these wonderfully magic tools, like EMDR and the one I mentioned weeks ago, with the wand. Brain spotting.

So, however tempting it seems to be honest and forth-coming and help others to understand what this life is like from the inside so you might be empathic to those who would like your caring attention, I need to just shut up.

And wish you peace.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Pass me not"

2011-04-18T22:34:00.000-06:00
There were no leeches.

It always seems like there should be leeches. Is there anything worse?

Do you remember all of the pestilences that plagued the Egyptians as the Hebrew people were liberated from slavery?

Boils. Frogs, the frogs that "shall come upon thee and thy people and thy servants." Frogs. Do you know how slimey creepy awful that would be? And more. Water turned to blood. Lice, for god's sake. Swarms of flies, worse than Maine or Minnesota in June. Disease ruined the cattle and the camels and the asses and the oxen and the sheep. Thunder and hail, sadly familiar around here. Locusts. Locusts are disgusting, and, as I did once before, locusts would cause me to drive my chariot off the road. Darkness: it's only upside being to hide the locusts and the ugly boils but it would make me shiver out of my skin knowing about all those frogs everywhere.

And finally, the death of the firstborn child.

Tonight our Jewish friends celebrate this passover, and we wish them the blessings and fruitfulness and peace that were clearly meant for them as they escaped into a new land, one of "milk and honey," of freedom. An exodus from awful to, as it turns out, initially perplexing,then annoying, and really really long.

It is impossible for me, who did not grow up within Jewish culture, to know emotionally what that means. Exodus. Christians have been stealing the Jewish passover seder for years, trying to truncate it into something about Jesus who, in fact, was Jewish and did celebrate Passover but not the passover that his followers have invented to feed their own theology. Passover is a Jewish cultural and theological event, a celebration that comes from the inside. And the fact is, I'm not inside that culture.

But it always does make me think. And every year it is about something different.

This year I am struck by the reality that none of us gets passed over, not finally, entirely, completely. Not even Jews. We all end up suffering from boils or frogs or lice and gnats or swarms of flies or locusts and most certainly darkness. And some of us suffer the death of the one most close, our firstborn or first-loved or most beloved parent.

None of us get out of this unscathed. (None of us get out of this alive either but that's a story for Sunday.) Egyptian or not, there are lice in our forecast.

Tonight I'm identifying with the Egyptians. And the Jews who later again had to suffer. We all do. We create suffering for others, we watch and feel helpless, we cause conditions that make others suffer. We're in it up to our necks. There are not enough bitter herbs to cover the bad taste.

But, as we suffer, we do so not without hope. We are freed to make our suffering redemptive, to make it count, to make it benefit others, and to work for others to make it go away.

We face suffering with hope. Why? Because that is the way it is. Suffering brings us to the heart of the ultimate, or Ultimate life, where we are healed, freed and made new.

When I was a child we sang a song at church, especially on Wednesday nights, at prayer meeting, that went something like this, "Pass me not O gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by." A different kind of passing over. A prayer for healing, for courage and strength. Stop here. Heal me, too. Give me the gifts of life, too.

I don't think that really has much to do with Passover but it is authentic to my culture, my tradition, and it is my prayer this night for you and all whom you love, all who suffer. Peace.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Don't be so humble; you're not that great"

2011-04-17T19:01:00.001-06:00
"Don't be so humble, you're not that great," Golda Meir once told one of her government ministers, or a visiting diplomat (sources disagree).

It is another disappointing Palm Sunday. No pastor on a donkey. Yet another year has gone by and I missed seeing it.*

Now, this could be because no self-respecting pastor would have the cajones to get up on a donkey and be Jesus.

Or it could be that I just didn't go to an egoist's church.

If it happened once, and it did, in the congregation I served, about 20 years before I got there, I have to think it has happened again. Somewhere out there in Christendom is a pastor who not only believes that "in order to be like Jesus you have to pee like Jesus," (with a penis, standing up, ergo, no women allowed), but that if you're going to represent Jesus you get to copy his most glorious moment. The adoring crowd, "blessed be the Son of David, the Messiah, the One who comes in the name of God! Hosanna to you!" Yes, I followed a pastor who abrogated to himself that kind of power and glory.

And abused it every chance he got.

There are a lot of pastors who spend time riding around on asses. Or as asses.

But.

BUT there are a lot of pastors who don't. Most don't. In fact, most pastors are humble (but not that humble, they know they're not that great), hard-working, loving, kind, tender-hearted, generous, forgiving and forbearing women and men who work 80 hours a week and never stop thinking about their parishioners' problems and spend extra hours every week thinking and praying and pondering how to be helpful.

Most of us know that given everything we are way out of our league. We know how much is at stake in people's lives, how much death there is stalking them, stalking us all, how much anxiety, avarice, usury folks are suffering. Most of us clergy do not serve the top 1% of U.S. society, the 400 richest people in America who collectively earn more than the bottom 150 million altogether. We serve the unemployed and the sick and the starving. We serve the recipients of Medicare and Medicaid and food stamps and subsidized housing. We serve the middle class, squeezed, insecure who live paycheck to paycheck and wonder if their job will be there next week.

Most of us, pastors, clergy, priests, ministers -- whatever you call us know that life is way beyond us, beyond our controlling, even beyond our knowing. Most of us would identify with Karl Barth, a famous theologian, who described himself simply as one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread.

That's most of us. Just paddling our little duck feet under water as fast as we can to keep up. Trying to do, be, accomplish, serve far more than we have the capacity to do. Yet, we try. We work our asses off. And we are humble.

As you know, my speciality within the realm of churchly life is the abuse of pastoral power. Stopping it. Preventing it. Responding to it. Not a vocation I chose. I don't jump up and down for joy that 'it' (or God, I suppose) chose me. But there you are.

I see and tell you about the seedy side of ministry. One we all know too well. It does happen too often.

But not every pastor or minister is an ass. Or rides one. Pretending to be Jesus.

My sense of outrage at the story of one man and an ass, and a penis kept busier than the beer spigot at a baseball game is what it is: Righteous anger about the abuse of power, the abuse of God's people who came for one thing (Jesus) and got a very cheap imitation instead. But. But.

But.

For this week, a Holy Week throughout the Church, I invite you to remember and give thanks for those pastors who are working triple overtime to help see to it that you feel and see and hear and touch and know the power of new life, of Jesus, really Jesus, of life abundant and free, of rising and renewal: Of resurrection. Of Easter. They really want that life for you. They really hope and pray and will give all they have this week to help you see Jesus, see the Life of Life. And be risen with him to new life.

# # #

*Please, please, please tell me you get my wry, sarcastic sense of humor!
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

On NOT Being A Squid

2011-04-07T22:50:00.000-06:00
I am not a squid.

I'm not often confused for one of these odd little creatures. There is not much of a physical resemblance. And if you have noticed one, I don't want to know. Likewise, I don't act much like a squid. And I rarely think of squid.

Squid have this thing they do. They squirt ink. Offensive, defensive, nervous, anxious, angry.

Today I had an squidly impulse.

Deeply hurt, I had an urge to do the squid thing.

I didn't, of course, but that the thought even occurred to me was disturbing. The temptations we face to be vindictive, to return evil for evil, to strike back, to squirt ink into an unspoiled pool are a part of our nature, our brokenness.

The art of being human is managing those impulses.

And this: giving other people the space to be themselves.

Why is that so hard? To simply let other people be who they are.

Barring behavior that is harmful and hurtful and, oh dear, here we go, I'm sliding down the slippery slope right along with you. Where is the line? Who decides? When is it crossed?

I have an idea. How about we tell people.

I'm not talking about the big big things -- although we can talk about that tomorrow -- but about our life together, daily life among friends, colleagues, neighbors, just folks. How about we tell folks what we need, or when they are standing on our feet. Directly. Kindly. Professionally.

I've been thinking about this a bunch. Be passive. Or be aggressive. But not both at the same time.

Passive-aggressive behavior is the biggest block to positive relationships I can think of. If you're annoyed but you can stand whatever it is, keep quiet. And cope with it. If you're annoyed and you can't stand it, for god's sake, speak up. Say something. In a timely fashion. Honestly, kindly, professionally.

Don't be a squid. Don't be passive-aggressive. (Have I ever written so directly?) It ruins so much.

At the same time, passive-aggressive behavior brings out the squid in us. In me. Squids beget squids. I kept my ink to myself.

Until now. A different kind of ink. I'm being direct: Let's live in forebearance, patience, kindness, and grace. That's the ink I have to spill today. Enough.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"God is in the details"

2011-03-31T18:05:00.000-06:00
"God is in the details." ___Mies van der Rohe

This is one of those days.

Nothing but gratitude. I'm thinking about all the little things, those parts of life that can be a royal nuisance and irritating and downright disgusting. I feel very lucky.

The drive between my home and the Tattered Cover Bookstore where I sometimes sit with writer friends and talk (or write, but mostly talk) is spectacular. Long's Peak. Snow-covered Mount Evans. The snowy Indian Peaks. The streets are wide, well cared for, with lovely lawn banking the whole long curve through the Ranch.

Absolutely amazing friends. Patient, wise, kind, generous, healthy, inspiring, funny. What else? What more could one say?

Now, to clarify why this exercise seems important to me, consider this. I could have an ugly view, even in Denver, but we are lucky to be up high and enjoy the best. The Tattered Cover is an indie bookstore; who knows how long we can keep it afloat. Then what, we write at Denny's? Or Starbucks?

And friends. Wow. I am the whistle-blower persona non grata in my local professional community. One, count her, one pastor has the nerve to keep in touch with me. The rest, dozens, including several who were 'friends' up until they had to choose between standing with me or falling over when the bishop farted, feel the radioactivity still and not one of them, that would be zero, has made any overture of support or friendship in eight years. But I don't miss them. Honest. Why would I.

A wonderful community of writing friends has grown up around my ears and is the healthiest, sanest, kindest, most generous group of people I've ever been part of. Not perfect, but damn damn good. Not a practicing Christian in the bunch, save one. Interesting. For an introvert who has a penchant to need to hibernate, I feel very blessed by this remarkable abundance.

And bless its heart, the Social Networking community, old friends, long ago friends, shirt-tail friends, shirt-tail relatives, far-away friends, wise professors, people I've just 'met' and people who are friends of friends whom I'm friends with now because we got interested in what one another had to say. If not for Facebook, I would still be an isolated freak. And a blog. And the conversations and comments it generates. And even the folks who follow me, and whom I follow on Twitter. I haven't quite figured out what to do with that yet but it's a connection.

Then, we move on. It occurred to me the other day, that fifteen years ago I didn't even have a doctor. When I had to fill out that blank on a work emergency card I had no name to write down. I didn't need one. Ha! That was before Littleton. But this is the very cool cool thing:

I have exactly the right doctors for me. You have no idea how much I respect and enjoy my primary care physician. She's had a heck of a job and she has done it amazingly well. And then there is the phlebotomist. I get to speak Russian (what's left) with the woman who draws my blood because she is from Tadzikistan. Bonus!

And the dentist: I love going to the dentist. First, I've already mentioned the nitrous oxide, even for cleanings. And they are the best people, competent, kind, professional, and look for ways to help save me money. My therapists are the best. And now I get to drive up my very favorite road in all of the Denver area to her house. And she gets Simple Life magazine. I mean, how good is that.

The library is gorgeous and in a lovely location. The grocery store is even really nice. My friend gave me a whole bag of my favorite Danish cheese last week, Danish cheese!

I could go on and on. Perhaps I will. No, I feel so grateful. All of the daily errands, routines, caregivers, neighbors, the barrista's, the booksellers, the check-out woman at Target and the pflebotomist! It could all be a grind, unpleasant, stressful. And none of it is.

Details. Just the details. And all filled with grace. Either this is karma, payback for the hell I went through, luck, providence, or the grace of engaging people and places who make life sing. I'll take it.

And not for granted.

Posted by Jan Erickson at 4:55 PM
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"I would like to thank the Academy"

2011-03-30T18:49:00.000-06:00
There's a controvery raging on one of the blogs I read.

To acknowledge or not to acknowledge. If you published a book, did you include a page of acknowledgements? Or would you?

Who is on your list? Was/would it be short or long? How expansive is it? "I would like to thank my Freshman English Professor for being such an asshat because I knew I could prove him wrong, and I did." "I would like to thank my brother, Charlie, for stealing my bike so I stayed home and read instead." "I would like to thank my third wife for all the great material." "I would like to thank my faithful '75 Volvo for taking me to all the places I so eloquently describe."

I work with a number of creative writing textbooks everyday as I am at work writing a novel. They offer great instruction and information and I enjoy some of the exercises they recommend. "Try changing the gender of your lead character. What would that do to your story?" "Add a character who complicates the lead character's life in a way you hadn't planned for." "Reverse the positions of the antagonist and the protagonist." Some are more simple, "change your lead character's occupation, or age, or geographical locale." "Instead of your characters meeting at a restaurant, have them meet in an unusual place, a forest trail, a storage facility, a morgue. What does that do to your story?" In other words, mess things up. Create problems. Make the thing more interesting. I've made some fun changes in my story thanks to these prompts.

What I really enjoy, though, are the motivational ideas. "Buy yourself new shoes when you finish a chapter." (Not really.) "Take turns buying coffee, or a drink, for anyone in your writing group who finishes a chapter." "Write 1000 words and treat yourself to a five mile run." Maybe not. We all respond to different motivations!

This is the one that just caught my eye. To pump yourself up, design your novel's book jacket, write the acknowledgements page, write the NYT Bestseller list positive review. Or, in the spirit of "go big or stay home," this is my favorite. Imagine your Academy Award acceptance speech -- for best adapted screenplay.

I like this one best because it would give me the biggest platform to say what needs to be said, finally. "This is for all of the women and children whose trust has been violated by the church, for all victims of clergy sexual abuse, and for those who discovered afterward that they would be treated worse by the church hierarchy -- ignored, mistreated, scapegoated, even physically attacked -- as the powers that be sought to close ranks and protect their own. This is your story and it is one of your power, your getting a voice, and having the abuse of power stopped. " One day.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Accompanimento"

2011-03-24T23:21:00.004-06:00
31 years.

31 years ago American-trained El Salvadoran rebels killed Archbishop Oscar Romero in the sanctuary of his church.

Why? For opposing the American backed fascist dictatorship at war with El Salvadoran rebels whom we lumped together with "the worst people in the world," Soviet-style communists. It was complicated. But not really that complicated.

We were on the wrong side. Our objectives were not in the least bit noble. We trained the El Salvadoran fascist army at the School of the Americas near Atlanta. We trained them to kill their own people for reasons that were ours, not theirs.

Perhaps you remember, it is such a long time ago, the four Roman Catholic nuns who were slaughtered too. For caring for the poor. Sounds sentimental in our day. But true.

Susan Brooks -- where are you? -- was a member of the congregation I served as pastor in the (downtown) Loop of Chicago. We had a reputation for doing things like this but Susan's decision was, to me, a supreme commitment and literally laid her life on the line.

After Romero was assassinated, the Lutheran Bishop, Medardo Gomez, was increasingly in danger. The Lutheran church devised a plan to help to keep him safe.

Accompaniment. The ministry of accompaniment. Being there. Walking along with. Susan went to El Salvador after a very moving service of commissioning at our congregation. Susan, you understand, was a beautiful inside and out, humble, quiet, lovely young woman from South Dakota. And she chose to move for a time to El Salvador and basically shadow Bishop Gomez. The premise was that the soldiers were not likely to risk killing an American civilian, so if Gomez was with Susan, he was safer. The ministry of accompaniment.

I think of it often. I have over the years. The work of walking alongside another who needs not to be alone, or vulnerable, or exposed. What a gift! I thought about that during my work with victims of clergy sexual abuse in the 1990's: if someone would walk with them. It was certainly a part of the civil rights movement in this country. It was important in the fight for equal rights for gay and lesbians, in claiming the rightful dignity for those with HIV/AIDS.

I think of Ann Hafften and her accompaniment of Palestinians on the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. I think of friends with cancer, depression, no jobs. We can accompany them. And now I am thinking of my old (well, from eons ago) friend, Andy or Andrew Larson, whom you can find here on facebook if you haven't already. He is engaged in a very important ministry of accompaniment. Andy walks along with Muslims. He is learning and then teaching about Islam. He is helping me, and others, to understand, respect, safeguard and love Muslims and their faith. He is building bridges, as we say, but as I read his blog and other reports, most of all I see him in the ministry of accompaniment.

It is no small thing. It is no small thing at all.

Susan on the dusty roads of El Salvador in the 1980's, bouncing, jostled, certainly uncomfortable, sometimes scared. But I remember she said afterward, "I received so much more than I gave." Which prompts me to wonder then, who is accompanying who?

=======

Let's shut down the School of the Americas so Jean Martensen doesn't have to chain herself to the fence on Thanksgiving weekend and get arrested for the umpteenth time, to protest. There's a petition posted to my (open) facebook page you can sign. Write a letter to the President. Contact - SOAW Media Updates salsa.democracyinaction.org SOA Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works through creative protest and resistance, legislative and media work to stand in solidarity with the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, to close the SOA/WHINSEC and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy that institutions like the SOA And pray for the Susan's and the Bishop's still out there, being hunted, risking it all, to try and stop the violence. Accompany them with your spirit, as they accompany the vulnerable, exposed, and generous people in creation. Peace.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Liar, Liar!

2011-03-21T23:12:00.004-06:00
I am such a liar. How many days has it been? Two? I left the house. I swore I wouldn't. The Tennis Channel, if you remember, has come to live in my house. It is true that I have watched -- or fallen asleep watching -- hours of tennis over the past few days. In fact, I kept trying to watch the Indian Wells men's final and either had to leave or fell asleep (at 5:37 a.m.) several times and now, tonight, it was on again and I saw almost all of it -- but looked away at the last second. I missed the last point. So isn't that the way it is. We miss the last point. Or the best point. Or the point, period. What is the point? Now there's a question for you. What is the point? Pick one, you say. Well, how about this. Life is hard. Life is breast cancer and leukemia and babies born with half a heart. Life is lung cancer and getting laid off and being hit in the head. Life is tsunami's and wars and murder. Life is also Glee and floating on your back in the warm pool and exquisite prose and welcome praise. Life is restitution and reconciliation. Life is right and wrong. Life is loss and gift. Life is all of these things. Disappointment, change, reward, perfect tiny toes, brilliant new ideas, chaos, rescued Clydesdale horses who foundered are recovered and running in a green pasture. Life is it all. That's the point. And it's all one. We live within all of it. And one way or another, this is the real point: it's all grace. You have got to be kidding. Nope.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

There Is A Monster In My Bedroom

2011-03-20T00:25:00.004-06:00
There's a monster in my room. It's not under the bed. It's not hiding in the closet. Or behind a door. There is a monster that appeared in my bedroom during the days I was on my Spring Spa Vacation in Minneapolis. It has a number as well as a name. It's number is 217. The name of my monster is The Tennis Channel. Just so it's clear, I'll not be leaving the house from now on. I have The Tennis Channel. This is now the third time I've seen Rafa beat Del Potro and next up, again, is the riveting match between Roger and Djokovic. It's after midnight. My monster stays up late and doesn't scare me a bit. I wonder how much more my novel characters are going to obsesss about tennis now. One of them is already a part-time tennis teacher, I hardly dare say pro because her students are not at a country club but show up in the local park. But, oh, the details I could include. Intricacies of racquet stringing. Having models made in plastic for custom orthotics. I'm missing a whole world of tennis paraphanalia. Let's be honest. I still bring my wood, Davis racquet along to the court. Tomorrow is the day before the first day of the rest of my life. The day before Spring. Or sometimes it is Spring. I haven't seen a daffodil yet so I can't be sure. But what I do know is that Spring means spring. I could just write about tennis and bore you all to tears. Or I could go out and play tennis and, so it goes, lose a lot of yellow balls in the dusty field beyond the courts. Time to tone up, tune up, get ready to move some more. I've been challenged by a 23 year old who thinks she can beat me. This monster is starting to get to me, though. It is helping me breathe in and breathe out, tennis, tennis, tennis. My high school ambition was to become a tennis pro. Funny how that turned out. But you're hearing it here first -- or second or third. It is never too late. The monster can stay here and inspire me when I want it but I AM going to get out there and beat the fuzz off those balls. And you can take that however you want.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

So, maybe I was a spy.

2011-03-18T23:53:00.004-06:00
What does that mean? Maybe I was a spy. A KGB museum has just opened in the Viru Hotel in Tallinn Estonia, my home away from home through much of the 1980's. It spied on me. Day in and day out. From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same. My coming and going. My waking and sleeping. My moods, my emotions. The grass withers, the flowers fade but the spying goes on forever. I ran the bath water, hard, if I had anything serious to talk about. I learned to dress in the dark to avoid the eyes watching through a one-way mirror. I told the mirror my secrets -- the ones I wanted it to hear. So, how complicit was I? Disinformation. Strategic information. "This is happening", (not). "This isn't happening" (though, really, it is). I opined on persons in hopes it would help them. I never talked anyone down, at least not knowingly. But who knows what could be miscued, misconstrued. I hope to God not. I did express my opinions on the frosty summit in 1986 between Reagan and Gorbachev, and the general inanity of the Soviet system. I wasn't a fan; that was very clear. I told the bugs and the mirror that I needed a towel, and one showed up. I complained about the weather and they fixed that too. (Okay, not even the mighty USSR could pull that off.) I said I needed a taxi at 8 and, sure enough, taxis appeared. My goal was to be a "human contact". To be the very best "human contact" I could be for the sake of the Estonian people. I gathered information about their lives, secrets, their break-throughs and victories, their heartbreaks, sorrows and needs. I was a camel, I brought them aspirin and batteries and literature and heaven knows what else I've forgot. Mostly, I gave them contact, friendship, encouragement with the so-called, as we called it then, "outside world." So now there is a museum at this hotel where I breakfasted alternately on Variant One, or Variant Two. More jam with Variant Two. Less cucumbers. This Viru Hotel with its famous unspeakable 23rd floor and head-sets and god knows what else eavesdropping equipment. So it has opened as a museum for a few hours a day, this Viru Hotel. I wonder if any of my old (misleading) notes are on display. I trust them not to have kept any photos. (Why, I wonder, do I trust them, an odd thought.) I was trying to decide if I wanted to visit it, the infamous Viru Hotel, to show it to my kids, maybe. To see for myself what I always knew, as assuming was knowing in many cases. I don't think so. I can only type and think about this stuff in the context of listening to favorite music (ironically, Russian). I don't think I could visit the repository of secrets again. Or don't want to. Why? To relive the worry? The anxious moments when a colleague blurted out a name or a factoid that could be trouble for one of our Estoniain friends. I wa never scared for myself. They could kick me out for all I cared. It was my Estoniain friends I worried over. Getting them in trouble. Keeping their names quiet. Not writing them down. Not being followed. But I know I was. Hell, I once turned back over my shoulder and gave my "spy" an ice cream. Bought two and gave him one. Just for the hell of it. Secrets. I am deeply troubled by secrets. Family secrets. Community secrets, church secrets. Intimate secrets. They are inevitably dangerous. They gulp air, they gasp at it, they seek any way they can find it. They corrupt. They are corrosive. Secrets. Better leave some alone? Or will they all find light eventually and we had might as well do our part to illuminate their dark corners? What do you think? What's the point of telling? What do we leave lie? You've heard it now. The extent of my spying. That's all. Years ago when the girls were small and I was hanging around with them at the playground, I would look at the other mothers from time to time and wonder how many of them had KGB files? How many of them had played hide and seek in narrow cobbled streets and, I think, won? Bought ice cream for the 'minder' who traipsed around behind me? Listened to my discussions with the mirror? I didn't put money on any of these other women having such a weird past. And I looked into my own unbugged mirror at myself and couldn't quite believe I'd lived that life either. Do I look like a spy to you?
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

I'm Not Giving Up!

2011-03-17T13:13:00.000-06:00
Give up?

I'm not giving up.

It is Lent. And even people who aren't particularly religious talk about what they are giving up for Lent. Ice cream, alcohol, shoe shopping.

I'm not giving up for Lent. That's right. I'm giving up giving up. For Lent. Forever.

The old old word that became Lent means "lengthening." There are lots of things in my life that need lengthening. And strengthening.

So I am adding rather than subtracting. Muscles. Discipline. Time to concentrate.

Some of us have already given up a lot. And not always by choice. In fact, I'm still grieving all that was stolen from me.

When so much has been taken, I honestly don't know what else I've got to give up.

I'm not giving up anything more.

Bring it on
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Last Call at the Red Rocks Bar

2011-03-16T21:43:00.000-06:00
I am not much of a drinker.

On our recent trip to Cabo San Lucas I became famous as the Virgin Woman. I drank, maybe, twelve, fifteen virgin daquiri's a day. Every now and then I'd have the rum but you get the picture. Not a big drinker.

Which worries me.

This is my second "chick cocktail" here at the Red Rocks Bar, the second in, oh, about twenty minutes. I did ask her to put less rum in this second one. Drinking is supposed to be good for writers. Or at least good for writing. I've never tried it. But this is tonight and I need a drink. Or two.

Less than twenty-four hours ago I thought I was saying goodbye and leaving my daughter in Minneapolis to come home >> tomorrow night. Then I looked at my calendar. Shit! I was leaving today. You have no idea how much of a mess that made of me, to lose a day with Kaia. We had no plans for today but we have a good time hanging out. Maybe we would have gone to pick up her bike. I would have watched her play soccer with her buds --- the pick-up international team at Macalester to which she is an honorable, if unusual, member. Blonde. American. And female. But she does great and it would have been such fun to watch.

Alas, I looked at my damn calendar. Send Dave a text message, "Am I coming home tomorrow???" "Yes, at 7:20." I found the Frontier confirmation email and sure enough. way more than the twenty-four hours felt taken. When you're with your kid you just never know what great wisdom, what wonderful insight, what hilarious tidbit you're going to get. But I sobbed for a half hour, I think she cried a little too, and we made the most of today.

Cuz that's all we ever get. For sure. And it is not the big fireworks moments necessarily that are the best --- although Rachmaninov and the massages and the red toenails were right up there --- but the little ones. The kind words, the small gestures. The living of the days.

I'm in Denver now. Closing down the Red Rocks Bar.

And. Waiting for another surprise. Annika!

How can I lose? Leave one daughter only to find the other one flying in from Phoenix. Not a bad thing.

I just gave the server a 30 percent tip. And it's not the rum talking.

Life is good.

Sometimes very sad. I'll miss my girl like crazy.

But, here, right here, right now, is my girl.

Kaia and Annika, you two are the best.

Let's close this place down.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Spa Paradise

2011-03-16T00:23:00.000-06:00
We have had it!

A week of spa paradise. Massages with hot stones and warm oils. Chocolates with almonds. Foot wraps and whirlpools. Special work on chakra's, energy work, my friend calls it. Floating in a pool like a primal being. Steak. Salmon. Pasta. Fine wines. Working out on the fitness equipment in the gym (a little Utah Jazz eye candy didn't seem to hurt). Water. Sleep. Our cosmetics arranged geometrically on the marble counter,complete with hair tie perfectly surrounding the toothpaste tube. Room service. Beaudouin the doorman who made us feel completely at home. And the goldfish.

Rachmaninov's Second Symphony, carrot cake and more carrot cake. And wonderful music in the room. And great books to read. And some basketball to check on.

One could not live in such delicious pampering forever (though if they ever need volunteers...) but what a privelege to spend a week with Kaia making sure that she was detoxed and destressed and detached from the cares of life. No broken bones to see, no intubations, no heart-wrenching family dramas in the ER where she works.

"It's all about you" said the flyer she received and I think it was.

This is not decadence. It is not over-indulgence. It is attention. Loving, attentive care. Relief. Release. An honoring of our physical beings who work so hard for us. A giving back.

I learned a few hours after the Japanese earthquake that my Japanese friend was having a massage when the "big one" hit. She got on the floor under the table. She is now thinking of priveliege in terms of having enough toilet paper. And Spam. I'm going to catapult the Spam over and she stocked up at Costco.

Life is so weird. One minute we are luxuriating in a heavenly massage. Next moment, we are collecting iodine tablets. That's the way it works, the way it goes.

What I have learned is that I will lie on the massage table when I am able and leave the burrowing under it for the moment when that too is called for. I will ask for what I need and not hold back.

I will swing for the lines. Aim at the edges. The lines are there to be hit. That's where life is.

I don't want to not hear about what is 'out there' because of course it is beyond my reach. Are you kidding? I want to hear about it all, know about it all. Imagine, vision, ask, try. Aim for the lines.

Thank you, Kaia, for being my spa buddy, for inspiring this in the first place, for being so wonderful that I would want to spend a whole week pampering and treating you to what feels and is and definitely right.

Geez, am I lucky or what?

Lucky.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Tending My Dust

2011-03-09T20:56:00.000-07:00
How many pounds of pressure per square inch do you think a very strong masseuse can apply to your lats (muscles, upper back) when she is bearing down with all her might?

I don't know either but it occurred to me this afternoon to wonder. "Where do you carry your stress?" the masseuse always asks. "Not quite in my shoulders," I told her today. "But down a bit, my lats, and in my upper arms," I said, the muscles that are at constant alert for the signal to defend, to pop up and attack in self-defense. My back was being reconstructed from the inside out this afternoon during the best massage I've ever had ,

As I lay in a quiet room, a lovely mix of Goldberg Variations and cello concerti on the iPod, the scent of various herbal oils and lotions putting me at ease, a gentle breeze from the fan, the massage table itself warm and the blanket above me very soft, my neck set perfectly into place in the headrest, and the masseuse mauling my back in exactly the way I had hoped she would, it struck me.

This is not the normal way Christians spend Ash Wednesday.

No "ashes to ashes dust to dust" deprivation going on in there.

"Focus on your body," she told me. "Don't think about anything else, your work, your problems, driving in snow, the evils of the world. For this hour, focus on your body."

And I did.

My good body. No dust, no ashes.

Sparing the very brief interruption for the quick thought about Ash Wednesday.

I flashed to notice the contrast between the way I had chosen to spend this Ash Wednesday and the way I spent it for dozens of years. I'm at a spa. My daughter Kaia and I are enjoying a spa vacation.

Not a day for self-abnegation. Not a time for giving up, for subtracting, for being a worm.

But a day, rather, to gift myself with the knowledge that, in God's image, I am perfectly and graciously created. And God called it good. And inspired some people to tenderly care for it such that it feels even better. A day for healing. A day for being fully alive and claiming more freely the power of life and health and mortality.

I believe in sin, of course. And I believe I sin. And I believe that even if I get frozen like Norwegian Uncle Ned in a Tuff Shed up near Nederland, instead of buried or cremated, I'll still end up as dust. I'm not angel. No big prize.

But even while we take note of our limits, I propose we take a look at what links us to the divine. We are beings, we are mortal. We have been given a limited lifespan, true enough and that's what mortality normally means to us. But I contend that the gift is, we've been given mortality --- being! We are beautiously and wonderfully made. We've been given life and bodies, real bodies, that require attention and love now.

Sin is not about what we do wrong, perhaps, as much as it is what we fail to notice. We're here! We are embodied, enfleshed, as was God, in the image of God, so goes the story.

We are worthy of honor and respect and tenderness. Not just from others but first of all, from ourselves. I don't think it is possible to kneel and do the Ash Wednesday thing without first standing tall and claiming the glory of our mortality. And lying down on a table and be carefully attended to.

So, my respects to all of you who wear on your forehead today the sooty cross. I understand and respect what it is about. But my dust needed some tender care and some healing ministrations, a massage, a jacuzzi, perfect music, wonderful conversation, laughter, some excellent wine and a delicious dinner.

I know so much about sin and death. I am so privileged to learn more about life.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Trickle Down Teachers

2011-03-05T18:35:00.003-07:00
On your mark, get set, GO! This is simple. This is so simple my dog actually understands it. (And we don't have an especially gifted dog. Her only trick is sniffing around for leftover toast and after, oh, maybe three or four minutes, she notices it under her nose). So this is that simple: no sniffing required. The top 13 hedge fund managers in the United States earn an average of one billion dollars each. One of them took home five billion last year. We're looking at a total of 18 billion dollars income from these 13 guys alone. Real money. That money is taxed as capital gains, at a rate of 15%. If they paid at a normal rich person's income tax rate, they would pay more than 30%, or twice as much, taxes as they do. And, if they paid at that normal rate, around 30%, these 13 billionaires ALONE could pay the salaries and benefits of 300,000 teachers. I can say that again. If those top 13 billionaires who, among them, earn 18 billion dollars from their hedge fund hedging and funding, that is,from their work, would pay taxes at the normal public rate even that would fund the salaries and benefits of 300,000 teachers. BUT, since these 13 billionaires are only taxed at the 15% capital gains tax rate, which is less than half of what they would pay if they paid taxes at the same rate you and I do, they keep more than twice as much as they would have paid otherwise. Which is to say, you and I just paid these 13 billionaires to keep for themselves the cash we could use to pay for a few hundred thousand teachers. But hey, it's worth it right? They have gorgeous silver lamps, after all. And anyway, it's all going to trickle down. Right? Instead of pay checks from their school districts, some teachers get their salaries from a vending machine that says "Trickle down cash." A pretty clever idea. You can put in a dollar for a bottle of water or a bag of Doritos or, if you have the special chit, you can watch as your paycheck goes pflunk to the bottom of the collection bin where you have to do some fancy finger work to fish it out. That's that-there trickle down cash and we could not be more grateful. 13 guys are each already giving up 15% of their billion dollars (hold on, I need a calculator), or one hundred and fifty million dollars, also real money. Sacrifice, those capital gains taxes. Personally, I'd buy more Ding Dongs. The premise of those capital gains taxes, where the really rich pay a lot less percentage-wise than, say, teachers, is that their money is going to trickle down. These guys now have at least twice as much income to keep for themselves as they would have, were they burdened with a 27 - 35% tax rate, like just normal rich people. Think of it as an infinity pool. That means, according to the dog, her toast, and me, that instead of being able to pay for a mere 300,000 teachers salaries and benefits, they now could pay for as many as 600,000 teachers. Of course, they might want to pay for a few fire fighters or librarians or police or EMT's so it could get spread around differently. And that's on top of paying for all the other government people who get paid to be government people (including the people who did all this counting and collecting and non-collecting and voting and not-voting and eating -- lobbyists' dinners -- lounging -- on lobbyists' yachts. So maybe we're only talking 400,000 teachers. That doesn't even pass the sniff test. The point of this privileged, small tax rate is so their billions can trickle down. We can see where these billions need to trickle. So billions, start trickling. On your mark, get set, GO! (And could we please all get a lot more outraged about this, now?)
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Chaos, in Theory

2011-03-05T02:06:00.000-07:00
Chaos gets a bad rap. It’s not at all bad. Sometimes, in fact, it is the only way through. Take slogging through hell, for example. Or living a life overwhelmed by secrets and betrayal and deceit. There’s no rational way through that. If you find a path, you probably don’t want to be on it. So let’s try chaos.
Last time I checked, life was not straightforward. It did not go from here to there. It went nuts for awhile then meandered through a meadow of bleating sheep, then circled back and threw a mess of new junk in my face. It felt and looked like it was all coming apart. But sometimes, if you get lucky or dance in the moonlight or dare to twirl through shadows it comes together. As expected, no. But as an adventure – a crazy, disturbing and delightful, chaotic, and ultimately rich drama – yes. In theory, chaos is what makes life dynamic. I do wish at times for just a bit less whirling and a little more rest. But then I think, how boring would that be?

Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Never mind

2011-02-10T14:21:00.000-07:00
Never mind

Was that just Comrade Breshnev?

Non-speech. Unreality. Babble. Using dressy words to say nothing.

So. We all waited, the hundreds of thousands of protesters in Cairo waited that long, until the middle of the night, for this?

"Happy to toxic in seconds."

The crowd is angry. Fury. A tinderbox. Volatile.

He learned well. How to say nothing. Or rather, how to say what makes sense only to his own limited conscience.

Or, in the vernacular on the street, "what a load of shit!"

Blather.

This is trouble on so many levels.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Tectonic Change"

2011-02-10T12:07:00.000-07:00
"The most important event in the Middle East in decades"

"Not since the Berlin Wall came down..."

"Echoes of the change in South Africa"

"The Berlin Wall is an appropriate analogy in terms of the impact on the region."

"We are witnessing history unfold."

Mubarak is going to speak tonight. Mubarak is stepping down.

As I write, it is night in Cairo. There are crowds flooding the main square waving huge Egyptian flags. The scene: an eerie glow as seen from the television cameras, dark but an orange glow lowlights the excitement that has grown in the last few moments. Cell phones, tweets, texting through the Liberation Square delivers news, rumors, delirium.

The big guns are anchoring the news coverage. The best of the best outside experts have been called in to comment.

To say nothing of the irrepressible and unreplacable Richard Engel reporting on the ground.

Now, everyone in the news world and everyone else in the world has opined on this situation and will, whether or not their information is accurage. The U.S. Intelligence Chief just testified before Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is a largely secular organization, for example. As Richard Engel just reminded, that's not true. So clearly we don't know as much as we need to know. Should know.

So you hardly need to hear from me. But there is one thing I want to say. Just a moment, please.

Mubarak will speak tonight. The crowd is waiting. The crowd is growing. The square is floodlit. The people have spoken and they are ready to be vindicated. The have sacrificed more than we will ever know. And suffered more than we can imagine, not as much during these 17 days as before. They found their power and are using it. They are celebrating victory even before it is certain. Almost certain.

"We are witnessing history unfold...because the people...want their voices to be heard...A moment of transformation... We will do everything...to assist an orderly transition to democracy..." (President Obama)

About the Berlin Wall moment.

All hail the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember, you probably remember watching. There's a chunk of it on my desk. Perhaps yours too. What a moment, what a day, what giddy wild days.

BUT. You should know this is coming. Poland. Let's remember why the Berlin Wall fell.

Poland was first.

A Roundtable. Talks. The opposition and the entrenched. Grinding it out. For weeks. A Roundtable in Warsaw. Concessions that rankle some still today. Did the opposition give too much? Did the opposition become compromised? Was there too much mixing and mingling? This is what often happens. The public eventually looks with suspicion upon those of the opposition who worked out the democratic transition, tinged, tainted as they are by what rubs off from the outgoing communist leaders.

Oh dear, so easy for me to get carried away. Another day.

What I wish to contribute to this discussion is simple. And complex. It may be obvious but to the mass of onlookers it likely is not.

This is not over when Mubarak comes out, as we expect, and announces his departure. It is not over tonight or tomorrow night, when a transition government takes over.

And this is the thing. It will not be over in twenty years. It will not be over in our lifetimes. The transformation the people in Egypt seek is democratic, they want a democracy. And that will mean awkward, uncomfortable wrangling, compromise, even accusations among the various segments of this new democracy about who was what in the ancien regime, who is too heavily identified and who was invested in the old government.

Poland was first.

Poland was first. Forgive me if I sound defensive of this lost point. Before the Berlin Wall was torn down, a Roundtable yielded results, then a quiet election in Poland six months before the Wall went kaput set the tone for all that occurred throughout the Soviet bloc. Ironically, the quiet Polish election occurred on the very same day as the massacre in Tianamen Square. Two very different attitudes and approaches to transformation.

And now a third wave, a "tectonic change" in the Middle East as the people in the streets have given voice to the longing and to their commitment to self-governance. Egypt style. No quiet pen and crumbling wall. No tanks crushing the rebellion. But this time, according to all reports at noon MST, it will be a steady persistent presence of protesters that accomplishes the change.

And the changing will go on and on and on. For years. And years.

Mubarak is going to speak tonight.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"The lines are there to be hit"

2011-02-07T22:47:00.000-07:00
The lines are there to be hit!

Maria Sharapova has been washing out early in tennis tournaments lately and it's too bad. She's good. She's strong. She has terrific technique. And she has a lot of passion for the game.

It's great to watch her play! She aims for the lines. Not the easy muddling middle of the court where four-year-olds stand to hit the ball but the edges, the corners, those blame lines that mark the boundaries, in and out.

It's risky play. And there are seasons when more balls hit the ground just out, usually by as much space as this. That close.

She was chided for her penchant for those margin shots but she had a ready response, "The lines are there to be hit." And she's exactly right. That's how you win. It's dang hard to return a ball that skids off the line. Or pulls you out to the far edge of the universe. You win points that way.

And lose them.

It's a risk.

I'm hitting for the lines.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Gift wrapped pathology

2011-01-10T16:08:00.000-07:00
Gift Wrapped Pathology

"The pathology is already there. Ideology becomes the gift-wrapping..."

I don't know enough about the man who attacked me in a church parking lot to know just how pathologically disturbed he was. That he was a disturbed individual was apparent from casual observation on other occasions. But how disturbed, how ill, I honestly can't say.

What I DO know is that hate speech and violent discourse became the "gift-wrapping" that others exploited and prompted him to turn his disturbance on me, to turn me into his victim.

In the weeks leading up to that attack, the vitriol in our local environment had been raised to a toxic level. Hate, threats, and incivility was rampant around us. I felt cornered by it and completely unsupported by the authorities upon whom one in my position would normally depend for back-up.

In fact, during that last month before the attack reckless words had been committed to paper that, in the words of one of this country's leading experts on church conflict, "made it open season on Pastor Jan."

Today, in the wake of the Tucson tragedy a leading authority on hate and violence in this country described the shooter as someone who was deranged and for whom some convoluted, not necessarily right-wing, just twisted, ideology had become the "gift wrapping" on that pathology. It made sense. He was deranged and found his focus by whatever means, and she became his target. He was vulnerable. That vulnerability was exploited. And he opened fire.

That's what happened to me. With fists, not a gun, thank Jesus.

Two things. We must become vigilant in identifying those who are deranged and capable of violent acts. And we must be determined to NOT exploit that psychosis for our own means.

Second, there are a LOT of women and men like me out here in America tonight, and last night, and the night before who aren't sleeping. Instead, we are seeing again those faces of rage, we are feeling the wounds of our trauma. And it will continue like this for awhile. Pray for us too.

And pray for all those anonymous victims of the Tucson shooting, the survivors of whom we've heard mostly nothing, who are going to be facing demons of their own for years to come.

And, in my usual attempt to find something humorous to say about my traumatic experience, let me close with this, directed mostly to those who authorized and encouraged my attacker,

"I've upped my meds. Up yours."
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Where will you be?"

2011-01-03T15:14:00.000-07:00
WHERE WILL YOU BE?

Five friends and I spent a dismal evening in July, 1984 at a camp in California listening to a raving lunatic preacher screaming, "Where will you be? WHERE WILL YOU BE? Where WILL you be? Where will you BE? WHERE will you BE?" over and over again, until he was hoarse and we answerwed for ourselves by slipping out the window. It was the 4th of July. Our answer was clear, we would be at the beach in Santa Cruz, watching the fireworks. That's where we be. [Byron, dear, RIP.]

The question has remained, and not just as a joke. The preacher was hoping we'd be in heaven but before I get there, and he's probably certain I'm not going, I have other plans. "Where will you be?"

Just because I've been ill for several years and spent more time than I'd like, or ever expected, answering that question, "safely alone in my own little corner, in my own little chair," where I can be securely away from all the creeps and people who mean to hurt people, I still have bigger plans. I went back to Poland a few years ago when I realized that the icky meanie people would not be there, "I come to Poland because nobody here wants to kill me." There are many more places I can think of, and want to experience, places that feel likewise engaging and compelling. I want to go. That's where I'll be.

So, in answer to the age-old question, "WHERE WILL YOU BE?" (in no particular order)

Antarctica.
Mongolia.
Casablanca.
Venice.
Hallstadt.
Nice.
Como.
Bungee jumping in New Zealand.
CapeTown.
Damascus.
Ramallah.
Marrakesh.
Tripoli.
Pskov.
Boden.
The Faroe Islands.
The farthest island closest to the North Pole.
Greenland.
Bora Bora.
The Cook Islands.
Patagonia.
Victoria Falls.
Madagascar.
Selma.
Beijing.
Hanoi.
Sochi.
On a rock in Lappland as reindeer thunder past.
Cabot's Point.
Nantucket.
Sarajevo.

And on and on and on. I do have a list, with details, written in a journal. Some of these are return visits (above) and some are new. And all are captivating for one reason or another, or twenty-six. This is just off the top of my head so some special hopes are no doubt lost in the fog of afternoon sweets. But you get the idea.

What about you? Where will you be? Where WILL you BE?
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Will you go to see Venice before it sinks?

2011-01-03T14:43:00.000-07:00
Alta aqua

There is a delightful, charming palm tree in the center of Warsaw but Venice is sinking.

Is it time to see Venice before it goes under? What to do? Where to go? So many places to experience, so little time. The palm tree will wait.

I was put on this earth, I'm clear on it, to wander. Like Chancey Gardner, in Kosinski's Being There, I like to watch. I could happily wake up in a new city or town, or forest, or ocean, every week. Antarctica, the northernmost islands in the Atlantic (I've figured out how to get there), Marrakesh, the sand dunes of Namibia, racing horses in Mongolia. trekking in the far reaches of tribal Afghanistan, watching a thundering reindeer herd in Lappland. And maybe even watching the waves lap the beach in Bali.

It is a grace to have experienced so much. But it's hardly the beginning. I had no idea I did such a good job of keeping my 'bucket list' to myself but Dave just looked at me with amazement when I mentioned the Norwegian post boats. "The fords of Norway! " (Old Far Side aficionados will recognize this) Yes, Dave, the fjords and fords of Norway and the mists of New Zealand. And the Rock of Gibraltar. And the villages of Uganda. (Even though I am SOOOO not a jungle, creepy-crawler, snakey person, I'd go for the people.)

He's worried now. "And what else?"

And so, in answer to the question, now what? the next blog post will list my list of where I need to go. And, c'mon, now, don't be shy, please add yours to mine. We don't have to go together but do tell us. I'm pretty sure I haven't yet thought of EVERYthing.
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If I weren't a realist (to be sung to the tune of "If I Were a Rich Man"

2011-01-01T09:19:00.000-07:00
If I weren't a realist

If I weren't a realist, these would be my resolutions for 2011:

(First of all, the whole "sung to the tune of" thing won't work but if I weren't a realist, it would.)

1. I will never complain on Boniva days.

2. I will stop every morning at 11:11, beginning today: 1.1.11, and write a thoughtful email to my daughters and my brother, my sisters- and parents-in law.

3. I will not waste even one minute listening to television that I don't really want to hear: no commercials, no second hour of the same news broadcast, no fourteen times listening to the same inane local sports recap of 2010. The mute button works just fine. (As does the 'off' one.)

4. I will forget that Suzy Q's exist.

5. I will hang up my jeans every night.

6. I will organize all 42,363 photos in my collection, including scanning all of the old prints that are worth keeping into the carefully organized digital collection, and I will complete the all of the girls' scrapbooks.

7. I will never ever ever put the car in reverse until the little blue light goes off, no matter if it takes ten minutes and it's 60 degrees outside and I'm late, again.

8. I will always get a haircut within two days of the appropriate time.

9. I will clean up the dog poop in the yard every day and I will watch with joy and patience as the dog eats (the phase before the poop) because Daisy just needs to be watched as she eats her food. Don't you?

10. I will never leave washed laundry in the washing machine so long that it really needs to go through another quick cycle just to be wet enough to be dried.

11. I will not use my mini-trampoline as a shelf for stuff I don't want to put away.

12. I will send fun, thoughtful cards via snail mail, with hand-written letters inside, to all of my family and friends in advance of their birthdays.

13. I will watch the Netflix movies within a month of their arrival.

14. I will not use the upstairs stair rails or banisters as semi-permanent storage for my hoodies, sweaters, scarves, and the occasional pair of pants.

15. I will give up watching Two and A Half Men, my comedy hour, even though it is very well-written, which is to say, hilarious, because Charlie Sheen is scum.

16. I will not fall asleep while watching the Rose Bowl Parade because it is un-American. (But do I have to listen? Can I just watch while listening to music? And do I have to actually watch, or can I have it on and be reading at the same time?)

17. I will not speed, and specifically, I will not drive 90 mph on the tollway to the airport even though I'm the only car on the road.

18. I will not make fun of ducks.

19. I will use capers in gourmet menu items at least once a week.

20. I will not be ashamed of occasionally putting a Carpenter's CD in the car and going for a drive through the foothills and singing along, loud.

If I do ANY of these things in 2011, you will be the first to know.

What are your resolutions? Realistic or otherwise? I'm dying to hear! So is everyone else who reads this. Go for it. We're all eyes.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Await another voice

2010-12-31T14:04:00.001-07:00
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice

___T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding, Four Quartets

Is it possible, that last year's language has left us,
that we are free / doomed / required to await another voice?

There is great danger in quoting poetry out of its complete context yet this happens to Eliot all the time. The passages from "Little Gidding," one of his Four Quartets are ripe for picking. So much to pull and ponder. His context was different than ours, so perhaps we do not fail our duty completely when we quote out of context, these smooth, prickly words. They sound lovely, they drip off the tongue. But what are we saying?

Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fulled beast shall kick the empty pail.
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.

And again, pages later,

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

Images to tease us forward into a new time, a new year,
new voices, new seasons, new understanding: self-understanding.
New understanding of place and patriotism, in his case, of England.

We appropriate the words at will to fill our own contexts with rich imagining and new inspiration. So we do. So we will. And why not?

Peace as you begin and end and start and await another voice.

(If you can, read the entire work. It is demanding of us, a new voice.)
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Now what?

2010-12-26T13:09:00.000-07:00
Let's face it.

This time of year really sucks. The bright lights come down, the neighborhoods go dark again. Justin Bieber reclaims the airwaves. The dregs of wrapping paper show up in corners and all the good leftovers are gone.

The kids are on airplanes heading back to work and school. Party's over.

Already. It doesn't take long.

The pastors and church musicians are swimming upstream for the next two weeks, until Epiphany, trying to convince us that Christmas has only just begun. I've done it myself. But it's futile. Culture rules and culture tells us that it's over.

We're stuck with shelves and shelves filled with nothing but empty storage bins and a mess in the basememnt and movies we've already watched and noxious television stories of tax readiness and the inevitable resolutions. We have nothing to look forward to but the Super Bowl and, really, is that anything?

So. What do you do to avoid the January blah's? The ugly depression that sets in about now? The big let down, the bubble burst?

I want a strategy this year. I don't want to drift along with the outgoing tide. I want to keep the TV off, my saturated self out of stores, and find a way to avoid the post-partum depression, to live fully, on my own terms.

What do you do? How do you thrive in January? What works for you? Please, please, let us know.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Advance Copy! Epiphany Episodes

2010-12-23T23:04:00.000-07:00
Epiphany Episodes 2010

Where did they go?

We had these two girls here just a minute ago. I swear. They were roller-blading and playing the piano and running out to basketball games and soccer practice and drama practice and choir rehearsal and they played Polly Pocket and Playmobil Circus and Beany Babies and Little People and Inch Worm. Where did they go?

New York. St. Paul.

Be careful what you wish for. And what you do. We prepared them for this and, by george, they did it. They left. These beautiful mountains! These fifteen feet of snow. They left!

They both graduated. Kaia graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul and Annika graduated from Arapahoe High School. One ceremony featured bagpipes and kilts, and the other one was blessed by the presence of the Chief of the Arapaho Peoples. One was mellow and laid back – Mac, living up to its longtime reputation, and the other, at Arapahoe, was rich with the rituals that have accrued over time, especially with respect to the school’s warm relationship with the Arapaho Nation. At Mac, we celebrated the strength and essential character of Kaia’s international education, her time in South Africa, and her specific engagement in service to the local community. Closer to home, Arapahoe and the Arapaho have an amazing, active, and heartwarming relationship that has deeply affected our sense of who we are as Americans.

It was great to celebrate both events with family, including Pearson’s and my brother, Jim, who made the trips to both. When over 187 people responded to the party invitation on Facebook we knew we needed more cake. I know that the impact of Macalester will live on as Kaia makes her commitments to service and a global perspective. But not with respect to kilts. Arapahoe continues to make itself felt through the impact of Annika’s leadership skills and her musical excellence.

But then. They moved on. Sure enough.

Kaia is one of those rare creatures: a college graduate with a job in her field. Biology and Pre-Med. She is working in the Twin Cities in a hospital Emergency Department with doctors who are teaching her to be expert in differential diagnoses and taking medical histories, survive all night on bad coffee and sleep standing up. She can spot a kidney stone a mile away and is, at this very moment, reading about intubation of crisis patients. She plans on med school in a year or two. Meanwhile, she’s skiing and coaching girls’ basketball, baking bread, enjoying other Mac alums, and glad for the wonderful presence of family (Pearson’s) nearby. She’s even claimed her true Nordic heritage by learning to love living in snow.

Annika has made herself completely at home in New York City, more specifically at New York University. She loves it. All of it. Subways, odors, strangeness, all of it. She lives right on Washington Square and knows all forty or so of the Liza’s (Minelli) who hang out there from time to time and the old men who play chess on the tables in the park’s corner. Student “rush” tickets make it possible for her to regularly enjoy the Ballet, Philharmonic, Broadway shows, the Guggenheim and the Met, and she is equally diligent about her studies, although she has maxxed out on Marx. She is still thinking of Politics or Philosophy. Greenwich Village is truly like a small town, a great learning and living environment! (I’m jealous. Yep, I am.)

And us, well, now that they’re gone, we got nothin’.

There’s really nothing new under our suns, no big news to report from here.

I’m still trying to arrange the letters of the alphabet into meaningful combinations and Dave is still finding people. We have fun with friends, mountains, tuba concerts, burro races, books, music and all of the rich variety that life provides. No big trips, just lots of little ones.

It is gut-wrenching to see the suffering of the world and we do what is ours to do to try to bring healing and peace. There is much we can do.

And we do have something: plane tickets. Skype, tweets, IM’s, text messages, email and even the phone. Snail mail eludes us. Except for now. Some traditions are well worth keeping and these Epiphany Episodes are one way of expressing that we treasure your friendship over the years, look forward to hearing your news, and wish for you the blessings that God wants for us all.

(You can catch my frequent reflections at

http://www.janerickson.blogspot.com Peace!)
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Election, Soviet Style

2010-12-18T22:49:00.001-07:00
Four o'clock on Sunday afternoon.

The wallpaper was gold, a garish print. A tapestry hung on one wall behind the best easy chair in the room. The table was still heavy with platters of meat and bowls of potatoes with dill, pickles, sauces, breads, delicate glasses with wine, and the remains of a cake. Sunday dinner.

It could have been anywhere. My mom's house, any one of my college friends' homes where I'd often be invited on Sundays after church, or the Soderstrom's, maybe Rosie's, the Woods' in Plainfield, my inlaw's. A certain ritual prevailed no matter where, the passing of the plates, napkins unfolded, a prayer. The hostess took the first bite. And the next few hours were given over to the leisure of seconds and thirds, "please, have more," rich dessert, and lively conversation. We laughed at pompous professors and grumbled about cockroaches, inevitable in city apartments. We complained about the year's fashions and compared school work loads. We ate more. And again, more.

On this particular afternoon, the meal was in Moscow. The Russian Orthodox liturgy had taken several hours, so much so our kind host took us for coffee somewhere in the middle of it, I think because he didn't want to have to translate the sermon. Pavel had been one of the assisting priests. If I remember it right, we didn't tell him we'd taken a little break. But Alexei, one of our hosts, whose mother and aunt had prepared the feast we shared, was more fascinated with our lives, American and Canadian than with yet more liturgy.

At four o'clock there came a knock at the door. Alexei answered, we heard his impatience with the visitor, but not what he said. Then he came back, fully exasperated and embarrassed.

"It was the election committee. They know we have not been to vote. They said I should go now. Can you believe such a country? They keep track of who has voted and who has not. And they come to our flat to tell us to go vote. That's the Soviet Union," Alexei grumbled.

"Well," I responded, "did they offer you bread and eggs?"

He was indignant, "of course not. They don't bribe us to vote."

"Ah," I said, "I'm from Chicago and by afternoon the precinct captain comes around and offers us coupons for bread and eggs when we come and vote." True story. Got the coupons. Skipped getting the goods.

I put on a babushka (scarf) and went with Alexei across to the school where he marked his ballot, not really necessary given there was only the one name on it. He folded the white paper and walked to the table at the front of the room, with a big wooden ballot box with the slit in the top of it. Next to the table, a pedestal with a larger-than-life alabaster bust of Comrade Lenin. A friendly reminder of reality. Alexei slipped his folded ballot through the opening and we left. He got a thank you card for voting. It made me think of a Mass card.

But no coupons. No bribes. What a rip-off.

This Sunday, today, in Belarus, stuck, yes, stuck between Russia and Poland, an election is underway. Lukashenko will be elected. There will be knocks on doors in the afternoon. And one name on the ballot. And likely, still Lenin presiding. Nothing has changed.

What about Chicago?
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

There's nothing like a glorious Christmas concert!

2010-12-17T00:13:00.001-07:00
Tonight was Ellie's first Christmas concert. Ellie is three, maybe four, a Pre-Kindergarten cherub who got to stand in the front row and wear a beautiful dress and shiny shoes and special curls in her hair and sing her happy Christmas song.

I have no idea how Ellie's night went but I can promise you that her grandmother was beside herself with excitement. Is there anything sweeter than children singing? Is there anything more treasured than our own child's singing?

True confessions: I miss those days. A lot. I miss the curling of the hair and the beautiful new dresses and the patent leather shoes that do reflect up and the angel in the front row who pulls her dress all the way up over her head at a critical moment in the delivery of the song's message. I miss the timid smiles that grow braver as the night goes on. The songs sung with confidence, the sincerity and conscientiousness with which my children delivered their melodies, their bright smiles when they spotted mommy and daddy and grandma and grandpa. Not to go on and on, but, seriously, what wonderful days.

Now we are likely to seek out the St. Martin's Chamber Choir, Cantorei, and our annual favorite, "Too Hot to Handel," the outta sight Gospel setting of Handel's Messiah performed by our Colorado Symphony and Chorus. It kills! Handel would have loved it.

Is there anything more glorious than a festive Christmas concert?

Yes. There is.

A desk. And a chair. Our holiday concert ticket money this year is going to an unlikely place, for an unusual purpose. School desks. For children in Malawi. $24 buys a desk for children in this poorest of the poor African nations, a desk and chair combo to replace their seven hours spent sitting on hard concrete. Learning. Can you imagine? Me either.

A desk, and a chair. That is even more glorious than the music for me this year.

Go to MSNBC and find Lawrence O'Donnell's KIND link, and put a kid's butt in a chair so she can learn. And become the next Nelson Mandela. Or Marie Curie. $24. Two tickets. Can do.
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Homage to my Book Club

2010-12-16T00:02:00.000-07:00
Who knew I liked kale? And chutney sauce on ham?

For that matter, who knew I'd like Richard Russo, Jim Harrison, Junot Diaz?

Book clubs get a bad rap. Not always but often enough, they are dissed as gossip sessions with bad wine. (I just read that one.)

My book club (well, it's not mine, I was graciously invited to join years after the group of women who started it started it) is not like that at all. Not the slightest resemblance.

We drink excellent wine. And discuss killer books. We make it a point to read the Booker Prize winners, National Book Award winners, and spent the last several months reading female Nobel Prize winners, including a trip back to Willa Cather's early war novel. Wait. Or was it Pulitzer winners?

These retired teachers are the women I want to be in five, ten, fifteen years. They climb Mount Kilamanjaro (and even spell it correctly) and tutor homeless women and teach students suspended from their home schools.

But most of all, they think. They think hard. They think big, complex, perplexing, and difficult thoughts. They push themselves, they are still as eager to learn as one was at 18. They are funny, loving, witty, and strong. They rock my world.

We're going to read Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann and the collected work of Fran (aka Dorothy Parker of the early 21st century) Leibowitz. And I lost track of the rest but they'll be good. That's a given.

How about you? Are you part of a book group? What are you reading? What is it like? What do you want to read next?
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My brain in a nutshell

2010-12-15T00:22:00.000-07:00
hahaha!

That just came out. No pun intended. But now that it's out there, it is kind of cute. And apt.

The nutshell is cracked open. Yep. But this time it is on purpose. A healing purpose.

I have a new therapist. (Thank you insurance for that disruption in my life.) But, this is going to work out well, all to the good! We are soon going to begin a therapeutic process called Brain-Spotting. I don't understand it but I'm very excited that a wand is involved.

Like any surgery to remove disease and malignancy, the organ has to be cut open, exposed. Of course, normally, generous amounts of heavy anesthetics are involved. No such luck here.

Except rest. Brain rest. Which is just as well because it's not working anyway. At this most list-laden time of the year, when multi-taskers are basking in their olympian accomplishments (I remember, I was right in there with the best of them!), my brain is not working. Not like that. At all.

So. I shall hope to crank out a wise crack or tidbit of obvious wisdom every day or so. And meditate. Read when I can concentrate. And wait.

Which, after all, is what Advent is all about. It's not light yet. "The people who walked in darkness" still are. But that's okay.

Because we know how it goes. The oil will last. Enough will be enough.

I can wait.
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The light in darkness: Lucy day

2010-12-13T00:21:00.006-07:00
Brilliance breaking the dawn.
Power underwriting the promise of a new day.
Warmth finding the coldness of our hearts.
Energy stirring up the deadness of spirit.

Light needs darkness to make its point.

Light finds inertia and sparks its power.

Light finds the frigid and insinuates its heat.

Light looks out for the listless and stir up its flame.

Light changes all those things into what they are not.
Us too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2-Q_ObdE-4
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The trouble with Hannukah

2010-12-09T23:05:00.000-07:00
Okay. I'm wading in.

Deep water this. Make people mad. Oh well.

It's got to be said.

The problem with Hannukah is that it mixes up G-d and war. As in "G-d is on our side."

The glorious glow of candlelight last night softened the space I was in, both figuratively and literally. It's all about the lights, no? It's all about the miracle, right?

Only enough is enough. The oil lasted. Lovely lesson. Miracles happen. Good to be startled with that reminder.

But it's the happening in a war part that stops me up.

We humans have been dragging G-d into our wars since forever. "He's on our side." "She favors us." We have gods fighting each other. We jump in to defend ours. We fight with each other about G-d. Or about power and call it god. We kill for god. I don't think G-d is grateful for our efforts.

So, I need to say this. G-d is not on anybody's side.

G-d is on the side of: no war. The G-d of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, at any rate, says, "no war."

The lights were beautiful. The time feels a bit magical. I like the lesson.

But not the G-d part. Frankly, I like Hannukah better when we leave G-d out of it.
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The Heart in Darkness

2010-12-08T01:15:00.000-07:00
It's late. The Hannukah candles are burning against the dark sky beyond my window. I like to wait until it is pitch black out there so that the contrast is all the more striking.

Seven. Almost bright enough to read by. Barely enough.

Thirty years ago tonight I crossed the Soviet/Polish border for the second time. What I remember is the dark. As before, the euphemistically described guided tour of the train yard and shelter house were offered. There was no refusing. I walked maybe twenty minutes or so in the stultifying cold, hearing every crunch on packed snow, every footfall, On this night I had an idea of what was waiting and fell into a calm rhythm of walking, surefooted on the non-icy snowpack, looking up at the stars. Millions of stars. In a very dark sky.

They knew no boundary. Why should I?

Nonetheless, five-hundred-thousand Soviet soldiers, tanks, armored personnel carriers, trucks, vans, rocketry, and god knows what else were prepared to defend that boundary, to invade Poland, on that night. They were not even exactly out of sight. "Ivan," the lanky guy who had a hat too big so that it kept falling over his face, had his lunch pail. "Have a good day at the war, dear."

Those soldiers: they stayed on their own side. I went west without them.

The billions of stars, falling through this galaxy, lit up long ago, bits of light: the heart in darkness.
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Three, four, five

2010-12-05T21:21:00.000-07:00
"Nothing that is possible can save us.

We, who are about to die,

demand a miracle."

__W.H. Auden

Impasse. Intransigence. Impossibility.

We seem stuck, really stuck, more stuck than at any time I can remember. We are determined to not work together. Obstruction and obstinence are the order of the day. We're being pulled further apart. We're being broken.

Hannukah is about a miracle. The lights are only for celebrating the miracle but the real Hannukah story is the story of a miracle.

Put simply: not enough became enough.

That's it. There was not enough oil to burn for one day yet it burned for eight, until it was possible to press for olive oil to keep the lamp lit. Not enough became, by some miracle of grace, enough.

It turns out the lights of Hannukah, or Chanukah, are not themselves the point. They witness to the point: the miracle. And the candle lights of Chanukah are not to be used for illumination, per se. They are for our reflection. On the miracle. Of enough. Providing.

It's a good thing because three candles didn't do much for me. Couldn't read by that light. Nor four. And now, with barely five, it's getting better. I suppose. I'm not actually trying to use them.

The lights shine on the window sill in the dark night so the world around can see and marvel at the miracle: enough. There was enough.

So that I can see and marvel at the miracle: enough. There was enough.

We who are about to die, of poverty, war, greed, disease, hate, demand a miracle. Nothing that is possible --- our efforts, our failed attempts --- can save us.

I look at the five lights burning in the darkness tonight and think: miracle.

Hope. It can happen. Wisdom and light from on high. So be it.

Quickly.
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"Chanukah Annika"

2010-12-02T17:51:00.000-07:00
And then there were two.

Two candles tonight.

Does it make a measurable difference in lighting the room? Hardly.

Does their light stand out? Barely.

Bathed in lamp light, the room bright and cheery on this winter night, the two little candles are insignificant. One has to make a point of noticing them.

But turn off the lamps. The two flickers stand out dramatically against the dark night beyond.

Without out their few lumens we would sit entirely surrounded by darkness.

They make all the difference right now. There is not nothing. There is something. Something essential. Light.

So it is. Even a little is essential. Sometimes even enough. We'd like more but for this night this little light has changed the atmosphere, even the sense of what is possible in here, what we could do.

So it is. And not just in this room.
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Tell me a story! World AIDS Day, 2010

2010-12-01T21:04:00.000-07:00
The calls came from little towns. In no-name places. From cousins. And sisters. And brothers. And students. We heard about a cowboy in rural Oklahoma. And a son who struggled in high school. Two uncles in I forgot where who traveled the world before they came home to die.

Stories. "Tell us about them," the people you want to remember today and to name, your loved ones and friends who died of AIDS.

There are so many. So many names. And so many stories. The South American community has a beautiful way of lifting up the lives of those they wish to honor, "Presente!" And so these old friends were present today in my car and in cars across American, in living rooms and offices and at kitchen tables. "Presente!"

Whose story will you tell? Will you, please? Let's remember together.

I think that helps me, and perhaps you too, to gird up for the fight against the spread of HIV, and to care for those who lives with AIDS. The real people, the losses, the faces, the laughter and living we shared.

And let them be with us. I'm sure your loved ones are with you every day. Today might be a time for us to share them with each other.

(I'm sorry this is so late in the day. Thursday and days after can be days to tell the stories too.)

I told about Dan. Among so many young men whom I knew at the worst of the epidemic, who died, Dan was the loneliest. Closeted because of work, he was quiet, conscientious, faithful. And afraid. He hid his illness and himself until the very end. His story was the first one that came to my mind when invited today to tell a story. Dan. Whose name was not named then. But it is now. We miss you.
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"Vienna Waits for You"

2010-09-13T16:48:00.000-06:00
What do you need?

What do you need to do?

We are confronted with expectations, requirements, demands, and conflict every day. Every one of us.

Even opportunities. For example, Annika got a letter today with exciting news, she "is eligible" for the Denver Pageant! What a shame she went to college instead. And we're going to toss out the Capitol One credit card offer she got today too.

What do you need?

I stood in front of a room filled with Army chaplains once, high-ranking ones, no less, and asked them that question (to ponder internally) and they were so dumbfounded they sat stone-faced and then responded as if I'd asked them to take off all their clothes and dance.

What do you need? Most of us are conditioned to ignore the question. My spouse was trained to follow the "JOY" principle: Jesus first, others second, and yourself last. Well, you can only imagine how much time and energy Jesus can take, and then, there's others. Their needs are a bottomless pit. So he didn't get around to considering himself more than, oh, about once every decade or so. He, like too many of you, still spends a lot of time saying , "Uh, duh, I don't know," when asked the question.

What do you want? Even that is hard to answer. My favorite form of torturing my husband is to insist he decide where we're going for dinner. "What do you want?" It isn't easy to learn to listen to oneself, to listen hard and long and carefully enough to come to an answer.

Seriously, it is too easy to listen too hard to the external voices and implied expectations, requirements, demands, conflicts, and opportunities that show up in front of us every day. I'm sure you've heard the wisdom urging us to not let the urgent replace the essential.

So, what is essential?

I cancelled my therapy appointment today in order to stay home and watch the U.S. Open Men's Final between Nadal and Djokovic. And, in a funny twist, my therapist called me first to cancel and I know that, while she really may have needed to go home and give medicine to her pets, what she really needed and wanted to do was watch the match too.

Some things are essential. Even when they seem frivolous. Or outrageous. Or expensive, or stupid, or even mean. Yes, true. Sometimes work is not essential, even if it feels urgent.

What I will gain from this match today is essential affirmation of giving yourself heart and soul to what you really love. Affirmation of being "all in" and passionate, and, most of all, having belief in yourself.

It occurred to me the other day that I should have kept playing tennis longer. I wasn't bad. In fact, I was rather good. Surprise! Tennis was and still is such a head game, a game of confidence and will perhaps more than any other. I once beat myself in a match where I was up a set and four games, because I freaked out: "this girl is too good; I can't really beat her." And I didn't.

I could've used several more years working with a sports psychologist. Seriously. Belief in oneself. Confidence. Internalization of all those essential platitudes about being able to do what we set out to accomplish. "It's never too late..." I can't even think of them now.

If we focus on the urgent instead of the essential, we get caught up in pleasing others, following rules, doing the 'right' thing, and putting off what we really need. Need.

Joy is actually meant to be joy, not "JOY."

Watching tennis is one of the things that helps me get back in connection to the essentials. To be reminded that passion rules. Real passion.

There are times we can't afford, for any variety of reasons, to avoid the urgent. But, still, we need to find time, often, to step back and evaluate. What am I doing? What do I need? Where is the passion?

Another friend has been wrestling with these questions. In fact, several friends and acquaintances are struggling with these questions right now, starting with giving themselves permission to even ask. But they are leaning in close, leaning in close to listen to their heart, their instincts, their true voice, and making choices that feed their passion, not the merely urgent. Breathtaking choices. And life-giving ones.

Now, having made some essential decisions over the past several years and having had some made for me, due to illness, I am at a wonderful place where I can choose to give life to one of the passions I've had for years.

Did you know, there are 771 versions of white? Pick one.

Oxford white is the one we chose. Our family room is being transformed, finally, to indulge my schizophrenia (not actually) about loving the sea and loving mountains, at the same time. It is ironic, living in Colorado, that our home itself reflects the love Dave and I share for the Cape shores. There are lobster buoys leftover from treks along the beach, and even a lobster trap we got from a lobsterman who was about to burn it after its long and faithful career. It's not kitschy, just a definite turn in that direction. So "Nantucket white" is the order of the day. And we can pretend we're there as we sit among the rope and boats and buoys.

A small passion, not one of the bigger ones. But there's this song I like, "Vienna Waits for You," and every time I hear it, I hear my name.

What about you? What do you need?
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"Easy Rider"

2010-09-12T15:43:00.000-06:00
Sunday.

Sabbath.

No need to work my brain too hard. Just some musing after a trip up the mountain and back.

I'd love your reactions. Musing. Additions.

First of all, a hurricane named Igor. This has fumbling, bumbling, falling apart, ineffective, petering out written all over it. Marty Feldman, we love ya still! Igor seems to be spinning his wheels out in the middle of the Atlantic, far from land, out in the middle of nowhere. No big surprise there.

Did you know, "professional eater" is an actual occupation. A guy ate a few dozen burritos or chincillas or whatever and the article describing the event identified the winner as "a professional eater." Can I get a gig like that? (without the excess!)

Macy's big ad today promises "Whatever it is that dazzles, delights or excites your senses, this Fall you'll find it at Macy's." I'm looking forward to their mountain side of glistening gold aspen, a bottle of Viognier, and the thrill of riding my bike down the mountain at 45 mph. How they pull this off, I have no idea but it's convenient for us that a Macy's is just a mile away.

It should be no surprise I suppose that, if we can see the top of Mount Evans crystalline clear from Belleview, Hampton and Arapahoe Roads, we can also see these roads stretching out like ribbons, from the top of Mt. Evans.

Does anyone else have a dog that refuses to eat its food unless someone is sitting at the kitchen table?

Singing the Ode to Joy, the choral movement from Beethoven's 9th, after really learning the score, learning my part and having it nailed, as part of a really good choir has gone on my bucket list. What odd thing is on yours?

A new study from Turkey shows that men with a higher BMI last, oh, never mind.

Why did they stop making those Brach's Halloween candies that are pure sugar shapes of not just pumpkins or candy corn, and have more interesting flavors?

"We're available." That is, no kidding, Panasonic's new advertising phrase. "We're available?" Isn't that like a doctor drumming up business by promising, "I'm breathing." Or a bookstore that boasts, "we're open."

"We're available. That is as lame is Igor.

What's meandered along your neurons while out wandering around today?
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Sixteen candles / Smoke gets in your eyes

2010-09-12T15:11:00.000-06:00
Let's get this out of the way right off.

I am disgusted with Poland. You may have noticed that I've not written about Poland much lately. Frankly, I haven't written about much at all lately. But that's another story.

Poland is irritating. Poland at the moment is extremely irritating. Poland, in fact, just pisses me off. If I lived there now, I'd consider taking a very long vacation to Tahiti. Or Antarctica. Or the moon. I'm that pissed off.

The Poles, every last one of them, yes, let's just generalize and paint everyone with the same broad brush, after all, we do a good job of that here from time to time. "All Muslims are...." "Islam is...."

But this has nothing to do with that. No, this is still about Poland. And how a disturbing minority -- not really every last one -- of Poles are being manipulated by maudlin and outdated emotional hysteria.

As you remember, a plane crashed last April near Smolensk, in Russia, killing the President of Poland, his wife, many senior members of the government of all parties, military leaders, and family members of victims of the Soviet massacre of 20,000 Polish elite in 1940. It was a horrible tragedy. The entire country grieved. The entire country was in shock, and mourning, no matter their political inclinations. A state funeral was held for the President and his wife and the media was saturated with tributes and other appropriate means of inviting public involvement in the mourning process.

Within hours of the plane crash, dozens of Poles began doing what Poles do best, bringing candles in tribute, in this case, to the Presidential Palace. And being Poles, the candles were rather naturally assembled in the shape of a cross. No problem. Thousands of thousands of candles were eventually left there in a tribute to the late President.

And left there. And left there. And left there. The new President was elected. He moved in. The candles didn't move out. Sane, rational, respectful people suggested perhaps it was time for the cross of candles to be retired. Or moved.

Outrage! For one thing, the whole mess got bolloxed up with sentiments about the cross, a religious thing about the cross. "You would take away the cross?!" Sacrilege.

But most of all, the twin brother of the deceased President has stirred the emotions of a rump minority of conservative Catholics who protest without ceasing any attempt to move the candles. And this same twin brother, an unsuccessful candidate for President in the election to succeed his brother and the Parliamentary leader of the main opposition party, PiS -- and yes, there are jokes about its name -- is pretty much out of control. Accusing everyone who does not daily bow down in obeisance to the late Lech of emotional cruelty.

I feel for the man. It had to have been the greatest shock a twin could ever sustain. He has years of grieving ahead of him. It won't be easy.

But sadly, he has used his own mourning to manipulate masses of simple folks who see in PiS all that is traditionally virtuous --- patriarchy, anti-contraception, anti-feminist, myopic self-absorption, anti-European, anti-semitism --- in their country. And won't let it go. So the politics of Poland are paralyzed.

Nothing new there. But really. Enough already. There are roads to build, businesses to license and support, health care to reform, tax structures that need attention. But nothing is happening. Poland is stuck. Again.

As an American, of course, it's impossible to be haughty about one's country's political life. We're a mess as well. And irritating.

So let's be clear: there is not one thing we can boast of, politically, in relation to our Polish friends. But I can still be irritated as all hell. With a big mess in my backyard, why go off looking for another one across the sea?

So, for the moment, however much I do love Poland and admire so much of its sassy resilience, I'm not thinking I want to be like Poland when I grow up. In fact, I think it's time for Poland to grow up.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now"

2010-09-02T20:40:00.000-06:00
"...I mean, life has to be sloughed: has to be faced: to be rejected; then accepted on new terms with rapture. And so on, and so on; till you are 40, when the only problem is how to grasp it tighter and tighter to you, so quick it seems to slip, and so infinitely desirable it is."
___Virginia Woolf

So the writer told a new young friend. Obviously, she was well past 40 by that time and more and more desperate to hold on to a slippery life, tighter and tighter.

This is not going to be literary criticism. Or biography. At least not Virginia's. I simply want to borrow her images. And especially the one.

"...life has to be sloughed..."

It seems to have been a time for sloughing. Transition. Giving away. Giving over, letting go.

We let go, as if she was ever ours to hold on to, our youngest daughter, escorted her to the opening of the next chapter of her life. University.

How far away is New York City? It isn't to be measured in miles. Those are easily erased with text messages, skype, and even, gasp, telephone conversations. How far is New York City from here?

A life.

A new life.

One opens. For her. But also for us.

I wrote last in this space that I was feeling old. Too old. I don't think that was it. Not quite, not exactly.

I was sloughing. Letting go. Facing reality. It is now this time. It is now. Simply now. But the difference between before and now, and now and after, is disorienting. As it often is. Not often, always.

"Life has to be sloughed."

A time to hold on, a time to let go. A time to stay, a time to move, a time to be firm, a time to be loose, to relax, to be less. There is a time to hold on tighter and a time to give.

I disagree with Virginia. Or, rather, more exactly, honestly, my life is different than hers. She needed to hold on tighter and tighter as she grew older. Not necessarily to happy avail. I find the opposite is true for me. There is more to let loose, to set free, to watch fly off into the skies.

The mistake is to mistake the times for what they are, and are not. The mistake is to hold when it is time to hand over. To stay when it is time to go. To measure in terms of what has rather than what one has given.

So now we have given our two daughters more completely to their own selves. We have given them their futures to shape and shade, to claim. To lean into and discover. And for them, too, it is time to slough off old skin, old stuff.

One girl has found a home in a sweet, friendly neighborhood in an enormous city of some eight million. Her big sister is a woman on her own, having earned a degree and found a job in her field, found her own place to live and is now creating for herself a home. They will both be part of us forever. This will always be their home home. But not like before. We have faced a reality, found new options and opportunities, new places and energies and vocations, people, loves, likes, restaurants, tastes, tolerances.

We have rejected -- one must always not choose something to choose something -- and we have accepted on new terms with rapture.

Rapture!

This is a time for rapture.

(Not the rapture, in which case, I want your BMW.) But rapture. Joy. Illumination.

And young-ness. Having sloughed, faced, rejected, and felt very old in the process, I'm feeling young again with rapture. With all there is to accept. To do, to try, to learn, to work at and work out, to agonize over and push for.

Yep. Two weeks ago I was old. In fact, "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."

p.s. I'm serious about the car thing. In case of rapture, I'm taking your car.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"I was so much younger then; I'm older than that now."

2010-08-22T23:32:00.000-06:00
First of all, the bumper sticker of the day, forgive us please, but we laughed so hard at this one Annika fell off the back seat, Dave snorted, and I almost drove off the road.

"Proud father of the next door neighbor's honor student."

Okay. That has nothing to do with anything else. Just, it's good to laugh.

So what is your favorite bumper sticker?

This is the serious bit. I feel old. Old. Old. Old.

Like, done. Over. Out of gas. Too old to do much beyond put one foot in front of the other.

But it's not supposed to be like this. My closest mom-friend is sending her youngest child off to college this week too and she's feeling like "it's time for me," even as it is time for her daughter to move forward with her own life. She's excited, ready, eager to launch the next phase of her life.

I'm supposed to be her partner in this process, a kindred spirit, likewise ready to jump into this new era. Supposed to be. Want to be.

Four years ago when Kaia was graduating from high school and getting ready to go off to college, it felt like my world was opening up too.

A friend gave me a bookmark with George Eliot's wisdom, "It's never too late to be what you might have been." I filled my head with aphorisms like that one. "Vienna waits for you" became my favorite song, and I was all about the future.

Several years after getting hit in the head, I was finally coming back to life as the worst of the trauma effects abated and I was bored with all the diversions I'd created for the times required to recover. I was gung ho, ready to take back the world. A whirling dervish, fast and furious, full speed ahead.

Turns out I was also revved up on three times the FDA recommended maximum dosage of Paxil. And I was working out like a fiend. Boxing, lifting, walking, pumped up on endorphins on top of the Paxil and other meds. Let's just say I was a bit manic.

I wanted to seize more than the moment. I wanted to grab the brass ring and do, get, accomplish it all.

Concentration was still a problem. So it's hard to remember what all I wanted, but coming back and claiming life was definitely the goal.

I was only 51. That seemed young. A long future stretched ahead, so many possibilities, options, doors to open, roads not taken to go back and try. "Let me at it!"

I actually scared my therapist one afternoon. "I'm going to Poland!" She understood me to say, "tomorrow," which wasn't far from my ambition. "Dial it down," she suggested. "Let's think this through."

So we did, of course, and saner sense prevailed and I took some time to figure out more about what I wanted. But not enough.

Between the endorphins and the overdose of Paxil, I had enough oooomph to plow through a jungle.

Looking back now, at those manic moments, I'm embarrassed at my excess of enthusiasm, my failures of good judgment at times, and my quick conclusions.

But I'm also sort of jealous, wistful, longing, to have that high spirit back again. As I prepare to send another daughter off to college (in FOUR days!), I keep thinking it should be prompting another round of anticipation -- along with the loss.

I have a new and improved routine, with some new goals. So it's not like I'm lying around watching HGTV all day -- well, not until last week. There are some new accomplishments, new projects, wonderful new friends, and new ambitions. I've worked hard to develop some skills that will carry me forward. I'm still as goofy as before (who among you speaks seriously about the "flock of moose" up ahead on the road?) and I am still completely incapacitated from time to time by PTSD. I am not, as we say, normal. And Annika is proud to say that her mom is genuinely "certifiable," not just your run of the mill crazy. We laugh a lot.

It's time for Annika to move on. And it's time for me to be creative, too. But I'm kind of jaded, worn out, hoped out.

I'm going to hear Rite of Spring(Stravinsky)this afternoon. I hope the spirit moves, the energy of new life catches hold of me, and an even violent gust gives me a big push!

Are you still filled with energy about the future? What sparks your energy? What feeds your spirit?
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"They Say It's Your Birthday!"

2010-08-19T08:01:00.015-06:00
Another voter for mom, apple pie and the American way.

Another voter for gay marriage in all 50 states.

Another voter against "all that immigration crap." (She's a lot more articulate than that, this is seven in the morning shorthand.)

Another voter for equal protection under the law.

Another voter for upholding the First Amendment.

And all of the rest of them, too, for that matter.

Another voter for building a mosque at Ground Zero.

Another voter for health care reform.

Another voter for kindness.

Another voter for compassion.

Another voter for justice.

For all.

That means all, all.

Annika's first official act as an 18-year-old: registering to vote.

There are, apparently, four newly legal things one can do when turning 18: buy cigarettes, buy porn, buy a lotto ticket, and vote. (I think get a tattoo without a parent's permission is also on the list.)

She got the tattoo last week, with the parent's permission. It says "Sol" or Sun in Swedish.

She really wanted "Sunrise" in Swedish but that is a really really long word in Swedish. Nonetheless, that may be the closest thing to a faith statement she can make at the moment, which, to my mind, is not a bad one, not at all. Faith in tomorrow, the new day, the promise, the hope, the newness of life. Day after day after day.

So, Annika can go out today and buy cigarettes, buy porn and lotto tickets, and vote. To her everlasting credit, she thinks porn is exploitive, is violently opposed to smoking, and thinks the lotto is stupid. BUT. But.

She's been waiting for this moment for years. She can vote.

And rest assured, she will be voting for you. For "Mother, apple pie, and the American way."

The American way.

Oh, she knows her Constitution. Probably better than you do. So you can count on her. I know I do.

Seems I used to say, "Look out world, Annika is coming!"

Now, just one week before she gets on the plane for NYU, and at the wise old age of 18, it is time to say,

"Watch out world, Annika is HERE!"

Lucky, lucky us!
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

"Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights"

2010-07-27T22:30:00.001-06:00
A big-time New York editor is fascinated by my story.

He's also said that the books he'll consider buying and taking on as a project, to edit and publish, are ones that must keep him on the subway and make him miss his stop. So I'm also thinking of Michael as I write, trying to find ways to weave the plot to keep him hooked, make him miss his stop.

One can aspire to less.

I'll bet that one of the things that makes him a good editor is that he is an excellent listener. He managed to weasel out of me more information more quickly than my first psychologist, post attack, ever knew.

At one point, describing my "thing" about Poland, I blurted out, "Poland saved me."

"No," he said, "you saved yourself."

That comment, and the entire conversation was a turning point in my healng journey. I felt powerful again in a way I'd lost for years. Confidence, chutzpah, and gratitude poured over me then, especially as my 'truth shivers' confirmed the truth of his words. Intuitively, I knew he was right.

We watched the movie "Julie and Julia" again tonight. And I'd forgotten that line, when Julie tells her husband, "Julia (Child) saved me," and her husband responds, "you saved yourself."

So, this is interesting. This same editor was at Little,Brown when Julie Powell's book was published there. Did he get the line from her, or did she get it from him?

Whichever, I'm glad he held on to it. And used it on me.

It's not arrogance to claim the portion of agency, of power, that one can rightly assert. Of course I didn't exactly save myself. Not without a lot of help. But let's not be too humble.

Let's acknowledge and be glad and grateful for what we ourselves are able to do, for ourselves, for our own good, for our own healing. Let's claim the resourcefulness and ingenuity and clever creativity that contribute to our growth, recovery, learning, development and healing. We're not victims. We're not passive receivers of our lives, we're the actors, the forces for good, for change.

"No," he said, "you saved yourself."

Mike, Julie, whomever came up with it first, thank you. Thank you for reminding me again that I am, we all are, the writers of our own stories, the weavers of our own plots.

Now, I sure hope, when the time comes to submit the manuscript, that I can keep Mike reading right on past his subway stop, reading about people who saved themselves.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

If you want it, then you better put a lid on it

2010-07-26T23:32:00.000-06:00
It is so good to know I can still embarrass my kid.

She didn't find my riff amusing. I thought it was hilarious, clever, and instructional. If you're going to leave Qdoba with a fresh refill of Diet Coke, you'd better put a lid on it.

But who will laugh at my stupid humor in a month? She'll be gone.

One month from today Annika and I leave for college. That is, of course, to say, Annika and I will leave for New York City where she will enter New York University and I will help her move into her dorm on Washington Square and then get back on an airplane, alone, and come home.

One month. One more month. But -- lame, trite, momism alert: it was last week that she slept through her baptism and the party afterward, and six days ago that she and her pre-school pals Kristin and Meredith and Collette spent an hour simply staring at giraffes as they ate, at the Brookfield Zoo. And five days ago that she and Julia crossed the bridge by the dandelion fountain on the Naperville Riverwalk to become full-fledged Brownies, and later that same day she so convinced her first grade teacher that she was an adopted Indian Princess that I got a phone call that night, "is Annika adopted?"

And four days ago she was astonished by this contraption our neighbor, Linda, pulled out, and asked, "what's an iron?" A few hours later she and Kari played horses for hours in our backyard, soon after receiving a special gift from cousin Noah who gave her a huge wrapped package and whispered to her, "It's for you! It's a surprise! It's a horse!"

Three days ago she wore a cap and gown and graduated from grade school, then went off to spend every morning of middle school, before classes started walking the hallways with Emily. Later that afternoon she went off to Dublin and London and Edinburgh and the villages of Wales with her children's choir, came home and in the evening hosted her bestest friends for her first annual Bastille Day LBD dinner.

Two days ago she went to New York City for the first time, fell in love with it, and went back again before lunch, on her own for a week to visit and confirm her passion for the city and for NYU. It's not just one thing but everything, the people, the energy, the architecture, the walking, the subway, the diversity, the craziness, the concentration of intellectual and creative and world-class resources.

Yesterday she left no doubt about her leadership skills and commitments, even being singled out for her leadership role within her 2200 member student body at Arapaho by the principal at commencement, and made certain she would never have to take another math class with her AP score. By evening she hosted 3415 friends at her graduation party (or did it only seem that many) and spent the summer on a nonstop farewell social whirl while fitting in enough hours of work to stash away enough cash to keep her in gelatto this fall.

Now, today, she's been back to NYU for orientation and registered for classes, including one about the relevance of Marxism today, and met dozens of future classmates, got her first choice of dorms, and made plans with a new friend to spend a day at the US Open. Soon she will celebrate her 18th birthday with yet another party, say farewell to driving for the next 9 months, get on an airplane and fly off to NYC to pick up all the stuff ordered in advance from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and join the 65,000 other freshmen descending upon New York City (and close environs) this fall.

Who will mock my jokes, give me fashion advice, leave the drivers' seat four feet back from my usual setting and the car radio on a station that plays music that isn't, offer nuggets of profound wisdom as she moves through the house, and keep the garage door going up and down on a frequent basis with her coming and going and going and going?

One month from today. I have a feeling it will come in about four minutes.
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Where there's smoke there's

2010-07-16T22:01:00.044-06:00
Delusion.

True story: A journalist sits across the desk from a high-ranking Communist party official in Hungary in @ 1955, tall windows revealing a broad view of the city of Budapest.

"Where is the fire?" asks the journalist, pointing to dark thick smoke across town.

"What fire?" the official responds. "I see no fire."

Kati Marton writes a disturbing new book, Enemies of the People, describing her parents' arrest on trumped up charges of spying for the U.S. during the early days of the Cold War. It could be about Poland too, or Czechoslovakia or East Germany. The rampant paranoia that seems almost silly to us now, certainly outrageous, overblown, hysterical was common.

In this passage she is writing about the absence of bad news in the news media in Eastern Europe, "behind the Iron Curtain," as she calls it, during those days. Her parents were viewed as dangerous simply because they told the truth, or sometimes only pointed toward it. One couldn't even acknowledge the reality of a fire out in the open, across town.

"Fire? I see no fire."

Delusion.

It's me again.

There are so many delightful, beautiful, lovely things to write about. Aspen, listening to an excellent orchestra play Copland while lying under gently swaying trees and a blue sky, an evening of really fun patriotic music and fireworks on the 4th of July. Waking up early for Wimbledon, and the World Cup, and now the Tour de France. I'm enjoying my tour de France very much. Good friends, loving conversations, keen insights. The pleasure of a fine glass of wine, an excellent vegan salad, watermelon, my best friend from high school's graduation from another master's program, Palm Springs, more Aspen, the thrill of finding the right words, a true sentence, for the novel. Surprises, brilliant observations. The pure dark outline of mountains against the barely light sky. An excellent report from the doctor (yes!). So much so much, so much goodness.

But here I write about the badness. Much of the time. Having discerned that for the time it is my calling to write about ugliness, to shine light in dark corners, I come to you again with this ugly story of an ugly time, a legacy of dysfunction, betrayal, and mistrust that has fall-out that continues to affect the lives of millions in Central (Eastern) Europe to this day.

Being asked to ignore the obvious. Believe the ridiculous. See the invisible. Pretend reality. Pretend pretend pretend. And maybe pretty soon it will seem true.

Marton goes on to write about her father, a sophisticated, cultured, worldly, urbane and elegant man, with a Ph.D and plenty of practical sense, nevertheless,

"that he still trusted his captors to keep their word, still trusted his cell mates with his confidences, was still shocked and appalled when they did not, is a hallmark of a man who seemed incapable of recognizing the full deceit of the (Communist) regime...He simply could not participate in their universe of lying, cheating, betraying, torturing, and subverting." (page 140)

His naivete was stunning.

It was an unreal world. One that many choose to close the door on afterward and forget completely. And in some ways, who can blame them?

But Kati Marton chooses to shine a light on this dark time, to bore down to the truth, no matter how scary it may be.

Okay, so here's the creepy part. I recognized that scene. It played out almost exactly the same in my life, yes, in Poland sometimes. "Fire, I do not see a fire."

But that's NOT the creepy part. I recognized it from the church. From my encounters with the official of the church who sat across the desk from me in his office almost eight years ago to this day and said, in effect, "fire? I do not see a fire."

What he actually said was, "I do not know of any history of clergy sexual abuse in that church."

Never mind, he was the one to tell me about the history of the congregation in the first place, three years earlier. When it seemed safe for him. When it wasn't inconvenient for him.

Why it became unsafe, inconvenient for him to live without delusion, "no fire," I honestly don't know. But it did. And his abandonment of truth pulled the rug out from under me. It felt like a slow-motion slide off the side of a cliff.

And I was likewise disbelieving, still trusting my superiors, my colleagues, still shocked and appalled when they betrayed my trust. I was likewise incapable of comprehending the full deceit of the 'regime.' I could not believe and enter their "universe of lying, cheating, betraying, torturing, and subverting." My naivete was stunning. It still seems unreal. But I took detailed notes. There was a follow-up conversation. She took notes. It happened. It really did. Unbelievable.

Stunning naivete. And devastation when I finally took it in. To say nothing of the consequences, in terms of the behavior of parishioners who knew then it was truly "open season" on Jan.

So. One learned over the forty post-War (WWII) years of communist regimes in eastern Europe to begrudgingly accept the reality of that deceit and delusion coming from officialdom.

But, in the church?
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!

Will tomorrow finally be Independence Day in Poland?

2010-07-03T15:53:00.002-06:00
It is about time. Beyond time. Past due.

Poland is voting for President on July 4th. And it is a deal-changing election.

Past? or Future?

Neither candidate inspires much enthusiasm. Well, maybe that's not true. The candidate of the past does stir the passions of those who wish to remain rooted in an anti-Russian, anti-European, anti-Semitic (sorry, but true), hyper-Catholic and so-called patriotic Polish lala land. He is the twin brother of the late President, Lech Kaczynski, and has made this election more a referendum about what really happened on the fateful morning in Smolensk three months ago when the president's plane crashed on landing, killing him and 96 others on board, than about what is required for Poland's vibrant, vigorous, productive future.

Firstly, let it be noted that what really happened in Smolensk when the plane slammed into a hillside in fog is most likely determined: the pilots failed to follow urgent instructions to NOT land the plane and crashed it. But, despite overtures of good will from Russian authorities, and logical analysis, Kaczynski the Brother has continued to be churlish and childish not only about this but about other issues related to Polish history and the relative bona fides of himself and his opponent. "Who's is bigger" is one take on the campaign.

Lots of sentimentality has been mucked up, to the extent that Kaczynski the Latter, whose brother the president a few months ago was most certain to lose in the upcoming scheduled election -- against almost anyone -- is running neck and neck with the candidate whose party was leading by as many as 20 percentage points or more, at the time of the crash. It has become a referendum on nostalgia or sympathy for a dead president's poor brother more than a real debate and decision about serious issues.

This is not a good thing.

The other candidate is not exactly Mr. Excitement. Lackluster, uninspiring, not yet as bold as their leadership needs to be, but at least he is oriented toward reason, toward positive relationships with their neighbors, and progressive policies at home. So, the message is, get over it, get over your boredom with Komorowski and just do the right thing.

We're not the only ones, here in the States, whose politics are thoroughly mucked up. The Poles are teetering between taking steps into the 21st century, as is their due, or wallowing in past grievances and petty gripes.

My Polish friends have mostly gone to bed now. They will be up early, as they are among those who desperately care. They will vote early (and, were they in Chicago back in the day, they could vote often). They have editorialized and campaigned and tried to bring logic and wisdom into the debate and to the decision.

The attached (I hope) link to the last editorial in Polityka in advance of this election asserts that, however one may feel, sentimentally, about the past, the former president, the church, "Poland is more important." They argue for sensible, thoughtful, forward-looking decision-making on the part of every voter. God, I hope the people come through.

I hope the voters get it right this time so that when they all wake up on Monday morning, they will be free at last from the worst of the worst of the past several years, and free to move, to move on, to grow, to thrive.

Heaven knows, they so deserve it!
Thanks so much for reading! I encourage you to pass this along to friends, family, random strangers and especially folks whom you think might benefit from reading it. You can also subscribe above, follow me (I don't know where I'm going but follow along for the adventure of it all.) Most of all, thanks! I welcome, encourage, ask, beg, and really look forward to your comments so this becomes a conversation moreso than a monologue. Thanks!