What is the question?

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

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

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

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)

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?

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

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.