I'm Not Giving Up!

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

Last Call at the Red Rocks Bar

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.

Spa Paradise

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.

Tending My Dust

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.

Trickle Down Teachers

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?)

Chaos, in Theory

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?

Never mind

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.

"Tectonic Change"

"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.

"The lines are there to be hit"

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.

Gift wrapped pathology

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."

"Where will you be?"

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?

Will you go to see Venice before it sinks?

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.

If I weren't a realist (to be sung to the tune of "If I Were a Rich Man"

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.

Await another voice

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.)

Now what?

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.

Advance Copy! Epiphany Episodes

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!)

Election, Soviet Style

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?

There's nothing like a glorious Christmas concert!

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.

Homage to my Book Club

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?

My brain in a nutshell

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.

The light in darkness: Lucy day

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

The trouble with Hannukah

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.

The Heart in Darkness

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.

Three, four, five

"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.

"Chanukah Annika"

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.

Tell me a story! World AIDS Day, 2010

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.

"Vienna Waits for You"

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?

"Easy Rider"

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?

Sixteen candles / Smoke gets in your eyes

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.

"I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now"

"...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.

"I was so much younger then; I'm older than that now."

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?

"They Say It's Your Birthday!"

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!

"Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights"

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.

If you want it, then you better put a lid on it

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.

Where there's smoke there's

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?

Will tomorrow finally be Independence Day in Poland?

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!

My KGB file starts out like this,

"I am a lightbulb."

That is the opening line in my KGB file.

Oh yes, I have my spy stories too. Nothing intentional. Just the usual Cold War goofiness about being followed and watched and having rooms and phones bugged. And a couple of incidents that might make it, albeit altered, into the novel.

But of course I have been thinking of spies again this week. And what a crazy business that is!

And while others have been suggesting that the Russian spies could have discovered everything they wanted to know on the internet, it has occurred to me: there is an organization or two that they would do well to infiltrate.

Walmart. God help us.

And Nordstrom.

Moscow currently has the highest cost of living in the world. It is listed on a reliable cost of living index as being 50% higher than that of New York. Geneva Switzerland was only ten percent above New York, in fourth place and Tokyo was up there in the top three.

But the average Moscovite is not getting any value for their outlay. The place is still a wreck.

What they need to learn is how to produce and sell retail goods for a reasonable price.

Let it here be said, for the record, that I hate Walmart. For a number of reasons that have all to do with fairness and justice. So I really don't want Russia to emulate them. Not exactly. But perhaps some spies could figure out a better way to do it without ruining the small-time producers they court and co-op and then ditch, and the small town stores that get run out of business.

Heaven only knows, the Russians need to figure out how to get reasonable amounts of consumer goods into the hands, and apartments, of reasonable numbers of people.

And then, while they're at it, I'm thinking customer service lessons would be in order. And who does that better than Nordstrom? Thank you notes are a bit over the top but, still, I appreciate being appreciated. And the live piano is a nice touch.

For that matter, Macy's, Penney's, and Sear's would do well to take lessons from Nordstrom too. For example, when a customer is standing with a large number of clothes, the worker-person might consider asking if they need help instead of continuing a conversation with their co-worker about the restaurant they tried last night for dinner. Really. Or talking on the phone with their sister. I mean, really.

That is pretty Soviet-era-ish. One counted on rude and inattentive clerks in Soviet-era Eastern Europe. You felt honored, shocked and surprised to be waited on. This has changed entirely in Poland. It is a very customer friendly environment. But not so much in Russia. Or the local Macy's.

So, whatever they do, I recommend the neighborhood spies skip that place.

"I swear to tell the truth,"

"I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

Under penalty of perjury, I was sworn in and promised to tell the truth, not to cover up what was inconvenient or unfortunate, to answer all questions truthfully without intent to deceive.

And so I did.

One of the hardest things I've ever been asked to do was testify, under oath, against friends, valued colleagues, a community I respected. But I had to tell the truth.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and one of its seminaries and members of its faculty were being sued in 2003 by the families of young boys who had been molested by an ELCA pastor. The pastor had already been found guilty in criminal court and was in prison.

Why the lawsuit?

Because his sexual misconduct while on an internship during seminary had been reported. Because the church ordained him anyway and turned him loose, gave him access to reoffend. Had the warnings been heeded, he would not have been granted pastoral authority and access in a small Texas town to lure teen-age boys into relationships where they were vulnerable and were then molested.

As I remember (I was deep into my own early days of PTSD at the time), I was primarily an expert witness. Which is to say, called upon to testify about the plans and policies put in place by the ELCA, of which I was an author and had been director during the time period in question, which were not followed in this case.

Essentially, the question was, did we know better? Did the seminary and the faculty and the church know better when it ordained and sent this pastor into an unsuspecting parish and town?

I had to say, yes. They did. I knew they did. I was there when they heard, and learned and discussed it.

It was awkward at best and painful as well to have to testify, essentially, against good friends and colleagues who had, frankly, blown it. Blown it big time.

What is the higher value, loyalty? Or, as the Scriptures tell us again and again and again and again (which is to say, all the time), to protect the vulnerable, the weak, the lost?

What is our highest responsibility? Safety. And, as the Hippocratic Oath demans of physicians, to do no harm.

It was a wrenching day. Eight full hours of testimony. It stirred up a lot of current shit. I'd recently been attacked for being disloyal to "the team" and dangerous to an ongoing cover-up elsewhere in the ELCA. I had already suffered, and suffer still, for threatening the status quo.

The colleagues who had most to lose on that day were classy and mature enough to understand that I did what I had to do. I did what was the right thing to do. I told the truth. And I'd do it again.

I may have to.