Category Archives: humanity

preaching to the choir

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churchwindow

Sincere words of courage and wisdom
solicit resounding amens from the choir loft,
and hallelujahs that reverberate
through vacant pews and empty stares.

The familiar message inspires those
who came to sing along, and though
not having fallen on deaf ears, it nonetheless
does not reach the ears of its hoped-for audience.

A lackluster congregation adjourns
to the fellowship hall to await dispensation of
the promised coffee, cake and cookies.

But the coffee is cold, the cake is stale,
and the cookies have raisins
instead of chocolate chips.

And so it’s no wonder that,
after the uplifting words
heard by none save the choir,
the good folk in the fellowship hall
see no recourse other than a
coffee-splashing,
cookie-hurling, and
oh-so-ungodly
food fight.

Let the Congress say…
amen.

sg-11th-hour

Couldn’t Resist

Weekend Coffee Share (1/28/17)

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#WeekendCoffeeShare is graciously hosted by Diana at ParttimeMonsterBlog.com.

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Women’s March in Portland, OR

If we were having coffee I would tell you it hasn’t been a very productive week. My kitchen is still completely torn up from my DIY remodel. The rest of the house looks like a tornado passed through; a tornado with lots and lots of white fur. And I’m tired of subsisting on frozen dinners because my range is covered by a drop cloth and a grand array of hand tools.

Of course, all of that is totally under my control to change if I just managed to get up off my derriere and do something about it. Okay, I admit I’ve been binge-watching Haven on Netflix. And going to visit my grandkids. Oh, and then there was that little march thing on Saturday. Maybe you heard about it: the Women’s March?

For someone who even has trouble being in a crowded grocery store (no joke), it was a bit daunting to be walking shoulder to shoulder among 100,000 people in the streets of Portland,  OR. But in a last minute text, my daughter asked me if I would go with her.

I wrote back, “No. I can’t,” and as I paused to consider how to phrase the notion that I wouldn’t be able to handle the crowds and it would be too overwhelming to be out and about like that, I looked at what I had written. “No. I can’t.”

And I thought to myself, “Yes. I can.” It would be difficult and challenging, and maybe even completely overwhelming, and I might have to leave as soon I got there. But yes, I could at least try.

So I deleted those two words, and instead wrote, “Sure.” And we went. And I survived. And I’m glad I showed up. And I’m glad the other 99,999 people showed up as well.

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Portland PD monitoring the Women’s March 1.21.17

Did we make a difference? Yes, I think we did. It made a difference for me. In me. It made me challenge my “no I can’t” beliefs, not only about my anxieties, but about my ability to help effect positive change in a country that so sorely needs that right now. I’m glad I went. I’m glad my daughter extended the invitation, even though she probably expected my response to be, “No, I can’t.”

I still don’t plan on going to the grocery store, at least not until my freezer full of entrees needs replenishing. And I don’t know if I will ever join another march. But I did it, and – dare I say – I’m proud.

Now I just need to apply my “can do” energy to house work and kitchen remodeling tasks. But first I’m going to nuke something from the freezer for lunch, and then play with my dog just in case he hasn’t shed enough fur on the furniture. Oh, and then I’ll be visiting my grandkids this afternoon.

Seems I’m just too busy to be productive! Maybe next week…

If Only They Could Tweet

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George Washington, 1st US president
@realGeorgeWashington
“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” #FreedomTrumpsSheep

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Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president
@HonestAbe
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.” #UGottaReadIt

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Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president
@TeddyR
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.” #SNL #MerylStreep

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd US president
@FDR
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” #EleanorActuallySaidThat #FLOTUS_Rocks

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Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president
@SilentCal
“The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of…”

Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president
@SilentCal
“all privileged classes.” #HashtagsAreSilly

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Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th US president
@Ike
“In most communities it is illegal to cry ‘fire’ in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to…”

Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th US president
@Ike
“manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?”
#thebuckstopshere #bargainingchips

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Harry S Truman, 33rd US president
@GiveEmHellHarry
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” #YouCanQuoteMe #ButGiveMetheCredit

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James Madison, 4th US president
@DollysHusband
“Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.” #WhatsAHashtagAnyway

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Warren G. Harding, 29th US president
@WobblyWarren
“America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.” #IHateMyNickname

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William Howard Taft, 27th US president
@OldBIll
“We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their…”

William Howard Taft, 27th US president
@OldBIll
“enforcement.” #LegislateFirstAskQuestionsLater #SAD

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Woodrow Wilson, 28th US president
@TheSchoolmaster
“America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal – to discover and maintain liberty among men.”

Training for the Marathon

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“There is much to do and no time to lose because the soul of our country is on the line. We must be brave and stand up.”
~~ Congressman Jerry Nadler

lifting-the-weight

Artwork commissioned for the sole use by Maggie C.

The soul of our country… I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the soul of our country; to the soul of our society; to the soul of our generation. And – for that matter – to my own soul.

I am not in any position to preach. I’m not immune to biases; to the divisive mindset of “us” versus “them;” to the smugness of believing that my soul is in the right place; to the complacency of assuming that it’s those “other souls” that need adjustment, and so I have the right – nay, the duty – to sit here at my laptop spewing rhetoric about the lost soul of our country.

And yet, just yesterday I wrote about the gutting of our societies’ values and mores. Life is so complicated these days.

I respect Congressman Nadler’s statement as quoted above from his essay on “How We Resist Trump and his Extreme Agenda.” And standing alone, it does not convey his full meaning in those words. But I find the part about “no time to lose” rather thought-provoking. And that other part: “the soul of our country is on the line.” What does that even mean? And exactly when did our country’s soul become “on the line?”

Was it the day Donald Trump declared candidacy? Was it the day Hillary Clinton began using a private email server for official government communications? Was it the day Vladimir Putin took a liking to one presidential candidate over another?
Will it become paramount on Friday of this week when a new president takes the helm of our soul-conflicted country?

And when did this country’s questionable soul status reach the tipping point to where there is suddenly “no time to lose?”

As I said before… Life is complicated.

I would also say, metaphorically, that life is not a 50-yard dash. Life is a marathon. We begin the moral leg of the marathon on the day we make our first ethical choice, and to beat my metaphor to a bloody pulp, I can say that the marathon is run one step at a time; one ethical choice at a time.

lifting-the-world

Artwork commissioned for the sole use by Maggie C.

No time to lose? Perhaps. Time to assess whether we are on the right track (there’s that pesky metaphor again)? I would say yes. And today I’m doing that as best I can. And I will do so tomorrow. I will do so on Friday, the day of the presidential inauguration.

I will do so — and continue to do so – because that’s how a marathoner stays in the race. And – ultimately — because my soul is on the line.

The Daily Post one-word prompt: Marathon

Weekend Coffee Share (1/15/17)

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#WeekendCoffeeShare is graciously hosted by Diana at ParttimeMonsterBlog.com.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that the snow from last week is lingering on. There’s been no new snowfall, but temperatures have remained too cold for much of it to melt. With only my dog Chules and me accessing my fenced yard, it is still relatively pristine and white. I like the way it reflects light – both by day and night – and makes everything seem brighter and more cheerful.

The US will have a new president as of the end of this week, and I am not alone in dreading what that might mean for the future of human rights and ecological preservation. Or, for that matter, ecological rights and human preservation. There’s not enough snow anywhere that can make the current political scene appear cheerful and bright.

I’ve been dealing with a general sense of anxiety and malaise for the past couple of weeks. It’s been frustrating not to be able to tie it into any specific source; having nothing I could pinpoint and say this is the reason I am feeling unease. With an unknown cause, it becomes more challenging to deal with the effect.

But maybe my subconscious has been wrestling with the apprehension of what the future holds as fundamental values and mores are being gutted in our society. Maybe the anxiety is born of a sense of helplessness, while at the same time knowing that the “help” has to come from within me. And within you.

I didn’t intend to be all doom and gloom when I sat down to write this. Maybe I need to forego the rest of my coffee and get outside to play with my dog in the bright sun and cheerful snow. It won’t make the world’s problems go away, but it will boost my spirits. And that might be just what I need to move from helplessness to hopefulness; from despair to decisiveness; from inertia to activism.

Snow angels, anyone?

Polaroid

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“How do you open this darn thing? I can never remember.”

Someone finds the button, and the black box pops open into an odd wedged shape.

“There! Is there film in it?”

“Dunno. Take a picture and find out.”

“Oh, alright. You girls, stand over there! By the hearth.”

With a bit of jostling, the girls obediently shuffle into place and assume the pose: arms wrapped around one another in a display of sisterly love. They look toward the camera and smile.

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“Now smile.”

They spread their grins even wider.

Snap. Flash. Hiss.

The camera spits out a white-bordered card with a milky greenish-brown square in the center. The photo hangs where it exited, just short of falling to the ground. The picture taker dislodges the print and sets in on the coffee table.

“There! Let’s see what we’ve got.”

We circle around the table and watch as ghostlike images begin to rise from the murky Polaroid. Soon we can make out the features of the girls, and as the photo continues to develop, we see that one of the girls’ eyes were closed when the picture was snapped. Oh, well.

The print is a bit blurry, too dark, and the subjects are not framed properly. Typical. Someone notes the date on the wide bottom border, and there it is: a posed moment in time that documents a birthday, holiday, new dresses, or maybe just the changes from year to year as the girls grow and mature.

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The captured moment goes in a shoebox where many others have been collected, and it turns into another memory to be pulled out and sorted and enjoyed for years to come.

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It is shared by passing it from hand to hand. It is cropped with scissors if one wishes, but that’s not likely to happen. The highlights are enhanced by tilting the photo toward the nearest window or lamp, and the image is sharpened by adjusting one’s bifocals into better focus.

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I sift through my shoebox now and again — probably more often than the girls realize — and the photos always make me smile.

Truth be told, I wouldn’t trade my Polaroids for all the Photoshopping in the world.

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The photos above were most likely taken by a variety of relatives. Unfortunately I cannot assign individual credits. 

The Daily Post Discover Challenge: Transcript