I had some honey the other day. It wasn’t what I have grown to expect from honey. It had remarkable flavor. I could taste the flowers and it left me wanting more. As I continue to dip into that honey jar, I realize that what I enjoy is the love that went into making it.
In this blurred time when “civilization” is forced to reckon with tremendous failures, I keep coming back to this: I want to feel love. I want to bathe in the exquisiteness of being alive. And I want to share that joy of living with everyone.
I want to feel the power of kindness. I want to know the depths of compassion. I want to dive into the freedom that no one can take away from me. The freedom that comes from knowing who I am. Who I am. Behind the labels, behind the beliefs, behind the years of experience, behind what others think. Who I am. Knowing that has made all the difference.
In that knowing is my strength. In that knowing is my compass. You know, that moral compass that seems to be eluding many these days. In knowing my self, I can take action. Without fear.
I must keep walking, even when I fail. To be conscious even in the darkest of times. And to seek the light of others when I need and to offer light when I can. This I can do. Day to day, moment by moment.
It’s a tall order, I know, but it hasn’t kept me from wanting it. We always have choice – allow our humanity to be diminished or emerge victors of the greatest opportunity offered – to be alive and to stay in love. Dip into the honey, friends.
This is the month we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, his wisdom and his humanity. We reflect on his vision of a country united in compassion, love, justice and peace. We do this in stark contrast to the vitriol of division that has swept through and consumes our land.
We do this as ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) seeks to locate itself in our communities in fulfillment of the campaign promise to have swift deportations of our friends, neighbors and co-workers on day one. We do this as the federal government ignores international laws of human rights. By detaining people accused of crime, but not allowing due process through our judicial system, we are not only disregarding international law, but the laws of our own Constitution.
As current anti-immigrant legislation is passing through Congress, we witness our elected officials sign on to mandatory detention for minor offences and empower states’ attorney generals to weaken immigration policies and block visa programs.
Driven by unjustified fears and old bigotries, too many of us will be ignoring the inhumanity that will be ushered in.
This, as the media continues to squelch the cost to our economy as we lose this vital workforce. This, as we will thrust human beings into illegal and inhuman conditions while they await their fate. This, as we forgo our own humanity and diminish the humanity of our friends, neighbors and co-workers.
There are many working to ensure migrant workers are aware of their rights in this reckless time. One is WISDOM WISCONSIN. It’s a faith based, predominantly Christian, statewide network of volunteers who are refusing to be complicit.
From their website: Support Immigrant Rights in Wisconsin! No matter where we come from, what our color, how we worship, or what our immigration status is, we are all in Wisconsin, and we all want to provide for our families.
WISDOM brings together people from across racial, geographic and economic lines to demand fair and safe immigration processes for all families, just like we won civil rights in our past. By joining all in together, we can make Wisconsin a place that honors all families, no exceptions.
Know Your Legal Rights When Dealing with ICE Immigration Enforcement: The US Constitution provides rights for everyone, regardless of immigration status. Right against Unreasonable Search and Seizure (4th Amendment) is based on personhood, not on citizenship.
1. Right to Due Process
2. Right to legal counsel
3. Right to be with family
4. Right against unreasonable search and seizure
5. Right to education
“I do not consent to any searches, I will not speak without a lawyer present”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., center, leads a group of civil rights workers and Selma black people in prayer on Feb. 1, 1965 in Selma, Alabama after they were arrested on charges of parading without a permit. More than 250 persons were arrested as they marched to the Dallas County courthouse as part of a voter registration drive. (AP Photo/BH)
2025 is coming in like 2024 went out. Earthquake in Tibet, fires around Los Angeles and Acra, are just a few of the calamities we’re facing. We, the human family. We, the ones who can learn from the past and develop strategies of coexistence on this miraculous planet – or we, the ones who succumb to division and greed. Who will we be?
A few years ago, the term “frontline communities” emerged. It referred to those who lived in proximity to dangerous environmental pollutant. Now, the term “sacrifice zone” is used to express a region that is offered up to the powers of corporate greed in the name of sustainability. But what is being sustained? The capitalist model of usury is the only thing I see that we’re sustaining. Clearly not the communities. Clearly not human beings.
We are willingly selling out our children’s future on earth – but wait – I heard today there might have been life on Mars. And the spin continued: previous life on Mars could indicate that a human family could possibly be sustained there. In the future. Your future? Hardly. Your grandchildren’s? Doubtful. But we are placing bets on these hypothetical futures while ignoring our present conditions.
We are rapidly going down the “unlikely to return” scenario, but not enough of us are noticing.
Oh, Jimmy Carter got it way back in the 70’s when he told us we would need to use less energy. I watched my friends ignore the warning and instead backed the slick talking money man Reagan. I shook my head then. I’m still shaking my head now.
We are all frontline people. The upheaval of the earth and the insidious and murderous violence perpetrated by human beings have made this so.
Some of us are just waiting our turn for our world to be upended. Some of us are preparing for the worst. But the wisest among us are working to restore the balance we have squandered – with one another and the earth. Who will we be?
May we rise to help one another. May we restore the dignity that is surely within us.
After a bit of effort, I found the number of an old friend. We hadn’t spoken in a few years and so far we still haven’t, but his voice message made me smile. It was simple. He said, “I hope you are having a glorious existence”.
I had just come in from another foray into our old heirloom apple orchard. My trees have suffered from recent droughts, and truthfully many never fully recovered from the goats we had a while ago. But I heard an apple expert on the radio say that taking off the dead branches and nipping the suckers can give a forty-year-old tree new life. Perhaps another forty. I liked the sound of that.
So, as I wander through the orchard, I wrangle with dead branches and revel when I cut down the vines sucking life from the trees. The multi floral rose and autumn olive are also threats, and I do my best to remove them, remembering my mother’s words, “Give it a lick and a promise”. It meant that after a quick assessment she would promise to return to finish the task at hand. Today as I was fulfilling the promise, I realized I could spend the rest of my days quite happily wandering through this orchard, caring for the old trees and planting new.
The young saplings don’t always make it. The deer are prolific and eat them if they are not protected. Life has its fragility.
Planting saplings is a promise kept: to see the old orchard carry on. There is something defiantly delightful in maintaining these precious heirlooms. The hybrid ones may be heartier and look prettier, but they will never touch the sweet taste of the cider made from a variety of heirlooms.
So yes, my friend and to all my friends, I am enjoying a glorious existence in appreciation of the life I am being given. And I wish the same for all of you. Bring on 2025!
For people of various beliefs this season carries a singular message: peace on earth, goodwill to all. For many the lip service ends with the season and we are left in a swirl of hopelessness and indecision. Yet before our time here, and I imagine long after we’re gone, there have been persistent and passionate voices that have stood and will stand for humanity and peace. They inspire us with wisdom borne of effort, and paths forged by determination and choice.
We honor the memory of these people and stand on the shoulders of the countless nameless whose work towards peace lives on in us. We seldom realize the torch is being passed. And, we the living are the bearers of that torch, if we accept it and as we understand it.
The 1948, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was an achievement of great significance as it was drafted and ratified by people from different cultures and countries. It was the first time a universally recognized understanding of the rights of humankind was proclaimed. Say what you will about the UN, but this effort to inspire and uplift all of us has been the cornerstone of over 70 human rights treaties. This in a world seemingly hell bent on self-destruction.
So, in this moment as we begin to look to the new year with apprehension and hope, it is incumbent upon us to consider where we stand as torchbearers of peace.
Have we understood and accepted peace in our own lives? Surely, we cannot establish peace around us if we remain in turmoil and confusion.
Most recently an esteemed member of the Global Peace Education Network passed on. Federico Mayor Zaragoza‘s words to all people of peace echo on, “We cannot remain silent anymore”.“Do not be a spectator”, he warned.
Now, it’s up to us to answer that request in any and every way we can.
Call for a United Nations Global Peace Education Day
Please read our petition and add your name if you share our goal for a UN day of peace education.Since peace is central to the mission of the United Nations, we are urging the General Assembly to declare an official UN Global Peace Education Day. The United Nations has more than 150 international days for different humanitarian themes, but there is no day dedicated solely to the theme of Peace Education
Growing up in a Christian household, I took the benevolent teachings of Jesus Christ to heart. “Love they neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39) was instilled in me. Fortunately, there were models of kindness and people of faith to counter the hypocrisy that too often accompanies religion.
Today the stark divisions of faith versus belief have brought us to a grotesque masquerade of power which has nothing to do with “Love thy neighbor.” If that basic teaching were understood and practiced, those of Christian faith would be rallying behind an end to the Palestinian genocide, not remaining silent. Or even worse, there are those who champion the slaughter as the forerunner that beckons the “next coming”.
Zionism, the belief of the divine right to kill and displace people, has no place in humanity. Whether Christian Zionism or Jewish Zionism, those who harbor ill will and use God as their excuse to plunder and murder are not in keeping with the great possibility of being human.
Love thy neighbor as thyself. If we have not discovered our rich essence as human beings, we cannot love. We must know, not simply believe, that we are sparks of the divine clothed in temporary bodies and given this one opportunity to love.
It’s been over one year. People are being starved. The United Nations has denounced the Israeli tactics as violations of human rights and on December 12, 2024 passed a resolution demanding immediate ceasefire and expressed support of UNRWA. South Africa and most nations of the world have declared that Israeli leadership is conducting genocide. We, in the United States, are complicit in war crimes as our dollars, weaponry and intelligence continues to support the inhuman slaughter of Palestinians. And once again, the US and Israel voted against the resolution, which passed with 158 votes of the 193 member assembly. Nine votes against and 13 abstentions
The silence of Christians who are not Zionist must end. We need your voice to end this madness. Let us chose to send aid not arms. Let love of humanity win.
There’s a story about a potter’s wheel. As the potter spins the wheel, she lays her hand into the clay to hold it steady while with the other hand she slaps and shapes the outside of the clay into the vessel she chooses. This analogy is to our lives. We are the clay on the potter’s wheel. And on the outside, we are tempered in ways we cannot imagine. Yet it is the firm and steadfast grip that holds us from within that is as important to the shaping of our lives.
Fear these days is palpable. Governments are struggling and militarism and violence have become the human go-to. Systems that we have relied upon, however ill equipped, are proving unworthy of our trust. And fledgling testaments to the possibility of human greatness, such as the United Nation’s Geneva Conventions of War, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are being challenged and sidelined by power grabs and our collective inability to change course.
In this chaotic moment, the distinction of what is happening to us on the outside versus the strength and sureness of the inside is worthy of our attention. We may not be able to stop the downward spiral that seems to be gripping humanity, but we can begin to slow it down. We can lean into the internal hand that holds us and recognize it as universal. We can remember our interconnectedness to all of life and begin again to remake our world from the inside, out. We can allow the outside to reflect the strength and vision of that internal hand. We can allow the wisdom of the potter lead, not the fates of ill-will and inhumanity.
It’s our choice.
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photo by Ahmed Kassem : Pottery hand made craft by young girl in Tunis village in Fayoum Egypt
ODE TO ALL THE QUEER AND TRANS FOLKS WHO ARE FIGHTING TO BE SEEN THIS HOLIDAY AND TO ALL OF MY INDIGENOUS FRIENDS WHO REMEMBER HOW TO CELEBRATE.
Forget the hype and all the lies about the first Thanksgiving. If you’re still believing in the good old Pilgrims’ story, it’s doubtful facts will sway you. No, this is not for you. This is for the ones who have forsaken giving thanks, because they refuse to partake in that story. It’s for people who have suffered through enough of these come together holidays and are rewarded with tense family moments. And so, they say, “No thanks.”
This is for the ones who haven’t reconciled the hatred and bigotry disguised as piety; and they haven’t found a way to hide their disgust.
I’m with you. Hypocrisy drove me from that good old religion long ago and I’ve never looked back.
But here is truth. Giving thanks for abundance or even the meager goodness that winds through our lives is an art. Feeling appreciation for the gifts that do come our way: the friendships, the sweet animals that grace our time here, the amazing beauty of this land we call home, the sincere and earnest people who find ways to care. All of it is worthy of our thanks.
And that giving thanks can replace the hollow emptiness of isolation that haunts so many of us. The news these days are full of mean spirited and jarring inhumanities. Whole swaths of people are targeted and the cruelty is way beyond anything that I remember from childhood meanness.
You can abandon Thanksgiving, but not giving thanks. Give thanks for your heart that refuses to be diminished. Give thanks for the courage to continue to be your true self. Give thanks for those who came before you and endured. Give thanks for your life, because you are not an accident.
You are a jewel on the thread of Life. Never doubt that.
Black youth in ten different states received personalized messages telling them they will be taken to plantations to pick cotton. If you want to learn more about this check news outlets for details – while you still can, of course. News agencies, who challenge the incoming administration, are preparing for cuts in funding and diminished licensing.
Married gay couples are seeking legal advice to protect their union, and trans people, the prime escape goats for heterosexual fear, are being bullied and far worse. Calls to suicide hot lines for LGBTQ+ youth are up as much as 700%. And let’s not forget about the round up of our neighbors and friends as deportations begin.
And maybe you didn’t see this coming. Maybe you feel safe in a white and sanitized world. Maybe you believed no one could be “chosen” and cause so much harm. But here we are.
Because a “promise made is a promise kept” says the incoming 47th president. So, let’s see what else has been promised that will unite us and help the healing of this country. As the divide and conquer continues unchecked and the majority of the MAGA world seems content with prayers, I doubt many will speak up when they come for our neighbors. Just like old time Germany and how did that poem go? First they came for the Catholics, but I wasn’t Catholic, so I did nothing. They came for the gays, but I wasn’t gay, so I did nothing. I wasn’t Jewish, so when they came for them, I did nothing. And there was no one to help when they came for me.
There are consequences when we give away empathy and compassion; consequences when leaders are permitted to act out of vendetta; and there are consequences when our humanity and individual sovereignty are relinquished.
It might all be hyperbole. The rantings of an old man drunk with power. But what about us? What choices will we make in this new day? Our choices or lack thereof brought us here. It will be our choices – and our humanity – that will save us.
Elections are over. And God will be given the credit or the blame. That’s the way we play it.
We prefer not taking responsibility; and accountability is out of the question.
The Democratic leadership shut the door on Arab Americans and others demanding our government stop arming Israel’s genocide. They turned their backs on the working class. These were fatal errors.
Trump played his hand quite well, convincing people he doesn’t mean them when he speaks of deportations and making people forget about his Muslim bans. Got to give it to him, he’s slick. Now we get Elon slashing experts from the government and, Kennedy in charge of our health.
But don’t, please don’t tell me it’s because you prayed or didn’t pray hard enough.
Don’t blame your God for your ignorance.
You have a brain. and in you there is a heart still beating, so compassion and empathy must be there somewhere. Find them.
We had choice, many choices for many years and we squandered them away.
We had the choice to end racism. We threw gasoline on that fire. Signs read “Back the Blue”; they do not read “Stop Killing Black People”. And after 500 years, Biden apologizes for Federal Indian Boarding Schools – while remaining complicit in Israel’s genocide. Jimmy Carter warned us to walk away from fossil fuels, but greed got in the way. Now it’s “Drill baby drill”.
We have been selfish. Now we will see where our selfishness leads.
We can still choose a way out – learning from one another, caring for one another, celebrating the preciousness of life and protecting this incredible home we call Earth – could do it.
Our humanity must become our resistance. Unity our strength.
let kindness win 