Category: Humanity

Care for the Living

A benevolent spring is upon us. Time has come to plant gardens or to connect with those who do. Food pantries, farmers markets and Facebook pages are gearing up to share life-supporting food and information. Videos and live-streamed classes teach us how to cook and process food. There’s no reason for anyone to go hungry.

Rain seems to be ignoring us this year. It’s making it possible to repair damages from previous floods and ready our homes for any rough days ahead. There are lots of good, local hardware stores and handy people to help get jobs done.  And while we are readying our homes let us think of our neighbors. There are unused houses and cabins, which could provide shelter for individuals and families who are and will be facing eviction.

Many may be facing hard times. Yet while this virus has wounded our ability to carry on as we have, it cannot keep us from cutting a path forward that may be better for all.

With the argument to reopen businesses now, we are weighing financial concerns over the value of life. There will be plenty of time to regroup our finances. Now is the time to care for the living – and that includes our health care workers. Now is the time to ensure that each of us has basic needs met. There are many fine organizations working against great odds to help those in need.  Find one to support.

This is not a time to cower. It is not a time to be confused or angry. Everyone’s efforts are needed. Too many are living on the edge. We have allowed this for too long. Time to snap out of it.

Throw out the old playbook. There is a new game afoot. Help one another and enjoy all the good we have been given.

Resetting Priorities

I don’t believe in the devil, but if I did I am sure he would have been the one who planted the seed “divide and conquer”. And we have fallen for it for far too long. You would think with the new reality before us, wisdom might prevail and people would resume living with kindness leading the way. You might think with this pause and forced contemplation we could come up with something far better than fear baiting. You would think with all the good news that the earth is healing in wonderful ways, we would unite and make promises to never let it go back again. You would think.

And in many cases you would be right.

This is our reality: We are getting the chance to reset our priorities. Perhaps this time we will get it right. People and the environment before profit; kindness before capital; humanity over ignorance, these should be our rallying cries.

We are learning the difference between want and need and while it is scaring the crap out of corporate capitalists, many find it liberating. Mutual aid groups are forming helping those in need, picking up the slack of a government in disarray.

The demand to release ICE detainees and elderly prisoners is on the rise along with our growing compassion. And while it may come a bit late for some, may we act to ensure that lives were not lost in vain.

We also have a bit more time to think about inhumane policies like sanctions on countries during this pandemic. Our reach of kindness cannot be limited to our country, we must rise to the reality that we are one people, one planet.

Our sickness came long before this pandemic. Fear and hatred have divided us. Let us reset our priorities. Let kindness win.

 

Step Out of the Cage

I remember a poem I wrote when I was young; it was about a cage made of human hands. It was a response to the suffocation I felt when asked to conform. From that moment of clarity, I made it my business not to get caught in the cage.

Yet through the years I have unwittingly slipped into the cage needing to find my way out again and again. There is comfort in conformity even when we know it is against our better interest. And it is not easy to stand peaceful and resolute in the face of fear and hatred.

One of the bars of the cage is the belief that we are different from one another and gives way to inequality. One bar tells us that winners have the most toys – omitting the reality that we come and go from this world empty handed. One bar is adamant that human beings are vile and corrupt and need to be controlled.

The bars are our beliefs. When we accept them as truth they trap us.

Today our beliefs are tearing at the fabric of our humanity. We give our power to the powerful and anguish as they abuse it. We wring our hands and speak with contempt, but very few take the time to examine the cage. We have built it and we accept it. And no one can save us from this cage but us.

Our heroes are dying. The emperor is exposed. The worldwide collapse caused by the virus could have been stopped before it began. Power and money grabs carry on just as we have allowed. They are empowered by the belief that the destruction of the earth and of her people is unavoidable.

Yet none of this is ordained. Humanity is calling. It’s still our choice.

Step out of the cage.

Our Better Angels

 

Our biggest fears are now up close and personal. The invisible enemy walks among us. We will pass through this pandemic in many different ways. Health care workers will carry on with compassion and conviction, in many cases without the help of proper gear or proper testing. Teachers will find a way to teach. Students will find a way to learn. We will all find ways to feed our children.

Vindication has come to those who have pleaded with capitalism to be more humane as many move closer to economic ruin. Medicare for all, a living wage, rehabilitation not incarceration, and ending the barbaric treatment of refugees are all ideals that are finding a way to our lips.

And while polls still show a country divided along political lines, how long can we as a people survive in the wake of so much uncertainty and unrest?

The emperor has no clothes. And the king’s men are unwilling to tell him. Both sides.

What is left? We must find ways to care for each other and ourselves as if our lives depend upon it; because in fact, they do.  We must reinvigorate our communities in whatever ways we can.

How we engage today will determine tomorrow’s course. Some will arrogantly dismiss the warning for social distancing and will bring harm to many. Some will succumb to paralyzing fear and require comforting.  Those who do fall ill will give us the opportunity to be brave, empathetic, and human. And the ones who will not make it through will remind us of the precious and fleeting moment that life holds.

This is going to take every one of us and all that we have to give. It is going to take our courage, our stamina and our love.

Our better angels are being summoned. Do not stand in their way.

Right on Time

 

Here come the first hints of spring right on time. I heard a robin sing yesterday and today the call of the sand hill crane caught my attention. The snow is melting and the mud and the ice are treacherous if you take a wrong step, but the brilliant sun makes the cold wind cower and you know it is only a matter of time before you will walk barefoot again.

And there is hope, right on time.

The news in any given day is bleak and I am inclined to believe it is intentionally so. It is easier to control a population when it is kept on edge. It is easier to drive an agenda if you do not give people a chance to find their own way. But at the end of the day, it will always be our choice to fall for fear mongering and hate baiting or to strive to create sustainable peace.

Winter in the Driftless is not for those afraid of a good challenge. But it is the beauty of the season and the brilliance of the night skies that soothes the soul and holds the promise of spring.

I couldn’t live in a hopeless world. And the return of the sand hill crane reminds me of that. I muse over the latest news on the coronavirus, or the hatred that has reared its head against Muslims in Delhi. Yet I rejoice to hear the Korean woman tell how she survived the disease and how the Hindu man saved many Muslim neighbors making trips by motorcycle.

You see, spring returns. And with it hope. Not blind hope, but hope born of reason, conviction and action laced with integrity.  We are born for this. We are born to be victors over fear, hatred and ignorance, because we are born for love.

 

sandhill crane in flight courtesy of wikipedia commons

Socialism is Simply Common Sense

As the news that the coronavirus has reached Italy, and the numbers of infected people in South Korea rise, the world shrinks in fear and the stock market trembles.

The stock market trembles.

I stopped respecting the stock market years ago when a serious broker at Chicago’s Board of Trade told me he was happy when milk farmers struggled because he made money. I have further distanced myself from the market as I learned that the largest industry in the United States is the making and selling of weaponry.  It is our largest industry.

Millions of innocent people in the Middle East are caught in the cross fires of United States weaponry. Homeless, hungry, hospitals bombed and borders closed there is a desperation that we seldom hear about.  Their inhuman plight does not send a ripple through the market like our fear of a virus that may or may not be coming to get us.

And there in lies the curse of capitalism.

As long as making money is number one, we allow ourselves to not see. As long as our portfolios climb, there is little incentive to ask our handlers, “Where is the money coming from?”

President Trump recently visited India. Prior to his coming a huge wall was erected so that he would not have to see a slum on his drive to Ahmedabad. Trump has told us that the sight of homelessness is a stain on the beauty of a city – a stain on the city but no mention of the stain on our conscience as we allow people to live in squalor.

And that my friend is the curse of capitalism. Capitalism without conscience is a disease we can no longer afford.

Fear abounds these days. Socialism is coming to get you. But what the pundits warn as socialism is simply common sense.

 

photo courtesy of wikipedia commons: banknotes

Formidable Momentum

Perhaps one of the hardest things to grasp is the slow and deliberate process that is evolution. I marvel at the circle round of ideas and events occurring. The battles over words like “socialist”; the unconscious and deliberate breakdown of the environment; the disregard for human life – all bent on destroying a paradigm shift that cannot and will not be upended.

If your ears are only trained to hear the negative, and you fear the enemies of justice and the brutality of the powerful, then you may be missing the incredible emergence that is in fact occurring.

There is a stream of consciousness in our humanity and like a stream it ebbs and flows, it dips and eddies, and it is the effort of the faithful to not lose sight of that stream and to help it along if at all possible.

I have trained myself to listen closely for the words and convictions that bubble up from the fray. Those words and deeds that tell me, “yes, we are not in a spiral down, but a spiral up.”

One such moment came from Representative Ayanna Pressley when she powerfully referred to this time not as a movement, but one of momentum.  She acknowledged standing on the shoulders of those who have come before and “trying to be good stewards of the ground that they laid.” She championed that endless ebb and flow that we can choose to participate in or to ignore. And she exalted it.

Another sweet moment came from Charlie Mgee of the Australian band, Formidable Vegetables.  In an interview with BBC, he explained the band would not fly anymore due to climate change. He acknowledged the need for transcending a “monetary economy” and I could envision the future in his words.

We live in a formidable momentum of consciousness. Enjoy it.

 

The Price of Silence

I recently read of twenty-eight, Latin American human rights and environmental defenders, murdered last year. They were indigenous people defending their lands and way of life. Only one of those murders have been successfully investigated and prosecuted.

We know corporate interests willfully allow the violence towards indigenous leaders. We know United States military training and weaponry support corporate militias. We know that the governments ruling over indigenous lands rarely investigate or convict those guilty. And countless violent crimes go unreported. We know this as surely as we know about the School of the Americas or the juntas that put corporate puppets in power.  We know this even when the media buries their stories, even when our faith leaders couch their demise in twisted verses of faith. We know this, all of it.

And I asked myself, “What is the price of silence?”

What is the price of silence towards a nation that deems the oil fields in the Middle East as their sovereign right to claim? What is the price of silence over lies told and believed that leads us to war and countless innocents dying?

What is the price of silence as Flint, Michigan and others continue their struggle for clean water and transparent government?

And when you discover the water in your community is no longer drinkable; or that the ethanol plant is poisoning your air; or when uncontrollable fires or rising waters make it to your back door, will you be silent then?

To whom will you turn? Who will defend you? Our silence has chipped away at our hope; it diminishes our ability to fight back. Silence is the disease of our time, and allows the voice of ignorance to prevail.

So when I ask myself, “Can I live with this?”,  and the answer is, “No”; surely my silence will end.

 

photo is from Cultural Survival

Dignity for Puerto Rico

The 3.7 million people of the island of Puerto Rico have endured two recent, major earthquakes, and thousands of aftershocks since December twenty-eighth.

The largest earthquake slammed the southern region registering 6.4 on the Richter scale January seventh.  Another magnitude 5.9 rocked Puerto Rico on January twelfth.

Tens of thousands are sleeping outdoors or under tarps for fear of buildings collapsing. Many have lost their homes entirely. Schools cannot operate until there is certainty of the safety of the structures. Power is intermittent and refugee camps lack basic hygienic needs. Medicine is also in short supply.  This all comes on the heels of the deadliest hurricane, Maria, to hit the island in 2017 destroying infrastructure and killing over 3,000 people.

Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Congress had allocated $18 billion to help with natural disaster readiness following the devastation of Maria. HUD should have dispersed these funds in 2018, but the Trump Administration refused the aid citing “fiscal mismanagement”. FEMA is on the ground and trying to help. No mismanagement has been documented or proven.

The withholding of aid to those urgently in need has been cited as “illegal” and “unconscionable” by members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats.  They have repeatedly requested the administration release the already appropriated funds. Their demands have largely been ignored. While writing this I have learned that 8 million of the 18 billion are now being released.  It is a pittance towards the need.

The blatant disregard for life has become a hallmark of the Trump Administration. What will it take to call back the compassion that we have so willingly relinquished?

Unity for what is decent is required now. Dignity for those struggling in Puerto Rico is what is needed. A government of, for and by the people is not too much to ask.

Change Course

Our history is full of people who have championed peace and diplomacy over war. We have honored those people and those ideals. Yet time after time we have allowed lies and greed to lead us into endless and inhumane wars.

The assassination of a member of Iran’s government was a flagrant disregard of international law and has opened the door for retaliation and the escalation of death and destruction.

The fumbling assertions of the Trump administration regarding troops in Iraq demonstrate the dangerous incompetency that is at the helm.

This president continues the legacy of past presidents, which is to be led by those who make money on weapons and war. When he speaks of protecting United States interests, he is speaking of oil. If we allow this escalation of war and the stealing of resources we are complicit and culpable.

But make no mistake;it is Congress that declares war, not the president. And it is the people of the United States who can still determine their collective history.

Therefore it is imperative we stand for peace and diplomacy in whatever means is available to us. It’s also imperative that we end our financial ties to the industries of weaponry and oil. And we must talk to those who believe in the false words and actions of a leadership, which is totally corrupt. And to the evangelicalswho are following in hope of some fulfillment of prophecy, I say, “Snap out of it”.

We need your kind hearts, we need your love of humanity and of the God you claim to worship; we need you to remember.

We must demonstrate to a world very uncertain of our motives but very certain of our ability to create chaos and death, that we, the people, are willing to change course.

It is still up to us.

 

Poster compliments of the tireless efforts of the American Friends Service Committee. Click to sign and learn more about stopping the escalation towards war.

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