Category: Humanity

Everyone Can Teach Us

I have the wonderful opportunity to live in rural Wisconsin. My home is located in the Town of Forest, which is 36 square miles of forests and farms. It is absolutely gorgeous and includes portions of Wildcat Mountain State Park. The closest small village is Ontario with a whopping 554 people. And no, it is not in Canada. The history of the area is kept vibrant by the descendants of the varieties of people who have called this place home and the many who still do…

Like much of rural United States, small towns are struggling. Struggling for identity, for resources and for survival. This year a few of us embarked on a quest to support the needs of our community. We began with a farmer’s market. It is open to farmers and craftspeople, musicians and anyone wanting to pitch in and help in any way. If success is measured in smiles and “thank you’s” the venture is off the chart as successful.

Everyone and everything can teach us. Living close to the land, the nuances delight and the struggles challenge us to our core. Over time it seems the love of the land crosses over to the love of the people who live here. We share the same hardships and the same joys. So what am I learning? There is no need to remake our towns or the people who live here. It is simply to allow the beauty that already exists to flourish.

Michelangelo commented that the statue of David already existed in the marble. His effort was to set it free.

Everyone and everything can teach us. The farmers markets and especially the people are teaching me.

 

This piece aired on WDRT July 26. You can listen to it on Soundcloud.

Walk Towards Humanity

“We do what has been done to us.” A Native elder spoke those words to me over a decade ago. We were discussing how horribly human beings treat one another. The implications were clear. We do what has been done to us. The cycles of injury and trauma, of fear crushing innocence, of swapping roles from victim to oppressor are epidemic.

I have thought about that day, that conversation many times. “We do what has been done to us.” Such a bleak and retaliatory way to live and is it true? Yes. It is. However, there is a caveat. And one day it hit me.

My friend’s mother had endured the Long Walk as an infant. The Long Walk was the forced removal of the Dine people from their homeland by the United States government and military. Thousands of people died. As a child my friend had been taken to boarding school to be stripped of her identity. As an adult she had witnessed and fought against the poisoning of water on her reservation by mining. And then she had kindly opened her door and her heart to me.

She welcomed me as family. She patiently listened and could see my lack of understanding but never treated me with disrespect. She held no bitterness in her heart, nor did she wish harm to anyone from what I could tell.

So while her words were teaching me, “Watch out.” “We do what has been done to us” her actions and intentions told another story. “Yes, we do what has been done to us – until we stop.” I am forever grateful for the path towards humanity that my friend walked for me.

We can stop retaliatory living. We can end the cycles of trauma. We must.

 

This aired on WDRT‘s Consider This July 19.

You can listen on Soundcloud.

 

Bring on the Radicals

There is a lot that gives me pause these days. We seem to be ignoring our basic right to common sense.

Common sense tells us that when a Native water protector is sentenced to 57 months while ranchers who triggered a militarized standoff with federal agents are pardoned, we are signaling that justice in the United States is a sham.

Common sense tells us that when the “shoot to kill” training of United States police officers is mixed with a tolerance of racism; people of color will be targeted.

Common sense tells us that oil and water don’t mix; yet the public service commissions of numerous states continue to increase potential contamination of our water by allowing oil pipelines through waterways.

Common sense tells us that refugees the world over are not on holiday when they travel, but are acting out of a will to survive. Our mutual humanity should override our fear. Common sense would guide us to help not hinder them.

Common sense tells us a divided nation will not stand. Yet it seems we insist on being aggravated by our differences rather than awed by our similarities.

There comes a time when common sense is radical. Today we need radicals. We need those willing to suspend current thinking for common sense. We need those willing to put humanity and the love of earth above identities and labels. We need those who will no longer compromise in order to fit in. Bring on those radicals; the ones who love too deeply to intentionally cause harm. The ones who give respect to friend and foe, but never compromise their humanity. The ones who hold the keys for us to flourish not merely survive.

Bring on the radicals and the return to common sense. It’s time.

 

This aired on WDRT‘s Consider This July 12.

You can listen to Bring on the Radicals on Soundcloud.

Photo was taken at an anti-racism rally in La Crosse, 2017.

 

Bienvenidos Seres Humanos

Bienvenidos Inmigrantes! Welcome Immigrants!

How hard is that to say? And if it is hard, why is it hard? What fear, what cowardice lurks within us and keeps us from our humanity?

We spend ridiculous dollars on prisons and bombs, but so frighteningly little on helping one another. How can we justify this? How can we ignore what is being done in our name?

Bienvenidos inmigrantes! Welcome Immigrants!

There is a lot of clamoring these days between the two-headed political monster that drives and divides us. They call for our attention and allegiance. They remind us how everything takes time…and they assure us it is all for good.

Me, I am tuning out the trickle down slogans and sound bites and instead I am searching for the words that feed my soul.

I long to hear the words “human being” or “citizen of the earth”. I long to hear solutions not justifications. I long to witness a return to simplicity and appreciation that wipes out anger, prejudice and hate.

And you know what I am realizing? I am not alone.

People respond to kindness. People respond to hope. People respond to adversity and are very capable of rising a sinking ship – and it is time for people to do just that.

There is no perfume that can cover the stench of ignorance. No platitudes can heal the wounds that human beings perpetrate on one another.

We do not have to entertain ignorance. We have to help one another, now, in any way that we can. We are encouraged to believe we live in a time of scarcity. I do not believe this for one moment but even in scarcity we have something to share.

Bienvenidos seres humanos! Welcome human beings! Welcome to this precious life we share, together on this precious planet. Anything less is less than what we have been born for. It is time to reclaim our birthright.  Find a way. Find your way.

 

This piece aired on WDRT July 5. You can listen here on Soundcloud.

The Flight of the Hummingbird

Once again the news of the week is a lesson in the worst of humanity. The Supreme Court continues to prove that man’s law is fallible with its decision to uphold the bigoted travel ban on Muslims. Our Keystone Cop government is proving incapable of returning nearly 2500 children to their parents after forcibly separating them at the border –incompetency or ignorance, you decide.

A thirty-three-oil train car derailment flooded part of the Mississippi watershed with crude tar sands from Canada. This is further vindication of the actions of water protectors – even as our government is increasing federal penalties on those who dissent. And another unarmed young black man succumbs to a bullet in the back by a police officer in East Pittsburgh.

Despair can come easily in these times for those of goodwill. But it would be unwise to surrender our humanity to despair. Anger can come easily at these times, but it would be unwise to surrender our humanity to anger. Now more than ever we need to revel in life. We need to allow the beauty of this amazing land to touch us. We need to bear witness to the flight of the hummingbird and know that is teaching us that the seemingly impossible is indeed possible. We need to feel the gratitude hidden in the fresh green salad or the gentle rain. And we need to allow the love of a friend to remind us of who we are…for the actions of governments and courts, of corporations and bureaucracies are not meant for the living.

And while we must not remain silent in the face of ignorance and unjust laws, our struggle is not only to end the inhumanity that drives our world. Our struggle is to hold onto the joy, the gratitude and the clarity that is our given right as the living. And it is my firm belief that as we do this, individually and collectively, our nightmares will end.   Man’s laws are fallible and mutable. The gift of life is not. While we breath there is hope. Live. Store up joy. Step into clarity. Capitalize on the gratitude you feel – and fight like hell. No matter what comes, this is our time.

 

This piece aired on WDRT’s “Consider This”

You can listen here on Soundcloud.

 

Truth Not Truth

Have you ever noticed how many so-called “truths” get passed around on a single topic? The so-called truths regarding the separation of children from parents at the border is dizzying. So many excuses used to justify inhumanity.

I suppose we could chock it all up to the blind men and the elephant story. Each touches a different part of the elephant and when recounting their experiences they argue about what an elephant is according to their own “truth”…For the one who touched the leg, it is like a trunk of a tree, to another, the tail felt like a rope, yet another thought the ear was like a banana leaf…and so on…

Or could it be that this spoon-feeding of lies as truth could signal something more sinister?

As I pondered all of the posturing, the anger, and hopefully the solutions, I remembered that today is the summer solstice. It is the longest day of the year. And with it comes truths far less confusing and much more consistent then what we are fed in daily media.

The earth orbits around the sun on a tilted axis. In June, our hemisphere is at its greatest tilt toward the sun, bringing light and warmth. It’s the opposite south of the equator, where June 21 marks the shortest day of the year.

Here in Wisconsin, today we should be getting between 15 to 16 hours of light – through the rain, of course.

Tomorrow, the days will begin to shorten once more, and the nights will grow longer until the winter solstice. Yet the promise of the return of the light will hold us, and we will celebrate, each in our own way or not at all, and that is a truth with which I can live.

And here is the truth I cannot live with. 2300 + children have been separated from their families with no clear path for reunification. Our walk towards inhumanity continues. Until we stop it.

 

Photo compliments of Joreen Knafelc.

This piece aired on WDRT’s “Consider This” June 21.

Hit the Reset on Poverty

It is time we hit the reset button on poverty.

It seems we have taken this notion that “there will be poor always” a bit too far. We have allowed a doubt to creep into our consciousness that declares poverty is normal – that people going to bed hungry, if they have a bed at all, is part of some master plan.

We accept it. It’s convenient. The quote “There will be poor always” is understood as “There is nothing I can do about it…”

The stigma of being poor has targeted all immigrants to this country. And it has been the legacy of far too many Blacks and Native Peoples. A belief that the accumulation of wealth was an outgrowth of divine right, justified the use and abuse of human beings deemed as “poor” or needy. Our entire economic system is based on the assumption that “there will be poor always”, and pits human against human in a race to the top.

It is time we hit the reset button on poverty.

We have allowed the loathing and self-loathing that springs from the label of “poverty” to take hold of us. And with this sickness we now publicly declare the poor to be lazy and undeserving. Churches give with one hand and ask for allegiance with the other. And the government seems to have forgotten its responsibility to its citizens.

So what if we recognize that our assumptions are based on fallacies? What if we understand poverty to be a concept designed to help a few and to divide the many? What if we unshackle ourselves from the systems that are little more than slavery and adopt new visions and new pathways of cooperation that can remove poverty from our lives?

Some of the greatest wisdom and the sweetest kindnesses have come to me from those labeled “poor”. Perhaps it is time to allow humanistic truth to re-emerge. If one of us is poor, we are all poor. And accumulation of wealth is not an indicator of success. We have been chasing the wrong story.

Our community is listed as one of the poorest in the state. We have a chance to prove statistics wrong. Let us find ways to share. Let us find ways to help one another.

 

This piece aired on WDRT Community Radio on the two minute commentary, “Consider This”, scheduled every Thursday at 5:28 pm CST.

Disabling Gun Violence

It appears we may be at a tipping point with gun violence in this country. The seventeen lives lost last week in Parkland, Florida may well represent the final blow to a country enamored with violence and guns.

We are not willing to take it anymore.

From organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety to individuals like Emma Gonzales, a Parkland teen, who passionately called out the simplistic excuses of the administration and the NRA as BS – the voices for common sense gun control seem to have finally reached a fevered pitch.

For far too long the voice of the NRA has reigned supreme with millions of dollars being poured into the pockets of politicians. Bought and paid for our leaders have been rendered impotent when it has come to saving the lives of innocents and children. There is blood on the streets and in the hands of everyone who has enabled the violence that we have witnessed.

While the numbers are hot in debate we know that since the beginning of 2018 there have been 7 school shootings during school hours, 5 of which have resulted in deaths. Total numbers of shootings around schools with no injuries or fatalities in the past 7 weeks is 17.

Now people can debate and dissect these numbers in many ways, but I agree with Emma Gonzales as she called out the excuses used to justify lives lost: BS.

The time has come for all of us who understand there can be no more tolerance for lax gun laws. There can be no tolerance for the greed, which has eroded the innocence of our children and has increased the paranoia of communities that should be thriving in trust.

On Friday, April 20th, there will be a student organized #National Walkout. Students will attend school and the walk out will begin at 10am. It will be a peaceful protest. Another Walkout is scheduled for March 14.

nationalwalkout

I think we owe it to our youth to stand by them, to ensure they are treated with respect and dignity as they exercise their civic and moral obligation to one another and to those whose lives have been lost.

Most importantly we must follow their lead and walk with their courage as they announce: “We are students, we are victims, we are change.”

 

You can listen to this piece which aired on WDRT, Thursday, Feb 22.

Grappling With Suicide

I recently learned of another young friend who took her life. Another bright shining star extinguished. It seems we have entered into a new normal. I am old enough to remember when it was not a frequent occurrence. And now suicide has become a common guest. Rates of suicide have increased by 60% since the ‘60s.

Now it’s whittled down to numbers. 22 veterans take their own lives every day – one every 65 minutes. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among our young taking 4,400 lives per year. For each of these deaths, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. With LGBT and indigenous youth among the highest numbers.

Our culture has not yet begun to grapple with the roots of this inhuman unrest. We keep secrets and speak in hushed tones as our beloveds depart. And rarely do we openly admit that the gross behaviors of our culture are more than symptoms. We have become numb to violence. Bullying is now an art form. And #metoo has just begun to pull the scab off a disease that has haunted us since our inception. We hide behind electronics and many now live in fantasy worlds where death is a non-reality that allows you to rise again.

When it comes to “brotherly love” our faiths have failed us and the rise of atheism has thrown the sacred out with the profane. Very little is precious to us. We traffic human lives while presidents boast of our military might and the desire to annihilate entire nations. Militarized police protect corporations destroying the earth in total disregard of the people who live here. Hopelessness is mirrored back to us everyday with anger and fear mounting as dreams slip away.

Apparently we’re not yet ready to reverse this trend. We are certain we are not part of the problem. But we are all part of the problem. Every time we choose hatred and anger and doubt we are part of the problem. Every time we allow inhumanity to win we are part of the problem. This lost humanity can be found. It is a choice and we can make it. But we must summon up the will to live the promise that was placed within us at birth. As long as we breathe there is hope.

 

Consider This airs on WDRT Driftless Community Radio every Thursday at 5:28 pm CST.

You can listen here.

Flower photo: Forget Me Nots

The Dream Continues

There are many reasons to celebrate this time of year. The lengthening of days, the brilliance of stars, the hitting of the refresh button with the turn of the Gregorian calendar…the strengthening of hope that we can make it all just a little better, beginning with each resolution and echoing out.

In the midst of all of these reasons for us to get it right, January is a fine month to celebrate the life of a man who challenged the status quo of racism and the ignorance of war. A man whose words and actions still inform us and shine the light of hope. For all the time that has passed and all the inhumanity that has persisted, the fervent will of Martin Luther King continues to reach us.

And this is as it should be. It is never to late to cultivate a will of love.

There are many today who criticize the man for having human faults. But I think it is not the man, but the wisdom, that we need.

If in remembering his words, his actions and his sacrifice, a fire is rekindled towards peace, kindness and good will, what harm is there in that?

This season will move swiftly on and the business of spring planting, tax time, elections and other worldly activities will take center stage. Our challenge is to hold onto the spirit of this time, regardless of what comes.

We are here to help one another. We are here to experience peace and to share Good times even in the hard times. We are here to love.

Anything less, my friends is not part of our birthright, anything less is not part of The Dream. Yes, let us begin again. With renewed vigor let us write a new story. We are alive… we still have time to get it right. And yes, it is a worthy effort.

I will leave you with theses words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. : “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

 

 

This piece aired on WDRT’s Consider This, Thursday, January 25. You can listen to it on soundcloud.

You can hear more about the life of Dr. King and a see clips from a new HBO documentary about King’s last years, titled “King in the Wilderness,” on Democracy Now. which also aired Thursday January 25.