Category: Humanity

The Power of Inclusion

It seems these days you have to grab hold of hope wherever you find it. While cleaning my house I accidentally tuned into the inaugural ceremony of Tony Evers to become the 46thgovernor of Wisconsin. Ever the political cynic, I half-heartedly gave my ear to the broadcast. As the opening songs commenced my first reaction was “nice touch” as I listened to the young and diverse people performing. And I began to feel the inclusion and welcoming of this new day.

The next moment that caught my attention was the introduction of the MC and his telling of being a Big Brother. He made me smile as he told us how much he gained in giving his time to another, and I moved closer to the radio and gave myself permission to listen with a bit more intent.

It was time for the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance. And when the MC informed us that the pledge would be led by the youth of GSafe, I knew I would be listening to the inauguration in its entirety.

GSafe for those of you, who may not know, is an organization in support of gay youth. Having grown up without that kind of support or that kind of inclusion, I was really touched and began to cry. I realized again the power of inclusion and the wisdom of it.

And then the words of Bella Wabindato of the Bad River Tribe really hit home. She spoke of the importance of water and the love she has of her people. And she told us, “ racial equity would mean that other people see my people as I do, as people.”

The greatest leaders are those who allow others to lead. We are so ready for this.

Best wishes Governor, continue to surround yourself with loving and kind people.

We will all benefit.

 

 

 

You can listen to this piece on Soundcloud.

Bear Witness to Good

Children remain in detention camps still separated from their families.

A seven-year old Black child is shot and killed by a white male terrorist in a red truck. Say her name: Jazmine Barnes.

A president, with a grudge, halts funds and plays politics with peoples lives…and on and on it goes.

I know many of us can no longer bear witness to the travesties. We have had enough of hatred and violence. Some of us now doubt that better times are possible. Some of us even question if better times are deserved.

But of this I am 100% certain: Today is a new day. And we owe it to ourselves, to one another and to those not yet born to stand up. There are people throughout the world – and yes, right next door – who are doing the impossible every day. They are waking up and carrying on with love and hope. They are finding the determination and the fortitude to make a better way. Some have moved towards politics, some are working to bridge religious or racial divides, some prepare the soil to bring good food to our tables, some are sitting in treetops stopping pipelines and environmental destruction, some are offering shelter to asylum seekers.

We are the heroes we have been waiting for, if we have the eyes to see.

Look to this new day. Grab the inspiration that comes – however it comes – and hold on.

Inhumanity can bring us to our knees. But it is in rising that we see we are not broken. There is power in that. Human beings have shown us the worst that we can be, let this new day and each new day bring the best that we can be. Bear witness to that. Bear witness to the good in your heart and let it shine.

 

Solidarity With Humanity

It’s creeping up on us again can you feel it? It’s the slugfest that we call politics in the United States. Powerful interests spend fortunes to win the favor of just enough of us to keep the game in play.

And what is the game? To divide and distract while a mindset of destruction disrupts our environment and the lives of countless people world over.

While mainstream media is sorting itself out and deciding on which team to play, it is wise to listen carefully. It is wiser still to look for a way that does not include “sides”.

We have all witnessed or been party to the breakdown in communication among friends, family and neighbors. People who would normally embrace one another with civility now begin to cast doubt or anger towards one another. And to what end? A fleeting moment of trumped up values and ideas, fed to us with the best that advertising could sell. If we could begin this sport called politics with a bit more of a pause; if we could stop giving our loyalty to transient and far too often fruitless campaigns; we could spend the time and the money building community and enriching our lives.

We do have a third choice in all of this. We have a choice to put our humanity above all else and encourage others to do the same.

This past week Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi was released after eight months in an Israeli prison. When asked what she would say to her captors she replied, “I really wish they would go back to their humanity.”

It is a simple wish. It is a wise choice. It is the way out of the fray. Humanity first.

 

This aired on WDRT, Thursday August 2. You can listen to it here on Soundcloud.

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.