Covid's Opportunity

The Covid crisis appears to have brought out both the best and worst in us as human beings. Accepting the truth that we are all flawed can keep us humble and open to forgiving one another and ourselves. Humility can lead us to reflect and make wiser decisions for positive growth in how we relate to one another and this fragile planet we inhabit.

Covid’s disruptions have highlighted how interdependent we are, as well as the fragility of all systems supporting us, including our earth’s ecosystems. I now understand more deeply the critical role government plays in the progress or decline we make as human beings. In my 57 years of voting, I confess I sometimes left the voting booth wondering if I made the right choices. Now, in our electronic age, I’ve learned how to access candidate websites, League of Women Voter sites and their questions put to candidates, and candidate responses, or lack there of. And I attend Zoom meetings where priorities for fairness and the common good are shared.

I directly benefitted from Martin Luther King’s non-violent struggle for fairness, which eventually gave us the Civil Rights Act that allowed me employment advancement as a woman, to earn a living wage, and support my three children after my husband died in 1975. This is why the gerrymandered maps from the 2010 census data are so abhorrent to me as Wisconsin districts were mapped to circumvent voters who might oppose self-serving agendas. Where Wisconsin county boards allowed ballot referendums calling for fair maps to be drawn based on 2020 census data, a majority of voters asked for a fair maps process. A majority of Ozaukee County Board members denied a Fair Maps ballot referendum opportunity.

And it’s also time our education systems tell the truth of the cruel policies and treatment of Native Americans and Blacks in our country’s founding and beyond. We cannot learn from past horrors inflicted if they are whitewashed. A high-ranking Pentagon official, when asked what he thinks is the most important criteria for peace said, a high quality public education of our youth is the way to peace.

We are all flawed, but I am learning to develop empathy and compassion, not only toward myself but also for those with no empathy and compassion for the needs of others. You can make a difference, too. Vow to become educated on the issues and candidates in all-upcoming elections.

A Book for Our Time

See No Stranger, a memoir by Valarie Kaur, a Sikh activist, filmmaker and civil rights lawyer, is about learning to love in times of turmoil. Kaur asks us to look at others and say, “You are a part of me I do not yet know.” She knows love as revolutionary--an active, public force that can create new possibilities for our communities, our world, and ourselves. 

Kaur believes we are at a crossroads in America where we can choose to begin to birth a nation that has never been; one that is multiracial, multifaith, and multigendered; where power is shared, and we protect the dignity of every person. She knows the practice of revolutionary love leads us to wonder, grieve, fight, rage, listen, reimagine, breathe, heal, forgive and reconcile.

Wondering about others begins the practice of revolutionary love for it enables our instinct for empathy. Wonder about others even when they do not wonder about you, and protect others when they are in harms way. We can train our eyes to see others differently, to see no stranger. We become what we practice. 

Kaur’s memoire increases understanding of how important it is to sit with our pain and grieve. Kaur states, “Unresolved grief inside a person is tragic; unresolved grief inside a nation is catastrophic: It releases enormous aggression.” 

Kaur teaches how a warrior sage fights and asks, “What is your sword, your Kirpan? What can you use to fight on behalf of others—your pen, your voice, your art, your pocket book, your presence.” She goes on to describe how to protect ourselves, how to center ourselves, and who we need to stand by our side. 

Of rage Kaur says: “There are many ways to confront one’s opponents without anger. But in the case of ongoing social injustices, expressing outrage is often the only way to be heard. …perhaps it is up to the rest of us to train our ears to hear beyond hearing, …so that we can discern the truth of the pain of injustice and confront our own complicity and responsibility.” 

Kaur writes, “The more I listen, the more I understand. I am persuaded that there is no such thing as monsters in this world, only human beings who are wounded. I start to gain critical information about how we can respond to greed, insecurity, anxiety or blindness in ways that hold them accountable and fight the institutions that empower them. Listening enables us to fight in smarter ways for justice—not only to remove bad actors from power but to change the cultures that radicalize them. Listening is how we succeed.” 

Kaur believes, “To undo the injustice, we have to imagine new institutions--and step in to lead them. …When we hold fast to a vision of the world as it ought to be, we can better discern which institutions can be reimagined, and which cannot.” And, “…the labor of institutional change required not months or years, but decades.” 

At the funeral for those killed in the Oak Creek, Wisconsin Sikh temple massacre in 2012, Amardeep Singh Bhalla, told Kaur, “We may not live to see the fruits of our labor in our lifetime, but we labor anyway.” 

Kaur understands “…breathing keeps us laboring.” And, “Laboring in love is how we birth the world to come.” When we anchor ourselves in breadth our minds are called to the present moment, the here and now, where work and change happens. 

For healing Kaur asks, “Let us see ourselves as part of a larger picture. …For there is no greater gift than to be a part of a movement larger than ourselves. That means that we only need to be responsible for our small patch of sky, our specific area of influence. We need only to shine our particular point of light, long and steady…” 

Forgiveness was a gift Kaur gave herself at the end of a long internal healing process. 

Kaur believes America needs to reconcile with its suppressed memories and histories of the traumas it had caused. “…our willful forgetting keeps re-creating the conditions for all that suppressed grief, rage, and shame to erupt in cycles of violence. America needs to reconcile with itself and do the work of apology: To say to indigenous, black and brown people, we take full ownership for what we did. …It is time to seek out the deepest wisdom of those who have been most silenced by the forces of history.” 

Transition is the most painful and dangerous stage, but it’s also where we begin to see what comes into the space we open up. Fresh horrors arrive daily, but our responses are smarter and our solidarity deeper than ever before. 

Kaur asks us to “Imagine the world we will birth when we see no stranger.” She admits, “Loving our opponents is hard. If we cannot summon love for all of our opponents in every moment, we have not failed. Revolutionary love is not an all-or-nothing metric. It is an ethic that sometimes feels like an aspiration rather than a reality. But the aspiration to love our opponents is itself revolutionary. It opens up space for us to let other people love those opponents when we cannot. …Laboring in love is how we birth the world to come.”

Hope for America

The Mystery within ...

It felt good, hopeful, to watch and listen to President Elect Joe Biden's recent diverse cabinet member
picks speak of their vision for how each will work to help our next president govern. It made me wonder if the past four years of disorder in our country is meant to show us what it will take to create a system of liberty and justice for all and protect our Mother Earth.As a white American female, born in 1943, I have experienced sexism. But I also am realizing more and more each day that my skin color has afforded me privileges denied to so many others in basic respect, education, housing, and healthcare, all critical for the health of individuals and society. Realizing white privilege created these systems of inequity makes them a white problem to be remedied. The gift in that acceptance is humility.

The gift in humility is it allows me to put my ego aside, accept I am my most important piece of work, and opens my heart to loving all others and myself. It gives me the courage to admit that our country was founded with unspeakable violence toward its native inhabitants and built on the backs of slaves. No one person can remedy the enormity of America's problems but calls all of us to love one another and be part of the progress toward liberty and justice for all.

What if we each found the humility it will take to be a part of the remedy of America's problems?

The Debate

The Mystery within...

The jarring “debate” between president Trump and Joe Biden was very unsettling. It highlighted the giant step backward America has taken politically. In my first memoire, God Never Hurries, I wrote, "Transformation is an on-going process, and not without some backsliding." I pray America will soon take two giant steps forward with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leading us politically. 

I needed some comfort for my angst so I searched my past posts with the word “politics”. Eleven posts came up. I found the most comfort in the following paragraph from my July 16, 2018 post, titled “Spirituality and Politics”. 

 “I see great paradoxical promise in the scary political turmoil of our time that can give us all pause to reflect on our past, present and future. Will the quest for more and more money enslave some of us while others languish in poverty? Can the over consumption and destruction of our earth’s resources become an urgent understanding for a more reasoned and protective stance; or will we continue down a self-destructive path of no return? Can we see it takes a healthy village to raise a healthy child to create a healthy future? Can we replace judgment with compassion for others’ desperate acts? Can we be open to being changed? True forgiveness of the other, and ourselves, heals relationships. It is a never-ending task. The ability to love creativity is what spirituality is all about. The potential exists in all of us. Find and nurture it. In my heart, mind and soul I see no separation between spirituality and politics.” 

 I also took comfort in understanding I can look for ways to do my small part to help bring spirituality and politics together. My second memoir, Both/and Things—The Power in Reflection, brought to mind the late priest/paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin, who believed we are all on an evolutionary path toward learning how to love unconditionally. Chardin’s prayer, which is in my blog’s Comfort Messages, “Above All Trust in the Slow Work of God”, suggests taking the long view: 

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. Yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow. Let them shape themselves without undue haste. Do not try to force them on as though you could be today what time -that is to say, grace- and circumstances acting on your own good will will make you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser."  Teilhard de Chardin 

Also in my blog’s Comfort Messages is a poem that I understand as Ego Training: 

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway. The world is full of conflict. Chose peace of mind anyway. Author: Anonymous

What if we could all remember transformation is often two steps forward and one step back; know the power in reflection; have a stash of comfort messages, and appreciate the long evolutionary path we are on toward becoming more empathic, compassionate, forgiving of ourselves and all others, and ultimately learn unconditional love.

Learning Unconditional Love

The Mystery within

You know how good it feels when you begin to understand you are learning to do something right for yourself and others. What if we consciously built upon those insightful moments each day? In seeking to learn unconditional love, together we can find the stepping-stones on the long winding path toward loving unconditionally. It is a challenging path but the rewards along the way are immeasurable.

 

Teilhard de Chardin’s prayer, “Trust in the Slow Work of God”, became a critical grace for me as I struggled to know what was right as I wrestled with my aging parents’ care as told in my first memoir, God Never Hurries. My second memoir, Both/and Things—The Power in Reflection highlights the priest/paleontologist Chardin’s belief that we humans are on an evolutionary path toward loving unconditionally.      

 

Getting started on that evolutionary path was easy. All I had to do was accept I am my most important piece of work. The gift of that acceptance is humility. The real work lies in putting my ego aside each day and consciously living from my heart. By opening my heart to the world, I grow closer to the goal available to us all—unconditional love.

 

Disorder is so prevalent in our time. Reordering ourselves toward unconditional love is our primary work. I pray we each search our hearts and become aware of the next step to take toward loving unconditionally.

 

I invite you to share your insights on what stepping-stones you have discovered on the path toward unconditional love. 

Complicity

The Mystery within...

Admitting I have been part of the problem in the racial unrest of our time has been an eye and heart opening experience for me. 

I was born on Milwaukee’s Polish south side in the early 1940s. My grandparents’ parents emigrated from Poland. My father was a lawyer, my mother a homemaker. I was unaware of my white privilege, but remember my father’s deep offense with Polish jokes. 

I had an early childhood picture book, Little Black Sambo, that made me aware there were people with a skin color different than mine. I learned to count to ten to a song’s lyrics, “One little, two littIe, three little Indians…” and then backwards from ten until there were “no little Indian boys.” I loved Walt Disney’s movie, “The Song of the South”. I saw the movie’s black protagonist, Uncle Remus, befriending the white seven-year-old Johnny visiting his grandmother’s plantation, for the good that it was.  I was oblivious to the subtle nuance that Johnny’s grandmother’s slaves were content with their lot in life. Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, the movie’s song, and Uncle Remus’ parables surrounding the antics of brothers Rabbit, Fox and Bear were precious. And when I went to school, history lessons of America’s founding only depicted brave explorers and happy Thanksgivings.

Fast forward to the early sixties. I was newly married, and sympathetic to Martin Luther King’s nonviolent struggle for equality. But the truth is I was more concerned about my own immediate life. After the birth of our first child, we built a modest home of our own on Milwaukee’s south side. Of the lots we looked at we chose the most expensive one because it was within walking distance of both a grade school and a middle school. 

The assassinations of President Kennedy, 1963; Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, 1968; combined with the violent 1967 riots in Milwaukee’s inner city, made for very scary times. Then came a plan to bus children across town to integrate Milwaukee’s schools. I could not believe putting my then seven-year-old son on a bus across town to be a solution to hundreds of years of discrimination and violence. And maybe it would have been the only way to eventually end segregation and poverty.

My husband and I borrowed money from both of our parents, sold our Milwaukee home, and built another house in Grafton, WI within walking distance of a grade school and middle school. We were part of the white flight to the suburbs that exacerbated the plight of Milwaukee’s poor.  

Three years later, in 1975, my husband died. I became the sole breadwinner. I pieced together before and after school care for my three children and returned to my former work life with the USDA Forest Service in Milwaukee, commuting daily from Grafton. 

The USDA Forest Service, of all Federal agencies, had the fewest minorities and women in their workforce. To comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Forest Service developed Upward Mobility Training programs to provide women and minorities qualifying experience for advancement. I was in the right workplace at the right time, albeit a challenging one. I began as a Clerk-typist, then advanced to Human Resource Assistant, Human Resource Specialist, and retired as a Public Affairs Specialist. 

Political conservatives saw the Civil Rights Act, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission it established, as a violation of their belief that fewer government policies would create a strong economy and produce gains that would benefit the historically disadvantaged. I personally know that to be seriously flawed thinking.

I have come to know facing my own vulnerability and complicity to be very freeing. Only then can I find compassion for myself and know compassion toward all others. Only then can I appreciate the late John Lewis’ invitation to be “good trouble, necessary trouble.”  

America will only become great when we all share the role of Good Samaritan to those who need quality health care and education, living wages, adequate housing, safe drinking water, and compassionate care for the incarcerated. What if we each asked to be shown ways to contribute to those ends?

Virtue in Government

The Mystery within...

As is my usual practice after dinner, I had my television tuned to a PBS station while cleaning up the kitchen. A documentary on China’s long history was playing. A word attributed to the ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius, regarding successful government, caught my attention. The word was virtue. So when my dishwasher started humming, I went to my computer and goggled Confucius and virtue. An October 2010 Los Angeles Times article by Daniel K. Gardner, East Asian history professor, came up.

I encourage you to check out Gardner’s article for yourself, which got me thinking about some of the more graced teaching in my life relating to virtue in the Eight Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount that you can find on Wikipedia. It is the invitation to be blessed in life through humility, mourning, gentleness, hungering and thirsting for justice, being merciful, having a clean heart, working for peace, and enduring persecution because of a thirst for justice. 

A few days later this quote from Confucius found me, “When walking in the company of two other men [I’ll include women] I am bound to be able to learn from them. The good points of the one I copy; the bad points of the other I correct in myself.”  

There are no perfect people or governments but people and governments can strive to be virtuous. Unbridled capitalism and a ‘me first’ attitude is desensitizing us to the cry of the earth, and the needs of the poor, hungry and sick. 

This worldwide pandemic can be the wakeup call for us to understand how intricately we are connected to one another and the fragility of Mother Earth. It can prompt us to understand we are designed to be here for one another and to protect the environment. 

There are minds and hearts out there that desire a virtuous government. Support them; encourage them; vote for them. 

Transformative Trouble

The Mystery within...

I hope we never go back to the way things were after this global pandemic ends.

I want the compassion I feel for “essential workers” at the low end of the wage scale to be felt by those who can make a positive difference in their wages and work environment.

I want everyone, everywhere to have clean water, air and wholesome food and that we all contribute something to that end.

I want us all to understand nature’s beauty and delicate balance to lead us to consider what is necessary for our life and reduce what is frivolous.

I want everyone to have a hot shower and a warm bed to crawl into at night.

I want anger or indifference (mine and that of others) to be transformed into work for peace and harmony knowing how intricately everyone and everything is connected.

I want this pandemic to be an eye opening and heart opening experience for us all.

Life is paradoxical. Adversity mutates and evolves. There are so many critical issues of social justice at stake in our world, our country, and our local communities that beg us to stop and reflect on the needs of others and Mother Earth.

What do you want to evolve from this pandemic?  

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Losing It

The Mystery within...

I thought I was doing a fairly good job of keeping myself together in these trying pandemic times until I lost it. 

Rare March sunshine was brightening that revelatory day. It led me to hang my freshly washed sheets and pillowcases out on the clothesline to dry in a sunny breeze. I put a lawn chair out and was about to sit down and revel in the warm rays when I was accosted by a wave of poison in the air sprayed by lawn service workers four doors south of me. I was jolted into a rage.  It didn’t help that a few days earlier, neighbors on both sides of me, had their lawn “serviced”. I stormed down the sidewalk toward the offending workers. The level of my rage scared me. But I felt it as a metaphor for all the chaos that is going on in our world.

We don’t need a monoculture, carcinogenic carpet, surrounding our homes. We need a healthy dose of biologic diversity, not only in our lawns, but also in our human communities. We need more human diversity in our religions and governments putting forth a range of ideas, and a genuine willingness to learn from one another. Especially, we all need to learn the skilled art of compromise. 

We need fair maps, not gerrymandering, that subvert opportunities for compromise. We need to be prudent in how we spend our money, not on excesses that pollute our earth, but spending where it is good for the environment and one another. We need equitable tax distribution where everyone pays their fair share, and we need to remove the status of corporations as citizens. We need leaders that promote unity, not division, who have deep concern for the environment and one another. We need to live more wisely from our hearts as well as our heads.

Life is paradoxical. Losing it can help us find our place in the world. Please vote as if all life depends on you. It does.  

Breaking for Others

The Mystery within...

I am hoping this post is the beginning of my return to a more regular schedule of reflection and writing about the important things in life that find me. Surgeries, two weeks apart in January, on some troublesome veins in each of my legs have slowed me down. Recovery is progressing. I am reminded patience is a virtue.

Walking is the recommended activity to aid my recovery, which I gratefully do everyday outside with my sweet boy, yellow lab, Oliver. We are currently restricted to sidewalk leash walks. We both miss our trek across the bridge spanning the river to the welcoming woods on the other side. The anticipation of our eventual return sustains me for now. 

We walked to the post office the other day, a departure from our now usual route around the quiet neighborhood that also includes a stretch of bike trail. I knew walking to the post office would be easier than the return because the cold, strong north wind at our back would be very unpleasant to face walking home. I was thrilled we caught a brief break in traffic at the busy highway we had to cross that runs through town and pushed on to mail the phone bill.   

The cold wind was worse than I imagined on the return, and at the highway, when traffic to my right had a brief break, traffic to my left was a steady stream of cars, and then it was vice a versa. I felt a little panicky with the icy buffeting wind in my face and the rush of people driving bye. And then there was a break in the traffic to my left, but I could not move fast enough to beat the cars coming from the right until miraculously the lead driver of a long stream of cars stopped and waved me on to cross. My heart leapt with gratitude. Oliver and I hurried across the road as I waved a sincere thank you to the kind driver.

The rest of the way home the kindness of that driver warmed and informed me. I thought how often it is we rush through life not seeing others who need a break, or we are just too busy to care. There are so many critical issues of social justice at stake in our world, our country, and our local communities that beg us to stop and reflect on others needs, and give them a brake. Ultimately we are better off when we are all better off.

What if we all braked for others more often?  

   

Troublesome People

The Mystery within...

Troublesome people are troubled people. I know this because I have been troubled of late and I became troublesome for another. My awareness gifted me with the opportunity to apologize. As I was apologizing I began to cry because sometimes life just feels overwhelming. My tears were a gift, cathartic for me, and they elicited true empathy from the one whom I had given a hard time. Through the phone line, I heard the gift of sincere empathy in her voice. 

When gifted with the awareness of being troublesome, I highly recommend an apology from the heart. It just might gift the other with an expression of true empathy. And then life no longer feels overwhelming.

“Adversity mutates and evolves.” I found that quote in notes I took during time spent at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 at the Christine Center in northern Wisconsin.  There, a diverse group of souls spent time releasing 2019 and welcoming 2020. It was a wonderful way to say good-bye to the past and welcome a new year of learning. 

Darkness and Light

The Mystery within...

“The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to finally live it.” Those lines ended Richard Rohr’s 12/17/19 daily reflection. I wrote them down on a small card so they can find me again to remind me to live it. 

World news that evening did a story on a camp overflowing with 18,000 refugees fleeing oppression. I stood transfixed, watching and overwhelmed by heart wrenching suffering of the children and their parents in that camp. I was grateful I finished writing and mailing my year-end checks to charities, but the magnitude of need worldwide made my efforts seem insignificant.

The 12/17/19 Women’s Older Wisdom blog was titled, “Coping with Political Despair”. It began with this quote, “Activism is the greatest antidote to despair.” So I was grateful my letter to the editor titled, “Politics and Spirituality” was published in the December 19 edition of my local paper. (See Sacred Connections post, November 25 entry.)

On December 19 I was touched by hope listening to and watching Democrats debate who among them will be the best option to return fairness in government through just taxes; acknowledging we all belong and have intrinsic value regardless of our abilities; and understand the way to freedom, equality and justice is through teamwork. The Democrats' dialogue gave me hope for our country after suffering through the impeachment rebuttals. And I am reminded respectful dialogue is essential in any endeavor for change.  

Life is relational. We learn from own light and darkness and the light and darkness of others. 

What if we each played our small part to bring about needed change in how we allow ourselves to be governed, not alone, but together through teamwork.  Justice and equality in America can then be spread more easily throughout the world.  

Living Life

The Mystery within...

November 27 to December 1, 2019

Wednesday and Thursday were two days of cooking, sharing meals, and socializing around the Thanksgiving holiday that left me exhausted before bed each night. Friday, Oliver had his follow-up vet appointment that left me bummed out with his  prognosis and on-going restrictions. And Saturday I took my first walk in the woods in over two weeks, without Oliver. I felt separate and alone, akin to when someone close has just died. And Saturday night I read from a book titled, Miracles and Mysteries Witnessed by Nurses, edited by Jean Watson, of stories of seriously ill adults and children, and either their mysterious cures or miraculous acceptance of their impending deaths. Those nurses stories put perspective on the vet’s recommendation that Oliver loose 25 pounds and only go on short leash walks to give his ligaments time to heal and possibly avoid corrective surgery.

Sunday, there was a cold, light mist falling when I took Oliver on his leash walk. As we walked it occurred to me that after I took him home I could ride my bike to the woods. But then the mist turned to a steadier cold rain and I had second thoughts about biking. But then the rain turned to big white flakes that melted when they hit the pavement so I put on my bike helmet, road to the woods, parked at its edge where I found a new walking stick to steady me on the path of slippery wet leaves that were now accumulating big white flakes of snow. As I walked the feeling of separate aloneness returned. I prayed for both my and Oliver’s miraculous acceptance of our restrictions and a mysterious cure. 

It’s only a little over a mile round trip bike ride to the woods and back and about a mile walk around the woods, so I am hoping the weather will continue to offer opportunities to bike there and back. I gained four pounds in the two weeks of missed walks and the continued biking will help keep my legs in shape for my impending surgery come January. In a previous post titled, “Being Present”, I wrote: “It occurs to me life is like the weather—always changing—and requiring us to change in response.”

Monday, December 2 to Wednesday, December 4, 2019

I’m feeling less guilty about skipping days of written reflection. Not sure if that is good or bad or neither. Are days too short? Am I trying to do too much? Wishing I had more energy to do it all. Or is everything just as it should be?

I spent this morning at the Ozaukee County Court House with friends petitioning the county Board of Supervisors to allow a referendum on the spring 2020 ballot proposing an end to gerrymandering of voting districts following the 2020 census. When I got up to the microphone to speak I told the Board of Supervisors the last time I appeared before them I was holding my first grandchild, who is now driving and looking to buy a house, when I asked that they approve a proposal to acquire Lion’s Den Gorge, a beautiful piece of creation on Lake Michigan’s shoreline near Grafton that needed protection from development and opened for all to enjoy. I thanked them for their decision back then on behalf of my grandchildren, all children, and for myself who now enjoy its beauty. I then asked that they please allow the people of Ozaukee County a voice through a referendum on the spring 2020 ballot proposing an end to gerrymandering districts following the 2020 census to protect our democracy for us and the children.

There are three women now on the County Board, none when I appeared back in the late 1990’s. I was so proud of them. Each spoke eloquently against a board member proposal to indefinitely defer our request for a ballot referendum. We left the meeting with a glimmer of hope since the indefinite was changed to defer to the January 15 meeting, which would still allow time for the people of Ozaukee County to have a referendum, a voice on the spring ballot, to propose an end to gerrymandering of voting districts. Stay tuned.

             

Sacred Connections

The Mystery within...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

A bumper sticker caught my eye and went straight to my heart today.  It said, "Believing in her worth she succeeded."  

Friday, November 22, 2019

My bumper sticker sighting yesterday brought back the memory of another bumper sticker that changed the direction of my life and opened me to the world of paradox and the power in reflection. It said, "Silence feeds abuse." In God Never Hurries I wrote:  

"Silence is a both/and thing. It is golden when I curb my ego and silently accept another's shortcomings in the name of kindness. It is a gift when it leads me to reflect on the messages in my life. But silence also feeds abuse, and as Anne LaMont writes in Bird by Bird, we are only as sick as our secrets. 

Believing in my own worth became the source of my courage to tell the truth. I believe my heart healed with the truth of my worthiness. 

Isn't it amazing the power that can come from reflecting on bumper stickers?

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Today my heart felt significant turmoil after reading claims of political righteousness that couldn't be further from the truth. I was so upset I could not sleep even though I was very tired. So I got out of bed and drafted a letter to the editor of my two local papers and my heart quieted. 

It still surprises me how negative events can spark positive thought and action.

Monday, November 25, 2019

Letter to the editor:

Politics and Spirituality

Politics is an inevitable journey that can destroy or transform the world. I believe we are at a critical crossroads in our human development and how we vote will determine our progress or decline as human beings. Please vote as if every person and all of the earth is sacred, because the earth and we are sacred.

Spirituality is a profound sense of belonging to one another and the earth. Spirituality is about love and love yearns to transform the world. Love doesn't vote to maximize self-interest but looks to what serves us all. The Spirit of Love expands notions of private morality and makes us more tolerant and forgiving beings. 

Be engaged with the critical issues of our time. I invite you to come to Ozaukee County Democrats' monthly meetings the third Wednesday of each month at the Saukville Village Hall from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. We are a friendly group of perfectly imperfect people working together to improve life for all and protect our Mother Earth.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

I am so aware of how fortunate I am to be living in a democracy, albeit a struggling one, and having others who support me in this struggle. Wherever you may live, find others to support you in your struggles because we are all deeply connected.    

Comforting Connections

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

The Mystery within...

As I closed the living room shades against the unseasonably cold night my memory was jogged by the near full moon’s blue glow on the early cover of snow. I remembered a nighttime winter walk with my son Joe and our then beagle-cocker mix, Lydia. I wrote of that walk in my first memoire God Never Hurries. 

I remembered soulful fun from another earlier time when my late son Joe and I took Lydia for a walk after a big snowstorm. We went behind the school that night where deep drifts lay against a steep hill. I can almost hear Joe’s and my laughter, feel the fresh cold air in my lungs and on my happy face, as the three of us took running jumps and dives into the blue moonlit drift. Lydia’s little black body wriggled as she got stuck in the depths. We had more fun that otters.

That memory was so clear tonight I could almost see Joe and me in the kitchen when we returned home happily refreshed by the cold air, and the fun we had in the blue moon lit snow. I believe Joe is near tonight.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

A young man named James warmed heart with deep gratitude Wednesday night. 

I was getting ready to print copies of a reading to take to my Cedarburg library writers’ group when my printer jammed. I couldn’t see how to open the printer, or get the print cartridge out, to see if that’s where I would pull the half way out paper all the way out.  So I called my local Office Max and asked if I brought my printer in could someone please help me with unjamming the paper. I was told they do not do any service work. I pleaded and said, “When I buy replacement print cartridges I bring in my printer and someone puts the cartridge in for me. All I want is for someone to show me how to open the printer to get the stuck paper out. Reluctantly, the young woman who answered the phone told me I needed to speak with James. When he came to the phone I told him of my need for help and he said, “We don’t do any service work”. I repeated the print cartridge scenario. There was silence. I asked, if I come in with my printer in the next 15 minutes would he be there and help me open it up.  More silence, and then, “Yes”.       

It was miraculous. First, because of my beseeching persistence, second, because James didn’t even have to look at the back of the machine as he opened it up and handed me the rumpled paper. I thanked him profusely and asked if I could give him something. He shook his head “no” with a disbelieving smile. I was euphoric as I walked out with my printer past the young cashier. I told her its out. She smiled and said warmly, “I’m so glad.” 

My lightheartedness stayed with me the rest of the night. Who would ever guess a paper jam could bring such happiness?

Friday, November 15, 2019

Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it will be opened.

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Last night at a Full Moon Circle gathering of women we reflected on women’s need to ask for what we want from life. Asking for ourselves is not something most of us were raised to do but is important, not only for us, but to the benefit of all. It was suggested we begin each day asking for something for ourselves. 

I began this day asking that I live more from my heart today. Truly amazing things happened. I was more aware of how I moved through my day—with more acceptance, more thoughtful responses to others, and forgiveness of myself when I could have done better. I now want to make living more from my heart a conscious standing request to begin each day. And hopefully I’ll learn to tack on other requests too. 

Monday, November 18, 2019

When I saw today’s date on my computer screen I felt its significance. Thirty years ago today, my youngest son Joe died at age 22. The devastating emptiness of losing him slowly healed through my acceptance. Tonight I wonder what life would have been like if he were still alive. That I will never know. What I do know tonight is I fear my own eventual death less because of him.

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

The following stanza from a poem by Rashani titled, “Unbroken” appeared in an e-mail from the Center for Courage and Renewal this morning.

There is a hollow space

Too vast for words

Through which we pass with each loss,

Out of whose darkness

We are sanctioned into being.

Deep comfort comes when we connect with another’s pain and the understanding that comes from it. It is why and how I wrote Both/and Things—The Power in Reflection, God Never Hurries, and continue with writing this blog.     

Connecting

The Mystery within...

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Really tired tonight. Medical appointments and shoveling snow claimed my energy. I am grateful for my easy access to medical care and my car that got me to my appointments and back home. Wishing all of humanity had easy access to medical care and a home to come back to.

Friday, November 8, 2019

Oliver went to the vet Thursday. Major change looms in our lives. The fluid drained from his back leg is being analyzed. No more walks for a while and maybe the end of rough housing with my son’s dog, Moxy. It was an expensive visit along with weight loss prescription dog food that was ordered. Hardest of all will be no woods walks for two weeks. It is the highlight of our day for both of us.

I never took our daily walk among the trees for granted. But now there is deep longing for our treks across the wooden bridge with the river’s movement beneath us; and the breeze or wind, or stillness among the tall maples, beech and oaks who greet us; the intoxicating freshness of air that heals us in body, mind and soul--this absence in our life now deeply grieves us.

Monday, November 11, 2019

After publishing Both/and Things—The Power in Reflection I thought returning to written reflections on the significance in each of my days would be a good and easy way to stay connected with Spirit, and you who read my posts. And it is—when I do it. When I skip a day or days because I am exhausted as I climb into bed, and doubt I would have anything worthwhile to reflect on, I feel like I am failing you, my readers and myself. I think there is something amiss in my thinking.

Whether or not I feel connected isn’t the point because we are intricately intertwined with everyone and everything in life. And everyday, no matter how mundane it may appear, holds significance for you and me and waits to be discovered in reflection. 

I remember Thursday when driving to Yoga I was listening to an NPR piece on the two men who created Netflix. What stood out for me in that discussion was how these co-founders were complete opposites in personality and how each approached life and problem solving differently. Enhanced creativity was said to be the result of accepting and working with their differences. Thursday night, after Oliver’s vet visit, I was too wrung out and tired to reflect and write about that.

And last night, after spending the entire day preparing my son Mike’s birthday dinner, I was numb tired and didn’t write, but grateful for the time and food we shared celebrating him, and the leftovers I ate tonight.

I go to sleep this night conflicted because of the appearance of ants on my kitchen counter and in the leftover blueberry pie. I put out ant poison tonight even though we are connected.