WILL FUSION POWER BE OUR SAVIOR?

Oh, how we love our technology! I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with it, as it’s done so much good for the world and yet may be the end of us all. (It’s already been the end of quite a few of us when you think about weapons of war and toxins in our bodies.)

Nevertheless, we are all a-twitter this week, and rightfully so, over the amazing news about fusion power. The much-anticipated holy grail of scientific and energy geeks the world over, fusion ignition has finally been achieved. Scientists call this “proof of concept.” One might argue that spending untold billions just to conclude, “yeah, maybe this could happen,” is not the best use of money. I can’t begin to imagine how much progress we could have made had we used only an itty bit of that taxpayer money to improve already viable safe, clean energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, or tidal. I mean, solar batteries, for heaven’s sake! We can do batteries.

Still, Lawrence Livermore Lab where this proof of concept took place is a nuclear weapons lab, and I highly doubt all this fusion money would have materialized if it weren’t for the “national security” element. (Read, “new & exciting ways to pulverize humans in other countries.”)

Oh my, but I see my cynicism is showing. Sorry – it’s part of my charm.

Fusion Seems Too Good To Be True!

I’ve been reading up on fusion power a bit, enough to learn that it’s not true that fusion doesn’t produce radioactive waste. And it is true that fusion still carries the risk of terrorists creating weapons-grade plutonium 239, and that there is a danger of highly radioactive tritium (which replaces hydrogen in water molecules) leaking into our groundwater. Oh, it’s also true that the molten lithium within the reactor could explode. You know how the nuclear industry always tells us that there’s no danger of fission nuclear plants exploding? Yeah, well, welcome to the new and improved reactor.

But I’m the first to admit I know next to nothing about fusion power. I have some expertise in energy from my educational background and my 27 years as an environmental policy analyst and lobbyist with Sierra Club. But mostly I’m just googling and using my brain.

My usual sources within the national environmental community have made no comment on this scientific breakthrough, which is highly irregular because they will put out a press release at the drop of a hat. My guess is they are still scrambling to figure out how this fits in to their energy campaigns and messaging, which is understandable but not OK. They’ve let the “Hooray, we are saved from climate change” message get way down the road in front of them.

I know enough to suspect that fusion is not the solution to our climate crisis. The warming and melting and flooding and droughting that’s already been set in motion is not going to wait the decades it would take to build even one fusion reactor. But it’s way more than timing.

A Kinder, Gentler Technology

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-technology — it will obviously play a large role in whatever efforts are made to confront the crisis. Technology caused the problem, and it must be part of the solution. I’m excited about the great potential of clean and safe energy production technologies, and also about energy conservation and efficiency technologies. Once these proven technologies free us from our fossil fuel addiction, then we can diddle around with weapons systems posing as environmental progress. Oh man, there’s my cynicism charm showing again.

It’s just that the more we as a country invest in outrageously expensive technologies that continue our reliance on centralized industrial plants connected to massive interlocking energy grids, the less we invest in the common sense, humane solution of smaller, localized energy sources that enhance our communities rather than threaten them.

My church recently converted eight acres of land to a community solar farm, designed to serve 350 families, one-third of them low-income homes at reduced cost. We didn’t like sacrificing our wildflower meadows and we had to move our beehives, but it is good to know we are part of a just and compassionate solution to humanity’s climate crisis.

CEDAR RIDGE COMMUNITY CHURCH, DOING ITS BIT TO PROTECT CREATION

Undeterred By Any Other Power On Earth

“We spend our lives, as nations and as individuals, waiting to be saved by the power of our own achievements or the power of destructive force. And yet, it is the clear, soft, consuming, overshadowing power of the {Higher Power} in us—the power of goodness that is undeterred by any other power on earth—that lies within our grasp, that can really turn all of life benevolent.”

Science and technology are great, but as long as their foundation is corporate profit and military power, I don’t see a real solution to the problem of the suicide machine we have created.

The crisis, I believe, is spiritual. It is a crisis of greed and selfishness, and the solution is compassion and kindness. I know, I’m probably being unAmerican. But I read the above quote from Joan Chittister this morning, and it got me thinking about this brouhaha over fusion. It seems to me a very costly step down the wrong road. But perhaps it’s necessary so that humanity will survive long enough to learn the compassion thing.

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Massive Wave of Good Climate News Engulfs Hawaii and Threatens the Mainland

Hold on, good news is on the way!!

This week, Hawaii received its final shipment of coal. Read that again, if you will. 

Its final shipment of coal.

The last delivery arrived at the state’s last functioning coal plant on Wednesday. The shipment to Oahu coincided with the release of the latest IPCC report, the most dire yet, which points to the need to abandon fossil fuels entirely ASAP.

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned that, “Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries increasing the production of fossil fuels.” 

Hawaii’s Governor David Ige signed a bill in 2015 that set a goal for state utilities to generate 100 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2045. Two years ago, another law banned utilities from adding any new coal-powered plants or extending existing coal-burning permits after this year. 

The governor recognizes that there are challenges ahead, but knows the move away from coal is necessary for future generations. “It’s the right move for our communities and the planet, ” he says. “In its time, coal was an important resource for Hawaii and I’d like to thank the workers who have run our last remaining coal plant.” Those forty displaced workers will be offered jobs at solar, wind, and battery storage facilities.

For all of us, there will be changes, challenges, and yes, some sacrifice during our transition to a sane energy future. In Hawaii, renewable energy projects are coming online rapidly, but supply chain issues have slowed construction and electricity rates on Oahu are expected to rise temporarily. Yet with so much of humanity currently enduring wildfires, heat waves, droughts, floods, and horrendous storms, we cannot wait to act.

Hawaii’s courage and bold leadership is more than welcome. As is the U.S. Democratic party’s leadership on the historic climate legislation wending its way through Congress. (Fingers crossed and prayers aloft.)

Could there be hope? I’ve got the champagne chilling.

ABORTION AMBIVALENCE IS NOT AN OPTION

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while (thank you!) know that I love politics. Probably too much. It’s an addiction, like football or baseball for some people. I follow all the stats, watch every “game,” know most of the players. This makes sense, since I lived and breathed politics during my thirty-year career as an environmental lobbyist on Capitol Hill. 

But it goes deeper than that. I grew up in a well-informed family steeped in the study of world history and engaged in current events. My father worked for the CIA and my older brother campaigned for Bobby Kennedy. Politics was always on the menu at our dinner table, for better or for worse. Some of my fondest family memories involve all of us gathered around our black & white TV set, watching political conventions. I thought this was normal.

MUST WE TALK ABOUT ABORTION?

All this to say that you may or may not have noticed that there is one hot political issue I have never written about in the ten (!!) years I’ve been blogging. Abortion. I hate the topic, and I hate how both sides use it to raise money, win elections, and stoke division and outrage. Such political posturing and messaging is hurtful and/or insulting to women. Abortion is a deeply personal and intimate issue, and every woman I know who has struggled with the decision of whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy has been through hell, or at least purgatory.

You are not “pro-life” if you don’t support programs that help low-income women who decide to give birth to and raise their child. The GOP has always been intent on shredding the social safety net that provides healthcare, education, and nutrition for these families. You are not a “good Christian” if you verbally or otherwise abuse beleaguered woman and their doctors. 

Likewise, when Democratic strategists decided to adopt the slogan “I (heart) abortion,” I was aghast. Who loves abortion, even if you think of it only as a medical procedure? What a slap in the face to the millions of women who have faced that decision! 

I sometimes want to scream, “Shut up, everybody just shut up!”

And so, I have largely shut up. I remember once trying to cross Massachusetts Avenue with my fellow liberals when a large group of “Right to Life” marchers was wending its way up the street waving pictures of bloody fetuses. My friends were apoplectic. I stupidly said what I was thinking, which was that these people were being manipulated by radical right extremists, but that if a person truly believed that babies were being murdered, shouldn’t they be marching in the streets? 

Oops. That opinion was not allowed. 

THANK YOU KANSAS, FOR SPEAKING UP

I’ve never fit into a proper box. When abortion has been on the ballot in my state, I have voted for choice, but never enthusiastically. It wasn’t “my” issue. Over the years, my ambivalence has meant that I’ve not always been supportive of women friends when they needed me most. I deeply regret that. I hope that I am a more compassionate and less judgmental person than I used to be. 

My opinions and feelings have evolved over time, informed by science, my spiritual beliefs, and my experiences. But that’s the point, isn’t it? MY feelings, MY opinions, MY understanding of spirit and science. It is not MY right to tell anyone else how they should feel or behave, most especially when it comes to their own bodies.

And it’s certainly not the right of the government or a specific religion! Not in America. 

The Supreme Court’s extreme political activism means that I no longer have the luxury of laying low, of being “understanding of both sides.” Nope. I am wiser now. Better late than never, I guess. Ambivalence is not an option. Silence is not an option.

So today I am writing to say THANK YOU to the voters of Kansas. I especially want to thank those who may have been confused, ambivalent, or evolving on the issue of abortion, but who voted to protect a woman’s right to choose. Because in the end, it’s not about abortion and what you think about abortion. It is about abortion RIGHTS. And our basic rights are at stake. So thank you for showing up when you could have stayed home. Thank you for not shutting up. 

Finding Hope This Fourth of July

Happy Independence Day. I guess. It hardly feels worth celebrating this year, unlike last year when the vast majority of Americans celebrated the end of trump’s reign with a heartfelt “PHEW!” By last 4th of July, the trauma of the insurrection had begun to fade and denial was settling in, at least in my beleaguered brain. 

One year later, it’s hard to deny that the trump damage is wide and deep and lasting — for all of us, but especially for women and for the poor among us, who are hardest hit when voting and abortion rights are denied and the climate crisis worsens. 

IS THE SUN SETTING ON OUR REPUBLIC?

Life is overwhelming lately, right? I’ve had to abandon this blog post several times. Finding solid words to stand on is difficult, as I stumble between disbelief and grief, outrage and numbness, shock and hardened cynicism. Cynicism is the most dangerous, because it kills hope, and without hope we don’t vote and we don’t march and we don’t show up. And we “writing activists” don’t write. 

A STRONG DOSE OF HOPE

Thank God for Cassidy Hutchinson, who offered a strong dose of hope to those who seek truth and justice in the wake of the January 6th attempted coup. (Which is, let’s not kid ourselves, ongoing.) Everyone says her testimony was “shocking” and “stunning.” I suppose in a normal world, that would be so, but the most shocking part to me was that I wasn’t shocked.

A WOMAN OF COURAGE

As alarming as Hutchinson’s testimony was, none of it was out of character for the 45th president. Not the rage, the violence, the pettiness, the crazy. Not even the part where he demanded metal detectors be dismantled so that an armed mob could enter the ellipse and make a better photo op for him before descending on the Capitol building where the entire Congress and the Vice President were doing the work of democracy. 

OK, that particular bit did shock me. But not because of trump’s treasonous behavior — I just did not expect the Committee to hand the Department of Justice such a clear smoking gun. (Never has “smoking gun” been a more apt metaphor.)

WOMEN OF COURAGE

So if not shock, then what was my overwhelming feeling as I watched that brave 25 year-old woman raise her hand and risk her career — and perhaps her very life — for love of country? As she promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to that even braver 55 year-old woman from Wyoming who daily takes those same risks, only on steroids? I felt grief. Deep grief for our nation. I was surprised by my tears. My hard trump-shell cracked. Most of us knew we were in great peril when that man took over, but I honestly never imagined. And trust me, I thought I was fearing the worst. 

Let me be clear: I’m not saying Hutchinson and Cheney are heroes. They enabled and abetted trump every step of the way. Until they didn’t. They are courageous and they are strong and their bravery may save what’s left of democracy. Thank God for them, and may others follow their lead. But let’s not call them heroes. They and their ilk are largely responsible for America’s minority overrunning the majority, and for the Supreme Court’s dismantling of our freedom and independence just in time for the Fourth of July, 2022.

PRAYERS AND SPIT

I pray fervently for our nation this Fourth. Most especially for the direct victims of the Court’s recent rampage through our life, liberty and happiness: My heart is with all women — especially low-income women — and with Black voters, Native Americans, and kids who fear getting blown to bits at school. And of course my heart hurts for every living creature threatened by the Court’s choice of corporate profits and climate chaos over life. Amen.

Let’s celebrate this day with intention and determination and courage. May we all spit in the face of fear and take a hard hold on hope this Fourth of July.

BEAUTIFUL RAGE

I may not be the most qualified to speak on the topic of anger. Though I am well-versed in the costs of bottling it up. I could probably buy a small Russian yacht with all the money I spent on cocaine in my twenties and therapy in later decades. Avoiding conflict is one of my specialties: “None of that unpleasantness, now,” as my mother would say. My older brother and sister seemed to relish rolling in the unpleasantness, while I cowered wide-eyed behind the couch. And you never knew when my alcoholic father would blow. So I learned to hide out.

Fury at Injustice

It’s a lifelong challenge for me. But there is one exception: I have always raged at injustice. It’s why I chose a career in environmental protection, to speak out and fight for the defenseless. At first that meant animals and trees and vague visions of future generations, but when this privileged young white woman learned about the heavy costs of environmental degradation on poor people and communities of color, my rage knew no bounds. Which may be why I march around the streets of D.C. and wave signs and yell at the top of my lungs from time to time. That’s my therapy now.

Interesting that my rage only seems to grow as I age. No mellowing out or going gently into that good night for this aging hippie. I mean, shouldn’t things be getting better by now?? We know about climate change and its disproportionate impacts on marginalized people, we know about police rage and violence, we know about the ownership of politicians by the NRA and multibillion-dollar corporations, we know about systemic racial injustice in housing, healthcare, education, land use, the justice system, pollution exposure – well, everything.

And then comes the rebirth of authoritarianism, not just “over there” but right here in the good ol’ U. S. of A. Even for those who find it hard to do “unpleasantness,” how can you not rage right now, watching yet another tragic, senseless slaughter caused by a narcissistic strongman and his pandering cronies?

And now, corporate-backed American politicians are using Putin’s murderous rampage to call for more drilling, mining, and carbon-dioxide spewing in the name of “freedom,” when any person with a brain (and a heart) can see that solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable sources could free us from foreign energy sources for good?! Great God!

Don’t Just Rage, Do Something!

Speaking of God (see how I did that?), it’s the start of Lent, as I mentioned in my last post. What about trying a Lenten practice of feeling and expressing anger at injustice in a healthy way? I find that much of my anger comes from feeling powerless. What’s breaking your heart and raising your blood pressure these days?

You’re smart. You’re creative. Find one useful thing you can do about it. Write a letter to a decision-maker. Write a letter to your local newspaper. Call in to a news show. Get your neighbors together (in a COVID-safe way, of course) to watch a video about an issue that gets your ire up. Gather a few friends and have a “honk and wave” on the street corner, holding signs about racism, the climate crisis, Ukraine, your passion. You are a co-creator of this world with God – get out there and generate some beautiful holy rage!

“God of Holy Rage,

Too often we fear that to allow for anger is to become less like You. Let us meet the God of the prophets. You, who tells the truth. You, who holds fury at injustice. Help us to remember that You, in embodied anger, flipped the temple tables at the site of injustice and exclusion.

In a world where the powerful terrorize the marginalized – exploit people and land – would You help us to become faithful discerners of when to calm and when to rouse? Rejecting that anger which leads to bitterness or hatred of another, yet tapping into a righteous rage when that which you’ve created is under abuse and neglect. The dignity of creation demands our emotions. Make ours a beautiful rage.”

Cole Arthur Riley

Make This History: “Do You Have Children?”

Happy Women’s History Month.

Let me start by saying I’m extremely irritable right now, having just lost a dear friend to COVID a few days ago. I’m edging into the angry part of the grief cycle, which I know will come and go for a time. Meanwhile, people in Idaho are staging photo ops of their children burning life-saving masks. Innocent people are dying and others are acting like drunken teenagers careening down the road of life threatening all the rest of us. So there’s stuff to be truly angry about. But that’s not what I’m writing about.

I wouldn’t say I’m angry about today’s topic, just irritated. In recent days, I’ve had the opportunity to be in the (virtual) presence of a lot of lovely people I don’t know, praying and grieving and helping the family. As irrelevant as it seems to me in those situations, that perennial question still popped up: “Do you have children?”

As always, there was the awkward silence. Then I answered lightly, “No, I’m fancy free.” But then I added, “Why do you ask?” All of a sudden, the awkwardness was on her instead of me. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “I just thought . . ., “ and trailed off. 

No, you did not think. That’s my point: please think before you ask a stranger that question. Some would say it’s not your business, but I won’t, because that sounds mean, and I know the question is not meant to hurt and is probably just your way of trying to connect, to make conversation, to know me. 

But you don’t know me, you don’t know my journey, you don’t know that I haven’t lost a child, that I didn’t try for decades to have a child, that I did not endure repeated miscarriages, that I did not pine my whole life for a husband who never came along. 

None of those things are true for me, blessedly. Your question is just a pinprick. But I know women in each of those categories and your mindless question is like a knife in the heart for many of them. Surely, you also know people for whom one or more of those things are true. So — please stop. If a woman has kids. you’re going to hear about them soon enough if she wants to talk about them. 

I’m not trying to be mean. Really. (If you want to see my mean face, start telling me why you choose not to wear a mask.) It’s just a matter of thinking about what you say. Nearly half of all women of childbearing age do not have children. In women beyond childbearing years like me, 1 in 7 don’t have kids. There are all different reasons for this, but none of them count as “small talk.” 

Trouble with the Trump Transition? You’re Not the Only One

The guy occupying the Oval Office isn’t the only one having trouble with the transition to a post-trump world. 

When I asked my Facebook friends whether anyone else was feeling unspeakably tired, the response was a resounding “Yes, yes, and yes.” People spoke of migraines, tension, and a sense of unreality, but mostly exhaustion. How else could we feel after being anxious, grieved, and/or outraged for such a long, long time? 

Even if we were engaged in “normal life,” we knew that all was not well. Not by a long shot. The president is a walking diagnostic manual of multiple mental disorders. Still, many also spoke of feeling “ecstatic” and “liberated” and being able to breathe deeply and sleep soundly for the first time in four years. So it’s both/and. Ecstatic and exhausted. Still grieving, but profoundly relieved.

#Irrelevant

This transition period is fraught in its own special way. The president is mostly quiet — golfing, watching TV, occasionally rage tweeting: “FRAUD!!!…THEY CHEAT!!!….RIGGED ELECTION!!” But you can tell  his heart’s not in it anymore. He is like a caged, wounded beast. His suffering is palpable — it feels pathological, like everything about him. He mostly hulks in the corner and sulks, occasionally lashing out ineffectually from behind his bars. (Won’t it be a fine day when Biden removes all the barricades trump has erected around our White House?)

I know trump is still the president, he still has the nuclear codes, he is still firing every effective and ethical civil servant who comes to his attention in these last days. Yet I feel he is increasingly becoming background noise. Irrelevant. And so my mind and body are relaxing in stages, little by little. I think this explains my daily mood swings. My brain chemicals are sloshing side-to-side so much that it’s dizzying. 

One day, I fear that trump is encouraging violence between Proud Boys and Antifa so that he can declare marshall law and at long last have his beloved military parade in the streets. The next day, I meet my neighbors at the local farmer’s market, buy some kale, cabbage, and sweet potatoes, and also some flowers and a stupidly expensive bottle of local Cabernet Franc. (The orchardist told me that Franc grapes are the “daddy” of both Cabernet and Merlot, so it’s got to be good.)

Getting outside, laughing with other people, and spoiling myself brings me back to our new reality. 

Yes, COVID. Yes, rampant racism. Yes, our democracy is shockingly fragile. But donald trump is done. The voters have spoken, and spoken loudly. Even though he continually tweets that he is “just getting ready” to reveal “massive fraud,” he is history. 

And speaking of history, hidden in his twenty morning tweets today is a plea for “historians” (in quotes because I guess he doesn’t believe in historians) to recognize that COVID vaccines were discovered under his watch. Perhaps he’s thinking about his legacy? Is reality getting through? More shall be revealed. 

New Head Space

For now, please take of yourself. Drink lots of water. Drink good wine, if you partake. Sleep late. Go outside and move your body. Eat chocolate. Treat yourself to flowers or books or whatever makes you happy. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Because amidst the darkness that is COVID and the national security risks caused by the man-child’s refusal to allow a peaceful transition, there is also room for happiness and joy and relaxation. As his yammering fades, there’s a lot more space in our heads for peace and goodness. We deserve that. 

And may we use our new-found head space to engage with the January 5th Georgia run-off election so that those same voters who rejected trump will continue to reject ugliness and division by denying trump’s enablers a majority in the Senate. Make a difference, here.

Just imagine if the Congress could once again do the people’s work! 

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” — John 1:5

Hope for People & the Planet: Don’t Mourn, Organize!

I’ve  been feeling a little hope lately, which is scary. “Don’t get your hopes up,” my mother used to tell me. Well, why the hell not? I’d be just as devastated either way, if the current president ends up staying in the White House.

The thing is, trump is (literally) banking on progressive people in this country feeling hopeless and helpless. Because hope, even a sliver of it, may lead to action. It can lead us to make phone calls or write letters or call our legislators.

If we feel it makes no difference and we’re doomed, we will just numb ourselves with social media or TV or alcohol or chips or outrage or whatever it is that allows us to survive these perilous times. Worst of all, we may not make the effort to vote if we think it doesn’t matter. Especially if trump has made it more difficult and confusing to cast a vote.

Our Health and Heritage Under Attack

This week, buried in the on-going chaos that is America, there was news of the trump administration’s final preparations to sacrifice to the voracious Oil God, one of America’s most sacred and iconic wilderness areas: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Since his election, trump has taken direct aim at our natural heritage of wildlands and wildlife, and he’s undercut programs that promote clean air, clean water, and climate stability.

It’s mind-boggling how quickly he has reversed our nation’s progress and dismantled much of what I spent my thirty-year environmental career doing. This is not about me, of course, but I have to say, it hurts. And many of the people I love and served with in the environmental field have also been stunned and demoralized.

One of the longest and most intense battles of my career has been the effort to protect the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling. So when I heard the news of how close we are to losing this treasure, how trump is trying to make sure this pristine wilderness is destroyed before he leaves office, I will admit to hopelessness.

But when I wailed about it on Facebook, my dear Sierra Club friend BB wrote in response, “Resist. Organize.” He says that a lot lately. But this time it sunk in.

The Arctic Refuge
Photo: Natural Resources Defense Council

You and I Can Make a Difference

I immediately poured my pain and passion into a letter to the editor of the Washington Post to share what I know of what’s at stake in the Arctic Refuge. Off it went, and the next day The Post called to say they wanted to print it. I was so excited! You mean, I can still do something useful? I am not powerless? I can do more than march in the streets waving signs and yelling till I’m hoarse?

I desperately needed this reminder that we *all* have everyday tools that can make a difference. I’m talking to YOU! I challenge you to find something that you feel passionately about and write a letter to the editor, preferably responding to something they have recently printed. Below is my letter :

♦♦♦

“I am sickened by the Trump administration’s last-minute effort to sacrifice one of the country’s most sensitive and iconic wilderness areas to oil drilling [“Drill plan for Alaska refuge is finalized,” front page, Aug. 18]. Most Americans will never take an Alaskan bush plane north of the Arctic Circle to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Yet a clear majority opposes drilling there, honoring our nation’s generous tradition of setting aside irreplaceable parts of our natural heritage for future generations.

As director of the Sierra Club’s public lands program during the 1990s, I was privileged to visit the refuge and to celebrate the annual porcupine caribou herd migration with the Native Gwich’in community. These hardy people depend on the caribou for food, clothing and tools, just as they have for thousands of years, and their spiritual and cultural traditions revolve around the animals. They call the caribou calving grounds in the Arctic Refuge “Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit,” meaning the sacred place where life begins.

 

President Trump’s desperate push to desecrate this precious and pristine piece of God’s creation before Jan. 20 dishonors indigenous culture, denies the climate crisis and gives the definitive answer to the question we have been asking for four years: Is nothing sacred to this man? No, nothing is.”

♦♦♦

And here’s a note (edited) I just received about easy and safe ways you can help make sure there is hope for the future:

• Make calls: share your enthusiasm and hope with potential voters. You could be the reason why someone votes for Biden/Harris.
• Download the Vote Joe App: This organizing tool allows you to reach out to organize your friends & receive updates from the Democrats.
• Join Biden for President’s volunteer Slack: Connect with Joe Biden’s campaign and learn about the latest volunteer opportunities. You’ll meet other volunteers as well — virtually, of course!

In the words of the martyred union organizer and songwriter, Joe Hill:

Don’t Waste Time Mourning, Organize!

Courtesy: Alaska Conservation Foundation

Writing of Racism and Pandemics

Everybody says I must write. It’s what writers do. Words help us make sense of the world. Words can comfort and calm or inspire and challenge, all of which are sorely needed in this moment.

It’s just that I’m having trouble writing. I write in my journal most days, as I have for fifty years (??!!) but I mean writing for consumption by others. I had written a nice, hopeful blog back in May, before all hell broke lose in the white world — because of course “all hell” has been lose in the black world for a long, long time. The blog was about how COVID-19 is teaching us to appreciate the simple things and to live in the present moment. It started out thusly:

“‘Plan Ahead with Confidence!’ shouts the red banner ad splashed across my screen. I laugh out loud. I remember planning. I have years of journals filled with various versions of it: What, when, how, with whom? Nowadays the only thing I’m able to plan is my grocery list, which feels outlandishly vital. I know exactly what I’m going to get (if the shelves aren’t bare) and it’s all written in aisle-order so that I don’t waste any time wandering around with all those scary masked vectors who used to be my innocuous neighbors.

My grocery list gives me a sense of control in this time when so little is in my control, least of all, the future. Of course, the future never was in my control, but somehow planning gave me the illusion of control. In reality, all we ever have is this present moment, but these COVID days have made us more aware of this truth.”

. . . And then I prattled on about the present moment, how lovely it is to bake bread, how walking is sweet therapy, how my neighbors probably started their new gardens out of a survival instinct, but are learning to love digging in the dirt and watching seedlings sprout. Etc. It was a “nice” blog, which now reeks of white privilege to me.

Things Aren’t Nice Anymore

Since the week of May 25th, when George Floyd was slowly, tortuously murdered by a policeman in front of the whole world and we witnessed intentional, vicious white privilege in the form of a safe, professional white-lady-dog-walker, things aren’t so nice. The thin veneer of niceness that separated white reality from black reality has, at long last, been splintered into sharp shards. The President of the United States is using those shards to slash whatever vestige of American unity might have remained.

Local artist’s portrayal of George Floyd

Sitting in my living room tapping on my laptop keys seems pointless.

Instead, I’ve been on Zoom calls about systemic racism and white privilege, I’ve ordered books and more books, I’ve joined Facebook groups that help white people understand that their reality is not the only reality. I’ve had honest and uncomfortable conversations with my black friends. I’ve attended four socially distanced, masked protest vigils in my community and at my church, not wanting to risk COVID at the protests in D.C. 

Writing a New Story

 

I’m taking an online class called The New Story Community, about imagining a new human story based not on power and domination, but on community and cooperation. A speaker named Melvin Bray really resonated with me (if you click on that link, begin at 10:05). Melvin teaches that simply trying to change minds and hearts won’t dismantle racism. By the time you get to the emotional stage, it’s too late. Because racism started for reasons of gain and profit, not hatred or fear. Once you’ve enslaved a bunch of people and committed genocide against some others, you have to backfill with a rationale for your actions. So you conclude that those people are “less than . . . sub-human . . . beasts . . . need to be civilized,” or better yet, “saved” by your religion. From that rationale is created your society’s myth, the story that dictates how you live, and your emotions and beliefs. Hence, if you start with emotions and beliefs like white hatred and fear, you’re way too late. You have to start with action —  a “doing” — because that’s what started the cycle of racism.

 

These are not times for inaction or silence, and I feel restless and impatient. I pray and I meditate and I implore the cosmos, “What’s my part, what’s my role, what am I to DO?” And two words keep coming back to me: truth and write.

Writing Truth

Truth is a hard one, especially when we are experiencing a pandemic of lying, concealment, and “alternative facts.” Real truth, though, is an inner thing. It only comes when you still yourself, open your grasping hands, and sit with the grief and pain of losing whatever myths you believed about yourself and/or the world. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” I believe this, and I also believe that when anyone escapes their fearful, ego-centered thinking and opens their heart to true oneness and compassion, they are connecting with the same spirit I find in Jesus, no matter what they label it. 

So getting to truth is complicated, and confused with “reality” and “right and wrong” and “proof” and all the rest. 

But writing? Writing I can do. It’s what I’m called to do. I pray that my words and the spirit behind them will add mercy and kindness and truth to the world. I also pray that grief, confusion, cynicism, fear, outrage, guilt, and despair do not keep me from being who I’m meant to be and doing what I’m meant to do. Amen.

Amen

Grocery Shopping in the Time of COVID-19

Who would ever have imagined that grocery shopping could be such a stressful experience? Or that there would be a dozen articles published with conflicting advice about how to do it?

Go now, quick, before there are more cases!

Wait as long as you possibly can.

Wear a mask, don’t wear a mask.

Run in, grab a few things, make a dash for the exit. Stock up with enough to last you for an age.

Disinfect your groceries, don’t disinfect your groceries.

Just making my list this morning was harrowing. Putting it all in order so that I can make a direct run down every aisle, not retracing my steps, not pondering brands or quantity, avoiding other humans at all costs. How fast can I select a mango? Will there even be mangos? If there aren’t mangos, should I go for pineapple or oranges? Will there even be pineapples or oranges?

And marshmallows. Where do they keep the marshmallows? I never buy marshmallows. Do I really need them? My neighbor and I had a fire pit the other night, and we roasted the rock-hard ones she found in the back of her pantry. Actually, we had two separate fire pits, eight feet apart so neither one of us would be the cause of the other’s death.

Strange Times, Indeed

The last time I went grocery shopping, I stood in front of the honey jars and cried. I couldn’t decide which kind to buy, and I was scared. I was taking too long. Every other shopper looked like a landmine. A safe and familiar place had become a dangerous battleground.

Today I’m especially nervous because I hadn’t planned to go, so I’m not mentally prepared. Though some of my neighbors are shopping every few days, it’s been two-plus weeks for me, and I could easily make it another week. But my prescription has run out, so I’ve got to enter the combat zone anyway. May as well suck it up and do this thing.

I’m going to wear a mask, even though it’ll make me feel silly. Plus they seem to have become controversial, as has everything since the ascension of the Divider in Chief. I don’t want to get into the politics of masks here, I’ll just note that it’s criminally obscene that our government cannot equip our hospitals — at least not if a particular governor isn’t bowing down to the man who fancies himself King of America.

Right now, I cannot even think about that man’s incompetence and purposeful viciousness. I need all my energy to confront the produce aisle.