Author: Pat Liberty

Once every thirty-three years the Islam holiday of Ramadan, the Jewish celebration of Passover and the Christian celebration of Holy Week/Easter overlap. It’s a big deal.

Ramadan is the most sacred month for Muslims. All who are physically able fast from sun-up to sundown. It is a time of deep contemplation and focus on one’s relationship with Allah. It is a month of intense study of the Quran along with extra prayers and acts of charity. At dusk the fast is broken and family and friends gather to celebrate and share a meal. At the end of Ramadan there is a three-day festival called Eid al Fatir.

Passover is the Jewish celebration of the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the deliverance of the firstborn child of each family from death. By smearing blood on the doorposts of their houses, death “passed over” and spared the child. Contemporary Passover celebrations begin with a Seder supper in which foods symbolizing their captivity and journey to freedom are consumed. Special prayers are recited and the story of liberation is recounted.

Holy Week and Easter are Christian celebrations. They mark Jesus’ return to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival (remember Jesus was a Jew). He was subsequently arrested and put to death as an enemy of the state. Holy Week consists of Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper, Good Friday and the crucifixion, and Easter which is the celebration of resurrection.

All of these religions have a common bond in the Patriarch Abraham. Muslims trace their line back to Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. Hagar was the slave girl of Abraham and Sarah. Since Sarah was barren, Abraham had a son with Hagar. After Sarah gave birth to Isaac things got a little uncomfortable between Sarah and Hagar. Sarah sent Hagar and Ishmael away. Muslims believe that Ishmael was a prophet and a forefather of Mohammed.

Jews claim Abraham, his son Isaac and Isaac’s son Jacob as their patriarchs, the forefathers of the faith. Christians acknowledge that we are the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and thus firmly connect us to our Jewish roots. It is why we call our faith the Judeo-Christian tradition.

These three religious traditions have much in common. They all acknowledge a deep dependence on God, prayer, gratitude for the bounty and abundance of God and spiritual reflection.

Fasting is also a part of the three religious traditions. There are numerous instances of fasting in both testaments of scripture as well as the Quran. In the early church, fasting was a highly valued practice. Those who were able fasted on Wednesday and Friday until 3:00 p.m. That did not change until the institutionalizing of Christianity by Constantine in the fourth century (that is putting it kindly). Fasting then accompanied the desert mothers and fathers as a spiritual discipline and has since remained slightly out of the mainstream of Christian practice.

However it is embodied, fasting is a reminder that God is the true source of everything. All sustenance comes directly from God. Through fasting, the rich know what it is like to be hungry and they are (hopefully) moved to greater acts of charity on behalf of the poor and hungry.

John Thompson, Associate Professor of religion and philosophy at Christopher Newport’s College says of fasting, “I think you can learn what it means to be human.”

These three major world religions are all children of Abraham.

In this season each is engaged in a time of intense prayer, devotion, fasting and acts of charity. Each tradition tells the story of their faith and how it is lived out in their families. They challenge one another to greater expressions of faith and devotion by the way they live in the world and how they live in the world-wide community.

The convergence of these three religious traditions creates a spiritual energy that permeates the universe. We can harness that energy for the benefit of the world. There is a potential to change the world as we share the richness of our faith traditions. As we pray for our Abrahamic sisters and brothers and look for areas of commonality, we can minimize the misunderstanding and tensions that exist between these traditions. As sisters and brothers in the Abrahamic tradition, it is incumbent on us to deal with our prejudices, fears and anxieties about the traditions that are not our own but whose history we share. Crystal Dunlap of themedialine.org writes, this is an “opportunity for three main faiths of the Holy Land to remember our relationship with one another while we pray and practice good deeds together.”

By being faithful to whatever tradition we claim, we cast our energy into the world for the sake of the world. We are all children of Abraham.

Be sure to listen to the song of the week: All the Children of Abraham by John McCutcheon. You can listen here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6S59OR1VaE

Every now and then some crazy politician goes off on a tear about America being a Christian nation. That perspective is fed each time someone places a picture on social media about needing school prayer. It is fed each time someone criticizes someone “out there” who is offended by the phrase, “one nation under God.” My question is always “is that Jesus or Allah?” The question is enough to send some people into orbit and render others completely silent. But if we are going to claim to be one nation under God, we should at least be clear about what God we are talking about (even though they are all ultimately One).

America was not founded as a Christian nation. It is true that a small number of settlers in North America came to find religious freedom. They were a minority. The majority of settlers in America came to exploit the resources of the land and set up new trade routes. But the notion of a Christian nation persists. One reason is the pledge of allegiance: “one nation under God.” Those words are a relatively new addition to the pledge.

Most people don’t’ know the history of the Pledge of Allegiance. They think it was tattooed on Jesus’ butt when he came forth from Mary’s womb. The words, however, are of human and more humble origin. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy (did you catch the word “socialist?”).  It was published in The Youth’s Companion and it was Bellamy’s hope that it would be used by citizens in any country.

The original words were “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

In 1923 the words, “the Flag of the United States of America,” were added. In response to communist threats in the 1950’s President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words, “under God.” Our current 31 word Pledge of Allegiance has only been around since 1954. It has nothing to do with the Founding Father’s (and mothers) intentions, the framers of the Constitution, or blah, blah, blah.

What was in the mind of the Founding Fathers (and mothers) was the separation of church and state, a line that is becoming perilously thin in our increasingly autocratic political times. The earliest dreams of our nation held forth a freedom of religion (or a freedom from religion, as one may desire). The First Amendment to the Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In short this means you can be a Baptist, a Jew, a Buddhist, a member of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (yeah, it’s a thing), an agnostic, an atheist or a tree hugger. So when the political nut jobs of the day get the microphone and talk about “one nation under God” they are standing on shaky historical ground. Of course most of the political nut jobs have probably not read the constitution so they are blowing their ignorance out their ears.

It is past time for us to reclaim the social narrative around religious expression in a pluralistic society.  The separation of church and state is firmly baked into the Constitution and held to as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy.  This means that our social narrative needs to make room for religious practices other than our own. I would go so far as to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, though that would rankle a lot of people. Rankle away. I’m okay with it.

America is a secular nation. Some of the values that have been esteemed historically are loosely based on the Christian faith. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a secular nation, and I daresay the esteemed Christian values have long since been eclipsed by free market capitalism, greed and corporate power run amok.

Hiding behind some goofy notion of America as a Christian nation is a false narrative for our country. It feeds Christian nationalism, skews Christian faith and encourages the lines between church and state to be further blurred. Freedom of religion (or from religion) means any religion. This is the needed social narrative for our country.    

Peace is not something you wish for;

It’s something you make,

Something you do,

Something you are,

And something you give away.

John Lennon

For today, I am giving away peace. To every person I meet I will wish them deep peace. I will look them in the eye, see them as a human being and wish them the peace that passes all understanding.

I will pray for the grace to live peace in my own soul, because it’s the only way I have a snowball’s chance in August of pulling this off. Mustering deep peace is possible only when connected to the Holy. My own efforts at wishing someone deep peace will go right out the window the first time someone tail gates me on the highway. Sadly, but honestly, I am too judgmental, too snarky and too impatient to ever pull this peace thing off on my own.

In the fervent hope that I am not alone in this and I haven’t blown all my credibility, here are a few thoughts on wishing others deep peace and what it means for our world.

It is only when we are connected to the Source of peace that we can wish peace to another. It doesn’t mean that we have to have our own house perfectly in order and do everything “right” (isn’t that the best news you’ll hear today). Life is messy and complicated. It rarely fits into the little boxes we create to corral the most challenging issues we face. We are frailly and fabulously human. None of this changes our capacity to look someone in the eye and wish them peace. In fact, it can help ground us and remind us of our connection to the Source of peace.

In these days of uncertainty and war, as images of refugees and wounded soldiers float across our TV screens with the same neutrality as the Muppets, wishing others deep peace may be the single most important thing we can do.

Most of us can’t hop a plane and fly half way across the world to work with refugees. Most of us don’t have tons of extra money we can send to reputable relief agencies to solve the refugee crisis unfolding before our eyes.

What we can do is live into deep peace with every person we meet. I believe the universe has a   positive energy that is fed by the human energy of every person who lives peace, wishes peace, does justice and lives gently on the earth.

We are part of a world-wide community that is filled with people we will never meet, who nonetheless are our sisters and brothers. I believe that what I do in my little corner of the world matters to the whole.

Like war, peace must be waged, and we do that in the way that we live each day, connected to the Source of peace and living out of that relationship. So, for today (and maybe tomorrow and the next day) let us wish others deep peace. These small gestures have the power to change the world.

Judyth Hill writes:

“Wage peace with your breath. Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds. Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields. Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees. Breathe in the fall and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud. Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers. Make soup. Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages. Learn to knit, and make a hat. Think of chaos as dancing raspberries. Imagine grief as the out breath of beauty or the gesture of fish. Swim to the other side.

Wage peace. Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious. Have a cup of tea and rejoice. Act as if armistice has already arrived. Celebrate today.”

And I would add, wish deep peace to everyone you meet.

Once a decade voting districts are changed. The theory of redistricting is good. Based on census information, districts are drawn to reallocate seats in areas with the densest population. That’s not how it works in reality.

From this round of redistricting there are some disturbing trends. According to the New York Times, the number of competitive congressional districts is at the lowest level in thirty years. Redrawing district lines assures that congressional races are all but over before the general election. Fewer than 40 of the 435 seats are considered to be competitive based on 2020 election results. Fifteen years ago that number was 73 (which is still troubling).

This happens in both Republican and Democratic strongholds. It is, however, worth noting that Republicans control the mapmaking in twice as many districts as Democrats. Redistricting inevitably favors the prevailing political party. Cracking and packing are the two processes that end up favoring incumbent political parties. Cracking is when pockets of like-minded voters are separated by drawing new district lines. This dilutes their vote into several regions. Packing is when district lines are redrawn to concentrate like-minded voters into one region, thereby giving their vote increased clout.

While there is a Constitutional amendment against gerrymandering, the Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause that federal courts have no role to play in blocking partisan gerrymandering. It leaves it to the states to draw district lines. Some states leave redistricting to independent boards while other states use elected officials (talk about the fox guarding the hen house!). Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, states that have a history of gerrymandering are not required to submit their redrawn voting district lines to Federal voting officials. Prior to this Pennsylvania had to re-draw its congressional maps 10 times before the 2018 elections. Texas had to redraw its lines every year since the Voting Rights Act. Now there is no federal supervision to redrawing district lines. State Courts and not the Supreme Court have more and more power over the redistricting process. It is grim.

All of this matters in a big way. Such gerrymandering decreases authentic competition in voting races and increases polarization between the political parties. This guarantees that some senate and representative seats will flip to the opposite party due to cracking and packing. The larger result is the political gridlock in which Washington is mired. If Republicans gain more seats in the House in the mid-term elections, we could see gridlock in both Houses. This makes it almost impossible for politicians to get anything done. The government has a hard enough time getting anything done as it is.

For example, Republicans blocked the Senate from considering a wide ranging women’s reproductive rights bill. This continues to happen even though a vast majority of Americans favor women’s reproductive rights. As the Supreme Court becomes more politicized there is a chance that Roe v. Wade will be completely gutted. Multiple states are waiting in the wings to follow Texas’ lead in limiting women’s reproductive rights.

It’s easy to see how something as seemingly benign as redistricting has far reaching political implications at the state and national level. As voices and votes are diluted or amplified, political accountability is diminished. The face of American politics and the democratic process is being eroded for at least the next ten years. There is a danger, however, that the polarizations created by redistricting will be self-perpetuating for all the reasons already noted.  

As people of faith we are called to speak truth to power. It means we have to call our legislators to account when they do not represent us. It means we need to have a very long memory so we can speak to this process in ten years. The voice of faith has always been the minority report in public life. Still, we have an obligation to be that voice in the political process. It’s easy to think the government runs on auto-pilot, but in reality it runs on hidden political agendas, big money and gerrymandered voting districts.

We need to pay attention to our democracy or it will be no more.

Every year during Lent the Protestant churches in the town where I was living at the time would get together for services on Wednesday nights.  Churches would take turns hosting, different pastors would lead the services and sometimes the choirs would collaborate on a special piece of music.

The little Methodist church that volunteered to host a service just about every year was always a place of interest for me. The building was somewhat nondescript early twentieth century gothic architecture with dust that was probably older than I was. Painted on the back of the chancel wall was a huge mural.  A blonde haired, blued eyed Jesus sat on the shore of a perfectly blue lake looking dreamily into space with a look of utter serenity.  Lollipop trees surrounded the placid water and it all gathered under an azure sky with cotton candy clouds bathed in golden sunlight.

The whole thing was fairly hideous and I passed the time in worship coming up with names for this mural, like Jesus at Lake Winnipesaukee or Jesus of Sweden visits the Finger Lakes.  I think it may have been the first time I hoped God had a sense of humor.

I was sitting in that little Methodist church staring at that ridiculous mural when I first heard, or at least first really listened to the Gospel story of Jesus in the Temple. Jesus was turning over tables, thrashing a whip, emptying coin coffers, driving out the animals and shouting in anger. The image collided with the mural of Jesus at Lake Winnipesaukee but also every other Jesus image I knew. Most popular images of Jesus, though none of us know what he looked like, are akin to Solomon’s Head of Christ, Jesus with little children, or healing blind Bartimeus, and various images of Jesus on the Cross. Angry Jesus isn’t in the mix.

A little history is helpful, so please bear with me. You may remember that when Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph went to the temple and sacrificed a dove as commanded by the law.  Animals that were to be sacrificed at the temple were to be without blemish. 

The temple sellers that Jesus flipped out on performed a practical service for worshippers.  First, it was easier to buy something upon arrival than to schlep a sheep from the hinterlands.  Second, what kind of bind would a pilgrim be in if, upon inspection, they were told their animal was not suitable for sacrifice?  

Third, the law required that Jews have no graven images and Caesar’s image was on every Roman coin.  Jews, by law could not use Roman coins for a monetary offering at the temple without breaking a religious law they valued.  It is, after all, one of the Big Ten….  So the moneychangers and animal sellers provided an important service that was needed if Temple worship was to continue in faithfulness to the Law. 

It’s important to note that Jesus had no problem with the law itself.  Misinterpreting texts like this one has fanned the flames of anti-Semitism for hundreds of years.  What had Jesus so upset was that this form of worship had become an end in itself.  Worship was no longer about honoring God, it was about crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s. What got Jesus unhinged was the empty piety of it all. No matter how faithfully conceived, it had now gone completely awry.

It’s an honest albeit disconcerting invitation to look at ourselves and what we make important in our religious and spiritual lives. Sometimes we major in the minors and forget the bigger picture of what mean it means to be human in this frail and fragile world.   

But the passion that sparked Jesus’ outburst is still available to all of us…and asks us to pay attention. It’s a passion for justice and faithfulness expressed in deeds of kindness and care, equality and grace.

This Jesus who goes ballistic in the courtyard is the same Jesus who loves the little children, the same Jesus who heals blind Bartimeus and heals the centurion’s daughter. 

This Jesus who is shouting and hollering in the vestibule is the same Jesus who asked the one who was without sin to cast the first stone at the woman who was shoved before him to be judged.

This Jesus, who set the animals free, is the same one who healed the lame and loved the ones no one else could stand to be around.

The loving Savior to whom we pray while we watch and wait at the bedside of our loved ones, is the same loving Savior who weeps at the lack of health care available to the poor.

The gentle Savior whom we seek in the places of our own brokenness and pain is the same gentle Savior who cares for those whose brokenness we find so easy to judge.

This Jesus who is so unhinged and bent out of shape in these acts of anger and outrage is motivated by the same care, love and grace as when we see him in his most tender moments. 

Being a person of faith is, in part, about meeting Jesus as he is in all his humanness. Being a person of faith means that what matters most to us takes a back seat to what matters most to God. It means that what makes us different is eclipsed by the love that makes us one. We would do well to become unhinged by the same things that unhinged Jesus.

I am in the waiting room of Facebook jail. The independent fact checkers have determined I have repeatedly shared false information that violates their community standards. Finding their community standards was a bit of a search. Once I found them I was left confused.

The actual posts were removed, so I am unable to see what they deemed unfit (not helpful). And while there is an appeal process I have used in the past, such an appeal is not available to me in this circumstance. Instead, for the next 90 days all my posts will appear in the cellar of the Facebook news feed. So keep on scrolling….

All this raises the question about the razor’s edge line between censorship and holding to some standard for sharing information. It feels a bit like the Facebook police just remove stuff they don’t like, but it is a lot more complicated than that. Monitoring millions of posts a day is a behemoth task at best. There are complicated algorithms to flag hot button words, misinformation, disinformation and the like. The person in charge of all this is Monika Bickert. According to Vanity Fair she is “…one of a handful of people, along with her counterparts at Google, with real power to dictate free speech norms for the entire world.” Fifteen thousand independent fact checkers (the Facebook police) and a constantly evolving set of community standards is how Facebook decides what is appropriate and what is not. It means that this handful of people has tremendous control over the information that is shared in the free world.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me very nervous.

Sharing false information is not something I knowingly do. And who decides if it’s false? And how do they decide this? I do my research and use sources I trust. On my personal page I share mostly comics, memes and articles I find interesting. I use the New York Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and writers like economist Robert Reich and biblical scholars like Walter Brueggemann. I don’t think they knowingly share misinformation either. The truth is that all publications have a spin. I just happen to like the spin of these publications. Apparently the Facebook police do not.

One article that appeared to be chopped by the Facebook police was by Robert Reich about inflation. He contends that inflation is being caused by the “concentration of the American economy into the hands of a relative few corporate giants with the power to raise prices.” This sounds about right to me and it has tremendous implications for companies like Facebook (now called Meta). Little wonder it disappeared on the cutting room floor of the Facebook police office.

The purpose of my writing is to explore the intersection of faith, politics and culture. I endeavor to be a voice of reasoned faith, progressive Christianity and moral centeredness in a world that is increasingly unmoored from its foundations. This apparently violates their community standards. Go figure.

When Jesus stood before Pilate on the eve of his crucifixion Jesus said: “I have come to testify to the truth. In response Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” It is a question we do well to ponder. What are the standards we use to evaluate information? Where do we get our information? If all publications have a spin, what is the spin that lines up with our values? Where are our values formed and how do we live them out?

There are many versions of the “truth” out there. It is up to us to listen through the cacophonous riot of information that assaults us every day and determine for ourselves what we will proclaim as truth.

The anchor in all this, as people of faith, is the gospel as revealed in Scripture. And here is where it gets dicey. You can prove almost anything by reading the bible. Anyone can take a verse out of context and use it as “proof” of a particular point.

Something more is asked of us, as people of faith. We are to be lifetime students of Scripture. The consistent message of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation is God’s unshakeable love for all humanity and creation, the unwavering call to a life of discipleship and obedience, a constant striving for a just world and an insatiable hunger for peace. This is the truth toward which all of Jesus’ life and teaching pointed. Of course, we may end up in Facebook Jail, and I guess that’s okay, I’ll take the truth of the gospel I believe with every fiber of my being no matter where I end up.

Yet even now, says the Lord,

return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with

mourning;

rend your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord, your God,

for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger

and abounding in steadfast love.

Joel2:12-13

When I was a kid I thought Catholic kids were so cool. They came to school with dark smudges on their foreheads. We ate fish sticks on Friday because the Catholic kids couldn’t eat meat. I was in awe of their holy days of obligation and complex explanations of mortal sins, venial sins and the need to go to confession.  I longed to genuflect. 

But, alas, we were Protestants and Congregationalists at that, and no such holy things happened in our little church. Ash Wednesday slipped by unnoticed and we took little account of Lent and Holy Week.  As the years went by the notion of giving up something for Lent managed to enter our liturgy-less worship.  As a teenager most of my peers did battle with demon chocolate while I faced the evil potato chip.  Together we dutifully denied our desires for favorite foods, but I secretly wondered if my and everyone else’s faithfulness was truly measured by this yearly ritual. Though I tried to take it seriously I didn’t really get it. Lent and ashes all remained a mystery.

I’m not all that sure I get it now either, but the reasons are different.  It’s not that I am unwilling to engage in some Lenten discipline, but I’m pretty clear that not much is going to happen in the world as a result of my not eating potato chips for the next forty days, except a dip in the gross domestic product.  It seems meaningless in the face of the world’s needs. My sins have more to do with how I fail in God’s commands to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.  Of the 613 commandments in the First Testament I’m not aware of one that has to do with potato chips.

So gratefully my search for a more meaningful expression of Lenten discipline found a ground in the words of Joel. This obscure little prophet about whom little is known connects the dots in a simple but profound way.  Like most prophets he sounds the alarm about the world and the mess it is in.  His words are, as Walter Bruegemann notes, a summons to emergency.

There is much we share with people of antiquity. There is a summons to emergency in our time.  We cannot gather for worship and prayer without Ukraine being heavy on our hearts. And this is just the most recent upset caused by power and greed.

 Joel’s main beef is that Israel had forgotten who God is. This lament is not about personal failures, it is about the community of faith’s failure to honor God in its corporate worship and its deeds in the world. And while everyone had a place personally in that failure, this text is not primarily about personal repentance.  It is a corporate lament.  

Jerusalem has forgotten God’s utter fidelity and, as Brueggemann notes, “When God’s fidelity is jettisoned human relations become unfaithful and society disintegrates.”  Thus the purpose of religious discipline is to remember who God really is, what is promised by God, and what is required for God.

That’s way better than a potato chip dilemma.  It suggests that God cares more about the world being a mess and about God’s people being indifferent than about the state of my cholesterol-related confessions.

The Ghanaian Methodist theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye speaks of God being agitated. This agitation – described in kindred words in many biblical texts – is both compassion and distress. Most of all, Oduyoye writes, God is agitated at suffering and injustice.

God is agitated. God is appalled. God weeps. And God the Lover longs for us to return Godward, with tears.

It is here that our personal spiritual practice meets the pain of the world.  It is the cry of the Prophet Joel: “Return to the Lord your God.…” Our meager self-denials are not the fruit of repentance called for in this season. Rather, we are called to take seriously what God asks of us as people of faith.

History is written by the winners. They get to shape the narrative, decide which story is told and how it is told. Black history is the invisible history of our country and has scarcely been told. There are hundreds of thousands of stories that remain in the shadows. Heroes and heroines, the brave and brilliant, the robust and resilient; they are the unseen backbone of our nation. Here are a few of their stories, appearing in no particular order. This is why we need Black History Month.

• Captain Richard D. Macom of Birmingham, Alabama earned a degree in mathematics in 1942. A year later, he joined the Army Air Force and two years later graduated and joined the 302^nd Fighter Squadron. He flew multiple missions and was eventually shot down and held as a prisoner of war for nine months. He received the Air Medal and a Purple Heart. He retired in 1945 with the rank of Captain.
• Louise Celia Fleming was the first African American to graduate from the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. She graduated in 1895 and was appointed by the Women’s Missionary Foreign Mission Society to serve as a medical missionary to Upper Congo. She was known for the quality care she provided and for training local Congolese men and women in basic medical skills so that people of the region had localized access to care.
• Frederick McKinely Jones is responsible for the refrigeration system for trucks and railroad cars. He received a patent in 1942. During WWII his invention preserved blood, medicine and food for use in army hospitals and open battlefields.
• Selma Burke created the portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt that was later featured on the US dime. She never received credit or remuneration for her work.
• Huey P. Newton was co-founder of the Black Panther Party. He had a Ph.D. in Social Science. During its brief existence the Black Panthers founded health care clinics, schools and social centers for blacks in poor neighborhoods.
• Clara Belle Drisdal Williams was the first African American graduate of New Mexico State University. Many of her professors would not allow her to sit in the classroom, so she took notes from the hallway. She also was not allowed to walk with her class to get her degree.  She became a great teacher of black students by day; and by night she taught their parents, former slaves, home economics. In 1961, New Mexico State University named a street after her and in 2005 the English department building was named after her. In 1980 she was awarded an honorary doctorate and the University apologized for the treatment she had been subjected to as a student.
• Cathay Williams was the first documented black woman to enlist in the US Army. She served as an Army cook during the Civil War and traveled with infantry units as they moved from state to state. In 1866 she enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the 38^th US Infantry, the Buffalo Soldiers, and traveled throughout the west with her unit. She was not discovered to be a woman until 1868. She was subsequently honorably discharged.
• Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus long before Rosa Parks. She was 15. She challenged the driver and was subsequently arrested. She was the first woman detained for her resistance in the Civil Rights Movement.
• Bessie Coleman was the first licensed Black pilot in the world. Coleman went to flight school in France in 1919 and paved the way for a new generation of diverse fliers like the Tuskegee airmen, Blackbirds, and the Flying Hobos.
• Phillis Wheatley was the first Black woman to publish a book of poetry. She had no formal education as she was a slave of the Wheatley family during the mid-1700’s.
• Gwendolyn Brooks was the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for her work, Annie Allen. She served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress and was poet laureate of the state of Illinois.
• Jane Bolin was the first Black woman to attend Yale Law School in 1931. She became the first Black female judge in the US in 1939. She advocated throughout her life for people to be hired on the basis of their skills and not their skin color.

There are so many more stories that remain untold: extraordinary women and men who overcame horrific circumstances to make courageous and lasting contributions to our society and to our world. Telling their stories helps to balance the scales.

My friend Kathy (Physical Therapist extraordinaire) posted this on Facebook not long ago. I asked her if I could share it in a blog. I do so with her permission and blessing. Thank you, Kathy.

“This just happened. I was making a work-related phone call, and the woman I talked to is the mom of someone that a mutual acquaintance told me recently had lost a son to drug overdose. So, here I was unexpectedly talking to his grandmother. And I said something about it, with due apologies that I hoped I wasn’t intruding, but that I’d heard the terrible news about their heartbreaking loss, and that I grieved for them. And she thanked me for bringing it up because, she said, most people are afraid to say anything and that makes you feel even more alone with your sorrow. And I said, yes I knew exactly how that felt. And she said, if I felt inclined, to send them a card, because cards really helped, too. And I said I would. And she said again she was so glad I mentioned it, even though we were now both sniffling on the phone. And then we chuckled at that and wished each other well.

Say something. Just say you are sorry to hear a person’s awful news. You don’t have to fix anything. Just acknowledge it. Saying nothing makes people feel invisible. Which is worse.”

Wise words from a wise woman.

When unspeakable loss happens in the life of another, we are afraid to upset them. We worry that we will somehow make things worse by bringing it to mind. Trust me; it is already in their every waking moment. The best thing we can do is mention it. Kathy is right; we don’t have to fix anything. There is nothing to fix. A simple, heartfelt expression of sympathy is enough.

Such tender words validate loss and let people know they are not alone. Grief is often a very lonely experience. We can make it less so by sharing a few words of care.

In the instance of drug overdose there is also a stigma. Families feel shame and embarrassment when a loved one dies of an overdose. It often exposes, for the first time, that their loved one had a substance abuse problem. This creates a double whammy. Chances are good that there is someone in our circle of friends who has a loved one who struggles with substance abuse. It is true in my family. It means we live with the constant fear that we will get “the phone call” about a deadly overdose.  It means we feel helpless to do anything that will make a difference. It means we feel isolated and alone with this truth and this worry.

With any other illness or malady there is empathy and ease of talking about it. There is no stigma to cancer (unless it is lung cancer, then we secretly rag on people for smoking). We express our care and concern for those who are ill and undergoing treatment. It is okay to talk about it with people in our circle of friends and family.

Drug addiction, overdose and death are a different story. It’s time to break the stigma. This is far too big an issue to remain under the rug of some stupid idea of social propriety. Deaths from drug overdose are the unspoken epidemic of our time. “Provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate that there were an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 12-month period ending in April 2021, an increase of 28.5% from the 78,056 deaths during the same period the year before. (CDC.gov). These numbers are likely much higher due to underreporting.

The best thing we can do is say something. Loss needs validation. Sadness is made for sharing, if only for a brief moment on the telephone. Grief shared is grief made easier to bear. Say something. Whether it brings tears, laughter or some of both, it is one of the kindest things we can do.

So, suck it up people. Put on your grown up pants and take a risk for the sake of someone you care about. It may seem counter-intuitive to bring it up, but trust me words of comfort and care are the most important words we can utter on any given day.  

As a young boater, everything was a new experience. To say I was clueless is generous. The first year I owned a boat I decided I would sail across the bay to attend a Fourth of July parade with friends.

When I arrived in front of my friend’s house, I threw the anchor overboard, set it and rowed the dinghy to shore. As it happened, the mast perfectly lined up with a tree. I kept looking at the tree and the mast to assure they were lined up and the boat wasn’t moving.

We headed off to the parade and returned a few hours later. I ran ahead of the others to see how the mast lined up with the tree. The good news is the tree was still there. The bad news is my boat was gone, not visible to the naked eye, just gone. Wading out into the water I frantically looked for my boat. With a pair of binoculars I saw it offshore a few miles away bobbing along without a care in the world. I, on the other hand, was a basket case.

My friend fired up his motor boat and we sped off toward my bereft sail boat. I jumped aboard, pulled up the anchor, tied up to the motor boat and towed my sailboat back. When I was ready to set the anchor again, my friend told me not to throw the anchor overboard, but to gently lower it into the water and feed out the rode (boat speak for rope). As it turned out, my first anchoring attempt resulted in the chain being wrapped around the anchor which prevented it from setting properly into the mud.

It was the first and last time I ever dragged anchor on a boat. I wish I could say the same thing was true for my life. It is easy to drag anchor, to move away from the things that center and ground me. And sometimes I don’t realize it until I am far away from where I want to be.

It is a subtle but powerful thing that causes us to drag anchor in our lives.

We are all pandemic weary. The waxing and waning of cases, fear for ourselves and our loved ones, invisible grief of loss that is not validated in community and the endless fighting between science and conspiracy theories are enough to drive anyone to distraction.

The pandemic has changed many aspects of our lives. Jobs have changed or evaporated; child care is a juggling act and inflation has us watching every penny. It’s easy to drag anchor as we try and manage it all.

Add to this the subtle but powerful bombardment with hundreds of images a day that try to convince us that we need this latest gadget or this do-it-all-doodad. Television and social media create false narratives of success. We end up bobbing along, dragging anchor away from the place that gives our lives true meaning.

A new book by British journalist Jonathan Hari, titled Stolen Focus, is about dragging anchor. He doesn’t use that terminology, but the meaning is the same. He posits that we have lost our capacity to pay attention, to focus on what’s important and stay rooted in what gives us meaning. Our capacity to deeply engage a complex problem, see a project through or quiet our innermost selves to listen to the Spirit is diminished by all that goes on around us. It may be one reason for the growing concern about adults taking medications for Attention Deficit Disorder. Adderall and other amphetamine drugs are on the rise with adults. Some say this is the next addiction that will need our attention.

Truth be told, it is hard to settle down and focus. We are bombarded with thoughts about things left undone, new things to work on, everyday tasks, the unique worries of our own lives and so much more.

The remedy is to get back to the place where we set our anchor. What is most important in your life? What anchors your life? How secure is the place where you set your anchor? When we are clear about what anchors our life, everything else comes to a different and manageable perspective. We can prioritize what’s most important, set other things aside, clear the schedule and make time for what and who we value. Most importantly, we come to realize that the tasks of life will never be done. There will always be something left undone, and that’s okay.

The time spent anchoring, whether in meditation, nature walks, reading, playing or whatever anchors you are the most important moments you can spend every day. Gently put your anchor overboard.  Lower it slowly and feel it touch the bottom. Feed out the rode and set the anchor. Let it dig into the security of the bottom layer of mud and stones. Trust that it will hold. Know that it is the most important thing you can do every day