I retired at 84 from work so satisfying as an art therapist, that I took a modest hourly wage in order to have half-time free to help a community center in Mexico. Now at 95, I am incarcerated in one of the worst scams inventd by humans: a retirement home. We are fed cheap, all tan food but all the fake-tasting dessert we'll take, and have to smuggle in fresh fruit and veggies! For this I pay my entire monthy Social Ssecurity plus several hundred a month out of dwindling savings. My blessing/curse is that I walk over two miles in an hour daiiy. Forgetfulness and failing sight and hearing censor out a lot but I see war sneaking in from many sides. I predict mass extinction soon. I write poetry and play word games. My ompanions are bline, deaf, amputees or diabetic and toothless or demented. I listen to them and urge tahem to tell stories of their pasts. Dickensonian? Perhaps.
Oh how heinous, Marybeth. I am so sorry to hear about this cruel place where you are living. You have to smuggle in fresh vegetables! NO!! I bet someone is making big bucks off your misery. You must be such a good spirit for your companions there whom you encourage to tell their stories. I hope my mind is as good as yours in 15 years when I am 95!!
Thank you Kathleen. You are old enough to GET what I'm talking about and it feels good to be heard! I frankly don't think any of us will be here in 15 years. Weapons of mass destruction and greed will clear off the planet. Maybe it will start over in a few millenia and humanoids can try again.
Marybeth, you have both my heartfelt prayers and my great admiration. You are, in truth, a very bright jewel. Nursing homes can be such horrible places but one compassionate person like yourself can light up these dark places. I wish you well.
Thank you in turn for your response Marybeth! I'm in my late seventies and hale from an era when the mother language was still widely taught in K-12.
“lux umbra dei” translates literally to “light shadow (of) God (is)” usually. translated as “Light is the shadow of God” declaring that God is so figuratively.brilliant that light is but his/her shadow. Light here is not necessarily in the sense of photons or that which is taken in through the eyes. Rather a radiance, brilliance or splendor of all things praiseworthy that is taken in through the heart.
I have decided that I need to focus on the world right in front of me. Every chance I get I try to think of something to do that is nice and will send a vibe of hopefulness and kindness. When I am driving I take every opportunity to let people in front of me, I observe people in stores and on the street and see if there is something I can do to help them if needed. This gets me out of my own world and thinking about others, it shocks people that someone is kind, in a tiny way it is a little bit of hope. As I walked away from one situation where I asked two people if they needed something I heard one of the people say that wow, people are not nice any more.
Social media, news media etc are filled with horrible stories and people are saturated with awfulness so if there is just one thing we can do to show kindness it make us feel good and just maybe it will make someone else feel good. I am seeing a lot of giving and sharing from others and that warms my heart. I think of Obama who was trained as a community organizer and became president-from the ground up goodness can happen. No, I am not grandiose thinking I will be president but it sure feels good to see someone smile.
Go out and volunteer for something, smile at others, make eye contact when feeling hopeful just maybe it will bring a moment of joy to someone else or otherwise bombarded with bad news.
In my area there is Neighbors Driving Neighbors where volunteers give rides to people that need them, there are plenty of soup kitchens, churches needing volunteers, food pantries etc. It doesn’t matter who they voted for it matters what they need.
This is so Right On, Tricia. I love thinking of you so alive to the faces of the people around you and so alive to practicing compassion in its ordinary extraordinariness. it takes courage to break those boundaries we wrap around us.
Thank you Kathleen. It feels so good to be thinking of others instead of my immediate world. I have heard so many people in my life that have been in very tough medical and family situations that have recognized that others have it so much worse so I guess it helps others as well to be thinking outside their immediate situation.
Bravo, Kathleen, for tackling a difficult question. The connections to Scrooge are wonderful. The need for that story are ever present under rapacious capitalism. The difficulty for those of us who reject the MAGA message is not how to find empathy for those who have and will continue to suffer under white male American exceptionalism but for those who buy Trump’s message? Those are the hearts and minds that must be brought to empathy and a conviction that justice being served is fundamental to the American way. I disagree that we can’t have DEI initiatives. Doing away with them isn’t germane to your argument. How else do we move from empathy to justice? How do I have empathy for my neighbor who believes Trump will serve their best interests? I applaud your pursuing the questions!
Judith, you are so right about needing to find empathy for those who have swallowed the MAGA message. is it enough to say that they haven't been exposed to enough counter narratives, that the media is filled with blindfolds that keep T.'s supporters from examining our lives here from a different perspective?
That is probably a large part of the problem. If one’s daily diet is only Fox News, I guess we can’t be too surprised with their conclusions. I don’t have a clue how we address that!
Kathleen- You are so right on! I look forward to Sunday because I can read your latest writing. Today’s said so much that we need to own. Thank you!! Would love to see you two again. Peg Wetzel
OOOOOh Peg!! So so great to hear from you there in the heartland. Thank you for taking the time to read these Sunday morning missives. It would indeed be grand to see you and Bill again as well!!
Terrific in so many ways. Without commentary like this, it suggests we have surrendered. Thank you, Kathleen, for reminding us that we have to keep writing, telling, shouting that the greatness the Scrooge and his billionaire bro's are trying to sell is nothing more than opiate for the masses. Keeping quiet makes them think they can pick our pockets without a fight. This is when we get to work, words on the page, voices out loud, boots on the ground.
How fortunate Scrooge was to be visited by 3 ghosts. How unfortunate that so many of our fellow citizens are visited daily by Fox News, X and the pathological lies of the Leader.
Or, to be precise, our fellow citizens have a choice to visit those sources... I think Kathleen is right that we need narratives to shape public perception as a general rule, and even more so now that a lot of us feel numbed by the outcomes of the recent election. What news sources and voices will be the best for the coming DT#2 era?
Michael, I am so sorry to hear that your family has experienced this time of great sorrow. I had not heard from you in a while and was carrying concern for you and your health. Great sorrow on a family level and now great sorrow about the loss of our country to greed and vicious self promotion and delusional thinking. Heavy hearts heavy hearts. We must stay together and nurture human goodness which you so fully embody.
A courageous and inspiring essay Kathleen. I am recovering from a time of great sorrow for my family and so am working to catch up on all my mails, working from the top down and the bottom up! Such a flood! Trump is our president now and a morally worse man we've never elected, but a true majority of us voted for him so what does this tell us about ourselves? Virtues, decency and values mean little to us as qualifications for high office. We just want leaders who will secure us comfortable lives. Even oppressed peoples voted for him and this was their basis. We get the leaders we want. We are the problem. We have no choice but to rely on human goodness but human goodness is unreliable.
Hard for poor Dickens to compete with the likes of Fox and X. We need art even more in the face of those vultures.
This is in response to Tom Mikulka's comment. No idea how it ended up here.
I retired at 84 from work so satisfying as an art therapist, that I took a modest hourly wage in order to have half-time free to help a community center in Mexico. Now at 95, I am incarcerated in one of the worst scams inventd by humans: a retirement home. We are fed cheap, all tan food but all the fake-tasting dessert we'll take, and have to smuggle in fresh fruit and veggies! For this I pay my entire monthy Social Ssecurity plus several hundred a month out of dwindling savings. My blessing/curse is that I walk over two miles in an hour daiiy. Forgetfulness and failing sight and hearing censor out a lot but I see war sneaking in from many sides. I predict mass extinction soon. I write poetry and play word games. My ompanions are bline, deaf, amputees or diabetic and toothless or demented. I listen to them and urge tahem to tell stories of their pasts. Dickensonian? Perhaps.
Oh how heinous, Marybeth. I am so sorry to hear about this cruel place where you are living. You have to smuggle in fresh vegetables! NO!! I bet someone is making big bucks off your misery. You must be such a good spirit for your companions there whom you encourage to tell their stories. I hope my mind is as good as yours in 15 years when I am 95!!
Thank you Kathleen. You are old enough to GET what I'm talking about and it feels good to be heard! I frankly don't think any of us will be here in 15 years. Weapons of mass destruction and greed will clear off the planet. Maybe it will start over in a few millenia and humanoids can try again.
Marybeth, you have both my heartfelt prayers and my great admiration. You are, in truth, a very bright jewel. Nursing homes can be such horrible places but one compassionate person like yourself can light up these dark places. I wish you well.
Michael! How very good of you to repond to my howl of disillusionment! Could you tell me what Lux Umbra Dei means to you?
Thank you in turn for your response Marybeth! I'm in my late seventies and hale from an era when the mother language was still widely taught in K-12.
“lux umbra dei” translates literally to “light shadow (of) God (is)” usually. translated as “Light is the shadow of God” declaring that God is so figuratively.brilliant that light is but his/her shadow. Light here is not necessarily in the sense of photons or that which is taken in through the eyes. Rather a radiance, brilliance or splendor of all things praiseworthy that is taken in through the heart.
I suspect you are familiar with it.
I have decided that I need to focus on the world right in front of me. Every chance I get I try to think of something to do that is nice and will send a vibe of hopefulness and kindness. When I am driving I take every opportunity to let people in front of me, I observe people in stores and on the street and see if there is something I can do to help them if needed. This gets me out of my own world and thinking about others, it shocks people that someone is kind, in a tiny way it is a little bit of hope. As I walked away from one situation where I asked two people if they needed something I heard one of the people say that wow, people are not nice any more.
Social media, news media etc are filled with horrible stories and people are saturated with awfulness so if there is just one thing we can do to show kindness it make us feel good and just maybe it will make someone else feel good. I am seeing a lot of giving and sharing from others and that warms my heart. I think of Obama who was trained as a community organizer and became president-from the ground up goodness can happen. No, I am not grandiose thinking I will be president but it sure feels good to see someone smile.
Go out and volunteer for something, smile at others, make eye contact when feeling hopeful just maybe it will bring a moment of joy to someone else or otherwise bombarded with bad news.
In my area there is Neighbors Driving Neighbors where volunteers give rides to people that need them, there are plenty of soup kitchens, churches needing volunteers, food pantries etc. It doesn’t matter who they voted for it matters what they need.
This is so Right On, Tricia. I love thinking of you so alive to the faces of the people around you and so alive to practicing compassion in its ordinary extraordinariness. it takes courage to break those boundaries we wrap around us.
Thank you Kathleen. It feels so good to be thinking of others instead of my immediate world. I have heard so many people in my life that have been in very tough medical and family situations that have recognized that others have it so much worse so I guess it helps others as well to be thinking outside their immediate situation.
Bravo, Kathleen, for tackling a difficult question. The connections to Scrooge are wonderful. The need for that story are ever present under rapacious capitalism. The difficulty for those of us who reject the MAGA message is not how to find empathy for those who have and will continue to suffer under white male American exceptionalism but for those who buy Trump’s message? Those are the hearts and minds that must be brought to empathy and a conviction that justice being served is fundamental to the American way. I disagree that we can’t have DEI initiatives. Doing away with them isn’t germane to your argument. How else do we move from empathy to justice? How do I have empathy for my neighbor who believes Trump will serve their best interests? I applaud your pursuing the questions!
Judith, you are so right about needing to find empathy for those who have swallowed the MAGA message. is it enough to say that they haven't been exposed to enough counter narratives, that the media is filled with blindfolds that keep T.'s supporters from examining our lives here from a different perspective?
That is probably a large part of the problem. If one’s daily diet is only Fox News, I guess we can’t be too surprised with their conclusions. I don’t have a clue how we address that!
Kathleen- You are so right on! I look forward to Sunday because I can read your latest writing. Today’s said so much that we need to own. Thank you!! Would love to see you two again. Peg Wetzel
OOOOOh Peg!! So so great to hear from you there in the heartland. Thank you for taking the time to read these Sunday morning missives. It would indeed be grand to see you and Bill again as well!!
Terrific in so many ways. Without commentary like this, it suggests we have surrendered. Thank you, Kathleen, for reminding us that we have to keep writing, telling, shouting that the greatness the Scrooge and his billionaire bro's are trying to sell is nothing more than opiate for the masses. Keeping quiet makes them think they can pick our pockets without a fight. This is when we get to work, words on the page, voices out loud, boots on the ground.
Thank you Daphne!! Here's to writing, talking, shouting. Mine. Yours!!
How fortunate Scrooge was to be visited by 3 ghosts. How unfortunate that so many of our fellow citizens are visited daily by Fox News, X and the pathological lies of the Leader.
Or, to be precise, our fellow citizens have a choice to visit those sources... I think Kathleen is right that we need narratives to shape public perception as a general rule, and even more so now that a lot of us feel numbed by the outcomes of the recent election. What news sources and voices will be the best for the coming DT#2 era?
Michael, I am so sorry to hear that your family has experienced this time of great sorrow. I had not heard from you in a while and was carrying concern for you and your health. Great sorrow on a family level and now great sorrow about the loss of our country to greed and vicious self promotion and delusional thinking. Heavy hearts heavy hearts. We must stay together and nurture human goodness which you so fully embody.
Thanks!
A courageous and inspiring essay Kathleen. I am recovering from a time of great sorrow for my family and so am working to catch up on all my mails, working from the top down and the bottom up! Such a flood! Trump is our president now and a morally worse man we've never elected, but a true majority of us voted for him so what does this tell us about ourselves? Virtues, decency and values mean little to us as qualifications for high office. We just want leaders who will secure us comfortable lives. Even oppressed peoples voted for him and this was their basis. We get the leaders we want. We are the problem. We have no choice but to rely on human goodness but human goodness is unreliable.
I like the idea of raising our eyes and seeing everyone through the lens of compassion. Thank you for reminding us that everyone’s stories matter. 🙏