A Time to Remember That What We Need Can and Must Be Fought for and Won: When Our Breath and Heart Find Each Other

The winter holidays⎼ they bring up so much for so many of us. As with many others, I have almost always looked forward to the holidays. When I was a child, I looked forward to gifts and family celebrations. As a student and teacher, I looked forward to a vacation from work. Now that I’m retired, my focus is on getting together with family and friends. However, there were years in college that I dreaded the holidays, especially the New Year. If I didn’t have a family gathering, a party to go to, friends to be with, a date, the holidays could be lonely and alienating.

And this year especially, so hurtful. The cost of toys, presents, for example, are just too expensive. The cost of simple living is too expensive. My wife and I ignore gift-giving for ourselves. The only gift we give each other is our presence. Yet, for the children we know and charities⎼ it’s a different story. And the commercialization obscures if not undermines the deeper meaning of such moments in time.

The holidays could be so rich. Hanukah is a festival of light and freedom. Kwanzaa of family, community, and culture. Christmas of joy in the birth of Jesus. So much meaning in the depths of the holidays.

The solstice was just last week. Humans have, possibly forever, celebrated solstice, the longest reign of night, and the beginning of the cold, at least in the Northern hemisphere where I live. It’s traditionally a time to engage in rituals to assure that the sun will come again, that spring will follow winter, warmth follow cold, renewal follow hibernation.

The holidays thus have a sacred dimension, a connection to a depth of life and history. Maybe every moment does, too. Their significance is not just religious. The holidays celebrate workers getting a break from intense labor. They signify a recognition of shared humanity, however dim that recognition often was in the past and might be so today.

Every one of us needs time to rest, even for those who get no time off for the holidays. The fact that we have days of rest is beyond a right; it’s a sacred necessity.

Every one of us needs time to step back and contemplate why we’re here on this earth. We need to renew ourselves and our relationships with what surrounds us⎼ to stop, maybe close our eyes and allow ourselves to feel our feet on the ground. To feel right now, there’s no separation⎼ we can never step off the earth or out of the universe that sustains us. Realizing this is a sacred awakening.

We might also feel isolated from others. But we carry other people with us always, in our memories, in our language, in our genes, in our hopes and dreams. Feeling this is a sacred remembrance. When we feel isolated, we’re afraid. When we feel present, fear is diminished.

And there have been moments lately when I just start crying internally. I almost never let it out. Who knows what will emerge. Maybe holidays are here so when no one⎼ or just one dear someone⎼ is around, our breath and our heart can find each other.

In the past, people from many nations fought for a five-day workweek, fighting against those who oppressed them⎼ and they were successful. But today, many are forced to work more than one job just to meet basic economic needs, while the DT regime cuts programs like SNAP, MEDICAID, Headstart, school lunch programs that once helped make life possible for many. He’s working to undermine the power of the people, and is giving to the rich whatever they can steal from the rest of us.

 

*This is a rewrite of an older blog.

**To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.

Stop the King of Lies and Rip-offs from Being the King of US: What Can I Do? Is Not an Assumption of Hopelessness but A Driver of Reflection and Action

This morning, the sky was partly cloudy, after one of the wettest springs in history, with a grey haze from Canadian fires. Still, a cardinal and a vireo were singing. Outside my office, the rhododendron flowers had turned brown and were falling off the bush, but the roses were very alive with a deep red color.

 

But in our human realm, news reports set a very threatening tone to the day. This began at a news conference earlier in the week, when Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat from California, tried to ask a question of DT’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. As he tried to take a step forward to be heard, identifying himself as a US Senator (the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee on Immigration), Noem’s security detail stopped him, shoved him to the ground, where he was handcuffed and forcibly taken from the room.

 

Later, the Senator explained he had repeatedly asked DHS for information on their increasingly extreme actions against immigrants but had not received answers. He said, “If this is how this administration… the DHS responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country.”

 

Since June 6, mostly nonviolent protests continued in LA, after having been met not only with police but soldiers, National Guard troops sent in by DT against the explicit direction of California Governor Newsom. This was an even more unrestrained repeat of DT’s militarized response in 2020  to protests against the killing of George Floyd. And, as in 2020, the possibly illegal deployment of troops only served to inflame the situation further.

 

And on the morning of Saturday, June 14th, in their Minnesota home, Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state representative and her husband were assassinated, in a politically targeted killing. The assailant also shot a second Democratic lawmaker and his wife multiple times, but they both thankfully remain alive as of now.  When DT was asked by a reporter if he would call Minnesota Governor Walz, he responded with more spite than any semblance of truly caring. “Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor,” ABC News reported Trump said. “I think he’s a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too.” As of Sunday, he hadn’t called the Governor.

 

Starting Saturday morning, a “Celebration” in Washington D.C., with a military parade in the evening, honoring the 250th anniversary of the US Army⎼ and the birthday of the King of Lies. But across 200 cities covering most of the country, a NO KINGS demonstration at 1:00. Also later in the day, a Gay Pride event and a Juneteenth remembrance.

 

The events presented a dramatic contrast. The military parade celebrated not only the courage and sacrifice of soldiers, but the ego and self-centeredness of DT. In anticipation and messaging, it was frightening; but it turned out to be a sad and not well attended event.

 

The NO KINGS protests were attended by millions. They were both serious and fun, concerned for the rights and future for all of us⎼ compassionate yet defiant of DT’s attempts to destroy democracy, to mistreat and remove immigrants of color, and undermine any government agencies and policies that protect the well-being of the mass of citizens, like healthcare, Social Security, SNAP, and education.

 

The protests were peaceful yet energizing.

 

*To tread the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.