Category: social justice

NOT One-Size-Fits-All, or What Would You Tell a Pregnant 10-year-old?

On By AnnIn Activism, faith, Family, social justice2 Comments

I turned in my primary election ballot this morning. Folks can still request an advance ballot until tomorrow, or they can vote early at the courthouse for another week. Election day is August 2. For those who might be confused about the amendment issue on the ballot, I think it boils down to whether you trust the legislature to protect the health and future of everyone, or just the unborn? In other words, what would you want for a pregnant 10-year-old rape victim? As I think about my own innocent grandchildren, ages from 1 to 12, the answer is clear to me. A child at that age should not be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

Nobody I know is “pro-abortion”. We are, however, pro-choice. Abortion is an option that is tragic, but it is not a simple, right-or-wrong, black-or-white issue. We must keep legal abortion available as an option for women–and girls–in crisis pregnancies.

Before you write me off as a “Baby Killer,” let me assure you I am not. I hate to see anyone or anything hurting. All my life I have befriended the friendless, rescued turtles crossing highways, and taken steps to avoid hurting most other living things for as long as I can remember. (Exceptions: mosquitoes, ticks, and flies.) It is preposterous to think I could choose to end the life of my own unborn child. It’s simply not within the realm of possibilities.

But this is not a simple thing. It’s not a “one-size-fits-all” issue. It is not “one solution for every situation.”

There is not a person on earth who can anticipate all the different factors facing a mother who is considering abortion. Each situation is unique and must be considered individually by those involved—the distressed mother, her family, and the medical team. The rest of us have no right to interfere or to judge.

I come to this realization through a sequence of events unique to my own life. And I wonder, how many of those so quick to condemn other women facing dismal choices know what it’s like to lose a baby?

I do. I lost two. Not through abortion, but through natural deaths. They were both stillborn. The babes would both be 39 and 40 now and not a day goes by that I don’t miss them. They were very much loved and wanted, but it was not to be. I do believe God loves them too and I find comfort thinking they entered his benevolent care the moment of their deaths. We can’t forget what lies beyond.

How many women quick to condemn others for a difficult decision have ever been offered the option of ending a problem pregnancy through abortion? I have. Twice.

After the first baby’s death, the best my medical team had to offer was frequent sonograms during two subsequent pregnancies. They would then recommend an abortion should things start to go wrong.

I declined. Note again: I DECLINED. I couldn’t have opted for an abortion on either one. Instead, I chose not to have any sonograms at all. If something was to happen, I didn’t want to know it.

I am grateful to this day, however, that I was offered the choice. The decision was ultimately mine to make, and nobody else’s. My choice was to cherish every moment I had with my children, for as much time as we had together.

I lost the second baby too. But the third pregnancy, six years later, left me with a precious girl who now has two healthy girls of her own.

I wonder other things about those outspoken critics of pro-choice folks. How many of them have felt the knife-twist of agony to hear that an un-named teenage girl has chosen an abortion for her child rather than allow you to adopt the infant? I have. And I grieved anew for another baby lost. (But I still support her right to choose.)

How many critics have opened their homes to raise a child brought into the world by others? I have. The adoption and the parenting of my daughter proved to be one of the most challenging decisions of my life.

How many have opened their homes, offering shelter to young women wrestling with an unwanted pregnancy? Instead of condemning the unknown young woman who chose abortion over adoption, I became an advocate for girls in crisis situations, offering my home to house them until delivery. I hoped that my actions helped reassure those women that their unborn child would be treasured in an adoptive family.

How many have experienced conversations with a woman who, after hearing my story of loss and adoption, tearfully confessed to ending an unexpected pregnancy years previously. She agonized over her decision and felt a need to apologize to me, an adoptive mom. I offered her my shoulder to cry on and my compassion.

There is nothing simple about this issue.  I’ve never encountered a child as young as age 10 who had to confront the question. I have heard, though, that there were recently three 11-year-olds in my state whose parents sought to end their pregnancies. It should be an individual choice, not something politicians can dictate.

I’m glad I was offered a choice. I chose life for my children. It was God who had other plans for some of them.

With the temperature of our planet climbing beyond the point of no return, there is much more to be concerned with now. I choose life again—life for all of us, born and unborn, children, youth, adults and the aging, people on every continent and island nation, the threatened species on our beautiful and diverse planet.

Preserve individual choice with compassionate support for distressed mothers and let’s move forward. We have a lot of work to do. I am not a baby-killer. I don’t want to be a planet-killer either.

Stop. Just Stop.

On By AnnIn faith, Family, History, Loss and Grief, social justiceLeave a comment

This is getting complicated.

So the word is out. There have been millions of babies killed through abortions since the procedure was legalized. I wonder about that. How many of those were fetuses that would never have lived, had they been born? How many procedures were done to save the mother’s life? I have grave reservations about the truth of that statement. Twenty-five million giggly babies just snuffed out? That’s trying to simplify a very complex statistic. After all, in recent years, the objections to terminating a pregnancy have yielded strict limitations on just what kind of pregnancy is eligible.

I am old enough to have come of age during the original fight to legalize abortion. When I was an adolescent, the procedure was illegal. But that didn’t mean abortions didn’t happen. And consequences were severe for desperate women seeking help. Too often, illegal abortions ended up killing or maiming the mother anyway. The legalization of abortion was a life-saving step. Just making it illegal will not stop desperate women from seeking to end a desperate pregnancy.

This all alludes to a sort of class warfare. Did you know, for instance, that 75% of abortions in recent years were for women at or below the federal poverty line? 60% of the women already had children at home that they couldn’t afford to feed. 55% of women who received abortions were single. They had precious little financial help to reach the $196,984 cost of raising a child to age 18. (Yes! Magazine Spring 2022)

It might have been in the early years that the procedure was sought too lightly. But no more. Today, almost all the people I know, pro-choice as well as pro-life, agree that abortion should never be used as a simple form of birth control. We must keep other contraceptives available and affordable and eliminate unwanted pregnancies. Is that a point we all can agree on?

You might find it surprising how many pro-choicers abhor the fact that some women have used abortion as a contraceptive. You might also be surprised how many of us pro-choicers, if offered the choice due to abnormal fetus development, would choose to continue our own pregnancies. After all, if faced with some dire news, you would do that. I would too. But it would be our own choice.

None of us have the right, though, to tell others what they can or can’t do. We simply don’t know all the details.

So has abortion been misused? Sadly, yes, by some. Therefore, you say, we should outlaw all abortions again. It’s just like:

A few people who misuse alcohol and drive drunk. Innocent people have been killed by drunk drivers. Obviously, we’ve banned all alcohol and all cars, right?

Or—A few people misuse guns, and go on shooting rampages, killing children in their school classrooms, and people in shopping centers or theaters or at parades. So of course, we have instituted a national ban on guns, haven’t we?

Oh. . . Wait. . . .

I get it. This is different.

Or is it?

Does mis-use of abortion by a few mean we have to remove that option for all? And if that’s what we gotta do, how about those guns anyway?  Surely the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for school age children is more important than the right to bear arms.

The intrusion into a person’s medical history and privacy is an unconscionable overstep by our government into our private lives and personal rights. None of us has the right to judge another on this extremely personal matter, nor to tell them what to do. We can offer love, compassion, and assistance, but we can’t make difficult choices impossible by removing options. There is nothing simple about pregnancy. Since every case is different, there is no single solution. All options need to be available. And nobody outside the triumvirate of parents and physician should even have a say in tough personal, medical decisions. No two pregnancies are alike. We can’t possibly know the inside stories of other families.

Vote No August 2. Keep abortion legal.

Reflections on Independence in 2022

On By AnnIn Activism, Family, social justice1 Comment

In the aftermath of the high court decisions stripping people of privacy and personal rights, I have seen on Facebook where some of my friends plan to wear black on July 4. Some will fly the American flag upside down. And some will celebrate with cookouts and fireworks as always. I haven’t decided what I will do yet. Maybe I will enjoy the explosion of blossoms after recent rains. Flowers do a great job of mimicking those fleeting displays, without all the noise. Or maybe just sharing these musings will be my way of observing the 4th of July, 2022.

Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” We have more of those times this year, 246 years after the Declaration of Independence. In Kansas, the day of reckoning fast approaches. It’s interesting to me to note that the original document, though given the date of July 4, 1776, was not fully signed by our founders until August 2, 1776. August 2, 2022 is a very important day for Kansas voters. It’s our primary election day. But not only that, in their infinite wisdom (NOT!) the legislature slated a vote for an amendment on the Kansas constitution on primary day.

This is a problem because voter turnout is typically low for such elections. If you are an independent voter, you usually have no reason whatsoever to go. But this year, even independent voters have the right to vote on the proposed amendment. Use that right and cast your vote, even if it’s the only thing on the ballot you have a say in.

The amendment itself removes a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion and leaves it up to our “esteemed” legislature to decide when and if abortion as health care is warranted. That is a problem right there. These people are not necessarily doctors. Few of them are medically trained. Though some folks, notably the director of Family Life Services in a neighboring town, are confident that the legislature will not ban abortions for cases of rape, incest or ectopic pregnancy, I don’t share that confidence. I don’t trust politicians. Most of them no longer listen to the people they serve. (Kuddos to those who are still trying!)

A very concise letter to the editor of our local newspaper had the best summary of voting on this amendment that I have seen.

Simply this:

  • If you are pro-choice, Vote No.
  • If you are pro-life but want some exceptions in the rule for cases of rape, incest, and health of the mother, Vote No.
  • If you are pro-life and want zero abortions, zero exceptions, then you Vote Yes.

 

Where do I stand in those three groups? I think many of us lean toward the middle, and I am one of those. It is heartbreaking when a pregnancy becomes problematic, even more so when a mother has to make the insane choice about whether to end her pregnancy. We certainly don’t need to open the doors to prosecute women who have just lived through a personal crisis. Or to have investigators show up at the door of someone who miscarried, suspicious about a pre-meditated ending of the life of the unborn.

In a meeting I attended in early June, an attorney familiar with the Kansas constitution pointed out that since statehood in 1861, there have been 98 amendments passed by the people. This is one of a very few, perhaps the only one, that would REMOVE rights previously established by the constitution. Think carefully about this amendment.

Complicating the issue is the fact that abortions are already highly regulated in the state, so essentially the amendment is not necessary. Already, abortions must be performed by a licensed physician. They are prohibited after 22 weeks, except in cases of life or health endangerment. Late-term abortions, and abortions based on gender selection are absolutely prohibited. Private insurance coverage is limited to cases of life endangerment. Public funding for abortion is available only in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest. Patients must undergo an ultrasound before a procedure. There is a 24 hour waiting period after state-directed counseling prior to a procedure. Parental consent is required for minors seeking an abortion.

Just as no two people are alike, there are no two pregnancies alike either. In my own immediate family there are six women, from my mother, to her three daughters (of which I am one) and my two daughters. Though all six of us bore children, four of us experienced failed pregnancies. That is 67%. For us, those pregnancies were wanted, the babies anticipated, and their natural demise was tragic. If abortion becomes illegal—zero exceptions—the grief we felt at our losses could be compounded exponentially in future miscarriages by investigating detectives and charges of murder.

If you have never experienced a failed pregnancy, count your lucky stars. Current statistics on failed pregnancies (miscarriages and stillbirths) indicate that 20% of conceptions in North America fail naturally. For those families who eagerly anticipated a bright bubbly baby, and have to go home to an empty nursery, the pain is already too much to bear. It is unconscionable to add the possibility of prosecution for the failure on top of it all.

Given current trends to thwart environmental protections in favor of big corporations, the incidence of failed pregnancies is likely to explode. Naomi Klein states in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, “For all the talk about the right to life and the rights of the unborn, our culture pays precious little attention to the particular vulnerabilities of children, let alone developing life. Risk assessments most often focus on effects to adults.”

She quotes biologist Sandra Steingraber who has studied the issue. Steingraber: “Entire regulatory systems are premised on the assumption that all members of the population basically act, biologically, like middle-aged men.” [5’7”, 157# white men at that].

Klein puts it into perspective: “More than three quarters of the mass-produced chemicals in the United States have never been tested for their impacts on fetuses or children. That means they are being released in the environment with no consideration for how they will impact those who weigh, say twenty pounds, like your average one-year-old girl, let alone a half-pound, like a nineteen-week fetus.”

And yet, it’s becoming clear that proximity to environmental degradation, including fracking, increases low birth weight by 50%, and the chances of a low Apgar score double at birth. Communities near refineries or massive tar sands extraction are seeing the normal miscarriage rate double.

The recent high court ruling against the EPA’s ability to regulate emissions from power plants almost certainly will increase environmental hazards. Mutations of growing fetuses, viability at birth, and the incidence of miscarriage will increase. Be prepared.

With a nod to Thomas Paine, These are the times that try a woman’s soul, as well as all who value constitutional freedom.

And in Kansas, the choice is clear. We must keep the option of abortion by trained medical personnel open and legal.

Vote No on the constitutional amendment August 2.

On Hope, Peace, and our Future

On By AnnIn bridges, Healing, My Favorite Giants, social justiceLeave a comment

During this tumultuous and challenging time, today’s holiday to remember one of history’s honored leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gives a chance to pause and reflect on some of his favorite speeches. Excerpts from addresses of Dr. King through the course of his career can be found engraved in granite at the MLK memorial in Washington, D.C.

Out of the mountain of despair, a Stone of Hope

We visited there a few years ago. The impact of those words gave a hush of reverence to the area. Today, I remember Dr. King, and ponder his life and his words, in the spirit of hope that the memorial offers to a divided country and world.

A few of Dr. King’s words, surrounding the massive mountain and engraved for posterity in granite, testify to the power of our spirit, through language. Long may the words provide hope for those in the midst of a struggle for justice and equality, until the day when everyone on Earth is valued as an equal member of the worldwide community.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.                                                                             (Norway 1964)

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.          (1963)

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.          (Norway 1964)

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.    (Alabama 1963)

Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.     (District of Columbia 1959)

I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.  (California 1967)

It is not enough to say, “We must not wage war.” It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not only on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace.    (California 1967)

Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.  (New York 1962)

If we are to have peace on Earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical, rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation, and this means we must develop a world perspective.  (Georgia 1967)

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.   (District of Columbia 1968)

Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.    (1963)

This is not a complete collection of the quotations at the memorial. But it is most of them. One could spend hours there, meditating on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and pondering his legacy which is forever established through the power of his words. Located amidst the awe-inspiring memorials in our nation’s capital, it is fitting to remember this man’s life today, on the holiday declared to honor his life and legacy. And we return to that stone of hope during these difficult times, with renewed anticipation that a corner of our history has been turned and we will look toward renewed progress to uplift every person, and every living thing on Earth, with honor and respect.

Day 6: The Leadership of Indigenous People

On By AnnIn Earth care, Letters to Septanna, social justiceLeave a comment

Today is Monday, Tanna, and this particular Monday is an observed national holiday. Like many things taken for granted when I was a child, there is considerable contention surrounding this second Monday in October.

Long recognized as “Columbus Day,” it celebrates the historic voyage by Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492. His destination was the far east and he gambled they would not sail off the edge of the world. And he was right. Earth is spherical. However, it’s much larger than he conjectured. He assumed he’d landed in India, when in reality, he anchored his ship in a cove off a Caribbean Island, the one we recognize today as Cuba.

But, in my school days, we all learned, “Columbus discovered America.”

The irony of this misleading historical fake fact is that he, himself, never set foot anywhere on the North American continent. He gets credit for discovery, however, even though the islands and the continents of the western hemisphere were occupied already by well-established cultures of native people.

Those he met at the end of his voyage must surely be residents of India, he reasoned. And so, though they were already known to each other by many other names, the First Peoples of North America came to be known as Indians.

This misappropriation became ludicrous in my mind the year I actually visited India and met genuine Indians. Since then, I resist the notion to call our indigenous nations by that term. Ojibway, Seminole, Cherokee, Choctaw, Kaw, Ponca, Apache, Lakota, Arapahoe, Tlingit, Haida, Hopi, Navajo (to name but a few)—each group formed its own nation with its own economy, culture, and government. The influx of Europeans ignored the autonomy of natives. European arrogance and entitlement have led to centuries of conflict and bloodshed.

Today there is a movement to recognize the dignity of the remaining indigenous populations, not only here, but indigenous people around the world. And that traditional holiday celebrating Columbus is now recognized in many hearts, and a few states and municipalities, as Indigenous People Day.

Our recognition and respect go far beyond one day, though. As the plight of our planet grows ever more dire, indigenous people raise their cry of dissention—and many others join them. Books on the native ways are available. Panels of indigenous leaders offer international online seminars in which the panelists share thoughts, concerns, ideas, and suggestions for moving forward.

I am listening. Perhaps in your day, Tanna, the Columbus celebrations will have retreated to a distant corner, like a demoralized dog, head down and tail between its legs.

Native peoples on every continent lead the way in our infant efforts to bind ourselves intimately with the natural world. Thomas Berry recognized this in his writings. “We have even forgotten our primordial capacity for language at the elementary level of song and dance.” He went on to point out how native Americans revere our wild neighbors through their musical and chanting ceremonies.

“One of the significant historical roles of the primal people of the world,” Berry wrote in The Dream of the Earth, “is to call the entire civilized world back to a more authentic mode of being. [Native peoples] are emerging as one of our surest guides into a viable future.”

Tanna, I struggle for words to describe what’s in my heart when Berry refers to native music from the wild places. One panel I experienced during the heat of this COVID summer included indigenous women of all ages, and from varied locations in the western hemisphere. The Ecuadorian woman, Patricia Gualinga, mentioned how the meetings her people hold always start with music, to create harmony, and that all participants—male or female, young or old—are treated with the same respect and consideration. All are equal in their councils.

Strangely, this draws my mind to our District 79 state representative race. Ken White, the man challenging the conservative incumbent, is a musician. He shows up at campaign events with a guitar strapped to his shoulders. And I think to myself, It wouldn’t hurt to bring a little music to ease the tension in our statehouse.

Happy Indigenous People Day, Tanna! I hope that in your time, it is without question or contention the focus of an October holiday. To the leaders of the people so long abused by our national and state policies, I say, “Lead on. It’s your turn now.”

And I truly hope they help us find the way back to a thriving relationship with the natural world.

Pardon me now, as I head off on my own private walk in celebration of Indigenous People Day, an effort publicized online as the Rising Hearts Run/Walk, located anywhere on Turtle Island.

With enduring love,

Your Seventh Generation Grandmother

Day 4: Hot Buttons and Getting Hotter

On By AnnIn Letters to Septanna, Loss and Grief, Nature, social justiceLeave a comment

Dear Tanna,

The top priority in changing the course of our nation for some people is to abolish abortion. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Abortion is not an either/or issue, not simply “yes” or “no.” It’s not black and white. There are many shades of gray. There always are with complicated issues.

For me, the environment is the hot button issue. Exploitation, degradation, and destruction of the natural systems we all rely on for basic necessities are the biggest problems we face. Environmental destruction will destroy us, if we don’t hearken to the urgency. And then it won’t matter if women can govern their own bodies, or if we can shop for the latest fashions, or a new car, or even if we have enough to eat.

It. Won’t. Matter.

My love of the natural world goes back to my childhood. We traveled and camped every chance we had, all over the western states. I hope, Tanna, that you will have access to the amazing redwood forests like I did. I hope you will experience awe as you look over magnificent mountain scenes, canyons, rivers, and oceans of grass. This is truly a remarkable land and I hope we find the ingenuity—and the will—to preserve it far beyond your generation. Like every other child, you deserve the chance to feel wonder at the annual butterfly migrations, to catch your breath when an unexpected wild visitor turns your head, to watch a white-tailed deer chew its cud, to fill your lungs with fresh, clean air in an autumn breeze.

The concern for our wanton destruction and exploitation of nature is not new. It was well documented before I was born. By the time I entered college, there were ecology classes focused on our careless destruction of the natural world, and what that would inevitably mean to every living thing on the planet.

We are some of those living things.

To me, nature is teacher and healer, a holy place where I retreat to seek the divine. Nature can be that for you, also, if you learn how to listen.

I once watched an exhausted moose lunge through shoulder-deep snow and I learned the dangers of choosing an easy path. In a downpour I heard the rain plummet from the heavens and it spoke to me of cycles in life. I watched a family of ducks chase madly from one point to another and back again and I saw human fads and opinions mirror the whimsical parade of a flock of ducks. I watched my best friend waste away in a losing battle with cancer and I understood how the growing demands of humanity sap the vitality of our home planet in a similar fashion. Meadowlarks leapt into the wind so they might gain lift and fly away. And I learned I must face the adversities in my life before I could ever rise above them. A stately and beautiful tree crashed to the ground in tornado-strength straight line winds, and whispered that sometimes our roots will not be able to support us against a barrage of adversity. Messages arrive on the dust of a sunbeam and the wings of the wind.

Long ago, I read books by Thor Heyerdahl. One was titled Fatu Hiva: Back to Nature.  In the narrative of his return to simple life on a remote island, he described the music he found in nature. “There is fine music everywhere in nature between moss-covered stones and foliage. . .The lights, the colors, the sounds, the perfumes, the touch, the shapes were never the same, and were always playing on our minds like a vast orchestra. We could hardly take in more music—and I do not mean the singing of birds and the tinkling of a rivulet: . . .I mean music beyond the eardrums. We have had to create flutes and violins to leave impressions deeper in than the eardrums, where nature used to play.”

The musician inside me revels in the symphony of nature. I have delighted in taking piano students (and a grand piano) to outdoor recitals where every piece they played showed a musical glimpse of nature. Everything we humans have created has its source in nature, one way or another. I cannot find words to describe that inner union of my consciousness with the constant prairie symphony in my backyard. Without nature, I would be nothing.

Nature is not exactly constant. It is, if anything, constantly changing, providing variety in daily life. Even the sky presents many faces and no two are the same. We see a lot of sky out here above the prairie. It is our grandiose landscape. Clouds provide our mountains, the earth propels us forward, and the view changes hourly.

From observing my grandchildren, I realize fresh eyes see things as new and wondrous, no matter how much they have changed in my lifetime. My wish for my grandchildren—times seven generations and more—is that they never lose a sense of wonder. Natural processes continue. Even the Earth’s response to humanity’s bludgeoning of the biosphere is Nature’s way to restore a sort of balance. What will emerge from this process is something I can’t imagine, but will be awesome in its own right. Perhaps your generation, if there is one, Tanna, will be able to answer that question.

In the evolution of homo sapiens, our intellect seems to have surpassed our compassion. We have developed the ability to manipulate the physical world—to the point where we even create earthquakes—but not the will or the heart to care enough to halt in our tracks and find another path, a better path, a path that leads to sustainability and life for future generations.

Currently I am dealing with a sense of profound loss for what I once knew the natural world to be. In some ways, this can be compared to the radical loss a person feels after the death of a spouse and soulmate. The loss of a spouse is a radical loss, tearing a hole in the fabric of your being. You not only have lost a person, a partner, and a friend, you have lost a marriage, a relationship, the shared experiences, the dreams and plans you made together. Everything—Yes EVERYTHING—has changed.

 

What do you do? Widowhood can become a very empty place. In some respects, the changes occurring on Earth are like witnessing the last agonized moments of a beloved soulmate. Many of us are grieving already, to the point where we are paralyzed by hopelessness and inaction.

Grief is not possible without love. And, perhaps, love is not possible without grief. If you never feel sad, lonely, or in despair, you will never appreciate the times you feel ecstatic and joyful. I treasure the joyful memories of a vibrant natural world. The process of working through the sense of loss makes me wonder many things. Are things so far gone that there is no hope? In our final attempts to right the wrongs of humanity toward nature, are we merely playing as hospice workers in a futile attempt to ease that final decline?

“Hospice care is a special kind of care that focuses on the quality of life for those who are experiencing an advanced, life-limiting illness.” How can one person provide this kind of care for an entire dying planet? How can thousands of us? Millions? How can we restore quality to the living systems surrounding us?

That is a huge question. I think the answer begins with hope. And I will tell you more about that tomorrow.

With my enduring love,

Your Seventh Generation Grandmother

Day 3: Of Love and Wind, Two Recurring Themes

On By AnnIn Activism, books, Earth care, Letters to Septanna, memoir, social justiceLeave a comment

Dear Tanna,

Considering the power of love, scattered on the Wind of the Spirit, there was John Lewis, another hero who passed from this life on July 17 this past summer. All the publicity since George Floyd’s murder in late May–the demonstrations against police violence, Black Lives Matter, racism, and white privilege–bring social inequities front and center. With each successive generation, the wounds re-open. We were all reminded of John Lewis’s struggle to grant basic civil rights to all American citizens when he died. Our local library selected his memoir as part of the adult summer reading selection. With a Zoom meeting planned that included Lewis’s co-author Michael D’Orso, a man Lewis claimed was like a brother to him in the book’s introduction, I wanted to participate.

The book itself was daunting, 503 pages of relatively small print. But the metaphor in the prologue hooked me, a description of a wind storm Lewis experienced as a preschool boy. The wind blew so strong it lifted a corner of the shack his sharecropper aunt and uncle lived in. Harboring in the shack with his aunt and fifteen cousins, they held hands and walked from corner to corner, bringing the house down to the ground when the wind began to lift it. That became the metaphor for his life, and provided the title for his book, Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement.

Lewis was a teenager by the time I showed up in the world. I remember the events of the civil rights struggle of the early 60s as a child overhearing her parents discuss the nightly news. It was not until I read this book almost six decades later that I fully realized what had occurred during those years.

The chapters in the memoir flowed, easy to read. It was like sitting with John Lewis over coffee and listening to him tell about his life. And what a life! He personally knew the key players. John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr.

He told of the first time he heard MLK give a sermon on the radio. It was titled, “Paul’s Letter to American Christians.”

Wouldn’t it be cool, I thought, to read King’s words? An online search for his sermons produced a website—www.kinginstitute.stanford.edu—that includes his entire collection of sermons. So I did read “Paul’s Letter to American Christians,” in the year 2020.

Lewis was a key figure in all the civil rights actions: the restaurant sit-ins, freedom rides, marches, Selma’s Bloody Sunday, the efforts to safely register black people as voters. His premise was aligned with Ghandi and Nelson Mandela, a non-violent protest. Love your neighbor, even those who beat on you.

Why? We may ask.

Because they are victims of this unjust system too.

Imagine the strength of character needed to love someone who was busting your head open with a wooden club. How could a person manage that?  Lewis shared one of his secrets. You imagine the oppressor as an infant, a precious child of God.

I was struck by the uncanny parallels to today’s social and political climate. Lewis, a genuine and unassuming man, shared lessons he’d learned from MLK. “People who hunger for fame don’t realize that if they’re in the spotlight today, somebody else will be tomorrow. Fame never lasts. The work you do, the things you accomplish—that’s what endures. That’s what really means something.”

Does this remind me of anyone in the spotlight today? Absolutely.

What rights are guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act of the late 60s? 1) The right to vote. 2) The right to a fair trial. 3) The right to receive government services.  4) The right to use public facilities.  and 5) The right to a public education.

Sounds pretty basic to me, but for ages, a significant portion of our population was denied these rights. After the legislation, new practices skirting the edges effectively denied the same people basic human dignities others take for granted.

Has this changed in the 200 years separating you and me, Tanna? I desperately hope so. I hope that your generation experiences the blessings of Martin Luther King’s Beloved Community. Lewis never lost sight of the vision—one people, one family, one house, one nation. As a congressman from Georgia for the last years of his life, he answered to his conscience and worked toward policies that would benefit all people.

The last chapter in his memoir was a summary and a wish. “Onward” described the challenges he faced during the time when he wrote the book—1998—but it could well have been written during this last summer of 2020. The struggle for civil rights, for civility itself to be extended to all citizens in our country, indeed to all of the world’s inhabitants, seems never to end. Each generation must carry on and must learn and appreciate the sacrifices and struggles of the generations before. Slowly we may approach an equitable society, a new global economy that values not only human players, but the finite resources provided by our planet.

John Lewis devoted his entire life to a movement he firmly believed continued decades beyond the demonstrations of the 1960s. “I came to Congress with a legacy to uphold, with a commitment to carry on the spirit, the goals and the principles of nonviolence, social action, and a truly interracial democracy.

“We must realize that we are all in this together,” he said. “Not as black or white, Not as rich or poor. Not even as Americans or ‘non’ Americans. But as human beings. . .The next frontier for America lies in the direction of our spiritual strength as a community. . . It is not just materially or militarily that we must measure our might, but morally. . .”

“It does not profit a nation to gain the world if we must lose our soul—which includes our compassion. . . ”

“The alternative to reaching out is to allow the gaps between us to grow, and this is something we simply cannot afford to do. . . ”

“That sense of caring and sharing that makes us a society and not just a collection of isolated individuals living behind locked doors must never be lost, or it will be the end of us as a nation. . .”

I wonder, Septanna, how healthy is the nation in your day? How healthy is the planet?

John Lewis, a great man, concluded his final chapter with these words, “Talk is fine. Discussion is fine. But we must respond. We must act . . .  As a nation, we must move our feet, our hands, our hearts, our resources to build and not to tear down, to reconcile and not to divide, to love and not to hate, to heal and not to kill. In the final analysis, we are one people, one family, one house. . .”

Tanna, this is what’s at stake even now, two decades after Lewis published his memoir. This has been a hard chapter for me to write. I have struggled with it for weeks. How do I, an ordinary grandmother living in conservative rural Kansas, attempt to share what this man’s life has planted in my own heart? It’s too important not to try, though. So I offer these thoughts in honor of John Lewis. I desperately hope that he and other notable leaders we lost during the last few months—George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg,—will lend their essences to our continuing struggle for securing human dignity and basic rights for all.

And, Tanna, I hope that, two hundred years from now, you will realize the results of our efforts.

With enduring hope and love,

Your seventh-generation grandmother