Tag: Hope

Who Do You Trust?

On By AnnIn Activism, Earth careLeave a comment

Steady . . . 

A dear friend, one of my first writing companions from decades ago, recently asked, “Are you better off than you were two years ago?”

I have given it some thought, and my answer is this: I think we are all better off now than we were when Donald Trump was in the White House.

Are things perfect? No. When are they ever? But with leaders who will tackle problems that will help make life better for all the people rather than their  billionaire friends, there is hope. And I want to preserve that in our country’s leadership.

I find it sad that many of my friends and neighbors have been pulled in by the lies fed to us continually by the former president and his supporters. My friend sent me a link to a speech by someone she trusts, an online Reverend who has a YouTube channel. I googled his name and ended up with a lot of red flags. I don’t see myself trusting him. With all the extreme rhetoric on many topics, how do you trust anyone?

I lean more toward someone like Dan Rather and his comments on Steady. As news anchor on CBS for much of my life, Dan Rather has covered a lot of  topics in the past five decades. He’s from my parents’ generation and I respect the perspective on history the elders have. Like others I hold in high esteem in his generation, Dan Rather has never seen anything as troubling for our country as Donald Trump’s leadership.

From a recent post on his Steady website, ( https://steady.substack.com ):

“Let us not pretend everything is okay.”

“Let us not give up hope.”

“Let us not minimize the problems before us.”

“Let us not deny reality.”

“Let us not demonize one another.”

“We are facing a midterm election in which everything feels like it is at stake. And indeed it is.”

It’s tempting to raise my hands in despair, thinking that all is already lost. But we can’t afford that. The keynote speaker at the recent convention for the Kansas Authors Club mentioned it’s okay to keep trying, even if you don’t know whether you’ll ever succeed. Not knowing doesn’t relieve us of the obligation to try.

And we can’t stop trying to make a better world for our descendants. It is our obligation for the future.

Electing politicians who will negate the results of the next election they don’t like will be disastrous to everything we hold dear,  even the future of our home planet.

Now is the time to get out the vote. Let’s not sit this one out, friends.

Day 5: Never Lose Hope

On By AnnIn Activism, Earth care, Healing, Letters to Septanna, Loss and GriefLeave a comment

Dear Tanna,

I have limited experience with hospice workers. My mother was on hospice before she died and my dad was deeply grateful for the compassionate assistance the workers brought to their home. This concept of providing dignity to those facing imminent death is fairly recent. There was nothing like that available for me three decades ago when my husband struggled with cancer.

It seems somewhat audacious, maybe even preposterous, to think that those responsible for the decline of our planet’s life systems would dare to consider themselves hospice workers. How could agents of death possibly bring compassion and dignity to the decline of the climate conditions that support all life forms on Earth?

When I am in a down mood, I see humanity as a species that needs to go, in order to save the rest. Nature needs to eliminate her threat and we are the major cause of today’s destruction. Those who care seem to have little influence on the those in leadership positions. We are caught in a system that we cannot seem to change, trapped like animals in a live trap.

As a young widow, years ago, I taught earth science at the local high school when I was struggling to find a new life and purpose. I tried to infuse awareness of the decline of the environment in the teenagers. Considering all of geologic history, today’s situation apparently is not the first time that a life form created mass extinction through its waste products. The waste product for early single-celled life in the oceans was oxygen. Through proliferation, the simple metabolic processes of early life changed the composition of the atmosphere, paving the way for new life to evolve.

Geologically and astronomically speaking, our solar system is roughly halfway through the sun’s expected life. Given a few more billion years, there should be plenty of time for new life to evolve from the scraps left after this climate crisis settles into a new equilibrium. Am I comforted by this thought?

I have mixed feelings about it. When I watch neighbors roar past my Prius on the highway in 4-wheel drive fuel-guzzling pick-ups, or watch Styrofoam cups blow into the tall grasses along the road, or see trash, littered by passing motorists, build up around our small pond at the corner of two paved roads, I think to myself, “Humans are such slobs. Maybe it’s time. Nature is out to rectify our wrongs.” If we view the entire planet as one living organism, we humans, through our collective ignorance and apathy, are a disease to the planet, like its terminal cancer.

Then I talk to cherished friends who suffer anguish at the exploitation of the natural world, or I work with my piano students to help them master skills that will enable them to express themselves through music, or I watch my grandson playing with the baby goats in our front yard, and I am reminded that “We aren’t all bad.”

The eras of geologic history are separated by mass extinctions, as witnessed in the fossil records. PreCambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic. Based also on the geologic record, the previous eras were millions of years in duration. We are responsible for the mass extinction we are witnessing now, and it’s happening much more rapidly than any we have evidenced in the rock records. If we compare all of geologic history to a half-mile walk, humans appeared mere inches before the end that represents today. From the first appearance of a human to now encompasses a few seconds on a 24-hour clock that represents Earth’s history.

To disregard and exploit everything on the planet for selfish reasons, with no check on ourselves, empathy for other species, or consideration for future generations, has got to be the biggest crime against this remarkable and fragile speck of a planet in the cosmos. We are guilty of that crime. Our lifestyles trap us in a system that is dooming life as we know it.

Nobody knows what will come of the situation we face today, but I have to wonder how we are any different from those early single cell life forms? One way is this: We know what we’re doing. Science has instruments to measure the health of our planet, and to record its ruin. Yet we seem unable to stop our actions. Assuming that the early life lacked thought processes and their waste contamination was purely accidental and a product of their success, I have to think this is vastly more irresponsible. To know and not to take steps to stop the atmospheric decline surely is an unpardonable sin.

Tanna, with the weight of this responsibility on our shoulders, how can we possibly presume to act as hospice workers in Earth’s decline?

I struggle to remind myself that we humans are as much a part of the universe as the meadowlarks and coyotes and deer and butterflies. And I also remember, through my mother’s experience with hospice, that it’s entirely possible to reverse the diagnosis. Mother was admitted to hospice, not once, but three times before she passed from this life. The first two times, she got better and was released. So hospice doesn’t always carry despair and finality with it. The challenge becomes restoring dignity, and easing the decline. Maybe—maybe—with enough of us working toward a solution, we can drawdown the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere and restore the climate to one where life as we know it can thrive.

Hope is the other part of hospice. We must never lose hope. That’s why I’m writing these letters to you.

I love nature for the answers it suggests. How do we move towards the light? The prairie suggests, no matter how bad things may look, “Bloom anyway.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested that “Earth Laughs in Flowers.”

I don’t laugh often enough, but when I do, it’s wonderful. Laughter is healing, as documented by Norman Cousins when he postponed his predicted demise by embarking on a process of regular daily laughter. Perhaps we should all do what we can to encourage flowers to bloom, to tickle the planet and laugh with nature.

I think it’s unlikely that any one effort of mine will make a difference for the planet. However, added to other efforts, we will make a difference. Maybe individual actions don’t matter much, but they count for something. If we do nothing, we are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

This is absolutely an exciting time to be alive. We are on the edge of tomorrow, of a time when the course of history will be determined by our collective actions. Will we prevail? Will we assist nature to overcome this dire threat?

One thing that I plan to do very soon is vote. I will vote for candidates who are on the record for their commitment to act for the climate. I will vote for the Earth.

In the end, everything that we do matters. Every decision we make, every product we select, and every choice we make to fill our minutes will matter for the future. Through action, hope is born and hope is crucial to redemption. Never forget that. Never lose hope. To do so would cement the terminal diagnosis of the planet.

With enduring love,

Your seventh-generation Grandmother

 

 

 

Re-Writing Life

On By AnnIn Activism, books, Earth care, Nature, Sonata of Elsie Lenore, Sundrop Sonata2 Comments

What do you do when your first novel receives great reviews, and people urge you to write more? That’s the real test. Last week I listened in on a live interview with Edwin Hill, author of Little Comfort and The Missing Ones. He mentioned how there is a delicious freedom with the first novel—no expectations, no deadline, nobody waiting anxiously for the arrival of the book. The second book presents the real challenge.

For subsequent works, you must write under pressure of expectations. Can I fulfill the requests of readers and maintain integrity with mywriting? Do I have more stories inside, worthy of being shared? How long will it take? And how long will the readers wait patiently for an attempt?

It was definitely a challenge to write a second novel. You’d think, now that I’d done it once, the second novel would be easier. But that was not so. It was hard, writing Sonata of Elsie Lenore.  I wanted to satisfy my readers. I needed another suspenseful tale, utilizing pianos and piano technicians as characters. I wanted to provide readers with another Izzy story.  After all, that was what several readers specifcally asked for.

But Izzy was all storied out. I tried mightily to write Elsie Lenore with Isabel Woods as the protagonist, but it just didn’t work. Maybe she could be the narrator then? That didn’t work either.

The seed of the Elsie story germinated 20 years ago, and was nourished by events since, but there was nothing quite as concrete as the events that wrote themselves in the Sundrop story. I had to introduce new characters, as well as keep the older ones, and it was HARD. It seemed that Elsie Lenore just didn’t want to sprout. Or she did, but the seedling was all twisted and wrong. The story didn’t flow. Even after I had a complete draft, and was re-working the three parts, it wasn’t coming together. I  finally realized it was because this was no longer Izzy’s story. I was trying to make it another Izzy adventure, but this story belonged to someone else. It belonged to Stefano.

And I re-wrote the entire book. Several times.

Elsie Lenore has been through so many re-writes and revisions, I have lost count, but there are 6 different outlines in my computer files. Six major revisions later, Sonata of Elsie Lenore was released–shortly before the world screeched to a halt with the COVID-19 pandemic, and that added a new layer of complication. Everything looks different through a coronavirus lens, but I hope the final product is one that readers will enjoy, as they follow Stefano Valdez from Izzy’s piano shop in Kansas to Cuba and back again. I hope they cheer him on as he grapples with major failures and shortcomings in his personal life.

It’s true that the biggest part of the writing job, is, in fact, revising and re-writing. Polish the prose. Edit for clarity and flow. Do it again and yet again. And when you realize that the story just isn’t working the way you envisioned, you have the prerogative and the privilege to start again. Indeed, more than a prerogative and a privilege, it may be more of an obligation to re-write.

This makes me think of our global situation today. Right now, our society, our culture, and our species own the same prerogative. The same obligation. The pause in life gifted to us by COVID-19 has allowed us to step back and take a look. Things just weren’t working out too well for most people–not to mention most of the living things on this planet. Were they? This is the perfect time to re-write our future. We may not receive such a chance again.

As we move from isolation cautiously back into the social realm, let’s tread carefully, step out in a different direction, and when the path forks, flip a coin and try something different. Only one thing is certain. We can’t go backwards. Forward is the only way to go.

Let’s re-write our future together.

Rolling Up the Sleeves of Hope

On By AnnIn Earth care, Letters to Septanna2 Comments

PICT0799      A few days ago, I attended the annual meeting of our state Interfaith Power and Light. The guest keynote speaker, founder of the national organization, was Rev. Sally Bingham of California. She delivered an inspirational message.

Key points included the notion that climate change is the most important and serious challenge facing this generation, and those to come. It is a spiritual and a moral issue. All faith traditions include tenets of stewardship for our God-given world. If our habits, our lifestyles, generate waste products which ultimately will destroy the basis of life as we know it, it is our moral responsibility, our sacred duty, to do something about it. In the Christian tradition, we must acknowledge that “What you do to even the least of these, you do to me.”

Creation care is a matter of faith. It is as important as love for our neighbors, and the mission of saving souls. For there will be no souls to save if we don’t protect our air and our water. Ultimately, another way to care about people is to care about the environment.

Climate skeptics suggest the threat is over-rated. What if they’re right? What if we clean up our act to stem a crisis that may never happen? At the very least, we’d accomplish some good things: our children would enjoy a future world where people could live healthier. Wealth would be more equitably distributed. Our air and water would not be for sale to the highest bidder, but would be clean and plentiful for all.

What if the environmentalists and climate scientists are right and we sit back and do nothing? We face a bleak future, one in which this lovely planet will no longer provide a home for humanity and countless other life forms that God created.

It makes a great deal of sense to act in a way that insures a future for life on Earth.

Bingham concluded her address with an invitation to say yes to the call as stewards of creation. “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up,” she said. We are called to respond actively toward a vision of hope for our future. There’s a lot of work to do. Let’s get busy.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA