Ills Have No Weight

 today i want to write about the fragility of life.  it is the anniversary of my mother's death from pancreatic cancer.  i remember the sequence of events that led to her passing vividly.  around thanksgiving of the year before she died, we had made plans to be away over thanksgiving and were not going to the home of my mom and dad to celebrate the holiday.  as i talked with my dad about our intentions, he told me that my mother was not well.  she couldn't seem to eat anything and he was worried about her.  hearing the concern in his voice, we changed our plans and went to their home for thanksgiving.  when i saw how ill she was, i was deeply disturbed.  as soon as my wife and i returned home, i called a physician friend and described my mom's symptoms.  he asked if it could have her at our local hospital the next morning, and i told him that i would.  i called my dad and he agreed to have her there.  i could hear the relief in his voice, knowing that she was going to get medical help that the medical clinic in their little town could not provide.

after my doctor friend analyzed the results of the various tests that had been performed in the hospital, he told us of the cancer diagnosis and offered to make arrangements for us to take her to a major teaching hospital for further tests to see if any treatment was available that might give her longer to live.  we immediately agreed to go.  at first doctors there gave us some hope and asked us to come back the next day for further consultations.  we stayed in a hotel overnight.  when we returned to the hospital the next morning, the doctor with whom we met told us that the cancer had spread from her pancreas to her liver, eliminating the possibility any surgical treatment.  her illness had reached a stage that all that could be done was to make her comfortable and await her inevitable demise.  within four months she was gone, spending her last days in a drug-induced stupor because of the intense pain she would feel without heavy doses of morphine.  it was difficult for us all to come to terms with her death and the rapidity of the disease's progress.

just a few days ago, we learned that a friend we have made since moving to this town had only a few months to live.  she had been treated for cancer several years ago and had remained cancer-free until recently.  her six-month checkup at her local doctor's office had revealed that the cancer may have returned.  when she met with an oncologist in our state capitol, she learned that the cancer had indeed returned and had spread all over her body.  suddenly her life was upended.  she and her husband were devastated.  their idyllic life here was at an end, and they decided to return to their hometown several states away so they could be near their children during her last months of life.

about the same time, another friend was diagnosed with colon cancer.  she has just undergone surgery for the cancer, but we don't know what her prognosis is yet.  because of the pandemic, she lies in a hospital bed, and none of her family or friends are allowed to visit her there as she recovers from the surgery.  all of us are anxious to learn what further treatment will be required and what her prospects for a full recovery are.  another friend has just undergone heart surgery in a nearby town.  she, too, is isolated from her family as she recovers from the surgery.  a few days ago, i received word that a high school classmate had just passed away.

it seems that death and the possibility of death touches me more and more frequently as i age.  while i don't fear death, i am not ready to end this present life.  it has been such a good one and promises to continue being worth living.  i know, though, that death is inevitable and that i must be prepared for it.  in a way, i envy our friend who knows that she only has a few months to live.  she has advanced warning of the approximate time when she will breathe her last and is able to get her affairs in order and spend her last days surrounded by those she loves most.  when my wife last talked to her, she was at peace with the idea that her life was coming to an end and was only concerned for how her husband would deal with her passing.  her situation seems better than that of one whose life ends abruptly and without warning.  whatever the circumstances, death comes to us all.  it behooves us to life each day as if it were our last, to relish the goodness that life has to offer.

may we accept the possibility of our own death and that of those around us.  may we realize that each passing day brings us closer to the end of our lives.  may we cherish the time we are given, knowing that each minute that we have is precious.  may we pack as much love and enjoyment into each day as we can, and may we use our time to serve one another.  shalom.

A Thouroughfare for Freedom

 i don't really want to write any more about donald trump.  i'm ready for our country and myself to be done with him, but the conclusion of his impeachment trial in the us senate has brought him to the forefront of my mind again.  though it turned out as i expected, it was disappointing that most of his party in the senate sided with him, providing him the needed votes to escape conviction.  despite the house managers' withering presentation of evidence that they so effectively put forth in his trial, all but seven senate republicans found him not guilty on the flimsy excuse that the trial was unconstitutional since he was no longer in office, even though the senate and the vast majority of constitutional scholars had found that trying him after he was no longer president was constitutional.

my wife and i watched much of the trial.  my wife was quite disturbed by much of what we saw and found herself becoming very angry with trump and those who enabled him during his last days in office.  i had already resigned myself to seeing many troubling images as the evidence was presented and was able to view what i saw more dispassionately.  we tried to watch the defense presentations but found them so rambling, so filled with lies, so rife with irrelevant appeals to criminal law that, after a few minutes of what his lawyers had to say each time they spoke, we had to turn off the television.  in contrast, the arguments of the house manager-prosecutors were so compelling that it is beyond belief that trump was not resoundingly convicted.  as his election was won without a majority of votes, so his acquittal was achieved in the same way.  he now claims vindication, even though a majority of the senate voted to convict him, escaping only because the vote did not achieve the 2/3 majority the constitution requires.  it is ironic that the same constitution he sought to tear to shreds when his mob invaded the capitol enabled him to make his shrill claims of victory.

as many commentators noted, he will be remembered as our worst president and as the only president who sought to remain in power by virtue of force rather than electoral victory, as well as the only president to be impeached twice.  it will take president biden many months to undo the harm trump has done to our country.  he has made a good start.  his ability to watch quietly as the trump's trial took place and to continue with his work of undoing trump's legacy of greed and indifference while at the same time pressing forward with actions to improve the lives of all americans was impressive.  though mr. biden was not my first choice as the democratic nominee, he has proved that he was the right choice for the party and for the country.  his steady hand is what we need after four years of government by whim propelled by avarice, anger, and narcissism.  

may we turn from our grievances against trump and take our example from president biden.  may we come together as one people united by our desire to care for one another.  may those who have plenty be generous in support of those who are in need.  may we demonstrate that we are not the people of the mob that sought to overturn a legitimate election but rather the people of "brotherhood from sea to shining sea."  shalom.

Through Thorny Ways

 now that there are several vaccines available and it appears that there is an end in sight to the sort of life the pandemic has forced on us, my thoughts have turned to what "normalcy" might mean on the other side of this scourge.  one of the constants of my life has been the regulation of each week that is brought about my attending church each sunday.  that has always been a way of determining where i am in the week.  during the time we have spent away from church, i've had to re-examine the reasons i have continued to attend every sunday service through most of my life.

as a child, my family was always in church on sunday mornings.  we went first to sunday school and then on to the worship service.  once i went away to college, i continued the practice of attending church regularly.  wherever i was, even if it was spending the summers with my grandmother between regular college semesters, i attended church.  after my wife and i married, we were in church every sunday.  after we had been married a couple of years, i began to work as a professional musician for a series of churches, so of course i had to be in church each week, usually several times a week.  when our daughter came along, she was raised attending church, as was our son when he was born ten years later.  i tried retiring from church work a year after i retired from public school teaching but found that i was called back into service off and on because of the shortage of available musicians who are willing to work for the meager wages churches pay.  even now that i'm in my seventies, i find myself filling in at a nearby church that is in need of someone to play the services.

i agreed to do this during the pandemic because the church assured me that i could self-isolate behind the organ console in the chancel as the congregation, which is quite small, practiced every precaution to protect themselves and me.  i've found that they are true to their word.  since there are few attendees relative to the size of the room, social distancing is no problem, and everyone in attendance is careful to wear masks.  the room is thoroughly sanitized frequently.  i've felt quite safe helping them out a couple of sundays a month.  i suppose i will continue to play for them as long as they need me and as long as i am able.

i've found during the enforced absence of every-week church and the accompanying activities in which we participated since moving here--mid-week church suppers and classes afterwards, sunday school, and a senior luncheon once a month--the thing i've missed most about church is the social aspect of it.  i've discovered that i have continued to attend church, not because of a compulsion to pay homage to a God whose presence i feel during most waking moments nor in gratitude for the many blessings i enjoy, but rather because i love being a part of a group of people whom i would not otherwise come to know outside of church.  for the most part they are good and generous people who are concerned about one another's welfare and the plight of others near and far.  together this body of churchgoers contributes much to our community, staffing a warming center during the cold nights of the winter season in conjunction with several other churches, providing food for the community food bank, giving monetary assistance to those in desperate circumstances, and helping to fund several worthy national and world-wide causes.

i miss visiting with our pew-mates, an older couple who grew up in this area.  i miss sitting at table on wednesday nights and at the monthly senior luncheon with friends we've made since becoming a part of this church.  i miss the organ music at the beginning and end of the service.  i miss the taking of communion with others who are present.  i miss the habitual preparation for and going to and from the service each sunday.  i look forward to the time when we can return to this familiar ritual and hope that the day will soon come when we can resume gathering each sunday morning.

may we soon rediscover what normalcy is and what it means in our lives.  may we stay safe and free of infection from this awful virus until that time comes.  may those of us who are unfortunate enough to catch the virus be returned to health with little suffering from it and no long-term harm.  may we do whatever we can to help one another while we struggle against covid.  may we find new ways of looking at our lives during this pause in our normal daily routine.  shalom.

A Time to Build Up

 in the days since the attack on the us capitol, we've witnessed many republicans recanting their earlier condemnations of the actions of trump and his followers.  josh hawley, who had promoted the "big lie" that the election was stolen by president biden and those who supported him, has appeared on television to talk of how noble his actions were in calling for a commission to investigate the election, leading to a reversal of its results.  he has said that his only motive was to insure free and fair elections in our country, yet before the storming of the capitol he had said that president biden's win was the result of massive fraud.  similarly, kevin mccarthy, the leader of the house republicans, reversed his early stance that trump was responsible for what happened and now says that all of us bear responsibility.  he went so far as to make a trip to florida to meet with trump and plot strategy with him.

republicans forget that most americans voted against trump when he was elected in 2016 and even more voted against him in 2020.  he was a president who won office because of our electoral college system, not because a majority voted for him.  he never enjoyed widespread support nationwide, and his approval numbers in the polls were never very good.  it appears that most repubicans who hold national office are more fearful of the wrath of trump's diehard supporters than they are of the majority of american voters.  many of them may be re-elected and some of those who spoke out and who voted against trump in the house and senate may lose their positions in the next election, but this is only because they live in districts or states where trump's base is powerful, not because their position enjoys national support.  there will be others who supported trump who will lose as voters see trumpism for what it is:  corrupt, narrow-minded, misogynistic, isolationist, and contrary to american values.

as we learn more about trump's behavior during the election season, we may find that his perfidy was far greater than we knew earlier, causing more of his former supporters to turn against him.  already there have been reports that as many as 30,000 americans have changed their voter registration from republican to independent or democrat.  american businesses are refusing to contribute to elected officials who sought to overturn the election.  his impeachment defense team has resigned en masse because he still refuses to abandon his insistence on widespread voter fraud.  each day we see more clearly that his was a house of cards rather than one built on a strong foundation of popular support.  

most americans support president biden's agenda of reversing the effects of climate change, of combating systemic racism in our society, of insuring the survival of and strengthening of the social safety net, of vigorously working to bring the pandemic under control, of ending trump's racist immigration policy and replacing it with one that is humane, of stopping the running america's prisons for profit and abandoning the use of the death penalty.  we want our elected officials to work together to solve our problems, putting aside partisan politics for all our good, rather than appealing to a narrow base of voters and constantly looking to the next election.  we applaud president biden's insistence that he is the president of all the people, not just those who voted for him.

may we turn from the rhetoric of division and hate.  may we become one people, listening to and caring for one another.  may we lift those who cannot life themselves.  may the wealth of our country be shared equitably with all our people.  may we once again be a force for democracy and freedom throughout the world, no longer a country of "america first."  shalom.

You Can Make the Mountains Sing

 after four very long years, donald trump is out of washington and removed from power.  it is wonderful to awaken each day without feeling the need to check the news reports to see what crazy thing he has done or is planning to do.  it seems that each day some new revelation comes to light about his abuses of his office.  as if his attempt to pressure officials in georgia to subvert the will of the people of that state and the invasion of the our nation's capitol by an angry mob at his urging were not enough, we have now learned that he sought to turn the nation's justice department into a tool to advance his bid to stay in power despite having lost both the popular and electoral college votes.  there seems to be some evidence coming to light to suggest that he knew of the plans to take over the capitol in advance of the rally he held just before the insurrection, though no definitive proof has been found to date.

the contrast between trump and president biden is stark.  it was refreshing to hear mr. biden say that he and all government employees are the servants of the people of the country, including those who did not vote for him, and that scientific evidence, not wishful thinking and falsehoods, would guide efforts to confront the pandemic that is threatening all of us.  when his new press secretary addressed the white house press corps and took questions from them, it was wonderful to see and hear that she had respect for the free press and would use her position to inform the american people through the news media rather than viewing those reporters as "enemies of the people," as had been the case during the trump regime.  there is something comforting in mr. biden's manner and in his words, and it seems that those he has chosen to be a part of his administration will echo his tone and style.

it is like waking from a terrible nightmare to witness the change in our national discourse, to see an end to the constant chaos, bitterness, and attempts to divide us and scapegoat those who are not white and native-born.  no longer will we move from crisis to crisis, without a president who invents new ones to distract us from the former ones.  our problems are being confronted honestly, and solutions are being sought by listening to the views of many rather than imposing the views of one man on the whole of government.  if the tears in our national psyche can be mended, joe biden is the person to lead us to the necessary repairs.  his first words as president called on us to work with him to come together despite all our differences.

may we turn from enmity and division.  may we see that our strength is our diversity, embracing and honoring those who are different from us.  may we put aside partisanship and listen to one another.  may we take the words and actions of the president as our example.  shalom.

Goin' Places That I've Never Been

 living through covid-19 has brought many changes in our lives, and the demands of avoiding infection have caused all of us to give up things that we love to do.  movies and travel are the two things my wife and i have missed most of all.  we watch a lot of older movies here at home, but that's not the same as going out to the theater and seeing a movie that's been recently released.  even now, when most new movies are also available to watch at home, it's a different experience from seeing the movie on a theater screen.  we do take some day trips from our home, but we long to get away for weeks at a time to go places we've never been before or to revisit some place we especially loved when we went there before.  we love our home and our time together in it, but we can't understand people who are perfectly content to stay home all the time.

one of my favorite movies is "auntie mame."  while i like the musical version (just plain "mame") with lucille ball, the original with rosalind russell is the one i could watch over and over.  my favorite line in it is, "life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving."  every time i watch it, my wanderlust is stoked, and i want to pack my bags and head out.  we watched a dvd of queen latifah's great movie, last holiday, for the first time a few nights ago, and it, too, made us long for a trip to some place far away where the climate and architecture are different from what we experience every day.  

i'm reading a book now called "ten years a nomad"  it's by one of my favorite travel bloggers, matt kepnes.  his travel blog is "nomadic matt," and i've gotten lots of great travel tips from reading it.  his book has fueled the itch to wander, and i'm dying to plan trips.  the planning is almost as much fun as the actual doing.  figuring out where to stay, what to see, how to get to all the places we want to see, whether to drive, fly, or go by train or some combination of modes of transport are things i can joyfully spend hours doing.  then comes the making of reservations and finally the packing.  all the preparation is as much a part of the excitement as the trip itself.

now that vaccines are available, the time is coming when we can return to a more normal life.  we know it will be months before we can safely venture out for long trips or feel safe on a plane or train, so long trips are still out of the question for the time being.  we have been to the movies a few times recently, since it is easy to social distance in large theaters if we go during the right time of day, but there have been so few movies released in the past several months.  one of these days we can return to long road and rail trips, flights overseas, frequent visits to theaters, and dinners and card games with friends.  those times can't come soon enough.  meanwhile, we work at being content with life as it has to be for the present.

may each of us find happiness in the daily routine of life.  may we make the best of what is possible for now, even while we long for what used to be normal.  may we remember that all of us are enduring the changes that are necessary to stay safe and in good health.  may we take the steps we need to protect ourselves and others.  may we not entertain resentments for the hardships that this pandemic has caused for so many of us, and may we look with optimism toward the future that lies ahead thanks to those who developed vaccines and those who administer them.  shalom

There's A Song In Every Silence

 last week i wrote about balance.  the events of last wednesday, when followers of donald trump invaded the united states capitol and forced legislators and staff to evacuate and temporarily abandon the counting of the votes of the electoral college, demonstrate what happens when our lives and beliefs are out of balance.  no doubt, some of those involved in this attempt to stop the declaration of joe biden as president of the united states were just there for their own amusement, thinking that it was a lark to interrupt the ceremonial counting of the vote by the congress.  others had more sinister motives.  they believed that they were stopping the theft of the election from trump and intended to force the members of congress to declare trump the winner of the election and perhaps to execute some or all of our senators and representatives.  those of us who had turned on our televisions to observe the proceedings of the house and senate watched in horror as this mob forced its way into the capitol, breaking windows, walking around the historic building, vandalizing the chambers of the senate and the offices of members of the congress and their staff.

this is the price of the extremism fomented by trump and his cronies in government.  trump's radical right-wing true believers were emboldened to threaten our national legislators and the building in which they meet.  when we listen to what some of them proclaim as fact, we are amazed that any sane person could hold such ideologies.  some thought that satanists engaged in pedophilia and human trafficking were secretly at work within the government and other seats of power and that trump was working with an anonymous person in the government known only as "q" to bring  an end to this nefarious activity.  some were white nationalists.  others were ultra-conservatives who believed that the power of the federal government had to be reigned in at any cost.  still others were anarchists who wanted to destroy the national government and vest all power in local authorities, while others thought that trump was more important than the constitution and the laws which flow from it.  all of these saw trump as their leader and defender and were willing to do whatever was necessary to keep him in power.  they believed his lies that there was massive fraud in the election and that the election had been stolen from him.

trump encouraged their twisted political viewpoints and egged them on with his rhetoric over the past several months culminating in the rally he led before the invasion of the capitol.  we are told he watched the mob's actions with delight from the white house, while calling members of congress in their hiding places to encourage them to "stop the steal" of the election.  he uttered a lukewarm plea for his followers to leave peacefully, while repeating his lies about the election and telling them what fine people they were and that he loved them.  later in the day, he came out with a taped statement condemning the violence and finally admitting publicly that joe biden would become the next president, a statement we are told he regretted having made only a few hours after it was released to the public.  this last statement confounded his followers.  some them condemned him for betraying them while others saw coded messages in the statement that the fight was not over.

this is an example of what happens when political balance is lost.  extremists try to take over.  the views of others are ignored and ridiculed.  lies replace truth, and our lives are turned topsy-turvy.  somewhere in the middle of the views of the far right and the far left lies the middle ground that allows us to have perspective on the best direction.  buddhism speaks of the middle way or middle path which runs between the extremes of self-deprivation and self-indulgence.  finding balance is the key to finding this middle path, and this is true for individuals and for a society.  the followers of donald trump have strayed far from the middle path to their detriment and that of the nation.

may we find our way back to the middle path.  may we see that truth lies between extremes.  may we let go of anger, bitterness, and victimhood.  may we try to place ourselves in one another's shoes and see that together we can solve our problems, realizing that no single person has the answers.  instead, we must work them out together.  shalom.