Category Archives: Awake to Each Other

Declaration of Human Rights 1948

Posted on by
Bluebird perched on top of turquoise colored umbrella

As I was cleaning out files in the basement, I came across a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted December 10, 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly. It feels timely to post sections of this declaration here. There are 30 articles in the Declaration, along with its preamble. (I’ll post more in future days.) We’ve got to speak up for what we believe! Our current government is betraying these ideals in multiple ways, particularly by denying due process to immigrants arrested and imprisoned, or renditioned to foreign prisons. Resist!

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national of social origin, property, birth, or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional, or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing, or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.

Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Your silence will not protect you

Posted on by
Multiple bluish white flowers with green leaves in a bunch on the grass.

I am living in the strangest of paradoxes. A hateful dictator has taken over our country, but today my life looks about the same as yesterday. I wake up in the morning, the sun is shining through my windows, and the birds are singing. I see these bright spring flowers on my walk. And yet, US-made bombs are being targeted on children in Gaza, they are dying in flames or slowly starving because food aid has been locked out by the Israeli government. International students (here in the U.S. on legitimate visas) are being kidnapped and jailed by ICE and threatened with deportation for having spoken up against this genocide in Gaza.

And I can’t stop thinking about Kilmar Abrego Garcia being detained by “administrative error” and sent to the one country his immigration status said he could not be sent to (El Salvador), because of danger from gangs; and now he is trapped in a hellish prison there because the president will not bring him back. This regime is renditioning hundreds of people without trial to this “prison” in El Salvador–and really, without trial it is not a “prison” but an extra-judicial concentration camp. All the people the president sent there should be brought back to the U.S. If some of them are gangsters and criminals, they should face trials–everyone has human rights, or no one does. But the president jokes instead about sending “homegrowns” to El Salvador next.

So since I’ve spoken up publicly about genocide in Gaza, and about immigrants being deprived of human rights, does that mean that they will come for me one day? Maybe it does. But I can’t live my deepest ethics without bridging the gap between the bright sunshine of today’s ordinary morning and the nightmare that is going on all around us, just at a little distance from my house at the moment. Every day I read about more atrocities taking place, and I try to do the little that I can do: to bear witness, to speak up about them, to share my outrage, to protest the injustice. The temptation is to get quiet, to try to hide under the radar. But I do believe, as lesbian poet warrior Audre Lorde said, “Your silence will not protect you.”

The more of us who resist, the more chance we have to reverse this nightmare.

Letting Go

Posted on by
9 file boxes of white and brown, marked with Myke Johnson, numbered, with years and places, all lined up in a row

Today, S— came to pick up these nine boxes, to take to the LGBTQ archives at our local university. It feels like a pretty big deal. It involved six winters of going through old boxes that I had carried around for years–some for 50 years. I had to sort them paper by paper, and it became a look back into all the years of my life until now. I shredded and recycled and even composted much more paper than I kept. Perhaps I could have winnowed even more, if I went back through and sorted it all again, but I was ready to be done. (And I think that is one of the roles of an archivist anyway.) S— was so kind, and thanked me for adding to their collection. I felt good about entrusting her with these boxes. (Soon I will also transfer many years of digital files. But those are funny–you can give them and still keep them.)

At our retired ministers’ meeting this week, we reflected on poems, and especially the one by Mary Oliver that ends:

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive. © Back Bay Books, 1983.

Letting go of these boxes, in a deeper sense, is a way of facing my own mortality. I notice that I am not completely letting go of these boxes, but giving them into someone’s care. I am hoping that I don’t disappear. Letting go of the boxes into an archive is not letting go of the self, really. On the contrary, it is saying: my life has had meaning and significance. And in the context of our times, it is saying, this lesbian life has meaning and significance–this lesbian life of activism, of writing, of spirituality, of ministry, has significance. Didn’t I learn that from Joan Nestle and the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York? We must keep our own history/herstory. Not let it get lost. Especially now.

Sometimes, it feels like too much–too many pieces of paper, too many words, too many actions–will something essential get lost in the overabundance of words? But that is who I have been–always a pondering soul, a writing soul, a many-worded soul. I also notice that I am revealing so much of myself in this gift to the archives. Like writing, though, it is one step removed. So my shyness barely peaks out as I reflect on it. And I didn’t gift everything. For example, I decided not to send over my journals from 1983 on–(earlier ones are intermingled in the boxes.) I want those journals to go to the archives after I die. But the journals reveal not only my life but the lives of those who are close to me, and it feels much more intimate than the other papers. Very much part of my lesbian life, but for later revelation.

I think how, ultimately, in death, we let go in a much deeper way. I will let go of my small life into the larger Life, the larger Consciousness. I have always hoped, and felt it too, that Someone sees my life, that Someone sees all. I believe that I would be known and held in meaning and significance and love, whether I had written any words at all. All of us are.

Despair

Posted on by

Almost every day I walk down to Capisic Brook, and most days, all through the winter, I saw a pair of ducks who lived in the water there. I saw them today too. My whole body felt heavy as I walked this morning, and I almost turned back before I reached the brook. I feel such a crushing sense of sadness and despair. I feel for the people who are suffering and dying in a genocide in Gaza. I feel for the foreign students and others who have been detained without warning or due process. I feel for the thousands hurt by the dismantling of government programs that feed people, and in conjunct with that, support farmers. And so much more. So much more is being broken and destroyed by the regime in Washington.

To be an activist has been an empowering thread throughout my life. I followed the advice of Audre Lorde: “Use what power you have to work for what you believe in.” When I feel powerless, I still search around for some small work I might do for what I believe in. And yet, the destruction continues.

As I cast about for some hope to cling to, some antidote to this despair, I find myself remembering the life of Jesus. He lived in a time and place under oppression by an empire that cared little for his life and the lives of any of the people around him. He had no power to change that evil regime, (or if he did, he did not use it–that was one of the temptations he rejected, as described in the gospels). Somehow, he lived his entire prophetic life in the shadow of this evil empire, and taught and healed nonetheless, usually with the most marginalized and the outsiders.

I get especially angry by the people who promote “Christian nationalism.” Jesus preached the opposite of nationalism. He often contrasted the divine “kingdom” with earthly kingdoms. Perhaps there is no story with more clarity about this than the story of the final judgment at the end of the world. According to the book of Matthew, (chapter 25) the divine king said to those judged as righteous: 35 “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘…when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? 38 And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? 39 And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ 40 And He will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’”

The divine is with the least of these. And what this means to me is that the divine is in the torture prison in El Salvador with the gay Venezuelan barber. The divine is under the rubble with the emergency medical workers in Gaza. The divine is with the HIV patients in Africa who longer have medicine. The divine is lined up at the food bank. The divine is waiting with the woman miscarrying in Texas unable to receive medical help. The divine is with the sick person feeling isolated at home.

And maybe sometimes that is me, too, feeling the isolation and powerlessness of chronic illness, maybe the divine is here with me in my despair for the world.

Obscure/Reveal

Posted on by

Yesterday, a really sweet tree guy was taking down some dead/dying spruces at our home. Afterward, we were chatting about some confusion in the estimate for the work. We happened to mention being concerned about our future Social Security income, which has been threatened by the current regime in Washington. He was excited to tell us about a news source he had found that he felt was quite neutral in terms of reporting in the midst of the political divisions in our country. This news source had a chart that showed that social security was the largest item of government spending, much greater than military spending, for example.

This conversation brought back a long ago memory about how charts can be used to obscure as well as reveal, especially in regard to government spending. I did a bit of internet searching and found what I was looking for. The War Resisters League has created charts every year showing the percentage of the federal budget that goes toward war. They also compare their charts with the the government view of the budget. Ever since the Vietnam War, the government started including Trust Funds like Social Security in their budget pie chart pictures, to make it seem that the military spending was not as great a percentage as it was. They also did not distinguish past military spending from non-military spending. According to WRL calculations for FY2025:

“Current military” includes Dept. of Defense ($871 billion) and the military portion ($320 billion) from other departments as noted in current military box. “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.* For further explanation, please go to warresisters.org. The figures are Federal funds, which do not include Trust funds — such as Social Security —which are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2024, goes to the Federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining Trust and Federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget appear larger and the military portion smaller.

Why does it matter? When I was younger, I didn’t really understand much about Social Security. It seemed sort of unfair that even if my partner and I made very little money, self-employed, some 15.3 percent of it was taken out for Social Security and Medicare. Shouldn’t there be a lower income level that wasn’t taxed at all? I didn’t understand that it was a form of collective care for people no longer able to work–we all contribute and we are eligible for benefits if we become disabled or when we are older. Now that I am older, and rely on Social Security to live, I think of it as one of the best things our government has done. I only wish it had been more clear to me when I was younger.

And now, that tendency of the government to obscure things by putting them all in one chart, has helped to break down the divide that was meant to exist between the trust funds and the federal budget. Now the regime is talking about cutting these funds to pass more tax cuts for billionaires. It would be illegal. The trust funds are “off-budget” and treated separately in certain ways from other federal spending, and other trust funds of the federal government. From the U.S. Code (according to Wikipedia):

EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL SECURITY FROM ALL BUDGETS

Pub. L. 101–508, title XIII, Sec. 13301(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 1388-623, provided that: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the receipts and disbursements of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund shall not be counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, or deficit or surplus for purposes of – (1) the budget of the United States Government as submitted by the President, (2) the congressional budget, or

(3) the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

Not that the current regime worries too much about the legality of their actions.

I don’t usually get so technical in these posts, but I felt angry this morning that even our really nice tree guy was being deceived by a supposedly neutral news source, that was obscuring the true nature of government spending and the relationship between the regular budget and Social Security. There is a lot more one could say about Social Security, and its limitations, but I am grateful to Frances Perkins who led its development 90 years ago. It is a testament to the values of interconnection and compassion, to our interdependent human family. May it long survive!

Oh, and tax the rich!

A simple action to support our Trans siblings

Posted on by
"You will have to go through me" print in blue pink and white, pile of stickers

President Trump issued an executive order claiming that “sex is either male or female for all federal purposes” and then issued new rules that gender markers on passports must conform to gender assigned at birth. This is already affecting the ability of Trans and Non-binary people to get/renew passports, and putting them in danger while traveling if the “gender marker” on their passport does not match their visible appearance. There is an action you can do, if you care about Trans, Non-binary, and Two-Spirit people, right now up until March 17. I’ll put those details here, and then explain more later.

There are three rule changes that are open now for public comment, 1. Proposed Information Collection: Application for a U.S. Passport, 2. Proposed Information Collection: U.S. Passport Renewal Application for Eligible Individuals, and 3. Proposed Information Collection: Application for a U.S. Passport for Eligible Individuals: Correction, Name Change to Passport Issued 1 Year Ago or Less, and Limited Passport Replacement. You can follow the links to get to the pages where you can create a comment against these rule changes, and in support of gender markers matching a person’s gender identity. I want to acknowledge that this action is not without any risk. If you identify yourself as a supporter of Trans and Non-binary people, it is possible that you too might be targeted. If you need to be less vulnerable, comments can also be left anonymously.

Some background from the Gender Justice League:

An Executive Order is NOT a law. Executive Orders like the one President Trump issued declaring “sex is either male or female for all federal purposes” is not a new law; it is the executive branch’s interpretation (or supposed interpretation) of laws passed by Congress. Once an executive order is signed, it is transmitted to each of the federal government departments and agencies, such as the State Department, for policy changes and rule-making.

This process is governed by a federal law called the Administrative Procedures Act. In order for a new policy, practice, or rule to be legal and constitutional, it MUST follow this law. Otherwise, courts will find the new policy is “arbitrary and capricious;” meaning it was decided without careful consideration, study, or public comment and consultation. What has been happening since January 20th to Trans people is exactly that! 

The State Department has issued a new rule for public comment, acknowledging that up until this rule has closed public comment, everything they have done has been illegal under the Administrative Procedures Act. There was no emergency situation that required them to illegally issue passports not following the current policy. You can read more here:  https://www.genderjusticeleague.org/trans-non-binary-passport-update-what-you-need-to-know/

I found the public comment pages of the State Department somewhat intimidating because of the bureaucracy of it all. But persevere. I just clicked on the “Submit a Public Comment” button, and filled in the rest on the page that came up. You can use the same comment for all three pages. I imagine that the content of the comments is less important right now than the numbers of comments we can generate against these hateful rules. Here is what I posted today.

“Trans people have always existed. I have close friends who are Trans or Non-binary. Truthfully, I didn’t really understand these gender identities until I listened to what my friends were sharing about their experience. I still don’t fully understand, but my values call me to honor their experience of their own lives. Each person is sacred and we are all one family. I love my Trans and Non-binary friends very deeply. This rule change is cruel and arbitrary, and puts my friends in danger. It traps them in this country without legal papers to be able to travel. It marks them out for legal harassment at the border, and within our borders. I am not willing to stand by and let Trans and Non-binary people be harassed, degraded, or harmed by the cruel policies this administration is attempting to enact.”

Photo “You will have to go through me” is of stickers designed by Stevie Bees. Please support this small, trans-owned business that ships anywhere in the world! Stevie is also a fierce activist and compassionate community builder. https://steviesafespaces.com/

Revealing the hidden

Posted on by
deer tracks in snow

One thing I love about snow is the way it reveals all sorts of hidden activities. We haven’t seen any deer on our land for quite a long time, but after the snow storms of the last weeks, we found their tracks making a path through the yard. The deer have been quietly passing through in the dark. They have come to drink the water that we keep thawed for the birds, and come to eat the sunflower seeds scattered near the bird feeder. They have nibbled the yew bushes in front of our windows.

There is so much that is hidden that is only revealed through storms. There is so much that we cannot see, and may never know. In the face of all that is coming undone in our country, in the face of all that is being destroyed, this gives me a kind of hope. Not optimism or naivety. I know that there is a coup happening right now against the ideals of democracy we have cherished, ideals we have tried to expand and perfect. Human dignity, diversity, equity, inclusion. Compassion for the vulnerable. I feel anxiety and rage in the face of the dangers that hang over us.

But as Rebecca Solnit says, “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” The deer tracks remind me that, in truth, we don’t even know what is happening right now, right outside our windows in the dark. We don’t know what may be happening that will change the trajectory of the future.

The deer tracks remind me that we are not alone in our yard, our home is the home of many other beings, those we can see, and those who are invisible to us. And just so, we are not alone in our struggles. In ways that we cannot begin to understand, we are all connected. That interconnection means that even our small actions of love and kindness may have beautiful consequences, and there are others unknown to us whose actions may bring liberation to all. May it be so!

Tiny and partial

Posted on by

On the last day of 2024, Margy and I went to Kettle Cove beach. I saw this tiny partial sunbow in the sky, bursts of color hanging on either side of a bright sun. Tiny and partial are the words for today. There is so much suffering in the world, so much violence and evil. I can’t stop the devastation of Gaza, or the cruelty of the Israeli army continuing to kill scores of people even after a ceasefire has just been signed, to take affect on Sunday. Why not stop the killing today? All I can do is bear witness, share posts on Facebook. Tiny and partial.

What can we do to bring good to the world? I think about my visit to my friend at the nursing home yesterday. He was happy to see me–I went to wish him happy birthday and we had a good visit. But immediately afterward I felt a sense of guilt that I can’t visit more often than every months or so. What I can offer him is tiny and partial. But perhaps it is important, especially in the face of large and unrelenting troubles, to honor the tiny and partial acts of goodness we do? And what can he offer now, my old friend, after years of activism and kindness? Perhaps merely to receive with cheerfulness the help he now needs. We each bring goodness in the tiny and partial ways that we are able.

Each morning I take a walk. I have been able to take a little walk most days, after a message a year ago that “walking will be needed.” I have been able, ever so slowly, to increase my walk to about 20 minutes, no longer going directly to the brook and back, but making a little circle around the neighborhood, on my way there. It feeds my spirit, and reminds me to be in love with the earth, the sun, the water, the place where I live. It is a tiny walk as walks go, but by tiny increments, a little more.

Before I walk, I empty and refill the water that we have in a heated tray for the birds. Perhaps that is my tiny gift to the creatures who live here with us on this land. It feels like a prayer each morning. It reminds me of the importance of giving what we are able to this wider community of life. The other day I saw the crows laughing and jostling each other as they perched on the edge and dipped their beaks in.

We are living in very troubled times. Some will be called to wise analysis, and great acts of heroism, and energetically building the systems that honor our deepest values. But all of us, no matter how tiny, must still cling to kindness, cling to our interconnected earth community, and give what we can, no matter how partial. And I hope I remember to celebrate the brightness of the colors revealed in those gifts.

Be like the crows

Posted on by
Crow on the top of bare branches of a tree against a blue sky
[A crow is perched high in the bare branches of a tree outside my house. This photo is not from yesterday, but reminds me of the crow I saw yesterday in a similar perch.]

After blogging yesterday morning about Listening for Spirit, I bundled up in warm clothes to take a walk in the cold. As I stepped off the back porch, I heard the raucous calling of crows, and looked up to see a crow high in the branches of a tree. Then I saw two others, all of them agitated and calling. They flew over our back yard and kept calling and scolding.

I walked down the driveway, turned right onto the street, went past our neighbor’s house and then around the corner, on my usual route for a morning walk. I could still hear those crows! Then I saw the cause for the crows’ alarm–it looked like a huge hawk up in a tree near another neighbor’s house. I could see the white feathers of its belly as it perched and I crossed the street to confirm its identity. Then it suddenly flew off, obviously bothered by the relentless scolding of the crows. They didn’t stop, but kept after it until it was gone.

Then Spirit said, so clearly, “Be like the crows! Keep calling out to alert everyone to the presence of a huge predator! Keep calling out together.”

I was reminded of the line in a song that I have been singing and translating. “Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker.” [from The Lost Words Blessing] In Passamaquoddy, verbs are more fundamental than nouns, so the end of that line became, “…ahtolint on ktahtolewestun” “…keep singing and keep speaking.”

I have watched people talking about facing encroaching fascism by deleting their public presence on social media, by using encrypted forms of communication like Signal, by using extreme caution about what is said and what is shared. And there are situations that definitely warrant those precautions. Definitely. But I believe that there are also reasons to keep speaking and keep sharing. Keep naming our values, keep claiming our experiences, keep identifying what we witness.

If we are called to that. And not alone, but in groups, even groups of three. Three crows can annoy a hawk enough to make it leave. I felt the presence of Spirit so strongly in those crows that it gave me courage to say, I can do that. I can keep speaking here, as long as I can.

Sustenance

Posted on by

Today I saw this gray goldfinch on a gray seed-head of evening primrose! Both the bird and the flower have let go of their bright yellow plumage as we enter the dark season. But still so beautiful in their subdued and subtle way. We haven’t cut down the “dead” plants because they are still such a source of sustenance and life to our little friends.

It is these small beauties that are sustaining me during these anxious days in the United States election season. It is terrifying to me that there is a close race between a mentally-unstable fascist who spreads hate wherever he goes, and a very qualified woman with whom I disagree on certain policies, but who will be president of all the people, and uphold the basic principles of democracy. My partner and I dropped off our absentee ballots last Monday, and gave Kamala Harris our votes.

It breaks my heart that some people I love seem to have been taken in by the lies of the MAGA propaganda machine. I don’t know how to ease that pain, except to pray that the fascists don’t win.

I haven’t forgotten the genocide that is being perpetrated by the Israeli government in Gaza, and expanding to Lebanon. I will continue to protest that killing in whatever ways that I can, small though they may be, every day. I have heard that some folks say they can’t vote for Harris because of her association with the Biden administration’s participation in the genocide. I don’t know what might happen under a Harris administration. But I know that the other side will be much worse, and would accelerate the destruction.

For me, voting is strategic. I have protested in some way every administration of our country–but there are better and worse administrations. For all of my adult life, I have been part of the movements to expand equality and democracy–to women, to people of color, to queer folks, to disabled people. I have protested the wars of empire and supported the raising of our awareness of the interconnected web of life, and the challenges of climate destruction. We keep pushing toward the hopes, and resisting those who would take all of that away in favor of hierarchical despotism.

In this season when the veil between the worlds of the dead and the living is thin, I think of my uncle Jim, who fought fascists in World War Two, and then grew marvelous gardens when I knew him. I think of my uncle Richard, whom I never knew because he died in that fight. May their spirits help us now. May all the spirits who cherish peace and liberation help us now.