Families

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robin feeding 3 babies in nest, whose beaks are pointing up
Parent feeding the babies on May 18

The robins raise their young so quickly, just a few weeks and they are already fledging from the nest. But they treasure their little family, and take utmost care to give the babies everything they need. We feel privileged to watch from our windows. So I will take my theme from this little family, to speak about the human rights of families.

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16 says:

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality, or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Now, in these few sentences, we can also see the foundations of the right to marriage for same-sex couples and transgender persons, because this article affirms “free and full consent”–that we choose our intended spouses, rather than being assigned a spouse by parents or society. At the time it was written in 1948, sexual orientation wasn’t fully understood or protected. But I was happy to be a part of the changes made in the last decades that extended this right to all couples.

And today, I am especially thinking about Mahmoud Khalil, being held in ICE detention in Louisiana, since March 8th. A legal green-card resident of New York, he was detained for previously speaking up about the human rights of people in Gaza. He was not permitted to be with his wife for the birth of their child, and today immigration officials have denied a request for him to hold his newborn son during a visit from his wife. This cruelty robs him and his baby of a bonding that is so humanly necessary. He should be free, and able to go home to his family.

I’ll close with a few photos from the baby robins.

2 newly hatched robins and one blue egg with crack in it.
Newly hatched robins on May 7th
Three robins peeking out of nest today.
Parent encouraging one baby robin, the last fledgling.
Parent encouraging the last fledgling.

Even the Humblest of Beings

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trout lilies in old leaves, with mottled green leaves, and yellow and brown blooms

The trout lilies bloomed last week before several days of rain. This photo was from May 5th. Today the blooms are already fading or gone. The trout lilies live near a path by the Capisic Brook that I visit most mornings, though I don’t always make it as far as that path. I was glad to walk a little further to see these lovely small beauties.

I want to continue to post from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I started a couple weeks ago. It is such a good reminder that every person, no matter how humble, or seemingly insignificant, is worthy of dignity. (In this quote of the declaration from 1948, for simplicity, I am using the original language, in which the pronouns he/his/him were understood to refer to all people).

Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14: (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from nonpolitical crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15: (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Can you read them again? So important in the light of what is happening to migrants today in our country. Everyone has the right to seek asylum. Every one has the right to a country, or to leave a country. Everyone has the right of return. And yet so many are denied that right. We have to keep speaking up for what we know is right, even if our societies have never fully lived up to these values.

Robins building nests

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clear ceiling over deck beam with robin in nest on beam

We have robins nesting again in the beams of our deck! Two years ago, a pair of robins raised three broods of chicks over the course of the season. The year before that, in 2022, they had tried, but failed, and it seemed the clear ceiling raised the heat too much for the babies. So I created a shade from cloth to go over them. That worked for 2023. Last year, no nests on the deck. But this year, they were rooting around again on the beam. Imagine my chagrin when a robin starting building a nest in a different section of the beam, with no shade cloth. I could already see her with her beak open on a warm sunny day. One day when she was gone from the nest, I counted three blue eggs.

So I tried a different solution. It was a bit of a risk, but I went out with a ladder and painted the ceiling above the nest with some white primer/paint. She had flown off when I got close, but after I finished she came back, and I am happy to say has continued to sit on the nest every day. I hope this helps her babies to thrive, as I wish for all babies to thrive. I am thinking of the babies in Gaza who are being starved right now.

Robin in nest with shade from painted ceiling

Another joy is that there is also a robin nesting in the bush near our front door. You can just barely see her from our living room windows–she is so well camouflaged from above. But she too is still sitting.

Spring is bursting all over. The cherry trees have some blossoms and the peach tree is starting too. I just hope all this rain we are getting this week doesn’t prevent them from being pollinated. The rain is much needed because of drought, but I miss the sunny days we had last week. I did a holistic spray for the trees the week before. Our trees struggled last year so I am trying to be more attentive this season.

Cherry blossoms against blue sky

Being in the garden is so healing in light of all the devastating news each day from our country, and from the world. One more photo of beauty, daffodils Margy picked from the garden. May the beauty be a prayer for peace.

yellow and orange multi-layered daffodils

Where is Mosab Abu Toha?

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Mosab Abu Toha
Photo By Ishmaeldaro – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155046681

Update: It turned out to be Facebook that suspended his account for a few days. In other news, Mosab Abu Toha just won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, for a series of essays in the New Yorker. Original post follows:

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and writer living in the United States with his wife and three children. I have been following him on Facebook because every day he posts so eloquently about what is happening in Gaza, he shares the details of people killed and the horrors of the genocide there. Today, I discovered that his Facebook page did not exist any more, and all the posts I had shared before had that little FB memo: “This content isn’t available right now.” The latest such post was April 27th.

I can’t help but wonder and fear what has happened. Has he been Facebook banned? Has he gone into hiding? Has he been arrested? He was so bold about speaking up for his people and appealing to the larger world to stop the genocide. This post from me is a prayer for his safety, and a prayer for all that he was trying to accomplish.

I have been posting articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today I will highlight Article 19: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

I want to close with a poem by Mosab Abu Toha published a year ago in AGNI journal. Abu Toha has two books of poetry available: Things You May Find Hidden In My Ear: Poems from Gaza (2022 City Lights Publishers) and Forest of Noise (2024 Knopf).

This Is Me!

A city whose streets escaped it,
a house without windows,
a rain with no clouds,
a swimmer in the desert,
a shirt with ripped-off buttons,
a book with loose pages,
a lightless moon and colorless grass,
a toothless smile and suffocated laugh,
a dark painting on black canvas.
I’m a table with no legs,
a noisy restaurant with no guests.
I write with a pen that has no ink.
I write my name in the air
and shout it, but no voice comes out.
I look around and see many things,
but I see no one.

First Harvest & Human Rights

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chives, in orange colander, scissors on cutting board, cut up chives and plastic labeled bag for cut chives

Today I harvested chives! The first harvest of the 2025 season. I cut them up in small pieces with a scissors and then freezed to use anytime. Today I also want to speak up for human rights! Continuing from the first seven articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in my last post, I want to write out the next articles here. Over 75 years in existence, I weep that so many of these rights are not upheld in our world today.

Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. [Note: I am using the original language, the pronouns of which, at that time, while “masculine”, were understood to refer to every person.]

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile.

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11: (1) Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to the law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed.

I can’t help but think of the 238 Venezuelan men detained and transported to the prison in El Salvador, with no trials, no hearings, and definitely not presumed innocent until proven guilty. I don’t usually do lengthy blog posts, but today I want to say their names. They are human beings with human rights.

The names of Venezuelans deported to El Salvador per CBS News. [Plus there is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran living in the U.S. for 14 years, who was sent “by error.”]

Agelviz Sanguino, Widmer Josneyder

Aguilar Rodriguez, Nolberto Rafael

Aguilera Aguero, Gustavo Adolfo

Albornoz-Quintero, Henrry

Alvarado Borges, Neri

Angulo-Aparicio, Jinder

Aray-Cardona, Jose

Arregoces Rincon, Jose

Azuaje Perez, Nixon Jose

Barreto Villegas, Rolando

Bastidas Venegas, Jose

Basulto-Salinas, Marcos

Batista-Arias, Elvis

Belloso Fuenmayor, Alirio

Benavides Rivas, Yornel Santiago

Blanco-Bonilla, Andry

Blanco-Marin, Angel

Bolivar Cruz, Angel

Bracho Gomez, Victor

Brazon-Lezama, Javiar

Briceno-Gonzalez, Jose

Briceno-Gonzalez, Jean

Bustamante-Dominguez, Robert

Cabrera-Rico, David

Canizalez Arteaga, Carlos

Caraballo Tiapa, Franco

Cardenas-Silva, Johan

Carmona Bastista, Yorbi

Carmona Hernandez, Jose

Cedeno Contreras, Bruce Embelgert

Cedeno-Gil, Andrys

Chacin Gomez, Jhon

Chirinos Romero, Wild

Chivico Medina, Carlos

Colina Arguelles, Rosme

Colina Caseres, Miguel

Colina-Suarez, Alejandro

Colmenares Solorzano, Leonardo Jose

Colmenarez Abreu, Aldo

Contreras-Gonzalez, Yordano

Cornejo Pulgar, Frizgeralth De Jesus

Corrales-Moreno, Emilio

Davila Fernanadez, Luis

Delgado Pina, Aldrin

Depablos Requena, Jheison

Diaz-Lugo, Kleiver

Duarte Rodriguez, Richard

Duran Perez, Joseph Gregory

Echavez-Paz, Leonel

Elista-Jimenez, Robert

Escalona Carrizo, Yender

Escalona Sevilla, Angelo

Escobar Blanco, Pedro

Escobar Falcon, Yolfran

Fernandez Sanchez, Julio Rafael

Fernandez, Yohan

Fernandez-Subero, Mikael

Flores Jimenez, Wilken Rafael

Flores Rodriguez, Jose

Flores-Lopez, Jose

Fonseca Daboin, Cristhofer

Fuenmayor-Crespo, Roneil

Garcia Casique, Francisco

Garcia Prado, Leonardo

Giron Maurera, Richard

Gonzalez Troconis, Julio

Gonzalez Frailan, Jose Leon

Gonzalez Fuenmayor, Angel Jesus

Gonzalez Pineda, Oscar

Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Charlie

Graterol-Farias, Winder

Gualdron Gualdron, Luis

Gualtero Quiroz, Deibin

Guerrero Padron, Keivy

Guevara Munoz, Wilvenson

Guiterrez-Sierra, Wilker

Gutierrez Flores, Merwil

Hernandez Carache, Yeison

Hernandez Carache, Darwin Gerardo

Hernandez Herrera, Edwuar Jose

Hernandez-Hernandez, Jhonnael

Hernandez Gonzalez, Manuel

Hernandez Hernandez, Angel

Hernandez Juarez, Yorby

Hernandez Romero, Andry

Hueck Escobar, Jesus

Hung Mendoza, Jordan

Hurtado Quevedo, Eddie Adolfo

Indriago-Alvarez, Donovan

Izaguirre-Granado, Randy

Jaimes-Rincon, Yeison

Jerez-Hernandez, Yohendry

Justo Garcia, Jose

Laya-Freites, Jefferson

Leal-Bautista, Keiber

Leal-Estrada, Kervin

Lemus Cagua, Diego

Lizcano-Basto, Josue

Lopez Bolivar, Jose

Lopez Lizano, Maikol

Lopez-Rodriguez, Geomar

Lozada Sanchez, Wuilliam

Lozano-Camargo, Daniel

Lugo Zavala, Johendry

Lugo-Acosta, Yermain

Machado Martinez, Onaiker

Machado-Rodriguez, Jose

Manrique, Edson

Manzo Lovera, Lainerke

Marcano Silva, Luis

Marea-Medina, Ronald

Marin Zambrano, Jhonervi Josue

Marquez Pena, Jose

Marrufo Hernandez, Uriel David

Martinez Vargas, Kerbin

Martinez Vegas, Rafael

Martinez-Borrego, Tito

Martinez-Gonzalez, Yohangel

Mata Fornerino, Wilfredo Jose

Mata-Ribeiro, Yoswaldo

Mathie Zavala, Hotsman Ricardo

Medina-Martinez, Alexis

Melendez Rojas, Edwin

Mendez Boyer, Alex

Mendez Mejias, Angel

Mendez-Gomez, Luis

Mendoz Nunez, Carlos

Mendoza Ortiz, Maikol Solier

Mendoza Pina, Jean Claude

Mendoza Ramirez, Jonathan

Mogollon Herrera, Henry

Molina-Acevedo, Roger

Montero Espinoza, Ervinson

Montilla-Rivas, Jose

Mora-Balzan, Jose

Morales-Rolon, Andres

Moreno-Camacho, Cristopher

Moreno-Ramirez, Maikel

Morillo-Pina, Luis

Moron Cabrera, Yuber

Munoz Pinto, Luis

Navas Vizcaya, Ali

Navas-Diaz, Obed

Nieto Contreras, Kevin

Nunez-Falcon, Luis

Olivera Rojas, Maikel

Orta-Campos, Junior

Ortega Garcia, Felix

Otero Valestrines, Luis

Palacios-Rebolledo, Leoner

Palencia-Benavides, Brayan

Parra Urbina, Eduard

Paz-Gonzalez, Daniel

Pena Mendez, Jose Antonio

Penaloza Chirinos, Ysqueibel Yonaiquer

Perez Perez, Cristian

Perez-Llovera, Juan

Perfecto La Rosa, Moises

Perozo-Colina, Carlos

Perozo-Palencia, Andy

Petit Findlay, Andersson Steven

Petterson Torres, Christean

Pineda Lezama, Jesus

Pinto Velasquez, Cristhian

Plaza-Carmona, Jonathan

Primoschitz Gonzalez, Albert

Querales Martinez, Anderson Jose

Quintero Chacon, Edicson

Ramirez Ramirez, Jonathan Miguel

Ramos Bastidas, Jose

Ramos Ramos, Juan Jose

Reyes Barrios, Jerce Egbunik

Reyes Mota, Frengel

Reyes Ollarvides, Ronald

Reyes-Villegas, Arlinzon

Rincon Bohorquez, Omar

Rincon-Rincon, Ringo

Rios Andrade, Jesus

Rivera Gonzalez, Luis

Rivero-Coroy, Jean

Rodriguez, Edwin

Rodriguez Goyo, Alejandro

Rodriguez Lugo, Luis Gustavo

Rodriguez Parra, Alber

Rodriguez Rojas, Kenlyn

Rodriguez-Da Silva, Fernando

Rojas, Deibys

Rojas-Mendoza, Miguel

Romero Chirinos, Ildemar Jesus

Romero Rivas, Erick

Roos Ortega, Jesus

Rosal-Gelvez, Hector

Rubio-Petrola, Jose

Saavedra-Caruci, Robinson

Salazar-Cuervo, Pedro Luis

Sanchez Bigott, Yorbis

Sanchez Paredes, Idenis

Sanchez-Arteaga, Fernando

Sanchez-Bermudez, Marco

Santiago Ascanio, Ronald

Sarabia Gonzalez, Anyelo

Semeco Revilla, Darwin Xavier

Sierra Cano, Anyelo

Silva Casares, Jason Alfredo

Silva Freites, Carlos Julio

Silva-Ramirez, Aaron

Soto Manzana, Omar

Suarez-Fuentes, Joen

Suarez-Nunez, Luis

Suarez-Salas, Nery

Suarez-Trejo, Arturo

Tapia Colina, Jesus

Teran Aguilar, Carlos

Testa Leon, Orlando Jesus

Toro Noguera, Yonel

Torrealba Torrealba, Yonathan

Torres Archila, Amber

Torres Herrera, Euder Jose

Torres-Polanco, Carlos

Tortosa Guedez, Jorge

Tovar-Marcano, Cesar

Travieso Gonzalez, Kleiver

Troconis Gonzalez, Yhon Deivis

Uzcategui Vielma, Carlos

Vaamondes Barrios, Miguel

Vargas Lugo, Henry

Vazquez Morillo, Nicola

Vega Sandia, Wilmer

Vera Villamizar, Wladimir

Villa-Montano, Enson

Villafranca Rincones, Carlos Eduardo

Villegas-Frites, Ilels

Yamarte-Fernandez, Mervin

Yanez-Arangure, Luis

Zabaleta-Morillo, Keiber

Zambrano Perez, Julio

Zambrano Torrealba, Gabriel

Zarraga Rosales, Jorge

Declaration of Human Rights 1948

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!