On the Road Again; No, Really!

 I had to laugh when I re-read my last blog title: On the Road Again. Oh how rosy everything seemed in January, 2020; how proscribed the future was:   I would train for the demanding Kumano Kodo pilgrimage in Japan and I would walk that in April. The rest of the year I would be either on the treadmill at the gym or hiking in the glorious environs of Colorado Springs.

Such optimism! Such benignly arrogant belief that 2020 would be an equal partner in meeting the goals I had set for myself!

I know I'm not alone in this.

And then COVID-19 --barely a whisper when I wrote my last post--began a full-throated operatic acciaccato, the discordant, broken notes clanging into March, disrupting whatever harmonious convergence of events I had imagined.

And for some reason, although I have been pretty much at home since mid-March, I was too discombobulated to continue writing in my blog. To be sure, I often thought of writing here, sharing pandemic stories of grit and determination, epiphanies that I only received because I was home, on lockdown. I would rehearse these blog entries in my mind; they just never made it onto the silver screen.

I kept pretending I would write "tomorrow," that I was too busy to write, but in reality what was happening is that I was overwhelmed by thought of putting words to paper; to write about the pandemic seemed to be like shooting at a moving target. Each day there was something more dire to focus on than the day before: escalating numbers of people sick or dying from COVID, new atrocities from the person who sits in the Oval Office, outrageous claims by questionable experts. So I didn't write anything.

And the impact of that, my ten faithful readers, is that I have not been in conversation with you; what's been missing this entire time is a sense of connection with you and a level of integrity regarding my commitment to my blog.

And so I come back to these pages, creating for my life and my blog the possibility of being a consistent, powerful, authentic voice as we deepen our lived experience in the midst of this pandemic.

And, again, I have to laugh at the title of my last blog post: On the Road Again. That was eerily prophetic.

Beginning in just a few weeks, I will be on the road again, doing SUV RVing as I travel around the country, delivering my Sunday messages and participating in all my weekly meetings from different locales. I hope to widen the horizon of All Souls, remind us of our interconnectedness to all living beings, celebrate the oneness of everything of which we are a part.

I preached about this new venture on September 6, 2020. You can listen to my sermon here.

I may have lost my voice in the cacophonous notes of the pandemic, but I have found it again, and will create, in these pages, a dramma giocoso, a serious opera with jokes!

And so soon I will set off, not on a walking pilgrimage in a far distant land, but in my 2017 Jeep Cherokee, with my 20 month old Golden Doodle, Rubi, and (soon) my cat, Wham!; a car camino, if you will.

I hope you will join me on this journey. I promise I won't use any more opera terminology! Buen Camino!

 

On the Road Again

We have officially turned the corner on another year (and decade!). Like many of you, I have made a few resolutions as I skidded into 2020. Normally, I pick a theme for the year, and this year is no different. My theme for 2020 is “Why not?” If an audacious idea comes to me or someone invites me on an adventure that, heretofore would have either paralyzed with terror or put me to sleep with pragmatic reasons why I shouldn’t do it, I’m going to cavalierly say, “Why not?” and go full steam ahead. This reminds me of a friend of mine who has a bumper sticker on her car that states: Buckle up! I wanna try something. As for actual resolutions, I made a couple. The first is to live in gratitude more than any other energy. So, if (hah! I mean, when) I catch myself thinking negative thoughts or being critical or judgmental about myself, or others, or the state of the world, I will replace that thought or feeling with three things for which I’m grateful. This involves, of course, noticing what I’m noticing; being mindful of where my mind is so that I can do a course correction as soon as possible. The other thing, well it’s not really a resolution so much as a “why not?” moment. I signed up for a thing called Run the Year 2020. The idea is to run or walk a set goal of miles by the end of the year, going from 100 to 500 to 1500 to 2020. You guessed it: I signed up for the goal of 2020 miles in 365 days (because, why not?) Also, there’s great bling!

Which I got in the mail today and I am nothing, if not a sucker for bling! The saving grace is that you can choose to run or walk the 2020 miles and I am definitely going to walk. To do this requires roughly 11000 steps a day, or 5.5 miles. This is not just a why not moment, however. I also need to begin training in earnest for a pilgrimage I’ll be doing in Japan this April. The Kumano Kodo is an ancient pilgrimage going back over 1,000 years when the Imperial family and nobility began to seek salvation in rangakus shinko (a belief in the supernatural power of mountains), rather than through common religious practices. Emperor Gotoba (1180-1239) made no fewer than thirty pilgrimages to Kumano, recording his thoughts and feelings in the Kumano poems. It’s relatively short, compared to the Camino de Santiago I did in 2016; it’s only 69 kilometers, but the first day in particular is a steep climb, and challenging. Doing this 2020 challenge will motivate me to train for it and to strengthen my body for it, as well. So, I decided I would do a 5k route in the Garden of the Gods, the garden being beautiful red rocks that jut out of the earth of almost alien formations. It is beautiful and hilly so it would be a great training route for me. I picked 10 a.m. as my start time on January 1, 202. Of course, my best intentions were slightly derailed; I didn't get to Garden of the Gods until noon. It was a chilly 40 degrees (f) by then, and the wind had really picked up, but I soldiered on! I brought my Osprey back pack, that I had taken on my previous Camino, and new retractable trekking poles, intending to suit up and complete this hike with the equipment I would be using in Japan, but evidently I had cinched my backpack straps to newborn baby size in the past and I decided not to struggle with that in the parking lot of the Trading Post which was very crowded. So then, I attempted to put my poles together. This should seem like a simple task, but I failed to figure it out after I bought them and had to go back to REI to get instructions; evidently I still don't have it down because I couldn’t figure it out, so I just threw those things in the car and commenced walking. I had forgotten how bleeping uphill the first part of my 5k is! And the wind was capriciously first helping, then hurting, my efforts. I was breathing heavy, through my mouth, which I attempted to shut at least when cars passed me going the other way so that I wouldn't appear quite as desperate. All in all, though, I got the job done. And with other miles walked yesterday, I came in with a 6.71 total! Today, I once again delayed my walk due to other things getting in the way and walked around the neighborhood. Currently my tracking app has me at 3.54 miles today, giving me a grand total of 10.26! And I'm sure I'll had a few more steps before bedtime. The great thing about walking, rather than running, is that all my steps count! Hopefully the "off-duty" steps will add up to help! I’ll be honest, I’m a little achy; it’s been awhile since I’ve been this active. But already I can feel the quickening of my heart as I head out my front door into the “wilds” of Colorado Springs. Already I remember the beauty of pilgrimages where you see things you miss zipping by on the highway of busyness at 75 mph. Yesterday in the Garden, I stopped several times to gaze in awe at the grandeur of nature surrounding me on all sides.

 
 Today, even in a walk around the neighborhood, I was overcome by the beauty of Pikes Peak just before sunset, and the way the clouds and sun teamed up in an interpretive dance of life. I was reminded once again that each of us is on a pilgrimage that starts at our front door. A pilgrimage isn’t measured in miles, or in going to some far-off place; a pilgrimage begins when we pay attention to our lives, take in each breath with gratitude and look in wonder at this precious world in which we live. Why not?

Space and Time

I was feeling nostalgic last month, as we celebrated LGBTQIA month. I remembered a lunch I had with an old friend awhile back. Cherl and I have been friends for 39 years. We met not long after I had come out as a lesbian at the age of 16. I’d heard about a group called TLC--Topeka Lesbian Community. They met weekly and I would often drive by, longing to go inside, but I was a minor. The week I turned 18, I showed up and attended every meeting until I joined the USAF.

Cherl and I talked about those days; what a special time it was to be lesbian in the late 1970s in Topeka, KS. We wore flannel shirts and jeans; most had short-cropped hair.

There was a sense of radicalism; alternative insemination was virtually unheard of, marriage not even on the radar. There were no social networks outside of the TLC and The Lambda (the one gay bar in town: seedy, run-down with exotic drag shows on Friday nights). Feminism, women's rights, pro-choice were front and center, and we members of TLC did our part.

There were no vehicles with rainbow bumper stickers, no "out" singers or entertainers. Women's music was shared with the lesbian community via a small record company called Olivia. Singers like Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Tret Fure, Deirdre McCalla, Teresa Trull and the Berkeley Women's Music Collective would travel across the country playing on college campuses and in small venues. 

AIDS was a gathering storm of which we were ignorant.

Everyone smoked.
It was a magical time, and a historic time, too, I think. We felt we were on the verge of something big, and yet we were also a small enclave of women creating community. I remember those days like a crisp autumn: the air brisk , the colors vibrant; both life and death crackling in the trees of possibilities. It made me reflect on my life's journey since then, the autumns I've lived through, the lives and deaths I've experienced, the many changes I've undergone.
In some ways I'm much different than that 16, 17, 18 year old young woman I was back then and yet, in other ways, I am still her; she is still me: radical and bold, timid and tentative, longing to change the world and striving to find her place in it.

I feel a little sorry for those coming out as queer today, having achieved the right to marry, considering children in their future as a right, not as battle to be won. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad for youth support services and for laws protecting queer employees. I'm glad Melissa came out, and the Indigo Girls, and Greg Louganis.

I had none of that when I came out at 16, in 1978. But I gained something in those lean years when the only affirmation we had was given by one another, when the only role models were the ones we were creating. It was a sisterhood, a family, it truly was a community of TLC-- tender, loving care.
As we left the restaurant, Cherl hugged me, and said, a little sheepishly, "I don't know if I ever told you, but I had the biggest crush on you in those days." I laughed, remembering how much in awe I was of the women of TLC when I first joined. They were all at least 9 years older than me and I had thought them so wise and powerful and wonderful.

"That's funny," I replied, smiling. "I had crushes on all of you."

Faith Calls Us to Action.

Last Monday, I stood in the sweltering heat of El Paso, TX, wearing a heavy clerical stole that made the heat radiate even deeper into my shoulders. I was with several hundred other faith leaders who had answered the call of Rev. Dr. William Barber leader of Repairers of the Breach. We were at the borders protesting the gross mistreatment of immigrants seeking asylum, after literally running for their lives from countries where violence and hunger are rife, only to be treated inhumanely and unjustly.

What’s happening at our borders is a travesty of justice, a trampling of the 14^th Amendment to our US Constition which declares “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Not only is this detention of immigrants seeking asylum illegal according to our own constitution, the UN Human Rights Office’s presences in Mexico and Central America have documented numerous human rights violations and abuses against migrants and refugees in transit, including the excessive use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, family separation, denial of access to services, refoulement, and arbitrary expulsions.

This isn’t a debate, but a debacle; not an issue, but an international crisis, not a political power-play but people, real live people being irreparably harmed by this administration’s policy, children being separated from their parents and forced to sleep on concrete floors without access to adequate food, showers, toothbrushes. The youngest of these is five months old.

I was there with faith leaders because we cannot sit idly by and pretend this is normal or somehow ok. We were there because our faith traditions demand it of us.

Leviticus 19:33-34: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not wrong them. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Eternal your God.”

Matthew 25:35: “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.”

Qur’an 4:99-100:  “... as for the helpless men, women and children who have neither the strength nor the means to escape, God will pardon them. Surely God pardons and forgives. Those who migrate for the sake of God shall find many places for refuge in the land in great abundance”

Humanism tells us we can do better than this. That our heartbeats and the inhale and exhale of our breath is a level playing ground; that inherent in our very humanity is a call to care for one another, for all people.

And my own Unitarian Universalist tradition states belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human, regardless of where they were born, what color their skin is, how much money is in their bank account.

No matter what our faith, we are called to action, to stand up for the oppressed, to protest the criminalization of people based on their skin color or their poverty or their fear.

We heard inspiring speakers share how we’re called to look out for the poorest of the poor, we marched to the gates of a detention center to demand, among other things, an end to child detention, that all refugees seeking asylum be granted the due process to do so, the preservation of human rights, and an end to family separation. We asked for our rights as faith leaders to minister to those detained. We were denied; the gates were locked.

We will return. Our faith requires it; our Constitution calls us to.

Driving out of El Paso, headed for home, I saw a flashing highway sign that said: It is dangerous for children and pets to be in locked cars. If you see that, get help.

It’s also dangerous for children to be kept in locked, crowded prison cells. It’s time to get help. It’s our moral obligation.

The Real Meaning of Mother's Day

This is the month we celebrate Mother’s Day --probably not much as Hallmark, but still, we celebrate. Most of us who are moms will get something from our kids: flowers, candy, presents; I’ll accept them all, don’t get me wrong! But unfortunately, we’ve gotten Mother’s Day wrong. Mother’s Day was begun in 1870 after much lobbying by women (who, didn’t have the vote, but made their presence felt). It wasn’t created because mothers felt overwhelmed with raising children, running the household and still finding time to foment rebellion.; it wasn’t begun as an economic stimulus program hoping that flowers, candy, and presents would boost retail sales. Mother’s Day was founded by mothers who were tired of having their sons (at the time) sent home in boxes from one war zone or another. Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian rabble-rouser and leader of the movement to create Mother’s Day, wrote in her Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870: As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace...in the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient and the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace. This was never meant to be a day to honor mothers; it was a day to honor our children. Beginning with those who have come home in flag-draped caskets from war zones. And there have been so many war zones haven’t there? Not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but Bosnia, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I– all wars begun after Mother’s Day was established as an effort for peace. And we have met together, women and men, whether parents or not, to bewail and commemorate the dead. The roll call list of dead, from just recent years is long: the victims of 9/11, the bombings in Paris, and, most recently, the horrific shootings of Muslims in New Zealand who had gathered peacefully for prayer, and the bombings of Christian churches on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka that left over 200 dead. Maybe it’s time to change the meaning of this day from being an exclusive party for women who change diapers back to its original meaning as a day to seek peace, to realize mothers (and fathers) of all nationalities love their children and wish to see them live long, happy lives. Maybe, if we who are mothers can receive our gifts and determine to take back the original sense of Mother’s Day, and if we are joined by fathers, uncles, aunts, siblings, and lovers we can reclaim Julia Ward Howes’s vision; we can create a movement of justice globally. As a mother, I find this vision of Mother’s Day more appealing to me than the sappy sentiments offered in the pink aisle of the greeting card selections. So today, I issue a call to all mothers and to all people, whether parents or not, to renew to a commitment to peace in our homes, communities, country, and world; to recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every child of every human; to make every day Mother’s Day.

We Need a Bridge, Not a Wall

Recently, the United States government came to a standstill for 35 days over an unrealistic campaign promise made by the man who holds the highest position of power. He tried to strong arm Congress into passing a budget that would include roughly five billion dollars to build a wall on the southern border of our nation.

This was something he pledged to do throughout his campaign, although he also asserted that Mexico would pay for the wall. After two years of doing nothing more than continuing to spew the rhetoric of fear regarding our kin to the south, ignoring the fact that illegal border crossings are at a 30 year low and disregarding the truth that most undocumented citizens came here legally but overstayed their visas--those details don’t paint as dramatic a picture as the idea of a wall—he decided it was time to take a stand.

It was a ridiculous campaign promise to make, and impossible to keep. Yet for 35 days, federal workers suffered the consequences of being furloughed without pay or, as in the case of “essential personnel” such as TSA workers or Air Traffic Controllers, being forced to work without pay.

Ironically, federal workers are forbidden to go on strike and the one time when Air Traffic Controllers did so, in 1981, President Reagan fired 11,000 of them within days and issued a lifetime ban on them ever being able to work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) again. What a travesty of justice that our government can not pay these dedicated workers who still have to punch the clock every day.

Over a wall. A wall that would not keep our borders safe and would only serve to shore up racist, uninformed beliefs and fears.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe first and foremost in the inherent worth and dignity of every human; no human is illegal. In every major world religion hospitality and compassion for the stranger and refugee are major tenets.

That any person of faith should support a wall of division is untenable. We should be building bridges of compassion. Unfortunately, it seems we’ve become a nation of hoarders: folks who hoard money, folks who hoard the promise of a better life, folks who hoard privilege. This is dysfunctional at best and dishonors our faith traditions’ most sacred teachings.

But frankly, it doesn’t matter what the faith traditions say. As a Unitarian Universalist I am bound to a higher law: the first of our seven guiding principles that says every human has inherent worth and dignity.

I am bound by the founding documents of this nation that says we are a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people; that holds that all humans are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The government has re-opened for now. We have three weeks to figure out how to stop using our federal workers as pawns in an overblown, ego-induced chess game; we have three weeks to determine to see the humanity of our kin from the south; we have three weeks to make America great again, in the truest sense of the phrase which means inclusion not exclusion, love not hate, compassion not criminalizing those in need.

Conversion Therapy Only Creates More Shame

This year legislation was introduced in California that would classify Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy (SOCT) as a deceptive act of consumer fraud. Backed by findings by medical, psychological and psychiatric associations, and with clear evidence such therapy doesn’t work, AB 2943 was introduced.

 As a lesbian minister, over the past 29 years I have counseled many people who had tried  “ex-gay ministries” (SOCT) in an attempt to be converted to heterosexuality; none of them successful. Indeed, the news carried details of fallen leaders of ex-gay ministries caught in gay bars or furtively seeking same sex companionship. Some, such as Jeremy Marks and Michael Bussee, co-founders of Exodus, International, not only came out as “ex-ex-gays” but  acknowledged conversion therapy doesn’t work and is harmful to those who attempt it. They apologized for the harm they inadvertently did to the lgbtq community in their attempt to seek heterosexuality in order to be approved by God

Thus, I was appalled at an editorial in the August 9, 2018 edition of the Gazette which stated that LGBTQ persons and their families should have access to the clearly debunked efforts of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy (SOCT) This editorial stated that the government shouldn’t attempt to regulate or ban such therapies because, “no state should declare ‘invalid’ or ‘unlawful’ a treatment individuals desire, pay for, and appreciate.”

In an Orwellian twist (four legs good, two legs better! chant the “re-educated” animals under the tutelage of the devious Snowball) the Gazette seems to be saying it is sympathetic to members of the LGBTQ community having free will in seeking to live their lives to the fullest.

Unfortunately, the Gazette completely misses the danger of SOCT. The American Psychological Association (APA) states that not only does research show SOCT is unlikely to be successful, it carries a serious risk of harm to the client. Most SOCT is advocated by religious conservatives who believe homosexuality is a sin that goes against their god’s will, although, the APA states “the research and clinical literature demonstrate that same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings and behaviors are normal and positive variations of human sexuality, regardless of sexual orientation identity. (http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexual-orientation.aspx)

For someone to be told that something as natural as left-handedness is sin leads to a deep-seated sense of shame over their identity; this, plus family and church pressure, is why people seek out SOCT. When the therapy doesn’t work (just as attempts to convert me to right-handedness as a child didn’t work) the client feels deeper shame and a profound sense of failing their family, church, and god. No wonder suicide attempts among LGBTQ youth are 3- 5 times higher than their heterosexual counterparts

Our response to those who seek SOCT due to their sense of shame and guilt over perfectly natural feelings should be to encourage what the APA suggests: “the appropriate application of affirmative therapeutic interventions for those who seek SOCT involves therapist acceptance, support and understanding of clients and the facilitation of clients’ active coping, social support and identity exploration and development, without imposing a specific sexual orientation identity outcome.”

At the end of the day, SOCT is a fraudulent practice, regardless of how fervently those who champion it and those who attempt it wish otherwise. Our energy is better served creating a community and culture in which people don’t have to hide or try to change who they are in order to be accepted by their families or their communities of faith. Just imagine a world where the amazing diversity of all creation was celebrated rather than pathologized. That’s a vision I can get behind.