Still feeling calm. Thanks to MSNBC Journalists for preparing me to be patient in waiting for 2020 Election results.
Calm
I woke up this morning with a wonderful sense of calm.
W.W.J.D.
Some of you know that this is shorthand for “What Would Jesus Do?”
My political belief system, in fact my entire belief system is based on the Biblical New Testament teachings of the man known as Jesus of Nazareth. These teachings can be found in the books of Mathew and Luke in the Bible. These teachings are attributed to Jesus. This is important because the teachings of Jesus are the foundation of the Christian religion.
I bring this up right now to make a point about how many Christian denominations have strayed from the core message of Jesus as expressed in the Beatitudes from The Sermon on the Mount and The Sermon on the Plain. The link above goes into some detail on the 10 Beatitudes.
Christianity is at the core of my beliefs, although my religious affiliation has broadened over time. I found that the Christianity of my youth was becoming more dogmatic and less in line with my liberal religious upbringing. Christianity now is a part of my Unitarian Universalist faith.
I urge you to read about the Beatitudes in more detail in the second paragraph link above. As you read them, I encourage you to judge yourself and your political views with them. If you are a Christian, do your current views and political leanings align with the teachings of Jesus? Here is a list of the Beatitudes:
- Blessed Are the Hungry
- Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit
- Blessed Are the Truly Poor (money and physical resources)
- Blessed Are They That Hunger and Thirst for Justice
- Blessed Are Those Persecuted for the Sake of Justice
- Blessed Are Those Who Weep
- Blessed Are Those That Show Mercy (the Meek)
- Blessed Are the Single Hearted
- Blessed Are the Peacemakers
- Blessed Are the Pure in Heart for They Shall See God
As Mr. Spock says, Live Long and prosper.
Open Letter to President Trump
Dear Mr. President,
Let me take this opportunity to wish you the best on your upcoming retirement. The country and you are very deserving of this unselfish service that you are giving your country.
You have been of great service to the United States of America. You have shown us how we can “Make America Great.” Notice that the word “Again” isn’t included. Sir, that’s because “Great” hasn’t happened yet. We as a country will be “Great” when we live up to the words of our founding Fathers and the living document called the Constitution of the United States that they wrote over 250 years ago. But, thank you for bringing greatness to our attention. We needed that.
“Great” will happen when all citizens of this marvelous country are treated equally and have the same access to life, liberty and and the pursuit of happiness as those with white skin. You have taught us to face up to our collective national ignorance about race.
“Great” will happen when Americans see government at all levels as a tool for bringing the Constitution to life for all Americans. Thank you for alerting us to the value of a government that works by showing us what it looks like when it doesn’t work.
“Great” will happen when Americans learn what is in the Constitution and how it translates into everyday life. Thank you for putting a spotlight on the Second Amendment. By doing so, you put the light on the entire Constitution. I have not been this attentive to the Constitution since my high school Civics class.
Sir, I need to list a few things on my mind before I continue:
- Re-unite immigrant children at the Mexican border with their parents
- Apologize for your Access Hollywood comments about women
- Create a fair tax policy for all (the rich pay their fair share)
- Release your income taxes. The American people deserve to know where your money is coming from and how it might affect your decision making when it involves foreign countries.
- Stop the rapid spread of COVID. Too many people have died unnecessarily (more or this later).
- Treat the Press with respect. They aren’t “fake news.” You’ve done us all a great disservice by eliminating the word “Truth” from public discourse.
- Be honest and make it a habit to tell the truth
- Allow the Justice Department to do it’s job without interference (aka find an Attorney General that enforces the Constitutional laws of our great country).
- Keep your hands off of Democracy. Don’t badmouth the voting process. It is fair and it is working. Leave it alone. Win or lose, the process is more important than the person.
- Leave foreign governments out of American sovereignty. We can make our own decisions without outside interference.
- Remember that you were Impeached for trying to tamper with a US election by enlisting information from a foreign government.
- Be humble. To deny humility is a Faustian bargain.
- If you lose the election, step aside for the next president. That’s how it is done in a Democracy.
- If you are re-elected, really drain the swamp this time.
- Protest is a Positive.
- There’s more to the Constitution than the Second Amendment. You might want to consider that as the person who took an oath to protect and defend the Entire Constitution.
- What’s this about the Turkish President asking you to drop charges against a Turkish Bank? And our own Attorney General willing to do it?
- And, let’s be honest. You never really had COVID did you?
- Don’t take any more photos with Red, White and Blue in them. They just don’t go with Orange.
COVID. I have been trying to figure out how to say this without being too blunt about it. But, I can’t believe that all of the mistakes that your administration has made on the handling of the Coronavirus have been done out of ineptitude.
It would be easier to think that your Coronavirus policy was done out of ignorance. I don’t think that this is the truth. How do I say this without using the “G” word. Your administration intentionally has allowed the virus to spread non-stop because that is exactly what you wanted. Maybe not you, maybe it was someone in your Administration or with outside influence on your administration. This virus has hit our minority populations with the largest number of cases and deaths.
The Affordable Care Act or “Obama Care.” You seem to take some special satisfaction in referring to the Affordable Care Act as Obama Care. I’m sure that the former president is proud to have his name associated with a measure that provides health care to millions of Americans who would otherwise not have it.
Congratulations to you and the minority of Americans that you represent on getting three Supreme Court Justices onto the court during your Term in office. I’m sure that you are collectively quite pleased with yourselves. Now you can appease the large share of your base that supports you only because they want to see the Roe v. Wade decision overturned. You must be proud to have based your re-election campaign on taking away rights instead of granting them. I do hope that you understand that you took two of those Justices away from another president, not that this means anything to you.
There. Those are a few things I needed to get off my chest. I’m sure that I missed a few, but this is good enough for me. I feel better.
Sir, I’ll close by saying that as much unnecessary pain as Americans have suffered during the past three years and ten months, that the suffering has made us all stronger and appreciative of our Democracy. It looks like more people will vote this year than in any past Presidential election in American history. Thank you for that.
Sir, I will further close by sayings that I might sound a bit sarcastic, but I mean all of this sincerely.
Finally, thanks again for your service to this country and enjoy playing retirement golf on your own dime.
A Grateful American
Sports During COVID
More specifically, baseball during COVID. I grew up on baseball. When I was in elementary school in the 1960’s, baseball was the sport American boys had in common. I am pleased and proud that girls now enjoy “America’s Pass Time” as well.
Every single one of us dreamed of someday playing major league baseball and being a World Series hero. Maybe it was hitting the walk-off home run in a deciding game 7, making the game saving catch, striking out the last opposition batter. Whatever it was, we all shared that dream together. We didn’t always talk about it, but we all knew what we wanted to do when we grew up.
Well, it’s now 2020 and our playing days are over. For that matter our kids playing days are over, save for those slow pitch softball teams that some of us belong to. But, those dreams never go away. Today they are being lived by a new generation of young boys and girls. The dreams of playing in the “Big Leagues” are now theirs.
I’m inspired to write about this now because the American baseball season ended yesterday as the World Series (not the World Baseball Classic which really is the world series of baseball) of this difficult and trying year of 2020 was decided.
“My” team, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the series in six games over a young and exciting Tampa Bay Rays team. I watched the players, manager, coaches and families celebrate on the field as you would expect them to celebrate during a viral pandemic.
But, underneath those masks were those school boys who, 10-15 years ago, were like me in the 1960’s. Kids with a dream of one day being a hero on the biggest stage in baseball.
This World Series is special. We needed this. We needed this sense of connection to the normal. We needed to see these men go out and play this little boys game with the same joy and unbridled enthusiasm that they played with when they were little boys not that long ago.
They brought me joy. They brought me happiness. They brought me hope for next season. Yes, there will be a next season and next season will be better than ever.
One last thought. The post game celebration for the winning Dodgers and their fans (including me at home). I watched the celebration as braodcast by several different news organizations. Each one had it’s own take and angle on what it looks and sounds like to be a champion.
But, what stood out to me were the names of the backs of their uniforms. Hernandez, Urias, Jansen, Betts, Kelly, Floro, Rios, Gonzales, Kershaw, Roberts. They were a diverse community of human beings coming from many different countries, socio economic groups, races and beliefs. But there they were as a unified group. Smiling, laughing, hugging (yes, even hugging) and enjoying this common moment of celebration together reminding me that we are indeed more alike than we are different.
So, there are lessons to be learned from sports. Many of you probably don’t look at the Sports Pages (I date myself because you find those in newspapers although. I guess you’ll also find them on Web Sites). Sports offers us a chance to be those little kids again, all with a common dream and a color blind eye.
Singing During COVID
I am a singer. Singing is a very important part of my mental well-being and provides a connection and an outlet for my musical talent and social community. Singing side-by-side with my friends and colleagues is what keeps me going during the hustle and bustle of normal 21st Century life.
It is important during normal times. It is more important during COVID times. But, singing in a chorus involves sitting in close proximity to your mates and moving large amounts of air and the contents of that air into the shared air space of a choral rehearsal or performance space.
This air is a very effective medium for the spread of potentially virus carrying aerosols to your fellow singers and to you. For that reason, singing in-person was quickly identified as a sure fire way to spread virus containing aerosols rapidly and effectively.
Back in mid-March when California shut down in response to the novel Coronavirus, both my church choir and my audition choir very quickly realized the risk of viral spread among choristers and halted live rehearsals.
It’s hard enough to be socially isolating, but it goes to another level of impact when that isolation takes away an avocation that is central to your health and happiness. A previous post on this site goes into some detail about the benefits of singing in a group.
In the early days of the pandemic, the double whammy of social isolation and choral isolation began to take hold. Soon, individual performers, usually professionals, began finding ways to perform online.
These performances were very pleasing to hear. But for me, they were further reminders of the fact that we were unable to sing together at our normal Monday and Wednesday rehearsals for my two respective choirs.
So, what about choirs? Digital platforms were not set up to work with performers performing together in real time. There was the issue of how to sing together in real time. Performances can be recorded and mixed together in an asynchronous way, but rehearsals need to be done in real time.
Our now familiar virtual meeting platforms are not yet capable of allowing choral groups to rehearse together in real time. But, that has begun to change as the months go by. Techniques to utilize the online video meeting platform for choir rehearsals and performance began to evolve.
These techniques have eased the pain of not being together to sing, but they haven’t yet been able to duplicate the singing experience online. This is of considerable significance to me as a singer, especially since the Unitarian Universalist Association, the guiding body of our church community, announced that it was strongly advising that congregations not meet together until the Summer of 2021 at the earliest.
What were singers to do in response to not being able to sing together?
Well, we all are now familiar with digital meeting platforms like Zoom, Google Meets etc. We are spending many hours on them for work, so the time that we spend online for our hobbies and enjoyment are under pressure to happen in a more concentrated and efficient way. No more two and three hour rehearsals. Some groups are trying to solve the technical problems of rehearsing online by meeting in expansive outdoor settings like in parking garages or parks, but many people are uncomfortable with this solution.
As we learn how to practice our craft in the socially distanced reality of COVID, we are learning to record ourselves in isolation from our peers and waiting for our choir directors and sound engineers to gather those individual recordings and compile them into a choral sound. This can be done. I have experienced the joy of harmonizing with my fellow choristers. It brings tears of joy to my eyes just writing about it.
Virtual singing is a temporary solution to singing remotely. It isn’t perfect, but it will serve to hold our choral communities and audiences together until we once again can make music together. Here’s a personal testimonial on the power of singing together even in the virtual world.
“TheMoral Arc of the Universe…”
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
Unitarian Minister Theodore Parker
Barack Obama used these words often, including at his inaugural speech on January 20, 2009. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used these words in a speech given at the National Cathedral on March 31, 1968 titled “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution.” Listen to the full speech here.
Professor Clayborn, a professor of history at Stanford University, discusses this quote in an NPR interview with Melissa Block on “All Things Considered.”
This quote has been used many times over the last nearly two centuries. The quote is attributed to the Unitarian Abolitionist Minister, Rev. Theodore H. Parker in a sermon that he gave in 1853.
Wherever the words came from, they ring true for me today. In the face of great darkness, know that through it all justice will prevail. I believe that.
October 15, 2020
A Few Words About Singing
In the words of Stacy Horn, author of “Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing With Others,” singing is “when musical vibrations move through you, altering your physical and emotional landscape.”
And you don’t have to be what is considered “good” at sining to enjoy the rewards of singing. In Horn’s words “singing is like the infusion of the perfect tranquilizer, the kind that both soothes your nerves and elevates your spirits.”
Science supports Horn’s claim. I feel good when I sing because of the release of hormones called Endorphins. You will too. These endorphins are associated with feelings of pleasure. Research also shows that another hormone, Oxytocin, is released during singing. Oxytocin enhances feelings of trust and bonding.
Another recent study cited by Horn tries to make the case that “music evolved as a tool of social living.” So, the pleasure that comes from singing together is our “evolutionary reward” for coming together in communities instead of remaining isolated cave dwellers.
So, as we sing together today, next week and in the weeks, months and years to come, hold this in your heart: When you sing, wherever it may be, you celebrate the community. When we sing, we sing as one and we sing together.
Planned Unease
You might think that there is just no explaining the seemingly bizarre and unpredictable actions of this president and his administration of administrative incompitance.
But, I think that there is a pattern to the daily mayhem that is this presidency. Just to name a very few of the events that appear to fall into the category of inducing mayhem.
Taking children away from their parents and locking them up at the Mexican border, offering paper towels to Puerto Rican hurricane victims, a group called Q-Anon appears mysteriously online. In a California meeting with experts briefing the president about the wildfire, the president said that the climate will get cooler and the scientists don’t really know what the climate is doing. The promotion of quack medicine “cures” to treat COVID infection, things like Hydroxychloroquine. Just sweep the forest and the wildfires will stop.
Telling lawmakers to not worry about passing another much needed COVID Relief bill, but to put priority on rushing the hearings to consider this administration’s third potential Supreme Court nominee. Insisting that he leave the hospital and return to the White House while he is almost certainly still extremely contagious with COVID.
This list is long beyond your interest level in reading it. So, I’ll get to the point of this post.
Author Erick Larson’s book “In the Garden of Beasts” chronicles the experiences of William Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany starting in 1933. It would be another six years before the Nazi’s invaded Poland and started World War ll.
The National Socialist Party, which would become the Nazi Party, was a prominent player in German politics, but was not yet in total control of the government. It is within this culture that Dodd, appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, had been inserted to represent the interests of the United States in a country exhibiting very disturbing tendencies in dealing with non-Aryan peoples. Many thought that the Germans were building for war. Some, like Dodd, held out hope that the German Chancellor, Adolph Hitler, really wanted peace.
Again, back to my point. In late October 1933, Ambassador Dodd met with Hitler. Dodd was convinced that the German Chancellor wanted peace, but his Consul General was skeptical.
To quote Consul General Messersmith: “I think for the moment he genuinely desires peace, but it is a peace of his own kind and with an armed force constantly more effective in reserve in order to to impose their will when it may become essential.” My point is coming.
Here’s my point. As you read this, consider the daily mayhem that the United States has lived through for the past four years and that doesn’t include COVID-19, multiple hurricanes affecting the Gulf and East coasts and devastating wildfires affecting the West.
Messersmith reiterated his belief that Hitler’s government could not be viewed as a rational entity. “There are so many pathological cases that it would be impossible from day-to-day what will happen any more than the keeper of a madhouse is able to tell what his inmates will do in the next hour or during the next day.”
I bring this up because what Messersmith was describing in 1933 Germany has parallels with the 2020 United States. The constant pathology in the White House has the effect of keeping Americans on edge, nervous, always off our centers just a little bit. This constant state of anxiety can be manipulated by unscrupulous leaders to create a state of fear and doubt which is capable of paralyzing the entire country.
This is what is happening right now in the United States. My request of you, wherever you are and whatever you do, is don’t buy into it. Overcome your fear and doubt and act boldly in any way that feels right to you short of violence against anyone.
Civil disobedience is fine, writing letters and postcards, marching with posters and banners, sending letters to the editor of whatever and whoever you are reading, record a message and send it to podcaster, radio station or website, write a blog. (That’s where this writing is coming from.)
Most importantly is to vote. Your vote is your voice. Make sure it is heard.
Coping with the 2020 U.S. Election
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
I couldn’t sleep last night. My mind would not quiet down. Why? Seeds of doubt about the results of the upcoming election would not leave me alone and I was unable to meditate them away.
But, quiet them I must. Along with my liberal and progressive kindred spirits, I need to let go of the idea that if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t win the presidency this November, that our Democracy is doomed to a downward death spiral toward a totalitarian Oligarchy similar to the one in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Surely it will not be a step in the right direction towards true American greatness should the Republican Party control the White House for the next four years. Yet, neither will it be a terminal event in the history of our republic.
This is where I turn to history. Historians remind us that there was life before us and that there will be life after us. Historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and John Meacham remind us of that. It is stories from the past that bring me solace and comfort in this dark time. Meacham’s book “The Soul of America,” focuses on several events in the presidential history of the United States. Any of these events could easily have been interpreted to be “the end of life as we know it.”
History shows us that Americans and American institutions are quite resilient. Even when it seems that our current times can get no darker, there exists at least one lone vibrating photon of light energy to show us the way.
My efforts to elect a new president and change the balance of power in the Senate over to the Democrats will not in any way waiver. I am writing personal letters to “reluctant” voters through the non-partisan organization Vote Forward. I am selectively donating money to candidates up and down the ballot. I proudly display an “I Believe…” yard sign in the front yard and I remind myself and others with a sidewalk chalk message that says “Stay Focused, Black Lives Matter.”
But, what I have resolved is that my personal happiness and hopefulness will not depend on a larger collective decision that I cannot control. As the Serenity Prayer reads: “God grant me the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things that I can’t change and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Coping with the Upcoming American Election
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