What Has Our Attention?
No One Rises Alone
At the last minute, I was asked to write a column for the Mother’s Day Sunday edition. Here’s what came of a tight deadline and thinking about how we underappreciate the many people, starting with our mothers, who give us what we need to thrive.
If we want America to thrive, we need to nourish each other, with nobody left out.
Quakers Protest Current Events
Quakers are inherently grass-roots. It comes from the belief that metaphysical truth is revealed to any and all of us if we but listen. There is that of God in each of us, and, as communities, we are called to speak up when human events conflict with our values. One of the ways we express our collective sensibilities about important matters is to agree on a “minute” recorded at Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business. Here is one such expression of unity and commitment from my Newtown Friends Meeting:
We Are the Hope
The local Gannet Papers, The Bucks County Courier-Times, and the Intellignecer publish a weekly feature called “From a Faith Perspective.” I am one of a panel of writers that contribute columns on a rotating basis. The last Sunday of Advent, the Sunday before Christmas was my turn.
Be a Prepper
No, I don’t mean one of those who make a hobby of preparing for the collapse of civilization by digging a bunker and learning to make fire by rubbing sticks together. The next four years will be chaotic, and we expect the excesses of the GOP to be exceeded only by the excesses of the extreme right that terrorizes them.
There are some actions to take to protect yourself socially, psychologically, and politically. I’ve mentioned On Tyranny. Marguerite has shared the link to his series of videos which present his wisdom in his own voice. She also offers a link that has advice for remaining grounded in the face of actions intended to put us off balance.
Here’s the link for a video series created by Timothy Snyder about On Tyranny:
Here’s the link for an article in Convergence Magazine on how to prepare ourselves for what’s coming:
What We Are For
The Friends Committee on National Legislation reminds Quakers and everyone to recognize the threats of our nation’s new leadership while honoring our core values: justice, mercy, truth, simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. Below, I quote one of the public statements from FCNL :
“We are not for names nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for this party nor against the other… but we are for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom that these may be exalted in our nation… that these things may abound.”Quaker Minister, Edward Burrough, 1659.
This week, we were grateful that millions of people participated in our democracy and that the elections were conducted in a broadly fair, free, and peaceful manner.
With Burrough’s words in mind, we are called to raise a grave warning of the threats we see in the re-election of Donald Trump. Threats to the dignity and lives of millions of our neighbors, including many with whom we work. Threats to the values we hold dear. Threats to a wide range of issues crucial to building the world we seek. To our democracy itself.
These threats only magnify the challenges before us. The weeks, months, and years ahead will not be easy. Like so many across our communities, we are heartbroken by the election result and anxious for what lies ahead.
Yet as people of hope, we will persist in our belief that our democracy is strongest when we are all engaged with it, and with one another.
We will continue to stand in solidarity with people most impacted by government policies. We will continue to fiercely advocate and lovingly defend human dignity and the rights of all people. We will continue to seek opportunities for cooperation across political divides and peacebuilding amid conflict. We will continue to work relentlessly to advance policies that will bring about the more just, peaceful, and sustainable world we seek.
In times of fear and danger, we are called into deeper community with one another – and with those with whom we disagree. Difficult as it may be, we continue to be called to love our neighbors, no exception.
Peter Wehner Speaks My Mind
The nominee for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, is a squalid figure, and the squalor is not subtle. His vileness, his lawlessness, and his malevolence are undisguised. At this point, it is reasonable to conclude that those qualities are a central part of Trump’s appeal to many of the roughly 75 million people who will vote for him in three weeks. They revel in his vices; they are vivified by them. Folie à millions. ~ Peter Wehner, writing in The Atlantic.
This Election Is Different
No election prior to the Trump era, regardless of the outcome, ever caused me to question the fundamental decency of America.
What gets your attention gets you,
and what holds your attention is your god. ~ Willis Elliott, Thinksheet #1814
In Charity With Our Neighbors
It’s Up to Us.
When President Joe Biden announced just a week ago that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Heather Cox Richardson, July 28, 2024
He passed it to us.
It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope.
It is up to us whether it will be fascism or democracy that, in the end, moves swiftly, and up to us whether we will choose to follow in the footsteps of those Americans who came before us in our noblest moments, and launch a brand new era in American history.
A column I wrote in March 2020 is appropriate now, just as it was then.
