“My soul is broken. He was everything to me.” — Karolina Rojas Alvarez, wife of Johan Sebastian Guerrero. (Translated from Spanish to English.)

Well, it happened again. I just about had a post ready to publish when, presto! The world interfered, and my post suddenly seemed not quite right for the occasion. Maybe I will get back to that one, maybe not. But right now, I need to shift to a new direction.

It’s no secret I live in Maine. It’s also no secret Maine is much in the news lately, and not in a good way. A few weeks ago, the Democratic candidate for Senate, Graham Platner, had to withdraw from his campaign when (putting it politely) the list of allegations about him became too long and too serious to ignore.

Then a week ago, ICE gunned down and killed Johan Sebastian Guerrero, a 25-year-old beloved husband and father whose only crime was climbing into his car and starting to drive to work. He was an immigrant from Columbia, here legally, permitted to work. He had a social security card. And he wasn’t even the person ICE was actually pursuing. I won’t rehash the entire horrific story here, because I suspect you already know it. If you don’t, you can either (a) Google it or (b) imagine the worst. Either will do.

I try to create One Good Thing posts that can help lift us up and fill our hearts again when our hearts have been broken and broken and broken. And so many hearts have been broken here in Maine. In the wake of the ICE killing, the upswelling of support for the family and the protests against ICE quickly occupied center stage. They have taken the usual forms. GoFundMe campaigns, rallies, letters of protest and phone calls to anyone who seems as though they might have a chance of changing things (looking at you, our elected representatives).

A roadside shrine spontaneously appeared, with people adding photos, prayers, votive candles. Some people wanted the array of flowers to be monumental, so they bought $1000 dollars of cut flowers, piled them in the back of their van, delivered them to the site and distributed them around all the other tributes. Now, a week later, the shrine stretches all the way around the corner onto another street.

Protests sprang up immediately, some of them, critically, gathering at the offices of Maine Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which produced the recent ICE funding bill for the Senate’s approval and whose vote in the Senate kicked that bill over the finish line.

The speed with which people mobilized is hardly surprising from my viewpoint. Whenever national rallies or protests are carried out, there is my little Maine at the top of the list of states with numerous locations to gather. We may be small, but we can be mighty.

I know I have advocated before for all of us finding our lane to bring positive outcomes in our current national (and international) crisis. I also know it’s sometimes hard to find where to put our energy. Not all of us feel comfortable going to rallies, and not all of us actually can do so. Not all of us have money to send to a GoFundMe campaign. Not all of us live near enough to the site of the killing to place flowers at the memorial. We are not all the same — in our interests and our abilities to act. So, today I want to lift up something that has lifted my heart as people have scrambled to find their best approach to the tragedy. Maybe doing so will spur other creativity.

At some point, when scrolling through my feed last week, I saw the following announcement:

If you have a public/exterior facing wall in Biddeford, I will paint a mural on it with a positive community message in support & solidarity with our immigrant community for free. I have day or two next week I can get something done. Message me. Sending love and powerful thoughts of resilience. — Erica Sedler in Biddeford, ME

I think it’s fair to say I do not have an artistic bone in my body. So, this kind of contribution was one that never would have occurred to me, personally. But it got me thinking of the ways art can reflect, inform, and inspire. And it warmed me to think there was yet another way to reach out to one another — through art.

For a few years, our son lived in Richmond, Indiana, which has dozens of murals on buildings throughout the city. Many of them have to do with music and musicians, because Richmond was home of the now-defunct Starr Piano Factory, which was also the location of one of the earliest big recording studios in the 1920s. Musicians would take the train into town to make their records right there in Richmond.

I really like studying history, and I also love music. So those music-related murals meant a lot to me. But the Richmond mural I loved the most depicted the Underground Railroad — the history of which is also threaded through Richmond and the surrounding area:

In our current times, when the regime is trying to erase the history of black and brown Americans from the public view and study, there are still some places where it exists. I haven’t been to Richmond since 2019, but I guess and hope that the Underground Railroad mural still exists, reminding everyone who sees it of the important and rich history of the area. I hope it inspires them the way it always did me. (Side note: The Levi and Catherine Coffin House is roughly 10 miles from Richmond. It is one of the most inspiring historical sites I have ever visited — so inspiring that I paid it three separate visits during the time our son lived in Richmond: Levi and Catharine Coffin State Historic Site - Fountain City.)

But, of course, Richmond, Indiana, isn’t the only city with murals. A few weeks ago, my son and I tried out a Mexican restaurant in Lewiston, Maine — a city that hosts many immigrants from all over the world. As we walked down the street, we spied a mural that was only partway finished. The brightness and colors of the mural were compelling, but, in its unfinished condition, it was hard for me to decipher what the mural was actually meant to show. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a picture of the completed mural in the Portland Press Herald. Here it is — art created to draw the community together.

Then, last week, the Portland Press Herald posted a new article about Biddeford — “For Maine Artists Angered by ICE Shooting, Their Art is Their Voice.” Note that Erica Sedler and Ryan Adams will be teaming up!

Ryan Adams’ voice is in his paintbrush.

When he heard the “terrifying” news that 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was killed by a federal agent July 13 in Biddeford, he turned to his art as a way to express his grief and frustration. He is planning to paint a mural in Biddeford honoring Guerrero, with fellow artist Erica Sedler.

“I’m not some crazy speech writer, or a lawyer who can change public policy, but I can use my skill set to speak to a larger audience,” said Adams, 41, a muralist and sign painter in Portland.

The planned Biddeford mural is just one of the ways Maine artists and musicians are honoring Guerrero, or protesting the tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents…

I am glad the article mentions musicians, too. Maine has a lot of great musicians. I imagine some of them will commemorate Guerrero in song. When they do, I will be happy to join them in singing it, should the opportunity arise — because singing is something I can do.

Now — going back to Maine Democrats for just a moment — let me first say I am not one of them. I am one of those much-pursued “independent” voters — enrolled, but not in a political party. It appears the Democrats have all but chosen a candidate to replace Platner on the ballot for the midterm election in November. Not being enlisted in their party, I have not participated in the process. But I must say I was impressed both by their ability (a) to be nimble in unprecedented circumstances and (b) to include voters to the degree that was possible, given that holding another primary was out of the question. In addition, I was struck by the strong candidates who put their hands in the air, willing — literally overnight — to put together a campaign and platform.

This is where I want to leave you. People can be amazing, given half the chance, good encouragement, and strong motivation. That means we can be amazing, too. I’d go so far as to say we already are. So, I encourage you to find your lane, whatever it is, and (as Heather Cox Richardson often says) to bring your A-game to it.

Love,

Sylvia

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it — always.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Friends,

It has been a while since I published. That’s not for lack of trying. I have sat at my keyboard many times, trying to crank out a message. But the truth is, the challenges of the last few months caught up with me. My spouse’s health issues, involving two hospitalizations. (He is home and doing well.) My broken nose in April. (Don’t ask. I broke it in the dumbest possible way.)

And, then of course, there was the death of my beloved cat, Little Stevie. If you know me, or if you have simply read this blog for any length of time, you know I love animals. My love for Little Stevie exceeded the love I typically feel for furry beings, however. If you have read Phillip Pullman’s trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass), you are familiar with daemons, the creatures that represent the inner soul. Each person’s unique daemon accompanies its human everywhere. In many ways, Little Stevie felt like my daemon, and I have felt lost without him.

On top of all that, there is the world. Most glaringly, the insanity and immorality of my own country. With all of that going on, I couldn’t write for a while. I needed to take a break. Catch my breath. “Go to ground,” as some would say. I have been taking comfort in the advice of Heather Cox Richardson, who reminds us to rest when we need to and to come back when we are ready. This is my trial run to find out if I am ready.

Recently, I was lamenting to a friend that it feels increasingly hard to find one good thing to write about in this blog. She nodded, understanding my conundrum, but then she remarked, “Go smaller.”

The wisdom of my friend’s remark came home to me a few weeks ago when I was at the shop getting my car repaired. As I was paying my bill, the shop supervisor and I got to talking about a sudden heat wave we were enduring. “Enduring” was the apt word for both of us, because neither of us enjoys the hot, humid weather that had descended on us suddenly and mercilessly.

“I grew up in New Mexico,” the shop supervisor said. “I have no problem with the heat. But the humidity? I really suffer when it’s hot and humid.”

“I know what you mean,” I responded. “Actually, I’m a winter person. I like the cold. I like the snow. I don’t like the hot summer all that much.”

And suddenly we were engaged in an animated discussion of the merits of cold weather and the wonders of good snowstorms. In the course of the conversation, I learned that he works for Search and Rescue with the Maine Warden’s Service. “It’s so much easier hiking trails in the winter,” he remarked. “In summer, you’re having to navigate over roots and rocks. But in winter? With a good coat of snow, all those trails smooth right out.”

And there was my one good thing. Search and Rescue.

Now, in the literal sense, Search and Rescue are the brave people who go out when hikers or skiers are lost in the woods or on the mountaintop, or, in the confusion of some dementing illness, simply . . . somewhere. Search and Rescue gets called, and off they go. I told the car mechanic about a friend who wrote a book about the Search and Rescue people who work in the White Mountains of New Hamshire. (Critical Hours: Search and Rescue in the White Mountains, by Sandy Stott. 2018. Hanover and London: University Press of New England.)

“We get called in to help over there sometimes,” the mechanic said. “But the rescue work in Maine tends to be a little different. Here, most of our rescue work involves people who wander off — often somebody with dementia. But the White Mountains is another story altogether. You can start at the base of Mount Washington in hot summer weather, and by the time you hike to the summit, you can be in a full-blown blizzard. If you aren’t prepared for that possibility, you will die.”

It takes a certain kind of person to sign on to Search and Rescue missions. You have to be physically fit, for one. You also have to be savvy about the risks and challenges. And you have to work in a team.

In his book, Stott identifies some of the qualities that compel people to hit the trails when someone is lost. “Why do you go? Time after time?” he asks one of the rescuers he is interviewing (p. 258). (Tellingly, the full title of the chapter is: “Why Go? Saving Others, Saving Yourself.”) Stott observes that when he asks the question, “Why go?” nearly everyone he interviews responds with some combination of “Wouldn’t everyone go?” and “It could be me out there.” But Stott notes that, of course, not everyone would go. No, rather than take part in the rescue mission, most people look at the news for up-to-date reports on the missing person.

Stott says, “Life is full of many more bystanders than it is of those who drop whatever’s at hand to go and look for those lost and in trouble. Research suggests that’s especially true when the decision to help is considered rather than impulsive. Jumping into a lake to help someone who appears to be in trouble happens in an instant; signing on to a search and rescue team takes application, planning, and a willingness to suspend one’s central life in service of another’s.” (p. 259)

Moreover, statistically, most of the people who are lost belong to the general population, not the rarified group of people who have trained to search and rescue. Thus the “it could be me out there” sentiment rarely applies. So, the question still pertains: “Why go?”

Numerous factors produce a rescuer. For one thing, rescuers get to be saviors sometimes. I know how satisfying that can feel from my own experience. While leaving a restaurant several years ago, my spouse and I met a frail elderly couple of our acquaintance mounting the granite steps on which we were descending. We were all near the top of the steps, where we stopped to say hello. We had chatted just a brief few moments, when suddenly one of them started to pitch over backwards, down the granite steps and towards the unforgiving brick sidewalk below.

I am usually calm in a crisis. Without even thinking about it, I reached my right arm behind his waist and grabbed his left arm with my left hand. He had already gained momentum, and there was no way I could stop his descent. So, holding onto him, I stepped partially behind him and walked him, backwards, down the steps. Then, with my one arm still circling his waist and my other hand still holding onto his arm, I walked him back up the steps and into the restaurant. It was almost as though we were performing a choreographed move that we had practiced together many times. No big deal.

Only afterwards did it dawn on me that actually it was a very big deal. If I hadn’t intervened, he would — at the very least — have cracked his head on the sidewalk, and he probably would have died. The feeling of awe at what I had accomplished still fills me when I remember those moments. So, yes, saving someone feels very good, indeed.

Search and rescue work presents a different kind of scenario, however: You typically aren’t responding to a split-second crisis. Your work involves hard physical labor, often over hours and even days.

And you don’t always succeed.

Stott says, “It is hard, sometimes graphically disturbing work trying to keep someone alive, and it can be devastating when we do the work — and fail” (p. 260).

So, something more has to be going on besides the satisfaction of being a savior. Stott cites the book Sebastian Junger’s book, Tribe, to reveal a critical component of the work: the value of being a member of a close tribe with shared purpose. Stott concludes, “. . . search and rescue professionals and volunteers — like other tribes — go out and do grinding, sometimes dangerous work in the spirit of shared membership and responsibility. What they get in return is the satisfaction of helping others, the sense of belonging to a greater cause, and the knowledge that they are alive inside.” (p.264)

Ever since that conversation with my mechanic, I have been thinking a lot about search and rescue work, but in a much more general sense. Metaphorically speaking, I see that kind of work all around me, if I look. The medical people who save lives daily — sometimes performing graphically disturbing work to do so. The firefighters that pull people out of danger when a building is burning. The teachers who intervene when a child is being bullied. And more.

Sometimes the work is more in line with jumping into a lake to save someone who appears to be drowning. Last week, for instance, I was stopped at a red light at the busiest, most dangerous intersection in town. There were five lanes of traffic on my side — one to turn right, two to go straight ahead, and two to turn left. I was in the middle lane, ready to go straight when the light turned green. And there, in the lane just to my left and just a little bit ahead of my car, I watched a drama transpiring. A car had stalled with an elderly man trying to do something about it. Seemingly out of nowhere another man appeared and got ready to push when the light turned. But he knew he wouldn’t be enough. I don’t know quite how he did it, but he managed to summon three more strong men to join him. They appeared from . . . I don’t actually know where they appeared from. They were just suddenly streaming through the stopped traffic, swarming the stalled car, and readying their bodies to push.

The light turned green. “Okay, let’s go,” said the first man, who had appointed himself leader of the pack. With the elderly man steering, they pushed him through the busiest intersection in town, guiding his car into the left turn he had been trying to make when his car quit working.

At least I assume that is what happened. The light was green, and I had to go, lest I make the gathering traffic snarl even worse. Like all the cars around me, I moved forward cautiously, being careful to leave the space needed for the people pushing the disabled vehicle. But you know what? I didn’t need to see the final result. I knew it would turn out all right because that’s the kind of thing we do for each other. Friends, neighbors, strangers. We step into the breach when we have to. We push each other’s stalled cars through the pathways of life.

These days, just reading the newspaper in the morning can be enough to send me into a tailspin. So many distressing things are happening that it’s hard for me to keep my spirits up. But then I read about the lawyers who are successfully challenging one outrage after another. I see another report about the World Central Kitchen providing food to yet another trouble spot. I see photos of people at protests and rallies. And when I can, I attend them myself — standing shoulder to shoulder with my tribe, all of us intent on the search and rescue mission we hope will restore our country to sanity and justice.

I know, I know. Rescuing someone from on top of a mountain isn’t quite the same thing. But the similarities are there — the teamwork, the goals and sense of mission, the shared disappointment when things don’t go well, the shared sense of deep satisfaction of a successful rescue. We can’t all be the people literally carrying a litter down a steep mountain pass. We can’t all work a compass or traverse risky avalanche territory. But it seems to me that we all offer something. Or at least we can.

Heather Cox Richardson reminds us to bring our A-game to wherever we feel called. You might be bringing your A-game to something much less dramatic than carrying an injured person off a mountain. But you have something to give. Richardson brings her A-game to her Letters from an American blog posts and her Politics Chat broadcasts. You might bring your A-game to coaching soccer. Or writing letters to Congress people. Or organizing protests. Or creating art or music. Or teaching children. Or counseling youth. Or caring for the elderly. Or making meals for the local homeless shelter. Or baking cookies for the teen center. Or cleaning up nature trails.

Or rescuing stray animals off the street.

Which reminds me. I have someone new to introduce. This is Louis D. Puddles Armstrong — Louie for short. When I adopted him from the animal shelter, he had been given the name, “Puddles,” because he and his sister had been rescued from a culvert during a thunderstorm in Memphis. (Many of the cats at Maine shelters come from Tennessee.) He was a kitten when he was rescued, but now he is a big grown-up cat of one whole year old. He deserved a more dignified name. So, with a nod to our beloved Little Stevie (Wonder), we chose to name him after another famous American musician.

Louie seems to be settling in pretty well, don’t you think? He loves to play. He has the loudest purr of any cat I have ever known. He brings us smiles, laughter, and happiness. In that way, he’s a Search and Rescue mission all by himself.

Love,

Sylvia

Talking to the Dog, by Kate Barnes 

When I used to get up in the morning
And make some funny noises – 
Jargon, bits of songs, nonsense – 
I wasn't really talking to myself;
No, I was talking to the dog.

But now the dog is dead -
No more unkempt wolf-hound lying asleep on her back
With her legs against the wall.
I must say good-bye to her prehistoric howling,
Good-bye to the look of those
	yellow owl eyes.
I drop her unfinished dinner onto the compost pile,
I wash her bowls and put them away,
I pull the rug over the place where her bed was;
And still I think I hear her
Just stirring in the next room.

It is almost Midsummer;
The blackberries are flowering in festoons beside
	the pasture;
I will bury her ashes under the crooked pear tree
With the fruit already growing among its green leaves.
I know that for a long time I will go on
	hearing her at the door,
And for a long time I will be seeing her out of the corner
	of my eye.
When the wind tracks light through the bending grass,
For a long time I will be talking to the dog. 

So, so many of you responded to my recent post, "The Last Time.” (The Last Time - by Sylvia Stocker - One Good Thing...) Your responses comforted me while I was anticipating, with dread, my cat Little Stevie’s death. Some of you responded through the Substack app. Some of you responded by email, text, phone call, card, or stopping by the house. Each connection helped to ease my sorrow.

I had Little Stevie the cat euthanized on Tuesday, May 12. Deciding to do so was agonizing, as such decisions always are, but it was the right thing to do. Little Stevie was no longer eating, and he was in a lot of pain. The vet and an assisting vet tech made a house call so that I didn’t have to inflict Little Stevie with one more torturous car ride. They were kind and gentle. Little Stevie did not suffer.

But his absence hangs over me as though the absence itself is its own being. I know that for a long time I will be seeing Little Stevie out of the corner of my eye. For a long time, I will be careful leaving the house, lest he (an indoor cat) slip outside, unnoticed.

For a long time, I will be talking to Little Stevie.

Our son came over a few days earlier to say one last goodbye. Little Stevie settled in on our son’s backpack, as was his habit. Little Stevie always loved curling up on that backpack. We could never figure out why. We just took it as one of his mysterious idiosyncrasies, and we smiled. So, we got to smile about it one last time.

At some point over the weekend, Little Stevie crawled into my arms of his own volition one last time for a cuddle and purr. Of course, I initiated cuddles too in the days leading up to his death. He loved to nestle in my arms, and that is my favorite memory of him. And aren’t our memories the things that keep our beloveds alive, long after they have died?

I am left with an unforeseen reminder of Little Steve’s special brand of softness. When the vet arrived at our house, she first administered a sedative so that Little Stevie fell asleep. I held him as he drifted off. Then she shaved some fur off his hind leg to give her access to an artery, through which she could administer a fatal dose of phenobarbital. Death came quickly and gently. When she picked up his body, that little tuft of shaved fur fell onto my couch. I retrieved it. His soft, soft fur.

So now I have a tiny bit of Little Stevie’s fur on the windowsill beside my favorite chair. The first time I reached out to touch it, I was flooded with this long-forgotten sweet memory from my childhood: When I was little, my favorite stuffy was a hand-knit beige dog with floppy ears, a gift from my Great Aunt Ruth. I named my soft, cuddly friend Shaggy Dog. Shaggy Dog accompanied me everywhere. I loved him so much that I wore him out, and my mother appealed to Aunt Ruth to procure a second Shaggy Dog just like the first one. I loved my second Shaggy Dog in equal measure.

At some point, my second Shaggy Dog also began disintegrating. The day came when my mother suggested it was time to part with him, lest he literally come apart at the seams. But she recognized how monumental the loss would be for me. She placed him in an old shoe box and set the box on the shelf way up high in my clothes closet. She told me he would be near me that way, but he would be safe from harm.

It didn’t take long for me to work out how to reach way, way, way up to that shelf and pull one of Shaggy Dog’s floppy ears out of the box. And there it stayed, draped over the edge of the box, where I could stroke it whenever I needed Shaggy Dog’s comfort. I remember doing that — a herculean task for a short little girl, who had to stand on tippy toes every time she needed to feel the presence of her special friend.

The other day, as I held the tuft of Little Stevie’s fur in my fingers, in my mind’s eye I could once again see Shaggy Dog’s ear draped over the side of that old shoe box. I remembered how my mother’s sensitivity helped me to say goodbye to a beloved friend. I remembered the love a special friend can give. The comfort of sight. The comfort of touch. The comfort of memory.

I don’t know how long I will want to keep that tuft of Little Stevie’s fur. Maybe until tomorrow. Maybe forever. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is the memory of love. And, after all, love is what this is all about. Love seeps out of every word of Kate Barnes’ poem. Love remains behind, filling the deep chasm of Little Stevie’s death has opened up.

No doubt it is obvious how much I loved Little Stevie. What you may not realize is that Little Stevie actually had a following. For one thing, he was very friendly. He greeted whoever came to the door, and he liked to befriend every guest. But he also had a rather unusual online presence.

In 2020, I was finishing my last weeks of parish ministry before retiring on July 1. We all know what happened in March 2020. When Covid disrupted any semblance of normalcy, I, like people all over the world, suddenly had to pivot to an entirely new way of doing things. So, there I was filming worship services in the upstairs bedroom of my house — the sunniest room with the best light. Little Stevie simply refused to be left out of the action. He loved to crawl into my arms during filming sessions. Little Stevie didn’t limit his contributions solely to worship services either. He regularly took part in church meetings held via Zoom.

Parishioners told me Little Stevie’s presence brought smiles, laughter, and comfort. That was especially so for people living alone, who yearned for simple touch. Somehow, seeing their minister stroking her cat evoked a little bit of the tenderness they were missing. Imagining themselves holding that soft, little body gave them solace. During those early weeks of the pandemic, Little Stevie’s presence was dependable and reassuring. In times that felt unmoored, fraught, and frightening, Little Stevie helped people to access some inner calm and lightness. He brought people joy just by being himself. People loved him for it.

I’m sure you have heard it said that when you invite love into your life, you also invite the pain of loss and sorrow. That has to be so, because, one way or another, we will eventually be parted from our beloveds. Our hearts will break. Right now, my heart aches for my sweet kitty so much I can barely stand it. But never for one minute would I give up the love I felt and feel for him. I am grateful for the time I had with him. The love was and is worth it. Love will see me through grieving. And when the grieving subsides and transforms, love will remain. Love is stronger than anything.

The closing words from the 2020 Mothers’ Day service seems the best way to end this post. You can witness Little Stevie’s own brand of ministry for yourself.

Love,

Sylvia

“When you feel powerless, you are powerless. And when you feel powerful, you are powerful. And we are powerful.” — Vice President Kamala Harris

Sometimes — oh, about every 5 years or so — I google my name to see what comes up. I’m not looking for myself. Instead, I’m looking for people with the same name as I have. That keeps me from becoming too proprietary about the name I have had for, lo, these many years. Because it turns out there are others.

In my lifetime, I have met very few people with the name Sylvia, and, outside of my family, even fewer people with the last name Stocker. So, with uncommon first and last names, my Google search for Sylvia Stocker yielded a rather short list. Very quickly I stumbled on one who was special, indeed. Her life story typifies the kind of stories the current regime in Washington is busily erasing from our nation’s history. Our nation was and is being built by amazing, though often invisible, people of vision, courage, and generosity. And a lot of those people were not and are not white people. I want our history to include and tell their stories; I want to keep their stories alive.

Sylvia Stocker’s contribution to her community is recounted by the Litchfield, Connecticut, Historical Society: Sylvia Stocker: The Enslaved Woman who Started a Town Library | My Country Blog – Litchfield Historical Society

An early colonist by the name of Isaac Baldwin created his homestead in Litchfield, Connecticut, along with his wife, Anna Collins, daughter of the town’s first minister. Isaac appears to have been something of a town leader. He must have enjoyed some material wealth, too, because the 1790 town census lists him as owning two slaves. One of them was Sylvia.

As you may know, slaves usually were given the last names of their owners. I am only guessing that must initially have been true for Sylvia as well. (She is listed by number, not name, in her earliest records — the typical way of recording slaves in census records.) Sylvia became a Stocker by marriage.

Anna Baldwin died before the 1790 census was recorded. According to the records, Isaac was then in his 70s and Sylvia was 18. Although it is impossible to know the details, town historians conjecture that Isaac was left in Sylvia’s care, especially as he aged. And she may not always have been alone in caring for Isaac. In 1802, a free black man named Orange Stocker took out a mortgage loan from Isaac’s son for a home near Isaac’s property. Town records note two people dwelled there. It’s a good guess that one of them was Sylvia. When Sylvia was emancipated in 1805, town records list her as “Sylvia Stocker.”

Per the Litchfield Historical Society:

So the 1800 Census, the loan from Horace Baldwin to Orange Stocker, the location of the house as described in the loan, and the fact that Sylvia was later freed with the last name of Stocker, suggest that sometime between 1790 & 1800, while still enslaved, she was able to marry a free “Other” or ”Negro.”

By 1800, it is easy to imagine Isaac, the 85-year-old widower, as unable to remain in the homestead without the support of his slave, Sylvia, and with Orange Stocker, a free black hired hand. It is also easy to imagine Sylvia & Orange, with the Baldwin family’s approval, being allowed to set up a home close enough to Isaac’s dwelling to provide the care needed by the aging patriarch.

Isaac Baldwin died in 1805. Upon his death, his heirs set about emancipating Sylvia.

From the Litchfield Land Records:

“Certify that we the subscribers, civil authorities and selectmen of the Town of Litchfield have enquired into the age, ability and health of Sylvia Stocker, a negro woman slave to Isaac Baldwin Esq. and find that she is 33 years old and no more and is in good health and that she wishes to be emancipated and we are of the opinion that it is proper that she be emancipated and hereby certify our willingness that said Isaac Baldwin Jr give to said Sylvia a letter of emancipation.

Dated 5/6/1805

Moses Seymour JP, Roger Whittlesey JP, Aaron Smith, Norman Buell, Noah Garnsey & Nathaniel Goodwin Selectmen

Sylvia’s Letter of Emancipation, From the heirs:

This is to certify that on behalf of myself and the other heirs of Isaac Baldwin, late of Litchfield, deceased, do hereby liberate and emancipate from slavery, Sylvia Stocker, a negro woman, late property of said deceased, Isaac Baldwin,

recorded September 6, 1806, Moses Seymour Register”

I found nothing that accounts for the 16 months that elapsed between the Selectmen’s Certification and Sylvia’s actual Letter of Emancipation provided by Isaac Baldwin’s heirs. Was it simply a matter of the Town being slow with their paperwork? Or did Baldwin’s heirs drag their feet? Or was that the way emancipation generally worked? Did Sylvia, who had already waited for 33 years for freedom, actually have to wait yet another 16 months to elapse before she finally tasted it? Given the story that has been handed down, it is hard to say. I only know that if it had been me, I would have been grateful for and relieved by the findings of the town leaders, but I also would have been chomping at the bit for the actual physical Letter of Emancipation.

From what little else we know of Sylvia’s life, we can imagine her to be hardworking and industrious. More to the point for our purposes here, she was a generous woman of vision. Sylvia was widowed by her first husband, Orange Stocker. She purchased a home with another free black man, Pomp Lepeon, in 1815. In 1817, she married Mose Green (the marriage records listing her name as Sylvia Stocking). She died June 23, 1836, at the age of 64.

But she did something remarkable about three weeks before her death. She wrote a will in which, among other bequests, she left “her small library for the Town Selectmen to share with the poor of Litchfield.”

Her small library. Left to share with the town’s poor.

There are so many things remarkable about Sylvia’s story, not least of which is the fact that she had a library at all. For one thing, enslaved people often were not taught to read. No, that’s not quite right. Enslaved people often weren’t allowed to learn to read. Because you know what reading might lead to — knowledge! Ideas! Maybe even ideas about freedom and justice! Yet somewhere along the line, Sylvia learned to read.

But also, in the early 19th century I imagine it was uncommon for people to own a lot of books. They were luxury items, in some sense. Yes, people like Thomas Jefferson had private libraries, but he had the material wealth to purchase and store books. For Sylvia to possess a small library was something altogether different, I imagine. My guess is that each and every book was precious to her.

And then there is this: Sylvia recognized both a need and an ability to help meet that need. That’s where both her vision and her generosity were at play. Hers was actually the first lending library in Litchfield, which would not establish a town lending library for another 26 years. And it wasn’t just Litchfield that was lacking a public library in those times. The Boston Public Library, founded in 1848, is considered one of the first public lending libraries in the country. But its first public reading room was not opened until 1854, 18 years after Sylvia’s death.

The History and Impact of Public Libraries – igniteyourknowledge

US History of Public Libraries - Not Just a Book: A History of Libraries, Censorship, and the Public Space - LibGuides at Palm Beach State College

So, what Sylvia did was truly visionary — both in sharing the wealth of her books, even if it was a small library, and dedicating that sharing to the town’s poor, who may not have had easy access to books by any other means. Her legacy spreads even beyond that, because now, nearly two centuries later, a woman typing in her kitchen in Maine feels inspired and awed enough by Sylvia’s story to share it with you today.

And here’s how Sylvia’s story inspires me: By any typical measure of her day, Sylvia was a powerless woman. Born a slave, enslaved for more than half her life. A woman who would have been subjected to ongoing racism, even after emancipation. A person who must have worked incredibly hard — certainly much harder than her white counterparts — for anything she had. Despite all that, she recognized she had something important and valuable to give, and, in giving it, she exercised her power.

Kamala Harris says, "“When you feel powerless, you are powerless. And when you feel powerful, you are powerful. And we are powerful.” To me, Sylvia’s story demonstrates how power works. Power works when we understand we have something to give, and we give it.

You are powerful, and so am I. We all have something to give. Maybe it’s something tangible, like Sylvia’s books. Maybe it’s money to donate, or building and repairing skills, or planting gardens to help feed the food-insecure, or tutoring, or creating works of art of music. Or maybe what you and I have to give is more intangible: Loving attention, encouragement of others, quiet community organizing behind the scenes. Maybe our giving comes by way of feet to carry us on marches, or maybe by way of markers and poster boards for making signs, or by driving people to the polls on voting day. Or maybe our giving comes in the ability to write convincingly. Or maybe it’s recognizing birdsong and taking people on nature walks.

Oh, the possibilities are limitless. And our giving is our power.

There is plenty in our current world that may seem to sap our power. In fact, I would say that is by design — intentional on the part of people who want us to believe we are powerless. But we don’t have to succumb to that kind of hopeless thinking. When you find your power begin to drift away, just remember: There was once a woman named Sylvia Stocker, one of the earliest mothers of lending libraries in America, discerning what she could give, and giving it. That was her power. We each have something to give, too. When we discern what it is, and when we give it, we find and demonstrate our power.

Love,

Sylvia

This is not a blog post about cats in general or even one cat in particular. It is a post about attending, remembering, and loving.

Around a year ago, Little Stevie was diagnosed with probable lymphoma. Probable, because I elected not to have a biopsy done. I wasn’t going to subject Little Stevie to chemotherapy, so why perform a biopsy?

Oh, I know veterinary medicine offers an array of treatments. So, so many treatments. But I firmly believe that “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” When Little Stevie got sick a year ago, I spent a week crying and considering the possibilities. Much as my heart was breaking, I ultimately decided that putting Little Stevie through chemo would actually be for my benefit, not his. But it would be his little body that would have to endure the treatment, while his little soul wouldn’t understand it. So, I said no to the biopsy.

By some miracle, the concerning symptoms that sent me to the vet a year ago subsided. For the past year, Little Stevie has been pretty much his usual self. But recently those previous symptoms have all come tumbling back, seemingly overnight. Little Stevie is receiving palliative care, in the form of a prednisone derivative that is meant to increase his appetite and to decrease the inflammation caused by the tumors that even I, with my utter lack of training, can now palpate.

This is all to say that I don’t know how much time Little Stevie has left, so I try to stop what I am doing when he approaches. I hope to give him the love and comfort he wants. And, of course, I want to soak in his presence. When Little Stevie jumped into my arms a little while ago, I held him closely and gently. I spoke to him kindly and stroked his fur. He purred and settled in for a while.

And I said to myself, I want to remember this. Every single detail. I want to remember. Because what if this is the last time he asks for this kind of attention? What if I never have another chance like this one?

The seriousness of his illness makes evident a truth I so often hold at bay as I conduct the prosaic events of my life: One never knows when the last time will arrive. The last touch. The last conversation. The last shared laughter. If we are lucky, we will have something to remember in retrospect. If we are really, really lucky, that remembrance will be something better than the argument we had with our mother about a stupid bicycle, of all things, just a day before she had her final heart attack. (Yes, speaking from experience here.)

Little Stevie has the softest fur. Softer than baby’s hair. Softer than the fur coating any of my long parade of pets through the years. Softer than soft. While he was curled up in my arms, I marveled at that sweet miracle of softness as feelings and thoughts swirled through my head.

I prayed for the wisdom to know when it is time to allow the veterinarian to give him that gentle release. I confess my track record in that area is not sterling. I tend to hold on too long, and then I have to live knowing that my choices have caused my beloved pets unnecessary additional suffering. Right now, I am trying to remember what one of my friends said the other day, “We treat animals better than we treat humans.” The gentle release the veterinarian will administer will be just that: A gentle release. A quiet, tender goodbye.

I thought of other lettings go. Other pets who have died in my arms. Jesse who died in the middle of the night on my kitchen floor with me gently stroking him and speaking to him, telling him it was okay to go. Molly and Frodo, who died with me holding them, while the vet administered that final shot. In those cases, I hoped my voice and touch soothed them to the end. It hardly needs saying: I was well aware of those last moments.

There have been times when I haven’t had the chance to say goodbye. Max, who disappeared forever, probably a good meal for a fisher or fox. Mieke, who died on the operating table after being administered anesthesia, much to the surprise of the bewildered vet, who asked my permission to do an autopsy to discover what had happened. (Answer: It turned out she had only one kidney, and it was diseased — so the anesthesia was too much for her; it killed her.) Going back in time, I thought of the various beloved pets my parents had euthanized when I wasn’t there. When was the final time I held or patted those treasured beings? What were the last things I ever said to them? I mostly couldn’t recall.

With beloved people, death often sneaks up on us. We don’t typically plan our beloved people’s final exits the way we often can with pets. People die when they die, even when death is expected. Even when we are keeping close and tender watch, people often die at that exact moment when we leave the room to get a cup of coffee to help us stay awake for the long haul. Experiences like that give the sense of death stealing people away from us, so you would think we would hold each moment in our awareness a little better than we usually do. I am speaking for myself here, of course, but I doubt I am the only person who moves through my day, from task to task, without considering life’s finite quality and the limited opportunities to express my love. I am not the only person whose attention, well, wanders from the most holy moments right within my grasp. Excuse me, I have to cook supper, or take the car to have the snow tires removed, or put the clothes in the dryer, or clean up that pile of papers on the kitchen counter.

Sometimes one gets a lucky, conscious last moment — and what a blessing that is. Years ago, neighbors invited us to an outdoor concert at a local science museum. The museum featured an outdoor walkway through lovely vegetation, where injured and recovering wildlife were on view in the cages that kept them safe while they were healing. During the concert’s intermission, my son and I went to see those animals and plants. As we strolled quietly down the path, my son reached out his hand to me. On we went, hand in hand.

At the time, my son was, maybe, 11 or 12 years old. It had been, literally, years since he had taken my hand like that. I don’t know what inspired him to do so in those moments. All I know is that as I walked along, I was flooded with a million memories of his much-younger, small hand reaching way up high to grasp mine. I couldn’t have said what had been the previous time he had done that, but I was well aware that what I was experiencing right then probably constituted the exact last time he would hold my hand like that.

“This is the last time he will ever do this,” I said to myself, “so savor it.”

There may come a time in my advanced dotage, if I get that far, when my son takes my hand again. I will savor that, too, if I am aware it is happening. But it won’t be the same. It won’t be the young child reaching out for Mummy. It will be the older child, an adult who has somehow, mysteriously, become the parent in the equation, while I will be the recipient of his comfort and love. That will be meaningful in its own way, I am sure. I count my blessings that that long-ago stroll at the science museum helped to teach me to notice such dear moments. To attend. To appreciate. To give thanks.

It’s a good thing such reminders pop up every so often. Right now — this instant (for Little Stevie has appeared again and is curled up, cuddling in my arms while I type) — a sweet little cat is telling me to stop. To pay attention. To live my life consciously. To be tender and kind. To imprint these sacred moments on my heart and soul. Dinner can wait. Snow tires can wait. Wet laundry can wait. Piles of paper can wait. Love and tenderness are happening right now — right now! They are the most important things, and I don’t want to miss the moment.

So, I leave you now so that I can pat my cat. His little body is warm, and he is purring. And he has the softest fur.

Love,

Sylvia

“Just because the big is happening doesn't mean the small has stopped.” — Trevor Noah

A lot of people I know abandoned Facebook long ago. I support and understand the multiple reasons for doing so. I have seriously considered doing so myself, but I confess I am still there. I live with a beloved who deals with major physical handicaps now, and it’s well-nigh impossible for us to travel. Facebook gives me updates from people I almost never see in person. It provides access to Heather Cox Richardson’s Politics Chat (usually on Tuesday and Thursday evenings) and What the Heck Just Happened with HCR and Joanne Freeman (usually on Saturday mornings).

Plus — and this is really important to me: It’s a source of local information, a lot of it informal. I have signed up for several groups where local people post about goings on. Recently, for instance, I saw a notification for a special drop-off day at the dump. I plan to sign up for one of the 75 available spots so that I can dispose of various things that would be difficult to dispose of otherwise.

And then, I also get notifications like the following one that arrived a few weeks ago, edited for length and (a tiny bit) for punctuation:

Hey Everyone, I hope this finds you with a full tank of health and enjoying the new year. Today I find myself overjoyed and full of gratitude. After 4 years of Homelessness, Couch Surfing, Living off the Land and Everything in between, I am overjoyed to say I will be shifting from my beautiful, tented site in the woods to a bedroom with four walls and an ensuite bathroom. . . [M]y well cared for site will be available to a person or persons currently unhoused. I have a gently used extra two-person tent for anyone needing it, too, or you can provide your own.

Please note that there are rules to follow of being good stewards of the space but, nonetheless, part of my mission is to help stabilize those who are newly experiencing homelessness. . .

During the weekdays you have access to a heated environment, the ability for warm showers, bathroom privileges, heating in a microwave and even access to multiple social activities among peers. . . The site also comes equipped with a single cot and mattress as well as a propane cooking stove. There is a storage tent or guest tent if you will as well as a wood tent for campfires. . .

The land is public but safe as long as the site is utilized with care and kept up. Being respectful is [of] high importance and I will expect such [from] any future guest. I can also gift a sleeping bag and tote for food. A shovel is provided for pathway clearing. . .

I was so touched by that post. For one thing, it demonstrates the way unhoused people tend to try to care for one another. Unless you work with the unhoused population or are unhoused yourself, that’s something you don’t get to see very often. So much generosity and care in our world is pretty much hidden from view.

In addition, I am pretty sure the person who wrote that post, speaking of “a bedroom with four walls and an ensuite bathroom,” was moving into our town’s brand-new shelter for people experiencing homelessness. Our town has had a shelter (or, more specifically, shelters) for that purpose for several decades now. They were created by the local interfaith group, and they have carried on through the decades through the generosity of many, many people. But, until just months ago, the sheltering system was cobbled together — a shelter for adults in an old run-down building in one part of town, a shelter for families with children in another part of town, and offices, including access to case managers, in yet a third location. The number of beds was far too small to meet the area’s needs, and the business of running the far-flung operation was pretty challenging.

But now, after many years of planning, conducting a capital campaign, and building, our town has a new facility, with housing for families with children in one wing and housing for adults in another. A playground out back provides space for children to play. In addition, the administration and case workers have offices right there, on site — everyone in one place. I have toured the facility, and I must say, it is very impressive.

Again, unseen generosity was at play here. Some people gave large donations. Most people gave small donations that, taken together, added up to something. Added up to enough. Added up to a community working together to protect and support some of its most vulnerable members.

And/but, there’s a third reason that Facebook post caught my eye, and that’s the major reason for this blog post: The snow shovel he mentions? It used to be mine.

Here’s the story: At the beginning of the very, very snowy winter from which we are now emerging, I saw an earlier post from this same person asking if anyone had an extra snow shovel they could give away. Well, I had an extra one, so I responded, saying I would be happy to give it to him. He asked me to drop it off at the place he mentions in his recent post. (“During the weekdays you have access to a heated environment, the ability for warm showers, bathroom privileges, heating in a microwave and even access to multiple social activities among peers”). When I arrived with the snow shovel, the recipient wasn’t there, but the receptionist told me where to stash the shovel, and she handed me a lovely thank-you note, written with actual pen on actual paper, from the person receiving the shovel.

Well, I must tell you, my gesture was very small. For the longest time, my family had two snow shovels. Then, one day, my spouse spotted a damaged snow shovel in the “give away” pile at the end of our neighbors’ driveway. Being someone who cannot bear to let things go to waste, and also being someone who can fix nearly anything, he brought the shovel home and made the repair. That gave us three snow shovels when, at most, we only ever need two. So, giving the third snow shovel to the gentleman who posted his need on Facebook was hardly generous on our part. You might even say it freed up a bit of space in our garage!

But, now, that snow shovel lives on, filling the need of others who can’t just dash off to the hardware store to purchase one. And, let me tell you, after the winter we just had here, having a snow shovel was pretty critical. One little snow shovel. So small, yet so important.

Trevor Noah says, "“Just because the big is happening doesn’t mean the small has stopped.” Friends, we all know a lot of big is happening. All around us we see the evidence. Anger, retribution, fear, hatred. Higher prices. Worries about access to medical insurance and care. Hunger. Anxiety about the escalation of violence in our world. Real fear of being arrested, imprisoned in an American-run concentration camp, and then deported to God-knows-where. False narratives invented and perpetuated by rightwing media. Climate change announcing itself in the most frightening ways. And more.

And, yes, many of us are paying close attention to the big that is happening. We’re doing what we can — protesting, writing postcards to promote fair elections, contacting our elected representatives to share our concerns, contributing letters to the editors in various publications, filling the bins at local food banks, working in soup kitchens, composing new music to reflect the times, creating art of all kinds to express what is in our hearts.

And, yes, many of us find all of the above exhausting. Sometimes we just can’t muster the energy to create one more poster or stand on one more street corner. Sometimes we simply have to shut off the news and settle down to read The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (or equivalent reading material) instead. Sometimes we need to go to the local coffee house to listen to music or hear a comedian try out their latest set. Sometimes we just need to dig in our gardens, planting the seeds of some future beauty we hope will emerge.

But what I am here to say today is that the small continues to matter. Always. The way we meet our world on a day-to-day basis pays its way forward. If we meet the world with kindness and generosity, we allow those qualities to fledge from the smallness of our own little nest and wing their way into the world. We give someone a snow shovel — the smallest possible gesture — and the generosity continues on. So, never discount what you can give — even the smallest thing. It matters.

Believe me, I am currently in a position to know, in a visceral way, exactly what I am talking about. I had most of this post written when, in a completely freak accident, I fell and broke my nose. A kind neighbor brought me to the emergency room. My marching orders involved such things as “do not wear glasses,” when, friends, I cannot see anything right in front of my face without glasses. (I couldn’t finish this blog post, for instance!) Or, “do not lift anything heavy,” which meant I had to ask for help carrying heavy trash bags into the garage and filling the kitty litter pan. In addition, I hurt my dominant hand in that same fall, making life challenging in all kinds of ways.

Friends and neighbors materialized out of nowhere, giving me and my spouse rides, picking up groceries, and bringing us meals (even retrieving the perishable food from our refrigerator and returning it to us in the form of something delicious). To us, those gestures have meant everything. Yet the people arriving at our door have all said, “Oh, it’s nothing. We’re happy to help.”

My story is hardly unique. In fact, you probably have your own version of it. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn you have been on both the giving and the receiving ends of such acts of kindness. You know how the little can seem big when you need help. And you know how the big can seem little when you are in a position to offer assistance. So, what I want to say is this: Never doubt that the little bit (in your mind) you have to offer to the world is meaningful and important. You never know what your kindness and generosity can unleash. You never know where wings will take such gestures. All you can know is that they will morph into other acts of kindness and generosity when you pay them forward.

Another small example: I offer you this file from a gardening article in a recent issue of the New York Times. Is it a meme? A GIF? A short video? Forgive me, I do not know. What I do know is that you should click the arrow and spend all of 3 seconds watching what happens.

I have watched this over and over again because it makes me feel happy. True, the artist who created it was simply doing a job. Even so, their creativity and sense of beauty go out into the world to delight others. And the message is important, too: Create beauty in your own little patch, and you will fill the hearts of countless others — people you may not ever even know.

You, too, are beautiful.

Love,

Sylvia

From the April 9, 2026, New York Times.

“Behind every beautiful thing, there is some kind of pain.” Bob Dylan

Black Swallowtail
The caterpillar, interesting but not exactly lovely, 
humped along among the parsley leaves
eating, always eating. Then 
one night it was gone and in its place 
a small green confinement hung by two silk threads 
on a parsley stem. I think it took nothing with it 
except faith, and patience. And then one morning 
it expressed itself into the most beautiful being.
 
-- Mary Oliver

Here we are, smack dab in the thick of some of the most significant holidays in world religions. Muslims recently ended their (roughly) month-long celebration of Ramadan, which marks the time when the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed. As I write, we are in the middle of Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the ancient Israelites’ escape from bondage. And yesterday marked the conclusion of Holy Week in Western Christianity — a week that begins on Palm Sunday, the day Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem, continues up to the Last Supper and Jesus’ crucifixion, and ends with Easter, the day Jesus’ followers discover he had been resurrected from the dead. Easter was yesterday in the Western Christian rite. In the Eastern Christian rite, Palm Sunday was yesterday, and Easter will be this coming Sunday.

All three of those observances are filled with hope. Ramadan travels around the calendar, so it’s only by chance that it roughly coincides with Passover and Easter this year. But Passover and Easter are always in the spring (in the northern hemisphere, that is). And spring itself has always been a time of great celebration, all across human history and cultures. The powerful message of animals and birds returning to the land and vegetation coming back to life is pretty hard to ignore.

And yet this year, I don’t have the sense that hope has returned to the land. Not at all. These days I hear people express despair and hopelessness. While the richest people in the world seem intent on plundering the earth at the expense of the rest of us, it is hard to find the way forward. When I see people choosing hatred and war over love and peace, it’s hard to feel hopeful. It’s hard to discern the path that will lead to freedom, justice, and peace. With good reason, people are feeling depressed, angry, and hopeless. Many feel powerless to change things. Many feel lost, cast aside, and insignificant. In fact, for many, celebrating Ramadan, Passover, and Easter may feel more ironic than anything else this year. What are we to make of that?

A whole bunch of years ago, I was a chaplain at a hospital for the mentally ill. I was assigned to the floor with patients with the most intractable mental illnesses. My work there was challenging, really challenging. Some of my patients had delusional religious ideations. I met Mary, God, and multiple Jesuses, for instance. Some of my patients were so impaired in one way or another that they could only communicate in a word salad. Many of my patients would probably never leave the hospital unless some kind of revolution in health care occurred. My heart ached for them. And my brain was in constant gear as I tried to work out the best way to communicate with them.

I listened. A lot.

I learned. A lot.

Among my duties, I was responsible for assisting with the Friday afternoon Catholic Mass. The Mass may have been Catholic in form, but it was a truly ecumenical event. A Catholic chaplain, Sister J___, led the mass. A Lutheran chaplain played the piano. I, a Unitarian Universalist chaplain, accompanied people to and from locked wards. During the Mass, I gave the reading. In addition, because I had a strong singing voice and could read music, I helped lead the hymns, all of which were unfamiliar to me.

Friday Mass was generally well attended. That was partly down to the fact that the hospital was located in an area where Catholicism is robust. In addition, I suspect many patients simply saw Mass as an opportunity to go somewhere else, do something else. Plus, everybody loved Sister J___.

Because I regularly helped with Friday Mass, I was naturally on hand to assist with the Good Friday Mass. And that turned out to be a huge deal. Much to my surprise, I learned the Good Friday Mass was the most popular Mass all year long. It was “all hands on deck,” with all the hospital chaplains helping to lead it. For the Good Friday Mass, we chaplains doubled our leadership ranks and enlarged our ecumenical reach to include a couple of United Church of Christ chaplains and one Episcopalian.

“How do you even manage on Easter?” I asked my supervisor, knowing that fewer chaplains were on staff during weekends. “It must be even bigger than Good Friday.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “Easter Mass isn’t well attended at all.” I was some surprised, Easter being the biggest Christian holy day of all in the world outside that hospital. But, as it turned out, many patients were liberated from the hospital by their families on Easter Sunday. Moreover, as my supervisor explained, the patients related to the Good Friday story in a way they couldn’t possibly relate to the Easter story. “They live in a Good Friday world,” my supervisor observed. A world without hope. A world where the very best, the most precious, had been cruelly taken away.

To review, Good Friday is the day Christians remember Jesus being executed by the state, dying a slow and excruciating death on the cross. It is the day that marks all hope being extinguished from the world. (And, no, I have never quite worked out why Good Friday is considered “good.”) Easter, a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, represents the return of hope. Of the two, Good Friday was the more powerful day for my mentally ill patients — people shunned by much of society, people locked away in ways that must have felt like betrayal, people medicated with drugs that often made them feel sick, people who entertained no hope of recovery. They lived in a Good Friday world, no Easter in sight.

I’ve thought a lot about that experience this spring. So many are living in a Good Friday world at the moment. The people of Gaza. The people of Iran. The people all over the world who no longer get food or medical care from the United States, now that USAID has been destroyed — such withdrawal of care resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Our military, deployed for a war with no purpose and no end goal (other than distracting everyone from the Epstein files). Our military being asked to commit war crimes, like the bombing and destruction of infrastructure critical for the civilian population. The people of the United States: If there is only one thing that unites us at this point, it is the moral injury inflicted on all of us by a regime using our tax dollars for cruel ends. Our former allies, rudely cast aside for no apparent reason.

Then, of course, there are the very real consequences that people I know and love are feeling. People finding it difficult to afford health insurance. People who are afraid of being rounded up by ICE. People who are struggling to afford food for their families and gas for their cars. People who, at the very least, are drowning in despair and depression.

Yes, there is plenty to argue this is a Good Friday world at the moment.

And along comes Easter with its alleluia. Along comes Passover with its story of freedom. Along come those messages of hope that can seem impossible to grasp, impossible to make real in one’s life. What are we to make of the juxtaposition of alleluias and celebrations when we live in a world where we are afraid to read the news every morning?

One Saturday morning years ago, I was preparing my Easter sermon when I learned that someone in my extended circle of family and friends had just committed suicide. Believe me, there was no way I could muster an alleluia for the Easter service the following morning. But I learned a lot from my struggle to form a message that day. That year Passover and Easter coincided, as they do this year. I had hoped to delve into the messages of both holidays. But my world had turned upside-down. I felt I owed it to my congregation to be honest, authentic, and so I told them about the Good Friday world I was inhabiting that morning. Given my own circumstances, I said:

. . . You know and I know — we all know — that not everyone is passed over, not all captives go free, and Easter doesn’t always come at the appointed time. We live in an uncertain world, a world of sorrow and woe, of stupidity and carelessness, of unfairness, injustice, and tragedy. We know someday — maybe not today, but someday — we will feel as though we are still enslaved in Egypt. Someday we will feel as though we are on the cross or in the tomb. Sorrow and suffering are meted out to all. Juxtaposed with that sorrow and suffering come two powerful holidays — celebrated simultaneously this year — Easter and Passover, with their messages of freedom and hope. What a juxtaposition! What terrible irony!

Later, I continued on:

Both Passover and Easter arrive each year at the appointed time. Their stories call out with powerful messages of hope and healing, whether or not we are ready for them or receptive to them. The people tell the stories again and again, year after year, generation after generation. The people tell the stories in times when life’s small and delicious pleasures are evident. And they tell the stories when worlds fall apart. The people tell the stories even in the cruelest of times — Passover in the Warsaw Ghetto, for instance, or Easter in the time of the gladiators. In times of war or famine, fear or oppression, the people have gathered to lift up a cup of hope, even when freedom was but a distant whisper and joy was hidden behind the deepest shadows of despair.

Indeed the stories are often most powerful in times of trial, for they hold out the promise of better tomorrows. For though the stories are old, they do not yet have endings. The endings will not be written until the end of human history. Until then, we will tell our stories of freedom, our stories of hope, our stories of rebirth and new growth, our stories of love that arise from our experience of living in an imperfect, confusing, and often harsh world.

Today, as I gaze out from my Good Friday location, I find comfort in stories that have no ending. I think of [my friend], whose life has ended but whose story continues on.

It continues on in the phalanx of family and friends who have gathered to wrap their arms around her family.

It continues on in her beautiful young children who display a reflection of her face in theirs.

It continues on in the myriad ways she touched people in her life and in her death.

It continues on perhaps even in the world of medicine, which will continue to try to find ways to combat both the physical and mental illnesses she suffered.

Whether our hearts and spirits are ready or not, spring returns, pushing flowers up through the soil, even when snow is falling. Passover returns with its promise of freedom, even in a world where human beings are held captive in countless ways. Easter returns with its hope of new life and its promise of rebirth, even in times when our hearts are despairing.

I tell you, that was one of the most difficult sermons I ever prepared or delivered. My own heart was breaking, and I knew many in my congregation came to church looking for an Easter alleluia. And yet I learned something powerful that year. Joy and hope do not arrive on calendar days. There is no schedule for them to follow. And yet the stories we tell help us to remember joy and hope are possible. Even in the toughest and most uncertain times, it helps to remember what is possible, what we can set our sights on, what we can work to achieve, what we can imagine might come . . . someday.

Howard Thurman once said:

“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge. It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor.

“This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men and women have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. Such is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge.”

So, my friends, that is where I have set my sights today. On the growing edge. On the someday that is surely out there.

Love,

Sylvia

Afternoon Glow, by Robbin Hartridge

It's the magic hour
when the day yawns wide
after a nap between long shadows.
A tide of translucent orange
seeps out from under the sculpture studio
while it waits for imagination to stir.

If you aren't paying attention
you will miss it,
the way you forget to look for
the stand of deer peering curiously at you
from the side of the road
as you speed by on your way to
a place you will forget by tomorrow.
If you notice, you would see an
elixir of apricot, blended with mellow peach,
and tangerine marshmallows -
the glow of afternoon,
a cousin to the sunset the way
the moon tethers to the Earth.

She carries magic with her,
wears it like a dress covered with
a garden of roses -
petals heavy with the scent of autumn rain.
Her glow begins from interior places
spreading out to touch
all who are close by,
leaks out the far corners of the house
with the buttery, emulsified fragrance
of a well-seasoned kitchen.

The quiet magic of late afternoon,
the washes of colored light painted
by kindly gestures
reaching out to a wanting world,
let it spread out like welcome assurance
to take the chill off of anxious hesitation.
Help us to remember that the
apricot, tangerine and peaches of glowing
hearts ripened in late afternoon,
can do more to warm cold fixations
than the rush of self-appointed speed
towards the place
we will have forgotten by tomorrow.

As so often happens — increasingly so, it seems to me — I had a post nearly written, and then life happened. Things in my personal life happened. Things in my country happened. Things in the world happened. You know the world we are living in, so you know. Suddenly, everything I had written seemed outdated. Poof! Just like that — all those pearls of wisdom turned to dust.

(If they were even pearls of wisdom to begin with . . . )

I have spent a great deal of the past few weeks dealing with the medical issues of one of my beloveds, including hours and hours spent at the hospital bedside. No chance to write. No heart (or brain!) for coming up with a message. So, I have found myself shifting gears, changing direction, trying to “get a purchase” on things (a phrase my father used to insist originated from New England vernacular). In a boat that seemed rudderless, at least temporarily.

Meanwhile, while I have been wrapped up in radio silence, I have received a bunch of new subscribers to this blog. I am not sure how or why that happened (Substack being something of a mystery to me), but now I feel even more compelled than usual to say something. Plus, people who have been subscribing for a while have increasingly asked, “When are you going to post something again?”

So, here I am.

I won’t pretend things are easy now. You would spot me for a fool instantly, if I did so. But this is “One Good Thing,” and I am here to report that, even amidst the chaos and difficulty, there is still good in the world. Robbin Hartridge’s poem encourages me to look for it. It also reminds me that, because I have seen beauty before, I can dredge it up from my memory — these days when beautiful sunsets are, literally and metaphorically, thin on the ground. You have doubtless seen beautiful sunsets, too, so you know. You have doubtless experienced some good things, too, so you know.

The truth is, there are sparks of joy all around me. Like the sun and wind that presented the first opportunity for me in months to hang laundry outside on the line a couple of weeks ago. And the fragrance of fresh laundry that later wafted through the house when I brought the laundry inside.

And then the obvious, but no less miraculous: The daffodils jamming their determined and hardy leaves up through the still-somewhat-frozen soil where enough snow has melted to expose the earth to sun.

Then there were the offers to help that came our way when my family needed some assistance. Neighbors, friends, church members bringing food. Visitors traipsing to the hospital, and even here at home, to see my beloved — conversing, or reading a quiet story, or simply being with him. A friend even brought his cribbage game over so that my beloved could play. And I cannot fail to mention the Snow Shoveling Fairy, who cleared away the berm at the end of our driveway when a storm blew through our area.

And how about this? The brand-new baby in my family, and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that is providing such meticulous for him. The whole idea of NICUs in the first place is an amazing and good thing. And new babies make love and hope bubble up, even in the toughest of times.

On the funny side of life, there’s this: I had been knitting a Melt the Ice red hat of resistance for a friend to wear at No Kings on March 28. Of course, the combination of my being both the World’s Slowest Knitter and the World’s Biggest Procrastinator meant I was down to the wire on Friday the 27th. The hat was nearly finished — literally only a couple of rows from the end — when I did something dumb that I don’t understand and can’t even describe. I couldn’t see how to undo my error. That sent a panicky me, with the cheery company of a friend, over to Halcyon Yarn in Bath, where I knew someone smarter than I would be able to straighten things out. Of course, Halcyon Yarn untangled my missteps, but you know what else? They also explained that the hat looked a little odd because I had been knitting it inside-out and backwards! Don’t even ask me how. Apparently, I have a special talent. Who knew that finishing up that hat would end with a hoot of laughter?

Well, the hat turned out just fine. I delivered it to my friend late Friday afternoon. On Saturday it made its debut appearance at the No Kings rally here in town. I was at that rally, too, wearing my own Melt the Ice Hat (shown above). The weather was very cold, with a bitter wind blowing through the area. But that did not diminish the warmth I felt from friends who stopped to chat or from the collective crowd of people resisting authoritarianism and tyranny, or from the many honks and waves from people driving past. The fact that the concerns of our local group were echoed by millions of people all over the country and even the world lifted my spirits considerably. There is nothing quite like experiencing the solidarity of so many people who promote freedom, kindness, decency, justice — and, oh, all the things a safe and free society needs.

Based on my experiences in the past few weeks, if I have one new message, it is this: Slow down. Pay attention.

Yes, attend to all that is broken and needs your care. But do not forget to attend to beauty, joy, humor, and helpfulness. Those things will feed your hurting heart and soul. Those things will sustain you through the tough times. Those things will give you strength for the journey. So, notice them.

My beloved is home and recovering well. My little cat is happy to have his family intact again. The so, so many people who gave us material help and who reached out with their hearts are a blessing to us.

And how can I fail to mention this amazing fact: I have been invited to join a group of knitters to produce more Melt the Ice hats. Me! With my dubious track record! I plan to join. Maybe I can even learn how to knit right-side-to and in a forward direction

The world offers up some amazing and surprising ways to lift the spirit sometimes. When trouble comes your way, I wish the same for you.

Love,

Sylvia

— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Years ago — another lifetime, it seems — Americans woke one day to the horrific knowledge that our military had been torturing prisoners at Abu Graib in Iraq. That certainly wasn’t the first time in human history when the violence of war gave way to a hatred so stomach-turningly vile, and it wasn’t the last either.

At the time, I had a teenaged son just beginning to come into his own full blossoming. The Abu Graib story hit me in a particular way, and I wrote the following lament, which has been on my mind ever since President Trump unilaterally started a war in Iraq in the wee hours of Saturday morning:

A Mother’s Lament in the Wake of Abu Graib, by Sylvia Stocker

May 15, 2004

In a week of pictures, here is mine: I sit at my desk at home. Outside, purple and white lilacs are in bloom, and the fragrance of the lilies of the valley wafts through the open window. The sun muffles its way softly through a slight cloud cover. The air is warm, a nearly perfect spring day. The cat sits in the window, nose to the breeze. And my teen-aged son, my only child, my life’s blood, is outside throwing a tennis ball against the house. I can hear the ball thump on the roof just above my head.

My son. My springtime brightness. When I look at those pictures from Iraq, I see mothers grieving. Those smiling, pointing, self-satisfied, sadistic American faces we saw? They were children. Our children. They did not set out to take up evil. And we did not create them for that.

I ask myself, where did we go so wrong? My generation sang, “Teach Your Children Well,” when we came of age. And then we stuck our children in the military police in Iraq without even teaching them about the Geneva Convention. We sent them to root out evil, and they became the very evil they were fighting against. God, forgive us.

I look out my window. A young woman clad in t-shirt and shorts is pushing a baby carriage past my house. Thump, thump, thump goes the ball on the roof.

My son. My hope of summer. I cannot think of Nicholas Berg without my heart breaking for his mother. I am chilled to the core with terror. What have we wrought? Even the most elementary psychology points to the connection between shame and humiliation, on the one hand, and reprisal and vengeance on the other. How long, how long, will America pay for our unspeakable crimes? What world will my son inherit?

The cat appears at my side and stretches, placing his front paws on my leg. I lift him into my lap, rub him behind the ears, and listen to his rumbling purr. Thump, thump, thump goes the ball on the roof.

My son. My tomorrow. I birthed him when the world was breaking out in peace all over. I dared to dream he would never have to go to war. And now the draft looms on the horizon. What price will he pay for this terrible war? I may not be able to keep his body safe, but have I taught him well enough to keep his soul safe?

The kitchen door opens, then bangs shut. I hear my son pull on the refrigerator door, then twist off the top to the juice bottle, and pour himself a drink.

My son. My joy. My hope. In a week he will take part in a Coming of Age ceremony at church. Each of the kids will read credo statements and celebrate a year of service to the church and community. Like the blossoms outside my window, they are beginning their full flowering. They are so full of life, and dreams, and ideas, and tomorrows.

In my one hand, I hold a lamentation to capture the revulsion and rage the horrifying pictures from Iraq have stirred in me. And in my other hand, I hold a song of songs, the brightness of my son’s tomorrows and the tomorrows of all children everywhere. I cannot drop the contents of either hand. I must move forward with all of it. One hand to make me remember the worst we can become; one hand to give me hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Here we are again, America.

I once more hold in one hand my revulsion, anger, and horror. Look at what President Trump has wrought — without the consent or support of the American people, without even a consultation with Congress, not to mention a Constitutionally required vote to proceed! A girls’ school, bombed. Scores of children dead and injured. And more horrors. An administration punch-drunk with power and violence that — without specific, consistent, articulatable goals — seems to intend not to stop bombing until they are good and ready to do so.

In my name. In the names of all Americans, most of whom deplore this outrage.

In my other hand, I need to grasp tightly to hope, to ethics, to love, to honor, to justice, to peace. Those are the things I believe in. I am hardly alone.

I know I must hold the horror; I cannot look away. At the same time, my soul cries out for hope to lead me on. So, my two hands are full, and my heart is aching.

If you are like me, it’s easy to access those inner feelings of revulsion, anger, fear. Much harder is to find hope. So, that latter effort is where I put my accent mark today.

What does one do when one’s country inflicts a moral injury on one’s soul? What does one do when one’s country is unaccountably murderous?

For me, there is only one thing to do: Keep moving forward. Keep going. Acknowledge and use my own voice and actions to build the world I yearn for. Believe me, I know that is hard some days. But what is the alternative? Giving up? That is something I refuse to do.

So I gather sustenance and courage where I can. I find strength in family and friends. I find it in the various communities in which I take part. And I find it in the voices that echo across history. See MLK’s opening quotation as one example. And recall the words he spoke to the Memphis sanitation workers on April 3, 1968, just hours before he was assassinated:

“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop . . . I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

King’s words help me to remember that, even if I never live to see the changes I hope for, it’s important for me to carry the torch as far as I can so that I can pass it — burning brightly — to the next person who comes after me. The work of justice and peace is more a relay race than one short jog around the track. And it’s a race we win by working together, passing the torch from hand to hand as we go.

Music helps me to carry the torch. One song that never fails to remind me of my place in the grand scheme of things is Pat Humphries composition, “Never Turning Back.” Enjoy this recording of Emma’s Revolution (Pat Humphries and Sandy O) for some moments of inspiration. (Please forgive me if advertisements have hitchhiked a ride onto the videos I have embedded in this blog post. I don’t know how to get rid of the ads!)

Bing Videos

I have been retired for many years now, but I can still vividly recall many times when I had to enter the pulpit on a Sunday morning after some disaster had struck during the week. I labored to find a message to reach out to the people. And while my words may, with any luck, have comforted and inspired at such times, I can honestly say music helped as much if not more. So many times, I turned to the hymn, “I Know I Can Go On,” when things felt monumentally difficult. It’s one of my favorite hymns. (But, if you had asked parishioners in those days, they would all have laughed and said, “She’s always saying that. They’re ALL her favorite hymns.”) The music is composed in gospel-style, which, for me, reminds me of the generations and generations of enslaved people who had little hope to turn to, but who — many of them — found hope, nonetheless. The lyrics are all about hope in times of trouble and struggle.

See for yourself. Here are the lyrics. There’s a link to the music itself below. I encourage you to listen if you need a little pick-you-up.

I Know I Can Go On (Composer Jeanne Gagne, lyricist Rev. Dennis Hamilton, arranger Mark Freundt)

[Lyrics in this recording are modified to avoid a “sister/brother” gender binary.]

Though days be dark with storms
And burdens weigh my heart;
Though troubles wait at ev’ry turn,
I know I can go on.

When sorrow heals my soul
And burdens make me strong,
Though troubles wait at ev’ry turn,
I know I can go on.

My [family] in my heart,
My [neighbor] in my song,
Though troubles wait at every turn,
I know I can go on.

And though the journey is long,
The destination is near,
Though troubles wait at every turn,
I know I can go on.

So [neighbor] take my hand,
And [stranger] sing my song,
When hope awaits at every turn,
I know we will go on.

Bing Videos

If you need a little more God in your hymns, don’t forget, “Precious Lord.” (Yes, it’s also one of my favorites.) Here’s the back story to that hymn. Gospel musician and composer Thomas A. Dorsey (not the same person as Tommy Dorsey) was on tour in 1932 when he got word that his wife and infant son had both died in childbirth. Grief-stricken, he sat down and wrote “Precious Lord,” a hymn that, ever since, has helped people to keep on going when doing so seemed impossible.

Bing Videos (Lyrics are embedded in video)

Friends, beloveds, these are difficult days. There is no way of denying that, although the temptation to hide from the truth may be great. That’s why I think back to my “Mother’s Lament” — to the time when my son was an adolescent, growing into the fine man he has become. Those moments were stark for me: I vividly remember holding horror in one hand and hope in the other. For me then, and for me now, the challenge is not to let go of hope. Cling to it, breathe warm breath onto it so that it will live and flourish, carry it out into the world, hand it on to the next person. The more we share it, the bigger it grows.

Love,

Sylvia

Friends,

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from the news. The State of the Union Address happened, I guess (I didn’t watch), creating a deceitful circus about something serious, which is to say the sorry and worrying condition of the United States. Jesse Jackson died, leaving a huge hole in the pantheon of justice workers. ICE continues to round people up without warrant and without appropriate warrants. The military buildup in the Middle East, engineered to divert our attention from the Epstein scandal, is having a direct impact on my family. (One Air Force family member — a mother of very young children — has had her deployment to the Middle East continued indefinitely, leaving her to be a video conferencing mom for the foreseeable future.)

And, well, the list goes on. It’s all very wearying.

Not that there aren’t things to celebrate. There are. The recent Supreme Court ruling on tariffs. The bipartisan counterprogramming for the State of the Union Address. The ongoing creativity and dedication of those protesting the current regime in Washington. The U. S. women’s hockey team.

Oh, and Julia Spencer-Fleming has finally released a new murder mystery.

But, I need to recalibrate my joy meter at the moment. So, let’s talk about snow. I love a good snowstorm. I love them now, and I particularly love the memories they bring. In fact, one of the earliest snapshots I have of me shows me, a toddler, seated in a newly shoveled pathway of deep, deep snow. A cat is sitting there with me, too. Of course there is a cat.

As I started to write this post, flakes were drifting down from the sky. Not much snow accumulated, but many in the Northeast got pummeled by snow during the last few days. Over three feet of snow fell in Providence, Rhode Island! News reports say the storm rivaled the Blizzard of ‘78, and that’s saying something.

My part of Maine was promised a good storm. We were issued constant blizzard warnings, with projected accumulations of between 8 and 12 inches. Events got canceled. School got canceled. People hunkered down. I brought in a heap of firewood and made sure our generator had oil. I assessed our food situation and decided we could make do with what we had on hand. We were ready.

Monday morning the wind picked up, swirling tiny snowflakes all around me as I walked home from having coffee with some neighbors. The strong wind and those tiny flakes seemed to be harbingers of the robust storm the weather forecasters were promising. I trudged home with visions of a magnificent storm followed by the hush and beauty of snow cover. News reports coming from the south seemed in line with my hopes and expectations.

Alas. We got a paltry amount of snow.

No hush, no clouds of snow clinging to tree branches. Just enough for the snowplow to heap up a goodly berm at the end of the driveway. Enough to make clearing the snow necessary. (If you are someone who pushes wheelchairs around, you know what I mean. You can’t just drive over the snow when what you are driving is a wheelchair.)

Despite the relatively anemic outcome of the storm here, the hysterical buildup sure brought back a lot of memories of snow days throughout my life. One of my brothers often says, “The best phrase in the English language is ‘no school, all schools, all day.’” Like me, he remembers waking up to a deep snow cover, turning on the radio, and discovering our town had canceled school for the day. Oh, the excitement of an extra, unexpected gift landing in our lives first thing in the morning!

Snow forts. Snow caves. Snowmen. Snow angels. Snowball fights. Sledding. Skiing. And, more than anything, the sheer glory of having an unexpected day off! That’s a childhood joy that will always stay with me.

Maybe it’s my dotage talking (okay, it probably is my dotage talking), but things seem different now. For one thing, meteorology has improved by leaps and bounds since I was a child. Notwithstanding the fact that the big storm of 2026 was poorly predicted for my area, weather predictions are usually far more reliable nowadays than they were back in the day. I cannot remember a time when school was ever canceled the day ahead of a storm. No, sir. You might have gone to bed hearing reports of possible snow. You might even have been outside and seen a ring around the moon and felt the sting in the air before retiring for the evening. But you had to wait to see what morning would bring because you really couldn’t trust the weather forecast. If you woke up to a considerable amount of snow, you knew to turn on the radio to listen to the cancellations.

Nowadays — at least in my town — school gets cancelled, town offices often close, and other events are postponed long before the first flakes even fall from the sky. It takes hardly anything for my town to cancel school. Maybe that’s the result of living in our litigious society — towns worry about lawsuits if somebody falls and breaks a bone. But that knee-jerk caution takes away from some of the magic of a really big storm. And reliable weather predictions take away some of the awe, too. I wonder, too, if snow days were rarer when I was a kid than they are now, because we had to wait for actual evidence of snow on the ground before school got called off.

Even the way we learn of cancellations is different now. Sure, maybe cancellations still get announced on the radio and on television chyrons. But my guess is that a lot of people get notified by a text message on their cell phones. That might be a better system, but I wonder if some of the excitement has been lost with the advent of improved technology. In the old days, you had to wait while the broadcaster waded through the list of all the towns with cancellations until your town was called.

And then — the pure joy of the occasion!

When I was little, I cannot recall ever being sent home early because of a snowstorm. I imagine the school district thought — rightly — that there would be no guarantee of having adults available to greet children who arrived home early. The only exception I can recall had nothing to do with snow at all. It was when President Kennedy was assassinated. I was pretty little, so my memory may be suspect. But here’s how I see that day in my mind’s eye. My teacher, who was also the principal in our little 4-room school, had been out of the room attending to some kind of principal business. Suddenly, she staggered in bearing a giant, old radio in her arms. My teacher was 187 years old, and she seemed to be teetering on her high heels, with the weight of that old radio setting her off-balance.

“I just learned the President has been shot,” she announced as she plugged the radio in and hunted around through a sea of static until she was able to dial in a station. Just as the static disappeared, the newscaster’s voice boomed out, “We’ve just learned that the President is dead. The. President. Is. Dead.”

We sat there stunned. Next thing we knew, the buses showed up and carted us all home so that we could join the entire rest of the nation that was glued to their black-and-white television sets.

But leaving school early because of snow? Nope. Once you were in school, you were there until the final bell. None of this mamby-pamby, maybe-we-ought-to-release-everyone-early stuff.

Things were usually that way when my son was a kid, too. There was one notable exception, however. One day, when my son was in first grade, snow started to fall in the late morning. I was out for appointments and errands. When I returned home a couple of hours later, two or three inches of snow had accumulated on the ground. I pulled into the yard and noticed little boot prints leading up to the house. Without my knowing, the school had decided to close early. I don’t know what possessed the bus driver to let a little first grader off the bus all by himself on a pretty much deserted country road, when there was no car in the yard to indicate the presence of a grownup. I don’t think I ever made it from my car to the door as quickly as I did that day! When I got inside the house, I found my son watching Mr. Rogers in the living room while chomping on an apple he had gotten out of the refrigerator. He proudly reported that, all by himself, he had retrieved the key we kept hidden outside, and he had unlocked the door and let himself in the house. I was a mess, but my son was quite pleased with himself.

Other memories of his childhood snow adventures are more fun than that one. When he was really little he loved to go outside and just dig around in the snow, creating piles around the yard. One year, we got so much snow that we were worried about the weight of it on the roof over our laundry room. We lived in an old farmhouse in those days — one of those houses that had been added on to in the most higgledy-piddledy fashion. So, when we got concerned enough about that roof, we considered the best way to shovel it off. Seeing as the best access was through our son’s bedroom windows, we decided to haul snow shovels inside and then climb out the bedroom window to shovel.

Of course, our son wanted to be involved in the project. And, of course, we wanted to take every caution to make sure nobody fell off the roof while shoveling. So, my husband constructed harnesses out of sturdy ropes — one for him and one for our son. Once the harnesses were in place, he tied them to our son’s bunk bed. Then, the two of them crawled out the window and shoveled. I imagine that’s one childhood memory that will always stay with our son:

When my son was in high school, a storm rolled in during the school day. I drove to the school to pick him up when classes let out, as I sometimes did. (We lived about a mile from the school, so he was a walker. When the weather was bad, I often drove him if I was home.) At least 5 inches of snow had fallen. Presumably to be helpful, a snowplow had already taken a spin through the teachers’ parking lot, but that actually meant the teachers’ cars had all been plowed in. Teachers were trying to clear the snow from their cars with no equipment other than the gloves on their hands, and their cars were getting stuck as they tried to back over the snow berm. At least one of the teachers was recovering from a recent heart attack. We had a snow shovel and broom in the trunk of our car, so I said, “Let’s go help.” My son and I spent some enjoyable time helping teachers to dig their cars out of the snow. It felt good to be outside in the winter air, to be moving our bodies, and, above all, to be helpful.

I am well aware of all the pitfalls of snow. Yes, driving can be hazardous. Yes, the snow eventually turns dirty and ugly. Yes, a big storm creates no end of havoc and inconvenience — and even danger sometimes. Yes, snow can transform to ice and become perilous to traverse. And, yes, the winter cold can seem endless. All of those things are true. But, when I think back over my life, I can come up with lots of memories of snow day fun. I can recall many times in the past — and even currently — when going out to shovel has created the opportunity for neighborly visits. And, just like the little toddler I once was, sitting there in the snow with a cat beside me, I can muster wonder when a good storm comes our way, and I can still love the quiet and beauty a snowstorm leaves in its wake.

As the saying goes, “if you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy, but the same amount of snow.” In that spirit, I offer both a poem I love and the song, “Snow Day,” by my friend, Jud Caswell. I hope you enjoy both of them!

On the Necessity of Snow Angels for the Well Being of the World by Grace Butcher

Wherever there is snow, I go,
making angels along the way.
Luckily angels have no gender
and are easier to make
than you might think.

All you have to do is let go,
fall on your back,
look up at the sky as if in prayer.
Move your arms like wings.
Move your legs to make a robe.
Rise carefully so as to do no harm,
and walk away.

All the angels along the path behind you
will sparkle in sunlight, gleam under the stars.

In spring the angels will be invisible
but really they are still there,
their outlines remain on the earth
where you put them, waiting
for you and the snow to return.

Keep walking,
towards the next beautiful thing
you will do.

Snow Day by Jud Caswell (Take a listen!)

Love, Sylvia

“I think Renee’s advice to us right now would be to take care of ourselves, care for our neighbors. Receive care from our neighbors, rest and eat, and play and show up.” — Annie Ganger at a memorial service for her sister, Renee Good

"All you need to do is just practice mindfulness to unlock that box where you have kept peace and happiness inside and locked it up and then left it somewhere. Now it's your job. It's your duty, to find it and unlock it. You're the only one who can do this, not the venerable monks, not the reverends, nor anybody else, but you." — Venerable Bhikkhu Paññākāra

“The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” — Bad Bunny

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“Logger with a Big Heart an Example for All to Follow,” Ron Joseph, Portland Press Herald, February 3, 2026:

When Greg Drummond learned that Marilynn, an impoverished, visually impaired elderly neighbor in Highland Plantation, near Sugarloaf Mountain, had been sold a pickup load of wet, rotting firewood, his face reddened with anger. “Marilynn,” he said, “I’m loading my pickup truck with seasoned firewood. I’ll deliver it to you within an hour.”

After replacing the rotting wood in her shed with a load of dry beech, rock maple and yellow birch, a minor argument ensued.

“You’re not paying me,” he told Marilynn. “Pat and I have ample firewood to heat our home and lodge.”

I am learning a new word: “neighborism.” Maybe we all are. It took the siege of Minneapolis to give birth to the word, but surely neighborism is a concept that’s been around for a long time. Maybe as long as human history. Greg Drummond, in caring for his elderly neighbor who had been swindled and left to try to heat her house with wood that wouldn’t burn well, was practicing neighborism. People do that sort of thing all the time.

When we first moved here 19 years ago, my spouse and I were out shoveling our driveway after one particularly large snowstorm. Out of nowhere, a man appeared with a snowblower. He gestured for us to stand aside while he traipsed up and down our driveway, completely clearing all the snow. And then, snowblower engine still roaring, he simply headed down the street and out of sight.

“Who was that?” I asked my husband. I figured he might know. I was working long hours and was hardly ever in the neighborhood; he had a writing job he could do from home. If anyone knew the neighbors at that point, it was he, not I.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve never seen him before.”

A few years (years!) later, I finally figured out who had materialized that day. “Was that you?” I asked my neighbor. “It was,” he answered. Only then could I properly thank him.

That’s neighborism.

My father was able to catch the last train out of Boston during the Blizzard of ‘78, the anniversary of which was February 5-7 (yes, three days of snow!). Once the train reached his station, my father still had to drive the 2 or 3 miles to get home. That journey took him through an industrial park, the buildings all shuttered because workers had been sent home a few hours earlier.

As my father crept along, peering through his windshield into the blinding snow, he spied a man trying to plow his legs through the deep snow while a torrent of flakes streamed steadily from the sky. My father stopped the car. The man reported he couldn’t get his car started, so he was walking home.

“No, you’re not walking home,” said my father. “Get in.”

Before returning home, my father took a trip to the other side of town to deliver the man safely to his destination. That detour of 4 or 5 miles added at least an hour to his journey home — the storm was that bad. (If you lived through the Blizzard of ‘78, you know what I mean. I myself was not able to make it home for an entire week.)

The man was a stranger to my father. They probably never saw each other again after that night. “But if I hadn’t stopped, that man would surely have died,” my father later said.

That’s neighborism.

For weeks, people in Minneapolis have stepped in to deliver groceries, care for children whose parents have been incarcerated, rescue pets whose families have been deported, transport people who are afraid to walk the streets, blow whistles and honk horns to announce the presence of ICE in neighborhoods, and more. People rising up in Minnesota do so not merely to protest, but also to help people whose lives depend on the assistance of strangers.

That’s neighborism.

These days, that’s a radical thing, because so many people actually have no idea who their neighbors even are. In the United States, we tend to live isolated lives, wrapped in bubbles constructed by busyness, constant internet connectivity, and fear of the other. But the people of Minnesota have reminded us of another way, an ancient way.

The ancients understood neighborism. Without using that word, they told stories about it in their sacred texts. Perhaps the most famous story to western ears is the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan. You probably know the story. If not, the story appears in Luke 10:25-37. To save you time, let me summarize:

Jesus, having just collapsed all the commandments into just two, known as the Summary or Great Commandments (‘love your God with all your heart, strength, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself’), took a question from one of his followers: “Who is my neighbor?”

(We might all ask ourselves the same question: Who is my neighbor?)

In answer, Jesus told this story:

A white man wearing a MAGA hat was attacked by robbers as he walked down the street from Lewiston to Lisbon Falls in Maine. The robbers badly beat him, stripped him of his warm down jacket and woolen gloves, and stole all his possessions, including his money, cell phone, concealed weapon, and ammunition. They left him to die on the side of the road, his MAGA hat clutched tightly in one hand, on that cold winter day.

A pack of ICE agents drove past in their brand-new SUV, but they were intent on meeting their quota of people to arrest. They ignored the man, even though he waved his red MAGA hat to get their attention. Customs and Border Patrol agents also passed by in an armored vehicle, but they, too, left the man bleeding by the side of the road.

Eventually, a Somali immigrant driving a beat-up Chevy spotted him. He stopped his car, brought a warm blanket to wrap around the cold man, wiped the man’s blood away with tissues, and gave him water to drink. Then he gently lifted the man into his car and drove him to the Central Maine Medical Center. Worried that no one would tend to the man (who, after all, had lost his precious health insurance card, all identification, and every scrap of money during the robbery), the Somali stayed at the man’s side in the Emergency Room waiting room. He used the last coins in his pocket to buy the man a granola bar out of the vending machine. He left only when the man was admitted into the hospital’s care.

Jesus then turned to his follower and asked, “Which of these was neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? Was it the ICE agents? The Customs and Border Control agents? The Somali immigrant?”

Jesus’ follower answered, “It was the one who showed mercy.”

Jesus replied, “Exactly. Now you go and do likewise.”

Generations upon generations have loved that story (and undoubtedly told it in countless ways to reflect their own social locations) because it points the way to compassion and mercy. The story instructs us to reach across our artificial human borders and distinctions. It reminds us that sometimes the one who helps us the most is the one who doesn’t look like us, doesn’t come from our culture, doesn’t even speak our language. The story teaches us to open our hearts, as both providers and receivers of care.

But the story challenges, too, and therein lies its power. Leaving aside the issue that loving one’s neighbor as oneself implies that one loves oneself — something most of us do imperfectly at best — the story leaves me wondering how and if one extends compassion and mercy even to those who seem as though they might not deserve it. Sure, you stop to help someone lying injured beside the road. It doesn’t matter what kind of hat he’s wearing. But what about the ICE and CBP agents — do we offer them compassion and mercy? Do we love them? Even when they deploy tear gas? Even when they beat people? Even when they shoot and kill them? Even when they round up little children and send them far away to concentration camps? What about the people running those concentration camps, crowding people into tight quarters, denying them medical treatment, and serving food that has gone bad in any number of ways?

What about Madam Secretary This? Or Mister Secretary That? What about Deputy Chief of Some Such? Do we have to extend compassion and mercy even to them? Do we love them?

What about? Well, you know.

Must we extend compassion and mercy to people who are so cruel? Who cause so much damage? Must we love them?

Maybe I get asked those kinds of questions a lot because people know I am an ordained minister. Maybe, because of that, they think I know the answer. As though seminary somehow taught me how to love people whose actions and views I find contemptable. I struggle just as much as anybody, though. Sometimes on a daily basis. But I can offer a few thoughts.

First, when I consider the parable, I notice Jesus doesn’t address the question of extending mercy to those who passed by without helping. No, he focuses on the vulnerable, the suffering. That seems pretty consistent with my reading of the gospels, which show Jesus centering, again and again, the people who dwell at the margins. That focus seems right to me. It’s one I want and try to emulate.

But does that mean the others are not worthy? Are they not my neighbors, too? Speaking only for me, I am not willing to write them off entirely. I have always celebrated the healing power of love, and I want to inhabit a world where love and mercy are offered, even to those who may appear to be unworthy of receiving them. At the same time, I recognize the challenge. I know it’s an impossible ask, at least for me. I feel certain I am not alone.

The kind of love I’m talking about here is what the Greeks called agape, a kind of selfless, almost sacrificial, love that most mortal human beings would find impossible to achieve all the time. But sometimes I can remember a few things that help me. First, I try to remember that adults who promote and mete out cruelty probably didn’t start that way as their default position. Something happened. Something damaging. With words and deeds, someone taught them to be cruel. I believe babies come into this world worthy of love. They are little love sponges, soaking up all they can. If they are treated well, growing up swaddled with love, there is little chance they will adopt cruelty as their manner. But, of course, some babies get very little love. Some little children endure terribly wounding trauma. Without addressing their experiences, they bring that trauma into adulthood and often act it out.

Now I also believe it is everyone’s responsibility to deal with whatever challenges, difficulties, or traumas they encounter along the way. I hold adults responsible for their actions. But I can muster compassion for the little child who didn’t get what they needed. I can show mercy towards that little soul who deserved to be loved.

Second, the kind of love I’m trying to achieve does not include endorsing, condoning, or accepting cruelty — or any actions that violate sound ethics or justice. If someone does something heinous, I have no compunction about calling the action out for what it is. In fact, I believe love calls for me to do that. I know this sounds a lot like that “love the sinner, not the sin” slogan fundamentalist Christians spout about the LGBTQ+ community — a view I find repugnant. They’ve chosen the wrong target for that slogan, but the slogan itself has some merit, I think.

Third, I can find powerful examples to guide me most days. Examples of compassion. Of mercy. Of generosity. Of love. Of neighborism. Greg Drummond, who stocked his neighbor’s woodpile with good wood. The man who appeared out of nowhere to clean our driveway of snow. My father picking up a stranger and driving him home during the blizzard of the century.

And more. Recently, for example, the musical and cultural sensation Bad Bunny reminded everyone that love is more powerful than hate. Those are words I have uttered myself many times over the years, but I have never had the Super Bowl halftime show to serve as my podium. Never mind. Even if my own soul is my sole podium, the message that love is stronger than hate tells me where to set my sights.

And the Buddhist monks, walking from Texas to Washington D.C. during this cold, cold winter, bearing their gentle message of peace. All along the way, people came to greet them, to hear their message. The monks reminded me not only that I have power inside me that I can unlock, but they also provided an enduring example of living by one’s convictions.

And Renee Good’s sister, only one month after Renee was murdered, bringing her own message of “neighborism.” She doesn’t define neighbors in her message. And chances are high that many listening wouldn’t consider the ICE and CBP agents roaming the streets of Minneapolis as neighbors. But her words are a start.

Gosh, the entire city of Minneapolis is a start. They are amazing.

A few nights ago, I saw a video someone had taken one night in Minneapolis. The video showed over a thousand protesters singing outside the hotel where ICE and CBP agents were staying. Singing. It was a gentle song, an appeal to abandon the path they were on, an invitation to turn toward something different. It was a song of hearts trying to reach hearts. A song of hope that that was possible. It was neighborism of a different sort.

Love is an “ever-fixed mark,” Shakespeare wrote. If he was right — and I tend to try to live my life as though he was — I can aim for that mark. Difficult — even impossible — as it is for me to reach the goal, love always has been, and it remains, my star, my inspiration. And I ask, is there any better way to spend my energy in this world of ours?

Today, our minister ended the church service with this wonderful poem. It points exactly to the place where I want to go.

Summons, Aurora Levins Morales

Last night I dreamed
ten thousand grandmothers
from the twelve hundred corners of the earth
walked out into the gap
one breath deep
between the bullet and the flesh
between the bomb and the family.

They told me we cannot wait for governments.
There are no peacekeepers boarding planes.
There are no leaders who dare to say
every life is precious, so it will have to be us.

They said we will cup our hands around each heart.
We will sing the earth’s song, the song of water,
a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn to weeping,
the mourners will embrace, and grief replace
every impulse toward harm.

Ten thousand is not enough, they said,
so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of doves
into the sleep of the world. Wake up. Put on your shoes.

You who are reading this, I am bringing bandages
and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I think
I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner.
Let’s go.

Indeed, my friends. Let’s go.

Love,

Sylvia

“Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” — Karle Wilson Baker

“Are you okay?” — last words of Alex Pretti

Dear People of Heart,

A week or so ago, my little cat curled up beside me while I was drifting off to sleep. Usually, he prefers to sleep on a separate bed that I made for him out of an old pillow and an old wool sweater of mine. But, the other night, as I treasured having his soft, warm body cuddling close to mine, my weariness settled in a peaceful, relaxed, gentle way. At some point, when I was 98% asleep, something startled him and he leapt off the bed. I was suddenly jolted into wakefulness. I bet you can’t imagine what my first thought was:

“Oh no! It’s an ICE raid!”

Seriously. That’s what my brain produced.

Now that may say a lot more about me than it does about ICE.

Or maybe not.

In the last couple of weeks, ICE has started a serious offensive here in Maine. They’re calling it, “Operation Catch of the Day,” which manages both to insult, minimize, and dehumanize the people they are targeting and to ridicule one of Maine’s signature industries, the fishing industry. In every respect — even in the name they’ve chosen for it — the ICE offensive here is appalling and repugnant . . .

. . . So. I got that first part of my blog post written. Then, Saturday morning, Customs and Border Patrol murdered — executed — a U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was guilty of the crime of helping a woman whom Customs and Border Patrol agents had pepper-sprayed, pushed, and harassed. As far as anyone knows, his last words, spoken to the woman he was trying to help, were, “Are you okay?”

I couldn’t write after I got that news flash. The tear in my heart was simply too big. My anger was simply too huge. Words failed me. To a large extent, they fail me still.

I can say this: I don’t blame myself for thinking “ICE raid!” the other night when I was startled awake. I’d say it was a justifiable, even predictable, reaction, given my current reality.

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I volunteer to assist immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in the vicinity. “New Mainers,” we call them here. In the last few years, I have served as English tutor, chauffer, and driving instructor. I have escorted New Mainers to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions for their babies so that I could help them navigate the thickets of U. S. health insurance. I have delivered their children to and from Head Start programs in two different towns. I have driven people to English classes and then home again. I have cooked meals for families with newborns. I have brought New Mainers to concerts, museums, shops, and appointments of all kinds. I thoroughly love this work. So much so that I wouldn’t even characterize it as “work.” Rather, it is joy.

This past week, for the first time ever, one New Mainer mom, terrified of leaving her home, texted me to say she was out of vegetables and children’s Tylenol. She had a hungry family and one child with a fever, so she begged me to pick those things up for her. Because she and her family have dark skin and speak with accents, they are targets. And, because they are not yet naturalized citizens, they have reason to fear. One might say, with justification, that they would have reason to fear even if they were naturalized citizens.

This is happening in America. My country. These are people I love. Afraid to leave their home. Let that sink in. Or at least try to. I myself am still struggling.

Of course, this isn’t just about me and the people I love. Communities are being torn apart all across America. Minneapolis is the most famously besieged city at the moment. But there are plenty of atrocities spread all across the nation. In the town where I used to live in Massachusetts, for example, the owner of the local cafe has been dragged away, not only from the business he has built there, but also from his five young children. I am sure the detainee is loved not only by his family, but also by the community he serves in his local cafe.

Multiply the example of that one cafe owner by thousands. Make sure to add in the children — children! — who have been apprehended and imprisoned. You will see a country with its seams being ripped out. The majority of the people detained have no criminal history. Many are here legally. Some are citizens. Many are detained when they show up for their immigration interviews. Keeping their appointments shows a determination to comply with our immigration requirements, but that fact is lost on the federal agents who arrest them. All of them are part of larger communities of people who love and depend on them.

I regularly attend rallies and bridge brigades to protest the grift, cruelty, and criminality of the current U. S. regime. Alex Pretti could just as easily be me. Or you. Or anyone. The brutality and lawlessness of the regime and their paramilitary police force appear to be indiscriminate.

If you are angry, you are not alone. If you are heartbroken, you are not alone. If you fear for the future of the United States, you are not alone. If you are confused about your place in the scheme of things, you are not alone. I have felt, and feel, all of those feelings and more. The one feeling, above all, I don’t want to lose sight of in the chaos and violence is love. If that sounds hard to say, it is. If it sounds even harder to achieve, it is. But I want my way forward in this crazy world to be guided by love. That love will anchor me in the peaceful, nonviolent actions needed now.

Some 30 years or so ago, psychologist Eva Fogelman published a book called Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. For several decades, that book has remained one of my favorites. I recommend it to you as one good thing you can investigate right now.

Fogelman is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Her book, Conscience and Courage, is a study of altruism, inspired by the stories of people who, despite all danger, rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Her father, Simcha Fogelman, was one such Jew, who had escaped being murdered because others protected him. First, a Christian boy who worked with her father at the local bakery in Illya, Belarus, lied when the Nazis showed up, telling them that no Jews worked there. That boy then hid Fogelman for the remainder of the day, sending him back out again under the cover of night. Later, Simcha Fogelman and a friend escaped the ghetto where the Nazis imprisoned him and the other few Jews who had escaped the initial roundup. He and his friend hid in the forest, leaving once a week to beg for food and drink in a nearby town. (Descendants of the Holocaust Inherit Two Competing Stories – Eva Fogelman, PhD)

That boy in the bakery who saved Simcha Fogelman’s life? If he had been discovered, the penalty would have been death. Same thing for the people who gave food and drink to the boys who appeared out of their forest hiding place once a week. Those people risked their lives for someone persecuted and in danger, someone afraid and nearly completely vulnerable. From her vantage point as a psychologist, Eva Fogelman asked, “Why? Why would someone risk their life to help another?” Excluding stories of people who rescued Jews for monetary gain, Fogelman concentrated solely on altruistic motives.

Read the book to explore the depth of her study. For now, let me lift up just two of the characteristics altruistic people had according to Fogelman’s research. These two characteristics help to guide me now.

You might think I am about to say something about upbringing, and certainly that had a huge bearing on many of the rescuers. Many engaged in rescue work because they had learned as children that helping people in need is a moral imperative. But that’s not where I am headed at the moment.

Or, you may think I will say something about rescuers having a relationship to the Jews they saved (the boy at the bakery, for example). Sure, many rescuers risked their lives for friends and neighbors — people they knew, liked, and respected. So, yes, relationship was often a factor. But I want to head somewhere else right now.

First, Fogelman discovered that many who became rescuers because they witnessed something. They saw an atrocity. They heard something terrible. Think Oskar Shindler who observed the little girl in the red coat in the Jewish ghetto, for example. In those days, there were no cell phone videos to spread the word about what was happening. News may have traveled by word of mouth sometimes, but speaking out was risky. Certainly, a cowed media wouldn’t publish reports of atrocities. That meant that directly witnessing something inspired people to act.

How different today’s world is, though. With video capabilities in most people’s pockets and social media to spread real events that people have filmed, most of us are, ipso facto, direct witnesses to the brutality of federal agents. Countering the stream of lies coming from the regime is much easier to do here and now than it was in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. It seems to me that ignoring today’s news would take a colossal effort. True, right-wing media often adopts the administration’s deceitful narratives, and they gloss over, ignore, or deny actual, provable facts. But, by and large, the truth of what is happening today is discoverable, easily available. So, we are witnesses, even if we are not present when the actual atrocities take place.

Second, rescuers during the Holocaust acted when they had opportunity to do so. Oskar Shindler owned several factories where he could employ Jews, thereby convincing Nazis not to round them up. Miep Gies had an attic where she could hide Anne Frank’s family. Rescuers recognized the opportunities they had, and they seized and cultivated them.

Most of us have opportunities, too. If Minnesota has taught us one thing, it is that one can find one’s place in resisting tyranny. If there’s another thing Minnesota has taught us, it’s that the community we build as we work together is strong and soul-sustaining.

You know all the usual suggestions for how to resist — rallies, emails and phone calls to representatives, letters to the editor, serving as protectors in vulnerable neighborhoods, and the like. Today I want to lift up just a few ideas that may not have occurred to everyone. You might find something you like here, or you might find your creativity stirred to invent something new. My suggestions are, by no means, prescriptive. They are meant to encourage and inspire.

Whatever you may choose to do in this moment — if anything:

• Make sure your actions are peaceful. Nonviolence is critical to our ultimate success.

• Carefully assess the risk to yourself so that you know what you are getting into, as much as possible.

• Get any training recommended.

• Anchor yourself in community.

With those caveats in mind, take a look at the following suggestions and see if they provoke your creativity.

Provide services for people who are sheltering. Supporting your local food bank at even higher levels will make more food available to people who are afraid to leave their homes. Support food banks with money. Volunteer to pack delivery boxes. Volunteer to make the deliveries. In a similar vein, volunteer to deliver children to school and home again at the end of the school day. Volunteer to bring people to work and home again. There are likely to be groups in your community who are organizing these efforts. If there aren’t, join with others to create such groups.

Make art and find a place to display it publicly in your town. I recently learned (from one of Robert Hubbell’s blog posts) of a group in California that is making a “This Is What Democracy Looks Like” quilt. Inspired by the AIDS quilt, stitchers are sewing together squares that represent individual representations and stories about democracy. The blend of squares illustrates that, although we are individuals, we are all woven together in community. You can organize your own group of stitchers, then display the resulting quilt at a local library, school, or church. The artists among you can even collaborate on some other kind of project to display publicly. (Why limit yourself to quilting?) As the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution approaches, why not assemble some community art to celebrate democracy?

Make music, too! “The Boss” Bruce Springsteen has now commemorated Renee Good and Alex Pretti in song. If you are a songwriter or composer, now is the time to get your creative juices flowing! Bruce Springsteen Releases Anti-ICE Song, 'Streets of Minneapolis'

Write! Write a resistance poem and present it at your local poetry slam. Or, write a guest editorial for your local paper. Or, start a blog detailing the truth of what is happening in your community.

Help to educate people. A good friend of mine has gathered groups at her local library to read the U. S. Constitution together. Here’s the link she uses for the text of the Constitution and some basic historical facts that she offers during the readings: constitutioncenter.org.

My friend offers this as a simple reading, without interpretation, political discourse, or even questions, because she wants the readings to feel welcoming to anyone and everyone, regardless of political persuasion. To achieve that welcome, it is important to avoid bias of any kind. In other words, the Constitution is meant to be one thing that unites all of us here in America, and we all really ought to know what it says. The goal is for people to come away with an understanding of how their government is meant to work and also to know their rights.

One could offer a similar reading of the Declaration of Independence — especially this anniversary year. I once read the Declaration in its entirety during a July 4th church service. I daresay, for most of the people there that day, that was the first time they had ever heard the whole thing. And yet, back when the Declaration was written, it was read aloud in church services and town squares all over the country. Its text was electrifying, and I think it still could be and is electrifying now.

Work on midterm elections. All elections are important. The upcoming midterm election may be one of the most consequential elections in our lifetimes. Join with others to create and support safe election and get-out-the-vote initiatives. Probably there are already local groups doing this work where you are, but, if not, start one. Or, you can simply work from home. For example, I periodically sign up to write postcards for Postcards to Swing States. Here’s their current initiative: https://secure.ngpvan.com/NPCPSG0VaUqaLw7w6AbNDg2?emci=6bad621a-e0fa-f011-8d4c-0022482d279b&emdi=f32ed685-99fb-f011-8d4c-0022482d279b&ceid=31487503

If you have terrible handwriting or you lack the time to sit and write postcards, you can still help. Stamps are expensive. Offer to purchase some for your local postcard-writing group.

Partner with local schools. Children and youth who are part of vulnerable families need extra assistance during this time. Reach out to your local school district to find out if there are ways you can help kids stay safe and continue their learning during an extraordinarily stressful time. Maybe that means delivering them to and from school. Maybe it means lending a laptop so that they can follow their lessons from home. Maybe it means tutoring. Your local schools can guide you.

Widening community. Psychologist Eva Fogelman’s assessment that rescuers often witnessed something and they had an opportunity to act can inspire and guide us now, it seems to me. And the benefits are manifold — both for those we are serving and also for ourselves, as we expand our communities and grow our hearts bigger. I have been hearing reports out of Minneapolis — and now out of Portland, Maine — that the work of resistance is bringing people closer together. We are learning that we are, indeed, ‘our sibling’s keeper.’ Based on my own limited experience, I can report on my growing fondness and respect for the people I see at rallies and bridge brigades again and again.

Now what?

You may have some creative ideas to offer, too. If so, I hope you will put them in the comments. Today’s challenges call for learning from and inspiring creativity for one another.

Heather Cox Richardson did a video post in the wake of Alex Pretti’s execution. She ended with these words:

“. . . We have the numbers and we have the principles. We have humanity and the ultimate goals of self-determination that democracy is designed to put into place. And some of us, as we are doing this, are making the ultimate sacrifice. I suspect, when he woke up this morning, Alex Pretti didn’t expect he was going to come to be written into the history books. And I bet he would prefer not to have been. But, those of us who are still here can continue to carry that torch forward.” The Killing of Alex Pretti

Here’s to carrying the torch forward.

And here’s why we must:

Love,

Sylvia

“The oldest, shortest words — ‘yes’ and ‘no’ — are those which require the most thought. — Pythagoras

“Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“an island of decency, of justice, of community, of peace.” — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz

Living in a mounting police state is scary. Here in America, it is especially frightening and hard if your skin is any color other than (so-called) white.* Or when the regime’s paramilitary secret police (aka ICE and CBP) happen to find your accent or the language you speak to be “foreign.” Enduring the slide into authoritarianism here is sickening, heart-breaking, enraging, and terrifying.

So, where’s the “one good thing” in all of that? I can practically hear you ask me that question as I sit in my kitchen typing my thoughts.

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I tend to keep my politics out of it — or at the very least, I minimize politics when I write here. (If you know me personally, you probably have some appreciation of how challenging it is for me to do that!) But I need to speak about what is happening in America now, because it has a bearing on the incredibly wonderful, good thing that is the subject of this post: the power of saying NO.

There it is — the one good thing: The power of saying no.

Many Americans are saying no. Increasingly so.

For months and months, many of us have been steadily and peacefully (it is important to stress that word, “peacefully”) saying no all along — with letters to representatives and newspapers, with protests and rallies, with postcards and letters to swing states, with newsletters that cover events without bowing to the whims of authoritarianism, with art and music, and more. Recently — especially in the wake of the murder of Renee Good — more and more people are learning to say no peacefully. That is one good thing, a very good thing, indeed.

For me, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s powerful personal letter to Representative James R. Comey on January 13 was a brilliant articulation of the power of saying no. That letter was the genesis of this blog post. The peaceful actions of so, so many others have provided the ongoing inspiration for it.

I recommend you read the Clintons’ letter in its entirety. (Read the Clintons’ Personal Letter to Comer - The New York Times.) But, if you can’t do that, just take in paragraphs two three, and four, below:

This past year has seen our Government engage in unprecedented acts, including against our own citizens. People have been seized by masked federal agents from their homes, their workplaces, and the streets of their communities. Students and scientists with visas permitting them to study and work here have been deported without due process. The people who laid siege to the U. S. Capitol have been pardoned and called heroes. Agencies vital to the country’s national security have been dismantled. Universities, media companies, and law firms have been subjected to threats to their funding, access, and licensing, unless they made concessions and surrendered their right to constitutionally protected free speech. American troops have been deployed on the streets of our towns and cities. The Justice Department has been used as a weapon, at the direction of the President, to pursue political opponents. And most recently and searingly, an ICE agent killed an unarmed mother only days ago.

Every person has to decide when they have heard or seen enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences.

For us, that time is now. [Emphasis added.]

— from Bill and Hillary Clinton’s January 13 letter to Representative James R. Comey of Kentucky, Republican Chair of the Oversight Committee, explaining why they refuse to testify before Congress in the Epstein case.

Our mileage may differ, but, in my case, I long ago crossed the line where I had seen and heard enough. In various ways, I have been saying no for months now. I know I am far from being alone.

Moreover, countless truly brave people are standing up against tyranny, even though, to this point, they have needed to muster far more courage than I. Today I want to lift up my admiration and praise for the people of Minnesota — especially in Minneapolis. Singled out for political retribution; victimized because of the community of Somali immigrants, asylum seekers, and naturalized citizens who live there; and intentionally terrorized by ICE — including not only occupation, assaults, and seizures, but also serious injury and murder inflicted on the citizenry — Minnesotans have met the moment with courage. With peace. And with creativity that marries courage and peace together.

In a recent video message to his people, Governor Tim Walz described Minnesota as “an island of decency, of justice, of community, of peace.” — Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz Gov. Tim Walz addresses ICE presence in Minnesota | full video

That’s where I want to live — on an island of decency, justice, community, and peace.

Of course, Minnesotans are not the first people called upon to resist injustice peacefully. They stand on the shoulders of giants — Gandhi, for instance, or the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we honor today. Famously, MLK once said, “[T]here are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to the tragic militarism. . . God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization. . .”

I cannot conceive of what it is like to live in an American city under siege by heavily armed and masked federal forces that the President has deployed. But recent reports point to ICE mobilizing in Maine now. We Mainers have been warned in countless ways and by countless people, going all the way up the Governor. It could be that soon enough I will know exactly what it is like to have paramilitary personnel patrolling the streets of my town and nearby cities.

What should I expect? As I contemplate the unthinkable (to paraphrase Renee Good’s wife: They have guns; we have whistles), I also hold foremost in my heart and mind that I, too, am maladjusted to many things: the prevailing greed in our ruling class that begets poverty for others, the hatred that intentionally pits groups of people against each other, the cruelty and brutality promoted and exercised by the current American regime, the grift and corruption at the heart of those holding our nation’s highest offices . . . and more. I vow to remain maladjusted as I gather strength from remembering the example of courageous people who have already paved the way for me. I have tools I can use: my words (spoken and written), my cell phone to record what is happening around me, my community of people who work so hard for justice, to name just a few.

And I have a word. A powerful word. NO.

It is helpful to remember that saying no to the things I don’t want empowers me to say yes to the things I do want. If I say no to violence, I can say yes to peace. If I say no to cruelty, I can say yes to kindness and compassion. If I say no to greed, I can say yes to generosity. If I say no to injustice, I can say yes to fairness, equality, and equity. If I say no to closed hearts and minds, I can say yes to open arms and love.

There are lots of ways of saying “NO.” Each of us has to find our own way through the thickets of confusion and fear set afoot in our world. You don’t have to stand in subzero weather holding a sign if that just isn’t possible for you. You can make artistic signs for others to carry. You can make a vat of soup to have on tap for when your people come home tired and cold. You can compose a song. You can lead a book group at the local library focusing on texts about justice and the great leaders in our past who have practiced nonviolent protest. You can get creative, in other words, and find your own place in these difficult times. Just this morning, for example, one of my friends, on hearing how hard it was to load my spouse’s wheelchair in the car, get to a reasonable parking spot for rallies downtown, unload the wheelchair, attend the rally, and then load/unload all over again for the trip home said, “I can drive you when I’m around.” And she pulled out her cell phone to make of note of it.

I encourage you to offer what you can, however you can. If you are anything like me, you will feel better taking action, whatever peaceful form it takes. You might even find joy in the process. (My husband and I have both felt joy at rallies we have attended.) In the meantime, here is what I vow to do:

Dock my boat on the island of decency, justice, community, and peace.

Draw on the power of love.

Face my fears to find my courage.

Commit myself to peaceful resistance.

Learn the local mechanisms for reporting ICE and CBP danger. Educate myself about laws and rights.

Keep my cell phone charged so that I can document what is happening.

Speak up.

Say no.

Address my needs for spiritual and emotional restoration.

Offer support to others on the island.

Repeat.

Like so many, I am learning how to say no. No. No. No. No. No.

And yes. Yes to so many things — above all, the love that anchors me.

Love,

Sylvia

*I am Caucasian, but my skin certainly isn’t white. Unless you have the congenital condition known as albinism, your skin isn’t white either. It’s some shade of brown. One of my “white” friends always answers “pink” whenever she has to fill out a form that lists her ethnicity. When challenged to change her answer to “white,” she says, “no, the paper I am filling out is white, and I am not that color.” Interesting, huh?

Well, I try. But I am sure I am not always nice. I am human like everyone else, and sometimes I fall short of the mark. A reminder helps.

After our recent heavy snowfall, however, the sign started sending me a different exhortation. A tall snowbank obscures the word, “nice.” Now the sign simply says, “Be.”

Be.

Isn’t that the best?

So, so many people I know were hoping fervently that turning the calendar page to 2026 would usher in some good news. In all honesty, I hoped so, too, although, when I am thinking rationally, I don’t put much stock in calendar pages. People who were hoping 2026 would be any better were quickly disappointed. It seems as though a whole new weather pattern of concern, dread, and anger has swept in — at least here in America. I won’t itemize my personal litany of worries and fears. You probably have your own litany. Anyway, as you can see, I dedicated this blog post to Renee Nicole Good, which gives you some idea. The current American regime forces citizens to shoulder, unbidden and unwanted by most, a monumental moral injury that exceeds anything I have known in my lifetime. Suffice it to say, we are heavy-laden with burdens that can crush the soul.

Unless we remember, every so often, to be. Simply be.

Adrienne Rich wrote:

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,

with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.

My heart is moved, too. On a daily, sometimes hourly basis. Perhaps that is true for you as well. I know my contributions alone will not save the world. I hope the things I do — adding to the actions so, so many others are taking — are helping to reconstitute it. I want to keep showing up, offering whatever I can, whenever I can.

I am certain of this: To clear my head so that I can think more clearly, to soothe my broken heart so that I can continue to make room to hold others there, and to rest my weary soul so that I am refreshed for the work ahead, I need simply to be sometimes. I need the kind of soul-sustenance that comes from stopping and quietly listening to what is inside me. My guess is that is true for others, too.

Some find that kind of quiet listening in a meditation practice, some in prayer. Some may simply stop to follow their breath in an out, quieting the jabber inside for a spell. Some may adopt that inner view through exercise or even laughter yoga. Whatever route one takes, I think it’s important to stop, just stop, every so often. Poet Robert Frost knew that:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I, too, have stopped to watch the woods fill up with snow — both literally and figuratively speaking. When I stop — really stop — I look my fears, my worries, my anger, my despair squarely in the eye. But I notice other things, too: the things that make me laugh and smile, the things that comfort me. The things that are of deepest importance to me. After stopping and resting, I can return to the promises I need and want to keep.

Years ago, I spent the night in the hospital hemorrhaging from a mid-term pregnancy loss. I was admitted to the hospital around 8 PM on that long-ago Saturday night. The doctor on call didn’t arrive until sometime after noon on Sunday. All night long, the nurses kept taking my blood pressure, concerned about the amount of blood I was steadily losing. Eventually, they hooked me up to an automatic blood pressure cuff that took regular readings. As the night wore on, I watched my blood pressure drop and drop and drop. If watching my blood pressure numbers sink lower and lower wasn’t enough to alert me that I was in serious trouble, I could also hear the nurses talking about me at their station just outside my room:

“Where is the doctor?” asked one, anxiously.

“We called him hours ago,” said another, also anxiously.

“I hope he shows up soon,” again, anxiously.

“She seems like such a nice lady.”

It was that last comment, spoken in a wistful, regretful tone of voice, that convinced me I was actually dying. I was too weak to do anything except wait. Another way of putting it is this: In the circumstances, all I could actually do was “be.”

As the night wore on, one worry, one thought, after another evaporated. Until I was left with this: “The only thing I care about,” I said to myself, “is [my husband] and [my 6-year-old son].” When I reached that point, I was filled with love.

The whole experience was harrowing, to be sure. But when it was all over, I was left knowing love to be my surest footing. Now, all these years later, when I stop to quiet the inner cacophony, I know I have been successful when I reach that bedrock of love. For me, love is the only thing that matters. The only thing that will sustain me so that I can gather my strength to soldier on. The only thing that will gently wash away my weariness.

Your own meditations of the heart may lead you somewhere different — I don’t know. The only thing I know for sure is that love is my center — I know it because I have felt it in my own body.

Much is required of those of us who work for justice, who try to stem the tide of assaults to democracy, freedom, and peace. New rallies and protests have been springing up all over the country, ever since the U. S. invaded Venezuela, kidnapped their president, and announced a lasting presence there. Even more rallies and protests are happening in response to the murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota. We are called to show up — those of us who can. We are called to telephone and email our elected representatives. We are called to write op-eds and letters to the editor. And more. We are called to respond in so, so many important ways. The mountain we are climbing is steep and far. I am right there with everyone else who is responding.

One of my colleagues, the Rev. Earl Holt, once said:

When asked how much time a minister ought to spend in meditation, the spiritual leader replied, “One hour a day, except when you are very, very busy. On those days meditate two hours.”

Those wise words apply not just to clergy, but to everyone. All of us. We are in two-hour meditation territory here. At least for me, I find it important not to forget that. That’s why my neighbor’s sign is such a wonderful reminder just now. I know that in the fury, amidst the sturm und drang, I need to carve out time to “be.” Just be. To recover. To heal. To gather my strength and refresh my resolve.

Be quiet.

Be attentive.

Be love.

Be.

Love,

Sylvia

Dark of winter, soft and still, your quiet calm surrounds me.
Let my thoughts go where they will; ease my mind profoundly.
And then my soul will sing a song, a blessed song of love eternal.
Gentle darkness, soft and still, bring your quiet to me.

Darkness, soothe my weary eyes, that I may see more clearly.
When my heart with sorrow cries, comfort and caress me.
And then my soul may hear a voice, a still, small voice of love eternal.
Darkness, when my fears arise, let your peace flow through me.

— Shelley Jackson Denham

It started snowing here late in the afternoon on December 23. In the wee hours of the morning on December 24, we lost power. By daybreak, we had roughly 18 inches of fresh snow on the ground. Merry Christmas.

I love snow, so, for me, it actually was a Merry Christmas. I did wonder, however, how I was going to bake my pies. We have a generator that gives us heat and light, but not enough power to use our oven.

I spent a good portion of Christmas Eve Day working on cleaning up the driveway. Instead of the meal I had planned for Christmas Eve, I cobbled something together. Then my husband and I headed off to church for the Christmas Eve service. Local streets were a chaotic mess — navigable by car, but I accepted help pushing my husband’s wheelchair across the slushy street to the church door. Once inside, the heat was on, the people were loving and generous, the music was beautiful, and the minister preached one of the best, if not the best, Christmas sermons I have ever heard.

Heading home, we saw streetlights as we turned into our neighborhood. Power had been restored, and I could bake pies after all. But honestly, I felt a little bit let down. I like the dark. I was looking forward to this inky sky in particular, because I knew that, while we were gone, our son had been busily lighting luminaria along the street in front of our house so that the candlelight would greet us when we returned home. The glaring streetlight right across from our house usually dims the beauty of our Christmas Eve luminaria. But, with the power off, Christmas Eve had held the promise of a gorgeous display.

Alas.

Fortunately, our son lit the candles before the power was restored, and he got a picture of them.

That trip out in the midst of a power failure on Christmas Eve got me thinking about darkness in general. Most people I know rejoiced when the solstice arrived. Phew! The longest night has finally passed! The sun is returning! I have many friends who mark the increase in light each day without fail. Darkness is hard for them. The returning light represents hope and promise.

I understand that, and yet I seem to have been cut from different cloth. I love winter. I also love a truly dark sky, something I rarely experience anymore. Too much ambient light during the night erases the stars from the sky. Obliterating the nighttime darkness interrupts sleep, disturbs circadian rhythms, and even throws non-human animals off course. In my neighborhood, there is so much ambient light that I don’t even need to turn on a lamp to navigate through my house at night. The five streetlights that shine into various windows illuminate the way for me. I sleep wearing a blindfold.

The first time I heard the hymn, “Dark of Winter,” whose lyrics are above, I felt an electric charge move through my body. That was years ago. I have loved the song ever since. Not only do the lyrics honor both darkness and winter, two of my loves, but, when I first heard the hymn, I was going through a difficult time in my life — a time characterized by many losses and much sadness. Loved ones dying, multiple pregnancy losses, so, so many tears. “When my heart with sorrow cries,” say the lyrics, “comfort and caress me.” In the hymn, it is darkness, not glaring light, that comforts and caresses. I needed to hear those words then. I have needed them at various times since. And I know others need those words, even when I don’t.

I particularly like the phrase, “quiet calm.” “Let your quiet calm surround me.” For me, the quiet of the night darkness and the quiet of winter — especially right after a snowstorm, when (before the snowblowers roar into life) everything seems so hushed — evoke the same quiet that my contemplative spirit seeks on a regular basis. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I like winter so much. It is quieter, more soul-searching, deeper, at least for me. It is inarguably darker, evocative of meditation, where one closes one’s eyes to better access the inner world.

“And then my soul will sing a song, a blessed song of love eternal.”

“And then my soul may hear a voice, a still, small voice of love eternal.”

When I can strip away all the distractions of the day, and settle into that winter darkness, I can most easily access a deeper love.

Honestly, I don’t know if there is such a thing as love eternal, however. In fact, I don’t think anyone can truly know such a thing. One might accept it as a matter of faith, but that is not the same thing as knowing. I am comfortable with not knowing, with allowing mystery to be mystery. With leaning into the possibility of love eternal.

I see love bubbling up around me in sometimes surprising places. Yes, yes, I know. There is plenty of hatred abounding, but that’s what gets the press: classic clickbait. What doesn’t get the press are moments like the one my husband and I experienced a couple of weeks ago.

We had attended a glorious concert at a church in a town about an hour and a half from where we live. Although we had been in that town before, we had only a glancing familiarity with it. By the time we reached the church, all the parking spaces close to it were taken. We had to park in a public lot that was down a somewhat steep hill. Pushing my husband’s wheelchair up the hill was one thing: I could take breaks if and when I needed them. But I was certain pushing the wheelchair downhill after the concert would be a bad idea.

The possibilities: I would break both wrists trying to keep the wheelchair from gaining too much momentum and speed. I would lose hold of the wheelchair, sending my husband careening down the hill into oncoming traffic. Or, if I chose to walk backwards to prevent the wheelchair from gaining too much speed, I would lose control of the whole situation, and I would run over myself with the wheelchair. (Believe me — I almost did that once. Lesson learned.) So, my alternative plan was to push my husband’s chair to the curb, then go fetch our car and drive to where I had left him.

After the concert, we were gathered in a small clutch of people just beside the pew where we had been sitting. Our company included the musicians (who are friends of ours) and the parents of one of the musicians. As we chatted about the amazing music, the talented musicians, someone’s new puppy, and local restaurants, I noticed a young man waiting quietly behind our group. He had been sitting beside us during the concert, but we had not made conversation with him. So I figured he was awaiting his turn to congratulate the musicians.

But no. When my husband and I said goodbye to our friends, he turned to us, not them. “Do you need any help?” he asked. Well, in truth, I had already had this discussion with our friends, whose offer for help I had already turned down (as the young man had probably heard). I had a plan, after all, and I figured our friends ought to have a well-deserved chance to unwind after putting on a concert of rather challenging music.

But this young man? There was something about him. So, I explained my plan to him and asked if he would be willing to push my husband’s wheelchair to the corner where I would pick him up.

“Of course,” he answered. After a brief conversation, we set off in our respective directions — I to my car, he and my husband to the curb.

It was a cold and very blustery night. I fully expected the young man to deposit my husband at the curb and then head home where it was warm. Meanwhile, I, in that unfamiliar territory, got a bit mixed up in a maze of one-way streets. It took me a few minutes longer to get to the curb than I had hoped. When I got there, the young man was still standing beside the wheelchair, waiting with my husband.

It was a little thing, I suppose. Wouldn’t most of us offer to help if we knew we could? And the truth is, people are often offering to push the wheelchair for me — as did the church member who pushed my husband’s wheelchair across the slushy street. People figure I operate the wheelchair all the time and could use a break. But mostly those are people who know us, who know the challenges we live with, who want to help us because we are in their circle of beloveds. But this young man? A stranger. Who probably could have reached his home by the time we finished our post-concert conversations and navigated the streets of that town. Someone who owed us nothing. Someone who had no idea of who we were. Someone unfamiliar with our struggles.

You might say, well, that’s not exactly love. And maybe you would be correct. But what inspires people to reach out in such a way, if not a stream of love and kindness that moves through our world unbidden? A stream that has probably been moving through our world forever and will keep doing so as long as our world exists?

Actually, that same stream inspired the concert in the first place. The trio of musicians who were performing were all in their twenties — just beginning to launch themselves in the competitive world of music. They were doubtless paying off college and graduate school loans. At least some of them were yearning for steady, paying work. And yet they contributed the proceeds of the concert entirely to charities that help the local population of people who are unhoused and hungry. Who does that sort of thing? People who have tapped into the stream of love, if you ask me.

Yes, hatred and unkindness will continue to abound, no doubt. But I figure you get to choose the stream where you want to fish. I choose to cast my line into the stream where love flows. And kindness. And compassion. And generosity — both material and spiritual.

You get to choose, too. And I am pretty sure I know where you will choose to fish.

Happy New Year to you, to kind people everywhere, to everyone who works to manifest a world of justice, love, and peace.

Love,

Sylvia

On this Christmas morning, I found a new post from Barbara Brown Taylor’s blog waiting for me in my in-box. I have long loved Barbara Brown Taylor’s writing, and this blog post might give you some idea of why. Her words seem to set just the right tone for this day, when I find myself longing for peace, for gentleness, for new life, for love. I want to share it with you. (I hope this works!)

Sending you love today and all days,

Sylvia

Coming Down to Earth with Barbara Brown Taylor

Live Nativity

When my friend Martha sent me a photo of sheep grazing in a dappled forest, I assumed she had found it online, since that’s how we do things. She sends me photos of elephants sliding down muddy hillsides for fun; I send her photos of Jack Russell Terriers riding horses. Artificial intelligence has made our jobs harder, since we want to astound each othe…

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8 months ago · 52 likes · 5 comments · Barbara Brown Taylor

Rev. Kaaren Solveig Anderson tells a story about going Christmas shopping with her family as a child and being given dimes to hold in the palm of her mittens to drop into Salvation Army buckets as the family traversed the busy city streets. It was, as she recalls, a way her family chose to help the homeless and destitute. Remembering how, as a child, she loved those Salvation Army bell ringers, one Christmas she decided to volunteer to be one of them. She was given two assignments.

She writes. “I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that little tinkly bell.” The first assignment, “on a busy street with a bookstore and coffee shop on either side,” went much as you might expect. Anderson rang her bell, stamped her feet to keep warm, and thanked people as they brought her warm drinks and dropped their coins into the bucket.

But when she showed up for her second assignment, at a mall across from J. C. Penney’s, the experience turned unexpectedly on its head. She writes,

The lieutenant arrived to set up my bucket. My hands reached for the bell. No bell. He explained, “The mall owners have complained, no bells, only this.” He handed me a sign.

The sign was attached to a long dowel. On the top of the dowel, two pieces of paper were stapled together over the center of the stick. One side read “DING,” the other “DONG.” Instead of ringing, I now had to flip a sign that read “DING-DONG.” My little bucket instantly lost its ting-a-ling. My enthusiasm waned. I flipped in silent motion. It seemed absurd, but I went to work. People pushed past each other, mired in that Christmas hubbub that leans toward frustration, not joy. Then they’d spot me. Their faces would contort, scrunching up into laughter and that uncomfortable feeling when you’re embarrassed and humored by someone at the same time. They would often throw in some dimes and say, “Happy Holidays,” barely able to stifle an awkward yet justifiable smirk. I fought hard not to feel like the sign was projecting my mental state to the mall community.

For four hours I flipped – the sign, that is. Then minutes before I was to quit, this fellow in black cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat walked up to me and laughed. He was full out chuckles, bent over, hysterically laughing. I stood taller, flipping the sign with increased vigor. I couldn’t tell where he was going with this. When he finally stood up for air, his eyes were smiling, so I hoped for no malicious intent. But I also was ready to kick him in the shins for his reaction to me and my now stupid sign.

Then he said, “I must say, I’ve never seen a sign like that before. Anybody that stands with a sign that says ‘Ding-Dong’ must be duly rewarded.” He reached into his back pocket and retrieved his wallet. Crisp bills lay neatly in uniform order. He ran through the fives, tens, and twenties, and got to a row of fifties. He pulled one out. A fifty. He neatly folded the bill and squeezed it into the bucket designed for coin donors. Nodding, he smiled right into my eyes and muttered, “Well, I never.” Then he continued on through the mall with laughter that hung captive in the air like lingering pipe smoke.

I, on the other hand, began to turn that sign with a renewed vigor. I looked at each passerby with a new attitude, whether they snickered or smiled, donated or not. I now felt strangely in awe of my DING-DONG sign. I was unabashedly proud that I was stupid enough to stand in a mall tenaciously flipping a sign, waiting for humor and generosity to awaken someone’s humdrum spirit...”

People, I just love that story. I love the way it pushes back against holiday expectations. You expect a bell ringer; you get someone silently flipping her ding-dong sign. You expect someone to say something or do something rude enough to want to haul off and kick him, and he straightens up and fishes a fifty out of his wallet.

What are we to do with a season so laden with expectations, so ripe for disappointments yet so imbued with potential for meaning? A season that promises joy, yet mires so many in frustration? A season that promotes happy families . . . and we know so many families struggle with complex and sometimes painful relationships and realities . . . and we know so many people are lonely.

Perhaps we ourselves are lonely.

A season that speaks of the birth of love, when we live in a culture of rapidly increasing incivility; when we know so many feel unloved? Perhaps we ourselves feel unloved.

A season that ballyhoos peace on earth and good will, and we know how far humanity continues to fall short of the mark. Lord, how we know it.

A season that promises happiness if you can afford the crass price tag of your holiday shopping . . . and we know happiness is not for sale. Besides, these days, who can afford the price tags anyway?

In my life, the holidays that drew me up short – the holidays with their own surprising ding-dong signs – have brought me some of the biggest gifts of all. Like the Christmas after my mother died. We weren’t feeling much of a holiday spirit, but, because we had little children, we felt we had to do something to celebrate. Our family decided to simplify our gathering by eliminating gifts to extended family and joining together for a simple meal of soup and sandwiches.

What a relief that Christmas was. No one trudged through shopping malls, looking for gifts and trying to latch onto some elusive cheer when we were feeling sad. No one spent hours in the kitchen. Instead, we spent the whole day sledding together, reveling in new snow that had miraculously fallen on Christmas Eve. And when we were finally tired and cold enough to come in, a hot bowl of soup was the perfect Christmas dinner. That Christmas, we may as well have stood on a street corner with a sign that said Simplify.

Or like the Christmas after September 11, when I was in seminary and my spouse had been laid off from his high-tech job. We couldn’t afford a Christmas tree or, really, anything much else. We explained to our son that he shouldn’t expect much. We thought those sacrifices would be hard. Instead, we found ourselves freed from holiday trappings that bring stress and often disappointment. We may as well have stood on a corner holding up a sign that said Let Christmas Go, for, indeed, that year, only by letting Christmas go could we allow it to come.

Maybe on a larger scale, it is up to us to hold up our little signs — our signs that push back against disillusionment and isolation, that declare dreams still can come true, that make people bend over laughing and inspire them to generosity beyond our imagining.

Our signs that say Community, as we gather with family, friends, and neighbors to witness the things that are hard and challenging while also celebrating those who hold us in their hearts.

Our signs that say Resist, even when, especially when, the world dishes up violence and hatred that threatens to plummet our hearts into despair.

Our signs that say Compassion, as we gather warm things for the poor and help to fill the shelves of our local food banks.

Our signs that say Love, as we, day after day, week after week, do our respective parts to build a world of peace and justice.

More often than I can even begin to count, I have heard the expression that something is “a sign of the times.” Probably all of us can think of things that exemplify various epochs of human history — people lining up at soup kitchens during the Great Depression; people going to hospital parking lots to receive Covid tests administered by technicians suited up as though conducting a moon landing, for example. Yet, while I want to recognize changes and trends, I also want to remember that I have agency. My words and deeds can contribute to creating the signs of my times.

People, we have the power to declare what we know to be worthy and true. Some of my signs of the times are noted above: Simply, Let Christmas Go, Community, Resist, Compassion, Love. What are the signs you hold up to the world? What are your signs of the times?

Love,

Sylvia

(Note: Kaaren Solveig Anderson’s full accounting of her Salvation Army “ding-dong” experience can be found at Ding-a-ling-a-ling! | WorshipWeb | UUA.org)

“Life is like pie. You never know what you’re going to get.” — Anon

When I was a little girl, my grandparents came over for dinner on many a Saturday night. They nearly always brought a Table Talk pie with them. Table Talk was, and is (I know, because I googled it), located in Worcester, Massachusetts. They were founded in 1924 by Theodore Tonna and Angelo Cotsidas, two immigrants from Greece. (I know because I googled it.) Table Talk has “operated as a family-owned business that specializes in fresh baked pies that are sold in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada and beyond.” (I know because I googled it.) Home - Table Talk Pies

That said, I haven’t seen a Table Talk pie in years. That fixture of my early childhood has vanished from my view. That’s because I generally make my own pies now.

Back in the day, though, I particularly looked forward to the Table Talk lemon meringue pie. I remember marveling at the height of the meringue that set off my slice of pie, but, in truth, the taste I loved best was the lemon. My mother told me (and this seems right in character, even now) that when I was really little, I would sit in my highchair chanting, “piece of pie, piece of pie” when it was dessert time.

So, given my love of lemon pie, you might not be too surprised that I was intrigued when I stumbled across a recipe for vinegar pie a bunch of years ago. Chances are you have never had vinegar pie. There’s even a good chance you’ve never even heard of it before. I mean, really, who would make such a thing?

I’m a pretty good cook, even though I get bogged down with the unrelenting need to put meals on the table. Figuring out what to cook is the hardest thing for me, and a lot of that has to do with how easily I get bored with my standard repertoire. If my gang could deal with eating just one meal a week, that might be about the right amount of cooking for me.

A sense of curiosity and intrigue (and even humor!) can spur me on, though. When the New York Times published a recipe for Roasted Chicken Thighs with Tangy Apricots and Carrots, for example, I simply had to try it because the recipe instructed cooks to marinate the chicken in a mixture of apricot preserves, mayonnaise, fresh lemon juice, fish sauce, chili powder, salt, pepper, and dried apricots. I read that and said, “You have to be kidding,” which kind of meant I had to try the recipe. It was delicious! Who would have thunk it?

My cooking prowess is especially reliable in two areas: homemade soups and baked goods. One of the reasons I love winter so much is that it is soup-making season. We eat a lot of soup in our family. It’s good the first night. After that, people covet the leftovers, because soup almost always improves with age. And I almost always improve with soup. Win-win. As for baked goods, I try to forget that I like to make them (and eat them!), because I have one of those waistlines that doesn’t welcome extra calories.

But then there is pie. Thanksgiving pie, especially. Years ago, when I discovered the recipe for vinegar pie, I made it for a Thanksgiving dinner. There were going to be roughly a million people there and plenty of pies, so I figured that, even if the vinegar pie were a flop, it really wouldn’t matter — there would still be plenty of sweets to go around.

The recipe was in one of those cookbooks nonprofit organizations compile for fundraisers. The pie baker submitted her vinegar pie recipe with this note:

This pie is spectacularly good, though the name makes it sound putrid. If you think of the vinegar as a lemon substitute, you understand it better. This dish has a proud history in northern New England, where lemons had to be imported from warmer climates and cost more than many people could afford. The pie comes out a darker yellow color than you get with lemons, and a delicious, non-citrousy flavor. It has been the hit of many a Thanksgiving, leftover pie party, and potluck. It is made without a meringue topping.

My curiosity won the day. I carefully followed the directions, which told me to cook and add the following ingredients to a 9-inch pie shell:

½ cup butter				1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/4 cups white sugar		cup vinegar
3 eggs

I assumed “cup vinegar” meant one cup of vinegar.

Wrong.

It turned out that “cup vinegar” was a typo that omitted the actual amount of vinegar needed. To this day, I have no idea how much vinegar that pie baker puts in her pie. I only know it is a lot less than one cup. As we say here in Maine, that vinegar pie was so “taht” as to be inedible.

But, even after that epic baking failure, my curiosity was still piqued. “Can that be the only recipe for vinegar pie?” I asked myself. I consulted my Fannie Farmer Baking Book, and, voila, another recipe! Fannie uses 1/2 cup of vinegar in her pie. Big difference! The note she includes with her recipe says:

“A sassy, inventive pie created long ago to satisfy the craving for something sweet and acid during the harsh, cold months when fresh lemons were often hard to find. Despite the name, most people will think you are serving lemon pie.”

Naturally, I had to try again. To nobody’s surprise, I really liked the resulting pie. It was very much like the lemon pie of my youth. You would think I would make it regularly now, especially seeing as in a nearby town I can purchase interesting vinegars from Fiore Artisan Olive Oils and Vinegars. How about vinegar pie made with Wild Maine Blueberry balsamic, for instance? Or Blackberry Ginger balsamic? Or Amarena Cherry balsamic? I would be game for trying any of those. But, sadly, vinegar pie has become somewhat of a joke in our family. I offer to make one every Thanksgiving. I get turned down every time. I could still make the pie, of course. But why make it if no one will eat it?

Thanksgiving having just passed, I have been ruminating about vinegar pie again — about my first humorous adventure in making it. And, even though it has become a joke in my family, I always enjoy a chance to chuckle.

But my vinegar pie saga has me thinking a lot about the assumptions people make. There are a lot of assumptions right here in this blog. My assumption that you never have had or never have heard of vinegar pie. My assumption that “cup of vinegar” meant “one cup of vinegar.” My assumption that vinegar pie was so unusual that the only recipe I would find for it would be in that one cookbook — that is to say, initially I never consulted a second cookbook for an alternative recipe. There’s even my assumption that Table Talk pies don’t exist anymore — an assumption I was able to sweep away with a couple of clicks of the mouse. And what about my assumption that a mixture of apricot preserves, mayonnaise, fresh lemon juice, fish sauce, chili powder, salt, pepper, and dried apricots would be a terrible marinade for chicken — an assumption I had to prove wrong for myself?

All of those assumptions are pretty harmless, but lots of other assumptions are corrosive. What about the President’s assumption that the action of one lone gunman — an immigrant from Afghanistan, who shot two members of the National Guard on Thanksgiving Eve — was representative of all immigrants and should lead to permanently ending immigration from Third World countries, for example? What about the Supreme Court’s recent decision to allow federal agents to use racial and ethnic profiling (something totally based on assumptions) to question people about their immigration status? What about the assumption that a “peace” plan crafted solely by Russians and Americans would serve Ukraine well? What about so, so many hurtful assumptions people make based on characteristics like gender, ethnicity, economic status, first language, age, ability, race, sexual orientation, and more? Those kinds of assumptions are all terribly harmful.

It seems to me it’s pretty hard to escape making assumptions. One way human beings make sense of their world is by detecting patterns. The business of detecting patterns begins the instant we are born. We cry, for example, and (if we are a fortunate baby) someone comforts us, feeds us, changes our soiled clothing, makes sure we are warm or cool enough, and so on. If we are consistently cared for, we begin to make assumptions about how to get our needs met. That kind of pattern detection helps us to live and thrive. So, I don’t fault anyone for making assumptions based on the patterns they have witnessed and experienced. But I do advocate for testing our assumptions and for developing enough self-awareness to notice them in the first place. Wouldn’t the world be a whole lot better if everyone did that?

Here’s a tiny assumption I’ve always had but never realized until yesterday: Whereas cakes may be frosted, pies never are. Wrong. Yesterday my neighbor told me about lemon chocolate pie — something I had never heard of before. Nestled inside a pie crust is a lemon curd (so I would like it — another assumption), which has a layer of chocolate frosting on top of it. It’s apparently a specialty of New Haven, Connecticut, courtesy of the Italian community there. Never in New Haven? You can have your lemon chocolate pie shipped to you. I know because I googled it: Chocolate Lemon Pie | Petonito’s Pastry and Cupcake Shoppe

Who knew? I certainly didn’t.

Chocolate Lemon Pie isn’t vinegar pie, for sure. But I can conceive of an occasion where I might have to try it sometime . . .

Here’s to opening minds and hearts!

Love,

Sylvia

For Those Whose Work Is Invisible, Mary Gordon

For those who paint the undersides of boats
Makers of ornamental drains on roofs too high to be seen
For cobblers who labor over inner soles
Seamstresses who stitch the wrong sides of linings
For scholars whose research leads to no obvious discovery
For dentists who polish each gold surface of the fillings of upper molars
For sewer engineers and those who repair water mains
For electricians
For artists who suppress what does injustice to their visions
For surgeons whose sutures are things of beauty
For all those whose work is for Your eye only
Who labor for Your entertainment or their own
Who sleep in peace or do not sleep in peace
Knowing that their effects are unknown
Protect them from downheartedness
And diseases of the eye
Grant them perseverance
For the sake of Your love
Which is humble, invisible
And heedless of reward.

My book group recently read The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See. Other than recommending the book to you because it is good, I won’t discuss its plot or message. Except for this one thing: A major thread line through the novel involves a plot of land, the ownership of which travels through the generations from mother to daughter. Matrilineage.

That one part of the novel stirred unexpected feelings of sadness for me, because in my family I am the last in a line of mothers stretching all the way back through the generations to the first mother on the African savannah thousands and thousands of generations ago. Mother to daughter, mother to daughter, until me. My mother was an only child. I was her only daughter. I had no daughters, so that particular line of mothers ends with me.

Ultimately, that doesn’t matter. Plenty of other mothers and daughters are passing along matrilineage lines all across the globe. I’m pretty sure my singular line won’t be missed. Nonetheless, sadness falls upon me when I think about it. All those mothers bringing daughters forth. Feeding, nurturing, teaching, caring, guiding. Some lived to see their daughters grow and thrive. Some died well before that happened. Some probably even died in the very act of bringing their daughters to birth.

Some of them were wonderful mothers, some undoubtedly terrible. All were imperfect; all were human, their lives made up of joys and sorrows, successes and failures, frightening situations and safe harbors, wisdom and misguided thinking. Whatever the circumstances of their lives, life persevered through them. But, when I die, that line of mothers dies with me.

Facing that reality got me pondering lineages in general. It got me thinking about what we pass along to the next people, how we do it, and if we even know when something we’ve done or said has made any impact on another’s life. And that led me to Mary Gordon’s prayer, “For Those Whose Work is Invisible.” I love that prayer — the images it stirs and also the recognition that so often the things people say and do go unnoticed. When you come right down to it, for most of us, our work is invisible. Even for those whose work seems to be front and center — visible, in other words —sometimes it’s unclear at the outset how that work will travel into the world or what impact it will have. And yet we persevere.

The first time I heard Mary Gordon’s prayer was at my ordination. I had asked my colleague, the Rev. John Gibbons, to offer what we call the “Right Hand of Fellowship,” a ritual with Biblical origins tracing back to Paul (Galatians 2:9). As the story goes (and as John reminded us that day), church pillars offered Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship because Paul and Barnabas appeared to be filled with grace. The idea was to divvy up the work of proselytizing: Paul and Barnabas were meant to help bring the faith far and wide. Through the centuries since then, clergy have extended their hands in welcome to the generations of clergy who followed them. A lineage, in other words. A pastoral lineage stretching way, way back.

For me, the ritual was imbued with a recognition that I was standing on the shoulders of so, so many people — not just clergy who had served through the vast expanse of time before my arrival on the scene, and not just the fellow clergy I had known in my lifetime up until that point — but also those people who had loved, taught, challenged, and nurtured me all along the way. Most of them were not clergy. The work of nearly all of them was invisible to the people at my ordination. I longed for my parents, for example, both of whom had died by then and neither of whom had been a minister. My mother died a couple of years before I entered seminary; my father died in the middle of my training.

On my heart, too, were many ministers and parishioners, past and present, whose example had helped to guide me to my truest self. Friends through the years. Teachers of all subjects. Classmates. Roommates. Neighbors. Colleagues from former work settings. Even chance encounters with people whose influence on me can never be recognized. The cumulative actions and words of an incalculable number of people helped to make me the person I was at the time of my ordination. The list of people who have influenced me has only continued to grow, of course. More people than I can name. More than I can remember. When I die, I will have collected a veritable throng of people who have helped me to learn and grow every step of the way. Their work was and is invisible, hard to pin down, difficult to name.

So it is for all of us. We are the recipients of the words and deeds of others. We are the products not just of genes, but of circumstances, social locations, relationships, and events beyond our control. We benefit from the work of engineers who repair water mains. And those who repair and paint the undersides of boats help to keep our boats from sinking. We may never know who those people are, but they hold us in their circle of care, nonetheless.

At my ordination, Rev. John Gibbons said, “I do not believe our ministry is some sort of chain letter which promises riches, billions and billions of blessings, so long as you do not break the chain. I do believe, nonetheless, that we are, in the words of . . . David Rhys Williams, ‘the indispensable link between the work that was and the world that is to be, comrades in the quest for the high places of life.’ Whether or not our lives and our world are enlarged or diminished in the measure of hope and possibility depends indispensably on what we — you and I and all of us — do or do not do.” I believe that, too. Not just for ministers, but for all of us. We are all links in the chain of humanity. What we do and say matters, whether we have a megaphone that allows us to shout our messages or we have just our soft, unamplified voices. What we do and say matters, whether or not our names and photos land above the fold on the front page of the New York Times or our names and images never show up anywhere at all. We can choose to help move the world forward, or we can choose to help set things back. In my view, there really is only one valid choice: Our work is to be “comrades in the quest for the high places in life.”

In the last several months, I have taken part in many, many rallies to defend democracy. I have always had companions rallying with me — sometimes hundreds of them, sometimes just a few. Either way, I am just one in a sea of people and, thus, invisible in any singular, personal way. What feels important to me is that many, many, many people — most of us unknown, most of us invisible — have joined our hearts, voices, and labors to repair what has been, and is being, rent. Personal visibility isn’t the point. Tikkun olam — repairing and improving the world — is. Our highest calling is to build the best world we possibly can for the ones who follow us in the great chain of life.

The idea is to live life in such a way that we pass along what is best about us. We do the work of healing, loving, caring, and nurturing “heedless of reward,” as Mary Gordon puts it. We do it for the simple reason that we have been given the privilege of life, and we best spend our energies giving back to the world that holds, sustains, and carries us. That’s our lineage — our lineage of work invisible, but so, so crucial. Because you never know what action or words of yours will take hold in another’s life. You just never know.

My line of mothers, now destined to die out, will never be known in any particular, lasting way. But I give thanks for all those mothers, whose work ultimately gave me life. And I give thanks for the opportunity to live and to give back as best I can.

When I think about it, women are uniquely experienced in producing work that is invisible — at least historically in this culture. Eric Peltoniemi’s song, Tree of Life, one of my favorites, depicts that invisibility in a poetic way. I hope you will take a few minutes to listen to it and consider the lineage of mothers who gave you life. Their work was undoubtedly invisible, but a thing of beauty nonetheless. (Note: The lyrics mostly consist of the names of quilting patterns. If you watch the video embedded below, you can see gorgeous images of those very patterns — the visible art of women whose contributions go unnamed and unrecognized. I’ve included the song lyrics below.)

Lyrics: Tree of Life, by Eric Peltoniemi

Beggar’s Blocks and Blind Man’s Fancy,
Boston Corners and Beacon Lights,
Broken Stars and Buckeye Blossoms
Blooming on the Tree of Life.

Chorus: Tree of Life, quilted by the lantern light,
Every stitch a leaf upon the Tree of Life.
Stitch away, sisters, stitch away.

Hattie’s Choice (Wheel of Fortune), and High Hosanna (Indiana),
Hills and Valleys (Sweet Wood Lilies)
and Heart’s Delight (Tail of Benjamin’s Kite),
Hummingbird (Hovering Gander) and Honeysuckle (Oleander),
Blooming on the Tree of Life.

We’re only known as someone’s mother,
Someone’s daughter, or someone’s wife,
But with our hands and with our vision,
We make the patterns on the Tree of Life.

Love,

Sylvia

But I know about temper tantrums.

As a general rule, I am not given to having temper tantrums when things don’t go my way. At some point I learned the world doesn’t revolve around me. But I certainly have had temper tantrums — most people do when they are little children.

One day, when I was really little, my mother insisted it was time for me to take my nap. I got so mad that I threw all the toys out of my bedroom and into the hall (thereby proving my mother’s point that I was tired and needed a nap).

Fat lot of good it did me. I still had to take a nap. Also, I had to clean up my mess.

Around 30 years later, I participated in a workshop called Opening the Heart. For one of the exercises, we were invited to have temper tantrums. We laid down on our backs on the floor and were asked to think of all the things we wanted to say “no” to. Then we stamped our feet and shouted “NO”! The exercise certainly rang distant memory bells for me. It unleashed the unmatched fury of the 2-year-old inside me. It may sound strange, but the exercise felt cleansing, freeing . . . and also pretty humorous, if I am honest.

But then we were asked to switch gears and think of all the things we wanted to say “yes” to. We were invited to stamp our feet again, this time shouting “YES"! That felt qualitatively different. Affirming my dreams and aspirations felt invigorating, even joyful.

I no longer remember what I shouted "NO!” about all those years ago, but there is plenty afoot in the world today that makes me want to stamp my feet and raise my voice in protest. Anything that involves cruelty, malice, greed, or hatred. Anything that involves callousness, dishonesty, and manipulation. There’s a lot of those kinds of things going around.

But today I want to stop to consider some of the things I want to say YES to. I say yes to anything that involves generosity, kindness, and love. Also, freedom, dignity, and respect. My YES list is pretty long. For now, let me mention just a few things that relate directly to today’s world — I mean, literally, today, when hunger is now being weaponized in the United States.

You probably know the whole saga of the current regime planning to cut of SNAP benefits, thereby threatening starvation to those who are food-insecure — all to force the regime’s agenda. By withholding SNAP benefits, the regime is demonstrating its indifference to those who are truly hungry. The news out of Washington keeps changing on this topic. At the moment, the administration says it will fund SNAP, but in a delayed way and with reduced benefits. Where this all ends up is still to be determined.

But, in the meantime, the little, regular, every-day people are making plans to fill the crater of need. The usual suspects are stepping forward. Religious institutions are collecting food or providing meals. Citizens are donating extra funds to food banks. In addition to those kinds of tried-and-true measures, I have been moved by some unique, creative programs that have bubbled up from the rank-and-file population. Here are a few examples:

• Two local restaurants are collaborating to make meals with which to stock the freezer at the local YMCA on Tuesdays. If you need a meal, simply take one — no questions asked. In addition, the YMCA will open its locker rooms that day for anyone who needs a place to take a shower. (See below if you are interested in finding out more.)*

• The Maine Federation of Farmers’ Markets will make emergency $15 vouchers available to anyone who presents their EBT card at a participating Maine Harvest Bucks market. People can present their EBT cards — even if they are empty — to receive the $15 voucher. (See below if you are interested in finding out more.)**

• Through Facebook, I subscribe to the local Buy Nothing page for my town. Frequently — daily or sometimes even more often than that — people post things like: “I made lasagna (or soup or chicken pot pie or fill-in-the-blank) tonight for my family, and I have an extra tray of it to donate to someone who needs a meal.” Or “I am a small, local baker. Today I made extra bread and would like to donate it to people who are hungry."

Who’s doing this? Just people. People with no particular power or wealth but with hearts filled with compassion for those who are struggling.

On this blog I have often lifted up the power of “We the People,” those stirring first words of the United States Constitution. The Constitution, of course, lays out the form of governance for the United States:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

But, from what I can see, “We the People” isn’t just all about how voting works or legislative bodies are composed. It isn’t just about how the justice system is constructed. And it isn’t just about the amendments to the Constitution, ratified to provide better clarity and to expand justice. Forming a “more perfect Union” — at least as far as I am concerned — also means we treat one another in certain ways. With respect and dignity. With compassion and generosity. With the understanding that we are all traveling this road together, and “We the People” need one another.

So, if people are hungry, we step up. We do what we can. The examples I listed above are generous and creative. And I am sure there are similar generous and creative initiatives taking shape all across the country right now. I say YES to all of it. YES to reaching out. YES to using what we have to help others. YES to caring and sharing. YES.

Of course, people step up to help one another in all kinds of ways. I list food insecurity here are just an example — mainly because the need is so great and the issue is on so many minds and hearts. But, off the top of my head, I can think of many, many other ways people reach out to build community with one another. Volunteering to read stories to children at the local library. Accompanying immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to their court appointments. Rallying, writing letters to their elected representatives, and speaking out — all in favor of restoring and preserving democracy. Working on legislation that addresses climate change and protects the environment. Organizing Halloween parades for children. Rescuing animals from kill shelters and providing foster care for them. Organizing benefit concerts for charitable causes. Providing free health care for those without funding. Teaching our children.

My list of YES goes on and on and on. Which makes me wonder: What makes you want to stamp your feet and shout YES? I’d love to hear from you. Post a comment here or send me an email. Together, let’s create our list of hope.

Love,

Sylvia

P. S. Below are details of the two programs I noted above. If you live in the Brunswick/Bath, Maine, area and you need help procuring food, do reach out to these two organizations. If you live in the area (or even if you don’t) and you are able to donate, the information below explains how to do so.

*Family Fridge at the Brunswick Landing

If you need dinner, take dinner...no questions asked. We are deeply concerned by the upcoming loss of food assistance in our community. Starting Tuesday (Election Day), Wild Oats Bakery & Café and Flight Deck will be placing and stocking community fridges at the Landing Y. Our teams will prep, cook, and fill these fridges every Tuesday through November. Meals are free for anyone who needs food — individuals and families. The Y’s showers, bathrooms, and facilities are also open for anyone to use during pickup between 5:30AM and 8:00PM.

Want to help? Add a $10 “Family Fridge” donation at checkout at Flight Deck or Wild Oats. Every $10 adds an additional family-sized amount of food to the fridge. Any donation dollars we can’t use for further stocking the Landing fridges will be directed to MCHPP (Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program) to support their ongoing work.

**Where: Landing Y

(24 Venture Ave, Brunswick Landing)

**When: Tuesdays 5:30 AM - 8:00 PM

**What: Ready-to-eat or heat meals

** Maine Federation of Farmers Markets

Maine Federation of Farmers Markets is making emergency Maine Harvest Bucks vouchers available to SNAP participants, whether they have funds on their EBT cards or not.

How it works:

Bring your EBT card to a participating Maine Harvest Bucks market, even if there are no funds on it. Visit the market Info Booth and show your card. They’ll give you $15 in Maine Harvest Bucks. Spend the Bucks with any vendor on fresh fruit or vegetables. You can do this every time you visit a farmers’ market in the month of November.

SNAP customers are an essential part of Maine’s farmers market community. If you don’t receive SNAP benefits but want to help support this work, please visit mainefarmersmarkets.org to make a donation! You can also visit the info booth at farmers market and ask to make a donation there.

It’s important to us to keep the food access programs at farmers markets running as seamlessly as possible, because they are good for both farmers and customers. It’s also clear from conversations with Midcoast Hunger Prevention Program that our food banks are already experiencing higher demand, and so continuing to serve people at the places where they are already shopping (like farmers markets) will help lessen the pressure that will come when November SNAP benefits aren’t loaded on to EBT cards.