Taking a Deeper Breath

In March 2020 I began sending a daily e-mail to family and friends. My goal was to lift spirits and provide both a bit of respite and some self care resources during the pandemic lockdown.  I had no idea that it would be more than a year before vaccines would make it possible for us to start to venture back out into the world again. Eventually, I moved the e-mails to this blog, and after George Floyd's murder I shifted my focus from daily messages to occasional posts about systemic racism, White supremacy, and White privilege. I   hoped that sharing some of my journey as a person of White privilege would encourage others who, like me, felt called to learn more about these evils and do more to reckon with our own complicity in them. Today is the first anniversary of George Floyd's death. As we mark this awful milestone, I am grateful that his killer has been tried, and that he was convicted on all counts. His attorneys have filed a motion for a new trial, and will no doubt appea

Women's History Month 2021 ends today. As with Black History Month, I pray that someday soon we won't need a special month to call attention to the  contributions made by people other than White males; I hope that we will see them as part of our history, period. And that we will read about them in our history books and celebrate them all year long.  In the meantime, where even to begin? There are so many great women to recognize. So many who have been profiled this month. Here are a few great women -- some famous, some not so well known -- who have been uppermost in my mind lately. 

It has been a year now since the United States began to lock down, and almost exactly a year since I began the daily "pandemic uplift" e-mails that later became this blog.  It has been a catastrophic year by any measure. No community has been left untouched by COVID-19. Many, including BIPOC communities, immigrants and refugees, and essential workers -- among whom there may be substantial overlap -- have been especially hard hit. Here in the U.S., over 530,000 of our siblings have died, and the death toll continues to climb. This is a solemn anniversary, indeed.  It has been more than a year, as well, since the brutal murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Tomorrow will also mark one year since Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by Louisville police after they forced entry into her apartment. So much pain and grief was unleashed by these senseless killings, and magnified by the killing of George Floyd, the paralyzing of Jacob Blake, and so many other assaults upon Black bodies.  We continu

Another Black History Month has come to a close. Perhaps it brought new knowledge to you, too. Recently I shared the stories of Frazier Baker, George Dinning, and Claudette Colvin, three Black heroes who were unknown to me before this month. I am grateful for the heightened exposure that Black History Month brings. And yet. So much more Black history was -- and still is --  outside my awareness. We did not have Black History Month when I was growing up. I remember when President Ford officially recognized February as Black History Month in 1976. But that was hardly the start. The story of Black History Month begins over 100 years ago, with  Dr. Carter G. Woodson,   a man now known as the "Father of Black history." 

It was 123 years ago today that  Frazier Baker,  a 40-year-old schoolteacher and postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina, and the youngest of his six children were lynched. The alleged crime? Doing his federal job. In 1897, Baker had become the first African-American to serve as postmaster of the Lake City Post Office. And for refusing to give up that post, he and his entire family were attacked in their home. Baker was one of hundreds of Blacks appointed to postmasterships across the South by the new McKinley administration after the election of 1896. The local White community tried to force Baker from his position. When that failed, a mob came at night to set fire to his family's home, which also served as the local post office. Baker and his wife were at home with their children. When the mob started firing at the trapped family, little Julia, just two, was shot and killed. Trying to save his family from the flames, Baker opened the front door to lead them out. He was immediatel

Like so many privileged people, I hoped for a time that life would return to some semblance of "normal" after the 2020 election and after the pandemic fades. As time went by, I began to hope as well for the "new normal" that pundits told us to expect. Months of sheltering in place and socially distanced connections had left me both longing to hug my loved ones and ready to let go of the busy lifestyle I'd had before COVID. I hoped that we could bring to our world the benefits of slowing down and traveling less that had allowed the air to clear and the oceans to quiet (see  April 22, 2020 post ).  I do still hope for that. But thanks to  Reverend Phiwa Langeni,   Ambassador for Innovation & Engagement of the United Church of Christ and founder of Salus Center , the only LGBTQ resource and community center in Lansing, Michigan, I no longer hope for a return to what I took as "normal"; my sense of that has  shifted. I have been challenged by Reverend

Today is Martin Luther King., Jr. Day, a federal holiday observed each year on the third Monday in January in honor of Dr. King's life and legacy. It is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service, a  "day on, not a day off." In honor of Dr. King,  Story Corps  has collected powerful  first person accounts  of experiences with Dr. King, as well as other stories for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Here is a link to Dr. King's  "I Have a Dream" speech.  And here is an excerpt from his final speech, the one in which he says that he   " ha[s] seen the Promised Land."   It would be easy for us to despair. That speech was given over 50 years ago, and the Promised Land of freedom and equality -- of a world without our White supremacy -- may never have seemed more distant, especially in the light of these past four years and the deepening distress of the past two weeks.  And yet. We see the ever-growing commitment to Black Lives Matter. W

 In my faith tradition, we marked  January 3 as the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the Magi at the stable where Jesus was born. "Epiphany" is commonly used now to mean a sudden insight, discovery, or revelation. But here's what  Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes,  a spiritual teacher, activist, and scholar focused upon African American spirituality and President Emerita of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities says: "While in the midst of an epiphany, folks inevitably apply the term 'discovery' to lands, people, and ideas that have always been present. We use the language of strange and alien sightings when the more accurate statement would be, 'Eureka! I have just awakened to a long-standing reality that an inner unveiling has finally allowed me to see.' ”  I thought of her statement after last week's insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when thousands of pro-Trump rioters besieged the Capitol complex. As more videos of the violence and more

It's early morning on New Year's Day, and I am more than ready to see 2020 behind me. I know that I'm not alone in my relief to see the new year arrive. This is the traditional day to begin New Year's resolutions, but I have none. It wasn't always so. I used to spend time in December thinking about resolutions to improve my life (or so I thought) in the year to come; I even tried to make promises to work toward goals that I thought would benefit others. The problem was that my resolutions were either too big or too small; they felt either too expansive and too constrictive. In the end, they didn't get me to the results I wanted. A "too big" resolution was one that eventually seemed unattainable. Maybe it took more energy or commitment than I had expected, or maybe I became frustrated or impatient at how much time it took to achieve. It's a common experience, I found, with so-called "self-improvement" plans.  Whatever the case, sooner or l

Winter is here. Hanukkah and Christmas have ended, and Kwanzaa has just begun. The longest night has passed. Little by little, almost imperceptibly for now, the light is returning, both to the skies and, I hope, to our lives. As we look forward to the end of 2020, I see places for great hope in the year to come. Whatever the future holds, we know that there is much hard work to be done. Our racist systems and structures did not spring up overnight, and it will take time, energy, and effort to dismantle them all. We must be focused and act with intention. We must be strategic, single-minded, and persistent. We must persevere when we are weary.  Still, we need to have strength to do the work; we must rest and regain our energy. So as this seemingly endless year finally comes to a close, I offer some music videos to lift our spirits... I start with my favorite new discovery, Portland's  Resonance Ensemble.    If you aren't yet familiar with this group, be sure to check the website

My husband and I own a home that stands on sacred and stolen land, land once home to indigenous wildlife and to indigenous peoples. The deer and coyotes we sometimes see in our neighborhood are descended from creatures who roamed here freely before the developers descended.  On our street, October 2020 I have not yet been able to determine exactly which First Peoples lived on the land where my home sits, but the Atfilati band of the Kalapuya (Tualatins) seasonally migrated to a nearby area to fish, hunt, and forage, and the Clowella Chinooks also made their home near mine. The Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Tumwater, and Watlala Bands of Chinook, the Tualatin Kalapuya, the Molalla, and other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River.  Beginning with the first "settlers" in our area, the Native peoples here were nearly wiped out by disease. Territorial and, after 1859, federal policies such as boar

"Fifty nifty United States from thirteen original colonies...." That's a line from a song I learned in elementary school as part of my sanitized history education. We were taught about the "discovery of America" as if Columbus were the first to arrive here. As if there weren't diverse nations already thriving here for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. Each year at this time we talked about the Pilgrims and Indians and the big feast they shared on that "first Thanksgiving." We did not learn about the eradication of Indigenous peoples, felled by new diseases brought by Europeans, and then by  genocide at the hands of colonists and "settlers."   We were not told that Native Americans were enslaved by the English colonists, although one scholar reports that "between 1492 and 1880,  between 2 and 5.5 million Native Americans were enslaved  in the Americans in addition to 12.5 million African slaves." Stealing lan

I have never had perfect vision. In fact, I wear trifocals these days. But I don't need my glasses to see with much more clarity now than I had at the beginning of the year. I have 2020 vision now. Perhaps you do, too. This has been an extraordinary year by any measure. How many times have I heard someone ask, "what else could happen?" And then   we find out .   I keep thinking that we must have hit the bottom by now, but then we sink lower. It's been gut-wrenching, to be sure, but eye-opening, as well. The onslaught of challenges and changes has brought deeper perspectives on so many fronts.  What seems clearer to me now is the breadth of all I have wrongly assumed and taken for granted. My White privilege surely accounts for many of my former assumptions and expectations, but it goes beyond that; I've held -- and still hold -- a number of privileges that have colored my views.  With the privilege of an able body, I took for granted not only the pleasures of dail

There've been times that I thought I couldn't last for long But now I think I'm able to carry on It's been a long, a long time comin', but I know A change gonna come, oh yes it will  Lately I've been hearing Sam Cooke's voice in my head. At this difficult time -- when COVID and the struggle against White supremacy felt traumatic enough, and now we are dealing with catastrophic wildfires and choking smoke -- it's helpful to be reminded that change does come. That it will come. And that we can be a part of it. As a psychotherapist, I have learned that change is a process, not an event. Behaviorally, change may be thrust upon us, as in a pandemic or natural disaster. But a change in outlook or beliefs, a change by choice, or a change that is embraced is ordinarily the culmination of a process. And that process usually begins below our consciousness, before we are even aware that we may be getting ready to consider a change. So it makes sen

Persistence is the sibling of resistance. When it comes to pushing back against injustice, we need to take a long view. Change can come -- I'll have more to say about that in my next post -- but it can, and usually will, be incremental. We must be prepared to resist for as long as it takes to achieve real change. Our mentors knew this. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted for over a year. John Lewis did not make it across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on his first try. On the night before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., told his gathered followers, "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."  Today, Montgomery busses are integrated, and all are free to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge; at his death this summer, Congressman Lewis's coffin was respectfully  carried over the bridge  in tribute to him. The Promised Land? We are still waiting for that. And we must continue our resistance

While some would have you believe that my city has collapsed and is burning down, here in Portland, peaceful protestors have been on the streets every single day since George Floyd's murder nearly three months ago. It's important work. Not all of it happens downtown. Carl and I missed our weekly neighborhood vigil the day after I broke my heel, but with my cast and scooter we're back out again. There's been a core group of us out there every week, and with the ghastly attack on Jacob Blake, Jr., there was an even bigger crowd yesterday.  We need protests. Crowds in the streets get attention. Crowds with a united purpose get action: The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom helped lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Peaceful protests give voice to pent-up rage, and provide both encouragement to supporters and tangible proof to skeptics that the people want change and they will not be silenced:  crowds beget crowds.    Peaceful protesting is a powerful tool

It seems a lifetime since my last post. In that time, my photographer son was arrested while on assignment to cover the protests, and I broke my left heel in several places in a freak accident with my little grandchild. More about those later. The point is that life as we know it can turn in a heartbeat, and in ways completely outside our control. We always have a choice, though, about how we respond. If anyone knows about unjust imprisonment, physical pain, or mental and emotional anguish, they would be His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and the Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. The same could be said for the late Honorable John Lewis, Member of Congress representing the Fifth District of Georgia. Between them, these three icons of grace under extreme circumstances have experienced deep personal and community pain. Archbishop Tutu grew up poor in a segregated society. Childhood polio left him with an atrophied hand, a younger