One Year Later

I wrote this reflection, "An Ordinary Friday," for the Nov. 12, 2017, service titled One Year Later at the Unitarian Universalist Church ofUrbana-Champaign. (Audio at the link above)

A year ago, in the days after the election, I was in the throes of grief, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through it. I wore black for a week. I love color, but I couldn’t face it.

In the year since, I have felt the need to turn inward, to find ways to nurture my compassion and my gratitude—to balance out my anger and fear. And to turn outward as well, to engage in ways I can sustain and which sustain me.

Over these months, I have found that the world has come to feel more fragile and more precious. I have come to realize even more deeply how much I love it, this world of ours.

I was reminded of the preciousness and beauty of our world on a Friday about three weeks ago. I was sitting in Westside Park in downtown Champaign, eating an early lunch and choosing the poetry I wanted to read for our UU coffeehouse, when I heard children’s voices behind me.

“It’s the Music Man!” a little boy exclaimed. After a brief pause, he added, “He’s going to make music!” The certainty in his voice moved me, and I turned around to look.

About eight children—they were about four years old—were walking one behind the other, holding onto a rope. They were heading towards the nearby preschool. A little distance from them, on a low stool, sat a middle-aged man, a bag beside him. He reached in, took out what looked like a small horn, and began to play music. Excited sounds came from the children.

I smiled and returned to my lunch and reading. A minute later, I heard more young voices.

“It’s the Music Man!  Hi, Jay!”

About a dozen more kids were on the path to the preschool.

                                                  

“Hi Jay! Hi Jay!” a chorus of voices called out. The man kept playing the music; the children waved and smiled and chattered excitedly.

I was struck by the joy the Music Man and the children brought each other through the repetition of what was clearly a regular event in their lives. I had been reading poems that emphasized our interdependence—and here I was witnessing the joy it brings. Witnessing it brought me joy.

I was struck by how this still goes on, this kind of kindness and interdependence, even while  chaos and cruelty dominate the highest levels of our government. Noticing moments like this is what has allowed me to nurture gratitude and compassion in myself, to avoid being consumed by anger and despair. There are opportunities every day, and I try to remain open to them.

That is how I get through: looking at sunlight on the tall tree outside the Champaign Public Library where I wrote some of this homily, or noticing the engaged looks on my students' faces at Parkland as they listen to each other discuss meditation or feminism, or witnessing the kindness and joy of strangers. These moments of beauty and attention and kindness are as real as the injustices and violations that capture the headlines. Each morning, standing with palms pressed against each other and looking out the living room window, I greet the day and bring to mind the compassion and beauty I witnessed the day before; this practice of paying attention nourishes me and strengthens me and opens me. It reminds me why I love our world and reminds me why I must keep fighting for it.

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Two works, introduced to me by Rev. Florence Caplow, our new settled minister at UUCUC, have helped lift me during the past year: 

the poem "Now, I Love You. Now, I Witness" by the UU minister Theresa Soto

and the song "I'm Gonna Walk it With You" by Brian Claflin and Ellie Grace.

What has helped you? 

Community has sustained me this year. These candles were lit at the beautiful Solstice service yesterday at our Unitarian Universalist Church; they represent individual goals for the solar year, goals pursued with the knowledge that we have the support of our community. 

Mourning Madam President

For months, I declared cheerfully, “All I want for my fiftieth birthday is a Madam President!” I was going to turn fifty at the end of November. By the fall, I began to think I might get my wish.

By then, Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination and made history. She went up and down in the polls, but never low enough to make me believe that she could actually lose—and how could she lose to Donald Trump? I mean, really. Americans wouldn’t do that. Choose him. No, not even those who believed the false claims about Hillary.

We all know how that turned out.

My birthday celebrations—quiet dinners with friends—felt like a mix of support group meetings and grassroots organizing. The first dinner was only six days after that awful Election night; we were still shaky, still in one stage of grief or the other.  But despite the grief, the fear, the horror, at all these birthday gatherings, without exception, we did not stop with “How did this happen?” We always also asked, “What do we do next?”

It’s the “What do we do next?” that encourages me. All around me, my friends, my colleagues, my fellow UUs are speaking up and acting. “Deeds not creeds” say the t-shirts worn by many at our church. It’s in doing the deeds that I find a sense of hope, and in acting in community that I find comfort.

Exactly three weeks after Election night, I went to the first meeting of a grassroots group created in the wake of the election. Dozens of women (and a few men) I had never met before gathered to strategize; some said they had never attended such a meeting before.

One of the organizers was distributing red and blue posters donated by a local printing company. On the posters were the words “Hate has no home here” in six languages and a heart enclosing the stars and stripes.

The front window at Jane Addams Book Shop, a book lover's dream.

That Friday evening, too exhausted to grade any more papers, I took a stack of the posters and approached the owners and staff at coffee shops, a bakery, and a bookshop in my beloved downtown Champaign. I was a little nervous as I asked them if they would be willing to display a poster. Each of them said yes; each openly endorsed the message--though one worried about heated confrontations that might ensue (but he’d take the chance, he said). His fear was a chilling reminder of the new climate.

The posters are in the front windows at Cafe Kopi, my other office. 

Still, I also felt embraced and safe, grateful for people who were willing to make a statement of support and welcome in uncertain times.

In these weeks of such unbelievable news that I sometimes am sure it’s just a nightmare and I’ll wake up at any moment, I am sustained by this realization: thoughtful, brave, loving people surround me. They are willing to speak up. Friends hold each other up and work for change, strangers gather to plan action, and these small businesses that have become my second homes, my other offices, state their welcome to immigrants, Muslims, queer folk, people of color, women—to all who might need to be reminded that hate has no home here.

Have you found sources of hope and sustenance after this election? I would love to hear about them.

A close-up of the window at Kopi. The "Hate Has No Home Here" posters were printed for free by Dixon Graphics in Champaign. 

The bulletin board at Pekara Bakery and Bistro, where I have spent many hours writing.

Aroma Cafe, where the posters are just to the left of the front door.

On TV on November 21, 2016: a reminder that words matter.

Celebrating My Flatland Home - part two

Around sunset on this Tuesday evening, Marilyn and I walked in Meadowbrook Park, one of our very favorite places here in Champaign-Urbana.  Along the path to the south, we came across a cyclist headed the other way who had stopped and was looking into the prairie, smiling. He had spotted a deer.  After the deer bounded away, we had a cheerful conversation about deer and coyotes and foxes before continuing around the park. Along the way, we overheard people speaking different languages,  people of different races. When we rounded the curve on the eastern edge of the park, we were able to watch the sun set. 

The thistle in the prairie was particularly vibrant at dusk.

I love the expanse of black-eyed Susan that lines both sides of the Hickman Wildflower Walk at Meadowbrook Park.

Before the park, we stopped at the Tuesday evening farmers' market in downtown Champaign, where the farmers have become familiar and where I often run into friends. I'm glad Marilyn was able to join me today. Here's our haul, all from Meyer Produce out of Villa Grove. (We learned that it takes three people about four hours every other day to harvest the raspberries at this farm.  I'll make sure to savor every berry!)

http://thelandconnection.org/market