My Dear Friend

My dear friend,  

After decades of an easy and loving friendship we find ourselves on opposite sides politically.  You recently expressed an opinion that you know I disagree with and I said very little in fear of it coming between us. I have strong opinions with cogent reasons too, but I’m not sure you want to hear them. My beliefs do not come from a radio pundit, a political news channel or any particular columnist, but from experiences that slowly changed my views without me even being aware of it. It was a natural evolution for me, based on my life and my faith, so the conundrum is that we are both Christians yet see things so differently.

My own experience of struggling financially for a time (even though I went to college and had done all the personally responsible things), and teaching poor children for 20 years in a diverse district gave me a new perspective. The adults I now tutor often had no choice about leaving high school but were forced to to care for younger siblings or to get jobs. There is so much judgment of those whose lives we know nothing about. The richest country in the world should help their own, but the current administration seems determined to take every good thing away from us: public schools, the EPA (which has greatly improved our lives and health for decades), arts funding, women’s health care, children’s lunch and after-school programs, being irresponsible stewards of God’s creation by allowing pollution to take over again to name a few. They want to reduce food assistance even though it is a minuscule part of the budget. Ohio wants to defund the Positive Education Program for emotionally disturbed youth, to say nothing of defunding Planned Parenthood whose services prevent unwanted pregnancies. I could go on and on.

I am sincerely curious about how Christians reconcile these types of efforts with the teachings of Jesus. Breaking up immigrant families, putting the arguable right to own an assault rifle over the safety of American schoolchildren, unnecessarily raising rent on the poor, are all contrary to repeated commands of Jesus who showed us how to feed and care for the poor without question, to live peacefully and turn the other cheek.  He told us not to worry about tomorrow, that all people are our neighbors which includes Muslims, immigrants and the poor. And of course, to love our enemies. The words of politicians and the Second Amendment have superseded the words of Jesus.

You say you need guns because you fear “they” are coming for you. I don’t even know what that means. “Fear not,” is the most repeated command in the Bible, supposedly 365 times, one for every day. The commandment to not kill I take literally and don’t think there are exceptions. I do not find the promotion of guns pro-life. Just the opposite. “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body and not the soul.” Mt 10:28. 

I do not oppose a conservative viewpoint but there is one news station that has done great damage to our country. Everyone I know who watches that station seems to live in fear and believe in conspiracies that never materialize.  I saw it happen to my own parents. They went from being happy and content to constantly worrying and even obsessing about things they heard on television.  Of course, none of their fears were realized. It was sad to me to see that change in them. They had the station on most of the day so I was exposed to it.  I heard daily ranting and vicious name-calling of Democrats. Don’t tell me that doesn’t have a divisive effect on people. There may be liberal viewpoints on other stations but I have never heard the ugly vitriol that I’ve heard on that station.

The thought of abortion repulses me, but I also do not judge those who feel they need one. I do not know their circumstances and believe judgement is left to God. There is great hypocrisy in wanting babies to be born, but not cared for after birth. When we remove help for those children, defund public school resources, food programs and the like we are just pro-birth, not pro-life. I have never walked in the shoes of a gay or transgender person so I do not have the right to tell them how to live their lives or what their human needs should be. It is only when we dehumanize people that we insist on our preferences over their civil and human rights.  

One of the most divisive ideas is that this has always been a White Christian country and what we saw on 1960’s television was the “way it’s always been.” Think Mayberry. But that is a false image. That was before the civil rights movement when black people were segregated in every way in this society,  when Japanese were interned, when what we saw on TV did not reflect reality for many Americans in any way.  Life wasn’t great for everyone in decades past so there is nothing idyllic to go back to.  Even though I attempt to live my life by Christian principles I do not believe this is a Christian country. It began as a Native American country and for a long time everyone was welcome here. Building a wall to keep people out and travel bans are in direct opposition to the freedom America stands for.  I have the right to worship as I want in America, but so does everyone else. 

Liberal and liberty share the same root word. It is defined as: marked by generosity, broad-minded, open to new opinions, and believes in political change. I am not ashamed of that and no one has convinced me of any of these views except living the life that God gave me and coming to know people unlike myself. There cannot possibly one right way to live among the billions of people on this planet. If God is the Creator then He made all of us.

So maybe we should find our common ground and stick to that.  All over this country relationships are strained by the deep divisions that we are exposed to 24 hours a day. Let’s not be one of them.

I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together . . .

just to have a laugh or sing a song,
seems we just get started
and before you know it
comes the time we have to say
so long . . .

Four years ago I advertised around town to start a writing group in my area. Every month for the first year between 6-10 people showed up at the library to critique each other's diverse writing projects and give general support. But the majority of the group varied from month to month until there seemed to be four of us who worked well together, enjoyed each others' company and were on a similar level of writing abilities. I decided to end the library group and the four of us started meeting in a variety of places. We'd send each other new chapters of our books-in-progress by email to review before the meetings. It was a beautiful thing.

Until Nancy moved away. Then there were three of us. We continued on - two girls and a guy.

Most of my evening activities are ones I enjoy but often don't feel like attending after a long day's work. But being with Amy and Dan was something I always looked forward to. We nurtured and encouraged each other through one novel a piece as well as other fledgling projects.

We named our group WWR - Writers Without Readers - existing in the hope that someday at least ONE of us would be a writer WITH readers. I truly believe that any one of us would be as happy for another ones successful publication as we would be of our own - and that is a rare relationship to have with anyone.

We have become friends, sometimes meeting and sharing our lives with each other when none of us had accomplished any writing the month before (because sometimes life just gets in the way of being a part-time writer.) We've believed in each other, encouraged each other, supported each other and spent hours and hours editing and reviewing each other's work. A good, good thing that is now coming to an end.

Amy is moving away too.

We met last night for the last time to share a few laughs and few tears. It won't be the same, but we're glad to have email to continue to send each other our work in the future. And if one of us experiences any writing success of any kind, the others will be rejoicing from wherever we are.

Thank you Dan and Amy for a one-of-a-kind group. I look forward to receiving your published books in the mail someday. I will always treasure our time together.

I'm reading Carol Burnett's new book so as I drove away last night I quietly sang - I'm so glad we had this time together......

Blogging Followers

I want to thank all my COEXIST "Followers" and all my other readers for your encouragement and support. Many of my readers also have wonderful and diverse blogs. So check some of them out! Scroll down on the right to my followers or my list of Beautiful Bloggers and enjoy!!

The Phenomenon of Blogging Friends

I am grieving today for a woman I never met. A friend I never saw. We linked each others' blogs and encouraged each other. I sensed her inner beauty and saw her amazing talents on my computer screen. She had a keen eye for the quirky and an ability to mix beauty and humor. Sometimes I'd click on her name just to see the title photo at the top of her blog which I thought was the coolest photo ever. But she is gone now.

While browsing through my favorite blogs yesterday I read about her but didn't even know her real name - just Liquid Illuzion. (click to see yourself) At Writing in Faith I discovered that on Christmas Eve a blogger shot herself. Sandy wrote an eloquent post about suicide. I clicked on the link and it was Liquid Illuzion. I clicked off - there must be a mistake - I clicked on it again. She had posted a humorous photo on Christmas Eve and then shot herself? Then I found other bloggers who had dedicated their posts to Suzanne Horne since last week. I cried. I wondered why. I didn't even know her, but this blogging phenomenon makes us friends. I know more about some of you out there than some of the people I see every day. You know more about me than many people who see me everyday too, I'm sure. But if we are to take the joy of our blogging community then we must endure the sorrow also.

Good-bye Liquid Illuzion - good-bye Suzanne. I can truly say I will miss you and the beauty you brought to the world. I wish you would have seen the beauty yourself.

Erasing Names

This past week it was time to do the Christmas cards. I remember a time when I actually looked forward to sitting down and writing little notes to everyone and now somehow it seems more like a chore. Maybe because with email and cell phones we are able to communicate with those we don't see often so much easier than 10-15 years ago. I went through my address book to check and see if there was anyone new to add to the list. There was not. But sadly there were five names to eliminate. Two friends and three relatives, gone from this earth, but not from my heart. What is sadder than erasing someone's name? The loss of two friends this year is still difficult for me to fathom. They were both in their fifties, so close to my age. Jeanne left two teenage children that she will never see grow up. But both friends were women of deep faith and I know they are held in God's heavenly arms now. The poem I posted last week called "To Have Love" was in part, about my thoughts for their husbands left behind and alone now. The photo is a shelf in my writing room. Three dear friends gone. Two from cancer and one from muscular dystrophy - rest in peace.

Happy Birthday COEXIST!

COEXIST was created one year ago, and it's been an experience of growth for me. Bloggers seem to share the collective feeling that we are friends who have never met. We have entered each other's lives in big and small ways over this year.

I have met wonderful, thinking, creative, reverent and irreverent women with whom I've discovered great commonalities. I have shared Skywatch photographs with people all over the world. I've met stay-at-home-moms with much more insight and wisdom than I recall having at that age.

I've met a wonderful actress and singer, now retired in the Hollywood hills, who shares nature photographs as well as pictures that include many familiar movie and television actresses that she still knows. Her photographs and memories of a Hollywood gone by are precious.

I've posted my poems, - some carefully thought-out and some spontaneous and unrevised. I've been interviewed by a blogger in England.

I've been tracked by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and quoted on Cleveland.com.

Blogging friends have bought and read my book and I've read theirs as well.

I've enjoyed and treasured every single comment and word of encouragement. THANK YOU.

This blog has made me think (every day!) and be more creative. It's made me write more and form more of my own opinions. I've been privileged to be an inspiration and to receive inspiration .

Blogging has literally opened up the world and made me believe in COEXIST even more as I see every day how much more we are all alike than we are different.

Muscular Dystrophy Fundraiser - A Bocce Tournament

Yesterday my husband and I put on our sixth annual Bocce Tournament to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. A couple years after we moved into our house my husband said he wanted to build a regulation 80' limestone bocce court in our backyard.(see photo - before the bocce-loving throngs arrived) I'm not sure I even knew what bocce was until I fell in love with this Italian. But that's what we have in our backyard and it's provided a lot of fun for friends and family because it's a game anyone can play. The tournament has 32 teams and generally lasts around nine hours. Probably 100+ people visit our backyard during that time. We have a raffle with great donated prizes such as tickets for Major and Minor League teams, gift cards to many area restaurants, signed footballs from the Browns etc. My husband works for many weeks to make this fundraiser a success and thanks to our generous friends and family - it always is. Those people alone bring in over $4000 every year. The winners receive a coveted trophy and their name engraved on a plaque.

Then on Labor Day weekend my husband and stepson, who has Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, proudly present the check at the local station televising Jerry Lewis's Labor Day Telethon. The MDA telethon has been televised and hosted by Jerry Lewis since 1966, but Jerry has been working for and raising money for MDA since 1952. Before he became ill several years ago he would host the entire 22 hour telethon non-stop. Now he comes in at intervals and always, at the end, sings a tearful version of "You'll Never Walk Alone."

If you are not aware, there are 40 different neuro-muscular diseases that can each devastate victims and families. My friend Jacquie, who passed away in March had MD. The most famous person was Lou Gehrig, the New York Yankee for whom amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is named after.

Muscular dystrophy is not to be confused with Multiple Sclerosis, which strangely enough, two of my family members also have now.

Anyway - it's wonderful, inspiring day and boy - ARE WE TIRED!!!

A Neighborhood Book Club

The other day I was browsing at my local Border's book store and I overheard two women asking for a book. The salesperson said the book was constantly sold out and on back order and that she was also dying to read it. I had to know what this fascinating new book was, so after the shoppers moved on I went up to the counter and asked. The constantly-sold-out-book was "Storitelling" by the actress and current reality show muckity-muck Tori Spelling. ARGHHH! If you don't know who she is, she is the daughter of the 70's uber TV producer Aaron Spelling, which is, I'm sure, the only way she got to be an actress. Now she has a reality show that details her marriage and pregnancies as if she's the only person to ever have experienced these things. So she gets to write a best-selling book too? Is my face turning bright green yet? Are my claws showing?

Sorry for the rant, but that little piece of knowledge made me think of all the wonderful books that are out there and all the struggling writers that are sweating blood everyday trying to get published.

The joys of reading a good book are magnified when you are in a book club. I love my neighborhood book club. It started when one of my neighbors was over for a party and I found her in my little writing room/library perusing my books. She said, "We like the same books!" After a chat we decided to start a book club. Now it is four years later and 40 books later and we actually have too many members. (Fourteen or fifteen people is a lot to try to hold an organized discussion, a lot to fit in your living room and an awful lot of wine!)

One of the members has kept track of our choices and there has been a great variety of fiction and non-fiction. Our first book was "Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons". That sound like fluff, but it was actually a really nice book about a neighborhood book club. Our most recent book was "Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan, a novel based on the real life of a woman who left her family and ran away with Frank Lloyd Wright. It was a great discussion. Some of the others that I can remember leading to great discussions were:

"A Million Little Pieces" (None of us cared if he exaggerated some of it and we all agreed that Oprah was a bitch to him!)

"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Piccoult

"My Life So Far" by Jane Fonda

"The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

"One Thousand White Women" by Jim Fergus

"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom

They even indulged me and read "Flying Over Midnight"

Just to name a few! Three times we read the book and then watched the movie together - "The Notebook", "Must Love Dogs" and "No Country for Old Men".

Any suggestions for our next book?

The Guilt of Living

Did you ever feel guilty for being alive? Today I have gone through each moment noticing all that I am here to see, hear, touch, enjoy and love - all that my friends Jeanne and Jacquie are not here for anymore. (see today's earlier post) Maybe that is only one of the gifts that those who go ahead of us leave behind. New eyes to see what they cannot any longer. From the moment I awoke this morning - in a healthy body, in a soft bed that I share with someone I love, to buying a new plant for the house, to getting books to read from the library, to precious time with both of my parents, (still here, still nearby) - I have thought of Jeanne. I walked out on my side deck just now overwhelmed by the sight of the sky and the blooming flowers all around me. I heard my daughter's voice today, I feel the coolness of the rain that is about to fall outside, my little dog is at my feet, keeping me company. I did not spend the day getting chemotherapy or in pain. I did not worry about how to pay my bills - yep, feeling mighty guilty, and yet, aren't all of these things good gifts from God above? Don't we spend our lives striving to attain some kind of peace and contentment?

Both Jeanne and Jacquie touched many people while they were here on Earth. We waited an hour last night at the funeral home just to express our condolences to Jeanne's family. My friends were both loving, wonderful people who loved and knew God personally. This earthly life is all we know right now. We think it is the best of everything and we do all we can to hang on to it, but my friends are now experiencing what we have not. They are in the loving arms of Jesus - where we should all pray to be someday. Any peace or contentment that we experience here on Earth is nothing to what we will know someday. Can I prove that? No, but I believe it with all my heart - no matter how blessed your life is - there is something much better. This can't be it.

So, I've had my moments of guilt today. I'm sad that Jeanne's children have lost her so soon. I am sad that Jeanne will not see them grow to adults. But I also am happy for her. She's already there.

The Dichotomy of a Day

My husband may never know how much it means to me that he always takes a day off for us to celebrate our anniversary. We've gotten into the habit of spending a day riding our bikes along a beautiful wooded towpath trail that follows the remnants of the old Erie Canal. Yesterday we rode 7 miles one way, had lunch in a little town and rode the 7 miles back. The only thing hurting at the end of the day was the result of inadequate bike seats - ouch! It's quite an historic area and there are markers to teach you about the building of the canal. The photo is of one of the remnants.

The dichotomy of the day was because after we came home from such a pleasant time together, we showered and dressed and visited another funeral home. My friend Jeanne lost her 6 year battle with cancer. She left behind two teenage children and her husband, Jay. We became friends in junior high and then, in the 80's she moved next door to me. I'll never forget walking over to meet the new neighbor with a plate of brownies and Jeanne opening the door! Jeanne loved butterflies and the room where we said goodbye to her was filled with them - in the flower arrangements and decorating the collages of photographs of her life. Looking at the photos I realized that I couldn't even imagine what Jeanne looked like without a smile on her face. She loved her God and I have no doubt that Jeanne has left her cocoon and is now a beautiful butterfly.

Spring Weekend

Roses are sometimes red
Violets are not blue
I love all my blogging friends
Happy weekend to you.

Full Life

Today my heart is sad after seeing my friend's lifeless body in a casket - because she was so full of life here on earth. She couldn't get enough of life. She insisted on seeing everything and doing everything, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it was from her scooter. At the funeral home it wasn't just the weirdness of seeing a body - it was, that of everyone there, Jacquie would have been most likely to be in the middle of the crowd, enjoying, mingling, talking. It reminded me of this very old poem of mine:

This is a solitary journey
to spiritual heights unknown.
The creation of a new life form,
the harbinger of heaven.

In the essence of being
pain intermingles with joy.
Without tears, without doubts
the pursuit is meaningless.

There is iniquity without an alibi,
there is breath without thought.
There is awe beyond comprehension,
gratitude beyond words.

In the creation of me
is a continuous changing vision
of my consecrated life
and aching for what was never known.

Too Late

I just had to erase my friend Jacquie's name from the list of things I was going to do on Spring Break. Jacquie, age 55, died Friday of muscular dystrophy. She had been in and out of the hospital since October. I visited a few times, but not enough. Now it's too late. My advice - don't ever have to erase a friend from a list of things to do. Just do it. Her husband's email was entitled - Jacquie's got her wings - yes she does - and no one deserves them more.