Blog – Top of JC’s Mind

Women’s Equality Day

Ninety-four years ago today, women in the United States were finally accorded the right to vote in every state and in federal elections. It was a long time coming, starting out with Abigail Adams reminding her husband John to “remember the ladies” during the early days of the republic and progressing through generations of women working for the cause, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In commemoration, today is celebrated as Women’s Equality Day.

What is so disturbing is that equality is still a work in progress. The country is still struggling with basics like equal pay for equal work. Some people feel they should be allowed to interfere with women’s personal health decisions. Women have higher rates of poverty. More women are low-wage workers, even though women have higher education levels. The work that women have traditionally done caring for home and family is not considered part of the economy of the country, unless someone else is being paid (poorly) to do it. Women are in only a small portion of leadership roles in government, companies, and educational institutions. Few jobs offer the flexibility that women want to both make a living and have a life.

Policies that would help bring greater equality to women would help men, too. Many men would benefit from greater workplace flexibility and initiatives such as paying a living wage. When will we celebrate a Women’s Equality Day in recognition of having achieved that goal, instead of as a commemoration of women’s suffrage?

 

Discovering my “Great posts worth seeing”

I often use the “Great posts worth seeing” list when other bloggers like or comment on my posts as a way to connect and find out what their blogs are about.  I had wondered what showed up on my list and now – at least for today – I know.

For the record, I did go back to HarsH ReaLiTy and manage to remove the “like” from my own comment. I’ll leave that to other people. 😉

Re-gaining my bearings

When I last posted, I was feeling overwhelmed by – well – everything.

I’ve been working on finding some hope amid the chaos, with help from many people and their words.

My friend and spiritual companion Yvonne sent words of wisdom from Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Pat, another spiritual sister, posted a prayer from Julia Seymour. Sister Simone Campbell and NETWORK continue their call for peace and care for all people, especially those on the margins or at risk from violence and deprivation. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Professor Robert Reich continued their progressive statements that “promote the general welfare” as the U.S. Constitution states. I started reading Franciscan Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond.

Improvement in family situations has helped, too. My parents have made progress in their continuing recovery from health challenges. Our younger daughter completed orientation for grad school with classes beginning on Monday. Our son-in-law completed his PhD comprehensive exams, despite a computer dying at the worst possible time.

This morning, we sang Benedictine Delores Dufner’s  “Sing a New Church” which begins as a call for Christian unity but expands to envision peace and justice among nations and all peoples. It reminded me that, while many of my values come to me through the Catholic Christian tradition, at their core, they parallel those of all people of good will, whether or not they follow a spiritual practice.

The common thread is to concentrate on and uphold goodness, peace, love, and justice. These are much more common, much more the norm than their opposites. The violent, the intolerant, the exploitative are loud and try to control the conversation and other people, but we must not mistake that they are few in number. Obviously, it is not easy for those of good will around the world to subdue those bent on destruction and abuse of power, but we can and must prevail, each doing our part, however small, in our own lives.

numb again

I have several topics for posts hanging out in my draft folder and a few more rattling around in my head. Also, poems that need attention and revision. But I can’t manage to get any of them in a fit state to post.

There is just too much right now. James Foley. Ferguson as shorthand for racism. More violence and atrocities in the Middle East than can be counted. Severe storms and wildfires and drought and blights and disease. A national government that can’t even manage to pass desperately needed legislation. Hunger. Poverty. Pollution.

I could make the list much longer and add personal distractions, too, but it wouldn’t really matter. My brain can’t find any way to make order out of the chaos.

Maybe I’m not meant to find order or insight or solutions or just the right hopeful words today.

I’ll just handle whatever the day brings – bringing Mom to her doctor’s appointment, checking in on my daughters and son-in-law, sharing dinner with my spouse, saying a prayer for all those who are in need – all billions of us – and trying to sleep so that maybe I can do a bit more tomorrow.

One-Liner Wednesday: Eve Merriam quote

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, Mother, what was war?
–  Eve Merriam

join in with Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays:  http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/one-liner-wednesday-theoretically/

From Susan Cushman – Mental Health Monday: Modern Art, Mandalas, and Origami

http://susancushman.com/mental-health-monday-modern-art-mandalas-and-origami/

While I am busy helping out family and catching up on things, I am blessed to have great blogger-friends with wisdom to share. I hope you will enjoy Susan’s wonderful post on the place that visual arts can take in a writer’s life.

This post reminds me of my friend Yvonne, who is a visual artist and spritiual companion and has done so much to give others opportunities to express themselves through the arts. And of my friend Chrstine who is about a decade older than Susan but who also loves to color and share spiritually with friends and family. And of my daughter Trinity who loves origami, especially making cranes and birds, and has gifted many people with origami she has made.

When the Circle of Life Feels More Like a Box

A beautiful reflection on grief and friendship from a high school friend who has recently begun blogging.

jazzyjeweljude's avatarjazzyjeweljude

IMG_439808736277A dear friend of mine lost his mother this week. The moments of death & grief unfold unexpectedly yet predictably. That is, not knowing when or how they will arrive, they will come. And as a close friend who, as any of us do, wants to help ease the pain, I realize such skill doesn’t always easily come. And maybe it’s not suppose to. I can think of no more solitary journey than that of grief. Being surrounded by love, family and friends cannot, nor should it, alleviate that sacred walk along immortality and mortality, finite and infinite. Life and death. We all breathe it everyday, witness it ad nauseum through news media which desensitizes us with over sensationalism giving little to no regard for the sanctity of life and death. And the most difficult observation while grieving is the harsh realization that life around us marches on. How is…

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inclusion

This morning’s service was one of the most inclusive I have attended in a long time. I won’t name the church or the priest, who was a visitor, for his protection, as the freedom with which he treated the mass texts would land him in hot water with the bishop, although, interestingly, I doubt Pope Francis would bat an eye.

The gospel story (Mathew 15:21-28) was about the Canaanite woman who begs Jesus to save her daughter who is tormented by a demon. At first, Jesus ignores her and the disciples want her to be sent away, yet she persists in her request. Jesus finally says that he has come only for the children of Israel, that it isn’t right to throw the children’s food to the dogs. She answers that even the dogs eat the scraps from the master’s table and Jesus says that her daughter will be healed because of her faith.

I think, though, that what the woman exhibited more strongly than faith was maternal love. I’ve been in the situation of having a sick daughter and know what it feels like to pursue anyone or anything to help your child, even if you have to go against society’s norms to do so. A woman in that culture would not be permitted to approach and talk to a Jewish man, much less follow after him, calling out and begging, but she did it to save her beloved daughter.

In Matthew’s account of the story, even Jesus is a bit slow to recognize that God’s love is universal, that this woman and her daughter are as precious and valuable as Jewish persons are. The priest made this point clear, not only through his homily but also throughout all the prayers of the mass, weaving in references to God’s love for all beings and our own call to love and care for every person without regard to any difference of belief, ethnicity, race, body size, ability, or any other characteristic.

I so appreciated the message and the elegantly consistent way in which it was woven into the mass. That I knew that he, like the Canaanite woman, was bending the rules to do so, was a satisfying delight.

SoCS – time management

I wasn’t sure I was going to have time to do this today because we were moving our daughter to Syracuse in time to begin her grad school orientation on Monday. But we are back home with a bit of time before bed, so I’ll give it a go.

We are back to being empty nesters and I’m hoping to take this opportunity to re-vamp how I spend my time. On weekdays, I will now have 9-10 hours of time on my own, with no one else in the house. I’m hoping to spend some more time exercising. I also hope to be more intentional with my writing time, although I’m not sure how the balance will work out between my blog, my poetry, my personal correspondence, and my comment/advocacy writing on fracking, other environmental issues, and various social justice/progressive causes. I need to put in more time on submitting poetry to journals, hoping that, some day someone will say yes.

I also hope to spend more time with my parents in person, rather than by phone. And I need to spend some time helping at the church library.

There will be a few changes for our evenings, too. Probably lighter dinners with a follow-up walk, weather permitting. And maybe an earlier bedtime.

But not tonight. It’s been a long, exhausting summer and I need a bit more time to unwind before I can fall asleep.

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This post is part of  Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-1614/ This week’s prompt is “time.”

One-Liner Wednesday – George Washington Carver quote

“How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong, because someday in life you would have been all of these.”
– George Washington Carver

This is part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday:  http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/one-liner-wednesday-now/ Join us! It’s fun!