My sister is my oldest, closest friend—and right now they are recovering from an extensive, life-saving surgery. They are so on my heart in this moment that I think any prompt you offered, Pádraig, I would associate to them and my relationship with them. I can also see how my entire adult relationship with them is a kind of objection turned into art and language.
We have been collaborating together for sixteen years on art and writing. At the start, our art together was a loose experiment that was well received. As we kept at it, we confronted the way our childhood troubles shaped our relationship in ways that felt so bad. We grew up with the message that we had to be great. Attention was the currency, and it was fleeting. We had to try to catch it with our wit, talent, intelligence, or beauty. We had to compete. Our lives depended on this. We objected to this. We wanted our genius to be more mysterious than all that. We wanted to create because it was a joy and the soul’s necessity to do so. So we chose to center our artistic practice on the practice of loving each other better. We make calendars, so every year we revisit this intention. Protesting any occurrence that would leave us feeling splintered, we have faced so many interpersonal fires and have forged the most beautiful relationship
I feel the spirit of that protest now, too. We are deep in the process of making the calendar for 2027, even as the future feels so hard to see.
Jo, the incandescent love within this. Sixteen years of choosing each other differently than you were taught. To build something gorgeous out of that. I am sending all of the good juju to you and your beloved sister.
Thank you, Lisa Marie! Right after I got your message I heard from them in the hospital—they’re getting stronger everyday and I think your juju is already helping.
Wow. "Attention was the currency, and it was fleeting." This line really speaks to me. That was the same for me and, I think, for my parents too, when they were young. Will be sitting with this one for while - your words have opened my eyes a bit wider. Thank you for sharing your beautiful reflection.
Thank for this, Jo. I wasn’t sure how to respond to this until I read your piece and your comment that your entire adult relationships were turned into an objection on how you were raised, reaching and creating something different. Beautiful! I find echos of your story in my own life. Thank you for helping me reframe my experience.
Yes, I find myself wishing I had a story to share about my role in the wider world, but then I remembered it is all very intricately connected. I’m glad to be connecting with you in this.
So grateful to have the magic of you and Corina's resistance and resilience adorning my walls year after year — thank you! (Everyone should check out Abacus Corvus Artwork!)
I love making calendars, too. For me, it's something to do with moving ahead through time yet circling back around. Seasons. Life plotted on a graph. Keeping track of the full moons. You got me imagining a portrayal of 2027--indeed, the future is hard to see, but if we continue to love each other better, and pursue the possibility of the world we want to see, it will happen because we make it happen. . .
Yes, Ellen! We playfully started a Time Travelers Union this year because of our many years of calendar making-as-time travel. And your imagining for 2027 echoes our own—we are creating the future right now.
There was a hate crime murder of an undocumented 34 year old Latino man at the hands on seven local high school teenagers in Patchogue, Long Island in 2007. It took place while we were having a Peace Concert at my church a few blocks away. The murder was fable-ized by authorities who dismissed it as an aberration. A one-off. I presided at the funeral of Marcelo Lucero. It began two-year effort to face the truth and a fight to declare it a hate crime. At the Congregational Church of Patchogue, where I am pastor still, we hosted films, art exhibits, poetry readings, concerts, traditional Ecuadorean dance performances, and silence retreats. It was a national news story. My life was threatened many times (documented by police) because I “took their side” and was fanning the flames of a non-story. My own teenage son warned me not to eat at a restaurant on Main Street because I “would be eating spit.” We held an event where other victims (whose attacks were mislabeled by police to avoid scrutiny) were invited to tell their stories. I had an NPR reporter record their statements (names withheld). The hard drive was subpoenaed by the federal Justice Department and an investigation was opened. Over 100 police department violations and recommendations were in the final report. But now, almost 20 years later and after many positive changes occurred, ICE is back, Latinos are in hiding, Latino guests at our soup kitchen are down, and even attendance and artist participation at our upcoming Amazonian art exhibit and traditional dance performance is expected to be down. This, to me, is a sickening déjà vu. But I, and many others, will continue this struggle as long as I draw breath. Art, poetry, music, and dance helped keep the story real. The talking heads and make-it-look-better-than-it-is committees are trying and succeeding in many ways to deal with the past. But not so much to deal with the present and the future. I feel like we are going backward in many ways. The boards in the floor are warping. I feel I am sometimes sinking in quicksand. But stories like this, Padraig, lift me up and quicken my heart. It helps me to recommit. We remember. We lament. We change. We prevail. And now I finish my morning coffee and go to church where I will deliver a sermon on the Sower and the Seeds. May we cast our seeds on fertile soil. Peace When Possible, Dwight Lee Wolter
Dwight, thank you for being a generous sower. Thank you for being good soil. Thank you for being an attentive gardener who gets up every morning (after coffee, of course!) and tends steadfastly to his garden people. Out here in Huntington and all across the Island there is, as you say, this sickening deja vu. And there are countless gardeners here doing work that must be done to sow peace and dignity. In solidarity.
Dwight, the Déjà vu you refer to resonates with me. A few weeks ago we were in Dachau. As I read some ‘museum boards’ recounting the historical antecedents to the horrors of Dachau, I couldn’t help but recognize the many troubling and familiar themes broiling up and present (again) in our current times.
Yes. I have been to Dachau. There were many poets, priests, artists, gay people, disabled people, and other “useless eaters” among those held there. And yes, there are many “familiar themes” as you say that speak (or whisper) to today.
This is a hard post to "like". It's so terrible but I'm grateful you have kept the struggle alive, may grace, strength, and courage be with you always.
Thanks, Beth. That are many of us. Atrocities can cripple us or inspire us to change. This story that Padraig featured is a prime example. It worked far better than the summer morning coffee I was sipping while reading it.
We wouldn't behave like those in Pádraig's heart-wrenching story, would we? We're better than that now, aren't we? Aren't we ...
Dwight, you are brave enough to remind us that we aren't. There are those who, like you, seek to sow peace. Unfortunately, there are others who seek to sow division, on my British side of the Atlantic as well as in US.
You know who you are. You don't like people you call 'immigrants', conveniently forgetting we are all immigrants. We all originate from other places, other continents even. We are all human; let's not forget it.
Peace, love and continued strength to you. Thank you for sharing this witness and beautiful resistance. We remember. “We lament. We change. We prevail. “— This resonates with me as I travel in Peru listening to stories of resistance and resilience. We must repeat these stories in community, lament, grieve, hold one another up, celebrate the wins, and keep going. Listen to elders and ancestors. Spend time in nature. Know our own truths. Que les vaya bien- sigue la lucha.
"sickening déjà vu" indeed. A remarkable and inspiring story. My heart (and solidarity) goes out to you and all your family and community. My life has been guided by the example of folks like you and your community (and still is).
Without giving too many details, a while ago I had to make one of the hardest decisions and take action against the actions of a close family member which meant signaling the child protection services. Being a witness and normalising the abnormal was no longer an option. I have faith that in the near or distant future, the children - now that they have returned to genuine normality - will grow to see and understand that they were seen. Eyes were not averted and actions were not bestowed to the useless "Let's hope that..." or "God will see to it" - two Romanian refrains that have cost too much to too many people.
Courage is the right word. Very courageous but, to judge from your description, very necessary. And Ioana, this doesn't just happen in Romania, sad to say. I salute you..
I'm part of a generation that was not seen. People closed their eyes because they didn't know any different. We grew up in the "in between" of conflicts and abuse. I left, became a teacher and spent that last 18 years amongst teenagers. Every time I was visiting, all I could see was just history being repeated. Some family members were not capable admitting to it because it would've meant admitting to their own violence and abuse. The courage came only because I left and saw a different world.
Joana, sometimes just loving the children is not enough. I hope that you can maintain a loving presence in their lives. May all your students learn this Great Lesson of love from you, as well as the school curriculum lessons you teach.
Thank you, Patty. I hope so too; maybe when they will be a bit older. As for my students, that's the main lesson that I always wanted to teach - of Love and Wonder; the curriculum is just a channel.
Hello everyone! Writing from the car, heading to the sea, so please forgive me for keeping it brief (and perhaps a bit scattered) this week!
Thank you, Pádraig, for this beautiful and weighty prompt.
This essay wrote itself. I hadn't planned it. After George Floyd's murder, something cracked open, and people from my Colorado childhood began reaching out; newly curious, newly troubled. Friends who were asking me what it was like growing up in Boulder, if I had ever experienced racism.
Their bafflement moved my pen. The gap between what I had lived and what others had chosen to see. And it still feels terribly relevant with current events in the US. Writing it opened conversations with people I'd gone to school with. Uncomfortable ones. Necessary ones.
That felt like the whole point. Not to accuse, but to bear witness.
Which is what I also hear in Kimberly Campanello's work. A page for each child. The paper dropped to the floor. Presence as protest.
Reading your story I'm clenched with sadness. For I have a mirror opposite. When Colin Kapernik started taking the knee I found myself in confrontation with my school classmates. I tried to tell them if they devalued lives where would it lead? It was an abrupt end to many connections.
“The gap between what I had lived and what others had chosen to see.” I recently read “Fire in the Heartland”. It speaks to the history of the Klan in Indiana, the heartland. Your essay is another of necessary, uncomfortable discussions of racism.
I’ve listened to the first half of the Kimberly Campanello interview part two, and the recitation of part of MOTHERBABYHOME was incredible and gut wrenching. The power that she invokes and her voice imbued with all of the questioning, anger, and sadness was truly a soul stirring exploration. I will try to watch the performance all the way through but I know I’ll have to take it in pieces.
My poetics of witness and defiance emerged in the aftermath of an attack on my school by a young man armed with an assault rifle. I was in the school library at the time and heard and aw the bullets flying into the widows and the sky bridge directly opposite me. I ran for cover and took shelter with two of my students and my colleague. There is more to state of the experience of lockdown for about 4 hours and subsequent evacuation. But after all was said and done, and weeks of fear and healing had passed I demanded that we hold a reentry ceremony for the school community. I organized a priest, a rabbi, an imam and a pastor to bear witness and give blessings. Members of the community that were musicians led us in song, and I composed and read my poem ‘There is Nothing but Life Here’. It was an experience of public poetics and the confrontation of evil I hope to never experience again though I am glad I know that I have the power to do it.
I am a former public school teacher. I can imagine your fear, your anger, your heartache, your desire to help the school community heal. Your poem and re-entry ceremony are so full of love for the students, staff, and community, and yourself. They were a wise, courageous, and compassion-filled gift that surely must be treasured by many who participated in the ceremony.
What a poignant, powerful poem, Sean! Your images are haunting, yet real. And your message “this is a war on humanity” speaks the damn truth. Thank you for sharing your poem — and for being “strong, generous, and brave.”
Sean, I am sorry you and your school community went through that. Thank you for realizing the need for acknowledging what happened with space and grace for moving forward.
Phew. Deeply moving, Padraig, thankyou for sharing. Adding your interview to my research list for my Living Grief Project. What will eventually become a collaborative touring show with music, poetry, story, and a participatory installation... began (in one of its beginnings) from this objection:
My wonderful friend and artist Georgia Shine shared heartbreaking and beautiful posts online about her experience with miscarriage of her daughter Lily - including some beautiful black and white photos of her & her partner holding their daughter's small body. Among the many loving and supportive comments were some who asked her to take down the post or images. I felt such a fire rise up in me, I was going to write to her privately but ended up making a long comment on the post, in support of her right to express and share about her experience and her grief. I couldn't believe that people would dare comment in her moment of vulnerability (which was also deeply supportive for many others who felt seen and less alone in their own experiences) and imply that her sharing was somehow harmful.
It was yet another example of my culture's unwillingness to face anything uncomfortable, the shadows and underworld journeys that are part of life. The "ssshh, you musn't speak about unpleasant things" that was inherent in my family, too. Another artist friend gave me the idea to do a show about Grief, and witnessing Georgia's journey lit the fire within me. It's now become such a beautiful creative development over the past couple of years, and continues to give me such a nourishing sense of purpose as I work towards the eventual show.
I've written 3 grief songs so far for the project (you can listen to one on my most recent post) and participated in an artist residency in ancient rainforest here in Tasmania, threatened by logging, which has been my in-road to environmental activism, a path I am just at the start of but so excited to continue for the rest of my life, with deep love and fiery objection. <3
This prompt Padraig is a gift. The importance of speaking and writing about the unspeakable is essential for all of us to heal, a collective prayer and honoring. I have been speaking and writing about clergy sexual abuse since 1991 when my husband and I filed one of the first lawsuits with the Diocese of Madison in Wisconsin about a pedophile priest, Lawrence Trainer, who is on the credibly accused list here. At the precious age of 7, I was groomed and horrifically raped by him. He had been a priest for over 25 years, abusing and raping children from parish to parish. I am an activist on this issue, sharing my poetry, opinion pieces, training investigators now on this horrible truth. Men with Roman collars sexually abused children for decades. Continuing to talk about this truth among all and work for justice is essential. All predatory and violent truths, all priests named who have harmed, needs to be brought to the light for healing. Truth and reconciliation action is essential within the church and in our society for children and families to feel safe and free. Poetry saved my soul. My Grandmother read us poetry throughout her life and she lived to be 103. The nourishing and beauty of poetic truths- the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beauty- all woven together is a balm for my soul today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing up and sharing what is so very important to honor- the suffering of children.
I feel so horribly for your plight, Patricia. I am so sorry for what you endured. I find it impossible to believe that the denial, countersuits, bankruptcy to avoid payouts to victims, etc., by the Catholic church is wrapped in a veneer of compassion and pastoral prayers.
Thank you Dwight. I feel your support and compassion and I'm grateful. "Wrapped in a veneer of compassion and pastoral prayers" is a perfect summary of what they, the hierarchy, want us to believe. Yet, making amends, telling the whole truth is essential for healing and the men in charge have not made amends from where I sit, I stand. It is wrong and disgusting to preach love and kindness while behind closed doors the horrific unresolved pains of the past within the Catholic church are not disclosed, talked about, processed to the degree for all to integrate, heal, and forgive. It's time. With more of us speaking up the truth rises, the light heals, while pain dissipates and evil is confronted and released. I hope. I pray.
I don’t know if you saw it, but my response, earlier in this thread of comments, is about a hate crime murder and the superficial accountability of the government that was meant to look good while also trying to make it go away as quickly as possible.
Well that was a gut punch of a prompt. For quite some time I've been wondering if I should tell some of my story. Would it help others? How clean is the impulse to open this up? Why search for recognition? Is there any way to assure there is no impact on the person most concerned? I think baby homes were largely a thing of the past by the time I was a candidate for one. An odd informal one was pieced together for me. I wasn't incarcerated but economics meant I had nowhere else to go. Because social work decided I had ten dollars too much in savings I was ineligible for any assistance. Perhaps that might change if I agreed to conract with their adoption service. That seemed to be the implied verdict. But given their procedures, (at least three months in institutional care for my newborn before any chance of adoption) I decided over my dead body. However in truth the only way I could afford the medical care to give birth was to relinquish my child. That's how cruel US policy is -- an invisible omnipresent mother baby lack of shelter.
It is about the toughest things you can ask a person to do and it leaves a shadow of shame you cannot outlive, with the sense no one can possibly relate to you.
But there is some light to relate: I kept a journal to my unborn child that was a saving grace, through peace activitsm I somehow maintained I found people who helped me work through the first Open adoption (this is mid 80s) in that state. My child went straight from my hands into the hands of parents I chose. And there is an incredible kick ass woman making a world of difference out there who occasionally spends time with me. My act of protest? Eight months pregnant I walked into the convent universities library and knocked down their "pro-life" display, I was hauled before the expulsion board and wrote this poem
“What did you mean by that statement?” A few months ago, a close relative casually made what I thought was a disparaging statement about my son. I think it was his attempt at trying to be humorous. It took awhile for his comment to register with me, but I knew it made me feel uncomfortable. After mulling it over, I decided to call him the next day and, without accusation, ask the question that I started this reflection with. Our conversation was a good one. He apologized and said he certainly didn’t mean to be disparaging. Yes, it was a misguided attempt at humor. We both had our say; the air was cleared. Asking a non threatening question cannot only be an effective means at resolving conflicts, it can often lead to deeper bonds as well.
I'm glad you chose "mulling it over" and not simply stewing in it. And choosing a thoughtful, curious question rather than reaction. At this moment I have two instances where I wish I had practiced this. And the day has hardly started!! How do you get to skillful resolution of conflicts and deeper bonds? Practice, practice, practice!!! :) Thank you.
What a dreadful thing when people do evil in the name of a good God. 😔
Just so God doesn't get a bad wrap, I was once driving home at night through a low-socio economic suburb in Brisbane, Australia; when I passed two lads on the side of the road. I felt an inner compulsion to turn the car around and go speak to them. I occasionally get this promoting, and I've found (more often than not) it's fruitful to listen to it. I ended up approaching them and having a conversation. I spoke to them about God from the parable of the Prodigal Son, and then prayed for them both. After this, they admitted they were out tonight to enact revenge on someone, but after this encounter they decided that they would be going back home instead. These occasions don't happen often for me, but when they do, I'm thankful and rejoicing in God's grace to save and not to harm. Those poor babies in the story. 😔
Babies. Without objection, I have served as empathetic witness to the grief of many parents whose little ones died, either in utero or shortly after. Once, I baptized a baby in the pathology lab, she couldn't be brought to her mother in the post-op. The nurses, technicians, and I named her and held her in holy reverence. After, when the mother asked me, "Was she beautiful?" I answered honestly, "So beautiful."
I won't go into too many details, but a number of years ago I was working in a Christian organization that served young people. The program director had/has a chip on his shoulder about LGBTQ+ issues, and he sent out a weeklong homophobic program about those issues that we were expected to deliver to the young people we worked with. Enough of us objected that the director was forced to call a meeting and ultimately exchange that week's program for something else. It felt terrifying to speak up, but then, hearing about half of my coworkers, who I would not have guessed were LGBTQ+ affirming, speak up gave me so much hope, as did seeing that many of us were willing to threaten to walk away from our jobs to protect the kids in our care.
"My question to you this week: Can you tell us a time when your objection prompted action — whether in language, art, form, protest, law, or another form? Tell us about your motivation, any obstacles you overcame, and what form you used for your witness."
I have protested and organized with others outside government many times, from the Civil Rights Movement on -- but I don't know if those particular protest actions had an impact. The Movements themselves did, certainly.
This will sound prosaic in a forum devoted to poetry -- but my strongest impacts on things I objected to happened WITHIN government. And those actions were generally based on research, rather than moral outrage and protest.
One was a 50% increase in the amount of publicly funded substance abuse treatment, based on my division's research that showed the medical, social, and criminal justice cost impacts of NOT providing enough treatment. That research was done, communicated to the other government agencies that experienced those increased costs, and demonstrated to legislative staff and the Legislature itself. Then the improvements in outcomes resulting in expanded treatment uptakes needed to be demonstrated to those same players.
The second was volunteer work on my County's Planning Commission, when we proposed rule changes to make it much easier for County planning staff to resist the ongoing developer pressure to ignore or minimize environmental risks. That work, along with participation in development proposals around us by my neighborhood association, led to major improvements in the ways water flows increased by more impervious roofs, roads, and sidewalks were estimated and managed.
As a career “zoning administrator” working for our Board of Supervisors I was able to do much good in our community, and beyond. Ironic that I was more effective there than as an ordained elder in our church.
I started writing poems of protest about 2 months ago. I was sick of what was happening to our government and country. Here is a sample of my work. Peace ✌️ Packy (Pat) Paules
For the People
The people have spoken. It's time for a change.
The country has gone from sanity to the strange
People are protesting and carrying signs
We're sick of Steve Miller and his evil designs
We are tired of the news, waiting for the next shoe to fall
We are knocking on doors and making the call
Reminding our friends to vote in the fall
Check your eligibility now, at the town hall
We must tone down our rhetoric
To make sure that the message will stick
We're all responsible for keeping our government in check
We must build coalitions to stop this ship-wreck
There is a blue wave forming, in size and strength
Made up of the people, who'll go the extra length
Monuments aren't made to please one man's vanity
They are there to honor the heroic service to our country
He's razed the East Wing and has painted the Serenity pool
The costs to be paid by us, not this White House fool
We are a nation of many, not a select few
Trump only cares about the rich and not about you
The rewriting of the history of the black and the brown
Erasing their struggles for freedom and tearing monuments down
Tariffs make things more expensive for us to pay
They are raising the prices we pay every day
Don't forget the damage done by the DOGE axes
They didn't save us money or give us relief from our taxes
If you're one of the people struggling each day
Let the forefathers show you the way
Your vote is your power, and your right
Stop with the infighting and join the fight
Democracy demands we send Washington our best
Not the self-serving ones, they won't pass the test
November is coming, bringing a message of change
With hopes of saving the country and leading us out of the strange.
When school shootings took center stage in the news, I joined the Global Art Project in which a community expresses a vision of our hopes to embody a more peaceful future. After a murder in our small town, our Tree of Life was exchanged with Columbine HS in Colorado. Some years later, as part of an artist collective, we joined the Mexican-American community to create ofrendas honoring loved ones who had died in the past year. That week, a grandmother showed up in my therapy office, asking if we might help her family after the murder of her 4-year-old granddaughter. The artists came together to decorate a framed photo of the young girl with flowers and jewels and placed it on the ofrenda, recognizing brave women: Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, along with activists and journalists, some murdered while defending the poor in war-torn regions of the world. Women from the shelter showed up to add cardboard cut-outs of those who had been killed by the men in their lives. Many stories were exchanged that day among the camaraderie of music and food. The grandmother found me a few days later. “This beautiful way of honoring our child helped us begin to heal,” she told me. Their pain had been recognized instead of ignored or forgotten. New energy to address the community violence was born on that day.
Knowing when to create a ritual to honor a loved one……what a gift. Bless you and all your colleagues for honoring the child who died and all those dreams that died with her. Bless all who are living with wounded dreams - may they be reverenced into reality.
I grew up with a large extended family. Cousins were stratified by age in the way clouds are by altitude. I was a ‘little kid’, a stratus, who never was quite recognized as a developed ‘cloud’ in the family sky. In the presence of my matronly aunts, I always felt I was a ‘no-account kid’. In family gatherings my parents both wore inferiority like a soggy rain slicker with worn out water repellency.
My father was a ‘dirt farmer’, who bought out his father’s homestead. His father arrived in the dust of the settlers who attained plots in the fertile areas. My grandfather’s plot was in marginal land, deemed by the explorer John Palliser, to be too arid and barren for farming or civilization. Dearth was not the fruits of labour but of the semi-arid nature of the land.
My mother was, by Jane Austen's standards, “strict in her notions of decorum”. She was a teacher by training and a dirt farmer’s wife by vocation. She loved to read poetry and coached me in reciting. Memory work and reciting were a foundation of the early education she thrived on. Her siblings attained levels of fiscal achievement her husband’s land did not bestow on a dirt farmer’s wife.
I took easily to academics, learning to read long before school age by following along as my older sister practiced her learnings in the evenings.
School is more than academic learning and I never learned the steps to social belonging. Like a baby bear, I preferred climbing a tree to the branches of safety rather than than conversing with grade school colleagues. Here it wasn’t dearth that set me apart like it did in extended family settings. The land did not play favourites and few rose to prosperity. Simply, I was shy and my collegial environment was not studious. I loved paper and pencil but avoiding studies was the social climate. I drew. I hated parent-teacher interviews. I was always admonished by my teacher-housewife mother that I could do better if I only tried. Truth, and dearth, humiliated me.
At home, my gender humiliated me. I had arrived the second squalling female infant in a society where a female child was a liability, with prospects only of being shifted, in marriage, to the maintenance responsibility of another man who, as master, could glean what ever worth he found in a female.
It took me many decades of seething humiliation to grow into my wisdom teeth. I was not who they said I was. My worth was not in wealth nor in sufficiently serving a maintaining man.
I was drawn to the plight of children who did not attain academic or societal merit. I found worth in serving their humanity. I turned my paper and pencils to writing - poems mostly, and discovered that “the page is my council, my confidante loyalty. Its acceptance and silence is often pastoral. As Stephen Hawking’s famous quote states, "Quiet people have the loudest mind."
As an introvert, my page is my expression. My first book of poems spilled the ‘what, the why, the scars, and the early healing’. My second book spilled my urge to fight the oppression, and in some small way to shift its course. More recently my poems honour and celebrate forest & trees & all of nature that have been such a balm.
My sister is my oldest, closest friend—and right now they are recovering from an extensive, life-saving surgery. They are so on my heart in this moment that I think any prompt you offered, Pádraig, I would associate to them and my relationship with them. I can also see how my entire adult relationship with them is a kind of objection turned into art and language.
We have been collaborating together for sixteen years on art and writing. At the start, our art together was a loose experiment that was well received. As we kept at it, we confronted the way our childhood troubles shaped our relationship in ways that felt so bad. We grew up with the message that we had to be great. Attention was the currency, and it was fleeting. We had to try to catch it with our wit, talent, intelligence, or beauty. We had to compete. Our lives depended on this. We objected to this. We wanted our genius to be more mysterious than all that. We wanted to create because it was a joy and the soul’s necessity to do so. So we chose to center our artistic practice on the practice of loving each other better. We make calendars, so every year we revisit this intention. Protesting any occurrence that would leave us feeling splintered, we have faced so many interpersonal fires and have forged the most beautiful relationship
I feel the spirit of that protest now, too. We are deep in the process of making the calendar for 2027, even as the future feels so hard to see.
Jo, the incandescent love within this. Sixteen years of choosing each other differently than you were taught. To build something gorgeous out of that. I am sending all of the good juju to you and your beloved sister.
Thank you, Lisa Marie! Right after I got your message I heard from them in the hospital—they’re getting stronger everyday and I think your juju is already helping.
Wow. "Attention was the currency, and it was fleeting." This line really speaks to me. That was the same for me and, I think, for my parents too, when they were young. Will be sitting with this one for while - your words have opened my eyes a bit wider. Thank you for sharing your beautiful reflection.
Thank you, I’m glad to feel connected to you through shared experiences.
Thank for this, Jo. I wasn’t sure how to respond to this until I read your piece and your comment that your entire adult relationships were turned into an objection on how you were raised, reaching and creating something different. Beautiful! I find echos of your story in my own life. Thank you for helping me reframe my experience.
Yes, I find myself wishing I had a story to share about my role in the wider world, but then I remembered it is all very intricately connected. I’m glad to be connecting with you in this.
The ripple effect…who knows how our own healing and reframing affects the wider world.
Beautiful. Keep healing
So grateful to have the magic of you and Corina's resistance and resilience adorning my walls year after year — thank you! (Everyone should check out Abacus Corvus Artwork!)
Thank you for this super sweet shout out. We are so grateful for you, too <3
I hope your sister survives and thrives. I am so glad you have each other.
I love making calendars, too. For me, it's something to do with moving ahead through time yet circling back around. Seasons. Life plotted on a graph. Keeping track of the full moons. You got me imagining a portrayal of 2027--indeed, the future is hard to see, but if we continue to love each other better, and pursue the possibility of the world we want to see, it will happen because we make it happen. . .
What an interesting challenge to see calendar making as time traveling. It’s as good as one of Padraig’s poetry prompts!
Yes, Ellen! We playfully started a Time Travelers Union this year because of our many years of calendar making-as-time travel. And your imagining for 2027 echoes our own—we are creating the future right now.
There was a hate crime murder of an undocumented 34 year old Latino man at the hands on seven local high school teenagers in Patchogue, Long Island in 2007. It took place while we were having a Peace Concert at my church a few blocks away. The murder was fable-ized by authorities who dismissed it as an aberration. A one-off. I presided at the funeral of Marcelo Lucero. It began two-year effort to face the truth and a fight to declare it a hate crime. At the Congregational Church of Patchogue, where I am pastor still, we hosted films, art exhibits, poetry readings, concerts, traditional Ecuadorean dance performances, and silence retreats. It was a national news story. My life was threatened many times (documented by police) because I “took their side” and was fanning the flames of a non-story. My own teenage son warned me not to eat at a restaurant on Main Street because I “would be eating spit.” We held an event where other victims (whose attacks were mislabeled by police to avoid scrutiny) were invited to tell their stories. I had an NPR reporter record their statements (names withheld). The hard drive was subpoenaed by the federal Justice Department and an investigation was opened. Over 100 police department violations and recommendations were in the final report. But now, almost 20 years later and after many positive changes occurred, ICE is back, Latinos are in hiding, Latino guests at our soup kitchen are down, and even attendance and artist participation at our upcoming Amazonian art exhibit and traditional dance performance is expected to be down. This, to me, is a sickening déjà vu. But I, and many others, will continue this struggle as long as I draw breath. Art, poetry, music, and dance helped keep the story real. The talking heads and make-it-look-better-than-it-is committees are trying and succeeding in many ways to deal with the past. But not so much to deal with the present and the future. I feel like we are going backward in many ways. The boards in the floor are warping. I feel I am sometimes sinking in quicksand. But stories like this, Padraig, lift me up and quicken my heart. It helps me to recommit. We remember. We lament. We change. We prevail. And now I finish my morning coffee and go to church where I will deliver a sermon on the Sower and the Seeds. May we cast our seeds on fertile soil. Peace When Possible, Dwight Lee Wolter
Dwight, thank you for being a generous sower. Thank you for being good soil. Thank you for being an attentive gardener who gets up every morning (after coffee, of course!) and tends steadfastly to his garden people. Out here in Huntington and all across the Island there is, as you say, this sickening deja vu. And there are countless gardeners here doing work that must be done to sow peace and dignity. In solidarity.
Dwight, the Déjà vu you refer to resonates with me. A few weeks ago we were in Dachau. As I read some ‘museum boards’ recounting the historical antecedents to the horrors of Dachau, I couldn’t help but recognize the many troubling and familiar themes broiling up and present (again) in our current times.
Yes. I have been to Dachau. There were many poets, priests, artists, gay people, disabled people, and other “useless eaters” among those held there. And yes, there are many “familiar themes” as you say that speak (or whisper) to today.
This is a hard post to "like". It's so terrible but I'm grateful you have kept the struggle alive, may grace, strength, and courage be with you always.
Thanks, Beth. That are many of us. Atrocities can cripple us or inspire us to change. This story that Padraig featured is a prime example. It worked far better than the summer morning coffee I was sipping while reading it.
We wouldn't behave like those in Pádraig's heart-wrenching story, would we? We're better than that now, aren't we? Aren't we ...
Dwight, you are brave enough to remind us that we aren't. There are those who, like you, seek to sow peace. Unfortunately, there are others who seek to sow division, on my British side of the Atlantic as well as in US.
You know who you are. You don't like people you call 'immigrants', conveniently forgetting we are all immigrants. We all originate from other places, other continents even. We are all human; let's not forget it.
Amen.
Peace, love and continued strength to you. Thank you for sharing this witness and beautiful resistance. We remember. “We lament. We change. We prevail. “— This resonates with me as I travel in Peru listening to stories of resistance and resilience. We must repeat these stories in community, lament, grieve, hold one another up, celebrate the wins, and keep going. Listen to elders and ancestors. Spend time in nature. Know our own truths. Que les vaya bien- sigue la lucha.
Yes. Lest we burnout.
Thank you. I see and feel the floor boards warping, too.
It does feel like we are going back in time. The beauty is in the struggle. Peace and strength to you.
Yes. The beauty and the burnout. I hope we can pace ourselves.
"sickening déjà vu" indeed. A remarkable and inspiring story. My heart (and solidarity) goes out to you and all your family and community. My life has been guided by the example of folks like you and your community (and still is).
Dwight, you were heard!
Thank you for your fierceness and testimony. You are indeed planting essential seeds of in me and many others
Peace and other blessings to you, Julien.
Without giving too many details, a while ago I had to make one of the hardest decisions and take action against the actions of a close family member which meant signaling the child protection services. Being a witness and normalising the abnormal was no longer an option. I have faith that in the near or distant future, the children - now that they have returned to genuine normality - will grow to see and understand that they were seen. Eyes were not averted and actions were not bestowed to the useless "Let's hope that..." or "God will see to it" - two Romanian refrains that have cost too much to too many people.
Courage is the right word. Very courageous but, to judge from your description, very necessary. And Ioana, this doesn't just happen in Romania, sad to say. I salute you..
I'm part of a generation that was not seen. People closed their eyes because they didn't know any different. We grew up in the "in between" of conflicts and abuse. I left, became a teacher and spent that last 18 years amongst teenagers. Every time I was visiting, all I could see was just history being repeated. Some family members were not capable admitting to it because it would've meant admitting to their own violence and abuse. The courage came only because I left and saw a different world.
very important and necessary -- and difficult!
Thankyou for your courage
That was real courage.
Joana, sometimes just loving the children is not enough. I hope that you can maintain a loving presence in their lives. May all your students learn this Great Lesson of love from you, as well as the school curriculum lessons you teach.
Thank you, Patty. I hope so too; maybe when they will be a bit older. As for my students, that's the main lesson that I always wanted to teach - of Love and Wonder; the curriculum is just a channel.
Hello everyone! Writing from the car, heading to the sea, so please forgive me for keeping it brief (and perhaps a bit scattered) this week!
Thank you, Pádraig, for this beautiful and weighty prompt.
This essay wrote itself. I hadn't planned it. After George Floyd's murder, something cracked open, and people from my Colorado childhood began reaching out; newly curious, newly troubled. Friends who were asking me what it was like growing up in Boulder, if I had ever experienced racism.
Their bafflement moved my pen. The gap between what I had lived and what others had chosen to see. And it still feels terribly relevant with current events in the US. Writing it opened conversations with people I'd gone to school with. Uncomfortable ones. Necessary ones.
That felt like the whole point. Not to accuse, but to bear witness.
Which is what I also hear in Kimberly Campanello's work. A page for each child. The paper dropped to the floor. Presence as protest.
Wishing all of you an inspired week. Now, I am off to be kissed by the sun. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-daughter-kkk-grandfather_n_6026d078c5b6741597e1ce6b
Reading your story I'm clenched with sadness. For I have a mirror opposite. When Colin Kapernik started taking the knee I found myself in confrontation with my school classmates. I tried to tell them if they devalued lives where would it lead? It was an abrupt end to many connections.
So difficult Beth. The weight of our unfathomable history…
Full disclosure. I'm white, but my beautiful children aren't.
“The gap between what I had lived and what others had chosen to see.” I recently read “Fire in the Heartland”. It speaks to the history of the Klan in Indiana, the heartland. Your essay is another of necessary, uncomfortable discussions of racism.
Thank you Elaine. Conversations we must have…
I will be coming back to this essay soon, Lisa Marie.. the title alone has me bearing witness to pain. I love that you are headed to sea.
Jo, thank you. The title was actually the editor (looking for those clicks), but I stand by the essay!
I’ve listened to the first half of the Kimberly Campanello interview part two, and the recitation of part of MOTHERBABYHOME was incredible and gut wrenching. The power that she invokes and her voice imbued with all of the questioning, anger, and sadness was truly a soul stirring exploration. I will try to watch the performance all the way through but I know I’ll have to take it in pieces.
My poetics of witness and defiance emerged in the aftermath of an attack on my school by a young man armed with an assault rifle. I was in the school library at the time and heard and aw the bullets flying into the widows and the sky bridge directly opposite me. I ran for cover and took shelter with two of my students and my colleague. There is more to state of the experience of lockdown for about 4 hours and subsequent evacuation. But after all was said and done, and weeks of fear and healing had passed I demanded that we hold a reentry ceremony for the school community. I organized a priest, a rabbi, an imam and a pastor to bear witness and give blessings. Members of the community that were musicians led us in song, and I composed and read my poem ‘There is Nothing but Life Here’. It was an experience of public poetics and the confrontation of evil I hope to never experience again though I am glad I know that I have the power to do it.
An amazing and beautiful response to that violence. May we all learn from your example.
That took such heart. It's an immensely encouraging story.
The idea of a reentry ceremony was inspired.
An inspiring and important action, Sean. Thank you for sharing. I’d love to read your poem.
Thank you Michael.
Here it is:
There Is Nothing But Life Here
In remembrance of the school shooting at the Edmund Burke School on April 22, 2022
Crack
A hard rain falls,
turning sunlight
into a prismatic shower.
As time loses its axis,
every step
is imbued with history,
every hole in the glass
becomes a galaxy,
every widened pupil
a black hole—
echoing:
I’m scared.
I’m scared.
I’m scared.
And I call back:
Come to me.
Come to me.
Come to me.
I will protect you.
For the first time
in a long time
life—that ever elusive concept
is real,
because you are real.
The child is real.
Every moment we are together
is all of human history.
Every step
we take together
along the floor,
out the door,
and into secluded darkness
with others seeking shelter
from the terrible storm.
What we share
in this dark moment
is the clarity of tragedy.
We are young.
We are old.
We are storytellers.
We are builders and shapers of reality.
We are beautiful.
And we are terribly fragile.
When we endure together,
we share the fear and the pain
and make this bearable,
because we—
we
are!
And damn it
if this doesn’t hurt.
I’ve greeted the morning with tears,
and at night, in my dreams,
bullets pierce the sky
and children are stolen away.
But I dare not lose this time,
because this is how it all changes.
We can’t push this away,
bury it in the dust of statistics,
or the narrative of mental illness,
and rising crime or gun violence.
This is not a culture war.
This is a war on humanity,
and the lines are clear—
The craven, the greedy, and the weak
are on the side of death!
The strong, the generous, and the brave
are on the side of life,
and there is nothing but life here!
I am a former public school teacher. I can imagine your fear, your anger, your heartache, your desire to help the school community heal. Your poem and re-entry ceremony are so full of love for the students, staff, and community, and yourself. They were a wise, courageous, and compassion-filled gift that surely must be treasured by many who participated in the ceremony.
What a poignant, powerful poem, Sean! Your images are haunting, yet real. And your message “this is a war on humanity” speaks the damn truth. Thank you for sharing your poem — and for being “strong, generous, and brave.”
Sean, I am sorry you and your school community went through that. Thank you for realizing the need for acknowledging what happened with space and grace for moving forward.
Phew. Deeply moving, Padraig, thankyou for sharing. Adding your interview to my research list for my Living Grief Project. What will eventually become a collaborative touring show with music, poetry, story, and a participatory installation... began (in one of its beginnings) from this objection:
My wonderful friend and artist Georgia Shine shared heartbreaking and beautiful posts online about her experience with miscarriage of her daughter Lily - including some beautiful black and white photos of her & her partner holding their daughter's small body. Among the many loving and supportive comments were some who asked her to take down the post or images. I felt such a fire rise up in me, I was going to write to her privately but ended up making a long comment on the post, in support of her right to express and share about her experience and her grief. I couldn't believe that people would dare comment in her moment of vulnerability (which was also deeply supportive for many others who felt seen and less alone in their own experiences) and imply that her sharing was somehow harmful.
It was yet another example of my culture's unwillingness to face anything uncomfortable, the shadows and underworld journeys that are part of life. The "ssshh, you musn't speak about unpleasant things" that was inherent in my family, too. Another artist friend gave me the idea to do a show about Grief, and witnessing Georgia's journey lit the fire within me. It's now become such a beautiful creative development over the past couple of years, and continues to give me such a nourishing sense of purpose as I work towards the eventual show.
I've written 3 grief songs so far for the project (you can listen to one on my most recent post) and participated in an artist residency in ancient rainforest here in Tasmania, threatened by logging, which has been my in-road to environmental activism, a path I am just at the start of but so excited to continue for the rest of my life, with deep love and fiery objection. <3
This prompt Padraig is a gift. The importance of speaking and writing about the unspeakable is essential for all of us to heal, a collective prayer and honoring. I have been speaking and writing about clergy sexual abuse since 1991 when my husband and I filed one of the first lawsuits with the Diocese of Madison in Wisconsin about a pedophile priest, Lawrence Trainer, who is on the credibly accused list here. At the precious age of 7, I was groomed and horrifically raped by him. He had been a priest for over 25 years, abusing and raping children from parish to parish. I am an activist on this issue, sharing my poetry, opinion pieces, training investigators now on this horrible truth. Men with Roman collars sexually abused children for decades. Continuing to talk about this truth among all and work for justice is essential. All predatory and violent truths, all priests named who have harmed, needs to be brought to the light for healing. Truth and reconciliation action is essential within the church and in our society for children and families to feel safe and free. Poetry saved my soul. My Grandmother read us poetry throughout her life and she lived to be 103. The nourishing and beauty of poetic truths- the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beauty- all woven together is a balm for my soul today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing up and sharing what is so very important to honor- the suffering of children.
I feel so horribly for your plight, Patricia. I am so sorry for what you endured. I find it impossible to believe that the denial, countersuits, bankruptcy to avoid payouts to victims, etc., by the Catholic church is wrapped in a veneer of compassion and pastoral prayers.
Thank you Dwight. I feel your support and compassion and I'm grateful. "Wrapped in a veneer of compassion and pastoral prayers" is a perfect summary of what they, the hierarchy, want us to believe. Yet, making amends, telling the whole truth is essential for healing and the men in charge have not made amends from where I sit, I stand. It is wrong and disgusting to preach love and kindness while behind closed doors the horrific unresolved pains of the past within the Catholic church are not disclosed, talked about, processed to the degree for all to integrate, heal, and forgive. It's time. With more of us speaking up the truth rises, the light heals, while pain dissipates and evil is confronted and released. I hope. I pray.
I don’t know if you saw it, but my response, earlier in this thread of comments, is about a hate crime murder and the superficial accountability of the government that was meant to look good while also trying to make it go away as quickly as possible.
- Dwight Lee Wolter.
Amen.
Yes. Amen.
Thanks for the heads up! You get it! When evil is covered up or denied or explained away that is awful and beyond words painful. I stand with you!
Well that was a gut punch of a prompt. For quite some time I've been wondering if I should tell some of my story. Would it help others? How clean is the impulse to open this up? Why search for recognition? Is there any way to assure there is no impact on the person most concerned? I think baby homes were largely a thing of the past by the time I was a candidate for one. An odd informal one was pieced together for me. I wasn't incarcerated but economics meant I had nowhere else to go. Because social work decided I had ten dollars too much in savings I was ineligible for any assistance. Perhaps that might change if I agreed to conract with their adoption service. That seemed to be the implied verdict. But given their procedures, (at least three months in institutional care for my newborn before any chance of adoption) I decided over my dead body. However in truth the only way I could afford the medical care to give birth was to relinquish my child. That's how cruel US policy is -- an invisible omnipresent mother baby lack of shelter.
It is about the toughest things you can ask a person to do and it leaves a shadow of shame you cannot outlive, with the sense no one can possibly relate to you.
But there is some light to relate: I kept a journal to my unborn child that was a saving grace, through peace activitsm I somehow maintained I found people who helped me work through the first Open adoption (this is mid 80s) in that state. My child went straight from my hands into the hands of parents I chose. And there is an incredible kick ass woman making a world of difference out there who occasionally spends time with me. My act of protest? Eight months pregnant I walked into the convent universities library and knocked down their "pro-life" display, I was hauled before the expulsion board and wrote this poem
Catching Stones Between Barred Teeth
You
Who cannot carry this life
One step
One heart beat --
How dare you tell me
It's the least I can do.
Thank-you for sharing your story. It is heartbreaking (and enraging) and inspiring (drying my tears now).
Wow, great line about catching stones between barred teeth! Thank you!!!!!!!
Oh, what a story. Thank you for letting us witness this pain and strength.
“What did you mean by that statement?” A few months ago, a close relative casually made what I thought was a disparaging statement about my son. I think it was his attempt at trying to be humorous. It took awhile for his comment to register with me, but I knew it made me feel uncomfortable. After mulling it over, I decided to call him the next day and, without accusation, ask the question that I started this reflection with. Our conversation was a good one. He apologized and said he certainly didn’t mean to be disparaging. Yes, it was a misguided attempt at humor. We both had our say; the air was cleared. Asking a non threatening question cannot only be an effective means at resolving conflicts, it can often lead to deeper bonds as well.
I'm glad you chose "mulling it over" and not simply stewing in it. And choosing a thoughtful, curious question rather than reaction. At this moment I have two instances where I wish I had practiced this. And the day has hardly started!! How do you get to skillful resolution of conflicts and deeper bonds? Practice, practice, practice!!! :) Thank you.
What a dreadful thing when people do evil in the name of a good God. 😔
Just so God doesn't get a bad wrap, I was once driving home at night through a low-socio economic suburb in Brisbane, Australia; when I passed two lads on the side of the road. I felt an inner compulsion to turn the car around and go speak to them. I occasionally get this promoting, and I've found (more often than not) it's fruitful to listen to it. I ended up approaching them and having a conversation. I spoke to them about God from the parable of the Prodigal Son, and then prayed for them both. After this, they admitted they were out tonight to enact revenge on someone, but after this encounter they decided that they would be going back home instead. These occasions don't happen often for me, but when they do, I'm thankful and rejoicing in God's grace to save and not to harm. Those poor babies in the story. 😔
Thank you for the kindness to a stranger that saved many lives.
Babies. Without objection, I have served as empathetic witness to the grief of many parents whose little ones died, either in utero or shortly after. Once, I baptized a baby in the pathology lab, she couldn't be brought to her mother in the post-op. The nurses, technicians, and I named her and held her in holy reverence. After, when the mother asked me, "Was she beautiful?" I answered honestly, "So beautiful."
I won't go into too many details, but a number of years ago I was working in a Christian organization that served young people. The program director had/has a chip on his shoulder about LGBTQ+ issues, and he sent out a weeklong homophobic program about those issues that we were expected to deliver to the young people we worked with. Enough of us objected that the director was forced to call a meeting and ultimately exchange that week's program for something else. It felt terrifying to speak up, but then, hearing about half of my coworkers, who I would not have guessed were LGBTQ+ affirming, speak up gave me so much hope, as did seeing that many of us were willing to threaten to walk away from our jobs to protect the kids in our care.
Thank you
"My question to you this week: Can you tell us a time when your objection prompted action — whether in language, art, form, protest, law, or another form? Tell us about your motivation, any obstacles you overcame, and what form you used for your witness."
I have protested and organized with others outside government many times, from the Civil Rights Movement on -- but I don't know if those particular protest actions had an impact. The Movements themselves did, certainly.
This will sound prosaic in a forum devoted to poetry -- but my strongest impacts on things I objected to happened WITHIN government. And those actions were generally based on research, rather than moral outrage and protest.
One was a 50% increase in the amount of publicly funded substance abuse treatment, based on my division's research that showed the medical, social, and criminal justice cost impacts of NOT providing enough treatment. That research was done, communicated to the other government agencies that experienced those increased costs, and demonstrated to legislative staff and the Legislature itself. Then the improvements in outcomes resulting in expanded treatment uptakes needed to be demonstrated to those same players.
The second was volunteer work on my County's Planning Commission, when we proposed rule changes to make it much easier for County planning staff to resist the ongoing developer pressure to ignore or minimize environmental risks. That work, along with participation in development proposals around us by my neighborhood association, led to major improvements in the ways water flows increased by more impervious roofs, roads, and sidewalks were estimated and managed.
As a career “zoning administrator” working for our Board of Supervisors I was able to do much good in our community, and beyond. Ironic that I was more effective there than as an ordained elder in our church.
We are supposed to be careful and do our work well,nand work well with other. And when we do, our work has impacts.
I started writing poems of protest about 2 months ago. I was sick of what was happening to our government and country. Here is a sample of my work. Peace ✌️ Packy (Pat) Paules
For the People
The people have spoken. It's time for a change.
The country has gone from sanity to the strange
People are protesting and carrying signs
We're sick of Steve Miller and his evil designs
We are tired of the news, waiting for the next shoe to fall
We are knocking on doors and making the call
Reminding our friends to vote in the fall
Check your eligibility now, at the town hall
We must tone down our rhetoric
To make sure that the message will stick
We're all responsible for keeping our government in check
We must build coalitions to stop this ship-wreck
There is a blue wave forming, in size and strength
Made up of the people, who'll go the extra length
Monuments aren't made to please one man's vanity
They are there to honor the heroic service to our country
He's razed the East Wing and has painted the Serenity pool
The costs to be paid by us, not this White House fool
We are a nation of many, not a select few
Trump only cares about the rich and not about you
The rewriting of the history of the black and the brown
Erasing their struggles for freedom and tearing monuments down
Tariffs make things more expensive for us to pay
They are raising the prices we pay every day
Don't forget the damage done by the DOGE axes
They didn't save us money or give us relief from our taxes
If you're one of the people struggling each day
Let the forefathers show you the way
Your vote is your power, and your right
Stop with the infighting and join the fight
Democracy demands we send Washington our best
Not the self-serving ones, they won't pass the test
November is coming, bringing a message of change
With hopes of saving the country and leading us out of the strange.
When school shootings took center stage in the news, I joined the Global Art Project in which a community expresses a vision of our hopes to embody a more peaceful future. After a murder in our small town, our Tree of Life was exchanged with Columbine HS in Colorado. Some years later, as part of an artist collective, we joined the Mexican-American community to create ofrendas honoring loved ones who had died in the past year. That week, a grandmother showed up in my therapy office, asking if we might help her family after the murder of her 4-year-old granddaughter. The artists came together to decorate a framed photo of the young girl with flowers and jewels and placed it on the ofrenda, recognizing brave women: Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, along with activists and journalists, some murdered while defending the poor in war-torn regions of the world. Women from the shelter showed up to add cardboard cut-outs of those who had been killed by the men in their lives. Many stories were exchanged that day among the camaraderie of music and food. The grandmother found me a few days later. “This beautiful way of honoring our child helped us begin to heal,” she told me. Their pain had been recognized instead of ignored or forgotten. New energy to address the community violence was born on that day.
Knowing when to create a ritual to honor a loved one……what a gift. Bless you and all your colleagues for honoring the child who died and all those dreams that died with her. Bless all who are living with wounded dreams - may they be reverenced into reality.
My Story
I grew up with a large extended family. Cousins were stratified by age in the way clouds are by altitude. I was a ‘little kid’, a stratus, who never was quite recognized as a developed ‘cloud’ in the family sky. In the presence of my matronly aunts, I always felt I was a ‘no-account kid’. In family gatherings my parents both wore inferiority like a soggy rain slicker with worn out water repellency.
My father was a ‘dirt farmer’, who bought out his father’s homestead. His father arrived in the dust of the settlers who attained plots in the fertile areas. My grandfather’s plot was in marginal land, deemed by the explorer John Palliser, to be too arid and barren for farming or civilization. Dearth was not the fruits of labour but of the semi-arid nature of the land.
My mother was, by Jane Austen's standards, “strict in her notions of decorum”. She was a teacher by training and a dirt farmer’s wife by vocation. She loved to read poetry and coached me in reciting. Memory work and reciting were a foundation of the early education she thrived on. Her siblings attained levels of fiscal achievement her husband’s land did not bestow on a dirt farmer’s wife.
I took easily to academics, learning to read long before school age by following along as my older sister practiced her learnings in the evenings.
School is more than academic learning and I never learned the steps to social belonging. Like a baby bear, I preferred climbing a tree to the branches of safety rather than than conversing with grade school colleagues. Here it wasn’t dearth that set me apart like it did in extended family settings. The land did not play favourites and few rose to prosperity. Simply, I was shy and my collegial environment was not studious. I loved paper and pencil but avoiding studies was the social climate. I drew. I hated parent-teacher interviews. I was always admonished by my teacher-housewife mother that I could do better if I only tried. Truth, and dearth, humiliated me.
At home, my gender humiliated me. I had arrived the second squalling female infant in a society where a female child was a liability, with prospects only of being shifted, in marriage, to the maintenance responsibility of another man who, as master, could glean what ever worth he found in a female.
It took me many decades of seething humiliation to grow into my wisdom teeth. I was not who they said I was. My worth was not in wealth nor in sufficiently serving a maintaining man.
I was drawn to the plight of children who did not attain academic or societal merit. I found worth in serving their humanity. I turned my paper and pencils to writing - poems mostly, and discovered that “the page is my council, my confidante loyalty. Its acceptance and silence is often pastoral. As Stephen Hawking’s famous quote states, "Quiet people have the loudest mind."
As an introvert, my page is my expression. My first book of poems spilled the ‘what, the why, the scars, and the early healing’. My second book spilled my urge to fight the oppression, and in some small way to shift its course. More recently my poems honour and celebrate forest & trees & all of nature that have been such a balm.
May your poems be healing for others as they are for you.
Thank you Rebecca.