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I have been a fan/follower of Penzeys for quite a while now. I not only love the freshness and tastiness of their spices, but also their e-mails, full of promotional details as well as political commentary. I have long been a proponent of the boycott, and the *buycott*. I avoid spending money with companies I am not ideologically aligned with, preferring instead to support businesses who promote good values and fair practices. Who can resist dishtowels that sport the messages of Love People. Cook Them Tasty Food. and Heal the World. Cook Dinner Tonight? When we moved from the house to the condo two years ago, two different friends sent/gave me Gift Boxes as housewarming presents! If you don't already, I urge you sign up for their e-mail list, order some spices, watch the video from their last missive (reprinted below) and, oh yes, change the world... 💖
I just placed an order (to get that cool Embrace Hope pin), and included this comment: "I love the smell of justice in the morning, and appreciate everything your company does to make this a better, brighter world!"
From Penzeys' 6/13/20 e-newsletter (yellow highlighting is mine... 😊):
I hope you watched the news video we linked to in Wednesday’s email. Based on the heartfelt thanks I received from so many of you it holds a great deal of hope for our times. Our Minneapolis store, like others in the Uptown area, suffered broken windows in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. This led to stores being boarded up with a whole lot of plywood which was bleak. Then something kind of wonderful happened. As some pretty outstanding graffiti started showing up the Uptown Association quickly encouraged a bunch more by handing out $100 for supplies to local artists. The results have been stunning. Stop now and watch the video, you will be glad you did.
The artist who did our window boards, in addition to an emotional When Doves Cry-inspired piece, incorporated our Embrace Hope image in his work as well. I found seeing the art that Jeri and our kids created at our kitchen table (where I’m writing this) taking on a new life as part of a community coming together to heal from the pain of police racial violence overwhelming. From your comments after our last email the tears from seeing this in the video are not only in my eyes. For Cooks, this really is what it is all about.
Our thanks to Anton and the rest of the artists, The Uptown community association and the local Fox affiliate that did brilliant work on their news video. Local Foxes aren’t national Fox; they really aren’t.
The efforts of everyone here to reimagine the way we pick and ship orders in the time of the Coronavirus and the huge surge in online ordering it has set in motion are now paying off. Orders have been just flowing out our doors these past few weeks to the point where we are actually almost all caught up. With us still a week behind our plan was to hold off on promotions until next weekend. But with the impact Embrace Hope is having it seems to make sense to get more of these out in the world as soon as possible. So, through Tuesday, free $9.95 value Embrace Hope pins with any $10 purchase!
To get your free pin just visit penzeys.com and enter your order for touchless store pickup or for direct shipping to you. After you’ve reached $10 in spending enter the code America at checkout. It’s easy. And no need to place the pin in your basket, the code will do that for you and for free.
And sorry about the “with $10 purchase.” Back in the before-times of early January we would have just given out the pins for free to anyone who showed up because this is one of those things that shouldn’t be about money. But with us only doing touchless pickup orders in the stores and all the stores closed on Sundays, I fear a flat-out free offer would have instantly gridlocked the stores' pickup slots and would have almost certainly guaranteed a lack of social distancing. Sorry.
But then there is that $10 and the thought of what we could do with that. I am so gladdened by so many business leaders speaking out against racial injustice even if some seem a little late getting on the field. If NASCAR wants to be shocked, SHOCKED! to find they’ve been promoting a wee spot of Confederacy I will gladly be shocked right with them. And if the NFL wants to do a victory dance for being the one sport brave enough to give Colin Kaepernick the platform to start all this I won’t throw a flag for excessive celebration. America is all about redemption. It’s not who you were, it’s who you are. Let’s help and encourage every business to become a force for good.
Still, in seeing the new arrivals standing in support of those facing racism, and some even brave enough to risk losing sales to the less than one percent of Americans who openly identify as white supremacists, I have to say this alone will not be enough to bring the change we need. Donations to those facing racism are great and welcome, but as long as only those on the receiving end of racism pay its costs it will be with us forever. It’s only when those actively creating racism feel the pressure of being called out for their cruelty that there can be any honest hope for change. It is here where I think Penzeys can make a difference.
At the heart of cooking is the truth that when we care about others the future becomes a better place. There is little more uncaring and more damaging to all our futures than racism. Many who once voted for our president no longer support him and hooray for that. But the fact we have to live with is that the majority of the sixty-three million Americans who voted for an openly “textbook” racist candidate for president want to pretend that there is nothing racist in their actions. As long as we let them pretend, racism isn’t going anywhere.
So long story short. For every Embrace Hope pin we give away with a $10 purchase we are pledging to spend $10 on social media calling out the racism of those supporting this president. We won’t be saying who to vote for or against because that would be campaigning and we don’t do that. All we will be saying is that your vote for this president is an act of racism and that you are doing a very-very un-American thing by doing so. America is dedicated more than any other nation to the notion that all are created equal. It’s time for us to call out all who would undermine this most American of all American values. Please help us in this.
At some point some version of this will be a Facebook post, but for now can you just forward this email to those who might like to see it and possibly put a few more Hamiltons in the pot (he’s on the $10 bill)? Someone in the last week emailed me that as long as Penzeys is still on Facebook we are part of the problem. I get that, I do. Penzeys could be so much better a social media site if we could just find the time. You people sharing your values back and forth? That would change the world. But for now there is Facebook and if you are going to take on racism sometimes you have to go to where it hides in plain sight. Please wish us luck.
And if you have an Embrace Hope pin and have a story of its impact or maybe of a conversation it set in motion please share it to editor@penzeys.com. You've sent a few of these since Wednesday and I would love to share them with our larger audience. Thanks.
And once again please go to penzeys.com, place your order for store pickup or home delivery and with $10 in spending get your free pin of Hope. Just use the code America because that is what this is all about. And if you haven’t yet, watch the Minneapolis news video. It is the hope we all need.
Thanks!
Bill
bill@penzeys.com
SONG: Wherever Is Your Heart by Brandi Carlile
BOOK: On Spice: Advice, Wisdom, and History with a Grain of Saltiness by Caitlin PenzeyMoog
POEM: Praise by Angelo Geter
Today I will praise.
I will praise the sun
For showering its light
On this darkened vessel.
I will praise its shine.
Praise the way it wraps
My skin in ultraviolet ultimatums
Demanding to be seen.
I will lift my hands in adoration
Of how something so bright
Could be so heavy.
I will praise the ground
That did not make feast of these bones.
Praise the casket
That did not become a shelter for flesh.
Praise the bullets
That called in sick to work.
Praise the trigger
That went on vacation.
Praise the chalk
That did not outline a body today.
Praise the body
For still being a body
And not a headstone.
Praise the body,
For being a body and not a police report
Praise the body
For being a body and not a memory
No one wants to forget.
Praise the memories.
Praise the laughs and smiles
You thought had been evicted from your jawline
Praise the eyes
For seeing and still believing.
For being blinded from faith
But never losing their vision
Praise the visions.
Praise the prophets
Who don’t profit off of those visions.
Praise the heart
For housing this living room of emotions
Praise the trophy that is my name
Praise the gift that is my name.
Praise the name that is my name
Which no one can plagiarize or gentrify
Praise the praise.
How the throat sounds like a choir.
The harmony in your tongue lifts
Into a song of adoration.
Praise yourself
For being able to praise.
For waking up,
When you had every reason not to.
QUOTE: "Variety is the spice of love." ~ Helen Rowland
[Lesley Anne Numbers for the win... again!]
Life is good, especially with that mid-week recalibration. Still challenges, as there will always be, even B.C. (Before Coronavirus), but I am working at backing off, as opposed to confronting something head-on. I am in the most Zen-like ever stage of my life, very difficult for a control freak Leo, but am finding it more than a bit liberating.
Had a lovely day at the beach yesterday with friends SusanP (who lives on A1A) and Nancy. Spent almost four hours enjoying the sand, the surf (it was rough, so I only went in up to my knees!), the sun, and the serenity. We of course did the obligatory social distancing, and it felt great to be in the open air, with conversation and cocktails (I brought wine and flavored seltzers, to make spritzers), and also bought us these cool tumblers: Infoxicated; Oh, for fox sake; zero fox given; don't fox with me... :-)
I also made what I called "adult lunchables": plastic rectangular Chinese take-out containers, each one containing an individual hummus, grapes, mini-cucumber, sliced carrots, semi-soft sun-dried-tomato-and-garlic vegan cheese, crackers, and a clementine. SusanP provided chairs and a beach umbrella, and Nancy brought her famous homemade vegan banana-mango bread. I am tan, I am grateful, I am soooo relaxed.
Had a family get-together shortly thereafter. Caught up on jobs, unemployment payments, grocery shopping... all while watching Colin run around with a jumbo stick of chalk in each hand. Lovely!
Then home to watch the beautifully-done John Prine tribute (you can view the whole thing here), with amazing artists like Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Todd Snider, Brandi Carlile, Bonnie Raitt, etc., interspersed with heartfelt words from Brene Brown, Bill Murray (who called JP "a unicorn among nags"... :-), Billy Bob Thornton, and of course John's wife Fiona. "Start with a blank piece of paper, and don't write what shouldn't be there", said Prine about songwriting. When I wasn't crying, I was laughing uproariously. And we were treated to a new song, previously-unreleased (today's subject title). I donated to Alive, and I bought a T-shirt... 💖
So, it is indeed Feel Good Friday. As is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week. Enjoy!
~ Despite efforts to quash them, Black Lives Matter protests lead to change in Miami-Dade: The baseline ill, racism in policing, remains with us. But despite efforts to quash Black Lives Matter protests in South Florida, the demonstrations of outrage over George Floyd’s murder — and the community activism that has risen around them — have already led to some positive change.
~ Sellers of Sex Toys Capitalized on All That Alone Time: As the pandemic approached its peak, online retailers saw sales spike.
~ Former Green Beret, who advised Colin Kaepernick to kneel, talks about others taking a knee in solidarity: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has issued an apology saying the league was wrong in the way it handled its response to player protests in the past against police brutality and racial injustice.
~ With a Turn of the Can Opener, Make Sorbet: An almost 25-year-old hack lets you use a food processor and canned fruit to create frozen treats.
~ We are witnessing the birth of a movement — and the downfall of a president: We've reached a turning point in the Trump era. The 2020 campaign is in the streets and he's losing
SONG: I Remember Everything by John Prine
BOOK: Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott
POEM: Study Electricity, Etc. by David Kirby
Third item on Jay Gatsby’s self-improvement schedule after “Rise from bed” and “Dumbbell exercise and wall scaling.”
You did that already—not electricity,
but the et cetera part. Et cetera means
“and the rest,” and you’ve mastered that.
You work from home, as we do these days,
but you put on a nice top and a dab of makeup
and combed your hair. When the children
need help with their homework, you make
time, and when your husband says he wants
to give them two more math problems
and some vocabulary, you say fine. The four
of you have lunch together, and when he takes
the kids out to play with the dog, you manage
a quick nap. Then tea, then you wrap up
your work and make notes for tomorrow.
Scrambled eggs, toast, and fruit cup
for the children. Let them watch Frozen
for the hundredth time—how could it hurt?
Now you and your husband can have dinner
on the deck: goat cheese, shrimp with
mushrooms, a bottle of Sancerre so cold
you think your teeth might crack. You walk
around the block, making room as others
approach. Bath time. PJs. Their books, yours.
When you were walking, you waved to other
families on their porches. They waved back.
[David Kirby: “Low-effort thinkers make headlines every day by reacting angrily and even dangerously to the guidelines we have to follow if we’re going to heal our world. To prepare for his future, young Jay Gatsby resolves to ‘study electricity, etc.’ For years I’ve wondered what that ‘etc.’ is, but COVID-19 has given me my answer: it’s the hundred unrecorded daily ways in which we care for ourselves and others with patience and love.”]
QUOTE: “Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.” ~ Matt Haig
[thanks again to Lesley Anne Numbers for this brilliant graphic!]
About six months ago (maybe more, maybe less), I ran across a saying that became my mantra:
Whatever you
Are not changing,
You are choosing.
Read that again.
It helped me transform some bad habits into positive motion, and I stayed on track for a good while. Then... coronavirus (dum dum dum dum!). I continued my focus for another two months, but have recently found myself straying from the path, even falling into wallow and roly-poly modes, two of my biggest downfalls. Woe is me. What's the point? Where's my purpose? I wrote to a friend the other day:
"It's raining again here. How appropriate. Almost two weeks of daily downpours. You are the unfortunate recipient of my fatigue: coronavirus isolation; marital relations; social injustice; missing live music, browsing the library shelves, hugging my grandbaby, going to Publix instead of having strangers do my shopping, sitting in a booth at my favorite Thai restaurant to enjoy veggie Panang curry. Do you yell at the TV when people shake hands? ("no, you can't do that now!"). On the few occasions I am in the car, and see people driving while wearing masks, I wonder if I've just been dropped into a nightmare/science fiction scenario, and pinch myself to wake."
Time to recalibrate. Much to be grateful for. So many blessings. Started last night with a Dar Williams livestreaming concert, celebrating Patty's (her manager's) birthday, in which Dar played "deep cuts". Wow, what a setlist! I was invited, and eventually migrated over, to the Old School Dar-Listers watch party, connecting with dear friends I've had for decades, forever-bonded over our favorite singer-songwriter. I am committed to carrying that spark of joy back into my daily life, and adding in more yoga, more stretching, meditation, more phone calls with long-distance friends and family, walking, even leisurely (gone by the wayside because of my sciatica), natural VitaminD, whether at the condo pool (socially-distanced, of course) or the grassy area in front of our building, kinder words, deeper understanding, open heart/closed mouth, more radical self-care, increased vulnerability, letting go of past hurts.
Forlorn/lonely... begone!
[updated at 5:30 p.m.: I uploaded this post a bit after noon today, and since then, after doing much thinking, as well as having a productive conversation with a friend, I realize that so much of my angst comes from *struggling* with the times we're in. I am attempting to push back against an immutable situation, a *global* pandemic... clinging to my old life, fighting "the new normal", when what I really need to do is to find acceptance (I swear I had it at one point!). I keep talking about "the other side" of this, when there is still so much uncertainty, and no one knows where we will land, and what it will look like. I seriously need to stop drawing a line in the sand, visualizing there and here, Point A to Point B... and rather look at it as a journey, circuitous at best, winding along with perhaps no immediate plan in place, other than to connect the dots One Day at a Time, making the smartest decisions possible ("do the next right thing", as Glennon would say), and maintaining a Buddhist attitude of acknowledging there is pain and suffering yet striving toward non-attachment to the outcome. I feel better already... :-) ]
P.S. Another joy-sparker tomorrow night: Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, and Bill Murray will remember the life and music of John Prine during an all-star online special on Thursday. Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine streams June 11th at 7:30 p.m. ET via Prine’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.
SONG: I Know Alone by HAIM (lyrics in the link; thanks to my son Rob for the heads-up to this song... 💓 )
BOOK: On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard by Jennifer Pastiloff
POEM: Quarantine Day 35 by Jaime R. Wood
The online coronavirus survey asks
if you’ve experienced hair loss
and you laugh because just yesterday
you took brand new clippers to your scalp
and sheared off enough hair to help someone
with cancer feel human again.
Your friend told you over Zoom happy hour
to hug yourself to trick your body
into feeling less lonely, so you wrap your arms,
right to left and left to right,
across your chest until your hands reach
your shoulder blades and you can feel
your heart beating inside you
as if it belongs to someone else,
but you know that hasn’t been true for a long time.
You stay up all night watching hospital dramas
because you want to know who will live
and who will die.
And one morning you wake to find out via email
that one of your students died in her sleep.
All day you tell people again and again,
“She had kids. She had kids.” Plural.
But it turns out she only had one
five-year-old daughter. Singular.
But what does it matter?
Every child is a universe.
And one morning one small girl in Portland, Oregon
woke up without her one very important mother.
Sometimes my hands shake with all they cannot hold,
and I don’t know how to measure what it means
for time to pass. Which simile will do?
Like a heartbeat?
Like a million fine hairs falling from a head?
Like a mother who slept through the night
and then stopped, her universe carrying the weight
of her through all the days of her life?
[Jaime R. Wood: “The ongoing event that we’re all experiencing right now is social isolation in an attempt to protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19, and some people, like me, live alone, and so the isolation is profound. Last week, I learned that one of my students died in her sleep, and of all the things I knew about her, the thing I kept thinking about was the fact that she was a single mother and that her kids were young. I knew that, but I couldn’t remember how many kids she had until someone told me that she only had one, and at that point, it didn’t really matter to me. The loss is great, no matter how you calculate it. The loss of this one woman, and my feelings about it, can be multiplied many times over and applied to each of us. We wake up and fall asleep to loss, and there aren’t adequate words to measure it all.”]
QUOTE: "And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about." ~ Haruki Murakami
As you may recall, I am not on Facebook anymore, so I am dependent on others to alert me to concerts and music-related items generating from that medium. Yesterday a friend posted to our local sf_folk (South Florida) list that musician friends were covering a new song by *another* musician friend... and I hadn't even heard about the original yet!
Tom Prasada-Rao is a gifted songwriter, a spiritual guru, and a brave soul who experienced a tough battle with cancer last year, and continues treatment, even during this pandemic. I am grateful to consider TPR a friend, and of course had to delve into this cool phenomenon. Here is but an overview of those who have passed his powerful song along the pipeline: Mary Gauthier, Ellis Paul, Margo Hennebach & Mark Saunders, Karl Werne, and so many more. The lyrics are included in the song link, but I am reprinting them below because they deserve repeating... 💙
Some people die for honor
Some people die for love
Some people die while singing
To the heavens above
Some people die believing
In the cross on Calvarys’ hill
And some people die
In the blink of an eye
For a $20 bill
Some people go out in glory
(Yeah) with the wind at their back
Some get to tell their own story
Write their own epitaph
Sometimes you see it coming
Sometimes you don’t know until
You run out of breath
With a knee on your neck
For a $20 bill
Brother, I never knew you
And now I never will
But I make this promise to you
I’ll remember you still
Take, eat - let this be our communion
It’s time to break the bread
Do this in remembrance
Just like the good book said
Sometimes the wine is a sacrament
Sometimes the blood is just spilled
Sometimes the law
Is the devils’ last straw
The future unfulfilled
Like the dream they killed
For a $20 bill
by Tom Prasada-Rao 5/28/20 Silver Spring MD
Also, referencing the history of my graphic above, this... yet one more example of this adminstration's racism.
SONG: $20 Bill (for George Floyd) by Tom Prasada-Rao (Tom's voice is whisper-like while he's speaking, but when he begins singing, at about the one-minute mark, you can hear him clearly... :-)
BOOK: Hands Up, Don’t Shoot by Jennifer E. Cobbina
POEM: truth by Gwendolyn Brooks
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.
QUOTE: "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu
[Through a series of interesting circumstances yesterday, I was led to the amazing artwork of Lesley Anne Numbers (the above is just one example). Wow!]
Last Saturday night, after a heads-up from my daughter Sarah, I tuned into Banding Together: A Concert for the Colorado Music Relief Fund. From their website:
Live music is central to Colorado’s culture.
Our musicians, their crews, and our venues are iconic and beloved across the world. Music is a force in the experience economy; attracting tourists, new residents, and business leaders to the culture of Colorado in good times. In times of hardship music is our salve.
In this pandemic, everyone is hurting.
The economic and fiscal impacts on Colorado’s rich music industry resulting from COVID-19 are already significant. Music employs over 16,000 Coloradans and generates 1.5 billion dollars annually and the vast majority of that revenue relies on public gatherings. These activities are unlikely to return to ‘normal’ for the foreseeable future.
The music industry will not be back to work for perhaps a year or longer.
Whether it is navigating unemployment, small business loans, or other quickly disappearing relief funds, the music industry is not getting the lifeline it so desperately needs.
We need to raise funds and awareness in Colorado for this beleaguered industry and its workers that mean so much to our economy and our own health and well-being.
We’re going to use the power of music to do this.
Three hours of joy, beauty (Red Rocks!), and inspiration as so many artists (Dave Matthews, Brandi Carlile, The Avett Brothers, Michael Franti, to name just a few!) donated their time and energy to raise money for this worthwhile cause. We contributed a bit, and it lifted my spirits to do so. Click here to see/hear in its entirety for yourself... 💖
So, it is indeed Feel Good Friday. From the depths of despair at the beginning of the week, I am feeling a bit more hope: the other three officers were charged in the George Floyd situation, and Chauvin's charge was upgraded to second degree murder; there is an increase/emphasis on youth protest; demonstrations are more peaceful now, as many law enforcement officials changed their tactics to allow people to demonstrate while still maintaining peace.
As is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week. Enjoy!
~ First Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman: First ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, Amanda Gorman, performs her original poem, In This Place: An American Lyric, at the Library of Congress (thanks, ElyseB!)
~ Fewer Boats Means a Safer Spring for Miami's Marine Creatures: Over the past few weeks, amateur photographers have been capturing images and video of manatees, turtles, and sawfish in South Florida waterways and posting them on social media. Stay-at-home orders have meant fewer boats out on the water. And that's meant a safer spring vacation for Miami's aquatic creatures, many of which are coming back to shore.
~ Sesame Street Joins CNN to Host a Town Hall Saturday Addressing Racism
By Good News Network: Back in April, Sesame Street partnered with CNN to explain the ABC’s of coronavirus in a televised ‘town hall’ for parents and kids. Now, it’s time to help young families educate their children about racism. This Saturday, June 6, at 10 a.m. ET, CNN and Sesame Street are hosting a 60-minute special Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism. A CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Families.
SONG: Eachother by Grace Potter
BOOK: Music is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will to Change by Brad Schreiber
POEM: Pledge by Jehanne Dubrow
Now we are here at home, in the little nation
of our marriage, swearing allegiance to the table
we set for lunch or the windchime on the porch,
its easy dissonance. Even in our shared country,
the afternoon allots its golden lines
so that we’re seated, both in shadow, on opposite
ends of a couch and two gray dogs between us.
There are acres of opinions in this house.
I make two cups of tea, two bowls of soup,
divide an apple equally. If I were a patriot,
I would call the blanket we spread across our bed
the only flag—some nights we’ve burned it
with our anger at each other. Some nights
we’ve welcomed the weight, a woolen scratch
on both our skins. My love, I am pledging
to this republic, for however long we stand,
I’ll watch with you the rain’s arrival in our yard.
We’ll lift our faces, together, toward the glistening.
QUOTE: “Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.” ~ Henry Miller
This is what I needed today. Maybe you did, too... 💗
Judy Collins Gathers The Global Virtual Choir For World Health Organisation’s Solidarity Fund ‘Amazing Grace’
by Paul Cashmere on June 2, 2020
Two weeks ago Judy Collins put the call out for contributors to the Global Virtual Choir for a new version of ‘Amazing Gace’. The message was heard by the likes of Steve Earle, Judith Owen, Beth Nielsen Chapman and others resulting in something very special to benefit the World Health Organisation’s Solidarity Fund.
Judy Collins first recorded ‘Amazing Grace’ for her 1970 ‘Whales & Nightingales’ album. She used that version as a Vietnam War protest song. She says, “I didn’t know what else to do about the war in Vietnam. I had marched, I had voted, I had gone to jail on political actions and worked for the candidates I believed in. The war was still raging. There was nothing left to do, I thought… but sing ‘Amazing Grace’.
Now, she says, it feels like the same time again.“I recorded Amazing Grace with a group of friends at Saint Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia University campus in New York City. When my recording of Amazing Grace was released it became enormously popular all over the world,” she says.
“It was written by John Newton in 1772, a man who evolved from a slave ship captain to a writer of powerful hymns, and changed his entire life, becoming a model for spiritual transformation.
“That’s what we need today once again. Stay safe, help others and pray for the planet. I am sending this song out to all the doctors, nurses and patients. We will survive this with love and music and amazing grace.”
SONG: Amazing Grace by John Newton (sung by Judy Collins and The Global Virtual Choir)
BOOK: The President Sang Amazing Grace: A Book About Finding Grace After Unspeakable Tragedy by Zoe Mulford, Jeff Scher (Illustrator)
POEM: Grace by Sarah Gambito
You won’t
kill me
because I
will not
oblige you
by dying.
I hold all
my hands
under
the cherry
trees.
Clusters of
shyest
pinks
joining
hands.
Laced
like this,
diadem
like this,
we live the
past/
present/
future/
all at once
and even now.
Wouldn’t we tear
seas,
cities,
money
to get to
each other?
The public
garden—
the books
of its leaves,
the leaves
of its books—
denotes privilege,
entitlement
gorgeous belief
that we’ll meet
again and
again
holding
this
feelingtone
of
flowers
QUOTE: "The amazing thing about love and attention and encouragement and grace and success and joy is that these things are infinite. We get a new supply every single morning, and so we can give it away all day. We never, ever have to monitor the supply of others or grab or hoard." ~ Glennon Doyle
8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody:
The Times has reconstructed the death of George Floyd on May 25. Security footage, witness videos and official documents show how a series of actions by officers turned fatal.
My sister Mari initiated a thoughtful conversation, via text, with me and my daughter Sarah a few days ago, which allowed me to state my feelings on the George Floyd situation in particular, and racism in general. I disagree with the vandalism, arson, and looting but, to quote Leonard (below), "Enough!". If this is what it takes to be heard, I understand. It is crazy that we live in a world in which Jogging While Black and Driving While Black and even Breathing While Black are reasons for murder, by police or anyone else. I can't fathom why people are more outraged by the destruction of property than they are by the senseless killings of People of Color, for decades... centuries.
Why are blacks’ anguished cries of “Enough!” never enough to stop the brutality? | Opinion by Leonard Pitts, Jr.
My new favorite word, as used in Leonard's column:
quiescent [ kwee-es-uhnt, kwahy- ]
adjective
being at rest; quiet; still; inactive or motionless:
a quiescent mind.
It is a matter of being aware of the injustice in the world, and how we, from our entitled place, can help but never truly empathize. I felt helpless as well as enraged watching that video. thankyoujesus for cell phones recording the truth. At this point the officers have been charged, and we will wait to see if they are convicted (as many are not).
And, from Glennon Doyle's recently-published book Untamed, p. 206-210 (thanks to my daughter Sarah for reminding me of these passages):
" “No, listen—this feels to me like we’ve hit rock bottom! Maybe that means we’re finally ready for the steps. Maybe we’ll admit that our country has become unmanageable. Maybe we’ll take a moral inventory and face our open family secret: that this nation—founded upon ‘liberty and justice for all’—was built while murdering, enslaving, raping, and subjugating millions. Maybe we’ll admit that liberty and justice for all has always meant liberty for white straight wealthy men. Then maybe we’ll gather the entire family at the table—the women and the gay and black and brown folks and those in power—so that we can begin the long, hard work of making amends. I’ve seen this process heal people and families. Maybe our nation can heal this way, too.”
I was adamant and righteous. But I’d forgotten that sick systems are made up of sick people. People like me. In order to get healthy, everybody has to stay in the room and turn themselves inside out. No family recovers until each member recovers.
Soon after that conversation with my friend, I sat on my family room couch and patted a spot to my left and one to my right. I said to my daughters, “Come here, girls.” They sat down and looked up at me. I told them that while they were asleep, a man who was white had walked into a church and shot and killed nine people who were black.
Then I told my daughters about a black boy their brother’s age, who was walking home and was chased down and murdered. I told them that the killer said he thought the boy had a gun, but what the boy really had was a bag of Skittles. Amma said, “Why did that man think Trayvon’s candy was a gun?” I said, “I don’t think he really did. I think he just needed an excuse to kill.”
We sat with all of this for a while. They asked more questions. I did my best. Then I decided that we had talked about villains for long enough. We needed to talk about heroes.
I went to my office to find a particular book. I pulled it down from the shelf, came back to the couch, and sat between them again. I opened the book, and we read about Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Diane Nash, and Daisy Bates. We looked at pictures of civil rights marches, and we talked about why people march. “Someone once said that marching is praying with your feet,” I told them.
Amma pointed to a white woman holding a sign, marching in a sea of black and brown people. Her eyes popped and she said, “Mama, look! Would we have been marching with them? Like her?”
I fixed my mouth to say, “Of course. Of course we would have, baby.”
But before I could say it, Tish said, “No, Amma. We wouldn’t have been marching with them back then. I mean, we’re not marching now.”
I stared at my girls as they looked up at me. I thought of my dad in that therapist’s office all those years ago. It was as if my girls had turned to me and asked, “Mama, how do you imagine we might be inadvertently contributing to our country’s sickness?”
A week later, I was reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, famous essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and I came across this:
"I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.”
This was the first time I had encountered language that defined the kind of person I was in the world. I was a white person who imagined herself to be on the side of civil rights, because I was a good person who strongly believed in equality as the right idea. But the white woman Amma had pointed to in that photograph wasn’t staying home and believing. She was showing up. When I looked at her face, she didn’t look nice at all. She looked radical. Angry. Brave. Afraid. Tired. Passionate. Resolute. Regal. And a little bit scary.
I imagined myself to be the kind of white person who would have stood with Dr. King because I respect him now. Close to 90 percent of white Americans approve of Dr. King today. Yet while he was alive and demanding change, only about 30 percent approved of him—the same rate of white Americans who approve of Colin Kaepernick today.
So, if I want to know how I’d have felt about Dr. King back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about him now; instead I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Kaepernick now? If I want to know how I’d have felt about the Freedom Riders back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about them now; instead, I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Black Lives Matter now?
If I want to know how I’d have shown up in the last civil rights era, I have to ask myself: How am I showing up today, in this civil rights era?
I decided to read every book I could get my hands on about race in America. I filled my social media feeds with writers and activists of color. It became very clear very quickly how strongly my social media feeds shaped my worldview. With a feed filled with white voices, faces that looked like my own, and articles that reflected experiences like mine, it was easy to believe that, for the most part, things were fine. Once I committed myself to beginning each day by reading the perspectives of black and brown people, I learned that everything was, and always has been, quite far from fine. I learned about rampant police brutality, the preschool-to-prison pipeline, the subhuman conditions of immigrant detainment centers, the pillaging of native lands. I began to widen. I was unlearning the whitewashed version of American history I’d been indoctrinated into believing. I was discovering that I was not who I imagined myself to be. I was learning that my country was not what I had been taught it was.
This experience of learning and unlearning reminded me of getting sober from addiction. When I started to really listen and think more deeply about the experiences of people of color and other marginalized people in our country, I felt like I did when I first quit drinking: increasingly uncomfortable as the truth agitated my comfortable numbness. I felt ashamed as I began to learn all the ways my ignorance and silence had hurt other people. I felt exhausted because there was so much more to unlearn, so many amends to be made, and so much work to do. Just like in my early days of sobriety from booze, in my early days of waking up to white supremacy, I felt shaky, jumpy, and agitated as I slowly surrendered the privilege of not knowing. It was a painful unbecoming.
Eventually it became time to speak up. I started sharing the voices I was reading, and speaking out against the racism of America’s past and the bigotry and strategic divisiveness of the current administration. Every time I did this, people got pissed off. I felt okay about this because I seemed to be pissing off the right people. "
So, what can WE do to effect positive change?
RevAmy mentioned this in our "lovestreaming" UU church service yesterday: 26 Ways to Be in the Struggle
Now is definitely a time for growth opportunity for those whose hearts are in the right place. I am a long-time peaceful protester (mostly feminist- and environmentally-related) but, much as I want to get out there, I will not risk my health by taking to the streets. Because of my decimated social life, I have extra money, and have decided to donate to Together Rising, Glennon's organization. She speaks her truth, which also happens to be mine. I trust her judgment as to where she allocates the money.
SONG: I'm On Your Side by Michael Franti and Spearhead
BOOK: Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century by Barbara Ransby
POEM: Choke by Karim Eltawansy
A tattoo of birds
in the cage
of my throat.
I can’t breathe.
The world
is an eye
open to the
sun.
How many poems
do you have
by dreaming
of fire? of water
too late, too little
of breath
on the feathers
a naked cat
is sculpted into a
sphinx.
Tell me: the sculptor
was using his
fingers as
a ruler: his palm
a throne. I hold
all of life in
my throat. I hold
the 7th heaven
on my devil’s whisper. A genie says:
what a genie says:
I’m not available right now
get in the car.
The lamp holds
nothing to the candle
wish of tongue, holds
a shadow in the corner
of my eye: blink
thrice if a baton chops
because someone says, gravity. I’ve heard
a lot of songs about misery, but
never felt a bullet
slash through my body’s
grass limbs. Had I
to describe this membrane
what its body looked
like in breath
in its lover’s casket: I say,
brave, one syllable drops
at the speed of exhale: one
Marlboro tastes like
a carcass: if you ask
me about Africa I’ll
point my thumb down
the chamber, stick my
head in the camera
lens, fall into
black, black, black
everything—birds
included.
QUOTE: “Breathe. Breathe deep and pure and smooth. Concentrate on it. Breathing is the pace you set your life at. It’s the rhythm of the song of you. It’s how to get back to the centre of things. The centre of yourself. When the world wants to take you in every other direction. It was the first thing you learned to do. The most essential and simple thing you do. To be aware of breath is to remember you are alive.” ~ Matt Haig
