Category Archives: Social

Renewal

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Posted by on in Assistance, Education, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

April 28, 2021- So often, when I think there is not much that might change in my little corner of the world, new experiences offer themselves-as a way of refreshing, renewing. There is also the continuing clean bill of health, from my chiropractor at least-and, I am anticipating, at my dental check-up, in two weeks. Sleeping more soundly is something to which I credit both the Thrive vitamins that are now part of my evening regimen and the letting go of left-over guilt, from not having met some people’s expectations.

The school year is winding down, with testing drawing to a close-and the focus being more on final class projects, at the intermediate and secondary levels. I am helping with intermediate students, working on science projects this week. Encouraging them to see the science behind everything from video games to pond scum is an exhilarating experience.

Next week, going back to primary level classes, will also provide some novel experiences, as the younger students, also, will be wrapping up some small exploratory activities. There is no end to what each of us can discover, as the world slowly opens back up, even as the technology which has sustained us through this pandemic offers new ways to maintain long distance connections.

I hope this last is not lost on many people.

The Snails Keep On

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 26, 2021- India, I hear, is bleeding. Brazil is getting restless, with its government’s perceived inaction. Canada is still locking many visitors out. Europe and east Asia seem to be making progress-and there is not much word from Africa-with regard to the pandemic. Many are more concerned with trying to get work and pay their way.

Here, we are making a fair amount of progress, and across the U.S., there is rising hope of getting back to some semblance of a post-pandemic life. COVID is a whipsnake, though, and its opponents, whether allopathic or naturopathic, are snails. Sooner or later, the snails will triumph-but they remain snails, and can’t help but be slow and meticulous. Even a whipsnake will get tripped up, sooner or later.

It seems that is the way with most issues of social import. Progressives act like one can just snap the fingers, and voila, the barriers to social justice will disappear. Reactionaries wish the progressives would just disappear. The rest of us will keep doing what we have always done-move forward, but in measured, sensible ways. Police will always be needed-just not in tyrannical form. Thugs will try to force their will upon the vulnerable, and will need to be opposed-thus, a firm, but fair, police force. (I read Mitch Albom’s account of life in lawless areas of Port au Prince, Haiti. That sort of thing could happen anywhere, if people adopt an attitude of self-centered insouciance.) An attitude, and practice, of listening to, and learning from, people with differing points of view will be needed-if our steps forward are not to be followed by a pell mell retreat backwards-as almost happened on January 6. A respect for people and, by extension, their property, will need to be re-instated. The stance that “They’re only THINGS” cannot be maintained in perpetuity. This is a material life, and even the monk needs assurance that his rice bowl will remain intact. What is wrecking a Boys and Girls Club, or a historical museum, going to do to advance social justice, anyway?

The snails move on, and will not be deterred.

Pressure, Real and Imagined

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Posted by on in collaborating, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 25, 2021- As I hau

As I hauled my laundry basket to the car, this afternoon, I spoke a few minutes with landlord, learning that there are a variety of infrastructure issues piling up, on and around the quad. This will most likely mean a rent increase, next year. I will face that issue, at that time. For now, there is no pressure on us tenants, but he will be pressed to come up with a game plan.

Whilst engaged in said laundry, I received another IM from someone whose basic message is that he needs help raising money. There was a time when I felt a welling up of pressure, with a measure of guilt at my relative level of comfort. I have since become more at ease with the situation, and my mantra is that people in a given country/community need to band together and make change happen-rather than keep the refrain that people in developed countries had better kick into the kitty , or at least make a loan to the poor souls. (Personal loans, even in this country, rarely are paid back, even in part. I have paid mine, but that’s a whole other matter.)

There is also pressure, both real and imagined, regarding one’s use of time. I have discussed the matter of proliferating Zoom calls, in an earlier post. Usually, there are at least two Zoom sessions, both of which are ABSOLUTELY URGENT, occurring simultaneously. I have learned to excuse myself, with a smile, from the less urgent of the two-or however many are scheduled at the same time.

It is a blessing to finally know how to distinguish true urgency from the urgency that exists only in the mind of the hearer.

Things That Last

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Posted by on in "sibling-ish", children, collaborating, Community, Family, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 24, 2021-

I have built friendships, over the past ten years. Those not founded on money, or any sort of desire, have lasted.

I have patronized several establishments and food providers over this decade. Those which honour me, as a single, older man, and base our transactions on a place of trust and integrity, have retained my patronage.

I have lived in the same dwelling for seven years. The landlord is old-school, “pay as you go”, knowing that I will honour my duty to remit my monthly rent on the first business day of the month and he takes care of anything that needs repair.

Faith and family have sustained me for seventy years. I know that neither is going to let me down. The Creator never will, nor will parents, siblings, spouse or son, whether they be in the flesh or in spirit.

These are things that last.

Summits Are Only A Beginning

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Uncategorized

April 23, 2021- I have never been to Ciudad de Mexico. The fifth-largest metropolitan area on the planet, it is also the second-largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere. Ciudad de Mexico may soon become the locus of the worst ecological nightmare that humanity has seen, in several centuries. The Valley of Mexico, indeed, the entire middle swath of the country, is experiencing the worst drought it has seen, in nearly a millennium. Central Mexico, as a whole, may very well be running out of water.

We in the Southwest of the United States (including southern California) have also been experiencing drought. The occasional snow and rain that we have received, since last autumn, have not done much to put a dent in the dryness. Only more judicious use of our water has, and will continue to, keep our communities from literally blowing away in the desert wind.

It is an irony, that the first place to which people in Mesoamerica turn, when faced with economic hardship, or sociopolitical repression, is the American southwest-from San Diego to Houston-and everywhere in between. We have done relatively well here, economically, though the underbelly of homelessness and economic inequality is as much a concern in the Southwest as it is anywhere on the planet. A splinter wedged under my fingernail hurts just as badly as it would under anyone else’s. So we go about being concerned with our own, first and foremost.

All the same, those who express disdain for the current immigration impasse at the border between Mexico and the United States must brace themselves for what will happen, should the water crisis in central Mexico worsen. The six-figure populace massing near, and permeating, that arbitrary line could all too easily morph into millions, or tens of millions, of people.

The Group of Twenty summit, convened virtually, on addressing climate change, is a tad behind schedule, through no fault of those who gathered. That said, it is painfully obvious that every single person on the planet has a role to play in conservation and better use of resources-especially of our planet’s basic elements (water, air, soil/minerals, and fire). It falls as much to local teams, neighbourhoods and families to double down on meeting the challenge of climate change. Everything from taking shorter, though equally intense, showers to intelligently recycling items that won’t decompose (and not just depending on municipal contractors to do the job), is the responsibility of everyone who enjoys running water and non-decomposable packaging. Providing clean water for drinking and bathing, to those who lack this basic resource, is a whole other topic.

These are the thoughts that come to mind, after the G-20’s most recent summit.

Misfits Abound

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Posted by on in Community, distraction issues, Historical, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 21, 2021- The events of yesterday call to mind several aphorisms of my youth: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”; “People living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”; “The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black”; “What! Cast your finger at another? Behold, three fingers are pointing back at you.”

I thought of these, primarily as there were references to yesterday’s verdict, in Minnesota vs. Derrick Chauvin, as “mob justice”. Seems to me, there were such instances of mob justice in the cases of Emmitt Till, in the trial of the Mississippi sheriff’s posse (1965), and in the Central Park jogger.

Chauvin could have been railroaded, but he wasn’t. The crowd that gathered and yelled, outside the courthouse, could have intimidated the jury, but the jurors were not aware of them. This case, if there were to be an appeal, would have to be shown to have been influenced by the protestors in general and Maxine Waters in particular. Thus far, the walls of the courthouse have not been shown to have let the sound outside permeate the actual courtroom or the jury facilities.

While none of that excuses the pandemonium outside, the parallels between it and the all-too-common lynchings, which took place for over a century, ring a bit hollow. I daresay that, had there been no lynchings, there would likely not have been the welling up of anger among people of colour; there would have been no build-up of smugness, leading to the “gladiator” mentality that has led to excessive force ( in which none of the police officers of my hometown, in the days of my youth, conservatives to a one, would ever have indulged); there would not have resulted in tit-for-tat shouting matches between progressives and conservatives, in cities across the country.

It was the original presumption of superiority, among the de facto aristocracy, that led to the Civil War, to Jim Crow laws and, in our time, to the mass attempts to shrink-wrap the voting laws of various states. Misfits abound, and they are not necessarily those protesting outside the courthouses.

The Unbroken Circle

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Posted by on in collaborating, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 18, 2021- One of the things I realized last night is that my true friends have stuck with me, over several ups and downs-and they are patient, through my peregrinations and inconvenient expressions of opinion. There are those, on the outer edge, who moved on at the earliest opportunity, but they never chose to come inside the circle.

There are friends who have worked at the most difficult of professions, and have shown nothing but fortitude. They are still delighted to see me, now and then. There are friends who are masters at making everyone who crosses their path feel welcome-and mean it. They wish that I would come around more often. There are friends who believe in the basic tenets in which I believe, and wish I could adhere even more to their way of thinking, but who make me feel cherished, anyway.

There are friends who hug, and mean every bit of it. There are friends who are content with a handshake-or an elbow bump, and will be glad when the pandemic is over. There are friends who prefer no physical contact-and that has nothing to do with COVID; it’s just who they are. Their hearts are still full of caring.

There are friends who are conservative, and merely want to see people earn what they get. There are friends who are progressive, and want to see long-standing wrongs get righted. There are friends who are in-between, and see worthy tenets on both sides. There are friends who are more comfortable with children and there are friends who prefer to be with elders. There are friends who prefer to be with only a few, select people.

They have all added a major blessing, or two, to my life, and I would be loathe to see any of them go. The true circle of friends remains unbroken, even as others come and go from its periphery.

Everywhere, and Nowhere

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Posted by on in collaborating, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Technical stuff

April 17, 2021- Eight years ago, I passed through the town of Magdalena, New Mexico, as it had run out of water, for the first time in memory. Since then, Magdalena has managed to keep its potable water supply above the minimum. The area is not “high growth”, so there has been a positive response to water conservation.

Arizona, southern California, Utah and Colorado, along with other parts of New Mexico, are high growth areas, with no corresponding stability in their water supply. We, in central Arizona, find ourselves in a place that is both appealing to those looking to relocate AND is in a period of lesser precipitation. The southwestern part of what is now the United States has known drought that has lasted as long as 400 years. During that time, the indigenous peoples of Arizona, California and Nevada packed up and left for other places which were not experiencing as severe a lack of precipitation.

The present, more transactional, society is, at least for now, both more numerous and more resistant to relocation, than were the somewhat simpler communities of the First Century, A.D. It is not hard to imagine just what chaos would ensue, in communities both densely populated and centered on high rise residential building, should the situation that faced Magdalena-and Cape Town, South Africa, a few short years ago, overtake them.

The present social climate has more than its share of denial-based, most likely, on the inability to imagine a world of dry taps. The technology for mass building of canals and distribution of water, from half a continent away, does not yet exist, nor does the public will to look into the matter. It will, however, present itself as necessary-and possibly as soon as the tail end of my lifetime, which is, as many of you realize, not all that far off.

We will need far more rain this summer, than has fallen in the past several years-and a much higher snowfall, come the winter of 21-22 and beyond, if the worst case scenario is to be averted.

Indy

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Posted by on in Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

April 16, 2021-

I have had the good fortune to have called many places home.

When good fortune meets the people of those communities, I feel the greatest joy.

When, on the other hand, tragedy strikes, it hurts my heart equally as much. Indianapolis was my home for a scant five weeks, in 1969.

I learned the skills needed to run a successful postal operation, and in particular, the skills needed to handle accountable mail. Only for the hiring freeze of early 1972, did I turn aside from being in the Registered, Insured and Certified cage, and follow through with a career in education. End of digression.

It was a maturational five weeks, at Fort Benjamin Harrison, in the leafy near suburb of Lawrence, and I began the slow, halting process of taking on a man’s responsibilities. Indianapolis has had a piece of my heart since then.

Many return visits have come to pass, since then; all of them have been times of welcome. So, it was with intense sorrow that I read, this morning, of the slaughter of eight people at a Federal Express site, not far from the old “Fort Ben”.

The debate about gun ownership will go on, and on. I know one thing, though. I was taught firearms safety, respect for a weapon and what it can do, at an early age. The men who taught me that respect would be aghast, livid, at the laxity with which the mentally ill are allowed to possess and use firearms, at will.

They were the true patriots of their time, and they cared enough to demand discipline-especially when it came to matters of life and death.

Heal, Indianapolis, as Boston, North Charleston, Atlanta, Blacksburg, Orlando, Sutherland, Fort Hood, Tucson, Las Vegas, San Bernardino, Aurora, Boulder, Jonesboro, Roseburg, Parkland, Newtown, Columbine and countless other communities have been healing, for so long, in the name of living in a free society that struggles to understand what freedom really means.

Tomorrow Always Comes

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Posted by on in Assistance, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 15, 2021- Despite the best efforts of the naysayers, or perhaps because of their incessant reminders, there is always a bright sun shining.

In spite of the pain we may feel, or perhaps because of its calling attention to a place that needs growing, there is healing that brings solace.

In the darkest of night, there is ever a glimmer far to the east that calls to the soul, saying: “Rejoice, for the tidings of strength, vindication and resilience are nigh, would you but be open to these.” Tomorrow always comes, if not to the body, then surely to the spirit.