Enslaver Mindset

I've been thinking about Trump/Musk and the comparisons to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930's and while I do think that is a valid historical parallel, I also think we have one closer to home that is worth looking at: the first US Civil War.

The root cause of the war was the fact that enslavers of human beings wanted to keep treating people as things, as tools to be used, sold, and discarded as they chose.

They were given the chance to choose differently and instead of joining the rest of the Union in choosing restore the freedom that had been stripped from the enslaved, they chose to go to war to protect their right to own people and treat them as things.*

After a brutal war, they lost, and like the neo-nazi's in today's Germany, they went underground; but their idea, that if you are rich enough, you can 'own' people who must do your bidding still lives on -- especially in white America.

Trump, Musk, and the people around them are taking treating people like things to the next level, they are not the only ones, they are extreme examples of behavior we see throughout our society.

When big corporations pay poverty wages to staff and millionaire wages to CEO's, when the wealthy hire undocumented workers to work in their homes and pay them under the table, when highly desirable occupations use people in unpaid internships before discarding them for the next fresh face, they are all treating people as things.

Like enslavers they care nothing for the people they are discarding-- and that is the point. That is the power they want to have. They think it is their right to be obeyed and to punish anyone who doesn't obey them. They will use you until you are no longer of use and then they will discard you without a thought.

This enslaver mindset has been present since the founding of the USA and it is like a toxic weed. It flourishes if left unchecked and is difficult to eradicate entirely.

For Episcopalians, one of the tools we can use to root out the enslaver mindset is our baptismal vow, taken at our baptism and renewed at confirmation:

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I will, with God’s help.

People are not things, and we lose sight of that at our peril. It's time to put on the gardening gloves, get out our tools, and get to work weeding our civic garden.

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*Terry Pratchett said it best in his book "Carpe Jugulum" through Granny Weatherwax, one of his Discworld characters.
Granny Weatherwax, as she speaks to an earnest young priest, says:
"There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
"It's a lot more complicated than that--"
"No it ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"
"But they starts with thinking about people as things…"

Frankenstein's Progress

 I've been on a spooky movie kick and it's been interesting to see connections.

First I watched Arsenic and Old Lace.  In the movie there is a line where one of the characters points out that evil brother Johnathon looks like Boris Karlov (as Frankenstein with scars on his face).  Boris Karlov was a major investor in the play that inspired the movie, but he wasn't in the movie because he and the plays producers were afraid that if the play was stripped of all of it's stars for the 8 weeks filming took, the play would tank.  So in the play, the meta joke is that the evil brother Johnathon looks like Boris Karlov because he _is_ Boris Karlov. 

The movie Frankenstein came out in 1931, the original play Arsenic and Old Lace opened 1941, ten years later, so the image of Boris Karlov as Frankenstein had had 10 years to permeate the public consciousness by the time the play launched. (The film version of Arsenic and Old Lace was filmed during the run of the play but the filmmakers had agreed not to release it until the play closed.  It ran for longer than expected so the film wasn't released until 1944).

So next I watched Boris Karlov's Frankenstein from 1931 and The Bride of Frankenstein  (1935). I felt bad for the monster-- he was created and then immediately abandoned and abused.  As, always, the real monster in the film is the scientist Frankenstein and the horror is how quickly a mob of frightened people becomes its own monster.

I actually liked Bride of Frankenstein better because the Monster is given agency.  He wants someone to be his friend, he wants someone of his own to love. He has the most powerful and moving line in the film.

Watching both of those movies along with the sad announcement that Teri Garr passed away, inspired me to re-watch Young Frankenstein by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks.  It defiantly benefits from having watched both Karlov Frankenstein movies.  I also hadn't remembered that they got to use the original Frankenstein lab machines in their movie.  I've always been uncomfortable with the Putting on the Ritz scene, it's always been referred to as being funny, but I realized that, for me, it's much more about Fredrick Frankenstein thinking that if he can make his monster 'perform' normality and be entertaining then he will be accepted.  But this is hubris on his part, and it fails, and the movie shows it failing so, I think it supposed to be an uncomfortable scene as it sets up Young Frankenstein's later attempt to heal the monster and become fully himself.  By that sacrifice they both are healed.

In the course of watching the film, I was reminded that the film features 3 female comic powerhouses: Teri Garr as lab assistant Inga, Cloris Leachman as Frau Blücher, and Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth as Fredrick Frankenstein's fiancee. They are all brilliant in their roles.

The thing I love best about Young Frankenstein is it rights the wrong of the Karlov Frankenstein movies.  When Fredrick Frankenstein realizes he has created life and a dangerous 'monster' instead of turning away from his creation and letting others abuse the 'creature', he determines to love his creation into wholeness and independence and after several false starts, he gets there in the end.

Burden Shared

I've struggled in the past when someone I love and for who I am a caretaker for says some variation of: "I don't want to be a burden", with a strong feeling of guilt for what they 'are putting me through'.

I have a hard time with what to say in these situations. I have always assured them that they are not a burden. However, I think both they and I know that providing care does take work, resources, and time, so that has always felt in-authentic and weak.

Today, as I was getting my breakfast, I realized that what I am really saying when I tell them they are not a burden, is that my life would be poorer without them.

Since we can't wave a magic wand and heal them, my choices range between seeing them struggle without my help, or having them in my life with the extra work inovolved.

I choose them and the labor that comes with them. The time, work, and resources that I share to support them is a gift I can give not a burden that I want to unload.

Yes, there will be times when I wish the person was well for both our sakes. Yes, there will be times when I am tired and frustrated, but that is because I come with my own limitations. Yes both of us will feel guilt, both over what we can do and what we cannot.

But the next time someone says: "I don't want to be a burden" I feel like I have a better answer.

My life would be poorer without you. Lay down the burden of guilt you are carrying. I choose you.

Timely Aid

Recently I had an appointment with a physical therapist. I had injuries my shoulder in some mysterious way back in February. I gave it the usual 4-6 weeks to get better; and, when it was still nagging at me, went to the doctor. After doing an assessment, she agreed that physical therapy was the next step. 

The earliest appointment was several weeks out; so, by the time I was actually seen it had been four months since the initial injury.

Now, throughout this time, I was able to do everything I wanted to. The pain was very minor, if annoying. I could still lift heavy things, knit for extended periods of time, and do all of my normal actives without having to take pain medication. So part of me wondered if I was wasting the physical therapists time. 

During my appointment, the therapist assessed my relative arm strength and movement and told me what she discovered. Even thought I hadn't felt like there had been any impact in my strength and mobility. She, from her perspective, could see several physical signs of injury. I had both more limited mobility and more restricted range of motion in my injured arm than in my healthy arm.

I was honestly surprised.

The main reason I had followed up with the doctor and therapist about the injury was because I have had friends who have suffered permanent damage to joints because they didn't get help early on after an injury. Either due to lack of insurance, or because their doctors didn't take their complaint seriously at the time.

I was glad I had followed up. It was apparently the type of injury that could lead to long term issues. By dealing with it promptly the therapist said she was very optimistic that the injury would heal if I kept up on the exercises she prescribed. 

This got me thinking about how important help and support can be in life in general. Even though I could tell I was injured, it took consulting with professionals to help truly assess the scope of the injury. I couldn't do it alone, even though I was the one feeling the pain.

Getting help early in the process may have saved me from needing much more extensive intervention later. Getting help before new, bad, habits had locked in place is allowing me to treat the problem with simple exercise. Getting help from an experienced practitioner allowed me to piggyback on their training and life experience and learn a lot in a very short time. 

I think our culture can encourage 'going it alone' more than is healthy. Not only are there are many things that we can't solve on our own, there are things we can't even correctly diagnose on our own.

Help at the right time can prevent catastrophic.

Help from the right person can pin-point a problem.

Help of the right type can provide healing.

Requests for help are spread throughout the Book of Common Prayer. Sometimes we ask for direct help for ourselves, sometimes we ask for strength to help others. Help is shown as merciful and joyful. It can be a shield protecting us, or it can embolden us to fight for others.

Help is powerful.

Death in Life

One of the quotes that has stayed with me from Neil Gaiman's fictional work, "The Sandman," is said by the character Death when she is going about her work in the mortal world:

"You get what everyone gets, a lifetime."

Mr. Gaiman's version of death manifests not as the scythe-wielding, cloak-enshrouded apparition common in many movies and books; but as a young woman into the goth scene. From what I remember of the series she is also a fairly compassionate incarnation of Death which was an interesting twist back when the Sandman comic came out in the late 1980's-early 1990's.

Death has been on my mind a fair bit for the past few weeks, as a priest who was colleague of my mom's, and who presided at her funeral, died recently and I was able to attend his funeral.

I didn't know him well but I felt that I should attend the funeral if I could, for two reasons. First, because if Mom were still alive she would have gone. Her relationship with both the priest and the church he served was important to her and was one of the reasons she asked him to do her funeral. Second, because he provided me with un-looked-for, but very welcome, support at the end of Mom's life and especially between the time she died and the time of her funeral. 

At his funeral, both of the people who spoke commented on how good he was a being a priest. My own experience matched that. When I called him to tell him Mom had died, he was in the hospital himself getting treatment. To some extent, he and mom were partners in this. Both had serious illnesses and were facing the fact that it was more a matter of when, than if they would die.  One of the things mom talked about as she got too weak to leave the house was her disappointment knowing she would not be here to support her, much younger, colleague as he faced his own illness.

For his part, when he and I met to discuss the service plan that mom had drawn up and to work out all of the logistics for her funeral, he took the time to ask me how I was doing. He let me talk about my feelings and asked some very good questions that were very helpful, not just during our meeting, but for me to take forward as I adjusted to life without Mom. In that meeting, he was everything a priest should be: welcoming, compassionate, practical, and even a bit funny. It helped that he had known Mom well and that both he and she shared some of the same memories of the congregation they had both served at different times.

While I sat in the sanctuary listening to the prelude, I read his obituary and was startled to learn that he was several months younger than I was. Part of that might be that I am still young enough that I tend to assume that people in roles such as doctor, dentist, lawyer, or priest are automatically older than I am. I know that part of it was that, even then, his illness made him seem more frail and therefore older than his years.

But a big part of it was the wisdom and compassion he demonstrated to me. Even though he was visibly ill, even though he was dealing with his own medical issues. Even though he was dealing with the stress of trying to be present for his congregation while dealing with his own issues. He took a slice of time that I expected to just be a meeting about logistics and turned it into a time for me to process my own feelings, for the two of us to share a few stories about my mom, and by doing that he gave me peace that I didn't know I needed until he offered it.

His lifetime measured in years was short, but, from my experience of him, he certainly lived into both it and his vocation.

We each get a lifetime, and while we don't get too choose how long it will be, we can choose, to some extent, what to do with it.

I wonder if that is part of what Jesus meant when he said that in losing our life we would save it and in trying to save it we would lose it.  I also wonder if that was what the parable of the talents was really all about-- the idea that it is better to risk and be vulnerable in life than to live in fear that someday we will die.

We all die, so it's how we live that makes the difference, not how long we live.

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The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, published between 1989-1996 by DC Comics

Bible citations are from Bible Gateway (NRSV)

Making Space

This week I worked on making decorative pillow covers for pillows in our den. It was a fairly easy project as all of the cuts and seams were straight, and the fit didn't have to be perfect for them to still look good.

As I was putting the new covers on the pillows, I realized that part of what made this project easy was having the space and equipment ready to go.

I've been sewing my own costumes, home decoration, and clothes since the early 1990's and have advanced to the point where I can make my own patterns and have things turn out close to the way I envision and design them. 

I purchased my first sewing machine when I was in college and have used everything from floors with 70's shag carpets to my dining room table to cut out fabric and work on projects.  When my husband, housemate, and I were looking for a house 20+ years ago, one of our requirements was a space my housemate and I could use as a workroom.  The house we bought had a family room in the basement that was perfect (in addition to meeting all of our other requirements).

Our workroom has a cutting table (made for us by my housemate's dad). We can pin directly into it, so fabric and patterns stay put while we are working with them. We also have enough room to leave all of our equipment (two sewing machines, a serger, and an ironing board) set up and room to store works in progress, fabric, notions, and other crafting supplies. 

All of this means that if I want to make a set of pillow covers, or fix a pair of pants, there is a lot of labor I don't have to do in order to get started.  My housemate and I have done all that we can to make it easy to sit down and start on a project.

There are a lot of barriers to working on any project, hobby, or even building good habits. Some of those barriers are self-made and can be removed. For example, my housemate and I have an agreement that the work table is to be left clear—no leaving projects on it 'to get back to'.

We didn’t always have this rule, but we found that if either of us left a project out, it was more likely than not that the project would just sit there for weeks and neither of us would get any work done because the table was occupied. It wasn't even a conscious thing, some part of our brain decided that since the table was full, we didn't have time to work on a project.

For us, the empty table is welcoming. It facilitates creativity and crafting because there is room to get right to work without having to clean and clear a space.

When we lived in a small apartment, anytime we wanted to do a project, we first had to make enough time to clear and set up a space to work andactually work on the project.

Not everyone needs to have an entire crafting workroom in their basement. However, I do think it is worth looking at ways to make what you want to do easier for you to just do; and I believe that that means making both space and time for the desired project to be undertaken. 

This is just as true of a spiritual life and discipline as it is of any hobby or habit. There are only so many minutes in the day, bookshelves for books, or space for ritual. Making space and time for a ritual or discipline makes it easier for it to take hold.

Permission to Rest

This is a fun and busy week for me. Every year 24 local yarn stores band together for a regional tour that runs for 5 days, from Wednesday to Sunday. The shops are open extra hours in the evenings and folks drive around to try and visit as many of them as possible. There are prize drawings at each shop for each day's visitors as well as drawings for folks who visit either 8, 16, or all 24 stores. Each store has patterns available for free, and discounted yarn that will work with those patterns.

On Wednesday I drove 125 miles and visited 6 stores in all. Thursday, I picked up a friend, and together we drove 167 miles and managed to visit 6 stores (and had some of the best pizza I have ever had). Both days were fun, if tiring.

Friday is Syttende Mai (the 17^thof May, aka Norwegian Constitution Day).  In the years before I started knitting, I went to Ballard (a neighborhood in Seattle) for what is billed as the largest Syttende Mai parade outside of Norway. That was also fun, and tiring.  

This year, I will limit my celebration to hanging out my Norwegian Flag and maybe making my family's traditional Norwegian Pancakes for dinner; as, I plan to spend Friday on the road, this time heading North to some of the stores that are furthest from me. 

There is only so much I can do in one day.

At times like this, when I have several fun and exciting things that I would like to do, it is important to remind myself that there is such a thing as Happy Stress and it can be just as draining as regular old stress.

When I attend conventions for fans of science fiction/fantasy, there is a rule for staying healthy, cheerful, and energetic, that the members tend to remind each other of and joke about: It is the 5, 2, 1 Rule, which recommends that attendees get a minimum of 5 hours of sleep per night, eat at least 2 meals per day, and fit in at least 1 shower per day. And while the shower rule is more about keeping a very busy and packed space pleasant for everyone, all three of them can help everyone enjoy the convention. 

Sometimes, I get caught up in the need to do just-one-more thing instead of taking a break. The Thing can range from loading the dishwasher when I'm trying to get out the door, to driving to one more store on the LYS Tour. It can be easy to lose track of the quiet time that enriches experiences by allowing time to reflect on them before rushing off to the next Thing.

Weekly worship and intentional quiet time can both provide a meaningful pause in the rushing about that everyday life can encourage. Those pauses can give me space to be intentional about how I am choosing to spend my time doing and if those choices are sustainable.

It's a lot of fun to drive from store to store and collect the new patterns, see the beautiful yarn, and chat with other folks having fun doing the same thing. However, I can't live at that fever pitch. So, come Sunday, I will spend some quiet time reflecting on the joy this adventure gave me and give myself permission to rest, from even my fun labors.

Looking for Joy

Love righteousness, you rulers of the earth,
think of the Lord in goodness
and seek him with sincerity of heart;

~Wisdom 1:1

My mother passed away in 2018* and her funeral was held this time last year. There have been parts of the last year that have been difficult; however, both my parents taught me excellent lessons about both living in the now and not dwelling on a past I can't change. I've done my best to use those lessons.

After the funeral (during the time I was recovering from helping Dad care for Mom) I found myself flashing back to the last few days and remembering Mom in ways that she would not want. Soon, I realized that, if I let this continue, those images would wear a track into my mind and permanently become the first thing that would spring to mind when I remembered my mom.

I didn't want that. 

I was very lucky to have had a good relationship with my mom. We had our differences, but anything major had been ironed out years ago. We had gone on several adventures together to see the world in addition to our more mundane visits to each other.

To help push my many years of good memories to the forefront of my mind, I chose to redirect my thoughts each time one of the sad memories cropped up.

To help me, I kept the slide show of moments with my family (that included mom) on my computer instead of removing it because it might make me sad. That way I saw her every day in ways she would want to be remembered: healthy and enjoying life.

It was difficult, at first, to catch myself when I was tumbling down a sad path of remembrance; but, as the year went on, I got better at it. Just last week a photo of my mom, dad, and kiddo, together and smiling, cycled up on my laptop screen and I found myself spontaneously smiling at the image. 

I am very glad that I made the choice to set aside the hard, sad, and scary memories of Mom's last week and, instead, turn my focus to moments from our various travels together; or moments from my childhood; or to quiet moments sitting on the couch together with a baseball game on while we both worked (or goofed off on) our computers.

This choice** served me in two ways. One: it strengthened the good, loving, and joyful memories I have of my mom. Two: it weakened and caused to fade, many of those sad and difficult memories from her last few weeks. Some of those memories I havechosen to keep. Those few are small treasures that am glad to look at occasionally. The rest have mostly faded into hazy recollections, and that is fine with me.

There is a lot in my life that I have no control over; but I can, in part,  choose which of my memories to reinforce and which to let fade away. 

I can, in short, look for joy.

Do not invite death by the error of your life,
            or bring on destruction by the works of your hands;
because God did not make death,
            and he does not delight in the death of the living.
For he created all things so that they might exist;
            the generative forces of the world are wholesome,
            and there is no destructive poison in them,
            and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.

~Wisdom 1:12-14

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*My essay from that time last year: Come, Thou

**Note: If you are dealing with grief or any other overwhelming emotion and simple things like getting a good night's sleep or doing something distracting don't help you regain your equilibrium, please consider meeting with your doctor and seeing if therapy or other mental health treatment is necessary.  We have adopted the saying in our family: "If you can't make your own neurotransmitters, store bought is fine." So if mediation, redirecting thoughts, getting enough sleep (and enough water) don't help, see if your doctor or therapist can.

Adventures in Phở

This week I am at the Oregon Coast spending time with my dad. I very much enjoy getting to hang out with him and just be a part of his routine. The big highlight of our day is usually walking into town to get the mail.

When I am visiting, I try to cook a few of the evening meals to give Dad a break from cooking for himself. He's vegetarian, but very easy to cook for, because his favorite food is meals that other people have cooked andhe's willing to eat leftovers for several nights in a row.

I'm not as easy to cook for as he is because I have a long list of foods that I can't tolerate well. Top of the list are onion and garlic. Since onion and garlic form the base for most savory vegetarian food it gets a bit tricky to cook savory dishes that we can both enjoy.

When I first figured out that onion and garlic were not good for me, it was very stressful. I was super-sensitive to minute quantities, which meant that I had to avoid almost all pre-packaged savory food. 

I wasn't much of a cook at that point in my life. I had about three dishes I could make, and I tended to set fire to things accidentally, or make a major spice errors so my food was inedible.

I started to get interested in cooking, partly in self-defense, partly because I took it into my head that I shouldbe able to cook and the only way to become a good cook would be to get cooking. It helped a lot that my roommate came up with a way to create the savory flavor of onion and garlic that I could use as a replacement in many dishes.

We have a saying in our house: "It goes faster if you start." It comes from working on craft projects. There is only so much thinking and planning one can do, eventually one needs to start work for the project ever to be finished.

Once I started cooking, I never looked back. Cooking confidence led, in turn, to baking. After years of trying to get bread to rise and learning to watch my bakes so as not to set fire to the oven, I can now reliably bake bread and pastries. I have even developed a sense of timing and can wander off and do other things and come back to the oven just as the timer is about to go off.

All of this work has given me the ability to look a recipes and plan how to alter them so as to get results that not only I can eat (because they cater to my own limitations) but that taste good to other people.

So this week, my dad mentioned liking Vietnamese Phở and I was inspired to come up with a recipe that was both vegetarian and onion/garlic/ginger free. After reviewing several recipes on-line, I made a list of ingredients and substitutions, went grocery shopping, and spent the next several hours cooking. 

Dad and I had the final result for dinner, and it was very tasty. I don't know that it is anything like real Phở, but it is at least Phở adjacent.

While I was working on the various steps to make the Phở broth, I thought about how impossible a task this would have been for me ten years ago. What is easy for me now, would have been overwhelmingly complicated for me then.

However, if my past-self hadn't suddenly decided that cooking as A Thing I Should Know, I wouldn't have the skills I do today to alter a recipe on the fly and have the result be edible. 

Every journey starts with a single step and every project (learning skills included) goes faster if you start.

The thing I have found myself saying most often in my life is: "Why didn't I do X sooner?" There is almost no example of a project, skill, or activity that I wish I had postponed starting for a longer time.  Once I made the transition from thinking about the idea to actually doing the work, I more often wished I had gotten started sooner.

Everyone is different and at different stages in life. However, in my experience, time waits for no one. Procrastination is frequently fear in disguise, but my fears come true so rarely that I'm really trying to learn not to listen to those fears.

If I had put off learning to cook because I got discouraged at how often I set off the smoke detector or made inedible spice choices or because I feared that no one would everlike my food; I wouldn't be where I am today, having fun adventures in Phở.

Perspective

I was working in my garden and set a tool down near me and got up to take my bucket of weeds to the compost bin. When I returned, I realized that while the tool was easy to find when I was nearby, it became nearly invisible when looking at the entire garden.

That shift in perspective was dizzying.

As we move from Lent into the events in Holy Week, we enter one of the busiest times in the church year. Between the plethora of church services that lead up to Easter and the packed lectionary that includes some of the most powerful and exciting scriptures there is a lot going on physically, mentally, and spiritually.  Add to that social and cultural Easter events such as Easter egg hunts, making Easter baskets, and brunches with family and friends and it can be easy to be caught up in running from one event to another.

I see bits of this in the scriptures as the story moves from last Sunday's triumphal entry into Jerusalem with palms waving to the upcoming crucifixion, death, and resurrection stories.

There are the details of two disciples who are sent to get a specific colt for Jesus to ride. It is not just any old colt; it is one that in a particular location and that has never been ridden before. There are the details of the crucifixion story that give us the Stations of the Cross.

It is easy to get caught up in the details of day-to-day tasks; just like when I am weeding, all I see are weeds, and I feel that there is no way I can lose my tools. However when I stand up and take a moment to stretch, those details fade quickly into the new perspective of the garden as a whole. The tools and the weeds are in there somewhere; but, for the moment they are no longer the focus.

As we move through the story of Jesus in this Easter Season, it can be good to take a break from the details of the story, the services, and the events.

Look up, and see the wholeness of the Easter story and the grace we receive through it.