The Longest Night

There is a gathering storm. It’s palpable, a fear which collates in the streets, a quickening of steps, an avoidance of shadows; keep moving, look ahead, don’t make eye contact, hold close, walk briskly, do not run, do not draw attention to yourself, know your exits. It is a collective fear that is gripping the country not as we approach the solstice which passed without incident but rather as we approach the inauguration. In ancient times we used to burn fires through the longest night because we feared not what was in the dark but that the light would never return. Today, we don’t burn fires and dance by moonlight, we hide and speak in whispered tones about the loss of our liberties, about how best to fight, about what we fear lies in that darkness, that gathering storm. We lie awake at night and cry throughout the day and with each passing moment we grow weaker and weaker as the night grows longer and the darkness slithers across the land. Illness, fear and anger are contagious, they spread like disease. We have to rage against the darkness. Evil is easy, kindness and empathy take work. We have to return to the time of lighting fires, but they aren’t literal fires, they are the fires that burn within us, and as we share our love, our passion, our kindness and compassion, we burn so brightly that we cast a light in every dark recess of those too ignorant or blind to know what is coming as we draw like to like. We have to stop hiding from the shadows and gather our own storm of brightly burning soldiers to cast away the darkness. Don’t wait until the longest night to be a beacon for others. Don’t be swallowed by the darkness.

Seraphim

This Christmas season I am finally going through "the boxes", the ones which were damaged a few years ago when my father's basement flooded. For the past two years, I've opened them, smelled the damp, musty, mildew smell and put them away for another year. Tonight I started to go through them and discovered that all was not lost. There were some video tapes beyond hope but no great loss based on the titles, two table top white Christmas trees that are not so white but still quite salvageable and beautiful when lit (the lights are red so it doesn't matter that the trees are a little brown) and the transformer for a fiber optic angel I had never seen lit. To my surprise, not only did it work, but it is animated. Suddenly with a bit of grinding the wings began to beat, slowly, majestically, for the first time in my memory. I felt like an archeologist uncovering gifts left from my mother, some of her treasures which even after all these years beyond her death held secrets to be unearthed. I sat mesmerized by that angel, feeling my mother's presence so close, until she could flap her wings no more. I turned her off, let her cool down and when next I turned her on again, she began her seraphim dance once more. Like so many things we treasure, like the memories we hold dear, we will have to enjoy our angel sparingly so as to preserve her for what I hope to be years. We cannot hold too tight or she may yet go silent. My father watching me just smiled and said, “So like your mother.” And now I feel as though I have made whole something that was lost. Her angel. My heart.

Veterans Day

For my Father on Veterans Day-

Every year I post something for my Father, usually the same thing, a story about our trip to the Vietnam Memorial. But this year is quite different. Today I have been inundated with messages of, “It's Veterans Day, can’t we be civil? Can’t we be respectful? Can’t we take 24 hours to put politics aside and honor our Veterans?” And any other time, I would absolutely agree. But not this time. Because four days ago, in a historic and devastating turn of events, we somehow elected an Autocrat to the highest position in the land. I don’t need to rehash his campaign rhetoric; that is a much longer post. But this infamous election is the reason I cannot simply take today off to honor my Veterans because taking this day off does the opposite. Our complacency and our trust in this system is what has put us at the edge of this great precipice with a candidate who has manipulated the dialogue from day one.

So today, I honor my Veterans not by remaining silent but by remaining vigilant. I will not close my eyes and shut my mouth for the sake of ceremony when the very rights which our Veterans have so valiantly fought for are at stake from a man who spent his entire campaign maligning our Veterans, mocking our Democracy and dividing our country. I will not refrain from the free speech and peaceful protests which our Veterans risked their lives to preserve, often in other countries where these same rights have been systematically restricted, refused and criminalized. I will not refrain from holding our elected officials including our president elect accountable to their constituency and to maintaining basic human rights, constitutional freedoms, environmental protections and fortifications against threats to our national security. I honor my Veterans by doing all I can as a private citizen to prevent their children from going to war. I thank you for your service and sacrifice and I promise I will remain vigilant, today and always.