Things I Learned in 2018

The School of Life continues to be in session and these are a few of 2018's lessons:

Being an armchair citizen who votes in every election is not nearly enough. 

I am an excellent dog sitter, especially when the dog lives in Oahu.  

In the very long list of colossally unfair things that Life tosses at us, childhood brain cancer ranks very high.  https://thecurestartsnow.org/donate

Anger is Fear's voice. (I learned this a long time ago but relentlessly struggle with it)

Fear is a beast. (Ditto on the above struggle)

My daughter's gift of a Restorative Yoga class has made me reconsider yoga.

Saying my age and being grateful for Life are difficult to hold separately but when I pair the two, they support each other.

Locking car keys in the trunk while on vacation opens up the world of Sunday bus transportation schedules along with the loveliness of strangers willing to help.

Wedding officiating rocks.

Standing and screaming at Broad and Ritner in South Philly while the Super Bowl Champion Eagles stop in front of us to ingest all of the love is difficult to top.  

High-fiving "Poet Laureate for the day" Jason Kelce in all his Mummer glory comes close. 

Little crocheted wreath pins bring joy and my Grandmom Elizabeth's magnificent spirit continues to inspire me.  

Six-year-old kiddos get me. 

Watching my brother deliver a story at a Moth Story Slam takes my breath away. 

Audiobooks in the authors' voices are incredibly satisfying.

Nationalism is 'white speak' for racism. 

Origami is one more creative outlet pour moi.

A grand nephew is, among other things, a bundle of reassurance about this world. 

My "death row meal" is a bottomless bowl of steamed crabs resting atop homemade pasta with white wine and anchovy sauce enjoyed at the shore in August with loved ones.

Liz Gilbert, Glennon Doyle, Brene Brown, Cheryl Strayed, Jesmyn Ward, Ruth Bader Ginsburg always have an open invitation to dinner at my home.  My fantasy table is already crowded and I delight in the increasing boisterous assemblage of women. 

I am stealing this from another's FB post because I love it so: I am donating any of my body's organs to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, even if I am still alive.

A 90-minute, no intermission, a whisper of a show can win the 2018 Tony for Best Musical. Here is the finale to the glorious, "I would see it again and again" The Band's Visit.  It is a gorgeous plea for connection - my sweet spot. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXrwqtztFtU

 

 Thank you for reading this year-end vanity project.  

Your kindness is felt and treasured.

Comply, Lie, Deny

I attended Catholic grade school, high school, a Jesuit college, and took graduate courses at a Catholic university.  I taught CCD in my parish.  My daughters each sang in the church choir, the oldest until she graduated high school.  My dad sang in the St. Philomena Men's  Choir for years (they even recorded an album which he proudly reminds anyone when conversation about choirs arises) and he served as cantor at that same church for 20 years. Both of my brothers were altar boys.  When I was in eighth grade, I was chosen as May Queen for my parish's annual May procession.

All of this background is offered to simply say I was raised and educated in the Catholic faith mostly in the Philadelphia Archdiocese.  

The recent Pa. Attorney General's grand jury report on the sexual abuse of children in six Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses has little to do with faith and everything to do with power.  It sickens me.  

I ache for the survivors' stolen childhoods, all lost sense of safety, and the abhorrent memories they grapple with as they navigate life beyond. The mob mentality of diocesan and Vatican hierarchy in covering up the abuse and protecting pedophile priests who continued to have unfettered access to children speaks to a deplorable fealty to power.

Power - the great corrupter. 

And who are the powerful running the business of religion? Men.  
Who protected the priests abusing children?  Men.
Who abused the children?  Men.
Who tried to stop the publication of the grand jury report? Men.

In the spring of 2012, the Vatican, then under the papacy of now retired Benedict XVI, chose to reprimand Catholic nuns in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for "serious doctrinal problems." An American bishop's report concluded that the nuns' social works flew in the face of church teachings. 

Specifically, the report noted the group's support of the health care overhaul under President Obama after the American bishops opposed it in 2010.  While the differing beliefs on health care was the surface issue being addressed, the language and intention of this reprimand is what received the most attention.

The report took issue with the nuns who "disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”   It further noted the sisters had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

My first thought was, "Oh my goodness - they are going after the nuns!" While reports of a long history of priests abusing children flooded the airwaves, the Vatican took a ruler and figuratively cracked the knuckles of women who have faithfully served the poor and needy without a whisper of the horrors wrought by pedophile priests. 

As for "authentic teachers of faith and morals," I cringed at the audacity of that statement. 

The contrast was stunning. The Greek proverb - Physician, heal Thyself - immediately came to mind. Voices rose quickly in disbelief and rebuke as those of us taught by nuns saw the unbalanced reprimand of these ardent social workers for Christ. I saw it as corporate run misogyny. 

At a reunion of my grade school classmates, the Immaculate Heart of Mary sister who taught us in eighth grade was also in attendance. We spoke about this reprimand and she smiled and said how surprising and heartwarming it was to see the public's vocal response in support of the nuns. 

These women have served fiercely without a pinprick of the stain made by pedophile men serving as priests. And yet the reprimand was made. Heal thyself indeed. 

In college, I wrote a paper supporting the need for female priests for a theology class. The young Jesuit who taught the class struck up a conversation with me about the topic. He noted Biblical doctrine and tradition as the basis for this male only "calling" which was/is consistent with the Church's steadfast adherence to the male only club today. Christ chose the Apostles - they were all men - end of story. 

I recall thinking that if these are the rules, then these are the rules. It was a tidy conclusion. The child abuse documented over seven decades moved me to forego attending Mass years ago. I no longer trusted the hierarchy. The unimpeded protection of priests in power crushed my spirit and enthusiasm for Catholic ritual. 

There are well over 1 billion members of the worldwide Catholic church and women are not represented in decision making or leadership roles. This imbalance is untenable. It is absolutism. 

Men have wrought and supported the child abuse disgrace. What makes us believe they can fix it? Where is the substantive resolve to change the backroom machinations that supported 70 years of these crimes? Seven decades!

The corporate church continues to be reticent to change because it has so much to lose in money and membership.

I believe in the singular message of Christ - love one another.

The rest of the rules are man's attempt to figure out how to run the business. Until women play a substantive role in church hierarchy, until female voices are included in the running of the church business and decision making, I'll take my faith and my femininity elsewhere.

Link to PA Attorney General website re: grand jury report 8/14/18

https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/press-releases/attorney-general-shapiro-details-findings-of-2-year-grand-jury-investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-by-catholic-priests-in-six-pennsylvania-dioceses/

Link to article re: Vatican reprimand of nuns

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/us/vatican-reprimands-us-nuns-group.html

Link to PA grand jury report

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/report-on-pennsylvania-church-sex-abuse/2319/

Link to Vatican reply to the grand jury report

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639491434/vatican-responds-to-pa-grand-jury-report-on-abuse-of-children-by-clergy

Depression's Fame

NOTE: This post mentions suicide.  Please call 988 - the suicide/life crisis hotline in the US - if you need/want help and you will be directed to a local crisis center.  

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/

Anthony Bourdain.

Kate Spade.

Robin Williams.

Famous.  Successful.  Beloved.  Depressed.

They represented so much of what I love about life- food, style, humor. They showcased themselves on a grand scale, brought artistry into my  'not so grand scale'  life, and enriched it without ever knowing me.  Sure, it made them rich but it made me rich too - rich in appreciating how they saw life's beauty.

Their suicides are crushing.  

Why, oh why, does it happen?  For now, social media spikes with suicide prevention information and reminders of how we are all loved and needed in this unrelenting, difficult world.  Information about depression floods media coverage.  In their isolated deaths, these artists offer one more universal gift: awareness.

Of course, famous folks are not inoculated from depression.  We all carry it.  We all struggle with it.  The weight of it unevenly fractures our thoughts.  Most of all it isolates even the most exposed of us. And that is what makes it so frightening.

The subtext of their singular deaths is, that if it can happen to them, with all of their resources, then it can happen to anyone.  Indeed.

As my grandmother would say, everyone puts their pants on the same way every day.

Their fame makes them known to us in a way that is, after all, unnatural.  It is a false connection that strangely reassures us.  Let's face it - we work years on cultivating personal relationships, enduring the pitfalls of connection as well as the rewards.  We invest in and love our families and friends with ardor knowing it is a challenge.  But, as a dear friend would always point out when you consider the alternative, there is no other choice.   

So why do we allow famous strangers to inhabit this sacred life space? I think they help fill a universal desire to feel nourished, beautiful, and happy.  Their positive offerings to the world resonate via their notoriety and fuel their own life's purpose.  It can be the quintessential win/win because we each get something from the experience.  

This is what makes their suicides so jarring.  If we are supposedly winning in the give-and-take of talent, how can this happen?  I don't pretend to know the answer, but I am strangely grateful for the reminder these humans leave behind:  depression is everyone's demon.  Whatever tools we need to keep it from taking the steering wheel of our lives must be readily accessible.  Depression doesn't care if we are loved or not.  Depression just wants the steering wheel.  

Depression has taken my steering wheel countless times and in differing degrees: after an unspeakable betrayal by an old flame, after a house fire, after the death of a younger, robust friend, after my daughter turned 17, after motherhood felt anemic.  Sometimes I walked out of it.  Most times I crawled out with help. 

I don't think we can eradicate it.  Authors (and goddesses) Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert each reinforce the belief that we need to learn to live with depression.  Their non-fiction writing is one of my go-to strategies. They have taught me that depression gets a seat at our emotional table along with the more desirable guests of kindness, joy, empathy. (sort of like Trump at the G7 meeting, but I digress.)

Depression gets a voice but not the microphone.

  

Our very human work is to love without rules, without fear, and to listen. To reassure everyone that they matter.   I don't know that I do any of these really well.  But I am thankful for the unbalanced, unfair, excruciating reminder these deaths blast home, yet again.

I'd love to kick depression's ass.  I will settle for shoving it into the trunk, muffling its voice, and taking the goddamn keys.  

The Book Lady

The front license plate on my car reads "Peace  Love  Books."  The order of importance often changes but the trilogy's intrinsic value remains steady:  I wish for peace, I insist on love, and I cherish books.

License plate

When I read that Dolly Parton was recently at the Library of Congress to celebrate the delivery of her Imagination Library's 100th million book, I felt all three of these imperatives. Her program has put children ages birth to 5 and books together since 1995. This amazing milestone shows how Dolly leads with love.  

Dolly's impact was minimal in my world until a few years ago when my friend Susan asked if I would join her to see a concert at the Mann Center in Philadelphia.  Such an invitation would usually have a 99% acceptance rate by me.  But, I had to pause when she noted who was performing: Dolly Parton.  

Hmmmm.  Country music was not atop my list of preferred music genres.  I knew only two of Dolly's songs:  "Jolene" and "9 to 5." (And yes, I knew she wrote/sang "I Will Always Love You" but it is the more infamous Whitney Houston version I kept on my playlist.) I tried to let Susan down gently.  

As a lifelong Dolly fan, Susan would not back down.  She grew up in Missouri listening to Dolly's albums at home.  The music not only helped her navigate the pain of a challenging childhood, its message offered motivation for what one can achieve through persistence regardless of your life's circumstances.  She was not going to be pushed aside by my glib indifference. 

Susan persisted.  I am forever grateful that she did.

The evening held so many satisfying moments:  Dolly's pitch perfect voice, her self-aware humor, her musicianship (she played at least 8 different instruments) her deep catalog of songs, her homespun sincerity, her laughter  - oh the list is long.  The wide age range of her audience also reinforced her vast, enduring appeal.  

Scenes from Dolly Parton in concert at the Mann Center
.Philadelphia, PA June 2016

But what slowly, endearingly drew me in was the overwhelming warmth and kindness this petite bedazzled country girl sent out across the audience from the  moment her stiletto heels walked into the spotlight until she waved her final goodnight y'all.  

Dolly's glamorous exterior makes it hard turn away. I realized it is an intentional ploy to catch our attention.  Once she has it, she is masterful in keeping it with her profound talent and unbridled love.  In that large concert venue, she managed to spread her love to each of us (even skeptical me.)  I cried at the sheer tonnage of its impact. 

This month, Dolly did it again when she sat in front of pre-schoolers and read to them in our nation's library.  She made headlines for her impressive non-musical efforts to ensure young children have consistent access to books.  She continues to lead with love. 

What began as a county wide effort in her rural Tennessee home has grown into this magnificent national outreach where she is called The Book Lady.  Dolly affirms her role by working with local libraries, government agencies, and other non-profits to put the world into children's hands to help set them up to become lifelong readers.  "I think that if you read it can give you wings to fly,"  Dolly noted to reporters at the DC event.    

It was much too easy for me to dismiss Dolly as some glittery country singer before I saw her in concert.   I sadly believed her overdone look made her unimportant. Her Imagination Library's amazing multi-million book moment reinforced what a fool my pre-concert self had been to judge this amazing book by her cover. 

On this International Women's Day, it is a joy to celebrate Dolly.  

Link to the 100th million book event at the Library of Congress:
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/01/589912466/dolly-parton-gives-the-gift-of-literacy-a-library-of-100-million-books