Once Upon a Time in America

B.C., before Covid, before 9/11, There was an "American Dream"narrative many believed. That dream followed Americans from childhood all the way through adulthood then well into the "Golden Years." We lived on a consistent message that these United States of America held a certain promise that was guaranteed by the words written into the U.S. Constitution before we were born. Before now, we took that promise for granted and literally, assuming it would stand the test of time for all time, or at the very least, for our own lifetime!

In 2016, on a frigid, snowy Sunday morning in an historic, New England church where many sermons and hymns had been heard before, a retired minister stood up unapologetically to say that although it had not been his practice to speak politically from the pulpit, this day he knew he had to. He was about to send up a warning flare like the night the Titanic did so. In vain.

In the 1960's, his mother had been an activist. She had spoken up and worked against those who tried to oppress all others who belonged to the "protected" classes* under the Constitution. She had taught her son to speak up and that brought him to where he was standing on this day before a small congregation in one of the poorest, most depressed cities in the State of Massachusetts. He told us that when his mother passed away, he discovered a full dossier of her activism assembled by the FBI. He, too, as a young man had been documented for his affiliations with his mother! That didn't stop either one of them from speaking up, out, and outloud about the injustices many Americans suffered on a daily basis.

Their words and actions, along with many others, were instrumental in making it possible for everyone to vote, regardles; making it possible for women to receive safe, legal reproductive health care in their own community; making it possible to find asylum from brutal dictators elsewhere; making it possible to become an educated citizen through local schools; making it possible to breathe clean air and drink safe water; making it possible to attend synagogue or mosque or church without fear. This was the short list of possibilities that the minister juxtaposed against the long list of Presidential candidates that Spring in 2016. Then, this retired minister living out his Golden Years, spoke like a prophet that morning:

"We thought we had addressed and resolved many of the wrongs. We were the ones who were wrong! All the hatred, all the prejudice, all the evil, had just gone into a Pandora's Box. Now, in 2016, someone has the key and is about to open it in the next four years."

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By 2024, those prophetic words were written into our American story. We American citizens were faced with this truth that it soon might be too late to speak freely, to write freely, to read freely, and to vote freely, which is becoming as precarious as in dictatorships that so many flee against all odds.

In 2025 , NO KINGS! became a rallying cry when an estimated 7 million people across the U.S. decided it was time to do something. Political scientist tell us that a critical mass is required to stop a regime from carrying on. We must reach 11 million people to successfully stop the government bent on stopping us.

Ten years after that minister's warning the truth has come to bear down on us in ways we could never have imagined.

In 2026: The future is now! Our collective hands and voices are needed to say loudly and clearly that we do not want to live in a country without hope for a better life for everyone---A country without possibilities. We want to live in a country where once upon a time the promise of an American Dream might still come true.

In the end, Pandora did open that box unleashing all that was evil on an innocent world. But, the preacher told us not to forget that inside the box, there was also Hope!

Hope is the key that opens and protects what we hold dear and dare to dream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxb2F0l5INI

*PROTECTED CLASSES:  race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history). www.eeoc.gov

Where were you on 9/11?

This plaque is affixed to the American Consulate in Quebec City given in thanks for Canada's support on 9/11

The sentiment expressed with gratitude on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 commemorating both Americans and Canadians, goes further by saying: "We are happy to have the best neighbors in the world". It was true then, and is true now!

Neighbors south of the border were not alone in our horrible hour of need. So many, but most especially Canadians, offered support and help, comme toujours! It was not so long ago, but 25 years have gone by, and the day lives in memories and certainly in stories. We all know where we were on 9/11.

There are a million stories out there of how life changed that day. This is one that is full of hope:

Two men, one American, one Canadian, were inside the Twin Tower that was hit first. They did not know one another, but they helped each other descend 84 flights of stairs in darkness as the building collapsed around them. They have been friends ever since. That's how it works when someone reaches out to help another in need. Friendship is found in the other and in the end is cherished forever. https://share.google/yYAWdwH1Y94ft8dMY

I remember the morning's events sunk in when NPR turned to music, somber music, that said more than words could. On the first anniversary, it so happened I was in Grand Central Station in NYC at 9 am. A loudspeaker announced a moment of silence. Grand Central went completely silent. Later, at Trinity Church near to ground zero, the organ had to be replaced because all the soot and debris had clogged the pipes, but a new organ was being played for the first time since that fateful morning. The church was packed. We listened and sang with one voice "The Song of David". https://www.marshallandogletree.com/opus1

Where were you on 9/11? Take a moment to share something you remember in the comments please.

From KKK to ICE to DNA

Depending on where you live in the world, and particularly in the U.S., you, like me, may have heard little about the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in your backyard. No matter where you live, those three letters KKK spell rascists. Three letters can stand out in ways that say hatred. Think ICE.

I've learned a lot in the last few weeks about the rascism and outright hatred of my own French Canadian ancestors when they settled in New England. My young ears had heard the slurs, "Canuck" "Frogs" Pea Soupers", and perhaps worse, but my grandparents never would have spoken those words out loud within earshot of the children. But, what has shocked me is that the KKK held daylight marches with faces uncovered in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts where I grew up. Think Charlottesville.

The anti-Catholic white men, and a "special" order made up of women, did the same things in rural New England in the 1920's that I saw in newspapers and on television in the 1960's in the deep South. Things that happened somewhere else--not here--cross burnings and sheer numbers of hooded and masked men meant to frighten and intimidate the French Catholics who had been recruited by the so-called mill barons to work in their factories. My grandparents had answered their call.

The message beyond the mills came from the Church. The clergy were among the elite along with the political leaders and under their direction the people practiced their faith. The "trinity" of the great migration was: faith, language, culture--to be preserved at all cost. They paid for it in religious discrimination that manifested in the rallies of the KKK.

In my mind a link can be drawn directly from those hooded men of hatred to those masked men today. Their agenda going back before our time was meant to insure an all white, all protestant country. Think Christian not Christianity.

The goal is and continues to be to infiltrate institutions all the way up to the alleged highest court of law.* Think school boards to Supreme Court.

The KKK terrorized my French Canadian Catholic ancestors, maybe yours, too. It is inconceivable for me, a white woman with certain levels of privilege by that very fact, to put myself in the shoes of my own grandparents facing that anti-religious rascism.

Such targeted rascism against loved ones because of their faith, their language, their culture becomes part of the family story. Nobody is exempt when hatred drives the actions of a small-minded agenda. It's in our DNA.

No Prophets,** author and Congressman Jared Huffman, quotes Sinclair Lewis “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”

He offers an antidote that has been proclaimed by prophets in our lifetime: Think Bishop Budde.

If we muster a broad interfaith coalition grounded in shared commitment to democracy, we can reclaim the public square for everyone—religious and secular—to share on equal terms.

For a long time, I have believed interfaith is the way to go. If my grandparents had had that option, rather than being oppressed, they may have joined others in the public square instead of having to huddle in "Little Canada" all their lives.

*https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/birth-ku-klux-klan

**https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324130482/about-the-book