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

These past days as the first and only American Pope has spoken forcefully for peace not war; for truth not lies; for hope not suffering

I have found myself warming to the Church in a way I have not for decades. For some time I have been roaming in what I call the Catholic diaspora. Sometimes it is a choice to side-step the rules that feel untenable at the time. Choices are made, and before long there is a sense of no turning back. Then a voice speaks:

Hearing Pope Leo exercise his moral authority over the current aberration playing out before the world gives me heart. A Vatican correspondent who has covered wars around the world said: "The first victim of war is the truth". There is no better summation of the past weeks where truth itself has been victimized to the point of obliteration. All is skewed when the words spoken by the opposing regime begin to make more sense than those of the current U.S. regime. "All people want peace", said Pope Leo. Who can argue with that?

"I would invite the citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities - political leaders, congressmen - to ask them, to tell them, to work for peace and to reject war and violence", said Pope Leo to the one and half billion Catholics whom he leads. This is what leadership looks like!

Pope Leo

The United States Capitol switchboard is available 24/7 and connects you directly with the office of your senators and congresspersons. (202) 224-3121. And, while we are at it, why not pray for peace.

Looking for a low-tech life . . .

. . . among the sheep and cows. Sounds a bit drastic like choosing to chuck it all and check into a convent -- or live in an anchorage like Julian of Norwich in the fourteenth century. Drastic or tempting?

Farmland and wind turbines, St. Patrice de Beaurivage, Quebec, Canada

If it seems drastic to go low-tech it may be because of how far we have wandered from such a life. The next generation, my grandkids, are yearning to break-up with their endless connections through social media. At one point, the oldest one, about to be twenty-six, stopped every so often to post a "moment in time" from her day. Now, that's drastic!

There are people and places that continue to live a low-tech life either by choice or limited resources. A way of life, is what I am aiming at here. A village of 900 people where my grandparents were born remains low-tech, 100 years after they emigrated to the U.S.

St. Patrice de Beaurivage in Quebec is still agricultural going all the way back to the time when the King of France apportioned plots of land to farm and harvest fresh food -- real maple syrup--- homemade ice cream like you've never tasted even today. It goes beyond the sweets to potatoes to tomatoes to pears and apples.

What appeals most beyond the nutritional benefits is the notion that neighbors call on each other -- know each other -- help each other. Of course, that chance exists for each of us every day. Yet, how are we to form connections beyond the screen?

Some years ago when living in Boston, on the seventh floor from where I looked over the treetops to my neighbor's rooftop garden, I thought, there is no way I will ever learn his name, let alone meet him. I simply called him "the man". Soon enough, a moment came.

In a low-tech encounter the man and other neighbors met when a local developer aspired to build-up above our mutual views. We began to meet in our apartments to share snacks and ideas about the best way to stop the greedy miser who cared not a thing about his neighbors' light.

Over many months there were home gatherings that brought us out of our high-tech lives by organizing ourselves for what would prove to be a long drawn-out battle. The man was no longer someone over there. One day, he was pruning his penthouse roses. I had something to share about an upcoming meeting. I opened my window and hollered: "Call me". He came over with his partner for yet another gathering with neighbors we could now greet by name on the street. It was a drastic change!

If I had my way, I would revert to the days that the upcoming generation seems to be clamoring for--the days when driving in my car (my very low-tech older model) was a place of solitude where nobody could reach me, or find me via a tracking app on the cell phone, and without the intrusion of the "witch in the box" or "homing pigeon" aka the GPS.

Low-tech looks like a walk in the park while my mind roams without roaming charges. Is it possible to go back to "village" life? Or, have we crossed the Rubicon on living free of devices? Another man asked me on a train one day to please watch his "ball and chain" for him. He got it right, if you ask me.

When the day came for the Boston developer to appear before the zoning board, an entourage from the neighborhood outnumbered him and his lawyers. City Hall was abuzz as always. We crowded into the room all together awaiting our turn to speak. We supported one another in making sound arguments that this neighborhood, in particular, was a small, friendly place to live. A high-rise would not only obstruct the view, it would build a wall between neighbors. We failed to convince the city officials that we mattered more than the developer's right to build to the city limits.

A tear trickled down my cheek at what felt like a gut punch. The man said he would take it to court. After a number of months, the verdict came in and the neighborhood gathered to celebrate our victory!

Last weekend I walked down that Boston street. The trees and sunlight were just as I remembered. One of the neighbors we met back then is now living in the old apartment where I lived and had gathered with others for a righteous cause.

Boston's Back Bay Neighborhood

 Years later, that little neighborhood had another chance to come together with blankets and water when the so-called "Marathon Bombers" set off two bombs at the nearby finish line. The man was a manager at the department store. He aided in the investigation that came down to arrests and imprisonment of the bombers. Later, he told me, that his employees needed psychological counseling after witnessing the tragedy. Meanwhile, on that sunny beautiful Monday, runners ran into neighboring buildings in fear. People poured out of their apartments to wrap them in blankets and give them water.

It was a long while before the neighborhood went back to normal without TV cameras and the National Guard on every corner. I often walked home the long way to avoid the scene. But the real take-away was how neighbors came out that day, the same as they had to stop a developer who did not understand the meaning of "village" life.