Inauguration

Four years ago we huddled, shivering and cold, amidst a crowd in Alexandria, Virginia.  My husband held our daughters, two and four years old, on his shoulders so that they could see the President take an oath on the Lincoln bible, so that they could witness this moment in history on a large flat screen on the outskirts of DC.  My oldest daughter, Camille, shouted "Obama, Obama" on our way back to the car, where we listened to the Inauguration speech, songs and poetry of the day. This was the closest we would come to the U.S. Capitol, where other friends had ventured earlier that day.

This year, though, we huddled in warmer quarters- around a laptop on a table in my kitchen.  My six year old, Elisa, was more interested in a Tinker Bell movie she wanted to watch, but Camille was eager to share in the historic moment that was taking place, yet again, Live from Washington, DC. She watched intently as our President stood, and as he took his oath, this time on the Bible of Martin Luther King.  And she listened as he spoke his inaugural speech, evoking over and over all the people who make up in their diversity the richness of this nation.

We are a part of history-- the lives that have come before, and the lives that are coming still.  We are still coming- from Lincoln to King to President Obama to the eight-year-old child who watches from a kitchen screen.  What moved me most about the President's speech was that my child could hear from his lips a vision of an America that she will remember, one that she can understand and believe in.  She could hear him say that the equality of women matters; that the love between gay people matters; that the wellbeing of the poor matters; that the safety of children matters; that the hopes and dreams of immigrants matter; that the future of our planet earth matters.   She could hear the promise of an end to a war that has been waging since before her birth.  And she could hear the conviction that it takes each and every one of us-- not the 47% or the 1%, but the 100%-- to make this future possible.

While profound speeches do not sign bills into action, they are the poems which call our best hearts forward, which evoke our highest ideals. And now that these things have been spoken aloud, it is up to each of us to fulfill the promise of that call. This is the promise I yearn for my daughters to live into.


*This post is part 3 of a series-- Exploring Standing on the Side of Love with my family. 

Sunday Miracles

What is love?  What is justice?  Today I let my children's pictures tell the story.  We read a book about Martin Luther King, and drew pictures. We talked about the meaning of those words. We ate lots of food together, played games and puzzles, and talked about love that we feel for our families and pets, and love that extends beyond. We talked about segregation and inequality.  Camille wanted to know why people who weren't directly affected, who lived in other states, would get involved.  She wondered about possible actions that she would have taken if she lived back then. Her pondering mind was a moment of miracle.

I spend my days looking for miracles. I saw one tonight- my daughter, Elisa, putting a nghtgown over her head. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but sometimes I can see the ordinary in a different slant of light.  I am looking for those moments-- eating a grapefruit, my husband shouting excitedly at a football game on TV, the perfect avocado, my children speaking kindly to each other.

Camille draws a picture of freedom- a bird who carries a broom in its teeth to sweep back the breezes; she tells me to have imagination.  Elisa's shows people holding hands to make a circle of peace.  They all have blue faces, but wear different color shirts-- to show that we are all unique, she says.

I don't know what else Sundays are for... I have grown weary of committee meetings and all the other things that have masqueraded as "church". I need the intimacy of worshipping life at my fingertips, touching it gently, letting it remake me.  I need time for connection with my own children, for questions that stretch us both beyond ourselves, for learning and wonder. And I need days where I can put my mistakes behind me, and begin again to love myself and to love the world.

*This post is part 2 of a series-- Exploring Standing on the Side of Love with my family. 

Constitution Marsh

Constitution Marsh- Garrison, NY

There is much I could say about the past month and "where I've been"... but to speak of the holy, I look not to the grand narrative, but to the moment, standing on a boardwalk in the center of Constitution Marsh on the Hudson River, the moment when two mallards- one turquoise chested- break suddenly from the dim-lit waters and rise together over the swaying cattail reeds.  Ah, epiphany--  that moment when we are standing with our six and eight year old daughters, watching the graceful dive of a heron or the flash of red on blackbird's wing, surrounded by snowy mountains. We hear the chickadee cry, and answer back; we are listening, reverent and still.

I know nothing here of guns or destruction.  I do not dream of those things which haunt me, on the shores of these peaceful waters.  And yet as the sun settles in the crimson sky, a bald eagle flies above toward the tall gray walls of West Point across the river. The view from this murky swamp strikes us as mythological, like the Dead Marshes and the mountains of Mordor in Tolkien's Middle Earth.  These are the fearsome eagle-nested shores of our beloved America-- and today we stand in the midst of our own mythology, pledging allegiance to our planet.

Sunset over the Hudson River, photo by Camille, age 8

I speak of these things on Martin Luther King and Inauguration weekend, and on a weekend when Unitarian Universalists begin their season of spiritual journey for social justice-- called "Standing on the Side of Love".  But I begin to walk this journey- not from a worship hall or a protest line- but from the swampy waters of my homeland with the people I call family.

Constitution Marsh is part of the Audubon Bird Sanctuary.   And so this seems the perfect place to begin a march for love-- in a place of sanctuary, a place that means protection. Perhaps in these dark times this is what we are all asking-- what will protect us and keep us safe?  And what is our symbol of freedom-- guns glowing like precious rings? ...Or bold eagles with free-flying wings?

May these days of standing for justice reveal more deeply the Love that is the antidote to fear. May we open our hearts and seek sanctuary in our interrelatedness with all living things.


*This post is part 1 of a series-- Exploring Standing on the Side of Love with my family.