Quote of the Day

Maya Angelou told us to believe people when they show us who they are. Trump-supporting Republicans have shown us repeatedly who they are for some years now, and are showing us all over again in the most critical way possible who they are in this latest crisis that has exposed him and them in the most definitive way possible: They’re traitors to this nation and its democratic foundations.

– William D. Lindsey
via Facebook
August 12, 2022

Related Off-site Links:
There Is No Darkness Republicans Won’t Follow Trump Into Now – Charles P. Pierce (Esquire, August 12, 2022).
FBI Searched Trump’s Home to Look for Nuclear Documents and Other Items, Sources Say – Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Perry Stein and Shane Harris (Washington Post, August 12, 2022).
FBI Collected Multiple Sets of Classified Documents From Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Home – Deepa Shivaram (NPR News, August 12, 2022).
Search Warrant Indicates FBI Investigating Trump for Espionage Act Violation – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, August 12, 2022).
Right-wing Extremists Use Violent Rhetoric Online After Mar-a-Lago Search – Here and Now (August 11, 2022).
There Are Good Reasons to Defund the FBI. They Have Nothing to Do With Trump – Alex S. Vitale (TruthOut, August 10, 2022).
Why the Trump Search Warrant Is Nothing Like Clinton’s E-mails – Kyle Cheney (Politico, August 9, 2022).
Donald Trump Says FBI Agents Raided His Mar-a-Lago Home in Florida – NPR News (August 9, 2022).

UPDATES: Trump’s “Call to Violence” Against FBI as He Faces Espionage Act Charges Is “Replay” of January 6 Riot – Democracy Now!, August 15, 2022).
Donald “Al Capone” Trump? – Bill Blum (Common Dreams, August 16, 2022).
How Are Republicans Reacting to the Guiliani Probe and the Mar-a-Lago Search? – NPR News (August 16, 2022).
Trump May Announce His Presidential Run “Soon,” Fundraising Off FBI Search – Mario Tama (TruthOut, August 16, 2022).
Poll: Majority of Americans Approve of Search on Mar-a-Lago for Files Trump Took – Chris Walker (TruthOut, August 17, 2022).
Ex-official Who Investigated Hillary Clinton’s E-mails Said There Would Be Evidence If Trump Declassified Documents: “It Can’t Just Be An Idea in His Head” – Kelsey Vlamis (Insider, August 18, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “Come for the Racism, Stay for the Autocracy”
• Heather Cox Richardson: It’s Up to Us to Prove That Democracy Is Still a Viable Form of Government
• Rep. Liz Cheney: Quote of the Day – June 30, 2022
• Mitchell Zimmerman: Quote of the Day – June 23, 2022
• “How Can One Overreact to a Mortal Threat to American Democracy?”
• “The Coup Attempt on Jan. 6th Was a Warning for What’s to Come If We Don’t Act”
• “My Biggest Worry Is for My Country”
• Republicans Pose an “Existential Threat” to American Democracy
• The Big Switch
• The Republican Party in a Nutshell
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
• “The Republican Party Has Now Made It Official: They Are a Cult”
• Heather Cox Richardson on Combating the Republican Party’s “Rigging of the System”
• Trump’s Playbook

Image: This August 8, 2022 cartoon by Mike Luckovich conveys the reality that Republican outrage over the FBI’s recent seizure of illegally held classified material at Trump’s Florida residence vs. the lack of outrage over the Trump-directed attempted coup at the U.S. capitol on 1/6/21, highlights the dangerous dysfunction, hypocrisy, and cult-like devotion to Trump and authoritarianism of the Republican party.

A Trying Time With Sciatica

This Poldark meme reminds me of the wise words of Aimee Foster: “Even in the darkest, most trying and difficult moments, I believe if something is funny, you have to laugh.”

And so I laugh at this meme, even as I acknowledge that, yes, this year has been a trying one for me.

Let me explain why by first saying that up until just a few weeks ago, I was set to return to my homeland of Australia today for a month-long visit.

However, I had to cancel this much anticipated trip (my first in three years) because of a flare-up of the searing and debilitating sciatic pain in my left leg. I’ve been living with this pain to varying degrees since the end of last year, with the worst bouts of it occurring in mid-February and now.

Over the past nine months I’ve had a steroid shot in the spine and worked with an acupuncturist, a physical therapist, and a chiropractor. Each of these treatments and therapies have been helpful to a point but none of them can rectify the root cause, namely a herniated disc that’s causing spinal stenosis and thus the sciatic nerve pain that has me now using a cane (or, as we’d say in Australia, a walking stick) to get around. Also, none of the pain meds I’ve been prescribed have been particularly effective; so, yeah, it’s been a trying year.

Given all of this, the thought of international travel and a month in Australia while dealing with this level of pain and debilitation bordered on nightmarish for me. Once I made the decision to cancel my trip to Australia, I decided I needed to go ahead with surgery for spinal stenosis. In my case, this will be a procedure called a lumbar Hemilaminectomy.

I also realized that while ever I’m dealing with this sciatica flare-up, I could not continue my work as a Palliative Care chaplain. Such work involves just too much walking around the hospital. Also, I had reached the stage where I was having a really difficult time being fully present to my patients, given the leg pain I was experiencing. It was a pain that was becoming increasingly noticable to others. Indeed, as I told my colleagues, when your terminally-ill patients start expressing concern for you over and above their own condition, you know it’s time to take stock. My patients need to be the focus, not me.

And so I’m taking the next three weeks off ahead of my Hemilaminectomy on August 30. It’s a very simple and routine surgery, one that doesn’t even involve an overnight stay in the hospital. My neurosurgeon and his team will shave off part of the herniated disc that’s pinching my sciatic nerve. From people I’ve talked to who have had this procedure, the relief from it is instantaneous and permanent. I’m hoping and praying that this is the case for me too. . . . As for my trip home to Australia, that’s now going to happen next year, probably in March or April.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my friends and colleagues who have been so understanding and supportive throughout my journey with sciatica. Here’s hoping the end of that journey is in sight.

Related Off-site Links:
What Is It Like Living With Sciatica? – Optimal Health Family Chiro.
3 Techniques for Coping With Chronic Sciatica – William Deardorff, PhD (SpineHealth.com, July 27, 2017).
Living With Sciatica – TheSpineGroup.com.

Olivia Newton-John’s Legacy of Healing

Above: Olivia Newton-John, in front of the
Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre
in Melbourne, Australia – 2012.

In my work as a palliative care chaplain, I often invite my patients to consider healing as being bigger than a physical cure, even if at times it can include that. At its heart, healing is about going beyond fear; it’s about discovering and cultivating a peace within that allows us to trust that no matter where our journey takes us, we’re going to be okay. Such a deep and sustaining awareness can be expressed in religious, spiritual, or even secular terms. I follow my patients’ lead on that.

Today's news of the death of Australian singer, actress, and activist Olivia Newton-John from breast cancer is very sad. Olivia had lived with cancer since 1992, and throughout her journey with the disease she was a tireless advocate for breast cancer research. She founded the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute and, in 2008, began raising funds to help build the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre, which opened in Melbourne, Australia in 2012.

And so despite my sadness at the news of her passing, I take heart in knowing that not only will Olivia Newton-John’s music legacy live on, but also the legacy she most wanted to be remembered for, that being, in her words, of “making a difference helping people heal from cancer.”

From everything I’ve been reading today about her life and vast range of accomplishments, that legacy will indeed live on. For in and through both her music and activism, as well as simply through the way she lived her day-to-day life, Olivia Newton-John knew, embodied, and shared healing.

“Help Me to Heal” is from Olivia’s 2010 album, Grace and Gratitude Renewed, containing “over one hour of continuous music for healing, relaxation and meditation.” The album is actually a “revisiting” of Olivia’s 2006 album Grace and Gratitude.

In the liner notes of Grace and Gratitude Renewed, Olivia wrote the following.

Grace and Gratitude was written at a time in my life when I needed some personal healing. I have always turned to music, meditation and prayer to guide me. I believe that healing starts with an attitude of gratitude, and even in my darkest hours I tried to remember all that I have to be grateful for.

In these past four years [2005-2008] the universe heard me and has restored joy, health and love into my life. I awoke to the love of my life, my husband John Easterling, and my seven year journey to launch the ONJ Cancer and Wellness Center in Melbourne, Australia has finally come to fruition.

I have been very touched by the response to the words and music of Grace and Gratitude and have had the privilege of sharing it in concert with many of you since its first release. I am so excited that my new friends at Green Hill and EMI are going to make this music available everywhere. With Grace and Gratitude Renewed, I want to bring some of the happy energy I have been blessed with these past few years, to this revisited collection. I have resung many of the songs, and invited a few dear friends [Mark Masri, Amy Sky and Marc Jordan] to sing with me. My producer, co-writer and dear friend Amy Sky and I were inspired to write a new song, “Help Me to Heal” – I love it and hope you do too. . . . Yours in love and light, Olivia.

Related Off-site Links and Updates:
Olivia Newton-John, Star of Grease and Grammy Award Winning Artist, Dies Aged 73 – Liana Walker (ABC News, August 8, 2022).
Olivia Newton-John Dies at 73 – Gina Vivinetto (Today, August 8, 2022).
Olivia Newton-John Fought Breast Cancer For Three Decades Before Her Death: Her Cancer Story and Advocacy Work – Korin Miller (Women’s Health Magazine, August 9, 2022).
A Woman For All Seasons, Olivia Will Remain Something Specific and Personal to Each of Us – Michael Idato (The Sydney Morning Herald, August 9, 2022).
ABBA Pay Tribute to Olivia Newton-John: “Her Music and Personality Will Always Remain in Memory” – Tom Skinner (NME, August 9, 2022).
The Day Olivia Newton-John Brought Star Power to Olivia, Minnesota – Kent Erdahl (KARE 11 News, August 10, 2022).
Olivia Newton-John to Receive State Memorial Service in Australia – Tara Subramaniam (CNN News, August 11, 2022).
Olivia Newton-John, Judith Durham, and Archie Roach: The Loss and Legacy of Giants in Australian Music – Zan Rowe (ABC News, August 12, 2022).
Olivia Newton-John, a Sexy Nerd For the Rest of Us – Evie Nagy (NPR News, August 14, 2022).
Olivia Newton-John’s Songs See 614% Streaming Bump Following Her Death – Chris Willman (Variety, August 15, 2022).
Olivia Newton-John’s Chart History – YouTube.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Cultivating Stillness
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• The Source Is Within You
• Inner Peace
• Spirituality and the Health Care Setting
• Interfaith Chaplaincy: Meeting People Where They’re At
• From the Palliative/Spiritual Care Bookshelf
• Seven Principles for Living with Deep Intention

Where Soul Would Have Us Go

It is part of the mystery of life on earth that the human soul can awaken, grow greater, and reveal inner gifts when everything turns dark and seems about to fall apart. Soul does not fear a downturn or seek to avoid a period of darkness. Soul carries a deeper wisdom and darker knowledge born of descent and loss and renewal. Soul would have us go where we fear to go in order to learn who we are intended to be.

– Michael Meade

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Soul: The Connecting Force in Life
• Thomas Moore on the “Ageless Soul”
• The Soul’s Beloved
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Andrew Harvey
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Caroline Jones
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Soul Deep
• The Soul Within the Soul
• The Source Is Within You
• Spiritual Caregivers as “Soul Companions”
• Arthur Kleinman on the “Soul of Care”
• The Soul of a Dancer

Image: A filter-treated image of Syrian-born dancer Ahmad Joudeh, whose autobiography, Dance or Die, I’m currently reading. Ahmad dedicates his memoir “to the spirit that guides every single one of us, in the memory of the soul, where the flame is, our spirits glow.”

Quote of the Day

President Biden is a hypocrite when speaking about how “unjust” it is that Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison for smuggling a cannabis vape capsule.

“It’s unacceptable and I call on Russia to release her immediately so she can be with her wife, loved ones, friends, and teammates,” Biden wrote in a statement.

If he feels so strongly about how “unacceptable” it is, then why doesn’t he pardon the 40,000 people (mostly black and Latino) incarcerated in American prisons for possession of pot?

America can jail minorities for pot possession, but if Russia jails an American for the very same exact charge, it’s “unacceptable.” Biden doesn’t care one bit about the “justness” of the law, it is only unacceptable to him because it is Russia.

No standards. Hypocrisy on full display.

Guess what, Biden? 40,000 Americans incarcerated for non-violent cannabis possession is pretty damned “unacceptable” too, and the president, more than anybody, has the power to right that injustice.

But let’s just moan about Russia instead.

– Benjamin Meiklejohn
via Facebook
August 6, 2022

Related Off-site Links:
WNBA Star Brittney Griner Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison by Russian Court – Amanda Macias (CNBC News, August 5, 2022).
Vice President Kamala Harris Labeled Hypocrite for Condemning Brittney Griner’s Jail Term – Snejana Farberov (New York Post, August 5, 2022).
Tulsi Gabbard Blasts Kamala Harris’ “Hypocrisy” for Brittney Griner Response After Marijuana Lockups as California Attorney General – Andrew Mark Miller (Fox News, August 6, 2022).
Advocates Demand Biden Take Marijuana Action After Brittney Griner Sentenced to Nine Years In Russian Prison for Vapes – Kyle Jaeger (MarijuanaMoment.net, August 5, 2022).
Hypocrisy Abounds Surrounding Griner’s Drug Arrest – Anthony Cristo (Seguin Gazette, July 27, 2022).
Russia’s Imprisonment of Britney Griner Has Some Unfortunate American Parallels – Emma Camp (Reason, July 22, 2022).

UPDATE: Brittney Griner Released by Russia in 1-for-1 Prisoner Swap for Arms Dealer Viktor Bout – Andres Triay (CBS News, December 8, 2022).

Image: U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner stands in a defendants’ cage before a court hearing during her trial on charges of drug smuggling, in Khimki, outside Moscow on August 2, 2022. (Photo: Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool/AFP)

Cornel West on the Legacy of James Baldwin

In an age of mendacity and criminality, which is our own, just telling the truth and having integrity is revolutionary. It’s subversive. It’s counter-cultural. James Baldwin . . . [brings] the rich tradition of eloquence, of truth-telling, witness-bearing, soul-stirring writing. . . . [Baldwin] is someone who refused to allow his fire to be dampened by overwhelming bleakness and darkness. And that’s a beautiful thing.

– Dr. Cornel West

This past Tuesday, August 2, was the 98th anniversary of the late American writer and activist James Baldwin.

To (belatedly) mark the occasion I share the following 2017 video of Dr. Cornel West discussing Baldwin’s legacy.





Related Off-site Links:
5 Things You Didn’t Know About James Baldwin – Tracy Shapley Towley (Book Riot, August 2, 2022).
James Baldwin’s Blueprint for the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement – Tre’vell Anderson (Out, May 19, 2019).
James Baldwin on Being Gay in America – The Village Voice (June 22, 2018).
James Baldwin’s Black Queer Legacy – Anthony James Williams (Electric Lit, March 23, 2017).
James Baldwin’s Sexuality: Complex and Influential – Mashaun D. Simon (NBC News, February 7, 2017).
James Baldwin, a Guide in Bleak Times – JoAnn Wypijewski (The Nation, January 21, 2015).
American Lives: James Baldwin, “Lifting The Veil” – NPR (July 15, 2011).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• James Baldwin’s Potent Interweavings of Race, Homoeroticism, and the Spiritual
• Something to Think About – December 29, 2015
• Radical Returnings
• Cornel West on Responding to the “Spiritual Decay That Cuts Across the Board”
• “Two of the Most Dedicated and Enlightened Heroes of Present Day America”
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020

“Come for the Racism, Stay for the Autocracy”

Kim Lane Scheppele on the 2022
Conservative Political Action Conference

Earlier today Kim Lane Scheppele was interviewed on Democracy Now. Scheppele is a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, specializing in the rise and fall of constitutional government with a focus on Hungary.

Speaking of Hungary, that country’s ultra-conservative prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has gained popularity among the American right, is set to address this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which starts today in Dallas, Texas. Former U.S. president Donald Trump is also scheduled to speak.

Following is part of what Scheppele said about the appeal of Orbán to the Republican party, a party still very much under the spell of Trump.

Orbán is quite well informed. He understands that a lot of Trump’s base loves dog-whistles or even not-so-subtle racism. Orbán understands perfectly well that white supremacists form a big chunk of Trump’s base. . . . If you’ve been following Orbán since he came back to power in 2010 – and he’s been in power continuously since that time because he’s rigged the elections so no one else can win them – it turns out that he’s been saying these kinds of things about mixing of races for a long time. He dog-whistles anti-semitism. One of his political campaigns, he was demonizing George Soros with a lot of language that was clearly anti-semitic. He’s the guy who stood up against the wave of migration from Syria and Iraq and other places, making references to a kind of another Islamic invasion of Europe. None of this is really new, [so] CPAC could not possibly be surprised that Orbán is going to come and dog-whistle white nationalism.

. . . Orbán presents, especially for the American right, a kind of irresistible combination of culture war issues. So, now we see racism, white nationalism. But in the past he’s demonized LGBTQ people. He’s railed against gender studies and gender fluidity. When he rewrote the Constitution of Hungary in 2011, the Constitution says that fetal life is protected from the moment of conception. So, he’s been on every single culture war issue for the last dozen years, that also has been the program of the American right. So the culture wars are really Orbán’s specialization, to kind of whip up hysteria.

The thing is, though, that these culture war issues in Hungary disguise the fact that underneath the surface Orbán has been changing the laws of the country so that gradually he has shut down all of the independent institutions that might tell him no. And, in fact, since the COVID epidemic started, he’s been governing by decree. He wakes up one morning, issues a decree, that’s law. So, essentially, Hungary is now a country that is a dictatorship, in which he’s rigged the election laws, he’s rigged almost all the other laws.

And I think what the American right sees in Orbán is the use of culture wars as a kind of cover for creeping autocracy. And you see it because the Republicans are right now engaged in a campaign, a very Orbán-like campaign, to rig the rules of the election by changing laws in the U.S. states so that the Republicans are going to win, no matter who wins the popular vote. That’s the kind of thing Orbán did in Hungary. Some of the specific tactics the Republicans are using here exactly mirror what Orbán did in Hungary. So, I think, you know, come for the racism, stay for the autocracy. I think that’s what’s in it for CPAC.

For Democracy Now’s complete interview with Kim Lane Scheppele, click here.


Related Off-site Links:
Hungary's Autocratic Leader Tells U.S. Conservatives to Join His Culture War – David Folkinflik (NPR News, August 4, 2022).
CPAC Welcoming Orbán at Dallas Summit Days After “Pure Nazi” Speech – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, July 27, 2022).
Viktor Orbán Tells CPAC the Path to Power Is to “Have Your Own Media” – Flora Garamvolgyi (The Guardian, May 20, 2022).
CPAC and DNC: A Party Is Not a Movement – Richard Eskow (OurFuture.org, February 26, 2017).

UPDATES: Orbán Serves Up Far-Right Red Meat to CPAC Crowd – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, August 5, 2022).
Trump’s GOP Embraces Orban’s Racist Eugenics – Robert Reich (Common Dreams, August 5, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Heather Cox Richardson: It’s Up to Us to Prove That Democracy Is Still a Viable Form of Government
• Rep. Liz Cheney: Quote of the Day – June 30, 2022
• Mitchell Zimmerman: Quote of the Day – June 23, 2022
• Two Conservative Voices of Integrity
• “How Can One Overreact to a Mortal Threat to American Democracy?”
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking Democracy
• “The Coup Attempt on Jan. 6th Was a Warning for What’s to Come If We Don’t Act”
• “My Biggest Worry Is for My Country”
• Republicans Pose an “Existential Threat” to American Democracy
• The Big Switch
• The Republican Party in a Nutshell
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
• “The Republican Party Has Now Made It Official: They Are a Cult”
• Heather Cox Richardson on Combating the Republican Party’s “Rigging of the System”
• Trump’s Playbook

Opening image: The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, speaks during a session of CPAC in Budapest, Hungary – May 19, 2022. (Photo: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images)

Quote of the Day

President Biden has pivoted from the multiple crises of his administration – inflation, heightened tensions with China and Iran, and even the very real risk of nuclear war with Russia – to announce that he authorized the drone strike killing in Kabul, Afghanistan, of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the masterminds behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Twenty years and millions of ruined lives later, the Biden administration wishes to claim the summary execution of the charred corpse identified as a high-value target as some sort of historic victory. But lest we forget, throughout the “war on terror,” many named targets were “reportedly” killed on multiple occasions at multiple sites. The people incinerated in their stead were in fact unnamed civilians.

Media pundits have been gushing over Biden’s alleged accomplishment, but less than one year ago, on August 29, 2021, also in Kabul, ten entirely innocent civilians were destroyed by a U.S. drone strike on the basis of “evidence’ that the target was driving a white Toyota Corolla and seemed to be acting “suspiciously.” Shortly after that strike, the Pentagon vaunted their successful operation against a person said to be plotting an attack on Kabul airport. We later learned that the target was in fact an aid worker who was executed by remote control along with everyone else within the radius of the missile’s impact, including seven children. We have been assured by President Biden that Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed alone, and no one else was injured by the strike, not even his family. What a curious claim to make, given that family members were considered fair game for attack throughout the “war on terror.” For all of these reasons (not to mention Biden’s historically low approval ratings), today’s report smacks suspiciously of overkill.

– Audie Calhoun
“Drone Assassination: Inconvenient Facts”
Institute for Public Accuracy
August 2, 2022

Related Off-site Links:
Does the Killing of al-Zawahiri Make Americans Safer? It’s Complicated – Rachel Achel Treisman (NPR News, August 3, 2022).
The Killing of al-Qaeda Chief Ayman al Zawahiri Will Not Make Us Safer – Phyllis Bennis (Common Dreams, August 2, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Vigiling Against Weaponized Drones
• Rallying to End U.S. Militarism
• Saying “No” to Endless U.S. Wars
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – November 11, 2021
• A Letter to “Dear Abby” re. Responding to 9/11
• Hannah Kapp-Klote: Quote of the Day – May 4, 2013

Quote of the Day

Today, voters in Kansas overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to their state constitution that would have stripped it of protections for abortion rights. With 86% of the vote in, 62% of voters supported abortion protections; 37% wanted them gone. That spread is astonishing. Kansas voters had backed Trump in 2020; Republicans had arranged for the referendum to fall on the day of a primary, which traditionally attracts higher percentages of hard-line Republicans; and they had written the question so that a “yes” vote would remove abortion protections and a “no” would leave them in place. Then, today, a political action committee sent out texts that lied about which vote was which.

Still, voters turned out to protect abortion rights in such unexpectedly high numbers it suggests a sea change.

It appears the dog has caught the car, as so many of us noted when the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision on June 24. Since 1972, even before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Republican politicians have attracted the votes of evangelicals and traditionalists who didn’t like the idea of women’s rights by promising to end abortion. But abortion rights have always had strong support. So politicians said they were “pro-life” without ever really intending to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Dobbs decision explicitly did just that and has opened the door to draconian laws that outlaw abortion with no exceptions, promptly showing us the horror of a pregnant 10-year-old and hospitals refusing abortion care during miscarriages. Today, in the privacy of the voting booth, voters did exactly as Republican politicians feared they would if Roe were overturned.

But this moment increasingly feels like it’s about more than abortion rights, crucial though they are. The loss of our constitutional rights at the hands of an extremist minority has pushed the majority to demonstrate that we care about the rights and freedoms that were articulated – however imperfectly they were carried out – in the Declaration of Independence.

– Heather Cox Richardson
via Facebook
August 2, 2022

Related Off-site Links:
Voters in Kansas Decide to Keep Abortion Legal in the State, Rejecting An Amendment – Dylan Lysen, Laura Ziegler, and Blaise Mesa (NPR News, August 3, 2022).
Landslide! Kansas Voters Protect Abortion Rights in State Constitution, Reject GOP-Led Ballot Measure – Democracy Now! (August 3, 2022).
“Enormous Victory”: Kansas Voters Resoundingly Defeat Anti-Abortion Amendment – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 3, 2022).
Progressives See Midterm Hopes Rise on Kansas Voters’ Defense of Abortion Rights – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, August 3, 2022).

UPDATE: The Very Good People of Kansas – Robert Reich (Common Dreams, August 4, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Progressive Perspectives on the Overturning of Roe v. Wade
• Heather Cox Richardson: It’s Up to Us to Prove That Democracy Is Still a Viable Form of Government
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 28, 2022
• Republicans Pose an “Existential Threat” to American Democracy
• The Big Switch
• The Republican Party in a Nutshell
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
• Heather Cox Richardson on Combating the Republican Party’s “Rigging of the System”

Image: Nick Anderson.

“Queer Love Is My Divine Companion”

The Wild Reed’s 2022 Queer Appreciation series continues with my (ever-so-slightly) adapted version of “A Queer Take on Psalm 23” by Rev. M Jade Kaiser (formerly Barclay).

__________________________

Queer Love is my Divine Companion.
In Their company, I unfurl with delight.
They teach me to question the assumed and the rigid.
They lure me with eros, creative and extravagant.
They fill me with the spirit of uprising
and lead me in the ways of “no pride for some of us
without liberation for all of us.”*
Even as systems threaten and forces oppress,
I will forever Act Up; For Silence is Death
and in our holy provocation you are always with us.
You embrace us as chosen family – a comfort in our grief.
You celebrate all that nurtures our aliveness
in the presence of doctrines and policies that deaden.
You bless every trans body.
You declare sacred every sexuality.
Life overflows with possibilities for becoming.
Surely, the glory of the peculiar, the outcast,
the righteous freaks and the weirdos
will inspire me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell among the thresholds
where the Sacred Strange subverts every normalized terror
and the queers of all ilks fight for the right to grow old.

* This is a quote from Micah Bazant’s artpiece celebrating Marsha P. Johnson.

Above: At first glance this may seem a strange image to include in a post about queer love as divine companion. And yet I don’t believe one has to be sexually active and/or partnered with another to experience intimacy with the Divine Presence. Whenever we extend love and compassion to ourselves, including through comforting and pleasuring the body, we can experience an awareness of – and oneness with – the Soul’s Beloved, the loving and sustaining power of the universe. It is a wild and erotic power, one that resides deep within each one of us and all creation.

NEXT: Dyllón Burnside:
“For Me, the Term Queer Just Opens Up Space”


Related Off-site Link:
Psalm 23 As a Gay Love Letter – Deacon Grant (DeaconGrant.com, May 20, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Soul’s Beloved
• Meeting (and Embodying) the Lover God
• An Erotic Encounter With the Divine
• No Altar More Sacred
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Be Just In My Heart
• Beloved and Antlered
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• “Here I Am”
• Spirituality and the Gay Experience
• The Holy Pleasure of Intimacy
• Intimate Soliloquies
• Real Holiness
• The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace

Image 1: Subjects and photographer unknown.
Image 2: Anthony Mackie. (Source)
Image 3: “Queer Love Is Divine” by Nerdy Brown Kid.

Photo of the Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• O Breath of Summer
• Summer Garden
• In Summer Light
• Summer Blooms
• Summer Boy
• A Song of Summer
• Say Yes to the Light

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Quote of the Day

If ever there was a time to stand for something bigger than ourselves, it’s now. We need a season of repair, an era of new beginnings, and a commitment to fundamental change. [All of this] will have to include inner as well as outer changes, or, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “quantitative shifts in our circumstances as well as qualitative changes in our souls.”

Years ago I used to go to Al Anon meetings, where I learned that there are times in life where we’re simply “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” And I would hear people say, “Get into the solution.” That, it seems to me, is where we are as a country. It’s so tempting to wallow in cynicism, desperation, anger, and hopelessness right now – but that is exactly what we must reject. We have a choice to make; to either be taken down by the undertow of current events, or make a commitment to ourselves that in whatever way possible we’ll be agents of change.
Sometimes we don’t exactly know how we’re going to do something but there’s a power in knowing that we’re committed to doing it. That’s how we need to see transforming the world right now. We don’t even need to know exactly how we’re going to do it. We just need to be receptive enough, and available enough – and in our better hours, courageous enough – to consistently show up for the task. The path unfolds when we are willing to walk it.

– Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from “On Recreating the World:
Musings On Inner and Outer Change”
Transform
July 28, 2022

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “It Is in Our Hands”
• Something to Think About – July 2, 2022
• Balancing the Fire
• Hope in the Midst of Collapse
• The End of the World As We Know It . . . and the Beginning As We Live It
• See the World!
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything is Possible
• Threshold Musings
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• Thoughts on Transformation (Part I)
• Thoughts on Transformation (Part II)
• Thoughts on Transformation (Part III)
• Moderates, Radicals, and MLK

For more of Marianne Williamson at The Wild Reed, see:
• “Two of the Most Dedicated and Enlightened Heroes of Present Day America”
• Now Here’s a Voice I’d Like to Hear Regularly on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “For the Love of Our Children, Let’s Not Shut Up”
• Marianne Williamson on the Tenth Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street
• Cultivating Stillness
• Cultivating Peace
• Pollyanna, “Miracle Worker”
• Inauguration Eve Musings
• We Cannot Allow a Biden Win to Mean a Return to “Brunch Liberalism”
• “As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
• Marianne Williamson on the Movement for a People’s Party
• Eight Leading Progressive Voices on Why They’re Voting for Biden
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – November 11, 2021
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 2, 2020
• Deep Gratitude
• “A Beautiful Message, So Full of Greatness”
• Marianne Williamson: “Anything That Will Help People Thrive, I’m Interested In”
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Marianne Williamson
• Easter for Mystics
• Christmas for Mystics

Image: Source.

Something to Think About . . .

Related Off-site Links:
The Official Website of Bayo Akomolafe.
When the Bones of Our Ancestors Speak to Us: A Fugitive Conversation With Bayo Akomolafe – Charlotte Du Cann (Resilience, October 28, 2021).
Is There a Solution for Climate Change? – Bayo Akomolafe (Science and Nonduality via YouTube, November 8, 2019).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Our Quiet Time
• Cultivating Stillness
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• Returning the Mind to God
• Seven Principles for Living with Deep Intention
• Balancing the Fire
• Soul: The Connecting Force in Life
• Discerning and Embodying Sacred Presence in Times of Violence and Strife
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Thomas Crum
• Prayer of the Week – November 5, 2013
• May Balance and Harmony Be Your Aim
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All

Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Pope’s Apology Is “Just the Beginning”

Award-winning musician and activist is calling on
Pope Francis to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery

Earlier today Pope Francis issued a historic apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families, and marginalized generations.

“I am deeply sorry,” Francis said to applause from school survivors and Indigenous community members gathered at a former residential school south of Edmonton, Alberta. He called the school policy a “disastrous error” that was incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus and said that further investigation and healing needs to take place.

“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” the Pope said.

The Associated Press reports that Francis’ words “went beyond his earlier apology for the ‘deplorable’ abuses committed by missionaries and instead took institutional responsibility for the church’s cooperation with Canada’s ‘catastrophic’ assimilation policy, which the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said amounted to a ‘cultural genocide.’”


Doctrine of Discovery

I was hoping that the coverage of today’s events in Canada would report that Francis had officially rescinded what’s known as the Doctrine of Discovery. Singer-songwriter, educator, and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie, for whom I have great admiration and respect, has long called for this action by the Pope.

In a June 21 CBC News article by Greg Hobbs, Buffy explains what exactly the Doctrine of Discovery is and why its dissolution would be so significant. Following is an excerpt from this article.

Songwriter, educator and human rights advocate Buffy Sainte-Marie says the Pope’s upcoming visit to Canada and expected apology for the church’s involvement in the residential school system won’t mean a thing if he doesn’t call for the dissolution of the Doctrine of Discovery.

“The apology is just the beginning, of course,” she said.

The doctrine is an international framework based on a series of decrees . . . called “papal bulls,” that were released in the 1400s and 1500s. This framework laid the legal and moral foundation for how Canada and other countries came to be colonized by European settlers.

As Sainte-Marie put it, “The Doctrine of Discovery essentially says it’s okay if you’re a [Christian] European explorer . . . to go anywhere in the world and either convert people and enslave [them], or you’ve got to kill them.”

As noted by the Assembly of First Nations, legal arguments relying on the Doctrine of Discovery continue to affect modern court rulings. As laid out in a 2018 document, the AFN says that doctrine is the root cause of multiple historical and ongoing injustices against Indigenous peoples.

Also last month, Buffy sat down with The National’s Adrienne Arsenault to discuss recent headlines related to Indigenous people, as well as her long career as an artist and activist.





Related Off-site Links:
In Canada, Pope Francis Tells Indigenous People He Is “Deeply Sorry” for Abusive Schools – Christopher White (National Catholic Reporter, July 25, 2022).
Iconic Canadian Singer-Songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie Reminisces On An Eventful Eight Decades – Brad Wheeler (The Globe and Mail, February 19, 2021).
For Decades, Buffy Sainte-Marie Has Had to Navigate Systemic Barriers to Cultivate Her Art – Andrea Warner (The Globe and Mail, February 18, 2021).
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Truth, Justice, and Buffy’s Way – Benito Vila (PleaseKillMe.com, February 17, 2021)
Buffy Sainte-Marie Discusses What We Weren’t Ready For In 1988 – Glenn Sumi and Daryl Jung (Now, February 15, 2021).
Buffy the Truth Sayer: An Interview with Buffy Sainte-Marie – Mandy Nolan (The Echo, February 13, 2020).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Named As the Recipient of the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award – Ian Courtney (Encore, February 14, 2020).
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Authorized Biography Serves As a “Map Of Hope” – Scott Simon and Ian Stewart (NPR News, September 29, 2018).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Tells Her Life Story, Her Way – Sue Carter (The Star, September 29, 2018)
Buffy Sainte-Marie: “I Constantly Ask Myself, Where Are the Great Protest Songs of Today?” – Regina Leader-Post, (February 6, 2018).
Music as Medicine: Buffy Sainte-Marie Talks Politics, Sex Scandals and Her Brand New Album – Rosanna Deerchild (CBC Radio’s Unreserved, November 19, 2017)
Buffy Sainte-Marie Takes a Stand with Medicine Songs – ET Canada (November 30, 2017).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Makes Music for a New Generation of Activists – Tom Power (CBC Radio, November 17, 2017).
The Unbreakable Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Candid Conversation with the Resilient Songwriter and Activist – Whitney Phaneuf (Acoustic Guitar, January 18, 2017).
What Does Buffy Sainte-Marie Believe? – CBC Radio (December 30, 2016).

For The Wild Reed’s special series of posts leading-up to the November 10, 2017 release of Medicine Songs, see:
• For Acclaimed Songwriter, Activist and Humanitarian Buffy Sainte-Marie, the World is Always Ripening
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “I’m Creative Anywhere”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie Headlines SummerStage Festival in NYC’s Central Park
• Buffy Sainte-Marie, “One of the Best Performers Out Touring Today”
• The Music of Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Uprooting the Sources of Disenfranchisement”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Things Do Change and Things Do Get Better”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Medicine Songs

For The Wild Reed’s special series of posts leading-up to the May 12, 2015 release of Buffy’s award-winning album, Power in the Blood, see:
• Buffy Sainte-Marie and That “Human-Being Magic”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Lesson from the Cutting Edge: “Go Where You Must to Grow”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Sometimes You Have to Be Content to Plant Good Seeds and Be Patient”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Power in the Blood


For more of Buffy Sainte-Marie at The Wild Reed, see:
• Buffy Sainte-Marie's “America the Beautiful”
• A Music Legend Visits the North Country: Buffy Sainte-Marie in Minnesota and Wisconsin – August 2016
• Carrying It On . . . Into the New Year
• Two Exceptional Singers Take a Chance on the “Spirit of the Wind”
• Photo of the Day – January 21, 2017
• Buffy Sainte-Marie Wins 2015 Polaris Music Prize
• Congratulations, Buffy
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2016)
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2018)
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2019)
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2020)
• Happy Birthday, Buffy! (2021)
• Actually, There’s No Question About It
• For Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Well-Deserved Honor
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: Singing It and Praying It; Living It and Saying It
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: Still Singing with Spirit, Joy, and Passion
• Something Special for Indigenous Peoples Day
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “The Big Ones Get Away”

Image 1: Buffy Sainte-Marie. (Photo: Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Image 2: Pope Francis kisses the hand of residential school survivor Alma Desjarlais of the Frog Lake First Nation during a welcoming ceremony at Edmonton International Airport on July 24, 2022. The Pope was beginning a six-day visit to Canada. (Photo: CNS/Vatican Media)