“That doesn’t bother you?” he asked, turning his head. “They’ve done so much, and here I am…and you…what have we done?”
“Look, if they want to put stock in shiny things that sit on their mantles, pieces of paper with fancy calligraphy, book endorsements from people scrounging for shreds of recognition in an over-crowded field of ‘I thought of it first/I’m the most edgy/I’m the most woke’ then they can refresh their Amazon ranking and Insta-posts all they want and live that life of begging for the spotlight one 15 minutes at a time. Spare me. I’d rather not, thank you.”
He blinked, staring at her. She gazed far off into the distance, squinting, as if trying to make out the truth somewhere in the night sky and report back on what really matters.
“Me?” she said with a smirk. “I’ll just do my best not to spill breakfast on me before it’s too late to change for work and call it a success.”
“That’s refreshing,” he said.
“Damn right it is.” She nodded. “Actually, I’m going to change my Twitter handle to ‘That’s Refreshing’ right now…”
“Doesn’t that negate your whole point?” he laughed.
“Nah,” she said, “not as long as I still don’t give a crap who reads it.”
While the Lutheran church doesn’t officially commemorate anything on April 30th, I’d lobby hard that we (especially in these days) collectively remember that today is the day when the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, bringing unification to that war-torn country once again.
This unification brought an end to waiting up for the evening news to hear if your number is called.
It brought an end to waiting for that letter to arrive, that proof of life.
It brought an end to waiting for that military vehicle to drive up one fateful afternoon and change your family forever…
And yet, even though the war officially ended, we know that it continued to rage in the minds and bodies of so many soldiers.
Even though the war officially ended, we know that it continued to rage in the hearts of so many who lost their son, father, brother, cousin, friend.
Even though the war officially ended, we know that peace is fragile and an absence of violence is not the same thing as peace, and that wars and rumors of wars persist.
But on this day when this particular piece of humanity’s bloody history was silenced, perhaps we can look with hope on this one fact:
If that violence ended, perhaps the wars raging even as I type this can, too.
The end of the Vietnam War is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church (and everyone!) that wars can cease, by God…they can.
My boys will look at a Blue jay and turn to the coloring page and, choosing the yellow crayon, go to town on the bird before them.
They call it a “blue jay,” but it is canary yellow.
And instead of saying, “that’s wrong,” which is my instinct, my training by a world that thinks in boxes… (like damned auto-correct for the creative heart)
I’m now just jealous.
Of that kind of insight.
The kind of insight that can see what is and riff on it like a jazz player.
The kind of insight that can make a new world using bits and pieces of this one.
Have you seen the story about the former Lt Governor of Virginia who shot his wife and himself while his children were in the other room?
Or about the man in Louisiana who shot women and children, house by house, most of whom were his?
Or how about the website where men were being trained to drug and rape their wives? 62 million visits.
Million.
I’ll be honest that a lot of these stories, all recent, were at the bottom of my newsfeed. The world is so crazy, it’s hard to see some of the undercurrents of toxic masculinity still invading our communities, even as it openly bleeds from the halls of power daily.
It’s more than a headline.
Toxic masculinity + open access to guns + a culture of “boys will be boys” + macho manosohere bs is killing women and children.
And, unfortunately, we have become so numb to these events, to these headlines, that they don’t even register anymore.
How are you going to train boys not to rape and kill?
Today the church remembers and mourns Executive Order 9066.
By executive order of President Roosevelt, Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were United States Citizens, were forced into internment camps on this day, February 19th, in 1942.
It is estimated that, at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, 112,000 of the 127,000 Japanese American residents lived on the West Coast. Of those American residents, around 80,000 of them were second and third generation citizens, never having spent any time in Japan.
Forced from their homes, schools, and places of business, anyone with Japanese heritage (in California they exacted it to 1/16th of Japanese lineage) were placed in regional concentration camps. What was trumpeted as a “security measure” in case any of them were sympathetic to Japan, was actually legalized racism. Such measures were not taken for German or Italian residents in the United States, many more of whom were not legalized citizens (though a small number of people of German and Italian heritage were also forced into these camps on the West Coast).
By this order all people of Japanese heritage were forced to leave Alaska, as well as many areas of California, Oregon, Arizona, and Washington State.
In 1944 a legal challenge to 9066 came to a close, and though its constitutionality was upheld on technicalities (another instance where the small print delayed justice, and it didn’t even opine on the concentration camps themselves), it was affirmed by the court that “loyal citizens cannot be detained.”
The day before the results of this legal ruling would be made public, 9066 was rescinded, an implicit admission of purposeful wrongdoing in my book.
In 1980 Japanese Americans lobbied forcefully to have Executive Order 9066 investigated. President Carter initiated the investigation and in 1983 the commission reported that little evidence of disloyalty was found in the Japanese-American community of the day, and that the internment process was blatant racism. In 1988 President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and officially apologized on behalf of the United States government, authorizing monetary settlements for everyone still alive who had been held in a camp.
In other words: the US government gave reparations. It’s not unprecedented…
The larger question for me, though, is: where was the church?
Why wasn’t the church lobbying hard to have these fellow sisters and brothers released?
Additional studies have shown that religious prejudice also played a part in the justification for these internment camps. In a largely “Christian America,” these often Buddhist, Taoist, and Shinto practicing Japanese residents were seen with much more suspicion (which is probably why the German and Italian residents, also largely thought to be “Christian,” were not rounded up).
The church failed to protect a vulnerable population. The church held hands with the politics of the day in ignoring at best, and aiding at worst, the abuse of other humans.
Today we remember, mourn, and are honest about this failure.
This commemoration is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that when religion holds hands with politics we end up on the wrong side of history.
-historical bits gleaned from Clairborne and Wilson-Hartgrove’s Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals as well as common source news
-art by Norman Takeuchi with his piece, “Interior Revisited,” stated that “Interior and ‘internment’ are synonymous for many of Japanese-American lineage,” because they moved people from the coast to “the interior” of the United States for these camps.
it’s 3:23 in the morning and I’m awake because my great great grandchildren won’t let me sleep my great great grandchildren ask me in dreams what did you do while the planet was plundered? what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something when the seasons started failing?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?
what did you do once you knew?
I’m riding home on the Colma train I’ve got the voice of the milky way in my dreams
I have teams of scientists feeding me data daily and pleading I immediately turn it into poetry
I want just this consciousness reached by people in range of secret frequencies contained in my speech
I am the desirous earth equidistant to the underworld and the flesh of the stars
I am everything already lost
the moment the universe turns transparent and all the light shoots through the cosmos
I use words to instigate silence
I’m a hieroglyphic stairway in a buried Mayan city suddenly exposed by a hurricane
a satellite circling earth finding dinosaur bones in the Gobi desert I am telescopes that see back in time
I am the precession of the equinoxes, the magnetism of the spiraling sea
I’m riding home on the Colma train with the voice of the milky way in my dreams
I am myths where violets blossom from blood like dying and rising gods
I’m the boundary of time soul encountering soul and tongues of fire
it’s 3:23 in the morning and I can’t sleep because my great great grandchildren ask me in dreams what did you do while the earth was unraveling?
I want just this consciousness reached by people in range of secret frequencies contained in my speec
If I get murdered in the city Don’t go revenging in my name One person dead from such is plenty No need to go get locked away
When I leave your arms The things that I think of No need to get over alarmed I’m coming home
I wonder which brother is better Which one our parents love the most I sure did get in lots of trouble They seemed to let the other go
A tear fell from my father’s eyes I wondered what my dad would say He said, “I love you and I’m proud of you both In so many different ways”
If I get murdered in the city Go read the letter in my desk Don’t bother with all my belongings But pay attention to the list
Make sure my sister knows I loved her Make sure my mother knows the same Always remember there was nothing worth sharing Like the love that let us share our name
Always remember there was nothing worth sharing Like the love that let us share our name
van Gogh, can you tell me how many martyrs does it take to open up a blood bank
van Gogh, can you tell me where does beauty go when it dies?
van Gogh, can you tell me why saints live on car exhaust and are lonely as crushed acorns
while enormous suppurating blisters of men sleep on beds made of dollars, their pillows the breasts of fantastic women
van Gogh, can you tell me you who made paint scream who drew the expressions of the wind
and portrayed leaves and stars writhing in agony as though they were human
tell me which of the satellites circling the earth is mine
how many pairs of shoes does it take to walk to infinity
do you believe the world will ever learn how to cry in unison
van Gogh, with your skin like scorched leather from too much time spent in the wheatfields on your knees, shooting dice with God over who gets to color sunset
didn’t you ever feel like an asshole
incapable of self-preservation always crossing at the end
van Gogh, can you tell me as the sun comes down around my ears in chunks today
as hummingbirds hover at my window cursing me in tiny voices
why roads drag you down them how you are finding light in Paradise and if you have your own easel of if God allows you to paint on the sky
“In the ‘pro-life’ and allegedly ‘family-friendly’ American Bible belt, conservative political leaders slash programs designed to help women and children while creating a justifying mythology about handouts versus empowerment.
In God-fearing America the poor are now the ‘takers,’ no longer the ‘least of these,’ and many conservative evangelicals side with today’s Pharisees, attacking the poor in Jesus’ name.”
-Frank Schaeffer, Why I’m an Atheist Who Believes in God
Reluctant Xtian 