Politics: Writing Letters, Making Phone Calls
8 February 2025 | 11:47 am

In the past, I haven't spent much time contacting my U.S. senators or my representative in the U.S. House.  I've written the occasional letter about a bill coming up for a vote, and during the first Trump administration, I felt compelled to make phone calls here or there.  This past week has been different.




I began with making phone calls on Monday; I called my two senators to give my opinion on the cabinet nominees that might come up for a vote sooner rather than later.  That was Monday when I thought the votes might happen momentarily.

As the week continued, we heard about DOGE getting control of various databases that include sensitive information--so I made calls about that because it felt urgent.  In both instances, no one answered the phone, but I expected that.  I left a message, as I have been trained to do:  focused message, my name, address, and phone number.  This morning, The Washington Post is reporting that I am not the only one concerned; the story has this headline:  "Lawmakers flooded with calls about Elon Musk: ‘It is a deluge on DOGE.’"




I've also written letters.  I am odd in that writing letters feels easier, and I do believe that a handwritten letter gets similar attention to a phone call.  I am certain that online polls and online generated letters/communication don't get much attention at all, especially in times when offices are getting lots of communication.




I like writing letters, which I keep brief, because I can do them in my spare time, which is not abundant.  Phone calls mean that I have to do a bit of talking myself into the process; I am not a talk on the phone person.  

I wrote letters in support of the federal workers who are being treated shabbily.  I wrote letters in support of USAID.  I do realize that there is waste and abuse across various government agencies, and I know that's true of most institutions.  But there are good ways to do reform, and there are bad ways.  Taking a sledgehammer to programs is one of the bad ways, particularly when it involves ordinary people's lives and livelihoods. 

One of the reasons I haven't communicated with my legislators is that reform has usually been more moderate and measured.  I haven't always agreed with the directions taken, but I have felt that various points were considered as people with more information than I have had made decisions.  I have not felt that way in the past two weeks.

In this time, when so much is under attack without much communication or consideration, sending messages to the people who are supposed to be representing voters feels very important.

Genocidal Despots and Poems
7 February 2025 | 10:53 am

I am taking 2 wonderful seminary classes, and I'm so happy that I get to end my MDiv on this note, with two wonderful classes in my last term, no drudgery work.  Last night's class is a New Testament class called "Birth, Death, and Back Again:  Christmas and Easter."  It looks at Christmas and Easter texts without the in between, and I am loving it.  In my first year, it was offered, but it was onground, so I couldn't take it.  This semester, it's virtual.  It's not offered every semester, so I'm glad that I had a chance to take it--an advantage to taking a slightly slower route to graduation.

Last night we discussed Matthew 2:  1-23, the visit of the magi, the flight to Egypt, the massacre of Bethlehem boys, and the return.  It was the kind of class meeting where I took extensive notes and thought, I need to remember these details for next year's Christmas season sermons.

Of course, the most powerful part of last night's class is one that I'll probably use more in funeral sermons than in Christmas sermons.  We talked about Herod's slaughter of the Bethlehem boys under the age of 2 and asked the question of why Joseph gets a dream that saves Jesus, but the other parents in Bethlehem don't.  Does God allow genocide?

My professor, Dr. Laura Holmes, finished our discussion of the death of the innocents by reminding us that salvation/redemption/liberation comes with a high price, and not just for Jesus; there's lots and lots of damage to those around him. 

In other words, Jesus came into our world that is ruled by empires, by genocidal despots, by the people in charge who are scared and thus make terrible decisions.  I realize that that on some level, my professor's response doesn't answer the question.  My own answer, as people who read every blog entry of mine will know, is that God isn't all powerful and that evil forces do have a lot of power, and that those two facts often lead to bloodshed, which is not what God wants, but God can't always prevent it.

I admire my professor's ability to give us insight and encourage class discussion.  I hate the classes that are too focused on student presentations.  I am paying for the professor's expertise--if I wanted to be taught by peers, who may or may not have extensive experience, I can do that much more cheaply than a seminary class.  Last night we had both expertise and really insightful class discussion.

When class started, I thought about one of my all-time favorite poems I've ever written, a poem that imagines what might have happened had the magi showed up at the Southern border.   The final poem had multiple strands: Epiphany, the perpetual crisis on the border, the crisis between east and west that ultimately led to the taking down of the wall between East and West Germany, a bit of the underground railroad.  As the class went on, lines of new poetry kept bubbling up in my brain.  Happily, I had a blank legal pad nearby, so I wrote them down.  It was wonderful to feel inspired.

I am not sure I can transform those lines into anything that I like as much as the poem that I'll post below, the poem that was published in Sojourners in 2020.  

 

Border Lands



I am the border agent who looks
the other way. I am the one
who leaves bottled water in caches
in the harsh border lands I patrol.

I am the one who doesn’t shoot.
I let the people assemble,
with their flickering candles a shimmering
river in the dark. “Let them pray,”
I tell my comrades. “What harm
can come of that?” We holster
our guns, and open a bottle to share.

I am the superior
officer who loses the paperwork
or makes up the statistics.
I am the one who ignores
your e-mails, who cannot be reached
by text or phone, the one
with a full inbox.

When the wise ones
come, as they do, full of dreams,
babbling about the stars
that lead them or messages
from gods or angels,
I open the gates. I don’t alert
the authorities up the road.
Let the kings and emperors
pay for their own intelligence.

I should scan the horizons,
but I tend the garden
I have planted by the shed
where we keep the extra
barbed wires. I grow a variety
of holy trinities: tomatoes, onions,
peppers, beans, squashes of all sorts.
I plant a hedge of sunflowers,
each bright head a north star.

Great Teaching Days in the Midst of Political Chaos
5 February 2025 | 12:02 pm

It is the kind of morning when I wonder if I should move money out of my savings account where my tax returns came for the past several years.  Now that Elon Musk's team appears to have access to all sorts of government computer systems, a team that has not been vetted or given security clearances, I'm not sure that my bank account is safe.  I'm glad that we put much of our money into our home repairs--it's much harder for hackers to steal my appliances, my furnace, my kitchen cabinets and counters.

Do I really think that Musk's team of college kids is interested in my meager savings account (meager compared to that of rich people, but not meager to me)?  Probably not, but I am fairly sure they are leaving holes by which shadowy actors might be able to get to my money.  Will FDIC still be around to protect my funds or refund my bank account in the case of fraud?  Who knows.

This morning's headlines about Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank made me wonder if I was looking at a satire, with the basic takeaway being that Trump wants the US to be in control of Gaza and the West Bank, which he seems to see as a huge redevelopment potential project.  A reporter asked if the US would send troops? Sure!  

It's the kind of morning where I look away because it's all too dystopian/absurdist.  And then I look up and it's 5 a.m., and I wonder where the time went.  Did I get papers graded?  No.  Did I write a poem?  No.

I did download the reading for Thursday's class.  Did I read it?  No.  I did order my cap and gown for my May graduation, but that doesn't explain where my morning time went.

But let me end on a positive note:  yesterday's classes went REALLY well.  It's a bit surreal to be talking about the gilded age and President McKinley in my American Lit class at the same time that a U.S. president is claiming that McKinley was one of the greatest presidents--and odd to remember a time when I lived on McKinley street when we first moved to Hollywood, FL, and I remember thinking how little I knew about that president.  We had a great class, talking about the history from the 1880's to the 1920's, and the impact of the history on the literature.

Before that, I had a great Nonfiction writing class.  We did a lot of generative writing in the first part of class.  I was trying to generate ideas to write about a favorite tree poetically.  I've done something similar before, which I wrote about in this blog post.  I have a word list generated by my 101 students in the fall.  I called out a word, and had them write for 40 seconds; we did this for 10 words.  I then had them write a sentence or a line of 5-10 words.  Then I gave them the complete word list and had them choose the three most evocative.  We did a free writing for 5 minutes (keep writing, no stopping, no correcting).   Again, I had them write a sentence or a line of 5-10 words.  Then we put the lines/sentences on the three whiteboards around the room.  It was intriguing.

And then I gave them the worksheet below.  They filled in the blanks and then chose one and wrote for 10 minutes--writing a short story or a poem or a view from the tree.  On Thursday, we'll start to figure out how to turn all the prewriting into an essay.


The tree sings __________________  at night. 

The tree yearns for ________________________. 

The tree misses __________________________. 

_________________________ misses the tree. 

 The tree contains a secret which is __________________. 

The tree’s favorite color is ___________________________. 

 The tree’s best friend is _________________________. 

The tree resembles this human made object. 

The tree wraps itself in a quilt made of ___________________. 

The tree goes _______________________ for vacation. 

The tree wishes you knew ____________________________. 




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