Politics

The Northern Lights

~ MaryG ~ 36 Comments

I think a lot of people in the Northeast (including me!) checked off “See the Northern Lights” from their buckets lists last night. This was especially rewarding for those of us who missed seeing them in May. Who knew our once-in-a-lifetime chance would come twice in one year?

The Northern Lights from my very own neighborhood last night around 7:15pm. I was on my way to choir practice and happened to look up.

This feels like a lot of things.

Remembrance

The lights and colors in the sky last night reminded me of my close friend from college, Carla, who died in 2022. She had brain cancer. She really wanted to see the Northern Lights before she died, but was too sick to travel, so her friends and family found a way to project them onto the ceiling in her bedroom in Santa Fe. It was beautiful.

A Sign

I know I’m not alone in feeling a lot of anxiety about the state of the country and the way it feels like we’re never going to go back to “normal” — no matter who wins the election. I’ve never in my life been afraid of a US election, but I’m afraid of this one.

Similarly, I never once saw the Northern Lights as a kid growing up in Massachusetts, but this year, many New Englanders saw them twice! A little girl standing near me last night said, “this is God.” Maybe so. Or maybe it’s a sign of transition to a new era—an era where completely new things happen.

Unknown new things are scary and I have a strong urge to “circle the wagons” and try to protect the ones I love. (I think to myself, “please stay in Massachusetts where you’ll maybe be a bit safer from gun violence, flooding, dangerous reproductive care, crappy public schools, etc.)

But I know that’s not really possible.

My new granddaughter will hopefully live into the next century. She will live out most of her life in this new era, whatever it may be. I want her to feel free, adventurous, and safe to explore the world beyond her home state.

Living in the transitional time

An activist friend of mine left for New Zealand yesterday. She’s staying until the end of the month. She said she just needed to get out of the country for these last few weeks before the election. I can relate. In some ways, it’s all just too much.

Maybe seeing the aurora borealis is the reminder some of us needed to center ourselves and live in the moment. Humans have been around a long time and have accomplished many great things and many terrible things. Even though it sometimes feels like end times are upon us, there’s a decent chance that something great is just around the corner too.

Final thought: just breathe

Related post:

Northern Lights II

Florida

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

I’ve spent more time in Florida than any other state outside New England. I like Florida. I love the beaches. I like the theme parks. I love all the outdoor dining. I like the diversity. I love the winter weather. I like how easy it is to get there from Boston with many cheap, nonstop flights daily.

We have close friends and family in Orlando, the Palm Beach area and Naples. They have been through many hurricanes and they don’t typically get too concerned. Therefore, I did not immediately change my travel plans when a very late season hurricane (Nicole) was forecast in November 2022. We were scheduled to look at condos with a realtor and she would’ve been highly inconvenienced if we cancelled. (We were actually thinking of purchasing a second home down there at the time.)

Hurricane Nicole hit on Election Day in November 2022. (Governor Ron DeSantis was overwhelmingly reelected—possibly a bad sign for this Massachusetts liberal.) We were told we had to evacuate our hotel because it was in “Zone B” – a barrier island. I never even got to try the pool. We left and checked into another hotel outside of Zone B.

The hurricane itself wasn’t too bad where we were, but I had a bad reaction to the extreme barometric pressure change. It caused a problem with my inner ear and triggered vertigo. Not fun. I sat in my hotel room with a barf bucket in my lap waiting for the moment we could go to the airport.

After that trip, I decided I would never again visit Florida during hurricane season and really didn’t want to own a condo there. (Renting is fine.)

But I still like Florida.

Hurricane Milton looks horrific. I’m scared for the state. I hope it’s not as bad as they’re saying it will be.

Here we are at my nephew’s wedding on Longboat Key (which looks to be in extreme danger from Hurricane Milton). It was just one of many, many good times I’ve had in the quirky, beautiful, unique state of Florida.

If God Would Go on Sick Leave

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

It’s now been a whole year since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel in which 1,200 men, women and thirty-six children were horrifically killed and 250 abducted. Since then, over 40,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed and countless thousands have been injured and displaced, including mothers, children and infants.

Mothers, children, and infants, like my precious granddaughter…

My minister shared this poem on Sunday and it really struck a chord with our Unitarian Universalist congregation.

“If God Would Go On a Sick Leave: A Poem of Peace”

by Rabbi Zoë Klein

Nowhere is there more prayer.
The Nuns at the Holy Sepulchre.
The faithful at Al Aqsa Mosque.
The worshippers at the Wall.
The call to prayer at dawn and dusk
Warbling from the citadels.
The church bells,
The Persian trills,
The passion spilled over texts
From every major/minor religious sect.
Nowhere is there more prayer than Jerusalem,
Thanks be to God, Hamdilala, Baruch Hashem.
And yet,
I’m starting to think that it’s You and not them,
God, what’s the point of prayer?
If there’s nowhere where
There’s more prayer,
And terror reigns
Then, Who’s to blame?
If suddenly, without a whisper goodbye,
Jesus, Allah, Adonai,
The three men they admire most
All took the last train for the coast,
And the Moslems got up from their knees
And the Christians put down their rosaries
And the Jews stayed their hands from kissing
Their mezuzahs,
And everyone looked up,
And realized something’s missing…
God is missing.
Stop the praying! No One’s there,
They’d arrange a party to search everywhere.
They’d look for God
But there’d be no Presence
In Holy Books or stars and crescents
Or steeples and crosses.
People’d be at a loss,
Is He ever coming back?
They’d be so distraught,
Their searching for naught,
There’d be nothing on high
So they’d turn to on low,
There’d be nothing above
So they’d turn to below,
And they’d finally see there,
In the face of the other,
A semblance of sister,
The eyes of a brother,
They’d turn and they’d lean
Upon one another.
You see, every group can’t believe that they’re the ones chosen,
Every group can’t believe that the Holy Land’s owed them,
Sometimes faith in You, God,
Builds insurmountable walls,
And everyone falls.
Everyone falls.
How wise are the secularists for whom the dead aren’t martyred
But, quite plainly, murdered…
This might sound like an absurd,
ungodly thing to say,
A truly heretical supplication to pray,
(I say this only out of the deepest respect)
But if for a few days, God, You’d just give it a rest,
If You’d take a sick leave and just go away
And let Israel work this out without You in the way,
God, for that kind of peace,
You’re a small price to pay.

Image from Pexels

Clever image & the debate

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments

From The Atlantic:

For our October cover image, the illustrator Justin Metz borrowed the visual language of old Ray Bradbury and Stephen King paperbacks to portray a circus wagon on its ominous approach to a defiled Capitol. “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” Bradbury’s 1962 masterpiece, was a particular inspiration; it tells the story of Mr. Dark, who grifts strangers into joining his malevolent carnival. Over the course of The Atlantic’s 167-year history, only very rarely have we published a cover without a headline or typography.

My main thought on the debate is that it’s disgusting that a serious person—an accomplished woman of substance—would have to share the same stage with a criminal—a lying sack of shit. He doesn’t deserve to lick her shoe.

The fact that the GOP has allowed this is unconscionable.

Please enjoy this free gift article from my old friend Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic. He sheds some additional light on the spinelessness of Republicans.

More Boston HA-bah (you know, the place where the colonists dumped all that tea in 1773)

~ MaryG ~ 12 Comments
The Valiant
Boston skyline with Leader Bank Pavilion (aka Harborlights) on the far left
And…darkness

Completed in 2003, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge (on the right side of photo) was named to honor the late Lenny Zakim’s civil rights and race relations work in Boston.
Back in the dock at Rowe’s Wharf, the huge flag seemed symbolic. It was the final night of the epic 2024 Democratic National Convention. Kamala Harris was accepting our party’s nomination later that night.

“And, so, on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother, and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with — people who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.”

~Vice President Kamala D. Harris, Democratic National Convention, August 22, 2024

About last night

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments
Full text of Kamala Harris speech

Last night I was on a boat, in my pearls & chucks, with a bunch of people who didn’t seem to care that history was about to be made. We saw some lovely views of Boston.

Thank goodness I made it home in time to see her speech live.

I truly felt like I was experiencing history in the making. I mean, come ON. She was phenomenal. Many tears were shed.

How could any American not choose Kamala Harris to lead the United States forward over the alternative—whose name does not even deserve to be in the same sentence as hers.

I am beyond excited that my granddaughter will be arriving into this new world, filled with hope and possibility.

Here I am earlier in the day yesterday with people who do care, very much, about what happened last night. We were thrilled to have a special guest with us. Funny, she didn’t seem nervous at all about the huge speech she was about to give.

“And to be clear, my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.” ~Kamala D. Harris, Democratic National Convention, 2024

The DNC

~ MaryG ~ 23 Comments

The Democratic National Convention is SO good. Oh my god…what a difference from the RNC.

From Republican Stephanie Grisham, to the roll call, to the Obamas (especially Michelle), it was all so inspiring last night.

This introduction of Doug Emhoff by his son Cole was a highlight for me:

www.instagram.com/reel/C-6tT42AAOk/

76 more days!

Writing postcards to help get out the vote in Ohio with others on Zoom yesterday

Thankful Thursday

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

I’ve never done a “Thankful Thursday” post before, but here goes.

I’m thankful for a solid house that does not leak. With hurricane season upon us, I’m reminded of past interior flooding — both in the home I grew up in and in the first house we bought after our daughter was born (a 150+ year old antique with a leaky fieldstone basement). I know there are worse things than standing ankle-knee deep in dirty brown water in your own basement, but I’m very thankful I haven’t had to do that in the past twenty years.

It is my understanding that Hurricane Ernesto has knocked out power for half of Puerto Rico (which still has not fully recovered from the devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017) and is gaining strength as it heads towards Bermuda. And hurricane season has only just begun…

Beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico in August 2016, the year before Category Five Hurricane Maria