Ah, to begin beneath a stunning picture along the waterfront.
Fellow subscribers, During my time with Letter from an American, Heather informs me and the solidity of her work generally calms me down, I have gotten to know more about a few of you beyond the churn of these last few months in the USA. Your range of knowledge, generosity, humor, and care for our country, the people here and everywhere, in particular, represent a pillar of our discourse. Thank you. Happy Easter and or Happy Sunday. In consideration of you and Easter, I would like to share a piece connected to the Holiday, which touched me in a few unfamiliar ways. I hope that you will read it:
Opinion
The Unsettling Power of Easter
The holiday is about much more than a celebration of spring.
By Esau McCaulley
April 2, 2021
I grew up in the Southern Black church tradition, where Easter was the opportunity to don your best outfit. The yellow and red dresses and dark suits set against the Black and brown bodies of my church were a thing to behold. The hats of grandmothers and deacon’s wives jostled with one another for attention. The choir had its best music rehearsed and ready to go. Getting to sing the solo on Easter was like getting a prime spot at the Apollo.
I watched rather than participated in these festivities during most of my youth. I didn’t have the money or social standing to attract much attention. Then one year my mother cobbled together enough money to purchase a navy blue three-piece suit and a clip-on tie. Without my father around, neither she nor I could tie the real thing. I thought I had joined the elect when I showed up fresh and clean for Sunday service.
The feeling didn’t last long. During a song, a woman sitting next to me with one of the aforementioned hats got excited. Our tradition called it “catching the Holy Ghost.” In her ecstatic state, she kicked out, hit me in the leg, and ripped a hole in my brand-new pants.
That Sunday introduced me to the two Easters that struggle alongside each other. One is linked closely to the celebration of spring and the possibility of new beginnings. It is the show that can be church on Easter. The other deals with the disturbing prospect that God is present with us. His power breaks out and unsettles the world.
We like to imagine the story of the first Easter as the first of the two, a celebration of possibility. We would be wrong.
The four Gospels describe Jesus’ female followers going to his tomb on Easter morning, only to find it empty. They receive the news that Christ has risen from the dead. Each Gospel, at different points, comments on the fear that these women felt.
The Gospel of Mark’s account is especially striking to me. The earliest and most reliable manuscripts of Mark conclude with a description of the women as “trembling and bewildered.” Mark tells us that they “fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). That the story is known at all makes it clear that Mark believes the women eventually told Jesus’ disciples what they had seen. But what do we make of the fact that Mark ends his Gospel on the women’s fear and silence?
Mark’s ending points to a truth that often gets lost in the celebration: Easter is a frightening prospect. For the women, the only thing more terrifying than a world with Jesus dead was one in which he was alive.
We know what to do with grief and despair. We have a place for it. We have rituals that surround it. I know how to look around at the anti-Black racism, the anti-Asian racism, the struggles of families at the border and feel despair. I know what it’s like to watch the body count rise after a mass shooting, only to have the country collectively shrug because we are too addicted to our guns and our violence.
I know how to feel when I look to some in the church for help, only to have my faith questioned because I see in biblical texts a version of social justice that I find compelling. I put it all in the tomb that contains my dead hopes and dreams for what the church and country could be. I am left with only tears.
Hope is much harder to come by. The women did not go to the tomb looking for hope. They were searching for a place to grieve. They wanted to be left alone in despair. The terrifying prospect of Easter is that God called these women to return to the same world that crucified Jesus with a very dangerous gift: hope in the power of God, the unending reservoir of forgiveness and an abundance of love. It would make them seem like fools. Who could believe such a thing?
Christians, at their best, are the fools who dare believe in God’s power to call dead things to life. That is the testimony of the Black church. It is not that we have good music (we do) or excellent preaching (we do). The testimony of the Black church is that in times of deep crisis we somehow become more than our collective ability. We become a source of hope that did not originate in ourselves.
After we take off those suits and sundresses and hats, we return to a world that is racialized. The Black skin that set nicely against those yellows and blues also makes us stand out as we live in a world that calls our skin a danger. We need more than celebration; we need unsettling presence.
To listen to the plans of some, after the pandemic we are returning to a world of parties and rejoicing. This is true. Parties have their place. Let us not close all paths to happiness. But we are also returning to a world of hatred, cruelty, division and a thirst for power that was never quarantined. This period under pressure has freshly thrown into relief the fissures in the American experiment.
As we leave the tombs of quarantine, a return to normal would be a disaster unless we recognize that we are going back to a world desperately in need of healing. For me, the source of that healing is an empty tomb in Jerusalem. The work that Jesus left his followers to do includes showing compassion and forgiveness and contending for a just society. It involves the ever-present offer for all to begin again. The weight of this work fills me with a terrifying fear, especially in light of all those who have done great evil in his name. Who is worthy of such a task? Like the women, the scope of it leaves me too often with a stunned silence.
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The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Esau McCaulley (@esaumccaulley) is a contributing opinion writer and an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He is the author of the book “Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope.”
Thank you FERN for such a grace-filled and moving piece by Esau McCaulley. What a special Easter gift! I am now clear in my own mind about how I wish to live in 2021. I hope to accept "the ever-present offer to begin again"..."showing compassion and forgiveness and contending for a just society." It has been a very hard year since last Easter. My patience, kindness and ability to forgive have been sorely tested. I feel better for reading this. I can see my path more clearly now. Be well, thank you.
OpEd of NYT is under new management. The lady is interim until confirmed... or perhaps they have confirmed her. She answers her cell phone at home and is polite but inconsistent as if she has yet to take charge. It might be management interference from Mr. K...
It is said by the cognoscenti that The New York Times is in chaos when considered from within. Years of racism ignored, back stabbing, years of saying one thing and meaning another... years of legacy management... have taken their toll. The Family controls... and they lost David Shipley to Mike Bloomberg... he ran an OpEd page that mattered... Jim Dao was a disaster... Katie Kingsbury is hardly settled, and Trish Hall and Sewell Chan were simply unstable... and they fired James Bennet for allowing a fascist in congress to speak...much like they fired the best reporter on pandemics, a man with 45 years experience, for hearsay on his use of the N word on a cruise, I think, in a context that would arouse no particular concern, as it was in a pseudo academic setting and the word was used to teach teens on that cruise to nowhere ... This paper has passed through a period when homosexuals were hidden and tobacco was sacrosanct. It will not print what might out academic criminals in microbiology for fear of offending pharma... and farming... out of ignorance... and the most seasoned are retired in favor of the inexperienced to save money... in photography and all over the place, as bloated expenses force that hand, and other papers simply collapse. We are reading less and less so editing is weaker and we get films to entertain us, as the culture is decaying. This paper was unable to out the worst amongin the best, yet it will not really trash the worst.. the most experienced use the word schizoid to describe what no one comprehends, and one nice family member is simply out in the cold, as the masthead is dominated by a bully that is hated by the best at the paper and a young publisher listens to power. For the moment, the best in Editorial are doing well ... starting with Mara Gay... should she test the waters with the truth about prejudicial stuff, we would not likely read it twice ... she does not have a huge following... David Brooks seems to have come through a personal crisis, and we are not hearing much from Tom Friedman... McCaulley's Easter piece has brought some of them to tears, they write.. when reading public response. So says the editor. I believe this. My favorite paper is not totally lost.
Frank cooked, got fat, came out, converted to OpEd know it all, takes calls, is so self absorbed he cannot listen, he’s the man, the he, she, it of our Brave New World of misfits thriving, demanding, getting, listing and losing, the lost souls of MSM entertaining themselves and getting paid for it. They add little value and bathe in their lack of privacy, revealing nothing to us or themselves that matters. And oh, yes, they are tolerant till questioned.
It appears that what you wrote is a good advertisement for visiting British citizens to go to the fish markets on the shores of Manhattan for their fish & chips.
mind you after a pint in the pub fish and chips tasted so good while walking home. They tended to be wrapped in the tabloids though...question of size of the edition and what the clients mostly liked to read..no serious stuff.
Shame, shame, he said. If they can explain their behavior to their children, Heaven help us, when fascism flares and nearly half of us think that's fine, duck... if Georgia holds, the republic will not hold; if Chauvin is innocent, where do we go? As posted to their Twitter accounts... to Esau McCaulley and his editor...
Happy Easter to you Heather! Many thanks for all your eloquent summations and also the visual treats🐤🐰And thanks also to all of you lovely folks that make this vibrant community a place of connection, reflection and solace❣️My childhood Easter’s in the 1950's went like this. Off to church in my pale pink chubby coat and flowered hat, mary-janes and frilly socks, white gloves, a fifty cent piece in my pocket for the collection plate. I loved and still love the whole hat, coat, gloves routine of that era. Later at home searching out the Easter baskets hidden around the house was the most fun ever. I can still see in my minds eye all the hidden places, the oven, the fireplace, my toy box, behind the sofa. Striped baskets with Green straw grass filled with jelly beans, hand coloured hen eggs, and silver wrapped chocolate And always, somewhere, really hard to find, an enormous chocolate Rabbit. Being an only child I got to eat the ears first. Then days and days of egg salad sandwiches. May you all have a lovely holiday and may you find happiness in all the hidden places in your lives. 🐰🐣🐥
And what about organizing the "Easter Treasure Hunt" for the granddaughters on the balcony, terrace and throughout the apartment in Paris. Marvellous to see the glee and rushing about discovering new hidey holes for the darling little eggs, bunnies and god knows what chocolate form. Now they are 17 and 21 and are delighted to get a "little contribution" to the expensive lifestyle whereever they happen to be....in Berlin with the latest boyfriend for the elder! Sigh.......somehow it doesn't seem the same.
Stuart you seem so young at heart, perhaps your great grandkids aren’t so far away, that in a few short years you will have little feet running in search of the newest hidey holes.
Could be if our son ever gets round to producing future chocolate munchers. The "Berlin" past-muncher is more in the style of Meryl Streep in "the Devil wore Prada" and has the wherewithal to get there and kids are not on the "agenda" i fear. The younger one wanted to be medical forensics specialist. When asked why she wanted to deal only with the dead she answered "they don't complain" ...wekll see with that one but in her spare time from being a overly fulltime geek gamer she's learning Japanese...inspired by manga!
Yes, despite my best efforts to deny what I see in the bathroom mirron first thing in the morning, I managed yesterday to prove the vision true. Decided to step up on the front porch without going up the steps (something done successfully for-bloody-ever), only I had been walking on wet grass and I didn't put my foot far enough on the porch and when I put my weight on it to go up, I instead went down. Fortunately, only a shin scrape (haven't had one of those since I was a kid) and another thing to add to the list of Things We Don't Do Any More.
I'm still the only writer my age I know who has an open contract with his publisher to write what I want to write about, the way I want to write it (so long as they continue to get those minimum 4.5-star reviews at Amazon)
A barked shin is no fun, young or older. Still, you hadn't reckoned with wet grass! So somehow "Things We Don't Do Any More" doesn't yet fully qualify in this case.... :-)
You brought smiles to me inside and out, along with pictures and the sweets of childhood remembered and imaged. Good Easter to you Robin and chocolate Rabbit ears forever. Thank you dear co-subscriber.
Happy Easter to all! We would like to share a great essay for anyone missing today's Heather reading (which we read aloud each and every day for added comprehension and discussion in our household). It's by Cree Hardegree and titled, "Why We Need The John Lewis Voting Rights Act". It is great Sunday reading, if you are so inclined. (The last few about paragraphs about Coke and Delta are particularly enlightening.) Please enjoy!
Normally on the day before Easter we do "art eggs", but today was my daughter's Birthday. I drove down, and my daughter and her husband picked up food ordered online from one of the best restaurants in town, while my granddaughter introduced my tiny dog to the two giant cats staying with them for the time being. We spent several hours well-spaced around the big table, eating delicous food, choc cake and coffee and talk about politics. I am fully vaccinated and at leaving time got hugs and even a kiss on the cheek at leaving time. The first in a year (though we have visited before, no hugs). A beautiful drive home as the sun set. I am happy. Happy Eostre, everyone.
We always joke about that: all the hard work and she gets the cake! But I got the tiny dark-haired baby who grew up to be the warm-hearted woman I get to call both daughter and friend.
Ah, you were the extra I could sense! Actually, I think there were several who dropped by and a few who visited after I came home and lit a fire in the stove. I'm so glad you enjoyed your visit. I enjoyed having you there.
I have loved that name since I first found out its true origin and meaning. I use that name to honor my own mother, who taught it to me- she studied the mythologies and literature of early Europe- and so did the daughter whose BD we celebrated this weekend!
It is so reassuring to see the cycles of nature, with Spring following Winter, daffodils coming up and birds migrating-in spite of all the political mayhem. Thanks for the lovely photo celebrating new life coming back, Heather, and thanks for the excellent summaries of the GOP's current attempts at voter suppression and all the blow-back.
Vickie, love your delightful writing of "birds migrating-in spite of all the political mayhem"......flying above the fray! I guess. Nature is reassuring. And comforting. Thank you. Happy Easter.
Isn’t it strange to think, separate countries aren’t actually real, but just a theory in our heads?
We can build walls, agree on laws that set terms of acceptable behavior, design currency and monetary policies. But it’s all just because we agree to believe in a theoretical organized system.
Birds, trees, clouds, and waves really don’t care. 🙂
I think it brings home the point that we have a duty to make our ideas useful.
I LOVE your perception, S! And it can truly alter one’s sense of ‘reality'.
In my Zen tradition, we practice noticing ALL thoughts are simply manifestations of our mind. EVERY thought. So, in the 'Relative Truth’ yes, my name is “Frederick.” But in the ‘Ultimate Truth,’ one monk was asked, “Who are you,” to which the monk replied “I don’t know.” Everything and every moment is an interrelated gift, which words cannot measure, broach or ....
When the unreality of borders comes up, I always recall the lesson in T.H. White's, "Once and Future King", a fiction written, in part, to describe Merlin's schooling of the Young King Arthur to prepare him to rule. I was so young when I read it. It mysteriously remains lodged forever in my imagination. Merlin, the magician, turns himself into a bird and takes Arthur on his back and they fly over the land. Arthur realizes from his "perch" that the world is boundless and borderless. Merlin wants the young Arthur to understand that the natural world is without divisions, that this understanding will inform the wisdom of his rule,
But upon nature we construct an individual and collective identity which since we often worship the proverbial god of personal property ownership we define limits between what is yours and what is mine. Native American traditions, while they did not accept "ownership" of nature, respected traditional usage and defended these rights vigorously.
They also respected the land and recognized a relationship of responsibility toward it. Their traditions are still active: lands and ecosystems in America managed by the indigenous people are in much better condition than those managed by people of Euro descent- who are at last beginning to learn. My father, a man raised with traditional knowledge, ached when he saw fires in the forests around our valley extinguished. Over and over, he would say "If they don't burn out the fuels up there, someday we are going to have one helluva big fire." He was right. We did, and our valley was filled with smoke and isolated for weeks from the outside, all roads closed by fires. And then they did it all over again, and the fuel built up again. Last year entire towns burnt. Now, at last, they are asking traditional people how to manage the forests and the grasslands.
I live now in VT, a place where drought is rare and usually short-lived. We are in the second year of drought, the second one in the last decasde. Some wells are running dry, and we are in a fire watch (12% humidity) with dry spring fuel not yet decomposing, and brisk winds predicted. Fires here often start in someone's back yard.
In spring is usually when we expect to make detours because of flooded road when spring rains meet snowmelt. Not this year: only one flooded road that I've heard of, and now it's past, and it is dry.
It often comes down to a little more than the administrative and material aspects of life when thinking of a Nation and the lines drawn on the map. Granted....at each border there is a transition or buffer zone but markedly different ways of values and cultures do define a people and thereafter their nation and these cannot be attributable simply to "acceptable behavior" but rather the latter is mostly an adjunct of the former unless attempts are made to thwart that cultural identity.. The complications arise of course when strength of arms and wars have created countries with mixed cultures but often these do not survive or they develop along the lines of the commonalities and qualities of composing cultures and this to the point where collectively they still distinguish themselves clearly from those forming neighbouring nations.....across the line.
Something you said struck a chord, in fact, I think about it a lot - "countries with mixed cultures...often do not survive." Throughout its brief history, the American white majority was dominant. Soon, that will not be the case. The US will be a nation of minorities, with whites being the largest of them, but no longer a numerical majority. A truly pluralistic society. I have wondered whether this will weaken social cohesion or strengthen it. Right now, it is clearly weakening it as white people desperately try to hold on to dominance - to make American great again (translation: make America white again). But this is going to prove impossible in the long term. If there is no dominant cultural/racial group, everything could devolve into autocracy, of course, but hopefully not. Instead, might we become a collective...something...that maintains both statehood and democracy? The American experiment continues. My Easter ponderings.
Yes, to the delight of some and the disgust of others. If it survives intact, the United States will be the largest multi-cultural democracy in history. Experiment indeed.
Stuart, it seems to me that the most creative and thriving societies (a word I like better than "countries") are those that are, by cultural or geographical happenstance, places that are multi-cultural. Both in the sense of individuals and in the sense of inter-mixing of cultures to create new ways of being, thinking, doing. In Europe, until relatively recently (and still, to some extent), languages were mutually intelligible from village to village, and only became noticably a different dialect or language once one had travelled quite a distance. In America, much the same thing happened, although our cultures overlapped more in territory. As one of our grandmother elders said, it used to be that your "tribe" meant the people you live with. Then the Europeans came and wrote everything down and gave things labels that represented some moment in the past. It makes it harder for the people to know who they are, each of us individually divided up into different tribes and cultures until we don't exist as people and cultures in the time we live in now. It is glorious to me to see the leaders meeting together to recreate the intertribal alliances similar to the ones we used to have, and that that will lead to the kind of dynamic exchange we had before we got labelled and put in corrals.
I love how you phrased this perspective, S. Mikelle. Thank you for it. It is both lovely and unnerving. Since I was a child I have been baffled by borders and their absence of actual being. Flying over the continent and seeing no lines marking out the states, and seeing instead the curves of mountains and the intricacies of watersheds, huge vastnesses of steppes. We argue over something that is not there: you are right, just a theory in our heads. No wonder my aboriginal ancestors were so baffled by the Europeans concepts of ownership of land.
Here, too (Chicago). We sat out on our back deck after dinner this evening and the neighbor kids were playing basketball in their back yard. The sounds of summer.
OK So we arena Southern Maine and dont see Daffs yet:) And I grew up in the Chicago regions where Easter was either warm and spring-summer lovely or snowstorms (as in 1964:) Thanks for the photos and stimulating some memories:)
Happy Easter, Professor Richardson, and thank you for your dedication and commitment to open factual discussion of issues that are critical to the well-being of our national community.
Perhaps on these Heather off days it is appropriate to say nothing and rest but it usually gets me to thinking.
I’m observing all this current turmoil in our potential futures, the paths that lead from the successful continuation of voter suppression and the white supremacy that fuels it, or the path that leads from S1 becoming law and being followed by even more election reform such that the power of those that have accumulated wealth beyond what they can personally use, in any form is not dominate. These paths diverge over the choice of whether super-wealth has an ever decreasing effect on our collective future, or increasing.
I believe these are two very different paths. One leads to slow progress along the lines of life style improvements for some of humanity while others are left to resort to sporadic violence. The other leads to a period when cooperation and communality is emphasized over competition and where success is not measured in monetary terms.
Acknowledging the historical lesson that every generation feels that they are living through the pivotal time when potentials are split between disaster and salvation; this time, now, does seem to hold that in some measure of truth.
So I’m asking myself the question I asked when I was practicing medicine and witnessing that professions dive in to profiteering. What will it take to change this? Can it be done by incremental change and essentially business as usual or does it require some disruptive force that demands change on a different scale. I relate to medicine from the inside, from a position of greater experience than I do politics but I do feel there are parallels that are cogent.
Both medicine and politics are altruistically purposed for the greater good. Both are necessary in a way that food is but automobiles and trinkets are not. Both rise in visibility and focus when crisis comes and then slide to the background of our lives when times feel stable. Both are huge systems of human endeavor that do not change easily. Both are currently influenced by systems of finance that are overwhelming in their complexity and yet hidden as if to say that what is happening would not go well in the true light of day. Both are hot beds of lying and deceit that have been institutionalized by the monetary power structure.
Medicine can only be disrupted by recognizing that the essential process takes place between a patient and a caregiver. Everything else exists only to serve that relationship. Therefore, it is the caregiver and the patient that actually hold power.
Politics exists between the representative and the constituent. Therefore, it is the voter that holds ultimate power. Why, in both of these cases is, this fundamental truth not playing out? Which is the opposite of asking why and how does money exercise its power?
In medicine money exerts its influence through a propaganda that it is only when you have money that you get great care. In politics money exerts its influence through the propaganda that votes are bought. Both of these experiences have been promoted for so long now that they seem true. Many patients feel that the more expensive the care the better it must be even in the face of the experience that we sit below the median in most indicators of overall health of industrialized countries while we spend an order of magnitude more. Likewise elections have been reduced to fundraising contests but to fund, what? Just advertising? Is that how votes are bought? Or is it used to buy a platform for your lies that is taller and louder than any other?
I concluded in medicine that incremental change would never be sufficient to change the path. Disruption on a major scale was/is required. In medicine, in my view, the tool for this is the computer. Software has now occupied the space between the patient and the caregiver. Generally, the experience of this fact has been negative. Changing the reality of this and making the computer a tool of communication and education between the patient and caregiver rather than a tool that at its root is a way for money to change hands is the disruption that could rewrite the way medicine functions.
The truth that the best care isn’t the most expensive care is only to be revealed through the experience of caregivers and patients and only when that experience is discoverable directly through the use of the tool that that relationship uses. Simply, when you as a patient can directly query other patients on the results of their experience of the choice that you are now facing can you get beyond the financially motivated scheme of decision making.
Therefore the disruption comes when patients insist that their medical record is their property and that it must be delivered in a format that they can understand and that serves them as its primary purpose. This will not come about by incremental change of current medical records systems because they would require a complete rewrite and because the companies providing these system are motivated by the current financial structure not by patients. It is important to remember that it is not a limitation of computing or clinicians or patients. It is a snare of finance that is firmly snapped.
I’m wondering if politics isn’t the same? The tool that rests between our representatives and us is the media and that media is more subservient to money than it is to people. Ratings drive the media. Ratings seem to be driven by drama. The population’s need for truth is in a second or third seat. What would disrupt that?
We often just hope for better media but that is essentially business as usual. Fox promotes itself as ‘better media’ and for those who buy that promotion Fox becomes the bringer of truth. The medical parallel: Pfizer promotes Lipitor and gets fantastically wealthy. Lipitor becomes the answer. The results of that experience are lost in the haze of Pfizer promoted outcome studies that depend upon lab tests to demonstrate its success because the actual experience of people taking the drug isn’t so clear.
It is people sharing their actual experience over time that actually holds the information and not as individuals. These choices are about marginalizing risk in large populations so only a tool that aggregates data would work. Yet, people lie. Would you lie about your experience? Did you eventually need a bypass or not? Did you have kidney problems or not? These basic facts are harder to lie about than, I liked it or I didn’t. What is the political parallel?
The comments of people living in Ted Cruz area of sponsorship have been helpful. Do they like his performance? I don’t access what Fox is saying but I can imagine. Does he pay Fox for that? Probably not directly but definitely I would say. How can the Georgia legislature pass a law that is so manifestly unpopular? Only with the confidence that that decision brings them what they need to stay in power.
How does that work? How does that money translate to votes? I can see it in medicine but I don’t know enough about real world politics to quite get it. We in medicine often fall back on the idea that patients aren’t smart enough to understand but that wasn’t my actual experience. What would an actual disruption to the currently financially controlled electoral process look like?
"In commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus, Easter also celebrates the defeat of death and the hope of salvation. Christian tradition holds that the sins of humanity were paid for by the death of Jesus and that his Resurrection represents the anticipation believers can have in their own resurrection." To those who celebrate: Happy Easter!! https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday
"Passover, Hebrew Pesaḥ or Pesach, in Judaism, holiday commemorating the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the 'passing over' of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, when the Lord 'smote the land of Egypt' on the eve of the Exodus."
"Ramadan 2021 begins at sunset on Monday, April 12, and ends on Wednesday, May 12...Ramadan is a holy month of fasting, introspection and prayer for Muslims, the followers of Islam. It is celebrated as the month during which Muhammad received the initial revelations of the Quran, the holy book for Muslims." To those who celebrate: Mark your calendars!!
"The conclusion of Ramadan is marked with a major celebration known as Eid al-Fitr (or Eid ul-Fitr), the Feast of Fast-Breaking. It starts the day after Ramadan ends and lasts for three days.
Eid al-Fitr includes special prayers and meals with friends and relatives, and gifts are often exchanged. The "politics" of Ramadan:
"In 1996, then-first lady Hillary Clinton hosted the first Eid al-Fitr dinner at the White House. President Bill Clinton continued the tradition throughout the rest of his time in office.
His successor, President George W. Bush, hosted an iftar at the White House in 2001 and continued the dinners every year of his two terms in power. President Barack Obama followed suit, hosting his first White House Ramadan dinner in August 2010. After skipping it in 2017, President Donald Trump hosted iftar dinners to honor the Muslim holy month in 2018 and 2019."
In most countries of Europe, the name for Easter is derived from the Jewish festival of Passover.
"So in Greek the feast is called Pascha, in Italian Pasqua, in Danish it is Paaske, and in French it is Paques," Professor Cusack said.
But in English-speaking countries, and in Germany, Easter takes its name from a pagan goddess from Anglo-Saxon England who was described in a book by the eighth-century English monk Bede.
"Eostre was a goddess of spring or renewal and that's why her feast is attached to the vernal equinox," Professor Cusack said.
"In Germany the festival is called Ostern, and the goddess is called Ostara."
Happy "Everything," Ellie!! Thanks for this article. I found it interesting to learn how rabbits, eggs and chocolate, et cetera, weaved their way into today's Easter celebration. Seems people kept closer ties to nature way back when than we do today!
Ah but with spring comes pollenization...and allergies which have rendered the period more than somewhat difficult since the age of 25. (An awfully hot, dry and windy vist to Paris while doing my Masters in UK did the trick and it's stayed with me ever since. Fortunately i only have the trees to worry about and can enjoy the summer. Homeopathics always manage to keep the beast from biting too hard.
Hey Stuart - As a longtime seasonal allergy sufferer, and fellow tree worrier, I greatly appreciate your reference to hemeopathics. I just found what looks like good general advice in this article from Sedera https://sedera.com/seasonal-allergies/ with some useful reminders (to me anyway) that Stress is the Destroyer (my term) and that chiropractic can help (immensely) but also apples, onions and black tea. Of course, Dr Google has loads of other information. Happy Easter, welcome Spring (our old common frenemy).
It is interesting to me that Covid has taken my sense of smell for the last 5 months. I haven’t enjoyed the smell of coffee as much, and my mind has filled in missing smells and tastes, but I have truly noted in this atmosphere redolent with pollen the lack of smell from the trees having sex with each other. It was this that warned me of impending headaches from the ornamental pears that line the street from my house to the hospital at which I work! And I recognize that Covid has taken so much more from each of us then we are aware.
Covid nose! It stays with you. I was walking up the hill to our house amidst all the glorious blooms and all I could smell was dead squirrel! Nothing dead in sight....sigh. When my husband cooks fish I have to hide in my room...the smell is intensely disturbing....nauseating... it’s madding... but better than being dead, of course.😁
Robin, the odor of old time Bradford pear trees in bloom has led many of us to search for dead creatures or decaying vegetation. Could that be what you are smelling?
A classic symptome of the infection and the aftermath. The imposition or more sensibly in Sweden the recommendation of social distancing etc and here enforced lockdowns has made many governments hanker after reducing the human population's sex life and social existence to that of trees...immobile sedentry odedient. The imposition of the sanitary panic is distinctly worrying here as it reinforces distincly non-democratic tendencies that were all too present.
I lost my sense of taste and much of smell for 10 months after Covid. A few days of feeling well, and then slid into long covid. The odd thing for me is that I had undiagnosed Lyme disease for a long time. Finally diagnosed correctly and treated. It took a long time but I finally achieved something resembling a normal life. In Covid, it felt at times as if some of the left-over Lyme issues were replaying and then would disappear. At last I began to feel that profound Covid fatigue and pain and brainfog gradually lift, only weeks before my first vaccination shot. I reacted strongly to the first shot, with odd sensations wandering around my body, and sleep taking me over for four or five days. That abruptly disappeared and I woke up one day feeling fine. A little nervous for the second shot, because it seemed most people reacted more strongly, and I really was not looking forward to a replay. The day of the shot, my response was within a few hours, full-body, and intense. It abated after a few more hours and by bedtime I felt fine. And I have been fine ever since, energetic, clear-headed, better than I have in years. Now there are studies on that, as others have experienced a similar thing. I have no idea what happened, but it was as if my immune system experienced a reset!
We had developed a plan for how to handle a variety of scenarios if one or more of us got Covid.
As it happened, I was the only one who did, exactly a year ago. Our plan went into action: Every two weeks my daughter delivered my groceries to my doorstep and they stepped back to the sidewalk while I brought them in. Then we chatted for a bit, me on the stoop, they on the sidewalk. So the hugs yesterday were my first in all that time. It felt so good, I had to stop for a bit driving home to let myself cry in relief.
We are so very fortunate: we have lost no one to Covid, though several have been ill. We wonder about the future: we know we will not go back to where we were, nor do we want to. We will go forward into a different future than we might have had, and we are determined to make it as positive a place as possible for those who come after us. Right now we cannot see the shape, but sense the possibilities, with some optimism.
We pray not only for our own futures, but even more for all the people in the world who do not have our resources and for whom Covid is just beginning. I fear for them and their suffering, and try to keep myself open for the ways in which I might help ease things.
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful posts, David. I always read them feeling that you let in a little light for me.
David, it's sad that Covid made you lose your sense of smell, I hope it returns soon. I have one thing to say about coffee. I used to drink it black in college over fifty years ago. Then I read that coffee isn't particularly good for people, and I quit drinking it. I soon realized that the only good thing I liked about coffee was the smell. Be well.
Unfortunately black tea went when i checked my blood pressure...along with red meat and a number of other little dietary sacrifices. My wife also is a longtime ambulant homeopathic dictionary. Very fortunate!
Ah, to begin beneath a stunning picture along the waterfront.
Fellow subscribers, During my time with Letter from an American, Heather informs me and the solidity of her work generally calms me down, I have gotten to know more about a few of you beyond the churn of these last few months in the USA. Your range of knowledge, generosity, humor, and care for our country, the people here and everywhere, in particular, represent a pillar of our discourse. Thank you. Happy Easter and or Happy Sunday. In consideration of you and Easter, I would like to share a piece connected to the Holiday, which touched me in a few unfamiliar ways. I hope that you will read it:
Opinion
The Unsettling Power of Easter
The holiday is about much more than a celebration of spring.
By Esau McCaulley
April 2, 2021
I grew up in the Southern Black church tradition, where Easter was the opportunity to don your best outfit. The yellow and red dresses and dark suits set against the Black and brown bodies of my church were a thing to behold. The hats of grandmothers and deacon’s wives jostled with one another for attention. The choir had its best music rehearsed and ready to go. Getting to sing the solo on Easter was like getting a prime spot at the Apollo.
I watched rather than participated in these festivities during most of my youth. I didn’t have the money or social standing to attract much attention. Then one year my mother cobbled together enough money to purchase a navy blue three-piece suit and a clip-on tie. Without my father around, neither she nor I could tie the real thing. I thought I had joined the elect when I showed up fresh and clean for Sunday service.
The feeling didn’t last long. During a song, a woman sitting next to me with one of the aforementioned hats got excited. Our tradition called it “catching the Holy Ghost.” In her ecstatic state, she kicked out, hit me in the leg, and ripped a hole in my brand-new pants.
That Sunday introduced me to the two Easters that struggle alongside each other. One is linked closely to the celebration of spring and the possibility of new beginnings. It is the show that can be church on Easter. The other deals with the disturbing prospect that God is present with us. His power breaks out and unsettles the world.
We like to imagine the story of the first Easter as the first of the two, a celebration of possibility. We would be wrong.
The four Gospels describe Jesus’ female followers going to his tomb on Easter morning, only to find it empty. They receive the news that Christ has risen from the dead. Each Gospel, at different points, comments on the fear that these women felt.
The Gospel of Mark’s account is especially striking to me. The earliest and most reliable manuscripts of Mark conclude with a description of the women as “trembling and bewildered.” Mark tells us that they “fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). That the story is known at all makes it clear that Mark believes the women eventually told Jesus’ disciples what they had seen. But what do we make of the fact that Mark ends his Gospel on the women’s fear and silence?
Mark’s ending points to a truth that often gets lost in the celebration: Easter is a frightening prospect. For the women, the only thing more terrifying than a world with Jesus dead was one in which he was alive.
We know what to do with grief and despair. We have a place for it. We have rituals that surround it. I know how to look around at the anti-Black racism, the anti-Asian racism, the struggles of families at the border and feel despair. I know what it’s like to watch the body count rise after a mass shooting, only to have the country collectively shrug because we are too addicted to our guns and our violence.
I know how to feel when I look to some in the church for help, only to have my faith questioned because I see in biblical texts a version of social justice that I find compelling. I put it all in the tomb that contains my dead hopes and dreams for what the church and country could be. I am left with only tears.
Hope is much harder to come by. The women did not go to the tomb looking for hope. They were searching for a place to grieve. They wanted to be left alone in despair. The terrifying prospect of Easter is that God called these women to return to the same world that crucified Jesus with a very dangerous gift: hope in the power of God, the unending reservoir of forgiveness and an abundance of love. It would make them seem like fools. Who could believe such a thing?
Christians, at their best, are the fools who dare believe in God’s power to call dead things to life. That is the testimony of the Black church. It is not that we have good music (we do) or excellent preaching (we do). The testimony of the Black church is that in times of deep crisis we somehow become more than our collective ability. We become a source of hope that did not originate in ourselves.
After we take off those suits and sundresses and hats, we return to a world that is racialized. The Black skin that set nicely against those yellows and blues also makes us stand out as we live in a world that calls our skin a danger. We need more than celebration; we need unsettling presence.
To listen to the plans of some, after the pandemic we are returning to a world of parties and rejoicing. This is true. Parties have their place. Let us not close all paths to happiness. But we are also returning to a world of hatred, cruelty, division and a thirst for power that was never quarantined. This period under pressure has freshly thrown into relief the fissures in the American experiment.
As we leave the tombs of quarantine, a return to normal would be a disaster unless we recognize that we are going back to a world desperately in need of healing. For me, the source of that healing is an empty tomb in Jerusalem. The work that Jesus left his followers to do includes showing compassion and forgiveness and contending for a just society. It involves the ever-present offer for all to begin again. The weight of this work fills me with a terrifying fear, especially in light of all those who have done great evil in his name. Who is worthy of such a task? Like the women, the scope of it leaves me too often with a stunned silence.
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The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Esau McCaulley (@esaumccaulley) is a contributing opinion writer and an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He is the author of the book “Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope.”
Thank you FERN for such a grace-filled and moving piece by Esau McCaulley. What a special Easter gift! I am now clear in my own mind about how I wish to live in 2021. I hope to accept "the ever-present offer to begin again"..."showing compassion and forgiveness and contending for a just society." It has been a very hard year since last Easter. My patience, kindness and ability to forgive have been sorely tested. I feel better for reading this. I can see my path more clearly now. Be well, thank you.
Your feelings and words filled my heart.
OpEd of NYT is under new management. The lady is interim until confirmed... or perhaps they have confirmed her. She answers her cell phone at home and is polite but inconsistent as if she has yet to take charge. It might be management interference from Mr. K...
It is said by the cognoscenti that The New York Times is in chaos when considered from within. Years of racism ignored, back stabbing, years of saying one thing and meaning another... years of legacy management... have taken their toll. The Family controls... and they lost David Shipley to Mike Bloomberg... he ran an OpEd page that mattered... Jim Dao was a disaster... Katie Kingsbury is hardly settled, and Trish Hall and Sewell Chan were simply unstable... and they fired James Bennet for allowing a fascist in congress to speak...much like they fired the best reporter on pandemics, a man with 45 years experience, for hearsay on his use of the N word on a cruise, I think, in a context that would arouse no particular concern, as it was in a pseudo academic setting and the word was used to teach teens on that cruise to nowhere ... This paper has passed through a period when homosexuals were hidden and tobacco was sacrosanct. It will not print what might out academic criminals in microbiology for fear of offending pharma... and farming... out of ignorance... and the most seasoned are retired in favor of the inexperienced to save money... in photography and all over the place, as bloated expenses force that hand, and other papers simply collapse. We are reading less and less so editing is weaker and we get films to entertain us, as the culture is decaying. This paper was unable to out the worst amongin the best, yet it will not really trash the worst.. the most experienced use the word schizoid to describe what no one comprehends, and one nice family member is simply out in the cold, as the masthead is dominated by a bully that is hated by the best at the paper and a young publisher listens to power. For the moment, the best in Editorial are doing well ... starting with Mara Gay... should she test the waters with the truth about prejudicial stuff, we would not likely read it twice ... she does not have a huge following... David Brooks seems to have come through a personal crisis, and we are not hearing much from Tom Friedman... McCaulley's Easter piece has brought some of them to tears, they write.. when reading public response. So says the editor. I believe this. My favorite paper is not totally lost.
Frank Bruni?
Frank cooked, got fat, came out, converted to OpEd know it all, takes calls, is so self absorbed he cannot listen, he’s the man, the he, she, it of our Brave New World of misfits thriving, demanding, getting, listing and losing, the lost souls of MSM entertaining themselves and getting paid for it. They add little value and bathe in their lack of privacy, revealing nothing to us or themselves that matters. And oh, yes, they are tolerant till questioned.
Forgot to mention he's going blind.
His column today on powerlessness. Crucial for wherever we are going next in this country.
The NYT - the nation's finest fishwrap. It comes with it's own pre-attached smell.
It appears that what you wrote is a good advertisement for visiting British citizens to go to the fish markets on the shores of Manhattan for their fish & chips.
Ha!
mind you after a pint in the pub fish and chips tasted so good while walking home. They tended to be wrapped in the tabloids though...question of size of the edition and what the clients mostly liked to read..no serious stuff.
I left the NYT for the Washington Post a few years ago. Wrap up the fish!
LOL!
Your responses exhaust me, and drop a lot of names I do not know, but do exercise my brain.
Shame, shame, he said. If they can explain their behavior to their children, Heaven help us, when fascism flares and nearly half of us think that's fine, duck... if Georgia holds, the republic will not hold; if Chauvin is innocent, where do we go? As posted to their Twitter accounts... to Esau McCaulley and his editor...
Can your head and heart rest a bit? Sleep well for the bright Sandy to meet the day.
Stirring thoughts Fern. Thank you for your gift of hope. May love and joy shine upon each of us who read these letters today.
Happy Easter to you Heather! Many thanks for all your eloquent summations and also the visual treats🐤🐰And thanks also to all of you lovely folks that make this vibrant community a place of connection, reflection and solace❣️My childhood Easter’s in the 1950's went like this. Off to church in my pale pink chubby coat and flowered hat, mary-janes and frilly socks, white gloves, a fifty cent piece in my pocket for the collection plate. I loved and still love the whole hat, coat, gloves routine of that era. Later at home searching out the Easter baskets hidden around the house was the most fun ever. I can still see in my minds eye all the hidden places, the oven, the fireplace, my toy box, behind the sofa. Striped baskets with Green straw grass filled with jelly beans, hand coloured hen eggs, and silver wrapped chocolate And always, somewhere, really hard to find, an enormous chocolate Rabbit. Being an only child I got to eat the ears first. Then days and days of egg salad sandwiches. May you all have a lovely holiday and may you find happiness in all the hidden places in your lives. 🐰🐣🐥
And what about organizing the "Easter Treasure Hunt" for the granddaughters on the balcony, terrace and throughout the apartment in Paris. Marvellous to see the glee and rushing about discovering new hidey holes for the darling little eggs, bunnies and god knows what chocolate form. Now they are 17 and 21 and are delighted to get a "little contribution" to the expensive lifestyle whereever they happen to be....in Berlin with the latest boyfriend for the elder! Sigh.......somehow it doesn't seem the same.
Stuart you seem so young at heart, perhaps your great grandkids aren’t so far away, that in a few short years you will have little feet running in search of the newest hidey holes.
Could be if our son ever gets round to producing future chocolate munchers. The "Berlin" past-muncher is more in the style of Meryl Streep in "the Devil wore Prada" and has the wherewithal to get there and kids are not on the "agenda" i fear. The younger one wanted to be medical forensics specialist. When asked why she wanted to deal only with the dead she answered "they don't complain" ...wekll see with that one but in her spare time from being a overly fulltime geek gamer she's learning Japanese...inspired by manga!
Growing old ain't for sissies. :-)
Yeh! The others don't make it that far.
Dear God, is THAT ever true!
Damn right on that one!
Yes, despite my best efforts to deny what I see in the bathroom mirron first thing in the morning, I managed yesterday to prove the vision true. Decided to step up on the front porch without going up the steps (something done successfully for-bloody-ever), only I had been walking on wet grass and I didn't put my foot far enough on the porch and when I put my weight on it to go up, I instead went down. Fortunately, only a shin scrape (haven't had one of those since I was a kid) and another thing to add to the list of Things We Don't Do Any More.
I'm still the only writer my age I know who has an open contract with his publisher to write what I want to write about, the way I want to write it (so long as they continue to get those minimum 4.5-star reviews at Amazon)
A barked shin is no fun, young or older. Still, you hadn't reckoned with wet grass! So somehow "Things We Don't Do Any More" doesn't yet fully qualify in this case.... :-)
Sweet 1950s memories...!! Your words bring the magic back.
You brought smiles to me inside and out, along with pictures and the sweets of childhood remembered and imaged. Good Easter to you Robin and chocolate Rabbit ears forever. Thank you dear co-subscriber.
Happy Easter to all! We would like to share a great essay for anyone missing today's Heather reading (which we read aloud each and every day for added comprehension and discussion in our household). It's by Cree Hardegree and titled, "Why We Need The John Lewis Voting Rights Act". It is great Sunday reading, if you are so inclined. (The last few about paragraphs about Coke and Delta are particularly enlightening.) Please enjoy!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/why-we-need-john-49566190?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copy_to_clipboard&utm_campaign=postshare
Very nice concise piece, written also in the dry, unadorned, concise style adopted by Heather.
Good article.
Thank you for sharing this. Happy Easter!
Thanks, nice piece.
Most excellent.
Normally on the day before Easter we do "art eggs", but today was my daughter's Birthday. I drove down, and my daughter and her husband picked up food ordered online from one of the best restaurants in town, while my granddaughter introduced my tiny dog to the two giant cats staying with them for the time being. We spent several hours well-spaced around the big table, eating delicous food, choc cake and coffee and talk about politics. I am fully vaccinated and at leaving time got hugs and even a kiss on the cheek at leaving time. The first in a year (though we have visited before, no hugs). A beautiful drive home as the sun set. I am happy. Happy Eostre, everyone.
Happy birthday to the woman who did all the hard work! And that's lovely you got to spend the time celebrating with your family!
We always joke about that: all the hard work and she gets the cake! But I got the tiny dark-haired baby who grew up to be the warm-hearted woman I get to call both daughter and friend.
That "stranger" sitting at your big table was me!! Thanks, Annie and your family. I had a lovely time!
Ah, you were the extra I could sense! Actually, I think there were several who dropped by and a few who visited after I came home and lit a fire in the stove. I'm so glad you enjoyed your visit. I enjoyed having you there.
Annie, thank you so much for spelling it correctly! 😁
I have loved that name since I first found out its true origin and meaning. I use that name to honor my own mother, who taught it to me- she studied the mythologies and literature of early Europe- and so did the daughter whose BD we celebrated this weekend!
Happy Easter Annie.
Thank you, David. And Happy Day After Easter to you!
It is so reassuring to see the cycles of nature, with Spring following Winter, daffodils coming up and birds migrating-in spite of all the political mayhem. Thanks for the lovely photo celebrating new life coming back, Heather, and thanks for the excellent summaries of the GOP's current attempts at voter suppression and all the blow-back.
Vickie, love your delightful writing of "birds migrating-in spite of all the political mayhem"......flying above the fray! I guess. Nature is reassuring. And comforting. Thank you. Happy Easter.
Isn’t it strange to think, separate countries aren’t actually real, but just a theory in our heads?
We can build walls, agree on laws that set terms of acceptable behavior, design currency and monetary policies. But it’s all just because we agree to believe in a theoretical organized system.
Birds, trees, clouds, and waves really don’t care. 🙂
I think it brings home the point that we have a duty to make our ideas useful.
I LOVE your perception, S! And it can truly alter one’s sense of ‘reality'.
In my Zen tradition, we practice noticing ALL thoughts are simply manifestations of our mind. EVERY thought. So, in the 'Relative Truth’ yes, my name is “Frederick.” But in the ‘Ultimate Truth,’ one monk was asked, “Who are you,” to which the monk replied “I don’t know.” Everything and every moment is an interrelated gift, which words cannot measure, broach or ....
Frederick it behooves us in this time of celebration to treat each other well. Not as other than.
Absolutely, because there is no distinction between the other and oneself, other than what we create in our mind
... AND, those distinction of our western mind create disagreements and wars
When the unreality of borders comes up, I always recall the lesson in T.H. White's, "Once and Future King", a fiction written, in part, to describe Merlin's schooling of the Young King Arthur to prepare him to rule. I was so young when I read it. It mysteriously remains lodged forever in my imagination. Merlin, the magician, turns himself into a bird and takes Arthur on his back and they fly over the land. Arthur realizes from his "perch" that the world is boundless and borderless. Merlin wants the young Arthur to understand that the natural world is without divisions, that this understanding will inform the wisdom of his rule,
and similarly our perceptions are without borders, until we create them
But upon nature we construct an individual and collective identity which since we often worship the proverbial god of personal property ownership we define limits between what is yours and what is mine. Native American traditions, while they did not accept "ownership" of nature, respected traditional usage and defended these rights vigorously.
They also respected the land and recognized a relationship of responsibility toward it. Their traditions are still active: lands and ecosystems in America managed by the indigenous people are in much better condition than those managed by people of Euro descent- who are at last beginning to learn. My father, a man raised with traditional knowledge, ached when he saw fires in the forests around our valley extinguished. Over and over, he would say "If they don't burn out the fuels up there, someday we are going to have one helluva big fire." He was right. We did, and our valley was filled with smoke and isolated for weeks from the outside, all roads closed by fires. And then they did it all over again, and the fuel built up again. Last year entire towns burnt. Now, at last, they are asking traditional people how to manage the forests and the grasslands.
I live now in VT, a place where drought is rare and usually short-lived. We are in the second year of drought, the second one in the last decasde. Some wells are running dry, and we are in a fire watch (12% humidity) with dry spring fuel not yet decomposing, and brisk winds predicted. Fires here often start in someone's back yard.
In spring is usually when we expect to make detours because of flooded road when spring rains meet snowmelt. Not this year: only one flooded road that I've heard of, and now it's past, and it is dry.
It often comes down to a little more than the administrative and material aspects of life when thinking of a Nation and the lines drawn on the map. Granted....at each border there is a transition or buffer zone but markedly different ways of values and cultures do define a people and thereafter their nation and these cannot be attributable simply to "acceptable behavior" but rather the latter is mostly an adjunct of the former unless attempts are made to thwart that cultural identity.. The complications arise of course when strength of arms and wars have created countries with mixed cultures but often these do not survive or they develop along the lines of the commonalities and qualities of composing cultures and this to the point where collectively they still distinguish themselves clearly from those forming neighbouring nations.....across the line.
Something you said struck a chord, in fact, I think about it a lot - "countries with mixed cultures...often do not survive." Throughout its brief history, the American white majority was dominant. Soon, that will not be the case. The US will be a nation of minorities, with whites being the largest of them, but no longer a numerical majority. A truly pluralistic society. I have wondered whether this will weaken social cohesion or strengthen it. Right now, it is clearly weakening it as white people desperately try to hold on to dominance - to make American great again (translation: make America white again). But this is going to prove impossible in the long term. If there is no dominant cultural/racial group, everything could devolve into autocracy, of course, but hopefully not. Instead, might we become a collective...something...that maintains both statehood and democracy? The American experiment continues. My Easter ponderings.
There are shades of white, shades of all colors and many colors.
Yes, to the delight of some and the disgust of others. If it survives intact, the United States will be the largest multi-cultural democracy in history. Experiment indeed.
Value what you have in common and distinguishes you from others living on the other side of your borders
Yes, those things a country make. I hope we can find those commonalities as we more into the future.
Stuart, it seems to me that the most creative and thriving societies (a word I like better than "countries") are those that are, by cultural or geographical happenstance, places that are multi-cultural. Both in the sense of individuals and in the sense of inter-mixing of cultures to create new ways of being, thinking, doing. In Europe, until relatively recently (and still, to some extent), languages were mutually intelligible from village to village, and only became noticably a different dialect or language once one had travelled quite a distance. In America, much the same thing happened, although our cultures overlapped more in territory. As one of our grandmother elders said, it used to be that your "tribe" meant the people you live with. Then the Europeans came and wrote everything down and gave things labels that represented some moment in the past. It makes it harder for the people to know who they are, each of us individually divided up into different tribes and cultures until we don't exist as people and cultures in the time we live in now. It is glorious to me to see the leaders meeting together to recreate the intertribal alliances similar to the ones we used to have, and that that will lead to the kind of dynamic exchange we had before we got labelled and put in corrals.
I love how you phrased this perspective, S. Mikelle. Thank you for it. It is both lovely and unnerving. Since I was a child I have been baffled by borders and their absence of actual being. Flying over the continent and seeing no lines marking out the states, and seeing instead the curves of mountains and the intricacies of watersheds, huge vastnesses of steppes. We argue over something that is not there: you are right, just a theory in our heads. No wonder my aboriginal ancestors were so baffled by the Europeans concepts of ownership of land.
Renewal...that's what spring is all about. And your letters, Heather, offer renewal almost everyday. Thank you for being our "spring" all year long.
Thanks. To you as well.
Thanks, Kim. It's been a long winter, but you can start to see around here that it's breaking up.
Here, too (Chicago). We sat out on our back deck after dinner this evening and the neighbor kids were playing basketball in their back yard. The sounds of summer.
Although we all know you can’t trust the weather in Chicago! In the blink of an eye…
Yes, the daffodils are a sure sign spring has sprung! Happy Easter to you and yours!
OK So we arena Southern Maine and dont see Daffs yet:) And I grew up in the Chicago regions where Easter was either warm and spring-summer lovely or snowstorms (as in 1964:) Thanks for the photos and stimulating some memories:)
🌹
Happy Easter, Professor Richardson, and thank you for your dedication and commitment to open factual discussion of issues that are critical to the well-being of our national community.
Perhaps on these Heather off days it is appropriate to say nothing and rest but it usually gets me to thinking.
I’m observing all this current turmoil in our potential futures, the paths that lead from the successful continuation of voter suppression and the white supremacy that fuels it, or the path that leads from S1 becoming law and being followed by even more election reform such that the power of those that have accumulated wealth beyond what they can personally use, in any form is not dominate. These paths diverge over the choice of whether super-wealth has an ever decreasing effect on our collective future, or increasing.
I believe these are two very different paths. One leads to slow progress along the lines of life style improvements for some of humanity while others are left to resort to sporadic violence. The other leads to a period when cooperation and communality is emphasized over competition and where success is not measured in monetary terms.
Acknowledging the historical lesson that every generation feels that they are living through the pivotal time when potentials are split between disaster and salvation; this time, now, does seem to hold that in some measure of truth.
So I’m asking myself the question I asked when I was practicing medicine and witnessing that professions dive in to profiteering. What will it take to change this? Can it be done by incremental change and essentially business as usual or does it require some disruptive force that demands change on a different scale. I relate to medicine from the inside, from a position of greater experience than I do politics but I do feel there are parallels that are cogent.
Both medicine and politics are altruistically purposed for the greater good. Both are necessary in a way that food is but automobiles and trinkets are not. Both rise in visibility and focus when crisis comes and then slide to the background of our lives when times feel stable. Both are huge systems of human endeavor that do not change easily. Both are currently influenced by systems of finance that are overwhelming in their complexity and yet hidden as if to say that what is happening would not go well in the true light of day. Both are hot beds of lying and deceit that have been institutionalized by the monetary power structure.
Medicine can only be disrupted by recognizing that the essential process takes place between a patient and a caregiver. Everything else exists only to serve that relationship. Therefore, it is the caregiver and the patient that actually hold power.
Politics exists between the representative and the constituent. Therefore, it is the voter that holds ultimate power. Why, in both of these cases is, this fundamental truth not playing out? Which is the opposite of asking why and how does money exercise its power?
In medicine money exerts its influence through a propaganda that it is only when you have money that you get great care. In politics money exerts its influence through the propaganda that votes are bought. Both of these experiences have been promoted for so long now that they seem true. Many patients feel that the more expensive the care the better it must be even in the face of the experience that we sit below the median in most indicators of overall health of industrialized countries while we spend an order of magnitude more. Likewise elections have been reduced to fundraising contests but to fund, what? Just advertising? Is that how votes are bought? Or is it used to buy a platform for your lies that is taller and louder than any other?
I concluded in medicine that incremental change would never be sufficient to change the path. Disruption on a major scale was/is required. In medicine, in my view, the tool for this is the computer. Software has now occupied the space between the patient and the caregiver. Generally, the experience of this fact has been negative. Changing the reality of this and making the computer a tool of communication and education between the patient and caregiver rather than a tool that at its root is a way for money to change hands is the disruption that could rewrite the way medicine functions.
The truth that the best care isn’t the most expensive care is only to be revealed through the experience of caregivers and patients and only when that experience is discoverable directly through the use of the tool that that relationship uses. Simply, when you as a patient can directly query other patients on the results of their experience of the choice that you are now facing can you get beyond the financially motivated scheme of decision making.
Therefore the disruption comes when patients insist that their medical record is their property and that it must be delivered in a format that they can understand and that serves them as its primary purpose. This will not come about by incremental change of current medical records systems because they would require a complete rewrite and because the companies providing these system are motivated by the current financial structure not by patients. It is important to remember that it is not a limitation of computing or clinicians or patients. It is a snare of finance that is firmly snapped.
I’m wondering if politics isn’t the same? The tool that rests between our representatives and us is the media and that media is more subservient to money than it is to people. Ratings drive the media. Ratings seem to be driven by drama. The population’s need for truth is in a second or third seat. What would disrupt that?
We often just hope for better media but that is essentially business as usual. Fox promotes itself as ‘better media’ and for those who buy that promotion Fox becomes the bringer of truth. The medical parallel: Pfizer promotes Lipitor and gets fantastically wealthy. Lipitor becomes the answer. The results of that experience are lost in the haze of Pfizer promoted outcome studies that depend upon lab tests to demonstrate its success because the actual experience of people taking the drug isn’t so clear.
It is people sharing their actual experience over time that actually holds the information and not as individuals. These choices are about marginalizing risk in large populations so only a tool that aggregates data would work. Yet, people lie. Would you lie about your experience? Did you eventually need a bypass or not? Did you have kidney problems or not? These basic facts are harder to lie about than, I liked it or I didn’t. What is the political parallel?
The comments of people living in Ted Cruz area of sponsorship have been helpful. Do they like his performance? I don’t access what Fox is saying but I can imagine. Does he pay Fox for that? Probably not directly but definitely I would say. How can the Georgia legislature pass a law that is so manifestly unpopular? Only with the confidence that that decision brings them what they need to stay in power.
How does that work? How does that money translate to votes? I can see it in medicine but I don’t know enough about real world politics to quite get it. We in medicine often fall back on the idea that patients aren’t smart enough to understand but that wasn’t my actual experience. What would an actual disruption to the currently financially controlled electoral process look like?
Anyway, it is a day off really, right?
A man in desperate need of his own Substack blog! That's a *good* thing - your post is excellent and I'd bet you have more in you.
Barnacles and blooms. Beautiful.
Look forward to your gorgeous photos every week...they’re beautiful, calming and a reminder of how peaceful things can be:)
Happy blessed Easter, Heather!
Thank you, Frances! To you, as well!
"In commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus, Easter also celebrates the defeat of death and the hope of salvation. Christian tradition holds that the sins of humanity were paid for by the death of Jesus and that his Resurrection represents the anticipation believers can have in their own resurrection." To those who celebrate: Happy Easter!! https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday
"Passover, Hebrew Pesaḥ or Pesach, in Judaism, holiday commemorating the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the 'passing over' of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, when the Lord 'smote the land of Egypt' on the eve of the Exodus."
Today, April 4, marks the end of Passover. To those who celebrate: Happy "end of Passover"!! https://www.britannica.com/topic/Passover
"Ramadan 2021 begins at sunset on Monday, April 12, and ends on Wednesday, May 12...Ramadan is a holy month of fasting, introspection and prayer for Muslims, the followers of Islam. It is celebrated as the month during which Muhammad received the initial revelations of the Quran, the holy book for Muslims." To those who celebrate: Mark your calendars!!
"The conclusion of Ramadan is marked with a major celebration known as Eid al-Fitr (or Eid ul-Fitr), the Feast of Fast-Breaking. It starts the day after Ramadan ends and lasts for three days.
Eid al-Fitr includes special prayers and meals with friends and relatives, and gifts are often exchanged. The "politics" of Ramadan:
"In 1996, then-first lady Hillary Clinton hosted the first Eid al-Fitr dinner at the White House. President Bill Clinton continued the tradition throughout the rest of his time in office.
His successor, President George W. Bush, hosted an iftar at the White House in 2001 and continued the dinners every year of his two terms in power. President Barack Obama followed suit, hosting his first White House Ramadan dinner in August 2010. After skipping it in 2017, President Donald Trump hosted iftar dinners to honor the Muslim holy month in 2018 and 2019."
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/ramadan
Thank you Lynell! Happy Easter, Ramadan, end of Passover and Spring, May this day of beauty and hope bring peace and happiness to us all!
Amen, David.
Happy Passover/Eostre!
In most countries of Europe, the name for Easter is derived from the Jewish festival of Passover.
"So in Greek the feast is called Pascha, in Italian Pasqua, in Danish it is Paaske, and in French it is Paques," Professor Cusack said.
But in English-speaking countries, and in Germany, Easter takes its name from a pagan goddess from Anglo-Saxon England who was described in a book by the eighth-century English monk Bede.
"Eostre was a goddess of spring or renewal and that's why her feast is attached to the vernal equinox," Professor Cusack said.
"In Germany the festival is called Ostern, and the goddess is called Ostara."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-15/the-origins-of-easter-from-pagan-roots-to-chocolate-eggs/8440134
Happy "Everything," Ellie!! Thanks for this article. I found it interesting to learn how rabbits, eggs and chocolate, et cetera, weaved their way into today's Easter celebration. Seems people kept closer ties to nature way back when than we do today!
Thank you for this. I am stealing this to keep track. Orthodox Easter is May 2 this year.
Thank you👌
While Easter/Passover weekend is a source of joy, in 2021 it falls on a sad anniversary.
On April 4, 1968, the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis TN, while supporting both the civil rights and labor movements.
For his last public words, he chose the first words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk
Ah but with spring comes pollenization...and allergies which have rendered the period more than somewhat difficult since the age of 25. (An awfully hot, dry and windy vist to Paris while doing my Masters in UK did the trick and it's stayed with me ever since. Fortunately i only have the trees to worry about and can enjoy the summer. Homeopathics always manage to keep the beast from biting too hard.
Hey Stuart - As a longtime seasonal allergy sufferer, and fellow tree worrier, I greatly appreciate your reference to hemeopathics. I just found what looks like good general advice in this article from Sedera https://sedera.com/seasonal-allergies/ with some useful reminders (to me anyway) that Stress is the Destroyer (my term) and that chiropractic can help (immensely) but also apples, onions and black tea. Of course, Dr Google has loads of other information. Happy Easter, welcome Spring (our old common frenemy).
It is interesting to me that Covid has taken my sense of smell for the last 5 months. I haven’t enjoyed the smell of coffee as much, and my mind has filled in missing smells and tastes, but I have truly noted in this atmosphere redolent with pollen the lack of smell from the trees having sex with each other. It was this that warned me of impending headaches from the ornamental pears that line the street from my house to the hospital at which I work! And I recognize that Covid has taken so much more from each of us then we are aware.
Covid nose! It stays with you. I was walking up the hill to our house amidst all the glorious blooms and all I could smell was dead squirrel! Nothing dead in sight....sigh. When my husband cooks fish I have to hide in my room...the smell is intensely disturbing....nauseating... it’s madding... but better than being dead, of course.😁
Robin, the odor of old time Bradford pear trees in bloom has led many of us to search for dead creatures or decaying vegetation. Could that be what you are smelling?
Nope, none of those nearby.
A classic symptome of the infection and the aftermath. The imposition or more sensibly in Sweden the recommendation of social distancing etc and here enforced lockdowns has made many governments hanker after reducing the human population's sex life and social existence to that of trees...immobile sedentry odedient. The imposition of the sanitary panic is distinctly worrying here as it reinforces distincly non-democratic tendencies that were all too present.
I lost my sense of taste and much of smell for 10 months after Covid. A few days of feeling well, and then slid into long covid. The odd thing for me is that I had undiagnosed Lyme disease for a long time. Finally diagnosed correctly and treated. It took a long time but I finally achieved something resembling a normal life. In Covid, it felt at times as if some of the left-over Lyme issues were replaying and then would disappear. At last I began to feel that profound Covid fatigue and pain and brainfog gradually lift, only weeks before my first vaccination shot. I reacted strongly to the first shot, with odd sensations wandering around my body, and sleep taking me over for four or five days. That abruptly disappeared and I woke up one day feeling fine. A little nervous for the second shot, because it seemed most people reacted more strongly, and I really was not looking forward to a replay. The day of the shot, my response was within a few hours, full-body, and intense. It abated after a few more hours and by bedtime I felt fine. And I have been fine ever since, energetic, clear-headed, better than I have in years. Now there are studies on that, as others have experienced a similar thing. I have no idea what happened, but it was as if my immune system experienced a reset!
We had developed a plan for how to handle a variety of scenarios if one or more of us got Covid.
As it happened, I was the only one who did, exactly a year ago. Our plan went into action: Every two weeks my daughter delivered my groceries to my doorstep and they stepped back to the sidewalk while I brought them in. Then we chatted for a bit, me on the stoop, they on the sidewalk. So the hugs yesterday were my first in all that time. It felt so good, I had to stop for a bit driving home to let myself cry in relief.
We are so very fortunate: we have lost no one to Covid, though several have been ill. We wonder about the future: we know we will not go back to where we were, nor do we want to. We will go forward into a different future than we might have had, and we are determined to make it as positive a place as possible for those who come after us. Right now we cannot see the shape, but sense the possibilities, with some optimism.
We pray not only for our own futures, but even more for all the people in the world who do not have our resources and for whom Covid is just beginning. I fear for them and their suffering, and try to keep myself open for the ways in which I might help ease things.
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful posts, David. I always read them feeling that you let in a little light for me.
David, it's sad that Covid made you lose your sense of smell, I hope it returns soon. I have one thing to say about coffee. I used to drink it black in college over fifty years ago. Then I read that coffee isn't particularly good for people, and I quit drinking it. I soon realized that the only good thing I liked about coffee was the smell. Be well.
Unfortunately black tea went when i checked my blood pressure...along with red meat and a number of other little dietary sacrifices. My wife also is a longtime ambulant homeopathic dictionary. Very fortunate!