Article and photos by Diane Joy Schmidt New Mexico Jewish Link
also click here to see published NM Jewish Link at Google Drive

June 20, 2019 — In the first week of June, border policy suddenly shifted and the stream of asylum seekers with children that were being released by ICE and the border patrol in El Paso and arriving on buses in El Paso, Deming and Albuquerque suddenly turned to a trickle. On June 12th, faith groups in Albuquerque were told that the number of refugees that ICE and BP are releasing  had suddenly decreased significantly, and that for now, many hospitality sites will not be receiving refugees.  They have no way of knowing if this will continue and for how long.
As of the last week of May, parents with children arriving from Central and South America who crossed the U.S. border from Mexico and were detained by the U.S. Border Patrol surrendered and requested asylum. They were given an alien number. If they had a credible fear of persecution and a sponsor who is willing to accept responsibility for them, after being fitted with ankle monitors, those with children were being released within a few days into nearby towns along the border, to find their way to their sponsors.
Once they reach their destinations, they check in with ICE and their ankle monitors are reset to within a 75-mile radius of their sponsors’ home. They are then given a date, sometimes months hence due to court backlogs, to return for a hearing to determine if they will be deported or can provisionally remain. 

With detention centers dangerously overcrowded, in March, April and May, bus loads of asylum seekers wearing ankle monitors were suddenly being released into border towns in New Mexico, as well as in Texas, Arizona, and California. Annunciation House, the principal faith group that has been assisting asylum seekers in El Paso, a major detention point, became completely overwhelmed. In the last few months, the cities of Deming and Las Cruces in New Mexico suddenly began to receive busloads of asylum seekers. After first declaring a state of emergency, the city council of the small city of Deming voted to allocate one million dollars to shelter the asylum seekers and help them on their way.

Five faith groups in Albuquerque answered a call for help from Mayor Tim Keller, and chose to take a lead in handling the busloads that began arriving here.  Among those present that day, including Catholic Charities and Lutheran Family Services, was Jessica, from the Jewish community, whose daughter Emily had gotten her involved. She noticed she was the only Jewish person present. She stepped up and since that day, she has taken a lead role in organizing a humanitarian relief effort within the close-knit Jewish community in Albuquerque. 

Beginning in March, with family and friends, she put together a coordinated team effort of volunteers from the Jewish community, and beyond, that has been funded completely by donations. So far they have assisted over 300 asylum seekers in traveling to their sponsor destinations around the country. It costs between five and six thousand dollars for her group to assist one busload of fifty asylum seekers over a period of two to three days. Since March, the five faith groups have now helped thousands of adults with children that have come through Albuquerque. In May, the Albuquerque city council, despite considerable hullabaloo, finally voted to spend $250,000 to help out the faith groups. 

Meanwhile some 60,000 men, women and children wait in wholly inadequate detention facilities at the border. The Office of the Inspector General of Homeland Security released a scathing report on May 28 about the El Paso Bridge site, demanding immediate action after their spot inspections revealed inhumanely crowded conditions.

On Friday before the Memorial Day weekend, while preparing for their fifth busload, Jessica received an urgent call from Rueben García at Annunciation House in El Paso. Could they take an extra busload? They scrambled and got as ready as they could.  

On Sunday, two busloads of legally processed asylum seekers pulled up to a nondescript motel in Albuquerque after a five-hour drive from El Paso. One hundred parents with small children slowly got off the  buses under the watchful eye of an armed guard, and with dazed expressions, were welcomed with clapping, smiles and greetings by volunteers from the Jewish community and friends who stood ready to receive them. 

As they gathered under the shade of a tree, they stared with a dark intensity at the speaker who addressed them in Spanish. They heard, “We are here to help you. You are safe,” repeatedly. By the third time, eyes began to soften and, among the women, some to redden. Jessica’s daughter Emily, a 21-year-old recent UNM graduate with a double major in Chicano(a) Studies and Spanish, explained to the group in fluent Spanish that they would each be checked by a doctor, stay in hotel rooms in groups of four, receive hot meals, clean shoes and clothes, have travel arrangements with their sponsors made, and be sent on their way. 

      An eerie silence pervaded as they shuffled into the building. When they had first surrendered at the border requesting asylum and were brought into detention, their shoes had been stripped of shoelaces, from parents and children alike, their belongings taken from them, and their alien numbers affixed to paper bracelets around their wrists. 

In an orderly, if seemingly chaotic, frenzy, within two hours, everyone was checked in by the intake team, among them social workers who checked the children for signs of traumatic stress. They were handed toothbrush kits and toys, brought in groups of four to their rooms by the hospitality team, visited in their rooms and given a checkup by a medical team of a doctor or nurse practitioner and translator, and then brought to the ‘store’ where they were able to pick out clean underwear, shoes and clothing. There were supposed to be four doctors there that day, however three had suddenly rushed off to Deming when they got a call that a busload of 400 had unexpectedly arrived there. 

A volunteer ran up to Jessica to report that one woman, who was still nursing but whose baby was already in Houston, urgently needed a breast pump. The volunteer was immediately dispatched to Walgreens with a handful of gift cards to buy one. A woman from Honduras with two small children, whose husband had been murdered in the streets there, suddenly discovered that her cousin in Houston was refusing to sponsor her. After she contacted another friend in Virginia who agreed to be her new sponsor, Jessica worked the phones to get ICE to establish her new destination. Her two children showed me how they had made shoelaces by tearing off strips from the thin mylar blanket they were given while in the cold “icebox” detention cell in El Paso.

A third family would remain distraught; they had been forced to board the bus for Albuquerque without their grandmother, who was mute. She had never been left alone before. They were advised to continue to their destination. A week later, Jessica would finally locate her—she was still in the makeshift detention camp under a bridge in El Paso surrounded with razor wire that was supposed to be only a temporary holding area, an outside area that the Inspector General had not even been shown on his spot checks. 

On May 31st, the New York Times reported “El Paso Immigration Center Is Dangerously Overcrowded, Inspector General Warns,” with a DHS photo showing inhumane conditions and a report released by Homeland Security’s own Office of the Inspector General that revealed, among other horrors, a holding cell designed for 35 that held 155, where people had been kept for weeks in standing room only conditions.

At six that evening, volunteers from a congregation brought in hot meals they had prepared: baked ziti, steamed vegetables, salad and rolls. The second night they brought baked chicken. The travel team worked non-stop through the night, contacting the sponsors to arrange for them to send money to pay for bus and plane tickets where needed, and then arranging a pool of drivers who would be taking them to the airport or bus station. The travel team pitched in their own money together and bought car seats and booster seats for the children to use in this next short trip. At the airport, they would be greeted by a team member of a different ad hoc group who would assist them with TSA processing.

Within two days, the hotel would fall silent as almost all were now on their way out of New Mexico. The rooms were paid for and the housekeeping staff of the hotel received monetary compensation for their work. But of course, there would be snafus. 

Climate change is the greatest driver of this humanitarian crisis, as one story shows. Leaving behind his wife and other children, Miguel, 32,from the western highlands of Guatemala,walked two days carrying his four-year-old son until he reached a paved road where he was able to catch a ride north. He said that after they crossed the U.S. border in a truck, they were apprehended and they surrendered to the border patrol. 

We sat down in a meeting room at the hotel on Monday. Speaking with him through a student translator who spoke rudimentary Spanish, we didn’t recognize that Miguel himself only spoke and understood very limited Spanish. His simple answers were barely adequate to articulate the sorrows that had brought him down from the cloud rainforests to a strange land.  

Miguel said he was not able to go to school and so he cannot read and write. These communication barriers would cause an almost tragicomic mixup later that day. 

Miguel’s native tongue is Chuj, one of the Mayan languages. It is spoken by the Chuj people, who number about 50,000, and who live at an altitude of about 7,700 feet in the high mountain range of Guatemala that borders Mexico. One of the oldest proto-Mayan language groups, the Chuj have inhabited Guatemala going back at least 4,000 years. When asked why he had left home and family, Miguel explained simply, “When we go to ask the people with the money for work, they beat us.” 

The Mayan people have been the most vulnerable victims of racism, and most persecuted of all inhabitants of Central America. Systematically denied rights, their land and water taken from them, 70% suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth, a rate that is the sixth worst in the world. 

      Over the last three years, sudden early frosts and drought have caused their subsistence crops of maize and beans to fail. There is no longer wage work to be found in the coffee plantations because the plants have shriveled. With no produce to eat or sell, the fragile remaining woodlands are being chopped down to sell for firewood. Denuded, the mountains are further destroyed by mudslides. For fifty years renowned Guatemalan climate scientist and former environmental minister Luis Ferraté has been sounding the alarm that this trend would become irreversible. 

And now, because of climate change, their cloud rainforest is drying up. It is estimated that within the next fifty years, all the high mountain cloud rainforests in the world will be gone, a study funded by the USDA Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry shows.

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen traveled to Guatemala to see for himself: “I have never been anywhere that conveyed such a palpable sense of the earth dying. President Trump thinks climate change is a joke. He should come here. He would understand another big migration driver.” The land is dying. Cohen linked his May 10th column, “‘Here There is Nothing’,” to another in-depth report, by The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer, “How Climate Change Is Fueling the U.S. Border Crisis.”

Climate change has tipped the scales. Climate change is happening too fast for humans to adapt, if they stay in place. A U.S. agricultural aid program working with the highland farmers to try different methods to deal with climate change was showing some results after three years. Trump has cut all such programs.

While we spoke, Abby, a 76-year-old volunteer and grandmother, jumped up to bring Miguel’s small son a box of crayons and a coloring book. She carried a basket of toys around that she had bought at discount stores to give the children. “I love children,” she said. When asked about some members of her congregation who do not agree with helping the asylum seekers, she sagely replied, “I don’t know about that. I surround myself with people of like mind.” 

The boy quietly colored during the half-hour that we talked, using only one color, a light blue crayon, on a page of the book. Perhaps it was only the color, but his lines seemed more tentative, lighter than those made by other children that colorfully filled other pages.   

In the early 1980’s the Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt announced that to be poor was a sin, and sent the army to kill some 300,000 indigenous men, women and children. Miguel said that yes, he knew about this, because his uncle was killed then. Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide in 2013 for trying to exterminate an entire Mayan ethnic group. Steven Speilberg’s Shoah Foundation has documented the testimony of survivors of the Guatemalan genocide, the only project they have pursued in the Western Hemisphere. 

The current Guatemalan president, Jimmy Morales, has not provided much in the way of aid to the drought-stricken areas. However, he welcomes the new plan Trump offered this week after shutting down aid programs—advisors to stop the flow of migrants. 

Miguel hopes his son will have the opportunity to go to school. He would do any kind of hard work to earn money to send to his wife, who is sick, and to some day to build a house for her. 

I felt devastated by his story, knowing it was something of a miracle for him to have reached this first safe harbor, and the challenges he will face from here.  Rhonda, one of the lead organizers, insisted, “You must return tomorrow and see the change in people. After a good night’s sleep, some kindness, a meal, and a plan to reach where they are going, they are smiling, they are laughing.” When I returned Tuesday after a sleepless night worrying about him, Miguel and his son had already been put on a bus late the night before, headed, they thought, for Alabama. 

With the best of intentions

Tuesday night Jessica got a call from Miguel with the one-hour phone he had been provided with that was preprogrammed with her number and that of his cousin, his sponsor. He was waiting at the bus station in Alabama for his cousin to pick him up, and now the bus station was about to close. He wanted to know how far it was from the station to the town where his cousin lived. Jessica asked to speak to the bus station attendant. The reply, “What?! This is Santa Ana, California!” Somehow his tickets had accidentally gotten switched with a fellow traveler’s before they left Albuquerque. 

Frantic phone calls located the other traveler and his son, who thought they were in California. They got off their bus in Shreveport, Louisiana and three hours later were re-ticketed onto another bus headed back west. Meanwhile, Miguel and his son were ferried by an Uber driver forty-five minutes to LAX, where a police sergeant met and escorted them to a plane. When they changed planes in Houston, through another congregant’s contacts, a Southwest airline employee made sure they got on the right flight. 

After the core teams had handled emergencies nonstop for days, did Jessica have any regrets that she had taken on this project? “None whatsoever,” she answered without hesitation. 

And there has been a ripple effect. She added, “We are now reaching out to other Jewish organizations who will be able to further assist the asylum seekers once they leave our site and continue their journeys .” 

* * *

 For monetary donations: Congregation Albert and Nahalat Shalom are accepting monetary donations, write Asylum Seekers on checks, credit cards by phone at Albert, and at Nahalat Shalom website donate button.

Donations Needed for Asylum
Seekers:
Congregation Albert and Nahalat
Shalom are accepting monetary
donations, write Asylum Seekers
on checks, credit cards by phone
at Congregation Albert, (505) 883-

1818, and at Nahalat Shalom web-
site donate button, www.nahalatsha-
lom.org.

Gift cards to Walmart, Target and
Walgreens, cash and donations of
food and clothing are all needed.
Specifc clothing items in new or
like new condition:
Men’s pants
(waist size 32 or smaller)
Men’s shirts
Women’s pants (size 8 and smaller)
Women’s shirts
Women’s bras (new)
Boys and girls’ pants, shorts and
shirts (size 8 and larger)
Belts (small sizes)
Baseball caps (small and medium)
SHOES (all sizes needed,
comfortable for walking)
Reusable grocery bags and
backpacks (new or like new)
New travel size toothpaste
New toothbrushes (regular and kids’
sizes)

Please drop off all items at Con-
gregation Albert

Article and photos by Diane Joy Schmidt
New Mexico Jewish Link Summer 2019 p. 5

       There’s a feeling of personal power that radiates from New Mexico State Auditor Brian Colón. Meeting him is something like the rush of taking off on a jet plane. There’s also a sense of bashert, of things happening as they should, when they should, and that sense of active well-being seems to empower those around him. Colón, who is now in the top tier of New Mexico governance is, in 107 years, the second constitutional official in the state of New Mexico who is Jewish, following Governor Arthur Seligman (1931-1933). He is also of Puerto Rican descent.

What is your affinity for the Jewish community? 

    “My affinity is that I’m Jewish. I went to Hebrew school at B’nai Israel under Rabbi Celnick. My mother was Jewish: my grandfather was a Sephardic Jew, so his lineage goes back to Spain, and my grandmother was Ashkenazi. My connection to Puerto Rico is my father’s side of the family.

     “My parents moved out here from New York essentially under the cover of night. We didn’t have any family out here in New Mexico, so we were an island unto ourselves, and I had two parents who were disabled—my father had muscular dystrophy so he was very sick.
      “My father converted to Judaism after they were married, he was very dedicated and committed. He was born Catholic, and then converted to Judaism. I remember when my father converted—I was just little kid, I remember the rabbi and the mohel—it was the real deal.

      “My father was disabled and my mother was disabled as well. Before he got very sick he was a chef. When I was about 10 years old my parents bought some land and opened up a flea market in Bosque Farms—40 years later it’s still there. I went to Daniel Fernandez Elementary in Las Lunas and ultimately graduated from Los Lunas High School in 1988.”

Growing up in Las Lunas, Colón said he was picked on—but not because he was Jewish— 

     “Believe me, I was a heavyset, red-headed freckle-faced kid—I got picked on. But you know what I can say? I never got picked on because I was Jewish. It’s interesting—I never thought about it till this very second; I was bullied a lot, but it was always for my weight, my glasses, and my freckles and red hair. But being Jewish was more of a novelty down there, it was the one thing that made me different and kind of cool, because the vast majority of students were Catholic and I was this Jew kid. 

       “I was asked to put the Hebrew alphabet on the chalkboard, and to go around to classes and talk about the difference between Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, because I was the only Jew in the school. That’s part of who I am, that diversity, having grown up being different—and knowing that that difference is also what makes me special.

        “Ultimately the doctors thought the altitude in New Mexico was making the disease progress more rapidly, so having watched my father deteriorate before my very eyes, when I graduated from high school they made the tough choice to leave New Mexico. They went to Florida to be at sea level and I made a choice after graduation that I wasn’t going with them because I had received an opportunity to go to New Mexico State University.

      ‘And my dad’s dream was that I’d be the first in my family to go to college and maybe break that cycle of poverty that he had known for so long, and as I sit here today I’m grateful that I was able to do that. 

       “When my family left, when I was at New Mexico State University, I was again an island unto myself. I didn’t have a single blood relative in New Mexico at that point. But the community filled the gap and supported me on my journey and we were the beneficiaries of every government program you could imagine, whether it was Section 8 housing, commodities, financial aid, Pell grants, student loans, all those things that allowed me to eventually graduate from New Mexico State University.”

     It would take Colón ten years to complete his undergraduate coursework, being completely on his own, working to pay his way through school. Graduating in 1998 with a degree in finance, he then immediately went on the University of New Mexico School of Law and graduated in 2001.

        “The best part of my story I think is now that one generation out from that poverty, one such generation out from section 8 housing and commodities, my son is a very proud Albuquerque High Bulldog who graduated and went on to get a presidential scholarship at George Washington University where he is studying biomedical engineering in Washington D.C., and is on track to graduate next year. That’s got to be the best part of my story.” 

      Colon paused in his non-stop delivery and pointed to a small framed photo across from his desk,  “There is a picture of my dad and me a couple years before he passed. In terms of poetry, I buried my father when he was 49 years old and, that’s exactly the age I was when I took office, entered into public service, so it’s been a powerful year for me and a year of real gratitude.”
You’ve built bridges between the Jewish community and Hispanic leaders, as well as most recently the office of newly elected U.S. Congresswoman Debra Haaland? 

      “I’m a very, very big fan of Congressman Haaland’s and have been a friend of hers for a very long time, and so it was important to me that that she had a good open dialogue with the Jewish community and understood the history and the story of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

        “I’m a member of AIPAC and participate in the Hispanic leaders group who engage with AIPAC. Recently, we did a combined trip to Puerto Rico with some of the Hispanic leaders that have engaged with AIPAC. A group of us engaged with IsraAID, it’s an Israeli-based humanitarian NGO (Non-governmental organization) and it’s one of the only NGOs that is still left on the ground since the hurricane hit Puerto Rico in 2017. Other aid groups went in and then left, but IsraAID stayed. We went and worked on a water system and engaged with the community and had some great dialogue.

      “I stay engaged in Jewish organizations whether it’s the brotherhood at B’nai Israel, I still go to their events and breakfasts, whether it’s the Federation, supporting their events, and I’m very engaged and supportive of the work of building the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum. I’ve emcee’d their annual gala and engaged with their exhibits.
       “They just received a substantial capital outlay from the legislature this year to start working towards a stand-alone museum. Their president, Victor Raigoza, leaned in, a lot of the políticos are familiar with Victor and his advocacy—he and his board did a great job, a lot of people worked hard on that. And, I’m a big fan of Rabbi Citrin, and Rabbi Rosenfeld is one of my spiritual guides. My engagement in terms of the Jewish community is a real source of pride for me.” 

         Colon is well-known for his civic involvement in mentoring hundreds of young people.
“I love mentoring young professionals, women and men who like to tell me where they are today and where they want to be tomorrow, and my job is to help them get there. What I do is I share my life experience with them and I try and leverage all my resources for their benefit. There is nothing that makes me happier.

      “For me this office is really about accountability, transparency and excellence in government. 

Waste, fraud and abuse doesn’t have a party affiliation.” By the end of his term as state auditor, he hopes “that we have increased people’s trust in government. That public trust is sacred.” 

       How does he feel about Freedom of Information Act requests?

     “Love them, love them. Anything that’s not under current investigation I’m happy to give anyone, anytime, any day. I’ve been a member of FOG ( New Mexico Foundation for Open Government) for years, (co-founder) Bill Dixon was a mentor of mine.”

         Colón has twenty years of activity in politics. He served as Democratic state party chair, then ran for Lt. Gov. and won the Democratic primary but the Dianne Denish/Colón ticket lost the general election to Susanna Martinez; he then ran for mayor. So, is he interested in national politics?

      “I have no desire to serve in Washington, D.C. I love New Mexico. And now, after 149 days in office, I could very easily see myself asking the voters to give me a chance at a second term if I’ve done a good job. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and it’s very rewarding.
     “Now, be sure to mention in your article that the tool that I get to use to restore people’s faith in government is the Fraud Hotline. Tips and calls to our office are up 30% over last year. Make sure that folks know they can report waste fraud and abuse through our hotline: 1-866-OSA-FRAUD or online WWW.OSAFRAUD.ORG. Also, we’re hiring, there are job postings on our web site, we’re always looking for great accountants and auditors and investigators to come work with us.”     

by Diane Joy Schmidt

“Upon Waking” Gallup Independent Spiritual Perspectives, 4.13.19 and New Mexico Jewish Link, Summer, 2019 . Winner, First Place, Personal Columns, Society of Professional Journalists Top of the Rockies 2020.

I had a series of dreams. One night I dreamt that a bull calf came to the east door, and I brought him inside because he was lost. I kept him in my bedroom until his owners came along for him. The next night I dreamed I was excavating a stream bed and found drawings of images of fishes, groups of  two and three repeated, then I heard a musical flute that was playing and the musical notes repeated in twos and threes, the music illuminating the meaning of these strange ideograms.

The greater meanings of these dreams elude me. They are mysterious. They left me with a sense of both wondering and wonderment. They awaken a sense of inquiry, of questioning. There is a feeling of watching shadows and lights on moving water. But turn up the contrast too much in that picture, and the life, the air, the atmosphere vanishes.

This makes me think about how I feel when I listen to a certain leader. The problem with this certain leader is that he says he has all the answers. There are no shadings, no gradations of meaning, everything is black and white, everything is in high relief, high contrast, and he outshouts everyone else, he takes the air out of the room. 

He revises history, retelling it to suit only himself without concern for anyone else’s story. To tell a story, a history, only to suit yourself is to ignore the fact that the story is not made by you alone. And the people who put him in power are perfectly happy to keep him there because he is making them rich, richer, and oh, so powerful. But what can you do? The best thing seems to be to stick your head in the sand to stop listening to the noise. 

My cousin, Jerome Lawrence, best known for his play Inherit the Wind about the Scopes Monkey Trial and teaching evolution, wrote a book for children published in 1940 called Oscar the Ostrich. This is when he was still Jerome Lawrence Schwartz. It was just after Hitler had invaded Poland and the U.S. was remaining isolationist. I didn’t know anything about that as a child, but my mother would read the book to me and I learned it practically by heart. I am reminded of that book today.

Oscar was content to bury his head in the sand and ignore the loud-mouthed ostrich who wanted all the sand dunes. But when the loud-mouthed ostrich took Oscar’s sand dune away, he couldn’t bury his head in it anymore. He finally got mad and joined in the fight. He got the other ostriches to out-yell the loud mouthed ostrich. Things are not so clear today. 

Things have not gotten scary for most of us yet. We think we can keep our heads in the sand. It will only be when climate changes reach our own nests, when we can’t ignore them anymore, only then will we act. But this time around, we cannot afford this luxury, because soon it may be too late. 

The climate is changing, but all is not yet lost. The measure of performance of a system requires a larger view the longer the timeframe. In other words, we like to measure the health of the United States this year by its Gross Domestic Product, the value of its economic activity, and say, ‘look how great we’re doing,’ but a model of constant economic growth is unsustainable. If we ignore the increases in pollution and temperature caused by the use of fossil fuels that generate this economic activity, and the cascading effects, one being a massive die-off of the insects that used to pollinate our fields, another being wars and conflicts due to droughts and coastal flooding, we ignore the fact that we are making our home, where we live, planet Earth, uninhabitable.

Dictators believe that the only way to deal with a restless humanity is with an iron hand. They don’t want to give up anything, they don’t want make things more equitable, so they are frightened. They build walls and crack down on dissension. They turn us against one another to divide us. They ultimately fail and take their countries down with them. 

We need to wake up to our humanity and remember that we are in this all together. If we join together as human beings we can still make the changes that will turn the world away from the tipping point of climate change, beyond which there is no return. The only enemy is us. 

“Upon Waking” Gallup Independent Spiritual Perspectives 4.13.19

By Diane Joy Schmidt

“Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? 
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

These are the last lines from the poem “The Summer Day,” by Mary Oliver. This is such an important reminder. Mary Oliver died this week at age 83. These few lines could be a battle cry, to fight for a cause. But Mary Oliver was not talking about a noble sacrifice that could shake the world. She had been out on a walk, taking in the world in a field, closely observing a grasshopper. This is how her poem starts:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around her with enormous and complicated eyes.

     Is it possible that that too can be of great importance? It certainly is, and a lot better way to spend a day than many others I can think of. I had a pretty good day today. I spent the morning writing a story. It takes a lot of discipline that I don’t always have and I did get some good writing done. 

   Then I made lunch, egg-salad sandwiches with plenty of Miracle Whip and pickle relish and chopped celery on soft bread and with some baby spinach leaves for added texture and crunch. 

       In the afternoon two girls fulfilling their Mormon mission activities came over. In two hours we shook out the dust from the rugs on the porch and we filled the bird feeders, and changed the dogs’ water. We dug a few small holes in the heavy clay soil and filled them with vegetable scraps and ash to compost and enrich the dirt. We moved furniture around, vacuumed, and then we made hot butternut squash soup with lots of garlic, maybe too much garlic, so then we added more brown sugar, and we sat down together and ate it.

     While we were eating, I asked the girls, still in their teens, if they had heard about recognizing symptoms of teen sexual abuse. I was so pleased to hear that they had— they said that in fact it was part of their training in case they encountered a child who needed help. 

      Any kind of early abuse does get in the way so much, of noticing the world around you, of even being able to think clearly enough to have a thought like, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I think that’s why that line rings so startlingly clear for us all, at any age, because one way or another life has managed to beat us up quite a bit. 

     When a child or teen is able to recognize early on that they have been sexually abused, and that it was not their fault—that is when healing can begin. When they understand that it was not their fault—that they’d been talked into or forced into sexual activity that they weren’t ready for, that was inappropriate for their age, perhaps by a relative, an authority figure, or a fellow student that they had a crush on—then the effects can be greatly diminished. 

It took me fifty years to recognize that something that had happened to me as a teen was not my fault. If I’d understood this sooner, I would have taken the reins of my life earlier instead of meandering. I would have more easily found that connection to myself and to the natural world that I had lost. I would not have had to spend so many years searching for the spiritual sense of things that was right in front of my eyes.  

      What if parents were able to recognize what their teens’ behaviors are telling them? What if they see that they are depressed, failing in school, drinking or taking drugs, being sexually promiscuous, gaining or losing a lot of weight, cutting themselves, seemingly out of touch with themselves, and, instead of punishing them, parents can help their kids get the help they need, someone to talk to, to help them understand their own behaviors, how they may be flinging their lives away. 

       Maybe then, sooner than so much later, they would heed that call, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Resources: RAINN https://www.rainn.org/articles/warning-signs-teens
National Sexual Assault Hotline. Free. Confidential. 24/7 Call 800-656-HOPE (4673).      

Published Spiritual Perspectives column, Gallup Independent, 1/19/19;
New Mexico Jewish Link, Spring, 2019

Diane Joy Schmidt is a writer and photojournalist in New Mexico who was raised in the traditions of Reform Judaism and is an admirer of all things spiritually resonant. Read more at www.dianejoyschmidt.com

Contact: dianeschmidt22@hotmail.com  505-264-1890 

Trust and Betrayal
by Diane Joy Schmidt

Thirty-eight years ago this Sunday, on the night of Dec. 2, 1980, four American Catholic missionaries, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, and lay worker Jean Donovan, who were working with the poor in El Salvador, were taken in a planned kidnapping from the airport there and beaten, raped and murdered by Salvadoran soldiers. This tragedy finally pierced America’s consciousness.

Since the 1800’s El Salvador had been run like a feudal aristocracy; subsistence farmers were pushed off their lands to make way for coffee plantations that they then had to work on as impoverished peons. The landowners, who made up an oligarchy known as the Fourteen Families, worked hand in glove with the church and the military. They brutally crushed revolts and any attempts at land reforms. Those who helped the poor were labeled communists.

After the American churchwomen were killed, our U.S. Secretary of State General Alexander Haig, under President Ronald Reagan, tried to paint them as pistol-packing nuns who might have tried to run a road block. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to stop backing the oligarchy. Twelve more years of civil war followed. It took Haig twelve years to finally admit that what he said about the nuns was a lie. Today El Salvador is controlled by gangs. The farce

that we told ourselves for years, that we could help the country evolve into a civil democracy, was too little too late. Those in power never had any intention of giving up anything.

The question is, did we learn anything from the deaths of these martyred women? I always thought that what would save the United States from civil war was that we have a strong middle class, and that we believe in the rule of law. Also, that there is a wide range of opinion, of diversity of thought. But now the middle class is seeing its gains slipping away. And when people become fearful, they become polarized and they become violent. And the rule of law is more brazenly now compromised by politics, by those who stand to gain from weakened rules.

We have a president, for now, in the White House who wants to deny the scientific realities of climate change simply because it’s inconvenient, because oil money still makes the world go round. He simply doesn’t care whether or not the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia gave the orders to kill a Saudi citizen and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, to dismember him with bone saws, and likely dissolve his remains in a vat of acid. The decisions this president makes are recidivist, decisions that are criminal, that are making us a weaker country.

Were the churchwomen’s deaths in vain? Have we betrayed their memory? We are going down the same path in this country that led to civil war in El Salvador. Betrayal takes many forms.
Earth herself must feel betrayed by its trust in us, her children.

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Trust and Betrayal, by Diane Joy Schmidt
Spiritual Perspectives, Gallup Independent 12/1/18
Tenth Anniversary of  first Spiritual Perspectives column, Dec. 2008.
Award: 2019 New Mexico Press Women, 3rd Place, Editorial/Opinion published in printed newspaper, for Gallup Independent.

All Rights Reserved.

   Click here to see published Link:  
The Pittsburg Shooting, Our Community Unites in Response

At 9:50 on Saturday morning, October 27, 2018 the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history occurred at the Tree of Life synagogue in the historic Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill in Pittsburg. Pennsylvania . A 46-year old white male shooter entered the synagogue during a baby-naming ceremony. He shouted, “All Jews Must Die.” Armed with a a Colt AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle and three Glock semi-automatic pistols, he killed eleven people and wounded seven, including four police officers who engaged him in a shoot-out. He was wounded and taken to Allegheny General Hospital, where Jewish staff attended him. 

In Albuquerque, that Saturday afternoon a widely circulated statement from Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld of Congregation Albert included the words, “I want you to know that we live in an amazing community. A few minutes after 10:00 this morning, an Albuquerque Police Sergeant arrived at the synagogue to make sure we knew what had happened and to assure us he would be at our front door until he could get a patrol car on the property. He assured me that APD would also be present tomorrow during Religious School and if necessary beyond. When I thanked the Sergeant, he replied: ‘No need. It’s what my mother would want me to do.’ I was moved speechless as we shook hands.”

A call went out on social media that there would be a community gathering at sundown that evening at Nahalat Shalom, the Jewish Renewal congregation in Albuquerque. A gathering, led by the cantor and president, took place outdoors in a semi-circle in the courtyard as the leaves fell in the late evening light.

On Sunday afternoon, there were organized gatherings throughout New Mexico at synagogues, at the Holocaust and Intolerance Museum in downtown Albuquerque, and in smaller communities. In Placitas, a village between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, an evening gathering for the Jewish community and friends at the Placitas Library packed their small activity room. About fifty people attended. Led by community members, eleven candles were lit, and then people stood up spontaneously and spoke. Among those was Navajo linguist and educator Frank Morgan, whose presence and words seemed to strike a special chord, as a number of people came up to thank him afterwards. He spoke briefly about the Navajo origin story of the Twins who vanquished the evils in the world. Later he said, “It was my way of consoling the Jewish people that things will change and that we will have compassion and kindness. Hate is a danger that we all face. Hate will be resolved spiritually and Americans will experience the opposite of the evils of hate.”

The president strikes a trying note. Then, a call for the American Jewish community to come together.

Following the shooting in Pittsburgh, the U.S. president tweeted that day that it was an anti-Semitic attack of pure evil. However, in a follow-up he later tweeted, “If there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him.” Despite calls from the governor and the mayor of Pittsburgh not to come, he made a visit to one of the funerals on Tuesday with his wife, daughter and son-in-law. Residents were kept a block away behind a barricade. As reported by Reuters: “Over 2,000 people, including many from the local Jewish community, protested against Trump’s presence, chanting “Words have meaning”, and carrying signs with such slogans as “We build bridges not walls.” The following night at a rally in Florida, Trump would claim the protests, which were well-documented, were “staged” and “fake news.”

And finally, an organized request went out across the country from the American Jewish Committee, to #ShowUpforShabbat on Friday at a congregation, as a show of strength and love against hate.

#ShowUpForShabbat
If tikkun olam, the Jewish ethical and religious mitzvot (commandents) to repair the world, has an angelic representative, she certainly was hovering over this Friday evening service. To look around, one could see faces gleaming. It seemed that a great spiritual strength and sense of being uplifted to a more loving and forgiving frame of mind had come to everyone at this Shabbat service. Held at Congregation Albert in Albuquerque on Friday evening, November 2nd, led by Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld, it was standing room only, and the largest gathering seen in the synagogue’s history. “About 1100 people, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and others, came together in solidarity Friday night at Congregation Albert or watched on our live stream,” said Rabbi Rosenfeld. (The final attendance numbers were based on the number of chairs that were set out.) The link to watch the service in its entirety is on the rabbi’s facebook page and will also be found on the Congregation Albert website and on YouTube.

Mayor Keller, former mayor Richard J. Barry, and other government officials, political candidates, and community leaders were there. Local TV stations  KOAT and  KRQE came and broadcast news reports later that evening. Representatives of every local Jewish congregation and organization attended. Clergy of many faith groups came. Those who were invited to speak included representatives of the Catholic, Muslim, Christian Conference of Churches, Sikh, Mennonite, Episcopalian, and a former director of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, now known as HIAS. Their statements were profound and excerpts, edited for space, are included here:

Statements by Clergy and leaders

Archbishop John Wester of the Diocese of Santa Fe: We of the Archdiocese want to assure you we walk through that desert with you (when) hatred rears its ugly head. Genesis reminds all of us that we are created in God’s image, so we, as Rabbi said a moment ago, must be wholly ourselves and allow our love to conquer the hatred and the insanity that snuffed out the eleven precious lives at the Tree of Life Synagogue. We commit ourselves to stay that path of love. Shabbat Shalom.

Mohammed Abdul Haqq, President of Dar al-Salam Mosque: Look around you. See who’s here. Our community is united, and I think that’s what’s important. As Muslims, we believe that all life is sacred and all life is precious and that the taking of a single life carries the same weight as the killing of all of mankind. Conversely, we believe that saving a single life carries the same weight as saving all of mankind.”
         Abdul Haqq quoted from a hadith, a saying of the Prophet Mu- hammad: ‘to gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to comfort the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, to heal the wrongs of the injured, that person is the most beloved of God, who does the most good to God’s creation.’ Let’s remember this as we move forward, not as Jews or Christians or Muslims, or any faith you belong to, but as as a single community, we remain united against hate and work towards that. Shabbat Shalom.

Rev. Susan Quass, New Mexico Conference of Churches. People of good will everywhere know that good must triumph, that love is stronger than hate, and that God is One, God is Love, and there’s nothing in this world that can overcome that power. God created each one of your faces in God’s own image, and it is only when we forget that, when we don’t see who we are looking at, the beauty, the uniqueness, that hate has a chance to spring forth. Shabbat Shalom.”

Krishna Kalsa, Sikh Community of Espanola. The Sikh tradition is both a tradition of saintliness and a tradition of spiritual warrior. If you’re only a saint, people can kick you around. If you’re only a warrior, you’ll kick other people around. So you have to do both to serve humanity.
Each person has the opportunity to awaken to the perfection within, and is waiting to be awakened. We are at a time in the history of this universe when an awakening is happening. Part of that awakening is bringing out a lot of sad reality that has been an affliction for a long time; but you can’t heal it if you can’t see it. We sing a prayer whenever we gather, in part, “When things are down and dark, that’s when we must stand tallest. Til the last star falls, may our faith enable us, that we may not give an inch at all.” Shabbat Shalom.

Rev. Erica Lea-Simka, Pastor of the Mennonite Albuquerque Church. “I’m not a Jew. I wasn’t that lucky. But I did the next best thing—I married a Jew. In my Mennonite community, words peace and justice are used as frequently as prayer and potluck. Mennonites believe that faithfully following the teachings of Jesus require more than faithfully doing no harm, but actively building peace and restorative justice as an expression of love. Where there is Nefesh, there is the Divine, where there is Ruach, there is the Divine.
        I repent from and actively reject the ways Christians have historically weaponized the Bible to demean and diminish too long a list of minority groups, but especially Jewish communities, by perpetuating anti-Semitic teachings. What a disgrace to our Abrahamic family and to Jesus himself. From my queer, Jewish, Mennonite, fickle, funky family to yours, you have an ally, advocate, and you have an accomplice, when need be, in me, my family and in Albuquerque Mennonite Church. Shabbat Shalom.”

Reverend Daniel Webster, of St. John’s Cathedral (Episcopalian). “Pray for those who have died, for their families and their loved ones, those who are wounded, pray for our brothers and sisters in the Jewish community, pray for the Tree of Life Synagogue, pray for the City of Pittsburgh, pray for America, pray for us all. And then, Go out and do something! Go out and do something that helps to end the long night and helps to bring in the daylight. Visit a neighbor. Remind our Jewish brothers and sisters that they do not stand alone. Care for someone . . .(his voice cracked at this point) Love.  Stand for what is right and what is good, then pray, then act. So, on this day, which on the Christian calendar is the Feast of All Souls, I remember specifically 11 souls, and may their memory be a blessing to all of us. Shabbat Shalom.”

Norm Levine, retired, Director of U.S. Operations for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, now known as HIAS, which has helped immigrants settle in the U.S. for the last hundred years, including Rabbi Rosenfeld’s parents. “As the son of immigrants, the proudest two decades of my career were at HIAS. We welcomed Jews from the former Soviet Union, Jews fleeing persecution in Iran, B’ahais fleeing persecution in Iran, Liberians, Hmong tribesman from the hills of Laos, Argentinians fleeing persecution. Whether they were Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, B’ahai, we served them because we as Jews were required to because we were strangers in a strange land. We will not forget, and we will not stop resettling people. Let this be the beginning of our recommitment to serving refugees, asylees, and the oppressed from about the world. Shabbat Shalom.”

At the end of the  Shabbat service, Rabbi Rosenfeld spoke: “So powerful and comforting to see my clergy brothers and sisters as well as people from other congregations. And our young people, that’s so powerful to me. Growing up, my father told me I had to be Jewish “so that it didn’t give Hitler a posthumous victory.” That weighed on me. Later in life, I heard a lecture by Leibel Fein (founding editor of Moment Magazine) that there were two ways to look at Jewish history: as a tapestry, and as a shroud. I vowed that I would look at our history as a tapestry. Yes, there’s some tears, some holes, some burn marks, and you fix them, you find a way to make it whole again. For almost 4,000 years Jews had to repair the tapestry on their own. It was just us. But for the last 70 years, we no longer have to repair the tapestry on our own. We’re not alone, we’re not alone. And with that comes a responsibility, we need to stand up and be there for you as well.
      Go out and take this spirit with you. Introduce yourselves to each other, and wish each other a Shabbat Shalom.”

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Published New Mexico Jewish Link, December, 2018.

American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Jewish Journalism, Foundation for Ethnic Understanding Award for Excellence in Interfaith Relations Reporting, 2nd Place. 

New Mexico Press Women Communications Awards, Religion Reporting, 3rd place. 

Click this link to open in google drive to read larger original: https://drive.google.com/open?id=19H3nUYLiO2LDdZNaSUSBGFQ7qe6pMsVd

 

 

 

New Mexico Jewish Link Fall/Winter 2018,  Volume 48, Number 4
By Diane Joy Schmidt 

  Bob Baer, former CIA spy and current Middle East expert for CNN and Time Magazine will be speaking in Santa Fe on  January 21 at 7:30 at the James A. Little Theater. George Clooney played Baer in the film Syriana, based on his memoir See No Evil. Baer spoke with us from Washington D.C. the morning of October 10th, just 8 days after the killing in the Saudi embassy in Turkey of Jamal Khashoggi, journalist and critic of the Saudi government. Baer said that if Khashoggi was killed, his body would likely have been dismembered and dissolved in a vat of lye. The body has yet to be found. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia  Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (known by his initials MBS),  is widely considered to have ordered the killing. Baer explained,  “MBS thinks he’s got the support of Donald Trump and Jared Kushner so he probably thinks at the end of the day that ultimately he’ll get a pass.”  Interview edited for clarity and length.

Link: The American and Israeli governments have been pursuing alignment with Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Arab states against Iran.

Baer: Who created this problem for Israel? it was George W. Bush invading Iraq in 2003. That was singularly one of the most stupid things in the world, because it empowered Iran. Netanyahu, he’s saying privately, ‘those idiots, idiots!’ America invades Iraq, lets the Iranians in, overthrows a dictator, and sets this example for the Syrians.

      We are much worse off for what Bush and Cheney did, and in all fairness, we have put Israel in much more danger than we have in our entire history. The Iranians are truly bastards-they are bastards.

So if you look at ] Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, (and Iran), all Shia, it today is a threat to Israel and you’ve got to say, ‘Oh, who made this happen?’ And who made this happen—it’s American bumbling, which has endangered Israel.

Link: Can Saudi Arabia be trusted?
Baer: No, they can’t be trusted. This kid, 33 years old, MBS, he’s not a kid, he doesn’t know what to do about Iran and for that matter neither do we. We don’t know anything about the country. I was the last CIA officer to visit Iran, and that was in 2005.

We don’t have anybody there. There are 73 million Iranians. That we can change the regime or not is a complete guess. And I do think it is a strategic threat, an existential threat to Israel. Because, if they simply fill up Syria and Lebanon with rockets, once they bring the S300 and if they eventually bring the S400 into Syria, the balance changes. And nobody in this country has a clue what to do next. There is no plan.

I spent time in Israel [. . .] We were talking to the chief of police about threats, and he just segues into the Russian mafia threat—that just scares the hell out of Israel.

Link: What’s in your crystal ball at this point?
Baer: I think if they continue the way they are, we’re sliding towards chaos and a regional war. I can’t give you timing on that, but obviously the Saudis, with taking that risk with Khashoggi, they’re worried about the stability; they’re worried about the Muslim Brotherhood. They’re worried about Iran being more radicalized, as a force of disruption.
Friends of mine have just been thrown into these dungeons, for a royal family, they’re never heard from again. It’s a reflection of a paranoia, instability, that I’ve never seen in the Gulf States. So, I just see increasing instability in the Middle East, and increasing instability in the Middle East usually leads to a larger conflict.

Link: Is there any way to avoid it?
Baer: I don’t think so. I just don’t think so. And I look at the long-term problems: The Arabian aquifer is dried out. The Saudis just pumped it dry, for agriculture. And I look at the Indus Valley aquifer, pumped dry. You’ve got population problems.

Just a general irrationality running through humanity, from Washington DC to German Nazis coming back. All those things disturb me.

The fact that the far right in Austria is back, full on, and led a raid on their domestic intelligence service on the 28th of February. We’ve never seen that, ever, in Europe Post-WWII. The domestic intelligence service is the ally of the U.S. They seized files of neo-Nazis related to investigations. They wanted to find out what the domestic intelligence service knew about the Nazis. These people are Nazis, period. There are Nazis in Italy.

And the immigration thing has led to the ascendence of the European Right. I see it in France. They are psychopaths, and they are completely anti-Semitic. Who would have ever thought that Nazis would come back in Austria?

For your readers, what you have to understand, is that French Jews are going to get caught up in this bigotry. It’s nothing they’ve done. But if this trend continues, people who are slightly different are (going to be) getting caught up, and that includes people going to synagogues. That’s my prophetic view, you can’t prove it, but you see it all over.

Link: Is it also in part because of global warming?
Absolutely. Once the anxiety takes over, people react to the Other, in a horrible way. Anybody who’s a little bit different. It’s irrational.

Link: Do you see Trump as a logical outcome of our ignoring Russian influence in our elections?
This goes way back. The Russians, I call them agents of disruption, back in the early 70’s and 80’s the Russian mob embedded gangsters here. This became the foundation for involving money in America in 2016. You can’t put money directly into a campaign.

All they wanted in 2016, they were out to destroy Hillary Clinton. They thought we were responsible for overthrowing Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former president, in 2014. It got too close for the Russians, because they have a policy of protecting the near abroad—and that means Russians who are living in these satellite countries like the Ukraine, they feel they have an obligation to protect them and that this liberal government that came in was going to oppress the Russians in the Eastern Ukraine.

It’s action-reaction with the Russians: you do something bad to us, we’re going to do something bad to you. We’re going to disrupt your elections in 2016.

They had no clue Trump was going to win—he’s not the Manchurian Candidate. They left their fingerprints all over this – this troll factory in St. Petersburg was easily identified.

I don’t know if they’ve got blackmail on Trump. The point is, they’re undermined our institutions. More than half of Americans believe that Trump’s being blackmailed by the KGB. It never happened in our country before. It’s an act of political sabotage like we’ve never seen, since the war of 1812. They’ve undermined our institutions more than anybody ever has, ever. I think they want us to believe that there’s a tape.

They’ve (the Russians) have been brilliant about it. As a former professional- it’s hats-off, congratulations, you guys are good. Look at the damage done to the FBI, this poisonous political environment the Russians have managed to create, which has so divided Americans, they’re more divided than the Civil War.

Link: Russians can’t be too happy about Iran – they’ve got all these countries that were part of the USSR surrounding them that are mostly Muslim.
That’s the deal the Russians have with Iran. Go wreak havoc in the Middle East all you want, but don’t touch the Northern Caucasus. That’s the deal.

D: But their success in the Middle East will embolden….
I think what’s going to happen is, Khomeini’s revolution, its success is a defeat for the Sunnis, for the Saudis. And the Chechens are Sunnis. And all those people are, and there’s going to be a sort of defeatist deference to Iran, as opposed to ‘we can start a popular revolution like in Syria, with the Islamic State, and overthrow these governments and win,’ that’s not going to happen.

The Northern Caucasus are all Sunni. Everywhere you look the Sunnis have lost—they’ve lost in Yemen, in Lebanon, they’ve lost in Syria, they’ve been completely defeated in Iraq. Putin defeated them in Chechnya, the Northern Caucasus. They’re left with Saudi Arabia, which is basically toothless. The Palestinians are toothless, they’re all Sunni; there may be a few Shia there, but almost none. So, anywhere you look at the Sunnis, they’ve been defeated. 

Link: Osama bin Ladin was from Saudi Arabia, and he was a Sunni fundamentalist . . .
The way it all started was, Khomeini’s revolution comes along in 1978-79; then the Sunnis say, ‘Look what it did for the Iranian fundamentalists, we’ll do the same thing,’ so the Saudis start dumping money and people into Sunni causes—including what would become Al Queda. It was an arms race.

Link: Do you think that Sunni and Shia fundamentalists could get together against Europeans?
No, I don’t think so, they’re always going to be divided, killing each other. I just don’t think it’s ever going to happen.

Link: What’s next for our nation?

A society that believes in conspiracy theories is easily manipulated into violence. . . .I see the makings of a violent political confrontation simply because our institutions are under attack, our norms are under attack.

Link: In this country I don’t think we know how bad it can get when you lose the rule of law.

No, we don’t have a clue, we live in a bubble, we don’t know what fascism is, we don’t know what political violence is.

Link: So what are you up to now?

] I’m trying to figure out Russian stuff, and I’m writing a book about faith and global warming, and what the effects are going to be as people get more anxious. You just have to go with the science. Global warming is on its way and there’s no concerted effort to stop it. So, for great migrations and political disturbance and war, it’s inevitable.

You have to look at the math. By 2050, you can’t add 2 billion more people to the surface of the earth, and not have a cataclysmic catastrophe.

 Let me put it to you this way. Women are going to get us out of this mess in this election and 2020, or they’re not. I don’t see that white males, other than try to hold on to power, are doing much. I know Trump thinks that American institutions are the enemy: Russia is our friend, American institutions are the enemy, including the press.

 

Soul Blues
For Yom Kippur
By Diane Joy Schmidt

After certain experiences in my life, I was never able to be at home in my own skin, I felt an undercurrent of unease, that I had no right to be here. I ran around looking for respect, validation, vindication, love, or even, like, would do. Hell, I’d settle at least for acceptance.

I’d sometimes get recognition, affection, love, but it didn’t adhere, it didn’t stick, it was like when the body cannot process nutrients, the good feelings would fade quickly, I was soon starving again.

It didn’t occur to me that what I needed was self-acceptance, self-respect, self-love, self-validation. You’re supposed to learn those things when you’re a young adult. But for some of us it takes a lifetime.

Over many years, decades really, I sought healing. Prayers were said for me. Over years, layers healed, and then there would be more underneath, like an onion. I also had to do the work.

Quite recently, while writing poetry, it happened that I faced some deep humiliations I had experienced fifty years ago. In junior high school, certain girls who were mean and jealous spread evil gossip about me, what today we call social bullying. This is what in Hebrew is called Lashon Hara, the evil tongue, a person who spreads stories about someone. In the Jewish tradition it is a serious sin. Whether the stories are true or not doesn’t matter, this is slander. It causes harm. For me, it had cast a shadow that reached across my whole life. It was a pattern that would repeat.

When I finally wrote about this horrible experience, which I had never clearly faced before, over the next days a new sense of myself came to me. It was exactly like a part of me returned that I didn’t even realize had gone missing. It was like meeting a long-lost friend that I welcomed in my soul’s house. Perhaps it had been waiting out there somewhere, like the experience, all those many years. I experienced  a kind of redemption, grace and self-forgiveness.
The New Moon of this month marked the beginning of the High Holy Days of the Jewish tradition with Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and at sunset on September 18th begins Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We reflect during this time on those things we wish to ask forgiveness for, to atone for and, most importantly, we practice self-forgiveness. Each year I have a deeper understanding of what that means, and especially this year.

I’d like to say, I’ll never be lonely or self-doubting again. It’s not like that. But new growth is taking place in my soul and that undercurrent of anxiety, of emptiness and fear that, like a dull hum in the background you forget is there, has lessened. There has been “post-traumatic growth,” a phrase I’ve heard recently that I like. I feel respect and acceptance for myself. I am allowed to be here, to have faith in myself, I can trust my judgments. I can breathe. It has been a long journey. I think that is a blessing and spiritual healing for which I am truly grateful.

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Published Gallup Independent and New Mexico Jewish Link
Award,  3rd Place, Two Columns Personal, NM Press Women for GI together with The Eighth Night.

The Gallup Independent, Spiritual Perspectives  June 2, 2018

I’m the Child

I’m the child of water
of two waters that came together 
but no prayer was given
for a bridge over that boiling river

I’m the child of water
of rain and snow, they melted together
but no instructions were given
for laying stepping stones through that muck

I’m the child of hail and sleet
but no prayer was offered
when the dawn came, and no
blessings were laid out, no path to follow.

And I’m the child of the blue-mirrored lake at dawn
that breathes and does not speak,
the lake that I imagine loves me
only because it has no words
and doesn’t judge.

I’m the child of laughter and sunlight
but all I remember are the wounds—

I’m the child and I rise again now
I choose to remember the light.

      There’s a way of writing that gets you to writing in short bursts—ten minutes at a time—it’s amazing what can come out in that short period. I’ve just started taking a creative writing class where I drive an hour each way to sit down for a couple hours with a small group (eight is a full class) and have a teacher, national award-winning poet Lauren Camp (laurencamp.com), tell us to write in timed bursts of ten minutes, after being given a writing prompt. At this first week’s class, she primed the well by first having us discuss a poem for half an hour and we found all sorts of things in it —things I didn’t notice even after I’d read the poem the first couple times.

It’s a really long time, that ten minutes.  When you really let yourself go. And then to write again another 10 minutes. I’m hoping this class is going to put me in touch with my wild mind, my wild writing mind. It’s a method popularized by Natalie Goldberg, a writer, teacher and Zen meditator in New Mexico who wrote a book back in 1986, “Writing Down the Bones” and another, “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life.” It’s a method of writing stream of consciousness writing without judgement, without letting that inner critic zap you, and soon something comes out that you don’t even know where it came from. One of Goldberg’s popular prompts is, “I remember . . .” Another is “Looking at . . .” To write, maybe twenty minutes a day.

Listening and paying attention to what’s inside you and what’s outside you – we might actually be losing the ability to do that, to pay that kind of attention, what with all the time we spend looking at our cell phones and running around being busy all day. There’s a possibility that we may even lose the ability to have our own thoughts because we are being constantly told what we should think, apparently mostly to get us to buy something, to “like” something, to put our attention here, over here, not over there.

I was assured this is not entirely my imagination—why I should be having so much trouble concentrating that I should have to drive an hour to take a class to write for ten minutes—by a book that came out this week by the winner of the $100,000 Nine Dots Prize. When news about this fabulous contest first began circulating  a few years ago it was almost impossible not to look into it. Hungry writers everywhere read, “The Nine Dots Prize is a new prize for creative thinking that tackles contemporary societal issues. Entrants are asked to respond to a question in 3,000 words, with the winner receiving US$100,000 to write a short book expanding on their ideas.” And the inaugural Nine Dots Prize question? It was: “Are digital technologies making politics impossible?”

The winner, who formerly worked at Google on advertising products and tools, and now studies their ethical implications, wrote a short book “Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Persuasion in the Attention Economy” that basically points out that digital media is rigged to grab our attention and not let go, and that it is our duty, if we wish to remain independent humans, to gain control over where we direct our attention.

  So, what did I write in Lauren’s class? I felt an intense concentration. It was real quality time with myself. I don’t know that what I wrote this first class was so great, but the man sitting next to me said he was moved by it. So with a little trepidation, I’ll share a bit of what I wrote in response to the first prompt. And it unintentionally caught some flavor of that idea of directing our attention; that when we start to feel weighed down by the stones of our past, we can choose to look towards the spirit. Lauren told us to start writing, with the simple words, “I’m the child of . . .”

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Diane Joy Schmidt is a writer and photographer who was raised in the traditions of Reform Judaism and is an admirer of all things spiritually resonant. 

Stanley Rosebud Rosen, This Tumult that Teaches Us

New Mexico Jewish Link, Fall, 2018

I found Stanley Rosen sitting in the lunch room talking with Reuben Hersh, 90, the famous mathematician. The two of them together, both with slightly unkempt hair, looked like brothers—clutching their walkers, they were rocking uproariously with laughter at some reminiscence of history that they shared.

Stan and I went into the library and his partner Sandra Herzon arrived shortly thereafter with an entire box of books, articles, papers and photographs. A valiant effort on her part—at the Pittsburgh University Library there are 140 linear feet of papers, not including 500 books, and another Stanley R. Rosen labor archive at the University of Illinois, Chicago Special Collections.

Sandy explained to me that, as his memory wanes, Stan urgently wants to convey his concern that labor history and the history of unions is not being taught in schools. But she wasn’t sure how much Stan would remember. He proceeded to talk non-stop for the next two hours.

As we listened in the darkening room to his progressive philosophy and the drama of a labor organizer of the 20th century, every name and date cried out to speak its own story, and it became clear why it is critically important to understand this history now.

First, a short bio: Stanley Rosebud Rosen was born on March 2, 1934, in the Bronx, New York City. His grandfather Reuben was an anarchist. He was raised near New Brunswick, New Jersey with the remnants of the Ferrer Colony, an anarchist community founded by supporters of Francisco Ferrer, a noted European anarchist. His desire to be a social activist shaped his career choices.
Rosen received a BA in history at Rutgers University, took a position within the Rutgers University Labor Education department to train union leaders, and then earned a MA in economics there.  After two years in the US Army he took a position as education director for the Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO in New York and conducted training programs throughout the country. After that, Rosen taught at the University of Illinois, Chicago, training labor leaders as a professor of labor and industrial relations. Rosen retired as a full professor in 1995 and settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
He also created the “Chicago Radical Jewish Elders Video Project,” now housed at the Spertus Institute in Chicago, which, in 100 oral histories, explored the relationships between political and social consciousness.

Link: If you were giving an oral history today, what would you say?
Stanley Rosebud Rosen: “I was always an independent thinker. Even though I grew up in a highly politicized environment, I always had my individual point of view.”  Sandy added that his mother later scratched out the words “Daily Worker” from one copy of a photo of him as a child holding the paper, during a time when they feared a political witch hunt.
Stan continued, “The thing that impressed me about my father was that he was a unionist, he was a member of the labor movement, he ran against Big Bill Hutcheson, the AFL labor leader. Hutcheson was a  conservative AFL leader who was the old-type—not very tolerant of people with different points of view. And since my father identified himself as some point as a Communist, he was kicked out of the Carpenters Union.

“My father wrote “An Appeal” to the executive board of the carpenter’s union. The only thing in his program that had to do with communism, and this was during the 20’s, was to recognize the Soviet Union, but the rest of the program was: To elect business agents, to let the members vote on contracts, to teach them how to be active in a union, things that a good union should do. Under Hutcheson, the building trades unions, they were pretty much: join the union, come to the meeting, and we’re going to run the union (for you). The essential thing that I earned from my father was democratic unionism.

“My grandfather was an anarchist. The anarchists were a different breed of cat. There were communists living in the Stelton community, and there were anarchists who had moved there from the Francisco Ferrar community. The anarchists didn’t like the communists, and the communists didn’t like the anarchists.”

        This was understandably so, since the ideals of anarchism were in polar opposition to the ideology of communism. As I read in one of the books that Sandy had, with great dedication, lugged to the meeting, “Recollections from the Modern School Ferrer Colony,” it explained that the anarchist belief was “in the basic goodness of human beings. Pervasive at the Ferrer Center was the conviction that, if provided the nurturing environment and education, individuals would be free to develop maturity and self-reliance so advanced there would be no need for the restrictions of government.”
Those ideas would plant the seeds for many important societal changes in this country. From those heady discussions,  “. . . Margaret Sanger’s crusade to free women from constant birthing grew, and that drove her forward in her efforts to give women more choice in their family’s size. It was also within these concentric circles of humanitarian and political strivings that the trade union movement gained momentum. And it was also on this scene that increased efforts were mounted to provide children with a more humanitarian kind of schooling,” wrote Victor Sacharoff in the book’s introduction, published by the Friends of the Modern School.

Stan continued, “When I was a kid I was just hanging around with these people. One of these guys, Finkelberg, he would always invite me into his house, because they always wanted to convert the younger generation to their point of view. He’d always give me cookies and hot chocolate, and then he’d try to politicize me.
“I always argued with them. But I learned from these people. They would support civil rights, they would support the good causes. I knew them as as individuals, not as stalwarts of a particular party. They were all progressives.

“There were different kinds of communists. My father was more of a labor type. Some were hard-core, ideologically stricter, people that were attracted to the possibilities of Communism in the Soviet Union.”

Link: It’s so ironic that today Trump is embracing a totalitarian Russia, and totally missing the point (of any progressive thinking). It must be almost like science fiction for you to see today what’s going on.

“I’ve always been in some way or another, anti-capitalistic. In American history—the way the capitalists treated the workers, exploited the workers, child labor, they were very anti-worker and anti-labor. There were different groups, the Workman’s Circle, the Socialist Party. People were progressives, they weren’t necessarily ‘communists.’ They fought for workers’ rights, for free speech, fought against all the events that happened in American labor where workers were persecuted, prosecuted, jailed.

Link: I think it’s really important for people to understand what you have been fighting for.

“If you have a radical sensibility, it brings you in a certain direction. It brings you in the direction of civil rights, in the direction of singers like Paul Robeson. They were giving a message about what the world should be like.

  “I just read a book on capitalism. I could see it accomplished things in American society. But, the fact that you had socialist and communist movements that pressed capitalism, that criticized them, that sang about them, that presented an alternative—it had an important impact on American political values and society, and on the movements that came along later, like the civil rights movement. It was a set of values: That people should be treated well, people shouldn’t be discriminated against, people shouldn’t be jailed for their political views.
“We have a constitution, and an economy, that should not be dominated by conservative self-serving political forces. The alternate points of view varied. All these political factions in American society fought each other over strategy and tactics, but still, they were all on the right side of social issues, working on behalf of a better society and a more just society, that was not discriminatory, a society that gave people rights.

   “I worked for unions all over the country, conservative, radical, women’s groups. And each of those groups had their strengths and their weaknesses.

“In order to be effective as a trade unionist, by modeling a behavior which leaves room for others’ points of view, I got along with everybody. I managed to survive in highly political environments. Learn, internalize the good parts, and at the same time, be effective.

If you’re in a room with someone who’s ranting and raving, it’s very easy to jump out and say, ‘You’re wrong, why you talkin’ that way.’ I always argued with everybody. But I also listened to them and learned from them.

“Two qualities I had that made me effective were a sense of social justice, and a sense of activism—to go to meetings, rallies, read, think about things. And I was able to gain acceptability for some ideas that other people couldn’t.

“We taught good solid trade union practices. Someone would say to me, ‘How can you stand that guy, he’s such a right-winger.’ I established credibility, and they let me teach them how to be good trade unionists. I had access and acceptability. They’d said, ‘you ole Communist.’ It was done half-and-half (joking)—I don’t know what they said behind my back.

Link: Were the textile unions in New York dominated by Jews?

“No, but a lot were. Amalgamated Clothing Workers was led by Sidney Hellman, I would describe him today as a Democratic socialist. The ILGWU, The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, was Jewish.

Link: What do you see in your crystal ball, what’s happening in this country?

“I’m depressed reading the paper. All these good ideas, like the New Deal, integrated radical ideals. In American society you can have a fairly tame idea and always, the great insult, “You’re a Communist.” That’s American society, there’s a built-in antagonism to ideals and ideologies in this country, it’s deep.

Link: Where does that come from?

“There is a conservative tradition in American society, some of it’s from religion, some from conservative politics, some of it’s personal conservatism. Our society is very complex, and full of contradictions, and our society is rife with prejudicial thinking.

“The one thing I have to say about the labor movement, it has many pitfalls, but the strongest thing it accomplished, and sometimes it was difficult, it brought together Americans of every stripe under the banner of being a unionist. You could have a Republican being a unionist, a Pole, a Black, a Jewish person who came out of a Jewish background, a Jewish employer who could respect the concept of a union. Some didn’t, but a lot did, as part of the Jewish Talmudic social action tradition.

“That’s the wonder of America, that it puts people in contact with each other in ways they wouldn’t expect to be. It changes the way the way that they deal with the world and that they deal with life, and I don’t think we appreciate that. In America, we have this tumult, this tumult which forces people to relate to each other and learn from each other in big and small ways.”

—-end—-

Published New Mexico Jewish Link, Fall, 2018
Two awards from New Mexico Press Women
2nd Place, Personality Profiles over 500 words
2nd Place, News or Feature Photograph

(some related sources I looked at:

Recollections From The Modern School Ferrer Colony. Victor Sacharoff and Others. Friends of the Modern School.

Raising Reds: The Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture in the United States. Paul C. Mischler. Columbia University Press.

The Haymarket Martyrs Monument

Illinois Labor History Society. IllinoisLaborHistory.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_education

Special Collections, Leonard H. Axe Library, “Rosen, Stanley R. Collection of Labor, Labor History, and Labor Education” (2017). Finding Aids. 111.
http://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/fa/111

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hutcheson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson

Progressive Education (wikipedia)