I don't remember the last time I went into a new year with as much unease as I have going into 2025. Most of it is political: I am still trying to wrap my head around another 4 years under Tr*mp. When his first term was set, many of us said, 'It can't be as bad as we fear.' But it was. And it was worse. In the years during the Biden presidency we saw this failed egomaniac doing everything in his power to draw as much attention to himself as he possibly could. All through the campaign I bit my lip. I worried like crazy. When Biden dropped out and Harris took the helm I dared to feel hope. But when the Worst Possible News dropped in November, I let everything fall to the floor. All the hopes of a presidency under the leadership of a smart, funny and extremely talented woman of color: dropped. All the thoughts of wrongs being righted, of justice coming due, of stemming the tide of climate change, of restoring faith in the badly eroded departments of government (largely due to Tr*mp and his surrogates) - all of it dropped. But the other things that dropped surprised me. I stopped worrying. I mean, the worst news happened. My fear and dread actually dropped. My habit of vigilantly checking headlines and news sources, hanging on every progressive pundits' words and wringing every bit of nuance and substance I could out of every tea leaf being read: that dissolved. To be honest, seeing all of the plates crazily spinning above my head come crashing down was actually a sort of relief. All the constant attention I was paying, all the clenching of all of my hope muscles: it was exhausting. And I realized I hadn't been exercising hope. I had been exercising magical thinking. As if staying as focused and outraged as I was would somehow effect the result of the election. It reminded me of two things. First, it reminded me of the kinds of desperate prayers I would throw up into the sky when I was a young, naive, zealous fundamentalist Christian. I tried so hard back then to pray meekly and humbly. But I was constantly afraid that this invisible, mostly angry Sky Being would either simply not hear my prayer or deny it. And if my fervent prayers didn't get results, it was all on me because I didn't have enough faith. This level of 'hope' I was exercising felt like this. The thought that I could change the course of the universe by repeating and ruminating on specific thoughts. In the end it didn't matter if I was aiming these specific thoughts at a Divine Being or an empty shoebox: the outcome was the same. I did not change the course of history by hoping against hope that the smarter, more qualified person would win. Neither did I change my sexual orientation by begging Angry Jehovah to make me not gay. The other scenario this level of constant 'hope against hope' reminded me of was how I used to hold my body and mind while flying. (In an airplane.) I used to be terrified of flying. I never understood the physics of flight, and this translated into 'this can't possibly be really working' and I would clench my butt cheeks and abs all the way through the flight as if relaxing them would make the plane realize it was defying gravity. A friend of mine took me up in his 2-prop plane about 20 years ago, and that made a huge difference. Watching Russell operate the controls, and feeling the plane lift and fly not through some force of magic but by physics I could feel - that made the difference to me. I also began to see the statistics of the safety of flight. As many have said it is more dangerous driving to the airport than it is flying to another city. So I unclenched my butt cheeks and abs after the spinning plates came crashing down with all that reality. All that 'hope' had done nothing but make me anxious. And sore. I do want to say that there is a difference between actual hope, and envisioning positive, creative outcomes in life. I feel my life is successful largely because I have believed I can and will live a successful life - white cis male privilege notwithstanding. When I face a problem in my life, my creative brain gets to work and starts to see solutions and a way through. I appreciate that about my mind and approach, and my life works as a result. But what I'd been doing with all this clenching and obsessively checking polls and reading blogs and voraciously watching video feeds wasn't hope. It wasn't looking for a creative outcome. It was fear, masked with a desperate thought that I could keep the entire business up in the air simply by force of will. Force of will is not hope. It's illusion of control. During Tr*mp's first term I constantly came back to the realization again and again that I couldn't change lawmakers' actions, words or minds by obsessing over how wrong it all felt to me. It was so tempting to stay hyper focused on every repugnant thing Tr*mp and his cronies were saying and doing. But it only made me furious and worried, and disconnected me from focusing on the only place where I do have a say over things: my own mind, my own words, my own actions. I began to see that when I focused on my own sphere of influence, my day-to-day life worked. So I began to remind myself daily, even hourly, to let go of things I could not control, and to focus on the things I could manage, and to be as aware as possible of the difference between the two. Which is the serenity prayer, rephrased. This is my current mantra: fix the broken I can fix, and don't worry about the broken I can't. Be present, aware and awake to the moments unfolding in the life right in front of my eyes. Don't focus on the things unfolding in Washington DC, or the next insanely inhuman things Musk or Tr*mp or any of the Deplorable Basket Brigade say. While at first this felt like giving up to me, or throwing in the towel, it's actually quite the opposite. As long as I stay frozen in dread and indignation, I cannot act out of intelligence or compassion. To use another airline metaphor, I must put my own oxygen mask of first before I try to help others with theirs. When I am centered and focused, I can be. I can do. When I am uncentered and unfocused, all I can do is spin in circles. There is much I can do in my circle of influence - mostly my mind, words and actions, but also in the ways I can bring music, connection, laughter and light to those around me. And yes: fuck Tr*mp. I will never accept that he is anything like the new normal, or anything other than a malignant, destructive force. And fuck Zuckerberg. Tonight I deleted my Instagram and Facebook accounts. The new terms of service gave over incredibly wide swaths of rights over content, and indicated ominously that Meta had the right to use anyone's words, likeness or art to train AI. Facebook had been becoming more and more of a porta potty balanced on a minefield. I had been spending as much time avoiding/deleting/blocking unwanted content, ads and profiles thrust into my face as I was posting or interacting with people. To top it all off, an article in the Rolling Stone announced that Meta was planning on flooding Facebook and Instgram with AI 'users' who would eventually have their own accounts. Facebook may have begun as a way for people to connect across the miles and years. But it has devolved into a system that pushes out obscene amounts of disinformation, one whose sole objective is to keep people as engaged as possible, no matter how much that might cost them. I began to see it less and less like a group of friends having a conversation and more and more like people sitting, dead-eyed, in front of one-armed bandits, pumping all their spare time into it, pulling the handle again and again and again hoping for a dopamine hit in the form of a 'like.' I began to feel like the proverbially boiled frog, sitting in a pot that was becoming increasingly more and more uncomfortable. (I have read recently that the whole 'a frog will boil to death in a pot of slowing warming water because it acclimates to the temperature by each increase degree' trope is a lie. That frogs, at one point, say, 'Hey, this is way to hot' and hop out of the pot. I am that frog.) When I announced that I was leaving the platform I was at first surprised at the amount of resistance I got from a lot of people. 'It's not that bad!' was one thing I heard a lot and 'Nothing has changed' or 'The terms of service have always been bad' or 'You get out of it what you put into it.' But, I truly think it is a system designed to make people think they are not truly connected unless they are constantly engaging. I have felt that tug myself. A lot. Countless times I would find myself impulsively, subconsciously checking my phone, updating responses, or simply scrolling. Always scrolling. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. With precious little payoff. That is what Meta is banking on: people engaged 24/7. On Facebook, we are not the clients, the customers, the visitors or even the users. On Facebook, WE are the product. We are our own worst nightmares on social media. It brings out many of our worst impulses, emboldened by a platform that rarely expects and never demands us to act out of our best instincts. Now. This all may sound like moral high grounding. And maybe a certain amount of it is. Maybe I'm painting as bleak a picture as I can to remind myself of why I left, and to not dive back into the fetid-but-familiar porta potty. And, I have been quite active on BlueSky, so maybe I've just traded heroin for methadone. But this I do know: life is not meant to be lived in isolation. Connecting online can never replace connecting in person. This company has worked tirelessly to make sure we are engaging with it more and more - and has baldly announced - even bragged - that it is going to populate itself with fake accounts. And the CEO of the company just gave a million dollars to Tr*mp. They are very publicly kissing his ring (which rhymes with 'puckered, flabby ass') So yeah. Fuck Zuckerberg. But. Hello to real life. Hello to being conscious, and being conscious of needing to be conscious. Hello to waking up as much as possible, and to making as much meaningful connection with people as I can. I am grateful I have such a great medium through which to do that, and that I am privileged to be able to do so in so many different incredibly vibrant situations. My work with seniors is a daily bounty of meaningful connection, vibrant music and enlivened hearts. My work as music director of East Shore Unitarian Church is an ever-unfolding blessing, one I am continually grateful for. Who knew I would become such an advocate for church life at this point in my life? Here is a vintage pic of plate spinning, for those to whom the reference is lost. If you don't keep the plates spinning, they come crashing down. ![]() The East Shore Mighty Choir! ![]() Nurse Deb, Jack and me
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I was looking for quotes from one of my favorite books ('Till We Have Faces,' by CS Lewis) when I stumbled across a very well-written blog by a woman who was saying - in clearly-written sentences and properly-spelled words - that homosexuality was definitely a learned behavior. That it is wrong, and that 'diversity' is simply another word for being forced to accept homosexuals. That she was going to call 'all of them' nothing other than 'homosexuals' because all the 'letters they add to whatever they want to call themselves' does nothing more than 'normalize' behavior. And she capped it all off with: 'I don't hate homosexuals.'
"Till We Have Faces" is a book about someone who mistakes her own jealousy and dedication to 'being right' for love. Orual wreaks utter havoc on her sister Psyche's life simply because Psyche has an experience of love that Orual does not have, and does not understand. As we read the book we see the choices Orual makes, things she does and says - she is sure - for Psyche's best interest. It is a rich, rewarding, difficult book. Difficult because I have seen a lot of myself in Orual. Our own absolute surety about what others must do and how they must live leads inexorably to pain, alienation, confusion and often destruction. How the woman who wrote this blog could write so glowingly about this book, and then write such hateful trash about 'homosexuals' boggles my mind. It's one thing to read a screed from a frothing lunatic, or to see a video clip from a screaming preacher. It's quite another to read a calm, collected viewpoint that takes this stance, and seems to be taking plenty of prisoners along. There were several hundreds of comments on this woman's blog, most of them also clearly-written, most of them calm and cool and full of their own assurance that homosexuality was wrong, a learned behavior, and was creating an evil, dangerous world. One person commented that they just wrote a book about how diet and stress causes homosexuality. These things were said as if they were the most rational things in the world. And everyone in this fact-free bubble were nodding their cyber heads in agreement: homosexuality is wrong, it is a learned behavior, it is something that can be changed and healed. What. The. Fuck. It never ceases to amaze me how some people feel so entitled to hold forth on subjects they know absolutely nothing about. This woman didn't feel entitled so much as duty-bound. She needed to share this 'truth' with the world so people would not be so afraid to 'speak the truth,' that homosexuality is wrong, and can and should be cured. Diversity is also wrong, and no one should be forced to even hear an opinion that differs from that. Fuck you, lady. You do not know my life. You do not know my husband. You do not know my friends, my family, my family of choice. You do not know the struggles I went through to get to the point where I am today. But mostly, you do not know the terrible pain this kind of polemic wreaks. You can sit in your heterosexual tower and throw lightning bolts of made-up 'truth' because they will never hit you. You will never be instructed to hate yourself for being who you are. You will never be faced with a God who apparently loves everyone but hates you specifically for something over which you had no choice. You are creating drone strikes: pushing buttons in the privacy of your home, never having to see the destruction your words rain down. If you don't hate gay people, then why are you saying such hateful things about them? Take the plank out of your own eye before you start seeing specks in others'. Try being like Jesus - actual, warm-blooded, compassionate, rebel-hearted Jesus, who spoke against the religious authorities and the status quo with his every other breath. Try being like him, and leave behind the gun-toting, queer-hating, white bread Jesus that the Religious Right has fashioned out of fear, hatred and spite. If one does not have compassion, one cannot claim to have love. Love without compassion is something else entirely. As Psyche said to her jealous older sister Orual in 'Till We Have Faces,' "I'm not sure I prefer your version of love to hate." https://www.amazon.com/Till-We-Have-Faces-Retold/dp/0156904365 Yesterday was the rally and march with the Hand in Hand festival in Seoul. So much feels so new here in the strides for LGBT visibility and acceptance. While Taiwan's highest court just recently ruled in favor marriage equality, other Asian countries are still institutionalizing homophobia. The participants in the festival represent choruses from Taiwan, Singapore, Honk Kong, Seoul and Beijing. The exuberant march (I was with the Beijing Queer Chorus) ended at City Hall, where we were met with furiously angry homobhobic demonstrators. Police were there, and formed a human chain to protect the Hand in Hand particiapants. Just as I've seen in the States, the contrast between the two groups was stark. The anti-gay protestors, spewing their torrents of hatred and fear, were a dark, angry, unhappy presence. And the LGBT folk were happy and joyous, waving many brightly colored flags, singing and cheering. Angry versus Joyful. Ego versus Enlightenment. Three things struck me about the Korean homophobic protestors: 1) They seemed to blend in their opposition a jingoistic nationalism with fundamental Christianity (certainly not unknown in the US) 2) Some factions looked and seemed quite official, and had comandeered the City Hall steps with their sound system, suits, and seriousness, blocking any LGBT groups from setting foot in front of City Hall 3) The vitriol pumped thru their loudspeakers was a level of screaming, hateful fury I've not heard a lot in the States. Now, I don't know which of these groups were screaming what - perhaps the most mouth-frothy were the angry evangelicals. Perhaps the elected-and-running-for-office officials were speaking calmly and clearly, focusing on policy more than polemic. But the opposition was huge, and loud, and seemed very, very scared. Give me the rainbow-waving music warriors any day of the week.
I wrote this theme song for Wes Hurley's insanely fun documentary about Seattle's bender-gending burlseque performer Waxie Moon. Sarah Rudinoff and Paul Rosenberg sing their lusty little hearts out.
Then said Almitra, Speak to us of the Comedy Ball.
And he raised his head and looked out over the crowd. I have thrown the Comedy Ball to many among you, he said, and yet you have perceived it not. For many is the time the Comedy Ball has hit you square in the chest, only to bounce off and roll under a dry hydrangea, waiting. And there it lies to this day. Just this afternoon I approached you as I watched you licking the bill of your baseball cap. I quipped, “Never have I seen a man actually eat his hat.” And you replied, “Uh... no, I spilled coffee on it.” To which I put forth the response, “Dude, I’ll give you a dollar if you need coffee that badly.” And your eyes blinked, and they were vacant. The second comedy ball bounced off your chest, falling and rolling to join its brother orb underneath the hydrangea. And you said, “No, I just want to get the coffee off.” And I reflected to my bosom: if I toss another comedy ball, will the Rule of Three prevail? And I looked at your baseball cap and the way you were diligently licking its brim and rubbing it with your forefinger. And I gazed upon the two unnoticed and uncaught Comedy Balls lying disused beneath the dry hydrangea. And I altered my reflection, for my bosom told me, “This man recognizes the Comedy Ball not.” And a great sigh issued from my lips as I produced my gym membership card and passed on to the locker room. People of Orphalese, will you learn to see the Comedy Ball? I would be happy if even one among you would recognize when one comes sailing directly towards your forehead. I would delight even to hear a dim chuckle of recognition as you say, “That was a joke, right?” But to you they are but the ghosts of shadows, invisible, unfelt and unloved. People of Orphalese, to see the Comedy Ball is to set your foot on the path of humor itself. For once you have seen the Comedy Ball, you may learn how to catch it. And once you have learned to catch the Comedy Ball, you may learn how to throw it back. And once you have learned to pitch your own Comedy Ball, you may learn the myriad ways one might spin each pitch. For to volley the Comedy Ball is to dance with the ancients, a dance whose steps may be described but never predicted. He lowered his eyes, and his gaze rested upon the waste of dry hydrangeas dotting the landscape, and the hundreds of moldering Comedy Balls lying beneath them. He shook his head sadly as the cries of the sea-birds wheeling overhead mixed with the lonely wind. He then raised his head once more and the winds carried his last words above their heads, out to sea: But seriously, people of Orphalese, you’ve been a great audience. I’m here all week. |
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