Category Archives: Reflections on Current Events

Christmas 2020

We were so blessed to be able to have both my mom and Scott’s dad with us for Christmas dinner. We followed the same protocols as Thanksgiving and had a safe and special evening together filled with love, seafood, champagne, cookies and eggnog! Here’s some of the highlights:

Jim cracking crab legs for our appetizer
Mom and I toasting with champagne
Mom and Jim enjoying crab Louie salads, lobster tails and sourdough bread
Scott getting ready to dig in!
Sarah, our neighbor, brought us a freshly made loaf of her amazing herbed sourdough!
Jim enjoying his martini and crab Louie
Retiring to the living room for presents and dessert by the tree
Our parents opening their gifts
Talking to Aunt Nora and Uncle Harry on FaceTime
This was only the second Christmas in their lives my aunt and mom were not together.
Scott’s delicious cookies and Bruce’s (our neighbor) potent eggnog–a nice combo!
Theo and the lovely Christmas Amaryllis the morning after Christmas

We are grateful that we were able to make this special memory together to mark the end of this crazy year. So far everyone is staying healthy in our family and we pray for that to continue as we do our best to stay connected and protected. We hope you were able to celebrate Christmas in your own meaningful ways. We pray for those who have suffered loss and illness during this pandemic and that it will soon be behind us.

When we began this fateful year, a rainbow appeared on January 1st over our house:

On November 18, another rainbow appeared:

I take this as a good omen that the storm is about to pass and the Light will return soon. In the meantime, take good care and stay connected and protected.

Thanksgiving Update

It is now two weeks after Thanksgiving and none of us have COVID, so I figured it was safe to do an update! We had a wonderful day cooking, visiting and doing our COVID safety dance around the kitchen and dining room. Jimmy showed Scott all the tricks for making his outstanding grilled turkey. It was truly amazing! He also brought his homemade ceviche and porcini spread over crostini for us to nosh on while we worked. We nipped on champagne and caught up with each other, wearing masks except when we were seated 6 feet apart eating. I made mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Scott made his mother’s stuffing. Mom made a crustless pumpkin pie and Terri made pecan bars, which we topped with cream Scott whipped up in his KitchenAid.

It was a delicious meal! We so enjoyed being together that wearing masks was well worth the minor inconvenience. We ran the Medify air purifier and kept the windows cracked, using electric heaters to keep our parents warm.

Here’s some photos of the day:

Jimmy preps the turkey for the grill
Scott assists
Look at that beautiful bird!
Big Jim watches Jimmy do his kitchen magic
Mom sips wine while watching us cook
Jimmy carves the turkey
Mashed potatoes and gravy on the stove
Dinner is served!

I can’t believe I forgot to take dessert pictures! Sorry about that.

Looking back, it was an awesome day and I’m happy we decided to go ahead with our plan to be together while practicing our COVID protocols. As long as we all remain healthy and it is allowed, we plan to have Christmas dinner with Scott and I and both our parents. The menu plan so far: deep fried artichoke appetizers with champagne, crab louies with fresh dungeness crab, broiled lobster tails, and our neighbor’s homemade herbed sourdough. We will finish up with Scott’s Christmas cookie platter. I can’t wait!

Stay tuned for an update in January. In the meantime, take good care, be safe and stay connected to those you love. Wishing you a Happy Christmas and a Peaceful, Healthy, Happy New Year! (I don’t think any of us will be sad to see this one go.)

Staying Protected and Connected This Holiday Season

I find myself thinking about how to do this a lot lately, as I watch the COVID-19 cases climb in my community, the country and the world. I recall the epidemiologists saying that the worst wave would come during the fall and winter months and that we needed to be prepared for that. Most of us are tired of the pandemic and yearning to get back to the way things were. It’s tempting to throw caution to the wind and have holiday gatherings. We always feel safer with those we love, so this virus is particularly insidious because that’s our biggest vulnerability right now. Especially with colder weather and most of us gathering indoors.

So what do we do? There are lots of options, and like most things in life, they exist on a continuum of risk. We all have to decide where we are on the continuum as we make our holiday plans. I thought it would be interesting to blog on the subject, share my own ideas and invite you to share yours as comments.

Of course, the safest thing is don’t gather. Stay home with your immediate family members. Use technology to connect with loved ones, like Zoom (lifting its 40 minute limit for Thanksgiving), FaceTime, Google, Skype, WhatsApp or just a phone in speaker mode. I know some folks who are cooking the same things and then eating together remotely. Some are dropping off favorite dishes, safely prepared at the door–a kind of remote potluck.

Scott and I often have dinner with his father, Jim using FaceTime on an iPad

The next safest thing is eating outdoors if weather permits. You can use outdoor heaters, blankets, warm weather clothing. I understand the Norwegians say that, “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.” Be careful about sharing dishes and utensils. It’s best to have a designated server who is masked and has sanitized hands. Alternatively, you can have everyone bring their own everything if you want to be real safe.

We spent much of the summer and early fall months doing this in our outdoor living room area, keeping households 6 feet apart and often bringing all our own food, drinks, plates, utensils. We did prepare food for others sometimes and bring it out on plates. I confess sometimes we goofed and passed around condiments or other items we shouldn’t have. Later we would realize we had made a mistake. It has been a learning process.

Our outdoor seating area with social distancing
A fall gathering with friends out on the lawn–chasing the sun!

Then there are the decisions about who we spend time with indoors, which is the riskiest environment. We have always treated my mom, who is 85, as one of our household because she depends on us for essential care and also for company (she lives alone). We talked with her about the risks, even though we are careful. She decided she would rather take the risk and be able to spend time with us without masks and social distancing. This is similar to many people’s decision to socialize in pods. Our neighbors have a pod of three couples who are very close friends and have regular dinner parties with each other, but limit their contact with others outside their group.

Our neighbor’s pod at their Halloween party
(used with permission and a promise to share part of my earnings off this very lucrative blog 🙂)

Recently, it has become too cold to gather outside and we know it will be impossible to do Thanksgiving and Christmas with our parents outdoors. Scott’s 95-year-old father lives in a senior, independent living community and prior to October was not able to come out for meals with us. Since March, we have been doing happy hour or dinner with him daily on FaceTime. In October we were able to take him to an outdoor lunch in Truckee with my aunt and uncle, making sure we all wore masks in the car. In November we brought him to our house for Veteran’s Day (he is a WWII and Korea vet). Again, we discussed with him the risks and like my mother, he decided it was worth it to him to take the risk.

Socially distanced Veteran’s Day dinner with our parents
Scott, myself and Anita are 6 feet from Jim at our large dining room table

Now we are preparing for Thanksgiving next week. It has been a tradition for Scott’s oldest brother and his lady to host. They really want to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jim and us, and Jim would like this too. Again, we all discussed the increased risk in having another household join in and how we might handle it as safely as possible. We agreed that we will all wear masks when moving around the house (like a restaurant’s protocol). Scott and I will handle the food prep and serving using COVID hand cleaning protocols and wearing masks. Jimmy and Scott will grill the turkey outside. Here’s how we plan to set up the house:

The dining room table will be set up similar to Veteran’s Day dinner with Jimmy and Terri on one end and Jim on the other. Mom, Scott and I will sit at the kitchen table, 6 feet away.
This Medify HEPA-13 filtration system (model MA-40) will be on the kitchen counter cleaning the air continually in the kitchen/dining room area. It is the one used by our dentist.
We will crack the window in the dining room and use this Eden Pure heater (black box) to keep everyone warm and circulate air.
In the living room (opposite from the dining room window), we will crack this window to add cross-ventilation.

Scott and I have agreed that this is the maximum number of people and households we are ok with hosting using these protocols. It will allow Jim to see his children and have a meal with them in smaller groups.

Christmas is usually a large, family affair with 25+ people in attendance. Gatherings like this are very risky and we’ve all agreed not worth it. So we will celebrate Christmas with just us and our parents, set up similar to Veteran’s Day. Maybe we will plan FaceTime calls with other family members so we can share with them remotely.

This is a year unlike any we’ve experienced before. But it is a unique opportunity to get creative and find new ways of connecting while staying protected. It looks like we will have a vaccine soon. Hopefully, enough of us will be vaccinated that we can have a more normal holiday season next year. For now, it’s up to us all to make the best choices we can to slow the spread of the virus and save lives.

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving and a Blessed Christmas!

Earth Day 2020

On this Earth Day, I’m looking out at clearer skies and breathing fresher air. I can clearly see the mountains surrounding Reno. Everything looks brighter. We have done more for Mother Earth in a few weeks than we have done in the 30 years since I celebrated my first Earth Day. This gives me great hope.

Look what we have done! We have proven we can change our lives in a few weeks. We can collectively come together and make choices that sustain life. I have the strong sense that Mother Nature created this virus as an opportunity for us to STOP, to take a time out and notice what life can be like when we slow down. We are home–getting to know our families, our environment, ourselves. We are reducing pollution, carbon emissions, noise pollution and other destructive impacts on the natural world.

We have a chance now to sit back and observe what we have been doing. What still serves us and the world? What doesn’t? In what ways have we gotten off balance both internally and externally? How have our ways of living caused imbalances and what can we do to create a sustainable balance with all of life?

Mother Nature has much to teach us if we pay attention. For example, check out this amazing video on Biomimicry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4oW8OtaPY. I love this quote from Janine (the narrator): Life creates conditions conducive to life. How can we create conditions that are conducive life?

I believe each of us has tremendous power to change, and collectively, we can exponentially change our world. We are doing so right now. Let’s not lose this momentum, this chance we have been given.

Mother Nature is in trouble. Our ways of living are choking her and harming our fellow creatures. I read a line in an article I can’t find now, but I resonated with it: “While we are all inside holding our breath, Mother Nature is breathing a deep sigh of relief.”

Here are some articles on what is happening out there:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-13/yosemite-national-park-closed-wildlife-waterfalls-muir

https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-cite-pollution-decrease-calls-flatten-curve-climate-change-post-coronavirus-1497430

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/11/positively-alpine-disbelief-air-pollution-falls-lockdown-coronavirus

You can search the Internet and find many more stories and examples as scientists and everyday folks like us notice the changes occurring all over the planet.

Please don’t go back to business as usual after this. Let’s take the chance we have been given to fundamentally change how we live. The very biosphere we and our fellow creatures depend on is in danger. We can do this. We already are.

Looking for some ways to help? Check out these sites:

https://www.50waystohelp.com/

https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2020/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puv0Pss33M

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/ocean/earthday.html

Here is another beautiful video of the Apollo 8 astronauts talking about seeing our beautiful Earth from space in 1968.

https://emergencemagazine.org/story/earthrise-film/

Blessed Earth Day to us, our fellow creatures and our amazing Mother Earth

A Purple Nation

Today is Election Day and it’s an important one. Please vote–let your voice be counted.

The other day, I found this op ed I wrote in October of 2008 and re-read it. It was published in the Denver Post’s Online Guest Commentary on October 31, 2008. When I read it again, I was disheartened by the fact that our country has become much more divided rather than united in the last 10 years. Over the last 10 years, I’ve also changed my political affiliation to Independent, as it feels more in alignment with my own truth.

A Purple Nation
By Rhonda Ashurst

     I am a Democrat and my husband is a Republican; my father is a Democrat and my mother is a Republican. The bipartisan nature of my families, of this nation, fascinates me.
     Political maps show red Republican states and blue Democratic states, as if we can be so easily divided. I have long suspected that there are many purple families like my own, and that we also more blended individually than our party affiliations might indicate. I vote for Republican candidates when I think they are better suited for the job. I know many people, including my family members, who regularly cross party lines. We have informative, respectful debates and sometimes we sway each others’ opinions and votes. We can agree to disagree, and still have dinner together and get the dishes done.
     My curiosity about partisan politics led me to George Lakoff’s book on The Political Mind. Dr. Lakoff is a cognitive scientist who studies the underlying differences in how conservatives and progressives view the world. In a nutshell, Lakoff defines progressive thought as empathic and protective and conservative thought as strict and authoritarian. He makes the excellent point that we are all bi-conceptual, using both types of reasoning in different circumstances. Like good parenting, good governing requires a balanced perspective between nurturance and accountability.
   A current example is the $700 billion bailout of the mortgage crisis. A bi-conceptual solution would include helping people to stay in their homes, as well as offering assistance to financial institutions to keep our financial system from collapsing as it did during the Great Depression. In addition, there would be accountability to the American people in how this $700 billion was going to be spent and a return on investment when the markets recover. We would question the wisdom of laissez-faire free markets and increase regulation of financial markets in the future. As individuals and as a nation, we would take an honest look at our spending habits and resolve not to spend beyond our means.
     Getting out of this mess requires a bipartisan, bi-conceptual solution that is both supportive and accountable and involves all of us, as well as other nations. This global crisis has underscored the fact that we are all inter-connected and when a stone is thrown, it causes ripples in worldwide pond.
     In times like these, we need a nurturing parent who says, “Don’t panic, we will find a way through this. Here is what I can do to help.” We also need a strict parent who says, “If I’m going to help you, we will have to agree on a plan for how you will do this differently in the future. I will hold you accountable to the plan and I expect you to do your part.” After reviewing information on the current plan, I’m not convinced we are there yet.
     When we go to the polls on Election Day, we must consider which candidates and ballot measures represent the balanced perspective we so desperately need to meet the challenges we face as a nation. We cannot afford to let partisan polarities immobilize this great country. It is time to unite towards common goals, utilizing the strengths of our different views, and honoring that we all have a role to play in the recovery.
     Republican or Democrat, red or blue—we are all united in the common dream that we may pursue life, liberty, and happiness from a place of security and stability. We all want our children to have these same opportunities and not to be saddled with our mistakes and a mountain of debt. As a long-time member of purple families, I know we can rise above our differences and be a purple nation.

~~~~~~~~~

It is up to each of us to look for our common threads of humanity, our shared dreams. If we look under the surface of our differences, we may find we have far more in common at the deeper levels than we realize. It is time to stop feeding the fire of division and nurture our unity as a nation and a people.

When we are divided, we are challenged to think of where our unity exists.

Strawberry Creek Monthly Quaker Meeting, 1989

Is this how freedom dies in America?

President Trump made this remark during a speech in Ohio yesterday:

You’re up there, you’ve got half the room going totally crazy — wild, they loved everything, they want to do something great for our country,” Trump said. “And you have the other side — even on positive news, really positive news like that — they were like death. And un-American. Un-American. Somebody said, ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not! I mean they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

The First Amendment of the United States of America states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Our forefathers believed these rights were important enough to their new democracy that they placed them first on the Bill of Rights. What is happening in America when our President essentially makes a statement indicating that if you do not applaud him, you could be considered guilty of treason?

What is the punishment for treason in the United States?

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)

Today the White House spokesman said President Trump was joking. This is not something the supposed “leader of the free world” jokes about. It seems he’s fishing to see what our response will be. Who will support him in making, and possibly, enforcing this kind of outrageous accusation? If we show support, then it could solve all his problems with the Democratic party (and democracy) in one fell swoop. Freedom in America dies and another authoritarian dictator rises.

If you care about freedom in America, now is a good time to speak up.

~~~

I was pleased to learn that the Reno Gazette Journal chose to publish this piece on their Opinion page. I was also heartened to see they included footage of Republican Senator, Jeff Flake’s response to Trump’s comments.  Opinion Published in Reno Gazette Journal.

It’s a Men’s and Women’s Problem

This is a new theme which arose over the course of the week when I read a post by Jon Katz on Bedlam Farm Journal which was forwarded to me by one of my readers and friends. In this post, I am reprinting John’s post first and my response to his post second. I have included quotations of his in my post and then responses.

It’s A Men’s Problem

This post It’s A Men’s Problem. Learning What No One Ever Taught appeared first on Bedlam Farm Journal.

When I was a teenager, I experienced some of the most powerful and troubling physical impulses of my life.

They were sexual, I had entered puberty in my mid teens and was perpetually aroused and tormented. It felt as if my body had gone mad, beyond my control.

I remember having erections that were embarrassing – they were often visible – and kept me from sleeping for weeks on end. I was often afraid to go to school or without a jacket covering my groin.

I remember that these feelings were not pleasant, but painful and intensely uncomfortable. There was little I would not have done to release them or be rid of them.

These sexual impulses were overwhelming, and at times, barely controllable, even uncontrollable.

My friends and I pursued women whenever we could and tried to have sex with them whenever possible. That was almost always foremost in our minds.

We masturbated whenever we could and as often as we could. I suppose our parents knew but never spoke of it.

It was the closest I have ever come to feeling like an animal and being like an animal.

As aroused as we were, my friends and I never, to my knowledge, forced ourselves on anyone, although we tried often to persuade women to have sex with us. We were sometimes pushy and obnoxious in that way, it was always on our minds.

That was the way in which we came to know women, and the beginnings of the failure of many men to understand them or see them as equal human beings with the right to dignity.

I wish someone had prepared me for it.

One of the interesting things about that period for me was that I never once mentioned what I was going through to anyone – my father, my mother, my family, my friends, my teachers, or uncles.

No one ever spoke to me about these impulses, or ever discussed the dangers of acting on them, or appropriate ways to respond to them.  No one talked of the importance of understanding no, only the importance of yes. To have sex was a victory, to fail a defeat.

At times, that was my only understanding of women – as a way to get relief from the impulses that seemed to have taken over my body. I never thought once about how women felt about me or the other men, nor did we ever speak to them about their feelings about sex and love.

These impulses were often stronger than my own reserve and moderation, my own innate sense of decency.  There were no rewards for restraint.

I do not claim to understand what these powerful harassers in the news today were thinking or feeling, but I do  wonder about the impulses and addictions that they could not control. I was a journalist for many years, and while I can’t speak for all men, I can say with some confidence that these men knew better, they knew what they were doing was wrong.

What, I wonder, overcame their morality and empathy?

This is a secret world I am talking about. It is simply never discussed.  In fact, this is the first time I have ever mentioned my own early sexual experiences to anyone other than Maria.

We do not have any secrets from one another.

I have no harassment stories to confess to or apologize for from back then, unless it is the growing understanding that almost all men are complicit in this brutalizing and exploitation and harassment of women.

It seems to be built not only into the biology of men, but into the cultural and political structures of the country, and the way in which men are raised.

To me, harassment is a men’s problem, not a women’s problem. They are victims, but the problem is men’s to own and talk about and fix. Since we do most of it, we must work to stop it.

More than 99 per cent of all rapes are committed by men in America.

Without men, rape would hardly exist in our society.

When I was an executive producer at CBS News, I saw the corrupting and corrosive effect on men of power. Power is dangerous, it is an aphrodisiac, it does make some men feel invincible and entitled and immortal, it does transform them and quite often brings out their worst angels, or perhaps demons is a better word.

I saw that a lot, it was a major reason I was eager to leave television, along with my bosses’s eagerness to have me go.

These powerful impulses left me long ago, and I do not really know where or when it was I got the idea that abusing or exploiting women in this way was wrong.

I must have come to it myself somehow, since no one ever talked to me about it, or told me what was right or wrong when it came to men’s treatment of women. I just seemed to know that it was wrong,  that kind of cruelty and domination did not ever seem like sex or love to me. What kind of man – what kind of person – treats another human being in that way? The answer is many people, and they are mostly men.

It seems to me, this has nothing to do with sex, but mostly with power.

I knew what it felt like to be dominated and assaulted and harassed, I could not do it to anyone else.  All my life, I have heard men speak in awe and wonder at other men who brag about their sexual conquests. I have rarely, if ever,  heard a man praise another man for treating women well and with sensitivity.

Over these past few weeks, as the harassment issue becomes more and more politicized – the existence of a “left” and a “right” seems a far greater threat to the country to me than the Russians – it has become even more difficult for us to come to understand what is happening inside the psyches of men that causes them to harass and dominate women, often in the most brutal and degrading of ways.

Harassment is now okay  on one level – approved at the highest levels of politics – if it advances a political agenda. You can harass all the women you want in the name of the left, or the right. It doesn’t matter if it’s wrong, there is no wrong in that shameless world.

That is not the message young men need to hear. Some things – harassment and rape – are much worse than a legislative defeat.

This week, I finally e-mailed a friend and mentor who has been accused of sexual harassment, and has admitted that the accusations against him are true. He was fired, and lost everything. He thinks he may never find work again. His wife is terrified, they can no longer pay the college tuition for their son.  He said he was ashamed of himself.

I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I avoided him for weeks.

I asked him how he was and expressed the hope he was getting help. He was  sad, and seemed very regretful in his messages. He referred to impulses and needs that had simply overtaken his moral judgment and ethics.

They were much more powerful than he had recognized or seen.

He seemed sincere to me, he seemed broken, as if he had awakened from a trance.

He said it was all like being in a fever, he simply left his own self respect at times. He said he knew that was no excuse, that there was no excuse. It was an understanding that he was coming to.

He could not explain to himself how he left his morality was left behind as he abused women in gross ways and humiliated himself and his family. What will I tell my children, he asked me?

I said  nothing, but wondered to myself why he didn’t think of that sooner.

A good rule for men is to always stop and ask what their children might think of the way they treat women. I stopped myself from having an affair once long ago by doing that. It works.

My friend also never discussed his impulses with anyone, he said. There was no place for him to go. Women can now to go HR with complaints of harassment, he said, but men cannot go anywhere and talk about the sex drives and impulses that sometimes overwhelm their own moral values and humanity. No man who did that would be employed for long, or ever be promoted.

Yesterday, I read a heartfelt and thoughtful piece by Billy Bush, the TV host whose career was destroyed by his proximity to the bloviating Donald Trump and his Hollywood Access tapes. Surprisingly, I found Bush’s piece to be one of the best things I have seen men write about the harassment scandals wracking the corporate, media and entertainment worlds.

“I have faith,” Bush wrote, “that when the hard work of exposing these injustices is over, the current media drama of who did what to whom will give way to a constructive dialogue between mature men and women in the workplace and beyond.

The activist and gender-relations expert Jackson Katz has said that this is not a women’s issue – it’s a men’s issue. That’s a great place to start, and something I have real thoughts about – but is a story for another day.”

Amen to that.

Good for you, Billy, I thought, you are becoming a man.

You were debased and debased yourself by applauding  Mr. Trump and his disgusting comments to you.

In your response, you are reclaiming your own dignity and honor by being thoughtful and honest.

You have paid an awful price, and it seems to have done you some good. “Today,” Bush wrote, “is about reckoning and reawakening, and I hope it reaches all the guys on the bus.” Not yet, but maybe one day soon.

I watched Jackson Katz’s (no relation) Ted Talk about men last night and it also gave me hope that men may  begin to think and talk about how violent behaviors – in politics, the school yard, the NFL, and especially with women – are tied to the definitions of manhood that dominate our culture.

In Washington, winning is everything, there is nothing else. That’s what Katz means.

When I was a kid, we young men thought that pursuing women sexually and conquering them was a sign of manhood, of strength and virility.

It was something we were supposed to do if we were real men.

We were praised for it, it made us seem bigger, when it fact it was making us smaller. I can’t help but wonder if those weren’t the lessons so many men carried into their adult lives, when they should have known better.

Perhaps because of the abuse I suffered, I somehow came to see violence against women as a sign of weakness and cowardice, not of strength.

I had no role models to teach me this, and have rarely, if ever, discussed this with anyone.

I am in awe of these brave women who have put this issue on the dinner table of every awake home in America. They are so much braver than the men who assaulted and harassed them.

But I also believe that somehow, there needs to be a much deeper conversation with young men and now, I see, older men as well,  about their bodies and drives and impulses. About how to control themselves and not hurt women and upend their own lives.

We need to find better way of being real men and understanding and teaching manhood. Like nurturing our wives and children, listening to women, supporting their advance through society so they can protect us and others from ourselves until we can  learn to protect ourselves and others from us. And choosing leaders who stand for something other than themselves.

I have to take responsibility for what men are doing to women, to their sons and brothers, to the world. It all seems like the same thing to me, all of the same piece – our behavior is unacceptable and causing great harm, even catastrophe.

That does not have to be what we are about. It is not what I am about, but for a flick of fate, it could easily have been what I am about.

It is in me, too, I am sure of it.

Billy Bush showed us what it means to be a real man in his piece this  week. Our President could have done a lot of good if he took responsibility and did some thinking about something other than his own survival,  the way Bush, his enabler, did.

I think Billy Bush will be all right.

“On a personal note,” he wrote, “this last year has been an odyssey, the likes of which I hope to never face again; anger, anxiety, betrayal, humiliation, many selfish, but I hope, understandable emotions. But these have given way to light, both spiritual and intellectual. It’s been fortifying. I know that I don’t need the accouterments of fame to know God and be happy. After everything over the last yer, I think I’m a better man and father to my three teenage daughters – far from perfect, but better.”

I’ve said all of my life that the only men I can love are those who have been tortured as children or humiliated as adults. They have to be shocked into awakening. But it’s all in there, it has to be.

So this is all a message for men, who can’t be perfect, but can be better. Can we overcome so much baggage, thousands of years of seeing women in this awful way? I don’t know. Something is happening, and it is important.

This is our problem, almost every woman alive seems to have been hurt by it, but they can’t ultimately resolve it. That falls on us.

Bush has learned the hard way what nobody ever bothered to teach him. There are lots of lessons in that. And in so doing, he seems to have become a real man.

This is a men’s problem. Calling it a women’s problem takes men off the hook. Right now, it seems the hook is finding us.

~~~

It’s Also a Women’s Problem

I was so inspired by what this man said, and the honesty, courage and vulnerability with which he spoke. It has haunted me since I read it yesterday morning and I knew I had to try and respond in the same way to the best of my ability. Thank you, dear Sir, whoever you are, for this post. (At this point, I didn’t know who the author of this post was.)

I have been both harassed and sexually abused by men. I have never reported it. Growing up, the message I received was that boys/men can be jerks and all they care about is sex and food. But, you have to have one to protect you and provide for you or really bad things will happen. So, you must accept your lot in life and do what you can to attract them, appease them and make them happy. It makes me cry to write this. It is such a tragic belief. By accepting this belief, I too am “complicit in this brutalizing exploitation and harassment of women.”

“When I was a kid, we young men thought that pursuing women sexually and conquering them was a sign of manhood, of strength and virility.”

When I was a kid, we young women felt wanted and desired and hoped that by going along with the conquering, we would be protected and safe. We wanted to be with the alpha males who were often the most brutal of all men, because they fit this image of the desirable male who would care for and protect us. I remember my partner saying to me, “Why do all the beautiful women chose ***holes to be with.” He knew me for 24 years before we became romantically involved. He watched me enter into, and leave, several relationships over the years in which I had chosen dominating males as partners. He also witnessed, as a friend, the pain this caused me. One of my girlfriends said it well, “It seems to me, you have always been your men’s fashion accessory and kitchen appliance.”

“…almost all men are complicit in this brutalizing exploitation and harassment of women.”

And almost all women are complicit in this brutalizing exploitation and harassment of women.

”To me, harassment is a men’s problem, not a women’s problem. They are victims, but the problem is men’s to own and talk about and fix. Since we do most of it, we must work to stop it.”

We must work beside you to stop allowing and accepting it as “boys will be boys” and “locker room talk”.

“It seems to me, this has nothing to do with sex, but mostly with power.”

I agree. Sex can become about who has power over whom, or a way to feel powerful, desired, attractive. But, isn’t sex supposed to be about love? Making love, connecting at a body and soul level with another human being, both giving and receiving? But, where are we supposed to learn about how to do this when we are bombarded by images of domination and submission, by the objectification of women and men? Who teaches us about healthy sexuality? Who shows us how to handle those very strong impulses we all have, regardless of our sex, especially when we are young and unskillful? In our culture, making the subject taboo and not being willing to discuss it openly and honestly and with courage and vulnerability, is not helping us have mature, loving, reciprocal, equal relationships with each other.

“A good rule for men is to always stop and ask what their children might think of the way they treat women. I stopped myself from having an affair once long ago by doing that. It works.”

I love this idea of checking ourselves by considering the examples we are giving our young people. Do we want them to grow up like we did with these brutalizing and exploitive ideas shaping their relationships?  Or shall we do the hard work of teaching them how to love well from what we have hopefully learned along the way through our own mistakes?

“We need to find better way of being real men and understanding and teaching manhood. Like nurturing our wives and children, listening to women, supporting their advance through society so they can protect us and others from ourselves until we can learn to protect ourselves and others from us. And choosing leaders who stand for something other than themselves.”

We need to find a way to be confident, self-assured women who can understand and teach womanhood. Women who challenge aggressive and abusive behavior and stand up to protect ourselves and our children, who nurture and listen from the heart, who support all of our mutual desire to contribute the gifts we were given to society and the world. And who choose leaders, male and female, who stand for these same values and not only for themselves and their dominance over others.

“It is in me, too, I am sure of it.”

It’s in me, too, I know it. Because when I was hurt as a young woman by sexual abuse and male abandonment, I became a ruthless predator of men, a “Man Hunter.” I used and abused and manipulated and abandoned in the same way that had been done to me. I wanted to feel powerful and to get even. I am so sorry I did that and I apologize in this moment to all the men I did this too. It was not right of me to express my rage in this way. It was destructive and only added to the problem.

It was also not right of me to swallow my pain and my truth for so many years with my previous partners and not stand up for myself, not speak up, not challenge the dynamics of our relationship which were unequal and objectifying. By not doing this, I condoned and went along with what was happening, as if in a trance. Then one day I would wake up and suddenly leave the relationship, devastating them, myself and all who were connected with us. This was not a skillful way to stand up for myself. I am so sorry. I wish I had had more courage, that I’d awakened from the trance sooner.

Let us be compassionate with each other, for we all struggle with this problem. It belongs to all of us and it goes back thousands of years into our ancestry. My dream is that we become truly loving towards one another, recognizing that spiritually, we are all One. And we all want to be loved, appreciated, respected, valued, safe, secure, healthy, happy and at peace. Blaming, feeling victimized, seeking retaliation—none of these responses will get us where we really want to go. We can each choose to look honestly at our wounds, to “wake up from the trance”, to heal and choose love.