Welcome to my Pulpit (Again!)

THIS POST WAS FIRST ENTERED IN THIS BLOG AS A PAGE; I AM REPUBLISHING IT AS A POST.

SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE!

Yes, this is a Sermon and I am writing this as if I were speaking to you from a pulpit.

First of all, thank you for reading this; I hope you'll give me the kind of courtesy so many of you have always given my writing -- that you will at least read what I write because I've already earned your respect as an author, political pundit, historian and teacher.

But MOST of all, I hope you will read this to its end because you know I really am your friend -- at least I am the friend of good people, decent people. I am the friend of anyone who needs a friend.

However, I am no friend to anyone who willingly harms others. I will try to reach out to them to stop their hurtful actions and help them heal, but the person who suffers harm will be my first priority.

If you know me at all, you already know that about me.

Now let me introduce you to who else I am:

I'm a newly minted minister; I haven't even been ordained a full year. If I told you I'd just gotten my driver's license this past April, I probably couldn't convince you to move over, give me the wheel, and let me drive you and your family to church in stormy weather.

We all know it takes extreme skill, caution, patience, and wisdom to drive in dangerous weather; it also takes an abundance of experience with a particular kind of bad weather. Someone may have years of driving experience in monsoons but that doesn't mean they will be able to drive with skill in a snow storm.

You get it; you know what I'm talking about -- I'm telling you that as ministers go, I might not be the best bet to do the spiritual driving in terrible weather. However, I'm not a total idiot either -- age has its perks -- which brings me to this: I also wasn't ordained until I was 65 years old.

Therefore, you'd also be correct to deduce I must have been a significant underachiever in the spirituality department.

Taken together, what I'm telling you, is that not only do I not have years of practical experience as a minister, I also can't boast I've led an exemplary life, a life that could inspire anyone, or even a nice long life of religious devotion or intense spirituality.

In fact, I'm not even remotely impressed with organized religion, have very little respect for most clergy (of any and all faiths), and am usually bored stiff in church. Worse, in a few of the churches I've been in, I've been scared shitless. Some of those people terrify me.

And, yes, I swear a lot too.

It's not true that people who swear have a limited vocabulary; at least it's not true about me. I have a helluva' an amazing vocabulary. I just like to use some spicier words for emphasis -- they are the exclamation points, the italicized, embolded fonts of my speaking style. However, I am careful how I use them and to whom. Since I'm assuming whoever reads this is an adult, I'm speaking (err, writing) more freely.

So, if you seek an experienced minister of proven faith who respects organized religion and her fellow clergy and who wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful of it... I'm not the minister for you. The good news is that if you're looking for one of those good folks, you're in luck: they're all over the place.

However, if you're willing to trust that I just might surprise you, that I just might bring something to the table you've never experienced before -- and that I might even offer atheists, agnostics, and all those who say they are secular humanists something as well (maybe only a few laughs) -- then please accept me. Accept me, with my matronly wide hips, salt & pepper hair, salty language, in-your-face style, and many failings (need I insert here "bad Irish temper"?) and give me a chance.

I would dearly love to be there for you -- and have you there for me -- during a period of time that I think we all believe is going to be extremely challenging.

To give you a bit more insight into who I am, let me further explain that when I finally knew I couldn't run away from whatever it was calling me to this, when I realized I absolutely needed to accept that I was being called to serve others -- people of faith and no faith -- as an ordained Interfaith minister, I knew from the getgo I was never going to be your grandparents' idea of a minister. In fact, the church I was raised and educated in, the Roman Catholic Church, wouldn't even afford me the respect necessary to grant ordination because I am a woman (don't be mad about that; it wouldn't have worked out anyway) so I grew up knowing how warm and welcoming a major faith tradition can be to at least 55% of the world's population. I am most certainly not any Christian fundamentalist's idea of a woman of faith, let alone spiritual leader, either -- and there are many, many other Christian denominations and non-Christian faiths that won't accept me in any role of leadership either.

That's fine; I'm not here to change those people. I'm here to serve the people those churches reject; to serve the people who have no faith anymore because of those churches and faiths.

Unquestioning conformity has never been my long suit. Religious orthodoxy has never appealed to me. I chose an "Interfaith" seminary because what I am about is everything outside the box, everything that does not conform to all of the strangulating restrictions, toxic orthodoxies, patriarchy, and absurd prejudices that have for "almost ever" separated people from people and, most of all, separated people from rationality, free will, moral growth, compassion, tolerance, and a desire to ask profound questions about the reasons for their existence -- and permission to live in disbelief without persecution, condemnation, or stigma.

This is not to say I want to spend the rest of my life singing Kumbaya and remonstrating about the need to turn the other cheek at the cost of our own or someone else's right to survival. I will not preach that we must "go high" when evil demonstrates how low it can go. I will never preach that horrors inflicted upon anyone at the hands of others are because "God had a plan." There is no God, any cosmic force, any Spaghetti Monster who ever had a "plan" to allow others to harm you. That is pure and simple theological balderdash.

I don't believe I was called to ministry to push platitudes, feed you placebos or wrap you in shawls of false spiritual security and more suffering. I don't believe any of us are meant to live a life bereft of moral outrage and human action in the face of the suffering of ourselves and others.

In fact, I believe we all, as creatures of a Mother-Father God and All That is Divine and Holy, MUST understand and act upon the moral duties we have to ourselves, each other, and Mother Earth. I know in my very deepest being that this must be so because we are sentient human beings capable of doing so -- if we have the CAPACITY there must be the PURPOSE. It must be this way or nothing makes sense -- WE don't make sense.

Just as nothing occurs in evolutionary biology that is without an adaptive, necessary purpose, we have, as human beings, evolved to have the level of rational thought necessary to discern what is good and just from what is not. We have evolved to this because there is a purpose for it! However, the exercise of that reason, taking full ownership of our own ability to reason and arrive at moral conclusions is a choice.

If this is not true, then we may as well be rocks in a river, the waters of life flowing over us -- for which we have no say and no awareness.

But you know you are not merely a rock in a river. You know this because every cell in your body, even the voices in the darkest places of your soul, tell you so if you will only listen.

I believe I'm especially called to challenge the hell out of myself and anyone else who wants to be challenged and is willing to also challenge me. It may not always be comfortable or safe or feel gratifying, but it's the journey I'm on and I have no idea yet where it may lead me. No doubt, it will always be a work in progress.

At this point, at the beginning of this unexpected journey, I'd like to reach as many people as possible through the power of my writing for as long as that power is still mine and still effective.

I will eventually figure out how to set up more creative ways to reach out, and may use videos. Your ideas and suggestions are welcome.

As-Salaam-Alaikum, Shalom, Namaste and Peace be with You:
~Rev Mo 

  

Are we in deep... or what?

Day 12

It's late in the day Sunday, November 20th... Day 12.

I don't feel like writing; I don't really feel like doing much of anything. It's been one damn long 12 days. There are so many topics I'd like to write about... there's a list of at least 16 that are scratched on a notepad on my desk... if I'd had the time I'd have easily thrown 10 essays on this blog this week.

Instead I've spent the large part of each day this past week explaining fascism.

Not in the classroom as I've done for years, and not in any philosophic way over cocktail meatballs with some newly minted Ph.D. starving for party conversation other than "have you tried the meatballs? they're good.... really good..."

No, not like that... much more like to hundreds of panicked people who are suddenly waking up to the realization that something potentially horrible has happened because suddenly they're hearing things that are scaring the hell out of them...

"Do you think Donald Trump is Hitler?"  No, of course not: Trump is Trump, Hitler was Hitler and you are you... 

I bite my tongue; I try not to snark. These are really good people and they flatter me by coming to me with such an important question -- one that I fully understand really means "Are we really in deep shit?" Right about now, from where I'm sitting and what I'm reviewing and what I've read and heard these last 12 days... "Are we really in deep shit?" might be the smartest damn question I've ever heard. 

Are we really in deep shit?

I've decided to draft the description of fascism that I like to use... modified slightly to the events in America that I know are driving people to suddenly wish they knew a little more about 20th century German history.

Typically, historians refer to a list of 14 characteristics of fascism. Bear in mind, many of them can be a list of characteristics present in communism -- but there are distinct differences.

Let's just stick to fascism. As I said, historians itemize 14 characteristics. Over time, because I'm so comfortable teaching about fascism, I've commingled several of them and even added one element (cult of personality) and my list also includes some more expansive descriptions for comparative purposes.

All of the following elements are present in a fascist government:

1. NATIONALISM:   Nationalism is patriotism on steroids.  It is a pathological need for people to see themselves as a very exceptional group having features no other groups possess, in a country like none other. Nationalism is jingoistic, bellicose, flag-waving, strutting. It is inherently suspicious, xenophobic, and isolating -- all traits that breed fear of nations and other people. Nationalism turns the symbols of state and artifacts of culture and history, such as flags, anthems, and oaths, into sacred totems in a way that has always reminded me of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation where bread and wine are said to be transformed from mere symbols of Christ into the sacred body and blood Christ. Understand this and you begin to spot when a failure to stand to pledge an oath or respect a flag or listen to an anthem goes from normal annoyance (as being considered rude or disrespectful) to pathological (as in dangerously compulsory). With nationalism, shows of patriotism are not a choice; they are mandatory. 

2. SCAPEGOATING:  The classification of large groups who are made into the national enemy devolves naturally from nationalism and serves as a powerful unifying force. Scapegoating whips people into a frenzy intended to play on their fulminating resentments and fears; people are goaded by their leaders to believe these groups are a threat to them, their families, and the nation. Scapegoating demonizes large groups that can be grouped in one or more of the categories below (I've inserted contemporary examples as they relate to America):  

Racial and ethnic (blacks, Hispanics); religious (Jews, Muslims), immigrant (Syrians,  South Americans), ideological or privileged (socialists, liberals, even organized labor; the intelligentsia, the artist community), power groups (politicians, journalists, lawyers), groups that burden the collective welfare (the disabled, the poor) or who are seen as depraved and sinful (homosexual, transgender). One or more groups are seen as the causal agent of the nation’s suffering and a true threat to the survival of the nation.  (The Nazis did this brilliantly.)  

3.       SECURITY (Domestic and foreign): Threats to the nation are seen to come from within and without. It is believed (or so the people are made to believe and accept) there is a greater need for an expanded internal police state and more muscular military forces. Spending on social projects and services are reduced to increase funding for more powerful security. With this goes an almost fawning respect for the military and police who are seen as heroes defending the nation. Even the most absurd projects or policies might be embraced if they appear to guarantee security (building a wall, closing borders, travel restrictions, stricter tests for the entry of foreign nationals, the barring of large groups, stricter tests and racial or religious "purity tests,” and longer wait times for citizenship). New paramilitary forces will be developed (to increase border security and conduct dragnets for deportations). New systems of spying on citizens will be enacted and will be harsher than anything before them. National registries are created to “track” people. (Again we can look to the Third Reich as a shining example of heightened internal security and military aggression as a form of state necessity, as well as requirements to register with the state, carry papers, etc.) If any of this seems impossible in America, remember the Japanese-American internment camps during WWII. This was seen as justified to preserve national security in a time of crisis -- and when America took this terribly flawed step this country was truly not a fascist state. 

4.       OBSESSION WITH CRIME & PUNISHMENT: This is always on the classic list of 14 points but I see it bridging SECURITY (3 above) and CONTEMPT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS & CIVIL RIGHTS (5 below). The citizens acquiesce to ever more Draconian laws to help improve their safety and aggressively punish lawbreakers with disproportionately greater consequences than normal reason would otherwise justify. (I mention here “Stop and Frisk” and the punishment of women who have abortions as examples.) There is always an acceptance of torture and executions and long exiled imprisonments are imposed for ideological, political reasons. Execution is often meted out immediately after conviction. There is a complete absence of any transparency, review or appeal. Guilt by association is assumed and families may not be informed of arrests, trials or their outcomes. It is not uncommon for bodies to be buried in mass graves. Political adversaries often simply disappear but the state might also conduct long drawn out shaming campaigns, witch hunts, investigations, and sham trials as they are exceptionally effective tools for social and political control and if done right can really be great entertainment for the "Mad Max" crowd ("Lock her up!" "Lock her up!" and "Crooked Hillary" obviously come to mind.) Of course, all of this is also an element of both fascism and communism, or any other garden-variety form of totalitarianism. 

5.       CONTEMPT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS & CIVIL RIGHTS:  In fascism, the means always justify the ends (think: torture, deportations). Fascists convince the people they must sacrifice some of their civil rights to be more secure and that the usual international laws are bad for national security and must be set aside. Of course, all of this is part & parcel of 4 above. 

6.       SUPPRESSION OF THE PRESS and THE ARTS: A free and unfettered press is despised and scapegoated and seen as unpatriotic and subversive. Any artistic expression seen as critical of the regime is immediately called out and vilified. Laws are soon written forbidding dissent and crippling journalism, silencing the press and controlling all of the usual organs of critical analysis and reporting.  (The Nazis immediately seized all means of communication and mandated what kinds of art, music, and literature were acceptable.) 

7.       CONTROL AND/OR CREATION OF NEW FORMS OF MASS MEDIA: Censorship is strictly enforced. Newspapers and electronic media are subsumed or wholly recreated. They become propaganda organs for the government. Euphemistic speech and Double Speak become normative forms of communication. Truth is twisted; obfuscation, deceit and fraud become normal. It becomes impossible to discern fact from fiction. This is disorienting to people and necessary for the maintenance of fascism (or any kind of totalitarianism). (Oh the fun Goebbels might have had with television, cable and social media – and Sean Hannity!)

8.       RELIGION & GOVERNMENT BECOME ENTWINED: The Nazis did this quite brilliantly; they were so effective in convincing the German public the Fuhrer was a deeply religious man that even today this great lie tenaciously endures. In fact Hitler and prominent Nazi leaders had total contempt for religion. Goebbels understood the power of religion as a propaganda tool in a country of people who were historically religiously devout in one or the other of Germany's two most influential Christian churches, Catholic and Lutheran. Hitler even successfully fooled these churches (at least for awhile); the notorious Concordat with the Vatican is an example. Lutheran ministers and the Catholic Vatican originally saw the Nazis as friendly to their own values and goals. Both denominations were fighting "modernity" and embraced Nazism as being a powerful force able to restore people to "old fashioned German values." In time, the churches were fully Nazified and became propaganda arms of the state. 

Historic religious anti-Semitism may have given the Nazis a strong platform upon which to build but it was science and medicine that was the great undoing of the Jews. Once the Jews were defined as a "race" their fate was sealed. Throughout history's inquisitions and pogroms, conversion was always an option of relief. However, one cannot convert from one's race -- which takes us to 9 below.  

9.       RACE/SCIENCE & PUBLIC HEALTH: Fascism always has some racial or biologic “ideal” – broadly it can be merely Caucasian but more narrowly, as with the Nazis, it can become more racially or biologically specific as in the myth of an Aryan race (there is no such thing as an “Aryan” race). In German fascism, science and medicine were twisted by pseudo-scientific eugenic theories that made racial purity, sexual relations, reproduction and any sexual behaviors not deemed beneficial to the state a matter of state controlled "public health and hygiene" policies. The medical community became agents of the state and took control of every aspect of human relations; i.e., physicians decided who could marry, who was fit to breed, who should be sterilized, who must have an abortion, who could not have an abortion, and eventually who even should live or die. 

10.   HYPER-MASCULINIZATION & SEXISM: Fascism is always hyper-masculinized and women do not play key roles in leadership. In Germany, after being given the vote during the Weimar Republic, it was cancelled (and women didn’t seem to mind). Women and men had distinctly different spheres of influence (the woman's was private, the man's public). The wives of public officials were silent and models of Nazi ideals and matronly decorum; they mostly remained out of view.

Although there may be no strong similarities between sexual norms of conduct in the Germany of the 1930s and America of today, there remain interesting points to be considered:

In contemporary America, we should not fail to note the objectification of the female body and how it is "scored" on a scale of 1-10 -- this scoring is now out of the closet; Trump has proven it is acceptable for public men to speak this way. Assigning value according to a particular body type and look divides women into those who are desirable and those who are somehow defective (not totally unlike properties that can be weighted for their view and location). It links back to German fascism in that it subliminally sends messages about which women should breed and which should not. In fascism, mothers are more chosen for their strong racial characteristics than intelligence or other traits.

Through his strutting hyper-masculinity, we see a less-than-subtle suggestion that it is still a masculine prerogative that a man who is attracted to a woman can do as he wishes. Trump grabbing "pussy" is the modern equivalent of a man throwing a woman over his shoulder and taking her against her will. To a certain mind set, Trump is as successful in acquiring trophy wives as he appears to be in acquiring -- and selling off -- properties. This kind of uber-sexuality is also strongly suggestive of the hunter and conquerer -- evoking visceral images of a time when men were men -- and women definitely were not... they were there to please men and procreate. Men who transmit their hyper-masculinity and sexual prowess are in the tradition of the powerful tribal chief. In this world, brute force is prized over intellectualism (which is often seen as effete). 

At first blush, comparing Trump women -- whether in Trump's intimate circle or as in the much broader population of female supporters -- to images of docile, modestly dressed Nazi hausfrauen seems absurd. But is it? I was struck by Melania Trump's demure posture and care to appear the silent partner, more content to raise their son than mess with politics. She has famously said she never tells her husband what to do. This most likely greatly adds to her value as women in the envious eyes of most husbands (how totally perfect: a trophy wife with the added advantage that she never tells her husband what to do!).

What about highly intelligent, highly educated, cosmopolitan Ivanka? Everyone knows she is the brainy one and that she played a powerful role in her father's campaign. Yet during his first appearance with his family in an interview with Leslie Stahl after the election, when asked what her role might be in her father's administration Ivanka blushed shyly and said her job was to be her father's "daughter." It was brilliant stagecraft... and so very hausfrauen. The Trump women may be very modern but they know how to serve their leader.... sorry, I meant husband/father.  It's notable that today, just as it was in Nazi Germany, women supported this kind of blatant misogyny. The Nazis allowed a few women to have some prominent roles so long as those positions were not seen as equal to men or undermining male supremacy. It should be remembered that Hitler had very fierce female surrogates and defenders and Hitler's appeal to German women was powerful.

11.   KLEPTOCRACY:  A kleptocracy is a government where those in power steal or exploit natural resources; more bluntly it is government run by rapacious thieves. While Hitler seemed more immune to the need to steal everything that wasn’t locked down, his friends had no reservations whatsoever. Herman Goring had an insatiable lust for treasures but he wasn’t alone. The Nazis confiscated every national and private treasure available to them. Fascist leaders usually absorb wealth like a sponge grabs water. They are not only NOT business averse, they pave the way for their business friends to make more money for everyone, making them eager to reduce wages, destroy unions, and control labor. Slave labor? Sure, why not? They like that too. Deals are made not for the benefit of the nation or the state; they are negotiated for the benefit of the kleptocrats. Ever hear of kleptomania? Most kleptomaniacs steal baubles on the spur of the moment. True kleptocrats plunder wealthy nations. 

12.   CRONYISM/NEPOTISM/CORRUPTION: This naturally accompanies 11 above. Fascists brazenly reward themselves, their families and their cronies with whatever plunder can be confiscated while they are in control. They will privatize national treasures and resources, operating the entire bureaucracy very often on a mixed corporate/military model. Success and even survival is keyed to loyalty and cronyism; merit has nothing to do with political advancement. The hard disciplined German bureaucracy actually made the engines of Nazism succeed. With very rare exception, most high level Nazis were amazing mediocrities; they had no brilliant gifts as military men, diplomats, executives, or in other professional categories. The were largely party hacks and quacks who were dismissive of the professional soldier, competent executive, and professional statesmen.

One of the first things they did when they acquired the reins of government was purge the ranks of the competent... today we call it "draining the swamp." 

13.   FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS: Oh, fascists love elections – at least in the beginning when they are still trying to put over the con job. Sometimes, however, fascists lose elections and still come out on top.  Case in point: Hitler was actually defeated in the German election of 1932. A little manipulation… and he came in through the back-door. What can I say? Shit happens. 

Here’s one more thing: 

14.   I’ve never seen this last point in any list describing fascism but I always insert it: CULT OF PERSONALITY. Fascism is less ideological than cultish; most fascist regimes fail after the powerful leader is either deposed or dies because the movement is more about the leader than any pure ideology (differing from communism which is truly ideological and international vs cultish and nationalist).

Fascism is a top down movement led by an iconoclastic strong leader with great rhetorical skills able to incite the passions of the people. A good case of sociopathy, willingness to brazenly lie without any concern whatsoever for truth, and an ability to create a close knit utterly ruthless cohort of close friends is essential. Experience in public office is meaningless. Hitler never held a job in his life before he started percolating out of the scum and he certainly never held any elected office, not even Lower Slobovian Swine Inspector.

Compared to Hitler, Donald Trump is a veritable wonder of achievement. 

Perhaps the most essential trait a demagogue must possess is an utterly unshakable belief in his own greatness. He must see himself as a man of Destiny. So must his followers; anyone who doesn’t is in danger. Demagogues are notoriously thin-skinned. Naturally, they surround themselves with fawning sycophants. Occasionally, some Machiavellian genius will get into the inner circle; they don’t actually believe any of the crap about the cult leader’s perfection – but they know how to manipulate it to their advantage.  

Hitler’s very title der Fuhrer (the Leader) had messianic meaning and messiahs deserve blind obedience. They are appointed by a higher power to save a nation in dire need.

A mythic Hitler transcended any concepts of nationhood; all loyalty flowed directly to him and all power flowed from him down. Thus, there arose the Fuhrer Principle (Fuhrer Prinzip) where it could actually be said to the people – and accepted by them – that “Hitler is Germany and Germany is Hitler.” The law was what Hitler decreed it to me. Everything was what Hitler decreed it to be. Hitler lived in a bubble; he lived in his own skewed toxic reality and he succeeded because he sold it to others who bought it hook, line, and sinker.

With the right balance of strength and toxic character flaws, a fascist-leaning sociopath can turn the world upside down.

What does this have to do with this being Day 12?

 I don’t know. You tell me. Are we in deep shit, or what?

Let's roll...

The calls, emails, texts, and Facebook inquiries started rolling in Tuesday evening as the election was clearly going south… by midnight it was clear what had happened and I was, like so many of you, physically ill. I went to bed knowing that there would be no good news in the morning.

I saw the trend, did the math, knew the truth.

I slept lightly, tossing and turning, and after a few minutes of troubled dreams I’d wake and then reality would punch me in the gut: “Trump has won.”

And I’d want to puke.

I know that feeling so well… it was exactly what I experienced the night of the day Richard died… after troubled dreams I’d wake and then reality would punch me in the gut: “Richard is dead.”

And I’d want to puke.

But honestly? It was worse. Can you believe that? Trump winning the White House was more horrible to me than the death of my beloved husband.

I thought I was nuts… “Get a grip, Maureen…” I told myself and I felt guilty. Really, really guilty. What could be worse than losing Richard? It was absurd. I chalked it up to being too much to bear in so short of a time. I told myself I only felt such despair because the election fell so close to Richard’s death.  Profound grief screws you up profoundly.

But Trump evokes fear and grief for my nation. It is worse than any sense of loss I have ever felt.  Quite frankly, I’ve never known fear like this. My training in history is not particularly helpful.

However, I didn’t have much time for introspection (more will certainly come later) because Wednesday  is one of the 3 days a week  I teach a unique, specialized course to high school students, “The History of Medicine” -- so I gulped coffee and checked emails, Facebook and text messages. I couldn’t bear to put on the news so I didn’t… I couldn’t bear to see Hillary concede and Trump bask in victory.

I shuffled through my class notes, tried to focus on the day’s lecture, what discussions I needed to provoke, and made a note to follow through on getting updates from each student about their research projects. I had a lot to squeeze into a 50-minute class.

I tried hard to focus on the immediate moment but my mind kept returning to both the future and the past…

Then I saw the passport renewal form that I’d downloaded sitting there on my desk… and that nauseated feeling returned. I wasn’t planning a vacation; I’d been seriously thinking about fleeing the land of my birth in the event of a Trump victory. I honestly thought it was a very, very long shot that would ever happen.

It was hard to imagine leaving the nation that all of the men in my family fought to preserve since the very first days they arrived from a land dying from a catastrophic politically-induced famine…. Yeah: My Irish stock goes back to the Civil War. We were on the right side of history then and have been ever since.

No matter how I tried, I could not shake my grief and sense of dread.

My father wouldn’t believe this… Omaha Beach, Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Dachau… he wouldn’t believe this! Dad used to laugh about “SNAFUS,” a term I never understood until he finally clued me in when I was old enough to be clued in… “Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.”

“There’s Nothing Normal about how Fucked Up we are now, Dad.” For the first time since he died I actually told him I was glad he was gone.

It was as if I’d gone to bed in America and during the night there’d been a coup like they have in a banana republic or an attack by a foreign power and now the nation was awakening to the horrifying news that some horrible power had seized our government.

I said it before but on Wednesday it had a terrifying new urgency: “You don’t want to be the last Jew out of Berlin.”

I stood at the sink, rinsed my coffee cup, and told Richard I was glad he was dead too because what had just happened would have killed him.

Another thought crept in… How long did the Jews pretend? How long did they continue with the rituals of daily living… dressing for work, washing the clothes, reading bed time stories to the kids, lighting Shabbat candles… how long? How long?

How do you know when the borders are going to be closed? When are you just too damn old to climb over the mountains in the middle of the night? Will you know when you will be arrested… How?

Yes, Trump had brought me to THAT…

One last look at Facebook before I walked out the door told me I had another message; it was from a woman I don’t know but who is somehow a FB friend. She was in a panic; she confided her husband and brother are here illegally. They work very and support her and the kids; she can’t make it without them. She asked if it “is true” there are going to be Immigration Police? She wanted to know if I thought they should all go back now. Please, she asked, tell me if you know…

Good Lord; how the hell do I know?

Then in rapid succession I received text messages from close friends: one Jewish, one gay and the other travelling outside the country. They all wanted to know the same thing we were all asking:

“What the hell has happened to us?!”

Grief and fear… so much grief and fear…

I had to get to class… it had become one of the rituals of my daily living now. “Thank God it’s not U.S. history…” I thought. I pitied the teachers going into those classes on Wednesday all over America.

I should have known better. I should have known A LOT better: My students were waiting.

What are the odds that in a small class of less than 10 a teacher has 2 teens who are transgender? What are the odds? As if life is not tough enough just being a teenager without such challenges, right? Can you imagine being one of those kids living in Trump World?

I saw those 2 first when I walked into the room. Normally ebullient, they were pale, exhausted looking, and subdued.  And then the class seemed to erupt all at once: They pounced on me – What did I think? Was I worried? How the “fuck” did this happen? Words they don’t usually speak in class came tumbling out.

It was an explosion of outrage, confusion and most of all fear.

Everyone has someone they worried about as much as they worried about themselves. This is not a culturally diverse school; we are White Bread Maine but it’s telling how every single kid worried about gays, lesbians and transgender people, they worried about Maine’s few blacks and Portland’s Somali community who are not just black but also immigrants and tend to be Muslim (one kid said “that’s like the perfecta of being super screwed”), they worried about Jews, Wiccans, and also the disabled.

We’ve just begun to discuss eugenics and coercive sterilization and euthanasia in class and so questions turned to that: Did I think we’d ever again have eugenic boards that would forcibly sterilize people? One girl is very concerned about autistic people. I suspect she has a close relative who struggles with that. She knows what the Nazis did to people it deemed “defective.” She was not going to let that happen. “Over my dead body” she said with a force that surprised me.

They all thought Trump was a pervert.

“How can a pervert become president?”

One boy correctly pointed out what would happen to any other guy who grabbed women’s genitals.

“What about Russia? Do you think it’s true about Russia?”

“Do you know the Ku Klux Klan endorsed him?”

“How the hell did this happen?”

"He doesn't even believe in global warming!"

One guy said grimly, “my mom cried all night” and another announced gravely “this must be like when people heard Kennedy was shot.” A girl said “my mom said it’s like 9/11” and another informed us her grandfather told her once that he was only 7 when Pearl Harbor was attacked and she announced “he knew it changed his life forever.”

“...changed his life forever…”

That ricocheted around the room like a gun shot.

They wanted me to assure them Donald Trump has not changed their lives “forever.”

I was overwhelmed and said so. You cannot lie to teenagers. They see through it immediately. There can be no baby-talk assurances that there are no boogey men under the bed. They will look at you like you are a total moron and they will be right: you are a total moron if you talk to them like that.

I’d never lie to those kids for several reasons. Obviously, they would see through me immediately and toss me to the curb like just another adult asshole, but most of all because I respect them so much. They truly deserve better. The kids in my class are kind, caring, and smart. I am honored that they like me (incredibly, one student once said “I love you Maureen!” in a moment of teenage dramatic hyperbole – but while I know I’ll never forget that moment, I also know she’s probably forgotten it already – which is as it should be).

No, I will not betray their trust and I refuse to be just another adult asshole -- but I cannot harm them further so the truth still needs to be doled out with hope... and after all, why shouldn't it be? As much as I feel it possible to predict the future now, reason also tells me I really cannot.

I had no well of personal hope in which to dip so I found hope in the voices of the truly great. First I shared my favorite Martin Luther King saying that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Of course there had to be FDR’s words that “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Then I took them back even further to the sanctity of a bloody battlefield of the Civil War, the place where  Lincoln spoke of a great task remaining before a divided people and consoled them by telling them that those who had given the “full measure… shall not have died in vain…” and I shared how Lincoln led his nation into hope by encouraging them to look to a higher power and dig deep into their own good character so that they might enjoy a “new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

There was one thing I avoided and it was any discussion about the Fall of Rome or any other of the many civilizations that have fallen and perished.  There may be time for that someday, but not now.

For now it is only for me to know about those cataclysmic events.

Shadow is allowed to come to school with me which is wonderful. He adores the kids and they adore him – not only those in my class but all the students. You’d be surprised how often some stressed out teenager kneels down and wraps himself or herself around Shadow’s study frame. The kid will say sheepishly “Oh I love this dog so much” or “I really need to hug him right now.”

Shadow loves it and instinctively leans into those kids. Then with a great sense of pride he looks at me with those large brown soulful all-knowing eyes and says “See mom, see how this kid needs me?”

I see it. The whole faculty sees it.  The kids see it. And this past Wednesday Shadow was endlessly hugged, squeeze, pet and even kissed. We all needed it.

I didn’t hear a single kid boast about Trump’s victory but one girl informed us that her dad voted for Trump and announced that she told her father she hates him now.

“No, no, you can’t say that to your father ever. You need to apologize to him. Please.”

She said chillingly, “But my dad betrayed his own daughter.” I managed to extract a weak promise that she’d try to talk to her dad and work it out because of course he loves her and she loves him. She listened but her emotions were raw and she wasn’t ready to give in… but I suspect she’ll come around.

The pain runs so deep. The Civil War, oh the Civil War… And then there was Berlin and before all of that there was Rome…

I can’t even keep the history straight I am so rattled.  All those ruined families… all those human tragedies…

So it went. Shadow did his bit and I did mine – and the other faculty did theirs – and the kids even did theirs.

Then Shadow and I went home and he followed me into my office and saw me pick up that half-completed passport renewal application – and watched as I tore it to pieces.

“Shad, we’re not going anywhere buddy boy. Everyone has to die somewhere and this country is our home and you and I are going to die here. If the adults leave, those kids are really screwed.”

He knew that already.

And so this is my response to your calls, emails, text and Facebook messages: I’m not going to any foreign country.

God Bless all of us – but most of all our children.

Now, let’s roll.

We have a helluva’ lot of work to do.

______________________

Note: I have not failed to notice that today is Veterans Day. Originally called Armistice Day to commemorate the end of “The Great War” (not yet called WWI since no one knew there would be a WWII), it was later expanded to include all veterans of all the services and all the wars in our history (thus, “Veterans Day”).

If you are old enough to read this blog then you are already a veteran of something… life is a war zone and that is the truth.