World Sleep Day (and its poster girl - or the one who should be)

Today is World Sleep Day. Yes, there is such a thing.

I have been neglecting blog fans of the Feline Bishop Extraordinaire, the Right Reverend Maya Pavlova. Just because she is on Facebook (on my FB page - she does NOT have her own FB page) doesn't mean her bloggy fans should be deprived of her presence! As I inch back into blogging, I present you with the latest photo, taken just minutes ago.

She really should be the poster girl for World Sleep Day. Don't forget to nap today -- or tomorrow on Shabbat.

Thirty Years: An AIDS Anniversary

Thirty years ago today, on June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the first cases of AIDS in the United States.

My friend Wormwood's Doxy, an HIV/AIDS education professional, has written a moving anniversary essay at her blog. Read it here.

Once you have recovered from reading it --it may take you a few hours; it is an intense and beautiful essay-- come back here and read my offering for this day, written 23 years ago, in 1988, when I was in my thirties.

This commentary, minus the three paragraphs in red brackets, was published and distributed by Religious News Service (now called Religion News Service) on July 12, 1988 under the title "The Names Project Quilt Makes Beauty Out of Horror."

At the time I wrote the essay, I was working on my first book, Generous Lives: American Catholic Women Today (William Morrow, 1992; pbk Triumph/Liguori 1993), and was employed as a program developer raising funds for The Hospice at Mission Hill, the first residential hospice for people with AIDS in Boston.

The AIDS Quilt was on its first major tour around the U.S. and was displayed in its entirety on the National Mall in Washington, DC in fall of that year. I went to see it at what was still called the Boston Armory.

I have altered only a few tiny grammar and style details and have left in the language I used back then, only seven years after the anniversary we commemorate today. (For instance, I never use "minority groups" or "minorities" to mean people of color or minoritized groups these days, but I did then. The Soviet Union was still the Soviet Union in 1988, so I left that in. What is now the U.S. Postal Service had another name.)

The pandemic is still with us, all over the world. This essay is a slice of life.

Many of the students I teach were not even born when I wrote these words.

The Quilt

Cambridge, Massachusetts
June 23, 1988

In Stockholm last week, medical researchers from around the world tracked the elusive virus and its deadly mysteries. In Boston a massive quilt unfolded for four days, stitched by thousands of Americans as a memorial to people who have died of ADS. The quilt, sponsored by the Names Project, is as different from other memorials to the dead as AIDS is different from the other diseases that have plagued us. It is not made of stone and anchored in the ground, but portable and soft, organic, making its way around the nation, still growing.

More than a week after my visit to the Quilt, its impact will not go away. The first emotional shock, for visitors, is the sheer magnitude and diversity of the project, row upon row of remembered lives, presented in sophisticated patterns and hesitant stitches, in all materials from denim to organza. Some panels show only a name and dates of birth and death. Others literally bear pieces of people's lives: articles of clothing, photographs, locks of hair. One has the ashes of the person it commemorates sewn into a corner.

The Names Project is meant, according to its founder, San Francisco gay activist Cleve Jones, to give "a glimpse of the lives behind the statistics" as it travels around the country. Men, women and children sewed for relatives and lovers and for people they had never met. There are crosses and stars of David, hearts and teddy bears and pictures of cats, insignia representing the military and the medical professions, pennants from Yale and Columbia. On one panel is the portrait of a proud, handsome Black man, with a written tribute to his character and commitments. Another, with a child's pink dress sewn onto it, says only "La Hijita de Dios," "the little daughter of God." All over the panel, serving as background design, are small diaper pins.

And then there is the second shock: youth. Over half the panels bear dates of birth and death. I stared and subtracted: twenty-five years old; thirty-nine; twenty-two; two years old. The overwhelming majority of those who have died, who are now ill, who are HIV-positive, are young. Mothers embroider love letters to lost sons on the cloth. Nothing prepares one for this, even the experience (which I share) of having young loved ones among the dead. It is like walking in an old New England cemetery and coming across a child's stone marker among the graves.

We speak a lot these days about the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users, among heterosexuals, into minority communities, through mothers to their babies. The Quilt is beginning to show the impact of these facts. But still the names are mostly those of men --young men, gay men. I am reminded of the population charts in the Soviet Union, on which the curve dips at the males who were young adults during World War II. We have not even begun to measure the trauma and devastation which AIDS has brought to an entire generation of an entire community. "I am angry," says a friend, "that at the age of 29 I must deal constantly with multiple deaths, with friends losing their strength and the use of their bodies, with grief and hospitals and burials and loss. " "Many of us are finding it hard to plan for the future," says another: "Is there a future for me? Will my closest friends till be here in five years? Will I?"

I think of the shock after the death of a single loved one, how it leaves one numb and split open all at once, with the feeling of being both wrapped in cotton wool and bled raw. Multiply this by six and twelve and fifty in the life of one person; multiply that by hundreds. Only after doing this can one measure the emotional impact of AIDS, the massive grief of whole communities, spreading around the nation.

"Wrenching" and "healing" --in the same sentence-- are the words I have heard and used most often to describe the Names Project. This witness to multiple deaths is also about the fullness of life. Most of the panels remember people not as they were in their last days, weighting eighty pounds and unable to bathe themselves or walk to the toilet, but as they were in life, designing theatre sets and playing ball, lovers of glitz and glitter or of hikes in the mountains, speaking and singing in Spanish and English, eating and drinking. A panel dedicated to a mail carrier features the arm of his blue uniform with the "U.S. Mail" emblem, cradling a small teddy bear. The rest of the panel is an uproarious burst of color: a golden peacock, a sunflower, cloth letters of a name in rainbow colors, pictures of California life.

Still, for some of the survivors, the colors battle against bleak memories. "I can no longer remember him healthy and live," says a woman I know of the friend for whom she made a panel. "I always remember him the other way."

All the panels tug at the heart. But for each visitor there were a few that hit the core and that linger, triggering floods of anger, grief, or tenderness. For me one of these was the pink "Hijita de Dios." Another featured two men's shirts sewn on with their arms entwined. "Though lovers shall be lost love shall not," Dylan Thomas wrote in "And Death Shall Have No Dominion." The first verse of this poem is printed on the third Quilt panel that lives on inside me. Long before AIDS, before the wasted bodies and lost minds, before the dementia, Thomas wrote:

"Though they go mad they shall be sane
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again."

"Death shall have no dominion." I cannot shake this phrase from my mind, trying to summon the stubbornness of life against the slow creep of death.

[The Vietnam Memorial changed forever our experience of monuments to the dead. Like the Vietnam Memorial, the Quilt is a live place, no lonely obelisk in the town square but a place of meeting and community. The Vietnam monument grows bits of life; the first day I went, on a wet December morning, a small flag with a spring of heather tied to it was propped up against the wall almost lost in the mud and brown oak leaves. The rain cause the black wall to shine and reflect my face back to me. There were names on my reflection, some of them familiar last names. The people I knew who bore these names were still alive; but I began to wonder. Was this a relative of the person I knew? Could it have been my friend, given a different lottery number, another set of circumstances? The boundaries crumbled. There was no barrier left between "them" and "us."

The Names Project takes this kind of memorial experience further, deeper. At the Vietnam Memorial, people talk, embrace, weep, ask questions. The dark stone brings forth stories because of the power of the names. The Quilt itself tells the stories, spells out the memories in material that almost seems made of flesh. It is also an organic reality: a whole piece of art, but an unfinished one. The epidemic has not stopped growing. Neither, until it does, will this quilt.

It is impossible to stay passive before the Quilt, even more so than before the Vietnam Memorial. This is because it tells stories directly and because live stories lead us to act and to hope, like the retelling of the Passover or the account of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Memories like these do not mire us in the past; they move us to shape the future. But first we go down, into the grief, into the struggle, through the retelling. Without memory, there is no possibility of hope, nor of bringing about the changes that will stem the tide of death.]

As I walked into the exhibit, the first people I saw were a very pregnant woman, a man, and a child. The mother bent over and spoke to her child about a man who had "died of the bad disease." She asked the child, pointing to a panel with a basketball shirt attached and an embroidered basketball, "What do you think this person really liked?" Five years from now, will I be the woman explaining to her child about the bad disease? Fifteen years from now, will this disease still claim lives? Will the Quilt sit in a museum? How many more stories will we need to tell? "No more names!" read a tee-shirt worn by one of the visitors.

The Quilt is a wondrous work of art --colorful, homespun, soft and resilient, quintessentially American, spiritual and political, beautiful in itself and charged with moral energy. It chronicles a catastrophe, like Picasso' s "Guernica," but is crafted by a community rather than a lone genius. Like "Guernica," it makes beauty out of horror. It leaves the viewer torn: grateful for such beauty, for the redeeming power of names and memory, for the healing; and wishing that this thing of beauty had never had to exist, knowing the names will not go away.

* * * * * * * *

This was, of course, long before the internet. The Quilt is now online here. Nothing, however, replaces having seen it, walked around the panels, bumped into a colleague who wept in my arms, and heard the names of the dead read aloud, as has happened at all public showings of this work of art.

Holy Innocents, cont'd: agencies working for children

More on children in commemoration of the Holy Innocents.



United Nations agencies working for the safety and well-being of children include UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency (the initials stand for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.

UNICEF commemorated this year the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Eloquent photo essay, with quotes from the CRC, here.



In the U.S., the Children's Defense Fund is the leading advocacy organization for children. ("We champion policies that will lift children out of poverty; protect them from abuse and neglect; and ensure their access to health care, quality education, and a moral and spiritual foundation.")


Remember that old poster, War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things?

The World Council of Churches' Decade to Overcome Violence (2001-2010) website is here. Did you know that European countries violate children's rights on a daily basis? Every continent suffers from the scourge of violence against children. The Council of Europe's book on eradicating violence against children is here.

Remember also that domestic violence affects primarily women and children. (Need help? Here's the National Domestic Violence Hotline.) An international downloadable (free) book on domestic violence and its causes and consequences is here. Got it from the World Council of Churches' Decade site too.

Children who experience violence in their homes have a strong chance of growing up using violence.

They don't have to. We can interrupt the cycle of violence. Well-loved, healthy children have a good chance of growing up healthy and with alternatives to violence in their experience and in their hearts and minds.

Love a child. Work and vote with the welfare of children in mind. Pray with the images of children before your eyes. Honor the Holy Child and all children. Remember the Holy Innocents.


Photos:

"Immigrant children, Ellis Island, New York." Brown Brothers, ca. 1908. Records of the Public Health Service. The National Archives.

"Two Latin girls pose in front of a wall of graffiti," Lynch Park, Brooklyn, NY, June 1974. Danny Lyon. 1999 print from the original 35mm slide.Records of the Environmental Protection Agency. The National Archives.

Child rape victim from war in eastern Congo. Hazel Thompson, The New York Times. See related article and slide show.

Son of domestic violence survivor. From The American Domestic Violence Crisis Line [different from the above hotline] via globalgiving.org.

Children posing for a photo, India. Target Magazine #2, 2007 (TEAR-Australia, "engaging Christians in God's work of justice and compassion")


This post was composed between Dec. 28 and Jan. 1 and posted Jan. 1 using a Dec. 28 posting date.

Not so random theological quotes

I am convalescing. Whether or not the bug was H1N1 is unclear, since I have half of the symptoms from the "nope, it's not H1N1" column and half the symptoms from the "yup, you got it" column. Either way, I have been sick, without a fever but with a lot of lung involvement and some head and nose heaviness as well. The latter went away relatively fast; the former is lingering. Much better the last two days, though.

I am back at work at my theological writing during this fall break (which gave me the time to be sick and sleep and now gives me the time to think a little). I'm up against a deadline, so the time for coherent posts has not yet returned, but I'll share with you some quotes from the works of authors I have been reading and about whom I have been writing.

So this first. We're not in light material here.

To believe in God means to take sides with life and to end our alliance with death. It means to stop killing and wanting to kill, and to do battle with apathy which is so akin to killing. It means an end to the fear of dying and to its counterpart, the fear of failure. To take sides with life means to stop looking for some neutral ground between murderers and their victims and to cease looking upon the world as a supermarket in which we can buy anything we want so long as the price is right and the system is preserved.

******-- Dorothee Sölle, Death by Bread Alone
********(German original 1975; English, 1978)

Reminder:

But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)

More Sölle:

****Taking sides with life is not an easy or simple thing, It involves a never-ending process of change whereby we constantly renounce the self that is dead and enamored of death and instead become free to love life. To take sides with life and experience how we can transcend ourselves is a process that has many names and faces. Religion is one of those names. Religion can mean the radical and wholehearted attempt to take sides with life. ...

****What I have to say is said from a particular point of view. I am a Christian. When I seek help against that ever-present death by bread alone I turn instinctively to Jesus Christ, learning from him how to fight and conquer death. I do not claim, however, that this way is the only way to do so. I know many Jewish, humanist, socialist individuals and groups who, with the help of other guides and patrons and saints, fight the same battle and have similar experiences. As far as I am concerned it is not important or necessary that we all embrace the same faith, perhaps some common faith of humanity, What is important is that people be able to communicated and share their religious experiences.

****Turning to religion must not mean turning away from each other but rather turning to each other. When I try to say what Christ means to me, threatened as I am by the strangling death that is all around us, I am trying to speak about the steps that can lead all of us out of the prevailing state of death. The recollection of Jesus derives its power not from “one-way” slogans and bumper-sticker theology but from what that recollection says about happiness, peace, love, and justice. It speaks of those things not as requirements or demands to be imposed upon humanity, but as things that can and do happen in the lives of each of us. One of the things the Jesus tradition says is that learning to love means also–indeed primarily–learning to die, and therein lies the offer of finding our identity.

**** Jesus took sides with life. He battled against death wherever he found it: the death of outcast lepers with whom none would speak, whom none would touch; the death of the publicans whom society held in utter contempt; the physical death of those who had not yet begun to live. Here note must be made of something without which Jesus’ relationship to death cannot be understood. Neither Jesus nor those who, like him, battle against violent death looked upon a physical death as the worst thing that can happen to us. They feared a life that is ruled and controlled by death more than they feared death itself…. For Jesus and others like him natural death is by no means the greatest enemy.

****But Jesus’ attitude toward death and that of others like him is contrary to ours. We prefer to cling tenaciously to the “honeysweet Christ.” We want no part of the Christ of vinegar and gall. We accept more or less as fate the kind of death that surrounds us in all its forms, the kind of death imposed by society’s structures and forces; war and starvation; robotized, impersonal existence; the monotony and routine of going through the motions of living. But what we struggle against is natural death from sickness and age, regarding it as our bitterest foe. It is natural death that we fight and resist with every means at our disposal. …

****The desire for a future life and for some form of continued personal existence is most deeply rooted in the resistance to death of those who have not lived an authentic and genuine life. The only weapon against such death is that of love. Those who die without ever having plunged into the stream of love die a hopeless death. Death can be accepted only by those who know what it means to live. Only they can take sides with life against the death that comes by bread alone.

****Being a Christian means that we have passed from death to life. We have gone beyond death. In the case of a Christian, the biological order of birth followed by death is reversed. The Christian dies first, then [s]he is born. Passing from death to life, the individual Christian will not need such a crutch as the hope of reunion in heaven with loved ones. Nor will the Christian need the crutch of a hope for continued personal existence in a heavenly realm. Absolutely nothing –not even the knowledge of our transitory personal existence—can separate us from the love of God.

************-- Dorothee Sölle, Death by Bread Alone


Discuss...

Image: "Jesus of the People" by Janet McKenzie

A day of mindfulness: more in the "DO SOMETHING for Health Care Reform" series

I promised you a mindfulness exercise for Tuesday and it's Thursday. I really ought to remember that Tuesday and Wednesday are my long days at work. I did, mindfully, watch two presidential speeches, one each day. I will post links to them, back-dated, so you will find them below soon.

What I meant to do, though, and I am doing now, is to invite you to take a break from the politicking and letter-writing and move into a day of mindfulness about health. Your health. The health of others. What constitutes good health.

This goes beyond good health insurance coverage, of course. A few times today and this evening, observe your breathing. Then take some deep, slow, breaths.


When you get up, what do you do for your own health and well-being? What does your understanding of health include in your daily life? Sleep? Food? Exercise? Drinking water? Laughter? Community? Spiritual practice? (For some this means prayer or meditation, for others it may mean Tai Ch'i or reading or baking. Think about what this means for you.) Intellectual or physical activity? Creative work?

As you go about your day, do you think about your health? In what way? What is the place of self-care ? How much time and energy does worrying take? Do you have one or more conditions that require treatment or visits to health practitioners?

Simply observe. Do not judge.

As you go about your day, do you think about the health and well-being of others? In what way? What form does this take? Who are the others? Are they persons and animals who are members of your household? Are they at your workplace? In your congregation or other community of spiritual practice? Are they at the place where you volunteer?

Take your time. Notice.

Are there ways in which "health" becomes particularly concrete for you? Are there ways in which "health" is an abstraction?

What happens when you take time simply to observe, to notice, and then perhaps to name, taking time out from the rush of acting and doing?

See what happens to your day, your health and your approach to health when you consider these questions.

Try to do this without judgment and without undue rush.

If you like, write us in the comments to this post and let us know your observations, experiences, and thoughts.

Peace to you.

The President's health care speech to joint session of Congress: text and video

With thanks to the Huffington Post (a.k.a. HuffPo), here are the text of the speech and, toward the bottom of the text, the full video. (The other videos are just clips.)

It's Write Your Congressfolks Day! Labor Day in the "DO SOMETHING for Health Care Reform" series

It's Labor Day, I taught and held office hours all morning, went home and had a late lunch, went to bed for a nap (not enough sleep last night), and slept for four hours instead of two -- so I am running behind on my Congress post. More in an hour or two in this space!

...and....

Here we go. Happy Labor Day! Health care reform. Contacting Congress. That's today's action.

I mentioned NETWORK yesterday. NETWORK has a very useful resource page which I mentioned yesterday. On this page, among other resources, are those on citizen lobbying. They include, among others, guidelines for communicating with people who think differently (how 'bout that?), tips for writing and calling your Member of Congress, and tips for visiting your Member of Congress in Washington or in your district. Also tips for writing letters to the editor.

The page also includes reflection, meditation, and prayer resources. (NETWORK is a religious organization founded by Catholic Christians, though you will find that the reflection resources are ecumenically pertinent and may even be helpful for persons outside the Christian tradition.)

For now, let's keep it simple:

1. Write or phone your Member of Congress and your two Senators. Tell them where you stand on health care reform. Tell them clearly. Tell them now. Tell them to act. If they are working actively for either a robust public option or for single-payer care, thank them. Remind them that you are a constituent and that you vote. Stay courteous.

If, like me, you are from Greensboro, NC, here is contact info for your reps and Senators; the Senators, of course, are Senators for all North Carolinians.

2. Here are tips for writing them.

3. Here are tips for phoning them. I found this page particularly helpful.

...more below the photo....



4. Here are tips for visiting them. This is a good one to do with a group of people. Very helpful prep and check sheet. Note: You have to do your homework! Just as the President is about to say to the kidlings.

If you're not in Washington or can't get there, there's always the district office. (The document to which this links includes a link to a directory of Congressional district offices.)

*****Got some spare time tomorrow after the three-day holiday weekend is over? Are you unemployed? Use your time for the common good! You'll feel great.

5. And here, for your meditation, is "Engaging Differences," a reflection, with a few guidelines, on communicating with people who think differently from you.

6. Want to have a resource to watch with your friends, your religious community, your class, your union, your youth group, your family, your community action group, your retirement community? For $5 you can get a video and study guide (which can be used without the video) either in English or in Spanish. It's called "Your Voice Counts" or "Tu Voz Cuenta."
Here is the link to the order forms. The study guide includes all the tip sheets above and more.

Stay on message. Keep it simple. Even a very short note or phone call can make a difference. They count 'em, you know.

A personally written letter carries much more weight than those form postcards they distribute at community events.

If you're not feeling too shy, a phone call is also great. Have a phone-calling party, or buddy up with someone!

I know I'm getting this to you late in the day, but you can do a little prep this evening and then make calls tomorrow when the offices are open. Great time to do it. Skip the gossip at the water cooler and write a letter supporting single payer health care or, at the very least, stating that "the public option is not optional!"

THE PUBLIC OPTION IS NOT OPTIONAL. I just made up that sentence. Use it.

Thank you.

P.S. Feeling uninformed? AARP (which is actually for anyone over 50, you don't have to be retired, and yes, I'm a member) has a handy info page called Health Care Reform: Get the Facts.

P.P.S. The Congressional Progressive Caucus's letter to President Obama supporting a robust public option is here.
Photos: 1) American Planning Association, California Chapter; 2) At Your Service for Seniors.

Tomorrow, Labor Day, we write our Congressfolk; meanwhile, some resources on the legislative process

I will put more details up tomorrow, since it is late and I am prepping for class. Yes, I have to teach on Labor Day, at 8:30 a.m.

Meanwhile, here is your promised civics lesson: how a bill makes its way through the Congress. This comes from Health Care for America Now and it refers specifically to bills on health care reform and especially to HR 3200. Bills, committees, House, Senate, oh my! There is an item called "The Lay of the Land."

Setting aside health care, if you want a nonpartisan "How Congress Works" lesson, this one from Indiana University's Center on Congress is pretty good.

If you want a simple one-page summary of how Congress works, you can look here at a page prepared by STAND, the student-led division of the Genocide Intervention Network.

One of my favorite resources is NETWORK - A NationalCatholic Social Justice Lobby. Founded by sisters in 1971, the network is an excellent civic resource. Like everyone else, NETWORK has gone online. See here and click your way around. I wish the Episcopal Public Policy Network were half as helpful. NETWORK's health care efforts, with some good information, are visible here.

One of the things I like about NETWORK is that they are accessible. The material is clear and user-friendly. It also is religiously and ethically informed. There's a legislative action center. And there are educational resources. More tomorrow from these good folks, especially how-to tips. (Some of the how-to tips are from that page of resources, but I'll zero in on the ones we need to contact our Congressfolk.)


Click to enlarge.

Tomorrow: How to contact those Senators and Representatives, and a little pep talk as usual.

Tuesday: A mindfulness practice related to health care and health care reform.

Later in the week: Media-related things, as promised.

Blessings, all.

I wrote my letter. Did you write yours?

See below. Today is write-the-President-about-health-care-reform day.

And if you wish, share what you wrote, or what you are thinking, or any related information about health care reform and action for health care reform, in the comments to this post or to the post below.

Thank you.


Tonight: a little something on those folks whom we elected to represented us in Congress.

"Do Something" Series: Dear Mr. President...

Tomorrow is letter-writing day.

No, it's not a national holiday or some Hallmark-fabricated day. It's letter-writing day tomorrow because we all needed time off today (I am writing this very late on Saturday night - in fact, after midnight, but I'll back-date this post), because it's a long weekend and we have time to write a couple of letters, and also because I said so.

I hereby pledge to write President Obama tomorrow, Sunday, September 6.

On Monday, Labor Day, I will write my two Senators and Representatives. But we'll get to that tomorrow.

I'm keeping things simple in this DO SOMETHING About Health Care Reform Series. There are other more sophisticated bloggers to whom I will eventually link. I'm just a citizen trying to inform herself and her friends and determined to act. I can't stand apathy.

I invite you to keep me company and to write the President as well. Tomorrow. Today, by the time you read this. Sunday. September 6.

Once you have done this, check in with us here and leave us a comment to confirm that you wrote President Obama. Yes, this is a support group, and also a kick in the pants. Call it what you will, but DO SOMETHING. Politely, of course.

Details, information, and help below.

1. Remember the President is giving a speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. The speech will be about health care reform.

2. Bill Moyers is (in the words of Father of Acts of Hope in a book review a few years ago) a national treasure. He socked it to us, and to President Obama, and to the talk shows and Pfizer and a few other entities, in a special message at the end of his show on Friday night.

"....As it is, we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As we speak, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion dollars as a civil and criminal — yes, that's criminal, as in fraud — penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It's the fourth time in a decade Pfizer's been called on the carpet — and these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits.

Here's a suggestion, Mr. President: ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com . He's a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn't split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He's offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan; one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President.

This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter. "

That's the end of the message. To watch the whole thing, go to Moyers's website and click on the video here. (The video is also bopping around on YouTube.)

You can also read the text of the message here or at DailyKos.

3. The major House bill on health care (there are others) is HR 3200. A helpful site from the Annenberg School called factcheck.org debunks some of the lies about it here.

4. Sometime this week we'll post various information sources, but for now, here is a link to one of the more reliable ones, the Kaiser Family Foundation. The health care reform part of the website is here. For a comparative chart of the various health reform plans, go directly here, or click the link on the health reform page. For a history of health care reform efforts in the U.S., click here.

5. Head spinning? You can always go back to this simple presentation.

6. I support single-payer health care. You may or may not. Whether or not you do, I am assuming that you want some kind of health care reform in this country. Write the President and tell him. Be as specific and clear as possible. A brief letter is fine. In fact, it's best.

7. Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) supports single-payer health care, and explains it, too. There's a petition at PNHP, if you are feeling lazy about writing a real letter to the President. There are petitions everywhere. I suggest you do both: sign one of those easy petitions AND write a real letter, which can be an e-mail.

8. Easy e-mail form to contact the President here. Use it.

Also:
The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
(They ask that you include your e-mail address even if you write snail-mail.)

Phone contact:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414\
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD
Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

Tomorrow: A little civics lesson on bills and Congress, and another letter-writing day, with information on how to contact your Congressfolk.

Soon: Write your local newspapers. Write the TV stations. Write a magazine. Peeved at the media? Do something about it. We'll help you to do so.

Remember: We welcome your suggestions, stories, and links. I am the final editor, in consultation with the local feline, but I will read whatever you send mindfully.


Photos nicked from my friend janinsanfran's blog, "Can It Happen Here?", one of the best personal blogs on public issues. The photos are from a rally of elders for health care reform.

DO SOMETHING for health care reform every day: a series begins

Occasionally we have a series here at Acts of Hope, a mix of information, inspiration, and advocacy. We seem to do this roughly once a year, though not by design.

There was the fund-raising and Latin American theologies series. The beneficiary of our (and other blogs' - this was a group project) fund-raising was an Anglican parish in a very poor neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. By the way, I have an update on the parish of Cristo Rei from our friend Luiz which I have been meaning to post and which will go up this weekend.

Then there was the Obama election series.

I'm doing it again.


Some of you may have been involved, the last 48 hours, in the Facebook series that asked you to post to your daily updates the following message: No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

I didn't do it.

Not because I don't agree --I do and then some-- but because I felt that for the most part it would be preaching to the converted and that if my eyes were starting to glaze over from the message, other people's would. And mostly, because I think we need to DO something.

Like my other friends and colleague who want health care reform and who prefer either a public option or plain ol' single payer health care, I rant and complain, but more than half the time, I don't do anything. Meanwhile, there are lies and distortions all over the place, our local and national media don't get complaint letters when they spread those lies or when they fail to do their job as public educators, the noisy rude folk dominate the public forums (or maybe they don't, but they sure get the coverage), and our Congressfolk don't hear from us. A few of them have spines, but the others will not develop them till we remind them that we are the ones who will re-elect them -- or not. And that they work for us.

And we bitch and moan (pardon my language) about the President we worked hard to elect when he doesn't change massive systems with the wave of a magic wand. Then, of course, we will blame him for everything.

How do you think we got him elected?

HARD. WORK.

PUBLIC. INVOLVEMENT.

TIME. ENERGY.

It's our country, these are our bodies, this is our health care system we want to change. And we have no right to complain unless we act.

Thus, I am starting a series here. It's partly to get myself off my duff and have a place to be accountable and partly because besides I am at heart several things --artist, priest, and yes, organizer.

I don't have time for this either, but it's too important to leave alone.

I don't fully know what will be in this series, but I pledge to put something useful here every day. Information, education, ways to act, analysis, commentary, reporting. It won't all be mine. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. I will link to other sources and to people who know more than I.

And yes, I will write, this weekend, a short report on our Greensboro public forum on health care, with a little something on Teddy Kennedy.

I am also doing this in part in memory of Kennedy, who was my Senator for many years and was still, at the time of his death, my parents' Senator.

Feel free to send me (in the comments or via e-mail) information and links and suggestions.

Uncivil speech is not welcome; I will delete it; don't even try. Conversation is another matter. Conversation is good. Disagreement is fine if it is reasoned and polite. And lament is fine too: there is plenty to lament. But lament is the beginning of resistance and healing. Or can be.

Stay tuned. And thank you for reading this and for caring for the common good.

If you haven't see this video about the why of government-run health insurance, have a look.

P.S. I'll still post other things, too. This isn't turning into The Health Care Blog.

Mural "Community Caring, Community Healing" by David Fichter. Martha Eliot Health Center, Jamaica Plain, MA.

Health care, cont'd: let me draw you a picture

Yes, yes, I will get back to blogging! Thanks for bearing with me, friends. I am cooking in my head a post that combines a report on the local forum on health care reform and a tribute to Senator Edward Kennedy, whose wake and funeral I have been watching during the last few days.

Meanwhile, here is a new animated cartoon explaining why we need government-run (akh! socialized! just like your fire and police departments and Medicare) health care. Skeptics and advocates, whoever you are, have a look here.

Greensboro, NC people: Health Care Forum TONIGHT

Citizens, time to show up.

Especially
a) if you are sick of uninformed, stupid, and hate-filled rhetoric
and b) if you would like us to we have genuine health-care-delivery and -insurance reform and keep the public option* on the table.
* or some proven workable alternative, see Krugman or better yet, this (which also quotes Krugman but is more factual and is a nice clear summary of the options)
******************
Oh, and c) if you have a body and are a U.S. citizen or resident.

* * * * * * *

The State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC) is hosting a

***************

Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform

***********

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19 (tonight)

6:30-8 p.m.

**********

at the Teamsters Union Hall (Sandy Ridge Road & I-40)

Greensboro

The meeting is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. It will give state employees, retirees and other community members the opportunity to ask questions to elected officials, and medical and business professionals about how the current debate over health care reform will impact people in N.C.

Please help spread the word about this event. (Jane says: Please show up!)

For more information about the Town Hall Meeting, contact Heather Welborn at (704) 609-5906 or hwelborn@seanc.org.

If you would like to contact your U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative directly, contact information is listed below. Web sites listed have "Contact" links for sending e-mails.

Senator Kay Hagan
Greensboro Phone: (336) 333-5311
Washington Phone: (202) 224-6342
Web site: hagan.senate.gov

Senator Richard Burr
Winston-Salem Phone: (336) 631-5125
Washington Phone: (202) 224-3154
Web site: burr.senate.gov

Representative Brad Miller (District 13)

Greensboro Phone: (336) 574-2909

Washington Phone: (202) 225-3032

Web site: bradmiller.house.gov

Representative Mel Watt (District 12)
Greensboro Phone: (336) 275-9950
Washington Phone: (202) 225-1510
Web site: watt.house.gov

Representative Howard Coble (District 6)

Greensboro Phone: (336) 333-5005

High Point Phone: (336) 886-5106

Washington Phone: (202) 225-3065

Web site: coble.house.gov

A Times editorial on napping!

The New York Times, that is. +Maya will be so happy with this! Check it out. I love it.

Fabulous Father of Acts of Hope Takes on Health Care Reform

Current Events:

PRESENTERS:

[Father of Acts of Hope] & [FoAoH's Friend], MD

OBAMA AND OUR HEALTH:

THE BATTLE OVER HEALTH CARE REFORM

*************

What's wrong with our present system?

What are the proposals for reform? What are the options for reform?

What is the "public option" ?
What about single payer?
What is the timeline?
What's the issue over money? How do we finance reform?
Who are the stakeholders?
What can we do as active citizens?

To discuss this and other related questions

in one of the most crucial
issues of our time,

the next Current Events forum will take place on

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

[time, place]

[at my parents' retirement community]

*************

Both presenters are ninety-ish years old. Go, Daddy!

***************

P.S. FoAoH favors single-payer health care.

Thank you for your prayers for Deenie

Just got an update. (See post below for earlier episode.) Deenie is staying at home. Her lawyer and friend (same person) intervened and did some diplomatic and firm persuasion with the health proxy relative. Thanks be to Godde.

If she goes somewhere besides home at some point, it will be a hospice facility and not that nursing home. But for now, she's not going anywhere.

Deenie was weak but awake today, not entirely coherent, but asked for a bit of food and ate it.

Our mutual friend writes: "So, dear friends, please keep praying for a peaceful passage, and for caring and justice on the part of all around her."

Illustration of Miriam the prophet and her companions, copyrighted, by Bonnie Cohen.

A Deenie update and a note on health care proxy

It has been nearly four years since I moved to North Carolina and I have yet to get a new health care proxy. Don't do what I have done. Take care of this now. Even if you are not old, you may find yourself incapacitated and need someone trustworthy to make health care decisions for you. Many of you have probably been through health care proxy / living will / durable power of attorney (note: these three are not the same thing - consult your state law) conversations with aging parents or ill loved ones. I know our family has had these conversations. But have you dealt with this for yourselves? I have been remiss in taking care of this.

Laws vary state by state. Consult the law for your own state. Those of us who are single and with no adult children need to pay special attention to this. Who is the best person for a health care proxy? Is it a relative or is it a friend? Pay attention to the relationship's long-term dynamics as well as to the person's values. You may also write very specific directives. Not all medical situations are the same. Again, check your state laws on this, talk to a medical professional, to your lawyer, or your clergymember or counselor if you feel more comfortable starting there. This post does not constitute either medical or legal advice. (It does constitute Auntie Jane's advice based on life experience and thirty-five years in ministry and other professional work. The link above will give you a basic definition of a health care proxy and health directives.)

All this to preface the news that Deenie's situation is not good at all.

Thanks, by the way, to Helen --in the comments to the previous update --for all the information. Helen, I can't really give all the details of the primary caregiver and family situation. Suffice it to say that it's not as functional as you would want it to be, so your suggestions, while very good, do not exactly apply. And now the situation is about to change drastically.

Against all advice from the hospice and all pleading from Deenie's friends, the family member who has health care proxy for her has decided to move Deenie from her home (where she has a paid caregiver plus friends who visit all the time plus a good neighbor who is a friend and pops in regularly) to a nursing home on the other side of the city.

(Note to Helen: Deenie is no longer capable of making decisions for herself; she is too weak to oppose other people's decisions.)

This family member was not the original person who had the health care proxy. The original person found him/herself too far away geographically, so Deenie changed the health care proxy, picking this particular family member, we are not sure why; perhaps she hesitated to burden a friend, even though her friends are in many ways her family.

The nursing home in question is not a hospice. It is not set up to help people die comfortably and peacefully and in a loving and serene setting. Our friends have done some research about it and it is not an adequate facility. Deenie has always said --as she did when I visited her and she was still compos mentis-- that she wanted to die at home, not in an institution.

Our mutual friend is trying to see what she can do before tomorrow and has gotten in touch with a family member who is truly devoted to Deenie and is also trying to reach Deenie's lawyer of many years (who is terrific) in hopes that one or both may be able to intervene somehow.

The situation is messy and cruel. Our friend writes that she prays Deenie will die before this move can take place against her wishes.

Deenie's 70th birthday is next Monday.

Kyrie Eleison. Christe Eleison. Kyrie Eleison.

Lord, you now have set your servant free
to go in peace as you have promised;
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,
whom you have prepared for all the world to see:
A Light to enlighten the nations,
and the glory of your people Israel.

My soul gives glory to my God.
My heart pours out its praise.
God lifted up my lowliness
in many marvelous ways.

My God has done great things for me:
yes, holy is this name.
All people will declare me blessed,
and blessings they shall claim.

From age to age, to all who fear,
such mercy love imparts,
dispensing justice far and near,
dismissing selfish hearts.

Love casts the mighty from their thrones,
promotes the insecure,
leaves hungry spirits satisfied,
the rich seem suddenly poor.

Praise God, who loving covenant
supports those in distress,
remembering past promises
with present faithfulness.

God of all consolation,
grant to those who sorrow
the spirit of faith and courage,
that they may have the strength to meet the days to come
with steadfastness and patience;
not sorrowing without hope,
but trusting in your goodness;
through him who is the resurrection and the life,
Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen

(That last one is from the New Zealand Prayer Book.)

Killed by the health care system

Doxy, of recent fabulous wedding fame, has a post up this evening about a friend who just died of uninsured causes. I phrase the cause of death this way because if Terri-Lynn had had health insurance she would be alive today. Do not "individualize" her case. The loss and grief we feel are for a unique person, but the problem is a systemic one. If we had a decent national health system, Terri-Lynn would have been insured.

Terri-Lynn leaves a ten-year-old child with a chronic illness.

Read Doxy's post, "Elegy."

Once we have wept and prayed, or perhaps while we still weep, let's act. Stay tuned. Doxy has one suggestion, but I am sure she and others will follow up.

Here is a clear, persuasive, factual presentation from 1999 on "The Case for Universal Health Care." More recent, and unconnected with the Green Party (to which you will see a reference in the presentation) is the national association Physicians for a National Health Program.* Tolle lege.

* Physicians for a National Health Program is a non-profit research and education organization of 16,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.

Health care is a human right.

A reminder from the feline bishop, for your health

People are often tired and overwrought at this time in the spring. The resident feline bishop thus begs to remind you of her pastoral letter, "On the Necessity of Naps." Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

Note: The bishop is currently napping, but the Canon to the Extraordinary, who is posting this note, is not doing so because she slept almost all morning. This exempts one from napping in the afternoon, though in cases of major necessity one can make exemptions to the exemption.

Grace, peace, and purrs to you from the Right Reverend and Right Honorable Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extraordinaire. Now go and have a nap. Or two.

It's music time: Let It Be

I just posted this on Facebook for a friend who is deep in a writing job and thought I'd share it here for the assembled multitudes. I'm enjoying watching and listening to this video. (Sorry MP, I still love the Beatles.) And for you religious types, this has Mother Mary in it, too. What's not to love?

Enjoy.

With thoughts and prayers for the people of Mexico as they face the swine flu epidemic and the aftermath of an earthquake.