This is another lift from National Public Radio, this time from their "Here & Now" show on August 30, 2022. Under discussion here is Beth Macy's book 'Raising Lazarus.'
The show that I'm focusing on here has to do with what gets called "the opioid crisis" and how we respond to that crisis and the people at Ground Zero in that crisis. I feel overwhelmed by it much of the time. Maybe you share my feelings. Over time I have opposed needle exchanges, and I have opposed legalization of drugs because I have believed that these signal social approval or surrender to something that is bad for people. I remember dope taking over communities in the early 1970s, and I continue to believe that that was used as a means of social control and to put a brake on organizing and protests.
But this story confronts our lack of compassion and attention to what's going on, and I imagine that Beth Macy's book 'Raising Lazarus' does the same. I'm looking forward to reading the book. Some of what is discussed in this story touches upon what I recently blogged about when reviewing the book 'Dopamine Nation.'
This is not abstract for me. I know people who struggle with opioid use, and if you're a working-class person you probably have family or live in a community that has been negatively affected by Big Pharma and doctors pushing pain meds and the illegal trade in these drugs. I come from an area of the country devastated by this and by the social conditions that created and gave room for this devastation. These drugs, and worse ones, seem to be the cause of some terrible suffering where I live now as well.
I'm ashamed of my past lack of compassion. I think that this interview makes a strong case for harm reduction rather than the policies that we have in place now. I'm still not in the legalization camp, and I'm not ready to fully embrace the author's view that "anything that gets people to care" is going to be a social good, but I do want to support a version of "barefoot doctors" in our communities, fully resourced, who "raise Lazarus" and get people on the road to recovery. In my mind, recovery entails some kind of progressive social action. It sounds as if Macy agrees with that to some extent.
Macy is telling a true story, with all of the ambiguities that truth entails. As I said, I have not read the book, but it does sound as if she ultimately sees the story she is telling as one of healing and hope.
"Your private hopes and dreams are not idle thoughts of no consequence, but elements of a sacred vision, a roadmap to a more loving future. That is why they are important. They are the shape of things to come. They are an expression of the confidence you have both in yourself and in the power of the Spirit. Never underestimate what you see when you are looking through the eyes of faith. You may be seeing the first hint of a reality you are creating, a glimpse of your legacy to generations yet unborn."
There comes a time in your healing that you have to shift. They traumatized you, abused you, and tried to crush your soul. They haven’t repented, apologized and don’t even seem to care. Can I tell you something beloved…you can’t heal forward holding on to what they did. You can’t get mad enough to make them feel bad for what they did. You can’t deny yourself enough joy, peace and happiness to make them repent.
They continue to try to smear your name, lie on you and try to get a reaction out of you. Can I tell you something…they cannot smear your name to anybody who knows you, loves you or cares about the truth. Yes, it hurts to be lied on…yes, it hurts to have lies believed by the people you thought knew you, had your back, and the people you thought were your friends. Let’s put them in perspective so you can heal forward…they aren’t your friends, they were acquaintances. Friends, people who love you and people who care about the truth don’t believe lies and don’t accept the word of a liar. A real friend won’t believe what somebody tells them about you without talking to you. And a ride or die friend won’t let somebody tell them anything about you that doesn’t agree with their testimony about you. You don’t need those people as friends beloved. Thank God for showing you who they are and praise God for removing them. They were covert baggage not a blessing.
You will experience a shift when you entrust history people to God and get selfish about your healing. They don’t have power, they had power. They don’t have control, they had control. You don’t owe them anything…not a conversation, not a thought and not one second of your healing. You’re not healing for them, you’re healing for you. You’re not healing to reconcile with them, you’re healing to reconcile with your destiny. They aren’t the last or the only, they are 1 out of 7 billion other people on the planet. Get selfish about your healing beloved. It’s not about them, it’s about you. You’re not people dependent, you’re peace, love and joy dependent.
Melissa Harris Perry does my favorite show on National Public Radio. The show is The Takeaway and I think that it is usually engaging and gets to the nuances that make things interesting and complex.
Today's show had a story about healing, whether that was intended or not. NPR described the segment as follows:
More than 55,000 people across the U.S. are incarcerated with the sentence of life without the possibility of parole. This population been rising sharply in the past few decades, with an increase of 66% since 2003, according to research by The Sentencing Project.
For those who are sentenced to live and die behind prison walls, there is a sense that they have been forgotten. But a new project is documenting some of their stories: The Visiting Room Project features interviews with more than 100 men who are serving with life without parole at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola.
The Takeaway spoke with Project co-creator, Dr. Marcus Kondkar of Loyola University New Orleans, and with Mr. Arthur Carter, who was recently released from Angola after his life without parole sentence was reduced.
"I think that once you get a chance to see this is the person that the taxpayers are still holding in prison, I think the question should resonate: why they still are? Why are they still serving life sentences with no possibility of going home?" said Mr. Carter.
Fried bologna ("baloney") is a big thing in Appalachia and parts of the South. This is Tipper and her husband from Celebrating Appalachia showing you how to make it and eat it. We frequently pick up their posts because they're usually so good at celebrating Appalachia. You would not think that you would not need a video to show you how this is done, but this really helps.
Now, when I make fried bologna I use a thicker piece than Tipper does and I singe it. I don't add onions or cheese, but I may add a fried green tomato (not breaded) or mustard or I scramble eggs and put a biscuit on the side. It works. Try it and find your favorite way.
I'm not going to recommend that anyone drink soft drinks or sweet tea or buttermilk, but I imagine that most people who eat fried bologna do drink those. Water or lemonade will do just fine.
There is so much hear to learn from and to take joy in. You can see the Spirit moving at Greenleaf Christian Church and their ministries, but you see the Spirit moving there in ways that you cannot predict. Please take some time to savor this and let it sink in.
"Tonight the drums of the ancestors resound among the dark clouds. Shafts of brilliant light tear open the sky to let the rain pour in from heaven on high. Creation is alert to the power of the holy. Earth opens her arms to the falling rain. All creatures great and small listen to the passing of the storm. It is a sacred time, an invitation to humility. We are such small parts of the greater whole. We are small beings huddled together on a rainy night. We are part of a great pattern, an endless life, a sacred love, that floats across time and space, clouds like ships, sailing the storm-tossed sea."
My nonna (grandmother) used to make these for Christmas. When I tell folks about this who are not from Appalachia or coal-producing regions their first reaction is usually to say "YUCK!" But I do think that this is really good---diabetic coma inducing really good, unfortunately---and I hope that someone out there will give it a try and enjoy it and pass it on.
I lifted this recipe from Jerry Higgins on the "Scenic Harlan Co. and surrounding area" Face book page, but this almost matches the recipe that I have on hand.
ENJOY!
Peanut Butter Potato Candy
1/4 cup unseasoned mashed potatoes 2 tablespoons milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 pinch salt 1 (16 ounce) package confectioners' sugar 1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar for dusting 1/3 cup peanut butter, or as needed
Combine mashed potatoes, milk, vanilla extract, and salt in a bowl. Stir confectioners' sugar into potato mixture until a dough consistency is reached. Refrigerate dough until chilled, about 1 hour. Sprinkle confectioners' sugar on a cutting board or waxed paper.
Roll dough into a large rectangular shape on prepared surface. Spread enough peanut butter on top layer of dough to cover. Roll dough into a jelly roll shape; refrigerate roll for 1 hour. Slice dough into pinwheels to serve.
People who know the difference between a hissy fit and a conniption fit, and that you don't "HAVE" them, you "PITCH" them.
People who know how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up "a mess."
People who can show or point out to you the general direction of "yonder."
People who know exactly how long "directly" is -- as in: "Going to town, be back directly."
People who know that "Gimme some sugar" is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table.
People who can use "fixin" as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.
People who say, "Well, I caught myself lookin'."
Pastor Kalina Malua Katoa
Del McCoury & Friends - Going Up The Country (Canned Heat 1968)
National Public Radio carried two interesting stories on healing today, but the stories covered very different forms and processes of healing.
One story covered how three sisters in Western North Carolina, part of Appalachia, are dealing with carrying a rare genetic mutation tied to Alzheimer's. My heart goes out to these women because they have hard stories and are doing what they can to learn about Alzheimer's and help others and because they come from my demographic. I understand what they're saying and how they're reasoning, though I cannot touch their situation. I get what one of the women is expressing when she says
The next morning I was wallowing in self-pity and what I'm going to miss. I'm going to miss birthdays, and my grandchildren won't know me, you know, as a healthy person. But then on the front porch in the mountains of western North Carolina, I'm rocking, and there's this single cloud in this Carolina blue sky, as we like to say. And I was praying for him to take my worries away. And I'm sitting there rocking, and the single cloud thins and thins and thins, and then, poof, it's gone, and with it, my worries.
And I get what is meant when another of the sisters says
I say it's like the Kennedy compound, except redneck. Some of the houses have wheels on them. But anyway, my dream is to have both of my sisters there in that little house...
and another responds with
The good thing is, we would be surrounded by family and people that have known us since we were children. And so if we walked away, somebody would find us, help us find our way back home.
The story is less about being healed of or surviving Alzheimer's and more about human connection and hope as the means of healing, or connection and hope being the healing that we can get when there are no other remedies.
The second story falls differently. The filmmaker Edward Buckles, Jr. went through Hurricane Katrina when he was thirteen years old. Now here he is with a documentary film, Katrina Babies, that takes up the on-going and unfinished healing still going on after seventeen years after Katrina did so much damage to New Orleans and the region. I believe that the United States has never been the same since, and some of the people who Mr. Buckles interviews make a similar point and do so with more eloquence than I can.
Here is the official trailer from HBO:
The healing here is connected to social justice and all of us taking a hard look at what the United States has become and is becoming.
Perhaps the healing here starts with Mr. Buckles saying "This film is not going to heal everybody. This film has not healed me. But it has opened up a door for me to figure out, "Okay, what does that journey to healing look like?" Because we are not just healing from Hurricane Katrina, we are healing from everything else that we have experienced before the storm and after the storm. And I just want us to know that we can start that journey." Or perhaps it starts with mourning when Mr. Buckles speaks a hard truth by saying "The New Orleans that was filled with families, the New Orleans, where all you really saw was Black people. We were in our neighborhoods, and we owned our neighborhoods, and we took pride in our neighborhoods. I just want people to know that when they're coming through to New Orleans and when they are experiencing all of this great culture and all of this great magic and beauty, that it comes from us. It comes from all of the people who were here before the storm, some of us who are still there after the storm. That's what I want people to know, is that everything that you love about New Orleans comes from us."
There is something universal in something that Mr. Buckles says in the interview. He says "I proposed this idea in the film of the double-edged sword of Black resilience. Yes, we are resilient. Yes, we take pride in our strength. But on the other side of that, is us being viewed as not needing the same help that other people need, because of the fact that we are so strong and we are so resilient. I think that people will like to look at them, 'Oh they're good, they're bouncing back. New Orleans is rebuilt. New Orleans is coming back. They don't need anything. Look at that.'"
What is universal here, or what should be universal, is something that connects New Orleans to Appalachia and that reaches from place to place and across peoples. This talk of "resiliency" and not needing help comes up more often these days. We hear it in Eastern Kentucky now as people try to recover from the floods that took thirty-six lives just a few weeks ago. We hear it from and about Black people as racist wave after racist wave becomes another kind of flooding. And Mr. Buckles is exactly right: this is a double-edged sword because, while there is a truth there, it also sends a message that help isn't needed or deserved. It becomes a way of rejecting government and struggles for social change and of introducing libertarian ideas that will quickly become a Grade B version of survival of the fittest. The "country folks can survive" slogan comes back with the extra meaning that "city people" are a problem, sometimes implying people of color. You will hear similar ideas in hip-hop and rap, but blaming someone else. And here we are in another civil war.
The peoples of New Orleans and Appalachia have more in common than they don't. I'm sure that most working-class people in New Orleans, or those who were forced to leave their city, can fully identify with the desire to have family together in a house and to be "surrounded by family and people that have known us since we were children." Large numbers of people in Appalachia know that they live in "America's internal colony" and should be able to understand something of the experience of the Black Belt South and of being forgotten by those in power. Justice will be to make sure that housing, family, and control over one's circumstances happens, and not to leave housing and family and order up to luck and fate and to who has a gun or a gun and a badge.
I don't believe that we can put preconditions on healing. I know that some folks resist healing or have forgotten how or why it's needed. I have come to believe that we can say in love and solidarity with one another "We don't care if you want it or not or deserve it or not, but we're going to do some healing on you!"
From Central Appalachia a few weeks ago
And a closing quote:
"You have the healing touch, even if you may not realize it. It is not a supernatural gift, but a common gift, one given to us all. We are born to be healers, along with other vocations, to help us navigate this world as vulnerable beings. We have the power to hear one another, to communicate, to empathize. We have the ability to care, to understand and to forgive. We have humor in abundance and comfort to share. We can change a heart with only a smile. We can offer peace and shelter to any in need. You are one of us, the healers of the Spirit."
"Who knows the real you? Who knows your whole story? Most of us have people who are close to us, people we love and trust, who know a great deal about us. The majority of people, of course, know very little about us, even though they may think they do. But there is one person who knows the real story of our lives, who knows even our secret hopes and private fears. The Spirit knows each one of us. Personally. Deeply. And with a profound compassion."
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ~Wendell Berry
After Richard Trumka died last August, Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne praised the late AFL-CIO president as a man who “lived in solidarity.” Dionne cited Trumka’s admission that “we as a movement have not always done our best to support our brothers and sisters of color” as an example of his commitment to inclusion and his insistence that labor live up to its highest ideals.
The concept of solidarity is the most profound expression of these ideals.
Looking back in labor history, the Knights of Labor adopted the slogan “an injury to one is the concern of all” to reflect this spirit of mutual obligation and shared responsibility for the well-being of all workers. Written over 100 years ago, “Solidarity Forever” remains the anthem that is still sung at many labor gatherings. On September 19, 1981, I was proud to attend “Solidarity Day,” a demonstration in Washington, D.C. that brought together over 250,000 unionists and allies to protest Ronald Reagan’s labor and social policies.
“Solidarity is a virtue we neither discuss nor practice enough,” E. J. Dionne declared in his tribute to Trumka. “We hear a lot about compassion and empathy, and certainly need more of both. But solidarity is a deeper commitment, rooted in equality and mutuality.”
My first lesson in solidarity came early in my career, when the United Auto Workers warmly welcomed me as a young United Farm Workers organizer and showed up time and again on our picket lines. This was a union that had triumphed over the nation’s most powerful corporations. It knew what it meant to “live in solidarity,” and was committed to acting on this belief.
I recently learned about some powerful examples of solidarity in an article on a Starbucks strike in Worcester, Massachusetts. Nurses union members taught chants in English and Spanish to the strikers. A semi from a Teamsters local circled the picket line honking in support. The Carpenters Union, the local NAACP president, and elected officials joined the line. As a USPS driver explained, “I literally just pulled up and grabbed a sign.”
Of course, labor’s record on solidarity has been far from perfect. Many unions practiced policies of racial and gender exclusion, refusing to open their ranks or use their power on behalf of those they deemed unworthy. Too often, our movement has allowed jurisdictional and turf concerns to take precedence over mutual aid and support. However, we have fast been replacing “Solidarity Whenever” with “Solidarity Forever,” as labor has increasingly embraced inclusive policies, and more workers are actively supporting fellow workers who are organizing, striking, and seeking justice.
Living in solidarity is not just a matter of personal integrity; it’s also a social necessity. Solidarity presents a clear alternative to the “I’ve got mine, the heck with you” mentality all too dominant in a culture that values self-interest and individualism over mutual obligation and social sacrifice. And we especially need solidarity to confront the clear and present dangers we currently face: the climate crisis; threats to reproductive rights; and frontal assaults on democracy.
On Labor Day 2022, let’s renew our vows and pledge to “live in solidarity.” Then as now, “an injury to one” must remain “the concern of all.”
The entire service from Greenleaf Christian Church is important and worth watching, but if you don't have two hours and forty minutes to give to this please start around 45:11 or 58:00 and give it what you can. Bishop Barber's sermon will give you some needed life lessons, build your faith, and give you courage.
Tonight we pray for the momma who has someone in her family struggling with the swamp of addiction. Lord, this is a difficult road to travel for everyone involved. It is such a rollercoaster of emotions and life. Tonight Lord she needs Your guidance and Your strength and Your peace. She needs wisdom to know what to do next. Please be with her as she takes the next steps for her family. Please grant her sweet rest. We ask in Jesus's name,
Amen.
Exciting News!
Y'all Becky is reading our nightly prayers over on our Instagram account with soft background music. Check out our new reels. It may be just what you need in this season. Find us at midnightmomdevotional on Instagram.
"I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, except for one thing: I do know that whatever happens, all those under the umbrella of love will come through the day together. None will be left behind. None will be forgotten. All will be valued. We will help one another across the finish line of nightfall. And who gets access to this special kind of love? Everyone. Anyone. All we have to do is open our hearts to loving others as the Spirit loves us: without hesitation or qualification, an acceptance that sets our souls free for any tomorrow that may come."
"Sometimes I think my spiritual outlook could be explained in two words: keep going. It may seem like a bare and simple kind of philosophy but there is more than you might think. The foundation is a very fundamental truth: we cannot predict the future other than to say it is unpredictable. So my vision begins with “keep” going because it assumes we are already going, already deep in life and moving the best we can. Going is about knowing our direction, keeping our strength, and celebrating the challenge of the journey. Life will be what it is: keep going."
"Love is the strongest force in the universe. We must keep walking in the direction of love, no matter what we hear and see around us. No matter our human failures. No matter what happens, or appears to happen. And if we are thankful for that love, the power magnifies. Forgiveness is a process of love. Love is not bound by religion, belief system, or man-made laws. Our human minds cannot comprehend the immensity of it. We are lit by it, or we would not be here. Some smother the light with fear and acts of fear. Others tend their light and they light the world. Breath feeds the light. Breathe deep today, and continue walking toward that which will enlighten, no matter what burdens you are carrying of shame, grief, or fear. No one can buy their way or push their way ahead of everyone else. We are all in this together." ~Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate
This post comes from the Braided Way Magazine Facebook page. The website and Facebook page are highly recommended.
"I am glad to report that I have been keeping a promise I made to myself many months ago. As things were starting to seem grim I told myself that no matter how rough things got, I would never forget to smile. Not that it would magically change things for the better. Not that I was trying to pretend otherwise. No, just a simple non-verbal message to the universe that life isn’t finished yet, that there are always reasons to be thankful, and that a brief blessing passed between friends and strangers can make a difference. Happy to say I am still smiling and being smiled at in return. A promise is being fulfilled."
Well, here I go again. I have said it before: a person can talk day and night
on something they know nothing about, but ask that person to talk about
something that they do know and they will run out of talk in about 15 minutes.
That and I always say that experts are just people far from home. If the people
that you grew up around heard you advertising as being an expert, they would
just die laughing. Here I am going on.
Now, on May 4, 2022 I did two posts here about art and photography in Appalachia. They are titled "Never lose an opportunity of
seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting---Parts One and Two.”
They were not particularly well written or profound. My point in writing those
posts was to talk about painting and photography, and about some painters and
photographers as people who not only document or record life as it changes, but
also as people who we informally appoint to tell us and others more about
ourselves and our experiences. They become our representatives to a larger
world.
Every time you turn on the radio or the tv you hear someone
talking from a particular place and a particular viewpoint that is shaped by their
experiences and who they’re representing. I’ll wager you that in a day of
listening to the mainstream tv or radio you won’t hear any working-class people
telling our stories the way we tell them or would like them to be told. It’s
not the fault of the media; their sponsors and their mindset don’t allow for us
to be much more than consumers or victims or rough people. We know that we’re
more and better than that, but sorting that out is hard if we don’t have the
means to do that.
That’s why the painters, photographers, singers and bands,
poets and writers, carvers and whittlers, cooks, storytellers, six-time-mommas
who still tell bedtime stories, and so many other creative people who come from
the working-class are so important. If you can find something of yourself in their work you
might be on the way to sorting out your life essentials---where you came
from, where you want to go, how you want to get there, and who is coming along
with you. This helps people break out of their bad sides and start getting
along with others, and who knows where that will stop once it takes off?
If you
know where you have been and you get a vision of where you want to go, you’re
more likely than not to start loving the people around you. Most of us
want for others what we want for ourselves most of the time and you can’t care
for yourself without caring for others. Life doesn’t work that way. You’re more
likely to put down that bottle or that joint or the meth because, well, at some
point it’s either that or it’s your future and it's either that or the people who care for you.
I tried to make the point in my May 4 post that I think that
Kristen Kennedy, the woman who does the photography
at Virginia Lee Photography in southwestern Virginia, is one of those people who
helps us sort ourselves out. Her work gives me a good push on most days because
I can see myself or people who I come from in her work. You can catch up with
Virginia Lee Photography on Facebook, and if you live in Central Appalachia, I
hope that you will make an appointment with her and get some photography done.
But how is she documenting people, and what does her work have
to say to us? Some things are subtle. You have to let them sink in over time. A
photograph is usually something more than a picture. The person or place that
you see when you look at a photograph is held there at a particular moment. Yesterday they
were different, tomorrow they will be different. It’s good to ask yourself how
they happened to get there and where they’re headed. Ask yourself those
questions, too.
I’m going to focus here on Appalachia, big and diverse as it
is, and certain rural areas. You can be Appalachian and be in Northeastern Pennsylvania
or in parts of Alabama. You can live in a holler or a patch or in a city. You
can use yellow, white, or blue cornmeal. Your family’s roots can be in any part
of the world. My grandmother would say that labels are only good for cans of
soup.
Once, not so long ago, we looked a lot like this:
We were mostly poor, and many of our people were undernourished. Our families lived
in rural areas, coal patches and hollers, “across the tracks” in towns and
cities, in segregated and “ethnic” neighborhoods.
And many of our families lived in homes that looked like this:
And when we look at the Virginia Lee photography this is
some of what we see:
Now, what changed? How is it that, with all of our troubles, many of us look healthier and happier today then we used to? Some of it is color photography. Some of it is
that today people smile in the camera. Some of it is that people go to Virginia
Lee Photography to have a happy occasion photographed. But it’s also true---and this
is central for me---that between those old times and today lots of people stuck
together, showed love to one another, and made positive change by protesting,
going on strike, and fighting for better living conditions.
Freedom is a continuing struggle, but we have had victories. Most kids in the
United States don’t go to work in the mines and factories now. We have mine
safety laws. We have seen times in this country when we had majorities or
near-majorities of people who believed in peace, civil rights, union rights,
and policies that put people ahead of profits. Appalachia and many rural areas were key to those movements.
From the film "Harlan County, USA"
From the film "Harlan County, USA"
Please take another look at some of the work done by Kristen Kennedy with what you have read above in mind.
The sentimental person within me says that this love and joy did indeed fall from the skies. But another voice tells me to take a minute and reflect. Do you see an evolution here or cause-and-effect? Where do you see the evolution and the change? I see it in the means of doing photography itself and in the very bodies and faces in the photographs, but I also see it in the development of real human feelings. The protests and the movements for change have expressed something good in people, but they also helped those feelings to find expression. The proof that these movements succeeded to some extent is in the smiles that you see here and in the faith needed to have a child or graduate from school today. And Kristen Kennedy is there to capture that love and joy and represent us.
Sources:The photographs here and other work done by Kristen Kennedy can be seen at the Virginia Lee website and on the Virginia Lee Facebook page. Some of the photographs above come from my family album. Most of the photographs here have ended up on my desktop over the years and come from sources that I can't trace. Mr. Bob Wilson and the Appalachian Americans, Scenic Harlan County, and Forgotten Coalfields of Appalachia Facebook pages are good sources. One of my best and favorite sources is the Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections. If you are fortunate to find the work of Marat Moore anywhere, snap it up.
