Some things to smile on, some things to think on

 

"I took this photo at Longwood Gardens during the big tulip bloom. I loved watching the woman in front of me with her daughter and felt moved to quickly snap a photo. What I didn’t realize until I pulled the image off my camera was that coming toward us was a daughter pushing her mother in a wheelchair. It was like these two end points on a continuum were heading toward each other, ready to cross in the middle. We are loved when we are carried, and loved when we are the carriers."
Credit: Emilie Kleiner/Daily Dose of Kindness

Garlic!

This post came to my attention by way of Ms. Abigail Bradshaw, now thankfully of West Virginia. I believe that the post originates with Gateway Garlic Farms. There is some great advice below.

EAT WILD

Disappearing during the heat of the summer time, Allium vineale comes back every fall and virtually grows through mild winters into the subsequent spring. It is a very interesting species with an incredible taste . Found throughout the US, it is often labeled a noxious pest by Ag departments and farmers alike. Sadly it doesn't grow wild on my farm anymore and I have to go to other places to harvest it. I literally consumed it out of existence on my farm.

Many people in Missouri and Illinois erroneously call this wild onion. That's probably because of the heavy onion smell they get when they run their lawnmowers over it. In actuality this is a spicy wild garlic that I love to eat.

Eat your yard

Ground chicken, spinach, and egg whites for the dogs!

We have not posted any recipes for animals here on the blog that I can remember. My friend Sam Swan posted the following recipe that he makes for his dogs the other day so I thought that I would send it on to you all. Sam says that this is especially good for diabetic dogs.

You're going to need:

1 lb ground chicken
1/3 cup egg white
1 cup spinach
1 TBS pumpkin

Make into meatballs using a round tablespoon, bake 350 for 25 to 30 minutes, and store in a refrigerator or freezer.

Connecting Central Appalachia to Los Angeles and Beyond

Harlan, Kentucky

Several important court and legal cases have been on mind for the last week or so. You may or may not have the heard of them, and you may or not agree with me that these cases are potentially related to one another.

I have been thinking much about the $83 million opioid settlement reached between the State of West Virginia and Walgreens. You can read about it here. As the article says, "The settlement resolves a lawsuit that alleged many pharmacy chains failed to maintain effective controls as a distributor and dispenser that contributed to oversupply of opioids in the state." West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey office claims to have won over more than $950 million in opioid litigation. Next on the chopping block is The Kroger Company and its pharmacies as they likely did not monitor their sales of opioids and sound any alarms so long as they were making profits from misery and substance abuse.

If you ask me, Kroger is making a big mistake by not trying to avoid the courts. Walmart, CVS and Rite Aid have reached settlements with the state totaling about $175 million since last August. CVS, Walgreens and Walmart have agreed to pay $10 billion in order settle similar lawsuits with state and local governments and Native American tribes elsewhere in the United States. Kroger looks like a vulnerable bad neighbor right now.

It's hard to keep the settlements and the court cases straight. The settlement that has gotten the most coverage was the one that included the OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. The family has to pay something like $6 billion and. Their company is supposed to be taken over by another company that will put its profits into combating the opioid crises. None of this would have happened had there not been activists on the ground forcing action against the Sacklers. There are also the lesser-known settlements involving Johnson & Johnson, Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson and twelve states that put $26 billion in corporate money into state hands and obligate these companies to put some safeguards in place regarding opioid distribution. Some counties in Ohio won $650 million from Walgreens, CVS and Walmart over additional opioid-related claims.

These billions of dollars are spare change when you balance it out over the companies that have to pay and consider the damage done and the callous attitudes and the corruption that brought all this to pass in the first place. This all sounds like lots of money, but remember that West Virginia led the nation in overdose deaths per 100,000 people, with 81.4 per 100,000 people just three years ago. Kentucky ran a distant second, with a death rate of 49.2 per 100,000 people. Heck, more than 564,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2020.

But it doesn't stop there. The Sackler family will not acknowledge that what they did was wrong, and they have no legal obligation to do so. Walgreens gets to pay their $83 million over an eight-year period, staggering their costs. The company contributed to an “oversupply” of prescription opioids in West Virginia and across Central Appalachia. At some point, either by accident or lack of oversight or callous disregard for human life, the drugs were being diverted for street and holler use. State medical, treatment, adjudication and imprisonment and costs hit hard. Communities were divided, families suffered, and people died. We are living with synthetic opioids like fentanyl poisoning our communities. I heard in church yesterday that dozens of houseless people in my community have died from overdoses since the beginning of the year. I often wonder why the companies involved and the Sackler family and the investors and salesmen and the bought-off "researchers" and doctors who front for these companies are not being prosecuted for running multi-state criminal rings and conspiracies. Once their payments are made the companies will try to walk away from the great damage they have done. In the meantime, they are positioning themselves as caring community partners who want what is best for us and are cutting jobs and raising prices.

The other legal case that is weighing heavily on my spirit is the City National Bank-Los Angeles County redlining case. Here the Department of Justice found that the bank engaged in discriminatory practices by refusing to underwrite mortgages in predominately Latino and Black communities between 2017 and 2020. These practices discouraged or prohibited home ownership and undermined community stability. A sort of "banking desert" was created in the Latino and Black communities as well. These communities were underserved, disregarded, ripped-off, and destabilized. City National will have to pay over $31 million dollars. The bank will create a $29.5 million fund to subsidize loans to Black and Latino borrowers. City National will also spend $1.75 million on advertising, community outreach and financial education programs in Black and Brown communities. The bank is not admitting fault or guilt but is giving in nonetheless. The settlement only covers what the Department of Justice could prove took place between 2017 and 2020. Mr. Mark Alston did an excellent interview with National Public Radio on the issues involved in the settlement.

Redlining and housing discrimination are not news in Los Angeles. City National Bank is just one institution of many that have engaged in these outrageous practices and profited from them, and this way of doing business goes back many generations. Richard Rothstein can give you an eight-minute lesson on how discrimination in lending has been linked not only to residential segregation and the deterioration of communities but to environmental disasters as well. A report by Ailsa Chang, Christopher Intagliata, and Jonaki Mehta will explain this to you in the most engaging ways possible. But whatever the history and tricks involved, systemic oppression and discrimination draw much of their power from the ability of elites to discourage, disappoint, divide, frustrate, and rip people off over time. Patterns arise and poverty and trauma are passed on from one generation to the next unless a healing and activist social movement arises and can counteract some of the damage done. The Department of Justice settlement is huge by their standards, but it cannot, by itself, reverse the traumas associated with discrimination and oppression. 

And that brings me back to my point that these cases, the ones from Central Appalachia and the most recent housing discrimination case from Los Angeles, are potentially related to one another. How so? Notice the patterns of corporate greed and the assumption that corporations will rip us off, even to the point of causing deaths, and they will continue to do so until they are caught. They arrived to where they are with an Us vs. Them way of thinking. They will fight having to pay for the damage done or will lowball the costs of that damage and will fight having to accept legal responsibility for their actions if they are caught. Racism figures mightily into their thinking, but they also see great opportunities for profits where large companies and industries have shut down and where people are desperate and where part of the population can convinced to support get-tough-law-and-order barbaric policies and take employment in law enforcement and the prison industrial complex. The Us vs. Them becomes Them vs. Them.

Something else ties what happens in Los Angeles to what happens in Central Appalachia and the so-called "Rust Belt." Mark Alston, mentioned above, has much that is helpful to say about housing discrimination in Los Angeles. He makes a good point that the money is too little and comes too late for many and that whatever advancements are made from this point depends much on who is designing and administering the next steps, but that the settlement may do some good. The Biden administration has done the right thing by prioritizing stopping and punishing redlining. But at the local and grassroots levels the settlements mentioned above will hit particular walls besides what Mr. Alston and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey talk about.

Houselessness in Los Angeles and the conditions that are creating it and enabling it are swamping the region. Attorney General Morrisey has said that the money won in the West Virginia settlements will “provide help to those affected the most by this crisis in West Virginia,” but syringe laws and the state laws covering how naloxone is administered and paraphernalia laws and licensure requirements for harm reduction programs---all of them based on a fear-driven law-and-order worldview and the rejection of the idea that substance abuse is a disease or disorder---really limits the reach and the effectiveness of anti-drug and lifesaving efforts. In both L.A. and Central Appalachia, the money is there for companies or non-profits or state or local governments to administer programs, but the money is not there to empower people and give them the means of determining their own needs and destinies.

Now, imagine if a national peoples' movement came together and took on Big Pharma, the real estate industry, the banks, and all of the destructive and oppressive forces that destroy our communities and divide us. Imagine if people in Central Appalachia and L.A. and elsewhere were working from the same playbook and could see themselves and one another as leaders and if we operated from a point of solidarity with one another. If the small harm reduction efforts in West Virginia, the volunteer activists who pushed the Sacklers to the walls, and the leading poor and working-class Brown and Black activists in L.A. could win the kind of ground that they have then even stronger regional and national movements can win more, and they can win even more by being in solidarity with one another. 

 Los Angeles

Caring for your cast iron pans and pots

I know so many folks who just won't give up talking about caring for their cast iron pans and pots. I hope that this community service announcement helps lower the stress and noise levels.

Some things to consider and some things to smile on

 

I had a great time on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as Tina Turner-Morfitt and I 

covered the Oregon Coalition of Black Trade Unionists table at the NAACP 

community event. What a great blessing to have such a patient teacher and leader next to me!

Basic Vegetable Soup!

 

This recipe was sent in by a reader of this blog. This recipe works and will keep you warm and full. We do appreciate it when folks send in their recipes.

Basic Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

3 tablespoon oil (olive oil is good)
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 carrots, chopped
1 cup cabbage, chopped
1 medium red or yellow potato, chopped into ½ inch pieces
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
4-5 cups vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon herbs of choice (basil, thyme, oregano or a mix)

Directions:

Heat oil in large, heavy pot. Add onion and saute until beginning to be translucent (about 5 minutes), stirring. Add garlic, cook for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.

Optional additions (one or some of the following):

* Add chopped mushrooms, or ½ cup broccoli or cauliflower florets, or ½ cup green beans or corn kernels.
* Add ½ cup uncooked quinoa (add as uncooked with rest of ingredients) – cooks quickly.
* Add ½ cup cooked rice or other grain – near the end of cooking the other soup ingredients.

About those chicken prices and raising chickens and singing about chickens

I stepped into a local supermarket today and there was a woman there buying two flats of eggs and clearly trying to avoid or ignore the stares of people around her. She may have been buying the eggs for an organization or---I hope---for an effort to help our houseless sisters and brothers. Either way, I'm not going to try to guilt trip someone buying eggs. There is a really good explanation of why egg prices are so high and chicken (meat) prices are relatively low here. It turns out that monopolization and agribusiness have much to do with the pricing and supply issues and one of the best things we can do right now is to find other sources of protein and change our diets.

This post is making the rounds and I think that it tells some good truths.

As baby chick season approaches and the price of eggs keep rising, I’m sure a lot of people are tempted to raise chickens themselves. Before people flock (no pun intended) to their local farm store and start buying all the baby chicks please consider the following 10 fun facts….

1. Most hens do not start laying eggs until 18-22 weeks of age (that’s about 5 months give or take)
2. For the first few weeks of their lives baby chickens need to be kept at a temperature of around 95 degrees Fahrenheit
3. Chicks need to eat…SURPRISE! And like the price of everything else chicken feed has went up. A 50lb bag of layer is over $20.
4. Chickens molt…what does that mean? Your chicken will become ugly and stop laying eggs for a period of time.
5. Chickens don’t lay as many eggs in the winter months.
6. The average lifespan of a chicken is 5-10 years.
7. Predators such as foxes, coyotes, neighbor’s dogs and even raccoons will hunt your chickens.
8. Chickens will poop EVERYWHERE and I mean everywhere so be prepared to clean their pen often or if they are free range be sure to check your step or look before you sit.
9. Chickens love to dig holes and destroy bedding around flowers in the yard, good luck keeping them from doing so.
10. Chickens can get medical issues just like any other animal.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from raising their own food in fact I think it’s great. However chickens are animals, animals that require attention and proper care.
So while I get that you don’t want to spend $7 on a dozen eggs double think your decision before you go gung ho on being a chicken farmer. Just do your research, it’s not like getting a fish 

Sincerely,

A fellow chicken owner

Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens---B.B. King

Hammie Nixon was born on January 21, 1908. Here is a favorite clip of him and Sleepy John Estes

From Ward Weems

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes---Down South Blues/Clean Up At Home---

1964---RITY Archive

 

Sugar Cookies!

You are going to need:

* A baking sheet and two large bowls and a glass
* 2 eggs
* Two-thirds-of-one-cup of vegetable oil
* 2 tsp. of vanilla
* 1 tsp. of grated lemon rind
* Three-quarters-of-one-cup of sugar
* 2 cups of flour
* 2 tsp. of baking powder
* One-half tsp. of salt

Heat your oven to 400.

Beat your eggs until they're well blended and stir in your oil, vanilla, and lemon rind. Blend in your sugar until your mixture starts to get thick. Measure your flour off by a dip-level-pour method in a separate bowl. Mix your flour, baking powder and salt and blend it into your oil mixture. Now, drop this by teaspoonfuls about two inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet. You can press each cookie down with the bottom of a glass or some such thing. Moisten the bottom of your glass and dip it in sugar as you do this. Flatten out those cookies so that they look nice and sweet. Bake for 8-10 minutes so that they're brown. Remove from the baking sheet right away.

Rhiannon Giddens - Build a House (Official Video)

The other day a white woman---a church-going white woman at that---told me that slavery is all in the past and that we have to forget and just go on. I disagree. We're still living with the legacies of slavery, and I encounter many folks who are starting up to fight the Civil War over again.

A company that handles some of my pension money made its foundational money in part on slavery and what slaves produced. The so-called right-to-work laws that prevent people from forming unions have their origins in the southern states and the remnants of the slave-owning aristocracy. For years the low wages and poor working conditions and lack of social services and the lack of justice in the southern states---all the legacies of slavery---formed a low point and caused a downward spiral across the entire United States and we are living with the effects of that still. I live with the memory of legal segregation---it was not so long ago.

It would indeed be great to move on, but that won't happen in the years that I have left on earth. Much water will flow under our bridges before the line moves in the right direction and we have justice here. My worry is that that water will flow mixed with blood.

If you can do some justice and make some peace today, please do it. If you don't have that opportunity, then just please use your time to do some studying and reflect. Think a little about the "house" referred to in the song above. Could that be our country? Do you really want to burn it down rather than share it with others?  

More on Ashley McBryde

I posted a reflection on Ashley McBryde the other day that some folks think was unfair to her. The intent of that post was to support her and make others aware of her who don't know her and her music and to ask people who criticize her to take a minute and reconsider. Perhaps this clip will set our critics at ease a bit.

The church is not just for those who have seen God’s goodness by Pastor Jerrell Williams

The Salem-Keizer, Oregon community is blessed to have Pastor Jerrell Williams leading Salem's Mennonite Church. We have posted at least two articles by him in the recent past. These have come from Anabaptist World. In a recent article in Anabaptist World Pastor Williams says the following:

Disappointment with God is a reality we need to recognize. As the church testifies to God’s faithfulness, we have to remember that not everyone has experienced God as faithful.

We have to be prepared to walk with those who feel God has not been faithful to them. As a pastor, I have had the honor to accompany those who are struggling and doubting as well as those who are solidly sure of their faith.

I have sat with people as they have asked me why God wasn’t there for them or for their friends or their families. Though I am tempted to interject my own experiences and ideas, there is nothing I can say that dulls the pain.

At this point we are left with a reminder that so much of modern atheism---at least in my circles---is founded on disappointments and suffering, and it should be fully understandable to people of faith that this occurs and gains momentum and forms of expression. There is also an atheism that develops from the capitalist reality that we all live in. How does anyone manage to maintain faith when every activity is weighed for what it produces and its cost? A competitive and hierarchical system, gendered and racialized and exploitative in its fundamentals, is bound to produce atheism. Pastor Williams does not take these questions up directly, but they are there in the background.      

So Pastor Williams is taking up a large slice of our human condition in a short article. Where does he go with this? The entire article can be read here.

"Today, I painted a picture of my mama, today is the day she died...."

The following comes from BoneWoman Outsider Art. Something is lost here by not having the two images below next to one another, but I think that the text and the juxtaposition of the images carries a well-constructed story of memories, love, loss, and development. I say "well-constructed" because this can be construction site-raw and hit like bricks. There is something blue-collar here and there is something that takes up our own construction of memories and loss and what we do with them. Intended or not, all of this poses questions for me of how to define art and how art carries time and life along.

Today, I painted a picture of my mama, today is the day she died. Lots of tears mixed with paint, I never stop missing her!

1972 - Riding in the front passenger seat in our yellow dodge dart sitting by my mama in her green lime checker polyester dress she made herself a white scarf tied around her head hiding the baldness underneath - chemo colon cancer she is dying rotting on the inside - I am the last born of eight children - 15 - it was a rare moment to ever have my mama to myself - it is cold the heat is blasting in the car it smells old and moldy we arrive to the shopping center - Piggly Wiggly - a sign with a pig wearing a white hat and apron a stripe red & white shirt smiling at us welcoming us to come on in but we do not we walk behind the store where a small record store is located - it is tiny barely five people can fit into the store - my mama had asked me what I wanted for my birthday - my mama had never asked me ever what I wanted for my birthday - I said I want the single of Roberta Flack the first time I have saw your face - we went into the store and there it was a black and red 45 vinyl slipped inside a plain white cover. Next to the single was the 33 - the full album First Take - A bright yellow album cover with Roberta seating on a piano stool her hands posed over the white keys looks like she playing in a smokey bar with her musicians to the side two orange lamps over her head she is wearing a black and white dress with a white scarf that looks like the one my mama has on her bald head. Roberta head is bowed as if she is praying to the piano. I so wanted the whole album but I will not ask because I know we cannot afford it.
We return to the car, it is cold, the wind chills my bones, I am holding on to this little white package for fear the wind will take it from me - we return home I run to my bedroom the one I share with my sister Dea - bunk beds I pull out our little record player from underneath the bed - looks like a red and white small suitcase. I flip the brass clasps - fling open the record player and gently place my 45 on the turntable lifting the needle and carefully carefully placing the needle on the record so as not to scratch this precious early birthday gift. Roberta comes to life her voice in my room all mine for that moment she sings
The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the endless skies, my love
To the dark and the endless skies
And the first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love
That was there at my command, my love
And the first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last 'til the end of time my love
And it would last 'til the end of time
The first time ever I saw your face
Your face, your face, your face
Mama is in the room next to mine, I can hear her grunting, pulling off the tight dingy white girdle, slipping out of her green polyester dress, the bra and then I hear the bed springs squeak and she is lying down in her bed.
Soon it will be time for me to go in and change the bandage that covers the oozing wound on her belly, where they removed a tumor the size of a grapefruit. She lays there and we both are listening to Roberta sing “The First time I saw your face" coming from my room. I cannot look at my mama because I know I will cry and we did not cry in front of each other in my house. All tears were hidden. Mama died two months later - January 17th -1973 Roberta Flack won a grammy award two months later 1973 for The First time I ever saw your face.

Peter L. Fritsch's class on the Reality of Evil and How Our Spiritual Lives Can Effectively Overcome Its Destructiveness

I have been reading Peter L. Fritsch's book A Moment of Great Power. Fritsch is an Episcopal priest and he teaches, writes, provides spiritual direction, and is a businessman of some kind in Port Orford, Oregon. I'm undecided about the book. It takes up generational trauma, healing, therapy and psychology, and evil from an Episcopal point of view that is informed by other faith traditions. If you are struggling with generational trauma or experiencing negative paranormal activity then this book may be useful to you. The views expressed in this book are not what you're going to hear from the pulpit.   

I have not read Fritsch's book The Spirituality of the Holy Grail.

I know that many readers of this blog will be interested in the class listed below that is being held in Port Orford.

A Six-Week Class on the Reality of Evil and How Our Spiritual Lives Can Effectively Overcome Its Destructiveness.

Wednesdays January 25, February 1, 8, 15, 22, and March 1. Each class is from 11 a.m. - 12:15 a.m.
Peter Fritsch, writer, teacher, spiritual director, and Episcopal priest, continues his classes meeting at the Port Orford Library, Wednesdays from 11:12:15 a.m. This next six-week course will focus on the reality of Evil, its destructive force, and how we can recognize, confront, and overcome its ability to discourage, confuse, and destroy our trust in a loving God.

This subject is one all of us have to deal with and work with the paradoxical question: How can a loving God allow evil to exist and do the hurt and destruction it does and is there anything spiritually grounded people can do about it.

Fritsch has written a great deal about his own wrestling with this subject in his most recent publication, The Spirituality of the Holy Grail: Restoring Feminine Spirit in the Western Soul, published by John Hunt Publishing of London. He is currently working on a complete, more extensive book on the same topic.

No matter what one may be struggling with, devastating illness, addictions, personal attacks upon one's character, political or family divisiveness, this class will help people understand the nature of evil, and the reality of the power of a loving God and our relationship to this God, stops, checks, and overcomes the destructive power of evil, and brings goodness and grace to every situation by which we are confronted.

The purpose of the class is to help people realize and use the power of their love, prayer, and meditation life to bring real change to the world about them.

The class is a scholastic teaching and discussion experience, open to the general public. The outline of the topics for each weekly session is as follows.

1. What are the understandings of the source of evil in world philosophical and religious traditions.
2. How to recognize evil in both its collective (corporate) and individual forms which confront us.
3. What are the causes and roots of evil as we understand it in contemporary society?
4. How unconsciousness attributes to both individual and collective evil and the need for conscious awareness.
5. How to deal with evil without becoming a participant in the very evil we are confronting.
6. To learn what we can do in our spiritual capacities/life to confront, transform, and remove the destructiveness of evil in our lives and in the lives of those we love.

Peter has extensive experience and training in this area both prior and after working as a parish priest and counseling, both in the United States and abroad.

Classes begin next Wednesday, January 25th at 11 a.m. There is no fee, and this program is open to all who are interested in growing spiritually and psychologically to bring changes for the good to their lives and the lives of others.

For more information, write an email to Fritsch at plfritsch@hotmail.com or text him at (619) 481 0714.

No registration is required, just come and be present.

Photo is Bene Bufano's St. Francis of Assisi

"I shall Gather up All the lost souls That wander this Earth..."

I shall
Gather up
All the lost souls
That wander this Earth
All the ones that are Alone
All the ones that are Broken
All the ones that never really fitted in
I shall gather them all up
And together, we shall find our home
A little poem written by Athey Thompson
Taken from A Little Book Of Poetry
By Athey Thompson

This beautiful picture is taken by Rob MacInnis. Rob is an Amazingly Talented Photographer who captures the beauty and the gentle, quiet moments between Farm Animals. Please take a look on Robs page and support him.

The Photography of Rob MacInnis

Taken from Tales of old forest Faeries

A reflection on back roads and destinations

I don't know who wrote the following reflection on traveling up this back road and taking a few breaths but it does speak to me. I'm taking it from The Appalachian Project Facebook page. I think that this is great writing. I hope that it touches you as it has touched me.

A hazy, misty morning road on a seldom traveled backroad snaking up the hillside and disappearing out of view. It just seems like the perfect road to lead to some mysterious and potentially foreboding destination.

I normally don't like traveling alone but, occasionally, it allows some time for introspection. I zoned out while driving and really didn't even know where I was at when this view grabbed my attention. I was in a little bit of a hurry to get to my destination but I couldn't resist stopping to soak up the scene.

I turned my car off and stepped out to check it out and grab this pic. It was another place that was eerily quiet, the only thing I heard was the sound of gravels crunching beneath me as I walked toward the road.

I got to the foot of the hill and just paused. I took this picture then stood still scanning the whole scene. It was a little chilly but that mountain air was so crisp and clean that I closed my eyes and filled my lungs several times to absorb as much as I could.

I opened my eyes back up and just stood there a little longer just to get a little more of the experience. A lot of times in life you aren't aware that you're in "a moment" until it is over with, but this time I knew full well I was in this one.

I really don't need to see this picture because the memory is seared in my mind but I wanted to share it with y'all and I hope you like it.

Applesauce bars!

You're going to need:

* One-half-cup of shortening
* 1 cup of sugar
* 1 cup of applesauce
* 2 cups of flour
* 1 teaspoon of soda
* One-half-teaspoon of salt
* One-half-tbsp of cloves
* 1 tbsp cinnamon
* 1 tbsp of nutmeg
* 1 cup of chocolate chips
* 1 cup of buts

Don't be put off by that long list of ingredients. This is easy to make.

Preheat your oven to 350. Mix your shortening, sugar and applesauce together. Add in your flour, soda, salt, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate chips and nuts. Mix it all together really well. Put that in a 13X9 pan and bake for about 35-45 minutes. If you want icing, mix up some confectioners' sugar and water.

"We can put the past behind us but at three in the morning it comes back to haunt us…" from Journey of a mountain woman

Walter and I got married sixty years ago today. He has been gone twenty years. It seems like yesterday. I was almost nineteen and living on my own, working in a factory. I didn’t even have a drivers license! Life was so different then. I write about the past and I guess some think I still live there but I don’t. I do believe that we should remember the past for our best and worst moments lie there. We can put the past behind us but at three in the morning it comes back to haunt us…the sweet memories, the bad ones, the laughter, the tears. I have had a lot of all those feelings. But on this day I want to just remember that young girl and young man who had such faith in the future. A lot of our dreams came true, but many didn’t. But that was ok. That was life.--From Journey of a mountain woman

The beauty within us and around us

The first photograph below is of a pottery maker in either New Mexico or Arizona in 1908. The photograph itself captures something dear and touching in the woman's expression and in her work. We can tell from the photograph that there is a history present and at work in her and in her pottery, and an intelligence and focus that informs what she has made. I also see something of sadness, and perhaps regret, in her face. Am I imposing this or is the center of this sadness or regret in the object, in herself, or in the act of being photographed?

This second photograph was taken by Allen Edmonds in Dandridge, Tennessee this morning. I took it from the Appalachian Americans Facebook page. I think that most of us would drive by an old barn in the fog in the morning on our way to work or running errands without paying much attention. But slow down for a minute. That fog and that barn have stories. Where do they come from? What are they doing there at the moment when you're passing by? The beauty here is not just in the fog and in the barn, but in your place and their places in a story. If you don't know that story you're free to make something up. Make your story as beautiful and as meaningful as you can and maybe pass it on to someone else if you have the opportunity.

This third photograph was also taken in East Tennessee this morning. It comes from Kerwin Cornett. I think that it speaks for itself. Who, after all, can speak for a flower?

To see more in this series on this blog, please click on the "Beauty" tag.

JUSTICE AND INCLUSION: FROM ISAIAH’S PEN TO OUR EYES AND EARS---An insightful essay by Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox has a particularly insightful article out taking up some aspects of his reading of the Hebrew Bible and his reading of the Book of Isaiah. At one point in his essay Fox says

The Book of Isaiah has, of course, been heavily proof-texted and read selectively by Christians for centuries. No other set of Hebrew poetic and prophetic texts that made their way into the canonical Old Testament have had as massive an impact on how Christians, from ancient to modern times, articulated the faith which the recorded statements of Jesus and the accounts and letters of his early followers inspired. It’s not just that Jesus himself is shown in the Christian Gospels to be quoting from or referencing Isaiah more than any other older text besides the Psalms; it’s that Christianity’s entire cultural and theological approach to and interpretation of Jesus’ message and meaning comes through a heavily Isaian lens–the language of Handel’s Messiah being just the most obvious example. (And with the commemoration of the Messiah’s birth just a couple of days away, this seems like a good time to revisit the text.)

Separating myself as a reader from that inheritance was no easy feat, and I can’t say I was entirely successful. Thanks to Alter’s translation, however, a couple of key ideas were made profoundly clear to me. First, that from its beginning, the book of Isaiah–far more than those associated with any of the other Hebrew prophets–is a text that presents calls to social justice on the same level as its condemnations of the cultic failures and ritual sins of Israel. Isaiah 1:14-17 sets the theme for the entire text, with its explicit condemnation of those who hypocritically attend outwardly to religious duties but ignore the needs of those who are part of that same religious community.

I want to recommend this short essay particularly to my Christian friends who spend much time in the Hebrew Bible and challenge them to read this carefully.

Catch up with the essay here.

Some of our relations and kin

 

Hazel Dickens

 

The Hazel Dickens Memorial Bridge is on County Route 11 running over the Bluestone River near Montcalm, West Virginia.

She is buried in Princeton, West Virginia.

She lit up my life and the lives of so many others. I really do miss her.

West Virginia My Home

Beautiful Hills Of Galilee

They'll Never Keep Us Down

Some things to think on and some things to smile on

"Solidarity Forever"

History records that the labor anthem "Solidarity Forever" was first published on today's date in 1915. Ralph Chaplin began writing what became "Solidarity Forever" in 1913 while covering the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike, or the Paint Creek Mine War, in West Virginia for a publication issued by the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World. It was completed two years later in Chicago at the time of a hunger demonstration there and gained its early popularity during a lumber workers' strike in Washington State.

There are many versions of the song, and I think that these different versions most often reflect the divergent opinions of who is singing and who is leading a crowd. The verses that promise a hopeful future in which the working-class takes power and establishes some form of socialism are left out when labor leaders and Democrats are rallying workers for immediate objectives. Leftists might sing one version of the song that is closer to their politics and leave it to another group to sing another version. Workers who join rallies and picketlines today hear the words and often grasp their meaning immediately. But there is more to be said about the song and what it means.

The poem that became "Solidarity Forever" was written at a moment when mine workers and their families in West Virginia were experiencing defeat during a period of prolonged armed struggle that we know today as the West Virginia Mine Wars. One would have had to be outrageously optimistic to have believed at that point that the mine workers' struggles would continue and that eventually something like justice would prevail even for a short time. The song has a healing power to it when all of its verses are sung with honesty, and I have wondered if this healing power and the positive message of what can be attempted comes from the very origins of the song.

I first heard "Solidarity Forever" as a kid when it was played on a mandolin by an old man during a house party. I purchased the album of labor songs done by The Almanac Singers and learned the words to every song on that album as a teenager. I have probably sung the song, in one version or another, hundreds of times on picketlines and at meetings over the years. "Solidarity Forever" has never grown old for me. I especially enjoy watching young people taking in the song and joining in singing it with others. I pray that they don't lose that light and fire in their eyes and in their hearts.

Here is the version by The Almanac Singers that I learned:

Singing Solidarity Forever, Passaic County, 1926

Description
Strikers raise their fists and sing as they march down a street during the Passaic Textile Strike, 1926. One striker wears a military uniform.

American Labor Museum / Botto House National Landmark

Persistent URL: https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3GH9K76

"We don’t need museums, we need a movement."

Bishop William Barber speaking to the Guardian on Martin Luther King, Jr. and organizing and mobilizing people today:

“He (Dr. King) was telling us when he died that the greatest fear of the southern aristocracy was the coming together of the poor masses, Black and white. Far too many people never heard that, so they stop at the March on Washington...It’s like turning civil rights into a museum. We don’t need museums, we need a movement. The only way you honor your prophets is when they fall, you pick up the baton and walk the next mile.”

Today I'm holding some words from Maya Angelou close to my heart

Today I'm holding some words from Maya Angelou close to my heart:

“Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.”

Labor leader Bill Lucy talks MLK and the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike

 

Freeing God to be God--Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler

There are so many opportunities available to honor Dr. King today that I hesitate to lift up a particular one or to put forward anything that might compete with others. But I think that I did find one short essay that has something to say to many of my good friends. It it called Freeing God to be God and was written by Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, an ordained miniter in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. Rev. Hagler currently serves as the Senior Minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC. He helped lead the fight against payday lenders there, and he helped co-found the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA). He is also Director and Chief Visionary of Faith Strategies, LLC, a collective of clergy manifesting progressive perspectives on human and civil rights in the public arena.

Part of Rev. Hagler's essay contains the following. The entire essay can be found here.

During the pandemic, and under Trumpism, a racial split emerged in the evangelical movement as white evangelicals largely supported the policies of Trump; many of those policies clearly racist, and communities of-color, in general, were horrified at the antics of Trump and the lack of criticism from white evangelicals against those policies and antics of the Trump administration. Racial and ideological cracks were revealed where one perspective supported a political/religious orthodoxy and the status-quo, right or wrong, leaving of-color evangelicals horrified and surprised by the racist theological and ideological gap! The white evangelical community went as far as creating a religious litmus test over not wearing a mask during a pandemic, while Blacks and people of-color were disproportionally infected and died from the virus. This revealed at least two separate theologies. There is the theology of the political status-quo, governments, flag-waving, that believe that political leaders are the appointees of God, that slaves should be obedient to their masters, women are kept silent, and statements of American exceptionalism abound. On the other hand, people of-color continued to look to God for freedom, dignity, protection from the hatred and racism of the society, and to maintain hope and a sense of worth amid a hard and unwelcoming world. At least two Gods were revealed, two theologies, two ideologies, and at least two experiences that heard and perceived God in very different ways.

Oh Happy Day - The Edwin Hawkins Singers

 Oh Happy Day - The Edwin Hawkins Singers