Making the World Better for Women--and All of Us

It is International Women's Day, and I feel like I should have something new to say.  But the reality is depressing, and there's not a lot new to say. 

If we look at basic statistics, like how much women earn compared to men in the very same jobs, we see that the U.S. has still not achieved equality. If we look at who is in charge in most workplaces, it's white men. If we look at violent crime rates, there are some years when violent crime rates have fallen--except for rape. If we look at representation in local, state, and federal levels, we see that members of government are still mostly white and male.

And that's in a first world country. The picture for women in developing nations is bleak.

This year, I'm thinking about Ukraine.  I'm thinking about all those women who assumed they were living in a European country, and therefore, they had some modicum of safety.  And now, most of the men in their lives are fighting off the Russian invaders, and they have sole responsibility for the children, and they have decisions to make about the safety of themselves and their children.

I wonder if we will someday feel the same way about climate change--everything is tentatively OK, except there's been a looming threat, and all of a sudden--or at least it feels like all of a sudden--the threat goes from looming to viciously upon us.

I think of pictures of packed train stations in Ukraine.  And I wonder about the pictures that I didn't see in past refugee crises.  I know that these are not the first packed train stations in the past 30 years.  During the hasty retreat from Afghanistan in August, we were in the midst of a big move--is that why I don't remember similar pictures?  Were there similar scenes in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea?

There are years when I could make the argument that we're making the world safer for women--not this year.  This year is the kind of time when I wonder if we ever make progress, if the idea of progress is just an illusion.

Yesterday I was in a parking lot, putting my purchases into the back of my car, trying to ignore the man standing by the car beside mine.  He was barking into his phone, spewing profanities, something about Ukraine, and what did people expect with who they voted for, and these people could just eat a sandwich made of excrement, they could eat a f*** sandwich.  I thought about the time not so long ago when most people would not curse like that in public, especially not when women were present.

Once I would have scorned the idea that we should change our behavior because women were present.  Now I wish more of us would change our behavior for the better, regardless of who is present.

Maybe in this way, we'd really make the world better for women and for everyone.

Signs of the Times: Gas Prices and Dolphins

Once I paid closer attention to gas prices.  When one particular gas station would change its price, I'd know it was an early warning indicator that all the prices would go up.  Sometimes I'd fill up the car, and other times I'd shrug.  After all, it was only a few pennies, and I'd remind myself we were only talking about saving a dime or two.

I've seen times when we couldn't get gas, primarily after hurricanes.  After Hurricane Wilma, for years I never let my gas tank drop below a quarter of a tank.  And then, that level of vigilance got to be too exhausting for a crisis that never came, and I let that practice slip.

Vigilance, relaxed vigilance, consequences, more vigilance--I see this cycle in many parts of my life.

I've seen gas lines come and go, and we're not at that stage yet, at least not down here.  But yesterday, driving home after church, we did see a gas station in the process of taking down the 3 in the price and putting up a 4 to start the price.  It's been awhile since I've seen gas prices that high.

We did stop to put gas in the car.  I headed to the station that is usually cheapest, but it was $3.99 a gallon.  Should we go back to the station that was $3.77 a gallon?  If the price on the sign was right, we'd save $1.40 by doing that--actually, we wouldn't, because I still had just under a half a tank of gas left.  My compact Prius has a gas tank that only holds 7 gallons, unlike every other car I've had that has a 10 gallon tank.

We filled up the tank at the station that has gas for $3.99 a gallon.  My car will tell me how much each trip costs, if I update the cost of gas at each refueling.  The last time I filled up the tank, gas was at $3.49 a gallon.  I tried to remember the last time I filled the car.  It was probably early February, just before being severed from my job, which means I wouldn't be using the car as much, but I didn't know that then.

Gas has gone up 50 cents a gallon in a month.  With war in Ukraine, I actually expected gas prices to go up more steeply in the last 2 weeks.

Yesterday on my morning walk, I saw another sign of the times, a more seasonal sign.  I walked over to Holland Park, which is on the Intracoastal Waterway and West Lake, and it's mainly boat ramps.  But it does have a wonderful board walk that allows people to walk or wheel their way over the water.  In the time just before sunrise, I stood staring at the Intracoastal and A1A, the road just beyond it.  And then I saw the powerful arch and fin of several dolphins as they made their way through the water.

I stood staring at the water for 10 more minutes.  Often one dolphin sighting leads to others, but not yesterday.  But still, it was magical, the kind of visit that made me understand those fairy tales where people hurl themselves into a harsh environment where they will not thrive, but they are so attracted to the mystical other that they can't help themselves.

It's normal to see dolphins this time of year.  There are more of them in South Florida because the waters are so cold further north, so we're more likely to see them now than other times of the year.  It's not unusual, but it's still not common.

In some ways, it was a comfort to see the dolphins--the world may be veering towards a war-torn reality that won't be pleasant and already is awful for so many.  But dolphins have not been extinguished; maybe we'll be lucky too.

One Love, Loudly

It is interesting, having now lived in a rented condo across from an Arts Park for 7 months now.  We've seen, and more importantly heard, a wide variety of concerts.  I'm intrigued by the difference in decibels.

Last night, we were treated to the Maestro Marley Cup.  It actually started at 11:00 a.m. yesterday, but we didn't hear much of it until the evening.  I wish I liked reggae music more.  To be fair, I wouldn't like any music that was inescapable the way that the music last night was.  Even with the hurricane proof doors closed, the music was so loud that we couldn't hear the T.V.

Happily, not every concert is at that decibel level; so far, only the soca festival in August has been.  We've had the opportunity to hear other festivals and concerts at a much more enjoyable level, where if we didn't want to hear a concert, we could certainly do something else.

Even knowing how much people paid for the music we got to hear for free wasn't enough to ameliorate my mood last night.  Even knowing that I was hearing the offspring of musical legend Bob Marley wasn't enough to make me appreciative.

We knew that it might be a loud concert.  Throughout Friday afternoon and evening, we heard sound checks and felt that sense of dread.  We reminded ourselves that we didn't have to stay.  We could even spend Saturday night somewhere else--take a little trip.  

But we couldn't go too far away because we needed to be back for church on Sunday.  And then Saturday didn't seem too bad.  We had a mid-afternoon meal, and the noise level was hardly noticeable.  We decided to stay put.

By the time it was bad, we only had a few more hours of concert to endure--hardly worth the cost of a hotel room.  We went to the downstairs gameroom and played many, many games of pool.  I returned to the condo with a slight headache from the sounds of pool which quickly intensified because of the music.

At least it wasn't thumping music, the way the soca festival was.  And it did end right at 11:00, when it was scheduled to end.  And now that I'm underemployed, I'm not as grumpy at missing all the possibilities of a week-end day as I might have been.

Nuclear Flames

Here we are, a spring morning, a nuclear plant in Ukraine on fire (well, not exactly on fire, but not clearly out of danger either).  What year is it?  What decade?

Earlier this week, I made this Facebook post:  "Our COVID at home test kits came from the government. It seems so last year apocalypse. For 2022, I'd like some iodine tablets to protect our thyroids, some water purification tablets, a desk to crouch under, a textbook to protect my head and neck, the super expensive chocolate that I would only afford for myself in the end time."

As we drove to Ash Wednesday service, I asked my spouse if he was worried that Putin would use a nuclear weapon.  He said no.

I asked, "Are you not worried because you think he wouldn't do it or are you not worried because you think he would keep the nuclear strike small or are you not worried because you know we're far enough away not to be affected?"

We both snorted at that idea, and then we had a brief exchange about tactical nuclear strikes and the targets that Putin might choose.  My spouse focused on the kind of small, tactical nukes that one might carry in a backpack.  He thinks they've been used more during the past 60 years than we might think.

At one point, we both kept up with these sorts of nuclear developments.  At one point, I could have told you about the various ways that various types of detonations would harm us.  Now I rely on sites like this one, Nukemap.

I am just now realizing how luxurious the past 30 years have been, now that I'm realizing how much information has drained out of my brain.  I've worried about nuclear reactors, but more about hurricane hazards and sea level rise.  Now I'm thinking about them in the old ways again.

I am realizing, too, that not everyone came of age thinking about these issues.  One of my writer friends was surprised to hear about electromagnetic pulses and the fact that if a nuclear bomb detonated nearby, and if we survived, most cars wouldn't be able to operate anymore.  Of course, the nuclear war movies of the 1980's probably didn't stress the kind of tactical nuclear strike that we might see in coming days, so those kinds of details wouldn't have been stressed.

I think of those nuclear movies of my youth, and how dated the clothes, the interior design, the cars, the haircuts would seem to younger people watching them today.  I remember watching On the Beach, which I enjoyed much more when I read it than when I watched it.  As a book, it seemed like it could happen any moment.  As a movie, it seemed like something remote and far away, even though it was made in 1959.  I was watching it in the mid-80's, which means that college kids watching scary nuclear movies from my youth would be watching movies made 30 years ago, a similar time span.

So we've had a nuclear reactor in flames and the leader of Russia putting his military on the highest alert, all in the first week of this war between Ukraine and Russia, this cold war turning hot.  What will the next week bring?  One shudders to think.

Ash Wednesday Preaching and Altar Creation

Last night, I preached the Ash Wednesday sermon.  It didn't look/sound too different from the meditation/ blog post that I wrote yesterday.

What this picture doesn't show is my shoes.  I've had a few days of achingly sore feet, so yesterday I decided to wear running shoes with my black velveteen skirt.  It may be the most comfortable outfit I've worn in weeks.

I also wore my running shoes because I knew I'd be doing some set up before the service.  My pastor took care of a prayer station for Ukraine:

I did the altar:

During one of my morning walks, I picked up various sticks that I thought would add dramatic effect.  

I also used some of the cactus from a past Lent altar.

Underneath the altar, I used coils of barbed wire and a large, dried palm frond.  I liked the echo of Palm Sunday and Good Friday at the altar.

This sanctuary is frustratingly hard to capture in good photos, but I may try again as the season of Lent progresses.  Plus I plan to make some changes here and there.

I remember when I first went to Mepkin Abbey in 2004, and I was fascinated watching the sanctuary change throughout the 4 days that I was there, from the flower and plant arrangements to the art and icons.  It was one of the first times that I thought about how much more we could do than just the paraments and sad banners left over from the 1970's.  One of the benefits of being at my current church with a shrinking population is that there is no altar guild, and my pastor is happy to let me take the lead in this area.

Last night was the kind of service where I thought about how much I will miss this church when we leave.  I've had all sorts of opportunities that many lay people never get:  to preach, to lead the service, to set up the altar and the larger sanctuary space, and to lead in many other ways in pre-pandemic times.

Ash Wednesday in a Time of Plague and War

It is Ash Wednesday, and I will be preaching the Ash Wednesday sermon tonight.  My pastor asked me if I would like to do it, and I said yes--this was several weeks before the invasion of Ukraine.  Does the invasion of Ukraine change my message?

Maybe it will--I'll let us all know tomorrow, once I know what I actually preached.  I usually go into sermons with an idea of what I will say, but I don't write it all out.  If the Holy Spirit wants to say something, there's room.  It's partly that, but it's partly that I'm lazy and often crunched for time.

A lot of us approach Ash Wednesday as a kind of wake up call, a reminder that we all die in the end, and so we better get on with what we plan to do with our lives.  Because we live in a secular culture that wants us to forget this reality, in many ways the Ash Wednesday message that we're returning to death is an important one.

But the pandemic has driven that point home in a way that the symbolism and sermons of Ash Wednesday services never quite managed to do.  Almost everyone I know, from all walks of life, is making different life decisions than they would have made three years ago.

The eruption of war in Europe has shifted our attention to the ash part of Ash Wednesday.  We may be thinking of the futility of all that we do, when it will all end in ash and decay.  With nuclear saber rattling happening and mass bombings in Ukraine, do we need to emphasize the "Remember that you are dust" message of Ash Wednesday?

Our church will have a prayer table with candles to light as we pray for Ukraine, and to me, that's a potent Ash Wednesday symbol too. We are asked to remember that we are dust, but we are not told that our descent to ashes gives us license to forget the tribulations of the world.  Many of us are old enough to have seen that iron curtains can come down, that freedom fighters can emerge from prisons and go on to win national elections. 

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent in dust and ashes, but we are heading towards a very different season, the season of Easter.  This season of ash will end at the high holiday, Easter, that tells us that death, decay, and ash will not have the final word.

Preparing for Lent

Today is the day before Lent begins, Mardi Gras, and it's also Shrove Tuesday. It's the day before Ash Wednesday, the day before Lent begins. Mardi Gras and Carnival, holidays that come to us out of predominantly Catholic countries, certainly have a more festive air than Shrove Tuesday, which comes to us from some of the more dour traditions of England. The word shrove, which is the past tense of the verb to shrive, which means to seek absolution for sins through confession and penance, is far less festive than the Catholic terms for this day.

Will this be the year that we go back to having pancake suppers on the day before Ash Wednesday?  Or did we give up on those long ago, even before the pandemic made it unsafe to gather in groups?  Most of the churches that I've attended wouldn't expect that people would come to church on both Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, no matter how delicious the pancakes or how meaningful the evening service.

Some of us will spend today thinking about whether or not we want to adopt a special Lenten discipline.  Some of us will give up something for Lent:  chocolate or gossip or sugar or caffeine or social media.  But there are different approaches to Lent that make for a more meaningful season.

Poet Kelli Russell Agodon had this nugget of insight in an exchange on Twitter: "I gave up sweets and chocolate for no reason for WAY too many years. Yes, I've switched things up--how can I be useful as opposed to 'how can I sacrifice.' The difference is huge."  She's decided to post a meaningful poem a day, by poets who are writing now and need some encouragement.

There are many ways of being useful.  We can donate time.  We can donate money.  We can resolve to go about in the world with cheerful faces.

Or maybe we've been so useful that we're burnt to a crisp.  Maybe this is the Lent that we want to add something; traditionally we would add more devotion time, more prayer.  Maybe this is the year we want to add some deep self-care:  a spa day a week, a massage, a retreat.

Or maybe this is the Lent where we finally believe that we are enough:  we don't have to do more, to be more, to give up more.  God loves us, just as we are right now.