My first brush with racism was the year I was 14.  I fell head over heels in love with a senior.   He was my everything.  He lived right around the corner from us and since I wasn’t “old enough to date” according to my parents, he would come visit me while I was babysitting my brothers during the afternoons.  If he couldn’t come over, he would call.  He happened to be Asian.  In my ignorance, I didn’t know that mattered.  It evidently mattered to my father who managed to end that relationship without me ever knowing how or even that he was involved.  One day Gary loved me and the next he no longer spoke to me.  My heart broke and I began to wonder what was wrong with me.  It was years before I found out that what was wrong was my father.  

My next brush with racism was when I went to work in a multicultural industry in a multicultural part of Seattle.  I fell for a black man.  He was kind and patient and smart and most important, he made me laugh.  I met his family first and was treated with respect and dignity.  And, then, I took him home to meet my family.  It was awful.  My parents divorced me.  My father threatened to take a baseball bat to him and my brothers had to calm him down.  My mother thought I was throwing away my white privilege and put it just that way.  My boyfriend, who knew racism so much better than I, wasn’t surprised, but I was devastated.  Time went on and my boyfriend got really tired of my inner conflict.  Yes, I really loved him, but I missed my family.  I was an outcast……again.  This time, I knew why and I was absolutely floored.  I’d been raised differently.  I’d been raised on that old song, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world”.  I believed it and so did my mother.  She just didn’t think those races should mix.  She’d left that part out of my education.  

When I joined the Navy, at 28, I knew about racism.  I knew it existed on many levels; obnoxiously obvious as in my father’s case and insidiously arrogant as in my mother’s.  In boot camp, racism was addressed in a class.  The instructor got out a white sheet of paper and invited several of us up to the front of the class.  There were those of us who were pale skinned to those of us who were dark black skinned.  He held that paper up next to all of us and, of course, it didn’t match any of us.  Even my Norweigen white skin looked beige next to it.  And, that was his point.  We were all different colors of brown from light beige to dark.  This wasn’t a difficult concept for me, but it was for some of my classmates.  

During my time in the Navy, I had lots of friends from pale white, to Asian, to hispanic, to black.  We were all thrown together.  We worked together and when I lived in the barracks, we lived together.  One of my friends was EJ.  We were both young and single so we kept each other company when either of us was having a down dating time.  When I had a difficult time recovering from a surgery, he did my grocery shopping for me and took out my garbage.  He was a good friend.   It took awhile for me to even realize what completely different lives we led, though.  I wanted to see a particular band which was playing at a bar and grill.  I wasn’t dating anyone so I called EJ and asked him if he wanted to go with me.  His response?   “Teri, I can’t take you there!  I’d be lynched!”.   White privilege.  I’d not even considered that.  I could go anywhere.  He couldn’t.  He especially couldn’t with a white woman.  

White privilege does exist.  Racism is systemic and those of you who don’t think so are leading lives of white privilege and don’t even know it because you haven’t stepped out of your white experience far enough to find out.  These are only a few of the “in your face” examples of racism I’ve encountered over the years.  And, I haven’t even mentioned the education I’m only just receiving on what it is like growing up bi-racial in our culture, where you’re not black enough and you’re also not white enough.  

For those of you who don’t believe white privilege and racism exist in this culture, that they aren’t systemic, it’s time for you to do your research.  Read books written by those who live it.  If you know people of color begin asking questions about their experience.  If you don’t know any people of color well enough to ask, for God’s sake, why not?  These protests are not only about George Floyd.  They are about racism at a ground floor level.  They are about being afraid all of the time because one lives in a black skin.  They are about reduced opportunity because one moves about in a culture where a black skin makes you less than one’s white neighbors.  It’s about knowing that when one is stopped for a traffic violation it could very well mean a death sentence just because of the color of one’s skin.  It means being afraid to go walking in a white neighborhood.  Being black in this culture means one is assumed guilty until proven innocent and the proving of that innocence is rife with road blocks.  If you don’t see that, you aren’t paying attention.  These protests will be over when white people begin to pay attention.

Maybe it’s all hype.  Maybe the Covid 19 virus scare is a manufactured emergency.  Maybe……………. However, I think we can learn some things from it that I bet, the families of those who have died wish we had all learned earlier.

1.  Maybe we need a new medical system.  All those millions of people who don’t have medical insurance or who do have but, after paying their premiums, can’t afford to go to the doctor, will be spreading Covid 19 just as they spread the flu, strep throat, and a host of other illnesses that cause compromised people in our society to die.  If those people could go to the doctor, would they? That would depend on whether or not they could get time off from work or, if they are children, whether or not their parents could get time to take them.
2. We need for every person in the workforce to have sick time.  When I was a young worker, it was a given that there would be paid sick time.  I never had to worry about whether I could take time to go to the doctor or whether going to the doctor and then staying home until I healed would cost me my grocery money. In fact, when I was in the Navy, I went to the doctor without paying him, and if he gave me a bedrest chit and I DIDN’T follow it, I was in trouble!   And, what about parents who don’t have sick time, so can’t stay home with a sick child? They send them to school to infect all the other children.  
3. Federal funding for schools depends on student attendance.  Over the years, student attendance has become such an issue that if a student is out sick too many times (it was 9 days a year when mine were in public school) parents get a threatening letter from the school.  This is one way to ensure epidemics.  
4. Personal hygiene has gone by the wayside in our culture.  Bathroom breaks are scheduled in the public school, so if you sneeze and then blow your nose, there is no way to go to the bathroom to wash up. More families than not eat supper separately so the phrase, “Wash up, Supper’s on) has gone by the wayside.  When I was a kindergartner, my teacher came into the bathroom during bathroom breaks and made sure every child washed up before leaving. I think that teachers don’t do that anymore. Potty training used to include washing up after using the toilet. It was an ingrained habit by the time children were able to attend school.  

This is only a few examples of the way we’ve set up our culture in the last 50 years to ensure that illness is passed from person to person.   Isn’t it time to change things? Isn’t it time for a decent medical model, a different work ethic, a better approach to personal hygiene? And, isn’t it time to do something about the economy (not the market but the actual economy that people live) so that parents can afford to take time off, feed their children healthy food, and be able to pay a doctor bill?  HIgher taxes for medicare for all, doesn’t seem too bad if it keeps your child or your parents healthy. If you make over a million dollars a year, wouldn’t higher taxes make sense if it meant that other people could take time off from work to heal before they infected your children or your elderly mom? Maybe it wasn’t so bad in the 50’s when the rich paid more and the middle class were able to take the precautions necessary so it  didn’t spread the flu so far and so wide that thousands of people died annually and we just considered that a fairly normal statistic. Instead, our intrepid leader is going to cut social security, medicare and medicaid. More sick, fewer seeing doctors for it and more spreading of disease. Maybe we could take a really close look at the flu statistics we keep touting and think seriously about how to bring those into a more compassionate set of numbers.  34,200 people died in the 2018-2019 flu season in the US alone. That’s a pretty significant number when it’s a family member who dies. Covid 19 hasn’t come up to those statistics yet, but what if it does? Will we change business as usual at that point? What not do it now?

Fear impacts our immune systems and leaves us more vulnerable to disease. I have stopped watching the news.  The fear mongering happening with the coronavirus is irresponsible and actually contributing to the problem. There are so many things we COULD be doing and are not.  The current hysteria could be teaching us something if we would just pay attention.  

Parents, teach your children to wash their hands often and keep their hands away from their faces.  Teach them to cough and sneeze into a tissue and then to wash their hands afterwards.  

Teachers, let the children visit the restroom immediately following coughing or sneezing or wiping their noses.  They can’t very well wash their hands if you keep them hostage in the classroom. 

Parents, keep your children home when they are symptomatic and fight the school system when you get the warning letter that your child hasn’t met his quota of days attending school.   It’s all a money thing. They aren’t as worried about your child’s progress as they are about the funding they don’t receive when your child is absent.  

There are so many things we can do on a personal level to alleviate our fear and act responsibly to prevent widespread epidemics.  Get enough sleep, eat a healthy, well balanced diet, take vitamin C, create a peaceful environment in our homes.  

And when we’ve done as much as we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones we can vote.  Our current economic and medical environments invite and support the spread of disease. If you don’t have paid sick leave, will you stay home when you are ill or will you go to work anyway in order to be able to buy groceries.  Employers who do not include paid sick leave in the employment contract are irresponsible and contribute to the spread of disease. Vote for those who would support unions and responsible employment. If you can’t afford medical care, will you go to a doctor or will you suck it up and go to work until you are no longer able.  Our medical system guarantees the spread of disease and threatens the lives of our children and all of the children with whom they come in contact. Vote for those who want to bring health care to everyone.  

What we’re doing as a country is evil.  Do your part to ensure your personal health and the health of others and, at this point, I would advocate turning off the news with it’s hysterical fear mongering which only defeats our efforts to ensure a strong and resilient immune system. 

This is from my daughter’s blog.

 

https://meligoodell.com/blog/

I posted the following on facebook tonight.   “Typical EDS family: I slept wrong the other night so SI joint is inflamed. Tomorrow morning Josh goes in for hernia surgery. Jace just got X-rays and his foot is broken and Meli is still dealing with torn ligaments in her ankle. When folks are amazed that we all live together, I’m thinking, “How else would we survive?”. When one is out of commission, the others pitch in. This week it’s a challenge, but because we are a team, it will work.”

I posted ,the above not to complain, but as a little window into our lives.  Ehlers Danlos Syndrome is a genetic connective tissue disorder. You are born with it and have a 50% chance of passing it onto your children.  My family has H-EDS, or hypermobility type. It’s the most painful. Sprains, strains, bones popping out of joint or breaking, internal organs acting up, headaches and even nervous system disorders are typical concerns for those of us who have this disorder.  I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 52. My children were 18 and 20. They had both been emergency room children and I’d already gone through the humiliation of being asked to leave the room while my son was strip searched and interrogated as to whether or not he’d been physically abused at home.  What a thing that was for him! I’d been sent to counselors from the time I was a little girl to treat my behavioral problems (waking up at night in pain) and my need for illness that the doctors couldn’t see. It was, in fact, a relief to find there was a real physical cause for my ailments and that I wasn’t hopeless because I couldn’t make the counseling work.  I had raised my children without any family close by so my husband and I were on our own. Since my husband worked full time, actually, I was on my own. I believed them when they had pain but couldn’t get to the root cause. Doing this on my own when I had my own undiagnosed pain was a challenge.

I posted on Facebook because we so often get surprise and disapproval for living together.  Can you imagine how it might be if we were all in different homes? My daughter would be the only adult in the house taking care of a 13 year old with a broken foot…….. On top of his autism, hormonal, teen angst, and his IBS which is often an EDS condition.  IBS is tough with a broken foot not yet casted! I would be in my house with my back pain taking care of my granddaughter. And my son and daughter in law would be alone dealing with a 19 month old in and post surgery. It’s better that we’re all together. Whoever is able can pitch in and fill the void created by those who are unable.  I can do up several loads of laundry so my daughter in law doesn’t have to while she cares for her son post op. My daughter has other adults to talk with while she cares for her son and he has other adults to lean on while he deals with the pain. And there is big pain happening for him. Broken bones aren’t any less painful than they used to be.  Doctors just no longer treat the pain. Seems barbaric to me, but there you have it.

I belong to and EDS group on Facebook.  Every time I look in on it, I am grateful that my family has this living arrangement.  There are so many out there dealing with this invisible disorder without any family support.  My kids are NOT mooching off of their dad and me. They contribute whatever they have to our living arrangement.  We split the rent 3 ways. Those that work go to work and those who stay home take care of babies. When the work needs to be done, we pitch in wherever we are able at that time.  Sometimes a couple of us have the lion’s share of the responsibility and sometimes it’s others. With EDS one never knows what physical condition the morning will bring. It’s a relief to know that there will be help if help is needed and that we’ll be able to reciprocate at some point.  

There is also emotional support.  Everyone here knows what it’s like to live with this disorder.  When it seems too hard, everyone understands. If one needs to cry, it’s ok to do that.  If one feels joyful to be a 4 instead of a 7 on the pain scale, everyone cheers with him/her.  

My daughter had a persistent cholesteatoma a couple of years back and had three surgeries to remove it before it gave up and stayed gone.  During this time, she developed surgically induced meniere’s disease. Can you imagine having a disease that induces vertigo when you already have a disorder your that causes your connective tissue is too stretchy and your joints are easily subluxed or dislocated and your bones break easily?  She is now applying for disability. What would she do if she had to live on her own? She doesn’t. And, everyone here knows she really can’t work anymore. There is no judgement. We’re willing and able to help her through this period because she’s been there for us before and will be again.  

We’ve found a way to live with this disability and actually thrive a lot of the time.  I wish people could understand that. I wish my children were never judged for living in a multigenerational home when it’s such a great arrangement for all of us.  

When I sit down to supper with my husband, I would like his attention to be on me. When we’re having a conversation, I would like to know that I’ve been heard and I would like to be able to follow what he says. When I have my family around my table, I would like to be family!  I would like there to be the repartee that I experienced as a child around my mother’s table. When my daughter and I are talking about her son, my grandson, I would like the flow of conversation to be smooth.  I’m old enough that with interruptions, I have been known to lose the plot. I am old enough and respected enough in my family to be able to say, “I would like your whole attention”. What do the little ones do? Do they feel as “second best” as I do when someone’s attention is suddenly focused somewhere else and I didn’t even know it was coming because the Bluetooth makes no sound? Do they feel as pushed to the side as I do when there is no family interaction at the supper table?  I’ve been having conversations with people and all of a sudden I realize they are not talking OR listening to me. Without my even being aware of it, someone entered their earpiece and became the focus and I’m just irrelevant. It hurts my feelings and I’m old and wise (a li’l tongue in cheek), can you imagine what it does to a child?

Irrelevant.  Think about that word.  When we are talking and you answer the voice in your ear, I feel irrelevant.  If our children grow up feeling irrelevant, how does that shape their self image and we already know that behavior is based on self image.  In the “olden days” the phone would ring and we would either answer it, or not.  If we were having an important conversation, we would not! It’s not that way anymore and I wonder if it’s a piece of the puzzle when we try to understand the behavior of our children.  Our children are born needing our attention and that need never really goes away. When they don’t need us for food, dry clothing and a roof over their heads, they still need to know they are a priority in our lives.  They need to know that we WANT to spend time with them and that we are interested in them. How can they know that if, at any moment,without warning, our attention is focused on someone more important. And, believe me, that’s the message.  If someone is willing to leave our conversation to begin one with someone else, that someone else is more important than we are.

When my daughter got her first cell phone, we had a “moment” in a department store. We went shopping together and yet we weren’t together at all. She was on the damned phone for the whole time.  I stewed about it. I thought about my own teenaged years and then I sat down and waited for her to discover I was missing.  When she did and was confused about why I’d sat down, I explained to her that if she wanted to shop with her friends in her ear, that was fine.  But, I didn’t need to be there. If she wanted to shop with me, she needed to put the phone away. I think the little ones would like to be able to verbalize the same sentiment.  I remember back to when I was growing up. I really, really wanted my mom’s attention. As the eldest of 6, it was hard enough to get. I cannot imagine what it might have been like if she’d spent hours on her Bluetooth, attention on her friends instead of on her children.  I wouldn’t have gotten any at all!

When our children act out, they are trying to get our attention.  There is always some sort of reward for our behavior, even our bad behavior.  We don’t do things without gaining something in return. How many times have I heard a young mother say into her phone, “I need to go, my kid is acting out again” or words to that effect.  If the only way a child can get our attention is to act out, that’s what that child will do. If a child can gain our attention by behaving, then that’s what that child would rather do.

When we are on our phones, that’s where our attention is.  I feel so badly for the children who just want a mom or a dad to love them and spend time with them but are in competition with a phone.  Don’t even get me started on laptops and computer games.

My daughter has meniere’s disease and so I belong to a meniere’s group. A person in that group is feeling frustrated because she’s not feeling able to spend a lot of time cooking the special diet that helps manage the symptoms. There are easy meals that can accommodate the meniere’s diet, though, and I thought if I posted some of them here, it might help with that feeling of overwhelm she’s experiencing.

Notice that these meals are gluten free, caffeine free, additive free, and very lightly salted if at all.  There are also very few nightshade vegetables in them.

I’ve only posted a few.  I thought I’d post more as time goes by.

Pot Roast and Next Day Stew

Chicken Dinner

Chicken Salad

Stir Fry

Vegetable Beef Soup

Quick Chili

Teri’s Salad Dressing

I wrote this 2 years ago at just about this time of year.  Things have only gotten worse as far as I can see.

Sometimes it feels that I am too old to live in the current climate of hate and violence actually being propagated by Christians.  Jesus didn’t talk about either abortion or homosexuality. He did talk about love. And, yet, someone with whom I’m close said that he had to vote for Trump because he couldn’t abide abortion.  Do we accept the unacceptable in order to block one act? Do we accept the unacceptable to block love? How can we say, “Yes, I am a Christian. I follow Christ” and then say to the gays and lesbians that they have no right to the kind of love the straight people experience?    Jesus was so clear! He said in 1John 4:20-21 “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Jesus also said, in Matthew 7:12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”   Does this mean the Conservative Christians wish that a gay person would block his right to marriage? I don’t think so. Does it mean Conservative Christians are ok with having someone else decide what happens with their bodies?  I would hate to live in a society where there was forced abortion after a certain number of children and I’m certain they would too and yet they feel comfortable forcing pregnancy on some. Between 25,000 and 32,000 pregnancies a year are as a result of rape.  Those women didn’t choose the sex and they didn’t choose the resultant pregnancy. Who is anyone to make that choice for them? It’s between the woman, her doctor and her God.

It was Jesus who talked to us about judgment in several passages in my bible.  The best known passage is found in Luke 6:37 and states, “Judge not, and you will not be judged.”  

He backs this up in Matthew 7:3 when he says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

Are any of the Conservative Christians without sin?   Then, how can they cast so many stones? It was Jesus who said in John 8:7 “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

And, something else Jesus passed along was that we are not to force others to our own way of thinking.  In Matthew 10:14, he tells us, “If any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake its dust from your feet as you leave.”   He does not tell us to stay and make the household or the town believe what we tell them to believe.

Jesus gave us a job to do.  In Matthew 6:33 He said “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Jesus also said in Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

.And my favorite thing Jesus said is found in John 13: 34-35

A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”

By Jesus’ own words I must conclude that if one doesn’t believe abortion is right, one should not have one but one should not make that decision for another.  I also much conclude that if one doesn’t believe God loves those who love others of the same sex, then one mustn’t marry within his own gender, but he must not block others from being allowed to marry.  I must conclude from the words of Jesus that more important than anything else is to love one another and to let that love shine forth so everyone can see it.

I’ve tried to keep my quotes strictly from Christ because I am a Christian, however, Paul defines love in a way that expresses the way I feel about it.   In 1 Corinthians 13, he says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

I’m looking for the love, the shining light in these people who feel they have to vote for Trump because the are Christians and I am having a very tough time finding it.   I do find an amazing amount of hate and judgement. In fact, what I find when I look at the Conservative Christians who are most vocal is a picture of the Pharisees for whom Jesus had nothing but disdain

Vote!   

We live in a representative democracy.  Do you know what that means? It means that there are really too many of us in these United States to have everyone vote on every single thing the government needs to do.  So, we elect someone to represent our interests. The House of representatives is tasked with all the money management for the US. They are elected every two years. Think about that.  If you don’t like the way the House of Representatives is spending your tax dollars, every two years you have an opportunity to change your representative! But, you can’t help in that endeavor if you don’t vote.  If your current representative isn’t voting on issues to suit you, the ONLY way to change that is to vote. Vote him/her out and vote soemone else in. If you vote, you have power. If you don’t vote, you are powerless.  Consider the following: if everyone votes his/her conscience every single election would your representative to congress be more careful to listen to his/her constituents? I think he/she would! As it stands now, so many people don’t vote that those who are in power just assume they will remain in power and use their own priorities to guide their votes.  They don’t have to listen to their constituents because complain as we will, not all of us will show up on election day to really make our voices heard.

All major presidential appointments must be approved by the Senate.  If your senators are not listening to you, had you considered getting rid of him/her through your vote?  Senators are elected for 6 years but their elections are staggered so that only one third of the Senate changes with each election.  This provides some continuity for the Senate as a whole. What that means for each national election is that every two years we vote on every single Representative and one third of our Senators.  We could completely change our governmental priorities in only one election!

The Government of the United States has divided responsibilities for a reason.  We must have checks and balances so that no one branch of government is too powerful.  In today’s government, we don’t have that. The Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President all have different job descriptions and in each job description there is a check on the other branches of government.  Together the House of Representatives and the Senate make up the Congress. But, there are even checks and balances between the two houses of the Congress. We make a difference in how our government prioritizes through our vote.

In 2016 nearly 42% of all eligible voters in the United States did NOT vote. From my Facebook page alone, I can see that many of those who didn’t vote do complain.  How is that? Each of those people had a chance to have their voices heard. Each had a chance to determine another course for our government and yet, they stayed home on election day. 

Our governmental representatives are in the process of making it much harder to vote than it used to be.  Our governmental representatives are NOT making prevention of election interference from other countries a priority.  I would suggest that in this political climate each and every single one of us who is eligible to vote must vote in order to make sure that we are allowed to vote in the futures.

What does this blog have to do with the tides of healing?  Think about it. In the past two years there have been two major tax cuts for the rich and only one temporary tax cut for the middle class and poor.  The Affordable Care Act has been shredded and it’s harder and harder to get medical care unless one takes out a second mortgage and where does that leave those who cannot afford to own a home?   And, although the minimum wage at its inception was supposed to be a living wage and was for many years, our Congress in its wisdom has decided the minimum wage will not increase with inflation.  Our congressional representatives are NOT representing the needs or opinions of the middle and poor classes at present and the ONLY way to change that is to change the representatives. Voting is part and parcel of healing because it’s the only way to get a representative government for those of us who need professional help to heal.