The Importance of the Raspberry Patch

I spent a couple of hours in our garden yesterday, picking raspberries, digging potatoes, re-homing milkweed...

My mother, Mae, always said she found God nearest in her raspberry patch. When she tired of the faux-knowing ways of men and their man-made institution of the church, she still had faith that this planet and these lives are gifts to us for which to be grateful and to be treasured. She found and practiced her faith in her raspberry patch.

Now I do, too.

Today is September 1, and Labor Day. I've always been energized by September. It's my birth month. The New England weather is perfect, with bluebird sky days and warm ocean waters and crisp dry air.

Plus, I was a kid who loved school. I loved the bigger world, apart from my family -- the different people. The teachers, even those who were mean and unskilled as educators. And the learning! So much to learn about this world. New books. New challenges. New frameworks, from geometry and physics to history and biology.

I was one of the lucky ones, for whom my curiosity and hunger for this world was not squelched by school but rather deepened by it.

I was loved and supported in a stable home. This made keeping this curiosity alive possible as well.

Today, all around us and especially in leadership, we have people who think they know things yet who exhibit no curiosity, no questioning, no desire for collaboration and learning.

They make pronouncements and executive orders on things about which they clearly know very little -- yet feel entitled to damage others' lives willy-nilly with their lack of understanding, empathy, and compassion.

I so very much wish for leaders who act from gratitude and grace in their privilege. That humility, of serving others and not only yourself, is to me a primary characteristic of leadership.

Yet we are now a culture that votes for individuals who display the opposites.

We believe the acquisition of wealth is due to intelligence, when more often it is due to exploitation of others.

We need so many things to be a great nation again.

On my list:

An education president, who believes that we are all learners and not knowers and that everyone deserves equal access to education.

The values that take us and our children back into our raspberry patches, in gratitude and generosity and thanksgiving, in respect for and care of this beautiful world and lives each have been given.

Today, let us give thanks to the workers and to the unions that have fought against exploitation of selves and planet for a humane, compassionate environment in which to work: the 8-hour day. Health care. Disability. Retirement.

Let's lean into and protect our many blessings, and offer our kindness and privilege and excesses to those who do not have as many.

#newblogpost