Finding New Havens for MLK Day 2025

We once understood the word "haven" to mean harbor, or port.

A safe haven. A new haven. A port in the storm.

We've navigated through our share of storms recently, both personally and as communities and as a nation. Storms on every level.

My spouse's recent and unexpected brain surgery, from which she is recovering super well. 

The loss of young people in addition to old in our small, rural community.

The return of our nation to a man who embodies selfish, abusive male values antithetical to the well-being and equity of all people, contradicting our own.

Aren't we always looking for havens? And finding them where we least expect them?

This new year of 2025, our new haven has been literally New Haven, CT, on Quinnipiac land, and Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Since we landed here rather than on our intended vacations, and as someone who grew up 25-50 miles down the coast from here, I've been repeating the joke that I never in my life dreamed of vacationing in New Haven!

Growing up during the 1960's and 1970's on Connecticut's eastern Long Island shore, New Haven was never a place one thought to visit.

All U.S. cities were in decline during this period due to "white flight:" the mass exodus of middle class residents from cities thanks to deindustrialization; poor urban planning including the redlining of neighborhoods and lack of investment; and the continued centering of the car in the heart of American suburbanization, which had begun in the 1940's. 

By 1975, New York City was on the brink of bankruptcy. The gritty, small Connecticut cities to its east, including New Haven, were not in much better shape. The redlining was particularly fierce in New Haven. And in 1970, New Haven played host to a series of prosecutions against the Black Panther Party, and related protests, cementing its infamy.

Yet founded in 1638, New Haven was one of the nation's first planned cities in addition to being one of its first settled colonies.

Like so many colonialist communities, it was established as a theocracy. It's centerpiece, Yale University, was established with funding from the former colonial governor of Madras, with funds from the East India Company.

The city became a hub of industrialization thanks to Eli Whitney, who founded not only the cotton gin but also Connecticut's formidable gun manufacturing economy, earning the state one of its first unfortunate nicknames as "The Arsenal of America." Much of Connecticut's considerable wealth, especially in comparison with other New England states, remains based in the military-industrial complex. New Haven is an archetype of American colonialism.

And a place in no way viewed by my parents as a "haven" for their prowling teenager, who nonetheless escaped westward on I-95 for concerts at Toad's Place and New Haven's famous thin crust apizza. The crime. The deterioration. The immigrants newer than themselves, speaking languages not their own.

How odd, then, to unintentionally return here 50 years later.

How odd indeed the way landscape works its way into our bodies early on, becoming a part of our cells and memories in ways I would not have thought possible.

I left this landscape permanently, after a previous departure, in 1982. Yet the gentle, salt marsh strewn coast criss-crossed by railroad tracks and marinas; the mighty sweep of the lower Connecticut River running through the deciduous hardwood forests; and the familiar suburban pathways and landmarks of my ancestors -- Killingworth, New Britain, Middletown, Deep River, Chester, Old Saybrook -- are etched into my fiber.

And at last, against all odds, New Haven has truly become a "new haven" for us.

And So This is Christmas...

One of my favorite, and absolute, truisms is that the human brain requires a minimum of seven times of hearing / seeing / learning something before we really hear or understand or incorporate it.

A priest I admire and follow recently said that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because we need this annual reminder of the hope for who we can and might best be as humans: loving, peaceful, generous, forgiving children.

Because that is really the story of this night, isn't it? That god is born into each of us, that we can incarnate god in how we choose to be.

Perhaps then it is little wonder that we have buried this simple message -- as clear as a bright star drawing us toward it in the sharp cold of a winter sky -- with so many layers of stuff that it is almost completely obscured to many.

We really do have choices in the face of both the hardships and luxuries we encounter.

The Christmas story, and the Advent readings leading up to it, are just one religion's way to remind us that humans are not a priori violent, greedy, self-centered and vengeful even if those traits are the ones we seem to idolize in those we elect as leaders.

These stories exist in every culture and every religion.

And still they are not enough to keep us from putting the false idols of wealth and power first.

They are not enough to keep us from failing to forgive each other and instead seeking vengeance, hurling not only words and rocks but also policies and missiles.

The proof that we are flawed beings is everywhere. We all experience how difficult it is to make the best choices. How tempting it is to want too much, to step on others in our urgent desire to acquire.

What a challenge it is to serve by being last, rather than always trying to be first.

The proof is inscribed in history and across each of our individual hearts.

Christmas offers the x7 reminder of the yearly hope that we can instead recognize the god-nature in all around us, and choose the god-nature in ourselves.

We can return to that baby in the manger in ourselves, and carry that love, peace, generosity, and forgiveness forward into the new year.

Every year a fresh start -- as long as we can find and hear the stories under all with which we've buried them.

Dorothy Day: Living the Beatitudes for All the People

Yesterday was the great Dorothy Day's birthday.

I wonder what she would be thinking of the state of the U.S. today.

Because many of you won't know who Day was -- she was born in NYC in 1897, two years before my own grandmothers -- she was a journalist and Catholic reformer who co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper and worker movement.

This movement aimed to unite workers and intellectuals in shared activities from farming to education, as well as starting "houses of hospitality" for the urban poor.

She is up for sainthood and has my vote because of her staunch support for the Catholic "preferential option for the poor" social teaching which prioritizes the needs of the most vulnerable in ethical and political decision making.

During her lifetime, Day protested the Vietnam War and was arrested in 1973 in California while demonstrating support for the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez.

This country's "christian" culture, largely founded on Calvinist Protestantism, could probably use an injection of thinking and action like that of Day's, which is grounded more in the Beatitudes than in the Commandments.

Today's U.S. culture and economy has continued to evolve through the "robber barons" of the early 20th century (Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Mellon, etc.) to the tech oligarchs of today (Musk, Bezos, Thiel et. al.).

In channeling this Dorothy, I think we will not be well as a nation until we give up our single-minded focus on the accrual of personal wealth and happiness and focus more on the common good -- in our daily choices, actions, and public policies.

"Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40)

A necessary saint for our times. Remembering Dorothy Day on her birthday.

Minority Report

The dogs appeared to be fairly alarmed Tuesday evening, no doubt from our energy, and uncharacteristically huddled up together...

I am no stranger to feeling in the minority but this week is a good reminder to us all that it is not a good feeling and therefore one no one should have.

As I arrived home from work yesterday afternoon, two sheriff's deputies SUV's, blue lights and sirens screaming, rocketed down the island past our house. Shortly thereafter, a pickup truck came out of nowhere up to my bumper then raced past, cutting aggressively close to my vehicle.

These are both ordinary events in our rural world. But I am jumpy. It's not grief I feel as much as dread: the feeling you have in waking from sleep that something bad has happened and your life is forever changed.

I went through years of physical harassment and discrimination in my youth for being a queer woman, and have been grateful for the progress we've made that made such experiences not gone but more rare as I've grown older.

Baby dyke at 14 in 1975, in the chair where I 
devoured Jill Johnston's Lesbian Nation.

Yet I can feel that again: that uneasy, insecure sense one has when one is forced to recognize their minority status. The feeling, and oppression, our citizens of color as well as women and queer people have always had and continue to confront. The privileges of my education and skin color have granted me a bit of a pass for the past couple of decades, for which I am grateful.

None of us should ever feel threatened by being in the minority -- including those who "took back" the country with this week's election.

In many ways, it is a "taking back:" a grab for power made ugly by language and action by people who our culture has made to feel insecure -- predominantly white men but others who hope to rise to the top, too. The white European culture on which this continent was colonized as a nation is one of hierarchy, material wealth, and yes, violent extremism. In this way, this election is a "going back" to the rot at the root for which we as a nation, unlike Germany or South Africa, has never gone through truth and reconciliation.

No one should be made to feel less than others, or threatened for who they are by the power of a majority. That's not the point of truth and reconciliation. It's not about blame. It's about mutual, shared understandings.

We don't need power over each other for everyone to have enough if some don't grab more than their share. But turning around this deep, deep culture -- based on the patriarchal accrual of wealth and power at the expense of others -- is proving difficult to evolve.

It is seductive. We all buy into it. We participate.

To think of "education" as some sort of elitism is a tragic component of all of this, yet we have created this problem, too, by putting education financially out of the reach of too many. We all have helped to create this "elite" by not fighting hard enough to ensure everyone has what they need to participate and to succeed.

Only 37.7% of U.S. citizens has a college education. Yet in 2022, the median earnings for those with a bachelor's degree were a shocking 86% higher than those with a high school diploma, and college degrees have been a de facto requirement for those holding public office and making the policies that impact us all.

So I've been part of a minority all along -- just the one holding power.

We need to listen to those who voted to return Trump to office, and seriously consider their reasons without dismissing anyone.

We can do better.

And as Kamala said so beautifully in her concession speech yesterday afternoon at Howard University: the fight for equity and justice for all continues. It's never been a short fight. It's easy to be exhausted by chaos and fear and we need to re-think, re-create, re-gather for the long haul. We all have accountability, we all have responsibility, we all have a part to play, now and every day.

If you missed Kamala's speech, delivered at Howard University because the young people are those who need our greatest concern, you can listen here: https://youtu.be/d9FVB6-7BN0?si=fOHO5Ic1TtvqJQyl

#newblogpost

#seekequity

#EndThePatriarchy

Things Were Not Better Then, Get Out and Vote

From the family archives: me in yellow, my baby brother (we are both adopted), and my two older cousins (with the oldest devil on his knees to make for not too much height discrepancy!) at this time of year in the mid-1960's.

We tend to romanticize our childhoods. The "things were better then" mode of believing.

I became an American Studies major because of my love for what I believed was the promise offered by this country, a belief I held in spite of many political arguments with my Dad, 5+ political assassinations, numerous racial killings, Wounded Knee, Kent State, no Title IX or other equal rights and protections for women and gay people, and one presidential resignation due to criminal activity all occurring during my childhood.

I have always believed in the as-yet unfulfilled promise of a Constitution which might hold many diverse immigrants together under a rule of law, seeking the most benefit for the most people; a promise that one day might offer reparations to the indigenous people from whom our colonizing ancestors stole this land and the African people they enslaved for profit.

I fell in love with FDR and Eleanor because through their belief in investing in people through the common good of government they pulled this nation from the worst economic depression ever, one suffered through by my teen parents and grandparents, a depression created by those who would seek to inflate profits at the expense of others.

Things weren't "better then" no matter how securely some of us were lucky to be held by our families and our privilege.

We have had to struggle for women and people of all colors to be respected and to have equal rights -- and we are still in the middle of those struggles, as this year's election makes all too clear.

We have had to struggle to counter the violence on which the country was founded, a struggle that continues today in the form of regulations to reduce gun violence.

We have had to struggle to ensure everyone has food on their plate, a secure place to live, and equal access to education, struggles that continue to exist today with our public education structures under fire and corporate profiteering. That we have allowed "real estate" to become a bank for too many -- as if any of us can own this planet -- hurting those with the least among us.

Through it all, I am still that American Studies scholar and lover of this nation. But now we are again afflicted by something that has haunted our entire history -- a type of hateful divisiveness and lust for unchecked power that would we have put to bed generations ago.

You can call it human nature. I like to be more precise, and call it white patriarchal colonialist culture, referencing those who are still trying to keep power and riches to themselves at any cost, spewing hate at anyone not meeting their standards for "who is an american."

We are all Americans, and we are all going to vote.

Please do not say you love me and then vote for people who will remove my rights as a woman or a gay person. Please do not say you support my work and then wonder if a woman is strong enough to be our President.

Please vote for the people who want to welcome those in need in ways that make sense for our communities; for those who want to end, not instigate, violence; for those who believe in government by, for, and of the people; for those who show love and respect for all.

These principles are my American heritage, one of which I remain proud.

And because I #votemyvalues, next week I will be voting for the first woman for President of the U.S.

How about you?