Political leaders

Where Is the Line? A Lament

/ Apple Hill Cottage / 8 Comments

I once wrote a post about the double yellow line in the middle of the road.

Hardly anyone read it. It probably wasn’t very good–maybe the metaphor was too strained, or too vague, or maybe just not enough lines had been crossed. After all, it was back in April of 2017.

Back then, I wrote about how everyone was staying in their own lane and not crossing the double yellow line in the center. But today I’m writing about another line–the line that, once crossed, it’s too far. Everyone knows it is too far. And when it is crossed, there is opposition. And outrage. And courageous action.

I keep waiting. And the longer I wait, the farther away the line moves. And the angrier I get.

There was the Secretary of Defense and his buddies texting war plans on a Signal chat with a journalist. i thought surely that would be the line. There was deporting people to an El Salvador prison on a plane that courts had ordered to be turned around. i thought surely that would be the line. There were the bogus charges filed against a sitting member of Congress for simply doing her job. i thought surely that would be the line. There was the sending of the National Guard to LA without the Governor’s request–a violation of the constitution and I thought surely that would be the line. There was the handcuffing of a sitting senator. i thought surely that would be the line. There are masked thugs roaming the cities, grabbing workers from their jobs and people from their homes. Surely that is a line? But I know now, that there probably isn’t any red line. Remember he said years ago, he could kill someone in downtown Manhattan and nothing would happen. Have we become a nation who just allows their leader to break any law he chooses? Every day I wake up and wonder what embarrassing or illegal thing he has said or done while I was sleeping.

Yes, I am angry all the time now. I have violent thoughts. And anyone who knows me, knows that I am a peace-loving, non-violent person.

I’m wondering how peaceful americans can tolerate the kind of ugly slurs and racist garbage that comes out of his mouth? And it isn’t just him. A state senator and her husband were assassinated last week, and another state senator and his wife were shot in their home. And Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, made jokes about it online. MADE JOKES! And while I have been writing this post, trump has bombed another country without permission from Congress. It’s not war, they say. So if bombing another country is not war, is it a terrorist attack?

My former son-in-law, who is an immigrant from Spain, brought me books the other day–five books on the immigrant experience. He is a teacher, so these are categorized as Young Adult novels, but if you are a reader, you know that many Young Adult writers’ words are vibrant and magical.

I just finished home is not a country by Safia Elhillo. I read it slowly and it took me about five hours. Written as a series of narrative poems, it is about Nima, an Arabic teenager in this country, trying to make sense of her family history and why she is in this country. A beautiful read, these are the words that stood out to me:

when i met you i was already angry
so angry
about everything i thought had been taken from me
everything i thought i did not have
so busy looking
at my one empty hand i almost missed everything
filling the other

Safia Elhillo, home is not a country

Yes, I’m so angry. Angry at my government that is falling away while We the People are unable to do anything about it; angry at the others who voted for criminals to take over the government (and seem to be just fine with it); angry at the Christian Nationalist cult that is ruining the name of Jesus for so many; angry at those in power for their complete lack of respect and kindness and compassion for others, for the earth, for the world; angry at my own personal circumstance that is hollowing out our lives; and yes, I’m angry at God. For allowing all this pain. I’m overwhelmed. And so busy looking at my one empty hand I can’t see anything else. Lord, help me not to miss what is in my other hand…

and now, I have nothing else to say. So I will offer a prayer, a lament. Feeble words from a powerless woman in a weakened country in a frail world that seems to be losing its light.

Gracious Father, Lord and Spirit of all that is Holy and Beautiful,
this world is so broken
yet i look out the window 
at the white clouds
in the bright sky
and the leaves of the maple in the breath of wind.
nothing looks broken out my window.
but i know that bombs have just fallen from the sky
a world away. but it might have been otherwise (apologies to Jane Kenyon)
people just like me don't have food 
won't be cooking dinner
won't be taking their husband to his dentist appointment tomorrow.

What will it take, Lord?
this world is so broken
rich people sit in the houses of government
and make the laws that benefit themselves 
and sputter and stutter when confronted 
about the poor, the immigrant, the widowed, the vulnerable
the very people they oppress
the very people you love.

What will it take, Lord?
you gave us this world to steward
bluebirds, salmon, and horses to care for
but we have ozoned up the air
fouled the seas 
plasticated the land 
and sold the rushing mountain streams to the highest bidder.

What will it take, Lord?
Where is the line?
Surely we have crossed it?
Did you mean to die for us 
to leave us miserable 
in this broken world we have sullied for ourselves?
You have said that truth, beauty, love, and kindness will win.
How long, Lord? How long?

Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (Psalm 10:1)




An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos

/ Apple Hill Cottage / 4 Comments

January 20, 2025

Last month I canceled my long time Prime account. Not only Prime, but also my Amazon Prime Visa Card, which I’ve had for twenty years. I know its probably small potatoes to you, but over those twenty years I’ve spent thousands of dollars at Amazon and Whole Foods and Kindle…

You see I live in rural America where I can’t just go to the local ethnic shop and buy my red miso or organic whole wheat flour. The nearest Trader Joes is 29 miles away; the nearest Barnes and Noble is 23 miles away in a different direction. And Amazon made it so easy for someone who hates to shop. But I’m done. If I’d had a Washington Post subscription, I would be canceling it too.

This is going to be a sacrifice for me, but I can do this. Because millionaires like you, who bow the knee to old rich white men with power are disgusting. Worse, you’re doing it under the guise of free speech. I remember the exact day when it crossed my mind to cancel Amazon. It was when you used free speech as the reason to not endorse a presidential candidate, and then you wrote an editorial trying to justify Insanity vs. Sanity.

Worse, you’re donating millions of dollars to the inauguration of a madman.

Worse, you have the power of the media at your fingertips and you are controlling what political cartoons you will publish. It’s called Bowing the Knee. Or Obeying in Advance. Or Kissing the Ring (and that’s just a polite way of putting it).

So I’m opting out of Amazon. Almost everything I can buy on Amazon, I can find somewhere else.

My books are now purchased at Bookshop.org which supports independent book stores.
My Castile soap is now purchased directly from Prairie Essentials.
My parchment paper and kitchen supplies now come from IfYouCare.com
Our bamboo toilet paper comes from WhoGivesaCrap.com

My vitamins come from Naturewise.com; our refrigerator filters came from a small family business that enclosed a hand written note thanking me for supporting them; our cat food and supplies come from Chewy.com; and my brand new KitchenAid mixer came directly from Williams-Sonoma.com. (Why didn’t I get this ten years ago?)

Gratitude 8

It’s a bit of a hassle. But I’m looking at it as a game to see what smaller or better companies I can support.

Yes I miss Prime movies, but I can make do with Netflix. And with the money I’ve saved from axing Prime, I can donate to PBS and get Masterpiece. And have enough to spend on Britbox.com, if I want.

My new credit card is another account that still accumulates points, just not from Amazon. I am Amazon-free. I am X-free. I am Facebook-free. Next I will be trying to figure out an alternative to Home Depot. I’m hoping our local Ace Hardware will do the trick.

And I’m reminded that I also subscribe to the theory that all I need is less.

all you need is less

And now, I am going to go watch the speech of a Real. American. Hero. Whose day of honor has been overtaken, overshadowed, and stolen by a bunch of anti-democratic, anti-American, oligarchic cowardly millionaires. And the poor people that they have fooled.

Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream Speech can be viewed on You Tube right here.

I suggest you do the same.

Stand in the Breach…

/ Apple Hill Cottage / 18 Comments

…So I have just spent the last thirty days writing political posts on a blog that was never supposed to be political.

But these last three years have left me with something that needs to be more than a month-long rant. What unsettles me the most are the reasoned, thoughtful,  pieces that discuss the loss of democracy through authoritarianism. Do you know how it happens? Good people like you and me simply tune out what is happening because: A) We can’t believe it has come to this; B) We simply zone out because of A;  C) We don’t know what we can possibly do against something so BIG; or D) We don’t talk about it because our friends voted for the other party, and we know what discussing politics has done  does to friends and families.

But this is important, friends: It is no longer Politics As Usual. We bury our heads in the sand at our country’s peril. (And believe me, I am a long-time ostrich…) And so I pulled my head out of the sand, blinked in the sunlight, and wrote some things here that might offend, but I have tried to write them in the most reasoned way I could. We do not need to add another screaming voice to this already polarized country.

I was reading my morning scriptures today — I’m in Ezekiel (!) — and I was struggling hard to understand what Chapter 22 was telling me, when I came to verse 30: “And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.”

No, it isn’t about building a wall. (Please read this post, if you need to hear my views on walls….) It is about being righteous, standing up for righteousness, for justice, for mercy, for love. Righteousness must be tempered by love, or else we have someone who is a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal; love must be tempered by righteousness or we have wantonness. Justice without mercy is cruelty; mercy on its own without justice makes us doormats. Love & Righteousness, Justice & Mercy–they belong on opposite sides of the same coin; one without the other is an imbalance, a lack of harmony, a breach…

These days the country is certainly imbalanced, harmony is hard to find, and perhaps the breach is miles wide, but what is democracy worth? For my entire lifetime, democracy has not needed to be fought for, and perhaps we have grown soft and complacent, thinking the United States of America was the founding of democracy, and we needn’t worry about it.

  • After all, don’t we have the Constitution?
  • Don’t we have three branches of government that balance each other?
  • Aren’t we all certain of our freedom and our voting rights?
  • Dictators and tyrants and authoritarian rulers are not our allies, are they?

If the events of the last few months have you wondering or worrying about these questions, I suggest that we remember that it  wasn’t so long ago, we needed to fight for democracy. The odd thing about now is that it seems our democracy is deteriorating from within. And we can’t agree about who is doing the crumbling as the walls fall to pieces with people on either side shouting and throwing rocks.

What we need is courageous people to stand in the breach. Courageous people to say  “Stop shouting.” “Stop Tweeting.”  Put down the ugly sign in your hand, turn to the person next to you, and offer it to them.

I’ve been reading The Case for the Psalms by N.T. Wright and there is this beautiful quote toward the end. He writes about “…a people of praise who, out of their celebration of God’s goodness in creation and out of their eager anticipation of his coming in judgment at last, speak his word and his truth to those in power, reminding them that they are answerable to the God who will one day hold them accountable.”

Can we speak truth to those in power? Will we stand in the breach, or have we gone too soft after years of easy living? Will we offer our hands to those who are different from us? Are we willing to do the hard work of reconciliation or is it just easier to keep shouting and interrupting? Jesus stands in the gap for us, and calls us to do the same. How will you stand?