You got no mail today.

Did you notice? Do you know why?

Because this is a National Holiday,

a day set aside by the United States government

to honor someone who made a difference.

That person was Dr. Martin Luther King.

He was not some rabble-rouser trouble-maker,

Tryin’ to stir up folks for no good reason,

He was a preacher of the Word of God,

That is where he found his strength to continue,

When there seemed to be no answer,

Because when God gets behind you,

It doesn’t matter who is in front of you

Calling you names,

Spreading hate like wildfire,

Bombing your homes

Or threatening your life,

Because that is what he faced,

Not in ancient times –

though it may feel that way

If you are 21,

But 50 years ago,

In the time when I grew up,

In the days of MY lifetime.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Was a gifted speaker,

One who could inspire crowds

And uplift hearts,

like no one you’ve ever heard,

He inspired collective ACTION

through non-violent means,

he inspired those who had no hope left

of ever seeing justice reign,

he inspired politicians to change their laws

to DO SOME WALKING to go along with their TALKING

about equal opportunity.

He wrote a letter from the Birmingham jail,

Asking why his fellow ministers were not there with him?

Was this not America – home of the brave, land of the FREE?

What would it take to bring about EQUALITY?

But 50 years later,

A store clerk looks at me,

In a business in the rural south,

and asks me, “What was the attraction?”

When I spoke of the service today,

when I joked about spending 3 ½ hours in CHURCH,

listening to speakers and choirs sing,

“What was the attraction?”

And I don’t know what to say, except,

“This is a NATIONAL HOLIDAY!”

This is a man courageous enough

to stand up for justice

In the face of death,

To face hatred

With never ending love,

To face bombings of churches and his home,

With a dream of a better America,

And I want to say, “Where were you?”

Because there were hundreds in that church today,

–But he’s not the only one,

so I want to ask, “Where were you?”

and where ARE we today – exactly?

Because this was a NATIONAL holiday,

And we have much work left to do,

because “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence . . . in a descending spiral of destruction…The chain reaction of evil . . . must be broken, or we will shall plunge into the dark abyss of annihilation…” ¹

“When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response . . . I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life . . .” ²

and “Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.” ³

^1,2,3  quotes of Dr. Martin Luther King

Beginnings.

The day before the first day of the semester,

All is possibility.

There are no late assignments,

No one has failed a test,

Or made an excuse for missing class.

Your relationship with each and every student

Is solid.

All there is, is the role play, of student vs. professor.

The goal for today is to copy the syllabus,

The contract of promises to be kept.

There are no questions as to when the assignment is due,

Whether or not you provide a review,

Or take papers via e-mail.

You have a list with names on it,

Everyone’s grade is equally resplendent.

Their main concern for tomorrow

Is to find the right room,

And to take a seat — next to someone they know.

15 weeks of struggle and promise lie pristine before them,

No one knows how to tell their story,

Or how it will come to an end,

Today is all possibility,

Lift your pencil, now, begin!

First of all, wordpress thinks it is bringing snow, as it has snow coming down in the background as I write this. That CERTAINLY is not true. Just took a mile or so walk, w/ a hooded sweatshirt on, unzipped, and almost had to remove it. The sun was out most of the day, an absolutely lovely day.

Hopefully this new year will first of all bring my husband a job. Unemployed for 7 mos. now and no unemployment check. He is owed an unemployment check but will never get it. This was explained in a past post.

My life has become very simple. We have what we have for money, & that’s it. The only thing we have to decide is, how to juggle the bills to not get sued or attacked, and keep the lights, water and Internet on. The TV is gone– have lived w/o it now for a few months. Our phones have to stay on. Even those I would get rid of, but the companies have you in some assenine contract for 2 years, and you CAN’T turn them off!! You can turn off 1 line for 3 mos., & then they turn it back on.

As we go through this hard time again, I am amazed how cruel a society we live in. Absolutely cruel. People want to blame everyone else at the bottom besides those at the top making these decisions to keep the rest of us groveling for a decent place to live, a car to drive to our jobs in, and enough food to eat. It is just ridiculous.

The hardest thing for me, is to just wait. Wait and wait some more. Wait past the time you thought you couldn’t wait any longer. You have no choice, really, there is nothing else to do except possibly make a huge change and move back to the land of industry, where my husband COULD at least have a JOB. But we have friends here, we love our community, & we promised the Fedl govt. we’d live in this house at least another year, or we owe the President his kick back money. Don’t want to be in that situation. We can’t afford it.

So my life is simple. I don’t even consider Starbucks anymore, it’s 1/2 hour away. Have grown used to making my own coffee every single day. We eat simply. We have eggs, toast, cereal, or oatmeal every morning, a salad for lunch, and one actual meal per day. The night meal includes meat, usually potatoes and onions, and some sort of vegetable. Nothing elaborate. Same every day. We find ourselves buying occasional candy bars or cokes, because of the craving for sweets, and just something a little bit FUN. OH BOY! We don’t go out to movies, don’t go out to eat, don’t even go into town really because we have to save the gas money. Certainly did not make it home to Indiana this holiday season!

Take a 3-mi walk as often as possible, watch a few tv shows days after they’re on real tv, on our computer, a few movies, play games on computer, read, go see friends, for “entertainment”. It’s an exciting life.

This break for me has been an organization break. I went thru stuff in our garage once again, made a list of everything we own for will purposes, organized my children’s class stuff again for whenever it will be used, read one children’s book I’d never read before. In this next week, I hope to finish major work on a journal article for publication; get my syllabi done; go in to another school where I’m teaching a class part-time for extra money this Spring; work on family history a little; read my text books;

and be thankful. Thankful for my kids, my 4 grandkids and 1 new one on the way. Thankful for my husband & friend & our time together. Thankful for faith which brings hope. Hope is about the most important thing I could wish for everyone this new year. There is always hope.

We have a small pork roast in the crockpot which I bought on sale tonight, and which will be ready late this evening while we watch movies together…. that’s nice and cozy.

Netherlands — ALL — on my mom’s side.

Father’s side:

Scotland

Ireland

Wales

Germany

England

Switzerland

MY HUSBAND’S SIDE:

his mother’s side: GERMANY, ALL

his father’s side:
Germany

England

Ireland

Netherlands

At my college on Wednesday, we will go into the chapel which will be filled with beautiful red poinsettas. Now I’m not a church attender, but I know beauty when I see it. And I love red. So it suits me just fine.

Faculty parade in, each in their own institution’s gown from when they graduated. Mine is the only gold & black hood for PU. Each graduate will not only have his or her name announced, but each one is personally hooded by the acting President, and then they will each have their picture taken WITH the acting President before leaving the stage. It is a happy day, a proud day, and we personally know each graduate very well by the time they get on that stage. That’s because we’ve seen them in numerous classes, as they go back and forth between myself and my colleague, the 2 sociology faculty at my school. They take other classes as well, but we’ve seen them in every sociology class they ever take. Additionally, we are their advisors, so we consult with them to sign them up for classes each semester. It is an intimate and caring relationship, one that often continues over 5 years’ time. By the time we see them walk across that stage, we feel nearly as proud as the parents!

After living the experience at a small college, I would not trade it for the world. There are pros and cons about each situation. Large universities have their own national reputations which help graduates land jobs after they leave. They have sports teams that are seen on national television, and nothing can beat the experience of a crowd of thousands at a football stadium the size of a small planet. At a place like that, you form your own groups and clubs, because you need those to feel connected. But there is a faculty of 20 or so professors within each discipline. Students can graduate in your own field without ever having taken one of your classes! No thanks, folks. I can think of each student and know their best skills and the things they do poorly. I know the ones who are usually late to class, who don’t do well taking one at 8am. I know the ones who play sports and how their team did their senior year. I know those who are always early to class, I know whose grandfather died in the last year. I know many who never made it to this stage, who dropped out for one reason or another along the way, the same as many of my student colleagues did alongside of me in graduate school. Not everyone makes it to the final runway. Not everyone should. Life has many paths. But for those who DO, we gonna get down and celebrate on Wednesday!! Picture time! Oh yeah. 

My mother was very child-like. She accepted whatever her pastor told her. She accepted what other women in her own Bible study told her, as if they knew more than her. In reality, her faith was larger than most of them in her later weeks, months, years of life. Her best friend once told her, “Marti, we won’t know each other when we die — we’ll be ANGELS!” And my poor mother accepted that. I personally think her friend was “dead wrong”.    

My mother was also a recovering alcoholic. She learned that term in treatment. She almost died that week that my brother & sister drove her in. She learned that an alcoholic is always “recovering” and not “recovered”, and, like a child, she believed them when they told her, “If you take ONE DRINK, you’ll be RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU WERE when you came in here.”  She was technically dead when she came in there. She knew that too, and believed that if she ever took ONE DRINK, she’d be right back at death’s doorstep. And so she never did take another drink and lived 22 years after leaving the facility.

She went to a live-in, residential treatment facility, without which I believe she never would have quit. It took her body a week to get sober. Then she started in on “treatment”. In the facility, they focused on acceptance and love. Acceptance for the condition they were in and their addiction, and complete forgiveness and love for the self. Addicts are inherently self-centered. The world revolves around their addiction and their next drink, and all else is secondary. Recovering addicts are the same. They have to be! The world revolves around their staying sober and all else is secondary. It is my belief that this self-centeredness carries over into every other aspect of their lives, which makes them damn hard to live with. But it makes them possible to have a relationship with. My kids would not have known their grandma if she had not quit drinking. When she stopped, they were just barely old enough to start seeing the alcohol, and I would have stopped taking them there. They would not know their grandma drunk. But she stopped, and that made a relationship possible, and is one that they cherish to this day.

In a hallway in the treatment facility, they had a little bell. Any time anyone wanted a hug, they could ring that little bell and stand there, and someone would come and give them a hug. Many times, visits with family members are restricted while they learn to deal with themselves and their addiction. My memory/vision of my mother is of her standing there in that hallway, by that little bell, and ringing it. She would do that. She told me about it. It just breaks my heart right now to think of her standing there in need of a hug. Sometimes I really miss my mom.

The thing that sticks with me about the ending is that this little man, this incredible shrinking man, stands back and looks up at the sky and sees the stars. He looks up into God’s heaven, and he knows he is not alone, that he is part of the universe, and that he matters.

Isn’t that an incredible ending? Would a movie of today end like that? I don’t think so. I think that is a lost art, to really say something about human nature and the universe in a popular movie. They try but it’s more all about the glitz, the technological chase scenes or something else. I think that is an incredible statement in the end. We matter. No matter how alone we feel, we are not alone, we are part of the whole entire universe, and we matter. There is a song from black gospel that talks about the sparrow. God knows the sparrow, and He knows me. ‘His eye is on the sparrow,’ is the wording.

As time goes on, and my husband doesn’t have a job or any income, for 6 months now, sometimes I start to feel that God doesn’t hear or that there is simply no answer. Yet, if I go back to prayer and envelop myself in His Holy words, it is always the same. The Love is always there, the feeling of completeness, the knowlege of Holy souls (call them angels if you wish), the understanding that there is more to the universe than this life. So what does it all mean? I don’t know. What do we do next? I really don’t know. I just know that God’s love surrounds us, always. This is a gift in itself.