Free Palestine

Words evade me today, most days, actually. I save them for ranting online at our elected officials who’ve gone off the rails with their moral insanity. And today Biden revealed so much more of his hatred for Palestinians when speaking at the Holocaust Remembrance event. All I can say in response is: there is no ancient enmity that justifies the killing of thousands and thousands of children. No justification exists in any way on any platform for any reason. Ever. And if you’re one of the “But October 7th” folks, just don’t. My response: Yes, 10/7 was a horrific day on the timeline of conflict. Also, I see your one day and raise you decades of apartheid inflicted on Palestinians, including rape, kidnapping, and murder, that was preceded by the takeover of their homes, lands and lives.

Meanwhile, Macklemore says all the things that need saying…just push past YouTube’s obvious censorship efforts.

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The Silver Cup

Listening to America’s “Lonely People”, I remember hearing this song when we would sneak radio time in my sisters’ room. “The world”, forbidden and made sweeter by the alleged taboo of wicked rock music, felt so far away.

I imagine looking back over my life and finding many forbiddens bidding me come out and play.  Stray and sneak away outside the gate. Songs and goings on whispered outside my world, bidding me run fast from the realm of religious zombies and their kool aid.

How appropriate the line: Don’t give up until you drink from the silver cup. Even fundies can be saved, y’all.

I eventually ran. I’m so glad I ran.

Today, sitting with the melody and the impression, it strikes me how life/humanity/freedom pulled at me even then, a sort of promise of days to come. Certainly, the times have included some loneliness. But the final impression filtering into my awareness as I see myself, ear up against the little radio, grinning while “Lonely People” greets me on this side of things and leaves me, not lonely, but deep in my sense of inclusion. I feel myself as a voice among millions, crying out for peace.

I ache daily. Hostages, cobalt mines, “terrorists” and refugee camps in danger as I brew one steaming cup in my world of immense wealth however financially limited. I hate, I loathe the unfairness. The inequity. There is no good reason for what has been happening in Palestine for decades. Not one, not a single good reason.

And truly, Zionism triggers my fundie warning system. My newsfeed is full of Zionism’s fallout, bodies torn. So, I run to music, to birds, to working with my hands. There’s no way to engage that belief system, to pry it open and let the light in, set minds free. And yet, I wish. I know well the truth that no one can know until, well, until they know. And as a fundie, no amount of shame or ranting would’ve brought me out of that darkness. Only love, love and life breaking me open.

So, enough with fundies, and please know that I know that not all Zionists feel the same way about things unfolding in Palestine. People are complicated, but what’s happening to Palestine is quite straightforward: genocide. The purpose of the trigger, the purpose I make of it, is one of reaching out to life as I am now. Today. I’m not “chosen” anymore. The sea of humanity may well engulf me, wipe me from all memory eventually. And that is a beautiful thing, to be in the flow of being human amongst humans, flowing towards the next expression of love.

And as I flow, some things remain. I still pray. I pray to the love that was, is and is yet to be. I pray to the love within me, the love within every soul. Let our longings grow, our clamoring souls shout us all towards deeper truths and a love that refuses oppression of any and every person on our planet. May our *chosen* values embrace everyone, and our holiest lands spread far and around and through, to our precious one and only earth.

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All the Light

We cannot see. Anthony Doerr’s six potent words float up to the surface when pondering expression here. What do you say on a blog/website with an activity level of almost nil these days? Where to begin and who will even read/listen?

2023 consisted of a number of challenges, not the least of which was the work on my Etsy shop. Besides that, being present for landmark, wonderful moments with my children while mourning the loss of one of our tribe, mentioned earlier in 2023, blurs behind me. Everything feels out of focus.

So much muddied over, trampled in the dust of racism, ethnic annihilation and corruption. Is there light to be seen? Whatever meaning some may have taken from the book/movie, All the Light We Cannot See, I can point to human resilience as an echo in the back of my mind. It lingers. And yet all the light we can see feels eclipsed by genocide and by the attack on 10/7/23 that triggered a landslide of public outcry. All over the world. First the protest and anguish of the initial carnage, and then the inevitable spotlight on Gaza, on Palestinians. How could we not see what we’ve known unfolds for Gazans decade after decade? And then the explosion of gaslighting. It turns out some folks willfully refuse the complexity possible in people’s perceptions of events. I can condemn the slaughter of 10/7 while simultaneously protesting the ongoing slaughter of innocent civilians while holding my breath for the release of hostages on both sides. Most especially, yes, I’m going there, those hostages held by Israel long before 10/7. There is no innocence in Israel’s history as far as I can see. None in the history here in the United States. Perhaps none anywhere.

I had quit yelling about Palestine somewhere between the end of Obama’s presidency and the onslaught of tsunamic shifts in my personal world. It wasn’t a lack of concern, but all my passion focused on struggles for one of my children’s well-being, and at times it felt, their very life. A pandemic tosses around in the mix of memories, isolation, fears. The 2nd Pfizer jab laid me flat for 18 months and here I emerge into a world I barely recognize.

The madness roiling across the global landscape dares me to cherish what I can see, what I experience as sanity and coherence. Meaning. My daughter is expecting her first child…new life gestating, kicking around in the womb of a beautiful person. I can’t type those words without tears, our wonderful good fortune both beautiful and a direct contrast to so much loss, and all while highlighting how precious it all is. The whole world should fare as well as my children and my children’s children. Everyone deserves peace, autonomy, wellness, shelter, freedom from the greed and unchecked power of the corrupt. But not everyone finds such. I can hold these truths simultaneously. But they feel especially heavy today.

Meaning morphs itself, gestating vision, birthing mission. What am I about now? Love is still the only point, isn’t it? It is, but why can’t love feed the hungry, end wars. Perhaps the question is, why do we allow greed and corruption to blockade the works of love, humanitarian relief? Why are all the wrong people holding all the power and what in love’s name can we do about it?

Maybe all we can do consists of the stuff we can’t yet see. I look at my youngest’s earrings adorning both ears. They’re gorgeous understated simplicity. Gold. I wore them in my 20s, before the life and light of one Evan. Suicidal ideation held a lot of sway back then for me. So many wounds to heal and denial to shed and Jesus dogged my every footfall, stalking my sanity. I had no clue what my future held and how much meaning it would infuse into my life and how much darkness it would dispel even as far back into my history as my 20s. My nonbinary youngest who graced our world the same week of 9/11 stands a beautiful 6 feet 3 inches above all I see. I look at those earrings these days and, call me crazy, but it feels like redemption to know they went from a fundie’s failing moments to the ears of a person whose childhood looked nothing like mine. Not that they didn’t struggle (!). But…their life, their siblings’ lives, the life gestating…light. They were there back when I wanted to die. They weren’t physically there, but they. were. there. The light I had yet to see.

I’m finding my mission to be one of reclaiming faith. Faith, not in a religion’s deity, but in how love can shape a life and how persistence and commitment carry that meaning, love meaning, forward into new eras. It’s not that I lost my faith as much as my life changed so dramatically, I’ve been disoriented, shocked, groping about in, yes, darkness, trying to find what remains. Love remains though it doesn’t always look or feel like it. Everything about being/doing/gestating love was immediate and real when my kids all lived under my roof, relying on me as mama. And while I worked hard to not let that be my only outlet and focus, it held so much of me. When the nest empties, everything feels foreign. Who is this person now? Toss in some apocalyptic goings on, challenging times and it’s easy to feel lost. So many struggles are boiling over all over the world. Masks ripped off some powerful faces, revealing gross darkness. A nation’s decline, a country’s struggles, our standing in the world literally affects us, each one. And ours isn’t the only nation wobbling, is it? I would not have predicted one of the most despairing situations I would contend with in my 50s would be the state of our nation and what we’re supporting with our tax dollars. But here I am and here we are stumbling around, grasping at what feels like endless darkness.

Democracy is literally hanging in the balance here in the U.S. and Biden’s total silence on the value of Gazan life nuked my respect for his accomplishments. I may have to vote for him regardless. I would rather stand in front of him and scream at him, literally scream. How could you abandon all that matters when you’re the president following on the heels of Trump and all his hellions? How could you be such a grotesque caricature of integrity at this point in the game? How could you be so obvious in your racism? How can you live with these war crimes? WHERE IS YOUR LIGHT?

Just to persist requires a faith not easily held these days. Gazans prove the fact that to exist, just to exist, is a rebellion of love itself in the face of so much devastation, corruption and betrayal. Just as a people whose lives hung by a thread, crammed into railcars heading for the deepest darkness, were breathing all our value with each breath, a revolt against the coming loss, much hangs in the balance now. We owe it to them to stop the madness growing more dark each day in the Middle East. The only way most of us can do that is to keep screaming, keep protesting, keep calling it what it is.

We owe it to the lives to come and to the light they’ll be.

J. Ruth Kelly, 2024, All Rights Reserved (Digital Media)

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Chronic Illness Support

In my efforts to regain a baseline with MECFS, I’ve witnessed the ongoing carnage visited on the newcomers. Long Covid sufferers remain flummoxed by the landscape of medical neglect. Three decades into it myself, I’ve found it challenging to witness their outrage. I sporadically visit Twitter now for that very reason. I’m at once upset for their plight and gobsmacked by the shock they’re already experiencing over the length of time they’ve been suffering. “It’s been 18 months now! And no help!” I genuinely get it and care and feel those feelings right alongside a sort of astonishment tinged with frustration. Deep frustration. 30 years here. And there are folks who’ve been at it longer than I have.

It’s easy to forget that people actually still look up to certain medical and science institutions. They’re experiencing the long journey of alienation and awakening to the fact that corruption exists across all human institutions. They’re in shock and still expend precious energy venting. Greed, apathy and bias underlie the mechanisms influencing who gets funding and how much for researching various diseases and syndromes. Knowing that for decades now, I wrestle with indifference and a cold regard for the system. Juxtapose that against newcomers ranting and it rattles my stasis, jarring me back into dances with rage…rage at the system, rage at the odds that shite on my health, rage that some people approach MECFS as psychogenetic, rage that people actually believe they have control over whether or not they are sidelined by disease. Yes, you can eat your way to heart disease and diabetes. But no one with MECFS or other such chronic illnesses ate their way to their conditions. And many in our number thrived in great health pre-disease, on paths no one would associate with eventual disease. Yet here we are tossing out disclaimers no one should feel compelled to present, proof of the randomness of some of life’s harsher lotteries.

Suffice to say, post viral illness is very real. 30 years into it, I can acknowledge I’ve had it easier than folks with moderate to severe MECFS. But no healthy person would want the mild to moderate version. Along the way, the ones who get it paint a gorgeous map of the terrain, the territory known as chronic illness support. Family members and caring friends who recognize disease onset for the real and debilitating force it is distinguish themselves as a minority. Most people run to the hills, whispering mantras of toxic positivity, shoring up their fears with ideas that those who are struck down by disease must’ve done something to cause it. So, they must surely be able to prevent it in their own lives. Run, run, run. Sometimes I fault them. Often I don’t. I know what it’s like to think you have all the answers. I know why those delusions are so rampant. Life can be very scary.

My sister, Bamborough, deserves a lot of credit. She’s unwaveringly stood by me, not doubting the authenticity of MECFS. When looking over the text in the cards I’m listing in my shop, she stands out in my mind as the inspiration for their veracity and comfort. She embodies what everyone with chronic illness longs to experience in support. And she’s not alone. The father of my children, my children and friends (few they be) all provide the level of physical and emotional support every disabled person deserves. I am one lucky gal in that respect.

So, in response to the rattling of my cage by newcomers to the chronic illness population, these cards spilled their truths. The psychological needs of the chronically gaslit disabled languish, mostly ignored. And the capacity to be a support isn’t easily nurtured in our ableist automatonic culture. In recognition of these needs, my chronic illness support listings on Etsy are gradually increasing. Shown below are a couple renditions of the cards available (in a set of 6) for purchase and download. If you click on either image, you’ll be taken to my shop, Digital SoulSpeak. These cards are what I would’ve loved to receive at the beginning of my long journey with MECFS. They represent the level of affirmation I experience from those to whom I’m most connected. And in celebration of their love-in-action potency, I’m only charging $1.43 for most of these sets. 1 = I, 4 = Love, 3 = You. I love you, the person who wants to learn how to be there for the invisible disabled in their lives. I love you, the people ranting at the apathy as they wonder whether or not to hope. I love you, folks who recognize when you don’t have your health, you still have who you are and how you face life.

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Moral compass

“Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence.” Elie Wiesel

Photo by J. Ruth Kelly, 2021, All Rights Reserved

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Power Over

“What posturing and performance share in common is a deep disconnect between the inspired heart and our gut instincts, between rising up and sensing ground where all life dissolves into the rich humus of earth. Make no mistake white bodies are capable of sensing deeply and can become conscious of the insidious ways that colonization is held within our flesh and blood. We may squirm and distract ourselves, but we have what it takes to dissolve these century-old impulses to cage, control and power over body. With awareness, we can begin to recognize our conditioning and through attention we can allow our primal impulses to grow a capacity to dissolve the distortions and claim life-supportive gestures and expressions.” Liz Koch, excerpted from the post on her website, Core Awareness, titled “White Bodies, Psoas, & Gesturing Power Over”

We colonized the land and the people of the land we now call the United States of America and we colonized our own bodies. Power over is the rabid beast created when we divorce ourselves from being soft, hairy animal human. We infused our religious beliefs with power over. We insisted on obedience like we insisted on this land, raping and violating the bodies of children in the name of discipline and good behavior and, for some, godliness. I can say that my daughter and two sons have birthed me because they broke my heart open and opened me up to my own tenderness and the validity of the wild human. I could not fathom how the sort of discipline inflicted on me, and on my sisters, in the name of Jesus was anything remotely connected to love and that realization occurred when a baby girl came out of my body. Everything changed. Who was this sacred creature? How could you thump her on the forehead for speaking her mind or challenging you at the dinner table? How? You must be divorced from your own body, colonized from head to toe to soul if you do this and you must be addicted to power over. Dethroning the inner tyrant anchored on the seat of the heart and placed there by fear, that is a work on which to commit a life. Enshrining love as a fully-muscled set of doings and thinkings and makings of solid evidence of love and value decolonizes the body, rids the mind of toxins long dormant. And the work never ends. There is no arrival. I don’t know what I’d do without people like James Baldwin who lives though he’s gone and Liz Koch who is here and now shining light on needful truths.

Here’s to freedom from power over and losing all the baggage that goes with it.

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Prayer #3 (for protesters)

Each step taken, every chant and cry,
every movement for justice,
every insistence on equal rights,
every standard and arm raised for safety,
for the end to brutality and racism at the hands of…

police, government, the system,

each one land home, right to the heart
of what brings true change, what sets aright
the system set in motion against humanity itself.

Revolutionize hope, radicalize grace.

Every effort met with heaven’s support,
earth’s nurturance and the flesh and blood strength
of all who embody truth and justice.

Each one held safely by love.

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Righteous Rebellion

“The world needs your rebellion and the true song of your exile. In what has been banned from your life, you find a medicine to heal all that has been kept from our world. We must find the place within where things have been muted and give that a voice. Until those things are spoken, no truth can find its way forward. The world needs your unbelonging. It needs your disagreements, your exclusion, your ache to tear the false constructions down, to find the world behind this one.” Toko-Pa Turner

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The Unborn

“’The unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn… You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”
Dave Barnhart

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