"To be is to stand for."

            "To be is to stand for." --Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

          Too many people have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the misguided, clearly unsuccessful strategy for safe coexistence with “others:” the purely reactive approach of standing up to haters, standing with victims, and standing against injustice. We see protesters reacting to acts of hatred with defiant superiority (“standing up to haters”), and neighbors reacting with “misery-loves-company” sympathy (“standing with victims”) or self-righteous outrage after someone’s persecution (“standing against injustice”). But this reactive approach is like fire-fighting with individual fire extinguishers in the wake of troops of flying arsonists, while complaining about the reckless abandonment of so much combustible material along the arsonists’ paths. Perhaps it is high time we that implement a proactive approach to preventing conflagrations, to replace the reactive approach to hatred, by focusing on what we stand for—our ideals, our morals—and modeling those ideals. 

          I read this morning that a long-time Republican party official publicly stood for his own beliefs by renouncing his membership in the Republican Party and joining the Democrats. Here is the first of a long tweet  thread from Steve Schmidt, the former campaign manager for John McCain:

29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.

11:41 PM - Jun 19, 2018

https://www.newsweek.com/former-mccain-campaign-manager-leaves-republican-party-985854

Notice he used the phrase "stand FOR"? This is what we need, more of this. We must all decided who we are, what we stand for. We must raise kids who know what they stand for. We must never forget what we stand for just to stand with others who misrepresent our values and use their power to control us, or just to stand against those who have opposed us in petty politics. Politics are not life. Life is bigger than petty power struggles. Leadership means standing FOR principles. I admire Steve Schmidt. 

#WhyDoYouVote?

And I vote because of young people like these activists, who deserve a world that is safe, accepting of all people, and peaceful. My generation owes them passionate activism, not complacency in the face of the destruction of democratic ideals, of peaceful coexistence, and of our beautiful planet.

Please join me and vote for our future, and the future of their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on.

Sparked by Injustice, I Wrote This Poem...

Questions Raised by Belittled Testimony

By Susan L. Lipson

Why is it that men who’ve cried out

years after their abuse by priests

are considered brave heroes,

with suppressed memories—

PTSD, in fact—

when they step forward publicly,

painfully recounting memories to the best of their abilities;

supported by the outraged community

who condemns the defiling of innocence;

not interrogated by critics determined to cast doubts

on their very characters,

to victimize them again,

to mentally rape them

with slander;

while women who dare to cry out

about having been molested, harassed, abused, raped, 

and violated in their past youth

by power-seeking men who once were

boys, just being boys

(not “assailants” or “abusers” or “rapists”—just randy boys),

are not considered heroes, but rather:

“politically motivated pawns,” 

“confused and misguided neurotics,”

“vengeful liars or self-righteous exaggerators,” 

or even “attention-whores”?

Why is double jeopardy illegal,

But not double victimization?

Ego and Entitlement: The Source of Social Ills

Do you ever stop to think about how EGO is the force behind all social dysfunction, aggression, and injustice? The attitude of entitlement--stemming from ego--leads to all forms of "supremacy" that make one person feel justified in dominating another. I saw evidence of egotistical entitlement in action today....

I was driving through a grocery store parking lot, and stopped to let a woman cross in front of me to get to her car. I waved her onward, and she smiled appreciatively and waved back--and our shared moment of respect between stranger-neighbors made me smile. Then another woman marched in front of my car, imperiously raising her hand at me with an expression that said, "You wait for ME now!" She flashed no smile, and gave me no nod or wave; she didn't even make eye contact with me. That display of entitlement sickened me. I shook my head and drove onward, passing by a shopping cart left in the middle of a space, just a few feet away from the cart corral. More entitlement...

Now that I'm sitting at my computer, I'm wondering whether I should have called out, "You're welcome!" But that would have been egotistical on my part, and passive-aggressive. Or, should I have called out, "Ma'am, no one owes you anything. You could at least smile at me for stopping"? Or, should I have simply come home and written about the experience here, hoping that someone reads these words and offers a smile of appreciation today for a stranger's simple act of kindness, to mitigate the ripple effects of entitled attitudes on society?

#NationalPoetryMonth

          #NationalPoetryMonth inspires me to add more poetry to both my own and my students' writing collections. So I use prompts with them that also move me to write what I assign. My students liked this, and I hope you will, too.

Inner Riot

(inspired by the poem "Harlem," by Langston Hughes)

by Susan L. Lipson

What happens to social outrage,

never acted upon?

Does it whirl around like a funnel cloud,

in search of captives to uplift and transport,

Or does it hover indecisively,

Then get blown out to sea?

Does it spark like twigs and logs,

carefully stacked and lit,

Or choke like embers

smothered by handfuls of sand?

Maybe it just gets buried,

like nuclear waste?

Or does it burn like a city set ablaze by rioters?

Bittersweet Truths for Writers Who Strive To Share Memorable Words

From my years of writing words intended for many more eyes and hearts than they often reach, I have synthesized the following bittersweet truths and guidelines for myself, as well as for fellow writers:


1) Exasperation over sometimes absurdly long delays in artistic gratification may be part of a bigger plan for eventual success, in which time is irrelevant. Write memorable words and they will be remembered, even if not within the time frame you desire. 

2) Expectations of others' reactions to your words can hinder your openness to hearing those reactions. Listening does not guarantee hearing any more than looking guarantees seeing. Remove your filters--the expectations--and take time to process feedback without simultaneously qualifying its relevance. 

3) There is no such thing as a definitive "final draft." The author must settle on defining "final" in terms of a work's readiness to move others without further revisions--and the author's readiness to move on to another project.

4) Your words are yours to hatch and nurture, no matter how long they have to sit in a journal, a computer file, or your mind; consider them as germinating, not wasting away. 

5) Some obscure comments from editors make sense in their own time, via epiphanies visible only to eyes freshened by time away from a manuscript. Celebrate each realization with a zealous revision and a self-congratulatory hug for your progress.

6) Treasure all comments about how your words moved a reader, even if those words only appeared on a post you wrote on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog. The point is to move people, and if your public works evoke written responses, even negative ones, you have succeeded in evoking emotions and inspiring others to write.