Out of Many ... One

E Pluribus Unum 

From grade school and up, we have always been taught that our country, the United States of America, is a diverse country founded on "Freedom of Religion" and "All Men Are Created Equal"; in 1972 an amendment was added calling for "Equal Rights for All" (men and women). And in more recent years, there have been calls and laws for inclusivity: acceptance and tolerance of all genders and personal gender identities, acceptance of ethnicities, and respect for all religious beliefs.

So where have we gone wrong? While racial persecution, religious prejudice, and gender stereotypes have, sadly, existed in our country since its inception, it has become a loud-mouthed blight in more recent years. Instead of the acceptance of our common bonds of being Americans and HUMANS, there has been anger and hatred acted all too often. And in a country invaded and founded by immigrants, too many have forgotten our own past journeys and the ancestors that fought their way to our shores.

In 2022, 245 years after the "Founding Fathers" wrote the United States Declaration of Independence and founded our country, we are still fighting many of the prejudices and injustices that our ancestors fled from. All too often we see reminders that the UNITED States of America is not nearly as "united" as, allegedly, it was intended.

It has been said that those who resent and criticize other religions are insecure in their own. While every faith has zealots that spout hate and evil, those are actually the minority, and often those who have limited knowledge of their teachings. The teachings of almost every deity and higher power espouse love of fellow human beings and kindness to all living beings. Hatred of others does not defend your religious beliefs, more often it ignores those teachings.

In the United States, just in the months between December 2022 and March 2023, just one-third of the year, we (collectively) observe at least 17 religious observances:

Feast of the Immaculate Conception  December 8    Christianity

Bodhi Day/Rohatsu (Japan)       December 8 Buddhism

Our Lady of Guadalupe   December 12           Christianity

Hanukkah     December 19-26*  Judaism

Winter Solstice/Yule   December 21  (northern hemisphere)  Native Americans/Pagan

Christmas     December 25           Christianity

Kwanzaa       December 26–January 1  African American

Feast of the Holy Family December 30           Christianity

****2023

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary January 1     Christianity

Christmas     January 7      Eastern Orthodox Christianity

Lunar New Year     January 22     Confucianism/Taoism/Buddhism

Maha Shivaratri     February 18 Hinduism

Ash Wednesday     February 22 Christianity

Orthodox Great Lent begins       February 27 Eastern Orthodox Christianity

Purim March 7*      Judaism

Holi    March 8        Hinduism

Ramadan begins (30 days) March 23* Islam (dates dependent on the sighting of the new moon crescent)

In America, we have multiple religions and beliefs observed including Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist, Druid, Hindu, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jewish, Lutheran, Mormon, Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, Latter-Day Saints, Pagan, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Scientology, Sikh, Taoist, Wiccan, and more. 

Frederick Douglass once said, "Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Others have said it, simply, "Can't we all just get along?"

Wishing you all a happy and healthy Holiday Season (no matter which way you say it), with warmth, friendship, and love by your side. Here's to hoping for a more unified, peaceful, loving, and accepting 2023... and beyond.

Time for Unity

 

We, as a nation, have gone through (most of) a year of… Hell. Folks used to joke, LAST YEAR, about 2020 and “perfect eyesight — well we sure have seen a lot since January.

 

Legendary basketball player Kobe Bryant and his daughter were killed in a tragic helicopter crash stunning sports fans and leaving a mourning mother and wife. Our 45^th president was tried, impeached, and eventually acquitted. The #MeToo movement encouraged many to speak about their sexual assaults (and rapes), and many survivors cheered when some big names who felt entitled to abuse innocent victims were finally served justice.

 

America heard about the first reported cases of COVID-19 on our shores; these spurred a lot of misinformation, prejudice against Asians, fear, hoarding, restrictions, lockdowns, fighting, and even a stock market crash. Police-involved deaths of several Black men and women, as well as the outspoken rhetoric of prejudice, spawned the Black Lives Matter Movement and instigated many peaceful, and some violent, demonstrations.

 

Meanwhile, many businesses closed (some permanently) due to COVID-19 related restrictions, many children “went back to school” via the computer, jobs were lost, and families were devastated financially. For those who were able to work from home, their homes became crowded business offices, schools, gyms and more. The name “Karen” became an insult for an angry, often middle-aged white, woman who lived a privileged existence and attempted to inflict her will upon others.

 

The sitting president of the United States came down with COVID-19, and survived, and other prominent Americans from politicians to actors and sports-stars caught the virus and some did not survive. Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent 27-years sitting on the Supreme Court and eventually died after a long struggle with Pancreatic Cancer; finding and appointing her replacement was a lengthy political struggle that led to a resurgence of the #MeToo movement. Beloved TV personality Alex Terek died of Liver Cancer after a courageous battle.

 

More than four-million acres burnt, and some still burning, in California and the western U.S. costing billions of dollars; firefighters from across the country flew in to help an area where the heatwave and Covid-19 caused complication during evacuations, hundreds of homes and structures were burned, dozens injured, and multiple firefighter fatalities were recorded.

 

We are halfway through December and celebrating the holiday season in a year where many family get-togethers were only virtual, where many restaurants are closed to dining, movie theatres remain dark, and few indoor recreational activities exist. America has lost more than 300-thousand people to COVID-19, families and friends did not even get to say goodbye to many because of quarantines. And numbers keep rising.

 

But now, halfway through December, a very contentious national election has seen its final result with the Electoral College, and progress begins towards a new presidency. Vaccines against COVID-19 have been approved and a limited number of healthcare workers are beginning to get vaccinated – more vaccine is coming and eventually the hope is that most, if not all, Americans will be vaccinated against this sometimes deadly and often disabling disease within the next several months.

 

Now is the time when Americans need each other, no matter what our political affiliations are, no matter what our ethnicities are, or our lifestyle choices, and no matter what our financial status may be. We have been through Hell and we are almost to 2021. Let us come together and recover, let’s work together and heal our nation, comfort those who mourn, strengthen those who have suffered, and be a united America.

Land of the Free and Brave???

In many ways I grew up a bit sheltered — not sheltered from some of the ugliness in the world, but sheltered in that my folks told me that mankind was ultimately good and that things in this country were improving.

While I would never think that the prejudices I did experience in my formative and young adult years were as much as other minorities, I was always aware of the different ways we were treated because our dad was Puerto Rican (raised in PR and NYC) and our mom was a southern white girl who was transplanted to New York. By the way, we were also a Jewish family.

We frequently traveled to the south to visit mommy’s family and we’d laugh because my dad always had her drive through some of the southern states (now I realize it wasn’t so funny, he was genuinely scared of being stopped by a southern state trooper with his dark skin). I remember walking into a diner when I was young and noticing that none of the black families were seated in the same areas as the white families; I also know how heavy my mom laid on her thick southern drawl when the wait staff looked at my dad with questions. My parents agreed that things were improving, everyone was at least allowed to come in and have a meal. I was happy to hear my parents talk so positively. Then, I was just ten years old when a church in Mississippi was bombed and four young black girls were killed, one of them was only a year older than me.

When I was in Junior High School I met my first real boyfriend, Steve, he was blonde haired and blue eyed and oh so cute. We walked to a local bowling alley for our first date and on our way home again we saw his mom on the street. She frowned when she saw me and when my boyfriend proudly introduced me by name, she looked angry when she heard my last name, Cordero. That evening I got a phone call from him, he sounded upset when he told me that he couldn’t see me anymore. I didn’t know why and he wouldn’t tell me. A fellow classmate explained it to me a few days later, Steve wasn’t allowed to go out with a Hispanic (although that was not the term that was used).

As I grew into my teen years my parents were more open about prejudice, its ugliness and the injustices people suffered. And I had become more aware of the tensions in my school when students from other schools were bussed in all in the name of integration. There were a lot of people who weren’t happy and a lot of the new students kept to themselves. Meanwhile I was beginning to feel the way others viewed my ethnicity and who I was. As a (half) Hispanic, “white” Jewish teenage girl I found myself being ostracized my many of the other groups — I wasn’t Spanish enough, I was too white, I was too non-white, I was Jewish and the local parochial schools where teaching that the Jews killed Christ, and being a girl I was excluded from many sports activities at school.

In 1968 when so many cities were rioting, I visited my grandmother living in Miami, I enjoyed sun tanning on the beach. On the way back to NY we visited family in South Carolina. My cousin and I were walking down the street when suddenly there was a huge fuss. I couldn’t understand why I was being called ugly names, we hadn’t done anything. Cops were called and my cousin and I were forcefully separated. A black police officer pushed me into the street while I heard my cousin yelling (in her thick southern accent) “But she’s white!” Suddenly my cousin broke through and pulled on my T-shirt to expose the tan lines from the bathing suit straps.

The black police officer literally fell to his knees and apologized telling me over and over again he needed his job. (The Kennedy-era Civil Rights movement enabled the hiring of black officers, but this small southern town restricted them from laying hands on any white person.) I shrugged and told the cop I was okay and he actually thanked me. I was in shock, because of my darker skin, partially due to the sun tan, and my naturally curly, kinky hair I was mistaken as being black. I had an insight into the prejudice many blacks suffered… and that was only for a few minutes of my life. I thank the good Lord every day for giving me that experience.

I grew up and got married to a really super guy, his family came from northern Europe and a few folks snidely remarked that he was marrying a non-white. It didn’t bother him and I really never thought of myself as being “white” or not. Recently I’ve been delving into my family genealogy and found several documents including both my dad’s and my father-in-law’s WW2 military records; my fil is listed as White and my dad is listed as Non-White. I also submitted a DNA test; I am a mixture of northern European, Ashkenazi Jew, Spanish, African and Native American. I am damn proud of everything I am. I would imagine that most of us have quite an unexpected mix as well. In America there are too many people who don’t want to accept differences and I would find it amusing to know the DNA background of some of our bigots.

But I will never find it amusing that someone of color is looked down simply for their skin color. And I find it tremendously sad that black parents have to teach their children the seven words (yes sir, no sir, thank you sir) and pray that they will be able to come home every night. Prejudice has no place in “the land of the free”.

RIP George Floyd

Hello Young Lovers ~ #MondayBlogs

When I was still a newlywed, we had a huge problem with a really pesky neighbor and it was very frustrating. Totally at my wits-end I telephoned my father and asked him what to do. We had a discussion, I don’t remember the exact words (it’s been a lot of years) — after hearing me out, my frustration and my crying, Daddy told me that he would always be happy to help me out BUT had I told my husband my feelings? I answered something like “Not really”.

Daddy didn’t renege on his offer to help me IF I STILL WANTED IT AFTER HIS ADVICE. The main thing my father stressed was that I was a married woman, an adult, who was married to a grown man; we were two adults who made a commitment to each other. While your parents would always be your parents and always care about you and do whatever they could to make your life easier, a married woman OR man should always be a team with her/his spouse. In other words, even if I had been the one to call my dad, I should have been speaking for the two of us.

I’m pretty sure that we have all heard the phrase “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24) or “no one was ever intended to come between a husband and a wife” (Matthew 19:6). [Nowadays this should refer to ALL married couples, not just the husband/wife variety] What do these two phrases mean, what did my dad mean about my discussing things with my husband and we should basically speak as one?

When we marry, both sides of the couple, are making the promise to leave the shelter and dependence of our parents and be able to rely and support each other. We need to turn to our spouses first before running to Mommy and Daddy. Our circle as a married couple means that we are the primary relationship and we each need to see each other as our priority, Being a couple should be the MOST IMPORTANT bond. Dependence and dependability on each other not only fosters trust and respect, it also makes a formidable unit which can withstand opposition.

This primary relationship needs to be recognized by more than just the partners but also by the people around them. Parents need to recognize and respect their child’s spouse and need to understand that they should never, ever attempt to get in between that bond. As parents we want to always be there for our children no matter how old they are, we have a need to want to fix things for them, and of course we only want what is best for them even when what we think is best is not what they want.

The time for raising our children and teaching them responsibility should have been going on through all of their adolescent and teen years. By the time our children reach adulthood and enter into a committed relationship, hopefully we have provided them with enough foundation to actually be able to think and do for themselves. And parents can give themselves a pat on the back when their job has been well done and offspring can actually deal with real life. While we will always want to step in, we MUST respect and trust our adult children and that includes respecting and trusting the person he/she chose as a lifelong partner; you can’t truly respect one unless you respect the other.

Parents who nurture an unhealthy relationship are only damaging many lives: If you don’t raise and allow your offspring to act like grown-ups, one day may come when they have to think for themselves and make decisions and the parents may no longer be around; parents who think they need to control their grown child will cause self-doubt, lack of trust for one another and a dependency that may at some point become too heavy a burden for the aging adult; and parents who are constantly intervening in their son or daughter’s relationship run the risk of seriously damaging the bond and creating not only sadness for their child but also resentment against the parents. In an ideal world grown children and parents can have wonderful relationships and can be there for each other when needed but the respect has to go both ways INCLUDING the in-law child.

My dad passed away shortly after our first wedding anniversary and my mom just a year later – ever since those valuable words my dad said to me during that phone call I've turned to my husband (and he has turned to me) and we have always been there for each other. It’s been more than 40 years and my husband and I are still best friends, confidents, support, and the genuine other half — and I owe it all to the fact that my dad recognized that a married couple, even his daughter and her husband, should be the strongest bond and what hath been “joined together, let no man put asunder”.

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What makes a marriage? ~ #MondayBlogs

How do some marriages last while others simply seem to flare and then die out?

After being married for more than 40 years I may not have the ultimate answer, but I do know what has worked for me. A married couple needs to be many things to each other and for each other.

In my own marriage we have been (and are) lovers, friends, co-parents (2 and 4 legged children), business partners, confidants, “counselors”, co-conspirators, roommates, caretakers, tender hand-holders, escorts, and often devil’s advocate.

No matter how passionate, loving, and fun your union may start out, life happens, and when life’s changes and obstacles get in the way, your focus and needs can change as well. I believe the balance to a solid marriage has to do with being able to step in and out of the myriad of roles you’ve assumed so that even when you are too tired for sex, don’t want to find adventure, or need to adjust to the changing world around you there will still be something solid for you to hold on to.

Not every couple works together as business partners, but marriage still needs to be a partnership sharing the responsibilities, the decisions and the fruits together. No one said everything has to be an even 50/50; sometimes you don’t feel up to giving 50-percent and other times you believe you can take on the world. Your spouse needs to support you mentally and sometimes physically and financially. Trust me when I say it is fun to make dinner together, to go shopping together and share housework (in and out of the house). Joint ventures, whether it is running business or running your home, gives you a combined sense of accomplishment and camaraderie.

There are going to be disagreements and even anger, face it, you didn’t marry yourself (and you probably wouldn’t want to) so there will be differences of opinion. Sometimes you’ll get angry when it may seem as if the differences can’t get resolved. Chances are the anger and possible disappointment may affect your passion, your sex-life, or your comfortable companionship — these are the times to let another aspect of your relationship take over. Talk about decisions you may have coming up, the car you have to replace or even the candidate you plan to vote for; work towards a mutual goal like painting that room you’ve been talking about getting done; and this may be the ideal time to plan some family time with the children and a local amusement park.

The main thing to have in any marriage is unity, togetherness and mutual respect. No marriage is perfect and you’re going to go through rough spots. Learn to rely one of the other roles in your marriage to get you through so that you’re not feeling alone. You are a couple so act together, and be together.

The truth is that it is a very rare occurrence when one person can provide all the needs for another; this is what platonic friends are for, to help fill out the gaps. You should never let yourself rely more strongly on your friends than you do on your partner though. Too many young couples nowadays get married assuring themselves that if things go wrong they can always get a divorce. Some marriages may not be meant to last and separation or divorce may be the smartest option, but there should be no reason to plan on it from the get-go! Be a Jack-of-all-trades when it comes to marriage, be prepared to assume different roles for each other and you will find that your marriage will never have reason to fizzle out.

Faith ~ #MondayBlogs

What is faith? Is it our religious belief or is it having the confidence that our fellow man will work in the best interests of humanity? Believing in something, someone, or ourselves is a basic human need. Belief is faith.

It seems that we are living in a world filled with hatred and fear, one in which man allegedly uses the name of a religion as a reason to destroy and spread hate. There are those who hide behind supposed commandments of their god(s) to spread ruin and there are those who hate others simply because of the deity they pray to. Some people believe in a supreme deity but do not agree with the tenets of organized religion (agnostic); some do not believe in any higher presence (atheist). A growing faction is yelling that religion is THE problem why men cannot get along with other men.

We can have faith in humankind without praying to a god by any name. Or we can follow the true teachings of our chosen religions – every religion is founded on common principles that include: loving thy neighbor; forgiveness; treating others the way we want to be treated; giving charity; honoring our parents and elders; being truthful; showing kindness; and living peacefully among our fellow man. While the phrases and wordings may differ, each religion shares commonalities with the others; some religions are monotheistic and some pray to multiple gods.

Every religion has members whose interpretation of its teachings are zealous and self-serving, most often those fanatics are in the minority although they may be loud. People who choose to practice a religion should do so because they believe in the spirit of their scriptures rather than simply following step-by-step rituals with no meaning behind our actions.

Rather than focusing on the differences in our religions practices or alienating those who call themselves agnostic or atheist, our need to believe in something makes us more alike than different. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if we could embrace that sameness and work towards fostering an atmosphere of peace and unity instead of viewing others with suspicion and hatred?

As a child of a Ham Radio Operator in the 60s and 70s I remember going to group get-togethers. One of the places that held an annual picnic was a Monastery located several miles north of where we lived. The monks that lived there and hosted the event were all very friendly, intelligent, welcoming and knowledgeable. I was amazed one day during a discussion with one of these men to find he was very proficient in Hebrew scripture and my own faith of Judaism. In adolescent surprise I asked him how come he knew so much when his religion taught otherwise. His answer was so simple — to truly understand your own beliefs you need to understand what belief means to people. Every monk, he told me, was schooled in all forms of theology and was required to be proficient in multiple religions.

Perhaps this type of education is needed for all of us so that we can love and appreciate our own convictions as well as understand and respect other belief systems. Somehow we must work towards unity and love of the entire human race or there will be no world and humanity for our future generations. Mankind is our own enemy when we allow hatred in our lives.

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