I am pleased that so many people are buoyed by the joyous promises of this season and who take opportunities to connect with loved ones of all kinds to wish them well and, for many, to renew their faith in humanity and in whatever it is that they believe. We look for light and beauty in each other and in displays of colorful lights.

But all the cards and emails from friends, family, and businesses wishing peace and good will have begun to ring hollow for me. Promises of “renewal” have come to mean an empty ritual of repetition – making the new year like the last one, and the one before that, and so on. Our money will be used to kill more children and other innocent people through bombing, burying, or willful neglect. One of our political parties will continue to do everything possible to encourage the worst of humanity and to block any attempt to ease the suffering of vulnerable people. There is no holiday from death, poverty, or commercialism – thus showing us what our culture values most.

All those promises of renewal and rebirth seem little more than performative rituals because the promised transformations are beaten down by “special interests.” We turn back all too quickly to our routines of individual survival and commerce. It is evident that the American religion is Capitalism. Anyone with wealth becomes its priests, their money sacred and kept from even those who generated it. Anyone with hopes for wealth (beyond their need) becomes the true believers in its ideology. One’s value is counted in dollars, in power, and in image. Wealth and property have a higher value than human life. We get all solemn as we sacrifice our soldiers for the wealth and resources of the highest bidder, but we do it again and again.

Everybody loves the baby Jesus until he grows up to tell the wealthy to sell what they have and give it to the poor, and all of us to care for the immigrant and downtrodden, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless – all that “woke” business – let alone love one another.

I work to dull the pain of feeling the suffering of children and other innocents, and the horror that many Americans embrace Fascist rhetoric and ideology, and that some of the worst examples of humankind are competing to rule our nation – all while this country pretends to be the shining light on the hill, a bastion of democracy, and a country built on laws. Would that these holidays could become genuinely holy days once more.

It’s all these discrepancies that make such holidays as this hard for me to celebrate as I used to. But the love of family and friends endures. The world still holds such beauty, and nature also gives me hope. Spring will come (for us). The Sun will rise again and again. And in all this, I still wish everyone a Happy New Year – one that will bring blessings of all kinds and perhaps the discovery of what beauty is possible for us.

Wishing a happy new year for all, and that the blessings of life, light, and love come to us all.

Trees stand naked against the wind.
They’ve drawn their life deep within,
But still they stand in the open air –
Remind us that they’re always there.

Winds blow bold,
The night comes fast.
Sun shines cold,
The night sky vast.

It’s waiting that makes the night seem long.
Surrender to the dark and offer up your song.
Enter the mystery and resolve to know
What the night and dark would gladly show.

There’s a light that’s hid
In the dark of night –
A shining in the shadows.
The open heart’s glow must show the way
Through the deepest night and brightest day.

We learn in the dark
Again and again:
The truest star
Shines within.

Karl Schlotterbeck, 2005

Where do the tears of terror go
when there’s no one alive to hear them?

Who hears the sad screams
silenced by bullets and bombs?

So easy to stop the beating heart
at a command or by a button.

Who are these monsters deaf and blind
to anything but their hatred ­-
hatred that feeds on the corpses
of children, of women,
and of innocent men?
They have lost their humanity.

Religion has not cured this disease
but used to fan its flames.

Where do the unshed tears go
when the bombs come in the night?
No time for these tears
of wide-eyed fear,
or time to say ‘good-bye.’

The tears dry
on the child’s cold face.

---

Donald Trump Makes the Call
Donald Trump called forth a malignant and devouring monster that had lived among us for centuries. It hid in churches, under hoods, in political movements and parties. It found a home in the dogmas of conservatism, states’ rights, conspiracy theories, nationalism disguised as patriotism and tradition. It destroyed the hopes, dreams, and lives of ordinary people, but fed a greedy aristocracy. It was protected by those who accepted lynchings, starving children, bigotry, and all manner of fear and distrust. The monster heeded the call of its president to turn carefully cultivated fear into unthinking hatred. A minority party took over the American government and made it clear it would do anything to maintain its power and undermine our democracy. It has come to look increasingly like a cult, demanding conformity to its narrowing dogmas, exiling those who will not conform, and using Donald Trump as its mascot as long as he is useful.

Clarence Thomas Extends an Invitation
Now Clarence Thomas has made the Supreme Court the tip of the spear in a religious war waged by the Right to move America toward a theocracy that bears no resemblance to anything holy. This minority has become a Christian Taliban hell-bent on establishing a Christian Sharia. Thomas, too, has heeded the call of the monster and sends it toward its targets. In the recent Dobbs ruling, while one justice said the ruling applied only to Roe v. Wade, Thomas wrote a dissenting concurrence and expressed his desire that other cases based on the same provisions should be re-litigated – on things like contraception and the right to marry a person of one’s choosing. He notably omitted the one that granted him his inter-racial marriage. In his concurring opinion, he has overtly extended an invitation to other bigots to bring lawsuits to take away more of our rights.

These monstrous rulings reveal the willingness of a large sector of our society to sacrifice the health, self-determination, and economic stability of our citizens to this minority’s religious and political dogmas. This monster has no scruples, and devours anything it needs to feed its power. At least now we see better who they are and know they cannot be trusted with power. Their only desire is for power, control, and domination. They offer nothing to the world but its degradation.

A Religious War
We used to call it a “culture war” but the battle lines are stark now with calls to move religion into the halls of government, to give tax dollars to religious schools, and to harass devotees of other faiths; with false claims that America was founded as a (white) Christian nation, that God gave us the constitution, and that America has a “manifest destiny” that justifies its genocide and broken treaties. It seems that some rights are from their god and some are not – depending on how they selectively read their scriptures and whether the rights cut into corporate profits.

I don’t think it’s religion itself that is the problem, but the arrogance of religious zealots that hunger for secular power and claim some divine right to dominate others – as they’ve done for thousands of years. No, it’s not a religious problem but a human one that uses religion as a tool for power and the religion’s savior as little more than a mascot.

History Repeating Itself
There’s nothing new here. My Shadows in the Light of God: Revelation to Dogma, Prophets to Priesthoods gives account of this sad element in humankind’s relationship with religion going back to the earliest of times. The persistence of it does not give me hope that things will change without more soul-searching, deep thought, self-reflection, and direct action than we may be willing to do. But the alternative becomes increasingly destructive. Perhaps in the face of immanent destruction we may be motivated to embrace our ideals and principles instead of our heroes, mascots, and celebrities – especially those under the thrall of this monster let loose into the world fed by ignorance, fear, bigotry, hatred, and pseudo-religion.

* Matthew 10:26 and the back jacket copy of Shadows in the Light of God: Revelation to Dogma, Prophets to Priesthoods.

I awoke in the night worried about the fate women – not just pregnant or childbearing-age women, but all women. This society has never protected women well from domination and abuse by men, let alone from rape. Women have been little more than property, trophies, or slave labor. When my mother was born, women could not vote in this country. Now it has been declared by a handful of individuals that states can, if they wish, invade the relationship between a woman and her doctor and make medical decisions about her body and the subsequent course of her life. She is a hostage of the state.

To that, I say this: if the state forces a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, the state must be held accountable along with those who implement such an abomination. So, if the state claims this authority to take dominion over a woman, her body, and her future, the following factors become the state’s responsibilities:

1. Healthcare and proper nutrition for the mother throughout the pregnancy, birth, and childcare years, through to the child’s independence.
2. If the mother is the primary childcare provider, she is owed not only wages for this important work, but also compensation for the disruption to her educational and vocational trajectory.
3. Financial support of the child’s healthcare and education, through to gainful employment in a trade or profession.

After all, if the state assumes control, the state must assume responsibility for the outcomes of that control.

No state has any right to tell a woman what happens inside her body, for her life, or to take away her self-determination. Whatever happened to the idea that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable? As for the father, he has contributed one cell and that is the proportion of his rights in comparison to all that the mother’s body and life contribute to the life of the child.

As I said in the first sentence, this is not just about pregnancy. This decision by these people reveals the value of women in our society in the 21^st century. Women are expected to be second class citizens – if citizens at all – whose role is birthing, childcare, and service to men regardless of their dreams, education, talents, and potential contributions to our society. If women are diminished, we are all diminished.

This is not the society I wanted my daughters and grandchildren to grow up in. I want the females in my family – and women everywhere – to have all the rights that men enjoy: sovereignty, bodily autonomy, and self-determination. To do less is an affront to us all and brings shame on our society and its political, secular, and religious institutions that have promoted this patriarchal misogyny.

For many of us, peaceful sleep may be difficult to come by until these heinous acts are corrected, their creators are removed from power, all citizens have the same rights, and we can move once more toward a compassionate, democratic, people-centered, secular society based on shared values rather than domination, greed, and power invested in a minority of twisted power brokers.

The Smith-Rock debacle at the Oscars did not occur in a vacuum. It encapsulates many of the dysfunctions in our society: denigration disguised as “humor,” attention to women’s appearance, privileges of celebrity and the dangers of giving status to wounded men, the passivity of an indifferent audience, private demons playing out on a public stage, victimizing of people with medical conditions, and toxic masculinity. We saw the misogyny of making fun of a woman who, for her own reasons, did not conform to the role expected of her in this man’s world.

If Smith’s actions were perpetrated by an audience member, security would have ejected him without question, and he’d have been turned over to the police. But we see that status has its privileges that allow perpetrators to act with impunity. Even if it’s true that Rock didn’t want Smith ejected or criminally charged, it does not change the law or moral violation. Smith’s actions were an affront to the audience, the academy, and to the larger audience as well.

He certainly wasn’t acting to prevent or protect anyone or anything. His was an act of angry revenge. Ironically, his actions made him the center of attention, which make it easier to downgrade Rock’s actions – as if violence against another man should engender respect. Imagine what might have happened if, when he accepted his Oscar, Smith would have addressed the insults and disrespect by Rock. His later words about love would not have rung so hollow.

Thus, these are not aberrations, but a reflect our society at large.

It’s all too common to see victims created by other wounded victims.

Aggrieved victims feel justified in committing crimes of violence against another, against a minority, or against the government.

Unhealed wounds and immature acting out are dangerous in people of power, status, and celebrity as we saw in the previous president and some of our current legislators.

Women are overwhelmingly judged through their appearance, as if everything she does has meaning for the world of men. Too many men think they are the center of the universe.

Humor has become a tactic of avoiding real issues, and degrading others is now a common practice in politics as well as in “entertainment.” Denigration is a humor for the witless.

Neither man honored himself that night, nor those he claimed to care for. And they reflected back to us the unwholesome state of our American society built on privilege, status, dominance, aggression, and toxic patriarchy.

I am vaccinated and still wear a mask indoors. I am aware of political and personal controversies around what seems to me to be a simple act of public safety. A little self-reflection of my decision resulted in nine factors leading to this seemingly “personal” decision. I list them here first, and then unpack each one a bit.

1. Care for others and honoring my community connection
2. Statistics of my environment
3. Understanding how viruses spread and mutate
4. Strengths and limitations of immune system
5. Risks of vaccines, as well as this virus
6. Influence of conflicts of interest (in research, in big pharma, in the anti-vax industry)
7. How science works
8. Propaganda engines, political forces, and role of media
9. Human behavior and its irrationalities

1. Care and Connection

I care deeply about the well-being of the people around me, and humanity in general. Thus, the first and foremost reason for my vax-and-mask behavior is care for my loved ones. I will do whatever I can to protect precious children and vulnerable elders from harm. A free vaccine and inexpensive mask are paltry prices to pay compared to the value of any reduction of potential harm to those I care about.

This care for my loved ones and communities is not an abstract idea but a motivation worthy of implementation for the sake of something beyond myself. Even as a vaccinated person I know that I could carry a viral load that might infect another, hence the mask.

This reason (care for others) prevails over all others. This Is not based on arguments, propaganda or having to prove anything but on the care for those I love. Data tells me what actions will allow me to fulfil this intent.

2. Environmental Awareness

I know what the statistics are of transmission in my county and the percentage of vaccinated individuals (and I know where to find credible data). In my area, every other person I encounter is likely to be unvaccinated and, therefore, more likely to be a carrier or vulnerable – whether they know it or not.

3. Viruses and their Mutations

This virus spreads primarily through the air, which is how it gets into the lungs. Specific behaviors facilitate its spread, and identifiable populations foster the variants. The longer the virus lives in any population, the more likely it is to develop mutations that may or may not be worse than the original.

4. The Immune System

I understand something of the immune system, some of its strengths and limitations, and how it responds to viruses and vaccines. Natural alternatives can boost immune functioning, to be sure. (I taught about this when I was a wellness coordinator for a school district.) The immune system learns from previous infection and vaccines to better prepare for the next viral intrusion – if it is similar enough to the last one, which makes variants so dangerous.

5. Risk Management

Everything has risks. All that we do or don’t do, all that we take into our bodies or reject, and all that we allow into our soil, air and water carries a risk relative to its benefit. I’ve always had a good response to vaccines with little discomfort. This is not true for everyone, of course. However, the odds of getting seriously ill from a vaccine is miniscule when compared to the rate of illness and death from COVID-19 and its variants. To me, it is a small risk in light of the protection I may provide for my loved ones.

6. Conflicts of Interest

Our modern capitalist free-market economic realities make profit margins a dominant factor for big pharma – and they use those market forces to their advantage. They created their empire like all large businesses – by lobbyists’ contributions and political manipulation. This is no different from any other corporate entity living out the capitalist’s dream. This is a social issue, not a medical one. That said, the critics of vaccines are subject to the same conflicts of interest, economic investments, and manipulative advertising to maximize their profits.They profit from sowing distrust.

For both big pharma and their alternatives, funding sources for research become part of the equation (as we’ve seen with propaganda around dismissing dangers of smoking, acid rain, and climate change). Funding bias can show up in the means of data collection, focus, data processing, hypothesis, and conclusion. This is why peer-reviewed, double-blind, control-group research is far superior to anyone’s “research” through YouTube and the opinions social media and the rumor mill.

7. Science

Educated as a psychologist, I realize how real science and research work in collecting and evaluating data, testing hypotheses, and coming to conclusions in order to build a defensible, testable, reality-based theory. This takes time, rigor, testing and retesting. What’s more, conclusions change as the evidence changes and data evolves. This is a scientific method, not an ideological stance. With a little thought, it’s easy to distinguish between actual research and bogus anecdotal claims not supported by anything other than opinion amplified by hysteria or social media attention.

What’s more, science is inherently conservative. It moves forward slowly, and it progresses gradually with evolving theories based on available data. In genuine science, we expect changing conclusions and recommendations because of data updates – not political policies or economic interests.

8. Propaganda, Political Stances, and Social Forces

What might be somewhat of a respectable discussion about effects, limitations, and risks has been poisoned by the politics of the Authoritarian Right (political and religious) that has a long history going back to the Dark Ages of being antagonistic to the findings of science because it threatens their authority, social control, and economic interests.

Media, of course, has had a significant role in all this. Those who thrive on distrust, anger, and fear have been keen to oppose the science and to foment rejection of public safety because sensationalism sells. As science changes to incorporate evolving data, disingenuous “news” media portray this evolution as dishonest – as if it were more honest to hold to a no-longer-valid conclusion from previous limited data. But there is profit in fomenting hysteria.

That said, it’s pretty easy to find stable, reality-based news sources, if one is willing to look beyond the need for affirmation of predetermined conclusions.

9. Human Behavior

This has been the most difficult section to write because there are so many rabbit holes into which we could jump. Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard but my interest is always peaked when I see irrationality, evidence of psycho-social dysfunction, or the dynamics of manufactured controversy. In writing this, I repeatedly fell into the temptation to follow symptoms toward various diagnoses in both establishment and anti-establishment positions and all the issues of loyalty and belonging, distrust and betrayal, ideology, denial, shame, authority issues, and various kinds of social trance resulting from a hyper-focus on a few variables that bely the larger perspective. “Personal choice” sounds noble and honorable, except when others pay the price.

At the moment, I think it best to keep my focus on my motivation and save psycho-social analyses for another time. Whatever other dynamics may be in play, it seems to come down to which authority one trusts, how accurate are the data of that authority, and who is applying the best analysis of that data.

I have nothing to prove, no one to please, and no social group to which I need to conform. I can make my decision based on items 1 through 8.

Conclusion (Maybe)

With nothing to prove or enemy to target, I make my choice for the protection of my family and loved ones. It’s not that I don’t want to be close to those who make other choices, nor do I like them less, but I will not allow their personal choices to endanger my loved ones.

Let me conclude by saying that I don’t expect to convince anyone by what I’ve written here. It was just an interesting self-reflection I thought I’d share. I’m hardly a “true believer” even in my own conclusions, but I’d need verifiable data from a credible source that meets my standards of analysis to consider abandoning my efforts to protect those whose welfare is important to me. If I am to err, it will be on the side of caution. Ignorance is not innocence.