This 1868 painting by Martin Heade reminds me of our current political climate:  People are going about their daily tasks, seemingly oblivious to the impending storm the new administration will bring.

For weeks after the election, I was like the people in the painting, trying to keep my head down (or in the sand) and doing my best to ignore news stories of what is about to happen.

But - I am a sailor, and fully understand what will happen to my crew and my boat if I ignore the signs of a storm on the horizon.  We will be battered about, our sails may tear, our rigging may break and lives may be lost.  And so, a good sailor will see the storm on the horizon and prepare.

Ignoring the storm - or - just hoping it will go away or that it won't be as bad as people say - is the very worst thing we can do.  By not engaging we may ensure that our good ship of state will be lost and millions of people will see their lives destroyed.

Any seasoned sailor will tell you that with an approaching storm, the first defense may be to seek safe harbor.  If that isn't possible, then the next best thing is to bring all hands on deck, prepare the boat and the crew for the worst, and then ride out the storm with a clear eye and steady hand and pray to God that that is enough.

The storm is certainly coming.  There is no safe harbor.  It's time now for all hands on deck.

​

Our middle granddaughter was born four years ago on the Winter Solstice.  One of our closest friends remarked, “she brings forth the light,”  and that she does, at least according to her grandparents, as do all three of our granddaughters.  

We provide childcare for our Solstice youngster and her baby sister every Thursday.  And – other than needing to get up at 5:30 am - our day is full of laughter and light. Here’s an example.   My wife, Jennie just fed our infant granddaughter and said that “we need to keep her awake for another hour.  How are we going to do that?”  To tease our four year old granddaughter I remarked to her “what do you think sweetie, I can toss your sister to you and you can catch her and toss her back to me and we can keep her awake by flying her through the air.”  Our four year old was incensed at the idea and stomped over to stand right in front of me – and with her right hand on her hip (as I’m sure she sees her mother do) she exclaimed in a stern four year old voice, “We don’t throw babies, Pop Pop!”  With that, it seemed to me the world was set in place.  The younger will always have her older sister to protect her.  No doubt.

But the world is not so simple these days.  We just witnessed yet another school shooting – this time at a Madison, WI Christian school.  A troubled teen killed another teen and a teacher and wounded several others before taking her own life.  While this is terrible enough on its own – what is equally troubling is that a second grade child from the school was the first to call 911 about the shooting.  Stop and reflect on that for a minute.  A seven year old child was taught to call the police if there is a shooter in the school.  A seven year old should be thinking of Christmas, and presents, and snow in December in Wisconsin and not whether there will be a shooter at school.

Our Wisconsin children have been traumatized with 26 school shootings over the past three years, more than the combined number of school shootings since 1970.  This year – sadly – was the deadliest year on record for our state and for our kids when it comes to school shootings.

Our oldest granddaughter is in third grade and has already received “active shooter training” as part of her education.  I am heart sick to think that our younger granddaughters will go through shooter drills when they begin school, as well.  As it is, our own daughter is a middle school teacher in a public school and we give thanks every day to hear her voice as she calls us on her way home from work.

We must acknowledge that gun violence is in the very DNA of our country.  Here is another take on our propensity for violence.  White Supremacists have been a part of our political culture for a very long time.  In her article providing historical background on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Heather Cox-Richardson reports that in the fall of 1962, white supremacists, “…under cover of darkness fired on reporters and federal marshals…(killing) two men and wounded many others” on the campus of Mississippi University.  The federal marshals were there to ensure that a one Black American veteran could register at “Ole Miss” for classes.

I am so tired of writing about mass shootings.  I’m fatigued over the idea that Christian Nationalists and White Supremacists have become so visible and so powerful.  I am frightened over the idea that our country elected as president a man who is a known felon, who is a proven liar, who was convicted of sexual assault, who was convicted of fraud, who espoused how he would use the levers of government to punish his enemies.  This is a man who wants to use the military to round up 11 million immigrants in our country to put them in camps and eventually deport them.

After the November election, I stopped reading or watching the news.  I was in shock.  I was grieving.  I was in disbelief that the tens of millions of people could elect Donald Trump – knowing full well who he is and what he proposes to do.
I had a difficult time finding the light in these situations.  I am a trained community organizer and as such know that there is always a way to organize against injustice.  But the light in me wasn’t there for a bit.

Stopping gun violence requires national legislation.  Halting the sweep of Christian Nationalists & White Supremacists needs a nation-wide movement.  Beating back the worst tendencies of the incoming Trump administration requires Washington officials to mount a new coalition against multi-pronged attacks on democracy. 

But quite frankly – I don’t have the energy for such efforts.  I prayed – often – about this and my leading is based on the old saying that “all politics are local.”  Here is what I’m going to do.

First, I’m going to honor my grieving process.  I’m going to let it run its course, knowing that I will be stronger in the end.

Next, I’m going to use whatever light and energy I have to engage in one or a few LOCAL issues where I think my action and my dollars will make a difference.  There are three issues that keep coming back to me and they are:  1) Reducing gun violence; 2) Opposing immigration detention camps and mass deportation, and 3) Maintaining a liberal block on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

It seems that the Supreme Court issue is the most critical, as the election for a new judge occurs this spring, on April 1st. and a liberal court can stem the damage on a broad number of issues – like gun violence.  At the same time, no one is sure when and how extensive will be the immigrant round up Trump threatens.  I reached out to an immigration attorney friend of mine who counseled me to connect with Voces de La Frontera, as she suspects them to be at the forefront of any anti-immigrant round up actions.
​
So now I have a game plan, which is helping me to heal through my grieving process.  I no longer feel powerless in the face of such a seismic shift in national politics, as I know there are ways I can be involved locally.   And most importantly – I can look my darling granddaughters in the eyes and say to them that I am doing all I can to ensure that their precious lights will continue to shine brightly in this sometimes dark and cold world.

I thought I could dance with the devil and just walk away; maybe with a little singe, but never did I imagine things would end up like this.

Like most things, this started out with a phone call from my friend, Jon.  Jon is an ex-Catholic priest who married a Quaker girl, had two kids, and moved to Philadelphia.  After exchanging pleasantries and stories of how our families are faring, Jon got to the point of his call.  “Mike, can you look in on my nephew, Raphael?  He called and pleaded for me to come get him.”

I knew about Raphael from the stories Jon shared about him.  He’s a 28 year old “kid” who – like many of his millennial peers - is cobbling together a life of side jobs just to get by.  He is a local DJ and he drives for Uber. Being a DJ and an Uber driver, Raphael gets to see a part of life that most of us choose to ignore.  According to Jon, Raphael skirted in and out of the drug scene, got mixed up with guys who rob mail carriers to steal government checks, and who can be relied upon to find a “party” for those who come looking for one.
 
“Sure.”  I told Jon, “text me his phone number and I’ll give him a call.”   Knowing about Raphael, I thought this was a big ask.  But Jon is my best friend.  As a priest he married us and baptized our children.  He was there for me when I went through a nasty divorce from my first wife and I want to be there for him now.

Jon texted me Raphael’s number as soon as we hung up.  I decided I’d wait a day before I called.  While I want to help Jon, I’m not in any hurry to get mixed up in whatever Raphael has going on.  I was hoping things would settle themselves out.

As it turns out, Raphael called me that same afternoon.  I recognized his number when the call came in and answered the phone thinking, “This can’t be good.”

There were no introductions or pleasantries from Raphael, he jumped right in.  “Is this Mike?  This is Raphael.  My uncle Jon gave me your number and said you can help me.  Where do you live, I can be at your house within an hour.”
This sounded worse than I feared.  There was no way I was going to let this guy anywhere near my home and my family.  We agreed to meet at a bar near downtown.  I told him I could be there by 7 pm.  He texted me his picture so I could recognize him.

I arrived 15 minutes early, wanting to scope out the street and the bar.  I’m a Quaker and I think of myself as a nice guy, but I grew up believing that people and places aren’t always what they seem. 

I got this from my dad, who was a twice wounded Marine Corps Master Sargent in WWII.  Once, when I was about 14, I was with my dad in the alley behind our house.  We were going to change the oil in our faded red Ford station wagon.  I noticed there was a bulging, brown paper grocery bag near the alley and I started to walk over to it.  My dad yelled “Stop.  Leave the bag alone.  You don’t know what’s in there.  There could be a dead baby in the bag.”  “A dead baby?”  I thought.  “Who would say that?  What kind of evil has he seen that would make him imagine such a thing?” So, at an impressionable age, I learned to be cautious.  But, not cautious enough.

When Raphael suggested we meet at a bar, I was expecting something seedy in a risky part of town.  But that wasn’t what I found.  McBob’s is a neighborhood bar where folks go to drink, to mingle, to play trivia, or to watch sports.  I walked past two couples drinking beer and sharing a plate of onion rings at a sidewalk table.  When I got inside, It was bright with the sun shining in from the large storefront windows, one on each side of the door.  Maybe there were another 8 people in the bar on a Tuesday evening in June, all who looked like they could have walked here from the blue-collar neighborhood where the joint is located.

I found an empty table where I could sit and watch the front door, with a bonus that it was close to a rear exit – just in case I needed to leave quickly.  Raphael was prompt.  He walked about four feet into the bar and stopped to scan the room.  I raised my hand to get his attention.  When he arrived at the table, I stood up and offered my hand in greeting.  He seemed surprised at that, gave me a wimpy handshake that felt like I was grabbing a dead fish, and sat down.
“What’ll you have.  I’m buying.” He said to my surprise.  I thought maybe I should pay, but didn’t want to insult him.  “I’ll have a bourbon, neat – two ice cubes”  I said.  He chose a local Hazy IPA brew.

He went to the bar to get the drinks, which gave me an opportunity to check him out.  He wasn’t furtive and looking around.  He was dressed in jeans and wearing a clean T Shirt touting a local band.  He wore black high-top tennis shoes, but nothing flashy or trendy.  There was nothing about his cloths or outward demeanor that gave a hint that he was in enough trouble to plead with his uncle to come and get him.  I was starting to feel a little more at ease with the situation.  “Maybe things just got blown out of proportion” I thought to myself.  But I would quickly find that not to be the case.

When Raphael came back with the drinks and settled into his seat, I asked him to explain his problem to me; that his uncle got the impression he was facing a situation with dire consequences; enough to want to be spirited out of town immediately. “You don’t look so desperate to me right now, so I’m curious what’s going on” I told him.

He took a drink from his beer, looked me steady in the eyes and said “If I don’t fix this, I will be dead and banished to hell by this time tomorrow.”  It was the “banished to hell” part that made me lean across the table and ask for details.

And with that, Raphael unwound a story about picking up a couple from his Uber gig at local club at closing time, how the woman seemed to be in charge and flirted with him, asking if he wanted to come to a “party” at her lakeview apartment.  “There wasn’t anything suspicious about her” Raphael said, “I just thought she was some rich lady looking for a good time, so I said yes, let’s do it and drove to her building.   You’d be surprised how often something like this comes up.”

The details about the debauchery of the evening that Raphael relayed aren’t important.  What is important is how Raphael said the woman rose naked from the bed and sauntered to a nearby desk where she opened a drawer and pulled out a gun.  She walked back to the bed “with her eyes dark and wide” and said to Raphael, “watch this, sweetie.”  She quickly put the gun to the middle of the other guy’s forehead and pulled the trigger.  Blood and brains splattered all over the bed and over Raphael.  The lady just laughed.  Raphael jumped out of bed screaming, “What did you do?  What did you do?”

“Nothing.  I did nothing.” She said as she hovered over the body that was splayed out, limp and naked with the top of the head oozing blood and mush, surveying her work.  She laid face down on the body, rubbing her face into the mess of flesh and brains, growling  like a bear in heat. And then suddenly the body began to steam or smoke and it just disappeared, as if it was absorbed into the woman. “She looked at me with those dead animal eyes,” said Raphael “her face was covered in brains and blood, her chest was heaving. As she reached out and touched my cheek, her hand was so cold it felt as if my face was being burnt.”  She said “I have a job for you sweetie” In a voice that was no longer soft and feminine, but was heated and guttural.”

“You’ve seen what I can do” she boasted.  “You can figure out what I am, and now I have a task for you. I want you to find the nicest and kindest person you can and bring them to me.  I will take care of the rest.  And if you don’t…..well…..you will do nicely.”

My Quaker sensibilities made me skeptical.  I don’t believe in an evil presence roaming the world.  What I do believe is that humans either ignore or can’t hear the voice of God calling them to the light and instead, they allow their ego to dominate.  And their actions often look like evil.

My instinct was that Raphaël was telling me an outlandish tale as a set up to ask me to fund his “getaway” from the evil presence.  I wasn’t buying it, but I didn’t say anything, waiting for the pitch I was sure would come.

At that point Raphael looked at me and looked down into his now empty beer glass.  “I’m sorry” he muttered. 
​
 I looked up just as this beautiful raven haired lady with coal black eyes and a hungry smile was walking to our table.

A recent article in the Quaker magazine, Friends Journal asked an intriguing question:  What is the essence of prayer?

I know what prayer is not.  I am long past the time when I would pray as if I was bartering and asking favors of the Divine.  I might have once prayed “if I get this job that I really want, I’ll do more for the church,” thinking that prayer was both contractual and conditional.  There is ample evidence of Jesus exhorting his follower to ask God for what they want.  For example, in the new testament, (Matthew 7:7) we are told  “Ask and you will receive.  Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door will be opened to you.”  And additionally (in Matthew 7: 9-12) Jesus goes even further asking, “Which of you, when your child asks for bread will give them a stone, or if they ask for a fish will give them a serpent…”

This kind of prayer no longer makes sense to me. We Quakers believe there is “that of God” in every person.  My way of thinking is this:  if the spirit of the Divine is carved into our individual soul, does not the Spirit already know what is our heart’s desire?  Is divine love so conditional that what we seek will be withheld until we bow our heads and pray for it?  I don’t think so.

I believe that I am God’s beloved; that each of us is God’s beloved and as such Divine love is poured out in such abundance that we are engulfed by the Spirit with love.  This love is never withheld, but is given freely.  Continuously.  Perhaps, in the passages above, Jesus is trying to teach us that Divine love and blessings are readily available and we just have to open ourselves up to the possibility.  We need only quiet our minds and listen in prayerful anticipation for the blessings of the Spirit, which abound.

With prayers of intersession, things get a bit more paradoxical for me.  When I am asked to pray for someone - or as we Quakers say to hold someone “in the light” - I do so as earnestly as I can knowing full well that it goes against my basic understanding of prayer.  Why do I need to ask God to help someone, when I fully believe that love and blessings are already being showered upon them?  But pray I will, in part because there are gold standard studies showing that intercessory prayers actually – verifiably help with healing.
 
When I am asked to hold someone “in the Light,” that is precisely what I do. I form an image of that person being enveloped with divine Light and Love.  There are no words to my prayer, just a deep belief that the love of God is showering down on the person in need.

Perhaps an easier way to think about this is to ponder a quote from the Indian Hindu Mystic, Ramakrishna who said, “The winds of grace are always blowing.  All we need do is raise our sails.” When we hold someone in the Light, what we are really doing is assisting them to raise their sails.
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In answer to the Friends Journal question, I offer this.  Prayer is the faith filled act of sitting confidently in Divine Light, knowing that love always abounds.

The Mary Oliver poem - What is There Beyond Knowing - has had a powerful impact on me, and especially from the recitation in the video below by Brooking Caldwell.  The poem begins at 1:38.  The text of the poem is also below.

What Is There Beyond Knowing
By Mary Oliver

What is there beyond knowing that keeps
calling to me? I can't

turn in any direction
but it's there. I don't mean

the leaves' grip and shine or even the thrush's
silk song, but the far-off

fires, for example,
of the stars, heaven's slowly turning

theater of light, or the wind
playful with its breath;

or time that's always rushing forward,
or standing still

in the same -- what shall I say --
moment.

What I know
I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it
on one shoulder,

important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.

But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out. Life so far doesn't have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.

If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet.
I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass
and the weeds.

​God is a dyer, dipping every
Essence of the cosmos into
Vats of luminous colors.
A work so delicate, as to be forgotten.
 
Am I a woven white cloth turned purple,
Or am I a purple cloth, now
so purely absorbed
That the color and the cloth are one?
 
Once, before time, there was
No cloth, but only an enduring color,
Lovingly waiting
To shine forth its hue.

There are times when I yearn for the God of the Bible’s Old Testament; the one who transformed a grandmother into a pillar of salt just because she was defiant and turned to look at the destruction of her home – the place where she grew up and raised a family.  It’s not so much that I want vengeance, but rather, it is cosmic accountability that I seek.

I live with this uncomfortable paradox that is difficult for me to reconcile.  I feel that we are all touched by the Divine.  The bedrock of Quaker faith and practice is the belief that there is “that of God” in everyone, which I believe is true.  When I find myself at an impasse in life I know (now) that I need only wait in expectant prayer and the answer will come.  Here’s an example.

I have always loved music.  I play – not particularly well - the guitar and piano.  And as a result, I often hear the voice of the Divine in the music wafting through my head.  My wife is more than five years cancer free now, but the time when we were in the thick of her diagnosis and she was facing a major operation, was a difficult one for our family.  One day during this fearful period, the Sam Cooke song, Stand by Me became an ear-worm, sounding over and over again in my mind, all morning long.

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No, I won't be afraid
Oh, I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

As I was standing at my kitchen counter, looking out onto our back yard while waiting for my coffee to finish brewing the song popped up again and I found myself asking, “what is this about?” And as soon as I asked that question, the answer appeared.  It was the Divine speaking to me in a way that would seep into my soul.  Don’t be afraid.  Stand by me.  I broke down and wept.  Not a tear or two kind of cry but a sobbing, weeping, tears pooling on the kitchen counter cry of thanks and relief for the whisper of grace I was given.

So this is the paradox.  I know in my soul that the Spirit of God speaks to everyone just as clearly as I know the Divine speaks to me.  I know that God is whispering to our leaders to control guns, to honor equity, to stop hatred, greed and wars.  God is calling on Donald Trump to stop dividing our country for his personal gain.  The Divine is pleading with Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the carnage in Gaza and urging Putin to halt the war in Ukraine, and exhorting the Rapid Support Forces in Darfur to stop the genocide.  The problem is, they aren’t listening or if they are, they don’t care.  And that’s why sometimes I wish for the Old Testament God to pour down fire and brimstone upon those who commit atrocities for the sake of their own power and greed.  I want the Divine to smack someone upside their head, to cover their body in boils, to turn them into a pillar of salt – just to make an example so the world will understand: God is calling.  Listen up!

I’m not proud of these feelings of cosmic wrath and understand that they aren’t very Quakerly. So I prayed for guidance, and the answer I received was this: “Listen.  Have faith.  Shine your own light onto the world.”  I suspect this doesn’t just apply to me.  I doubt I’m the only one with dreams of vengeance and wrath. 
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The Bible says that Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt because she was disobedient and looked back.  Maybe we are all called to look forward and not to look back, to become vessels of the Divine, to be the light of peace to those around us.  And just maybe, that will be enough.

Within the quietude of Quaker faith and practice rests a radical thought: that every day is holy.  This is one reason why we don’t celebrate major Christian holidays such as Christmas or Easter.  The theology is pretty straight forward and stems from the foundational belief that the spirit of God is found in everyone, without exception.  Every day is infused with the presence of the Divine and therefore there is no sense of waiting for the coming of God or seeking the Spirit which may be absent.  The spirit of the Divine is present within us.  It has always been and it will always be.  There is nothing we can do to earn this grace and there is nothing we can do to lose it.  God is with us all, now and forever. 

I try – and mostly fail – to live my life embracing the Spirit within me and within everyone I know and everything I see.  I sometimes imagine myself swimming in the water of the Divine each and every day.  Like a fish in a lake surrounded by water, we are all surrounded by God.  The Divine is in the air we breathe, in the food we eat, in the ground we walk upon, in the people we meet, in the clouds above and in the cosmos beyond. 

Seeing the holy in everyday life isn’t about grand gestures.  Rather, it is about noticing the wonder of the mundane; rejoicing in the dance of the dust in the sunlight streaming through your bedroom window.  It is about noticing the grandeur of a butterfly or the delight of a child at play, or the miracle of a seed transforming into a flower.  When we do the laundry or prepare a meal or meet with a friend in need, we are performing an act of worship – channeling Divine Light into the world.

And so, if we spend our days immersed in the glory of God, then every day is a holy day.  Or is it?

I am haunted by the recent images I’ve seen in the Washington Post about the bloody aftermath of the shooting of 19 innocent children and two teachers at the Uvalde Elementary School in Texas on May 24, 2022.  The newspaper has taken up the charge of bringing front and center the horror of what actually happens at a mass shooting.   For example in classroom 112 at the Uvalde school we learn that the children were huddled together in a corner before they were massacred.  One of the pictures in the Post shows the classroom at a distance where you can just make out the blood stained floor at the far upper left of the frame.  But then, the next picture takes you up  close.  The blood is deep and crimson and smeared, and there is a tiny blood stained tennis shoe in the middle of the gore.  It is heartbreaking.
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And then I am reminded of another picture, equally heart wrenching, of a Palestinian mother sitting on the ground, her head down as she is clutching the shroud wrapped body of her child.  The child’s limp arm protrudes from the white cloth.  And we know that this scene is repeated thousands of times.

How does one reconcile the carnage with the holy? 

Certainly there is goodness and light throughout the world if we only look for it.  But, that may be of little solace to the mother mourning her child whom she will never kiss again.  Perhaps with some time and distance, these families will return to seeking the light of the Divine.  But in the immediacy of it all, I imagine there is only darkness. 

Maybe the answer to the question of how does one reconcile the carnage with the holy is that we can’t.  Maybe all we can do is hold the paradox of light and darkness in our hearts. 
 
Holiness does not mean an absence of death, or disease, or greed, or cruelty.  Holiness simply means that in the midst of it all there is still the presence of God.  It is we who are holy and it is we who must shine the light of the Divine onto the profane.
 
In the words of the eastern mystic Rumi:  “If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light.”

“Why are you scrubbing the floor at nine o’clock at night?” Nicky asked his wife, Anna. “With the coal dust everywhere, it just gets dirty again,” he said.

“There are dirty-faced kids all over this coal town, but my children won’t be one of them,” Anna responded, as she used both hands on the brush to scrub the stained wooden floor.

Anna couldn’t stand the dirt. That’s not how she was raised during her younger years on the farm in western Ukraine where she remembers deep blue skies, the golden hue of wheat fields, the sweet smell of fresh-cut hay.

But now, here she was on her knees scrubbing the dirty floor of the cramped company house in the dust-filled coal town of Farmington, West Virginia, thinking of her children. I can’t keep them clean in this hell hole. Anna thought about the floors, about her children, and about her life following Nicky from coal field to coal field. It was mid-January of 1926, just one week after Greek Orthodox Christmas, and it was cold. Anna had to keep the fire lit in the kitchen in order to scrub the worn floor before it froze and iced over.

“Nicky, I need to go to the store tomorrow to buy milk and flour for making bread for the children. How are we doing on money?” Anna asked as she dipped her scrub brush into the gray, dirty water in the wash bucket, afraid of the answer she would get.

“We already owe them too much money. I can’t get ahead of the bills with what they pay me,” Nicky complained as he looked away from his wife and to the glowing fire in the kitchen stove. “You’re gonna have to make do,” he said, focusing his gaze on the fire.

Life in the coal fields was hard on everyone. The coal companies extracted more than coal from the land. They extracted the health, the livelihood, and the future from the miners and their families. The miners were paid in script instead of dollars because the script could only be spent in the company stores. Too often the script wasn’t enough to make ends meet, especially because the companies inflated prices at the store. That forced the miners to go into debt to the company just to buy food for their families. It wasn’t unusual for the coal companies to make as much money from the miners’ payment for housing and food as they did from selling the coal that the miners dug.

Finished with her scrubbing, Anna struggled to get up from her knees as she winced from the kicking baby in her belly. Not quite 30 years old, Anna had four children and now another was just a few months away.

“C’mon, Anna, you need to rest. Let’s go to bed,” Nicky said as he held out his callused and coal-stained hands to help her up.

Nicky’s a good man, Anna thought, as she gladly grabbed his hands for help. He’s a rascal, but he’s good to me and the children.

Nicky had moved his family from Western Pennsylvania to northern West Virginia because he was being hunted by the coal company’s hired police. Nicky was a “bootlegger,” which in the coal business is a fellow who locates a vein of coal to mine on his own, so he can sell his self-dug product to willing buyers. Of course, this was illegal since the coal company owned the rights to all of the coal under all of the mountains in the region. In Nicky’s eyes, everyone got what they needed. He earned extra money for his family; his friends and customers saved money on coal; and the “boss man coal company” took one on the chin.

The mining companies blackballed Nicky so he could no longer work in Western Pennsylvania under his own name. The pressure became too much, especially with Anna pregnant again. Nicky moved the family to Farmington, West Virginia, and found work using an alias—Nick Zapatosky—the name under which he would die.

​The sun rose red the next day in a haze of coal dust. Anna was up early to light the stove and make Nicky his breakfast of coffee and oatmeal. She would have loved to fix him his favorite eggs and sausage, but who could afford that? Nicky finished his breakfast and kissed Anna on the cheek as he put on his well-worn winter coat. “I can go with you to the store when I get home. Maybe we can pry some more credit out of them for food for the kids,” Nicky said as he grabbed his dented aluminum lunch pail and hard hat before stepping into the cold to join his fellow miners trudging through the blackened snow.

I’m going to have to get Johnny to help me haul water and get some more wood for the stove, Anna said to herself. She thought about her oldest who wouldn’t turn seven until the end of March, but when his papa was out working, Johnny tried to be the man of the house. Then Anna thought of Edward, a Quaker fellow who had taken a liking to the kids, even giving them oranges for Christmas. Oranges. Where in the world did he get those?

Edward was a Quaker and a member of American Friends Service Committee, or AFSC. The Quakers were good to the miners’ families. When the mine workers union was just forming in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, it was AFSC that made sure the families had food to eat during the bloody and protracted labor strikes.

Anna’s day was routine. When the children awoke, she gave them a breakfast of warm bread with sugar sprinkled on it because that’s all she had to feed them. The youngest, Julia, got what was left of the milk and the other three drank water.
Anna gathered her four children for their daily trek to the community well, where she would pump two pails of water and carry them home, careful not to spill too much. Johnny was in charge of helping the other children find scraps of wood and coal to use for the kitchen fire that day, a job that gets harder as the month wears on and all the miner families are competing for the same scarce provisions.

Once home, Anna began her chores by washing Nicky’s clothes so he would have a clean set to wear to the mine the next day, and figuring out what to make for supper. I do have some potatoes left and a jar of carrots that I canned last fall. That will do, she consoled herself.

Then suddenly she heard a loud Bang! Bang! Bang! Someone was knocking on their door and speaking frantically: “Anna, we have to get to the mine. Anna, come with me. We have to get to the mine. Something happened.” It was Edward’s voice. Anna opened the door, anxious that this was the news every miner’s wife feared but somehow expected.

Once he saw her face, Edward blurted out that there had been an explosion at the mine. Men were trapped; some were certainly dead. Edward had seen this before in other towns with other mines. The women and children could only wait and pray while there was a frantic effort to dig out the survivors—if there were any. To avoid creating a scene, the company would keep the families at a distance from the rescue efforts. Often it took days before the rubble could be cleared out of the mine shaft and the survivors and the bodies of the dead brought above ground. The bodies would be laid out on tarps, side by side on the ground, with no attempt to conceal their bloody and mangled figures from the families.

Anna just stared at Edward, trying to grasp what he was saying while thoughts raced through her mind: Is Nicky alive? Is he hurt? Is he dead? Oh my God, if he’s hurt or dead, this could be the death of all of us, Anna reasoned. If there is no miner to dig the coal, the company evicts the family from their home and cuts off credit at the store.

Anna turned to her children who were huddled near the kitchen table, “Johnny, get everyone dressed. We have to go to the mine. Something happened.” By the time Anna got her brood moving, they could see the other families rushing through the snow, also heading to the mine.

Edward stayed with the wives and family members as they stood vigil, waiting hour after hour for some sign of life exiting the mine. The women were whipsawed by conflicting reports. One of the mine bosses thought that all 48 miners died. Then a mine expert from the state arrived and reassured the families that most certainly there would be survivors. The reality was that no one knew for sure. Each woman was certain her loved ones were alive, but in her heart she was preparing for the worst. After all, that’s what a mine worker’s woman does. She deals with life—no matter how grim or how dirty—and she prepares for death that can come at any moment.

It was just after five o’clock on Friday, January 15, when the first miner walked out of the mine, nearly 24 hours after the explosion. First came one, then another, then a few together. One dad walked from the mine and into sunlight with a son on each arm. In all, 23 miners survived.

The women couldn’t be contained. They rushed to the exiting miners searching their grimy faces, looking with hope and desperation for the ones they loved. Anna found Nicky’s friend Mykola among the living. “Where is Nicky?” she asked, holding the man by his shoulders while staring into his weeping blue eyes. “Did you see Nicky? Is he still alive?” Mykola knew the answer. All of the survivors had scampered to the livery pens 10,000 feet back into the mine to avoid the lethal methane gas filling up the shafts. Nicky wasn’t among them. Mykola didn’t have the heart to tell her. “He wasn’t with our group” is all he could say as he gave her a deep hug and walked quickly away. That’s how Anna knew. Nicky was dead. She instinctively put her hand to her belly and looked at her children who were gathered around Johnny trying to comprehend what was happening. “Come children, let’s go home. There’s nothing more for us here,” Anna said as she gathered her children, turning her back on the mine, and marched home.

Within one week after Christmas, Anna’s husband was dead and the coal company ordered her and her children to move out of the company house and cut off credit to the store. Nicky was one of 19 miners killed by the mine explosion. There were pieces of coal still embedded in his back when they brought his crushed and blood-stained body to the surface more than 30 hours after the blast.

Edward talked with the mine workers union, and between the union and AFSC, they raised enough money for Anna to move her children and her husband’s body back to Pennsylvania. She was starting over, a 30-year-old single mom with five children. Anna, a Ukrainian peasant who could neither read nor write, now had to navigate life in Appalachian America during the coming worldwide economic collapse. And she had to do it on her own.

The day was cold and sunny when Anna brought Nicky’s body back to Western Pennsylvania. She looked up at the vibrant blue sky and vowed, “We’re home. We won’t be crushed by this.”

In June, the air was filled with the clean smell of mountain laurel as Anna walked to catch the streetcar to her job as a janitor, cleaning offices.

 
Author’s note: This story is a fictional account of real events. The child Johnny was my father. My grandmother Anna never remarried and raised her five children alone, working as a janitor cleaning offices at night while Johnny was tasked with caring for his four siblings. The role that AFSC played supporting the miner families with food and supplies during the prolonged and violent strikes in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia during the early days of the United Mine Workers union is true.

The idea of reaping what we sow is often considered at the individual level and usually in the same vein as Karma: the actions we take come back to us in good ways and bad.  I find it interesting to look at this concept of reap what we sow at a societal level.  Does a society like the United States – collectively – reap what it sows?  Perhaps.   Here are a few examples.

In America, we sow guns – by the hundreds of thousands throughout the land.  Best estimates are that Americans own somewhere between 350 Million – 480 Million guns; in a country of 340 Million people.  And what do we reap from all these weapons? We “lead” our peer countries in the number of mass shootings, gun-related homicides; gun-related suicides and most recently, firearms becoming the leading cause of death among children.

We also sow carbon dioxide.  The US represents nearly 4.25% of the world’s population, but yet we emit 13.5% of the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; eclipsed only by China according to the organization, Our World in Data.  The “harvest” from this overabundance of carbon dioxide is a growing number of climate disasters such as excessive heat waves, drought, floods, wildfires, and hurricanes.  NOAA charts US climate disasters based on the total cost of the damage wrought by each incident.  According to NOAA, 2022 marked the eighth consecutive year with 10 or more billion-dollar disaster events impacting the United States.  In the past, the US experienced about 8 such events per year, but within the span of 2018 – 2022, we averaged nearly 18 events per year – more than double the historical number.

We also sow plastic; tons and tons of plastic.  The production of plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, has increased at exponential levels.   Half of all plastic – ever produced – was made within the past 15 years.  Consider this, in 1950 we produced a mere two million tons of plastic.  By 2015, we were producing nearly 450 million tons of plastic per year, and if unabated that number will double by 2050.  And the biggest producer of plastic waste in the world?  The United States. What do we get from sowing all this plastic?  Some studies estimate that there are between 15 – 51 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the world’s oceans.  In fact, the plastic garbage patch floating in the Pacific Ocean is large enough to encompass the combined midwestern states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana and half of Ohio.  This sea-borne plastic begins to break down chemically from the interaction of sun, waves and seas into tiny “microplastic” particles, which have been found in every part of the world from the peaks of Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench – the deepest trough in the ocean. Microplastic particles breakdown into exceedingly smaller particles and seep into drinking water systems and into peoples’ lungs through the air.

Clearly, we the people of the United States are sowing some pretty nasty seeds and reaping untold carnage on ourselves and others.  But, what are we to do?  Well, the simplistic answer is to stop sowing bad seed.  Of course, that’s not so easy.  Countless numbers of individuals and organizations have been working for decades to stop the spread of guns and plastic waste, and to limit the production of carbon dioxide – with little significant success.

To me, all of these bad seeds stem from the same problem: people are trying – unsuccessfully – to fill a gaping hole in their heart. We look around and see a breakdown in community so we become fearful of others; fearful that life as we know it will be taken away; fearful that there won’t be enough resources to go around and thus greed and hording begins to take hold.  Many of these issues seem so large and intractable that a sense of powerlessness sets in and we begin to resign ourselves to a future of dwindling possibilities.

Maybe the issue isn’t to stop sowing bad seed, as much as it is to redouble our efforts to sow more good seeds.  We Quakers like to say that there is “that of God” in every person.  Put another way, we can say that the seed of the Divine is present within everyone, and what is needed is to shine the light of God deep enough, wide enough, and strong enough to bring that seed forth from each individual.

As advised by Maxine Hong Kingston, “In a time of destruction, create something.  A poem.  A parade.  A community.  A School.  A vow.  A moral principle.  One peaceful moment”
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The light of God is within you.  Let that light shine so others may blossom and illuminate the world.