The Irrevocable

When I was in 5^th grade, I took clarinet lessons at school. I have two distinct memories: the taste of a clarinet reed and the words “do over.” Every time I messed up, I could try it again—and again and again until I got it right. And I’ve lost count of how many other things I’ve been able to do over. You can re-take college classes. You can revise writing. You can edit blog posts, even after they’re posted. You can repeat your driving test. You can un-do a thousand stitches of knitting and re-knit the yarn. With these things, once you have the new and improved version, the original effort mostly fades away.

Sometimes, though, do-overs aren’t so easy. There are some things we can never erase, things we cannot revoke from our histories, as much as we wish we could.

I have sadly watched a situation lately that breaks my heart, and it’s all because someone was trying to have a fresh start. A big and public mistake came back to haunt this person. All the old feelings bubbled back up. And in some ways, it felt like no progress had been made. 

The key is to learn from each experience. Reflect on what went wrong, and try to see it from multiple points of view. Make the kinds of changes that can help prevent recurrences. When life hurts, don't waste the lesson. Grieve. Reflect. Learn. Change. Because there are no do-overs in the stuff that really matters.

Getting Back in the Groove

I'm trying to encourage myself here, because I don't have the energy to be angry again. I feel heavy-hearted and soul-weary, and I just need some things to hang onto here.

• A new governor would not be able to change everything back to the way it was--not without good attention to process and building collaboration. I get the feeling that too many people were seeing the recall election as the immediate and magical antidote to Walker's changes. We have a constitution and laws, and making changes the right way should take time. So what we'd clung to was probably a pipe dream anyway.
• The election didn't change the state, but this whole experience changed many of us. I have never seen so many people vote before. I felt inspired and overwhelmed to participate in voting today. I know many people who will never again do politics the way they used to. Look at how many people channeled their protest energy, anger, and frustration into more involvement in their communities. They are running for office, supporting candidates differently, having different kinds of conversations. We are changed, and we are better than we were.
• It is up to us to begin healing. Yes, we are hurting. Yes, we want to lash out, especially at those who are playing the ninny-ninny-boo-boo game. Each of us must be the change we wish to see. It is up to us to reach out, to build bridges, and move forward in a spirit of collaboration with our neighbors and coworkers. We learned to work with others of us, despite the many differences between us. Surely we can look for ways to remember the humanity in our opponents and ourselves.

We didn't Recall Walker, but we can remember to recall our passion, our dedication, our new commitment and burning fire to make our part of the world a good and shining place. We are not the same people we were sixteen months ago. We are better. We are stronger.

Let's allow ourselves to mourn for a few days. Watch inspirational videos. Cry when you hear the bagpipes. Fondly remember living in the Rotunda. Look at your collection of protest signs. wonder what on earth this world is coming to. And then gather yourself together with the friends you've built. Find a way to dust yourself off. Let yourself move forward. And know that you are the heart of Wisconsin.

Leave College Time Alone

As we get ready to vote in the recall election on Tuesday, the accusations and speculations are flying fast and furious. The candidates are accused of manipulating numbers, misrepresenting the things they've done well, being either unclear about they  would do differently or digging their heels into what they've done that led to this whole mess in the first place.

I think Scott Walker is a bad governor. He operates on the "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" principle, and then forgets about the whole "asking forgiveness" part. He tramples on process to do what he wants to do. He pits the citizens of Wisconsin against each other, as though taxpayers and public employees are completely different populations. Regardless of Tuesday's outcome, he has damaged this state in ways we may never recover from.

People are holding a magnifying glass to Walker's entire life, including his time as a student at Marquette University.We've already heard about dirty campaigning for a student government position. I've heard rumors of academic dishonesty through my academic circles. And now this morning, I'm reading an article that claims that Walker fathered a child while in college.

We are pointing back at his time as a young adult and saying, "Look! He hasn't changed at all. He lied/cheated/abandoned back then, so we can't trust him at all now."

And that's where I have some problems with all this. I've spent a lot of years with college students--first being one and then, for the past 24 years, working with them. And now I have two 20-year-olds and two 17-year-olds living in my home. I think it's fair to say that I have a lot of experience with young people. Not to put too fine a point on it, young adults do dumb things. Being stupid and making bad choices are part of the developmental process of becoming an adult, no less than the way a toddler takes a few steps and falls down while learning to walk.

I cringe to think of how some of my young adult decisions could be used against me now. There are things I'm ashamed of and things that hurt me. It's true that those experiences shaped me, just as Scott Walker's college experiences surely shaped him. But I think it's completely unfair to claim that those young adult experiences and choices represent who someone is 25 years later.

Indeed, this is a critical time in the recall--but these are cheap shots and they don't speak well of us. I want him out of that office, too. His "divide and conquer" strategy caused problem in my home, with my Republican husband and me arguing heatedly about politics for the first time in our marriage. I had to leave a state job I loved because my family couldn't handle the hit to our income. There's part of me that wants to do whatever it takes to get Walker supporters to change their minds--but I just don't think this is the right way.

Process Does Matter

Being married to a conservative Republican, I live every day with comments about the recall--people just didn't get their way, unions are the ones behind the protests and recall, Walker is making a good difference, etc. Between my husband's comments and Facebook posts, as well as the ever-present Fox News, I've heard it all and have mostly learned to tune it out.

Today, my 17-year-old son asked me to remind him what the recall was about. I told him what some people (i.e., his dad) think, and then I told him what I think.

For me, it truly isn't about collective bargaining. Rather, the collective bargaining decisions represented what was, to me, a much deeper and more serious problem: the lack of decent process. At no point did I feel like Scott Walker was giving even a pretense of listening to anyone. Listening to others doesn't mean you have to agree with them. It does mean, however, that you should work hard at understanding their concerns and developing a sense of shared goals--and then working together on figuring out the best way to get there. If he had truly given a chance for people's voices to be heard and addressed, I would not be in support of this recall. What I object to is being silenced and invisible to an administration.

It isn't about unions. It isn't about the fact that when I was a public employee, I was about to have an extra $300 taken away from each paycheck at a time when my husband had been in the unemployment cyclone off and on for two years already. It isn't about what got decided or what the votes were. It is about the fact that too many people who lived in this state were ignored and denigrated. It is about the fact that rights that were established over a period of decades were eradicated with glee. It is about the fact that just one of those jobs that were promised would've made a huge difference to my family. It is about the fact that my elected representatives weren't decent enough to do what they felt needed doing without a modicum of kindness and respect for the people who would have to live with the results of their decisions.

So Scott Walker, if you had made the same decisions but had been decent and humane about it, you wouldn't be where you are right now. Process really does matter.

From the Voice of a Sister

I am frequently amazed at how I will encounter something right after I've been thinking about it. Just yesterday I was thinking about sisterhood and the women religious with whom I work. Today, I found this prayer that recognizes the women on whose work we continue to build and live.


A Prayer for the Times

My favorite part is the beginning:

Dear God, creator of women in your own image,born of a woman in the midst of a world half women,carried by women to mission fields around the globe, made known by women to all the children of the earth,give to the women of our timethe strength to persevere,the courage to speak out,the faith to believe in you beyondall systems and institutionsso that your face on earth may be seen in all its beauty,so that men and women become whole,so that the church may be converted to your willin everything and in all ways.

Amen, Sister.

Walking the Labyrinth

When you're walking the labyrinth, all you can focus on is what is directly in front of you. Thinking about the path you've walked or  about how much longer you have until you get to the end will just make you dizzy. So you put down one foot at a time and focus on the experience at hand, aware that you are on a journey without dwelling on the past or future. And then, suddenly, you find yourself in the middle. And you're centered.

Sisters

I’m not one to discuss my faith and spirituality much. Sometime it is because words cannot begin to capture my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. More often, though, it is because the simple act of speaking or writing about these things will push people away. I’m a bridge builder and connector, and knowingly doing something that would separate me from others is not something I do.

Yet connectedness is the very thing that is compelling me to write now. My own religious background is pretty vanilla. My current religious affiliation is Methodist, which is a state I married into. As a junior high school student, I was confirmed Presbyterian. When I was a young child, we went to what I like to think of as a New Age/hippy church. I was baptized EUB. Religion to me is an institution, a set of beliefs and practices perpetuated by a hierarchical structure inhabited by very human individuals. I have never had the feeling that a religious institution is telling me what to think or believe, although I do understand why many people feel that way. Religion is not the same as faith, although quite frequently the two intersect in my life.

The most meaningful experiences for me are the ones in which I feel part of the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity, believing that we are all children in the process of learning and growing, turning our faces toward our shared spiritual being. Faith for me is about my internal barometer’s response to what happens around me. It is the part of me that yearns for the connection of something greater than myself and my world, and it is the part that feels called by that greater something. It is an awareness that I matter and that I am connected to something that matters even more than I do.

I have now finished my first academic year at a Catholic women's college. It has been a nine-month-long culture shock. By choice, I have attended several masses at work, the most recent being the Baccalaureate Mass this past Friday evening. Being in a worship service with colleagues is a unique experience. We have all the usual stresses of higher education—end-of-semester grading/testing/crying, students desperate to improve a grade, various offices continuing to offer their regular services amidst all the end-of-semester-ness around them, and so on.  Yet Friday night, there we were. We’d been able to set aside the gritty details of our individual jobs and gather. I sat with my boss. We sang together and prayed together.  We wept together. We hugged each other. For that one hour, we were connected to each other and to the world beyond ourselves in a way I’ve never before experienced in a workplace. It was a reminder that our work is for a larger purpose. It is, indeed, a blessing, to be where I can use the strength I find in my faith to add to my work rather than feel I’m supposed to suppress or hide that part of who I am.

Four of the five people sitting closest to me were Sisters, the nuns with Ph.D.’s who serve on the faculty and administration. At that moment, I could feel in my heart that we were all sisters, together.