“America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.” ~ Warren G. Harding.

My father, a Christian and a Pacifist, went before a tribunal during World War II to defend his belief that he had no right to kill his fellow man.  His appeal was approved, but unlike one of his brothers who argued so effectively that he was permitted to continue to pursue his university degree, he had to work in a designated field, in support of ‘the war effort’.  The field was described to us as Social Work (the parents of this era did not share a lot with their kids who were born after the war), and he apparently assisted families who needed to move house, helped in their packing up and relocation.  We were told that some of these families donated their rationed cigarettes to him.  So he was a smoker during the War.  After the war ended and he resumed his studies to be a minister, there was no money for cigarettes.  And so he became a non-smoker!

Once he became a minister, he blended his church duties with a social work ethic when he would show up at the gate of the local prison on Fridays when prisoners were being released.  Here he (and other church members) would offer ‘care packages’ and funds for those who had no other support to get back on their feet.  Some of these men ended up coming to our home for a meal, and most were grateful for the helping hand, the unconditional acceptance, a second chance.  Of course some may have found it difficult to change their ways.  I have a memory of the ‘lunch money’ which had been carefully split up and placed on the mantelpiece for each child to take to school on Monday morning disappearing after one visitor left.  But, as they say in Jamaica, ‘suh it guh’ (or as my African American neighbor said, many years ago ‘It bees that way, sometime’).

Over twenty years ago, the Nurse Philosopher Sally Gadow wrote about the special field of nursing, that of ‘restorative nursing’.  This term she preferred over any of the more common terms such as ‘prison nursing’, or even the thought that the prison sentence itself is a form of ‘rehabilitation’.  She noted that imprisonment violates the ethical principle of nonmaleficence (to not do harm) that a nurse should uphold.  At the same time, the nurse should act for the patient’s good, which can appear to be a contradiction.  By balancing those contradictory concepts, the nurse can engage a new kind of nursing.

After the Civil War in the US, there was the opportunity for a new way of being for citizens of the country.  The period was called Reconstruction, and emerging from the inhuman condition of enslavement, there seemed to be a new dawn.  For a brief period of time, those men who were recently freed from bondage, or their immediate descendants, were able to run for office, although they soon found how far the concept  ‘equal’ would go.  For those African American males, especially in the south, who dared to become educated, or own land, or develop wealth, or perhaps, even have the nerve to walk with pride, they were subject to hatred, to mob rule, and to death. For them and their families, there was no Reconstruction, only a new form of enslavement as the era of Jim Crow emerged.

This week I have been traveling through Tennessee.  We visited the Alex Haley Museum in a tiny, decaying town (though it scarcely seems to merit the term), the home of Alex’ maternal grandparents.  The home in which he grew up, built in 1920, has been lovingly maintained.  It was a significant house, built by his grandfather (a well-to-do owner of a lumberyard), with beautifully wallpapered rooms; handsome millwork; even a ‘chamber-room’,  a generously proportioned bathroom, although there was no running water indoors.  His grandparents made sure their daughter was educated, she was an accomplished pianist and went away to Ithaca Conservatory of Music to study. 

On the front porch of that home, Alex’s grandmother and family would gather and retell family stories, starting as far back as ‘the African’, one of the earliest of their ancestors taken in slavery.  From these stories, backed by years of research, Alex was able to tell the story of his ‘Roots’.  I can still remember, as a young student, sitting in the lounge of the nurses’ residence spellbound, as the series unfolded on TV.  Like most in the room I was dumbstruck when faced with the horror, the reality for generations of those of African descent who for generations were so brutally mistreated.

The other day I watched remotely as young students of my high school alma mater debated the topic of reparations.  Earlier this year the United Nations approved a resolution (opposed only by the US, Israel and Argentina, to their shame) declaring the transatlantic slave trade the ‘…gravest crime against humanity…’ and called for concrete steps towards reparations be made.  It is unclear where that resolution might lead to, however it is a start.

In our present time, it seems that there is much out of kilter.  The majority of citizens of this country are paying a hard price for decisions made by the few at the top.  While many are struggling to put gas in their car, there are those making money hand-over-greedy-fist.  It is time for restoration to take place, for we have lost a lot of ground in the last few weeks alone.  Even though voting has already begun in some states, those who have voted may be disenfranchised, as emergency redistricting renders their votes meaningless. 

While the news continues to cause distress, I have been ‘holding a medz’ in the quiet of rural Tennessee, using my Merlin app to identify the songs of up to 17 different birds heard in the canopy, while sipping a cup of coffee.  I have been watching the tiniest of hummingbirds swoop, hover, and dip their sword-like beaks into bird feeders.  I have been breathing in the air of a land long inhabited by people who loved the earth and who treated it with respect.  I have been away from the 24/7 onslaught of cable news, and my cortisol levels have gone down as a result.

On this Friday morning, as I get ready to hit the road again, I hope that, despite all that happens in your world, you are also able to ‘hold a medz’, to focus on something positive, to restore your soul, to construct a new reality, and to breathe.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.