Ed Garren’s Weblog

 Normandie is awash with D day festivities. This must be the largest party in Europe right now. The beer and wine are flowing, the cheers and laughter pierce the air, lots of toasting and well wishes.

 In the midst of this, I am traveling with my brother, and we accompany a few of the surviving D day veterans who return every year. The remnant of veterans is lost in the circus of re-enacters, food stands, souvenir vendors, all of it awash in alcohol.

 There is a lot of pain here. The surviving veterans are the kernel of it all, but the children and grandchildren of the English veterans swell their ranks.

 At the Pegasus bridge cafe, Madame Gondree welcomes the returning vets who liberated the place decades ago. She was five years old when she opened her window in the morning to see what the noises were outside as the british commandos scurried across and around the bridge to disarm the explosives the Germans had set on it.

 Today, the cafe welcomes a group of bicyclists, riding to raise money for injured Afghan war vets in Britain. It seems that carnage is determined to continue.

 Last night we had dinner in an 800 year old farmhouse. The family that owns the farm, and has for six generations, offered us excellent steaks from the family business of raising beef cattle. The parents of our host entertained both German and British troops after D day. The house was in no mans land, the family trapped in it. The Germans spent the nights, the Brits spent the days. I wondered if they ate the fine steak. The stand off lasted 85 days, somehow both the house and family survived.

 History is very real here, but so is the present. Talks include the current banking mess that appears to be pervasive. It seems that banks in the UK also got bailed out, but are not lending money either. The current Middle East wars are sucking the British dry also, though at least the rich seem to be paying their fair share in United Kingdom.

 One of the elderly commandos made a comment about the issue of gays in the military, assuring himself that he never knew any. That one set me off, and I politely suggested that he knew and served with many.

At least one of the other elderly commandos had spent some of our shared time commenting on the pretty little faggot boys of his youth, as well as the nipples poking up under my knit shirt. It was our special bond as he winked at me. We truly are everywhere.

 My brother and I make a full compliment. He is a retired Sgt. Mjr. Airborne, Special Forces, Black Opps. I am semi retired from decades of working as a psychotherapist, child welfare worker, addictions counselor and Gay Rights activist. We both understand that freedom is not given, but must be fought for, that all the generosity in the world means nothing without respect.

On a very personal level, the cost of freedom for both of us, has been high.  I live with the hundreds of friends and peers who died in the AIDS plague years, the ongoing struggles of having basic rights and freedoms tossed around in dozens of ballot initiatives (during my lifetime) and other political games, mostly by so called “conservatives” who have no problem spending this country into massive debt, while telling me and my kind that we shouldn’t exist.  My brother has given his left hip, his right knee, and the bottom of his back to protecting freedom, not to mention living with PTSD for all the death he has seen.

 Though the content of our lives has been very different, what we both share is a life lived that only peers can really understand.

  This trip has been more than worth the cost. My brother and I have never felt closer, I have met some wonderful people, and I have spent time with many veterans. The young ones from Iraq, Afghanistan and such are living in as much or more pain than the old ones. On the bicycle ride, I see many young men with no legs, or an arm missing, or both. I wonder how their lives will fare in the coming world. The older vets came home with bodies more intact. Medical technology then did not allow for saving the lives of the almost dead.  There were no “Medi-vacs”, just dump trucks filled with bodies.  The American cemetery on a bluff above Omaha beach goes on for acres and acres.  

 The WWII ones returned as heroes in 1945. The D day vets were in units that lost 70 to 90% of their members.  Most of the carnage stayed in Europe in the enormous cemeteries that are part of the landscape.  We visited the British cemetery and the German cemetery as well.  In each of them, the special bond among the soldiers, which easily crosses national and political lines, is apparent.  Old men who once fought as enemies, now easily embrace and sob together as brothers, remembering their fallen comrades.

 The bond remains the same, maintain the mission, protect your buddies, bring everyone home. The old vets generously salute the young ones, they understand and honor their sacrifice. Not too many others do these days. 

The current crop of veterans return to a world that rarely remembers there is a war going on, much less that these young men and women left behind their innocence, along with arms, legs and shattered lives in some desert in the middle east.  The stories of being haunted by the faces of those they killed, often children and civilians, are rampant in their confessions to me. Their scars are deep, and few people take the time to listen to them. All of the beer and bravado fails to remove the faces that haunt their dreams. Self forgiveness is often elusive, and few beyond their ranks understand.

 Will we honor them as we honor the old ones? Will we have events for their fellowship and renewal? Or will we prefer to forget them, like we have so effectively forgotten our Vietnam veterans? As I write this, newly elected Tea Party members of congress are trying to privatize the Veterans Administration services. How quickly will our greed make these new veterans political orphans in their youth?

Our last night in France, Gene and I were sitting in the bar at the IBIS hotel with a friend of his who is a historian.  He was on his way to Poland to tour Aushwitz.   Joe is as “conservative” as it gets, probably a Tea Party supporter, who lives in Alabama.  A well dressed woman from Canada joined us, a retired teacher and principal, and we had a somewhat restrained conversation about the current state of the world.  She was holding a copy of “Time” magazine with the story “What Recovery” on the cover.  We spoke of the current state of things in North America, and she basically said the real problem is that no one seems willing to work together anymore.  Her father was a union organizer, she was a teacher, and then a principal.  When she became a principal, many of her friends had to stop speaking to her because as an administrator, she became the enemy.

She noted that Germany had similar economic problems a few years ago, and then leadership started working together to renew Germany’s industrial assets so that they could start making things that could be sold worldwide.  In other words, they started working together, not apart.

So it seems that we live in a very divided America these days, and the real reason we can’t seem to fix anything effectively is that we are working apart, not together.

If the D Day veterans have anything to teach this current world, it is that differences, even extreme ones, are temporary.  Today’s enemies become tomorrows allies.  What is essential is meaningful dialogue, forgiveness, and a vigorous commitment to common goals.  All of these elements seem absent from the current leadership landscape in our country these days, and the Europeans are genuinely baffled by it.  They remember an America that forgave Germany, helped it rebuild, and welcomed it into full partnership in NATO.  The current isolationism and arrogance of our immediate past leadership (Bush/Cheney) genuinely baffles them because they know Americans to be hospitable, generous of spirit and resources.

 The next question is, will we remember and renew that generosity as well?

 Edward Garren

My brother Gene standing in front of the remains of Carl and Velma Yearwood’s home

in Mt. Airy Georgia 

Today we remember the birth of one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.  Much will be written and much will be shared today, including the page of quotes below, but I want to write about my personal “Dr. King” and why I thank God for his life and work on a very personal level.

I grew up in the segregated South, and like most of my peers in that time and place, felt threatened by the Dr. King because he was the icon of unwanted change.

Change is difficult for most people, and particularly difficult for “Southerners” because change has always been a bad thing for us, particularly after losing the Civil War.

In my little town in central Florida, the assertion of civil rights by black people was nothing short of blasphemous to a way of life we all took for granted as enshrined by God himself.

And of course, since the shackles of that segregated world didn’t affect white people, we did not understand the daily indignities and humiliation that “our way of life” imposed on our black neighbors.

At the risk of death by lynch mob, or being “burned out” (having one’s house torched), our black neighbors certainly were not inclined to tell us how they really felt.

Martin Luther King Jr. articulated all of the honest feelings that others would not share with the rest of us.  Though it was Rosa Parks who sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, it was Dr. King who gave it voice, and that voice moved a nation.

I became personally touched in a moment at my recently integrated school by the dignity, warmth and heart of the newly arrived black students, as did most of my white peers, who quietly came to the universal conclusion that all we had been taught was wrong.

I cannot sufficiently articulate the significance of how our hearts were changed, but they were.  And it wasn’t just me, it was most persons of conscious, in a time and place where “Christian Values” were more than words.

The best example of those moments of revelation I can offer was sitting in my aunt Velma’s living room in Mt. Airy Georgia on a summer afternoon, watching the March on Washington in the summer of 1963.  A photo of the remains of that humble house are above.  It was four rooms, covered with “tar paper”, and had a wood burning stove, a well in the back yard and an outdoor “toilet” at the end of the path.

Sitting watching Carl and Velma’s Sears Silvertone TV,  A. Philip Randolph, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters quietly recounted the difficulties faced by black people traveling in the South under segregation. My aunt Velma turned to her neighbor, Lorrie Iverson (who didn’t own a TV and had long before lost all of her teeth) and said, “That old darkie is right.”  Both women, who themselves had lived very difficult lives, quietly agreed that no one should suffer indignity or humiliation trying to eat or find rest for the night.

I was privileged to witness the quiet melting away of centuries of assumptions and attitudes, all of which were based on a one sided conversation that did not allow honest communication, until Dr. King and others decided to tell we white southerners the truth about how black southerners felt about the institutions we whites took for granted.

In his speech in Detroit earlier that summer, Dr. King made it very clear that oppression requires the cooperation of the oppressed.  “As much as we want to blame white people for all that they do to us, we will never be truly free until we take responsibility for letting them do it.”

My own journey through deeply personal change in that time and place, afforded me significant insight into the nature of change, and the processes involved in changing deeply held beliefs in the face of new information that challenges those beliefs.

About a decade later those insights helped me discover and make peace with being gay and they also helped me to understand the importance of honest dialogue in the face of injustice, ignorance and hatred.

I also learned that most of the time, injustice is not perpetrated by evil people, but by people who are simply perpetuating a status quo that they have never really thought about which might cause others in their midst ongoing pain and hardship.

I have studied Dr. King’s work extensively, as well as that of his mentor, Mohandus Gandhi.  Both men gave us a way out of the madness of violent conflict, and the hatreds that develop when people refuse to consider that they may be wrong.

Both men also understood that forgiveness is essential, and without it, nothing can change.

The tragedy of this time and place is that we have devolved into a society that believes that conflict is best resolved by academic discourse and debate, a very legalistic process that requires that someone lose.  At the same time, we have created a very competitive society where losing is a horrific thing to be avoided at all costs.

We can see the ineffectiveness of this.  Our media has become a circus of “talking heads” articulating opposing perspectives, presumably because that is somehow supposed to be the appropriate way to offer balanced perspectives and presumably resolve conflict.

Conflicts are not resolved in this manner, only perpetuated and escalated.  The simple assertion of any problem assures conflict, everything becomes an argument, and or society becomes unable to come to terms with any issues, much less resolve them.

One of the difficulties I observe in Portland is that this “debate” model appears to permeate any and all assertions of any need for change.  While it may be an appropriate model for academics or politics, it has not shown effectiveness with regard to the deep racism and homophobia that permeate the region.  It’s hard to admit a need for change if one cannot admit that things are wrong.

This specifically manifests itself in the mental health of this community, where many people feel deep shame for having or expressing emotions that are deemed not acceptable.  Since anger is the emotion we are given to protect ourselves from being assaulted, and the culture here equates anger with “hate”, persons and communities that are chronically abused are trapped in a cycle of abuse and not being able to defend themselves.  Hence the very high depression and anxiety levels in our community.

We also have so called “leadership” that rarely appears able to admit it’s own deficiencies, or take a moral high ground and consider it’s own culpability in creating this mess.

Again, this permeates the provision of mental health services in large institutions, which have become unable to encourage, create or nurture genuine diversity of opinions, staff or treatment options.

The hyper escalated rhetoric about the “evils of government” and the possibility that rhetoric may contribute to home grown terrorism is a classic example of an entire political perspective refusing to consider that it may be wrong.

Both Gandhi and King were deeply spiritual men, whose work was rooted and centered in a very personal relationship with their understanding of God.  One of the steps in “recovery” programs is “We continued to take personal inventory and promptly admitted when we are wrong.”

We seem to be living in times when most people appear to be unable to do this simple act of contrition, and we are paying dearly for it.

Our ability to make societal decisions has devolved into an accounting formula that assures decisions will be made on the basis of economic expediency, competition and “C.Y.A.”, rather than community benefit and a sense of higher purpose.

And since there is always economic gain to be made by conflict, there is little incentive to “wage peace.”  Also, making peace involves interior “work” and too many of us just don’t want to be bothered.  In this way, we have become a society of greed (personal ease) and cowardice (unwilling to look at our own “dark side” and deal with our selfishness and fears).

The other tragedy is that for most Americans, Dr. King is a historical figure, if not a curiosity.  We hear snippets of quotes, we know he had a dream, we know he stood for equality, but we don’t really know how he accomplished these ideals.  And we specifically don’t realize that his life’s work was about taking real and tangible anger at the face of chronic injustices, and effectively channeling that anger into processes that create meaningful change in society.

Beneath the educated and eloquent language, Gandhi and Dr. King provided us with a civil way, in both words and actions to say, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore” without killing each other.

Removing oppression in a peaceful manner requires two components, non-violence AND non-cooperation.   The non-cooperation piece somehow got lost along the way,

It’s a pity that more folks today don’t realize that.

These quotes from Dr. King, assembled by long time friend and journalist Nick Cuccia,

who is also gay and an Episcopalian.

TO ENLARGE THE QUOTES, CLICK ON THEM

AND THEY WILL OPEN IN A LARGER WINDOW.

I received a warm Holiday Greeting from my God Daughter Nicole and her husband Jorge (George) Ramirez.  They live in Rancho Cucamonga CA.  We had a very warm conversation last night (Xmas Eve) and it was one of the most enjoyable moments of this season.  “Nikki” always inspires me to do better.  She has such a light around her, from the day she was born, she has brought joy to everyone she has touched.  She also was born on the same day as my father’s mother, March 28, in the same hospital I was born in, Tampa General, Tampa Florida.

 Years ago in Miami when she lived with me, we had a Christmas (1982) buffet at the house we were living in (NE 45th Street). We were as broke as we could be.  I had bought a used artificial tree that summer, $13 at a garage sale, two strings of lights on sale, and we made home made ornaments out of paper cups, pipe cleaners and gift wrap.   

I got a small bonus at work and bought a bunch of food to have dinner party.I invited everyone I knew to come early evening for food, and about 40 people showed up.  It was the “rainbow” Christmas event in Miami, much diversity, and we all had a great time.  

 The highlight of the evening was a friend who was a “grip” for the Channel 4 News, who called and asked if she could bring her news crew, and of course I said “Yes.”  So they came, ate and took footage of the feast, the adults conversing, and the children gazing at our Christmas Tree.

The scenes ended up on the news that night, they played it at the close of the 11PM News and rolled the credits in front of the last of it.  Nikki and I were at church and missed it, but we heard it was lovely from friends the next day.So that was our gift to Miami, which was dealing with a lot of racial animosity at the time, and it was our only Christmas together, and my last Christmas in Miami, I moved to Los Angeles the following September.

The memories we make define our lives.  It’s so important to enjoy today, each day, and drink in the love that others bring to us and then share it back with this broken world.  No matter how impoverished we may feel, we always have “spirit” to share with others, which is how we are “fed” to give more.

I have had a very difficult last two years here in Portland.  Finding meaningful work and sharing my vocation has been very difficult, money has been “tight”, but somehow, in this past week, a lot of things have just settled out.   I haven’t found a job, I have no idea what’s next, but I am (FINALLY) at peace with my life here, after a long and at times difficult process.

I know many many friends are dealing with difficult times, lost dreams, tumult and disappointment right now.  But I remember that in 1982, I wad dealing with difficult situations as well, and yet I created happiness and warm memories for myself and my God daughter.

As I sat in church last night, I thought about all the people in my life who have loved me, even when I wasn’t that lovable. Surely God is good, and more importantly life is good.  It’s just what we do with it, and how we pass on God’s love that matters.

We ask God to help us make “good” out of imperfection, including our own, just as God makes “good” out of us if we let God in and honor our higher selves.  It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth the struggle.

I hope your Christmas season (12 days) brings joy and peace (even if you’re not “observant”) and that the New Year brings genuine prosperity of spirit, and some extra cash for those who need it.

Edward George GarrenChristmas 2010

One of my favorite quotes from a very famous Floridian, pulitzer prize winner, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

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 If there can be such a thing as instinctual memory, the consciousness of land and water must lie deeper in the core of us than any knowledge of our fellow beings.

We were bred of the earth before we were born of our mothers.  Once born we can live without our mothers, or fathers, or any other kin, or any friend, or human love.

We cannot live without the earth or apart from it, and something is shriveled in man’s heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

author of “The Yearling”

from her memoirs “Cross Creek”

 Here is a YouTube video of Bonnie speaking recently at a symposium on Marriage Equality, talking about her spiritual journey as a Quaker and a Lesbian, and how she came to know the importance of marriage equality, and how the current inequality hurts children, parents, and society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCtbziDMuIc 

Bonnie Tinker was killed in a Truck/Bicycle accident last week in Virginia.  She was 61.  The long time Human Rights activist was the founder of “Love Makes a Family”, a group that advocates for the rights of so called “Alternative Families.”  The full story can be found at the following link:

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/to_the_end_friends_say_bonnie.html

I had the absolutely delightful honor of meeting Bonnie at a “Separation of Church and State” conference about a month ago at Portland State University.

 I made some observations about not being so patient with people who hate us (GLBTQ persons), and that patience in the face of injustice is never a virtue.

Afterwards Bonnie came up with that beaming smile of hers, and we recognized each other as kindred spirits. We exchanged phone numbers, and planned to get together soon. Now “soon” won’t be happening, though I suspect she’s looking down and smiling as I write this.

Something that our detractors rarely seem to understand is how passionately we “activists” love life, and want as many people as possible to have a fair shot at living a full and rich life. “The World” is always trying to make us less than human, less than full children of a loving God, less important.

Too many people buy into it, and then look at people like Bonnie, myself, or other activists and angrily ask “Why do you think you’re so important?”

Nelson Mandella answered the question very well: 

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear: our presence automatically liberates others.”

–Nelson Mandela

Bonnie understood this, personal liberation is why we are all here, it is how we grow closer to God, and more appreciative of the life God has given us.Even though I barely knew her, I will miss her healing strength in this broken world.

May she rest in peace, and may the rest of us continue to make trouble wherever there is oppression.

 People & Places 

Mobile Press-Register, Sunday, January 25, 2009

Youth Merit Award

Sarah Bryars , an eighth-grader at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School, was selected to receive the Mobile Sunrise Rotary Club’s Youth Merit Award.

Bryars was honored at the Sunrise Rotary Club’s weekly breakfast meeting on Jan. 21. Sarah is an honor roll student, as well as vice president of the student council and secretary of the National Junior Honor Society. She is in the McGill-Toolen elementary band, on the SVS robotics team, and is an Oakleigh Junior Belle. Sarah is the daughter of Richard and Krista Bryars.

Ed’s note:

In 2005, less than 2 months after flooding from Katrina soaked their house in Mobile with 2 feet of water, Sarah had “Gamma Knife” surgery to correct an Arterial Veinal malformation in her Occipital lobe (vision) in the back of her brain.  We are all very proud of Sarah, she’s a very strong young lady.  

Her great aunt and uncle were my and my brother’s God Parents.  My brother is named after the great uncle, Mjr. Royal Francis Brewton of Mobile Alabama, who was my father’s commanding officer in Air/Sea Rescue for the Army Air Corps in WWII. 

 Leave a comment so that Sarah can see it when she checks this posting.  Thanks,  Ed

Like most people I know, I spent the inaugural week weeping more than occasionally with joy for all that has happened.  Here in Portland’s “Q Center” the boxes of tissue were being passed like communion trays as we all watched on Tuesday morning.

My personal “tear jerker” are the words of Dr. King ringing in my head, “I may not get there with you, but we as a people will get to the promised land.”

 I am thanks-filled that so many people, including Rev. Lowery, have lived to see this day.

 Here is the transcript of his benediction, which for me, was the best part of the event. 

Many of you will recognize the last verse of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, by James Weldon Johnson (a native of Jacksonville Florida) who also penned “The Creation”, which opens this prayer.   

Transcript courtesy Federal News Service  and my friend John Burnett who sent it to me.

************************* 

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand — true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we’ve shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you’re able and you’re willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed — the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won’t get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around — (laughter) — when yellow will be mellow — (laughter) — when the red man can get ahead, man — (laughter) — and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: Say amen –

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: — and amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen! (Cheers, applause.)

Below is a link to the song that the “Black, Brown, White” part of the benediction was inspired from.  The expression, “If you’re white, you alright, if you’re brown, stick around, if you’re black, get back!” is a very old one in much of this country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZLw5ahxm-Q