Five Snouts Up for PBS' Little Women--an early feminist masterpiece

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) (click here to understand my snout-based rating system) for Masterpiece's recent 2 part adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.  Like most avid (white American) girl readers of my era, I adored Louisa May Alcott and read and re-read Little Women countless times (I was particularly obsessed with Eight Cousins, one of her lesser known works.  It was the book I read whenever I was sick and couldn't read anything else.)

However, it having been decades since I've read Little Women and having seen only 1 or 2 screen adaptations of it, I had failed to appreciate what a feminist masterpiece this story is and how perfect for our times.

In an era where women are simultaneously captivated by Pride and Prejudice and #metoo, enter Little Women.  This is a story where you get young women dressing up in gowns and courting, with the central figure Jo (not Josephine) March (the author's voice) turning down her suitor because she is focused on her writing--in late 19th century America.

Louisa May Alcott

I read that the American Library Association recently removed Laura Ingalls Wilder's name from a prestigious children's book award for her culturally insensitive portrayals in her popular Little House on the Prairie series (possibly a subject for a different post).  Perhaps they should consider renaming it after Louisa May Alcott.   While Jo does eventually marry an older professor in the story to run a boy's school with him, the real Jo March, Louisa May Alcott, remained single throughout her life and was an early feminist and abolitionist.  She and the book are a true inspiration for our times.

Bless Donald Trump for helping us remember who we are

All evil and harm that is done in the world is done because we forget who we are.  We forget that we are one.  We forget that when we harm someone else, we are harming ourselves.  The extreme harm of separating refugee children from their parents (the accurate term is refugees, not immigrants, these families are by and large running for their lives from Central America) and scattering them across the country, is heartbreaking and terrifying.  Yet, it is not particularly new.  

Tragedies like this took place while Barack Obama was president of the United States.  Tragedies like these take place all over the world.  They are all heartbreaking and terrifying but they don't all seem to call us to action like this one.  What is bringing us to remembrance of who we are is President Donald Trump.  Yesterday The Washington Post reported that Under Trump Americans are Becoming More Supportive of Immigration -- and this is based on a poll run before the latest outrage.  

In spiritual terms, President Trump is a projection of the dark shadow of Americans.  We say we are a law-abiding people, but we flout the law when we can.  We say we are a place where freedom flourishes, but we try to suppress the free press when we disagree with it.  We say all people are created equal, but then it turns out we really mean only the people who look like us and worship like us, and maybe only men.

Deficiencies of the electoral college notwithstanding, Donald Trump could not have been elected president and could not continue to inspire fierce loyalty in his base if he did not speak to our dark unexamined, unadmitted craven xenophobia.  

Get this: when I say "our" I do not mean Republicans or even that large subset of Republicans that are rabid supporters of the president.  I mean all of us.  

So while President Trump is, by his naked appeals to our shadow side, awakening our remembering of who we are, the call is also to remember ALL of whom we are.  If 30% of the American public wants to wall off the country, instigate stark consequences for those who try to enter our borders and deny women control of their bodies, then 30% of our collective consciousness wants the same.

A call to action these days is "Resist!" -- yet it is a spiritual law that what you resist persists.  Just as we need to remember that we are love and that we are one and that those refugees are us, and every person (and animal and tree) on the planet is us, we also need to love and cradle and whisper to those parts of us that we have rejected and shoved into the shadows.

In his various wonderful Youtube talks, the enlightened being Matt Kahn reminds us that when a toddler or young child has a tantrum our most loving action can be to wrap them in our arms, preventing them from hurting themselves or others, and just let them scream and scream until they are ready to behave.  And we can whisper to them/ourselves, says Matt, "I am forgiven, forgiven I am.  You are forgiven, forgiven you are.  I am love, love I am.  You are love, love you are" over and over and over until we know who we are.

And so I ask what energy, space and consciousness can I and my body be to let go of all I am holding against Donald Trump and his supporters and to embrace those parts of myself that have wanted to exclude or hurt others who are different than I am?  And anything that doesn't allow it, can I destroy and uncreate that all now in all parts of my consciousness, every lifetime, all directions, all layers, all times, no matter what?

And then I can remember who I am.  And I can go out and work and support and vote for a world that works for everyone. 

For Fathers Day: Return Immigrant Children to Their Parents Immediately

As a new thought minister, it is difficult to know what to add to what Stephen Colbert says above--where to begin with the daily heartbreaking news at the border.  Even evangelical ministers, who have largely been supportive of and even enthusiastic about the immigration policies of the President, are decrying the recent decision to separate children from their parents at the border.  Yesterday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fell back on Romans 13 to insist on support for this policy, “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.”

The Washington Post Daily 202 (my favorite daily news source Link to subscribe to Daily 202) says that previous peak usage of this Bible passage was by leaders in the American south in the mid 1800s to justify slavery.  Mr. Sessions fails to mention the previous passage, Romans 12 “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. ... Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.”

In the Centers for Spiritual Living, we do not believe it is possible to be separate from God.  We don't believe in a separate force in the world that is the Devil or a separate force of evil.  But we are clear that people ourselves create harm and evil, by separating ourselves from each other--which is a form of separation from God.  When we are advised to "love our neighbor as ourself" that means they are ourself--it is not pretend.  All evil is a form of forgetting this basic truth:  my neighbor is myself.  There is no other--we are all one.   

So let us not mince words:  separating children from their parents is evil.  Lying to mothers and children that the kids are being taken for their baths and moving them to a warehouse on their own is a scene out of Nazi Germany. Holding 1500 immigrant children at the border in a former Walmart without legal representation, without contact with their parents is wrong, heartbreaking, unjustifiable.

Just as this evil at the border is a result of forgetting, our current political crisis is a result of forgetting.  We must not forget who we are.  We must not forget that whether we voting for them or not, we elected our representatives.  They are us too.  That means that some part of our consciousness has accepted that it is okay to separate mothers from children.  We need to take responsibility for having participated in getting the country to the point where it could be this divided and this forgetful.

This is one of those moments where it is impossible to imagine that this can happen and we can return to our daily routines and our daily lives.  At a minimum, how about in honor of Father's Day, we take a moment to call our member of Congress at (202) 224-3121 (you enter your zip code and they tell you your member's name and connect you with them) and say "I urge my representative to visit the border and shut down the immoral detention of these families and separation of these children from their mothers." (I just did)

If Addiction is a spiritual problem, how is it also a disease? Part 3: Questions about Addiction and Treatment Raised by Unbroken Brain

Okay this seems to have turned into a series of articles on the questions raised by the book Unbroken Brain by Maia Szalavitz.  Today's question is: if addiction is a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution, how is it also a disease?

This is tricky: as we explored in the last article, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by desperate men who had no other viable treatment options in their time.  Somehow, addicts, by admitting that we are powerless over our addictions and by cleaning up the wreckage of our past are able to draw on a higher power that restores us to sanity.  Millions of addicts have found this to be true.  

For every person that finds recovery in the spiritual solution offered by the 12 steps, there are people who leave 12-step recovery claiming that the reason is that can't deal with the spiritual solution.  Much of the early work of Alcoholics Anonymous was about how to help drunks find a higher power that worked for them that wasn't the punishing God of their childhood or perhaps even a God at all.  Some alcoholics simply make the other people in the group their Higher Power--they speak of G.O.D. ("Group of Drunks")-- the point is something other than yourself.  (For people who have a hard time with this, I always recommend Martha Cleveland's pithy The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery)

So that's loosely how the spiritual part of it works--not in depth.  Which brings us back to the question, if addiction is a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution, how is it also a disease?

When I was the communications director for Physicians for a National Health Program, I used to joke "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV" (later I made the same joke as I represented nurses in the legislature).  My degrees are in psychology, law and consciousness studies, so take this for what it is worth.  

As someone who works closely with addicts in recovery and as someone who has studied the nature of disease and spiritual recovery, this is what I can offer:

Addiction easily meets this dictionary definition of disease, a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.

Though the treatment and care for the disease may be partly spiritual, from a functional standpoint, it is very useful to treat addiction as a disease.  If my addiction is a disease, then I can release myself from shame and blame.  If my addiction is a disease, then I need treatment for that disease every day.  If I think of addiction as diabetes, then I can define my insulin.  Maybe my insulin is going to 12 step meetings, praying and meditating every day, being of service, caring about others.  If that keeps my disease in remission then that's something I do every day.  Not just on week days.  Not just when I'm in town.  Every day.  A diabetic who takes a break from insulin injections does so at their mortal peril.  It is the same for the addict to take a break from their spiritual insulin. 

That's enough for today, stay tuned for me to think about these questions as well:

• Since doctors and medicine virtually provided no hope for treatment of addiction prior to 12 step, why should we trust them now?
• Follow-up to that question, how has medicine evolved in its treatment of addiction?
• If psychological components of addiction treatment, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), use thought examination techniques popularized by 12-step groups, why should anyone pay a therapist when they can get it for free?
• How is it ethical for residential treatment centers to charge you or insurance companies a whole lot of money just to send you to free 12 step groups?
• Does it make sense for a medical model to refer you to a "spiritual solution" for what appears to be a disease?
• If addiction IS a disease AND has a spiritual solution, then why is there not a spiritual solution for other diseases?
• Follow up to that questions, and why aren't medical centers referring you to spiritual solutions for those?
• Are there some personality types that respond better to the radical responsibility model of 12 steps than others?
• How can it be that it is "not my fault" that I'm an addict and "only I can solve it" by doing "my work"?

Unbroken Brain Part 1: if you're addicted, is it your fault or? 
Unbroken Brain Part 2: Does shame and blame work in treatment and recovery from addiction?

Does Shame and Blame Work with Addiction?

In yesterday's post, I reviewed the book Unbroken Brain and listed the questions that it raised for me.  Today I'm going to explore the first question: If addiction is a disease, and not a moral failing, why does 12-step culture use so much shame and blame as a technique for getting people to stop using?

Back when Bill W. handed Dr. Bob his last drink on June 10, 1934 thereby founding Alcoholics Anonymous, there was no known cure for alcoholism.  It was considered hopeless.  Drunks died in prison, in hospitals, in drunk tanks or at best "sanitariums," or dove off bridges and buildings.  By the time they died, their families might have used plenty of shame and blame to get them to stop.  And it hadn't worked.

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, desperate alcoholics themselves, were also respectively potentially a successful high level salesman and a prominent surgeon.  They were white men who had high expectations of themselves.  They found, through research, intuition and desperation, that they only thing that allowed them to not take a drink was a spiritual solution.  As the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous puts it, "What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." 

It would be wrong to imagine that shame or blame could ever help an addict.  Shame and blame are the addict's go to feelings.  No other person could ever inculcate more shame or blame for an addict or alcoholic than they do for themselves.  What 12 step programs (such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeater's Anonymous, Workaholics Anonymous, Debtor's Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Gambler's Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and many many more) do is require rigorous honesty.

The single most important part of spiritual fitness is honesty.  When people can tell the truth about themselves, and get right-sized, the compulsion to use and drink is lifted.  That is what Bill W., Dr. Bob and millions of others since them have found.  But radical honesty is not a part of our normal culture, at least in the U.S.  Our culture rationalizes, tells white lies, justifies.  And we reward those behaviors.

So sometimes, when we come face to face with a culture like 12-step that requires rigorous honesty, it looks like it is shaming and blaming.  It is not.  It is owning up to the real devastation that we create when we are selfish, self-seeking, dishonest and fearful and we act out of those impulses.

If You're Addicted, Is it Your Fault, or Not? 5 Snouts Up for Unbroken Brain by Maia Szalavitz

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for Unbroken Brain by Maia Szalavitz (Understanding the snout-based rating system).  There are people who think 12-step programs are the only way to treat addiction and then there are people who hate 12-step programs and never the twain shall meet, except in this book.  Before she rehabilitated herself and became a journalist, Maia Szalavitz dropped out of Columbia University due to drug addiction, was convicted of drug dealing and remanded to crappy residential treatment.

The book is part memoir, part investigative journalism into the worst and best of 12 steps, residential treatment and the harm reduction model of treatment.  Maia is clear that 12-step programs saved her life.  And Maia is clear that abuse and harm is done in the name of treatment by almost exclusively relying on 12-step programs and "spiritual solutions" as well placing full responsibility on the addict for recovery from what is called a disease.  

My most important take away from the book is this:  while 12-step groups provide free, structured, self-led support and a spiritual solution  that can be a key component of recovery from addiction, they also have some cultural biases and downsides that don't help every addict hence may not be appropriate for a medical setting.

Honestly I could write a whole book about the questions this book raises (and only partially answers):

• If addiction is a disease, and not a moral failing, why does 12-step culture use so much shame and blame as a technique for getting people to stop?
• If addiction is a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution, how is it also a disease?
• Since doctors and medicine virtually provided no hope for treatment of addiction prior to 12 step, why should we trust them now?
• Follow-up to that question, how has medicine evolved in its treatment of addiction?
• If psychological components of addiction treatment, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), use thought examination techniques popularized by 12-step groups, why should anyone pay a therapist when they can get it for free?
• How is it ethical for residential treatment centers to charge you or insurance companies a whole lot of money just to send you to free 12 step groups?
• Does it make sense for a medical model to refer you to a "spiritual solution" for what appears to be a disease?
• If addiction IS a disease AND has a spiritual solution, then why is there not a spiritual solution for other diseases?
• Follow up to that questions, and why aren't medical centers referring you to spiritual solutions for those?
• Are there some personality types that respond better to the radical responsibility model of 12 steps than others?
• How can it be that it is "not my fault" that I'm an addict and "only I can solve it" by doing "my work"?

I think this is going to have to be a multi-part series because I have so many thoughts on every one of these questions.  Stay tuned...

What will it take for objectification of women to cease? How far have we moved?

Sold at Venice Beach, CA June 9, 2018

It strikes me that the #metoo movement is burgeoning; the Miss America beauty pageant is eliminating its swimsuit competition (so that we won't know its a beauty pageant).  Yet the products to the right and below publicly hawked in Venice Beach, are still somehow considered acceptable.  


Slavery is about the most basic evil we can agree on in this society yet it is okay for us to wear panties saying "John's Property" or "Mike's Bitch"?

What will it take for objectification and claims of ownership of women to not just be socially unacceptable but to disappear?



How does it get any better than this?  What else is possible?

My Thoughts on the Recent California Primary and a World that Works for Everyone

The results of Tuesday's California primary were underwhelming but could have been worse.  Turnout was low despite supposedly high activism and engagement.  What energy, space and consciousness do we have to be to notice primary elections are important and to really focus on them?  What else is possible?  How does it get better than this? 

Historically turnout is only high in Presidential election years.  This November we have a super important election to determine who will lead the US Congress.  Currently Congress is being controlled by a political party that is dismantling health care protections, lowering tax rates for the wealthiest, trying to weaken social security, programs that help the neediest amongst us.  It is also defaulting on its responsibility to oversee the Presidential branch and hold it accountable if it is engaging in illegal activity.   The people in control of Congress now do not share my values of a world that works for everyone.  

Many Congressional seats around the country will have to change hands in order for us to stop the bad policies being advanced and to have a chance to move forward on the economic and social issues that most Americans relate most to. 

What will it take for American voters to notice that their values and their future is at stake in every election?  What will it take for us to vote for a world that works for everyone and also encourage and help others to vote for a world that works for everyone?

Results in this election that move in the direction of a world that works for everyone:

• State Sen. Kevin de Leon (D) garnered just enough votes to make it into the general election runoff against US Senator Dianne Feinstein (D).  de Leon is a stronger champion than Feinstein for the rights of all people to have clean air, clean water, affordable health care, housing, and a living wage.  Although the odds are heavily stacked in Feinstein's favor, what would it take to mobilize a strong vote for de Leon to send a message to Sen. Feinstein that California's values are stronger than she thinks? 

• Voters sent candidates who are more likely to vote for a world that works for everyone to the top two of several congressional races in the state--so many Democrats were running in those seats that there had been a decent chance that they would only advance Republican candidates to the general election

• Voters strongly defeated Prop 70 a dirty deal to stop climate action.

All in all, it could have been worse.  There are some strong candidates on the ballot in the fall.  What can we do to educate ourselves and others about the importance of the fall general congressional election and to come out in force for a world that works for everyone?

Marie's Crisis Cafe, where have you been all my life?

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) 5 Enthusiastic Snouts Up (Understanding My Snout-Based Rating System) for Marie's Crisis Cafe in NYC's West Village.  OMG, where has this been all my life?  This place is so great I can't even imagine how I didn't know about it before now.

Nowhere but New York City could this possibly occur.  Picture a typical below street level Greenwich Village tiny dive.  The focal point is this upright piano shown above (there's also a bar beyond it as you can see in the background).  The patrons on barstools surrounding the piano belt out every single lyric (mostly from memory) of show tune after show tune complete with harmonies, hamming it up, pairing up for duets, etc. The pianist queues lyrics with gestures and is often hilarious.

The friend who took me had tried to get in several times before and always encountered big lines (the fire marshall must limit capacity to 35 people max, maybe less--it's really small).  We waltzed right in at 9:30pm on a Tuesday night post Memorial Day--by 10:00pm it was packed.

Some of the singers pose as drunken barflies asleep on their stools and then come alive suddenly when their favorites are played--sitting partially upright and releasing these gorgeous tones--hilarious to watch.  Others seem like girlfriends with babysitters in from Jersey to request Mama Mia (a request that goes largely ignored by the piano player--why play Abba when you can play Rogers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, or Miranda and Diggs?)

Some you get the impression are there pretty much every night.  They know every song by heart.  They have gorgeous voices, certainly they performed in these shows, and wanted to do them on Broadway--maybe they even did.  Maybe they even still do.  

I got to chime in on songs from Gipsy, Chicago, and Oliver but felt most confident with My Fairy Lady and Guys and Dolls (because I've been in them).  Honorable mention goes to me for coming up with a missing harmony in Hair's "Aquarius"--i was unduly proud of myself for that.  My friend and I told ourselves that the regulars were wincing as we sang, but they probably paid us no notice (what could be worse, lol?)

We didn't try the food in the "café," but it is served.  We ate first at one of those great longstanding Indian restaurants in the East Village and then walked over through Washington Square--one of those rare summer spring nights where it was warm enough to languish in the park but not too hot.

Anyway, if you like singing or show tunes are just hearing live free music (did I mention, no cover charge?--although maybe on weekends)--this is the place to be.  You can bet I'm going back there!