VINEGAR VALENTINE CARDS

Do you know what I discovered the other day?  Valentine’s Day is on its way! And depending on whether you have someone special in your life at the present time, V-Day can be a bitch, which is really a shame.  We need as many expressions of love as we can get our hands on in this day and age.

So many people absolutely loathe Valentine’s Day.  Many comedy routines have been written about the single man who breaks up with a woman in January—so as to avoid Valentine’s Day and the expectations of everything from a dozen roses to an engagement ring—and resumes his booty calls in March, if his boo hasn’t murdered him in the interim.

I’ve been there.  In my youth I had many a “butt-ugly cry” Valentine’s Day moment because some “jabroni” ghosted on me because of that forced romantic day coordinated by the card, chocolate, and flower industry (“But, I thought he loved me, boo-hoo…”).  Or worse, there was no man within a million miles of me that cared if I lived or died.  Consequently, I feel about Valentine’s Day like I feel about Mother’s Day:  love and respect me every single freakin’ day of the year, and we’ll be good for the count on the V-Day and the M-Day.

Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I have been married to one of the most romantic men in the world for the past 39 years, and my Boo tends to knock it out of the park on Valentine’s Day.  I’m not gonna lie:  it does feel good after all those years of living in a loveless desert.  But he also fulfills my primary wish of making my everyday loving worth the journey.  Valentine’s Day is just the cherry on top.  I guess what I’m sayin’ is that this giant manipulative day should not break or make a relationship—it is the daily issues of the heart that count.

Cartoonist:  Bill Waterson/Universal Uclick

 

As I began to muse over the pros and cons of Valentine’s Day, I decided to check out its history.  Turns out, this whole thing started out as an ancient fertility festival thousands of years ago.  It was called the Festival of Lupercalia.  If one were fortunate or misfortunate enough (especially if you were a woman) to be living during that time, to celebrate this fertility mash-up, men would strip themselves naked, kill a bunch of goats, pull a single woman’s name out of a gourd and commence to whipping the shit out of said woman with the remains of a bloody goat.  No word on how many woman hooked up with these “dreamy” men or how many children were born as a result of the bloody goat S&M chase.  (Personally, I would have become a lesbian on the spot—right there in the middle of the first bloody-goat whip:  “Yo, yo, yo, people, I’m battin’ for the other team!”.) But when the Catholic Church took a gander at this pagan ritual of “love” a century later, Pope Gelasius I decided that this nastiness could use a bit of dry cleaning for the “modern world” of the 15^th Century.  The Pope reached back into the Third century and pulled up not one but two martyrs by the name of Valentine who had been beheaded by Claudius II.  Viola!  Bloody goat festival was now out and St. Valentine’s Day (honoring two Christian saints) was now in!  Ain’t life grand?

The info about how a fertility festival got turned into Valentine’s Day was so fascinating, I decided to check out the history of Valentine’s cards since this is an American ritual from kindergarten to the nursing home. (Remember purchasing enough Valentine cards for every child in your kid’s elementary school class?  Or even worse—in the teen years—when every kid in the class received a Valentine card except your kid?  At that point, I usually wanted to kill somebody and bring down a pox on all their houses.) Did you know that 18.2 billion dollars was spent on Valentine accoutrement last year and 1 billion of that total was on V-Day cards?  Holy Moly!  Who’s buying all these cards?  According to the Greeting Card Association, 85% of V-Day cards are purchased by women.

I must confess that I’ve spent hours over the course of my lifetime looking for the “perfect” Valentine’s Day card—wanting to express that perfect sentimental, gushy statement. But, like most things, V-Day cards weren’t always flowery profusions of love.  Between 1840 and 1930 there was a thing called “Vinegar Cards”—featuring rude, insulting poetry sent by a person’s haters to course-correct some behavior the sender thought was abhorrent in the receiver.  Like the Facebook and Twitter trolls of today, the Vinegar Cards were sent anonymously.  

Some call you, madam, a female dog,

They err, for you certainly are a whole hog;

Of your piggish charms need I say more.

When your temper is up you’re a bit of a bore.

The devil it’s said once went into the swine,

And none but he will e’er be your Valentine.

From: American Antiquarian Society in Worcester

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OR HOW ABOUT THIS ONE…

“You’ve got a dual personality.  And nobody likes either of them!”

*

Yikes!  Some of these Vinegar Cards could get so brutal that duels between men would break out because of them.

Sent to Ward off Uninvited Guests/c. 1930
Courtesy of Lisa Hix, “Happy Valentine’s Day: I Hate You!”

 

Sent to Shame Men Who Let Their Wives Join the Suffragette Movement/1910
Courtesy of Lisa Hix, “Happy Valentine’s Day: I Hate You!”

 

Come to think of it, I could use a few of these Vinegar Cards today when expressing my Valentine disgust with the current administration.  What if I sent one to Trump over his latest support of the wife beaters on his staff?

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

The fish rots from the head,

Shame on you.

Signed: #METOO

Cartoon used by permission: David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star

 

Or how about a Vinegar Card to the Evangelical leaders who came out in support of Trump’s support of the wife beaters in the White House:

Roses are Red,

Violets are Blue,

Are you sayin’ it’s okay to abuse women?

‘Cause that’s what Jesus would do?

Signed: Screw you!

Cartoon used by permission: Bob Englehart, CagleCartoons.com

 

On the other hand, spewing hatred against hatred rarely stomps out the fires of war.  So I suppose spreading a little bit of love via flowers, cards, candy, or jewelry is better than nothing.  We all have such hurting hearts, and we all could use a little love these days (actually a lot of love, if the truth be known).  So bring it on!  From my heart to your heart with love:  HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

 

Cartoon used by permission: Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com

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THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOK:  “The Fetus Chronicles:  Podcasts From my Miseducated Self” is on sale now at Amazon!

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out her website at www.eleanortomczyk.com

 WANT TO HEAR THE AUTHOR’S LATEST INTERVIEW?  Check out the podcast interview with Leo Brown: http://breadboxmedia.podbean.com/e/what-if-it-is-true-can-you-find-faith-in-darkness/

***

Cartoon used by permission: John Darkow, PoliticalCartoons.com

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REFERENCES

http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day

https://www.independent.ie/style/sex-relationships/theres-a-pretty-dark-history-behind-valentines-day-36578613.html

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1955/2/14/valentines-feature-insults-not-hearts-parsenic/

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/happy-valentines-day-i-hate-you/

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/valentines-day-numbers-money-spent-flowers-candy-cards/story?id=45480956

 

 

ONCE UPON A TIME: LOVE TRUMPED A S**THOLE COUNTRY

A MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY MEDITATION

This is the second time I have re-purposed a post I wrote a few years ago for the Anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  The humanity, sacrifice, and love celebrated in this post really stuck with me, and I have rewritten and updated it with new cartoons (yet again) in the hopes that the subject matter will strike a deep chord within all our hearts to give us courage and hope.  Let us remember the 50^th anniversary of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the circumstances of his gone-too-soon life, and why the sacrifice of his life was meant for the good of us all—no matter what our race, creed, color, or religion.

***

Do you know what I discovered as I meditated on Dr. King’s contribution to the United States?  Trump and his die-hard minions kept overshadowing Dr. King’s message in my head.  In my meditation time, I tried to conjure up Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but couldn’t stop hearing Donald Trump’s racist fog horn blaring his latest misanthropic screed about not wanting people from “shithole countries” to come to America.

Cartoon used by permission:  Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle

Every person with half a heart and half a brain is labeling Trump’s latest vocal excrement as that of a hardcore racist.  His supporters are crying foul and declaring that America is post-racial.  After all, didn’t we just have two terms of a Black President, which is why Trump had to become President to “fix” all the mess that Kenyan made?

Let’s see:  Trump doesn’t want people from brown countries to come to America, but would love more people from places like Norway—the whitest country on Earth.  Hum…if Trump talks like a racist, acts like a racist, then he is a racist!  Believe me.

First of all, there is no such thing as a “post-racial America.”  If anything, the racism that had been buried for years erupted to the surface when Barack Obama became our President.  He was the fulfillment of a dream for Martin Luther King but a freakin’ nightmare for those who are horrified over the browning of America.

Unfortunately, a lot of people who claimed to be Christians got caught up in that net under the very thin guise of cultural politics.  I watched White people I once knew and loved from the 70s—who said they loved me—go to bed one night reminiscing about our Hippie commune days where we spouted Evangelical Christian philosophies of love and tolerance, and wake up on the morning of the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2008 spouting racism, fear, and hatred.  (Of course, they denied it:  It wasn’t because he was Black.  It was because Obama was the anti-Christ—didn’t I remember the Bible scriptures that foretold his ascendance?)   It’s as if I never knew these people—never broke bread with them—never shared the vision of seeking the grace of God toward all men and women with them.)  I watched their eye balls rolling, their mouths frothing, and their heads spinning on their necks in anger at the thought of the White House turning Black.   (They would deny this with a vengeance—say that it was about abortion, the war on Christmas and being able to say “Merry Christmas,” but if it talks like a racist, acts like a racist…it will elect a racist when given a chance to do so.)

Cartoon used by permission:  Pat Bagley, Salt Lake-Tribune

I tried to calmly, but urgently, address the racism, xenophobia, and homophobia snuffing out the love of Jesus from the hearts of my now ex-White Christian friends (influence who you know), but it only made them more fanatical.  It is as if they forgot the history of the Jim Crow era and were doomed to repeat it.  As I watched their President (#HELLTOTHENO—NOTMYPRESIDENT) so capriciously try and rescind the lawful rights of refugee Haitians, Salvadorians, and 800,000 “dreamers,” I was bordering on despair until I meditated one morning on our civil rights history.  I remembered that there have always been angry White people and cruel American legislators, but there were also those righteous White Americans who fought alongside Black Americans to bring about Martin Luther King’s dream.  In most cases, they lost their lives doing so.  I especially remembered James Zwerg who lived to tell his story and should be seventy-seven-years old by now.

James Zwerg in 1961 after being beaten by a racist mob in Montgomery, Alabama during a Freedom Ride/Courtesy of Wikipedia

James Zwerg was the White college student from Wisconsin who’d been raised in a really tight-knit Christian family, and he eventually became a Freedom Rider (civil rights activists who rode interstate buses to force the South to obey Federal Law banning segregation on public transportation).  He became a Freedom Rider after seeing his black roommate treated with contempt at Beloit College in Wisconsin.  James volunteered to be an exchange student to an all-black college in the South (Fisk University) for a semester so he could get a taste of what it felt like to be a minority.

When James went to Fisk he made a decision to join the Freedom Riders from Nashville to Alabama.   James said the morning they set off, he read Psalm 27 over and over again as he prayed that God would give him courage and forgiveness for his attackers.  He prayed that the Lord would keep him from striking back if and when he got attacked by the white racist mobs, who considered white Freedom Riders as traitors and deserving of death.  The first line of the Psalm he read was, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” and the final line that James read was, “Though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me.”

James was severely beaten along with the other freedom riders (including John Lewis who survived to become one of our most venerable congressmen) by the racists who stopped their bus. When the picture of James’ pulverized body appeared in the local newspaper, his parents never forgave him because they felt, as James’ father so articulately stated: “Those damn niggers used you.”

Cartoon used by permission:  Jeff Koterba, Omaha World Herald, NE

I remember reading that the parents’ relationship with James Zwerg was never restored even when he tried to explain that he was simply living Christ’s love as they had taught him to do.  He was beaten so badly that his teeth were shattered, his vertebrae were broken, he suffered from PTSD, he drowned his sorrows in alcohol for a season, he tried to commit suicide at least once, and he ended up in therapy for months.  As I meditated on the sacrifice that Pastor Zwerg made for me and mine, I momentarily forgot the hatefulness of some of the White people I have known in my life as the scripture rang through my head:  “Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his brother!”

Then the roll call of other White Americans who stood brave and tall with all the African-Americans against the racist order of the day came to mind, and I sat for a moment of silence to thank them for laying down their lives so my children and grandchildren might live Dr. King’s dream:

Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo, ethnicity:  white.  Viola was a mother of three children from Detroit and was murdered by Ku Klux Klan members after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama.  The last words she said to her husband were that the civil rights struggle: “was everybody’s fight.” (Wikipedia)

Michael Henry Schwerner, ethnicity:  Jewish.  Michael was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by the Ku Klux Klan in response to their civil rights work. (Wikipedia)

Andrew Goodman, ethnicity:  Jewish.  Andrew was one of three American civil rights activists murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer in 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan. (Wikipedia)

Paul Guihard, ethnicity:  white.  Paul was a reporter for a French news service and was killed by gunfire from a white mob during protests over the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi. (Southern Poverty Law Center)

William Lewis Moore, ethnicity:  white.  William was a postman from Baltimore, and he was shot and killed during a one-man march against segregation. Moore had planned to deliver a letter to the governor of Mississippi urging an end to intolerance. (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Rev. Bruce Klunder, ethnicity:  white.  Rev. Klunder was among civil rights activists who protested the building of a segregated school in Cleveland, Ohio by placing their bodies in the way of construction equipment. Klunder was crushed to death when a bulldozer backed over him. (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Rev. James Reeb, ethnicity:  white.  Rev. Reeb was a Unitarian minister from Boston, and was among many white clergymen who joined the Selma marchers after the attack by state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Reeb was beaten to death by white men while he walked down a Selma street. (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Jonathan Myrick Daniels, ethnicity:  white.  Jonathan was an Episcopal Seminary student in Boston, and he had come to Alabama to help with black voter registration in Lowndes County. He was arrested at a demonstration, jailed in Hayneville and then suddenly released. Moments after his release, he was shot to death by a deputy sheriff. (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, ethnicity:  white.  Vernon was a wealthy businessman who offered to pay poll taxes for those who couldn’t afford the fee required to vote. The night after a radio station broadcast Dahmer’s offer, his home was firebombed. Dahmer died later from severe burns. (Southern Poverty Law Center)

***

After all was remembered and gratefully acknowledged, I got up off my knees and turned to face the new day with peace in my heart, knowing that the hatred I see in 2018 will not win the day because there will always be people of all ethnicities who have courage enough to fight for the freedom needed so that everyone, of every color, creed, and gender, can live the dream.

Cartoon used by permission:  Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com

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ELEANOR’S “SELAH” (AHA!) MOMENT—

ABOUT BEING FROM A “SHITHOLE” COUNTRY

I am discovering that once upon a time, I lived in a “shithole” country—the United States of America.  It didn’t mean that I didn’t love my country, but it did mean that my “shitty” country didn’t treat my peeps and me very well until Dr. King and so many, many others sacrificed their lives to make our government do the right thing.  If we don’t want the USA to regress into that “shitty” place again—if we want it to continue the journey and complete Dr. King’s vision—“we the people” have an ongoing, ever-vigilant job to embrace Dr. King’s dream afresh.

There will always be those who will try to turn our great country into a cesspool of hate and divisiveness—including our current President.  But for those of us who are “woke,” all we need to do is lock arms with the other “woke” folks and fight the good fight for the rights of our fellow man until the new dawn is upon us.

Let’s make 2018 the year that Dr. King’s dream produces more heroes like James Zwerg, Congressman John Lewis, the nine men and women cited above, and countless others to further fulfill our destiny as a country—maybe it will be you.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

“James Zwerg remains a devoted loving Christian to this day and what is most important to him is love. ‘I think the thing I would add is love is still the most powerful force in the universe. Hatred will never beat it. Violence will never beat it.’“—Wikipedia

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.”—Helen Keller

“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”― Toni Morrison

“And yet words on a parchment [the Constitution—parenthesis mine] would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”—President Barack Obama

EXCEPT WHERE NOTED, ALL INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES ARE FROM http://www.brainyquotes.com

THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOK:  “The Fetus Chronicles:  Podcasts From my Miseducated Self” is on sale now at Amazon!

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out her website at www.eleanortomczyk.com 

WANT TO HEAR THE AUTHOR’S LATEST INTERVIEW?  Check out the podcast interview with Leo Brown: http://breadboxmedia.podbean.com/e/what-if-it-is-true-can-you-find-faith-in-darkness/

 REFERENCES

https://blogs.lawrence.edu/news/2015/06/lawrence-awarding-honorary-degree-to-civil-rights-freedom-rider-james-zwerg.html

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/16/Zwerg.freedom.rides/index.html

https://www.beloit.edu/archives/documents/archival_documents/james_zwerg_freedom_ride/

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

 

 

COSMIC HOPE

The Christmas Story

Do you know what I discovered last week?  Black women saved Alabama’s soul and, ultimately, America’s with the trouncing of Roy Moore—that racist, pervert, accused pedophile, and abomination to the name of Christianity who tried to railroad his way into the U.S. Senate.  You’re welcome, America!  Even though I don’t live in Alabama, I am a Black woman, an Evangelical (until they do something that makes me throw up in my mouth), and a person who is used to seeing miracles.   I know it seems hard to believe, but not every Christian in America has sold his or her soul to the Devil Trump and his minions—just enough of them have done so to make the rest of us occasionally wonder if there really is a God.  So there you have it:  God showed up in Alabama through Black women, therefore, thus did hope re-surge in me for the times ahead.  All is not lost, my Peeps.

Cartoon used by permission: Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

As I meditated on that unexpected burst of hope that came out of the Doug Jones win in Alabama, I felt this explosion of happiness and joy in my soul which got me to thinking about Christmas.  (Of course, I was decorating the Christmas tree at the time, sipping champagne, and singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of my lungs, so thinking about Christmas might not have been a huge stretch of the imagination.)  Contrary to what Fox News, paranoid White Evangelicals, and Trump would have you believe, there is no war on Christmas (trust me).  Nobody cares if you say Merry Christmas or Happy Everything, just so long as you say it with love and good intentions.  We’ve been bombarded with Christmas this and that here, there, and everywhere since the day before Halloween.  Nobody in America has a problem saying “Merry Christmas”—just a problem living it.  Christmas has been “lost in translation” and left on the cutting room floor in our country for a very long time.

Cartoon used by permission: Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com

This week I started asking any and everybody what Christmas meant to them.  Some said “family,” too many said “expensive,” others said “stress,” many said “fun,” a half dozen said “I’m Jewish, or Muslim, or atheist,”  others said, “abandoned,” a few said “Santa with lots of toys on his sleigh” (granted, they were under ten years old), and several said a “colossal pain in the ass—I’ll be glad when it is over!” I could have sworn that at least one person said “bah, humbug,” but I’m not sure. My grandson said Christmas meant “going to see Star Wars” when he comes to visit in a few days and “finding the new Xbox One LEGO Marvel Super Heroes under the tree on Christmas morning—please Mema, pleeaaaaassse!”  No one who I asked about the meaning of Christmas said what Christmas truly is: freedom from oppression, hope, joy, peace, love, comfort for the marginalized, and healing for the abused.

Cartoon used by permission: Pat Bagley Salt Lake Tribune

I was slightly mortified by all the responses (including my grandson’s), if the truth be known.  I wondered: “How did Christmas get hi-jacked from the broken-hearted and the oppressed by the paranoid religious White people, inadequate Bible translations, and Wall Street.  Every year I try to figure out a way to translate the goodness of God into our holiday celebrations so my grandson can understand the true meaning of Christmas.  But every year something gets lost in translation in his young mind:  “So what’s a virgin? Are you trying to tell me, Jesus had two daddies AND a mommy?  What’s a frankincense and myrrh—is that like bubble bath and Chuck’s flea soap?”

In a world where nine-year-olds are committing suicide because of bullying, a child dies of hunger every seven seconds, and refugees and asylum-seekers have topped 65 million according to the UN, my grandson is going to need more from the Christmas story then gazing at a White baby Jesus in a manger once a year (Jesus was a Jew, so what’s up with the blond, blue-eyed savior?) and militantly saying “Merry Christmas” simply to prove a point. As a young Black man, he’s going to need lots of hope and courage to get through this life!  So I decided to rewrite the Christmas story in a way he would understand and leave the frankincense and myrrh to the Bible literalists.

Courtesy of Christian Funny Pictures

 

THE CHRISTMAS STORY AS TOLD BY MEMA TO BABY BOY

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a very mean king by the name of Caesar Augustus ruled over all the world—or as much as he could capture under Roman rule.  Caesar Augustus thought that he was all that and a bag of chips—kind of like Donald Trump.  In fact, CA thought he was God—much like Donald Trump. Actually, he was awful and very cruel. I’m told that he once said:  “I could run over a bunch of Jews with my chariot in the middle of Jerusalem and my Roman supporters would not care.  I truly am king of the world.”  If you were a Roman citizen and rich, life was pretty awesome, but if you were a Jew, a non-Roman, or poor, life was the pits.  People cried all of the time because they were not free to live their lives as they wished and they didn’t have enough money and food to take care of their families. Many people were slaves to the Romans. It had been this way for a very, very long time.  So much so that it caught God’s attention.

GOD:  Gabriel, my angel, what is going on in the Earth I’ve created?  In all the years since I first breathed life into humans, I’ve never heard such a hue and cry. 

GABE:  Pardon me, my Lord, but I beg to differ.  We had an issue with that bad Pharaoh a while back, remember?  Had to raise up an outstanding guy named Moses, part the Red Sea, and escape with hundreds of people into the desert for about forty years.  It seems as if this time, it’s a Roman, not an Egyptian causing all the mayhem.

GOD:  Oh, yes!  I remember.  What is it with these humans?  There is always some nutty leader trying to impersonate me but with the character of the Devil.  You give them a little bit of talent, a few smarts, and it all goes to their heads.  They start lording it over each other, abusing people, treating each other like pond scum.  Oy vez mir!  I’m telling you Gabe, humans are getting on my every last nerve.  They better not make me come down there, or they will have Hell to pay.

GABE:  Eureka, my Lord!  Maybe that’s exactly what you should do.  You made the blueprint of why humans were created, and not one group of them has ever done the right thing by each other since their inception.  They think they know you, but they don’t have a clue as to your character.  What if you went down to Earth and hung out with them for a few years—showed them how to treat each other and the Earth you gave them?

Cartoon used by permission: Bob Englehart PoliticalCartoons com

GOD:  Hum… that’s not a bad idea. Except, I’m made up of all sorts of energy and matter.  If I interact with them face-to-face, they’ll implode.  It will be as if they flew to close to the sun.  That would defeat my purpose.

GABE:  Not if you cloaked a portion of yourself (your son) in the costume of a human.  Since there are three parts of you (Father, Son, and the feminine Holy Spirit), surely you could spare one part of you for a while.  I propose that you do a real sci-fi thing: slip into the Earth’s atmosphere as a fetus, get yourself born, hang out for as long as you can take it (maybe 33 years or so), show them how to live, and find some way to get ejected off the Earth and back into the heavens.   In fact, I’m thinking of a pretty powerful way you can exit stage left that would really complete the circle of sacrificial love that you have for them.  It would involve some nails and wood, and be rather painful in your human form.  But you could handle it. 

GOD:  I do love them so.  Can’t help myself.  When they’re good, they’re very good, but when they are bad… eiy, yi, yi!  Okay, find me a vessel through which to make my entrance.

GABE:  Already on it.  Her name’s Mary.  Just got engaged to a real stand up dude by the name of Joseph.  He’s mature enough to be your earthly father once he gets over the shock that his future wife is the temporary shuttle for the son of God.

GOD:  Cool.  We’ll need to alert a few of my peeps to let them know I’m in their midst since I’ll be a baby with no language skills.  Get the ad department to draft an announcement.  Send it out to the shepherds since they are usually the only ones hanging out at night under the stars.  They’ll spread the word. 

GABE:  Got it.  I think I’ll lead the angels in the proclamation myself, Sir.  How’s this:

 “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord…  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace…” 

GOD:  Awesome!  Excellent Gabriel.  The hope just radiates from that proclamation makes me tingle all over.  Do you think the shepherds will believe it?

Cartoon used by permission: Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

GABE:  It’s worth a try.  If you don’t go down soon they will devour each other and there will be no humans left in a millennium or two.  They are not getting better—they’re getting worse.

GOD:  This is so exciting!  I have so much to show them about what it really means to be human.  Do they even realize that I created them in my likeness?  Do they understand that that likeness is the personification of love and joy?  I want to tell them that murder, hatred, theft, and cruelty are not why they were created.  They need to know that every soul has great worth—no matter who they are or where they were born.  I’ve got to teach them how to love one other, because my law is love, and my gospel is peace.  Come on Gabe, let’s pull together some genes, some DNA, and some chromosomes and get this baby entry pod cookin’!  People of Earth, hope is on its way!  From this day forward, all oppression shall cease!

Cartoon used by permission: Rick McKee The Augusta Chronicle

 

ELEANOR’S SELAH (“AHA” MOMENT) ON THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

I am discovering that humans have always been in peril from other humans since the beginning of man. I am also discovering that my hope is not in man, in political parties, or even in myself.  My hope is that the true character of God will triumph in the Earth as well as in my own heart.  No evil lasts forever and no true love will ever die, and that is why Jesus came to Earth.  God’s love and hope is what Christmas means to me.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANUKKAH, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, AND PEACE AND GOODWILL TO ALL!

Love, Eleanor

 

 

Cartoon used by permission: Rick McKee The Augusta Chronicle

 

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES ABOUT HOPE

 “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”—Desmond Tutu

 “The message of Jesus is summed up partly in the Sermon on the Mount, and partly when he begins his ministry and quotes the passage from Isaiah: ‘I have come to set free the prisoners and restore sight to the blind.’ And certainly, his mission is also to bring hope. It was to heal people, to befriend the outcast.”—Dan Wakefield

“For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.”—Henri Nouwen

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THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOK:  “The Fetus Chronicles:  Podcasts From my Miseducated Self” is on sale now at Amazon!

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out her website at www.eleanortomczyk.com

WANT TO HEAR THE AUTHOR’S LATEST INTERVIEW?  Check out the podcast interview with Leo Brown: http://breadboxmedia.podbean.com/e/what-if-it-is-true-can-you-find-faith-in-darkness/

Cartoon used by permission: Rick McKee The Augusta Chronicle

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

ONE FAMILY IN GOD’S EYES

Do you know what I discovered this week?  Charlottesville and Houston had similar “aha” moments for me.  I’ve basically been sitting in sackcloth and ashes for several weeks—unable to pray to God or write a blog—ever since the hate-filled murderous march of the KKK/Neo Nazis/Alt-right in Charlottesville.  Back when I was a child, they wore hoods to hide their faces—now they are unashamed to commit murder with open faces and lit torches to illuminate their visceral hate.  I have been numb ever since—barely able to breathe and scared stiff for every Jew, African-American, Latino, and anyone with the slightest melanin in their skin.  Worried sick that this hatred would wash up on the shores of my children and grandson’s lives.

At first I just put on a shapeless, itchy, sackcloth dress (think burlap coffee sack) while still wearing full diva makeup to signify my mournful state, but when Trump refused to issue a full-throated rebuke to the KKK/Neo-Nazis/Alt-right demons who proclaimed their racist hatred in his name, I stripped my face of makeup and smeared my body with ashes like the old biblical characters.  I also expected to hear a loud thunderous rebuke from the Christians who support Trump about his lackluster rebuke of our domestic terrorists, but all I heard were crickets.  White Christians I once knew who once upon a time said they loved me “in the Lord” were now justifying the actions of the White Supremacists on their Facebook pages.  I was so hurt that I sat down on the ground and proceeded to engage in an African death ritual.  In the dust I mourned the passing of truth, the manifestation of the love of Jesus, as well as my naïve concept of our national unity.

Cartoon used by permission: Daryl Cagle, CagleCartoons.com

Then Hurricane Harvey struck, and I really started crying.  Not just crying, but sobbing—that ugly hysterical kind of crying, which turns you into a Tammy Faye Bakker replica.  I cried because I couldn’t see God anywhere in all this horrible devastation.

But on the third day, I noticed something that gave me hope that he might be on the move:  American men and women of all stripes risking their lives to save people of all stripes and not one of them asked if the other were something they weren’t or didn’t like.  Christians rescuing non-Christians, straight rescuing gay, immigrant rescuing life-long Texans, Blacks rescuing Whites, and vice versa.  They all were elated to help and be helped.   It was then that I got up out of the ashes, and started writing letters of observation to God because it looked as if he had showed up in the storm.

Cartoon used by permission: Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch

DEAR JESUS:

It’s me—Eleanor.  You know, the one who is constantly nagging you day and night about the sorry state of our human affairs.

I’ve been wondering where you’ve been.  The scientists are saying this situation in Texas is a 1,000-year flood event unprecedented in scale, and places in and around Texas may never recover.

You’ve been awful quiet of late.  Were you dealing with the severe flooding in Asia which I hear has caused a couple thousand deaths, and there may be more to come in the monsoon season?  Or were you preoccupied with the despair in Africa over the severe famine that may starve out 20 million souls before all is said and done?  Oh, I almost forgot about Syria—maybe you were there.   I feel kind of wretched having barely noticed those other tragedies, but when it comes to my own country, I can’t sleep over the devastation in Texas.  I know I should be more global thinking and feeling, but these are my countrymen and women, and it is in the country where I live.  Right now the devastation in Texas is breaking my heart.  The police don’t know how many still haven’t been rescued and the poor (who always seem to bear the brunt of these disasters) may not be able to recover—ever.  Please help, please save, please deliver, and please restore my sisters and brothers—my human family—in Texas!

Cartoon used by permission: Bob Englehart, CagleCartoons.com

DEAR JESUS:

It’s me again.  I’m sitting here scratching my allergic reaction to my burlap bag and wondering why you allow so much suffering to happen to us.  I know that humans have been asking their gods this since the evolution of man, and it has always remained a very squishy topic and a mystery.  It would be a lot simpler if you sat down for an interview on CNN or with the NY Times and did a Q&A on the subject.  You could start out by making yourself visible (not being able to see you creates more problems than you can possibly imagine) and letting us know that you are more than our pathetic miniature concepts of you as a god.  Maybe we could withstand the trauma of the journey better if we understood the “why” of the destination.  There are a lot of precious people in Texas who are never going to be able to put their lives back together again.  The rich might be able to, but the poor won’t.

Before I fled Oz (the Christian Church), I used to glibly look at disasters like Texas and equate it to your will—your judgment for some sin that had gotten on your nerves—as if you were a petulant Greek god.  (I’m sure you’re appalled to hear that attributed to your character, just as I am horrified to admit it.)   Let’s just say I had been taught about the essence of your character by some very ignorant people, which is why I no longer attend church.  At least I’m “woke” now.  Now I know you are a God of love and spewing destruction is not in your wheelhouse.

But do you know what will probably make you vomit?  When Hurricane Sandy hit the New York area, Christian leaders like Dobson, Robertson, Franklyn Graham (and many Texan Mega-Church Christians) blamed it on your wrath for the liberal ways of those “northern elites” who supported abortion and gay marriage.  Two Texas (born-again Christians) Republicans tried to block relief and recovery aid to New York and New Jersey.  When Hurricane Katrina practically wiped out New Orleans, those same folks blamed the gay and lesbian communities.  Houston has at least 37 mega churches and 53,525 Christian adherents per every 100,000 persons.  Yet, I haven’t heard one Christian conservative call Hurricane Harvey—the worst disaster in American history—an act of God’s will because of some perceived sin(s) committed by the Texans.  Isn’t that ironic?

Cartoon used by permission: David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star

DEAR JESUS:

Okay, I did find an egregious sin in Houston that warrants your immediate smack down.  There’s this dude who claims to know you and speak for you.  His name is Joel Osteen.  He has a church of 43,500 attendees and a facility so huge that you could show up one Sunday in all your glory surrounded by 10,000 twelve-foot angels, and no one would ever notice you were there—that is, if you ever deigned to set foot in the place.  His church is the biggest in Houston.  Osteen is reportedly worth $40 million and lives in a $10 million mansion in Houston’s River Oaks neighborhood, and all of it gotten by trying to sell access to a prosperous life via you.  (Is this bringing up shades of you ridding the temple of the money lenders back in the day?)

Anyway, I’m writing to squeal on Osteen’s behind.  While furniture stores were opening up their businesses to house refugees, sporting goods stores were housing entire emergency rescue teams, and ordinary people were taking in strangers in their homes, this dude shuttered his church (your so-called house) doors.  Twenty-five mosques opened their doors immediately upon the onset of the storm to become centers of refuge for their fellow citizens—regardless of religion. Meanwhile, down in the flooded streets of Houston, people were using whatever would float to rescue others, and I even saw a couple guys wearing hats with the NWA logo (“Niggas with Attitudes”) carrying a little ol’ White lady through the flood water to safety.

Now Osteen says he didn’t really close the church (there is a video that shows otherwise). His church is open now, but only because Twitter went all, “Hell to the no, Joel Osteen–you should have been the first in line to rescue your fellow Houstonians after all the money you’ve soaked them for.”   HOWEVER, he later contradicted himself and said he didn’t initially open his church because he was never asked to open it as a rescue center.  (FYI—none of the thousands of volunteers who showed up were asked, they were simply being human.)

May I suggest you talk to your boy, Lord Jesus, and get him to straighten up and fly right. Cause if you don’t, Houston is getting ready to open up a can of whup ass on him for being so “un-Christlike.”  While you’re at it, would you mind schooling Osteen on the fact that the “prosperity doctrine” he pushes in your name (God will make Christians rich if they give at least 10% of their money to people like him so he can have a house the size of a hotel and a private jet) is pretty obscene, and it has nothing to do with you?  Osteen and all the rest of that prosperity gospel gang (most of whom are ardent supporters of Donald Trump) are really giving you a bad rep.  By the time they are finished, you won’t be able to pay people to become Christians.  Just looking out for your reputation.  Love and Kisses, Eleanor

Joel Osteen, Christian Empathy Award Winner of the Year

***

ELEANOR’S SELAH (“AHA”) REGARDING GOD IN THE MIDST OF PAIN

I am discovering that the spirit of Christ is always in our midst no matter how dark the night or how deep the pain—if we choose to acknowledge that presence.  If there is anything good, or lovely, selfless or kind, there Jesus is. That’s what I got woke to years ago, and I hope and pray that if I am ever caught up in a disaster such as the one in Houston, or Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, or September 11^th, that I’ll be one of the people God can count on to administer his love, his grace, his mercy, and his comfort to those around me regardless of who they are and without hesitation.

Cartoon used by permission: RJ Matson, CagleCartoons.com

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”—John 15:13

“Nature is value-free. It can’t tell the role between the deserving and the undeserving. God’s role is not to decide where the hurricane goes and how severe it is. God’s role is to motivate people to help neighbors and improve methods to predict hurricanes. God is found not in the problem, but in the resilience.”—Rabbi Kushner, author of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”

“You, me, and the citizens of this country carry a special burden in 2017. We have to do what our president has not. We have to uphold America’s values. We have to do what he will not.”—Vice President, Joe Biden

***

WANT TO READ MORE OF THE AUTHOR’S WORK?  CHECK OUT HER LATEST BOOK:  “THE FETUS CHRONICLES: PODCASTS FROM MY MISEDUCATED SELF” ON SALE NOW AT AMAZON!

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR? CHECK OUT HER WEBSITE: www.eleanortomczyk.com

*** 

REFERENCES

http://www.thedailybeast.com/joel-osteens-prosperity-gospel-made-him-houstons-hurricane-pariah 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/29/opinions/joel-osteen-hypocrisy-harvey-filipovic-opinion/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joel-osteen-lakewood-church-houston-harvey_us_59a6ac7fe4b084581a148cef?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

http://www.salon.com/2017/08/30/religious-leaders-like-joel-osteen-are-a-big-reason-why-americans-are-dumping-religion/

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

RECLAIMING MY TIME

Do you know what I discovered this week?  #1.  Trump is here to stay for a very, very, very long time (no matter how much I try and wish him away)—he ain’t never gonna change, and his supporters’ support for him ain’t never gonna change.  #2.  Trump does and will occupy our media cycles 24/7 until he leaves office, probably through 2024.  #3. No matter how much I try to remain vigilant against what columnist Ruth Marcus calls this “one-man assailant against the rule of law,” I still can’t get through to the people I know who are supporting Trump, because they think I’m—at best—a purveyor of “fake news”—at worst—a spawn of the anti-Christ.

I sure do miss President Obama because you really don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

Recent sign pasted to street post in Washington, DC

Everyday there is some stupidity visited upon us by “President” Trump, and as I spend hours upon hours trying to decipher what this all means in the scheme of things—the end of the world as we know it—I am made painfully aware that his reign could outlast my life, and then what good would all that worry and fretting get me except an early admittance ticket to the grave.

This was brought to my attention by my ophthalmologist just the other day.  I am 69 years old and have to get my eyes checked every six months to see if I have glaucoma (an inevitable rite of passage for someone with African/Cherokee Indian heritage roller blading through old age).   Apropos to nothing, my sanguine 45 year old eye doctor started spewing his views about aging.

DOC:   You know, I don’t want to live past 75.

ME:  Oh, why not?

DOC:  Because nothing good really happens to your body after 75—like nothing good happens after midnight, so you might as well leave the club, go home, and get some sleep.  Most of my patients are 65 and older.  The ones up to 75 seem to be treading the water of life very well, but the ones between 75 – 80 start disintegrating on all sorts of levels.  They wake up one day and suddenly they need a hip replacement here, a knee replacement there, or a quadruple bi-pass here, maybe a prostrate extraction there, a cataract surgery here or macular degeneration therapy there, not to forget a touch of dementia here or full-blown Alzheimer’s there . . .  It is not a pretty sight.  Generally, my patients tell me that by the time a person turns 85—95, their best friends are usually their doctors because they are the people the octogenarians/nonagenarians see on a regular basis, since most of their social connections are usually dead by the time they are in their late eighties.  Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, given one’s DNA and all.

ME:  You know I’m 69 right, and you’re telling me this scary shit?  You don’t know my life.

DOC:  How long did your mother live?

ME:  Mom died at 70 and her sister died at 75.  So what are you saying to me?

DOC:  Hum . . .  I’m not a fortune teller, but if I were you, I wouldn’t waste your life because it is probably going to be shorter than you think.

By the time I left the eye doctor’s (eyes so dilated from five different drops in my pupils I could barely drive home), I felt like I had been in an underwater episode of Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as my spirit guide of things yet to behold.  It really made me think:  If it is true that I probably have only six good, strong years ahead of me before body parts go spinning off in different directions like the wheels of a poorly made go-cart (I’ve already lost a uterus), I better start changing my ways—no more wasting time.

So I started making a list of things that are time sucks in my everyday routine:

#1.  Scary news about Donald Trump 24/7

#2.  Abscessing about scary news about Donald Trump 24/7

#3. . . .

Just as I was about to type in my third example of a Trump time suck, my cable system imploded.  I promptly got on the phone, waited 20 minutes for someone to answer at my local cable company, told them my problem (“My internet is down for the 20^th time since the beginning of the new year when one of your incompetent installers didn’t put in the most up-to-date modem”), at which the operator on the other end promptly replied:  “Yeah, he was an independent contractor—not one of our ‘real employees.’  You’re going to need our new super-duper, panoramic WiFi system which is guaranteed to solve all of your internet needs.  A ‘real’ technician is scheduled to arrive sometime between 8:00 – 10:00 a.m.  If the tech doesn’t arrive within that time frame, we will reimburse you $20.00.”

My local cable company arrived thirty minutes late.  “J,” originally from Barbados, was very nice and fed me the script that I learned must be part of the cable company handbook:  “I will definitely get everything running—not going to leave before I do.”  After two hours, “J” had installed a new fancy-dancy WiFi system and made sure I understood that when I got the survey about his work performance that I gave him all “10’s” because anything less was considered a failing grade in the company.

When husband returned that night, he discovered that his computer could no longer receive WiFi, both TVs could no longer access Netflix, and, although the company would send us a technician the next day (between 10:00 – 12:00), we could not get our $20.00 late-show fee because we needed to phone it in at a certain time which happened to NOT be the time we were phoning it in.

The next day, the technician “R” from Mexico arrived 30 minutes late.  I could speak better Spanish than he could speak English, AND I CAN’T SPEAK SPANISH!  He could say the prerequisite:  “I will definitely get eberything runnin’—not goinna leave befo’ I do,” but little else.  It was his first day on the job.  After much hemming and hawing, he announced:

“Oder tech not do good job.  Ju need (how ju say it?) a stender and two new ebrything.”

“Is that going to cost me any more money?  I’m already paying extra for upgraded Wifi.”

“Asck billin’—I jes tech.”

Tech stayed all day, then finally fled five hours later in complete frustration, promising to return with his supervisor to finish the job, but had to get to next jobs or he’d get fired for not completing his tech log that day.   I skipped three errands, cancelled one appointment, researched nothin for my next book, never meditated, and almost blew a gasket from frustration.

The cable tech never returned.

Somewhere between the entry into Cable Company Hell and the fourth level of Dante’s Inferno, a cheery customer service person called:

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Tomczyk.  This is your local cable company calling to see how our service was today.  Did everything get completed to your satisfaction?  You know, service is our game, and excellence is our aim!”

“ARE YOU SHITTIN’ ME!?!”

Husband returned home that evening expecting everything to be in tip-top shape and made the mistake of asking me how my day had gone.  I assaulted him with a stream of dragon fire, turned the cable company files over to him, and before abdicating my position as Internet Project Manager, I informed him that “R’s” manager (“M”) would arrive between 6:00 – 8:00 that night to fix the debacle his “first-day-on-the-job-non-English-speaking-employee” had left behind.

Sometime during dinner, “M” from Virginia by way of Morocco showed up and Hubbie and I threw up our agitated, frustrated word salad all over him which basically came down to the meaning of four words:  “FIX IT, CABLE DUDE!”

“Absolutely, Mr. and Mrs. Tomczyk.  I am the supervisor of 15 techs.  If I can’t fix it, no one can.  I will definitely get everything up and running—not going to leave before I do!”

Two hours later and two cold dinners left uneaten, after “M” extracted a promise that we’d give him all “10s” because “anything less is a failing grade,” he left the scene of the crime.  Ten minutes after he’d gone, I discovered that the phones (land lines), which run through the cable system, didn’t work.   After staying on hold for thirty minutes (thank God for cell phones), Hubbie was told by the cable company, not to worry about our phones, it was an outage in the area (not our specific problem) that would be corrected by them in a couple hours.

They lied.  None of our neighbors’ phones were dead.  Only ours.  AAUUUGH!

The next day, “A” from Russia, by way of California arrived and said that all the rest of the techs had screwed up the repair job.  He was a senior technician and announced that the cable company should never have sent a novice employee—the job was extremely complicated.  The entire system was not getting enough signal, parts that had been added had to be removed, and parts that should have been included were added.  Hours later and several drilled holes into my newly painted house siding previously not there, the Russian tech left after pleading that we’d give him all 10s because anything less would mean a failing job.  He then added:

“The survey’s first question will be what you think about my cable company.  Although you’ll be tempted to give them a zero rating after the experience you’ve had over the past several days, PLEASE, PLEASE give them a 10, because even though I wasn’t the tech that caused your previous problems, they will give me a failing mark for not convincing you to give the company a stellar grade.”

Two hours after the tech left, I noticed my back-up laptop couldn’t receive a wireless signal.

Recalling all the previous machinations I’d observed from each of the cable techs over the last several days and unwilling to waste any more of my precious time, I fixed it myself!

ELEANOR’S SELAH (“AHA” MOMENT) ABOUT WASTING TIME

I am discovering that I have a new heroine:  Maxine Waters, The International Finance System Committee’s ranking Democrat.  She’s Black, she’s old (78), and she suffers no fools.  Recently when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was testifying before the committee about why he had not responded to a letter from her regarding Trump’s financial ties to Russia, he tried to “play” her and not answer her questions by slathering her with platitudes and compliments, apparently trying to run out the clock since each committee member only gets a strict amount of time for questions.  Girlfriend was having none of that bullshit.  She kept repeating— ad nauseam —“reclaiming my time, reclaiming, my time, reclaiming my time . . .” Auntie Maxine Waters kept repeating her declarative statement until the committee chairman silenced Mnuchin.

Congresswoman, Maxine Waters “Reclaiming her time!”

I am reclaiming my time from all things that are wasting it—especially from things that I can’t control.  I have become a slave to the 24/7 news updates as I comb the Internet for any indication that Trump is going down in flames and that his supporters finally “got woke,” as the kids say, and are abandoning him—relieving us from this national nightmare that this cartoon of a President has thrust upon us.  I realized the other day that none of this may happen anytime soon—if ever.  I have no doubt that Trump will go down in history as the worst president we’ve ever had, but even when his supporters are completely scandalized and demoralized by him, the majority of them will never admit they were wrong because their identity is so tied up in his success.   In the meantime, my life is rapidly moving toward the exit door.

I will continue to pray and fight the good fight, BUT, I have put reading, viewing, and listening to the news on appointment:  a couple hours in the a.m. while I exercise and then shutdown.  No responding to pinging news updates on my phone or bedtime news updates that rob me of my sleep.

As to my local cable company’s time sucking enterprise, the next time my Internet implodes, I’ll go sit in one of the bucolic areas of my house or deck and read a wonderful book—knowing that my local cable company is incompetent and will be here for days, so I might as well chill and reclaim the time by improving my mind.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES ABOUT WASTING TIME

“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.”—Benjamin Franklin

“There’s no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.”—Helen Mirren

“I’m not a big sleeper. It just feels like wasting time. If I wake up, and it’s after 5 A.M., I stay up.”—Margherita Missoni

“Ditto, Margherita Missoni!”—Eleanor Tomczyk

***

THE AUTHOR’S LATEST BOOK:  “The Fetus Chronicles:  Podcasts From my Miseducated Fetus Self” is on sale now at Amazon!

THE AUTHOR’S LATEST MAINSTREAM ARTICLES:

“What Humans Need to Know Before Being Born”

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out her website at www.eleanortomczyk.com

***
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

Do you know what I discovered this week that drove me to take up meditation? 

Donald Trump, Jr. did something nasty with the Russians and he’s lying through his teeth about it

The John Birch Society (that racist, uber-conservative, far-right group of old) is on the rise again

Trump threatening to harm millions out of pure spite by sabotaging healthcare markets

The 81% of White Evangelicals who voted for Trump say he’s the Chosen One

Game of Thrones is back—winter is here, and the war is coming

Fan made Game of Throne Posters/www.ablogofthrones.com

I’m a HUGE “Game of Thrones” fan!  Not that I can keep all the names of the characters straight, but I do know who the bad guys are versus the good guys.  I also know that the characters in the show specialize in betrayal, lying, cruelty, corruption, arrogance, intimidation, and violence.  Kind of like our 45^th president and his cronies—especially “Putty” the Vlad Putin.

While I was watching the first episode of the 7^th Season of GOT, it increasingly dawned on me that we Americans are living in our own “game of thrones.”  81% of White Evangelical Right-Wing Christians voted for Trump, are not swayed by any of his misdoings (they think the negative stories about him are fake news), and they make up a solid core of the 36% that will stick with Trump even if he does shoot someone in the middle of 5^th Avenue as he once promised.  When I heard those stats, I knew eternal winter had come to America.

Cartoon used by permission: Rick McKee, The August Chronicle

Since the election, I’ve been holding out in hope for courageous men and women to stand up against our “game of thrones” leader and expose the emperor with no clothes.  But when I obtained solid confirmation that the family values voters planned to stick with Trump until the bitter end because they believe he was “raised up by God to be the 45^th president,” I knew that the long proclaimed culture war was coming, and much as I suspect will happen in Game of Thrones, it will be long and brutal, and there will be no happy ending.

After a bunch of very clueless ministers encircled Trump last week, and prayed for him with the “laying on of hands” (Greek: cheirotonia – χειροτονία, literally, “laying-on of hands” is both a symbolic and formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit primarily during baptisms and confirmations, healing services, blessings, and ordination of priests, ministers, elders, deacons, and other church officers, along with a variety of other church sacraments and holy ceremonies—Wikipedia), I knew I was either going to become a drug addict and stay stoned for the rest of my life just to keep from going insane, or I was going to have to figure out a non-narcotic type of sedation no matter what happens to my beloved America.

So I took up meditation.

Thus far it has been a struggle.  I practice my breathing, I’ve got my mantra (“save us from DT, deliver us from DT, oh God, OMMMMM-MM-MMM…”), I can even get one of my fat-assed thighs into a half lotus position for five minutes until the leg falls completely asleep and I fall over onto my right side.

I used to watch the news as soon as I woke up (Morning Joe)—usually around 6:00 a.m.—and by 8:00 a.m. I would be so agitated and depressed that I could barely function.  The day I realized that the poison of Trump and family was going to go on for a very, very long time—possibly with irreparable damage, like the march of the hordes of the undead in Game of Thrones that was the moment I knew I had to do something to save my sanity.  For the last three days, I’ve been going onto the deck and doing my meditative exercises, and they seemed to be calming me down and giving me a more peaceful day until… my mind started messing with me.  Like this morning… when Angelica and Deviloneous showed up.

Homer Simpson Meme, Devil vs Angel

ANGELICA:  That’s my girl, you can hold that pose… easy, steady—now breathe! Start your mantra…

DEVILONEOUS:   Damn, Girl, ain’t your ass on fire, right about now?  You know you’re too old for this shit.  You’d be better off gettin’ a cup of coffee and eatin’ that leftover apple turnover in the fridge.

ME:   Saveusfromdonaldtrump,ohgod,deliverusfromdonaldtrump,ohgod,OMMMMMMMMM…

DEVILONEOUS:   Morning Joe is on now, Cutie.  Ain’t you jes a bit curious ‘bout what’s goin’ down out there in the real world?  I mean how can you get through the day unless you know what stupidity 45 is up to?  What if he does somethin’ really bad, and you’re not there to see it unfold on the TV?  How you gonna take control?

ANGELICA:  Stop it, Dev.  You know, she’s only human and this mess is out of her control.  Best she can do is “self-manage” and pray.  God has to fix this mess.

DEVILONEOUS:  Oh really, so where is yo’ God? Pray? Pray what?  From where I’m perched looks like everybody is chatterin’ at God.  You got yo’ folks like chubby-ass here prayin’ for God to deliver America from Trump’s evil, then you have Trump’s Christian supporters prayin’ he will destroy people like her because he’s like Neo—The One!  The GOP and the Conservative Evangelicals love 45!  They just adore his chubbie ass.

Cartoon used by permission: Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

ANGELICA:   Devi, I hate to be rude, but you need to shut your trap.

DEVILONEOUS:  Psst… hey ET, you know what I heard on the news last night while you were tossin’ and turnin’ in yo’ sleep?  The Trump administration is already underminin’ the healthcare market so that Obamacare will fail and leave millions without insurance.  They pulled help from 18 cities that had set up computer centers in libraries, businesses, and strip malls to help people sign up for insurance who don’t have access to the internet.  That should kill off an easy million or two bottom feeders thinkin’ they deserve to have medical care just ‘cause they alive.

ANGELICA:  Devi, I swear to God, I am going to smack you up side your head.  You need to leave her in peace.  Let her be.

DEVILONEOUS:  Seriously?  Why?  She needs to know that the political party she used to belong to—inspired by the Right-wing Christian churches—are 100% behind this Prez repealin’ Obamacare which will leave 32 million people without insurance.  I love death by mass destruction, don’t you?  Remember the bubonic plague?  That outta worry her to death.

ANGELICA:  ET, don’t listen to him.  Devi, how does losing her mind help save 32 million people from losing insurance?  She has a family to stay healthy for and a few good years of life to enjoy.  She needs to remain calm.  Leave her alone, Devi!

ME:  SaveusohGod,deliverusohGod…OMMMM—MMMMM.

Cartoon used by permission: Milt Priggee, http://www.miltpriggee.com

DEVILONEOUS:  Okay, okay, okay.  I’ll leave after I tell her this one last news tidbit.  Hey, ET, yo’ peeps…

ANGELICA:  Her former peeps…

DEVILONEOUS:  Yo’ former peeps, are never, ever gonna see the light about Trump. You know why?  They believe that he is a modern-day King Cyrus—Cyrus the Great (c. 600 or 576 – 530 BC).  You know, the dude from the Old Testament of the Bible who supposedly freed the Jews from the Babylonians and restored their Jewish kingdom by letting them rebuild Jerusalem.  You see, those peeps that you used to break bread with take the Bible “literally,” and they believe that Donald J. Trump is Cyrus the Great incarnated.  Ain’t that somethin’?  Angels and demons alike are crackin’ up ova this latest Christian stupidity.

ANGELICA:  Our girl does not believe that nonsense, and you know it.  She takes the Bible “seriously,” but not “literally.”  She has not fallen under the spell of Trump, but nothing she says seems to wake up her ex-friends who have.  She’s tried, but they only listen to Fox News or Conservative Talk Radio all day long.  She has to just keep calm and carry on, because, whether you believe it or not, Devi, only God can save America from this wolf in sheep’s clothing.

ME:  SAVEUSFROMTRUMPOHGOD,DELIVERUSFROMTRUMPOHGOD… OMMMMMMMMM

DEVILONEOUS:  Well, I’m bored!  So, I’m gonna make like a banana and split.  But before I do, I thought I’d read you a couple of Facebook quotes, prayers, and Tweets from some of the White Right-Wing Evangelicals who think God is on their side and who are gonna ride the wave with Trumpee, no matter what.  Kind of like the Civil War.  Preachers prayed that God keep slavery intact and help the South slaughter the North, while the North prayed the South would be burned to the ground.  Wonder whose prayers will get heard this go round?

Cartoon used by permission: Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

DEVILONEOUS:  Check these out…

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne wrote on Instagram: “Highlight after all these years of fighting for America – standing in the Oval Office with @realdonaldtrump and @vp and @paulamichellewhite and other leaders – listening to our great President talk about America – Great Job Mr. President- Great Job.”

Pastor Howard-Browne wrote on his Facebook that he was asked by Paula White to pray over Trump and the pastor asked God for “supernatural wisdom, guidance and protection.” “Wow — we are going to see another great spiritual awakening.”

How about this one by Mark Collins who is a John Bircher/pastor at a Baptist church…

“God has sent America a new, powerful leader. He’s a good man, a moral man. God has delivered Donald J. Trump to save the United States of America.”

Deviloneous:  And you gonna love this ET—it will set your hair on fire…

The Donald, who once confessed to be a non-reader said this in March as he compared himself to King Cyrus of the Bible:  “Cyrus the Great, a leader of the ancient Persian Empire, famously said that ‘freedom, dignity, and wealth together constitute the greatest happiness of humanity. If you bequeath all three to your people, their love for you will never die.’”

ANGELICA:  I wonder who fed Trump that convenient bit of “history?”  Yep, America is fucked!

DEVILONEOUS:  Ooooh, Angie, you gonna get in so much trouble for swearin’!  Hey, what happened to ET?  She fell over on her right side.  Dang, looks like she’s asleep.  Oh well, guess my work is done.

I am discovering that we are truly screwed as a country with 45 as our leader.  This situation is going to last a lot longer than any of the resisters and anti-Trump folks ever thought, and it is going to take years to recover from the damage that will have been done to the country by Trump and his right-wing, misquided, delusional zealots.  Save us, Oh God, deliver us, Oh God…have mercy on us, oh God!

Cartoon used by permission: CagleCartoons.com

SCARY QUOTE

“Many Evangelicals who voted for Trump continue to have an abiding faith in his presidency. Just as Cyrus returned the Jews to Jerusalem, and restored their wealth, so Trump, they fervently believe, will restore a lost world of personal safety, psychological security and material prosperity.”—James S. Gordon, The Guardian, “Does the ‘Cyrus prophecy’ help explain evangelical support for Donald Trump?”

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WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out her website at www.eleanortomczyk.com

BOOKS WRITTEN BY AUTHOR AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

The Fetus Chronicles: Podcasts from My Miseducated Self

Fleeing Oz

Monsters’ Throwdown

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

*****

REFERENCES

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/23/cyrus-prophecy-evangelical-support-donald-trump

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/leader-of-trump-cabinet-bible-study-god-only-hears-prayers-of-righteous-christians/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/once-again-the-silence-of-the-republicans-has-been-profound/2017/07/12/1b158ca6-6742-11e7-a1d7-9a32c91c6f40_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/get-off-the-trump-train-before-it-crashes/2017/07/12/6e0959e2-673d-11e7-9928-22d00a47778f_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/under-trump-us-has-lost-its-moral-authority-down-under/2017/07/14/00dae05c-680a-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/12/politics/trump-prayer-photo/index.html

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/16/the-john-birch-society-is-alive-and-well-in-the-lone-star-state-215377

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/christians-tempted-by-trump-idolatry/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/as-pat-robertsons-former-executive-producer-nothing-about-his-interview-with-trump-surprises-me_us_5967b182e4b0d6341fe75c51?section=us_contributor

 

 

PLEASE BLOW SMOKE UP MY KEISTER

Do you know what I discovered?  Trump taught me something recently.  (I know!  Aren’t you amazed!)  He taught me how a person can get people to blow smoke up his or her behind, and it can sometimes be a good thing.  I’m sure you all saw it or read about it.  He called his first cabinet meeting and after touting his royal greatness, he had his cabinet sound off one-by-one about what a fabulous job he’s been doing and what an incredible leader he is.

Cartoon used by permission: Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

BINGO, I thought.  This is sheer genius!  Trumpee has taught me something I can use.  Why don’t I apply this methodology to getting reviews for my new book, I thought?  You see, I just learned from my publicist that if I can get 50 reviews from people who have read my new book, The Fetus Chronicles: Podcasts from my Miseducated Self, Amazon will list my book in its newsletters and other promotions.  Isn’t that cool?

“The Fetus Chronicles” Book Mark Proof: Su from Earthly Charms

 

I bet you’re saying to yourself, “I’d love to write a review for you Eleanor, but if the truth be known, the thought of typing something into Amazon cares me to death.  How do I go about it, and what if I get tongue tied, or in this case, finger tied?”  Don’t be afraid.  It is quite simple.  You don’t have to be Hemingway; you can say as little as, “I liked this book,” and all you have to do is follow these very simple instructions:

In the meantime, while you are thinking about how to “blow smoke up my ass” on Amazon (if you hate my book, remember that my name is “Smeegle Klondonovich”), please enjoy a redo of my first published writing that started it all.  I got beaten by the writing bug, so to speak, after I wrote this.  This story will hopefully remind you what a “brilliant, talented, outstanding, deeply profound writer I am”—don’t you agree?

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WILL HIGH SCHOOL EVER END?

(Repurposed post from 2013)

Why is it in real life, as in high school, we exert so much energy trying to impress people we don’t know, won’t ever see again after our season of random internment, and who have no financial or emotional investment in our future?

I have beautiful, White girlfriends who won’t go to a swimming pool while on vacation because they don’t have the figures they had in college anymore, and the strangers across the pool from them, who they don’t know and couldn’t care a rat’s ass about, might become scornful of their cellulite or less than perky boobs. When in reality, they should be embracing Joy Behar’s classic observation of things that shouldn’t matter one iota:  “So what – who cares?”

All my baby boomer girlfriends have better bodies than I, but even though I’m at least 50 pounds heavier (when I’m telling the truth), I have a black woman’s sensibility about this issue: accent the positive, suck in the negative, and skirt the thunderous. Then bedazzle the shit out of your goddess self with a rhinestone cover-up and rhinestone flip-flops, and “drop it like it’s hot, baby”!

Author Doing Her Bedazzled Thing: Photo Credit–J. Tomczyk

Not too long ago, my husband and I took an extended cruise in the Mediterranean.  It was the trip of a lifetime. Everything was better than we had fantasized: the weather was picture perfect, the people were warm and accepting, the 3,000 passenger ship was outstanding, the food was superb, and we were like newlyweds reveling in each other’s company. The only thing that seemed to cause just a tiny bit of consternation was the very aggressive touring itinerary (4 days of excursions, 1 day at sea, 3 days of excursion, 1 day at sea, 2 days of excursion, 1 day at sea) that we had been given. But I wasn’t overly concerned because even though I’m a “fat-bottom girl,” it doesn’t mean I’m not in good health. I’m a daily exerciser and had trained for this trip for 8 months.  I added strenuous hills to my daily, treadmill workout, climbed the stairs at work in the afternoons, and special ordered shoes a triathlon athlete would use.

What I didn’t expect and what my research never revealed was that all of our 10 touring sites were perched on the top of ancient hills or mountains with steep inclines to protect the antiquity inhabitants from marauders.  Most accesses were like scaling a wall.

Port of Malta: Photo Credit–E. Tomczyk

Every evening we were given an overview of the activities for the next day.  In between the instructions for the cake decorating class and the marzipan demonstrations was listed the information the cruise director felt we needed in order to survive our shore excursions.

Ship Brochure: It takes 600 steps to reach the top of your fabulous destination.  There is a cable car if you prefer or you can employ a donkey to transport you up and down the ancient stone stairs.  Wear comfortable shoes. Cost: $100 – $400/person. The ship departs at 5:30 – if you miss the departure, you will have to make your own way to the next port to meet the ship.

Translation: The 600 steps are straight up the face of a mountain; the cable car often has a two-hour wait, and you will miss your ship utilizing that mode of transportation. The stairs are shared by donkeys that slip constantly on the descent and leave slippery “pooh” all over the staircase from Hell. No manner of footwear is capable of keeping you upright once you lose your footing going down – you might as well kiss your sorry ass goodbye. Before you leave this beautiful island, the tour guide will make sure she dumps you in the shopping area that has only one way in and out to the stairs or the unreliable, overly-crowded cable car system. The shopkeepers will try to help you by relieving you of as many Benjamins as possible to lighten the load of your descent. Trying to balance yourself on a donkey while your hands are stuffed with chotzkies however will be proof-positive that you have lost your ever-loving mind – once and for all. Good luck, silly over-weight Americans!

DAY THREE TOUR:  On day three, my husband (the Energizer Bunny), a gay couple (the extremely handsome, not-one-ounce-of-fat-on-their-bones Neil Patrick Harris and his partner David Burtka look-alikes), a lesbian couple (50’ish with similar body frames as mine whose bodies had each born children in their former lives), an octogenarian grandmother from Iowa sporting a recent double-knee replacement, and an old dude of an age somewhere between 90 and Methuselah began our shore excursion.

Because I temporarily lost consciousness, I can’t remember at what point I lost my mind and reverted back to high school.  I do remember approaching a sky-high escalator in a museum with hundreds of other people in sweltering heat and watching the escalator break down right before my group got on.  Because there was a wall of people behind us, we were forced to go forward and mount a circular ramp that seemed like twenty flights of stairs that shot straight up to the heavens. The lesbian mothers, the grandmother from Iowa, the Methuselah dude, and I stared at each other in total horror! Hadn’t we just climbed 300 steps the day before and 200 steps the day before that, as well as an unexpected 100 steps in a museum that wasn’t listed?  Didn’t the brochure assure us there would be no more steps to climb on this tour? I could have sworn someone said we’d catch a break today.

Cartoon used by permission: Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com

All I know is that my husband, who has the ability to walk faster than most people can run, took off up the ramp to find the tour guide who was nowhere to be seen.  As the rest of our group began to ascend the inevitable, the gay boys began telling us about a rather large, fat-bottomed woman (whose ass was the size of Cleveland) who couldn’t make it up the last ramp in the previous city, and they just couldn’t understand why people didn’t read the ship instructions about the strenuous nature of the excursions.

(Had they seen my ass, I wondered?  Was this a veiled hint about moi?)

“I mean, really now, why can’t these people ‘just say no’ if they’re too fat to complete the course without looking like they’re going to die,” said our Neil Patrick Harris look-alike cruise mate. “Personally, I feel like making an announcement tonight at dinner over the PA system.  ‘Really people – know your limitations; because you need to cut the rest of us some freakin’ slack!  We’re having heart attacks here just wondering if you’re gonna have a heart attack right in front of us’”!

The lesbian couple, the grandmother, the tremulous old man, and I gingerly laughed along with the boys, but we silently heard the “Rocky theme song” roaring in our ears (or was it the blood rushing to our heads before the onset of major strokes as we secretly wondered if they were ridiculing us?).  We took off up the incline like thoroughbreds at the Kentucky Derby trying to match the gait of the Adonis boys, leaning almost at a 45 degree angle to balance our bodies on the slope. As I passed the old man at my road-runner pace, his eyes widened in terror as his lips mouthed, “What the fuck?” but my team and I had to leave him in the dust.  Keeping up with the Adonis-looking critics was all that mattered, even if it meant moving at the speed of light and losing a soldier along the way.  These bodies had born children and nursed babies, goddamnit! The fat on our asses, our low-hanging breasts, and puff-n-stuff stomachs were badges of honor.  Maybe the gay boys had children, but they sure as hell hadn’t “had” children!

The octogenarian dropped out about two-thirds of the way (clutching her side) and gasping for air. My lesbian sisters and I made it to the top without dying, but I had a Charlie-horse in my ass that wouldn’t quit. As the girls and I high-fived each other (sisters, hangin’ tough!), I could see (being the chubbiest in the bunch) that I had impressed the boys. What they didn’t know was that I couldn’t say more than two words without gasping for air or I would keel over and die.  I didn’t dare speak without great measure.  I knew if I tried to articulate more than one five-word sentence without pausing, I’d be the gay boys’ prophecy come true: one fat-bottom woman careening into their perfectly fit, athletic bodies and knocking them back down the slope like a giant chocolate snowball from on high.  So I took out my Blackberry (remember those?), nonchalantly leaned against the museum wall, and pretended to check messages as if I were some high-muckety-muck at a Fortune 500 company and the business couldn’t live without me.

Runner Meme: Courtesy of @ Cook in Canuck

“Some hike, huh?” said one of the gorgeous boys.

 “Uh, huh. . . .” I whispered, while trying not to lose consciousness as my heart almost exploded in my chest from over-exertion.

“Great ship, isn’t it? said the other Adonis boy. “What’s on your agenda tomorrow?  We’re going rock climbing.  Isn’t that exciting?!”

 “G-r-e-a-t!” (tap) “Me doing” (tap) “pool” (tap) “water volley-ball tournament” (tap) “against a bunch of twenty-somethings” (tap)—”gonna make them eat my” (tap) “dust.”

“Excellent!  You go, girl with your bad self!”

Clearly, I had impressed the boys.

The next day found the quivering old man with both hands glued to a walker while arduously climbing into the hot tub (he was still there at dinner time with a smile on his face).  The lesbian couple, the grandmother, and I met up at the spa first, and then we subsequently waddled to our separate “quiet” corners around the adult pool (cellulite, thunderous thighs, and saggy tits on full display).  We spent the afternoon sipping rum punches and napping the day away in rockin’ bathing suits while our mental health applauded our goal-setting activity of just being ourselves and being proud of the hard-earned battles won by giving and sustaining life with our amazing bodies.

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ELEANOR’S SELAH (“AHA”) MOMENT

I’ve discovered that if my girlfriends (old and new) and I ever want to shake the specter of high school, we need to finally travel at the beat of our own drummers in our old age, because it’s the condition in which we arrive at the final destination, not the opinions of others, that really matters.  Joy Behar really is an oracle whose mantra we should adopt when the high school spirit tries to tear us down and make us forget the amazing women that we have become in our mature years: So what – who cares!

Writer’s Meme: Courtesy of LianaBrooks.com

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR?  Check out her website at www.eleanortomczyk.com

HAVEN’T YET READ ANY OF THE AUTHOR’S DISCOVERY SERIES?  CHECK OUT HER AUTHOR’S PAGE ON AMAZON!

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.