Blog Archives - trish hermanson

The Whack Heard 'Round the World

6/27/2020

Danuta Danielsson had nothing but passion and a purse when Neo-Nazis marched through her Swedish town in 1985. She was infuriated because her mother had been imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, so she took what she had and acted.
     The whack of this ordinary woman was seen around the world and was eventually recognized with a statue.
     Is Danuta the kind of person we should memorialize? I don’t condone violence during protests, not even with a handbag, but isn’t it better to honor bravery like this rather than that of Confederates who enslaved people for their profit?
     We can laud ordinary heroes even if we don’t raise a memorial to them. We can revere people like Patrick Hutchinson, a black grandfather who carried an injured white man in London over his shoulder during a protest to get him out of harm. What he had was strength, and with that he crossed cultural lines to do what was right.
     I’m as unremarkable as Danuta Danielsson or Patrick Hutchinson, and I sometimes wonder whether anything I do could make any difference. But perhaps the real question is whether I’m willing to step out of my comfort zone to do what is right when I hear of or see wrongdoing. I could at least speak up.
     Would I dare?
     Or am I afraid to be an ordinary hero?    ***
Photos: top, Hans Runesson; middle, Romea.cz; bottom, Dylan Martinez, Reuters.

Oh, the Places You'll Go

6/22/2020

I don’t think this is what Dr. Seuss meant when he wrote “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” but nature called when Duane and I visited Bayou La Batre, Alabama, recently. Recognize that name? It’s where Forrest Gump built his shrimping business.
     I wanted to explore this fishing village made famous by the Gump movie. Oh, the things we discovered, like a rusted-out Soviet submarine dry-docked next to a drawbridge - stories vary as to why it’s there. We drove by the Perfect Alternative Baptist Church - what’s it an alternative to? And the Odd Fellows Cemetery - it's named after an international fraternity, but do you have to be odd to be buried there? A sign advertised Murder Point Oysters, and I wondered if Rocky’s Gym of Faith meant you had to have faith that working out would do any good.
     These sites gave me chuckles. But another smacked me in the face with reality - a musty second hand store where profits go toward providing temporary food, shelter, and clothing to families in crisis.
     Such is life, both humor and sorrow. Our journey reminded me of writer John Steinbeck who said that “we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” He and Seuss were right: oh, the places we go if only we open our eyes and our hearts to all that is around us.
  What’s around you?

Lincoln Missed the First Juneteenth

6/19/2020

When I visited Denver’s Juneteenth celebration a few years ago to enjoy the hand drumming, I had no clue that the holiday carries significance far beyond honoring African American culture. I learned since then that Juneteenth is a shortened form of June 19, 1865. That was the day, two months after the Civil War had ended, that a Union general entered Texas, the most western Confederate state, and publicly announced that “all slaves are free.”
     Juneteenth is America’s second independence day. More African Americans were freed through the Civil War than white colonists were freed from the Revolutionary War.
     But let’s be honest, the slaves were only set free-ish. What followed were lynchings and segregation and separate-but-not-equal and the re-emergence of white supremacy. As a country, we’re still reaping the harvest of America’s original sin - racism.
     Abraham Lincoln missed the first Juneteenth. The great emancipator was assassinated two months earlier. He had proclaimed in his second inaugural address that the Civil War was divine punishment for a national moral debt created by “250 years of unrequited toil.” Since then, I wonder if we have incurred another 155 years of debt, the consequence of our continuing bigotry.
     I’m as white as a fish belly, so I can’t claim to understand the degradation my black friends have endured. But on this Juneteenth, I honor this significant day.
     Because under God, we are all created equal.
***
  Photo: Hernan Pinera, Creative Commons, text added.

Where's Your Refuge?

6/15/2020

A six-foot-long alligator growled and flashed his teeth at Duane and me from a pond on an Island off the coast of Alabama recently. If he’d attacked, I’d have scrambled up a tree, which is what this magnificent oak tree is known for. Locals call it the Goat Tree, because in the island’s past, wild goats scrambled up it to take shelter from roaming alligators.
     Don’t we all face “alligators” at one time or another? Health issues that sneak up on us. Bosses that growl at us. Money problems that threaten to bite us. None of us are immune from problems. So where do we run to?
     I may be going out on a limb with what I’m about to say, but trust me, it’s as sturdy as an oak. We know this world isn’t what it ought to be (racism, pandemics, the IRS). And we sense we’re made for much more than we experience. I’ve come to believe that this deep yearning is the voice of our creator beckoning us for something more. He’s in the process of taking all the brokenness and remaking it - and us - for a better world. In the meantime (and it can get pretty mean), if you can’t picture yourself scampering up a tree for shelter, then visualize running to a rock as Whitney Houston sang here.
  Whatever alligators are nipping at your heels, I invite you to take refuge in God.
Don't stop to feed the alligators in your life or they might eat you.

Will My Sand Castle Survive?

6/12/2020

As Duane and I strolled along an Alabama beach, leaving our footprints in the sand, we came upon this elaborate castle. Someone expended great energy building this treasure. Yet it will all be swept away with the turn of the tide, just as our footsteps behind us already were receding into the restless sea.
     I recently received an email that two people I knew in our community died. What a shock. They were glorious castles in life. Now they’re swept away, leaving behind a moat of tears among those who knew them.
  Their passing reminded me of author Rick Warren, who says that life is a test, a temporary assignment, and a trust. I’ve experienced tests in life, and I’m pondering how temporary life is. Now as I think about life being a trust, I want to take my steps carefully, expending my energy building something more durable than a sand castle, because life is short and precious. A spirited song that speaks to me about this is here.    ***
   Please share. Previous bits are here.