trish hermanson
  • Home
  • BIO
  • FAQs
  • Book Club
  • Awards
  • Influences
  • Home
  • BIO
  • FAQs
  • Book Club
  • Awards
  • Influences

Fear (Not?)

8/25/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

     Instead of relaxing in the rhythm of the elliptical machine at the rec center, I’m tightening up from scenes flashing on the TVs ahead of me. On one suspended monitor, white supremacists and neo Nazis clash with anti-protesters. On another, carnage in Barcelona and saber rattling between the U.S. and North Korea. Back to the first TV: the U.S. opioid epidemic; police violence; health care insurance in tatters. Has the world gone mad?
     
I plug in my music to drown out the news, and the lyrics from a century-old song seep through my mind:
     
“This is my Father's world.
     
O let me ne'er forget
     
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
     
God is the ruler yet.”
     
What a reminder - the Supreme Commander of all history, who has the power to blot out the sun and bring it back, will some day cause justice to roll like a river.
     
My breathing slows. I step down from the elliptical. My influence in this crazy planet is minuscule. But I’m not powerless. My neighbor has this huge landscape project. Our family can help with that, and it will make her world better.
​     Maybe that's enough for today.

0 Comments

Me Racist?

8/18/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture

     I knew I could easily point my finger at swaggering neo Nazi/white supremacists for being racist. But what about me, a nice white American? Do I unknowingly give off an air of racial superiority that insults minorities?
     So I asked two African American friends about the racial pain they’ve endured, hoping to learn from them. They revealed the trauma of how some people, who wouldn’t call themselves racist, wound them.
     
It’s usually unintended little barbs, one said, like someone declaring, “You talk so eloquently, you sound like you’re white.” Or slapping him on the back and announcing, “You’re a good black guy.” Or believing it’s okay to banter with a racial joke. Or thinking it’s a compliment to tell him, “I’d be honored if you dated my daughter.”
     
Sometimes it’s uglier. “You minorities ought to get your act together.” Or at an organization where my other friend is a member, the president tries to energize members by claiming, “We wouldn’t be so reserved if we weren’t all white.” (My friend winces. “It’s like he’s saying blacks act like apes. It’s rude.”)
     
I swallowed slowly. “So how can we, who are white, do better?”
     
They were silent, then spoke with carefully chosen words. And trained by habit to be gracious, they didn’t reveal any of my cultural sins. One encouraged me to listen, listen, listen. The other suggested that opening up more safe conversations like this would be good “to better understand what a big deal the pieces of each other’s lives are.”
​     
Our time ended. I thanked them and left, breathless and busted. And I wondered, when others ignite my hotspots, will I be as generous as they are? And when I point a finger and call out evil as evil - as I should - will I remember that three fingers are pointing back at me?

(Image above is a detail from Michelangelo's Last Judgment)
2 Comments

How I Traded Lives

8/11/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

     In the parking lot of the market I bend over and pick up a note that’s folded in half. A shopping list, perhaps dropped on the way into the store, on stationery with a birdhouse and flowers. Must be a woman’s, I think. Only two food items on it: melon and avacado (misspelled). Must be for a social event. But next on the list - a brace, six pins, four long screws. Someone’s hurt! Something’s broken!
     
I can’t help whoever is hurt. Or use the pins and four long screws for who knows what. But I can buy the food items on the list. So call me crazy (Duane does), but I buy a canary melon for $2.66 and four avocados for $1.92.
     
At home, I cut into the melon and avocados, then raise a spoon in a toast to someone I don’t know. I briefly trade lives through a stranger’s shopping list. And I wonder whether my life is all that different from this unknown person. Sometimes, I’ve tasted sweet treats. Other times, I’ve needed to be patched together with braces and pins and screws.
​     
That’s how life comes - the good and the bad on the same shopping list.      

Picture
0 Comments

Got More Misery?

8/4/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture

     Even though I blogged last week about the pain of resentment, I’m still wrestling with how hard forgiveness is. A reader wrote me he’s in the middle of forgiving a friend of 53 years. “I’ll overlook a lot to keep a relationship going,” he says. “Grudges weigh too much, and I don’t need any extra weight.”
​
     Nor do I. Yet I let grudges weigh me down. I may take a first step toward forgiveness by choosing to pardon, what Denver counselor Dr. Michael Ballard calls the “decisional” phase of forgiving. But what trips me up is the huge backpack of emotions I lug around. How can I unload them? When I don’t, I fall into a tar pit of misery, hurting myself way more than the original offense committed against me.
     
What helps me to unload the bricks in my backpack is to remind myself that my creator God could have turned his back on me when I turned my back on him. But he didn’t. In the same way, I shouldn’t turn my back on others, but extend forgiveness. This may not restore trust and friendship, but it’s a start.
​     
How do you unload your backpack of tough emotions so they don’t weigh you down?

2 Comments
    Croutons...
    Chew on these seasoned bits of life for a little hope and humor along your highway.​
    Picture
    JOIN ME ~ I’ll send brief, occasional posts for this journey we're traveling on together.
    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    Holidays & Happenings
    Humor
    Inspiration
    Passages
    Social Issues
    Spirituality
    Wholeness

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017

    Picture
    Available on Amazon
    Picture

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly