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The Great Salt Lake City

It was a sisters’ week in Park City, Utah. Glorious, mostly sunny with hints of rain, food-filled and sight-seeing galore. We were glutted on it, which I will write about later. But the earth-moving, mind-arresting and spectacularly surprising day for me was the trip to Salt Lake City. 

Now, the Mormons have a unique and checkered past filled with polygamy, treks west that were not for the faint of heart, and a sturdy trust in their belief system of prophets and clean-living. The city either directly or obliquely reflects this historical milieu. And while Utah is now only 49% Mormon, I suspect it’s higher in Salt Lake City itself.

CLEANLINESS NEXT TO GODLINESS

I was struck immediately by the astonishing cleanliness of Salt Lake City’s center. I’m guessing there was dirt and trash somewhere but I never saw any. The city had a near gleam to the place. Additionally, flowers were lathered everywhere — fragrant, colorful, well-appointed, full beds with no weeds that I could see. I mean, no weeds! It was a pleasure to just breathe the fragrant air. Sensual, actually!

Female mission representatives dotted the streets, ready with a smile and cheerfulness that was arresting and warm. You just couldn’t help but be startled and smile back. These unofficial goodwill ambassadors created a warmth and energy field one was helpless to ignore, pulling you in with their tractor beam. The funny thing is, you didn’t mind either.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

We toured The Beehive House, which was “the official residence of three Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith.” We also saw “This Is The Place Heritage Park” overlooking the city, where the Mormon trek across the West is commemorated. We drove through parts of the University of Utah as well, where the first mechanical heart transplant occurred. On the other side of it were lush, tree-lined neighborhoods sporting multi-generational founding families’ homes.

Our little tour bus stopped at a magnificent structure — the Cathedral of the Madeleine — as we circled back to the center of town. While not in the same caliber as a cathedral in Europe, it was nonetheless impressive with massive stained glass windows, high ceilings and an intricately carved altar area. You could smell the wood. It was stunning.

BUT THE CHOIR!

The highlight of our touring was witnessing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra during a rehearsal. They were practicing in a large pavilion, I believe called the Tabernacle, very near the world famous Temple which was veiled in scaffolding for earthquake retrofitting and refurbishing. It was all but invisible.

But the choir! I can hardly put words to it. Over 350 voices rising skyward, rearranging the air we breathed as it floated down into our lungs! All volunteers — these singers, rehearsing  a minimum of five hours a week! The orchestra, the same commitment with just over 100 musicians. It’s not possible for words to convey the feeling for me of listening to them all. It’s why we have music—when words are insufficient unto themselves. The word heavenly comes to mind yet still feels inadequate.

ATOMIC POWER

The totality of the singers’ voices dancing on the wings of strings, reed instruments, flutes, horns and tympanies is, well, a sight to see and feel. I was drunk on the majesty of it all. Helpless! The atoms rearranged themselves as a consequence! My internal organs moved, gently stimulated as if being massaged. Had there not been seventy-five or a hundred other people in the audience, I would have wept!

I’m sure I could have slept in a pew that night but alas we had to catch our tour bus, get our car and go back to Park City where we were staying. Oddly, it strikes me that Park City’s mountains are a physical, secular manifestation of the divine in their own right—music made of rock and earth. My God, no wonder Redford was moved. The area is magnetic.

IN THE END

I want to go back. I have not had enough of the energy and inspiration this geography provides. While it feels primal in some ways, it also reveals a sort of grooming possibility, ripe and rich with regeneration and potential, much like I think of birth. 

And maybe even Heaven!

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The Madman of Moscow


I’m living in the brutality of the now. Not the brutality of the then. Not the brutality of decades or centuries past but now, today, each day the same as if it was a then. But it’s not; it’s now. 

It’s Putin’s brutality at this point. He pushes death like a street corner drug dealer, with Russian customer troops looking for their next big fix, a high they can’t get enough of.

BLOODLUST

“More, more” the killing machines clamor, as if a homing device needed a target before it can be satisfied. In my mind I imagine Vladimir with pointed teeth, growling, blood dripping from snarled lips. Never enough is the cartoon bubble above his head; never enough.

Behind his image in my mind’s eye stands Adolph, the first Hitler, egging Vladimir on. It is an energy force field seeking victims for an end goal. And the goal is destruction, anguished torturous and vile.

BOTTOMLESS PIT

For what? To dominate, to conquer, to satisfy a thirst which can never be satisfied? We watch in horror as the bodies pile up, twisted and torn, unrecognizable to kin and countrymen alike. 

“Never again” echoes in the smoke faintly, mocking the death of now. It is perpetually ongoing, redundant but not made obsolete. Forever and Ever, Amen screech the priests of death. It looks to be an in perpetuity, infinite sort of hunger for death, dismemberment, savagery sort of thing. A bottomless pit!

And again we watch. Helpless? Hardly! The West could do more to stop the madness but for the time being, Putin is having his way with us even as he allegedly loses. He has thrown us down and had his way with us! We are cowed by evil. It is far more frightening than the evil itself in its own way.

TO SAVE A NATION

Zelensky, our only hope for reclaiming our conscience, begs, pleads but Biden and his National Security Council is still too timid. Instead, their presumed rationale for not further provoking the Madman of Moscow is to prevent WWIII. Instead they sacrifice America’s and the Wests’ real power, that of truth and democracy itself in the shadow of Chamberlain.

Consequently, the senselessness continues along with the relentless tears of men and women in the now; The in perpetuity of madmen and presidents who misunderstand the real stakes for humanity ad infinitum.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the US helps save Ukraine through providing massive weapons systems designed to defend its burgeoning democracy. Yet, we lose our own while Biden and the Dems are distracted, as Republican White Supremacy Extremists march on in our own backyard.

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Where Is The Soul Of America?

Where is the soul of America? Where is our “It” factor, the moral compass we once strived to steer by? Is It in the smeared face of the immigrant, the stoic Native American, the descendant of a pilgrim?

Is It in the Liberty Bell? Is It in the crack of it? In the Statue of Liberty perhaps? Is It in Custer’s Last Stand? Is It in the forging forth of the wagon train? The Iron Horse? The Alamo?

Is It in the Cotton Gin? The model T Ford, the Tesla? Is It in the super computer? The iPad, the launch pad of Canaveral or Houston?

Is It in the slave, the slaveholder, Jefferson’s Monticello, the Declaration of Independence? The Bill of Rights? Is It in the parchment, the whisper of It?

Is It in the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center? Is It in the shadows its decimation has left?

Is It in the thud of fruit, heavy with ripeness as it hits the ground in Southwestern Michigan? Is It in the Grand Canyon, its river sluicing through the depths?

Is It in the silence of snow, heavy on the baugh of a lone bristlecone pine in the Sierras? Is It in the thrashing fish resisting the fate of the hook-filled mouth? Is It in its fight, or it’s surrender?

Is It in the plow that turns over a rich loam soil in the fields of Iowa? Is It in the ditch digger, the school teacher, the factory worker, the astronaut leaving earth’s gravitational pull?

Is It in the athlete with the freedom to take a knee? Is It in the creativity and ingenuity that flourishes in this land, prompted by inspiration, vision, utter desire?

Is It in each American’s heart? The marrow, gristle and bone, the structural integrity supporting that most vital of organs? Is It in freedom’s age old yearning but one that has waned to a shadowy sliver of what it once was, the integrity of it, the hunger and thirst for it?

Does it shame us to see that hunger for freedom’s expression reborn in brown skin, speaking in tongues that frighten. Has that sense of integrity, the fierce determination to crawl, sail across danger-filled seas, to fight for the inalienable right of it, simply been lost in translation in our bloated sense of self-righteousness and self-aggrandizement, and spoilage?

Have we traded the promise of Plymouth Rock for the wolf pack of the Tribal Win?

Are we so frightened, filled with our own sense of entitlement we’ve lost our own sense of soul, of compassion for others “not like us”? Have we forfeited charity, decency, equitableness? Can we regain any of these values before the rancid, fetid hatred and selfishness that has infected our way of life dominates our national landscape?

Do we have the courage, fortitude and maturity to save our own American soul? To be honest, to forfeit “winning” and ambition at any price and reclaim integrity, decency, prudence, honor? Have we sacrificed the good of the whole for the privilege of the few?

Can we recapture our American soul? Do we have the strength to be humble, to look ourselves in the depths and acknowledge that we are losing any moral compass we once had?

Can we?

 

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I Know You Are But What Am I?

So mad, so frustrated, so judgmental! At whom? The left and the right, the liberals and the conservatives. How dare either side judge ‘me’ when I’m so very busy judging each of you!! Ferociously, excoriatingly, ravaging my superior moral position condemning you to your stupid, stupid emotionally-driven positions and beliefs, projecting my own fears onto you. Read more

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30 Pieces of Silver

I don’t know how to write it. I don’t. I don’t know how to write about the dismantling of our democracy anymore. I’ve written essays in the past on this topic but this time seems harder somehow. Why? The ball of destruction rolling down the hill is picking up speed.

Who ever thought the Republicans would hand over the keys to the Kremlin. While Trump ‘burns’, spitting out vitriol with his base’s insatiable anger dripping out of their mouths, juices flowing, he feeds them. He intuitively knows what he’s doing. They don’t but he does.

As does Putin. You think all invasions, all wars are fought with tanks and guns? While some are, although mostly in third world countries, first world countries like us in the West require more sophisticated weapons: weaponized internet systems, weaponized positionalities, weaponized distraction techniques, certainly weaponized money and perceived power, and many more.

There’s Collusion Alright!

Poor Trump. Poor House and Senate leadership, though I hate to use the word since they’re not leaders; they’re sheep. How incredibly easy they are, like the high school prom queen of old who lifts up her skirt after the big game. They’ve got theirs, those senators and representatives; go get your own. How cheaply they’ve sold themselves–for 30 pieces of silver!

Then there’s the propaganda machines; Fox News and Breibart for sure, a few news organizations on the left and the internet is filled with false information sites–on both sides actually, but the right seems to be far ahead of the game. Let’s face it. Hatred sells. Kumbaya is a harder pitch when distortion of money, jobs, decency, morality is at stake.

And the Christian right leaders? Really? Giving Trump a ‘pass’ on morality, decency, integrity, fitness for office, for their pet positionalities? Their 30 pieces of silver have been scrabbled through their followers and congregations, sure, but worse: for pet positions, the means they think justify the ends for all this betrayal that only emboldens Trump to hand over the keys to the Kremlin.

Tank Time

America has been invaded. Buy, Russians. Get it? Did you not see the indictment? Do you not believe it? Are you waiting for the tanks instead? He’s got you there. Putin and Trump’s stealth weapons are hatred, division, money for those who can deliver it big time, and corrupted power for sure.

It has all metastasized and so many everyday people don’t even know it, don’t see it. Not always because they’re stupid either. Naive is more like it. Some are well-intentioned folks believing they’re doing the right thing. Do you think the other party is your enemy? The Democrats? The Republicans? The Progressives? The White Supremacists? They’re just the pawns, groups “weaponized” for a particular outcome.

Gimmie Those Drugs

And the projected outcome is not freedom or democracy. It’s not taking back our country; it’s giving it away. It’s autocracy, a functional co-opted dictatorship. But go ahead. Go back to your ‘real life’ video games or “reality TV” played out on the nightly news, FB, Twitter and other online platforms that are your particular ‘drugs of choice’. We are definitely an addictive species. Throw in a little spiritualized ego-driven arrogance and the cocktail is lethal. For America is being given away bit by bit so we’ll all feel better about our particular belief systems both on the right and the left, for the game board that is Washington, and corruption, and force, and foreigners. Not Mexican foreigners, mind you; Russian oligarch foreigners, and Putin.

And Putin’s puppet.

 

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The Patron Saint of Grief

It is so very hard for me to write about what is happening with the death of our democracy, to make sense of it in both specific and general terms. It was suggested that I give voice to my anger, that it would be therapeutic and healthy to do so, empowering even. The problem for me is that it’s not just anger I feel. Instead, I have become acutely aware of traversing the five stages of grief, traveling back and forth between each emotional state: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and back again. Read more

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Ladies and Children Not Admitted

There is no accounting for Mark Twain’s enormous talent–other than he was a true and “stable genius.”  Read more

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The Center Will Not Hold

I have always loved Joan Didion’s writing. While some of it seems dark such as her commentary on change over some of the most tumultuous eras in America, she has an unusual quality of perspective and observation, acting as witness to events of the day. Oddly, this has seemed even to be the case in her more recent memoirs, “The Year of Magical Thinking” and “Blue Nights”. Yet there is also a quality about her in “The Center Will Not Hold”, the documentary about her life as viewed through the lens of her director nephew, Griffin Dunne, that is emotional, intimate, accessible. You see it in the face, in the tears that do not fall, the questions Griffin asks and refuses to ask out of the most delicate yet sturdy love and respect for his aunt, and for Didion’s own ongoingness. Read more

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Fire and Brimstone

No, wait. Not exactly that but sometimes it sure feels like it. The fires in northern California have been devastating, surreal and overwhelming to say the least. It is hard to count my blessings right now given that I surely have many. After all, my life was minimally impacted in relative terms. I lost no loved ones, my housing remained intact, although I did evacuate when the advisory was issued by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office. The smoke-saturated air hyper-laced with toxins, felt like it carried minimal oxygen. Imagine suffocation with foulness. It was hard to breathe and especially hard once it became so dense it hurt to take it in. Read more

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Memorial Day 2017

This may not even be anything for public consumption. Instead, it just might be for my own edification and relief. The hard times I am going through in my personal life and the dangerous times our country is going through currently seem parallel. While I don’t feel like a move to Northern California is dangerous, it certainly has generated a ‘hitting bottom’ kind of experience that is frightening, disorienting. It seems I have brought myself to some kind of brink, knowing not where or how I am to land.

When I made the decision to move, I did not realize there was a severe housing shortage in Sonoma County, the place I have chosen to relocate. Not only have I never been very good at money generating, (though living thrifty), it seems it has finally caught up with me in a serious ‘in-your-face’ kind of way. Having insufficient resources to make the move (was counting on cheaper rental prices,) it has caused quite a high degree of apoplexy manifesting in periodic crying jags, occasional chest pains and food binges.

Because of this poor “investigative journalism” and serious research on my part, I find myself backed into a corner, knowing I’ll have to work, and fast, as soon as I get up there. I lurch uncontrollably between terror and fright, fear of mental collapse (which quite frankly could be a relief) and prayer. Sometimes the prayers include begging, pretending I’m more spiritually gifted than I likely am, yet on the flip side, aware of a deep and abiding faith that springs to the surface in fits and starts.

Parallel Process

Enter Donald Trump. For many years now I have tried to learn from not just my own mistakes but those of others. This is not an easy task given the denial part of the human ego. One has to be capable of and WANT to be honest with oneself, taking responsibility for one’s choices and actions. While I shudder at the thought of any comparison between The Donald and me, I see how it’s often easier to attack another, blame a situation, etc, as a psychological tool to avoid the scrutiny of one’s conscience.

I can see how easy it is for me to ‘blame’ my karma, parents who didn’t encourage me, failed to teach me certain things, the turbulence of the 1960’s and 1970’s, and, and, and….the list can be endless if I allow my indulgence of such things, which sometimes I do. But at the end of the day, while there may be reasons for one’s flaws, character defects, etc, one cannot escape accountability. There is a consequence for me in my life choices regardless of any origin or source. It’s a universal law. There is a consequence for Donald Trump in his (regardless of how cruel his father was). And there is a consequence for all of America who has either chosen DT, continually chooses to either be blind to or ignore the perilous times we have ALL played a role in getting ourselves into, individually and as a nation. And for those who have failed in other ways, enlightened though they may be in erudite interpretations, have neglected to do much about the dangers we face themselves.

No Shame in Falling

They say confession is good for the soul and I do believe in it. But confession is no easy undertaking. You have to be willing to expose yourself (mostly to yourself) and one has to rank at least 200 on the honest/integrous scale of consciousness. Not everyone is able nor can. But for anyone able, it seems looking in the mirror is required at this time, and certainly for me.  

Years ago I had a cousin, Cliff Cushman. He was the darling of our clan, having won a silver medal in the 400 meter hurdles in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Fast forward to the Olympic qualifying heat in 1964, where he fell and was disqualified from that year’s games. There have been several people in my life who have inspired me. Cliff is one who was inspirational in my early years. Bennet Mermel is another in my later years. There have been others, some I’ve not actually met in person but who have inspired me the just same – inspired me to get up, try again when failure seems imminent, but to at least try to the degree I am able. Not only is this true for me personally, but also for our nation.  for we must all ‘get up’. Some people don’t believe we are at a crossroads in our democracy, believing instead in a pied piper who promises them a return to past glory. That is not where we are at!

I leave you on this Memorial Day with Cliff’s letter he wrote to the youth of Grand Forks, North Dakota after he fell. It is a challenge for me personally and for all of those capable in our nation to pick ourselves up, take a cold, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we can go on blaming others for own shortcomings without ever looking at our own. Cliff Cushman was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966, just two short years after clipping the hurdle. He may have lost his body that day in the jungle, but I am sure he did not lose his soul. It is high time we check our own, for those of us who are able. It is time I check mine, both personally and as part of the collective American Experience.

Captain Cliff Cushman’s 1964 Letter

To the youth of Grand Forks: 

Don’t feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for some of you! You may have seen the U.S. Olympic Trials on television September 13. If so, you watched me hit the fifth hurdle, fall and lie on the track in an inglorious heap of skinned elbows, bruised hips, torn knees, and injured pride, unsuccessful in my attempt to make the Olympic team for the second time. In a split second all the many years of training, pain, sweat, blisters, and agony of running were simply and irrevocably wiped out. But I tried. I would much rather fail knowing I had put forth an honest effort than never have tried at all.

This is not to say that everyone is capable of making the Olympic Team. However, each of you is capable of trying to make your own personal “Olympic Team,” whether it be the high school football team, the glee club, the honor roll, or whatever your goal may be. Unless your reach exceeds your grasp, how can you be sure what you can attain? And don’t you think there are things better than cigarettes, hot-rod cars, school dropouts, excessive makeup, and ducktail grease-cuts?

Over fifteen years ago I saw a star — first place in the Olympic Games. I literally started to run after it. In 1960 I came within three yards of grabbing it; this year I stumbled, fell and watched it recede four more years away. Certainly, I was very disappointed in falling flat on my face. However, there is nothing I can do about it now but get up, pick the cinders from my wounds, and take one more step, followed by one more and one more, until the steps turn into miles and the miles into success.

I know I may never make it. The odds are against me but I have something in my favor — desire and faith. Romans 5:3-5 has always had an inspirational meaning to me in this regard: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” At least I am going to try.

How about you? Would a little extra effort on your part bring up your grade average? Would you have a better chance to make the football team if you stayed an extra fifteen minutes after practice and worked on your blocking?

Let me tell you something about yourselves. You are taller and heavier than any past generation in this country. You are spending more money, enjoying more freedom, and driving more cars than ever before, yet many of you are very unhappy. Some of you have never known the satisfaction of doing your best in sports, the joy of excelling in class, the wonderful feeling of completing a job, any job, and looking back on it knowing that you have done your best.

I dare you to have your hair cut and not wilt under the comments of your so-called friends. I dare you to clean up your language. I dare you to honor your mother and father. I dare you to go to church without having to be compelled to go by your parents. I dare you to unselfishly help someone less fortunate than yourself and enjoy the wonderful feeling that goes with it. I dare you to become physically fit. I dare you to read a book that is not required in school. I dare you to look up at the stars, not down at the mud, and set your sights on one of them that, up to now, you thought was unattainable. There is plenty of room at the top, but no room for anyone to sit down.

Who knows? You may be surprised at what you can achieve with sincere effort. So get up, pick the cinders out of your wounds, and take one more step.

I dare you!

Sincerely, Clifton E. Cushman

Sept. 17, 1964

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Cushman

 

 

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