A friend e-mailed me the cruel and tasteless attack on Sarah Huckabee Sanders this morning, and by the White House Correspondents Association, of all people. it was an awful way to begin a Sunday or any day, it was a monument to the coarseness, hatred and alienation of our world.
It is no secret that Mr. Trump was not my choice for President, I have great fun poking this bear from time to time, but that is no reason to cheer or support such pointless cruelty. I want to say to the many people who disagree with me that I am no better than you are, my dreams no purer than yours, my beliefs no more sacred.
Wisdom begins by seeing the worst in myself, and the best in others.
I want to say I apologize for such cruelty, wherever it comes from, and I hope good and decent people will reject it, it is not humor, it is not funny, it is not noble, it does no service to our country or the wide differences between us.
I cling to the belief that we are all people, we share a common humanity, we all know fear and anger, we are none of us perfect. Behind the labels we so eagerly stick on one another are real people with feelings, ambitions, hurts and needs.
I am proud to say at this time in my life, I have no hatred in my heart for anyone. I will work harder and more thoughtfully about how to speak softly and walk gently. I yearn for leaders who wield empathy and compassion, I will follow them anywhere.
I will work hard every day to ensure that my corner of the world is free of cruelty and rage, there is nothing noble about harming or humiliating other human beings.
I want to say everyone is welcome here, whether you disagree with me or not (and so many do). I do not hate people who think differently than I do, or who make different choices. I have always believed this to be the heart of the American Experience. It is alive in my world.
In my universe, there are no labels, no cant or rhetoric from the left or the right. We are all humans beings, struggling to stay afloat in an uncertain world. We think for ourselves, and treat others with dignity and courtesy.
The prophets used to say that we all live in two countries, the one we are familiar with, the one where we are very much at home. We know the ways and limits of the Old Country, it’s joys and pains, happiness and despair, expectations and disappointments, are all part of our very chemistry and bones.
At some point in all of our lives, things happen. We got sick, fall, we die.
We realize we have to leave this country behind, and we become refugees of the soul. We have to enter the New Country. What guided and shaped us in the Old Country no longer applies, we are challenged to find what we need in completely different and alien ways.
This week, Ed Gulley and his wife and farm partner Carol left the Old Country behind forever, and entered this new one. Suddenly, in a shocking and unimaginable few days, everything is different, all those hopes and understanding and guideposts are gone.
They are in a strange land, so am I.
I am struggling and working to understand it, and the boundaries of love and friendship. Today, Ed’s farm and family friends launched a gofundme project to help he and Carol financially through the next months. Ed has inoperable cancer of the brain and has declined treatments like chemotherapy or any kind of surgery.
These funding projects are now a farm tradition, farmers rush to help one another through accidents, natural disasters and financial struggles. It is never easy to be a small farmer in America, it is especially difficult now, when farm prices have just dropped to their levels in 1970. Very few farmers get to save a lot of money.
Ed and Carol will need a lot of help.
In less than 24 hours, the fund has raised more than $4,000 dollars.
The fund is asking for $10,000 but I am pushing for more than that, up to $50,000 for the Gulleys to take what is probably their last trip together and also to help defray the medical costs of these aggressive, ravaging tumors in Ed’s brain. If you are not rich, health care can be cruel.
Ed is already experience problems with his peripheral vision and some balance problems.
I will use my blog and words to work to get the money for Ed and Carol that they will need.
An illness like this tests everyone, it also requires family and friends to define and consider the boundaries of their love. Sometimes, the needs of the people we love overwhelm our boundless, sometimes so are our own boundaries overcome. In my hospice and therapy work, I’ve seen people who are so overwhelmed by the needs of others that they leave and turn away for their own survival.
Boundaries are simpler to define with people like Ed and Carol Gulley, since they never ask for anything, they are fiercely independent and proud.
Left on their own, Carol and Ed would never have published a gofundmeproject, other farmers know to do it for them. Carol was reluctant to even mention it on their blog. They have all been there in one way or another. The bond that ties family farms to one another is one of the strongest I’ve ever seen.
The task, as I have learned in recent years, is to claim myself for myself, to meet my own needs and hold them in the presence of those who need my help. Real support requires people in possession of themselves to give to each holder while holding on to their own identities.
We must know what can do, and what we can’t do.
There are some things I know I can do to help my friend through this chapter of his life.And some things that are beyond me. I cannot work miracles, or alter fate, or play God. I am not there to cheer them up or lie to them.
They will ask for little or nothing, I hope to offer a great deal.
Ed and Carol are blessed in many ways. They have one another, they have a close and loving family, they have a powerful community around them eager to help. Thanks to their wonderful blog, the Bejosh Farm Journal, there are people from all over the world who care about them.
My task is to do the best I can for them for as long as I can.
Ed and Carol are in the New Country now, there is no going back. We have a lot to learn and adjust to.
And I realized during this painful week that I am in the New Country too, a place I have never been in this way.
Please consider supporting their gofundme project (one thing I can help them with), we have $45,000 to go.
The Mansion Amazon Wish List is down to nine items, from duct tape to designer paper to lawn darts. This is a wonderful way for people to help the residents – the activity room is filling with packages and crafts and games. I can’t say enough about how how has transformed the mood and atmosphere of the Mansio.
You are sending the kinds of crafts and puzzles and stimulating games that help stave off passivity and boredom, two continuous problems in elder care. I thank you for that.
Friday’s Wish List Packages
The Army Of Good seems to love wish lists as a form of doing good. People can choose the gifts they wish to send and the amount of money they want to spend and their gifts go precisely where they are supposed to go – no administrative costs or reserve funds.
Please know that these gifts are making a difference, and thank you. You can check out the new Wish List here, while it lasts.
As most of you know, Ed Gulley, a friend, farmer, artist and blogger, has been diagnosed with brain cancer, surgery is not an option and Ed has declined chemotherapy and other treatments.
Many of you have met Ed and Carol at our Open Houses or read about their lives on Bejosh Farm on their remarkable blog.
Ed and Carol plan to set off on a trek to Montana and other places in the next few weeks, Ed wants to see the world while he can, Carol is eager to drive him. He’s been living and working on a farm every day of his 65 years. He is very deserving of this trip.
In recent years, Ed has mushroomed as an artist as well as farmer and animal lover, Carol as a writer. They both have unleashed the creative spark inside of them and in all of us. Ed has sold his farm art all over the country.
Some friends in the farm community put up a Gofundme project for Ed and Carol to help them on their trip. They are asking for $10,000 but I hope the response is much greater than that. They deserve it and will need it. Milk prices today are the same as they were in 1970, no dairy farmer can take the right trip across the country without some help.
I hope you can help the Gulley’s at this turning point in their lives. Ed is determined to make his illness helpful to other people, he is planning to put up a video every day on his trip, we are all invited to come along. Ed is one of my closest friends – we joke we are brothers from different mothers.
He is a dinosaur, for sure. There are not many of him left, and I love him for his fierce independence and constant search for meaning.
I have enormous respect and love for him, he is iconic in many ways, one of a dying breed of family farmers and ferocious individualists. Carol is a genuine writer. They are a truly amazing couple.
Ed is planning to sell his latest art sculptures at our Open House in October, and we both expect him to be here. Just because he may die does not mean he will not show us how to live. He’s not getting out of fixing that wind chime on our porch.
I hope you can help the Gulleys by going to this Gofundme project and donating what you can. On my end, I am going to push this project to get up to $50,000 or more, I’ll post it on my blog here every day. They will need this support in the coming months.
You can also follow Ed and Carol on their journey by reading the Bejosh Farm Journal.
Their blog is groundbreaking in its portrayal of farm life, and now, I imagine it will do the same as a profile in courage and love. Ed and Carol are symbols of America and community at its best – hardworking, honest, devoted friends and parents and spouses. They have devoted much of their loves to loving animals, Ed’s cows are his best friends.
We owe the farmers a great deal, people like the Gulleys are the ones who have made America great and fed us and our families. I am sure we will stand by them now.
You can go directly to the Gofundme project here. Please share the site with your friends if you can.
