Mostly Maine

Flowers at Bass Harbor Gables

Bunny's garden

Bunny’s garden

I’m writing from Bass Harbor Gables, the home of my friend Bunny and her husband Sandy, in Maine. She loves working in her garden and understands what it needs. Her dedication shows!

There are orange nasturtiums in one window box, astilbe, daisies, and lots of red roses in the main garden and beside the cottage which they rent out. That’s the extent of the names I know, but there are many other flowers.

I drove from Connecticut with my sister Beth.

The portion between Westport CT and Interstate 495 where we turned north toward Maine was very familiar since we visited our daughter Beth in Boston for many years.

After that it was new territory, some lovely, with the forests getting denser and the centers of population fewer.

Acadia National Park

Wind on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park

Wind on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park

Sandy and Beth on Cadillac Mountain

Sandy and Beth on Cadillac Mountain

Yesterday afternoon Sandy took Beth and me to the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. We saw amazing views of the ocean and surrounding hills as we drove up.

Then the clouds moved in and we couldn’t see anything except surrounding fog.

Driving down you wouldn’t have known you were near the ocean at all! And the wind was fierce.

I was curious about the history of the park. It was the first national park in the eastern U.S. You can find extensive history here, or an overview on the National Park website.

Sign outside Southwest Harbor Library

Sign outside Southwest Harbor Library

I was trying to remember if I’ve been to other national parks, and I don’t think so, unless on the Hawaii trip last summer. Have you?

Then I had an appointment at Southwest Harbor Library to learn how to use the equipment for my talk this afternoon. I’m all set, I think!

I’ll have pictures next time.

Be an Interrupter

My friend Jocelyn sent How to be an Interrupter, sub-titled A White persons’ guide to activism from the San Diego City Beat. Aaryn Belfer, the author, says, “During the Underground Railroad, a light in the window of a home signified a safe ‘station’ (hat tip to interrupters Sarah and Bernard Gilpin of Maryland). After hearing from many white friends and acquaintances who have had quite enough but are unsure of how to channel their despair and grief, I decided to list a few ways to put the light in the window.”

I’ve added three of her suggestions to the sermon I’ll give on August 9th at The Unitarian Church in Westport. Her first: “Put a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard. Yes, it will get stolen and defaced. Get another one. Encourage neighbors to do the same. [Get them here]

I haven’t done it yet. I think I should before I give the sermon!

Tell me what you think about her ideas or the others I shared in recent posts.

Black Deaths Matter

Rev. William Barber II wrote Only Black Deaths Matter: Our Nation’s Need for Pastoral Counseling, in Beacon Broadside. He says black lives don’t matter, only the deaths! And then only “if they are mourned in the way those in control find interesting and appropriate.”

He says, “Two days after the nine assassinations at Mother Emanuel, I was asked to preach at New York’s renowned Riverside Church a sermon, which I later completed in my own pulpit, and said in light of the arrest of Dylann Roof: The perpetrator has been caught. But the killers are still at large.  The deep well of American racism and white supremacy that Dylann Roof drank from remains.”

In my own sermon I’ll say that the policemen who do the shootings are not necessarily evil people, They have been taught by our society and by their colleagues to fear black men. They act in response to ingrained lessons, part of the ‘deep well’.

We have to change this.

 

 

Author: Catherine Onyemelukwe

Author, blogger, speaker. Born in New York, grew up in mid west United States, lived in Nigeria for 24 years, back in U.S. since 1986. Advocate for racial justice.

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