It’s almost here! The month we love. The month of MAYhem. Join us next month for true MAYhem as the five of us venture outside our comfort zones and live to tell you our stories of disorder, and maybe a little uproar. There may be awkwardness. There may be angst. Some coloring outside the lines. We’re busting out of the box. Join us. 

New Growth, Dreams and Hope

By Mary Reiman

This is one of my favorite months of the year, watching the daffodils and crocus find their way out of the ground. New growth. If only for a moment, it brings a renewed sense of hope for the future. Maybe spring has sprung!

Another highlight of April is the email asking if I will read and evaluate scholarship applications. High school seniors across Lincoln and surrounding areas asking for assistance as they plan for their future endeavors. 

The scholarship dollars are donated by kind individuals who chose this opportunity to support students who wish to further their education. The donors are indeed generous spirits and I wish they could read all of the applications submitted.

This year I am on a committee to determine which 4 students will receive funding for the $2000 scholarships being offered. When we think about the costs of post-secondary education, we know how quickly that money will be spent. Tuition. Housing. Laptops. Textbooks (digital and print). Labs. 

4 scholarships. 63 applicants.

Any funding they receive will be meaningful. All have great need. It is clearly expressed in the applications and every time I was sure the one I was reading was THE best selection to fund, I read the next and determined IT was most worthy. And so it went throughout the list. By the time I was finished reading, reviewing, evaluating and rating them, 20 were at the top of my list. Twenty! How could I whittle it down to 4? What other parameters could I/should I put on my selections? Grade points, ACT scores, financial need. But how do you rate determination? How do you rate passion? How do you rate grit?

Many of these young adults have had too many difficult life experiences already. They are 17 or 18 years old. Some have been parent figures for their younger siblings. Others fled their homes when soldiers came to destroy their community. They lived in refugee camps before arriving in Lincoln, Nebraska. Others live with a parent with addictions and became an adult long before their childhood years were over. Many come from families who have struggled to make ends meet and simply have no extra income at the end of each month to put away for their child’s education. Whatever their reason for applying for these scholarships, they are worthy. They are trying to be prepared for the monetary needs coming their way. 

In this month of April, as we see another change of season, this is the most important new growth. This is our future. These students will define and shape our world. 

On the days you become anxious about the future, read these selections from their essays. Their words reveal their dreams, show us passion and give us hope. 

      …as I have grown, I’ve realized that in order to achieve something, you don’t need to master it. Achieving something is all about the journey that you take in order to get to your specific goal. My journey has introduced me to numerous valuable lessons, struggles that I have overcome, and has shown me exactly what I am capable of.

      ...sometimes you have to struggle in order to succeed.

      I have always wanted to help people find the best versions of themselves and be connected to people heart-to-heart. I want people to have the courage to step forward and make their lives better.

      I must always remember my very first goal is to help people. Therefore, study is indispensable and the best way to achieve it is college.     

      …I was only twelve years old when I had to grasp everything that was going on around me from leaving my hometown forever to living in refugee camps for months…I saw survivors who had endured significant trauma and brain damage. This sparked my interest in the brain. I began to question how I could assist individuals that become victims of atrocities.

      I begin to understand that the meaning of life is not always about being on top, but rather leading yourself to the right path…Today, I learned to be proud of everything I’ve accomplished, regardless of big or little, because these experiences prepared me not only towards school, but my future as a whole.

      I hope to aspire many first-generation students from immigrant parents that even though we don’t have the help from our parents in a sense where they can’t help us with homework, filling out documents and even scholarships compared to people who have parents that have had opportunities to proceed their further education, if we simply reach out for help our dreams will come true.

      ... that left me to take care of my brother, who is autistic. Making sure he was fed and got off to school was hard to grow up so fast, but I believe it made me into the person I am today. Caring for people and wanting to help others, no matter how big or small, became very important to me. No one should be left taking care of things by themselves. I also became optimistic not worrying about the bad, focusing on the good that will come later.

      For as long as I can remember I have envisioned my future career to be of assisting and helping others…Furthering my journey with my education is important to me to create the life I envision for myself, and no one other than I can write it.      

      One of the most life-changing events in my life was when my mom, grandpa, and aunt were diagnosed with cancer. I was fortunate to have a family that always motivated me during difficult times, so seeing them at their lowest made me long to help. I noticed the level of compassion and care from the nurses as they looked after my family members, and I realized the impact of their role on others. Therefore, I decided to pursue a major in pre-nursing. I want to create a positive influence on the lives of others like the nurses had on my family.

      Undertaking the challenges that I’ve faced and learning from the opportunities given has influenced me and created a feeling of success that I will carry into college. I plan to enhance the community in Nebraska to further inspire children who have faced disadvantages as I did.

      As the senior year quickly approached, I realized I needed to expand my knowledge and really dig deep into a variety of career paths. After doing multiple tests and plenty of research, I knew I couldn’t get away from healthcare- I didn’t want to get away from it.

      My biggest goal growing up was to be able to make my parents proud and to thank them for giving us the opportunity they didn’t have. My biggest gift to them will be my diploma…Ever since I was able to grasp the magnitude of what my parents endured and gave up to provide me an educational opportunity in the states, I became self-motivated.

      I have just been accepted into the Bryan College of Health Sciences for my dream career: Cardiovascular Sonography. My plan is to complete 3 more years at Bryan and to graduate with a bachelor’s in Cardiac and Vascular Sonography. I have always known I want to go into healthcare but for the last couple of years, I have been exploring medical imaging. My interest in Cardiovascular Sonography stemmed from my grandmother’s recent breast cancer diagnosis.

      The person I want to become consists of what I am able to contribute to others, especially children…My goal is to ensure every child experiences the same support that I did and believes they can achieve anything.

      I did not have hope for the future and thought I would end up being a failure… I finally realized that I have the ability to create a better life for myself; this realization made me think about what I want to do with my life. I soon concluded that I wanted to become a nurse.

      I think back to my grandmother who told me that someday I would be diagnosing others. My ultimate dream is to become a Nurse Practitioner, where I will do just that.

Could you select which are most deserving? We will make our final selections, but not without a conversation in which we wish we could offer support to each one of them. Hopefully, they will have applied for several scholarships and there will be one available for everyone. 

To all of them, I wish them well. Every one of them gives me great hope for our future. 

Saving truth

By JoAnne Young

Wait. Did I say that out loud? Or just think it? 

 

It’s the Homer Simpson syndrome, that thought in which I mentally thank people for the work they are doing or that piece they wrote or the beautiful art they created, but I don’t actually tell them about those thoughts. 

 

So visiting the Five Nine Shop and Project in Benson a couple of weeks ago, I came upon a set of six cards that say, “Thank You For The Work You Are Doing.” I bought them, brought them home and began planning. 

 

Even with cards, it’s not as easy as it might seem. There’s so much space taken up in my brain these days by things that irritate me, discourage me, make me mad. 

 

So much. 

 

No cards for those thankfully, or I might have been tempted to buy them, too.  

 

A lot has been said about the benefits to our psyches of keeping a daily gratitude journal. Honestly, I’ve taken more than a few runs at that, but never got past the second or third day. It’s not that I’m not grateful, I just need to develop the habit of saying it out loud or writing it.

 

It turns out there’s a little region in our heads, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a deep-seated region that connects us to gratitude. I dug around a few minutes in those thoughts and came up with more appreciation than I have cards for … maybe another trip to Omaha is in the offing. 

 

I’ll start with what’s going on in our state. 

 

I’d like to thank people for any truth telling they are doing. Truth hurts sometimes, but the lies we are getting from some politicians, candidates, political action committees, etc., cut deeper. 

 

Last week I appreciated listening to a bit of legislative debate/filibuster, by Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh, Megan Hunt, Jen Day, Danielle Conrad and Carol Blood. At one point, only a handful of senators were in the chamber, and Megan Hunt was reading a letter to senators from more than 150 health care providers about how doctors and other professionals can be trusted to give good information and care to parents with transgender kids. 

 

LB574, which regulates the type of care that transgender kids under 18 can receive, would block fundamental health care, including mental health care, in regard to their needs as transgender individuals, Hunt said, and would spill over to create a chilling effect on health care needs by the entire LGBTQ+ population. Trust is the cornerstone of the patient-provider relationship, and the bill takes away the ability to have honest dialogue about options, risks and benefits of care. 

 

The bill will do irreparable harm, they wrote, and is a dangerous overstep of government into the private lives of their constituents. 

 

Sen. Hunt responded that when a state passes such a law that restricts care, that tells doctors it doesn’t trust them to use their best judgement in providing a standard of care, it hurts everyone. It takes bricks out of Nebraska’s house of medicine. “All I ask is that we believe healthcare professionals, we believe our neighbors in Nebraska who are parents, who are educators, who are the professionals we trust to raise and be around our kids and help them develop.”

 

In further conversation on the floor last week, Sen.Blood explained why it is important for senators to do their due diligence … “because we represent all Nebraskans, not a particular party, not special interests, not dark money (well, some of us at least). And it is our jobs to craft policy that doesn’t do harm, that doesn’t have collateral damage.”

 

Truth. But the Republican agenda now trumps truth. 

 

The Nebraska Legislature is only one in a long list of states carrying out that agenda. Our beloved city of Lincoln is also the victim of truth slaying by Republican candidates and their supporters.  

 

Last month I visited the Mississippi Legislature and talked to a senator there who told me his assembly passed a similar transgender bill in February on a 33-15 vote. The judiciary chairman was quoted saying: “We don’t hate people. We want people to be well and healthy … But these are unnatural things taking place in our state.”

 

We have seen what happened to the Democratic Tennessee state representatives, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, 

expelled this month from the Republican-led House there because they protested in support of more gun control following the school shooting in Nashville that killed six people. A white female representative who also protested was not expelled. The two Black Democrats were subsequently reappointed by their districts. Their exemplary speeches on YouTube are worth the watch. 

 

Clearly, my six ‘Thank You For the Work You Are Doing’ cards are not enough. I will find more and thank these committed and hardworking souls who stand in for me. As Sen. Hunt said last week, “we have so many opportunities to save democracy this session.”  

 

Stay with us throughout next month when we bring you five blogs of MAYhem as we each steer out of our comfort zones and bring our faithful readers along for the ride.

Follow us on Facebook at 5WomenMayhem. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Force

 By Marilyn Moore

It’s been a week, hasn’t it.  A former president indicted.  Two Tennessee representatives expelled for trying to talk about gun violence.  Relentless book bannings, with a Disney movie about Ruby Bridges and a Dolly Parton song about Rainbowland thrown in for good measure.  A judge in Texas with absolutely no medical or pharmaceutical training orders a drug that has been safely prescribed for more than twenty years taken off the market.  The mayoral campaign in Lincoln that’s likely to get uglier before it’s over, largely funded by two major donors, one of whom doesn't live in Lincoln.  A Nebraska legislature in the midst of restricting the lives of transgender youth and their families, and women of reproductive age, and voters.  So much about which to rant, and I have, and I'll keep doing so…and yet, I’m drawn at this moment to images, and sounds, and metaphors, and experiences, of life forces.  In this week of celebration of major holidays by three religious faiths, Passover, Easter, Ramadan, “life force” resonates.

A truly Nebraska experience is to venture west of Lincoln about a hundred miles to most anyplace along the Platte River at this time of year and settle into the crane migration.  Each year, for millennia, hundreds of thousands of cranes stop along the Platte for a few days or weeks as they migrate from the south to the north.  There are gorgeous photos of the birds, the water, the sky, the grasslands.  To be there is to sense the primordial instinct that guides the birds, and that, somehow, grounds us, too.  For me, it’s the sight, the scent, the feel of the wind on my face, and the sound.  Most especially the sound.  The sound of thousands of birds coming into the river islands at night, or taking off in the morning, is one which mesmerizes me…another writer described it as being caught up in and surrounded by the life force.  That's what it is, it pulses, like a heartbeat, a force that cannot be resisted, and cannot be extinguished…it can only be celebrated, and held in awe.  This week…I need this evidence of the life force.

And so I look for other evidence.  Closer to home, the barrel in which I’ve grown chives for years.  I don’t know if chives are supposed to come back year after year, but these do.  Over time, the barrel has weakened.  Rain, and blasting summer sun, and winter’s snow and ice, have weakened the staves, and now about a third of them have totally fallen away.  Much of the soil has also eroded.  But the chives, they’re growing again, hanging on to the soil that’s there, among the earliest green in the yard, reaching for the sun.  Life force….

Thousands of students rally in Tennessee, joined by others across the country, raising their voices to demand the most basic of assurances, that they be able to go to school without fear of being killed.  There is power in their combined voices, in their insistence that they be heard, in the unassailable truth that their lives are worth protecting.  Life force….

From thousands of voices to a single voice, the relentless voice of Maya Angelou, in "Still, I Rise."

“You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise….

“Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise.

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.”                   

Courage.  Conviction. Persistence.   Life force….

A new sighting from the James Webb Space Telescope, star WR124, in the Sagittarius constellation, 15,000 light years from Earth. (Photo from webbtelescope.org). It’s dying, it’s exploding, it's releasing cosmic dust.  Dust that will swirl with gas and form stars, planets, and the very building blocks of life.  Exploding stars that released heavy elements…that end up inside our own bodies.   Dr. Amber Straughn, astrophysicist, describes it with science, and poetry.  “At the end of a star’s life, they shed their outer layers out into the rest of the universe.  I think this is one of the most beautiful concepts in all of astronomy.  This is Carl Sagan’s stardust concept, the fact that the iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones was literally forged inside a star that exploded billions of years ago.”  Or, as my friend and pastor Jane Florence writes, “Isn’t it amazing that science confirms what spirit beings have always known….”  Stardust…. Life force….

And of particular significance to me, this week, this Holy Week celebrated by Christians, are the deaths of three strong and wise and spirit-filled people, who died on Good Friday.  Good Friday, the day that in the Christian tradition Jesus was crucified and died, was the day that Maxine, and Rex, and Charlotte, took their last breaths.  At that moment, as the poet John Magee writes, they “slipped the surly bonds of earth…and touched the face of God.”  Their spirits, freed from their bodies, joined a cosmic force for good, one known by the cranes, and the chives, and exploding stars, one amplified by voices of protesters and by poets, a force for love, for peace, for justice, for life.  Stardust…. Life force….

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Stepping out of the dark with a surprising harmony of voices

By Mary Kay Roth

Sopranos, tenors, baritones … you couldn’t tell which person was singing which part.  But when those gorgeous voices blended into Queer Choir Lincoln, all that mattered was their harmony, richly blended into a dazzling rainbow of gender affirmation awash in gowns and beards, suits and sequins.

Gay.  Lesbian.  Asexual.  Bisexual.  Drag queen.  Pansexual.  Gender queer. Transgender.  

For a few precious moments this weekend, when the curtains lifted on a program at the Johnny Carson Theatre called Coming Out of the Dark, each and every choir member on stage was standing in their own truth and light – safe, affirmed, celebrated. 

For a few precious moments, those sacred voices managed to drown out the cacophony of vile, toxic words spewing from dangerous, misguided legislation spreading across the country, bills that target the LGBTQ community and particularly transgender young people.

A neighbor who sings in the choir had invited everyone along our street to attend the weekend concert, and I headed for the theatre that evening mostly as a way to support our trans community.  But as those beaming choir members started marching onto stage, one by one – a group of people marginalized and bullied by too many members of our Legislature – their joy was infectious.

These people were not beaten down, their lovely songs ringing out with pride and courage and splendor, their tunes entwined with social justice.

“This is overwhelming, I look around this auditorium and see the beauty from this community – the joy and beauty and sparkle in the room tonight,” Nebraska State Sen. Jen Day said, taking the stage briefly.  

“We love you, you belong in Lincoln,” Day, who has been fighting hate-based legislation in Nebraska – told the choir.  “Thank you for sharing your gifts, thank you for sharing who you are. I really needed this.” 

And, she added, turning toward the audience, “We all need to work to stop these awful bills.” 

Indeed, in the last few years a wave of discriminatory state laws has attacked LGBTQ rights, terrifying families and hurting kids who are not hurting anyone. The year “2023” is shaping up to be historically bad. 

In Nebraska, Omaha Sen. Kathleen Kauth introduced a ghastly bill that would criminalize the act of providing gender-affirming therapies for minors.

So, enter Trans Day of Visibility this weekend with rallies, posters, protests held throughout the country – and the Queer Choir Lincoln’s spring equinox program in support of our transgender friends. 

Choir director Juju Tyner started the musical group a year ago, marking this latest concert as a milestone for their first trip around the sun. 

She explained that Queer Choir Lincoln’s heart and soul relate to a quote from John Lewis, a black civil rights leader and activist, when he said: “Speak up, speak out, get in the way.  Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”

Hence, the choir’s two major goals: 

• To entertain.
• To stir up some good trouble in this town.

And the time is definitely right for some good trouble.

Legislation now under consideration at the Nebraska Unicameral intentionally attacks trans children, according to Nebraska State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh. “It is legislating hate. It is legislating meanness. The children of Nebraska deserve to have somebody stand up and fight for them.”

Earlier this legislative session, explaining her decision to filibuster as many bills as possible, she said: “If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful for everyone. I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”

In fact, the current attacks on trans youth are only the latest tactics in nonstop anti-trans assault intent on legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ people – despite solid expertise that decries such efforts.  

Professional medical organizations have released statements condemning these waves of anti-trans bills – with every leading medical institution stating that transition-related care is necessary medical care.  The American Academy of Pediatrics says these bills have the “sole purpose of threatening the health and well-being of transgender youth” – underlining that doctors and parents warrant the right to decide which prescribed medications their young people need, not politicians.

“It’s not enough to talk about how unjust the world is, we need direct action,” Queer Choir director Tyner explained, noting that gay choruses first originated as safe spaces for artistic expression – but also to sing out for basic human rights. 

There is power in our voices, Tyner said, amplified and unified, making space to tell our stories and step out of the darkness.

So, of course, the very first song the group belted out at that glorious weekend performance: 

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo … 

Here comes the sun and I say … 

It's alright.  It's alright.

And, for a few precious moments, it was.

As a sold-out crowd embraced the choir with standing ovations, I could feel the long dark winter finally lifting, right along with my own personal sense of despair.  All was right with the world and a slightly unfamiliar sensation washed over me with – dare I say the word – hope.

***

Please consider contacting your state senators about this issue: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/contact/email_form.php

For more information: Support Trans Lifeline, Transgender Law Center, ACLU NE, Out Nebraska, and Black and Pink.