I Can't Unsee This....

 By Marilyn Moore

Full disclosure:  I sometimes write to figure out what I’m thinking.  This is one of those times.  This is my brain in process…not anywhere near a finished piece of work.  

I can’t unsee this….the video of five Memphis police officers, beating Tyre Nichols, a beating that would result in his death three days later.  The video was released by the Memphis Police Department Friday night, with warnings of its graphic content.  Graphic it is…all the horror of night time, bright street lights and police lights, and the sinking feeling that comes when you know something awful is about to happen, and you can’t stop it. 

The facts are not in dispute.  Tyre Nichols, a young Black man, was on his way to his parents’ home, 8:30 at night, just a few blocks from home.  He was stopped for reckless driving, though there is no evidence that he was driving recklessly.  He was pulled from his car, attacked, he managed to escape, he was tracked down, and in his mother’s words, they beat him like a piñata.  He was kicked, he was hit, he was beaten with a baton, he was sprayed with pepper spray…and when he was totally unable to respond, he was propped against a police car, and it took more than 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.  Three days later he died.  The police officers, who are also Black, have been fired and charged with second degree murder, and the special unit of which they were a part has been disbanded.  

The actions of the police officers have been universally condemned.  The Memphis police chief described them as acts that defy humanity, a disregard for life.  The Memphis Police Union, the national police association, the Memphis Mayor and City Council members, President Biden, the NFL, and most anyone else who could claim a little airtime has joined in the statements of horror and dismay.  And how can we not….

Anticipating protest marches and gatherings, civic and political leaders asked people to protest without violence.  Mr. Nichols’ mother and stepfather asked for that, showing much more grace and restraint than one might expect, given that their son had been savagely and viciously beaten. Remarkably, most protests have been just that…peaceful, without violence.  And Mrs. Wells, Tyre’s mother, in another moment of grace, expressed sympathy for the families of the five officers, who, as she described it, have been shamed by the actions of their sons.  

There will, of course, be much more to this story, for months to come.  There will be reviews, investigations, trials, and most likely sentences.  There will be revisions in hiring, supervision, plans, and training in the Memphis Police Department.  The Memphis City Council will consider whether changes in city ordinances are needed, and the Tennessee legislature will do the same at the state level.  Across the country, similar reviews and possible revisions will be considered.  

I’m not an expert on any of this, and I have no informed opinion as to what systems changes need to be made.  I just keep seeing that video in my mind’s eye, and wondering how it is that human beings can inflict this much pain and damage on another human being.  The psychologists and criminologists will have expertise to bring to this question, and I’m sure we’ll hear from them as this case and its aftermath plays out in the coming months.  What I’m quite sure of is that this brutality is part of a larger culture, the one in which we all live, and to which we all contribute in some way…and which we can all impact so that it’s a little more gentle, a little more kind, a little more humane.

I’m reminded of the work of Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer prize-winner and author of Caste, in which she writes about the caste system in India, the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany, and the system of enslavement of Black people in the American south for more than 250 years…and that those systems, formally or informally, are still in place today.  It’s far more than I can summarize with any degree of academic integrity in this blog, but I commend it to you…it won’t make you feel better, but it will give you solid history and scholarship for thought.

For tonight, though, this endless month of January is drawing to a close. In Memphis, there’s a mom whose son will never again come to her home for dinner, and who will never be able to unsee that video of her son as his life is literally beaten out of his body.   We’ve learned that Tyre Nichols was a father, a skateboarder, a photographer, and a guy who loved to take photos of sunsets. The photograph at the top of this blog is one of his; see more at his website, thiscaliforniakid2.wixsite.com.  I hope his mother can see in his photographs her son, the vibrant young man and how he lived, not just the video of how he died.  I hope we all can….

Untangling winter’s sacred lessons of melancholy … and wonder

By Mary Kay Roth

One cold, snowy evening, earlier this week, I sat in front of the fire, my dog’s head upon my lap, flames dancing and flickering, embers glowing red hot. The storm outside had passed and – except for the crackle of burning logs – stillness prowled about.

These rare moments border on the mystical for me.  In this instant, despite a spirit ragged from raging at the injustices of humankind, my heart was full.

I let go of …

• The debt limit, which I will never really understand.
• The jigsaw puzzle of “classified documents.” 
• The guy with the snow blower who – for some mysterious reason – keeps blowing his snow into the street.
• The sad reality that good guys often die too soon.

Snuggling yet solitary, absorbed in the trance of the fire and the silence of the moment, I was at peace. 

Truth is, we have roughly 4,000 weeks in our life on this earth. And yet somehow, we get so overwhelmed with productivity, cranking through as many tasks as possible, conquering to-do lists, angry over what is going wrong, that we often miss the point. 

We miss the magic, the surprise of these golden moments.

“The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of the wonder,” says Oliver Burkeman, who wrote Four Thousand Weeks, Time Management for Mortals.

Strangely, even fortuitously, I find winter is the season that can best teach us these lessons.  Winter pries us open with its melancholy richness, cradling the darkest of dark nights, the most hushed of quiet. 

“Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle,” says Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. “It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order … It is an untangling, a moment to feel the true ache of desire, the gentle wash of self-compassion, the heart swell of thanks, the tick tick tick of existence. It is a moment when, alone, I am at my most connected with others.” 

Winter extends its invitation with a frosty embrace, welcoming us into the deep, cozy cave of hibernation.  Bidding us to rest – breathe – sleep – accept the hard stuff – and, by god, cherish the good. 

The trick, of course, is to heed the lessons. To find relief from our digital overdose. To stop. To start bailing when we are swamped with that almost irresistible deluge of jammed inboxes, self-help inventories, a gnawing sense we ought to be doing more. 

Last year, an estimated 3 to 4 million podcasts babbled into our ears. We spent 700 million minutes on Facebook, monthly. Almost 3 million emails were sent per second.  Top-10 book lists came at us from every direction.  And on any given week, U.S. audiences watched a massive 183 billion minutes of live streaming video content.

Wintering tells us: “In our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter.  We don’t ever dare to feel its full bite, and we don’t dare to show the way that it ravages us. An occasional sharp wintering would do us good.”

Don’t get me wrong. I like to read, listen, watch movies.

The problem is that doing ‘everything’ ends up looking an awful lot like doing nothing, one long fog of frantic. The dilemma to believing everything is urgent, is that we can never do enough.  Bizarrely, we only feel busier, emptier, hollowed out.

Four Thousand Weeks warns:  “The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control – when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; or when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about.  Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen.” 

And yet, there’s a giddy freedom in bowing to defeat, and winter gives us permission to lean into that submission.  To hide away from the world for a while. Believe in the unpredictability of our place on this earth – and be ok with that.  To find our way back home.

Several years ago, just as the pandemic was beginning to ease, New York writer and director Julio Vincent Gambuto wrote an essay, asking us to hold tight to what he called “The Great Pause”– to consider making new choices about how we use the hours of our lives.

“I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. It is, in a word, profound … Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window.  I know it hurts your eyes … But the curtain is wide open … The Great American Return to Normal is coming … but I beg of you: take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is a rare and truly sacred opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer.” 

Winter gives us that same opportunity, a chance to find our way back to those sacred moments …  

• Of taking a morning walk – without measuring steps or snapping pictures. 
• Of watching a cardinal perch against the stark landscape of winter white.
• Of spinning around an ice-skating rink and thinking only of placing one blade in front of another.
• Of spending an evening of candlelight with a friend who gets us, who tolerates our gloom, who accepts that we can’t always hang on – that sometimes everything breaks.  

Rest assured, I will never stop raging at and tilting at windmills. In all honesty, a great deal of life will always suck.

“We don’t want to risk getting hurt in relationships or failing professionally," Burkeman cautions in Four Thousand Words.  "We don’t want to accept that we might never succeed in pleasing our parents or in changing certain things we don’t like about ourselves – and we certainly don’t want to get sick and die. We recoil from the notion that this is it – that this life, with all its flaws and inescapable vulnerabilities, its extreme brevity, and our limited influence over how it unfolds, is the only one we’ll get a shot at.” 

In fact, this is the gift we have been given, 4,000 precious weeks.  

And in those weeks, there will be times we’re riding high and times when we can’t bear to get out of bed.  

We need to give ourselves a break and be kind.  To find our own grit, in our own time. To trust and let people in. To pause for those golden moments.

And so, for tonight, I’ll sit by the fire, knowing that in the deepest of winter – if we are perfectly still – we will hear the first robin begin to sing. The thaw begin to burble.  The wonder of life whisper as it awakens from the chill.

Resolutions: Fragmented or Calm?

by Mary Reiman

This week there's been something in the news every day about New Year's resolutions. Every new year seems to bring recommendations on how to keep those resolutions, how to make the current year the best year ever.

It started January 1st, with John Pavlovitz. Here’s to a New Year of Unpretending. “...So many of us fritter away our days wrongly believing we need to edit ourselves.”  Hmmmm....

In the Lincoln Journal Star on January 1st, were the ideas from Dr. Gabriel Berendes, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, Rock your resolution: How to follow through on your goals for the new year. It described SMART goals as a way to focus on what you want to accomplish:

• S - Specific 
• M- Measurable
• A - Achievable
• R - Relevant
• T - Time-Framed

Sound familiar to any of you?

On January 3rd, Dr. Barton Goldsmith’s 'Emotional Fitness' column in the Journal Star, How you can feel better in the new year. He says, “...Find that feeling of New Year’s hope, and embrace it.” 

Hope. I might only be able to do that if I never read the newspaper or listen to the news. 

The January 4th Journal Star’s 'On Nutrition' column by Barbara Intermill was New year a chance to make better choices. She suggests if we want to make better choices, "Repeat your goal out loud to yourself every day." and "Take it a day at a time." and "...always be kind to yourself."

And the January 5th Journal Star editorial board offered “some hopes, dreams, and things to look for” from our Nebraska Legislature. “It shouldn’t be necessary to urge senators to work ‘across the aisle’ to address these issues as there shouldn’t be an aisle to cross in the nonpartisan body.” 

They are hopeful too! 

So, now it is January 7th, and the only word that seems appropriate for this blog is fragmented. That’s not necessarily the way I want to begin this year.  I want my word of the year to be hope or kindness. 

But wow. The world news is frustrating. This country is definitely fractured. And my head and heart still feel fragmented. Not a good way to start if I want to focus on hope.  

Fragmented, fractured and frustrated, all at the same time. Especially by the actions of many of our national leaders in the last five days. I use the word ‘leaders’ loosely. Frustrated by their current lack of leadership, lack of ability to come together, to find a way to best serve their constituents. Five days, 15 rounds of voting. No action in the House of Representatives until a Speaker of the House was chosen after midnight Friday night, with all the concessions Kevin McCarthy could possibly make to get the votes he needed. He then went to the podium to announce "...my responsibility, our responsibility, is to our country."  Will he think about all of us when bills are brought forward? Or will he spend more time worrying about whether or not any of his colleagues will call a vote to remove him from his role as speaker?  Will we ever know all of the concessions made last night? 

I am also bewildered by the behavior of our legislators, knowing there was so much more behind the scenes, and wanting to understand everyone’s real agenda. Once again we ask ourselves, how did we possibly get to this point in our national government? 

And how did we get to the point where the headline story today was a 1st grade student shooting his teacher? How do we balance that with many of our own state legislators' plans to pass a bill to allow concealed carry of a handgun without a permit? I choose to believe there is no one who would vote to allow a child to carry a gun. But that handgun was somehow available for that child to pick up and take to school yesterday. 

This year there will definitely have to be more than one word of the year. There might need to be more than one word for every month if you look at the first week of January. 

But isn’t that what we love about words! There are so many to pick from at any given moment.

So let’s go back to what I had originally planned for this month. I was planning to write something light, focus on my resolutions for 2023. I was going to title this blog “I’ll be that person.”

I'll be that person who...

- is no longer a procrastinator. Never again using the phrase, “I’ll take care of that later.”

- writes a thank you note to someone every day because every day I know someone to be grateful for as I travel through this life's journey.

- picks up the piece of paper once and files it away so I don’t have piles of paper in every room, not remembering where anything really is located.

- reads an email and then does something with it. Perhaps put it in a folder or simply delete it. Maybe then I won't have 4,241 messages in the inbox.  How did that happen???

- posts the titles of every book I read because the last one is always the “best book I have ever read.”

- takes a photo and has a purpose for it. Then I will use that photo, delete it and no longer have over 3,000 photos on my phone. I know, I know....at least I admit it! Isn’t that the first step?

These are lofty goals for me in this fragmented year. Those who know me may want to remind me, or at least check in, and ask if I am accomplishing any of these goals. As with my workout plan, I do much better when I have someone pushing me to keep going! 

What are your New Year's Resolutions? 

My wish for all of us is that our world becomes calmer.  Maybe calm should be my word of the year.  The definition of calm: the absence of violent or confrontational activity within a place or group. Synonyms are: tranquil, serene, peaceful.  

Yes, calm will be my word for this year. And peace and tranquility are my wishes for each and every one of you this year. 

Happy New Year!

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”                                                                                                  Neil Gaiman

Follow us on Facebook @5 Women Mayhem

Forgiveness, truth and secrets to a happy life

By JoAnne Young 

I have this leather-bound book that when I bought it, about a dozen years ago, had 200 blank pages. In the ensuing years, I have filled it with writings from books, TV shows, movies, documentaries, interviews. All these things that can point me to wisdom and thoughts that are good for me to consider as I make this journey with the rest of you through life. 

In this brand new year, as we come up for some clean air after slogging through the past three years that have been marked by questions and hard truths, doubts, frustrations and hopes, I offer some food for thought from my little brown book. 

* “Truth is love.” 

I’m not sure who said this, but I wrote it down because it made sense. Truth has become so compromised, so subjective, so debated. Is it a system of beliefs? Or the facts? Truth, even based in science and facts, can change over time, from what we knew it to be then, to what we have come to know now. So I am staying with the simple. Truth is love … love that works for the benefit of all, whether they accept it or not.

* “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.” -- Harvard neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor.

Sometimes it’s worth a lot to exit that loop, as quickly as possible. Sometimes, it is OK to stay in the loop, or at least to transform that anger to make it work for you in more productive ways. 

* Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that it could have been any different. – Quoted and requoted many times 

Stay in the past or move on. It’s a choice we have to make – frequently -- but not an easy one. 

* “Never ever depend on governments or institutions to solve any major problems. All social change comes from the passion of individuals.” – Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist 

* “I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.” – Margaret Mead

I bore witness to Mead’s wisdom in my 36 years as a journalist. This quote was pinned to a small bulletin board at my work desk. It gave me encouragement every day. As did this one by Henry Anatole Grunwald, a refugee from Nazi-dominated Austria who rose to become Time magazine's top editor: “Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” 

* “A country that can put a man on the moon can put women in the Constitution.” – Rep. Margaret Heckler (Massachusetts), Republican 

Equal rights are not granted to women in the Constitution. The right to vote is their only right enshrined in the Constitution. Why is this so hard? Why can we not progress? It is a great affront to the women of this country that the Equal Rights Amendment has been ratified after decades of debate, but has yet to be certified and published as the 28^thAmendment to the Constitution. 

* “One of the secrets to a happy life is continuous small treats.” – Dame Iris Murdock, Irish and British novelist and philosopher

I love this. It is in my list of goals for 2023. 

* “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust, author and essayist 

I think of this often when I tire of my surroundings. Yes, it’s a wonderful thing to travel. But most of our time is spent in our hometowns, and this is profound advice. 

* “I want to live in a world of perpetual epiphanies.”

I don’t remember who said this. I had it taped to my computer at work for a long time. Then I took a leave one summer and an intern sat at my desk. When I returned, she had scribbled on it, probably during a phone call when for some strange reason she had nothing else to write on. Rude, right?  I cut out the parts she had written on and was left with “perpetual epiphanies.” I no longer have the paper, but the words are embedded in my head. And I am always on the lookout for them.                          

* Time is our most important possession. Don’t give it to thieves and people who are selfish, egotistical, negative, or who won’t stop talking. – Tim Hoch in Thought Catalog

This is from a list of 10 ways to make your life harder than it has to be. It’s worth googling.  

* “The darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable. And the lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.” – The Indigo Girls 

And then from Grey’s Anatomy: "If you aren't willing to keep looking for light in the darkest of places without stopping, even when it seems impossible, you will never succeed." 

The light and dark are always with us. The human soul, they say, is a place of contradiction and ambiguity, of opposing energies that whisper to each other and exchange notes. We learn from loss, from the negative. To have a shadow is normal. Without both sides, we would have no creative impulse. 

* “Desiderata” -- Max Ehrmann, writer, poet, attorney 

Who among us remembers the poster that hung in so many bedrooms and dorm rooms during our college years?  I will end with excerpts, the beginning and some of the end of the poem, as a benediction, of sorts, for 2023.

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. … And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive (God) to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”

Follow us on Facebook @5WomenMayhem. 

For Just a Moment, I'm Sure She Was There

 By Marilyn Moore

I heard a variation of this sentence several times at holiday gatherings, “For just a moment, I’m sure she was there.”  Words spoken by a friend, in wonder and awe and uncertainty, describing the sense that her mom, who died recently, was there in the room at a family gathering.  For just a moment…seemingly unseen by others, but there, definitely there.  Not just a memory, but…there. Some spoke of not seeing, but hearing the voice, of a parent or grandparent who is no longer living.  Another friend said, somewhat hesitantly, “I talk to them,” and the person sitting next to her said, in a rush, and with relief to hear those words, “So do I.” 

I believe these experiences are real, and that they are true. Several years ago I first learned of the Celtic understanding of “thin places,” those places, or times, where the veil between this world and heaven becomes so thin that we sense we are on the threshold, we sense the presence of God, the Divine, the Holy…. The thin places may be places, like mountaintops (where the air is thin) or sea or prairie horizons (where the sea or land blends into the sky, as one).  Thin places may be times, like dawn, or dusk, where it is neither daylight nor darkness, but the moments between.  And they may be experiences, with music, or art, or an intensely loving moment among two or more people, in which a sense of the presence of the Holy is present.  I’ve experienced these places, and times, and moments…and they are soul-sustaining.

I’ve since come to know that many cultures and faiths have expressions and experiences similar to the thin places.  The Iroquois prophet said, “The distance between our surface world and the world of the spirits is exactly as wide as the edge of the maple leaf.”  Thin, indeed…. 

In Iceland, I heard stories of kindling elves, part of traditional Icelandic culture, who are able to slip easily between realms.  They are described as gatekeepers; I like to think of them as the creatures of the light, escorting others from one realm to the next.  

And in our present physical world, we learned this summer from images from the James Webb telescope that we are able to “see” planets, stars, and galaxies as they were born billion years ago, and as they are coming into life today.  Wondrous, almost magical….but real, very real.  Time folding across vast expanses, literally more than my mind can comprehend, creates the image of a thin place, both physical and temporal…and my soul soars as I catch my breath in awe.

And what does all this have to do with Mom, who died several years ago, whose chair is empty at the family gathering, being present, not only in memory, but for just a moment, really present, as the family gathers?  Thornton Wilder said that there is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge between the two is love.  It seems very real to me that if cultures across time and in many corners of the planet have understood that there are moments when one can be in this world and the next, and that if we have watched as very old stars and very new stars are being born, then with love, it is possible to bridge this world and the next…and Mom is there, for just a moment, really there.  

(I am indebted to Dr. Jane Florence for some of the content of this blog. The application to Mom, however firm or shaky it may be, is totally my own.)

Follow us on Facebook @5 Women Mayhem

In the fallout of overturning abortion rights, give the gift of choice this holiday season

 

By Mary Kay Roth

Drive by Lincoln’s Planned Parenthood these days and the landscape changes moment to moment. Clients are coming and going, as always, while pro-life demonstrators camp just outside Planned Parenthood property, barely on the other side of a hedge boundary line. Consistently they block the driveway entry, sport generic fake Planned Parenthood vests and attempt to stuff propaganda into anyone confused enough to open a car window. Some bow in prayer. Others scream out vicious taunts, “baby killer,” “you are going to hell.” 

Yet tension has heightened even more at Planned Parenthood over past months in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling that overturned our constitutional right to abortion. Numbers surged for zealous pro-lifers – who became emboldened, louder, nastier – at the same time, a new group of gutsy pro-choice demonstrators joined the fray, counter protesting with irreverent signs and chants.

Each week the unease intensifies.  And the circus is likely to get crazier in January as the Nebraska Legislature convenes with abortion debate looming large. In numerous Republican state legislatures, the fight is no longer whether to ban abortions, but how severely to do so.

I am a volunteer for Planned Parenthood, standing sentry on the other side of the property line. Over the last few years my purpose has been a quiet one, walking women from their cars to the front door – and back – hoping to help them feel safe and welcome, serving as something of a buffer to the onslaught of harassment. 

This holiday season, frankly, I am growing weary of watching bullies torment women who simply want to make decisions about their own bodies. So, instead of wrapping up something with a pretty bow, I propose we start making some noise – and show up in the Nebraska Legislature to fight.   All I want for Christmas this year – for our daughters, granddaughters, sisters, mothers – is the gift of choice.  

“We have a collective story about freedom, the freedom to choose our own destiny,” says Thia Hartley, one of the pro-choice demonstrators.  “No one but you can choose how many children you birth or the timing of your pregnancies, whether or not to end a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or to have an abortion to save your life.  Someone else’s religion or politics can’t rule our reproductive lives”

Hartley explains her aim is to help reclaim the space co-opted by pro-life demonstrators – to make sure volunteers and clients know they are not alone. 

“I’m trying to represent the majority of people who are on the side of reproductive freedom and give them an outlet to make their beliefs known.”

Oddly enough, Republican-dominated Nebraska is now perhaps the nation's most unlikely harbor for abortion services. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, Nebraska, with its Republican governor and state legislature – a state that gave Donald Trump a 19 percent victory over Joe Biden – has emerged as a haven for abortion access.

In fact, since the ruling, Planned Parenthood clinics in Lincoln and Omaha — two of the three in Nebraska that provide abortion services — have seen an increase in the number of people from outside the state seeking support. 

As a volunteer I see license plates from conservative states across the Midwest, cars sometimes pulling U-Hauls, others stuffed full of random possessions.  And I am overcome with a sense that the Court’s ruling placed the greatest burden on people who need access to health care the most, women with few resources to allow them to travel hundreds of miles from their homes.

“It was the Roe V Wade decision that was the catalyst for my protest actions,” says Judy King, an audacious pro-choice demonstrator who sometimes sports a tutu and dances around people holding pro-life signs –blasts rock-and-roll music to drown out the hecklers.    

“As an activist the most beneficial thing I can do to protest the pro-life movement is to show up and not let them own the space out in front of Planned Parenthood,” King explains. “Just showing up gives others the courage to do the same thing.  It shows people that you don’t have to be submissive. You can get out there and be brave.”

Last summer, immediately following the Supreme Court ruling, Nebraska Republicans' hopes to fast-track draconian abortion laws were thwarted when Gov. Pete Ricketts opted not to call a special session – when he learned he would fall short of the 33 votes needed for passage.

Such setbacks are odd given the state’s history as a leader in abortion restrictions, enacting the country’s first law banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Currently in Nebraska: 

• Abortion is legal up to the 20th week of pregnancy (except in the municipalities of Hayes Center, Blue Hill, Stapleton, Arnold, Paxton, Brady, Hershey and Wallace, where abortion has been outlawed by local ordinance).
• Exceptions that may allow an abortion after that time: To save the pregnant person’s life; to preserve the pregnant person’s physical health.
• Private insurance policies generally cover abortion only in cases of life endangerment.
• If you are under the age of 18, a parent or legal guardian must give you permission.
• A patient must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage the patient from having an abortion, and then wait 24 hours before the procedure is provided.

“My grandfather's first wife died of blood poisoning in 1905 after aborting herself with a crochet needle,” says Mo Neal, a pro-choice demonstrator who helped start the local RuthsForChoice on Facebook and TikTok.  “My mother had a back-alley abortion in the early 1940's. She was terrified but so damn lucky she survived intact … Like millions of women, we were furious at the Supreme Court …so we decided to push back.”

Battlelines are definitely drawn at the approach of Jan. 4, opening day for the 2023 session of the Nebraska Legislature – with senators now cradling the future of Nebraskans’ reproductive rights in their arms.  

Last spring Gov. Ricketts was crystal clear in his intentions (and most likely those of the incoming governor) to change Nebraska’s state law and prohibit abortions starting at 12 weeks.

Pro-choice advocates are bracing for a fight: “Abortion is still legal in Nebraska. Now, it is our job to hold our elected officials accountable and remind them that Nebraskans are the second house,” proclaims Claire Wiebe, with Planned Parenthood’s North Central States region “When politicians who want to strip away our rights take office in January, Nebraskans will stand up against continued attacks on our health care and reproductive rights.” 

State Sen. Megan Hunt has promised to use every tool in the toolbox to stand against any bans in Nebraska … “and make sure that we keep the government out of the conversation between a patient and their doctor. But, Nebraskans, we really need you to be here at the Capitol physically, to make sure that these senators’ phones are ringing off the hook, to make sure that anybody who wants to enact a full ban on abortion in Nebraska understands where the people of Nebraska are coming from.” 

If, in fact, the Legislature does further restrict women's access to abortion, the road ahead would be challenging.  A statewide initiative could be used to enact or amend a law, or to amend the state constitution, but would require a petition drive to place it on the ballot.  In addition, statewide initiatives can only be placed on the ballot at the “general election in November in even-numbered years,” which means November 2024 is the earliest all Nebraskans could actually vote on this issue. 

“I remind people to stand up and shout for freedom of reproductive choice,” Hartley says. “We can vote, write our state senator, governor, other politicians, talk to family and friends, protest, counter protest, make reproductive rights a discussion in our own churches and social circles. We are about to face a fight this legislative session to keep reproductive freedom in Nebraska. It would be a damn shame if we lost it for ourselves and especially for future generations. The only way we can lose it is to let it slip away.” 

Rest assured, I will continue to join volunteers at Planned Parenthood every week, standing guard and standing vigil.  I ask you to join me this holiday season and pledge to keep watch and speak out at the upcoming Legislative session.  

Wishing you all, peace on Earth, good will to … women.  

Tis the Season

by Mary Reiman

Tis the season for...

-Red bows and white lights 

-Inflatable reindeers and snowmen larger than your front yard

-It’s a Wonderful Life and Christmas Vacation

-Lighting Hanukkah candles                                                    

-Special ornaments of days gone by           

-Opening the windows of the Advent calendar each day

-Jingle Bells and Hark the Herald Angels Sing

-Stocking stuffers (so many decorative socks to choose from these days!)

-Decking the Halls with the Lincoln Symphony

-Oyster Stew

-Spritz cookies (and being so very grateful my sister is carrying on the tradition of making them)

Yes, those may all be possible components of your holiday season. Many are traditions we carry with us from our childhoods. Some are new additions to our repertoire in the last few years. 

But really, as the days get shorter, the nights longer, and the temperatures drop...tis the season of casseroles. Yes, casseroles. They transcend the other holiday traditions. They make us happy all year long, but there is something even more special about them in November and December. They bring us joy, a full stomach and most often grand memories of days gone by.  

If you now think this blog doesn’t really speak to you, you might stop here. However, if you continue reading, you might find a new recipe to try this winter!  

Casserole: a kind of stew or side dish that is cooked slowly in an oven.

Google it and the first entry listed is from the Food Network, “47 Comforting Casserole Recipes/Recipes, Dinners and Easy Meal Ideas.” 

I don’t know about you, but yes, I grew up in casserole (some call them 'hot dish') land. And there was nothing better on a cold winter’s night, especially in the midst of a blizzard when the roads were closed, no school, no electricity except the gas stove in the kitchen which provided warmth for our bodies and casseroles for our souls!  Luckily, we grew up in the era of non-electric can openers so we could get the soup can open in spite of the lack of electricity.  

It's a bit difficult to determine who 'invented' casseroles. "Recipes for casseroles start appearing in American cookbooks in the late 19th century but they really grew in popularity during the Depression and World Wars. Vegetables and starches helped to pad a meal so that a small portion of meat could become a more filling dish during times of hardship.They became even more popular in the mid-20th century as a vehicle for leftovers - often bound together with a can or two of condensed cream of what-have-you soup." https://bit.ly/2rpFWeY

Yes, many casserole recipes include Campbell’s soups. I admit there is always a can of soup in my pantry...it’s a staple. Some people may snub their nose at canned soup, preferring to make their own creamy concoction. I don't often have all the ingredients to quickly make the cream sauce so I turn to the can. Personally, I think canned soups are all American and deserving of their place of honor among Andy Warhol’s paintings. 

Canned soup or homemade sauce, you decide. Either way it will be used to create a warm and creamy delight that will definitely fill your soul with happiness.

If you are lucky enough to have family recipes from the past, I am sure you have favorites and many have different names for the same dishes. My hamburger rice casserole is Nancy's mom's beef rice bake. Tuna noodle casserole or tuna au gratin? Same ingredients, different names. Does it matter if the word 'casserole' is in the name?

Having hand written recipes with detailed instructions brings a bit of nostalgia. I heard on the morning show today that ‘nostalgia’ is prevalent in decorating this holiday season. Good to know. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling sentimental about casseroles this year. 

Perhaps it could be a conversation starter at your next holiday gathering. What is everyone's favorite casserole? You know they all have one, even if they won't admit it.

Yes, I have many of mom’s recipes, including her all-time family favorite. She wrote with great detail, and with options...always options! We made copies of this recipe and gave to the family and friends who joined us for her celebration of life in October. I know several have already tried Junebug’s scalloped corn. 

This is a special season for so many reasons, a busy season for most. In and amongst the attempts to find the perfect gifts, getting out the tubs of decorations, going to a tree farm to cut the tree OR walking to the garage and dusting off the artificial tree before taking it in the house, I wish you a month of nostalgic moments, memory making time with family and friends, and the comfort of the flavors of your favorite casserole!  Tis the season...

Follow us on Facebook @5 Women Mayhem.