“Job Security in America” - A Poem during my own personal COVID-19 quarantine (December 2 through ??, 2022)

The rumor they spread is this:
If you give us
one-hundred-and-ten-percent,
you’ll always have a job.
 
Perhaps that’s true.
 
But you’ll always have a job
that pays you ten percent less
than they promised.
 
Still, it’s only four free hours a week.
An extra forty-eight minutes a day.
One less weekend per month.
 
Where do you find the time?
 
Make sure that the
bodily functions humans require
occur off-the-clock.
Or at least urinate
as quickly as you can.
Be sure to sign-out at lunchtime,
and occasionally forget
to sign-in again.
But don’t do it so often that
you endanger the company
if the auditors come to check.
(Do the auditors ever check?)
 
Mostly, though,
just stay focused,
stay diligent,
stay busy.
Stay.
Anxious.
(Shorten your life
by that ten percent too.)
 
It’s easier
if you’re salaried.
You can sip your coffee slowly.
You can meander to a meeting,
arrive “well-prepared,”
and then stay
and chat beyond the agenda.
You don’t punch a time-clock.
There is no time-clock
that covers a
work-week that has
no beginning
and no end.
Use as much as you need of that
one-hundred-sixty-eight-hour
work-week.
Just make sure the job gets done.
Even if the job is never done.
 
But the rumor is:
If you give us
one-hundred-and-ten-percent
you’ll always have a job.
 
Perhaps that’s true.
 
But when your injury
or your illness
or your grief
or your age
exceeds what the
Human-Resources handbook
says you’re allowed?
No matter how many
years you’ve given
one-hundred-and-ten-percent
you don’t earn the right
to be ten percent slower.
To take ten percent longer.
To get ten percent distracted
when you think
of how empty
the house is
now that they’re
gone.
 
When they’re gone,
by the way, it’s
seventy-two-hours for
bereavement leave.
And, if they’re enlightened,
a sympathy card.
And, if your supervisor
has known a similar loss,
perhaps a week or two,
maybe even a month or more
of adjusted expectations.
 
If they remember
your previous habit
of giving them
one-hundred-and-ten-percent,
they think,
you might do so again.
 
But find closure.
Adjust to the new normal.
Move on with your life.
Because “company policy
doesn’t allow us to accept
anything but your all
for very long.”
Get well soon.
Get over them soon.
And get back to work.
Soon.
 
And then,
unless you can give them the
one-hundred-and-ten-percent
they’ve come to expect,
get to your retirement,
or get to your disability,
or get to your next employer,
soon.
 
Or they will need
to get another
who will give them that
one-hundred-and-ten-percent
for the partial pay they promise.
 
 

-Wm. Darius Myers

Salinas, California

December 10, 2022

Happy Authoritarianism Day!

Ironically, those carrying the Trump banner...have it all backwards.

One year ago today.

Authoritarian supporters of Donald Trump sought to exclude anyone from American society whose necks do not match their hats. Their goal and their tactic have been employed repeatedly throughout history. The conflict between supporters of a governing minority and the governed majority (though only a small segment of that majority spoke up for the excluded) was perhaps most starkly contrasted during the rise of Nazism in Germany.

I had recently been asked about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's three levels of response to governments attempting to impose similar restrictions. About that same time, another friend had posted a meme stating that “you can pray all you want but eventually David had to pick up a stone and act against Goliath.” When I commented, “Try Bonhoeffer's first two steps before we resort to the third. But when it becomes necessary, aim well.” In response, she asked, "Who was Bonhoeffer?" When I saw that question today, I wrote the following.

----------------

Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Christian Pastor, Theologian, and Pacifist - murdered by the Nazis in 1945, just before the liberation of the camp in which he was imprisoned. 

In his 1933 essay, "The Church and the Jewish Question," written just after the Nazis had invoked into their rule over Germany "The Aryan Paragraph," effectively excluding Jewish people from the right to participate in society, Bonhoeffer wrote a recommendation for three levels of response to such actions by the state:

"There are thus three possibilities for action that the church can take vis-à-vis the state: first (as we have said), questioning the state as to the legitimate state character of its actions, that is, making the state responsible for what it does. Second is service to the victims of the state's actions. The church has an unconditional obligation toward the victims of any societal order, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. "Let us work for the good of all." These are both ways in which the church, in its freedom, conducts itself in the interest of a free state. In times when the laws are changing, the church may under no circumstances neglect either of these duties. The third possibility is not just to bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel but to seize the wheel itself."

The more traditional English translation for decades was "to drive a spoke through the wheel itself," but the concept is still the same. In a Constitutional Republic, we have had recourse through various means of holding the state accountable for its actions. Many of us engage regularly in various means of mitigating the damages done to those Bonhoeffer would call "victims of the state's actions." But to take the stone to Goliath's head? That requires careful aim, and careful consideration of whether or not the prior efforts have been attempted and exhausted. 

One year ago today, our Constitutional Republic teetered on the brink of Authoritarianism. We have not stepped back very far from that precipice. And while many of us believe in answered prayer (as my friend's post of the Goliath's head meme suggests), most of us also believe that God answers prayer through motivating our actions toward the good...even when that means violent action against the oppression, domination, and exploitation championed by Authoritarianism.

Cancel Student Loans - For Your Own Good

Per CBO: Industry size in
Billions of Dollars.
Almost $1.4 TRILLION

In the United States, we are continuing to participate in an increasingly fraudulent system. We are continuing to benefit from continuing to entrap students in this growing bait-and-switch scheme. Therefore, until we repent and repair the system, we should at least mitigate the damage done to individual citizens sucked into the so-called 'student-loan' process.

Loan adjustments, forgiveness, or canceling could be more accurately viewed as a matter of victims' compensation. But consider this more self-interested motivation for the American majority: We would greatly improve our entire society's economic health. How? Because the primary beneficiaries of this profiteering are The Wall-Street-One-Percent. Restoring income to individuals results in better profits for Main Street businesses instead of bigger stock portfolios for Wall Street bankers. 

And moving money back to Main Street is foundational to funding our communities’ recovery.

So, whether we support it because it’s the right thing to do, or whether we support it because it’s simply better for local business and thus the more personally profitable thing to do, we should all support “student-loan” adjustments, forgiveness, or even canceling.

  

(As an officially "very-smart-person" duped into "student-loan" circumstances I cannot comprehend, much less control, I endorse this message.) 

Cuties – A Review Wishing You a Successful Adolescence

Among the tasks we each face in adolescence: we try to find our individual identity, that of a former child on the path to becoming a uniquely human person. We distance ourselves to be distinct from family expectations. Yet we often succumb to social pressures, conforming to the behaviors of some peer group instead.

In short: successful adolescence emerges from being molded to familial expectations without being submerged in societal expectations.

Even shorter: successful adolescence is the process of learning to be you.

Many of us never get there (as evidenced by so much angry ignorance being spouted against a film by people who have admittedly never watched it).

In the film Cuties, our protagonist Ami is precocious in making this adolescent transition. She is aware at an earlier age of the damage inflicted by her family’s shallow adherence to the behaviors of their faith. That faith is portrayed as being exploited in order to exploit the women at the center of Ami’s home. But this no-longer-a-child accommodates better than the adults around her the resulting neglect, dysfunction, and shaming. Her efforts even force her to endure an examination for demonic influence, after which the local clergyman pronounces the accusation as unfounded.

Meanwhile, Ami seeks acceptance through conformity to a popular group of girls at school, mastering their juvenile dance moves, then mentoring them in furthering their ambitions: to reflect in their eleven-year-old performances the highly sexualized routines she finds online. The forces of peer pressure, entertainment industries, and social media are shown as constantly pushing the envelope, expanding the horizons, encroaching the boundaries, and trespassing the sensibilities of those who have gone before. It seems clear that all the girls are unaware of the message communicated by the gestures and postures they mimic…until Ami finally understands what others see her body saying.

Spoiler alert: Ami succeeds in the primary task of adolescence. She appears to recognize the same underlying pressures in both systems pulling at her. She not only withdraws from the peer pressure, she rejects the faith-exploiting ritual in which her family engages. And in doing so, she finds an ally to support her, though this occurs a generation later than the viewer might have hoped.

But have no doubts: Ami is a catalyst. Not just in reflecting the exploitation of her family’s faith. Not just in rejecting the sources of social patterning. But in reminding the viewer that we each have the opportunity to view and experience the world as a unique individual. To do so, we must separate from what our family tells us to be. We must separate from what society tells us to be. And we must certainly separate from the opinions of those willing to judge what they will not see.

"Forgive us our trespasses...."

 

As a photographer, I have found myself on the back side of “No Trespassing” signs. Frankly, I saw them only when the landowner pointed them out. But I have also stepped a little too far down an embankment and ruined my pants while saving the camera. I have turned an ankle edging just past the sidewalk’s curb. I have looked at images I helped create, and deleted them when I found a bit more in the frame than I’d seen through the viewfinder. I have deleted images in which the subject’s expression was deemed embarrassing. I have shot dozens of exposures, trying to catch the right moment, angle, light, and pose…only to delete them all as being something less than the art I sought to capture.

And, by letting my reach exceed my grasp, choosing to explore beyond others’ boundaries, and releasing my fear just as surely as I released the shutter, I have experienced the fulfilling joy of being an artist privileged to look (occasionally) at an image that surpasses my vision, my imagination, and my abilities. But it has meant accepting that I sometimes tread onto property that has never been only mine. I cross lines into what others are sure should be only theirs. And I have paid for that privilege and accepted those consequences.

When did you last dare to try something you didn’t already know how to do? What prevents you from investing yourself into finding, fulfilling, and finding fulfillment in the unique, divine talents that have been invested in you? Who told you that you shouldn’t waste your time, risk your security, push your limits, and be your self? Where is the nearest boundary to cross? How would it feel for you to stand up, to step forth, and to walk boldly into showing the rest of us what you can do…what you can be…in fact, what you are?

Why not join me in exploring beyond the boundaries?

It's time to admit it. #WeDoToo

Many in our society participate in, profit from, and perpetuate an injustice system that results in, and seems to require the routine killing of unarmed Black men and others. The outraged reactions to that system’s policies and practices are predictable in their escalation. Given the well-documented history of these events, we must admit that those who build, maintain, and expand that system create the conditions, and provoke these violently outraged reactions. What I wish I could deny, however, is that #WeDoToo.

Those who allow this clear cause-and-effect pattern to exact its cost primarily from minority communities, they bear the responsibility for choosing to benefit from oppression and exploitation. I believe that #WeDoToo.

When they choose not to change the system, but expand it instead, they support, condone, and continue all the parts of that system. And #WeDoToo.

This involves not only the oppression of minority communities, but also the widespread consequences of protests, riots, and looting, and in this most recent cycle, deadly violence against persons. Those who refuse to pursue alternatives escalate the outrage and its tragic expressions. And #WeDoToo.

For me, an essential step in changing the predictable patterns of this system is to admit that “I” am one of “them.” When people like me participate in, profit from, and perpetuate this injustice system, I feel compelled to admit that I truly do cause, support, condone, and escalate the violently outraged reactions to it. I cannot claim that it is about what “they” do, when I know that #WeDoToo.

As emotionally charged as we can be about our entrenched enjoyments, our bountiful benefits, and our eager exploitation of power and privilege built and maintained at the expense of others, when we recognize how “they” fulfill their role in this system, it seems long-past time to admit #WeDoToo.

 

That is the foundational admission that leads to change. Not that I and you can do this or that against each other. Not that we and they do this or that against one another. But that when we imagine that others behave in a way that brings greater damage than healing, we take the courageous step of admitting #WeDoToo.

Do you recognize now not only the injustice, but the terrible danger of supporting this system? Do you want to see an end to the routine killing of unarmed Black men and others? Or do you at least want to diminish the dangers of these violently outraged reactions to the treatment of our minority communities?

They do. And I think #WeDoToo.

In Praise of Boring Consistency

Today’s menu for the family Thanksgiving feast is largely the same as it is each year. Granted, as an ambitious amateur chef, the temptation is to make everything a little more special, add one little surprise dish, or at least find some clever new twist on the tradition of giving thanks around the table. (I’m sure there’s an app for that.) But the point of gathering for Thanksgiving dinner is not to focus attention on the table setting, the turkey recipe (Yes, some people use a recipe.), or the topics of conversation—so long as we avoid the known and obvious points of controversy.

This year, I am seeking to present the usual in as usual a manner as possible. I want to gratify the desire for a familiar family ritual that allows those in attendance to enjoy some excess, to appreciate our abundance, and to remember the security of routine amidst lives often overwhelmed by seemingly random chance.

For the inspiration to attempt this boring consistency, I am indebted to one of the more delightfully demented patients I see regularly. Over the months, she has become more and more aware that she knows me from somewhere. This is especially remarkable because some days she barely knows herself. Sometimes she remembers bits of her history, specific places and vague events, or images that almost give her a grasp on some story…yet not. Still, more and more, whether scheduled to see her, or greeting her on my way to or from other patients in the same facility in which she is a resident, she knows that she knows me.

She doesn’t remember my name—not even from moment to moment in the same visit. She sometimes wonders where she knows me from, because she is sure she’s never been here before (“here” being a facility that has been her home for years). And she does, at times, ask why I am bothering her when all she wants to do is get back to her nap, whether she’d been sleeping or not when I arrived.

But the other day she knew it was me, whoever she thought I was, from across the common area in the facility. She recognized me as someone she knew, even with my back turned, as I was speaking to care staff. Granted, there’s not much I can do with my hair (what little remains). I used to experiment with the length of my beard. And varying my fashion sense to fit popular trends was actually a thing, once upon (too long) a time.

Yet whenever I see patients, I dress the same: button-down collared shirt, sweater vest, and a sport coat. I keep my beard trimmed in the same length and shape. And I try to greet the patient identically at each visit. The familiarity helps, even with patients who have full command of their mental faculties, but especially with those whose shifting perceptions can be disorienting on their best days.

Why is this so important? For the same reasons as I am seeking a boring consistency with Thanksgiving dinner today.

I want the focus to be on the people, the relationships, and the secure sameness we celebrate while living lives that sometimes shift and spiral in directions we cannot anticipate. Whether those lives seem a little random, or get increasingly chaotic, or deteriorate into the dauntingly disappointing, disorienting, and dysfunctional depths to which we all sometimes sink…my prayer for each of us today is that we find some sense of sameness, that we recognize the reality of regular routines, and that we celebrate the security we feel from the familiar, even if only in a fleeting detail or two.

Thankful for the consistent love of God, despite my frequently faltering faithfulness, I pray that my boring consistency helps make me more effective as…

Your servant for Jesus’ sake (II Corinthians 4:5),

Wm. Darius (Bill) Myers