2/28/25

Last evening I manned a station at my granddaughter’s Elementary School Heritage Night…a time for students to share their origins. 

Children from kindergarten to the fifth grade helped their parents set up tables loaded with native foods, deserts, candies, pictures, costumes, and posters proudly sharing their origins.

 My family had one of the two tables from Europe, Italy and Poland, dwarfed in number by tables from South America, Central America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Southeast Asia. 

Children whose parents and grandparents came from all corners of the world ran excitedly from table to table sampling foods. Later, shyly at first, their parents did the same until the large crowd became a collage of colors and a people of One. Smiles lit the room as children continued to mix the adults into a beautiful blend. 

I tasted foods from Africa at first and deserts from Armenia but then quickly returned to my stall to hand out biscotti, and chunks of panettone. Anyone who knows this Italian cake bread knows it is difficult to cut, rather it is eaten in “hunks” of moist pure pleasure. 

 I was amazed that over two hours one cake fed more than 100 people each with eyes aglow at the unique taste as it exploded in their mouths. I at one point wondered at the Miracle of Loaves and wondered at how it was that I fed so many. I turned to discover the truth…Angel was replacing hunks as quickly as I could hand them out…

Angel smiled and glowed while I bowed my thanks. 

I saw America last night through a throng of children and parents fed and sustained by so many different foods …including a  “Miracle of the Loaf”…

Pass the last hunk of Panettone please…

2/2/25

This morning, while grocery shopping, I happened upon a magazine stand and considered buying this book. As I thumbed through the pages, I decided it best to leave it on the shelf  as I already have enough books.

Walking away I pondered at the various pages that I had perused and  thought to today’s events happening in this country and throughout the world. We have lived in a recently peaceful time characterized as a “democracy” here in this country, but it would appear that we are heading towards the age of Oligarchs similar to our Gilded age in the late 1800s. One only look at the photographs of the recent inauguration to see who was surrounding the returning president.

Throughout our 12,000 year history, there have always been at least two levels of society, those on the top with power and wealth and all the rest of us who live our daily lives as best we can. If we are honest with ourselves the recent Middle Class is in reality the upper level of the lower society. 

I am reminded of the Renaissance with the Medici family  and the Popes and how much they fought with each other, yet must recall the vast majority of the people who lived in the lower levels of society worked their daily lives with the impact of these upper level fights seen only when drafted into the army or when overly taxed to support power or wealth seeking endeavors. 

The vast majority of us are peanuts in history.

I am reminded of the Tolstoy’s great work, War and Peace where throughout the novel the two levels of society mix on the battlefield and at home. The novel is great, not only as a piece of literature, but also as an examination of human society as it travels through times both “good and bad”.

Our times may be unique in that the media from all different aspects, seduce the lower levels of society to continuously “watch” the upper level of society …an intricate soap opera with new episodes on a daily basis. 

For 10,000 years these conflicts have raged, but the vast majority of the time they occur offstage. 

Mass media has changed that.

I have come to realize that, regardless of what politicians say, regardless of what party they belong to, or regardless of what we think of them, they have little concern for those of us who are the peanuts. They are playing their game at a higher level, often at the cost of our lives and fortunes. The media forces us to believe that they have some good or bad intentions towards us, but in all honesty, I don’t think they’re really care at all. We are nothing more than a source of revenue through taxes or canon fodder in times of war. 

War and Peace examines  yet another level of society, if we could call it that,  in the movement of history through time. It examines the question and makes us ponder, whether or not either of the two levels of society have any impact on the marching of history or whether or not the path is set in pattern by our genetics, the environment, mathematics, Darwinian evolution, or some Divine will.

Even those at the top who believe themselves important will find that there are nothing more than footprints in the drifting sands of time. Go buy the book I looked at this am if you doubt this.

How does one deal with this on a day-to-day basis? It is my belief that we would all be much better off  if we would ignore the media and its drama , and concentrate on what we can do for our own level of society. 

I do this through working in rural healthcare for those in need, and recently have put on my radar food programs at my granddaughter’s local elementary school so the children do not go without breakfast or lunch if an Oligarch decides to siphon away money for his agenda. In addition, I am becoming more attuned  to those who may need help who are being persecuted by the upper levels for their own personal gains.

Regardless of whether or not you believe in CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBCS, NBC, or PBS , whoever, they too have little interest in the needs of the lower classes, but in all honesty are rather motivated by the marketing and profit of advertising. 

I think we would all be better off if we would turn away from the mass media,  look to our own people and find ways to help each other on a local basis out of  any limelight.

There is a saying that taxes and death are inevitable, and in fact, that  is true. But at the same time we can make the lives of those around us better by concentrating on their needs rather than spending time “chewing the cud’  about what the Medicis  and Popes are doing in their palaces. 

I recently painted this picture and try every day to live my life accordingly.

Stay safe in these times.