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As I read the help wanted ad for a Newborn Photographer, something unexpected came into focus. I pictured a hospital nursery where a delicate new human being lay in a bassinette swaddled by a soft blanket, a tiny camera around its neck and a press badge for an identification card. I wondered: with career trajectory assured, would this be the beginning of a life of heavenly ease or one of hellish adversity? What if our children came into the world and were immediately labeled not by their genders but by their future occupations? Gone would be the tiny blue and pink caps. In their places would be symbols of their work: cameras and hammers, rolling pins and guns. If we could see into their professional futures, how would we relate to our children? Would it change the way we feel about them? Would they belong to us or to the marketplace? What would our responsibility be as parents in shaping them for a future already assigned at birth, possibly a career that we know nothing about or one that frightens us? Would we embrace some labels and resist others trying to bargain with God to give us the outcome WE dreamed of? And what if the birth certificate said, “Career Criminal,” and the State Department of Vital Statistics said no changes to assignments made at birth will be allowed? Being assigned a career at birth would spare every child that often-asked question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” At points of uncertainty and struggle in my own life, I have envied those people who seemed born knowing what they were meant to do with their lives-- that child of a firefighter who followed her parent to the firehouse, or the computer software developer who found a career with an operating system that echoed that of his own mind. In such imaginings, I envied the freedom from the weight of so many choices, protection from costly missteps, and the opportunity to give the lifetime of focused attention needed to become a young master. Years of life, hours of self-doubt, and thousands of dollars could be saved by making the life choices compatible with our callings. But then I wonder, would such an assignment have freed me or become its own prison? Without trial and error, what would I have given up? What would I have learned about life? Not learned? Who would I not have met? What places might I not have visited or lived? Would the people I consider my dearest, life-long friends still be in the picture as I grow old? And what would I have missed in the struggle that made me who I am? Who I was meant to be? When I project into the future of that Newborn Photographer I try to imagine them creating snapshots of other peoples’ lives and adventures and realizing that they don’t want to take pictures. They want to dance or create delicious food or fly airplanes. With a birth certificate that says “photographer” will they be able to get a different job? Travel freely about the world? Will they become a rebel? A failure? A social outcast? What pain would there be for them living out their days as a photographer when their heart whispers, “I was born for something else?” And what if though assigned, they are not very good at it? What about the self-doubt and self-hatred, the frustration for a lifetime? This leads me to the question: is identity something we are given or something we make? Something we make by association with others and their identities? And why it is acceptable, encouraged even, to lie about some aspects of our identity such as age? To be flattered by misleading others about how long we have lived? Long ago we accepted plastic surgery and youth-promoting products and services – it is okay to lie about your age and surgically transform your appearance if you don’t want to look old or feel old. We applaud the talent and the technology that makes that possible. And yet we consider it a “lie” or wrong if someone is uncomfortable with the gender assigned at birth. We have confused gender‘s social expression with chromosomes and see gender as something given and permanent as opposed to something learned and contrived by society to create a certain order. Surely, the chromosomes don’t change, but what about their expression? Humans created all the rules that define gender expression. Why can’t the rules change as they have for the expression of aging? We feel the most comfortable, the most competent, in the presence of the things we understand. But the world changes and some discomfort is the price of change in order to reap its benefits. It can mean learning a new vocabulary. This can cause resentment in people who feel awkward when they don’t know the jargon, the social courtesies, the rules of engagement and inclusion. It is easier to belittle and dismiss those whose choices make us uncomfortable. Those choices can challenge our own sense of self and identity. These social changes can shake something we thought we knew with certainty about ourselves and the way the world works, but people have always been created this way; they were just prohibited from expressing it. In addition, the world is facing a climate disaster and shrinking habitable environments. Wouldn’t it make sense that Mother Nature would shrink the size of her family to preserve resources for the survival of those born? And what about industry’s impact on gender? The hormone-disrupting chemicals that enter our bodies through the air, the soil, the food supply, the products we rub into our skin and wear on our backs that are changing our biology and, perhaps, adding some confusion in our biological development? There have been so many other social changes in my lifetime, changes that sent shock waves through our culture, changes we now accept as the norm. Among them are organ transplants, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, IVF, single parenthood, divorce, and extended adolescence, men who are gentle and caring. Remember when it was a radical practice for a woman to keep her own name when marrying? Preserve her own identification with the family from which she came? Now she will need her birth name to prove she is a citizen! In nature, we don’t always recognize the gender of God’s creatures, but we admire them still for their beauty, the sound of their song, their graceful movements, and their part in a creation that is wild, mysterious, and magical. Can we not stand back and appreciate the qualities that make us human over those that identify our genders? Through fairy tales like the Ugly Duckling or the Little Mermaid, The Chicken and the Eagle, and pauper kings, we send children a mixed message about identity. We tell these stories to encourage them to “be all they can be,” until it disrupts our view of “normal.” Isn’t pride something we all want to feel about who we are and where we come from? Pride is not earned by taking it from someone else. Sure, it is complicated. We cannot tap our phones and find an answer. It requires education, struggle, living with discomfort, and ultimately, it requires conversation to reach not just an understanding, but an appreciation, of who we are individually and collectively. For me, now, when hate and cruelty are becoming the social norm, I am more concerned about a person’s expression of character than I am about their expression of gender. Perhaps we do need a newborn photographer, one who is destined to capture us in a better light.
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On this date in 1743 Thomas Jefferson was born. On this date in 2025 I imagine him rolling over in his grave, clawing at the earth in a desperate attempt to salvage the democracy he helped to birth.
Some time ago, I read a work by a historian who said that Thomas Jefferson never imagined that someone like Donald Trump could ever be elected president. Jefferson had more faith in Americans than that. Despite the inventor, thinker, and writer that he was, I guess Jefferson never imagined the power of social media to corrupt the flow of information along with our minds, morals, and democracy. As the news becomes more grim these words (attributed to Voltaire) have been on repeat in my mind: Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. In honor of Jefferson's birthday, I would ask that you send a birthday note or card or email to your elected representatives and share this quote. Ask them, "How far are you willing to go in supporting Donald Trump's agenda?" Demand a reply. Courage is the sister of anger, and so my sisters and brothers, let's honor our forefathers today. Pick up a pen, a phone, a tablet, or a laptop and let our elected officials know we are watching, and we will not allow them to destroy us, our fellow citizens, or our inheritance. This is a little late getting out, but I’m…
Well, the truth is, I’m tired. And that summarizes the state of the union: the American people are tired. Sure, COVID took a toll on all of us, maybe even broke us—turned many into angry, lonely, conspiracy theorists bloated by too much take-out food and hopeless from stubborn inflation and a housing crisis. We could move on if we could find our breath, but let’s face it, COVID was just a slice of the weary pie. What else is making us so tired? We’re tired of chaos and anarchy—people who live in a world of one and want to tell the rest of us how to live. We’re tired of leaders and executives who could have, should have, would have…but waited until their book was published to speak out. We’re tired of elected officials who care only about THEIR futures, politicians who work for their own interests and forget the people they represent. Now they want to skip town halls. They don’t want to face the music. They cover their eyes like toddlers and pretend you can’t see them if they can’t see you. In typical take-no-responsibility-fashion, they dismiss the feelings of the people, the will of the people, by creating yet another conspiracy theory--paid hecklers. We’re tired of disparate justice. A man steals from rich white folks in a Ponzi scheme and gets 150 years in prison. A group of people stage an assault on the U. S. Capitol, the peoples’ house, causing destruction and death, and it is called a love fest, and the perpetrators are pardoned. We’re tired of the worn vocabulary, tired of hearing about “elites” from people who could not be more elite: Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, and most other elected officials. We’re tired of the term “woke,” a misused label applied to people who care about others and a more equal society, a misuse of the word to disparage and silence others from waking up to what is really happening. We’re tired of the dismissal of concerns with the label “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Truth is, as many experts have pointed out, Trump is deranged. We’re tired of hearing, “what about the other guy” as a defense for bad behavior and lack of effort and productivity. Our representatives are too busy trying to find fault and shame with the other side to get any real work done. We’re tired of hearing about “the base” and other mythical armies. The majority of Americans set themselves apart from the mysterious base. The majority of Americans are not base and do not want to be associated with base behavior. The majority of Americans are honorable and decent. We work hard and try to be good neighbors, thoughtful consumers, and educated voters. We are tired of Elon Musk and his money-saving charade. You want to save money? How about no more weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago at the taxpayer’s expense? Why doesn’t the President stay home in the house that Americans provided? We all know what’s going on—charging us for travel, to play golf, and house a security detail to make a personal estate more profitable. How about selling the Vice President’s home? Let him purchase his own place. How about we cut back on perks to government officials? Let’s put elected officials on Social Security and let them find their own health insurance instead of providing them with Cadillac benefits the rest of Americans cannot afford. The way Elon Musk and this administration treat America’s federal work force does not say, Make America Great Again. It says, Make Americans Grovel again--more of the administration’s campaign of humiliation and cruelty. Finally, we’re tired of Donald Trump. Tired of hearing him. Tired of hearing about him. Tired of looking at him. #47, you have not made America great again. You have broken the promises that got you elected. You have worn us out, made us tired. You shout “law and order” as you violate every rule of law, every rule of decency, every social courtesy. You shame us in front of the world. If you want to be a celebrity and live in a fictional universe, move to Hollywood and get out of the White House. Listening to you is like being tortured to death by nails on a chalkboard. Asking you to go away will simply fuel your oppositional, vengeful nature, and you will turn up the volume and the frequency. You are the biggest reason Americans are so weary. You have drained the swamp—of its last bits of remaining decency--and it turns out that you are the swamp creature. You are remaking America in your image: cruel and hate-filled, fake tan, fake wealth, fake love of country. And now you want to be King. Well, you already are, The Lyin’ King, with 30,000 documented lies just from your first term in office. Word has leaked that you desperately want to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but you have no insight into the actions or the heart of a peacemaker. You have demonstrated that you are incapable of empathy, forgiveness, and peace. Perhaps you have no inner peace from which to draw on. You are a man at war with everyone and everything that is decent. Life is a retribution campaign not a peace march. Because of you, the entire world order has been disrupted. Where will weary Americans find the strength to face a war? You have not made America great again. In a few short weeks, you have made America friendless, frightened, and soon, broke. Beds are opening up at Guantanamo. Maybe that will be the only place left for the weary to go by the time #47 is through with us. You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm driving against a wall and like the heat of the desert. Isaiah 24:4 Trying to keep up with Trump’s well-practiced strategy of flooding the zone is exhausting. Overnight, he upended 250 years of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Less than a month into his term, the flood waters are so deep, we are in need of an ark. I am not sure how the simple word “groceries” turned into all of this chaos. Maybe Trump is afraid that if he lowers the price of eggs people will begin throwing bird-flu-infected ova at him. Hate to tell you, #47, but you already have egg on your face—critical Day One promises have been broken: groceries are more expensive. There is still a war in Ukraine. In one of Trump’s latest moves, he fired the Chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and named himself Chairman despite the fact that he’s never seen a performance there. I guess #47 is planning a revival of Jesus Christ Superstar and wants to ensure he gets the title role surrounded by The 12 Village People. I am willing to give the guy a break; he probably just wants to show off his dance moves and his Jesus complex. In another puzzling move, even as he shuttered government offices and dismantled USAID, #47 established an Office for Faith. He wants to Make America Christian Again. He even appointed a woman to head this new office. No D-E-I there, just a gospel of P-R-O-S-P-E-R-I-T-Y. That, along with his new merit system L-O-Y-A-L-T-Y, form the foundation of his religion. Even the fundamentalist Christians of Trump’s base responded with fury. They have called the appointee a heretic, and a W-O-M-A-N. In their view, God does not want women as preachers or church leaders. Why, #47 has even taken it upon himself to speak up for my homies, the Catholics, saying that Democrats have abandoned us. I had no idea... Finding this all very confusing, I turned to the Catholic reference manual to see how all of this lines up with the actual word of God. I began searching my Bible for relevant passages that could explain #47’s character, words, and behavior in light of his pronouncements about faith and Christianity. I even scoured the internet and sought the help of ChatGPT, but there was nothing to explain the paradox. Later, during a night of restless sleep, it came to me in a dream. I pictured a day in June 2020 when #47 was still #45 and people had taken to the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd. I saw a man in a suit standing in front of St. John’s Church in Washington, D. C. My foggy brain zeroed in—Yes! That was him! #45 was holding a Bible. Upside down. The revelation jarred me from my sleep and I jumped out of bed. Grabbing the family Bible from the shelf, I turned to the Ten Commandments and began reading: Commandment 1: You shall have no other gods before me. Turning the heavy book upside down, I could see #47’s interpretation. There were no other gods before him. How about Commandment 4: Keep holy the Sabbath? Upside down it could be interpreted as “Play a few holes on Sunday.” I was getting somewhere, a much deeper understanding, but then... Commandment 6: You shall not murder. I am still struggling with this one. No matter how I turned the Bible, even standing on my head, I just couldn’t see how that might read: “Hang Mike Pence.” On to Commandment 7: You shall not commit adultery. Giving #47 the benefit of the doubt, and going with the possibility that he has read more of the Bible, I found at least 30 passages about the storms of life. It’s quite possible, in an upside down world, that he summarized and came to the conclusion that he had permission to do Stormy Daniels. Down to Commandment 8: Thou shall not steal. From the reporting of staff during #47’s first administration, #47 is not much of a reader. He prefers to keep things short and to scan for the details. I can see how, at a quick glance, Commandment 8 might seem like an order to “Stop the Steal.” And finally, how about Commandment 10: Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s house or anything that is your neighbors?” Again, in all fairness, it didn’t specifically say Canada, Mexico, or Panama. And Greenland isn’t technically a “neighbor.” Maybe #47 isn’t the fascist we fear. Maybe he just needs some glasses and some Ritalin…and maybe a heart transplant. I’m no priest or preacher, but I read my Bible right side up. And I am sure of two things that will get us through this storm: God’s greatest commandment recorded in John 13: As I have loved you, so you must love one another. And it was Jesus who spoke of fear even more times than he spoke of love. I keep this passage from Matthew 17:7 on a poster in my bedroom where I see it when I open my eyes each morning: Arise, and do not be afraid. When there is very little else left to believe in, one can still believe in an honest loaf of fragrant home-baked bread. --Anna Thomas Bread is my favorite food. Always has been. Always will be. There is no aroma more pleasing than the smell of baking bread. Perhaps the scent is programmed into our DNA for survival. I grew up watching my grandmother mix and knead raisin bread in a large wooden bowl on the kitchen counter. It was a treat so special, so delicious, so connected to home and family that even the memory is a magical food for me, a bread of life. I am from an immigrant people who ate their food wrapped in flat bread. Long before Middle-eastern food became popular in American restaurants, my uncles would return from the Syrian bakery in the city with a flatbread we all loved. We tore off pieces to scoop up rice and lentils, bits of lamb, or tabbouleh, the bread absorbing all of the delicious, savory juices from our plates on a table in a house where food was served in proportion to the love. I have lived most of my life in the American Midwest, and I grew up traveling extensively throughout America’s wider bread basket awed by its amber waves of grain. A trail of bread crumbs always brought me home, and it was sandwiches that made sustenance possible while on the move. Back at home, we were sustained by the Midwesterner’s favorite mid-day meal: a grilled cheese sandwich alongside a bowl of hearty, cream soup. Even stale, bread was full of possibilities—a delicious bread pudding, stuffing for poultry, or food to feed the ducks down at the pond or crumbs to sprinkle about the yard for the birds. Thanks to Wonder Bread, all unique and fabulous things are now compared to the wonder of sliced bread. As a child I played with that bread and marveled at how, with its soft texture, it easily could be pinched or squeezed back into little balls of dough. I memorized the jingle: “Wonder Bread builds strong bodies 12 ways” with its combination of added vitamins and minerals. On sick days throughout my early childhood there was no better medicine than sweet cinnamon toast made from Wonder Bread and delivered to me on the couch. Later, in my adult years, and to my great delight, Panera entered the scene. A fast food restaurant devoted to BREAD—a preview of heaven as far as I was concerned. I love it all: the pitas and flatbreads, the baguettes, the bagels, and the hearty, chewy artisan breads made by skilled bakers like my grandmother. Whether or not I need it, I am drawn to the bread aisle of my giant grocery store. A fragrant bouquet emanates from there despite all of the plastic packaging. The vast array of breads tantalizes my senses, and I wander the bread aisle drinking in the scent like a sommelier sniffing the cork from a bottle of fine wine. In poetry and literature, bread is the embodiment of ideas about abundance and love. In church, bread symbolizes God’s presence and provision. Receiving the blessed bread is a sacrament. We share bread in communion, coming together in faith, trust, compassion, and solidarity with Christ. On this cold inauguration day when it seems possible that hell has frozen over, I am drawn to bread, the great symbol of comfort, nourishment, and community. Today, the inaugural stage will be occupied by men of great wealth and power who seem to care greatly about their dough while the rest of the masses are starving for bread. And so it is we the people who must cast our bread upon the waters today and join with the Living Bread letting divine words take hold of our hearts. As we go forward, come what may, let us break bread together and be nourished by the Bread of Life even as we pray: Give us this day our daily bread… …and deliver us from evil. Amen. Bread for myself is a material question…Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one. –Nikolai Berdyaev |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
June 2025
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