Category: Observations

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Ukraine Notes:  Life Engages Art

Several observations from the Ukraine war.

LIFE: 

From a post by an American leaving the country with his Ukrainian wife:

I wasn’t a big fan of President Zelensky when he was elected. My wife and our friends didn’t support him; they didn’t think the former comedian was serious or particularly effective.

But in the past few days I’ve seen that the man has balls of steel. I get goosebumps when I watch him speak. This is a man who leads from the front. As Nassim Taleb would say, he has skin in the game. If he loses—if Ukraine loses—he’s going to lose his life. I respect him so much now.    Eugene Katchalov

ART:

“How Can Man Die Better Than Facing Fearful Odds”

By Thomas Babington Macaulay

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.”

Haul down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?

—Lays of Ancient Rome (1842)

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LIFE: 

From a post by Lauren Elizabeth:

I have not been able to stop thinking about the Ukrainian woman who was filmed approaching a Russian soldier, offered sunflower seeds, and said:

“Take these seeds and put them in your pockets so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here…”

Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine.

ART:

From a post by Andy Tobias this week (click on link):

In so much of life, it’s not clear where exactly truth or justice lie . . . what balance between alternatives is best . . . what compromises are most reasonable.  All that.  For sure.

But other times, there is clear good and evil.

This is one of them.    (As, 80 years ago, was this.)

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LIFE: 

 BBC to launch shortwave radio service in Ukraine and Russia.   March 3, 2022

In order to reach audiences across Ukraine and in parts of Russia, the BBC will start a daily shortwave transmission to ensure access and the “resilience of its news operations.” Listeners can tune their receivers to 15735kHz from 18:00-20:00 and 5875 kHz from 00:00-02:00, Kyiv time. Shortwave radio is difficult to disrupt or censor. It is also useful for emergency communications in the event that internet connectivity or other radio signal is lost.  (Kiev Independent)

ART:  (humor)

Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities: No need to declare captured Russian tanks,    equipment as income.  

The National Agency for the Protection against Corruption has stated that captured Russian tanks and equipment do not need to be declared to tax authorities. This is because the value of this “crap” does not exceed 100 living wages. . . On a serious note, it said that war trophies are untaxable.    March 3, 2022  (Kiev Independent)

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ART and Life Together

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Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Frost’s poems are simple and profound.   The words are easy to understand, but latent with meaning.   The repeated final lines of “miles to go” is haunting.

Is it the speaker’s temptation to avoid obligations, to remain in the “lovely” woods, aware of duties elsewhere? That he must go farther, physically and metaphorically, before he can finally rest?

The poem’s wagon driver narrator is all of us.  As we close this week which includes both Mardi Gras’ revelries and Ash Wednesday reflections, as the example of human barbarity continues in Ukraine, and as we each bear personal worries, what are our “promises to keep?”

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

 

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

 

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Yesterday the Most Important GAC Speaker Missed His Scheduled Appearance

In the gaggle of bipartisan congress speakers, the nobility of CUNA praising attendees, the inside the beltway literati’s wisdom, and the obligatory regulatory updates, there is one person who  missed his scheduled talk.

Chef and humanitarian José Andrés was to participate in a fireside chat with National Credit Union Foundation Executive Director Gigi Hyland on Monday.  The public purpose was to talk “how he lives out the ‘people helping people’ mission through his global humanitarian efforts as a passionate human rights advocate.

Chef Andres is not in Washington DC.  He was on the ground feeding refugees at the Polish-Ukrainian border where his World Central Kitchen has served more than 8,000 meals.

In a TV interview last night, his destination today was to go into Ukraine.

Chef Andres work in places of natural disaster such as Haiti, flood and hurricane regions of the American south and throughout the world have been widely reported.

In March 2020 I witnessed his work locally.   The entire economy had been shut down.  Restaurants were closed, but Chef Andres kept his Bethesda location, Jaleo open.  His staff was still employed providing free meals for several hours each day to workers and anyone else who needed access to food.

The occasion for his absence may say more than an appearance at GAC could have ever accomplished.

For Jose Andres embodies an aspect of “people helping people” that is often overlooked: he runs, not walks, toward danger, need and human suffering.

Walking Toward Member Problems in Credit Unions

Some of the most powerful examples of the cooperative model at work are when leaders walk toward, not away from their member’s needs.  Here are some examples:

  • In 2009 a Dayton credit union continued and expanded its dealer lending program when all other lenders backed out because the traditional car title collateral was suspect as the auto manufacturers faced bankruptcy.
  • A Florida credit union rewrote first mortgages with payments extending out 50 years to keep members in homes as  incomes were reduced by over half by job loss;
  • Credit unions in Lowell, MA (Cambodian), in St Paul MN (Hmong) and in Missoula, MT (sub-Saharan Africa) serve refugees from all over the world who are new to this country’s financial options.
  • The New York City taxi lender who divided his loans into A and B notes.  A was pay what you earn; B-we’ll worry about later.

Two Crises

In the national Covid economic shutdown in March 2020 there are thousands of examples of credit unions willing to walk in the members’ shoes, share their collective capital by waiving fees and giving loan payment holidays all the while setting up remote delivery options literally overnight.  Employees worked from new home offices and kept their full pay.

Perhaps the most consequential example was when I watched the CEO of the second largest credit union in America offer the senior management of NCUA a solution to the Corporate crisis in early 2009.  He said his credit union and his peers would buy all the legacy assets and carry them on their books if NCUA would guarantee no loss of principal.  He was turned down.  NCUA instead guaranteed wall street investors in the NGN program so they could walk away from the problem.

A Unique Capability

The cooperative model is unique in its capacity to walk the extra mile for its members when they are in harm’s way.   That is what self-help means.  Putting member needs first in all circumstances.

I don’t know what Chef Andres would have said in a “fireside chat” at the GAC.  However I believe his personal witness is more important than any words he may have used.

I would hope his example might inspire everyone to ask again what our slogan of “people helping people” means in today’s world.

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Notes on Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom

President Zelensky’s response to US offer to airlift him from Kyiv:

“The fight is here.   I need ammunition, I don’t need a ride.”   (NYTimes Feb 26)

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From the staff of Music Mission Kiev, a nonprofit charity serving musicians, widows and orphans in the city:

Here is the word today from our VP of Operations, Serhiy Basarab: “We definitely do NOT feel safe. There is fighting where Oksana and Pastor Ruslan live. I just spoke with Oksana and other people. We clearly feel betrayed by the West. Pastor Ruslan is already at the drafting board with his unit. There are no weapons for us, he is writing to me in despair.    (February 25)

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Victor Havel, the first President of a free Czechoslovakia, a playwright and long-time dissident against Soviet rule:

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather the ability to work for something because it is good not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is.   Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.   It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.”  

It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now. 

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Why Ukraine Matters to America

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . .  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

 

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Military Credit Unions in Wartime

War has broken out in Ukraine.  All of Eastern Europe is on alert.  Some credit members are on the move.  Others wait to learn what’s next.

When a geo-political crisis occurs, America will be involved.   How much and when depends on events.

One sector of our society at the leading edge of these situations are military credit unions.   Many have spent years planning to help their member’s financial preparedness for whatever comes next.

Frontwave Credit Union’s Military Relations Team

The credit union’s self-description: There aren’t many communities like this one. One foot in the Pacific, the other in the desert. Home to the world’s greatest fighting forces — and a community of blue-collar fighters.

Five years ago, CEO Bill Birnie established the Military Relations Team.  He hired Chip Dykes and two other former marines to lead this group which focuses directly on the financial well-being of military members and their families.

Over 50% of the credit unions 117,000  members are current or former military members and family.

Front wave has been the credit union on base at Camp Pendleton since 1952.   It also serves at three other bases in the area.

Camp Pendleton is the location for all initial basic training on the West Coast for over 17,000 new marine recruits each year.  Bill was concerned about retention of these new military members, many of whom would be assigned out of the area after training.

Chip’s team are all certified financial counselors.  Their purpose is education  on all aspects of money management and financial planning for the new recruits and during every phase of subsequent training.

This counseling is especially important prior to deployment.  For example how do you follow your finances when in an area with no Internet?

The team focuses on member’s financial needs at all levels of the service at each of the four bases where they have branches.   In 2021 they provided over 10,000 marines and family members with basic and more advanced financial courses.

Helping Credit Union Staff Understand the Military Member

Just as important is helping credit union staff understand the needs of the military member with whom they work with daily.

Bill and all three team members are marines.  Many staff have had little direct experience of military life.  The team’s internal mission is to help customer service personnel understand needs from the military member’s perspective.

The Ukraine Crisis

When events such as the Ukraine invasion occur, “our ears perk up,” says Dykes.  The European theater is served from units located on the East Coast, so it may not immediately affect West coast units.

When there are relocations,  the team works directly with  all units on the ground to ensure their financial and personal affairs are in order.  And to offer help to family while the service member is away.

Following Events in Ukraine

This article provides a current visual map of Ukraine and the population of its major cities which are now referenced in hourly news updates.  Facts on the country’s demographic trends, its major natural resources and a short history of its relations with the Russian Bear are summarized after the large scale country portrait.

Solzhenitsyn on Ukraine-Russia Relations

(from an essay written June 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea)

“It pains me to write this as Ukraine and Russia are merged in my blood, in my heart, and in my thoughts. But extensive experience of friendly contacts with Ukrainians in the camps has shown me how much of a painful grudge they hold. Our generation will not escape from paying for the mistakes of our fathers.”

There are several terrific English language websites which provide news directly from Ukraine, which are updated frequently.  One is Kyiv Independent and the second the English section of the Ukrainian Information Agency.

The Independent includes minute by minute stories from across the country.

I will share other examples of credit unions serving their members who are or will be on the front lines of this crisis.

 

 

 

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Musings from Books on a Shelf

This poem by Johnson captures that phase of life when we realize our powers are failing.

The author’s eye travels along a shelf of books not to be read, or records not to be heard, again.

Aging entails leaving behind earlier capabilities.

I’m not sure the  voice is one of regret or just acknowledging the loss of past joys.

We will all come to this point where we “can’t all buy them again” unable  to fully experience life’s richness as we once intended.

Standing by a Shelf

Brandon  D. Johnson

When he looks at the edges,
The covers of books and records,
He remembers when and where
He got them, how it felt.
Everything’s a testament
To life lived on the fringe
Of some sense of sanity.All the vehicles for imbibing
These treasures are obsolete.
Even his eyes and ears, as their
Function fades under each year’s
Mud and tussle to stay aliveThe damned fine few who know
Try not to lose the memories,
Talk as if each was there
For the other, laughter supplants tears.
If he can, a story gets written
About each song, how a chord
A lyric, the last line of a book

Make more sense, the same as the
Warnings his mother threw
at fledgling feet like seeds in soil.

He wishes he could buy them all again,
Heed the messages, grow as if
Each signpost was a vitamin
Make what became a recollection
A catalyst for pathfinding and strength.

 

Brandon D. Johnson is the author of Love’s Skin (The Word Works, 2006); The Strangers Between (Tell Me Somethin Books, 1999); and co-author of The Black Rooster Social Inn: This Is the Place (Spike and Pepper Books, 1997). He lives in Washington, D.C.

 

 

 
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Friday Nite Film Time

Redeeming Uncle TomI follow   Jared Block’s blog.  He was involved in the documentary described below.   Looks like a special event for this evening.  Let me know what you think.

Hey friends,

In addition to my thrice-a-week Surviving Tomorrow column, I also publish booksand direct documentaries.

One of those films is about an unbelievable hero that almost no one knows about:

  • The Prime Minister of Great Britain threw him a surprise banquet.
  • Earl Grey offered him a job.
  • The Archbishop of Canterbury wept after hearing his story.
  • President Rutherford B. Hayes entertained him at the White House.
  • Queen Victoria invited him to Windsor Castle.
  • He won a medal at the first World’s Fair in London.
  • He was the first African American to appear on a Canadian stamp.
  • He was a Methodist Episcopal elder with a 300-mile district under his care.
  • He rescued 118 slaves, including his brother.
  • He helped build a 500-person freeman settlement, called Dawn, which was known as one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad.
  • Inspired by his story, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a novel that helped spark the Civil War and led to the Emancipation Proclamation.

But before all that, Josiah Henson was a slave for 42 years.

The film is called Redeeming Uncle Tom, and it’s narrated by Danny Glover.

This Friday night, the Indiana State Museum’s Levi & Catharine Coffin House is hosting an online digital screening of the film on Zoom. I’ll be introducing the film and doing a director-led Q&A afterward.

Register: Right here

Cost: $8

Date: Friday Feb 18th

Time: 6:00-8:30PM EST

Zoom link
Meeting ID: 857 5744 1006
Passcode: 326677

See you there!

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Bon Mots V: Human Motivations

Whole bank purchases:

“We’ve heard from clients that the offers from credit unions are better in many cases,” Silvia says. “One of the most important things to think about is what is the best thing for the shareholders, which is generally getting the highest price.”

Not only do credit unions often offer the highest price, he says, they will likely pay in cash.” Garret Reich The Financial Brand

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Buying things is an installed habit, especially for Americans. I have friends who use shopping as a kind of therapy, and their homes are filled with trash.

And, as a result, we have a lot of stuff, stuff we really don’t need.

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Ockham’s razor (rule): Given multiple choices, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It’s also known as the principle of parsimony and is an academic’s way of saying, “When you hear hoof beats, don’t think zebras.”

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People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes.” George Orwell

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We are all quite capable of doing “horrid things,” especially in horrid situations. But before we do a horrid thing we must be quite certain that we actually are in a horrid situation.

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I’m convinced all of us, in one way or another—have an intense resistance to change. We like predictability and control. That’s one of the reasons addicts find it easier to have a relationship with a process or a substance rather than with people. Unlike objects, people are unpredictable.

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“The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures.”  Pope Frances

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“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” Joan Didion

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This Weekend’s Reading:  The story of why the Howard Johnson (28 flavors), America’s most popular roadside restaurant company, disappeared.

 

 

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O Black and Unknown Bards

The author of this poem is perhaps best remembered as the composer of  Lift Every Voice and Sing, often referred to as the black national anthem.

This 8 minute version by the students at Pearl-Cohn entertainment magnet high school in Memphis is a very contemporary arrangement with rap.

Weldon’s poetic spirit is combined with his love of music in the stanzas  below calling out spirituals.

For me spirituals have a wholly different feeling than most other music.  When sung, they are communal,  emotional and revelatory.  They tell of hope or longing.  And they invite everyone into the experience.

This poem celebrating these songs from the soul was published in 1922.

O Black and Unknown Bards

by James Weldon Johnson – 1871-1938

O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre?
Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?
Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?

Heart of what slave poured out such melody
As “Steal away to Jesus”? On its strains
His spirit must have nightly floated free,
Though still about his hands he felt his chains.
Who heard great “Jordan roll”? Whose starward eye
Saw chariot “swing low”? And who was he
That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,
“Nobody knows de trouble I see”?

What merely living clod, what captive thing,
Could up toward God through all its darkness grope,
And find within its deadened heart to sing
These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope?
How did it catch that subtle undertone,
That note in music heard not with the ears?
How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown,
Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears.

Not that great German master in his dream
Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars
At the creation, ever heard a theme
Nobler than “Go down, Moses.” Mark its bars
How like a mighty trumpet-call they stir
The blood. Such are the notes that men have sung
Going to valorous deeds; such tones there were
That helped make history when Time was young.

There is a wide, wide wonder in it all,
That from degraded rest and servile toil
The fiery spirit of the seer should call
These simple children of the sun and soil.
O black slave singers, gone, forgot, unfamed,
You—you alone, of all the long, long line
Of those who’ve sung untaught, unknown, unnamed,
Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.

You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings;
No chant of bloody war, no exulting pean
Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble strings
You touched in chord with music empyrean.
You sang far better than you knew; the songs
That for your listeners’ hungry hearts sufficed
Still live,—but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.

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A Prayer on Sunday Morning

Praying is a mysterious human activity. It can be experienced in many ways.

Sometimes more happens than listening to words whether said aloud or thought silently.  There can occur moments of new awareness.

My internal concerns are intwined with a greater reality.  In that larger space beyond our ego’s view, we find meaning.  Perhaps purpose.  Maybe a feeling referred to as Thou.

Last Sunday listening to a broadcast service and the morning prayer, I was moved.

The minister lifted the daily events we all share into greater hope.

Reading words apart from their live context may not be as poignant.  I believe these below are worth a moment of your attention.

                      Prayers of the People

God in our future, we come before you each week reminded that we are not as we wish to be, reminded that we do not yet live in the world you desire. We pray each week, “Thy kingdom come.”

Free us from our illusions that we are separate from other people, from the earth, and from you. Teach us a new way. Let us hear the old lessons one more time. Call us into your work, together.

God in our past, we bring with us today all the hurts we carry and all the hurts we caused. Help us, in our own time, to put them down. Show us what we need to heal. Give us the courage to mend what we have broken.

Remind us that we have more to give the world than the worst things we have ever done. Let us be humble enough to think ourselves worthy of your presence. Deliver us from our false notion that anything we could do could make us any less deserving of grace, of care, of forgiveness, of redemption.

God in the news cycle, God in the aftermath, be with all those in crisis this morning. Keep watch over hospital rooms and under bridges. Bear divine witness on borders and in prison cells. Carry your people into another day when their burdens are not so heavy and their hope does not seem so far.

God in history repeating itself, God in unprecedented times, strengthen all those who try to help; who work in sixteen hour shifts to turn the power back on, who hold the hands of those who suffer, who cry out for accountability and against injustice. Let all of us who are inspired by and indebted to their courage also find it within ourselves to do what is right, to help where we can.

God in our midst, you see your church and you know who is missing. You search our hearts and you know whom we are missing. This morning, we lift up the blessed memories of those this community has lost. We lift up Sally Hansen. We lift up Howard Kay. We lift up Vincent Lee. We lift up Jim Roche. We lift the names of all who dwell in our hearts. Strengthen their memories in each of us. Let all who were touched by their lives carry their legacies always. Grant all of us – those who are grieving and those who are gone – peace.

Thank you, God.

Amen.

 Harvard Memorial Church – Sunday, February 6, 2022 by Cheyenne Boon, MDiv II