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On September 25, 2025, I featured this image and said …

You notice, of course, that our Lady Liberty is not standing on her usual pedestal in her usual setting … but then, neither are we. Blasphemy? I don’t think so. Much of the time these days, many of us feel like we’re in deep and dirty water way over our head. I imagine that She does too. Maybe this new “American Tree”, with its enormous roots, both seen and unseen, its multiple trunks, and interwoven branches is a better placement for her today … “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free … Send me your homeless, your tempest-tossed … I lift my lamp beside the golden door …” Can We the People make it true again? I want to believe we can.…” and now, just 13 months and 9 days later, we did!

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” — Wendell Berry

Dear Friends & Beloved Fellow Rascals … you of the baffled minds not knowing which way to go, the impeded streams tumbling along determined to keep singing, creative spirits whose art & music & poetry have inspired those willing to take time to ponder & to wonder, to courageously lace up their work boots and step out into the streets … Dear sisters & brothers of the heart, welcome to what may very well be (if we don’t get in its way) the America we’ve been dreaming of, the America we’ve been hoping for … We the People and our governing bodies both national and state, that actually represent all of us, native & otherwise, regardless of where we were born or how we got here, regardless of whom we choose to love, or how we identify our genders; reflecting a variety of colors from diverse faiths, and ethnic origins … at last an America that is big enough for all of us! I invite you to take note of how we got here … to not only look around, but to look in the mirror and recognize that this is what loving America looks like. In celebration, I invite you to take a deep and grateful breath for all that is yours at this moment, and to gift yourself just a few minutes out of what is sure to be a busy day to just let this sink in.

I am going to take the liberty here of sharing some of what I can only describe as music to my ears …

We are resilient. It is in our bones – and don’t forget who you are or where you come from … Be you, celebrate yourself, walk authentically into rooms, and take up space
– Peggy Flanagan

Hate is predictable and boring. Hate can’t build a future. But what hate can’t do, love can
– James Talarico

This is what small men will never understand – that our national greatness flows not through our blood or our genes, but through our ideas and through our care for one another
– Jon Ossoff

Minnesota welcomed me as a refugee and then elected me to Congress … I’m incredibly honored to continue to represent you in the People’s House with a resounding mandate
– Ilhan Omar

We need someone with courage. We need a fighter, and we need a senator who remembers exactly who sent them to Washington
– Troy Jackson

Now more than ever, South Carolina needs a fighter … Life is so much bigger than politics
– Dr. Annie Andrews

I love America. But I love America enough to ask her to be America for all her kids
– Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

Lord, help me be grateful for what I have, remember that I don’t need most of what I want, and that joy is found in simplicity and generosity
– Rev. Adam Hamilton

When you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work
– Sherrod Brown

I am still a prisoner of hope. I truly believe that our best days are ahead … We don’t have the billionaires they do, but we have something far more valuable: you
– Roy Cooper

Iowa sure does love an underdog – they told me it was impossible to win this Senate race, but tonight, Iowa, we have once again shown them that the impossible is possible
– Josh Turek

And last, but not least, how about these five new governors making history as “firsts”? I love celebrating with music & have been treating myself to Keb’ Mo’ all week. You know the song I mean, Put a Woman in Charge. The one he dedicated it to his mom, whose motto was “If you want a job done right, let a woman do it.”

I carry the lessons, strength, and resilience of the fierce Pueblo women who raised me. It is the honor of my lifetime to serve New Mexico … I’ll be fierce for all of us, our planet and all of our protected land
– Deb Haaland (first female Native American governor)

No matter who you voted for tonight, I will be a governor for all of Georgia … In big and small ways, you’ve shown that no amount of money will ever, never ever, ever overcome the power of the people
– Keisha Lance Bottoms (first female governor of Georgia & first black woman governor in the U.S.)

I stand before you humbled, grateful, and in awe of the incredible grace and power of God, and of Texas. I am a daughter of the Rio Grande Valley, where the people embody the work ethic and values of our state, where no one would have imagined that one day, a little girl from the RGV would stand before you here, as the next Governor of the greatest state, Texas.
– Gina Hinojosa (first Latina Governor of Texas)

I once again pledge to you I will stand my ground while always seeking common ground. Common Ground is the only way to get to Higher Ground … If something works we will keep it, if it is broken, we will fix it or get rid of it
– Amy Klobuchar (first woman governor of Minnesota)

Hope is a very powerful thing … Our story, Ohio’s story- is one of resilience, of grit, of grace, and yes, of hope … The healing begins today
– Amy Acton (first elected female governor of Ohio)

The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

If we are to truly become One (and I believe we can) let’s begin by changing some of our everyday language. I wonder if we can put aside words like “red” & “blue” & “right” & “left” & “us” & “them”. And do we have to describe historically monumental happenings with words like bloodbath, desecration, and extinction? Granted, violent language was certainly appropriate on January 6^th 2021, but I think there are better ways to describe November 3^rd, 2026.

I wonder if we can think about gratitude and giving as a kind of infinity loop or mobius strip. I am not a linguist, but I have always loved words and the older I get, the more I am distressed and disappointed by what seems to have become the constant use of divisive language and four-letter descriptives. Seriously, can you only win if I lose? Surely we can come up with something better. I am reminded of a poem by Alberto Rios, titled “When Giving is All We Have”, in which he says in part … Giving has many faces … It’s story is old, the plot worn and the pages too, but we read this book anyway, over and over again … Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand, mine to yours, yours to mine. You gave me blue and I gave you yellow … Together we made simple green … Together, we made something greater from the difference. (You can read the whole poem here, if you’d like)

I do believe there is something greater to be made from the difference. And I am not alone. While blue and yellow makes green, blue and red makes purple, which is not to say, metaphorically speaking, that we swish ourselves together into some kind of mush. Purple is a strong and beautiful color on its own, and to me (metaphorically) it means that we listen to each other, respectfully and attentively, until we find a way to get to the heart of the matter and take the next best step for our mutual human benefit.

Giving has many faces, one of which belongs to Robert Reich, one of my favorite ‘aging rascals’ (right up there with Bernie Sanders and Margaret Atwood). I hope you will accept his generous invitation to join this free November 17^th special one-night-only online ‘watch-along’ of The Work in Progress, a 90-minute film in which strangers come together to have the hard conversations we often avoid, and discover that listening to one another can change us all. Check it out here for the details and to register.

And now, as much as I’d like to go on and on and on … I’m going to sign off with two last offerings – one, Naomi Shihab Nye’s beautiful poem, “Jerusalem”, in which she asks Why are we so monumentally slow? and later reminds us that while it may be late, everything comes next. The other Is a gift I received from my dear friend Robin. I can only describe it as a magnificent demonstration of what can happen when we come together to make something greater from the difference. I promise it will bring you joy!

Jerusalem
By Naomi Shihab Nye

“Let’s be the same wound if we must bleed.
Let’s fight side by side, even if the enemy
is ourselves: I am yours, you are mine.”
—Tommy Olofsson, Sweden

I’m not interested in
who suffered the most.
I’m interested in
people getting over it.

Once when my father was a boy
a stone hit him on the head.
Hair would never grow there.
Our fingers found the tender spot
and its riddle: the boy who has fallen
stands up. A bucket of pears
in his mother’s doorway welcomes him home.
The pears are not crying.
Later his friend who threw the stone
says he was aiming at a bird.
And my father starts growing wings.

Each carries a tender spot
something our lives forgot to give us.
A man builds a house and says,
“I am native now.”
A woman speaks to a tree in place
of her son. And olives come.
A child’s poem says,
“I don’t like wars,
they end up with monuments.”
He’s painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.

Why are we so monumentally slow?
Soldiers stalk a pharmacy:
big guns, little pills.
If you tilt your head just slightly
it’s ridiculous.

There’s a place in my brain
where hate won’t grow.
I touch its riddle: wind, and seeds.
Something pokes us as we sleep.

It’s late but everything comes next.

With grit, grace, and deep gratitude for being on the planet with you at this historic time. May we all find that place in our brain where hate won’t grow. Until next time ….
Love,
Sulima

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