Many news clips these days begin with a dismal disaster headline followed by, “What does this mean going forward?” The answer is often, “We don’t know. The message keeps changing.” I watch the devastation in disbelief. “Eve of Destruction,” Barry McGuire’s song from the 60s, rings in my ears.
I found respite in reading Writing Together: a year of meaning-making and friendship by Penny Williamson and Darcy Shaw. I have Parker Palmer and his work in common with Penny, Darcy, and their publisher, Shelly Francis of Creative Courage Press. The book’s back cover asks, “What happens when two unlikely friends—separated by age, gender, profession, and geography—commit to writing together for a year? They discover how our most profound insights emerge when we create a safe, nonjudgemental space to listen—to ourselves and to each other.”
The Vermont Historical Society sponsors History Day for middle and high school students every April in advance of National History Day in Washington, D.C. This year’s theme is “Revolution, Reaction, and Reform in History” in recognition of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
I give the Women’s History Award in memory of my mother, Helen Vrooman Passmore. Historically, women have played pivotal roles in revolutions and in revolutionary movements around the world while also working for gender equality. Whenever a systemic status quo is challenged, it sparks a reaction. The reaction is often defensive and can sometimes be offensive. Reform only happens when the revolutionaries and reactionaries listen to each other.
War is not about listening, certainly not the generous listening we learned from Parker. Years ago, Bill and I were invited to a retirement party for a friend of his in the dining room of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Colin Powell spoke with downcast eyes as he admitted that the only thing he saw war accomplish was devastation and death. He had a firm handshake when I thanked him for his comments.
The song that stirs me now is “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” by Pete Seeger. I thought of it recently while on a zoom hosted by the Vermont Chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America. It was led by Robert Edsel, author of Remember Us, which is about the Forever Promise Project in the Netherlands. They adopt graves of Americans buried in the cemetery in Margraten, including that of Jimmy Wright, my mother’s cousin. Their kindness is passed down through families, often through women.
March is Women’s History Month. March 8 is International Women’s Day. We seem to celebrate women quietly. As Pulitzer Prize winner and Harvard Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich famously wrote in 1976, “Well behaved women seldom make history.” I was fortunate to have an American History teacher who told us, “Eleanor Roosevelt was a wonderful woman. Too bad she married such a creep!” Miss Woodworth modeled Graceful Mischief.
Kesha Ram Hinsdale, Vermont Senate Majority Leader, introduced me to students at Champlain Valley Union High School who founded the HER Club—Her Education Required. These young women and their supporters are advocating for the mandatory inclusion of Women’s History in all Vermont schools. A friend and I cohosted them with a group of women at Wake Robin. The students told us they wanted to meet women who made history. Join us in signing HER’s petition on their website at https://www.hereducation.org/.
My best meaning-making occurs when I listen generously to myself and to others with loving curiosity in the moment and throughout history. It is the meaning we make together that could shape our future.