On My Mind (Vol. 7)

September 15, 2016 / Julie / 2 Comments

Over at my Catholic Review blog, this was a Clinton week for a change. I shared my thoughts on her flubs and my thoughts related to those thoughts. Like this one:

This whole “deplorable” thing has prompted me to think about my own feelings toward the segments of the voting population with whom I disagree. I’m not truly angry with them. Maybe I’m the kind of frustrated-angry where you want to grab someone by the shoulders and shake some sense into them, but I’m not the kind of shouty-angry where you fool yourself into thinking that those someones are bad guys out to wreck society.

Part of it is because I recognize the love and beauty in people I know and disagree with. In them, I note a position I disagree with or support for a candidate I can’t stand, but I mostly see their talents and kindnesses and humor and wit and hard work and loyalty. And I know that if this “there’s-more-to-a-person-than-his-politics” thing is true of the small slice of America I’m familiar with, it’s also true for the rest of it.

For more on this, and on Clinton, and on global security concerns too, head on over to The Space Between.

Let’s Not Tell Ourselves That None Of This Matters

August 10, 2016 / Julie / 2 Comments

Last week I saw a meme on Facebook that said something to the effect of: The day after the election, your kids will still be your kids, your home will still be your home, the sun will still shine, and butterflies will still flit about fancifully.

Or something like that. I don’t remember who posted it, so I can’t find it to validate the accuracy of my impression. In any case, the meme was telling us, “Don’t worry; none of this matters anyway.”

To which my inner lobbyist was shouting, “No! This does matter! Elections have consequences! Governments do real things! And you have more power over them than you realize!”

I understand where the meme’s creator and the multitudes who share it are coming from. This election has shaken people. Ideologies are in flux, loyalties are shifting, and opinions that were once shushed are now voiced aloud. Some find the situation thrilling. Many find it disturbing.

For the latter camp, it’s tempting to treat this campaign, and indeed politics overall, as a television show that can be turned off. It’s a topic to be weeded out of a newsfeed, a fad to be ignored, something as disconnected from our real lives as Justin Bieber and the Kardashians.

Except it’s not.

Arguing Well on Facebook – Even About Politics

August 2, 2016 / Julie / Leave a comment

Well, friends, we are deep into that most wonderful of seasons, aren’t we? Election season. And we know what that means: half of our Facebook friends are volunteering their political opinions to the world while the other half are signing off until mid-November.

I kid a little, of course. It’s not as clear as all that. While some people are vociferous in their political opinions, others are completely mum on the subject. Some are cranky, some (few this year, it seems) are inspired, some (many?) are despondent. Some people seem to be unable to handle the heat and so have decided to get out of the kitchen. Some argue their points well; others have little to show for their efforts but annoyed or offended friends and family.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s okay for someone to be annoyed with me because they don’t like my politics. What’s not okay is for someone to be annoyed or offended or hurt by the way I’ve discussed my political opinions with them.

So I try really hard, especially during election season, to make sure I argue my points well. Here are thirteen (what a lucky number!) ways I do that:

Read the rest at the Catholic Review.

The Better, Impractical Choice

July 19, 2016 / Julie / Leave a comment

I’m over at my (new) blog today, expressing some frustration about presidential politics and pledging to not be part of the problem. (That is, to not vote for either major candidate.) It’s a perky little piece, I’ll tell you that!

“If politicians are slippery, if they tell us only what we want to hear, if they refuse to offer real solutions, if they’re unwilling to work with those with whom they disagree – it’s because we have made them that way.

We reward negative campaigning. We punish compromise. We respond to sound bites. We expect ideological purity (i.e. You Must Think Exactly As I Do). We champion magic-wand political solutions. (How about I just say that I’ll “Make America Great Again” and wiggle my magic wand in the air, and it will be so! How about I make economic inequality just… disappear! How about I build a big wall at no cost and magically make it get rid of all the scary people? How about we pass a law that will – poof! – make people stop shooting each other?)

We have gotten ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. We have done this. We have made presidential campaigns into something that decent people cannot win.”

Read the rest over at the Catholic Review.

The Space Between - The Better Impractical Choice

Announcing…

July 12, 2016 / Julie / 8 Comments

No, not another baby.

Though our oldest has repeatedly talked on and on about “all the other baby girls we’re going to have,” and the next in line is so effusive in his love toward our youngest that he literally told her, “You are my dweam come twue” – so if another should ever come to pass, we know that at least half the crew in this picture would be thrilled.

But that’s not what this announcement is about. No.

This is to tell you that I’m starting a new blog! The kind folks at the Catholic Review (the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Baltimore) have invited me to start a blog on their site, which will “focus mainly on issues related to faithful citizenship – offering commentary on the political world, legislation, civic responsibility and the upcoming election.”

I was thrilled to accept. The Catholic Review is the best-written local paper I’ve come across. I’m continually impressed with their work and I feel honored to be able to contribute to it in some small way.

I will still be here at These Walls on matters of motherhood, family life, and the odd political thing that for whatever reason doesn’t seem to be a good fit for the Review. But most of my writings on politics and society will now be found over there, on my new blog, which will be called The Space Between.

The blog’s name comes from a conversation I had with a friend about what we see lacking in most political discussions today – a willingness to admit that each side is at least a little bit right, that most people come to their positions honestly, that there remains a space for real conversation – not just conflict.

I think the name is well illustrated by something I noticed the other day while praying at the grotto outside my parish in Libertytown: Two rocks stood against each other, similarly strong and stubborn-looking, with a slight gap between them. Through the gap, I could see light – sunlight filtered through the woods behind the grotto.

People tend to focus on the discord of politics – on fighting and nastiness and sides standing in opposition to one another. But I’m interested in that gap, that space between. I’m interested in the place where the sides bang up against each other, where we get to see how different (or not) they really are. I’m interested in getting to what we really mean, what we really care about, what really motivates us – and carrying on the conversation from there.

I want to use this blog to explore different political perspectives, to work through issues that divide us (especially those rising to the fore in the 2016 presidential campaign), to consider whether we’re well represented by the categories – political party and otherwise – that the real pundits like to put us in. I have a feeling we’re not. I have a feeling that we’re often better suited for the space between than we are the rocks pressing up against each other.

Read more in yesterday’s post – the blog’s first.

For the foreseeable future I plan to post links to each of that blog’s new posts on this one too. So if you’re subscribed here you’ll still receive notice of all my new posts. But I’d love if you could subscribe there too, and like the new blog’s new Facebook page.

Fair warning: if you’re a Facebook friend of mine, you’ll likely soon receive invitations to like both blogs’ pages. I promise to just do it once. (Or at least not again for a few years.)

Oh! And I’ve changed both my Twitter and Instagram handles to reflect my name rather than this blog’s. They are now both julievwalsh. I decided I could handle one new Facebook page, but I couldn’t handle duplicating all my social media accounts.

I think that’s it for now. I hope to see you over at the new place!

All I Know

June 13, 2016 / Julie / 1 Comment

What a day for the pick-pick-pick-everything-apart news shows, hm? There seems to be something for everyone in Orlando’s tragedy. Terrorism, Islam, gay rights, gun rights, gun control, mental health, politics, security, freedom, racism, persecution, division…

Grief.

My own mind swirls. I have no answers. I have no admonitions to issue. I have no suggestions for how such events can be prevented. All I know is that the problem is bigger than any one of these things. (And that anyone who tells you there’s a simple solution is mistaken.)

We are human and we hurt. We hurt others and we suffer hurts ourselves. We wrestle with evil and anxiety and anger and fear, goodness and love and service and sacrifice.

I know good and loving people who are Muslim, who denounce and abhor the terrorism committed in their faith’s name and who suffer its after-effects. I hurt for them and I pray for their safety. But I think the West should be more, not less honest about the social and religious turmoil feeding terrorism today. I think we should be more active in confronting it and I think we Christians should be brave enough to offer our alternative to a theology that takes violence and domination as its central tenants.

I know good and loving people who are gay, who struggle to feel welcome and safe and loved. I grieve for the loss their community sustained in this attack and for the fears it will kindle in them. I pray for their safety and peace of mind. But I disagree with our culture’s take on love and sexuality and marriage, including its championing of homosexuality and other lifestyles too. I don’t think I should have to agree with someone to mourn their loss or pray for their wellbeing.

I know good and loving people who own guns, who abide the law even when they disagree with it, who feel scapegoated for the terrible actions of a few. I want people to understand them. But sometimes I wonder whether it’s all worth it – whether something that is overwhelmingly enjoyed as a hobby should trump the safety of those who are the targets of terrorism and domestic violence and achingly-damaged attention seekers. I just don’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what will work, what can be fixed, what we simply have to accept as members of a free society.

All I know is to plead:

Lord, help us.

Lord, be with us.

Lord, bless the souls of the departed and grant them eternal rest.

Lord, give comfort to those who mourn.

Lord, heal our brokenness.

~~~

Afterthought:

When I went outside this afternoon to snap pictures of broken things for this post, I (obviously) chose a tree which had some of its top branches snapped off in a storm.

A few minutes later as I was walking on past, I noticed the base of a tall, strong-looking tree and stopped to admire it. The tree gave me a sense of peace, of well-being; I took comfort in how sturdy and resilient it looked.

In a moment, I realized I was looking at the very same tree. The brokenness that had seemed its primary characteristic from one angle was insignificant from another.

I can’t help but think that maybe we — we humans, our world — maybe we are something like that tree.

Strangers in Our Own Land

May 12, 2016 / Julie / 4 Comments

The other night my husband and I were watching a Ken Burns documentary on the Dust Bowl. He was sitting at the kitchen table with the laptop open before him, giving the baby a bottle. I was supposedly washing dishes, but really wandering over to him every time an intriguing phrase or story caught my ear. Because I’ll tell you what: That thing was shocking.

When I’d thought of the Dust Bowl before, I’d simply thought of families escaping drought and poverty. I had no concept of immense walls of black dust racing across the plains, swallowing everything and everyone in their paths. I knew nothing of the buckets of dust that women would sweep from the insides of their homes, of how the dust enveloped people so completely that they were unable to see their hands in front of their faces, of how they’d grow ill (and many would die) from having their lungs coated with the stuff.

The documentary showed elderly people telling their stories of that horrible time and I thought to myself: These experiences are part of those people’s heritage. These must be the stories passed down to the people living in those places today. And I know nothing of them.

I know nothing of what it’s like to live in the west, on the plains, with farmland stretching for hundreds of miles in every direction. I don’t know how it feels to be held captive by the weather and her whims. I don’t know what it’s like to be a descendant of pioneers, to have stubborn resilience for a heritage.

Neither do I know what it’s like to be a child of immigrants or a great-great-grandchild of slaves. I don’t know what it’s like to be from mountains or shore or desert or city. I don’t know how it is to live in a factory town or a coal town or a fishing village, everyone’s livelihood depending on a tired, waning industry. I am out of my element visiting my husband’s family in the Midwest. I have felt similarly foreign in New England and the Deep South.

All I know – all I really know – is my corner of this land, my way of living.

So when I huff and puff and heave my chest in maddening wonder at Donald Trump’s ascendancy – when I bark an “I don’t understand these people!” – I’m right. I really don’t understand them. I have not lived their experiences. I have not shared their struggles. I have not felt their frustrations.

This is me coming to terms with that.

This is not me saying I think Donald Trump is an acceptable choice for the presidency. I continue to find him shameful in action and in word. I continue to disagree with those who support him. But I’m trying to recognize my own limitations in imagining the millions of individual histories that lead to his rise.

Because the next time I feel like grabbing Joe Trump Supporter by his shoulders and shaking him out of his dangerous delusion, I want to bestow some mercy instead.

There is so much we don’t understand about each other.

And if this election cycle is teaching us anything, maybe that should be it.

Spring and Baby Toes Are Good For the Soul: 7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 40)

March 18, 2016March 18, 2016 / Julie / 7 Comments

—1—

All I can think about these days is blogging. Every time my mind wanders, that’s where it goes. Ideas, phrases, revisions, revisits… I feel like a dieting person who can’t stop thinking about steak. I can’t tell whether this is a nudge to find some solution to my current logistical hurdles (i.e. all the little children, all the time), or an unhealthy obsession. It’s probably the latter.

—2—

Speaking of unhealthy obsessions, I had such an election-day hangover on Wednesday. Whoo-wee, was I in a funk. Mostly because of Trump’s growing number of delegates and Rubio’s exit from the race, but also because too few people viewed my post and told me how right I was.

I just can’t describe how much this Donald Trump thing is bothering me. I honestly think his election, should it come to pass (please Lord, no) would be second only to September 11^th in the ranking of Worst Things I’ve Ever Lived Through. Every time I think about it my blood pressure skyrockets.

—3—

So it is a DARNED GOOD THING that spring is beginning to make itself obvious. We’ve had such nice weather lately and I’ve been trying to overcome my homebody tendencies to take advantage of it.

I’m getting really eager for summer.

—4—

Another good thing? This girl. My, how I love her.

With each of my other babies, I experienced periods of resentment during the newborn period. (Can I say that?) No, beloved boys who might one day read this – the resentment had nothing to do with you. I’m totally chalking it up to hormones, to those lovely baby blues. But this time I haven’t experienced them at all. (I have felt right on the edge of them, if that makes any sense, but I haven’t actually crossed over.) And it has been so, so nice to be able to look at my baby in full confidence that I’ll just feel love, not a mixed-up combination of love, dread, love, sadness, love, guilt, and love. (Did I mention love enough times there, boys? Because the love was always there too, right alongside the dread.)

—5—

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I made shepherd’s pie and Irish soda bread for dinner last night. I was proud of myself.

Oh – and green cookies, which didn’t come out of the oven until 8:30 pm, so I was all, “Hurry, hurry boys! Eat those cookies quickly so we can brush your teeth!”

(See, I’m such a bad blogger I didn’t even bother to make that picture all pretty-like. Nope, just a quick snap of yesterday’s cookies in a plastic storage bowl.) I got the recipe (to which I added lots of green food coloring) from an infinitely better blogger.

—5.5—

Oh, hey, I made a couple of flower arrangements recently for my mom and grandmom’s birthdays. I’m proud of myself for them too. Totally worth staying up until 2am.

—6—

On a more serious note, those of you who have been reading for some time (or who are friends or family) might know that my mother-in-law has been living with us for a couple of years.

Well, almost exactly two years after she moved in, Hilde is getting ready to leave. It just wasn’t working. I would appreciate any prayers you could offer over the next couple of weeks that the transition goes smoothly for all involved. Vielen Dank.

—7—

Baby toes. Aren’t baby toes a great cure for what ails you?

Well, I’m off to my favorite two hours of the week: Diane Rehm’s Friday News Round-Up. Let’s hope I can keep my blood pressure down.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Be sure to stop over to Kelly’s to check out all the other Quick Takes!

A Vote of No Confidence in the Republican Party

March 16, 2016March 16, 2016 / Julie / 8 Comments

A week ago, I was feeling a punchy sort of delight in the wackiness of that particular moment in politics. I was noticing a strange phenomenon in my media consumption (social and otherwise): cohesion. A sense of togetherness, a shared purpose. Half the nation seemed to be biting its collective fingernails over a common bogeyman: Donald Trump.

I saw liberals pleading for their fellows to switch party affiliation so they could help select a more palatable Republican nominee. I saw conservatives pledging support for a third-party candidate or even (gasp!) the dreaded Hillary Clinton should Trump receive the Republican nomination. I read solid cases against him and detailed strategies for ensuring he lost the nomination. I saw #NeverTrump, #AnyoneButTrump, #StopTrump, and #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain. I read virtually identical anti-Trump Facebook posts from my most liberal and my most conservative friends.

It seemed ironic to me that the thing to bring so many of us together across party and ideological lines was our shared horror at the thought of being governed by The Donald. Could Trump, in some backwards way, prove to be our nation’s great unifier after all? My poli-sci major brain was half-way giddy at the prospect.

Today, though, those feelings have evaporated. All I feel is dread.

I mourn the loss of Marco Rubio, my favorite of this year’s candidates. But more than that, I mourn the loss of the hope that somehow this race would turn around. That somehow the two-thirds of Republicans who disapprove of Trump would get it together well enough to settle on a strong, honorable candidate for the presidency. And that such a candidate would be able to work towards healing the Republican Party (and later, the country).

Today, those hopes seem lost.

More than that. Today, I think I’ve finally given up hope in the Republican Party. And that is so hard for me to admit.

I grew up in the Party, wearing my Republican granddad’s campaign shirts at parades and fundraisers, urging my elementary school classmates to support George H.W. Bush’s campaign and my college classmates to support his son’s. I defended Reagan and Bush and Dole and Bush and McCain and Romney.

But I think I’m done now.

I’m reminding myself that politics is, at its core, nothing more than the method by which differently-minded people work out how to govern together. And that political parties are nothing more than tools to make that process function more efficiently.

As groups of (ever-changing) people, Parties’ principles, the ideas that bond them together, shift over time:

There is nothing immutable about the way the two parties currently line up. Republicans used to be the big-government progressive party, formed in opposition to slavery and pushing to remodel the South after the civil war; they have also been the small-government party, not only now, but in opposition to the New Deal in the 1930s. Democrats were once the small-government party, opposing those who wanted a more powerful federal government and defending the interests of white southerners against Washington; now they are famous as the big-government party, pushing federal anti-poverty programmes in the 20th century and government involvement in health care in the 21st.

Political parties are not religions. They are not nationalities. They are not perfect and they are not permanent. They are simply groups of like-minded people who band together in the hope of having more of a say in how they are governed.

I am not obliged to support any one of them.

In this time of Donald Trump, this time of discontent and proud disloyalty and redrawn lines, who can say what the Republican Party stands for anymore?

I have no confidence that the Party that will be on the ballot in November will in any way reflect my values or my priorities. So no, I won’t pledge to support the Party’s eventual nominee. I’m tired of feeling bound to a group that seems more scattered, more angry, more dysfunctional every year.

I think I’m done now.

Thoughts on a Disappointing Debate: 7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 36)

September 18, 2015 / Julie / 2 Comments

To update those of you with whom I’m not Facebook friends (my FB friends are already WELL AWARE, given that I dominated many of their feeds Wednesday night), I indeed watched the second Republican debate.

Sigh.

Unlike my giddy reaction to the first debate, this one left me feeling kind of deflated.

—1—

Mostly because I’m just so tired of this Donald Trump thing – can’t we please get some folks to drop out of the race (thank you, Rick Perry!) so the not-Trump vote isn’t divided fifteen ways?

I would love to see the Republican field coalesce into four or five distinct choices so that the campaign (and future debates!) can become more productive and informative.

—2—

I also think that CNN did a terrible job of hosting the debate. For one thing – three hours? Why in the world did it need to last that long and how in the world did it not manage to cover more matters of substance given that it was so. flipping. long?!

For another thing, what the heck were they thinking, taking up time with stupid fluff questions on what candidates’ secret service code names should be and who should be on the $10 bill?

And most of all, why did they even bother having moderators? With all the “moderation” those people provided, they might as well have flashed big signs to the candidates instead:

—3—

So overall, yes, I think the thing was a mess. An embarrassing, mostly unhelpful mess. I’m not against candidates challenging each other during debates – I think a healthy back-and-forth can be informative. But that’s not what we got Wednesday night. We got too many candidates on a stage for too long, where they were too often prodded into the presidential campaign version of a cockfight.

—4—

But it wasn’t entirely unhelpful.

I do think it served to clarify a few of the candidates somewhat. Carly Fiorina, who pretty much stole the show, came across as poised, competent, smart, and strong. Marco Rubio, who stayed so much above the fray that you could hardly tell he was there for half the debate, cemented his respectable (even presidential) image with some well-executed policy talk. John Kasich helped us to remember compassionate conservatism. Chris Christie firmed up his middle-class, regular-guy image.

—5—

Jeb Bush recovered a tad from his poor performance at the first debate, proving himself a little more energetic than we’d thought, but still just as much of a standard (boring?) establishment figure as we knew him to be — except maybe for his (Compassionate! Thank you, Jeb!) talk on immigration and his (pretty amusing) confession that he smoked pot as a teenager.

Ted Cruz and Scott Walker tried hard, but I think they’re competing for much the same constituency as Donald Trump and as far as I’m concerned, that ship has sailed, guys.

I hardly noticed Rand Paul at the debate – but maybe that’s just me. And I tend not to pay much attention to Mike Huckabee. (I’m sorry – my fault – I just see him as entirely unelectable, so I turn my attention elsewhere.)

I think neither of the two frontrunners going into the debate – Donald Trump and Ben Carson – gained anything by their performance there. They were who they are – one bombastic and ignorant, the other gentle and ignorant (sorry, friends-who-love-Carson). But I doubt either disappointed their supporters: They turned in the performances expected of them. I just don’t think they’re likely to grow their share of support more than they already have. They’ve peaked. (There – I said it. Feel free to call me wrong should/when the poll numbers prove me so.)

—6—

So like I said, while the first debate left me energized and excited about the official kick-off of the presidential campaign season, this one left me feeling deflated – almost weary of the whole thing already.

I sure hope some of the Republican candidates drop out soon – I’m ready for this thing to move on to its next stage.

—7—

I’ve got to end on a better note than that.

Wednesday night, because the debate started at 8pm Eastern, my boys weren’t yet in bed. They were in their pajamas, waiting for bedtime stories because Daddy was busy putting the baby down. (I’d made a desperate plea for him to do all of bedtime because I! had! to! watch! this! debate!)

They were initially very unhappy with my choice of television channels, but then seemed sort of interested in the idea that those people up there all wanted to be president.

“I want to be the president when I grow up!” said the oldest.

“I want to be a baker,” said the younger.

I think I’d worry more about following the first path than the second.

—

Have a great weekend, everyone! Please stop over to Kelly’s to check out the other Friday Quick Takes.