Nov 25, 2025

At 6 in the morning my phone plays Taize to wake me up.

Behüte mich Gott, ich vertraue dir
Du zeigst mir den Weg zum Leben
Bei dir ist Freude, Freude in Fülle

Chances are that I’m already holding my phone, have messaged with J to confirm that we’re both alive, have glanced at email, and (yes, I’m an all-purpose addict) moved from Messenger to my feed on the F app.

Karma, Karma, I’ve been thinking
What a fine world it would be

A friend reposted something from Fred LaMotte. I’m now going to try to find and paste it here.

In this month before the Winter Solstice, we sink deeper and deeper into the dark. For some this darkness feels empty, or full of grief and despair. We say, "these are dark times," when we listen too much to the voices of the so-called "news." Or perhaps we define ourselves as "depressed." If we are women, we know this darkness well, because we carry an ancient wound that bleeds every month.If we are men, we also carry a deep atavistic wound, but we too often try to hide it. It is the grief we carry as men, for all the pain we have caused to those we conquered or colonized, to the earth, and to women. Men try to hide our deep secret sadness behind the armor of masculinity, or mastery, or masks of Ascension and enlightenment. And "nonduality" makes a very good mask, for a little while. But if we are true men, we have the courage to descend into our wound and forgive - forgive others through forgiving ourselves. Not to change our gender or soften our backbone, but to confess our woundedness.Whoever we are, let us not define the night in a way that short-changes its depth, its beauty, its fecundity. This is the hour to re-discover the holiness of the dark.________Painting by Toshiyuki Enoki

When I read it, thirteen of the fifteen comments were by women.

My first reaction/comment was “poor baby.” So far I haven’t done it. Have looked at why not — respect for those thirteen women, including my friend? Cowardice about the blowback – you mean, unkind, etc. Where’s your compassion? Where? Right now, my compassion for men full of forgiveness for themselves is used up, or at least I can’t find it.

In the shower I got an outline of some posts that have been circling around in my head: Why I’m not going to David James Duncan’s spiritual writing weekend. ; Two articles by women about men that I want you to read. You who?; …

Now I’m going to walk the dog, get to the noon women’s meeting, take a meeting to the jail, and what else?

If the men were all transported
far beyond the northern sea.