23S Week 1: The Power of Radically Inclusive Women-Centered Spaces

A brief history of WomenExplore:

In 1973 Brita Stendahl started the Theological Opportunities Program as a way of giving the wives (and other interested women) a taste of what their husbands were experiencing at HDS.  She was assisted by a small advisory committee of women.  Many of the women who attended TOP went on to divinity school, not necessarily at Harvard, in their own right.

In 1978 Elizabeth Dodson Gray took over as "Coordinator" (her title) and radically transformed the program. At first she opened up the Advisory Committee to any woman who had attended TOP.  Liz developed a feminist method of taking the issues that were on the minds of the women in the Advisory Committee and developing a series of ten topics under a common theme.  Naturally the range of topics continued to broaden.  TOP was fortunate in having access to expert speakers from a wide range of fields in the Boston area.

A second innovation that Liz introduced was to ground each topic by starting the session with an "existential focus" in which a member of the Advisory Committee speaks about how the day's topic comes from her life.  This enhances and gives more meaning to the main speaker's lecture.

Elizabeth Dodson Gray remained at the helm as Coordinator for 32 years with the invaluable assistance of her devoted husband David. (Harvard certainly got their money's worth!)  A number of smaller sharing groups associated with TOP came and went -- today we have "Reflections".  Liz and David faced a number of upheavals over the years, the greatest being separating from Harvard and becoming an independent non-profit in 2003.  This meant that Liz became "Executive Director" and required the creation of a Board which had the responsibility of overseeing the Executive Director and ensuring that all financial dealings were above board. From the point of view of most of the TOP participants an even bigger upheaval came when TOP needed to find alternative accommodation, which it did at the University Lutheran Church in Winthrop St.  No longer located in the HDS Liz set in motion a process for finding a new more descriptive name for the organization. Finally Liz and David retired from TOP in 2010, but continued to attend the lectures for some time.  (At their retirement "garden party" Liz and David were presented the Donella Meadows Award by the Club of Rome (USA). This coveted award is given to highly outstanding individuals who created actions in a global framework toward the sustainability goals Donella Meadows, lead author of the influential book The Limits to Growth, expressed in her writings.)  All of these changes took the work of many committees to come to fruition.  Doing everything by consensus is not necessarily the most efficient!  

Since 2010 WomenExplore has had three executive directors, each brought her own talents to modernizing the organization and all brought more volunteers into the running of WE.  We also moved our base to the Democracy Center in Mt Auburn St.

The latest upheaval WE faced was the covid-19 pandemic.  We postponed the Spring 2020 series, which was about to begin, while we found our footing in an on-line environment.  Being on-line is a mixed blessing.  We can afford to offer the lectures cost-free since we no longer pay rent and it is easier and less time-consuming for us to be present at a meeting.  The downside is that we have lost the personal interactions which inevitably take place at in-person events.  At the end of a lecture instead of fifteen different conversations taking place simultaneously we can only have one, one where people need to raise their hands to speak.  We have sought to mitigate this somewhat by incorporating some in-person events into the series and in the times between the series.

Where next?  Only time will tell.

Focus: Muna Killingback, Tracey Hurd and Maria Behnke, prev exec dirs WomenExplore

Tracey Hurd (3rd ED) was unable to attend due to an unexpected work situation:

I come here after years in primarily academic settings—as a former Scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Center, program director at the Unitarian Universalist Association, and faculty member at Boston College. The dual commitment to learning broadly about issues in the world today, and deep thinking about how those issues touch our own lives, drew me in. I attended a session with a friend, and came back again and again. I am honored to be part of a program that is so full of possibility and transformation.
I served for a very short time at WomenExplore but always hold the collective and Elizabeth Dodson Gray dearly in my memory. Elizabeth’s deep trust in women, her commitment to expansive feminist thought, and her lovely grittiness were inspirational. I am grateful to have known her, for being welcomed at WomenExplore, and for the truly incredible individuals who have carried on the vision of Theological Opportunities/ WomenExplore forward with the same thirst for knowledge, truth and justice that Elizabeth held. I am very glad to have met you all.

Maria Behnke (4th ED) is working now as a Montessori teacher and both her director and co-teacher have called in ill.

She says:

Please send my regrets and love to the group.  I owe so much of my success to WE and being ED changed my life in the most profound ways imaginable.

Focus talk by Muna Killingback, WE's second executive director

Lecture: Timothy Patrick McCarthy is an award-winning scholar, teacher, and activist who has taught at Harvard University for more than two decades. Educated at Harvard and Columbia, Dr. McCarthy holds a joint faculty appointments in Harvard’s undergraduate honors program in History and Literature, at the Graduate School of Education, where he is core faculty in both the Equity and Opportunity Foundations Curriculum and the new online Master’s Program in Education Leadership, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS), where he is Core Faculty and Director of Culture Change & Social Justice Initiatives at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. At the HKS he was the first openly gay faculty member and still teaches the school’s only course on LGBTQ matters, he is faculty affiliate at the Center for Public Leadership. A historian of politics and social movements, he teaches courses on equity and justice, brave communication and leadership, and race, gender, and sexuality.

 

Film on abortion talks:

https://whatisessential.org/the-abortion-talks

Timothy McCarthy:

https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2021/6/15/daughters-of-bilitis

Timothy McCarthy:

https://www.pangyrus.com/politics/may-our-hope-persist-a-love-letter-for-my-niece/

The above is a love letter I wrote to and for my niece Malia.

I published it in 2015 but am giving it to her at her 8th grade graduation this spring.

Documentary film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Rp4L4XyUs

Women’s Political Council Flyer for Montgomery Bus Boycott:https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mbbleaf.pdf

Socialist Origins of International Women’s Day: https://daily.jstor.org/the-socialist-origins-of-international-womens-day/

Timothy McCarthy:

https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church/timothy-patrick-mccarthy-oct-31-2022-morning-prayers?in=memorial-church/sets/morning-prayers-at-harvard-4

No Trailer Anymore - Tralier:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGrcsBJQCpPPCPTPzCNxhDwXRXt?projector=1

22F week 9: Travel by Dorianne Low

   Click here for Dorianne Low's story of her incredible travels all over the world.

22 Fall Week 8: Sisters by Karen Sheahan

    Click here for Karen Sheahan's deeply personal story about her and her sisters.

22 Fall Week7 Nature

    Click here for MaryMargaret Halsey's beautiful personal story of "Nature"

22F week 5: The Confused Clown by Ival Stratford Kovner

Click here to listen to Ival Stratford Kovner's story "The Confused Clown"

The Confused Pierrot

Ival Stratford Kovner, WE Board Member

Ever listen to the song, “Bohemian Rhapsody” that includes the refrain, “Scaramouch”? Can we do the fandango? Wonder what the heck is  a Scaramouch? Innocent bystanders are often the victims of the tricky Scaramouch and perhaps most females, Scaramouchia are to be avoided.   

“C’era una volta,” you might begin your story, “One time there was  long past and much forgot, ” my Moroccan friend has shared.   Or try to start a story as another friend from St. Petersburg, Russia, “There was and there was not.”

 Stretch the end to finish a story, as some of my Celtic ancestors would add, “I was present and I drank mead, it ran down my chin, not into mouth, I asked for a cap and received a slap as the story grows to a close.”

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was entertained within his palace walls by jesters who in the emperor’s court were known as dwarf clowns called “rustic buffoons” or named “fussors”. The Court Jester in medieval times signified the “Pierrot” or “Harlequin” of the Commedia.  

Most folks do not care to be tricked or deceived. 

Jean Gaspard Deburau in the 19^th century began a more recognizable version today’s clown but was known to have killed a child with his walking cane. Pagliacci in 1892  brought the concept of the “clown” into Italian Opera – as a killer. Joey Gumaldi  added clown makeup we recognize in modern times, but he died a lonely   alcoholic death – despite the painted smile on his face.  

Joker or Trickster? Some of us may suffer from a touch of coulrophobia following several Batman movies where face makeup may often be distorted and grotesque. Heath Leger and Joaquin Phoenix stand out as examples. Still earlier, Mr. Punch actually beat his wife and children on the stage of a tiny puppet theatre. No wonder we take a second look at every clown face.  

Are we all harmless clowns at times?  The term “clown”  descended from the Nordic word for “clumsy”.  Even at an advanced age, anyone may be fooled  if they do not maintain a vigilant attitude.

Here the tale begins of Harlequin, the mischievous acrobat, or “Pierrot,” the sad, introspective, wandering fellow.  Many transformations take place in this tale.  The description of “the clown” may also include rude one, vulgar fool, jackass, bozo twat, churl, ill bred person. 

 

“A story, a story, let it go and let it come,” begins West African tales.

 “Here is a story, story it is,” is a quote from Nigerian storytellers. 

 “Listen to tell it and tell it to teach it,” offer Chilean storytellers. As one of many teaching artists, this notion is instructive.

On with the story:  every day the Pierrot checked the mailbox but there was nothing in the box she determined,  only letters addressed to “Pagliaccio” or “Buffoon” or even “Stupidous”, along with other  foreign sounding names. 

IWI, IWI, IWI, IWI, IWI ! This Pierrot was annoyed!

No one could convince her that this mail may indeed have been hers while she frantically surveyed each letter with postmarks from as far away as Spain, Greece, Italy, and Russia, basically from around the world.  She refused to listen to good, old advice.

She would not listen to anyone, not even a local elder who had once kindly offered her a nice breakfast welcoming her when she first arrived in the village. No, she was so mad, just so angry, that she transformed from Pierrot into Harlequin as she raged and ranted upsetting everyone near her.

Villagers quietly began to avoid her but were too fearful to do more.  Some claimed this was not their responsibility.  She was becoming a real, authentic “big magic” trickster. Now in a rage she swore to never check the mailbox again, never ever.  All her mail was simply left unopened.  Anything landing in her box would be ignored and avoided.

Weeks passed as time moved along.  Villagers mostly held their breaths.  They lifted their heads slowly, since many were both elderly and arthritic, to view the sky as it now appeared less clear and less bright with each passing day.

On top of her own head, the Harlequin outfitted herself with shiny lights that flashed wildly around her forehead, pulsating rapidly. Now she was ready to be mischievous. Her voice sounded louder and crackled electronically.  She gestured in a menacing manner, thrusting her arms about her head, starting to swear, but  holding back obscenities just yet. 

She pranced out to her mailbox and opened the lid.  In one “hell of an” uproarious mood, she spun first high then a little low. She felt keenly ready and eager to tell the entire world how frustrated by the lack of mail for her, the clown, she was.

Passing by massive hedges of forsythia, a known invasive, non-pollinator shrub species whose full grown bushes offered nothing to native bees and butterflies when they sadly landed on the barren blossoms, Harlequin trod upwards on the roadside to the mailbox.

All the way to her box she stamped each foot.  At the mailbox, an exquisite, glistening spider web adorned the opening, draped over the entrance where the received letters were daily placed.  The spider had dutifully made sure no moths, no creeping insects, no crawling legged invaders had entered the box, keeping all the mail that waited for Harlequin safe.

“What a nerve!” she screamed.  “How dare the natural world intrude upon my own box. This is my box, not a homeless spider drop-in-center.” She cried out in a loud voice, “My permission has absolutely NOT been granted.”

And with one quick motion, she smashed the web against the box. This sent the spider airborne, just like puppet wife Judy and her children. They had been sent backwards, upwards, sideways when mercilessly hit by Punch within their tiny puppet theatre home. 

Airborne went the spider.  Nothing mattered to Harlequin.  The vulnerable old spider, who was a weaver of the most delicate and intricate of silvery webs, was in the cross hairs of a low flying bug catcher appearing in the air.

The claw endowed aviator normally dined upon the crawly, multi legged insects the spider kept out of the box.  Once the spider has been flung and spotted, vulnerable in midair, there was no hope.  The bug catcher crushed him within his giant beak.  Spider was as dead as Deburau’s murder victim.

Suddenly, high above the mailbox, the sky filled with dark, angry winged carnivores, their thick black feathers obscuring the sun’s rays in an ominous manner far darker than any storm cloud.  The Harlequin ignored the spider’s death she had wrought, ignoring the “Hitchcock movie worthy” black flock overhead. Now she threw all the unopened mail onto the ground.  The town quickly became deserted as villagers grabbed tightly onto their children, protecting them from an unbearably deadly  aerial assault.

Nothing, absolutely no letter or small package bore the word “Clown”, no letters nothing in this particular wording appeared as letter after letter into the pile.  She gazed upon the mail littering the ground,  cascading  out of the box.  Now, only one, lone mail carrier remained on duty, trudging along his daily route, depositing letter after letter onto the pile.  Growing paper mountains sprouted upwards all around the box and over the box, at times growing even one hundred times higher than the nearby cedar and spruce trees. 

Days and weeks passed, more and more mail arrived, piling higher and higher until the sun was totally blocked out. Even in the night, the moon’s rays were obscured and stars shuttered from view.  The mountainous correspondence rivaled the Tower of Babel in size as it grew higher, recalling the ill fated biblical stunt.  Any spark or rays of light eventually departed.  The only light around the clown was glowing above her scowling face. The continuously flickering electric light bulbs, pulsating and flashing, glowed both night and day. 

Studio 54 would have been impressed by this disco worthy light show. 

 

All sent mail arrived and enlarged a growing, humongous pile while the upset Harlequin continued her rants and raves.  Not listening to the good advice from elders, who had long ago had departed  the now deserted village, she had not known the shared opinions of others are important.  She left every single bit of mail unanswered, every postcard, letter, and even assorted fliers and packages.  Future opportunities were chewed up by the insects  now easily crawling about the box and flying all around the mound.  Since the spider was dead, nothing prevented the bugs from having a feast.

 Finally, even the Harlequin scurried away in the dark one night.

Or was it day ??? No one knew any longer. 

The light had been blocked from the skies of the land around the village by the clown’s mountainous unread mail.  Sensing faint light miles and miles away, beyond the flickering lights glowing on her head, the clown hurriedly scampered up and down the hills, running farther and farther away from the destruction she had caused.

Through the lavender, woolen comforter draped over a distant, giant’s bed of an imaginary landscape.  Farther along, higher hills looked like more patchwork quilts, and cascading turquoise waterfalls with jagged edged, stony cliffs appeared to be sewn together, interlaced in harmony.  She stamped off,  running farther than she had ever run in her life.  Eventually,  she reached an unrecognizable territory,  a strange land with a gated entry.

Along with other migrant wanderers arriving, all fleeing the dark heavens,  various people around her turned and addressed her directly.  They knew who she was and called out to her in many names she recalled reading in her mail.  The names were the same names she had not recognized written on postings.  The names  on the  mail were ones she angrily assumed were meant for someone else, not for her.  

All around natives of the lands called out to her with even stranger names: “Booger Dancer” and  “Mudhead.”  She realized all at once all those names were all her name, just as the  Stupidous of the Romans was her name. She was all those names, simply “Clown” in another’s native language or ancient tongue.  She was the Spanish payaso, the Portuguese paillasse, and the Greek skiero paiktes, all methe same,  all names for clown.

She heard the names being called out and began to wonder.  She wished that once, long ago, she had taken the time to listen to the gentle person who had offered her a free meal when she first arrived in town. This person had tried to tell her not to be so angry and hurtful, to not lash out.  She should have taken the time to listen and then she would have known that indeed all the mail was for her.  Instead, as the Harlequin she had destroyed a helpful spider and darkened the land by being so stubborn.

“Once again one time” where there had been darkness now the sun slowly came into view. The moon and stars equally shown after nightfall.  Light from the heavens blazed forth once again.  This change was accomplished slowly by removing, sorting, and returning all the mail, all of it, by the dutiful, official letter carrier along with the village’s post master and staff. Even envelopes chewed by the invasive insects were returned.  The skies cleared.  All this took place in a distant time long before the current USA Post Master General was installed.  Who knows if the skies would have ever cleaned had he been in charge way back when – a frightening thought.  

What about all the additional, tiny flickering lights that were still present in the night? Firebugs had flashed and lit the way for the multitudes as they wandered during the long, neverending nights.  The villagers cheered these tiny essential workers’ efforts now.  

Every time a firebug or lightning fly lights up the night for a brief, flickering moment, village children are taught to listen to advice, taking for others.  Discover what is being  shared.   Being unruly harlequins is no way to behave. Flashing head lights can blind those who are nearby.

Harlequin in this tale knew the lessons and sensed she was once again transforming.  She was the shy and sad Pierrot not a Harlequin.  Her head lights no longer signaled anger and frustration. Light should instruct and lead others in a purposeful manner.  No one needs to walk a path of rage, or hike in trail rage,  no road rage is necessary.

In the end, she was simply a clown. 

No time for shenanigans, c’mon let’s all do the fandango.   THE END

An aside:  Shekhinah: The Divine Feminine. Each week on Shabbat the feminine aspects of Hashem are recounted. See https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-divine-feminine-in-kabbalah-an-example-of-jewish-renewal/

22 Fall Week 4: Music Memories

Click here for Mary Rose Muti's personal story of "Music Memories"

22 Fall Week 2, 29th September 2022 : My Search for Magic

I always knew that fairy tales were simply made-up stories and I never believed in the tooth fairy or Easter bunny. I tried to convince myself that Father Christmas was real. I had glimpsed a rotund figure clad in red in my bedroom one Christmas Eve when I was five or so, but I knew that my grandmother, who was staying with us that night, had a red dressing gown. Dev, the man who later became my grandmother's second husband, was able to pull a shilling out from behind my ear. I wasn't fooled. Even though I didn't know how it was done, I knew it was just a trick.

Around the time of my seventh birthday I spent a while in hospital and as a consequence a friend persuaded her mother to buy me a book, Cherry Ames at Hilton Hospital. It was the first book I ever read that wasn't a picture book. I was engrossed. Not only did I learn all about amnesia and how to treat it (late 50's style), but I became an instant avid reader. I would visit the library regularly with my younger sister. It was only down the road and across the park. On the way home I would get my sister to walk in front of me so I didn't need to move my eyes from the page. (Only the other day I saw a young boy leaving the local branch library here doing exactly the same thing with his mother, who walked ahead laden with books.) I wanted to read all the children's fiction. The only trouble was that, although we were allowed to have out six books at a time, only two could be regular fiction and the remaining four had to be non-fiction. I soon discovered the loopholes. The library had one bookcase devoted to the classics and a non-fiction card sufficed for these. I generally found them quite heavy going.  The Lady of the Camellias, for example, went way over my head, and I didn't even follow The Three Musketeers completely. However the non-fiction section that included books on myths and legends from around the world was full of magic. I couldn't get enough.

All the while, I should say, I was regularly attending Sunday school where we had the story of just about a miracle a week. This magic didn't satify me – God could do anything. I wanted magic that was in the domain of ordinary people, magic that I could experience myself.

When I was nine we moved town to a new library, a new collection of books. I learned how to use the libray catalogue so that I could find what I wanted. This was not always successful.  The Talisman Ring turned out to be a boring, or so I thought at the time, romance novel. (A few short years later I was to change my opinion about that.) I did discover the Salem witch trials. As horrifying as this was, I clung to the fact that responsible adults, or at least adults who ought to have been responsible, firmly believed in witchcraft, so it must be real. And it wasn't just confined to Salem. Also, like millions of others, I was led into an exploration of Tibetan Buddhism through the works of Lobsang Rampa the author of The Third Eye. I became a believer in reincarnation.

My grandfather had drowned at the age of twenty-six in 1932. In her own quest for a way of contacting him, my grandmother turned to spiritualism and Theosophy. According to Theosophers: “Devotion to truth, love for all living beings, and commitment to a life of altruism are the marks of the true Theosophist.” My grandmother taught me that all religions are just different facets of the truth. She was a hairdresser and as a young child I sometimes accompanied her when she made home visits for housebound women. I also went with her delivering meals for Meals-On-Wheels. I think she enjoyed the company and the old people liked to see young children. I did not think much of the food though – I particularly remember the disgusting prunes in rice custard! My grandmother showed me a book containing photographs of fairies taken by a couple of young cousins. These are known as the Cottingley fairies. They were finally exposed as a hoax when one of the, by then, old, ladies admitted the fairies were paper cutouts propped up with hat pins or suspended on fine threads. Modern image processing a few years before the admission had indeed revealed some threads. At the time I first saw them there was no solid evidence that these photographs were not authentic. I found them intriguing but I kept an open mind.

Meanwhile as I progressed at school I was discovering more and more about the magic of mathematics. The world of numbers was opening up to me. And it wasn't just numbers. With a very few basic axioms and some definitions, the application of logic suddenly created the whole of geometry. It was mind-boggling and extremely powerful.

I still continued to search through the libraries. In my school library I found The Man Who Was Magic by Paul Gallico. This is a book that I would like to read again. It was about a man who really was magic in a town of magicians who performed standard magic tricks. Of course, I had no illusion that this novel would reveal real magic to me. The book did suggest that nature is magic and magic is all around us. This is something I was coming to discover for myself. I started reading a lot of science fiction and historical novels. I did not expect to find magic there either but they did allow me to explore a lot of what-if scenarios. What would happen to society if .. if, for example, someone created a machine that could duplicate any object at no cost. Maybe that one should have been called “economic fiction”.

I was the only person in my family still going to church when I stopped attending at around the age of fourteen. It was not for any big principle but simply because we moved again. However I didn't stop thinking and philosophizing about God and religions.

My search for magic was now leading me into the realm of the supernatural and the paranormal. My boyfriend at the time, my husband now, and I even tried a series of experiments in telepathy. I thought that if ever two minds were in tune it ought to have been ours. Needless to say we had no success. 

I was also beginning to discover how magical the real world was. When I went to university I knew I wanted to study science and mathematics. It was only as I learnt more that I was particularly drawn to physics. Physics is real. It is not speculative but must demonstrate that it describes the real world. Physics is the study of the most simple and basic properties of this amazing universe that we are part of. It covers everything from smallest subatomic particles and the forces which glue them together to the vast reaches of space where we are able to literally look back in time to almost when the universe came into existence. This is precisely what the James Webb Space Telescope was designed to do. Just as we think we are getting to the bottom of things it always seems that the universe throws up surprises to show how little we know. In the twentieth century it was quantum mechanics and relativity, which have still not been entirely knitted together, and now it is the great mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter is the term used to describe the large proportion (27%) of matter or energy that we cannot see but which we can “weigh” by looking at the motions of the matter we can see. Dark energy (68%) is something even more mysterious – it doesn't behave like anything else we know. It has a constant density even as the universe expands. It seems to come into existance and cause space to expand, or maybe the causality is the other way around. I am now working mainly in x-ray astronomy which is able to capture some of the most high energy events that take place as the universe evolves. At lower energies, which means lower temperatures, we get atoms which are able to bond together to form compounds and suddenly we are in the field of chemistry. As we get more complex molecules we find that life emerges and we are now looking at biology: ourselves and our fellow lifeforms. People are amazingly complex, as you all know first hand, and, to ourselves, exceedingly interesting. I have always been interested in language and have now spent some time studying spoken language, one aspect of human complexity. 

We went to England for my husband to do his PhD in astronomy. While we were there we became friends with a fellow student, Bernard Carr, who was in fact one of Stephen Hawking's students. Because of his own interest in the subject Bernard later became involved some serious scientific investigations into phenomena such as reports of ghosts. Despite his very best efforts all he was able to do was disprove every case he could investigate fully, much to his own great disappointment.

I have become comfortable with the idea that when I die I will be no more. I promise not to haunt you! I admit that I find it less comfortable thinking about the the end of the human race. Perhaps it is for that reason that one of my favorite stories is a short story by Isaac Asimov in which he describes the evolution of computers as the universe slowly dies until the last star blinks out. By then the whole universe has been integrated into one massive omnipotent computer. And then the computer says “Let there be light!”

Having children unexpectedly gave me a totally fresh view of the world around me, a perspective I have not lost. I found new wonders every day as I introduced these new people to this place they had never been in before. I can remember one day seeing a new-born foal as we were driving somewhere and trying to draw my children's attention to it. They barely looked up from the books they were reading in the back seat. Did I used to be like that?

Now I find magic everywhere I look. For example, one thing that always amazes me is that bees and humans, who could not be more different animals, are both able to appreciate the exquisite beauty of flowers. I can see no evolutionary reason for this. Flies, for example, don't think the same way.

Above the entrance to the Cavendish Laboratory, which is the physics department of Cambridge University and which is where I worked for nine years, is an inscription which reads “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.”  I always remembered it as “Great are the works of the Lord, sought out by all those who have wonder therein”. In either case it is expressing the view that this universe is an awesome place. Looking up at the sky on a dark night on my mother's farm, or in any dry and dark place, truly fills you with awe as the stars blaze overhead and reach down to the ground in every direction. You feel as if you are right among them.

I want my children and their children, and all your children's children's children to be able to continue to experience this wonderful world that we all know today and knew when we were children.

That is all I have to say for now. Thank you for listening.

—Susan Nulsen