We settled on a two-story sloped roof version from a LFL kit, and together they began to construct it, paint it, then buy a post and install it.

I filled it with books I’d been saving for both children and adults. And waited.

Nothing happened. People walked by as if it wasn’t there. Months went by, even though the school bus picks up children at our front yard, and locals walk by daily with their dogs. We’re in a modest suburban area, with some homeowners and some renters both.

But after a few months I began to see activity. New books appeared that I hadn’t added. Occasionally I would look out my front octagonal window and see someone browsing.

Soon friends offered childrens’ books by the box. A neighbor walked down to give me a bag of books for the LFL. I began to keep a backlog of books in a box in my basement to trade out.

I learned to remove the R/X rated novels with sexy covers (because so many children use it) and I re-organize now and then. Sometimes it’s so full no one can sort through.

I have a relationship with Half-Price books now, taking my own no-longer-wanted books plus surplus LFL books (not to make money - it’s a pittance) to gain a few dollars and re-invest in some good children’s books to re-stock. An active local LFL host offered me a re-supply, as she receives many donations.

Here are the sweet stories that I have managed to capture in those 2 years:

1. One time a young man doing door to door sales talked to me about the library, and then came back two days later, knocked on my door with three books. He thought I didn’t have enough books for men, and he donated those. They were good books BTW!

2. One of the photos below shows a garbage truck with two people. One hopped out to check the LFL while the other remained in the truck. I hope no one got in trouble. The man just getting back in had been browsing the LFL right before I grabbed my camera.

   

3. Many adults and children randomly stop by and I never bother them or ask them questions… I figure it’s private.

4. This week two small children with two little bikes were there for awhile checking it out.. photo below.

   

I leave a tiny spiral notebook and a little pencil for people to leave notes, but not too many do. At first, a couple of the notes were kids saying “this sux” and other misspelled insults but I didn’t let them get to me.

Most of the comments have been nice and I’m grateful it’s getting used, grateful for the donations and for other people helping take care of it.

I cannot say if my Little Free Library has changed lives or encouraged reading. But it’s one more thing I can do to build community, offer free books, and nudge people to stop, read, talk to each other. That’s worth a lot.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

In 1974 a Serbian performance artist named Marina Abramovic, who was already pushing limits with her art, did a performance she titled Rhythm 0 in Naples Italy. For 6 hours she sat, non-resistive, and signs told the audience they “could do anything they wanted to her body and they would not be held responsible.” The audience was at first passive, but gradually took the objects on the table and became brutal with them - thorns into her skin, a loaded gun at her head (someone else stopped that person from firing it). At exactly 6 hours she stood up and walked toward the audience. Many ran away, unwilling to face the one to whom they had been brutal.

One could say the brutality fed on itself; bystanders rarely stopped the brutal actions. In other words, the reactions of the observers played a big part. When an “observer” did try to stop a cruel action, they succeeded.

One of many lessons of her performance art was this: the audience, the observers, were the ones who made the difference.

Author and filmmaker Jackson Katz talks extensively about the “good men” bystanders who tolerate violence against women in attitudes and jokes, who label rape and spousal abuse as a women’s issue. It is not a women’s issue…it’s a men’s issue. It’s a humanity issue. The “it’s just locker room talk,” the boys-will-be-boys excuses are the observers - the good men - turning a blind eye while the cruelty and the abuse continue.

In the mid-90’s I traveled to the Pacific Northwest to visit my brother and to participate in a Lakota ceremony called the Five-Stick Ceremony. I felt honored and out of my comfort zone for sure.

A suburban home was being prepared for the ceremony and I was taking instruction from Lakota Medicine Man Godfrey Chips and Grandmother. She was obviously not patient with fools and I was doing my best to follow instructions carefully. While other preparations were happening she and I were in the living room and she had a lit smudge stick. She laid it down and went to check on something in the kitchen.

I passively sat there, not wanting to make any mistakes. Meantime, the sage stick began to smoke more and more. She’d placed it on a paper plate on a little lamp table beside our chairs, and the plate was now on fire. I was so much in the passive-mode that it took awhile for it to register... fire in the house. Do something! It was just beginning to dawn on me that action was needed when Grandmother re-entered the room and hastily, swearing I think, dealt with the burning paper plate, probably cussing me out also.

I still feel embarrassed about that, but it’s a great example of what we humans do when we think we are just observers and not participants. We do nothing.

We do nothing. When SOMETHING is called for.

In the last few days I’ve learned that ICE is ordering, for $20 million dollars, shock gloves for the agents to use, so that when they lay a hand on a potential arrestee, they can easily send a 380 volt shock through their body, without it being visible in photos.

Someone being grabbed by ICE, whether the “right” person or the wrong one, whether guilty of innocent, is stripped of all their Constitutional rights. No Miranda rights, which we all grew up with. No innocent until proven guilty. Just electricity coursing through the body of whomever they choose to lay a hand on.

We are not just observers…we are tolerating this and it’s time we do SOMETHING.

We’ve arrived at a time in history, in our challenged democracy right at this moment, where we need to face this fact. None of us are observers…we are participants that are, by our very presence, influencing outcomes.

What if we acknowledge that our actions, our voices, our compassion, our witnessing…matters?

What if we require that of our elected officials as well? What if, even if we’ve never called our Congressperson before, we do so now?

We are the observers. We are the bystanders. And as such, we have power. We can use our imagination. We can stop the others who are trying to harm the performance artist. We can react to the fire in the living room by getting up and applying water.

We can call our Congressperson and demand that all humans’ rights be honored here in this country.

We can share stories (check for truth, don’t share AI) of people taking action and helping others. Did you know that reading stories of courage and compassion helps us to be more courageous and compassionate?

We are likely the bystanders, the observers in many important situations. And in that role, we have power. Use that power for compassion, for all human rights.

Do you slip into cynicism and despair these days? Do you excuse “doing nothing” with a sense of powerlessness? You are not alone… but remember that even though you may be “just a bystander,” BYSTANDERS have power. Way more than we think.

Here are 3 books I highly recommend for helping you realize that one person, with compassion and courage and perseverance, can triumph over cruelty and despair.

The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon

We Are Mighty (for children, but also for adults) by Sharon McMahan

Hope for Cynics by Jamil Zaki

Read. Learn more. Live better. You may be a bystander, AND you have power. Use it for good.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL MY REGULAR SUBSCRIBERS: My garden has demanded more time than my writing recently! I’m sorry I haven’t been as faithful as I hoped, and I will increasingly devote more time to writing as the summer winds down! Thanks for your patience and here’s a photo from today’s harvest. Though I have kept some, I also gave some to a neighbor who helps mow (he and his wife love the Lemon Squash) and I delivered 32 pounds of the trombone squash and 2 pounds of cucumbers to the local Lee’s Summit Social Services for those in need.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

When we checked in at the Volunteer Table I asked for instructions. When none were forthcoming I said, basically just common sense and fairness?

Yep, she replied.. common sense and fairness.

Ok. I think I can handle that.

So after three breaker-blowing incidents the inflatables inflated and the kids lined up. I pulled out three vinyl, weighted, velcro-ed axes for myself and three for my husband, and off we went.

Sure enough, it was popular. I had a young teen girl get back in line repeatedly, and she kept hitting the target center. Two year olds, 10 year old boys, dads, moms. I trained them all to pick up their own axes and return them to me, which they did, invariably with body language that said, “of course.. sorry!” Most times they handed the three axes to the next child in line.

Two hours we did this on concrete in 95° heat till our shift ended.

Common sense and fairness…the children took it in stride that they had only one turn until they got in line again. That they picked up their own axes and returned them to me. That they gave the axes to the next child in line.

How does this happen?

Common sense and a sense of fairness.

At this time, the United States’ 250 birthday (of the signing of the Declaration of Independence), it’s so clear what our nation has gotten wrong: racism, white supremacy, Christian Nationalism, misogyny, and so much more.

But here’s one thing we got right - common sense and a sense of fairness.

That fun little axe-throwing thing we helped with last night could not have happened without a strong sense of fairness on everyone’s part.

In the late 1990’s I spent a month in Brazil (Rotary GSE team member) as a guest of different families. I remember conversations I had that revealed to me that there is no expectation of equality in Brazil.

No expectation of equality.

I could feel the difference. In the US there may not BE equality in many situations, for many people and cultures.. but there is an expectation that there should be equality. In Brazil at that time, there was no such expectation.

This is a gift from the imperfect founding fathers and mothers. … “that all men are created equal…”

Generations since that signing 250 years ago have struggled and fought to make that statement large enough to include all humans.

I grew up with a sense that things should be fair. Of course I know they are not always fair, but I live within the expectation that I - and others - should work to make them fair - to make them equal.

This is the gift of our imperfect founding humans: to dare to believe that, unlike the monarchies of Europe, all humans could be equal.

Not all countries have that conviction.

Not all Americans want that to be true even today.

But I do. The sense of delight I saw in each small or large human that stood in line to throw a vinyl axe at a target is the result of that common ground of belief - things should be fair, things should be equal.

A wiry agile boy in an orange t-shirt kept coming back, turn after turn after turn. Obsessively one could say. But as other children showed up, he returned his axes to me and went to the end of the line - each time.

A zesty 2 year old curly haired boy hammered his 3 axes into the target from up close, then returned them to the next kid in line. A man of 50+ with a disabled son took a turn at the target, giving way to a curly headed girl about 11.

If you, like me, grew up with a sense that “things should be fair” remember three things:

1) This conviction is a privilege of growing up in the US. Not every country even has this.

2) If it’s not already, try stretching your sense of “things should be fair” to everyone… not just your special family and friends. Everyone.

3) The gift of our ancestors in this country, to us here now, is this statement that “all men are created equal.” Stretch that to “all humans”.. no matter the color of skin, the religion, the country of origin.

This conviction is why people still try to come to the US, no matter how badly we have behaved towards them or their nation. Yes, it seems crazy.. but I assure you, the sense of fairness, the conviction of equality is precious indeed.

At this birthday anniversary, let’s expand that sense… that all humans are created equal.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

I get it.

Whether it’s political differences in this polarized time, or something else. And I’m not going to tell you that you should. But sometimes there is a story from your own past that has gifts for you today…one that you’ve almost forgotten about. I have a story like that for you.

I was sleeping on a sleeping bag atop a thin mat, on a concrete floor in a room with 13 other Americanos. The overhead lighting was a single light bulb, and the baño was in the courtyard adjoining. If I wanted to sleep earlier than the night owls I covered my eyes and tried to cover my ears. Nighttime trips to the toilet required a flashlight and stepping over and around the other sleepers.

I’d traveled to Nicaragua in April of 1994 with a local farmer couple who’d been back and forth for 17 years, bringing US volunteers to help build small churches there after the earthquake, and later the civil wars. This time I went with the group, mostly to experience Central America and the adventure.

Our meals were served in the home of the women who cooked for us, about half a mile away (on dirt streets) from our sleeping quarters. We walked for about 20 minutes to get to the meals. During the day we cleared rubble then laid bricks for a small church. We had one translator for all of us; there was a lot of gesturing and sign language of sorts.

The nights were quiet in the high desert city of Esteli. It had been in the thick of the fighting for a long time, but things had been “settled” about 4 years earlier. Supposedly. One night lying on my mat I was awakened at 3 a.m. by the sound of machine gun fire about a block away. I lay tense waiting for answering fire. But nothing further sounded.

One day we all walked together into the shopping district. We passed many buildings with bullet holes in them, some with various peace slogans painted as well.

Because our leader was, to a degree, evangelical, and we were there to construct a church, there were services some evenings. The first evening our host, Pastor Bayardo, introduced a young man named Noel, who was also our job foreman, as a former Sandinista (the government forces). Then he introduced Noel’s singing partner and fellow guitar player, Elmer, as a former Contra. Contras were supported by the United States CIA, the guerrilla forces in the jungle, fighting the Sandinistas.

Elmer, he said, had been injured in the fighting and spent four months lost in the jungle with his leg shot, and “the worms got into his body.” He now wears an artificial leg from the knee down. He was 26. As Pastor put it, “When this man came to the Lord, I was afraid, because he was a very dangerous man. But now, when we go to the missions and he gives his testimony many people come to the Lord from hearing his story. And the other men of the church all love him very much.” Elmer grinned at that.

Pastor went on to tell that over time, Elmer and Noel and the other men have concluded that they were in some of the same battles - on opposite sides. The fighting stopped less than 4 years earlier.

Today they are singing harmony and playing music together for this small church in Esteli, Nicaragua. (Italicized passages are from an article I wrote for the Concordia Blade Empire, April 14, 1994)

The last Friday evening we were there I was fortunate to be able to sing in harmony with the two men for the evening service: How Great Thou Art, first in English, then in Spanish together. Oh Lord my God… when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the Universe displayed….Mi Corazon se llena de emosion; Cuan grande es El, Cuan grande es El….

The tangible reality that people could forgive each other for something so horrendous was stunning to me, and is a story I still learn from today. But that wasn’t all.

Our translator Ramon, also young, was so gentle, sincere, and eager to learn. He was a part-time student, self-employed - and very war-weary. Towards the end of the trip I commented to Ramon that when we got home I needed to look up more about the war.

Ramon shook his hear and frowned. “If you want to know about the war, I can tell you. I was here.”

I thought he meant he was in the country when it happened.

But on the flight home I sat next to another member of our group, who had visited with him at length.

“He told me he was forced to join the army at 19 and spent one year in the fighting. He was given a gun with a bayonet and told to kill. During that year he killed 15 people, many of them women and children - at times using the bayonet.”

Again, I was shocked - at the horror, at his gentle manner now and at his openness about what he had done. Other men, one a commander in the government army, refused to speak of the experiences at all.

We were told that during the ten years plus of the war, over 55,000 people were killed, with 15,000 of those being civilians. All on Nicaraguan soil. The opposing forces would take over a village, murder some of the residents, take food and supplies, then leave. Then the other side would arrive, accuse the locals of harboring the enemy, murder more of the residents, and the death continued.

We asked the obvious question - why did the fighting finally stop?

We were told three reasons: First the people are so tired of the deaths and the fighting. Second the US quit supplying the Contras, and third, soon after, Cuba quit supplying the Sandinistas.

War weary and without funding for the weapons to kill each other, most Nicaraguans became ready to settle their differences politically.

There can come a time in our lives when we are war-weary, conflict-weary, polarization-weary - and ready to lay down the weapons.

Elmer and Noel told the story of how they and their comrades arrived at that place - and found their way to singing in harmony about the love of God and the power of God to heal.

There is no peace in revenge, no joy in hostilities. Singing with former enemies Elmer and Noel that night I felt immersed in that vibration of peace and forgiveness.

Maybe we need stories like this in our collective memory to remind us to end hostilities and polarization before we reach the bayonets-and-losing-legs-in-the-jungle stage.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

Even in my humiliation, I saw myself - that could be my path.

But I was on a spiritual path, and the irony of me telling God, “sure, guide me… but never into a relationship ever again” struck me.

I made a choice not to close doors, rather simply to learn and grow.

I also spent time thinking about babies and bath water…

Have you ever been drawn to something that was good and wonderful? Only to find out it’s been contaminated? I’ve been reading about the early followers of Jesus in the first 200 years after he lived. Do you know what they were like, based on the writings they left? Loving. Filled with joy, acceptance, forgiveness. They called others to love more, to leave greed and hatred behind.

Something about what Jesus taught and what his followers tried to live was so powerful it caught on like wildfire. The Way, as it was called, was inclusive, not exclusive. It was diverse, it included women and “others,” in fact making them not others, but one of their own.

The Way was so powerful it took on a life of its own. Modeling the sacredness of all humans and the power of the mind and heart combined in community, The Way spread across the Middle East and beyond.

And then, Roman Emperor Constantine got wind of it, converted to this new Way, and after first ceasing persecution of those early community members, eventually began to appropriate “The Way” for himself. Actually, for Empire.

In 325 CE, that many years after Jesus’ birth (approx.) Constantine took over. He convened the Council of Nicaea to determine which of those early writings should be approved, whether Jesus was actually human, or actually divine. A group of men chosen by him decided many things and made them into law and doctrine.

Over the next several hundred years, the power hungry Empire gradually eliminated some of those early writings as undesirable, unnecessary, and declared them “heretical.” The sacred writings that focused too much on equality, women, self-empowerment, and the divine within were thrown out.

In their place, authoritarian scriptures, violent, exclusive writings were emphasized - then taught and preached for centuries.

Jesus’ very clear messages of power within, our own responsibility to connect with God and with others became wrapped up in the dictates of Empire and control.

A little bit of truth, wrapped up in toxicity.

After being raised in a high-control religion, some people, upon recognizing the untruths, throw out God along with the toxic wrappings. Many of us, myself included, left not only the church but also any hungering after God, when the falsehoods revealed themselves.

Babies and bath water again.

“You can only get to Heaven by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.”

“You have to go to church on Sunday or you’ll go to hell when you die.”

“We have to teach people about Jesus to save them, or they’ll all go to hell.”

These and many other teachings were part of my childhood. When I understood that they were false, I also left God behind.

Almost 20 years later I found myself pulled from the inside to deal with this… what IS true about God? About Jesus? Was any of it true? How could love be so vicious? Or maybe that is the lie?

(I wrote about this in my book Who Do You Think You Are? up for re-publishing soon. Watch for it.)

Sorting lies from truth, whether in family, community, country, or religion is painful, confusing and filled with obstacles.

When deception has wrapped itself around a nugget of truth, facing the lies to reach the truth is a journey of fire.

I found that I had thrown out the baby, and I had to go looking for it, to retrieve that precious truth from the bathwater. *

It took me a long time but I found my way back to a God/Higher Power/Jesus that is more like the early followers knew. I found the baby and brought it back, leaving the bath water behind.

Learn more. Live better.

Questions for reflection:

1. Have you ever realized you’ve been deceived - and thrown out everything regardless of what might have been good and true within the situation?

2. Have you ever given up on Marriage, Love, Family, Community, Church, Religion, Friendship, Education, or________ because of a betrayal or lies?

3. Might it be worth retrieving the preciousness that can be, to sort it out from the betrayals and lies?

* Just to clarify…I didn’t go back to the abusive partner. I did gradually open myself up to future relationships. Even though I may believe a person has a spark of goodness in them, I may still walk away; however, I don’t have to write off all possible future relationships/friendships/communities as toxic.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

When they realized I was gone there was a bit of panic. All the adults went looking for me and calling my name.

Within minutes they found me at the top of a rocky hill…10-15 feet tall, steep, and made of those shale rocks that slide under the feet.

“How did you get up there!” they asked in amazement.

“I just kept saying ‘I think I can. I think I can,’ ” I told them. A favorite book of mine was the classic The Little Engine That Could.

This story was told to me throughout my childhood, and I found it inspiring. My parents were telling me “this is the kind of girl you are - this is the kind of person you are,” without saying those words.

Another story my dad liked to tell was this one: when I was 13 I went off to a Christmas break camp for 3-4 days. When I returned my parents had purchased their first ever TV set.

I was appalled and vehemently against it. I made my opinions known and my dad took notes (to prove me wrong). I maintained my position for awhile, but eventually succumbed and began watching TV with the rest of the family - the Danny Kaye Show. Walter Cronkite. Andy Griffith. Carol Burnett.

My dad then proceeded to tell the story of my outrage to anyone, anytime, and of my eventual surrender. I found it very distasteful and I hated his doing that…a public “I told you so” repeated. It didn’t do anything good for our relationship.

(PS - Though I do watch movies on a screen in my home, I’ve never had cable and my TV consumption is non-existent now, though I don’t usually mention it.)

The stories we tell about our children matter. They affect the child. They affect the relationship.

Some stories fall off the map, either deliberately or through our lack of awareness. Some stories are designed to hurt, or “one-up” someone. Some stories empower others.

We are a storytelling species, who for millennia transmitted wisdom, culture, ethics, honor and history around a campfire, listening to the storyteller. Though modern culture has changed all that, stories still have incredible power in our lives.

Including the stories we tell ourselves. One person will go through a treacherous time, survive, and say, “that wasn’t so bad.” Another will have the same experience and say, “never again.”

We are all choosing our stories, the ones about our childhood, the ones about last week, the ones about a relationship gone bad (or good). While many stories may be true, like my climb up a huge rocky hill on a beach, the ones we choose to tell make the difference.

There was a story I was quite tempted to tell myself and others. After more than one marriage had ended, and I was in my 50’s, I knew the statistics. Older women who end up single are likely to spend the rest of their lives alone.

But that wasn’t the story I wanted to live. So I ignored that one, and I told myself this one instead: Some people lose a loved one to death, some people suffer with chronic illness. None of those are your way of learning. Instead you have learned - and grown and healed - through relationships. Even though you don’t have a partner now, you have friends, you have children and community. You can practice healthy emotional dynamics with all of them, and if a romantic relationship comes along, you’ll be ready. You’ll be ready for a different kind of relationship than you ever had before.

A couple of years later, Stan showed up. (Remind me… on the Eco-Troubadour blog I’ll share the story of how we met.) We’ve been together 22 years now.

Every story you tell yourself, about things that you’ve done, things that have happened to you, things you want to experience, all of them have an impact. On you and on the world. Yesterday our minister asked a rhetorical question for us all: “What could happen if you never told that story again?” (Thanks Rev. Brenda!)

Did you ever wonder if the Star Wars movies helped us be ready to resist Empire? Or maybe the tremendous energy Star Wars movies stirred up created the conditions for an Empire to try to take over our democracy, our world? What do you think?

Stories are incredibly powerful.

In the comments please share a bit of a story that has impacted you, for better or for worse. What stories are still influencing you now?

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

Something new is happening. I will still be writing here, on Quench, if a bit less… but have spent the last month preparing a new blog called Eco-Troubadour. Connection and Community in Contentious Times.

I will be writing, sometimes with my husband Stan Slaughter, about the scientific AND mystical reality that we are all connected, often using specific stories from our lives.

The first one will arrive in your inbox, still from me, but labeled Eco-Troubadour, instead of Quench… in the next day or two!

This first one will tell the story of Seeds of Life Gardens. If you don’t wish to stay on that subscription list, feel free to unsubscribe from Eco-Troubadour, and you should still be on the Quench list. BUT I hope you will read it - it’s full of the magic that makes up our lives!

© Linda Chubbuck Eco-Troubadour 2026

1. Looking to form a non-profit for our Seeds of Life gardens to better accomplish our mission (nature and wildness within Suburbia and teaching others to do the same)

2. Submitting story proposals to magazines and more

3. Launching a new monthly Substack called Eco-Troubadour, about the work that Stan and I do together. (If you are a subscriber to Quench you will receive the first blogs… watch for them)

Please watch for the above steps to happen and feel free to ask me about them. I can use all the nudges to keep me on target!

Meantime check out my latest blog - Love is where you find it - or make it.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

For 3-1/2 months I looked forward to it. A delicious expectation.

When the weekend finally arrived, we all drove to our destination on the afternoon of the Big Storm Warnings (Friday 4/17/26) but managed to escape being directly hit by the storms.

Here are some highlights….the Flint Hills Discovery Center, with our 7 year old grandson.

The house itself - almost hidden under the huge limbs of a giant burr oak, complete with little nature trails, stone patios, sliding glass doors, and a secret room.

The new Museum of Art and Light with some of the kids… a fun, and later emotional experience. Artist Dean Mitchell’s work was featured as a totally immersive adventure.

All 11 of us hiking 2.6 miles on the Konza Prairie.

An Album Cover challenge, where we all were asked to create an original album cover for a playlist of our own “nostalgia” picks from the night before.

When all submissions were complete, Adam did screen sharing on the big screen for all of us to vote. MALLEX was the winner amidst lots of laughter at all the entries!

Lest you think it was all perfect… the kids had a tiff and there was a bit of sulking; one of the 3 toilets plugged up and could not be persuaded to flush, so 11 of us ended up using 2 toilets instead of the 3; and I over-ate on, of all things, potato chips and everything in general. Such is life - in family or community.

Driving home, the weekend ended with Stan digging a very large hole to install a new Green Cone for my sister’s new home in Lawrence.

In between… well, it was filled with so much love I felt bereft to return to my own ordinary life - even though I love my life.

I’m very aware that not everyone enjoys family in this way. But what’s real is the love… I’m extraordinarily lucky that this happens to be how my family is these days. Others that I know have created their own “framily” from friends and community.

The Golden Ticket is about being love, sharing love, healing our own selves so we can love more. The right combination of friends, family and community is where we all belong.

If your family doesn’t feel like this, reach out and find - or make - a community that feels safe and loving. It’s worth it. FRAMILY… Love is where you find it - or make it happen.

Learn more. Live better.

Watch for the new Eco-Troubadour Substack blog coming soon, as well as a non-profit Seeds of Life!

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

Right after T was elected, Nick Fuentes tweeted “Your body. My choice. Forever.” Pete Hegseth and his compadres are fomenting war as something God is on the side of. Simultaneously making sure women in the military are pushed into third class positions or worse.

This cultural push has surely been going on for awhile but only just broke through recently to where some of us became aware. Truthfully, if you’d asked me five years ago, I would have believed that sort of misogyny, hatred, and exploitation of women was on the way out.

I was wrong.

At the same time all this is being revealed, so are the heroes being exposed as sexual assaulters and even predators. John of God (now in prison for 400+ years). Deepak Chopra (incriminating emails with Epstein). Cesar Chavez (decades long sexual exploitation of women who worked with him). The Duggar brothers (sexual assault+). Eric Swalwell.

My husband is currently dismayed and angry that in college basketball, obvious fouls are being ignored by the referees in favor of a dunk - and the accompanying “crowd goes wild” cheering.

Impunity reigns.

Many men - maybe all men? - know that they can get away with (almost) anything because other men are in charge. If they play the good-ole-boy game and stay in favor with the strong men, they’ll get a wink and a pass - if the authorities even notice them at all.

The young men who took two Apache helicopters on March 28 and flew it threateningly close over the No Kings protest in Nashville and Clarksville Tennessee, then did a flyby for Trump supporter Kid Rock, got investigated. Twelve hours later, they were put back to work with no penalties.

Impunity.

No “bad guy” can exist without the support of others. Yes, maybe they need other bad guys. But also other seeming “good guys” who look the other way.

Right now our culture is on the edge of lawlessness. Laws are being broken right and left by this administration - openly, defiantly. Arrests made without warrants or even probable cause - rightfully called kidnapping. Too many are turning the other way and ignoring the realities.

Impunity.

There’s an antidote. It’s strong, and like old fashioned medicine, many don’t like the “taste.” That’s accountability.

This week T announced he would be issuing blanket pardons for all his staff before he leaves office…for “anyone who came within 200 feet” of the Oval Office. We could say “impunity” is his middle name.

But despite my anger and shock, I sense the tide is - slowly - turning.

Both politically and personally, accountability is a hard pill to swallow. Many of us have to wade through the swamp of shame before we can even consider being held accountable. Once SHAME kicks in (some of us were raised deliberately with shame as a parenting tool, and it’s still in there), the auto-responses range from dismissiveness, denial, freezing, rage, excuses, gas-lighting (others but also self), despair, depression, self-pity.

SHAME will use them all.

But shame also relies on impunity. Privilege knows it will never be held accountable.

When the threat of accountability appears, and SHAME (I’ve been caught! They might come after me!) does its thing (see list above), often the accuser (journalists, a spouse, the people of the US, a good friend, any truth-teller) will back down or back off. It’s really difficult - and sometimes dangerous - to confront someone with power and privilege who is quite accustomed to impunity.

I’m not an expert, just a woman who’s done a lot of learning. And unlearning. Along the way I have come to value admitting I was wrong. I’ve come to value confronting others about their dishonesty and deception. And to value confronting others about their privilege and the abuse they perpetrate with that privilege.

If we want to move from this period of impunity, outrage and awfulness, I propose these qualities and habits:

1. Honesty - with ourselves and others

2. Courage - to confront our own bad habits and those of others.

3. Courage - to call out lies and abuse when we see it

4. Coming together - no “bad guy” can exist with out support. When we take away that support and turn it toward honesty and justice, things change.

Let’s move from impunity as a way of life to accountability as a fundamental of our society.

Giselle Pelicot, the Frenchwoman whose husband drugged her and brought men off the internet in to rape her, (he’s in prison now and she’s written a book) says “the shame must change sides.”

Men who do these things without consequence need to be the ones who are ashamed. That will give them plenty of personal growth work to do in prison and plenty of time to self-reflect.

The centuries of patriarchy has used women as slave or free labor. When calls for equity and justice threaten that dominance, even more extreme views surface (check out Entering the Manosphere on Netflix to learn more) such as 1) women shouldn’t be voting in the us; 2) women should not be in the military; 3) TradWifery looks delicious but is a mask for evangelical male-domination of wife and children; 4) not only should abortion be illegal, women should be prosecuted if they have a miscarriage, and birth control should end. All of these are being actively promoted by people in power right now.

This is the tip of the iceberg. The only way to counter this intensifying of the patriarchy is to expose it, to confront it, to join together.

Let’s move from impunity for those who commit sexual assault, rape. and other crimes to accountability.

We can do this.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

Recommended reading:

A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings

I Belong to Me by Tia Levings

Recommended viewing:

Entering the Manosphere

Shiny Happy People

The mountains and the hills will break forth before you,

There’ll be shouts of joy and all the trees of the fields

Will clap, will clap their hands

Isaiah 55:12

When I learned the song based on this scripture I thought, someone else knows the trees are alive and sentient, not just me.

I’m going over the edge today with my writing because it’s the most dominant awareness and feeling in me right now, despite everything going on in the world. Here’s my attempt to put words around this sense that I have.

The past 10 days I’ve been planting angels. I’ve been adding specific native plants to our yard and garden along with watching plants from previous years leaf out, bloom, appear out of the earth. With every new bit of growth I feel safer, more loved, more surrounded with angels and protection.

Is that ridiculous?

Perhaps. But it is so deep in me now that, safely in my head and heart where no one will make fun of me, I know I’m safe.

Because plants.

Because the plants know and can do things. Because they are benevolent. Magical. Unbelievably generous. Providers. Food sources for endangered species. My friends. Stunning. Surprising.

Often in my lowest moments about the world I will remember, the plants will save us.

What does that mean? I don’t completely know but I know it’s my job to plant and nurture more plants. Specifically native plants.

Bluebells - My husband Stan knows of a place a few miles away called bluebell valley. You have to walk over a mile from the parking area, and then go off trail, in the right season (early spring). There you are likely to be rewarded with a vision.. an acre or more of delicately blooming bluebells in the mottled shade of the woods. You can still hear the I-470 traffic in the distance but it recedes in the beauty and wonder of the ephemeral blossoms, which are the color of Cinderella’s dress in the original Disney movie…periwinkle blue with pink shading.

When he first showed me this secret place from his youth, I was in awe. I wanted them at our home, but they are so delicate. I planted two. One didn’t survive… but 5 years later, the other is expanding, making seeds, and popping up babies nearby - which I can then move to other locations. I now have at least five locations at our home and Seeds of Life with bluebells, and just visited a woman who has been nurturing bluebells for 10 years, with her own version of bluebell valley - in her large garden-yard.

Plants are miraculous.

Coral Honeysuckle - About 3 years ago I learned that hummingbirds can be harmed by fermented sugar-water in feeders, so we should change out the sugar-water daily in hot weather. I tried to do that, but would get behind and fail, and when I did change it, I could smell the fermentation, and I worried. Had I done them harm? My mama-instincts are strong and I hate feeling like a bad-mom to my plants - or to the hummingbirds.

So I vowed I would grow hummingbird friendly plants, as many as I could. Those little zoomers did not eat sugar water from glass jars 150 years ago after all. They ate nectar from the flowers themselves.

I planted coral honeysuckle (lonicera sempervirens), blue sage, purple beardtongue. Nothing much happened the first year, plus I didn’t always see the hummingbirds because they were no longer on my balcony feeders. But we did begin to see them at the tiny blue flowers (they don’t only eat from red) around the yard.

I kept it up. This year, at the end of March, my 3 large vines of coral honeysuckle are just opening their flowers this week. Hummingbirds typically return to Missouri in early to mid-April so the timing is perfect. The coral honeysuckle grows so luxuriously and rapidly that I planted one at the base of our little balcony last year, and it’s now reached the upper railing, where I used to hang the feeders. If all goes well, I may have blooms on our balcony - and be able to watch the hummingbirds feed on the real blossoms this spring.

Plants are generous.

Ninebarks - I grew up in North Central Kansas and my dad became an avid gardener, gradually surrounding our little house on the plains with Austrian pine trees and spirea bushes to shelter from the winds and create habitat. The bridal wreath spirea had tall cascading stems, rich with white fragrant blossoms in the spring, and a favorite play place of mine was under those arches.

As we began this journey into native plants I learned that ninebarks (which I had never heard of till about 5 years ago) are similar in appearance to spirea but native to the midwest. Spirea (spiraea prunifolia) is native to Eastern Asia. Spring of 2022 we bought 14 ninebarks from Courtney Masterson and planted them in a row on our north lot to begin to create space, habitat, shelter, privacy and design.

At Seeds of Life gardens, formerly vacant lots with no utilities, we have to truck over any water we need from our home 2 blocks away. We water when we plant and for a few months after, but mostly plants are on their own with whatever rainfall we get.

Summer of 2022 was hot and dry. Yes, we watered some but mostly, those baby ninebarks were survivors. All of them made it through that summer and other hot dry seasons. They are now about 6 feet tall, branched out and hopefully feeding insects. Which in turn feed bird babies.

Whenever I walk by our hedge of ninebarks I feel their presence as if they are my benevolent soldiers, my guardians. I know they are survivors.

Plants are protective.

Here at our home, in our bedroom at night with the windows open, I’m aware of the Pennsylvania sedge, the purple love grass, the pussytoes, the packera obovata, the rattlesnake master, the prairie blazing star and so many more - all within 30 feet of my bedroom window. They are working their mystical magic, hosting Monarch caterpillars, luna moth caterpillars, and more. Two weeks ago we began to see our first ever bluebirds in our garden/yard. I learned that bluebirds have made a comeback largely due to humans building bluebird friendly birdhouses and creating habitat.

The plants will save us.

I feel the presence of angels, of plants, of the creatures that depend on these plants, of their interactions and communications with me. In many ways they “tell me” where they want to be planted, and I listen to the best of my ability.

I’m on the lookout for scientific research about areas of native plantings in cities that begin to create their own mini-climate. Research is showing up that this can happen. Also watching for studies on the ability of prairies to sequester carbon as well as trees do - again, this is just now being studied, but looks promising.

The plants will save us.

Yesterday morning I stopped at the end of my morning walk and ended up lying down on the pathway at Seeds of Life to see if I could observe the bluebirds we’d seen using our new birdhouse. No sign of them, and I was disappointed.

This lot was a quarter acre of mixed turf grasses just 4 years ago. Now it has young native trees, little bluestem, native sedges, a host of mixed native flowers, berry bushes and a new bluebird house.

As I relaxed into the moment, using Merlin (bird song ID) to listen with me, there were lots of birds, including a red-shouldered hawk high above. No bluebirds. But I began to notice, looking straight up into the hackberry tree branches, a scuffling. Two birds were not singing but chasing each other. Both had rosy breasts…could it be the bluebird pair courting? Mating? I think yes, but not certain. Time will tell.

Native plants are a doorway into nature. Humans are part of nature, no matter how far away some of us have wandered. To deliberately re-enter into the world of stewarding-with-love all the plants and creatures within your domain is to invite angels, mystery and magic back into your life.

With all the angels, mystery and magic comes a deep sense of belonging.

Yesterday I shared with my son the story of the four dams being removed on the Klamath River to allow nature to return, and how almost immediately the Chinook salmon, blocked from their ancestral return for over a century, climbed the river and went “back” to where they had never been. (From Rebecca Solnit’s THE BEGINNING COMES AFTER THE END)

Their salmon ancestors had been there for thousands of years, but how could they know? I was emotional and wondering how did they know to go upstream?

Adam said, “Nature knows things. Nature is truth.”

Exactly. Nature knows things.

If you want more sense of connection, more sense of being loved and protected, dive into the world of native plants and the cascade of life they bring. They are there for you.

Learn more. Live better.

NOTE: All photos taken by the author, Linda Chubbuck, on our properties.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

But she had one annoying habit. I left her cage door open overnight regularly, and when she woke up in the morning, she would fly or hop over to my bed, and walk around with her little bird feet, making little bird noises.

If that didn’t get my attention, she would walk herself up to my face, and peck me on the nose.

That woke me up. Which was of course her goal. Wake up! Whatever dream I’d had disappeared instantly with the sharp peck on my nose.

Wake up!

We’re in a time of waking up. And wanting others to wake up.

Jesus spoke of waking up. “Stay awake,” he said to his disciples. Also, from Ephesians, comes this beautiful admonition: For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

As we watch the unfounded and illegal arrests in our nation, the environmental catastrophes, the bombing of innocents, the “wars of choice,” and so much more, many of us want to yell at others, “Wake UP!”

Yet, in GOP circles, being “woke” is grounds for not just dismissal, but sometimes legal action in this crazy world we are living in.

I’m completely on board with waking up. But I think it’s time we took the next steps, which are equally important. In the past 2 weeks I’ve come across these 4 steps twice. These did not originate with me but they are useful. And timely. Here goes.

Wake up.

Grow up.

Clean up.

Show up.

I could just leave it there and let you fill in the rest, because I’m pretty sure most of you can do it. But I’m a writer… so I’ll add a few words.

Wake up - see what is happening. Get out of our little worlds of privilege and comfort, not because we don’t deserve them (we do) but take the time to realize how people in other situations are living. Is it fair? Is it loving? Is it sustainable? How much of our privilege is actually built on the backs of those living in poverty, in unsustainable situations? How much of the way we are living is exploiting other people, creatures, land, water, animals? Are there better ways to do these things? How can we learn more?

In 1998 I was privileged to be chosen to visit Brazil for 1 month as a Rotary Exchange Program team member. After several months of preparation we flew to Brazil (5 of us from Kansas) and were hosted by Rotary families in the state of Parana. Brazilians prize being hospitable and my experience as a guest was extraordinary. I fell in love with the people, the homes, the food, the culture. Marble floors. Outdoor courtyards with a full kitchen. Servants who ironed my underwear! Mahogany woodwork and furniture. Luxury everywhere. The first 2 weeks I simply wanted to live there.

But it slowly dawned on me that there was a cost to all this beauty. In the most lavish home I stayed in I said hello and tried to make eye contact with the very dark skinned housemaid. She averted her eyes and barely nodded. Since I’d never had servants this was all new to me and I was surprised. Then I began to get it… all the privilege I was enjoying was based on a barely surviving lower class. Caste you could say. One of our hosts told me that the whiter the skin, the higher the rank or income.

What is the cost to how I live, how you live? What do we need to see? This is part of Waking Up. Seeing the truth, however uncomfortable it may be.

Grow up. Two weeks ago I wrote about an infant trauma I experienced and how, despite my understanding it, it still took me 30+ years to find a way to heal that and not be “disabled” by my fears. Growing up is essential after we wake up to what is going on. It may take time.

The social media whining and outrage is in part perpetrated by people who SEE what is happening but are not ready to do their part to change.

So they whine. Loudly, angrily. Outrage is clickable, and in some settings, profitable. Growing up, however, is likely to be difficult and not fun. Whether it’s in our personal lives or our community or nation, growing up is hard. Growing up will mean change, healing, letting something go, behaving in a more mature fashion towards others, and towards myself.

Clean up. After we see what is going on and grow up enough to recognize that we have a part to play, we’d better get on it. This is the really hard part. I don’t even know where to begin. I often think - the misogyny and patriarchy that are so brutal and destructive and violent, how do we deconstruct a whole system? The common reaction is “let’s just kill him/them!” Movies are full of this sort of “remedy.” But how long does that last and does it ever work?

It’s much more difficult, whether in a family, a community, or a nation, to change things. To clean up and dismantle an unjust system. I don’t know how to do it. I’ve been praying lately… how do we take apart an unjust system?

Nevertheless, that is our next step. Our work. And I can say, I have been part of undoing and redoing family dynamics over the last decades. The family systems I live in now are very different from what I grew up in. Cleaning up means deeper, more lasting change, and finding solutions for our families, our communities, our nations. Doing the work.

Show up. Tom Hanks reportedly was once asked, after winning Academy Awards and making blockbuster hits one after another, “What do you think made you so successful?”

Tom Hanks answered, “Sometimes I think I was just the last man standing.”

Sharon McMahon’s book The Small and the Mighty is full of stories of people who just kept showing up, kept doing the thing they believed was theirs to do. And accomplishing extraordinary things in the process. Showing up. Showing up to your particular “work,” showing up in community.

We can do this too.

Don’t settle for just waking up and seeing the problems.

Make your life filled with all four.

Wake up.

Grow up.

Clean up.

Show up.

And create as much joy as you can all along the way.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

Mom eventually told me that she could hear me crying down the hall but was not allowed to go get me and that it was hard for her.

If you have ever had a newborn of your own, or been around one, do you know how often they cry, either from hunger, longing to be held, or something else? My experience is sometimes every hour, and at least every 90 minutes.

Four hours? Are you kidding me?

Though of course I have no verbal memories of this, as a child I was terrified to be alone. I mean panicky, desperate. My mother often said, “I don’t know why you’re so afraid. Nothing bad ever happened to you!”

Still the fear remained. Finally when I was old enough to talk about these things… maybe 10 or 12…she told me about the hospital experience, and her discomfort that she was not allowed to get me when I cried.

Officially this is called Crib Abandonment and I’m sure the numbers of babies this has happened to, for medical or other reasons, is legion.

But there’s more.

This fear distorted my ability to be alone well into adulthood, even though I understood its source. Finally in my mid-40’s I began to do inner child and other healing work. I gained the awareness and the presence to allow myself, on my own alone, to revisit that hospital stay in my mind.

In my own bedroom, in full daylight (I remember the sun beaming through the large skylight), I journaled and meditated and went back, to whatever pre-verbal memories I had of that time.

What I actually remembered was the coldness of the doctor, a blackness, the desperate terror I felt and the sense that no matter what I did, no one came. My crying was futile. I still kept it up.

At these memories, there in the sunshine through the skylight, I cried and cried. The prevailing thought I had was that I would die from crying. In my 40’s.

But I didn’t.

When the crying ended I became less afraid to be alone. I learned to feel the presence of God, of plants and nature, of love all around me.

I didn’t die from crying.

That was a surprise me to at the time. I remember that truth often now, even though I still don’t like to cry, and like most of us, I avoid it in dozens of ways. You don’t die from crying! I tell myself when I really don’t want to cry. But I need to.

I believe that, in order to heal, and as part of the human condition, we must be willing to cry. To grieve.

And boy, none of us want to do that. It’s so hard.

Today Jim Palmer wrote a piece called The Ghost in the Machine, about the common elements of virtual reality, spiritual bypassing, positive thinking and avoiding grief. There’s a term from a 1964 writing by Stanislaw Lem, the PhantoMat.

PhantoMat - A place where nothing is uncomfortable, nothing requires grief, nothing stays painful. Death doesn’t happen.

In the PhantoMat we can be insulated from all the “bad things” that happen in life. There are so many.

But that place, the PhantoMat, isn’t really alive.

Life involves some measure of loss. Of grief. Of pain. To avoid all loss, grief, and pain is to be numb. Or dead.

Yes, people choose that. Most addictions serve to numb and sometimes to kill.

But my experience when I chose to revisit the hospital experience was not death. It was freedom.

Crying freed me.

Allowing grief, allowing tears, allowing pain is something that will free us. Despite our avoidances, crying does not kill us, at least in my experience.

Despite my own reluctance, I’m an advocate for actually feeling those unpleasant feelings. That’s where courage comes from. That’s where freedom comes from. That’s where truth comes from.

If you have allowed yourself to fall into the PhantoMat, the spiritual bypassing or virtual reality version of life, you are not really living.

Go out in the rain. Get your hands dirty. Sit on the black earth.

And cry. Not all the time, but about something that hurt you, or something that is hurting others. Then get up and go tend your garden, or your children, or your art, or your neighbors.

Be with the very humanness of your own and others’ humanity. No, of course, it’s not always pretty. But it is alive.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows

Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture…

The Guest House, by Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

While you are pondering whether or not you are really ready to cry, I suggest you watch the film Eleanor the Great.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

“Yep, that’s Mom alright!” I’m sure they would say rolling their eyes.

I’ve come around to believe there are times when that works in my favor. Here’s what I mean.

For much of my life I’ve been in vocations that are largely male… doing stained glass work, running a grain elevator, even teaching music.

Did you know that during the Middle Ages, creating stained glass for the cathedrals was a guild that only men were allowed to join and work in? When I taught myself stained glass in the late 1970’s it was still dominated by men, even here in the US. I always figured it’s because you know, women couldn’t be trusted with the sharp tools and sharp glass… goodness! What might a woman do with those sharp things!?

Anyway, I loved doing it, produced a number of pieces of glass for windows, and taught many people as well. Never had a problem with rubbing shoulders with men as suppliers and other artists.

Same when I was running the grain elevator for 10 years in rural Kansas. With only one exception my customers (virtually all male) were respectful to me.

I’m not sure why. Why didn’t I get lewd remarks and come-ons that so many women get in male environments?

There may be more than one reason but I think my lame-sense-of-humor may be a big one.

If a guy tries to come on to a woman and she says, “I don’t get it,” or “What do you mean? Can you explain?” It doesn’t play out the way the guy intended. “Not getting it” is one defense against sexual harassment.

Can’t say I did it on purpose. Nor do I remember any events where it happened in an awkward way. But I can say… not understanding dirty jokes can work in our favor.

Let’s take the Gold Medal winning Men’s Hockey Team last week. Here’s a meme that perfectly expresses the dynamic that happened when Pres. Trump phoned them. High on victory, youth, maybe beer, and a phone call from the president of the United States, there was widespread laughter when he said “I suppose I’ll have to invite the Women’s Team as well!” He made the joke, the team laughed. In the audio, we don’t know what the percentage was, but this is likely.. “one makes a joke (about women), two laugh, three fake a chuckle to fit in, and four stay silent.”

Men, I’m talking to you now, and I’ve been talking with my husband about this. It’s time you lost, or gave up, your sense of humor when women (or people of color) are the butt of the jokes.

It’s time you gave up laughing to fit in.

It’s time you gave up staying silent.

Men, if you think of yourself as a “good guy,” then buck up your courage and stand up to the “bad guys.” The ones who make the joke. The ones who are abusing women/children/POC, and only get away with it because you overlook it.

Stop protecting the system. Stop protecting the patriarchy and stand up for women, for victims, for truth-tellers, for children, for POC.

Sure you won’t be as popular, but the god-awful things we are seeing from the Epstein Files could ONLY happen with a system that protected itself. Protected men. Protected abusers and traffickers.

Stop getting the joke. It’s not a joke, it’s a system of domination, misogyny, exploitation.

Is that a joke?

Here are some examples you can look up for yourself: Larry Nasser, USA gymnastics team doctor for 18 years, during which he physically molested dozens of young female gymnasts. When there were occasional complaints, the system protected him.

Giselle Pelicot, the French woman who made the stunning choice to give up anonymity in the trial of her husband, Dominque Pelicot, has become a legend and a heroine to women around the world. Her husband of 40 years began drugging her, and invited other men to rape her while she was unconscious. “Without Her Consent” was his website. Over 200 times, with 70 different men, over a period of 10-12 years. Obscene in so many ways, but here’s the point I want to make. At least 2 men (recruited online) arrived, saw that she was unconscious, and chose to leave. They knew it was wrong.

Why did they not report the event to the police?

The system…The system protected the husband, not the woman being raped.

How did Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and so many others survive abusing women for so many years?

The system protected them.

Men, guys, my friends.. stop laughing at the abuse. Stop laughing at the jokes. Be the one who doesn’t get the joke… be the one who defends the women, children, POC’s in your life. Be the one who stands up. You won’t be popular for it. But you may make a crack in the iron-clad system.

Be the one who stands up. I bet it takes a lot more courage to stand up to a sexist joke in a locker room than it does to shoot a dozen people with an AK47.

Be that guy. Be the Man who stands up to the system. THAT takes courage.

But that is exactly what our world needs right now. We need the courage of women standing up to abusive men. We need the courage of “good men” standing up to men being abusive, exploitative, disrespectful.

Yes, it’s hard. But we live in hard times, and we must grow up and show up to what’s going on in the world.

If we want humans to survive this time we are in, we need to develop a spine to go with the heart. Lots of heart and no spine is a recipe for disaster. Lots of spine and no heart is brutal.

We must balance both. Start with imagining yourself standing up to that “locker room talk,” and feel the chill when you “don’t get the joke.”

A woman can say NO and make it stick when dealing with an honorable man.

When dealing with a dishonorable man, she, or anyone, needs backup.

Let’s see more honorable men. Everywhere. Be that guy. Be the Man who stands up to the system. THAT takes courage.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

From the sunlit backyard, both my son and daughter were screaming and running towards the house. Moments before, I had called my son to answer the (landline) phone, as a friend of his had called.

I opened the door and met them…my son’s forearm was split open, several inches long with the flesh peeled back.

I yelled for my husband, hung up the phone, and tried to think. We had to drive him to the hospital, 7 miles away (we lived in the country) and I had to get my parents to care for the other 2 kids. I had to look at his arm and decide what to do.

I had to look. I was a mom.

I remember going into our bathroom and getting a very clean, white washcloth, wetting it down, and climbing into the back seat with Adam, then holding that wet cloth across the open split. If I’d used a dry cloth, it would have stuck to and maybe damaged the exposed tissues, but something needed to cover the wound and staunch the bleeding.

Before my first child was born, I was teaching music in the schools for several years, and one moment really shocked me (obviously I was still naive!). A first grader walked into my room and stopped at the door to show me a large bandage over her knee, which she proceeded to rip off to reveal a large pus-producing scrape below. “Look” she said! I averted my eyes, and probably brushed her off.

Living with my own children I became more shock-proof over the years.

We all need that mom-courage-to-look right now.

Two days ago I began reading NOBODY’S GIRL, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. This morning already I’ve wept twice just absorbing what I am reading.

I have friends and family who will not read this book or similar ones, and question my focus and my wisdom in doing so.

But I must. I am a mom, and this happened to a child. Her own mother refused to look, refused to see, as do so many others. So I am doing it for all the children who need to be seen, who need someone in their lives to have the courage to look.

There are many, so many, things right now in our world that are crying out for us to look at. Things that will break our hearts. Many of us have the privilege of not experiencing this firsthand (childhood sexual abuse and other horrors), so feel no obligation to look at it.

I understand that. As a young woman I largely ignored the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the feminist movement and more. I was isolated, they barely affected me, and I was busy. I get it.

I don’t even feel guilty about that really.

But here I am, in my 70’s, in a still-barely-functioning democracy that makes it possible for me to go to the library, the grocery store, to visit my children a few miles away…without fear of being shot, raped, or murdered. I can walk in the dark in my neighborhood and feel safe.

This is the result of a stable functioning democracy…and those people I ignored when I was younger? Much of what I’m enjoying I owe to them and their courage. Along with the generations before them who also had courage.

Now it’s my turn.

I have to cultivate the courage to look. For me right now that means reading, and weeping over, Virginia’s story, including all the details. Years ago I cried over the girls that Olympic team doctor Larry Nasser abused, with their parents often present but not paying attention.

I am paying attention the best I can. If Virginia’s mother didn’t have the courage to look, I will look for her. I will cry, I will weep, I will ponder, I will grieve. How could this happen? How could so many who knew her ignore what was happening?

Some of them didn’t have the courage to look…maybe they would have had to act. Maybe they would have lost something valuable to them had they looked. Maybe…

When we are called upon to have courage, we won’t know what is our cost. If we dive into a rushing river to save someone, we don’t know how the story will end. When we confront someone we love with knowledge they are molesting a child, or covering it up, we don’t know how the story will end.

But we still need the courage to look. For me, right now, I need to read this story. And others, such as A WELL TRAINED WIFE by Tia Levings, and THE TELL by Amy Griffin.

When my son jumped/fell off the roof of a small shed he was on, as he heard my call to come to the phone, he raked his left arm across a barbed wire fence, which split his flesh open several layers deep. He and his sister were in shock as they ran to the house. I didn’t know how the story would end, but I knew what I had to do in that moment…first aid the best I knew and get him to a doctor asap.

I was inwardly horrified by the depth and awfulness of the wound in Adam’s arm, but I didn’t have time to indulge my horror. I thought about blood loss, I thought about tissue damage, I thought about him going into shock in my arms in the car. And I held that wet, clean cloth across the opening as we drove the 20 minutes to the hospital ER.

At the hospital the staff took over. A surgeon was called in, young as I remember, and he examined the layers of flesh split open. The wound stopped just short of the bone. The surgery, which began soon after, involved sewing the deepest layers back together first, then the next, then the next. We were warned that Adam might have nerve damage in his lower arm or hand because of this.

I spent that night in the hospital with my 8 year old, and we both still remember that, with painkillers in his system and feeling good, he discovered the always-on TV in his room had wrestling on…Woh! He could hardly believe his luck. He wanted to watch from his bed, and despite my normal TV rules, I didn’t forbid it. Instead, I allowed myself to doze in the chair next to his bed, with wrestling playing on the TV.

He had to stay home from school for 2-3 days while he recovered and the wound began healing. But he managed to make it back to school just in time for his 9th birthday. And, thanks to the surgeon and good luck, he has no permanent damage. Just one heck of a scar.

The barbed wire fence and the tin roofed shed were dispatched within a few days.

Sometimes life requires us to look at things we would rather not see. Even if it makes us cry… even if we’d rather hide our eyes…even if we wish those things weren’t happening.

Have the courage to look, whether you are a mom or not. The world needs us to see a lot of things clearly right now.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

I’m not saying we all should. I’m just saying the secrets I’m going to talk about here are bigger than these. And that, since we truly are all connected, our secrets impact others.

Take Ryan X. A husband and father in Wisconsin (link below) who disappeared from his kayak on a super deep lake in August of 2024. His devastated wife and children and all the deputies searching for him were certain he’d drowned. But they couldn’t find the body. They called in a skilled search-and-rescue expert, Keith Cormican. Cormican spent days searching the deepest part of a deep lake with an ultrasound device, with no luck.

After weeks of no recovery or closure, despite dredging, logic, science, and detective work, one of the detectives began to consider alternatives. (Spoiler alert!)

When the pieces were put together, Ryan X was found to have faked his own drowning (quite well actually), and ridden an electric bike miles to a bus station where he traveled through various cities to reach Toronto. There he bought a plane ticket to Paris, and ended up in Georgia (Russia) with Katya, a Russian woman he’d met online. Leaving his wife and 3 children to believe he’d died.

Our secrets impact others.

Then there’s the CBS On The Road correspondent Charles Kuralt. Intelligent, creative, big-hearted, he nevertheless had a wife in New York City, and a woman companion whom he financed and supported in the American West - for 30 years. A shadow family. That information came out only after his death, when he left a sizable property in Montana to her and her children.

Secrets. Our secrets impact others.

Someone we love took their own life last year. We all struggle with how could this have happened? How could they not tell us what was going on in their mind?

More secrets.

We currently have masked agents from ICE on public streets, often doing unconstitutional things, so far with no consequences. Cameras from cell phones capture the actions. But the faces - secret. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that up to 75% of their ICE agents would quit if required to unmask.

And more secrets. I wonder - do their wives and partners even know what their day job is?

Our secrets impact others.

We’ll leave the “why” to the filmmakers and authors, but I want to consider the effects of the secret lives.

However hidden the desire is, I believe we all have a desire to be loved.

To be really loved. To be seen and known, and still loved.

And there’s the rub.

If we are honest, open, transparent about who we are, what we’ve done, what we really want, there are consequences. For example… a man who wants a different life or relationship might have to go through a divorce, thereby sullying his reputation.

A person who has a chemical addiction might have to become accountable, and sober, in order to continue their seemingly good life.

A person who has a habit, or a past, that might earn them disapproval or consequences may see keeping their big secret as less likely to result in loss - for themselves.

But secrets always have price tags.

The first cost is that the person inevitably knows, even while receiving love, that they are only “half-loved.” Because they refuse to be honest about who they are, the person who loves them doesn’t actually know them - doesn’t know the whole person. There will be a hole that cannot be filled, because the secret-keeper is not being honest and transparent.

The second cost may seem to be preserving a reputation. (The kayaker didn’t want his family to know that he wanted a divorce. Dying seemed a more honorable way to disappear.) But the legacy, the reputation that was so valued that a big secret seemed needed, is almost certainly blasted after the person’s death and the revelation. A high cost indeed.

The third cost is the tremendous harm - emotional, financial, broken trust and more - to those the big secret-keepers purport to love. When the loved ones do find out, not only is the relationship shattered, but their ability to trust anyone becomes damaged. Often there is a financial trail of disaster as well. We are all connected to each other. Your secrets kept from your loved ones are hurtful in so many ways.

There’s almost always an explosion of disbelief, hurt, rage and more when the secret is out.

If you have any clues you are living with a skilled secret keeper, you likely won’t be able to change them. Anyone who is that determined to keep secrets will not be altered by your pleas or arguments.

What you can do however is to believe your own intuition, your own eyes and ears, and to consider what trust is. Do you and your loved one trust each other? Are there things you are pretending not to see because seeing it might upset the fruit basket? (I know, that’s an old saying!)

Have the courage to see clearly and start being more open yourself. See where it goes.

And, if you are the secret keeper…why? What are you afraid you will lose if you are honest? Is your life likely to be in danger, or are you simply worried about your reputation? Have the courage to start being honest and see where it goes.

The world needs courage. All of us as individuals and communities need courage now. If we are not brave enough to be truthful with those we love and who love us, well… the rest of it isn’t going to be worth much.

Living a lie, living a secret, is not a rewarding life no matter the money, fame, pleasures we gain.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it this way: I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.

Transparency is required. To be really loved, we have to be true to ourselves.. and in the process, true and honest with those we love.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2025/12/wisconsin-kayaker-ryan-borgwardt-death/684631/?gift=OUw61IOQiYVB7HBmpwGeSOHMi5p-sIM8oDcpga0BHZ4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

I would be driving 30 miles out of my town, to a little town with a K-12 school. They wanted a music teacher, I wanted a job. A good fit I guess.

I’d been away from the classroom for 25 years and I was nervous, but I needed this. Kids had changed, I had changed. But, hey, I’d raised my own 3 kids in those 25 years. I could do this. I had a large windowless classroom, and a principal who was very supportive.

The kids showed up. They were from small-town (Kansas) families and actual out-in-the-country families. They were rural. Some of the children had been been no further geographically than the “big town” I lived in, 1/2 hour away. Some had not even been there.

Then it started. The 8th grade boys let me know loudly that music was “gay.” My educated artistic heart was outraged. That was rude, and wrong, and everything else!

I was inwardly panicking…what was I to teach? How could I win them over? Within a couple of weeks I swear God spoke to me with these words: These kids need drums.

I searched the music teacher catalogs and resources and found World Music Drumming. Could I order $2100 worth of hand drums, like asap? The principal was sympathetic, but there was no money for that. Everything had been allotted.

Undeterred, I went back to him. Could I try fundraising?

Sure, he said.

So I did. I engaged the kids, showed them pictures of the drums (quite a set of hand drums and hand percussion with curriculum to go with them). We started fundraising in September. I asked the local small town bank, the kids brought their loose change, some families donated directly. The large thermometer-indicator I designed of our progress reached the required amount soon enough that the drums arrived just before Christmas break.

I was as excited as the kids when the boxes all landed in my large music classroom and I got to open them.

I learned the beginnings of the curriculum over the holidays and we were all excited to get back to school. Now instead of managing unwilling and ornery kids, I was managing kids and drums. Definitely better.

We had so many cool adventures with the drums over the next 2-1/2 years. We all learned what it meant and what it felt like to get “in the groove.” One extraordinary day I had the 7th or 8th grade going on a particular pattern, all together with their own individual parts, and we got in the groove and just kept going. We all lost track of time in the zone. Finally one student spoke up: “Can we stop? My hands hurt!”

So we came to an end but I have never forgotten that that was the same class that gave me so much trouble at the first of the year. It was probably 20 minutes we’d been playing with no voices or instruction.

I brought in another love of mine, folk dance. That was also “gross”…but I had enough credibility by then that at least some of them were willing to try it. Turns out they had a lot of fun and were constantly asking which day we got to do it again. Behind the scenes I knew some of the science… like humans love synchronized movement. Moving to the rhythm of the fiddle tunes, in patterns like we did, taught them something about community, about listening for the beat, about good manners, about being respectful to the opposite sex. After awhile I quit calling the directions and they all knew by the music what to do next. It was a blast. I had from 1st grade all the way up to 8th participating at times, and the small high school classes tried to find ways to be part of it. Their classes were too small to dance the squares and circles.

Then one fall I met my husband to be, Stan. By February I officially turned in my resignation but finished out the school year. Some of the most difficult students were seniors, but when they found out I was leaving they came in to confront me.

“You can’t leave,” my most difficult boy stated.

I’m not sure what they expected me to do - they were also leaving of course - but I listened to their complaints and I was quietly pleased.

Somehow drums, folk dance, and high standards had reached them. One never knows when something we are guided to do will have an impact for good on the world, or maybe just on one person.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

Bonus questions for you:

1. List times when you unexpectedly had a positive impact on someone.

2. List any times when you ended up in a situation you didn’t want to be in.

3. List any good that came from that situation you didn’t want to be in.

I wanted to throw up or cry, but neither seemed available to me. Finally I shoveled snow for awhile while it was still coming down, and some of the rage subsided.

Non-violence is my practice, though I’m sure I don’t do it perfectly. I know we are all connected through biology, through energy, through love.

BUT ICE JUST KILLED A GOOD MAN, SHOT HIM IN THE BACK WHILE HE WAS BLINDED WITH PEPPER SPRAY! How can I possibly get past my rage? Or should I, even?

Should I even? Should I get past my rage?

Such a great question. Earlier in the week, for my writing class, I wrote about grief. Here’s a few lines from what I wrote:

My tears alternated with desperation and humility. All hubris was gone. All future dreams were gone. All certainty, all pride, all confidence…all gone.

What I still had was my anger. My determination. My commitment to my Self and to Love. My hesitant commitment to my own future. I’ll be damned if I let you steal that from me as well.

I lived on stubborn sandwiches and fuck you chips.

By this morning I was remembering the power of anger. The power of holy rage. Not to take a gun and shoot someone. But to propel us to change. To get somewhere new. To be someone different. To say no when it’s not a popular thing to do. To stand up to a bully.

I think rage, and even plain old anger if it’s amped up a bit, is like rocket fuel.

Rocket fuel is needed to get to the moon; to send a human into space; to explore Mars; to look back and see how fragile and exquisite our planet is.

But rocket fuel can blow up in our face. Rocket fuel can destroy life and belongings.

We, as increasingly conscious humans, get to choose what we do with our rocket-fuel-rage.

Do we destroy, or do we use it to move us - and others - to someplace we’ve never been before?

Stubborn sandwiches and f#$% you chips are not a bad diet for getting through transitions.

In my piece on grief, I continued:

That summer I wrote songs, and recorded an album in a studio 50 miles away for the first time ever.

I worked at a low status low income job just to have something coming in.

I rented a very small apartment for 2 months before a larger transition.

I changed. My loss of identity robbed me of my past and my security, but taught me to reimagine myself as someone stronger, braver, more passionate, more determined.

The gift of that grief was courage and a new self. I needed that.

I didn’t kill or even injure anyone with my rage. But I did change. I got myself through some very big, decades-old fears into new situations and new opportunities.

Maybe it’s not very spiritual of me, but I think anger and rage are helpful. I think without them we just wander around being “nice.” But with them, with our stubborn sandwiches and our FU chips, we can do things we’ve never done before, that we are invited to do now, that the world needs us to do. Now.

Learn more. Live better.

BONUS QUESTIONS

1. List any times in your life when your anger fueled a needed change for you.

2. List any times in your life when you suppressed your anger and stayed the same.

3. List any regrets you have about either one… staying the same, or changing.

4. Extra credit - write down any thoughts from your childhood or later about anger, not being angry, being nice, etc.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

The NPR “just before the news song” triggered a massive adrenaline/fear surge in me daily, and I tried to avoid hearing that song - or the news.

At that moment in history, British battleships were racing through the Atlantic Ocean to reach the shores of the Falkland Islands (in the South Atlantic). News broadcasts spoke of how easily this conflict between Argentina and Great Britain could escalate into WWIII.

I was terrified and barely present to my family. I would look out through our large passive solar windows to our rural yard, but instead of seeing the backyard lawn and trees, I “saw” a mushroom cloud on the horizon. A part of me knew it wasn’t really there, but it was so vivid in my imagination it blocked out what really was there.

My existential terror went on for several months, until one day my mother said something bracing - and useful - to me.

“That’s not normal!” She said, as if I could just change those hallucinations. I had finally confided in her what I was experiencing and after listening, those words were her reaction.

Oddly, it helped.

If this is not normal, maybe I can get over it. Maybe there’s something that will help.

I made an appointment with my doctor, who in turn referred me (sympathetically) to a psychiatrist, who prescribed hormones for PMS, and sent me to a counsellor. With the counsellor I began to look at issues… with my self, my marriage, my perfectionism, the anxiety. I began to practice guided meditations, muscle relaxation, yoga for the first time… and more.

The Falkland Islands war did not erupt into WWIII. Several hundred soldiers were killed, and some civilians, and it was over in 74 days. A tragedy but not a world war.

More than that, I realized the power of my habits, my thoughts, combined with the news, etc, to warp and ruin my life. Or to heal it.

I did a lot of personal growth work because of that depression/panic attack spell in my life, and much of what I learned then is part of my life now. I found my way to a greater personal peace.

But recently I have been wrestling with personal agency vs. the collective. Is personal peace ethical in a time of state-sponsored terror?

How much power do I have to impact the Whole? The Whole World? Sure my attitude makes a difference and I have profoundly benefitted from my attitude changes, my positive expectations… but here we are. Once again on the brink of global catastrophe. What is mine to do?

What is mine to do?

Oddly, the Buddhist monks doing the Walk for Peace USA, happened to choose this particularly volatile time to show up daily, walking (some of them barefoot) 2300 miles across the southern USA. From Fort Worth, where the monastery is located, to Washington DC. Walking for peace.

Their leader Bhikkhu Pannakara states clearly that this is not a protest, but a demonstration. He sometimes speaks to the crowds gathered and often encourages them to state, “Today is my peaceful day.”

Today is my peaceful day.

Today is my peaceful day.

How does their peace affect the Whole? What about the Southerners who come by the hundreds, even thousands, to walk with the monks and hand them flowers? How is their energy changed when they stand or kneel and weep as the monks walk by?

Yes, weep. Many of the videos show individual men and women, weeping as they interact with, or even just watch, the monks walking for peace.

Does a group practicing peace impact the Whole? Does my personal peace impact the Whole?

There are people who study this and I’m not them…I’m not the expert, but I’m going to say YES.

Yes, my personal peace helps others. Yes, my groups that focus on peace help the Whole.

A Course in Miracles says unequivocally in one of the lessons, I want the peace of God. Above all else, I want the peace of God.

I have used that lesson thousands of time, and yes, it has brought me inner peace at that moment.

Yesterday a friend dealing with major health issues called me from the hospital, in tears, to ask if I would put the phone close to the piano and sing her a couple of songs?

I did so.

Ten minutes later she texted me that she felt the happiest she had in days, after my singing.

My peace does impact others, and I believe our group peace can also impact others. Maybe the monks’ Walk for Peace right now can help our country make it through this hard time without total self-destruction.

Maybe the Walk for Peace is a good place to put our attention throughout the day.

Maybe both our individual healing/becoming more peaceful, and our group work for peace both matter.

Maybe individual peace and group peace both impact the whole. For good.

Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

Link to WalkforPeaceUSA

And we’re all together… all together now.

And it’s good to be home…

And we’re all together, all together now.. and it’s good to be home.

It’s good to be home.

—-From the song Whoo, by Jan Garrett, Garrett-Martin.com

Besides the bunk beds, we shared a yellow and green upright four-drawer dresser. OMG it was hard for us to share. I don’t remember how the other 3 drawers were shared, but the top one was the Junk Drawer. My hair brush was there. So was my brother’s pocket knife and 500 other things. Little gifts someone had given us, a random piece of gum, a notepad and probably a pencil if we could find it.

It was fine.. we just dug around which was its own sort of fun.

But now and then, maybe once a year or less, Mom would state the obvious. The Junk Drawer needed cleaning. I remember well the howls of protest both my brother and I let out in hopes she didn’t really mean it.

But she did. Since we took no action to begin the clean out, she came into the room, pulled out the drawer, and unceremoniously turned it upside down in the middle of our very small room.

More howls ensued.

But now we couldn’t use or walk through our room because…Junk Drawer.

I’m sure there was a period of resignation, but then we got to the cleaning.

Wow! I thought that little doll I loved was gone forever, and there she is!

Yecch. I don’t need that.

Sorting. Deciding. Trashing. Organizing. Discovering.

Hours later when we were finally done, the Junk Drawer was passable again, treasures were recovered, and trash was out the door. Whew!

We had something different than we did when we started.

I think our democracy is being dumped on the floor. Like our Junk Drawer.

It never was perfect despite the high ideals and shiny image. But now…now all that “stuff” is out and up for all to see. For the world to see. I worry if it will ever get put back together. But in truth, I don’t want it like it was. I want something better. More honest. More just. More neighborly. More connected.

In 2000-2001, I was freshly out of the Bad Short Marriage (I’ve mentioned it before), during which I’d hastily sold my family home and closed my grain elevator business. When the marriage ended abruptly (fits of rage from him) I was rudderless.

Jobless, homeless, clueless. I wanted to go back to my cozy familiar rural home with the big south windows and passive solar design. I wanted to go back to my agriculture career, isolated and dead-end though it might be.

So many tears, so much regret. Staying for a few months in my mother’s home (she was traveling) I berated myself for my losses, my foolishness.

I thought mostly of Going Back. I wished I could go back where I was before that Bad Short Marriage, but no. I’d sold my home to a neighbor who considered it their dream house. The business was gone as well.

Going Back was no longer an option, no matter how much I longed for it. No matter how much I was afraid of the future beyond my familiar surroundings.

I was so terrified of moving to a larger city I became ill with anxiety in various ways.

Going Back…it’s all I wanted. I wanted the Junk Drawer back like it was.

But…skipping ahead a few chapters I will confess that I got through all that, I didn’t Go Back, I did clean out the Junk Drawer, and here I am.

That year (2001) I was terrified to leave a rural homestead outside a town of 6000, where I noted once in my journal that I hadn’t met anyone new in months.

Now I’m living in a suburb of 100,000 on the edge of a metro much larger than that. I have a husband, a garden, a singing group, a native plant endeavor, family, friends, circles of community, and so much joy. I also meet new people so often I cannot keep track of all the names, though I try to.

More joy than I could have imagined. More joy than I could have believed. Despite my inability to imagine something like this 25 years ago, here I am. Here this life is.

For our country and our democracy…it’s clear we are not Going Back. Everything ugly that our country has done for the past centuries is laid bare for all to see. The Junk Drawer has been dumped.

There is no Going Back.

But we can go forward, and begin to dream into, begin to imagine something that is more just. More loving. More neighborly.

More beautiful.

More filled with joy. For all people in this country and beyond. Learn more. Live better.

©Linda Chubbuck 2026 Quench - Living Cool in Inflammatory Times

BONUS QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

1. List times in your life when you wanted to go back, but didn’t, or couldn’t.

2. List times in your life when somehow going on, going forward worked out for you.

3. Dare to imagine that, in your life, in our country, there can be a better future. While you are daring, dare to study our hidden history (i.e. sort through our Junk Drawer and see what’s really there) and let it change you. Dig deep. Ask me for suggestions in the comments below.