Jane Tawel

Gratitude for Hope at Obama’s Grand Opening

There was sooooooo much to celebrate at the Grand Opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago today. I was choking up to hear one of my favorite “hymns” — “To Dream the Impossible Dream” sung right after “The Star Spangled Banner” — oh indeed! — with Bill Clinton mouthing the words — it broke me with — yes! oh yes! First Lady Michelle Obama’s call to remember and then to act in hope. The intentionality of the center itself — communal, welcoming, diverse, fun, lovely. Angela Merkle! Bono! John Legend! Marc Anthony! The Boss! The guy playing Tuba!! Stevie Wonder! (“All praise to God for this moment.”) And the whole Obama family singing along with him!

Presidents and leaders of our past — when presidents used to be for us, not against us. Of course they made mistakes. Did you think they were gods? But they really did believe in America and in us and they did their best with the times they were given. Thank you.

Of course I personally could watch the ASL signers sign for hours — just them alone brings me deep joy beyond even understanding — the glorious language of hands and faces — I mean seriously did you see just the hands signing trumpets, drums, guitars playing? People clapping? Hands. Our hands. Let us make our hands stretch again to clasp each other across this nation, throughout this world.

The smiles — the hugs — hard, deep hugs. The laughter (George Bush and Michelle Obama). The love of the daughters, Malia and Sasha, now beautiful women. Once children — now examples of goodness and love for the next generation of children.

Children on stage, children from all across the nation, with parents who wanted them to see what we could be, coming to remember and to hope again what it is to believe in US, in the U.S. — to hope, to celebrate what we are and can be. “You better believe”.

Okay — again — Michelle Obama. Yowza. Amen. I had a constant “gulp” — throat gulping — eyes tearing up. I could feel my heart beating for the first time in a while with that deep connection to what we can be at our best.

And it was about one man who made us realize it is never and never has been about one man — no matter what someone with power or access or obscene amounts of money tell you. Someone with a name that took us aback at first — until we got to know him —Barack Obama. I wept with deep, deep joy the night he was elected as the first Black president of this nation that we had become the nation we had set out to be. But it was never about just one man; it was never about just him. It is about one man, and one woman, and one boy, and one girl, and one Latinex, and one Black, and one white, and one farmer, and one teacher, and one mechanic, and one restaurant owner and one waiter, and one and one and one and one becoming All of Us. I can’t wait to see this center someday — where people come to garden and play Bball, and read in the reading room, and laugh and walk with those who pray in a church or on a rug or near a wooded glen or in a closet — it doesn’t matter — this is a testament to place and people — where we remember it is about one and one and one who long to see a history that can encourage us to make a future. “No gale can topple us over”. Believe. Hope.

And oh, the love. And oh, my heart — Thank you, Obama. The Love. How could anyone turn away from this? How could anyone doubt that this is what we are meant to be? We had it in our grasp to be this, to do this, to know this. This is what we are called to be. This is what we are at our best — anywhere, any time, any color, any gender, any nation, any tribe. As Barack Obama said truly: “Everyone has a sacred story to tell if you just care to listen — full of courage and grace and purpose”. How amazing it was to hear a leader who could put words to thoughts with truth and care and grace and compassion and vision! Community! Do you remember what that feels like? Can you imagine what that will feel like to be again?

Our common humanity and bonds can be based on trust. When is the last time you heard a leader say “we” — this is about “we”. — “us”? Oh my. Wasn’t it lovely to use our brains again? To be not only back in reality but in memory of what we have been and hope in what we can be? Wasn’t it a strange combination of peace and exhilaration? Wasn’t it amazing to hold up a mirror that we haven’t held up to ourselves in so long — -the mirror of us as a democracy, as a community, as a force for goodness not just in this country but in the world — One in God, One in grace and justice, One in the desire to make the world, this nation, the planet a place our children and grandchildren will inherit with gratitude and fulfilled dreams — One in purpose, One in hope?

Remember intelligence? Remember compassion? Remember world vision? Remember sharing? Remember stories of not billionaires or mockers or deniers — but stories of hard workers, care-givers, embracers, and families, and students, and faithful, simple, hopeful — people like us?

Today — I remembered and rejoiced — that we are here. We. Are. Here. And as long as we are here, we are responsible and we are able.

Chicago, the home of the Obama Presidential Center, was once my city, and I think your first city is always what you believe a city really is — can be. I am proud to be from that part of the world — the middle part of this great nation, the “fly-over zone”, the “bread basket” and “bible belt” — and now to be a part of Los Angeles, California, yes, as my relatives in that heartland where I once lived call us — yes, we are the “fruits and nuts” — and proud of it — we are what feed you and feed your sense of openness and delight in this glorious, diverse, beautiful land that we call The United States of America. We have been given so much here. May we remember that we are stewards. We are care-takers. We are borrowers from our children.

As President Obama said, “let us turn towards each other, not further away”.

“Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually strive to improve this great Nation of ours”. (The Boss quoting Obama from his speech at Selma.)

Thank you for today, Barack Obama and family —family both given and chosen. Thank you for pointing us towards The Land of Hope and Dreams! May it be so. Let it begin with us. Today. “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”.

“We see what faith without fear can do”. “We know in the Spirit that positivity will win”. “Keep on tryin’ til we reach our higher ground”. (Stevie Wonder.)

Yeah! Amen! Let it be so!

Today in History… if Only it Were only History

“Today in history” often interests me but today as I read my daily local newspaper’s blurb on it, well, it seemed…. well… you read it and see if you see and feel what I did.

1942: Anne Frank, a German-born Jewish girl, received a diary for her 13th birthday, less than a month before her family went into hiding from the Nazis. Less than 3 years later she would die in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

1963: Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was shot and killed outside his home in Jacksonville, Mississippi.

2016: A gunman opened fire at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, leaving 49 people dead and 53 wounded in what was then the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. History.

There are not enough sorrow emojis for me to write. I wish so much I could consign this to history — but then I read the rest of the newspaper….. and I ask: Why do humans continue to do this to other humans? Why do people have to hate? Or as Rodney King, one of our patron saints in Los Angeles, poignantly asked, “”People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we get along?”

Pulling the Flesh Apart

Pulling the Flesh Apart

By Jane Tawel

May 26, 2026

Let us pull it apart — bit by bit.

Lay the body of our transitory knowledge

on The Surgeon’s board.

True, the words became flesh;

but this stuff — this meat —

must be bound on the rack,

pulled out like taffy,

’til our bones bend and crack.

Words should be tortured,

eviscerating the bowels we call facts.

Our gut tells us something

is Realer than real —

Deeper than definitions,

Truer than the skeletons of

Only what we can see and taste and touch –

Oh! We are meant to touch the very Being —

We are meant to be stretched into smallness

Split into Wholeness,

and cured unto death.

Only oxymorons, symbols, metaphors and myths —

Only songs and pictures —

Only stories of salve — ations,

Only tales of trudging the long road toward home,

Only legends of those who die for Love,

Only these are meant to live forever.

Oh, we must lay our small selves on the Cross.

We must die to the language of our answers

And float in the ocean of our questions.

How mysterious is the human hand!

How awe-inspiring the body’s eye!

And what beyond what I am called to name,

Can I sense beyond my wonderous senses —

Moves and lives in the being I call “myself”?

There is Some-thing, Some-One, Some-Life/Self —

Who is beyond all language —

beyond all materials and all body,

beyond the mind’s best truest truths.

There is a Word the mind knows not.

A Name. A Life. A Presence.

The Word that sweetly sings to us

to be let in the cages of our heads and hearts,

and once, when homing there,

flutters like a small bird,

Singing songs of wordless Love and Life,

in flight and free within the Heart —

Though not a “thing”, a word must do —

Beyond, above, deeper, wider, purer, timeless —

Some thing — visceral —

Some thing — that moves and breathes and has its being

Some thing — despite all longing, we can not name —

from a heart that no longer beats

but Swells –

Cresting until it bursts through

the walls of this poor substance

that I call, “myself”.

The Soul — burst asunder into

pieces of The Whole.

No longer words on paper

But The Word made flesh in us,

a Picture worth an Eternity of words.

No longer flesh and blood,

But Bread and Wine.

Given, so all may have Life,

And Life Abundant.

Life granted, beyond syllables.

Life, lived beyond flesh.

Life, here and now

in the Stillness

here beyond death.

The First Steps and The Last

The First Steps and The Last

By Jane Tawel

The first steps are the hardest;

I really don’t want to run this race.

My breath struggles at the start

and every aspiration

becomes the hardest to catch.

The last mile that I run

(and this is all by choice, mind you)

is pretty darn hard too –

Maybe I could just walk it?

Or crawl?

Or quit?

I wonder if the last lap of this race

I’ve called my Life,

will be as hard for me

as my first lap?

Birthed into struggle

from the womb of the bed I’ve made,

will I run well the race towards Death?

Or will my passing on The Path

be the painful struggle

the agonizing effort to breathe

a battle waged as all the last steps

of the last journey I make towards Home?

Or will Life’s Finish Line instead

be the first lap

of the next journey which

will no longer be any kind of race at all.

Will that final step

always be a breathing into

a beginning —

effortless, weightless, sweat-less-

cleaned from the placenta of Death

into the Quest beyond questions,

Stilled and Resting, Peaceful, Floating

Reborn, restarted, re-breathed,

Dancing forward

into New Life?

Even When We Are Numb, Let’s Stand and Deliver for Love

By now, I almost want to stay numb and depressed, but I am still just stubborn enough, I guess, to not want to give evil , insane, war-mongering, greedy, immoral, or just plain foolish people what they want. And every day I am reminded that there are good people in the world, and that the planet is ours to save, and that America really, honestly, needed to change anyway, so if it has to change by a trial by fire, so be it, I will keep working with the fire brigade as best I can.

So you know that awful feeling when your leg and foot fall asleep — the numb, painful tingles? and how it is excruciating to stand? Well, I remind myself that even though both legs, arms, and my mind are numbed and in pain, tingling with disbelief, anger and sorrow, I remind myself that the house is on fire, so I gotta keep getting up and keep moving toward The Way, toward Goodness and Light. Folks, the fire is raging, but despite our desire to give in to the numbness — we gotta vote for democracy and a return to reason, vote with our dollars, yell, move, and stand and deliver, ya’all.

And those of us who have tried, failingly to be sure, but have tried, to walk The Way with the idea that the God of the Bible and Jesus have the most loving, gracious, justice-freedom toting message of all — meaning Love above all and for ALL — we need to speak out and more importantly LIVE OUT, what God is really like and what Jesus really taught and lived. Because what those greedy warmongers, foolish fear-mongers, judgmental non-thinkers, and sleight-of-hand shysters in the halls of power, both under the guise of American and Religious powers, are trying to sell you are selling you fire policies for houses underwater, not Life Policies for Houses built on The Rock of True Life.

May your numbness be not more than you can bear to carry today. May you let your anger make you determined, your sorrow make you compassionate, and your numbness let you know that we need each other and we are not alone. Then, unlike the person mentioned in this article — Think about others and as The Good Book advices, when you can, “think on these things: whatever is true, right, pure, honorable, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praisworthy.” (Philippians 4:8)

We are numb, we are afraid, we are angry and sad, but lastly remember — no matter what the end point is — Hope is free and Love is forever.

This is from a long, hard read about just the latest insanity in America, but it sums it all up with facts. It is from a great newsletter you can find on Facebook and Substack called: Oregon’s Bay Area, by a mother/ daughter team, the Geddry’s.

Here is a quote near the punchline of this article: “That is the connective tissue between Trump’s redistricting brag, his openness to sending National Guard or ICE to voting locations, his terror of a Democratic House with subpoena power, and the GOP’s willingness to keep funding the whole circus. They are not waiting for Trump to become normal. They are trying to preserve power long enough to make normal voters irrelevant.

HCR also ties the economic story together: the Iran war, Trump’s ballroom, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the rising debt, and the larger question of what Republicans are doing with public money. That question may define the summer. Americans are being asked to pay for the war, pay for higher gas prices, pay for the debt from tax cuts for the rich, brace for cuts to programs they rely on, and somehow also pay for Trump’s vanity projects and personal legal escape hatches.

Trump said he does not think about Americans. Today’s news is the receipt.

Fuel prices are up and the war bill is climbing, but Americans are not on his mind. The Pentagon dodges questions about munitions and costs, but Americans are not on his mind. Iran retains most of its missiles and the Strait stays closed, but Americans are not on his mind. He boards Air Force One with billionaires and flies to Beijing to open markets for corporate America, but Americans are not on his mind. His Justice Department quietly explores a settlement that could immunize him from financial scrutiny, but Americans are not on his mind. His party rigs maps, dodges oversight, and works methodically to make democratic accountability harder to enforce, but Americans are not on his mind.”

And so — instead of THAT kind of mind — “Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. (Paul) “Let your love extend to all beings” (Buddha) “Love is the ultimate truth at the heart of creation”. (Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita) “Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will live in the LORD’s house as long as I live.” (Psalm 23 from Hebrew Scriptures)

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Jesus as recorded in Matthew 22).

That I Should Have No Words

https://unsplash.com/@wolfgang_hasselmann

That I Should Have No Words

By Jane Tawel

I have no words to speak of You,

And yet, I am a member of the tribe of Word-seekers.

The other tribes — of birds, and beasts,

of seas and trees, and rocks —

Do not seek words for what they know,

for what they know lies deeper than facts or pictures.

Our symbol-speech makes us gloriously, fragilely human,

Greater than angels,

and smaller than stones.

And yet even the “rocks would cry out”

in awe, and praise, and wonder —

If in this time of tribal tribulation,

and lack of mythic Truths,

my own created, creative Tribe of poetry and prose

should in the limited vocabulary of our death-throes,

be forever silenced.

Will we be then quite silenced

because of our surrendered, suicidal demise?

Or will we wordless bow,

finally, eternally in speechless, stunned and stilled-struck Awe?

Oh, there are times I wish I had no words,

in mind, or mouth, or dreams.

Oh, to be a rock, a puddle, or a tree!

And to hold within my very wordless being,

The Being-ness of Thee.

Hope in the World, Just Not Yet at Home

by Jane Tawel

In the past couple days there is evidence of several amazing world events and leaders that give me hope — they just aren’t in America sadly. (Let’s hope that there is a “yet” to that first sentence.) Hungary — Wow! Canada and Prime Minister Mark Carney — Wow. Wow. Pope Leo — WOW! WOW! WOW! These three examples alone of moral integrity and truth spoken with love are lights in a dark time. This is unlike the haters and foolish, dark-minded people currently in our nation’s administration, congress, and in the ranks of their supporters, (either openly or behind the scenes), who are running our nation into the ground. They instead are gleefully filling their coffers or excusing those who are using them for their own enrichment while offending everyone, creating fallacious conflicts that kill innocent people, and ruining not just America’s and the world’s economy, but creating decades of dire problems for our children and our planet. This is overwhelming enough but add to that the continuous drip, drip, drip of blaspheming or changing beyond all recognition what some of these people say they believe as a world view, Christianity, and that they even say they want to be our national “religion” (something our nation considered a dangerous oxymoron) but a belief system if when looked at honestly, stands against everything that we see coming to horrible fruition today; a Faith which is truly and in actuality the moral imperative good people of all religions or just all good humans are called to follow. We have slid down the slippery slope the oligarchs and capitalism have long been slipping on.

But despite what we are hearing: Exceptionalism isn’t individualism, it is holding oneself to an exceptional standard; leading without morality isn’t leadership, its narcissm; and empathy is not a weakness but the best way to understand the onus of the greatest power the universe knows — Love. I know there are enough people in America who remember what we are called to be at our best — caring, sharing, accepting, just, truthful, and free. There is always light, no matter how dark it may seem, if we look hard enough. Keep looking ahead; keep looking around you; keep looking for the helpers. And keep hoping. Be the Light you are called to today.

Some Days I Just Don’t, But I Do

Some Days I Just Don’t, But I Do

By Jane Tawel

April 11, 2026

I guess it’s not fair

to say I don’t care

but somedays there are times

when I don’t.

Don’t wanna’ keep fighting

Don’t wanna’ keep hoping

Don’t want more nail-biting

Or dreaming or moping.

I’m barely now coping

So, forgive me for writing

this doggerel dressed up like a poem.

I may be quite small —

just a gnat, or a flea

on the tail of the dog-eating-dog lives we lead.

But I think even small things should matter —

Don’t you?

I think children and tadpoles

And flowers and bees,

And fire-flies and moon-beams

And seashells and seeds —

All matter should matter — and all that’s beyond —

All life’s matter should matter to me.

There are some times I should

just breathe deeply, just be.

But at junctures of fear, doubt, or faith,

there’s a Voice that will whisper,

there’s a choice to be made:

Should I speak up with courage?

Should I fight, quit, or flee?

So, I live in the question —

in this Time, in this Place,

Will I be or not be

one who makes a small difference?

Will I trust even small acts of love

will deliver us?

Will I choose to be kind?

Will I show love and grace?

Will I seek truth and justice?

Will I leave a wee trace?

Will I follow the way

of the sages now past

and of Good people I know

who stand tall and speak out?

No — there is no foreseeing

what the future will hold;

But I choose to stoke embers

of hope in my soul

for the Life that is Freeing

for the Life that’s eternal

for the Earth, our maternal, dear home;

for humanity’s spark

for Light conquering the dark,

for Divinity’s Known and Unknown.

Somedays I think maybe

I can’t make a difference.

Somedays I think maybe

There isn’t much hope.

But I’ll do the good do’s,

What I can — just my part —

And I won’t do the don’t’s and the do-nots.

And when fears try to stop me,

And doubt quells my heart,

And I struggle with why, how, or whether —

Then I’ll look for a friend

And I’ll look for a hand

and I’ll whisper: “let’s do it together”.

Beauty and the Bees

I am lucky to have a small piece of land imbued with beauty at my home — but also the ability to find beauty any where gives me a sense of wonder and assures me of a world still filled with Goodness. And sometimes– well, often, to be honest — I need to be very silly to try to remain sane. Here is a little video about Nature’s gifts with my silly but heart-felt song / ode of love, that I call “Beauty and the Bees”.

Hope’s Plucked Feathers and Bits of Light

Hope’s Plucked Feathers and Bits of Light

By Jane Tawel

Thoughts and riffing on Emily Dickinson’s poem, “hope is the thing with feathers” and meditation on the quality of our Light.

The feathers of hope seem plucked to the skin.

The chill seas have plasticized Beauty.

The soul is not perched but in free-fall it seems.

And the sweet tunes are perniciously wordy.

We are abashed with fire and ash

Hearts sore from flight from Power’s storms

Frigidity of soul-less gales

Compassion’s hands, hard to keep warm.

I am this one small speck of dust

Blown by the Wind of time and place.

But even bits of dust can shine

Reflecting Light’s Eternal Flame.

The shore seems further now than then

And like a bird in flight, I long for rest.

My heart is fluttering, fearful, tense,

and all the raging makes no sense

When all we little creatures want

The same –

safe-keeping, seeds, clean air, warm nests.

Hope flies again in fleeting moments

when the clouds clear from my mind.

And through the dark and thundering storms

I sometimes glimpse the Rainbow’s Light beyond.

I think She meant when once she said,

“Hope is the thing with feathers” —

It’s not a thing that I can know.

For who can understand a bird?

A bird still awes me — Creation’s Wonder —

And maybe just as wonderous, so is Hope.

We can not understand or cage

this marvelous grace of hopefulness.

Just as I can not make The Light,

but only clear my soul for His Reflection.

There’s nothing I can give to Hope,

“It asks no crumb from me”.

But even in extremities,

crumbs from Life’s Bounteous Tables can be sweeped

into our waiting, emptied bowls.

And as Our Mother felt Her womb-child leap,

Hope perches — fluttering, moving —

Waiting to be born to Life,

once more today within our souls.

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