June 20, 2025
Dear Interested Readers,
Moving From Distress to Action
Where were you last Saturday? Were you among the 5 million neighbors in all fifty states who showed up to vote with your presence against the policies and performance of our president? He loves to categorize everything he does as “best ever” or “nobody has ever seen anything like it.” The “No Kings” protests were definitely the “best ever” and “nobody has ever seen anything like it.” When it comes to the destruction of political norms or the ability to use presidential powers to abuse people, he is right. He is the best ever.
Last Saturday, the weather in my little town was damp, cool, and overcast, but that did not prevent several hundred of my neighbors from showing up to be counted as against everything that this president has done to undermine our democracy, promote cruelty toward the most disadvantaged of our neighbors, and establish a kleptocracy with unchecked authoritarian powers. I was glad that rain on the thirteenth consecutive Saturday had morphed to mist by eleven and was gone by one. The event was inspiring and entertaining. It felt good to be doing something, even if the most we can hope for is the beginning of a movement that might make him and his enablers a little more cautious in their assertion of powers that are not granted in the Constitution, as we wait to see the outcome of the 2026 election.
I loved the creativity of the homemade signs that people carried and sometimes planted. One that caught my eye said, “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance. I was also entertained by the rambunctious antics of two little children near me, a brother who was probably five, and his much stronger and more agile little sister, who looked to be about three. The little sister was chasing her brother in circles around their mother and jumping on her brother’s back. She would knock him down and ride him like a horse. He seemed to love it. They had endless energy. The mom functioned as an occasional referee if things got out of hand, but most of the time, she was focused on the speakers.
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The mom and the children got me wondering. Where was Dad? Was he at work? Was she a single mom? Did they depend on the local food bank that was housed at my church, the picturesque white steepled church just a few hundred yards to the South of the green between the police station and Colby-Sawyer College? Perhaps their clothes came from the thrift shop of the Episcopal Church that was contiguous with the East side of the green and behind the New London Inn, which has survived since the early 1790s, just about the time our now threatened Constitution was ratified, and shortly after George Washington became president, but refused to be a king.
Will this family be one of the families that find that after Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is passed, they won’t have Medicaid, fuel assistance, school breakfast and lunch programs, and SNAP benefits that have allowed them to have enough money left over to pay their rent? I am concerned about the many individuals and families, especially the ones with children, who travel back and forth between the deprivation of poverty and just getting by.
According to the MIT living wage calculator, a family of one adult and two children in my county absurdly requires an annual pre-tax income of $114,686. According to the Federal Reserve, about half of the people and families in our country would be extremely stressed by an unexpected expense of $400 or $500, like a car repair. During the pandemic, the more generous but small increases in the child tax credit, which have now expired, lifted millions of children out of poverty temporarily. We have proven that small amounts of subsidy can make big differences.
Something tells me that once the president gets his bill passed, there is a real possibility that this mother may have more difficulty ahead than refereeing two delightfully rambunctious little children. It is bizarre that we have evolved to a moment when we care more about giving help to those who have too much than too little. Even worse, we are willing to take much of the inadequate resources we give those who have difficulty getting by from paycheck to paycheck, and transfer those resources into the bloated bank accounts and portfolios of a small minority of those whose desire for wealth seems insatiable. What was it about “the camel and the eye of the needle?” Does that apply to nations as well as individuals? Maybe there is a way for a camel to squeeze through a needle, or the needle is just a narrow gate, but I would be very surprised if you could drive a Tesla through a needle. I fear that our callous attitude toward our needy at home and those in need and exposed to diseases abroad will eventually cost us the soul of our nation, if it is not already gone.
The crowd scenes, patriotic thoughts, sense of greater purpose, and emotions, both patriotic and charitable concerns towards the most vulnerable, that were generated by the “No Kings” gathering in my little town and across the country, were a dramatic contrast to the poorly attended military parade in Washington that seemed to bore even the president for whom it was a command performance. My family holds the military in high regard. An uncle of mine parachuted in behind Utah Beach on D-Day and was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. Another built pontoon bridges in the Corps of Engineers as our troops moved across Europe. My wife had two brothers who were in the Air Force during the Vietnam era. One brother served for 30 years, and the other brother did two tours of duty. The husband of a niece was a Marine in Iraq, and a brother-in-law was in the Navy during the Vietnam era. Trump’s parade did little to honor the 250 years of our Army that has existed to preserve a Constitution that he violates on an almost daily basis.
I hope that the parade was a big disappointment for a man who must feel that he is beginning to lose momentum and needs to contemplate the use of more force at home and abroad. We have soldiers in our streets, while men who are more adept at the use of raw power are making life miserable for him with his ongoing failures in Ukraine and the Middle East. His sycophants may promote his cause at home, while abroad, he is much bluster with sparse response, and so far, no measurable successes. I am both reassured and terrified by the wisdom that personal relationships with a narcissist almost always end badly. I have a suspicion that if that is true in individual relationships, it must be even worse for the relationship between a narcissistic leader and a substantial number of his/her constituents.
Those were the thoughts that weighed on me as the week began. The third week of the month is usually my busiest as a “retiree.” I serve on the boards of two charitable organizations in my community, Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners, Kearsarge Regional Ecumenical Ministries, and I am moderator of my congregation and chair of our church council. For reasons beyond my control, all the monthly meetings occur during the third week of every month. I don’t mind the meetings because I see each one of these efforts as an opportunity to participate with other like-minded people in improving the social determinants of health in my community. I would like to think that perhaps the mom with her two children, whose antics entertained me at the “No Kings” event, benefits from the coordinated work of these groups.
This week was particularly busy because both of the quarterly meetings of two other groups were also scheduled. First, the President’s Advisory Committee of the Whittier Street Health Center, one of the oldest, largest, exceptionally led, and most innovative Federally Qualified Health Centers in the country. And the last meeting, but certainly not the least important, was the board meeting of the Family Health Project, which is passionately led by Joe Knowles, a truly gifted social entrepreneur.
The meeting of the Family Health Project board was like a drink of cool water for a thirsty man on an oppressively hot day. I have written about the project before, but not in a focused way since late 2022. Much has happened since that time. Most importantly, we now have experiential evidence that this organization, which is seeking to utilize a form of universal basic income to improve the lives of mothers in need and their children, can make a big difference in the lives of vulnerable families. There is a huge literature and experiences like the pandemic Child Tax credit that prove that a small amount of extra cash can make a big difference. It is easy to speculate that as federal support programs wither, we will need to steal an idea from George Bush’s “conservative compassion” and more effectively begin to practice “progressive compassion.”
I know many of us, myself included, spend a great many hours each week reading and thinking about all that has gone wrong since last November. You might have noticed that I have begun to make subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions that being worried and aggrieved does little to change things. Showing up at a rally is a little better than reading an opinion column in The New York Times, but who does it help in the moment? I like the philosophy of the Franciscan monk, Richard Rohr, who advocates that contemplation is great, but action is what the world needs. His ministry in New Mexico is called the Center for Action and Contemplation. All contemplation and no action seems useless to me.
At the board meeting, I was delighted to meet (on Google Meet) the newest member of the Family Health Project Team, Kelley Jordan, our relationship manager. You can see Kelley and learn more about her experience and expertise by clicking here and scrolling down. I learned all I needed to know as she described her work with our partners and the mothers who receive the benefits from the program. Every enrolled mother receives $400 a month for the first three years of her child’s life. The money is automatically loaded on a debit card in a process that is similar to how SNAP benefits are delivered to clients. I was deeply moved when Kelley described her conversation with a mother whose husband was recently deported. Her life is in turmoil, and the resources that she gets from the Family Health Project are a bright spot in an otherwise uncertain future. The story that Kelley told got me thinking. Donating more to the Family Health Project could be an action that I can take, and that I can offer to you, that will do frightened young mothers in need a lot more good than my contemplation of the president’s cruelty.
After the meeting, Kelley and I exchanged emails. She wrote:
Working as the Relationship Manager at FHP, I can say that I have been truly blown away by nothing that I can quantify specifically, but by each reaction of every new mother we support when she realizes that she will have a guaranteed income for the next 3 years. I have seen hope in their eyes through unbelieving tears, witnessed a physical relief in their body language, and I have been met with immeasurable gratitude to know that she and her baby are going to be alright. The work we are doing at FHP matters. I am beginning to think that the true power of direct cash giving comes not only from the money, but from the message to these women that someone, somewhere, believes that they will be a good mother. The moms we support feel that this financial assistance is an act of trust and encouragement, and it conveys confidence in them as a parent and a person to make the best decisions for their child. This program allows them to breathe…literally, I’ve seen it happen physically each time when I hand a new mom the debit card. On many occasions, mothers have said that now they can focus on the care of their child and plan for the future in a way they were not able to before. I’m not sure how we quantify that for our donors, but it is a message I would like to share.
If you are looking for an opportunity to feel good about something in these uncertain times, you could help to support this work. You might share my enthusiasm for this action by learning more about the Family Health Project. There are some short stories about moms that you can experience on the website. The donation button is nearby. I have never requested a donation for an organization through these notes, but we are living in a moment, as the president would say, “like we’ve never seen before.”
Every day before the election last fall, I got multiple emails and texts requesting political donations. I positively responded to many. Since the election, I get even more requests, often more than twenty a day. I have been deleting all of them. I am sure that as the 2026 election approaches, I will respond to some of them, but I believe that there is no contribution to any politician today that will provide the immediate benefits that these moms need now. The more we give, the more moms we can help.
Currently, Family Health Project is helping moms who are patients at the FQHC in Lynn, Massachusetts, and at Whittier Street Health Center in the Roxbury neighborhood in Boston. We are well past demonstrating the effectiveness of the program. Now is the time to make it available to many more moms in other locations. The board is considering where to go next. The methodology is proven. The organizational expenses have been covered and are small because of the methodology. Click here to donate resources that will go directly to one or more moms in need. Sign up to get updates on the work. I hope that you will move from worry and concern about the uncertainties over which you have little control and take action in a way that is certain to make a difference in the life of a child and a mom who face an even more uncertain future with fewer resources and support than you or I enjoy.
Summer Officially Begins Today!
One of my favorite things about summer is the interplay between the clouds and the setting sun. Earlier this week, my wife and I were headed home after a pleasant evening cruise with friends in an antique (circa 1910) electric boat on Pleasant Lake. It was approaching nine, and on the ride home, we were enjoying the last few minutes of what had been a beautiful day that was sandwiched between two duller, chillier, and overcast days when the magic of a glorious sunset did not occur. The evening was so beautiful that we took the long way home to prolong the moment.
As we approached the Eastern end of our lake, the sky was magnificent, so we stopped at Bucklin Beach, which is open to town residents. There were a few others on the beach who wanted to soak in the moment. I don’t know if the red sky was a positive side effect of the smoke from some distant Canadian forest fire or had some other, more benign origin. No matter the cause, the sight was breathtaking and worthy of being shared with you.
I expect that sometime this weekend, like most others recently, we will hear of or see some national or international event that will shock and sadden us. As an antidote or alternative, I hope that at some other moment this weekend, you will also be stopped in your tracks by some unexpected scene that brings a moment of joy to you.
Be well,
Gene
