Month: July 2025

Two Powerful Words

On By Mary KochIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A commonly used two-word phrase can make you either despondent or hopeful, depending on how you use it. The two words are “what” and “if.” What if … ? And we speculate.

“I got caught up in ‘what-ifs,’” a friend recently moaned. Just a few days earlier she’d made a life-changing decision. She was heading toward an exciting new future until the “what-ifs” attacked. By the time I returned her phone call, she’d recovered, her initial decision intact. That was a close one.

Another friend, confronted with protracted legal issues, nervously asked, “What if I go bankrupt?” I’m confident that’s not going to happen, but the specter haunts him.

These days it can feel as if we’re well beyond any nightmarish what-if. Events in our nation and around the world are more appalling than we could ever have imagined. It’s hard to find hope when the meanness quotient increases on a daily basis. 

Yet “what if” can lead to hope, when it’s aspirational. Not ridiculously so, such as “what if I win the lottery” or “what if I lose 20 pounds so I can wear that outfit again.” I’m talking about realistic aspirations, like “what if I take a break from the news (or Facebook, or whatever) one day a week, because it depresses/angers me so much” or, “what if I find a way to be kind to my neighbor/in-law/co-worker whose politics make me crazy.”

In fact, what if we all found a way to be kind to our neighbors, family members, strangers whose politics — or other choices — annoy us. We may think they have bricks for brains; all the more reason to be kind. What if instead of polarized, we were simply polite? What if our whole country abandoned our culture of consumerism? (I’ve never recovered from the counsel President Bush offered to the American people after 9/11: “Go shopping.”) What if instead of consumerism we opted for a culture of kindness?

While some dispute the science behind vaccines and climate change, I’ve heard no one question the abundance of science measuring the very real, positive effects of kindness. Several studies tell us that when we witness or participate in acts of kindness our brain produces oxytocin (the “love” hormone), serotonin (a “feel-good” chemical), and endorphins that naturally relieve discomfort, while cortisol (the stress hormone) decreases. Overall results are lowered blood pressure, healthier hearts, increased energy and extended life expectancy.

All that just by — for example — when in heavy traffic, allowing another vehicle to move into your lane instead of stubbornly hugging the bumper ahead of you!

We don’t have to rely on government policies, programs or grants to increase our level of kindness. Kindness doesn’t have to trickle down from above. It’s most powerful at the grassroots. You don’t have to be authorized, licensed, documented, diploma’d, or even rich, to be kind.

Moreover, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have established that compassion, aka kindness, can be taught! Rogers and Hammerstein figured out years ago that the opposite was true. The song “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” in their musical “South Pacific” insisted people aren’t born to be racist — or hateful. They learn it. Science has caught up with common sense. We can learn and teach kindness. Teach by example, in fact. 

A pandemic can begin with just one obscure virus unleashed from one obscure place. What if kindness became viral? What if our world experienced a pandemic of kindness? What if it took only you and me to unleash the power of kindness, right here, right now?

What if?

In A Word

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized2 Comments

My mother often used the word “queer.” She wasn’t referring to sexual orientation. She used the word in the same way Lewis Carroll’s Alice did while meandering “Through the Looking Glass” and in Wonderland. For Alice and my mother, “queer” meant odd, strange, weird, curious. 

As the meaning of “queer” evolved in our culture, I became uncomfortable when my aging parent (she died at 92 in 2009) commented that something was queer. I worried she might be misunderstood. Yet I was hesitant to tell her the word no longer meant what she meant it to mean. Mother was a writer and educator. She objected when words and language differed from what she’d been taught as a Depression-era honors student. 

She would’ve objected to the change in meaning — not the people who in this era proudly identify as LGBTQ+, or queer. While I don’t recall ever discussing gender issues with my parents, I do remember an episode in my teens involving a friend, Ann. It was around 1960. Ann was homeless after revealing she was a lesbian. It was an especially courageous revelation for a teen — for anyone! — in those years. My parents opened our home to her.

Ann had scars on her wrist from a suicide attempt. She’d spent some time in a mental institution. Keep in mind that homosexuality wasn’t depathologized (no longer viewed as a mental illness) until 1973. Mother became a mentor to Ann, who wanted to be a writer. After Ann left our home, she’d write letters to Mother, who lovingly used her red pen to correct errors and sent the letters back. I’ve no idea how long that exchange continued. Ann eventually disappeared from our lives. 

The memory of my parents’ nonjudgmental hospitality remains, especially in this era when religious fundamentalists have their knickers knotted over gender issues. To be clear, my dad was a Lutheran minister and Mother wrote Christian educational materials — Bible studies, Sunday School lessons, etc.

I wonder how they would’ve reacted to the documentary “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture.” Again, it’s an issue of words and how we understand them. Or don’t. I watched the movie (available on Amazon) in June, as part of “Pride” month. It explores what happened when the word “homosexual” appeared for the first time in an English-language Bible — the Revised Standard Version, issued in 1946. 

Academics ultimately agreed it was a mistranslation and a misinterpretation of the scriptural text. The documentary notes that the mistranslation was ultimately corrected in later versions, but the misuse has been repeated and is used by literalists to condemn queer love. Raised in a Lutheran parsonage, my Christian education was summed up by Jesus’ two simple and direct commandments (Matthew 22:36-40). Love  God. Love others. 

June 29 was my first opportunity to attend Seattle’s annual Pride Parade. The city’s biggest event of the year, it’s said to have drawn some 300,000 people. I was astounded by the crowd, the noise, the joy, the creative and oft-times bizarre apparel — or lack thereof. 

I stopped to take a photo of a fellow (with his permission) who was hunkered down in a patch of shade behind the spectators. 

“But you can’t see the parade,” I said. “It’s not my priority,” he answered.

I assume his small sign proclaiming “JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY TO HEAVEN” was intended as a protest. Well, that’s one in 300,000. We’re each, in our uniquely queer way, one in 300,000, one in a million, one in a billion, quadrillion … one.

One point of view …
… one other