 Welcome to Don't Just Age, Engage. This is Think Tech Hawaii's program on aging and having an extraordinary elderhood. I'm Larry Grimm, your host. And we're looking at why it's so important for aging members of our society, extraordinary elders I like to call us should be involved in social justice issues. Marion Heidel was with me last two weeks ago with my last program. And I asked her to come back so that we could discuss not just the reason for us to be involved, but the content of what's going on. Some commentary from her and from me this morning on what is happening in our world. Marion, welcome again. Thank you so much for joining me in this dialogue. I am grateful for you and all you've done. Well, thank you for asking me. I hope that this is gonna be fine. I think it will be. I think it'll be great. There are plenty of concerns. There are plenty of issues. I like to start off actually kind of with a list of issues that we may touch on as having been our involvement and our past or our involvement presently when we consider seeking justice. And I wondered if, I wonder, Mike, can you put those up for us? Issues? Some of the social issues that we find important. This armament of nuclear weapons is one. The Middle East, I've been involved in, very much involved in my life. Palestinian right to return for one thing. White supremacy has been an ongoing concern of mine and gun regulation, of course. Those are four, three, four. Four. And what have been some of yours, Marion? Well, housing in different ways. Transitional housing, housing that's for something that low income can afford and a whole thing about what's affordable housing. Most of our housing is not affordable. So housing, criminal justice system, reforming how we deal with our people who have been imprisoned and hunger, the whole hunger issue and food supply. Lots of environmental problems. And I didn't list this, but immigration and the treatment of immigrants. Yes. That sounds like enough. And I would add a women's healthcare if possible. Oh, that's right. We didn't get into that too much last time. That's a great list. And it's a list of what we have been involved in, you and I at various times in our lives and also look at the commonality of some of the concerns. However, let's start a step back, Marion, and say what motivates you to be involved in seeking justice? I suppose it's because of my spiritual or religious life. As I said last week, I think we Christians have been instructed or moved to bring the kingdom of God on earth and not just up there in the clouds in heaven. And because of life experiences, I've been led to be a compassionate person, I guess you'd say, and I try and find ways to express that compassion and help change the world at the same time. Some of the- Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, and for me, it's similar. It's throughout the biblical material literature, we can see evidence in Micah, than Prophet Micah in the Hebrew texts, which I love, it just propels me forward, seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. And that to me summarizes so much of what motivates me to be involved in the social realm. We have a transformative view of the possibility of the spirit to transform our material world into what you have called and named the kingdom of God or the realm of love and peace and justice. We really believe in the transformative power of that inner compassion that you mentioned and that love that we have, that it can take the shape of, it can take the shape of law, it can take the shape of social organization, it can take the shape of care and provision for people. And that's- It really needs to take the shape in those forms. Something that's just beyond what I can do, as far as changing something. And in this way, in this vein, we say if you grow up, when you're growing up, you really have started growing up when you take responsibility for the shape of society that you're gonna be a part of and that you bring those values that you share with other people into shaping society. I love Margaret Mead's quote that's been often quoted, never doubt that the world can be changed by a small group of committed, devoted, I'm paraphrasing, devoted individuals. She said, nothing else has ever changed the world, except that. It's not something that is an individual gonna change the world, save the world. It really is a collective, mutually engaging activity that we do with people that share some of the same vision. Now, that's true of whoever may share visions you and I fortunately share a similar vision. Yes. And I think it's fortunate we do. Part of that is women's health care. Let's get into women's health care briefly. Not that it doesn't deserve a lot of attention, but we have a couple of other things that are pressing as well. For me, when I was in Houston, no, I'm sorry, when I was in Denver, in Colorado serving in a congregation in Lakewood, Colorado, I had the good fortune of being president of the Colorado Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and served three years on that board as president. I really, really enjoyed it. We worked closely with the Planned Parenthood and doing everything we could to educate and to empower safe abortion provision for people in Colorado. And I'm proud to say that today, one of the few states that is set to receive people, women who need abortions is Colorado. Have you been involved directly in some of the women's provisions? No. I, when Roe versus Wade came up, I had to think about that because basically I don't approve of abortions. I wouldn't like to have one myself, although there have been a time or two where I thought if I was pregnant, I'd have to tell my mom and dad. I just, that would be a very difficult thing and I'd be very tempted to have an abortion. But what I don't like is that so many young girls are desperate to have an abortion because they don't wanna have one for whatever reasons and so they'll go off to somebody who's more of a quack but doesn't do safe abortions. And that takes precedent for me over saying no, I don't believe in abortions at all. So I'm probably not on the same strong side you are, but I am supportive. I don't, I haven't contributed, I think to Planned Parenthood but I appreciate the work they do. Trusting that they are giving girls different options, educating them, helping them think about, you know, the preciousness of life and whose life is precious. And of course that can make the girl even more uncomfortable. But I think, and I don't, what I don't like is just getting an abortion for the, because it's easier than considering, you know, just willy nilly. Now we're talking about motivation and reason and that comes into the decision making process for every woman. I do wanna say when I was involved directly in the board of the Colorado Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which involved leadership from all of our denominations, Jewish and Jewish and Christian, however, of course we didn't have the Roman Catholic Church involved with us. But when we were involved with that, a large percentage of recipients of abortion were married women over 30. And so we're not just talking about young girls who are facing their mothers or in fathers, possibly as frightening a prospect as that would be. I'm talking about women in various situations who are considering what their prospects are and what their life is about. The key for me, Marion, when I was getting involved in this was moral agency. And how dare I think that women are not moral agents capable of making those decisions, choosing with whom they will make those decisions and then making them. So for me, the provision of choice really went along with the sense that God is involved in everyone's life and the women who are considering this question are really taking responsibility along with others in their lives to discern some sort of guidance beyond themselves. It's important as you did say, and I agree to provide some sort of provision for a safe... Well, and I think what your group must have been doing too is what I would hope that most, especially when you're talking about mature women, I mean, more than just teenagers, that they do have the chance and guidance of somebody to help them work through that and make the decision. And that's what I hope. And I agree with you that way. I know I haven't been involved or voting on that kind of thing, except that if I was asked to answer what do you call it, a petition or something or what I feel and they asked me about, would you vote for Roe versus Wade? I would put yes, but I do hope that in that, and I haven't been involved in meeting with any groups like that where you would discuss, group of women would discuss and share their different feelings and their attitudes. I saw one meme on Facebook that I kind of liked during Mother's Day in the 30-something woman was standing in front of a perfume counter. This is a cartoon drawing and says to the card, the woman is standing at the counter with a bottle of perfume ready to squeeze it. And the 30-something woman says, my mother for Mother's Day wants to be reassured that her activism of her youth was not for nothing. And I think the leak from the Supreme Court was so shocking and stunning. Those of us who have been involved in the past and concerned about it to provision for safe women's health care choices in all kinds of ways, just were stunned that this could have happened, that we didn't think it could be overturned like this. And yet we do see that half of the, almost half the population has been active for many years towards this point. There are leaders who are taking position, but they're also taking the position anti-right to choose position. But also there are those who didn't, we didn't think we're gonna be there. Anyway, it's a kind of shocking. And I think we're stunned into silence in some ways, but there is a movement, a counter movement to that that's surfacing and we'll have to see how it goes from here to, but I certainly support a woman's right to choose a woman's right to exercise her moral agency and the right of our society provide safe and safe and secure abortion procedures. And we also, in addition to aborting a pregnancy, just for that purpose, it also is a way of dealing with other medical issues like ectopic, I think it's ectopic pregnancy. Other moral, there are other medical issues a woman faces and she has to have abortion as a way of addressing them to save her own life. Right, right, I agree with that, for sure. Yeah. Well, most recently, of course, today, gun violence, Marianne, what are you thinking about this day? Well, I mean, I've been horrified ever since I discovered that people could buy guns and automatic rifles and repeating rifles and all the things that are supposed to have been saved for a real war, which I don't like as a way of deciding things either. And I'm strongly against nuclear weapons and I'm hoping they will work towards discussion and diplomacy and that kind of thing for settling disputes. But to have it be so that kids can buy them, adults can buy those kinds of things, I can understand buying a rifle to go hunting, although a lot of people, of course, that don't like that because you're killing an animal's life and they're vegetarians because of it. But just having a gun in your house to defend yourself, I don't like that. And especially now that people are using it on other people. Yeah, yeah. That's a tall. My understanding of a crime, if I remember my clue game correctly. Yes. It took them, you had to have a motive. You had to have the means and the opportunity and had to be able to prove that in court. On the board. On the board there. Well, it seems to me that what we're doing as a society is that we're providing the means and we're providing the opportunity. I think we've got to take responsibility for the fact that we do that as a society. And we have 400 million guns on the street now. It's up from 300 million five years ago. What's our population? That's a gun per person. More than one gun per person, that's right. And there have been, since Sandy Hook, excuse me, take me a minute here, since Sandy Hook, there have been 3,865 more shootings since Sandy Hook. I remember Sandy Hook, aha. Yeah, we're going to make sure that's the last time that ever happens. Yeah, remember the phrase, never again, never again will humanity be subjected to genocide unless they're Palestinian or Yemeni or some other, what a Shiite Muslim. That's just crazy. The kinds of tribalism that drives people to kill. I don't know if today was a hate crime, but certainly it seems like the murder at tops in Buffalo, New York was a hate crime, targeting African-American men and women who are shopping, the one grocery store available in that desert, food desert of that community. So, all these are such setups. And I think one of the things I appreciate about our age, aging process, Marion, is that we're able to see systemic issues or these issues are systemic, but they're not just one individual who gets crazy and does something weird. There are several variables that are involved that come together in a confluence and a flow. And part of that, like I said, is providing the means. And we provide the means, we provide the opportunity to purchase the weapons, we provide the building of the weapons, we provide the ammunition availability for those weapons. Then we make the opportunities available when we don't screen well enough. I don't know all the answers to it, Marion, but I know there's some way that we've gotta commit to getting those guns, getting guns regulated and off of the streets and out of the hands of people who don't know how to control their emotional life and trauma life. What other issues have been very important for you? We haven't talked about the criminal justice system. Tell us about that here in Hawaii. Well, our latest thing that I've been involved with is, well, I've always thought that we should be giving folks in prison the opportunity to change their ways to transform themselves and some places do and some places don't. And so it should be giving those kinds of opportunities instead of thinking he's gotta be punished and he's gotta be, you know, and then when they get out, especially, they need help. They've lost their jobs, they don't have a place to live. They don't have even things like their identity card or a driver's license anymore. Some of the same things that the immigrants have to worry about, but, you know, having programs that they can go into to help them, that should be done rather than a just punishment. Some of the- Society. Yeah. Re-assimilate into society. Yes. Instead of feeling marginalized once they get out of prison. And, you know, it's too bad we're having to send them away to another state because then they're completely separated from their families, their families cannot visit them. I don't know how many get family visits now, but I remember, oh gosh, maybe back in the 80s, I guess that we had a program with women's prison up here where for a while we not only had some of the prisoners who were allowed to be able to come to church, but also we took the trouble of trying to get opportunities for the mothers who are there to see their kids. Oh, wow. So between I think the Rotary and some of the churches where they put up a playground there and in such a way that they could meet together and see their kids and have some time with them. And I think the men need that too. Yeah, absolutely. And your compassion seems to really empower you and energize you in those particular kinds of concerns, relational concerns that the people experience. Well, and I feel bad about people who've had their sons and daughters killed on the streets and then the guy has to go to prison and that seems to be the only way that the families of the victims can feel like there's closure and that he's getting punished like he should be. Yeah, every issue that we listed there, Marianne, I know I have been reminded in the past that these are not issues, these are people. These social issues are people, individuals and families and networks of love and concern that are affected by what we call the issues. And we're not gonna get to all these, just have a half an hour, but I am so grateful that you have been a part of this. Thank you, I really like having this kind of conversation with you and I've been wanting to do it actually since I arrived in Kailua to go to Christ Church uniting disciples and Presbyterians and you've been gracious to do it with me here. Thank you. Yeah, well, I just think that whatever age you are, that the best thing you can do is to educate yourself about these different issues. Then you'll feel like you're making a more of a fair testimony if you do take the energy and bravery to send testimony to the legislature if they're working on something that has to do with these issues. Well stated. Educate. Thank you, Marian. Educate and be educated. Thank you everybody for joining us. This is Larry Grimm, host of Don't Just Age, Engage, encouraging you to engage in your life and your elderhood and make it extraordinary. And I'll be back in two weeks with the next show. Thank you so much for participating and I wish you Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.