The World Order is Shifting

The world order is shifting, and it’s terrifying.

                                                                    Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The most narcissistic president in my lifetime is making enemies left and right all around the world. Since coming into office, he has alienated long-held allies like Canada, he has publicly demoralized visitors who come to the White House, and he keeps snuggling up to the Russian dictator PUTIN. All in the name of making America great again.

While I was in Berlin visiting the Jewish Memorial, the Topograohy of Terror Museum on the German Gestapo and Secret police, and exploring the Berlin Bunker learning about the rise and fall of Hitler, three major events happened in the United States that highlight what a dangerous time we are witnessing as Americans.

1.) Immigration officials took a doctoral student, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish National, off the street. She has been in the US on a student visa. She was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper last year criticizing Tufts University’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,”.  She was taken as she walked along the street in Boston, and the officials were mostly masked. She was 

taken to New Hampshire and then Vermont, she was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana. She hasn't broken any laws, she is here legally. Because she expressed an opinion which our administration doesn't like, she was snatched off the streets and flown out of state. How terrifying! As of April 4, 2025 she is still in Louisiana and her lawyers are trying to get the case moved back to the East Coast. 

https://apnews.com/video/watch-the-moment-officials-detain-turkish-student-rumeysa-ozturk-6d24235307a546fdb495813f890d8c5b

2.) The last week of March, 2025, the US deported 137 men, suspected of being Venezuelan gang members who are murders and rapists, to a jail in El Salvador. I am not opposed to getting rid of honest to goodness murderers and rapists. What I scary about this is that many of men rounded up and sent to El Salvador were flagged as gang members because they looked the part (see below for an article with more info about the tattoos). What about due process? I don't understand the ins and out of the Alien's Act that the White House is claiming give them jurisdiction here, but family members are saying many of the men sent are not related to gangs, and even one man has been identified as being sent by accident. 

"The U.S. has already acknowledged Kilmar Abrego Garcia - a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S legally with a work permit - was deported in error as part of three planeloads of migrants flown out last month over alleged ties to violent gangs...But the administration has argued it has no legal authority to bring him back to the country"

I'm sorry what? The US sent him there by accident, the US is paying El Salvador to keep this man in prison, but can't do anything to bring him back?  A judge is ordering this man to be returned, and  

"In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Xinis should contact President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador "because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador."

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/nx-s1-5345832/advocates-say-flawed-checklist-dhs-venezuelans-for-deportation-under-alien-enemies-act

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-judge-hear-lawsuit-man-deported-el-salvador-error-2025-04-04/

3. Vice President Vance visited Greenland on March 28, 2025. He told Greenland that Denmark hasn't been taking good care of them, and also that the US needs Greenland for security. 

"We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security — we have to have Greenland. It's not a question of 'Do you think we can do without it?' We can't," Trump said Friday. "We're not relying on Denmark or anybody else to take care of that situation." Vance

Vance claimed Greenland would love to be part of the US, polls show differently. 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-vice-president-vance-visit-greenland-island-trump-wants-control-2025-03-28/

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/nx-s1-5343555/vance-greenland-visit

So what do these things have to do with my time in Germany? As I walked through several museums in Berlin, time and time again I saw rhetoric used by Hitler and the Nazi party that I am seeing in the United Stakes today. 

Hitler's reason for invading Czechoslovakia and Poland was because he needed it for Germany's security, not because he wanted those countries for himself. It's the same rational Putin is trying to give in taking over Ukraine, Russia needs it for security.  And it is the same rational we will hear from China if they attack Taiwan at some point. 

Here are a few photos I took while at the Topography of Terror Museum.

 "Newspapers censored, opponents threatened, maltreated, publicly humiliated, and arrested." The AP press has been banned from the White House, and the current administration is trying to get rid of NPR and PBS. Trump loves to publicly humiliate anybody who opposes him. 

"There was a desire for something genuinely new: popular rule without parties,

 a popular leader figure". 

I think about the 2024 election, how many Independents and groups normally thought to vote democratic voted for Trump because they believed he would shake things up. 

"oppositional journalists, writers, and artists were terrorized, Jews vilified, and civil servants loyal to the constitution deprived of their posts...they saw Hitler as the guarantor of internal security and order and thus overlooked the fact that the Gestapa established...represented an increasingly powerful special agency whose aim was to control German society"

I think of "immigrants" being vilified. I think of the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts putting President Trump Board chair so he can have a say in what art is allowed to be expressed. I think of the Smithsonian Museum being targeted now because diversity is anti-American. I think of independent government watchdogs being fired. I think of DOGE slashing government and having access to social security and dismantling institutions that Congress is responsible for. All because we should trust Trump to make the right decisions for us to Make America Great Again. 

More examples of identifying groups that get blamed for pulling us down, calling them criminals, and shipping them off out of society because they don't belong. I think the biggest group being vilified today are immigrants. 

Everything about Trump (his executive orders and history with the courts) shows he thinks he personally and his executive powers can crush judicial and legislative control. 

I was struck by this photo. These "Polish violent criminals" were called criminals simply because they were Polish, in the way, expendable, and didn't have a right to exist simply because Hitler said so. I think of the man sent to El Salvador by accident, he had tattoos and looked the part, so obviously he belonged with the murders and rapists being flow out of the country to a notorious prison. Hitler terrorized Europe, rounded up people on to train cars, sent them off to work camps. Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi's, and millions more including Roma and Sinti, people with disabilities, Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay people, and Soviet prisoners of war.

I am not saying that Trump is a Nazi, but he sure does like power and chaos and popularity. He likes dictators, 

"Let me just tell you about world leaders. Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men—they call him a strongman. He’s a tough person. Smart. Prime minister of Hungary. They said why is the whole world blowing up? Three years ago it wasn’t. Why is it blowing up? He said because you need Trump back as president. They were afraid of him. China was afraid … North Korea was afraid of him … Look, Viktor Orbán said it. He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president." Trump Sept 2024

He is not above making enemies if it will give him the upper hand in negotiation. I think he is the most despicable character we have witnessed in American politics in the past 80 years.  I am angry, and I am scared because there is an awful lot going on that feels very ominous and cannot lead to good things for humanity.

The world order is shifting and it's terrifying. 

Forty and Fierce!

This week I turn 40. 

Here I am at 30, and here I am at 40.  

I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures for every year in my 30's... 

30 years old (technically just shy of 30 here) - 2010

30

Winning the Student PTA of the Year award. (I really liked that shirt)

31

32

33 

34

On a patient's Ducati in his garage. 

35

36

37

38

39

Almost 40... 

 

Why I will not say "All Lives Matter"

I've spent a good amount of thought this week trying to wrap my head around the protests and the senseless and tragic deaths of Black people in America. I see my black friends saying, "Black Lives Matter", and I see some of my white friends responding with "All Lives Matter". 

A few months ago I got a speeding ticket. I was going the normal speed limit, in a school zone just before school had let ou,t but within the school zone time. It was my fault, but when the flashing lights of the police car, waiting just 50 feet before the school zone ended, went off I was so annoyed. I went to a patient's home earlier that day and the nurse showed up the same time as me, so I let her stay and went to see another patient first. The ticket occurred as I was driving to that patient for a second time in one day. None of that really matters, what matters is I sat in my car so mad, so annoyed when the officer walked up to my car. I gave quick responses to the officer and was probably not very nice. The point is, I could afford to be somewhat snappy with the police officer, because I am a white female. I never once feared for my safety or for my life. 

I've gathered here a few of the photos I've seen this week that sum up for me just what the message is all about. It's ignorant and condescending for me to say, "But All Lives Matter". While I was running around Lady Bird Lake yesterday I saw a t-shirt that said, "But you didn't die". That was the moment I decided I needed to formulate my thoughts and make then known. 

Black Lives Matter

"It's not an either/or proclamation. When there is a crisis we have always rallied around that particular group. It doesn't discredit or diminish any other group it just brings awareness and support to the group that needs attention."

They Hushed Their Fears

64 days ago I stopped going to the gym. 64 days ago, COVID-19 caused people to start sheltering in pace in the Austin area. 64 days ago I though in 6-8 weeks life would start feeling normal again. Well, 64 days later, bars have opened up on Austin's famous 6th street, the gym is open again, and I could go eat at Chuys if I wanted to, but all at weirdly reduced capacity and with masks encouraged. I'm choosing to wait a few weeks and see how this "reopening" goes before I start doing more then grocery shopping, Lowe's (green therapy is saving me), and go-to from my favorite places to eat. I'm still working, which means if I am careless, I can expose patient's who trust me to take precautions as I enter the homes of the homebound.  64 days later life certainly does not feel normal. I long to hug all my church friends. I wish I could go worship in the temple.  

About 2 weeks ago I hit my 2nd emotional breaking point. The first one took place at the end of my first week wearing double masks to work. It was, and still mostly is, emotionally jarring to look at myself in the mirror and shudder seeing myself in a mask. We communicate so much with our whole faces. Sure, we can "smile" with our eyes, but at the same time, that's just something we tell ourselves to feel better. Our faces light up with smiles.  It was also really hard that first week to not know really how much risk I was to my patient's when I visited them, or how much at risk I was. My fervent prayer every morning was, "please help me keep my patient's safe, and to keep myself safe". Since those first few weeks I haven't felt fearful of what COVID-19 could do to me.  I'm not saying I'm invincible, but I just found a way to prayerfully go forward with the attitude of, "I can just do the best that I can". Still, it was emotionally exhausting. Even though my visit load at work dramatically decreased, less visits still felt like a lot because there was so much more responsibility that came with it.  There have been days when I envy those in a more truer lockdown, home all day, posting on social media about being in PJs and not knowing when they last showered. Well 2 weeks ago, I hit another emotional wall. I had been emotionally preparing for 6-8 weeks of crazy, and here we were approaching 6-8 weeks and the country seems more divided then ever, no end in sight, and no real solutions other then "stay home". It was all so hard to bear. Fear was creeping back in, and the world started to look hopeless. 

And just as if it was divinely timed, my study in the Book of Mormon of Mosiah chapters 18-24 began. Here I found words for my prayers again. Here I found encouragement to shut out fear. 

And just as if it was divinely timed, my study in the Book of Mormon of Mosiah chapters 18-24 began. Here I found words for my prayers again. Here I found encouragement to shut out fear. There are two main groups of people in these chapters. First you have the people of Limhi who had terrible leaders, and when those terrible leaders fled because their city was being attacked, they ended up being in captivity of another group of people (the Lamanites) who tax them to death. They were humbled and turn to God. 

"15 And now the Lord was slow to hear their cry because of their iniquities; nevertheless the Lord did hear their cries, and began to soften the hearts of the Lamanites that they began to ease their burdens; yet the Lord did not see fit to deliver them out of bondage.

16 And it came to pass that they began to prosper by degrees in the land, and began to raise grain more abundantly, and flocks, and herds, that they did not suffer with hunger."

The phrase that stuck out to me is that the "Lord did hear their cries " and their burdens were eased, even though they were not immediately delivered from bondage. 

The second group is the people lead by Alma (related to the Limhi group). This group of people converted to righteousness after believing the words of a prophet. They were baptized and fled from the wicked leaders who wanted to kill them. Unfortunately they were also caught into bondage the Lamanites and were almost wiped out.  

Mosiah 23- 

27 But Alma went forth and stood among them, and exhorted them that they should not be frightened, but that they should remember the Lord their God and he would deliver them.

28 Therefore they hushed their fears, and began to cry unto the Lord that he would soften the hearts of the Lamanites, that they would spare them, and their wives, and their children.

29 And it came to pass that the Lord did soften the hearts of the Lamanites.

They were counseled to remember God, and then the hushed their fears. It doesn't say that God hushed or took away their fear, but rather they had to hush their fears, and then cried to the Lord to deliver them. 

I saw this as an analogy to the pandemic.  I started to pray again  for deliverance from bondage of the pandemic, and while waiting for that deliverance, asked God that my burdens, and the burdens of my family (some members dealing with anxiety and depression) would be made light. I also had to hush my fears. 

As I've continued to pray for deliverance from the bondage of the pandemic, and tried to hush my fears, I have seen my burdens be lighter. 

I hush my fears by finding ways to serve. I do that by baking homemade zucchini bread (from home grown zucchini in my garden) and taking to to various patients and neighbors of mine. 

I hush my fears by hushing others fears. My niece and nephew started to express sadness over the "stupid coronavirus", so they got a group sleep over and one-on-one play dates with me.  How can your burdens not be light with these super cool little humans? 

 

My burdens were made light by having a friend mail me a mask she made out of material that reminded her of my blog title, "Bloom Where You Are Planted". 

My burden was made light by realizing what a beautiful and long Spring we had in Austin, Texas. We really had some great weather. (Stark contrast to how it has felt the past few days, the humidity showed up!)

My burden is made light by making time to exercise at home, even after a long exhausting day. Thank goodness for Les Mills On Demand! 

 My burden is made light be serving my family. 

Life may very well not be "normal" for a few years. It's heartbreaking and hard, but I will keeping praying for deliverance, and while in bondage of the pandemic, God will lighten our burdens.