December, 2014 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for December, 2014

Happy New Year and Our Year End Review!

Monday, December 29th, 2014
Bettina Network, inc. Trademark

Bettina Network, inc. Trademark

We wish all of you a very Happy New Year and much success, joy and gracious living throughout 2015!

We review what we have done, at the end of each year, within the corporation.   We thought we would do something different this year and share that review of Bettina Network, inc. with those who have used our services and those who care about us as much as we care about them.

One of our goals for the year was accomplished towards the end of 2014 through the establishment of Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

It took longer than expected for that to happen, but we worked hard on the structure of the Foundation and to bring it out as a 501©3 organization before the end of 2014.  If you would like to know more about this organization, we encourage you to read about it in the Blog – just click on Bettina Network Foundation and the articles written throughout the year will come up for your information.  Our mission statement is “We exist to help those in need to restructure and reframe their lives and their thinking through various avenues and tools so they may become entrepreneurs with the mindset, education, requisite tools, resources and skills to start and grow their own business.  We establish ourselves in memory of all those who have had wonderful ideas, who worked to bring those ideas into reality in the form of their own businesses, but who died without having reached that goal.”

We tried to set Bettina Network Foundation, inc. up as a self-funding organization and we think we have succeeded in that goal also.   Although it is majorly self-funding, we are certainly open to contributions.  The Bettina Network, inc.’s web site has a section for the Foundation and there will be a way for you to contribute by going onto the web site and clicking the top link which says “foundation” and there will be a page for contributions.

We were also able to establish  an education institute as a part of Bettina Network, inc.  There will be more about that later, but for now and for your information, we are basically looking for homes to add to the Bettina Network, inc. which offer an educational component.  Guests/scholars/researchers/business people/students -even tourists – will be able to stay and take part in the educational offerings of the home owners as well as visit, tour, take care of other business, visit family and more during their stay in a particular city.

Bettina Network’s Blog has held its own this year and developed from a few hundred visitors a day, at the beginning of 2014, to a consistent 1,000 plus visitors towards the end of the year.  Our readership jumped to some 6,000 readers, but the company which is our managed server managed to mess that up – big time – by cutting off whole countries from having access to the Blog.  At one point we could not access our own blog because our part of the United States had been cut off from having access to the Blog.  When they straightened that out, we still had a difficult time with access because their machines were down more than they were up and active, so we had to re-build the readership and we were not happy campers.  It was a horror story which we are still in the process of working through.

Technology is one of the largest problems companies have and we are experiencing the good and the bad of all that technology can do.

Our dream of establishing Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community has started to happen.  We were able to send out passwords to those who used Bettina Network, inc. over the years and welcomed them into the Community.  Their first benefit was using their password to access Bettina’s Menu of Events whenever they wish.  It is not yet a worldwide Menu, but we are on the way to expanding it so that it will soon become such a calendar of events.

Members of the Community were also able to add events to the Menu using their passwords.  We have not have many people use that benefit.  It will take time for it to catch on and for Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community to realize the many benefits they now can access.  We are hoping that small, very choice, community events around the world that we would never otherwise know about, become a part of Bettina’s Menu of Events by those in the Community using their passwords to add their favorite events for others to enjoy.

Our dream is that members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community will be able to use their passwords to access events around the world for any date and any location they choose and will be able to use Bettina’s Menu of Events as often as they need to do so.

As you can see we have been busy.  We hope you will continue to read Bettina Network’s Blog and to use the services of Bettina Network, inc.

If you have feedback for us, we are open to hearing from you.  We were able, over this past year, to bring several things into fruition that we had only been able to dream about, but we continued to work hoping for good results and some of that happened in 2014.  Since we are self-funding and do not have the hundred of millions of dollars others seem to be able to access, we think we have done an outstanding job and have congratulated ourselves for about five minutes before getting to work a little harder because we now have a bit of wind behind our backs.

We want to move forward with your input added to our own, to produce a company that serves others and brings goodness into the world.  We hope you will send us your suggestions and will stay in touch and use our services for many years to come.

Who knows what 2015 will bring!  We hope it brings greatness to us, to you and to your family!

Sincerely,

All of us at Bettina Network, inc.

 ________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 

Folk Dancing and Poetry in New England!

Saturday, December 27th, 2014

589Marcie Van Cleave, the Executive Director of Folk Arts Center of New England, composes a poem which she includes with each newsletter the Folk Arts Center puts out.  Each newsletter has a new poem written by Marcie. They have intrigued us for a very long time and we thought we would share one with you.

If you are a part of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community your password gives you access to Bettina’s Menu of Events.  We encourage you to use it and there you will find events sponsored by the Folk Arts Center.  They are many and varied and when visiting the New England area to take an afternoon or evening for folk dancing is great.  Sometimes you can find them folk dancing in Copley Square, Boston and in other places around the city, as well as the usual indoor spaces they use for their folk dancing….Marcie’s poem follows:

“Thank goodness for volunteers is all I have to say

For without them FAC would not be here today.
Our programs are rich and varied, and wonderfully done
Our folk family is extended and second to none!

The recent cultural exchange with the Romanian youth
Happened after a year of hard work – and that’s the truth.
Arline and Dorina led the efforts with enthusiasm galore
We have new friends in these kids whom we all now adore.

Julia (Vail) makes sure the Saturday parties are staffed
With lots of talent and volunteers, both fore and aft.
From the musicians and programmers to the door sitters
Not a detail’s left to chance to give the office the jitters.

What would Friday nights be without smiling Lumona
Greeting all at the door with her calm and friendly persona?
What would Thursdays be without its cadre of contributors
Who teach and run music and take care of other particulars?

Our Pinewoods Camp sessions run on countless hours of work
Our scores of volunteers never blanch, nor from their jobs shirk.
Our June session is being spearheaded by Sue (Flint) with alacrity
Our 40th year will be filled both with fun and to capacity!

Then there’s the Program Committee and its bevy of beauties
Who meet every month and attend to myriad duties.
Eric and Walter (the handsome component) are joined by Wanda,
Cory, Diana, Arline, and Julia – all of whom we are fond a’!

I could go on but space is now at a premium
Plus I don’t want to delve into the region of tedium.
So for all of you who have helped in any way, shape, or form
Toward you all the cockles of FAC’s heart are indeed warm!”

–Marcie Van Cleave

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

PTSD – Yes, Posttraumatic Stress

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

copyright by Bettina Network, inc. 2014

Our breakfast conversations don’t shy away from any topic.  This one dealt with – what is Post Traumatic Stress?

I went to Wikipedia to look up what this means and found the following:

“Posttraumatic stress disorder[note 1] (PTSD) may develop after a person is exposed to one or more traumatic events, such as sexual assault, warfare, serious injury, or threats of imminent death.[1] The diagnosis may be given when a group of symptoms, such as disturbing recurring flashbacks, avoidance or numbing of memories of the event, and hyperarousal, continue for more than a month after the occurrence of a traumatic event……

People who experience assault-based trauma are more likely to develop PTSD, as opposed to people who experience non-assault based trauma such as witnessing trauma, accidents, and fire events……”

Most of us only know about PTSD from movies we have seen, which includes actors portraying people with such a problem. Very few of us actually knows someone with PTSD.

Our breakfast included one person who was trying to recover from PTSD and not being successful in the effort.

Most of us these days, no matter the religion or lack of religion, believes human beings are basically good.  Our conversation at breakfast centered around the fact that human beings are mostly self-centered and self-absorbed and have to work very hard to overcome the jealousy, greed, anger, power-hunger and other emotions such self-centeredness engenders to be able to reach the other side where there is good.  We make it to that other side once in a while in our lives, but never on a consistent all-the-time basis.

Without a lot of education around the topic; without a lot of knowledge about people suffering from this problem; and without anything else which would say we are  certified by today’s standards  to deal with it, we, nevertheless, reached a conclusion as to what we thought PTSD is about:)

To us, PTSD transcends race, class, religion, sex, sexual choice, ideology, politics, or any of what we normally talk about.  People who wind up with PTSD can’t be categorized by any of the normal classifications that we use to pigeonhole ourselves.  We decided PTSD comes from the fact that as humans we are basically evil and only achieve goodness on a very rare occasion.  Those with PTSD have come face to face with the raw evil that exists in us and in them and it put them into a reality space, kicking them out of the space where we exist in our  woven and interwoven mythologiess that we use to get through life.

We  live with the assumption of the basic goodness of human beings and we talk about the evil in all of us as being the exception.  We can actually claim, without missing a beat, that all of the evil of the world comes from those few ‘bad eggs’ who cast aspersions on the rest of us.

The problem with that thought is that in this world, evil is the rule not the exception.  Even during those times when we reach that small island of goodness, we are flawed.

Once upon a time Christians believed humans were born with ‘original sin’ and that ‘sin’ was washed away by the waters of baptism.  Today, baptism has become a social act and a social time.  It is like an initiation into a fraternity or a sorority.  Many parents bring their children to Church for baptism, have a party after and they are gone until the child becomes an adult and marries.  So we see a society becoming more and more inerred of the sinful nature of human beings.  The need to raise up a child aware of how hard it is to walk that path away from evil towards good is gone. We can see the results of that attitude by looking at the increase of horror in the world.  Our little group could only talk about Christianity since all of the people at breakfast were either active or fallen away Christians, but this is not limited to Christianity.  I think, if you look at every other religion in the world today, you will find we are moving towards religion as a kind of physical exercise to move the body closer to physical perfection and theology as a justification of the self being in need of more self-control and self-actualization.

Go back to Hitlers Germany, with its destruction of some six million Jews.  It was a horrible time.  But we came out of that throwing crap on the Russians who were with us in that war and who lost some 25 million people.  We did nothing to raise them up and everything to re-create them as the new world enemy.  We worked hard to raise up Germany and those German Jews who suffered loss, but we worked harder to put down Russians and forget about their losses.  So we wound up with the predictable – a new enemy to whom we sacrificed our children, our homes, our futures, because it was necessary now to wage war against this new enemy and former friend.  We branded and put down people who did not agree with us by calling them Communists and that was a bad thing – the civil rights movement of the time was particularly subjected to this name-calling.  And the Communists waged war and trained their people to hate and distrust those who didn’t believe in and accept their ideology. That mentality is beginning to raise its head today as many don’t want to deal with the demonstrations aimed at the evils in our society.  So instead of listening and trying to address the problems, we are beginning to move back to that day when those ‘agitators’, who held up that mirror to our faces, were the problem and those who did not get involved in anything except taking advantage of the goodnesses that come from the work of the ‘agitators’  are the ones we held up in our communities as the role models.

When we come face to face with the trauma from the evil that lives in all of us, some have a hard time overcoming that experience, because they can’t climb back into the myth of the basic goodness of human beings.  Are the ones who suffer from PTSD the ones amongst us who are temporarily or for the long term living with stark reality?  Are they experiencing reality without its covering of mythology; the myths we seem to be able to crank out constantly and instantaneously?  Are we good, or have we so shocked ourselves with the extreme cruelty we can inflict on us and others, that we have to straighten up for a brief period of time and really be and do good?  Do those who experience PTSD know that and can’t reconcile the reality of life with the myth they are asked to participate in with their family, friends and colleagues?  Have they experienced something which does not allow them to do this?  Whenever they try, does truth intervene and demand that they step out of the storybook and live in the real world?  In that real world, they  can’t make excuses for others and can’t accept the same potential for evil they find in themselves.

The rest of us can live with the assumption of humans being basically good.   When we experience trauma from the evil that lives in all of us and we can’t escape that reality and can’t climb back into our created myths, will we spend our lives with the initials PTSD sewn into our clothes and drawn across our breasts?  Will we be haunted by the evil that can and has come out of humans just like us and just like them.  Will faith, trust, love – all of it – be put in a time warp, because we will have seen just how evil humans can be?  Will we then be able to face the fact that there are more people in this world  acting out of evil than out of good?  To live in a world facing that reality must be almost or completely unbearable.

When you have experienced the terrors of the world as anything other than a story in a book,  it is very difficult to see goodness as anything other than the exception.  Who we really are can be life-haunting for those who have seen humanity in its rawest form.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Bettina’s Weight Control

Sunday, December 14th, 2014

From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member:

“Well I read through the blogs for the diet but did not find one. ”

However, I did find some great tips. I am drinking lime juice now…..  It almost instantaneously curbed my hunger.  This was so on time with this being my day of clear liquids and the gad between now and my last meal of an egg sandwich right before midnight.   Thanks for this, I will be using up my limes today.

In the spirit of giving back: before you squeeze the lime or lemon, peel it thinly, hang it to dry out.  In a couple of weeks, take it, break it apart, throw it in a processor and grind it.  You will  end up with two consistencies, the more coarse consistency on the top.  I separate the coarse pieces and set them aside to use:   to make tea; for seasoning sea food; for baking;  making marmalades; to garnish certain foods or desserts.  The finer consistency I store in a vial and place on the shelf with my baking spices.  A 1.5 oz bottle of lemon peel goes for roughly $10 and up , with organic coming in higher.

In baking I use the peel of approximately 1/2 a lime in the eggs, it helps to cut the fresh smell.  I remove the fresh peel before baking.  The dry peels I add as an ingredient and those go through the fire.  I have gotten creative in making cranberry orange muffins.  It is quite delightful to bite into tidbits of orange peel.

Lime/ lemon peel tea is great for sore throats, cold or flu. ”

By:  CN

Ed Note:  Thanks for those tips.  We are certainly ready for anything to cut colds or flu – especially if it does not have to be injected into our bodies at Drug Stores.  Oops! Sorry – you can tell my age by that slip-up.  They changed the name of those stores for this current generation.  They are now called the Pharmacy.

Ed Note:  We do not believe in diets and you won’t find the traditional kind in Bettina Network’s Blog – if you are talking about the  listing of  menus giving you what to eat at which meal on a particular day.  We believe that has developed to shore up the Diet Industry that is growing by leaps and bounds and making some people lots of money but getting the rest of us into an obese condition.  That kind of diet justifies those company‘s where you send for your meals  by the week and still don’t lose weight, except for the weight loss by the lightness of your pocketbook.  A diet for us is to squeeze an organic lemon into a cup of warm water and drink this when you first wake up in the mornings.  AND about 4pm squeeze four organic limes into a cup and drink it before you go off eating everything in sight.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Victoria Secret’s Beauty Tips We Beat!

Thursday, December 11th, 2014

copyright 2014 Bettina Network, inc.

Fresh from a very successful showing of their night clothes, articles are out about how to look like a Victoria Secret model:)  That is far from possible for most of us, not because we can’t improve but because the cost is prohibitive and we either don’t have the money or don’t want to spend the money we do have on a collection of chemicals.

If you are in that camp, we have a few family suggestions to achieve what we believe is better, longer lasting, and much more natural looking.

I saw a woman yesterday, who I talked to very briefly, because I couldn’t stop staring at her face.  The make-up was practically peeling off, or running down, she had on so much.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t see herself as others see her – especially in bright sunlight – because she is over 70 and her eyes are failing.  She sees a much lovelier person than is seen by the general public.  So for her and others in the same boat, we suggest the following:

1) For that beautiful, rosy underneath complexion – one that looks natural, makes you seem to glow from the inside out, and feeds and nourishes your skin at the same time so eventually that look becomes you without the additional help, we suggest you use Vitamin A Beta Carotene.  Clip a capsule and squeeze out the oil.  It cannot be a pill – it has to be the Vitamin A Beta Carotene in oil.

Squeeze the oil into your hand.  Rub it all over your face and give yourself a little massage.

Don’t freak out when you look in the mirror because your face will be a bright orange/red.  It wears off.  It is best to do this when you are alone and don’t expect visitors for a couple hours.  We don’t suggest you try this on days when you have to be out and about.  Unless you don’t mind stares and in that case, just smile sweetly.  You know you are going to look fabulous shortly so the stares won’t bother you.

Amazingly, wrinkles will soften and the orangey/red color will begin to fade away.  We try this at least once a week.

After about an hour, rinse your face thoroughly splashing it with water at least 20 times and wipe it dry.  Whatever you use to dry your face, make it  a rag you won’t mind losing because the rag will be stained the same color as your face.

Or, you can rinse your face and let it air dry – much preferable.  But if you go this route, you will have to rinse your face several times during the day.  Gradually most of the red color will have faded and by the next morning you will be ready to face the public.  Put an old pillow case on your pillows because if you haven’t removed all of the Vitamin A with Beta Carotene your pillows will begin to turn a blushing pink.  Your face will go from bright orangey/red to a bit ruddy complexioned, but that is the idea.  As time passes the ruddy complexion will be less and that rosy glow will come to the forefront.

Search Bettina Network’s Blog for the rest under “Health and Beauty”.

When you finish with our beauty regimen – liquid vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin D, milk and more – you will be a stunning beauty and will have used not one chemical on your face.  In addition, all that you do using these ingredients will begin to heal the damage your have done to your skin using all of those chemicals and you will glow from your natural beauty.

We hope you realize that whatever you put on your skin shows up in your blood stream in seconds.  The common conception is that the skin barrier will keep all of those chemicals at bay.  However, they don’t get into your body through your skin, but through your blood stream.  At least that is what we have been told.

Have a great time dropping 20 years off your face and putting those Victoria Secret Models to shame.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Steel Sharpens Steel

Wednesday, December 10th, 2014

Copyright 2014 Bettina Network, inc.

Friends and family!  What good are they!!!!!

This discussion over breakfast  started out with a guest in great emotional distress trying to keep the differences she was having with her mother out of sight, but her mother was at the table and had no interest in keeping anything out of sight.  It was a scene that I am sure is played out many times by many different people, cultures, races.

Her mother’s comment really struck me.  “My daughter doesn’t understand, but one day she will.  By that time I will be dead. — Steel sharpens steel.”

No one at the table understood her comment.  If they did, they certainly didn’t let on to anyone.

After looking at our blank and confused faces she went on and we appreciated her taking the time because it was a point of view and a look at friendship and family relationships we hadn’t considered, hadn’t dissected, hand’t even discussed.  That usually leads to a great breakfast conversation and this one did not disappoint.

“Steel sharpens steel.”  The mother – who I will call Mary – talked about how a child’s future is strongly set by their parental environment growing up.  Once grown, that environment becomes set by friends.  “Mary’ said she realized this when her daughter was about 3 years old.  She wanted her daughter to be a very independent woman.  She knew that somehow that was set during childhood, but she worried she would be one of those leading her daughter into the traditional female stereotype becoming the kind of person she had been – fulfilling every female stereotype – weak, overly emotional, a victim in all things.

Mary knew how hard it had been for her to overcome such home training and she did not want her daughter to have to go through the same heartbreaking rejection of her childhood and upbringing that she had been through.  Mary said she has since recaptured some of her early life and now value much that she initially rejected, but it was such a painful ordeal she just wanted to spare her daughter that grief.

Mary’s daughter was very uncomfortable at the table at this point because she knew her mother was about to reveal family secrets that she wanted kept that way.  And don’t we all!

Ed Note:  The rest of the blog as sent to us has been redacted.  Sorry folks, we know the good gossipy parts are what we all live to hear, but not this time!

The end of the conversation was quite moving.  I realized my own relationship with my family was not what it could have been because I wanted a relationship which wrapped me up all warm and cozy, comforted me, worked out all of my most difficult problems for me and in actuality, kept me in chains.  Instead, I had a relationship with my parents, as Mary had with her daughter, which strengthened all of us.  The problem is, Mary’s daughter does not understand the gift her mother has given her by being the steel which has strengthened and sharpened.  They are both now free to live as independent women because they had each other and maintained that most difficult relationship of all – one that was true, honest, full of mutual respect and which expected the other to be strong enough to withstand their back and forth as steel sharpened steel.

I saw that as an amazing breakfast because I didn’t recognize that gift from my parents either until that breakfast conversation.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 

Another Lillian Anthony Response

Monday, December 1st, 2014

Hello Marceline

What a moving and touching write up on your friend Lillian. I so enjoyed reading it. Many thanks for sharing.

I just had a key law prof from U of Wisc to pass away. He mentored almost every black law student enrolled during my stay. I think he too attended same undergrad as Lillian and about the same time maybe. It is a small world    Prof Jim Jones also served in the Dept of Labor.
I will send you his obit.

C. Michael

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

A Response to Dr. Lillian Anthony

Monday, December 1st, 2014

Marceline,
Wonderful tribute to a sincere stand up sister, Dr. Lillian Anthony. When reading the blog I had pleasant thoughts of a birthday dinner party at your Cambridge residence in honor of Lillian and Elma was present: great times. Thank you for sharing.
Kenneth Boatner

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

The Rev. Dr. Lillian D. Anthony, my friend

Monday, December 1st, 2014

by: Marceline Donaldson, president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

 

There are some people one expects to go on forever, but none of us lives forever.

Lillian was a force of nature. Her strength came from the clear, truthful, fearless and love filled way she lived her life.

I have always called Lillian ‘my friend’, but as I look back over our lives I realize she was also one of my mentors from whom I learned a lot.

I met Lillian back in the l960’s in Minneapolis. She was challenging the City of Minneapolis about its lack of civil rights and was in the process of becoming the first head of one of the first city civil rights departments in the United States.

It was amazing for me – a young, southern, quiet, full of my early training.  A person who wore gloves everyplace and usually with an umbrella at hand, who had been trained to always remember who she was and act accordingly – to meet this woman who always knew who she was and she was neither quiet nor southern.

I was just coming out of a not so great marriage and trying to stand on my own two feet for the first time in life. I’d found a beautiful house I loved and tried to buy, but the owner declared he would not sell to an African American. I was furious; was not going to take such; and wasn’t sure where to go or what to do when someone suggested I call Lillian Anthony – which I did.

Lillian responded immediately. She was head of the newly established Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights starting in l968 and had some power to address what happened to me.

We met and talked and hit it off right away. Lillian went off to address the problem and in a couple days called and we met again. She told me the problem was solved, the owner had no problem selling the house to an African American woman and she knew that for sure because she’d just bought it.

We started to laugh, almost uncontrollably. It was a joke that was funny far beneath what was on the surface and so off we went on a lifetime of what can only be described as a hilarious friendship full of one-upmanship’s. When we met at social, civic, or other events we would point and laugh uproariously because we knew we were the sharpest looking people in the room. I knew I looked better than Lillian and she knew she looked better than me.

We often went shopping together – to estate sales, of course – but we had to fight to buy what we wanted because we always saw the same item at the same time and it was a free-for-all as to who got to it first.

I was invited to a meeting in Chicago in the early 1970’s of 100 Black Women and so was Lillian, who was one of the coordinators of that event. Once there I met Elma Lewis – who had not yet become Miss. Lewis. There was a skit in the room with all of us gathered and a woman dressed as a waitress came in with her clothes askew looking very stressed and disheveled, crying out – ‘help me, they shot him’.

No one in the room moved, except me, who jumped up to run to this woman to help her in her obvious distress, while telling everyone else in the room how they should be helping also. Elma wanted to know “who is that woman”. Lillian, who was sitting next to Elma said – that’s just Marceline. She is always in the middle of everything saving the world . Elma called me over to sit next to her and she and Lillian laughed and carried on – at my expense.

Turns out, the waitress was a part of the skit to see who would respond and to then start a discussion on being involved. However, that didn’t work because Lillian, Elma and I couldn’t stop laughing and just having a great time out of all of this.

That was the start of a great trio of friends. We weren’t together a lot, but when we did get together it was always a good time.

Lillian designed the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, becoming its first chairperson. She did an amazing job of helping to found the Department and headed it in a way which helped develop the entire field. No, Skip Gates was not the first and neither was Harvard.

Lillian ran into trouble at the University as Black men challenged her position which they thought should belong to an African American man who they claimed should have better credentials than Lillians’. So Lillian resigned and went off to the University of Massachusetts to obtain a Doctorate in Education. In addition she also served on the faculties of the University of Nebraska, George Mason University and Towson University in Maryland.

Even before all of this, Lillian went to seminary at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and received her Master of Religious Education in 1953 long before women were even beginning to see the possibility of a seminary education. Before that, Lillian received her undergraduate degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO.

After leaving seminary Lillian worked at Witherspoon Presbyterian Church as the director of religious education. A job most women found if they were lucky enough to finish their seminary education and find a job. The Church was way behind the society- still is today – in addressing the equality of men and women and Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans.

Lillian also taught in Assuit, Egypt and was the North Central Area representative for the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Ordination was not possible then, even though God’s call to Lillian to the ordained ministry was strong,  so she went instead into Religious Education. Lillian did not ignore this call to ordination into the Presbyterian ministry, which wasn’t realized until decades after she turned to listen to what God was calling her to do. What was clear in Lillian’s life was that God calls and man decides to ignore God’s way and pursue his own, blocking the path of women and minorities. It was clear looking at Lillian’s life, that it is dangerous for men to block God’s call, but they never seem to get that message because they are still today blocking as best they can – only today being joined by a few others who are not White European males!

Before I met Lillian, she had served the Federal Government from 1965-1968 as the district director for the Department of Labor establishing anti-poverty programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

When I moved to Massachusetts, Lillian was already there at the University of Massachsuetts working on a doctorate in Education. She insisted I join her because she felt I would need something to fall back on and with a doctorate I could teach in Academia someplace.  I was not an academician, nor anything close and I decided that was not my path. She, Elma and I got together several times while Lillian was studying and both tried to push me into this doctorate business, but I resisted and took another path.

Several years after I moved to Massachusetts, Elma Lewis called to say she had heard from Lillian who was concerned about me because we hadn’t been in touch for quite some time and wanted Elma to make sure I was alright. They both knew my penchant for jumping into the fire and they both have had to pull me out several times.  According to Elma, there were rumors and they were worried about me.

Elma called me to say John Ross was picking me up to bring me to her house for lunch, but before he did he was going to take me on a tour of Boston. I told Elma I already knew Boston, had been living here for a few years and that was great, but I preferred lunch times to tour times. Elma said nothing and John Ross picked me up and took me on a tour of Boston. Elma was now Miss Lewis and you did her bidding.  John Ross asked all kinds of questions – how are you, what are you doing, are you alright financially, can we do anything for you, and on and on he went. I finally stopped him to ask why he was trying to get into my business. John Ross said he wasn’t he was just instructed by Elma to ask all of these questions because they needed to make sure I was alright and didn’t want me to say everything was fine – when we talked over lunch – and everything was not fine.

John Ross took me to Elma’s, where she was on the phone with Lillian and they both demanded I not stay out of touch for so long and whenever I had a problem of any kind they were just a phone call away.

That was a very emotional moment for me, but I knew that was how they both were and I must have had some kind of publicity or gossip which made them think they needed to circle the wagons.

Having had that kind of mentoring, I have tried to live up to their example and be there for others – although I have not been perfect following my mentors. I do fall away and still get busy with my own business and have missed many such opportunities presented to me by the universe.

One passion in Lillian’s life was ‘collecting’. It is a passion we both shared, but mine was about 18th century French furnishings, art objects, etc. Lillian’s was about collecting negative Black images throughout history. She had an amazing collection and her house – wherever it was – reflected this passion.

At one point in Louisville and again in St. Louis her home was a place classes of school children visited with their teachers to take the tour of Ms. Lillian’s home.

Oddly enough – or should I say expectedly enough – our two passions ran parallel because as Lillian became more knowledgeable about her area of collecting she ran across many objects which were from 18th century and beyond  in the time frame of my collecting and items made by some of the same people and companies I loved. Lillian knew about and owned items made by the Dresden, Meissen and other factories of negative Black images and while artistically exquisite the subject matter made you wonder about this use of the artists talent. I remember when Lillian bought a beautiful piece of Dresden china which depicted a Black child being born out of an alligators egg and others pieces that went downhill from there.

My thoughts about negative Black images had to do with the Aunt Jemima dolls and the Uncle Tom depictions, but they went far beyond those simple objects into incredible works of art meant to support the racism against African Americans in as many and as subtle and not so subtle ways as possible.

Lillian brought a part of her collection to Boston for an exhibit along with a program speaking to this form of maintaining the structure of racism. It was well attended and the curiosity and amazement from those who had my early thoughts about this area was astounding.

Lillian was head of the Afro American studies department in Louisville, Kentucky and moved to Maryland to become a professor in the same area at Towson University.

Her life and career extended across the country and in several institutions. She left each one better for having served there.

Lillian’s last job before retiring was as the associate for equal employment opportunity/affirmative action in the human resources department in the Prebbyterian Church’s national office in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lillian was also able to function as an ordained minister before her death and her sermons were memorable, moving and caused you to rethink who you are and how you were responding to God’s call in your life.

Lillian was clearly one of God’s chosen and never forgot that she was called by God to spend her life ministering to God’s people and she did that with love, compassion, fearlessness, dignity and grace.

She received many awards and honorary recognitions like the Mary McLeod Bethune Award, presented by the Louisville National Council of Negro Women. She was also appointed to the President’s Disability Task Force.

What many people did not know was that Lillian lived with Lupus most of her adult life. How she did all of what she did and dealt with a very debilitating disease we will never know. Lillian was never a victim and nothing that happened to her turned her into a victim. She was always a child of God who she believed was the active force in her life and to whom she owed everything.  She lived that life to the fullest – always.

Unfortunately for me, I did not stay as close to Lillian as a friend should and so my grief is not over the loss of a friend – who I know is celebrating with all of her friends right now having a joyous time – but over the loss of my opportunity and responsibility not to lose track of someone who I was close to and loved like a sister.

Through all of this I have learned that life and our society separates friends and families and thereby increases the burden on those we love and don’t keep up with because of our busyness trying to keep body and soul together.

Each time this happens I resolve to not let it happen ever again and then I hear of a close friend who has died and my guilt, regret and sense of great loss starts all over again.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.


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