Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

The Great Recession changed many people’s lives, including mine. As the publishing world as I knew it collapsed – my longtime editor was laid off and I was orphaned – and royalties and book contracts disappeared and shrank, I knew I had to change.

I’ve written 26 books, but it didn’t really matter. I swore I would be a writer, no matter what it takes. That’s why I started my blog

If I was to continue to be a relevant writer, it was up to my blog to keep my writing and to also help support me.

Four years ago, I reluctantly and uncomfortably began asking to be paid for my work, I asked readers to contribute to the blog and my photography – both expensive to maintain – through voluntary payments and donations.

Although a very small fraction of my many readers (bless you) contribute to the blog, this idea has been a success. There are four million visits a year to the blog, and many of you have supported my work with contributions and donations and that has made an enormous difference in my life.

To be honest, I’m reluctant to ask for money for me when I’m asking for money for the Mansion residents and refugees so often. That money goes into separate accounts, it only goes to them, not to me.

This year, I am embarking on a $4,000 re-design of the blog, so necessary in order to keep up with the smart phone and Internet infrastructure changes and revolution. You cannot survive and grow online without investing in yourself, and keeping up.

Photography is not a hobby for me, it is my work, and it is also expensive. I take pictures of everything I write about.

The blog is the engine that supports all of my work – my photography, writing, Mansion work, refugee work, soccer team work. I realized this morning – actually Maria realized this morning – that I have not asked for support for myself for nearly six months or reminded people that that this is important and necessary for me.

So I’m asking for support now, and reminding people that the blog cannot grow and survive without it.

The subscription and voluntary payment programs are inexpensive, safe and simple to use. And safe.

No financial information of any kind is stored on my site or servers. You can cancel subscriptions or voluntary payments at any time, and easily (the program warns people of renewals a week before they are due).

One time donations can be given in any amount, and at any time through Paypal or any major credit cards. People who don’t use the Internet can also support my work by sending a donation to my Post Office Box – Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].

Please consider supporting my work if you enjoy it or find it meaningful. In our divided culture, we are more and more turning only to people who agree with us, and that is not my way. Anyone is welcome here, and I don’t need to always be agreed with, in fact, it has never happened.

I hope the blog has always been a force for good and compassion, even if you sometimes disagree with me. That is the way a democracy is supposed to function.

If you wish to subscribe to the blog, you can choose three different monthly voluntary subscription programs – $,5,  $10 a month, or $75 a year. If you have no money or are stressed financially, the blog is free and will always be free to those who can’t pay or donate.

You can subscribe for free by inserting your email in the subscription box at the top of the Farm Journal Page .

And you can make a one-time donation at any time for any amount here.

I will never turn my back on the many people who have supported me from the beginning. But I have come to see that it is important to be paid for my work, just as you are paid for yours.

This is the new world of writing, and I am proud and happy to be a part of it.

I work hard on my blog, I write just about every day, often more than once, the subject matter has grown, and I believe deepened. I write about my life, spirituality, dogs and animals, rural life and the Army Of Good, a miraculous outgrowth of the blog.

People tell me it matters to them, and my readers are now all over the country, including Hawaii. The blog is also read in England, Australia, and New Zealand.

Since 2016, the blog has made a turn, it is dedicated to small acts of kindness, to doing good rather than adding to the dispiriting din of argument, cruelty and conflict.

I guess I need support to, for my own life and well being, and for the people I am now  trying to help.

I believe the blog has become more important every year, and I mean to keep it that way. If you wish to continue reading the blog and want it to continue, I would welcome your help.

I thank the very good people who have supported it from the beginning, in so many different ways. i will work hard to make you think, laugh, cry and learn.

And thanks.

“As long as we are able to be extravagant,

we will be hugely and damply extravagant.

Then we will drop foil by foil to the ground.

This is our unalterable task, and we do it joyfully.

And they went on. “Listen, the heart-shackles

are not, as you think,

death, illness, pain, unrequited hope,

not loneliness,

but lassitude, rue, vainglory,

fear,

anxiety,

selfishness.

Their fragrance all the while rising

from their blind bodies, making me

spin with joy.”

–When The Roses Speak: Pay Attention, by Mary Oliver, Devotions

Audio: I read the poem

I have to say I cherish my meetings with Ali in our “office,” a tiny booth in the rear of Stewart’s Convenience Store in Schaghticoke, N.Y. The visits usually begin with an early morning phone call from Ali, who needs something for the soccer team, of which I am a proud sponsor. It isn’t the Olympics yet in a way, it is.

I am a very proud sponsor of this team. Ali and I, a lapsed Jew and a fervent Muslim,  meet at our “office” at least once a week for coffee and talk about our work with the soccer team and the refugees and immigrants in the Albany area.

There is a strong boundary between us: it’s his team, he runs it in any way he wishes, I help him for as long as I can and in every way I can. He is doing so much for this team.

Ali’s fame is growing, some people recognize him at the office either from my blog or from the newspaper stories about him and the team. I suppose I am a shadowy figure in some ways, but after Ali left today with his pizza slice and soda,  the waitress asked me if he was “available,” she said he was cute.

Ali is a charmer, for sure, I had to give her the sad news that he is engaged to a woman now living in the Sudan, they will be married next year there and will then return here. Today, Ali needed support for a Birthday celebration for one of the soccer players.

Since many of them never get birthday parties or presents – there is no money in their families – we give them a barbecue or bowling party or cookout and a present that Ali chooses – something that he knows they need.

This costs between $100 and $150, depending on where we need to go and what the present is. Without Ali, there would be no birthday celebration, and every single player gets a party. Today’s birthday party is for Es-Taw, who is 14.

Ali also needed money for socks for Sakler Moo who is now at the Albany Academy, working hard on his homework. We help the kids on the team who need new clothes for school.

They have stiff dress codes in some of these schools. In addition. I paid for the insurance for our Big Red Van, and also reimburse Ali for gas for the van, which costs $80 a fill. We did all of this today for about $450.

The van is our Independence Day. We no longer have to ask anyone for permission to do anything but treat these children well and with love, and we both know just where all the money goes – to the soccer  team.

It turns out that Ali and the Albany Warriors are getting quite popular, several people and at least one organization have contacted Ali and suggested –  aggressively and persistently – that they wish to take over the sponsorship of the team and offer him a steady stream of tons of money and support.

This happened after a front-page story about the team in a local newspaper.

Some of this pressure is getting intense, and I see it is bothering Ali.

Ali seems  almost passionately disinterested in these offers, but I told him he should feel free to do whatever it is that he needs or wants to do. I love sponsoring this team, but we both want to do what is best for them. That is Ali’s decision, not mine. He founded the team, owns it and runs it and coaches it.

He says he is not even considering switching sponsorship. I am glad to hear it but I leave it to him, he is free to do whatever he wishes, no strings attached.

Ali says he remembers all too well the years when there was absolutely no support for the team in any form at all. I remember when the team showed up in flip-flops and had to beg and borrow soccer balls for practice.

He says they are quite happy, and their new uniforms – The Albany Warriors – are coming soon. I was touched by what he said, but I would not interfere or object if he could do something better. I trust him completely.

And we are quite a great team ourselves,  it feels very solid, and it only gets better.

It’s hard for many people – even those who have worked with Ali – to  understand the very personal nature of his connection with his soccer team.

He is a surrogate parent for many of them, he guides them and protects them and teaches them and supports them.  He fills the holes in their difficult lives and holds their hands as the navigate a difficult new world.

As close as I am to Ali, no one is remotely as close to these young people as he is, their bond is quite profound and beautiful. He will get them across the bridge.

We also share a very powerful and distinct passion for this work, for doing good in a time of trouble. This is not something I could let go of unless that is what Ali wanted. Our connection with one another makes this work.

I am happy to be in the background, a mysterious figure who appears to help them get what they need. The soccer team is about a lot more than soccer. I could not be more comfortable or fulfilled.

So another important meeting at our office today. It always feels good.

Ali and I are plotting get -together for his mother and Maria, the two can’t speak much to one another – Ali’s mother speaks little English – but they already seem to love each other. There are lots of ways to communicate beyond language.

Ibtesam wants to teach Maria how to cook Sudanese food, and Maria wants to make some fiber art with her.

Both of them are thrilled with the idea, Ali and I are picking a date for them to get together here on the farm, and also in Albany. I know they will love being together, they already have a powerful connection and have just met once.

Ali and I often talk about the time when this very wonderful exercise will end. The team will grow up, I will grow older, Ali will inevitably move on with his own wife and family. That day must come, as all things change.

But for now, it is a beautiful experience we are sharing, for as long as it lasts, something it may be difficult for outsiders to understand, but which we both cherish very much. You all are a part of it and thanks.

Fresh from the fertile and fiercely independent mind of Maria, the new Vulva Pillow, sketched on an old hanky and hand-stitched. It is on sale now for $85 on Etsy. The Vulva series began with the Vulva potholders and is evolving into notecards and stickers.

A small but vocal number of people – women, mostly, to my surprise, were offended by Maria’s artistic representation of the vulva, which is not the same thing as the vagina. Some thought it was “repulsive”, some used the word “disgusting,” and some thought it was just plain old “offensive.”

It is true that outrage and criticism are louder than praise, and Maria found there is a large and admiring audience for her Vulva work, and also that a number of women wrote her to say they would love Vulva art but were somewhat afraid to buy some. She has sold a lot of Vulva art.

I would buy this pillow in a second for our living room, but I am banned from buying her art. She thinks it isn’t fair, that it should go out into the world.

If the Fuddy Duddies, as I call them,  thought their grumbling would stop my wife, they must live in those states that sell marijuana legally.

Maria loves the idea of the vulva, and sees it – accurately, from my reading – as a powerful symbol of feminism and of the need for women to stop hating their bodies, or permit men to make them hate their bodies.

As a man, I was quite shocked by some of the vitriolic, even hateful messages I got about putting the Vulva potholders up on my blog, although many people were thoughtful and civil in their objections or discomfort, I should say in fairness.

People said it would be deeply offensive to them if Maria made Penis Potholders (sorry, she has and sold them all) or if any artist used the male penis in their art. I guess they have not ever been to Florence to see Michelangelo’s David, penis and all, or visited any great museum in the world, or the Vatican Art Collection, which has penises and vaginas galore.

I think the Fuddie-Duddies might want to check out George O’Keefe’s beloved and much praised vagina and vulva art – I’m not aware of anyone calling it  disgusting or repulsive.

For thousands of years, artists have created representations of the male and female human body, it is only recently that people thought it disgusting or offensive. Personally, I find the vulva quite beautiful and powerful, and I am quite proud of my wife for seeking to capture the Vulva as a symbol of the lost but now growing power of women.

Art like this is not created to offend or titillate, there is nothing pornographic, or even specific about it. If you look at the news, it is clear that something very powerful is happening to women in our world. There is no shame in a vulva.

And there is nothing disgusting to me about this pillow.  I believe the person who buys it will be fortunate to have so interesting and thoughtful and striking a piece of art. Down with Old Fartism in all of its many ingrained forms.

And down with the shaming of women and their bodies, or men either, for that matter.

The Vulva Pillow is going up on Maria’s Etsy Page even as I speak. I doubt it will stay there for long. Good work, wonderful woman, your art lives in your heart and spirit and sails out into the world like our better angels.

In our time, I think the great spiritual challenge is learning how to stay grounded and not be sucked into the whirlwind of anger, hatred and argument that has come to define our time. I deal with it by avoiding the argument and using good – small acts of great kindness – to keep me focused on what is meaningful and important in life.

My friends Shirley and Fred Foster sent me a book on one of my favorite subjects, the Kabbalah, the mystical school of writing and thought written by unknown Jewish mystics and scholars.

Nobody knows who wrote the varied texts of the Kabbalah, but I have always been drawn to its beautiful, even sexual notions of religion, feminism, the environment and a deep kind of spirituality.

There is almost no part of the Old or New Testaments that don’t bother me at times and turn me away, but there is no part of the Kabbalah that makes me uncomfortable or leaves me uninspired or enlightened.

In the Kabbalah, God is a kind of unapologetic Pope Francis, he cautions people to love Mother Earth, and Shekinah, his divine feminine colleague, streaks across the sky in her chariot, scolding God for leaving humans imperfect and unfinished, and sending her cherubs to sting the cheeks of people who fail to love and honor the earth and the environment.

In this religious text, sex is great and should be celebrated, donkeys are wise, rabbis and priests are foolish,  and we all are given the creative spark, and humans are hopelessly flawed. About the only thing the God of the Kabbalah cannot forgive is the failure of people to use the spark they were given.

It is astonishing to read religious texts that are so beautiful and mystical.

Shirley and Fred recently sent me a fascinating book called The 72 Names Of God: Technology for the Soul, by Kabbalah Scholar Yehuda Berg.

Like most things related to Kabbalah, it is complex and difficult reading. Also rewarding and exciting, the people who wrote the Kabbalah were wonderful  writers and creative thinkers, free of the clunky and ponderous dogma that marked so many early Jewish and Christian theology.

Our national identity is no longer  focused on spirituality, but on division and conflict. It is almost impossible to escape it, our only real choice is to succumb to it or to learn how to defuse it and live in peace.

Argument accomplishes nothing in my view of the world, perhaps the right and the left will simply end up devouring one another, maybe that is God’s solution to the intractable failings of human beings.

That might be a good solution for many people, but I don’t wish to be a part of it. I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about what Donald Trump is doing, I wake up thinking about how I can contribute to life in a positive and meaningful way.

He will answer to his God, I will answer to mine.

In Technology For The Soul, Berg writes that according to Kabbalah, we all have a spiritual field of energy that extends a little more than seven feet from our bodies. Although we can’t see this field with the naked eye, it’s as real as the invisible atoms in the air, and as undeniable and influential as the unseen force of gravity.”

Whenever this field is charged  with negative or stressful energy, we find ourselves in a lower state of being, often suffering from sadness, stress, depression, hostility, fear and uncertainty. Or we are just plain unhappy.

“Unpleasant places and gloomy people influence our lives when we come into close contact with them, Berg writes.”

This culture of argument and hatred is a violation of our personal space, suggests the Kabbalah, it disturbs energy in a way that is harmful and unhealthy to us and our well-being.

The Kabbalah, I should say, was written before smartphones and CNN and Fox News and social media, it was easier for them to withdrawn into their field of positive energy than it is for me or you. Our spiritual challenges are so much greater.

But they do have so much wisdom to offer us, and we don’t get much from the seers and pundits who get to go on television and scream at one another.

For me, this is remarkable thing about the Kabbalah, every time I read it I say yes, yes, this was written for me, this is what I feel and believe, this is  a faith I can enthusiastically embrace.

Berg suggests a meditation to counter this negative energy and stress, and I will write it here and also record in audio below.

“Purifying light banishes unseen ominous forces and deactivates harmful influences lurking nearby, including those that dwell inside of you. Stress dissolves, pressure is released. Balance and positive energy permeate your environment.”

Audio: I like this meditation, and read it below on the audio app.