By PAT TAUB and LISA SAVAGE Aging with a loved one can tap into joys, strengths and the benefits, but also health changes, family tensions, and potentially devastating financial challenges. Consider this scenario: Friends of friends [...]
Pat Taub
This past weekend, I attended a screening of Earth’s Greatest Enemy, Abby Martin’s jarring documentary, exposing how the US Military has become the world’s biggest polluter. In the small, funky Brunswick, Maine theater, with admiration and certainly some nostalgia, I connected again with individuals who’d carried and continue to carry [...]
Pat Taub
In our increasingly dark times, despair is a seductive force. Many of us have been deeply affected by the 170 Iranian schoolgirls murdered by US bombs; ICE’s inhumane detention centers; and an increasingly unhinged President who is oblivious to how his policies are threatening WW lll. The list is long, but if we limit our focus to the darkness, [...]
Pat Taub
This Christmas season prominent religious leaders like Pope Francis and Rev. Munther Isaac, Palestinian pastor in Bethlehem, call on us to put into practice the parable of the Good Samaritan, as it applies to Gaza. In a show of compassion for Gaza, the Pope’s nativity scene shows Baby Jesus with a Palestinian keffiyeh. Rev. Isaac’s church, [...]
Pat Taub
This Thanksgiving I’m giving thanks to people who have acted with courage and compassion. Some in a big way and others in small everyday actions that warmed my heart. Among those to whom I offer a big thanks is Ursula Slavick, a Portland, Maine resident and member of a women’s peace group to which I belong. Ursula died at age 87 on [...]
Pat Taub
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day. These immortal words of Dylan Thomas are a suitable motto for Feisty Old Broads, older women who reject the stereotype of the accommodating old lady. The FOB’s are women who are fearless in their individuality. They speak truth to power, laugh a lot, have [...]
Pat Taub
Birthday milestones are celebrated with fanfare until one reaches middle age and beyond when getting old carries a downside. A baby’s first birthday is a time when infancy moves into small personhood. Becoming a teen at 13 is seen as a beginning entry into adulthood. Other rites of passage are: obtaining a driver’s license at 16; earning [...]
Pat Taub
This past weekend I watched the women’s final four college basketball games. Young, powerful athletic bodies were on full display. As I became absorbed in the games, I bemoaned the loss of my once athletic body and physical prowess in general, until my thoughts turned to a different definition of power as it applies to the older woman. [...]
Pat Taub
I don’t want to close Women’s History month without acknowledging my history with women’s circles, to whom I owe enormous gratitude. My sister circles supported me at the major crossroads in my life. I can’t imagine my life without them. In the ‘70’s there was the circle that accompanied the birth of my first child. David was [...]
Pat Taub
How is it possible for the world to ignore babies being murdered every day in Gaza, while those babies who aren’t killed are dying from starvation? How is possible to ignore a Palestinian father who leaves home for a loaf of bread only to return to find his family was murdered in his absence? How is it possible for Israeli soldiers to [...]
Pat Taub
A dear friend bolted through my front door on Sunday morning, distraught, blurting out, “I have this awful knot in my stomach. Two mass shootings in 24 hours with 29 dead! If I hear one more official respond to the tune of ‘you’re in our thoughts and prayers,’ I think I’ll lose it.” I tried to console her but I was as shell-shocked [...]
Pat Taub