Freedom – Keep Walking

Julie Hamos announced her upcoming “genealogy” trip to Hungary as she was driving me home recently. She travels to unusual places (like Iran) but this seemed more weighty than a curiosity tour.

Indeed I have known Julie as a Hungarian refugee but she’s been so much a part of the political fabric in Illinois for so long, I forgot she has a pre-American history that never comes up in conversation.

“My parents, and I walked five miles in the middle of the night from Hungary to the Austrian border. My three-year old brother, Jim, was carried. It was rainy and muddy. I was seven.”

“Oh, Julie, I never heard this story.”

In 1956, Holocaust survivors Agnes and Gary Hamos left their ancestral home in Budapest to escape the Soviet communist government. Hungarians were not allowed to leave the country. There were no exit visas. They snuck across the border into an Austrian refugee enclave in the dead of night with their children, Julie and Jim.

After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, 200,000 Jews fled the country. About 9,000 went to Israel while others settled in the United States, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and Latin America. The Hamoses made their way to Cleveland.

“Jim and I and another refugee friend are taking a trip to Hungary to retrace the five miles our families walked when we fled.” Julie said.

With Julie’s permission, I’m adding a few text messages that Julie sent to friends while on her genealogy tour. I’ve never known someone with a story like this and reading over Julie’s words still brings me to tears.

Americans are faced with a new commitment to safeguard the unique freedoms the Hamos family and millions of others have risked their lives for.

Freedom is, has always been, worth every step.

Friday. This has been an incredible visit to Budapest – no happy tourist attractions on this trip. Today we went to the large Jewish cemetery where we found, unearthed, cleaned, and pieced together the grave of our friend John’s great-grandmother (his other relatives at that cemetery were buried under rubble.. but we engaged in a treasure hunt to find them.) When we leave here tomorrow and go to the countryside, we’re going to find my ancestors and do the same thing.

Then we went to the Holocaust Memorial Center which I never knew existed. It was established by the government in 1999 and of course became controversial because originally it whitewashed Hungary’s role in the Holocaust. That’s changed and it’s a true history lesson with real depth about growing antisemitism and then mass extermination. So moving — with lots of lessons for today.

Tonight we had dinner with our only living relative in Hungary who invited her husband, son and his girlfriend to meet us. Their other son and daughter left Hungary under Orban, but tonight we also talked about their excitement and hope for Magyar – and what the election had been like. Fascinating.

Tomorrow we go to the border to re-live the Hungarian revolution!

Saturday. Today we went to the border close to where we escaped. We don’t know from our parents that exact route we followed, through muddy cornfields, to Austria.

We do know a smuggler was paid by Grandma and he met our train and then took us to his house to rest before nightfall. Today we visited Moszonmagyarovar which was the end of the train line and his home town. We also went to the train station where we got off that train 70 years ago.

The bridge at Andau (a James Michener novel) was the bridge used by many of the 70,000 Hungarians who escaped there. We did not do a long walk to re-create our escape (since those long—ago fields are unknown, and likely private). As our own symbolic experience, we walked across the bridge at Andau from Hungary to Austria. The bridge has been rebuilt and has graphic depictions of families pointed toward Austria. It’s the site of a memorial to the Hungarians who dared to make the escape.

Halfway across the bridge, at the border of Hungary, I surprised Jim. One of our family lores has been about little 3-year- old Jimmy’s white teddy bear. He was allowed to bring it (he was carried on the long walk) but we kept seeing searchlights and hearing gunshots through the night, so our parents threw it away – in the mud!- so we wouldn’t be discovered (along with Mom’s raincoat which was too shiny, they thought).

Halfway across the bridge, I surprised Jim with a small white teddy bear and a note that said “This time I made it all the way across the Hungarian border!” We both bawled – it’s a great video. Funny thing, he had talked about looking for a white teddy bear nonstop these last 24 hours, so it really was a big surprise.

Staying at a “resort” with a spa and gourmet food at Andau. Great irony.

Tuesday. Hi all. The last two days in the countryside of Hungary have been meaningful and so, so emotional.

Yesterday we went to Paszto, Dad’s small home town. There the Holocaust exterminated almost everybody – except my dad and his brother who were in forced labor camps. Two grandparents died there and their names are on a memorial to Holocaust victims (the type found in every village in Hungary, it seems). We searched and found the graves of a great-grandmother, a great-grandfather, a great-great-grandmother and two great-great-grandfathers. Unbelievable! This was searching through and cleaning many ancient graves, and then placing our pebbles down on each grave in their honor.

Jim and I had an entourage of 9 people – our 2 traveling friends, 3 historians he had met online, the 2 remaining cousins we had met the other day in Budapest who took off a day to join us because they/we didn’t want to let go, and 2 friends from 77 years ago when I lived in Paszto. We got to really meet everyone over a group lunch.

I was born in a Budapest hospital, but Mom, Dad and Grandma were living in Paszto because Budapest was not habitable after the war. So I lived there to age 3. These two friends were my age as small children and we’ve connected over the years. It was fantastic to catch up with them. (BTW: my Hungarian is getting better by the day… ) At my request, we went to the house where we had lived and the lady who lives there now insisted on inviting me in to give me a tour.

So yesterday was quite a day. Lots of memories, and a real recognition that I wouldn’t be here without all of these life experiences and ancestors…

Today we drove to another part of Hungary with another historian (and distant cousin of our friend John). We went to two other cemeteries searching for Mom’s family. We found the graves of 2 great- grandfathers, while searching for more.

We also stopped at two train stations where Jews had been rounded up to be put in cattle cars to be transported to Auschwitz. We’ve seen the scenes in movies – so very sad. They have plaques in their honor, that’s it. I cried.

Tomorrow Jim and I go on to Romania – then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Jim arranged tours with two different genealogists. My Grandma who lived with us all her life – a love of my life! – was born there. We’ll be looking for her large family.

It’s an amazing trip, everything we had planned (Jim mostly). It inspires lots and lots of thoughts and feelings about the tragedy of the Holocaust, the meaning of life, and about family. Whew

Love to all.

Friday. We’re in a beautiful little town called Oradea in Romania. Yesterday was bittersweet. Our guide for the walking tour took us to the Jewish sites and we learned about the impact of the Holocaust here.

There were about 30,000 Jews here in the 1930s-1940s. During the WWII period, antisemitic laws were passed, but the Jewish community was successful and pretty assimilated here. And then….in May 1944, a decree came down that every Jew had to walk away from their homes and possessions, and move into a cramped ghetto. Everyone!! They then interrogated some people and beat them to have them divulge where they hid their wealth. By the end of May and early June, they boarded everyone in cattle cars to ship them off to Auschwitz. In one month! Their Romanian/ Hungarian neighbors and friends stood on the sidelines and jeered. Only about 2,500 victims survived.That broke my heart yesterday… even as we enjoyed much of this lovely town.

Today was our last day. Jim had hired a guide to take us to 3 small villages where our Grandma’s family from at least 1850 had lived. One village had the Jewish cemetery and we searched mightily for our family’s graves (Jim will continue this cause we are convinced a few are there, and we now see the numbering system; he is determined to track down the cemetery register with the Jewish community.)

A sweet experience was going to Grandma’s tiny village, then called Papfalva and now Popesti, which has fewer than 2,000 residents. Hers was the Schwartz family with 12 children. Our guide wondered whether a senior would remember any descendent of this family who remained there, even for a while. We drove around until we saw an old guy in a wheelchair. His wife came out and offered to take us to the nursing home where the two oldest residents lived. This is hysterical, right? Sure enough, the nursing home agreed to bring them out. The man is 93 years old, his wife a little younger.

They searched their memories for a Jewish family named Schwartz, but no luck. It was adorable.They took a photo with us. For Jim and me, there was something spiritually very exciting to walk in the footsteps of our Grandma in this tiny village. She lived with us all our lives and was very important to us. So, we’ve experienced both heartbreak and joy in Romania.

Tomorrow we will drive toward Budapest for our flight home on Sunday. We will spend the afternoon in a town near Budapest that is a UNESCO-listed artist village.

Talk to you at home. Love

Julie Hamos has had a long career as policy advocate, public interest attorney, state legislator and state agency director. She was a young lawyer on the Subcommittee on Oversight of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in 1975, served as Illinois State Representative from 1998 for over 11 years, was a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, appointed Director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. Julie has a J.D. degree from George Washington University. She continues to serve the public on boards and commissions too numerous to list.

Somatic (Trump) Healing

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The 2020 Spring confluence of the Covid Shut Down and the Murder of George Floyd both sparked nationwide protests. As an old hippie, I uncharacteristically refrained from the George Floyd, anti-racist marches due to the possibility of covid-contaminated wandering spew. I confined myself to protesting by laptop day and night. On my newly-learned Zoom app, I heard Resma Menakem, psychotherapist and somatic practitioner, offer a description of white supremacy as told in his book, My Mother’s Hands.

Menakem writes that racism is a form of PTSD that resides in white European DNA. He suggests using body-centered awareness and movements to reduce the trauma and tension stored in the nervous system. With Zoom, I began leading a weekly online meditation group using simple breathing instructions. After I read My Mother’s Hands, I subconsciously expanded the instructions to include somatic thoughts and body-centered words.

In September 2026, my Zoom book group concluded a prolonged study of Resma Menakem’s book. As the weekly discussions progressed, I slowly became aware that his work has influenced the guided meditation I use to center us before our group discussions. I consider this gradual insight the most important dimension of our book group work. We may not “get it” right away, but the authors’ influence seeps in through contemplation.

On September 27, 2026, David Brooks talked to Ayad Akhtar on his podcast “The Permanent Questions.” Brooks labeled the session “What Is the Meaning of Mystical Experience?” And centered the discussion around Akhtar’s latest book, The Radiance: A Novel.

Akhtar, my favorite new atheist, revealed that he has a practice that has no words, like a somatic practice of walking in the woods or staring at a sleeping cat. He clearly expects to have transcendent experiences in this practice and used the telling of it to let us know there is a certain spiritual life beyond, or more precisely, without, religion.

I don’t know about you, but deep transcendent experiences, are flittering away these days. The sight of a monarch butterfly is a momentary, rather than a mystical, thrill because we’re told they are disappearing because of us. Happiness, peace, tranquility are fleeting surface emotions. It’s as if Trumpism has physically removed them from my psyche, excised them from my soul. The longing for them has not, however, evaporated. Ayad Akhtar expresses this as the ultimate human emotion — the longing for it.

“Firing Line” host Margaret Hoover asked foreign affairs scholar and measured journalist Anne Applebaum, “If architecture expresses political values, what should the next president of the United States do with the ballroom?”

Applebaum, a Washington DC native, reacted with visible somatic emotion, “Knock it down.”

She’s longing for it. The bodily return to normalcy. Me too. Ayad Akhtar’s novel has the promise of ushering in spiritual relief, regulated breathing, reduced back pain and a quieter stomach—without religion or God.

Walking my dog Elsa does that too.

____________________________________

Guided Meditation as influenced by “My Mother’s Hands.”

Whatever you experience during meditation is right for you. Don’t try to make anything happen, just observe.

Begin by sitting in a comfortable position. Notice how your breath flows in and out. Don’t change your breathing in any way, simply notice how your body breathes. When your thoughts wander, bring your attention back to your breathing.

I close my eyes softly bringing awareness to my breathing.

I allow my mind to rest in my heart as I come into my body.

Sitting still. Relaxed. Alert.

I hold my back straight, not stiff.

My torso rests with ease and comfort centered in my pelvis.

My feet are held up by the floor, my body held down by gravity.

I sense the temperature of the room.

I notice sound.

I notice thoughts of sound.

I imagine stiffness melting away from my neck, shoulders, eyes, forehead, cheeks.

I watch tension leave my face as my jaw drops slightly.

I breathe in. I breathe out.

I have no where to go, nothing to do; need nothing to change. This moment.

And this Moment. And this moment.

I allow complex thoughts to enter my mind and leave my mind. Feelings, plans, fantasies, memories, conclusions, judgements come in and go out. Come in and go out.

The worries of the world do not own me. I do not own the worries of the world.

I bring my focus to my breath as distractions come into my mind.

May I be at peace. May my friends & family be at peace. May my enemies be at peace. May all sentient beings be at peace.

I breathe in. I breathe out.

Sassy Sisters for Biggs

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Regan Burke, Roberta Cohen, Janie Urbanic

In the three to four generations we’ve lived in Chicago, there have been very few summers that the Chicago Public Schools have not been in the impending doom segments of the news. And here we are again with errant school board members creating an August budget crisis by trying to shame the Illinois General Assembly into filling a $150 million budget hole. Responsible CPS board member Jessica Biggs voted against this misguided move stating it is “not a reasonable source of revenue” (https://www.biggs4chicago.com/headlines).

Yeah, it’s not.

We’ve had it!

Where is good government? We think, have always thought, as the Chicago Tribune editorial on August 7, 2026 pointed out, that merging the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund with the state Teachers Retirement System is not just a sound fiscal idea, but no-brainer good government. What’s the holdup? Is it some ancient bend to Illinois’ notorious corrupted government institutions? Right about now, merging these retirement funds would be a good public relations move on the part of the Speaker of the House who is facing down yet another sexual harassment foot-dragging scandal.

Good government has brought us an elected school board for the first time in Chicago’s history. From its inception, we cynically worried about another lobbyist-controlled institution run by loudmouth bullies with an ax to grind or point to prove — not a board organized around educating and caring for Chicago public school kids.

In November Chicago has a chance to change the generations old crisis-driven CPS by electing Jessica Biggs as its first independent School Board President.

Oh we get it. The fix will take a while and just like Moses never saw the promised land, we may not see a functioning, well-oiled, incorruptible school board come quickly. But we know Jessica Biggs will lead CPS toward a promising legacy for our progeny, our city’s future.

Jessica Biggs, a graduate of Loyola University and Harvard Graduate School of Education was a special education teacher and a Chicago public school principal. She’s a fiercely independent experienced leader who brings together different points of view that lead to new solutions.

A current school board member, independent candidate Biggs built a multicultural, multigenerational rare coalition in 2024. She won her 2024 school board campaign by 44% of the vote against two candidates who were funded by special interest groups. Jessica is a winner.

*Sassy Sisters for Biggs Janie Urbanic, Roberta Cohen, Regan Burke, Jessica Biggs*

Friends in our generation ask why we care about the Chicago Public Schools. We no longer have school age kids or even grandkids in CPS. The answer is easy: 1) The school board budget, funded mostly by property taxes affects our household budgets whether we rent or own our homes. 2) We love and care about Chicagoans, no matter what generation, what age, what income bracket, what education level.

And we want to leave our city in good hands.

We believe leaders like Jessica Biggs are those good hands.

State of the Union? You’re Kidding, Right?

Why did so many people ask me about watching the State of the Union speech? And not just me. Local news reporters asked people on the street. I’ve Had It Podcaster Jennifer Welch asked Resister Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut if he was going.

“Well, hell no, I’m not going. He’s made a mockery of the State of the Union. And we don’t need to be a backdrop to his histrionics.”

Honestly, it’s not like the speech was the U.S. Women’s Hockey finals at the Olympics. It was Donald Trump’s State of the Union. The news about the number of Democratic Members of Congress and Senators not heading over to the House Chamber in the Capitol was interesting. However, it was expected. We didn’t need to see breaking news headlines about each boycotter pop out of our phones all day.

Resister Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia preached at Trinity Church in Chicago Sunday. His sermon was titled I’ve had enough. Using the Hebrew Bible’s Isaiah, he reminded us of wicked kings. These kings and wannabe kings erase anything that looks like diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“Don’t act like this is politics as usual. This is not just politics, it’s spiritual wickedness in high places. Haven’t we had enough?”

Senator Warnock said God hates solemn assemblies that normalize this political spiritual wickedness. God hates?

“Wickedness in our lifetime is being facilitated and approved and applauded by people who are sitting in somebody’s church this morning,” preached Warnock. I’d hate that too if I were God.

Last summer, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson gathered some of his boys in prayer. They met in the basement of the Capitol. They emerged from their subterranean huddle to vote on the bill that kicked 15 million people off health care. Warnock questioned who those boys prayed to. Who did they talk to?

Senator Warnock did attend the State of the Union speech. Good for him. His ministry of solemn presence condemns the MAGA religion of those boys in the basement.

Trinity Church’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III and Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock are alum of The Auburn Senior Fellows. They are two of twenty-five top leaders who bring justice-centered faith into the public square. An unprecedented cohort of changemakers, they were brought together by Auburn Seminary in New York City. You’ll see them in places like Minneapolis and Alligator Alley, No Kings rallies and detention center protests. No matter your religion or no-religion, if you ever get a chance to see one of them, go. Just go. They are listed here.

The titles of Jennifer Welch’s podcast I’ve Had It and Warnock’s preaching I’ve Had Enough are misleading. Yes, they’ve had it, had enough. But they keep going, keep speaking out, keep organizing, keep preaching.

Because they haven’t had so much that they quit.

The Peace of Non Closure

A new concept popped up at the outset of a recent anti-racist training session. Among the familiar “courageous-conversation” ground rules, the leader added, “We commit to non-closure. (pause) Right?”

Whoa, really? My fellow attendees all yes’d the speaker as if they knew this already. I thought I must have ignored an inboxed message, or, in my long season of retirement, missed another new corporate buzz word. Non-closure.

On the brink of Juneteenth, the half-day session promised to address the backlash to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs and policies. That morning all of nature said yes! to Chicago. I wanted to say yes! too, and take a long walk in the park with my dog. Instead, I reluctantly ambled over to the dingy conference room in a church basement near my home. Anti-racism churned inside me and I had no organized outlet. I was curious to see if there was anything new. Answers.

But here I was, swallowing a commitment to non-closure. No answers, no conclusions, no plans, no fantasies of what might be. Of the numerous anti-racism trainings I’ve attended since the murder of George Floyd this may be the first time I recognized that it’s safe to be in that liminal space of unknowing, of ambiguity. There would be no meaning-making, no sense-making, no closure.

Facilitators from Crossroads, an antiracism training organization, gathered us together, not to tell us what they know, but to find out what we know. They see, feel, but even more, they sense, not just a political backlash in anti-racism work but, an active softening in community and personal commitment.

The air is leaking out of the tires.

This week Donald Trump and I had birthdays. We’re the same age. Several friends asked me how I planned to celebrate.

“I don’t really celebrate my birthday.”

“Why not?” Asked my favorite poet.

I had no answer.

He asked about my writing.

“I’ve been thinking lately I may not write anymore.”

“Why?” He asked.

Another why question. And no good answer. Is that a failing? No answer? Does it mean I’m not sufficiently self-reflective?

Liminal, from the Latin, “threshold” puts time and space betwixt and between. On liminal days, birthdays dangle off the edge of time. The past no longer haunts me, the future no longer calls me. I neither wait nor wonder. Indeed, birthdays are liminal days.

Anthropologists say that memory disorder, pandemic uncertainty, authoritarianism, virtual reality, border disputes, old-age anxiety, environmental issues, and gender trouble put society in a self-protective liminal state. Whew! Thank you God. This beloved gift allows me to live on the threshold where social norms, like answering the question “why” or reading every damn email are temporarily suspended.

In the ninth grade, when I was consumed with past and future popularity by any means, I was inconveniently tormented with one living and one dead poet: T.S. Eliot and Alfred Lord Tennyson. A lot has been written about the spiritual liminality, the non-closure of their work. It’s only now (or is it?) that I see why these vexing lines captured me:

Tennyson’s Ulysses:
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 
For ever and forever when I move.

^{TS Eliot’s Four Quartets:}^{Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present}^.

Regan Burke

Author "In That Number" from local booksellers or Amazon

Tag: essay