While reading Neurodivergent Pride #5 I became interested in interviewing Rikki Branson because of her essay “Faith and Authority:  A Generation X Spiritual Journey”.  We are acquainted from both being involved in publishing in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid 2010s, and I had been raised Roman Catholic but have both had a complicated relationship to organized religion since the 1990s.

AI: You were already in Jr. High when your parents took you to an evangelical Protestant church.  Did you have any exposure to organized religion before that?  Do you mind sharing more specifically what kind of church it was?

RB:  Sure, it was a Christian and Missionary Alliance church, which at the time was pretty much a mainstream Protestant megachurch in the suburbs. I think my experience is similar to many people’s experiences, though, regardless of what denomination of church they attended.

And I had heard of Christian religion before, I was actually the one who got my parents to take my brother and I to church when I was little! I had read in books about people going to church and thought it was a way to meet other kids and be part of some grand and meaningful cause, so I kept asking them to take us to church, which they finally did.

AI: You mentioned Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott for her description of her spiritual journey as like being lily pads, meandering like a frog. Do you still feel that way? Is there more you’d like to say about Lamott’s writing?

RB:  Yes, and what I meant by that was that my spiritual journey wasn’t a straight line from one point to another. In some seasons I thought more about faith and spirituality than in other seasons, and I’ve found myself re-learning similar lessons and re-thinking the same issues. And I’d end up re-examining the same thing sometimes but from a different angle based on a person or event that had entered my life.

Even the times in my life when I was cynical towards religion were still part of my journey, because I was still engaging with the concept of faith, even to dismiss it. And while I haven’t read anything by Anne Lamott in awhile so can’t speak to her current writing, I do still identify with the “lily pads” metaphor.

AI: You mentioned that your parents told you as a teenager that you seemed autistic, but you didn’t actually get diagnosed until you were an adult. How important do you think a potential adult diagnosis is for others?

RB:  I do think an adult diagnosis can help people of any age who want to better understand themselves. When I was diagnosed, a lot of the focus (understandably) was on helping me with job searching and money management as those were issues I was facing at that time, but we did briefly bring up other topics such as relationships and friendships and faith and spirituality. There are things therapists said to me that I’d like to go back and explore and would bring up in a session if I were still in therapy at UCSF, and I do think the therapy experience gave me things to consider that were useful and interesting.

I think some people don’t pursue diagnoses because they feel that putting a “label” on themselves will limit them or they want to make it in life without making excuses or getting special treatment. But I think that now with autism and other conditions, we have a deeper understanding that autism can affect people in very different ways and that there are many ways to be autistic (just as there are many ways to practice faith/spirituality!) A diagnosis isn’t a statement of your destiny or an excuse, it’s more of a guide to how your unique brain works, where you have strengths and where you might need more support.

I think a diagnosis can help if you are able to access support systems (job coaching, accommodations at work, etc) because of the diagnosis. Or, if you choose to just use the information for yourself and Google “help for autistic people to organize their closet” or something like that, if regular advice for non-autistic people isn’t working for you. There is less stigma attached to mental health and neurological diagnoses now due to more knowledge about them and more people getting diagnosed, and if you choose to get diagnosed and tell people, you can help to lessen that stigma even further.

That said, I would never want to be someone who reduces stigma by claiming “not to be like those other autistic people” who don’t blend in as easily to neurotypical society or have more support needs. We are all valid and all deserve respect.

AI: I like/identify with your “uneasy mental truce with” your faith after college. I consider myself to be culturally catholic (small c no mistake), do you feel like your faith or lack there of is similar? Jesuscentric is a concept I read about on livejournal if I’m not mistaken that I liked back in the ’00s. Unitarian Universalism can also be pretty cool.

RB:  I’ve not heard the term “Jesuscentric” but I do hear “Christ follower” to express that someone is inspired by and hopes to emulate Jesus, but without all of the cultural and political connotations that can come with the word “Christian.” I think it’s a way to say things a bit differently, to get a chance to explain what you mean before you activate people’s cultural stereotypes and have them put you in a box before you get to define yourself.

Yes, I would say that I’m probably similar to what you’re getting at with culturally catholic, although I do think there’s more to being a Christ follower than the cultural Christianity that involves, say, putting up a Christmas tree around the holidays or taking Sunday off. It’s about choosing to live in a more mindful and intentional way that’s inspired by how Jesus acted in the Gospels: love your neighbor, forgive your enemy, treat everyone and the natural world with respect. Getting back to the basics without all the modern cultural and political associations that can come to people’s minds when they think of Christian religion.

AI:  For clarification, for me, being small c and/or culturally catholic isn’t about the church as an institution, high holidays or mass on Sunday.  To me, that is what mainstream religion is.  For me it’s more like the Catholic Worker Movement or Ecclesiastical Base Communities.  Feeding the hungry, offering clothing and shelter to those in need.  Opposing imperialism and the death penalty.  Penpalling with, and sending books to prisoners. 

It’s like the story of the father who asked his son to do some work, and the son said he wouldn’t, but he did it anyways.  His other son said he’d do the work but didn’t.  Faith without works is dead as they say, I’m far more interested in the work than the faith. I was raised Roman Catholic but became an atheist in my youth, then an Evangelical and Pentecostal Christian as a young adult, but left that milieu largely over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also the total indifference to things like sweat shops, the environment, and practically everything wrong with the world except a very narrow definition of what’s “wrong.” 

RB:  I can relate to that!

AI: Do you feel like the publishing executive you mentioned is a good example of non-religious mentorship?

RB:  Yes, I would say so. I think that mentorship and just adult friendship in general is something that people are really lacking in Western/American society. So much of what I heard about adult friendship when I was growing up as a teen was focused on how adults should grow up, settle down, stop hanging out with buddies and spend their non-working hours with their families. I’m all for people being good spouses and good parents, parenting is a very important form of mentoring. But I think we just spend so many hours working, job searching, networking, commuting etc that we don’t have enough hours left to invest in our communities and relationships so we’re forced to ration out the little time we do have and direct it to smaller and smaller circles of people. That’s the problem we should really address, why we’re kept so busy that we can’t maintain normal relationships the way we did when we had a village to support us and we interacted with that village. And friendships don’t have to take you away from your family. I have friends who have children and I’m always down for spending time with them with kids included!

You don’t need to be religious to be a mentor or be mentored, but I think that one good thing that religion provides is a structure where people can meet each other and become friends or mentors/mentees, where platonic friendship is encouraged and supported. I think we need more of this in the world.

AI: do you consider yourself to be on a third path outside of the worldliness vs spirituality world view?

RB:  Yes, I’m still somewhere on that third path. I don’t know how to describe the stage of spiritual life that I’m in now, but I do feel that I’m still on the journey somewhere. I still consider myself a Christ-follower.

What I’m focusing energy on now is working to rebuild communities and social structures that went away during the height of the pandemic. Covid hasn’t totally gone away and I’m all for accommodating people with disabilities or people who are immunocompromised, and am looking forward to rebuilding our social connections in more mindful and inclusive ways. Where I live in Northern California there’s a lot of media talk about how our cities are in a “doom loop” because of violence and economic problems, and I’m writing and speaking about remembering and honoring the role cities have played in America in terms of safety and community for some POC, LGBT and immigrant people and about supporting the communities that exist in our cities. Not sure how that all fits into my Christ-follower faith journey, but I suppose it’s about community and respect which I think is a big part of the good that faith and spirituality can bring to society.

AI: I agree with your critique of submission being linked to “traditional” gender roles, but would add it’s also part of the inherent violence in the white supremacist aspect of the hyper segregated, white dominated churches in the US. The flip of this to me is Liberation Theology, minority churches and actively anti-racist/peace churches can be liberatory. How do you feel about this five years further along in life?

RB:  I related submission to gender roles in my essay because that was what I’d heard growing up, and that’s what I thought I was qualified to speak about, as a white woman.

But all of our unjust social power dynamics, including racism and white supremacy, manifest in our mainstream churches, and I do think it’s important to be actively anti-racist and actively oppose and work against in society and call yourself out for racism and other issues. A few racist things I now recognize from when I was younger from my mostly white church were that we put on a play and listened to music about the sacrifices of some white missionaries who were murdered by native people but didn’t look at the whole story in context. The natives were presented much like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings and it was only as an adult that I read a book that mentioned that the indigenous tribe in question was not “unreached by civilization” but engaged in legal and sometimes physical combat with oil company representatives who wanted to take their land and that the murders happened because one Indigenous man lied to their chief to cover up a love affair, not because they had a cultural habit of murdering all trespassers. But the story was told in an extremely white-centric way.

I also remember missionaries saying that people in other countries who practiced other faiths were under demonic influence and that their religious music was obnoxious, and someone who adopted a boy from East Asia changing the boy’s name to Noel and saying that he was now God’s gift to him and his wife. White supremacy, which I believe was unintentional there, just stemming from a culture saturated in that, would manifest as looking at problems in other countries as horrific but problems here in the U.S. as just sort of unfortunate, and as a hyperfocus on relating every Bible story to something to do with our individual lives or families without considering social justice or social implications. The story of Rahab hiding the Jericho spies, for example, was about how you should follow God before it’s too late, and the illustration was of a man who couldn’t accept his wife’s forgiveness for his affair and didn’t try to get her back until she was already remarried. Not about genocide or war or the role of women or marginalized racial groups, but about American suburban marital drama.

But when I was in my “cynical phase” in my twenties, I didn’t have the tools or language yet as a white person to critique racism and classism in the church. That’s something that came later as I matured. I’m embarrassed and ashamed that I didn’t immediately notice the toxic aspects that weren’t directly aimed at me, and I am committed to learning more and doing better. And I think consciously anti-racist and anti-oppression churches can help with that.

Techno-Feudalism like Yanis Varoufakis Said

under whom we cheerlead the destruction of our kind – 
our heads bowed down with the weight of the media 
-Marc di Saverio (2020). Crito Di Volta, 31.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building an investor group to acquire ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan piece of legislation winding its way through Congress threatens its continued existence in the U.S.
-Rohan Goswami and Jesse Pound (2024). 

You are under surveillance!
And the USA is seizing the surveillance for MAGA.

The scramble for cyberspace: 1884 all over again.
Invade. Colonize. Partition.
There are only terra nullius and eminent domain
in platform empires.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary will have your kid’s data.
Trump’s Treasury Secretary will know your recipes and décor hacks.
Twerking tweens will twerk for Trump now.

Now we can all be Miss Teen USA.
Help! We don’t even live in the USA!
Steve Mnuchin wants a platform, and to wear a crown.

MAGA will buy TikTok with offshore accounts,
Then offshoring whales will onboard TikTok in Uncle Sam’s name.
Android-Apple-Alphabet – California Caliphate,
Christian Nationalist internet.
while microserfs make BitCoin bets.
What did you monetize today?
What do the 5 Eyes not see already?
Can one Eye subpoena what another Eye surveils?

What is the difference between “Treasury Secretary” and “Chairman?”
Mao we get to find out.


Terry Trowbridge has appeared in Synchronized Chaos before. He is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for funding poetry during the polycrisis.

A Well Organized and Thoughtful Work Has Been Written by Jacques Fleury

Publisher, Author House

2023

By Jacques Fleury

Jacques Fleury’s book is a fine read, and will be inspiring and informative for many readers. The book is about the author’s journey of self discovery and acceptance, spanning an entire life still being lived. Students of many disciplines will gain from reading it including but not limited to sociology, philosophy, psychology, religion and spirituality, and social justice. 

The structure of the book is well done with headings that are interesting and informative quotes from other authors. Fleury is a careful and considerate writer who has put much thought into his project. The reader is in soucient, capable hands. 

I see the author through this work not only as a survivor, but a thriver. From Haitian Christian school that was difficult, and then emigrating to North American soil, the author addresses issues, but does not become cynical or jaded in his journeys. Obviously well read plus practiced at writing, he expresses his thoughts on everything from diet and physical health, to education and spirituality. He is on a journey of self discovery as a human and as a writer. 

Among particularly interesting aspects of the book are the parts on modern mental health pharmacology. Without demonizing the industry, the writer has the talent to articulate the idea that people encountering that industry via its adjacent industry of therapy might want to proceed with caution, and self advocacy are the words of the day. This is a timely and important message in the current climate of so many pills to solve so many problems. 

Another topic covered well is the idea of masculinity and what it is versus what it is thought to be. It seems the author is able to identify what historically is the case for masculine behaviour and when not wholly accepting it still accept himself. This is courageous and an educational, thought provoking and an empowering aspect of the book. 

‘We must follow the energy that awakens the fire of the heart, and greet life with gusto and optimism, not sorrow and pessimism’ page 150. This is a great quote in the Fleury book that encapsulates the message of the book. In these troubled times of economic strife for many, homelessness, environmental decay, wars, continued racism and classism and other harmful isms, the book does not lose faith in people but strengthens the idea and hopefully reality that each person can through some awareness and self advocacy, create a better life. 

You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self, is a thoughtful, well crafted and well rounded work of introspection and positively that we should all take the time to read. 

⁃ Brian Michael Barbeito 

You Are Enough: The Journey To Accepting Your Authentic Self is available here.

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian-American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Muddy River Poetry Review, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.

Wild Child

I was six months old when my father was sent to Vietnam. We left Oklahoma, where my father had been stationed in the army, and moved back to Nebraska, where my parents had grown up. My aunt stayed with us while my uncle was serving in the National Guard. My brother found his photo, crumpled it up, and threw it in the garbage can. “This is my daddy’s house,” he said. “This is not your house, Aunt Judy.” I used to wake up early and screech from my crib. My mother kept sleeping while my aunt got up and comforted me. Soon I was pulling myself up over the wall of my crib, dropping to the floor, and crawling around the house. I was my mother’s wild child.


Father, Stranger

I learned how to whistle, then talk, while my father was in Vietnam—wading through rice paddies and trekking through jungle, carrying a heavy pack and cooking his C rations with rice and bullion, surviving after his chopper crashed in a hot zone and losing his best friend in an early morning ambush. I didn’t recognize him when he came home. My brother sat in the front seat of the car chatting away. I sat in the backseat silent. Eventually I crawled over the backrest and sat between my brother and father. I kept my head down the whole time.


Digging to China

When my father left the army, we moved to Nebraska where he earned his Master of Business Administration. My brother and I dug a hole in the backyard. I said I was digging to China, inspired by my grandfather who flew cargo over the Himalayas—the hump—from India to China during World War II. My mother snapped a photo of us with mud all over—from face to toe—and my father kept it on his desk when he became a businessman.


You Don’t Own the Street

We played baseball on a dead end street across from our house and we used a rock in Mr. Dellapoli’s yard as first base. Once, he came out and yelled at us. I was a little kid but I wasn’t afraid. I put my hands on my hips and shot back, “M. Dellapoli, you don’t own the street!”



Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs Walking A&P and Black Elephants and three poetry chapbooks. Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her full-length poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poem “This New Manhattan” was a finalist for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.

The Raven




He’s spending 

Some time

At the Raven,

This could be

DC’s finest dive,

Three Budweisers in

And he’s wondering

If he should

Start coming here

More regularly.



Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, is due out this month.

The day he exit

It was a black day void of emotions yet filled with nothingness.
Father called with a loving tone and son comes ingest with daddy 
Buddies and loved ones assembled the table 
Feasting in different numbers as one.
He had gone to lay down his body 
But suddenly a scream knocked everyone to shock 
Doctors ran their ways, in and out, biting their fingers 
As to be compared to when a hunter misses his target.

I bashed in unannounced like a security guard 
And watched how his glowing eyes turned pale.
Mummy, palleted in grief, sighed deeply,
She began to drown the hospital in an ocean of  tears
Thoughts shuffled my heart, plights ran in search of solution
And I sprinkled prayers at the visage of God 
But he was too busy to grant my wish, too busy to save my man.

Soon daddy went on peaceful ride from the struggles of existence 
His gentle soul waved at me as he departed to meet his own.
Hopes left me stranded, swallowing darkness. I became an empty body!

HUMAN, DISCOVER THE HEART

History is made by human and by his actions. If we want an honest and clean world we have to let the facts speak to indicate the right path to follow.
Violence sows violence.
Racism sows racism.
Peace and friendship they sow peace and cordiality.
War and interests they sow war and destruction.
Knowing and judging history it helps not to repeat the errors of judgment.
If you ask you must give with the same measure. Nothing can be achieved by standing and looking.
To pick pears from the tree you come scratching your calves in the scab.
If cherries are good, don't forget: To collect someone spent effort.
When you drink ruby wine for lunch you can say thank you to the hands that picked the grapes.
Tomatoes, oranges and olives grow in the sun, the hands that fill the baskets are holy.
Human, in you the divine is stunned from the abyss. On Earth you are the master of your actions.
Our mission is a continuous vigil for peace. No one will ask you how you feel, maybe when it happens to you cry because you suffer inside.
Maybe then, on the border line between the abyss and life,
they will ask in an effort to feel less guilty of abandoning you,
considering you were enough strong to be able to fly by it self above the specially created precipice.
No one will ask you how you feel, only in front of the coffin will they say:
Poor thing, too bad he's gone so soon, he had a life ahead of him!
Yet the hand extended it was a false hand. Intentions had a comfortable return, because pleasure becomes self-satisfying and the need for a truth is formal.
You know, when they tell you how beautiful you are, how good you are, then turn to speak face to face with someone important?
Those moments hurt the sensibility like before an invasion and you feel practically at war with self-centered hypocrisy that he just turned his back on you.
No one is more important than the other and if we want peace we must create peace of mind for others too, around us so as not to do harm.
An infinity of words hurts. An infinity of words kills.
Few words will want to know who you are. Few words will tell you about love.
The very same few will define a hug. No one will ask you how you feel inside.
However, you believe in peace and justice for humanity.
The innocents dies on the streets, at work in front of the machinery
and in the countryside, or by criminal hand. There is no more security or peace!
Commitment to social policies vanishes in the smoke of firecrackers.
The innocent no longer have a voice. Let's defend life! Let's defend the innocent!
Don't be left with helpless hands! We who have made a complaint about our word we do not leave those most in need helpless. We write letters to the captains of the world.
They will hear voices if someone is not deaf. Life is a gift, peace is his right.
Do not waste the dreams of those who live on reality! The poet says nothing, however, he repeats himself and his voice multiplies
with the thought of him raising its echo to the sound of trumpets to heaven.
Silence is guilty of innocent deaths. The cry for life will never be sanctioned from a protest of the victims in the square, but it will be allowed by the applied law. Give us back life to the dreams of the innocent!
I bare my heart. For children torn or stolen. For the innocent dead.
For those drowned at sea. For human trafficking. For the sick with no cure.
For entrance blocks. For special people. For the poor. For the hungry.
For the thirsty. For the exploited. For those who live on the street.
For women with blood red shoes. For peace and against war.
For burnt or cut woods. For the debris scattered everywhere.
For the victims of the earthquake and tsunami. For flood victims. For damaged them.
For the unfortunate. For those guilty of nothing. For the victims of injustice.
Sometimes shoes break and the splinters stick into the flesh.
Sometimes life makes you kneel before an altar. You can't always be deaf to pain.
You wrap yourself in conscience and fight for the rights of others.
Being human is never a shame. What did you do right today?
Human, discover your heart to breathe the life and safeguard the peace.

BIOGRAPHY

Lidia Popa was born in Romania in the locality of Piatra Șoimului, in the county of Neamț, on 16th April, 1964. She finished her studies in Piatra Neamț, Romania with a high school diploma and other administrative courses, where she worked until she decided to emigrate to Italy. 

She has been living for 23 years and worked in Rome as part of the wave of intellectual emigrants since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
She wrote your first poem at her age of 7. She is a poet, essayist, storyteller, recognized in Italy and in other countries for her literary activities. She collaborates with cultural associations, literary cenacles, literary magazines and paper and online publications of Romanian, Italian and international literature. She writes in Romanian, Italian and also in other languages as an exercise in knowledge. 

BOOKS

She has published her poems in six books:
in Italy:
1. " Point different ( to be ) " - ed. Italian and
2." In the den of my thoughts ( Dacia ) " - ed. bilingual Romanian/ Italian Aletti Editore 2016,
3.“ Sky amphora " - ed. bilingual Romanian/ Italian Edizioni Divinafollia 2017,
in Romania:
4. " The soul of words" ed. bilingual Romanian/ Albanian Amanda Edit Verlag 2021,
5." Syntagms with longing for clover " ed. Romanian, Editura Minela 2021.
6." The Voice interior " Lidia Popa and Baki Ymeri ed. bilingual Romanian/Italian, Amanda Edit Verlag 2022.

Her poems featured in more than 50 literary anthologies and literary magazines on line from 2014 to 2023 in Italy, Romania, Spain, Canada, Serbia, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Liban,USA,etc.
Her poems are translated into Italian, French, English, Spanish, Arabic, German, Bangladesh, Portuguese, Serbian, Urdu, Dari, Tamil, etc.
Her writings are published regularly with some magazines in Romania, Italy and abroad.
She is a promoter of Romanian, Italian and international literature, and is part of the juries of the competitions.
She translates from classical or contemporary authors who strike for the refinement and quality of their verses in the languages: Italian, Romanian, English, Spanish, French, German, stating that "it is just a writing exercise to learn and evolve as a person with love for humanity, for art, poetry and literature ".

SHE IS
*Member of the Italian Federation of Writers (FUIS)
*Honorary member of the International Literary Society Casa Poetica Magia y Plumas Republic of Colombia,
*Member of Hispanomundial Union of Writers (Union Hispanomundial de Escritores) (UHE) and Thousands Minds For Mexico (MMMEX)
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*She had come power of attorney Vice-president UHE Romania, Mars18, 2021- August 21, 2021
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*Counselor from Italy for Suryodaya Literary Foundation Odisha India,
*Director from Italy for Alìanza Cultural Universal (ACU) Argentina
*Member Motivational Strips Oman,a member of numerous other literary groups at the level internationally,
*Director of Poetry and Literature World Vision Board of Directors (PLWV) Bangladesh
*Membership of ANGEENA INTERNATIONAL NON PROFIT ORGANISATION of Canada
International Peace Ambassador of The Daily Global Nation International Independent Newspaper from Dhaka Bangladesh - 2023
*Founder literary group Lido dell'anima with LIDO DELL'ANIMA AWARDS
*Founder LIDO DELL'ANIMA Italian magazine
*Founder SILVAE VERBORUM INTERNATIONAL multilingual magazine
*Founder literary currently #homelesspoetry
etc.