In 1991, as the glory days of the Bethlehem Steel Mill were ending, I walked the grounds on a hauntingly overcast day and captured these shots.
Photos ©2025, Jen Payne
Last week, in one of those wonderful moments of happenstance, I met a local woman who — we discovered while discussing her photography work — was raised in the same town as my mom and dad. We got to talking about what it was like growing up there, how you really are made up of where you come from, and how the language of the place filters into conversations like ours and defines things without elaboration.
I wasn’t born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — but my entire family was — my mom’s family and all of Dad’s, uncles and aunts, cousins. My parents, decades after moving to Connecticut, still called it Home, and for me, sometimes, it feels that way, too. As a child, we spent holidays and summers in Bethlehem, attended family weddings and funerals. Still, today, I can drive around the city without getting lost, find my way back to my grandparents’ houses, the cemeteries, the church where I was baptized and my parents were married.
So I knew, immediately, the location of the photographs in this local woman’s portfolio. The view from the Southside that Walker Evans immortalized (above), the Kraken-like spires of the steel mill rising from the shore of the Lehigh River, the stories-high windows through which I used to watch molten steel flicker and pour as we drove through town.
Like my client, I have always been fascinated by the steel mill. It holds its place in my mind as the beating heart of the city, with its pulsing engines and machines. It was the center through which everything moved: the trains that woke me up at night, my grandfathers working night shifts, my grandmothers keeping house in the shadows of industry, the smell of iron ore on their skin.
If you have been there or lived there, you know that smell. You know the feel of Steel City, its rough-around-the-edges energy and patchwork culture of blue collar workers, religious sects, and immigrants. You know the hills of Southside, the porch-lit Moravian Stars, and you can see the famous steel stacks along the skyline. You see them, even now, as ghosts keeping watch over the casinos and concert venues, the museum dedicated to the long-gone industry that made its city famous.
The woman I met, Linda Cummings, is an artist-photographer with an incredible catalog of work. You can see her collection of Bethlehem, PA images on her website. They’re part of a larger collection of work called Slippages that will be featured in her new book of the same name.
Essay ©2025, Jen Payne IMAGE: Walker Evans, Graveyard, Houses, and Steel Mill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
This morning, on a friend’s Facebook page, I read a heartfelt plea for a newsfeed devoid of a Donald Trump’s face. And while I, too, would love an opt-out button for that, it makes me wonder: is that her Algorithm? is she clicking on posts that generate more of that same face? That happens to me, a lot.
Our Algorithms, if you think about it, are mirrors of our thoughts — are they not? How we think, what we’re thinking about, often what we thought about yesterday or the day before. The omnipresent Big Brother feeds us more of the same until we are beyond sated, until we’re over-stimulated and over-whelmed, jacked up on fake dopamine, or banging on Read More Read More Read More like a sugared-up teenager at a carnival whack-a-mole.
And while I know (I know) it’s important that we keep informed about current events, that we pay attention to what’s happening in our world — I’m also concerned that we’re collectively helping to create what’s happening by focusing on what’s happening.
It’s called Manifesting. You can read about the positive effects of manifesting in popular books like The Secret (Rhonda Byrne) and Law of Attraction (Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks).
And before you say hocus-pocus. Remember that prayer is also a form of manifesting.
“According to many spiritual teachings…consciousness creates our reality. What we desire is what we receive. If we are uncertain, we receive the energy of uncertainty. If we respond to crises with worry and negative, thinking, we increase the likelihood of a painful outcome.” — Yehuda Berg, The Power of Kabbalah
Yes, we are living in scary times. Yes, we need to pay attention to what’s going on. But in our attempts to pay attention to what we don’t want, are we losing sight of the things we DO want?
How can we ever hope to create a safe, peaceful, equitable world if our thoughts (and hearts) are always focused on threats, war, and inequalities?
We can all talk about what we don’t want — easily and profusely. Think about it, how many conversations have you had in the past six months about Donald Trump and his insane antics? About the circus that is our government, the atrocities happening to our immigrants, in Gaza, in Ukraine? About what’s happening to America, democracy, and our way of life?
Now, how many times have you talked about what makes a great leader? about the people on the ground doing good work on behalf of those who are suffering? about what you want the world to look like in the future? how many times have you laughed, planted something, created, danced?
All week long, activist and author Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water emails focus on what’s going on, the scary things happening in our government, and actions steps to take. But once a week, she posts Extra! Extra!, a glorious accounting of all of the good things that have happened lately.
I’ll be honest, by the time Extra! Extra! arrives on Sundays, I am usually stacking another shipment of canned beans in my basement and making sure my stun gun is fully charged. So to read all of the positive things that are happening, all of the forward steps we’re taking, all of the good news despite my Algorithm? My Hope tank fills right back up!
We all need a full Hope tank. So, here are 10 Ways to Fill Yours…
1. Go outside and breathe.
2. Listen to your favorite music and dance (or sing) (or both).
3. Go for a walk in the woods.
4. Have a playdate with a friend.
5. Get creative: make art, write something, bake, garden.
6. Watch a favorite movie.
7. Go to the library and find a book to read.
8. Take a day off social media/media/technology/work.
9. Keep a Gratitude Journal.
10. Change your Algorithm by reading good news; start here.
Let’s all MANIFEST the kind of world we want to be living in together!
I have a confession to make. For the past six months, I have been disappearing down a rabbit hole, crawling to the backside of the wardrobe, hitching a ride on a tornado…and making my way to the empire of Une Belle Ville.
It started innocently enough — my nephew on his tablet in the backseat on our way home from an adventure.
“What’s that?” I asked, hearing huzzahs and sing-song chimes.
“Forge of Empires,” he said.
“A video game?”
“Yea, it’s cool. You build a city by collecting resources and building an army. I’m in the Stone Age still.”
When we got home, we sat on the couch together and he showed me his city. Just a few random huts, some dirt trails, an obelisk — but it had me at sing-song. So I loaded it on my iphone and away we went, my nephew and me sharing our cities and achievements.
“I’m in the Iron Age!” he announced.
“Me, too!”
“You caught up with me. I have three archers!”
“I built a fruit farm!”
We went on like this for a few weeks, comparing notes as we played dueling technologies. And then one day, I started hearing zap-zap-zap and kaboom instead of huzzah and sing-song, sing-song.
“What age are you in now?” I asked, curiously.
“I’m playing Minecraft.”
“Not Forge of Empire?”
“No. It was too boring. This is better, see…”
And so our paths diverged. He and his kabooms went one way, and I skipped along with my huzzahs from the Bronze age straight on through to the Industrial.
Ok, maybe it seems a little silly. It’s also one of those nefarious escape mechanisms that gets you strung out on dopamine. But given the state of the world (and the state of my family of late)? I’m all in for an extra hit of dopamine thank you very much.
The funny thing is, my city — Une Belle Ville — is exactly the kind of place I’d like to spend my time if the rabbit hole jumping, wardrobe crawling, tornado clinging thing actually worked. My fellow villagers and I rank high in enthusiasm and participate happily as members of the local Guild. We trade instead of battle, we polish instead of plunder, we explore the world and give aid when we can. We have lots of trees and gardens, a rosarium and a butterfly house. There’s a mountain preserve, a Celtic farmstead, and a vineyard. We can see the Oracle of Delphi, the Arc de Triomphe, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Notre Dame, and a Statue of Zeus all in an afternoon’s walk. We can visit the zoo, laugh on the ferris wheel, take a hot air balloon ride, or climb the steps of the Observatory to see the stars.
So far, I’ve built a paper mill, am working towards a print shop, and look forward to the day I can build a library for my city, because we all need books, don’t we? Those other things that give us a beautiful out, an “I’ll be right back” excuse to leave the 21st century messes and remember what’s possible with a little bit of imagination and some escapism-flavored dopamine. Huzzah!
To My Family,
I am writing to you today to ask you to think about the America for which our fathers and grandfathers fought wars.
My grandfather, above, fought and died in World War II, participating in a worldwide conflict that battled the evils of Hitler and the Nazis. My uncles, aunts, and cousins have served in the U.S. military throughout the years, including time in the Pacific Conflict and the Vietnam War. Each of them fought to preserve a way of life in America that valued freedom for all, that supported a melting pot of cultures and ideas, opinions and beliefs. They fought for the rights that allow you to believe what you believe, and for me to believe what I believe.
I think a lot about my grandfather these days. About the people in our families who believed in the American way of life before we were even born — and what they would think of where we are now as a country.
With all of that in mind, I am writing to say this to you: Donald Trump does not represent the America that our fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, worked hard to protect and serve.
I’m not talking about politics, here. I’m not talking about the rhetoric or our differing opinions about the hot-button topics. I’m talking about the man who is supposed to be leading and representing the United States of America.
Maybe, if you look hard into your heart, you will see that Donald Trump does not act in ways that unite us or bring us to common ground; that he does not promote the basic principles of our good and hopeful country; that he does not represent the values that we were taught as children, or the ones you have worked hard to teach your own children: kindness, respect, the Golden Rule.
I know you might doubt that. I know there are people and media outlets and memes that portray someone like me as the enemy and Donald Trump as a person you can respect and support. But I would encourage you to do some soul searching.
Do some actual searching, too. Watch real, unedited videos of Donald Trump in action. Listen to his speeches and read the actual transcripts. Listen to the words he uses and the things he says about people — people like me, your family. Then ask yourself: is he a good man? is he an honorable man? is he a honest man? is he a man of faith and right action? does he speak and behave in ways I would want my children to emulate?
At the very least, I encourage you to do what I do: fact check, read other sources, listen to the folks who don’t just say what you want to hear. No one is perfect, I know that. But you have to ask the questions: is this true? is this for real? Challenge the concept that our issues are black and white, all or nothing, good or bad. Check yourself when you talk about “Us versus Them” — you might actually love some of Them. I do.
I love you. And I have watched you worship your god, practice your faith, love your family, raise your children, and do the best that you can for your community since we were young.
If you think voting against Donald Trump changes the things that are important to you, changes your values — I would beg to differ.
Voting against Donald Trump is standing up for and honoring goodness, compassion, integrity, honor, love…and the United States of America.
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