Community/Interconnectedness – Page 11

Tears, Tears*

[Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California]

Back in the day, when I taught in greater-Boston homeless shelters and drove a lot, it sometimes seemed as though Spirit manifested Itself through NPR (WGBH, in particular). Heavy-hearted after a particularly grueling or heart-wrenching session with a troubled student, I’d get in my car, turn on the radio, and lo: one of my favorite pieces of music was being played—and at just my favorite part! Although I knew Spirit didn’t actually work this way, this “personalized programming” happened so often that I allowed myself to take comfort from this gratuitous, wondrous gift.

Last Tuesday: same thing! Only this time it was the New York Times website that offered me just what I longed for at exactly the moment I needed it. I’d just come home after visiting Neville Center, a highly respected long term care facility (what we used to call “a nursing home.”) And, yes, although I liked what I saw and, yes, I could imagine My Loved One** staying there and receiving excellent care, my visit triggered a panoply of emotions—some of which I still cannot name, identify.

Idly I sat at my computer and clicked on Safari/the Times website— just as the word “Live” flashed on the screen and, it turned out, just as President Obama marched towards the podium to give his gun-control speech. Oh, Reader, how I needed to hear that impassioned speech! Our insane gun laws tearing me apart, how I needed to see Obama weep over the lost lives of those children at Sandy Hook. I cried, too.

Until last week I would have declared myself way too old and way too contrary to need an elected official mouthing what I long to hear. That I’d feel I was being played should any politician sing my song. Not true any more, apparently. Apparently the horrific and mean-spirited right-wing rhetoric of these past few months has taken such a toll that Obama’s reasoned speech—well, it gave me hope. And lifted my spirits. On a day when I really, really needed it!

This week, renewed and grateful, I wait to see how Spirit will continue to break through as I shepherd My Loved One’s transition to Neville Center. And lo: it’s already happened in the form of a wise and patient social worker who helped me fill out a “Do Not Resuscitate” Form. (Yikes)

Thank you, Spirit, for all your blessings.

* The first as in crying; the second, the verb meaning to break apart (and rhymes with stairs), as in to tear a piece of paper in half.

** I’m being discreet, here, because a) it seems respectful and b) recently had a nasty phising incident so am reluctant to put much personal info online.

Life’s not Fair—nor Is it Neat or Tidy

[“Danger Dumpster,” Somerville, MA, December, 2015]

I wish I could get the chance to sit down and talk with the white, middle-aged, nicely dressed, Subaru-driving man who, making a right turn onto Somerville Avenue from Park Street on Sunday morning, got so angry at me for crossing the avenue, furiously pointing towards the lit-up crosswalk signal’s red hand. Our little chat could happen over a cup of coffee, maybe, or a glass of beer or wine. Because he seemed civil in the truest sense of that word, meaning as a fairly decent fellow citizen. He did not run me over or curse me or give me the finger. No. He was indignant at my lack of civility, i.e. my callow disregard for The Code of Behavior Governing Crosswalks. So here’s what I would say:

“I know, I know. You’re right. That “Don’t Walk” ikon was clear as day. But you know something? So was I (clear as day, I mean). Our impromptu, urban encounter was in broad daylight. You saw me. You didn’t even need to slam on your brakes. I was an inconvenient presence in front of your already slow-moving car for, what? Two seconds, tops? Another thing I need for you to understand. I cross that intersection almost every day. So I know that particular walk signal is close-to-useless. It can take up to 10 minutes for the “walk” ikon to light up. So on a blustery Sunday morning with little to no traffic I chose to walk across the street without permission.

“Thank you for not running me over, by the way. I am very grateful.

“I startled you; that’s the real issue, here, I think. And just like most of us, especially while driving, you reacted with anger. I’m sorry I startled you. And hope that the next time you negotiate that turn, you’ll remember what I said about that damned crosswalk signal and be ready!

“You seem like a pretty decent guy. But, I’m guessing from your righteous indignation that maybe you haven’t yet come to grips with a world that is cruel and gratuitously random and messy and unfair? Because it is.

“But maybe our little, no-harm-no-foul encounter will be an opportunity for you to begin to accept that? I hope so.”

Tastes like Home (sub-set: Tastes Like Christmas)

[Christmas in Palm Springs; 2013]

Yesterday my son-in-law dropped off some cardamon bread he’d made over the weekend; it tasted like home, a “home” I never actually had or known! But some flavors, some smells, some vibes are like that, aren’t they? In some mysterious, deep, wordless way, they just feel right! They somehow remind us of something always there, present, and abiding. Like the first time I experienced a Quaker meeting: I knew I’d come home.

There are ways we can manufacture that deliciousness; we can create traditions that somehow incorporate key elements of that Just Feels Right sense. Like the gingerbread cookies I’ve been making at Christmas for close to 50 years. My four daughters and their children have grown up with these cookies. The smell of them baking in the oven (or putting a couple out on Christmas Eve for Santa) equals home.

I’m willing to bet that no one in my family, living in a time when most people consider soft and chewy more desirable than crunchy/best when dipped into milk or hot chocolate, really loves these cookies. (My “Moist Dark Gingerbread” gets way more raves.) But once upon a time they certainly enjoyed making them. Getting flour all over themselves and the kitchen floor. Using their favorite cookie cutters. ( The moose? Or pig? How ’bout the traditional Christmas chicken?) Inviting friends over to help. Decorating them, too. (For years I insisted on only natural ingredients—raisins, nuts, cranberries, etc.—but have lately gone over to The Dark Side and now use red and green sprinkles.) And since the dough is the consistency of clay, they especially loved, when they were teenagers, creating risqué objets d’art. (You can imagine!)

Yesterday I posted a picture on Facebook of my granddaughter rolling out that sturdy, pliable dough and received several requests for the recipe. But I’m actually reluctant to pass it along for 2 reasons: It’s not soft and chewy. Your family and friends might be disappointed. And it requires—wait for it—8 or 9 cups of flour! (This year, way too busy, I halved the recipe. And still have plenty) My recipe requires hours of baking! Who has time?

Here’s my advice: Do what I did half a century ago. Find a recipe that speaks to you. And feels like home. Better yet, do what I did two minutes ago: google Best Gingerbread Cookies Ever.

Here’s one that sounds really good. And guess what! It’s soft and chewy!

“What Are You Praising?”

[Treasures, East Haddam, Connecticut, 2015]

The morning after the horrible news from Paris, I was having tea with a neighbor, a woman I greatly admire and respect—but who, like so many of us, is very, very busy. So although we only live a few doors away from each other, we rarely spend time together.

She was bringing me up to date about many things—like her son. Who’s a teenager, now. A young man growing up in so many fine ways, she told me—although she finds his video games appalling. (“Mom!” he assures her. “I know right from wrong. And I understand the difference between fantasy and reality!”)

“Still,” she mused, sipping her tea. “I wonder, sometimes. ‘What are you praising?’ I ask him. I—”

“Whoa! Back up,” I interrupted. “Did you just ask say that you’d asked your son to think about what he’s praising when he plays a violent video game?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s profound! That’s—that’s—Would it be all right if I write about this on my website? Because that just seems to be the most clarifying question anyone could ask. Should ask themselves. Not just teenagers. Anyone. We all should be asking, ‘What am I praising?’ as we go about our day-to-day lives. That just seems brilliant!”

We got quiet for a moment. Were we both thinking about those young men only a few years older than her son who, hours earlier in Paris, had murdered scores of people? What did their act praise? Because in their minds, I believe, what they did, the havoc and terror they inflicted, praised something incredibly powerful for them. [This link and imbedded, long-but-worth-it video by anthropologist Scott Atran sheds some light on this.]

“Have at it!” She smiled.

So I have. Praise be!

Seen/Scene at Connecticut Muffin

Sometimes it’s those brief moments, a random glance out a Brooklyn cafe’s window that can be so telling, right? Sunday morning sleepily drinking my coffee, I watched a young, tense man walk past and as I idly watched, saw his eyes brighten and a smile transform his caught-up-in-plans-and-worries face. No, I couldn’t see what so charmed him but, given that this was Brooklyn, a haven for hipsters and their offspring, it’s probably a sure bet that he’d spotted a child, a child somehow being adorable, but too short to be seen from where I sat.

Catching sight of his softened, tolerant face, I realized how blessed mixed communities truly are. Before Sunday when talking about mixed I might have meant strictly by ethnicity. But having witnessed that man’s face light up, I must now add: by age, too. A community is all the richer and stronger and more resilient when its citizens are reminded, just strolling down the street or seated on a park bench, that it’s a complex, mixed-up, diverse—and, yes, broken but sometimes adorable—world we’re sharing.

Tomorrow I will visit the assisted living center where my mother lives, a well-appointed, attractive, supportive community of and for old people. And I will remember that young man’s smile.

“No Option But To Love All”

[“Trash,” Somerville Avenue, Election Day, 2015]

Walking home this afternoon after voting and getting a flu shot,* I spotted a mound of stuff on the sidewalk up ahead; a couple of women wearing red tee shirts hovered near this pile. “Oh, Lord,” I thought, walking towards them. “Here it is, absolute, concrete proof, as if I needed it, that this neighborhood’s unaffordable. Because here are two poor, evicted souls’ worldly possessions thrown onto the sidewalk!” And I wondered if/how I could help.

The two women, tired and overwhelmed, sluggishly went in and out of the apartment building next to the sidewalk mound; without drama or tears or energy they kept adding bits and pieces to the pile. “What’s this about?” I asked one.

“Trash!” she replied wearily. And I realized she and her co-worker had been hired to clean. They were not being evicted.

Just then a tan station wagon pulled up; the passenger window rolled down and Alex Pirie, a wonderful activist I’ve known for years who works at CAAS, a Somerville anti-poverty agency, called out to me. “Is this an eviction?” he asked.

“Exactly what I was wondering,” I told him. I nodded to one of the women. “But she says this is trash.”

We looked at the two exhausted women. We looked at each other. And then, reluctantly, we shrugged. Because although we both understood that Something Bad had transpired to cause all that stuff to be tossed on the sidewalk, we were powerless to help. Those harried cleaners knew nothing but their own fatigue and how to get done what they’d been hired to do so they could move on to their next job. More information would not be forthcoming.

Powerless to help the poor souls who owned that stuff, yes, save to hold them in the Light. (That Quakerese for “pray for them.”) But what an energy boost when Alex stopped and rolled down his window and asked that question! Because although I know there are good people doing amazing things all the time, sometimes I need to be reminded. (Okay, let’s be honest, here. LOTS of times I need to be reminded!) Sometimes I need to remember it’s not all up to me! Or about me. Sometimes I need to celebrate my/our interconnectivity.

“We all are so deeply interconnected; we have no option but to love all. Be kind and do good for any one and that will be reflected. The ripples of the kind heart are the highest blessings of the Universe.”
― Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style

* Did you? Have you?

Forward!

[ Norwegian skyline, October, 2015]

So here’s the question I’m kicking around lately: Since, like many, my sense of the Divine is internal (“That small still voice,” “The Inner Teacher,” etc.) when I actually experience—and am filled by— an inward, physical sense of God/Spirit/Light/Love, is this because I am predisposed to imagine a religious experience as something that happens within me? Or did I just imagine it? Or am I simply talking about That Which is Inexplicable using a construct about inwardness that may be useful but, c’mon! We’re talking about The Inexplicable, right?

Huh?

Okay, here’s what happened: I’d returned home from a magical (though wet) trip to Norway and found my re-entry unsettling. Literally. I had the non-stop, disconcerting sense that my body was gently rocking back and forth as if still on a ship. (It’s called “Disembarkment Syndrome” in case you’re interested) And, frankly, after being in a clean and progressive country that does not share my Home Sweet Home’s appalling record of, say, mass incarcerations or our insane policies re assault weapons, I wasn’t feeling all warm and fuzzy about being back. Heck, no!

But on Saturday, a superbly gorgeous day, despite my wobbliness and general sense of hopelessness, I nevertheless joined hundreds of others to dance and cheer and connect at Honk!, a yearly, Somerville street festival featuring brass bands from around the world who believe in and who support activist causes—and also in dressing up as outrageously as possible, too!

Ahhh. No, I’m not claiming that Honk! cured my Disembarkment Syndrome. I’m still a little wobbly. But as far as my conviction—and my hope—are concerned, I can declare that I’m once again on solid ground. Because, I sweah* that I physically felt Something slide into my soul at Honk. Especially during the opening ceremony—and hearing that precious word, justice, again and again. And hearing members of the Original Big Seven Social Aid and Pleasure Club, an amazing band from New Orleans, talk about their losses during Hurricane Katrina yet still able to celebrate and to praise. Or just hearing “Oh, you can’t scare me I’m sticking to the union” sung by Madison, Wisconsin’s Forward! Marching Band. A “God-shaped hole” ** within me was filled as though I actually felt that missing piece slide into place in my abdomen. I sweah!

Weird, huh. Yes. And what a gift—wherever it came from.

*************************************************************

* (It’s really hard to convey a Boston accent!)

** See my post from July 13, 2010: “I Wrote a Book About It!”

“O, God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”*

[Passing a buoy near Havoysund, Norway, aboard the “MS Richard With”]

To learn of another slaughter—this time in Oregon; ten murdered this time—while traveling along the coast of Norway was to experience such deep, crushing desolation as I had not felt in years. And asking my standard, spiritual-guidance question: “What am I asked to do?” merely let me see that an “answer” that might have come to me had I been home, to send off a generous contribution to Gabby Gifford’s Americans for Responsible Solutions, was no solution at all. (That I realized my stateside instinct might have been TO DO SOMETHING almost made me smile—an indulgent, pat-on-the-head/ isn’t-that-so-cute smile you might give to someone young or naive or sweetly clueless.)

No, I slowly came to understand as I gloomily stared through a rain-swept window at Norway’s stark and misty beauty, what was being asked of me was actually so much harder: I had to “sink down” to that desolation. I was being asked not be numbed. (And, yes, President Obama subsequently used that same word.)

So I did.

*Thy sea, O God, so great,

My boat so small.

It cannot be that any happy fate

Will me befall

Save as Thy goodness opens paths for me

Through the consuming vastness of the sea.

Thy winds, O God, so strong,

So slight my sail.

How could I curb and bit them on the long

And saltry trail,

Unless Thy love were mightier than the wrath

Of all the tempests that beset my path?

Thy world, O God, so fierce,

And I so frail.

Yet, though its arrows threaten oft to pierce

My fragile mail,

Cities of refuge rise where dangers cease,

Sweet silences abound, and all is peace.

~Winfred Ernest Garrison

Beat Your Swords Into Train Tracks and Affordable Housing

Good news: a new subway station/light rail is probably coming to my neighborhood (Cost overruns are making important people like the governor look twice at the project). More Good News: Many car-repair and other businesses dependent upon the fossil-fuel industry which once dominated my neighborhood are, seemingly overnight, being transformed into housing. In other words, the status quo of living in a world dominated by cars, is shifting. Changing. VERY Bad News: This new housing is NOT affordable housing.

“If you want peace, work for justice,” has been my mantra since the 90s. So on Sunday, instead of attending the International Day of Peace on Boston Common, I am abandoning my Quaker peeps to attend a forum on the future of my community, hosted by Union United, a grassroots organization advocating for, you guessed it, affordable housing!

“Where are All Those Babies Coming from?”

[Third Rail, Harvard Square T, 2015]

In conversations a couple of times, lately, I’ve heard the word “upriver” used to anchor whatever that person—usually young, usually progressive, usually really smart—is talking about, a shorthand for systemic, overwhelming, we need to look at and deal with the root causes of whatever social ill you and I are presently talking about.

The backstory to “upriver” (Skip this paragraph if you already know.): Upriver references a much-told story I’d heard back in the early 90s; the third-hand way I’d heard the tale, it had been told by Kip Tiernan, a righteous, early-on advocate for the homeless. Kip’s story went like this: Once upon a time there was a village beside a river. One day someone from the village saw a baby on a raft floating by so rescued that baby, took it home, clothed it, fed it, built a crib for it to sleep in, etc. Next day, two babies, two rescues, next day, more and more until the people of that village were doing nothing else but rescuing babies. The story ends, of course, when someone in that village proposes that someone should walk upriver to find out what’s going on!

Here’s the thing, though: Even though you or I can think upriver about, say, why it’s hot as hell right now in the Northeast although the calendar’s saying it’s early fall—another day in the 90s expected today—or why, right now, close to 60 Million People have been forcibly displaced worldwide (Take whatever time you need to take in that obscenely astronomically number), such thinking doesn’t alleviate our pain, does it.

May our ability to connect dots, to be mindful, to think systemically, to acknowledge root cases, may such mindfulness lead to a precious moment for each of us to hear the answer to our question: “What is it I am called to do?”

What I Might Have Said

[A Beacon on a Beacon Street Sidewalk, Somerville, MA, 2015]

A week ago I held a “No War in Iran” sign at a peace demonstration near US Congressman Mike Capuano’s office. Although engrossed, lately, in issues that feel far more immediate and urgent and, yes, that I am called to do, that horrific sound of The War Machine once again revving its powerful, deadly engine compelled me to show up. So I did.

Halfway through the hour long demonstration—on a crowded sidewalk at lunchtime in front of a mall and office building complex—one of the MoveOn organizers passed around a mic and invited the forty or so protesters to say something. One right after another, five or six men made cogent, impassioned speeches.

“Why is it only men?” I marveled aloud. Overhearing me, an older man invited me to speak. Twice.

Reader: Although that kind man’s repeated invitation felt genuine and inclusive, I declined.

Why?

Mostly, Dear Reader, because what I was feeling and what I longed to say aloud wasn’t cogent, it wasn’t linear, it wasn’t about facts about Iran. No, what I wanted to talk about would have been rambling and quite possibly incoherent unless worked on, edited, rewritten, read aloud; my usual writing process.

Most likely what I would have shared would have been about what had JUST happened a few minutes before, when two lovely, young, elegantly-dressed women had come up to me and said, “Thank you. We’re from Iran.” And how I’d grabbed them and hugged them and, probably to their confusion (or, possibly, their horror) I’d called them “My sisters!” And how I’ve been protesting wars for over fifty years but have never actually hugged someone from Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan or . . . at a peace demonstration. And how, having physically touched those two women, I was feeling my deep and profound and chromosomal connection to the women and children everywhere!

But I also could have expressed my impatience, my indignation to once again show up to protest another @#$%^&* war! “I got things to do!” I could have declared, arms on hips—which would have made holding a mic pretty tricky. “Like the rest of you, I’m working on urgent, in-your-face, this system’s broken; roll up your sleeves stuff! Like climate change. Like our broken criminal justice system. We don’t have time for another war!”

Most of all I would have wanted to clutch that mic, stared out at the crowd with earnest, beseeching eyes, and in a tremulous voice talked about how War and Climate Change and BlackLivesMatter and all the other ways we ignore and deny and desecrate our Wholeness and Interconnectedness reveal our collective brokenness. And how, with every breath, we must acknowledge that Wholeness, that Light. And let it guide us.

(How do you think that would’ve gone over? Yeah. Me, too.)

“Is not this Joseph’s son?”

In the silence of meeting for worship on Sunday, in the midst of my own faith community, after spending a week with others of my faith but not of my community, a touching moment from the Gospels came to me. (That I could not quite remember how the relevant passage was worded may mean I’m destined to sit in silence with a Bible on my lap. Maybe.) This moment from Luke 4: 16 – 30, is one sentence long; a bit, you might say, a little piece of theatrical business to explore or illustrate dramatic possibilities.

So let’s set the scene: Jesus of Nazareth has just returned to Galilee after spending forty days in the wilderness where he’d been tested by the devil—and passed. Having begun preaching in other Galilee synagogues, he returns to Nazareth and his own synagogue and on the sabbath, reads that stirring Jubilee passage from Isaiah. (Some of it. Jesus edits, apparently. But that’s another story, another post.) Like he’s been doing all over Galilee, Jesus wows ’em with his “gracious words.”

But here’s the bit: “They [his former neighbors, friends of his parents, the parents of his childhood friends] said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ ” (Mary’s son, too, we might add.)

Yep. He is. Composed, well-spoken, “filled with the power of the Spirit” after his wilderness-and-devil-and-forty-days’-fasting ordeal, he’s all that, he’s Local Kid Makes Good. Speaks Good. And his wowed listeners are both profoundly moved and remembering him when he was ten and, say, worked in his dad’s woodworking shop or carted water jars for his mother.

And we know thrilling moments such as what happened to Jesus’s hometown residents. We’ve been there. We’ve attended other people’s sons’ and daughters’ rites of passage and experienced, maybe for an instant, a thrill, a frisson.

To be able to witness another person’s growth, change, transformation is holy. And while, of course, it’s touching when a child does these things, watching an adult transform is, for me, seeing Spirit made manifest.

Which, I believe, is Good News.