Community/Interconnectedness – Page 11

April is The Cruelest Month . . .

. . . and this year, ridiculously busy! Yet despite my too-long To Do list, I’ve been led to organize a “thank you note” party at Somerville Community Growing Center in honor of Arbor Day—and my beloved community’s trees!

A little background: Somerville is the most densely populated community in New England, with lots of people and buildings and cars and parking lots; trees and open spaces? Not so much. So whatever trees we do have that have managed to survive development and pollution and gas leaks and neglect certainly deserve our entire community’s hearty thanks! Especially since, given our heating-up planet, this summer promises to be, as New Englanders say, “A Skawchah.” (translation: Scorcher, i.e. hot as hell.) And with both an interstate and several major thoroughfares transecting our 4.209 square miles, we need every leaf from every tree to help mitigate all that heavy traffic!

So, Friday evening, weather permitting, we’ll write “thank you” in many languages on hanging-style names badges, decorate them, too, and then hang our grateful creations on trees all over the city!

A problem: that huge To Do list! Which means, dear friends, that I haven’t actually done much to get the word out that this little event’s even happening. Especially to those people, many of them poor, who live along the I-93 corridor and whose health and well-being is so compromised by where they live and what they breathe. A definite FAIL!

But as we also love to say here in New England: “Wait ’till next year!” (Actually: yee-ahh)

Whence Cometh My Strength?

[Salt Lake City International Airport, April 18, 2016]

Although I have visited Salt Lake City several times (two precious grandchildren live there; need I say more?), on last week’s trip, I could not get enough of those Rocky Mountains! Again and again I found myself gawking—and since two mountain ranges encircle the city, such open-mouthed opportunities were plentiful. At the zoo, at the Natural History Museum, at two different soccer fields, at playgrounds—do you detect a pattern, here?—there they were!

Why? Why, now? What is it about souring, snow-capped mountains that so deeply spoke to me? Whose spiritual life is, generally, inward. A couple of thoughts:

I think I was thirsty for an overpowering, not-human-scale experience. (I think lots of hemmed-in East Coast people are.) I needed to drink in sheer, magnificent, soul-nourishing Beauty; “Living Water.” And so I did.

And I think I needed to somehow connect with other, live-beyond-Route 128 Americans for whom the sight of a snow-capped mountain or corn fields as far as you can see or the mighty Mississippi or . . . is routine. To try, as best I can, to imagine how such daily sightings might play out in others’ lives; a baby-step spiritual exercise.

And so I am trying.

“All Bend in One Wind” (Wendell Berry)

[Norway, October, 2015]

On my way to Friends Meeting at Cambridge Sunday morning, my phone rang. It was my brother; his best friend—someone I barely knew—had died the night before. So in silent worship I held my brother and his friend and his friend’s family “in the light,” as Quakers say. Which, for me, means I waited to hear what that small still voice* might teach me about this sad news.

A lot, it turned out. I found myself remembering Harriet Lerner’s Dance of Anger, for example, a wonderful book I haven’t consciously thought about in years. Lerner pointed out how exquisitely families organize, balance themselves. Recalling her wisdom prompted me to be open to the very real possibility that this tragic loss for my brother will impact the rest of our family. And to spend some time thinking how this wind of death and loss and grieving might bend all of us; what that might look like. And how I might be a Be There (as in that supreme compliment: “He/she was always there for me.”) sister.

Something else came to me in that pregnant silence: How in 1985, when I’d read Dance of Anger, how little I’d understood the concept of interconnectedness. (Safe to say I probably didn’t get it AT ALL!) And how, thirty-one years later, I do. I believe. Without ceasing.

Oh, yeah.

* Sometimes called The Inner Teacher

“Its Hardship is Its Possibility”

[“Upheaval”: Arlington, MA sidewalk, 2016]

So many stories! There’s the story of an orange-haired, petulant racist we’re forced to hear again and again. And, oddly, there’s another story, the Feel the Bern story, notable for not being told—or gets “stealth-edited” within hours! (“Get me Rewrite!”) There’s an ancient, horrible story we lament this morning about innocents losing their lives in war, this time in Brussels. There’s another story many tell this week, the Holy Week story, that begins with strewn palms and hosannas and ends with betrayal and death.

I am trying to listen to another timeless story. It comes out of the earth. You can hear it in birdsong and the soughing of pine tree branches. (A wind chime will do.) It’s told every spring when the Northern Hemisphere tilts towards the sun. It demands we listen when a blizzard or hurricane or tsunami strike.

But because so many of us are not listening to this timeless story, it’s editing itself. And not by stealth, either, right? Superstorms, record-breaking temperatures, drought; undeniable plot twists.

Troubled by this edited story, fearful it is doomed to end tragically, grieving for Mother Earth and for my grandchildren’s future, I turn once again to Wendell Berry. (No, not “The Peace of Wild Things” this time.) This one:

A POEM

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
To stand like slow growing trees on a ruined place,
Renewing, enriching it,
If we will make our seasons welcome here,
Asking not too much of earth or heaven,
Then a long time after we are dead
The lives our lives prepare will live here,
Their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides,
Fields and gardens rich in the windows.
The river will run clear as we never know it,
And over it the birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be green meadows,
Stock bells in noon shade
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest,
An old forest will stand, its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music risen out of the ground.
They will take nothing out of the ground they will not return,
Whatever the grief at parting,
Memory, native to this valley, will spread over it like a grove,
And memory will grow into legend,
Legend into song, song into sacrament.
The abundance of this place, the songs of its people and its birds,
Will be health and wisdom and indwelling light.
This is no paradisal dream. Its hardship is its possibility.

Wendell Berry

I Gave Up Donald Trump for Lent

[Sunset Cliffs Park, San Diego,CA]

There’s a story going around; maybe you’ve heard it? Here it is:

ONE EVENING, AN ELDERLY
CHEROKEE BRAVE TOLD HIS
GRANDSON ABOUT A BATTLE THAT
GOES ON INSIDE PEOPLE.

HE SAID “MY SON, THE BATTLE IS
BETWEEN TWO ‘WOLVES’ INSIDE US ALL.
ONE IS EVIL. IT IS ANGER,
ENVY, JEALOUSY, SORROW,
REGRET, GREED, ARROGANCE,
SELF-PITY, GUILT, RESENTMENT,
INFERIORITY, LIES, FALSE PRIDE,
SUPERIORITY, AND EGO.

THE OTHER IS GOOD.
IT IS JOY, PEACE LOVE, HOPE SERENITY,
HUMILITY, KINDNESS, BENEVOLENCE,
EMPATHY, GENEROSITY,
TRUTH, COMPASSION AND FAITH.”

THE GRANDSON THOUGH ABOUT
IT FOR A MINUTE AND THEN ASKED
HIS GRANDFATHER:

“WHICH WOLF WINS?…”

THE OLD CHEROKEE SIMPLY REPLIED,
“THE ONE THAT YOU FEED” *

I’ve been thinking a lot about that story. And which wolf I’m feeding. Which means, for me, answering a very simple, basic question: How do I spend my time? Guess what? I spend a lot of time purposely putting myself in situations where I can feel outraged! (They don’t call it “righteous indignation for nuthin,’ you know.) Apparently I like being upset. I am feeding that arrogant, angry, superior and, I might add, prurient wolf! (Yes. There’s something lascivious about reading Donald Trump’s latest spewings, I think. Like all those other situations where you know you should turn away, close the curtains—but you just can’t.)

So this lenten season—and I hope for the rest of my life—I’ve given up reading about, talking about, and most beneficially, becoming outraged about Donald Trump and all the other hate-mongers both foreign and domestic. Which means—again quite basically— some time has been freed up! So, yesterday, when a dear friend sent me an email chain letter involving sending a favorite poem to someone (and, unfortunately, asking 20 of your super-busy friends to do the same), I signed up.

And this morning I received three glorious poems!

Here’s the poem I sent off; it’s an excerpt from “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13,1798” by William Wordsorth:

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

William Wordsworth

*Copied from the Nanticoke Indian Tribe website

Water: The New Oil?

Sunday afternoon as my Loved One napped, I took a delicious post-snowstorm walk around Fresh Pond. (Loved One’s long term care facility sits on the Fresh Pond Reservation, 162 acres of open space and nature trails protecting the 155 acre, fenced-in, Fresh Pond Reservoir, the City of Cambridge’s water supply.)

Until Sunday, my relationship with Fresh Pond had been mixed: Yes, I’d always relished joining the parade of dog walkers and bicyclists and strolling couples and joggers circling the pond. (It’s about a 2 mile walk). In fact, walking around Fresh Pond on New Year’s Day has become a hallowed tradition in my life, a contemplative (and usually freezing) way to begin a new year. Yet, inevitably, as a Somerville resident, I have also resented that in order to enjoy this urban treasure, I have to drive to Cambridge! Where, as a non-resident. I might easily get a parking ticket.

No more. My car now neatly parked in Loved One’s facility’s parking lot, Fresh Pond is mine!

So, on Sunday, instead of muttering “Why can’t Somerville have acres and acres of unobstructed space—maybe beside the Mystic River? Nature trails and woods and community gardens as far as the eye can see? Huh? Huh?”* or stressing about a possible parking ticket, I was able to appreciate where I actually was. To be present. To grok.**

So, of course, walking past Cambridge’s water supply, I thought of Flint, Michigan. And how black lives didn’t matter when it came to making viable, decent decisions regarding that struggling city’s water supply. How inexpressively outrageous! And how, more and more, we’re seeing water as A Thing. A commodity as precious as oil. (and, like oil, a liquid to spill blood over.)

So as I walked listening to the pond’s gentle lap lap with newfound gratitude, I was also sobered by a water-scarce future suddenly more clear and more fraught than it’s ever been.

“Is Clean Water The New Oil? “What am I called to do?

*So many things to love about my community but its long-term commitment to open space is not one of one.

** A verb meaning to really, really get it and used in that 60s classic, Stranger in a Strange Land—in which for the protagonist, a human raised on Mars, “sharing water” was a Huge Deal.

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?