Category Archives: Community/Interconnectedness

July 23, 2012: “Could we but see”

Fra Giovanni’s Christmas Prayer

I salute you! There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take Heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in the present moment. Take Peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take Joy!

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

Went to a lovely baby shower*, yesterday, at the home of one of the hostess’s grandmother, an antique-filled, sprawling and gracious home on a Concord (MA) hillside overlooking the family’s farm. And while delighted to be in such a stunning setting with all four daughters, my mother and sister, one of my dearest friends and many, many friends of the guest of honor, like most Americans, I grieved the Aurora massacre. How blessed we are to be so carelessly and easefully seated together under a magnificent tree sipping summery drinks, I thought.
Inside that lovely home, framed, over the downstairs bathroom sink in a spot you couldn’t miss every time you washed your hands hung  a hand-written version of the above prayer by Fra  Giovanni. I recognized this prayer immediately: I’d come upon a version** of it last week as I’d sorted memorabilia from Friends Meeting at Cambridge memorials. Here’s how that version read:
The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
behind it, within our reach, is joy.
There is radiance and glory in the darkness,
could we but see. . . 
And I was comforted to think that all over the world, hung in places you can’t miss noticing, are similar acknowledgements of deep, deep pain and transcendent joy.
*For daughter Hope, who is due at the end of August.
**  From Polly Thayer Starr’s memorial program, October 29, 2006

July 20, 2012: “. . . and it’s One! Two!. . . “

Is is possible that a human heart will not stop beating but can endure, in a single day, the televised sunbathers of [not legible] and the faces of Tyre’s inhabitants going through their burned, destroyed, and disemboweled streets? Yes, our hearts are doing it, and nobody has yet died of anguish. (Jacobo Timmerman, in a 1982 New Yorker piece on the Lebanon/Israeli War)

For thirty years, since hastily copying out that quote, I’ve been inwardly calling such confusing, heart-challenging, observed from afar experiences my “Jacobo Timmerman moments.”  Had one last night at a Red Sox game.

Yesterday morning,  I’d listened to mothers and lawyers and others who regularly receive phone calls from Massachusetts inmates eloquently complain about the excessive costs and lousy-quality phone service they must endure. (This was at a hearing run by a state agency that’s supposed to oversee such things.) Talk about anguish! Person after person, most of them African American, made it painfully clear that phone calls are, literally, a life line. “My son needs to talk to me every day,” one mother explained. And then matter-of-factly explained his medical/mental health history which made a daily phone call to his mother so important. An incredibly expensive phone call, mind you. A phone call VERY likely to be cut off.  Reconnecting, which may happen several times during a conversation, costs an additional $3.00 fee each time. Which this poor, grieving mother has to pay.  “The Department of Correction will tell you it uses this money to pay for programs. I have no problem with programs for my clients,” one lawyer noted. “But to pay for them on the back of the most poor people of our state is unfair.” And, yes, several people referenced the Habitual Offenders bill, aka as the Three Strikes Bill, which was probably being voted upon and passed at that very same time, as a potential source for many MORE frustrated but forced-to-pay phone customers!

And, no, my heart did not stop beating.

But last night, singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” at Fenway Park during the seventh inning stretch, I again wondered how is it any of us can endure these wild and lurching moments when we simultaneously contemplate the pain of “Threes strikes, you’re out”  while joyously singing those words with 37,000 other people? (it was, BTW, a joyous game.)

 

June 28, 2012: Where Are You, Batia?

(And I hope you’re doing OK)

The other night after the SCA film (June 20th post), when people were doing the Just Standing Around Thing, I took my leave by saying: “Well, I gotta get home and read more about Iranian women.”

NOT an exit line worthy of Nora Ephron. (Yes. I was/am a huge fan and mourn her as if we’d been friends.)

Truth is, the “riveting” book I couldn’t wait to get home to, Wanted Women: Faith, Lies & the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Aafia Siddiqui, isn’t about Iranian women. (Pakistani and Somali, respectively) And I knew that when I said it.

So, I wondered, walking home, why such a stupid—and unnecessary—remark? Sure, I’m particularly drawn to films or memoirs or biographies of Muslim women—especially women from Iran. Still. . .

And then it came to me (Lots of things come to me while I’m walking): Because, years ago, when I was a counselor at an adult learning center, I’d worked with a young woman from Iran. Her name was Batia.

Ironically, Batia is Jewish; most of her stories centered around that fact. So, I reasoned, walking home, my fascination with Iranian women hasn’t been completely about learning about what it means to be a Muslim woman.  Something else has been going on.

And I think it’s this: Batia is not an abstraction. Once upon a time, we connected. She’s not a character in “A Separation.” She’s not words on a page. And although I have had no word from her in over ten years, Something very deep remains.

Shalom Aleikhem, Batia.

 

June 20, 2012: Narrative(s) from The Left

Last night I joined a smallish group of people to watch “Growthbusters: Hooked on Growth” (wish more people had come*; the film’s too dense yet excellent.) Afterward, Boston writer and activist  Jack Thorndike gave a brief talk. (Jack also attends Friends Meeting at Cambridge.) Still reeling from the film and struck by how much his body language reminded me of his daughter’s—I’ve been lucky enough to be her First Day School teacher a couple of years—I finally tuned in to what Jack was urging: that people from the Left, people of conscience, climate change activists, et al, share our narratives.

So here’s one:

A week ago, I again went to the Davis Square farmers’ market to collect signatures for the “Budget 4 All” (for Massachusetts) referendum. Only this time, it was POURING.

Loathe to get signature sheets wet—we signature collectors had been warned not to spill coffee or damage the sheets in any way—and not possessing enough hands to hold an umbrella, hold a clipboard and, being me, wildly gesture as I explained what this initiative’s all about, I was about to quit when a young woman holding a large box of tomato, basil, and other herb seedlings, walked up to me.

“Where’s your pen?” she asked after politely standing in the rain listening to my (hurried) spiel.

“You really want to do this?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

So like two contortionists just beginning to work on their act, she still clutching her box, we eventually managed to get her vital info on the dampened sheet.

“You’re amazing,” I told her. “I’m gonna blog about you.”

Done.

 

*This film, shown at Somerville’s Center for Arts at the Armory, was the last of the series co-sponsored by Somerville Climate Action and State Representative Denise Provost.

 

 

June 7, 2012: “Only connect.”

As noted before, that Mother’s Day spent with Joanna Macy was, as my Aunt Kay would have said, “only transformational.”

And here’s a significant way I’m feeling The Change:

Having been away for a couple of super-fun weekends lately, I have twice, now, returned home to hundreds of e-mails. Hundreds. And 90% of them are DIRE. “Call this politician!” “Take action!” “Send $$$” “Save (affordable housing, fair elections in Louisiana. . . )” You get them too, right?

But here’s the thing. If I can’t sense the connectedness of a particular action to something greater, something profoundly, cosmically Whole I can feel in that hair-rising-on-the-back-of-my-neck way that I feel about, say, God, I push Delete. No longer will I get swept hither and yon by demands on my time and energy and credit card unless I can comprehend this action’s connectedness to Something Hugely Interconnected & Sustainable & Systemic.

This, too: Joanna Macy said something like “Our intention is more important than effectiveness.”

Which is why I’ve volunteered my time and my energy to collect signatures for a Massachusetts referendum, “Budget 4 All,” that on one level is absolutely hopeless and on a deeper level, all about HOPE.

Basically the referendum says, “Let’s end the war in Afghanistan, let’s close corporate tax loopholes, let’s raise the taxes on people making more than $250,000 and spend that money on things like renewable energy, public transportation, public education, et al.”

Pretty comprehensive, right? Pretty Big Picture, I’d say. Pretty “Hey, guys. Let’s do it differently.” And, of course, this referendum, if it does get on the MA ballot, doesn’t have a snowball in Hell’s chance of actually Implementing Anything!

But here’s the third and last thing. Joanna Macy urges all of us to do work that “reconnects.” Which, as I discovered yesterday when I collected signatures at the Davis Square Farmers Market, is a two-way street. People were so damned grateful to hear that such an initiative is happening! “Really? I love it.” One guy thanked me!

Which, is guess, brings me to another hero in my life: Wendell Berry. Who said something like this: That in his poems he offers hope because that’s the way to pull people in. (He was talking about climate-change work.)

“Only [re]connect.”

 

June 1, 2012: “Almost Blue”

This is a story whose point/moral is up to you. I tell it because it intrigues me:

Tuesday (May 29th), I went on a whale watch out of Santa Barbara, California, touted to be one of the best places in the world to see humpbacks and the mighty blue whale, the largest creature on Earth. And I did. Tons (get it?) of humpbacks.  And at least one blue. Oh, my! Reckoned by the whale watch boat skipper to have been about 80 feet long. Oh, my! Watching that magnificent blue glide (and glide and glide and glide) back down to feed after briefly surfacing has to have been one of the biggest thrills of my life.

But that’s not the story.

Back on solid land (it had been a very bumpy, choppy ride out and back) and blissfully happy, I was heading towards Santa Barbara’s Maritime Museum—also along the waterfront—when a young man called out to me as I walked past: “Hey,” he wondered. “Want to buy a Chet Baker CD?”

Huh?

Now you have to understand that although an upscale, lovely resort, Santa Barbara has its share of homeless people—and this guy, maybe in his early twenties, looked like he was right on the edge of being one of the hard-luck guys who sat in front of the VA center every morning. (For a shower? For a meal? For a bed?) Not there, yet.  But close.

So even though I immediately smelled “scam” or stolen goods, I am a huge Chet Baker fan. So I offered, “He was a great musician. Not so great to his family, though.” (I’d seen “Let’s Get Lost,” the documentary about the jazz trumpeter’s turbulent life.)

“I’m his grandson,” the guy said.

So, Reader, I bought a CD. And listened to how this young man, ALSO named Chet Baker (he showed me his passport), had left Oklahoma with his family because times were rough. How they’d come to Santa Barbara hoping for a better life (by sitting on a wall in front of the Maritime Museum selling CDs?). About how the record companies were ripping off his family. Etc.

Now, I don’t know if what he said was true. But I do know that times are rough. Families are forced to move. And I know that the piercing pathos of Baker’s rendition of Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue” brings tears to my eyes. And I know that if what “Chet” told me is indeed true, that the tragedy of a gifted yet heroin-addicted musician continues unto further generations.

That not almost blue; that’s 100% sad.

 

May 23, 2012: I’m “Going Forth”!

On Mother’s Day, maybe 50 people and I got to spend the day with Joanna Macy, the Buddhist environmental activist—heck, she’s a prophet for our times.

And as they say, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

I was ready to go deeper. I was ready to cry. I was ready to acknowledge my despair, to even pour my heart out re the things that terrify me re climate change to a young man who happens to look a LOT like an ex-husband. (Now there’s a bit o’ fate, huh?!)

And I was ready, spiritually, to have faith that the “that of God” is all of us and in Mother Earth means something. So with gratitude, after honoring my fears and outrage and despair, armed with compassion and insight, I am ready to go forth.

Wanna come along?

 

 

May 7, 2012: (Let’s hear it for Cut & Paste!)

On Wednesday, Howie Carr, a conservative talk radio host wrote an offensive column for The Boston Herald entitled “White and Wrong: On the reservation with Elizabeth Warren”. Here are just a couple of the unbelievable quotes from the column:

“The race card—like so many others, Barack Obama never leaves home without it. ”

“Maybe someday [Warren will] even smokum peace pipe with Tim Geithner. ”

See the article here: http://bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061128614

Carr’s article insinuates that President Obama and Elizabeth Warren did not earn their positions at Harvard Law. Also, that it goes so far as to infer—that any person who identifies themselves as a person of color and holds a position of power, that they only did so by playing the “race card”.

We all know that political campaigns get ugly. We shouldn’t expect the contest between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown to be an exception. But dragging out despicable stereotypes and denigrating whole groups of people goes way too far. Instead of stoking the fires of this hate-filled story, the Brown campaign needs to focus on the issues.

That’s why Patricia C. Watson created a petition on SignOn.org to Senator Brown, asking him to make it clear that he won’t give silent approval to these kinds of attacks.

That’s why I signed a petition to Sen. Scott Brown (MA-2), which says:

“Senator Scott Brown: We urge you to publicly condemn Howie Carr’s offensive Boston Herald article “White and Wrong: On the reservation with Elizabeth Warren” for the blatant racist stereotypes throughout, along with the insinuation that President Obama and others have achieved their positions only by playing the “race card.””

Will you sign the petition too? Click here to add your name:

http://signon.org/sign/sen-brown-condemn-howie?source=s.fwd&r_by=528804

Thanks!

Leap Day, 2012: “Ain’t Been No Crystal Stair”

Hello, badly-neglected blog. Remember me? I’ve been feverishly working like a crazy woman on the final, final draft of a book I’d love to finish before this summer. And so, per my usual, Can Only Do One Thing At A Time, have churlishly cast you aside. Please forgive me.

This month I’ve been (haphazardly)  mulling over Joanna Macy’s World as Lover, World as Self. So as a final, February posting—thank you, Leap Day!—get to tell one more story that I think illustrates Macy’s loving, embracing, grace-filled world-view, specifically her “greening of the self.” Which means, as she says, to  transcend “separateness, alienation, and fragmentation,” getting beyond “that skin-encapsulated ego.”

So: One Saturday night, recently, my husband and I got on the Green Line T after attending a chamber-music concert. Like all Saturday nights in downtown Boston, the subway was packed with loud, party-hearty college students. Just as we squeezed on the train, for example, a young woman seated near us let everyone in the car know that when she turned twenty-one, she’d downed, yup, twenty-one shots of tequila. Get the picture?

Two seats away from Tequila Girl sat a heavy, tired-looking African-American woman, perhaps the only other older person in the car besides my husband and me. Looking at her exhausted face, I’d felt so protective, so outraged on her behalf: She’s just coming back from work, I decided.  She doesn’t NEED to deal with these dumb, obnoxious, entitled kids!

But then I noticed something truly amazing. Seated between that tired woman and Tequila Girl was another young woman—she may have even been TG’s friend. And on Date Night USA, guess what that young woman had on her lap? A very well-used, well-loved anthology of Langston Hugh’s poetry!

Just imagining why that young woman was carrying that thick book, just contemplating how the poetry in her book, the woman patiently sitting beside her, and all of us on that car were connected in some deep, profound way allowed me to shed my own skin-encapsulated and incredibly judgmental ego. (Hope you’re sensing this skin-on-the-back-of-my-neck-raising moment at least a little!)

Extraordinary!

February 13, 2012: World as Lover

The one beloved becomes many, and the world itself is [my] lover. (Joanna Macy)


Maybe it’s like this:

A couple of years ago, I bought a beautiful, little area rug from a struggling Tibetan/Nepali shop around the corner from my house. This rug now graces my front hall. Given how lovely it is, I paid very little for this gem. Why? Because, as the woman in the store was good enough to show me, it had two, small worn spots on it. And then she threw herself ON the rug to demonstrate how those worn spots were the result of someone, many someones, maybe, kneeling in prayer!

Taken aback by her over-the-top demonstration, stymied by my complete lack of information—Nepali people pray on rugs? I thought only Muslims do that. I am so ignorant!—I was not able to really take in what she told me. Not really. But the other day, vacuuming that rug, I got it. And was filled with, yup, great love for both that agile saleswoman and all those unseen, only to be imagined knees!

January 21, 2012: (Practice) Being Faithful

[Good thing my New Year’s resolutions didn’t include posting more blogs, huh! Or I’d be feeling really guilty about now.]

Tomorrow afternoon, from 3 until 5, my husband and I are hosting a neighborhood coffee to talk about—well, the agenda is not the point.

The POINT is this: As any Patriots fan will tell you: Tomorrow afternoon is not a great time to host a meeting. (Seems there’s a game or something.)

So, yesterday, dropping another flyer for this coffee in neighbors’ mailboxes, stewed over the likelihood that very few people will show up. But since one agenda item, the controversy around affordable housing in Union Square*, is somewhat time-sensitive  (a community meeting on this issue is tentatively scheduled in a couple of weeks), decided to go ahead, anyway. Although I felt a little stupid about it. And reluctant to put much energy into something fated to be a total bust.

But, as so often happens as I trudge along somewhere, Something came to me: be faithful (or, in my case, practice being faithful). This coffee is a good idea. Be faithful to connecting people, sharing resources, creating community, etc. Just do it. Do it joyfully.

Okedoke.

* Many New England cities are organized around squares, i.e. commercial areas/transportation centers/where a bunch of streets come together.Our neighborhood’s part of Somerville’s Union Square.