Category Archives: Community/Interconnectedness

Okay, technically, it’s a new month and “Winds of Change” is so last month. But with a possible hurricane bearing down on the Northeast this weekend, the same weekend as daughter Allison’s outdoor, on the Cape wedding, who could resist?

Instead of obsessively consulting weather websites a thousand times a day, this MOB arranged for a “Hurricane Earl” Google alert. The kind that gives you one report/day. Pretty smart, huh?

Not really. And yet brilliant.

The “not really” is because a Google search, I now realize, is about hits. So the sites that have come up  track this mighty storm’s process as people living in the middle-Atlantic states consult their computers.

What I really wanted to know was: Will this hurricane hit Cape Cod and if so, when, and how bad will it be? But what I’m really learning is: We’re connected. All of us. (And, oh, yeah, as precious and wonderful as Allison and Dustin and this wedding are, there’s all that other stuff happening, too.)

In case you didn’t pick up on it—that’s the “brilliant” part.

* Allison will be wearing pearls once belonging to my Aunt Katherine and borrowed from her Aunt Deborah.

Back from Baltimore Yearly Meeting—with a brief visit to New England Yearly Meeting—and eager to “unpack.” To spend so much concentrated time with so many Quakers and make meaning of all I saw and heard will require lots of time, lots of discernment.

Meanwhile—a wind story from BYM: BYM was held at Frostburg State College, in the mountains of western Maryland, so far west that one day, when I’d walked to the very top of its hilly campus, I watched another hill, maybe a couple of miles away, being strip-mined.

Besides hills and classroom buildings and dormitories, Frostburg State also boasts playing fields. Many, many playing fields. A perfect setting for a sports summer camp for kids. So while Quakers from MD, VA and DC were at their yearly gathering, K—12 football players and soccer players were also on campus (noticing what food—and how much—these kids selected at the college’s cafeteria was an eye-opening experience).

But we Quakes and those athletes shared that hilly, breezy campus with another summer camp: a high school marching band from Raleigh, NC. My first meal at the gathering and not knowing anyone, I noticed these kids, clearly not jocks, racially mixed, some a little, well, geeky, and sat with them. They were delightful. So the next morning after breakfast, as the brass section rehearsed under a tent near the cafeteria, I lingered.

Their director (whose much-used voice got more and more gravelly as the week progressed), his bearing and sports garb possibly leading you to believe he was football coach, was measure-by-measure taking these kids through a rough passage.

He instructed the trumpet section to stop playing. “This piece has some unusual chords,” he noted to the others. “How many of you are playing weird, discordant notes?” Several kids raised their hands. “Play loud,” he told them. “Emphasizing those notes are what will make this piece special.”

Now, maybe it was the coffee talking, but his instructions seemed to be a metaphor of how a group, a gathering, a community, a”body” (as BYM and NEYM referred to the people attending their sessions) might function. If the center holds, if the trumpet section carries the tune, if there’s trust and safety and respect and civility, the weird and discordant voices of that group or body make that community special.

From time to time during my stay at Frostburg, the wind would blow in the right direction and I’d hear those same labored-over, difficult, beautiful measures being played. And I’d again ponder that potential metaphor.

Now you can, too.

Emily Sander, “loving wife, mother, grandmother, social worker. artist, tennis player and much more,” * a much-beloved member of Friends Meeting at Cambridge, died on June 5th; her memorial was Monday. FMC’s capacious meetinghouse overflowed;  those of us unable to squeeze inside sat on rented chairs outside.

Clerk of FMC’s Memorials Committee and knowing that centering at Emily’s memorial would probably be difficult for me, I spent meeting for worship the day before remembering her. And, as Emily’s beloved John Woolman would say: “. . . in calmness of mind went forward . . . ”

Here’s where I was; here’s where I got:

In the early months of 2007, when a weekly meals-and-sharing for the formerly incarcerated at FMC was being discussed, I’d offered to meet with anyone who might have concerns. One of those meetings was with Emily. After carefully listening to me, she smiled—oh, how I’ll miss that radiant smile—and thanked me. She understood more, now, for which she was grateful, she told me. If memory serves, and it seldom does, it would probably be inaccurate to report that Emily gave the Wednesday night sharing circle her blessing. But she did not stand in the way. And in April of 2007, Meeting approved these circles, still going strong.

A coda to that story: When a couple of the men from the circle began attending meeting for worship, Emily, as always, sought them out and graciously welcomed them. And continued to do so!

In 2007, I’d attributed Emily’s change of heart to both the rightness of the action and, to my shame, that I’d done such a stupendous job explaining it to her!

But, the week before her memorial, I rethought that. Twice, that week, in The Boston Globe and on NPR, the results of a recent study were discussed. This study revealed, basically, how almost-impossible it is for humans to shift our thinking. Indeed, the more facts we’re given which question our cherished, long-held views, the more strongly we hold onto what we believe!

So in the midst of assisting her amazing family to arrange for Emily’s memorial, I contemplated this gentle, gracious woman in a new light. Emily did shift her thinking. She did let go of whatever was of concern. How extraordinary!

Sitting in worship on Sunday, I had a “great opening” (George Fox). I think that this month’s blogging on shame and how marbled our emotions truly are informed this opening: If Emily’s ability to change her thinking was, in fact, very rare, then maybe I ought to also contemplate the rest of us, the stubbornly I-know-what-I know folks, differently. With—gasp!—compassion?

What a gift! Thank you, Emily Jones Sander, April 15, 1931—June 5, 2010

[* from the beautiful pamphlet distributed at Emily’s memorial.]

. . . what’s the difference between shame and guilt? And does it matter?

A story: When I first taught English to deaf high school students, one of the first things we did was work on feelings vocabulary, i.e. words and their respective signs. To connect the word and the sign for “Frustrated” was especially appreciated, as I recall! (An ironical Fun Fact to Know and Tell: the sign for “Frustrated” is a flipping gesture with your entire hand, palm side out, so that your splayed fingers flip up and cover your mouth.)

So as I sit here on a steamy, summer day contemplating the usual: systemic racism, our criminal justice system, and climate change (in the midst of this heat wave, especially the latter!), part of me knows that a precise understanding of word and meaning is useful, part of me doesn’t want to get bogged down.

So for what it’s worth: guilt is about “remorseful awareness” and shame is about “the painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt [hmm], embarrassment, unworthiness or disgrace.”

Here’s what I make of those culled definitions (thank you, Random House Dictionary): Guilt is something you come up over time and feel terrible about. Shame is in-the-moment, reactive, makes you cringe, get red-faced, stammer. Involuntary, maybe? Hard-wired, maybe?

Why am I writing about this? Because I’m beginning to think that shame plays a huge role in our lives. In MY life. And that if I want to really effect change in the Ghandian sense, I need to look at this thing.

So I will. All this month.

[When the student is ready the teacher appears.]

Next to the Porter Square subway entrance is a bus shelter often used by homeless people, their worldly belongings, crammed into black garbage bags, piled beside them as they sleep.

The other day I was walking on the sidewalk opposite that refuge just as a guy in a gray minivan was going the other way. Seeing that someone was asleep in that shelter, Minivan Guy honks. A “Hey, Loser! Wake up!” honk. A held-longer-than-usual-to-be-really-heard honk. (The homeless man did not stir.)

A paunchy, middle-aged white man, Minivan Guy’s grin, one part sheepish, three parts pleased with himself taught me something: This is what evil looks like. It looks like an overweight guy in a polo shirt, a father, maybe, doing something mean and nasty and feeling a little bit bad about it but mostly delighted to get away with it. (And a helpless, vulnerable victim versus a guy in a moving car isn’t exactly Fair, is it. But that’s what evil looks like, too.)

Like most privileged white people, I have spent much of my life bewildered by the heinous things humans have done and continued to do to one another. “How can people BE like that?” It is only now, in my sixties, that I am finally accepting that the possibility for cruelty lies within all of us. ALL of us.

Minivan Guy inflicted a brief, random, but consciously evil act.

Minivan. Mini-evil.

How easy it is, now, for me to extrapolate how beating up your wife, sexual abuse, anti-semitism, racism—you name it—happens.

[When the student is ready the teacher will appear.]

Much as I am eternally grateful to Dr. Lynda Woodruff and Reverend Owen Cardwell for all they patiently and lovingly taught me, I need to give mega credit to Friends Meeting at Cambridge’s Friends for Racial Justice. For it was only because of FORJ’s workshops and discussions that I was (kinda) ready to be schooled by Lynda and Owen. So as I begin this month’s account of the teachers, mentors, and kind souls who’ve brought me along and brought me up short, a Quakerly fluttering of outstretched hands* for FORJ!

Fluttering your hands in the air is a customary Quaker sign of approval, a gentle and quiet substitute for clapping.

[Dedicated to Anne Kuckro, January 4, 1945 – March 10, 2010, whose dedication to Wethersfield CT’s historic preservation and to beauty and aesthetics were remarkable.]

This morning as I sat at my computer, I heard several voices in the side yard of the 6-unit condo building next door. A peek out my study window revealed two workmen carrying fencing poles, directed by the building’s often-gone-missing handyman. Next appeared sections of (unpainted, crudely-made) stockade fencing which were stacked against the Norway maples between our yards. An April Fool’s Joke?

You see, my husband and I had recently torn down the six-feet-tall fencing between our two yards (well, let’s be honest: He did. I just came up with the idea.) and now there’s a charming and graceful stone wall, maybe two feet tall, between us.

Like many writers, I often work in my pajamas and robe so in the time it took me to get showered and dressed in order to confront those bozos, I had worked myself up into a real hissy fit—AND was alternately appalled at how appalled I was.

The hissy fit went like this: “Those horrible people! How dare they! How can they erect a fence without even discussing it with us? And it’s so ugly. It’ll completely ruin that open and natural area. I know there was a break-in in that first-floor unit but, really, if those condo people want security, there are a zillion other ways to make that building more safe than by erecting an ugly, obstructing fence!”

The appalled dialogue went like this: “I live in a city. The economy is terrible. It’s elitist and irrational to care about  how my side yard looks when people are out of work, losing their homes, etc, etc.”

But you know what? You can be passionate about social injustice AND care about how things look.

Finally dressed, I went outside. “Hi,” I said, trying to keep the shrill out my voice. “Where’s this fence going?”

“In the back,” the handyman told me, putting his hand on my (indignant) shoulder.

“Phew,” I replied. “I was afraid it was—”

“Oh, no, no no!” the handyman assured me. “I like your stone wall. Nice and open. Looks nice.”

Yes, it does. That stone wall, so very very New England, fits. And although erected this past fall, it’s already timeless. Historic.

I’m sitting across from a curly-haired, older woman, completely dressed in black, who receives a phone call just as the train leaves Boylston. She says something in rapid-fire Spanish then, closing her cell phone, begins to weep. She pulls a Kleenex out out her bag, blows her nose, wipes her face, carefully dabbing under her eyes where her mascara has run.

She’s Chilean and has just heard terrible news, I decide.

Don’t be ridiculous, I tell myself, shopping in Copley Square. It could have been anything that made her cry. Anything.

I wanted that woman to cry about Chile’s earthquake, I realize later, walking through the Common. God help me: I needed a connection to that tragedy. She’s it.

February 13th: Watching the news re Haiti with my son-in-law in his living room:

The NYC-based television announcer begins many of her sentences with: “You can imagine. . . ”

Well, no, I can’t. Warm, safe, well-fed and American, no, sorry, I cannot imagine how this earthquake impacts the people of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

I simply can’t.

A bitterly cold wind rattles my study window; warm and cozy, I send out a prayer for all who must be outside on this frigid day. In these last, chilled days of the “Aughts,” like lots of people, I’m thinking about next year and what—besides losing holiday poundage—I ought to do more of in 2010.

And I think it comes down to a major theme of Way Opens: trying to “stay awake,” i.e. trying to be ever-mindful of the unfair, layered, systemically racist world I so comfortably live in.

And, as someone I know recently observed, someone who really is amazingly mindful, staying awake is exhausting. So the other major “ought” is taking better care of myself. Yikes.

What are your oughts?

Walking down Summer Street a couple of days ago, I noticed a sign for a landscaping company posted next to their latest job: a smallish, side yard covered with brick-sized grey stones!

“That’s not landscaping,” I thought angrily. “That’s paving.”

[FYI: Old-school Somerville landscaping: asphalt your entire yard. New-school, apparently: classy, expensive paving stones.]

In light of all I’m learning about climate change, that so-called home improvement really, really got to me.  But as I continued to walk, I lapsed into my usual thinking pattern: “Those homeowners don’t really understand what’s happening to this planet. if they did, they wouldn’t have dug up all their grass and bushes and covered everything with stones.”

But, I’m wondering, isn’t my life-long pattern of telling myself: If so-and-so were better educated, were more up to date, read the same New Yorker articles I read, etc.etc., he/she would behave differently; isn’t that kind of thing paving over some pretty ugly and harsh realities?  Where does greed, where does rampant selfishness, where does racism, discrimination, where do the endlessly cruel and  mindless things people do to each other—and other the living things—fit with my nice, middle-class, incredibly privileged world view?

Sometimes, as today’s mind-boggling headline re the military psychiatrist killing all those people at Fort Hood reminds me, life asks me to NOT facilely make meaning or excuses, or to search for a rationale.Sometimes life asks me to simply be deeply, deeply sad.