Category Archives: God/Spirit/Light/Love

Just The Facts, Folks

In order to be very, very careful, I must leave out most of the salient details that would make this post come alive. Pop. For the safety of the person I want to write about, I’m leaving out most of this story. Their story.

The facts are these: Every day for the past couple of months, I have been made aware of one of my neighbors. Who has no clue that their existence has become a regular—and deeply moving—part of my life. Every day I hold that person, who I suspect is undocumented, in the Light. (That’s Quakerese for pray. Close to it, anyway) Every day, as I do so, I feel the disparity between their life and my own. And more recently, every day, I think about how this situation is exactly like the extraordinary movie, Parasite—only in reverse. I, the privileged one, know one or two important things about them. I know they exist. Close by. They know nothing about me. I don’t exist.

But we both know that something fundamentally wrong is going on. That this person lives in the shadows. And I don’t.

Out Of My Comfort Zone

[Set, “King Lear,” Actors Shakespeare Project, Chelsea Theatre Works, Chelsea, MA]

One of the many reasons my husband and I subscribe to ASP has been that their (brilliant and well-acted) productions are staged in under-used spaces throughout greater Boston. We shlep. We explore. We have pre-play meals in parts of town we’ve never spent time in before.

A couple of weeks after seeing ASP’s excellent production of “King Lear,” do you know what continues to haunt me? Two things. One, this reflection from Doug Lockwood in his “Director’s Notes”: Familial Love is indeed at the core and pain of “King Lear.” Harold Bloom writes that ‘Love is no healer in “King Lear.” Indeed, it starts all the trouble and is a tragedy in itself.” I found myself thinking about this throughout the play. [Note: If you wish to accompany me to a play, please be prepared to get to the theater in plenty of time so I can read these illuminating notes, okay?] And about my own confusing and complex family dynamics. And how love is not the whole story, sometimes, is it!

And the second? How, despite being engrossed in the action on stage, how so much of my attention was drawn to what was happening above the theater: plane after plane after plane taking off from nearby Logan Airport. So loud! So near! So constant!

“People live with this, 24/7,” I thought. “This is what they have to endure in order to be able to afford housing in greater Boston for themselves and their families.”

Puts a whole, new spin on “Oh, brave new world,” doesn’t it?

Yes, Ma’am

[Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind.]

Take it from me, someone who’d stumbled around post-cataract surgery until I got my new glasses, I am now exquisitely aware of how we’re inundated with written stuff! It’s everywhere. It’s a given. (And when you can’t actually read it, it’s a pain in the neck!)

But when I saw this fancy-font sign in my health plan’s Mammography Department—well, like you, perhaps, I had one of those instant understandings of where the woman—someone working in that a department, right?—who’d posted that sign was coming from. Because she’s witnessed those battles. From the other side of that department’s reception desk window.  She knew. Knows.

And she’s watched us, too, the Lucky Ones. Who blithely stroll in and out once a year. Who may be more sensitive, more patient with, more compassionate about the trials and tribulations of others while we wait to be given the All Clear. But once we’ve received the good news —Phew!—we immediately forget our There But For The Grace of God moment. We forget how inordinately beautiful life seemed while we waited.

We move on. We forget to be kind.

Sign Poster’s knows all about that, too.

Maybe we should pay attention to what she has to say?

 

“Radical Acceptance”

I have a new mantra these days. And it’s powerful. And eerily, mysteriously effective.

Here’s an example of how it plays out: This morning I read yet another news article about some egregiously, blatantly horrible thing Trump has done, and, well-practiced, I immediately think a) “Ah hah! This is the one that will bring him down!” to be quickly followed by b) “Not so fast, darlin’. We’ve been down this road many, many times before. Nothing ever changes.” to, of course, c) Depression. Again. Fear. Again. Terror that Evil wins. Again.

But this morning I whispered “Radical acceptance.” And an e) occurred: “This is a distraction, ” I sensed. “And you are not alone feeling all that you are feeling. Open yourself to hope, to Love, to Spirit. Do not be afraid; it will cripple you. Keep on keepin’ on, darlin’. ”

And I will.

 

 

Time-Sensitive

A coal barge slowly cruises up the Ohio River; it passes the Jeffboat Company, now shut down, where the rust-colored barge that coal’s resting on had probably been built. And I, sitting at a cafe across the river sipping an iced chai, can totally relate!

Let’s break that down: Like the Ohio flowing towards the Mississippi, like my own mortality, such deeply-moving inevitability informs that moment. Undeniably that coal keeps rolling along—as do I—yet, just as undeniable, coal’s on its way out. For there sits that shuttered, still, silent factory.  With no more orders coming in it’s “the end of an era,” someone noted. (And way-too-long-time coming, right?)

So, yeah, too many close friends gone or struggling, I’m humming “September Song” much more these days. But, like coal’s demise, there’s great openings, as in Spirit-infused possibilities or insights, in this time-sensitivity. I’m grateful; I’m especially grateful for the young people I know (You know who you are) and the Greta Thunbergs, the Emma Gonzalezes, the Malala Yousafzaies of this emergent era.

“Few precious days,” indeed!

 

 

 

 

 

Somewhere With No Service

[Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico]

It’s been almost three weeks since I last heard from the friend I used to visit in prison, recently deported back to trouble-torn Dominican Republic. “They’ll kill you for a pair of $25 sneakers over here,” he told me a week or so after he’d arrived. “I think I’m destined for a violent death,” he’d said not long after that. And now: silence.

“Maybe he lost his phone,” my husband has offered. “You said he was moving—maybe he’s somewhere with no service.” Maybe he’s still alive, my husband is trying to say. Maybe.

The last time we talked, I’d had the chance to comment on something he’d said a couple of days before: “Remember how you’d said there are more bad people than good people?” I reminded him. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that. And I’m pretty sure that if I’d been born into your family, I’d think so, too.” And over these past three weeks, I’ve thought about him, how bright he is, how full of promise, about his violent life, about trans-generational trauma, about poverty, about racism, about The Jail Trail,  about all the good things I’ve always hoped were in his future. I think about his word destined. I think about what, in a perfect world, he was destined to be.

And in this three-week silence, the obscene disparity between my life and his has become as close to me as the air I breathe. Waiting in a spotless, equipment-filled examination room for my well-trained, courteous doctor to come in, I am reminded in a new and piercingly painful way of his world-view. Of course!

“I feel as though I have joined a gigantic group,” I’d told my husband. (I feel as though I have learned another way to be human, I might have said.) “It’s made up of all the millions of people who have ever lived or who are living now who don’t know what happened to someone they love.”

 

Patterns, Examples

Forty years ago and just beginning to attend Friends Meeting at Cambridge, I’d considered the people I’d worshipped with every Sunday far, far superior to me. Until I didn’t. Over the years, although my fellow Friends have proved themselves to be just as flawed, just as human as I, there is one category amongst my faith community I still revere all out of proportion: older women. So this past Sunday, when a young woman stood up and expressed thanks for the women of our Meeting, I could both be touched by her gratitude and, remembering my own favs, spent some quiet time thinking about the many beloved, older women who, by their example, guided my own aging process. And my spiritual journey. (Which, these days, sometimes feels like the same thing!)

I don’t even know the name of the first older woman I noticed; Sundays, she and I often sat on opposite benches and as the hour progressed, I’d sneak peeks at her from time to time. Because I’d noticed how her lined face changed; how her obvious tension eased, how her taut face softened and, yes, became beautiful.  Hmm, I thought. Serenity as a beauty aid? No, there’s an incentive!

Others offered more substantive guidance. “I don’t do chitchat,” Patricia Watson told me the first time we met at coffee hour. And walked away. Nope. She did something else. She brought a fiercely-just and brilliant perspective to whatever was being discussed. Serving on the Ministry and Counsel committee with her, I’d marvel at her sharp, thoughtful analysis. And noted that rarely would she be the first person to speak on an issue but would, instead, listen intensely, sift through what was being said—and what wasn’t. One of her gifts, I think, was to ask, “Whose rights, whose conditions aren’t being considered as we discern? Who’s being left out? Who’s not at the table?” How blessed I am to have known her!

Other women, too, like Daisy Newman, Anne Kriebel, Emily Sander, Eloise Houghton, Ginny Hutchison. Names that won’t mean anything to you, perhaps, Dear Reader. I just like writing them out and in doing so, acknowledge the many gifts they offered me.

Thank you.

 

Just Imagine!

Saturday, at Art Beat, Somerville’s largest cultural festival, I experienced A Moment: The nearby band playing Elvis Costello’s “(What So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding,” an immigrant grandfather, his three grandchildren, and their parents decorated butterfly* pins, the adults as fully engaged in color selection and overall design as the three children. Seated on the opposite side of the table from where this lovely family worked, I thought, “This is how this country can be. This is what it could look like.” And welled up.

Safe. Gentle. Creative. Loving. Welcoming. Collaborative. All-ages. Inclusive. Multi-ethnic. (And, hey! How ’bout that perfect, profound soundtrack!)

Just imagine!

“Why me? Why us? Why Now?”

There is an us in this famous Marshall Ganz statement. I keep forgetting that. Called to follow Micah’s admonition to do justly, love mercy, walk humbly, I keep forgetting that a huge part of my particular version of humbly is to remember that others, too, are called.

Although, as someone recently pointed out, while many who are called may be “compassion-fatigued” right now, others may be “compassion-confused.” And wonder “What can I do?” Which might mean that on Saturday, at Somerville’s Art Beat, telling the throngs of people who will be flocking to Davis Square about The United Legal Defense Fund for Immigrants will be welcomed news! Good news!

(Which is why, like a diva, I’m resting my voice today!)

 

 

“Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free”*

Tuesday,  having spent some wonderful time with our Tarrytown, NY family, my husband and I explored that part of the world a little on our own. Driving north, the broad, magnificent Hudson to our left, we’d gotten off Route 9 to wend our way through the side streets of another charming, perched-above-the-Hudson village much like Tarrytown; the village’s name not quite registering until lo, unmistakably,  there it was. The thick, grey walls and guards’ tower of Sing Sing. (So, yes, we were literally, “up the river.”)

Surprised to willy nilly stumble upon such a famous prison, it took a moment or two for us—who both visit people in the Massachusetts’ Department of Corrections system—to adequately take in what we were seeing. Because, well, for starters, unlike the DOC sites we know, isolated and inaccessible and surrounded by razor wire, this prison is surrounded on three sides by a low-income residential neighborhood. Like directly across the street! And, like a Rockerfeller mansion, its position right on the river allows a beautiful view! (But who inside is able to see that view? Enjoy it? Take solace from it?)

Another cognitive dissonance: A ground crew was working outside one portion of the prison, this portion not surrounded by a thick, stone wall but, instead, by a very tall chainlink fence. And like good neighbors, two crew members, one on one side of the fence, one on the other, were having a cozy chat—both under the watchful eye of the squad car parked nearby. But, still. It all seemed so, well, benign. Neighborly. Normal!

But then, praise Spirit, the same horror I experienced as a child every time my family drove past the prison near our house hit me. And the same, horrifying thought that gave me bad dreams for nights when I was eight: There are people locked up, being held inside those formidable walls.

Thank you, Light. May I, with your guidance, never, ever normalize our prison system!

 

 

*Fannie Lou Hammer

Tethered

Last evening after the rain had ended, I was walking along one of Cambridge Common’s asphalt paths when I noticed a mother and her two or three year old son walking ahead of me. Coming upon the park’s broad and luscious open space, its grass glistening from the rain, the little boy darted off the path and ran, just ran, twenty, twenty-five feet away from his mother—who continued to walk along the path. Not actually looking at her, he turned and happily walked through the wet grass as if alone yet parallel to her, eventually veering closer and closer to her until, maybe fifty feet down the path, they rejoined.

I’d been thinking about my dear friend, recently released from prison and dealing with all the terrifying and daunting issues of re-entry,  when gifted with that child’s joyful yet judicious experience of freedom. Because, yes, when that child first took off he’d been so free! And my friend tells me he sometimes experiences freedom, too. And about as briefly.

Because although his cell bars and his manacles have been removed, my friend’s still tethered in ways he both understands and, like that child wordlessly and instinctively tracking his mother’s route, he’s also still bound up in ways he cannot yet name.

 

Going Deep(er)

This morning after a long silence I received a text from the man I had been visiting in prison. He’s finally been deported—back to the Dominican Republic. (Red Sox Nation citizens will marvel at his horrible luck to have been sent to DR this week!) For almost two years he and I had been Old-School corresponding via the United States Postal Service so, for starters in this brand-new phase of our friendship, it was pretty sweet to text back and forth! In real time.

As he never failed to do in all his letters and during our month visits, he texted me his thanks for being his good friend. I used to think that his thanks was all that mattered in our relationship; that by his being briefly grateful that he, held in solitary confinement in a series of Massachusetts’ prisons, got to be human in a different way.  Briefly. Very briefly.

But during this long silence after being released by the DOC and then detained by ICE—which meant being sent to Louisiana where, as a soft, Southern, female voice informed me, “He ain’t here long enough to get mail”—I found myself watching myself. I saw myself free. With agency. Able to go wherever, whenever. Free.

How truly precious freedom is!

Some ICE detention centers in Louisiana are prisons-for-profit so, newly cherishing my own freedom, I was also haunted by what that meant for my friend. And imagined that the cruel, tortuous treatment he’d experienced while in “The Hole” in Massachusetts’ Department of Correction facilities would be far, far worse. And that how long he’d be detained in Louisiana would not be about Fair or Right or Just but predicated on some corporation’s bottom line. The longer he’d be detained meant more money for some “Keep occupancy high and costs low” business, right?

But now he’s in violent, drug-infested DR—a country he’d left when he was four. Where, he says, there’s already a price on his head. Where there are 200 murders every month in Santo Domingo. Where he, an ex-offender already dealing with a very complicated re-entry process because of being held in solitary confinement, knows no one and cannot yet suss out who might be a trustworthy friend.

In his recent, viral, heart-breaking essay on climate degradation, Cody Patterson states “I wish I didn’t know.” I get that; I feel the opposite. I am grateful to know what I now know only because of this friendship.

May this deeper knowledge inform my life.

And, more important, may my friend find his way.