Tag Archives: Quaker

What I’d Do Different Now

[Woolworth’s Sit In, Jackson, Mississippi, May, 1963]

Some years ago I began to wonder: Whatever happened to those two African-Americans who desegregated E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1962? So I found Dr. Lynda Woodruff and Reverend Owen Cardwell, Jr.—and wrote a book about what unfolded because I’d wondered.

These days? Now I am moved to wonder: What would happen if I found one of those despicable young men abusing the Jackson, MS sit-inners? (Surely some are still alive?) Could I possibly sit down with one of them; could I ever listen with an open heart? Face to face with a white supremacist, could I remember to seek “that of God” in the old man seated across from me? Not try to “fix” what I’d hear; offer neither advice nor comments but merely ask questions? (Why do you suppose X happened? How do you make meaning of that? Why do you think Y said that? How did you feel when Z happened? Tell me about how you learned about X? etc. ) And then write a book about what I heard? And learned? Could I?

Not lacking in (compelling, passionately engaged-in) writing projects, I am nevertheless tugged at, nudged to wonder: Where does hate come from? What, in all my studies, all my close attention to race and class and gender and education and all the other variables that make each of us who we are; what have I missed, what have I never understood? What do I need to know?

 

 

December 3, 2009: (kinda) Happy Birthday

Today’s my birthday; I am now 65. And while it’s sobering to realize I only have 20 or so more years left on this precious earth—if I’m lucky—you know what’s really sobering? Call me naive, call me immature (!?), but in my heart, I think I’d always believed that by the time I reached this venerable age, war would be ancient history.

Yup. I really did.

So: Do I take comfort from that wonderful quote from John 14:27? “Peace is my parting gift to you, my own peace, such as the world cannot give. Set your troubled hearts at rest, and banish your fears.” * Is this what a serene, wise old woman should do? Set my troubled heart at rest? (I’ve only been legally old for a few hours, now, so am still finding my way.)

Well, yeah, there is comfort in that “such as the world cannot give” reminder, that what-can- you-expect? /violence-is-fundamental message from You Know Who.

Even so, dear Jesus, in this month of celebration for your birth, I remain sad and angry and deeply disappointed. Pissed, actually.

I do draw some small comfort from gatherings such as I attended last week, sponsored by Somerville Medford United for Justice and Peace (SMUJP.), when twenty or so people watched a devastatingly depressing documentary re Afghanistan.(No, no, not that part.) During the discussion that followed, to hear others express their confusion and disappointment re Obama was somewhat consoling. As was the fact that there were peace activists there even older than me! Still at it. Still waging peace. Yeah!

So, here we go again. Another war.

* This quote, which always makes me cry, is part of the 12th query from  New England Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice. One query is read aloud each month  at Friends Meeting at Cambridge.

October 14, 2009: “A thing of beauty. . . “

Years ago at a wedding reception at Cambridge Meeting, I met a man from Philadelphia who, apparently, lived in a recently gentrified neighborhood. He talked about his neighborhood association deciding to hang planters from the street lights on his block. “God, no!” he told the association. “I mean, why don’t you just hang out a sign saying, ‘Yuppies live here. Please come rob us.’ !”

I thought of that man yesterday as I walked home from Ricky’s, a nursery/garden center right smack dab in the center of bustling Union Square, cradling a big, gorgeous pot of flame-colored mums. Living, as I do, in a semi-gentrified neighborhood (i.e. with people like me side by side with people out of work or working several jobs just to get by) and aware, as we all are, that although the recession abates, unacceptably high unemployment stubbornly continues, what was I doing? Surely  decorating my front porch with a $9 pot of flowers both flaunts my financial ease AND begs to be ripped off.

But just before I got home, I passed a man who, judging from his accent, his clothing, and his skin color, might very well be either out of work or working several jobs to get by (Of course I could be wrong and hope I am). When he saw those flowers he smiled broadly: “Oh! How beautiful!”

Later, yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate, give a lecture at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre  (when in an expansive mood, I consider Harvard’s campus part of my neighborhood, too.) In passing, Pamuk said something to the effect that novels set in small villages in non-Western countries show us that characters living in such places, people of color, perhaps, Muslim, perhaps, certainly people who haven’t read many books, are as “deep” as Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary and Oliver Twist. (I hope I understood him correctly!)

As John Keats reminds us:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:*

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

[*See “Bright Star” —it’s quite as beautiful as the mums on my front porch.]

June 24, 2009: Blame the rain?

[Background to today’s blog; much of this info is discussed in the last chapter of Way Opens. Scroll down to the * if you already know about FMC’s inner workings.]

A few years ago, 8 to 12 people doing what’s sometimes called prison ministry, formed a quasi-support group at Friends Meeting at Cambridge (FMC) and called this group, what else, Prison Ministry. These people were visiting prisoners in jail, writing letters to men and women behind bars, advocating for a more just criminal justice system, volunteering in agencies working with families impacted by violent crime, etc., etc. Uncomfortable with the word “ministry,” this group, which meets once a month, is now called Prison Fellowship (PF).

Over time, PF, while continuing to support its members’ individual efforts, took on a new role: sponsoring talks and lectures about the criminal justice system and sharing the stories of individuals directly affected by what some call “the very criminal justice system” for the entire Meeting’s edification. PF also proposed FMC offer a weekly meal-and-sharing opportunity for the formerly incarcerated which is now in its second year and has attracted eight to twelve regular attenders. My husband (who cooks amazing meals for these weekly, powerful, community-building gatherings) and I attend faithfully.

* About a year ago, in the Spirit-led, organic way that these things happen, three people from Prison Fellowship found themselves raising funds, mostly from the larger FMC community, to bail out a young man who’d been held in jail for three years. This oh-my-God-we-actually-DID-this! has led PF to wonder: Should we create a bail fund? A legal defense fund?  Both? Neither? (Twice, through PF members’ efforts, money has also been raised to pay for lawyers, too.)

Over the past few months, at our monthly potluck-plus-meetings, PF has gone around and around on this should-we/ shouldn’t we. Lots of good meals, little progress. Last month, someone suggested we do a kind of personal assessment, ask ourselves what’s keeping us back, what’s a concern, fear, ” a stop,” as they say.

So I did. And here’s what I discovered when I listened to that still, small voice: Given how many people could use bail and/or legal defense funds, including, God forbid, people I love, people I break bread with every Wednesday night, how do you decide who gets what? I am simply not up to such a challenge. It’s too much.

Usually an energetic and optimistic person, I prefaced my gloomy remarks (last night) with: “Maybe it’s the rain but. . . ” (We haven’t seen sunshine around here FOR A LONG TIME!)

But in the organic, Spirit-led way that these meetings go, another PF member suggested that the decision-making process re who gets what should be the responsibility of a wider group, including, she suggested, mothers whose children had either been the victims of the perpetrators of violence and people from the Wednesday night group!

Yes. Once again I’ve assumed primary responsibility for some endeavor. Once again I have decided it’s all up to me! Once again I have failed to appreciate the power of community.

Can’t blame the rain for THAT!

March 12, 2009:”Go tell it. . . “

Three times last week I heard tragic, dire stories from Palestine. Last Sunday, Gay Harter* showed slides of her trip to Palestine last fall and shared her concern for the troubled country’s remaining Christians. A few days later, photographer Skip Schiel, a f/Friend, presented his slide show which included photos from ravaged, desperate Gaza and painful first-hand accounts from the Palestinians Skip has met on his numerous trips. This past Sunday, at First Church in Jamaica Plain, Reverend Terry Burke, to illustrate his Lenten rededication to social justice, told the story of Rachel Corrie, killed by an Israeli bulldozer (made in USA) while protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes (Skip had also recounted Rachel Corrie’s death).

A huge fan of both Gay and Skip, I’d attended their respective shows because I knew they would tell me news from “over the hill,” i.e. information and stories not reported, not told. They did not disappoint. And I’d heard Terry Burke’s wonderful sermon because I’d been asked to give a talk re Way Opens that morning at First Church.

During my talk, I quoted from a Derrick Z. Jackson Boston Globe column from the day before: “This week, the Pew Center on the States released a report that found that states spent $47 billion on prisons last year, with spending rising faster than for education. The spending continues to rise, even as crime rates have fallen by 25 percent over the last 20 years. . . Huge percentages of the 1.5 million people in prison, particularly African-Americans (one in 11 African-Americans are under some form of correction), are there for nonviolent drug offenses that call out not for barbed wire, but for treatment, education, and job opportunities.”

Like their counterparts in other churches I have visited, these JP U-Us are concerned and well-informed and compassionate people. When I brought up CORI reform, for example, they knew what I was talking about. Still, I got the feeling, especially when I read that column, that I, too, was bringing news from “over the hill.”

When I’d heard Gay and Skip’s impassioned presentations, my first reaction both times was “I, too, need, to go to Palestine so I, too, can come back and tell what I saw. That’s the only way our country’s policy will ever change.” But, after Sunday, I’m rededicating myself to reminding people how many African-Americans are “under some form of correction” (one in ELEVEN? C’mon!). And—this is brand-new, folks—to explore ways to better connect with other people of faith working on, as some call it,  “the very criminal justice system.”

* Gay Harter is a loyal member of Side-by-Side, a safe and loving sharing circle for the formerly incarcerated  held every Monday night in Boston’s JP. After people from my Quaker meeting’s Prison Fellowship group visited this circle, we decided to start a similar group in Cambridge. No wonder I’m a big fan!

 

 

February 10, 2009: A teachable moment

Like Dickens, who walked the streets of London twenty miles a day, walking though my beloved community is integral to my writing process. This morning, delighted that the recent thaw meant I could actually stride entire blocks along Somerville’s Summer Street without watching out for ice,  I was mentally revising yesterday’s work and plotting  today’s writing when a voice behind me shouted “El-lah, el-lah.” (At least that’s what I thought I’d heard.) I kept walking. “El-lah, el-lah;” this time more loudly and emphatically. I turned around. An older woman, Haitian perhaps, wearing school crossing guard gear and carrying two empty cardboard cartons, pointed to my purple gloves which had—again!—fallen out of my coat pocket. (These gloves have the worst karma; they’re constantly almost lost. One time they fell onto a busy street. When I picked them up, they reeked of cat piss. How is that even possible?)

Now I’d already walked past this woman just as she’d been emptying those two cartons by tossing their contents into the street. Not cool. And, I must say, I was a little disturbed that a crossing guard’s command of English to be so minimal that she couldn’t shout, “Hey! Lady! You dropped your gloves!” (Again.) What if, God forbid, she had to warn a child of imminent danger? Huh?

So, I’m afraid, I was less than gracious when I picked up my gloves. I did not smile nor reward her with fulsome praise. Instead, I sort of glared at her, then muttered, “Thanks.” And kept walking.

Not half a block later, that same thinking-while-I walk process kicked right in, this time about what had just happened. Almost immediately, I realized several things:

1. My ungracious behavior very easily could have been explained by this older woman of color as racist. How easily my annoyance could be understood simply in black-white terms! She couldn’t have known how upsetting her trash-tossing had been to me. (Just writing this, I want to shake my own shoulders and shout, “Get over yourself!”)

2. “Maybe I should have used that moment to teach her a little English?” I wondered. Did I just blow a teachable moment? (And, yes, “The Class,” a French movie about teaching and race and blown teachable moments has been very much on my mind lately.)

“Whoa, girl,” another and wiser voice counseled. Teachable moments only work in teaching/learning settings. That woman had not signed up for your on-Summer-Street-on-a Tuesday-morning tutorial. No matter how warmly and kindly and lovingly  you’d instructed her: “Say ‘Excuse me!’ ” she would have, no doubt, decided you were no better than those other “English only” jerks. AND a racist to boot.

So. Not a teachable moment for her, apparently, but maybe a teachable moment for moi? One of the many ways Quakers talk about God, Spirit, etc, etc, is the Inward Teacher. Sometimes, like this morning, when I’m so caught up with my supreme righteousness that I am unable to be civil, i.e. to politely say “Thank you” and smile, I apparently need a Kindergarten-level Inward Teacher!