Courage
I expect by now you’ve heard the story: seen the pictures of the people bludgeoned by water cannons, the dog in a gas mask, the sufi dervish whirling in the street with deliberate disregard for the danger of his surroundings. It started simply enough. A group of people decided to sit in to protest a public park being razed in order to put in one more shopping mall. A group of people, young and old, decided that they had had enough of their country being sold off to the highest bidder, enough of the rights of the people being stripped away at the pleasure of the powers that be. And so they went to sit in the park. And there they sat as the bulldozers came at them, non-violent protesters in the long and distinguished lineage of Gandhi and King and Tiananmen Square and so many others. And in the long and shameful lineage of the British in India and Bull Connor and the Chinese government in 1989 and so many others, the Turkish government responded with water cannons and pepper spray, with police in riot gear prepared to do whatever it takes to subdue the population.
Who will not be subdued. Who continue to flock to the streets. I understand the courage of those first protesters, the ones who decided to sit down in a park and make their presence felt, who were willing to see what would happen when they demanded that someone take the needs of the people, and not just the corporations, into account. Sometimes you summon up what is inside of you and do the brave thing, walk the talk. But what about all those other people, the ones who joined the protest once they knew about the water cannons and the pepper spray, once the news spread (by word of mouth and social media, since the official media kept a complete blackout) of the injured and the dead? What about them? What does it take to knowingly walk into that kind of danger and chaos?
It takes, I think, an allegiance to a self that is greater than the self that feels the police batons and the pepper spray—a self that is injured not by physical indignities, but rather by moral ones. Call it Soul, if you will, this larger self, or call it Community Consciousness or Human Dignity or Living in the Kingdom of God. Whatever it is, it does not belong to a particular time, or place, or religion. It’s what led Gandhi, the Hindu, and King, the Christian, and the young man (Buddhist?) who faced down a bulldozer in Tiananmen Square to counter violence with persistent love. It’s what holds the Sufi dervish dancing in the streets of Istanbul and Bill McKibben getting arrested on the steps of the White House in protest against the Keystone XL pipeline. Who we are is bigger than who we are.
Not all of us. Not all the time. But enough of us, enough of the time, that it seems possible that love might have a chance against greed, that freedom and justice might sometimes prevail. Not all the time. But maybe enough.
Incarceration Nation
Incarceration nation,
where did you put
your young men?
You put them in a plea bargain;
you put them in a felony record;
you put them out of your mind.
Incarceration nation,
your heart is in a prison cell;
your future is in a prison cell;
your conscience is in a prison cell.
Incarceration nation,
where did you put your future?
Where did you put your hope?
Where did you put your justice?
Where did you put your freedom?
Incarceration nation,
where did you put
your young men?
You put them into poverty;
you put them into despair;
you put them into chains.
Incarceration nation,
you took your children;
you took your hope;
you put them in a prison cell;
you put them in a felony record;
you put them out of your mind.
Incarceration nation,
you put yourself
into a prison cell
into fear; into hate;
into racism;
into money’s death spasm;
Incarceration nation,
where did you put
your young men?
They are the universe
aware of itself;
they are consciousness
trapped in money’s death spasm.
Incarceration nation,
why have you
imprisoned yourself?
Role Camera
It will only be five minutes. A favor. Celebrating women in the month of May and need a female minister to represent.
When she asked a few weeks ago, calling in the middle of a rich and full work day, I said yes, okay, sure. I needed practice publicly speaking about ministry, especially as a community minister ordained less than a year ago. An invitation to a brief moment on local TV on a Friday night made sense.
Yesterday, deep in the throes of a summer cold, trying to time the cold medicine for a sneeze and snot-free five minute window, the favor-asker nowhere in sight, I was beginning to rethink that yes. Two hours later, walking out of the studio with a DVD in my hand of a half hour show exploring becoming anti-racist, community connection, incarceration, and goodness only knows what else set to air Sunday night, all I could do was laugh and cough.
Universe, your wicked sense of humor is going to kill me…but what a way to go…
On Keeping Up
I have a half dozen ideas for things I’d like to write about swirling about in my head. Reflections about reflections. Thoughts about thoughts, about how the mind works, about how the mind works when there’s so little time to write or read or have a meandering relaxed conversation with a friend, but there’s lots of time spent washing the same dishes, cooking the same food, reading the same A-B-C book out loud, and singing the same bedtime songs. Contemplations about time, about how a month can seem interminable if a baby is crying all the time, or it can seem like it’s going by so fast if the baby is a delight to be with. About the gradual, subtle, almost-imperceptible-sometimes, beautiful transition from perseverance to savoring, the difference between getting-by, between “keep keeping,” as in Sandra Cisneros’ beautiful piece, and keeping up, living life in each full cascading moment and enjoying it. Ever since we hit 5 months, Life With Baby has been easier for us, more manageable, which doesn’t mean it’s been easy, but it’s been so much better than those first 5 challenging months. And now we are in the halcyon days, the sweet days of amazement at what our child discovers each day, the days that I think we thought having a baby were going to be like, and they may only be a smidgen of what having a baby is actually like, but they are amazing, amazing days.
I’ve been saying to friends and family that the phase we seem to be entering into is “keeping up.” And because it took almost 10 months for us to get to this point of joy, of truly enjoying the moments and not just surviving them, I am embracing this keeping up. Keeping up means that I am managing to completely empty the sink of dishes and now-and-then have an empty dishwasher as well. Keeping up means I am starting to think about what I’d like to cook, and maybe looking up a recipe, more than 5 minutes in advance of needing to eat right now. Keeping up means that we are blessed with the resources, ability, and energy to be feeding our little eater vats of healthy, home-cooked and home-prepared food, and she is loving it: tofu, quinoa, carrots, avocados. Keeping up means that I’m excited and eager to start making more complicated things for her to eat, combinations of things, food patties and to-go food. Keeping up means that there is just the littlest bit more spaciousness in our days, that I feel like I have gotten enough sleep, and that I can think ahead to next week and start to imagine going to a yoga class or to the gym. I have not prioritized exercise as much as I’d hoped to by this 10 month point, but I’m aware of that and working towards it—and that, there, that’s keeping up. “Aware and working towards.” It feels like the clouds of “putting one foot in front of the other” are lifting. The other night (while washing dishes, of course) I noted the distinct and surprising feeling of “being elated,” being elated for no particular reason. I noted it, enjoyed it, and kept washing dishes. Because I am just keeping up.
Benediction for the Wind (on the occasion of a killer tornado)
What better way to
get people praying
than to remind us
of random chance?
What better way than
the cold logic of air
rising, falling, killing
here, not there;
this one, not that.
Where I come from
we name them
by a year: 2011,
1957, 1925, and
remember deaths,
695, 255, 12.
What better way for
the screaming winds
to set us praying
than the cold logic
of random chance?
What better way
to hold sanity and
loved ones close than
to set to praying?
Where I come from
we know the scream
of the green clouds
well; we know to hug
the floor close; where
I come from the wind
teaches us to pray.
Acts of God
People are dead, including children. Whole neighborhoods are utterly destroyed, brought down to foundations and rubble. People are injured, traumatized, bereft. And there is no one to blame. No bomber, no shooter, no mad man or terrorist. Simply an “act of God.”
How I hate that phrase, act of God. As if God would come down from the clouds to smite a town out of, what, spite? Vengeance? God does not cause weather events, not out of a need to punish infidels and homosexuals, and not because he needed to call his children home to be with him. You will not find God in the great wind, any more than Elijah did.
No, you will find God in the people who keep calling to find out if their friends and neighbors are OK, in the parents who struggle to assure their children that they are safe, in those who sit at the side of those who mourn, in the mourners themselves. God is in the search and rescue dogs who are tirelessly moving house by house, searching for the scent of the missing, and in their tired handlers who volunteered and trained for this expert, grueling work. God is in the hospital staff tending the wounded and in the family members who wait and wait, hoping their loved one will be OK. God is in the first responders who are still hoping to find children alive and for those who have to carry still figures from the wreckage. God is in the people around the world sending their prayers and their love out to people they will never meet and the people who send their money to the Red Cross or animal rescue groups because it’s the only way they can think of to help.
And yes, God is in the people who dare to point out that while any given weather event is just weather, however tragic, a pattern of more and more extreme weather—the droughts, heat, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, one after the other—that pattern is not an act of God. That pattern is predicted by scientists who study climate change. Which is not an act of God. It is the consequence of a string of human choices. God is not in the droughts and the floods and the tornadoes. God is in the scientists who keep telling the truth when it seems no one is paying attention. God is in the all the people who are trying to limit their use of fossil fuels, in the companies and schools and churches who have invested in solar panels, in the environmental groups calling for meaningful legislation.
God is not in the wind. God is in all the people who see the suffering that is, and the suffering to come, and who choose compassion and justice and the hope of a better world.
Compassion and Connection
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has graced New Orleans with his presence this weekend. Prayer flags are fluttering from balconies more accustomed to Mardi Gras beads and brass bands are sharing the scene with throat singing…
HH Dalai Lama arrived under the auspices of a conference called “Resilience: Strength Through Compassion and Connection.” Those familiar with his life story (http://www.dalailama.com/biography/a-brief-biography) know that His Holiness embodies this resilience.
As you think about your own life, where to you find stories of resilience? Where are compassion and connection in those stories – in you?
A Bad Day for Theocracy (14 May 2013, marriage equality Minnesota)
A bad day for creeds;
a bad day for stares;
a bad day for blind
obedience to blundering
oracles, as Henry put
it long ago. A bad day
for obedience. A bad
day for “act like us.”
Why not, Ralph asked,
long ago, why not
behold god and nature
face to face with our
own eyes, weaving
our own tales? Long
ago Henry and Ralph
said stop listening
to long ago. So, do
we have a poetry of
insight, a philosophy
without tradition now,
a religion of revelation,
to us, not the masters
inscribing themselves on
ages, not the moldy books?
not the stares of the old,
powerful “it’s always been”?
A bad day for moldy books;
a bad day for fistfuls of musts.
A good day to speak
of Henry and Ralph
erasing themselves
into revelation, to
you, on and on, a good
day to write ourselves.
Consent
My friend recently shared an article that complained about dog lovers foisting their animals on the non-dog-loving public. Although I am a ridiculously passionate dog lover, I have to say I agree. People who don’t want to deal with dogs shouldn’t have to be approached by them. Also people shouldn’t have to worry about their shy dogs being pawed by strangers, let alone being pounced on by other dogs. Parents shouldn’t have to worry about their children being molested by strange dogs, and dog owners shouldn’t have to worry about their dogs being molested by strange children.
But the solution is not to forbid dogs being out in public any more than we should forbid children being out in public. The solution is simple, although it would seem near impossible based on so much of what we see in the world. It’s called “civility.” Civility presumes a) that you understand that you are not the center of the universe, which means that other people have needs and desires that are different than your own and b) that you can find out people’s needs and desires by asking. Really, does that seem so very difficult?
You can assume, just in general, that everyone exists in a little zone of privacy that belongs to them alone. You don’t enter a stranger’s house without permission, and you don’t enter their personal space. Not because you want to touch their pregnant belly. Not because you want to touch an African-American child’s curly hair. Not because you think they’re sexy and you want to get it on. That zone of privacy is an acknowledgement that a person (or animal) is real, that they are entitled to want and feel and believe as they choose. It’s what we Unitarian Universalists call “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”
But privacy doesn’t mean that we need to live without connection, each of us entirely separate in our own little bubble. It simply means that you have to ask to be invited in. And you have to wait for the invitation to be accepted. You can ask whether someone would like to pet your dog before letting it come near them, and you can ask permission before petting a stranger’s dog. You can teach your children to ask before petting a strange dog, and you can teach your dog not to approach people without permission. But more than that you can ask a child’s permission before hugging them or picking them up, teaching them more effectively than any lecture on “stranger danger” that each of us has the right to choose who will touch us and how. You can ask a date’s permission before offering a kiss or other physical intimacy, combating the rape culture which insists that there are ways that a woman can “ask for it” other than saying what it is she wants.
You can ask, even when it feels uncomfortable, as when you ask an acquaintance what gender pronoun they prefer, or when you invite someone whose skin tone is different than yours if they would be willing to discuss a topic related to race. You can ask someone with a disability whether they would like help, and you can ask an older person if they would like your seat on the bus. You can reach out your hand past the edge of your own bubble of privacy to see if someone else wants to take it. You can, and you should. But then you need to pause to find out whether that person wants to reach out their hand in return. And if their response isn’t want you expected or hoped for, oh well. It isn’t about you. It just isn’t all about you.
We human beings are a community. We belong with one another. But we do not belong to one another, and the sooner we start acting like it, the better.
Creating Life
Standing in the doorway between the ticket table and the concert last night, the music from the incredible jazz trio on the chancel washing over me, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. This is my life!
Somewhere between scheduling the termite treatments and the ceiling repairs from a leaky roof, between taxes and budgets, between making groceries and making amends – there is this gift – pure, sustaining creative joy.
On this Mother’s Day weekend, as we celebrate the creative power of women, I lift up some of the amazing, creative female artists I have had the joy of encountering as part of my work this year: Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, Cindy Scott, Helen Gillet, Gina Forsyth, emma’s revolution…their creations remind me that life is a journey of choices – and that I can choose joy, I can choose to work for peace, for a world welcoming to all babies, all beings.
Beloveds, as you make your choices today, may you remember your sources of sustaining joy and celebrate your own power to create a life well lived.
