don't eat alone

One of the things I love about the ecclesiastical calendar is it tells time by telling a story. Our story. The Story. We begin at Advent by preparing for Jesus’ birth and then move through the following weeks and months as the Incarnation unfolds and we see Jesus with people as he walks with them and talks with them, and tries to tell them about his death and resurrection. To number our days with the language of Epiphany and Pentecost, rather than January and May, is to not only tell the story but to become a part of it. I was thinking along these lines as I read again from John Berger’s wonderful new book (which has been inspiring me all winter):

When we are impressed and moved by a story, it engenders something that becomes, or may become, an essential part of us, and this part, whether it be small or extensive, is, as it were, the story’s descendent or offspring.

What I’m trying to define is more idiosyncratic and personal than a mere cultural inheritance; it is as if the bloodstream of the read story joins the bloodstream of one’s own story. It contributes to our becoming what we become and will continue to become. (84)

Katherine Hankey must have understood what Berger is talking about (though he hadn’t written it in 1866) when she wrote one of my favorite hymns:

I love to tell the story for those who know it best
seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.

In the chapter of Berger I reread yesterday, Berger told of going into a suburban Paris library to check out a copy of The Brothers Karamazov to reread. Both of the library’s copies were checked out and he began to wonder,

. . . who’s reading The Brothers Karamazov here today. Do the two of them know each other? Unlikely. Are they both reading the book for the first time? Or has one of them read it and, like myself, wants to reread it?


Then I find myself asking an odd question: if either of those readers and myself passed one another – in the suburban market on Sunday, coming out of the metro, or on a pedestrian crossing, buying bread – might we perhaps exchange glances that we’d both find slightly puzzling? Might we, without recognizing it, recognize one another? (83-84)

I can remember days in the subway in Boston looking across to see the cover of a book I had read and loved and then exchanging the kind of glance Berger describes, sometimes even a word of solidarity. One of the joys of teaching is initiating students into the coteries that know Scout and Gatsby and Mary Shelley’s misunderstood creature. There is a strong connection between Those Who Know The Story and a profound sense of joy at getting to be the one who makes the introduction. Expand the definition of stories and we can include the giant families, if you will, bonded together by Monty Python and the Holy Grail or The Princess Bride who willing share looks and laughs and movie lines.

Anybody want a peanut?

One of my favorite books to read with students is Frankenstein. Many years ago when I was teaching at Charlestown High, a Latina student who understood all too well what it meant to feel outcast and misunderstood became particularly attached to the Creature. Reading didn’t come easily for her, but she devoured the book. The morning we were to finish the book she came by my room early. She was visibly troubled.

“Mister B-C,” she said with sadness in her voice, “the Monster died!”

She didn’t need me to explain or even to comfort; she just needed to tell the story to someone who knew what she was talking about, that could share the experience, that knew it mattered to grieve a character who had lived so vividly among us.

As Lent begins, the story we love takes an ominous turn. Not so many weeks ago we were singing of herald angels and following stars. Yet, as we get closer to Spring, the shadows grow longer and the darkness more profound. We know where the whole story is going and these are not the easy chapters. Still, we are at our best when we tell the story in all its darkness and struggle. It is our story, as Berger said. It’s in our DNA. We tell the story, and we live the story, as we seek to incarnate God’s love in a harsh and beautiful world. Because we know the story passed down to us and we know the story unfolding in our lives, we understand what makes a great story, which is to say we understand a great story takes the darkness as seriously as the light. As David Wilcox sings,

look, if someone wrote a play
just to glorify what’s stronger than hate
would they not arrange the stage
to look as though the hero came too late
it’s almost in defeat
it’s looking like the evil side will win
and on the edge of every seat
from the moment that the whole thing begins
it is love that mixed the mortar
and it’s love that stacked these stones
and it’s love that sets the stage here
though it looks like we’re alone

In the last line of his chapter on stories, Berger said:

Hope today is a contraband passed from hand to hand and from story to story. (87)

I love that sentence. Telling the story – our story – is an act of solidarity, of subversion, of community, of compassion, of revolution. Of hope. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out, neither can the cynicism shout it down.

Gather in close and listen.

Peace,
Milton

Life for me right now means I drive home from my part-time job at the computer store two or three nights a week and listen to a podocast of The State of Things on WUNC, which works out well since I was teaching during the day when it first aired. Last Thursday, Dan Ariely was interviewed. He has just published a book called The Upside of Irrationality, which is a part of his work at the Center for Advanced Hindsight. (I so want a t-shirt from that place; the name is too good.)

Ariely said his interest in the work he is doing began years ago with bandage removal. He suffered severe burns a number of years ago and was in the hospital for three years. The nurses had to remove the bandages everyday. Bandages cane be taken off either quickly or slowly. All the nurses believed ripping the bandages off quickly was the right approach to dealing with the pain. After he got out, Ariely did experiments of his own and found the “nurses were wrong in a predictable and systematic way.” They didn’t talk to each other about the various ways it could be done or compare notes. “All the nurses had the same bias and they were getting it wrong for every patient every time.”

Change the preposition and the Center of Advanced Hindsight might also serve as another name for Ash Wednesday, if I take the word center geographically rather than as a name of an organization. From that center, hear the words poet Barton Sutter shared at The Writer’s Almanac today as a part of his poem, “The Thousand-foot Ore Boat”:

To live until we die—
The job seems just impossible.
The great weight of the past
Pushing us forward, the long future
Thrust out before us, and so little room to either side!

On this day, when we seek to focus our hearts and minds toward repentance, when we seek to find deeper meaning in living by coming to terms with our dying, when we feel the push of the past and the pull of possibilities, we stand at the center of advanced hindsight, at the fulcrum of our faith, at the place where we are willing to let the Spirit show us where we have been predictable and systematic in our errors, at the place where we can repent.

Repent. When I work on vocabulary with my students, I try to get them to notice the prefix of a word as a way to begin to unpack its meaning.

re-:   1. indicating return to a previous condition, restoration, withdrawal.
         2. indicating repetition of an action.

Repent. The dictionary draws connections to regret and repair, but then draws distinctions. Regret carries the main idea of wishing I had not done something, or had done something differently, that cannot be changed. Repair focuses on making things work again. Repent carries some of both contrition for what has been done or left undone and commitment to do things differently and to make things right. Looking back, I look inward that I might look forward and live in such a way that I do not remain committed to my error.

Repentance requires community. Though it is an individual commitment, it is not done in solitary. The power of our turning round right is found in the cloud of witnesses who share in the dance because most of what needs to be made right is relational. When I look back to see I have not done justice or sought kindness or walked humbly I must circle back, retrace my steps, and do what I can to repair and heal my damage. Where I have chosen cynicism, I am called to hope. Where I have chosen to caricature, I am called to listen. Where I have chosen to dominate, I am called to include. Where I have chosen to forget, I am called to remember.

All in the context of relationships.

In his podcast, Ariely talked about one of the tasks of a society is to decide what level of inequality we are willing to live with. He said his favorite definition of a just society came from philosopher John Rawls who said a just society was one that if you knew everything about it you would be willing to enter it at a random place. I love the definition because it calls us all to live outside of ourselves, paying attention to one another’s circumstances and challenges, as well as successes. Where Rawls used the word society, I would substitute community to say that definition of justice works whether we are a city or a church, a mega gathering or a small group. To think about a just community means to remember, as Philo of Alexandria said (not to be confused with Philo of Apex), “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” It also means that we are committed to including one another, rather than constructing rules and walls that divide us. “Love everyone as I have loved you,” Jesus said. That’s pretty clear.

On this Ash Wednesday, this Center of Advanced Hindsight, I look back and easily see the damage I have done. I pray these days will turn that mourning into meaning again and again and again.

Peace,
Milton

Not quite six years ago, Ginger and I got to spend a month in Greece and Turkey tracing the steps of the apostle Paul, thanks to a sabbatical grant from the Eli Lily Foundation. Greece has a burgeoning Christian tourist trade, so we traveled with a group for our time there.l In Turkey, we were on our own and found our way through that wonderful and hospitable country thanks to a Turkish travel agent I found listed in the Lonely Planet guide. When we did group things we were a part of much less homogenous groups than we had known in Greece. On a half day bus tour in Istanbul we shared the bus with people from Iran, Hungary, Kazakhstan, England, the Czech Republic, and Australia. When we had time to talk over tea, the first thing each of us said was, “We’re nothing like our government.”

We spent a week in Izmir, which is where Ephesus once was, and had a chance to get to know some of the folks in our hotel over a few days. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were both going strong and people had a lot of questions about the choices then President Bush was making. One Australian man, whose name I have since forgotten, asked with some frustration, “Why aren’t the American people speaking up?”

“They aren’t getting the same information as the rest of the world,” I answered.

That realization was one of the biggest shocks of the trip. In our hotel rooms across Greece and Turkey we were able to watch CNN International. Each day they had hour long programs that spanned the globe: an hour on Asia, then Africa, then Europe, then South America. The delved into the issues on every continent as though it mattered for everyone to be informed. There was little or no celebrity coverage or tables full of pontificating pundits that fill up American air time. And it was the same company carrying out both slates of programming.

The American media thinks the American people are stupid, was my conclusion.

I thought of those days again this evening as Ginger and I were catching up on Daily Shows we missed seeing this week and John Stewart pointed to the cover of TIME Magazine last week around the world

and the TIME cover in the United States.

Nothing much has changed. They still think we are stupid, or perhaps so clueless and privileged that we don’t have to understand what the rest of the world doing. We can be left with the fluff and the mistaken belief that everyone else in the world wishes they were us. For, as John Mayer sang so well,

when you trust your television
what you get is what you’ve got
‘cause when they own the information
they can bend it all they want.

One of my Christmas presents was a subscription to Poets & Writers magazine. In one of the articles in the last issue was this quote:

You have to put yourself in a position to discover something new.

Though the writer was not talking specifically about how we stay informed, he’s on to something. The word news is simply the plural of the word new. We do need to put ourselves in a position to discover news and not let ourselves be fed what seems most commercially viable to the media moguls, or what feels most agreeable to us. As much as I would like to blame the editors of TIME, the only reason I know they had other covers around the world is because John Stewart told me, and that’s my bad. The world deserves better from me.

TIME and CNN and Fox and the rest of them are the fast food of the news and entertainment industry. To depend on them makes as much sense as relying on Burger King or McDonalds to give me a good nutritious meal everyday. It’s up to me to feed my body food that matters; the same goes for my mind and heart. Back in my Royal Ambassador days (for you who didn’t grow up Baptist, think Southern Baptist Cub Scouts), we used to say, “As a Royal Ambassador, I will do my best to become a well informed, responsible follower of Christ . . . .”

How can I live out my calling if I don’t know what is going on around me and beyond me? The short answer is I can’t. Living out my calling means putting myself in a position to discover the news that I might do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.

Peace,
Milton

it’s like the sand of life leaks
out from a hole in the sack
scattered then stomped
into the surface

but nothing gets lighter
the gravity of absence
crushes out the colors and
somehow grey weighs more

the shadows know things
they are not telling
now I see through a glass
darkly yes darkly

it’s like death has an echo
that bounces off shadows
reverberates in emptiness
and makes love hurt

it’s like that

Peace,
Milton

The second annual Wild Goose Festival will take place this summer just outside of Durham at Shakori Hills from June 21-24. Come join me for a great experience. Here’s a short video from last year’s gathering.

Peace,
Milton

If you press me, I’ll tell you my favorite Paul Simon record is one of his least known: Hearts and Bones. I’m in the minority because it’s his least known record, I think, other than the soundtrack from his Broadway show. Nevertheless, it’s one I can listen to over and over. I thought about it today because of the opening track, “Allergies”:

allergies allergies
something’s living on my skin
doctor please doctor please
open up it’s me again

You see, today I spent the afternoon at the allergist.

I have to back up a bit for you to understand the import of that statement. I have been hounded my whole life by allergies. I have tried every antihistamine, delved into most every decongestant, tried as many treatments as I can find and, in Paul Simon’s words, still these allergies remain. In New England, winter meant a respite, but North Carolina offers nothing of the sort; I’m allergic to the state.

About ten months ago, my throat started seizing up – or, at least, that’s the best way I can describe it. I can still breathe, but I can’t swallow and my throat fills up with mucous that I have to clear rather unceremoniously. The result is I go without good sleep about every third night, which seems to be the pattern of the onslaught. I have not been able to pinpoint a direct cause of the congestion. Instead, it seems rather capricious. So I have lived on a steady diet of Benadryl, among other things, trying to find a way to survive. I talked to my doctor about it last summer and he promised to send me to an allergist, but the promise was not kept before my health insurance ran out, so I had to wait until this January to push him to keep his promise. He sent me instead to an ear, nose, and throat specialist who then sent me on to an allergist, whom I saw today. Though last night was miserable, I was somewhat happy that the “swallowing thing” was happening as I went to see him today. I also went with the expectation that he was going to do a full slate of allergy tests to try and figure out what was going on. He was a nice guy and he dealt with me well, but he said he didn’t have the equipment to look at my throat and he only tested me for dogs (not allergic) and dust mites (allergic) and offered me yet another antihistamine and told me the best thing I could do for my throat was to go see the ENT while it was going on so she could figure out what it was.

I spent over two hours in his office. At the end of the time he said, “Well, I think we have a good plan.”

“The only plan I know is for me to go see the other doctor when my throat acts up. That’s a plan?” I asked.

That was his plan. That and to write me a prescription for another antihistamine and a nasal steroid. And he wants to see me in two months. I’m not sure why. It seems actually treating allergies is not a part of the American medical system to try and figure out how to treat the symptoms of my allergies. At the end of our time, I asked him about the skin irritation I get with some regularity.

“You’re just a really allergic person,” he said without irony.

I left feeling just as allergic and a good bit more frustrated than when I arrived. I went by the church to vent to Ginger and then met some friends at Fullsteam to find a way past how pissed off I felt. The friends are folks at the heart of the Wild Goose Festival, which will happen again here in North Carolina this June. (Please come.) As I drove to meet them, I remembered one of the talks that stuck with me from last years festival. A pastor from New York named Gabriel Salguero spoke on “The Allergy to the Other.” I wish I had notes to go back to that would outline the great stuff he had to say, but all I can do is recall feeling compelled by his words about how we allow ourselves to feel “allergic” to people who aren’t like us, responding defensively in the same way our bodies produce histamines to protect us from the unknown.

I thought about his talk today because I was so taken aback by the way in which the doctor whose declared specialty was allergies had only enough imagination to deal with symptoms. His aim was to make me comfortable, period. He did talk about allergy shots, but what he offered was a five-year commitment that was only about seventy-five percent effective. Beyond that, my best choice was to mask the symptoms and act like things were OK.

Recently, Durham was recognized as The Most Tolerant City in the United States. I love that I live in a place that is recognized for its welcoming spirit and I want to be more than “tolerant,” which seems to me to be the relational equivalent of taking antihistamines and thinking you’ve dealt with your allergies. When I hear the word tolerant, I think it means learning to put up with something or someone: getting used to someone, but not really making a place for them in your life. Straight people, for example, who learn to tolerate gay and lesbian folks come to some sort of “live and let live” place, but don’t ever intend to actually be friends with them.

Toleration is not acceptance any more than what the doctor did for me today was actually deal with my allergies.

I long for another survey that measures the most accepting city. I think Durham still has a shot because we are, in large part, more than tolerant of one another. This is one of the most encouraging places I have ever lived. The task in any community is to learn how to live in such a way that we become essential to one another. That means finding a way to do more than mask our allergies and to push through our fears and prejudices to see the only way we survive is to survive together. To quote another Paul Simon song,

I’ve reason to believe
we all will be received in Graceland

Durham, too.

Peace,
Milton

Today we said goodbye to Lola, our eldest Schnauzer, who lived life with determination, never flinched from speaking up when she thought something (or someone) was wrong or there was a chance for a snack, and loved with her whole being. Life finally wore her out and we had to let her go on to a place where she can rest, see again, eat whatever she wants, and continue to comment on what needs to be corrected. I’m glad she was our pup and we were her humans.

Peace,
Milton

How to live with the adjective inconsequential?

That’s the way John Berger posed the question as I sat with his book a couple of days ago in the coffee shop waiting for time to start my after school job. He was talking about the role of the artist and writer in the face of the violence which has dominated our world for centuries. What good does it do to write poetry and sing songs and make whatever art we can to wage peace and speak truth to power when the someday when we shall overcome never gets any closer on the calendar?

So one asks oneself: Do words count? And there must sometimes come back a reply like this: Words here are like stones put into pockets of roped prisoners before they are thrown into a river. (79)

The news talked this morning about a couple of cities, including nearby Charlotte, where the last of the Occupy campers were being evicted by police. The tone of the newscasters came across as one of the now-we-can-be-done-with-that variety. The criticism has been that the folks who lived in our parks for so long weren’t focused enough and didn’t know what they were protesting for, but I think that criticism misses the point. As Berger continues,

One protests because not to protest would be too humiliating, too diminishing, too deadly. One protests in order to save the present moment, whatever the future holds. To protest is to refuse being reduced to a zero and to an enforced silence. Therefore, at the very moment a protest is made, if it is made, there is a small victory. (79)

Though I was miles away from any of the camps, I was encouraged by those who took to the streets and the parks because they reminded me to not give into my cynicism. I have allowed the political process in this country to reduce me to feeling like a zero. I have let myself believe that the lobbyists have had the last word by buying off our alleged leaders leaving me, well, inconsequential.

And I’m not sure I’m wrong. The truth is the One Percent have most of the money and the power and they continue to tilt the game their way. The truth is, as John Stewart commented the other night on The Daily Show, “the poor have shitty lobbyists.” The truth is the candidates will spend enough money on their campaigns to fully fund Head Start programs across the country but will instead waste the cash on the political equivalent of a playground fight. Yet, the protestors in the park call me to a different view, as does John Berger. They call me to ask a better question:

How to live with the adjective inconsequential?

The adjective is temporal. Perhaps a possible and adequate response is spatial? To go closer and closer to what is being redeemed from the present within the hearts of those who refuse the present’s logic. A storyteller can sometimes do this.

The refusal of the protesters then becomes the feral cry, the rage, the humour, the illumination of the women, men, and children in a story. Narrative is another way of making a moment indelible, for stories when heard stop the unilinear flow of time and render the adjective inconsequential meaningless. (80)

As I hear the feral cry of the Occupy-ers, I wonder where are the feral Faithful? The voices crying in the wildnerness, “Prepare ye, the way of the Lord”? For those who have been called to proclaim liberty to the captives, we have been far too silent. Or, at least, I have.

Last week, I had the honor of going with Ginger to the annual meeting of Durham Congregations In Action where Ginger was installed as president for the coming year. DCIA is a strong voice of protest and promise in Durham and I’m proud of both Ginger and the group. The keynote speaker was William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, another essential voice of faithful protest and hope in our state. He spoke with the power and poetry of a prophet, and asked a good question of his own:

Do you know who you are?

At the close of the service, Ginger was called to offer the benediction. She asked us to turn and face each other from either side of the hall and then each side took turns asking the other, “Do you know who you are?” with as much attitude as we could muster. We volleyed the question back and forth four or five times, the emphasis changing as we spoke:

Do you KNOW who you are?
Do YOU know who you are?
Do you know who YOU are?

I know who I want to be. I know, most days, what story I want to write with my life and I far too often let myself forget and fall prey to feeling inconsequential. I know it is far easier to define myself as not being one of those whose actions I hold in contempt than it is to define myself and tell my story. Jesus knew what he was doing in calling us to love our enemies because that love takes away any chance of using them as fuel for our arrogance and righteous indignation. The real story is there is no Us and Them, only Us. In that context, do I know who I am?

To you Occupy-ers, I’m sorry I am late to the game as far as speaking up and offering an encouraging word. You are speaking truth to power because you are telling a story: your story, our story. Perhaps parable would be a better word because, like the ones Jesus told, the point is not that easy to figure out yet there’s something in there worth digging for. What you are doing reminds me of words that matter from one of my favorite stories, King Lear:

The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. (V,iii,322-323)

Words count. Actions matters. Faith works.

Peace,
Milton

Over the past few weeks I have been editing a book manuscript for someone I don’t know. When I grade student essays, I know whose paper is in front of me, which colors how I both read and comment, but this time I am not being asked to teach, only edit. The hardest part, in many ways, is not being able to picture who put down the words that are now looking back at me. Microsoft Word’s “track changes” mode has made the unfortunate choice to use red as the color of the altered text, which I fear carries all the baggage of every corrected essay the writer ever received along the way. I don’t know how she will read the red, my trail of wounds to her words, even as I struggle to find a way to infuse each stroke with some kind of encouragement.

In between editing sessions, I am still reading John Berger, who continues to amaze me. He is writing about being at the National Gallery in London on Good Friday and deciding to draw the figure of Christ in the Crucifixion by Antonello de Messina. He finds the painting, and then realizes he will have to work stealthily around the guards who wander from room to room. Here’s the paragraph that caught me:

I start drawing. Correcting error after error. Some trivial. Some not. The crucial question is the scale of the cross on the page. If this is not right, the surrounding space will exert no pressure, and there’ll be no resistance. I’m drawing with ink and wetting my index finger with spit. Bad beginning. I turn the page and restart. I won’t make the same mistake again. I’ll make others, of course. I draw, correct, draw. (52)

As I worked my way through the manuscript, I wished for a better way to explain myself, because I made lots of marks and changes. The commas are scattered across the page like confetti after a parade and I have to help sweep them up. In some places, the writer was so caught up in the emotion of the passage that they lost track of the tense and I had to call them into consistency. Then there were the places where the author moved from A to G or H without showing the reader how to follow, leaving rather philosophical potholes in the middle of the page big enough for said reader to get lost or give up. I recognized the errors because I have made them myself.

I worked in short shifts, seeking to stay fresh enough to be encouraging. I learned from my days of grading stacks of student essays that I had to pause every few pages and remind myself I needed to wield my pen with some measure of gentleness, rather than using the opportunity to demonstrate my expertise. I remembered that some days better than others. The word from which our word error comes meant wandering, as though the idea of an error or mistake carried with it the idea of having wandered off course. As I have been reading, I have carried that image, seeing the author out in the middle of a field, off the path they were shooting for, chasing an idea that had gotten away and dropping commas like bread crumbs, it seems. My choice was between correcting in a voice that sounded like a frightened parent (“Where have you been? You had us worried. Don’t ever wander off like that again.”) or a fellow traveler (“I’ve missed that turn myself; let me show you the way back to the path.”) As I edited, I became aware I was making mistakes of my own. When I got ready to send the manuscript, I spent an evening composing the letter to go with it, making sure the author understood the story didn’t belong to me and that my task was to offer suggestions and create a conversation.

As much as I wanted to throw pillows to soften the blows, I also know there is great value in failure. I took my job seriously and I mean what I wrote as I deleted and added to what had been given to me. Part of the way we find our way back from our wanderings is through those who have the courage to say, “You’ve made a mistake and have wandered off the path.” For the manuscript to be all that it can be, much needs to change. The writer needs to wrestle with what they wanted to say and what ended up on the page for the book to be ready for others to read. I expect to go through it again once the author responds, looking for more ways to improve it. To paraphrase Berger: write, correct, write.

One day, I hope, I will get to meet the author and hear the story behind how the book came to be and, perhaps, how they felt seeing my fingerprints all over their pages. Till then, I hope they can see beyond the red marks and hear my encouragement: the manuscript is worth revising.

Write, correct, write. How else will we learn?

Peace,
Milton

I do wonder what was
left out of the story.
Jesus would walk up and
say, “Come follow me”
and people just walked
off from fishing boats
and families to catch
people, be puzzled by
parables, and remain
gainfully unemployed.

Part of me is curious
about what was not
worth remembering.
Most of me marvels
at their unflinching
faith, which feels far
from familiar, for
I have promises to keep.
Go ahead, Jesus –
I’ll catch up later.

Peace,
Milton