THE MUSIC OF DAILY LIFE

March 31st, 2011  |   

“It is not God’s sovereignty over the entire universe that is at issue so much as his sovereignty over the cubic centimeter of space that sits just in front of our own noses.”

       James L. Kugel

 James L. Kugel is a Hebrew scholar at Harvard. He is also a cancer survivor. Given an ominous diagnosis—told he would live only a few years—seven years later his cancer is now in remission. All of that has prompted him to write a book, “In the Valley of the Shadow: On the Foundations of Religious Belief.”

Judith Shulevitz, in a recent New York Times review of the book, wrote: “Faced with his own mortality and the weakening effects of chemotherapy, Kugel suddenly feels very small. He notices the size of open graves: “Can a whole human being fit in there, a whole human life?”

Shaken by the cancer, this biblical scholar writes, “There you are, one little person, sitting in the late summer sun, with only a few things left to do.”

Deeply aware of the distracting melodies of his busy daily life, he comes to one of those moments of enlightenment. “It had always been there, the music of daily life that’s constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities; and now suddenly it was gone, replaced by nothing, just silence.”

I have always loved to write. I know, of course, that this attraction was conceived in my love affair with books. Words, strung across a page, have seduced me. Over the years, I have thanked people who encouraged me to set pen to paper, and fingers to a keyboard.

Writing has been my retreat from the activities that have so beautifully filled my life. Time spent writing is my time away—a trip into silence. Silence has been a time for the distillation of the disparate, often conflicting experiences of my overheated daily life. Writing has become a special form of prayer—one that opens me up to revelations. Like yeast, these revelations need time and silence in order to work their magic. 

I am not a biblical scholar. I do not have cancer. And, God knows, I am a fumbling neophyte when it comes to writing. But I do understand what Kugel is talking about when he writes about time and the moments of one’s life described as “the cubic centimeter of space that sits just in front of our own noses.”

What follows are a few reflections of what’s been right there in front of my very own nose. Perhaps my words, strung out on these pages, will provoke my readers into contemplating a few of their own centimeters of space that sit in front of their own noses.

Go Away To Get Away To Rediscover The Way Home

Judy and I just returned from a couple of days in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It was time well spent—one of those getaway trips. It provided us time away, just the two of us, to walk on the beach, to eat real crab cakes without filler, to visit old friends, and rediscover The Way Home.

The Way Home is a program we helped birth while I worked for the Diocese of Delaware, prior to returning to West Virginia in 2001. It grew out of a Bible study group—a unique discipleship gathering. The model is worthy of emulation.

A small group—a dozen—committed itself to a three-month study. Meeting weekly, each session consisted of four elements. We studied passages from the Gospel of Mark; visited local residents (poultry growers, gay people, residents from a black community, Latino immigrants, and prisoners); did social analysis; and prayed for guidance.

That guidance led to a discernment process that birthed a parish-based organization named The Way Home. This program has now been in existence since 1998 and has helped hundreds of ex-offenders reenter the community with the support that helps keep these men and women from going back to prison. (http://www.thewayhomeprogram.org/)

Unbeknownst to us, The Way Home was having a potluck supper and awards ceremony. This gave us the opportunity to see old friends who volunteer, and staff members who dedicate their lives to this amazing program.

Americans like to think of our nation as a free country. Confronting that image is the fact that the U.S. has more people in prison—men and women—than any nation in the world (more than 2.2 million—all told over 7 million on probation, parole and in prison). That includes nations we regard as police states or nations that generally have little regard for human rights.

Our nation has an incarceration rate per hundred thousand almost three times higher than Iran and Libya, and almost twice as high as Cuba.

One of the men honored after supper was Tony Tilson. Tony was a regular in our Bible study group while Judy and I were in Delaware. Both of us testified more than once on behalf of Tony in his attempts for parole. Denied release for over 20 years, Tony finally got thumbs-up and is now involved with a work release program that has him working in a local poultry plant, as well as being connected with The Way Home.

A miraculous ending to Tony’s story lies in the fact that former Delaware State Trooper, Rick Chamberlin, was beginning his first day of work at The Way Home. Rick was one of the officers who arrested Tony over 20 years ago.

This work is a truly reconciling ministry. Barbara Del Mastro and Tony Neal, staff members since the inception of the program, are remarkable people. They are doing the dedicated work that restores lives, and costs taxpayers way less than it costs the state to imprison people. They do this work by the grace of God and with small grants of money and individual contributions. Judy and I left the supper with full bellies and, also, with the knowledge that these tough economic days are making demands on the program that require more money. I don’t do this often, but I’d like to put in a pitch for my readers to consider a contribution to this fine program. Check them out on the web and send checks to The Way Home, P.O. Box 1103, Georgetown, DE  19947.

The Bitter Taste Of Tom Friedman’s Column

A wise bishop, early in my life, gave me sound advice. He instructed me to be like a cow. Graze from many pastures in order to give your own good milk.

That advice has been helpful. Listen to many voices in order to find your own. Read and be instructed by a variety of writers and teachers in order to sharpen your own vision and message. Critical thinking is crucial in discerning one’s convictions and commitments.

I graze on Tom Friedman’s writings. His New York Times column is a must-read but it frequently drives me over the edge. Like the one he wrote on March 27 entitled: Hoping For Arab Mandelas. It had a bitter taste to it.

What the Arab world lacks, says Friedman, is a nonviolent movement with nonviolent leadership. That kind of column is precisely what Americans don’t need at a time in our history when it is so easy for people to fall prey to ignorant and prejudicial images of Arabs.

What Friedman ignores is the long history of Arab nonviolence. And he is not alone in his distorted view. Bono, Nicholas Kristof—both considered liberals—have stated the view that they hope Palestinians would find their Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi.

In the mid-1980s, I was a part of a delegation to Palestinian Occupied Territories in the West Bank of Israel. Under the guidance of Mubarak Awad, we built a stone wall that defined Palestinian property—property that Israel was threatening to seize. Awad, a nonviolent Christian, led nonviolent protests of proposed Israeli settlements, organized tax protests, and encouraged people to eat and drink Palestinian products. I have never met a more devout and nonviolent man. He has since been barred from Israel/Palestine and now teaches at American University.

Then there is Lucy Nusseibeh, the director of Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy. She lives in Jerusalem and spends her life working with children who have been harmed by the violence in her homeland. She is married to Sari Nusseibeh, a man I deeply admire, who is a believer in nonviolence and is the president of Al Quds University in Jerusalem.

The list of nonviolent Arabs is long and filled with stories of personal pain and sacrifice.

Consider nonviolent leader Adeeb Abu Rahmah, recently released from eighteen months in an Israeli military prison. He, along with Jamal Juma and Muhammad Othman, may not be as familiar to us as King, Gandhi and Mandela, but they all share a consistent commitment to a nonviolent resistance toward the Israeli illegal wall in the West Bank that separates and segregates people.

Reel Bad Arabs

What’s the etiology of distorted, stereotypical images of people? Where does it all begin? If I could find an agreed upon scapegoat, I would possess the Wisdom of Solomon. What I do know is that Hollywood has had a hand in crafting the images that subvert our subconscious.

In Jack Shaheen’s book, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People,” he identifies 21 major movies which depict Arabs as terrorists or as enemies being killed by the U.S. military. He singles out Rules of Engagement (2000) The Delta Force (1986) Death Before Dishonor (1987) and True Lives (1994) repeated over-and-over again these days on cable television.

Bombers, belly dancers and oil sheikh billionaires flood my memory when I think of the Arab images I’ve been subjected to over the years. That is, until I eradicate them with the images of Mubarak Awad lifting rocks outside of Hebron, and Lucy Nusseibeh helping to reconstruct the lives of children brutalized by war.

In my last issue of Notes, I reflected on my 1989 writings done when I returned from a trip to Libya. Two quotes, not included, jump out at me as I think about the distorted views from Hollywood—both, ironically, offered by Jews. They are as true today as they were when I wrote them back in August of 1989. I pass them on to you.

From Hollywood Producer Alan Rafkin (The Andy Griffith Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M.A.S.H, Murphy Brown, Get Smart, and Coach):  “When I see a Jew portrayed as Shylock, I want to cry. So I know how an Arab feels when he is described as a killer.”

From Howard Rosenberg, Pulitzer Prize winning critic and adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts: “One day there will be an American TV drama viewing Arabs through the eyes of Arabs. One day in the very distant future, probably—for Hollywood is a stubborn child clutching a Linus blanket when it comes to relinquishing such ragged stereotypes as the Arab who is blood thirsty.”  (After describing George W. Bush as “stiff and boyish,” some people requested that Rosenberg be fired, and he received letters calling him “Osama bin Rosenberg.) An interesting tidbit: His daughter is the lead singer in the all-female band “The Iron Maidens.”

The Japanese In Front Of Our Noses

The tragic turn of events in Japan sits daily in the cubic centimeter of space that sits just in front of our own noses. The double whammy of natural and man-made traumas, apocalyptic in their devastating effect, seems beyond comprehension on any level.

When the earth shakes beneath one’s feet, and circumstances beyond our control rain down upon the earth and fill the air with uninvited death, I cannot help but recall the words of T.S. Eliot from his poem East Coker—“we like to think that we are sound, substantial flesh and blood.”

We do like to think of ourselves as sound, substantial flesh and blood, don’t we? The earth offers a gravity that seems to offer security—a sturdy place, rock-hard beneath our feet. But it deceives us in a way that masks the heat at the core of the earth, and earth’s propensity to shift and crack open like a walnut under pressure.

Our daily schedule deceives as well. Marked, hardly ever in pencil, for a long winter’s plan that carries over into spring and summer and fall, it pretends to make things-to-come a foregone reality. Such a powerful instrument—that calendar—but in the end it promises to deliver a future it has no earthly right to guarantee.

Walking the beach; checking the sky; breathing in the love of the woman I live with by day and sleep with by night; spending time with friends—some frail and others reconciled and renewed; being fed by the catch of the day; the connection discovered by the psalmist is as real as it is ever going to be.

When I consider your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man (human beings) that You care for him?

Yet You have made him a little lower than God,

And You crown him with glory and majesty!

Watching homes, ships, cars and people swept away by water, and watching the earth open like a ravenous mouth consuming what we think is sound, substantial life, humankind can feel nothing but small.

And yet, there are signs of the glory and majesty bestowed upon human beings. Nicholas Kristof, at his best this time says “maybe we can learn something from Japan, where the earthquake, tsunami and radiation leaks haven’t caused society to come apart at the seams but to be knit together more tightly than ever.”

Americans prize their individuality. Sinatra’s “I did it my way” runs a close second to our National Anthem. And yet, a communitarian spirit begs for release in a world easily misled by individual desires run amuck. I have seen it time and time again in my lifetime as I have seen people reach out to help someone in need in times of tragedy and grief.

A casserole delivered to a grieving spouse; time spent at a sick friend’s bedside weeping and thus enabling others to weep and then get on with life; risks taken by folks willing to endanger their own lives in order to protect or save someone else’s life; ears bent on listening to someone who hasn’t been able to find a listening ear anywhere; all these and more are more than enough for me to praise all creatures great and small that struggle for existence on this fragile earth we call home.

Once again, now in Libya, we are embracing the myth of redemptive violence. Once again, we have been seduced into believing that military might will deliver us from the violence of our enemy, without engaging the enmity at the heart of our own nation’s soul.

A friend in Wisconsin—sensitive since childhood to the human addiction to violence and political ineptitude, sent me a Facebook message that reads: “What are we to do?! The layers of deception just get deeper and deeper….” 

My reply? I can only tell you that for me I shall continue to work and pray, and work and pray until I drop. Living inside my beloved country—a dying empire—is no easy task. But then again, being on the other end of the empire’s violence is even worse, no easy burden to bear. So, again, we work and pray, work and pray. Much love to you, dear friend.

Let There Be Flowers

While I was at the beach, I visited a man who has been in prison for over thirty years. He is a dear friend, and I continue to work for his release. He is more than ready to join The Way Home program. The God-given glory and majesty has long since trumped the evil deed that sent him to prison. Politics keep him from being released.

This man now runs the greenhouse inside the prison. The flowers produced there, through his loving care, will soon be set out to decorate the grounds of that prison. He has not lost hope. Somehow he has found the grace and courage to redeem the earth inside that prison. His hope is a gift to me. It is all he can give me, and it is more than I expect or deserve in such a setting. I carry it in my heart as I find my way home.

 

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