Words From Someone Else

I had some time to write today. I’d saved some clippings about which I could comment and I had several cat stories to share but all of those are now on hold. I ‘follow’ a blog called feminism and religion on wordpress.com. About every other day I get something in my inbox that helps me shift my culturally-ingrained perspectives and see other ways to look at things.

Today’s post was written by amina wadud (I don’t know why she doesn’t capitalize her names) a Professor Emerita of Islamic Studies, author of Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective and Inside the Gender Jihad. At the risk of accusations of plagiarizing, I’m going to copy most of what she wrote:

No doubt about it, the news of late has been dismal, heart breaking, soul crunching. Pick a place or theme and see where you end up: Ebola in parts of Africa, Israel and Hamas; Ferguson, Missouri; Ukraine, U.S., and Russia; unaccompanied minors from the south crossing over into U.S. borders; the assault of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) on Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, Shi’ahs and journalists. This list could (should) be augmented by many other conflicts and areas of strife which have been on-going for longer than the last several weeks. I don’t know about you, but I draw my weary attention to the latest news each morning with knots in my stomach and a heavy weight on my shoulders. …

For weeks I have been thinking I should blog about an important lesson I have learned as best articulated in the book by Sharon Welch: A Feminist Ethic of Risk. In a world riddled with problems of proportions greater than can be solved by any one person, one group, one country or over one life time, how does one continue to be ethically engaged, avoid crippling despair and pointless cynicism, or just plain fall into apathy? Welch outlines the problem of an ethical model that is predicated on success in the face of inherent crisis, obvious human rights violations, or even catastrophes of nature. The success is achieved in part as a result of an on-going imbalance of power. This imbalance operates on the basis that any intervention will guarantee the sought after results: tyrants will be put down, enemies of the state will be subdued, and the victor will come home to accolades of support. This presumes that all others are not equal and so if any should transgress “our” territory or sensibilities, we will just go blow them away. (This by the way is the set-genre of US hero films). All it takes is for our hero to come into his or her full prowess and all evil doers will be vanquished, order and beauty will be restored. In short, we can go on about our lives unconcerned about lesser mortals because not only are we safe from terror or the threat or terror, we have proven we have the means to kick butt should any arise.

Naturally she compares this model with patriarchy and imperialism.

As a consequence, when morally responsible action does not have the possibility of resulting in the desired successful outcome—and in no short order—we tend to fall into despair and then, do nothing. But apathy is never an ethical alternative. I am aghast at the number of people who have gone as far to say things like “just nuke ‘em” when clear evidence of certain atrocities have been presented against some enemy (over there). In other words the only response to brute force is just to have more powerful brute force. I fear what our attitude will become when we so easily fall into such cataclysmic way of thinking. Another consequence of this, is to let roll all of our latent, anti-Semitism, racism, Islamophobia, sexism, able-ism and homophobia against those we perceive to be the enemy, and that is really the point of no return for me in these crisis, which brings me to this blog.

Mahmoud Hamdan wrote a book with the title Good Muslim Bad Muslim, in effect problematizing the extent to which this notion of clear black and white (imagine that metaphor given the Ferguson crisis?!) somehow comforts us falsely into that victor mentality allowing wholesale castigation of certain persons or people whom we find easier to blame than to work with for resolving world problems of gargantuan proportion. … Hamdan demonstrated with a cross sectional study (over time and place) how easily the ally of today becomes the enemy of tomorrow. What is more, how alliances are formed internationally in order to achieve certain (imperialist) goals even at the expense of all the cries for democracy and human rights on the surface, as long as atrocities could go on unseen or be committed by certain convenient proxies.
In other words, it’s complicated. …

Ours is a beleaguered planet yet it is ours and we share it—even with people for whom we find terrible and unconditional disagreement. Welch reminded me that a feminist ethical model (one that needs to be adopted especially in times like these) nurtures the moral subject and actively participates in resolving problems without the arrogant expectation that the problem will be resolved by our singular efforts. Rather, the ethical person continues to do what is determined to be good because of the good itself. The results are not only unforeseeable they no longer become the immediate goal. In a world that is bigger than our little corner we must continue to commit to moral actions because we elevate ourselves above the disdain for others and instead participate in the goodness that we would like to see in the world. In other words, we are not THE solution; we are part of both the problem and its solution. Take heart.

How Did I Miss it?

Somehow, in the decades of my literate existence, I missed reading Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.Why?  Was it too long? Too old fashioned? Too boring?

Turning my research to Nova Scotia, I was reminded that there was a narrative poem dealing with a portion of the province's history  -- the period, during the 1760s, when the British expelled the Acadians during the French and Indian War.

On the back cover of the book I borrowed from our library is this sentence: "It has been said that a copy of Longfellow's narrative poem Evangeline could be found in every literate household in America in the 19th century."

Sure, the story is melodramatic and improbable. But it is still compelling. And easy to read. And even more powerful if read aloud (my cats seemed to enjoy it).

Listen to this, Longfellow's description of the Acadian village, Grand Pre:
       "Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, --
       Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
       Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?

       Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
       Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,
       Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.

 And the opening lines, which somehow each of us have heard, even if we haven't read the poem:

       This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
       Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
       Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
       Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
       Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring oceans
      Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Ah, this is to be a sad tale. And sad it is. The lovely Evangeline, forced into exile, separated from her true love, Gabriel, wanders for years. When at last they again see each other, he dies in her arms.

And Longfellow ends this epic:

     Still stands the forest primeval, but far away from its shadow,
     Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping  . . .

Then he repeats the melancholy opening words . . .

     While from its rocky caverns the deep-voice, neighboring ocean
     Speaks, and in accents disconsolate, answers the wail of the forest.

Sometimes, old and melodramatic is splendid. (Just ask my kids.)

Memorial #4: Maya Angelou: 1928-2014

Never have I read a more compelling beginning of anything than that in Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”

Never have I read a more powerful end to anything than that to the opening of “Caged Bird”.

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.

       It is an unnecessary insult.

She first exploded into the stratosphere of my consciousness as a prototype of a beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, self-confident woman.

I needed a prototype for self-confidence.

That she was Black was irrelevant.

My own published memoir, Tree Lines (which has now sold about 125 copies) is all about my continuing struggle to become what I am, without apology. To find my own voice. To stand tall (even at 5’ 1”).

I loved my mom but she hunched under the axis of my father. Other female ancestors were stronger, in varying degrees, but I had no real model for self-actualization.

Until I heard Maya Angelou speak. Then read her books. Then saw her on television. Then read her books again.

She was right of course. The displacement of Blacks is an unnecessary insult. So is the displacement of Latino/Hispanics and Muslims and, above all, WOMEN wherever they happen to fall on the racial/religious spectrums.

I rode into hope on the sound waves of her voice.

I thank her for that.

She is missed.

Memorial #3 -- Dr. Vincent Harding (1931 - 2014)

This tribute is late but I think Dr. Vincent Harding would be okay with that. I’ve been distracted from writing by doing things – things for my congregation and things for my community’s Martin Luther King Committee.

Dr. Harding had a long lens of wisdom on how social change happens. He believed America is still a developing nation when it comes to creating a multi-religious, multi-racial democracy.

Harding was a close adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King and wrote King’s famous antiwar speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence." Harding reminded us that “King believed that America had to deal with what he called triple evils: the evil of racism, the evil of materialism and the evils of militarism, and he saw those three very much connected to each other."

He had no patience with those who sugarcoat King’s legacy. “If we lock up Martin Luther King, and make him unavailable for where we are now so we can keep ourselves comfortably distant from the realities he was trying to grapple with, we waste King. All of us are being called beyond those comfortable places . . . That’s the key for the 21st century – to answer the voice within us, as it was within Martin, which says ‘do something for somebody.’ We can learn to play on locked pianos and to dream of worlds that do not yet exist.”

After King was assassinated, Harding became the first director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center and of the Institute of the Black World. He later became a professor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. A fellow professor described him as "the most important civil rights leader not everyone has heard of."

I have heard of Dr. Harding. I met him once at conference on white privilege where I heard him speak. He was a gentle, powerful presence whose very being demonstrated that “We are not alone in this struggle for the re-creation of our own lives and the life of our community.” So if I delayed writing this to remind those governing my community that their mission was to reflect Dr. King’s values – equity and peace and reconciliation – in all public policy and to reach out to marginalized populations, I think Dr. Harding would just smile and say, ‘good start, Mim’.

Memorial #2: Chester Nez, Code Talker

Chester Nez was the last living Code Talker. He died early this month.

I never met Chester Nez but in April 2001 I did meet two other Code Talkers: John Brown, Jr. and Dr. Sam Billison. I was part of a group, Prairyerth UU Fellowship, which was holding an event to honor the Navajo people. It would not have been possible to acknowledge the Navajo’s contributions to humanity without honoring the Code Talkers.

In 1942, Chester Nez and 28 other Navajos were recruited to develop a code. Based on the Navajo language, the code was unbreakable and thus instrumental in the Allied victory in the Pacific during World War II.

To prepare for the 2001 event, I did a lot of reading, visited the Navajo reservation and  and listened to a lot of stories. Here’s what I learned.

The Navajo came from the center of the universe to take care of the land. Some say they arrived between 1300 and 1500. Some say they emerged into this time somewhere near what is now called Bloomfield, New Mexico.

They have lived in the Four Corners region --- the intersection of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado -- for at least 500 years. In some ways they are the newcomers. But they have grown out of this land, saturated it with their prayers and ceremonies. It is the land of their ancestors and it is sacred.

The Navajo reservation is a vast rainbow land lying within the auras of four sacred mountains -- Mount Blanca to the east, Mount Taylor to the south, Humphrey's Peak or Abalone Mountain to the west, and Mount Hesperus to the north. They learned from the people who were already there and began to plant some of their food -- corn, beans, and squash. They learned from the invading Spaniards and began to ride horses and herd sheep. They were warriors. They never settled into villages like their neighbors. They lived instead in family clusters connected by a clan system that gave every child a host of guardians and disciplinarians. And they were connected by stories and ceremony.

Like modern physicists, traditional Navajo believe that the nature of reality is ambiguous. It shifts depending on where we stand, like smoke from a sacred fire. It is difficult to maintain a balance in this kind of world. Yet balance and harmony is the goal towards which Navajo strive, in everything they do, every day, weaving their lives onto a fine-spun warp of tradition.

Theirs is an organic response to Life that enables them to function at multidimensional levels. They have a different kind of consciousness. They understand Earth language and breathe in sync with their four sacred mountains. For them, people are neither more nor less important than an antelope, sunbeam or rock. Mountains and mesas are living things, creations that nurture creation, that hold wisdom and rain and life itself.

When the Navajo become off balance, knocked off the path by the dominant culture or their own human nature, complex and powerful ceremonies draw them back. In the sacred hogan, sand paintings, prayer sticks, and song pull in the power of ancient beings. Words found only in the Navajo language are strung into chants that can last for days. Surrounded by people who care and forces we cannot imagine, their balance is restored.

Many other forces -- Spaniards, white settlers, missionaries, government and corporations -- have battered the Navajo heritage. In 1863, they were forced off their land and marched to a prison camp, returning five years later to a ruined land. In some ways, their Long Walk has never ended. Although now the Navajo language is again taught to children, whole generations were forbidden its use. Even today, families are split, the old ways threatened. And the land itself is cracked open and sucked dry.

It is probably not possible for us to learn and understand the history, cosmology and current reality of the Navajo -- the Dineh -- the People. But we can try. Theirs is a heritage from which we can learn. Our own future lies in that learning.

Memorial #1: Dr. Ciro de Quadros

With apologies for the gap in posts, I now resume with memorials to four people who died this Spring, each of whom touched my life in some way.

I’ll begin with Dr. Ciro de Quadros. Why more people do not know of him is baffling. This handsome, dynamic man was head of the Pan American Health Organization when the organization I worked for, Rotary International (RI), decided to help the world eradicate polio. In the 70s and 80s polio was crippling some 1,000 children every day.

Dr. de Quadros was a member of the Order of the Bifurcated Needle, awarded by the World Health Organization’s Dr. D.A. Henderson to the international team instrumental in eradicating smallpox in 1977. [A two-pronged or bifurcated needle was what was used to administer smallpox vaccine.] Dr. de Quadros had led the fight against smallpox in Ethiopia, delivering protection in the midst of chaos and conflict.

When I joined the RI staff (in 1979) the organization had just decided to support a global effort to help eradicate polio. The organization was going to raise the money and enlist its vast network of volunteers to wipe out a major crippler and sometimes killer of children. Dr. de Quadros was head of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) – an obvious partner for RI’s efforts. He led one of history’s boldest public health efforts in which teams of health workers, often with the assistance of local Rotary volunteers, worked to immunize the children of the Western Hemisphere.

In 1994, I was in PAHO’s Washington, D.C. headquarters when its local and regional staff waited in the auditorium for the report from the commission accessing the effort. All through the introductions it seemed as though no one in the audience was breathing.

Then it came. The official declaration. Polio had been eradicated in the Western Hemisphere. And those who had worked, almost literally, in the trenches of the effort, and those who supported them from the offices at home exploded in shared jubilation.

In his ceaseless efforts to enlist support for immunization, Dr. de Quadros often came to RI’s headquarters and invited staff to PAHO’s offices. Collaboration was a keynote of his style. He invited me to a PAHO meeting in Mexico City to help PAHO staff publicize immunization efforts and, later, I lobbied for his participation in the 1991 RI convention in Mexico City. However small my efforts, I believe they helped.

And one of my great rewards was the privilege of working (however tangentially) with one of the world’s heroes, Dr. Ciro de Quadros.

He is missed but now immortal.

 

Mountain Gifts

It never fails. When I take the time to drive up the road into Rocky Mountain National Park, I always encounter beauty and creatures that restore my soul.

... especially when I go with a good friend

who is as enchanted as I am

 

 

by our companions on this planet