May 1
Yesterday was the anniversary of my father’s death, by the “regular” calendar. I do observe the yahrzeit by the Hebrew calendar, but the American date is the one my heart observes. Some years, only a few memories waft by. But this year, I missed him. It’s odd, really: what happened was that I felt his presence more and that made me miss him a lot.
I think I somehow commingled memories I have of my father and ones I have of my mother. Because he died when I was nine and she lived till I was eighteen, he is mostly a made-up figure to me, while I knew her intimately and as “really” as one can know a mother whom one loves and loses too young.
In the last ten days or so, working on my “moth” presentation for Barnard reunion, has brought her repeatedly to mind. My presentation is “about” Miss Colie, but there’s no remembering her without remembering my mother, too. How self-conscious I was about her coming to school on parents’ day–because she was older than the other mothers. I never did get used to that, from the earliest school days, that she was always the oldest mother. I have a number of friends who have given birth in their forties–it’s become commonplace–but when my mother had me at forty-three, it was not in the least commonplace. (More than likely, I was a “mistake.” But I am certain that, if I was a mistake, my mother never regretted having me. In the years after my father died, I was the very reason she lived another day.) Last week, as I remembered with appropriate shame my reservations about her visit to my Barnard classes, I also remembered vividly how Miss Colie, my freshman English teacher, was taken with her, how they ended up talking so long that other mothers stopped waiting their turn and left.
What I remember myself most vividly, besides my mother’s excellent carriage, was her willingness to answer my questions, my endless questions. To this day, when I hear a friend say to a child or grandchild “Because” as the sole answer to any question, I cringe. “Because” wasn’t in my mother’s lexicon.
Of course that means she’s to blame for my unquenchable questioning even now. It’s not a lust for the “right answer”–I’m pretty sure it’s never that–but, rather, a hunger to know what someone else thinks, especially someone who knows more than I do about the subject at hand. So I can take that answer and look at it. Think about it. See how it fits in with other pieces of the puzzle I’m continually working on in my head.
Every answer is a potential blessing.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Nobody's God
April 17
I broke my once-a-week posting promise. I hate breaking a promise, including one to myself. The promise to write a post every week was made both to myself and to anyone who reads these. So: to you and to me, I’m sorry.
I didn’t write a post last week because I was busy writing something else–and then beginning to turn it into a performance piece. Here’s what happened.
A couple of months ago, on impulse I submitted a synopsis about a Barnard teacher of mine for a “Moth” presentation scheduled during my upcoming reunion. "The Moth,” as some of you likely know, is a non-profit whose mission is to create storytelling productions in varioud settings. The subject for ours is: someone who was a “Mentor, Muse, or Monster” during our college years. Rosalie Colie was all three to me at Barnard In the long run, she probably had more to do with my becoming a writer than anyone.
On a new impulse, I would like to share her with anyone who reads this post. I’m still working with the producer on what I will present during reunion, but in the final version Miss Colie won’t be different–and neither will I. Here’s where we are now:
I went to a terrific high school. The only hitch was, academic subjects were just stuff you had to get through so you could get on with whatever you came to Performing Arts to perform.
Somehow, there I was at Barnard and in Miss Rosalie Colie’s freshman English class–surrounded –and surrounded is definitely how I felt--by girls who’d attended notoriously good high schools in Brooklyn. Those girls really scared me, towering academic redwoods. The day we got our first test back from Miss Colie, I knew everyone but me would get a good mark. I got a C-minus. No surprise. A girl behind me spoke out. You can’t give me a C-minus—I had a 98.6 average. Wild with relief, I blurted out, I thought 98.6 was temperature.
Mind you, I wasn’t giddy over having company for my own C-minus. Keeping my scholarship was critical. I had to get good grades–or goodbye Barnard.
Next day, I moved up to the front row, put on blinders, paid attention only to what was being said in the front of the room, and for the first time in my life put my mind to work.
Parents’ day arrived. I adored my mother. She was loving, giving, permissive, elegant, and well-educated–she’d earned a doctorate in Russian literature at the University of Kiev. But she was old–sixty that year. And despite her excellent English, she still had a Russian accent. After Miss Colie’s class, she joined the line to speak with Miss Colie. The line moved quickly. Her turn came. The line stopped moving. I watched mesmerized as she and Miss Colie became engrossed in conversation. I had to leave–or miss my next class. That evening, my mother told me Miss Colie was very smart for such a young woman. The next day Miss Colie took me aside to say that my mother was a fascinating woman. Gotcha, Toby.
We had to go to Miss Colie’s office to reclaim our graded papers. About two months into the semester, when I turned up to get a paper on Pere Goriot–yes, I remember which paper it was–I saw at once the upper-right hand corner was empty. There was no grade. Not a good sign. Miss Colie told me to sit. Another not-good sign. I sat. Slowly, she set down a “B,” then added a period. I don’t know how many straight-up B’s Miss Colie was doling out by then, but my guess is, not many. I do know that I saved bus fare home–I floated all the way to Washington Heights.
Miss Colie decided I might be worth mentoring. She gave me a list of books, handwritten on legal-size yellow paper. You need to know these, she said. By then I had a major crush–not on her, on her mind. I vowed silently to read them all–that weekend. A month later, Miss Colie said that if I worked very very hard I might one day write a “real book.” It wasn’t a compliment, it was a challenge. .
That’s how Miss Colie mentored-- through challenging. Meet one challenge, there’d be another. I didn’t have time or energy to resent it.
After Christmas break, Miss Colie was gone. GONE. We were told only that she was ill and we could not contact her. With her physical absence she turned from mentor to muse. Now I pushed me. The level of effort she demanded, I now commanded myself to make. I so wanted her to know how hard I was working anyway. Finally, it came to me how to let her know. If I could somehow win the Gildersleeve Prize, her best friend who also taught at Barnard, would tell her. What a good get-well card winning would make. But could I? There were all those girls-the redwoods. Don’t think about them. Work. I did, and how. And I won the Gildersleeve Prize. A week later, I received a thank you note from Miss Colie.
Sophomore year she was back. Illness had not softened her. Towards me, she was tougher than ever. That spring, she assigned a sonnet to analyze. I don’t like analyzing poetry, gave the task short shrift. When I went to pick up my paper, she literally tossed it across her desk at me. If this was anyone else’s, I’d give it an F, she said. I wish I did not remember this part but I do. I said, So give me an F. She shook her head. Spring break is coming up. You will analyze five sonnets. Have the papers on my desk the day we get back. I did it. For 10 days, I breathed sonnets. I did figure out how to get something out of analyzing a sonnet. But I felt she’d pushed me too hard this time. She probably felt she shouldn’t have had to. For the rest of the semester we spoke in extremely short sentences.
That summer, my mother died. And Barnard, believing in in loco parentis, found a dorm room for me. I was still unpacking my books when I heard scurrying in the hallway and a single sharp knock on my door. Without waiting for a Come in., she did. Wordlessly she looked me over. Then she said, You’re not wearing black. Good! Then: There’s a faculty tea across the street and you’re coming with me. Not a word about our mutual silence of the spring, or what a terrible summer I must have had. She was there, would be there. Pushing hard, she’d have my back. I left the pile of books unshelved and went off with her to tea.
I broke my once-a-week posting promise. I hate breaking a promise, including one to myself. The promise to write a post every week was made both to myself and to anyone who reads these. So: to you and to me, I’m sorry.
I didn’t write a post last week because I was busy writing something else–and then beginning to turn it into a performance piece. Here’s what happened.
A couple of months ago, on impulse I submitted a synopsis about a Barnard teacher of mine for a “Moth” presentation scheduled during my upcoming reunion. "The Moth,” as some of you likely know, is a non-profit whose mission is to create storytelling productions in varioud settings. The subject for ours is: someone who was a “Mentor, Muse, or Monster” during our college years. Rosalie Colie was all three to me at Barnard In the long run, she probably had more to do with my becoming a writer than anyone.
On a new impulse, I would like to share her with anyone who reads this post. I’m still working with the producer on what I will present during reunion, but in the final version Miss Colie won’t be different–and neither will I. Here’s where we are now:
I went to a terrific high school. The only hitch was, academic subjects were just stuff you had to get through so you could get on with whatever you came to Performing Arts to perform.
Somehow, there I was at Barnard and in Miss Rosalie Colie’s freshman English class–surrounded –and surrounded is definitely how I felt--by girls who’d attended notoriously good high schools in Brooklyn. Those girls really scared me, towering academic redwoods. The day we got our first test back from Miss Colie, I knew everyone but me would get a good mark. I got a C-minus. No surprise. A girl behind me spoke out. You can’t give me a C-minus—I had a 98.6 average. Wild with relief, I blurted out, I thought 98.6 was temperature.
Mind you, I wasn’t giddy over having company for my own C-minus. Keeping my scholarship was critical. I had to get good grades–or goodbye Barnard.
Next day, I moved up to the front row, put on blinders, paid attention only to what was being said in the front of the room, and for the first time in my life put my mind to work.
Parents’ day arrived. I adored my mother. She was loving, giving, permissive, elegant, and well-educated–she’d earned a doctorate in Russian literature at the University of Kiev. But she was old–sixty that year. And despite her excellent English, she still had a Russian accent. After Miss Colie’s class, she joined the line to speak with Miss Colie. The line moved quickly. Her turn came. The line stopped moving. I watched mesmerized as she and Miss Colie became engrossed in conversation. I had to leave–or miss my next class. That evening, my mother told me Miss Colie was very smart for such a young woman. The next day Miss Colie took me aside to say that my mother was a fascinating woman. Gotcha, Toby.
We had to go to Miss Colie’s office to reclaim our graded papers. About two months into the semester, when I turned up to get a paper on Pere Goriot–yes, I remember which paper it was–I saw at once the upper-right hand corner was empty. There was no grade. Not a good sign. Miss Colie told me to sit. Another not-good sign. I sat. Slowly, she set down a “B,” then added a period. I don’t know how many straight-up B’s Miss Colie was doling out by then, but my guess is, not many. I do know that I saved bus fare home–I floated all the way to Washington Heights.
Miss Colie decided I might be worth mentoring. She gave me a list of books, handwritten on legal-size yellow paper. You need to know these, she said. By then I had a major crush–not on her, on her mind. I vowed silently to read them all–that weekend. A month later, Miss Colie said that if I worked very very hard I might one day write a “real book.” It wasn’t a compliment, it was a challenge. .
That’s how Miss Colie mentored-- through challenging. Meet one challenge, there’d be another. I didn’t have time or energy to resent it.
After Christmas break, Miss Colie was gone. GONE. We were told only that she was ill and we could not contact her. With her physical absence she turned from mentor to muse. Now I pushed me. The level of effort she demanded, I now commanded myself to make. I so wanted her to know how hard I was working anyway. Finally, it came to me how to let her know. If I could somehow win the Gildersleeve Prize, her best friend who also taught at Barnard, would tell her. What a good get-well card winning would make. But could I? There were all those girls-the redwoods. Don’t think about them. Work. I did, and how. And I won the Gildersleeve Prize. A week later, I received a thank you note from Miss Colie.
Sophomore year she was back. Illness had not softened her. Towards me, she was tougher than ever. That spring, she assigned a sonnet to analyze. I don’t like analyzing poetry, gave the task short shrift. When I went to pick up my paper, she literally tossed it across her desk at me. If this was anyone else’s, I’d give it an F, she said. I wish I did not remember this part but I do. I said, So give me an F. She shook her head. Spring break is coming up. You will analyze five sonnets. Have the papers on my desk the day we get back. I did it. For 10 days, I breathed sonnets. I did figure out how to get something out of analyzing a sonnet. But I felt she’d pushed me too hard this time. She probably felt she shouldn’t have had to. For the rest of the semester we spoke in extremely short sentences.
That summer, my mother died. And Barnard, believing in in loco parentis, found a dorm room for me. I was still unpacking my books when I heard scurrying in the hallway and a single sharp knock on my door. Without waiting for a Come in., she did. Wordlessly she looked me over. Then she said, You’re not wearing black. Good! Then: There’s a faculty tea across the street and you’re coming with me. Not a word about our mutual silence of the spring, or what a terrible summer I must have had. She was there, would be there. Pushing hard, she’d have my back. I left the pile of books unshelved and went off with her to tea.
Monday, April 4, 2011
nobodysgod
April 4
Nobodys God
Faith is still much on my mind. Partly because over the past few days I’ve had the privilege to hear a few people who are not believers speak up about their non-belief. I say "privilege" because to my mind it’s a gift when anyone shares anything that personal. I happen to feel a connection to the non-believers I know, because I remember myself as a non-believer. Many memories get gauzy over time, but for me that one hasn’t. After I came to believe, I vowed not to forget what I thought and felt before that. What I was like.
I’m reminded that when I was a faculty wife, a truly charming young man named Bobby was very surprised to discover I’d never smoked pot. Indeed, my not having tried marijuana baffled him. It didn’t fit his image of me. He never said, but I think he liked my general openness. In any case, every couple of weeks he’d turn up at my kitchen door to offer me increasingly fancy pot. By then of course I had to say no, even if I’d wanted to try it. One day about three months into this dance of ours, he showed up to tell me he would no longer be trying to turn me on. How could I not ask why? Because, he said, I figured out, you’d be exactly the same. He had this triumphant grin on his face, having solved the mystery. I count "you’d be exactly the same" the best compliment I got during my year and seven months in Hamilton, New York.
I still never have tried pot. Would I be the same? I’ll never know. I do know that when faith came to me, when God entered my life–and stayed–I did stay pretty much the same. I found God challenging rather than comforting. And having faith freed me to do good things that had beforehand seemed potentially embarrassing or otherwise risky. But otherwise, I was the same Toby.
Now, four decades later, I still find faith to be a challenge. And to bolster my courage. It’s still not a comfort, or only very very rarely. And it is definitely not easy: not easy to explain; not easy to surrender to; not easy to live with, day by day.
Even four decades ago, when my faith was brand shining new, I sensed that. And wrote:
On the Nature of Faith
Have faith.
Have half of this peach.
Have fun at the beach.
Have faith.
Poor as those four lines are as verse, I stand by them.
Nobodys God
Faith is still much on my mind. Partly because over the past few days I’ve had the privilege to hear a few people who are not believers speak up about their non-belief. I say "privilege" because to my mind it’s a gift when anyone shares anything that personal. I happen to feel a connection to the non-believers I know, because I remember myself as a non-believer. Many memories get gauzy over time, but for me that one hasn’t. After I came to believe, I vowed not to forget what I thought and felt before that. What I was like.
I’m reminded that when I was a faculty wife, a truly charming young man named Bobby was very surprised to discover I’d never smoked pot. Indeed, my not having tried marijuana baffled him. It didn’t fit his image of me. He never said, but I think he liked my general openness. In any case, every couple of weeks he’d turn up at my kitchen door to offer me increasingly fancy pot. By then of course I had to say no, even if I’d wanted to try it. One day about three months into this dance of ours, he showed up to tell me he would no longer be trying to turn me on. How could I not ask why? Because, he said, I figured out, you’d be exactly the same. He had this triumphant grin on his face, having solved the mystery. I count "you’d be exactly the same" the best compliment I got during my year and seven months in Hamilton, New York.
I still never have tried pot. Would I be the same? I’ll never know. I do know that when faith came to me, when God entered my life–and stayed–I did stay pretty much the same. I found God challenging rather than comforting. And having faith freed me to do good things that had beforehand seemed potentially embarrassing or otherwise risky. But otherwise, I was the same Toby.
Now, four decades later, I still find faith to be a challenge. And to bolster my courage. It’s still not a comfort, or only very very rarely. And it is definitely not easy: not easy to explain; not easy to surrender to; not easy to live with, day by day.
Even four decades ago, when my faith was brand shining new, I sensed that. And wrote:
On the Nature of Faith
Have faith.
Have half of this peach.
Have fun at the beach.
Have faith.
Poor as those four lines are as verse, I stand by them.
Friday, March 25, 2011
nobodysgod
I just came across a piece I wrote some time ago about the "American dream." I have no idea what the occasion was, but it doesn’t take a huge incentive to get me talking about this country. I’ve got a love for America that I suspect I was fed with my mother’s milk, because to both of my parents this was the Promised Land.
Given that, what I said there about the "American Dream" didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was how intimately my thoughts about making that dream a reality in one’s life relate to another cherished part of my life. I’m talking about faith.
In the piece that fortuitously came into my hands, I wrote that the American Dream "is not something you have at night, it’s something you do, day by day." That could well serve–and serve well–as a description of how I think about faith. How I experience it.
To me, faith, like the American Dream, isn’t something you have. It’s something you do. That right, day by day. As the American Dream requires rigorous effort, so does faith. At the outset, for both, we can, if we’re inclined to be attentive to the world around us, find. . ideas. . .people...actions. Little pieces that we can work with, which may turn out to connect readily–or with sweat-producing effort–to each other. Eventually, perhaps, to shape into a way of life that is rich with possible joy It can’t happen overnight–obviously–because, as I said, it is not something that happens when you’re asleep. So it takes wakefulness, work, time.
Which is why, understandably, for almost all of us, there is a sporadic temptation to give up on the American dream–or on faith. The daily effort required turns out to be more than we think we can bear–or, certainly, feel like putting out when the outcome isn’t even guaranteed. We decide to give up on the dream, or on faith, and move on. But dreams and faith can both be stubborn. You may let go of them, but they may not let go of you. They may insist on your attention. And, eventually, that you renew your intention to make them come to life.
My folks willingly–enthusiastically–took on the hard work of making the American dream a reality in their lives. Once my father thought he came this close–and it collapsed on them. But, painfully slowly, my mother and father emerged from the rubble and tried again. And again. They never brought the whole dream to life, but neither did they give up trying. And, it seems to me, that the trying itself may have tasted to them a lot like the dream fulfilled would have. After all, it’s called the American Dream because it could only happen here. Here, the place they called, without irony, the Promised Land.
With faith, it seems to work something like this. If–when–we give up on it, faith seems to drift easily away, in no time becomes quite distant. And yet, it can return at any time, tap us on the shoulder, or kick us in the butt–announce itself as present. Let us know, in no uncertain terms, I may be small, but I’m here. And you really ought to consider letting me into your life again.
Building a life where faith is the everyday reality can be as hard as my parents’ experience of America. But–no, and–every bit as fulfilling.
Truth is, I’m counting on it.
Given that, what I said there about the "American Dream" didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was how intimately my thoughts about making that dream a reality in one’s life relate to another cherished part of my life. I’m talking about faith.
In the piece that fortuitously came into my hands, I wrote that the American Dream "is not something you have at night, it’s something you do, day by day." That could well serve–and serve well–as a description of how I think about faith. How I experience it.
To me, faith, like the American Dream, isn’t something you have. It’s something you do. That right, day by day. As the American Dream requires rigorous effort, so does faith. At the outset, for both, we can, if we’re inclined to be attentive to the world around us, find. . ideas. . .people...actions. Little pieces that we can work with, which may turn out to connect readily–or with sweat-producing effort–to each other. Eventually, perhaps, to shape into a way of life that is rich with possible joy It can’t happen overnight–obviously–because, as I said, it is not something that happens when you’re asleep. So it takes wakefulness, work, time.
Which is why, understandably, for almost all of us, there is a sporadic temptation to give up on the American dream–or on faith. The daily effort required turns out to be more than we think we can bear–or, certainly, feel like putting out when the outcome isn’t even guaranteed. We decide to give up on the dream, or on faith, and move on. But dreams and faith can both be stubborn. You may let go of them, but they may not let go of you. They may insist on your attention. And, eventually, that you renew your intention to make them come to life.
My folks willingly–enthusiastically–took on the hard work of making the American dream a reality in their lives. Once my father thought he came this close–and it collapsed on them. But, painfully slowly, my mother and father emerged from the rubble and tried again. And again. They never brought the whole dream to life, but neither did they give up trying. And, it seems to me, that the trying itself may have tasted to them a lot like the dream fulfilled would have. After all, it’s called the American Dream because it could only happen here. Here, the place they called, without irony, the Promised Land.
With faith, it seems to work something like this. If–when–we give up on it, faith seems to drift easily away, in no time becomes quite distant. And yet, it can return at any time, tap us on the shoulder, or kick us in the butt–announce itself as present. Let us know, in no uncertain terms, I may be small, but I’m here. And you really ought to consider letting me into your life again.
Building a life where faith is the everyday reality can be as hard as my parents’ experience of America. But–no, and–every bit as fulfilling.
Truth is, I’m counting on it.
Friday, March 18, 2011
nobodysgod
In my last post, I said that I saw prayer as a way of keeping in touch with God. I think that phrase could use some clarifying.
You know how some people "keep in touch" by sending one another an annual holiday card? Or sending an annual family "catch-up" letter? My idea of keeping in touch is definitely not like that. To me "keeping in touch" means maintaining–sustaining–a relationship in an everyday way. Being present to the relationship in an ongoing way. Sometimes intimately, sometimes with simply an awareness that it’s there, a part of your life.
And with any other good mutual relationship, when you really need to know it’s there. . . you know it’s there. You don’t need to squander time or energy "catching up" before you bring up what’s troubling your mind or
heart or spirit. Or are facing a terrible event.
My mother’s dying night was like that for me. Our relationship was "clean"–there was nothing to bring out or up which had been shoved under the rug, so to speak. There was no need to tidy up our relationship. We had no loose ends to try to tie up. The only thing I had left to tell her was that I loved her, which I said many times that night. Words said not to inform, but in an attempt to be present to her even as she became less and less present to me. I was not saying it in hopes she would tell me she loved me too, because I knew that as surely as she knew I loved her. In that, as in every other way, it was our habit to keep in touch. Thankfully, that was our reality, because, well before morning, she was too far away to speak.
Maybe that’s when I learned the value of always keeping in touch with those who are important to you. Whom you love. I am pretty sure it’s why I do my best now to keep in touch with God–Whom I didn’t know back then. In the years since He came into my life, my wish is to be as present to Him as He is to me has only grown. So that when He needs me to be truly kind to someone, I will be ready to hear that from Him. And when I am impelled to alert Him to some emergency in my life or the life of a friend, He doesn’t dismiss my prayer with some divine version of "I know, I know," He allows me to think for the moment that He had to hear it from me. When life rebounds to normality, I can admit to both of us that I knew He knew what was going on, and was "on" it. I just had to remind myself of that.
Today, I know the Shekhinah–God’s softer, maternal half–is holding Japanese babies especially close to Her. Against Her very breast. I know She’s with them. Still, I pray for that. It reminds me that I need to keep them close to my heart, too.
You know how some people "keep in touch" by sending one another an annual holiday card? Or sending an annual family "catch-up" letter? My idea of keeping in touch is definitely not like that. To me "keeping in touch" means maintaining–sustaining–a relationship in an everyday way. Being present to the relationship in an ongoing way. Sometimes intimately, sometimes with simply an awareness that it’s there, a part of your life.
And with any other good mutual relationship, when you really need to know it’s there. . . you know it’s there. You don’t need to squander time or energy "catching up" before you bring up what’s troubling your mind or
heart or spirit. Or are facing a terrible event.
My mother’s dying night was like that for me. Our relationship was "clean"–there was nothing to bring out or up which had been shoved under the rug, so to speak. There was no need to tidy up our relationship. We had no loose ends to try to tie up. The only thing I had left to tell her was that I loved her, which I said many times that night. Words said not to inform, but in an attempt to be present to her even as she became less and less present to me. I was not saying it in hopes she would tell me she loved me too, because I knew that as surely as she knew I loved her. In that, as in every other way, it was our habit to keep in touch. Thankfully, that was our reality, because, well before morning, she was too far away to speak.
Maybe that’s when I learned the value of always keeping in touch with those who are important to you. Whom you love. I am pretty sure it’s why I do my best now to keep in touch with God–Whom I didn’t know back then. In the years since He came into my life, my wish is to be as present to Him as He is to me has only grown. So that when He needs me to be truly kind to someone, I will be ready to hear that from Him. And when I am impelled to alert Him to some emergency in my life or the life of a friend, He doesn’t dismiss my prayer with some divine version of "I know, I know," He allows me to think for the moment that He had to hear it from me. When life rebounds to normality, I can admit to both of us that I knew He knew what was going on, and was "on" it. I just had to remind myself of that.
Today, I know the Shekhinah–God’s softer, maternal half–is holding Japanese babies especially close to Her. Against Her very breast. I know She’s with them. Still, I pray for that. It reminds me that I need to keep them close to my heart, too.
Monday, March 14, 2011
nobodysgod
I didn't write anything to post last week because, when life piles on too much too quickly, I try mightily to put first things first. The past week was one of those. And while keeping to my blogging schedule is high on my to-do list, this week nothing on that list--including the earthquake--outranked one wholly unexpected event close to home. The twenty-six year-old nephew of a very good friend had a heart attack Tuesday, a whopper of one. I watched the earthquake on television, and the tsunami, and the fires and hoped I cared enough, but was pretty sure I fell short. On Friday, my friend's nephew underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Late Friday night, I heard: he came through the surgery well--which sounds as though he passed some difficult graduate school admissions exam. But I heard through the stock medicalese that it was time to take a deep breath of relief--and let gratitude in.
Over the weekend, morning by evening, day by day, I heard that a tube had been removed, he was sitting up, yet another tube was removed, he walked a bit in the hospital corridor, he ate something. I did not give short shrift to any report, knowing that bit by bit is precisely how one reclaims a life. I have been told, and it makes sense, that from this point on in his recovery, being young will help. But wasn't he too young to need such radical intervention--to need to reclaim his life?
The television chides me: look again at the children of the earthquake, the infants whose mothers were carried off by the tsunami or fathers burned by fire--the young of Japan whose fight to reclaim a life will be far, far slower, if it happens at all.
My heart takes over chiding me. For my friend's nephew, I did what I could. All I could. I prayed and prayed and prayed. So now, while I continue to pray for his full recovery, I need to make space inside me to pray for those Japanese children. And the old there. And those in the middle. All who have survived. And those who have not.
I don't know what prayer does, other than keep me centered and relatively sane. But I believe it does more. I believe it reminds God that I know He is there. And I'm counting on Him to do what He can. Just as, I believe, He counts on me to do my part, which is to pray. To keep in touch.
Please note: Whenever I come to a place where it is appropriate to use a pronoun rather than "God," I use the male pronoun. In numerous Jewish settings, including my own synagogue, to avoid using the male pronoun, "God" is repeated. Sometimes, a descriptive phrase-name (such as "The Ineffable") is substituted for "God." I am averse to either method of avoiding the use of the male pronoun. The English language includes pronouns for a reason. They allow language to be fluid. That is not a small matter to me, both as a wirter and lover of language. But if I take a somewhat narrow view of usage, my view of God is not narrow. Both my mind and spirit know that God is not male exclusively. Both my mind and spirit know God as both male and female. I hope that my persistence in using the out-of-favor male pronoun will not prove an insuperable obstacle to your reading this blog. If you want to argue about it, I'm open--write me here or on my Facebook page.
Over the weekend, morning by evening, day by day, I heard that a tube had been removed, he was sitting up, yet another tube was removed, he walked a bit in the hospital corridor, he ate something. I did not give short shrift to any report, knowing that bit by bit is precisely how one reclaims a life. I have been told, and it makes sense, that from this point on in his recovery, being young will help. But wasn't he too young to need such radical intervention--to need to reclaim his life?
The television chides me: look again at the children of the earthquake, the infants whose mothers were carried off by the tsunami or fathers burned by fire--the young of Japan whose fight to reclaim a life will be far, far slower, if it happens at all.
My heart takes over chiding me. For my friend's nephew, I did what I could. All I could. I prayed and prayed and prayed. So now, while I continue to pray for his full recovery, I need to make space inside me to pray for those Japanese children. And the old there. And those in the middle. All who have survived. And those who have not.
I don't know what prayer does, other than keep me centered and relatively sane. But I believe it does more. I believe it reminds God that I know He is there. And I'm counting on Him to do what He can. Just as, I believe, He counts on me to do my part, which is to pray. To keep in touch.
Please note: Whenever I come to a place where it is appropriate to use a pronoun rather than "God," I use the male pronoun. In numerous Jewish settings, including my own synagogue, to avoid using the male pronoun, "God" is repeated. Sometimes, a descriptive phrase-name (such as "The Ineffable") is substituted for "God." I am averse to either method of avoiding the use of the male pronoun. The English language includes pronouns for a reason. They allow language to be fluid. That is not a small matter to me, both as a wirter and lover of language. But if I take a somewhat narrow view of usage, my view of God is not narrow. Both my mind and spirit know that God is not male exclusively. Both my mind and spirit know God as both male and female. I hope that my persistence in using the out-of-favor male pronoun will not prove an insuperable obstacle to your reading this blog. If you want to argue about it, I'm open--write me here or on my Facebook page.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
All my adult life, I have been a supporter of the right to free speech. How could I not be, when my parents came here from a country where speaking freely could cost you your life? Even when the First Amendment permits hate-filled people to vent their hatred, I know that their rights are important to protect. But this week, my belief in the sanctity–in the beauty–of the First Amendment was tested. And I flunked the test.
This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted 8-1 that the morally hideous signs held aloft by the Phelps family outside the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder were protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The majority decision said that, because the Phelps family’s demonstration was "political, public and peaceable," it did not fall outside the First Amendment’s protection. Sympathy for the grieving Snyder family was noted, but irrelevant.
I have no doubt that was a correct interpretation. But to be correct is not the same thing as being right. And something about that ruling didn’t feel right to me. I wondered how it felt to God, Whom the Phelpses’ placards listed as a supporter.
Then I remembered a question that is–or ought to be–part of our national memory. During the Army-McCarthy hearings, sixty years ago–miraculously televised by ABC–Senator Joseph McCarthy went after a young lawyer named Fred Fisher. Fisher wasn’t even present, because Mr. Welch, Special Counsel to the Army, had decided not to use Fisher's services when the young man admitted that he had as a still younger man belonged to the Lawyers Guild which apparently had a Communist connection. Despite the fact that, due to Mr. Welch’s caution, Fred Fisher was not in any way involved in the hearings, Senator McCarthy, out for blood, brought up Fisher’s youthful mistake. He chewed on it and chewed on it, would not let it go. Finally, in a voice that can never be forgotten by anyone who heard it, Mr. Welch said to Senator McCarthy, "Have you no decency sir, at long last?"
Why did the Supreme Court ruling bring to my mind the increasingly heated exchange between Joseph Welch and Senator McCarthy? The connection is found in Welch’s use of the word "decency." The way Phelps and his feral family behaved may have been constitutional, but it wasn’t decent.
In this country, most of us hold dissent very high among our democracy’s virtues. I’ve read that the 8-1 decision this week may help the cause of free speech, and some say that there’s never too high a price for that. Maybe. But should not dissent be leavened with humanity? With, yes, decency? With enough simple decency to allow a fallen marine’s family to conduct his funeral service in peace?
This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted 8-1 that the morally hideous signs held aloft by the Phelps family outside the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder were protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The majority decision said that, because the Phelps family’s demonstration was "political, public and peaceable," it did not fall outside the First Amendment’s protection. Sympathy for the grieving Snyder family was noted, but irrelevant.
I have no doubt that was a correct interpretation. But to be correct is not the same thing as being right. And something about that ruling didn’t feel right to me. I wondered how it felt to God, Whom the Phelpses’ placards listed as a supporter.
Then I remembered a question that is–or ought to be–part of our national memory. During the Army-McCarthy hearings, sixty years ago–miraculously televised by ABC–Senator Joseph McCarthy went after a young lawyer named Fred Fisher. Fisher wasn’t even present, because Mr. Welch, Special Counsel to the Army, had decided not to use Fisher's services when the young man admitted that he had as a still younger man belonged to the Lawyers Guild which apparently had a Communist connection. Despite the fact that, due to Mr. Welch’s caution, Fred Fisher was not in any way involved in the hearings, Senator McCarthy, out for blood, brought up Fisher’s youthful mistake. He chewed on it and chewed on it, would not let it go. Finally, in a voice that can never be forgotten by anyone who heard it, Mr. Welch said to Senator McCarthy, "Have you no decency sir, at long last?"
Why did the Supreme Court ruling bring to my mind the increasingly heated exchange between Joseph Welch and Senator McCarthy? The connection is found in Welch’s use of the word "decency." The way Phelps and his feral family behaved may have been constitutional, but it wasn’t decent.
In this country, most of us hold dissent very high among our democracy’s virtues. I’ve read that the 8-1 decision this week may help the cause of free speech, and some say that there’s never too high a price for that. Maybe. But should not dissent be leavened with humanity? With, yes, decency? With enough simple decency to allow a fallen marine’s family to conduct his funeral service in peace?
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