The Sound of Music

My sister Carol posted a link to a Sound of Music dance performance in an Antwerp train station on her Facebook, and watching it made me so happy I started crying.

I love the surprise and delight on the faces of the people at the train station--to have stumbled into such a wonderfully well-conceived work of art and dance on their way to catch a train. What a gift!

I love that the dancers are all different ages, with tons of children mixed in. Then there is the clever simplicity of the choreography -- especially when they Vogue to "La, a note to follow Sol." So good!

But the main thing, I think, is just that these people are dancing, in public, just for fun. When was the last time I did something beautiful and joyful just for the sheer fun of it? Even with my children, I'm so often playing for a few minutes "before" -- "we can play for a few minutes and then we need to go to the grocery," I'll tell them. Being home with them this summer, I realize how hard it is for me to just enjoy the moment, much less do something creative and art-filled just because.

I'm reading a book about what happens in the rest of your life after a mystical experience or experience of awakening -- Jack Kornfield's After the Ecstasy, The Laundry. He prefaces one of the chapters with this quote:

A young monk asked the Master:
"How can I ever get emancipated?"
The Master replied:
"Who has ever put you in bondage?"

For me, the answer is, "I have." My ideas about how I should be, or what's the right thing to do, or how other people should treat me--these ideas have not always been helpful. Over many years of growing up and young adulthood, I've gotten in my own way and limited my own possibilities. When the truth is, every day is a new day.

It's not a new idea... but still, a new day!

I remember my father quoting Blake at my sister's wedding: "He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity's sunrise."

To kiss joy as it flies. Not holding onto the moment--grasping after love and happiness--but simply giving it a kiss as it flies by.

I've lately been telling people that I figured out the secret to happiness is, "be happy." I don't always practice this rule, but I do hope I can find my Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do.

Safe Neighborhoods

My family has moved to Cambridgeport, a neighborhood in Cambridge near Central Square. Our apartment is nice, newer than many, small, and just about right. Some of our neighbors are young single people but many are families, some are retired.

There's a lady across the street who I hear shouting nonsense sometimes, and I think she's probably imagining people are talking to her. There are children who ride bikes and scooters in the nicely maintained courtyards -- we've met some of them. Denalise, Isabella, Ahmed & Nora, Ting-Ting, Leh-Leh and baby Kai-Kai. I love these children--these city kids who are glad to climb and bike around with my kids.

I broke up a fight between some teenagers the other night -- one told me, "this is just how we work out our problems. It's ok!" as his friend rubbed his nose and caught his breath. Their younger, more responsible-seeming friend had been videotaping, and he encouraged his buddies to cut it out. "I've got little kids, ok? So keep it cool so they don't have to see you fighting," I asked. "Ok," they said, and told me their names when I asked them--names I can't remember, except Eric, with the camera. Good kids, just bored on a summer night.

I love my new community. I love asking someone which way is a particular store and them answering in an unexpected accent. I love the young Ethiopian woman wearing a long headscarf, who rang up new sneakers for Raimi at Payless, asking about our kids' names and ages. I love the store down the block that sells Indian clothes and spices, and the shop nearby that sells gaudy suits and shoes "from Italy." I love meeting my neighbors, who tell me what country they were originally from before I ask. Sweden. Egypt. China. Ethiopia. I wonder if they expect me to believe I'm the one who's "from here" -- me, the person who just moved here from the Midwest, who grew up in an affluent white suburb in Connecticut. If anything, I am the foreigner among the Boston accents and Brazilian cultural centers, the tatooed skateboarders, reggae muscians, barber shops and Middle Eastern restaurants.

I love the Boston accent of my downstairs neighbor. I love to see the way people let their children decorate the doors to their apartments. I even have come to love the sound of a horn honking, announcing that someone has arrived to help the old woman across the street--take her to the grocery store, make sure she's ok. At first I thought it was rude--go ring the bell, I thought. Now I imagine they tolerate and appreciate the relationship, and it is nice to see that an elderly person on my street has someone watching out for her. So I tolerate the horn. I tolerate the cigarette smoke wafting in from a neighbor's balcony, and I tolerate the drum kit I heard someone banging on at 11:45 last night. They stopped, after all, and anyway it was a Saturday night. These are my neighbors.

I didn't grow up with such a rich and diverse neighborhood. I imagine that the neighborhoods I grew up in, the pools I swam in, were a lot like the Pennsylvania pool and community you may have read about, where elementary school children were recently denied access to their contractually-arranged swim schedule on the first day they showed up. Over the phone the pool club was happy to accomodate an extra 65 kids; when those kids appeared in person--and when those kids were African American and Latino--the pool could no longer accomodate them.

Some children heard racist comments from pool members. Chaperones witnessed parents taking their kids out of the pool, leaving to complain to management. One of the children asked their teacher "if I'm too dark to swim there."

The really remarkable thing about this story is not that it happened. What's remarkable is that it was caught and the outcry was so widespread. After major media attention and a federal investigation, the pool club is now claiming it was a safety issue. Isn't it always?

Of course we're not racist, the board members said. We live in a white suburb of a racially divided city. Yes, our membership is all white. We weren't comfortable with these kids coming into the pool--but it was about safety. The pool felt unsafe when these children arrived.

Look. I've got my own baggage and work left to do. I've grown up white and privileged in this racist culture. But I am sick and tired of hearing stories about black children getting told to quiet down, move out, break things up, move along. White people: this is our problem! Racism isn't something that can change unless we want it to. So let's figure our paranoid, stupid, fearful, racist baggage out and address this problem.

When I was growing up, I remember believing a racist story about a peer who was Muslim. I remember him approaching me to tell me that he heard I was repeating this story and that I shouldn't talk about things I know nothing about. I was ashamed, and years later, I am also grateful for his courage to call me out for being so stupid. I remember when a new girl moved to our affluent CT suburb, how there was this buzz and excitement because she was African American... and rich and ultimately very popular. She passed the test... but the test was there. How she dressed, talked. Her light skin, her preppy hair. Several years ago I reminisced about about the lack of racism I'd witnessed in the small town where I went to high school, and my friend from school, who is Colombian-American, asked me if I was serious. Despite growing up in the same town, we lived in different places, it seems.

More recently, when we sold our home to move to Massachusetts, a neighbor told me that another of our neighbors had asked if the people buying the house were white, because, "we've got enough black people on our street."

....

Ten or so years ago, my partner and I decided to remain unmarried in solidarity with same-sex couples who were denied the right to marry under the law. We did not want to belong to the married people's club when so many of our friends and loved ones were denied entrance. In the last few months, we legalized our commitment because I needed health insurance and we were moving to a state where gay marriage is legal. It was a compromise I'm not particularly proud of.

So now I'm thinking about the other clubs I'm a part of and wondering, is there anything we do to get out of this club of whiteness--this place where being white earns my children the right to swim wherever they want to? This place where our children can gather in large numbers without being told the situation has become unsafe?

How can we, a white family, make the world safer for all of our neighbors? How can we make it safe for children on their bikes and children in swimming pools? How can we make sure it's safe for children to be children? Because a world in which 6 year old, 11 year old, 17 year old children have to change their actions to avoid making white people feel uncomfortable is not a safe world.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Talk of Blagojevich and impeachment has turned my mind toward my favorite movie, All the President's Men. This is the film I rent when I'm feeling blue and looking for something that will give me reason to hope.

Corruption is a baseline expectation, so I'm not discouraged by the film's depiction of Nixon's blatant lies, the vastness of the conspiracy and cover-up, or the recognition of how little has changed in politics. All of that muck is so cleanly stepped through by Woodward and Bernstein as portrayed by Redford and Hoffman. This film makes me believe that you can make a difference in the world by being smart and paying attention. It's also a story of courage and stubborn persistence -- and good writing.

The film emphasizes writing first with its closeup of a blank page being imprinted by a teletype -- the words pounding onto the page, revealing the truth. Then there is the scene where Bernstein steals and rewrites an article that has been turned in by the less-seasoned Woodward. Redford conveys mild annoyance tempered by an eagerness to learn. He asks Bernstein not to go around his back but bring edits directly to him, nodding at the revisions and saying, "Yours is better." In the film it's not only the truth that matters, but also how it is told.

There are convictions in these two characters -- but in the film those convictions don't translate into self-aggrandizement. Yes they want to get the big story, but they're also passionate about learning the truth and telling it right.

It's startling that these two young journalists were perceptive enough to pick up on a small story-- buried deep within the pages of the Washington Post--mentioning a break-in at the Watergate hotel. Like all the best detective stories, something in plain sight turned out to be a clue to something much deeper. When Woodward and Bernstein saw those few paragraphs they recognized, quite literally, that there was more to the story. To see the unwritten story, and to write it. What a feat!

In a way this speaks to a broader truth about facts and what's behind them -- the way in which there is always "more to the story." To question what's behind a brief crime report is to recognize that events have underlying causes. Just as a break-in on page three has a cause, so does any other seemingly plain fact.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm often consumed by questions--peering under the surface of things to see if there's some underlying problem that can be solved and acted upon. The hope (or fantasy) of All the President's Men is that sometimes these perceptions and questions can make a difference.

Despite my love for the film, I also recognize it as a fantasy and piece of entertainment--the characters so likable and cool, the answers so neatly uncovered. And although Woodward and Bernstein's efforts did in reality help end a corrupt Presidency, far worse corruption has followed in the succeeding decades.

So I enjoy the film, while also always being left with the awareness that the triumph it depicts is just a moment in time. The pursuit of justice and truth are as old as human history, and each victory is tempered by the complex intersection of competing interests, human greed, and versions of the story.

A film like All the President's Men and the story it tells gives us the sense that change is possible. But once you start searching for the whole story--prying up the paving stones of "how things are" to see what's beneath, it's hard to stop questioning. I sometimes feel the way the teacher in Qohelet/Ecclesiastes describes when he laments:

What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Ecclesiastes contains a desperate search for truth, describing a teacher's exploration of many potential sources of meaning in life--work, pleasure, wealth, knowledge, love. How can we find meaning when everyone's life ends the same way, it asks? Near the end it states:

...the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!"

Although everything is declared meaningless, there's still a paradox within the story as the Teacher repeatedly returns to his questions, holding out hope that an answer can be found. He shares a story that reminds me of Woodward and Bernstein:

I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siegeworks against it. Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom.

Despite the greed and hunger of a powerful king, a poor man was able to save a small city (a metaphor for the truth?). Unfortunately, the lessons of quiet wisdom don't last as long as the impact of a powerful fool. The Teacher concludes:

But nobody remembered that poor man. So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.

The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouts of a ruler of fools.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but one sinner destroys much good.

In the end, a small act by an individual can bring down a King... but a powerful leader can do lasting damage.

Just as All the President's Men is bookended by a teletype, Ecclesiastes begins and ends with a narrator who is not the Teacher. After the Teacher has proclaimed everything to be meaningless, the narrator seems compelled to come up with a more tidy ending. He explains, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."

Then he offers what sounds at first like a platitude: "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

I see two ways to read this conclusion. At first it seems like a pat on the head: don't worry so much about meaning and why -- just follow the commandments.

But then, it's also a practical bit of advice. Yes, the struggle to do good and live wisely is unending, but still, we've got to do the best we can.

The New Symbol

The election of Barack Obama comes as a relief. It means so much for the future of our country -- speaking volumes about our capacity to take care of one another and our shared commitment to solving crises like war in the Middle East and global warming. It feels like an end to a long era of injustice that started...when? With Reagan? Segregation? Slavery? The colonization of this land?

Something hopeful seems to lie ahead.

I've been moved by the many reflections by African Americans about what this election means to them personally. I have read and heard young men of color say they hope this will change how people see them -- and that it changes how they see themselves. When I picked my son up at school yesterday, a little girl was hanging up a portrait of Barack Obama. Like our next President, she is biracial, and she had carefully colored his skin a rich shade of brown. She lifted the portrait to the wall to see how it looked before running to get some tape.

Marian Wright Edelman recently wrote:

[This] election is a reminder that the United States is still a place of bold ideas and a beacon of hope. It says to every child of color and every poor boy and girl that you belong too, and you do have a future. Throughout America’s history, race has been a noose choking our capacity to soar. At a time when we face a great litany of problems, it is moving to see the American people's common sense and faith trump fear. It is truly a triumph that yesterday Americans voted for competence and a new vision, regardless of race.

She then goes on to call us to see this not as the end that it feels like, but the beginning of the next era of justice-making. She writes:

Leaders are only as good as citizens demand them to be, and we must create a citizens' movement that will fight to provide every child in America with health coverage, that will work to end child poverty, and that will stop funneling children down a prison pipeline that threatens to re-segregate our nation.

There is much work to be done. On health care, poverty, education. Justice work. Edelman urges us not to become complacent or overly proud of ourselves for the symbolic importance of this moment in time. But I do want to linger here just a bit longer.



Although I can be only an ally in the long struggle against racism and white supremacy, I was deeply moved by the sight of Barack, Michelle, Sasha and Malia Obama taking their place as our nation's "first family." Seeing them standing on that stage in Grant Park was powerful in the way that moments of symbolic, historic, and ritual importance are.

I have never been much of a flag-waver, but seeing that beautifully multi-racial crowd so filled with unity and with joy, waving the American flag: the flag looked different to me. It looked to me so much more like America.

I felt and feel such a strong sense of "this changes everything."



The next day, that phrase came to mind again as I read the results of the anti-gay marriage ballot propositions that passed during this same election. I have heard married couples express surprise at the power they have experienced by being married. "I don't know why," they say, "but it just changes everything."

How disappointing that in an election that I believe truly changed what it means to utter the words "United States of America," voters in states as diverse as California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas chose to cling to old definitions of marriage and family. By banning gay marriage or the adoption of children by gay couples, large groups of Obama supporters seem to have spoken the message, "Yes we can... as long as we're not gay people wanting to marry or build a family."

I have always been open to the possibility that civil unions are enough. Pragmatically, I wonder if federal Civil Union legislation might be possible in the next 8 years.... But watching the Obamas onstage in Grant Park, knowing that this moment transcended party platforms or social issues--watching the world change in a moment--I understood why it really does have to be marriage.

No church will be forced to change its doctrine or sacraments, no one will be forced to show up at gay weddings. Send a gift or don't, but the world needs gay marriage just like the world needs an African American President of the United States.



When Kevin & I first set out on our marriage boycott, we did it for our friends. We did it for solidarity and feminism and justice. It was also for ourselves, because we wanted our life to be the testament to our commitment--not the words on a legal document.

We believed then, and believe now, that love makes a family. We believed that our relationship was no more authentic or valid by virtue of the fact that we can procreate. We didn't find weddings to be particularly expressive of who we are as a couple. We knew that as an opposite-sex couple, we wouldn't actually endure much discrimination for our choice; and felt that maintaining our legal separateness was a feminist act and assertion of our individual identities. We felt that marriage is overly-romanticised and too easily entered into.

Today I realize that marriage matters, but not for the reasons that get the most press. It's not because children need two parents or need one role model of each gender to live with them. It's not because it protects you from breaking up or makes taxes easier or because little girls grow up wanting to be princesses.

It matters because marriage changes things. A co-worker told me yesterday that his daughter is getting married, and as a parent, and seeing the pride on his face, I exclaimed, "Aw! Congratulations!" I was swept up in what this means for him and for his daughter. Swept up by the way the world changes when you get married. When you have a child. When your child gets married. Marriage matters at a symbolic, ritual level. And so for the homophobe, the simple legal recognition of same-sex unions feels like a desecration.

As I experienced the power of symbolic change on election night, I was also aware that during these world-changing ritual moments, old symbols must be shattered. White supremacy has lost some of its power as the white male monopoly on our nation's highest office comes to an end.



While the archetype of marriage is becoming cracked and worn with age, it still stands. It's sad to develop a deeper appreciation for the alchemy of the marriage rite while being so clearly reminded of why my relationship won't fit inside such an inadequately-defined vessel.

I believe the marriage archetype will shatter one day and that a new symbol will replace it. The new symbol will not be defined by body parts. It will look much more like love. The new symbol will stand tall and complete as a family on a stage: smiling, waving, filling hearts with joy.

It's been a difficult few weeks for me professionally. Being a human being within a community means that sometimes things are not fair. I won't describe the situation in detail, but it's not a new story. Just a story of individuals and systems and power, and the experience of being unable to affect the outcome.

In the challenges I faced these last several weeks, I had a strong sense of calling -- an urgent pull towards action, and clarity about what I needed to say and do. And in the end, my actions and words were helpful to some of my colleagues, but had no direct impact on the situation I was speaking out about. However in the process I gained clarity and insight into my own life's path, and developed a much stronger ability to listen to my own insights and speak with my own voice.

For a brief moment I thought maybe our prayers would be literally answered. But that's not how it works. If it worked that way, no one would suffer. (Which of course begs the question of why we suffer, a question for which there is no compassionate answer.)

Instead of faith bringing us the outcome we were working so hard for, I was reminded that faith is its own reward. You don't get to pray for things to get better and then they do. You pray or meditate on the questions, and what comes to you is not a particular outcome (miraculous cure, wrong righted). What comes to you is a sense of purpose. That's it -- clarity for your own actions.

Anyway, through this experience I've questioned once again whether insight is god-given -- something you connect with and listen for; or whether it comes from within -- psychologically explainable but still genuinely comforting, healing, and powerful.

Agnostic that I am, I feel compelled to question where insight comes from, but in the end I guess it doesn't really matter. What matters is to do your best to be open to insight it when it comes.

Reflecting on the events of the last several weeks, my boss quoted our chaplain at work, reminding me of one of my favorite passages from the Prophets, Micah 6:8 --

...what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

I have always felt that the key to the first two - doing justice, loving kindness - is the third requirement: walking humbly with your God.

I truly don't believe it matters if you find your God is in nature, in reason, in meditation or in art or music or poetry or the Bible. Whether God is understood as a real entity or force, or understood as a metaphor for that which is greater than ourselves, God can be found in many places.

And what we are required to do -- what we must do -- is guard against becoming too proud of ourselves for how smart, pious, artsy, or wonderful we are. We must walk humbly.

I'm not a sports fan, but what inspired this post was watching a video of a small women's softball game that was witnessed by fewer than 100 people, but still gives me every reason to hope that doing what's required is possible. This video on YouTube, linked by a deeply spiritual acquaintance of mine, reminds me of a story my Buddhist studies professor, Charles Hallisey, once relayed.

He described two Buddhist monks reaching a river and finding a woman who was struggling to cross, clinging to a branch, and calling to them that she couldn't swim. Because they were prohibited from touching women, the first monk did nothing. The second monk walked into the river and helped the woman across.

As the monks continued on their journey they were silent for a bit. Then the first monk broke the silence. "How could you carry her across the river? We're forbidden from touching women," he said. The second monk replied, "My friend, I left her at the river's edge. It appears you are still carrying her."

It's very difficult to find rules for living that work in every situation. Doing justice and loving kindness can feel nearly impossible when we become caught up in conflict and competing values. Yet with openness and by walking humbly, sometimes it's possible to understand what to do right now, at this moment.

The video I linked above has an obvious connection to the story of the monks in the image of carrying. But it is also about having a set of rules that limit your choices, and finding that you are called to do the right thing -- to answer the law that transcends the rules you have been given.

What does the Lord require of us?

To do justice

To love kindness

To walk humbly with our God.

May I answer this requirement with humility, compassion, and courage. May I find I am not alone in this walk--that this walk takes place alongside that which is greater.

And, I wish the same for you.

I want to share two things.

First, an article from Harvard Divinity Bulletin by Chris Hedges, "A Hollow Agnosticism," which is a review of Bart Ehrman's God's Problem. I have not read Ehrman, or Hedges' new book, I Don't Believe in Athiests.

The essay's title drew me in, and despite the kids running around socking each other with plastic swords and begging for my intervention, I had to read it all the way through. It helped me answer some questions I have recently had about what's next in my life. Well, not answer them exactly, but reinforced my sense that the answer is not, "treat yourself to something nice" or "just don't worry about it."

Anyway, read it if you're wondering why we suffer. Not that he answers that question. It's more like, "so glad you asked."

Then my dear friend Parisa sent me a link to a sermon she gave on doubt. Again, focusing on the importance of questioning, doubting, even of heresy. And yet rather than despair at the un-knowable-ness of questions like "where do we come from?" "why are we here?" and "what happens after we die?" she finds wonder and miracle in the very fact of being alive.

Michelle Obama

I ended my last post bracing myself for the treatment of Michelle Obama in the media, and soon after saw this piece in Racialicious discussing how both conservative and liberal media and bloggers have begun to dissect Michelle's appearance, strength, career, and etc. Where Hillary's supposed dowdiness was used against her when Bill was President, now it appears that Michelle's attractiveness will be used against her. (See the photo from a "progressive" blog depicting her in a revealing evening gown, hanging from her wrists and about to be branded by the KKK supposedly illustrating the racist and sexist attacks of right wingers. As if composing that image were not itself a threatening act against her.)

Laura Bush is the ideal "first lady" as that concept is constructed. She is white, Christian, demure, and attractive, but in a conservative way. She is deferential towards her husband even when she disagrees with him, is patient and kind, forgiving him for his youthful excesses. A librarian and a mother, capable of keeping the household harmonious and preventing any distractions from impinging upon her husband's important work.

That the Obamas, like the Clintons and Roosevelts before them, have a marriage based at least in theory on equality and respect is deeply disruptive to the conventions of politics and running for office. (I say in equal in theory because obviously, Bill has shown deep disrespect through his behavior--although he worked like a dog to help get Hillary elected, and supported her attempt to transform the role of "first lady" during his presidency into a job description his wife would want.) I guess it should be no wonder that politics is still such a male dominated profession, when there are such rigid roles prescribed for our nation's highest office and its "first lady."

Here's an idea: I would like to retire whole "first lady" concept. The fact that there were questions about what you would call the husband of the president begs the question of why one's spouse should have anything to do with the office of President in the first place. Spouses/partners show up at the office holiday party--they are not part of the job interview.

More importantly, our country needs to be cured of its first lady fetish--the demand that the wife of the President reflect some idealized notion of feminine domestic perfection: Donna Reed without the sass.

Barbara Bush couldn't live up because she had gray hair and was overweight, even though her personality perfectly fit the bill. Nancy Reagan was too strong and shrill, even though she looked exactly the part.

These are real women, not rarified "ladies." And in the case of Michelle Obama, the "first lady" narrative is going to be an oppressive prison for a woman with her own career aspirations and political convictions--for a woman of color who is bold enough to have spoken out against racism.

Based on a mythological creation of the Christian, white, wealthy, and powerful, it is no wonder that the attacks on Michelle Obama as unfit for the role of "first lady" have so quickly begun.
The fact that she doesn't fit the mold may be all the more reason to elect her husband President.