Down the Trump Rabbit Hole - 22 December 2020

[Sent 22 December 2020 to my wife and three daughters]

Greetings. I am relieved to know you are all well. Year-ending holidays create an invitation to pause for careful introspection. The crushing coronavirus pandemic plus the unprecedented Trump et al political/social upheaval intensify and sharpen the task this year. I have inserted below adaptations I have made to four samples from a collection of reflections authored by the French writer Michel Quoist (1918-1997), one of the many who came of age in Germany and in France during the chaotic years between the two world wars whose struggle with/for integrity I have closely studied for more than forty years. The four samples are titled – ‘The Subway’, ‘I Spoke’, ‘Eyes’, and ‘The Sea’. My doctoral supervisor and still cherished friend Glenn Hinson introduced me to Michel Quoist’s Prayers (1st ed., 1954), an internationally recognized work that reflects Quoist’s experiences with existentially searching youth deeply scarred by the dozen Nazi years. I have returned to Quoist’s Prayers for decades as a guard against superficial self-examination. (You may have noticed several worn copies scattered through my personal library.) But first allow me to briefly explain the ‘adaptation’ reference. You see, Quoist was a Roman Catholic priest who was a chaplain to youth in Rouen as well as a sociologist. I have to transpose Quoist’s Prayers into a non-religious paradigm.

I made two radical (i.e., to the root) decisions in my 20s – (1) to assign the highest priority to unrestricted critical thinking in every area of inquiry and (2) to keep my existential eye/focus on being truly present with Jerrice as MS relentlessly ravaged her humanity. I became increasingly and keenly aware that remaining true to these two unparalleled resolutions was diminishing/eroding my place within the West Kentucky small town fundamentalist paradigm I inherited, evident in the ‘God’ language I could no longer use. I came to a third turning point in the mid-1980s as my collaboration with Dr. Korones (1924-2013) deepened into a special friendship grounded in a profound mutual respect. He was Jewish. He was not particularly religious. He was a physician of consummate integrity. I began then to differentiate the four descending dimensions of ‘community’ we as a family have discussed together on several occasions. My first (and unconditional) experience of ‘community’ is living in a way that initiates/gestures respect (i.e., to see, to look again) for others in daily encounters. My second experience of ‘community’ is huddling with those -- such as Dr. Korones and several others – I discover to be living similarly (without yet knowing why or how they do so). My third experience of ‘community’ is recognizing/sharing overlapping narratives in the huddle discussions of ‘how have you become this sort of person?’ and ‘what keeps you this sort of person?’ My fourth experience of ‘community’ is guest affiliation with organized/formal institutions that may provide a nurturing context for remaining true to the third, second, and first experiences of ‘community’ (for instance, religious institutions on the liberal margins such as the liberal Quaker gatherings I first experienced when studying at Oxford or political parties such as the Democratic Party with which I presently identify as a tactical choice linked to optimizing advocacy for civility, critical thinking, peace, fairness, international partnership, environmental caution.

Bottom line – These four samples from Michel Quoist’s Prayers – adapted for a non-religious paradigm -- sharpen my self-examination. I am grateful and like to think Quoist would understand. I commend them to you for consideration.

Doug/Dad
___________________

From ‘The Subway’

The last ones squeeze in. The door rolls shut. The subway rumbles off.
I can’t move; I am no longer an individual but a crowd that moves like jellied soup in its can.
A nameless and indifferent crowd. I am one with the crowd.
I see why it’s sometimes hard for me to rise higher.

This crowd is heavy – leaden soles on my feet – a crowd too large for my overburdened skiff.
Yet I have no right to overlook these people.
They are my community.
We move together toward the future in ‘the subway’.

From ‘I spoke’

I am afraid of speaking, for speaking is serious.
It’s serious to disturb others, to bring them out, to keep them on their doorsteps.
It’s serious to keep them waiting, with outstretched hands and longing hearts.
It’s serious to keep them seeking for light or some courage to live and act.

Suppose that I should send them away empty-handed.
I have often spoken so badly.
I have often spoken to no purpose.
I have often tarnished my lips with hollow words, false words, cowardly words.

May my words instead be as the sowing of seeds,
So that those who hear them may look to a fine harvest.

From ‘Eyes’

I am now about to close my eyes, for they have finished their work.
My vagrant glances have returned home, having strolled for a day in the market place.
Tomorrow, when I open my eyes to the clear morning, may they be ready to see.

May my eyes be clear and straightforward, giving others a hunger for purity.
May my look never be one of disappointment, disillusionment, despair.
May my look know how to admire, contemplate, adore.

May my eyes by firm and steady, never shutting to the afflictions of others.
May they also know how to soften in pity, being capable of tears.

May my gaze not soil the one it touches.
May my gaze not disturb, but may it bring peace.
May my gaze not sadden, but rather may it transmit joy.

From ‘The Sea’

One day I saw the sea attacking the rocks, somber and raging.
From afar the waves gain momentum.
High and proud they leap, jostling one another to be the first to strike.
When the white foam draws back, leaving the rock clear, they gather themselves to rush forward again.

On another day I saw the sea calm and serene.
The waves came from afar, creeping, not to draw attention.
They stretched at full length on the sand to touch the shore with the tips of their beautiful mossy fingers.
The sun gently caressed them, and they generously returned streams of light.

Which am I?

May I avoid useless attacks that tire and wound without achieving results.
May I avoid angry outbursts that draw attention but leave one uselessly weakened.
May I avoid wanting always to outstrip others, crushing those in my way.
May I avoid the sullen, subduing look.

May I live my days calmly and fully, as the sea slowly covers the whole shore.
May I be humble as she is, silently and gently spreading out unnoticed.
May I wait for others and match my pace with theirs.
May each of my retreats turn into an advance.

Down the Trump Rabbit Hole - 1 December 2020

[Sent 1 December 2020 to my wife and our three daughters]

Greetings. You may have seen a news highlight that on this day 65 years ago the 42 year-old Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give up her seat to a man for whom there was no seat in the bus’s front ten rows designated for ‘White’ riders. The driver told the four African-American riders in the first row of the ‘Colored’ section of seats to stand. Three obeyed. Rosa Parks -- weary from the day’s work as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair department store. . . . but more so from decades of ‘Jim Crow’ humiliations – did not.  

As she later clarified, 

“I was not tired physically. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in”.

The bus driver was not surprised. For a dozen years, Rosa Parks had bristled against the demeaning segregation he enforced when she had to ride his bus to/from work. Two policemen took her to jail, igniting within hours the Montgomery Bus Boycott for which the 26 year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. was recruited to lead.

 The local NAACP – for which she and her husband were members, she being the secretary – had found the plaintiff needed to test segregation laws in court. Rosa Parks was honest, diligent, respected, reflective, resolved, dignified, courageous. She lost her job. She retained her integrity. She became “the mother of the Civil Rights Movement”.

 

You may have been too young to remember seeing Rosa Parks sitting quietly on the speakers’ platform for the 4 July 1991 opening of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, a facility that merges with the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated. Mom and I decided to take you with us to the ceremony. We were among the very few Caucasian attendees in the large emotional crowd. The ceremony closed with singing “We shall overcome”. When we were all instructed to cross our arms and hold hands, I vividly recall turning to the seasoned African American lady to my left. We did not know each other. Our eyes met. Our hands squeezed together. We paused. Then we began to sing with the crowd.

I suspect this lady is still singing if she is with us. I remind myself each day to keep singing – at times with anticipation . . . at other times wearily . . . at other times anxiously – but singing nonetheless “We shall overcome” poverty, prejudice, exploitation, ignorance, selfishness, cruelty, sloth, hate, indifference and instead become communities striving sacrificially for everyone residing among us to begin life with hope, live life with fervor, and end life with dignity.

Be safe. And keep singing!

Doug/Dad