Black Hasidim

Took these photos (by Wayne Lawrence) out of an NY Mag in a doctor's office.  They are black Hasidic Jews living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  I just love the way these photos challenge so many of our preconceived notions.  What do they conjure up for you?

Some Thoughts on the Election

Apparently I never published the below - so here it is:

Last night, Barack Hussein Obama was reelected for his second term as our President.  Leading up this election, I have felt a great deal of sorrow, anger, disillusionment and overall cycism with regard to our political system and our prospects for the future as a nation.  I had formerly been an avid supporter of Obama, but watching him fight to win this election...the ads, the debates, the manipulations...I found myself deeply disappointed in him and I wondered if he wasn't just like all the rest, just with darker skin and better rhetoric.  I considered not voting at all.  And if after I went to the polls and cast my vote for Obama, I was still unclear as to my reasons for even going, being that a) I live in one of the 41 states where my vote doesn't matter (it's a Blue state, period) and b) I think our whole political system is so broken that it doesn't really matter who wins, and c) I believe that until there is a massive paradigm shift in the way we relate to one another as individuals, diverse peoples, and nations politics are pretty much irrelevant because the government will continue to be a reflection of "Me! Me! Me!" ideology.  I just knew that Mitt Romney struck me as another arrogant, self-righteous, money-centered, and narrow-minded (did I mention arrogant?) and I would be sad to see America fall back into that tired, stagnant mindset - so for whatever it was worth, I cast my vote against it.

But as I sat watching the election coverage (hours after our power had finally been restored - a whole 9 days after hurricane sandy!), I started to read about Obama, more than I ever had before.  I voted for the first time around, but truth be told, when he won that election the most meaningful aspect of it for me at the time was what it meant for America to be able to elect a black president.  I also believed he was a man of real integrity - but that was most of what I knew about him.

I wont go into all the things I learned about him both biographically and policy-wise, but I will see that between what I read and his beautiful acceptance speech, I found myself once again hopeful for this nation.  It is one thing to elect someone like Obama once; but is another to confirm, with a considerable majority, that he is the direction this country wants to continue to move in - despite a still very sick economy.

So I sit here and I reflect about what has changed in America since George Bush Jr. was elected 12 years ago, when I was not yet old enough to vote.  I think I had just recently gotten my first cell phone at that time.  People were just starting to get DSL internet, changing over from the old dial-up modems.  Dawson's Creek was still on - which I'm pretty sure was the first show for teenagers that portrayed teenagers living in a world where teen sex, masturbation, and homosexuality were no longer taboo.  And now here we are, 12 years later, and we live in a world where everyone has a smart phone, there is at least one personal of color on every sitcom, and gay marriage and medical marajuana are now legal in several states.  By the time the next presidential election comes around, my niece, who has never known a world without lightning fast internet, who's generations biggest heartthrob is somewhat racially ambiguous (I'm talking about Taylor Lautner here), and who will have grown up with a black president, will be old enough to vote.

So what is my point with all of this?  Well, maybe this age of Information that we live in now will lead to more than just narcissitic, social media addicted fat kids who never go outside to play.  Maybe the fact that the internet and all its knowledge and exposure it provides is so accessible, even in Kansas, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi (and all those other bright Red states), is causing a real change in those spending the first 1/3 of their lives in the U.S.  Maybe the Mitt Romney's of the world really are a dying breed because when they are gone, the children/grandchildren will know too much to follow blindly in their footsteps.  I'm not talking here about fiscal policy, I'm talking about a vision for the future.  A generation that considers diversity perfectly natural.  Maybe even one that views education and (dare I say) healthcare, as necissities that should be available to everyone.  Maybe they will be a generation who will have witnessed a deep recession and the mistrust of financial instituitions that resulted, as well movements like Occupy Wall Street, and they will have a different point of view about greed and America's class system then those before them.

Maybe, just maybe, we are on the verge of that massive paradigm shift so many of us have been dreaming of...

Inauguration Day & MLK's Bible

Cornell West is a professor at Union Theological Seminary (where I recently applied to get my Masters). He was a professor at Harvard before that, and for various reasons, he's kind of a BIG deal. Below he eloquently and passionately states the opinion of many true Martin followers on the president's inaugural move to be sworn in on MLK's bible. And I get it - I really do - and the sentiment is reasonable and understandable...

However, I think it's very easy to sit in a classroom or in front of one's computer and criticize the president in his ivory house, but the fact of the matter is we don't know exactly what motivated this move from President Obama. Sure, it could be just a political ploy. Or, it could be because he is the first black president, and he feels a responsibility to try to do his best to help this country move towards Martin's dream. He is a president, not a king though, so he cannot wake up one day and stop the war immediately. He cannot wake up, and all by himself, end poverty in America right here, right now. Maybe he wishes he could. Maybe he doesn't. And furthermore, what would people say about the first black president sworn in on MLK day that chose NOT to use Martin's bible? What? He doesn't think racism is an issue in this country anymore? He's gonna use some rich white guy's bible and not Martin's? Just because he's president, he thinks he's too good for Martin? So in a sense, he's damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. I'm not saying that Obama's motivations were pure in choosing to use Martin's bible - only he and God know that. I'm just saying that maybe we could reserve our own judgment a little because maybe, just maybe, it's not exactly what Brother West thinks it is.

On Gun Control (with apologies)

Well, now i'm heated, and i'm gonna go ahead and do what i said i wasn't - i'm gonna talk about gun control (which is a merely a band aid, for a much bigger problem, but it's better than "bleeding" all over the place). You may want to abort reading this status now... 

COMMENCE RANT:
I hear a lot of people talking about how this country is founded on personal freedom and liberty, and they say that means a private citizen should have the freedom to protect themselves, their families, and their property from anyone that may want to take them by force - hence, the right to bear arms.

So first off, let's talk about that big buzzword "Freedom" for a minute. "Land of the Free", as the U.S. is called. What does it really mean to be free? I will tell you what it does not mean first: it does not mean ABSOLUTE freedom - not in this context. Absolute freedom means you can do whatever you want. Clearly this is not the case. You are not free to run naked through the streets. You are not free to play your music as loud as you want. You are not free to yell "fire" in a movie theater, etc. ...and these are just laws. I won't even go in to all the normative limitations we have on freedom. So you are not free - not really - sorry if I've bursted anyone's bubbles. But it's OK, because part of living in community and society is that it doesn't allow for absolute freedom. If you want total freedom, you can [theoretically] go into the woods, live by yourself, and do whatever the hell you want - but as long as you want the benefits of living with others, you will need to surrender a number of personal freedoms for the society to function.

The concept of "freedom" that our forefathers believed in was NOT of the absolute kind; it was freedom from OPPRESSION. It was about an individual being free to be themselves (have opinions and voice them, practice their own religion, etc.), and to reach their own potential (the pursuit of happiness). These freedoms differentiate us from oppressed nations, like Vietnam, where they cannot speak out against their corrupt government in public without fear of retaliation.

The "Bill of Rights", lists in the first amendment these freedoms which they believed to be inalienable (that is, we as human beings have a right to them by our very nature). The rest of the document contains a number of rights to protect citizens against a tyrannical or OPPRESSIVE government (including the right to bear arms). Our forefathers came from a monarchy (a dictatorship, in essence), and it was extremely important to them to ensure that the U.S. government would never be able wield its power on the people in an oppressive fashion. They were terrified of tyranny and put laws in place to protect them against their biggest fear. 

So here we are approx 250 years later, and by the grace of God, we still live in a country where we are relatively free from oppression. And there is no longer a general fear of our government changing and becoming a dictatorship. Is it possible? Sure. But not likely. And thank God that's true, because considering the size of our military, the existence of nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc., if our government wanted to turn against the people, they are perfectly capable of doing so, regardless of how many guns our private citizens carry - we'd be screwed.

So what is our biggest fear now as a society? Probably something along of the lines of getting mugged, murdered, raped, etc. or having one of those things happen to the people we love. That is, WE ARE NOW MUCH MORE AFRAID OF EACH OTHER, THAN WE ARE OF THE GOVERNMENT. We are now looking to the government to protect us from each other. Ironic, no? 

The idea of limitations on guns is protect us from each other (sad but true). Does this also leave us unprotected against our government, should they try to oppress us? Yes. But this is a risk that is worth taking, since there is a far greater chance that one of us will be killed by a gun that at some point was legally bought and sold (making it's way into the hands of a criminal from there), than that our government will turn oppressive... want proof? Just wait 18 minutes. (That's the time between gun related deaths in the U.S. every day, on average.)

END RANT

Of all the little trinkets we picked up in southeast Asia, this is by far my favorite.

It is a wood carving of a Thai monk that is begging for his food in the morning from the people, as all monks there do every morning.  Every time I look over at this little statue, I am reminded of our profound interdependence.  The monks that beg for food in the morning are not just depending upon the people to sustain their physical bodies, they are reminding themselves, and those who feed them, as well as those who witness, that there is no future, no eternity -- neither physically nor spiritually -- without each other.  Despite what appearances may be, my very being is dependent upon you, and yours upon me.  And every moment that we forget this, we bring more misery into our fragile human predicament.

I have not said a word about the CT school shootings up to this point -- there has been so much noise on that subject - much of it valid, heart-felt, authentic, and necessary - that I felt for me, this was a time to shut up, to merely reflect and listen.  But as I look at my little statue here, I will say only that when human beings remember by means of mass consciousness, that we are not islands, that nothing is truly our own, that on the most basic soul level WE NEED EACH OTHER, these things do not happen.

One morning in Vietnam a few days after the shooting, the bellhop helping us from our hotel room turned to us, and in broken English and with deep pity he said, "I am so sorry about what happened in your country. I saw it on the news and I had tears, like your president, Obama..."  This man, who probably makes about $5 a day, who lives in a country who's government oppresses its people in ways that you and I cannot truly conceive of, who most likely has had no formal education past the age of nine, who is helping us with our over-sized luggage out of a hotel room that costs more money for one night than he probably makes in a year, so we can go back to our freedoms and liberties in our super-power country...  HE takes pity on US...
Because he knows that all three of us in that room are really just beggars, relying on each other to get us through this next moment...

He is Like the Rain

He is like the rain.

And You,
You are the fire crackling under the mantle,
You are the hearth,
The warmth of the sun on my face,
A blanket wrapped tight
around my body,
You are a place I call home.

But he is like the rain.
Outside it washes over us
I hear it slapping the roof
and clanking on the shutters,
clamoring for a moment's notice.

You are I are safe in here.
I step inside of you and shut the door
and it's warm like fresh baked bread
Like six o'clock sand on a Seychelles shore
Like my own womb

But he is like the rain.
Always present,
sometimes just waiting to form
I can hear him outside...
I won't get caught in it!
I now come prepared
with You as my shepherd
You, as my shelter
You, my ward and my word,
You,
my Heart.

And as for him?
Well,

he is like the rain

On Bullying

On my walk the other day, I was thinking about the bullying that I experienced growing up, and the teachers that passively participated (or even actively, occasionally), even encouraged, the behavior.  Perhaps they felt kids will be kids, life is cruel, or maybe this was some kind "tough love" - who knows?  But now, by the grace of God, there has finally been awakening in our education system that bullying is a very real problem that can lead to the most tragic of circumstances.  So I thought to myself, if I were a teacher now, and I observed bullying in my classroom, what would I do?  Sure I could reprimand the bully, even hold them in detention, but I know full well that all that would do is ensure that the bullying continued on where I could not observe it - perhaps it would even be worse for the bullied because now they've gotten the bully in trouble.  So what can be done?  Well, I had a few thoughts and wanted to share them, in hopes that perhaps they can be of some help to someone somewhere...

First of all, there are situations that teachers can create without meaning to, that lay the foundation for bullying, or even if it's not explicit, hurt a child's self-esteem.  For instance, when I was a kid, in gym class the teacher would pick team captains (usually the two best male athletes in the class) and then leave to them to choose their teammates.  I was always picked last (unless by the some miracle there happened to be a morbidly obese kid in my class - then I was picked second to last).  Obviously, being picked last every day can do nothing good for a child's self-esteem.  Clearly those gym teachers were not considering the fact that child/adolescent athletics are supposed to help build up a child's image of themselves, not cripple it.  Thankfully, I have heard that this kind of thing is no longer a common practice in schools.  I assume it has been replaced with the teacher picking teams at random.  But I imagine that had my gym teachers picked the teams (or let us pick out of hat or something), that whoever's team I ended up on would still have responded with obnoxious sighs, or comments along the lines of "Ew!", "Damn it!", etc.

So what is to be done in a case like this?  I began to picture myself relegated to a team, and one of my oh-so-cool peers expressing his distaste for it....  If I were the teacher, I would have given us BOTH detention.  But not just any detention - a special detention.  I would have said to the bully - let's call him "Seth" - "Seth, thank you for comments.  Going forward, for the rest of the year, whatever team you are on, Jaime will be on as well.  In addition, you will both spend a half hour with me everyday after school for the next week, wherein Seth, you will help teach Jaime how to play [insert sport here] better, so she can be a more valuable teammate to you."  In doing this, Seth is going to have to get to know Jaime, and actually be forced to help her.  After this, unless Seth is a total sociopath, he will no longer be able to look Jaime in the eye and bully her - in getting to know her, he will no longer be able to objectify her, and once someone is a person, rather than object of amusement, bullying loses all its fun.

But what about Jaime? She didn't do anything wrong, right? Why does she have to have detention with someone she probably can't stand?  Well, as a girl who was tortured by the students in her class growing up, on a constant basis (to the point of contemplating suicide), I can tell you that as an adult, I came to realize that even the bullied are not purely victims.  A bully/bullied relationship is a two way street, and there are always two sides to the story.  It is almost never simply because the other kids are "just jealous" - that's just what Mom's tell their children to make them feel better.

So what did I do to bring on this bullying? To bring on the contempt from my peers.  Well, for one, I was desperate for them to like me, and this was as obvious as it was pathetic.  At the same time, I also believed in a way that I was better than them.  They were stupid jocks, and I was really smart.  My attitude also displayed this - a sense of social inferiority, but a belief of inherent superiority.  They were horrible to me, but I wasn't kind or respectful to them either.  I remember in the 8th grade there was this one kid who was friends with all the guys who bullied me, but he rarely made a comment himself.  One day, I got up from my desk to go up to the front of the class and his desk was blocking my way a little bit so I just pushed by it, moving his desk while I did so, and not even looking at him.  "You can say 'excuse me'!" he chided.  There he was, a soldier of the enemy, accusing ME of being rude.  ...but he was right.  Of course, I didn't get it then.  It never occurred to me that perhaps if I had made an effort to be kind to these people, to feel compassion for them instead of defensively assuming myself to be far superior, perhaps things could have gone differently.  My point in all this is that despite appearances, the bullied is usually unconsciously a co-conspirator in their situation, not purely the victim.  And as such, they too can benefit from getting to know their peer, who they surely also objectify as "the enemy", "the stupid jock", etc.

This method can also obviously be used in situations outside of gym class as well.  For instance, let's say a student is being bullied in Chemistry class.  If the bullied child happens to be a good student and the bully not, the consequences could be that they have to tutor the bully until a certain test score is achieved.  If they are both average, make them study together after school until a grade a certain grade is reached by both.  Or make them work on a project together.  Whatever it is, the idea is to simply to move them from seeing each other as objects to knowing each other as human beings.  And if there are multiple bullies, just do this with the leader - and there is always a leader.

So that's my two cents - may it be in some way of service.

Me (9th or 10th grade)