There are gifts that come of breathing, that come of blood driving through veins, no charge. Just being. One is the noise of existence. Another is when the noise stops. After the theater of the self has closed; after the season of the self goes to reruns, music begins, slow, silent. Then, you hear . . . it was the thought itself that created the chains, the blinders. When the mis en scene is... Read more
I was feeling a little shaky earlier this week, and it took me a few days to sort it out. I could point to this or that as the reason, but really I know a big part of it is that on Monday morning, there was another shooting. This time the shooting was in a building near a fountain and park where my family and I have gone to play and hang out, and a few blocks from a library... Read more
So, evening fell on you, didn’t it? And you did not know what day. Did not know what had broken. You had not expected it to have gone so far, the year. Did not expect to have rounded again from light to dark on this day. And it’s surely some saint’s day or other. Some thing recurrent to mark life’s measured beat. To mark how life, in some long and startling pattern, goes on.... Read more
Really, WTF? Has people shooting at strangers become a sort of national pastime? Are we supposed to get used to this? Worse yet, have we gotten used to it? Really, what am I supposed to say? Once again we are in that place of knowing that people have been killed and injured for no apparent reason. This time it was in the Washington DC Navy Yard rather than a school or a movie theater or a foot race. Once again... Read more
The British social anthropologist Mary Douglas had this to say about institutions: Inside a religious body you get sects and hierarchies, inside an information network you get bazaars and cathedrals, it is the same, call them what you like. They survive by pointing the finger of blame at each other. That about sums it up, doesn’t it? Douglas is most famous for her theory of dirt: She claimed that human groups form solidarity by what we consider disgusting. For... Read more
It was a few days after the 9/11 tragedy. We had done our best to shelter our not-quite-three-year-old daughter from the constant onslaught of images on the news, but there was no way to censor things entirely, particularly our conversations as the tragedy unfolded. How could this happen? Who would do such a thing? How were we to go on? So it wasn’t too surprising when, as we got to the end of bath time that evening, she said: “Tell... Read more
Suicide Prevention Day. Note: If you feel even vaguely suicidal right now, please don’t read this. Instead, please call and talk to someone who can help you! 1-800-273-8255. When I was a sophomore in high school, undone by the relentless teasing of an older relative, unsure that I would ever leave the barren wasteland of my inner-city high school, I ingested a bottle of aspirin and prepared to die. After swallowing about fifty pills, I remember going into the kitchen... Read more
Reflecting on his experience as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, the International Military Tribunal established at the end of WWII, Bernard Meltzer wrote, “When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.” The spiritual practice of atonement, asking and offering forgiveness, is a practice that actively builds and sustains a robust and healthy beloved community. When we are willing to take the risk of showing up to each other in... Read more
This post could also be titled “What Will Our Daughter Learn From Us About Eating, Part 1/xx?” Already, we are in constant negotiations about eating. The current challenge is sitting down. We’d like her to “sit down, please” while she eats so she doesn’t teeter and fall painfully out of her high chair. But about a quarter of the way into what we were imagining was her meal, she’ll stand up and want to keep eating, standing up. How big... Read more
There’s really no need to refer to specifics. When you’ve been a citizen of the United States as long as I have, you’ve heard it all before: national security; stopping this or that madman; ending drugs or terror or Communism; honor. Whatever. The point is always the same: now, in this situation, violence will actually work to fix the problem. Unlike all those other times! And the United States, like an abusive spouse, swears this time is not like all... Read more
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