How can I keep from singing

Nobel Laureate Elie Weisel (wikipedia.com)

I was reading Elie Weisel’s novel, The Gates of the Forest, in the summer of 1999, well before the terrorist attack on 9/11 that propelled America down the road of retaliation. That August I served as guest preacher at a Minneapolis church where I offered words that may be even more appropriate now than they were then. The sermon below, How can I keep from singing, was based on the following readings:

Paul's letter to the Romans  12: 21: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Contemporary reading from The Gates of the Forest by Elie Wiesel:

In Elie Wiesel’s novel, The Gates of the Forest, Gregor, a survivor of the Holocaust, is living in Paris.  A friend has persuaded him to visit the Rabbi.  After some intense discussion about God’s role in the Holocaust, the Rabbi asks Gregor what he expects from him.

“Rabbi,” he said, “you asked me what I expected of you, and I said I expected nothing.  I was mistaken.  Make me able to cry.”

The Rabbi shook his head, “That’s not enough.  I shall teach you to sing.  Grown people don’t cry; beggars don’t cry.”

The Rabbi added, “Crying is for children.  Are you still a child, and is your life a child’s dream?  No, crying’s no use. You must sing.”

“And you, Rabbi?  What do you expect of me?”

“Everything.”

And when Gregor started to protest, the Rabbi added, “Jacob wrestled with the angel all night and overcame him.  But the angel implored him:  Let me go, dawn is approaching.  Jacob let him go; to show his gratitude, the angel brought him a ladder.  Bring me this ladder.”

“Which one of us is Jacob?” asked Gregor.  “And which the angel?”

“I don’t know,” said the Rabbi with a friendly wink.  “Do you?

Gregor got up and the Rabbi took him to the door.

“Promise to come back,” he said, holding out his hand.

“I’ll come back.”

“Will you come to our celebrations?”

“Yes.”

How can I keep from singing

It may seem odd to bring together a passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans about love and not returning evil for evil with a reading from holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel’s novel, The Gates of the Forest. The holocaust is a symbol of evil that for most of us remains beyond our powers of comprehension. How can we ever hope to overcome such evil with good?

I read The Gates of the Forest for the first time a couple of weeks ago. For years I had avoided reading Wiesel’s works and other major holocaust literature because I was afraid. I feared I would be overwhelmed by the enormity of the suffering and be swallowed up by despair. I was not. Out of the depth and breadth of his soul, Wiesel’s words overcome the evil of the holocaust. As someone else has remarked, The Gates of the Forest is “shot through with a strange humor of forgiveness.”

When the novel begins, Gregor, a young partisan has been left alone, hiding in a cave during the war. His father promised to return in three days, but three days have passed, and Gregor has stopped counting. I won’t forget Gregor’s thoughts as from his hiding place he sees the clouds hovering over the village below: “They were not clouds properly speaking, but Jews driven from their homes and transformed into clouds. In this disguise they were able to return to their homes where strangers now lived.”

To Gregor, on clear nights the stars in the heavens were Jewish children who had died in Hitler’s ovens.

It is true what they say about Elie Wiesel, also known as the Great Reminder: “He does not describe, he casts a spell.” I was caught in that spell as I read the effect on first Gregor and then his companions, when in their various hiding places, they gradually discovered it was the intent of their persecutors to completely annihilate the Jewish people.

The enormity of it.

If there has been a paradigm shift in theological understanding since the holocaust, it is the realization among a few at least that our perception of reality depends on where we stand. It seems obvious now, does it not, that those with power see reality differently from those without power?

Reading The Gates of the Forest altered my perception of reality in all experiences of time, backward, forward, and in this present moment. I’ve not yet integrated the force of the evil it reveals or the strength demonstrated by the survivors of the holocaust to continue to live with hope and love and miraculously, forgiveness.

We know in our own country, anti-Semitism continues to flare up here and there in hatred and vilification of innocent people. It did not end with the holocaust. What must it do to the children? Inevitably, they must learn about the holocaust- and then, too often, experience firsthand the cruelty of irrational hatred. In bewilderment, just as Gregor and his companions did, they must cry out, “What have we done that was so wrong?”

Thus, those who would persecute the innocent continue to inflict psychic wounds even on those too young to protect themselves.

I met such a psychically wounded child nearly 20 years ago on the campus of Mankato State University where he and I were both students;  I was a non-traditional student in my 30s, married, and the mother of two children. He was probably right out of high school. He was in some of my classes. He may have been drawn to me by comments I made in our class discussions - I don’t know. I was a Unitarian at the time, not nominally Christian, and I had a tendency to be outspoken, especially when the topic of bigotry arose. In any case, the young man began to follow me around as the weeks elapsed.

This was the 70s,and at Mankato, we were still feeling repercussions from the student revolution of the 60s. There were occasional bomb threats. Students wore outlandish costumes. But this young man stood out even in that setting. He favored military uniforms, often decorated with Nazi symbols. On one occasion, he confided that he was Jewish. He observed that the Jews had been the underdogs, and he added, “I choose to identify with the Nazis because they had power.”

On another occasion, he told me he had guns stockpiled in his small apartment. I can’t remember my earlier responses to his remarks. I do remember noticing the fineness and delicacy of his features. And that his eyes were clear, and he had a gentle face.

One afternoon, my young friend sat down across from me at my table in the student union. Once again, he began describing the arsenal he maintained in his apartment. I don’t know what prompted my words to him that day. It could’ve been the impatience of a mother who had heard about enough nonsense. I looked him in the eye, and said, “When are you going to stop trying to impress me and admit that you’re just a nice young man?”

He stood up, walked around the table and bent over to kiss me gently on the cheek. When I ran into him a few days later, he told me he got rid of his guns. I noticed as time passed that his style of clothing changed, and I even recall seeing him around campus in a neat blue suit, white shirt, and tie. One day he introduced me to the young woman who had become his fiancée.

Once in awhile over the years, I’ve had occasion to remember him, always with affection, as a bright young man with a sweet face, who only needed a brief acknowledgment of his humanity to be who he really was at heart.

I remembered him after the shooting in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. My son Steve lived in Milwaukee at the time, and he and I were on the phone discussing the horror of the Columbine incident. It was one of those moments, when I said, “Son, did I ever tell you about...”

And I told him about the young Jewish student who had forever touched my life at Mankato.

There are many among us, I think, who would benefit from a brief acknowledgment of their humanity, an acknowledgment that opens the door for love to overcome the nightmare of alienation.

Several years after the incident in Mankato, where I majored in English, with a concentration in writing, I took a part-time job as a receptionist at an adult residential mental health facility; the job allowed me to contribute to the family income while trying my hand at freelance writing.  From my desk in the front lobby, I had the opportunity to visit with many of the residents and develop relationships of trust with them. My hours during the week were from 5-9 p.m. One evening as I walked through the front entrance I saw a drama unfolding. A young male resident with whom I had become friends and a male staff member were circling each other, fists drawn. The administrator stood helplessly by.

I walked over to the main desk and told the receptionist on duty to stay there. I picked up an empty coffee cup and walked to a spot where the young man could see me. I lifted the cup up high and called his name. When he glanced toward me, I said, “Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

In that moment, the trust he and I had established held. An expression of relief swept over his face. His arms went down. He glanced at his opponent as if to say, “I don’t have time for you.” And he and I walked together into the cafeteria.

On my way past her, the administrator whispered, “Thanks.”

At coffee that evening in the cafeteria, the young man confided what his therapist told him that day. She said that deep down in his heart, there was a rosebud, which was now tightly closed, but in time it would unfold, and he would be healed and whole. His face was radiant as he shared this with me.

I never learned what triggered the incident I interrupted that evening. I suspect the therapist’s words had so filled the young man with hope he became agitated and unable to maintain his self control. To be safe and healed and whole is what we all long for, I believe. Whether we are Jew or Christian, male or female, straight or gay, black or white, young or old; it matters not.

It has been said that in our lifetimes we human beings move from the age of innocence to the age of experience when we can sometimes get lost in that too prevalent state of cynicism and despair where from one day to the next a primary motivation is to get even with those who have hurt us. We Minnesotans are yet in the developmental age of experience when, in reference to Gov. Jesse Ventura’s former life as a professional wrestler, we display bumper stickers that read, “My governor can beat up your governor.”

The third age to which human beings can aspire is the age of wisdom. It is the same wisdom that teaches us to not be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. I don’t think any of us progresses neatly from one stage to the next, rather we continue to visit each of the three from time to time and hopefully as we mature, we most often choose the way of wisdom.

In its concluding chapters, The Gates of the Forest draws us toward the age of wisdom. Gregor has come to see the Rabbi in search of answers. They engage in a prolonged and intense discussion in which Gregor wants the Rabbi to acknowledge that in the holocaust God has abandoned the Jewish people.

To a certain extent the Rabbi acknowledges this harsh reality but in his next words to Gregor, we know that he understands it was not God who abandoned the Jewish people, it was other human beings who abandoned them: “Who says, that power comes from a shout, an outcry rather than from a prayer? From anger rather than compassion? Where do you find certainties when you claim to have denied them? A song on the lips is worth a dagger in the hand...”

The Rabbi continues, “There is joy as well as fury in the Hasid’s dancing. It’s his way of proclaiming, ‘You don’t want me to dance; too bad, I’ll dance anyhow. You’ve taken away every reason for singing, but I shall sing. I shall sing of the deceit that walks by day and the truth that walks by night, yes, and of the silence of dusk as well. You didn’t expect my joy, but here it is; yes, my joy will rise up; it will submerge you.’”

Thus, the Rabbi instructs Gregor in the art of standing for himself without standing against anyone else - one of the most difficult arts any of us ever has to learn.

That evening, the Hasidic Jews sang and danced, and Gregor saw “the joy roll in great waves over the hall; they shouted out their happiness, climbed invisible ladders, discarded them when they ceased to be of use.”

“Bring me that ladder,” the Rabbi told Gregor.

“Which of us is Jacob and which is the angel?” Gregor asked.

“I don’t know,” the Rabbi replied, “Do you?”

We never know, do we? It is best perhaps that we do not.

A few years ago, I organized a talent show and acted as the emcee for the residents of a long-term women’s shelter, long term meaning they could live there for a maximum of two years. Each woman had a personal history of immense pain and suffering and faced many obstacles toward getting back on her feet again and rejoining the mainstream.

The shelter was located on the grounds of a convent. The audience the night of the talent show included the shelter staff and the nuns from the convent. Both orders came, the active and the contemplative. I was told it was rare for the contemplative sisters to attend something like this.

We framed the talent show as a means of thanking God for the many gifts of the participants and celebrating those gifts. One woman sang the Ave Maria. Another played a whimsical flute solo. There was also a piano solo. A woman read a moving poem she had written. One gave a demonstration of pottery making; another demonstrated flower arranging. There was dancing and a couple of skits which poked gentle fun at the ways of the shelter. The child’s little red wagon, loaded down with hundreds of pages representing the shelter’s rule book, drew laughter from our audience as one of the women pulled it across the stage.

I’m here to tell you there were ladders passed back and forth the evening of the talent show. And no one there could have told who the angels were in that rather unique crowd. At the conclusion of the program, the participants and the audience stood and together sang the hymn, How Can I Keep From Singing.

As I helped the women fold up the chairs and put them away that evening after the show was over and the audience had left, I heard many comments such as, “That was fun. We should do things like that more often.”

Their lingering joy was pleasant to witness.

“No, I will not teach you to cry,” the Rabbi said to Gregor, “I will teach you to sing.”

“And what do you expect from me,” Gregor asked the Rabbi.

“Everything,” the Rabbi replied.

I should guess that everything is expected of us, too.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let’s stand at this time and sing How can I keep from singing, number 25 in the New Century Hymnal:

P.S.

Follow the link for the lyrics and to listen to How can I keep from singing:

http://www.songlyrics.com/seeger-pete/how-can-i-keep-from-singing-lyrics/

 

Marking the Passage from the Age of Experience to the Age of Wisdom

Note: This post is an edited version of a presentation I gave at my Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship on Jan. 4, 2009. My topic was wisdom in the context of social justice. Regular readers will recognize several issues I’ve addressed previously in Katalusis posts.

The topic of wisdom is a good choice this first Sunday of the new year, considering the turmoil in a world that includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet another raging conflict between Israel and Palestine. Not to mention the global financial meltdown.

We are in an acute state of denial if we fail to realize that all of the above affects each of us personally.

On PBS’ News Hour this Friday night, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne remarked, “Israel certainly has the right to retaliate against Hamas for firing rockets into Israeli territory, but is it prudent? Is it wise?”

What do we mean when we speak of wisdom? Is it different from knowledge or experience? The word wisdom likely means many different things to different people. As I understand it, wisdom arises from the sum total of our knowledge and experience, influenced at times by the still, small voice of our intuition whenever we’re called upon to make decisions, whether large or small.

From my one undergraduate class in ancient history, I recall the meaning of wisdom was a hot topic centuries ago in the noble city of Athens, the birthplace of democracy.

According to Plato’s Apology, a friend of Socrates asked the oracle of Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates. The Oracle replied, “No way. No one is any wiser than Socrates.”

Socrates was not impressed. He of the examined life was well aware of how little he knew. To prove the oracle wrong, he went around questioning those considered wise by the people of Athens. Socrates concluded that while each man thought he knew a lot and was very wise, he actually knew very little and was not wise at all. Paradoxically, then, the oracle was right: Socrates was the wisest of all because he was the only one aware of his ignorance.

On that note, let me be very clear - I do not consider myself exceptionally wise.

I first came across the notion in the early 1980s that human beings typically pass through three stages in our lifetimes: the age of innocence, the age of experience, and the age of wisdom.

The age of innocence is supposedly the blissful Eden-like state of childhood when all of our needs are met, and we’ve yet to be burdened by knowing the difference between right and wrong. You recall that’s what got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden after they’d munched on the forbidden fruit.

If you think about it for a minute, you might remember when you first lost your innocence and were suddenly thrown into the world of experience, otherwise known as adulthood. I was in my 20s, married and the mother of two young children, when a friend I’d met at a community education class jarred me out of my innocent fundamentalist Christian ideas about religion. To start with, she was not one of those given to claiming the glass is half full. Life had taught her to be cynical about most everything. I once mentioned the fall colors were subtle that year. She replied, “They’re drab.”

My friend was a second generation Arab from Detroit whose husband had been transferred to my hometown in northwestern Ohio A displaced Unitarian she had little patience with the Christian majority in our community of about 25,000 where she may well have been our only UU resident. She was expressing her displeasure with the local ultra-conservative ethos on one occasion when I reminded her in jest that she was savaging my hometown. She replied, “The nicest thing I can say about you, Virginia, is that I forget this is your hometown.”

You see, considering my roots, my age, and my limited education, I was actually pretty liberal and open-minded.

I don’t recall whining about it much, but my loss of faith back then was painful and disorienting, and it took me awhile to get my bearings in the age of experience. In the meantime my former husband and I moved to his hometown of Minneapolis. It was a couple of years later when our kids were in elementary school that I enrolled in college where it was a privilege to breathe the fresh air of academic inquiry.

In my freshman composition class, due to my Arab friend’s influence, I attempted to write an objective account of the never ceasing conflict between Palestine and Israel.

While researching that paper, I came across persons of unusual grace and wisdom. I read an exchange of letters between Albert Einstein and an Arab professor at Princeton that were written prior to 1948. I was impressed by the graciousness these two men showed one another while openly discussing their considerable differences over the proposed creation of Israel on Palestinian soil.

I also discovered the writings of I.F. Stone, a man of Jewish heritage, widely recognized as a citizen of the world. It was Stone who reminded us that Israel was created out of the ovens of the holocaust and the subsequent refusal of Great Britain and the United States to raise their quotas for Jewish immigrants.

Sixty years later, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages on.

That paper may have been the origin of my generally live and let live ecumenical attitude toward all religions, each of which I’m convinced contains its own kernel of wisdom. I should explain that I’m tolerant of the belief systems of others as long as their practices don’t involve oppressing women, gays, or any other group of people.

Recently seared in my memory is the story of the 13-year-old Somali girl who on her way to visit her grandmother was brutally raped by three men. When she sought help from the authorities, the child was charged with adultery and publicly stoned to death.

Lest we become self righteous, gang rape occurs in our country as well. The Associated Press reported yesterday that four males, two of whom are teenagers, have been arrested on suspicion of raping a woman last month in the San Francisco Bay area while allegedly taunting her for being a lesbian.

The AP said:

‘“According to detectives, “The 45-minute attack started when one of the men approached the woman in the street, struck her with a blunt object, ordered her to disrobe and sexually assaulted her with the help of the others.

‘“The police said that “when the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building. She was raped again inside and outside the vehicle and left naked outside the building while the alleged assailants took her wallet and drove off in her car.”

It’s no wonder that many in the GLBT community remain unconvinced the anti-gay comments by religious leaders like evangelical pastor Rick Warren are harmless in light of the good deeds he and his church have performed.

The above reasoning reminds me of the battered woman who continues to risk her life staying with her abusive spouse because he occasionally does something nice for her.

You don’t have to look far in daily news accounts to be reminded of the suffering endured by various groups of vulnerable people.

And it doesn’t take a financial wizard to know the most vulnerable will suffer the greatest hardship from the fallout of the global financial crisis. A couple of facts:

#1) To this day women in the United States continue to earn 70 cents to the dollar compared to their male counterparts in the workforce; as I know from personal experience, this makes a huge difference when women reach retirement age and their social security benefits are calculated on the basis of their earnings.

Fact #2) The unemployment rate in the black community is already double that of the national average.

I once heard a United Church of Christ Official remark: "I never know whether I'm being discriminated against because I'm a woman, an African-American, or a native of Texas."

Coincidentally, Rev. Forrest Church reminded his listeners in a recent sermon at All Souls UU in New York City that historically during periods of economic decline, outreach programs are usually the first to go when congregations begin cutting costs. He was urging All Souls not to move in that direction as the recession continues its downturn. Who knows when it will bottom out?

You can be sure the CEOs of Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors will be well taken care of, regardless of the ultimate fate of their hundreds of thousands of employees.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the U.S. government’s subsequent bailout of the insurance giant American International Group (AIG) last fall reminded me of the absurdity of an essentially unregulated economic system driven by excessive borrowing and consumer spending.

It’s a system that on a local level produces incidents like the one that happened on Black Friday. The day after Americans gave thanks for our many blessings, Long Island residents went on a rampage in pursuit of material goods.

The New York Times reported: “A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after being trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a frenzy.”

Again, I don’t consider myself exceptionally wise. But as I’ve written elsewhere I do hope that our government will somehow restructure our econonomy in a way that preserves safety nets for the have nots, promotes charitable giving by those who can, and encourages for the common good the radical notion of frugality over spending by all parties. That might mean Living Simply by Design (the name of a green group affiliated with our church fellowship).

As you’ve likely guessed, my journey through the age of experience has been a long one of many ups and downs, and although I may have visited the age of wisdom from time to time, I’ve not as yet taken up permanent residence there.

The enlightened Catholic priest, Richard Chilson, who suggested the original theory of the three ages human beings pass through, also defined the quest for wisdom as synonymous with the quest for meaning in our lives. It is in effect a spiritual journey.

One of the delights I’ve experienced in growing older is that I continue to recognize signs of growth in myself – in knowledge, insight, and even in wisdom. I’ve learned over time the necessity for nurturing the spiritual life; it doesn’t just take care of itself. Around the middle of last summer, I decided to become more disciplined about this. And since then I’ve included in my morning ritual of journaling, a time for reading spiritual literature, and a few minutes of formal meditation.

In the meantime, I’ve heard from loved ones who have been hard hit by the econcomic downturn. It’s also been necessary for me to cut my own expenses, and truly, I’ve not exactly been a big spender.

Throughout all of this, my expanded morning ritual has been a source of strength and for the most part, I’ve been able to be there for friends and family.

Before I become too self-congratulatory, though, I should confess my struggle to overcome impatience throughout my years in the troublesome age of experience. That flaw in my character emerged only recently. I like for things to be done promptly, and I’ve never been very good at waiting. Especially when it involves the technician from the cable company that provides my bundled telephone and Internet connection.

It happened this Christmas morning that two incoming phone calls from family members were aborted because the other party couldn’t hear me, and my supposedly high-speed Internet service was so slow I was barely able to check my email. Further complicating matters, I live on the fourth floor of my apartment building, and my landline phone is programmed so that I can easily admit visitors to the lobby. Fortunately, when my son and his wife arrived for dinner at about noon, I was able to buzz them in.

A short time later both the phone service and my Internet connection died.

I used my cell phone to call my service provider and after wasting at least 15 precious minutes on hold, I finally talked to a live person who told me they wouldn’t be able to come out until the following Sunday between 1 and 5 p.m.

My unwired status didn’t prevent my son and his wife, and I from celebrating Christmas and the final day of Hanukah.

On Friday morning, I contacted the service provider again hoping to get an earlier appointment. I was told they’d move me up if someone else in my area cancelled.

That afternoon I went into town to do a few errands and when I returned, I discovered the electricity in part of our building was out. Both elevators were down, and I was forced to walk up the stairs with my arthritic knees to my apartment on the fourth floor. Thankfully, the power came back on in a few hours, but I’d still not heard from my ISP.

Saturday, too, passed with no word. By Sunday afternoon my impatience was about to get the better of me. Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on anger that I’ve been re-reading lately still lay on my kitchen table from my morning ritual. To pass the time I began to read the wise and venerable one’s instructions on how to mindfully treat powerful emotions threatening to get out of control.

My cell phone rang at about 4:30 and in a surprisingly calm and relaxed state of mind, I took the elevator down to the lobby to admit the technician, a personable and competent young man. He took care of the problem within minutes, and my life was soon back to normal.

In the run up to New Year’s I hadn’t thought very much about making resolutions. In fact, it was New Year’s morning when I came across the fourth of the five mindfulness trainings in Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings. Titled Deep Listening and Loving Speech the piece struck me as a resolution that might help me make it one day across the threshold from the age of experience to the age of wisdom:

It goes like this:

“Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.”

Even though I continue to be annoyed by people like Rick Warren, and my telephone service, my internet connection, and both elevators in the building fail within 24 hours.

Amen.