Incredibly Uncertain at Best: Peace Not Connected to Any Specific Outcome

Over the years my dreams have changed, not just my aspirations, but also my night dreams.  When I was younger, in my teens and twenties, they often expressed humor, fear or anger.  In my thirties and early forties, they most often had to do with my desire to have some impact on the world.  Recently, they are most often about observation.  I am still the main character in my dreams, but I'm not the protagonist in a traditional sense because the focus of the dream is not on me, but instead those around me.  Usually, there is something terrible going on, but because of the outstanding quality of those around me, I have this overwhelming sense of peace not connected to any specific outcome.  In the dream, I'm aware that beauty has nothing to do with what is happening. Instead, it has everything to do with how people handle what is happening.

I woke up early this morning from such a dream.  It started in a classroom, not a traditional classroom, but a rented space in an almost vacant shopping center in a decaying part of town.  The school was in one big classroom, but had two levels.  My side of the room was at street level, where you entered from two glass doors.  There were a couple of those long metal fold-out tables with particle board and wood-print-paper veneer tops. There were half a dozen with fold-out chairs around them.  The floor on my half of the room was worn, yellow linoleum.  Four carpeted steps led up to the other classroom that was raised and had a black iron rail separating it from the main floor.  It was furnished much the same as mine.  It had worn, blue-gray industrial carpet and looked like it once was probably the office area of a food or discount store that must have occupied the rest of the space.

Anyway, I had four or five students I was working with in this big, almost empty space, and another teacher, a Navajo woman, had four or five students she was working with in the raised classroom.

I knew one of my students, an oriental girl about fourteen or fifteen years old, was not doing her best work. She kept giving me excuses, and I was telling her that those excuses were nothing but crap.  This made her angry and I was aware her raised voice had drawn the attention of the teacher with the other class.  I considered the other teacher my mentor and didn't mind that she was watching somewhat critically.  But, I also knew I was handling the student appropriately, that she needed to be pushed so that she could experience the taste of real success--not success from the outside, not empty praise, but success from the inside, that inner voice that says, "That needed to be said, and damn, I said it well."  But she was putting up a wall.

Finally, I asked the other teacher if she'd watch my students, and I told the girl I wanted her to take me to see her parents.  At first she argued and told me I was crazy, but I said, "if you're so sure what I'm doing is wrong, why not get your parents involved?"  I know that would never work in real life--kids may run to parents to intervene in school, but not without controlling the narrative first--but in the dream, it worked.  It had to in order to move the narrative to the next scene.

I followed the girl along a ravaged boulevard, the sidewalk littered with broken liquor and beer bottle glass to an old motel that had been converted into apartments.  She took me up some outside stairs to the "apartment."  Below, I could see the swimming pool had been filled with dirt where a rusted swing set and half-broken teeter-totter now served as the playground.

Inside, the kitchenette room was steamy.  There was a couch and a double bed in the main room.  An old 1970s TV was mounted on the wall.  Off to the side there was a small kitchen where her mother was cooking. An eleven or twelve year old boy sat at the bar between the two rooms, swiveling on a beat up bar stool. On the bar was a gold Buddha.  There was also a bedroom that I assume had been another room altogether, for a door had been blasted through, a frame put up, the wall filled in, but they'd failed to paint the remodeled part.

I don't think there was a full conversation in my dream, and if there was, I don't remember it.  I do remember her brother, the scrawny twelve-year-old, was excited that his sister was in trouble and kept coming to my defense, which I didn't particularly like.   But what I remember most is the love I felt from the mother for her daughter and the appreciation she had towards me for pushing her daughter to excel.

I remember thinking, she is one of the lucky ones about the girl.  She has nothing and yet everything. This is what she needs to write.  She probably hates it--this small cramped space in a smoldering city-- and that's alright.  As she writes it out, she will deal honestly with the bad, but in the process, she will see the good also.

I didn't say that.  It would have been an insult to her family.  But I now knew how to reach her.

I left the family.  Because it was a dream, I never returned to the school.  Instead, I went to my house, which was a couple doors down.  There was a blast behind me and the sound of air-raid sirens.  An old Jewish man, who I knew, was holding a sobbing Cambodian boy.

"His mother works in that direction," he said, pointing towards the smoke, as I came up and stood beside him.  Then to the boy he said, "There's lots of buildings down there, you can't just assume it was your mother's office, but I'll tell you what, after the sirens stop, I'll walk down and make sure everything is alright."

The scene cut to the Jewish man's apartment at a later time.  It was a small, dark-paneled room with a single bed, a worn-out recliner and this beautiful big old roll-top oak desk, which you could tell was polished on a daily basis, the papers on it immaculately organized.

He sat at the desk, his old 1940s swivel chair turned to face me, the desk behind him.  I sat on the edge of the bed.

"If you don't believe in God," I asked, why do you do it?"  I was referring to all he did to help relieve the suffering of others in the neighborhood.  You see, although Jewish by heritage, he was atheist by belief.

He smiled, looked over his round, clear glasses that had slid down to the end of his nose, and said "Love."

At first I wanted to push him for more, but then I decided not to.  I wanted to go back to my own place and write down my thoughts:

I believe in Christianity--Buddhist Christianity, Jewish Christianity, Islam Christianity and Atheist Christianity.

So, I told him so.  "I hate to go, but you've inspired me and I've got to get it down on paper."

He smiled--"Glad to be of service"--and swiveled around back to his big, oak desk and returned to writing a letter.

As I walked out the door, the shadow of a bomber moved swiftly down the street and up the side of the motel where my student lived, and then a few blocks beyond there was a flash, the distant wailing of mothers, followed by sirens.

And yet somehow I knew with people like my student's mother and my atheist Jewish neighbor all was well regardless of the outcome, which was incredibly uncertain at best.

The Soundtrack of One Life out of 108 Billion: Entry 1, "Let It Be" by the Beatles (Moments, Memory and Music)

There is something dangerous about tapping into memory and writing about the past.  It's like trying to make use of good spring water.  Anything you do to improve the flow, no matter how careful you are, changes both the spring and stream forever.  Basically, you can only tap a deep memory once and receive pure writing from it.  After that, it's muddied by the mind's desire for theme and structure.

It is what it is.  One of my first memories is walking up a spiral staircase to my brother's bedroom.  I remember the carpet was gray, tight weaved, like industrial carpet, and there was dust along the edges that my mother's fierce vacuuming never reached.  Up above, a room opened up with yellow light, and glorious music spilled down the stairway, swirling around me.

Let It Be.  I was only four.  I've checked the accuracy of the memory with my brother, and the spiral staircase was three or four steps at the very most, and didn't twist at all.  But, I know the moment happened despite the mythic elements of memory and time.  That is probably the moment I became both a hippie and a Christian, which I have remained at heart, at some level or another, throughout my life.  It's so simple, but it says it all:

And when the broken-hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be

A compassion for the less fortunate, a desire for a universal brotherhood, and a faith in a higher power has always been my center.  Outwardly, I have not lived a large life; but inwardly, I have. When I was younger, that bothered me.  I thought I had things that needed to be said, things that should be heard.  I dreamed of stardom so I could have a large podium from which to speak.  As I've aged, I've realized that is true of everyone.  Each person has much the world should hear, but with 108 billion souls calling earth home at some point, there simply hasn't been enough air time.  We tend to want that--to have impact, to think our life has given others meaning.  Sometimes that is true, sometimes not.  But, what I think now is that we are ultimately here for one reason only--to soften, to open, to let more sorrow in, and by doing so, more light also.

"Let It Be," my first musical memory, is probably my purest, despite the distortions of my young mythic mind. That only makes sense.  We come into this world open and learn to become guarded with time until we learn to let go and open again--if  we learn that at all.

Some do.
Some don't.
Let it be.

A Koan for Our Times (Maya Angelou, Bono, Jimmy Carter, Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dali Lama, Gandhi, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Oprah Winfrey)

The American left generally has high regards these guys: 

Maya Angelou,

Bono,

Jimmy Carter,

Pema Chodron,

Thich Nhat Hanh,

Dalai Lama,

Gandhi,

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bishop Desmond Tutu

Oprah Winfrey

 

but denies any force that cannot be measured by science, even though these guys are all driven by spiritual belief.

The American right generally has high regard for this guy-- 

Christ--

 

but generally does not like these guys--Maya Angelou, Bono, Jimmy Carter, Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dali Lama, Gandhi, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Oprah Winfrey--  

who, regardless of their religious affiliations, work to implement His message into daily life.

 

 

Yahweh or a Roll of the Dice Down the Alley Way: A Universe of Justice or Chaos (Atheism, Buddhism, Bull Conner, Christianity, Equality, God, Hinduism, Justice, Martin Luther King, Myanmar, Pain, Suffering and U2)

 A gloriously wet day after a good rain

It is a gloriously wet day after a good rain.  The lawn mower hums; Lloyd, my brother, has come down to mow the lawn at the trailer without me asking, which is great as I'm not able to do it myself.

Pain is a hard burden to bear.  Idleness isn't easy either.  Earlier, I tried to get out in my garden, right out the sliding glass door, but after placing three flowers in the ground, it became apparent that I needed to return to my recliner or bed.

At first, I chose the latter.  I put on U2, hoping to slide into sleep.  But, instead I found despair.  It had been lurking in the big, showy irises by the pond, along irrigation ditches bubbling through the oaks in the front yard, under the suds in the sink full of dishes, under the pile of clothes on the bathroom floor--all the things, I'd like to do today, but can't.

Illness is a hard thing to write honestly about.  It's not uplifting.  I guess with humor it could be entertaining, but there's something dishonest about that--like putting makeup on a corpse and placing it in a suit.   I know we do that at funerals, but I've never been too fond of it.  When my dad died, I preferred taking a drive up the Oregon coast, stopping at the Devil's Churn, enjoying the things he enjoyed showing me.

It wasn't easy.  I sobbed deeper than I ever thought humanly possible.  But it was beautiful, and it was honest.  I'm not suggesting funerals aren't.  Each must deal with loss in his or her own way.  But personally, nature is my way of working through life's difficulties.  About a year before Dad passed away, I'd written a poem while imagining my own death:

Hope!

My granddaughter refuses
to look in my casket
at my pale, plastic
flesh,

after my soul has sucked      out.

She sits in the corner on the floor
to the dismay of her mother,
headphones on, tuned out
from the horseshit

they dream up to make me
their vision.

She is totally tuned in
to a song like camphor,
sees a steep hill where wind
blows ferns between
tall trees that seem
to climb out of the sea
churning below,
green.

Somehow, there must be a way to write about illness like that--tuned out from the horseshit, neither wallowing in the pain nor ignoring it.

Life is the Grand Tetons, but it's also a wasp devouring a tarantula, as I found out while working in my garden last summer.  I watched and filmed with horrid fascination.  


Life is only fair in two ways--we all are born and we all die.  Everything in between is a unique experience, an individual path, and only part of that experience is due to individual choice.  The rest, whether by random act or by divine design, or perhaps a combination of both, is not in our hands. Bono is right, where you live should not determine whether you live or die, but it does.  It decides your freedom, your liberty, your wealth. I don't care how good you are at pulling yourself up by the boot straps, you would not be living the life that is currently yours, if you lived in Myanmar (Burma) .

And yet place is just one small factor to the equation of "I."  Parents, genetics, health, the spirit I came to earth with, also contribute, as do what seem to be random occurrences.

Atheism has always been easy for me to believe.  Often, chaos does indeed seem to be king of the universe. Injustice is everywhere.  You don't have go far to find it:

Oh that Rococo Life

Slowly breaking apart
a cranberry muffin,
sucking down the sweet morsels
with over-creamed coffee.

Palm trees sway beyond

the marble-floored lobby
and empty sunken bar
through great Venetian windows,
beyond a great red-tiled patio
and heavy white balustrade.

I read Pictures of the Gone World
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Says here, poem 25 (quote)
The world is a beautiful place
                                           To be born into
If you don’t mind happiness
                                           Not always being
                                                           So much fun.

What the hell, I’ll try it.

The kids are with Grandma.
Marci is in class.
the room is paid for
with one week’s salary.

Nothing to do

but hang out at the pool
and read Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
look at beautiful
lotion-glowing bodies
from ages 5 to 70,
weighing between 30
and 250 pounds.

Yes, this world is a beautiful place

to be born into.

Though yesterday

when we got lost
in that neighborhood
of duplexes
and run-down apartment complexes
that didn’t quit qualify for a slum
but was part of the working poor world
that I knew for so long,

and I went in that 7-11

to find some way out
of the hell-mood
I’d sank into
and I saw myself behind the counter
in a stupid dehumanizing uniform
with a stupid name tag on it,
smiling back at myself
knowing I’d always be here,
behind some convenience store counter
working eight hours a day
to get nowhere,

I got to tell you

I thought again
the world
is nothing
but a great big turd ball
with all of us swarming over it,
pushing and shoving
for a chance
to bite right in.

Today there are palms outside the window,

rich girls in bikinis,
rich daddy’s in loafers,

and it’s true—

                                The world is a beautiful place

To be born into
                                If you don’t mind happiness
Not always being
                                So much fun.

©Steve Brown, 2013

We think of God as Just, and yet injustice seems to reign supreme all around us.  Perhaps if we are born into or achieve wealth on our own we can pretend it's not so, but I don't think so.  At least in the United States, street crime stays pretty local.  Gated communities are generally a good distance from high crime neighborhoods, and yet they remain sealed off from the world.  At a subconscious level, perhaps the walls are as much for the psychological safety of the inhabitants as for home security. Perhaps they are not needed because of a fear of robbery, but because of fear of sight.  Outside those walls people have less--less goods, less services, less time, less life.

I don't blame the rich.  It's all relative anyway.  I live in a very nice 4-bedroom double-wide modular on 90 acres of forest and scrub land.  I use to drive through neighborhoods on the south side of Juarez, Mexico that were literally built from crates and cardboard boxes.  Compared to them, I'm wealthy.  Some isolate themselves behind gates; I isolate myself on a gorgeous plot of land near a nice Mormon community that has almost no crime and only very small pockets of poverty.  I might as well live in Mayberry.

But that's what makes Justice such an incredible concept.  It doesn't seem natural to the universe and yet we believe in it so profoundly.  All men are created equally--come on!  I know enough about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bull Connor to know they are not equals.  Martin Luther King spoke like a prophet and Bull Connor was just a dumb bigot who had fire hoses violently turned against children.  Equals?  Forget the hind sight of history, forget being right or wrong, in less than 12 seconds Bull Connor clearly demonstrates he is rhetorically, linguistically, and intellectually inferior to King.  There is nothing equal about them.

And yet King's whole life and message are about justice and equality--a message rooted directly in Christianity, and indirectly in Judaism and Yahweh in world awareness, ultimately the god of law, justice and equality.

In our time, regardless of how hypocritical Jews or Christians may be at times, it is impossible to separate justice, equality, Judaism and Christianity from each other.  They are all bound together in the notion that the universe is not relative, that there is an order, a balance, and fairness, equality, right and wrong are part of that plan, and when that balance is destroyed by evil men, justice must be employed to right the wrongs.

And yet even nature, to a believer the handy-work of God himself, seems clearly cruel and unjust, everything living off the suffering of others in an eat or be eaten world.

How does the believer reconcile this?  Why even try?  Why not just accept that life is unfair, get on with it, enjoy what you have at the moment, and don't worry about the fact your mother can no longer walk, or that your child's one friend seems to have a lot of unexplained bruises, or that the homeless man under the interstate bridge where you park might not be an actor with a get-rich scheme after all?

The fact that even some of us worry about these things to me suggests there must be a God.  Why did Martin Luther King, Jr. go to the mountain top?  Why did Moses?  Why did Christ?

What makes some men and women care enough about justice to die for it--especially those who already have more than their peers?  Martin Luther King, though black, certainly was not at the bottom of the social latter.  He could have been content enjoy his privileged education and ministry. What about Moses?  Egypt wasn't all that bad for him.  And Christ--well, he was God, not that bad of a gig in the social order of things, and yet he was willing to sink below the most vile sinners that justice might be served while simultaneously, through grace, spiritual equality was maintained between small-minded men like Bull Conner and spiritual giants like Martin Luther King, Jr.  Why?

Things are not so complicated when we think outside our mortal shells.  Injustice and inequality are not so unbearable if life is a classroom and we are aware we signed up for certain lessons. Pain, though still unpleasant, gains meaning in this incredible riot of free-wills, from microscopic bacteria and viruses to the leaders of nations, when we feel in our fibers there is a plan.  With an omnipotent eye, even the class bullies, like Bull Connor or Adolf Hitler can be forgiven if we know each person is on an individual journey.  This is how men like Bull Conner and Martin Luther King, Jr. can truly be equals: they each have divine potential, each are fluid spiritually, learning as they go, both in this life and the next.  The Hindu and Buddhist concepts of karma are not that different from that of the justice Judaism and Christianity--somehow all human cultures have a concept of justice and equality intrinsic to who they are, despite it apparently not being natural to either nature or civilization.  For me, that is the greatest proof that there is an intelligence behind what to us often appears as chaos.

And it is that divine light that drives us, despite very real world knowledge of pain and suffering, to sing a new song against all odds.

Life (Buddhism, Mormonism, poetry, the Creative Process & the Fixx)

I first came to poetry through music.  When I was a teenager, I would listen to groups like the Cure, the Police, the Fixx, and the music would drive words--not just their words, but my words and their words mingled together, and I would write poems that, although mostly mine, would never have arrived without theirs--a sort of strange dialogue, where both are talking, but only I am listening.   Here, I have gone back to my poetic roots, what I consider a righteous plagiarism--the spirit of one artist sustaining another.  Perhaps, it is more for the young, but I enjoyed the Fixx moving me once again. After all, I am definitely old enough to qualify for a mid-life crisis, if not a little beyond that right.

Photo by Rio Brown

Life

Rose red sunsets
and maggots on the bone.
Golden fawn
in the dawn dew meadow
or dead on the road.

Flower blooming,
baby breaking
forth blood-slick
and God-glorious,
parents joy,
gentle rain,
terrible typhoon,
get your ass to your room!

Bitter bite of frost,
the limb-snap
thundering down,
happenstance
blossoming
the end
of one stopping
by woods to
enjoy

silence, ah silence, that moment of stillness....

before the storm,

kneeling,
pleading,
begging,
no, no, no more!

Sun pours
through verdant green canopy
Everything taken
is restored.

Lessons in Sustainable Living from the Grapes of Wrath: A Reading and Writing Journal (Entry 2: On Transport Trucks, Patsy Cline, Turtles, Weeds, Permaculture, Sepp Holzer, the Dalai Lama and Worms)

It's only been a day since the last storm and the haze is back.  It use to take at least a week, and then a few days.  Even with the oak and maple along the canyon slope, the cottonwood rising from the stony creek bed, and the wall of loose stone and ceder on the ridge beyond, it's hard to be here fully in the moment. Quite simply, winter moments here are no longer the same.  For now, spring and fall are still crisp, but pollution is eroding away our days, our weeks, our months, our seasons.  Maybe some don't notice.  Maybe some don't care. But to me the sky is everything: my connection to light, and through that light, my connection to the world around me.  It's not just about global warming; it's not just about public health.  It's about being in a world that sheds light on the sacred.  Pollution dims our connection with creation.

This morning I read Chapter 2 and 3 of The Grapes of Wrath.  Chapter 2 doesn't necessarily provide any lessons in sustainable living, but the writing is spot-on and made me long for simpler times.  Obviously, not better times.  I've tried not to be pulled into ubi sunt, or the unnatural glow of the past, where we long for a rose-colored yesteryear.  I'm not Ronald Reagan.  I'm aware the good ol' days included lynching and constant insinuation that your wife and daughters were inferior.  But, there was a directness to living that has vanished even since I was a child, and that had already faded compared to my parents' generation. Steinbeck captures so well that period when people were fewer and even strangers were more connected:

A huge transport truck stood in front of the little roadside restaurant.  The vertical exhaust pipe muttering softly, and an almost invisible haze of steel blue smoke hovered over its end...  Inside the screened restaurant a radio played, quiet dance music turned low the way it is when no one is listening.  A small outlet fan turned silently in its circular hole over the entrance, and flies buzzed excitedly about the doors and windows, butting the screens.  Inside, one man, the truck driver, sat on a stool and rested his elbows on the counter and looked over his coffee at the lean and lonely waitress...

When I lived in Dallas, I longed for such scenes.  As a student at a nearby university, I'd drive home each weekend on the back road, the old highway, instead of the interstate, because it was lined with barely surviving cafes from better days--left overs from the forties and fifties.  I longed for that slower life, the one I'd grown up with.  I'd take great road trips in search of an America lost, an America I was almost too young to know, but not quite.

Once I found it in Terlinqua, Texas with a girlfriend from Germany.  We sat in a small cafe and stared out at the white stone desert listening to Patsy Cline over a small radio while drinking Blue Sky soda and I thought I was in heaven.  I could almost see a bright red truck pull up with OKLAHOMA CITY TRANSPORT COMPANY in twelve-inch letters on the side.

True, the time periods did't line up--Grapes of Wrath predating Patsy Cline--but for me, it was close enough.  Ceiling fans whirled overhead.  Patsy sang "I Fall to Pieces" and my beautiful biologist friend went on about symbiotic relationships, while I looked out the window into a distant time.

Chapter 3, my favorite one of the book, does provide a couple of lessons in Sustainable living.  It's the turtle chapter that serves as a metaphor for the struggle the Joad family will endure.  As Steinbeck was good friends with marine biologist Ed Ricketts, he had a deep understanding of nature, which bubbles up in his writing:

THE CONCRETE HIGHWAY was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal, twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man’s trouser cuff or the hem of a woman’s skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed of the anlage of movement.

The first sustainable living lesson from this chapter is that nature is designed to take care of itself.  In many ways, industrial farming treats nature as the enemy of agriculture.  Weeds are wicked.  They are plowed up. Bare soil is the birth of life.  But it isn't.  Steinbeck seemed to sense this.  Foxtails, unpleasant, weedy and thorny shit, are the pioneers of life.  After the turtle finally crosses the road, he inadvertently plants the seeds to repair the soil disturbed by the drought and wind:

The wild oat head fell out and three of the spearhead seeds stuck in the ground. And as the turtle crawled on down the embankment, its shell dragged dirt over the seeds. The turtle entered a dust road and jerked itself along, drawing a wavy shallow trench in the dust with its shell. The old humorous eyes looked ahead, and the horny beak opened a little. His yellow toe nails slipped a fraction in the dust.

Permaculture, like Steinbeck, recognizes the weed as the first cultivator of life. Rather than being the devil, the weed is the heart and soul of Eden.  One starts ones garden the way nature does--with weeds--and then, by studying the natural processes, works with nature rather than against to achieve a desired outcome.  

The second lesson we learn from Chapter 3 is a Buddhist principle, which is the practice of loving kindness.  It's slightly different than the Christian principle of brotherhood, in that it recognizes that every living thing has its own purpose, its own journey to complete.  Instead of being thy brother's keeper, one steps lightly, so as not to cause undo harm to life around you, which is demonstrated by the two drivers in the chapter:

Now the going was easy, and all the legs worked, and the shell boosted along, waggling from side to side. A sedan driven by a forty-year-old woman approached. She saw the turtle and swung to the right, off the highway, the wheels screamed and a cloud of dust boiled up. Two wheels lifted for a moment and then settled. The car skidded back onto the road, and went on, but more slowly. The turtle had jerked into its shell, but now it hurried on, for the highway was burning hot.

And now a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it. His front wheel struck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle like a tiddly-wink, spun it like a coin, and rolled it off the highway. The truck went back to its course along the right side. Lying on its back, the turtle was tight in its shell for a long time.


I believe that both Christ and the Buddha had it right.  With people, there are times, we are our brother's keepers, and must offer others the grace offered us when we lose our way.  With nature, we must at least practice loving kindness--harming no life unnecessarily, to allow each creature to fulfill the measure of its creation.

With this thought process, the grasshopper becomes as meaningful to the garden as the hummingbird or butterfly.  The workings of man develop habitat rather than destroy it.

I remember one beautiful afternoon I spent watching a wasp drag a dead tarantula from one end of my garden to the other.  I was amazed at how quick he was, how diligent, and the obstacles he overcame.  At the borders of my pond, he encountered what to him were enormous boulders.  I was sure his home was there in a crevice between two rocks, and was surprised when he toiled on.

It gave me strength to toil on with an infection I had experienced for months.  It brought peace.  It is in these small noticings, these small acts of loving kindness, these steps back with humility, observing rather than participating, that we find the true measure and purpose of our creation.  If you kill the little birds (or the wasp), you can't learn from the the little birds (or the wasp).  You're aligned with the wrong energy.    

My favorite scene in Seven Years of Tibet is where Heinrich is asked to save the worms when building a movie theater for the young Dalai Lama.  Whether that really happened or not isn't significant.  It's taking the time to do that sort of thing that would lead to a kinder, more sustainable civilization.

 

The Master’s Scribe (Buddhism, Furious Fiction, Pugs, Zen)

Camilla, the fat pug, waddles across the blue-gray snow fields of Mount Fuji like a three-legged pig.  Jack, the Hokkaido fox, should be chasing her.  But how can he?  One leap and he’ll be well beyond the ugly little tanker.

The narrator won’t like Camilla being called an “ugly little tanker.”  I can hear him say, “Nothing ugly.  Only perception ugly. ” He doesn’t like much of what I type on his behalf.  He says I use too many words.  That’s because he’s a Zen Buddhist monk from Kamakura who sits on a straw mat all day playing Call of Duty Advanced Warfare.  He says enlightenment is found in the moment of action.  “No words; use thumbs only, fingers.” 

I’d quit if he didn’t pay well.  He says although words kill the moment, a monk without books to his name is no monk at all these days. 

“California read enlightenment too much!  Zen not self-help.  No problem.  No help.  Just be.”

“Okay,” I say, “but what about the fable?  Why not have the pug chase the fox?  She’s slow; he’s fast.  We have struggle, plot.”

He says Americans are too logical, that you can’t write a fable with logic.  You shouldn’t write a fable at all.  It should just be.

“How can it be, if we don’t write it?” I ask in exasperation.

He smiles, “Your journey, not mine.”

Why Teach?

Yesterday, I went into work an hour early to tutor two high school special needs students.  The one had a question every once in a while but worked primarily on his own.  The other—we’ll call him Jerry—had filled out a writing web with 11 details about why it is good to be in the “community” group rather than the “compliance” group at the boys’ home where I work.  The details were wonderful, and showed a level of maturity and sophistication you would not expect from a ninth-grade student who functions academically between a first and second grade level, in that all the details were oriented towards the opportunity to serve, learn and grow rather than the self-centered perks that come along with being in the community.  I thought cool, until I turned to his rough draft.  Instead of being about the opportunities that come with being in the community, it was about food—what is delicious and what is not. 

Damn, not again, I thought.  So far, for Jerry, there is no sequence, no connectivity, as you and I understand it, where one thought is linked to another, and details attach to a main idea.  Sure, it’s there somewhere, or that web wouldn’t have demonstrated such sophistication, but it’s not triggered the same as it is for you and I.  Therefore, I spent the next 45 minutes explaining how the web is where you brainstorm your ideas for your rough draft, that they should have something to do with each other, that although they may be apples and oranges, they are not apples and Orangutans, and all the while, he’s interrupting me in a low-level panic, “So, Mr. Steve, this is not right?” and I’m fighting frustration at his focus being on right or wrong.

“Jerry,” don’t worry about that.    Just listen.”

“I can fix, Mr. Steve.  I am a good boy.”

Yes, Jerry.  But you need to relax, slow down, listen.  You have great stuff here—both of these are good—but they don’t connect.  They don’t match.  One is a red sock, one a blue…”

At that moment, I decide, I can’t make him redo the assignment.  It will crush him.  He put his best into both.  He just didn’t grasp one thing leads to another.  Or he did, at the most important level; at the being-human level, he grasped something a lot of CEO’s don’t grasp—that the purpose of life is to serve others and enjoy good food along the way.  But, at the academic level, that whole notion of line upon line, precept upon precept was and usually is lost on Jerry.  I knew I also had to give him his task fast.  Jerry doesn’t like to wait.  He wants to work, to show he’s learning, which to him means doing—something we definitely don’t agree on, but if I can’t get across A should connect to B right now, I’m probably not going to convey the idea that more can be learned in a moment of complete stillness than in a lifetime of doing. 

So, I decide to have him write the rough draft that should go with his web on the community and the web that should go with his rough draft on delicious foods.  Will that get through to him that a web and a rough draft go together?  I won’t know until he turns it in.  Knowing Jerry, I might get something about the joys of sitting on a soft couch as his essay to go with the web on the community, and a web on different facts about China to go with his essay on delicious food.

I would go crazy if I taught only to have success.  Sure, success needs to happen too, or I should find another profession.  But to try to control all the variables that makes up a child’s future, or equally asinine, to try and ignore all those variables—genetics, family, community—is absurd.

This is a dangerous thing to say in education these days, but here it is anyways:  I teach because it blows my mind that Jerry, a ninth grader who operates at a second grade level, knows something most CEO’s don’t—that the purpose of life is to serve others and enjoy delicious food along the way.  And neither Jerry, nor the CEO knows this.  It’s my little secret (at least until now).  I get how profoundly important Jerry is to the human web and others don’t.  He isn’t a burden on society.  He is the jewel, the reason society exists.  Not just Jerry.  Not because he’s “special.”  Just because he is.  All of us, just because we are.

That’s it; that’s why I teach: to participate in children’s lives.  What could be greater than going into work an hour early to hear Jerry say, “Good Morning, Mr. Steve”?—his big jolly body announcing life is good, his big smile screaming it, just in case you don’t get that. 

Of course every teacher knows—especially middle school teachers—you’re more likely to walk down to your classroom and find one or two students sitting on the floor outside, headphones on, hunched over, hair in their eyes, wilted in doom.  And that’s great too.  Perhaps that’s why I love to teach.  Children have an honesty, and integrity about them, that somehow gets lost in most of the adult world.  Sure, sometimes it’s a bit overdramatic.  Doom?  Really?  You probably didn’t even have to make your own bed this morning.  But I prefer that to the make believe adult world where everyone is making progress, where everyone is changing the world around them for the better, this great and glorious march up the ladder towards perfection.

Teaching, if done right, is a profession where every morning you get to go into work and just be.  Kids are open.   They want to experience life outside what they learned at home.  They are hungry for the new.  Because the other teacher in our building is a permaculturist and environmentalist, our students are into all things organic.  Overall, we’re not supposed to play music with lyrics, so I play Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, but also Henry Mancini and Scott Joplin.   I even felt brazen enough to play John Denver (lyrics and all!) and they love it.  They’re always asking, “Who is this, Mr. Steve?”  We even spent twenty or so minutes watching this dude’s joy—and I simply said, “damn, you know you’ve found the right career when it makes you feel like this!”  That was my lesson.  What else could be said?

 

Really, the only reason not to teach is if you are out to rescue lives.  Sure, there may be a few gifted teachers who can carry on that intense passion you see in the movies, who will never give up on a child, who will see them through, who will be successful again and again.  On average there are two of them for every fifty other mere mortals.   The other 48 burn out trying to be that super teacher—and nothing is more dangerous to children than adults who no longer believe and yet act as if they do.   Kids have built in hypocrisy radars, bullshit detectors.  If you need to change a child’s life to bolster your ego, quit.  Become a gardener or a carpenter—something where you have a little more control over the variables.  But if you just want to be—there is a classroom of kids waiting for your example.  Because that is simply something you can’t know at such a young age.  The minute you find clothes you’re comfortable in, you’ve outgrown them.   Being doesn’t come easy, which is what a child needs most—lots of adults who are comfortable in their own skin.  That is the safety they seek.  I exist, I am, and that’s alright.   I am not a freak of nature after all.  Teaching the quadratic equation or how to diagram a complex sentence is only a vehicle to do that—a detractor from the self long enough the self can be found. 

The poet Sam Green, a great teacher of mine, once shared this with me:

My grandfather would take me out fishing, and we’d be out there in his small boat drifting, and he’d say something like, “see that rock over there,” and I’d look, and there’d be something like a moose or a bear, and I’d say, “Grandpa!  Look, a bear!”

He’d say, “Wow!” 

It wasn’t until much later I realized what he was doing.  Now that is teaching.

 

 

The Moment (Individual Worth, Buddhism, Christianity & Let It Be)

I dreamt I had paid my dues:
I had done my research;
I had sat quietly;
I had taken notes,
organized them carefully
and waited patiently--
not minutes,
not hours,
not days,
nor months, nor seasons, nor years,
but decades--yes decades--

and finally that moment came.
I stood, for I knew I had something to say;
I knew it would not be easy;
it never is in a world that talks on incessantly,
but I stood anyway, not because I wanted to.

I would rather have gone fishing,
and I don't fish.
It seems absurd to lure the hungry,
hook them and yank them from the known
out into a dry existence
where their eyes are too big
and their lungs no longer see,
where their tail flaps,
but there is no longer resistance--
the comfort of something pushing back
gently, with ease,
instead one yank out into an unknown
expanse of thinness,
of clarity.

No, fishing is no sport for me.
Let the fish swim happily
in their thick little world
of mirror liquefied
and wrapped around them
like a great quilt--light, shadow,
birth, death, movement distracting them
from the alpine air
above the lid--

Who would want to be a flying fish anyway?--
to arch out into the unknown,
to know sunlight unfiltered,
to soar up into the heavens
above your old home,
and to find everything you once knew
an illusion, to know worlds
stars, galaxies and universes without end
await your discovery.

Yes, fishing is not my sport,
but I knew my time had come,
I gathered my notes--

There was Marla's chin, eleventh grade,
perfect, and she didn't know it.
She talked on about clubbing,
about fake ID, about drunken nights
on McKinney Ave and the West End,
about meeting the members of KISS,
about going back stage, but not about
going under, being violated
by Gene Simons' foreign tongue,
nor blacking out, nor waking up
in an empty hotel suite, stumbling naked
to the bathroom,
clasping her clothes around her
as if she could remember being swaddled,
as if innocence and safety
and love were still garments you could slip into
like blue jeans and a tank top--
how she looked into the mirror and hated
her hair, her eyes, her nose, lips,
especially that chin with such intensity
she reached two perfectly manicured
fingers down the throat, tried
to offer some sort of sacrifice
to that porcelain alter--
The heaves were dry,
she had nothing left to give.
Her chin would remain beautiful,
as would her thick hair and dark eyes
to God, to me, probably many.  Perhaps
even Gene Simmons
saw the very pinpoint of creation,
of unspeakable truth and light
shine up at him as he penetrated her
and placed her forever
on the alter of Mammon,
the electricity of the whole damn universe blinking
for a millisecond, glitch after glitch,
year after year,
millennium after millennium
as small flames snuffed out.

I looked out on a great audience of incessant talking--
young couples and old, from every nation, kindred, tongue,
wine glasses in hand, slurping on pizza
or octopus, draining down Big Gulps
while stuffing mouths with popcorn and crickets,
chattering around the fringes
of their stories,
carefully stepping around
the black holes
that keep their galaxies spinning,
their tails flapping,
their gills pumping,
their eyes wide and metallic
as they navigate
their way the best they can
around the fish bowl.

I whispered, "I too have sinned"
and sat back down.

A man in a white suite, wearing sandals
and bright red socks smiled,
"Well said, brother, well said."

And I swear I saw that light
that once glimpsed
leaves this world a drop
in a sea of glory.

Work We Must, But Lunch Is Free: Reflections on a Speech by Hugh Nibley, the Poem "Valentine for Ernest" by Naomi Shihab Nye, the Writing Process, and the Gifts of Life

1. The Challenge

Recently, Irene, a mentor of mine left me the following message on Facebook:

Steve, I remembered this while reading on other topics. I'm really curious to get your thoughts on this. The speech made a deep impression on me at the time it was delivered and I've referred to it now and again over the years. Nibley's ideas were always intriguing -- we were at BYU when he was professor and we were fortunate to take a course from him. The speech is titled "Work We Must, But the Lunch is Free." It's published in a collection of his writings now.

I know enough writers to know that all writers, no matter how large or small their audience, crave personal connection with their readers.  Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Valentine for Ernest" is a perfect example of one writer fulfilling that need for connection:

Though, my audience is small, I’m no exception.  I have no clue why Irene requested my thoughts on Nibley's talk. Maybe I wrote something that made her think I might have some insight.  As Irene is someone I consider a mentor, and far more educated in both temporal and spiritual matters than I am, it is more likely that she is leading me to water, hoping I’ll drink.  Either way, I’m flattered.  Yes, I have a willing audience!  So, I’ll engage. I’m going to respond pretty much the same Nye did, with humility and from the gut.

First, however, I want to deal openly with some doubts I have as to formulating a fitting response.  Although I’m a Mormon with a strong, personal testimony of the gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that testimony is new, and the fact is I have been an inactive member and nonbeliever for much of my life, which means my knowledge of doctrine hasn't developed much beyond that of a sixteen-year-old, when I stopped going to church many, many years ago.

Second, I feel that any value I might have with regards to my religion, is as an outsider.  Intellectually, my culture is not the Mormon culture.  I developed as a thinker in El Paso.  Most of my mentors are do-good Buddhist writers and do-good lawyers working for the rights of migrant farm workers.  I once considered myself an atheist and what moved me most on a spiritual level was nature writing and science written for the masses, such as Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, not scriptures.  I have no mind for the particulars of science, and if it had been my field of study, I would have failed miserably.  But I always have been drawn to the magnificence of creation and have liked science’s non-biased approach:  observe first—then think.  Rather than—force your observations to meet the conditions of what you believe, which is what most of the population does.  That was also my attraction to Buddhism—yes, there is more to life than meets the eye, but what you see now at this moment, the observable world, is the only way into that sacred space.  In short, I’m a Mormon not because I was raised one (though that is true), but simply because I believe.  I think more like someone who is not Mormon.  Enquiry, I’m old friends with.  Belief is a new, intimate, somewhat fragile love.  In Christ, I am truly a newlywed, learning day by day what this new relationship I have with God really means.  Therefore, I’m not really qualified to analyze church doctrine.  I simply haven't put in the hours of field work necessary to qualify my observations as anything other than Lazy-Boy Recliner philosophy.

However, that never stops a writer.  Writing isn't so much about sharing what you know as it is about discovering what you might think along the way.  It is about tapping into an energy and following it to a place of possible inquiry.  It’s about recording the journey of the mind, not about sharing some earth-shattering insight.  So, I’m up for the challenge.  Following a train of thought, no matter how feeble, how flawed, is something I’m good at.

2.       The Two Employers

Hugh H. Nibley begins his argument by retracing the history of modern science from a sure, very doctrinal Darwinian/atheist approach to a more open, less-sure, post-modern approach.  As Nibley is a master of language, as well as the people he quotes, I feel it would be a crime to paraphrase him or his sources, and so instead, I've decided to include key passages and build bridges over any chasms left by what I've cut out. 

The famous geologist Sir Julian Huxley used to go from school to school in the manner of a traveling revivalist, preaching his gospel of evolution: "In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created; it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it including our human selves, mind and soul, as well as brain and body. So did religion." He was fond of reminding his audiences that there is no Santa Claus, and that mature people should give up wishful thinking about such things as gifts and blessings, spiritual or material, bestowed from on high.

The high school youth of my day took great satisfaction in reciting the words of Omar Khayyam: "And that inverted bowl we call the sky, whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, lift not the hands to It for help, for It rolls impotently on as Thou or I." This is, as one eminent commentator on the scientific scene, Hoimar von Ditfurth, puts it, "that 'modern view,' still current today, that the earth with everything in it is dangling in the isolation of a universe whose cold majesty disdains it . . . Deep down we are probably even proud of the detachment with which we accept our 'true' situation. . . . Much of the cynicism and nihilism characteristic of the modern psyche can be traced to this chilling conception."

But within the last decade or so, leaders in scientific research have begun to express the opposite opinion to this, saying that they more than suspect the possibility (1) that the somebody out there cares–i.e., there is direction and purpose to what is going on; and (2) that gifts sent down from above are more than a childish tradition.

He then goes on to include some of the challenges to the strictly Darwinian view, of which I’ll share a couple:

A grand old–timer in biology, the 1937 Nobel Prize winner, Albert Szent–Györgyi, recently wrote:

According to present ideas, this change in the nucleic acid [which determines the nature of protein molecules formed in a cell] is accomplished through random variation. . . . If I were trying to pass a biology examination, I would vigorously support this theory. Yet in my mind I have never been able to accept fully the idea that the adaption and the harmonious building of those complex biological systems, involving simultaneous changes in thousands of genes, are the results of molecular accidents. . . . The probability that all of these genes should have changed together through random variation is practically zero. . . . I have always been seeking some higher organizing principle that is leading the living system toward improvement and adaptation. I know this is biological heresy, . . . e.g., I do not think that the extremely complex speech center of the human brain ... was created by random mutations that happened to improve the chances of survival of individuals. . . . I cannot accept the notion that this capacity arose through random alterations, relying on the survival of the fittest. I believe that some principle must have guided the development toward the kind of speech center that was needed.

More surprising is the story now unfolding as various fields of research combine to give us a picture of gifts being showered upon us from on high–the literal reading of the Santa Claus or Kachina myth. Thus Buckminster Fuller says: "Energies emanating from celestial regions remote from Planet Earth are indeed converging and accumulating in Planet Earth's biosphere ... both as radiation and as matter. "We aboard Earth are receiving gratis just the amount of prime energy wealth, to regenerate biological life on board.... Van Allen belts, . . . the ionosphere, stratosphere and atmosphere all refractively differentiate the radiation frequencies, . . . . separating [them] into a variety of indirect life–sustaining energy transactions." "Vegetation is the prive energy impounder"; from stellar radiation "the biologicals are continually multiplying, their beautiful cellular, molecular, and atomic structurings" which complete the equation.... "Certainly the earth is not the center of the universe," writes von Ditfurth, ". . . but this crowded earth is a focal point in the universe; one of perhaps innumerable places in the cosmos where life and consciousness could flourish. . . . What a concentration of mighty forces upon one more or less tiny point!" Is it possible that someone does have us in mind?

After opening up the possibility that Darwinism/Atheism is not the only world view that can be supported by science, Nibley switches hats from philosopher/observer to  Mormon theologian and builds a case that it is not so much scientific Darwinism, but social Darwinism that is the real threat to Christianity:

As if to counteract these growing heresies, the old Darwinian view is being puffed today for all it is worth in a half dozen prestigious TV documentaries in which we are treated to endless footage of creatures ranging from amoebas, to giant carnivores, stalking, seizing and with concentrated deliberation soberly crunching, munching, swallowing, and ingesting other insects, fishes, birds, and mammals, etc. This, we are told again and again, is the real process by which all things were created. Everything is lunching on everything else, all the time, and that, children, is what makes us what we are; that is the key to progress. And note it well, all these creatures when they are not lunching are hunting for lunch–they all have to work for it: There is no free lunch in the world of nature, the real world. Lunch is the meaning of life, and everything lunches on something else–"Nature red in tooth and claw." Tennyson's happy phrase suited the Victorian mind to perfection. He got the idea from Darwin, as Spencer did his even happier phrase, "survival of the fittest." Darwin gave the blessing of science to men who had been hoping and praying for holy sanction to an otherwise immoral way of life. Malthus had shown that there will never be enough lunch for everybody, and therefore people would have to fight for it; and Ricardo had shown by his Iron Law of Wages that those left behind and gobbled up in the struggle for lunch had no just cause for complaint. Darwin showed that this was an inexorable law of nature by which the race was actually improved; Miall and Spencer made it the cornerstone of the gospel of Free Enterprise–the weaker must fall by the way if the stock is to be improved. This was movingly expressed in J. D. Rockefeller's discourse on the American Beauty Rose, which, he said, "can be produced ... only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. . . . This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working–out of a law of nature and a law of God."

In this divinely appointed game of grabs, to share the lunch–prize would be futile, counter–productive, nay immoral. Since there is not enough to go around, whoever gets his fill must be taking it from others–that is the way the game is played. "In Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, or anywhere else in England," as Brigham Young reported the scene in 1856, workers knew that "their employers would make them do their work for nothing, and then compel them to live on roots and grass if their physical organization could endure it, therefore, says the mechanic, 'If I can get anything out of you I will call it a godsend," and does what he can to rip off the boss. If he gets caught, he is punished, yet he is only playing the same game as his employer.??

Here, Nibley sees two world views as battling for the souls of men.  The first, inspired by Satan, says lunch is limited and must be fought over.  There are only so many resources and some will eat and others will be eaten in this dynamic fight for survival.  In this view, survival of the fittest being natural, competition is the moral choice and capitalism is the purist system:

The first employer offers us lunch, and since lunch is something everybody must have, he is in a powerful position to bargain. He explains that this glorious earth is his private estate, that it all belongs to him to the ends thereof; in particular he owns the mineral rights and the media of exchange, by controlling which he enjoys the willing cooperation of the military, ecclesiastical, and political establishments, and rules with magnificent uproar. He keeps everything under tight control, though, for all the blood and horror–nobody makes any trouble in his world from the rivers to the ends thereof. Well can he ask Adam, "What is it you want?" for he claims to be the God of this World, and the Lord himself grants him the title of Prince of this World. All who are not working for him on his estate he charges with trespassing, including even heavenly messengers, whom he accuses of spying out his vast property with an eye to taking over the whole of it. But he is willing to make a deal if they have money. To have merely sufficient for your needs, however, is not what he has in mind–that would be the equivalent of the free lunch, lamely ignoring the endless possibilities for acquiring power and gain that the place offers; this developer has a vision of unlimited sweep and power?"You can have anything in this world for money!" Beginning, of course, with lunch. Because money is the only thing that will get you lunch–and since everybody must have lunch, that is the secret of his control.

The second view, inspired by God, taught through Christ, says the garden is bountiful and lunch is provided:

So let us go across the road for an interview with the Other Employer. To our surprise, he answers our first question with an emphatic: "Forget about lunch! Don't even give it a thought!" "Take no thought of what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewith ye shall be clothed!" "But what will become of me then?" you ask. Not to worry, "We will preach the gospel to you, and then you will find out that lunch should be the least of your concerns."

3.       A Flash of Inspiration

After establishing the two employers—mammon, who says lunch is limited and we must fight for it, and Christ, who says the garden is full, come and partake of it—Nibley goes on to argue that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have a unique promise from God that binds Him to take care of our temporal needs if we, in exchange, do his spiritual work on earth.  Therefore, counter to logic, members of the church should pursue spiritual goals and leave temporal matters in the hands of God.  This view, of course, is supported well by Christ’s own words in the New Testament.

The Lord gave lunch to the people in the first place simply because they were hungry, they needed it, and he "was moved with compassion" (Matthew 14:14, 15:32). He both fed them and taught them, but the knowledge was worth far more than the food–he told them not to labor for that (John 6:27). When he miraculously produced the lunch, they wanted to accept him as their prophet and king (John 6:14–15), even as the Nephites, who when they had eaten and were filled all burst out in one joyful chorus of praise and thanksgiving (3 Nephi 20:9). Why the excitement? Hadn't they ever eaten dinner before? That had nothing to do with it; what thrilled them was seeing clearly and unmistakably the hand of the Giver, and knowing for themselves exactly where it all comes from and that it can never fail. Now if we ask, who at these love–feasts got the biggest share or ate the most? We at once betray the poverty and absurdity of our own precious work–ethic. Such questions would be nothing short of blasphemous to all present, as if one were to interrupt the ordinances and stop the feast by announcing: "Hold it right there, you people! Don't you know that there is no free lunch?"

The free lunch looms large in the Sermon on the Mount. First the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11); this comes with the understanding, expressed in the same sentence, that in return we are to show the same free and liberal spirit towards each other that he does to all of us: "And forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors." Next comes fasting, a most effective reminder of God's generosity to us and also of our complete dependence on him, a thing to be joyfully acknowledged (Matthew 6:16–18). Then an all–important principle; you cannot have it both ways, you cannot work for both employers, you cannot lay up treasures both on earth and in heaven–you cannot divide your heart between them; for to one master or the other you must give your whole and undivided devotion–both employers demand that, but only one of them can have it (Matthew 6:19–20). You must go one way or the other, there can be no compromise (Matthew 6:22–23). "No man can serve two masters": love and hate cannot be divided up between them, "ye cannot serve God and Mammon," mammon being to this day the regular Hebrew word for business, particularly money and banking (Matthew 6:24). You must not yield to the enticings of that other master, nor let his threat of "no lunch if you leave my employ" intimidate you–you must ignore him and his arguments completely: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet ... what ye shall put on" (Matthew 6:25). All such things are taken care of for God's creatures: "Behold the fowls of the air, ... your heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?" (Matthew 6:26). It was the practice in Sodom and Gomorrah, we are told, to rob all strangers of their money and then let them starve to death because they could not buy food; and the cities' inhabitants would put nets over their trees so that the birds would have no free lunch on their fruit. For Abraham, such meanness, as we have seen, was the last straw, and "he cursed them in the name of his God."

Having both been a recipient of much generosity in past from both my church and the federal government, and then in return having been a generous giver when my circumstances improved greatly when I taught on the Navajo Nation and was surrounded by those in need, I already believe fully in the principal of a free lunch.  My step-father’s mission was preaching in Canada “without purse or script,” which meant that for much of his two-year mission, he lived off the generosity of nonmembers as he preached the gospel.  Every day he and his companion would get up at whatever home they were staying at, have breakfast with the family and then travel the day, preaching, until they found a free bed and meal that night given through the generosity of others, many of whom were extremely poor.  Yet, my dad and his companion seldom went hungry.

Originally, I was going to make this response personal, directly to Irene.  But, I think I might have had a flash of inspiration.  It was short, nothing earth shattering.  Just a still, small voice: the laws of God apply to everyone. 

And so, here’s how I would part from Nibley.  I believe that based on our thoughts and deeds, free lunch is available to everyone.

There was a time in my life when I became very close to becoming homeless.  Without a second-chance offer from my parents, I’m sure that would have happened.  One night, I seriously considered taking my life.  Divine intervention saved me.

However, I was also not living right at the time.  I was drinking and spending money on books to avoid personal problems.  I was drawn to dark places.  Other than crossing the border illegally, I wasn’t living outside the law, but I was participating in every dark deed you can do within the legal limits of the law—which is quite the buffet of bad vibes.

That does not mean I think all destitute are there as a result of their own choices, just as Jews were not in concentration camps because of sins they personally committed.  The consequences of evil aren’t always self-induced.  Often they are induced by others.  Likewise the consequences of breaking the principle of the free-lunch are not always self-induced.  However, they are always a result of the laws of God being broken.  There has, and by design, always will be enough on earth to provide for everyone. Hunger is a man-made phenomenon.  It is not natural, and in a moral society, it must be eradicated for justice to exist.  That is why providing food and health care were central to Christ’s ministry on earth.  He gave us the perfect example on how to create a just society.  We are simply incredibly dull at applying his teachings because we still see justice as an eye for an eye, rather than as a vehicle for transformation.  We want to punish rather than enlighten.  Ultimately, we believe Satan’s message that there is only so much free lunch and only the worthy (biologically speaking or spiritually speaking—depending on your world-view) are invited to the table.  Those without must have done something to deserve their situation.  Christ’s view on the other hand is that no one is worthy—we all fall short—but lunch is provided anyway, providing we as individuals, as societies, as a world, are willing to live generously in return.

4.      The United States of America, 1930s-1960s:  An Example of a Free-Lunch Program on a Massive Scale

Lately, it has occurred to me that the phenomenal growth and power of the United States during the 20th Century (and the lack of that continued trend in the 21st Century) may be a perfect example of the free-lunch principle.

Is it possible the Great Depression is the direct result of our nation blatantly abandoning the principles Christ taught in the New Testament?  Everything that set up the conditions for collapse was rooted in greed of the 1920s:  the unequal distribution of wealth, stock market speculation, land speculation, and overworking the land.  And then everything that fueled the fall was rooted in the belief that lunch is limited:  panic and pulling funds out of the market, panic and pulling funds from banks, fleeing drought-stricken lands, and in the process vacating entire communities, entire counties, great regions of the plains.

And is it equally possible that the greatest boom in the history of this nation, which followed, occurred because we returned to those principles of Christ after being humbled?  First, not only did we not blame the victims of the Depression, we didn't even consider the price tag of relief.  We had faith that if as a nation we pulled together and provided assistance to those most in need, prosperity would follow.  Then when the tyranny arose in Europe, and it looked like the world would be consumed by evil, we pulled together again and were willing make huge sacrifices without a thought as to whether it was economically practical.  Individually, people were willing to ration gas, food, domestic life, and even their lives for the good of the world.  As a nation, we were willing to arm both free Europe and ourselves with no guarantee the enormous cost of war would ever be paid back.  And then after the war, not only were we willing to forgive our enemies, Germany and Japan, but we were willing to invest enormous amounts of money to rebuild them, turning former foes into strong allies.  And how did we do this?  No former economic model--other than that of Christ--suggested this policy.  Our hearts, soul and faith did.  Compassion, not intellect, drove our decisions and prosperity followed.

Where is that trust now?  Have we become such a cowardly nation that we don't believe we can absorb children fleeing poverty and brutality in Central America and give to them a new beginning with family members here in the states?  That shouldn't even come up for debate. 

If there is a God, and if Christ's teachings in the New Testament reflect God's law, it follows a nation that has to debate such matters is destined for a downward spiral until justice is dealt and humility received.  Oddly, it is often those who scream that we are a God-fearing nation the loudest who are in the iron-grip belief that lunch is limited and that the aged and poor can't be provided for without the economy faltering.  The God they believe in is as volatile as the paper they print their trust of him on.  Prosperity comes from openness, generosity and faith--not bowing and worshiping the idol of Capitalism.

5.      What Does Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Valentine for Ernest Mann” Have to Do with All This?

My ability to write poems increased greatly the day I realized that a poem isn't as much something that says something as it is a record of energy.  Most poems when paraphrased reduce to nil.  Try it.  Take your favorite Shakespearean sonnet, paraphrase it, and see what you're left with.  It won't be much.  Rather, it's how the ideas are linked, through images and by sounds that matters.  It's the journey you take to the last line.  But, it's not the idea contained in the last line that matters, but the intellectual distance traveled between the first line and last line.  In short, it's the journey that matters.

"Valentine for Ernest Mann" is a perfect example of this method of writing poetry.  Listen again.  Notice the leaps she makes, how she trusts that we will be able to follow, rhyming ideas through odd connections. 

And yet it works.  We get from "You can't order a poem like a taco" to "once I knew a man who gave his wife / two skunks for a valentine" and onward to...

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us

we find poems. Check your garage, the off sock

in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.

And let me know.

In fact, because of Nye's trust in her ability, and because the energy is right, we make the journey quite easily.  Had she set out to deliver the message in those last lines intellectually, the journey would be far less rich and meaningful.  The thesis statement would predict the arrival.  We'd end up where we knew we were headed all along.  In the process, we wouldn't be in tune with moment, the spectacular connections, twists and turns with each new image, each new vignette, that unfolds before our eyes.

When we put our faith in Christ.... When we believe that as long as we are willing to work, lunch is free... When we are willing to follow the spirit, take whatever lead it gives us... Then will each of our lives unfold like great poems, moment by moment, energy by energy, twisting and turning in miraculously rich ways until we come to an ending (here on earth, anyway) that says more than we ever could have created through a thesis-driven life, where you establish your dream early on and then sacrifice everything to arrive there, only to find out the dream wasn't near as meaningful as the rich and varied life you discarded for it.

6.      How do we individually apply the law of the free-lunch to our lives?

What I'm about to describe here is for me--my thoughts for myself shared with the world.  Intuitively, I know they work, but that doesn't mean I'm successful at applying them.  That's okay.  Life is as much about the journey as it is about the destination.  The only one I feel is required for the free lunch is the first.  You do have to be at least pointed in the right direction, have a committed heart, but everything else can fall into place naturally as one is ready for it.

1.  Decide which plan to follow.  Free lunch is a "thank-you" for having a deep reverence for life and a generous heart.  You cannot dabble in darkness and expect to receive light.  I know this too well from personal experience.  Neither can you hold onto your possessions, nor judge others.  You must be open.  If someone is in need--give.  Not for them, but for yourself.  It is impossible to receive the free-lunch while thinking "What's in it for me?"

2.  Be willing to work and live in the moment.  A poem unfolds one line at a time.  Some poems, like "Valentine for Ernest Mann," begin in the most concrete, pedestrian of places--

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.

Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”

--and then proceed to unfold like roses. 

Be willing to be wherever you're at fully now, but don't let the moment or place define you.    If you are currently living in a 1-room apartment and working at 7-11, live that life well.  Get to know your neighbors.  Talk to customers.  Help them out.  If you are shy, who cares?  Talk and help anyways.  Stumble.  Flounder.  Fall.  People don't mind it.  They actually like it.  It allows them to stumble, flounder and fall themselves.

3. Be receptive to energy.  Don't be prideful.  Allow others to help.  Accept help generously.  Once you are living fully in the moment, opportunities will open.  Some of those opportunities will be good for you.  Others will not.  There is opposition in all things.  Be weary of both the shiny platter and the sure dinner.  Satan trusts that deep down we believe lunch is limited and if we don't act now, we'll lose it; or that lunch is limited and if we act now, we'll lose everything.  Either way, he's got us.  He uses fear to steer us away from opportunity.  But, we can listen to the still, small voice instead and know the difference.

4.  Look for ways to use your talents.  God did not send us here to live lives we were not meant to live.  If crocheting is your gift, enrich the lives of others through that gift.  When possible, make a living out of your gifts, but also remember lunch is not life.  Your bread does not need to define your life.  If the rock band won't pay the bills, find something that will, but don't discard the rock band.  If music is what you love, then music is why you are here.  Play for money if you can; if not play for joy.  But play.  God does not want you to live practically.  He wants you live meaningfully.  Your talents are your unique way to touch the divine.  Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

5.  With every little opportunity that opens, be grateful and give.  Christ promises us lunch, not a buffet.  This will not necessarily lead to wealth or fame, but it will lead to happiness, which is what everyone really wants anyway.