Ahz mah (So what)

I first encountered Jane Kenyon’s poem Otherwise many years ago, in a small frame on the dining room wall of a couple who had invited Alan and me to lunch. The poem catalogues the pleasurable moments of an ordinary day in the poet’s life, punctuated several times by the refrain: It might have been otherwise. The final line of the poem floated up into my consciousness recently, as it occasionally does: But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. How would it be to hold this refrain in our consciousness as we experience the pleasurable moments of an ordinary day? It all points towards mindfulness, gratitude and blessing, doesn’t it? Oh, and that couple with the poem on their dining room wall – They later divorced. And then remarried other people, and then divorced, and then got together with one another again. It might have been otherwise.

The wealthiest, most powerful people in this country are overwhelmingly white male christians. The one percenters. Sometimes I wonder about their souls, and if there might ever be someone who could reach them at a soul level. Someone to help them heal their childhood traumas and ease their toxic fixation on material wealth. In my 61 years of experience, I have observed that most adults are children in adult bodies. “Growing up” turns out not to be what we imagined it was; for many, many people it’s primarily about the aging of the body rather than an evolving consciousness. Or I could say it this way: There is a part of us that remains childlike, regardless of our age, and that childlike part of us is in control more than we would care to admit. (I was recently listening to a teenager talk about growing up, and I thought: Oh, do I tell them the secret or let them find out for themselves? I didn’t say anything. They wouldn’t believe me anyway.) So my assumption is that these one percent...

Dream fragment: I am sitting in a row of people who are being called up one by one to receive a blessing. Suddenly I realize that I have been skipped. And then I have to assert myself and step up and claim my blessing even though it is no longer my turn. I wrote this down last week, and of course have no recollection of any other details of the dream, the feeling tone, nor what was happening in my life (if anything) that might have precipitated it. How wonderful. It feels like a gift now, to understand any way I choose. And suddenly I realize that it is a gift I can share. What blessings have we missed receiving, for whatever reason, that we might step up and claim now? What might it mean to assert ourselves to receive our blessing? I would even interrogate the image of taking turns, of being called up one by one – When did we learn that blessings are limited in time and space, doled out to the deserving like diplomas?

I knew that the self-imposed challenge of writing a blog post every day would mean facing the inner voices of judgement, doubt, shame. No different than any other daily practice. This week the voice of doubt has been whispering louder, deleting entire paragraphs soon after they are written. Yesterday it stopped me from posting anything, even though I was filled with thoughts and ideas. Why are you writing this? Ahz mah? Last month I read this quote from an interview with Zadie Smith about her essay writing, which felt so right to me at the time: “Talking to yourself can be useful. And writing means being overheard.” It’s the “being overheard” piece that is tripping me up right now. And it’s all okay. Grist for the mill, as Ram Dass would say.

A young Black man, who I admire for his activism but do not know personally, recently posted a classically anti-semitic statement on Facebook. When I say classic, I mean right out of the medieval Church playbook. No need for oblique dog whistling here – just slamming “The Jews” directly with language of Christ-killing and the “crucifying” of Black people who dare speak truth. Talking with white Jewish friends, I notice how many of us speak of anti-semitism in terms of personal prejudices, or “ignorance” that could be resolved through better education about cultural differences. That frame – locating the anti-semitism within the individual and the interpersonal realm – is valid, necessary, and insufficient; there’s another frame I find more compelling. Expressions of anti-semitism – especially coming from a young Black man, for example – need not be experienced as a personal attack by an individual or group whose moral character is in need of correction. Instead of focusing on problemat...