37days

A is for advocate

We fight for men and women whose poetry is not yet written. –Robert Gould Shaw, abolitionist

In 2008, I will be a better advocate for those who need—and want—my advocacy.

Long ago on a faraway planet, I once worked in an organization where I sat through a management meeting every Monday. Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell no longer scares me. Been there. No, actually, it wasn’t that bad. I learned a lot. But sometimes…

One memorable Monday morning, the debate centered on what kinds of notices employees could—and, more importantly, COULD NOT—put on the employee bulletin board in the break room. Nothing sparks a good week at work like legislating the behavior of people you presumably trust enough to represent your organization on CNN to the entire universe, to spend the organization’s money by the thousands, and to write your news releases. Just can't trust 'em with that employee bulletin board, no-sirree-bob.

The debate centered on the appearance of a notice about a gay-friendly picnic that was being held the next month. Up to this point, all had been right with the world, what with all the notices for yard sales and pet sitters and used bikes, until the “gay” word appeared. Add “picnic” and presumably the world as we know it is ending.

I listened incredulously as my peers debated for more than an hour whether this, in fact, was an appropriate use of the employee bulletin board. Hmmm…let’s see. An employee put the notice on the employee bulletin board about something that obviously meant a great deal to the employee. I’m not sure how many more times we can use the word employee in that equation.

One vice president in particular was agitated by the very idea. The debate raged on: “What if?” and “What if?” and “What if?” as I thought to myself, “Man, what if I get hit by a bus on the way home. I’m gonna be really pissed that I spent my last two hours on earth like this.” “What if a picnic is just a picnic,” I thought, continuing my internal reverie. “And what if gay people are as fully human as you are?” I screamed inside my head.

“What if this is just a way to recruit people to be gay?” I heard him say loudly and angrily. “I guess if the KKK wanted to put up a recruitment poster or a notice for a march, we’d let them, too!”

I fell out of my chair. My eyeballs popped out of their sockets. I lunged for his throat.

H is for human rights

Most people, no doubt, when they espouse human rights, make their own mental reservations about the proper application of the word ‘human.’ –Suzanne LaFollette

In 2008, I will fight for the rights of human beings I see being dismissed and excluded and not listened to. And killed for who they are.

And I will remember that H is for human rights. Not white, middle upper class, straight, fine brick home rights, but human rights.

Not different-but-enough-like-me-that-I-feel-comfortable rights, but human rights.

Not multicolored-but-white-inside rights, but human rights.

I will believe in equality, not just with my superiors—which is easy—but with those people I judge as inferior to me. I will believe in equality, not just with people who agree with me--which is easy--but with people who don't agree with me--which is more difficult.

I will remember that it takes action to ensure the human rights of others, not weariness, and not just talk. That it takes being for something, and not just being against something.

And I will remember that being neutral isn’t. As Paulo Freire reminds us, “Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."

I was delighted to hear a college professor of mine, Jerry Caris Godard, speak this past Sunday. What a joy to reconnect after these many years out of school, to come to know former professors as adults, each of us grey-haired now. His topic was William Blake; he offered ten “angles of vision” into his “passionate entanglement” with Blake. It was number eight, among others, that caught my eye: “As my lifelong openness to others is amplified, I recognize (more explicitly than Blake) that ardent advocacy of gender equality is a necessary but not sufficient condition to set sexism aside!”

“So too,” he remarked, “with racism.”

It is not enough to want something.

It is not enough to want a portion of something. As Desmond Tutu said, “I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”

And it is not enough to look away from what is right in front of us, as Carl Rowan reminds us: “It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.”

Intentions: Let’s start here. Now. Consider yourself part of the solution. Grant specificity and humanity to the Other.

From the last alphabet challenge: H is for horse

Release a dove for Meta

Dear Friends,

Meta's story touched many people. Her too-young death and the extraordinary leave-taking given to her by her family and friends brought lessons and insights to me, to many.

On February 25th at 5pm EST, her family and friends will gather in the mountains to release a dove in memory of Meta and in celebration of her 21st birthday, which will be the next day.

I'll be too far from home to join them, but have committed to Meta's mother, Mary Anne, that I will light a candle at that same time, to send energy to them all - and to the world - in Meta's memory. Please join me if you can in memorializing Meta and holding her family in peace and in love at 5pm EST on Sunday, February 25th. Mark your calendar, join me.

If you'd like to send a birthday greeting to Meta, leave a comment; I'll gather them all and send them to her family.

Do or do not do

"Do or do not do. There is no try." - Master Yoda

Something floated to the surface of my consciousness recently, vying for frontal lobe space, squeezing into precious real estate needed for phone numbers, due dates for 8^th grade science projects on water pollution, and the first verses of “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock,” which so often comes in handy at cocktail parties and auto repair shops.

What floated toward the light?

It was the concept of intention.

Break stride

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." -Anais Nin

Coming home from Chicago two weeks ago, I was struck irretrievably ill in the cab on the way to the airport, that kind of I’ve- eaten- an- alien- food- poisoning- I’m- unable- to- stop- shaking nauseous kind of ill, the sort where you focus all your attention on staying upright, in which not vomiting becomes the only measure of success you can muster. An immediate, swift, and unstoppable sick that--like a train in a tunnel--just keeps barreling toward the light of day.

Dip your wheels

“Be good to yourself. If you don’t take care of your body, where will you live?”
- Kobi Yamada

Part I.

I went to my first Shaolin Kung-Fu lesson last Monday night. After 15 minutes, I was sweating. I think it was the full-body push-ups with feet up on a bucket and bare knuckles on wooden planks that did it. When the master reminded the group to touch noses to the floor with each push-up, I nearly passed out. “Is this natural?” I thought to myself. “This isn’t natural!” (Answering myself seemed the most expeditious solution).

When he let the group get water after 40 minutes of quad-busting lunges and v-shaped sit-ups (or, more appropriately, struggle-ups), I was the first one to the water cooler, spent, old, and painfully aware of the need for life insurance.

Imagine how exhausted I would have been if I were actually in the class and not just observing it, empathy-sweating at the very idea of all my ab muscles so tragically unprepared.

Fund your own revolution

“The American Revolution was not financed with matching grants from the Crown.” – David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear

Quick. Look around your office or workspace.

Do you have a clock there? Do you have a visitor chair—a chair where a visitor could sit, should one suddenly appear to visit with you? You do? Does it or does it not have arms?

We’ll get back to that. Hold that thought.

Replace "they" with "we" with "I"

We all believe in equality, as long as it is equality with our superiors.

What is the tipping point?

I’ve long been fascinated by the fact that our Social Contract works—that people stop at four-way stop signs and allow the person to their right to move first, creating a sweet dance of understanding and civility. By the fact that social anarchy doesn’t occur more often at Labor Day Sales, by the fact that people generally queue in straight lines and take turns to buy their Big Macs, that we muster the wherewithal to tell people when they have spinach stuck between their teeth, and that we are a nation of givers and volunteers.

Consider yourself part of the solution

“In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.” – Flora Edwards

Do something. Extend yourself.

This is no way to say goodbye to someone who has been your cornerstone, your love, your driving force, your partner, your rock.

Xavier Bowie was 57 and had lung cancer. Finding no one to take them out of New Orleans, he and his wife hoped the storm would spare them. “I’ve got electric and stuff right now,” she told herself. “I can keep going. I’ve got oxygen. I can keep going.” But the oxygen ran out.

Find your saxophone

"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it." -Joseph Campbell

If you’ve read 37 days before, you might have picked up on my love affair with actor Johnny Depp. Beautiful, talented Johnny. Quixotic, funny, odd, quirky Johnny. Did I mention beautiful? Ooh-la-la.

What can I say? There’s no defending it. I won’t pretend it makes sense, this long-distance obsession from North Carolina to France, this enormous, smothering, consuming disdain for that little fragile wispy twig of a French blonde he keeps taking to awards shows and having children with for some unimaginable reason. Why, I could take her out in the blink of an eye, the bat of a more well-nourished eyelash, were I the least bit inclined toward violence, which - of course - I am not, having attended a Quaker college (whose football team was paradoxically the "Fighting Quakers," but I digress).