These past two weeks, an ancient and a modern tale of bitter, poisonous waters suddenly rang together as an alarm and an awakening. Right now: We have been learning about the horrifying and disgusting behavior of the government of Michigan, turning off the pipes bringing pure water from Lake Huron to the mostly Black citizens of the city of Flint and instead sending poisonous waters to Flint. (The Governor, Rick Snyder, is no Tea Party type, but a fairly typical “establishment” Republican businessman — anti-labor, anti-choice for women, anti-Syrian-refugees, and contemptuous of pleas from the Black folks of Flint to end the poisoning of their children.)
So the bitter waters came: Waters that stank and were colored brown and green, waters that caused rashes and boils to spring up on the skins of those who had to drink it. Waters infused with lead, which is well-known to permanently and irreversibly damage the brains of young children. Long long ago: The age-old Torah telling that we read this past Shabbat was the story of how ancient Israel crossed the Red Sea while Pharaoh’s power dissolved and his army drowned there. Just a few days later, according to the story, they protested because they had no water fit to drink. What connects these two events?
I’m watching Henry Louis Gates’ series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross and listening to the music of No Enemies, the music that makes America great. My mentor Dr. Vincent Harding gave encouragement and inspiration to No Enemies to sing the movement into being (see more about them below). Listen to No Enemies music at this SoundCloud link. Why did we ever stop singing?
No Enemies: Call and Response is a series of gatherings initiated by Jamie Laurie and Stephan Brackett of the Flobots. At No Enemies, the public gathers to compose, rehearse, and exchange songs that will later be deployed on the streets. A social experiment in political art-making, the monthly meetings blend community organizing with choir practice in a celebratory atmosphere sometimes reminiscent of a Baptist church service. Someone might introduce a simple tune that the crowd practices and refines; alternately, small groups will break off to focus on building a song collaboratively, often to address specific issues ranging from transportation inequality and police brutality to gentrification and the oppression of Denver’s undocumented population.
As social activists and musicians, Laurie and Brackett found inspiration in the Southern Freedom Movement and one of its leaders, Dr. Vincent Harding, who mentored the pair before his passing last year. Those who knew Harding use words like “guide,” “sage” and “encourager” to describe him. An activist and scholar in his lifetime, he worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and drafted several of his speeches, including “A Time to Break Silence,” in which King officially declared his opposition to the Vietnam War. Harding also contributed to the sit-ins that helped dissolve official segregation. He eschewed the more popular term “civil-rights movement,” because for him the struggle encompassed but also transcended individual civil rights: At stake was the unequivocal and complete freedom of minorities in the South and everywhere — hence the Southern Freedom Movement.
Breaking silence and empowering people to speak out against injustice was Harding’s talent and calling. Laurie and Harding started meeting regularly in 2000, after Laurie sat in on a class that Harding was teaching at the Iliff School of Theology. Laurie describes how, “with a few questions, [Harding] could make you feel very important. Taking an interest in us, he compelled us to be fully the leaders we could be.” For his part, Harding had always stressed the role that music played in the Southern Freedom Movement — he called it a “primary tool” — and he was compelled by the Flobots’ mix of activism and art. Nonetheless, he called on the band’s members to “do more, think more seriously about what music could contribute,” Laurie recalls. At Harding’s memorial last spring at the Iliff School, Laurie, inspired by the memory of his ally and guide, conceived of No Enemies. The idea — to create a series of workshops where groups could cultivate music embedded in social movements themselves — “basically became fully formed” that day, he says.–Luke Leavitt, NO ENEMIES EXPLORES THE POWER OF PROTEST MUSIC
“Attend to the pleas of your people
with heavenly care,
O Holy One, we pray,
that they may see what must be done
and gain strength to do
what they have seen.”
In the January 2016 issue of Oxford American, poet Claire Schwartz interviews former poet laureate of the United States, Natasha Trethewey (Domestic Work, Bellocq’s Ophelia, Native Guard, Thrall, and Beyond Katrina). Language and Ruthlessness is a wonderful interview. Below is an excerpt:
What were some of your early, formative models in language?
Tretheway: Well, I take it back to that time and place. My family lived next door to my great-aunt Sugar, who had helped to found the Mount Olive Baptist Church right across the street. It had begun as an arbor, but by the time I came along, the church was a large structure. For a long time Sugar worked with kids in the Sunday school, so I remember practicing recitations with her. She really loved language such that by the time she was near dying—she lived with Alzheimer’s for about ten years—she didn’t just speak; everything she said had a musical lilt to it. You heard the music of her sentences. At that time, the women from the church would come over to my grandmother’s house to read scripture. So I would listen to them reading things from the Bible, reading psalms, but also talking and singing, telling stories.
And my father was a poet. At that time, he worked part-time on the docks, and the rest of the time, he was in graduate school getting a Ph.D. at Tulane. But he was writing poems, and he would recite poems to me. I’d hear the poems that he was working on.
My mother had been an English and theater major in college, where my parents met. So, even as we were from Mississippi, there was such a precision to the way that my mother spoke. I think that when I read poems, I read like that. All of the words are very crisp. Language came to me in all of those places.
Crossing the Pacific by observing the clues in sea bird behavior,
……the signals of wind drift and current set,
…………and knowing the many hundreds of chants
………………in which star navigation courses are set.
Joe, Fredrick, Gage and Zev on Christmas 2015My brother Joe and my sister-in-law Michelle are some of the bravest people I know. They face their brokenness and that of others as directly as they can and then turn it into love. Amid all the Christmas festivities, they’ve discovered its true meaning and are sharing it with their children. Thus is the ancient Word borne from generation to generation. Here is an excerpt from Michelle Berger’s Facebook post about their Christmas:
The Honda sleigh, complete with vantlers, and a big red nose, with thee little angels, two lovely women and one big strong, gentle man had one very rewarding and wonderful Christmas night! The evening shift began at the Seattle Union Gospel Mission and with the many people on the streets around. Joe bought 22 big ass cans of Snow’s Clam Chowder and a big ol thing of Starbucks (folgers) coffee, in addition to our goodie bags. My good friend Andrea brought 45 goodie bags too, some with socks, some with gloves, all had candy and a few had the coveted dollar wrapped 3 cigarette treat. I’ll tell ya, Joe serving hot chowder and hot coffee out of the back of our Honda Sleigh and the kids, Andrea and myself handing out the goodie bags, was like a festive holiday party.
People were so kind, grateful and gentle. “God bless you”, ” merry christmas darlin” they said to Sorelle. After this morning, Gage and Zev are pros. It was inspiring how much these humans appreciated a warm cup of chowder or coffee and who doesn’t love candy, money and cigarettes?..
Well, me. .I hate cigarettes but I also hate snows Clam chowder out of a can but thankfully, tonight was not about me.
Some asked if we had underwear, blankets, water, wipes to clean themselves with. . Just the basics we generally take for granted. We didn’t think of that this year. To my surprise, most of these people aren’t even wasted or on drugs. Maybe some mental disorders but even a few told us they were smoke free and sober, they just wanted candy wink emoticon. Overall, this night took last year’s Christmas night to the needed and welcome next level.
The reward was more profound, as well. . An irreplaceable feeling of connection and pride came from being of service and talking to these people just like they were already our friends. Such magic in that human to human dynamic. First we extend unsolicited kindness and in return we receive a priceless gift of a growing heart and a widened perspective of the various plights of people in our own backyard.
I loved tonight, we all did. There is just something indescribably rewarding to love on this level. Next year I think we’ll stock up all year from Costco, with all the stuff these friends actually asked us for, socks, gloves, underwear, sanitizing wipes and blankets.
This is good. Maybe it’s not for everyone but for our family, Joe in particular, this feels right, appropriate and just plain good … better than presents, better than a meal that takes a day to make and better than laying around in our gluttonous luxuries. Two worlds, connected by the the God that lives in our hearts and no amount or lack of material things, can diminish that powerful and triumphant gift of Christmas Spirit.
Merry Christmas, to our friends near and far, I’m grateful to share the planet with such grace, generosity, kindness and love and all I gotta do, is open my eyes and look around. . That is a blessing I pray for us all!
The picture above is our friend Frederick, who told Joe, who’d shared conversation with him this morning with Gage, that he’d been squeezing his size 12 feet into a 10 1/2 pair of shoes and that he could really use a winter coat to add a layer on these cold, cold nights. We had that at home and we could bring them to him and answer his need. The fact that Joe remembered, and came back to him tonight, he told Joe “made his night, because he felt special”. We knew his name, and kept our word, our kids he treated like family. He’s a kind man, already looking out for our safety. He made two new friends in Joe and Gage and it proves once again, that ya just never know who is gonna be the messenger or when hope is gonna show up and change everything.
Merry, Merry Christmas one and all, may we all sleep with full and peaceful hearts tonight. Amen.
Room 1001, Ritz Carlton, Moscow by OLE VON UEXKÜLL
“Every nation-state tends towards the imperial–that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police, propaganda, courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top. Still it should be said of the political left, we expect something better. And correctly. We put more trust in those who show a measure of compassion, who denounce the hideous social arrangements that make war inevitable and human desire omnipresent; which fosters corporate selfishness, panders to appetites and disorder, waste the earth.”–Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest and poet
In November Outlook India released an amazing set of essays by novelist-activist Arundhati Roy and actor-screenwriter John Cusac kabout their recent meeting in Moscow with Daniel Ellsberg (famous for releasing the Pentagon Papers and Edward Snowden (famous for blowing the whistle on the U.S. global surveillance system). John Cusack opened one of this essays with the above quote from Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan.
This photo reminds me that the truth is “nothing but a burning light” and, at some miraculous points in history, those sparks gather in one place — like Room 1001 in a Moscow Ritz-Carleton.
Well, it’s 70 degrees in Washington, D.C. today – ten days before Christmas. (Sure hope those folks in Paris at the climate summit are bold!) So Heidi and I made Christmas cards with her new “Andy Warhol” watercolors (actually, they are called Dr. Ph Martin).
She made very lovely wreaths, candles, and Mary greeting Elizabeth. I made coffee pots with holly coming out the spout. I even added a few flecks of goldleaf to make the whole thing pop!
I don’t think anyone will ever confuse my coffeepots for Warhol’s soup cans or shoes, but it’s fun.
If I don’t get to wish you Merry Christmas in person, please accept this photo as my Christmas card. I’m so grateful for all those of you scattered near and far who are making the world a better place where ever you are.
This origami paper crane made by Sadako Sasaki will be donated. It is said that a candy wrapper was used. (Provided by Sadako Legacy)
On Sept. 21, 2013, a tiny paper crane made by Sadako Sasaki, the Hiroshima girl who had hoped to survive radiation-induced leukemia by folding 1,000 paper cranes, arrived at the Pearl Harbor museum.
The exhibit opened on the day more than 200 countries celebrate the UN’s International Day of Peace and Nonviolence. Sadako was 2 years old when the U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb less than a mile from her home.
Here’s a bit from the news article:
“An origami created by a girl who contracted leukemia and died as a result of Hiroshima’s atomic bombing will be displayed at the visitor center of a memorial for victims of the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. …
Sadako Sasaki folded hundreds of origami paper cranes while she battled leukemia. She died in 1955 at the age of 12.
The origami is one of three owned by the nonprofit organization Sadako Legacy headed by her elder brother, Masahiro Sasaki, 70.
It is said in Japan that a person’s wishes will come true if he or she folds 1,000 paper cranes.
“We hope the country that started war by attacking Pearl Harbor (in 1941) and the other that ended the war by dropping the atomic bombs (in 1945) will reach an end of the war from the heart, discarding their old grudges,” Sasaki said.
“We hope the origami will serve as a catalyst for that.”
Clifton Truman Daniel, the 55-year-old grandson of Harry Truman, the U.S. president who authorized the 1945 atomic bombings, worked as a go-between so the origami could go on display at the Visitor Center of the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu.”
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, founder of The Shalom Center in Philadelphia, provides an incisive midrash in his most recent Shalom Report, titled Bitter Waters – 3,000 Years Ago & Now; From the Sinai Wilderness to Flint of Michigan on Exodus 15:23-24. Below is his essay:
Rose Marie Berger 