Sunday, July 19, 2009
Hate and Love (again)
From an essay by Patricia J. Williams: The prevalence of how givingly social divisions are transmitted was brought home to me in an essay written by one of my former students: She described her father as a loving family man, who worked six and a half days a week to provide for his wife and children. He always took Sunday afternoons off; that was sacred time, reserved for a “family drive.” Yet the family’s favorite pastime, as they meandered in Norman Rockwell contentment, was, according to this student, “trying to pick the homosexuals out of the crowd.”…Hate learned in a context of love is a complicated phenomenon. And love learned in a context of hate endangers all our family. (115)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Needing Each Other
In The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, Cutler describes is reaction to the Dalai Lama’s idea that happiness come from our appreciation of our reliance on others:
As “Our Dependence on Others” was not my favorite topic, my mind started to wander again, and I found myself absently removing a loose thread from my shirt sleeve. Tuning in for a moment, I listened as he mentioned the many people who are involved in making all our material possessions. As he said this, I began to think about how many people were involved in making my shirt. I started by imagining the farmer who grew the cotton. Next, the salesperson who sold the farmer the tractor to plow the field. Then, for the matter, the hundreds or even thousands of people involved in manufacturing that tractor, including the people who mined the ore to make the metal for each part of the tractor. And all the designers of the tractor. Then, of course, the people who processed the cotton, the people who wove the cloth, and the people who cut, dyed, and sewed that cloth. The cargo workers and truck drivers who delivered the shirt to the store and the salesperson who sold the shirt to me. It occurred to me that virtually every aspect of my life came about as the results of others’ efforts. My precious self-reliance was a complete illusion, a fantasy. As this realization dawned on me, I was overcome with a profound sense of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings. I felt a softening. Something. I don’t know. It made me want to cry.
As “Our Dependence on Others” was not my favorite topic, my mind started to wander again, and I found myself absently removing a loose thread from my shirt sleeve. Tuning in for a moment, I listened as he mentioned the many people who are involved in making all our material possessions. As he said this, I began to think about how many people were involved in making my shirt. I started by imagining the farmer who grew the cotton. Next, the salesperson who sold the farmer the tractor to plow the field. Then, for the matter, the hundreds or even thousands of people involved in manufacturing that tractor, including the people who mined the ore to make the metal for each part of the tractor. And all the designers of the tractor. Then, of course, the people who processed the cotton, the people who wove the cloth, and the people who cut, dyed, and sewed that cloth. The cargo workers and truck drivers who delivered the shirt to the store and the salesperson who sold the shirt to me. It occurred to me that virtually every aspect of my life came about as the results of others’ efforts. My precious self-reliance was a complete illusion, a fantasy. As this realization dawned on me, I was overcome with a profound sense of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings. I felt a softening. Something. I don’t know. It made me want to cry.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
War in South Bend/Notre Dame
President Obama has been invited to speak at Notre Dame graduation, and it has started a raging controversy as to whether this should be allowed at a "premier Catholic university." The headline in day's South Bend Tribune is , "Foe of Obama Visit Ratchets Up Fight." The first sentence of the article says, "Pro-life activist Randall Terry vows to create a 'political mud pit' over President Barack Obama's scheduled May 17 commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, making the situation so uncomfortable that the president's advisers persuade him to cancel the visit."
The Tribune is full of letters both pro and con. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorites:
[These anti-abortion protestors] should take one week and ask absolutely everyone they come in contact with “are you pro-choice?” Then remove them from their lives.
I don’t believe in abortion, but I honor the choice of other people. If we didn’t, we’d have very few choices of friends, doctors, lawyers, insurance salesmen, etc.
The Tribune is full of letters both pro and con. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorites:
[These anti-abortion protestors] should take one week and ask absolutely everyone they come in contact with “are you pro-choice?” Then remove them from their lives.
I don’t believe in abortion, but I honor the choice of other people. If we didn’t, we’d have very few choices of friends, doctors, lawyers, insurance salesmen, etc.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Live You Can Save
Diane Rehm's show was interesting yesterday. Here is the description from her website: "Peter Singer: The Life You Can Save (Random House)--Philosopher Peter Singer believes ending world poverty is within reach. However, it will require a new perspective on what it means to live an ethical life. He offers a plan for giving, and explains why it is ethically indefensible not to help those in need."
You can listen to the radio interview here:
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/03/12.php#24961
You can visit Singer's website here:
http://www.thelifeyoucansave.com/index.html
You can listen to the radio interview here:
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/03/12.php#24961
You can visit Singer's website here:
http://www.thelifeyoucansave.com/index.html
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
A Little Homily from Rev. M.A.
Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone, tells of being a child soldier. The violence he committed between the ages 13-16 is horrifying. Becoming a soldier was basically an alternative to death for him. He was brainwashed, drugged, and encouraged to avenge the deaths of other family members. When he was rescued from life as a soldier by UNICEF, he and other child soldiers had to be rehabilitated. They were uncivilized with fighting their main method of communication.
One of the social workers who helped rehabilitate Beah was a woman he calls Esther. One day he shared with her a particularly violent dream. Here’s how he describes the conversation:
At first she just listened to me and then gradually she started asking questions to make me talk about the lives I had lived before and during the war. “None of these things are your fault,” she would always say sternly at the end of every conversation. Even though I had heard that phrase from every staff member—and frankly I had always hated it—I began that day to believe it. It was the genuine tone in Esther’s voice that made the phrase finally begin to sink into my mind and heart.
It was a touching reminder that the things we dislike in other people, often, are not their fault. Often, the things we hate in ourselves are not our fault either. That is a good insight to let sink into our minds and hearts.
One of the social workers who helped rehabilitate Beah was a woman he calls Esther. One day he shared with her a particularly violent dream. Here’s how he describes the conversation:
At first she just listened to me and then gradually she started asking questions to make me talk about the lives I had lived before and during the war. “None of these things are your fault,” she would always say sternly at the end of every conversation. Even though I had heard that phrase from every staff member—and frankly I had always hated it—I began that day to believe it. It was the genuine tone in Esther’s voice that made the phrase finally begin to sink into my mind and heart.
It was a touching reminder that the things we dislike in other people, often, are not their fault. Often, the things we hate in ourselves are not our fault either. That is a good insight to let sink into our minds and hearts.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Extreme Love
Jack Kornfield writes this story in The Wise Heart(42-43). It’s a serious tale of the old “make-me-one-with-everything joke.
Perhaps we can better understand this through a story of a Palestinian named Salam, one of my good friends….In the late 1960s and 1970s Salam had lived in Jerusalem as an activist and a journalist. Because he was writing about creating a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state, he was regularly arrested. He spent nearly six years in Israeli prisons. He was frequently interrogated and periodically beaten and tortured. This happens on every side in war.
One afternoon after he had been badly beaten, his body was lying on the floor of the prison and he was being kicked by a particularly cruel guard. Blood poured out of his mouth and as the police report later stated, the authorities believed he had died.
He remembers the pain of being beaten. Then, as is often reported by accident and torture victims, he felt his consciousness leave his body and float up to the ceiling. At first it was peaceful and still, like in a silent movie, as he watched his own body lying below being kicked. It was so peaceful he didn’t know what all the fuss was about. And then Salam described how, in a remarkable way, his consciousness expanded further. He knew it was his body lying below, but now he felt he was also the boot kicking the body. He was also the peeling green paint on the prison walls, the goat whose bleat could be heard outside, the dirt under the guard’s fingernails—he was life, all of it and the eternal consciousness of it all, with no separation. Being everything, he could never die. All his fears vanished. He realized that death was an illusion. A well-being and joy beyond description opened to him. And then a spontaneous compassion arose for the astonishing folly of humans, believing we are separate, clinging to nations and making war.
Two days later, as Salam describes it, he came back to consciousness in a bruised and beaten body on the floor of a cell, without fear or remorse, just amazement. His experience changed his whole sense of life and death. He refused to continue to participate in any form of conflict. When he was released, he married a Jewish woman and had Palestinian-Jewish children. That, he said, was his answer to the misguided madness of the world.
Perhaps we can better understand this through a story of a Palestinian named Salam, one of my good friends….In the late 1960s and 1970s Salam had lived in Jerusalem as an activist and a journalist. Because he was writing about creating a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state, he was regularly arrested. He spent nearly six years in Israeli prisons. He was frequently interrogated and periodically beaten and tortured. This happens on every side in war.
One afternoon after he had been badly beaten, his body was lying on the floor of the prison and he was being kicked by a particularly cruel guard. Blood poured out of his mouth and as the police report later stated, the authorities believed he had died.
He remembers the pain of being beaten. Then, as is often reported by accident and torture victims, he felt his consciousness leave his body and float up to the ceiling. At first it was peaceful and still, like in a silent movie, as he watched his own body lying below being kicked. It was so peaceful he didn’t know what all the fuss was about. And then Salam described how, in a remarkable way, his consciousness expanded further. He knew it was his body lying below, but now he felt he was also the boot kicking the body. He was also the peeling green paint on the prison walls, the goat whose bleat could be heard outside, the dirt under the guard’s fingernails—he was life, all of it and the eternal consciousness of it all, with no separation. Being everything, he could never die. All his fears vanished. He realized that death was an illusion. A well-being and joy beyond description opened to him. And then a spontaneous compassion arose for the astonishing folly of humans, believing we are separate, clinging to nations and making war.
Two days later, as Salam describes it, he came back to consciousness in a bruised and beaten body on the floor of a cell, without fear or remorse, just amazement. His experience changed his whole sense of life and death. He refused to continue to participate in any form of conflict. When he was released, he married a Jewish woman and had Palestinian-Jewish children. That, he said, was his answer to the misguided madness of the world.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Got Empathy?
In the P. K. Dick’s science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the world is populated with human beings and androids. The androids are so lifelike, there is only one way to distinguish them from humans—give them an empathy test. The testers believed that only humans had empathy. Hate requires that we extinguish our empathy. Sometimes that’s unbelievably easy to do. I hate that, or as the old joke goes, I hate hate.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Let It Begin with Me (Love and Hate Reflections)
Seems like I’ve heard a lot of versions of love and peace that say you have to begin with yourself. Ghandi said, “You have to be the change you wish to see in the world.” I think it is Confucius who says that peace in the heart begets peace in the family, peace in the family begets peace in the city, peace in the city begets peace in the nation, and that peace in the nation begets peace in the world. There is the song that says “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.
That all sounds so mysterious—so abstract, so impossible. If I get peaceful, the world will get peaceful? If I get more loving, the world will get more loving? However, I see how hard it is to be loving and peaceful as soon as some minor annoyance pushes one of my buttons. I don’t respond exactly with hate, but it isn’t love either—mini-hate maybe? Or just everyday, mundane, lack of love? So I try to be more loving while trying to love myself when I fail. I can’t say that I’m terrifically successful. It’s a crazy theory.
If I were “perfectly” loving, I’d probably be a self-righteous, obnoxious bitch. Do our mini-struggles with love and hate, teach us about the larger struggles of love and hate in the world? I think so, but the lesson is a difficult one to understand.
That all sounds so mysterious—so abstract, so impossible. If I get peaceful, the world will get peaceful? If I get more loving, the world will get more loving? However, I see how hard it is to be loving and peaceful as soon as some minor annoyance pushes one of my buttons. I don’t respond exactly with hate, but it isn’t love either—mini-hate maybe? Or just everyday, mundane, lack of love? So I try to be more loving while trying to love myself when I fail. I can’t say that I’m terrifically successful. It’s a crazy theory.
If I were “perfectly” loving, I’d probably be a self-righteous, obnoxious bitch. Do our mini-struggles with love and hate, teach us about the larger struggles of love and hate in the world? I think so, but the lesson is a difficult one to understand.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Reflections on Love and Hate
In the last few weeks I have seen the movie Milk and finished the book A Long Time Gone.
Milk is the story of gay activist Harvey Milk in the sixties and seventies, and it shows the emotional response to gay activism and success. Laws would be passed to allow gay people equal rights and anti-gay groups would move into the area to get those laws repealed. The anti-gay movement seemed—and still seems to me—filled with hate.
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah describes his life during the civil war in Sierra Leone. This includes the period after he loses his parents (at age twelve) and wanders the country at night with other children, looking for his family and avoiding danger. He also describes his time as a child soldier, a time during which he was indoctrinated in hate and committed terrible acts of violence. He was rescued by UNICEF and had to be “rehabilitated” and de-programmed.
Both of these works have me thinking of love and hate. It’s interesting that soon after these two stories, my yoga teacher, Jamie, read these passages from Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.""I have decided to stick with love.Hate is too great a burden to bear."
I have been trying to live with these words and see how they shed light on both hate and love.
Milk is the story of gay activist Harvey Milk in the sixties and seventies, and it shows the emotional response to gay activism and success. Laws would be passed to allow gay people equal rights and anti-gay groups would move into the area to get those laws repealed. The anti-gay movement seemed—and still seems to me—filled with hate.
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah describes his life during the civil war in Sierra Leone. This includes the period after he loses his parents (at age twelve) and wanders the country at night with other children, looking for his family and avoiding danger. He also describes his time as a child soldier, a time during which he was indoctrinated in hate and committed terrible acts of violence. He was rescued by UNICEF and had to be “rehabilitated” and de-programmed.
Both of these works have me thinking of love and hate. It’s interesting that soon after these two stories, my yoga teacher, Jamie, read these passages from Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.""I have decided to stick with love.Hate is too great a burden to bear."
I have been trying to live with these words and see how they shed light on both hate and love.
Monday, January 19, 2009
An Email from a Student
I received the following email about 2/3-3/4 into last semester. I still haven't figured out if the sender was serious or not. He never came back to class.
Hey mrs. Hardy so this is kinda a weird email. with the snow falls tonight reaching a foot i doubt ill be in class tomorow, i drive a sports car and it is actually going to be moved down to atlanta next week, since i will b e moving there in about 4 weeks. but the point is that it cant drive in this snow. i know this isnt a big worry for you but with me having a few accidents last year in the snow im too scared to drive in it. and since im moving sooner than usual my parents wont buy me the SUV i want for some reason. With me already having taken 131 im full aware of the expectations for essay four and since i will pass this semester i was wondering if i can mail you a hard copy and email you a copy. This would allow me to not have to come to class again unless the weather permitted. I guess this is me hoping my request is persuasive enough for you to grant me such a prvielage. I do appretiate alot that you have taught me this year and as english teahcers go you have been one of my favs. Hope to get an aswer from you soon. sorry for the inconveniece and weather permitting ill be in class tommorow. ill just see how bad the roads are early tomorrow. thanks for your time
Hey mrs. Hardy so this is kinda a weird email. with the snow falls tonight reaching a foot i doubt ill be in class tomorow, i drive a sports car and it is actually going to be moved down to atlanta next week, since i will b e moving there in about 4 weeks. but the point is that it cant drive in this snow. i know this isnt a big worry for you but with me having a few accidents last year in the snow im too scared to drive in it. and since im moving sooner than usual my parents wont buy me the SUV i want for some reason. With me already having taken 131 im full aware of the expectations for essay four and since i will pass this semester i was wondering if i can mail you a hard copy and email you a copy. This would allow me to not have to come to class again unless the weather permitted. I guess this is me hoping my request is persuasive enough for you to grant me such a prvielage. I do appretiate alot that you have taught me this year and as english teahcers go you have been one of my favs. Hope to get an aswer from you soon. sorry for the inconveniece and weather permitting ill be in class tommorow. ill just see how bad the roads are early tomorrow. thanks for your time
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Together
"Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood [or sisterhood]. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured."
From "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," delivered by Martin Luther King at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968.
From "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," delivered by Martin Luther King at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Why We Do Theraphy
...There, paying dearly for fifty minutes, the client gropes for a sense of coherence and mattering. The therapist listens, not so much explaining as simply fostering the possiblity of resonance. She allows the long pauses and silences--a bold subversion of societyal expectations--because only where silence in possible can the vertical engagement take place.
(from Sven Birkets in The Gutenber Elegies)
But if you desire to see into your own depths and interpret them more adequately, then you will have to talk to somebody who has seen those depths before and helped others interpret them more adequately. In this intersubject dialogue with a therapeutic helper, you will hold hands and walk the path of moe adequate interpretations...and the more clearly you can interpret and articulate this depth, the less baffling you will become to yourself, the clearer you will become to yourself, the more transparent you will be.
(from Ken Wilber in A Brief History of Everything)
(from Sven Birkets in The Gutenber Elegies)
But if you desire to see into your own depths and interpret them more adequately, then you will have to talk to somebody who has seen those depths before and helped others interpret them more adequately. In this intersubject dialogue with a therapeutic helper, you will hold hands and walk the path of moe adequate interpretations...and the more clearly you can interpret and articulate this depth, the less baffling you will become to yourself, the clearer you will become to yourself, the more transparent you will be.
(from Ken Wilber in A Brief History of Everything)
Thursday, January 08, 2009
War
There's no such thing as a "just" war anymore, if there ever was. You can't defend bombing children and innocent people. It isn't right to teach people how to torture and kill each other. Wars never end, really. The Crusades aren't quite over yet. Our Civil War certainly isn't over yet. I don't think we can afford this kind of behavior anymore.
From an interview with Wendell Berry in the July 2008 issue of The Sun.
From an interview with Wendell Berry in the July 2008 issue of The Sun.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Yes
Language...has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.
Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich
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