Handwringing versus joy and expectation; talking versus serving

The most recent issue of Comment (fall 2019) carries an editorial by the journal's editor, Anne Snyder, which I've been thinking about since first reading it a couple weeks ago. You can read it here at this link, and I encourage you to do so.

Snyder contrasts two approaches to societal concerns based on and expanding from her observations of two groups within a single weekend. One approach was full of handwringing, while the other was full of joy and expectation. The first emerged primarily from the elite while the second primarily from those who were "indigenous, immigrant, Asian, Latin, and African American." The first featured panels and debates while the second featured actual service in churches, social agencies, schools, and counselling centers within home neighborhoods."

She suggests the first group has much to learn from the second group. The churches associated with the first group tend to focus on preaching and teaching, whereas the churches associated with the second group often tend to function as the "field hospitals Pope Francis speaks about—welcoming everyone, regardless of sin or circumstance, and caring for the needs of the whole person, not just the soul." They often offer job banks and homeless shelters to their community in addition to the preaching and teaching.

"This realism," writes Snyder, "grants these local churches moral authority—not only in their home community, but in the world at large. And they offer an important lesson: If you want entrée to a hurting if skeptical world, care for it, don’t try to rule it."

And here’s one more thing she wrote in this editorial, "There’s a growing awareness that love can never be abstracted—we’re touched by incarnational living and doing, less prescription from on high."

So much is abstract these days with our social media tweets and Instagram shots, our disagreements about the evening news; I write this as a challenge to myself as much as to anyone. I do hope you’ll read her full editorial and consider what she wrote.

~~~

Interesting coincidence: when writing this post I found that the link in the above editorial by Anne Synder went to the same article featuring Pope Francis, which I had first read 6 years ago, that I had linked to in the prior post. Of all the pieces that have been written about Pope Francis what are the odds that my two little posts, whose origins are years apart, link to the same one? I believe there is something significant in coincidence, that a message of "pay attention" is being given even if I don't understand why. Maybe it is saying something to you? I wrote a bit more about this in my newsletter.

~~~

[Photo: taken of stars in the windows of the American Swedish Institute.]

Pope Francis on hope

In an interview a number of years ago in America: The Jesuit Review, Pope Francis had this to say about hope:

"Christian hope is not a ghost and it does not deceive. It is a theological virtue and therefore, ultimately, a gift from God that cannot be reduced to optimism, which is only human. God does not mislead hope; God cannot deny himself. God is all promise."

I printed out this quote years ago, and it's lived on an index card in my box of project notes for my hope manuscript and sometimes on my actual desk top.

Maybe what is needed more than me continuing to try and finish my book about hope, which has been aiming at similar thoughts, is instead to copy this quote over and over again across 100 sheets of paper and call it done, trusting that the repetition of the thoughts would allow them to sink in and do their work in readers.

Tempting as that thought is, I'm continuing to plug along.

~~~

For an interesting coincidence, see the next post for something more from Pope Francis.

~~~

[Photo: taken of the sunset the other night. No touch up or filters.]

Everything Far Becomes Near: A New Poetry Chapbook by a Dear Friend

Ann Conway, a writer currently living in Pittsburgh, has been my dear friend for more than 15 years. We first met in a writing workshop in Santa Fe, both of us trying to navigate a working life and a writing life. She has recently released a chapbook of poetry, Everything Far Becomes Near (Finch & Fellow). Here is one poem, among many between the book’s covers, that stunned me into silence, quickening my spirit.

Hearing Test

Once I dreaded you,
all I could not hear,
the long pauses indicating failure.
But inside the grey padded booth,
I am amphibious,
My chambered heart thudding
as I listen to a symphony of sonar:
small beeps
far away trumpets and bumps
some imagined, most not.
I listen as hard to what I hear
as I did when a child at Scarborough Beach,
lying with ear to sand
that I knew was full of sea water,
all I loved and dreaded most.
In a world muted between beach and breeze,
I heard a whale call miles beyond the undertow.
I sensed his questing eye,
his barnacled heft
a citizen of the maplessness
where I have always longed to live,
in the country without test
that of Ysma’el, meaning
”God harkens, listens.”

Lifted Faces and Flashing Eyes

From the blog archives (February 11, 2016), a post about the human spirit:

I’ve been reading a book by Elton Trueblood, Alternative to Futility. Trueblood, a Quaker theologian, wrote the book in the late 1940s in response to the prevalent sense of futility in society around him despite the end of World War II. In many ways he could have been writing today.

This paragraph jumped off the page at me:

“Joy has gone out of much of our lives. Millions go through the motions as though they were waiting for a catastrophe. What we miss, almost everywhere, is the uplifted face and the flashing eye. Men [and women] cannot live well either in poverty or abundance unless they see some meaning and purpose in life, which alone can be thrilling.”

Trueblood goes on to describe societal ways in which the human spirit can be renewed. While some of his suggestions and ideas are a bit dated, this key – and timeless– theme emerges: the need for communities to be a place of renewal for each other.

In a chapter called “The Habit of Adventure.” he wrote:

“Here then is our clue. The method which succeeded before must be tried again and we must not be dismayed by its amazing simplicity. The best chance for the renewal of the human spirit in the twentieth [read: twenty-first] century, as in the first, lies in the formation of genuinely redemptive societies in the midst of ordinary society. Such fellowships could provide a sense of meaning for the members within the societies and, at the same time, maintain an infectious influence on the entire culture outside.”

Through my little blog and my little books, I’m trying, in a small way, to offer this to you. A space of community and camaraderie in which we lift our faces and not only open our eyes, but flash them, as Trueblood wrote. I like that image of emanating light. It’s my hope, and assumption, you have other real-time spaces in your life for this renewal: churches, family, friends, book groups, special interest groups, and so on. There are also opportunities for such spaces online, and I hope you’re finding what you need wherever you can. Please consider letting me know how I can do better at providing such a space. Also consider letting me know where else you find community and and camaraderie that encourages you to lift your face and flash your eyes - if I get enough response to this I may include them in a subsequent newsletter or blog post.

Thank you for taking the time to read. As always, I appreciate it so very much.

~~~

[Photo: taken of a new walkway along a nearby creek. I love how the sun is flashing off the metal coils.]

A Sign Pointing the Way [to the Beach]

One afternoon this past week I got up from my desk to take a walk. I walked down a street I'd never been before and something caught my eye and delivered joy. In the corner of a yard, just along the sidewalk, but nearly hidden by garden overgrowth, was a small metal sign that said "BEACH." The letters were cut-outs, which made the sign particularly hard to see given that the foliage behind it showed through (see the banner photo). My guess is many have walked right past it as I would have also if some unknown something hadn't caused me to look in the exact right place and in the exact right way. Above the word was a figure that appeared to be in motion, ready to leap from a board (diving or surf?) or simply from the sand into the water. Under the word was an arrow pointing the way.

I wondered about the arrow given as there was no beach across the street or on the next street over. It struck me first as wishful thinking, but then I thought some more and indeed there is a beach in the direction of the arrow if you go down a few blocks then find your way either to a walking path or the road alongside a lake and wind around a bit before coming to a rather small parking area and follow another path down to a nearly hidden beach.

The sign in the yard had a hint of something to be found. A sign of something good in the direction it pointed. A spark of joy, a promise, a silent companion on the road.

Keep your eyes open!

~~~

[Photo: taken of the BEACH sign. A spark of joy, yes?]

Maid: On Caring for Those Who Serve You

"Rent plus groceries plus utilities plus laundry plus insurance plus gas plus clothing minus an hourly paycheck of barely more than minimum wage and the scant assistance parceled out by the government with spectacular reluctance — the brute poetry of home economics recurs throughout Land’s book."

A book review by Emily Cooke in The New York Times last winter, quoted from above, prompted me to read Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive, a memoir by Stephanie Land. Land is a young woman who made many mistakes that cost her in significant ways, including connecting with and getting pregnant by the wrong guy and at the wrong time. Raising her daughter on her own and needing to earn a living, she became a maid who worked for a cleaning service and also for her own clients.

Read this book if you ever wonder about who is behind the ads for cleaning services or ever wonder about the woman who cleans your office space or perhaps even your home, if you ever see or think about the woman who cleans your hotel room. Land writes of her very difficult life trying to provide for her daughter, trying to keep her warm in the winter, trying to provide enough food. She writes of the struggle to care for her when she's sick because the means aren't easy to come by, neither money for cough medicine nor paid time off to stay home with her.

When I was in early grade school, my mother had a "cleaning lady" come in sometimes to help clean our three-bedroom rambler. I'm not sure exactly why her help was needed and it didn't last long. In fact, I don't remember much about it, but here's what I do remember: every time she came, my mother set the table to serve her lunch. I can still picture the plate of food on the cloth placemat and a beautiful paper napkin, usually a floral design, folded on the left side of the plate. I remember my mother served her. I remember that she and my mother would sit in the living room and talk. I also remember having to clean my room before she came. More than a means to obtain a clean house, those few months or however long it lasted taught me something important about caring for people, a topic about which I still have so much to learn. Land wrote of a few similar caring customers and her deep gratitude for them, but far too many were of the sort that she had to endure in order to be paid.

Who is the person waiting on you or waiting on me at the grocery store or the drug store? The person bringing the mail to your door? The man handing me stamps at the post office? The woman pouring your coffee at lunch, or the woman picking up my dirty towels from the hotel room floor, leaving behind perfectly folded towels, clean and fresh?

Many years ago I read something written by Margie Haack, co-director of Ransom Fellowship and author of the quarterly, “Letters from the House Between,” about tipping hotel maids. I'm sorry to admit that I'd never before thought of doing that. But I started right then leaving cash and a note of thanks and have been doing so ever since. Sometimes I get notes back, with thanks and often a hint of surprise, as if no one before had ever left them a tip.

Let's make life easier for each other, not harder. More kindness. More respect. More sharing. I have a long way to go in this myself, and am so grateful for those in my life who have taught me and those who continue to teach me, like Stephanie Land has done in her book.

Read Maid. Look at the faces of people who serve you and care for them. Leave a tip next time you stay in a hotel.

~

Related post:

• The Philosopher Kings

~~~

[Photo: taken of a view within the Minneapolis Central Library]

Faith, Hope, and Love in The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, came out in 1985 and has become a modern classic in the years since, with a recent book-based television series on Hulu now entering its fourth season. Until the last few weeks, though, I'd never read it. I've also never seen even one episode of the Hulu show, although I've seen many commercials for it, featuring Elizabeth Moss in her long red dress and white bonnet with side wings so big she can't see what or who is coming up alongside of her. I've now finally read the book. Of course it is filled with terror, terror of the quiet variety. A fundamentalist, dystopian society has displaced American life-as-usual, and women bear the biggest brunt. I won't share anymore of the story, because you probably know it, but I do want to share a small thing that struck me when I read it, and it really is not so small.

Toward the beginning of the story, the main character, Offred, sits alone in her room at the window. Next to her is a little cushion with a petit point cover on which is the word "Faith." Later she wonders about the other two virtues, Hope and Charity (Love), and where their respective cushions have gone. After all, where Faith is, Hope and Love must be there somewhere. As Saint Paul wrote, “But now these three things abide: faith, hope, and love…” Indeed, if Faith is there, where are Hope and Love? Is Faith even there despite the survival of its cushion?  And so a nearly hidden thread weaves through the book.

I've not read any commentary about the book nor do I know what's already been written about this, but given my interest in recent years on the topic of hope, to me, the presence—even the mention—of these theologic virtues nearly at the start of a story so bleak suggests they haven't vanished but instead are waiting to again be found. Faith. Hope. Love. Waiting to be found.

~~~

[Photo: taken of boats on Lake Superior]