On This International Day of Peace

On this international Day of Peace, I arrived in Hebron, in the southern part of Palestine. I walked through Israeli checkpoints with relative ease, except for the churning of my stomach because the checkpoints are bigger, more oppressive, more permanent than the last time I was here. I walked through with relative ease, knowing that some of the Palestinians whom I greeted and hugged and shook hands with today, the ones I now call my friends, avoid the checkpoints because of the uncertainty of passing easily or, for some, the likelihood that passage will be anything but easy.

On this International Day of Peace, I listened to the story of a Palestinian friend who, when he had no water in his home, found a way to use creative nonviolence to bring water there. With permission from the mayor to get a water tank, but no permission from the Israeli military to get the water tank to his house, he organized children young enough that they couldn’t be arrested to carry water in bottles and cups and other vessels from the tank to his home. Prior to this event, he organized a group of women journalists to carry their swaddled “babies,” which were actually cameras, into the area so they could film the action. As the children started carrying the water, the women unswaddled their “babies” and began filming. An Israeli news team that happened to be in the area also started filming. With all the news coverage of the children carrying water to a Palestinian home that was denied access to water, the Israeli military relented and allowed the tank to be brought to the home.

On this International Day of Peace, I wonder how in my own country, police officers keep shooting unarmed black men. I wonder how much training they receive in de-escalation. I wonder when we white people will own up to the work we need to do so that it is clear that black lives matter. Here in the unholy Holy Land, I wonder how Palestinians who actually or allegedly stab or try to stab Israelis end up shot dead and labeled terrorists, but the Israelis who recently chased and stabbed a Palestinian are alive and labeled common criminals. To be clear, I wish none dead or harm, but rather all alive. 

On this International Day of Peace, I wish that before leaving Jerusalem this morning, I had  gone to St. Anne’s Church to sing, body, mind, heart, and soul fully invested,  Dona Nobis Pacem. God, grant us peace.

Dona Nobis Pacem

in St. Anne's Church, Jerusalem, November 2014

On this International Day of Peace, I am grateful that I’ve spent the day walking with thoughtful people who are invested in peace, whose presence has brought a peaceful energy to the places we’ve walked and to me.

On this International Day of Peace, as I have walked, I have sometimes looked at the people I passed by and thought, “You are a child of God.” It happened occasionally, not habitually. I would like to create this habit of recognizing the common divine origin I share with every other creature. 

On this International Day of Peace, I wonder how I can better embody peace.

I pray that I can better embody peace.

After this International Day of Peace, I will continue to pray that I can better embody peace.

I will try to better embody peace, with the hope that I will not be the only one.

I will pray and practice and hope that someday we will not need an International Day of Peace, because it will simply be every day. 

Remembering Ourselves

Both before and after sharing my last post, I wondered if I was doing more harm than good, calling attention to the broken places, sending more negativity out into a world that so desperately needs good energy. We cannot address the problems of our world, our lives, our hearts, if we don’t recognize them. But what is the balance between bringing realities into the light and bringing light into the darkness of those realities? What is the difference?

I shared my story and my struggle over the post with a friend, who responded, “I wonder what the man was thinking at the time he made the comment. What did he think later? Was he pleased with the conversation or did he wonder, ‘Why in the heck did I say that?’” I was grateful for her reminder to consider a perspective other than my own narrow focus.

Then she told me a most extraordinary story about a friend of hers. It went something like this: Her friend, a tall woman, was out running one day when a man grabbed her violently and wouldn’t let her go. Locked in his grip, she calmly said to him, “Someone hurt you.”

She repeated, “Someone must have hurt you.” This was not a response he expected. Then she asked what he wanted. He let her go. Disarmed.

“Ten dollars.”

“I have ten dollars I can give you.” She didn’t have any money with her, but they went to her apartment and he waited while she went to get the money. He left with the $10. Neither she nor he was hurt.

I am struck by her presence to him in that moment. She saw him. In a moment that could have easily gone another way, she saw not a threatening attacker, but a person who had been so damaged that his way of addressing his unmet needs was through force. Her willingness to see his humanity no doubt saved both of them from harm.

This reminded me of another extraordinary story, not of a one-time occurrence, but of a tribal practice of the Bemba people. According to the story, when someone makes a mistake or does something wrong, everyone in the village stops works and circles around the accused. Then each person names the good things the accused has done throughout his or her lifetime. In remembering the good, they re-member the person who has broken, putting back the pieces that have fallen away or broken off. In coming together to remember the good of one person, they also re-member their community. (Note: when I went to get more information about this story, I found out there is little evidence to support its truth. I choose to include it anyway, as stories that are not factually true may, nonetheless, offer a higher truth).

I have watched many times the story of a mother who visited her son’s murderer in jail. Through the pain of her loss, she reached out to him and they developed a relationship. She saw his humanity and he saw hers. When he was released, he moved into the apartment next to hers and she treats him like her son.

When the female runner responded to threat with kindness and genuine interest, she allowed her attacker to remove the armor that had shielded him from further breakdown; as she applied the healing balms of recognition and understanding, she re-membered him.

Through a murderer’s offering of deep remorse and a mother’s offering of forgiveness, two people formed a connection beyond the violence that first brought them together.

Recently I was with a dear friend with whom I’ve led senior retreats for high school boys. An element of the retreat is the reading aloud of letters from parents. At a time in life when teens and parents often struggle through the changing balance of dependence and independence, the parents share in writing what is dear about their sons. As the boys hear the words spoken, many weep as they soak in the love. As they recognize that love, many open themselves to re-membering the relationship with their parents.  

On that same retreat, students have a chance to share stories of their pains, mistakes, places of fracture. In exposing their brokenness, they invite others to affirm that those places of hurt are not the only things that define them. We are all more than the worst we’ve done or suffered. They, together, re-member each other, as individuals and in community.

As a person who easily sees her faults and less easily recognizes gifts, I am thankful for the many people who are gentler on me than I am on myself. How many times, as I’ve been chastising myself for some mistake, oversight, lack of sensitivity or lack of action, has a friend re-membered me? How many times have I not even known how broken I was until the healing came?

Five years ago, I left on a 9-month journey with a vague awareness of my fragmentation. During that journey, learning and laughter with children in India, trust and earnest questions from young people in Palestine, notes and messages from friends at home all re-membered me. In places unfamiliar, through strangers and new friends, I found pieces I didn’t know were missing.

Sometimes, as during that journey, the re-membering is gradual; other times it is fast and dramatic.

Though I live in my body all the time, I had, over a number years, allowed myself to forget my need to be touched and in physical relationship with another. It might be more accurate to say I convinced myself that the needs didn’t exist, since they weren’t being met and so I slowly cut off a piece of my being. When I returned from my travels, I experienced a sudden reunification of mind and spirit with body. I was re-membered through a tangling of bodies with a man I deeply cared about and though his care for me was not the same, I will always be grateful for the presence he offered me for a time. The only way I can describe it is this: he gave me my body back. I didn’t know how severed I was until I was living wholly in my body again. Even my singing was different. I resolved not to allow such dismemberment again.

More recently, another man entered my life with an unexpected gentleness that restored my memory. As with my body, I had forgotten, and I didn’t even know I had…until I remembered: this is what it feels like to be treated the way I deserve to be treated. He was good to me and I believe I was good to him, too. Even in parting, we were good to each other.

Re-membering.

Bringing ourselves back to fuller embodiment, finer manifestation, deeper knowledge of Who We Are.

As we remember ourselves, as we see ourselves, we reclaim our gifts and share them more generously; we claim and accept our shadow. As we remember, we root ourselves more deeply in abundance and stretch towards the Light of Being, allowing the Light to flow through us and grow through us. The freedom of our own growth helps others to root, to stretch, to grow in Light.  

How do we remember?

We look at people and see them.

We listen.

We trust.

We affirm.

We love.

Pretty, Part 2

I was walking down the street, a few blocks from reaching my home. After sitting at my computer most of the morning, I knew getting outside, even on a hotter-than-I like day, to move my body in the steady rhythm of a walk, would do me good.

I saw him approaching, stiffly, as if walking weren’t so easy these days, an older white man, cropped white hair, blue shorts pulled just under his exposed bellybutton, white T-shirt riding just above it, something in his arm, maybe a wrinkled-up sheet- I didn’t look at long enough to know for sure. I had planned to greet him with a friendly, “Hi, how are you?” but he spoke first.

With a smile on his face, “You better get you a really big dog. When they get pretty like you, you need a big dog to defend yourself.”

“I don’t need a dog. I can defend myself,” I said casually, not stopping, past him by this point.

“What’d you do? What’d you learn?” He had stopped and was turned toward me, still smiling.

I turned his way, still moving, “I know how to talk to people.” I waved and kept walking, a tornado whirling in my head.

The conversation lasted no more than 15 seconds.

 I know how to talk to people? Does that protect me?

Short answer: Yes. I've been in situations where my use of clear, calm words has diffused what could have become a violent situation, either for myself or others. When I have been in Palestine, I have more than once used words, or even simple body language, to protect myself or others from people, most often Israeli soldiers, with weapons held in hands.

Long answer:  Unlike the last recent encounter where my “prettiness” was a wasted commodity for someone else’s pleasure, today it was a detriment to my safety.

In both cases, these statements were offered as compliments, or at least I assume so from the smiles on their faces. In neither case was my body assumed to be my own. Instead it was something that someone else (presumably a man) should “have,” and my own dominion over it rendered it either worthless or subject to violence.  

Let’s break it down a little more:

A man I’ve never seen before thinks that the best way to engage with me is by telling me that the way I look is so much of a danger that someone (I assume, a man) might hurt me to possess it.

Saying that I need a dog to protect myself IS NOT A COMPLIMENT. It is not a compliment to me and it doesn’t exactly paint a glowing image of men. It is, rather, a threat. “You should be afraid, even in the middle of the day, of men,” (smile on the face) “who will naturally want to forcibly take you because of the way you look.”  

Women are attacked and abused and raped at alarming rates regardless of their looks. Men who are attacking, abusing, and raping women may use “pretty” or “not pretty enough” or “you in some way don’t meet my standards of pretty” or “someone else might be attracted to your pretty” or “you’re using your pretty to attract someone else” as an excuse for their misplaced anger, an outlet for their rage. But let’s be clear: a woman’s looks, whether “pretty” or “ugly” or something else, are not the problem. A woman can present herself however the hell she wants. No man (or other woman, for that matter) gets to decide that. No one gets to attack her for her decisions.

I remember most vividly a time many years ago in which I feared for my own safety. I was dating the man who threatened me. He happened to do so when I was taking care of a large dog. The dog was no deterrent. I don’t know if it was my words or the fact that I was able to move us somewhere where we were visible to others that protected me from harm. But I got away, in the moment and for good.

Violence, or the threat of it, is the problem.

The problem is men who thinks it’s OK to offer unsolicited “advice” to women. The problem is men who think they have the right to any woman’s body, regardless of her feelings on the matter. The problem is men who think they have the right to attack her, verbally or otherwise, if she dares to refuse his advances, however polite or grotesque they may be. The problem is blaming and shaming women for violence done to them (“What was she wearing when she got raped?” as if the rape happened without someone actively doing it to her). The problem is not holding men accountable for their actions. The problem is young men like Brock Turner who brutally rape a woman and, rather than taking responsibility for his actions, blames them on “alcohol and sexual promiscuity.” Hint: rape ≠ sexual promiscuity. Hint: Alcohol is no excuse for rape. The problem is men like Turner’s father who think that punishment for “20 minutes of action” should be lenient or nonexistent. I wonder if he’d feel the same way if someone spent a similar “20 minutes of action” with his wife or daughter. I fervently hope he, they, never have to find out.

I had a student once who wrote a heartbreaking personal story of being held back, held back, at a party as another guy raped his friend. The problem is that that happens.

The problem is that from a very young age, girls receive messages that their primary asset is the way they look. And very rarely does the way they look conform with the images they see, thus setting them up for constant striving towards the impossible. The problem is that from a very young age, girls learn to be passive, to question their instincts rather than trust them, to keep their emotions in check. The problem is that from a very young age, boys learn that certain expressions of emotion, the “soft” ones, are not acceptable. The problem is that from a very young age, boys receive message that aggression and toughness are what define their masculinity. 

The problem is that not enough men who agree with everything I’m saying hold other men accountable when they do or say things that promote rape culture and misogyny. The problem is anyone, man or woman, who teaches girls and women that it is up to them to keep from getting raped or attacked or abused or killed, but doesn’t teach boys and men not to rape or attack or abuse or kill women.

The problem is that we don’t emphasize enough the power and the necessity of mutually respectful relationships. We must teach boys and girls, men and women, most probably ourselves included, how to be in relationships that honor the fullness of expression that each of us has to offer. We need not look too far in our world to see this.     

I don’t plan to get a big dog.

I know how to talk to people, or at least I’m trying. I’m learning. I want to talk to people. I want to reach out to their hearts, to your heart, with mine.

I do not put my trust in fear. I put my trust in the belief that most of the time most people I meet will treat me like a person if I treat them like a person, even if the encounter starts with something other than respect. I know it is so hard to offer respect in the face of animosity. So I will practice. Practice. PRACTICE. I know that if that doesn’t work, walking away is usually an option. Or walking towards another good soul.

And so I will keep walking, forward when possible, backward when necessary, head held high.