Author: Mary

I am a recently retired college professor. Up until June 2012 I taught human behavior and the social environment, social justice and human rights at Monmouth University, in the school of social work. My great joys are reading and telling stories! Reading and thinking about the meaning and implications of what is written. Good literature has the potential of alchemy! of social change toward a world where social and economic justice is respected and where human rights are celebrated.

It’s not always easy to work out the meaning of work

On By MaryIn Choices we make, Cloister of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene, vision and perspective1 Comment

Back at the Cloister of the good Sisters of Mary Magdalene, the glow of postulantcy is beginning to tarnish for our bright eyed Sister Beatrix. She has just completed a novena to her patron saint, the beloved Beatrix Potter, but alas, Sister Beatrix continues to suffer the frustration of feeling put upon to do too much work.

Indeed, each day the good Sister Beatrix sets out to weed the extensive beds of vegetables and flowers that feed the bodies and spirits of the cloistered nuns as well as the homeless families in a nearby shelter. Each day Mother Magdalene watches the elegant poetry of Sister Beatrix’s movements as she moves along the rows of plants pulling and gathering the weeds, and then carrying them off to the mulch plies. And, Mother Magdalene also notices the frustration growing on Sister Beatrix’s face each day. To watch the young sister’s action is to see poetry in motion. To observe her countenance is to feel the growing length of the hard rows she must hoe.

One day, Mother Magdalene calls Sister Beatrix into her office. Mother Magdalene proposes to Sister Beatrix that instead of sweating and toiling in the gardens, each day she will come to the cloister infirmary where Sister Honora is recuperating. Sister Honora who is 90 some years old is essentially blind and quite deaf, but she remains devout in her spiritual practices when her health allows. As she is the only sister in the infirmary at the moment, she is also a bit lonely. Mother Magdalene proposes to Sister Beatrix that she spend a few hours in the infirmary each day, demonstrating to Sister Honora the movements of pulling, gathering and mulching the weeds. The infirmary is air conditioned, so Sister Beatrix enthusiastically jumps at the offer.

The very next day, during the cloister work period, Sister Beatrix goes to the infirmary, and begins her now ritualized movements of pulling weeds, gathering them, and then hauling the imaginary weeds off to an area she envisions as a mulch pile. The relief that she feels is immense! The infirmary is air conditioned. Imaginary weeds weigh nothing. The rows are as short as she chooses. It is an easy row to hoe, a sweet deal indeed!

Sister Bridget’s euphoria continues for a week or so. And then a sense of listlessness begins to creep up on her, overshadowing her new found joy with a feeling of being becalmed in shallow waters. What is she doing? Sister Honora sleeps through her visits. And even when she is awake, Sister Honora hardly notices her. What is the point of this, really? At least when she was outside in the heat, she was accomplishing something, she was engaged in the muddy substance of reality, making a difference in her world, helping to feed the Sisters in some small way. And then Sister Beatrix started to laugh. She got it! When she was in the gardens, she was doing something, something that mattered, something she could put her heart and soul into. When she was walking through the motions in the infirmary, she was merely walking through the motions. . . and so, Sister Beatrix requested an interview with Mother Magdalene, and requested her old job back, and she returned to weeding the gardens having found the heart in her path.

May the rows that we hoe be just challenging enough to keep us focused and engaged. May we all find work with meaning and purpose. May we all find and follow a path with heart!

The People of Peace and the Four Creations

On By MaryIn cosmology, environmental rights, PeaceLeave a comment

Often enough I find myself pondering questions that seem to have no answers. Questions like, “why are we here?” “what is the meaning (the point) of life?” “where did we all come from?” When I find myself wondering about where we all came from I often meander over to creation stories. I grew up with the Christian version of the Genesis creation story. As I got a bit older the version of Eve and the snake and the apple left a bitter taste in my mouth, so I looked to other cultures and wisdom traditions. This story comes from the Hopi people of northern Arizona. “Hopi” means “People of Peace”. The stories here were recorded in the 1950s by Oswald White Bear Fredericks and his wife Naomi from the storytelling of older Hopi at the village of Oraibi, which tree-ring dating indicates has been inhabited by the Hopi since at least 1150 AD. They recount The Four Creations:

At the first was endless space. Only the Creator, Taiowa was in the earliest days. Those days had no time, no shape, and no life; there was only the mind of the Creator. And then it came to be that the infinite creator created the finite in Sotuknang, whom the Creator made as agent to establish nine universes. Sotuknang gathered together matter from the endless space to make the nine solid worlds; he gathered the waters from the endless space and placed them on these worlds to make land and sea; then he gather together air to make winds and breezes on these worlds. The fourth act of creation with which the Creator charged Sotuknang was the creation of life. Sotuknang went to the world that was to first host life and there he created Spider Woman, and he gave her the power to create life. First Spider Woman took some earth and mixed it with saliva to make two beings. Over them she sang the Creation Song, and they came to life. She instructed one of them, Poqanghoya, to go across the earth and solidify it. She instructed the other, Palongawhoya, to send out sound to resonate through the earth, so that the earth vibrated with the energy of the Creator. Poqanghoya and Palongawhoya were dispatched to the poles of the earth to keep it rotating.

Then Spider Woman made all the plants, the flowers, the bushes, and the trees. She made the birds and animals using earth and singing the Creation Song. When all this was done, she made human beings, using yellow, red, white, and black earth mixed with her saliva. Singing the Creation Song, she made four men, and then in her own form she made four women. At first they had a soft spot in their foreheads, and although it solidified, it left a space through which they could hear the voice of Sotuknang and their Creator. Because these people could not speak, Spider Woman called on Sotuknang, who gave them four languages. His only instructions were for them to respect their Creator and to live in harmony with him.

These people spread across the earth and multiplied. Even though they spoke four languages, in those days they could understand each other’s thoughts, and for many years they and the animals lived together as one. Eventually, however, they began to divide, both the people from the animals and the people from each other, as they focused on their differences rather than their similarities. As division and suspicion became more widespread, only a few people from each of the four groups still remembered their Creator. Sotuknang appeared before these few and told them that he and the Creator would have to destroy this world, and that these few who remembered the Creator must travel across the land, following a cloud and a star, to find refuge. These people began their treks from the places where they lived, and when they finally converged Sotuknang appeared again. He opened a huge ant mound and told these people to go down in it to live with the ants while he destroyed the world with fire, and he told them to learn from the ants while they were there. The people went down and lived with the ants, who had storerooms of food that they had gathered in the summer, as well as chambers in which the people could live. This went on for quite a while, because after Sotuknang cleansed the world with fire it took a long time for the world to cool off. As the ants’ food ran low, the people refused the food, but the ants kept feeding them and only tightened their own belts, which is why ants have such tiny waists today.

After this Sotuknang finished making the second world, which was not quite as beautiful as the first. Again he admonished the people to remember their Creator as they and the ants that had hosted them spread across the earth. The people multiplied rapidly and soon covered the entire earth. They did not live with the animals, however, because the animals in this second world were wild and unfriendly. Instead the people lived in villages and built roads between these, so that trade sprang up. They stored goods and traded those for goods from elsewhere, and soon they were trading for things they did not need. As their desire to have more and more grew, they began to forget their Creator, and soon wars over resources and trade were breaking out between villages. Again Sotuknang appeared before the few people who still remembered the Creator, and again he sent them to live with the ants while he destroyed this corrupt world. This time he ordered Poqanghoya and Palongawhoya to abandon their posts at the poles, and soon the world spun out of control and rolled over. Mountains slid and fell, and lakes and rivers splashed across the land as the earth tumbled, and finally the earth froze over into nothing but ice.

After many years, Sotuknang sent Poqanghoya and Palongawhoya back to the poles to resume the normal rotation of the earth, and soon the ice melted and life returned. Sotuknang called the people up from their refuge, and he introduced them to the third world that he had made. Again he admonished the people to remember their Creator as they spread across the land. As they did so, they multiplied quickly, even more quickly than before, and soon they were living in large cities and developing into separate nations. With so many people and so many nations, soon there was war, and some of the nations made huge shields on which they could fly, and from these flying shields they attacked other cities. When Sotuknang saw all this war and destruction, he resolved to destroy this world quickly before it corrupted the few people who still remembered the Creator. He called on Spider Woman to gather those few and, along the shore, she placed each person with a little food in the hollow stem of a reed. When she had done this, Sotuknang let loose a flood that destroyed the warring cities and the world on which they lived.

Once the rocking of the waves ceased, Spider Woman unsealed the reeds so the people could see. They floated on the water for many days, looking for land, until finally they drifted to an island. On the island they built little reed boats and set sail again to the east. After drifting many days, they came to a larger island, and after many more days to an even larger island. They hoped that this would be the fourth world that Sótuknang had made for them, but Spider Woman assured them that they still had a long and hard journey ahead. They walked across this island and built rafts on the far side, and set sail to the east again. They came to a fourth and still larger island, but again they had to cross it on foot and then build more rafts to continue east. From this island, Spider Woman sent them on alone, and after many days they encountered a vast land. Its shores were so high that they could not find a place to land, and only by opening the doors in their heads did they know where to go to land.

When they finally got ashore, Sotuknang was there waiting for them. As they watched to the west, he made the islands that they had used like stepping stones disappear into the sea. He welcomed them to the fourth world, but he warned them that it was not as beautiful as the previous ones, and that life here would be harder, with heat and cold, and tall mountains and deep valleys. He sent them on their way to migrate across the wild new land in search of the homes for their respective clans. The clans were to migrate across the land to learn its ways, although some grew weak and stopped in the warm climates or rich lands along the way. The Hopi trekked and far and wide, and went through the cold and icy country to the north before finally settling in the arid lands between the Colorado River and Rio Grande River. They chose that place so that the hardship of their life would always remind them of their dependence on, and link to, their Creator.

Perhaps we would do well to remember that there are multiple ways of knowing and being. Our current world has come to prize above all the empirical ways of knowing, trusting only what can be seen, touch, tasted, counted valuing the material as the only plane of reality. In doing this we have lost touch with and devalued the knowing of the world’s wisdom traditions. We have lost touch with the paths with heart. Perhaps we would do well to re-member the stories, the traditions, the best of the wisdom practices of our elders, of all elders.

Perhaps we also would do well to remember our interdependence, our links to all of creation, and the need for peace in our hearts, in our lives and in our world.

peace to us all.

The Three Sisters and Their Husbands, Three Brothers

On By MaryIn Choices we make, laughterLeave a comment

Since time before mind women have had to survive by wit and will. This is a fun story that I found in the book “Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales” edited by Kathleen Ragan. Ragan credits Jeremiah Curtin the author of “Tales of Fairies and the Ghost World.” Clearly it is an old Irish tale – a bit longer than most that I post here, but worth the read for sure. If you don’t have time for the full five pages, jump to the end for the last few paragraphs! They are my favorite part for sure.

 As the story goes, in the county Cork, a mile and a half from Fermoy, there lived three brothers. The three lived in one house for some years and never thought of marrying. On a certain day theywent to a fair in the town of Fermoy. There was a platform on the fair ground for dancing and a fiddler on the platform to give music to the dancers. Three sisters from the neighbourhood, handsome girls, lively and full of jokes, made over to the three brothers and asked would they dance. The youngest and middle brother wouldn’t think of dancing, but the eldest said, “We mustn’t refuse; it wouldn’t be good manners.” The three brothers danced with the girls, and after the dance took them to a public-house for refreshments.

After a white the second brother spoke up and said, “Here are three sisters, good wives for three brothers; why shouldn’t we marry? Let the eldest brother of us take the eldest sister; I will take the second; the youngest brother can have the youngest sister.”

It was settled then and there that the three couples were satisfied if the girls’ parents were. Next day the brothers went to the girls’ parents and got their consent. In a week’s time they were married.

Each of the three brothers had a good farm, and each went now to live on his own place. They lived well and happily for about ten years, when one market-day the eldest sister came to the second and asked her to go to Fermoy with her.

In those days women used to carry baskets made of willow twigs, in which they took eggs and butter to market. The second sister said she hadn’t thought of going, but she would go, and they would ask the youngest sister for her company.

All three started off, each with a basket of eggs. After they had their eggs sold in the market they lingered about for some time looking at people, as is usual with farmers’ wives. In the evening, when thinking of home, they dropped into a public-house to have a drop of drink before going. The public-house was full of people, chatting, talking, and drinking. The three sisters did not like to be seen at the bar, so they went to a room up stairs, and the eldest called for three pints of porter, which was brought without delay.

It is common for a farmer or his wife who has a ten-shilling piece or a pound, and does not wish to break it, to say, “I will pay the next time I come to town”; so the eldest sister said now. The second sister called for three pints, and then the third followed her example.

‘Tis said that women are very noisy when they’ve taken a glass or two, but whether that is true or not, these three were noisy, and their talk was so loud that Lord Fermoy, who was above in a room finishing some business with the keeper of the public-house, could not hear a thing for their chat, so he sent the landlord to tell the women to leave the room. The landlord went, and finding that they had not paid their reckoning yet, told them it was time they were paying their reckoning and moving towards home.

One of the sisters looked up and said, “The man above* will pay all. He is good for the reckoning.”

The man of the house, thinking that it was Lord Fermoy she was speaking of, was satisfied, and went up stairs.

“Have they gone?” asked Lord Fermoy.

“They have not, and they say that you will pay the reckoning.”

“Why should I pay when I don’t know them? We’ll go down and see who they are and what they mean.”

The two went down, and Lord Fermoy saw that they were tenants of his; he knew them quite well, for they lived near his own castle. He liked the sisters, they were so sharp-witted.

“I’ll pay the reckoning, and do you bring each of these women a glass of punch,” said he to the man of the house.

The punch was brought without delay.

“Here is a half sovereign for each of you,” said Lord Fermoy. “Now go home, and meet me in this place a week from to-day. Whichever one of you during that time makes the biggest fool of her husband will get ten pounds in gold and ten years rent free.”

“We’ll do our best,” said the sisters.

Each woman of them was anxious, of course, to do the best she could. They parted at the door of the public-house, each going her own way, and each thinking of what could be done to win the ten pounds and ten years’ rent.

It had happened that the eldest sister’s husband became very phthisicky and sickly a couple of years after his marriage and fell into a decline. On the way home the wife made up her mind what to do. She bought pipes, tobacco, candles, and other articles needed at a wake. She was in no hurry home, so ’twas late enough when she came to the house. When she looked in at the window she saw her husband sitting by the fire with his hand on his chin and the children asleep around him. A pot of potatoes, boiled and strained, was waiting for her.

She opened the door. The husband looked at her and asked, “Why are you so late?”

“Why are you off the table, and where are the sheets that were over you?” asked she as if in a fright; “or the shirt that I put on you? I left you laid out on the table.”

“Sure I am not dead at all. I know very well when you started to go to the market, I wasn’t dead then, and I didn’t die since you left the house.”

Then she began to abuse him, and said that all his friends were coming to the wake, and he had no right to be off the table tormenting and abusing herself and the children, and went on in such a way that at last he believed himself dead and asked her in God’s name to give him a smoke and he would go up again on the table and never come down till he was carried from it.

She gave him the pipe, but didn’t let him smoke long. Then she made him ready, put him on the table, and spread a sheet over him. Now two poles were stretched overhead above the body and sheets hung over and down on the sides, as is customary. She put beads between his two thumbs and a Prayer-book in his hands. “You are not to open your eyes,” said she, “no matter what comes or happens.” She unlocked the door then and raised a terrible wailing over the corpse. A woman living opposite heard the wailing, and said to her husband:

“Oh, it is Jack that is dead, and it is a shame for you not to go to him.”

“I was with him this evening,” said the husband, “and what could kill him since?”

The wife hurried over to Jack’s house, found the corpse in it, and began to cry. Soon there was a crowd gathered, and all crying.

The second sister going past to her own home by a short cut, heard the keening and lamenting. “This is my sister’s trick to get the £10 and ten years’ rent,” thought she, and began to wail also. When inside she pinched the dead man, and pulled at him to know would he stir; but it was no use, he never stirred.

The second sister went home then, and she was very late. Her husband was a strong, able-bodied man, and when she wasn’t there to milk the cows he walked up and down the path watching for her, and he very angry. At last he milked the cows himself, drove them out, and then sat down in the house. When the wife came he jumped up and asked, “What kept you out till this hour? ‘Twas fitter for you to be at home long ago than to be strolling about, and the Lord knows where you were.”

“How could I be here, when I stopped at the wake where you ought to be?”

“What wake?”

“Your brother’s wake. Jack is dead, poor man.”

“What the devil was to kill Jack? Sure I saw him this evening, and he’s not dead.”

He wouldn’t believe, and to convince him she said, “Come to the field and you’ll see the lights, and maybe you’ll hear the keening.”

She took him over the ditch into the field, and seeing the lights he said, “Sure my poor brother is dead!” and began to cry.

“Didn’t I tell you, you stump of a fool, that your brother was dead, and why don’t you go to his wake and go in morning? A respectable person goes in mourning for a relative and gets credit for it ever after.”

“What is mourning?” asked the husband.

“Tis well I know,” said she, “what mourning is, for didn’t my mother teach me, and I will show you.”

She brought him to the house and told him to throw off all his clothes and put on a pair of tight-fitting black knee breeches. He did so; she took a wet brush then, and reaching it up in the chimney, got plenty of soot and blacked him all over from head to foot, and he naked except the black breeches. When she had him well blackened she put a black stick in his hand. “Now,” said she, “go to the wake, and what you are doing will be a credit to the family for seven generations.”

He started off wailing and crying. Whenever a wake house is full, benches and seats are put outside, men and women sit on these benches till some of those inside go home, then those outside go in. It is common also for boys to go to wakes and get pipes and tobacco, for every one gets a pipe, from a child of three to old men and women. Some of the boys at Jack’s wake, after getting their pipes and tobacco, ran off to the field to smoke, where their parents couldn’t see them. Seeing the black man coming, the boys dropped their pipes and ran back to the wake house, screaming to the people who were sitting outside that the devil was coming to carry the corpse with him. One of the men who stood near was sharper-sighted than others, and looking in the direction pointed out, said:

“Sure the devil is coming! And people thought that Jack was a fine, decent man, but now it turns out that he was different. I’ll not be waiting here!” He took himself off as fast as his legs could carry him, and others after him.

Soon the report went into the wake house, and the corpse heard that the devil was coming to take him, but for all that he hadn’t courage to stir. A man put his head out of the house, and, seeing the black man, screamed, “I declare to God that the devil is coming!” With that he ran off, and his wife hurried after him.

That moment everybody crowded so much to get out of the house that they fell one over another, screeching and screaming. The woman of the house ran away with the others. The dead man was left alone. He opened one eye right away, and seeing the last woman hurrying off he said:

“I declare to the Lord I’ll not stay here and wait for the devil to take me!” With that he sprang from the table, and wrapped the sheet round his body, and away with him then as fast as ever his legs could carry him.

His brother, the black man, saw him springing through the door, and, thinking it was Death that had lifted his brother and was running away with him to deprive the corpse of wake and Christian burial, he ran after him to save him. When the corpse screamed the black man screamed, and so they ran, and the people in terror fell into holes and ditches, trying to escape from Death and the devil.

The third sister was later than the other two in coming home from Fermoy. She knew her husband was a great sleeper, and she could do anything with him when he was drowsy. She looked into the house through a window that opened on hinges. She saw him sitting by the fire asleep; the children were sleeping near him. A pot of potatoes was standing by the fire. She knew that she could get in at the window if she took off some of her clothes. She did so and crawled in. The husband had long hair. She cut the hair off close to his head, threw it in the fire and burned it; then she went out through the window, and, taking a large stone, pounded on the door and roused her husband at last. He opened the door, began to scold her for being out so late, and blamed her greatly.

“Tis a shame for you,” said he. “The children are sleeping on the floor, and the potatoes boiled for the last five hours.”

“Bad luck to you, you fool!” said the woman. “Who are you to be ordering me? Isn’t it enough for my own husband to be doing that?”

“Are you out of your mind or drunk that you don’t know me?” said the man. “Sure, I am your husband.”

“Indeed you are not,” said she.

“And why not?”

“Because you are not; you don’t look like him. My husband has fine long, curly hair. Not so with you; you look like a shorn wether.”

He put his hands to his head, and, finding no hair on it, cried out, “I declare to the Lord that I am your husband, but I must have lost my hair while shearing the sheep this evening. I’m your husband.”

“Be off out of this!” screamed the woman. “When my husband comes he’ll not leave you long in the house, if you are here before him.”

In those days the people used bog pine for torches and lighting fires. The man, having a bundle of bog pine cut in pieces, took some fire and went towards the field, where he’d been shearing sheep. He went out to know could he find his hair and convince the wife. When he reached the right place he set fire to a couple of pine sticks, and they made a fine blaze. He went on his knees and was searching for the hair. He searched the four corners of the field, crawling hither and over, but if he did not a lock of hair could he find. He went next to the middle of the field, dropped on his knees, and began to crawl around to know could he find his hair. While doing this he heard a terrible noise of men, and they running towards him, puffing and panting. Who were they but the dead man and the devil? The dead man was losing his breath and was making for the first light before him. He was in such terror that he didn’t see how near he was to the light, and tumbled over the man who was searching for his hair.

“Oh, God help me!” cried the corpse. “I’m done for now!”

Hearing his brother’s voice, the black man, who was there, recognised him. The man looking for the hair rose up, and seeing his brothers, knew them; then each told the others everything, and they saw right away that the whole affair was planned by their wives.

The husbands went home well fooled, shame-faced, and angry. On the following day the women went to get the prize. When the whole story was told it was a great question who was to have the money. Lord Fermoy could not settle it himself, and called a council of the gentry to decide, but they could not decide who was the cleverest woman. What the council agreed on was this: To make up a purse of sixty pounds, and give twenty pounds and twenty years’ rent to each of the three, if they all solved the problem that would be put to them. If two solved it they would get thirty pounds apiece and thirty years’ rent; if only one, she would get the whole purse of sixty pounds and rent free for sixty years.

“This is the riddle,” said the council to the sisters: “There are four rooms in a row here; this is the first one. We will put a pile of apples in the fourth room; there will be a man of us in the third, second, and first room. You are to go to the fourth room, take as many apples as you like, and when you come to the third room you are to give the man in it half of what apples you’ll bring, and half an apple without cuffing it. When you come to the second room you are to do the same with what apples you will have left. In the first room you will do the same as in the third and second. Now we will go to put the apples in the fourth room, and we’ll give each of you one hour to work out the problem.”

“It’s the devil to give half an apple without cutting it,” said the elder sister.

When the men had gone the youngest sister said, “I can do it and I can get the sixty pounds, but as we are three sisters I’ll be liberal and divide with you. I’ll go first, and let each come an hour after the other. Each will take fifteen apples, and when she comes to the man in the third room she will ask him how much is one-half of fifteen; he will say seven and a half. She will give him eight apples then and say: “This is half of what I have and half an apple uncut for you.” With the seven apples she will go to the second room and ask the man there what is one-half of seven; he wilt say three and a half. She will give him four apples and say, “Here are three apples and a half and the half of an uncut apple for you.” With three apples left she will go to the man in the first room and ask what is the half of three. He will answer, “One and a half.” “Here are two apples for you,” she will say then; “one apple and a half and the half of an uncut apple.”

The eldest and second sister did as the youngest told them. Each received twenty pounds and twenty years’ rent.

Thinking about Great Expectations

On By MaryIn change, persistence, vision and perspective1 Comment

What can you expect from a fellow whose school career ended after a mere three months and ended with his teacher describing him as addled? What, really can you expect from a fellow who was home schooled by his mother with much of his reading focused on two books? Really, what can you expect from a fellow who moved from job to job, only to be fired from each?

Imagine someone so pig headed that he would get an idea in his head, and when the idea did not come to fruition after one thousand experimental attempts, the fellow just tried another thousand or two thousand or even three thousand times more!

I suspect that today we would label this addled fellow with attention deficit disorder and/or maybe obsessive compulsive disorder. Certainly the guy had some kind of dis-order.

And, truth be told, this fellow has indeed been labeled by many – this fellow Thomas Alva Edison, is the guy the world calls ‘the wizard of Menlo Park.’ He was probalby one of the greatest inventors our world has ever known. Over the course of his life, Thomas Alva Edison registered 1,093 patents. His inventions include the phonograph, the electric generator, fuel cell technology, a kinetographic camera making motion pictures possible, the alkaline battery, improved cement production, improvements on the telephone, and improvements on the electric light bulb to make it practical, Many of Edison’s inventions were improvements on earlier inventions that were interesting but not practical. Thomas Edison frequently said “I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.”

When Edison was asked about the many thousands of failed experiments in his laboratories, he is quoted as saying, “We have not failed, we have discovered many ways not to make whatever is the focus of our experiment.” Through his persistence through his many failures, which he understood as steps in the path to success, Thomas Edison worked his way up from being an impoverished, uneducated railroad worker to one of the most famous and financially successful men. In his lifetime, Edison became a working man’s folk hero. As history looks back on his contributions, Edison is credited with building the framework for modern technology and society in the age of electricity.

Yes, Edison held over a thousand patents, and produced many commercially successful inventions. And all of that was built on the foundation of thousands and thousands of failures. One of the keys to it all was his confident vision that success was on the horizon and he and his team were working their way along the path toward their goal. As one of my teachers once said to me, “You have not failed so much as you have begun to succeed.”

Be clear on your vision. Be true to your dream. Know that the road toward your goal is likely to be a long and winding road. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Do your best. Learn each day. Treasure your frustrations as signposts for new areas to learning and growth. Edison brought us a framework for technology and electricity. We can be the vanguard ushering in a future of justice and human rights.

E. B. White and Hope

On By MaryIn Choices we make, hopeLeave a comment

E. B. White is quite a wonderful author. As I troll the web I keep discovering bit and pieces of the literary gems he has so graciously strewn across our world. One of my most favoritest E. B White quotes shares this observation:  “If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

Then today I was reading the BrainPickings newsletter and came across this letter that White wrote to a man in response to the letter the man had sent to him expressing the gentleman’s distress at the human condition. White’s letter can be found in Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (public library) – a wonderful collection of letters based on Shaun Usher’s labor-of-love website.

 White’s letter, penned on March 30, 1973, when he was 74, endures as a spectacular celebration of the human spirit:

Dear Mr. Nadeau:

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.

Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society – things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

Sincerely,

E. B. White

 And reading this reminded me hope easy it can be to fall into frustration at the sometimes excruciatingly slow progress in building a world of fairness, respect and compassion, of how many valleys there are along with the peaks of success. What a wonderful testament E. B. White gives us to celebrate human hope and resilience.

 So today, this day, let us all go out into our world and be a source of hope, a source of compassion for at least a few minutes of our day. And if you can’t quite manage that, then at least smile broadly to someone you don’t know. You will either bless their day with an unexpected gift of joy, or set them to wondering what you are up to!

Getting to the Other Shore

On By MaryIn Awareness, Cloister of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene, laughterLeave a comment

Spring is coming to New Jersey and to the good sisters of the Cloister of Mother Magdalene. Well, at least the promise of spring seems to be on the horizon. The snow, the snow that perpetually blanketed the ground from December until April, has melted. The crocuses and snow drops are beginning to grace the landscape, and robins are once again dancing in the grass as they search out worms, berries and larvae. Life is re-emerging once again. Good is alive, hope is afoot. And so too is Sister Visentia afoot. She has been feeling a bit cramped in the cloister these long months, and the rolling hills of Hunterdon now beckon her to exploration.

So on a lovely spring day in early May, Sister Visentia set out for a bit of a walk and she found herself along the banks of the south branch of the Raritan River. Now, it’s true the Raritan is not a thundering water course. It is not so wide as to be un-fordable, but after the winter snow melt and the heavy spring rains, it can be formidable. As she strolled along the river, lost in the details of flora and fauna, the smells of spring, the softness of the earth covered in composing leaves, Sister Visentia looked up newly aware that she was unaware of quite where she was. To the right and the left, she saw no way across the river as it roiled past her. As she stared at the Raritan, it became an insurmountable obstacle in front of her. She could not fathom how she was going to get across it. Good Sister Visentia was just about to give up on the idea of fording the river, when she saw someone walking on the other side of the river. Sister Visentia called out to her, “hello there, can you tell me please how to get to the other side of the river?”

The stranger looked up, smiled, and said, “My daughter, you are already on the other shore.”

Sister Visentia heard this and started to smile, then she began to laugh, and soon the two strangers were laughing together so hard that they were weeping and their sides were aching.

As their laughter subsided, the stranger began to chant, “Gate (gah-tay) gate para gate parasamgate bodhi swaha!”

Sister Visentia looked across the water to the stranger, who began to laugh again, and said, “it is a Buddhist chant from the Heart Sutra, which can be translated ‘Gone, gone, gone to the Other Shore, attained the Other Shore having never left.’ Good Sister, you have gone out in search of spring and have stumbled upon enlightenment. Please accept my invitation to pause for a few moments and re-collect yourself. Now is a lovely moment to pause and ponder. Take care to wonder at the world through which you wander!”

At that moment Visentia realized that there was nowhere else to go but inside herself. There she would find comfort, insight, and the wealth of wisdom hard earned and gently nurtured. Visentia gave thanks for this moment of equanimity, for the time she had taken to wander the occasional detour and side road, for the time she had wasted on the roses in her life.

And as she sighed deeply, the stranger waved to her once more and said, “if you meet the Buddha on the road . . .” and the stranger disappeared, and Visentia laughed once more. Indeed, she had always already crossed to the other shore.

Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich

On By MaryIn authenticity, poetry1 Comment

I love poetry.  It is a great reminder to me to just pause a moment, take a deep breath, and appreciate who I am and where I am and what might be.  So, here’s a wonderful poem by Louise Erdrich ….

“Advice to Myself” by Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems. © Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.

Advice to Myself

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

You can find this online at the Writers Almanac at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2007/05/29

It is also reprinted in Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues.

Hope it nurtures your soul the way is does mine.

The Anne Frank Game is not a game

On By MaryIn Choices we make, Shoah4 Comments

I first met Anne Frank when I was in high school. We very quickly became inseparable, very quickly. This was an odd and unexpected pairing on so many levels. I was a devote Roman Catholic at the time. She was Jewish. I had never met anyone who was not Christian at that point in my life. I didn’t even know if there was anyone who was not Christian who live in my home town – and everyone pretty much knew (or knew about) everyone else who lived in that small, small town. So, indeed we were an odd pair, Christian and Jew, living and dead.

Just because I met Anne Frank in “The Diary of Anne Frank” did not mean she could not be my best friend. Many of my dearest, most cherished friends, my most helpful teachers and mentors I met in books. Anne Frank lived with me, in my mind, constantly as I read the book. And for months after, memories of her life lingered and haunted my thoughts and dreams. Her feelings about family members, her frustration with her mother, her longings for love, her longing for more, her fears and anxieties, all of it was real to me. Anne Frank’s life so resonated with me, her life was so much more clearly articulated than my own, it was comforting to take refuge in it. Well, it was comforting right up until the last pages.

The memory of Anne Frank has stayed with me these many (many, many) years. She has remained one of my most cherished friends. So, imagine my delight when I happened on another book about her! I was browsing the library when I came across ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,’ by Nathan Englander. It turned out that this is a book of short stories, and none of them are quite about my friend Anne. But it is a haunting collection of short stories. The first story in the collection does allude to Anne. In that story two couples, both Jewish with common roots in Brooklyn, one Hassidic living in Israel, the other not religious living in Florida reunite in Florida. As the day and conversations progress, the two couples play “the Anne Frank game.” This is a game where they wonder and debate which of their friends would hide them in the event of another Holocaust. Who could they ask, who could they trust to put their own lives at risk, to shelter them if there were another Holocaust? And who would each of them put their own lives at risk to shelter if they were in a position to do so? In the story, unexpected truths emerge (of course, that’s what makes it a good story). As I came to the end of the story and put the book down, I was clearly not finished with the story. I found myself continuing to wonder . . .

 If there was another Holocaust (G-d forbid!), who would I shelter? Who could I trust to put their life and the lives of their families at risk to shelter me?

 This is not such an abstract, academic question. Look around our world. Since 1945 there have been (and ARE)ongoing genocides/holocausts. There ARE people and peoples in need of sheltering. We only need to look to Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Botswana, Brazil, Burma (Myanmar), Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Chiapas, Chilé, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia: Abkhasia, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, Gujarat, India including Bihar, Indonesia,  Iran, Iraq, Israel – Palestine, Kashmir, Kenya, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Northern Ireland, Nuba, Pakistan including East Pakistan (Bengal), West Pakistan,  Baluchistan, Sind, Paraguay, Peoples  Republic of  China, Philippines, Russia –Chechnya , Rwanda, Congo-Brazzaville, Senegal – Casamance, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Southern Sudan and Darfur, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tibet, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, USSR national  minorities, esp. in Crimea, Dagestan Ingushetia, Uzbekistan Fergana Valley, Venezuela, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Yugoslavia including Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia: Kosovo, Zimbabwe … there are genocides and holocausts afoot in our world today.

So, perhaps better put: who are you willing to put your life at risk to shelter? Do you need to actually know the person? Who gets to count as someone worth saving? What will you do? Really, what will you do today and tomorrow? what will you do now?

 

Two lions and a flock of sheep

On By MaryIn Awareness, human rights, kindnessLeave a comment

Two lions walk into a bar . . . no, that is not this story.

Two lions are playing golf when a flock of sheep walk across the golf course grazing . . . no that is not this story either.

Once in another time and place which is sometime and some place, there was a lion who was wandering across the lands when she came upon a flock of sheep meandering and grazing in a small pasture. As the lion looked over the heard, sizing them up to decide which of them would be supper for herself and her cubs she noticed that there was another lion about. But this other lion was lazing in the middle of the sheep.

This other lion grew up with the sheep since it had been a small cub. It would bleat like the sheep and run about in the pasture like the sheep. Our lion went right for this strange aberration of a lion, and when the sheepish lion stood before the feral lion his entire body and being began to tremble and shake. He had never seen such a magnificent and ferocious creature. The feral lion asked the sheepish lion, “what are you doing here in the middle of these sheep?” The sheepish lion was perplexed and replied, “I am a sheep.” “No, you are not! You are a lion. Come with me.” And the feral lion lead the sheepish lion to a pool, where the two lions stood shoulder to shoulder next to each other. “Look” commanded the feral lion. When the sheepish lion saw his reflection in the water he let out a thunderous roar, and in that moment he was transformed. And he was never the same again.

 

This is another Anthony deMello story. deMello tells the story as an example of awakening to awareness, and how sometimes that awakening is an all of a sudden ‘ah ha!’ kind of experience. And there are moments like that. Transformative moments that shake us, or somehow touch us at the core of our being, kind of like someone finally turned the lights on – I was blind (or thought I was) and now I see. And, I suspect working for social justice and human rights can be a lot like that too in some ways. When you are working for human rights – building protections for people so that things that should never be done to them (like torture, kidnapping, murder, false imprisonment, etc) are never done to them; so that the things that should be accessible to everyone are accessible to them (like food, clothing, safety and security, etc); and so that groups can be groups in their own particular way as long as they respect other groups rights – well, when you focus on those big things, it can get overwhelming. And then, there are these ‘ah ha’ moments when you realize that “yes, we need to think globally, but we must act locally.” And on a local level it is all in the details. And finding and respecting the core of our basic human nature is a pretty important detail. Today, for me, its kindness.

Kindness? Please! Just how important is kindness? As I thought about that, I remembered a story about Hillel, who took a bet that he could not summarize the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel smiled and said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. All else is commentary.” Sounds like a description of kindness to me. And then there was Jesus who summarized all of the law by saying, “Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.” That sounds like kindness too! And then the Buddha who taught, “hate can never dispel hate, only love can dispel hate.” That sounds like pretty powerful kindness to me.

So, today, this day, let’s all look at ourselves in a pool of clear fresh water and see the kind beings that we inherently are. And let’s go share that kindness with each other. Let’s lead each other to seeing ourselves and each other in the water of kindness, and maybe even pause and lap it up together.

Sadako Sasaki, little boy, and one thousand cranes

On By MaryIn PeaceLeave a comment

War is not healthy for children and other living beings. For the people who lived in and around Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan in the late summer of 1945 that was poignantly true. Sadako Sasaki was one of the people who lived near Hiroshima. She was born on January 7, 1943 in Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan. On August 6, 1945, Sadako was just about two and a half years old, she was playing at home on that day when the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb euphemistically called ‘little boy’ on Hiroshima. Sadako’s home was about one mile from Ground Zero. That day she and her family lived.

About nine years later when she was eleven, in November 1954, Sadako notice some swelling on her neck and behind her ears. A few months later in January 1955, one of her friends pointed out some purple spots on Sadako’s legs. Her parents took her to see a doctor who diagnosed her with leukemia. Sadako’s mother called her daughter’s illness an atomic bomb disease, everyone in the area knew that leukemia was caused by the effects of radiation from the bombing of Hiroshima. On February 21, 1955, just a month after Sadako turned 12 she had to be hospitalized. Sadako and her parents were told that she had one year at the most left of her life.

Sadako was a bright and happy child. She easily made friends and was well liked among the other students in her school. So of course when she was in the hospital her friends would come to visit with her. One of her friends reminded her of the Japanese legend which promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted their dearest wish by a crane. (In Japan cranes, tortoises and dragons are revered as mystical and holy creatures.) The legend has it that cranes live for 1,000 years, and that is why 1,000 origami cranes must be folded within one year in order to receive the wish, or in some versions to receive eternal good luck.

Once she was reminded of the legend of the crane, Sadako began to fold origami cranes with hope and determination. Her wish was to live. She folded paper cranes with focus and diligence, with patience and resolve. Between late February 1955 and late October 1955, in just 8 short months, Sadako folded 644 origami cranes. As October wore on Sadako became too weak to fold cranes anymore. On October 25, 1955 Sadako died. Sadako died, but not her dreams. Her family and friends carried Sadako’s dream forward. They finished folding the 1000 cranes and buried them with her. That was something. But it was not enough.

Sadako’s family and friends wanted her dream, and the dreams of all the children who died from the effects of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States, to live on. The children, families, and teachers from Sadako’s school worked together to raise the funds to build a memorial to Sadako and to all of the other children who suffered and died from atomic bomb radiation poisoning. In 1958 a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled as part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial within the Hiroshima Peace Park. At the foot of the statue is a plaque that reads: “This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth.” The city of Hiroshima maintains a web page for the Peace Park at http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/index_e2.html. You should check it out!

War is not healthy for children and other living things. So proclaimed the poster fashioned by the group “Another Mother for Peace” (AMP) a grass-roots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. That poster carried me through high school, it so resonated with me that I replicated it with indelible felt markers on my bedroom wall. Nearly fifty years later, you would think we would have gotten the veracity of that assertion! War really is not healthy for children and other living things. The life of Sadako Sasaki stands as a witness to just how not healthy war is for children. Let us work for peace with every breath. We can begin by folding paper cranes, 1000 paper cranes, until they nest in our hearts. With each breath, may our intentions take wing and fly, let us work for peace.

There are some directions for how to fold a crane at WikiHow: http://www.wikihow.com/Fold-a-Paper-Crane . . .

 

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