#SOL17: Noah and the Raven

Today's slice of life grew out of a painting I did in a journal. I stared at it for a while and the story emerged. A year after Rob's death brings the knowledge that I am responsible for my own life. It isn't the acceptance of his death that I now struggle with. Rather it is the acceptance of the life that rests in my hands and what I am making of it.  

from my art journal (digital remix - 3.22.17)

#SOL17: Dóchas

Possibilities (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a practice that becomes spiritual muscle memory. It’s a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be.

Krista Tippett. Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (p. 233). 

I.

I have been driving--feeling the road beneath the tires and I cannot say what makes me wonder this but I do: Is being hopeful the same thing as feeling hopeful? The question lingers, stays with me. Smoke to the mind, curling between synapses.

I ask others and most seem to weigh in with a more positive nod towards feeling hopeful as opposed to being hopeful.

I cannot say more as I do not know.


II.

In the country of my birth, dóchas means hope and given our history, the Irish are a hopeful people. We have learned to disconnect hope from probability and anchor it, instead, to possibility.

All things are possible.


III.

Seamus Heaney, a patron saint of sorts,  wrote:

History says, Don't hope 

On this side of the grave, 

But then, once in a lifetime 

The longed-for tidal wave 

Of justice can rise up 

And hope and history rhyme.

IV.

It is March. Spring is a whisper away and all things feel possible today.

And there, on the slim horizon, just out of reach we can see justice rising up like the true warrior she is.

And I like to imagine that Seamus and my dear sweet Rob are taking tea somewhere beyond here and talking about hope and history.

Hear the rhyme.
Hear it.

#SOL16: Hope and Doubt

Bluebird (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ~ Charlotte Brontë .

This was the quote for Day 11 of Oprah and Deepak's Getting Unstuck 21-Day Meditation and I found it hopeful and wanted to pass it along.  The talk that day was about developing awareness. Deepak stated, 

"Awareness opens the door to new possibilities. Therefore we must master the skill of being aware." 

He then outlined three key practices that can help us to develop our capacity to be aware: 

1. Pay attention to what is happening in the environment: self, other, environment
2. Practice holding focus--the opposite of being scattered. Key is being interested and engaged.
3. Learn the skill of stillness: Bear witness, restful alertness.

Each morning as I meditate, all three of these skills are present in that action. Mediation lodges me in the present moment, now. On the day before, the quote was from Thích Nhất Hạnh who wrote, 

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” 

In losing Rob, I better understand that life is what we compose. We have choices in how we react, in how we understand, in the ways we frame possibility. Truths are largely what we make, not what is ordained. Deepak talks about hope and doubt explaining that hope pulls us forward into the now, while doubt pulls us backward out of the present moment. There are tensions between hope and doubt and often represent ways we approach the unknown. Doubts limit us, while hope does not. Living in the here and now is the only rational space to stand.

#SOL16: Certainty

Winter (M. A. Reilly, 2012)

I.

On my way to see Rob the unusual happens. I am walking down a hospital corridor, heading towards the palliative care center where Rob is waiting. It is very early in the morning. No one seems to be around when my right eye begins to blur and a vision blooms full. I see the cancer cells that riddle Rob's thoracic area: lungs, spine, ribs, and sternum, along with his liver and spleen light like gold nuggets. And I watch as the cancer is drawn from his body, as more and more cells are swept into a black hole held in an outstretched hand. I see the gold bits of matter disappear into the blackness, like a giant mouth swallowing the cancer. All of this happens as I'm standing still in the hallway, the early morning sun falling through a window to my right.

Later, Rob will tell me that he visualizes the cancer in his body as long dark tunnels that are oddly empty.

I I.

A few days ago I received an email from my son's friend's mom. She asked me to read, Radical Remissions:Surviving Cancer at All Costs.  The premise of the text which grew out of the author's dissertation is "Although unexpected remissions are rare, thousands of people have experienced them." As I read the book I was filled with both hope and an odd embarrassment that dogged the belief that Rob could live. There's an inner voice that says such hope is foolish; that hanging on to nonmedical 'cures' is dangerous, wrong.

For the last six months, interactions with doctors and residents, technicians and interns have caused me to follow blindly. Of the hundreds of tests Rob has been subject to, less than 1 percent have been reported to us. Only our family doctor, two oncologists, and two surgeons shared results with us.  The majority of medical doctors who ordered test after test: daily blood cultures, X-rays, cat scans, MRIs, body scans, blood tests and on and on and on during these last six months failed to discuss the results with us. In many ways we were and certainly felt inconsequential.

III.

It's so easy to lose yourself, to surrender your will, to doubt what you know. Certainty is a foolish desire.

My 1000th Post

This is my 1000th post. A milestone. And I wanted it to say something about hope--something about what connects us, reveals our humanness. The poem, below, by Naomi Shihab Nye does just that. I hope it is one that will resonate with you.

When I began this blog I had no sense, at all, that I would have anything to say--nor did I imagine any actual readers. I wrote my first post in December 2009 while at Bard College. It was an assignment, an obligation. I kept the blog and I did not write again for nearly a year. 

In late August of 2010, I began to post regularly. This renewed effort at blogging coincided with hearing Will Richardson speak about his blogging.  I can still recall seeing the map that was on his blog at that time that displayed the number of people who had visited his blog. I was amazed at the number. His interest and passion in connecting with others was inviting. I thought that perhaps this might be something I could do too.

So I went home and faced the blank screen and began to write to you. What I could not imagine was that readers from more countries than I knew comprised the planet would interact with the blog. Through Goggle+, Twitter, and Facebook the page views are now nearing 2 million. Scale via the Internet is surprising to say the least. 


A blog, I've learned is not singularly authored. We feed off of each other.  Your important works (in)form mine.  I learn from you in unexpected ways. This blog remains a collective.  And that realization fills me with hope. Do know, it has been such a privilege to connect and to learn with you. 

Blogs are largely about connecting and composing collectively. Ideas bloom between. So please think of these posts as my mamool cookies--offered freely, dusted sweet. Thank you, imagined and real reader. You help me to stay rooted, to find hope in our common expressions.

Mary Ann

Gate A-4

Naomi Shihab Nye


Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal,
after learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

The Necessity of Things Falling Apart: Bearing Witness

Twilight, In Beween (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

"Discourse, lives as it were, on the boundary between its own control and  another alien context" (Bakhtin, 1981, 284)

I.

I was working with some teachers recently and one asked about a plan we had revised. Her exasperation was both statement and question. I sensed she was wondering whether this version of the plan would last the length of the school year.  Was it sturdy enough? Correct? 

Surely it was indelicate on my part, but I told her most likely this revision would fall apart too--perhaps as soon as 6 or 8 weeks.  She paused and then laughed and I was thankful for her sense of humor. And I thought--not for the first time--that I might have tried for better words. 

Most everything falls apart, especially plans made for others. Plans are less the road we actually make and more the breath we exhale as we pause, slightly, before breathing again and walking on. Nothing stands still and plans, written, are the epitome of such truth.

I wanted to tell her that our teaching plans will change because we will have some new thinking. They will change because we were wrong.  I wanted to say that the kids will show us that what we thought was essential has become less so.  I wanted to suggest that our work is not to follow made plans verbatim, but to read the landscape as learning emerges. Becoming, not being, is cool comfort in the face of doubt. I wanted to lay down words like breadcrumbs, beg the birds to stay away, but I offered her only silence and a nod. And perhaps each was the better utterance than words I might have sounded. 

The space to doubt is a gift. 

II.

I was thinking about all of this as I waited in the doctor's examination room reading Bud Hunt's recent post, On Hope. Bud posits that it's hope he'll sidle up to in the wake of doubt--doubt that rises alongside made plans underway, plans that surely will begin to show their wear as plans do. 

I was thinking about the folks in Bud's story. He's involved in a 1:1 initiative where he works.  He writes:

And certainly some folks have begun to wonder about the bad and possibly risky pieces of our plan to allow for more access to technology and the Internet to students as everyday habits in teaching and learning.  I do hear some people who are certain that things and networks will be used for evil rather than good.  “Let’s lock stuff down,” they say, “because students with too much ability and opportunity are bound to go astray.”

Back in 2009, I rewrote board policy at a large NJ public high school to allow unrestricted Internet access for students. At that time, students were not allowed to use any Internet ready devices without facing disciplinary action. It was not unusual to see high school admins busy confiscating phones. "If I see your phone, it's mine" was well in play eating up copious amounts of time. Further, students at the high school and middle school were not allowed to bring their own devices to school without written permission.  And then they could not access the Internet.  We were locked down and safe.

It took some months to rally interest and support, but eventually support was garnered and the policy changes were enacted by the Board. Alongside these changes, we also were ensuring wireless environments at all district schools and updating hardware so that in the period of 15 months a 1:2 environment was present at the high school and eventually a 1:1 environment at the middle school.

As I think about what Bud wrote I am reminded that it is the in between spaces of what was and what might be that doubt most surely raises its head. I can recall the urgent voices that prophesized doom at both schools. "Only a fool would let 1500 kids access the Internet on whim," one high school teacher shouted at me. "Do you have any idea the problems this will cause?"

Sometimes, plans displace what we did not know we valued. Other times they nudge at beliefs about order and control that we aren't quite ready to part company with even when we profess the opposite. To be human is to know wear. I suspect it's one reason we love the new plan. So shiny, so full of possibility. Change often represents necessary losses and any loss is rarely comfortable. As I think about Bud and his dilemma I realize that it is what we reach to fill these losses, small and grand--personal and societal, that seem most to matter.  

Bud reaches for hope--the thing with feathers.

III.

And so this was on my mind when my doctor, a family friend, stepped into the examination room. Rob had taught all three of his children and across the last 15 years our family and his have developed a friendship. His children are the type of young people who fill both Rob and me with hope--with the belief in a better world than the one we have now.  Dr. R. is Egyptian and deeply involved in the politics that are (re)framing his country. And so it was with much interest that I listened to him talk about continued turmoil there and how people are invested in magical-religious thinking as the basis for answers to small and large problems. He tells me with a certain sadness, "the book has been lost." 

The book has been lost.

Later, I'll think that the book may surely have been lost, perhaps even that the book needed to be lost, but stories less so. I'm reminded of John Connolly's (2006) wonder-filled book, The Book of Lost Things. The subject of the story, 12-year-old David, loses his mother. She dies. The narrator tells us:

Before she became ill, David’s mother would often tell him that stories were alive. They weren’t alive in the way that people were alive, or even dogs or cats...Stories were different, though: they came alive in the telling. Without a human voice to read them aloud...they had no real existence in our world....Stories wanted to be read, David’s mother would whisper. They needed it. It was the reason they forced themselves from their world into ours. They wanted us to give them life (p. 3).

Hope is a story we tell. It's the witness we bear when hearing another's tale. Hope is without past or future. It is emergence--a narrative sans beginning, middle or end. Hope may well be what we reach for during in between times.

IV.

After David's mother dies, he thinks about how still his life has become without the rushing to and from that had been such a part of his life while his mother was ill. 

Instead, there was only the kind of silence that comes when someone takes away a clock to be repaired and after a time you become aware of its absence because its gentle, reassuring tick is gone and you miss it so (p.13).

When things fall apart, the reassuring tick of what has been is gone. This is when we most need courage to face another person's uncertainty, as well as our own. Such acts are ones of hope.


Cited:
Bakhtin, M.M. (1981).  The Dialogic Imagination. Austin, TX: University of Texas.
Connolly, John (2006). The Book of Lost Things: A Novel. Atria Books. Kindle Edition.  

I Dreamt... A Book About Hope

Early in the week Gabriela Olmos's children's book, I Dreamt arrived at my home. Originally published in Mexico it is now available in an English version via Groundwood Books.

This is the description of the text via Groundwood:

Children whose daily lives are afflicted by violence dream of a different world in this powerful book created by Mexican artists as a fundraiser for the IBBY Fund for Children in Crisis. 

In many parts of the world, including North America, children are living with violence. Wars, gangs, guns, crime, bullying, harassment and fear keep many kids from living the full, free lives that every child should enjoy. This book was created in Mexico, where for the past six years a vicious war against drugs has brought fear and insecurity into every child’s life. Many children’s dreams have become nightmares. Some of Mexico’s best illustrators have donated their art to create this book, which gives children a way to talk about their fears, a reason to hope and the inspiration to resist falling into grief and depression. Like some city trees they have the possibility to grow strong and, despite everything, to try and make the world a better place. 

I dreamt... is being published in North America for the same reasons. Royalties from sales will be donated to IBBY’s Fund for Children in Crisis, which supports bibliotherapy projects that use books and reading to help children who have lived through wars, civil conflicts and natural disasters to think and talk about their experiences.

The bold illustrations created by twelve Mexican artists show the transformations of once deadly objects like pistols that now shoot butterflies and drug lords who only blow soap bubbles. There are robbers who steal nightmares and wars fought with flowers.

The book turns from focusing on dreams to taking action.

The narrator urges children to learn from those city trees that in spite of concrete learn to grow and in doing so help all of us breathe.

The text is recommended for children 9 years of age and older.

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice (December 21, 2010, M.A. Reilly)

           So the shortest day came, and the year died,
              And everywhere down the centuries of the
                          Snow-white world,
                    Came people singing, dancing,
                       To drive the dark away.

              They lighted candles in the winter trees;
                They hung their homes with evergreen.
             They burned beseeching fires all night long
                       To keep the year alive.

            And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
                       They shouted, reveling.
            Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
                    Echoing, behind us - listen!

              All the long echoes sing the same delight
                          This shortest day
               As promise wakens in the sleeping land.

                   They carol, feast, give thanks,
         And dearly love their friends, and hope for peace.
                      And so do we, here, now,
                     This year, and every year.
                             Welcome, Yule!

      --by Susan Cooper, 1977 written for The Christmas Revels

Are You Better Off Today vs. We Leave No One Behind

Are You Better Off? (9.5.2012, M.A. Reilly)

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said:

 … I think that the real issue this week and what you’re seeing happening yesterday on the Sunday morning talk shows is the fundamental question back on the table for Americans, which is: Are you better off today than you were three or four years ago? Issues come and go and they will, but at the end of the day this is going to be about facts.

It was considered a provocative question in 1980 when Reagan posed it and in post-1980, I can't help but think that this question ought to give us all pause.  

Reagan's policies provided permission for many to not care about others, especially those who were poor, homeless, or ill.  Reaganomics harmed us.  From a column from  2011, Bob Herbert had this to say about Reaganomics:

Paul Volcker, who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve during most of the Reagan years, commented in the film about the economist Arthur Laffer’s famous curve, which, incredibly, became a cornerstone of national economic policy. “The Laffer Curve,” said Mr. Volcker, “was presented as an intellectual support for the idea that reducing taxes would produce more revenues, and that was, I think, considered by most people a pretty extreme interpretation of what would happen.” 

Toward the end of his comment, the former Fed chairman chuckled as if still amused by the idea that this was ever taken seriously. 

What we get with Reagan are a series of disconnects and contradictions that have led us to a situation in which a president widely hailed as a hero of the working class set in motion policies that have been mind-bogglingly beneficial to the wealthy and devastating to working people and the poor.

I am reminded of the damage of Reaganomics when I hear Paul Ryan and company forward more trickle-down economics and pose what they think is a gotcha question. But does it reveal more about the asker than what might have been intended?

Are you better off today may in fact be irrelevant, especially as it was intended to be a question solely about income. The hyper-attention by the GOP on the self and money underestimates us.  We are bigger than our pockets. We must be. The messages that form the base upon which our political parties rest are important as they are revealing.

In contrast to the gotcha question, I think of the words Bill Clinton spoke at the DNC.  He closed his speech saying this:

I love our country— and I know we're coming back. For more than 200 years, through every crisis, we've always come out stronger than we went in. And we will again as long as we do it together. We champion the cause for which our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor— to form a more perfect union. 

Patriotic. Hopeful. Responsible. As long as we do it together...

Few adults would question that the economic times we live in are difficult for most everyone--save the super wealthy. The differences though between now and four years ago are considerable as I have a hopefulness that I did not feel at the hawkish end of the Bush-Cheney years.  I appreciate the slight changes that have been made in the name of equality. Even though I am disappointed that Congress and the President had such incredible trouble working together, I am nonetheless grateful for the changes that have happened during the first Obama presidency for our military, for gay rights, for the uninsured, and for the the little bit of tax reduction that came our way. The good person our president is, inspires me to do good as well. 

President Obama closed his acceptance speech at the DNC with these words:

America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now. Yes, our path is harder, but it leads to a better place. (Cheers.) Yes, our road is longer, but we travel it together. (Cheers.) 

We don't turn back. We leave no one behind. (Cheers.) We pull each other up. (Cheers, applause.) We draw strength from our victories. (Cheers, applause.) And we learn from our mistakes. But we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon knowing that providence is with us and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on earth.

I ask you: Which of these do you want to get behind? 

"Are you better off now than three or four years ago?"  

or 

"We leave no one behind. We pull each other up."