Many of you are no doubt familiar with the old story, “Stone Soup.”  In the tale, a group of reluctant villagers eventually create a soup together, bit by bit, in order to help feed some hungry travelers.  In doing so, they learn to open themselves up to the strangers in their midst through the selfless act of sharing.  

It is an old chestnut that one might look at the world as a village.  At Thanksgiving time, especially, it is important to reflect on all the things we have in our country—even when we’ve recently learned to focus on our shortfalls—and turn our minds to the hungry and needy here and abroad.  In doing so, we might see ourselves as a potential donor of one of the Ingredients needed for some much-needed stone soup: “Care for others and the world.”

This ingredient describes the way that we might choose to participate in community and world outreach—in what many churches refer to as their “Missions” component.  Missions includes things like a Walkathon for a children’s summer camp, a food pantry, soup kitchen, local or world disaster relief organizations (providing such things as school supplies, hand-made quilts and health kits), Fair Trade Coffee, projects in Africa, a college campus Food-Not-Bombs Freeganism initiative, and so on. Of course this idea is not limited to churches, but I do believe that there is an important reason for working together on these initiatives.

Here’s a thought. While we can imagine doing this type of outreach ourselves, singularly, when we do this together as a group we’re more powerful—both spiritually and materially.

Here’s a fact. Sometimes when we act alone to help others, we consciously or subconsciously get into a “siege mentality”—believing that we’re living inside a tiny fortress with a forbidding world outside.

In that instance, though we give to others, to a degree we remain worried about our own personal time, resources and personal finances. We worry that we are not setting aside enough for our own future need. Thus, we continue storing up unused goods and funds and girding ourselves against strangers. We bury our ‘talents,’ in a manner of speaking.

When we do this in some ways we are like the Stone Soup villagers whose first reaction to the itinerant men was to shut their doors, ears and hearts to the poor and needy.

However, when we realize that we are not just acting for today, but that—together as a world—we are busy building a better place here on earth, then we become aware that those who we imagined to exist on the other side of our door are actually on the inside, members of our same loving community.

To realize this is to understand the poignant wisdom of St. Francis of Assisi, spoken so many years ago: It is in giving that we receive.

For, indeed, when we share our time and resources—our ‘talents’—we are really opening a connection with others in our world community, to our own brothers and sisters.

I like to think of it in this very tangible way:

When I give food to my local Open Door Pantry, for example, I may be taking food out of my cupboard, leaving a temporary space in there—but even so—I’m never afraid that my own family will go hungry.  WHY?

First, because I know that I am doing the right thing by feeding those who are hungry NOW.  That food is worth so much more in their empty bellies than it is in my storehouse.  That’s a very comforting feeling.

But, moreover, I know very well that someday I might find myself in their shoes.  And, if I ever did get to the point where I had a bare cupboard and hungered, I have faith that the Open Door would be there for me—ready to return the favor—stocked by folks just like me who gave because they believe in spreading the wealth here on earth.

The example can be multiplied a hundredfold: think about that winter coat you don’t wear anymore, or the toys your kids don’t play with, or even those 10 extra inches of hair!  (My eldest daughter and I gleefully shared the latter “kindest cut” side-by-side in a salon last year.)

In giving, we invest in the others in our community who are currently on the down cycle of fate’s ever-turning wheel.

In giving, we remember that even when things are going well in our home—when we’re on the ascent in the world—there are others who are hungering and thirsting—literally or metaphorically.  Such as the people of Wunlang, South Sudan for whom I’ve worked and written about building a new water well.

In closing, this is why we should work together to build a better world, stone by stone, here and now, with hand, heart and all the resources given us.  For, we are our brothers’ keepers and when we do justice to the least of us, truly we cause great joy and healing.

Wow.  I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since I wrote an article on Sarah Palin- (September’s Impresaria or Imposter?) and, now surprisingly she’s back in the news cycle with a vengeance  with her same “caribou in the headlights” antics.  

When Palin resigned from gubernatorial office on the holiday weekend, pundits and common folk alike pondered what exactly was going on with the former Republican VP candidate.  On both sides of the aisle, some saw her resignation as evidence of further ethics scandals about to break, others of her natural reaction to the harsh media and legal spotlight (the same one that faces all high-profile public servants, by the way), and still others remarkably viewed it either as her “complete genius” or “utter folly” in giving herself ample time to ramp up for a 2012 presidential bid.

Personally,  I have absolutely NO IDEA what the woman’s thinking.  Of course—having listened to her rambling, unscripted press conference—I don’t think she does either.

I do know this, however: you can’t be a fighter and a quitter at the same time.  The rules of logic just won’t abide it; it’s called an “oxymoron.”  Or, if you prefer plain old English, I’ll use a fishing metaphor (the kind Palin’s so fond of): “one either needs to fish or cut bait.”

Once again, as in my previous article, I will not go as far as the writer Judith Warner did last year and feel sorry for Palin.  But, I will say again concede that balancing motherhood and working is not, and never has been easy.  Again, I can speak from personal experience in that arena, but without the added complications of raising a special-needs child or the national scrutiny that Sarah Palin grapples with.  I can’t even imagine her life, but then again, I wouldn’t have signed up for her career path.

Let’s be clear: Sarah Palin is no victim; to say so would be sexist and condescending.  She is a savvy-enough operator to know what she was getting into. And, as Rachel Maddow astutely pointed out on her show last night, Palin is circumspect enough to try to control the media-spin surrounding her resignation and use it to focus attention on (what she sees as) the issue of ethics scandals as a hindrance to her public service.  As Maddow noted, Palin’s gripe with the system is a far cry from a selfless attempt to improve our government, but functions more as a referendum on whether political constituents have the right to call their leaders into account for veering into questionable behavior.  Here, Palin appears to be a political trailblazer—the “maverick maven” in full swing.  I can’t think of a single American, other than Palin, who would argue that this type of non-accountability is what we need to see on Wall Street, Main Street or Pennsylvania Avenue.

Though a few people— William Kristol especially comes to mind—are still smitten with Palin and her chutzpah, I don’t think her lack of regard for due process and—more importantly—her shunning of the responsibility to serve her constituents for a full term outweigh any personal drama.  She should remember that she was not drafted for her office, she ran for it and won an election to achieve it.  The onus then fell upon her and her alone to fulfill her promises and her obligations.

She may call herself a feminist (at least when she’s not in Katie Couric’s company), but it’s hard not to feel that she’s giving a bad name to the rest of us working moms who try hard every day to keep it together—no matter which way the wind blows.

In the end, I’m just thankful that  she didn’t make it to the White House where the current simmering issues—foreign and domestic—make the pressures she’s walking away from (as Alaska’s governor) look like child’s play.

For those who might be interested, my latest article, “The Wise Man has Two Tongues: Images of The Satyr and the Peasant by Jordaens and Steen,” will appear in Myth in History, History in Myth, volume 182 in Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History series.  It is due out in August of 2009.

Here’s the article abstract:

“In the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Aesop’s Fables had widespread appeal in Netherlandish culture. In particular, we find many examples of the “Fable of the Satyr and the Peasant”. In the story a wary satyr rejects the perceived hypocrisy of the peasant, “blowing hot or cold” as the situation dictates—once to warm his cold hands, and again to cool his porridge.

The Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens’ name is most synonymous with representations of the theme, for, by one count, he created a dozen versions of the story in various media.  It was one of his most repeated, most popular subjects.

It is often noted that Jordaens’ images of “As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young” and “Twelfth Night” served as models for the Dutch artist Jan Steen.  It remains under-stated, however, that Steen also painted the Satyr and the Peasant fable several times in apparent emulation of Jordaens.

In this paper, I discuss the timing and execution of Steen’s paintings as evidence of competition with the older, more famous Antwerp artist. And, I ponder what the combination of Classical mythology and genre—a marriage of elite and popular culture—reveals about correspondances between Northern and Southern Netherlandish humanism.

The answers reveal much about the cross-fertilization between these two artists, and how they used mythology to explore the similarities and differences between their respective Netherlandish cultures and identities.”

And, here’s the book synopsis from the publisher:

“In 1975, a group of Dutch and British scholars published a conference volume of collected essays entitled Some Political Mythologies. That conference sought to examine the political myth as an object of historical study, particularly in the context of the tumultuous and exceptional history of the Low Countries. Thirty years later, a more diverse group of scholars gathered to re-examine the history of Dutch myth-making in light of developments in theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding the role of myths in national identity, moral geography, and community formation. The results of their efforts appear in this volume, Myth in History: History in Myth. The essays cover developments in history, anthropology, cartography, philosophy, art history, and literature as they pertain to how the Dutch historically perceived these myths and how the myths have been treated by previous generations of historians.”

Today I participated in “Faith in Art”: An Ecumenical Art Retreat.  The retreat was envisioned with the express purpose of bringing together people of diverse faith backgrounds to explore how art channels spirituality in all its forms.

We had four speakers with various professions and backgrounds speak on a range of topics: a female icon-painting Lutheran minister, a “spiritually open” female gallery curator/art historian and two male artists—one a Muslim from Cairo and the other an agnostic college professor.  They spoke on subjects varying from traditional icon making to contemporary secular spiritualism to personal visions of God as found in beauty and inner truth to the importance of comedy in spirituality as a means of transcending human hubris and dogmatism from the ancient Greeks forward.

While the topics ranged from East to West and back East and West again, from the sacred image to the outwardly secular installation, from the sacred written word to the satyr play, all the interstitial spaces between seemed to fill with the same aching for knowledge of the inner-self and its foundation in something larger and selfless.

Each speaker vocalized how art formed a means to connect with the transcendent, either as prayer, as a means of emptying the ego, a way to find wonder and mystery in the seemingly well-mapped world or to question the tragic as the sole purveyor of divinity.

The group that gathered was not large—fewer than twenty—but the ambience was intimate, the talks provocative and the energy overwhelmingly positive and radiant.  There were folks of all ages, walks of life, and levels of artistic proficiency.

After a lunch break, our afternoon was consumed by art making, trying desperately to channel some of the positive focus and lessons learned from intellectual exercises into a physical form—a record for others to see and imbibe.

The works will hang collectively at the nearby Montserrat Gallery in short stead. Those  visitors who walk the hall and see them hanging side by side will see just how diverse the participants were, and just how singular the beautiful light that shone through our facture.

I think we all left thinking to ourselves that it’s amazing what the human mind and spirit can accomplish in an atmosphere of open exploration, fellowship and tolerance.

Every global movement starts somewhere, and I hope the spark of ecumenical spirituality kindled today spreads outward in an ever-widening circle of embrace.  The aching world is ready and waiting.

Over my winter break I am reading Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (1980), and within its sage pages have found my New Year’s Resolution for 2009.

In the book, L’Engle (1918-2007) explores what it is that compels the writer to write—what she calls the “vocation of words”—and the despair that can settle in as well.  Throughout her life L’Engle copied quotations into her journal for midnight inspiration.  

In college she included an excerpt from Tchekov’s letters:

“You must once and for all give up being worried about successes and failures.  Don’t let that concern you.  It’s your duty to go on working steadily day by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes, which are inevitable, and for failures.”

And, years later, an inspiration from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

“You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now.  Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody.  There is only one single way.  Go into yourself.  Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write.  This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: Must I write?  Delve into yourself for a deep answer.  And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and testimony to it.”

So, in 2009 I am going to Go into myself and Give up being worried about successes and failures.  For—though I make myriad mistakes and meet failure with publishers and critics, though I am not showered with praise, laurels or money—Write I must.

A college friend of mine recently posted a classic—if wonderfully dated—music video on her Facebook page.  I clicked on “Do they know it’s Christmastime” by Band Aid (1984) and was immediately transported back to the heyday of neo-Rococo hair and trans-genderism.  

But, after the fun of that trip down memory-lane, my thoughts turned to the heart of the matter.  Even more so after I clicked on Band Aid 20, the updated anniversary edition of the song.  This is because unlike the first, the second video includes clips of the starving people of Africa, the heartbreaking subject of the song.  Sadly, now twenty-four years on, most are still in the same predicament.

Last year at this time I wrote a “Bread and Circus Magazine” article on giving to charity in order to complete some of our holiday shopping.  I mentioned fabulous charities like “Project Bread” in the Boston area sell ornaments and Christmas cards as a way to fundraise.  I can attest that this type of shopping stretches your dollars beyond belief: it eases the mind and the soul.

This year, I’d like to suggest something even greater.  I suggest that folks consider giving both to those organizations in our vicinity (as the need for food and shelter increase during our domestic financial crisis), but also to consider deeply those who suffer grievously in the Third World.  

As we in the U.S. come to realize how precious our personal resources are in this time of fiscal uncertainty, perhaps we can see through new eyes how much of a difference we’re capable of making among those who live on the extreme edge.  We can help by donating our time, talents or resources.

You can donate to groups like ONE.org, who work in Africa to fight disease and poverty and advocate for justice via debt relief, water and sanitation, education, fair trade and agriculture.

Can one person make a difference?  As the ONE.org site reminds us: “From Dr. King to Nelson Mandela, history shows us that big changes start with small actions.”

You can let others know you care, and create change.

Happy Holidays.

The NY Times has deflated high-profile McCain supporter “Joe the Plumber’s” professional credentials, as well as his much-touted assertion that Barack Obama’s economic plan would unfairly tax his future plumbing business.

You can read the news story here.

The Times ends by saying that new t-shirts have already been printed that read:

“Vote Joe the Plumber ’08—No More Drips in the White House.”

After this news, I would suggest this tagline instead: “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

—————

POSTSCRIPT (10/20/08):

In light of the many comments I received after posting this—critiquing Obama’s economic plan vis-à-vis small businesses—I thought I’d append an article I read today by the Nobel Lauriat economist Paul Krugman.

Krugman weighed in on the debate over whether McCain’s or Obama’s economic proposals would better serve the average Ohio plumber.  His opinion?  Obama’s.  Read the article here.

“The Prince” and Pandora’s Box

As I watched the second presidential debate, I turned to my husband and said, “This may not sound appropriate in a democratic republic—but when Barack Obama sits on that stool don’t you think he looks like an Eastern Prince?  You know?  The kind shown in Buddhist images of figures in the lalitasana, the ‘pose of royal ease’?  Look at how peaceful and serene his face looks.”  

Now some folks who are already whipped into a xenophobic frenzy about Obama being “too foreign” and “too exotic” for America would OF COURSE take that kind of a remark as an unforgivable lapse in judgment from an elitist East Coast academic such as myself.  To them, I can’t really offer an excuse, nor an apology.  A peaceful, relaxed figure exuding intellect, confidence and poise is something I desire in a world leader. ‘Nuff said.

But, it only occurred to me later—in re-reading Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980) this week—that McCain, too, reminds me of a prince.  Machiavelli’s prince.

Last week’s dismal news that the McCain-Palin ticket began encouraging race-driven insults and worse from their socially and economically panic-stricken audiences forced me to realize that the Republicans are not beneath any scorched-earth tactic (ahem, strategy) to help them gain the White House. They found loads of company on the low road, and discovered it makes for easy travel.  This was as true in Renaissance Italy as it is today.

As Greenblatt points out, “For Machiavelli, the prince engages in deceptions for one very clear reason: to survive.  The successful prince must be ‘a great feigner and dissembler; and men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.’…The initiated observer can always see beneath the surface and understand how appearances are manipulated by the cunning prince.”1  As Machiavelli explains it, it is in politics as it is in nature, the fox always eats the hens; yet, the sheer willingness of the victims still inspires outrage among the socially-responsible in society.2

In response to the troubling development in the Republican campaign, Georgia Democratic representative John Lewis publicly issued a condemning statement likening McCain and Palin’s tactics to George Wallace’s segregationist vitriol.  ”What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” wrote Lewis.  McCain’s response was to voice disappointment in his one-time hero for stifling the national political conversation with his accusations.

I have to ask: If we are routinely asked to praise John McCain for his veteran-of-foreign-war status, should we not also exult  John Lewis for his service in another kind of war?  Did Lewis not also suffer physical and mental anguish in the service of ensuring American freedom and liberty?  Unlike McCain, Lewis suffered at the hands of fellow Americans instead of foreign armies, having his skull fractured by police in the “Bloody Sunday” March on Selma, Alabama.  But, I believe that a hero like Lewis deserves every bit as much respect for his exceptional, patriotic experiences.  And, I also trust that he knows racist rhetoric when he sees it, and that he does not wield his opinion on the subject lightly.

For now—after the outright public disgust and outrage with the tactics of McCain and Palin—they have reined-in their poisonous rhetoric out on the campaign trail.  But, it’s incredibly frightening to imagine that they’ve already opened a post-modern Pandora’s Box, that they’ve loosed rapacious greed, envy, vanity, slander, and lying into the midst of our revered political process.

The optimistic news is that—in the original myth—a once-curious, now terrified Pandora slammed the lid closed before “hope” could escape, which would have left mankind utterly inconsolate.

Ah, HOPE.  Thank heaven for it.  And, thank heaven we have another campaign inextricably linked with that very same saving grace.

————

1. Greenblatt, 14.  Machiavelli quotation, The Prince (NY: Modern Library, 1950), 64-65.

2. Greenblatt, 259, n. 3.

Kaffeeclatch (Coffee Talk)

Has anyone noticed that televised ads for cheap coffee are multiplying?

Recently I’ve seen the resuscitation of Folgers and Maxwell House coffee ads on the networks, as well as pretty-darned-witty McDonald’s ads geared towards discerning coffee drinkers.  

In the McDonald’s ads, they spoof coffee house coffee as “elite” by associating its totalers with goatees, Palin-style metrosexual eyewear, speaking French and knowledge of global geography.

Is it just me, or is there a certain recession-savvy prescience among corporate America that the average consumer is about to revert to my grandparents’ favorite sport—finding the least-offensive, yet cheapest cup of coffee?

And–in a pandemic global recession–I’m afraid, over time, maybe least-offensive will even lose-out!  

Here’s a history lesson for you.  Did you ever wonder where the word “ersatz” comes from?  It means “substitute” in German and was first used in WWI to describe things like synthetic supply replacements.  

And again, in the hard economic pinch of WWII, it was regularly used to describe “replacement coffee”.   What the heck is replacement coffee?  (You’re fortunate not to know!)  Getreidekaffee or “grain coffee” was served to Allied POW’s by their German captors when real coffee supplies were scarce.  It meant coffee made from any roasted grain or bean except coffee.  Yum!  (NOT!)

Like those Allied POW’s who detested the stuff, I’m sure I’m not looking forward to “the best part of waking up”  if the global economy continues to sink.

Call me an “elitist” but you can ask me the same question in French, Dutch, or German, in Paris or Paraguay, and the answer won’t change.  A good cup of coffee is the sign of a great economy.  So, there goes “I’m lovin’ it.”  (Sigh.)

Carpe Spes

I wrote the following post back in March for Bread and Circus Magazine.  Since then, some of the main players have changed, and the economic crisis now adds a poignant sense of urgency to its message. Yet—considering the seemingly endless nature of this presidential contest—it’s surprising how valid it still is.   I still say “CARPE SPES!”

Enjoy.

Loving the Skin We’re Almost In