Sunday, February 28, 2021

Storm Seedlings

 Hope is Detroit Red beet seeds planted late February against a backdrop of swirling snow.

Planning for the pregnancy that seems impossible to conceive. 

But I need more hope to know, when the snow recedes, that the  muddy garden will be, 

one day, 

beautiful. 



Sunday, June 24, 2018

Mulberry Wine


Grape vines won’t grow on my farm
The grasshoppers too vigorous, the weeds too strong
The sun too weak and the rain too long.

My neighbors grow them
But mine are only sticks in the ground.

My other problem,
The mulberries of course.
Growing everywhere and out of control
I can’t saw or spray or burn enough
To stop the overthrow

When will I stop the madness, accept my fate?
Redirect my toil, embrace my state?
Make mulberry wine?

Give me a bit… gotta plant another grape vine…

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Octogenarians



I am part of a gaggle of octogenarians
Do I have them?
They cannot be had
Do they have me?
Again, not really.

Roles: parent, child
Ferment and meld
The old bond: love
Is the only one that held

80, 90 years our short human chance
To see sprouts from seeds we sow
Our rain and sun are kindness
Without which nothing good can grow.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

How do we stop violence?

In the wake of the recent tragedy in Orlando, I have been privileged to converse with several friends and relatives who are in favor of increased gun rights and who are opposed to restricting gun access in this country.  None of them are hateful or bigoted and none have the intention to kill other humans.  They challenged me to consider my position carefully.  These are the points I heard and my responses to them.
1. The second amendment gives us the right to carry guns to defend ourselves from the US military should an authoritarian government attempt to kill us.
-I understand the deep distrust of government that our very democracy was founded upon.  However, our government is currently armed with nuclear weapons.  If we actually had a government intent on killing us and felt as though it was our responsibility to preemptively attack the US military, we would also need nuclear warheads. Should every American have an atomic bomb?
 This may seem ridiculous but it is not.  The Syrian government very recently released chemical bombs on it's own citizens.  Would Syria have been a safe place if each citizen was armed with his and her own chemical bombs in retaliation?  If our only recourse against violence is more violence, then we would need an arms race for each person.
2.  If the people in the bar in Orlando would have been carrying guns, someone would have killed the shooter before he killed so many people.
-  This may be true.  I will give you the benefit of the doubt that an inebriated person who was shot in the dark would have had the ability to recognize and shoot the killer before he continued his rampage.
- But think about your position here.  Please consider for a moment the type of society we want to create.  Are we saying that every person should continuously carry a weapon to avoid violence?  Are we saying that the only solution to stop violence is for everyone to be able to kill?  Please imagine for me a society where every man, woman and child must at all times be armed and on the lookout for danger, able to shoot any suspected opponent.  How could we live?  Violence begets violence.

I lived in Detroit, Michigan for four years and in Camden, New Jersey for one.  In those situations, I worked in dangerous neighborhoods and had no car.  I walked past dangerous, high, drug dealing people.  I never carried a gun.  My method of safety was to know my neighbors and the street corner drug dealers by name, to greet them politely, and to avoid being intrusive.  In both cities, furthermore, I worked for organizations that fostered neighborhood safety.  It was not through violence.  In both cities, I worked with unarmed neighborhood watch clubs (mostly senior citizens) and block clubs who reduced violence in several ways:
a. Creating relationships with their neighborhoods and better understanding who was around them.
b. From these relationships, being able to spot and report suspicious on- goings or dangerous persons in their premises.
c. Destroying abandoned buildings and monitoring local parks so that public spaces could be made safe.
d. Forming trusting relationships with community police members leading to better response times and more regular reporting of crime.


In this country, (I hope) we do not believe in dumping poison into our air and water and then saying that it is the responsibility of  private citizens to clean up their own air before breathing and their own water before drinking.
Similarly, I do not think we as a community should relegate safety to a private good, which one earns through his or her own vigilance.

I believe and I have lived this fact: Safety can be achieved when we build a sense of community.  It is not achieved through violence.

Finally, for all those who espouse gun rights as some type of religious good...  How do the words of Christ, who did not even allow Peter to harm the men who crucified him, affect the way you live?  Multiple times, Jesus turned the violent Zionist rhetoric of his time on it's head by radically proclaiming that a person remain peaceful and non-violent.  Remember, he preached this to people who were in danger of being killed and abused by Romans on a daily basis.

If you disagree with me, great! Please give me your thoughts on how you would want to foster a peaceful society.  Perhaps you have a better way.  If so, I would love to learn about it.


Saturday, May 7, 2016

Love is in no Diamond


Diamonds

Don’t buy diamonds for me, my love
Nor plastic that lasts though the earth tries to absorb

Love is a handful of wildflowers—coneflower, daisy, poppy too.
Plucked in my hand they wither, need reminding, renewal

Love is a watercolor on parchment—dissolving and bled if thrown out in the storm.

Love is a garden, in need of watering, weeding, sun's warm.

Love for one day cannot stand alone.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Two lives, two dreams.


I have not one life,
But two

Not one dream
But two

And How they belong to each other

I never knew

When I lived the first one
The foolish,
The zealous
The brave

I stayed awake
And saw myself
Who I could become
Hollow, proud,
Estranged.

In that first garden
Was born
a second dream

Of feet on earth
And every cell in my being
Part of my surroundings
Woven in
To those around me

Myself, not remarkable
Not applauded
But part
Of something deeper--
Love-- Life's true art

My past is a mirror
I look in and see
I am no visionary nor savior,
Not wise nor supreme.

But a stone, a brick, a member
Of the Mother, who,
Carrying the world,
Leads us to peace.


I am getting ready to get married.  I am halfway through medical school.  I am pursuing a dream that I had while in the Peace Corps, of doing rural medicine in the US and somehow supporting medical education overseas.  Sometimes, I wonder if I am on the "right" path, but at those times, I have to remember what I learned in Uganda-- about the centrality of community, about the hard work and talent I saw there, about the role I saw for myself in supporting amazing people and organizations.


At times, I can intellectually wish that I somehow reduced the time spent before medical school.  But when I have a crisis of calling or feel the itch to remain nomadic, I am truly grateful for the time I had to grow.


"It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home."  Rumi



Thursday, August 13, 2015

A reflection on Love


I Corinthians13:1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.


Painstakingly ground and fashioned

Paint-

Degrees
Distinctions,
Travels,
Languages
Skills

Project a tribe, a spirit,
Facade of perfection
Lifeless portrait

Behind them I hide
My soft, seeking heart
Torn and jagged edges
My ragged, dust blown soul

Love
Is the artesan well, springing ever slow

That reveals my scars- naked and clean

When I accept them, without denial,

I am ready to accept,
to embrace,
to see,
You.