A Great Fire [Justin]

I'm reading a biography of Thomas Edison by Edmund Morris. 

On December 9th, 1914, a great fire engulfed thirteen buildings across more than half the complex of Edison, Inc. I found it very interesting how Thomas Edison reacted, especially given our closing of 2020 and entrance into 2021.

He joined the crowd of townspeople watching and said, "'Get Mother and her friends over here,' he said to Charles[his son]. 'They'll never see a fire like this again.'"

Later, near the end of the flames, he said, "Yes, Maxwell, a big fortune has gone up in flames tonight, but isn't it a beautiful sight?"

After learning insurance would cover less than a third of the damages, he "radiated energy and excitement as he rose to the challenge of full recovery in the new year. 'I am sixty-seven....I've been through a lot of things like this. It protects a man from being afflicted with ennui.'"

From the Book I'm Rereading [by Mark]

 

Word of the Day: Apokatastasis

Allen Ginsberg: …The conditions of revolution in late twentieth century are conditions unforeseen by any other civilization. We are going to the moon, we have drugs that go to the moon inside, we’ve recovered the archaic knowledges of the Australian aborigines, most primitive societies are available to us if we take the effort, many different forms of magic warfare or peacefare are available, apocalypse, classical Armageddon, destruction of the planet, millennium, all this is a possibility. So it’s now unlike it’s ever been in history, this should mellow everybody out and make it possible for everybody to work together, to create a revolution that has no enemies, a revolution by apokatastasis.

Interviewer: What do you mean exactly?

Questionnaire by Marcel Proust [via Mark]

 

• What do you consider your greatest achievement?
• What is your idea of perfect happiness?
• What is your current state of mind?
• What is your favorite occupation?
• What is your most treasured possession?
• What or who is the greatest love of your life?
• What is your favorite journey?
• What is your most marked characteristic?
• When and where were you the happiest?
• What is it that you most dislike?
• What is your greatest fear?
• What is your greatest extravagance?
• Which living person do you most despise?
• What is your greatest regret?
• Which talent would you most like to have?
• Where would you like to live?
• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
• What is the quality you most like in a man?
• What is the quality you most like in a woman?
• What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
• What is the trait you most deplore in others?
• What do you most value in your friends?
• Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
• Whose are your heroes in real life?
• Which living person do you most admire?
• What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
• On what occasions do you lie?
• Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
• If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
• What are your favorite names?
• How would you like to die?
• If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
• What is your motto?

Birthing [by Mark]

As I was driving in the Central West End this afternoon, I realized that I had not asked a friend to do a Share the Wealth with us this weekend.   Then,  knowing that Christmas is this Friday, I happened to remember a passage from spiritual theologian Matthew Fox’s  introduction to Meister Eckhart, a medieval Catholic mystic and preacher.   Upon coming home, I looked in Fox’s book and found the passage—

“What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself?  And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and if I am not also full of grace?  What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his/her Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture?  This, then, is the fullness of time:  When the Son of God is begotten in us.”

This birthing theme has been on my mind recently because I’ve had the good fortune to Zoom with four dear friends, all in their thirties, all doctors, who are now raising very young children—Neil Munjal and Neeta Shenai, and their daughter Gia (born this summer),  as well as Matt Miller,  Nima Sheth, and their son, Moksha (born September 2019).

Here are a couple more selections from Meister Eckart for your reflection—

“People ought to think less about what they should do and more about what they are.  For when people and their ways are good, then their works shine forth brightly.  If you are just, then your works are also just.  Works do not sanctify  us — but we are to sanctify our works.  Holiness is based on being, not on a single action.  If you wish to explore the goodness of actions, explore first the nature of the ground of the works.”

“The seed of God is in us.  Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree; and a hazel seed grows into a hazel tree; a seed of God grows into God.”

Documenting Life [Wendy]

Does anyone else keep a Bullet Journal? I've been doing this practice fairly consistently for nearly two years now. I've found it especially useful this year. Each day, I jot down a few bullets about things that happened that day. Ideas that struck me, bits of moments that I wish to remember, or the most mundane things like what I made for dinner. Sometimes, I'll go a week or more at a time without doing it, but I almost always make it a point to go back and jot down some points. 

In 2020, I find myself having a really hard time recalling things that take place even just a few days ago. When I find a slight sense of anxiety when I don't write down what happened each day, as if that day somehow didn't happen. I don't usually go back to read my Bullet Journal, other than when I digitize it, I may glance at a few bullets for nostalgia's sake. Yet, I like the certainty of having written down things that are happening in life, as some sort of proof, or insurance for my memory. 

Curious if anyone feels similarly about journaling or the mere act of documenting the ordinary happenings of daily life. Also if anyone feels that 2020 is hard to keep track of, and each day flees and memory seems to fade in an instant?? What a strange year, just a week left!  

A Poem That’s Been On My Mind Today

 This poem, by Marisa Crane, has been stuck in my head all day, so of course I have to share it with you all:

WHO IS THE BOY & WHO IS THE GIRL?

So glad you asked.  I am the great

White shark & she is the brilliant

Octopus & you are just as near-sighted

As the man on the street

Who complimented my muscular arms

Then reassured me that

I still look like a woman.

Listen, I sink my sharp teeth into the meat

Of her ass.  Her tentacles touch me in places

I hadn’t known existed.  It is a dual act

Of delicious discovery, & it is

None of your fucking business.

Hold It All [by Mark]

 

It must have been 1983, springtime: I asked former classmate Ray Pruitt what he’d been reading: “Last night, Kierkegaard, Proust, and Phil Berrigan.”

Phil and Dan Berrigan, Catonsville action, May 1968

At My Wake, Someone Will Hear Somebody Else Say… [by Mark]

“He was always telling me to share my writing…”

“You, too?  He said that to me, like… weekly!”

“Weekly?  He’d badger me  daily for a fortnight until I gave up.”

“He was relentless.”

“Verdad. Yep, he could be a pain, but when I think about it now, he was on to something.”

“How many times did he quote someone the scripture, ‘Don’t put your light under a bushel basket’?”

Seven people within a earshot raise their hands…

Penny Smith, Northwest Coffee

Add Topics Here [by Mark]

 Katrina emailed us the following "topics/prompts/themes to consider"--

- Something I never thought I could/would do...until I did

- Things I’m not afraid of anymore 

- Favorite celebrations

- Friends who are like family 

- Memorable experiences learning a new language 

Add  your own suggestions to the comments below.

Wendy shared this photo of one of her notebooks a while back

Fun with the Family in Missouri [by Annie]

Here's what I read in class, along with a few photos of the books, which I found while nosing around my parents house in this strange, strange December.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/131on3gHbgpI8ip9eBzx796g4qD9t9WaQ/view?usp=sharing 

 

What Could He Possibly Mean? [by Mark]

 "Every day of life is a foreign country."

--Jack Kerouac

Chris’s writing topics in 2 minutes each [by Mark]

Most memorable conversation with a “local”?

I posted about this on the “Demographic Battle”—the man my age who encouraged me to get home and start procreating like him; after all, with but one wife —he could have had 4— he had 17 kids.  That poor woman.  But who am I to judge.  Maybe she is privy  to graces and mysteries and gratitudes I could never begin to imagine.   So he and I were chatting as the females were getting dinner together. One of the best days in Palestine.  We were doing what we  were called to do—bear witness—and then in so doing, got to see the daily life.

Some interesting ways you’ve navigated a foreign place

One interesting way in Palestine, the last time I was out of the country, is to take long walks if possible. To be among people.  To see the town.  To notice the traffic.  To see what’s for sale. But then there was that long walk in Rafah with the NY Jewish activist/documentary film maker—I think she later published at Counterpunch and her name is certainly in one of the three notebooks I kept when I was in Gaza, but man! how the Palestinian males, from the kids to the teens to the men in their mid-twenties scowled and hissed at her, and she gave it right back to them.

Some meals you’ve had that you can’t recreate for the life of you

Tepesquintlay, that’s how it’s pronounced.  The year was 1986, late November  I'd studied the summer  before at the Maryknoll School, in NY, and had contacts.  PG and I were in Guatemala, and we met up with Father Mo Healy out in the far country. (He uttered these quotable words, “It’s not only good to say what you see, it’s good to see what you see.”)  Anyway the village welcomed us  and  killed the fatted calf, described to us as a supreme delicacy of a cross between a rat and a chicken.

On your list of “first thing(s) I do when I get home

Buy books… sit at cafe and wonder what had just happened… get my limbs happily entangled with Joan Marie’s … long talks with Andrew …make a list of all the things we have to do to speak about being there…Send emails to Murad … write a thank you to the Palestinian-American lawyer who helped me when I was detained by the IDF …

What’s a place that feels like home that you’ve yet to visit?

It’s not a particular street in Warsaw, nor is it a certain stetl in the old Russian Pale of Settlement which hasn’t existed in 100 years, so I could travel to these ghost zones and imagine with my paltry Yiddish (or I can daydream being super colloquially fluent in mame-loshn), walk around and say Nu? 50 times, or  Oy vey is mir!  or Me shlept zihh  or  A mekayhe! or Vu zennen di yidn?

from the book, H. Leivick: Poète Yiddish– Hommages et textes choisis 

Summuh-Time Driving [by Mark]

Listening to Highway 61 Revisited on a Sunday drive starting in Maplewood: north on Hanley, east on Page, south on Union, west on Lindell, south on Skinker/McCausland, west on Manchester ...and nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row. [2019]

Numerous as the Grains of Gazan Sand (Life under Occupation/8) [by Mark]

“Let me tell you what they did to my uncle. See, he was 20 when…”

“I remember it exactly.  I lost hope after 273 days…”

“Deena slowly went crazy after her husband was shot….”

“You will never, ever, be the same after seeing what white phosphorus can do to the human body...”

“Heaven is three hours of sleep a night—oh, except for the nightmares, which are often. Hell is everything in between…”

Report from the Front Lines of the Demographic Battle [by Mark]

Dear Layla

Yesterday we were with the Mansour clan all day

The greenhouse next to theirs was destroyed by the Israelis last week

They called us to come and stand with our banners and orange jackets

In clear view of Israel’s sniper tower 

To hopefully deter the soldiers from taking shots at them

The men busied themselves with hauling away the skeletal frame of their greenhouse

After an hour of standing there

Johnny and I looked at each other 

And understood without a word

We joined in carrying away and stacking the poles

Job finished by late afternoon 

We were taken inside where it was cool

Given water to drink

As we sat on the floor to relax

While the girls and women prepared the evening feast

Ramadan (Guests) [by Mark]

Ramadan (Guests)

Dear Night Who’ll Endure More Than Fourteen Hundred Medical School Nights

 

We do home-stays here

Like many before us

And some will continue after we leave

 

Breaking the fast at Abu Hamid’s home

On the edge of Rafah

On the border with Egypt

 

We show up: the Irish anarchist

The young U.S. Jew

The aging professor

 

We receive their hospitality

We savor their food

We listen to their silence and tales

 

We are not representatives of our governments

We are not officials of a “peace process”

We are not celebrities

 

We are nobodies

Visiting for a time other nobodies

Who gently or vigorously elbow us awake

 

To the way of the world as it is

And the way of the world

As it could be

Doc

--Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine

Note:  Layla, Arabic, night

Why Go to Palestine [by Mark]

When with Pat Geier , I  decided to commit to working with the ISM in Palestine in the fall of 2003 my former prof Marc Ellis advised against it, saying it wasn’t safe, it wasn't the right time,  etc. He wanted to know why I was going.  So I wrote him the following, September 2003.

I am going because of my students – Sofia, Zeina, Lubna, Layla, Safa, Nina, Aryeh, Mahmoun, Ambareen, Liz, Marilyn, …

I am going because Thich Nhat Hanh teaches me:

Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering.  Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world.  Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images and sounds.  By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world. 

I am going because Pema Chödrön advised “Go to the places that scare you.”

I am going because Palestinians issued a call for internationals to come since UN won’t send anyone.

I am going to walk with my fears and neuroses.

I am going because breakdown always precedes breakthrough.

Traveling to Fort Benning [by Mark]

 The following is a chapter from The Book of Mev called A School/3.

In the fall of 1997, I had begun teaching as an adjunct in the theology department at St. Louis University.   In late November, Pat Geier  called to tell me about one of the most amazing activist experiences in her life:  She and several Louisvillians had attended a commemoration of the murdered Salvadoran Jesuit intellectuals.  The setting was Fort Benning, Georgia, the home of the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

Pat and I had been through a lot, long  before Mev’s illness, during which Pat frequently came for long weekends to help out, hold my hand and rub Mev’s body, and make me laugh.  We’d traveled together to the war zone in Nicaragua in 1984, committed civil disobedience in Congressional offices after the passage of more money for the contra terrorists in Nicaragua, and spent a month together traveling around Guatemala in 1986.

An Amazing Reader [by Mark]

I met Lindsey Weston in summer 2012 at Northwest Coffee in the CWE.  She'd  recently spent a semester in El Salvador.  I fell in like with her.

Later that year she did me the great favor of reading my rough draft of Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine.  This is her response.

Dear Mark,

Here is my reflection of Dear Layla, I thought at first that I should apologize for the scatter-brained style of writing I’m sure this letter will take. Then I thought, he probably doesn’t mind. So here it is, as it is, in my head.

When you sent me the pdf of Dear Layla I could not wait to read it. After reading The Book of Mev, hearing you speak, drinking coffee with you. I knew it was going to be good. Little thoughts here and there, ideas from different points in time, people met at different places. Somehow beautifully put together to create this one incredible story.

“Damn You!” by Magan Wiles [Via Mark]

I traveled to Palestine in spring 1990 and again in fall 2003.  I self-published a novel, Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine in 2015.  Magan Wiles (SLU A & S, 2004)  read a draft and sent me the following.

Tim Horton's [by Mark]

It’s worth it at 7 a.m.

To go  with you for coffee

Just to hear the cashiers 

Address us as 

“Precious” and “Baby”