5 March

Friends Of The Bar: Kelly, Molly

by Jon Katz
Friends Of The Bar

Kelly and Molly are good friends and also bartenders who work at the Bog, serve drinks, take orders, clean tables, run tabs and collect cash from diners. Molly sometimes visits Kelly when she is working.

Both are strong women with an easy manner about them. Both talk easily with almost anyone, that is a big part of a bartender’s job. And both can be made of steel when they need to be.

I found it heartwarming to see them talking together at the bar tonight., and I wanted to get both of them in the photo. It speaks to Kelly’s radiance and presence that even shot deliberately out of focus, there is no doubt who she is or where the stands.

5 March

The Selfishness Of Doing Good, The Community Of Faith

by Jon Katz
Doing Good

A woman from South Carolina messaged me this morning, she has followed my blog for years, her comments about my work have always been gracious and thoughtful, she is a poet of skill and feeling.

Today, she was disappointed in me, as sometimes happen to people who read me regularly. Being open is often about letting go. And I have no need to pretend that everyone loves me all of the time.

This woman, schoolteacher,  was unhappy about my work and writing on behalf of the refugees and immigrants who I believe are so much a part of America, and my own life.

She wondered, she said, why I had so much empathy for the refugees, “but so little for the people whose jobs they take, who undercut our wages, drain our budgets and services, and who too often rob and harm us.” Why, she wondered, didn’t I ever write about the people the refugees immigrants hurt and the damage they do?”

“You say you are doing good”, she said, but what, she then asked, “but really, what are your own true  motives?

I wrote back to this woman, I told her I could not answer her question in an e-mail or perhaps at all.

There wasn’t space, and I can’t say what my motives are, I no longer believed a dialogue in that format was either useful, or really possible. I did not believe I could change her mind, I was certain she could not change mine, and if we were to part company on such an important issue to both of us – I knew that was where we were heading, I have danced this dance before –  I would rather it be amicably and swiftly.

I wished her no harm.

I do not argue my beliefs, I prefer to live them. And I did think to add that my motives for doing good are purely selfish, I’ve always known that. It may be good for others, but it certainly is good for me.

She did not reply, I imagine she is gone.

A friend e-mailed me a column in Psychology Today by Dr. Lisa Firestone.

She wrote that generosity – the quality of being kind and understanding – is often defined as an act of selflessness. In fact, she said, many studies have shown that generosity can selfishly be in our own interests.

Hate and anger erode the spirit and the body,  and even kill. But practicing generosity is a mental health principle that could be a critical element in a happy and healthy life. Generosity is found to reduce stress, enhance one’s sense of purpose, fight depression,  and even prolong life.

Generosity, says Dr. Firestone, doing good also improves relationships When we give to others, we don’t only make them feel closer to us, we also feel closer to them.

As I often say and say and say, doing good feels good.

My good friend Ali, father to the refugee boys, called me today, the team desperately wants to join an eight week soccer tournament that would run through April. It will cost a lot of money.  Was there any way that I could help? He sounded uncharacteristically anxious and uncertain. Ali dreads asking for anything, it almost makes physically ill. But he fights for his charges all of the time, and happily swallows pride.

Ali and I have become close, we call ourselves brothers, and he told me that he was worried that he was asking too much, and that I would do too much, and then I would become resentful and  walk away from him and the boys.

I told him to stop  there, I said he didn’t understand me, this was all quite selfish, a great gift to me, a way to feel happy, good and grounded in a turbulent world. It wasn’t what i was doing for them, it was what he and the boys on the team were  doing for me, and for many other people.

In one sense, I live in solitude. I share my life happily with Maria and the animals and a few friends I know mostly online and on the phone. I have lots of people around me and in my life, but i will be honest, I have always been alone and felt alone in many ways, especially when it comes to the forming of the interior self. I live in a state of aloneness and carry it around with me like a shroud.

For much of my life, I was divided into parts – the man I wanted to be, the man I was. As I grow older, I find myself getting closer and closer to the man I wish to be, generosity and empathy my tools, and it has become one of the most exhilarating – thus selfish – experiences of my life.

In solitude, I can grow freely and am less preoccupied with money and success or  even usefulness.

I can offer some things to the world that I had never offered or done before. The spiritual author Henri J.M. Nouwen, a favorite of mine, writes about the loss of “dependencies” as we grow older – father, mother, children, career, fame and money, or any of the other rewards we sometimes strive for, or are frightened into striving for.

I have little to defend, but much to share. I find that I have  drifted somehow into a community of faith, I call it The Army Of Good. We take the world seriously, but never too seriously, we feel passionate and angry, but never too angry, we can hate, but are not too hateful.

Our community is founded on trust and the belief that generosity is better than argument and conflict.

As a community of faith, we care deeply and work hard, but we are not devastated or even discouraged by failure or the lack of results.  We are swimming upstream all the time, our fingers are always in a dike.

As a community of the faith we must constantly remind ourselves that we are a fellowship of the damaged and the weak, we seek out the vulnerable and frightened and needy and we say to them and one another: “Do not be afraid, you are accepted.”

And we accept one another.

There is nothing more selfish than that.

 

5 March

Rosemary, The Queen Of The Romneys, And Of Our Flock

by Jon Katz
Rosemary, Queen Of The Romneys

Our Cheviot Zelda has reigned supreme among our flock of ten sheep, Zelda who used to knock me and Red down at will and bust through the fences and take off down the road. Zelda is getting old, and she had mellowed. She has no interest in fighting Red, her wool is too think to shear, and she has no interest in leading the flock

That mantle seems to have fallen on Rosemary, one of the beautiful and imperious Romneys who were homeless last year and needed a farm. Like the other Romneys, Rosemary could live without the border collies pushing her around and annoying her, but she has risen above it.

I see her as the leader of the flock now, Zelda has retired into a peaceful life, grazing off by herself, avoiding fights and arguments. Red gives her her dignity, she doesn’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. It’s Rosemary who glares at  him and who leads the flock in occasional rebellion and independence, things respectable border collies just do not permit.

Rosemary is, to me, a beautiful and imposing animal, and I can’t say that I dearly love sheep, although I do treat them well. Maria does love sheep, and that is good for them. In recent weeks Rosemary has taken to stare directly into my camera lens, almost daring me to take her photo. That is the mark of a strong woman, may her reign be peaceful and successful.

5 March

The RISSE Soccer Team Wants To Cook Lunch For The Mansion Residents

by Jon Katz
Having lunch at the Mansion

Ali called me up today and said the RISSE soccer team, which came to the Mansion last week to have lunch with the residents there, had a meeting on Monday and asked if they could return to the Mansion and make lunch for the residents during their school break on the first week of April.

I should not have been shocked, but I was.

This was such a generous and heartfelt decision on their part, I had no idea they were even thinking of such a thing. I don’t believe any teenagers from anywhere have ever wanted to feed the residents at the Mansion.

I had a feeling from the beginning that the refugee kids and the Mansion residents had something in common, and now, I know what it is: empathy, an understanding of loneliness, isolation and suffering. I’ve seen lots of people visit the Mansion once, but I have rarely seen anyone return, let alone to cook for them.

Both sides were touched by the visit, I knew that. But Ali said the refugee kids were deeply affected by it. I think that’s why I invited them to come. In their countries, they lived closely with older people, they were not isolated from them.

Many of them, he said, have lost their “grandpas and grandmas”, even mothers and fathers to murder, disease, starvation, natural disaster, or genocide.

Many of their older family members died in the refugee camps where they spent years waiting for approval to come to America. One of the soccer kids told me his grandma, who helped to raise him, is trapped in a refugee camp in Bangladesh and cannot get permission to enter the United States. She is sick, he said, and he does not expect to see her again.

He wants to help the Mansion residents in her honor, he thinks of her every day.

He said one of the woman at the Mansion, one of the older residents, reminded him of her.

Another told me he had great feeling for the residents, he felt badly for them. This is the thing about these boys that surprises me again and again. They show little emotion, and rarely speak much of their feelings, but every now and then, they reveal themselves. They are intensely sensitive beings. They have been through a lot, and their lives remain difficult and stressful.

One of the boys told Ali he almost wept sitting at one of the lunch tables, he kept seeing his mother and grandmother, both slaughtered in the awful bloodletting in Myanmar, where he was born. His father was killed early in the conflict, he is being raised by an aunt in Albany.

She got out in time. His grandmother is missing. So it was true, after all, across this vast geographical and emotional plain, they saw into one another, and felt a kinship that was real. And was born of suffering and loss.

I asked Mansion Director Morgan Jones about the invitation, she said they would be thrilled to see the kids come back and help prepare lunch for the residents and tell their stories. State regulations prohibit non-staffers from cooking in the kitchen, but we decided tables could be set up in the hallway and the refugee children would help the staff prepare the meal, and the staff would cook it in the kitchen.

Then, the soccer players said, they would tell the residents their stories: where they came from, what happened to them and their families when they came to America, and what their life here is like. We are going to make an afternoon out of it, and hopefully, they can visit Bedlam Farm again.

So we will choose a day in April, during the school break. And these two shall meet again, and remind us once more of what can united us, not divide us.

This connection is powerful, for me, for the residents, for the children. Two groups of people on opposite ends of life sharing the common experience of losing much of their lives, and struggling to begin life anew. Of course the kids would want to see the residents again and make lunch for them.

They know them very well.

5 March

The RISSE Wish List Is Sold Out Again. We Are All Refugees

by Jon Katz
We Are All Refugees

I think the one thing that so many people do not understand or have forgotten is that we are all refugees, it is a part of all of us, our country, our history, our sense of being Americans. We are, after all, a special people, generous and welcoming, and I dot believe that spirit or instinct will ever be quashed or destroyed.

The RISSE Amazon Wish List is sold out once more, for the fourth time in a week.

I’m writing to thank you, you have lifted the spirits of the children of RISSE, refugees and immigrants who are getting a lesson in what the heart and soul of America are truly about. There is no denying it, no disowning it.

You generous people are part of our national DNA, your spirit is strong. Our message is strong and positive, we don’t need to argue or fight about it. We just need to do it, it speaks for itself.

The other reason I’m writing is to tell you that the shocked staff of RISSE is already hard at work coming up with a new list of needs. This is a hard adjustment for the RISSE staff. they are used to crawling and scraping for every penny, and now huge boxes from Amazon are arriving every day.

They are transforming the after school program, the toys, learning tools and supplies are being devoured and used the minute they come in. I wanted to thank you. A new list will be up shortly.

You are a good force in the world, and your presence in changing lives and lifting them up.

Thanks, thanks, thanks.

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