17 May

Lunch With Ed: Joy And Sadness: “I Tried To Do My Best…”

by Jon Katz
Joy And Sadness

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” – Emily Dickinson.

Maria and I had lunch Thursday with our friend Ed and Carol Gulley. It was close and loving and warm time. Carol and Ed looked sad, we thought, the new reality of their lives creeping through their determination and courage and honesty.

Ed and I are having some hard and honest talks about what is ahead, he has honored me by asking me to explore some options and decisions other information about the months ahead, and I have spent the afternoon doing that and we will talk tomorrow.

it is, he knows, time to plan ahead. He is permitting himself to show more  feeling, an inevitable step in his journey, a sick friend once told me there must always be sadness before joy, one cannot live without the other.

Ed wrote a very honest and touching poem this afternoon, Carol said she had reservations about putting it up on their Bejosh Farm Journal blog, but she says she is glad she did, and so am I. It’s just something he needs to feel and say before moving through this new chapter.

Even Ed can’t be – shouldn’t be – upbeat and inspiring every minute, I am glad he is giving himself a break from being so strong.

For a man who never showed much feeling he has an awful lot of feeling. Ed is a poet now, another gift he is offering the world. Ed is obsessed with doing things for people, even having cancer of the brain.

His poem was called “Things I’ll miss the most.” It deserves to be read. Ed is helping all of us face what we all must face, simply by sharing it, and since he is incapable of guile or artifice or self-pity, his poem is nothing but a gift for whoever reads it.

He said he’ll miss Carol lying naked by his side, and he wonders “why did this happen inside of my head?”

The central but unknowable question, perhaps one of the spirits around him will answer the question. We all ask why?, and we never know.

In this stage of grief, in this poem,  Ed reviews his life and tell us what many of us know, that his intention was never to hurt.

“I hope the pain I took

never harmed others.

My kool is being tested,

My spirit shakes and trembles

as I walk on my journey.

Destined to judgment day.”

A Persian king once said that in a world of temporary things, poets are a perpetual feeling.

And that is what Ed is, a perpetual feeling.

Poetry is just evidence of life, wrote Leonard Cohen. If  your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash…” Dennis  Gabor said that poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them. Carl Sandburg says that poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Ed’s poem is just evidence of life,  a pilgrim asking the eternal questions that move the souls of people.

Ed may sometimes think it is not  courageous to share such feelings so openly, he always wants to be brave for everyone, but the truth is, writing so honestly is about the bravest thing he can do. I don’t speak to God, but I know you well, Ed, and I think you will welcome the verdict on Judgement Day.

They are all waiting to shake your hand, and give you one of your landmark hugs.

17 May

Jew Man, Muslim Man. Happy Ramadan, My Brother

by Jon Katz
Jew Man, Muslim Man

Tonight is the first night of Ramadan, an important Muslim holiday, and it seemed to me to be a good time to write about the Jew Man, and the Muslim Man, working together day after day in love and harmony and purpose. Their news sells hatred and conflict for money.

Ali and I were standing together outside of an Albany refugee center a week ago and a man, recently arrived from Afghanistan, looked at us and smiled, “oh, it’s Jew Man and Muslim Man!,” he exclaimed, “look how they work together, they are always together.” He was  beaming.

I was startled by the comment needless to say, I tensed for a moment, and then the man came up to us, smiling and laughing, and in broken English he explained to me that there was much talk among the refugees about the “Jew Man and Muslim Man” coming down  from the skies to help the refugees. God sent you, he said.

It didn’t really matter that I left Judaism years ago and became a Quaker, the refugees who look at me identify me as Jewish, and they never imagined a Jew Man and a Muslim man working together so closely. They are just amazed. They always offer me sweets and food, and even when I explain that I am a diabetic, they insist.

A couple of weeks ago, Ali and I were sitting in our “office” in a convenience store named Stewart’s in a small country town, where we meet every week – it is halfway between Albany and my farm – and we sit in a plastic booth, and the farmers and truck drivers and hunters getting their coffee and sandwiches gave us some long and deep looks. It was a different world than the one the refugees live in, it might as well have been another planet.

I joked to Ali that I wasn’t sure if they were concluding we were all right, or deciding we were not, or just gaping at this older bookish man and this young and tall very black man speaking in accented English, waving his arms up and down, shouting and laughing and yelling. They don’t  see many of either in that Stewart’s.

Ali comes from a culture that is expressive and open and emotional, I come from a culture that is quiet and withdrawn, especially in public. I am always calming him down, he is always cranking me up.

After a few visits, the big men in trucks accepted Ali – people usually do – and then me, and started joking with us, getting him to smile when I was taking his photo, joking he was too ugly to smile in order to make him smile for a photo. That kind of banter is the language of acceptance where I live.

For all the turmoil going on in our country right now, I feel Americans are inherently open and gracious, I trust them mostly,  hate is not their natural state, despite what you see on cable news.

One man in the next booth joked that he had never seen a man like Ali in the convenience store. For that matter, he said to me, I don’t see many like you either. I thanked him for not calling the authorities.

I don’t quite know how to describe my friendship with Ali.

He is sometimes a friend, sometimes a brother, sometimes a son, sometimes a father.  He lives to help people and kids.

We play all of these roles for one another, calming  each other down when we  get excited, cheering each up when we are down, trading ideas, offering praise and comfort, plotting and scheming,  intervening when the other is getting into trouble , each making sure the other is reasonable and cautious in the work we are doing.

I love Ali, and I think he loves me,  we are always overjoyed to see one another, and he has picked up on my tendency to answer my cellphone with a “yo!” We shout “yo, yo, yo!” at one another several times a day. Sometimes we call each other up and say, “okay what good are we doing today?”

If the answer is “none,” then we get to work the next day.

It was at Stewart’s that It hit me, and I sat to Ali, “isn’t it strange the two of us sitting with one, a Muslim and Jew, working together so closely and so well, doing a lot of good and committed to it.”

Wow, he said, he never thought of it that way. Ali does not have a hateful bone in his body, he is always surprised to realize that all people are not like him.

We grasped the irony of it.

All this hatred in the news about Muslims and Jews for thousands of years and there have never been a second’s difficulty between us. So yes, it is possible. It is important.

I appreciated this, I know there was some suspicion and  hostility to me at the refugee and immigrant center where I went to meet Ali and begin my work with the refugees. Not everyone is like Ali, and this suspicions of me  seemed somehow familiar to me in my bones, and I brushed it off. Like Ali, I am not easily deterred.

Still, it was there, I have rarely felt it in my life, but I know it when I see it, and it did sting sometimes. Ali talked me through it. It is not a simple thing to break into that world. I needed to, I wanted to help.

I never had that prickly feeling with Ali. He embraced me with open arms, so a  chance to help his soccer kids and the refugees and immigrants. Ali has a heart of sunshine, he says what is happening now in America, is not the real America, and the real America will come back. That is what he tells the soccer kids.

Ali is not a bureaucrat or big wig, he is van driver at RISSE, the refugee and immigrant center in Albany. He drives kids and adults to and from classes and their homes all day. In the evening, and at night, and on weekends, we gather to do our work. He makes very little money, he is always available to everyone.

Ali and are in a great rhythm now, he hears of refugees in trouble or meets them, and calls me, and we meet them together, figure out how we can help him. He’s the inside man, I’m the outside man. He checks them out, I raise the money and negotiate on his and the  refugees behalf. I am deadly on the phone, most reporters learn that, and I love negotiating. Ali is too nice for that.

We come together at the end. I need to meet the people we are helping and get to know them, take their pictures, write about them.

Helping refugees is not simple, there is always paperwork, many details, much confusion in language, customs and culture to navigate. Many have been badly traumatized, there is so much pain and sadness in their eyes.

The easy part is helping them, the hard and unseen part is what goes  before that. Ali and I work with an almost mechanical precision. We have the same drive to do some good and get it done right and quickly. He is more patient than I am, has a longer view of things, is more prone to relaxing, smoking an occasional cigarette, talking to friends on his cellphone, worrying about his beloved soccer team, the center of his life.

He works on the other, harder end, arranging for apartments, lawyers, medical help, clothing, food,  cellphones, jobs. He calls on me in emergencies, I send out SOS’s to the Army Of Good. We have built a machine of love and good, he says, we are doing great work together. It is important for me to get to know these families and their children, and that is beginning to happen.

Tonight, we are not on the phone to one another as usual. it is a special day.

It is Ramadan, Ali is celebrating. He is an observant Muslim.

Ali is a wonderful friend, a gift to me and many others. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, a celebration of the revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. It is the name of a month, and its most prominent feature is the fasting practiced by all observant  Muslims, adult and children that defines the month. Most of the soccer team fasts and honors the holiday.

I remember Ali on Ramadan last year, he is quieter during the fasting days, more tired and reflective.

On this day, as the sun set on Ramadan, and the fasting ended for today,  I sat in silence to give thanks for Ali and the work he is doing with me, and the work he has led me to, and the work we do together. Just think of the work we all could do together.

I also celebrate the hope and the promise – the revelation to both of us – that Jews and Muslims have no need to hate one another, we are full of love and hope for tomorrow.

Happy Ramadan, my brother, thanks for helping me keep love alive-

The Jew Man.

17 May

Bumper Stickers: Coming On May 24

by Jon Katz
Bumper Stickers

Matt of M& M digital printing just messaged me to say our bumper stickers will arrive at Bedlam Farm one week from today on Thursday, May 24. Some of the machinery at the printing shop broke down and he had to ship the work out. But they look great, I am told and will arrive soon.

We are charging $10 apiece (no shipping fee) for these laminated “The Army Of Good” bumper stickers, I hoped to give them away but that was a pipe dream, between the bumper stickers and the new envelopes we need (plus shipping) it will be close to $8 a sticker.

I did insist  that they be of the finest  quality, laminated and 10″ by 3.” If there is any money left over (there might be some, depending on how many are sold), it will go directly into the Gus Fund to help the refugees and Mansion residents.

You can pre-order a bumper  sticker of you wish by sending cash or a check to The Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O.  Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. When the stickers arrive, Maria will post them on her spanking (and successful) new etsy site, and you can order them simply and quickly there.

For now, it’s me and my P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

This feels like a very good project to me, and we have more than 100 pre-orders already from all over the country. I think good can spread like a virus, and think of the sweet moments we can have when we run into one another all over the place. Everybody I know wants one.

We are keeping good alive. It is so much better to do good than to argue about it. So pre-order if you wish or wait for etsy at the end of next week. Thanks. Good will prevail if you believe in it.

17 May

Update: Saad’s TV. Hawah’s Struggle

by Jon Katz
Saad’s TV

Saad’s tv came today, and that concludes the work we are doing to acclimate him in his new apartment, which we helped him get last week. This is a stellar case of how the Army Of Good can work, efficiently, appropriately, and humanely.

Here is what we have done to date for Saad, a once prosperous and successful Iraqi cut off from home and family, and without resources. Saad, who worked with the U.S. Embassy during the Iraq war, and who lost  everything afterwards, was in danger of being killed by religious extremists and made it to a U.N. refugee camp, where was relocated to the United States in a lottery program now being discontinued by our government.

Without any money or support, he had to leave a one-room apartment he  shared with another man. He was in desperate need of help.

What we are doing for him:

We paid the deposit on his apartment, he is paying the monthly rent. This enabled him to move in. We are also paying the deposit for cable for his apartment, and the first three months cable charge.

We gave him $200 to trade in his old and broken cellphone for a new Iphone 6 with which he can e-mail, text message and communicate with his eight children, who are in Iraq and are unable to come to the United States due to our governments’ new immigration policies. He also seems to love Face Time, he prefers it to regular phone calls. This has reconnected him to his family and to his lost world.

On Sunday, Ali and I are bringing him the following:

At 32 inch screen TV, that will connect to his new cable and permit him to see arabic channels and programming. He has heart disease and diabetes, and is not yet able to work or find work, although he keeps on looking. He wants to work and is taking English classes. As of now, there is nothing for him to do or see in his apartment, he is the only person in the building who speaks only arabic.

Four framed prints, art scenes and flowers to put on his bare walls.

Two original water color paintings from Vermont Artist  Rachel Barlow, donated by her.

A linen map of Arabia, donated by Maria, she had it in her studio, it was sent by a reader of her blog.

A new RCA radio so he can listen to music, which he loves.

We’ll bring Saad these things on Sunday (he doesn’t know yet, it’s a surprise. I’ll be there to take photos.

We are also bringing a months worth of groceries and toiletries.

Saad’s TV

This will conclude, for now, our work with Saad.

We’ll keep an eye on him, and Ali will make sure all of these items are working and connected. We will check in on him  once or twice a week, but the idea is for him to be independent as quickly as possible, this is his life now, and he has to figure out how he can live it. We will move on to other needy cases.

Our role is to help people get started and  stable, not to take over their lives.

Saad is in a good place now. Last week he was a desperate  wreck with hope and some peace of mind. That feels good.

As some of you know, I’m trying to raise $1,800 in support of Hawah Altoun, a Libyan refugee cast out of her apartment and forced into a homeless shelter because the city welfare department cut her rent subsidy by $150 a month to help pay for medical care for her critically ill husband Hassan, who has spinal cancer and is in a coma.

As with many other refugees I have met,  Hawah came to America after her life was shattered, and then essentially abandoned her to fend for herself. She speaks no English, and has no specific skills.

Because she couldn’t pay the full amount with the full subsidy, she was locked out of her apartment and went with her two sons to a shelter, which she calls” the dirtiest place on earth.” In Libya, she and Hassan had a good and prosperous life, he worked for 14 years as a large crane operator. Every morning at 4 a.m., she goes out into Albany’s streets to collect bottles, for which she collects between $5 and $6.

The money I am seeking to raise will pay the $150 a month she needs to pay the full rent for one year. She is taking English lessons and looking constantly for work. She wants no other help, she is a strong, proud and very ethical person. This is the first time in her life that she has asked for help or  accepted it. “Please, please,  get me out of her,” she messaged Ali this morning in Arabic.

So far, I have collected $600 for this project. We need $1,100 more to get her out of that shelter. You can help by contributing to “Hawah”, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. Thanks. I will not be at ease until she is “out of there” with her two young boys. That shelter is no place for them either.

17 May

From Wild Men To Wise Men: Is There Really A Male Spirituality?

by Jon Katz
Is There A Male Spirituality?

Richard Rohr is a Christian writer and  teacher who focuses his work on mystical and transformational traditions. I’m reading his thoughtful and provocative book, From Wild Man To Wise Man: Reflections On Male Spirituality.

Rohr is treading on sensitive ground in the book, he suggests that men and women approach spirituality in different, and he also suggests that men desperately need to understand their wildness and turn it into compassion and wisdom.

If you watch the news, it seems apparent that many men are  aspiritual, compassion and empathy do not factor into their decisions or work or politics. Accurately or not, we perceive – I should say I perceive – women to be more advanced emotionally and much more open to spirituality than men.

The male-dominated religious institutions of the world, which is to say most of them, seem tired to me,  with little to offer in our increasingly complicated and divided world, a world in which women are re-defining themselves. Sometimes I look at those photos of all those old men in their fancy robes sitting in the Vatican, and I wonder, how can a global religious institution  possibly stay relevant in a world of ascending women when they keep women out?

To me, it is Pope Francis that has what I would call a feminine spirituality, one that loves the earth, the poor, the vulnerable and who preaches for gentleness and tolerance. Increasingly, these issues, which are all of our issues, are also women’s issues. The spiritual world is upside. These values of tolerance and love were the essence of Jesus Christ and his teachings. Men in power have largely abandoned them. It matters how we treat people, that is, to me, the core of a spiritual life.

Male U.S. senators were traumatized at having an infant in the Senate Chambers, I see women as a giant wave about to crash on grumpy old and unawares white men.  Why can’t men embrace the role of caregivers as well as women?

Many people I know are wringing their hands about the state of the country and the world, I don’t share their gloom. I think we’re just on the edge of great change, like the gospel preachers, I can feel that  change coming, it is right over the horizon, and it is about the rise of women everywhere. Time is up, it is time for men to step aside and look inside for a different ways of living..

In our western culture, and even in our religious traditions, writes Rohr, there are few guides to lead men into the full male journey, and almost no mentors who have been there themselves and returned to share what they have learned. Men, he writes, yearn for believable mentors on every stage of the journey.

Men do what they see and what they know, and what they see and know is damaging our world.

Men desperately need guides to lead them through some new stages of their spiritual journeys, perhaps even to understand their wildness in a way that might be wisdom. Rohr writes gently – “wildness” is a generous word to describe what men are doing to the world and how they fill the air with violence and greed and selfishness.

Men have written the myths that govern western civilization, says Rohr.

These myths, he says, “are largely written by men who have controlled the power, the money, the corporations, the church, the military, the morality books. “What we  call reality,” he says,  “is the creation of men who have not worked much on their inner lives.”

I am working on my inner life all the time, every day, and it is changing me and challenging me.

I know very few men who have “gone inside,’ have not learned trust, vulnerability, power or poetry. “They, and the civilization we have inherited from them, are in great part unwhole and even sick. That assessment should not need much defense.”

So what, then, is a masculine spirituality? I’ve often joked that the only men I can stand to be around have either been tortured as children or humiliated as adults. Men do not seem to look inward naturally, they seem to need to be stunned or bludgeoned into thinking about spirituality.

In a sense, this might be one of the most important subjects in our world, which men are systematically destroying and polluting and fighting over for money and power.

Rohr says a masculine spirituality would be one that encourages men to take the  radical journey from their own unique beginning point, in their own unique style, with their own unique goals – with no doubt or apology or need to imitate our sisters or our fathers. He says this requires immense courage and self-possession, traits most men don’t associate with spirituality.

The spiritual man can shed  arrogance and rigid opinions, he can begin to live for other people, not just himself. He can commit himself to doing good, not just dictating good.

He can reject war as the only means of solving deep and difficult issues. The spiritual men possesses his soul and does not give it lightly to corporations, armies, nation-states or the mob. He is beyond red state and blue state thinking.

I like this book so far, and it has my head spinning about male spirituality. I have been on this path for journeys, it is one of the joys of my life.

For me, spirituality begins with empathy. It begins with mercy. It begins with acknowledging the worst parts of yourself.

It is about learning to speak gently, and to walk more gently in the world. It is about our Mother, the Earth, and our care for her. It is about supporting true equality for women, about standing aside to make  room for other people in the world.

It is about learning to talk rather than fight, and to listen, rather than argue.  It is about being a true father, encouraging and loving and protective.

It is not about being perfect, it is far too late for that, we are much more interesting than that,  but about doing good and judging less.  It is about compromise and retreat.

Hard stuff, easy to say, hard to do. The corporate ethic that has gripped our country and our world is the very antithesis of spirituality, it has no mercy and no regard for humanity, it is only about money, which makes it the enemy of spirituality.

I’m eager to keep reading this book and learning about the idea of a male spirituality. I’ll share what I’m thinking and reading.

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