Day: September 7, 2018

Our brokenness is ours, it belongs only to us. It is as unique as our personalities or values.

The ways in which we are broken is the ultimate expression of our individuality, our sacredness, if you prefer.

I used to say that everyone has it worse than I do, that belief could keep me humble.

But it is incomplete.

Every human being suffers in a way that no other human being suffers. It is just as arrogant to say everyone is more broken than I am as it is to say I have it worse than anyone. We all carry our own pain and suffering.

This week I made a mistake. It seems I am always trying to walk on the path to being human. I am no saint, I am not afraid to admit my mistakes out in the open, and hopefully to share what I have learned, and learn what I can. I learn a lot more from my mistakes than my successes.

I have no need to claim perfection.

And I know I am broken.

This week, I went to open a new bank account so I could keep the tuition money for Sakler Moo separate and  make sure  all the donations go where they are supposed to go.

The money is  inaccessible and inviolate until we have to pay the school.

I was startled when the bank manager said I couldn’t open an account for him without going to the country and getting papers for a new business.

The account would not be a new business, simply another account in the existing business, Bedlam Farm. I thought the bank manager was brusque  and unwilling to explain the problem to me. I have been opening separate accounts for years without any problem.

She said every check had to be addressed to me personally to be cashed. This new demand was very new to me.

I thought she was cold and not helpful.So did Maria, she was with me, and she is the least judgmental person on the earth..

I thought bank manager was wrong, I was sure of it.

Still, we drove hours out of our way to the county offices the next day to get the paperwork she said we needed.

I called the  bank headquarters and my accountant, and both places told me I didn’t need this new paperwork, the only thing I had to do was to make sure that the donations came to me directly, and in my name, the senders could specify anywhere on the check where they wanted the money to go.

If the wrong  title was inadvertently at the top, I could show some ID and it would be cashed.

The manager seemed unwilling to speak to me directly, and our conversation got sharp. She walked away.  I didn’t raise my voice, but I was tense. This is something I never do, certainly not in public.

I was angry about this sudden issue, and frustrated. I called the bank’s headquarters and I asked for the regional manager and I left a voicemail message complaining about the experience, how tense and difficult it was, how much time I wasted, how nothing was explained to me.

The bank used to be friendly, I said, and it wasn’t any longer.

I had wasted a whole day. I complained.

The bank offered a whole different perspective, they said as long as the tellers knew me the check should be cashed.

I called the bank again, this time a different branch,  and they said these issues are up to the bank manager, there was no bank policy blocking me from putting the checks into any account I wished as long as I could identify myself and the checks were marked as to what they were meant for (they were.)

Today, I went to the bank, and the tellers balked at cashing a check that wasn’t addressed in the specific way the manager had suggested. I was even angrier. The manager was in a meeting, and the teller, who is very friendly and helpful, suggested I come back, perhaps she was signalling me to calm down.

I went to get food for lunch, we had a friend coming over.  I decided to go back into the bank and sit down and talk with the manager and try to resolve this problem. I thought  we just needed to sit down and talk. She was tense at first, and she “thanked me” for complaining to her boss.

She let me know she wasn’t happy.

Okay, I thought, this is going to be difficult.

But I wanted to resolve the issue, not argue. The work was what was important to me, not winning a bureaucratic struggle.

I apologized for calling her boss without speaking to her first, I said this was something I never do, and don’t like doing. I said I was angry and frustrated at the time and that I wished we could have just sat down and talked.

I said I was sorry I didn’t come back that day to do that. She had no apologies to make to me, she was not sorry at all for our disagreement.

But she warmed up a bit and so did I. And we set about looking for a resolution.

We had some things in common. She owned a horse farm. We found some of the humanity in one another. She even smiled once or twice.

I don’t think she loved me, and I don’t think I loved her, but we could talk to one another.

We worked it out quickly.

The checks that come to me will be cashed and go to the right place, they will be addressed properly,  my new account is fine. I was already asking people to address the checks to me and mark where they wanted them to go.

I regret having called the manager’s boss without fully trying to resolve the issue with her first.  It only took us a minute. I believe neither of us was blameless, I am happy to take responsibility. In retrospect, calling her boss seems cowardly to me, something to do in the last resort, not the first.

And of course, this is corporate America. He told her about my call, but he never bothered to call me back. Customers have no real standing, they are just data on a spreadsheet.

I called the manager back this morning and left another voicemail, I told  him we had worked it out, that the bank manager and I had reached a comfortable agreement and I was sorry that I had complained. I asked him to please withdraw the complaint and note that I was satisfied.

Calling somebody’s boss is an extreme thing to do, it can  really harm a career. Despite the tension between us, the bank manager didn’t deserve that and I didn’t want to be doing that.

Her job is intense and pressured, and so is my work. There will always be obstacles and conflicts and difficulties in life.

She doesn’t have to love me or bow to me to do her job.

The idea is not to have a life free of trouble, but to learn how to deal with trouble without losing our sense of shared humanity in a disconnected world. To look for solutions, not vengeance or  retribution.

The point is that I need to get closer to the experience of being broken. And recognize that others are broken too, we all are, in our own way. It isn’t that everyone suffers more than I do, it’s that everyone suffers in their own particular way. I don’t want to lose sight of that.

I think my brokenness and the brokenness of many people comes from a broken heart. In our culture, some of the most intense suffering seems to come from a feeling of being ignored, dismissed, rejected, despised, left alone or left vulnerable.

I suffer when I feel useless, worthless,  unappreciated or unloved. Some people will always make me feel that way.

It is so easy for people like me to skip over someone’s head and threaten them, even when I think I am  justified.  I wasn’t, not yet. We had a disagreement, we sat down and talked. We worked it out quickly and to the satisfaction of everyone.

I want to learn that every person is of value to me, and that I am of value to them.

When I sense I no longer have anything to offer anyone, or that they think they have nothing to offer me, I  get angry, I make mistakes.

I forget that I am dealing with another human being, they can be just as broken as I am.

The spiritual philosopher Henry Nouwen says the joy of life comes from the ways in which we live together and that the pain of life comes from the many ways in which we fail to do that well.

That’s the lesson from my mistake.

 

Sakler Moo drew this sketch of a unicorn this week and sent it to me last night. (it is for sale, if anyone wishes to buy it, e-mail me, [email protected].)

I realized when I saw this just how talented an artist Sakler is, as well as an all around honor student. He is  one of the brightest people I know, and i am very happy he is at the Albany Academy, a school famous for nurturing and stretching young minds.

It will enrich his life.

I’ve known Sakler for several years, and I understand why his public school teachers fought so hard to get him into the Albany Academy, this is where he very much needs to be.

As you know, I undertook the responsibility of raising the $5,000 I will need each year for the next three years to make up the difference between the school’s tuition, roughly 28,000-$29,000), and the $24,000 in scholarship money he was granted.

He will also need some money for uniforms, fees, lunch and school trips.

I’ve committed to raising this money for this year (already paid) and the next three years. I am very happy – okay, I was sweating it – to report that the Army Of Good is very much behind this project.

I’ve taken over his mother’s $2,000 payments towards his tuition, it was too much pressure to put on her, I could see how frightened she was.

So far, I not only have gotten enough money (I also contributed some of my own money) for 2018, but I’ve already received $2,100 in funds for Sakler’s 2019 tuition, almost half of what I will need.

I wanted to give all of you that update.

I was delighted to see this money coming in, I didn’t even get the chance to ask for it. People are so good given the chance.

I hope to raise that money in the next few weeks so that I can put it aside for focus on the other and less expensive, but just as important, work we are doing with the refugees and immigrants and for the Mansion residents.

Thank you. If you wish to contribute to Sakler Moo’s education, you can do so by sending a check to me, Jon Katz, c/o P.O.  Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].

Note: Due to new federal banking regulations, all checks for this and my other work must be made out to me, Jon Katz, or to Bedlam Farm, that is how the accounts are registered.

Please write the name of the destination you intend somewhere on the check: Sakler Moo, The Mansion, the Soccer Team, The Refugees.

Every donation goes immediately into its proper account, and is audited monthly by a bookkeeper and a New York City accounting firm. Every penny goes where it is supposed to go, and is documented to the degree it is possible.

I feel great joy in doing this, and I hope you do as well. Sakler is immensely talented and is already thriving in his new environment. His teachers are taking the time to get to know him and understand what he needs.

This is much more attention than his public school teachers were able to offer him.

You helped to it happen. It is better to do good than argue about what good is.

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Thomas Merton.

Up in the country, we often take deer for granted. Here, all of us have hit and killed a deer on the road at one time or another, it is almost a rite of passage. Many people here killed deer for sport in hunting season or kill them for food for the winter.

I barely see them, even though I often see them grazing by the roadside.

This morning, when I came o out into the pasture, I saw a lone deer in the back, standing still and frozen, watching me. She didn’t flee or hide, she just stood still watching me for the longest time, and suddenly, I was reminded of the simplicity and beauty of deer, seen in nature, in my back yard.

How often I am  reminded that we live in such a distracted world, we easily fail to see what is right in front of us.

Merton said that every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in  his soul. This morning, the doe planted something in mine. And I even had the big lens on the camera.

Poem:

“Like everyone else I live under the bomb. But unlike most people I live in the woods. Do not ask me to explain this. I am embarrassed to describe it. …
…I live in the woods out of necessity. I get out of bed in the middle of the night because it is imperative that I hear the silence of the night, alone, and, with my face on the floor, say psalms, alone, in the silence of the night.
It is necessary for me to live here alone without a woman, for the silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.” 

Dancing in the Water of Life: The Journals of Thomas Merton Vol.V p 239 – 240

Audio: My reading of “Dancing In The Waters Of Life.”