Tag: Compassion

Gun Racks to Book Shelves

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments 



My computer indicated it needed to be restarted this morning and then it wouldn’t stop. I would have panicked and forced a shutdown had not James, the patient man from the repair shop, assured me these things take time. “Chill,” he said. “Have some breakfast.”

James did not realize that I’d already eaten two breakfasts and downed my morning half-beer. I did not share this with James. Instead, I made myself putter, peeking at the screen every five minutes for two hours.

And voilà! The computer finally stopped restarting and seems docile and responsive enough to risk writing some words.

During that down time, I distracted myself with housekeeping which led to some rearranging ideas. The Coauthor appeared as I emptied a shelf unit and started to push it to the door.

“Don’t try to move that alone,” she scolded. “It’s too heavy for you.”

The shelf in question was an old gun rack I’d converted to a bookshelf in my efforts to bring about world peace 35 years ago. It has grown uglier, and the world has grown more vicious. I want to donate both the shelf and the world to an unwitting charity and start over.

“It doesn’t work that way, sweetheart,” the Coauthor said sympathetically.
 
I cried a little. My increasing incapacities are deeply disturbing. 

“You move it then,” I said, defiant. “Or else I’ll keep trying, and it will fall on me, and I’ll die a slow death pinned under my own stupidity.”

“That’s how most of you will die anyway,” she laughed.

“Not funny,” I said and threw a paisley orange pillow at her. She caught it, and we sat down on the worn and disconnected sectional (my latest attempt at the perfect couch).

“Let’s go,” she said.
“Let’s not,” I said.

But I was outvoted, and the cosmic train pulled into the station. 

We dissolved into waves of symphonic sound. Timpani drums made from the skins of scapegoats boomed like bombs bursting in air. The bass moaned low and mournful, the cellos and violins sobbed as they were deported. But somehow, life itself was beautiful beyond words.

“How can this be?” I asked the Coauthor. But I knew. The celestial choir had dismembered me, and my atoms were dancing shamelessly inebriated in the variegated light.

Eternity receded. I resisted reassembling, but here I am, alone with my keyboard, an empty bookshelf, a list, and a plan. Somewhere, in another time, another place, I am an oboe.

A leopard. 
A mollusk. 

I am puffed cheeks blowing out fifteen candles and the first gasp of a new planet. 

And at some incomprehensible level, I trust that all will be well.


Runoff

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments 

Lately, I’ve been fixated on guttering. We have a lot of unguttered or badly guttered buildings. When rain falls on impervious surfaces and is not guttered or sloped away, it pools up and erodes old foundations.

Water may seem innocuous. Innocent. But it is the (almost) universal solvent. According to the Khan Academy, “Water is key to the vast majority of cellular chemical reactions essential to life. Water molecules are polar, with partial positive charges on the hydrogens, a partial negative charge on the oxygen, and a bent overall structure.”

A bent structure may sound unattractive or dangerous, but in fact, it’s the magic that allows the embodiment of both the negative and the positive to coexist and dissolve nearly anything. 

But even with the threat of dissolution, rain is not the essential problem. Too many impenetrable surfaces are. 

Thus: guttering. The precious rainwater is renamed runoff and routed to centralized locations such as sewers or storage tanks. This creates the potential for stagnation or downstream flooding.

 As humans, we long for shelter from the storm. Impenetrability is tempting. It’s hard to be vulnerable, receptive, and thankful; harder still to lovingly accept rejection and scorn.

But we live in a world where the Coauthors and the Dancers cause the rain to fall on the just and unjust. The sun shines on the kindly folk as well as the cruel, selfish fools.

Many of us feel quite indignant about this. We seek justice but often end up plotting revenge. This storyline has no happy ending. In fact, it has no ending at all. Revenge is self-perpetuating.

Bullies, tyrants, and other impervious souls have developed gutters that shunt kindness and forgiveness off as if they were wastewater. The resulting pools putrefy due to the contaminants they’ve picked up, testifying to the toxicity of fear.

Watching sacrifices go down the drain or get routed to a holding tank where good intentions become sludge is painful.

Even so, the stubbornly resilient make plans (that will no doubt go awry) and dig deep into linty pockets to offer the widow’s mite.

The Holy Role-Models of Resilience are chaotic, redundant, and flighty. They live in the gutters and fix broken toys. And while wildfires rage, they shelter frightened families under scorched wings.

It sometimes seems that Creation has grown weary of us, and the exhausted Dancers have lost the beat. I honestly don’t know.

But in this briefest of moments, some of us have the great good fortune of being lilies of the field, hoping no one sprays us with a broad leaf herbicide as we turn our open faces to the cleansing rain and rejoice when sunlight breaks through.

Eyes For Eyes

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. –Albert Einstein

Little Ralphie slugged Little Lana in the stomach, and she fell. He punched her in the face and broke her nose. Blood spurted. She curled inward. He kicked and stomped on her leg. She screamed.

Adult responses:

  1. Yank Little Ralphie up and commence beating him.
  2. Drag Little Ralphie to the edge of town and stone him.
  3. Castrate Little Ralphie so he cannot reproduce his own kind.
  4. Let Little Lana do to Ralphie what was done unto her.
  5. Lock Little Ralphie up and while starving him to death, fine his parents, and give the money to Little Lana.

But wait. Little Ralphie had found Little Lana using a cattle prod on his beloved grandfather. Little Lana was howling with laughter as the grandfather twitched in his wheelchair and cried out for help. While torturing him, Little Lana taunted the grandfather. “You’re a worthless, helpless pile of shit. Pathetic. I hate you.”

Adult responses:

  1. Grab the cattle prod and begin shocking Little Lana.
  2. Cage Little Lana up.
  3. Sterilize Little Lana so she cannot produce children like herself.
  4. Roll the grandfather to a safe place and then shake Little Lana to death.
  5. Rape Little Lana to put her in her place.

But wait. Little Lana has already been raped. Repeatedly. By the grandfather, of course. And he’d just tried to pull her onto his lap, calling her his favorite slut, whispering that he was going to sell her to his neighbor. He said he had pictures of her woo-woo and she’d bring a decent price.

Adult responses:

Make a violent, erotic movie about the whole sequence. Wring hands. Donate to a charity. Introduce tariffs on pornography, fentanyl, and wheelchairs. Sell more guns. Fantasize living on another planet. Rape the grandfather.

Bam

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this whacked out,” my Coauthor observes.

“Is extermination the correct adult response to our species?” I snarl.

“Maybe yes. Maybe no. Remember, you’re just illusions of organized molecules,” Coauthor smiles.

“And sometimes, you’re just a Bad Idea.” I turn away. “This illusion of molecules is going to distract herself with something beautiful.”

“Excellent!” Bad Idea exclaims. “I’ll come with you.”

We kneel in the garden where a tulip has bloomed blood red and watch molecules shaped like Little Ralphie and Little Lana care for their offspring. I scream the names of the Baby Gods dead in Gaza and dread the adulthood of those who survive.

Methane continues to escape from the warming permafrost. Bullets fly. Bombs drop. Idiots rule. I dissipate into a momentary dream of justice. My Coauthor dissipates with me. Therein lies my only hope.

S’mores with Demons: An Easter Story

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

“So, someone said you’re a mystic, huh?” an evil little bastard snarled, red eyes glowing. “There’s a special place in hell for people like you.”

I remembered the story of Pilate quizzing Jesus about being King of the Jews and how Jesus turned the question back. Then the sophisticated defense strategies of adolescence came to mind: If I’m a dumb ass you’re a dumb ass.

“No, you’re a mystic,” I said. I pulled my blanket tighter and dozed off. The wind howled its midnight discontent. I was where I wanted to be. Asleep.

But the earth continued turning, dawn arrived, and my sanctuary was greatly diminished.

An ancient walking stick helped me keep my balance as waves of morning hatred rushed in. I fought my way through the putrid sludge to an island where love was freely available with toast and coffee.

“The haters are doomed,” a sweet dog reassured me with the wag of its tail. “With so many self-destructive choices, lies, and pathologies, they’re going to lose.”

“But I don’t want them to lose,” I protested. “I want them to find their way through the Molasses Swamp and arrive at the Candy Castle with the rest of us.”

“Sure, you do,” my red-eyed bastard guffawed from across the table.

“No, seriously, I do,” I said.

“Ain’t gonna happen.” Her voice dripped with disdain. “Drop the hopes and prayers. Try introducing legislation.”

 “You can’t legislate forgiveness. Or reason. Or redemption,” I said. “You’re a fool.”

“That I am,” she said. “A fool for reality-based behaviors. That’s why I hate mystics of all stripes and colors.”

“You can hate all you want,” I said. “But we’ll love you back.” I was on my third piece of toast, feeling feisty and fit.

The red-eyed bastard screamed like the witch that Dorothy splashed as she doused the burning Scarecrow with water. I held her tight as she writhed.

“We’re going to love you back.” I repeated. And I meant it.

It’s hard to look down from the places we’ve been nailed and ask forgiveness for the gloating executioners, liars, lynchers, shooters, and those who’ve tied us to the stake. They don’t even want forgiveness. But revenge risks igniting the final blaze–the one that would burn the parched world down. Without absolution from the cooling waters of compassion, we’re lost.

The intense heat of an ongoing resurrection shimmered around my companion.

“Burn, baby, burn,” she yelled, spitting hot coals from her lips into a campfire fed by pruned branches.

I cheered her on. We sat hip to hip, watching the flames die down. We had everything we needed to make S’mores.

Escape

Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments

Edvard Munch 1893


What makes you happy when you wake up alive?
You only need one, but you can name up to five.
The dog, your shoes, your home, or the sun?
A good cup of coffee? A cinnamon bun?

(The alphabet rotates through my mind as I search for words that rhyme, trying to escape the horror of the current holocausts. I slip into doggerel. Clever ditties. Slanted lines, good times, shallow sips through thin-set lips, the scream rising in the back of my throat.)

We’re a tiny planet floating in space,
killing each other at the usual pace.
A few are too rich, billions, too poor.
What, exactly, are we fighting for?

(I watch my fingers jump around the keyboard, my chest steadily rising and falling. How can I possibly live this day as if I’m entitled to all this good fortune? All this potential? There is Greenness ascending with a name that is on the tip of my tongue.)

Yesterday, the sky was so blue
I lay on my back with the privileged few
and gazed at infinity somewhat at ease
in my long conversation with rivers and trees.

(I’m increasingly able to see the end, but I don’t want to. It’s not a gift I requested. And I grasp the fallacies of simplistic faith with its tragic outcomes and cruel justifications for suffering. Which is what we do. We suffer. More than anything else, we suffer.)

Can I buy you a drink? The Trickster arrives.
Oh, hello, I say, and then break out in hives.
I’m sorry, I say. I don’t know what to do.
Oh stop, grins the Trickster. It’s not about you.

 (I’d like to believe that, but I’m stuck in my bones, and it is about me, at least for now. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be nice if the apparition of skin melted away more gracefully, and the scales fell from our eyes so we could behold our unformed substances mingling?)

What makes you ready to meet your own end?
The kindness of strangers, the love of a friend?
You can answer this once, or twice, or thrice.
But whatever you do, could you try to be nice?

(The Trickster nods. That’s a big ask, honey. It’s easy to crush and kill and lie and hoard. It’s tempting to pound your chest, bully others, and demand the best. But the minutes tick away regardless. I nod. Three crows land on the fence. They caw and nod as well.)

Neuropathy

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Photo copied from random internet search

The cold hands of March are not easily forced into the welcoming shape of April. March is in denial about her advancing neuropathy, made worse by the chemicals of decay around her. She pretends to be warm and comfortable, but she’s not.

With a pointed glance, the God of the Floral Sofa tries to shame me for dust, crumbs, and smears of yogurt. “No!” I glare and turn up the music. Thanks to a blogger managing Opal’s Farm in Texas, I recently discovered James McMurtry. I don’t love country music, but an old cowboy dressed in drag to protest the absurdities of the small-minded, hard-hearted Neanderthals among us is worth a listen.

The Beloveds on Okinawa gather each year to pray for peace and health. On Easter Sunday in 1945, a battle began there that would end three months later with 200,000 people dead.

“How many enemies? How many friends?” God asks.

“That’s a false distinction,” I snap.

“Yes. But remember, you’re a false distinction,” God laughs. “And so am I.”

I gather my blankets and beer and sink into the Dark Place. False distinctions parade by in cosmic drag: Life/Death. Love/Hate. Evil/Good. Black/White/Red/Yellow. The air is thick with unexpressed longings. I can’t breathe. Hunger smolders from the sunken eyes of nursing mothers. My own well-fed eyes sting like crazy, but I can’t seem to cry.

Without being requested to do so, my phone organizes my photos into artificial themes so banal I am appalled. The shallow joy, the uncritical eye—these uninvited invasions attempt to pacify and define my little life. But I resist. “Isn’t that your job, God?” I sneer. “Define and pacify my little life.”

“Yes. Absolutely,” Floral Sofa nods. “But no.”

I am terrified by the erosion of compassion around me. Neuropathy of the soul, caused by willfully telling or believing lies, is epidemic.

The ship of which I am captain has sailed. I’m floating over a sea of faces that, like the Mona Lisa, have been artistically blurred, thus removing the sharp lines most of us need to recognize ourselves. We are rendered ambivalent. Our feet flop when we walk, and falls are more frequent. “Take heart, Little Life,” Floral Sofa whispers. “It is in the falling that you find salvation.”

“That’s not the way I want to be saved,” I answer angrily.

“Oh, but I think it is,” the Sofa says. “Either way, I’ll be around.”

I sip my beer, pull my blankets tighter, and plan my elaborate but futile escape.

Who You Talking To?

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R: Hey, G. It’s way below zero. You planning to show up today?
G: I always show up. I live in the thermometer. It’s your job to recognize me.
R: Yeah. But your guises and costumes are confusing.
G: So? What are you afraid of? Strike up a conversation. Take a risk.
R: With a thermometer?
G: With it all. You never know.
R: It’s embarrassing to walk up to someone you think you know and then be wrong.
G: Sorry, but I can’t relate. I always know.
R: Very funny. And not helpful.

The barely visible mercury. The snap of the fire. The murmur of the icy river, the taste of dark beer, the sound of shuffling objects indicating my beloved is nearby, the settling of dust and ash, the brain interpreting visual input as both beautiful and fatal. The skeletal view of truths I do not want to accept.

Acceptance itself. 

R: Why do you bother to animate? To engage? 
G: To quote your grandmother, 'Honey, it’s no bother at all.'
R: She lied sometimes.
G: I don’t.
R: I wish you did. I wish you issued false reassurances so I could be calm and happy.
G: You can be calm and happy without lies.
R: Platitudes and promises.
G: Dutch ovens and sour dough.
R: Could you just stay in your lane?
G: It’s a long race, R. And I love switching lanes.
R: No, seriously, G. Many of us realize you don’t exist the way we wish you did.
G: Finally.

Unknowability shelters me from dogma and ill-advised faith. If there’s no rhyme or reason, if there’s no hell or heaven, if all we have is mercy, then let me be merciful. If all we have is kindness, then let me be kind. If all we have is this day, this moment, this breath, then let me breathe.

G: Who are you praying to?
R: Delicacies and dialectics. Oxymorons and overtures.
G: But not me?
R: Oh, I suspect it’s you. The last line of defense.
G: And the first ray of light. Within. Around. Through.
R: Ah, so humble.
G: You think I overdo it?
R: Yeah. But that’s just me. You don’t have to change a thing.
G: And yet I do. Change is my circulatory system. You want me to stagnate?
R: Nah, don't mind me. Go ahead. Change, animate, dissemble all you want.
G: Thank you. You won’t regret it.
R: I already do.

In Sheep’s Clothing

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments 

News flash: There’s a deadly outbreak of malice spreading rapidly. We’re all at risk. The Belt of Truth is too tight on our fat bellies. We’ve armed ourselves with swords of scorn and hatred. Most days, I am sick with fear.
  
“Ice cream?” God offers. “Roses? Chocolate? A little nap?” 
I make the sign of the cross and turn away. 
She continues, “Wanna shoot some hoops? How ‘bout them Celtics?”
“Leave me alone. Go smite someone or something,” I say. “I’ll help.”

“Nah. That’s nonsense,” she laughs. 
“As I’ve explained many times, I don’t smite. 
That’s all projection, poetry, and myth.”
“But doesn’t it matter?” I argue. “Isn’t something true?”
“Well, yes, fables have morals, and there is such a thing 
as poetic justice,” God agrees and rambles on.

“But that’s like when you trust a dead branch 
and it breaks. Chicken Little was not famous for laying eggs, 
and the boy who cried wolf missed his cue.”

“Did I miss my cue?” I ask. I’m dizzy.
 
A cold wind has picked up, 
distorting the faint clarion call I’ve been straining to hear.
It sounds like a flute.
“Tune it out,” God says.
“It’s the seduction of ravenous rats. 
And there are self-anointed royalty riding golden calves,
herding innocent swine into the sea. 
It’s a rave. A goddamn rodeo.”
 
The ordinary disintegrates as the storm intensifies. Finally, God is joined by God. And God. They’re closing the Interstate, rerouting traffic onto narrow byways. Rusting tanks and trucks stalled with rotting food aid line both sides of the road. It’s not scenic. Drivers look straight ahead to avoid these views, but even now, there are children playing in the streets. It takes skilled swerving to avoid catastrophe.

I’m driving our oldest vehicle, a Chevy from the 60s.

“Get in,” I shout to the Gods and the children.“We’re making a break for it.”
They pile in, and I stomp on the gas. 
Our necks snap as the Chevy lifts off and we achieve cruising altitude.
“Ouch!” the Gods complain. “Whiplash!”
“Oh yeah?” I flash a sinister smile. “I’ll show you whiplash.” 
I tilt the wheel straight down, and we plummet back to earth.

We crash land in Gaza. Sudan. Ukraine. Congo. 
We smash into infirmaries and food banks with empty shelves. 
We crawl out, wounded and dead.
The sky has fallen.

Chunks of heaven are thundering toward Gomorrah 
and the Fat Boy is screaming WOLF
while the wolves remove their bonnets 
and fling their sheep’s clothing aside.

It is time to gather at the river, 
wash the discarded wool, 
spin the yarn, 
and knit ourselves back together. 
It’s going to be a long, cold winter.

What to Pack

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments 

What’s your favorite Bible verse? The Still Small Voices asked.

Are you crazy? I answered. Leave me alone.
May we suggest Father forgive them for they know not what they do?
No, you may not, I said. No.
How about Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord?
Depends, I said. What do you have in mind?

This is a fetus, not a child, sayeth the Lord. And this is a child, not a weapon. 
This planet is not a mercantile, and the least among you are starving.
You have access to clean water and compassion, but you’re choosing hate.
Vastly greedy fools are lifting glasses to their own demise. 
The lights are on, but soon, and very soon, no one will be home.

Do you think I am unaware of these things? I asked, the dog in my lap, warm.
 
You’ve gotten too big for your britches, They said. You make us laugh.
And you’ve gotten too small to matter, I answered. So go ahead. Laugh.
They began to sing. Let us laugh with the wren and walrus, the willow, the whale.
I had a sudden change of heart. Laugh with me, I begged.
Nah, They said. You’re not that funny.

But you said I made you laugh. You contradict yourselves.
That we do, the jovial Voices admitted. That we do.
And you’re obviously pleased with yourselves, I added.
That we are. The Voices agreed. That we are.
What about me? I whined. Can’t you be pleased with me?

Are you pleased with yourself? The Voices asked, sly as devils. Are you a forgiver?

But how do I forgive when no one is sorry? I asked, sullen.
They shrugged. The sky slipped from their shoulders, pooling blue at their feet.
All the world’s a stage, They said. And everyone stands naked at the end.
Forgiveness will flow like lava, burn like cheap bourbon,
and the party will end in ashes.

The airstrikes began again. The Voices gathered their belongings
and joined the surging throng of refugees and overburdened donkeys. 
Don’t go, I whispered.      Come with us, They said.     I shook my head,
but I knew eventually, I would. We are all fleeing something.
Some of us linger. Some look back. Some don’t.

My favorite is Jesus wept, I shouted at their vanishing outlines. Jesus wept.


The Light in Your Feet

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments


The properties of light are complex, like the bones in your feet.
All streams flow to the sea, so the wise ones grow more secretive. Discreet.
They disguise the halting steps, callouses, and short, distorted dreams.

It takes a practiced eye to spot the game and take aim. The cleanest shot
is often a long line of honking geese, gliding unaware of their bodies
as sustenance or warmth. Long necks slice thin air, innocent. Provocative.

Is the twinkle in God’s eye First Light? Does the venom of the snake create
the ache that comes from walking home? I mean the long ways home,
the ways of those beloved or betrayed, afraid to be together, afraid to be alone.

First rights of refusal come with dawn, but the last rights of twilight are bereft.
The fall of night allows us to exchange the little we have left,
and our eyes adjust so few of us plummet to sure death. Just yet.

The light you see at midnight has traveled a long time.
Its name is love, its only crime, refusing to be known. So beautiful,
the feet of those who bring good news, who bring the light.

Goose down fills our rainbow-colored coats, and our lamps are thus defiled
with scented oil. Winter has arrived across our shoulders. We’re blinded
by the light across the snow, but the demons in our feet are bound by joy.

So do not be afraid, you weary hobos. Our blessings are a song with bitter words.
We’re nourished by the plants we thought were weeds. Oh, may our days be long,
our feet be strong upon this land. This day. This light. These feet.


Amen