Seven Pounds

I just saw Will Smith's latest movie last night, Seven Pounds. Deeply affecting when I saw it, it haunted my dreams all night.

Without "spoiling" the plot or ending, I can tell you that the reviews I read missed the point completely. They say it is a strange and failed vehicle for a story about redemption, or forgiveness, or repentance. It is none of these things.

It is an incredibly beautiful character study of a man who is going down, unstoppably. Suffering from what I would call a terrible mental illness induced by a horrific trauma, he does not perceive any way or reason to stop his own descent, but he does see a way to harness its sheer energy and give it meaning, make it resonant and beautiful.

This is a tragedy, a man whose fatal flaw is that he ceases to perceive his own value, but his strength of character and beauty of soul are such that he strives to use his life to bring beauty and possibility around him.

A devastating storm has its beauty, and as one watches it one can only pray that one's home is never touched by it.

I was especially affected by the story as I have a cousin who suffered the same trauma, and, after careful, painful years of rebuilding his life, became a whole new person. In a sense that is what Will Smith's character strives to do. See this movie, and tell me if you think he achieved it.

Season's Greetings

For Mary, and for You and Me too


long journey. darkness. silence. doors slamming shut.

you most exhausted with your massive weighty belly: no way out.

worn out, disgusted by the barn, unwashed animals,

not even a small bowl of clean water or the tiniest lamp.


each of us has been here, wondered, why me? wondered, why go on?


yet the waters break by themselves.

into the dark manger of our fears, our shame, our divine new life is born.

not without excruciating labor, but when the bright new babe is in our arms

pain and past are washed clean, washed away,

in the starlight of joy,

the brilliance of the eternal present,

the sparkling magic of Christmas.

Creativity

Today I wish simply to share this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet:

In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love come to life again and fill it with majesty and exaltation.

And those who come together in the nights and are entwined in rocking delight (even if they have made a mistake and embrace blindly), perform a solemn task and gather sweetness, depth and strength for the song of some future poet, who will appear in order to say ecstasies that are unsayable.

This to me is the cycle of beauty. Were I to have a religion, this could be its credo. How thrilling to find it expressed so perfectly, over 100 years ago.

Loving Kindness

Dinner with a friend recently spurred the following musing in my mind: what if no matter what do, we embody loving kindness?


Mostly, I’ve thought of the practice of loving kindness as an effort, a mindfulness, a way of regarding and treating people that is different from my normal reactive way. But assuming we are indeed divine creations, can any of our actions not be loving?


I’ve been spared so much by turning away from people who were mean. In a sense, they were guard dogs against danger. Every time I’ve been hurt or angered, I’ve also been spurred to move on to a truer place, impelled to find a job/lover/home/perspective where/with whom I could best become who I want to be, who I believe I was born to be.


I think of the Zen koan, ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.’



What if loving kindness were not so much about altering how we behave or perceive others, and rather accept that there is nothing we can do that does not become fuel for our own or others’ eventual evolution and greater capacity for love and awareness? What if we all are (and all we are is) loving kindness, and our only task is to accept that?


Am I on to something here, or is it just another grease fire in the brain pan?


Does this make sense outside my head? Pray do tell.

This Moment

Like many of you, I’m thrilled and anxious when considering the outcome of tomorrow’s election.


By some grace, though, a joyous, steadying thought keeps coming back: we made it this far. Through the campaign, through the last fifty years, last four hundred years.

The past two elections disappointed me deeply, not only for the resulting administration, but also for the alienation I then felt from the rest of the country.

Now I’m looking around, and I like what I see. While nothing is certain, one thing is clear: an African-American man has a very clear shot at becoming our 44th president, less than fifty years after young men and women of his skin shade had to protest for the right to vote (not to forget the open savage violence when they attempted to register).

Has this been pointed out enough? Can it be?

1963

2008

I like the new signs better, don’t you?

I’m not saying racism is over in this country. I just want to say I’m proud of us. I look across the ocean to France: the Algerian Revolution ended in 1962, and Arabs in France have made few real gains in status. Not to oversimplify, as that is a multi-dimensionally different situation, but look at us.

Just look at us.

I don’t know how I’ll feel on Wednesday; emotions are riding high. But right now, for the first time in a long time, I am proud to be American – not just a New Yorker!

p.s. it’s the economy stupid

To clarify, the previous entry was in no way an attempt to prove that Obama is the better candidate. I know that economic policy choices will make an enormous difference in how the next administration affects our country. I also know that I don’t sufficiently understand our economy, or what it needs, to make a good determination along those lines. I am voting based on what I do know and understand.

That’s the idea: everyone is voting that way.

That’s my common ground with people whose politics appall me. Holding to that perspective keeps me from being so angry or anxious.

That’s what beauty does for me, and that’s what I’m doing here, trying to find the beauty.

Comments welcome, as always.

Love thy Republican as thy Self

I’m dreading voting day. Or rather, the day after. Will there be that cataclysmic disappointment, that same wondering who-the-hell-are-my-fellow-Americans as there was back in ’04?

In anticipation, I’ve done some soul-searching.

In my life today, there are some very wonderful people who I know are going to vote republican. This does not change my affection for them. I’m disturbed by the faceless masses, the ones ‘out there,’ the alleged 36 or 48 or 52 percent of Americans who think McCain/Palin is the way to go.

Just as I may be disturbing them.

I’m voting for Obama because of his interest in civil rights, that is, for example, early childhood education, legal abortion, legislation for gays. I think the world is a better place when women can trust they are covered for the 1% their birth control fails, where children can read and count and where people are encouraged to love.

This may be as crazy as voting for someone because of gun control, or the life of an embryo, or fear of terrorism.

I’m voting for the leader who makes me feel more safe and more free than the other.
Isn’t that what we are all doing?

If I can keep that in heart and mind, maybe this time I will stay whole when we learn which way the country is divided. Neither too glum, nor too gleeful, as the case may be. Rather, ready to build bridges. To somewhere. (wink)