Make America Gentle Again

 I began this post, in my head, probably a couple of weeks ago. Started to write it a few days ago, before the recent horrific shootings in Florida. Those events underscore the necessity of sharing these thoughts with you - Robert

My family, like every family in America descends from immigrants. It is simply a case of how far back to want to move the needle. Those with the earliest paths probably came by foot across the land bridge from what we now call Siberia. And while there are some neat ideas about seafarers sailing across the pacific, we usually think of those northern foot travelers as the “first Americans,” “native” Americans. 

My family springs from those later immigrants who arrived by ship on the other side of the continent. As Mennonites, we were part of the subset of immigrants who came voluntarily seeking a better life.

Mennonites, like many European religious minorities, had been chased around the continent for a few hundred years looking for a place to call home. And what did that mean? Well, to simplify, it mean a place where they could live, work, farm and worship in peace. It is a story, with minor variations, common to most voluntary immigrant communities of America in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries. 

Any serious reading of our nation’s history during those years reveals that these immigrant communities were not always inclined, or allowed, to “keep themselves to themselves.” Often they imposed upon one another the very inequities they had fled. Most obvious exception to “finding a better life,” was the huge community of “involuntary immigrants,” the enslaved people who labored in the fields and privileged homes of the nation.

But those lingering failures should not blind us to the more noble motivations that drove our voluntary immigrant ancestors to these shores: they were seeking a better life. They were seeking a home where they would be free from the arbitrary predations of those “great” and powerful cultures who denied them the quiet, peaceful, existence they sought.

Several years ago I visited the home of a “friend of a friend” who turned out to be a lawyer of a rather extreme version of the “MAGA proud boys persuasion” whose leaders are currently trudging through our courts. He was a bit put off when I showed no inclination to look over his collection of automatic weapons. It was pretty obvious that to him the “Greatness” he foresaw for America was a land where those with automatic weapons could structure a society that was eerily similar to the one his own ancestors had fled some indeterminate number of years ago.

It is that notion of “great” that encourages the violent and aggressive posturing and behavior that currently besets our nation. Supporting that notion of “great” is a gross inversion of the beliefs and values that brought our voluntary immigrant ancestors to this nation and would further obstruct the attainment of those compassionate values and opportunities sought by the descendants of those involuntary and enslaved ancestors who arrived in chains.

Being gentle and compassionate is harder than being “great” as it is currently being defined by MAGAites around the country. It is nearing autumn and football is in the air so I will turn that way to make a point. Two things: first, it is always the aggressive response to an initial foul that will get you tossed out of the game. So even our admittedly hype-violent, yet incredibly popular, national pastime says, “Hey! He may have hit you first, but control yourself, control your anger, or you are out of here!” 

Second, growing up in the 1950s in central Ohio, I was a Cleveland Browns fan, and to be a Cleveland Browns fan was to be a Jim Brown fan. Though many younger folks will remember Brown as an actor and civil rights activist - I will always remember him as an indestructible fullback who would carry, seemingly, half the opposing team four, five, or six yards down the field. Disappear under a writhing mass, only to slowly, calmly, even gently, get up, walk back to his huddle and do it again. There was nothing gentle about professional football, but I was always amazed by Brown’s ability to appear as an island of tranquility amidst the chaos.

There are others who may spring more quickly to mind as role models of gentility: political figures, Bertrand Russell, Gandhi, Dr. King; entertainers, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Donovan - thankfully the list is long. Still those thoughtful voices seem somehow muted these days amidst the raucous rabble rousing cries of “Great, Great, Great!”

It is a simple-minded refrain. We have, with some notable stumbles, always been great. Perhaps it is time to tackle the harder stuff: gentle, gentle, gentle.

Leaving Younger Poetry Behind

It is not that springtime’s magic has fled.

The perfume of new cut grass remains as sweet,

The rose still startles with its first blossom.

Dew yet washes the face of meadow clover.

Nor has summer failed to lull us to slumber,

With its languid patchwork of sunshine and shadow,

Distant thunder rumbles amid cicadas

As soft birdsong calls upon the evening air.

Fall retains its finery of burnished gold and scarlet,

And jack-o-lanterns still sport their flickering grins.

But nowadays I am more drawn to the unique

Mysteries of falling flakes at close of day,

To the crackle and hiss of glowing logs

Settling in the pine scent of the fireplace.

A book, a beverage, a bit of baroque.

Half dreaming, half dozing, quiet shades

Tell tales of yesterday, last year, 

Or perhaps it was some year before?

Schrag Wall: The Leaky Barrel Syndrome

This is not a condition that would interest either a physical anthropologist, a cooper, nor a urologist. But a psychiatrist might find it interesting. I have mentioned before that my sister has an exceptional memory. She is my “go to person” when I want to know things like “What was the National Park we camped in, in 1952, where they pushed the bonfire off the cliff and I got lost?” Because her memory is strongly visual she could probably provide, in addition to the name of the park, the color of the tents surrounding our campsite. Freaky, huh?

But I don’t mean to imply that I was without my own memory acumen. I recall an instance from a class in grad school when we were debating where a particular notion had first been introduced in the text. I opined, without the book, “It first gets mentioned on page 106, left-hand column, towards the top.” A more responsible student, who had brought her text to class, opened it and, Ta Da! There it was. Yeah, I could do that. Equally freaky, and did not endear me to my classmates. Almost sotto voce,  “I hate it when he does that!” “Jerk.” “Show off.”

But the point is not my lack of knowing how to win friends and influence people, but rather how my memory worked - something of which I am only now becoming aware.  My memory worked as kind of a big barrel. Whenever I read, or saw, or heard something, it sort of got tossed into this big barrel in my mind. Then when I needed it - the page in a text, my line in a play, the lyric in a song - I just reached into the barrel and, Ta, Da! - there it was. No memory palaces or other carefully constructed devices - I just reached into the barrel.

Joni Mitchell - “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” Sitting here, clicking away - no problem with that lyric. But if, sitting around with friends at dinner, someone were to ask, “Oh, what is that song about paving paradise?” I might reach into the barrel only to discover that Joni had gone “slip slidin’ away.”

So does it bother me that my memory barrel has sprung a few leaks? I suppose it must on some level. I mean I am writing about it after all. I guess that I am adapting to it. I mean, I won’t get into community theater where I would have to learn lines - something that used to come easily. Trivial Pursuits - I think not. But drawing remains quite barrel free. And writing to you? Of course I'll continue. Besides, if I need just the right word or the rest of a fuzzy lyric? That’s why god invented the internet!