Quote of the Day

The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. Those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.
-- Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

The nearest.
--Henry David Thoreau, when asked at table which dish he preferred.

This could have been my response to any one of the dishes David created for both our Christmas Eve supper and our Christmas dinner. Starting with a couple of gallons of cioppino, containing over 5 pounds of fish and shellfish and three-quarters of a pound of butter, baguettes and a crisp green salad, we moved on, through a 24-hour period, to roast chicken stuffed with mushrooms, home-grown broccali with anchovies (a curious recipe from Italy that proved to be a real keeper), Turnips Anna and savory bread stuffing, all washed down with much wine and followed up with port, just for good measure, and spiced with the relish of good conversation. How blessed we are, to sit down in peace to such abundance! It is my sincere wish that each of you enjoyed the delights of food and drink and conviviality, this Christmas, and that this joy lights the way toward the happiest of New Years.

Warmest Wishes

MERRY CHRISTMAS
from our house to yours!
Many blessings attend you and yours,
this day and always.

The Children of Christmas Eve

Fra Lippo, we have learned from thee
A lesson of humanity:
To every mother's heart forlorn,
In every house the Christ is born.
--R.W. Gilder, A Madonna of Fra Lippo Lippi

Over 50% of children in the United States are living in poverty. When I think of them, I recall the legend sometimes carved over the entryways of Scottish castles: Often, often, often, comes the Christ in the stranger's garb. Every child, indeed every living creature, partakes of the Christ. Let us all remember to be generous, in this season of giving, so that the Christ in us all will not go wanting.  

Quote of the Day

I can do no great things, only small things with great love.
--Mother Teresa

Quote of the Day

Nothing, not all the armies in the world, can stop an idea whose time has come.
--Victor Hugo

As much as I sometimes lament the electronic bombardment that characterizes the 21st century, there a moments when the realization that it is of enormous value becomes crystal clear. One such moment is Youtube's video of Egypt's Girl in the Blue Bra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf_0p4a_GwI

If you have not yet seen this footage, prepare to be shocked and outraged, as are the protesters in Tahrir Square:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTYcjnxrXoc&feature=relmfu

Let us all stand in solidarity with our Egyptian sisters and brothers, as a true international commune of women and men. Recent violence against protesters in the U.S.A. demonstrates that the plight of the protester is an international issue, one that should be of gravest concern to us all.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.
--Thomas Jefferson

Winter Solstice: A Single Flame

When I was teaching creative writing in the prison, I wanted to do something special for my students for the holidays. Christmas was only days after our next class, but I was forbidden to bring cookies or candies inside, for security reasons. How could I help these men anchor within themselves a sense of the true meaning of the holy days, especially when not all were Christian, but Jewish and Muslim, as well? The day of class arrived and still I had not solved my dilemma.

 And then, it came to me: it was Winter Solstice! The day when the Sun reaches its most extreme southern position, and the shortest day of the year. For several years I had been telling myths to my students and they always received these oral offerings with  an intense, hungry, listening silence. I knew that they were being fed at the deepest levels by these archetypal accounts. So I would tell them a story that could unify all their varied belief systems: the return of Light after darkness. This theme would have special meaning for them, I reasoned, as captives of a miserably dark system.

I went to work prepared to break the law. In my coat pocket was secreted a small, illegal, but precious gift. The class was large, that wintry evening, and their energy was intense but subdued. The holidays were always a hard time for them, away from their families, away from the radiance of festivity and joyous communal celebration. As always, they asked that the classroom lights be turned off, so that only the yard lights filtered in through the high, clerestory windows. They lived 24 hours a day drenched in harsh prison lighting and one small gift I could give them, each meeting, was to allow them this softening of the environment. 

In this dim atmosphere, I began class by explaining how much I wanted to bring something special to them for the holidays, and how the usual gifts were forbidden. Slowly, I eased into the realm of spirit, keeping my voice low, waiting for the moment when their rapt, listening hunger crystallized in the room. 

Our ancestors, I explained, from times long before the advent of our present-day religions, had celebrated the cycles of the seasons and the wheeling of the stars in the heavens. And tonight was one of the most sacred of holy days for those ancient people – the shortest day of the year.

I invited them to imagine how, in those pre-scientific times, it might have seemed to those people, as the days grew shorter and colder. What if this trend never stopped, but continued until all was endless night? The terror of such a possibility must have been a leaden darkness in their hearts. So, to ward off this apparent inevitability, rites were performed; prayers were spoken; sacrifices were made. This day, Winter Solstice, marked the profundity of despair and the dawning of hope because, surely as the Sun rises in the morning, the very next day was longer than its predecessor. Light was returning to the world!

It must be like this for them, I said. Their time in prison was a long, cold diminishing of the light, and perhaps it seemed as if they might never be done with it; that it would grow more shadowy and more intensely isolating until their lives were obliterated in endless darkness. So, tonight, we were going to create a ritual, just as our ancestors had done before us, to affirm the return of Light after darkness.

By this time, the room was sunk in an umbrous hush. The men, lulled by my voice, were sinking slowly into their pain and loss, their sense of entrapment, of being enclosed in darkness. This was the time to reveal my gift. I reached into my coat pocket and withdrew the stub on a votive candle, and a single wooden match. Slowly, ceremoniously, I struck the match and lit the candle. All eyes were on the lambent flame as it flickered, then rose up, like a single teardrop of fire.

  

I glanced around the circle of faces, black, brown, white, as the single flame’s chiaroscuro etched their faces with both grief and hope. Not a few sparked with the glint of tears. The banal and lifeless room disappeared and its energy became thick and warm, as surely as if we were a clan safely gathered deep in a cave around a sacred fire. 

Almost in a whisper, I invited them to take out their notebooks and write about their personal darkness and what the return of the Light might look like for them. Without a word, moving cautiously, as if not to rupture the fragility of the holy moment, this usually rambunctious group opened their books and began to write. Often, they would stop to gaze at the flame in the center of the table, then dive again into writing.

We had been immersed in this sacred space for perhaps half an hour, when one of the men suddenly hissed, “Cops!” Without an instant’s hesitation I swiped the candle from the table. Hot wax cascaded over my hand, searing my skin. Not a second later, two correctional officers stepped through the classroom door.

I tucked my throbbing, wax-coated hand inside my jacket and turning to them with my most beguiling smile said, “Good evening, gentlemen,”  praying that they would not smell candle smoke.

 They, however, were standing in astonished confusion, staring around the room at my quiet students, who looked up at them briefly and then continued writing. I don’t know what those two officers expected, as they snuck down the long hallway, holding their keys against themselves, to keep them from jingling. An orgy? A drug meet? Surely, the silence of my classroom must have suggested something quite other than what their surprise visit revealed: a quiet circle of men, intensely writing.

Perhaps, too, the atmosphere of the room, which I can only describe as liquid love, disconcerted them. “Would you like to join us?” I asked sweetly. But they were already backing out of the room, a comedic embarrassment close to panic written on their faces.

 I used to think, sometimes, that an angel with a fiery sword stood outside my classroom, protecting us, allowing us to build an atmosphere in which love and the affirmation of our humanness could well up. Certainly, that Winter Solstice night was one such occasion. As I peeled the now hardened red wax from my hand and made an inane comment about almost being caught red-handed, the men and I exchanged knowing smiles. The candle was back in my pocket, but we had Light in our hearts that no short and icy day, no correctional officer, no prison, could extinguish.