From Jonathan Kozol: Public Policy, Education, War

In doing some research for possible places I might submit work, I came across a favorite writer of mine whose words never fail to inspire and challenge me: Jonathan Kozol. Are you familiar with him?

As devoted, non-ordained-nun; as teacher; as lover; as Catholic; as Buddhist; as Citizen; as Critical Thinker; as Agent-of-change; as deep questioner and examiner of my own experience in and around generational poverty; as traveler to places of wealth and poverty; as woman whose own modeling of Parental Love I recognize as rare gift, of God; as woman who knows deep privilege - I am drawn to Kozol's work.

These two articles from Mr. Kozol might equally inspire you, or provide you with fodder for more reflective and compassionate inquiry as you examine the marketplace, the voting public, our place in global society, and as we navigate or discern a just course of action in places like Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Darfur, China, Haiti, Somalia, Zimbabwe.

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kozol/why-i-am-fasting-an-expl_b_63622.html

I invite you all to read these pieces and ask yourselves:

What is going on right here in our own United States? How are Kozol's depictions of everyday classrooms a kind of First Front where Militaristic dollars might easily and just as effectively be spent?

What is the difference between an Iraqi regime of terror and an American regime of terror?

How are our urban and rural classrooms the same breeding grounds for "al-qaeda" equivalents?

What does good teaching look like?

Where are the exemplars of emancipated living? Of love?

Have you ever personally encountered terror? Been traumatized? What did that look like? Feel like? How did you respond? What was the result?

Where does liberation from terror, from fears begin?

Who are we? What are our responsibilities? As individuals? Citizens? Followers of God? Of Christ?

Kozol is the Author of "Savage Inequalities," "Amazing Grace" and "Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America." He rocks. But check him out for yourself.

Peace, Love,

Melissa

Tiny Assignment for World Peace (or at least a possible moment for happiness within.)

Cleaning my house this morning, and I came across this prayer, printed by Pax Christi USA: A Muslim, Jewish, Christian Prayer for Peace. I like it a lot. Turning then to words from Henri Nouwen, that arrive so faithfully in my email box every day, I'm struck by how beautifully these prayerful thoughts speak to one another.
I'm copying them below with this assignment: Cross the street, a border, a river, an ocean: and shake hands with someone new. Smile at them. Believe and trust in your heart that they are from God, created by Love, and that they have hopes and dreams, wants and needs, just like you.

Peace,
Melissa

Muslim, Jewish, Christian Prayer for Peace

O God, you are the source of
life and peace.
Praised be your name forever.
We know it is you who turn our minds to thoughts of peace.
Hear our prayer in this time of war.
Your power changes hearts.
Muslims, Christians and Jews remember,
and profoundly affirm,
that they are followers of the one God,
children of Abraham, brothers and sisters;
enemies begin to speak to one another;
those who were estranged
join hands in friendship;
nations seek the way of peace together.
Strengthen our resolve to give witness
to these truths by the way we live.
Give to us:
Understanding that puts an end to strife;
Mercy that quenches hatred, and
Forgiveness that overcomes vengeance.
Empower all people to live in your law of love.
Amen.

www.paxchristiusa.org


Crossing the Road for One Another

We become neighbours when we are willing to cross the road for one another. There is so much separation and segregation: between black people and white people, between gay people and straight people, between young people and old people, between sick people and healthy people, between prisoners and free people, between Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics.

There is a lot of road crossing to do. We are all very busy in our own circles. We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of. But if we could cross the street once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might become neighbours.
- Fr. Henri Nouwen

www.henrinouwen.org

Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela!/ Reflecting on his "Cape of Good Hope"

(Birthday party for Mandela in Sandton, South Africa.

Photo taken July 18, 2004)

It's the birthday of Nelson Mandela (books by this author), born in Cape of Good Hope, South Africa (1918). His father was the chief of the Tembu tribe.*

What a good guy!

And isn't that the understatement of the day, year? (Perhaps a bit like me saying, "That Ghandi was so peaceful!" Or "Buddha, man: what a good meditator.")

Writing that makes me giggle. ;-)

I'm drawn to the name of Mandela's birth place, offered here by Garrison in today's Writer's Almanac*: the CAPE OF GOOD HOPE?! Hmmm......Auspicious name for an auspicious beginning, don't you think?

Makes me ask myself all sorts of questions:

Where is this cape?

Why "good" hope? Is there such a thing as "bad" hope? What is false hope?

What if a person could WEAR a cape of good hope? What would our world look like then? Would Mandela have more comrades as peaceful, loving revolutionaries? ("Warriors of non-aggression" is what my Buddhist friend Pema refers to these kinds of people as.)

Can someone please design a cape of good hope? One of my arts friends, perhaps? I'm sure there's a market for them....

What would a cape of good hope look like? Would we dance in them? Wear them to weddings and baptisms? To funerals, as well, (especially to those of friend's whom we might be overly concerned for in the afterlife?!)

And then: will someone please write and tell me if they know any members of the Tembu tribe. I'd like to meet a chief one of these days. Yes. That would be really lovely, following on the heels of all of my African-alliances of late. Yes.

Hope you are all having a good day, no matter where this email or posting finds you!

Kisses to Mandela!

Blessings to all!

Love,

Melissa

*http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=217630&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=0c74fa492f

Reporting Assignments

People!

There is SO MUCH to WRITE ABOUT! I'm a bit overwhelmed with my own mental log of assignments. This must happen to all of us on a certain level, right? Simply trying to B-A-L-A-N-C-E our bodies and spirits and hectic beings?

So to simply keep myself aligned, and accountable with all that has been speaking to me, and asking to get put down on paper (or, in this case: on the screen) I'm creating a virtual assignment list:

1. A financial reporting on Aunt Mo's visit - something in the topic arena of "The Price of Relationship-Building and Ambassador-work"?!

2. The metaphor of the phoenix -- Death and birth in Melissa Borgmann's midst: Joey Schulte's Funeral, Teens Rock the Mic's done-ness, and the baptism and career births I've been witness to in the past week...

3. Thin space experiences: Trees and dead people talking to me?!

4. More pine-cone meditations and notes from a recent walk along Edgecumbe.

5. Something on love-making...and a recent excerpt of Liz Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love."

Okay. Just needed to create that as a list of topics. Stay tuned!

Love,

Melissa

Love is the religion. The universe is the book.

From Coleman Barks in "The Illuminated Rumi."

"The One Who Left to Get Married..."

Hey Loves!

I figured reading this poem with some of my beautiful former students in mind, might be a loving way for me to hear your prayers, good wishes for me in this next part of my own life....

(I mean, how long has Ms. Borgmann been saying she's leaving to get married?!)

Sending you all kisses on your cheeks!

Ms. B

P.S. I suppose a non-selfish or non-self-centered way of reading this, might be to invite your beautiful spirits to recall a former teacher, (elementary school) and think fondly on the details of an "instructional" moment....LOVE!

Poem: "Miss Shelley, Miss Hattersley, Miss Guilford . . ." by Rosie King, from Sweetwater, Saltwater. © Hummingbird Press, 2007. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Miss Shelley, Miss Hattersley, Miss Guilford . . .

When I can't remember the name of my third grade teacher,
the only one through ninth grade
that won't spring to mind, I sit
wondering at the mystery of her.
Like a fan blowing cool air in summer, her face
bends down to me, strands of her hair—
it must have been long—or the rayony
swish of her skirt lightly brushing my arm
as my pen writes the letters very precisely, rounding them
in the new cursive, her voice a glissando
tinseled with laughter, her eyes crinkling—
the one who left to get married!—
up there behind her glasses,
the glow of her.

Happy Sobriety, Raymond Carver!

I don't know why, but this really cracks me up:

It was on this day in 1977 that the short-story writer Raymond Carver (books by this author) quit drinking. He had just started to get some recognition for his writing when he began drinking more and more heavily. Finally, his doctor told him he had only six months to live, unless he quit drinking. So that's what he did, on this day in 1977. He later said, "If you want the truth, I'm prouder of that, that I quit drinking, than I am of anything in my life." He died of lung cancer 11 years after he quit drinking, but he once described those last years of his life as, "Gravy. Pure gravy."

The anniversary of Raymond Carver's SOBRIETY?

Dang!

We all have moments, I'm certain, that we can commemorate. The choice to quit killing himself with liquor is a biggie. I whole-heartedly honor Carver, even in the midst of the way this noting sort of tickles something inside me...

"What is that smirking that is happening within?" I wonder.

Perhaps it touches upon my own questions:
What are my anniversaries? What small choices have turned large and the consequences, lingering, transformative? What decision or discernment created a shift in my own ability to be present on the planet and to my own gifts, as writer, artist, human being?

Hmmm.......

Perhaps I need to create my own anniversary: The date that I left teaching and arts administration work to live fully in prayer and love and honor of my own being?

Too selfish?

(What is more selfish? Killing yourself, or not killing yourself?)

My anniversary: February 23, 2007. My last residency as a teacher/ teaching artist. Patrick Henry High School. Emily Lilja's CFA English students. The next day I got a job with Anna Tsantir working for "Two Betty's and a Broom."

Challenge to you: Reflect and name your own potent moments around life and choosing the ability to be fully present and honor yourself.

LOVE!! GIGGLES, NO JUDGEMENTS!

Melissa

Meditation/ Retreat Assignment: from the Contemplative Spirit of Fr. Thomas Merton

As I write and pray and read here at my family's cabin, overlooking the Lewis and Clark Reservoir at Hideaway Acres, Crofton, Nebraska - these Thomas Merton passages keep kicking my heart and ass and spirit.

These excerpts are more potent, in my estimation, than even the beloved Henri Nouwen.

An assignment, should you choose to desire one in this spirit of your own living and loving discernment space:

Take yourself to a quiet and safe space of solitude.

Light a candle.

Open your palms.

Breathe deeply.

(In with pain, out with love and compassion.)

Read the following.

Listen, without judgement, to your heart, to your mind, your spirit, God.

Write.

"But to love another as a person we must begin by granting him his own autonomy and identity as a person. We have to love him for what he is in himself, and not for what he is to us. We have to love him for his own good, not for the good we get out of him. And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love which 'transforms' us, so to speak, into the other person, making us able to see things a he sees them, love what he loves, experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own. Without sacrifice, such a transformation is utterly impossible. But unless we are capable of this kind of transformation 'into the other' while remaining ourselves, we are not yet capable of a fully human existence. " - from Disputed Questions

............................

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love. And if this love is unreal, the secret will not be found, the meaning will never reveal itself, the message will never be decoded. At best, we will receive a scrambled and partial message, one that will deceive and confuse us. We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love – either with another human person or with God." - From Love and Living

............................

"Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny… This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others, by choosing the truth. To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems, to please everyone. But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high. To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls "working out our salvation," is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation. " - From Seeds

...................................

"There is another self, a true self, who comes to full maturity in emptiness and solitude – and who can of course, begin to appear and grow in the valid, sacrificial and creative self-dedication that belong to a genuine social existence. But note that even this social maturing of love implies at the same time the growth of a certain inner solitude.

...............................

Without solitude of some sort there is and can be no maturity. Unless one becomes empty and alone, he cannot give himself in love because he does not possess the deep self which is the only gift worthy of love. And this deep self, we immediately add, cannot be possessed. My deep self in not 'something' which I acquire, or to which I 'attain' after a long struggle. It is not mine, and cannot become mine. It is no 'thing' – no object. It is 'I'. " - from "Disputed Questions"

..........................

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. - from "Thoughts in Solitude"

http://www.octanecreative.com/merton/quotes.html

Peace, Love,

Melissa

Making our Lives Available to Others: in Music, Stories, Poems, Songs, Art, Dance...

Whatever your medium, everyone has a story to tell...

I have been overwhelmingly blessed in the past week to hear many stories....Often I feel like a small child, sitting at the feet of Kings and Queens, when tales begin to unfold; something gets moved sideways in my body, it's like a cage is unlocked to the ears of my heart.....

A week ago today, it was over Sunday brunch sitting across the table from Barbara and Aubrey Nkomo, visiting from South Africa/ New York, sharing pieces of their poignant history as diplomats, visionaries, two loves who found one another at the United Nations. Daily in email I've been receiving snippets from my graduating high school classmates of 1987 (including potent reflections from Wendy, a friend with whom I shared a deep love for a man that took his own life.) Friday afternoon: I was blessed to hold space with George "Yerzy" Galonska, a Polish immigrant who fights fires in Minneapolis, collects sewing machines, and wants to meet mystics. That evening: it was the Cates Music singing stories into my soul and one divine Henry Allen who appeared and reminded me of what it is to simply RECEIVE.....

Oh! Now I could go on and on. But my job this day is to simply hold up more of Nouwen, quoted below, and remind you all of your gorgeous voices, hearts, spirits, that are simply waiting to pour out their own tales. Know there is no one right way, just that we are all called to give voice to these silences or hushed experiences within...Sing! Dance! Make your art! Tell your tale!

Love to you this day!

Melissa

Making Our Lives Available to Others

One of the arguments we often use for not writing is this: "I have nothing original to say. Whatever I might say, someone else has already said it, and better than I will ever be able to." This, however, is not a good argument for not writing. Each human person is unique and original, and nobody has lived what we have lived. Furthermore, what we have lived, we have lived not just for ourselves but for others as well. Writing can be a very creative and invigorating way to make our lives available to ourselves and to others.

We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.

-- Henri Nouwen

What do you Want?: A Writing Assignment

Here's a Writing Assignment for everyone:

Respond to the question, "What do you want?"

You get 22 short lines to answer. Include the cost and location of your desire(s).

Consider if there are ridiculous items or facets to your dream; note anything potentially standing in the way of achieving what you want.

Do not let the consideration of these things hinder your writing. Simply bear witness to the fact that they may exist.

(Naming stumbling blocks is powerful.)

You get bonus points if you are able to draw from a famous dead Russian writer's thoughts.

Below, you will find an example of such a response by David Ray.

This is a poem. Yours need not be considered a poem.

Submit these as they are composed. I shall publish those that most entertain me on my blog.

Peace,

Melissa B

Poem: "Costal Farmlet" by David Ray, from Music of Time: Selected and New Poems. © The Backwaters Press. Reprinted with permission.

Costal Farmlet

"A man wants nothing so badly as a gooseberry farm."
—Chekhov

I want a costal farmlet.
I desire it very much.
I saw it advertised
in the classifieds and I presume
that coastal means our land
comes right down
to the sea with the whitecaps
lashing romantically, and farmlet
means we can grow
gnarled trees on our headland
and let sheep roam. It is about cheap
enough for us if we borrow, beg
and steal, pawn a few poems, also write
a harlequin romance or two, and it's
only 9000 miles from the place
we call home. There's not much
of a hitch except the Immigration
would not let us stay in the country
to live in our farmlet. But still,
I want it and think we should go
look at it, right now, this moment,
while tangy sweet gooseberries glow.