The Crumbling Foundation

Imagine you just invested your life savings to buy a house, only to later discover that the foundation is crumbling and the house is in danger of collapsing. You feel some seismic shifts and see the house begin to tilt. It seems like it would be a good idea to check it out. Perhaps find the original house plans and find out what happened or at least get qualified experts to take a look at it and see what they can do to repair it. 

 

But either by law or unspoken agreement, you are not allowed to see the original plans nor allowed to hire people to ascertain what the problem is. You might justify it and think, “Well, not my problem. I didn’t build the foundation. If it’s shoddily done by people who didn’t know better or chose to use cheap material for their own profit, that’s not my fault. “But those people are dead and gone. You’re the one who paid high prices for your home and you will suffer the consequences if the roof falls on your head. Hard to imagine any homeowner who wouldn’t understand that whatever happened before is their problem now. They might try to sell the house and buy another, but it turns out that every house in that neighborhood has the same shaky foundation. In fact, every house in the town or city or state and indeed, the entire country! 

 

If I’m teaching a Jazz Course, as I’m about to do in Memphis, and start talking about jazz originating and developing within the cultural context of systemic racism and white supremacy, the alarm bells will go off at Republican headquarters and the stormtroopers might burst in, either literally or metaphorically, to shut me down and shut me up. But even as I know that those continuing to drink the toxic Kool-Aid of the white supremacy narrative are not the best candidates for a logical discussion, still I wonder if the metaphor above might penetrate the armor and make sense to at least a few people. 

 

For the fact is that the house we all live in, the United States of America, was indeed built on a shaky foundation, both through intention and ignorance. If we don’t go down into the basement and consider what needs repair, we are all in danger of our house crumbling. Indeed, the signs are all around us as the daily news dishes out the next crack in the wall or dangerous tilt toward full-blown collapse. And remember, there is no “safe house” that can be bought with big money. The very ground we build on is a shaky foundation with techtonic plates rubbing against each other in unresolved trauma. 

 

So let’s roll up our sleeves, get to work and rebuild a solid and safe house for our children and grandchildren to enjoy. 

 

What? Me Worry?

 

Here’s a simple truth— it hurts to care. When you have an expectation that life should be fair, people should be kind, leaders should be honest and all trains should run on time, you are setting yourself up for heartbreak, disappointment, betrayal. You return time and time again to kick the football and Life, like Lucy, snatches it away and you’re flat on your back. It hurts. 

 

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like not to care. To sleep on the floor so you needn’t worry about falling out of the bed. To lower the bar so that even the smallest insect can crawl over it. 

 

In preparing for my upcoming Memphis Jazz/ Blues course, I started collecting some memorable blues lyrics. Like B.B. King’s 

 

 Nobody loves me, but my mother,
 And she could be jivin` too.

 

One of my favorite blues composers is Mose Allison of “your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime” fame. Amongst his treasury of clever and thought-provoking songs is I Don’t Worry About a Thing. 

 

If life is drivin' you to drink
You sittin' 'round wondr'in' just what to think

Well, I got some consolation, I’ll give it to you, if I might
You know I don’t worry ‘bout a thing, cause I know nothin’s gonna be alright. 

You know this world is just a one big trouble spot
Cause some have plenty and some have not,   
You know I used to be troubled, but I finally saw the light
Now I don’t worry ‘bout a thing, cause I know nothin’s gonna be alright. 

Don't waste your time tryin' to be a go getter
Things'll get worse before they get any better
You know there's always somebody playing with dynamite

I don’t worry ‘bout a thing, cause I know nothin’s gonna be alright. 

 

Well, isn’t that an interesting thought? To habitually expect the worst and then you’re not surprised when it happens. No outrage, no disbelief that this could happen, just a nod and the thought, “Well, here you are. I’ve been expecting you.” This just might be the most effective survival strategy for our day and age. Maybe I should try it out.

 

But of course, I won’t. I know that the depth of caring is directly proportional to the richness of life and wholly necessary not only to thrive but to resist our lemming march to the cliff’s edge and steer us to some degree of sanity. But I’m intrigued by the idea of trying it out for one day to see what it feels like. Join the millions of shoulder-shruggers who allow so much evil to flourish with their “whatever” attitude. 

 

But there is a kernel of wisdom knowing that the world has always been a first-class shit-show alongside its pageantry of beauty, that we have no choice but to accept the inevitable pain of simply being human—the heartrending losses and broken dreams and random disasters. Even the spiritual practice that offers the promise of unity with the Universe and blissful tranquility begins with Buddha’s First Noble Truth—Life is suffering. 

 

So next time you’re feeling the weight of it all beyond what you think you can carry, listen to Mose’s song and sing along. It just might help.

 

PS Anyone recognize the title? From Alfred E. Neuman of MAD magazine fame.

Return to Elemental

Today is Carl Orff’s 130^th birthday. Each year I renew my thanks that he was born, finding it impossible to imagine what my life would have been without him. 

 

Amongst many facets of his genius, one I’ve always appreciated is his understanding and celebration of what he calls the elemental. He describes it as “close to the earth, natural, physical, pertaining to the elements, primeval, treating of first principles, awakening and developing the powers of the spirit.” In a similar way, the poet Gary Snyder talks about reversing the negative association of "primitive cultures" and talks about them as "primary cultures." Right at the heart of what is primary and important. Civilization over-clothes our child-like self with unnecessary layers, like living a life with thick gloves on unable to touch the things that matter, restricted in our movement, our booted-feet unable to touch the earth. 

 

In short, the antithesis of what we just experienced in our Ghana Orff-Afrique course! I walked barefoot to classes, played instruments made from wood, metal, skin, danced every day at many times throughout the day, communicated the day’s schedule with the spoken word in meetings and a hand-drawn chart on butcher paper. Each individual part of the music we played was relatively simple but combined with other parts to make a powerful and dynamic expression of great complexity. When the power went out a few times, it had no impact on our classes or communications with each other. 

Back in the good ole U.S.A., I had to wade through 10 prompts on the robotic voice mail to try to get a doctor's appointment and then was referred to my health care Website where there were 63 unnecessary messages waiting for me and a labyrinth of clicks that still failed to get me my appointment. I’m back in my city’s driverless car nightmare and everywhere I turn, the thrust of the culture is to erase human beings and human contact. 

 

While so many are fascinated by the next cool machine substitution, I believe we all suffer from it. Deep down, we hunger for something more real and touchable amidst all the brightly-lit two-dimensional screens invading every corner of our life and psyche. Hence interest in djembes and didjeridoos and yoga and meditation and perhaps Orff Schulwerk as well! But we also have the tendency to make commodities of them all and treat them superficially without a deeper understanding of what they truly have to offer. 

 

I just finished the book The Body Keeps the Score and it is devastating to realize that human-created trauma— especially child-abuse— is more epidemic than I thought. That hurt people keep hurting other people and at the root is their profound disconnection with the natural world, the human community, their own minds, hearts and bodies. Machines don’t necessarily cause the trauma— that’s a millennium-old story of human folly— but as we organize our society and communication and lives around them, we get sucked into the vortex of yet more disconnection, away from developing authentic relationship with our body’s intelligence and expressiveness, our heart’s capacity to feel, our mind’s capability to imagine. We drift away from face-to-face conversation, from simple pleasures, from the deep connections of singing, playing, dancing and creating with fellow human beings. Just about everything that the author of the above book suggests to both avoid and heal trauma is exactly the practice I've spent my life doing through the gift of Orff Schulwerk. Note:

 

“If trauma is encoded in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations, then our first priority is to help people move out of flight-or fight stats, re-organize their perception of danger and manage relationships. Where traumatized children are concerned, the last things we should be cutting from school schedules are the activities that can do precisely that; chorus, physicql education, recess and anything else that involves movement, play and other forms of joyful engagement. “ - (p. 419)

 

And back to Carl Orff’s birthday. 62 years ago, he said the same thing in his own words. 

 

“Just as humus in nature makes growth possible, so elemental music gives to the child powers that cannot otherwise come to fruition. It must therefore be stressed that elemental music in the primary school should not be installed as a subsidiary subject, but as something fundamental to all other subjects. It is a question of developing the whole personality. This surpasses by far the aims fo the so-called music and singing lessons found in the usual curriculum. It is at the primary school age that the imagination music be stimulated and opportunities for emotional development, which contains the ability to feel, and the power to control the expression of that feeling, must also be provided. Everything that a child of this age experiences, everything in him that has been awakened and nurtures, is a determining factor for the whole of his life. Much can be destroyed at this age that can never be regained’ much can remain undeveloped that can never be reclaimed It worries me profoundly to know that today there are still schools where no songs are sung, and any others with very defective music teaching. “ (p. 154, Texts on Theory and Practice of Orff Schulwerk)

 

Happy birthday, Carl Orff. I wish I could give you better news that your vision has been wholly realized in schools around the world. In so many ways, things are worse than ever. But still you have made and continue to make an impact. On your behalf and the children’s, we’ll keep trying!

 

No Potato

I woke up this morning with this revelation, spoken out loud: 

 

There’s no potato!

 

So today’s post is a shout-out to that grand mystery, the human mind. Especially the subconscious one, that knows so much about what’s needed. Like the fact that teaching a new variation on an old course in a new place next week will require some thought and preparation. So no better place to begin than in dream and my dreams last night were vivid coming attractions of the activities I will be doing. 

 

One of them is an old game, Head and Shoulders, that parenthetically was the first game I learned in my very first Orff workshop 53 years ago. It begins with the text and motions:

 

 Head and shoulders, baby, one-two-three, 

Head and shoulders, baby, one-two-three, 

Head and shoulders, Head and shoulders, 

Head and shoulders, baby, one-two-three. 

 

The next verse is “knees and ankles” and then in my dream, teaching the game to some 60 people, I blanked out on the precise verse about potatoes. I tried “bake potatoes,” “give me potatoes,” “I want potatoes” knowing that none of them felt right and confessing as much to the group, asking for their help. But no one knew the right verse and no one had the book that it’s written in. And I was equally confused about when that verse came in. After the “head” and before the “knees” one or later? I kept starting again, the way that you do when the mind is racing through its search engine, but no result. Finally, right at the cusp of waking from the dream, I realized I could go to the computer and look up the score I had in a folder there. I was literally about to get up from bed and walk to my computer when the insight flashed:

 

“There’s no potato.”

 

Not in that game, anyway. Certainly in the “One Potato, two potato” game, but while the dream mind is endlessly mysterious in its associations, it is wholly unreliable in relaying literal truth. 

 

So now I am awake and ready to plot and plan my classes with my conscious mind, while the mysterious, deep waters below continue to churn and add their voice to the mix.  

Homage to John Steinbeck

As a lifelong reader, I know what separates, for me, good fiction from great literature. Both depend upon memorable characters and compelling plots. But the latter infuse it all with deep insight into the human condition and some implied or stated faith in the perfectibility of humanity. Not idealism, but hard-earned grace having traveled the long road of human error and fallibility.

 

Two of my favorite authors who do that masterfully are Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck. It is harder to find these qualities in modern writers, but Barbara Kingsolver comes close. Today when I stumbled into a collection of quotes from Steinbeck, I couldn’t help but remember his genius. 

 

The first four speak directly to my profession of teaching (though only the last one intentionally). Here they are, with my short comments. 

 

 

 

I’m about to record a podcast titled “M is for Mistakes” and this well describes my approach to creating a safe space where one can take risks without fear of doing things perfectly.

I’d like to think that my passion for defending teachers and children is unapologetically a roar and not a squeak.

 

 

Substitute “teacher” for writer and “education” for literature and ain’t that the truth!

 

 

Yep!

 

The next series of quotes speak directly to our troubled times. Politicians, take note. Resisters, take hope!

 

 

All the news shows is the weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome, but there is so much more and we usually meet it out in the street when we rally. 

 

 

 Teachers, hang this in your classroom and teach accordingly. 

Though easy to lose sight of in the barrage of outrage, I feel it happening. Stay together, friends, and knit the garment of resistance!

 

I cannot wait for the funerals of so many! Please hurry up and leave this planet so we can get to work to care for it. 

 

Thank you, John Steinbeck, for your needed reminders. 

Inside the Chrysalis

One of the xylophone pieces we learned in Ghana was about a caterpillar and her grandmother who always came home late at night. I made up a story about it for teachers to consider using in a little drama with the kids. As follows: 

 

Caterpillar Grandma goes out every night and leaves her granddaughter home alone. She walks slowly home with her friend enjoying the evening and each other’s company and arrives quite late. (Xylophone music and supporting part at medium slow tempo, with song.) The granddaughter was nervous being home alone and asks her grandmother why she was so late, pleading with her to come home earlier the next night. So the next night the grandmother walks just a little bit faster (Xylo music). The granddaughter is still upset and so the next night, the grandmother walks faster yet. (Xylo music) but still gets there a little late. Finally, the last night she runs home (very fast xylo music) and the granddaughter hugs her in relief and asks, “Where did you go every night?” The grandmother answers, “I went to a nearby village and I learned how to weave and now I have a gift for you. “ (Reveals a beautiful fabric and wraps it around the granddaughter). 

 

That originally was the end of my little story, but then I added this: 

 

This cloth will be your cocoon and if you wear it every day for the next few 

weeks, you will come out as a butterfly and fly! 

And that reminded me of a composition project I did with kids some 30 years ago based on a poem called Chrysalis Diary. It got me interested in looking up that transition from caterpillar to butterfly. And here is one explanation I found:

 

A cocoon is a protective casing, typically made of silk, that some insects, like caterpillars, spin around themselves during the pupa stage of their development. It provides a safe space for the insect to transform into its adult form. The term "cocoon" can also be used metaphorically to describe anything that provides protection or isolation. 

 

A caterpillar transforms into a butterfly through a fascinating process called metamorphosis. The caterpillar, after eating and growing, forms a chrysalis (or pupa). Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar's body undergoes a dramatic reorganization, breaking down and rebuilding into the form of a butterfly. Finally, the adult butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. 

 

And so. We are all creatures of meaning and I seem particularly obsessed with trying to make sense of whatever is happening, put things in a larger mythological context that supports my intuition that we are meant to evolve and live lives worthy of our spiritual promise. These two terms of the Orangeman’s regime have been maddening on multiple levels and causing real physical and life-threatening damage to so many innocent people. But it also has been so hard to understand why all the things we set in motion back in the late 60’s and early 70’s that aimed for inclusion, ecological sustainability, compassion, justice, love, beauty and more good stuff suddenly are being washed away in a flood worse than what’s happening in Texas now. 

 

So I’m always looking for hopeful clues that there is a deeper layer of meaning that will eventually redeem all the horror. That as a species we need something more than business as usual to become who we are meant to be. And it struck me that the caterpillar to butterfly metaphor is as good as any image to keep hope alive. 

 

At the same time that we need to be crawling along out in the world in our caterpillar form, many of us are realizing that we need some time to isolate to both protect the delicate threads of Soul within us and begin to grow into something else. I am particularly struck by the way the caterpillar body breaks down the tissues of its body and completely reforms them into a new physical form that will allow it to fly away. Perhaps that is what is happening as we shelter inside the cocoon of art and meditation and gathering with loved ones and like-minded ones. It’s a time to complete reform who we have been and build our new body of Spirit and Soul to fly forth in freedom. 

 

Think about it. 

Home Sweet Home

After some 18 hours of travel and one-hour of airplane sleep, I had a series of little challenges getting back from the airport to my home. A growing number of people— me included— are coming to understand that it’s not what happens to you that counts, but how you respond to it. Whether it’s a 4-alarm disaster, a series of small annoyances or winning the lottery, we are responsible for our own reactions and the more consciously we can be aware of them, the less of a grip they have on us.  We can learn to greet them all with equanimity instead of being tossed hither and thither by the apparently random slings and arrows of fortune, outrageous and otherwise. Which doesn’t mean covering our feelings, as a fellow high school alum described in a poem, by putting “meditation bandaids on whatever feelings were seething under the surface.” Feel the feelings, groan with displeasure, shout with rage, whoop with exultation as appropriate, but also step back a bit and note them mindfully as waves on the surface of deep, calm waters. 

 

So I grunted my annoyance at the airport and then finally riding BART back home, wrote a blogpost trying to express my little story as eloquently as I could, with minimal whining and a touch of amusement. That helped. Then went to work getting the notes to my xylophone classes done and that helped yet more—work is always a great way to refine one’s focus and attend to the things one can control amidst all that we can’t. 

 

Now back home after a three-hour horizontal sleep, an unpacked suitcase, a food shopping trip and soon, my reunion with the piano. Should I publish my little account I wrote about the airport? No, I should not. The story, a variation of things we all have experienced, is not of particular interest. But the point of how to respond to it might be. Or not. As you will.

 

Meanwhile, from sleeping shirtless under a ceiling fan and days of walking barefoot while teaching, playing and dancing at the White Dove Hotel in Ghana, I’m back in blue jeans and jacket and napping under three layers of blankets in the windy, San Francisco fog. No surprise, wholly expected and though I prefer less clothes and relieving the skin of its border guard duty, I’m okay with it. It’s part of my home, as will be the first green salad I’ve had in weeks. Then the first TV I've seen in weeks, Inspector Morse to try to recognize the sights in Oxford where it is filmed and where we visited. Maybe with the heat turned on. 

 

 

Leaving Dzodze Blues

 The date palm tastes so sweet, but at some point, you have to stop eating it.

-       Ewe Proverb (approximately)

And so we come to the end. Almost 100% participation in one final “Wake Up to Life” morning exercise with Kofi. He chose a beautiful Ghanaian song for guitar and voice as we stretched this way and that and wasn’t it fine to not only awaken the body and integrate the two halves of brain and limbs, but to do it in unison like birds flocking in the vast sky. To release ourselves into the movement of the day, participate in the wonder of creation as the world is made new each morning. 

 

One last breakfast with my daily porridge, irresistible Ghanaian donut wreaking havoc on my belly fat, the always sunny greeting from Paul. Back to the room to pack, bring my suitcase on the bus, grab a guitar and improvise the Leaving Dzodze Blues with my xylophone colleague Aaron on flute:

 

We came to Dzodze (guitar riff) and it’s been fun (riff)

We came to dance and play (riff) and now we’re done. (riff)

We’re feeling so happy (riff) and feeling so sad (riff)

To end the best dang time that we’ve ever had, we got

The leaving Dzodze blues, from our head down to our shoes,

Got the leavin’, leavin’ Dzodze blues. 

 

Etc. 

 

By 10 am, one bus was packed going to Accra and the other going to Ho and another 5 days of touring. Hugs and goodbyes and off we went, imagining the faces of the Nunya kids who had been lined up to greet us a mere two weeks (a couple of lifetimes?) ago. Goodbye, White Dove Hotel! Goodbye, High School! Goodbye, fish in marketplace! Goodbye, Traveler’s Inn! Goodbye, turn-off road to Nunya Academy! 

 

And down the road we went, one person singing Spanish songs, another later medley of Sound of Music songs, the chatter of 21 forever-bonded people, some quiet descending as people napped. Then a stop for some “free-range peeing” out in the fields, another stop at the place we bought snacks when we were entirely different people on our way to the White Dove. Cross the Volta River, shout-outs of “Anthills!” (including the biggest I’ve seen here), slowing down at the police barricades (no, we were not smuggling anything). Finally the signs of the approaching urban Accra and back to the MJ Grand Hotel, again a marker of the very different group of people we were at the same place exactly 14 days ago. Most here to leave their luggage until we grab taxis to the airports for our 10:30 flights. 

 

Some went off to the Arts Market, one to a Mall, some just walking around the neighborhood. I sat with 5 people in front of the big-screen TV with soccer games playing, sharing beers, a little food, and more stories from our lives. 5:00 pm now and I moved to the pool (but with bathing suit packed away) to get a break from the distraction of the screen, seated at a table under a thatched roof, watching the lovely couple playing a game of flipping plastic water bottles while the pool water shimmers and a light breeze brings its blessing of cool air. Life is grand. 

As for the big dramatic wrap-up, what more can I say that I haven’t already? Just my customary immense gratitude for the extraordinary hospitality and generosity of the Ghanaian people, the immersion in complex, dynamic, energetic, joyous and life-affirming music and dance, the company of such stellar human beings sharing the craft of music teaching. Thanks for it all! Including the gift of health, just one short moment of “funny tummy” and my little motorcycle burn. No dizziness this whole time (though this is precisely where that little syndrome started two years ago). 

 

My big takeaway from the entire eight weeks of remarkable travels, from the first night in Paris, to the Dordognes bike ride, to more Paris and London and Oxford and hiking in the Cotswolds to London again, workshop and lovely days with a new friend, to workshops in Vienna, Salzburg and Linz and more reunions with people I care deeply for and of course, Ghana, is perhaps best stated by this passage from W.B. Yeats:

 

                        When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,

                    Everything we look upon is blest.

What lies ahead? No need to anticipate the challenge of returning into the belly of the beast. Just allow myself to look forward to the reunion with my wife and daughter, some friends I have walk dates with, two sessions at The Jewish Home, salads, hazy IPA beer and dark chocolate, my piano and Bach and Jazz. Nine bows to it all and on we go.

Pool Party and Fashion Show

 

“Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary…
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.”

-       Walt Whitman

 Today was the last official day of Orff Afrique. After a morning of reviewing all drumming, dancing, singing, games and xylophone pieces, we had a videotaping session where Kofi reviewed words to songs and drum patterns and such one by one. After all, we are all teachers committed to remembering at least some of what we’ve learned here and bringing it back into our classrooms.

 

For much of my life, I’ve been graced with moments when the world stops and I look on as if from the outside, in it, not wholly in it but savoring the scene. When the video review was finished, we headed to the pool and that’s the moment when some part of me stepped outside myself and watched the groups of people so joyfully talking and laughing and posing for photos and floating around together in the pool and toasting with plastic cups of beer. People might have come here for “professional development,” but in the end, most have forged friendships that will carry on far into the future, wholly bonded together by mutually experiencing what so many have said is the most remarkable two weeks of their lives. 

 

From the pool to a “fashion show” where people showed off the various clothes they had the local tailors make. The colors were vibrant and designs dazzling and the energy of watching people strut their stuff in their new outfits just pure fun. At the end, several sub-groups gathered to take photos and I was so pleased to be asked to pose with the 5 people who took my New Orleans Jazz Course last year, the 3 people who took my San Francisco Jazz Course two years ago, the 2 people who I had taught at the Special Course in Salzburg, the 1 person who took my Tennessee Jazz Course. There were 3 people who took Level III together with me one year and 2 more from another year. There were another 5 or so who had done workshops with me as long as 25 years ago. Many acknowledged that their presence in Ghana was due to me announcing the course and enticing them to consider it. 

 

So watching that scene at the pool and again at the Fashion Show, I felt blessed that my work has opened doors for people into places that they’ve come to cherish and put them together with people they’ve come to cherish. That brings a grand satisfaction to me and it happens year after year in so many courses I give. Some of the people I teach become my genuine friends, but for many, I’m somewhat apart and just enjoying watching them enjoy each other. I’m sure being old enough to be some of the participants’ grandfather is part of the dynamic, but at the same time, I’m perfectly comfortable hanging out with 25-year-olds, especially if they’re musicians or music teachers. 

 

We had a lovely closing circle, ending with a needed hug line—well, hug circle— even though we still have one more “Wake Up to Life” exercise routine tomorrow morning, breakfast and a couple of hours before one bus takes half of us to Accra and the other heads to Ho for a one-week extended Ghana tour. I’m on the Accra bus, poised to fly home tomorrow night. 

 

But first, my last sleep under a ceiling fan before I return to a foggy San Francisco. Good night. 

  

The African Queen

The film The African Queen is on my list of top 25 favorite movies. I’m sure there are parts I would cringe at now as it’s in the genre of Africa as backdrop to the European invaders front-line story. But the chemistry of Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn and an edge-of-seat plot is part of its memorability. But there is one extraordinary scene that stands out above all. For me, it’s a metaphor for life’s dark moments and I find myself returning to it time and again in my mind’s eye when in need. And that time is certainly now.

 

The African Queen is the name of a boat and Bogart and Hepburn are trying to escape coming disaster by going down a river to reach safety in a nearby lake. The river is filled with leeches and gets narrower and narrower, choked in the surrounding jungle. They finally get literally bogged down in a bog of sorts, neither able to move forward or back. Night comes and in the depths of despair, they have no choice but to accept their doom. 

 

In that moment, the camera pans up and out and we see that the lake they’ve been seeking is literally a mere hundred yards away or so. They are wholly ignorant of how close it is and again, are resigned to their fate. 

 

And then. During the night, the rain comes and lifts them from their stuck position and floats them out to the lake. They awaken in the morning to their miraculous salvation. 

 

That image has sustained me time and time again and I hope against hope that it may be the perfect metaphor for where we are. The f’in’ Senate and House have driven us deeper down into the bog, those “who live like leeches on the people’s lives” (from a Langston Hughes poem) keep shamelessly sucking the blood from their fellow citizens and selling our democracy to the highest bidder— on the day before the 4^th of July, no less! Those of us fighting for life and love and freedom and justice feel overwhelmed by our country’s apparent fate, stuck in the bog and sinking down into oblivion. 

 

So I offer this image, the visual equivalent of the night is darkest just before the dawn. We can’t see it, but the open waters of freedom and redemption are just around the bend and while we must continue to make every effort to keep the boat moving, it is the blessing of the rain from the other world that finally frees us. Whether or not this will be literally true is anybody’s guess, but better to keep hope alive any way we can. Pan up and out and see that the healing waters await us. On this day that I write, Louis Armstrong’s mythological birthday, may it be so!