Nina's Blog

it's snow wonder

2010-02-09T01:52:00.008-05:00

Perhaps now is a good time to talk about excess. The snow last Tuesday night was lovely, muting the harsh tones of civilization without dulling its overall hum. The Baltimore Sun even ran a front page story congratulating all of us for not folding under the press of 5+ inches of snow.

Then there was the Shabbat snowstorm: 20-30 inches of snow. Power outages; heavy, wet stuff that hung on anything and everything; plows that strained; emergency crews who worked til exhaustion. Plowed drifts 10 feet high, blocking the view of on-coming cars. Never mind those streets that have not yet been plowed.

Still and all, we are doing what needs to be done: neighbor helping neighbor; opening and closing buildings, establishments and programs as appropriate; rescheduling life; kids and adults lavishing their unrestrained joy on the well-packed surface of this ephemeral playland.

But just as we were getting used to the scene, the driving, the drifts, more snow! What will we do? How will we handle it? Where will we put it all? Can our roofs support it? How will the homeless, who are used to the more temperate winters of seasons past, cope? This cannot be good. (Well, one good thing I can think of at the moment is that if the snow melts well, we should not have to worry about a drought this summer, neither those of us on public water or those of us on private wells.)

Is there in all of this, then, a lesson about too-muchness, excess, on the one hand and satiety, enoughness, on the other?

Like snow, commodities like food, money, leisure, space, cars, all seem like wonderful things at first. In some ways, if we believe that a little bit is good, then a lot would be great. We are seduced into the false logic of the-more-the-merrier.

True, it is hard to imagine, sometimes, how more money can be a burden; how too much leisure can lead to lethargy; how too much space can lead to emotional distance. But it can. We are not built for excess. If too much is around, we often turn gluttonous and wary, protective and ugly, difficult to please, unable to say, "Enough. I am full". Despite the popular vision of Paradise being a place of unearned bounty, in both creation stories, Genesis 1 and 2, the humans had to work for their survival. Nothing was just given to them.

Study after study shows us that, after the threshold of fundamental needs is met, additional wealth, additional stuff, does not yield additional happiness. Just the opposite.

There is much talk lately of the family that sold its over-sized house, donated half the proceeds to charity and now live a more fulfilling, shared and engaged life in a smaller home.

A friend of mine who recently lost her job is now making a living de-cluttering people's homes! We are constrained by too much, even in a time of recession. We become paralyzed and cannot recognize what to keep and what to throw away. We come to see that we can own too much and still have too little. Like the snow drifts, too much stuff can compromise our view, block our vision, hide the sight of the other coming toward us. Piles that are too big prevent us from getting to all the stuff we own. We can only access the latest stuff that we can reach on top. The treasures that lay buried underneath are not only inaccessible, they are most likely totally forgotten.

It is only when clearing excess away - perhaps even giving it away to those with too little - that we can reach and use all the riches we have.

There is a concept we have spoken about here before: sova, enoughness, fullness on just the right amount. Sova is not about restraint or sacrifice. Sova is about not needing more, or wanting more, or having room for more, because we experience the sense of fullness. We stop wanting more when we are full. Market consultants tell retailers to have large shopping baskets and carts strategically distributed throughout the store, not just at the entrance. People, they explain, tend to stop shopping when their carts are full. The bigger the cart, the longer road to "fullness," the more people will buy.

I believe we are born with a healthy, modest, appropriate set of appetites. Watch a baby eat - they stop when they are full. Life, however, teaches us to stretch our appetites, build and fill a bigger closet, keep up with the Joneses. This inexhaustible capacity for a never-ending, ever-growing appetite is one source of our endless unease. How can we know happiness if we are always plagued by an unfulfilled desire for more?

But to know sova, that sense of enoughness, that sense of satisfaction, is to enjoy a sense of fullness, of calm and purpose. It is, spiritually, to be able to reclaim the way we choose to spend our energies, not in the pursuit of excess determined by the other, a vacuous pursuit that buries what we already have in an endless grab for more, but rather, in a vibrant pursuit of discovery (of self, other and the wonders of the world), of true relationship, of curiosity, healthy progress, and adventures that bring true joy to ourselves and those around us. And in the process, in consuming less, we may discover that there may just be enough stuff for everyone to have enough, and true joy for us at the of the day.

a shoveled walkway

2010-02-07T09:26:00.006-05:00

For Sid.

With all due deference to the place of privilege conferred upon the eyes, I profoundly believe that our actions also serve as true windows to the soul.

An example: Take a look at your to-do list and see what items get done first. Barring true emergencies or drop-dead deadlines, most of us choose to do the things we like best, or detest least, or are the easiest to accomplish or otherwise offer a low threshold of resistance. We do not always attend to those that are most important, even most urgent, or most responsible. In other words, we do what we most want, not what we most should.

Relatedly, I know that no matter how much I protest that I really am feeling better (as I did time and again this week after being felled by a hat-trick of ailments), it is only when I start cleaning up that you know health is on the way. If I say I am better and prove it by going into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea, bad news. But if I go into the kitchen, grab the broom and start sweeping, or grumble while washing the dirty dishes left in the sink, then you know I am on the mend.

Which leads me to the following question: what am I to make of the fact that the first thing I did this morning after but 2 hours sleep (our electricity went out from 6:30 a.m. Saturday til 4:00 a.m. Sunday and there was lots to do to make sure the house stayed warm and the family comfortable and the food didn’t spoil) was bundle up, grab the shovel and clear my front walk? Mind you, the street was only moderately drivable, my driveway was impassable, piled high with snow, and, to state the obvious, we were not expecting any company. But there I am, at 7:30 a.m., battling with the well-packed snow, clearing a path no bigger than the shovel is wide, along the 35 feet or so of my front walk.

(By the way, if you ever wondered how the Eskimo can build their igloos out of snow, the weekend storm offered the perfect answer. You could literally cut the snow into blocks. That is how I shoveled it. In chunks sliced off at the edge, like serving a huge birthday cake. So imagine if the snow were colder and denser and had more time to set. This weekend’s snow would have made fabulous igloo material. And I can attest to its insulating power. We went without a heating source for 12 hours on Shabbat and lost only five degrees of heat during the entire time, no doubt due to the blessing of snow on our roof. Many of us may have smaller energy bills this month because of the snow. Now we just have to worry about it melting.)

My son emerged from his room close to noon, glanced at the shoveled walk that led to nowhere, and asked me, incredulously as only a 17 year old can, “What were you thinking?”

It was a reasonable question. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking; I was just doing.

My husband suggested I shoveled the walk because I couldn’t get to the gym, which didn’t open till midday today (and besides, we were still snowed in).

And there may be some truth in that. But here is what I also think, more altruistically, contributed to my decision: the need for neighbors and neighborliness multiplies during snowstorms.

If we have strength and health, shelter and company, food and a source of warmth, light and security, we can settle in, hunker down and enjoy the show. But if we do not, snowstorms can be frightening, lonely and dangerous. To know that there is someone down the road whom you can count on, someone across the street who will dig you out, someone whose door is open to you should you need them, is to turn a potential terror into a fun family story for the ages.

I know several neighborhoods, cul de sacs mainly, that have a tradition of gathering in one of the homes on snow days and power outages. Everyone brings something: food, a game,a buoyant attitude, and the group celebrates this time-out-of-time together.

Then there are my dear friends who spent much of the day digging out elderly and sickly neighbors. Their caring and company were as valuable as the tangible results of their kindness. To know you are remembered when least able to be seen, to know that despite being unable to give back you are deemed worthy of being given to, is to feel loved, unconditionally. That is what we all seek.

Yet it is hard to show that during normal times. As benefactors, we hardly have the time to give. As recipients, we wonder with skepticism at the generosity of the benefactor. So how wonderful that snowstorms provide both the time and the circumstance that allows this social exchange, this knitting together of proximate lives that too often are lived apart.

My neighborhood is not conducive to personal shoveling. The driveways are too large; the seasonal contracts for plowing have long been signed. But the one thing I can do is signal this intent of caring, of symbolizing the open-home to any who need it. And to hope that others will signal the same for me in my time of need.

In the Talmud we read that during mealtimes, Rabbi Yehudah would hang a napkin outside his home signaling to all who were hungry that dinner was being served and there was a place ready for them at the table. We no longer live in such mixed neighborhoods, nor are we at ease inviting such others into the intimate places of our homes. But my shoveled walkway was meant to signal something similar: that despite the apparent barriers society throws up, despite the emotional distance so many of us place between ourselves, it is good to know that perhaps deep down, our homes are always open to those in need of warmth, a bowl of soup, a comfortable chair, a tender heart, and a listening ear.

in praise of kindling

2010-02-04T17:17:00.004-05:00

It wasn't until I got my new wood-burning stove that I learned to appreciate the value of kindling. You know: tinder. Those small pieces of wood we generally overlook, kick aside or sweep away when they fall on our front walks. Several friends have shared with me stories of finding their preferred wood vendors; the secret art of stacking wood; the pros and cons of pellet vs wood stoves. But only one mentioned kindling to me.

She knew that there is pride in starting a fire with just one strike of the match. But to do that requires more than dry logs and bits of crumbled newspaper. The experienced fire-maven knows that the secret to a good start is good tinder. The twigs have to be big enough not to be consumed in a flash of flame, but they also have to be flammable enough to catch with just a whiff of intense heat. Brittle twigs with dry pine needles attached are the fire-tender's philosopher's stone. They turn brown waste into golden flames. Using wood saturated with an accelerant or other chemical fire-starter is cheating. (Not that I am above cheating every now and then, but it is hardly something I aspire to.)

If all goes well, the paper lights; the tinder catches; the twigs burn; the smallest logs heat and you are off and running.

Early on in my wood-stove career, I skimped on the kindling. I built my wood mound with lots of paper; the slenderest of logs and then the bigger logs. Needless to say, the stove and I did not bond. The fires weren't strong; they petered out; and I got frustrated. It was only when I tended well not only to the logs but also and especially to the tinder that the fires roared and my relationship with the stove ignited.

I am still discovering what my stove likes and doesn't like, and what I need to do to get the most out of it, but learning to tend well to the tinder was a huge first step.

That would have been grist enough for a blog, but then, I was sent this article by a new friend from, of all places, Grist. (The article comes from Grist, not the friend.)

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-01-how-personal-actions-can-kick-start-a-sustainability-revolution/print/PALL

The article begins this way: "The environmental movement is divided over the importance of small steps — are they a critical starting point or a distraction from needed policy and institutional changes?"

This may be a new question to the environmental movement but the answer is age-old wisdom to the religious community: tend to the details. Mind the small stuff. Develop the habit.

The article, thankfully, comes to the same conclusion.

The authors focus on three impulses that build on the small stuff:

(1) People like to feel virtuous, and doing something small that connects them to something large makes them feel virtuous. If we can give people small acts that are expressions of grand values, they will not only be likely to act accordingly but feel good about doing so. That then begins a feedback loop where they want to do more good so they can feel better about themselves and so on and so on.

(2) "People [seek to] justify their past actions according to their values." Sometimes that means we change our behavior to endorse or live our values. Other times it means we change our narrative to match and support our behavior.

(3) Which explains how "daily conscientious actions can cement a gradual shift in our deepest values."

In short, we become what we do. I know this flies in the face of our popular understanding of Ginott, that we should not conflate the behavior and the child. And that is true when the behaviors we are talking about are episodic and rare. But when behavior becomes habitual, it is likely to express who we are. Indeed we become the personality we act.

Which is why we have to sweat the small stuff. And which is why getting started up this mountain of environmental behavior can be so easy. We just need to begin with one, repetitive, accessible step, which we can justify in light of a greater, indeed global cause. We can choose recycling or turning out lights or air drying our laundry. Whatever we choose, as long as we do it consistently (which is why giving once a year to an environmental cause is not as powerful or transforming an act), will shape the person we become.

Acts are like tinder. We cannot get from cold to hot, inert to inspired without it. So find your tinder, see how it fits in the overall vision of values, and set your match to it.

dispatch from the woods

2010-02-03T04:53:00.004-05:00

Once again I am at the cabin, a solitary refuge tucked away in the woods. And once again, the woods do not disappoint. Indeed this time, they outdo themselves. For six hours, the skies showered them with snow. For six hours, the trees stood like so many buoyant children, heads tilted upward, arms outstretched, welcoming, delighting in, the snow.

Looking outside now, I can see that I am surrounded by mounds of the glinting, gleaming, glistening freshly fallen stuff. At moments such as these, the woods are enchanting, seductive, alluring. They are calm, serene, still, deep, soothing, healing. It is hard to cease praising them. From the base of their sturdy trunks to the very tips of their delicate limbs, they are draped in their snow-dappled mantle. In their quiet majesty, they subdue and overwhelm. For the moment, they are all that exists. I can see no other house but mine; no road; no hint of humanity beyond my own.

If the woods were not so lovely, they would be threatening. It is they who have the power. I am their supplicant. They are my guardians. I am their guest. Quite different from what we experience back in the paved-over, built-up, rushed-through environment of civilization, where we reign, or so we think, and at our best act as guardians of the trees. We know what we are like at our worst.

But perhaps the woods here look so lovely because I am warm and snug inside. I am tucked away in the cabin, while the woods remain safely out there. As long as I stay here, they cannot menace me, cannot lead me deep into their thickening midst, or turn me around and cause me to lose my way. They cannot suddenly loose a bear or wolf on me. They cannot cause me to fall into a root pit camouflaged with the cover of snow.

Paradoxically, my inside refuge comes from them as well. For this cabin is made from them. The walls are pine logs, rough on the outside and shaved and finished on the inside. The floor is hickory; the cabinets cherry. It is wood that protects me from the woods. The tamed protecting me from the wild.

And yet, there is something wonderful, at this safe remove, to be able to feel the fear of the wild that the woods once caused our ancestors. I remember as a child, sitting in the suburbs of Pikesville, listening to “Peter and the Wolf” and wondering where such a terrifying, wonderful place as those woods could be. Surely not among the well-mown lawns of our neighborhood. What would it have felt like to know nature that way! What have we lost by shielding ourselves from such feelings.

But the truth is, nature still can ambush us unexpectedly. Haiti is only the latest, tragic reminder of that. How much more prepared would we be practically, how much richer spiritually, how much more sated economically, how much more inventive scientifically if we could once again experience the awesome rawness of nature.

So to be in the woods, able to reach out and touch the edges of nature’s raw wildness and the terror it conjures up, all the while risking little to myself, is a rare joy, and a valuable lesson.

It will be light soon. The animals will be stirring and the mystery of the woods will recede. I better go find my boots.

unripe fruit

2010-01-30T19:25:00.010-05:00

I celebrated Tu B'shvat, the festival of the trees that coincided with Shabbat this year, by reading a most charming book. It is a slim volume, all of 117 pages, written originally in Czech, and first published in Prague in 1929. The author is Karel Capek. The book is called The Gardener's Year. It is a joyous romp through the emotional highs, lows and obsessions of the constant gardener. So endearing was this book that it was translated into English in 1931 by M and R Weatherall, and reprinted as a part of the Modern Library Gardening Series in 2002, with no less a series editor than Michael Pollan.

It was in the midst of this light-hearted diversion that I bumped into a powerful insight. Here is the set-up. Imagine gliding smoothly through Capek's easy prose, reading along about how a hapless gardener must wrestle with an obstinate garden hose.

It will soon be clear that until it is tamed a hose is an extraordinarily evasive and dangerous beast, for it contorts itself, it jumps, it wriggles, it makes puddles of water, and dives with delight into the mess it has made; then it goes for the man who is going to use it and coils itself round his legs; you must hold it down with your foot, and then it rears and twists round your waist and neck, and while you are fighting with it as with a mighty cobra, the monster turns up its brass mouth and projects a mighty stream of water through the windows on to the curtains which have been recently hung.

When, not a page later, I am ambushed by this observational gem:

Odd as it may appear, a gardener does not grow from seed, shoot, bulb, rhizome, or cutting, but from experience, surroundings, and natural conditions. When I was a little boy I had towards my father's garden a rebellious and even a vindictive attitude, because I was not allowed to tread on the beds and pick the unripe fruit. Just in the same way Adam was not allowed to tread on the beds and pick the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, because it was not yet ripe; but Adam - just like us children - picked the unripe fruit, and therefore was expelled from the Garden of Eden; since then the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge has always been unripe.

Who knew? The first humans were not, according this Capek midrash, forever forbidden access to this most desirable of fruits, this conveyor of the complete corpus of wisdom and knowledge. Nor were we, their unimagined offspring generations hence, damned to a life of naive innocence and solipsistic ignorance. What good news! For I have always been disturbed by the thought that our idyllic vision of paradise was one in which progress and development played no part; one which did not allow the full dignity of humanity to mature and flourish.

Rather, to push Capek's midrash one step further, the problem was simply, regrettably, and profoundly, that neither the fruit nor the humans were yet ready for their mutual encounter. Both were still very young, in the throes of their own becoming. Both were busy gathering in experiences, nutrients and essences that would build the substance and scaffolding of their bodies. Both were busy filling out, plumping up and putting flesh on these foundations that would become and define their full being. This is delicate and intricate work that does not want to be rushed or interrupted.

But, according to Capek, that is exactly what happened. In the midst of becoming, the fruit was plucked, frozen in an unripe state, and ingested by an unripe body. The act of incorporating knowledge, literally bringing it into our bodies and making it one with us, was forever premature, incomplete.

So it remains to this very day. We are bombarded with raw knowledge, unripened, and indigestible. We are forced to act before we understand what we are doing:

How shall we manage the awesome power of atomic energy?
What are the ethics of cloning animals, body parts, whole persons?
When does genetically modified food mimic the healthy evolutionary traits of nature and when does it slide into the grotesque world of dangerous mutants?
Is it proper for new forms of life to be privately owned and patented?
How does one blend the equitable distribution of goods and services with the functioning of a free market?

Complete, ripened knowledge eludes us at every frontier. We are forced to deliberate, decide and function with ignorance fully in hand. Still, we bound on ahead. Like Adam and Eve, we will not be restrained. We have no choice. Ready or not, we will eat the fruit. And we will again be banished from the sheltering arms of certitude and complete knowing. That is our calling. It makes no sense to rail against such imperfection.

Acknowledging this, though, helps remedy it. We will no doubt be better off if, with each new discovery, we remember that we are again cast a bit further beyond the center of Eden. Success, and survival, demand that we proceed together, with humility, hard work, and eyes wide open.

the light of tu b'shvat

2010-01-29T02:41:00.011-05:00

I write these words as the world around me is bathed in the soothing, flowing light of the full moon. No wonder most of the Jewish holidays fall mid-way along the moon's monthly trek. When the sky is cleared of clouds, allotting the moon full reign of the heavens, its light shines down upon us like pearls, poured from a jug, that break and splash upon hitting earth. Silently, the light bounces and spreads, gently subduing the realm of darkness. The light is pale and thin, true, but also cool and sure, allowing us to peer just enough into the unknown to calm our night fears.

An architectural peculiarity of my house makes me especially fond of this time of night, at this time of the month. When the full moon is high in the sky, just about half-way along its nightly journey, its light floods through a skylight into my bathroom, filling the tub with its ethereal essence. It almost appears as if the tub were awash in lunar water, the very stuff that could establish the moon as an hospitable outpost for human space explorations. So real it sometimes seems that I want to call NASA and say, here it is. Lunar water exists after all. Come, gather it up for yourselves.

The light, though beckoning, is also sometimes cruel, alluring with its desperately desired but maddeningly elusive gifts of healing. I have often been tempted to climb into the tub, to sink and soak gently in those sacred waters poured from the very pools of heaven, reaching back to the first moments of the world's creation. What ailment could not be cured by those primordial waters, when earth and heaven were one? What pains and sorrows could not be washed away?

These thoughts and feelings are magnified on this particular full moon of Shvat, for this month marks the turning of the seasons, when the sap begins to rise in the trees in Israel and the almond blossoms begin to bud. This full moon of Shvat is a herald that the back of the winter has been scaled and spring is now upon us. So even if, come break of day, we see there is no such thing as lunar water, even if the celestial blessings of rebirth are not ours, the earthly blessings of renewal are.

What more can we ask for?

sawing wood

2010-01-27T03:39:00.004-05:00

I am looking forward to Sunday. If the weather cooperates, I am hoping to spend a few hours collecting my windfall of tree limbs that the weekend storm delivered. And if it is not too cold, for either me or the wood, I hope to saw many of the limbs into stove-sized fuel.

There is something compellingly intimate about sawing wood. When you saw, you have to hold the wood steady, gently restraining it, feeling it respond, reassuring it, noting where it resists and where it gives. You must avoid the knots and gently work it through. When the pile begins to grow around your feet, you gather up the sections you have cut, cradle them in your arms, and carry them to the woodpile. You then gently place them down, like a sleeping child whom you don't want to wake. (Stacking wood is a whole other spiritual discipline.)

Sawing is a remarkably engaging, full-body experience. Kind of like meditation, I would imagine. No music; no extraneous thoughts; total concentration. And when you are done, there is a rush of instant gratification; instant satisfaction; and physical exhaustion.

One kind of tree populates most of our property: the tulip poplar. I can see why it is a favorite of woodworkers. It is easy to saw and easy to work into cabinets and veneers. The trunks shoot straight up for 50-80 feet without a branch in the way. That's a nice run of wood (though not fun for kids who like to climb trees).

But if the tulip poplar is a sweetheart of a tree to saw, the beech is a bi***.

It is very hard and very dense. I would rather saw 10 poplar branches than one beech. Thankfully, we only have one beech that is big enough to drop branches - so I only had to saw two fallen beech limbs.

And the tree itself is gorgeous - it stands like a sentry in the center isle of our driveway, spreading its shade over half the house in the summer. I don't know what we would do without it.

My nascent apple orchard is still just a gleam in our eyes. One of the three 5-foot trees I planted last summer died. The two that are left are struggling through the winter. We will see if blossoms return in the spring. I bought three more - these are just twigs though - to plant in the spring alongside the larger ones. Perhaps one day they will be gnarled and fruit-filled, if the deer don't get them first.

All this growing personal fascination with trees - and just at the time when a new organization, the Baltimore Tree Trust, is being formed. Baltimore City has a 25% tree canopy cover. That is not enough. It wants and needs to return to 40%. Such a move will improve the social, structural, economic, spiritual, and physical health of the city and its residents. The BTT is designed to make that happen. I will report back to you with more information as this initiative grows. It will need our help.

windfalls

2010-01-25T20:17:00.004-05:00

In the midst of my wandering compass-less through the narrative tracts of wilderness (Genesis 1) and Eden (Genesis 2), comes a storm. Last night, the wind kicked up to 50 miles per hour, the rain pelted the earth and tropical warmth swept through our wintry air. I stood outside for a brief moment in the middle of the night, and discovered I had fallen into a coven of trees celebrating their arboreal sabbath. Their branches were freely swaying, in a melodic, care-free, unfrenzied, way. It was clear that at that moment, I was the trespasser, the visitor, on their property, when usually it is the other way around.

I was enchanted and awed by the wanton callousness, blitheness, of nature. It cared not about the seasons, or whether we had had our fill of rain, or the fragility of our power lines or the unimpeded necessity of roads. It did not care about long-distance truck drivers or anxious mothers or vigilant, over-worked repairmen.

The storm just raged on. Actually, rage is not the right word. This storm was not an angry storm. It had no attitude, no point to make, nothing it wanted to prove. It was just a storm that did what it was meant to do: blow things around. To be in its midst, in its simple rawness, was to be in the wilderness, if even for a moment.

Humility overwhelms us when faced with such a storm. We can do nothing to stop it; it will cease only in its own time, demanding its own price. It will rearrange the world we have created at its whim. It reminds us that despite the blessing of Genesis 1 when we are given the calling to "master the wilds," we can never really do that.

Yet, if we can't master the wilds, we can learn from it. And we can become better masters, of both ourselves and the natural world around us, by tending well to such lessons. How wonderful it is to match our pace to the earth's; to count the minutes of the day by the arc of the sun as much as by the face of a clock; to breathe in and out in sync with the wind; to match our pulse to the rhythm of the tides.

Our civilized lives are richer for having been in the presence of the rawness of nature. Our inventions, constructions, productions are better for being modeled on the 4 billion years of experimentation nature has already invested in life.

I went out the next morning and discovered a quieter, if messier, world. The ground was littered with branches, those over-wrought limbs from the celebration of the night before. A windfall for me, I thought. I will gather them up and saw them and burn them in my wood-burning stove. I have come to greatly appreciate these windfall offerings; these unearned, surprise and warmly welcome gifts that come after nature's modest, self-indulgent, blow-out.

But I also realize that the practical lessons of living in the presence and company of nature is a windfall that we too often overlook, and one of even more enduring, and pleasurable, value.

on gardens and wilderness: R P Harrison

2010-01-19T00:18:00.006-05:00

Although he doesn't even know my name, Robert Pogue Harrison is my new best friend. He first won my heart with his book on Forests: the shadow of civilization which shows that the way forests are depicted in art, literature and popular imagination sheds light on the passions, desires and fears of that civilization. Over time, forests have alternatively been portrayed as refuge, horror, public, private, sacred, profane, alluring, repelling, nurturing, and murderous; all of this being much more a window into a society's collective psyche than the nature of the woods.

Harrison reminds us, for we seem to continually forget, that we would hardly know ourselves without nature. For among all its other attributes, nature is a broad, reflective pond, showing us who we think we are, and what it is we think we are doing here. It is a mirror of our sometimes restless, sometimes peaceful spirituality, bouncing back to us now the enchantment, now the terror, of our existence. There is, therefore, nothing natural in the way we speak about nature. And if we are to truly understand ourselves, we should tend well to the ways we speak of, and behave toward, the physical world around us.

Harrison extends this message about the fluid imaging of nature into his next book, Gardens:an essay on the human condition, which I am only half-way through.

But from the very first page, this book helped cast a new light on one aspect the divergent nature of the two creation stories we find in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Most often, when the two chapters are compared, we focus on the differing order of creation, the apparently contradictory divine methods and timing used to bring forth man and woman, and the distinct blessing or calling given by God to the first humans.

But Harrison helps point out another distinction: that in Genesis 1 the humans are placed in a world of wilderness while in Genesis 2 the humans are placed in a protected garden.

There is a world of difference between wilderness and garden, each calling forth different practical and spiritual responses. Which is to say, these two stories should not be read as they often are: as competitive, contradictory, or vacillating in their vision of which is the true story of creation or the true representation of the human condition. Rather, they should be read as the warp and weft of the fabric of life, for it is only with both of them, in wilderness and garden, in rawness and refinement, in vulnerability and mastery, as observer and as tender, that the whole cloth of human existence can be woven.

I will speak more of this in a future post, as the lessons of Harrison's powerful book sink in.

On Tendrils and Avatar

2010-01-15T08:34:00.005-05:00

I recently spent a few days in NYC with my wonderful friend, Linda. She, like so many of us, saw and loved Avatar. I, of course, have my reservations about the film (see previous post). But Linda observed something powerful in the film that I wanted to share with you.

For those who have not seen the movie, I need to fill you in one element, which will not at all be a spoiler so it is safe to keep reading.

The indigenous population on the planet Pandora have long, flowing hair which they braid and let fall down their backs. At the ends of these braids are what can best be described as a cluster of tendrils - loose, gently flowing strands of gossamer.

It was through these tendrils that the natives communicated with the world of nature.

Their mode of rapid transportation was the native birds, and they connected and communicated with their birds by entwining their tendrils with the birds’ tendrils. They offered messages to their most sacred tree by whirling the tendrils around its gracefully drooping branches (much like those of fibre optic threads).

These tendrils reminded Linda of tzitziot, the delicate fringes that grace the four corners of the tallit. That, it seems to me, is a most intriguing thought.

The tallit is a central symbol of the Jewish people. It distinguishes us, carrying in its folds memories and stories of individuals, families and whole communities. In practice, each tallit is worn by only one person, perhaps for a lifetime. Over time, it assumes their identity, personality, smell. When worn over the head, it covers them almost entirely, creating their private, cocooned world. It is a momentary, physical refuge from the world swirling around them.

And yet, they would not be able to breathe if they and the tallit were hermetically sealed, all shut up. They would shrivel, both spiritually and physically, if there were no exchange, no communication between them and the world beyond. It is the fringes, then, the delicate and controlled unraveling at the edges of the garment, that safely create that bridge between them in their inviolable integrity and the world in its fullness. The tzitziot are the tendrils that bond the discrete self with the elements beyond.

Like all else in the natural world, no one individual and no one people can live alone. On the one hand, we must defend our boundaries and borders so we do not go spilling out all over the place. On the other, we must engage and connect with the nurturing and vibrancy that surrounds us. It is in the secrets of managing this exchange, in the details of building and crossing this threshold, that the magic of life is most fully found.

Such an awareness could be the beginning of a response to my third critique, showing us a way to both celebrate our unique tribalism, and celebrate and join with those who are other.

thoughts on avatar

2010-01-10T13:05:00.009-05:00

Avatar is touted by some as an environmental movie, and thus several people encouraged me to see it. And in some ways it is, but not in the most instructive, sophisticated or inspiring of ways.

I see three over-arching themes in this movie, none of which leaves me particularly upbeat:

1) yes, there is an environmental, nature-is-not-commodity message
2) there is an anti-colonial, anti-rapacious bully invader message
3) and there is pro multi-cultural message including cross-racial romance

It is the subtext of these messages, however, that disturbs.
Let's start with the last point:

3) One of the grand messages of the movie is that tribalism is both a blessing and a danger. Allegiance to one's own group is an expected, even necessary, aspect of survival, but it should not be pursued at the expense of demonizing or oppressing or patronizing the other. The movie however fails to show us how we can reach across demographic lines and embrace the other and even love the other, without betraying those we come from, or ourselves. The story depicts a world in which personal identity is either/or, with loyalty to one group leading to alienation from the other. That is hardly a message of hope in this already fractious world. Rather I would have loved to have seen a story that allows us to both take pride in our identities and heritage and transcend our prejudices and commingle in a harmonious civilization.

2) The invaders in the movie - the folks we in the audience first identify with - are depicted as gluttonous interlopers using ugly brute force to steal the natural resources from this foreign land and the land's indigenous inhabitants. In an effort to take what they want simply because they want it, the invaders are prepared to destroy an entire ecological community, including all the living creatures that rely on it, and the civilization that thrives in its midst. You can't argue with the moral message embedded here. It is clear who the good guys and who the bad guys are.

Which is why it is somewhat alarming that right-wing commentators such as John Nolte and John Podhoretz (as reported in the Baltimore Sun) lambast the film precisely on these points. If we cannot recognize and acknowledge the places where we have unleashed our destructive, excessive appetite, then we are a poor and dangerous nation indeed. Thankfully, most movie-goers who have made Avatar the fourth highest grossing movie of all time don't have any trouble telling the good guys from the bad guys.

1) Then we come to the environmental message. Yes, the movie tries to teach us that all creation is bound together in one interwoven network of life, pulsing with a vibrancy that transcends the daily dramas of life and death. But it also seems to tell us that we must choose between advanced civilization: hospitals, stores, mass transportation, literature, museums, etc on the one hand, and living in concert with the rest of nature on the other; that we must either remain happy primitives living directly off the land, relying on our individual and immediate relations with nature to survive, or we will become ruthless, heartless predators consuming all within reach. This is neither an accurate nor helpful message. We needed to see soaring models of both social and ecological flourishing, with the human being fully human living in harmony with other species, races, types and the natural, unhurried flow of the physical world.

It would have been better if James Cameron spent a bit more of his immense talent and money on that.

Reflections on a wood-burning stove

2010-01-03T14:27:00.009-05:00

After two years of contemplating and calculating, day-dreaming and dismissing plans for a wood burning stove, we finally sealed the deal. It was my appeasement, my consolation, over spending way too much money on fixing our house so it wouldn't collapse around us, after discovering that our contractors of ten years ago built the walls so poorly that they were literally rotting out. As they say in Hebrew: im kvar, az kvar (which roughly translates as: if you are already committing so much time/money/effort/emotion to the project, might as well go all the way).

We justify the expense, if not the indulgence, based on the savings on oil costs it will earn us over 2-3 years. Let me say up front, the jury is still out on that. Not because wood stoves don't generally live up to their reputation. But in this particular case, in this particular room (a great room with vaulted ceilings and no doors between it and the rest of the house to seal in the heat), the stove may be more of an aesthetic, complementary accessory than a truly functional appliance. Time will tell.

Except during black outs. We bought the stove with a cooktop so that not only will it give us soothing light and provide sufficient warmth in its immediate vicinity, but it will afford us a cooking surface. We have already made eggs on it, in record time!

So I am not at all unhappy with the purchase. The stove and I just have to bond a bit more, and take the time to learn what makes each other tick; and how to encourage the most out of each other. It is like any other relationship. I am looking forward to the exploration.

In the meantime, I am learning collateral lessons, mainly about wood. One of the selling points of the stove is that we imagine we will not need to purchase firewood for several years, for we live on modestly wooded lot. There are old woodpiles scattered here and there around the property, remnants of past downings of trees. And after a storm, there is literally a windfall: dead limbs and branches that the wind kindly trimmed and brought within our reach.

While the woods are mainly tulip poplar, we also have pine and beech, some maple and even a hickory tree. I am eager to learn about the different qualities of wood: when each kind is dry enough for burning; how well they each burn; for how long; their different weights; how easy they are to cut or saw or split. Just as bakers can tap the underside of a loaf of bread and know if it is done; just as an artist can look at their painting and decide it is complete; just as mechanics can listen to engines purr and know they are tuned just right, so I too want to be able to grasp a piece of wood and know what kind of tree it came from, how long it has been curing, and when best to use it in my stove.

When visiting a neighbor of mine for the first time several years ago, I noticed that he had a dining room table and breakfront made by the famed furniture maker, George Nakashima. His work is unmistakable: clean lines, sensuous curved edges, velvety smooth wood.

Coincidentally, I had just finished reading a book about Nakashima and his work. What captivated me most was not Nakashima's design, lovely as it was, but his attitude toward the creative process, and the very wood itself.

He was of samurai lineage, and believed that cutting a tree was like cutting diamonds.

"The tree is given a chance to come forth with its story and, in that dialogue, teaches something to the woodworker," his daughter, Mira, explains. "Each tree, each part of each tree, has its own particular destiny, its own special yearning to be fulfilled." While that sentiment may be a bit lofty for a log I am going to burn, it nonetheless conjures up an awareness that this log does have a biography; that it may have laid down its first ring the year I got married or had my youngest child, or the year Bill Clinton was elected president.

This log lived through the same natural and emotional storms I did: the last great Baltimore blizzard and Hurricane Isabel - both in 2003, and personal upheavals not fit for this blog. Unlike wood purchased from jobbers, this wood has shared the same space as me, seen the same things I have, for the last 10 years. And now, it is being prepared to be consumed in the space of a few hours in my new ceramic-covered stove.

There is an intimacy knowing that our existence is intertwined. My growing awareness of this wood, on this lot, opens up a deeper appreciation for the majesty of all nature, its gifts to humankind, and our interdependence. It makes more present, and immediate, the work we do to bring humanity and civilization into sync with nature. And it challenges me to continually wonder: what it will take for us to bring to this laboring world both a saving equilibrium among all its creatures, and sova, a grand and enduring sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that guides all that we do?

Broken Signals

2009-12-31T09:47:00.006-05:00

When do you know that a traffic light is broken?

There I was, early this morning, sitting third car back from the intersection waiting for the red light to change. We were on the secondary street, in the snow, at that time of day when traffic light intervals tend to generously favor the primary streets. So it was not unusual for the light to be long. And so it was. Very long. Long enough for daydreams to come and go. Long enough for me to start wondering, if I were the first car in line, would I make a move? Long enough for several cars behind me to swing out and run the light.

But just as the third or fourth car broke through, the cross street light changed to yellow, and soon we had our green. So, it wasn't broken after all. Just delayed. Not even delayed - for it was in sync with its own computerized schedule, just out of sync with ours. It just disappointed our anticipated timetable. So we judged it, all of us impatiently; some of us wrongly.

All of which made me wonder, how do we know when other parts of our lives are no longer working? How can we distinguish between our impatience, our unreasonably hurried timetable responding to life's unpredictable unfolding, and life's true brokenness?

Who is responsible, after all, for setting the timing of life's signals? Who has the right to demand that life unfold in prescribed intervals, acceptable to them? How do we learn to match our rhythm with those around us? How do families, neighbors, nations negotiate their differing paces, urgencies, insecurities?

It is somewhat irresistible to insist that all signals follow a standard, established, timed sequence. It is irresistible to hope that we know for certain when a relationship is done; when our job has run its course; when we should seek another path, another way, another lover. But life doesn't work that way.

So we come back to our initial question: how do we know when something is broken? How do we know that it's time to move, that we've waited too long, or moved too soon? And what happens if we are wrong?

The bottom line is, we cannot always know. Sometimes those around us are the first to see the truth. We can listen to them. But then again, they may be the ones who cannot wait out the green.

Sometimes it doesn't matter if the light is working or not. It may still be taking way too long for us, and we must, for our own sake if not also for that of others, move on.

Then there are other times when we can manage the uncertainty. For the good thing about people, as opposed to traffic lights, is that people can talk, and we can speak with them. And maybe, just maybe, an answer will emerge. But even if not, a bit of adventure, a bit of breaking out of line and challenging the status quo is sometimes just what we, and society, needs. Lord knows, our economy and response to the environment need something radically new.

So, there is mystery in wholeness that appears broken. But then again, there is occasional need to indulge our impatience.

May this coming year bring you insights into these mysteries, guidance in your response to life's signals, and true satisfaction in your life's work.

Loss and Love

2009-12-30T05:22:00.011-05:00

One of the most deeply compassionate and engaging texts about the place of God, the Temple and community in the lives of the Jewish people is found in a little known rabbinic source, almost 2000 years old.

The text speaks about how a visitor is to approach the Temple mount. As with all sacred places, there is an etiquette of expectation guiding how we are to behave there. Such expectations are not meant to constrain us, but rather to prepare us. We do not go to such places to simply pass through as observers, voyeurs. We go to be transported, to see what lies beyond the quotidian, to see what anchors and prods give meaning to life, and to feel how we can connect to them. We go so that we will learn both who we are, and who we can ultimately, and most fully, become.

Let other texts speak about the laws of sacrifices, who brings what, and how the Temple should be cleaned.

This text speaks to the heart of the visitor:

“These are the ones who, when visiting the Temple in Jerusalem, enter by circling around counter-clockwise (everyone else enters clockwise):

A mourner, an outcast, one whose loved one is ill and one who lost something.

[In meeting someone walking towards them, those walking clockwise inquire:] What is it that causes you to walk that way?

If they answer: I am a mourner, the inquirer responds: May the One who dwells in this house comfort you.

If they answer: I am an outcast, the inquirer responds: May the One who dwells in this house turn their hearts so they may take you back.

To the one whose loved one is sick, they respond: May the One who dwells in this house be merciful to your loved one.

To the one who has lost something, they respond: May the One who dwells in this house cause the one who found it to return it to you.”

(Massekhet Semahot 6:11)

I am captured each time I read this. For each time I wonder, “Which direction am I walking in now? Which of the visitors have I become today?”

Somedays, I am the unremarkable one, moving routinely, perhaps even hurriedly, clockwise through the affairs of my day. But in meeting someone approaching from the other way, I remember that I am blessed, and tasked with asking the question and offering the words of comfort. Other days, I am the one seeking comfort, waiting for someone to notice and offer their kindness and blessing to me, grateful that there is a place to go to with my sorrow. This is not a static text. I must choose who I am every time.

It is easy enough to know if I am a mourner – thankfully, I rarely am. It is harder to know if I have a loved one who is sick. How far in my circle of warmth need someone stand to be called my “loved one?” And do I really have to love the ones close to me that I seek prayers for? Is this a legal category: parents, spouses, siblings, children, etc? Or is this a matter of choice and feeling? Perhaps both?

As for outcast, we hardly know what the word means today, with boundaries and voluntary communities being as pliable as they are. Excommunication has little resonance for us. But what if outcast also means a child who is estranged from a parent; a friend who is shunned by a friend; siblings who no longer speak to one another? There are far too many of us who suffer such alienation to imagine that this category is obsolete.

This text absorbs us. From the moment it opens itself to us, we tumble in – body and soul.

But then, in the midst of such imagining and comforting and healing, we read what seems to be almost petty, and jarring: “To the one who has lost something, they respond: May the One who dwells in this house cause the one who found it to return it to you.”

If we lost something? How can that compare to death, illness, exile? Do we really want to gather the full spiritual energies of our sacred community, and invoke the compassion of the Heavens, simply because someone lost their keys? Their earring? Their sock? Yet it hardly seems possible that coarse materialism could have seeped into this tender, tearing text. How, then, can we understand it? Perhaps in two ways.

So perhaps, rather than demonstrating a misplaced obsession with possessions, this call indicates just the opposite: that households were generally spare; that possessions carried greater value and import; and that objects largely carried the identifiable imprint of their owners, either through craftsmanship or use. And that in a way perhaps even greater than we can know, people's possessions were an extension of and keeper of their identity. To lose a piece of their belongings was akin to losing a piece of their sense of self. It is so even today; perhaps it was even more so in an era of fewer, and thus more precious, belongings.

But perhaps there is even a more profound purpose for this part of the text. Perhaps it is reminding us, ever so gently, that loss is not always material. We can suffer loss of affection, loss of faith (in ourselves, a loved one, God), loss of a job, loss of home, loss of confidence. Placing this unnamed loss among the other three penetrating, fundamental losses, calls forth an awareness of the inevitable shadow that trails us. Life brings loss. Perhaps it is we who experience loss today; it will be the other who suffers tomorrow. There is not a one of us, on an almost daily basis, who can avoid bumping into or experiencing the sad sense of loss. And so there is not one of us who can refrain from offering blessings of return and wholeness on a daily basis, and seek our share of blessings in return.

“Loss is what we begin with...” writes Robert Pogue Harrison in his poetic book Forest: the shadow of civilization. “We may define the loss mythologically, as a fall from the garden of Eden, and Eden, in turn, we may identify with this or that dream of lost plenitude. One way or another, longing is the loss of life, and loss the life of longing….” (p. 231)

Despite all our blessings and moments of celebration, we live in a world of constant loss. There is no way to fight it. We live, therefore, also in constant need of the comforting presence of each other. We have no Temple today, and no one is approaching us from the other direction, demanding that we notice their hidden pain. But all the more reason we should attend well to the possibility of someone’s loss as we wend our way through the chores of our day. We needn’t make a big deal of this. The midrash itself tells us that in our daily rounds, at work, at home, at the gym, we are to ask one simple question, and, if appropriate, offer one single-sentence response. Anything less would be cold. But anything more may potentially be too much.

May the One who dwells among us, and in whose house we all live, bring you the comfort that you seek in the year ahead.

(written in the inaugural light of my wood burning stove, 12/29/09)

the lesson in forests

2009-12-20T20:44:00.005-05:00

"There is too often deliberate rage and vengefulness at work in the assault on nature and its species, as if one would project onto the natural world the intolerable anxieties of finitude which hold humanity hostage to death." (from Forests: the shadow of civilization by Robert Pogue Harrison)

Forests, published almost 20 years ago, is a little-known, poetic treatise that deserves a much broader audience. It offers a look at the deep emotional relationship humans have with forests, and by extension, the wilds of nature.

Harrison believes that we can understand ourselves better if we look at the way we look at forests. A forest, he argues, is like a mirror. When we look into them we see "a strange reflection of the order to which they remain external."

That is, while forests and woods, by definition, lie beyond the bounds of civilization, their presence out-there evokes, demands, a response to what we believe, and do, in-here. The forest - by persistently remaining outside, mysterious, even dangerous - demands explanation. For a settlement to sit comfortably beside the wildness of the woods, it needs to capture and control, as best it can, the fear that rises from living so close to the wild unknown.

Civilization, in this attempt to contain the wild and fearsome, creates a narrative and symbol of forest, even as it holds it at arm’s length. The forest becomes, as the subtitle of the book says, "the shadow of civilization", the darkness that civilization casts out beyond itself, because of itself, but that it dares not call part of itself.

Harrison's point is compelling, and challenging. What if it is not just greed that compels our gluttonous taking of the earth's precious resources; what if it is not just arrogance that encourages us to create thousand-fold waste for the sake an ounce of usable natural treasure (think of the destruction of whole mountains for the comparative pittance of coal we retrieve); what if it is not just ignorance that allows us to continue to consume beyond the point of replenishment?

What if our harsh behavior toward the resources of the wild is based on something even deeper - our dread of personal extinction?

Then truly religion in general, and Judaism in particular, may play a powerful role in crafting responses. For we offer not a view of darkness and emptiness at the end, but a vision of eternal renewal and hope, for humanity if not for ourselves.

The eternal light that shines above the aron, the ark, in the synagogue is not just about the constancy of the daily sacrifices that were offered in the Temple. Not just about the constancy of God's presence in the midst of the Jewish people. It is also about the enduring promise of life. If, in the iconography of the human imagination, the forest's darkness equals death, the lamp's light equals life.

Perhaps this message of hope, this vision of a vibrant future that is ours to enjoy if we do not mess it up, this impulse of possibilities, can restrain us from trashing the world out of our despair, and an overwhelming sense of impending, irretrievable, loss.

Nature as host

2009-12-13T05:14:00.013-05:00

Stewardship is the term so many of us use to speak of our relationship with nature. Stewardship allows us to see the world as a precious object gifted to humanity by God and bequeathed to us by our ancestors over the generations. For the time we are here, it is our turn to be the world's earthly guardians. It is our job to protect it, tend to it and care for it. It is our job, when our time is done, to hand a healthy world on to the next generation.

I have always been troubled by this view. For two reasons:

(1) Stewardship leaves undefined the ways in which we are to use the resources of this world, which we must do in order to both survive and thrive. The most common view of stewardship seems to me to be one of conservation and protection. That is, the steward is to make sure that the object guarded is returned exactly as it was received.

But that of course is not how we can be with the world. We rely on the stuff of the world for our every physical and some spiritual needs. Proper guidance on how to use the stuff must be built into the core of this narrative, or else we can go astray. As we have.

Judaism offers some welcome nuances to assist this narrative. There is, for example, in Jewish law the concept of the shomer, the one who is given an object to keep and protect while the owner is away. The shomer, in return for his kindness, has the right to use and benefit from that object, as long as the object is not depleted or unreasonably degraded in the process.

With this construct, we can imagine, then, that the earth is God's possession, given to humankind, with us as shomer. We can then use the earth and its resources as a shomer uses a valuable deposit left in his care. Or, if we are not theologically inclined, we can imagine the earth as the common possession of all humanity, for all time, deposited with us momentarily, which we are bidden to hand on, well-used and well-preserved. shomer,. Or even more, we can see it as the common inheritance of all creatures for all time, whose protection and good use are temporarily put in our hands.

I can see how these can be compelling visions, motivating us to live gently and well on this earth, in covenant with God, all humankind and all creation. Not bad.

But I still am uncomfortable, because...

(2) ... Regardless of how we nuance stewardship, it reverses the true order of things. Nature is not an object placed in the realm of humanity. Rather, humanity is creature placed in the realm of nature. That is, we are guests in this world, and nature is our host. More precisely, from a religious point of view, God is the ultimate host, but nature is God's surrogate. It is through nature that God speaks to humankind, and it is through nature that we experience God. That is why miracles are so prominent in the revelation stories. God is not an idea, or concept, or even feeling that can be immediately, rationally and intellectually perceived. God is first experienced as response to the wonder and awe of physical realm that surrounds us. Nature is the sacred currency, the sacred medium, through which God communicates with us.

God is the ultimate host, while nature is the earthly host. And we are nature's guest.

That alone confers upon us a clear sense of roles and propriety.

(1) As guests, we don't own anything here (this is a status we share with stewards). We are welcomed into this world, and given full access to all parts of the "house". But we cannot confuse access with ownership, or power with entitlement. We did not create this world; we are visiting it. The owner has opened its doors wide to us. We are its explorers, not its exploiters.

(2) As guests, we must be respectful of boundaries. It is not right for us to go rifling through nature's storage closets, upending dressers, dumping huge mounds of
debris and refuse on the floor. It is not right for us to start dismantling the floorboards and the furniture, the picture-frames and doorposts, particularly for some immediate, short-term desire. Some things, especially those that compromise the integrity of the house, are beyond our rights.

(3) As guests, we should use only what is renewable. There were guests here before us, and there will be guests here after us. Just as we only have access to those things the previous guests were gracious enough to leave behind, so we must be gracious and leave the full measure of what we find to those yet to come. It is not our role to diminish their earthly options.

(4) As guests, while we are not permitted to diminish the home of our host, we can enhance it. It is proper for a guest, in some sort of grateful remuneration, to bring a gift to the host. Why else would a host invite a guest if not for some benefit in return? There are so many possibilities for gifts. We can bring the stories we tell about the ways of creation and the awesomeness of nature (think of the last chapters of Job or Psalm 104). We can uncover the secrets of antibiotics, bioluminescence, photosynthesis, how the gecko walks on ceilings. We can deepen our appreciation of the miracle of life through better understanding it. And through bio-mimicry, using the secrets that 4 billion years of evolution has revealed, we can create a richer, safer, healthier world.

(5) As guests, we should pick up after ourselves. Those who come after us should find the place as hospitable as we did, if not more so. That does not mean we have to be invisible. Quite the contrary. We can, and should, leave our mark. Exhibiting evidence of our stay is most appropriate, as long as that evidence offers wisdom, benefits and blessings, and not harm.

These are some of the rules if we see nature as host. There is one more, harsher, rule, that the Torah reminds us of. The host has the right to throw out an unruly guest. The Bible tells us again and again that if the people Israel live heavily and unjustly in the land of Israel, they will be thrown out, spit out. This image startles. But it is the image we need to keep in mind as we trash the world around us today. For scientists remind us that even if we humans were to drive ourselves into extinction, the earth would ultimately survive.

How would our behavior change if we truly mined this vision of humankind as guest? It is worth pondering, for both parties. For, we might rightly ask, not only how living well as guest enriches our lives, but also, how lonely is the host without the company of a grateful and wise guest?

Hanukkah thoughts

2009-12-11T09:08:00.007-05:00

Tonight is a special Shabbat.

It is the first night of Hanukkah, that desperately needed time of renewal which bolsters our spirits when things appear to be at their darkest.

It is also the first week of the Copenhagen conclave on which we set our all-too shaky hopes that the world will turn from its self-destructive ways and commit to pursuing life lived in harmony and justice within the renewing capacity of earth.

This weekend, around the world, people will hold candlelight vigils to call out this message (organized by www.350.org). Adding our lights, and our voices, to this effort is easy for us to do, for our Hanukkah candles will already be blazing in our windows.

Please dedicate the lighting of your candles both to the incomparable story of the intrepid Maccabees and all who fight for freedom and justice, and to the healing of our over-burdened natural world.

The fight for justice and the fight for sustainability are, after all, intertwined. Naturalists tell us that every species alive today occupies a distinct niche within their ecosystem. There is, for better or worse, no absolute redundancy in nature. If one species has evolved to thrive in one niche, no other species will do so. Each species is unique unto itself. When it is lost, a hole is made in the universe.

As it is in nature, so it is with us. We too each fashion ourselves in response to the place we inhabit in our stretch of the world. The world makes us even as we make the world. It is the unique combination of the various pieces of our personal world that forms who we become. Each people, each culture, each individual, is irreplaceable. It is in such a niche that we develop the gifts and talents that define us, which no one else has in the same abundance and combination. When one person, one people, one culture is lost, a hole is made in the universe.

It is only when we come together, then, in nature and society, joining piece to piece, that we can begin to grasp the vision of this grand puzzle we call life.

Thanksgiving musings

2009-11-29T11:01:00.007-05:00

I was interviewed last week about the spirituality of housecleaning. While the conversation focused on Passover/Pesah cleaning, and the heightened sense of purpose and satisfaction in (re)creating or (re)capturing order for the holiday, the lessons apply year-round, even if at a less fevered pitch.

I was reminded of this earlier today while on my hands and knees cleaning the kitchen floor after a wonderful holiday weekend of family, visitors and food preparations. The floor was definitely in need of attention, as, so it seemed, was my spirit. The serendipitous combination of the two yielded a welcome insight on cleaning.

Spiritual awareness is a full-body experience. Those who meditate and practice yoga know this. But in that case, the effort is to transcend body, to ignore the body's call for movement, stimulation, responsiveness, claims to attention. That too is a response of sorts to the hegemony of the body.

Those who seek the mountains, the rivers, the sea, the open road also know that the placement of the body, its surroundings and experiences, conjure up certain spiritual responses. We need to preserve nature not just for its physically sustaining properties but for its spiritually sustaining properties. For the ways our bodies connect to the physical world can evoke and inspire powerful spiritual experiences.

Thomas Berry writes: "We have a wonderful idea of God because we have always lived on a planet that is chock-full, every nook and cranny, with marvels and mysteries, dark beauty, happy encounters and splendid landscapes. How could we picture God in our heads as an ever fresh and creative daybreak, as a compassionate father or nurturing mother, as a wonder-counselor if we had never experienced these qualities in the people, land and life around us?

What kind of God would we pray to if we lived on the bleak surface of the moon? We are literally killing off our religious imagination when we destroy the natural world."

Cut to my dirty kitchen floor (not as far a leap from the mountaintop as you might think): cleaning the floor with a mop - to grandly over-state and over-dramatize the issue - has a colonizing, subjugationist, somewhat violent air to it. (Okay, just indulge me on this melodrama just for fun and to help me better make the point.) It is difficult to bond with the floor, appreciate it for being anything more than constantly underfoot, when it places itself everywhere beneath me, conveniently trod on. And more, it disturbingly demands attention to be cleaned by me because it can't take care of itself. So if I wash it from afar, from way up here, keeping a safe distance with a mop, my sense of self and of floor is master and subject.

But that is not how I wash the floor. Rather, I grab a wet rag and get down on my hands and knees, and wipe. This is radically different, more intimate and spiritual experience. First of all, the floor reveals itself in much greater detail from 18 inches than from 5 feet. Its contours, its places that need special attention, are more evident. Its material hints of its connection to the natural world, and thus conjures up an awareness of my reliance on it and its welfare.

But perhaps more, it is the posture of my body, the penitential attitude of being on hands and knees, that conjures up a spiritual and appreciative attitude toward the stuff of our lives in general, and the stuff of my home in particular. Why would we even imagine that tending well to the things that shelter our families, or to the matter that cocoons the work of homes, is not of the same spiritual caliber as planting a tree or being awe-struck at a sunset?

And we cannot overlook the pure satisfaction we can get in seeing the immediate results of our handiwork - our kitchen moving from "not clean" to "clean" because of our few minutes of work. In this world of distant results and deferred gratification, we should take our rewards where and when we can.

Two ritual acts that Jewish women in Italy undertook as their expressions of spiritual engagement (as significant to them as praying in a minyan was to men) were waxing and buffing the pews in the synagogue and making wicks for the candles that lit the building during services. Tending well to the condition of these things, like the condition of things in our homes, sensitizes us to the short tie that connects us to the natural world from which all our stuff comes. How much more could be our delight when we tend well to the natural world outside our windows?

the call and response of mitzvah

2009-11-27T08:30:00.009-05:00

What can the age-old concept of mitzvah mean for us today? Does it possess relevance that can inspire, even ignite, us?

We live in a world which celebrates autonomy, self-determination, and guidance coming from within. Can the concept of mitzvah, which classically is understood as 'commandment', an 'obligation', an urgency coming from without, remain compelling, even central, to our lives?

And how would it be incorporated into our understanding of Judaism and environmentalism?

I wish to argue that not only can the concept of mitzvah be compelling for us today, but that it already is. We need to acknowledge it and name it and bring it to the fore.

Mitzvah, it seems to me, is degraded and flattened when translated as commandment. It becomes static, two-dimensional; it loses context, passion and purpose in such a translation. It becomes something that is thrown down, cold and isolated, a burden to be picked up and attended to.

But I imagine mitzvah to be totally otherwise. I see mitzvah as the choreography, the dance, of call and response; it is the very currency of relationship, of one calling out, seeking a response from the other and the other turning toward, and responding to the one who seeks.

It takes two for mitzvah to be. It begins as a need, a desire, the reaching that comes from the one calling out, extended to the other being called to. Sometimes this calling is directed to a specific audience. Sometimes, it is a broadside, cast out in desperation for anyone to pick up. Either way, mitzvah conjures up calling, need, intimacy, hearing, response.

This is the way we all live our lives, intentionally or not. The world calls out to us at all times and we respond, either by engaging or turning away. Both are responses. The first is the way of mitzvah; the second is not.

Sometimes it is a person, or a community, or even a nation that calls to us. Serving as agents on their own behalf, they put forward their needs, more or less forcefully, and wait expectantly. We either choose to engage, or we disappoint.

But sometimes it is those who have no voice, no agent, no advocate who call to us: the land, the earth, the claims of unborn generations, the hopes and charges of past generations, the vulnerable and powerless. These calls are harder to hear, but they are there. These too make claims on us; these too are potential beginnings of mitzvah. And we respond with our actions, the quotidian and grand behaviors that together comprise the fullness of our lives.

Everyday the world, its possessions and its people, call to us. Everyday we put out our call, to family, to friends, to the world at large: be with us, love us, listen to us, encourage us, teach us, make room for us... We do not expect to be turned away, empty-handed. Tears, loneliness, distress well up if we are. As we expect the world to hear and respond to us, so we are bidden to hear and respond to it.

Mitzvah, then, is about naming and acknowledging this relationship; about being honest about the truth that all life is lived in call and response. It is about the fact that our daily lives are lived on both sides of this coupling, and that our happiness, and the world's health and prosperity, rests on the graciousness or narrowness of our response.

So it makes no sense to ask if mitzvah can be a compelling concept for us today. It already it. The only question is: how well do we tend to it?

sacred currency

2009-11-22T21:44:00.002-05:00

If attitude, in large part, determines behavior, and we wish to change our behavior toward the natural world, then we must attend well to our attitude toward it.

(The converse is also true: behavior shapes attitude, that is, what we do shapes what we believe. The two are interdependent; chicken and egg. For now, however, I focus on the attitude as the cause.)

It is not much contested that the western, industrial world sees nature as a commodity, something, gratefully, put here to fill our needs and fulfill our desires. When mined, captured, gathered, contained and pressed into the service of humankind, natural resources become satisfiers - products that satisfy our various needs and appetites. We have no particular affection or connection to them beyond the experience of our using them. They are to be bought and sold, interchanged with other commodities that can also satisfy us. And when we are done with them, we throw them away.

But this commodity attitude is taking us to a dead end. Literally. In a world of limited natural resources but infinite appetite and needs, both spiritual and physical, we cannot afford to squandor the stuff of the earth. Nothing should be indiscriminately and profligately used, and used up, and nothing can be thrown away. As I wrote elsewhere, the very concept of waste is unnatural. It is a human conceit that lies outside the domain and processes of the natural world, treif. Nature knows no waste. Everything returns, recycles, re-engages. There is no "away". There is no "there". When something is finished and used up, it is just the beginning of a new round.

The dispassionate commodity attitude of procurement, production, consumption and disposal does not jibe with the natural world, and indeed is becoming its undoing.

What then should be a contemporary attitude toward the natural world that both honors the ways of the earth and affords the means and vocabulary of contemporary society?

I would like to suggest we find the answer in the phrase: "sacred currency." For several reasons:

1) nature is the "currency" with which God and the Jewish people communicate to each other.

2) currency is a concept readily integrated into the contemporary mind

3) the ethics of managing, investing and growing the value and volume of currency is something we understand

Let me explain each one a bit more.

1) Nature is the "currency" with which God and the Jewish people communicate to each other.

There is the pesky question of how the presence of God - immaterial, infinite, discernable only by a sixth sense and not the five with which we are physically endowed - becomes present to us clod-bound humans. Not only how do we sense God, but how, as it were, can God talk to us, intersect physically with us?

Tanakh in general, and Torah in particular, answer this in a most direct way: through the physical, natural world. Among the many places we see this in Torah is the following one, in which Moses, upon the eve of his death, adjures his precious but feisty people to be faithful to God and the covenant (Deuteronomy 28):

"All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity — in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground — in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you. The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none."

The blessings, and the communication, between God and the people Israel (and by extension all humanity), are couched in terms of the fertility and productivity of the land, or, in contrast, the failure and impoverishment of the land.

Land, rain, natural resources, become the currency of exchange between God and Israel. God gives us the resources to thrive and we in turn take portions of that abundance to the Temple to give back to God.

To speak of our natural resources as currency instead of commodity, then, re-enchants the physical world for us, evoking the sacred and awesome sense that the physical world held for our ancestors.

2) currency is a concept readily integrated into the contemporary mind

Currency is a shared medium of exchange, a common way for us to meet each others' needs. It assumes movement, fluidity, change. But unlike commodity, it does not expect to be used up or consumed. Modernity understands that things have costs, and that the shapes and constitution of things may change. But fundamentally, value remains, and must not get degraded (or, dare we say, falsely inflated) else the system fails. As with monetary currency, so with natural currency. Only as we know, natural degradation enjoys no quick bailout. As the midrash in Kohelet tells us: "Upon showing Adam around the garden of Eden, God offers a warning: 'Be careful to tend well to this earth. For if you destroy it, there will be no one after you to set it right.'"

3) the ethics of managing, investing and growing the value and volume of currency is something we understand

Currency is not to be squandered but neither is it meant to sit idle. Currency is meant to be used, put to work to improve the lot of humankind. To be used well, it needs to be both protected and worked. That is the charge of the human in Genesis 2, the reason given for why humanity was created: l'ovdah u'l'shomrah, to till and to tend the garden (the earth). Natural resources, like any sacred currency, is to be tilled, worked, invested, so that it can create the value and goods that we need and desire. But at the same time, with the same passion and due diligence, it needs to be protected, cherished and preserved so that it not be wasted or destroyed.

Sacred currency is like a trust fund, money in the bank. To grow and not lose value, it must be invested and minded well. But it must also be guarded against looting, loss and unwise investment. Our task regarding the natural world, as regarding any sacred currency, is to live well with the resources on hand, and invest them well so that both we and our children and our children's children can thrive on its value.

Generativity and the Jewish covenant

2009-11-09T12:01:00.007-05:00

I just finished looking through a book called The Redemptive Self: stories Americans live by, by Dan McAdams. It is an effort to understand a bit of Americana, what makes us tick, through the stories we tell ourselves.

McAdams speaks in one section of the book about Erik Erikson's concept of generativity. While I have not studied Erikson and had not heard this term before, it is somewhat intuitive to the Jewish spirit (once it is explained). In short, generativity is defined as "the concern for and commitment to promoting the well-being and development of future generations." But more than a concept, it is, according to Erikson and McAdams, an altruistic way of framing the meaning of one's life. In the context of the theme of the book, McAdams writes: "When they take stock of their own lives, highly generative American adults tend to narrate them around the theme of redemption." Jews might call it a sacred way of framing our historic narrative. Summed up, that narrative says life is a gift and a challenge. Despite all the pains and troubles, life can get better, and it is up to us make it so.

Our sacred narrative speaks of generativity in at least two ways: (1)dor va'dor, for all generations, and (2) our inter-generational covenant at Sinai and renewed on the eastern shore of the Jordan River.

(1) The very way we refer to ourselves and God, the very way we open our central prayer, the Amidah, conjures up this inter-generational tie: our God and God of our ancestors, Abraham (and Sarah), Isaac (and Rebecca), Jacob (and Leah and Rachel). We are the children of Israel. Our covenant with God, the land and each other is made through and across the generations. It is almost impossible to speak in the first person singular as a Jew. We are situated, each of us, in the vast presence of each other.

(2) Deuteronomy 29: 6-14 lays out the covenant that binds one generation to the next:

"You stand this day," Moses calls to the Jewish people, in his final speech before his death, "all of you, before the Lord your God - your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer - to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; to the end that He may establish you this day as His people and be your God, as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day."

We know that our covenant with God is not with us alone. We have inherited it from the earliest days of our ancestors, and we are the transmitters and caretakers of it to our children. But what the poetry of this text teaches us is that the covenant is not to be seen as a holding that passes sequentially, and temporarily, from this generation to the next; but rather that at all times, in all places, all Jews are members of this covenant. Simultaneously. We were, as the midrash says, all present at Sinai. And we all make claims on the covenant today.

This has grand implications for what we do to the earth on our watch. Our children, and those of all others, can make a claim against us if we damage the resources they need to live, for they are co-beneficiaries right now no less than we are.

What if we were to imagine, then, as we make our way through our daily lives, that our unborn grandchildren, as adults, are by our side? What if they were witness to our deeds today, and could see how our deeds affected them tomorrow? And what if they could, at the moment we made our choices, at the moment of our actions, show us the impact of our deeds, and how they judge us? In their presence, looking into their eyes, how would we choose to act now?

More thoughts on Sova (enoughness)

2009-11-08T08:29:00.006-05:00

I am almost finished reading Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food, and if you filter out his occasionally pedantic and patronizing attitude, the book is a worthwhile read. Its title really is a summary of his thesis: that what we eat today is not so much food (by which he means the stuff that grows and is naturally produced) but rather the pulled-apart, reduced, processed, fortified and reconstituted stuff that we eat in the place of food. He is encouraging us to eat more food, the kind you get from the farmer's market, the kind your grandparents and great-grandparents recognized.

The history of the move from food to foodstuff, from food embedded in folkways to food as a nutrition-delivery system, is fascinating. Explaining that is a large portion of his book. But I want to focus here on three take-aways that I found compelling.

The first is the exploration of the question: How do Americans decide when to stop eating? That is, at what point do we say, I have had enough. To set the stage for the answer, first consider how the French respond: "When I am full." Reasonable enough. But the fact is that we Americans often gobble down our food faster than our bodies can process our fullness. Which means that our sated signal is delayed. We are often full well before we feel full. So we keep eating.

At any rate, "When I am full" is not the answer we give. How, then, do we decide when to stop eating? "When my plate is empty", we answer, or "When we run out of food." That is, while the French use internal sensors or markers to determine satiety (sova), Americans use external sensors.

It occurred to me that if, regarding the most personal, physical and individualized matter of appetite, ie, hunger and fullness, we rely on external signals of sova, then of course we are likely to use external sensors for those most public aspects of appetite, ie, conspicuous possession and consumption of goods. That has enormous implications for those of us who seek to build a society based on the spiritual ethic of sova, enoughness.

We need to ask: what are those sensors, regarding physical, economic and spiritual hunger, that let us know that we are satisfied? What signals, what sense of fullness do we use, and which ones would be best for us to use? The answer to this question can unlock the door to a new, just and vibrant economy, one that fulfills our physical and spiritual needs, assuring the fullness of each and the well-being of all. I will tackle this question in a future blog.

But let me continue to share the two other main take-aways I found in Pollan's book:

Put simply he suggests the following: cook more and eat meals (sitting at a table that is set, preferably with others). Which is to say, the ways our foods are prepared and eaten are as important to our health as the food itself.

Food satisfaction is only partly fulfilled by the taste, nutrients and calories we consume. Food consumption is a cycle of preparation (planning, buying, patchke-ing,cooking); eating (hopefully with companionship, which itself is a word that means sharing bread); and post-prandial moments (sitting, chatting, resting, cleaning up). All this combines to shape our responses to food. When we deprive ourselves of most of the components of this system, the burden of food pleasure falls upon the food itself, partly the taste (augmented these days by fats and sugars) and largely the volume.

When we cook, we tend to use and make healthier, less-processed food. And we tend to eat more sensibly.

Even more, when we eat at a meal, we tend to eat more slowly, more mindfully, and less, all the while feeling more satisfied. Food at meals tends to satisfy more than our nutritional needs, although it may also do that better than grazing or snacking all day.

Essentially, what Pollan is saying is that food is a system, both in the way it delivers its nutrients and nourishment, and in the way it feeds our spirit.

Recalibrating our approach to food to return to and accommodate these systems will be good for our bodies, our spirits and the environment. Seems irresistible.

But there is the matter of time. Making time to make food and to eat food, together at a meal, will take a small revolution. That, then, is next our job.

How to read the recent polls

2009-10-30T17:16:00.001-04:00

Over the past week, the Pew Research Center published studies that indicated a decline among the public in their general concern about the environment. For example, "The survey found 57% saying there is "solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades." In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of global warming, and in 2006 and 2007, 77% expressed this view."

As a follow-up, Pew published attempts at helping us understand how and why that is. Check out the link on this blog to see what they say.

Bottom line, it seems that many of us are distracted by more immediate financial concerns. But we still believe that important remediation and prevention actions need to be taken. 83% of the public are still saying that stricter laws and regulations are needed to protect the environment.

Which makes the religious community's voice all the more important. We must continue to make the case that the earth is in need of healing, and that we need to realign our economic, manufacturing and consumption patterns to match the natural carrying capacity of the earth's systems.

buying fast update 3

2009-10-14T03:14:00.004-04:00

from my co-conspirator:

September

I didn’t buy anything new in September – not even anything new/old from the Consignment shop. I turn inward during this time of year, reflecting more on my inner life than on external appearances. I push things around in my head, evaluate the past, discard that which is unhealthy and unhelpful and arrange and plan for an emotional and spiritual future. Coincidentally, while engaged in this Tishrei exercise, I also re arranged my closet. I packed away the summer shirts which had become too flimsy, in favor of the sturdier more substantial winter turtlenecks and wool jackets. Here too, I arranged and discarded. What surprised me most during this enterprise, was my feeling of gratitude – gratitude that I had the time and space to unpack, gratitude that I did not have to worry about warm clothing and a warm home. I am blessed with both. I spent September arranging what I needed in order to move forward. It was a good month.

NBC again: As for me, I fell off the wagon a bit.

I tend to have a "uniform" that I wear each year, each season. Often, they are the same from year to year. But the problem is that I wear the clothes to tatters. Literally, my shoes have a hole in the toe; my pants have a small tear in the fabric. Not in the seam, in the fabric from being over-worn. So, I will have to retire the shoes after the cool weather settles in, which it seems to be doing even as I write.

The pants I will try to repair. And I will need to return to my winter wardrobe. But I did the same thing with several pants last winter - just wore them out. So I went to get another pair of black pants in September. My wardrobe is simple. It helps me dress in the morning and the reliability and constancy of it helps me hold together a constant persona amid whatever turmoil or distraction I may be struggling with. (I have taught about the spiritual impact of clothes - our wardrobe, our choices in the morning, our costuming ourselves to gird ourselves for taking on the world each day. I hope to write more about that in the book about Home I have been working on. It should only finally flow!)

The problem was I could not find winter pants that worked. However, I did find two items - a pair of leggings and an oddly designed but amazingly warm, body-hugging knee-length sweater. Together, these make an irresistible outfit to wear around the house when we hope once again to keep the thermostat way down low. I have found that women's sweaters are mostly made for appearance, not functionality or warmth. So when I find one that actually is attractive (I do not like to lounge around in sweatpants and sweatshirt) and irresistibly warm, I am not averse to seeing if it fills a need in my wardrobe. This one did.

We will be fixing our house from water damage this fall - an upcoming necessary expenditure. I am not sure it fits within the rubric of a buying fast violation, but I will mention it in the appropriate upcoming monthly log (for it does help the economy and hurt my pocketbook). At the same time, we will be upgrading our insulation to make our home more fit. As long as we are at it, we determined to get a wood-burning stove - we live in the woods after all and are able to find sufficient fuel all around. I will report that too if that indeed comes to pass. But I mention it now for if the stove is sufficiently efficient and the insulation works well, I may not even need the sweater!!

We will see. That is it for my monthly consumption. More to come next month.

if nature had closets

2009-10-13T22:23:00.003-04:00

Closets are indispensably useful things. They hide our stuff, holding it well out of sight. They keep the floors and surfaces clear and orderly, even if in their darkened depths they overflow with our unwanted clutter. They call no attention to themselves, do not demand to be tended to or cared for. They disappear into the walls, their doors becoming almost invisible unless we choose to adorn them. If not ill-treated, they generally do not leak their contents into the open air; they tell no tales; they protect our confidences. We can usually expect that when we put something away, it will stay there, inert, secure, static.

Not so with nature. There are no such closets in nature. There is no "there" there; no place we can safely stuff our unwanted detritus and walk away, secure that nature will hold our trash in confidence and safety. Carbon sequestration, burial of spent uranium, municipal landfills, all must be put in "closets" which have the potential to leak; which must be monitored, cared for and tended to, demanding funding just so we can be certain they won't misbehave.

Imagine, then, if we had to live in a house without closets, in the presence of all the stuff we had, new, aborning and used. Nowhere to escape our stuff. That, in a way, is how we live in the world.

Would that change the way we chose to live?