A Wednesday Morning in 2003

In 2003, LoraKim and I and a nanday conure parrot named Exodor lived in El Paso. LoraKim was the minister to the Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso, and I was in training to become a minister. I was doing my ministerial internship at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque -- a four-hour drive north from El Paso. Not that I drove. I took the bus. It was such a well-traveled route by folks without cars, that an independent bus company had formed that charged $35 for a round-trip bus ticket from El Paso to Albuquerque and back -- less than seven cents a mile.

My "weekend" was Monday and Tuesday. After the Sunday church services in Albuquerque, followed by early-afternoon meetings or visits or adult classes, I'd get on the 5:00pm bus back home to El Paso. LoraKim would pick me up at 10:00pm at the El Paso bus station -- if the bus didn't break down, which it did a couple times. On those occasions, I'd borrow a cell phone -- since I didn't have one myself in those days -- and call to let LoraKim know we'd be getting in later.

The El Paso bus station was a rather run-down sort of place in a rather run-down part of town. I'd arrive hungry, often not having eaten since breakfast, and we'd go to a rather run-down restaurant and get some cheap enchiladas. Life was good.

I'd have a couple days with LoraKim and Exodor. Monday was LoraKim's day off, and we'd go hiking about in the Franklin Mountains or some other spot nearby. Tuesday, she'd be at work most of the day and I'd work on stuff at home. Tuesday evenings, I met with a Zen group at the UU Community of El Paso. Then early Wednesday morning, I'd be back on the bus to Albuquerque.

Life was good, and at the same time life was, well, life. El Paso, apparently, is in a kind of "buffer zone." It's right on the border, and immigrants who make it into El Paso have crossed only some of the hurdles to getting to any more interior part of the US. All the roads out of El Paso have "check points" where all traffic pulls in. A Border Patrol agent asks for identification, or waves the vehicle on, depending on the length of the line and the skin tone of the vehicle's occupants.

Every Wednesday morning I was on that bus as it pulled into the check point north of El Paso. After one such experience, I pulled out my journal and wrote this:
- - - - - - - -

Wednesday, 9:23am

80 miles north of El Paso

on I-25 headed for Albuquerque

my bus pulls into a Border Patrol checkpoint.

Weekly, I participate in this ritual.

The green clad agent steps aboard.

"If you are a US citizen, state the city and state of your birth

If you are not, show your documentation."

As far as I can see, the green agent and I

are the only Anglos on this bus.

Border Patrol makes her way down the aisle,

frowning at papers of widely varying size, shape, color,

sometimes also asking for separate ID, sometimes not.

My head bows under the world's weight upon this spot.
This posture cues me to a whispered prayer.

"May there be an end to invidious distinctions

including those based on whether our mothers,

when we first peaked out from them into the world,

were north or south

of a line

a few politicians and generals drew

more than 150 years ago.

May I find ways to help bring

justice from my unjust privilege.

And blessed be all of us on this bus, including the Border Patrol agent,

as we all struggle in our diverse ways

to realize the fullness of our humanity."

She gets finally to me on the backmost seat.

This week no one has been hauled off.

I look up from clasped hands in lap

For a flicker our eyes meet.

My voice says, "Richmond, Virginia."

This only is asked of me, no papers, no ID.

Pale skin and the right sort of accent clinch it,

if I will but utter the name of an approved holy city

as the weekly sacrament of transition

from El Paso husband to Albuquerque minister intern.

I only have to say out loud my condemnation.

Richmond is a city much farther away than Mexico,

and memory recalls only a few passings-through,

none recent.

Of Richmond, I vaguely know a view of a skyline from the interstate, nothing more.

Not that it matters.

What I'm saying with those two words is:

I am on your side, Agent Green Jump Suit.

I deny Yahweh's call for a preferential option for the poor.

I deny Buddha's call to live compassion rather than fear.

I deny my faith profession:

        the unitarian commitment to the unity of us all

        the universalist commitment to universal community

From my lips, this two-word Peter's denial: "Richmond, Virginia."

Peter, having spoken, saw in a dizzy flash, as I do:

We who long to be merely good,

Are revealed as rotten with complicity with the empire.

And what could show more clearly than that

That the world’s brokenness and mine are one?

November 11: Armistice Day

Eleven! Eleven! Eleven!

It's a day we call Veterans Day. It began as Armistice Day -- commemorating the armistice that ended World War I on 1918 November 11. Armistice: A cessation of hostilities as a prelude to peace negotiations. On the first anniversary of the WWI armistice (1919 Nov 11), President Woodrow Wilson announced:

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

Notice the double purpose of Armistice Day: (1) to honor the veterans, and (2) to show our "sympathy with peace and justice."

World War I was thought -- hoped -- to be the "war that ends all wars." No such luck, it turned out. Still, the idea of ending war, of governing our world nonviolently, of spreading peace and justice across the globe should not be forgotten.

In 1954, the US government changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day. The motive to honor all veterans, not just the World War I vets, was nice. But in the process, the other function of Armistice Day was lopped off. Attention was diverted away from "armistice" -- the laying down of arms, the ending of hostilities, the commitment to peace.

The hopes that lifted the hearts of North Americans and Europeans 93 years ago at the end of WWI may have seemed, by the 1950s, sadly deluded -- perhaps even a cruel hoax. The US had been through the carnage of WWII, and then embroiled itself in a Korean War for three years. The notion of ending all war seemed hopeless and unrealistic. The attitude was: war is going to go on, and on, for as far into the future as imaginable -- so let's just commemorate the courageous ones who fight our wars for us.

The building of peace is much tougher than many Americans in 1918 knew -- the skills of peacemaking require much more development. But the task of peace and justice (for no peace will be lasting, or worthy, without justice) should not be abandoned. Unitarian Universalists committed to that task with a 2010 Statement of Conscience, "Creating Peace." On this November 11, please re-read and re-commit to that statement -- click here.

So today I am celebrating Armistice Day. I honor the fire of youth -- the energy, the camaraderie, the commitment to a cause, the way they can fling themselves so passionately into harm's way. I acknowledge that it has been a while since our country has actually deployed that fire to protect the freedom of US residents, but I honor the effort and training and bravery that our veterans have displayed nevertheless. I also take this day to recommit to armistice; to lay down all instruments of violence; to promise again to myself and my world to forego thoughts, words, and deeds that treat a being as an object or diminish any being's sense of value or security; to truly walk the path of nonviolence.

* * * *
It's November 11, it's 1918, it's Armistice Day, and I,
I would have no arms.
I would have no legs.
I would live in Europe, Asia, America, south and north, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and all the wide deep blacken blue oceans.
I would have no Western front.
I would name myself Peace Among the Nations.
Finally undisappointable,
Hanging over the beleaguered of nations like a happy gracious fog, I would
Penetrate everywhere.
I would weigh you down with uplifting serenity.
I would double you four times, Woodrow Wilson World War.
All ate of you, consumed by love, would have a thousand arms each reaching and embracing every dying soldier every wailing mother every broken-legged horse, enfolding them in doesn't-change-a-thing compassion.
I would have no arms.
* * * *

poem: prayer to the rabbit god

the night is dark and this I know:
the rabbit god herself made the foxes.

she put bunnies all over
gave them a green planet to eat
made them love to hump
like rabbits
and love their babies.
bunnies make bunnies faster than plants grow, she noticed.
so the rabbit god made foxes.

predation is kinder than starvation, she said.
and foxes will give my lovelies
sharp ears
beautiful speed
a touch of cleverness.
let them be grateful for the red fur death
and the fear that makes them bright alert.

thus the rabbit god became the fox god too.
bodies are made of nutrients,
there being no other way to make them,
how could there not be carnivores?

dear god of hunter and of hunted
I, too, a body of walking food, pray
to be eaten rather than starve
to love
the beauty of this fear.

Thank You, Earth

Thank you, Earth.
Thank you for air.
The sunshine:
Morning rising beauty of hope,
Evening setting grace of gratitude.
My brain processes the light that comes from the sky as blue –
I’m not clear on why
Or how a bunch of neurons does that.
And chlorophyll is green because, I don’t know.
I just know the blue sky and the green grass and trees
Are home.

I don’t know why blood is red, either,
The vivid aliveness motion inside me, and us.
Or why flower blossoms are so variously, brightly colored.

Thank you, Earth,
For ants, worms, beetles, spiders, jellyfish, squid.
Thank you for fish: shiny, darting;
And reptiles: gopher tortoises, bright little lizards, dark green gators.
Thank you for birds, and the unignorability of the fact of flying.
Because they are, and I am they, I, too, fly.
Thank you for other mammals: foxes and alpacas

and manatees and rabbits:
The things with hair and milk-making bodies.
All the funny, weird animals – the different ways that life can be.

I imagine living on a space station,
The view, so deep the black, and vast starfields,
Filling me with infinity every day.
Yet.
It takes ground to be grounded.
I was made to be among your colors and life and limited horizons, Earth,
Even when it is dangerous.
Even when it is too hot, too cold, too rainy, too dry,
I was made for you, Earth.
All the millions of species, each was made for you
Out of dirt and water and sunlight.

Did you make snakes able to be thankful?
Have blue jays gratitude? Lobsters?
Maybe they are always grateful – and what they aren’t able to be is not thankful.
This is a wonder to me, who am sometimes ungrateful and who other times,
Like today, am
sky-blue thank you and leaf-green thank you and blood-red thank you
And lavender and fuchsia and goldenrod thank you.

Grateful feels good,
Dear Earth,
And you offer so much for which.
Sometimes I forget.
Then I remember again.

Armistice Day

It's November 11, it's 1918, it's Armistice Day, and I,

I would have no arms.

I would have no legs.

I would live in Europe, Asia, America, south and north, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and all the wide deep blacken blue oceans.

I would have no Western front.

I would name myself Peace Among the Nations.

Finally undisappointable,

Hanging over the beleaguered of nations like a happy gracious fog, I would

Penetrate everywhere.

I would weigh you down with uplifting serenity.

I would double you four times, Woodrow Wilson World War.

All ate of you, consumed by love, would have a thousand arms each reaching and embracing every dying soldier every wailing mother every broken-legged horse, enfolding them in doesn't-change-a-thing compassion.

I would have no arms.