IOChristmas

Yesterday I finished my exams with my eleventh graders. This was their first official assessment for the International Baccalaureate Diploma which they will get at the end of next year. Here's how it works:

They come into the room, and are given a poem or an extract from a piece of literature that we have read this semester. For us, that meant either a Langston Hughes poem or an extract from Shakespeare's Macbeth. They have 20 minutes to annotate the piece and decide what the most important elements of language and style are, and what message the author/poet conveys with those elements.

Then they give an 8-minute oral commentary, which is followed by a two-minute discussion of the piece (I ask them questions).

They all arrived on time, they all had prepared, they all made it through the commentary without breaking down. No small feat considering that English is their second language! I'm very proud.

So my head is full of literary elements. For example, Kelly Clarkson uses anaphora in the song drifting through my headphones right now. (Repetition of a word at the beginning of consecutive lines)

The Cafe where I'm sitting now.

This Christmas I'm gonna risk it all
This Christmas I'm not afraid to fall

There is also situational irony in Ramallah: A 96% Muslim city has a massive green and red Christmas tree downtown. I offered to take a picture of a Muslim family in front of it the other day.

I also can't read anything without annotating it. Even the menu on a restaurant, I want to mark up with notes on imagery, effective descriptive language and hyperbole (exaggeration).

Friend in Residence Elizabeth Dodd gave me some straw ornaments to decorate our advent wreath with. This afternoon will be a Christmas Cookie making festival at the Swift House! Good thing I can get Philadelphia cream cheese here, for the tender dough of my favourite cookie.

Season's joys to you!

God speaks through podcasts

Twice now I've received divine counselling through podcasts of This American Life.

1. Two weeks ago I had a disastrous class with the tenth grade section I teach. There was singing. There were airplanes. There was no learning happening (actually that's false. I learned quite a bit). By the end of the class I was desperate for the students to leave so I could deflate and collapse into a chair. Having expected to have such classes, such experiences as a rookie teacher, doesn't make them much easier to digest.

That afternoon, a beautiful Ramallah autumn afternoon, I went for a walk around the track at the Boys School, one of the most beautiful sports facilities in the city. As I started out I wheeled through the TAL episodes loaded onto my iPod, looking for something that would distract me from my thoughts of the rough day.

There was an episode called "Fiasco!" complete with exclamation mark. Perfect, I thought. And so it was.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/61/fiasco

This alternately uproariously funny and thought-provoking episode chronicles situations that, like my class, disintegrate into fiascos. The episode explores what exactly constitutes a fiasco, and as I walked around listening to Ira and friends identify "a breakdown of social conventions" I nodded vigorously, imagining my class which didn't resemble a class by the time the bell rang. And indeed, a fiasco is achieved when the production underway no longer follows its own conventions-- when it is unrecognisable as what it ought to be. Since that day, I have set the bar low: "Was today's class a fiasco?" If I can answer no, it was a good day. So far I have been able to answer "no" everyday.

This week, despite the lack of full blown fiascos, discipline has continued to be a challenge in this class. It's exhausting to police these students as closely as I have to at this point. Yesterday I went to the gym looking, again, for some distraction from discipline worries and curriculum planning doldrums, and the podcast that came on was called "Is this working?"

http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/special/538_bleeped.mp3

It turned out to be about discipline procedures in different kinds of schools in the United States, and featured other teachers talking about extreme discipline circumstances, and how much they learned from them, once they picked themselves up from being blindsided at first. I know I'm dealing with what first-time teachers everywhere deal with, but by golly it was good to hear it from the horse's mouth.

Speaking of horses I galloped on a horse today on the streets of Ramallah! I have never before galloped. Here is how my galloping lesson unfolded: "Hold the reins in one hand."

That was it, then we were off to the races. It's remarkable how much the horses head goes down and out in front of you when he is galloping. 

Yala?

Yakoub always answers his phone. He brings cookies and coffee to class, and sometimes his daughter Nicole. He has one of those open mouth smiles, where his teeth are separated and there is so much upward energy in his countenance that one must resist the impulse to stand in response. His whole face is involved in conveying his enthusiasm for this or that Arabic letter. 

The effect is particularly congenial when he cocks his head and asks "yala?" Before moving on to the next letter. His face pauses in that energetic smile, and his eyes widen with charisma. How many times has this man taught foreigners how to write the wassat form of alef? Logic tells us that the number is in the hundreds. Our facial-expression-reading faculties tell us otherwise. He seems as thrilled about alef and ba as we are intimidated by them. 

Le café et les biscuits sont compris dans le prix du cours.

Rules!

Don't litter.
Don't walk in the street.
Bring your book to class.
No food allowed.
Don't be late to class.

For American school children, rules form a huge part of the school experience. Consequences are generally enforced, and students start complying or paying the price.

Rules have another quality here. They do not govern the small behaviors of the day, they govern the larger framework of society.

Don't go to Jerusalem.
Don't travel on this road.
No books ordered from outside sources.
Pay Israeli tax on everything you buy.

So many big rules exist that small rules like "don't throw your candy wrapper on the ground" seem silly. Why not seize any big of freedom available, by scaling a wall, staying at recess past the bell, or deciding whether or not to do homework. American students make the same decisions, but in a context of much greater relative freedoms.

The rules that describe how the reconstruction of Gaza will be carried out (under Israeli and Palestinian Unity supervision) give a sense of the different degree of freedom to choose that Palestinians face. This is from the following article in The Middle East Eye

The report lists the known components of the agreement as follows.

Firstly, the security arrangements will closely resemble the ones agreed (but never implemented) after the November 2012 operation “Pillar of Cloud”, with the notable addition of the expansion of the fishing zone to six nautical miles.

Secondly, construction materials will be pre-ordered through Israel, where Israeli teams of engineers will have to approve exact quantities of materials for each specific project. The materials will be ferried in to Israeli-authorised international organizations, who will store them in special facilities under 24-hour CCTV supervision, with footage accessible to Israel.

The reconstruction sites will then be monitored by Israeli drones, to make sure no materials are used for any other purpose and that each bit of materiel is accounted for.

Private homes will be rebuilt by private but also Israeli-vetted Gaza contractors, who will manage the construction materials through special software accessible also to Israel, and whose works will also be monitored by drones.

I will look at these rules with my tenth graders this week, who are in a unit on Rules and Authority. 

Right to Movement

The Palestinian Marathon is still young - the first one was in 2013. It takes place in Bethlehem in March. If you live in Jerusalem, Bethlehem or Ramallah, you can train during weekly runs with the group "Right to Movement", whose organizers started the marathon.

6:30 am: 2.5 shekel coffee in the street

Yesterday I went on Right to Movement's first organized hike by the Dead Sea. It was a little more popular than I (or they) expected -- we were 131 sur le chemin!

10:30 am: Resting in a cave, one of two shady spots all hike. That's George, the primary organizer, behind me.

Our three Bedouin guides, Mohammad, Mohammad and Mohammad, led us over 16km of desert toward the Dead Sea. The irony of the day was that our buses couldn't get past the checkpoint to come pick us up at the end, so we were offered the "right to move" an extra 8 km by foot to reach the checkpoint where the buses were held up. Luckily, during that last stretch, a majestic light show played out over the panoramic view of the Dead Sea while the moon rose and the sun dipped.

1:30 pm: Reached the Dead Sea overlook

My take away from the day is what a strong pull it is for many young Palestinians to live near their families. Many of the people on the hike had been born of brought up in the US and had recently made the decision to move back to Palestine to join their extended families (some even leaving their immediate families in the States). Several mentioned that even though life is "harder" more limited here, the sense of comfort that comes from having family nearby makes up for any inconvenience, and then some.

4:30 pm Looking for the Promised Bus of Milk and Honey. Good thing we didn't know it was still 12km away!

The magnificent Dead Sea at dusk that distracted us from complaining legs while we walked to the checkpoint.

L'Eid à la francais

Midi, l'heure magique en France où tout s'arrête pour le pause de déjeuner. Ca n'existe pas en Palestine. Donc c'était quelque chose de très nostalgic samedi quand Elodie, une française qui travaille ici à Ramallah et qui j'ai rencontrée au café francophone du centre franco-aleman, m'a invitée de manger chez elle pour la fête de l'Eid.

Elle m'a proposé de venir ver midi, et on a suivi le dessin typique d'un repas français. Tout d'abord, on était dehors car il faisait beau et Elodie a une terrace petite mais très agréable. On était trois, et on a pris l'apéro avant de commencer a cuisiner. Après, la salade a suivi, et puis on a mangé le plat, et on est sorti pour chercher de la glace pour le dessert. Tout ca m'a fait beaucoup plaisir, surtout car je pensais à tout les repas sympas dont j'ai profité en France l'année dernier. 

Pessimists and optimists on the 2080's

The tenth grade begins the dystopian Kurt Vonnegut story "Harrison Bergeron" this week.

It's the year 2081, and thanks to the heavy-handed "Handicapper General," inequality has been done away with by applying handicaps to eliminate citizens' strengths. Strong people carry weights. Beautiful people wear hideous masks and have snaggle-tooth dentures. George, in the excerpt below, has above-average intelligence.

Handicapped dancers in "Harrison Bergeron"

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very
hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't
think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his
intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his
ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a
government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would
send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair
advantage of their brains.

Sometimes I feel like my unruly classes affect my ability to think, like the periodic buzzing. I feel like a less intelligent, less creative version of myself when side-talking or disruptions from misbehaving students claim my attention and generate stress. I have new compassion for students who attend schools where the danger of being attacked, by soldiers through the doorway or by missiles from overhead, is a constant buzzing in their minds. 

The ability to focus, much less to create, in that environment is impressive to say the least. When at school in Freeport, in Troy and in Salt Lake, I had the luxury of intellectual exploration uninterrupted by "white noise" of looming threats or weighty responsibilities. 

Hourani's "Qalandia 2087"

A scenario like that Vonnegut illustrates is encouragingly hard to fathom. At the other end of the optimism-pessimism spectrum is the artwork of Wafa Hourani, a Ramallah-based artist whose work is part of the New Museum's current exhibit on Arab art. In her sculpture entitled "Qalandia 2087" Hourani reimages the refugee camp at Qalandia as a utopia (another theme in the tenth grade) with playgrounds, cafes, and landscaped courtyards. Perhaps my class will create a similar prototype of their idea of utopia...

Back in the present, some boys in Gaza are creating what utopia and optimism they can, instead of waiting for any possible future scenarios to turn up. I went to Jenin to see this film called "The Flying Boys of Gaza" last Sunday. Just watch the beginning and minutes 9-11 to see how these boys "escape" the present through their own performance art. A remarkable example of channelling pent up energy into peaceful activity. 

My utopia...

Assignment: Complete the sentences:

1. I believe...

2. So, my utopia is...

Some responses:

"I believe in a free Palestine. So my utopia is a free Palestine."

"I believe that my utopia should have the things I enjoy. My utopia would have all the computer and gaming consoles and all the games I could have with a wide screen television and the best internet I could haves with all my friends and family."

"I believe women's basketball should get more attention. So my utopia is a place where women's basketball is very popular."

"I believe cancer should not exist. So my utopia is a place where you can't get cancer."

"I believe of living in Peace. So my utopia is living in Netherlands."

These responses come out of a unit with The Giver where we have spent time talking about utopia vs. dystopia. One element of life in a dystopia has been the feeling of outside control, and we have talked about the role of propaganda. 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict fuels the production of propaganda on both sides, and a little bit of research indicates that the statistics we look to in order to understand the mindsets behind the conflict are ... faulty. 

The New York Times published this article which cites an ADL study which found that 93% of Palestinians harbor anti-Semitic feelings. Let's take a look at the statements those surveyed were invited to weigh in on:

“Jews have too much power in the business world” 

“Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country/the countries they live in.”

As other news outlets and journalists point out, it is hardly surprising that Palestinians, for whom the flow of goods, utilities, money and people are controlled by Israel, would respond affirmatively.

As a student of the social sciences I know our research is fallible, but I'm also wary of what appears to be intentionally stirring up ill-will.  

On a completely separate note, peace falls on Ramallah on Friday morning, since it's the Muslim holy day, and this morning I took a few pictures. 

Truth-seeking: Emily D vs. the Quakers

"Good day, Friend."

"Good day. How is Truth prospering in thy parts?"

Think about how you would respond if someone began a conversation this way.

I might say "Truth prospers in the genuine excitement I see in Raya (who was interviewed very well and gets to travel with Model UN to Greece this year.) Truth prospers in the honest work that most students do to prepare for class.

Truth suffers in the students who cheated on the test I gave in class yesterday. Truth prospers at the avocado stand where, when I hesitated at what seemed like a high price, the young man weighed the bag in front of me and explained the price.

Apparently I choose extremely large avocados."

Early Quakers were not given to idle talk. But this "honesty" is also not what they meant by Truth, according to Wilmer Cooper in his mop-water-soaked pamphlet on Integrity.

Listen to Fox's idea of where Truth is found: "I was to direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures, by which they might be led into all Truth."

He does not say "I was to direct people to the Scriptures"; the Spirit was the destination.

Truth, according to Fox, is not about secondhand knowledge of God, but firsthand experience. He hoped we would have experiences of Truth that we felt compelled to obey. I imagine this like a call to a profession- an experience so convincing that "teaching!" or "nursing!" or "coding!" is what I am meant to do, that I obey the call and pursue that path.

For Fox, Truth was revealed through the life and teachings of Christ, so the Scriptures count. But the truth was only "authentic if it was grounded in first-hand experience of the living God."

This week Emily Dickinson showed my class that the pursuit of truth might inspire less-than-Quakerly meditations. We read this poem together.

I LIKE a look of agony,
Because I know it ’s true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes glaze once, and that is death.	5
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.

We discussed how she seems to revel in the spectacle of death simply because it offers the the satisfying certainty that she is not being lied to. The eyes of someone dying in anguish glaze over, and -op!- now I know you're for real; Now I'll pay attention, enough to register with pleasure the beads of sweat, festively "strung" across your face. No matter that it's a deathly anguish which produced them.

We also studied empathy this week - this poem was an effective counter example.

When I asked the students "Does Ms. Dickinson seem like a Quaker?" many said "Yes!" because of the demonstrated importance of honesty and truth. But if the Quaker understanding of Truth is grounded in our first-hand experience of God, we can hardly rejoice when it is found in the pain of death.

We might look instead at another Biblical reading of Truth that Cooper brings up - one found in the old testament, coming from the word "emeth" and oftener translated "Faithfulness."

That is, the faithfulness of God. My understanding of truth is grounded in my experience of the faithfulness of God. Simply put, I have been taken care of, and given what I need, every single day of my life up till now. That is the truth, and it is the truth upon which I build my faith in tomorrow. 

See the sea, and the settlements

I met Marwan, whom you see strangling Ahmad, last Thursday, when he popped into our #18 bus going to Jerusalem just as it was pulling out of the station. I must have smelt, because the only open seat was next to me. He took it, and I found out he is a graduate of the Friends school and has two kids there now.

"There's a camping trip on Saturday, you should come," he said. It's a good thing I heard about it from him, because the email announcing the trip listed tent and sleeping bag and a torch and outdoor cooking supplies on the "to bring" list, none of which I have. But he assured me I'd be fine, if a little dewy, with blankets.

Well among the about 12 of us who went to Ei Kenya, we schlepped enough stuff to outfit an army, so I ended up with a tent of my own and a sleeping mat (I carried a wok in my free hand going up).

As Marwan, his wife Rania, and their magnificent daughter Leen drove me westward toward our site, we could see the Mediterranean. This is indeed a small country!

We could also see three settlements, areas that Israel has seized and declared part of Israel, where Israelis live, Palestinians are banned, and watch towers survey the surrounding Palestinian villages. Our hill was so delightful I am surprised it too hasn't been established as a settlement. "It's only a matter of time," said Eman, Ahmad's mother.

In the James Joyce stories that my 11th graders are looking at, we're watching for the theme of failures in communication between characters. Our young male narrators often harbor strong feelings of injustice suffered, but don't complain.

InWhen she had gone I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists. " 
"Araby," a young boy about to miss out on an outing to the bazaar market fumes. "

In "The Sisters," a boy hearing another man slight his late teacher says "I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile!"

In "An Encounter," another young narrator hears his friend described as naughty, and confides "I was going to reply indignantly that we were not National School boys to be whipped, as he called it; but I remained silent. " 

Leen, above, and the boys in me in
some old storage cave

Why do these boys hold their tongues? Is if for the same reason that the Israelis march into Palestinian territory and take the hilltops they want? Do both the boys and Palestinians know that those in charge won't honor their claim to justice?

It's difficult to say what degree of anger is productive. Proverbs 16:3 says "Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city." Being thoughtlessly reactionary is one thing; standing up for oneself is quite another. Without retaliating by assuming warrior mentality or pledging to "take a city", it feels there must be ways of pursuing justice peacefully. Jeanne, of Ramallah Friends Meeting, doesn't buy Israeli products, and has her own marvelously productive victory garden (complete with nicely symbolic olive tree).

In the face of what feels like injustice, knowing where patience should end, and defiance should begin, is a challenge my students will all face, if they haven't yet. 

Joys, part II

"Are you free?" asked the young woman who stuck her head into my office during the last period.

"Yes."

"For like, ten minutes?"

"Yes."

"I'm looking for someone to practice my MUN speech, I have it on Saturday."

Thus commenced a very impressive presentation by an 11th grade Friends' School student on human trafficking and what the U.N. ought to be doing about it.

"I really want to get it. I want to travel. I've never travelled. I won't travel with my parents before I graduate. I would be able to travel alone. It would feel good and independent."

The Model UN team does get to travel internationally, with trips planned this year to Turkey, Greece, Jordan, and beyond. Even the short trip to Jerusalem, which is a great hassle for most Palestinians, and impossible for some, presents a distant horizon to be reached.

This young woman was impressive because she was so keen to hear feedback. But really, she needed little-- her eye contact, gestures, and delivery were all strong.

Some verses that remind me that I, too, should be constantly seeking feedback in my new job, are

Proverbs 1:5, "Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance"

and

Proverbs 12:1, "Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge: but he that hates reproof is brutish."

Even though I am an instructor, receiving instruction is key to my ability to be of service here. This week I observed a colleague's class, and took notes almost constantly. They looked like a court report: "He walked among the rows. Checked a student's homework. Checked his watch. Minimal talking."

My own class ends up being a lab where I tinker-teach to figure out what works for me.

Unexpected meetings with students like yesterday's bring joys that I did not expect given the job description. 

Joys, part I

The task many a teacher doth fear,
I find myself loving, holding dear.

Past the final bell, at my desk I am found,
Stacks of quizzes, essays, handouts, all around.

In my vocation still "wet behind ears"
I might grow to dislike it, over the years.

But now, pen poised, I'm on cloud nine,
"Grand work they are doing, just fine!"

Yesterday's chore, which felt not as such,
Was a vocab quiz for 10A, not much.

Spelling errors, not surprising, were there,
But with "forebearing" and "merky", should one care?

While decoding their scribbling,
I forgot all their quibbling,
And longed to give each a hug, "a la bear".

Such joys we expect with teacher's work,
But hidden pleasures round corners do lurk.

For quite out of the blue, yesterday,
A young woman quite brightened my day.

But my rhyme runs weary,
No, don't become teary!
Just away to the next blog post, away!

Trust

In The Giver, there is a powerful moment when 12-year-old Jonas realizes that it's possible that all the adults in his life might be lying to him.

Jonas is informed that, given his future career path, he is allowed to lie.

"He had never, within his memory, been tempted to lie. Asher did not lie. Lily did not lie. His parents did not lie. No one did. Unless ...

Now Jonas had a thought that he had never had before. This new thought was frightening. What if others--adult-- had, upon becoming Twelves, received in their instructions the same terrifying sentence?

What if they had all been instructed: You may lie?

His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness and promised answers--he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: "Do you lie?"

But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received were true." 

Very quickly, the foundation of our sanity crumbles when trust dissolves, or even is questioned. 

In my experience institutions illuminate the uncomfortable wheedling distrust that Jonas feels by making everything official- by having us sign a paper every time we say "yes," "no" or "maybe so." That's why I've been curious and pleasantly surprised by the way interactions and transactions of all types here are characterized by trust. 

I went to the book printer to get copies made of The Giver. I was short 80 NIS (more than $20) and the man at the shop just waved his hand, handed me the books, and said come back tomorrow.

When Nour, the administrative secretary of Ramallah Friends School, needed to reimburse me for my visa costs today, I didn't have the change she needed, and she just gave me the 300 NIH and said to bring me the change later. 

Vegetable prices are so reasonable that I have the feeling, for the first time ever when in a new place, that I am not getting a "tourist" price. There is no song and dance about there being a special price for me, which actually makes me feel much more special.

On the other hand, every classroom, office, closet and bathroom is under lock and key at school. My keychain quadrupled in size on my first day.

Look what I squeegee-ed up

The Palestinian mopping method is to dump soapy water all over the floor, then squeegee it out the door. It works quite well, though turns into rather a scramble if your floors are slanted away from the door.

When I made my first tentative in this activity on Thursday, most of the water gathered under the radiator on the other side of the room, and when I went to remove it, I commented that the wad of paper that lay, now soaked, under the radiator, looked like a Pendle Hill pamphlet, one of the Quaker mini-books written by Friends in residence at Pendle Hill, the Quaker worship and study center in Pennsylvania.

Lo and behold, it was a PH pamphlet.

Fittingly, the pamphlet is called "The Testimony of Integrity" and who knows how long it dwelt under the radiator. So impressed was I by its own integrity that after having initially tossed the partially dissolved booklet, I fished it out of the trash and dried it on the kitchen window sill.

Wilmer A. Cooper begins his pamphlet with a story of a woman who, feeling as though the wellspring of Quaker inspiration dwindled to a trickle, sought a refreshed energy for teaching in George Fox's home town.

Sitting in the church where young George worshipped with his family on First Days (the Quaker phrase for Sundays) this teacher "saw in her mind's eye the boy George Fox." She envisioned that he was puzzled by his neighbors' piety while in Meeting, and relative depravity during the week.

"He saw that there must be a correspondence between one's faith, between what one professed on the Sabbath, and what one does during the daily work week."

Fox recognized the inconsistency, dubbed it wrong, and went on to make integrity a central part of the faith community he founded, the Friends.

In the texts we're reading in my classes this week young boys face questions of "good and bad" which are anything but black and white.

Jonas, the The Giver, learns that choices have been painstakingly removed from his community's life. Everyone is colorblind for instance. When he sees color for the first time, he is angry that such diversity has been withheld. "If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! I blue tunic, or a red one?"

The real question for Jonas is whether he enlighten his friends and family to their own bland existence.

In James Joyce's story "The Sisters," the narrator, a  young boy, considers the recently-dead priest who was rather a mentor for him. He dreams of the "heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey face still followed me. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist with spittle."

Is this a good guy? Can someone give us the heebeejeebees and still be a good influence, or an intellectually safe acquaintance? I'm encouraging my students to allow texts, events, relationships, characters, to be hard to categorize and characterize. It makes them harder to write about, but more realistic.

We'll look at heaps of characters this year who aren't as golden-good as Fox, but have redeeming even heroic, characteristics.

Can't wait. 

Refuges for the language-less

If you ever find yourself in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, let me suggest two activities that make you feel utterly part of something that crosses conventions and reaches souls: silent worship, and spinning.

The Ramallah Friends Meeting (newsletter) is housed in a beautiful meeting house on the main street of downtown Ramallah. Eleven Friends or attenders gathered for worship this Sunday. The unprogrammed hour heard hymns and ministry; that Sibelius tune Finlandia, turned into "This is my Song" pulls particularly at the heart here (video)

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

but other hearts in other lands are beating

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

I met the legendary Jean, who seems to be the Margaret Wentworth of Ramallah Friends, and she led us all to felafel and hummus- a great way to make more (F)riends.

THEN, last night I felt ready for a nap despite my healthy 8 hours, so I decided getting my blood flowing might do me good. I bought a membership to SOLO Gym, and arrived just as a Spinning class was getting under sweaty way. Oh my gosh. So much fun. 

I cannot say for sure which language the instructor was speaking, but it didn't matter, because the music was so loud no one seemed to be counting on the actual instructions. It's fairly basic, in a class where there's only one action. Well, two-- the woman next to me swatted my elbow at one point and pointed to her own legs, which, like everyone else's were peddling backward at that point. I guffawed (another conveniently universal behavior) and slowed and reversed my whirring steed. 

While waiting in the gathered Meeting, and while spinning in a what felt like a throbbing black box theater, barriers with the Palestinians around me fell away, despite my pitiful Arabic vocabulary. The day in my week with the least conversation was also my most integrated. "Let your words be few, my Friends."

The 100 year old piano (really! Jean said!) that no longer works functions "but gives history."

In the beginning

In the beginning there were no conventions. How did we write when there was nothing else to write about? I’m tempted to ask my literature students to buck the traditional English Literature model of constantly seeking connections to other works of literature, words of other thinkers, allusions to other works. I want them to write their own creation stories. Beginnings are important, and how we start our own “In the beginning” tells our readers a lot about our state of mind. 

The Giver, the summer reading for my tenth grade English class, starts like this:

“It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen. Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice.”

Not even four lines in, and frightened has been used three times. Sickening, terrible, unidentified, all set a tone decidedly different from the reassuring “And God saw that it was good” of Genesis 1:10. 

Here’s my creation story, of my world as it was born on Tuesday.

The sensation was gratitude to be following someone. As a baby, in transition, in the womb, I had been on my own, not necessarily prepared with the language skills (read or speak Arabic), or physical strength (heave 58 pound suitcase) to do what I had to do. But like a baby who somehow makes it to the delivery room, I passed through the arrivals doors into Ben Gurion. I hemmed and hawed, wandered aimlessly, contemplated the ATM, and finally approached someone to ask to use a cell phone to call my nowhere-to-be-seen driver Bassam. Later, when I Bassam took my suitcase, I felt my first instinct- relief to be led. 

***

Reading literature, listening to the news, going to the theater, one is struck by how much our cultural dialogue stands upon repetition and recurrence. 

“What canst thou say?” said George Fox. We know what the priests and preachers are saying. What canst thou say, that’s new?

Mark Twain took the Bible stories into his own hands, tossed out convention, assumed the voice of Adam, and said “Monday: This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this. I’m not used to company, I wish it would stay with the other animals.” 

I like this because Adam wrote about what he felt, not in relation to how others felt, or how society told him he should feel (there was no society). This week I’ll ask my students to do the same. 

At Home on Friends Street

Ha, this keyboard types from right to left!
Well, just wanted to note a change in this unity - I have taken a job at the Ramallah Friends School for this school year, and I arrived in Ramallah today.
I met and went out to dinner with Olivia, Will, Trystan and Bethany, (Trystan and Bethany are in the photo) and am feeling so grateful to be surrounded by neighbors in a new neighborhood

Quaker Process Part 2: No veto

There were some funny stories at Quaker Studies this past weekend, about Quaker meetings for business in which one member simply refuses to stand down and accept that the meeting move forward with a certain action.

In one case, a meeting was discussing the meeting's investments in South African companies during Apartheid. One member felt extremely strongly about the issue and refused to join the rest of the meeting when all others had reached clarity. The business item remained open for 10 years, until the single member changed his mind and joined the rest of the meeting in unity. By then Apartheid had ended, so the issue was rather moot...

What to do in Quaker meeting for worship for business when dissent arises? Writing on Quaker business practices, Eden Grace writes,

individuals do not hold a power of veto, and should be ready to recognize the validity of corporate leadings and to submit to them if conscience allows, being recorded in the minutes as "standing aside".

When they are not willing to stand aside... what happens? Well, they can be overridden, or at least they have been at Durham in the past. That is huge, compared to a scenario where one voice can derail an otherwise united committee.

Consider the power of veto today. The president can veto any bill brought to his desk. Certain members of the UN Security Council can veto international military or aid campaigns. Last week Somini Sengupta wrote in the New York Times about why the U.N. can't solve the world's problems. 

"The problem is not that the major powers don't care [about what's happening in Ukraine, Palestine, and Syria]. It is that they care too much. Russia and the United States have a great deal at stake in each conflict, and the rules of diplomacy enable them, as well as the other three permanent members - Britain, China and France - to veto any security Council action."

This path behind Castelton State College where NEYM sessions were held provided much needed interludes between business sessions

The article goes on to state that the U.S. has vetoed 14 draft resolutions, most regarding the Israeli Palestinian conflict; Russia has vetoed 11 concerning allied governments like Syria's. 

A Quaker meeting for business might not be the only place one waits 10 years for a shift to occur-- a shift that comes too late to be of help. 

Our Sunday School class discussed this week the difference between a normal meeting for business, in which our interests and opinions are the source of the opinions that form the discussion, and a Quaker meeting for business, in which the members listen to discern God's will for the corporate body, rather than trying to hash out a compromise between the human interests at the table. 

We used a helpful handout written by Susan Smith, where she writes that for early Friends, "the basic assumption was that God would lead into unity those who truly submitted themselves to God's will... Friends believed that people who seek and follow God's will for a given situation are automatically brought into unity with each other, because God does not offer contradictory instructions for the same situation." 

I was frustrated by the worshipful-verging-on-lethargic atmosphere at some of the NEYM business meetings, but hearing that even the high-stakes, official U.N. talks get stymied with their own tools reminded me that group decisions are never easy. If our first goal is to promote peace with the way we live, Quaker process is worth our attention and study because it focuses as much on listening as on speaking- on seeking to align with a larger will as with trying to align others with one's individual will. 

Vastly better way to do business? Perhaps not. 
Vastly less efficient? Perhaps not. 
Worth a try? Yes.

Quaker process, part 1: a role for humor?

"Friends, we're grateful to be gathered." So said the clerk at the start of the last session of business at Yearly Meeting. Having presided over some testy meetings and sought the sense of the meeting all week, with a broken shoulder to boot, her gratitude made her seem angelic.

And in fact, Quaker process as it is written fairly demands divinity. The level of acceptance, self-restraint, patience in listening, and obedience to the sense of the work of individual committees and the clerk, are superhuman. Sometimes our human nature bursts onto the scene, in a frustrated outburst, or a [comparatively] aggressive "That Friend speaks MY mind!" during a discussion. In our attempts to be perfectly measured and holy, ever flooded by divine Love and acutely aware of that of God in those we disagree with, we strained our human nature until it snapped.

How holy are we expected to be? Is there a room for humor, which would likely diffuse some of that pent up human-ness?

Humor at business sessions:
1. Tomatoes on the lectern: Starting on Sunday, someone put a tomato on the corner of the lectern that all reports and keynotes are given from. If an explanation was given, I missed it. Two mornings later, there were three more, smaller tomatoes lined up across the lectern. Again no explanation. During Wednesday night's business session, which witnessed the most controversy, a Friend from Cambridge Meeting jumped on stage between speakers and put a tiny cherry tomato at the end of the line. Laughter clapped across the auditorium, which moments before (and moments after) was heavy with disagreement. Such harmless irreverence was likely, though not certainly, appreciated by all.

2. Elaborate introductions: If I stood to speak in a "meeting for worship for business", (the Quaker name for business meetings) I would preclude my statement with, "Mimi Marstaller, Durham Friends Meeting." By Wednesday night Friends were getting punchy.
"D---- W-----,  Portsmouth Meeting, New Hampshire, on the border of Maine, next to the Atlantic Ocean."
"H-------- E---------, Worcester Meeting, Worcester Mass. Which is the second largest city in New England."
Titters rose from the audience, then a Friend said
"R-------- Z----------, South Stockton Meeting. The first time I came to Yearly Meeting I had no idea where any of the Meetings were located. Can we please not make fun of it?"

3. Clowning around: After a tense discussion on Thursday morning of the Legacy Fund, which had been a topic of controversy the night before, General Secretary Noah Baker Merrill took to the tomato-laden lectern to report on the attendance numbers for NEYM this year. He donned a clown's nose, and Ben Guerraldi, Cambridge Meeting, stood behind him, stuck his arms under Noah's, and gesticulated wildly through the whole presentation. It was the only time all week when I bent over laughing. And I generally love to take things way too seriously. This video captures a moment of their presentation; I do not exaggerate when I say that it brought the meeting back to life.

Yes, it is easy to bring humor into happy discussions (attendance and financial vitals for the conference were up this year). I don't suggest bringing humor into the deepest, most divided discussions. But by all means, bring on the humorous interludes. The tomatoes and Ben and Noah's clowning will remain some of my strongest and best NEYM memories. 

Quakers and Entrepreneurs, first cousins

Children sitting in Quaker worship, or those new to Quaker meeting, might wonder "How long do you have to sit in the silence in order to hear God?"


This week at New England Yearly Meeting, a gathering of about 700 Friends in Vermont, there are many opportunities to sit in silence. There's the half hour of silent worship from 6:30-7:00 am, which for the past two mornings has been held outside and offered views of mist-wrapped hills. That silence is designed to stoke the coals of the Spirit.
There's the minute of silence observed at the end of workshops, like the scant minute at the end of an impassioned presentation and discussion on the situation in Gaza. That kind of silence is designed to toss water on flaring embers of the human spirit, and to remind us why we sit in silence together.


We do not, after all, gather in Quaker fellowship to listen to each other. As Susan Smith points out in this piece on Quaker Process, we gather to discern God's will for our group. At the Quaker meeting for worship for business this morning, we met with the intention of hearing God's message to our corporate body, not what He had to say to each of us individually.


Writes Smith:


"Friends believed that people who seek and follow God’s will for a given situation are automatically brought into unity with each other, because God does not offer contradictory instructions for the same situation."


But how long does all this listening take? What if the right course of action doesn't spring into the group conscious, and continues not to? There are, in fact, items which have been on the agenda of the Yearly Meeting for years.


I submit that Quakers might take a page from both Romans and from the entrepreneur's handbook. It's actually kind of the same page.


Romans 12:2 says (ESV)
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.


This could be paraphrased as "Disregard the status quo- think outside the box, and tinker until you find the right path, the path that God made for you." This is basically how entrepreneurs behave, though God might not be foremost in their thoughts. What is foremost in their thoughts is listening- trying to discern a need around them that is not being met.

Today David Brooks writes about James Mwangi, a Kenyan entrepreneur who started Equity Bank, offering savings accounts to poor Kenyans. The bank met a need, but for the first several years it struggled, losing money each year. But things changed, Kenyans began earning more money, and today the bank holds nearly half Kenya's bank accounts.

Mwangi must have had an inkling that a bank was a good idea. But he didn't know it would work well, and in fact it didn't for a long time. But he rolled up his sleeves, and began "testing" in order to "discern" what was the right path to follow in his goal to create a successful business and provide a valuable service.

Quakers should be similarly willing to jump into the game before we know whether something will be a shoe in. Let's not let our hair turn gray while we wait for God to make his entire will clear. Let's act on the first step, then tinker with the live project as we go.

Where should Quakers roll up our sleeves?
-by writing a replacement for the FUM personnel policy which honors gay and lesbian Friends. It may not be perfect, but it will continue the conversation.
-publish goals regarding church planting in cities, giving each Monthly Meeting a charge to start a Worship Group in a nearby town, since today's seekers are looking for a faith community based in town, not in countryside.
-Try a completely new budget plan which involves less charitable giving, in order to balance the budget, and commits Friends to a year of turning that energy inward to strengthen Meetings themselves: let those who want to lead take a role in adult education. Lead Faith and Practice study groups. Have retreats at the Meetinghouse, in tents in the backyard, rather than flying off to Cuba or England for an exciting tour of Quaker history. We can just as well test the will of God by examining and rearranging our own backyards as by examining the yards of distant neighbors.

Perfection = paralysis

When you hear perfection, what do you think of? A Martha Stewart dinner party, table adorned with seasonally appropriate natural elements? A checkbook that is always balanced? Dandelion-free lawns? A steak that is the right shade of rosy in the center?

Now think about spiritual perfection. What does perfection in our spiritual lives look like? Never having an angry thought? Showing love and kindness toward all all the time? Taking each action as if it were a prayer? Deliberately pausing to ask God's guidance before deciding anything? Giving 10% of everything to charity?

I can feel myself shrink in my chair as I type these phrases.



Sir Winston Churchill said "The maxim 'Nothing avails but perfection,' may be spelled 'Paralysis.'" He certainly should have known; a wartime leader when rules were being rewritten and nations were faced with frightful alternatives, Churchill knew that one cannot simultaneously pursue perfection and growth.

While we all know this in our heart of hearts, it's hard to remember how OK it is to stumble, drop the ball, and most importantly, ask for help, when we separate ourselves from our spiritual fellows. The literature can be unforgiving.

A solitary perusal of a Quaker query, for example, can be an exercise in making oneself smaller.

6. Personal Conduct
Do you live with simplicity, moderation, and integrity? Are you punctual in keeping promises, careful in speech, just and compassionate in all your dealings with others? Do you take care that your spiritual growth is not sacrificed to busyness but instead integrates your life's activities? Are your recreations consistent with Quaker values; do they refresh your spirit and renew your body and mind?

"Well, on most days...."

WHEW! What a list. Helpful questions, no doubt, but fearful too, unless faced in community and discussed in terms of the reality of imperfection.

At Monthly Meeting in July the clerk read the Query on home and family. Here's my favorite line:
"Should conflict or crisis threaten the stability of the home, are you open to seeking all necessary help, both from your meeting and from the larger community?"

Part way through the meeting the recording clerk requested that the business pause so we could review the minutes. The conversation had been a bit unwieldy, and she said "I need your guidance on this one, Friends!" I wanted to ring a gong and shout with acclamation. She was following the query! She found herself facing difficulty in her work, and she was asking for help with it. We all face "conflicts and crises" every day. I hope we don't feel like we need to deal with them in spiritual perfection, as Jesus might. God is perfect. We are NOT. I might ask, "What would Jesus do?" but follow it with "I'll try to do that, knowing that I'll fall short because I am human."

When we have sticky troubles, like jealousy or resentment, we should talk to others about them. Paul said that when he had such a "thorn in the flesh" he asked Jesus to remove it. The response was "My grace is enough for you. When you are weak, my power is made perfect in you." Then Paul rejoiced in his weakness, knowing that it in fact brought him closer to God.

Yesterday my difficulty was finding out that I didn't get a job I had hoped to get. I called a friend soon after I got the disappointing email, and cried. I hadn't been the "perfect" candidate, but more painfully, I hadn't had a "perfect" understanding of what God's will is for me. Sharing my crisis with another brought me closer to God, as fellowship almost always does.

A pamphlet (download from bottom of this page) made by the American Friends Service Committee describes the testimonies and how friends try to live by the SPICES (They do not use that term)
Simplicity
Peace
Integrity
Community
Equality
Stewardship

In what might be another piece of literature that reminds us how hard the spiritual path is, they insert this piece of wisdom:

"Be gentle with yourself

While attempting to live in concert with these teachings , Quakers are tender with themselves and with each other when they fall short, ready to recommit and try again."

Slaves to the timeline

This fascinating community project called "Embassy" in California is eager to examine what community can mean in a new society where people are, first of all, mobile. How can we establish enclaves of authentic community where we have no nostalgic community? In Brunswick I have community by default because "I'm from here." I'm a Mainer. I frequent the same grocery store and post office as my neighbors. More and more people my age choose new communities or have lives in which they jump around and never develop traditional ties to a place. We are not as "settled" physically. Does it necessarily follow that we are not as "settled" spiritually? 

After that introduction, I'm actually going to postpone that discussion to another day, and write today about how, if we are no longer held in space by our circumstances (we are more mobile than ever), we are still held in our temporal position. We are still defined by our times. 

Carlo Bergonzi, 1924-2014

I love reading obituaries because they give examples of non-linear lives. And because they tell human stories. This morning I read about a great opera tenor, Carlo Bergonzi, who lived for three years in a concentration camp during WWII because of anti-Nazi things he said. Three years. He was a product of his time and political climate in a way that we will never experience and I have a hard time even imagining. 

Jehan Alain 1911-1940

At a midday organ concert today, the performer played a piece by composer Jehan Alain, a Frenchman who lived only to 29 because, in addition to composing, he served as a dispatch rider in the French army in WWII and was shot on the job. 

It was during and immediately after WWII that Thomas Kelly travelled to Europe and witnessed the horror which inspired some of his more passionate passages in "A Testament of Devotion." Toward the end of the book he says we all have certain tasks that are given to us in our time, and it is our divine duty to pursue them. 

"the Loving Presence... considerately puts upon each of us just a few central tasks, as emphatic responsibilities."

Perhaps for Bergonzi, that task was singing Verdi. For Alain, composing organ music. Their position in time profoundly impacted their lives, but not the inner fire that motivated them to give of themselves in the way God intended them to. 

Kelly believes that we need not be discouraged if the environment, the era in which we do our work is hostile to it. He assures us that "the Now contains all that is needed for the absolute satisfaction of our deepest cravings." (95) That's what I love about Quakerism! Eternity? Please. We can live in God's glory today. I like the way Kelly describes living into our tasks, regardless of the times:

"Not with the rattle and clatter of hammers, not with trained eyebrows and tense muscles but in peace and power and confidence we work upon such apparently hopeless tasks as the elimination of war from society, and set out toward world-brotherhood and interracial fraternity in a world where all the calculated changes of success are very meagre." (103)

Perhaps our goals, based on our times or the current political climate, are "unreasonable." But the Now, as Kelly argues, is all we have. And if we are as prolific in accomplishing our God-given tasks as Alain was, as John Keats or John Lennon or Princess Diana or Steve Jobs were, we won't have done too poorly!