Thoughts in These Times of COVID

Thoughts on Henri Nouwen: “Healing means moving from your pain to the pain.”

My pain, my grief, and my fear are not just my pain, grief, and fear; it is my portion of the pain, the grief, and the fear of my shared humanity. Healing comes with the realization that it is the pain of humanity in which I am participating. For the vast majority of us, our individual portion of humanity’s pain is only a relatively small and seemingly disproportionate share. I can hold up my end. It would not be decent of me to expect someone else to bear my portion.

The following is a thought inspired by my most recent read: A Lowcountry Heart, by Pat Conroy.

It isn't that I've forgotten. 

I choose not to think about it anymore.

Some days I am able to make better choices than I am at other times.

"On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk...the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it's just that time when the pull of the blue highway is the strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself."
From: Blue Highways, A Journey Into America,                                                                                                  by William Least Heat Moon                                                                                                                    [William Trogdon]

This past weekend I took a road trip in northern Wisconsin and made a conscious choice to travel blue highways. I did not seek strangeness nor the opportunity to lose myself; I sought familiarity and the opportunity to revisit an earlier time. Today's blue highways or back roads may well have been the main routes of an earlier day. Some have been relegated to back road status by the development of the interstate system and choices made to upgrade select parallel routes as the expense of others. The blue highways of my weekend included: 8, 13, 47, 45, and 64.

The criteria I use to identify a blue highway include: (1)no more than two lanes, one in either direction, with occasional passing lanes accepted, and (2)a maximum speed limit of 55 mph. I would also like to include the absence of bypasses, but there are exceptions: Highway 67 bypasses Antigo and Highway 10 bypasses Stevens Point. There are other Wisconsin blue highways that I have driven in the past and will continue to drive in the future. These include: 2, 27, 40, 63, and 70. Highways 29 and 10 (east of Stevens Point) have lost their blue highway status in recent decades. I suspect there will be others who suffer much the same fate.

What is it about blue highways? A primary characteristic is the individualization of place. There is the uniqueness of the Wisconsin countryside and its use dictated in large part by the local geography. Building and fencing materials often reflect their immediate environments. The lay of the land dictates the layout of fields and tillage practices, road routes, and population density or the lack thereof. Land use is reflective of a broad range of agricultural activities specific to the immediate area and the villages and towns that have evolved to serve the surrounding rural area. It is clearly obvious that some villages and towns have not survived during this period of evolution bracketed on one end by the 1950's and the other by today. There is a marked absence of suburban/rural exclusively residential developments serving adjoining and even distant urban areas. This is also a space where national chains and brands don't hold absolute dominance. There are opportunities for such places as Koni K's Kafe in Elcho where the pies are made in house. There is also the Bruce Café; when one orders oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins, only the brown sugar is served as a "side." The raisins are added at the same time as the other ingredients.

Maybe it is possible for travel itself to be served up and enjoyed as comfort food for the spirit.

Sometimes We May Not Know That of Which We Speak

My hometown library recently hosted a reading and book signing by a regional author. The work was described as a collection of short stories chosen from this author’s collections of short stories published earlier. The short story chosen to be the “read” for the evening struck me as more of a memoir than a short story. It was not strictly fiction; it recounted a somewhat brief classroom incident when the author as a college professor in his mid-40’s taught a class titled “English as a Second Language.” This was also the title of the piece. The author acknowledged that no details were altered, not even the names of the students. The students included: a Vietnamese woman, two Japanese men, a man from Hong Kong, and a Laotian man. The author’s classroom interaction with the Vietnamese woman formed the central focus of the “story” with frequent references by way of triggered memories back to the author’s Vietnam experience as a U.S. Marine some 25 years previous.

I was confused by the short story descriptor and its memoir flavor. I’ll leave it to the literature folks to sort out that matter. What I found troubling was the disparity between the autobiographical message which I heard in the reading of the story and the author’s denial that this underlying message applied to him. If not to him, then to whom? Or was the message that I heard hidden from the author? Was I projecting my own experience into the story? I think not.

In setting the story up, the author described his voluntary enlistment in the Marine Corps at 19 years of age in early 1964 before the Gulf of Tonkin incident and before the massive build-up of the U.S. presence in Vietnam which followed. The author recounted his intention behind his enlistment as a desire “to see the world,” among others. He also somewhat casually noted, but with a certain edge to his words, that his Vietnam experience had not affected him “physically, but. . .” And he did not finish that statement and simply moved on after chuckling under his breath. The author also flat out stated: “We lost that war.” There is no nuance, no equivocation. It is unclear if he is referring to: (1) the common soldier and marine stationed in Vietnam, (2) the U.S. military brass, (3) the U.S. political leadership, or (4) some combination of these. I found such a blanket statement unusual for a veteran.

In his story the author was looking over the student’s shoulder as he read a piece of writing that he had given as an in-class assignment. As he read the student’s first few paragraphs, he would make specific suggestions with respect to missing words, stilted use of English, and so forth. At this same time, the author’s choice of words to describe the woman’s clothing and appearance are drawn from his Vietnam experience. The color and patterns in her clothing recall for the author the colors and patterns he observed in the jungle environment during his tour in Vietnam. Her long hair hanging loosely and hiding his view of her face is described as very similar to the dark and heavy foliage of the jungle capable of shielding an enemy soldier.

Interspersed with the author’s description of his instructions to the student as to the changes or corrections to be made in her prose, the author described his experiences as a teenage Marine in Vietnam and, more specifically, his interaction with an alleged Vietcong prisoner. The author/marine was tasked with moving prisoners brought to the Marine base by helicopter from the landing zone to the motor pool. The prisoners were bound and blindfolded. One particular prisoner was calling out or shouting (“raising a ruckus,” I think was the author’s exact words.). In order to quiet the prisoner, the author, as a young marine, “kicked him in the ear and stuck a rag in his mouth.” It was not stated how the prisoner ended up in such a position that the author was able to kick him in the side of his head. As the story proceeded in the present, the author realized that his attempts to get the student to edit her writing were futile; he eventually gave up and directed his attention to the other students in the classroom.

The assignment given by the author/professor was to write about the best thing that ever happened to you. The Vietnamese woman had written about her mother and all that she had done for her daughter. The student was sobbing silently and during much of the incident unbeknown to the author, since he was not able to see her face. It is not known if the student’s mother was alive or dead, in the U.S. or Vietnam. Clearly, she was distraught at this time. We never learn why. The author/professor gave up on any attempt to communicate with the student on either a verbal or an emotional level and moved on. The author then elicited the participation of the other students, and they exchanged the various words for mother, mom, and ma in their respective languages. The story concluded with a reflective comment on motherhood. In making a leap from the particular to the universal, the author facilitated his escape from a troubling emotional engagement either present or past; the latter might well be described as a “memory-as-present,” that is, a flashback. Any emotional distress experienced by the author could now be self-identified with the loss of his own mother during the time the author was stationed in Vietnam—a much more understandable and tolerable emotional state.

The Vietnamese woman is the only woman in the class. The other students, all men, are from Hong Kong, Laos, and Japan. The author commented that he was able to understand these students more easily than the woman and at the same time attributing that “ease” to having spent time in other Asian countries during his Marine Corps enlistment. If he has spent the standard 13-month Marine Corps tour of duty in Vietnam, how is that he didn’t pick up a comparable ability with respect to a Vietnamese person?

The juxtaposition of the interaction with this student and the interaction, including mistreatment, with the prisoner creates an eerie paradox. The student chose not to speak or was unable to speak to the author/professor in response to his questions and suggestions; the author/marine refused or was unable to communicate with a pleading prisoner. The author acknowledged that the prisoner could well be an innocent farmer as much as a Vietcong soldier. It is also likely that some prisoners were women and the mothers of daughters now the age of this Vietnamese student. The author is clearly frustrated in the present as he was in the past, which may be the core linkage between the memory and the contemporary experience.

A couple of times during the story, the author indicated that he would look out the window of his classroom and observe construction taking place on campus. He notes it was as if the entire campus was a construction zone. Military bases and outposts in Vietnam looked very much like perennial construction sites: dust or mud depending upon the season, earth berms, buildings clad in raw lumber, mounds of construction materials and waste, and crappers (military) or port-a-potties (civilian). Military hardware and equipment are not so unlike their civilian counterparts. There may even be much the same machines and vehicles, just a different color. Olive drab to reduce visibility; safety orange to increase visibility. The former in a place where being seen poses the greater risk to one’s safety; the latter in a place where not being seen poses the greater risk to one’s safety. The view from an upper floor of a building out onto a campus under construction appears not unlike the view of a military outpost from a guard tower.

My take-a-way from this evening: I don’t know how this author was able to draft a “story” such as this and, at the same time, suggest that the war had no effect upon him. Self-awareness in such matters is twofold: (1) an awareness that such an experience may or may not have had an effect, and (2) the specific operative impact of such an experience.  One’s awareness of the former does not include or preclude the awareness of the latter. This observation may be summarized by the statement: “I know I have been affected by such an experience; it is just that I am not aware of the impact that it has had on my day-to-day life or even its ability to creep into my day-to-day life without warning and, at times, with an ability to be present in such a way that I am not able to see any evidence of that presence.” One may know the why and the how or just the why or the how. This knowledge can be full or partial, accurate or in error.

I read with the expectation that a writer knows that of which he or she speaks and then knowingly shares that with the reader. I came away from the evening program ill at ease. I did not ask this author to address my befuddlement during the time allotted for questions.

Musings

I am not so sure I believe in past lives. If there are such, I would think that I wouldn't have to make so many mistakes in the present do-over.

I have to warn you, when I am out and about alone, I am not likely in the presence of a responsible adult.

I am currently reading a collection of short stories. I am enjoying it so much that I have now written my own short story which I will share with you.

       Two men enter a restaurant. The taller of the two immediately goes to the rest room. His shorter companion promptly exits the restaurant through the kitchen. Neither leaves a tip.

At this time, I have only a working title: Spy Craft.

Pope Francis often uses the term "ideological colonialism" to describe what he sees as the wrongs being forced upon developing countries and indigenous populations by the governments of the more developed countries and those persons and organizations representing these governments. The efforts criticized are most often being introduced under the guise of development. The topics and specific efforts most offensive to the pope (and the only ones that are sufficiently offensive in so far that they merit his repeated criticism) are matters related to human sexuality, sexual ethics, reproductive health care, and gender identity.

It is my sense that ideological colonialism speaks to a much broader sphere of influence and socio-cultural conflict. It refers to any institution and the mores which underpin such an institution, being forcibly or voluntarily introduced into a novel setting, that is, a context wherein alternate structures already exist and thrive. This includes such things as: the concept of private property, hierarchical and patriarchal structures of social organization, language and the conceptualization of the real and the imagined in terms specific to an individual language. This is in no way an exhaustive list.

A January 10, 2018 article by Deborah Jian Lee in the on-line publication Religion Dispatches titled "Christians of Color Are Rejecting 'Colonial Christianity' and Reclaiming Ancestral Spiritualies" speaks so eloquently to that which up to now has been for me only a troubling and poorly formed thought.

It is the tenet of this author that Christianity as it has developed over the course of the past 1,500 years has itself become a vehicle for and an essential component of ideological colonialization. What is even more troubling is that this has occurred only after Christianity itself had been the object of cultural appropriation. It then became and continues to be one of many tools utilized by Christian Euro-American nations in order to colonize the balance of the globe--imposing even Christianity now revised back upon many of those from whom it had been previously appropriated.

The article supports this view of second millennium Christianity with the following quotes:

“...[Christianity is] a tradition founded by people of color, [a] scriptural guidance for activism, and a retethering to history…”

“…[Christianity, as it] filtered through predominantly white communities and erased a crucial detail from Christian mysticism’s history: that its forebears were men and women of color.”

 “Across the wide sweep of colonial history, the systematic demonization and erasure of local religion served as a key strategy to empire building.”

“...belief is over-emphasized in the Euro-American religious reality, where doctrine supersedes correct action or practice.”

The task at hand for persons and communities of color is one of "...decolonizing their Christian faith from white patriarchy and capitalism." The article describes how that has been done and might continue to be pursued by faith communities and also by individuals--as a more singular activity. The section titled "Dogma vs. Dream Time" is particularly insightful. I can only hope that the former bishop of the local Catholic diocese reads this article. He may then no longer feel okay with disparaging liturgical dance within the context of his homilies.

Here is a link to the cited article for your enjoyment and thoughtful consideration.

 http://religiondispatches.org/christians-of-color-are-rejecting-colonial-christianity-and-reclaiming-ancestral-spiritualities/