Why I Didn't Need To Be In 2 Places At Once Last Night

Project Lollipop
A friend writes this morning in an email: "Couple of personal notes: [My wife's] mother had her ninth heart attack today in Sweden. I don't know what to say...Swedes get health care instead of aircraft carriers for their tax krona. Thanks to the miracle of medical science, Americans can expect to live until we have no money left. But in Sweden, you just live on and on."

That's a good place to start with the tragedy of America's begathon on American Idol last night for crumbs of corporate largess and personal giving to the starving of Africa and America. I guess I qualify for misanthrope status when I feel cynicism and discontent with such a good-intentioned attempt at charity. But, you see, I chose to watch Bill Moyers instead and saw his brave, unsparing indictment of the American media's capitulation and complicity in the Iraq war. So while American Idol raised $30 million, I watched how Americans were bilked out of $500 billion for an immoral, unnecessary war that goes on and on the way the life of my friend's Swedish mother-in-law goes on and on because welfare not warfare is Sweden's number one priority.

To me, American Idol's "giveback" was really a kickback, a couple dollars in an envelope to stuff in the pockets of police or slide under their pie plates. Asking American corporations and citizens to give millions to charity when the war machine has ceaseless, churning billions to spend is like diving for pennies in a fountain out front of the Pentagon. It's Advil for the aching, amorphous pang we call conscience. If the same people watched Moyers, the pang might have become the precise, howling pain it needs to be if we are ever to cope with and cure the real central ill of the world: run-amok capitalism. Global warming shouldn't be the reason to modify life styles. The curse of greed should be. And it ain't. Me included.

Another friend writes last night: "I'm no longer monotheist or polytheist. I'm pantheist. That way Christ can be Quetzalcoatl and fly from the cross before a single nail is driven through a talon. Wherever he lands, he's free to become rabbi or woodworker or husband playing with his kids again--whatever needs doing. My point is this: freedom is found in being available for the job at hand and competent to perform all or part of it. Sometimes the job is escape, sometimes full engagement."

Piques & Valleys: A Word From The Sponsor
In related news, I see where the Dow hit a new peak yesterday and drove me to a new level of pique with it. And I was ashamed at how automatic was my anger. I know now I'm as much a casualty of my vigilance as others are their indifference. For my vigilance has failed to be kind and comforting. Yesterday, I received a rebuke from a hero, William Stafford, in the form of a diary entry he made on November 18, 1991: "People who act randomly, angrily, with odd surges of negativity, have a disability that should be cared for just as generously as other disabilities. Their thinking is a hobble. Their seizures paralyze their ability to perceive. They stumble from one mistake to another." (William Stafford,, Every War Has Two Losers, p.75).

So let me apologize to all of you who worry about the constant volley/volume of negative posts. I'll try to be more selective and balanced. Nevertheless, I have this stubborn delusion that some of these articles and poems I'm posting are of immense spiritual and cultural benefit and would therefore like to continue sharing them.

A Bouquet Of Poems
I have quoted often from William Stafford and am about to do so again--this time journal entries. Interspersed will be some short poems by Jim Harrison.

12 September 1981
"Oracle, where will I begin to be saved?
Here.
"When do the proofs come?"
Now.
"Who can bring this about?"
You.
"Is there ever anyone to help?"
No.
"What happens to people who hurt me?"
It's cold where they live.
--William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers, p.44

28
Lin-chi says, having thrown away your head so long
ago, you go on and on looking for it in the wrong
place. The head's future can be studied in a spadeful
of dirt. The delightful girl I loved 40 years back
now weighs, according to necrologists, 30 lbs. net.
Why does she still swim in the eddy in the river's bend?
--Jim Harrison, The Shape Of The Journey, p. 371

14 July 1981
Two democracies: One where you have a right to speak,
another where you maximize what you hear.
Two censorships: One where the law prohibits utterance,
another where strong characters dominate and prevent
real interchange.
"I really told them off." "I really listened better than
they did."
Those times you caught them out and showed them up--
they learned how stupid they are. But now you'll never hear
the little song of their purring throats, and you'll never know
what they think, when you say hello.
--William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers, p. 43-4

32
If that bald head gets you closer to Buddha
try chemotherapy. Your hair drops casually to the floor,
eyes widen until the skull aches, the heart beats like
Thumper's foot. Heaven's near at every second.
Now you've become the lamb you refused to eat.
--Jim Harrison, The Shape Of The Journey, p. 372

37
Beware, o wanderer, the road is walking too,
said Rilke one day to no one in particular
as good poets everywhere address the six directions.
If you can't bow, you're dead meat. You'll break
like uncooked spaghetti. Listen to the gods.
They're shouting in your ear every second.
--Jim Harrison, The Shape of The Journey, p. 374

13 May 1980
A democracy may fail to gain participation from nonassertive
people. If you want a system that allows active roles for activists,
that's one thing; if your objective is to gain from the insights
of all citizens, that's a different thing. The creative life of unknown
people might be a tremendous hidden river. An intelligent leader\
might want, not just the complaints and declamatory input, but
the tide of quiet perceptions from everywhere in the populace;
might promote an incessant quizzing of all minds. Contribution
of opinion might be more than a right--it might be a need, a
salvation, and not just for the individual but for the society.
And the individual might react in a democracy in light of
whether in fact opinions are sought or just tolerated: if a
contribution isn't worthy in terms of the welfare of the group,
the individual might not be all that eager to insist on it.
--William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers, pages 40-1

The strongest nation in the world, with no present danger
to itself, acting without formal declaration of war, under
firm military conscription, has burned, used gas, threatened
atomic force, systematically invaded noninvolved nations.
Restraint must come from citizens. Hence our meeting.
Coercion by violence has hardened much of the world;
that feeling lasts. But moderating it is the patient, worthy job.
--William Stafford, note for a conference on Vietnam 5 Oct. 1966