[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ShalomCenterM] Commemorating 9/11: Seeds #2, "Water"
Peter Miller
peterm at shout.net
Tue Jul 30 16:57:57 CDT 2002
>From: "awaskow18" <awaskow18 at yahoo.com>
>Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 20:29:00 -0000
>
>
>Dear friends: This is for use as part of your commemoration of 9/11.
>If the bottom of this post gets cut off, you can find the whole of it
>at our Website <www.shalomctr.org> in the special "11 Days in
>September" section. -- Shalom, AW
>
>Eleven Days in September:
>Remembrance, Reflection, & Renewal
>Seeds for September: # 2: Water
>
>This inclusive observance is one among several possible approaches
>that we are preparing. Feel free to mold it to your own situation, and
>please let us know what you are planning. And please share this with
>others.
>
>This particular observance is intended to be held at a riverside, or
>lake, or creek, or seaside. It has eleven elements:
>
>The song "God's Gonna Trouble the Water" (or of you like, another song
>about water); a reading from Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick about
>the attraction to water that New Yorkers felt in his day, drawn to
>where the Twin Towers used to stand; seeing water as a mirror for
>reflecting on our lives; reflecting on what America is in our own eyes
>and those of other continents and countries and of Planet Earth;
>reading and discussing a passage from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
>about looking into the mirror when we see another doing harm, to see
>what harm we ourselves are doing; sending into the water brief words
>on paper that express our own commitment to take responsibility.
>
>1. Together sing ""God's Gonna Trouble the Water"" or another song
>celebrating water. Sing a verse or two again between each section.
>With additional and alternative words:
>
>Wade in the water.
>Wade in the water, children.
>Wade in the water.
>God's gonna trouble the water.
>
>[We're gonna travel the water.]
>[We're all gonna open the water.]
>
>Red Sea's water is chilly and cold.
>God's gonna trouble the water.
>We're gonna cross it, young and old --
>God's gonna trouble the water.
>
>Hudson River is dark and deep
>God's gonna trouble the water.
>Memories of courage safe to keep.
>God's gonna trouble the water.
>
>All earth's waters -- wild and wide,
>God's gonna trouble the water.
>Time to make peace with the other side.
>God's gonna trouble the water.
>
>2. Reading excerpts from the first page of Moby Dick by Herman
>Melville. One person may read a few sentences, then another pick it
>up. If possible, have one copy for sharing between each pair of
>people. (That saves more trees and teaches cooperation.)
>
>Begin by saying: Friends, we gather at the edge of the waters that
>bind all continents, all earth together. They bind us to the waters
>at the tip of Manhattan Island as Manhattan's waters flow into the
>waters of all earth. Waters can wash away our terror and our rage;
>waters birth us, fulfill our thirst, give us a mirror to see
>ourselves in.
>
>We begin with a teaching from one of our deepest lovers of Manhattan
>and its waters, and of the waters that nurture all of earth: Herman
>Melville, in the opening passage of Moby Dick. Listen for the uncanny
>moments of prophetic truth in this deeply American wisdom:
>
>Read: Call me Ishmael. Some years ago . . . I thought I would sail
>about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I
>have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.
>Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a
>damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself
>involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the
>rear of every funeral I meet; ... -- then I account it high time to
>get to sea as soon as I can. ...
>
> If they but knew it, almost all men [and women] in their degree, some
>time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean
>with me.
>
>There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
>wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs -- commerce surrounds it with
>her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme
>downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
>cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of
>land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. ...
>
>Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon
>thousands of mortals fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the
>spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the
>bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if
>striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all
>landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster -- tied to
>counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. ... Nothing will
>content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the
>shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get
>just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling. ...
>
>And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage formed part of the
>grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It
>came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive
>performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run
>something like this:
>
>"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States."
>"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."
>"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."
>
> Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning
>of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the
>tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was
>drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and
>oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this
>is the key to it all.
>
>Say: Friends, can we call ourselves Ishmael, look in the mirror of
>these waters to see the Ishmael in ourselves? Can we take joy in
>the democratic grandeur of a "Grand Contested Election for the
>Presidency of the United States"? Can we look deeply into those bloody
>battles that Melville somehow chose so long ago to mention, "BLOODY
>BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN"? Can we look deeply into the "ungraspable
>phantom of life"? -- For this is the key to it all.
>
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>3. Together recite:
>
>Each of us is Ishmael,
>drawn toward the sea,
>the mother of life.
>
>Each of us stands at the tip of the Manhattan Isle,
>hearing the ghosts of those who died here,
>yearning toward the mother of all life,
>dying to bathe in her from the burning fire
>that drives us through the windows into space.
>
>Each of us stands like Ishmael on our voyage,
>Urgently seeking what we know we cannot master,
>Standing like Ishmael between the
>"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States"
>and "BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."
>
>Each of us sees
>in that mirror of the waters,
>all the rivers,
>all the oceans,
>the image of the ungraspable phantom of life;
>for this is the key to it all.
>
>We look to see not Narcissus,
>Our own selves pompous and deluded,
>But the deepest Self
>In which we see each other.
>
>ALL our Others -
>
>For this water washes all the earth.
> >From this water drink
>Atheists and
>Buddhists and
>Christians and
>Confucians and
>Hindus and
>Jews and
>Muslims and
>Wiccans and
> the Indigenes
>of every continent.
>
>We gather at this water to
>See and hear each other,
>all of us.
>
>And to reflect upon our selves.
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>4. Someone speaks:
>
>Who are we? -
>First, we are America the Beautiful.
>
>All sing from this verse of "America the Beautiful":
>
>"O beautiful for patriot's dream
>that sees beyond the years,
>Thine alabaster cities gleam,
>undimmed by human tears - "
>
>Someone says: Those cities are still beyond the years,
>Not yet undimmed by human tears.
>
>Where are those cities gleaming?
>
>Not in America, and not Afghanistan.
>Not in America, and not in Palestine or Israel.
>Not in America, and not Nigeria.
>Not in North America, and not Colombia.
>
>The tears still fall:
>The sick still weep in pain,
>Too poor to buy the medicine to heal them.
>The mothers still weep in exhaustion,
>home from a fourteen-hour day
>to find their children quarreling and bitter,
>or dreamy-eyed in a chemical Eden with no Tree of Life.
>
>[Some American among the poor, or perhaps an immigrant, speaks of what
>is beautiful and what is ugly in his /her own life. As personal and
>vivid as possible.]
>
>And not all our patriots yearn for the healing of all cities.
>Yet these waters cool the throats and wash away the sweat of all the
>continents.
>
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>[People from "other" continents speak in terms of their own personal
>stories, of what effect US, governmental, corporate, or military power
>and such aspects of American civil society as religious, labor, and
>environmental groups have had on them, for good and ill.]
>
>5. And we are the peoples of Asia.
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>And Africa.
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>And Latin America
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>And Europe.
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>6. And we are Planet Earth.
>Someone speaks, as personally as possible, of how US power or money
>has despoiled some aspect of the earth: oceans befouled, ozone layer
>depleted, the CO2 level scorching the earth, and of how ecological
>concerns have often radiated out from the US to other countries.
>
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>7. Read this passage from and about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel:
>
>In 1943, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in the very midst of World War
>II, asked us to reflect:
>
> "Who is responsible [that the war has soaked the earth in blood]?"
>And he answered by quoting the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Jewish
>mystical movement of Hassidism: "If a man has beheld evil, he may know
>that it was shown to him in order that he learn his own guilt and
>repent; for what was shown to him is also within him."
>
>Surely the Baal Shem Tov was addressing the spiritual situation of an
>individual who in order to grow must take the world not as an external
>object but as a moral mirror -- who must treat the discovery of evil
>as a spur to look inward, to examine what evil lurks in his/ her own
>heart.
>
>But Heschel takes this insight in a new direction. He applies it to a
>whole society, a whole people, when it sees political evil at a
>national level:
>
>"We have failed to offer sacrifices on the altar of peace; now we must
>offer sacrifices on the altar of war.... Let Fascism not serve as an
>alibi for our conscience.... Where were we when men learned to hate in
>the days of starvation? When raving madmen were sowing wrath in the
>hearts of the unemployed?
>
>"Good and evil, which were once as real as day and night, have become
>a blurred mist. In our everyday life we worshipped force, despised
>compassion, and obeyed no law but our unappeasable appetite. The
>vision of the sacred has all but died in the soul of man."
>
>By 1943, Heschel knew that members of his own family and already more
>than a million other Jews had already been savagely murdered. Yet he
>could call Jews themselves, along with all of Western civilization and
>culture, to face their own share of responsibility for having let the
>disaster happen.
>
>And he could fuse questions that were conventionally seen as distinct
>-- economics (mass unemployment) and religious /spiritual experience (
>"the vision of the sacred").
>
>Heschel did not take this unblinking look in the mirror as an excuse
>to back away from a radical condemnation of Nazism. He did not oppose
>the war on which the Allies were then engaged. Yet he could in the
>very midst of that war write, "Tanks and planes cannot redeem
>humanity. ... The killing of snakes will save us for the moment but
>not forever."
>
>He could look deep into that war, within it and beneath it and beyond
>it, to ask not merely what were its causes, but what was its meaning?
>And he found spiritual meaning in taking responsibility upon himself,
>ourselves, for having helped create the world in which "the mark of
>Cain in the face of man has come to overshadow the likeness of God."
>
>If Heschel could write in this way in 1943, what would it mean for an
>American to think this way in 2002?
>
>Contemplating water, can we look into its depths where we are
>mirrored, and -- without condoning murder, ask ourselves the question,
>What is our own responsibility?
>
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>8. The group sits in silence to reflect on what they have just heard.
>Then it divides into pairs to absorb and reflect on it with each
>other. The focus for their conversation is: "What responsibility can I
>take upon myself, what can I myself do to reduce the causes of
>violence and social destruction in the world?" Eleven minutes might be
>set aside for this discussion, and the pairs might be asked to make
>sure that each person has roughly equal time. (Ring a bell half-way.)
>
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>9. Ask each person present to write on a small piece of paper what
>she or he will do to take responsibility to reduce the causes of
>violence on the world.
>
>10. Each person places these bit of paper on small paper boats and
>pushes them into the current, or folds the papers and casts them into
>the water.
>
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>11. This observance might take about 90 minutes. The group could then
>share supper and return to have a general discussion, drawing on what
>they have already heard and said, to explore aloud what various
>members are prepared to do, either on their own or as part of the
>group. They exchange email, phone, or other addresses and arrange to
>keep in touch.
>
> SING A VERSE OR TWO OF "WADE IN THE WATER"
>
>**********************************************************************
>*******************************
>This outline for one possible approach to observance during the Eleven
>Days was developed by The Shalom Center/ A Division of ALEPH: Alliance
>for Jewish Renewal, with support from the Nathan Cu
>
>
>
>FROM THE SHALOM CENTER
>FOR JEWISH/MULTIRELIGIOUS RENEWAL
>
>Please feel free to invite others who want to explore the connection
>between their religious/spiritual community and the healing of the world
>to subscribe to this list. They can do so by writing:
>ShalomCenterM-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
>
>This thought-letter flows from the work of The Shalom Center,
>a North American network committed to draw on Jewish wisdom, old and
>new, and to learn from other wisdom traditions and communities, in order
>to pursue peace, justice, and the healing of the earth. For more
>information about The Shalom Center, go to http://www.shalomctr.org. See
>also http://www.FreeOurTime.org.
>
>The Shalom Center is a division of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
>(see http://www.aleph.org). The views expressed in the thought-letter
>above may not be the views of ALEPH as a whole.
>
>Your comments and your help are important to us. To donate, you can click on
>http://www.shalomctr.org/donate.html , or
>if you prefer to send a check, please print out the coupon below and
>send it to the address below.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>TO: Shalom Center, 6711 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19119
>
>_____ Please enroll me as a Rodef/et Shalom, a Seeker of Peace. I
>enclose (as my tax-deductible gift) --
>
> ___ $ 720*; __ $360*; __ $180;* __ $72; _____ Other
>
>* Send me an inscribed copy of Godwrestling -- Round 2*). Please ask
>Arthur to inscribe it as follows:
> __________________________________________________
>
>Name _____________________________________________________________
>Address ___________________________________________________________
>Phone/s ____________________________ Email ________________________
>
>-----------------------------------------------------
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>ShalomCenterM-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
More information about the Peace-discuss
mailing list