Community

This is my love letter to the two pains in my asses I have grown to love and appreciate over these last three months.  Without you, I'd be significantly less bruised and uncomfortable - but since when is that ever what I've wanted in life?  This is not meant to convey any notions of communal bliss, or to give the sense that I feel the next 9 months are going to be smooth sailing.  They won't.  The first 3 haven't been, why would the rest!  It's good for me, though, to do some reality testing from time-to-time, to do my best to speak plain and put the situation out just as it is, without any need to justify or change it.  Just take it all, and accept it. Love it.  Be tremendously, unequivocally, thankful for it. For my community mates.  My friends.

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"I once told you that, given the opportunity, I would probably trade you both for a really good pulled pork sandwich.  You know, smothered in BBQ sauce, heaped with fried onions, and lovingly coated in melted cheese, all tucked inside a toasted sourdough roll.

Over the last few months though, I've started to reconsider.  I like coming home from my early shift at the radio station to the smell of ham and eggs and potatoes.  It helps me start my day off thinking, 'what can I do for others?'

I really appreciate that my cooking never gets a bad review, and even when I'm not pleased, you always just seem to be grateful. And even clean up my mess??  It's almost unthinkable to me, and it gets me wondering, 'how can I be more appreciative?'

When you ask me what's wrong, and sit and listen patiently and attentively as I ramble for a good 20 minutes trying to figure it out. 

When you patiently show me how to work out and exercise, keep me accountable in my quest for impulse control, and push me harder to stretch my limits. Makes me wonder, 'how can I more humbly and patiently share my gifts and talents with others?'

When I start screaming around the house like a maniac, just cause I find it amusing.  Or when I walk out into wherever you are with important information, information so important it couldn't wait till I put pants on. Or when I just grab my belly fat in the middle of the kitchen and tell it how one day I shall defeat it.  The way you just let me be me, really.  It makes me wonder, 'how can I better support others in their journey toward being totally themselves?'

When that acceptance helps me open up and be vulnerable. When you push me to share more and more of my heart, even though it scares the living shit out of me.  When the simple and authentic relationships we are developing helps push me to remember why I need to push out of my closed off safe zone.

When we kung-fu around the house because it's awesome.  Or get in a tickle fightbe cause it is hilarious and you hate it.

When your very existence is my polar opposite. When the fact that you inhabit the same space as me forces me to constantly re-evaluate how I relate to others and what my assumptions are.  When your own struggle and willingness to be vulnerable makes it OK for me to be feeling those things too. It makes me wonder, 'How can I be more authentically who and what I am to allow others to do the same?'

When you listen to my life story, ups and down, big and little details - and remember them.

When you share documentaries about motorcycles with me, even though I know nothing about them.  When you come yelling into my room announcing your best friends are getting married.  When you take me into the center of your own joy, letting me know you trust me enough to hold it gently and lovingly, despite all of the times I've failed to do so.  It makes me wonder, 'How can I have more courage to trust people with the things I love the most?'

When you help me realize I'm not super-human.  I'm just Michael. And that's good enough. Limits and all.

When you say things that make me wonder if you are not actually a 100,000 year old magic-wizard-sage come back to help me on my life journey.

When you take my advice, whether it be to get a mohawk or an earring, or to play the guitar differently.  It makes me wonder, 'How can I more humble in order to learn from others?'

When self-consciousness and uncertainty that have long lay dormant come to the surface, because the truth is, I really do want to learn how to love and support you the very best I can, even if I don't always express it so well.

I think what I'm trying to say is I actually kinda like you guys.  I get tired constantly having to re-examine myself, and make adjustments to be a better person.  I mean, gee, how knew it would be so much damn work!  But it seems worth it. And I'm happy. And you make that possible in a very real way.

I guess this is all to say, after careful reconsideration, I probably wouldn't trade you for a pulled pork sandwich.

But if they through a free beer and a pickle with it.... well...."

Love, your friend, Michael

Place

"The inner impulse toward conversion, a change of heart, may be muted in a city, where outward change is fast, noisy, ever-present.  But in the small town, in the quiet arena, a refusal to grow (which is one way Gregory of Nyssa defined sin) makes any constructive change impossible." -Kathleen Norris, Dakota

Moving out to St. Francis, SD after spending the last four years in the Bronx has certainly required an openness to conversion.  I have been trying to establish the best way to write about this place and the effect it is already having on me, but it always seems to escape words.  Descriptions fall flat.  It is a place that defies definition.  I have tried on numerous occasions to capture the beauty of a sunset, or a snow covered field in a picture to send to family or friends; to try and convey the vast expanse of sky and horizon that stretches in every direction.  but with responses like "beautiful" or amazing!" I can't help but recognize I am not doing this place justice.  It does not want to be captured in my little picture.  It wants to take hold in my heart, have me paint a picture in my soul of the vastness of the world in front of me, that way I can fall silent before the realization of my smallness. 

In a recent message from a friend, I was finally inspired by her words to tackle the task of pointing a finger at the proverbial moon, for I have found describing the landscape and it's effect on me much the way I have often found the task of describing God - never quite satisfied, and the description never as good as the actual experience of it.   She said: "

"...there's something uniquely beautiful and perhaps spiritual about those skies that last forever in all directions. It's definitely an isolating feeling at times, but in hindsight maybe it's a metaphor of humility - of realizing we're a part of something so much greater than ourselves. or maybe i'm doing the crazy talk."

Crazy talk indeed. Who, in our modern day and age, wants to have to admit that there are things in this world that humble us by the very fact they exist? Things that speak to us on such a deep level about who we really are, about the spiritual reality of our life. Who wants to go to a place that shows so clearly how much is out of our control, how powerful the universe is and how tiny we really are? Who wants to go to a place so big and vast that we can't help but feel isolated and alone? The thing about the Plains is that they are beautiful - breathtakingly so. But with that beauty, for me, there is coupled an extreme discomfort. It is a dangerous place. It is a barren place, one that almost dares you to try and survive in its midst.

I just recently finished ready Dakota, by Kathleen Norris, a book in which she takes the time to give attention and expression to the "spiritual geography" of the Dakota's.  Throughout the book, perhaps because of her own engagement with Benedictine monastic communities, Norris draws the parallel of the Great Plains to the deserts occupied by the early Christian Desert Fathers and Mothers, a place of solitude, a place where one went to encounter God and one' self with no frills, no distractions.  I like this comparison just fine, for it suits my rather bizarre and extreme nature to go out and find the most inhospitable, barren  places imaginable and try to see God, to see life where I could never imagine it to exist.

Moving from one of the biggest cities in the world (which my NY pride certainly would have me place as the Center of the Universe) out to God's Country, as the Plains are sometimes known, has forced a 180 degree turn for my soul.  In times of stress and inner tension and chaos (for college was somewhat of a tumultuous time, spiritually and otherwise - queue dramtic/angsty music), I often would set out into Manhattan alone at late hours for walks through the city.  I would go for hours at a time, walking hundreds of blocks with no end destination, no real purpose other than to try and find some quiet in my soul.  I found myself surrounded by chaos and activity, even at 3am, and somehow, this would allow me to find internal quiet.  Compared to the hustle and bustle of the city, I almost seemed calm (HAH!).  In moments of free time, I often directed my attention outwards - other people, endless events and opportunities, the never-ending circus that is the Big Apple.  There was always so much to see and experience that there couldn't be such thing as boredom.

It wasn't a cure for restlessness though.  And that is a feeling I couldn't shake, or even feel that I ever really engaged with.  I always felt just out of reach to myself, which, probably unsurprisingly, is a disturbing thing for a person to experience (but perhaps not as uncommon as one would like).  I did a lot of work on emotional and mental health in college, something I had never really even fully recognized could pose difficulties for me.  I realize now, all of that was only to further prepare me for this experience out here at the edge of the world.  

There is no external distraction in this place.  When I stop to sit on top of a hill after a long hike, all is still.  There is the occasional lowing of a cow, maybe a bird that will fly off somewhere in the distance.  The wind is constant, ranging from gentle breezes to knock-you-off-your feet intensity.  The clouds move with some real speed, and in a sky so big, it is easy to track their journey.  But those aren't distractions.  Those are simple beauties, those are life in motion - I am the only distraction.  I am the most chaotic and complex thing for miles and miles.  I don't mean complex as a compliment, as in built from many parts with a dazzling intricacy and care (although sometimes I see that is the case as well).  I mean it as in I am filled with tension and inner disturbances, I am never still, I am unable to achieve and enjoy true inner quiet.  I am complicated in a way that disrupts a continuation of the harmony I perceive to be all around me.

"or maybe i'm doing the crazy talk."

Crazy talk indeed. I often wonder which screws are loose that caused me to do something as stupid as move out to a place that constantly holds a mirror in front of my face. I have moved to one of the most isolated and barren places in the country, which is bad enough, but also have been blessed to be placed in a small community of only 3 members - 3 of the most different people I have ever seen inhabit the same space. Talk about a constant mirror. Is there no reprieve, is there no rest?? (All of this only leads me to believe God has an outrageous sense of humor. I am still learning to appreciate it though.)

Something called me out here, though. Something deep in my soul said YES, probably accompanied with some expletives. That's where we need to go. It's time we finally meet, it said to me, for you've been gone for too long.

Stories

In an traditionally oral based culture, stories, and more importantly, the telling of stories, plays a significant role in promoting the greater health of the community.  Stories serve as entertainment, as teachers, as warnings - they answer the deepest questions we have about ourselves, about who we are and where we come from, where we are going.

I grew up with stories.  My dad is and was an avid story teller, and I can still remember some of things he would allow to spin from his incredible imagination.  I think I picked up my own love of telling stories from him (it runs in Irish roots after all).  I grew up reading, and the stories in books kept me coming back and back and back.  Books were my mom's contribution to my education in the power of a good tale.  It was here that I first began to discover that stories have life - they have their own will, their own desire to be told and told, for that is where they can bear much fruit.  It is in the sharing of a story that it becomes more alive.

This particular story that follows is one that I was not initially sure I could share.  I was not confident in my ability to humbly present such a powerful occurrence, to hold such a precious gem with the appropriate amount of love and respect.  But after encouragement from good friends, I began to see that this story demanded to be told, and that it was too big to be held in on account of my own self doubts and fears.  "Move out of the way and let me be heard."
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I only met the guy once before, out in the orchard behind my house. It used to be full of fruit and great deciduous trees, but now it is pretty barren and more often than not, filled with empty, crushed 40's, signs of the many drifters who float through the area. As I was walking home from work through the orchard, a group of people were sitting out back, and they called me over. I have always had trouble stopping when people ask me to, and in New York, while on a schedule, it could sometimes be a strain on my abilities to complete tasks. Here, however, as a JV, I have come to see that as very much a part of my job - part of being human, of making people know they are valued and loved, whether they believe it or not.

I went over to say hello and I could tell they were all drunk - only 1 o'clock in the afternoon. They asked for some money, but I don't give it out anymore - it just isn't the most valuable resource I have to offer. I offer to bring out some lunch and smokes for them, and they say OK. I go back and prepare the meal, some hot dogs, a coupe of backs of popcorn, quesadillas, and graham crackers. I grab some of the little cigars we have around, and head back out.
I see them laughing, and as I pass around the food, one of the women says "Shitttt, we didn't think you were comin back! No one ever does."
While I'm talking and eating with them, one definitely stands out - I'll call him Kenny - Kenny Little Cloud Sr.. He is a giant man, with broad shoulders and a gut to follow, long sandy hair tied back in a pony-tail to the middle of his back. He only has one good eye, so he tells me, a little slurred, to call him "One-Eyed Kenny" - whatever works. I find out he comes from a long family of medicine men, of holy people to the Lakota, someone who perhaps was a spiritual leader once, or at least has it in his roots. He kept trying to explain aspects of his people's culture and philosophy to me, but would often get lost in his own thoughts, unable to keep it all straight. I stuck around for 40 minutes before I had to head back to work, and I didn't see any of them again after that. Angels maybe? A one time, humbling appearance of God, like the burning bush, calling me to something better, to remind me what's important?
Last week, I got a text saying that the son of the man I met - for I had told friends who I met here about the encounter - had passed away. That term doesn't do it justice really, he was hit by a semi-truck coming out of a bar on Highway 83. There is a wake and funeral almost every single weekend here on the Rez, the one's in St. Francis often taking place right across the street from where I live. I stop in sometimes. Show respect and show people that I care about them - that I will go to where they are, where they live and love and cry and laugh - not just wait at the Mission for them to come in. It is awkward to show up to a wake or funeral when you don't know the person - or when you're the only white guy in the entire room, and everyone stares at you wondering who the hell you are, and more curiously, why I am there. It is a great exercise in humility, and it starts the hard work of building bridges to a community very skeptical of white culture and of Church people, and quite understandable so.
When I heard about Kenny Jr, I knew I had to go to over. I was hesitant this time, I was feeling more nervous than I usually do. I finally made it over on a Monday, sucking up my own fear and deciding it was more important to show someone love than to not. So I went over. I ran into Roger, another person from the community I met out in the Orchard one day, and we shot the shit for a minute. It was good, he calmed me down just by the very fact that he would talk to me. I went into Digman hall, set up for a wake with a casket in the front. I see Kenny sitting right at the front, as close to casket as possible - the proper place for a father about to bury his oldest son I guess.
I hover around the back for a little before I finally go up to Kenny. He has his head down, looking at his hands folded into his lap. I offer my hand and clear my throat, unsure really of what to say. "I'm sorry for your loss Kenny." He looks up and his face scrunches for a minute - "Hey... I know you from somewhere." I explain to him that we met one day out behind the house, had lunch together. "What the hell was I doin all the way over there!?" I explain that he wasn't in a fully coherent state of mind at the time and he chuckles. "That makes more sense." I crouch next to him and let him tell me stories of his son - or maybe it's that he let me hear them, for as a stranger, it is a privilege to hear the things closest to people's hearts.
He tells me dirty jokes. Here I am, looking at the casket, and he is telling me how when you get older, your pee stream really loses it's oompf, and how sometimes when you fart, you get a little more than you asked for. He's totally mad, but in the kind of way where his eye twinkles and you can't help but want to be a little mad too. "Those are the kinds of things my son like to hear," he says, "It always made him laugh." I get up and let him know I have to go back to work. "Funeral is at 2," he said, "stop by if you can." I tell him I certainly will. "Thanks for being here, I really appreciate it." I give an awkward smile and I leave. I am starting to wonder what my life is. What life I am living where I meet random people who tell me stories about their now dead sons, where a strange and foreign person is welcomed to share in the most intimate moments of people's lives.
I go back for the funeral. How could I not? I stumble into a packed hall this time, feeling all the eyes on me as I come through the door, just wanting to find a seat and get out of everyone's line of vision. I find myself next to Everett, a friend I had made in my first week hear but haven't seen since. He was extremely encouraging of my wanting to learn and participate in his culture and spirituality. I slide in next to him and we play catch-up, filling each other in on 2 months of lost time. He tells me he is back in town for a little while, and I am glad for the opportunity to hang with such an open and humble teacher, even if he is 5 years my junior.
The funeral starts. People give speeches, sing songs. Singing is everywhere. The drum is the heartbeat of Mother Earth, and they make sure to remind us of it at every event. We all beat in time, together. The singing is loud, and emotional. Kenny Sr. gets up. He stands out in front of the casket and begins to speak. A little bit unclearly, it is hard to find the progression of his thoughts. He catches this himself and takes a pause. "I am a singer," he says. "That's how I was taught to express my emotion. So that's what I'll do."
He begins singing my favorite Lakota traditional song that I have heard yet. It's called "Common Man." It is about being a person, just a normal person trying to live a good life and walk in a good way. Nothing fancy, no titles, no honors, just any body trying to make sense of life. I will never again be able to hear or sing this song without thinking of this moment. Watching a father sing for his son, sing for his sons life and his own, admitting his smallness and still living in spite of it. The drunk guy behind my house becomes a grieving father, a husband, a son himself - a singer. He becomes me. Beyond all of our differences, we share the same humanity, the same longing, the same hunger. I become him. One in the same, united in our common human condition. Both just trying to figure out this life thing the best we can, and in the process, living out that beautiful prayer, mitakuye oyasin, we are all relatives.
We all line up to shake the hands of the family members, as is tradition here. People are sobbing, and as I shake their hands I am amazed that people can do this. Stand there in all their pain and hurt, completely vulnerable, and offer their hand to be held by a stranger. When I get to Kenny, he does a double take... seeing the white hand on the red, there must have been a moment of confusion I am holding his hand in both of mine, and as he brings other hand to clasp mine, he again says "Thank you. Thank you for being here." I can't help but hear it as an affirmation of my whole journey, not just this moment.
As they load the body up on the horses to process around the area before the burial, I slip out, needing to cook dinner for that night. I am at home just trying to process. Just trying to understand what I had seen and experienced, what it meant.
An hour or so later, my roommate knocked in my door, saying there was a friend at the door for me. I head to the front door and find Everett waiting there. He holds out his handdrum to me, complete with stick and sweetgrass braid. "I heard you singing at the funeral and I know you want to learn. Take this, you should have it. I want you to." I mumble out a wopila (thank you) and we clasp hands, knowing there was more to come from our friendship.
I went into my room and just cried. How much can a heart take? How much raw emotion and experience can a heart handle? It has to be what it is like to see God face to face. So much you just want to burst, and so amazing you don't care if you do.

Reach Out and Touch Them

The parable in this past Sunday's mass was that of Zaccheus, the tax-collector who must climb a tree in order to see Jesus as he enters the city.  Zaccheus, as a tax-collector for the Romans, was pretty much hated by everyone in town, and had successfully earned the high honor of the title "sinner."  It seems like that is what a lot of people did (and still do?) back then: identify someone as a sinner and then stay the hell away.

Jesus never seems much for those kind of social set-ups, so what does he do?  Call him down from the tree and invite himself to dinner of course!  Both of the homilies I heard on this reading spoke of the necessity on the part of Christians to reach out and touch those whom others have deemed unworthy, who have been rejected and made to be outcasts on the edge of society.  Reading the Gospels, that is certainly one of the things that strike me most about Jesus - he touches everyone.  Not just a spiritual "touching of the heart" type deal, although that is obviously present as well, but a physical encounter.  According to the traditions of his time, solely based on the amount of lepers, possessed people, and sinners that Jesus physically came into contact with, he would have had to ritually cleanse himself every second for the rest of his life in order to even have the hope of becoming pure again.  but he doesn't seem to care much about that.

I had this parable on my mind throughout the mass, and when we got to the Our Father, I realized something.  As I looked around the Church (because I get distracted in this types of situations pretty easily), I saw close to 100 people, a majority with their hands raised, palm up, but with only a handful holding hands while they prayed.  Now, I know there are definitely people who just don't believe they should be holding hands during the prayer, and I completely respect that.  But for the people who do, I noticed something important - everyone stands there with their palms up, open and ready to receive someone else's hands - for ultimately, that is what we all want innit? To be touched, to be loved, to be embraced and accepted exactly as we are, just because we are.

Why, then, would we not do that for others?  Why not take that maxim of the golden rule seriously and reach out and touch others in the same way we would like to be touched?  This reminds me of one of my favorite poems by Hafiz, which goes:

With That Moon Language

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

-Hafiz

I reflected upon this poem with the youth who I work with at the Juvenile Detention Center here, and they went right to the heart of it.  It's hard to admit to others that we even want or need to be loved, especially when we have been hurt before - who wants to be vulnerable anyway?  It's hard to reach out and be loving when what we have known and seen from others is not that, when what we see modeled around us is isolation and a detached attitude, sometimes even violence.  We all have knots and wounds that keep us from being able to love and be loved, and in a recent article I read by Bishop Cupich, he says that the task of a Christian in the modern age is to help people to untie their knots.  To reach out, just as Jesus did, and touch others, be with them in their pain, tell them you can love them for who they are and that you do.

Two weeks back, I was presented an image that has and will stick with me as I attempt to work on being love for others.  KINI, the radio station I am the morning DJ for, hosted a Halloween dance for the entire reservation community.  The place was jam packed with kids, dressed up as princesses and zombies, ninja turtles and witches, and all other kinds of fun creatures.  (I went as a failed prophet from the time of Jesus - I would've made it big if it wasn't for that guy, maybe even had my own book - at least it won me the costume contest).  I have started getting used to all of the funny looks I get around here - I am a big white guy with a massive beard and dreadlocks, so I don't exactly fit in at all.  I walk all over town, show up at local basketball games, attend funerals and wakes, and people notice when there is one person in the room who doesn't look like anyone else (not to mention their kids are running up to this strange and crazy person looking person for hugs).  I was out there killin it on the D-flo (dance floor for all of you lay people) when I felt a tap on my shoulder.  A mother was standing in front of me holding her little girls hand, and my first thought was "Oh shit, I probably accidentally kicked this girl in the face while dancing like an idiot."

Instead, the mom leaned in, timid and shy-like, and said "My daughter would really like to dance with you, would that be OK?"  I crouched down and looked at this little angel, all smiles and a face full of love, took her hand, and twirled and danced with the most graceful 4 year old I have ever me.


Maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said that the children are blessed, that we should be like children.  Perhaps we should be able to just be there with people, showing them how loved they are, how perfect they are, without even having to say anything.  Maybe we should just be able to ask for what we need, to admit we want love, that we are incomplete.  maybe we should have the innocence and courage to approach those who are different from us and reach out and touch them.