Modesty

Last night, I sat in the children’s dark and quiet room. I could hear their gentle breathing and occasionally, a shift of their covers. The sounds of rest. But, the thoughts in my mind were fitful. I felt afraid, exposed. I have thrown my pearls away…Who will value my precious words when I expose them for free?

I would flaunt my body as if at a public swimming pool where people who should not see may freely gaze and stare (for example, married men, self-critical women, and young children learning gender-binaries through careful observation). But, this is more than than a day at the pool. This is my hidden self, my private thoughts made public. But, Oh! to be able to fully reveal my inner self--I would cover my body and pull back my hair; I would reveal the light within the darkness of my soul. Modesty is such an important value.

“Our hands and our faces, especially our eyes, are revealed,” an Orthodox woman wrote. “Pay attention, not to what we cover up, but to what we reveal. Our eyes are the windows into the soul.”

With my words, I reveal the inner looking of my heart and mind. I reveal parts of my soul with a pen in my hands. There is a still, small voice that dwells in deep darkness. But, I am a Western woman. I have been taught to cover my mouth, to turn a blind eye, and hold back carefully manicured hands from the poor. We are taught it young: reveal your body, not your mind. Low cut dresses and short skirts. Hair blown dry, so smooth and straight. Eyeliner and lip gloss. A certain kind of smile (seductive at times, receptive to the male gaze, and friendly but guarded to the lonely stranger). But, Oh! what would it be to cover my body and reveal my soul? To cover my long legs and my critiqueable chest, but reveal my hands to a stranger in need.

In my fitful thinking, I wonder: Have I been too vulnerable with my words?

“You should wear your hair down more often,” people say to me (often). I want to be seen, but don’t they know, I’m putting down my words instead. They are long, thick and unruly. They are not dried straight or bleached blonde. They are my natural color. Pay attention, not to what I cover up, but to what I reveal. I reveal my eyes with my soul behind them and a pen in my calloused and careworn hands. 

The Western Wall

I, who am often lost and disoriented, orient myself in prayer. When I pray, I pray east in the direction of the Western Wall. Christians called it the Wailing Wall because their conquest and exclusionary powers could only be met with wailing by the righteous. I pray towards the Western Wall, and just beyond in the direction of the Temple Mount, praying with the hope of the Holy of Holies.

After I put my children down to sleep, I read about agents of power tearing children from the arms of their parents along the the Southwestern Border where Trump wants to build a wall. Our president has become a terror on this earth because Americans gave him political power for an end to be obtained regardless of the means. I pray in the direction of the Wailing Wall.

Our administration would put a gag law on federal funding for doctors who need to talk to their patients about options when their patients find themselves with pregnancy. This gag law will only affect certain people. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore...So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often." She said, “That we have one law for women of means and another for poor women is not a satisfactory situation.” I pray in the direction of the Wailing Wall.

Our political officials would insult and threaten North Korea in the midst of diplomatic negotiations. Trump breaks up with Kim Jong-un before he has the chance to break up with him. Ego and power moves (and almost certain failure no matter how you cut it) hang on a pinhead or maybe the button of a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, people are starving. People are suffering. People are living lives that are unlivable. “Dear Honorable Chairman, our weapons are so much greater and more powerful than yours.” Let us pray.

“Our weapons are so much greater and more powerful than yours,” said Roman conquerors in Palestine, said the Christians who enslaved generations (stealing children, controlling reproduction), and says the American President in a tweet. And in the Holy City, this corrupt man poses for a picture by the U.S. embassy. He poses with a smile on his face—eternally captured in time with ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see. I pray towards the Wailing Wall, knowing that problematic term is wrought with a political power that must come to an end. I pray to the living God alive in the hearts and minds of those who weep—the One who sees and hears.

"Prayer is a waste of time," says my agnostic lover. So, I will also pray with my feet. Let us pray with our feet: Let us walk a mile to the Border. Let us walk a mile to receive reproductive healthcare. Let us walk a mile with the people whose only weapons are plowshares, and only powers are pruning hooks. Let us pray with our feet as we go out weeping, sowing our fields with tears, oriented in the direction of the Western Wall.

My Sister's Craft

My sister and I approach our craft so differently. I rest where the tide meets the sand and let the waves wash over my feet. The waves are words washing over my mind. I try to remember the poetry they speak when I find the time to write. My younger sister runs along ever new beaches with persistence and curiosity, using her hands to mold the sand into castles, organizing colorful shells, and listening to the hollow space within them that sings of the ocean waves. She makes time to carefully record the songs she hears from the seashells - each a slightly different melody - and leaves behind her a trail of achievements. Warm beach winds dance around us, sisters, blowing long hair wildly around sun-kissed faces.

To Have What is Not

(A dear friend sent me a quote from Toni Morrison, I reply:)

...But the priest desires. The philosopher desires. 

And not to have is the beginning of desire.
To have what is not is its ancient cycle
It is desire at the end of winter, when 

It observes the effortless weather turning blue... 

It knows that what it has is what is not
And throws it away like a thing of another time,
As morning throws off stale moonlight and shabby sleep. 

- Wallace Stevens, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”

As I read this poem, my mind links differing concepts and ideas into a linguistic wholeness. Desire knows that what desire has is what is not. We throw our hearts desire away as a thing of another time when life brings us the dawn of a new age. Yet, sometimes we desire again and again--for not to have is the beginning of desire and to have what is not is it’s ancient cycle.

What is my remedy? "Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4) We came into this world with nothing and will certainly leave this world with nothing. So, let us be content with food and clothing. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The desire for money is the imposition of not-to-have on others, rooted in the bottomless pit of the fear that what you have is not. Love of money is rooted in the never-ending winter, a fire that will not be quenched, and a sleep that does not wake--for there will always be one more thing. 

And just so that pernicious evil of white folks is the imposition of not-to-have on the many. A taking of even the possession of food and clothes, along with everything else. Not to have is the beginning of desire: the desire to be whole, when you are rendered incomplete. The desire to prove that you have language, when your language is silenced in your mouth. The desire to show that you have art and kingdoms, when art and kingdoms are stolen from you in the process of their creation.

Toni Morrison writes:

The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

In the dawn of the new era, throw this distraction away like a thing of another time. Your reason for being does not need to be explained. Live the age to come in this very moment. You are a priest. And, yes, the priest desires. Not to have is the beginning of desire. To have what is not is its ancient cycle. But, take delight in the Lord (not this harmful world) and the desires of your heart will be like the end of winter as you observe the effortless weather turning blue. In this way, you truly have what has not-yet-come, free from the imposition of One. More. Thing.