True Confession

It's the dissonance that gets me. I can live with paradox, irony, contradictions. In fact, so far as I can tell, they explain life. But I'm hung up on this specific dissonance: It has been eight (yes, that would be eight) years since I've been able to listen to my favorite music, the music that stirred and lifted my spirit for more than a decade. It was the music I had on in the car, at home, in my office, in my mind. A sweet mellow folk-music type Christian music emerged in the 80's with Marty Haugen, Michael Joncas and David Haas representing my favorite expressions. It was loving, gentle, expansive, gracious. And it was altogether too Peter, Paul, and Mary like for the girls. "Not that again," was a common refrain in our car. But I loved it. The music itself is beautiful, filled with gorgeous poetry, dynamic metaphors and images of lively life, generous reconciliation, and sccoops of courage. Two of the tapes (before CD time) actually wore out from overuse. You get the idea. When I left the parish I've told you about, I left that music behind too. Sadly, we used it there, some, so I had some awful associations that recurred every time it came on. But worst, most of all, it was the dissonance. The disconnect, profound and complete, between these songs that celebrated kindness and tenderness, generosity of spirit, a concern for justice and reconciliation, of unity and taking care of one another, in the spirit of Jesus and the horrible experience I had of church that belied all of these gracious gifts was too much to bear. Excruciating. Most of all, heart-breaking. Hearing a song, All Are Welcome, while living in an official church with silver-tongued charmers who, nevertheless, could not in eight years respond to any of my overtures, requests for conversation, who chose not to reach out to me in any way --- well, it was just too much. Clearly, I was not welcome. Now, a few things. I realize that the church is a lot bigger than the officiaries in one part of the world, in one smallish community. And I am beyond grateful to the 'church' that I've found here on Facebook and as a blogger who remind me daily that I DO belong to something loving, something generous and tender, Goddish, if you will. You all out there, those of you who are followers of Jesus, are now my church. And the ELCA Board of Pensions. You are my church. My only church. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I also realize that I can move on (I'd sure better!!!) before hell freezes over, er, I mean, before somebody from this corner of the church makes a move in my direction. I am moving on, out into a wider expression of grace. And thank goodness for that. I also realize that I can be the one to move in their direction. I have done that but I'm sure I could do it some more. "Excuse me, I'm the lost sheep. You didn't come looking for me but I'm here and I'd like shelter from the storm, please." I could batter down the doors. But this is part of my confession. Be gentle with me, okay. I am waiting. Not because I must but because I may. I am waiting for a word. It's due not to bitterness, or hurt, I figured out --- although there has been plenty of that and it swings by on a regular basis. But I am waiting. For their sakes. To give them the opportunity to feel moved, perhaps humbled, perhaps compassionate, perhaps curious, to move toward a reconciliation. Lord knows I am "owed" apologies, scores of them. But I'm beyond that. I think the experience of being humble, of apologizing, of offering contrition is life-giving. It restores the soul. And, there's this. Before I can be part of this community here in this place I need to know if it is a community that can humble itself, turn itself outward, welcome the lost home. Now. I keep saying this and it is absolutely true. Finally, this is not about me. It is about the thousands upon thousands of "me's" who have been shunned, pushed away, shut up and shut down by the official officials of the church. It is about the deaf boys who were sexually abused by their priest. It is about the hundreds of women in Protestant churches in this country, and their families, who were sexually abused by their pastors. It is about the scores of men and women who have been screwed more figuratively by the officialdom of the church. It is about us all. We need to know, is the church a trustworthy community? Can we invest our hearts and souls with you? Who are you? Mean and vindictive, or humble and generous? I spent a small fortune purchasing all my favorite music from iTunes the other night. I made a playlist on my iPod and have started taking small steps to listen to it. Oh my god, it is so so painful. It is so healing. I love it, I curse at it. I sing at the top of my lungs. I weep. The dissonance. All are welcome? "We are many parts, we are all one body..." Really? Not me. Not a boatload of other folks I know. The world is filled with warm and generous souls. Some say they are followers of Jesus, some not, many are done with the church. Some are journeying on other paths altogether. It is their loving and happy company I keep these days. And yours, many of you readers who are Jesus' people, you are Christ to me. And all of you, all of you, you're the people I want to belong with! And, as I listen to these wonderful songs I know I need still to be part of you. Whatever we call ourselves, we are about the things that make for peace. There is no dissonance as I commune here with you. True confession: I like this music and I'm not going to let the dishonorable and duplicitous behavior of some define reality altogether. Nope. Not their right. So, if not everywhere, then here, and out among you, all are welcome!

" I shoulda rode in on a donkey."

If I'd only known. I feel like a real ass. "I shoulda rode in a donkey," I told a friend. "You what?!" she replied. "To have had any credibility at all, to come across as a big whompin' deal, to look strong and worthy, I should have come into the church on Palm Sunday morning riding on a donkey. "That's what a predessor did, rode in on a donkey, basking in all the adoration of Palm Sunday, children waving palm branches, laying down their robes to make a smooth way for the ass to move through the aisles and up to the front of the church." A donkey. The pastor, the pastor of the church rode a donkey into church on Palm Sunday. The phrase Messiah Complex comes to mind. I believe the words she used were "boundless narcissism." The crowd loved it. They ate up his messianic theatrics and powerful, charismatic personality week after week. Unfortunately, they also covered up the multiple transgressions that ruined a vast multitude of lives from before that day to this day. Christian people are called to follow Jesus. To imitate him. But not in triumphal glory. Rather, Christian people are to follow Jesus in service, humility, love, and even in sacrifice. Putting their needs, their desires in submmission for the good of others, the community. Not for personal gain or self-aggrandizement. The first time I related this story to an outsider, she almost fell off her chair, laughing. Except we agreed, it isn't so funny after all. Pretty pathetic. On all accounts. I was sitting in the church's library going through old photo albums with long-time members when we got to the donkey photos. I burst out laughing, thinking it was a joke. But no, it wasn't, and these stalwarts were rapturous in their remembering, filled with longing for those good old days. Of abuse. (Eer, never mind.) I had no idea about this incident when I agreed to become pastor of this particular church. I had no idea about a lot of the boundarylessness of the congregation, its incestuousness with former clergy, the emotional affairs, as well as regular explicit sexual contact. Would I have agreed to the job, had I known this, and also known a lot more of the background than the bishop or anybody else dared to tell me, Not without certain very explicit conditions. Including the unconditional support of the bishop's office. Oh well. We know now how that went. A community of people earnestly seeking their messiah, even if it's an imitation, a fake, a deeply troubled soul who wants to serve himself more than God, is a dangerous community. They will fall over at the first feet that come down the pike. And, after his disatrous fall, they will seek another and another and another, another messiah. Clearly, such a community is also one in great pain, confusion, carrying and probably hiding older and deeper wounds that only a Superman can fix. A community desperately seeking such a messiah of their own is a vulnerable community and one that deserves appropriate, informed lovingkindness. Which was why I was sent there. With conditions agreed to, common perspectives understood amongst the regional church's leaders (my support team, in theory), promises made. And we know how well that turned out, now, too. Following a false prophet -- even if the words are kosher, the behavior belies them -- creates chaos that continues unto the fourth and fifth generations. It's one thing to have a healthy self-image, to reflect the glory of God. But this pastor's act was one of presumption, entitlement, privilege. Unbridled narcissism. Arrogance. So. Think about this for a moment and work with me here, to catch a better glimpse of the perversion of clergy sexual abuse. The minister claims for himself the triumphal entry, -- whether or not on an actual ass, -- the power, a very real identification as God present. But riding on a donkey, for mercy's sake! The choir is singing, the pipe organ is at full volume, "All Glory, Laud, and Honor to you, Redeemer King...." The crowd joins the song. They wave the palm branches, the children are overawed and delighted, waving and shouting "Hosanna!" I know in such a case that my head would be too big to fit through the door. My messiah quotient would be off the charts, my grandiosity would be boundless. The minister's act was sheer arrogance. When Jesus said, "Follow me," he didn't have this in mind. Jesus didn't invite us up on the donkey, at least not in this triumphalist way. Okay, so we have the minister all dressed up, a palm wreath, robes, sandals, flowers, waving palms heralding his entrance. Young children, I've discovered, get mixed up between Jesus and the pastor him/herself. "Are you God?" It happens. Even to women, it happened to me! So, yes, in this instance, in the Palm Sunday spectacle, we'd have to say that we've got a minister pretty much setting himself up to be (almost, virtually, like) Jesus. Now, imagine this minister seeks to be inappropriate with you, sexually, or in any other way. And you have this visage of him, up on the donkay, the "Hosanna's" ringing, "Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord." And you are at a vulnerable point in your life. Confused, lonely, rejected by another lover. What do you say? How do you respond to his winsome, powerful charisma? Sadly, thousands of women every year are seduced by their pastors. Thinking it is the answer to their prayers, a special liaison with God. No, only a selfish offer from a predatory pastor, and their only real liaison is with his narcissism, his "user" personality. Hence, the work I did for seven years at the ELCA churchwide offices: seeking to stem the tide of clergy sexual abuse all across the country, to assist bishops and other church leaders as they resisted the temptation to fop these guys off on some other unsuspecting parish, to stop offering easy access for perpetrators to those upon whom they could prey. Hence my work with others of the ELCA in supporting bishops who needed to deal out the appropriate discipline (NOT, read excommunication or ostracism) but appropriate discipline to those clergy who misused their power, who abused it and their parishioners. (Work that fell on arrogant, frightened and deaf ears in some regions.) Hence the work of empowering congregational members to recognize and resist boundary violations attempted by their clergy, and the work of interpreting this behavior to vulnerable women (and children) who might think that having the pastor's "special" attention is a positive, not a disastrous thing. And hence the work of helping clergy and potential clergy understand the stakes for their parishioners whenever they became sexually, emotionally or otherwise inappropriately intimate with them. And, hence the complex reactions in a congregation like the one I served for three years, where abuse occurred at a such a scale for such a long period of time, a length of time that boggles the mind. And no such perspectives were provided, no healing offered, no transparency regarding this tragic history. I think Pope Benedict has an inkling whereof I speak. I hope. I hope. And other bishops too. In the aftermath of donkey rides on Palm Sunday and the violations that occur in the shadow of night, congregation members experience, such as a bishop or elder or superintendent, helps them to understand what has happened, their pounding impulse is to sweep things under the rug. To prevent anything or anyone from even attempting to agitate the waters. And in an instance like the one I encountered, to stop at nothing to prevent the shameful secret from coming out, to be so driven by fear they lose all reason and lash out in ways that I'm sure they would be embarrassed by in other circumstances. It wasn't them, their best selves, who attacked me. It was the scared, hurt, angry selves who were flying blind and mean. I actually don't feel bittnerness or anger toward them, the parishioners on the front lines, so much as at the regional leaders who could have helped them, helped us all, to move through a tumultuous time. As far as I'm concerned, the parishioners were set up, turned lose like a mob and told, "You will do what you will do." Such is the tragedy of the parish I served. Their woundedness. Their pain. I grieve for them as for myself. Their suffering has gone on longer and continues, for the most part, without benefit of understanding, of perspective. They did a horrible thing to me. But it was because a horrible thing was done to them. This is the grief, the sin that continues unto the fifth and sixth generations. My heart weeps for them this day, "If only you knew the things that make for peace." Healing peace is not easy. Not formulaic. (Note to professionals who intervene: Family systems theory doesn't work here, not as a template to impose. It's way more convoluted than that!) It requires hard work and slogging through swamps and across exposed deserts. But it is worth it! As we enter another Holy Week, within the Christian tradition, my real hope for those who are still stuck in the aftermath of clergy sexual abuse is that the promise of rising to new life will embolden you, inspire you to take a step, just one, then rest, then another, rest again, and then another, and find pilgrims to join you as you move into the healing, dynamic resurrection power of God. Jesus bet yes. He went all in to say yes. I trust that. And, finally, just to be clear, if you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus, you do not belong in a parade on the back of an ass. You belong on your kness, scrubbing. And just leave the donkey out of it altogether. Okay

Again

And again. A young life gone before we had the chance to enjoy the fullness of his gifts and grace, before he had the time to realize his dreams, fullfill all his passions and love. Too soon, too soon, we know. Peder Hedberg died of cancer earlier this week. He was barely out of college, a bubbling giving loving guy whose smile, even looking out from a photo, is so brilliant you can't help but smile back. (Photos coming, hopefully soon) Peder is the son of old friends, Hope and Paul, with whom we went to grad school and even worked on-campus work-study jobs. As these things go, we've drifted off to new vocations, locations, and close friends. But I still count them among the best people I've ever known and whose influence on me really stuck. They don't deserve this -- of course, no one does. But my heart just aches and aches for them. Please remember to pray for them. I never met Peder -- we were on the far side of the moon by the time he was born, a year before my oldest daughter -- but I can see his parents in his face and in all of the tender and funny tributes that have been written about him this week. All of us who missed knowing Peder really missed something unique, someone very special. Funny how these tragic moments bring us back into the presence of life we have lived a long time ago, smiles and laughter, earnest sincerity, sparkling intelligence. Hope and I spent endless hours typing invitations to Gala Dinners and Concerts and Receptions and later, the thank you letters in the school's Development Office. We were blown away by these new-fangled typewriters that allowed us to input the text of the letter and then, one by one, address each letter by hand and push a button to produce the rest. Were they IBM Selectric's? I don't even remember. Proto computers. We were there in the office to hear the news on the day Elvis died. And Hope, who is a therapist/counselor introduced me to Murray Bowen and family systems theory in the early days of his career, the year his most important book came out. It is the only book on counseling / therapy that has been in my small collection of must-have-availabe's at all times through the years of my professional career. It changed everything. I was grateful to get in on his wisdom at the very start of that career and to use his approach to family -- and other -- systems whenever the occasion called for it, which was often but not quite always. Paul is a chaplain and a trainer and supervision of chaplains. His gentle spirit and clear-headed thinking always pushed discussions further and deeper than we might have been content to let them be. We were two couples who managed to put in our years in "Fertility Flats" -- married student housing -- without doing our part to populate the neighborhood. It was a good time. And of course, they were parents to two boys. Wonderful parents. It is not just the earthquakes and violence that rip our children from us too soon. It is also accident, illness, flukes. We don't count one loss as more important than another, depending upon the circumstances. Our children are always in the process of moving on, out into the world. And that is of course dangerous. And exhilarating. Our children don't belong to us. They belong to the world, to themselves, to the One who breathed life into them and called them good. They are original blessings to be cherished and held, but, as it turns out, not held too tightly. Not forever. I want to put my children -- who are not children anymore -- into protective bubbles. But even that won't save them. We know this. And don't like it much. A sparkling soul was taken from our midst this week. We grieve, we mourn, we -- even we who didn't know him personally -- cry over the loss. Yet we celebrate this gift of God's grace to his family and to all of us, and the dynamic, fully alive living he did for all his years. I rather get the idea that he didn't miss a thing. Not anything important anyway. May it be so for our children, regardless the number of their years, and may it be so for us. Join, if you would, in remembering Peder tomorrow as a community gathers to grieve, give thanks and say goodbye. And pray for his parents, his brother, his girlfriend, and all who mourn, consoling them with the consolation we ourselves have received from God. Peace to his memory. And to my friends, Hope and Paul.

There was something I was going to write about tonight. I wish I had a clue what it was. A few things are in process, both for novel and blog, and they feel too heavy for today. The last few posts have been just a tad serious, don't you think? Life is like that. But life is also deliriously gorgeous and delightful. And funny. I took my clean self out on a good long drive --- okay, my carbon footprint for today is gigantic but I really do make up for it on days when I am a slug. Now that everyone who follows me on Twitter and all my Facebook friends know that I took a bath this morning, only after checking with the rest of the fam to make sure I wouldn't mess up their schedules by draining the hot water tank, because that is what I do when I take time to soak and think, it is likewise obvious to you that our family communicates by text messages within our house. Pathetic? Kind? Unintrusive? Impersonal? You judge. I won't pay any attention to it though and I don't really care because it works for us. But isn't this a weird world? We do this all the time. Dave has a very fine paneled executive office on the first floor of the house. He is often on long telephone calls so it is best not to disrupt him and sneak in a text to his cell phone instead. Annika was at her computer, twenty feet away from me, but she was in the midst of filling out her housing forms for school next fall --- oh my lord, she really IS moving to New York! We don't always not talk to each other but we do it often. My writing space is upstairs and, well, it's just easier. "Time for lunch?" "Did I leave Daisy outdoors?" "Who rang the doorbell?" Mundane stuff. Life is weird. So. Back to my drive. It is really spectacularly beautiful here right now! All the rocks are spackled with snow and the big wide meadows are covered, with fence posts sticking up through the two or three feet of white stuff like match sticks. I saw four deer, including Bambi herself, in Deer Creek Canyon, eight miles from home and I watched horses nuzzle and try to stay warm, even in their heavy coats. Favorite CD's were cranked to top volume; did the car rock at stop signs? Perhaps. I am relieved to report that Linda Ronstadt did not today literally blow out the speakers. as she did at home. No, it was the tuner that blew up. Do you know how much emotional ground you can cover singing along with Linda and Sheryl and Janis and Mick and Sir Paul? I remember now. I wanted to wish you a respite in all the heaviness that covers you. It is a heavy time for many, for many reasons. Your resonance with what I write is a somber confirmation that telling my story might be cathartic and helpful, and before that, it will stir up stuff. My wish for you this tender night is a lot of laughter, yes, even in bed if it comes to that, or tomorrow. And something spectacular to catch your spirit and lift it up. And while you're at it, take a long hot bath. And text someone to let them know. Oops.

Let the mob run

"They will kill you." I remember the moment, the atmosphere in the room, the intensity of sunlight coming in through the west windows over the mountains into my colleague's church board room, the faces of other clergy around the table, and the resonant silence that met his words. "Jan, you know they will kill you if you don't leave." The only reason I can remember that scene now is that: I didn't believe it at the time. My fellow pastors, who knew my setting better than I did, (that's for sure!) urged me for months to leave. But Miss Naivete, Miss Innocent, didn't believe it. I was unnerved, (that's for sure!) but I didn't believe it, not that, not that serious a threat. I didn't sleep, didn't focus, didn't function at my usual level for all of those following months. I was already traumatized. People don't function well while truly traumatized. We may rise to heroic actions when we are threatened,or those around us are threatened, but the Chinese water torture, as we call it, or the "white torture," as we also call it, or the "extreme measures," as we often now call it, none of these lend themselves to high functioning. The extreme rhetoric, the behaviors I described yesterday, the harassment --- all of these create distractions and undermine clear thinking, are, as they say, "crazy-making." They are more than threatening. They are traumatizing. And the two are different in kind. So. I was traumatized for months before the final blows. A mob was being stirred up. Riled up, manipulated. And the smooth-talking magistrate never once called them out, never challenged either their outrageous perceptions or their escalating behaviors. And in the end, he made it explicit, You will do what you will do. (Those of you who remember the Christian story will recognize that line.) They did. Do what they would do. Not isolated incidents anymore but a pattern. A terrifying pattern. And finally, it wasn't one of their leaders who delivered the last of their blows. It was a fringe guy, one of the mob, dare I say, part of the rabble, who acted, I think, more out of confusion and unorganized anxiety than his own clear motivation. Ah, but finally, this is not about me. This is about what is going on in our country right now. And it horrifies, terrifies me. Is it only a matter of time before a fringe guy, part of the rabble, the mob, shoots off more than his or her mouth. I am afraid. Death threats, including the call to hang Senator Patty Murray, use of the "n" word, the "f" word addressed directly on Capital steps to members of Congress, and spitting on Members of Congress as they entered the building, and now this afternoon, a gas line cut to the home of a brother of a Member of Congress who has... four young children at home (the brother's address was given by mistake instead of the MOC). And the leaders of the Republican Party are namby pamby about criticizing it. They must CALL OUT this violence and the threats to violence loudly, unequivocably, and with all of the authority and determination of the elected positions they hold. To do less is to leave the mob to run its course. Which will not end well. For anyone. Not one. Democracy is messy. But for the love of God, these are NOT isolated incidents in the sense that they are so far out of the mainstream, they are becoming a pattern. And the GOP must CALL THEM OUT. Mob mentalities are easily manipulated, and when they are not discouraged ---- ask me, check my medical records --- they ACT OUT THEIR HATE. What do we do? Maybe I start by calling my GOP Congressman and asking him to speak up, to condemn this behavior. Not the opinions or the persons themselves, but the behavior, over the top, dangerous. Deadly.

Stunned

Loss does nothing so much as it stuns us. Disbelief. Paralysis. Betrayal empties us of more than trust. We are left grieving, knowing more loss than our minds can comprehend. The maw. Chasms opening into yawning caverns that ache like a cavity, strained, distended beyond natural time. We don't feel this all the time. thank god. We can move through many days with only a vague awareness of pain or, better yet, a bare remembrance, or none at all, caught up in what is now. But then. Then we explode into paroxysms of staggering sadness. And we do remember all that was gone, all that is beyond retrieval. Moments lost, relationships strained, time missed, all that was taken. Stolen. All that screwed us over. Today I remember. Today I feel my soul drained and spilled out. You lose your senses in the middle of this grief, you forget to take perspective. What good has come, quite frankly, what good has been won, dammit, with determination, courage, grace, and luck. All of the stupidity. All of nastiness. I'm remembering it today. I am remembering them today. I am remembering the acts of cowardice, duplicity, manipulation. I am remembering names. Faces. Specifics. I am remembering words, lies, looks. I remember the woman who was unspeakably mean and manipulative to my child, confusing her, seeking to drive a wedge between us. I am remembering the invasions of my office, my email, my voice mail. I am remembering the violations of the altar, the stolen bread, the missing wine. I am remembering the distinguished man who stood in front of the mob and washed his hands, "what you will do, you will do." But worse, far worse, I am remembering how much I forgot, how much I missed. The 20 hour days at work, the seventy hour weeks. The bedtimes stories not read, the silly little outings for ice cream not taken, the stories at the dinner table I wasn't there to hear. I could go on and on and on and on. and it would be deadly to do so. The man with gray hair, and the one with a clownish manner, and the earnest face that dared not know the truth. I remember today. What was taken. What I gave up willingly, all on my own. Thinking it was for the best. Waste. Today it feels like waste. No, not today: this moment, this moment, right now, it feels like waste. I am so angry I wasted my time, three precious years of my life being set up sabotaged, cut apart, and finally, cut down. I am so angry. And inexpressibly sad. But that's today, this moment. But. There was yesterday. And there is tomorrow. In fact, there is fifteen minutes from now. We are going out, this child and I, the one I missed. And we have these wonderful moments, days, even. Days built by grit and determination and courage. To rise, reclaim. Rebuild. We are together. We were not pulled apart. Sorry, 'miss you know who you are'. We survived. All through it, through every moment. And she gets you, she's got your number too. We all do. Petty. Mean. You all screwed with us as best you could. And there are days when the cavity aches as much as it did once. When the cavern of loss extends out beyond light into deep darkness. And I cry. Rant. Moan, suffer. But, beyond remembering all that was the good that also came to us -- eventually -- and all that was good that God in Her grace did through those awful times, in the lives of others who were open to Her, and who, mostly, moved on, beyond remembering that, the fuck you days and memories we have made a new life as god does. At least that's what the story tells us. My girl needs some new duds. And, fuck you, men in velvet robes with vacuous titles, I am going shopping.

I just don't know

The sign says, "Bring people together. Study theology." Or maybe it says, "Study theology. Bring people together." Either way, one or the other, I don't remember and it doesn't much matter. But, seriously. Last I noticed, we were not too together when we come to theology. Or perhaps it's best to say, we are too together here on this side of the wall. And 'they' are too together there on the other. The big bold white words set against a verdant leafy background as high as a building trigger my cynicism every time I pass. Whose theology shall we study? Of course, issue one is getting to any semblance of agreement that there isn't only one theology (yours). That there are who's, many who's who bring a theology to the table. Issue two is the question of knowing. I don't know anything. But maybe you do. I think knowing is dangerous. But maybe you think knowing is required. I'd like to think we could come together and study theology. But I just don't know.

"take care of one another"

No matter where I go around the world, the issue of Native Americans comes up. We white European-Americans have no moral credibility around the globe with respect to our relationship to the First Peoples to inhabit this land. It is a matter I do not think of often. I don't dare. It is too painful. It is too humiliating, too terrible to remember. We, who dress up so nicely, who turn out so elegantly, who speak with grace and eloquence, we, who can be immensely gracious and generous, kind and compassionate, we, we. We are the perpetrators of horrible crimes against the native peoples. In a torn and depleted world, amazing things happen sometimes. I was part of a moment, a relationship, an event in time, on Friday that stirred me deeply and is worthy of consideration. "Warriors take care of one another. This is our common pledge. We are here to honor you, Warriors, as you carry on the name and the hallmarks of the Arapaho people," says Tribal Elder Leonard Moss to the 2100 cheering Arapahoe High School students. Tribal Elder Moss, wearing the dignified face paint and ceremonial headdress of the Arapahoe nation, his wizened face conveying kindness and conviction to the students, reminded the Arapahoe Warriors that "the Arapahoe and the Arapaho are two communities with one heart." The Arapaho came to Arapahoe today. And oh,what a day! A reverent and joyful celebration of the uncommon relationship between a high school community and the Native community whose name and heritage they bear. Gifts, dancing, lots and lots of dancing, drumming, singing, affection and respect exchanged between us all. Dozens of Arapaho traveled in white vans and Suburbans from the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming to Littleton, Colorado, to a suburban high school where more than two thousand students are reminded every day of their identity and heritage as Arapahoe Warriors, part of the Arapaho community. "Warriors take care of one another." Words posted all around the school, recited daily in the student announcements, and reinforced in countless ways to the point that it is a message internalized by these students, as a part of their identity and commitment. "Arapaho are known as a 'people who teach,' and it is our privilege to be here to teach you something about the culture of the people whose name you carry," the Tribal Elder told them. You might think this is a schmaltzy, schwarmy, hokey and tokenistic, feel good experience. But, au contraire! Everyone about this relationship is profoundly serious. honest, and gracious. There is no artifice. It is remarkable to see a gym filled with 2100 teenagesr who are wildly proud to be Warriors, and when I say Warriors I mean Arapaho Warriors as much as Arapahoe Warriors. It is "Warrior pride" that these students learn to feel about themselves, and now, by Warrior I mean, strong, tenacious, pride for yourself (self-esteem)and your tribe, and respect for yourself and for your Elders. Your actions, your life reflects upon your people, and by their actions, your people are expected to honor you. And, as the motto for both nation and high school reminds them, "Warriors take care of one another." I have seen these words every day for the four years my daughter attended Arapahoe. Nice, thoughtful. I had no idea the freight they carried. And even though I knew from the start about this uncommon relationship between the Arapahoe and the Arapaho, I didn't understand the extent to which each community identifies with the other, the sense of solidarity and unity. How remarkable is this! In this country, on this land, given this history, our children acknowledge the forfeit that has given them privilege. Our children, through this relationship, accept the responsibility of caring for one another. Our children, because of this unparalleled relationship with the Arapaho nation, are graciously blessed and given the opportunity for learning and living. Indeed, the words that touched me most deeply, from Tribal Elder Leonard Moss, were as gracious as I could imagine, anywhere, anytime. "We are glad you can use this land that once was ours to learn, to grow," to become more human. Can you imagine such a blessing? If every people in America was as humble, grateful and respectful, and overcome with affection for the Native community on whose land we now learn and live and make our livings as the community of Arapahoe High School, and if every Native community was, by some miracle of forgiveness and acceptance, as gracious and kind and giving as the Arapaho community of the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming, this country would be very different. Think, if you will, about what the world would look like, if other conflicts were so resolved, if other vanquished peoples were given the grace to embrace the children of those who stole their land, their livelihoods, their world. And what if we, the children of those who violated and stole and ruined, desecrated the world of others had the grace to embrace with gratitude the legacy that has been ravaged but not finally obliterated. What if we shared a common conviction, "Warriors take care of one another." So far as I can tell, the House of Representatives in their vote tonight, affirmed this vision, that "we take care of one another." How ironic, that these words first found me in the voice of the First Peoples who have changed my daughter's life over these past four years as an Arapahoe Warrior. I never imagined how proud I would be, never imagined, not at all, how happy and proud I would be to hear my daughter tell a family friend again today, "I'm an Arapahoe Warrior." Let's be like them, and take care of one another!

Wherever you go

...there you are. Even when it is not where you planned. My cousin Bev and I were pregnant at the same time and due in March, 1992. I had a miscarriage but she continued a healthy pregnancy and gave birth to a sweet little boy, Mark. I remember every year when Mark's birthday comes around, with a pinch of pain, remembering the baby I did not have then. I saw Bev shortly before Mark was born and shared joyfully in her expectations, honestly, and did not make mention of my pregnancy that had ended too early. As it turned out, I was pregnant already again when I saw Bev that day and was thrilled beyond imagining when Annika was born in August and even more thrilled that she turned out to be Annika. What a kid! That is always the thing about a miscarriage; the grief for what wasn't is almost completely swallowed up in gladness and delight about the child who was born, the daughter who, along with her sister, has grown up to completely own my heart. Back to Bev. And Mark. In the days after his birth, Bev and her husband, Tim, sent out a birth announcement that said something like this...... Imagine for a moment that you have planned a trip to France. You have made careful preparations, learned everything there is to know about France, even some of the language. You have drooled over photographs of the French countryside and the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. You have picked out a spot on the Riviera for a few days of rich living and chosen a lovely chic hotel for your days in Paris. You dream about the fields of lavender and the rich food and fine wines. Oh, yes, you have it all set up, you are going to France. You have your tickets and a little bit of French currency and the perfect itinerary. You find it hard to concentrate on anything else, as the days count down... You pack your clothes, the special dress you got for an elegant evening, the chic touring outfit, and, of course, the shoes. The day arrives. You get to the airport early, in your excitement, find the proper queue, have your passport stamped as you leave the country, board the big Air France jet, settle in for a first glass of cabernet, some crusty bread, even, believe it or not, a little escargot. You squeeze your spouse's hand, lean your head on his shoulder, smile at each other like you've got a secret, and you've won the lottery. "Here we go!" You settle back, your dream is coming true. In a few short hours, you will land in France. Only you don't. You land in Bruges. Belgium. And there seems to be no question but this is where you get off, this is where you are going, where you will stay. This, not France, is your destination. Bruges is a lovely city too. Not Paris, mind you, but interesting, You don't know Flemish and you have no idea what to look for and you don't have any hotel reservations and no map and, really, you're completely flustered. "What do we do in Belgium?" This was the gist of Bev's letter, Bev's and Tim's, as they wrote to announce the birth of their son, Mark. Who was born with Down's Syndrome. Not what they were expecting. And, as they explained from the start, "this is not a bad place we've landed, just not the one we planned for." Not, quite frankly, what we envisioned, not what we imagined parenting would be like. Mark had a number of urgent health issues, as Downs' babies often do. He had several surgeries in his first years of life. His heart. A colostomy, a reversal of the colostomy. Some of his health issues were critical. It was an all-consuming process, to care for Mark. And so it has been now these 18 years. Mark is also graduating from high school in May. It is a season of "lasts" for Bev and Tim too. His last high school football season: Mark was a manager for the Grandview High School Varsity football team all four years at Grandview. That includes the year they won the state championship and Mark was down on the field at Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Broncos play, sharing in the excitement of that big day. He has a letter jacket and wears it with obvious pride. Individuals with Downs Syndrome generally live somewhere along a continuum of capabilities, capacities. Mark is a fine swimmer, and bowler, and does well in the Special Olympics where his parents so faithfully support and cheer him on. He doesn't do as well on cognitive skills. Bev told me last fall that their goal for him before graduation was that he be able to use a cell phone, even to text, so he might have a feeling of a bit of independence. He works at a Chik-Filet as the person who cleans up after you, if you left junk on your table, spilled sauce, forgot to throw out your napkins. Wouldn't it be cool if he could call when he was ready to come home? Bev wrote to me after my post last week about "lasts," about how different it is for her, for Tim, for Mark. Because in some ways, life will go on very much as it has. Mark cannot be left alone. He will be living at home. Despite catastrophic cuts in funding for 'special education,' they are hopeful Mark will be able to go on to a post-high school program that teaches more life skills and perhaps even simple job skills. Bev wrote, "We're having a last school year with Mark but we're on a different journey from your family. The positive is that we don't plan to send him off anytime soon and we have more time to enjoy him at home." It seems to me there were words to read between the lines. Poignant ones. I cried. It's been 18 years in "Belgium" for Bev and I'll be honest. It's not been easy. It is a very different way to be a parent. It is exhausting. The rewards look very different for them than for us. She and Tim have always been on a different journey from our family. It is with enormous feelings of admiration and respect that I write, as I often think, of my cousin Bev, her husband Tim, and their son, Mark. I can tell you that they are the most incredible parents I've ever encountered, much less known. Their patience, lovingkindness, their clever and effective way of giving Mark the boundaries he needs, the affirmation and opportunity he thrives on, the playfulness he delights in ---- well, I can't imagine anyone coming close. Mark's job for the football team was to run out on the field and collect the kicking 'tee' after kickoff's and he has done his job with careful dedication. But there was not a Friday night or Saturday afternoon that Tim wasn't with him on the sideline, helping him zone in on his moment, and sometimes reminding him to come back off the field. You wouldn't believe the gracious manner in which Tim interacts with his son. Well, I hope you do. And Bev, too. Sundays and Saturdays at the pool, at other special activities, at home. Their last's are quite the same only different from ours. Their future looks very different from ours. They will be staying on in 'Belgium,' a place they've found their way around, skillfully. They've found all the hot spots, the groovy, funky places, and the boring but necessary ones too. We sat together, Bev and I, in the bleachers when Grandview played Annika's school, Arapahoe, last fall. Tim was on the field with Mark, of course. I thought it was pretty cool that Mark was out there being a manager for his school's team while our daughter, Annika, was on the opposite side, being a manager for her's. The same only different. After the game ended (Grandview beat Arapahoe, badly), Mark and Annika came up to see us and to horse around like kids do. Annika had her letter jacket on. Mark had his letter jacket on, too.

There will be no carnations today

Not a one. There will be no carnations today, not in Poland, not given to women, not if you want to save your skin. Happy International Women's Day! May 8. I didn't pay much attention to the news today so I can't say if the occasion got much play in the States. Some years it does, others it goes by without a peep. In years past I was involved in special events designed to teach women's history, or call attention to continuing issues of sexism, whether that be pay inequity, or glass ceilings, or sexual harassment and abuse. But, to be honest, International Women's Day has never had a big following here in the States. We take for granted all that we have and we are in denial about the problems that live on, and on, and on. So our attitude is pretty much just "never mind." Not so in Poland. Oh no, not so at all. International Women's Day is a big deal there. It is all about patronizing women, being extra chivalrous, even more condescending in the attention paid to "our women who work so hard for us." It is still a sore point. A major demonstration was planned this year, to call attention to specific injustices, a demonstration that most Poles managed to ignore. A recent magazine article reported the hardships women faced during the Communist period. But Polish women will tell you that the challenges are not gone. However, there are flowers. Never mind the issues of pay and power and housework, the women all get flowers. We get flowers from husbands and sons and brothers and fathers and friends and bosses. The corner kiosks selling flowers prepare for a brisk business and sell out before mid-afternoon. Women walk up Nowy Swiat carrying small bouquets, sometimes more than one. They have received flowers at work, at lunch, from sweethearts and co-workers. One would feel neglected,and embarrassed, to be seen outside today without flowers, evidence of someone's respect and affection. Men rush to deliver their flowers during lunch hours, on quick breaks, and it is a bit of an odd thing to see them out carrying bouguets of flowers too. If all else fails, there's always the supermarket. Yes, the market has a supply of roses to hand out to its women customers today. Touching. But heaven forbid you hand out carnations. Carnations are absolutely not allowed. Not one. Back again during the Communist period, every woman was given a red carnation at work on International Women's Day. These flower hand-outs generally took up work time, which had to be made up, as the "top dogs" (Poles love this term) would call a general assembly of the entire staff, spend an hour or two extolling the virtues of women, then send them back to finish their day's work, which often kept the women there longer than usual. How thoughtful. Charming, really. Needless to say, the carnations weren't particularly popular at the time. Tokenism. Boring, empty rhetoric. A longer day than usual. And a wimpy little carnation. Resentment, sarcastic wit, disgust were the order of the day. Symbolized by a red carnation. You'd have to look extra hard to find a red carnation anywhere in Poland today. If only the culture had made so much progress.

The Farewell Tour

Tonight we made the farewell tour at Arapahoe. This is a season filled with "lasts." The last choir concert. The last musical (Cinderella), the last basketball championship run, the last winter dance, and tonight it was the last Parent-Teacher Conferences. Mrs. Gerlich, the girls' AP US History teacher suggested we go out and drink a champagne toast. It was a lovely idea, but it doesn't mix well with the percocet. So we pretended. "Drink a toast to yourselves," she said, "you've done a great job, raising two exceptional young women." See, this is why we go to Parent-Teacher Conferences. Whenever we need a little boost, whenever our self-esteem is flagging, we talk to the girls' teachers. It gets a little bit embarrassing, but not so much that I'd turn it down. I used to joke that if I needed a hug, I'd just go find one of the teachers who would be so happy to tell me how great my kids are, and how much she appreciates having them in class, she's jump up from her desk and give me a big squeeze. I don't joke about it anymore, I just go. We are so lucky. With one or two exceptions, our girls have had terrific teachers. Many of them have been over-the-top excellent. We've seen the development of maturity in personality as well as intellectual growth. I love going over to Arapahoe and, meeting someone new, saying, "I'm Annika's mom." In a school of almost 2400 students, that's all it takes. "Annika's mom." I could not ask for a more honorable title, for a surer guarantee of respect by association. So tonight we went to make the rounds, our farewell tour of the teaching staff. And it was nice to hear one correct me and say, "no, it's a victory lap. Congratulations!" Somewhere in the mix of our encouragement and support and the girls' own maturity, talents, and commitments, the alchemy of this parent-child collaboration has created a couple of very cool kids. Together with their teachers and other mentors, we've done what we hoped to do: bring to life the best of their passions and quirks, their intelligence and good sense, their talents and openness, and their engagement with life at a level of thoughtful, careful, and joyful enthusiasm. And the girls, to their credit, have given it their best, their highest, and their mostest. And here they go. Again. There will be several more lasts this Spring, and not only for Annika here at home but also for Kaia at Macalester. The last prom, the last exams, the last research project, the last meals and times with friends. And for us, parents, who feel it all very differently, these are poignant last times. I have already cried, more than once. This is what we do. We go and go and go, and teach and teach and teach, and love and love and love, and listen and listen and listen. We comfort and harass, encourage and put on brakes, we nudge and throw up our hands. We laugh, we cry, we sing, we speak and we keep our silence. We say yes and we say no. We point things out, we keep things in. We hope, we cringe, we celebrate, we fill up with gratitude. We take a farewell tour, or maybe even a victory lap. We soak in the goodness. And then, they go. As we planned. As we prepared. They go. They go. They go.

Now that I'm not dying....

I started making plans. It's the not knowing. Only two weeks of uncertainty. Not bad by any standards. Except mine. Not knowing is better than knowing something terrible. I'll take not knowing for two weeks anyday over knowing, having lethal, devastating information, information that I feared but did not receive. Time falls into a different rhythm. One feels suspended. In fact, it feels a lot like the experience of being more literally 'dissociated,' as I was in the months after the attack in 2002. Dissociation is that eerie and awful experience of feeling outside yourself, outside your mind, outside your life. It is the sensation of watching your life go on, and you with it, but without being on the inside of it. During the months after the attack, the experience of dissociation was a safety mechanism, a gift from my mind to myself, a protective layer between my reality and the reality of what had occurred. It was hard enough to go on, being conscious as I was, of what had happened, what had been done, what other humans were capable of doing to one of their own, the evil that was perpetrated in a sacred space. It was a shock. But there was still this lovely layer, like gauze, a sheath, protection. Because there are times when life is too much to take in. We cannot stand too much reality, as the playwright has said (Bertold Brecht). Sophie's Choice is a devastating portrait of a life severed from reality, a reality that is too diabolical, that feels overwhelming, beyond redemption. I just read the book again in the company of some very talented writers, and we were really struck by the way the author wove together life and death so close, so interwoven that the lines became blurred. Like too many of her peers, Sophie was dying from the moment the Nazi's crossed the border. Reality was far too much. She never found her way back. Some of us split away from our personalities, our selves, forever in the wake of extreme shock, trauma, violence. And some of us just take a break, a time-out from the reality of what is in the world, what the world can do, of how harsh and stupid and destructive the world can be. And then we come back for more. Daring to step back in, to take steps in the direction of living, of life, of trusting and loving and playing around with life again. These last two weeks of not knowing what was going on inside my lungs was scary like that, the temptation to step outside for just a little while. To wait and watch. And not make any big plans. Not like before, not like I felt for the years it took before I dared to move outside a very small circle of trust, after being attacked a few years ago. And not quite like it still feels today when I come too close to what my animal brain perceives is danger. Not that bad, but weird all the same. No cancer, no embolisms, no creepy stuff. Just this one stinkin' rib that broke. I can live through that. In fact, now that I'm not dying, there's a list I've got to get back to. Poland is on it, of course, and Sweden. And, by gum, there's a novel..... It's good to be back! And thanks again for all your notes and concern! This is reality that is easily better than bearable. You make it good. Thanks!

It IS a broken rib!

No goat. This disappoints some of you who were eagerly awaiting the freaky outcomes and tabloid coverage of your friend with a goat in her chest. But, no, no goat. It is a broken rib. You'd think they could have just told me. But this is what happened -- because it is all so fascinating. I had a bad cold, a bit of a pneumonia even, terrible coughing. Difficulty breathing because of the respiratory infection. This went on for awhile. I sounded scary. The dog still hides. But that isn't the meat of the matter. Two weeks ago I felt something break or crack or crunch or tear or rip or something. And that hurt like labor. Which is to say, a lot. I went to the doctor. She ordered xrays. They took xrays. But not of the area where the rib was. Oops. So I went back later that day for a CT scan and they did their thing. But missed the rib. Oops again. But for some reason --- one can't account for what one can't account for --- nobody followed up on the broken rib angle. I was sent to a pulmonologist. He ordered a bunch of tests to check on the lung inflammation, pneumonias, cough, lung issues. Swell. But meanwhile, the rib the rib. However, the docs started talking like maybe the pain wasn't a broken rib. Maybe it was something really creepy like an embolism, cancer, that that sort of thing. Well, that was scary. And meanwhile, the pulmonologist's office lost my paperwork so the tests weren't in fact ordered, as he ordered. Big mess. It got really confusing. But this is it, the bottom line, what is actually happening. I have a broken rib. Pretty badly broken. So it's gonna hurt a lot. But that's all. The other, respiratory stuff is over. Or almost. But at least I know, we know. It's just a rib, a lousy broken rib. Thanks for being concerned. I really appreciate your care and your patience, as the confusion reigned. Knowing isn't everything. But knowing is good. Let's talk about epistomology now. Or after the percocet wears off.

It is a goat!

The CD from the CT scan of my thorax (yes, Kaia, it is a word!) is in this laptop. It is surely a good thing that a radiologist or two will take a look at it because this is all I can tell from my analysis. I have a heart. And lungs, two of them. The heart is on the right side, except when looked at from the back view, which worried me for a moment. There are ribs, well defined, but none of them look broken or cracked. There is a spine, always a relief. And fat. Yeah, fat. And there, tucked in behind a little pillow of fat is the goat. I knew it; it was either a broken rib or a goat. And it looks like a goat to us. It also looked like a little fetal head in the middle of a lung but we decided that is a physiological impossibility, for several reasons. So. There is not a black hole in my heart, also a relief. But not a golden glow around it either. Pretty normal looking to me. But something weird is going on in there. And tomorrow perhaps the veterinarian -- or my doctor -- will give the word. Stopping the percocet will be welcome. Feel free to keep me in your thoughts and join me in giving thanks to Dave for the amazing tender loving care he offers effortlessly and without ever any reservation.

Chopin's Heart, the Heart of Poland

Happy birthday to Fred! Bless his heart! Speaking of which, I sat next to it. Chopin died in his adopted France but his heart was lovingly returned -- and rather creepily returned -- to rest in repose in an urn in the church of the Holy Cross, built into a pillar in the nave of the sanctuary. I dashed in late for worship and looked up after a few moments and found, at my left hand, Chopin's heart. You can't see it -- thank the lord, but the urn is there with a red satin bow of honor. Now if I were to tell you that the heart was still beating, "The Telltale Heart," -- all I could think of the first time I saw it -- that would be really creepy. But it's not. Thank goodness. This is the 200th Anniversary Year of Chopin's birth. And today, this very one, 22 February, is the day. There is a lot to say about Chopin that I don't have time to tell today but, please, take some time yourself to listen to some etudes, a concerto, a polannaise. Perhaps the soundtrack of The Pianist is the most accessible popular source of Chopin's music. And you hear, you sense the romantic wistfulness of the Polish heart in every note. Poland was not a hospitable home for its 18th and 19th century geniuses. Chopin, Marie Curie are but two Poles who had to leave in order to find freedom for their creative forces to flourish. But Chopin remained a Pole through to the end. His soul is reflected in the plaintive, poignant passages and the brave chords of a concerto. Go to Poland today, find its heart, listen to Chopin! (from the Sunday, February 21, 2010 Washington Post) After 200 years, classical composer Chopin's music still holds mysteries Elliptical style: Polish-born Frédéric Chopin's music can appear simple, but his work is intricate and challenging. By Anne Midgette Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 21, 2010 Monday, Feb. 22, is Frédéric Chopin's 200th birthday. That is, it's Fryderyk Chopin's birthday; the Polish-born, Paris-dwelling composer's name is more commonly spelled these days with Ys. And that's his birth date according to a baptismal certificate; the composer said he was born on March 1. Even 200 years after his birth, things that appear simple about Chopin are actually more complicated than they seem. Including, and above all, his music. Chopin's piano pieces -- all of his pieces involve the piano: no symphonies or operas here -- are lyrical and lovely, poetic and, therefore, seen as accessible. Yet they can also be harmonically intricate, technically challenging. His 24 Op. 10 and Op. 25 Etudes, far from being simple "studies" for students, are so difficult that the great pianist and Chopin specialist Artur Rubinstein avoided playing some of them. And they can be elliptical to the point of impenetrability (take the final movement of the Second Sonata: a whirling cloud of sound less than two minutes long). Taken together, Chopin's pieces represent a towering hurdle, the benchmark against which a classical pianist is measured -- in part because of the difficulty of finding a way to plumb the music's depths while sounding simple. * * * "Proper" Chopin style is at once a seal of approval and the subject of endless debate. It involves lightness and clarity of touch, something evinced by one of the latest crop of Chopinistes, Rafal Blechacz, in his new CD of two rather conventional piano concertos. It requires a singing legato: the illusion that the pianist is creating an unbroken line of sound, like a human voice. This is particularly true in the Nocturnes, which are incessantly compared to the operas of Chopin's friend Vincenzo Bellini. But Chopin style can also evoke the kind of stormy outbursts the young Martha Argerich gives in her just-released CD, a collection of previously unreleased radio recordings from 1959 and 1967. Most important, and most elusive, Chopin style involves rubato -- changing tempo or rhythm for expressive purposes. The question of rubato dogs Chopin performance. The composer was said to be quite free as a pianist, but it's not clear what this meant: There are indications that he kept a fairly steady left-hand beat at all times. Still, generations of performers, following the misguided notion that a piece of music is a canvas upon which they are to express themselves, take Chopin's advocacy of rubato as license to slow down and speed up almost at will. Hearing a lot of Chopin -- even in some cases very good Chopin -- can leave me seasick from listening to too many phrases being stretched out as if going slowly uphill, then tumbling helter-skelter down again. Chopin's music has sometimes been branded effeminate, or "salon music": not quite serious, not quite healthy, not quite German, since it departs from the structural conventions of the great Viennese classical school. Even the two powerful sonatas are unconventional, playing fast and loose with the structural conventions upheld by Mozart and Beethoven. Indeed, some of Chopin's ardent defenders have implicitly bought into the idea that the music is weak and needs defending, trying to emphasize its seriousness (and manliness) by playing the works in sets -- all 24 preludes, or the 24 etudes of Op. 10 and 25 -- and thus casting them as long, weighty pieces rather than salon entertainments measuring three or four minutes long. * * * The view of the work as fragile and sickly is also linked to the pervasive idea of Chopin as a prototypical Romantic genius: pale and dapper, doomed to a tragically short life (he had tuberculosis), needing the care of a strong mother figure (his lover, best known by her literary pseudonym, George Sand), receiving the divine flash of inspiration at the keyboard (though a brilliant improviser, he labored over his compositions). After 200 years, classical composer Chopin's music still holds mysteries The work isn't fragile, though. Although Chopin himself was said to shrink away from too-loud playing, there's plenty in it that thunders and plenty that's assertive. It's also strikingly original. Chopin, unlike many composers of his day, wasn't under the sway of Beethoven. He abhorred, for instance, the start of the last movement of the Fifth Symphony; his primary influences were earlier, particularly Johann Sebastian Bach. Like Bach, he wrote music in sets: for instance, the 24 Preludes, a set of short pieces in every key like "The Well-Tempered Clavier." And pre-Classical keyboard music was an influence in some of the forms he particularly developed -- even the Nocturnes, that quintessentially Romantic expression. Chopin pioneered other forms, as well, like the Four Ballades: long dramatic monologues without words, at the intersection of tone poems and sonatas. Particularly his own were the polonaises and mazurkas, based on the idea of Polish folk dances, that are perennially held up as an example of the expatriate composer's patriotism. Chopin took his Polish nationalism seriously, but he was also capitalizing on a perennial interest in local folk color that turns up in Mozart's "Turkish" concerto or Brahms's Hungarian dances. There's certainly nothing sissy about the A-flat Polonaise. * * * There's a hint of the pragmatic in Chopin's 19 waltzes, as well. When Chopin went to Vienna as a young man, before settling in Paris, he disdained waltzes as the epitome of popular bad taste and complained that it was impossible for a composer to publish anything that wasn't a waltz. He may have looked down on them, but he was practical enough to start writing waltzes -- not, certainly, waltzes that one could actually dance to, but pieces that evoked the ballroom atmosphere, the whirl of gowns. The waltzes seem to be getting particular attention this anniversary year. New recordings have recently come out by Alice Sara Ott and Ingrid Fliter, two pianists worth knowing about, and Dinu Lipatti's classic set from 1950 is going to be rereleased yet again at the end of March. Listening to all the waltzes at one go is like eating a box of chocolates, leaving you feeling ever so slightly bilious; yet each of these recordings has its strengths. Fliter has a gorgeous, light, easy touch that appeals to me instinctively, but she gets a little carried away with the rubato, tugging at and prodding every phrase. Ott, too, sometimes sounds willful, but she has a wholesome directness. With a big sound that feels reined in, she embodies, in the Grande Valse Brillante in E-flat, the slightly coltish exuberance of a young girl at her first dance. In comparison, French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, who recorded the waltzes a few years ago, offers a drier, cooler approach: The playing is admirably clean and slightly distant, and very much a tonic after too much emoting. The waltzes epitomize one of the hardest things about playing Chopin: walking the fine line between emotion and sentiment, between feeling something and looking back, fondly, on the way it felt. Chopin presages Ravel's "La Valse" in his expression of slightly ironic nostalgia. The dance forms Chopin used had particular connotations; his works were a kind of social commentary. Today, the nostalgia threatens to trump everything. One big secret of playing Chopin may simply be to remember that it's not as pretty as it sounds.

"The Pants Heard 'Round the World"

"Look at your pants!" says the Queen to the King in Cinderella, begging him to schedule a festive ball to introduce their Prince to the eligible young women of the kingdom. Annika was rehearsing this dialogue yesterday when the Norwegian Olympic curling team appeared on the television screen. Meredith Viera called them "the pants heard 'round the world," and all we could say was, "Look at your pants!" I have the typical Swede's issues with Norwegians to begin with and this just doesn't make it easier. On the other hand, one of the issues Swedes have with Norwegians is that they are just too damn serious, and take themselves way too seriously. These pants definitely go the distance in rebutting that stereotype. So go Norwegians, wear those pants. Just don't expect us to ever take you seriously again. But this is not really about pants. That was just a teaser. This is about falling. And getting up. As much as I love Canada, I have to agree with the Salon writer yesterday who was inclined to tell Canada, "you're fired." The downhill ski course was a disaster. I keep envisioning these women whoooshing through the powder at Steamboat, snow worthy of an Olympics competition. But no, instead, they are sliding down a frozen concrete slippery slope that took six of the women out. Downhill skiing is an edgy, dangerous sport. That's a given. But taking out six of the best skiers in the world? One wonders. This is the thing, though. They got up. All but one who required an airlift off the course, the women got up, released their bindings, gathered the broken pieces of their skiis, and walked off the course. They're younger than me. Younger than most of you, too. That counts for something. But it is this getting up business that impresses the heck out of me. Getting up is good. Getting up is amazing. Getting up is normal -- much of the time. But it's not always possible. At least not right away. And it is certainly not always easy. One of my theme songs in the months after I was attacked and quit working was, "I get knocked down, and I get up again, I get knocked down, and I get up again..." Sometimes you can sing at the top of your lungs and push as hard as you can and grit your teeth and push and resolve, be determined, and still, it doesn't always happen right away. Resiliency is about bouncing back. I used to be so resilient I was a damn trampoline. Bounce, bounce, bounce. But then came a time when bouncing was no more possible than flying off into space. It's frustrating to be in a different time and space, to have to deal with an experience that is profoundly, intrinsically different from the challenges I'd faced before. But I learn new ways to be resilient, to grow those resiliency muscles. I keep saying that one of the big draws for me to Poland is the resiliency I've seen, as they bounce back, or build back, recover, return, heal after outrageous devastation: the destruction of World War II, the imposition of a communist regime for forty years post WWII, and earlier, after the Partitions of the 19th century. But it's not an even process. Some are more resilient than others. Some are more resilient in some ways, less in others. And some are more resilient now, others later. I thought I knew all about resiliency. But I was humbled. Broken beyond the point where bouncing back was easy, quick, straightforward. Sometimes it feels like I'm still just reverberating, absorbing the shock. That is the way it is. For all of us, in various ways. It varies. The least helpful thing we do when others fall is judge their response to it. We don't know what else they have endured, encountered in life. We don't get to tell others how long it will take, what exactly they must do, how much it will hurt. We see this as military veterans return home from war and respond differently to their experiences. The best thing we can do when others fall is attend to them. Listen. Honor and respect their interpretation of what happened. Then encourage and support them as they begin a healing process. I see this in Poland too. I have friends and acquaintances there who are still stuck, have not been able to move into this new era and embrace all that it offers. And others who jumped up and seized the new opportunities even as they were just beginning to emerge. Some are frozen. While others have been flying. And so it is with those of us who have faced violence and danger, hostility and harassment. We respond in various ways. I'm not a trampoline anymore but I got one. And I guess if it makes them feel better about not being Swedish, those crazy Norwegians can go ahead and wear those bizarro pants. Whatever it takes. Just so long as they don't mind hearing Annika shout, "Look at your pants!" What works for you, what have you learned about strengthening your resiliency muscles?

Lost in Bubbles

Maybe it was the narcotic haze. (Just a little bit of codeine overload as I continue to battle pneumonia.) Or perhaps it was the conversations I've had with my daughters lately. They are both up to their eyeballs in community organizing, activity, and what Macalester College refers to as Civic Engagement. Or else it was just historical amnesia. But I wrote yesterday that I don't feel apologetic about being an American. Let me clarify that. For the record, an important record. And thanks to old friend, Mike Voigt, for catching me up short. To be honest, it is such a relief to feel good about being an American again, in many ways (not all!, that I got carried away. But just a few reminders of who else we are. El Salvador. Chile. Nicaragua. Mexico. Panama. And, god bless us all, Granada! And that's before we move on to the present moment. Irag. Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia. Shall I go on? Yes. Slavery. I can apologize as long as the day lasts. Blood on our hands. Sleazy, greedy, creepy foreign policies and domestic failures. Cynical urban policies. Corruption. Petty politics. And that's before we come to the hedge funds and disastrous behaviors of the financial sector that, as it turns out, reading today's NYT's, has screwed Greece too. (With ample participation of the Greeks.) So yes, you get lots of hand-wringing, regret, embarrassment, and anger from me. Cynicism, frustration, disgust. But. As noted above, I've been paying a lot of attention to my kids. And to the communities around me. And I'm impressed. Caveat: it seems I spend a lot of my time in Poland being reminded of all that is wrong with America. We're big. We're imperious. We're cocky. We've screwed up the world's financial sector. We're racist. And that has got my back up. So I like to remember, as well, the ways our parents take an active role in their kids' education, the remarkable quality of arts and music programs, the teen-agers who spend hours sitting on town Planning and Zoning Commissions (ask Annika) representing the wisdom of a new generation. The levels of civic engagement in everything from education and health care and sports programs. Volunteer hours. I venture to assert that we probably spend more volunteer hours per capita than almost any other nation on earth. We do share our wealth, if not in the ways I'd like, in terms of economic adjustments, at least in donating and giving. So. Not to be too defensive here. But that's what I was thinking last night as I watched our delegation come in, and reflected on who we are. We are a really mixed bag. Really mixed bag. And the same ones of us who do great things also do terrible things. We are, at the same time, saints -- so to speak -- and sinners. Good and bad. I was lost in bubbles last night, grateful for all that is right. But we dare not forget the rest. And learn. And repent. And change. Yeah, change.

Here Comes Everybody!

Ghana is represented in the Winter Olympics. And Ethiopia. Cyprus. I love this! I love the world. The whole world, everybody from Andorra to Iran to Israel to Tadzikistan. Tell me it's all schmaltz. I won't believe you. On nights like this the idealist in me is alive, flaming in fact. We are everybody and yes, we are the world. All of it. Playing together on this pale blue dot. Sadly, the Jamaican Bobsled Team didn't qualify. But Moldova is represented. Here comes everybody! My daughter watched the Torun Olympics from either Italy or Estonia, I don't remember which. But I do remember her jubilation at being in the Town Square in Tallinn Estonia when their first gold medalist, a cross-country skier, returned home to an enormous crowd as the conquering Queen. I love this parade, this Opening Ceremony, the time we take to honor each participating country, the reminders of who we all are and the faces given to strangers, neighbors, ancient enemies. The ironies are striking. Turkey and Armenia. Bosnia and Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro. Macedonia and Greece. Iran and Israel. I'm sentimentally attached, of course, to Estonia and Sweden and Poland, and I will be cheering every chance I get for a Swede to beat a Norwegian. The huge Chinese delegation walked in and every single one of them held up a camera to capture their experience. The Georgians were somber and clearly affected by the tragedy form earlier today. The lone Mexican competitor looked lost. The Poles brought their best hopes, cross-country skiers, and got through without being the object of any tacky jokes. But it came close. And then the United States comes in, all boisterous and overwhelming and confident. It's a herd of Americans! This is always a striking moment for me. There is pride, of course, but also a sober sense of awareness of scale. We're big. We're really huge. And to see our relative strength in numbers out there on the field, well, what can I say? What needs to be said? Having sat in living rooms across the world and watched the United States show up in force, I always feel the embarrassment of riches. Seeing us as others see us. Dominant and dominating. Overwhelming. It's a poignant moment, always. I'm never moved to apologize for who I am, who we are. But I always do feel a sense of responsibility and humility. With great wealth comes great requirements. And I wonder, are we worthy? Are we good stewards of all we are, all we have? Sport, war, humanitarian aid, relief, music, art, literature, science, medicine, economics. Oh yeah, we compete, we share, we each bring our best, and, idealist that I am, flaming idealist that I am a night like tonight makes me wonder, even hope. Human frigging beings that we are, could we try a little harder to pull this off, more often? All the time? Okay, I'm not crazy. Not all the time. But, nevertheless, ready or not, here comes everybody!

"Over my dead body!"

Oh, this is flattering! In his column last Sunday in the New York Times, Nobel Prize winner (Economics), Paul Krugman compared the current level of functioning in the United States Congress to that of the Polish Sejm two centuries ago. It's a disturbing picture. And too true to be good. This gives me the excuse to offer a little history lesson and another insight into the Polish psyche. And perhaps, while we're at it, a glimpse into our own. It's all about the "No." As the Polish nation began to come together, as early as the Jagiellonian dynasty in 1264, a basic Jewish Charter was established to promote Jewish trade within Polish lands and by 1515, King Sigismund I extended the policy to promote Jewish settlements and a policy of tolerance toward Jews throughout the realm. This was at a time when Jews where being pushed out and persecuted throughout western Europe and squeezed into a vise that narrowed their options for freedom, promoting Jewish culture and religion, and for making their livelihood. The Jewish communities within Poland were gathered under an elected tribunal of rabbis that administered their own affairs as an almost semi-autonomous state within the state. (This is not particularly relevant to the argument at hand, I just wanted to throw it in because it is a little known part of history, which does cast a certain, different light on the history of Poland and Jewry. But anyway, I digress.) This came at a time when Poland was already on the path to a Constitutional Monarchy, one of the first in the world. Poland had a bicameral parliament, sejm, by 1497, comprised of nobility. The Catholic bishops and the Papal authorities wielded considerable power as well. Skip twenty chapters of dense Polish history, names, dates, wars, schemes, intrigues.... Oh, my goodness, this is all so complicated. There will not be a test later. Poland was one of the first nations to see the emergence of a powerful parliamentary system. The members of this parliament were the Polish nobility. A very powerful class. They pushed, they pulled, they took land back from the burghers, they cut deals with the Jewish merchant and guild classes. They adopted an attitude and a lifestyle of entitlement, and, of course, privilege. The Polish nobility was numerous by European standards. 25,000 noble families, altogether about 500,000 persons, represented as much as 6.6 per cent of Poland's total population. At the same time, for example, France's nobility comprised only one per cent of its population, and England's nobility was only two per cent. [Clearly, the Poles were more noble than anyone else!] They were a closed estate, their privileges protected by a labyrinth of detailed laws. They controlled their own destiny and that of everyone else in the Polish republic of roughly 7.5 million. They governed according to "their private inclinations." Nice gig if you can manage it. Well, these nobles felt so entitled and empowered that they were at pains to preserve the power of every single one of their caste. Which is to say, nobody wanted to allow anything to happen that they themselves would not benefit from. "If it's not good for me, it's not good for Poland." Or, at the very least, it's not going to happen. Poles may be the world's most notable idealists. By 1652, they enacted procedures that assured the Sejm would act always in unanimity. That's right. Can you imagine? They proceeded from the notion that no law could be enforced if it had not been made by unanimous consent. They wanted to avoid the chaos that comes from conflict. They strove to create harmony in their civic life. And, anyway, if a policy did not have universal consent, if it could not be convincing to everyone eligible to decide, then it must not be worthy of adoption. Yes, idealism. Indeed. My mind, which ranges toward cynicism on occasion (okay, often, when it comes to matters of the administration and distribution of power), wonders if there wasn't also an element of "over my dead body" that prompted the Sejm to give veto power to all of its members. "If I don't want it, it ain't happening." "If it's not good for me, it's not good for Poland." Kind of the reverse of the old adage, "what's good for GM is good for America." What isn't in my best interest isn't going to happen. The motivations for this policy, such as we are privvy to them, seem high-minded, if naive. But it created chaos. Eventually. Nothing got done because, surprise! the nobles did not all agree. They used the "Liberum Veto" for matters large and small. Petty and churlish. And the country stalled out. Okay, that's simplistic. But you didn't sign on for Polish History 440, the graduate seminar, after all. The point is that a lovely concept degenerated into misuse and selfish, mean-spirited, vindictive obstructionism. That pesky human nature at work once again. Now, read Paul Krugman. Sound familiar? It happens everywhere. In families, school boards, sewage oversight committees, country clubs and quilting groups. And even in churches. Striving for consensus is one thing, a noble thing. But giving veto power to the churlish, ignorant or paranoid is always a bad idea. As Krugman points out, Poland disintegrated and disappeared, degenerated into chaos, became ungovernable and vulnerable to the predatory intentions of its neighbors. Respect for bound conscience is one thing. "Liberum veto" is another. Concern for consensus is great. But the petty don't deserve to win.

I scared the dog

It is not pretty. The mucky non-productive cough of pneumonia. The Daisy dog is permanently scarred, and scared to come near me. I hope we can patch this up one day. I hope I stop coughing one day. It's been a week now. And I, for one, am not enjoying it. But at least one thing is better than the last time I had pneumonia. You. Christmas Eve 2000. I shook several hundred hands as the congregations left worship services. Somebody had Influenza B. The bad one going around that year. Christmas morning 2000. I woke up feeling like I'd been trashed by a team of roller derby queens. Which is to say, not good. But there was a worship service and it was my turn to do Christmas Day duty. The next day was a funeral and burial. The day after that was the church staff Christmas party. At my house. A kitchen full of guests, last minute preparations, gravy, mixing a salad. I could hardly stand up. So when they all went in to the dining room to sit down for the meal, I went upstairs "for a few minutes" to rest. I woke up ten hours later. I had this wicked Influenza bacteria and I got pneumonia. And, as some of you have been relating similar stories, pneumonia is nasty. And it lasts a long time. One friend wrote tonight of being sick for a month and a half. As it was, I was down, ennervated, totally wiped out for three weeks. It was six weeks before I really felt back to almost normal. I saw the doctor weekly and was on mega-doses of antibiotics. You can check my insurance records. It's true. As you have been following this blog you know that I am recovering from an attack at work. That happened in October of 2002, so about a year and a half later than this bout of illness. After I returned to work at the parish, I learned (not right away) that the "word on the street" --- which is to say gossipy emails, parking lot conversations, coffee klatches and telephone calls --- was that I didn't have the flu or pneumonia at all. In some versions, alternately, I was not sick at all and just faking it. Or, this was the most popular, I had a mental breakdown. The irony of that story was that 18 months later, in fact, their incessant and devilish harassment, sabotage, and abuse did result in my having a severe mental injury. I guess they were just planning ahead. The congregation was behaving according to a long pattern. And when I say congregation I should clarify that a core group of perhaps as many as fifty persons were gung ho on Operation Kill Jan, and others got dragged in or caught up in some of the gossip. And of those fifty, perhaps only as many as twenty or so were the most vigilant and diabolical in their behavior. The pattern that had worked for them before worked for them again. Pimp up the young assistant, undermine the senior pastor (me) and split the staff apart. It only works when the young assistants are guillible and needy. It hadn't worked with the previous team but oh, did it ever work this time. Moral of long story made short, my getting pneumonia and Influenza B became the first opening, the big opening, for mischief. (Mischief is as appropriate a descriptor here as bombing is for describing what happened at Hiroshima.) It was the opening campaign of the war they won on October 22, 2002, in the parking lot of the church. The next eighteen months were pretty much unmitigated hell. If you can imagine it, they did it. I've been reading all this week, Sophie's Choice about the holocaust, The Things They Carried, about the Vietnam war, All the King's Men about corruption in the early 20th century south, Willa Cather about the hardships of life and the moral breakdowns that were part of early life on the Nebraska prairie. The things we are capable of. Doing. To. One. Another. I realized how naive I still am. How genuinely hopeful I am about the human race. But mostly naive. Even though I know it happened, these and other terrible things, I have to confess, I have a very hard time wrapping my head around them. Really? People do these things to one another? There is still a big part of me that is in denial. Sometimes I have to watch the reality crime shows on TV just to convince myself that people, "normal" people really do terrible things. I will confess one thing more. I'm not sure if the denial isn't a perverse flip side of cynicism. Maybe I'm not so hopeful as I want to believe. Something changed inside of me as a result of that experience. Not unlike veterans who come home and talk about having become numb, even cold. I get it. Whether or not that's healthy, I'm not sure. Thanks for all your good wishes, suggestions and encouragement. I really DO have pneumonia and I'm not especially worried this time about a raging gossip campaign asserting otherwise. Thanks for being trustworthy. And kind.

Choose Life

Before I went there for the first time in 1980, this is what I knew and thought about Poland, when, rarely, I thought about Poland at all: Auschwitz. The Holocaust. And I knew it was part of the Warsaw Pact. Communist. That’s it. Period. Poland? When you live on the north side of Chicago you learn this about Poland: it is where your Jewish neighbors were sent like cordwood in box cars to death camps, like Auschwitz and Treblinka and Majdanek, from which these remnant few had somehow survived, traumatized ghosts without family or home or faith. I watched Hasidic neighbors from my window go to the Yeshiva every morning. I saw the wives with their wigs play with children on the front stoops. I walked past three synagogues on the way to the grocery store. How could I go to Poland? I struggled for a time with a feeling that I would somehow betray my Jewish friends and neighbors by going to Poland. It was for them a symbol now of death, of trauma. I would be treading on their ghosts, their haunted memories of loss and torture. Having Jewish neighbors, whole communities of Holocaust survivors, the Hasidic Yeshiva across Argyle Street, an Orthodox seminary a few blocks west on Foster Avenue, thriving congregations just up Kimball and scattered all through the neighborhood, and observant religious Jews living next door, all meant learning firsthand about the Nazi horrors, the desperate struggles to live, the terror of being torn from mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and, worse, one’s children. I read their histories, their theologies, their narratives. I read Elie Wiesel, read Night, and carried, as part of me now, the haunting picture he described, of a child hanged on the gallows at Auschwitz, and the angry cry of a fellow prisoner, “Where is God? Where is He?” As Wiesel was forced to march past the boy, hanging between life and death for over half an hour, the man behind him asked again, “Where is God now?” Wiesel writes, “ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is. He is hanging here on this gallows.....’” (Night, page 62) In Poland. Martin Buber, Abraham Heschel, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Viktor Frankl, Wiesel, Hannah Arendt, Chaim Potok — I inhaled their writings. They were foundational to the theology, still Christian, that was constantly forming and reforming within me. I would go to Poland with the witness of these Jews in my heart and mind. “Religionless Christianity,” “the cost of discipleship,” “the way of freedom,” the penetrating insights of Dietrich Bonhoeffer were the dominant influence on my Christian views. Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and scholar, became a leader in the resistance movement in the run-up to World War II and throughout the war, sharply critical of the German church that allowed itself to be coopted by the Nazi’s and was silent in the face of anti-Semitism and other atrocities. DB (as we groupies affectionately call him) ultimately gave up his life trying to save the world from Hitler; as part of a plot to assassinate Hitler on July 21, 1943, he was arrested, sent to Buchenwald, and was hanged in the last days of Nazi power, May 7, 1945. While his own experience was dramatic, heroic, and profoundly sacrificial, worthy of the deepest respect and a challenge to any Christian who hears the words of Jesus, “take up your cross,” and “whoever would save his life must give it up, for my sake and the Gospel,” it was his writings, especially the Letters and Papers From Prison, that gave voice to my own deepest convictions about God and the world. I would go to Poland with Bonhoeffer in hand. Poland. Poland. Poland? I would go to Poland and ask questions. I would go to Poland and wonder about evil. I would go to Poland and try to understand something more about faith. About living. I would go to Poland, defiantly, choosing life in the face of death. So I did. So I do. Humbly, gently, carefully. And I chose. Life.

Round Trip to Auschwitz

The train to Auschwitz left from Platform 4.

Peron 4. A sign pointed the way.


It had been a leisurely morning. A cheerful voice greeted me with a seven o'clock wake up call. I hit the snooze button twice, finally shambling off to a warm shower at seven thirty. The small hotel in the Kazimierz district of Krakow served a marvelous breakfast -- scrambled eggs, perfectly prepared, with chives and bacon, a warm croissant with sweet Danish butter, crisp fresh pineapple, orange and grapefruit, salad (Europeans always need some sort of salad for breakfast), a bit of brie, a chilled glass of freshly squeezed pulpy orange juice exactly as I like it, and perfectly brewed rich black coffee.

I took a direct route to the train station, stopping only at a Bank-o-Mat -- in this case a German bank -- for yet more zloty, and dodged the occasional car heading up onto the sidewalk, where parking is customary. The street was torn up as new tram lines are being laid down but that has nothing to do with why cars are on the sidewalk. Cars are always on the sidewalk in Poland. The narrow streets leave no other choice for parking.

I strolled on, happening upon shop owners cranking out their awnings and sweeping the stoop, readying to open for the day. I passed students hurrying back from a quick trip home to the villages, barely in time for a new week of classes at Jagellonian University, one of the very first chartered universities in Europe. These students dragged suitcases, lugged awkwardly heavy backpacks. I followed a smartly dressed businesswoman of my own age, who knew exactly the most efficient way to navigate the maze of paths and obstacles through construction zones, one way streets, and tunnels. We bridged a ten-foot-deep trench on a sturdy plank and stepped around the worker in his royal blue and, so far, neatly pressed overalls. He was laboring to level ground for new paving stones.

The sky was clear blue with only a faint hint of the early morning haze, dew rising from the rolling fields just beyond the city. The sooty dank coal smell that I remembered from visits in the 1980's was conspicuously absent. It felt fresh and new and good to be about.

I arrived at the railway station with twenty minutes to spare. I bought a round trip ticket to Auschwitz/Oswiecim for 22 zloty. Coke Zero cost 3.5.

The train left precisely on time, at nine fifteen, as Polish trains do. We stopped at the Krakow Business Park, a skyline of red and yellow cranes putting up a score of modern office buildings to join the gleaming multi-storied corporate offices already there.

I believed I'd found a forward facing seat in the front car of the train, my choice. But when the train began moving, my mistake was obvious. I was in the last car. Looking back.

Did my unconscious will out after all?

No matter, I moved forward at the first stop and found a comfortable place across the aisle from two young women speaking in their animated, cheery French about friends, travel and ordinary things, about life. (I love eavesdropping.) The older man facing me read a succession of periodicals, a daily tabloid newspaper, a more serious newspaper, a magazine about Formula One car racing, and finally another lightweight weekly. His briefcase sat on the vinyl seat next to him. He got up, then checked the time on his cell phone several times, apparently anxious to get to an appointment on time. His grey tweed sport coat, stylish striped shirt and smart tie put me in mind of an architect. His glasses were new and of the very latest and highest fashion and his serious mien seem ill-suited to his choice of reading material. Of course, I never did figure him out. A journalist, maybe? Nah. Who knows.

Another, younger man in the last row of our car looked like one of Sarah Palin's 'Joe Six Pack' fixtures. He spent his time with a book of crossword puzzles, or else staring out the window, his arm resting on a small, brown canvas duffle bag.

The countryside from Krakow to Auschwitz ranges from gently to bigger, then big rolling hills, from woods and forest to patches of farmland, some villages and small towns. We passed through Dulowa, a sprawling village of two-story stucco houses, set at the base of a small hill surrounded by woods. A modern church, built to resemble the prow of a ship rose from the midde of nowhere, between this village and the next one.

Homemakers were out, taking advantage of a warm dry spell, hanging laundry to dry, digging around in gardens. It was wash day in Galicia: brightly colored blouses and skirts hung like flags and waved freely in the pleasant breeze.

We passed through Trzebinia, the biggest town on the route. A power plant with a tall red and white tower rose like a lighthouse. A railworker stood in the weeds of the trainyard, curly blond hair tossing rings around her face, talking on a cellphone. Several people got off in Trzebinia. A few others got on. The railworker was still on the phone.

Autumn was in its waning moments. Leaves turning from gold to brown, falling, drifting, like lilting notes of a completed season, or sonata. The trees looked bleached out and tired. The willows drooping, pulled down by the weight of life. Beech trees, cottonwood, all spent.

The man across from me checks the time evermore frequently. Pulls out a presentation folder. A printed document. Is it a lecture? A business proposal? His phone rings. He seems relieved to have made contact.

Ten eighteen. We stop in Chrznew.

The man is restless. He pulls out a well-worn gold appointment notebook, very old-fashioned. Then his wallet. Then he reviews all the documents contained therein.

Getting close.

We are now surrounded by woods. A few fir or pine, I can't quite tell which. We go under a bridge being constructed as an overpass for local cars. Life must be picking up around here. The train bed becomes rockier, then so much so I have to stop writing. The train bed is sitting up fifty feet above the forest floor. I'm a little freaked out.

Did everyone brought to KL Auschwitz arrive by train? On these tracks? Didn't I read that the first, Polish political prisoners arrived by truck transport?

There are freshly painted gray coal cars sitting, empty, on a siding.

The French girls who were laughing earlier have become more serious. The man combs his hair. Again. A few minutes later he does the spit and polish on his hair, using the cell phone's face as a mirror. Now he's checking the packages in the big Bass (brand) bag he has alongside.

Clutching both bags. We're not late. Why the restlessness? Is he coming to be interrogated? Tested?

Or is he on a pilgrimage too?

We pass a lovely large yard with rich green grass, an ornamental windmill, trees heavy with fruit, a small orchard of trees well-pruned. A big house is nearby, still under construction, the roof beams exposed.

The man across from me finds and checks another wallet but he doesn't seem frantic, searching for some lost item, just perusing. He checks a credit card or two, then reviews some business cards.

He reminds me of myself on some of the business trips I used to take, fumbling out of nervousness, low-level anxiety, boredom, eagerness to get on with it. I think ADD or something like it.

Now I see that all of the trees are completely washed out. Nature is past its peak. Even the pines look faded, bleached, tired of holding on.

But here and there, a brilliant red or gold band of trees stand out among the barren. Occasionally, the silvery trunks of birch gleam in the sun, which has been playing hide and seek all morning. We move along very slowly, bumping over the rocky train bed.

A French girl yawns. The other one, with darker hair, is quite quiet, pensive.

The man checks his watch again. And fidgets with his pockets, pulls out a slim red lighter. And a cigarette.

Forest on either side of us now. I think, it would be easy to hide in that forest, even now, with all its dense undergrowth.

We approach another tall smoke stack, painted red and white, another lighthouse. Full coal cars sit on the siding.

It is ten forty. We have stopped just short of, in sight of the Oswiecim/Auschwitz station.

We will arrive on time.

The girls take out packets of candy and each have one, their talk now strangled in the chocolate. They chew heavily, their jaws working like presses on the sticky candy.

We speed the last few kilometers, rocking rather wildly from side to side. A fringe of red oak lines the edge of a clearing. A large corn field extends beyond the woods into the distance.

More houses, small plots, typical edge of town. A big yellow Caterpillar sits on the next track, obviously rebuilding it, laying down steel rails. Whose equipment was it that helped the Nazis build the extra rail lines they required to KL Auschwitz-Birkenau?

Now we are wobbling across a bridge that spans what reminds me of a northern Colorado irrigation ditch, like the one where my father learned to swim and carouse with his cousins. We pass old, faded red brick, two-story square houses. They all have satellite dishes installed on their sides. There are newer stucco houses too, even a lime green one. They have satellite dishes too.

And we're here. Auschwitz/Oswiecim.

We're late.

I wonder, did that happen a lot?




My trip by train to Auschwitz.

Does anyone do this and not think. Not think about what was. About what was then. Was horrific. Terrifying. Brutal. Inhuman, inhumane.

How did a simple banal train trip become, in time, at one time, evil?




The last train back to Krakow today leaves at 19:17. I don't want to miss it. I take a photo of the schedule so I don't get mixed up. I get to go home. Today.