When I fall silent for weeks, Gentle Reader, although it’s not exactly time to worry, it is time to infer, correctly, that something is going on. And that something might generally be described as the passage of time. I mean, aging is a polite way of saying that one is staring directly into the face of death, vis-à-vis the grim reaper. That sort of thing. So, I have been brooding upon this reality, which may not be such a bad idea. After all, such are the facts. And there’s another thing…that death, violent death, is staring me in the face night after night in the form of the PBS NewsHour.
With footage from, you guessed it, Ukraine. Who cannot be stirred by these images? Images that also tell a cautionary tale. For it was my country that went charging into Iraq in 2003 on as flimsy a pretext as Vladimir Putin’s is today. No weapons of mass destruction. Just the disappointed masculinity of Dick Cheney, everyone charged up with “no one’s going to push us around again.” And we know what happened.
Still, I can’t take my eyes off the news. Mesmerizing. And largely uninformative. Still, I do get charged up. The notion of the bully attacking his victim. It’s hard not to avoid. It’s hard not to get infused with war fever. There are Nordic, particularly Viking, words for this. Everyone understood. Blood revenge gets into the blood. And in the end, it is just blood that is shed. And while this is logical and inescapably true. The human psyche is full of primitive lusts. Which, if we are lucky, get harnessed in the service of life.
Anyone who loves language must love Kevin Barry. He has a collection of short stories so lyric and confoundingly of the tongue and the scene that is the West of Ireland…well, it’s writing that makes you scan a line, then rescan the same line as if something new will emerge. And something probably will. “That Old Country Music” probably varies in quality. Critics have claimed as much. I find the stories fascinating in action and in language. Check it out.
What to do on a Saturday like this one? Hurtle down to the Earth Day environmental fair, of course, at my San Francisco synagogue. How many years have I been on the congregation’s Climate Action Committee? Quite a few. I got there on time, for once, which proved to be an hour early. The actual Saturday morning services were just beginning, more or less, so I rolled into the sanctuary slightly late and joined in.
The lay leader asked me to read from the Siddur, and I did a reasonable job of quadriplegicly thumbing through the pages of the prayer book. Landing on the section, I began reading. I felt the force of the passage and enjoyed saying the words out loud. The message was broad, the point universal, so I bridled slightly at the reference to queer and LGBT issues. Which is a sign of the identity-politics times. Why aren’t we talking about quadriplegics? Disabled people?
The answer is simple. This shul was founded in the 1980s by three gay orthodox guys who weren’t welcome elsewhere. It’s hard to believe this in contemporary San Francisco. But that’s because we quickly forget history. It’s not easy to get a synagogue going in an expensive city like this one. And, more important for me, just stick with the program, let myself be led, and the results are instructive.
Our environmental fair was downstairs in a large meeting room. Each of us set up a table with an area of concentration. My focus was Net Energy Metering, that is to say, a California program that enables homeowners with rooftop solar panels to pump electricity back into the system and get credit for it. In a fast-changing world, NEM hasn’t kept up with the times. But that’s another story.
A couple approach the table. They have questions for me and for the table adjacent where a psychologist talks about the impact of environmental/Armageddon fear on the populace. Meanwhile I wonder. Are they a lesbian couple? One person is clearly a woman, but the other? I am looking at a black person with an Afro cut into a sort of stack, the top of it bleached blonde. There’s a certain amount of facial hair. But I’m still puzzled. This could be a trans person. And then we start talking, me and this black kid. He/she. And I am overwhelmed by nothing to do with gender. It’s a feeling that this is a sensitive, vulnerable and very human person. On the surface we’re talking about our electrical utility. But I’m really tuning into a simple truth — that gender is more of a tone than a category. This is a fine young person, I decide, tender, receptive to life and very much deserving of getting some credit for courage. As well as protection.
This is the sort of thing I learn in my San Francisco synagogue. It’s hard to say what it is I’m learning. But it’s undeniable. And I feel better for it with each lesson.