The wise ones hope
On this Sunday, July 10, 2016, following the shooting of police officers in Dallas by a troubled young man who was just doing what he had been taught to do – kill those we label the enemy – there are rays of hope; hope that this act which is so much closer to home than Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and any of the other places the men of women of the United States join others to respond to violence with more violence – closer to home for those who are not there or not home reeling from the news that that their loved one has made the ultimate sacrifice, I turned to those who have and continue to drag me from my black box of despair.
· Leonard Pitts in an article “American has gone mad before; the cure wasn’t hate” in the July 10, 2016 edition of the Tampa Bay Times, p p3 reminds me of the words of Bobby Kennedy on the night of the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“My favorite poem,” he told them, “was Aeschylus. And he once wrote, ‘And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop from the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.’ “
“What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer in our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”
· Donald Pitts. I have no idea if Leonard Pitts is related except in terms of eloquence and wisdom to my late friend Donald Pitts. Donald Pitts was one of the early – some say one of the first - black people to graduate from law school and be licensed as an attorney in West Virginia and would tirelessly mentor and teach young people. He was also a minister and was known as Bishop Pitts. His sisters, the Pitt sisters, were well known in the Wheeling, WV for their passionate, talented, singing of the praises of the God of their understanding – singing which defied all barrier of color, race, age and religion. Don graciously took on the role of teaching me.
· David and Mammie, Tlingit Indian leaders, on the island of Hoonah who when we arrived on the island told us that “We will be your son’s grandparents.” Then David told me, “And you, young man, I will teach to be a man.”
· Nikki Giovanni the wise, passionate poet who intoned in the last part of her poem Ego Tripping (There may be a reason.)
“I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by me
Permission
I mean…I…can fly
like a bird in the sky”
· Maya Angelou –the last part of her poem, “Still I Rise”
“Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
· Last, but certainly not least, I am reminded of the poem by Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Often, but as we can see, not always it is the women among us who brings us back to hope. After all, who else but those who survive the painful, wonderful, traumatic, joyful experience of childbirth can go on to hope day after day that their child will live and thrive could move us to and beyond tears to a new day in which we must wrap one’s slice of the world in the warmth and beauty of a quilt while stoking the fire which will cook the healing chicken soup.
This is a way. We must like the chicken in Jane Mead’s poem “Passing a Truck Full of Chicken at Night on Highway Eighty” “She looked around, watch me, then strained to see over the car –stained to see what happened beyond.” The last line of the poem is, “That is the child I want to be.” (quoted in Tampa Bay Times, July 10, 2016 on page 6L)
Today our hope springs from the sure knowledge that we are more than our worst deed. Today after having fasted and purified our bodies and are ready to reap the rewards of Ramadan; Today we are ready to accept forgiveness even as we forgive – ourselves and others; Today we are ready to give thanks to the legions of wise women and men who dare to hope.
Written July 10, 2016
On this Sunday, July 10, 2016, following the shooting of police officers in Dallas by a troubled young man who was just doing what he had been taught to do – kill those we label the enemy – there are rays of hope; hope that this act which is so much closer to home than Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and any of the other places the men of women of the United States join others to respond to violence with more violence – closer to home for those who are not there or not home reeling from the news that that their loved one has made the ultimate sacrifice, I turned to those who have and continue to drag me from my black box of despair.
· Leonard Pitts in an article “American has gone mad before; the cure wasn’t hate” in the July 10, 2016 edition of the Tampa Bay Times, p p3 reminds me of the words of Bobby Kennedy on the night of the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“My favorite poem,” he told them, “was Aeschylus. And he once wrote, ‘And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop from the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.’ “
“What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer in our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”
· Donald Pitts. I have no idea if Leonard Pitts is related except in terms of eloquence and wisdom to my late friend Donald Pitts. Donald Pitts was one of the early – some say one of the first - black people to graduate from law school and be licensed as an attorney in West Virginia and would tirelessly mentor and teach young people. He was also a minister and was known as Bishop Pitts. His sisters, the Pitt sisters, were well known in the Wheeling, WV for their passionate, talented, singing of the praises of the God of their understanding – singing which defied all barrier of color, race, age and religion. Don graciously took on the role of teaching me.
· David and Mammie, Tlingit Indian leaders, on the island of Hoonah who when we arrived on the island told us that “We will be your son’s grandparents.” Then David told me, “And you, young man, I will teach to be a man.”
· Nikki Giovanni the wise, passionate poet who intoned in the last part of her poem Ego Tripping (There may be a reason.)
“I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by me
Permission
I mean…I…can fly
like a bird in the sky”
· Maya Angelou –the last part of her poem, “Still I Rise”
“Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
· Last, but certainly not least, I am reminded of the poem by Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Often, but as we can see, not always it is the women among us who brings us back to hope. After all, who else but those who survive the painful, wonderful, traumatic, joyful experience of childbirth can go on to hope day after day that their child will live and thrive could move us to and beyond tears to a new day in which we must wrap one’s slice of the world in the warmth and beauty of a quilt while stoking the fire which will cook the healing chicken soup.
This is a way. We must like the chicken in Jane Mead’s poem “Passing a Truck Full of Chicken at Night on Highway Eighty” “She looked around, watch me, then strained to see over the car –stained to see what happened beyond.” The last line of the poem is, “That is the child I want to be.” (quoted in Tampa Bay Times, July 10, 2016 on page 6L)
Today our hope springs from the sure knowledge that we are more than our worst deed. Today after having fasted and purified our bodies and are ready to reap the rewards of Ramadan; Today we are ready to accept forgiveness even as we forgive – ourselves and others; Today we are ready to give thanks to the legions of wise women and men who dare to hope.
Written July 10, 2016
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