Earth Day

 

Some interesting news items today.  One of them is that in these times of economic difficulty “green” products aren’t selling as well as they used to.  And indeed many stores  are cutting back on the number of “green” items they offer because the products just aren’t moving.

 

I realize that some of us truly can’t afford the higher price.  I have a friend who just this week got a job after two years of being unemployed.  Pennies for him, and for others in the same situation, are literally crucial.  Buying green at this moment, is not an option.  But for most of us, green products are affordable.  They may put a crimp in our budget.  But they are affordable.  They are, therefore a choice.  For some of us a hard choice.  Yet still, a choice.

 

Once again it comes down to whether our lives are about ourselves or the planet.  Earth Day is a great and wonderful day. Earth Day projects can be fulfilling and truly productive.  But if we can’t make every day Earth Day, I think we lose.

 

There are many ways to integrate “green living” into our lives.  A friend, Gina Diamond, has created www.helpmegogreen.org .  She gives workshops and consults.  It might be worth investigating.

 

Interested in growing more yourself and buying less from agri-business and doing it in an ecologically appropriate way?  Another friend, Marilene Richardson has created www.communitysustainable.org .  You might check out “permaculture”.

 

Not all or even most of us can make a living at a green job.  I know that, and it’s not the point.  The point is that each of us, and I definitely include myself, need to be intentional in what we do.  And then, as a community we also need to be intentional in what we do.

 

I can’t help but feel that many of us think only of what the community is doing, and in so narrowing our focus abnegate our personal responsibility to act with green intention in the world.  While many others of us think only of what we personally can do, and abnegate work within the larger community. 

 

I speak from experience.  Personal experience.  I know I get distracted.  Good grief, it’s hard not to!  Some days it seems almost impossible not to.  If I were conspiracy-theory minded, I might well say that someone is throwing stuff at me fast and furiously just to keep me distracted. 

 

But whatever.  I don’t think it is possible to heal the earth on our own.  And I also don’t think it’s possible to heal the earth if we only rely on our community.  It’s a twin effort.  It’s a sustained  twin effort.  And a hugely long-term commitment. 

 

This (current weather notwithstanding!) is spring.  This is Easter weekend.  This time of year is all about rebirth, renewal, resurrection.  And if not now … when?

 

May the blessings of springtime, however you may celebrate it, envelope you, involve you and sustain you … and our planet.

Remembering Passover

 

As a Jewish child, Passover was always my favorite holiday.  Now I’m in my sixties, and Passover remains my favorite holiday – though these days it is followed closely by Yom Kippur.

 

But Passover was also from the beginning a holiday of tension in my family.  For my father, Passover was somewhat akin to Thanksgiving – a time to fix and indulge in wonderful ritual foods.  And, truth be told after trying for years, I could never match my mother’s layered matzo-meal sponge cake, with whipped cream and fresh strawberries.  My mother died much too soon, and with her she took the secret of the sponge cake.  And the charoses (some spell it charoset) – a recipe she did share with me.  YUM!

 

But was that it?  Ok, fine.  There were the miracles: the frogs and the other plagues.  But it was never lost on me that the plagues ended in the first born of Egypt dying.  Maybe that was necessary, maybe not.  I wasn’t there.  But that much death could never, for me, be a cause to celebrate.  Overall, and for whatever reason, miracles have never impressed me. 

 

And, for whatever reason, excuses to overeat have never impressed me.  I rebelled against Thanksgiving long before I rebelled against Passover.  But as soon as I moved out of my parents' home (junior year of college, but that is another story) I resolved to hold my own Passover Seders.  My parents were always invited, but we did the Seder my way.

 

So what was “my” way?  First, to take the ritual seriously.  Passover has been celebrated, unbroken, for three thousand years.  Passover has been celebrated in times of great plenty and in times of terror.  It has always impressed me greatly that some of the imprisoned and dying of Auschwitz would starve themselves, saving up scraps of bread, so that they could “feast” on Passover.  No matter what, Passover must be celebrated.

 

What also impressed me from the beginning was that when freedom came, it came for all the children of Israel.  It came for the women as well as the men.  The children as well as the adults.  The poor as well as those better off.  Somehow freedom as a human right was seared into my brain.  A human right.  Not a male Jewish right.  Every Jewish woman in Egypt had been freed too.  So what was with this “men’s club” mentality that was still prevalent in Judaism when I was a child?  I rejected it.  And for a short while I felt I needed to reject Judaism because of it. 

 

And I don’t pretend I was the first to say it.  Yet it became so completely a part of me so very young that I have no idea where I first heard it.  But for me, the iron rule of Passover, the great teaching of Passover, the know this if nothing else of Passover is and must be: If one of us be slave, man or woman, rich or poor, any race, any religion, if ONE of us be slave, then NONE of us is free.

 

This is the great teaching of Passover.  This is the call to justice that Passover demands. There are two parts to this that became a part of me.  The first is obvious.  All slavery is evil.  No one should consider him or herself truly free if there is a slave anywhere.

 

The second seemed just as obvious at the time, but I have come to realize that for many it is not that obvious.  “If one of us be slave, then none of us is free” assumes that all humanity is “us.”  As a Jewish male, women are as much a part of “us” as men; Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Humanists, Baha’i and all the rest of humanity are as much a part of “us” as Jews.  This is one reason why, particularly at this time of year, the inhuman treatment of some Palestinians towards Israelis, and some Israelis towards Palestinians tears so completely at my heart.  There is no “them.”  There is only “us.”  Yet, though this is the great teaching of Passover, after three thousand years of instruction, we still haven't learned it. 

 

“Why is THIS night different from all other nights?” a child or youth asks as a part of the Seder service.  My answer would be that it is because we have set aside this night to remind ourselves that there is no “them”, there is only “us.”  If we enslave another, we enslave ourselves.

Choosing to Refrain from Madness

 

Perhaps it’s the side of the bed I got out of this morning, but it seems to me that today, Saturday, April 2^nd, the world is even more nuts than usual.  It’s coming at me from all sides.

 

I turned the radio on to check the news this morning.  Unemployment is down: significantly.  It’s below 9%.  A cause for celebration?  No.  It is said in a rush, as the news reader hurries on to an item of the economy that hasn’t improved.  And it occurred to me that since the meltdown there has been nothing but bad news, no matter what.  At first it was the “bailouts.”  Well, most of those have been paid back with interest.  Then it was fear of a government “takeover” of industries like automobiles.  But that industry is roaring back and no longer has government strings.  Then, as good news began to accumulate, the news pundits all pointed to high unemployment and said there could be no real recovery until unemployment started coming down.  But now that it’s coming down, oops, unemployment really isn’t that important.  Something else is.  If I had been more awake this morning, I could tell you what.

 

Bottom line.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!

 

One of our political parties rode to victory last November on one huge issue: jobs.  But it would seem that from the moment they took office jobs have become a non-issue.  It’s the deficit.  Forget jobs.  Heck, fire people.  But we must cut back on government spending.  The deficits will destroy our children if not us.

 

Bottom line.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!

 

I have some dear friends, good people, who are sure that our president is in point of fact a war-monger and a tool of Wall Street.  He’s taking the country ever further down the road of Fascism. 

 

I have other dear friends, also good people, who are sure that our president is in point of fact a socialist and a pacifist.  He’s making the country vulnerable to terrorism and leading us ever further down the road of Atheistic Communism.

 

Bottom line.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!

 

Today, we are told that Islam is out to destroy “us.”  Islam is not so much a religion, we are told, as a violent movement out to take over the world.  I remember from my youth when the exact same thing was being said about Jews.  There are still those who believe in a Zionist conspiracy for world domination.  But most of the invective is aimed at Muslims.

 

Bottom line.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!

 

And of course this is NOT a U.S. problem alone.  The Israelis and Palestinians are choked with fear, and from their fear comes the dehumanizing of the “other” and increasing reliance on violence.  “The Zionists are out to murder us.”  “The Palestinians are inhuman murderers.”

 

Bottom line.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!

 

The entire planet seems awash with fear. 

 

It’s not my purpose to argue that the world is dandy.  Pollyanna I’m not.  There are real problems out there.  Some of them are huge.  Hunger, disease, oppression, war: these threaten our lives, the lives of our children and indeed the life of the planet.

 

But it is my purpose to say that living in a cocoon of fear solves nothing.  We need Franklin Roosevelt now, more than ever.  Fear IS the greatest thing we have to fear.  Or, as the Dune books put it, “Fear is the mind-killer.”

 

The sad truth is that fear is a potent form of madness.  And madness is a communicable disease. 

 

Those who would control us, from the right or from the left or from outer space, those who would control us know that the easiest way to manipulate a human being is to make that person afraid.

 

We have problems.   We have economic problems, political problems, climate problems, and so many others.  They are real.  They need solving. 

 

But this I promise you:

 

NONE of them will be solved by fear.

NONE of them will be solved by demonizing and dehumanizing the “other.”

 

This I also promise you: there is no “them.”  The concept of “them” is one of the big lies of human history.  Women/men, Palestinian/Israeli, European American/African American, Native American/Immigrant American, Chrisian/Muslim, THERE IS NO “THEM”.  There is only us. 

 

We have a choice.  It is a fundamental choice.  It is by no means the only choice but it is perhaps the most important choice we will ever make.  Will we allow ourselves to be ruled by fear?

 

We indeed have huge problems.  They are bigger than any one of us.  But they are not bigger than all of us.  All of us.  All of us.  If we keep “them” apart from “us”, whoever “them” is this week, we lose.  Thus the first fear to overcome, is the fear of “them.”