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SAVE THE DATE: From San Francisco to San Jose, Inauguration Day Protest

img_0516Dear San Francisco Bay Area Residents:

Many of us are concerned about the rhetoric, policies and appointees of the incoming administration and my church – Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo (UUSM) – is organizing a peaceful protest. We’re inviting people to line the El Camino Real (ECR) from San Francisco to San Jose with messages of love (respect), not hate, on Inauguration Day, January 20, Friday, from noon to 1 p.m. This form of PEACEFUL protest comes from the People Power tradition of the Philippines.

If you share our concerns, we invite you to look at the EVENT FLYER and to consider joining with us … but also to consider promoting it through your faith organization or other organizations and among your friends and family. In addition to sponsorship by UUSM, this event is also endorsed/sponsored by Suit Up! Action Network Mid-Peninsula/SF Bay Area, an offshot of Pantsuit Nation, and will likely be endorsed/sponsored by our local interfaith partnership.

Please mark your calendars and look for more information soon.

RELATED:

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: Demonstrations and Protests, American Civil Liberties Unions

“We’ve made love private, contained it in family, when its audacity is in its potential to cross tribal lines.” Krista Trippet
Leading in Difficult Times, Conversations Among the Clergy of San Mateo County, CA http://wp.me/pne74-dvy

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LATE BREAKING NEWS: “RESIST” live and virtual events and “Artemis Poetry” calls for submissions

“On January 15, 2017, poets around the U.S., in cities, towns and villages, will gather on the steps of their local city hall to read poetry against the coming dictatorship of Trump.”

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Organized by Alan Kaufman and Michael Rothenberg.

Alan Kaufman is the Editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

“Outlaw poets” is a term of endearment used in reference to poets whose work is featured in the Outlaw Bible. The following is a partial list of the characteristics of such poets:

  • anti-authoritarian personality;
  • anti-Vietnam war activists known for their anti-war rhymes (many poets write about Vietnam who are by no means outlaw poets).
  • Elder poets that gained notoriety via unconventional forms
  • Poets deliberately not included in most academic curriculums
  • Often inspirational to or inspired by the so-called “Beat” movement in American poetry during the mid-20th century

and

Michael Rothenberg is co-founder (with Terri Carrion) of 100 Thousand Poets For Change. He is an American poet, songwriter, editor, and active environmentalist who recently moved to Florida from the San Francisco Bay area. Born in Miami Beach, Florida, Rothenberg received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1993 he received his MA in Poetics at New College of California. In 1989, Rothenberg and artist Nancy Davis began Big Bridge Press, a fine print literary press, publishing works by Jim Harrison, Joanne Kyger, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen and others. Rothenberg is editor of Big Bridge, a webzine of poetry. Rothenberg is also co-editor and co-founder of Jack Magazine

It’s probable that The BeZine January 15, 2017 issue will be devoted to this event. Save the date for both live and virtual events and prepare to submit your poems. Let them be both truthful and artistic . . .

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise

 

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind — Emily Dickinson

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The latest issue of ARTEMISpoetry (UK) just landed in the USA with its usual rich assortment of essays, book reviews, art, announcements and – Yes! – of course, a wealth of good poems. (Apologies for not getting a better photograph of the cover.) ARTEMISpoetry is the bi-annual journal (November and May) of the Second Light Network and published under its Second Light Publications imprint. The poetry is by women forty-plus or better. The poems are for everyone. You can order this issue and others through Anne Stewart‘s poetry p f and/or sign up for membership. Membership includes a journal subscription.

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CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Opportunity Knocks

Poetry Deadlines: Issue 18, February 28, 2017 and Issue 19, August 31, 2017. “Women poets only, of any age. Unpublished poetry only and not out in submission elsewhere.  Strict limit: max 4 poems; the total number of lines in all should not exceed 200 lines (i.e. you could send a poem of 200 lines and this would restrict your submission to just one poem).  Two copies, A4 paper only [U.S. standard letter paper – 8 1/2 x 11 is the closest we have in the US to A4], typed or neatly handwritten.  Each numbered sheet to bear the poet’s contact details (name, address, telephone, e-mail). Send to ARTEMISpoetry, ATTN.: Dilys Wood, 3 Springfield Close, East Preston, West Sussex, BN162 SZ.”

Response by April 30 for Issue 18 and October 31 for Issue 19.  Kate Foley is the poetry editor for Issue 18.

Artwork – Black and white photographs or line-art sketches are welcome for submission. Four max.

For new and emerging writers, Second Light also offers “remote” – i.e., distance – workshops.  Check out the website for details.

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HEADS-UP: December 7, 2016,

Poetry Now @ The Department of English and American Studies, The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University

Our own Michael Dickel is a featured.15289246_10154375245428557_1972176959953952764_o

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LEADING IN DIFFICULT TIMES, Conversations Among the Clergy of San Mateo County, CA

2792b2bb-5918-4580-bf07-9355acdf4291It’s not poetry but it’s important.  As we struggle to understand, to digest pending or potential changes with the new U.S. administration, to figure out what we can do to help insure stability and to ease the pain of others, those who nurture our spiritual lives are struggling with the same questions.  Through interfaith collaboration clergy support one another, coming together in conversation, in protest and in solidarity as they stand in the love of our country, all people and the world.

img_2075On Wednesday, November 30, 2016, twenty-five clergy representing Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism and Christianity responded to a call to meet for a working lunch at the Congregational Church of San Mateo to discuss Leading in Difficult Times. I was a butterfly on the wall with the good fortune to listen in.

They discussed the same concerns and fears that you are writing about in your poems, essays and editorials: scapegoating, suppression of free speech, immigration policy that will split families and is creating anxiety among children, Islamophobia, empowerment, economic distress, women’s rights and violence by individuals or orchestrated violence in the community/country.

One rabbi pointed out, “The to-do list for the world … we never imagined so much would be pressing us with the same sense of urgency. How do you know what to do first? With all that needs to be done, how do we make sure no one is left behind and that we don’t take away the dignity of others in our process? … How do we juggle all the needs?”

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”
excerpt from “what they did yesterday afternoon”  Warsan Shire

Just as we ponder how to support one another in our art and activism, our clergy explored the ways in which they can support one another in their roles as spiritual leaders.

  • Show up for each other and stand by the values we share.
  • Keep the spark alive. Hear the spark, the spiritual spark, hopefulness and joy.
  • Create a safe place to talk about personal journeys relative to the times.
  •  Encourage one another in a clear sense of values and priorities … to act the way our traditions dictate and God wants. Stay grounded in a place of values and faith.
  • The heart has a need for practical things to do; we can echo the sorts of things other faith groups are doing so we can collaborate.

They explored faith at the intersection of shared values, the same values we share through The BeZine and under the banner of 100,000 Poets for Change.

  • Love of all humankind and the value of nonviolence.
  • Dignity and worth of all people.
  • Hope that all places of worship can be a safe space for everyone.
  • The value of listening.
  • The value of acting to move through the whole project without stopping.
  • The value of not leaving people behind. Blessing and curses go together so where there is a curse there’s a blessing and we create the blessing.
  • The sanctity of speech.
  • Concern for the poor and disadvantaged.

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“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

After the clergy meeting I attended a similar discussion among the members of my own congregation.  We broke out into groups to explore and agree on actions for a specific areas of concern: environment/climate change, racism and Islamophobia, women’s rights and immigration. I was in the group on immigration, where priorities are the school children now living in fear of being separated from parents or sent back to countries where their lives are at risk, the 65,000 undocumented youth graduating from high school each year and having conditional status in the States under The Dream Act*, and the brutality and aggression faced by illegal immigrants escaping violence in their countries of origin as they are rounded up for deportation by ICE officials. There is special interest in the Sanctuary Movement and making our church sanctuary. We are already a “Welcoming” community.

These have been among my activities as I took some time away from writing and poetry to think about what promises to be a different sort of world. We might have a long haul ahead of us and though . . .

The task [may not be ours] to complete,
. . . neither are [we] free to desist from it. Rabbi Nachman

* These are children who are culturally American and bilingual with only a tenuous connection to their countries of origin.

Clerics interested in connecting with the Planning Team for the San Mateo clergy group featured here today and professional journalists interested in covering their activities, please contact the Planning Team at clergyhousingsummit2@gmail.com.

These activities are what I think of as “Best Practices.” I share them here because they can be easily adopted by other communities.  I would encourage those of you who are part of our The BeZine: 100,000 Poets for Change Facebook discussion page to share information and/or links to initiatives in your community that might interest others. Our poetry like our prayers must have legs. The Facebook discussion page is one I moderate along with colleagues: American-Israeli poet, Michael Dickel and Rev. Terri Stewart, Associate Pastor at Riverton Park United Methodist Church, Seattle, WA

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something … and what I can do, by the grace of God, I will do.” after Edward Everett Hale by the Sisters of St. Joseph who were my teachers and role models

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“My Joy Is Like Spring” … The poetry of Thich Nhat Hanh

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ZEN MASTER THICH NHAT HANH (his students call him Thãy) is a revered spiritual leader, a poet and a peace activist.  Martin Luther King called him an apostle of peace and nonviolence and suggested Thãy for a Nobel Prize, which Thāy never received.

Thāy is sometimes called the other Dalai Lama.  His key teaching is that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live peacefully in the present moment.

The featured poem (below), Please Call Me by My True Names, moves us to compassion. It reflects the Buddhist concept of interdependent coexistence for which Thāy coined the term “interbeing.”  In it he seeks to remind us that we are one with each other and with nature. His poetry is gentle and his word-pictures and pacing tend to sooth and heal. His many published works include several poetry collections.

Thãy lives in Plum Village in France, where he is recuperating from a stroke.

Thích Nhất Hạnh (Nguyen Xuan Bao) b. October 11, 1926). Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist. He coined the term "Engaged Buddhism"
Thích Nhất Hạnh (Nguyen Xuan Bao) b. October 11, 1926. Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist.

Please Call Me by My True Names

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to, my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Poem from Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh

Thāy’s photo courtesy of Duc (pixiduc) under CC BY SA 2.0