Mouse and a Moment Shared
Last evening milady and I attended a potluck hosted by two local Christian Churches to honor and serve a small group of protest-marching men and women who’re on their way to the seat of our government to announce their opposition to the People’s Republic of China’s – the PRC’s – invasion and continuing captivity of Tibet. It wasn’t that either of us were involved in the cause. True, milady and several of her lady friends had gone to Washington a couple of months ago to listen to a talk given by the Dalai Lama, but her interest was more in the man and his views than in the nation from which he lives in exile. Tibet was as far from our thoughts as the nation itself is from greater downtown Criglersville, VA, about 12.000 miles.
The dinner was held in the common room of the Madison Presbyterian Church. The marchers will spend the night in the parish house of the Piedmont Episcopal Church, and the prayer before the meal was offered up by the minister of the Hebron Lutheran Church. In his introductory remarks, Reverend Brad Jackson, the Episcopalian, observed the ecumenical persuasions of the gathering, going so far as to point out the Mouse and his lady as Unitarian Universalists, adding even greater breadth to the irony already apparent. Here we were, a diverse assemblage of Christians and “agnostic” Unitarians, in what must be one of the most religiously conservative counties in the state of Virginia, paying our respects to a group of Buddhists who were fighting for what is probably a lost cause. What could possibly have led to such an improbable gathering?
Perhaps it was nothing more mysterious – or less mysterious – than the “milk of human kindness.” The marchers were strangers, “and ye took them in,” they were hungry, “and ye fed them.” Perhaps Reverend Jackson and the Presbyterian Reverend John Storey who had organized the meal and the shelter were motivated by their calling to “do unto others as ye would have them to do unto you.” I know them both as men of unusual conviction, Christians who have not permitted the dogmatic details of their beliefs to get in the way of their humanity. Milady and I were there because Brad Jackson had asked the members of the Wednesday morning study group (which is also held in the Episcopal parish house) to assist with the food. We’re generally pretty good marks for that sort of thing.
In any case, we were there. The proceedings began with a few short talks, Reverend Jackson’s followed by two of the marchers. One was Dr. Larry Gerstein, an anthropologist on the faculty of Ball State University in Indiana, the other a young photographer, Douglas Herman, who had spent time in Tibet and had put together a short video portraying the scenery and people of Tibet, as well as some of the prior marches. [There have been many, west coast and east coast, thousands of miles of protest, peacefully, uneventfully, and – consequently – ineffectively marched.] Gerstein and Herman were two of the four westerners who were on the march. The other fifteen were all Tibetans, none of whom were now living in their native land. They had come from Hawaii, five or six different stateside states, and a couple of foreign countries. One was 71 years old, but most in their mid-years. This was their second rest stop since they had left Charlottesville, 30 miles south. They have another eight days to march the remaining 100 miles or so to Washington.
Dr. Gerstein spoke mostly of the current plight of the Tibetans, particularly of the young Panchen Lama who has been held incommunicado by the PRC for eleven years. Gerstein said one thing that struck home with me, that the Chinese ruling the PRC think in much larger time frames than we democratic westerners. We cannot plan 200 years out, as Gerstein claimed the Chinese are, primarily because our form of government focuses our leaders on the more immediate concerns, that even if we could conceive such a plan, the turnover in our leadership would practically assure that the plan would be impermanent.
Later, in table talk with Mr. Herman, I was reminded of the Chinese inhabitants of Hawaii depicted in James Michener’s book of that name. They endured four or five generations of living hand-to-mouth, while silently socking away a fortune with which they eventually purchased large chunks of prime real estate. Milady added that only a self-sacrificing people, willing to defer the satisfaction of their desires could conceive and implement such plans.
Mr. Herman and I had a brief discussion after the dinner. I tried not to reveal aloud to him my deeply held foreboding for the future of Tibet, but I feel certain, perceptive man that he seemed to be, that he understood. I do recall that he and I agreed that causes of the noble variety, causes like his, do not play well on the American stage. Why this is so traces directly to the difference between America’s consumerist, impulse driven, please-me-now mentality, and the Chinese focus on distant goals. Only later did the thought occur to me that there are some permanent and unending goals – more principles than goals – that could possibly be implemented in a democratic regime such as ours without fear they would be obscured by political changes.
Those goals have to do with what was in the hearts and minds of the people gathered there at the potluck. Not just the marchers, but those too who had come to honor them … and yes, by people everywhere. Some ideas of the highest good exist universally, though they’re too often hidden by mistaken notions of the good. We get confused by delusions of passive joy, by things loved , by places loved, even by people loved. They all give us joy, and in some cases the joy is so intense we lose any sight we may have had of the ties that bind us all as one people, on one small planet.
Once, our nation existed – perhaps only in the hearts of a few gifted men – as the embodiment of that greater ideal. It’s there – not in so many words – in the Constitution – more eloquently and more believably in the Declaration of Independence. I suppose those ideals, those dreams, are still there in the hidden hearts of most of us, the notion that all the people of the world might abide together as friends who honor and serve each other. I can imagine a world of strangers – alien nations we call them – who might see in us the flesh and blood expression of those very ideals, who might be led to see those same dreams as realities in themselves.
Imagine it, yes … that’s the word, imagine, for I cannot in my fallen state, as a man disillusioned by the enslaving loves of immediacy, see that world as a concrete thing. I cannot see the plans and strategies of alienated nations ever being able to bootstrap themselves out of the self-made swamps of their “loving.” I have lost the power to believe in the dream….
If it were not for moments like those we shared last evening with people of our own and different kinds, if it were not for the love that seemed to emerge from their shared concerns … if it were not for the imponderable fact of human kindness ... no hope for a future other than one clouded by the struggles and alarms of ignorant armies would remain. But then …
There is that glimmering light in the eyes of marchers, a light suggesting – at least to one small Mouse – that their march has meaning, even if it fails.
The dinner was held in the common room of the Madison Presbyterian Church. The marchers will spend the night in the parish house of the Piedmont Episcopal Church, and the prayer before the meal was offered up by the minister of the Hebron Lutheran Church. In his introductory remarks, Reverend Brad Jackson, the Episcopalian, observed the ecumenical persuasions of the gathering, going so far as to point out the Mouse and his lady as Unitarian Universalists, adding even greater breadth to the irony already apparent. Here we were, a diverse assemblage of Christians and “agnostic” Unitarians, in what must be one of the most religiously conservative counties in the state of Virginia, paying our respects to a group of Buddhists who were fighting for what is probably a lost cause. What could possibly have led to such an improbable gathering?
Perhaps it was nothing more mysterious – or less mysterious – than the “milk of human kindness.” The marchers were strangers, “and ye took them in,” they were hungry, “and ye fed them.” Perhaps Reverend Jackson and the Presbyterian Reverend John Storey who had organized the meal and the shelter were motivated by their calling to “do unto others as ye would have them to do unto you.” I know them both as men of unusual conviction, Christians who have not permitted the dogmatic details of their beliefs to get in the way of their humanity. Milady and I were there because Brad Jackson had asked the members of the Wednesday morning study group (which is also held in the Episcopal parish house) to assist with the food. We’re generally pretty good marks for that sort of thing.
In any case, we were there. The proceedings began with a few short talks, Reverend Jackson’s followed by two of the marchers. One was Dr. Larry Gerstein, an anthropologist on the faculty of Ball State University in Indiana, the other a young photographer, Douglas Herman, who had spent time in Tibet and had put together a short video portraying the scenery and people of Tibet, as well as some of the prior marches. [There have been many, west coast and east coast, thousands of miles of protest, peacefully, uneventfully, and – consequently – ineffectively marched.] Gerstein and Herman were two of the four westerners who were on the march. The other fifteen were all Tibetans, none of whom were now living in their native land. They had come from Hawaii, five or six different stateside states, and a couple of foreign countries. One was 71 years old, but most in their mid-years. This was their second rest stop since they had left Charlottesville, 30 miles south. They have another eight days to march the remaining 100 miles or so to Washington.
Dr. Gerstein spoke mostly of the current plight of the Tibetans, particularly of the young Panchen Lama who has been held incommunicado by the PRC for eleven years. Gerstein said one thing that struck home with me, that the Chinese ruling the PRC think in much larger time frames than we democratic westerners. We cannot plan 200 years out, as Gerstein claimed the Chinese are, primarily because our form of government focuses our leaders on the more immediate concerns, that even if we could conceive such a plan, the turnover in our leadership would practically assure that the plan would be impermanent.
Later, in table talk with Mr. Herman, I was reminded of the Chinese inhabitants of Hawaii depicted in James Michener’s book of that name. They endured four or five generations of living hand-to-mouth, while silently socking away a fortune with which they eventually purchased large chunks of prime real estate. Milady added that only a self-sacrificing people, willing to defer the satisfaction of their desires could conceive and implement such plans.
Mr. Herman and I had a brief discussion after the dinner. I tried not to reveal aloud to him my deeply held foreboding for the future of Tibet, but I feel certain, perceptive man that he seemed to be, that he understood. I do recall that he and I agreed that causes of the noble variety, causes like his, do not play well on the American stage. Why this is so traces directly to the difference between America’s consumerist, impulse driven, please-me-now mentality, and the Chinese focus on distant goals. Only later did the thought occur to me that there are some permanent and unending goals – more principles than goals – that could possibly be implemented in a democratic regime such as ours without fear they would be obscured by political changes.
Those goals have to do with what was in the hearts and minds of the people gathered there at the potluck. Not just the marchers, but those too who had come to honor them … and yes, by people everywhere. Some ideas of the highest good exist universally, though they’re too often hidden by mistaken notions of the good. We get confused by delusions of passive joy, by things loved , by places loved, even by people loved. They all give us joy, and in some cases the joy is so intense we lose any sight we may have had of the ties that bind us all as one people, on one small planet.
Once, our nation existed – perhaps only in the hearts of a few gifted men – as the embodiment of that greater ideal. It’s there – not in so many words – in the Constitution – more eloquently and more believably in the Declaration of Independence. I suppose those ideals, those dreams, are still there in the hidden hearts of most of us, the notion that all the people of the world might abide together as friends who honor and serve each other. I can imagine a world of strangers – alien nations we call them – who might see in us the flesh and blood expression of those very ideals, who might be led to see those same dreams as realities in themselves.
Imagine it, yes … that’s the word, imagine, for I cannot in my fallen state, as a man disillusioned by the enslaving loves of immediacy, see that world as a concrete thing. I cannot see the plans and strategies of alienated nations ever being able to bootstrap themselves out of the self-made swamps of their “loving.” I have lost the power to believe in the dream….
If it were not for moments like those we shared last evening with people of our own and different kinds, if it were not for the love that seemed to emerge from their shared concerns … if it were not for the imponderable fact of human kindness ... no hope for a future other than one clouded by the struggles and alarms of ignorant armies would remain. But then …
There is that glimmering light in the eyes of marchers, a light suggesting – at least to one small Mouse – that their march has meaning, even if it fails.
posted by Benedict S. at 12:55 PM
3 Comments:
mouse,you,your lady and the ones that were fortunate to be there for support have a good heart and a sense of justice. That's more than
I can say for the load of True Believers who just go by what
somebody told them - instead of their *own* real sense of humanity.
In my view, you've dignified yourself by taking a stand outside of the comfy security of the accepted 'group think' and express the truth from your own heart - not by what's been told to you by those who don't.
Imagine, being trained from childhood to consider that we are responsible for the health and wellbeing of those around us as well as ourselves.
Imagine a reality where people DO care for and help others.
Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation. [...] The Kingdom of God is within you." That's what I see in what you write.
Very kind words, John (A). Thank you.
Great site loved it alot, will come back and visit again.
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