Month: November 2015

Freedom from Want

/ howardshapiro / 8 Comments

UnknownIt is the day before Thanksgiving and I am gearing up for my food prep schedule. Went over the menu last night and it passed muster with one of our more discerning guests. The next issue is the timing of the feast between football games – although I think we got that covered with apps and all that stuff.

I love Thanksgiving. It is everyone’s holiday. You don’t have to go back to the saga of the Pilgrims and Native Americans. You don’t have to buy into the Norman Rockwell painting of an idealized gathering with an impeccable bird and “perfect” all American family.  We are more diversified than that and maybe always were. I love that no one seems to be complaining in his picture. Everyone is happy and in my mind no one is standing in a line or camping out in the parking lot of some mall in order to get the best Black Friday deals some of which now begin on Thanksgiving itself.

Some corporate team probably made the decision that jumping the gun to open Thursday night would bring in more money. I feel badly for the people, who have to stock the shelves, work the cash register and say, “Welcome to Walmart” (or whatever the store).   I liked it better when Thanksgiving was a commercial free zone and we could concentrate on giving thanks for what we have not what we want. In my language, we are losing the sense of the sacred. Or maybe the sacred can no longer last a whole day. And we can moan and bewail the state of our society or we can go with what is and celebrate without judgment.

This is what I mean by the sacred: when I feel connected to something outside of myself – my spouse, family, friend, a tree, a bush, a flowing stream, a child learning how to crawl, the smile of a stranger passing by, the night sky, the universe within, God. When my heart announces itself with a sense of warmth, affection, love. When I know it beats not just for my survival but so that I can do good and make that proverbial difference, no matter how little, how big.

So I am thankful today and try to be everyday. But the truth is it is easy to forget and just get up in the morning, brush your teeth, figure out what’s for breakfast, check your calendar and you are off and running. Thanksgiving focuses me and I try to appreciate the blessings of family, of food, of love. It focuses me and I give thanks for this wonderful and flawed country we call home. I think especially how many challenges we have before us in this dangerous world we are trying to share. I think of the Thanksgiving metaphor and how as Americans we need to pull together to face this newly darkened tomorrow.  We have done so in the past and I pray we can find a way to gather around the same table and bless each other again.

The Rockwell painting above is called: “Freedom from Want”. May we all be so blessed.

Paris- No Words

/ howardshapiro / 11 Comments

eiffel-tower-01-800

I don’t know what to say. I have jettisoned the words I was preparing to post for this week. They pale to the events in Paris and the 128 plus people dead at this moment. Six different venues targeted. The same words scroll across the bottom of the screen as images of people running in the night and people placing flowers, lighting candles, at a make shift shrine in the morning. I could become news junky, glued to the TV and listen to experts and world leaders try to help us make sense of the senseless.

But there is no sense here. There is violence; there is death; there is evil, unspeakable evil. But we have to speak of it; we have to no choice. World leaders have to assure us that everything is being done to protect us; that we stand with Paris and understand that the attack is a clash between cultures and civilizations. As Pope Francis put it just this morning: It is part of a piecemeal Third World War.

I’m struggling to say something new or profound. Maybe that is too hard a task. There is nothing new to say. We can reiterate what we have said before: We will fight for the survival of our values; we will do everything we can to protect ourselves; we will not surrender to fear; we will not be paralyzed by our anxieties. We have faced evil like this before, not necessarily in this specific form, but there have always been enemies of our way of life that have attacked at the rear of the column, where the unarmed, the unprepared, the frail and the innocent congregate.

It is a terrible fact of contemporary life. I still have CNN on and I watch as my grandchildren float in and out of the room and I wonder how they see this through their eyes. What does it do to their view of the world? Are they able to compartmentalize it and still giggle and laugh at the silly, the absurd, the imaginary?

Less is more in this case. The Bible says it best. “I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curse. Choose life that you and your children may live.” Fear is not an option. Isolation is not a choice. Hatred, stereotyping and collective blame do not help us deal effectively with how we go forward. Living does; loving does; affirming all that is good is our society will. Choosing to live.

“Houston, We Have a Problem”

/ howardshapiro / 3 Comments

IMG_0462I miss the leaves in Autumn. I miss how they change and seemingly have a mind of their own when they will go from green to gold or red and shades in between. Living in South Florida, we don’t get dramatic announcements that the seasons are changing. I could be cute though and tell you that we know the season is upon us as we watch the car carriers’ park in the middle of the road outside our gated communities and slowly shed their cargo onto the road below. They are of many colors and shapes but not quite up to comparison with a Sugar Maple or Black Tupelo.

There are other hints as well. There are fewer reservations available at your favorite restaurant; the white holiday lights strung around Banyan and Palm trees, outlining their trunks and branches are slowly turning on as the days grow shorter; all the multi-colored annuals are bedded and sprinklers are furiously making sure that they root and take. But they don’t equate with the drama of the sun-filtered reds, gold, yellow and oranges of a tree standing proud against a deep blue sky.

But I’m not complaining and I’m not dissing Florida. I love where I live and am blessed to be here. I believe that the pervasive and sometimes oppressive humidity is actually Ponce De Leon’s fountain of youth and no matter what the mirror tells me, it keeps my skin young. I believe that the understated modifications that mark the changing seasons teach us something about how most change occurs, subtly, delicately, one step at a time. I believe that each of us can affect that change – we just have to realize how crucial it is that we learn it doesn’t happen without us.

Unfortunately change/progress isn’t as predictable as the seasons. I’m thinking about the equal rights ordinance that was repealed in Houston this week. Voters rejected the measure that would have barred discrimination against the LGBT community. The campaign was down and dirty. They appealed to our baser instincts claiming sexual predators would have access to women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. The failure to protect people from racial, ethnic and gender discrimination puts Houston in the position of being the only major American city without a broad anti-discrimination policy. The line from Apollo 13 applies here: “Houston, we have a problem.”

The greatness of our country is that we have been a people of many colors, many backgrounds, different ethnicities and different sexual orientations. We didn’t always recognize that and we often ignored the rights of those whom we perceived as other, but slowly, surely, one foot in front of the other, we are coming to see that the tree has many branches and that some trees actually have leaves of variant hues and shades on the same trunk.

The political commentators tell us that the take away from Houston’s vote is that turnout counts. And the people who were afraid and misinformed turned out in great numbers to vote. The people who want rainbow leaves to be treated with respect and dignity did not get the message. Change happens – but it is up to us to make sure that the leaves reach the ground and nourish the growth of tomorrow.