Month: July 2022

Like a Bridge

/ howardshapiro / 11 Comments

I do a lot of walking (the more impressive term is “hiking”) here in NC. When I am with people, we talk. We talk about the trails; we talk about the things we are seeing; we talk about our destination; we talk about other people (don’t judge); politics; health; movies; music; what’s streaming; religion; how much longer; you name it. But when I walk alone I put in my earbuds and either an audio book accompanies me or a podcast or music I have downloaded from somewhere.

Today I am listening to a podcast recommended by a friend who shares my love for Leonard Cohen and who is taking a chance that I like Paul Simon. (I do.) Malcolm Gladwell is interviewing Paul Simon on his career, his music, his creative genius, his work ethic, his origin story, his “mentors”. It is called, “Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon.” It is riveting. (I found it on Audible.) It is a good thing that I am pretty much alone on these wooded paths, because I am listening, walking, singing. Like in the shower – no one around – no inhibitions.

I learned so much about the songs, about the arc of Simon’s career, about his creative process, music of his youth, musicians he collaborated with, and musical traditions he traveled the world to learn from. Way back when I was still living in Springfield, New Jersey, I was so captivated by Sounds of Silence that I used it as a basis for a sermon. There is poetry in the lyrics: “Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again because a vision softly creeping …” I have the sermon in a cardboard box filled with blue 5X7 cards with my words typed in black ribboned ink on a baby blue Smith Corona electric. I can’t replicate my original message right now, but in this fractured America we are living through I hear the words of prophet written on the subway walls … people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening…

And I wonder at the sanity of it all. As I listened to the podcast I was sure that I was going to use the words of a different classic of Simon and Garfunkel to jump off from for this blog. “When you’re weary feeling small … ” But words often take you to places you do not recognize and unless you are disciplined you can wind up in a different key. But one thing is clear to me. We need a bridge in this country we call home; we need to find ways we can talk with each other and move forward together. This stalemate in government and this privilege of sitting inside the Washington beltway and ignoring the issues of gun control and women’s rights, a planet that keeps heating and the rising prices of silence – in the words of the prophet – like a cancer grows.

In Florida there is a primary coming up. I’m waiting for my ballot to be forwarded so I can vote for candidates who know how to build bridges.

Musings

/ howardshapiro / 8 Comments

I don’t know about you but every day that I get up in the morning and see the sun rising I know I am blessed. I don’t know about you but every day when I get up in the morning and get out of bed without pain in unexpected places, I feel lucky. I don’t know about you but anytime my nose runs or my throat tickles or I cough I fleetingly ask myself is this COVID. We live in unsettling times. There is almost no such thing as normal. We think we are in control of what will happen tomorrow or the day after and the airlines throw a curve ball, or the weather does a number, or the rapid test shows two lines, and you are screwed.

It’s not that I am in a bad place. Not at all. I am aware how amazing my life is and that I live in interesting times. Not that they are perfect. Not that they aren’t worrisome. Not that sometimes I feel like we are living on the edge of a precipice. And tomorrow is either free fall into an unknown abyss worthy of depiction in a movie about the apocalypse or we are on the border of a new epoch about to soar into horizons we can barely imagine. There are so many things I don’t know.

I don’t know what it felt like to live as a Jew branded with a yellow star or cone or hat in some European ghetto or Middle Eastern Mellah. I don’t know what it felt like to live as a serf on land that was not my own in a time when life was valued by what you could produce and not by who you were. (Although we are not so distant from the same kind of yardstick). I don’t know what it was like to live without antibiotics or modern medicine when a simple cut could end your life. Or maybe I do – maybe we all do. This pandemic has certainly humbled us and taught that the simple act of covering your face can keep you safer. And things we once took for granted like sitting in a theater or dancing the hora (I just came from a beautiful wedding) or dining inside a restaurant can’t be taken for granted. Neither can attending a 4th of July parade.

I don’t even know what there is to say about all these guns. I don’t know why anyone needs semi-automatic weapons. There are no dinosaurs roaming our streets. There are no lions lurking in the tall grasses. There are no marauding masses breaking down the barricades. Most of us live in relative safety. Why the guns, the guns, the guns? The politically correct thing is to applaud the “bipartisan” gun bill just passed. But this is what I know. It is not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And I feel powerless to make effective change. I know: VOTE. I know: SPEAK OUT. I know: GIVE MONEY/TIME. But in the words of the prophet called Pete: “When will they every learn; when will they ever learn?” I don’t know about you but the fireworks didn’t do it for me the other night.