Some Thoughts on Mercy (essay) by Ross Gay

The Sun Magazine 

July 2013

• Garden
• Bees
• Traffic stop

Adrift (poem) by Mark Nepo

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, and Zoning Is [One of] Housing's Problems

This poem summarizes the downstream impact of City Councilors saying no to every possible policy solution to the upstream causes of homelessness.

Yes to housing solutions and yes to anti-displacement measures. Yes together, and no to waiting for either to go first. Yes and yes and yes. 

When housing costs (rents and home prices) go up, homelessness goes up. That's the connection, more than any other "reason" people cite for rising homelessness. 

Capitalism has, of course, turned housing into a commodity, and rising home values are now linked to generational wealth for white families that benefited from VA loans and FHA loans that were denied, almost exclusively, to non-White families. That explains the gap in wealth between Black and white families. 

So now, all of the zoning that only allows 1 single-family house (the most costly housing type) + casita (the second most costly housing type) is effectively keeping housing out of the price range for all but those whose families can help with downpayments. Guess who those families are? 

It's time to level the playing field and open up more of Albuquerque to housing types that need less land per unit, which means they will have lower costs. For the most part, the profit margins of a few units of development are not enticing to the vast majority of developers or investment firms, so any development that happens will be local people who are in it for the honest buck. 

That doesn't sound bad to me. Sounds like it's about time. 

Transient and Permanent

Today's sermon by visiting minister the Rev. Nathan Ryan from Baton Rouge challenged us not to be distracted by the intentional overwhelm of the full-court press from a transient president and political moment and instead focus on the permanent truth of love, freedom, and justice. How are our actions – even those of just staying calm and centered – helping center universal truths that will endure, because they are more powerful and more permanent than any incomplete and narrow locus of hate and accumulation of power. 

The arc of the universe bends slowly (with much pendulum swinging) toward justice. And so, the inexorable march and commitment to love and compassion and multiple truths is the faithful act of resistance. 

I go back to the talk by Ross Gay of a black man writing a book about the joy he finds among the flowers in his garden as his act of changing the "ground" of reality. The powers that be want to ground him into a shadow of his full self, "just" a black man, limited in power, limited in leverage, limited in capacity to live and love fully. 

I, too, a white woman, with privilege and some leverage, must not hide in a bubble but keep myself grounded, joyful, peaceful, and committed to using my leverage in service of others. 

Do I do enough?

If I feel only 80% of my health and mental faculty, how do I know I am doing as much as I can do? To keep asking the question is to stay in discernment. To feel imbalance is to orient to balance. 

I am on the path and committed. 

Tea (poem) by Leila Chatti

Five times a day, I make tea. I do this
because I like the warmth in my hands, like the feeling
of self-directed kindness. I’m not used to it—
warmth and kindness, both—so I create my own
when I can. It’s easy. You just pour
water into a kettle and turn the knob and listen
for the scream. I do this
five times a day. Sometimes, when I’m pleased,
I let out a little sound. A poet noticed this
and it made me feel I might one day
properly be loved. Because no one is here
to love me, I make tea for myself
and leave the radio playing. I must
remind myself I am here, and do so
by noticing myself: my feet are cold
inside my socks, they touch the ground, my stomach
churns, my heart stutters, in my hands I hold
a warmth I make. I come from
a people who pray five times a day
and make tea. I admire the way they do
both. How they drop to the ground
wherever they are. Drop
pine nuts and mint sprigs in a glass.
I think to care for the self
is a kind of prayer. It is a gesture
of devotion toward what is not always beloved
or believed. I do not always believe
in myself, or love myself, I am sure
there are times I am bad or gone
or lying. In another’s mouth, tea often means gossip,
but sometimes means truth. Despite
the trope, in my experience my people do not lie
for pleasure, or when they should,
even when it might be a gesture
of kindness. But they are kind. If you were
to visit, a woman would bring you
a tray of tea. At any time of day.
My people love tea so much
it was once considered a sickness. Their colonizers
tried, as with any joy, to snuff it out. They feared a love
so strong one might sell or kill their other
loves for leaves and sugar. Teaism
sounds like a kind of faith
I’d buy into, a god I wouldn’t fear. I think now I truly believe
I wouldn’t kill anyone for love,
not even myself—most days
I can barely get out of bed. So I make tea.
I stand at the window while I wait.
My feet are cold and the radio plays its little sounds.
I do the small thing I know how to do
to care for myself. I am trying to notice joy,
which means survive. I do this all day, and then the next.

Struggling

 Today, life seems impossibly complicated. And hard. (Warning: whining ensues.)

While you would think that the awareness of good things happening in the world despite the tide of hate washing over the country from D.C. would buoy me, instead I feel overwhelmed with all that I seemingly don't have time for. 

There were a few weeks when I got to go to yoga Saturday and Sunday for double classes (read: "yoga retreat weekend!"), and that felt luxurious and expansive, as though I were already retired and living my best life. I felt centered and healthy and energetic.  

But I've remembered that I promised to help with a Religious Education curriculum for anti-racism at my UU church. So great! Yes, I say yes! (But also... there goes my yoga retreat.) So selfish. So Karen-ish! And yet, joy is also anti-racism, right? And we need to feel grounded and healthy and energetic to survive this tough time. I do. I know I will find a different kind of energy and health and groundedness contributing to my church community in this way. I know. And yet. Today, it feels sad. I feel sad. 

I got a newsletter from the city about all the events that I could volunteer to help support, one of them for Indigenous Heritage Celebration with Open Space. Yes! I want to say yes! I will help celebrate Indigenous Heritage! But it's this Saturday, and I have a date to puzzle with a good friend, which is grounding and nourishing and fun. 

Tonight, I could go to Vespers or play cards with good friends that I don't see very often.

This semester, I am teaching a class at UNM but want to spend my weekends playing instead of reading. 

I am gaining weight but want to eat candy corn like it's movie popcorn. 

I want to walk and run and yoga, but there's band concerts and sleep and work and class. 

Life is a lot. And I'm not sure I am navigating it well, for myself, for my community, or for the world. 

And maybe this is chemicals talking, and nothing is as bad or hard as it feels. And that's annoying, too. 

Maple Seeds (poem) by Lynn Ungar

Most of the leaves are gone
from the maple. Other years
it's glowed with color but in drought
the leaves just turned brown
and dropped. Sometimes you just
can't afford that kind of gaudy joy.
But now there are seeds
by the tens of thousands,
the sidewalk heaped in
little brown wings, flocks
of seed angels come to earth.
I know I'll be grumbling
as I pull sprout after sprout
when the rains come. But for now
let me be a witness that letting go
is not the same as giving up,
that we could forego glamor
for the sake of the next generation,
that creation is the first principle,
to which we all belong.

10/18/2022

Turtle (poem) by Kay Ryan

Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
she can ill afford the chances she must take
in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
her track is graceless, like dragging
a packing case places, and almost any slope
defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
she's often stuck up to the axle on her way
to something edible. With everything optimal,
she skirts the ditch which would convert
her shell into a serving dish. She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
the sport of truly chastened things.

Winter Morning (poem) by James Crews

When I can no longer say thank you
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it is because I’ve been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside winking
off one by one like old men closing their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing their chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their faces—then I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after
you’ve finished eating it.