photo by Collyn Ware

Marmalade Moon

As the moon rises
it spreads marmalade across the treetops.
 
Too often, the world is a wafer
broken easily by brittle words.
But tonight, we who live lean
stand dumb in the presence
of such decadence:
 
a light feast,
a banquet of lunar nectar.
 
In this month of marmalade moons
we remember how the world ripens;
how the sweet peach of summer swallows
all our pits and stones;
how we rest in the nectarine assurance that—
if even for a moment—
there is enough for all.

We had entered an era of limitlessness, or the illusion thereof, and this in itself is a sort of wonder. My grandfather lived a life of limits, both suffered and strictly observed, in a world of limits. I learned much of that world from him and others, and then I changed; I entered the world of labor-saving machines and of limitless cheap fossil fuel. It would take me years of reading, thought, and experience to learn again that in this world limits are not only inescapable but indispensable.
― Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food

I have some questions about limits that will undoubtedly bring the disapproval and dismissal of those who will argue that only one with privilege would dare to ask them. And I concede that, to a great degree, this is true. Those without privilege rarely ask that limits be established when they’ve been limited in one way or another, by one group or another, their entire lives. In this light, then, as a white woman of privilege with questions about limits, I am guilty. But I really want to know. Regarding works of art–statues, paintings, sculptures, even architecture–I want to know if limits identifying what should and should not be removed from public venues, are not only inescapable but indispensable, as Berry writes?

Most of my life, I’ve shouldered the helpful harness of limits: curfews and deadlines, defined duties and expectations, organizational structures of every shape, shape, and origin. Using The Shape A Writer Can Contain, a composition manual my father wrote in the 70s, I learned to write, and later teach, a coherent, organized, and focused essay. The parameters of its parts–the introduction, the body, and the conclusion–yoked my many-legged ideas which threatened to bolt for other pastures. The framework of a single paragraph trained me to look closely and dig deeply, exploring and expounding upon one good insight. The stricture of a thesis statement or topic sentence kept me honest and bound to the ideological contract I’d made with my readers.

It wasn’t until the 80s when I attended an English Language Arts conference that I was told that assigning my students a five-paragraph essay was a quick road to composition hell. This traditional structure didn’t even merit purgatory. No, force your students to write it, and you condemned them to the eternal and dreadful compliance of expository hell. Let them write organically, the presenters argued. Let their ideas grow freely and naturally as they will. As a relatively young teacher, I stewed and fretted all the way home from the conference, admonishing myself for such naivety. Maybe there were better ways to help students learn to write. Maybe I’d been simply unaware.

After two excruciating months of organic writing during which more students suffered and failed than not, I returned to the form which had proven itself over and over again, convicted that its limits were more helpful than harmful.

But most limits, even those that may be largely beneficial, are not without controversy. Laws regarding mandatory seatbelt use: personal limits for safety or an affront to civil liberty? Dress codes for restaurants (no shoes, no shirt, no service): reasonable public health restrictions or an infringement on personal freedom? By their very nature, limits are restrictive and exclusive; they define what is acceptable and what is not, what is in and what is out.

Certainly there are–and have always been–limits that privilege, please, and protect some groups and not others. In our country, we don’t have to go back too many decades to identify examples of these. The Jim Crow laws are some of the most aggregious examples. It goes without saying that limits may be helpful or destructive; they may serve the greater good or serve a privileged few. The best ones are always carefully considered, ethically examined, and clearly defined.

Even in rural Iowa, most people I know agree that we should limit the public display of Confederate statues that profile individuals known primarily for defending and promoting the pre-Civil War South, including and especially the institution of slavery. Although they may argue that it’s not acceptable to destroy or deface them, they will concede that these statues should be removed from the public positions they’ve held.

But the removal of other statues and pieces of art isn’t as clear cut. In a recent Boston Globe article, “Lincoln’s emancipation statue triggers debate on how the Black experience should be commemorated,” Meghan E. Irons writes:

But nearly 150 years after its debut here, the statue has become a flashpoint in the nation’s latest reckoning with public art portraying figures from the Civil War and its aftermath. What was intended as a depiction of liberation can look demeaning to 21st-century eyes: a submissive Black man bending at the feet of the president. Yet even as activists in Boston and Washington have urged the statues be torn down or repurposed, some argue against, saying the art, however challenging, is worth preserving.

Even the distant relatives of Archer Alexander, the black man used as the model for the statue’s kneeling figure, disagree over whether or not the emancipation statue should be removed. One of Alexander’s distant relatives, Keith Winstead, contends that the statue is a tribute to a critical period in Black history and to an American hero who risked his life to help Union soldiers during the Civil War. Another descendant, Cedric Turner believes that taking down the statue is akin to wiping out the story of freed slaves who donated money for the statue, and of Alexander himself, who helped his country during the Civil War.

But there is also distant relative, Maryum Ali, who argues that it is degrading and offensive and said that she was certain that her great-great-great-great grandfather would not want to be viewed as bowing down to anyone — Lincoln or anybody else. Like Ali, Raul Fernandez, a lecturer and associate dean at Boston University who has extensively researched the statue, claims that it is clearly a tribute to white supremacy. 

So how do we proceed? What stays and what goes? What is acceptable and what is not? What celebrates and what offends?

I began to seriously consider these questions when I thought about the bronze statue of my father that stands outside of the university classroom building where he taught for much of his life. The statue is a beautiful piece of artwork, lovingly crafted by sculptor Martha Pettigrew. But it is a statue of a white male teacher/poet flanking a building that has also housed a black teacher/poet. So, some would consider my father’s statue a microinvalidation, a piece of art that excludes, negates, or nullifies the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a minority person. Has the bronzed Don Welch invalidated and excluded the minority person who, instead, should stand as an affirmation of teaching excellence on the University of Nebraska Kearney campus? And if so, should my father’s statue be removed because it’s yet another symbol of the systemic racism that privileges whites over blacks?

My father was a man of the truest integrity and one of the finest teachers, thinkers and writers I have known. I believe that the statue his friends and colleagues commissioned is a worthy testament to my father’s legacy as an excellent teacher. Still, I’m not naive enough to assume that a majority would vote to keep his statue if a national poll was taken today. For there really are no clear parameters that identify what we should keep and what we should remove. And without these, what specific criteria–if any–do we use? And who decides upon this criteria?

I know there will be some who consider me foolish for worrying about my father’s statue. After all, it’s not like my dad was a Confederate officer or former slave owner, and it’s not like he has a history of racist speech and actions. And yet, there will be others who would argue that, because my father was a white man, his statue should removed and replaced with one that validates and celebrates the reality of minority persons.

Like Keith Winstead and Cedric Turner who prefer that the emancipation statue remain, I prefer that the statue of my father remain. There will be others who prefer that both statues be removed and forgotten. But preferences are not carefully considered, ethically examined, clearly defined limits. They are simply personal predilictions, individual desires. And as such, they leave us in a quagmire. There are as many preferences as there are people who hold them, so whose preference should prevail?

I’ve read that my desire for clear limits regarding public art is yet another symptom of my white privilege. Perhaps it is. But even so, is this desire wrong? Would such limits cause more harm than good to most people? And might not the discussion of such limits be a progressive step forward?

These statues weren’t intended to be idols before which we worship. Rather, most of them were created as public pieces of art intended to commemorate imperfect human beings whose prevailing legacies are honorable and good. In the end, someone or some group will decide if a public statue stays or goes. I would like to think that their decisions will be carefully considered, ethically examined, and clearly defined so that the criteria used to make these decisions may be applied consistently–or at least more consistently.

Before we remove or destroy them, then, I’d like to know if we might come to a consensus regarding the criteria we will use to determine what stays and what goes. I’d like to know if there will be any limits beyond preference to guide our decisions. I’m painfully aware of the challenges that establishing such limits will pose. This is messy stuff–perhaps the messiest. Done well, however, it should take us beyond politics and preferences to sound, ethical guidelines that we can collectively agree upon. Done well, it should be part of the solution rather than exacerbating the problem. Done well, it should result in limits that are truly indispensable.

You see how I try
To reach with words
What matters most
And how I fail.
―Czelaw Milosz

Language, for me, has continued to be both blessing and curse, a love affair and a trial. To commit a word to paper (or screen), to launch a string of words into a public sphere, to destine a paragraph for the larger work of an essay or story, to craft poetic words that hold the integrity of a line–herein lies the pleasure and the pain of language.

During my university and professional years, my season of language was largely characterized by explaining, interpreting, analyzing, critiquing, reflecting upon, and recommending. I remember the evening hours I spent in the Calvin T. Ryan Library on my college campus. These were dedicated writing hours during which I labored (and I mean labored) to transfer my research and insights into something worthy of being submitted to my professors. A productive night? A three-hour hashing and re-hashing of the best words I could muster into a single paragraph. A blood-letting of the mind and soul that resulted in a fatigue that often left me even too tired to sleep. There was no quick-drafting. No spontaneous overflow of ideas or emotions. Nothing like that. This was more the work of a laborer than an artist. This was the gut-wrenching work of trying to reach with words/what matters most only to fail more times than I succeeded.

Ernest Heminway writes:

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

In spite of the challenges of this season of language, I was, and continue to be, smitten with the beauty and power of words. I like the way they sound when spoken, the way they appear, letter by letter, on the page. I like the feeling of seeing them for the first time–those I’ve never encountered and those I see with new eyes. Sometimes, I carry a word around with me like a stone in my pocket, taking it out every now and then to admire it. Or to shudder in its presence.

When my brother was in kindergarten, my mother and I were in the kitchen and overheard the neighbor boys yell across the fence, “Throw our ball back, nigger!” Even before I really understood the power and history of this word, the shudder that went me was seismic, literally off the language richter scale. And after my brother had thrown the ball back into the neighbor’s yard and burst through the back door, he asked, “What does it mean when someone calls you a nigger?” Standing before my five-year-old brother in that moment was a moment in which my language failed. Any words I might have offered would have been woefully inadequate or tragically wrong in the face of such injury. For as Wilkie Collins writes: Our words are giants when they do us an injury. . . [A Woman in White]

I admit that I’ve often used words thoughtlessly, tossing them out too quickly–sometimes in the heat of the moment and sometimes in a moment of what can only be called ignorance. Regardless of the intent or lack of intent, I’ve come to understand the consequences of such careless words which generally take on lives and intents of their own. In The God of Small Things, novelist Arundhati Roy claims, That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Unfortunately, the season of careless words has no apparent end. It hangs around our necks like an albatross, groaning at the words that make people love and respect us a little less, take us a little less seriously, and make us wounders instead of healers. For better or worse, we live in a time when words–carelessly, intentionally, or naively delivered–are under considerable scrutiny. Say the wrong word, and you make people love you a little (or a lot) less. Say an inadequate or an ambiguous word, one whose history and intent may be questioned, and you can also inflict pain. Keep your words to yourself and maintain a carefully cultivated (or cowardly) silence, and your unspoken words can still wound. And that these careless words can be from your past–even and especially words from a younger, less introspective or less ‘woke’ self–matters little or not at all.

Op-Ed staff editor and writer for The New York Times, Aisha Harris recently wrote about the current season of This You?. In her article, she explains the movement and its intent:

Brutally crisp and blatantly rhetorical, the phrase has become a catchall representing the internet currency of receipts, forcing bandwagon participants to confront things they might have said or done that seemingly contradict their newfound commitment to the cause.

In the season of This You?, whatever language you may use now to support a person, idea, or cause may be tarnished or even obliterated by language you once used. And so, language from your past can become the proverbial gift that keeps on giving, keeps on making others love you less, keeps on reminding everyone of who you once were, and keeps on targeting words you once used. Truthfully, when I consider things I’ve said and written in the past, I can only brace myself for a potential This You?

But there are seasons when words delight and bless, when they move us with the sheer magnificence of their beauty and power. St. John of the Cross writes:

They can be like the sun, words.
They can do for the heart what light can for a field.

Before I die, I want to write one thing that truly does for the heart what light can for a field. One thing that–if I were digitally outed by a This You? devotee–I would joyously say yes, yes, yes! I would say this is me, and perhaps these words are the best of me. I would confidently announce that, of course, the sun must shine when I commit these subjects to paper: the violet clouds along the horizon, the hand of my grandson in mine, the sound of the cottonwoods in the wind. In this season, the words of poet Anne Sexton are as close as any in describing my bliss:

Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face. ["Words"]

Let the doves fall from the ceilings and the legs of summer stroll through fields of sweet clover! Let six–no 100–holy oranges sit in my lap! Let us call upon all the words that do for the heart what light can for a field! Let us choose a word to hold in our palm and, as Emily Dickinson writes, look at it, until it begins to shine!

And if we can’t find the right word, then let us throw caution to the wind and invent our own like an 11-year-old girl did the day I worked with her during a poetry residency. Struggling to find the right word to describe a keepsake–a glass figurine she kept on her dresser–she’d erased a hole in her notebook paper when suddenly she cried, “I got it! It’s glassable! Yup, that’s exactly what it is, glassable!” I might have offered up the word I thought she was searching for, but how this word fragile paled in the light of her sun. And I could only hope that her season of wonderful words stretched long into her life. Like writer Aldous Huxley, I could only hope that she might have Shakespearean feelings but never talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college professors, that she never practice alchemy in reverse–touch gold and it turns to lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash. [The Genius and the Goddess] In her season of words, let her become a master alchemist turning a leaden world to gold.

In her poem “Words,” Anne Sexton concludes:

Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.
But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

In all my seasons of words, I, too, most often fly like an eagle/but with the wings of a wren. I have sent my words into the wind only to find that they lack the muscle to stay the course. I have used words of prey only to discover that they cowered in rock crevices or were eaten by more capable foes. I have summoned words of color and sound and motion only to realize that, wren-like, they furiously flap their wings but fail to take flight. And yet, I send them out. Again and again. Because even when I try–and fail–to reach with words what matters most, even when my words struggle and subsequently die, they have too much life-force to contain. And when they occasionally soar? There is no better season.

Let it be said that I am no stranger to shame. Truthfully, I suspect most people aren’t strangers either. But there are those like me who often find themselves cohabitating with shame, a ballsy roommate who raids your refrigerator and refuses to give up the remote, subjecting you to a curated set of films, programs, and videos designed to bring your shame into even sharper focus. Once shame has moved in and claimed squatter’s rights, you can forget about eviction. And just when you think you might vacate and move on to a new place, you find that shame has already loaded her suitcase into the back of your car, that she has buckled herself into the passenger’s seat and reminded you: Whither you go, I will go.

I admit that much of my shame has been self-imposed, thus making me both landlord and tenant of the psychological, emotional, and spiritual house I inhabit. I’ve thought a lot about why I so willingly host shame and have often seemed powerless to evict her. Licensed clinical psychologist and author Marilyn J. Sorensen writes that [u]nlike guilt, which is the feeling of doing something wrong, shame is the feeling of being something wrong. I think this comes closest to explaining my landlord status. I give shame permission to take partial possession of my house because I fear that I am something wrong.  I’m something wrong because of what I believe, what I don’t believe, what I’ve felt, what I haven’t felt, what I’ve dreamt, what I’ve failed to dream–the list goes on. In short, there have been many times in my life when I looked at who I thought I was and found myself sorely lacking, at times enough so that I felt paralyzed by and powerless in the face of shame.

And so, given my familiarity with shame–self-imposed and otherwise–I should have some expertise navigating the current climate of shame. That’s what I thought, but I was wrong. My boat has capsized, and I’m struggling to even tread water. I’m in trouble.

After weeks of furious treading, I’ve decided that my real problem lies fundamentally in my confusion about shaming. That is, is shaming generally a necessary means to a desired end? Or is shaming rarely, if ever, a necessary means to any end? Is shaming primarily a whole group rather than individual act? Or is shaming–if used at all–generally more appropriate and effective on the individual level? Is shaming a natural and acceptable consequence of all sorts of moral and social evils? Or perhaps is shaming a natural consequence of all sorts of evils but one that shouldn’t be condoned? The bottom line: Is shaming necessary and “good” or not?

When I’ve turned to those who have studied and written about shame, I’ve discovered that–suprise, surprise–they don’t always agree. Author, speaker, and licensed social worker Brene Brown is one of these authorities. Consider her words:

—Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

—We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can’t use shame to change ourselves or others.

—You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame.

—Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame’s is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement. 

Brown is perhaps best known for her research on and willingness to talk openly about shame and its effects. She contends we can all agree that feeling shame is an incredibly painful experience, and that even if those who’ve shamed us apologize, the truth is that those shaming comments leave marks.

Or consider these words from Joseph Burgo who wrote “Challenging the Anti-Shame Zeitgeist” for Atlantic:

The consensus within our culture is clear: shame is a uniquely destructive force, and one to be resisted. Movie stars, educators, pop icons, psychologists, and spokespeople for the pride movements will all tell you the same thing — shame is the enemy. It drives those individuals who are different into the shadows. It causes us to hide our vulnerability, distancing us from those we love. It enforces conformity and stifles the creative or dissident individual. It kills the spirit.

Or consider the claims of Willard Gaylin, writer and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons:

—Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.     

—But, like other aversive emotions such as fear, shame is functional to the extent that it encourages goal-directed behavior and survival. There is now substantial psychological evidence – including physiological, cross cultural, social, and evolutionary – to suggest that shame helps us to negotiate group life by alerting us to when our membership of, or status within, groups is at risk.

Or Kara Alaimo, a global public relations consultant, professor and writer for Bloomberg (2017):

But shaming can also be good for society, because it allows us to hold people and organizations responsible for bad behavior. Witness the ad Dove posted in October showing a black woman turning into a white woman with its product. The picture immediately generated lots of criticism online, and rightly so. The company apologized. Similarly, in January, activists exposed the identity of Mike Enoch, a prolific podcaster who founded the website The Right Stuff. Enoch, who peddles in horrific racism and anti-Semitism, deserved to be called out for his abuse. He was fired by his employer.

Or John Amodeo, Ph.D. and author of “The Power of Healthy Shame” (Psychology Today):

—A positive aspect of shame is that it tells us when we’ve hurt someone, when we’ve crossed a boundary that violates a person’s dignity.

—Shame grabs our attention. If we can pause and notice it rather than plow forward, we have an opportunity to correct our behavior.

—Being mindful of our shame offers an option to apologize as a way to rebuild trust.

I could go on and on quoting writers, authorities, commentators, and ordinary people who hold very different views on shame and effects on behaviors and beliefs. And I could provide even more diverse views on if and when there are conditions or situations in which we should use shame as a primary tool for change.

Before I go futher, however, I want to concede the following:

1. Our nation, like many of the world’s nations, has a history of systemic racism. Tragically, this continues.
2. Blacks deserve opportunities to thrive in safe environments, as well as laws and practices that guarantee this.
3. The institution of American law enforcement sorely needs reform, including better and more training involving deescalation strategies, increased accountability, and serious consideration and redefinition of the responsibilities of law enforcement officers.
4. As a white woman, I have privileges that many blacks do not have.
5. The right to peacefully protest has always been, and continues to be, a valuable, poweful, and legal way to affect change.

For the past few weeks, I’ve read, heard, and watched others who have argued that I should be ashamed, truly ashamed, of the fact that I am a privileged white woman. I should be ashamed of who I am because being white is the real problem, more aggregious even than what I’ve done/said or haven’t done/said. Honestly, I admit that I haven’t done enough to help end systemic racism, to change the institutions and laws that need changing, to listen and consider closely enough. And I accept guilt for this.

As a human being, however, I’m struggling with whether or not accepting shame for the skin color I was born with and can’t change, will serve as a positive catalyst for change in my own life. Right now, more than anything I feel shame’s destructive nature, how, as Brown writes, it erodes our courage and fuels disengagement. That’s why I’m furiously treading water instead of truly engaging. That’s why I feel that, at any given moment, I might just stop treading and let myself sink to the quiet depths of despair– even though I’m painfully aware that many will regard all of this treading and disengaging as even more cause for shame.

If you listen or read enough, you soon realize that there are many voices vying to be recognized. It appears to me that some of these voices matter a lot, and others, not so much, if at all. This appears to be true even within the same race–black or white. The shaming may occur even when you acknowledge a voice that matters, but you also acknowledge a voice that one group has claimed doesn’t matter. The shaming occurs when you’re not on the right side, when you don’t hold the right view, say the right things, feel the right things. And this shaming is an equal opportunity force. There’s a tsunami of shaming sweeping through every ideological camp. And for those of us who have lived with a fair amount of our own shame for years, this storm threatens to drown rather than motivate us.

I have more questions and more heartfelt concerns than answers. Still, I’m plagued with what legacies I will leave my black son and my white grandchildren. I fiercely love my son and have done what I could to help him understand that he should never be ashamed of his skin color, of who he was born to be. And I fiercely love my granddaughter and grandson. But what should I help them understand about their race? That it’s not enough to acknowledge and accept guilt for what their race has done and continues to do, that it’s not enough to be a catalyst for real systemic change in their own lives, but that for any of this to matter, they must denounce their race and embrace the shame of their whiteness? Am I to help them understand that although I want their uncle to be proud of his black heritage, they should be ashamed of their white one? If I listen to many voices today, the answer would be yes to all of the above. As I wrote in a previous post, I find that I can only weep.

In Till We Have Faces, Christian theologian and writer, C. S. Lewis writes:

“I felt ashamed.”

“But of what? Psyche, they hadn’t stripped you naked or anything?”

“No, no, Maia. Ashamed of looking like a mortal — of being a mortal.”

“But how could you help that?”

“Don’t you think the things people are most ashamed of are things they can’t help?”

This is where I am right now. Perhaps more than anything, I’m ashamed of being a mortal. And because I’m a mere mortal, I’m struggling with the notion of whether or not I should feel shame for the things I can’t help. Still, I’m hopeful that, even as a mortal–albeit a white mortal– I will soon stop treading water and have the courage and conviction to begin the slow swim towards a better somewhere. And I’m hopeful that once I get there, I will find it to be a place where my son and my grandchildren–where all mere mortals–are safe, valued, and flourishing.

End Note:

British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie wrote that [s]hame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture.  I’m quite confident that there will be those who will read my words here and argue that I should be ashamed for who I am or who I’m not, for what I’ve done or what I’ve failed to do. And so, I’m just as confident that I’ll soon find myself sharing a sofa and bowl of popcorn again with the roomate who has become just like another part of the furniture, a persistent and permanent fixture.

photo by Collyn Ware

On The Occasion Of My 65th Birthday
 
At the edge of the pond:
a single leaf,
a mottled mess
of green and brown and gold
lies beached upon the sand.
 
It has sailed the waters
of better days.
With chlorophyll coursing through its veins,
it once steered bravely into summer,
trolling the shoreline,
easing into deeper water until
the tides of sun and time pulled it here
to rest among the rocks.
 
I, too, am mottled and beached,
my sailing days over,
my mast graying
and spineless.
 
True, there is rest in dry-dock:
a life mostly lived, the years floated out
and returned to shore.
 
But oh, the waters of better days!
The sunny soul of them!
The greening promise of tomorrow
and tomorrow!
The taste of sweet tempests
that whip the world with abandon!
 
Let these waters rock me.
Let them roll in glorious waves that pound my final years,
oh, let them roll.

For my dad, Don Welch, whose last full measure continues to fill our lives

In Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, he writes:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain —

On Memorial Day, The New York Times printed the names of 100,000 Americans who have died from the coronavirus. Like any memorial–in stone or in print–this full page of printed names should give us pause, should convict us to live better and more fully so that those who died will not have done so in vain. On battlefields, in neighborhoods and workplaces, in refugee camps, ICU units, and emergency rooms, there have been, and will continue to be, those who give their last full measures of devotion to causes, to faith, friends and loved ones, to principles and ideas. And there are those who pledge to take increased devotion to that cause for which these individuals gave the last full measure of devotion. On our deathbeds, most of us hope that the great measuring cup of our lives is filled to the brim with the best of us. We hope that our last full measures will be legacy-worthy, that our deaths will not go unnoticed, that we will continue to live in and through others.

What is the size of a significant death? This is a question my father wrote in his 1997 journal, and what a question it is. Isn’t every death significant and, therefore, large? I think most of us would answer yes and yes. But I also suspect that most of us would concede that some deaths are truly immeasurable and perhaps even more than significant. Identifying the impact of such deaths in no way diminshes the impact of any and all deaths. But there are some deaths that make unique and sizeable marks on the world.

Today would have been my father’s 88th birthday, an occasion on which we traditonally bestowed him with new sports shirts, cartons of malted milk balls, sundry office and racing pigeon accessories. Four years ago, his birthday marked the beginning of his last weeks. When he came home from the hospital to die, these precious weeks were filled with family, friends, colleagues, and students who came to pay their respect and sit–one last time–beside the man who had changed their lives.

Humbled is altogether an inadequate word to describe how I felt as I listened in on these final conversations. My dad’s memory was sharp until the day he died, his words as articulate and artful as ever. I watched how his visitors soaked them all in, desperate to fill themselves with as much of him as they could. I watched how they agonized over leaving, how the trip from his hospital bed to our front door seemed all too short and woefully wrong. I saw tears, heard the tremors of grief bubble in their throats, felt the palpable longing to simply hold on. And hour after hour, it broke my heart.

For we all understood the significance of his impending death. Even today, I find myself thinking If only I had just one hour–just one more hour–there are so many questions I want to ask, so many things I want to say . . . But I suspect that are so many others who have had similar longings, for my father was not just my mentor and teacher but the mentor and teacher to thousands all over the world. One of his friends and former students has been passionately working on a website dedicated to bringing Don Welch to the world. Two former students edited and published his final collection of poetry, and another is currently working on a video project to feature my dad’s life and work . Several friends and colleagues host an annual Don Welch educational conference to help bring my dad’s poetry into more K-12 classrooms. And former students, now teachers, are filling their classrooms with my father’s voice. What is the size of his death? Clearly, this has yet to be determined, for the cup of his life and work has only just begun to run over.

In my dad’s journal, he quoted one of his colleagues and best friends, David Rozema:

You could not, in the language of propositions, say what makes a poem a poem.  A great poem simply is.  It shows itself.  . . . You could not, in the language of propositions, say what makes a man’s life great or worthwhile.  A great man simply is.  He shows himself. 

Dave knew my father well, and his words here are so fitting. This is my dad exactly. A man who simply was, who showed himself in love, in wisdom and in art. A man who lived and wrote up, claiming a heroic voice and spirit in a flat and cynical world.

A book of collected poems:  It is not often you can fit your life’s work into one hand (Don Welch). Hours before he died, my dad received the final draft of his collected poems, Homing. As I handed him the book draft, my mother and I looked on as he held much of what he considered his life’s best work in his hands. But as much as this collection truly represented his best work, it could never fully represent Don Welch, the husband, father, teacher, colleague, and friend. This Don Welch could never be contained within the covers of a book, even a book of his finest poetry.

In his journal, I discovered an epitaph my dad had written for himself 19 years before his death:

 Epitaph
 Think of all those great,
 below, above;
 then remember who I loved.

My dad understood that remembering who he loved was, indeed, a truer measure of his life than anything he’d written. And he loved well. In reading letters he’d writen my mother in the early years of their marriage, I discovered a man who loved his wife with a passion and devotion that took my breath away. This was a love story for the ages, a love story that spilled over and through all the letters and poems he wrote for my mom and into the lives of his children, friends, and students. Above all, his last full measure of devotion was love.

He was a good man.  He went into the dirt, but not out of this world. I’m confident that when my dad wrote these words, he wasn’t writing about himself. And yet, how aptly they describe him. He left behind volumes of exceptional poetry, speeches, essays, and letters, a wife and sister, daughters and son, a parcel of grand and great-grandchildren, and a host of students, colleagues, and readers. And all testify to the fact that he remains gloriously in, not out of this world. And that he was a good man–a very good man.

In response to the deaths of great individuals, Abraham Lincoln advised that we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. As a writer and teacher of great literature, it’s no surprise that my dad wrote that there was no greater inheritance than language. I hope to live out my days with an increased devotion to the language I’ve inherited from my father. And a devotion to love. Language and love–what a bountiful and eternal last full measure.

The author of a book is a voice with a new body. Don Welch

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

In the past few months, I’ve held conversations with two young adults who both admitted that they didn’t really feel as though they could bring a child into this world. Both were principled, compassionate, educated, and talented individuals. Clearly, both had genes worth passing on, and both were committed to making this world a better place. And yet when they considered the current state of the world, they couldn’t bring themselves to think about their own children navigating such a world.

Their despair and fear shouldn’t surprise me. But I found myself thinking about my 20-30-something-self and asking: Did I ever consider the world to be such a cruel and hopeless place that I wouldn’t bring a child into it? The world of my young adulthood was marked with painful images from the Viet Nam War, as well as the anti-war protesting and rioting that followed. Suffering, death, and injustice bled through our black-and-white console television sets and into our living rooms nightly: Viet Nam demonstrations in Washington, D. C.; clashes between police and protestors at the 1968 Democratic National Convention (the Chicago Seven); 1970 Kent State shootings; France nightclub fire leaving 142 teenagers dead; damages finally awarded to Thalidomide victims, just to name some of the most awful. Because most of us only had access to newspapers and three major television networks, news traveled more slowly, and our world seemed relatively smaller and less global then. But not less cruel, not less unjust, not less ugly.

I watched every Viet Nam feature film and television series that came out. To the extent that I could, I tried to imagine myself in the jungle, in a field hospital, in an airport returning home to those who loved me and those who hated me, on the streets of my hometown, jobless, damaged, and despised by many. If I empathized enough, if I vicariously took on the pain and despair, I rationalized that somehow in my young midwestern life, I was standing with and for all those who suffered. That’s what I tried to tell myself as I closed my eyes and images of Viet Cong ambushes exploded like schrapnel into my consciousness. Bring it on, I told myself. This is the least I can do.

Through it all, however, I don’t remember ever thinking that I couldn’t–or wouldn’t–bring a child into this world. Not once. Perhaps I should have, perhaps this would have been a more logical response to the world’s despair, but I didn’t. Even as I tried to vicariously shoulder the pain I saw around me, I lugged around a hope chest, unwilling to turn my back on the world I imagined for my children.

So, as I heard these this young adults speak of the probability of childless futures, and as I grieve the senseless killings of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, the injustice and racism, hatred and fear, destruction of property and lives, I find that I have no words in the face of this despair. That is, I have words, but I fear they’re not even close to being the right words, words with such fine and perfect edges that they cut wisely and lovingly into our collective conscience.

In Matthew 11:35, we read: Jesus wept. Perhaps if I were to say or write anything now, I might simply echo Matthew’s words: I weep.

I weep because if I were to write or speak, I’m truly afraid that my words may be more damaging than healing to someone(s). For herein lies the challenge: How do you wisely and lovingly hold the pain and despair of disparate individuals or groups in your soul? How do you empathize with one without hurting or betraying the other? I’m certain that there are many who may argue that you simply can’t and shouldn’t, that you must choose sides. They argue that your failure to choose is cowardice, at best, and hatred, at worst. Choose and let not your heart be troubled. Weep only for the righteous–or at least the more righteous.

But oh, the choosing! I weep for Ahmaud’s and George’s families, for victims of racism and oppression, for a system that all too often continues to be powered by white privilege. I weep for nonviolent protestors who long to have their voices heard. I weep for owners whose businesses and livelihoods have been damaged or destroyed. I weep for police officers, the good ones, those ethical men and women who continually put their lives on the line. I weep for city and state officials who yearn to listen to and care for individuals in their communities, as well as to reach peaceful outcomes. I weep for all those who have been victims of stereotyping and oppression, all who have been too easily and willingly associated with the worst of their group or race. I weep for all.

No doubt, some will accuse me of being insensitive and perhaps too much of a Pollyanna when I admit that I take solace in the words of one who is much wiser than me, Mahatma Gandhi:

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.

Gandhi’s words in no way diminish the terrible impact of tyrants and murderers on the world. Nor do they diminish our moral duty to end these tyrants’ and murderers’ reigns and to bring them to justice. Gandhi’s own life was clearly a testament to his unwavering commitment to end oppression, as well as to stand with and care for the oppressed. Still, when he says, Think of it–always, there is power and truth in his words. It would be great if truth and love won all of the time, or at least won much more quickly and decisively. And it would be great if the inevitable assurance of victory would heal our gaping, festering wounds. But it doesn’t. It may be, however, as novelist George Eliot writes, the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

I confess that likening despair to unfed hope–a hope we eagerly, passionately yearn for– is comforting. And encouraging. How, then, might we feed our hope in the midst of so much ugliness? German Romantic writer, John Paul writes:

The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.

There are so many ways to feed our hope. Although the words of truth and love we speak to our children, our students, our friends and family in homes, classrooms, and workplaces may not immediately be heard by the world, in the end, they will be heard. So, our words matter greatly. Our persistance and conviction in delivering them matter greatly. Our unwavering belief that, in the end, truth and love will triumph matters greatly.

Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich believes that [w]hen a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something. Our current despair, like that of former generations, may be just this: evidence of our belief in something. We cry, we rage, we pray, we march because we believe that the world can be a better place for everyone.

And this is what I told my son, a 27-year-old black man who fears bringing a son or daughter into this world. We despair because we genuinely care, because we believe something better is possible. A world in which a child can flourish. A nobler world in which integrity and virtue take the throne. A humbler world that learns from past mistakes. A softer world that loves and listens better.

How I want this world for my son, for his son, for all sons. How I want them all to live without fear of judgment, oppression, and hatred. How I want the gene pool to explode with super novas, stars bright enough to light even the darkest corners of the earth. And how I want to feed the hope that continues to sustain and save us, to fix my eyes on the truth and love that triumph in the end–always.

House of Common Prayer

Near the edge of the timber
where a ravine cuts a deep swath in the clay,
a stand of yellow clover rises,
one bright chapel in the brome.
 
This is a house of common prayer,
my matins,
where I lay my woodsorrel at the altar
and weave my voiceless psalms
among the birdsong.
 
This is a place of rest,
safe from thistle and teasel;
a place of hand-folding, green-knuckled 
and small;
a place where the length of oxtongue is lament,
and the depth of dandelion
is praise.
 
I have been here before
as a child who traveled alleys
and once found—keeping vigil behind the corner grocery store —
a hallelujah of hollyhocks.
 
Even at eight, I knew this was a place of prayer,
that there behind the garbage cans were crimson blossoms
preparing a way in the wilderness.

Keeping to the prescribed course is a matter of genius and magic. Brown must guide them by any means possible. He has a sextant clipped to the dashboard in front of him. The course and distance calculator is clasped to the side of the fuselage. The drift indicator is fitted in under the seat, along with a spirit level to measure bank, and the Baker navigation machine sits on the floor of the cockpit. There are three compasses, each of which will illuminate in the dark. Sun, moon, cloud, stars. If all else fails, he will have dead reckoning. –from TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

On June 14, 1919, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown began what would become the first non-stop transatlantic flight–and transatlantic airmail–from Lester’s Field, near St. Johns, Newfoundland to Clifden in Ireland. They were flying a modified WWI bomber, the Vickers Vimy, with 1,890 nautical miles of open sea and 16 hours of flying time before them. In the aftermath of WWI, however, there were few who even knew about the flight, and the pilots’ ultimate achievement only became newsworthy after the fact. The fact that this flight occurred only 16 years after the Wright brothers made the first controlled flight of a powered aircraft is nothing short of miraculous.

Irish novelist Colum McCann profiles these men and their harrowing flight in a section of his 2013 novel, TransAtlantic. Actually, to call the flight harrowing doesn’t begin to do justice to the seemingly insurmountable odds these men faced. As parts of the Vimy began to ice up, at one point, Brown left the cockpit and actually climbed onto the wings to dislodge ice. Between the heavy snow and clouds, failing instruments, and loss of any sight of moon or star or horizon line, the men were literally forced to fly blind for hours. During these tenuous hours, Brown, the navigator, resigns himself to relying upon dead reckoning.

Dead reckoning is a navigational process of calculating position by relying upon a previously determined position, or fix, and then advancing that position based upon speeds–known or estimated–over time and course. In today’s world of unwavering and complete reliance upon technology for navigation, dead reckoning seems primitive, unnecessarily foolish, and certainly deadly. And yet, when all else fails, keeping to a prescribed course may be–as McCann writes–a matter of genius and magic.

As the weeks of coronavirus updates and death tolls persist, many may feel as though we are, indeed, flying blind with no clear horizon line in our sights. People use the word unprecedented with genuine reverence. There seems to be no real fix from which we can confidently navigate. And so, for better or for worse, we are delivered into the hands of dead reckoning.

Just the other day, I realized that I didn’t know what day it was–not just the date, but the actual day of the week. For weeks, one day has rolled into the next, and only the rising sun and emerging moon has provided any real semblance of time passing. Like many, I fear losing myself in the heavy cloud cover of no-end-in-sight. I don’t fly blind very well. Dead reckoning is not in my current bag of tricks. I need a lodestar, a fixed point from which to navigate my days.

These days of nowhere to go and not much to do have given me uncomfortable pause. For I’ve realized that for much of my life, the lodestars from which I’ve navigated have been work-related. A good day’s work–either at school or at home–kept me on an even course flying confidently towards the future. A sense of accomplishment was the steady updraft that pushed me ever onward and upward. A stack of graded essays, a lesson planned, two loads of laundry washed and folded, the back door finally painted, the dishwasher loaded–all notches on my belt of achievement, all navigational points along the road of my life.

American author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes of a dead reckoning that is an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies. Truthfully, I know that too much of my life has been a frenzied pursuit of fixing my place in the world without any true observation of the heavenly bodies. When I should have looked upward, I ran inward. When I should have relied upon God, I relied upon genius and magic. And when I should have turned to faith, I turned to dead reckoning, resigned to the belief that all else had failed. If I simply worked harder, longer, better, I could fix my place in the universe.

For a time, Alcock and Brown had no other option but to trust in dead reckoning. But both men understood that they desperately needed a real fix–the sun, moon, horizon line–if they were to survive. There are periods and circumstances in our lives during which many of us have trusted dead reckoning. For whatever reasons, we have believed that–frightening as it may be–this was our only real option. As we work to develop a coronavirus vaccine and seek the safest ways to reopen our country, a certain amount of dead reckoning is understandable. When it comes to the science of both combatting the virus and recovering the economy, we are flying a little bit blind.

But when it comes to our spiritual response to the pandemic, we don’t have to resort to dead reckoning. Our lodestar, our fixed horizon line has been–and always will be–right there in front of us. We may not remember what day of the week it is, but we can remember who is flying our plane.

https://youtu.be/UJODr3XTj_E

photo by Collyn Ware

Apple Blossom Time
    --for Gracyn

For months, winter has cast
stern silhouettes upon the land--
such spears and snarls,
twigs and tines
to make the hours weep.
 
Until spring simply opens the world, releasing
baskets of balloons which take the air
with saffron joy.
Until the first sweet blossoms pink the day,
blushing against the cornflower sky.
 
Tomorrow, you will turn eleven.
But for months, you’ve been pruning
the branches of childhood,
making space for something even brighter
in the canopy above.
 
Now, the first blooms begin to peek around
the corners of innocence.
They test the breeze,
their petals pearl with dew.
 
This is apple blossom time,
this liminal space where girlhood smiles
one last rosy smile, and minutes blink
in wonder.
 
This is apple blossom time,
when the world is pinker, softer
 
and you, my darling bud, are lovelier
than you know.