Chanukah, Night Two: Power

Long ago (too long for me to comfortably remember exactly how long ago it was), I read Steinbeck's The Short Reign of Pippin the Fourth. I think it was in middle or high school, after we'd read The Pearl. It may have been soon after I discovered Stephen Schwartz's Pippen,  which captiovated and entranced me no end. I read anything that had the name "Pippin" in the title (and even stretched it a bit, reading Great Expectations because the main character's name was "Pip").

What has stayed with me, though, from Steinbeck's brilliant novel - short, riveting and laser-sharp in its satire - was his discussion of power. In Steinbeck's Pippin, France has decided the Republic has failed, and they are looking to reinstate the monarchy. They find one lone direct ancestor to Charlemagne - Pippin, who will be the Fourth of that name. As the modern-day Pippin grapples with the enormity of what confronts him - kingship and history and government and rule - he is reluctant to assume power, fearing (like all wise men) that he will be corrupted by it.

However, he is told by one of his advisers: it is not power that corrupts, nor absolute power that corrupts absolutely. Rather, it is the fear of losing power that corrupts.

What a riveting idea! I think, for myself, how much I am ruled by my fear, how often I base decisions for action (or inaction) on my fear of losing control, giving up my power. And these situations, where it is fear, when I do not sit comfortably in my own skin - in fact, am most likely trying to crawl out of it - these things never end well. They blow up in my face and leave a swath of destruction in a radius of miles. IU spend more time picking up the debris from these ill-fated actions than anyone ever should. 

If I had just done the right thing - even through my fear!

But I don't. I horde my power, clutch at it like Gollum clutches his Ring of Power - only to lose it and then later, teeter at the brink of destruction. I hold my power jealously, refusing to ask for help, denying help that is offered, believing foolishly that help is just another word for weak, or less-than. 

And while I may not have been corrupted by my fear of losing power and control, I have certainly been crippled by it.

Zechariah tells of his dream, and the angel who declares ?Not by might, not by power..." We read this text during Chanukah. Perhaps, we read it - I read it - to remind myself that my "power" is merely illusion to begin with. Or, if not illusion, then certainly immaterial. 

So it is with hope, this Chanukah season, that I remember this lesson beyond the light of the menorah, and carry it into the days and nights ahead of me - not by might, not by power, but by spirit alone...

Perhaps then I will find, not the crippling of corruption, but peace instead.

Chag urim sameach

5780

For Dinah, who did not speak: a poem for parashat Vayishlach

He says he loves me,
and his gaze
quickens my blood.

Hush, he said.
His hands moved, rough and calloused
against my perfume-dusted body

and my flesh rises to his touch,
and he loves me,
he says.

Wait, I want to say;
but he says hush
as he enters me,
takes my breath away;
and I have no words left.

My father waits to bind me
to that man who whispered love
seven blessings and I'm clean.

As if I'm broken, as if...
He says loves me.
My brothers too.
I think they hunger to avenge

the day my flesh rose to meet his touch,
when he said he loved me,
when I wanted to say wait.

When he took my breath
and my words
away.

Wait, I want to say;
he says he loves me.
Thhereis nothing left
for me to say.

They have taken my breath -
my words -
my love -
away.

Rude Awakening

Like many people I know, I woke up that Wednesday morning, the day after the election, shocked and unnerved. I was supposed to have awakened elated - finally, a woman president! And hooray - we were joyfully continuing that long march begun a century ago, with the Wobblies and the suffragettes, that led to the union and labor movements, that led to the New Deal, that led to civil rights, that led to gay rights and marriage equality that led to gender equality and... Hell, you get it.

Did I say a century? Ha! Make it two. Let's not forget that whole contretemps with the folks across the pond. Let's not forget Hamilton and that rad hip-hopper Jefferson, and the other Founding Fathers. We have been marching steadily, (with a very painful layover while we straightened out the mix up over just who is a person and just what is property, and fought a war to ensure that everyone in the country got it), towards that bright, shiny future, which was supposed to be my bright, shiny present, of peace, love, equality and justice for all.

And yet, on Wednesday morning, November 9th, I woke up shocked and unnerved. And frightened. I am a woman. I am a Jew. My son is black. I fear for him most of all. On November 9th, while I woke up terrified (literally terrified at the revolution that was seemed to be taking place in my world) there were a whole host of people who woke up with this insane belief that it was ok to haul out the white hoods and disgusting invective and hatred that they had been keeping under wraps for what - a decade? more? a century? And if that weren’t enough, to add insult to injury, the cold water shock of realizing that this notion - that it had all been excised somewhere in the murky past - was merely one more instance of my white privilege. This behavior had always been around; I just had all the proper armor in place to not see it.

A month later, and I continue to be mind-numbingly outraged (sorry for the oxymoron, but I can't think of any other way to explain it), as I watch the (real) news and see, more than the mysogeny and racism and anti-lgbtqa hate speech spewing forth, but the great glee and lightening speed with which that That Man is dismantling 60 years of civil rights and liberties.

And, as I prepare to send my son off to university next fall, my black, liberal, loud and wonderfully vocal son, who has been taught to speak truth to power, I worry about the landscape into which he is stepping, and wonder if it's filled with landmines.

Actually, I don't wonder - there will be plenty of landmines (and some of them are actually good - you know, the ones that blow up youthful preconceptions or the petrified ideologies of the know-it-all teen that need to be softened or changed, that are a part of healthy college life). There are some landmines, though, that have been planted by the sudden normalization of all the other horrible "-isms" that have plagued our society and have been gaining ground at too rapid a pace. These are mines that can hurt. These are mines, I fear, that can kill.

Right about now is the part where I'm supposed to find some grace, some kind of uplift - that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel that will ease my readers' (and my) mind, right? You know, the part where the dragon may have eaten the princess, but we find out, just in the nick of time, that she was cruel and not the real princess at all, while the real princess grabs the sword to fight the battle... I fear that the light at the end of the tunnel is really the light of the oncoming train.

I just typed "no one is racing to pick up the sword," and deleted it, when I realized that fear is not quite true. Many are sprinting towards the sword in the stone - all of us who are outraged and frightened, we are picking it up. We are speaking out and shouting truth to power. (Ugh. I found the sliver of happy after all. Yay me.)

We will continue the battle. We will face insurmountable odds. We will lose a lot. Not just lose, but scary lose - on the environment, civil rights, education, etc etc etc - but we will slog on. Because that's what we do. We slog. It will not be enough. Not right now; maybe not ever. "Enough" rarely ever is. Right now, though, it is all we have. So we will use this blade until someone - perhaps you, perhaps me, maybe my son one day - forges something more powerful, more permanent.

Until then, we will be afraid. Until then, we will suit up and show up nevertheless. And we will raise our voices to speak truth to power and lose a bunch of battles and fight through the fear and one day, we may actually win the war.

My Name is in Me

Will you name me,
before I can name myself?

Will you see my skin
and name me a color,
as if that defined me?
As if pigment is a thing
at all.

Will you see my sex,
my breasts that swell with milk,
and desire, and righteous indignation,
as if a mere body part
or two can claim the whole of me?

Will you find my name in my faith -
or what you think of as my faith?
Will you shackle me
and shame me,
blame me for what you
think you know?

My name is in my skin,
in its cracks and rough-edged
wrinkles, earned honestly
in the measure of my days,

It's in my sex,
in my womb that opened
and my breasts that fed
in my body that cradled life.
It's in my hands that reach
higher than I could ever grasp,
and my eyes that see
beauty in the chaos of a storm.

My name is in me,
in my back that is bent,
and my knees that don't
yet still they bear the
weight of all my days.

My name is in my faith
even as I wrestle
with the angels
who still climb their ladders,
and wrestle with me.

I feel it, the name that I
call myself, that I claim
for myself. It dances
along my skin, and fills me
completely.

Would you name me?
I have my own name,
I don't need yours.

A Long Line of Dreamers

I come from a long line of Dreamers

My Fathers
dreamed of the desert,
a great swath of golden dust
and sculpted sand
that stretched from here
to eternity.
They dreamed of mountains
that cast long shadows
over growing grain
and shattered hearts.
They dreamed of angels
and Men,
and sometimes,
they could even tell
the two apart.
Sometimes.
It was never a
perfect science.

My father was a master of visions
and dreamed of God,
as well as angels
and Men,
who romped on ladders
and waged fierce battle
in the dark,
and shrouded by fog.
They claimed the  Power of names
and Prophecy,
though they could not defeat
the sunrise when it came.
But of the stars,
skittering like sand
across the vault of heaven,
my father planted his feet
and his flags of possession,
and built a nation upon
that scattered field
of time and
Light.

I, too, have dreamed of stars,
and wheat that bowed
in graceful supplication.
Even the sun, in its radiance,
and the Moon -
a silvered disk against
a fold of night -
They bowed to me in
my Dreams.
What need do I have
of nations and time,
of angels
or Men,
when all the spheres of Heaven
and the bounty of God's earth
have given me
my proper due?

I am a dreamer of
Greatness.