I had to take a time out to go to google to see if I wrote these words on a desolate night looking out the window on 2260 Lake avenue in winter 1957. I found lots of other bundles of words expressing similar sentiments; even some by MLK delivered in a sermon in Detroit before I ever chanced upon him. It was at a time when I believed I was in the world but not of it. This was a state of being often expressed in the seminary among those of us pursuing chastity. It was only later that I learned to pursue charity.
None the less these words encapsulated feelings that I remember having when I was a young boy reaching the age of reason. I lost my innocence about that time. My days of happiness and remembering the love of my parents and my life shared in this atmosphere with my sister twenty two months my junior were shattered by my father taking his cousin's wife with him to a meeting in New York City. My Mother had turned down his invitation to her to join him, He was a steamfitter who had been promoted to Vice President of a company in the burgeoning oil business. We had moved from a modest bungalow to a fancy house about a years before. I remember the days in the bungalow nostalgically. It was on a beautiful sunny Summer day that I discovered godspit in the rambling fied behind our house. The sun danced off a glob of white on a clump of grass. What's that ? A Benson child with us proclaimed,"That's god spit". So it was that I discovered god spit before I discovered God.
I still believe that my father wanted to be forgiven for his carnal act, but it was 1940 and divorce was really not available for a member of a Catholic family of nine. Yet my mother was strong willed even through her desolation and being eight months pregnant. Her family took us in and my adventures in a new kind of life began.In my early days in second grade at St Augustine;s Parish school in Hartford Connecticut , Sister Mary Richard a nervous,bespectacled tall pale woman told us she had to leave the room. "Say your prayers while I am gone". I didn't know prayers, so I jumped up on my desk and shouted the pledge of Allegiance to the United States of America. World War two was happening and we were all very patriotic .
Sister rushed back into the room and was very nervous. "What happened? " Leo Goodwin dimed me out. 'It was Billy Baker Sister,he climbed on his desk and recited the pledge of allegiance." Sister almost in a panic, told me to go with her to Sister Eulalie's office. Sister Eulalie was a feared figure in the school She was four by four and she had a wide strap around her wide girth which she used liberally to keep boys in line. I learned all of this later from other classmates. She dismissed Sister curtly and after she scurried away, she asked me to tell her what happened and I did.
Sister had left the room She told us to be quiet and to say our prayers.I still wondered why she left the room Did nuns have to pee? I didn't know any prayers,so I recited the pledge of allegiance.You have to stand up for that and speak loudly. So I did. Sister had a strange look on her face as I told her what had happened. She said "well you will be making your first Holy Communion in the Spring and we will be teaching you the catechism to get ready for that. We will teach you about Original Sin:. I interrupted. What's sin?. She had an almost kind look on her face when she told me to go back to class.
Being different has its compensations and hindrances.I like what Michelle Obama said during the election. :They go low, we go high. We must love our neighbor as we love ourselves. These days it is very difficult for me to do what I know I must do. It's a kind of two step; first forward, then back.
We can't go it alone. We need friends who can give us the grace to keep on doing what our inner voice says just as we have to there for them when they are close to running on empty.We need to take the time to look after ourselves .We need to reflect and to meditate as we seek the world that is not yet
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Monday, February 20, 2017
Trump is hoist on his own petard. How do we change the way the world whirls?
We can start with ourselves. Reflection upon our inner being is the way we can move beyond guilt by learning to love ourselves If we can begin to love ourselves we can begin to love OTHERS, even those who disagree with us. If anybody read these words , I am sure most of you are better at this than me. For those who know me, I have always had a bit of a problem with authority. In the Seminary, in the Army, at work as a Temporary Emergency Permittee Latin Teacher in the town of Groton, later as a Teacher at Community College of Philadelphia; then as an Administrator for almost twenty years there, I always was inclined to go against the grain.I was blessed with the gift of getting along with others who couldn't stand one another. When I left my first job, the Superintendant ,in his letter of recommendation for me said the envied my ability to get along with others in his work group who were always looking for ways to undercut one another. There were always bumps in the road that I was traveling, but I found ways to circumvent them.
When I became Acting Interim Division Director of Humanities and Applied Arts, many of my colleagues in the English department shunned me They thought I was a sell out. I worked with those who would work with me and we made progress. Some who had been in a power position over me thought they could run me. When they found out they couldn't they bailed. This presented the opportunity for me to gain the trust of those who had considered me the enemy. I think it was the second year of my administrative career that I ended up assuming the leadership of the English department. We hired over a dozen people; more than half were women which doubled the number of women in the department.
Early on, the Provost who replaced the first Dean of Instruction at the college, offered me a job as one of his Assistants." No thanks". I said," I'll go back to the faculty". My appointment was so structured: on leave from the department to do administration. As he searched for my replacement, the situation at the college became more in turmoil as the union began to gain strength and successfully organized I suddenly became an administrative asset because I was able to work cooperatively with the faculty and most of the other directors at the time were not. In fact all of my earlier division colleagues went on to other jobs except the one who died. I jousted with them and the Provost and his assistants at our regular meetings on Monday and Wednesdays. He was trying to bend us to his will which had been formed in the St. Louis Community College system. I was a loud voice of "the loyal opposition". The others who were all older than me and able to exit to other jobs,most at a higher level than theirs at CCP, but all were able to go somewhere where they were allowed to explore ways of making their work place better and happier.
All was not as grim as it sounds. Pietak and I were generally civil with one another. If I had a good idea, he gave me the opportunity to present it to the president. This was how I was able to get Florence Fishman who had been recommended to me by Paul Sherwood, Dean of Students. If Pietak knew that Sherwood recommended Fishman to me, I believe he would have objected. I also recommended that Connie Johnson handle the writing end of the proposed Learning Lab. Connie came from Swarthmore where the president lived and Danny Goldwater a fellow Director had recommended her to me strongly. And so the Learning Lab became an official part of the college.
This is too much of a me thing. I don't trumpet my accomplishments in public often. I am doing so now because "these are the times which try men's and women's souls". And there is a force emerging in our society that has the courage and conviction and caring necessary to change the lives of others in the country and the world. I read Facebook several times a week,and I hear what you are saying a what you are doing. The way the world heals itself has to be an and and thing. There is a spirit within all of us,dare I say a soul, that needs nourishment. I like the way the Quakers say it."That of God in every man and woman: For many in the world Jesus pointed the way; for others, Mohammed and Confucius. And there are the others who are beyond my present memory.
For me there was Martin Luther King and James Baldwin, and Malcolm X and Dorothy Day, and Mother Theresa . On a personal level Milo Billman, Sister Mary Girard, Saul Alinsky, Cotton Fyte, Donald Griesman, Mick Doyle, John Adamczyk until he lost his way for a while, Max Eirich, Ruth Krause, Del Greenfield, Many of the men and women who I worked with In Friends of the Black Peoples Unity movement in Camden, The South Jersey Peace Center, The Conference on Community Organization in Philadelphia. In those earlier days in the late sixties and early seventies women were getting themselves together individually and collectively, so more windy men were selected to lead the groups. Yet anyone who ever worked within the political system or with civil rights and or work of Peace knows how critical to those causes were anonymous women.
We need to point out to others bombarded by white noise from the TV and Internet and Entertainment industry, that there is something far more vital to survival than the desire for Mammon which leads to greed and avarice and contempt for those who are not as midas rich as others.
I cannot consider anyone who brags that he has not read a book since college as a wise and caring and fit leader. There is no doubt that people who have not had a decent pay raise in years, let alone a job, have been overlooked by those who seek to wield power. But someone who says he cares about such people who are overlooked, but doesn't go beyond saying it by doing something about it is not the kind of leader I want to follow. Our history in this country is checkered. Manifest Destiny, Civil War, genocide, are acts that have scarred us, acts that encourage hate as do Drones that rein down death on innocents as well as villains, as do unjust Wars built on lies and if you will, fake news. We must seek ways of bridging the gap between the large minority who in their desperation or inner hate become trumpian. It is no easy task and it will not be accomplished immediately. The best we can do is to look into our own selves first as we keep on keeping on.
When I became Acting Interim Division Director of Humanities and Applied Arts, many of my colleagues in the English department shunned me They thought I was a sell out. I worked with those who would work with me and we made progress. Some who had been in a power position over me thought they could run me. When they found out they couldn't they bailed. This presented the opportunity for me to gain the trust of those who had considered me the enemy. I think it was the second year of my administrative career that I ended up assuming the leadership of the English department. We hired over a dozen people; more than half were women which doubled the number of women in the department.
Early on, the Provost who replaced the first Dean of Instruction at the college, offered me a job as one of his Assistants." No thanks". I said," I'll go back to the faculty". My appointment was so structured: on leave from the department to do administration. As he searched for my replacement, the situation at the college became more in turmoil as the union began to gain strength and successfully organized I suddenly became an administrative asset because I was able to work cooperatively with the faculty and most of the other directors at the time were not. In fact all of my earlier division colleagues went on to other jobs except the one who died. I jousted with them and the Provost and his assistants at our regular meetings on Monday and Wednesdays. He was trying to bend us to his will which had been formed in the St. Louis Community College system. I was a loud voice of "the loyal opposition". The others who were all older than me and able to exit to other jobs,most at a higher level than theirs at CCP, but all were able to go somewhere where they were allowed to explore ways of making their work place better and happier.
All was not as grim as it sounds. Pietak and I were generally civil with one another. If I had a good idea, he gave me the opportunity to present it to the president. This was how I was able to get Florence Fishman who had been recommended to me by Paul Sherwood, Dean of Students. If Pietak knew that Sherwood recommended Fishman to me, I believe he would have objected. I also recommended that Connie Johnson handle the writing end of the proposed Learning Lab. Connie came from Swarthmore where the president lived and Danny Goldwater a fellow Director had recommended her to me strongly. And so the Learning Lab became an official part of the college.
This is too much of a me thing. I don't trumpet my accomplishments in public often. I am doing so now because "these are the times which try men's and women's souls". And there is a force emerging in our society that has the courage and conviction and caring necessary to change the lives of others in the country and the world. I read Facebook several times a week,and I hear what you are saying a what you are doing. The way the world heals itself has to be an and and thing. There is a spirit within all of us,dare I say a soul, that needs nourishment. I like the way the Quakers say it."That of God in every man and woman: For many in the world Jesus pointed the way; for others, Mohammed and Confucius. And there are the others who are beyond my present memory.
For me there was Martin Luther King and James Baldwin, and Malcolm X and Dorothy Day, and Mother Theresa . On a personal level Milo Billman, Sister Mary Girard, Saul Alinsky, Cotton Fyte, Donald Griesman, Mick Doyle, John Adamczyk until he lost his way for a while, Max Eirich, Ruth Krause, Del Greenfield, Many of the men and women who I worked with In Friends of the Black Peoples Unity movement in Camden, The South Jersey Peace Center, The Conference on Community Organization in Philadelphia. In those earlier days in the late sixties and early seventies women were getting themselves together individually and collectively, so more windy men were selected to lead the groups. Yet anyone who ever worked within the political system or with civil rights and or work of Peace knows how critical to those causes were anonymous women.
We need to point out to others bombarded by white noise from the TV and Internet and Entertainment industry, that there is something far more vital to survival than the desire for Mammon which leads to greed and avarice and contempt for those who are not as midas rich as others.
I cannot consider anyone who brags that he has not read a book since college as a wise and caring and fit leader. There is no doubt that people who have not had a decent pay raise in years, let alone a job, have been overlooked by those who seek to wield power. But someone who says he cares about such people who are overlooked, but doesn't go beyond saying it by doing something about it is not the kind of leader I want to follow. Our history in this country is checkered. Manifest Destiny, Civil War, genocide, are acts that have scarred us, acts that encourage hate as do Drones that rein down death on innocents as well as villains, as do unjust Wars built on lies and if you will, fake news. We must seek ways of bridging the gap between the large minority who in their desperation or inner hate become trumpian. It is no easy task and it will not be accomplished immediately. The best we can do is to look into our own selves first as we keep on keeping on.
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