The Awakening
The henchman, the foreman, the doorman
I know
But the Awakening Man?
Waking from a nightmare, a hibernation, a heavy sleep?
A startling noise, a sudden inspiration?
An Awakening Woman?
Reaching for the clouds, struggling, persevering?
Inspired to write?
Starting a new day, reaching for the stars, ?
Awakening
From anguish, from bondage
Pulling against the chains of death.
Lepidoptera
Parable in fluttering
Molting, chrysalis, hardening wings
Patient Emergence
The Latin mīror means “I wonder or marvel at.” The miracle is in the eye of the beholder. Witnessing a “miracle,” many will want to explain it by rational means. Others will take a wonder as a wonder. No need to explain to them. Such are the miracles in my life: improbable, yet easy to explain away, if you are a doubter by nature.
A miracle is generally defined, according to the etymology of the word—it comes from the Greek thaumasion and the Latin miraculum— as that which causes wonder and astonishment, being extraordinary in itself and amazing or inexplicable by normal standards.
I remember four miracles in my life. My miracles seem to surround my choice or calling to be teacher. If it was merely my choice to teach, then not so much a miracle. If teaching was my calling—then I see it with wonder.
The first miracle in my life came at a vulnerable moment: the transition from undergraduate to graduate school. I had graduated from Hamilton College with a B- average, still with departmental honors in English Literature. I thought I wanted to be a journalist—maybe someday a freelance writer. I slap-dashed three applications to journalism schools and a creative writing program. To this day I cannot imagine why I was so casual about applying. I set myself up for failure. That’s what happened.
In the meantime, I had spent Winter Study in January with a professor and three other English majors teaching sophomores who had placed out of Freshman Composition. Despite arriving on campus with advanced placement, they felt they needed a refresher in good writing style. Our senior team took on 4-5 students each and met weekly to talk about the class we had designed and to reflect on our progress. Our professor made occasional suggestions but left us to teach on our own.
The feedback from our students was very positive, and we felt we had improved their writing in three short weeks. It was my first teaching experience, but it was not a miracle. . . yet.
A few months later Professor Lindley, our teaching supervisor, called me into his office. To this point I had never taken a course with him, because early English Literature was not on my bucket list. But he had noticed my aptitude and interest in teaching. He told me he had received a letter from the Harvard School of Education to recommend someone for their new Master of Arts in Teaching program. I thought, Why not? Even though I had a pathetic B- average and had not prepared to study education. He told me he would recommend me.
Then the miracle: I got in. After botching three journalism/ writing applications, I got into Harvard! To that point I had a slight, but not decisive interest in teaching. Now I was fired up! I packed my bags for Cambridge in June, since my program began in the summer, and I was on my way.
Three improbable things had happened that made this a miracle for me:
When three improbable conditions come together at a turning point in your life, you can’t be blamed for calling the outcome “a miracle.”
I am not calling it a figurative, but a literal miracle. I had no business getting into Harvard, but apparently Professor Lindley’s recommendation did the trick. It turned my doubt into belief. I was going to be a teacher.
And the miracles weren’t over . . .
|
|
Cruising
Infinite horizon: pastel pink
Sweeping gray waves,
sun popping up round, splitting
A spherical fission.
Brisk, warming breeze
From bow to stern
Layering the sweeping tide
Sliding aft-ward
Day Nine, the last day of cruising. Already we are gathering our luggage to set out by nine tonight. Ten days hurried like waves past our balcony. 
The last three days slowed the pace by keeping us on board, the churning waves keeping us from Grand Cayman. I regret missing the island, because it was part of my reason for taking this particular cruise. But with the driving pace of days after our stop at the Panama Canal, it was a relief to spend three days relaxing and letting time expand, instead of gravitating from one event to the next.
Waking up with radiating sun and a delivered breakfast, choosing a movie, a lecture, an entertainer for the day, made it feel more like a vacation and less like an itinerary. Enjoyed a cocktail hour before a leisurely, four-course dinner. Nothing like our life at home, even the life of retirement with fewer demands on our time.
Cruising was all I hoped it would be. Settled in a cabin for the duration. Constant movement and at rest. New port waiting in the morning. The athletic, singing trombone player. The synchrony of the Vivace violin duet. The three-course, four-star dinner menu. And the dawn breaking over our balcony.
Fort Lauderdale again.
Dawn Monday (2/5)
Whitecap Tuesday (2/6) 
Bow Splash Tuesday (2/6)
One of the best days so far, we spent at the Sloth Sanctuary in Limon, Costa Rica.
According to the website sponsored by the family of Judy Avey-Arroyo and the late Luis Arroyo, “The Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica is the original rescue center for injured, orphaned and abandoned sloths.”
The Arroyos originally used their 320-acre property as a bird reserve for tourists to visit. As a result of an earthquake that hit the island in 1991, the sanctuary was ruined.
In 1992 a neighbor brought them a baby sloth injured by an auto accident. As their website explains: “Although Judy and Luis sought assistance, not even zoos or wildlife rescue centers knew how to guide them in sloth care. So, they observed the wild sloths on their property, and used their common sense to raise this infant sloth.”
The property was declared an official sanctuary in 1997. Today the sanctuary is the official home to two-toed and three-toed sloths, some to be released, but many requiring the special care of the sanctuary. See https://www.slothsanctuary.com/about-us .
Below, some sloths we met in rehab. Many of them are not self-sufficient to be released into the wild. For example, they must be taught to distinguish a few edible leaves from the many toxic leaves in the rain forest. Below center, a blind sloth in permanent residence.
Some young rescued sloths are being prepared for release, if they are promising. Below some photos of “sloth kindergarten” during their morning outing. Some are too young for exercise, but others show great aptitude on the available climbing bars.
Indoors they have a “Neo-natal” room for the youngest rescued sloths, who may need round-the-clock care, administered by co-founder Judy Avey-Arroyo.
Sloths are very inquisitive, but cannot be handled except by licensed care providers. They become attached to people like the daughter of Avey-Arroyo, who gave us a tour of the facilities.
Their reputation for laziness is not deserved, said our guide. They have a very slow digestive system, taking hours to digest one meal. So they rest.
Eating vegetables off a plate.
Speaker Mike Johnson insists he is not taking orders from Donald Trump, yet continues to rubber stamp the former President’s demand to shoot down any Democrat-initiated immigration legislation in advance of the election.
Can the Speaker point to one instance he has not been a mouthpiece for the former President? He has relentlessly agreed with him since the Election denial campaign of 2020. The evidence favors a House Speaker with his “pants on fire.”
The Speaker depends on the short memory of American voters. When no one was listening, he said,
“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,” in a lengthy post on Facebook on Aug. 7, 2015, before he was elected to Congress and a day after the first Republican primary debate of the campaign cycle. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/us/politics/mike-johnson-donald-trump.html ]
Challenged in the comments page by someone defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson responded: “I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”
Somewhere in Mike Johnson’s evolution as a political animal, he became a henchman for the former President, became an Election Denier, and, complying with Trump’s expectations, now promises to block legislation to reinforce border security. Even his reluctant support could save lives and decrease illegal immigration in the short term. At least he could let the bill show its inadequacy until Trump was elected to a new administration. The danger is that it might succeed in alleviating the problem. How inconvenient that would be for Mr. Trump’s campaign!
Politicians have the prerogative to change their minds, but they probably should make a good story about why. Not political convenience. Not appeasement of power-brokers. Not compromising with a man who “lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.” There’s no explaining how Rep. Mike Johnson became a born-again believer in Donald Trump.
And there’s no explanation of how a born-again believer could become a disciple of a man who “would break more things than he fixes. . . . a hot head by nature . . . a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.” Those were prophetic words about Donald Trump in 2015. Not these words about Trump’s denial of the Election results of 2020: “I take him at his word. I do believe he believes that.” This is the same man Johnson said, “lacks a moral center.”
So how do we reconcile the Mike Johnson who warned us about Trump in 2015 with ““I’m all in for President Trump, I expect he’ll be our nominee, and he’s going to win it . . .” https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/politics/mike-johnson-donald-trump-endorsement-president/index.html.
I think someone’s pants are on fire.
The great crossing though the Panama Locks transpired on Day 6. Below is a map of our approximate path through the new locks and the old.
First, we were on a cruise ship going through the first lock at Gatun Locks (between #1 and #2 below) then on life boats (aka “ferries”), water shuttles (from #3-#4 below ), buses (dotted road from #4-#9 in Gamboa)) and eventually ferries that took us through the olde Pedro Miguel and the Miraflores Locks (#14-15).
Entering Port at Colon the Ruby Princess gave us our first acquaintance with the locking process early in the morning, sailing through the the newest installation at Gatun Lake. The lock walls, embedded in the side walls, slid across to block water from the front and back. The moving walls formed the container that would be pumped full of fresh water to raise the enclosed boat 85 feet above the bottom, which is higher than the ocean bottom. The fresh water avoids the ecological clash of merging one ocean’s sea water with the other.
The trip through the old locks was more adventurous, because we had another touring ferry on one side and a thirty-foot sailboat on the other. The sailboat was lashed to our starboard side, so we didn’t bounce against each other in transit. So we inched into the Pedro Miguel Lock [#4), and the doors closed behind and in front of us. This time they closed on a hinge, as the early locks did (photograph below).
The entourage cleared the Pedro Miguel lock and spread out as they advanced on the Mirafloras lock (between 14 & 15). Then back into formation for the second lock. No cubic foot of water was wasted to get four craft though the locks.
We circled Panama City, an impressive skyline with modern skyscrapers. It could be a skyline in Qatar or Dubai, except for the poverty in its shadow, which we got to witness on the bus ride home– one dilapidated building after another.
The significant message of the day: that immigrants from the barrios of the U.S. and Canada came to Panama to build the canal for $1/ day, plus lodging. The initial locks were completed in 1914, but work continued a century later with the construction of the new locks, completed May 2016.
We bussed back to Colon in time for a late dinner– 8 p.m.
Two characteristics explain most of my life: introversion and love of the Bible. Maybe they are related, since an introvert might become infatuated with Biblical stories and teachings, depending less on peer influence. This took a turn in midlife, when peer opinions became more important and the teaching from the Bible more consequential than the Bible itself.
The Bible itself has controlled my self-image and guided my choices more than any person in my life. My father’s final word on every sermon and church we attended was “Is it biblical?” and I kind of agreed, although I didn’t always read the Bible the way he did. Some of my peers thought it was repetitive to read the same stories and messages every year, but to me the stories changed with every reading, and that was part of the magic of the Bible: it was an organic book that grew with you. There was no other book that grew on me that way.
Before I could read stories the Bible was real in Sunday School. My aunt taught little kids, and she used flannel graphs to illustrate the stories for the semi-literate. These were like artist easels covered with soft material, probably flannel, and with cut-out characters with flannel backing that would cling to the board, and allow the characters to take different positions on the board to tell the story.
When I could read, the same stories and excited my imagination. The Bible was like a series of stories with heroic characters and conflicts of faith. When you are in the K-5 range of reading, stories seemed real, and there was no difference between fiction and reality.
My father held that every page of the Bible was literally true, and when you started to question any part, say the story of Jonah, you were on a slippery slope that ended with apostasy. So faith amounted to accepting the literal truth of the Bible. Remarkably, despite my bent toward literary study, I held that position with my father for most of my teenage years.
At some point I decided it didn’t matter what was real and what was figurative, because the message was the same and its application to your life was what mattered. Those who wanted to critic the Bible like any literary work did not ruffle my faith, because I was intent on the message, whether it was the accepted interpretation or a changing sense of how the Bible spoke to me.
I am not sure when I took a more critical view of the Bible, but it could be in my first turn in graduate school. I was reading a lot of C. S. Lewis and how he saw mythology as the pre-figuring of the Bible, and I realized other literature was reflecting biblical themes. Literature became characterized as sacred and secular in my thinking, and I saw the Bible in the context of literature as a whole.
Sometime during my early teaching career I learned about genre study as a key to learning to write. When I actually taught genre study I was already teaching college. I was finally realizing that the Bible ws genre-driven, that it was never meant to be taught literally, but as a range of genres from myth to history to poetry to satire and the “good news” of the Gospels. This finally solved the problem of how to read the Bible, and the scriptures came alive to me again, as they had through the stages of my life.
Let’s agree that the U.S. immigration policy is a mess, and if Congress had the will and the patience, they could do something about it.
Having said that, why are the American people so divided on immigration? Yes, we are divided about how many immigrants we should allow into the country in a given year, but we also divide about who should be admitted. For example, you rarely hear anyone complain about the number of Scandinavians or Germans or French people that should be allowed into the country. It is usually the number of Mexicans, Venezuelans, Moroccans or Iranians. Could it have anything to do with skin color?
Clearly Donald Trump has no problem with Czechoslovakians and Slovenians, because he married them or issues with Germans and Scots, because he descended from them, but immigrants of a darker skin he has less respect for. And, yes, the matter of legal vs. illegal immigration plays a role in this. But legality has little to do with comments about the nationality and criminality of immigrants, such as
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/02/trumps-most-insulting-violent-language-is-often-reserved-immigrants/
Yet Trump is not alone; millions of Americans applaud his every bigoted comment about immigrants. There’s a distaste for the darker brothers and sisters that resonates with public sentiment. And in the back of the mind of so many white brothers and sisters there’s the real fear that in 2045 they will become a minority and darker skinned people will become the majority. Not any given nationality, but the darker-skinned people in general.
I came from a conservative Christian family, yet I was always told how dangerous Harlem was, how emotional the Black churches were, how Black families always depressed the real estate prices, and sure, these were all half-true. But we were also afraid of people we did not understand.
Suburban people stay out of the urban core, stay clear of mixed-race churches, enjoy singing the old Stephen Foster “My Old KentuckyHome,” which ends
The time has come when the darkies have to part,
Then my old Kentucky home, good night
We are not contemptuous, so much as fearful of the people who don’t look like us. The problem is how we deal with our fear. We put as much distance from our fear as we can. We stay out of their neighborhoods, we remain suspicious of their music, their poetry, their theater, their dance. We don’t like attempts to clarify the history of American racism. We keep our distance.
“You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close,” she [Stevenson’s grandmother] told me all the time.” Bryan Stevenson reported this life-altering quote in his story Just Mercy.
Stevenson met his grandmother’s expectations when he began a campaign to represent people on death row, black, white, young, old. He founded the Equal Justice Initiative in 1989 to fulfill this mission. Its museum is one of most heart-rending records of the brutality of slavery in the country. He was not afraid to get close to the horrific legacy.
It is healthier to understand the underlying motives of racism than to point the finger. And it is healthier to examine them, than to give vent to judgment and outrage. Maybe we feel safer by distancing ourselves from “the other,” but we are not helping ourselves or trying to understand better.
Let’s work on immigration. God knows it needs all the help it can get. But let’s not let our fears control our agenda. Let’s not solve the problem by pushing it back from the border. Let’s get closer to what scares us, to what threatens us. Closer than we have let ourselves get before. Close enough to dispel some suspicion, some fear, the fear that keeps us apart. Let’s deal with ourselves, as well as the problem we call “politics.”
