From Shanghai by Wendy Lee

Today, 8 years since sitting in Dr. C's class, I'm taking his class again. 'Be in Love with Your Life,' the class titles. Despite my crazy schedule at the moment, I'm committing to taking this course, and to find time out of the busy schedule to write. I remember how empowering and enlightening his class was to me 8 years ago. Today, even though I couldn't physically attend this class, I'm extremely grateful that he's offering an online version to offer me another opportunity to slow down again. To take a moment to remember why we are here, and reflect what I'm doing that I'm constantly so busy.

Wendy Lee & Xavier Vincent

Year of Gratitude

Check out Wendy Lee's first month of entries for 2014 Year of Gratitude at her website!


Day 4: For the street musicians of New York. For the way they add splashes of culture in the life of New Yorkers. For hearing a fantastic Gambian musician on my way to brunch this morning.

The Gospel of the Most Recent Ten Days

Almost the rainy season is good news.

Moza beer in Guatemala with Gerardo is good news.

A side hug from Betsaida on the sticky 44 is good news.

Another year in the life of Jose Gómez last Sunday is good news.

Photographic evidence that Christine back in El Salvador wasn’t just a dream is good news.

A roof and walls and a cheap little stovetop that heats water hot enough for coffee is good news.

Leftover Chinese out of morros with avocado and tortilla sprawled out on the petate with Zaidy is good news.

Ana Luz leading the commission to brainstorm how to celebrate Romero’s beatification with the communities is good news.

That Glenn let his heart get broken over one young Salvadoran’s accidental run-in with drug trafficking violence is good news.

Skyping my mom, dad, sisters, sister’s boyfriend, aunt, uncle, and grandma on Easter morning and getting the video to work is good news.

That Anita waited twenty minutes for me after the meeting to go home even though the tambo ran out of gas and her kids were home by themselves is good news.

Memena sending me her written-out thoughts – be they inspired about reading Martha’s speech from the UCA forum two weeks ago, or introspective about the walls she puts up, or proud and affectionate about her sister – is good news.

Hearing about Rodolfo spending his vacation week in a semi-rural parish learning via participation about a kind of conservative, charismatic spirituality totally foreign and originally kind of upsetting to him and then calling it the best Easter of his life is good news.

Lunch at the neighborhood grandma’s of pods from a native tree boiled in pumpkin seed paste, tortillas fried with cheese in tomato sauce, and little squashes that make your teeth squeak when you eat them, sautéed with onion and tomato around the table on the patio on the first day back to the library after Holy Week is good news.

Jorge already knowing how Claudia will react when she thought the caricature painting was 2,000 Colombian pesos when it was really 20,000, or that she will not wait for him to take pictures in the museum, or that they don’t have time to eat dinner because it’s 8:30 and the last train leaves at 9:00 and just kind of patiently knowing that she’s the best is good news.

A talk on the ride in the falling-apart micro out to Ilopango between two displaced foreigners whose defense mechanisms are on high alert in this country that, on the one hand, is theirs in the sense that they are on fire for this place in particular and give of themselves to it in a way that changes you and makes you of it, and, on the other hand, isn’t theirs in the sense that they schedule semiannual dentist appointments and arrive on time and eschew gossip, during which they put aside differences because they both love things more important than themselves is good news.

"I Forgot My Phone"

This week's theme in Be in Love with Yr Life is "Seeing the World," based on four chapters in The Book of Mev by that title.

The world of photography, amateur and professional, is vastly different from when Mev interviewed Sebastião Salgado in 1993.

Take a look at this short film by Charlene deGunzman on the ubiquity of cell phones in our lives.

Easter Vigil - April 4, 2015

 I sat there alone, in the darkness, in a small Catholic church, in small-town Tennessee.  

Darkness surrounded me.

I couldn’t see the faces of anyone, only their shadows.

Darkness brings fear, and fear at its worst brings anger and hatred.

I thought about darkness.

I thought about the darkness in me… how only two days ago I cussed out the developer in charge of tearing down the old house next door and building a new ugly house, putting holes in my fence, throwing shingles on to my asparagus bed. The darkness took over and I let him have it. What good did it do?

 “Just like me, he wants to be happy. Just like me, he doesn’t want to suffer.”

The mantra didn’t come to me because the darkness was too much.

I thought about the darkness in the world… the 148 souls lost at a university in Garissa, Kenya to an act of terror. I wanted those responsible to feel the darkness, the pain.

I thought, “They must already be in the darkness, for they obviously could not see the beauty of each of those 148 souls.”

Darkness brings fear, and fear at its worst brings and hatred.

I thought about the date:

April 4^th

I thought about a hero who was murdered on this date 47 years ago. I thought about his words:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

I thought about the holy day I was there to celebrate, how Love put on some skin, showed us how to live and love, and died, executed as an enemy the state,

but death and darkness and fear and hate don’t have the final word.

Love and life and light win.

And this I believe and this I celebrate, though sometimes I get lost in the darkness and forget how to turn on the lights.

Just then the priest lit a candle and passed the flame to the deacon, who passed it to others, who passed the flame to others, and to others… until the whole church was filled with the dancing light of candles.

Light drives out the darkness.

And I am not alone, in the dark, in a small Catholic church in small-town Tennessee. They are no longer only shadows, but people.

I look around and see the faces, the humanity, of those gathered here on this dark Saturday evening; all gathered here because they believe that darkness isn’t what we are. In the end,

Love and life and light win.

Out of the Blue

Perry

I have to thank you for the following note, which I received in today’s mail.

People can be so amazing!

Sabine

Dear Ms. Laserstein,

Recently, I ran into my former professor, Dr Schimmel. It had been years since I had class with him and we spent a half hour catching up.  

I told him that his class was the most life-giving one I had amid my incredibly boring accounting classes.  In the last few years I have done pretty well for myself  as a CPA and I asked him if he knew of anyone who might be in need of a little financial support.  As he mentioned that you are putting on a play,  please use the enclosed check for $1,000  for some  of the expenses of your production.

I look forward to learning about Ms. Corrie’s life.

Sincerely,

Danesha Clark

--from Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine

Gratitude Journal (August 18, 2013)

Thank you, Katie Consamus, for responding pronto to my needy request for feedback. Whoosh, you delivered big time! I’m in a new phase of the journey, time to kick it like karate and finish this book/memoir/mishmash/collage! You’ve encouraged me with your words, like these…

“You know, I read Dear Layla on the train.  If I remember correctly, I was on the Brooklyn-bound Q train en route to some obscure audition for some pretentious adaptation of some Ibsen play…”

“And when you wrote about Carla playing the saddest song she knew on the violin… I remembered that to be of service, I do not have to abandon my art.  That it IS service.“

It’s true, I want to be your agent, so let me prove myself first on Facebook, where I will circulate your writings.  Over the years, you’ve read me with energetic attentiveness, and I want to read you likewise–send me anything you’re working on, random scribbles,  magnum opus you’re laboring over and under, bedside nightstand dream log entries, recipes from your great-aunt, list of favorite asanas, five ordinary places in NYC that expand your heart, three secrets you’ve not yet told to a living soul!

Send me the topics of your curiosity (unless Mev and Layla have worn you out!) and I will respond with brio: postcards,  notes, letters, lists, villanelles.

Every person engaged in a writing or creative project needs to have a reader/friend/mirror/Muse like you.

I am stronger, happier, and saner because you’re in my life.

Mark