Extremists For Love
photo: John Lawrence
His son Tommy’s death a few days past, the January 6 nightmare a few days ahead, Congressman Jamie Raskin describes in Unthinkable a huge flock of birds swooping into his front yard. Orioles, cardinals, blue jays, robins – a convention clustered in one spot. “And despite being a man of science and reason, one not easily given to mystical thinking, I was suddenly seized with the thought, flooded with the feeling, and immersed in the overwhelming physical sensation that Everything is going to be all right.” Watching the birds’ swift skyward takeoff, Raskin walked from his porch to their vacated space. His missing eyeglasses appeared in his winged visitors’ place. Congressman Raskin, dispense liberally a prescription for your 20-20 vision that “Everything is going to be all right.”
We live, as best we can, in a spree of extremism. The pandemic wears on and democracy wears thin. Paying attention exhausts and unnerves. We live, as best we can, mostly on a high wire, seldom in a hammock.
Such a speeding swing set. Kindness-cruelty—poverty-wealth. Starting-stopping—lies-truth. Trying-giving up— touch-withdrawal. Laughter-tears—lit-dimmed. Hearts open and shut—minds clear and muddy. Beauty-ugliness—hope-despair. Gain-loss—fear-courage. Comedy-tragedy—love-hate. Frantic-calm—high strung-low key.
Democracy-fascism—fascism-democracy. Turbulent seesaw.
Relief package on its way. Let’s try Alabama-China—Dr. King-Lao Tzu.
“So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love…. I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist…. Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”).
Rising above our environment. Loving extremists in action.
Dr. King works like a sedative as we witness the wicked cowardice of white supremacist, mostly-male nationalists. How might that extremist Jesus respond to the delusional twisting of his message, the maniacal denial of reality? I picture that cool carpenter from Bethlehem tossing moneychangers out of the temple. “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21, 12-13). Den of thieves indeed. Vote. Toss out.
photo: Amber Capron
Saddle up for a road trip to ancient China. Seated once again with my college students for their introduction to Lao Tzu, I watch bodies relax and minds lean into his plainspoken worldview. Things naturally, gently come and go from their opposites. Day-night—light-dark—autumn-spring—back-forth. Gradual transitions—gliding seamlessly. Not noon and suddenly midnight. Not summer and immediately winter. “Hold fast to the center,” Lao Tzu softly suggests (Tao Te Ching). Come. Go. In. Out. Movement. Stillness. Centering.
Cradle slowly—rock steady. Balanced extremists.
Hold fast to the center. Not tight-not loose.
Sip a Billy Collins at his “Musical Tables.” Reassuring to know the poet’s awake in the middle of the night, too. Trying to find his words, searching.
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden invited classically trained flautist Lizzo to play James Madison’s crystal flute. And did Lizzo ever, first at the Congressional Library and then onstage at her Capital One Arena Concert. Sheer delight all round, but check out (briefly!) the medieval, reactionary outcry at the flute’s “desecration.” Chipper faces and swiveling bodies do as Lizzo rips in NYC: “Clap your hands, y’all.” When she asks “Baby, how you feelin?” you’ll feel “Good as Hell.”
New Orleans clarinetist Dorene Ketchens also feels irresistibly good, her audience singing and swaying in unison. That last lick certifies a huge turnout “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Every semester, in the classroom and my office, tracked down in parking lot and grocery store, furrowed brows promise the familiar question: “What if I can’t find the center? Then what?” Quite a timely question at any time, but crucial now. My automatic response comes easily enough. Now, the hard part—to do it. Morning-night—in-be-tween.
“Be still. Breathe deeply. Trust.”
Still stilling.
Told with McCarty’s characteristic wisdom, marvel, exuberance, and good will, Leaving 1203 is about navigating that way through. The author draws on all available resources—friends and strangers, food and laughter, life lessons learned in the very house she now empties, and, not least, her newly-inherited West Highland terrier, Billy. McCarty simultaneously learns and deftly teaches the fine arts of remembering, letting go, and holding on to what matters most. She not only finds the way through, she shows the way.
the greatest gift an author could give a reader… lessons of a universally philosophical and existential kind… a touching journey… a welcome, upbeat ride
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