Sunday Sermon [Redemption Song]

Hola Everybody,
Today's blog art is by the great Salvador Dali. There’s anotherDali work that’s of importance here. Dalí once made a gift to the men’s jail in lieu of a personal appearance there. He was supposed to give an art class to the inmates in 1965 but canceled due to illness. He donated the then new gouache-ink-and-pencil sketch, specifically “For the dining room of the Prisoners Rikers Island,” as he inscribed it. And he sent some encouraging words for the men: “You are artists. Don’t think of your life as finished for you. With art, you have always to feel free.”

Itwas stolen by correction guards in 2003 and is believed to have been destroyed.

Here’s a photo of the work being presented to then commissioner Anne Kross (seems like she doesn’t  get it):

Redemption Song

Woman, why are you weeping?
 -- Jesus to Mary Magdalene (John 20:15)

For a long time I refused to go to funerals. I simply wouldn’t go. On one level, I didn’t want to see my loved ones garishly made up lying in some casket. I have seen many, many people leave this existence. Most of the people I was raised with are dead or dying. I grew up in a violent world and quite a few were taken in the prime of their lives -- victims of violence, disease, or addiction. On another level, I didn’t want to come face-to-face with death. Especially death warmed over as I used to call funerals in mainstream US culture.

I didn’t like funerals. Didn’t like death… So I never went.

Then one day, I was shopping with a lover and she picked out a dress she loved so much she said, “This is the dress I want to be buried in!” We laughed about it. We, she, was young and beautiful, full of life. She was the Bonnie to my Clyde, committing crimes of life in that devil-may-care way only the foolish and young can justify. We didn’t last long together, less than two months, but we created so much drama in one another lives that we would become forever attached. Years later, after all had been done between us, she died in my presence.

People have a fucked up knack of dying around me.

When it came time to make preparations, her sister confided in me that she knew what dress to bury her in and when I saw it, it cut me deep because it was that very same dress we picked out that day so many years before. When I told her sister, she smiled because my former partner in crime had told her sister the same thing. I wasn’t planning on attending her funeral, but her sister insisted.

I am not a practicing Christian. I don’t accept Jesus, or anyone else, as my savior, nor do I believe in a literal translation of the Bible, Old or New. However, I do think that some of the teachings attributed to the person called Jesus of Nazareth are sublime. My personal belief, borne of personal experience, is that the core teachings of Jesus were corrupted for personal and political gain. Thomas Jefferson held similar views and he wrote a version of the Gospels, now known as the JeffersonianBible. In it, he excised the parts he felt were contradictory to the core message of hope and love of the Nazarene. And believe me, there’s lots of contradiction in the Gospels.

According to people who wrote the story hundreds of years after the fact, when Jesus finds Mary Magdalene crying at the door of the tomb, he says to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” As I see it, Jesus wasn’t asking a rhetorical question. He wanted to know why we worry and sob and fret when hope is always present, if we could just tap into it.

For me, Easter is about liberation, and it’s especially meaningful for a person like me who sometimes feels chained to moodiness and negativity too much of the time. The celebration of the resurrection is a chance for us to acknowledge Jesus’ message of hope and in so doing, grab the hope that is already there.

Anyone else notice that of all the people he showed himself to, it was the women first? In fact, of all the women, it wasn’t his mother, but Mary Magdalene to whom Jesus appeared first. I don’t take Jesus’ resurrection literally, but there is a message there that resonates with my own life. Jesus’ life, like mine, was a redemption song. And like Jesus, it was the women in my life who tended to me -- tended to me through my own passage to a new life. Maybe this is saying something about the Feminine Principle and how far we have moved away from that healing force. For me, this was no accident of the Gospels. Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene because she, more than any other disciple, believed in him. All those other bums, betrayed and denied him, didn’t they? LOL

When I cried at my ex-lover’s funeral, it seems as if I cried for all the loved ones I had never said good-bye to -- the one’s whose funerals I didn’t attend. It was as if all that loss I was holding on to came out like a river. It was at once one of the saddest and most liberating experiences in my life. I read somewhere the other day that the opposite of loss is finding. It’s a deceptively profound statement.

Grief is what we add on to loss. It is a learned behavior, specific only to some cultures. It is neither unavoidable nor universal. In some cultures, for example, you will never see someone cry at a cremation. Their cultural perspective on death is one of acceptance in a way foreign to Western theories of grief and loss.

Similarly, when Jesus appeared to the disciples he asked, “Why are you troubled?” Jesus says to the disciples in Luke’s gospel when he appears to them after his “resurrection.”

My Buddhist practice has slowly transformed my view of grief -- has actually opened the door for me to see that there’s an alternative to grief. It’s not that grief is wrong, only that there’s another possibility. Loss of a loved one can be viewed in another way, a way that avoids the long days of aching, oftentimes crippling grief.

Over the years since my ex-lover’s death, I have attended many funerals and have had two others die in my arms. I sometimes cry at funerals but I understand death differently today. A teacher once explained it to me in simple terms. “Have you ever been to a concert and experience the shouts of ‘more!’ coming from the audience when it came time to end?” he asked. “Usually, the musicians will play one or two encores, but eventually they have to pack up their gear and leave. I’ve experienced this many times and when I’m going home, I usually reflect on how great the music was and how lucky I was to have been there. I never felt grief at the end of a concert.”

And that is exactly how I experience life and death today. I see it as if a magnificent concert had come to an end. I revel in the wonderful performance. I was there shouting loudly, “More!” when it came to end the performance. My loved ones struggled to stay alive a little longer, but eventually they had to let go -- they had to pack up their instruments and “go home.” Today, I choose to see instead what magnificent lives my friends and loved ones led. What powerful inspirations they were in my life. Their shining power of example. I reflect mostly how fortunate I was to have been in their lives to witness their glorious and beautiful power. Today, I walk away from funerals feeling a lot like I do after watching a great performance: exhilaration. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Grief is seeing only what has been taken away from you. The celebration of a life is recognizing all that we were blessed with, and expressing that gratitude. When I die (and we all will die sooner or later) I hope this is what people will feel for my own performance and that people will celebrate life and not just mourn my death.

Whatever your belief, this has to be part of the message of the resurrection, whether you understand it as literal or not. That the concerts of our lives continue reverberating and in that way create more life. That our lives are never ended, but live in our deeds and actions… and our memories.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

What Really Matters [Darryl King]

Hola mi gente,
About a week ago, a former colleague, Darryl King, passed away. Actually, he was more than a colleague he was also a friend. I missed his wake and funeral because of my job search and some freelance work I had to do. I’m bummed about that. And I must admit that in the past few years, we had slowly lost contact. Still, Darryl was someone special. This is how I remember him… 

In Memoriam

Darryl King speaking at our annual "Break the Chains" event.

The first time I met Darryl King, we really didn’t hit it off too well. I was interviewing for the case manager position for a program Darryl had conceptualized and was heading, The Developing Justice in South Brooklyn Project. Julian Brown, someone I had met when I was training trainers for

Developing Justice: (from l-r) Kim Clark, Julian Brown, Darryl King, and myself.

STRIVE, was really pushing hard for me for the position though I was a bit reluctant at first. In any case, right before the interview, Julian tells me, “Look, don’t worry about anything, you got this. Just don’t go talking too much.” I used to have a problem with talking too much during interviews. 

I wasn’t that worried. Initially, I had my doubts about the project and I was fine where I was working. In fact, my boss at the time, Lizzette Hill Barcelona, was putting together some funding so that she could better use my talents. So I went to these interviews somewhat reluctantly and not at all nervous. Still, Julian offered me more money and a chance to be at the beginning of something new where I could use my creativity and experience to create a case management model.

So what happens? Darryl and I get into a “debate” during the interview! He asked me a question about what I would say to a participant if he expressed a desire to become a lawyer. I responded that if the individual didn’t have a GED, that first I would encourage him to get a GED before I encouraged anything else. What Darryl heard was that I would encourage the person, which wasn’t what I said at all. So we went back and forth on that.

I walked away thinking, “Well, I won’t be getting that job!” LOL And, in fact, I found out that Darryl voted for some white guy who had never even been arrested, something I never let Darryl live down. For years, I always teased him about that! “Yeah, you were ready to hire some white dude over me, bro, get outta here,” I would remind him from time to time. And Darryl would bow his head and start laughing. We all laughed.

Darryl was good to me. He encouraged me to use my creativity and my strengths. Whenever I would come to him with an idea, he would patiently listen to me and usually his response would be, “So, what do you need to make that so?” And that’s the kind of person he was. He was always asset-based, man. He was about making it, whatever it was, happen. “How can we make that happen?” he would ask. Or, “What do you mean we can’t make that happen?” he would demand.

I remember once being at a meeting with Darryl, Julian Brown and our executive director at the time, Brad Lander (who’s on the City Council now), and we were talking about creating a leadership development workshop. The goal was to create a cadre of formerly incarcerated people with the intent of getting them involved in our organizing/ advocacy efforts. This was over 15 years ago, before anyone else was thinking in this way.

Truthfully, I was initially against the leadership workshop. What my people needed was workforce development training and jobs I argued, not volunteer work in organizing. How the people (“my people”) on my caseload could be expected to lead if they can’t even get a job, I reasoned. I lost the vote, 3-1 that day, but it was cool. Later, Darryl came to me and said, “What are you worried about? We’ll help you recruit participants and you’ll be the one running the groups.” Then he smiled. That was his way of telling me that he would support the creation of a leadership model that contained both -- to a degree.

And that’s what I liked about him -- he was always supportive. He was also generous to a fault. Darryl would literally give you the shirt off his back. I found this amazing, especially for a person who served 25 years for a crime he didn’t commit. I mean, I did a fraction of the time he served and I did what I was accused of doing. I was a low level drug dealer who sold drugs to support my habit. And sure, with the right lawyer and connections, I probably wouldn’t have done any time at all. Still, I sold drugs. Darryl had his whole young adulthood and more ripped from him for something he didn’t do. Whenever I would ask him how he managed to stave off the resentment and bitterness, his answer was that the only thing they couldn’t take away from him was his humanity. What a powerful message -- a message he embodied.

One year, I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to book us as presenters for a four-day workshop at a national convention taking place in my ancestral home, Puerto Rico. He came into my office one day all excited and asked me, “Do you think you can translate two workshops into Spanish?” I nodded yes that I could given enough time. With a big smile, Darryl said, “Then get to working because we’re going to Puerto Rico to do workshops in English and Spanish!”

So, off we went to Puerto Rico, everything paid for, rooms at the Caribe Hilton, and doing workshops that totaled maybe four hours total. The rest of the time we spent under the Puerto Rican sun and doing some sight-seeing. At one point, he got pissed because I insisted that he couldn’t wear dress socks with sandals. LOL Darryl loved gambling and he disappeared until Julian and I searched him out. Oh yeah, we also were paid to do the workshops. For years after, Darryl, whenever we were going through a rough time, or having a difference of opinion, would say, “What other boss would get you an all-expense paid vacation to Puerto Rico and also make sure you got paid for it?!” and he would laugh. I created a video from the photos we took on that rip, but I can’t find it right now. I wanted so much to post it because he’s smiling in all the photos.

And that’s the thing that I remember most about Darryl: There was a lot of joy and we laughed a lot. Yeah, we worked hard and we were very conscientious about the work, but Darryl always had this sense of humor about it all. When he would see me stressing out, he’d call me into his office and tell me to take it easy. He would remind of where we came from and what we were doing. This spirit is what held that project together in the beginning. Later, both Darryl and Julian would leave the project to do other things and

Citizens Against Recidivism Awards: Darryl King (2nd from left)

eventually I would become the project’s director. But I would never fail to mention Darryl’s name whenever I spoke at a conference or at a radio or TV appearance.

The last time Darryl and I hung out together was in 2011 or 2012 when we both were recipients of Citizens Against Recidivism awards. It says a lot about Darryl that when he saw me, he hugged and he beamed when I said, “How you doing Jefe.” That was my nickname for him, El Jefe and I could tell he used to like that. His health wasn’t too good and he had been going through some challenges, but he still was the same Darryl. His spirit was too strong, though he seemed weary. We promised each other we would keep in touch.

I wish I could say we kept in touch, but we didn’t. I miss him. I certainly could use his spirit now and maybe that is Darryl’s greatest gift. Maybe his legacy is that no matter what, no one can take away your humanity. Maybe his gift to the world is that the good things -- the things that matter the most, can and must be done.

You did good Darryl. You’re still El Jefe.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

On Death and Dying

Hola mi gente,
Last night a dear friend informed that her mother had transitioned -- passed away. So I’m posting the following.

Lost Horizon

A teacher once taught me the following lesson… 

In the days before airplane travel became common, people traveled long distances on huge, ocean-going passenger ships. When a ship was about to cast off, the passengers would line the ship’s deck facing the pier, on which their friends and family stood. As the ship’s horn sounded its departure, travelers and their assembled loved ones would wave goodbye to one another. They would wave, blow kisses, and shout out their last farewells and good wishes.

After a while, the ship would be too far away to distinguish who was who in that great mass of passengers, but they still waved and gazed. A few minutes later, they would remain on the pier looking at the slowly disappearing ship.

Eventually, the ship would reach the horizon and disappear completely. Yet, even though the loved ones on dry land could not see their loved ones anymore, let alone speak with them or touch them, they knew they had not disappeared totally. They had just passed over a defining line -- the horizon -- that separates us from what is beyond. They know that they will see them again.

This can be a metaphor for what happens when our loved ones die. If we are lucky, we can be by their side as they pass on, embracing them and saying our last goodbyes. They go off into that ocean journey that is death. They fade away from us. Eventually they reach the horizon, the defining line that separates this life from what lies beyond. After they have passed that line, we cannot see them anymore, let alone speak to them or touch them, but we know they have not totally disappeared. They have only passed over a line -- death -- that separates us from what is beyond.

I was also taught that our lives are like a grand symphony and when a symphony is done do we lament its ending, or do we applaud its grandness? I have learned that those we love only cease to exist once our memory of them fades. In this way, loved ones who have transitioned live on as the reverberations of their actions continue to affect our lives. 

So, yes, acknowledge the pain of loss because that too is real and must be processed. Remember, however, that the well that is filled with your tears is also the same well from which your laughter and joy rises.

And how else can it be?

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

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