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Weekly newsletter 2.16.2021
Friends,
Ever get that question, “What’s your favorite…?” My response is usually muddled - if I haven’t whittled the options down to a top-three, I appeal to different categories. Favorite movie? Well, there’s my sentimental favorite (Murder by Death), but there’s also my picks for best script (All About Eve), best cast (What’s Up, Doc?), best indie (In America), best musical (Sweet Charity), best foreign film (Nowhere in Africa, though Lagaan is a close second!)...you get the point.
When I’m asked my favorite book, though, one title emerges. I read Shusaku Endo’s Deep River in Div school as part of a course on ritual and religious life. Our professor probably included the novel because it depicts the encounter of the religious and cultural “other” so well, but I’ve always appreciated the way it tells the story of a group of people whose histories are just below the surface, whose different motivations brought them together for a moment. The novel profiles a series of Japanese tourists who find themselves together on a Buddhist pilgrimage in India, and one character, Mitsuko, articulates the question that was burning in me when I first read it (and that continues to burn): “Just what the hell is it I want?”
It’s a question I’m grappling with again these days. I’d bet (actually, I’d hope) that most of us are grappling with it. After the past year, it’s worth stepping back and asking, just what the hell is it we want? Justice? Sure. Peace? Sure. Prosperity? Pleasure? These all sound great, but each means something different to each person, heard and experienced through the filter of each’s own lived experience. The question brings to the surface the challenge of pluralism: if we really respect our own and others’ perspectives, then we can’t assume that we all want the same things or that we’re all headed toward the same objective. We can, however, listen to each other’s story and begin to understand what each other values and why.
UPCOMING
Guided Meditations | Mondays, 4:00pm PST, via Zoom
LAST CALL TO SIGN UP! Religious literacy: how to talk about religion without pissing anyone off | 6-week symposium on Thursdays at 5:00pm PST begins on February 18. Sign up here!
Good Stuff II | 4-week symposium on Mondays at 5:00pm PST begins on March 1. Sign up here!
UPDATES
On Tuesday and Thursday this week, I’m leading guided meditations as part of the Virginia Association of Independent Schools Health & Well-Being Summit. The VAIS program reflects a growing (if massively overdue) emphasis on the, well, health and well-being of educators. It might be old news in other settings that have integrated wellness initiatives for colleagues, but it’s disappointingly slow to catch on in schools. Sure, the biggest factor is logistics (it takes time and money to develop programming, and both are on short supply in school budgets), but surely in the last year we’ve learned that taking care of the caregivers has to be a priority. Some communities might seek an exhaustive list of offerings for employees to tailor their own wellness initiatives - wouldn’t we all love a full spa menu at our fingertips! - but sometimes we just need a little bit of space to find what we need. If you’re part of an organization looking to offer colleagues tools for self-care and wellness, and if guided meditation sounds like a thing they’d like to engage, let’s chat! I’d love to work with different groups and organizations to offer not only a technique for meditation but also to tailor short or long programs for contemplation, reflection, or dialogue.
Guided meditations via Zoom continue! Mondays at 4:00pm PST. The aim is to practice being present - to ourselves, to others, and to the world. If you or someone you know could use a 20-30 minute dose of peace and quiet on Mondays,visit the meditation page on my site to sign up.
This is the last chance to register for “Religious literacy: how to talk about religion without pissing anyone off,” a 6-week symposium that will explore the primary practices of religious traditions and the idea and experience of religion more generally. If you or someone you know might be interested, sign up before Thursday!
Registration is also open for Good Stuff II, a 4-week symposium beginning on March 1. Full descriptions of all symposia are on my website. Symposia are limited to 10 participants and need 4 to run - if you’ve thought about participating, please sign up! If you’re eager for meaningful conversation away from the noise of current events, come join! For more details and to register, click here.
GOOD STUFF
Listen
When I say “Aretha Franklin,” what comes to mind? “Respect.” “Natural Woman.” That inauguration hat. My introduction to Ms. Franklin was in The Blues Brothers. Playing the owner of a soul food restaurant, she confronts her husband (who is about to ditch her to rejoin Jake and Elwood in getting the band back together) and, with three customers-turned-backup-singers, delivers him an ultimatum with “Think.” The year after Dinah Washington died, Franklin released an album of Washington songs as a tribute, but the album doesn’t just honor the late great Washington. It highlights Franklin’s emotional and (especially for those of us who grew up in the era of “Pink Cadillac”) stylistic range. My favorite track on the album is her rendition of “What a Diff’rence a Day Made”. Dreamy, bluesy, boozy...and when the orchestra behind her builds near the end, Aretha’s voice soars over the swell, “It’s heaven, heaven, heaven…”
If you stream music on Spotify, I’ve started a playlist called “Bill’s Good Stuff,” including music I’ve loved for a long time as well as things I’ve come across more recently. Feel free to add the playlist to your favorites! Bill’s Good Stuff Spotify Playlist
Read
In this week’s meditation, I used Nikki Giovanni’s poem “You Came Too.”
“You Came Too”
Nikki GiovanniI came to the crowd seeking friends
I came to the crowd seeking love
I came to the crowd for understandingI found you
I came to the crowd to weep
I came to the crowd to laughYou dried my tears
You shared my happinessI went from the crowd seeking you
I went from the crowd seeking me
I went from the crowd forever
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