Remembering Who We Are

by Carl Mazza

How is it that we may have the sensation that we know another person, even though we are certain we have never met before? The power of such recollection is inescapable, and its mystery is at the heart of the deeper meaning of our humanity.

Now, as we look for the first signs of Spring, we are surrounded by images and thoughts of war. The details of the new season always bring us home - the fresh smell of the air, vibrant color of trees and all growing things, and beautiful sounds of life. War, on the other hand, is alien to our nature - with its frightening masks and costumes, hideous machines, and panicking noises which rip the soul in pieces. Spring will come, though it may bring with it a horrible specter of violence.

In our deeper memory is the recollection of a dark night long ago, when the menacing angel of death passed-over and spared us. We were the children of God. In the thick of total gloom, a light of bright desire was raised. Instead of death, we were given a new lease on life, and our era of hard bondage became a springtime of hope.

We are beings who cannot escape the confines of our material prison, but we need not be captivated by it. I always think of this when I watch the newborn babies in our community. I like to think of our surroundings at Meeting Ground as special, but I know they are nothing extraordinary. It is just a place to live and call home, and nothing fancy at that. Yet, these infants gaze around on these ordinary things, so marvelous and new, as if they were in the brightest, richest, and most beautiful of places. All things are new to them, and the world around is captivating indeed. With increasing familiarity, the extraordinary becomes commonplace - and the former sights and sounds lose much of their charm, but we still remain tied up in the tangibles around us. Yet, I cannot help but remember that we are creatures of a different order - our origins are in a far and different place.

War is indeed, as William Tecumseh Sherman once said - "All hell." Synonymous with death, its very purpose is to annihilate life. It is the flip-side of humanity, and it still holds us in a macabre fellowship with the dark night of our soul. That war is, indeed, an unreal reality is best summarized in the phrase of Abraham Lincoln from his first inaugural address: In offering an olive branch of peace to the people of the confederacy he addressed those as "friends" whom so many had begun to hate as inhuman adversaries:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

In our community at Meeting Ground we see, every day, the common and painful struggles with the imprint and remnants of human anger, neglect, abuse, violence, material and physical excess, and all forms of harm and distress. We find there are many [Continued from page1]
reasonable solutions and mechanisms of healing for body and mind which can be offered. Nevertheless, what can never be restored is the awe, beauty, and wonder of a world which, if only for a moment, held out the promise being a loving place of friendship and nurture. When we are surrounded completely by alien forms - uniforms, trappings, smells and sounds - we yearn, with every fiber of our being, to return to the place from which we came.

An older homeless man recently arrived at Clairvaux Farm, picked up and brought by a young woman who is also homeless. I passed the car as his door opened. It was a struggle for him to get out of the seat. It was obvious he had many physical difficulties, and most probably some deep struggles of mind and soul. Yet, he caught my eye as I passed, and before I could speak he smiled broadly and said, "Hello, Carl!" - just like he knew me.

I had never met him, yet he called my name. Probably, I thought - he asked the person who brought him who I was as the car was coming up the lane. How he knew was not as important as the care that he took in naming me. There was, in our brief initial exchange, a flash of recognition - perhaps from across many ages. The declaration is one of the most meaningful in human experience: "I know who you are, for we are long friends."

We hear a lot being said that, if we go to war - our enemies will get a taste of justice. This use of a noble term is not the way Martin Luther King, Jr. understood it when he begged us, time and again: "If you want peace, work for justice." It is also not in the meaning of the prophet Micah when, in asking what it is that God required of us, he stated simply "to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." [Micah 6:8] Justice is not a process of retaliation, bringing death. Rather, is that which holds out the possibility of restoration to life. It is our work for good in the world. It is directed, earnest effort which is done in the spirit of bringing all people together, as friends. Our commitment to Justice expresses our longing for a place of unity and oneness, where human exploitation is replaced by boundless generosity and care. Justice is that which energizes us as givers, and inspires happiness in returning us all to the place of our beginnings.

Finally, justice is, perhaps, our best striving to re-make the world of earth and matter in the image of all we know to be good and true. It is work toward what may be thought of as a better and brighter future. Yet, I cannot escape the indelible intuition that justice is also a nostalgic yearning. It is a deep, unquenchable desire to return, our journey toward a beloved memory, going back again to our home. Our treasured hope, in this emerging season, is that the angel of death may pass-over our race yet again, and that our people instead be favored with the blessing of new life.

At long last, our work for justice may be the realization that the "place" we yearn for so earnestly is neither long gone, nor far away. By some inexorable mystery, it is neither future nor past, but clearly present. We may live so much of our everyday life as blind, dumb, and senseless to this reality - yet, it can instantly and unexpectedly rush with power and force into the center of our most common experience, in the twinkling of an eye. And the spark may be as small as the stranger who quietly and knowingly calls our name.

In that very moment, we know: Our aim is to be, in truth, who we really are in heart and soul. "We" are not many, but only one.