The Edge of the Ocean (vol. 7, no. 6)
Here are a few things I’m sharing this month:
1. Question:
“Where did we nourish and foster the creative imagination that permits you to bring into the world something that does not now exist?” – John Paul Lederach
2. Quote:
“…the mandate to love the stranger is a double act of moral imagination. First, I have to imagine that it wasn’t my ancestors who were in Egypt, but it was me. And then I have to move my way into understanding that there are other people in the society who are currently experiencing some version of that. It’s a double act of moral imagination that is an exercise in empathy. That’s called growing as a human.” – Shai Held
3. Poem:
The River Cannot Go Back by Kahlil Gibran
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
4. Something Inspiring:
Naomi Shihab Nye shared how one of her students explained one way of understanding the Japanese concept of yotori: “after you read a poem, just knowing you can hold it. You can be in that space of the poem, and it can hold you in its space, and you don’t have to explain it. You don’t have to paraphrase it. You just hold it, and it allows you to see differently.”
5. Project updates:
I’m slowly gathering the pieces of a new book called Manly: A Field Report. Here’s one of them:
I’m in 6th grade. It’s Monday. I’m in line. It’s lunchtime. I’m holding a plastic tray of empty rectangular indentations. Stepping forward. Coming to a stop. Step. Stop. Step. Stop. Just like a production line.
Mark is already sitting at a table nearby. He sees me, sees Laura a few trays ahead of me, leans his cafeteria chair back on two legs and hollers out:
“Hey Laura, how’s Shawn as a kisser?”
I freeze. Go red in the face. The cafeteria goes quiet. Even the lunch ladies stop lifting their ladles. But Laura doesn’t flinch. She turns to Mark and says—
This couldn’t have been sixth grade. Mark and I weren’t friends yet.
He was cool. Charismatic. King of the preppies. I was awkward. Introverted. Too shy-shy in my powder blue Pac-Man shirt.
Not sixth grade. Not eighth either.
By eighth grade, after a year of Mark’s mentoring, I could walk up to any pack of girls at the Turtle Derby, strike up a conversation, and come away with a name and number. I had a harem of one-week relationships.
I kept a list in my middle school yearbook.
Not eighth grade. I was in seventh grade.
Yeah, Mark had thrown a party the weekend before. Invitation only. He handed out credit-card-sized “Party Cards,” which gave the holder the “Right to Party!”
A right that was not transferable.
I showed my “Party Card” at the door, tucked it back into my Velcro wallet, and was directed to the basement.
We were playing spin the bottle.
I had never kissed a girl before.
I spun. It landed on Laura.
We went into a closet…
Thanks so much. And, have a great day! – shawn
