Love Inseparable from Justice, Mercy, Compassion

5 AM-ish is the perfect time for coffee, especially on May 25, 2017, when the world turns sepia-toned, the tin roof echoes the gently falling rain, the robin joins in, not exactly singing but offering unabashedly itself. And the Amish-made rocking chair on the back porch, along with the man in it, creak just a bit. 

     Most Thursdays for the past decade would likely have found me at Starbucks when the door opens, 5AM, often the one on the corner of the Beltway and Route 1, pondering matters academic, like everybody else, wondering. Whatever: how we got here, how to get out without completely betraying the soul. 

     I don’t think humans are born nice and we’re not born mean either, but it sure looks like it. There’s a book within reach of my desk called Just Babies, mostly not-yet-read, but the point is that we’re born, at least most everybody is, with a capacity to prefer goodness and even with discernment of good guys. Just—as in born-with justice. Even before speaking or walking infants can choose the person who was nice, looking away from the actor who meanly stole the toy from another child, preferring the one showing love.

     What happens? How can so many people fail to see corrupt wanna-be leaders who are going to betray them without batting an eye? How can folks choose to watch a network spewing lies and hate? And then go to church, even send missionaries! The good book, just about any of them, warns of this. Freedom, this gift given humans, means suffering and most would rather not. The textbook we used in Good Stories preaches reciprocal altruism and asserts the necessity of imposing disincentives even to persons who collaborate with and who do not resist the evil-doers.

     Other good books teach purification. The person who wants to stone the one caught in adultery is not to be hated or vilified. The resistance needs to come from a clean heart because harboring hate destroys. So the person who committed the horrific hate crime on campus, the persons who support a power-crazed politiican, those who maim horses to win competitions—all these should be stopped but best not by those calling them nasty names. 

     Somehow love is still the answer. And it must be a love greater than we have grown, one inseparable from justice, mercy, compassion.

Good Hearts Grow Strong

A resonant moment in the “Water of Life” (Grimms’ version) happens early on when the youngest brother differs sharply from the older two especially when he gets down off his horse showing respect to the small voice. Although it’s more subtle, we were given advance notice with their contrasting hearts: his is filled with tender love for the father and theirs are dark in self-centered greed. The story happily rewards the good-hearted with the prize but only after he suffers and grows a heart strong enough to deal with the dark side. Humans are not meant to remain in the Garden but like Eve are destined to know of good and evil.

From that third son we’re offered some sense of the heart’s journey, but the Arabian Nights’ version of this tale gives an enriched account. The character who embodies the heart-journey continues to be figured as the third child but shifts to the feminine. Early in the story, it’s the third sister who playfully makes the big-hearted wish to marry the ruler. Such a lofty wish does come true, but her naiveté (along with that of her husband) prompts harsh consequences extending even into her own daughter who has to live the rough trek out into the knowledge of dark voices, growing strong enough to foresee the necessity of developing a protective strategy.  

When we seek to further amplify this theme of the good heart that develops into a strong heart, we’re fortunate to happen into a tale from Sierra Leone, Africa. The figure of the good but still innocent heart comes in “the daughter of the village” who is much loved by the ruler. The daughter gets separated from the village and is believed to have been taken by the ruler-above. In order to bring her back, the village has to absorb four or five (depending on the version of the story) unfamiliar and even unwanted characters. The nature of these characters includes: 

• appearing to be lazy—while actually creating webs that are artistic but almost invisible connections, and by doing this work without being seen and thus without getting any credit, 
• appearing to steal material objects—while redistributing wealth and thus incurring the wrath of the rich, 
• appearing to inflict harm—while digging into the groundwork and too-familiar pathways, 
• appearing to be unreliable, confusing, and inconsistent—while providing safe proximity to power, and 
• appearing to inflict pain—while providing warnings of toxic materials and disclosures of high value.

Messages from these stories related to our real-world village here in 2017 seem almost too painfully clear. Where is the water of life that carries cleansing and renewal for our land, for all people of the world, including the rich folks who desperately, even if unknowingly, need renewal, inner and outer? Is the water/daughter still waiting, still captive, because we have not yet developed strong-enough hearts and generous-enough vision?  We must see into the secret spaces, share resources, open to hard truths, and expand into Emerson’s darkened knowledge that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” And we must grow strong enough to endure the pain of dealing with poison within and without. Love that survives is not just altruistic; it also demands the discernment of giving with care so that resources are not turned to evil.

Martin Buber points our way to our divine resources and to the necessity of facing the old stories anew. It’s like admitting the stranger. 

“…face the Book with a new attitude as something new…its sayings and images will overpower…mold…ferment…enter in…to incorporate itself anew…To endure revelation is to endure this moment full of possible decisions, to respond to and to be responsible for every moment” (On the Bible, pp. 5-7).

For our world village to adapt and survive, we need to work and play as if the spiritual text is unfamiliar, not frozen but alive, so that we can receive the needed revelation. One friend from across the ocean who is in our Good Stories class brought in a perfect passage from Pushkin to help us open to the revelations from Books and tales:

Amplifying the Water-of-Life Theme

Photo taken from my home office window this morning, Feb 9, 2017. Perhaps today’s “water of life” says to stay in and appreciate a less active form of beauty…

        One theme that we’re following in Good Stories is represented by the image of the “water of life.” Without water, we die; so the archetypal image pushes us to consider the essentials of living. For example, what do we do and what do we take into our beings that brings refreshment, cleansing, and renewal?

        Although water was not the dominant image in our first story, we did wonder if there was more to Luis in “Buried Treasure” than laziness. A sense of wonder signals a place to focus, a point of resonance. The primary evidence that Luis has mysterious power comes in his ability to stop the runaway horse. But we might need to backtrack if we want to explore this amazing gift. When we reflect back into the story, we notice an easy-to-skip-over detail about his initiative. In order to get on the path of the horse, he had to set out in search of a spring—that’s an image of the water of life. This action, the willingness to go after the water of life, although subtle it’s an opposite to laziness, and it leads to the connection with horsepower, with the spirit being, and with the “tatema” treasure.

       The focus on this moment in a story is what we’re calling resonance, and our backtracking and circling around the “hotspot” shows the beginning of “amplification.” To amplify is to increase understanding. Often it involves zooming in like we just did to get a fine focus on Luis’ action. Amplification also works by circling around a theme through finding different translations of a story, variations on the theme, and similar stories. Often we need multiple perspectives on an archetypal image if we are to gain enough texture so that applications to our individual lives can be appropriated.

        We amplify the moment where Luis goes in search of a spring by looking at other stories where a character looks for the water of life. One comes from the Grimms tales and another is from the Arabian Nights collection. A version of the Grimms’ “Water of Life” is included in Shah’s World Tales, and the hardback version has powerful illustrations by Melvyn Grant.

       "Golden Water" comes from Arabian Nights and contributes to our amplification by emphasizing female characters. It even features a younger sister who becomes a mother and has a third child who is female. This double presentation lets us see a continued development of the character that is needed to search out the water of life.

        Our resonance and amplification of the water-of-life theme can be portrayed like this:

1. We are struck by the advanced embodiment of a quality in Luis. He has been labeled as “lazy” but we see he has amazing capacity and wonder how a person might develop this ability. We might also note that sometimes a wonderful gift is not seen by others and even can be desecrated by them.

2. When we amplify this point of resonance with the Grimms’ “Water of Life,” we see the development of the younger son (who also is incorrectly perceived as weak). His character includes love and humility, instead of arrogance. We watch how his rather naive love progresses through suffering into a love that can face evil and that can design necessary strategy for dealing with betrayal.

3. When we amplify further with the Arabian Nights’ “Golden Water,” the person who has capacity to bring back the water of life is shown to have an advanced capacity for strategy related to self-defense.

4. The amplification of the water-of-life theme suggests next steps that might involve exploration of a related theme such as the nature of guidance. Concerning guides, our sequence of stories included 1) a spirit-being who just suddenly appears, 2) a small but powerful voice that has to be respected, 3) a semi-hidden dervish, and 4) a talking bird!

        Because exploration of the water-of-life theme offers to guide us in relation to the essential dimensions of life, it’s a good one for amplification. When we look for comparison stories that feature the water-of-life theme, we find it’s been labeled as tale-type 551 in the system devised by Aarne-Thompson-Uther (ATU). It’s classified within the category 550 “Supernatural Helpers.” Wikipedia shows links to 13 stories associated with “Water of Life” from around the world; sometimes the healing comes through something other than water.

       The guidance we find in amplification does not provide a roadmap, of course; but it does give us clues about the development of character that contribute to an enriched life. For example, in the Grimms’ version, the youngest son is motivated through love of his father in sharp contrast with his brothers’ desire for status and wealth. While his good heart helps him get the advice, directions, and resources he needs to get to the water of life, we find that love as he initially knows it won’t be enough. He is too trusting and has to suffer the development of a more mature love that includes discernment of traitors. His older brothers may be related by blood but they’re not related by heart, and he has to learn that love can include being strategic.

        In our primary textbook, On the Origin of Stories, Brian Boyd develops the meaning of reciprocal altruism: “I help you in the expectation that you may help me later” (p. 57). Boyd features this concept in his chapter “The Evolution of Cooperation” and continues throughout the book to show how reciprocal altruism has played a vital role in the survival of species and how it continues to be very significant in human’s cognitive development. Our ability to enact reciprocal altruism could be a significant development connected with the archetypal image of the water of life. Stories provide us with models of effective incorporation of reciprocal altruism in our lives.

        Passages from Boyd that elaborate reciprocal altruism include these:

"Cheaters will thrive in exchanges with altruists unless altruists discriminate against—refuse further exchange with, or actively punish—cheaters" (p. 57.

"For altruism to work robustly a whole suite of motivations has to be in place: sympathy, so that I am inclined to help another; trust, so that I can offer help now and expect it will be somehow repaid later; gratitude, to incline me, when I have been helped, to return the favor; shame, to prompt me to repay when I still owe a debt; a sense of fairness, so that I can intuitively gauge an adequate share or repayment; indignation, to spur me to break off cooperation with or even inflict punishment on a cheat; and guilt, a displeasure at myself and fear of exposure and reprisal to deter me from seeking the short-term advantages of cheating. We can reverse-engineer the social and moral emotions so central to our engagement with others in life and in story. (note 21) Rather than merely taking these emotions as givens, we can account for them as natural selection's way of motivating widespread cooperation in highly social species" pp. 57-58.

The Long View of Old-Growth Cultures

Looking north, predawn, March 19, 2016.

In our study of Good Stories, in addition to reading print versions of the stories, the primary text has been Brian Boyd’s On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Standing out to me from his survey of the dynamics among his subtitle’s three forces are two essential themes: cooperation and reciprocal altruism. In order to survive (evolution), in order to advance thinking and consciousness (cognition), and in order to engage, to imagine, and thus to advance culture (fiction/story), good guys need to work and play together (cooperation). In my simplified paraphrase, Boyd even asserts that for the good guys to advance culture and civilization, they must be willing to punish those persons who share with the goons. To put it even more starkly: altruism has to be strategic; new-agey unconditional love gives away too much to the haters. Boyd says:

Cheaters will thrive in exchanges with altruists unless altruists discriminate against—refuse further exchange with, or actively punish—cheaters. . .

For altruism to work robustly a whole suite of motivations has to be in place: sympathy, so that I am inclined to help another; trust, so that I can offer help now and expect it will be somehow repaid later; gratitude, to incline me, when I have been helped, to return the favor; shame, to prompt me to repay when I still owe a debt; a sense of fairness, so that I can intuitively gauge an adequate share or repayment; indignation, to spur me to break off cooperation with or even inflict punishment on a cheat; and guilt, a displeasure at myself and fear of exposure and reprisal to deter me from seeking the short-term advantages of cheating. We can reverse-engineer the social and moral emotions so central to our engagement with others in life and in story. Rather than merely taking these emotions as givens, we can account for them as natural selection's way of motivating widespread cooperation in highly social species. (pp. 57-58; Kindle, 686-691)

         A refreshing complement to Boyd has come in reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Kimmerer, a botanist and the director of the Center forNative Peoples and the Environment, also shares her vision in a 2012 TED talk: Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest.  Perhaps her text will soon be added as required reading for Good Stories. Reciprocity strands through Kimmerer’s scientific accounts of plant life and her reflections on the teachings they offer for sustainable living as well as for depth of meaning, extending even into the spiritual realm. I continue to be moved by her grace in re-member-ing our country’s colonization of the “new world” and its many native inhabitants: stone, plant, animal, and human.

         One particular section contributes especially to the prospects for cooperation. In her study of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, she underscores a kind of bittersweet hope for us in our time of endangered global warming.

         When resources begin to run short, as they always will, cooperation and strategies that promote stability—strategies perfected by rainforest ecosystems—will be favored. The breadth and depth of these reciprocal symbioses are especially well developed in old-growth forests, which are designed for the long haul.

         Industrial forestry, resource extraction, and other aspects of human sprawl are like salmonberry thickets—swallowing up land, reducing biodiversity, and simplifying ecosystems at the demand of societies always bent on having more. In five hundred years we exterminated old-growth cultures and old-growth ecosystems, replacing them with opportunistic culture. Pioneer human communities, just like pioneer plant communities, have an important role in regeneration, but they are not sustainable in the long run. When they reach the edge of easy energy, balance and renewal are the only way forward, wherein there is a reciprocal cycle between early and late successional systems, each opening the door for the other. (p. 284)

         In my own experience, I’m cautiously hopeful in voluntarily taking less while increasing gratitude and seeking more deeply while expecting multiplicity. Love, for example, comes in so many colors and textures. In sleeplessness at two a.m., love invites meditation. A touch of pain advises adjusting motion: slow down while weeding and hear the birdsong. Hurt feelings expand care and prioritize inner understanding over external approval.

         And stories, the good ones, open windows to rooms capable of holding all this. Our next one might be “The Mechanical Horse” because it pushes us to realize the dangers of demanding immediate gratification. The eye wanting it right now loses the soft gaze that attends to hard wisdom found in old-growth cultures.

To Long for the Apprehension of Wonder

Life at the edge of wonder opens wordlessly in the poetry of images, in awe, having to remember to breathe.

         And then words come in, in this shimmering veil of thin apprehension, fearing the magical immediacy slip away. The words I wish to return then: “Fear not. For I am with you.”

         Love is always present. But how to know it in sadness, even in grief, depression? There the wished-for security, the holding-still power of language, fails. How can the word love contain ecstasy and despair the way deep inarticulate knowing does? So we’re released from words back to the dance, the just-enough, the unquenched longing.

         Perhaps that’s why I love the fog, once in awhile.

         Teaching, like learning, at least as I aspire to move within them, long for this apprehension of wonder. That’s where my search belongs: how do we move so fully prepared to risk the presence. How to hunger for the taste of words unashamed of being fragile, of disappearing like the fog, and to be left wrapped in silent warmth.

         Not many educators mumble around like this, distrusting the adequacy of the published word. Rarely I feel companionship, but I do with Robin Wall Kimmerer. She bravely and beautifully writes in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants:

“To have agency in the world, ceremonies should be reciprocal co-creations, organic in nature, in which the community creates ceremony and the ceremony creates communities. They should not be cultural appropriations from Native peoples. But generating new ceremony in today’s world is hard to do. . . [especially when we] lack an active, reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human world.” (Pages 250-1)Earlier she summarized: “The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. My job was just to lead them into the presence and ready them to hear.” (Page 221)

         Robin’s writings help me articulate my focus in teaching. It’s on gift, on giving back. To discern the advent of life, authentic flow of gusto, the joyful embrace that affirms the connection with the source, love. “I was a hidden treasure and wanted to be known” (e.g., Chittick, Sufism, 77-). Love is the presence of the beloved, the eye of the creative force looking back into the Source of Love, the life-giving gift, the indwelling presence, spirit in matter, the voice of gratitude. My intention in Good Stories, echoing Robin: that we enter the presence, ready for giving.