A Scattered Light

There is a real beauty in the struggle of worship, carved out of ritual and performed exactingly. It indicates the path we all take, religious or not, in keeping up with the daily mundane of up and out and down and up to work and home and back. Why do move as we do? What do we do with our time? And most importantly, is it being well spent?

In religious fervor, we work for the purpose of an idea we will never hold. Why? For something never seen, a gesture never to be returned in any way we can record and broadcast and say “HEY” at the top of your lungs to the world “THIS IS WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT.”

Two examples of work in ritual.
And then a small personal note.

____________

At the bottom edge of the Richmand District among pastel colored surburban homes, there is a church of international worship. On Fridays, scattered patrons from all over the city sit in silence for 30 minutes. I came early. It was a still room. Even as the keepers of the space clanked down rows of chairs and chatted lightly, the silence seemed to vibrate between every sound. A wood panel painting of a many armed Hindu Goddess sprawled across the back wall. Black and white pictures of kind faced budavista hung on the walls. My socks slid soft on the hard wood floor and I closed my eyes, breathed in and waited for the room to fill.

They came in bike shorts. In bright orange wrap-around sweaters and loose fitting t-shirts. Black ribbed dress socks beside rainbow knee-highs beside dusty white sweat sock across the floor. Dharma Punks. Sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, this week’s group lead waited for everyone to settle.

“So
we do some light mediation first here, right.
Ummm…
am I supposed to guide you…because I swear
it’s really not that hard.”

Everyone laughs and waits none the less for him to lead. Putting his hand palms up on his knees, he sighs and says,

“So,
we had started.”

It started with body scans. Each body part was isolated, sensation felt there and there alone. Pain comes and goes with nothing but a notice. And inch develops and, if possible, you regard it as a curiosity, let it grow and shrink of it’s own accord.

“Let go of sensation,” he tells us in a low voice.
“Allow your mind focus just on being. Let everything pass.
If you find yourself wandering, come back to your breathe without the slightest judgment.
Come back to your body and breathe until that too came be released.”

I let out nice wet sneeze about half way through, though I was proud at least feeling it come. It was not unlike the rush after a bite of horseradish. Except instead of making strange faces or grabbing someone else water, you are dedicated to letting the uncomfortable rush take you without response and without force. And then, try for five minutes just letting your mind not wander somewhere. In a room without movement, without sound, without thought, we worked.

____________

Sunday morning. I am in the Fillmore. The oldest of the prodomately black neighborhoods in San Francisco. Through the mid 40s and early 50s, it was host to dozens of night clubs and hosted all of the major jazz artist of the day. The blossoming of this musical community has been likened to the Harlem Renissance, thus earning it the title “Harlem of the west.” After mass migration to outskirts of the city after World War II, the neighborhood gradually fell into eccnomic hard times. It was delt a death blow in 1953, when the first of many houses within the neighborhood was torn down as part of the 1949 Housing Act. In 2000 the San Francisco Redevelopment agency, in an attempt to revitalize the neighborhood, designated the old Fillmore Jass Presercation Distict and cleaned up lower Fillmore street, planting trees and repaving it with sidewalk tributes to it’s forgotten past.

I am in the Church of the Saint John Coltraine, a recent arrival in the neighborhood. In simple white walled room, a jazz quartet is warming up. The drummer leans back against the window and stare out into the street.

“Cold out there today.” He says.
“Dark.”

In center stage, his back to the audence, the saxiphonist in white linen, takes his lips from the reed and smiles.

“That’s fine. We just have to bring it out ourselves.”

The launch into a beautiful uptempo rendition of “I want to talk about you.” More musican join, setup and join in as the congregation fills. Leaning against the walls there are huge wood panels filled with dark colors and clean lines. They are of Jesus and angels, thick black dreds hanging down their backs, staring straight outward with stong, stoic face. The panel in front, right behind the sax player, is of John Coltrane himself. He is holding a clarinet spitting fire in one hand and scroll in the other. Unfurled it says, “Let all songs be songs sung to God.”

Two tall teenaged sons, an adorable afro-puffed pigtailed daughter and several elders of varying ages come in from the back. They are standing, all together, on stage, bouncing to the start of a new song while still standing some how uniformly tall and straight. The oldest of the group takes to the mic.

“I want to invite you all to stand. This is a participary service. If you know the words the litergy, please sing along. They are the same, just placed to the compositions of John Coltrane. Please join us in praise.”

“Come on now
you can do beter then that.
If you can’t sing claps your hands.

If you can’t clap stomp you feet.” says the bishop Franzo Wayne King, floating into the front. His long black rope ballows out as he dances. We in the crowd move stiffly, not sure what to do with ourselves. The sax player turns to the side and lets out a familiar wail. Several gather around a second microphone as the pianist holds down a firm low four note beat. In between repetitions, they sing-speak:

“In Jesus’ name”
“In Jesus’ name”

The pianist paints in some high chords, and the sax takes off again pulling every other instrutments in the room along for the ride. Each musican jumps off in there own time, blasting an extactic solo until the room is a wall of clashing notes. The crowd warms, stomping, and swinging as the choir sings full voiced in front. Loose percussions are gradulatly grabbed, at first after permission, soon enough just as soon as the spirt moved. Our hands are in the air. I close my eyes and bang a tambarine against flat of my palm, sweaty now, swinging my head in time. Together with the choir, we chant on the foundation progression of the pianist through the chaos until the music slowly ebbs away, one instrution at a time. The chant becomes a dulls to a low incantation.

“A Love Supreme”
“A Love Supreme”

It was a firey sermon filled with prompts for amens from a hesitant congregation.

“It’s been a hard week yall.
sometimes it’s hard for us to have
compassion to
look to the man slighting you,
slighting the world even,
and praise God still
pray for him
like yourself.

Amen?

You know,
Saint Coltrane said once
we are all on the path to personal
salvation
in the name of
our god.
that all of us a trying in
their own way and I’m sorry
sometime
I have to ask:
Is George Bush trying?”

The sermon focused on Jesus’ response a question from the Pharisees in Matthew
Lord, what do you think is greatest the commandments.

And we drew laughter from descriptions the smoothness of Christ in answering challengers and not passing judgment all the same. And he made us sit, made us shout in agreement, of the viture of tact and grace when faced with the same pressures. But above all, though, his focus, the sermon’s focus was this:
That you should love God
with your whole heart
your whole soul
mind and body and strength.

And after that,
that you should love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two, all law and commandments hang.
-Matthew 22:36-40

“John says let all songs be
songs sung to God and let
all expressions be of praise
and thanks
to him.”

____________

Discipline, struggle, and thankfulness. Regardless of where I look for answers and what rituals I observe, these things stand out as the necessary lessons. It will be a hard path. It comes gradule with much practice until at last it is a part of you, as you move on to even greater leasons. And yet, long as the road seems, we must be thankful for every step, taking each one with our all because we know without question they are a part of something both all us and beyond ourselves. With this mind, I write from an airport in Denver, Colorado, going from the perfect sun of Indian summer San Francisco to the deceased fall of Philadelphia. Life has been amazing back in the Sucka Free and the lessons and relationships have been invaluable. Part of me will always be there, and I can’t wait to come back. But for now, it is time go back to the place of my birth and get some discipline. I look forward to sharing the praise from work along with you.

[Dharma Punx - San Francisco Chapter]
[2650 Fulton St. @ 3rd Ave.]
[Friday @ 7:30]

[Church of the Saint John Coltrane]
[1286 Fillmore Street]
[Sundays @ 12:00]

I was talking to a friend of mine named Russell Gonzaga, a long time San Francisco poet and practicing Sufi, about the nature of sin one night several weeks ago. He informed me that the root comes from a Greek word that means, "to miss a mark." It was said after a day of deep contemplation of where along the road of life I had come. He said this in what I perceived as a means of comfort. While the act of sinning remained, hidden in the true meaning of the word was the truth that to sin is simply to missing hitting a moral target. When left with this, all that can be done is to try again.

This week I have no Sunday story of worship to share with you. Punishing myself for deeds not done the day before, I simply did not move this past morning, despite telling myself that I would go, once again, to the kingdom hall of the week before, on time this time, perhaps to stop this correspondence with the world once and for all and start back on the narrow path. Taking a extra couple sleeping pills and drinking a couple extra beers, I thought as my mind lazed about the room, that if I lived through the night maybe it was a sign that I needed to get right with God. Besides, I can't really die from taking a few extra pills, right? And if I did, perhaps that was just what needed to happen.

There where some tense moments, as always happens with suicide events involving what in reality are too few pills to finish the job. Lying back in bed, I remember the jolting grip of vertigo as the pills took their effect. The room rocked as if on the ocean and I could feel my control over consciousness giving way. Both frustratingly and encouragingly, I also felt my brain spoil on with thought every time I felt my eyes flutter, refusing despite my self to just drift off into what for every intention would probably harmless, deep sleep. Later, convincing myself that regardless of the effects I needed to simply allow myself to fully experience without filters, I felt myself rise at the waist, my eyes wide open, the room permanently tilted to the right. I had just turned of the light, dedicated at the very least to having some fully formed dreams, and I had just become accustom to the darkness. I lifted slowly, detached and scattered yet cognizant, when I realized with a fright that I was dreaming and rolled over to the other side of the bed.

The next morning I stayed in bed through the radio, though several snooze alarms, through hunger pains and a full blatter, until at last I was forced from my bed for the last sure visage of an anchor I have, the fingersnaps salon on 1035 market. Rolling out of bed at quarter to six or so, I took the long way, the 71, rolling above ground down haight street and across market a block or two at a time. I think I hoped the sunshine and bright colors of the street would cheer me up. I got there to find Mike Lang, a good friend from what now seemed like a long past life, come to check out the show. Relating my current status, combined with the thought of the previous night, my excitement was quickly turned to shame, leading to a brief meltdown and an thoughly immature storming out and walking down the street, convinced I would leave it all behind me and go back the Philadelphia. A call from Guinevere, my sister and co-host at the show, lead me to go back to push through one more time. The show went fine, though I was less then myself though most of it. All in all, I should I have just let some things stay off the mike.

I say all of this to say this. This week was a miss. And unfortunately, there is nothing to report to you, oh invisible fun-tube cathedral, but the typical meanderings and excuses of the day. I could talk about after the show, gathered in Kirsten's room cutting up old Rolling Stones, relating old dreams and writing out madlibs in a circle. Or today, relaxing with friends on a perfectly foggy San Francisco day in front of a man, so dead baby sleep I thought for second this perfect day was his dream and we where just characters inside of it. Or now, sitting up at 4 am tapping in the darkness, where just days before I prayed for death and now I wonder how interesting job it would be to just make coffee and watch the moments past. A simple life of observation. All that was a miss.

This week though, it's the Church of Saint Coltrane with a blockade of friends. And hopefully, a week with one or two more hits.

[Fingersnaps Salon]
[1035 market street]
[opens 7, starts 7:30]
[open for anything ;)]

I am late as usual. For as long as I can remember, there was always am early and a late meeting, 9am and 12. And every year the congregations sharing the hall would switch, letting the other sleep in for a few more hours. I foolishly figured that all Kingdom Halls worked this way. Not to off base a thought, I guess.

Go to any country and the witnesses are there, in the neat, formal dress of their homelands, praying as one on Sunday morning, studying the same literature in a language they have always known. There are tweaks here and there; the pictures across the front of the Watchtower reflecting the makeup of the region or occasional stories of locally based missionaries. But when traveling between the halls of Jehovah’s Witnesses, regardless of what you think of the doctrine, the unity of practice is both incredible and terrifying. No matter where my family had traveled through the years, walling into the hall always felt like home.

Sleeping in despite the urgancy of last week, I walked down a surprisingly residential street to a converted rowhome with big beds of purple flowers in front. I was immediately suspious of my timing. The front of the hall was quiet and cars where few. I walked up to the front door and saw what I thought may have been a self fulfilling prophesy. Public talk and watchtower study, 10:30 am. I missed the whole thing. I grabbed for the door, hearing a voice inside commenting on some sister’s comment during the question and answer session, and let go immediately. I was late; it wasn’t meant to be; I guess that was it.

I’ve moved twice a year for the last 5 years and in that time my personal items has grown and shrank often. Items come and go and I lost more then few things that should not have been lost. How do you lose two printers, and jigsaw and ironing board? Why did I get a jigsaw in the first place? Over all this time, though, I have always keep with me a little leather New World Translation, the standard bible for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Until recently it had gone pretty much unused. Still I could not find it in me to throw it way. This morning, though, in the bustle of getting ready to return to the hall, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Of all the days to be without a bible, I thought. I was running out of time and left for the hall without it.Walking away, I thought I could at least get a new bible. I had come all that way. Maybe I could just read a couple proverbs when I got home and call it a day. So backward I turned and up the stairs I went. I breathed deeply and opened the door.

The love in the room was incredible. Immediately, people gathered, asking where I was from, how long I had been in town and what my story was up to this point. Everywhere there where firm handshakes from men in suit and tie and soft hand holds from sisters in sundresses, bowing their heads slightly. I was amazed the diversity of the congregation. North Philadelphia, where I grew up, was a rooted black community, strong in church regardless of denomination. It was hard to imagine a Kingdom Hall not like that, after so much time. But here, in loose and friendly fellowship, every ethnic group mingled, laughed and smiled with full, bright smiles. It is a characteristic of San Francisco, I know. But to see it transplanted in a place I always felt deep down was so insular was a surprising thing.

Walking out of the hall, I felt my breath deepen. It was a new kind of air outside. I don’t know what the trip will lead to. But I know that I felt a peace there I was disconnected from for a long time. It’s good to know you can go back home again. What’s holding me back from returning for good? This, I thought, must be what pride is like.

[Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses - Sunset]

[1666 46th Ave]

[(415) 566-1500]
[Sundays 10:30]

Clearly I am the character here.

As much as I wanted this to be trip around san Francisco worship, as much as I feel there is a need for a true unbiased survey what people are doing in their search for something greater, I have a feeling that for now, for me, I need to write something a bit more real first. Perhaps this will lead to something with more substance then the little world I have created around me, but for now there are clearly some things that need airing out and for better or worst, this is where they need to happen. So for today's addition, I went to the park.

Two days ago I lost my job. A fine job, one I could do competently and that provided the perfect balance between life and work. Three weeks later I got the call to go into my manager's office. And like that it was done. I was in euphoric mood at first, thinking finally the time to devote to my writing, finally the chance to break once and for all from the tedious bonds of the tech sector. Then reality set in, along with a deep depression. After struggling to silence my mind, I rushed outside to our ill-tended backyard and sat Indian style on dead earth and shriveled weeds. I thought about a lot of things. Mostly, I let a tide of regret surge into me. I thought of the past I let you take a peak at two posting before, and of a future unlike this one. I dreamed of an ordinary future with a wife and child and stalwart faith in God who loved me with life without end ahead. I realized it was my fault that I lost that job, that it was a symptom of me letting go of the values I had grown up with and had worn without question. I could have been such a better man. I praied that it was not too late. That moment I notice besided me a flower, tall and thin, with brilliant orange petals. In the middle of all this death, a single flower. That is a miracle, I thought, that is my miracle. It was the most beautiful thing I could think of. I immediately called up my Dad.

Today, after being locked out of the house, I took a walk down the street to golden gate park and somehow found my way to the huge botanical garden right near my home in the sunset. It is a "living museum" full of plants from all over the world. I saw Big Reds with downward hanging bells the color of blood hanging off of dark green stalks. Happy wanderers spread across an embankment with fine thin stems like capillaries and delicate new leaves. There was one loose bush of an off-white flower with deep purple insides and an orange tipped stamen bursting out the middle. Particularly interesting was the sight of the progression, with shriveled tubes of half-blooms waiting underneath and still younger paper cocoons folded like lanterns. Everywhere there was perfect beauty, a balance and variety I never really new existed in nature before. For all debate over creation and evolution, for all the certainty at which I thought I had put the issue to rest in my mind, I could not help but look at the magic in front of me and think where was the thankfulness for this life we have been given, where such beautiful things exist right down the street from us.

I wandered there for a long time, touching the spiky things and smelling fresh sawdust and soil, watching the animals interact. I have heard and absorbed much talk of God being within us and learning to love other by loving ourselves first, but here for the first time in a while I felt truly humbled and unworthy. Seeing all the creation around me, I felt foolish for taking the blessings of my life and throwing them back in the face of my creator so presumptuously. What did I expect from life? What did I actually see in this life I was leading?

Next week, I am going back home. For the first time in a long time, I am going to try going to a meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses. I unfortunately have become one of those people who only reach out to God in times of crisis. I pray he will find it in his heart to forgive me one more time.

[San Francisco Botanical Garden]
[9th Avenue at Lincoln Way]
[Weekdays, 8 am to 4:30 pm. Weekends & holidays, 10 am to 5 pm]

And so it starts, bright and early Sunday morning, September 17, 2006.

I am joining my friend Troy for a very special meeting at the San Francisco chapter of Soka Gakkai International, a fast spreading international Buddhist network dedicated to promoting “peace, culture and education though personal change and social contribution.” Lofty goals. I, for the morning, was dealing with a much simpler problem. After a lifetime of Sunday mornings, it seems I lost my morning worship rhythm. By the time I climbed my way over Petraro Hill and towards the simple, stately compound, I was just about ready to fall dead asleep right then and there. It was a start though, and nothing starts easy, so pushing my shades up my nose and munching on a fresh piece of gum, I went meet with Troy inside of the Ikeda auditorium.

“I hope that when you experience hardship, you will always change it into something better to fuel your dreams. I myself have experienced malicious slander and criticism many times. But I consider these experiences as the honor of life presented to me for fulfilling my mission. Because I think in this manner, I fear nothing and joyfully advance along the path that I have chosen.”

These are the words of Daisaku Ikeda, Nichiren Buddhism practitioner, writer, and president of SGI. Born of a poor parents and hard work, his is both a remarkable and familiar story. The cloud of World War 2 loomed large in his early life, killing off his brother and providing the seed for a lifelong quest for peace. Like many influential movers of the people, this quest leaded neatly into a search for spiritual fulfillment. In his late teens he met peace activist and Nichiren Buddhist monk Josei Toda. His journey from then to now has led to a range of books, a UN Peace Medal, the record for the most honorary doctorates held by one person and of course, me, walking into a dark room laced with gold and off-white.

I rush in, slide in the back beside Troy and yawn a bit too loud. In a low sound that I almost mistake for the background hum of the radio, chants fill in the space between the greetings of friends. Troy sits unnoticing of me, washing sky blue beads together between his raised hands and training his eyes on the scroll mounted in the middle of the stage.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo Nam-myoho-renge-kyo Nam-myoho-renge-kyo

The room fills at it’s own pace and the lights rise slowly on stage. A man in black walks on with a microphone, knells before the scroll and intones along with us.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo Nam-myoho-renge-kyo Nam-myoho-renge-kyo

The scroll, scrawled in black ink with Sanskrit and Chinese characters of various sizes, is the Gohonzon. It was intended as a pure expression of enlightenment and looking at it, I couldn’t help but think of standing front of big Jackson Pollock painting. The criss-crossing patterns of character strokes left my eyes always exploring, subtracting out sections and meshing them back together again. The invocation rose to a roar around me.

Dong

Naammm
Mmyooo
hoooooo
Rennnnn
geeeeeee
kkkyooo

The man in black hits a dark glazed bell and guides us out the chorus and into a rapid-fire recitation of the Lotus Sutra, the height of Buddhist wisdom in this particular tradition. Troy whips out a small booklet and follows along the roller-coaster of long vowels sounds. The level of commitment was evident here, as some with eye locked on the Gohonzon rattled of the words with effortless focus, while some, heads down, reserved to scan across the page and mumble what they could. Before long the bell ranged out once again and the audience sat in silence as its trembling afterglow trialed off into nothing. Open my eyes, the man in black was gone, in his place tall young women in a flowing layer skirt grinned like a 5 year old.

“Hellooo,” she said warmly, “My name’s Gloria and I would like to welcome you to the 3rd Annual SGI Art Conference. This years theme: ☺ Let your dreams take flight!”

It was a weird contrast, but she was pretty and I liked art. I immediately assumed modern reproductions of the Gohonzon, vast picture planes of green with a little black stroke in middle to meditate on, or clever canvas bare and raw hold only the word “Nothing” in the middle in ink. The true was much realer then that. Dimming the light and turning on a projector, the room is filled with the smooth jazz stylings of “The Rimshots” as handmade newsletters and photo portraits from weddings flash across the screen. Some of it impressed me more, but it struck me fairly quickly that the point was not what was “good” or not. The focus seems more on the work of the community in whatever form it took. It was reflected in the crowd, all in comfortable, casual wear, laughing at pictures from that events and hooting when their friend’s work flashed on the screen. As is probably the central lesson of this project, the more one strips off the falseness of the mystical, the more one comes the truth: that religion, ultimately, is just about people coming together in whatever way they can.

I fell asleep sometime between the aria and the start of live feed of one of organization’s teachers. I didn’t mean to. I fought to keep focus all through the long slideshows and praising the work of organization. But it was, you know, dark. And they had comfy chairs.

“People go though life feeling they are making big changes. Yes, lets go get that new job, react this new plateau. When they get there, though, they find it is eventual the same movie, with different characters swapped in. Life become ever repeating chore.”

I snapped back into attention at this. I myself has just started work again after a four-month hiatus. I expected things to come together better this time. But ultimately, it seems you are always left with what you had in the first place. A job. A means to an end you would gladly do without if you could. Same shit, a different day.

“But, by learning to let go these…these expectations of life; by instead focusing on the inside life, the peace that lives within; here we can truly take control our path and live the dreams we have held inside of us since childhood. This is why….”

“Brother, it is one a clock and I’m getting hungry.” Troy’s beads are all packed up inside a little red embroidered case. I look at my cell phone and rub my eyes as the crowd’s claps see off the speaker. The screen arise and in the middle of the stage, the Gohonzon shines brilliantly.

“Let’s go.”

[SGI San Francisco Cultural office]
[2450 17th Street, San Francisco CA 94110]
[(415) 255 - 6007]

The other.

It is our first and only fear. An uncontrollable quantity that is separate from the orderly flow of the world we understand. I always imagined that the more interesting of these other worldly fears take hold before our memories even form, in some chance little encounter that would otherwise go unnoticed. A blue raspberry blowpop slips from your tiny fingers, through stitching of your stroller, down an open drain. A squeaky plastic ball the color of the sky bounces down the stairs and out of view. A wall of thick itchy aqua fabric rolls over your mama's plump breast and there you have it. A phobia curls its way into your brain and you bomb a job interview with the guy in a blue power tie. You blame a slow tongue and your raggedy ass fingernails, but deep down you know what happened. You failed because you held on to a superstition.

My father was a preacher and a carpenter and our house was built around God. Everyday had a label of devotion across the top that made all else irrelevant. We always prayed at 5 on a thickly stained wood table, bowing our heads in unison thinking thoughts of thanks for the pork chops and the butter cabbage laid before us.

On Mondays the dinner went leisurely. We didn't have anywhere to go and the night would be spent with each member at their own corner of the house, deep in bible study.

On Tuesdays the dinner was rushed, each of us pondering what to wear and if we where sufficiently prepared for service meeting and theocratic ministry school.

Wednesdays' went wonderfully, unless we left our book study studing to the last minute. Being the firstborn, I tried to keep this to a minimum and generally looked forward to the informal gathering of 20 or so fellow Witnesses, commenting on questions from the comfort of couches in the homes of our congregation's elders.

A Scattered Light

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Friday, September 22, 2006

Monday, September 18, 2006

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