Planting Our Gardens

This was a week of planting flowers.

A few days ago, I’m able to tend some flowers in our town’s community garden. Over a cup of coffee, a young man and I talk about changing attitudes in this community. Two street preachers have periodically shown up on Main Street, condemning homosexual love, accosting young people, telling them they are going to hell.

One brave high school girl made a sign, and stood next to them on the street corner, contradicting their views. Her hand-lettered sign spoke of the idea that love is the highest human value, that everyone should be able to love who they choose to love, that homosexual love is an aspect of Christian love and compassion.

She was joined by others, and a Facebook group was created, #TillamookForLove, its members now close to 3,000. The preaching and the counter demonstrations became the talk of the town. The young girl’s actions were mentioned around the world, tweeted by Ellen DeGeneres and becoming a featured story in the Huffington Post.

The young man I had coffee with joined the girl and her supporters, taking a public stand on an issue dear to his heart. As often happens in a small town, and across America, people criticized him, condemned him, telling him he’s a sinner because of what he is willing to say. His job was at risk for what he believed in, what he spoke about on his own Facebook page.

Yes, fear and bigotry and discrimination, right in his face. Change his opinion or lose his job. The old beliefs, the old discriminatory, bigoted ways aren’t just something to talk about, not just some textbook First Amendment clash between freedom of religion and free speech. Now, it’s seeing the reality of imposing one’s own religious beliefs, and beliefs about who you can marry, to the point of crushing someone else’s right to their own opinion, to the point of getting fired.

Our coffee cools as we wrestle with his story, his pain and anguish, his moral dilemmas hitting his wallet and his conscience. Being called out for what you believe in and threatened with losing his job, his challenges and choices aren’t just an academic debate. He’s on the battlefield, and the spears and the clash of swords on the front lines aren’t confined to a history book. The blood being shed is real.

Bigotry and fear run deep in our little town and across our country. He’s still in shock about how deep the cancer grows, how quickly the moral question got personal. The ugliness is something we both don’t like to see, don’t like to admit is thinking that is all too common. What is the price of his own conscience?

Yet, he knows his own mind, and he knows his standards of ethics and morality. Quietly, firmly he speaks his mind, knowing that he can sleep well tonight, knowing he made the right call, knowing that his beliefs are truly his own, that getting fired for what he believed in was really the best response to his boss, his own epiphany for what we are facing.

I shake his hand, seeing real courage across the table, feeling proud that he knows himself well enough to know his own mind, that he’s confident enough to follow his Truth, and live according to his own heart.

This flower garden is growing well. The weeds have been called out and named. Weeds are being pulled and beautiful flowers have been planted. Strong plants send their roots deep into the soil of this young man’s heart, his morality strong and fertile.

Today, I plant some flowers of my own, going to a nearby prison and planting flowers inside the fence, behind the locked gate that slams shut every time I leave.

The young men I visit, several other volunteers, and I weed flower beds. We work on setting the supports for a new arbor in fresh cement, finish the week’s projects, and tidy up the garden. This weekend, the young men will host a Family Day, with food and games, and tours of their garden. Proudly, they will show off their hoop house, their raised beds and chickens, showing off all the growing that has been going on.

The youths clean up the garden and carry out their tasks, making the place shine, their flowers and vegetables thriving under their careful and meticulous gardening skills. They are learning a great deal in their class, where they are studying a wide range of subjects. I help correct their homework, and work with them, one on one, as they delve into the hands-on work of both the academic work and their hoop house and raised bed projects. Their work is top notch, and their gardens reflect the pride they are taking in their agricultural work, and the rebuilding of their lives. It is garden work on many levels.

We work happily together, asking questions, sharing our knowledge, expanding our curiosity about how sunshine, dirt, seeds, and tender care can produce vigorous growth. The young men ask great questions, get their hands dirty, and do the weeding, pruning and fertilizing they need to change themselves, and move on with their lives, becoming healthy, and vigorous young men. I’m given the task of adding several flats of marigolds to some bare spots in the flowerbeds. I create my own slice of Eden, being a role model for the young men, and adding some beauty to this world behind the fence and the barbed wire. A young man takes the time to admire my work, and ask me some questions about pruning. Our talk goes deep, until I answer what he is really asking.

Lives are changed here. I’m thankful I’m able to dig my trowel into the receptive soil of these young men, and plant some flowers.

This week, the gardens of our community have needed a great deal of work. Hard decisions have been made, and the spade work, hoeing and planting have made us sweat. The gardeners have new blisters, some new aches and pains. We’ve pulled the weeds and planted new flowers, and we are ready for a little more sunshine and truth in our lives.

—-Neal Lemery, May 29, 2015

Taking Mandela’s Life Into My Heart

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” — Nelson Mandela

Many words are being written about the life and the death of this great man. He lived a life of courage, living his convictions, and, in spite of overwhelming pain and suffering and obstacles, he did what was right. He focused on what was decent, and what was just, and moved others ahead, towards justice and compassion.

Each one of us can do the same. We may not be leaders of social movements, and we may not be able to speak to millions of people, become president of a country, or win the Nobel Prize. Yet, each of us, in our own ways, can lead lives of value, integrity, and advance those values and morals that we each hold dear.

I can do the right thing. Each one of us can. And, it starts with taking a step in that new, unfamiliar, often awkward direction.

Often, doing the right thing is profound, and astonishing to others. And, in that action, and in the act of others witnessing the doing of right, and the demonstration of living morally and righteously, changes their lives as well.

Nelson Mandela was all about change. And, he did that, one person at a time. His speeches, his writings, his one on one encounters, profoundly changed others, one person at a time.

His life was a way of giving all of us permission to encounter hatred and bigotry, and to be consciously active in not living with those values, and to work towards a higher good. He gave an example for us to follow. He let us see that we all have choices, and we can decide to live differently.

Living this is hard work, but also simple. Change your attitude, change your intention, and move in a different direction. Embrace love, and not hatred. Be intentional in what you do. Live your values.

The great people in history have done that, people who are able to show us simple truths, and to move the direction of their lives in accordance with those simple truths. The examples are powerful, and stun us with their sheer simplicity and beauty.

Yet, we make that choice hard, finding lots of excuses, and resisting moving out of our old habits, our old ways of thinking, and being seduced by the status quo, old ways of thinking, being caught up in the thought patterns of hatred, distrust, and fear.

I see people all around me being brave and courageous, just as Nelson Mandela lived, people dealing with hatred, prejudice, ignorance; people dealing with addictions, injustice, and fear. They face their challenges, they speak their values and morals out loud, and they move into action. They take life head on, and forge ahead, against the headwinds of social pressure and old ways of thinking and living, rejecting hatred and fear.

In the coming days, we will read and hear many wise words, and hear many stories about Nelson Mandela and his life. We will see the famous and powerful gather at his funeral and offer heartfelt eulogies. We will be inspired and we will honor his great contributions and how he helped bring change to his country, and how he provoked the world to follow his lead.

Yet, if we really want to honor his life, and to give meaning and celebration for the life that he lived, and how he helped to transform a culture of racism, intolerance and fear, into a society taking on bigotry and hatred, then each of us has to take his message and his life into our hearts. His message is about changing ourselves and our lives from within, to love ourselves and the world unconditionally.

How am I going to make a difference? How am I going to move forward, embracing and living unconditional love? How am I going to change myself and my community and move towards a healthy, peace-loving view of life? How do I respond to the hatred, bigotry and fear that I find inside of myself? Am I brave enough to move on and move away from what I don’t want to be?

Nelson Mandela called each of us to action. He wrote inspiring books, and gave motivating speeches. He practiced forgiveness and reconciliation. Yet, his intention was to call upon his readers and his listeners to look deep into their hearts, and to move into action, to live our values and our morals, to live lives filled with love and hope, with compassion and forgiveness.

Today, I will look deep inside of myself, calling out my morals and my ethics, calling out my true intentions for my life, and for this world. I will call out my fears and my biases, and put them out on the table for me, and the world, to see, in all that reality, warts and all. I will dig deep and I will take a wobbly step or two, and move ahead, towards my true intentions and my higher purpose.

—Neal Lemery, 12/6/2013

We Still Need To Dream

I’ve been wondering how I could commemorate Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, on the fiftieth anniversary this week of that watershed event in American society. I was ten years old, in 1963, and his words were part of that fire starting in my soul, the start of a passion for justice and possibility for every person. That fire burns in me still.

And, within an hour yesterday, I was immersed in an intensive, hands on, exploration of racism and prejudice in my community, and the experiences tested that fire inside of me, and got it to blazing into a righteous bonfire.

I’d gone into town for a haircut and a cup of coffee, maybe working out at the gym. My regular barber wasn’t working, so I slipped into the chair of another hair stylist at the salon, telling her the few things I wanted in the haircut.

Another customer came in, interrupting us, insistent on getting her hair styled. I felt my stylist tense up, her jaw tight.

“I’m not able to take you today,” my stylist said, a slight edge in her voice. “Someone else will be here in fifteen minutes. You can come back then.”

The customer left, and my stylist flew into an animated discussion with me and the other stylist in the shop, about how that customer had ranted and raved about the “wetbacks” and “lazy Mexicans” the last time she was here for an appointment.

“Look, I’m Mexican,” the stylist said, her arms flailing, her scissors nearly flying out of her hand. “My family works hard. My husband is working two jobs, jobs most Americans won’t do. We’re not on welfare, we don’t have food stamps. We work hard for everything we have here.
“How dare she say we should go back to where we came from. Her ancestors were immigrants, too. If we go ‘back’, then, she should, too,” she said, her rapid snips with her scissors shaping up my shaggy mane.

“I’m not going to cut her hair. I’m not putting up with people who are racists, people who judge people by the color of their skin, or where they came from. I just don’t understand people like that.”

She cooled off a bit, then, and we had a rich conversation about prejudice, and bigotry, and people who lump a big group into some category, and have opinions that ignore the facts, ignoring how people work hard, and struggle, so that their kids can have good, productive lives.

I left the salon with one of the quickest haircuts I’ve ever had, newly energized by her anger, and again saddened by the rudeness and bigotry that was still alive and thriving in my hometown. My stylist wasn’t afraid about speaking her mind. And, if she can speak up, maybe I can, too. Her power and her courage were at my back as I headed for my car.
Ten feet out the door, a young friend came up and spoke to me, inviting me to go have a cup of coffee. We’d spent a day not long ago looking at universities, exploring options for him to study for his bachelor’s degree. We’d both learned a lot that day, and it would be fun to debrief a little, and find out what he’d been thinking about, what he was planning for his future.

As I unlocked the car, my phone rang. One of the guys I’ve been mentoring, a young man I now consider to be a son, was calling.

“I need some advice,” he said. “People at work want to know about my past, but if I tell them everything, then I think they will judge me, they will just think I’m just a criminal, they won’t really look beyond that, and see me for who I really am.”

We had a rich conversation, about prejudice, and bigotry, and how we all need to not let bigots get close to us, and put us down, judging us without really knowing us. About how we don’t need to let others manipulate us, and put us in pigeon holes, so that we don’t have to play the role of being less than someone else. Each of us has value, we are children of God, we are beautiful people. We are more than our skin color, or where our ancestors came from, we are more than one thing we might have done in the past.

We talked about self care, and standing up for yourself, about living life with pride and direction, purpose. We talked about appreciating people by their character, by their ethics and morals, and not by some preconceived, uninformed stereotype.

I told him the story of my hair stylist, how she had drawn the line in the sand, refusing to work with a client who would stereotype her, and put her down, to degrade and prejudge her life and her family.

He took that all in, and figured out a strategy on coping with people who would prejudge him and gossip about him, people who would easily put him into a category of “others”, people who wouldn’t appreciate him for the beautiful, creative, and loving person that he is inside.

I drove down the road to the coffee shop, running a bit late after my deep conversation with my son. My buddy was already sipping his coffee, his nose deep in a thick textbook, one that absorbed his curious mind about the science of his new job.

We talked about what he’d been learning about all the colleges and programs he could apply for, and all the careers he could explore.

And, we also talked about the conversation I had with the hair stylist, and her bigoted customer.

“I’m a wetback, too,” he said, with a bit of pride. “I came here when I was eight, because my mom wanted me to get an education, and make something out of my life.”

He talked about his struggles to make it through high school, and then community college. He talked about not being able to get a driver’s license, about working under the table at a farm, so he could help his family and find a few bucks for school clothes and books, and gas.

He talked about the farmer he used to work for, and how the farmer would rant and rave about all the wetbacks and illegal immigration, and how the government was wasting a lot of welfare money on the “dirty Mexicans”. And, then the farmer would pay him under the table, and not take anything out of his pay for taxes and social security, and how the farmer didn’t see the disconnect in his thinking, and about how the farmer was breaking the law, and taking advantage of those “dirty Mexicans”, the “dirty Mexicans” he happily underpaid to milk his cows and shovel manure and do all the other hard work that he couldn’t find anyone else around this town to do.

He talked about how tough it was to go through all the hoops and finally get an immigration card that lets him be here legally, as long as he’s going to school, and how it is still another ten years before he might become a citizen. And, how his parents still drive to work without a valid license, and how they can never become citizens, even though they’ve lived here for the last twelve years, they have jobs, and they make sure their kids get to school, how they are good people, people this country should be proud to have as citizens.

People just like my ancestors, my people who came over on the boat, who took the awful, low paying jobs, so that their kids could go to school, and their grandkids could be doctors, lawyers, and engineers.

He talked about getting stopped by a cop late one night, just him and the cop on a lonely, dark country road; and how the cop yelled at him for breaking the law, for finding a way to get a driver’s license from another state, so my buddy could still get back and forth to work, and college, and take care of his family. He talked about how the cop called him a “wetback” and how “you people” should go back where you came from.

I know this cop. I’ve been a lawyer and a judge and I’ve had the cop in court many times. I’ve never heard that viewpoint from him, and it’s probably good for him that I didn’t. I have a dream, too, thanks in part to Martin Luther King’s work and beliefs that society can change, that we can accept others for who they are, and not to judge people by the color of their skin, but instead by the strength of their character.

If we really believe in the rule of law, if we really believe that each one of us is a child of God, that we are here to live lives of service, and compassion, and understanding, that every person is precious, and has endless possibilities to live a life of beauty and love and value.

That cop would hear that speech from me, again, and I think I’d be pretty impassioned about it, drawing on the passion my hair stylist had about dealing with racists and bigots.

I was pretty worked up by the time I got home, inspired to read Dr. King’s speech again, to dig a bit deep inside of me, to explore my prejudices and my biases. What I was wanting to say was on the stove, still warm, simmering, waiting for the muse to strike, to get my words down on the computer.

Then, last night, I’m taking a troll through Facebook. I see a young friend has posted a video. “Funny” he writes, so I take a look.

The video shows a white guy advertising a laundromat that only washes white clothes. It’s the “white’s only” laundry. The next scene is him again, saying that the first ad has riled up some people, so he’s changed the name to “no coloreds”, and offers Black people a side entrance to the laundry.

As my blood begins to boil, I struggle to keep watching, dreading what the next scene might be.
The white man comes on again, saying that the “no colored’s” name bothered some people, so he was going to change the name again to “Uncle Tom’s Laundry”, but that there would still be “no coloreds” washed and dried there.

I sat there, stunned, not really knowing how to react.

After all, it has been more than fifty years that Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus, it has been fifty years since the March on Selma, and Dr. King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

It’s been a shorter period of time since my home town repealed the “sundown law” that said Blacks had to leave town at the end of the day. It’s been a shorter period of time since some of the social clubs in town have allowed Blacks and women to sit in their bars and have a drink, and become members, even officers.

And, it’s been less than a day since a young friend posts a video about “no coloreds” for all the community to see, and maybe even guffaw about.

We have a black president, we have a black attorney general, we have black judges and members of Congress.

Yet, 2013 also has the Trayvon Martin shooting trial, and an agonizing, disjointed national discussion about what that was and what that means. We have the US Attorney General, on national TV, talking about how he feels he needs to tell his son, a black teenager, about the dangers and risks of being young and black on the streets of our national capital late at night, about how to be leery of cops, about being judged because of the color of his skin.

And, 2013, in my town, we have these conversations, and these racist, bigoted comments and attitudes, and videos posted in social media that are thought of as “funny”, but are as racist and bigoted as the cross burnings and Klan marches, and segregated busses and lunch counters and schools of the 1960s.

We aren’t there, yet, not by a long shot. But, I can still dream. And, I can still be angry, and intolerant of racism and prejudice, and putting people down because of where they came from, or the color of their skin, or the language they might speak.

We have a ways to go. We still need to dream.

Neal Lemery, 8/24/2013