Monday, November 30, 2020

November 30, 2020

 (Submitted by Kat Haimson)

From the prologue to John Lewis's memoir:

"About fifteen of us children were outside my Aunt Seneva’s house, playing in her dirt yard. The sky began clouding over, the wind started picking up, lightning flashed far off in the distance, and suddenly I wasn’t thinking about playing anymore; I was terrified…

Aunt Seneva was the only adult around, and as the sky blackened and the wind grew stronger, she herded us all inside.

Her house was not the biggest place around, and it seemed even smaller with so many children squeezed inside. Small and surprisingly quiet. All of the shouting and laughter that had been going on earlier, outside, had stopped. The wind was howling now, and the house was starting to shake. We were scared. Even Aunt Seneva was scared.

And then it got worse. Now the house was beginning to sway. The wood plank flooring
beneath us began to bend. And then, a corner of the room started lifting up. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. None of us could. This storm was actually pulling the house toward the sky. With us inside it.

That was when Aunt Seneva told us to clasp hands. Line up and hold hands, she said, and we did as we were told. Then she had us walk as a group toward the corner of the room that was rising. From the kitchen to the front of the house we walked, the wind screaming outside, sheets of rain beating on the tin roof. Then we walked back in the other direction, as another end of the house began to lift. And so it went, back and forth, fifteen children walking with the wind, holding that trembling house down with the weight of our small bodies.

More than half a century has passed since that day, and it has struck me more than once over those many years that our society is not unlike the children in that house, rocked again and again by the winds of one storm or another, the walls around us seeming at times as if they might fly apart.

It seemed that way in the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement, when America itself felt as if it might burst at the seams—so much tension, so many storms. But the people of conscience never left the house. They never ran away. They stayed, they came together and they did the best they could, clasping hands and moving toward the corner of the house that was the weakest.

And then another corner would lift, and we would go there. And eventually, inevitably, the storm would settle, and the house would still stand.  But we knew another storm would come, and we would have to do it all over again.

And we did. And we still do, all of us. You and I. Children holding hands, walking with the wind. . . . “

(Photo by Pixie Couch)

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Our ZHS on-line schedule

  • Mondays: 7-8:30pm - zazen, short service, lecture/discussion
  • Tuesdays-Fridays: 5:30-6:10pm - zazen, offering of merit/bows
  • M-F: 7-7:30am - zazen
  • Saturdays: 8:00-10:15am - zazen, short service, tea, discussion/study
  • For more information:  www.zenheartsangha.org) 
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Special bows for today: 
  • Please continue to offer bows in honor of:
    • Dan Pomeroy, a friend of dharma brother, Dainuri Rott, who died on 11/20/20
    • Ofelia Mendez, Lilliana Mendez-Soto's aunt who died  on 11/12/20; her relatives Jorge and his sister were able to be with her at the end
    • Phyllis Merrill, Misha's mother, who died on 10/18/20
    • Charles Kennicott Leech, Nancy's father who died on 10/9/20
  • Please offer bows of well-being for Jim Little's daughter, Meara, and her boyfriend, Cody Mauser, who have contracted COVID
  • Please continue to offer bows of well-being for:   
    • Flip Dibner, who has been diagnosed with lymphoma and is currently undergoing chemotherapy but living at home with wife, Diane Renshaw
    • David Shaw, who suffered a stroke; he is home now with his wife, Nancy, and beginning the long slow process of rehabilitation
    • Rev. Les Kaye, Misha’s Zen teacher, who is recovering at home undergoing chemotherapy; he is in the final month of his treatment.
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Wonderful links shared by sangha members and friends:

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