Living in coronavirusworld 153: A little Bible, a little blues, a little blood

8/30

Live music with Mike

...and a pool of blood

On my way to my coffee shop, I see an ambulance. Hear sirens. See a man down on the sidewalk. Moments  before he thad been savagely beaten by some guys who left him there. A second 2 or 3 then grabbed his chain and anything else he had  of value and ran off.  A couple of witnesses have remained to tell the police what they saw. I listen for awhile then go to the Monkey Cup. On my way back, all that's left are the scattered remains of his shattered head phones and a pool of blood. 

Our family has its weekly ZOOM international gathering. One reports that with 10 day to go, the  New York City Department of Education has not yet set its calendar or even an official start date.  My oldest son wonders why when the NBA players realized what power they had they didn’t keep going and came back so soon. What else could they have achieved beyond arenas as polling places and money to defend against voter suppression?

My lead guitar player Mike’s wife is taking a course on the Bible as literature. She invited some of us to a”Bible happy hour.”As one from the Jewish community of Brazil, she’s working on making sense of Christian thought and culture. We spoke of many things, but she was most intrigued by this verse:

 21 Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

The implications are that Jesus was making aa demand to a higher priority than tradition required. And violating a traditional understanding of family. She was seeing it  in terms of a  new community having higher value, the family of the Jesus circle being the more authentic family than the one of  his birth. I raise the fact that whether right before or after the fall of the temple, it was an apocalyptic time.  A “which side are  you on?” kind of time. So to this existential crisis, any traditional family values would take a back seat. I also talked about Wes Howard-Brook’s idea that the Bible was a story of two religions, not Judaism and Christianity, but  that of covenant and creation and the other of empire. (See Come Out My People.) 

I note that separating from parents has been very manipulated by cults.  The Bible can be a dangerous book. 

we played together

Mike wants to come to my gig at Bar 9 tonight. It will be great to have him. We play a couple of my blues tunes then my “Read the Room” song about open mics. Then Kristina joins us. Adding harmony to my voice, my music.  My lead guitar player and a harmony vocalist for the first  time in over 5 months! I don’t feel nearly so naked. My confidence is back. And for the second time this week and the first time here, I have a flawless set. And it feels very good.  

The evening is late August cool. The outdoor cafe lights on 9th Avenue sparkle and dance. Enjoying music and drinks with friends.  Normalish, as she says. Later, she will share the fear that just doesn't go away. That is always there. I want my old life back, she says. 

Living in Coronavirusworld 152: Open Hearts

8/29

Neighbors

The threat of rain hovers over the day but aside from a few raindrops early afternoon, never happens.

Go to the farmers’ market at Morningside Park. Fresh ground family farmed Colombian coffee.  But to drink a cup, you have to “Step outside of the market.” Because no unmasked people allowed. 

at the Lucerene

'"Hope"

Housing Justice is racial justice

community support

Housing justice

Black lives matter

'Homeless can't stay home"

Open Hearts organizers

Walking to the Lucerne Hotel to join’s rally in support of homeless residents of the hotel.  Fredrick Douglass at the entrance to the Historical Society’s “…Hope…” exhibit.  

Hope wanted

Fredrick Douglass

A crowd has gathered at get Lucerne. Chalked messages of support on the sidewalk. Signs linking Black Lives Matter and housing justice.The event has been organized by Open Hearts Upper West Side, an organic grassroots effort of supportive neighbors. My friend Larry Wood of Goddard-Riverside speaks of their efforts to create a day space for residents to hang out in an enclosed patio of a currently unused, due to covid19,  Senior Center. 

Larry Wood speaks

When Larry rejoins me, a man comes over and begins to argue  with him about people destroying the neighborhood. Crazy people. Drug addicts. Larry reponds and also talks about the need for safe needle exchange sites. The man says, “Are you a radical Jew?” Larry looks at him in disbelief. “Are you. Jew?” Larry says, “Actually Episcopalian.” I step back, not wanting any part of the conversation. The man recognizes me and talks about “Twenty people shooting up” at West Park. I tell him “I haven’t seen that,” then see two people I recognize and excuse myself. Larry continues the conversation. 

My friends are long time neighborhood residents. They tell me in this virus world, they basically stay home except for grocery store trips and walks to the park. They saw a crowd and assumed it was “NIMBYs,” i.e. “Not in my backyard” They were moved to see it was a neighborhood support group.  I see my friend Pastor K from the church where we served meals  to the women’s shelter once a month. In BC time. K tells me most that most of his people are supportive. They are looking to join another church in supporting the hotel around the block from them. Just up the street from West Park. 

a resident speaks

Several resident speak, telling their stories. One lost his apartment wen the city ended its rent subsidy program. In the city’s upside down policy, it  pays over 3 times the cost of his subsidy to keep him on one bed in a shelter instead an apartment.  Another speaks of his recovery from addiction. Another his desire to get a job and  be back on his own.  My friend Marc Greenberg of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and  Housing is here  to promote programs to assist people in reentering society. Which the Assembly has done, year after year.  Some people are getting ready to distribute baga of food to those who might be in need. 

Pastor K and Marc

Rabbi Steve comes from across the street where people from “the anti-side” are filming the rally with their cell phones. We talk with K and Marc.  

Rabbi Steve and I 

He offers to treat  me to a gelato. We go around the corner, enjoying the vibe of the outdoor cafes, sparkling lights in the early evening cool. I share my worry that when I watch Fox News, I realize the depth of the President’s support and fear his reelection. 

There are violent confrontations in Kenosha and Portland. 66 days to go.

Living in coronavirusworld 151: Shabbat reflections on homelssness

8/ 28

Shabbat Shalom

                                                                

Today Chadwick Bozeman died at age 43. AKA “Black Panther.” Wakanda forever. Also starred in the  movie “42” As Jackie Robinson.  Today is also the anniversary of Emmet TIll’s murder in Mississippi,1955.And Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream”speech in Washington, 1963.  And the anniversary of  Barack Obama’s acceptance of the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. Major League Baseball usually celebrates Jackie Robinson Day on April 15tth, the anniversary of his first game. This year in coronavirusworld that was not possible. So, when play resumed,  they set it for this day, connecting it with “I have a dream.” All players wearing (now retired) number 42. Recalling Pee Wee Reese, the shortstop, with his arm around Jackie saying, “Tomorrow let’s all wear 42. They’ll never tell us part.”  And with Chadwick Bozeman as Jackie, a circle closed. 

Rabbi Steve has asked me to preach his shabbat service tonight and to preach about homelessness. So this what I had to say:

Last Wednesday I put a post on facebook. On Monday I had attended a ZOOM meeting of our local Community Board. The issue was the placement of homeless people form the shelters in rooms in our empty Upper West Side boutique hotels. It gave people living in critically dangerous situations a place to live and the touristless hotels a source of income. Neighbors are incensed. Over the course of the meeting, I followed the chat stream and was very upset by the use of the acronym MICAHs as pejorative term for these new residents. As in Mentally Ill Chemically Addicted Homeless.  I was upset for three reasons.

singing Micah 6:6

First, we named our son Micah. We were part of a national group of young Jewish and Christian leaders who chose Micah 6:6 as our watchword. More than one family in the group had a Micah.  My Presbyterian Health Education and  Welfare Association also chose Micah 6: as its theme and commissioned a hymn to those words.  And here in New York City I am a member of the MICAH Institute’s Faith Leader’s Table, the most diverse group of faith activists in the city.  

Micah was a working class prophet, not a liberal elite court prophet. And of course Micah 6:6 is simply “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God…”   

Finally, to categorize people by situation or circumstance is to rob them of their individual personhood. We have learned from our friends in the disabilities community to use people first language, as in not the disabled, but people with disabilities. Not the homeless, but people without housing. In Berlin, the don’t say the poor, they say, people with  little money. We are not our conditions or situations. We are more than that. To call people MICAHs is even worse. Because for many the adjectives are not even accurate. 

Let me also say neighbors are assuming  the new residents are responsible for everything they see they don't like ignoring the precovid reality io an all time record high city homeless population of 70000. 

I have learned that you can’t make assumptions. My congregation, in BC times, serves a meal for guests of a homeless shelter at a  neighboring church the first Sunday of every month.  It’s important not to just serve the meal but to share the meal, break bread together. One night wee were having a discussion and the woman beside me translated a phrase from Biblical Greek.  Turned out she had graduated from the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. I remembered that my own thesis advisor form Yale had been found homeless in Penn Station, too embarrassed to share his situation with his colleagues. Many of the homeless women I met held jobs and worked long hours but at $7.50 an hour how can you afford a home in the city?  Included in the comments to my Facebook post were a  member of my  congregation and open mic participants sharing their own experiences. Many of us are one paycheck away from being homeless.

There is in our shared scriptures much to guide us here.  One of the most repeated phrases in the Torah is the command to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger at your gate, in other words, the most vulnerable among us.  When they asked Jesus what the most important commandment was he said to love the lord your God with all our  heart, all your soul and all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22: 34-40.) Jesus was of course quoting Leviticus 19:18. Our church Bible Study took 2 1/2 years to read every word of the Torah. I was amazed to learn that the verse about loving your neighbor is at the  exact center of the Torah. Just as many verses before as after. On this, as Jesus said, hang all the law and the prophets.

Consider this….the children of Abraham were homeless for 40 years wandering around with only temporary shelters. And all politics aside, when Jewish people returned and created Israel in 1948, centuries of homeless exile came to an end, a home at last. The Jewish people have known homelessness. 

So when we look at this issue, I believe the the best advice is simply this…do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God…

Shabbat shalom…..

Living in coronavirusworld: first visit to Brooklyn in over 5 months

8/27

Live Music, Industry City

After tense conversations, the professional athletes agree to return to their seasons after another two days off (Less for baseball.) In New York City, the Mets and Marlins took the field, stood in silence, hats off, for 42 seconds (Jackie Robinson’s number) then left the field with only a “Black Lives Matter” banner on home plate. This has been an unprecedented demonstration. In the past only something like 9-11 halted games.  These athletes have expressed their frustration as men and women.  And of course, nothing but derision from  the White House and calls for  more law and order. 

Of course much of the Republican convention was in direct violation of the Hatch Act which forbids the mixing  of government and politics, especially it's buildings. With dramatic  displays of flags and use of the White House  as if it were his personal property the President has essentially declared l’etat c’est mois and produced the first fascist convention in history. Still networks seek to cover it as if it were normal. He has even “joked” about “12 more years.”   We hold our collective breath but need to be organizing, 

I’ve learned of a new venue to play live music, though it’s an hour away in Brooklyn.  But I have to check it out.  It’s in a place called “Industry City” a massive complex of factories and warehouses from the early twentieth century when the Gowanus Bay had become an active part fo the shipping industry. Of course fallen into abandonment and neglect as the seventies turned into the eighties. With the toxic waste waters fo the Gowanus Canal blocks away. Between the bay and historic Greenwood Cemetery. Now in a process of rebirth. The Industry City Courtyard 5/6 is an open space ringed by artesenal food and drink businesses. They skirt many bar/restaurant regulations because they are legally agricultural outlets. The food places feature products direct from the farms. There are at least two distilleries crafting their own spirits, a brewery or two making craft beer and an ice cream creator. It doesn’t get any more Brooklyn than that. 

At one end is a stage by a place whose specialty seems to be  infusing everything with fresh ginger. The open mic, which cannot be advertised, because, per regulation music, like alcohol, can only be “incidental,” is a project of a friend of mine from Greenwich Village’s legendary “ Bitter End.”  The Bitter End has been closed since the virus hit and cannot reopen with no space for street music and no food service. It’s the last standing remnant of 1960’s Village.  The mural behind the bar shows many of  its famous performers like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt,Woody Allen. And Bill Cosby, surrounded by recently added jail bars. It is the grail of any singer-songwriter and I had on my bucket list to get an actual paid booking at the Bitter End. I have a sense of pride in having  done that twice, having my first CD release party there and later a birthday gig. Not to mention my Rabbi friend’s high holy day services. The End is in bad shape financially with no visible way out. There’s a go fund me campaign for $100000 under way. My friend is planning a benefit. The prospects of losing the Bitter End are almost unthinkable, yet another covid19 victim. The Bitter End has got the virus, just not yet died.

So my friend has found place in this newly gentrifying corner of Brooklyn. He opens the night. I follow using his “house guitar” which he thoroughly sanitizes before passing it on to me. I put my own “mic condom”on, prepared for safe song. I’ve had a rough reentry into live music at Bar 9 with my weekly near panic attacks. I’ve got 20 minutes here. I choose my material carefully. All “safe” songs. No one here has ever heard them before. I ease into my set, notice someone nodding their head in time. The applause is warm. Someone is recording me. With each affirmation, I open up more. I feel good when I’m done. My friend appreciative I’ve made the long subway journey. As the next performer, an Asian woman with a dark side of indie sound finishes, the rain begins. Time to go back to Manhattan, Harlem, home This was my first trip to Brooklyn in over  months. 

Living in cornavirusworld 149: Violence. Nonviolence. We've been here before

8/26

Convent Garden: an oasis

the Monarchs

Today I wear my Kansas City Monarchs hat. The last Negro league team Jackie Robinson played for before joining the Dodgers organization. It was also the team of Buck O’Neil, player and manager of the Monarchs from 1938 to 1955.  He even made a final  plate appearance for the Kansas City T-Bones of the Norrhern League in 2006 at age 94 years, 8 months and 5 days. And was the first African-American signed as a scout by the Chicago Cubs. It’s mainly  due to the Monarchs  (and Buck) that the Negro League Museum is in Kansas City.  In normal years, Major League baseball celebrates "Jackie Day" on April 15th, the anniversary of his debut.  But in coronavirusworld, they've moved it to August 28, the anniversary of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech. 

Buck

I also talk about my “happy hour” yesterday afternoon with former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris who I was surprised to find was still live. Harris was the Bernie before Bernie.  Hard to realize that Oklahoma actually had a democratic socialist Senator as late as 1972.  I actually was a Harris delegate at the 1976 Oklahoma Democratic caucus. Harris campaigned across the country in a Winnebago and frequently stayed at the homes of farmers and union workers. He ultimately lost to Jimmy Carter but continued to champion Native American and working people’s rights throughout his career. The talk was hosted by Jim Hightower, his former campaign manager who joked, “I made Fred what he is today, a professor at eh University of New Mexico.” He came very close to being chosen as Hubert Humphry’s running mate in 1968. Often forgotten is Humphry’s roots in the old Minnesota Farm-Labor Party. Harris reminded us of the 1917 Green Corn rebellion when wobblies, unionists, blacks and farmers came together to oppose the draft and Word War !. Senator Harris’ point was the progressive uprising we see today has roots deep in the American soil that have been buried too long. The Bernie revolution is part of a long heritage of American class struggle. Later in the conversation, Senator Harris introduced us to Teresa Leon Fernandez, whose family roots go back to the 17th century as a Nuevo Mexicana, seeking to join the progressive left caucus in congress. 

Our conversation this morning focuses on contemplation and activism but quickly moves into violence vs. non-violence, the issue of discernment . How Dietrich Bobhoeffer returned to Germany to join in a plot to kill Hitler, saying violence was wrong except when necessary. Who defines necessary? Some of us agree with a traditional reformed “Just war” theory while others are absolutists. What about Gandhi? Gandhi was reported to have said non-violence would not have stopped Hitler. I recall how Archbishop Romero came to accept violence in defense of the innocent . And Franz Fanon’s argument that violence is necessary to free the Wretched of the Earth from colonialism.  But then Robespiere…John Brown….Lenin…Mao? 

And the problematic issue of those who truly believe that abortion is murder feeling called to enter clinics with guns. 

We recall that for Martin Luther King, Jr., non-violence was a strategy that works because it drew violence for the other side and exposed its nature. I say that non-violence elicits violent response because it presents itself as morally superior to which Joel responds because non-violence is morally superior.

Gandhi believed in satyagraha, soul force. That even in the midst of violence one must hold onto the spirit of peace. 

We are constantly faced with the question so what then is possible?

What to do with Jesus’ “not peace but a sword”? Without diving immediately into self-defensive metaphor argumentation. 

Steve P speaks of Brevard Childs’ canonical criticism where the Bible is taken seriously as is, interpreting one part by the others, replacing the entire historical critical method. Sigh.

I ponder how I can occasionally look at the world of turtles, egrets, squirrels and feel that everything in creation is perfect just the way it is and at the same time see the sacredness of the everflowing stream of the people’s struggle for justice. I live with this tension, this dichotomy. 

Sam says the Gita says God and self are the same. 

True belief vs. collective belief. Facts and truth are not the same. But intriguing, even passionate conversations aside, there is no question we are collectively facing a moment of truth…..

                                                                                                   ****

where Hamilton lived before he hit Broadway

Today I decide to do the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K course. Through Sugar Hill, the old ritzy part of Harlem. Convent Garden. Past Alexander Hamilton’s home, an untouched 1802 Federalist rural home in the midst of modern Harlem. I see students in line registering  for their charter schools, receiving their supplies. Along the southern edge of the City College of New York, once known as the Harvard of the working class when every citizen of New York City was guaranteed health, housing  work and education. Then back up St. Nicholas. Tim the trombone player somehow turns up at 136th street. It’s a reminder that we’ve been here before. 

Kenosha, Wisconsin is in flames in response to yet another point blank police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.  Yesterday a 17 year old self-styled member of “the militia,” inspired by his president, drove 20 miles and with an AR15 assault rifle opened fire on innocent  protestors killing two, then walked calmly past the police. 

Beginning with the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA players, in compete despair and frustration, refuse to play their games. The WNBA, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer soon follow. They are not just athletes, entertainers, they  are adult people with consciences.  Of course the President and his ghostly son-in-law Jared mock the players. Why is so hard to see? Moment of truth….

I finish the night by watching Anna Deveare Smith’s one-woman tour de force Twilight: Los Angeles 1992. Her docudrama exploration of the Rodney King savage police beating and subsequent rebellions. Yes, we’ve been here before. Far too many times. 

Living in coronaviruswolrd 148: to make a new life

8/25

to make a new life

 A visit to the eye doctor.   A quiet iced latte at the Double Dutch cafe.  A fight with my computer, wasting over an hour. A fight I never win. and two hours wasted. Trying to decide if it’s time for a new one or not. 

memoiral large

memorials small

And finally time for a walk. Notice the memorials, both large and small. People continue to die, we remember them on the street because there is no place else. A homeless man is building a plan to get off the street. More and more  homeless persons want no part of the overcrowded shelters.  No social distancing.  Hotbeds of covid19. The mayor’s promise to Upper West Side residents to return the homeless people housed  in hotels to public shelters is a sad acquiescence, to borrow Robin Di Angelo’s phrase, ‘White fragility.” And a potential death  sentence to those re-sheltered. 

The Republicans gather for the second night of their convention. The president’s wife Melania is the featured speaker.  For the first time someone expresses compassion for the families of the 170000 dead. A picture of an alternative reality is painted where a President opens up historic opportunities for people of color to make their dreams real, where innocent captives are rescued from hostile rogue nations, where millions of lives are saved by his decisive actions, where the world looks  up to us as a shining city on a hill and a strong economy is just waiting to be unleashed again.  Well, there is that armed couple who “defended themselves” against peaceful, non-violent Black Lives Matter protestors with serious fire power.  Just in case you were wondering. Two very different realities existing side by side at the same  time.   We are living in a science fiction novel. Only it’s all too real.

back in action

The 115th Street floating craps game is back in action again.  

Living in coronavirusword 147: the egret is back. Reflections on homelessness, housing and Community Board 7

8/24

Back again

As I enter the park today,  I see the egret is back. I haven’t seen it for weeks.   Was thinking maybe  I had to do some research on migration patterns. But here it is, back again. My sense of order restored.

Tonight is a much anticipated community board meeting. Community Board  7 is the popularly elected advisory group on public policy for my old neighborhood, the Upper West Side. The controversy is this:  New York City had record numbers of homeless people even before Covid19.   With the onset of the virus, shelters with overcrowding , no social distancing or rudimentary  prevention measures became hotbeds of Covid19. In the meantime, demand for hotel rooms plummeted. So the city, without really informing the neighborhood, began transferring homeless people for shelters to hotels. Neighbors began complaining about public masturbation, defacation  and urination and harassing cat calls. Among other complaints. The neighborhood is up in arms. A Facebook Page, Upper Westsiders for Safe Streets, now has over 12000 signators!  Meanwhile, the r old vigilante group, Guardian Angels, has entered the neighborhood and is recruiting new members for "Safety patrols." A new community organnization has hired an attorney to sue the city. It has truly become a cause celebre.  Leaders from churches  have contacted me.They/ we are trying  to figure out what the role of the faith community  is in light of this issue. While there have been no Christian rooted communications so far, leaders from one local synagogue have released a statement to  their  members. Among other things it says:

Though the process was flawed, we are deeply pained by the vitriolic response coming from some Upper West Side residents, including nasty comments on social media, active harassment of the men and also of Project Renewal staff (largely because people confuse them with residents due to the color of their skin), and photographs of the residents being posted online without their permission. 

Regardless of how one feels about the city’s decision, such rhetoric runs contrary to the fundamental Jewish principle that all people are created in the image of God, deserving of being treated as such. Further, dehumanizing these men makes the problem about them instead of seeing homelessness as a systemic issue that needs to be addressed through policy and societal change. 

We have  canceled Bible Study tonight so that any can participate in the online ZOOM meeting. 

For over two hours I listen. I am glad that my friend  Pastor K Karpen from St. Paul and St. Andrew Methodist Church speaks. As does Rabbi Lauren Grabelle-Herrmann of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. (Neighboring West Park on 86th Street.) And Marc Greenberg of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing ( an organization I chair) also speaks.

My thoughts:

* Our city council rep representative Helen Rosenthal speaks clearly and to the point dispelling rumors, especially related to  sex offenders.

* The bureaucrats speak but soun, unfortunately, like bureaucrats in the face of stirred up passion.  Only in her last statement does one city official go off script and share her true feelings.

* Even though, I’m glad Marc from IAHH spoke, I wish he would have said more about our Life Skills program which helps people prepare to reenter society.

* Very glad to hear Rev. K and Rabbi Grabelle-herman speak, though we need a united neighborhood voice.

* There is no distinction being made between the residents moved here and the preexisting unprecdented  homeless population of the city, and especially our neighborhood

* In response to the furor, the mayor has said he will move people back to shelters which is no solution in the midst of a  pandemic. Or to be honest, any time. Sigh. My mentor always told me liberals were the real problem. 

* Most disturbing is to follow the chat stream online. The constant refrain of “save the children” has an almost Qanon quality to it.

* The complaint about lowered property values doesn't own up to the fact that Covid19 lowered property values as people  fled the city long before any homeless people showed up.

* Homelesspersons, many who are employed and work, were not allowed for speak for themselves. 

* Many of the angry neighbors still  do not listen to facts and their emotional responses are literally Trumoian in form and content

* The local police precinct captain could  have been less neutral reagarding Guardian Angel intervention. 

* Turns out Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa now lives in the neighborhood. His public gadfly persona has served him well. 

* I’ve known for over 10 years that my old neighborhood, the former “people's republic of the upper west side,” the congressional district of Bella Abzug, may she rest in power,  was no longer what it was. The more than our share argument gets made over and over. As does the send them to the east side or out to the airport arguments. Anywhere but here 

Aa a father of a son named Micah, and a member of the faith rooted activist group Micah faith leaders table, I have to object to the use as a  perjorative acronym MICAH to mean Mentally Ill Chemically Addicted Homeless. It's offensive. Micah was a working class prophet, not of the neoclassical  liberal elite. He said do justice, love mercy  and walk humbly with God. ( That is like, 
it.)

The theme is somehow fitting for the opening  of the Republican National (virtual) Convention where Donald Trump will once again be announced by acclimation for their nominee as President of  the United States. 

There is so much work to be done. And I am tired. 

I’m glad the egret is back.