Remembering Adham 2013

2/16

Today we gather for the fourth anniversary of the death of Adham Brenes. Once again, family and friends have gathered to remember joy and vitality of of a young man whose brief life touched so many so deeply.

Morning has broken

There’s technical issues so that the sideshow we wanted to see can’t be shown. And YouTube keeps having buffering issues as we try to play Cat Steven’s Morning has broken so that we all can sing along.

Arcadia shares this poem               

The Dash

by Linda Ellis copyright 1996

I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone,
from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before. 

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?

rembrances of Adham

The dragonfly

We talk about the different icons of Adham’s life. What’s new is a dragonfly in a glass box created by an uncle.  A dragonfly showed up at Hugo and Arcadia’s shortly thereafter. It has come to be a common symbol for those that loved him of the presence of Adham’s spirit. 

tatoos

Arcadia shows a photo of the many tattoos Adham’s friends have had done to honor him. From dragonflies to quotes to the sneakers over the phone lines image. And a young woman shows the tattoos she has just had done this week. 

There are words from friends. From relatives. From my colleague Regi who was my associate when Adham died. Regi assures us of the ongoing nature of love. n ether side of the line between life and death. And how ...in living, in dying, we belong to God, we belong to                                                                                                                                                                                   God...

Arcadia speaks of what a long  journey it is from a mother who has lost her child, especially remembering all that was gentle, kind and good abut Adham.

When it is my turn, I recall that after our years some questions still haunt. And that I believe someday a heart will be opened and someone  will speak the Truth , will resolve the  unfinished questions that remain.

And how before Adham lived in one place, Now he is present in all the hearts  and souls in  the room and those beyond the room And that while like the little glitches in the service, indicate, life is not                                                                                          perfect. We know that all too painfully well. But what is perfect is the way that a circle of people, a community can be with us and see us through painful  times, celebrate with  us in  times of joy. And that in the midst of our community, Adham is present still. And will continue to be. 

                                                                 One Love


Others share their stories, funny stories, life affirming stories. And we all listen to and song with Bob Marley’s One Love, Adham’s signature song.

Let’s get together and feel alright...

As we sit and talk, one mother wants to know why we talk about wanting to know the  ttruth. And i explain that there are these facts don’t make sense. Answers held back.

Arcadia (Left)

And as is always the case, we go to gather in  the chapel where a feast waits. Arcadia is the embodiment of the biblical precept of hospitality. Yes, it is part of Nicaraguan culture, but it is the essence of who Arcadia is. An essence that has remained even through eat could be unbearable grief. I’ve learned  that what gets us through is remaining true to who we are, especially in the  ways that take us  outside of ourselves and connect us with others. 

As it was in the beginning (One love)

So shall it be in the end (One heart)

Alright, "Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right."

"Let's get together and feel all right."

Hug and chukd (K

Home again: the circle is complete

2/15

Martin is back from tour. We sit in the chapel over coffee, trying to sort through what has happened, why and where do we go from here. Don’t really want to lose him...Isola the dancer brings the coffee. 

John, an artist, has been invited to exhibit in Berik’s new show. Wants to go upstairs and see the exhibit. So I take him up to Mc Alpin.

Sharif’s longtime friend and contractor Anwar Ali arrives for a full tour of the building. So we do the whole thing. Not sure where this might be headed. Well, he’s headed to Mumbai tomorrow. 

Jeremy is doing a sound check foe their next movie. We’ve got to go over Teddy’s memorial one more time and then rehearse. We start with I Shall Be Released and then swing into my own Rest Awhile. Feels good but there’s a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

Get marc line duo for the service of remembrance for Adham Brenes tomorrow and also for Amanda’s open mic next Friday.

Leila stops in on her way to set up fro tonght’s opening and i am glad that I didn’t miss it after all. 

I can’t wait any longer and start making phone  calls to work on strategy for one of the issues we’re struggling with. Acting on one thing makes acting on the next easier. 

The Prophet walks in, makes an obeisance towards the front of the church and moves to a back pew. Stephen tells me that last week when he tried to redirect the Prophet out of the church house back into the sanctuary, he threw his hat at him like a Frisbee. 

Cara and Anna are working tag team in tandem. I step out on the steps for a minute. Deacon Linda stops as she passes just to see how things are going. Out of the corner of my eye I see Elle from next door waiting for a bus and Marty walking back to Capital Hall. 

RL has asked me to come up to his studio. He’s happy with the new sound system he’s picked up from Marc and the way it fills the room. He’s more happy, delighted, with a letter from the State  of New York  regarding the application for Adult Protective Services which he had not requested. He reads the lengthy letter in standard bureaucratise with a twinkle in his eye. You see, he says, they have officially declared me sane...that opens up all kinds of doors...I think he just needs to use it in his next show. Before i go, he puts Amanda’s CD on his big sound system. First Sweet Gin, then his favorite, Tin Man, with him singing  along on the chorus...somewhere over the rainbow...It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it. I get lost remembering the very first time I heard it. She will be here for Teddy’s memorial service. ( http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&rlz=1G1ACAW_ENUS520&q=amanda+stanaway+%22tin+man%22 )

Back downstairs, Rudolfo has walked in seeking money for food. Too late for Westside Campaign. I give him one of my few remaining dollars and with what Danielle kicks in,he’s soon sharing with us detailed menu of what he will buy and where. All I can do is nod. 

While this is going in, I look at Danielle and say, Well, all I need now is Rachelle. And as Danielle is reassuring Congresswoman Brewer that no we are not planning to install a glass tower around our bell tower, and giving up, laughing, trying to explain our day, in walks Rachelle. With Valentine’s chocolate and Capital Hall horror stories.

She hears Cara in the sanctuary and heads to see her. Danielle and I look at each other. The circle is complete. I really a back home. Congresswoman Brewer suggests we should be a reality show or sitcom.

I’ve got enough tome to visit Berik ad Leila’s opening before my friend Beppe comes  to pick me up. Yes, home again.                                                                                                                      

Home again: Crazy enough

2/14

To wake up in the morning  in Berlin  and find myself back in my office in New York in the afternoon, in a day that feels endless, is strange. Disorienting. The all too present issues of the moment come swirling back like the snowstorm I missed, with only traces remaining, that kept me in Berlin.

Cara is out and happy to be back. Eagerly sweeping, having discovered it’s spiritual discipline value. A prelude to piano.

I look for Marc to check signals on upcoming events and find him in the chapel playing electric guitar along with RL, Mandola Joe and Poet Tim. 

Anna too comes in with her care for Cara and her usual eagle eye for everything and everyone in the house. Trying to make sure we all stay alert. 

Later, I find Mandola and Tim in RL’s office. Mandola lets me test his orange ukelele and I remember my father and My dog has fleas... They’re headed for another impromptu concert for Harvey.

As the day comes to an end, I share Storm Large’s Call me Crazy with Cara, knowing she will appreciate this force of nature from Portland’s portrayal of her own journey turning her wounds into transcendent funky art. (....that’s how I turn a nosedive into flight...) Stephen joins us as we watch her YouTube video for 8 Mikes Wide...

The Dzieci are in for rehearsal and welcome me back. Check signals for teddy’s memorial. And Isis has brought muffins.

There is an undercurrent of dread... I figure I’ve got time to catch RL and crew at the Gate. 

Doesn’t feel much like Valentine’s Day...

Berlin 7: But all are responsible

2/12

Neue Synagogue

Characters posing in front of the Brandenberg Gate. Mickey Mouse. A very short Darth Vader. The inevitable soldier uniforms from the Soviet Union, US and DDR. Just like Times Square. Of course tips are expected.

Wander again through the monument for the murdered Jews of Europe. Impressed again at its abstract portrayal of feeling overwhelmed. Lost. As you enter into the center. 

Memorial to murded  Sinti and Roma

The new memorial to the murdered Sinti and Roma (gypsy) people. Outside the glass walls, an old Roma woman sits and plays the accordion. Later my friend Hans who works with asylum seekers will tell me that it is ironic that we erect a monument to murdered Sinti and Roma while deporting  them back to hard conditions in the former Yugoslav republics. He reminds me that average life expectancy for Roma women is 48 as compared to a Euro average of 76-78. Of course, the accordion’s sound is plaintive. 

A walk down the Unter der Linten, the old king’s parade ground now a public thoroughfare. Past the Dome and Museum Island to the Neue Synagogue of Oranienberg Strasse. It’s Moorish style blue domes, trimmed in gold, glisten in  the sun. For the Jews who built the synagogue, it was to symbolize the golden era of Jewish , Muslim and Christian cooperation in Andalusia. But for anti-Semite critics of the day, the architecture was a sign of the power and aspiration of the Jews seeking to dominate the skyline of Mitte Berlin with their alien Oriental towers.  

Zeljko and I walk up to the top of the tower to look out over the city.

Back downstairs, a woman staff person, about my age, wants us to understand that the reconstruction work began in 1988, before reunification. That it was the DDR that began the work. I have encountered many times this combination of defensiveness and pride wanting us to know something good about the DDR.

The Tachliss Art Squat has finally been shut down. Gentrification marches on while the very thing that drew the tourists and gentrifiers disappears, driven  out by money. Happened to the Upper West Side of Manhattan once. And now creeps through New York City neighborhood by neighborhood. 

at the wall

We stop by one of the last remaining sections of the wall. Ready to cross back into the Kreuzberg neighborhood of old West Berlin. 

Hans is another of our extended family. He came with the group of asylum workers who came to the US in 2009 to meet with colleagues involved in humane border work in Arizona then to New York to look at the situation of immigrants in our city and meet with those who work with immigrants in New York City. Finishing with a visit with our friend Rick at Stony Point. I was proud that our little church provided home housing for all our guests, Hans with Jim and Holly near Yorkville’s vestigial German neighborhood. 

The situation in the Mediterranean becomes more and more perilous as the fortress europe becomes all but impenetrable. Spain is effectively walled off.  Turkey erects a separation wall on the border with Greece.  German courts will no longer deport migrants to Greece as it is considered a collapsed state.  Italy grows closer to that situation. And still people continue to come. Like crossing the desert from Mexico.

Hans lives in an old DDR neighborhood in an apartment built for government officials. Some still live there, elderly, retired. Some are very nice people,neighbors, says Hans. His neighborhood was named for a German noble, then Lenin ,now the United Nations. He took pictures of the day they tore the Lenin statue down. And also another statue of Soviet occupation officer. Hans said that he was a good man, one who wanted the schools reopened, to make sure that people in his neighborhood  had sufficient food and their   medical needs responded to. We don’t have to tear down everything  that was Soviet, he says, that’s dishonest to history. We would not have defeated the Nazis without the Red Army. They paid a great price...       

 2/13       

Crushing the Swastika

Riding the tram through old DDR neighborhoods to Treptow Park. A cold, overcast day.Through a archway we walk and then down the path to the Memorial to the Soviet War Dead. Overwhelming in size. Ringed with weeping birches with a second ring of evergreens behind. Beginning with a weeping mother looking towards a modernist  arch of stylized Soviet flags and two social realist kneeling soldiers. Through a long central courtyard with 16 sarcophagi, one for each Soviet Republic. Ending with a heroic 12 meters tall statue of a Soviet soldier holding a child with one arm and a sword in the other while crushing a swastika. There are wreaths and red flowers laid different places around the memorial. Who brings them? Who remembers, is thankful?

There are maybe three other people in this massive area. It’s sheer size is breathtaking. Almost overwhelming. Walk up and look inside the giant statue. There’s an Eastern Orthodox mosaic depicting the different ethnic people who made up the army. 

Memorial at Treptow

The massiveness is appropriate to what it commemorates. Some 80,000 Soviet soldiers died in the Battle of Berlin. Some 7000 are buried here. And then you remember over 20 million Soviets died in World War II. Almost incomprehensible. It’s easy to understand the sense that Americans never fully appreciated the depth if Soviet loss.  We didn’t. You think about what kind of a scar that could leave on a nation’s psyche, that level of loss. And how can you fully understand the Cold War without taking that experience into consideration?

The quietness. The bare trees. The massive size of the  monument. Humbling. And moving. For a moment, I ponder history. The strange narrative it is. Events and forces flowing by, drawing people into the streams. Could the builders of this monument have imagined a day without a Soviet Union?  Micah points to how strange it is to have a monument to the country that defeated you in your own country. 20 million. maybe it desn’t have meaning, it just is.

                                            * * * * *

There’s a disturbing tendency on some post reunification monuments and historical displays to elide the narratives of Nazism and communism as if they were two totalitarian sides of the same coin. Not exactly.

One of the columns at Treptow reads:

The strength of the Red Army was that it had none, and could not have any, racial hatred neither towards other peoples nor the German people and that they were raised in the belief of equality of all peoples and races, and in the spirit of respect towards other's rights.      

              Joseph Stalin

Acknowledging its history, communism was rooted in a radical vision of a world without racism, exploited labor, a world of justice and equality. That's what attracted the volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Or men like Paul Robeson. The vision was humane and inspiring.

The Nazi vision was one of racial superiority, the natural right of superior human beings to rule over those of inferior peoples. Not the same, not the same at all. 

Of course we have to acknowledge the pain and suffering caused by Communism. As we do that of imperialism. And religion. We are not all guilty.But we are all responsible. 

So many memorials. So much death here. But now, so much life.

Uli and Zeljko

Time for one more coffee with Zeljko, wth Uli. Then home. Home.

                                                                                                      

                              

Berlin 6: The world as it is becoming and already is

The East Berlin TV  Tower; Icon of Socialist progress

2/9-10

A circle of friends at a baptism. Late twenties to early thirties. They are from Germany. Poland. Serbia. Croatia. Scotland. England. India. Vietnam. Israel. Musicians. Teachers. A doctor. Filmmakers. Artists. Construction workers. Berliners. The world that is becoming and already is.  

                            * * * *

Jana

I’ve known Jana for seven or eight years now.   For three straight years she brought to West-Park groups of young people from  the Fellowship of Reconciliation to explore multicultural living, activism of peace and justice, work with the homeless. Action and reflection. I would always do an urban dynamics walk around  the block tour.  She studied sociology in  University. Compared Los Angeles and New York.

Helped host my first visit to Berlin with neighborhood clergy friends including Pastor K from SPSA and Pastor Jim from Advent. The first year we were closed, she brought her group to SPSA.

She was back to be part of our first worship service on the steps in August 2010. And back again for Woodshed’s the Tenant. Part of the West-Park family in Berlin. 

She’s working at the Berlinale, heading a staff at the Palast. She walks me around Potsdamer Platz, once an empty checkpoint near the wall, now a glistening entertainment and business center.  The Berlinale and movie posters are everywhere, black shuttle cars and vans endlessly circling. 

Tourists at the Wall

Later I meet Zeljko at the Martin Gropius Center where his booth is. We will tour Alexanderplatz, once the center of East Berlin. Today, a large cold empty urban space. The iconic ’60’s era East Berlin Television Tower looms over the Platz. Locking down another allee, stretches of Soviet era social housing. Utilitarian, functional. Not like the optimistic modernist Weimar houses nor  those of the Stalinst neo-classical monumentalist lining Karl Marx Allee. 

L’Oreal has installed a space age make up center. Across the street a young man in an East German uniform stands at the old Checkpoint Charlie. For  fee he’ll stamp your passport with a DDR stamp. Behind him tourists stand in front of a section of the wall laughing and taking pictures. 

Soviet style housing

The public housing projects north of West-Park on Amsterdam and further north are often referred to as Soviet style. Pretty accurate description.

2/11

Supposed to be in New York. Things on knife’s edge there. Days of cancelled flights back in New York leave me stranded here in Berlin. Frustrating.

Only upside: I get to see Zeljko’s screening at the Euro Film Mart. It feels good having hosted the American first advance screening  at West-Park and having welcomed so many Serbian embassy officials and diaspora people, the Serbian flag hanging from the  church balcony.

Today we’re in a screening room at the Marriott. Good  to see the film again recalling the friendship that grew between American stealth fighter pilot Dale Zelko and the Serbian gunner, Zoltan Dani, who had shot him down. And the Colonel’s visit with us. And once again how they both testify to the pointlessness of war. 

It ends with Dale’s grandfather reciting a quote from 1969 how we have learned to fly to the moon but still haven’t figured out how to live together.

Afterwards, he’s got a steady stream of potential distributors and an extended interview with a reporter from the Serbian diaspora newspaper. There also seem to be potential producers/funders for the Dream project  movie we began at West-Park.

Berlin 5: With equal quality for all

2/9

Schiller Park UNESCO cultural heritage houses

Micah takes me on tour of two of the six modernist housing estates recognized by UNESCO as world cultural  heritage sites. The two we see are on the edge of Schiller Park and the other the Weisse Stadt. These estates are expressions of the social democrat consciousness of post World War I Weimar Germany. The movement reflected a commitment to free workers from the tenements and provide housing for a variety of incomes with equal quality for all, each with their own kitchen and indoor bathrooms and most with balconies. 

Bruno Taut

The states we see are the work of Bruno Taut. Under the direction of Walter Gropius and chief city architect Martin Wagner, Taut became the chief architect of the GEHAG, a housing construction cooperative that continues to this day. Influenced by the Garden City ideal of urbanism, part of the Bauhaus movement, and using visual lines common to the deco era, Taut’s work is an expression of a Utopian visionary with practical principles. Between 1924 and 1931, his team produced over 12,000 units of housing. Forced into exile by the Nazis, Taut later worked in Japan and ultimately Turkey where he was given a hero’s burial in the national martyr’s cemetery.

For me, walking through these estates is like being is a wonderland. Part of it is the  lines of 1920’s architecture I grew to love in Tulsa, whether the outrageously ornate deco or the simpler objectivist style. But more so, it’s the idea, an expression of optimism and hope that a better world is possible ( as my Occupy friends would say..). A world where decent housing in a healthy and aesthetic environment were a basic human right, not a luxury reserved for the few. These ideals were somehow brought into concrete (literally) reality even as the terror was about to descend.

Drive through house

So who's building affordable housing today? In New York City, creation of affordable housing has slowed to a trickle. And most of what is developed is trickle down, IE, housing that has decreased in value. The 421a program (which West-Park was going to use) actually wound up with most of the  money going to market rate housing through tax concession trade offs. Most new construction has come from community organizing groups like Manhattan Together (IAF) and the SRO conversions of the Westside Federation for Senior and Supprtive Housing (WSSFSH). 

It’s also strange to ponder the political moebius strip that defines contemporary urban preservationism. On the one hand, in New York City,  if more affordable housing is going to be created, it’s got to be vertical, in opposition  to preservationist ideals. On the other, neighborhood activists rightly oppose tax free properties like churches being turned into fertile ground for developers. The opposition to our original West-Park proposal crossed a lot of ideological lines, from those who wanted simply to protect their view, to anti-development activists, to preservation fundamentalists, to those opposed to affordable housing to those simply wanting to preserve neighborhood coherence and cultural heritage. I was always uncomfortable that you could make a progressive argument either way. The loss  for us of some 24 million dollars in value through a government declared landmark decision is a reality we haven’t fully recovered from yet. The whole issue raises questions that challenge our conventional wisdoms. And for us at   West-Park, the questions are not philosophical  but very real and present..   

At the end of the day, I train down to Dahlem to visit Zeljko and Uli. They've organized a special showing of the Second Meeting at the Niemoller House. When I get off the subway, I'm amazed to see a snow globe scene as there are several inches of fresh snow on the ground. It's quiet and almost magical. I hear there's a blizzard hitting New York City.                        

 

Berlin 4: No one left to speak for me

2/8

The new luxury apartments are having some problems attracting families with children. Schools seem to be an issue. Focus groups were held and the parents wanted four things:

1. No classes with majority Turkish students
2. English taught from second grade
3. High level of German used in teaching
4. Organic food served in cafeteria

                                 * * *

Last night I picked Zeljko up at the airport and took him to the Martin Niemoller House to meet Uli. After time in Wedding, Dahlem Dorff feels like a little country village in the city. The Niemoller House has its rich  history. It is where Pastor Niemoller was living and working when he was picked up by the Gestapo in 1937. You can look out the window as Bonhoeffer did and see the garden where he was working when he was arrested. 

Pastor Martin Niemoller

He spent from 1937-1945 in Sachsenhuasen and then Dachau. After his release, he spent the rest of his life opposing war, meeting with Ho Chi Minh and being awarded the Lenin Peace prize in 1966. He is most famous for  this well known quote:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

                               * * * * 

The Euro Fim Mart at the Berlinale

With Zeljko at the EFM

Go to the Euro Film Mart to meet Zeljko. The Martin Gropius Center is filled with booths from countries around the world offering their films. Zeljko’s Second Meeting is one of two documentaries being offered by the Serbian Film Commission. I feel a sense of excitement that we were able to have shown this film in New York City as its first American screening. 

We take time for falafel and donner at a Turkish stand then head off to meet Uli and Sylvija for coffee. Uli will be  arranging  a screening of Second Meeting at the Niemoller House. 

Uli, Sylvija and Zeljko

Later, I’ll meet with Micah and friends who have been involved in a  EU sponsored project that sought to develop joint projects between Israelis and Palestinians. They seemed to have half a chance since they had taken seriously the role of power differential between groups as a missing dynamic of most people to people programs. They also had sought to learn from community organizing experiences as to the importance of organizing organizations, not individuals. 

But at this point, the project no longer seems viable. It’s director, Ahmed, sees his real call in his own country of Egypt as a new country struggles to come into being navigating its way through channels of salafists, militarists, secular students...a time of hope and danger.

Their most successful leanings about conflict resolution seem to have the most potential value in intereuro, even interGerman settings. Once again, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues intractable as time for resolution disappears.