When the saints come marching back

“Saints are the Sinners who keep on trying.”

--Robert Louis Stevenson


Fig.1 St. Louis Cathedral, Jackson Square, New Orleans

The summer of 2004, I was in Gainesville taking my last required summer course so I could graduate one semester early in December. It was a fun class on one of my favorite subjects—Ancient Egyptian history—but there’s only so much hieroglyphics a girl can take, especially if it’s the only class you have with nothing else to do but sit around in your tiny closet of a dorm room the rest of the time. It was a particularly lonely summer.

Luckily, my buddy in nerdiness Elissa came to the rescue. At the time, she lived with her father not far from the campus and she’d break the boredom every so often, but one hot sticky July weekend, she outdid herself and spirited me off to New Orleans.

Her mother lived in Crestview in the Florida panhandle, so we stopped and slept there the first night, then woke up before dawn to make the three-hour car ride to Louisiana. Driving that stretch in her little blue Geo Metro, switching the air conditioning off just to give the little car enough juice to get over each hill, in the Vulcan heat of July in the American South… it was our obligatory college road trip, and we loved every moment.

We spent the daylight hours doing the tourist rounds in the French Quarter, with naught but iced café au laits the color of the Mississippi River and Styrofoam cups of cold beer to cool us down during our tour. It was a long walk filled with trinket stores, voodoo shops, Mardi Gras mask boutiques, the steamboat Natchez, gumbo-serving restaurants, and the St. Louis Cathedral—undoubtedly the most beautiful church I had ever stepped into in my life. Elissa, who had made the Crestview-to-New Orleans visit before with her mom, taught me the wonders of this new world that wasn’t so very far away.

Fig.2 Everyone loves a Boondock Saint

Over a year later, I was in Orlando for a nerd convention—this one the “ElfCon” of 2005, specifically catering to Lord of the Rings fans. Connie, Katrina and I stayed the night before the big day in the hotel, hanging out by the jacuzzi and sipping drinks from the poolside bar. It was to be our last big get together before Katrina moved out to Los Angeles to pursue her career in the TV biz, and we were having the time of our lives.

The morning of the day we were to get our photos taken with Elijah Wood—a massively spiritual event for us—we watched the news in the hotel room. The day before, a hurricane blew through the Keys, and we were worried it would turn north and cancel the convention. Instead, it headed into the Gulf of Mexico, and overnight, it exploded into a massive storm. Luckily, Florida was no longer in its path.

I remember knocking on the bathroom door as my friend was taking a shower and saying, “Hey, Katrina, you’re a Cat Five!”

“What?!” she said, her voice still noticeably shaky despite being muffled by the sound of running water.

“You’re a Cat Five!” I repeated.

She came out of the room and said, “I thought you said my cat died!”

Katrina was a Category Five. And as we walked from the room to the main convention hall of the hotel, the sky was overcast and drizzly, the clouds shaped like faded but distinct bands of a hurricane. It was so big that the weak outer bands covered Orlando even though it was headed straight for Louisiana.

Fig.3 Never again... we hope

June 2008, my sister and her husband invited me to help them move to Killeen, Texas, home of Fort Hood, where he would be stationed. We were to drive out over a few days, stopping in New Orleans for a break halfway through. I was to be their French Quarter tour guide.

Not only were we to grab our beignets and stroll Bourbon Street, we were on a mission—a mission to find saints.

A few weeks before this great road trip was to take place, I was listening to the Saintcast by podcaster Paul Camarata on my computer. He had an interview with Father James Martin about his book and being on TV. I just had to hear him discuss his impression of Stephen Colbert, and I got a little thrill from the interview. Having finished that very fascinating episode, I started in on another one, just to get a better sense of the podcast, whose goal it is to discuss the stories of a few saints in each episode and even go on trips to some of the pilgrimage sites associated with the saints. Some episodes consist of the audio “soundseeing” tour of the places Paul went.

In one episode, Paul interviewed the founder of SaintsforSinners.com—Rob Clemenz’s homespun operation to tell stories of the saints and sell hand-painted saints medals. It was a fairly successful little business based in New Orleans. When Katrina hit, all the medals were washed away, and he was resigned to give up on doing the website and practice law instead. But then he heard some stories from hurricane survivors who pulled up their bootstraps and didn’t give up on their homes and jobs and Rob changed his mind.

Fig.4 Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Today, a Saints for Sinners medal can be found around Bruce Springsteen’s neck, as well as The Tudors’ star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Even Paula Deen, the Butter Queen, has a medal. They seemed the perfect souvenir from New Orleans, and I told my sister we had to find them.

Addresses of medal-selling boutiques in hand, we set out for New Orleans. Of course, we were headed for the part of town least affected by Katrina, but I couldn’t help but see the big difference as we drove through the city, even compared to my memories from four years before.

Like a red welt left behind after getting slapped in the face, the damage from Katrina still lingered. It seemed that half the buildings and homes and roads I saw were still damaged and dilapidated, while the other half were brand new from being very recently rebuilt. Our arrival at the Superdome and Canal Street was like coming out of a half-baked virtual reality into an isolated sector of a fully-realized Second Life island. The French Quarter felt untouched. Standing on the boardwalk nearby Jackson Square, one would never know anything resembling the finger of God had ravaged the city to a degree that many people couldn’t imagine it ever being rebuilt and repopulated.

Fig.5 We are New Orleans

In the years following Katrina, I had seen much new coverage and documentaries on the storm’s effect on New Orleans, and contrasting those horrific images with the beautiful ones in my memory of the place was heartbreaking. Adding to that ache, the subject came up in a conversation at my work one day and someone casually tossed off a comment that the place was “sinful” anyway, that if any place deserved it, it was New Orleans.

Astonished at such callousness coming from an observant Christian woman, I tried to disabuse her of the ignorance behind that statement, enlightening her to the profound history and beauty of the city, of the God-fearing people who lived there, of the breathtaking St. Louis Cathedral where many worshiped. I had only seen one part of the city, but I saw enough to know that the world would be a lesser place to lose any part of New Orleans, a city built on its complexity of human experience.

Turns out it’s not hard to find saints in New Orleans. Sure, we had a few hitches in locating our medals in some boutique stores and we did eventually get some, but the real saints of New Orleans are the people who came back. Walking around the Quarter and seeing how many small businesses made the tough decision to start all over for the sake of their lives, for the sake of their hearts and souls, for the sake of their faith that they would resurrect their home so America could still count this jewel of a place in its vast collection… it became clear the real saints had never truly left.

There was no more appropriate souvenir to take home from NOLA than a Rob Clemenz medal. Mine may have a colorful depiction of St. Francis of Assisi on it, but it’s essentially a St. Clemenz medal, Patron Saint of Survivors.

Fig.6 We are the Saints

Dashboard Buddha: Conan O'Brien Edition

"Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say,
'Jesus! This cup is expensive!'" --Conan O'Brien

Fig.1 Tao of Coco

We begin with a koan:

One day, a monk went to the Zen Master as he was sitting in his room one morning. The monk, who had spent several years at the monastery studying under the Zen Master, was finally allowed to speak to him alone. The Master was sitting alone, staring at the floor. The monk assumed he was in a meditative state and bowed, backing away to leave his Master alone.

"Come, sit down," the Zen Master said softly, his eyes never blinking. "What is it you wish to ask?"

The monk, thrilled to have this chance to ask a question of the Master, stepped back into the room and asked, "What can we expect from life?"

The Zen Master still stared at the floor in front of him. The monk walked over, hoping to get the Master's attention by taking a seat on the floor in front of him. The moment he sat down, he felt he had sat upon something. It squished under his bottom. He blushed, surprised.

The Zen Master said, "There is a burrito on the carpet."


Okay, it's not a real Zen koan. But if you've ever read a number of real koans, it's almost indistinguishable in its impenetrable, seemingly useless lesson in Zen technique. And I got the idea from Conan O'Brien.

Fig.2 Keep lookin' up

Conan, of course, has been on many peoples' minds lately. He's been in my heart for close to a decade. I taped him on VHS every night while at college. I named my parakeet after him. I lapse into snorting laughter whenever I watch him. My friend Elissa and I got to visit Studio 6A for a taping of Late Night and got to sit in the front row. So, my deeply emotional reaction (wallowing in grief) to his latest career issues (UNFAIR!) is to be expected. For a good chunk of my life, I hadn't gone more than a few weeks without seeing my Conesie Bone on a regular basis. I had taken it for granted that I'd get my fix for another ten years or so without interruption. I was looking into an abyss bereft of the random, Harvard-trained childishness I'd come to love.

Naturally, I focused my regular meditations on my specific suffering. It's not often that one of my beloved TV gods of choice encounters a crisis, so I was in uncharted waters of concern and helplessness.

After a week of diligent focus during my meditation sessions everyday, a lightbulb popped in my brain. I remembered the Buddha's words:

"All conditioned things are subject to change."

Fig.3 Everything changes... except Conan's crazy hair

One of the most important teachings in all of Buddhism is the truth of impermanence, and that it only sucks if you expect anything different.

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get," Conan said in his farewell speech.

Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh once said,"We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible."

If a flower bud remains a bud, it won't show the beauty of the bloom. If the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs were still around, I doubt the pyramids would be half as wonderfully mysterious. If Conan remained at Late Night, we wouldn't know the epic gags and elaborate comedy bits of his reign on The Tonight Show.

Conan's own eccentric comedy style constantly gives us what is least expected, and it's fun, not tragic: a Fed-Ex Pope, a Gun-totin' NASCAR-driving Jesus, a Rocket Raccoon, absurd, cartoonish predictions for the Year 2000, If They Mated pairings of beautiful people that turn out the most hilariously hideous children, State Quarters that commemorate embarrassing events and people. And after all that, the Masturbating Bear jumps out.

Fig.4 Driving the desk straight into my heart

Once upon a time, I clearly remember Conan pointing out a certain foodstuff on his floor. "OH MY GOD! There's a burrito on the carpet!" he exclaimed. I don't recall the context, but I apparently thought it sufficiently hysterical enough to quote it in my LiveJournal several years ago.

That burrito, in its deliciously arbitrary location, is something special. It's strange, but useful and nutritious. But if we are not mindful of it, if we lose our focus and overlook it, either because it's so common or because it's simply unexpected, we'll sit on it.

A monk accidentally sitting on a burrito is funny because we realize the monk's mistake in not paying attention. We laugh because we see ourselves in the monk: distracted, unmindful of surroundings, sitting in an uncomfortable position atop a burrito. Who can say they haven't done something just as silly in their life?

As the last week of Tonight Show episodes aired one by one before my eyes, each conveyed a greater sense of scarcity than the last, until the nacre of rarity coated the last moments in a pearlescent lustre of awesome. Would the January 22nd episode of the Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien have been as precious without its limited edition status?

Impermanence teaches us beauty. If we would just look at every episode in that way, all would be precious. If we could look at everything in life that way, all would be precious.

Conan--who is arguably the one person who most realizes this whole NBC debacle is NOT the end of the world--has taught me to be humble, especially in the face of the unexpected. His self-deprecating manner and clownish antics have endeared him to me in a way no arrogant comic ever could.

The Buddha said:

"To the extent that a fool knows his foolishness, He may be deemed wise."

And the Universe knows how many bajillions of times Conan has said, "I'm an ass."

"Isn't that right, Cactus Chef playing Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' on a flute?"

Sure is, Conan. Sure is.

Fig.5 Celebrate the unexpected

Islamophile: Part 2

"All you young political pundit lovers out there, set your hearts to throb!"
--Jon Stewart


Fig.1 My favorite Iranian

Soon after the start of my religious awakening, Jon Stewart opened his show with that line. It is the most astute assessment of my cardiac activity whenever the mop-topped bespectacled religious scholar Reza Aslan appears on TV.

In religious scholar/Middle East expert commentator circles, Reza is “something of a Beatle” as Jon said, also joking that when people think religious scholar, “they think younger” than thirty-something Reza. I haven’t seen any other religious scholar hip enough as to appear on all the kids’ favorite news commentary shows and Facebook and MySpace and The Daily Beast and Bloggingheads and Twitter. Beatle comparison earned.

Once I was watching a documentary on the history of the Qur’an and the moment Reza unexpectedly popped up to offer his insight on the socio-political context in which the Medinians battled the Quraysh, I had tachycardia. I have since collected some of his greatest lecture hall hits on my iPod. You know, for those cold, dark, lonely nights studying the Qur’an. Reza can give me theological exegesis any day.

Fig.2 A revelation unto pop culture

Anyway, Reza sat across from Jon that day and I fell for him the moment he displayed a sense of humor about his religion. The book he was promoting, No god but God, is the first I ever read about Islam. No god but God has since been translated into a dozen languages and is frequently hailed as a great introduction to the faith. It came just in time, too.

Through Reza’s stories of fleeing Iran when he was just a boy and his vivid descriptions of what the Prophet Muhammad experienced during the infancy of Islamic history, the most misunderstood religion in my society was revealed to me with actual truth and deep understanding. What little fear I might have had regarding Muslims was forgotten. Finally, for my part, the Prophet had a face not colored by Arabian stereotypes or tainted by propaganda. It was a face not so different from Moses: the reluctant prophet wizened by God’s words, which eventually told him to lead a faithful people out of oppression and idol worship. Reza painted a vivid portrait of Mecca and Medina at the time of the Prophet and illuminated a history and a geography I had previously encountered only by watching Sir Alec Guinness pretend to be an Arab.


Fig.3 Reza doing what he does best: teaching while handsome

What blew my mind the most after reading Reza’s book was that too many people don’t even realize or accept that Islam is an Abrahamic religion, one that traces its ancestry to the Biblical Ishmael—Abraham’s first son born of his wife’s handmaid Hagar. Moses and Jesus are in the Qur’an, and are blessed just as much as Muhammad by Muslims. The story of Adam and Eve, Noah and Joseph are in there as well, along with many more stars and celebrities of both the Old and New Testaments.

After reading that, it occurred to me that Allah is the same God that gave Moses a reverse makeover on Mount Sanai and gave Jesus the powers of a water bug (among other powers, obviously). God has 99 beautiful names in the Islamic tradition, and Allah is only one of them. The Hebrew/Jewish names for God are Yahweh, Jehovah, He, Him, Almighty, Hashem, etc. and people generally don’t think it’s a different God from the one who sent us Jesus. But the Arabic word still tends to confuse people even though Christians utter that particular name of God all the time. “Hallelujah” this and “Hallelujah” that. How do we pronounce that? "Allah-LU-yah." Praise be to God. Pretty obvious if you ask me. They’d fit right in at a masjid.


Fig.4 The beauty of God is often expressed through exquisite calligraphy

My Rezannaisance set up the modus operandi for the rest of my Islamic explorations. Reza guided my internet research with his attitude of reverent humor and respect for religious history that cut through the hurtful propaganda and revealed the heart of Islamic world culture.

Can I get an Alhamdulillah! for Mr. Aslan?

Islamophile

Yassir: You know, it's brave of you to be doing a show like this, given our political climate.
David: Right! Also, uh, we have ethnic quotas and our Jewish dude quit.
--“Little Mosque On The Prairie”

Fig.1 Allah bless & keep Morgan Freeman!

My first memory of Islam is Morgan Freeman.

I was eight or nine years old, sitting on the floor of the darkened living room as my family watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on VHS. As I marveled at the epic story and the characters, I remember asking myself if I were a Christian, just like Robin Hood. When I assumed I was, I was very proud to share something with this charismatic do-gooder. I have since fallen in love with both Errol Flynn’s and Douglas Fairbanks’ portrayals of the legendary swashbuckler and Prince of Thieves makes me yearn for Renn Faire season every year.

For a very long time, the only real concept I had of a Muslim was Morgan Freeman’s character, Azeem: “the Painted Man” who accompanies Robin of Locksley back to England and has trouble finding quibla in the infamously overcast new climate. He is wise, mysterious, and sticks out like a Moorish thumb. His understanding of the world is as obviously different from the rest of the characters as his skin color, but people soon realize he’s not a “savage” and accept him because of his kindness and mental skill.

Fig.2 Morgan is God, after all

The deepest impression I got was from the scene in which a little girl timidly walks up to Azeem and asks him “Did God paint you?” He says yes, and she wonders why. Azeem smiles and replies, “Allah loves great diversity.”

Fast forward half a lifetime later, and my eyes grace Surah 49 “Al Hujurat,” verse 13 in the Qur’an:

O mankind! We created
You from a single
Of man and a female
And made you into
Nations and tribes, that
Ye may know each other

I immediately thought of Azeem when I read that. He really knows his stuff.

My second memory of Islam is 9/11. Unfortunately, for many people, 9/11 is their only memory of Islam. The smiling, freckled face of Morgan Freeman would never come to their minds.

I remember many college students getting agitated and jumping into a car late at night to steal an American flag off someone’s house to hang it high from the outside stairway railings of our dorm and yelling about “ragheads” and “camel jockeys.” The irony of stealing personal property to showboat their patriotism is totally lost on freshmen boys.

There were half a dozen of us dorm-dwellers cloistering ourselves in my room that Tuesday morning, eyes glued to the same tiny 13-inch TV I use to watch The X-Files and The Daily Show, all of us watching in confusion and sadness as neighbors called their relatives in New York City to make sure everyone was okay. Classes were canceled, of course, but the otherwise beautiful sunny day outside didn’t prevent us from envisioning the surreal image of another hijacked plane crashing into the Turlington Plaza or Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, with tens of thousands of students being burned alive.

I could only imagine how terrified the Muslim students must have been. They probably prayed that the hijackers weren’t Muslims. Many law-abiding American Muslims began to fear for their safety whenever they walked out the door.

They felt the same as every other American.

For many years, I had no idea that I had no idea. My Islamic education came slowly but lovingly.

Fig.3 Holmes & Watson of the desert

My last semester at UF, I developed a huge crush on Omar Sharif. It was Thanksgiving and I was home for the vacation. I spent that Sunday night in heaven: a long evening in the warm and Christmas tree-lit living room, watching our seasonal favorite Doctor Zhivago with the parents, glass of warm Baileys in hand. I nearly nodded off several times near hour three, and having heard Lara's Theme clinging to every tiny soundless niche of the film's soundtrack, it stuck in my head for the entirety of my dreams.

When I went back to school, TCM was re-running Doctor Zhivago, so I left that on in the background while I did homework and noticed that Lawrence of Arabia aired right after it. I thought, why not? I’ve always meant to see that one, might as well check out David Lean’s epic Panavision masterpiece on my trusty 13-inch TV-VCR combo. I cringe to think I committed such film screening blasphemy, but it was a good thing I watched anyway, because it launched my love of all things remotely Arabian.

I tracked down a copy of "Seven Pillars Of Wisdom" on Amazon and diligently read it while immersed in a motley mix of Persian/Egyptian bellydance tunes on my iPod. Nothing could beat the romance of T.E. Lawrence’s adventures in desert politics. His curiosity regarding Arabian religion and culture was enviably strong and I found myself just as intrigued by the customs of the “Moslems” as he was. I also learned an inordinate number of facts regarding dromedary gastral fuctions.

After the honeymoon period for that chapter of my intellectual stimulation, the camel love held on the longest. I still watch Omar Sharif movies every Thanksgiving, but it took another curly-haired chocolate-eyed infatuation to really fuel my interest in Islam.

To be continued...

Fig.4 I... LOVE... camels

When the gods go slumming

"I suppose that's one of the ironies of life-
doing the wrong thing at the right moment."

--Charlie Chaplin


Fig.1 Robert and Charlie, two of the Universe's best hits

In high school English class, we were once given a special assignment: read up on a VIP in history and write epistles as if we were acquainted with that person. This glorified book report affected my life right then, and the aftershocks still rumble today. At that stage of my impressionable teen years, I was watering the seed of my current passion for classic cinema, so the person I chose was that king of the silent screen, Charlie Chaplin.

Sir Charles is unquestionably a complex and fascinating person, and by many accounts, the most famous person to have ever lived. There was a time when no creed, culture, geography or language was a barrier to his celebrity. Everyone who had ever seen a motion picture knew who he was, and still do. Watching his films and studying his life, one comes to realize that his creative genius was a force of nature, as inherent and apparent in his being as the curl in his hair. I have since read four biographies on the man, viewed every surviving film he ever made (80+), collected photo essays and other books related to his life, and even visited his now historically preserved old studio in the heart of Hollywood, which was nothing less than a religious experience for me.

The day came when I couldn't put off watching Richard Attenborough's biographical film, Chaplin, with Robert Downey Jr. in the titular role. I was never a fan of Ally McBeal, and at the time, the only perception I had in my mind of Robert was of his being in that show which I despised. He was persona non grata by association. I had no faith in the guy, even before he went on his now infamous shame spiral.

Fig.2 Good riddance?

But when I finally saw Chaplin, I was completely baffled by what I saw. Robert had resurrected Charlie, a luminous star who had been crucified by his exile from America in 1953, reborn and re-appreciated in all his glory and flaws through this young, idiosyncratic upstart actor. Robert was essentially Dead To Me, but after seeing him as Chaplin, I moved him to the On Notice board in my mind. There was potential there, and I couldn't ignore that. I was ripe to change my mind entirely... eventually.

Time passed, I read more and watched more, occasionally stumbling upon news of this crazy Robert Downey character's debauched antics. Pooped out on the other side of self-imposed exile, he did a few roles in low-key movies, the best of which, in my opinion, was Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. I soon found that I was pleasantly surprised to see him involved in David Fincher's Zodiac, and then came along Iron Man, which finally shoved this middle-aged Phoenix out the ashes. Now he's working on a big-budget sequel and doing a wonderful job as Sherlock Holmes, one of my favorite literary characters of all time. He's definitely off the boards and written into the "Gotta love this guy" column now.


Fig.3 It's a good thing that people (and minds) can change

The couple of interviews he gave in Esquire magazine in the past few years contributed to his appeal in my heart. He had a mature and candid attitude toward questions of his stupor-addled years, often describing his thoughts in curiously metaphysical terms. He has an uncanny ability to express his spiritual concepts in metaphors so deceptively simple they float in space, dense as a neutron star in their mystical concision:

"It's something that I struggle with--the embarrassment at being on the side of the coin that no one else had a problem with when you were tails-down."

"I'm in this rarefied air... and it has a shelf life--and then it goes stale."

"There is a bumping up of infrastructure so when the plan makes itself known, it doesn't fall through the cracks--I honestly don't know what the next marching orders are gonna be from the good-guy Cosmos."

"I can't hit my ass with both hands tryin' to figure this mystery. I just know that it winds up coming back to all that old-time religion stuff, except you add science and physics and all of a sudden, faith."


Fig.3 Are you a cog or a mechanic to your own machine?

When you come up with gems like those, you've definitely traded the coke for something... else.

One interviewer noted that Robert has a little Buddha on a spring glued to his car's dash. Reading his words, I see that now, Robert is the spring-loaded Buddha on his own dashboard, speaking life's wisdom so jostled by starts and stops. He's especially suited to spouting such circumspection because of his past, and could never have come to those conclusions had he not hit bottom and then crawled back. He probably wouldn't be as good as he is now if he didn't get chewed up a little.

We all love an underdog, but why is it some people who seem to have all the brains or the talent or the charisma seem prone toward personal catastrophe?

Charlie once said, "The human race I prefer to think of as an underworld of gods. When the gods go slumming they visit the earth. You see, my respect for the human race is not one hundred percent."

In Buddhism, there are dozens of levels of existence: heavens, hells, animal realms, human, god, bacterial, hungry ghosts, etc. Karma determines where a soul is incarnated, and oftentimes, one makes it to the highest god realm. This realm is just short of nirvana, so even the gods are still subject to karma. When all the good karma that got them into the god realm burns off, they sometimes get dumped back into a human realm. The gods go slumming, and they are so acclimated to the creature comforts of the higher realms that they freak out a little when they come back to the suffering of Earth. They're higher-functioning humans than most, but they get frustrated in this lifetime.

Charlie, with all his ego, recognized his own fall from the god realm into this one. He was at once respected for his art and maligned for his controversial personal problems.

It's no mystery why Robert portrayed Charlie so perfectly in the biopic--they're from the same stock. Both great artists in their own manner, so equally inspired and troubled by superhuman foibles, and redemption is a significant part of their stories. The same might be said for Michael Jackson or Tiger Woods--supreme talents with issues, redemption on the horizon.

When the gods go slumming, the horizon is theirs for the taking. They long to go back to it somehow; their home is that place where Heaven meets Earth. How they walk off into it is up to them.


Fig.4 Even a poor Tramp is entitled to some happiness

Dashboard Buddha: Doctor Who Edition

"Mankind doesn't need warfare and bloodshed to prove itself. Everyday life can provide honour and valour. Let's hope that from now on this country can find its heroes in smaller places. In the most ordinary of deeds."
--The Doctor

Fig. 1 The Doctor is most definitely IN

In the series three finale of the new Doctor Who, the “Master”—a powerful Time Lord gone completely mad—seizes control of the planet Earth and rules with no mercy for an entire year. During that time, the Doctor is imprisoned, but he tells his trustworthy companion, Martha, to roam the world in order to develop a weapon against the Master: a special injection gun that will kill him instantly. The Master finds her and destroys the gun, but Martha is amused that the Master would think the gun was their entire plan.

“As if I would ask her to kill?” the Doctor says from his cage, displaying his usual reluctance to take life, even in such an extreme situation. Killing was the Master’s way of doing things, but that’s not the Doctor’s style.

Turns out the real plan was to the spread the word of the Doctor’s powers in order to get everyone on Earth to call out his name at a certain moment—a prayer of hope, if you will—which magically breaks the Doctor’s bonds and renders the Master powerless. Up until that moment, for the entire year, the Doctor had said time and time again that he had one thing to say to the Master. The Master knows what it is, and he takes it as a threat.

“I forgive you,” the Doctor says, embracing the fearful Master as a friend.

Despite all the Master had done to hurt and kill humans, the Doctor had no intention of harming him. The Master, after all, was the only other Time Lord in the entire universe, and the lonely Doctor didn’t wish to lower himself to a level of hatred and malice that would cut his population in half.

After the Doctor reverses time and the world goes back to what it was before the year of tyranny, Martha, upon looking out at all the people in London, says, “A time was, every single one of these people knew your name, now they’ve all forgotten you.”

“Good,” the Doctor says without hesitation, as he is happy to be perpetually uncredited for his part in saving lives.

Fig. 2 Make nice with your enemies

That Doctor Who episode reminded me of the tale of Ungali Maal and the Buddha. Ungali Maal was a fearsome man who wanted to sacrifice a thousand people to a goddess. He got his name, which in Sanskrit means “finger necklace” because he would take his victims’ fingers and string them together and wear them around his neck. After killing hundreds of people, Ungali Maal encountered the Buddha in a jungle and wanted to kill him as well.

The Buddha was fearless and said, “Take a leaf from that tree there, buddy.” Ungali Maal humored him and plucked a leaf from the tree. The Buddha then said, “Now put it back on the tree.”

Ungali Maal said, “Pfft, that’s impossible. You can’t put a leaf back once you’ve taken it.”

The Buddha said, “Then if you can’t put it back on, you shouldn’t pluck it off in the first place, my friend.”

Ungali Maal realized the real meaning of the Buddha’s lesson and immediately bowed down to him, the Buddha forgave him, and Ungali Maal the murderer went on to become a saint, one of the Buddha’s most devoted followers. The Buddha would never take credit for Ungali Maal’s transformation because he didn’t force him to be good, Ungali Maal himself made the decision to be good.


Practicing forgiveness and modesty is a very Buddha thing to do. It’s a very Muhammad thing to do. It’s a very Jesus thing to do. What if we treated all people like they’re the last of our kind?

Fig. 3 A little sonic screwdriver for the soul

Orthodox Jew Reggae stars and Islamic Rap artists and everything in between

"My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary."
--Martin Luther

Fig. 1 I Always thought clothes were overkill

I loved Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven from my first viewing at the theatre, and it wasn’t because Orlando Bloom gets shirtless in it (that’s just one reason). With institutions like Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons involved, as well as an uncredited Edward Norton performance and Ridley’s signature mise-en-scene, it’s a masterfully illustrated story about the folly of pride and the human necessity to embrace all nations as one human family.

Perfectly underpinning this multicultural theme is Harry Gregson-Williams’ rich tapestry of a musical score. It seamlessly weaves Celtic, Mediterranean, and Persian influences into a set piece that is earthly for its mix of instruments, yet otherworldly because it makes the many cultures responsible for the different styles feel as if they were never separated by land or sea. A favorite thread in this score is the angelic echoing vocals of ancient choral hymns. I noticed the simplicity set me at ease whenever I was studying or reading, and I wanted more.

A search for Gregorian chants on iTunes yielded my now favorite group Sequentia, an ensemble dedicated to resurrecting the canticles of medieval Europe. Both male and female voices in predominantly acapella performances transport me to a musical plateau of serenity. Whenever I listen, I can practically smell the incense and feel the warmth of the sun filtering through the stained glass in colored shafts of light. As a bonus treat, Sequentia likes to toss in a few instrumental pieces that showcase the sounds of traditional strings and woodwinds.

There’s something universal and profound surrounding them. Perhaps it’s the sheer grace of God, or just the incomprehensible Latin, but I prefer to think it’s the purity of devotion that imbues them with comprehensive appeal. They were performed to praise a higher existence, not to deride or condemn, but inform listeners of the deeds and love of God.

In Mary Doria Russell’s exquisite novel The Sparrow, a young man working in Arecibo for the SETI program discovers a signal sent through space and time from a star system a few short light years away. He realizes that it’s a song, which indicates intelligent life. Scientists, humanists, and a Jesuit priest are all brought together by that ethereal music, and all of them travel to this new world on the Jesuit organization’s dime. For the Jesuits, as an influential and financially capable organization in the story, the mission is about finding rare resources that can be brought back to fund their missions on earth. For each of the characters, the journey becomes a spiritual test as they attempt to discover the source of the songs on a strange new planet.

Reading the book, I was surprised how moved I was by the description of the SETI discovery and it had me thinking for days about how I’d react to such a significant event. Hearing a song from an alien world filtering down through the stars and vast chasm of space would be a singular spiritual moment for all humankind.

Earth itself has a diversity of music that might overwhelm an off-worlder first hearing it. Even if they only listened to the religious tracks, they’d be surprised at the variety. I certainly was.

Podcasts, movies and documentaries may not be alien sources, but they provided plenty of absorbing listening from perspectives I never knew existed. Here’s a spiritual playlist of some of my favorites:



“There Is A Tree” by Carrie Newcomer
I heard an interview with this Quaker folk singer/songwriter on Interfaith Voices a while back, and was particularly impressed by the mystic quality of this song and her rich, earthy voice. It invokes a sense of the profound in everyday life, as does Carrie’s entire album “Geography of Light.” My other favorite song of hers, “Where You Been,” makes direct reference to many faiths, revealing the universality and playfulness of spirit.


“O Quam Mirabilis Est (Antiphona)” by Sequentia
The simplest, most angelic of Sequentia’s tracks. I have no clue what she’s saying, but it doesn’t beg translation. I feel the love, the dedication, the devotion, the joy. It’s beautiful in its musicality, heartbreaking in its purity.


“Hannukah on Hannukah” by Erran Baron Cohen
I read an article on Tabletmag.org (formerly Nextbook.org) on a newly released album in December 2008 that was created to “change Hanukkah’s reputation.” It’s called “Songs in the Key of Hannukah” and upon hearing it once through, I decided I could listen to it all year long. It’s composed by internationally acclaimed DJ Erran Baron Cohen, who cranks up the irony of his brother’s anti-Semitic characters by injecting a proud and somewhat fundamentalist Jewish flavor to this holiday album. Lighting the shamash and eating sufganiyot has never been so hip.


“Mul Mantra” by Snatam Kaur
Whenever I hear this song, I’m reminded of the long trip between New Orleans and Killeen, Texas with my sister and her husband. I stared out at the endless Texan grazing land and listened to the Sikhwithin podcast, where I first heard Snatam Kaur’s soothing voice. Turns out she’s something of a rockstar in Sikh circles, a California-born woman who performs kirtan devotional music on peace-promoting world tours. The Mul Mantra is the essence of the Guru Granth Sahib, the official Sikh text, and within its few words, contains dense layers of spiritual concepts. Snatam is such a gifted singer that simply hearing her version of the chant without any previous knowledge of Sikh theology, one can sense the depth and emotion and history suffusing it.


“Welcome Home” by Hamza Peréz
Featured in the excellent PBS POV documentary New Muslim Cool, this inspirational rap serves as a primer for leading a righteous life after leaving jail. Informed by Hamza’s own story as a Puerto Rican ex-drug-dealer in the streets of Pittsburg who converted to Islam, this song cuts through to the core of spiritual conversion: to change your life for the better, forever. The film demonstrates the injustices visited upon Hamza’s mosque community as well as the strength of brotherhood and sisterhood they have to endure life’s hardships, and how Islam always guides them toward kindness and standing up for themselves.


“I Will Be Light” by Matisyahu
Matthew Paul Miller, known by his Hebrew name Matisyahu, was influenced through a youth equally defined by Bob Marley and yeshiva, and his music seamlessly sews together reggae-flavored instrumentals and vocals with Hasidic Jewish theological themes. Another Interfaith Voices discovery, this song, with its “dreadlocks to sidelocks” backstory, struck me as a powerful testament to the dynamism of religion and how beautifully it can evolve and inspire each new generation.


“Jesus Is Just Alright With Me” by The Doobie Brothers
I just really love this song. It’s very catchy. Its spiritual message doesn’t detract from its pop cred at all. Anyone can listen to it, whether you’re Christian or not, because it’s stripped of dogma. It’s a simple story of finding Jesus as a friend, and no matter that I’m a Buddhist, I can still agree that Jesus is just alright.


“Pal Pal Hai Bhaarii” by A.R. Rahman
This one is on the soundtack of the excellent hindi film Swades, and it’s from the scene featuring the Ramlila, the traditional play about Lord Ram’s life and adventures. The lyrics are based on the classical storytelling style and as usual, A.R. Rahman’s underlying score defines itself as anything but simple accompaniment. Find the translation of the story on Bollywhat.com and you’ll enjoy the full impact of the lyrics, both dramatic and mystical.


“Sacred Stones” by Sheila Chandra
Oddly enough, I first heard this song on an episode of Queer As Folk, and it was played during a slow-motion sequence meant to give some pause to the usual fast-paced beats that pump through the heart of Babylon, the characters’ nightclub of choice. I noted its singularity among other songs featured in the show and discovered the meditative quality it had. It’s just the kind of song you’d hear playing in the background at a yoga class, but it constitutes more than your standard ambient vaguely South Asian-flavoured white noise. It combines a handful of religious chants in one song to exemplify the tonal, and, incidentally, the spiritual similarities among them. Listen closely.


“Muestro Senyor Elohenu” by Yasmin Levy
Listening to Vox Tablet one day at work, I heard the story of a woman whose father painstakingly preserved thousands of traditional Sephardic songs sung in Ladino—a Hebrew-Spanish language, an Iberian version of Yiddish. Having a Puerto Rican background myself, and a pretty sharp ear for music, I was struck by the instant visceral reaction I had to her voice. In her interview, she described how her feet stood in three worlds—Israel, Arabia, & Spain—and her multicultural influence was so evident in her songs, the unification of which brought me to tears. It still does, every time. Her music, especially this song, is a manifesto for the brotherhood of human life.


“Twilight and Shadow” by Howard Shore
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is no doubt three of the most spiritual and soul-searching films of any generation, and the music reflects themes as diverse as the races of Middle Earth. I find this track one of the most essential because it distills the complex bittersweet tone of the entire story into a sad but hopeful hymn that you could drop into a list of songs by Sequentia and not know the difference.

The Hanukkah bush is still burning

“Does Hanukkah commemorate events profound and holy?
A king who came to save the world?”

“No. Oil that burned quite slowly.”

--Stephen Colbert & Jon Stewart singing “Can I interest you in Hanukkah?”


Fig. 1 My sister, hungry for Hanukkah

You gotta hand it to Christians. They really have a lot of pizazz in their holiday celebrations. Whatever it means to you, you can’t deny the jocularity of the Christmas season. Pageantry, singing, sparkling lights, tinsel, brightly colored presents and party costumes and dresses--it’s no wonder the English language has developed the expression “Gay as Christmas.”

The Jews, on the other hand, are comparatively “meh” about the old “sensible alternative to Christmas,” Hanukkah. That’s not to say they haven’t tried. I mean, eight days of presents certainly trumps one day, but it’s often described as an exercise in delayed satisfaction instead of a week of gift-giving bonanzas. The food is great, though! What’s more deliciously American than oil-soaked potatoes and jelly donuts? I’m surprised they don’t use that in their marketing campaign more often.

Fig. 2 Jon tries to convince Stephen that Hanukkah is cool

For me, celebrating Hanukkah has meant profoundly understanding every nuance in a finely-crafted jokes Jewish comedians make about it. The subtle but illustrative dropping of Yiddish terminology and references to the Maccabean battles of old have proven extremely hilarious in the right context. And I get stares from people who are obviously not Jewish “it-getters.”

Two years ago, I went menorah shopping in preparation of my upcoming Hanukkah festivities. Did you know that you could spend as much on a menorah as you do on a Christmas tree? They last longer though, and many become heirlooms, which certainly sticks with the Hanukkah theme of conservation. Can you imagine having the same artificial Christmas tree in your family for generations? Didn’t think so.

Menorahs are nowhere near as messy, though instead of kvetching about pine needles and preventing the dog from drinking the tree water, I had a festive time scraping melted candle wax off my mantel. A handy tip: to get the wax off the menorah itself, put it in the freezer for an hour, then chip off the frozen wax. Much easier on the lower back than hauling the tree into the attic.

Fig. 3 The Jewish equivalent of an artificial Christmas tree

The first time I insisted on giving Hanukkah a try, my family already had years of trained experience making latkes. My mom, the multi-talented cook who always loves trying new recipes from all walks of life, taught us the joys of shredding potatoes and squeezing out their copious amounts of water to make the pancakes stay in one piece in the pan. They are, by far, one of the greatest contributions to culinary art ever. Smothered with sour cream and chives (or applesauce, if you’re traditionally-minded) with a side of Hebrew Nationals and some carrot coins… oh baby. It gives you the energy for days worth of dreidel spinning.

We also challenged ourselves to giving eight gifts to each other every evening after lighting the candles. We were already bogged down with buying Christmas gifts, so they usually amounted to very small tokens involving inside jokes and edible treats. My dad, the creative one, came up with an unexpectedly complex plot to crush us with his gift-giving and storytelling prowess. At the time, I’m not sure he fully appreciated what he had gotten himself into, but I’m glad he did it.

Each night, sitting on the sofa in the living room, he revealed a small chapter of a Hanukkah story he had conjured, and each night he gave us something related to the story, much like how Kindergarten teachers use props to read children’s books to their students. It was a story about a young man with a magical “Gelt Horse” and a magical basket that filled up with coins every night so he could save enough money to marry a young lady. Dad gave us each a small plastic toy pony with a Star of David Sharpied onto its rump, then a small basket, then an increasing amount of golden Sacagawea dollars appeared in the baskets. They doubled every night. You can imagine that we ended up with a handsome sum when we ran out of candles.

Fig. 4 The purebred Gelt Horse

Best lesson in saving money EVER.

Thank you, Dad, for making your little girl’s first Hanukkah a memorable one.

As for the real reason people celebrate Hanukkah, its details are thought provoking in their outward mediocrity. Judah Maccabee led the Jewish revolt against the tyrannical Antiochus in Judea around 164 BCE. When the Maccabees took back control of the temple, they found only one day’s worth of the consecrated oil needed for daily ceremonies, but during the eight days it took to make more oil, the oil they had never burned out. The story was considered too recent and inconsequential at the time of compiling the Jewish testament, so it didn’t make the final edit. Hanukkah as a commemoration ranks as a minor holiday compared to Pesach (Passover) or Yom Kippur.

So why has it risen to the rank of the most popularly known of Jewish holidays (in America, at least)? The tradition of gift-giving and the focus on childhood activities may have been installed to give the holiday more chutzpah and a means of Jewish immigrants to assimilate into American culture during the country’s nation-building era. But as Jon Stewart tends to say regarding his own interfaith family’s holiday observations, “Christmas blows the doors off of Hanukkah.”

Fig. 5 Even our dog Harmon got into the spirit

Most fascinating to me, though, is how each traditional image we associate with Hanukkah still steadfastly embodies reference to the Maccabbean story. The dreidel, something so innocuous and seemingly random, has the Hebrew letters Nun, Hay, Gimel, Shin, which stands for the Hebrew phrase: “Nes Gadol Haya Sham” (A Great Miracle Happened There”), referring to the miracle of the eight-day oil. The nine-armed menorah (as opposed to the ancient traditional seven-armed menorah) is actually called a Hanukkiah (related to the Hebrew word for “to dedicate”), denoting its use as a lamp for “dedicating” the new temple that Judah had captured from Antiochus.

Hanukkah, as a minor holiday, is simply not built to be the kind of all-encompassing epic celebration of anything as world changing as a messiah coming to Earth, which is part of the reason why it’s got flyweight muscle in the pop culture match between it and that heavyweight champion, Christmas. Hanukkah basically had the unfortunate luck of occurring adjacent to Christmastime and is compared to Jesus’ birthday by virtue of proximity, which is totally fakakta.

Fig. 6 If Martha Stewart were Jewish...

Hanukkah was designed for something else entirely. It’s a small holiday that has, in the grand history of things, made the others still possible. Hanukkah commemorates the little miracles that make all the difference. Little miracles like oil-fried latkes with sour cream. Mmmm.

Sunrise, Sunset

“I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.”
--Elie Wiesel


Fig. 1 My Nature Coast sunset

On Wednesday, 12 September 2007, I went to the beach with my sister. It was a typical sun-kissed September day, and some fluffy clouds rolled in the late afternoon, just in time for a photoshoot during the “Magic Hour.” Before hopping into the car, my sister grabbed her camera, and I grabbed handfuls of sand from my Zen garden and I put some in my pockets.

We drove out to Pine Island, which is just about the smallest beach in existence. It’s a spit of land on the margin of a saltwater marsh connected to Nature Coast scrub prairie by a long but modest two-lane limestone dirt causeway. The road winds out to where a handful of stilt houses have taken up residence, along with a small park skirted by white quarried sand trucked out there for the enjoyment of sunbathers and castle builders.

Pine Island is almost never what you’d normally define as “populated.” By Santa Monica standards, PI is as deserted as a beach on Pluto, hosting more seagulls and almond-sized crabs than humans. It’s one of the Gulf Coast’s many little secrets that require no more than direct knowledge and $2 for parking (and even that is waived after a certain hour). When the neon-cheddar-orange disc of the sun dipped into the Gulf of Mexico, we emptied our pockets into the water, symbolically casting off our sins and problems from the past year and letting the tiny waves carry them away.


Fig 2. Suck it, sin!

My sister, the natural photographer, got some great shots of this event. A Pine Island sunset is remarkable enough without ushering in a religious holiday, but hey, the more spiritual significance, the merrier. Ushering out the old year with water, sand and warm autumnal sunsets appeals more than a cold January garish ball drop several latitudes away.

That was our first Rosh Hashanah.

When I first decided to study everything, I began with investigating holidays. Everyone loves an excuse for getting out of work and spending a day full of music, food, and fireworks with the occasional James Bond movie marathon.

Fig. 3 Daniel Craig: Good for the Jews
(see Munich & Defiance... seriously, go see them)

Jews have accumulated an impressive number of holidays not because it’s so ancient (Hinduism beats it by a thousand years or so) or because they’re particularly self-congratulatory (all the Woody Allen self-deprecation says otherwise), but because the Torah focuses so much on remembrance and preserving memory of the Tribe’s incredible history. For eighteen minutes of that incredible history, try downloading The Tribe short film from iTunes. Best two sheckels ever spent. See also: West Bank Story. I think it won "Best Use of Hummus in a Short Subject Film" at the Oscars.

There are a lot of fasts and feasts throughout the year, but there are fourteen that will show up in the most religiously aware of wall calendars, and they’re all fun to pronounce: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Chanukah, Tu B’shvat, Purim, Pesach, Yom HaSho’ah, Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Lag B’Omer, Shavuot, and Tisha B’av. They last from one to ten days (depending on who you ask), and they’re brimming with all the mentally enticing symbols and customs my culturally titillated heart adores.

For me, 5768 (according to the Hebrew calendar) was a do-it-yourself year of becoming less of a blatant shiksa, and I still enjoy my new traditions of celebrating the big ones in my own freestyle way.

Fig. 4 Not kosher

Next weekend, I’ll post my reflections on Chanukah (Hanukkah, whatever, as long as it has 8 letters, it's spelled right), which begins this year at sunset on December 11. It’s one of the few Jewish holidays that manifest with a small, dedicated section of the seasonal greeting cards aisle in Target, along with an endcap shelf containing menorahs, candles, and decorative gel window clings. So break out your dreidels and latke recipes and your Yiddish dictionary and join me for some oil-soaked fun!

Head to the ground

"The earth has been made for me [and for my Ummah] as a masjid [place for worship] and a pureness ; therefore, anyone of my Ummah can pray whenever the time of Prayer is due."
--Prophet Muhammad

Fig. 1 A two-year-old can understand this. Someone fetch me a two-year-old!

Listening to a Speaking of Faith podcast from a few years ago, I was struck today by Ingrid Mattson’s description of her first prostration experience. This particular episode is an interview with Ingrid regarding her conversion to Islam and subsequent appointment as the first woman president of ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America.

Ingrid tells the story of being in France during her first exposure to Senegalese Muslim devotees who became her friends. One day, they invited her to pray with them and she said she didn’t know how. They said that she could just follow along with what they were doing, so she obliged. Islamic prayer, the du'a, involves many steps, including several body positions and prescribed chants and Ingrid felt extremely awkward trying to keep up.

Fig. 2 I'm pretty sure it's not quite this complicated

But once she had her forehead to the ground, taking pause in that position, she felt closer to the earth, closer to God, and in the intimacy of the moment in which she could not be distracted simply because her eyes are staring at the floor, she felt prayer as a full body experience for the first time. When I heard her say that, I remembered that I had the exact same feelings doing my first Buddhist prostration.

I don’t know about y’all, but the last time I had my forehead to the ground was last night, after dinner. My pre-yoga ritual consists of what may be called a standard Buddhist chant:

I take refuge in the Buddha.

I take refuge in the Dharma.

I take refuge in the Sangha.

I follow this up with candle-lighting and some prostrations of my own, borrowed from the Tibetans. I hold my palms together in a specific mudra (hand formation) and touch the top of my head, my forehead, my heart, and then bend down for a full-body prostration on the ground, touching my forehead to the carpet. I do this three times, each time reciting the above mantra.

Fig. 3 Olympic Cross-country prostration

When I did this for the first time, I was in the privacy of my bedroom, with nothing to distract me and no one to see me make this new step toward adopting a cultural tchotchke my new faith. It felt incredibly strange and awkward. As a not-so-churchy person to start with, when I saw movies and documentaries showing Buddhists doing this pretty obvious, involved, anti-subtle prayer ritual, I was confused. I had to keep in mind that it was a Tibetan-style prostration, one full of meaning and metaphor and even superstitious history, but it was beautiful and I wanted in.

I wanted to “create sacred space” and learn to respect it by bookending my meditations and yoga practices with a small ritual.

But the prostrations were awkward for more than one reason, i.e. I had no clue what I was doing because I had never done them before. It was strange because bowing and touching the floor, in Western society, is associated with subservience and is way too self-deprecating an act for a middle-class protestant nation that worked very hard to escape class-obsessed systems and aristocratic societal structure.

For Eastern societies, these acts are a sign of profound respect toward someone or something and in no way demeans the person doing them. It is humbling, but it’s a willful humility I adopt whenever expressing my respect for my teacher, The Buddha. I bow to him, not as a worshipper, but as a student, and in the process, I also bow to nature and the Universe, connecting myself to a stable ground beneath me through a gentle touch that always touches me back.

I definitely fulfill my quota of hours with my head in the clouds (and especially in outer space due to my love of astronomy), so it's common sense to balance it out by literally touching it down to the ground everyday.