In the tanakh section of the Hebrew Bible, we meet the great prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others.  They share an ability to consider  the past, look squarely at the present, and predict or imagine a future.  Listening to or reading these men’s words stirs something inside me that is part poetry, part history and part recognition of the truths embedded within their prophesies and predictions.  In the history of Christendom, we find holy men like the Desert Fathers who withdrew from society and creature comforts in order to be alone with their meditative spirits which whispered truths most often rejected or shunned by a society geared toward luxury and an easy credo that did not interfere with important things like commerce and personal success.  Some of us believe that every age has its prophets, often quite without honor in their own countries, but nevertheless intent on proclaiming what they are sure is the path of a culture unless its members make radical changes.

Today, I consider a middle-aged black man named Ta Nehisi Coates to be such a contemporary prophet.  In a series of long articles published in the Atlantic magazine, and now in a book-length letter to his adolescent son, Coates is limning a clear worldview centered on his understanding of what it means to be a black man in America at this moment in history.  Reminding and more often informing his readers of the centuries-long pattern of denigration and overt harm visited upon people in this country of African descent, Coates spells out in specific terms what needs to be done to avert the disastrous course upon which this country continues to travel.  In a long essay on incarceration of blacks in America, he leaves no historic stone unturned under which lurk hideous examples of the dominant white culture’s defining of all blacks as criminal, hence paving the way for things like the seemingly unending string of murders primarily though not exclusively of black men by police who believe the only way to interact with such individuals is by using excessive and fatal force, i.e., shooting them or choking them or physically abusing them and then refusing to offer medical assistance when its need is completely obvious.

In an earlier article about the need for this country to make financial reparations if we are ever to begin to escape the debilitating ghosts of slavery days, Coates argues with razor-sharp logic that, since the United States is the prime capitalist country on the globe, our best way to take responsibility for the financial rip-off of blacks by virtually every one of our institutions is in terms of money.  So, for instance, college educations could be offered to any black person who qualifies for admission, since it was originally against the law to teach a slave to read.  Another simple way to address history’s tangible wrongs against blacks would be to pay descendants of documented slaves a lump sum prorated to be the equivalent of lost wages incurred during slavery when labor by such individuals was never “paid,” or wages lost over the last 2 centuries because of unfair hiring and advancement practices.  (Jamaica recently did precisely this, by the way.)

And, in his latest book, Between the World and Me, a heart-wrenching letter from Coates to his son, trying to help that young man come to terms with the simple fact that his physical body, seen by Coates as the most precious thing belonging to any of us, can be taken from him any second of any day on any street in America.  Toni Morrison has said, in a blurb she wrote at the time of publication, that this book is “compulsory reading” and I agree completely.  If I had unfettered funds, I’d stand on a street corner in Minneapolis and hand out copies to all and sundry.   Combining deep love and a natural sense of protectiveness with absolute clarity about what is going on in our towns and cities just now, Coates prophesies that entire generations are being erased and that, if our towns and cities and political leaders do not act soon to begin to change this devastating arc, our culture may well find itself no longer viable in relation to the platitudes we claim define us as distinct from  many other countries.  

At night, after I’ve read myself into hopeful sleepiness, I pray for certain people who seem to me central to recovery for this country and world.  The Obamas, including their dogs, are first, as they have been since the night of Barack’s first election to the presidency.  They used to be the only people I named specifically, but since his elevation Pope Francis comes next for me since I believe his refusal to be silent about how far his particular institution, and now the whole political structure that refuses to be good stewards of the planet, has gone to stifle kindness and inflict unnecessary pain puts him in danger from those within the Roman Catholic hierarchy who find his policies entirely to their dislike.  So I pray that no one shoots him.  Finally, after reading Between the World and Me twice, I now name Ta Nehisi Coates in my nightly orizons, asking that he remain safe and alive so that he may continue being my/our prophet in this sometimes heartless and confused country/world.

On December 6th, Pope Francis opened the massive door at the Vatican, officially beginning the Year of Mercy (2016).  This is a Jubilee year in the church’s calendar, so historically the sitting pope has opened this giant portal as part of the celebration in Rome.  Francis has stipulated that this Year of Mercy is to be extended to two groups of people usually not considered top tier by Roman Catholic hierarchists—women who have made the difficult decision to have an abortion and people who have gone through a heterosexual divorce.  Adding to the radical nature of this move, the Pope also granted permission to every cathedral in the world to hold its own Year of Mercy door opening, saying “Everyone cannot come to Rome, but Rome can go to everyone.”  Sundays find me in a pew at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, MN, so my church was among those granted this first-time-ever permission.  So on December 13th, the 9:30 a.m. Sunday mass began with all those in the congregation who wished to do so going outside, following the choir and priest.  We stood in a unseasonal drizzle while the choir sang something lovely in Latin.  

I happened to look to my left where my eyes met those of a dark-skinned woman in a rain hat who smiled at me and said “This is a special day.”  After I agreed, we stood quietly while I let myself feel pleased that the small, single door that I usually use to enter church but which has been sealed shut in anticipation of this ceremony would now become usable again.  Over its bronze surface was draped a six foot colored hanging of a benign Jesus holding his hands in blessing.  The first one of these issued to the Basilica went missing almost immediately, later found under the viaduct near the basilica, obviously taken as a “blanket” to warm one of the homeless men who sleep there.  Rather than reporting this as a robbery, the staff asked for a second hanging, saying to people like me who asked what had happened to the first one “Well, the person who took it down needed it more than we did, so we just got a replacement.”  Now the bronze frieze depicting two saints unspecified by me was unhidden, though the tall hanging has been wrapped around one of the giant pillars of the church’s façade.

Suddenly, when there seemed to be several hundred of us congregants assembled in the light rain, the choir was climbing the granite steps and entering  the narthex, so people began filing back into church behind them.  Suddenly, the woman beside me took my hand and smiled again at me as we both teared up.  As I looked more closely at her face, I became convinced that she was of Middle-eastern origin, so I winced to recall how angry and spiteful many of my fellow Americans feel about Muslims in our country and elsewhere.  

We kept our hands together as we slowly maneuvered the stairs.  Just as we arrived at the marble doorsill, we said simultaneously “God bless you,” and went under the massive lintel.  We parted and I made my tearful way back to my pew where I’d left my glasses to mark the spot.  Just as I had never seen my companion before we were standing in the gentle rain, I probably will never see her again.  I believe she is an angel sent just for me at that spirit-filled moment.  I certainly will not forget our three or four minutes joined by a shared faith and a shared hope for connection over isolation, for fellow feeling over fearful antagonism.

After 21 years with my beloved companion cat, Sophie, I knew I wanted to wait before visiting my local humane society to see if a kitten might want to go home with me.  A couple of months went by and I began to feel the emptiness of my big old house—I knew I needed another breathing entity to touch, be responsible to, and grow to love.  My trip yielded my new kitten whose name on her cage, given by a vet who gave her initial shots, was Darla.  As we were driving home, I said “I don’t think I can live in the house with someone called Darla—I don’t know what kind of name it is.”  Thinking about her coloring as a tortoise shell, the new name came to me in a flash—Patches because of the flecks of gold woven into her otherwise black fur.

She is now six months old, weighs 4 pounds, and is a joy in my life.  Since my previous companion animals lived so long, it has been 21 years since I’ve played with a new kitten.   What I observe in Patches and what delights me is her joyous playfulness.  She will run all over trying to capture the neon pink feather at the end of a long black wand.  Up on chairs till she almost tumbles over from the top of them, burying herself among the various pillows on my living room sofa where she is sure she can confine the elusive pink thing, jumping mid-air after agilely turning her whole body 90 degrees because I change directions on her.  All this goes on every single day and has for the whole three months she’s lived here.

I believe animals can teach us deep life lessons if we are only patient enough to observe them.  What Patches is demonstrating to me, even as I lean dangerously close to despondency as city after city has its own “Ferguson moment” or yet another senseless mass shooting occurs in some innocent locale, is the ability to remain a sense of wonder and hope, day after day, without any real conclusion to her/our quest.  A wise 12-step sponsor of mine often responds to my emergency calls by saying I am to “trust in God’s provision.”  Even when I don’t believe her, I act as if.  Watching this tiny, magical kitten chasing yet again after the ever-elusive feather, I repeat that mantra to myself and keep fluttering the wand so Patches can make one more attempt to contain the elusive.  May she and I never tire of this pursuit.

Following a recent physical exam, I was sent for an echo cardiogram because my GP heard a heart murmur. The cardiogram tells me I have something called aortic stenosis, meaning a valve to my heart has shrunk and may need attention. Because at 78 I am blessed with extraordinarily splendid health and have not a single symptom of aortic stenosis, as I wait to consult with a cardiologist, this all seems unreal to me. But I have the good sense to have a session with an excellent therapist who listened as I answered this question: “How would it change you if you decided not to have interventional surgery?” Immediately I said, laughing, “Well, I’d have to step up the pace of my culling the pieces of paper in my house, so my friend who will have to get rid of everything when I die will have a fewer decisions to make.” To my amazement, the therapist replied “Ah, you won’t have the luxury of the illusion that you have forever to do that process.”

This phrase has stayed with me, letting me understand on a new level from whence much of my procrastination comes: I obviously live under a giant illusion, supported by my stunning health for my age, that I might escape the inevitable, that I might have control over when I leave this life. I’m humbled by this new understanding of something attendance at Al-Anon has made clear repeatedly, i.e., I am powerless over virtually everything except my own responses to what befalls me or takes up residence in my brain. Daily, I try to act as if I truly believe this and, certainly, I’ve made great progress in that regard in the past decade. But working my way through this strange and surreal diagnosis about my heart is giving me new awarenesses. And, importantly, I may have a chance soon to accept the giant truth embedded in my therapists phrase, “the luxury of illusion.” Once I processed my personal relationship to this phrase, I began seeing much broader applications of it. Most immediately, it pertains to how most of the world presently is behaving vis a vis climate change. How else to explain such massive and potentially disastrous procrastination about changing policies that might at least slow down the damage we are doing to the only planet we have? As a people, we insist, in the face of overwhelming scientific and phenomenal facts, on refusing to face the consequences of our egocentric thoughtlessness toward the world around us. And this particular illusion has the capacity to overwhelm us on every conceivable level, making a world like “luxury” obsolescent.