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Art meets life meets art
In his new collection, "Trappings," Richard Howard makes an old question shine again.
By Melanie Rehak
[12/17/99]

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"Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" by Gregory Maguire
Cinderella is a manipulative, self-pitying twit who loves to sweep ashes in this retelling of the fairy tale.
By Rachel Elson
[12/17/99]

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
By Mark Bowden
[12/16/99]

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette
By Judith Thurman
[12/16/99]

Original Bliss
Original Bliss
By A.L. Kennedy
[12/16/99]

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By David Alford

Dec. 17, 1999 | Professors can be emotional Scrooges. When a hug can be grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit, teachers must toe a slippery tightrope. On my last teaching day of the year, I realized that students would benefit if their teachers judiciously shed their emperor's cloak. Like planning how to spend millennium eve, I was paralyzed by the pressure of ending my world religion and spirituality class with a cosmic bang. I was plagued with self-doubt until I observed my son's aikido class and watched the master's amazingly graceful performance. His actions were spare and simple, like the movements of an aged cat. He was making statements with understatement, bringing about effects with little visible cause, exhibiting what the Chinese call "wu wei," or actionless action.

We had jousted for four months in class, sometimes trivializing the significant, other times enchanting the puny, but always fending off apathy. It would be pathetic to have a mundane finish. I didn't need to emulate the aikido master's superiority, but I would have to acquire his gracefulness if we were to have a meaningful ending. The precise lesson came to me on the way home from the aikido barn.

We began class as usual with a one-minute meditation. Then I stood up and wrote two categories on the two sides of our vast blackboard: "Beliefs and behaviors that nourish spirituality" and "Beliefs and behaviors that harm spirituality." I invited students to join me in covering the board with words and pictures. Slowly they got out of their chairs and began to write: "Intolerance, hatred, war and closed-mindedness" appeared on the harmful side, while "dancing, music, love, acceptance" was chalked on the opposite side. Soon 20 of us were standing in front of the board, pointing and laughing at the mural. People laughed when "good sex," "bad sex" appeared on both sides and then stared as "indifference, mocking and destruction" appeared and "compassion, equality and solitude." There was a stir when somebody wrote "capitalism" on the harmful side and "communism" on the nourishing side. Little arguments broke out:

"Golf is on this side."

"No, golf is on that side."

"OK, 'good golf,' 'bad golf.'"

"That destroys the whole thing; anything can be bad or good."

"Have you heard of a 'good' war or 'good' racism?"

"But that's dualism all over again, 'good vs. evil.' Haven't we had enough of that?"

"So, there are two kinds of people in the world."

"Yeah, the kind who divide people into two categories and the kind who don't!"

"What about higher consciousness? Is that good or bad for people?"

"How could it be bad for people?"

"What if it gets in the way of 'be here now'?"

"'Be here now' is higher consciousness!"

"Where do we put 'capacity for suffering'?"

"What about 'the fall from the garden'?"

And so on until everybody was worn out, yet elated at our tapestry of human history.

"Awesome."

"We transcended ourselves."

"The board is full to bursting."

Even Red, Ethan and Bethany, the fervent naysayers, nodded that "both halves of the board are necessary for spiritual growth. It is a false dichotomy." Self-awareness accumulates slowly, like a fertile archeological dig, but we had sped it up.

I wondered if my video of "Smoke" would be anticlimactic now, but I popped it in anyway. In the film, Harvey Keitel plays Augie, a streetwise owner of a small tobacco shop in Brooklyn. William Hurt plays Paul, Augie's customer, a writer suffering from the pain of personal loss. Augie opens his shop for Paul, who spies a camera in the store. Augie tells him that every morning he takes a photo of his shop from across the street. The 4,000 pictures represent his little corner of the universe.

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