www.sharonsalzberg.com

JOURNAL

Fall 2008

This summer and fall have been very political seasons for me. A new friend offered me a guest pass to the democratic convention in Denver in August, and I quickly said yes. I’d never been to a political convention before. I’ve often watched them on tv, with great interest. I even like the roll calls, with each state proclaiming its glory, “The commonwealth of Massachusetts, home of Gardner, chair capitol of the world…”

I’ve enjoyed that note of belonging, of pride, even while recognizing it can go in many directions: it can be divisive, caught in the vanity of “us” and “them”, the path of separation and the tragedy of creating and then disdaining the “other.” Or perhaps we can have that pride yet hold it lightly, and not get caught up in labels and designations as our core identity. Perhaps we can move away from tribalism and egoism and hatred of the “other” through practicing inclusion and empathy and paying attention to all.

I turned 56 a few weeks before the convention. I was trying to send a fedex around then, and for the first time ever, the helpful clerk told me that if I was 55 or older, i could get a 10% discount. gulp. My first discount based on age.

When Ted Kennedy took the stage at the Democratic National Convention, I, like so many, saw the journey of my life flash in front of me…his brother John’s inauguration and assassination, his brother Robert’s assassination, the personal tragedies, the long tenure in the Senate, and now his bout with cancer. To see him on that stage, with a big chunk of his hair not yet grown back from the brain surgery, his voice so firm and filled with life, was amazing. The span of my life seems to fit so completely within the span of his. And it is so dreamlike: where did the time go? What makes a lifetime?
I so admired his commitment in coming, and his expressing his passion and dedication. Of course I am very interested in the concept of lineage, and it was striking to see a sense of lineage in his passing the torch of his family’s mission of public service to Barack Obama.

I went to college in 1968. Within a year or so, a fellow in one of my classes left town for a while and went down south to march for civil rights. I can’t remember his name, but I remember what he looked like so well, a big guy with red hair, and shining eyes. When he came back, he had been beaten and was scared and his eyes weren’t so shiny — he seemed uncertain that his efforts and his caring and his trying and his suffering would make any difference at all.

If he’s still alive, I hope he was at Mile High Stadium the last night of the convention in Denver, or was watching it on tv. 45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, tens of thousands of people (including me) wept as Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination. I thought of my college acquaintance, and all those people who fought and sometimes died so that America would do the right thing and affirm every citizen’s dignity. I hope he was in Chicago on the night of Nov 4, or singing the Star Spangled Banner in front of the White House, or hugging a stranger on the streets of some American city. Or, was, like me, sitting in front of a tv, crying tears of joy.

I hope we all can move further from divisiveness and tribalism, and care more fully for ourselves and one another. I hope we all see more deeply into the truth of how interconnected we all are. I hope we all can experience the strength and beauty of connecting to something bigger than our own egoic needs, something as big as the incredible capacity of our own hearts.