Friday, December 4, 2015 – happy birthday Art
Somali-British poet Warsan Shire’s poem evokes intimacy — a crying child lucky enough to have a mom or a dad hold her or him, whispering “where does it hurt?” Shire enters that moment and opens it out into the wide world and a time marked by brutal absolute convictions that demonize those with whom one differs. Columnist Omir Safi turned to Shire’s poem while reeling with shock after the Paris massacre.
“I watched the outpouring of grief from all over the world, including most of my Muslim friends. I saw hundreds of Facebook profiles being changed to the French flag-themed profile pictures, and thousands of #prayerforParis and #Prayers4Paris tweets.
I also saw, as I knew would come, wounded cries of the heart from friends in Beirut wondering why their own atrocity (43 dead) just one day before — also at the hands of ISIS — had not received any such similar outpouring of grief; friends from Pakistan wondering why there was no option to “check in as safe” during their experiences with violent attacks; friends from Central African Republic wondering why their dead — in the thousands — are the subject of no one’s global solidarity.”
It’s the first Friday of Advent, for me and perhaps for you this is a good time to allow a poem to take me into intimate tenderness. When we have eyes to see and ears, close kindness can open ways into courage during a hard time in a hard world.
Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses, to let the cadence and word choices surprise you and restore realism and a capacity for the world’s beauty.
Have a blest weekend.
john sj
Today’s Post: “Where does it hurt?”
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
(Omir Safi, Column for “On Being”
November 27, 2015 — http://www.onbeing.org/blog)
ps Some of us who work at U Detroit Mercy would want to remember that today, December 4, Art McGovern, sj would turn 86 were he still walking the earth. Lots of us miss him a lot.
Art McGovern, in his office smoking his pipe
c. 1990