{"id":1636,"date":"2015-12-04T00:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T05:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1636"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:49:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:49:05","slug":"dec-4-where-does-it-hurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2015\/12\/04\/dec-4-where-does-it-hurt\/","title":{"rendered":"Dec 4 — Where does it hurt?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, December 4, 2015 \u00a0– happy birthday Art<\/strong><\/p>\n

Somali-British poet\u00a0Warsan Shire\u2019s poem evokes intimacy\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a crying child lucky enough to have a mom or a dad hold her or him, whispering \u201cwhere does it hurt?\u201d \u00a0Shire 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. \u00a0Columnist\u00a0Omir Safi turned to Shire’s poem while reeling with shock after the Paris massacre.<\/p>\n

“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\u00a0#prayerforParis<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0#Prayers4Paris<\/a>\u00a0tweets.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 also at the hands of ISIS \u2014 had not received any such similar outpouring of grief; friends from Pakistan wondering why there was no option to \u201ccheck in as safe\u201d during their experiences with violent attacks; friends from Central African Republic wondering why their dead \u2014 in the thousands \u2014 are the subject of no one\u2019s global solidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the\u00a0first Friday of Advent, \u00a0for me and perhaps for you this is a good time to allow a poem to take me into intimate tenderness. \u00a0When we have eyes to see and ears, \u00a0close kindness can open ways into courage during a hard time in a hard world.<\/p>\n

Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses, to let the\u00a0cadence and word choices\u00a0surprise you and restore realism and a capacity for the world\u2019s beauty.<\/p>\n

Have a blest weekend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post:\u00a0\u201cWhere does it hurt?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

later that night
\ni held an atlas in my lap
\nran my fingers across the whole world
\nand whispered
\nwhere does it hurt?<\/p>\n

it answered
\neverywhere
\neverywhere
\neverywhere.<\/p>\n

(Omir Safi, Column for\u00a0\u201cOn Being\u201d<\/p>\n

November 27, 2015 \u00a0\u2014\u00a0http:\/\/www.onbeing.org\/blog<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0Lots of us miss him a lot.<\/p>\n

Art McGovern, in his office smoking his pipe<\/p>\n

\"Art-McGovern\"<\/a><\/p>\n

c. 1990<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, December 4, 2015 \u00a0– happy birthday Art Somali-British poet\u00a0Warsan Shire\u2019s poem evokes intimacy\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a crying child lucky enough to have a mom or a dad hold her or him, whispering \u201cwhere does it hurt?\u201d \u00a0Shire enters that moment and opens … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1638,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions\/1638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}