My favorite question

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, and then the election happened and I wasn't sure if about sharing it. But I think we need lots of hoping and helping.

On “Packing Day” of the summer camp I attended and worked at for a decade of summers, on the fateful day when the suitcases must be stuffed full and the end of the warm embrace of that month at camp is quickly arriving, there are six magical words that every person in the lodge recites. The director – Ariella – sprawls herself across the table, rolls around in melodrama, and leans into the legitimate heartbreak of summer’s end to implore campers to make the best of the day while packing things away (and not leave many things behind, as she once did). One phrase is the secret to this. Long-time campers know it well; new ones learn it with gusto right then and there. It’s a simple question, and there is nothing quite like the sound of hundreds of voices chorusing it over and over again in the lodge.

“What can I do to help?” 

Phonetically, written out, the intonation is probably something like this:

“Wɑt kæn aɪ DU tu hɛlp?” with one’s voice going UP on DO and down on HELP.

It is a very good question.

Last year the town where I go to college – a town I love –  experienced a mass shooting. 

Eighteen people died. Thirteen people were wounded. Many more community members bore witness to horrific violence that has no place anywhere on the planet, let alone a bowling alley or a bar. My heart is always with the families and friends of those most directly affected. And Lewiston – and much of Maine – was full of fear and sadness. We continue to grieve. 

In the wake of what made so many feel so powerless, countless people asked themselves and asked each other what they could do to help. The power of compassion, the power in coming together in grief and in hope, is far stronger than fear — out of necessity.

There’s that old Mr. Rogers quote about his mom telling him to “look for the helpers,” in bad times: 

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping,’ ”.

Yes, look for the helpers – and find out how to join them. Or figure out your own way to help – whatever way that is. Embody love. 

I am not a particularly religious person, but I have heard the parable about the man in the flood a couple of times over – most recently, by a fictional rabbi in a tv show. Regardless of its source material, I think, the parable holds up.

The story goes that there’s a flood, and a man – a devoutly religious man – is sitting on his roof. A boat comes by, and they offer the man help. “No thanks,” the man says. “God will save me.” The boat floats away. Another boat comes by and people in it ask the man if he wants help. He once again refuses. “God will save me,” he says. Finally, a helicopter circles overhead, shouting down at the man that they can rescue him. He declines once more: “God will save me.”

The man drowns in the flood. After dying, he meets God and asks why God didn’t save him. God says that he tried – that he sent the people in the boats and the helicopter to come save the man. 

The point being that that God – however you wish to define or not define God – works through, or exists in, or is embodied in the power of people to help each other. 

The holiest thing I know is human connection; I see divinity in the human spirit. 

After the shooting last year, all I could think about was the power of “what can I do to help.” I emailed Ariella and told her this; I thanked her. In her characteristically kind and thoughtful response, she included a poem by e.e. cummings her friend had read at Vespers when they were both campers:

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

We are all carrying each other’s hearts. 

This Friday I attended a remembrance service for one year since the shooting. In moments of quiet I thought of the prayer for peace (the only formal prayer I really know) I learned at eight years old at Vespers at that same summer camp, and prayed it over and over. And I thought of the song of peace we sing to close those Vespers services – Dona Nobis Pacem – and how Ariella always sings the harmony. 

Dona Nobis Pacem – grant us Peace.

A worthy thing. 

As the service began to come to an end, I looked at the final page of the program and saw Dona Nobis Pacem listed. The whole chapel sang it as a round; it was beautiful. It was not serendipitous; it’s a common song, and rightfully so.

May Peace Prevail on Earth. 

I hope so. I choose to believe it will, because every day, people wake up and ask themselves what they can do to help. Because every day, there is love, and music, and hope, and help. 

With love,

Inez