Almost Time to Rake the Leaves

The long shadows of September now behind us, the leaves change colors as the sun sets and darkness descends by early evening. Dried sunflowers, orange pumpkins, and the multi-colored gourds of autumn decorate neighborhood porches, as the brisk air and blue skies of October transform summer into fall. The Cardinals having fallen from grace with a mysterious and inexplicable late summer collapse, baseball season is essentially over for me and all of the unfortunate souls who embrace the 24 teams that failed to make the postseason. Weaker fans with football allegiances transferred their emotional investments to pigskin rivalries weeks ago, filling their weekends with tailgate parties and the sounds of clashing helmets. Soccer moms transport budding athletes to tournaments and practices, where soccer and lacrosse and field hockey are played on rectangular fields devoid of the charm and history that pepper the diamond-shaped pastures of our national pastime.

For the suffering baseball fan, whose team was mathematically eliminated or realistically out of the race by early September, the last weeks of the season are a slow, tortuous journey into the abyss of the soul. It ends only after the last out of the ninth inning of the 162nd game, when the season comes mercifully to a close and the baseball angels, at least those of non-playoff teams, pack up for winter.

After the locker rooms are emptied and clubhouses cleaned out, after the players and coaches return to their real lives, to their families and homes and off-season workouts, only then can one partake of a sabbatical from the excesses of fandom and the irrationality of caring so much for a team that knows not of your existence. The sports pages no longer filled with box scores and the running soap opera that is the pennant race, it is almost time to rake the leaves again.

For the third time in the last four seasons I have been forced to watch the post-season with an unwelcome dispassion. Granted, it is less stressful and, with the Cardinals a distant memory of a long, frustrating summer, I can watch and enjoy the games for the pure skill, strategy and drama that is baseball at its highest level. How could anyone not appreciate the masterful performance of Roy Halladay’s no-hitter in Game One of the National League Division Series, or the nearly equally impressive, fourteen strikeout performance by Tim Lincecum? I can relax and enjoy, as a baseball fan, the pitching matchups between the pesky Giants and the powerful Phillies, as I look forward to the much anticipated rematch between Philadelphia and New York in the World Series.

But in my solitary moments, if I am completely honest, thoughts of the postseason without the Cardinals – even the act of writing these words – brings a sharp and profound pain to my heart. If my lifelong love of the Cardinals has taught me anything, it is that there is far more losing than winning in baseball. “Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character,” wrote William Carleton. “The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.”

Baseball is a metaphor for life, or so it seems, and I could not help but feel sorry for Brooks Conrad, the 30 year-old journeyman infielder of the Atlanta Braves who made three errors in Game Three of the NLDS against the Giants, costing the Braves the game and, quite possibly, a chance at the World Series. Brooks is the Everyman, a hard working, career minor leaguer, who only made the post-season roster because of injuries to Chipper Jones and Martin Prado, two of the Braves best players. He had played a total of eleven games at second base in his major league career when, due to circumstances outside his control, he was called into duty against the Giants. But in baseball, as in life, when you seek anonymity, there is no place to hide. The ball will always find you.

Before a sellout crowd and a national television audience, with millions of people watching, Conrad made a wild throw to first base in the first inning, dropped a pop fly in the second, and let a routine ground ball go through his legs in the ninth. The last two errors resulted in two of the Giants’ three runs in what turned out to be a 3-2 Giants win. To make matters worse, the ninth inning error followed what would have been a heroic two-run homerun by the Braves’ Eric Hinske in the bottom of the eighth, a dramatic shot that propelled the Braves to a 2-1 lead and erupted a previously quiet hometown crowd. But when Buster Posey’s ground ball went through Conrad’s legs with two outs in the top of the ninth, the go-ahead run crossed the plate and the Giants won the game. Brooks Conrad is now forever tarnished as the kid who blew the playoffs for the city of Atlanta.

“Don’t you know how hard this all is?” Ted Williams famously asked a reporter who had criticized his team in the previous day’s paper. “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” Baseball is a test of character that regularly challenges one’s capacity for handling adversity and coping with failure. Even a great player fails more than he succeeds, and a really good team will lose 60 to 70 times in a season. It is for this reason that the true fan develops defense mechanisms for coping with disappointment, for caring about a team that consistently breaks your heart.

But fans can be cruel. As the Braves came to bat in the bottom of the ninth, after Conrad’s two-out error had parlayed victory into possible loss, and as Conrad sat in the dugout, alone and head bowed in shame, the Atlanta scoreboard played a video of Conrad’s walk-off, pinch-hit grand slam that had beaten Cincinnati earlier in the season. The crowd at Turner Field booed mercilessly, even though it was that home run in May and a second pinch grand slam later in the season that helped the Braves earn the wild card berth and earned Conrad more playing time -- and the confidence of his teammates. “What have you done for me lately?” is today’s constant refrain, magnified in professional sports, where exceptional play and heroic efforts are expected every day.

"You hurt for him," Braves outfielder Matt Diaz said after the game. "This should be the time of his life." For Conrad, the memories of this one game will linger for a lifetime; his dream has become a nightmare.

Kahlil Gibran wrote, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Conrad is hardly alone in the annals of baseball misery. When Bill Buckner let Mookie Wilson’s groundball slip under his legs in Game Six of the 1986 World Series, allowing the winning run to cross the plate for the Mets (who naturally went on to win Game Seven), it took Red Sox Nation two decades and two World Championships before it could offer forgiveness. No one suffered more than Buckner. Despite a magnificent career that spanned 22 years and compiled over 2,700 hits, he was forever marked with a scarlet “E” on his chest to the fans of Boston. When his son and daughter were cruelly mocked and taunted in school, Buckner, a strong, rugged first baseman, moved his family to Idaho, where he could live in peace and in the solitude of his own suffering.

“To err is human, to forgive divine,” wrote Alexander Pope in the 18th century. In 2008, twenty-two years after his misplayed groundball, Buckner was invited to Fenway Park to throw out the first pitch. When he walked from the Green Monster in left field to the pitcher’s mound, the Boston fans gave him a prolonged, apologetic standing ovation, as if to say, at long last, we forgive you. Buckner stood on the field overwhelmed with relief, tears streaming down his face. He had finally come to peace with his internal demons and soothed his misery; and in his own gentle way, he could now offer forgiveness for the unfairness of it all.

As fans, we too easily forget how truly difficult it is to play this game, even when the outcome is not magnified by world-wide television coverage and the exaggerated meaning individual fans ascribe to what is, in the end, just a game. Baseball is a team game, and the cumulative performance of the parts is what counts, not the individual success or failure of one player. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success,” Babe Ruth once said. “You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”

Good teams not only have good players, they have chemistry, that intangible something that the Cardinals desperately lacked this year. I could sense it when I watched them play, especially in late August and early September, when the stress of the pennant race and the burdens of competition were at their peak. They looked uptight, a group of men blessed with the opportunity to play a child’s game, something that many of us can only dream of, that still dream of; and yet, it appeared, they were not having fun.

So, for me and the faithful loyalists of all but a few remaining teams, it is time to rake the leaves. Yet the sense of loss I feel at season’s end is inevitably and optimistically followed by a sense of hope. For a baseball fan, the end of one season opens up fresh dreams and new possibilities, the unbridled optimism that spring will once again bring a harvest of bright young stars and reliable veterans, when team chemistry will click, and when the baseball angels will reward my faithfulness and determination with a contender. “Wait ‘til next year” is the oft-repeated maxim, from which I have found comfort on many occasions. Although the darkness of fall has arrived and the harshness of winter beckons, for baseball fans, next year is never all that far away.

American Exceptionalism vs. the Myth of National Superiority

America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents. . . . The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

--President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009.

Ever since our founding, Americans have believed that the United States plays a special and unique role in the world. 234 years into this grand experiment, most Americans continue to espouse some notion of American exceptionalism – the belief that the United States possesses a historical destiny placing it uniquely among the world’s nations as an arbiter of freedom and democracy. All American presidents, liberal and conservative, historically have spoken of the United States as the exemplar of liberty, and President Obama is no exception. Only in America, he often exclaims, could a black man with a funny sounding name become President.

But American conservatives in recent years have taken the concept of American exceptionalism further, believing that America is morally superior to other nations, and that our superiority entitles us aggressively to export our political and economic values to other parts of the world, with force if necessary. Where liberals and conservatives differ, where liberals become uncomfortable and conservatives unabashed, is in the notion of national superiority.

That we are superior to all countries in the world in every aspect of our governance, our culture, our society, is asserted often and rarely proved by empirical evidence or objective criteria. Ramesh Ponnuru and Richard Lowry of the National Review presented a conservative view of American exceptionalism in a March 2010 article, stating unequivocally that America is “freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth.” While most Americans instinctively agree with this particular sentiment, it is essentially a statement of faith, not reason. Is America really the “most free, most democratic” country on earth? Conservatives tend to treat it as dogma, a theological creed essential for a true patriot. But is the sentiment supported by empirical facts? How substantially does the influence of money in our political system undermine our belief in one-man, one-vote? Is our two party system open to the establishment of new political parties? Four times in our history, the electoral college has allowed the popular-vote loser to become President of the United States. Corruption of our political leaders, particularly at the state and local level, is commonplace. Racism and discrimination have historically hampered economic mobility and educational advances. We imprison a larger share of our population than virtually any other democracy on earth.

If we could truly rate democracies on an objective, point-by-point scale, how would the United States stack up? Attempted earlier this year by Freedom House, a center-right, independent watchdog organization that, since 1941, has promoted democratic values and opposed dictatorships on the far right and the far left, Freedom House rated every country on earth for its commitment to “free” and “democratic” qualities. America, not surprisingly, scored well, as did many other democracies, mostly in Europe. But while we fell within the top tier (scoring the highest ranking of 1-1), we scored fairly low in comparison to many top tier countries on such things as “electoral process”, “rule of law”, and “freedom of expression”.

In several key social and economic indicators, we lag behind much of the advanced industrial world. Take health care. Conservatives claim that the United States has “the best health care system in the world,” as did House minority leader John Boehner last February. In reality, our for profit health care system, while providing very good care to those who can afford it, denies access to millions and covers fewer people at higher overall costs than do the health care systems of many other countries (mostly in Europe). And we have higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancies than most of those countries. But it is deemed almost un-American to look to our European friends, or to Asia or Israel, for ideas on how to improve our health care system, or any other area of American life.

Many conservatives have criticized President Obama for stating during a European trip last spring, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” For conservatives, this statement proves that Obama rejects American exceptionalism, for if everyone claims to be exceptional then, in reality, no one is. There are two problems with this faulty logic. First, anyone who has ever met citizens of other countries knows that what Obama said is true – most Brits, most Greeks, most Germans, most Italians, most Swedes . . . each believe that their country is blessed with a uniquely special heritage; only Americans seem surprised to hear this. Second, the President actually endorsed American exceptionalism when he went on to say: “I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. . . . [T]he United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality that, though imperfect, are exceptional.”

Although the President nailed it exactly, to many conservatives, what makes America exceptional is the belief that America was uniquely blessed by God at its founding. Conservatives tend to glorify America’s mythological history with an uncritical eye and dislike anyone who shines light on America’s past blemishes. While conservatives love to espouse the fiction that America has always been a land of opportunity, is there any doubt that America’s creed of liberty and equality was not historically open to all? African Americans were enslaved and treated as chattel; women could not vote until the 1920’s; the Jim Crow south denied full emancipation to blacks until well into the 1960’s; Japanese Americans were interned during the 1940’s; and many ethnic groups were denied full access to our best schools and the professions until fairly recently. It is liberals, not conservatives, who have consistently advocated and enacted policies to bring the country into closer conformity to the ideal of equal opportunity for all, who have sought to make the United States a fairer and freer nation for more of its citizens. In return, some conservatives, like Newt Gingrich and Dinesh D’Souza, believe that liberal ideals are somehow less authentically American, the result of a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” mindset.

To believe that America is unique in its devotion to freedom and liberty, or that we have nothing to learn from the rest of the world, results in an arrogant glorification of military power and obedience to an anti-internationalist xenophobia. Are we exceptional, or do we stand out for other reasons? In The Myth of American Exceptionalism, British author Geoffrey Hodgson writes:

From the very beginnings of American history, the commitment to freedom had been mixed not only with the ‘damned inheritance’ of slavery but with the ambitions and interests – for land, for wealth, for military glory – that were scarcely different from those of other peoples and other rulers in other times. And why should they be different? Americans, after all, were not angels. . . . They were men and women of the same clay as the rest of us, and specifically they were, in their great majority, Europeans who brought with them to America European hopes, European fears, European ideals, European prejudices, and a European worship of the nation state.

What makes America exceptional are the ideals embedded in our Constitution, our unique history, and because we have succeeded at great things when we act as one nation. But when we blindly assert our superiority and act with inflated self-regard, when we refuse to examine the things that work in other democracies, we do so at our peril. America's social, political and economic values did not develop in a vacuum and were influenced and affected by many great historical events and transformations that occurred or originated outside of the continental United States – oceanic trade, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, migration, democratic government, industrialization, the scientific revolution, and the creation of a global economy.

Some conservatives long nostalgically for laissez-faire economics and believe that President Obama -- the same president who bailed out the banks and compromised on the public option -- is a dangerous socialist out to destroy America. These conservative voices operate with a very short memory and a selective sense of history. We came close to unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism in this country back in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The result? Unsafe working conditions, exploitation of child labor, no minimum wage, no 40-hour work week, no required overtime and holiday pay, no product safety regulations, dirty air, dirty water, and pandemic inequality, poverty and injustice. It took progressives, who believed that capitalism and the pursuit of wealth needed checks and balances and a regulatory framework upon which to enforce higher ideals without sacrificing creativity and America’s entrepreneurial spirit, to correct these shortcomings. Today, because of reform oriented laws and regulations, almost all of which have historically been opposed by conservative forces in this country, we have a safer, healthier, more just, and fairer economy and society. Some of these reforms were borrowed from our European friends, and we are a better nation because of it. What makes us exceptional is that we are empowered as a people to make our government, our society, and our country better.

America is exceptional when we strive to achieve the ideals of our founding principles and when we choose, in the words of President Obama, “our better history.” We are the most ethnically and racially diverse country on earth; we have mostly avoided class warfare and have historically opened our borders to many who sought unbridled opportunity (ironically, conservative forces have mostly been opposed to new waves of immigrants, and still are). What is exceptional is our willingness to correct past injustices, to recognize our shortcomings, to learn from other nations and cultures when they have something worthwhile to share. What makes us exceptional is when our national actions are, as President Obama stated last year, “based on our Constitution, our principles, our values and our ideals.” When America stays true to its ideals, when we respect humans around the world and at home, when we tap into the potential of all of our citizens regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or class, when we work together as one people to solve our national shortcomings – which requires a willingness to acknowledge and discuss them – only then is America truly exceptional.

Walking the Ben Franklin

Though I am old enough to have discovered that the dreams of youth are not to be realized in this state of existence, yet I think it would be the next greatest happiness always to be allowed to look under the eyelids of time and contemplate the perfect steadily, with the clear understanding that I do not attain to it.

--Henry David Thoreau, from the Journal (October 24, 1843)

When I was in high school in the mid-1970’s, my daily pre-occupations consisted mostly of baseball, girls, and marching band. I worried little about my future and understood even less about the problems of others. What I had planned for Friday night and whether the brown-haired girl in science class liked me were high on my list of concerns; the Energy Crisis, Watergate, the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam formed merely the historical backdrop of my existence. I was interested in the world’s problems, but only superficially, and without the perspective that life’s experiences can bring.

Growing up in suburban New Jersey, I was the all-American boy, achieving academic honors while earning varsity letters in two sports and playing snare drum with military precision during halftime at football games. I laughed a lot back then, told corny jokes, watched old fashioned cartoons, and made frozen soft pretzels on steamy summer nights when the Mets or Phillies were on television. Much has happened since and, though I miss those days, I long ago abandoned the intellectual provincialism of what was a simpler, more innocent time.

Upon graduating high school over 33 years ago, I left for college in the Midwest and discovered a love of learning that has stayed with me ever since. Then I was off to Washington, D.C, and three years of law school, where I developed skills in critical thinking and mixed with more ethnically diverse and worldly students, many having arrived from the nation’s top schools, others having left accomplished careers in journalism, science, politics, and business. The world and its opportunities seemed unlimited then; my greatest worries concerned grades and exams, summer job opportunities, and career choices.

Twenty-five years have passed since I finished law school and, life’s tribulations having taken their toll, I find myself worrying more than I used to, and laughing less. Money and finances, work and fatherhood, marriage and divorce, have all contributed to the reality of dreams deferred and plans unmet.

I walk a lot now. And think. At lunch hour on weekdays, when time and the demands of my job permit, I escape from my office on the 21st floor and walk a few blocks to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where the avenues are wide and expansive, the streets lined with trees and flags of many nations, the sidewalks less crowded. Walking along the Ben Franklin, I achieve a temporary reprieve from the stresses of work and the hustle of life. Starting from the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, I wander by the fountains of Logan Square, past the Free Library and the Franklin Institute, and stroll along the half-mile stretch of tree-lined sidewalks leading to the Art Museum. I would like to tell you that I think great thoughts, that I find solutions to the world’s most pressing troubles. But mostly I just think; and walk; and worry, about my kids and my family, the economy, my job, my life and the lives of those closest to me.

On certain days, particularly in the fall, when the air is crisp and the sky a deep blue, my daily walks aim to soothe the soul, though reminders of life’s realities are ever present. The exhaust fumes of passing buses assault my senses, while homeless men on park benches beg for change. The dust and debris of local construction projects penetrates my lungs and sticks to my clothes on warm, humid days. On certain walks, on my best days, I am reminded of the words of C.S. Lewis, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” It is then I develop perspective born of understanding, that my worries are of my own making and pale next to the genuine troubles seen in the many desperate faces I pass.

“To be awake is to be alive,” wrote Thoreau. When I look skyward and absorb the city air, when I let my mind wander ever so briefly, I feel awakened to life’s infinite beauty. Thoreau reminds us, “When we are unhurried and wise we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute value, that only petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality.”

Compared to when I was younger, my worries now are less mundane and self-centered, and extend beyond the confines of my limited, undeserving causes, for they concern the destiny of others; my daughters, who find themselves embarking on their own life journeys; my family and friends, who confront issues of health and jobs, of loss and love.

Thoreau wrote that most people “lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Although quoted and discussed for more than a century, the power of these words from Walden penetrates deeply. By them, I believe Thoreau meant that most of us live life complying with societal expectations and fail to find true meaning, ignoring life’s small joys and soulful pleasures. Many are afraid to discover passion and fail to find contentment in daily living. The need to conform, the failure to dream, for some even the failure to think for oneself, leads to the quiet desperation of which Thoreau speaks. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions,” writes Thoreau, “perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

When possible, I will continue to walk the Ben Franklin, absorbing the warmth of the sun and the vitality of the sky, listening to the whispers of God as I breathe in life and open my mind to the needs of the soul. I will think. I will worry. And on a good day, if I am lucky, I will be awakened to the wonders of life.

The Search for Meaning on 9/11: Missing the Wisdom of Abraham Joshua Heschel

I suggest that the most significant basis for meeting men of different religious traditions is the level of fear and trembling, of humility, of contrition, where our individual moments of faith are mere waves in the endless ocean of mankind’s reaching out for God, where all formulations and articulations appear as understatements, where our souls are swept away by the awareness of the urgency of answering God’s commandment. . . .
--Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

As I write this, our nation prepares once again to commemorate the tragedy and loss experienced on September 11, 2001. During the past nine years, we have embarked on two wars, buried over 5,660 American soldiers, and we continue to deploy more than 150,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are embroiled in a national debate over the meaning of religious freedom and the limits of the First Amendment. Muslim-Americans throughout the country feel under attack, blamed unfairly for the atrocities of their most radical brethren. Plans to build mosques in several states are opposed by vocal mobs chanting anti-Islamic slogans, mirroring the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero. A lunatic fringe, led by a fundamentalist “preacher” in Florida, disgracefully talks of burning the Koran (their plans canceled for now), thereby insulting and inflaming the world’s Muslims.

My oldest daughter, Jennifer, was born twenty years ago today. On her eleventh birthday, the meaning of September 11 was forever altered and serves now as a timely reminder that our lives are short, the search for meaning more urgent, as the world is so much grander than each of us. This year, as well, September 11 overlaps with the Jewish High Holy Days, starting with Rosh Hashanah, which calls upon Jews the world over to engage in further reflection and contemplation. What better time, then, to turn to Abraham Joshua Heschel – rabbi, theologian, social activist, and mystic, widely admired by Christians and Jews alike – for counsel and guidance in these troubled times.

Although he died in 1972, I believe we need Heschel’s prophetic voice now more than ever. So much of what he said in his lifetime is relevant today. For the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 and for others seeking to make sense of it all, Heschel’s experience in the Holocaust – he lost two sisters at Treblinka and his mother died of a heart attack when the Nazis came to her door – and his words of spiritual healing and enlightenment despite these experiences, speak deeply. Unlike many of his contemporaries following World War II, Heschel never blamed God for the Holocaust. God did not commit the evil perpetrated in the concentration camps and gas chambers, he argued. It was, rather, the depravity of human beings acting in defiance of God and of faith. Heschel contended that God suffered with the victims, and would today teach us that the atrocities and evil committed on 9/11 were inflicted not by God, nor by Islam, but by nineteen fanatics who misinterpreted their religion and blasphemed God.

If Islam committed any crime on 9/11, it was the same crime committed by Christianity during the Holocaust – that of silence, the failure of peace-loving Muslims to speak out with sufficient force against the misguided members of their faith, far too many of whom believe that the Koran requires acts of martyrdom and violence against perceived infidels. “The opposite of good is not evil,” Heschel declared often, “the opposite of good is indifference.” Heschel understood that only human beings could challenge injustice, that God needed humans to correct the wrongs in society. Having lived through the rise of Hitler in Germany, he was all too aware of the capacities of mass silence and indifference. “How many disasters do we have to go through in order to realize that all of humanity has a stake in the liberty of one person? . . . In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible.”

Of course, Heschel was a man of action and not merely words. He fought all forms of anti-Semitism, campaigning for the rights of Soviet Jews and lobbying the Pope during the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960’s to renounce church teachings that demeaned Jews or anticipated their conversion. He fought racism and segregation, marching arm-in-arm with Martin Luther King, Jr., from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. If history were any guide, he would today have spoken forcefully against the rising tide of Islamophobia in the United States.

Heschel saw the divine in every person and emphasized the holiness and sanctity of every human being. “We are called upon to be an image of God . . . and the task of a human being is to represent the Divine, to be a reminder of the presence of God.” Heschel believed that what ailed modern society was the lack of a personal awareness of God. He spoke convincingly of encounters with the mystery of the “divine” that is both within each of us and beyond us; that “discloses unity where we see diversity; . . . peace where we are involved in discord.”

Heschel connected with the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and with King in particular because he believed, like King, that the God of the Bible struggles with us, suffers with us, and is affected by how human beings treat one another. “God stands in an intimate relationship to the world,” Heschel believed, and thus God “has a stake in the human situation.” Because God is “intimately affected” by the treatment human beings afford each other, “God is never neutral, never beyond good and evil.” The political implications of Heschel’s theology are clear: created in God’s image, we are each a reminder of God’s presence; when we engage in acts of violence and murder, we commit such acts against God’s divine likeness. “Whatever I do to man, I do to God,” Heschel explained. “When I hurt a human being, I injure God.”

In an age when religion divides people and nations, Heschel emphasized the common underpinnings of faith. Although profoundly devoted to his own tradition, he believed deeply that people of different faiths must talk to one another in a spirit of humility and respect, not to change or convert the other, but to better understand one another. “We must choose between interfaith and internihilism,” he often said, “No religion is an island.” Although most of Heschel’s ecumenical dealings were with Catholics and Protestants, shortly before his death he flew to Rome (against his doctor’s orders) to attend a conference of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders on the future of Jerusalem. “It is important to remember now,” Heschel said, “that, while I have prayed from the heart for Muslims all my life, I have never prayed with them before, or been face-to-face with them to talk about God . . . we must go further.”

Rabbi Arthur Green, a professor at Brandeis University and former president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, has explained that Heschel

. . . [L]iked to tell the Hasidic tale of Rabbi Raphael of Bershad who invited a group of disciples to come share with him in a ride in his coach. “But there is not enough room!” a disciple cried out, “the rebbe will be crowded.” The master replied: “Then we shall have to love each other more. If we love each other more, there will be room for us all.” Heschel understood that all of humanity rides in that coach, one that can be either the divine chariot of God or the crowded, sealed railway car. The choice, he insisted, is a human one, and we who have escaped the terrors of hell are here to help all our fellow humans make that choice. [From the essay Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Memoir]

Heschel taught that God depended upon humanity to repair and heal the world. The God of the Bible was like the parent of all humanity, “who cannot stand to see the suffering of God’s children.” For Heschel, it was very simple. God needs his children to take care of each other.

For a society obsessed with non-stop consumerism and technologically driven noise, Heschel taught the value of the Sabbath as a sanctuary in time, when “we are called upon . . . to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation.” The concept of the Sabbath urges a day of rest, reflection, study and prayer that is essential to the dignity of human beings and the nourishment of the soul. “The modern man does not know how to stand still, how to appreciate a moment, an event for its own sake.”

Throughout his life, Heschel remained devoted and secure in his Jewish faith, though he openly acknowledged the depth and beauty of other faith traditions. He gave us the tools for religious dialogue, believing that no one possessed a monopoly on the truth. It was clear to Heschel that people of different faiths needed one another. His interfaith involvements extended beyond his alliance with King and the civil rights movement, and included his work with the Catholic Church during the Second Vatican Council, and a visiting professorship at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he developed a close kinship with the great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Heschel understood in all of these encounters that, although their religious beliefs and practices differed, all lived in the presence of God. “There is no human being,” Heschel said in 1961, “who does not carry a treasure in his soul; a moment of insight, a memory of love, a dream of excellence, a call to worship.”

Regardless of one’s age, race, religion, or ethnicity, Heschel believed we must never lose sight of our humanity, for we all possess a soul, a spirit, a heart, and a mind, and it is imperative that we use them. His wisdom transcended generations, cultures, and religions, and the quest for common ground inspired his theology. “Oceans divide us, God’s presence unites us,” he said. “God is present wherever man is afflicted, and all of humanity is embroiled in every agony wherever it may be.”

Because Heschel spoke so eloquently on Christian-Jewish relations and the need for dialogue, I am certain that, were he alive today, he would have spoken with equal passion about Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations. To Heschel, each and every person was sacred. “To meet a human being is an opportunity to sense the image of God, the presence of God.” His voice is sorely missed in today’s world; if only the power of his words could be felt by the likes of radical jihadists, intolerant fundamentalist preachers, and others who remain closed to sharing, learning, and listening to people of different cultures and faiths. “Unless we learn how to help one another, we will only weaken each other.”

He opposed religious parochialism. “Should we refuse to be on speaking terms with one another and hope for each other’s failure? Or should we pray for each other’s health, and help one another in preserving our respective legacies, in preserving a common legacy?” For Heschel, as for us all, the answer is obvious: “The world is too small for anything but mutual care and deep respect; the world is too great for anything but responsibility for one another.”

Turning the Page on a Tragic Mistake

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
--Andre Gide

On Sunday, February 23, 2003, less than one month before U.S. military forces invaded Iraq, I stood before the congregation of Reformation Lutheran Church in Philadelphia and asked everyone present to pray for peace. The war with Iraq was a near certainty, I said, and “while all of us are patriotic Americans who oppose the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction, as Christians we are also called to be peacemakers and justice-seekers. We have a responsibility to weigh the ethical concerns raised by this impending war and to make a faithful response.” I asked everyone there that morning to join in a collective petition for peace urging the President to “Drop Rice, Not Bombs” on the people of Iraq. “This is a symbolic gesture, of course, as rice is a symbol of life and sustenance, but it is an important gesture, to let the President know that there are many patriotic Americans (and people of faith) that are not convinced that this war is being conducted as a last resort or that all possible alternatives to war have been pursued.” Following the service, over 100 congregants signed the petition for peace and it, along with a hundred packets of rice, were delivered directly to the White House.

I am certain that President Bush never saw our petition or our packets of rice, and I am under no illusions that our symbolic action had the slightest affect on U.S. policy. But I am proud of the stance that we took that Sunday and I continue to believe that we were right to oppose the war. For me, it was not an easy gesture to make, for I love my country and I feel nothing but honor and respect for the men and women of our armed forces. No one knew for certain how things would turn out. But in the words of the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Jr., former Chaplain of Yale University and Senior Pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, “There are two kinds of patriots, two bad and one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with all the world.” And while my brand of Christianity may be heretical to the likes of Glenn Beck and many conservative Christians, I am drawn to the words of Dietrich Bonheoffer, who in the end sacrificed his own life in resisting Hitler: “The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but make it. To that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods.”

From the oval office this past Tuesday, President Obama formally announced that the “American combat mission in Iraq has ended” and that “the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.” The president acknowledged that he was opposed to the War in Iraq from the start – it was a key reason I supported him over Hilary Clinton during the primaries in 2008 – but he said this week, rightfully, that it was “time to turn the page.” Our efforts must now be on helping Iraq to secure a future of stability, peace, and self-rule that permits a nation of extremely divergent sects to achieve a semblance of democracy.

The future of Iraq remains volatile and uncertain; disenchantment is rife and its various factions of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds remain deadlocked over forming a government. It may be decades before a full accounting of the war may truly occur, but an interim reckoning seems appropriate before we as a nation, once and for all, can truly “turn the page.”

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the stirrings of democracy in Iraq, however feeble at present, are the two positive outcomes of the war. But do the ends justify the means? And at what cost?

The human cost of the war has been tragic. So far, over 4,400 Americans have died in the Iraq War. This is not just a number, but a heartbreaking reality for the families and friends of loved ones who paid the ultimate price. All were the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of loving families; many also were husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, who have left a lifetime of heartbreak in their wake; most were children themselves, so young and vibrant, with decades of life and potential taken from them, often in an instant. The pictures and dates of those who died can be viewed on a Washington Post website, which helps to personalize, in a small way, the tragedy of war and the profound nature of our losses in this conflict.

Not to be forgotten are the more than 35,000 Americans who were wounded during the Iraq War. Many lost arms and legs or were forever disabled or scarred, physically and mentally, their young bodies broken, their emotional and mental health damaged. They return to the “normality” of life in the United States suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, a sense of lost purpose, and uncertainty as to their self-worth. The Army Times reported in April that there are 18 suicides each day among returning veterans, which should constitute a call to action in itself.

Often overlooked is the human tragedy and devastation that we inflicted, directly or, in the nuance of military jargon, as “collateral damage.” Conservative estimates report that we killed more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians in the past seven years. You won’t find a website with their individual pictures and, for most of us, it is just a number. But allow your conscience to imagine the tragic truth, that each person killed by us was a mother, father, brother, and sister. And how many people did we maim and injure that survived our carnage?

We have spent, to date, nearly $800 billion on the Iraq War (well over $1 trillion counting Afghanistan) and we did so without requiring any sacrifice of non-military families. We not only spent the money without paying for the war, we combined the heightened military spending with huge tax cuts for our wealthiest citizens and turned what was a budget surplus into the largest deficits in U.S. history.

The Iraq war disastrously shifted attention away from the more important fight in Afghanistan and cost us years in our fight against those who attacked us on 9/11. Whatever successes and gains we made in the search for bin Laden and the destruction of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan following the tragedy of 9/11 was lost for several years once we shifted attention to Iraq in March 2003.

Our intervention in Iraq made Americans less safe. It left Iran, a far more dangerous threat to American interests, free to pursue its nuclear program, to finance extremist groups, and to meddle and wreak havoc in Iraq and elsewhere. Moreover, only after we invaded Iraq did it become a hotbed of Islamic terrorism, something it was not before Saddam was ousted. Iraq is a Muslim country in a region steeped in deep resentment of western occupation. Throughout the Muslim world, leading Islamic clerics, such as those at Al Azhar University in Cairo and the Lebanese Shiite scholar, Sheikh Fadlullah, each of whom condemned what happened on 9/11, gave their blessing to fight against the occupation of Iraq, which they believed was justified by the Koran’s prescriptions of “defensive” jihad, when a Muslim land is under attack by non-Muslims. Essentially, a growing global movement was energized by the war in Iraq, with jihadists flocking to the country from places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Yemen. As U.S. forces violently bombed and destroyed much of Baghdad, the entire world watched on CNN, Al Jazeera, and the Internet. A less effective counter to terrorism could hardly be imagined.

Much damage was caused to U.S. credibility by the Bush Administration’s attempted oversell of the war and its embellishment of the Iraqi weapons’ threat (with the complicity and silence of most Democrats). On March 16, 2003, Vice President Cheney said, “We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly. . . [in] weeks rather than months.” On February 7, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld predicted that the war “could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” Bush’s Budget Director, Mitch Daniels, told media outlets in early 2003 that the war and post-war reconstruction would be an “affordable endeavor” not likely to cost more than $50 to $60 billion.

The justification for war was never convincingly made, and all subsequent rationalizations still fall short morally and ethically. President Bush initially attempted to use Iraq as a test case for the administration’s doctrine of pre-emption, which called for early unilateral action against enemies suspected of posing a threat to the United States. The administration implied that Iraq had some undefined connection to 9/11 – something that was not true, which President Bush himself later acknowledged – yet at the time of our invasion, nearly two-thirds of Americans believed that Iraq had been complicit with Al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. The administration also pushed hard the notion that Iraq possessed a large number of weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s), that it was attempting to develop nuclear weapons, and that Saddam was likely to hand off such weapons to terrorists. Yet the evidence is now clear that Iraq’s weapons’ threat was not urgent, if one even existed. In March 2003, the only possible danger lay in the distant future, when U.N. sanctions against Saddam would eventually be removed. But this was hardly justification for seven-and-a-half years of war, as less forceful alternatives were always present. Unlike some on the left, I believe President Bush acted in good faith and was convinced that Saddam possessed WMD’s – indeed, most all of us did at the time – but it is now well established that the intelligence data was manipulated and inconvenient truths selectively discarded.

It was not a just war. We attacked a country that posed no imminent threat to the United States. This was not a defensive war or even a legitimately pre-emptive war. While deposing Saddam was a worthwhile objective, it was contrary to all standards and norms of international law to invade a country solely because we thought its leader a brutal dictator or violator of human rights. If one country can justifiably attack another simply because it believes the other country’s leadership immoral, or evil, or worthy of removal, there would be no reliable notion of sovereignty, chaos would ensue, and many countries throughout the world would be legitimate targets of hostile aggression. Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the War in Iraq, suggested in late July 2003 on Meet the Press that the lesson of 9/11 is “that you can’t wait until proof after the fact.” But as Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “According to this logic, it didn’t matter if there were proof of Saddam’s imminent danger. Follow that logic further and the White House could remove any foreign leader without proof of imminent threat.”

Our actions also fell short of just war theory because they were disproportional to the perceived harm. Deposing Saddam was one thing; killing more than 100,000 civilians, wounding and maiming hundreds of thousands more, causing widespread destruction, and occupying the nation for seven plus years, was far beyond what anyone anticipated or could ever have been justified. The global faith community was right for opposing this war from the outset and the government of the United States was wrong for fighting it.

But it is time to move forward and to take lessons from the past. As the President said in his oval office address last Tuesday, one such lesson “is that American influence around the world is not a function of military force alone. We must use all elements of our power – including our diplomacy, our economic strength, and the power of America’s example – to secure our interests and stand by our allies.” We should honor and take pride in the service provided by our men and women in uniform. Long gone are the days of Vietnam, when blameless soldiers were derided and scorned for the unwise decisions of misguided politicians. “Our troops are the steel in our ship of state,” the President reminded us, “And though our nation may be travelling through rough waters, they give us confidence that our course is true, and that beyond the predawn darkness, better days lie ahead.”

Wars are sometimes necessary, but they must always be a last resort, for the costs of war are astronomical, the burdens of war often too great to bear. In the words of Dwight Eisenhower, we must in the end always “seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.”

Don't Let the Terrorists Win

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws. . . . – President George Washington, January 27, 1793.

America was founded on the principle of religious liberty and has become a sanctuary to millions who have fled religious persecution. The Statue of Liberty proudly bearing its torch in New York Harbor, we remain a symbol to the world of religious freedom for all. From our humble beginnings, we embodied a multiplicity of religious beliefs and divergent sects. The varied religious backgrounds of the original colonists helped to ensure that religious diversity, church-state separation, and the free exercise of religious worship would be a part of our national identity. Although the vast majority of American citizens are Christians, it is no accident that the Constitution makes no mention of Jesus Christ, contains no references to God, and discusses religion only in the context of prohibiting governmental intrusion. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” declares our Constitution, and “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” References to “our Creator” and “Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence were specifically formulated to apply to the followers of all religions, not just Christian ones. The men most important to this nation’s founding – Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin, and Hamilton – each were products of the Enlightenment, skeptical of organized religion, and disdainful of religious fundamentalists.

It is thus with deep sadness that I have watched the vitriolic ignorance and bigotry unfolding against the proposed Islamic Center and mosque two blocks from where the World Trade Centers were decimated on 9/11. Intended as a symbol of the resilience of the American melting pot, the 15-story structure is to house an Islamic Community Center with a board comprised of members of different faiths. The center’s visionary and leader, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, has worked for decades to promote understanding and tolerance among people of different faith traditions, and has done much to promote interfaith relations. Originally named the Cordoba House, according to The New York Times, after the city in Spain, where "Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together centuries ago in the midst of religious foment," the project faces opposition from a variety of sources. There are the usual suspects – Sarah Palin, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, and other right-wing Republicans – who have repeatedly proved willing to exploit ignorance and fear. Most of their opposition is unabashedly on religious grounds, with little attempt made to disguise their collective disdain for Islam. More disturbing, however, is the public position of the Anti-Defamation League, which under Abraham Foxman has perhaps, finally, lost its soul.

Some opposition comes from the likes of extremists and blowhards, such as the former head of the Tea Party Express, Mark Williams, who referred to Allah as a “monkey God” (he later apologized), and Ed Rodgers, author of Islam and the Last Days, who hallucinates that President Obama is a Muslim who secretly supports Islam’s goal of world domination. Rodgers absurdly argues that those who support building a mosque near the site of Ground Zero are committing treason. As far as I can tell, Rodgers’ religious illiteracy, unfortunately, is shared by millions of Americans and this ignorance is exploited for political gain by the likes of Palin, Gingrich, and Tennessee’s lieutenant governor, Ron Ramsey, who has suggested that Muslim Americans do not have a constitutionally protected right to worship in the United States, because Islam, in his view, is a cult, not a religion.

That most of the opposition to the proposed Islamic Center is based on Islamophobia -- namely, hostility and fear of Muslims generally -- is confirmed by protests in other parts of the United States. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for example, hundreds of protesters, urged on by Ramsey and other Republican candidates, are fighting plans for a large Muslim center near a residential subdivision, not exactly the “sacred ground” of the 9/11 attacks. In Temecula, California, a local Tea Party group picketed Friday prayers at a mosque that plans to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby. In an attempt to offend the prayerful worshipers, some protestors brought dogs with them, because Islam considers dogs ritually unclean. And in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, some so-called “Christian” ministers have been leading a fight to prevent a mosque from opening in a former health food store that had been purchased by a Muslim doctor.

This does not sound like the America I know and love, the one that preaches acceptance of all religions and that respects the rights of its citizens to worship wherever they find spiritual fulfillment and sustenance. The America revealed in the comments and opposition to the mosques throughout the country is an America of intolerance and religious bigotry. To oppose the Cordoba House, or Park51 as it is now being called (from its address), because it would house an Islamic Community Center and a mosque two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks is not only mean spirited and wrong, it’s un-American.

To disallow the Islamic Center solely on the grounds that it will house a mosque suggests unfairly and inaccurately that all Muslims are terrorists or covert supporters of terrorism; that Muslims are incapable of generosity, compassion, and universal love. If anyone opposing the center had evidence that the backers of the project are radical Muslims who support jihad against the West and wish to glorify 9/11, I will join their efforts to shut it down. I have instead heard only that it would be offensive to build a mosque near the “sacred ground” of the 9/11 attacks. By that logic, it would be offensive to allow a Christian church to stand near the memorial honoring the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing because Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirators were self-proclaimed Christians.

The most shameful episodes of American history revolve around discrimination against groups who simply share the same race, religion or national origin – slavery, the Jim Crow South, the internment of Japanese-Americans. Since 9/11, many American Muslims have experienced discrimination and worse simply because they practice their faith. When no distinctions are made between moderate and radical religious practitioners, blame and derision are hurled upon an entire people. This is indecent, immoral, and contrary to American values, American justice, and the American way.

Abe Foxman of the ADL may be correct in declaring that family members of the 9/11 victims are entitled to irrational feelings, but promoting intolerance and caving in to popular sentiment does nothing to help us heal and it gravely betrays our values. The families of those who died on 9/11 deserve our sympathy and respect but, as the editors of The New York Times noted, “it would be a greater disservice to the memories of their loved ones to give into the very fear that the terrorists wanted to create and, thus, to abandon the principles of freedom and tolerance.” Victims’ families are entitled to their feelings, and I do not for a minute suggest how one should feel or grieve in their circumstances. But for the ADL to rationalize religious discrimination and intolerance by tying it to the pain felt by the victims’ families is shameful and inexcusable. Something is terribly wrong when the very organization that, historically, has battled discrimination of all kinds – from racist venom during the worst days of the Ku Klux Klan to more subtle forms of anti-Semitism advanced by university quota systems and the discriminatory policies of exclusive country clubs – tacitly supports prejudice against Muslims.

Even worse is the ADL’s short-sightedness. As Fareed Zakaria recently explained after returning a humanitarian award received five years ago from the ADL, “If there is going to be a reformist movement in Islam, it is going to emerge from places like the proposed institute. We should be encouraging groups like the one behind this project, not demonizing them. Were this mosque being built in a foreign city, chances are that the U.S. government would be funding it.” A two-year study of the relationship between American Muslims and terrorism, conducted by Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina, found that contemporary mosques act as a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism, and that many leaders of American mosques put great effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring anti-violence programs, and scrutinizing teachers and texts. The Islamic Community Center and mosque planned for 51 Park Place would include a 500-seat auditorium, a swimming pool, art exhibition spaces, bookstores, restaurants, and a range of programs modeled on the YMCA and the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan. As a broad-based attempt to give voice to moderate Islam, its proximity to Ground Zero is its strength – a symbol of American religious freedom to counter the intolerant extremism that victimized Americans on 9/11.

I would expect resistance to religious diversity and displays of intolerance in places like Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal even to build a one-room church. Part of what makes the United States great is that we are a nation that could welcome a mosque near the site of 9/11, a powerfully symbolic act that resonates inclusion and openness. To resist the planned center, which is dedicated to span the divide between Muslim and non-Muslim and to create a national model of moderate Islam, is not only un-American, it is counter-productive. We need to build bridges among faiths, not widen gaps.

In 1790, President Washington attempted to ease the anxieties of a Newport, Rhode Island, synagogue by declaring that even historically persecuted religious minorities were entitled to equal protection of the law. The United States, said Washington, “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” We need to be reminded of our unique American history, for if bigotry and ignorance are allowed to prevail, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 will have won the final battle.

Conversations With My Cab Driver

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down. – Mary Pickford

“I’ll get you there in plenty of time,” the cab driver said, sensing my urgency. I just left a meeting at a Pittsburgh law firm and was in jeopardy of missing my scheduled flight home. “My name is Darryl,” he added politely.

Darryl was an African American man with short-cropped hair, slightly balding with patches of gray, who looked to be in his mid-40’s. Outgoing and personable, he possessed a touch of street and appeared to be in his second or third phase of a life lived on the harder edges of town.

“Oh, damn,” he said, “I must have left my phone back at the cab station. Would you mind if we stopped by the station to get it?”

I warily asked if it was on the way, reminding him I was in a hurry and concerned about missing my flight – “you know, with security and all.” He said he knew a shortcut, and then relented, sensing my concern about the time. He gestured with his hand, as if throwing an invisible object. “I’ll get it tomorrow. I don’t want you to miss your flight.”

He drove a block or two, but I could see he was distracted. I told him that it was okay to get his phone. “If it’s on the way, it shouldn’t be a problem,” I said.

Darryl appreciated my self-sacrificing gesture. “Ahh, man, thank you. I promise it will only take a minute. I’ll run right in and we’ll slip out the back and bypass all this traffic.” He said his co-workers would laugh at him again, and he wondered whether he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. “I forget stuff all the time now.”

I assured him not to worry. “I can’t remember what I had for lunch,” I said. “But it’s only short-term memory loss. It’s natural, not Alzheimer’s. It affects everybody as they get older.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Darryl said. Me too, I thought.

Darryl sped around corners and cut through side streets. We passed a middle-aged Hispanic man walking under a bridge on the side of the road, limping with a cane. Darryl waved to him and shouted apologetically, “Sorry, man, I don’t have time to stop.”

“I would normally pick him up and give him a ride. He works at the cab station. I’ll explain later we were in a hurry.” Darryl looked worried and his concern for the man seemed sincere and genuine, a compassionate gesture amidst the cold realities of urban hacking.

A minute later, Darryl turned into the parking lot of the cab station. “I’ll be right back.” He got out of the cab and ran, or tried to; he had the familiar gait of a once limber man, now full of stiffness and aching joints. He was dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, with white socks and black sneakers. He’s old school, I thought to myself.

Darryl returned to the cab and thanked me. “I don’t know how we ever got along without these things.” He drove off and weaved his way in and out of traffic, explaining all of the shortcuts and tricks of the trade that he has learned over the years, bypassing the rush hour congestion, which on the west side of Pittsburgh is caused by the traffic converging on the Fort Pitt tunnel beneath Mt. Washington.

I commented on the area’s scenic beauty. The rolling green hills of western Pennsylvania surround Pittsburgh’s triangular skyline, which is situated at the meeting place of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela Rivers, each peppered by historic steel-framed bridges. The city of Pittsburgh has come a long way from its soot-filled history of steel mills and smokestacks and now boasts of a renewed downtown business district with parks, shops, and sports stadiums, a performing arts center and two major universities.

“I love this city,” Darryl said. “I’m here for good.” Thinking he had come to Pittsburgh from elsewhere, I asked Darryl where he was originally from. “I’m from Pittsburgh,” he said.

“Oh,” I replied, “I thought maybe you had moved here from somewhere else. So you were born and raised in Pittsburgh?”

“Yeah,” he said, though I sensed a slight hesitation.

I mentioned that one of my daughters almost went to the University of Pittsburgh. In learning that I had a daughter – “Actually, I have two,” I corrected him – he wanted to know what I thought of Ben Roethlisberger, the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers accused in March of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student. I was no fan of Roethlisberger, I assured him. Darryl noted that Roethlisberger has a reputation for being arrogant and rude, and that he expected restaurants to comp him on meals and treat him like the spoiled, pampered athlete he is. We discussed how celebrities and sports figures too often let their fame take control of their lives and affect how they treat other people.

Darryl asked me about the OJ Simpson case, wanting my honest opinion. “He was guilty,” I said. “The evidence was overwhelming. One of the strongest murder cases I have ever seen.” Darryl agreed. He offered that Ray Lewis, another pro football player gone bad, also was guilty of murder, even though he, too, evaded the charges. “All black people know he’s guilty," he offered, "he’s a murderer.”

I didn’t know much about Lewis’s case, I said, only that two people were stabbed to death after getting into a brawl with Lewis and two companions following a Super Bowl party ten years ago. We identified other apparent injustices and discovered that we had more in common than our different backgrounds and appearances at first might suggest. Darryl volunteered, “Black people have to stop using the race card. I mean, man, we have a black President.”

Darryl asked what type of car I owned and if I had ever used jet skis on the water (I had not). “Oh, man, you got to do it.” He had rented them on a trip to Aruba once. "Man, it was a trip.” I told him I would try to go there someday.

Although we had dropped the topic of where he was from several miles back, Darryl sought to re-visit it. “Actually, there was a period of time I lived in Washington, D.C. Back in the 1980’s”

“Oh yeah? So did I,” I said, excited about our common history. I had spent thirteen years in Washington, I told him, “In the eighties and nineties. Where in Washington did you live?”

“Well, I used to be involved in some bad things,” Darryl acknowledged. He glanced at me in the rear view mirror. “I worked for a big drug lord when I was there.”

“You mean Rayful Edmond?” Who else could it be? I thought. Rayful Edmond was The Drug Lord in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. He was responsible for the epidemic of crack cocaine that hit the streets of the nation’s capital during the 1980’s and caused its reputation as the murder capital of the United States. His drug organization allegedly is tied to over 400 murders.

“Yeah, man, how’d you know?”

I told him about my days as a prosecutor in D.C., when I tried drug dealers, murderers and rapists. I said I knew the prosecutors who tried Rayful Edmond, which at the time was a daily front-page story in the Washington Post. “I know all about Rayful Edmond.” I said.

“I worked as muscle for Rayful,” Darryl volunteered. “He used to have me collect drug debts for him. And if someone didn’t pay, he had me beat ‘em.”

“No, shit,” I said, as in, what a small world.

“I probably wouldn’t have told you if I knew you were a prosecutor,” he said, a smile and nervous laugh betraying his glaze through the rear view mirror. “Good thing I didn’t run into you back then.” It was as if we discovered we once played for opposing teams, division rivals back in the day; as if he played for the Red Sox and I for the Yankees, former adversaries reflecting on our overlapping pasts.

Darryl explained how Rayful moved thousands of kilos of cocaine and ruthlessly enforced his code of silence; how they supplied Mayor Barry with crack and women, and how the fast life had grabbed hold of him for a few regretful years. Darryl never knew his father, and he had dropped out of school at sixteen. He fell in with the wrong crowd and followed some of them to the streets of DC, where Rayful took them under his wing.

Darryl assured me that he is a changed man, ashamed of his past. “I’ve turned my life over to Him,” Darryl said, pointing up. “I am a different person than I was back then. My life is good now. I have no interest in ever going back.”

Whatever his past transgressions, Darryl now was a man with a conscience, a working man who worried about his customers and co-workers. I did not ask if he had spent time in prison, and he made no mention of it, but I sensed he had, that his time away from Pittsburgh had been significant, his return a time of renewal and a fresh start.

Although we occupied the same space for only 45 minutes, I sensed that Darryl was a man who had truly reformed his life in remarkably positive ways.

As a prosecutor for nearly two decades, I accumulated many tales of redemption and second chances, stories that paint the world in multiple shades of gray, complexity and nuance, not the simplistic black and white, good versus evil world portrayed by Hollywood. Most criminal defendants, I discovered, are young men who have taken wrong turns in life; who lack valid role models, or any role models, certainly not a father. Often raised by a grandmother responsible for the lives of several other children, they live in a sub-culture that devalues education, responsibility and conventional means of success, all of which takes a back seat to fast money, flashy cars, and the lure of the underworld. Drugs and gangs are the ticket to the good life. But when the glitz and the easy life fade from view, when accountability takes root, they are just young men with the same hopes and dreams as everyone else; the desire to have people love and respect them, a chance to live life with legitimacy and respect. And like the rest of us, they need to find their way and for someone to give them a chance.

Somewhere along the way, Darryl got a second chance and grasped it. He now is a proud man who has embraced the American dream, works hard, and performs his job with professionalism, care and courtesy.

Twenty years ago, Darryl and I were on different sides of the drug war; he could have been any one of the thousands of young black men who came to court charged with drug dealing, or gun possession, or worse, violence, part of the cycle of mostly black-on-black crime that has plagued every city in America. Today, Darryl is a man redeemed, a living example of the triumph of the human spirit. He uplifted my spirits and, I think in a small way, I uplifted his, vindicating his choices later in life that have led him to a safer, more secure place.

The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other not as opposites, but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings. -- Rainer Maria Rilke

We reached the airport in plenty of time. I thanked Darryl, shook his hand, and wished him the best. “This was a fun ride,” he said. “I enjoyed meeting you. Come back to Pittsburgh soon.” He told me where to go once inside the airport. I stood momentarily on the walkway and waved goodbye, then watched as he drove his cab into the sunset, back toward Pittsburgh and a renewed life.