I don't know how you are with your loved ones, but my father and I are still working out the kinks in our relationship. Usually, for instance, he would still like to tell me what to eat, and who to date-and, usually, I would still like him not to. But there are also days, when we are both really listening, when he will reach out a hand to me just when I need it most. This June, for instance, I was a mess; I was burned out, exhausted, depressed. That's when my father clipped out Bob Driver's column about bridge building and sent it to me, with a note that began: "To: Nancy Palmer Jones, Bridge Builder (exclamation mark)! From: Her Dad (exclamation mark)!" (My dad always writes in the third person when he's in the grip of profound emotion.) He went on to say an awful lot of nice things, about the different kinds of bridges he thinks I'm trying to build-he even had to reopen the stamped envelope (that's the part that really hurt my dad-wasting that stamp!)-he actually reopened the envelope so he could add one he forgot: "She builds bridges to heaven (exclamation mark)!"
Well, I think my dad is the bridge builder. His letter, his thoughtfulness, his listening to what I really needed-these things were a great comfort to me. And along with Bob Driver's column, they made me take a moment, or two, to think about what it means to have bridge building as a calling.
In the Jewish tradition, the story goes that God created the world imperfect on purpose, so that we human beings would have something to do. It is our job, our amazing job, to help create the world by healing that brokenness, by making whole what God has left unfinished. We are all called to be co-creators with God. And in doing this holy work, we bring the Divine Presence right down into our midst; the Infinite infuses our finite everyday lives through our finite everyday actions.
This is what bridge building means to me. Making the connections, large and small, in a world that is so often disconnected. Often any two of us, or more, stand on "wildly different landscapes" looking across a great chasm of difference-differences in age, in belief, in politics, in identities and histories, in culture, race, class-differences in how we experience the world and in how the world treats us. How can we bridge these differences? Well, I think a good place to start is by looking at what we are building on. What is the ground into which we-all of us, on either side of any bridge-what is the ground into which we sink deep our supports? Where do our bridges begin?
My dad and I sometimes stand on "wildly different landscapes," but this June he built a bridge that began in love, and in faith, and in listening, listening to what I needed. It's such an everyday activity-listening-but it represents something quite complex, summed up in a very interesting word-a word that has been growing richer and richer and brighter and brighter for me until now it glows like gold: accountability. Accountability. It's a great linking word: it is all about Right Action and Right Relationship. With bridge building, then, we can begin by asking, To whom and to what are we accountable? To whom do we answer for our portion of the bridge?
Got a moment? Let's take one. Play a game. Bring into your mind's eye just one of the bridges you are building these days, and ask yourself, To whom and to what am I accountable?
Maybe one of your answers goes something like this: I am accountable to the person or the people on the other side of the bridge. For if I am not, how will our bridge ever meet in the middle?
What does it mean to be accountable in this way? Well, it means we have to listen to the other side; we have to collaborate on the kind of bridge that is needed and wanted. And we have to look honestly at our differences, and honor them; we have to name our different strengths and gifts, and use them-and we have to look at power. Ah. This is where we dive into those shark-infested waters that Bob Driver writes about. It's a tough question, it's a scary question, but to be accountable, we have to look at power.
Even the bridges we build in our most intimate relationships involve this element of power. Look at my dad and me. He still has the power to comfort, and to influence, his child-even this 48-year-old "child"! All our loved ones have this power, as we do with them, and we must use it responsibly, faithfully, lovingly, if our bridges are to be whole and holy.
But let's face it, when it comes to the wider world, most of us, most days, do not feel very powerful. Yet we know, intellectually at least, that we live in a culture that keeps giving more power to some people than it does to others. Power to decide who's in and who's out, who's up and who's down; power to choose which memories are remembered and which are forgotten; power to name who we are and who we aren't. Acknowledging this legacy of power given and power withheld-this almost invisible stream of power flowing to us or diverted away from us, right now, right in our midst-such acknowledgment is essential if we want to build new and holy bridges.
Let me tell you a little story. While I was thinking about writing this sermon, I kept picturing this one particular bridge in the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. This bridge, in my memory, is bright red and in the shape of a perfect half circle, arching high over a pond filled with giant golden fish. Dozens of tiny steps lead up each side of the bridge; I had to turn my feet sideways to fit on these steps, and this always gave me a sense of the slightly forbidden as I clambered up to the top. The "Moon Bridge"-I'm pretty sure there was a plaque that told me its name, or I heard it from someone who worked there. I imagined lovers meeting on such a bridge under a full moon, gazing down at the reflection: moon, moon bridge, lovers leaning close
Well, one of the best ways to procrastinate actually writing a sermon is to go chasing after any image that comes to mind. So I went surfing on the net, and sure enough, there I found Mr. Erik Sumiharu Hagiwara-Nagata, the "great-great-grandson of Baron Makoto Hagiwara, the creator of the Japanese Tea Garden." On his website, Mr. Nagata describes how his family brought over from their estate in Japan thousands of plants to create the garden; he lovingly and wistfully describes the 1,000 cherry-blossom trees that once stood there.
Then he mentions, just mentions, his family's internment, along with other Japanese Americans, in American "concentration camps" during World War II.
"On a brighter note," he goes right on, he recently honored the Tea Garden's 100th anniversary by donating over 1,000 cherry-blossom trees to two of our biggest national cemeteries.
But nowhere does he mention the Moon Bridge.
So I sent him an e-mail.
Before the end of the day, I had a lengthy reply that begins, "Dear Ms. Nancy Palmer Jones, Thank you for your kind inquiry regarding the Taiko Bashi (Drum Bridge) "
There is no such thing as a Moon Bridge. The bridge in my memories is, instead, inspired by the perfect circle made by the head of the taiko drum. Mr. Nagata writes, "It is so often erroneously called 'Moon' Bridge that I must excuse myself for calling this to your attention, in the hopes that this Occidental name may one day become obsolete. It does not help that the staff in the Japanese Tea Garden has not generally adopted the correct name of the bridge. This has proved exasperating "
Well, I'll bet. Somebody has not been listening. Somebody has grabbed the power to appropriate an element of another culture and name it what they like. I don't think that's fair. I don't think that's good bridge building.
The taiko drum, by the way, has been used to stir warriors and to summon the gods. What a different image than my moony Rodgers-and-Hammerstein lovers. Instead, the Taiko Bashi, the Drum Bridge, turns out to be a calling, a summons to a deeper accountability.
This little story-and it is through our own "little stories" that the big issues enter our everyday lives-this little story says a lot to me about power. It calls me to remember parts of our shared history that I tend to forget, memories-of internment camps, of broken promises-that happened before I was born, that weren't recorded in the textbooks when I was growing up, and that I simply don't have to remember. But you see, this small temporary bridge that Erik Nagata and I built makes me want to remember the whole story-not so that I'll feel bad (although there is pain in our brokenness), but I want to remember so that I can help to build the bridges that will help to create a world, a country, a community, a church, where the brokenness still among us is healed. Where people of all colors; where gays and lesbians, transgender and straight; rich, poor, and in-between; humanists, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and undecided, all share power and are accountable and do the holy work together of completing God's creation. A world where justice rolls down like waters.
"This is no paradisal dream," Wendell Berry writes. "Its hardship is its possibility." In his poem, we do this work so that generations to come can live in such a world. Yes, that's true, we do-we won't live to see this world, we can only hope that our children and our children's children will live in the world we help create. But oh my friends, let us not forget: the bridges we build right here and now bring us joy, bring us life. We also do this work for ourselves.
And if the Jewish story is true-and I believe that it is-we do this work for that spirit of life and of love and of listening that some of us call God. We are all co-creators. We are all called to a deeper accountability. We are all called to build bridges.
Listen. Listen to this song. Could it become our sacrament?
Building bridges, between our divisions,
I reach out to you-will you reach out to me?
With all of our voices and all our divisions,
Friend, we could make such sweet harmony.
Building bridges, between our divisions,
I reach out to you-will you reach out to me?
With all of our voices and all our divisions,
Friend, we could make such sweet harmony.
And to that I say: Alleluia. Amen. Let's all sing! Copyright AllSouls 2000