PRAYER FOR OLDER PEOPLE contributed by Christine Mayer; author unknown
Lord, thou knowest that I am growing older.
Keep me from becoming talkative and possessed with the idea that I must express myself on every subject.
Release me from the craving to straighten out everybody's life.
Keep my mind free from the recital of endless detail.
Give me wings to get to the point and then be quiet.
Seal my lips when I am inclined to tell my aches and pains.
They are increasing with the years, and my love to speak of them grows sweeter as time goes by.
Make me thoughtful but not nosy--helpful but not bossy.
With my vast store of wisdom and experience, it does seem a pity not to use it all, but thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.
SERMON
The year was 1988.
Polly and I had already been at All Souls for about ten years. She was working at Citibank. We had developed the custom by that time of taking whatever vacation time we could put together for a whole year, and using it to go as far from New York City as funds and time would permit. In fact, we sacrificed many amenities all year long so that we could travel. In 18 years we had already been as far away as China, India and Egypt.
But in 1988 we had the wild idea of going all through the vastness of Russia, out to Siberia, and down into Mongolia. Gorbychev had taken the reins of his government, and the key words were "Glasnost" and "Peristroika." It seemed like a good time to see that part of the world.
Polly and I are often asked the question "Of all the places you have seen, what is your favorite place in the world?" That's an impossible question for us to answer. But if the question is put differently, "What is the one event in your travels that stands out as the most unusual, or rewarding, single event, Polly and I would probably agree that it was the night of May 25, 1988, at a yurt camp, on the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The events of that evening give rise to the title of this sermon, "One Degree of Separation."
We had flown from Moscow to Novosibirsk, deep in the Ural Mountains, then to Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia. We had seen the world's biggest dam at Bratsk, and boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway for the journey to Ulan Bator, the capital of Outer Mongolia.
We had spent two nights in a yurt camp in the Gobi Desert. (Yurts incidentally are those uniquely Mongolian round tents made of wood strips and animal hides, with a stove in the middle and a pipe leading up through a flap in the top of the tent. The yurt can be moved easily by camels around the countryside. It takes about six hours to put up a yurt, with its wooden floor and furniture, and about two hours to take it down and load it on the backs of four camels. It is a lot of fun to see, either being put up or taken down. Today, heavy factory-made plastic is used in place of animal hides. Otherwise, it is a way of life that has not changed in thousands of years.)
Mongolia considers itself a Communist country, with all the land belonging to all the people. Consequently, yurts are put up anywhere they are desired, including in the middle of Ulan Bator, even in its central square. We were continually running into these yurts.
We had spent two nights in the desert and flown back to Ulan Bator for a tour of that interesting place, with its modern theater and hotel and ancient Buddhist shrines and monasteries. I had managed to dislocate a shoulder, to go with a hernia that was developing--the two things kind of offset each other.
Then we flew off to a second camp in the desert, at a place called Khujirt, for a one-night stay on the 24th. We were to fly back on the 25th.
And keep in mind, when I talk about flying, these were not large planes. They were propeller-driven and could just hold our party of 14 Americans and a few traveling Mongolians and people of other countries. The runways in the desert were unpaved, semi-hard strips of sand, with a certain amount of up-and-down roll to them. It was kind of fun to watch a plane coming toward you, see its wheels touch the landing strip and then see it disappear altogether in a trough, then rise up on a hill and stop in front of you.
On the night of the 24th, we had dinner in a very large yurt, along with other groups of tourists. There might well have been 100 people eating together, but we were very much in our separate groups. The menu, very sparse to begin with in Mongolia, included a stew of yak meat and beans or potatoes.
Polly and I went to bed that night in our individual family yurt, which was actually capable of handling four couples. But since this was not the heaviest season for tourists, Polly and I had the yurt to ourselves, and we were very comfortable.
At three o'clock in the morning, nature called us both at about the same time, and we set out on foot for the combination wash-house and latrine, which was not exactly close-by, perhaps at a distance of one or two good city blocks.
The moment we emerged from our tent, we were struck by the intense beauty of the sky overhead, with its zillions of stars that one could never see except when there was no competing light. In this case, a single light bulb in the distance pointed us toward the wash-house. I wished that even it could be turned off briefly, so that we could feel more a part of the sky than a part of the world. The vision of the sky at 3 AM, on that warm evening in the desert, will remain with us forever.
But that is not the story.
Four hours later we got up again, opened the door of our yurt, and were absolutely stunned! Stunned to see that it was snowing, where a few hours before we had looked up at the clear, starry night. Such are the possible changes of weather in the desert. It continued to snow, and the snow stuck to the desert sand. There were jokes at breakfast about Santa coming down our stove pipes.
The plane that was to take us back to Ulan Bator could not land in that weather, so most of the day was spent guessing whether or when we would leave. Meanwhile, we did little walking tours of the town. I remember at one point entertaining twenty or thirty local children and adults with my Rubik's Cube, which was a big thing in those days.
As the snow turned to rain, the airplane never came, because of the bad weather. We were faced with an unexpected second night in the camp. Dinner was eaten rather quietly by the various groups in their big dining yurt.
But meanwhile, an idea was percolating in Polly's head, to which, when she put it to me, my reaction was "Preposterous!" The gist of her idea was this: "Here we have these various groups in camp at the same time, and no one is speaking to anyone outside of their own group. We eat in the same room, we watch the German women splash ice cold water on themselves in the johns, we sometimes smile at each other, but nobody is able to really communicate outside his or her group. Now we are faced with an evening with no planned program. There must be some way we can break the ice, literally, and interact with each other!"
I said "Preposterous," because the language hurdle just seemed too immense. Polly persisted, and began talking with our guide, whose initial reaction wasn't far from mine.
But Mara Koltanow was a delightful young woman, who fortunately spoke Russian, Mongolian, English and German.
Mara rounded up the 4 or 5 other guides, who spoke a variety of languages, and convinced them that Polly's idea was at least worth a try. They still had to convince their constituencies that they should leave their warm yurts and return to the dining-hall yurt, for what could be a complete catastrophe in international relations.
But return we did. For one thing, there wasn't much else to do--even the stars were hidden by the heavy clouds. The groups trooped back into the big yurt. Their faces betrayed that they shared my dire foreboding.
With the guides acting as a team at the front of the yurt, we Americans found ourselves asking ourselves painful questions, like "What questions can we ask another group that won't offend them? If people sing, what song do we have in common that we could possibly sing, with the diversity in our group?"
We learn that we are five groups of people in camp. Three are Russian, one is German, and the 14 of us are from the US. But the three Russian groups are as diverse as the rest of us: one group is from Khabarovsk, near Vladivostok on the far eastern end of Siberia, one is from Saratov on the Volga River in Western Europe, and the third is a group of performers from Alma Ata, deep in the southern part of Kazakhstan. The Germans are East German, from a place fittingly called Karlmarxstadt.
Our group manages to convey to the Alma Atans that we had been scheduled to see Alma Ata, but that the itinerary had been changed at the last minute and we could only see their city from a distance.
The Alma Atans agree to start things off. Three of them welcome the rest of us rather formally, in Russian of course, with our several guides translating. So far, so goods
A young Alma Atan girl sings a song, with the rest of their group responding in song. Then they present a duet. They continue to sing and do a folk dance.
Meanwhile, panic has gripped the Americans. What will we do? We can't even agree on a simple song to sing.
An effort is made at questions and answers around the room. All laugh when someone asks why we Americans seem so much older than everyone else in the room. We come up with two answers: A) We had to work a long time to afford a trip like this, and B) We had to travel so far, we aged some just in getting here.
We ask questions about why the Eastern Siberians are visiting Mongolia. It turns out that four of them paid their own way' but the others are being honored because they were the best workers in their plant.
We Americans have caucused and decided that I should take the bull by the horns--I will represent them and sing my comic song "Foolish Questions." The song is supposed to pull the audience into responding to each foolish question with a perfectly obvious answer. But how will it work in a multi-language situation?
I tell everybody that the Americans don't know the song, but will respond to my questions. Off I go, without benefit of the customary guitar or ukulele. Polly tries to lead the Americans in vigorous responses, but the responses are pretty weak.
At the end, I realize that the song has been a great hit with everybody, while only a few people grasped the words. Fortunately, I have a new idea--I'll recite the song slowly, without music, as a poem, very slowly, while Mara translates into Russian, from which the East German guide can get the drift, to whisper to her people.
So I recite the song, very slowly. Now the Russians are howling with laughter. Unfortunately, the East German guide is overwhelmed, and the East German group sits glumly watching the rest of us laugh.
At least the Americans have come through with something. Abe, in our group, tries to follow up, and tells a bad joke about an army general and a lack of water. When water is at last found, the general announces, "The good news is that you can now change your underwear--the bad news is: only with each other."
That brings more discussion than laughter, in four languages, as people try to figure out the import of the joke. Polly yells to Abe, over the hubbub, "I don't even get it myself!"
The Russians from Saratov, on the Volga, take their turn. The city is across the river from the city of Engels. Yuri Gagarin completed his "first man-in-space" flight right there at Saratov. They proudly hand around postcards with scenes from Saratov, and pictures of Gagarin, who apparently put them on the map.
The East Germans take their turn, but cop out by having their bus driver, a Mongolian, sing. He has an operatic voice and has probably been serenading them on the bus all the way from the Russian border.
The performers from Alma Ata give gifts to the Mongolian camp director, including a set of postcards and a lovely dish.
The camp director asks whether we prefer Mongolian or Western food. The Americans answer in one voice "Mongolian!" Of course, he is asking about which we prefer in his camp. But I heard the question differently, as in "If you had to spend the rest of your life eating yak meat in its various forms, or Western food with its infinite cuisines, which would you prefer?" Of course, I open my mouth to say "Western," and nothing comes out. I can't believe I heard the Americans shout "Mongolian'"
Our group asks the Russians from Saratov to sing "The Volga Boatman'" and they politely refuse. We think we have offended them. Do they regard the song as a stereotype and want to distance themselves from it Not at all, it turns out. It is simply that they are mostly women (we hadn't noticed), and they feel they can't do the song justice without some heavy male voices.
The question is put "Would you like to visit the United States some day?" From all corners of the tent comes a resounding "Yes!"
Suddenly we hear three young women's voices singing together. We don't know who is singing. Then we see. In a booth are three young Mongolian women, singing for us in their language. We didn't know they were there. We are six groups, not five! After hearty applause for them, we all find ourselves singing "Ah, chachonia," if not raising the roof, at least raising the stove pipe flap.
The Americans have one more ace up their sleeve. We have found a song we all know. Full-throated, and with no reservation whatever, we belt out in 4-part harmony, no less, "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." We may not have reached the level of the Sundowners Barbershop Quartet in our rendition, but we reached a level that has not been heard before or since in Outer Mongolia.
As the evening was drawing to a close, the camp director took a turn at the microphone again. Speaking in Mongolian, his only language, and rapidly translated into German, Russian and English, he tells us that this evening fulfills a dream of his. For sixteen years he has watched groups from many countries come and go from his camp, and that never had he seen an evening like this, with so much good will between people of different backgrounds. And he profoundly thanks us.
And I profoundly thank this young lady in the third row for not knowing the meaning of the word "preposterous" when it came to reaching out to other people.
By the way, the evening ended with dancing in the main yurt, and a great deal of hand-shaking, and words uttered without thought as to whether they were understood. I made sure the Russians knew that chess was my game as well as theirs.
Later, in our yurt, with the door open to let in the cool night air, an East German woman comes by and leaves us a colored booklet of her city, Karlmarxstadt' of which she is obviously very proud. We give her all we can think to give her in the way of a meaningful present--a handful of Citibank ball-point pens, and she treats them as though they are the perfect gift.
As I said in the beginning of my sermon, many interesting things have happened to Polly and me in 30 years of traveling.
We have felt very close to nature at times, with the animals of Africa, the heat of the Valley of Kings, the cold of the winds of Norway's North Cape. We have even come close to being killed on a few occasions. Our plane was once hit by lightning, which wasn't much fun.
But in spite of all the vagaries of travel, like getting food poisoning, or developing a hernia, the events that really stand out in our minds are the encounters with people, both the people we traveled with and the people whose countries we visited. Again and again, we are struck with the overwhelming friendliness of people when they are not caught up in ideological conflict.
There was, for example, the man in Frankfurt, Germany 28 years ago, who saw us on a main street exhausted and unable to get a cab to our hotel, who picked up our bags, one under each arm, and ran with them a half-mile to the hotel, deposited them at the doorway, and ran off before we could even thank him.
There was the good "Samaritan" in Warsaw who saw our passports in a trash can and returned them to our hotel without leaving his or her name, when the passports were worth $10,000 each on the black market.
There was the family that waited for us six hours in the railroad station in Budapest when we were that late, to take us to their house and share a meal with us.
And so it goes, on and on, people encounters, from which we reamed that we are not separated from each other by six degrees, as the story and they play suggest, but by the single degree of being individual human beings.
In college, my greatest interest was certainly in the humanities, particularly sociology and anthropology, how people lived together in different societies, why they went to war, how they kept the peace, how institutions evolved over tens of thousands of years, differently in different places.
But I also had to take some physical science courses, like physics and zoology, just to complete the requirements for a degree, and I found those courses somewhat harder.
The one thing I took away from my zoology course, where we studied in great detail how human organs function in relation to the total body, was summed up by the professor when he said "If you go just below the very surface of every human being, that is, the very thinnest layer of pigment that gives us our skin color, for every way that humans are different from one another, they are like each other in a thousand ways."
That means that if I go to Asia or Africa or Australia and shake hands with the first stranger I meet, be he or she of royal lineage or of untouchable cast, rich or poor, meticulously clean or indescribably dirty, that person is, from a biological point of view, a mirror of myself, by a factor of 1000 to 1. Unfortunately, our eyes pick up the differences that are only on the surface.
I guess the other thing I permanently learned in zoology was that each human body is a complete miracle of composition and function, so detailed as to make the most finely-crafted mechanical construction, like the Hubbell Telescope for example, look like a piece of junk by comparison.
I pick up a newspaper and read that some elderly woman has been stabbed to death in her apartment by an unknown assailant. The temptation may be to say "Well, she was elderly, she pretty much had her life, she should have been more careful, and so forth."
But immediately my mind goes back to Zoology 101. Here was a functioning miracle of creation! A being as complicated as I am in every way, who felt each stab just as I would feel it if I were the victim, and who watched her life, her only life, slipping away, slipping away.
I think that we do not think enough about that single degree of separation that differentiates us from all other humans, and the fact that it is only one degree, biologically and sociologically, putting us all in the same lifeboat.
The Mongolian bus driver who sang like Pavarotti that night, no matter how good his voice actually was, is Pavarotti, by a factor of 1000 to 1.
The three little girls who finally got up the courage to sing, when nobody had noticed them, could have been right out of our church school.
The stranger at coffee hour downstairs could be you or me at our first coffee hour.
As Maya Angelou says in her poem "Human Family'':
I've sailed upon the Seven Seas
And stopped in every land;
I've seen the wonders of the world,
Not yet one 'common' man..
We seek success in Finland,
Are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
In major, we're the same.
I note the obvious differences
Between each sort and type.
But we are more alike, my friends,
Then we are unalike. Copyright AllSouls, 2000.