Bob Schwartz

The search for true life love
Is as easy and rare
As knowing without knowing
When if finds you

© Bob Schwartz

Pocket

The smallest thing
you could see with your eyes
The biggest thing
you could see with your eyes
The smallest thing
you could see with no eyes
The biggest thing
you could see with no eyes
Put them in your pocket

© Bob Schwartz

A Bridge in Chelm

A river flowed right through the middle of Chelm. It occurred to several merchants that a bridge over it would be good for business on both sides of the river. But some of the younger people objected. They said: “Of course it would be nice to build a bridge, but let’s not do it because it would be good for business; we should build it solely for aesthetic reasons. We’ll be glad to contribute to the building expenses for beauty’s sake, but we won’t give a penny for the sake of trade.” Still others, even younger people, said, “A bridge! That’s a good idea, but not for the sake of trade or beauty but to have someplace to stroll back and forth. We’ll be glad to contribute money to build a bridge for strolling.” And so the three groups began to quarrel, and they are quarreling still. And to the present day Chelm does not have a bridge.

From Yiddish Folktales by Beatrice Weinreich

See also How the Wise Men Got to Chelm: The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition by Ruth von Bernuth

There are many Yiddish folktales from Eastern Europe about a town called Chelm. In these stories all the people of Chelm are fools, though they all think they are smart.

Not a day goes by when I don’t think about Chelm and learn something, particularly about the news of the day.

As regular readers know, I am not sanguine about those lawyers whose conduct in public affairs raises issues of ethics and professional responsibility. It was early in the last administration that I wrote about the lawyers of Watergate and the fact that almost two dozen of them ended up sanctioned, including disbarment.

Over the past four years, a lot of lawyers have been engaged in the life and administration of the last president. A number have supported and cooperated, while some have eventually pushed back. A few days ago, for example, his legal team in the upcoming impeachment trial resigned, apparently over the defense he demanded they offer. A new team has been hired at the last minute.

There are far too many questionable situations and lawyers to mention. They range from the top of the government justice pyramid to other administration members and advisers to private attorneys who have served on his behalf in various initiatives and disputes. And yes, that includes some U.S. Senators who are as well-educated in the law (Harvard, Yale, Oxford, plus Supreme Court clerkships) as any in the country.

There is a tension between zealous advocacy and professional responsibility. Zealous advocacy demands that you do everything possible to serve the interests of an individual you represent. Professional responsibility demands that your zeal be tempered by considerations including truthfulness, respect for the law and judicial process, and the integrity of the courts and the profession. Sometimes the line is bright (knowingly lying to a court for instance), but frequently fuzzier. That’s when professional arbiters are moved to investigate and determine whether lines have been crossed and sanctions are appropriate.

A number of times over the past four years, lawyers and scholars have come forward to question whether attorneys involved with the last president have crossed professional lines. They wonder, as I have, whether and when the appropriate bar associations will be looking at the conduct, if looking at all.

I commend a recent piece from the American Bar Association, Baseless lawsuits bring model rules into focus. It is written by Teresa J. Schmid, current director of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility, and past executive director for the Oregon State Bar and for the State Bar of Arizona.

She closes with some hope for those who wonder if anything might ever happen regarding possibly frivolous lawsuits:

An additional cause of some frustration for those who want to know what disciplinary agencies, including mandatory bars, are doing is confidentiality. Many disciplinary systems have rules that maintain confidentiality during the investigative stage of a disciplinary complaint. Many unified bar associations and other disciplinary agencies throughout the country are undoubtedly in triage mode, well on their way to disciplinary proceedings.

So why is nothing happening in lawyer regulation? Actually, maybe something is.

Is it possible that Russia has planted a sleeper agent in America, pretending to be a radical conspiracy follower, who has worked her way into the highest levels of government? Perhaps one whose original Russian name is Mardzhori Portnoy Zelenyy (Марджори Портной зеленый)?

Is it possible that Jewish bankers have conspired to cause California wildfires with lasers from space?

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

“The Shakers were celibate, they did not marry or bear children, yet theirs is the most enduring religious experiment in American history. Seventy-five years before the emancipation of the slaves and one hundred fifty years before women began voting in America, the Shakers were practicing social, sexual, economic, and spiritual equality for all members.”

The Shakers (they called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing) have few followers remaining. They are well-known in the twenty-first century for two things: their arts and crafts—most famously Shaker furniture—and a song.

The song is Simple Gifts. You may have heard the familiar melody (used by composer Aaron Copland in his Appalachian Springs Suite) and you may have heard the words:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
 ‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
 And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
 ‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,
 To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
 To turn, turn will be our delight,
 Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

Below you will find a selection from Appalachian Springs Suite, with Copland’s variations on Simple Gifts, and a description of the Shakers from Ken Burns’ documentary series The Shakers: Hands to Work. Heart to God.

Even with all the complications we’ve had before, it is possible this is as complex a time as we’ve had. It is the gift to be simple, at least for a while.

From Ken Burns’ The Shakers: Hands to Work. Heart to God.

They called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, but because of their ecstatic dancing the world called them the Shakers.

The Shakers were celibate, they did not marry or bear children, yet theirs is the most enduring religious experiment in American history. Seventy-five years before the emancipation of the slaves and one hundred fifty years before women began voting in America, the Shakers were practicing social, sexual, economic, and spiritual equality for all members.

The Shakers were ordinary people who chose to give up their families, property, and worldly ties in order “to know, by daily experience, the peaceable nature of Christ’s kingdom.” In return, they were welcomed into “holy families” where men and women lived as brother and sister, where all property was held in common, and where each participated in the rigorous daily task of transforming the earth into heaven.

Shakerism was founded by an illiterate English factory worker named Ann Lee. Guided by divine visions and signs, she and eight pilgrims came to America in 1774 to spread her gospel in the New World.

At their height in 1840 more than six thousand believers lived in nineteen communal villages from New England to Ohio and Kentucky. Tales of their peaceful and prosperous lives impressed the world’s utopians. But Shaker aspirations were divine, not social or material. As millennialists, they were unified in the belief that Christ had come again, first in the person of Mother Ann and subsequently “in all in whom the Christ consciousness awakens.” It was therefore the duty of each believer to live purely in “the kingdom come” and to strive for perfection in everything he or she did.

Work was the currency of their service. If the world was to be redeemed and restored to God, the Shakers would accomplish it by the dedicated labor of their hands. They believed that God dwelt in the details of their work and in the quality of their craftsmanship. All their devotion, which no longer went to family or home, was put into what they made. Their villages were meticulously constructed and maintained, their workshops were world renowned for reliable goods, and their gardens provided amply for their own needs, with plenty to spare for the poor.

Shakerism is a system which has a distinct genius, a strong organization, a perfect life of its own, through which it would appear to be helping to shape and guide, in no small measure, the spiritual career of the United States.
— Hepworth Dixon, 1867

For more than two hundred years Shakerism ran alongside American history, sometimes heralding things to come, usually reflecting trends, events, and ideals from a slightly different angle. The Shakers arrived in America on the eve of the Revolution, having left England in pursuit of freedom. They were gathered into order as a practicing religion in 1787, just as the new United States found its form with the drafting of the Constitution. That same year Shaker women were officially given equal rights, and in 1817 the Shakers’ southern societies freed the slaves belonging to members and began buying black believers out of slavery. The Shakers were suddenly appreciated as successful communitarians when Americans became interested in communities, as successful utopians when America hosted a hundred utopian experiments, as spiritualists when American parlors filled with mediums and with voices from other worlds. They invented hundreds of laborsaving devices from the clothespin to the circular saw, which they shared without patents (some of these machines launched brilliant industrial careers for the men who borrowed them), nor were they frightened of useful inventions. The New Hampshire Shakers owned one of the first cars in the state and rigged up electricity in the own village while the state capital building was still burning gas. They were admired and derided, imitated for their successes and ridiculed for their eccentricities. And they are enduringly appreciated for their contribution to American crafts and architecture.

Today, just a few Shakers still live in a single village in Maine. To all appearances these are the last Shakers. But the living Shakers faithfully assert that their religion will never die. Mother Ann predicted that Shakerism would dwindle to as few members as a child could count on one hand, and then overcome all nations. “This is God’s work,” says Sister Mildred Barker, “and what could bring that to an end? Nothing that we humans, that mortals do.”

How can I miss you when you won’t go away?
I keep telling you day after day
But you won’t listen, you always stay and stay
How can I miss you when you won’t go away?
Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks

It is hard not to think about Trump. It is hard not to talk about Trump. We got so used to talking about him every day, multiple times a day. The same goes for the news media, who at least have the excuse that what Trump is doing or might do, or what others or might do about him, is news.

What’s my excuse? What’s your excuse? Yes, his toxic legacy is everywhere and will be for a long time, hopefully shorter than longer time. But remember what we learned over the past years: just thinking and talking about him is itself toxic, even if it was to point out his most recent immorality or crime.

Will he continue to act badly as a private citizen? Will he, or members of his family, or those in his vicious circle of enablers and followers, be punished for what they did or what they still might do? Will Melania divorce him? Will he finally lose a little weight, or will he continue to blow up in a contest to see whether he or Barr or Pompeo can be the fattest? Will he finally be exiled to Elba? These and other questions are superficially interesting but ultimately not in our best interest.

Let those who have direct responsibility for dealing with his wrongdoing do their job. Otherwise, observers can note the results with approval or disappointment, but with beneficial reduced psychic investment.

In the wisdom words of Garth Algar in Wayne’s World: “Stop torturing yourself. Live in the now.”

While stacking dishes this morning, I read this instruction on the bottom of a ceramic bowl:

HANDLE WITH CARE

It seems a good motto for the rest of the day. Or longer.

The story was circulated that when the Trumps moved into the White House, Melania hired an exorcist to cleanse the building of evil Obama spirits. That story was not true.

As fortune would have it, we do have a shaman in the national news, one who knows his way around Washington. We know that the Bidens, as with every incoming administration, are changing out the mattresses in the White House. Would it be that far a step to also change out the spirits? And if you were going to cleanse the spirits, and you just happen to have a shaman under arrest, why not use him to do the job? Maybe ask in return that some time be knocked off his prison term.

I’ve heard crazier things. Every single day in America.