Joy? In this economy?!

Here is a talk I gave on October 28 at a weekly chapel service at Maryville College. It is one of my favorite places to share with those in my life.

I learned long ago of a sage’s advice for dealing with the world: in one pocket, carry a note that says, “The world was created for me” and in the other a note that says, “I am nothing.” This paradox is the key to existing in a complex world–contradictory truths that hold me up while keeping me humble.

These days I feel like I have to hold multiple contradictory truths at the same time. For example, I am a religious Jewish woman who supports the existence of the state of Israel, and I know that the Palestinian people deserve to not just survive but thrive in peace and plenty, and I know that some people use the most horrific antisemitic rhetoric under the guise of criticizing Israel, and I know that some people use the most dehumanizing, racist, and anti-Muslim language under the guise of calling out Hamas terrorism, and, and, and. . .

That’s just one issue that tears me apart. A few years ago, one coping mechanism I turned to was wearing of bold, cat-eye glasses frames and listening to loud, angry music in my car. Eventually, I turned to listening to news as much as I could, trying to keep up with developments of every kind from every quarter. These days, I find myself not listening to anything at all. In the car, in the gym, while cooking, I wrap myself in silence. There’s so much noise in the world and I can’t escape it.

But even then, I have to recognize my privilege in blocking out the noise. I know you know, but my saying I’m privileged doesn’t mean I never struggled or had to work for what I wanted. It just means that I acknowledge that I’m not challenged by the dangers so many others face on a regular basis. I am a cisgendered, heterosexual wife and mother. I am a professional in a respected institution. If I don’t wear or say anything to identify that I’m Jewish, I’m just another white lady to most people. I have plenty to eat and a roof over my head and a loving and supportive family. I’m doing well, and yet every day I feel helpless and distraught. When Rev. Lewis first invited me to talk in chapel about the “Fullness of Joy” I thought, “Are you kidding me?”

During Yom Kippur, I was fasting and remotely attending services at Central Synagogue in Manhattan, and Rabbi Ari Lorge gave a sermon highlighting Psalm 126. It was a profound statement. He outlined how the Psalm refers to people sowing in tears but reaping a harvest of joy. But he elaborated that we don’t generally believe that the same individuals who plant while weeping will see the fruit of their labor. It takes more than one season to build something meaningful. Rather, those who sow are planting seeds for future generations to enjoy. They suffer and build so that their children or grandchildren will live in a better world.

My privilege comes from generations of hard work and sacrifice. Some of you have heard me say that I am not only a first-generation college student, but I am a second-generation high school student. My grandparents, like most Americans prior to the 1950s, did not get to attend high school and those who got a taste of “higher ed” back in the day did not get to complete it. They all went to work in the textile mills of Woonsocket, R.I. or in adjacent jobs.

My maternal grandfather, Emile, graduated from the 9^th grade and then went to work in a bar where every morning he helped serve those who were heading home after the night shift in the factory. My maternal grandmother, Lucie, only finished the 4^th grade. She was an avid reader, though, and I remember her home always being full of books and magazines and she read the newspaper every day. I think of her when I encounter the stories of women who studied and taught, like the Smith sisters who helped build libraries at the college and in Maryville. (I just helped put up a display about them in Anderson’s exhibit case.) Or Myrtle Coker Wilkinson, for whom we just named a new honors program. In another life, my grandmother Lucie would have done those things, but she had to work. When they started their family, my grandmother took in sewing so she could stay home with the kids. She eventually had such a following that I remember her making matching jerseys for a local bowling league. I inherited a lot from her, but I am proudest to have gotten her 1934 Singer sewing machine, originally with a treadle and later converted for electricity. It was used so much that the signature gold designs have worn off. It got me through COVID lockdown as I made a dress instead of baking bread that whole time.

I know that my grandparents were staunchly pro-union. Emile would have been twenty years old or so when there was a massive strike of millworkers in the Blackstone River Valley, which includes parts of R.I. and M.A., in 1934. The strikers in that event did not get everything they asked for, but conditions did improve. When Emile nearly lost his hand in the mill, he did not lose his job. They reassigned him to a different task while he recovered. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ended most child labor outside of agriculture, and after that more children got to finish school. My own parents graduated high school. We grew up knowing we would all go to college. And some of us even got advanced degrees.

My paternal grandparents were in the same boat, though they had more schooling. My grandmother Dorothy completed four years in high school and Jerry, my grandfather, even started college before the money ran out. Dorothy, for a while, was the highest earner out of all of them. As a woman with what passed for an advanced education, she got a job in the dye room at the textile mill. Of course, handling all those chemicals might have had something to do with the aggressive liver cancer that took her life. I was only seven when she passed. It was my first funeral. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, was not created until 1970 as part of the Department of Labor. That ensures that workers won’t be exposed to hazardous materials without protection.

None of this is to say that my grandparents did not know joy. There were no doubt lots of tears, but they were loving and happy people. Emile and Lucie used to laugh when telling the story of their honeymoon. As young factory workers, their chance at “escaping it all” took the form of a weekend in the spare room at a relative’s farm, to get out of the city. There was an unexpected snowstorm. My grandfather told me that instead of carrying his bride over the threshold, he had to carry her through knee-deep snow to use the outhouse because she didn’t have any boots.  They taught me that you can make do with very little. For a lot of their lives, they had little, and still they knew they had more than most.

I guess, at the end of the day, I am making my own peace with what feels like the end of an era. I grew up enjoying a harvest of joy that my ancestors planted, praying I’d be here, in this place, with you. And now, some things will have to be rebuilt. And if now is a time to cry, perhaps it is so you, and your children, and their children will dance in the sunshine and sing joyful songs. I pray I have the courage of my grandparents, to work hard and stand up for others in spite of how impossible it feels.

After all, the world was created for me, but I am still nothing, and I have a lot of work to do.