For Ben On His Birthday

Tags

Civil Rights, Faith, Family, Gay marriage, Poetry, Writing

When the currents are moving slow,
or the air is heavy and cold,
know that love is there.

When the days are frozen
and thick with routine,
know that love is there.

For rivers never run dry and streams
will always flow because they
know that love is there.

By Rüdiger Rückmann
Written on February 27, 2017
(one day early!)

Ellen’s Ode to Emily Dickinson

Tags

Civil Rights, Community, Early Education, Emily Dickinson, Faith, Family, Mainstreaming, Parenting, Poetry, Trisomy 21, Writing

Dear Readers,
Monday’s post is a day early following a Sunday morning of reading Emily Dickinson with my daughter who had breakfast and then asked to read more Emily Dickinson.

 

To Emily from Ellen

If I can fill a heart
with joy,
Then the world has gained;

If I can help one more person understand,
Or think again,

Or look at me with eyes retrained
to see all that can be attained,

Then the world has gained.

— By Ellen Rückmann-Bruch with Rüdiger Rückmann
Written on 26 February 2017

Gnomes Like Us

Tags

Faith, Family, Hawaii, Parenting, Poetry

Friday evening we relocate to the world
for a few days amongst our own
that during the week we hover in only at night
like sheltered gnomes who at daybreak taste
the city that surrounds our home.

In harmony we travel each morning past hills
and streams, beyond small waterfalls, to schools
to seek friends and peace. We return at dusk
grateful and changed, ready for food and sleep,
mildly dizzy in our dwelling and safe.

— By Rüdiger Rückmann
Written on 24 February 2017

Hawaii Mountains

Tags

Childraising, Faith, Hawaii, Poetry, Writing

It was the mountains: each step closer,
past stone gardens, the old cemeteries,
untamed trees as the hill to home became
more steep. It was the mountains: green
and insistent in a setting sun, cracked open
by stubborn streams and unclear paths.

How I wanted to fall into them,
the mountains, to stay in their hard
embrace, to become part of them,
my heart learning to live with a dull burn
as I turned down the small road
to my house and waited minutes
to go inside with the sun setting firmly.
I have learned why: the mountains
will speak to me again in the morning
as surely as children play. The mountains
will invite me back to dreams only I know,
telling me I can stay.

— By Rüdiger Rückmann
Written on 23 February 2017

It Doesn’t Just Happen in the Movies!

Tags

Civil Rights, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gay marriage, Gay parenting, German language, Growing up gay, Harvard, Schoenhof's

After 161 years of business, Schoenhof’s Foreign Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will close in less than two months.

It is the end of an era for the oldest and largest bookstore in the United States that sold just foreign language books. High rents in Harvard Square and online booksellers made it tough for Schoenhof’s to continue.

For years, hundreds of miles away, I had ordered books over the phone from Schoenhof’s as a teacher of German and as a member of many German book clubs. I met a fellow German teacher at a language retreat 15 years ago. We became friends, and she invited me to visit her in Massachusetts. She also set me up on a blind date that was so bad that I could only laugh after it was over.

I was all set to take a train back to Baltimore when I noticed Michelle’s book bag. “Oh, Schoenhof’s,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”

In less than an hour, we did. I was a little underwhelmed. Schoenhof’s was smaller than I expected. I was hoping to order a latte, but there was no coffee bar!

But there were plenty of books in plenty of languages and dozens of interesting people reading and purchasing them on that summer afternoon when I had told myself that if love were in the air, I would need to find it somewhere other than Massachusetts.

Except that it soon stared me in the face!

Working as a cashier at Schoenhof’s ground floor that afternoon was a young man. I turned to Michelle and said, “That guy is the most gorgeous person I have ever seen in my life, man or woman.” She encouraged me to speak to him. I told Michelle that my voice would probably crack. Besides, I didn’t think he was gay.

Michelle literally pushed me in the direction of the guy. I spoke. My voice cracked. He had long hair. I told him I was growing mine. He mentioned that he was studying Celtic languages at Harvard. I told him I was fascinated by Celtic languages even though I knew very little about them! I introduced him to Michelle and as casually as I could and said that I would probably be visiting her again in the next few months.

The next day, I went back. The Celtic scholar was again working the cash register. I told him I was going back to Baltimore and gave him my email.

A few days later, I desperately needed to order a book from Schoenhof’s. The Celtic scholar answered, but told me he had many customers.

I went back outside, determined to create the finest garden in Baltimore. Then he called back. I’m going to make a long story short: we’ve been together ever since.

So a thousand thanks to Schoenhof’s, to language nerds, to men and women who love different cultures, to my friend Michelle, to the Harvard Celtic department, to my husband and to our gorgeous daughter who was born seven years ago this May. We married in one of the few states at the time that let us become a legal couple the year before Ellen was born.

It doesn’t just happen in the movies!

 

Light

Tags

Community, Diversity, Faith, Hawaii, Parenting, Presidential election, Quakerism

Well, it’s a bit bleak for Hawaii: windy, rainy, and a 72-degree February day. An ocean away in Washington, D.C., the Senate Majority Leader has tossed the new occupant of the White House a dozen bouquets. He has come under the sway or forced embrace of a man who has nothing but praise for states that like to discriminate.

I’m relieved but also a bit sad that Hawaii is one of the few truly safe places left in the United States for openly welcoming diversity.

I was asked today to speak to young students about Quakerism. Many already had mental images of the Quaker Oats man and the Amish. I explained that although there is great diversity among Quakers, there is inner Light in all of us, and the joy of every day is to find that Light even in times of uncertainty.

The students asked if what I meant by Light was God. I smiled and said it could be, but it was also a commitment to peace, justice, equality, and stewardship of our earth. I was stunned that they kept asking many reasonable questions for over half an hour.

I probably looked a bit earnest, but I assured the students I have plenty of lighthearted moments.

One of them was this past weekend. I did something I always wanted to do but somehow never did until yesterday: I tried out a photo booth! My daughter and I doubled over in laughter as we realized I was not a wellspring of knowledge. In fact, had it not been for Ellen, I might have given up on the experience.

But Ellen provided the direction and Light I needed, and we left the small, tight space overjoyed we had a present for both her dads.

The new occupant of the White House is trying to squeeze those who do not share his points of view, who are outspoken about their own, into dark places. I believe, though, that their Light will break through.

What the World Needs Now

Tags

Early Education, Faith, Family, Hawaii, Parenting, Presidential election, Rachel Maddow, Teaching, Writing

My mother lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Yesterday, thinking of her long marriage to my father who passed away more than a year ago (it was his birthday recently), I called her. She lives on the Mainland.

My mother and I have a few similar tastes. Years ago, after I had shown her a paper I had written for a college Philosophy of Literature course, I heard her gasp. My mother does not usually gasp. She went to a cabinet in her bedroom and pulled out a paper she had written for a Philosophy of Literature course she had taken in college decades earlier. Unbeknownst to us until that moment, we had not only both chosen the same philosopher, but our paragraphs for 10 pages were nearly identical.

Spooky, huh? Or reassuring in a “There is a God” kind of way.

What wasn’t reassuring, though, was the conversation with my Mutti yesterday. She had seen Donald Trump melt down at his press conference. She stated that she believed the world was in danger.

“Even more so than during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Mutti?,” I asked.

“Yes,” she said definitively.

I later watched The Rachel Maddow Show my mother had been seeing live when we talked. (We have a six-hour time difference in Hawaii and I usually watch a repeat of the show at an hour when my mother is asleep.)

“Tell me something pleasant and wonderful,” my mother said as we wrapped up our short conversation.

“We live in Hawaii,” I said.

“That’s all?,” she asked.

I did not have the heart to tell her that I find parenting difficult sometimes, that I’m learning more about life in my six years as a parent than I learned in all the decades preceding parenthood.

Today, though, I will send her this wonderful picture sent to me by my daughter’s teacher. It says a whole lot more about what the world should be than the world we live in now with Donald Trump leading — wait, that can’t be the right word — our country.

Read, Donald! Read some history. Take a Philosophy of Literature course. Look at the words written by my daughter’s classmate. Get over yourself. Try writing a poem. Start loving the world and doing your part to take care of it.

Taking Hold

Tags

Childraising, Early Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Poetry, Public/Private Schools

When light finds you in unexpected places
after you have looked to hide in shadows,
you let yourself be drawn closer
to the forms where it has revealed itself:

a tree vast and full of wisdom,
a garden planted with faith,
a teacher patient and waiting.

You take a soft but firm step,
ignoring uncertainty,
knowing goodness will take hold.

— By Rüdiger Rückmann
Written on 16 February 2017
and dedicated to Annie Ushiroda

The Same But Not The Same

Tags

Faith, Family, Gay parenting, Growing up gay, Monastic life, Parenting, Presidential election, Trisomy 21

One of the most frightening movies I ever saw was called Der Tag danach, known to English speakers as the The Day After. The film depicted a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

At the time I was a very young man living sheltered away in a monastery with a school attached in Austria. I allowed myself to be persuaded by my students, who were just a few years younger than I was, to leave the monastery, go to a restaurant, and watch the movie. Had we planned to eat after the film, I probably would have lost my appetite.

Decades later, I’m very careful these days about planning meals and watching the news. I also need to factor in sleep. Since the new occupants of the White House moved in less than a month ago, I’ve thought about scenes like those in Der Tag danach that I had put out of my mind. (Der Tag danach was shown as a feature film in Austria the year after it was shown on American television.)

At the time I joined high school seniors to watch Der Tag danach, I dreamt of either becoming a full-fledged monk or some day starting my own family. After seeing the film, I wondered if that would be possible. My dreams of a family were pretty conventional and included being married to a woman and having children not born with an extra chromosome. If someone had suggested to me back then that my legal spouse would be a man, and my gorgeous, college-bound daughter would be born with three #21 chromosomes, I would have found a nice corner of the monastery and meditated for a very long time! I might have even fasted.

The world is more complicated since those monastic days, but also very much the same. The contours of my dreams may be different, but in some regards they have the same basic shape. The monastic community, by the way, closed over five years ago.

Happy ♥ Day

Tags

Early Education, Faith, Friendship, Gratitude, Presidential election, Trisomy 21, Valentine's Day

After an unexpected Valentine’s Day present the evening before the big day — no, not from my husband, but from Russia with love, I woke up with my daughter at 4:30 a.m. full of hope.

I could write volumes about the resignation of Michael Flynn who has given Russia all kinds of bouquets these past several months, but I’m going to keep my message simple.

As easy as it is to slide down the slippery mountain called the Complexities of Life, try to remember what is most important:

Love for our family and friends
Love for our teachers
Love for what is right about this world
Love for honest efforts to do what is right for the world
Acceptance of the imperfect

I’ll keep it that and thank my wonderful husband, daughter, and our daughter’s teacher for their giving me hope and faith every single day.