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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 11, 2006 Visiting poet may leave you with desire to ‘shift’ Scott Dalgarno In “A Letter From Naomi Shihab Nye To Any Would-be Terrorist” the poet asks, “Have you noticed how many roads there are? Sure you have. You must check out maps and highways and small alternate routes just like anyone else. There is no way everyone on earth could travel on the same road, or believe in exactly the same religion. It would be too crowded, it would be dumb. I don’t believe you want us all to be Muslims.” She is a poet obsessed by roads. Witness the following in her poem “Streets”: “A man leaves the world and the streets he lived on grow a little shorter.” In “Two Countries” she writes that skin is a hopeful organ, it “heals over the scarred place, makes a road.” It seems to me that she is always looking for some new place, a way out of loneliness … for all of us. “I drive into the country to find sheep, cows/ to plead with the air / … Where can the crying heart graze?” Our own “Chautauqua Poets & Writers” is bringing the celebrated Naomi Shihab Nye to a street near you Feb. 16, at 7 p.m. She will read her poetry at Ashland High School. People who have heard her read and tell her story often say they come away changed. Nye is that kind of poet: A poet of hope that people say has a way of turning back the tide of cynicism currently sweeping the planet. The daughter of a mother of European descent and a Palestinian father, she has, since the age of seven, explored in writing the idea that the lives of all of us are bound in one web. “Why shouldn’t the death of innocent Iraqi civilians hurt as much as the deaths of our own soldiers?” she asks pointedly in a recent interview. Her Palestinian father came to the United States in 1948, settling in a tiny town in Kansas where he was the only Arab and also the only Muslim. The evangelical Christians there wouldn’t leave him alone. “May I tell you about Jesus,” they’d ask, and he would reply, “Hey, wait a minute, he grew up down the street from me.” Partially, as a result, her art has been dedicated to promoting honest communication across national and ethnic lines. She pushes on boundaries most all of us take for granted, reminding me that there are even limits to what we call “the golden rule.” You know, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Jesus is often stamped with the authorship of that phrase, when, in fact, you can find a number of versions of it cropping up in cultures around the globe. If Jesus is the author of any “rule” it would have been what is becoming known today as the Platinum rule. That one goes this way: “Do unto others as they would be done by.” That is to say, don’t just do for people what you would like, take the time to find out what they might really want before you “help” them. Jesus once visited a pool that was said to have healing powers. There he met a paralyzed man who, it was said, had been there for several decades ostensibly waiting for the waters to be “troubled” enough to be of use to him. Knowing that he had been there all that time, Jesus asks the man, “Do you want to be healed?” I don’t think it was a rhetorical question. I think it was genuine, and very empathetic. I mean, would every person who has been hanging out that long in such company, shouldering few if any responsibilities, really want to go through the trauma of beginning a brand new life on two good feet? Okay, many, probably, but not every one. Much of the power of Shihab Nye’s verse stems from her insistence on taking nothing for granted when differing cultures start to talk. I love the first stanza of the poem that opens her volume, “Fuel.” It’s called, “Muchas Gracias por Todo:” “This plane has landed thanks to God and his mercy. That’s what they say in Jordan when the plane sets down. What do they say in our country? Don’t stand up until we tell you. Stay in your seats. Things may have shifted.” Be warned; if you come to hear her Thursday, something inside you may want to … shift. Tickets are available at Paddington, Tree House Books, The Book Wagon, A Rug For All Reasons, and Talent House Music and Books. Scott Dalgarno is pastor of Ashland’s First Presbyterian Church. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams