Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Peace Essays

To create a climate for peace, we need both men and women. In the past, it was a world dominated by men with affairs of the family circle left to the women. Even when we became so-called civilized in our cultures, it was still hunters (men going out and working to bring home a paycheck) and women (at home with the children and the affairs of the house). In today’s world, we need a bringing together of all members of the family of mankind therefore many of the skills that are needed are those that women have perfected. They are the expert in family centering and family compromise. They are the diplomats of the world. We should use their skill in the pursuit of peace.

A Nation Divided

        As is my practice when I wish to talk something out, I went again to Bubba Jay 3's house on Dripping Springs Road. When I did not find him, I was reminded that this home was more than an extension of his male ego. Hummingbird Rose Jay was in her studio but she did not force this realization upon me. It came all by itself. I had been watching the Senate Judiciary Hearings on the Supreme Court confirmation and my mind and emotions still stood on a hilltop of awareness. I watched a nation divided.

      "Bubba is away," said Hummingbird Rose, a stately woman descended from the Huaco Indians. "He will be back tonight. He went to Houston for the opera. Is there something that I can help you with?"

      How many times have mothers said that to sons, asking for nothing more than to listen and give comfort. "Yes," I said, "the hearings in Washington disturb me deeply. They gnaw at the core of my belief in freedom in America. There just seems to be man's freedom and women are 'supposed to endure things. The hearings have deteriorated into a circus for men trying to justify their previously stated positions.  Except for an attempt by Senator Biden, I don't see open minds."

     "So what is new about that?" asked Rose. "Women have been relegated to the sitting room when the men went to speak of "important matters" in the billiard room during the Victorian era. My female relatives put up with much more than this on the long marches across this land. Women have put up with abusive husbands because they felt powerless or because they believed in a higher cause; family, principles, continuity for children, etc."

    "Can't this powerlessness change? Can't we grow up as a nation where men and women are free to speak the truth? Are the rules different for each sex?" I asked.

      Hummingbird Rose smiled her answer and I felt naive. "How can you have anything but different rules for the sexes when 98% of the Senate are men? My daughter, Lynda Lylac, has a modern approach to sex discrimination. She will not put up with stereotypes for a woman's role," she said, her voice staying calm while she could see that I was upset. "From what I have watched in Washington, the only honest statement that I have heard is: "I do not understand ..." and then senators fill in the words, "waiting," "putting up with," "not taking action." One witness mentioned the fox guarding the hen house. There is an old Indian tale that in cases of abuse, you wait until the fox in no longer a guardian or you are not in the hen house. That is what my wise foremothers told me. Like the Chinese belief, everything is arranged in a circle. It will come around. Women have put up with discrimination for centuries until they could find somewhere to run or someone to help her leave the situation. Surely, you know the story of Elizabeth Barrett and her father until Robert Browning came into her life. She is one of success stories about abuse and discrimination.

     The steaming iron in Hummingbird Rose's hand glided across the surface of newly-created, tie-dye cloth as if it were an extension of Martha Graham's rhythmic body and the meter of her words reminded me of my love of Maya Angelou's voice, reading her special poetry.  "I hope that I am open to recognizing anyone's individual self," I said, a little quieter than I normally sound.

     "I read your last article for the paper,” she said, "and I agree that ideas and images live long after the person dies. You mentioned your heroes: Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, Rembrandt, Homer, Dante, etc.  What I noticed, although I agree with those individual’s contributions and I know it was a cultural oversight on your part, is what you left out: women! Women influence thinking and feeling. Even Frank Lloyd Wright called architecture "a womb with a view."  He did not get that image from a man.  The first depiction of our species was the Venus of Willendorf, the initial earth mother."

     "How can anyone understand this nation divided?" I asked. "How can I relate to a women's view of the world?"

     "Maybe you can't," she said, "no more than I saw understanding in the faces of the men on that Judiciary Committee but you can reach out and try. I think some of them might too. Now that the threat of being voted out of office is a real possibility. There is an ancient Japanese story that tells of the world only being whole when two gods ("he who is outward" and “she who is inward") join. Only in that joining is the world complete, only in that joining to build something together can we have civilization. Bringing up children, the small savages, and transforming them into civilized beings is the outcome of that joining all through life. Only when men and women join in the march toward true freedom in America can anyone, male or female, be free."

     I got up to leave, shaken in that I knew that what she said was true and wondering how a solution might be possible (particularly after seeing the mess that had unraveled like an unwanted soap opera in the halls of our government). "I will try," I said, "and I will remember your words when I touch the female side of myself, the yin as the Chinese call it."

     "I will be here," she smiled her Mona Lisa smile, "Women have always been here. One of your heroes, George Bernard Shaw, was wrong. He thinks men alone created civilization. Women know that it was and is a team effort. I will be here whenever you need an ear to listen or a presence for comfort. Let us both work toward change. I will be here with my 51% of the national vote."

A symbol for the uniting of the two sexes is this story of fishing on two shores. To do the job right, the two shores must join with the river to make one unit. Hopefully, this new unit can be united in peace, not subjected to a forced obedience.

A Simple Day On The Far Shore

"I think that I will fish on this side until we get away from the snags," repeats the fisherman in blue to the mother who is anxious about her son. "Go over on the land and throw your line into the water," calls the fisherman to the boy.

           "Look around before you cast," calls the mother.

          "This sinker won't support this bobber in this current," the fisherman observes to the changing colors and the three frolicking dogs. "Too much current there," he calls to a moving spot of round color on the rippling glaze surface.

          "Come on, Penelope," directs the mother to a reluctant dog who eyes the current, bubbling and rolling over a sunken rock.

Distantly, the fisherman remarks, "Over on the other side, it gets deep."

The sounds skip across the water too fast to count, then quiets, distilling into red ochre, yellow green, bright sap green shadows and variations of tan-gray, finally disappearing around the bend downstream. The fisherman and his critics are in direct sunlight, dressed in bright greens, whites, and blues. They cluster on the far shore, away from the singing rapids, quietly casting their moments to the water, quietly remarking on the process as if it were the only important event happening in the world.

          Of course, that is true.

         A crow calls encouragement from the shelter of leaves. "Caa caa, it is beautiful," the sounds of bird and fisherman join.

        "You are good at this, Daniel," encourages the mother to the son.

        The dogs are the only listeners beside the sun-filled, color-rich, yet dying leaves of the guardians of the river. A dragonfly stops to watch the scene from the barkless chaos of twisted, clustered trees, ripped from the banks upstream in a time gone by when the rains came and the river raged and overthrew the tyranny of the banks.

      In the early late afternoon, the river seems older, observing itself in its own meandering picture glass. Its movement is measured. Its surface is only broken by the stems of the fisherman's legs, sending out circles of conversation to the constant clearing of a moist, rock-filled throat channel.

      It is not speech as fishermen know it but, in some surprising manner, the fishermen lower their unformed cries of "Here I am" to blend and unite with the voice of the river. The sound, if you stand on the opposite shore, is one of a muffled "Here we are."

        The elder fisherman philosophizes to the others, and to no one in particular, "You throw your worm out and wait to see if anyone takes a bite."

The dogs yelp happy agreement and the cicadas begin their song of late afternoon and evening. The old river just chuckles on its way, showing its gapped white teeth in the rapids downstream.

An apprentice fisherman calls to the others and a shaded, blue sky, "I think have a nibble."

          "You got one," asks the journeyman of fishing?

         "Yes," calls the mother, no longer worried about her son, "I got a bass."

         "I'll be damned," remarks the fisherman, seeming to break the delicate balance between river and the people. But on this October day, no one is damned.

         The caught fish is returned to its watery mother. Leaves fall to be rocked to sleep downstream. The harmonic dialogue continues uninterrupted. Maybe, just maybe, it is a simple day on the far shore with mothers, fishermen, dogs, trees, sky and the river.

       Later, when crossover time becomes a reality, minnows scatter in unintelligible formations as worried feet struggle to wade to the far shore.

         "The sun is hotter because the far shore is now near," an inner voice calls out to no one.

         The shadows tilt differently.

         The sounds call louder.

   It is because the near is nearer or we are now upwind? Certainly, a school of humans are now upstream with the quiet river lying down below.

       On this other side, there are no scattered logs to rest upon, just a slanted, gravel plane. It seems that getting close means lying down and seeing the individuality of each stone.

        Forced by a cooling breeze, the boy chooses a smooth rock to take back to civilization. Only one fisherman, the one who knows this special place, is left standing patiently in the middle of the river, his legs cut off from view below the army shorts.

        The fishing poles stand wedged into the shore as sentinels to the dying day. They lean as thin menhirs to a time now past. They point to the blue curve of the sky.

       "It is time to put our things away," states the mother, but no one seems to listen or move.

       "One more try," pleads the fisherman, "I know they bite around that log."

       Heads move in agreement although no one knows "that log."

       No one cares to break the winding down of the day.

        The near shore magically joins and becomes the far shore.

        Finally, every human and dog leaves the Illinois River to fish itself.