The pigeon man

Thursday’s Chicago Tribune (12/20) carried a story about “one of the least” amongst us. Joe Zeman spent nearly every day sitting on a red fire hydrant in Lincoln Square allowing pigeons to perch on him. “Pigeons on his head. Pigeons on his shoulders and right down to his arms. Pigeons poised on each palm. Pigeons clinging to his chest. Pigeons on his lap. Pigeons on his thighs. Pigeons, of course, on each foot. The pigeons peck and coo, occasionally flutter their wings. Sometimes even scatter. But not the man; the man is motionless. You might mistake him for a statue. Joseph Zeman can sit for hours, barely flinching a muscle…except for those lips.” [Barbara Mahaney; Tribune staff writer]
Hit and killed by a van, Joe was identified only because he carried several laminated news clippings of a story written about him by Barbara Mahaney. Living alone in an attic room, Joe focused on the pigeons. His funds, meager as they were, helped purchase the varied foods he used to keep the pigeons prospering.
Joe’s life was truly uneventful: he had a stroke when only 8 months; grand mal epilepsy from age 14 months till 48 years old. Yet, he told Ms Mahaney that “sitting on the hydrant the most important work he had ever done. “I’m really advertising to the public how easy it is to be good without an attitude; it’s just as easy to show decency as it is hate today.”
No doubt, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “the world will little note nor long remember..” the life of Joe Zeman. Yet, we should!
Especially should we note and remember Joe as we approach Christmas in 2007. Surrounded almost constantly by articles and stories of the many ways humans are capable of showing hate to each other, it’s tempting to skip over the “miracle of Christmas”. The “miracle” that reminds us of how the Divine elects to communicate with us. Moses – set afloat to be raised in the Pharaoh’s home; Jesus – born in a stable to a marginal fam,ily.
And, Joe Zeman – a man whose life spoke volumes about the only way we can bring peace. Individually. Each person electing, daily, to be good to each other.
Mahaney reported that many compared Joe to St Francis of Assisi and that he kept dozens of St Francis postcards printed with the peacemaker’s prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where thee is hatred, let me sow love…”
However we celebrate the birth of Jesus this year, take a moment to reflect on Joe Zeman. Truly he might have been “the least amongst us” – but that is exactly the way the Lord of Peace is revealed.

WAS IT WE?

In the 1990s we visited the Holocaust Museum in our Nation’s Capitol. Seeing the depth and breadth of inhumanity that was inflicted on the Jews [and others] wherever the Nazi Regime held power, and remembering that much of this happened between my 8th and 15th years of age, the question on my lips was “Did my parents know?” How could all this have happened, including the ship turned away from our Florida ports, and remain so invisible?
It certainly wasn’t because we were an uncaring family. We attended, and were very active in, a German Lutheran Church. We prayed regularly for peace. We grew a Victory Garden. We saved the tinfoil from chewing gum wrappers. We wanted the war to end and we wanted peace restored across Europe.
We did hear of some atrocities from that “other” theatre of war – the South Pacific. We heard of the Bataan Death March and the horrific way our troops were treated. Perhaps that is why we ignored the terrible way we treated Japanese Americans who lived on the west coast!
Then, when we saw the early pictures from Dachau and Auschwitz and the many other camps dedicated to eradicating the Jewish problem, then we knew what terrible people those Nazis had been! Then it was easy to forget the questions: “Did my parents know? How could this have happened in a nation that worshipped the same way we did?”
I don’t know if there will be a museum built to display the terrible things that have been done in Iraq. If there will be some place where my kids and my grandkids will visit – and ask, “Did Dad know? How could these things have happened and we were so silent?”
Of course they will know I opposed the war even before March 2003. They will know the contempt I felt towards the Administration and Congress and Judiciary that had perpetuated this terrible action in our name. They will know I wrote letters and even became involved in supporting candidates who were opposed to the war. And, they will know that my efforts were generally impotent.
Frank Rich, in a New York Times Op-Ed article “The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us” [October 14,2007], categorized many of the atrocities done “in our name” during the Iraq War years. He ended with this paragraph.
Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. “et the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains our country’s good name.
There is something even worse to lose! In Matthew 25 Jesus is quoted as saying:
Then he will turn to the ‘goats’, the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why?
Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.
Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, “Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?
He will answer them, “I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.

Culture Wars

Today, on NPR, a woman from Ohio identified herself as a "culture warrior". "We are involved today", she said, "in a culture war. One the one side are the progressives. On the other side are we traditionalists. We must fight to preserve our traditional values."

Her remarks provoked many thoughts and feelings.

Initially, I felt sadness. How unfortunate in 2007, living in a country and land with so much, to perceive one's self at "war". A war that is far more deadly than what we are fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. One of the gifts of our heritage is the freedom to create a civilization in which different cultures may live together side-by-side, with no one having to fear that her/his will be destroyed by another.

Being a lover of words, my next thought was to wonder how she might define "traditional" and "progressive". If one if not "progressive" is s/he "regressive"? "Stagnant". Can one be "traditional" and still move forward into this 21st century without needing to sacrifice "values"?

What is a "progressive" value? Is it new? Is it a 'traditional' value that has matured or evolved so as to incorporate the changes of living?

Were the values proclaimed by Jesus "traditional" or "progressive"? There is no question as to how the religious rulers would answer that.

I would love to engage in discussion with that woman in Ohio, and her many like-minded friends across our nation. A discussion that, hopefully, would not make her [them] feel at war [i.e. defensive] but as co-seekers hoping to proclaim the same values without needing to fight over externals. I have done that with Amish, neither seeking to make them dress like myself or use modern machinery. It should be easier to have dialogue with her [them].

Such a dialogue is far more important - and urgent - today than wondering which candidates will win in Iowa or New Hampshire. If we do not regain an ability to move forward as a unified nation, then the winner in November 2008 is irrelevant.