If you are reading this for the first time welcome and if you are a regular welcome back. This is the first year anniversary of The Bird Talks  Blog(which I recently renamed) and I’m looking forward to seeing what will come forth in the coming year.

 

Generally I will post a column at least once a month, or bi-monthly. For new readers, what you will find here is both poetry and prose. You will not find  minutia about my personal life, though if there is a good story to tell about something that I’ve experienced I will share it. Some of the poetry that you’ll read is original work that I might have  published in an anthology, book or lit magazine (and credited), or work in progress and under consideration for submission and publication. I have historically written op-ed columns, feature articles dealing with art and culture, and profiles. I will continue to do that kind of work here, and invite you the reader to post comments or ask questions. This year I will include my picks for interesting links on the WWW. Stay tuned for updates to the links section.  Permission for  use of any material presented here should be directed to me through this Blog .

Enjoy-    

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Contemplating Issues of Tolerance In Modern Day Society  

 

Part I

 

I’m an information junkie. I read everything, pamphlets in the grocery store, brochures in the acupuncturist’s office, obscure local newspapers, neighborhood newsletters, lit zines from foreign countries and memoirs, novels by people who might not be the next big thing, and some who are. I also have the privilege of reading the books of poetry, stories, and essays by friends, local poets and writers, and listening to the young spoken word scribes speak their truth into the world. 

 

People often ask me when “do you have the time to do all that reading?” I tell them that reading feels as natural as breathing to me, and feeds my desire to find out as much as I can about what people are thinking, doing and trying to express.  As I read I wonder about folks who live in neighborhoods, just like mine, give or take a few trees and blades of grass.

 

 Do they take in the information that comes their way or are they just tuned into the nine to five grind, the children to feed, the spouse to love, the bills to pay...  Do they see beyond their four wheel drives, beyond their immediate circles, beyond just the eleven o’clock news world, to q larger synthesis.  

 

As I read about the myriad of perspectives on the planet, I question whether or not tolerance is a value one inherits or learns.  For example, I know I have learned to be intolerant of people who throw trash on the ground. I say I learned because I used to litter when I believed that there was always going to be some one to pick up my debris.

 

Of course when I was that callous I was a kid, living  in a world where other people did the work of cleaning up my mess. I do remember a nun demanding that I eat the trash around my desk one morning at the beginning of a school day though.

 

I don’t think it was this cruel admonition for my littering or  the anti-littering commercials of the time that changed my mind though.  For a while, when I was older I became one of those people who cleaned up others’ stuff. I learned that littering was part of the oblivious bliss of childhood. Now when I look around I see that there are so many people letting their inner child litter, and I really wish they’ grow up.

 

There are harder questions about tolerance though, especially now in these quickly changing times. In the news the headlines work into the psyche of the nation.  Keeping books and marginalized boys in inner city schools is not the top story, but what the boys do wrong around the world is. I’ve been told, by some teachers, that bad behavior and casual sex is rampant. I’ve been told, by some kids, that they are used to not be listened to, that yelling to get their point across is normal. This, explains why they find it unnecessary to appear as if they are paying attention. 

 

In a world where morality and “the culture wars” are part of an every day discussion on talk radio and talk tv from TV One to Fox, NPR to the stations of the Christian heartland, perhaps daily practice in curbing impatience, rage, fear and anxiety should become part of the public education discourse. 

Every day I wonder how we tolerate so much tension. Then I realize that If one uses reality tv and the daily news as a gage, we aren't doing to0 well.

 

June 28, 2005 -  All rights reserved by Author.

 

To be continued....