Emily Sander, “loving wife, mother, grandmother, social worker. artist, tennis player and much more,” * a much-beloved member of Friends Meeting at Cambridge, died on June 5th; her memorial was Monday. FMC’s capacious meetinghouse overflowed;  those of us unable to squeeze inside sat on rented chairs outside.

Clerk of FMC’s Memorials Committee and knowing that centering at Emily’s memorial would probably be difficult for me, I spent meeting for worship the day before remembering her. And, as Emily’s beloved John Woolman would say: “. . . in calmness of mind went forward . . . ”

Here’s where I was; here’s where I got:

In the early months of 2007, when a weekly meals-and-sharing for the formerly incarcerated at FMC was being discussed, I’d offered to meet with anyone who might have concerns. One of those meetings was with Emily. After carefully listening to me, she smiled—oh, how I’ll miss that radiant smile—and thanked me. She understood more, now, for which she was grateful, she told me. If memory serves, and it seldom does, it would probably be inaccurate to report that Emily gave the Wednesday night sharing circle her blessing. But she did not stand in the way. And in April of 2007, Meeting approved these circles, still going strong.

A coda to that story: When a couple of the men from the circle began attending meeting for worship, Emily, as always, sought them out and graciously welcomed them. And continued to do so!

In 2007, I’d attributed Emily’s change of heart to both the rightness of the action and, to my shame, that I’d done such a stupendous job explaining it to her!

But, the week before her memorial, I rethought that. Twice, that week, in The Boston Globe and on NPR, the results of a recent study were discussed. This study revealed, basically, how almost-impossible it is for humans to shift our thinking. Indeed, the more facts we’re given which question our cherished, long-held views, the more strongly we hold onto what we believe!

So in the midst of assisting her amazing family to arrange for Emily’s memorial, I contemplated this gentle, gracious woman in a new light. Emily did shift her thinking. She did let go of whatever was of concern. How extraordinary!

Sitting in worship on Sunday, I had a “great opening” (George Fox). I think that this month’s blogging on shame and how marbled our emotions truly are informed this opening: If Emily’s ability to change her thinking was, in fact, very rare, then maybe I ought to also contemplate the rest of us, the stubbornly I-know-what-I know folks, differently. With—gasp!—compassion?

What a gift! Thank you, Emily Jones Sander, April 15, 1931—June 5, 2010

[* from the beautiful pamphlet distributed at Emily's memorial.]

Last night at Porter Square Bookstore, twenty-nine year old Melissa Febos read from her amazing book, Whip Smart, a beautifully written, insightful, totally honest, redemptive memoir re being a dominatrix and drug addict—until she wasn’t. (Full disclosure: She’s the daughter of a dear friend.)

More than once during the Q & A, when to further explain something she’d touched upon during her reading, she’d answer, in effect: “Humans are incredibly complicated, I’m complicated, sadomasochism is complicated. Please don’t ask me to give you a quick answer to complex topics. None of this is easy or facile. That’s why I wrote a book about it. Because after four years of being a dom, I know stuff. About power. About shame. About ‘God-shaped holes.’ Read my book.”

Yes. Do.

. . . what’s the difference between shame and guilt? And does it matter?

A story: When I first taught English to deaf high school students, one of the first things we did was work on feelings vocabulary, i.e. words and their respective signs. To connect the word and the sign for “Frustrated” was especially appreciated, as I recall! (An ironical Fun Fact to Know and Tell: the sign for “Frustrated” is a flipping gesture with your entire hand, palm side out, so that your splayed fingers flip up and cover your mouth.)

So as I sit here on a steamy, summer day contemplating the usual: systemic racism, our criminal justice system, and climate change (in the midst of this heat wave, especially the latter!), part of me knows that a precise understanding of word and meaning is useful, part of me doesn’t want to get bogged down.

So for what it’s worth: guilt is about “remorseful awareness” and shame is about “the painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt [hmm], embarrassment, unworthiness or disgrace.”

Here’s what I make of those culled definitions (thank you, Random House Dictionary): Guilt is something you come up over time and feel terrible about. Shame is in-the-moment, reactive, makes you cringe, get red-faced, stammer. Involuntary, maybe? Hard-wired, maybe?

Why am I writing about this? Because I’m beginning to think that shame plays a huge role in our lives. In MY life. And that if I want to really effect change in the Ghandian sense, I need to look at this thing.

So I will. All this month.

[When the student is ready the teacher appears.]

Next to the Porter Square subway entrance is a bus shelter often used by homeless people, their worldly belongings, crammed into black garbage bags, piled beside them as they sleep.

The other day I was walking on the sidewalk opposite that refuge just as a guy in a gray minivan was going the other way. Seeing that someone was asleep in that shelter, Minivan Guy honks. A “Hey, Loser! Wake up!” honk. A held-longer-than-usual-to-be-really-heard honk. (The homeless man did not stir.)

A paunchy, middle-aged white man, Minivan Guy’s grin, one part sheepish, three parts pleased with himself taught me something: This is what evil looks like. It looks like an overweight guy in a polo shirt, a father, maybe, doing something mean and nasty and feeling a little bit bad about it but mostly delighted to get away with it. (And a helpless, vulnerable victim versus a guy in a moving car isn’t exactly Fair, is it. But that’s what evil looks like, too.)

Like most privileged white people, I have spent much of my life bewildered by the heinous things humans have done and continued to do to one another. “How can people BE like that?” It is only now, in my sixties, that I am finally accepting that the possibility for cruelty lies within all of us. ALL of us.

Minivan Guy inflicted a brief, random, but consciously evil act.

Minivan. Mini-evil.

How easy it is, now, for me to extrapolate how beating up your wife, sexual abuse, anti-semitism, racism—you name it—happens.

[When the student is ready the teacher appears.]

The other day I was walking through Union Square feeling sad about my rapidly declining father, when a construction worker, singing “Hey, Jude” really, really badly, made me laugh out loud. Because he was so genuinely off-key but so equally genuinely into what he was singing, I took full advantage of my little old white-haired lady status by joining in. And (I am so glad none of my daughters were with me; they would have been mortified), I  waved my arms around in a futile, I-wish-this-were-a-Technicolor musical moment, vainly trying to encourage other Union Square pedestrians to join in.

“Take a sad song and make it better,” indeed!

A little background: For what feels like decades but has really only been a couple of years, Somerville Avenue, one of the city’s main thoroughfares and half a block from my house, has been under construction. Which has meant endless tie-ups, ear-shattering noise, sometimes, and ongoing daily annoyance. (Good thing I mostly walk or take public transportation.) So my attitude towards the guys in hardhats has been a little like someone living under occupation.( A little, I said. Okay?): When are you going to leave? When can I get my normal life back?

So that one of those construction workers should, by his guileless, horrible singing—he was loud, too!—crack me up, was a huge gift.

So what did this teacher in a hardhat teach me?

I heard his goofy, open-hearted song and thought: He hates this noisy, sweaty, sometimes dangerous, sometimes stultifyingly boring job. That’s why he’s singing. To get through it.

We don’t sing aloud, do we. Unlike those Technicolor musicals, we don’t burst into song. But that construction worker didn’t care. He sang, anyway. Even though he was terrible. So he taught me something about ART. Even badly done art. You do it because you can’t NOT do it.

The next time I wake up at 4:00 AM panicky because I’m scared  no one will love the book I’m writing, I’m going to remember that guy.

Bonus: My enormous relief to laugh showed me the depth of my sadness. (I don’t do sad very well.)

Good to know. And why I was so ready to laugh.

[When the student is ready the teacher will appear.]

Much as I am eternally grateful to Dr. Lynda Woodruff and Reverend Owen Cardwell for all they patiently and lovingly taught me, I need to give mega credit to Friends Meeting at Cambridge’s Friends for Racial Justice. For it was only because of FORJ’s workshops and discussions that I was (kinda) ready to be schooled by Lynda and Owen. So as I begin this month’s account of the teachers, mentors, and kind souls who’ve brought me along and brought me up short, a Quakerly fluttering of outstretched hands* for FORJ!

Fluttering your hands in the air is a customary Quaker sign of approval, a gentle and quiet substitute for clapping.