Sunday, November 17, 2019

The Muse of Elijah


Our children are the living messengers we send into a future we will never see.
—Elijah Cummings

What Did You Do in 2019?
I will fight to the death to make sure everyone gets their right to vote, because it is the essence of our democracy.
—Elijah Cummings
On October 17th 2019, I woke to the news that Elijah Cummings had died. No! That can’t be true. My heart was filled with panic. I hadn’t realized how important this congressman—this chair of the Oversight Committee investigating our President—was to me until that moment. I hadn’t realized that Elijah Cummings was, for me, the point of the America’s moral compass. Nor had I realized that my hope that my children and grandchildren would continue to live and vote in a democracy rested on Elijah Cummings’ integrity and courage.

I can see Elijah Cummings’ smiling face; I can hear his booming voice taking on the Acting Homeland Security Secretary about the conditions in which children are being kept at the border. The Acting Secretary, one Kevin McAleenan, looks uncomfortable. He says: “We’re doing our level best.” Elijah’s voice rises: “What does that mean, when a child is sitting in its own feces? Come on, man! This is the United States of America!” I hear his moral clarity when, it seems a lifetime ago, in Feb. 2019, he turns into a spiritual counselor for Michael Cohen during Cohen’s testimony against his former boss, the President. Here’s Cummings speaking to Cohen: “Hopefully, this portion of your destiny will lead to a better Michael Cohen, a better Donald Trump, a better United States of America, a better world.” I see his tired face, after hours of testimony, telling reporters, “This is a fight for the soul of our democracy.” I hear his prophetic remarks spanning the realms: “When we’re dancing with the angels the question will be asked, ‘What did you do in 2019 to keep our democracy safe?’” I hadn’t realized that Elijah Cummings was the one I’d been trusting with America’s soul, until he died, and left the work to all of us.

Those who were close to him, Nancy Pelosi, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Kweisi Mfome, Barack Obama, knew he’d been ill for a long time. His wife, Maya, said he was diagnosed with a rare deadly cancer—given six months to live—twenty–five years ago. Those who were close to him knew he came from poverty, that his parents had been sharecroppers, that as a child he’d been put in a special education class, told he’d never be able to read or write. The man was a miracle. Some say an angel.

I Am Freddie Gray
Does Anyone Hear Us Pray
4 Michael Brown or Freddie Gray?

—Prince, “Baltimore”
Freddie Gray

In March of 2016, over half a year before the election, Elijah gave a talk to the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy called “The Fierce Urgency of Now.” He spoke of Freddie Gray, a 25 year old who died after having been given such a “rough ride” in police custody, that his spine was severed and he died. The Grand Jury indicted three police officers on manslaughter charges, and added a second degree count of “depraved-heart murder” for the driver. “Depraved-heart murder.” That says it all. And yet all the officers were acquitted. The people of Baltimore expressed their rage on the day of Gray’s funeral, April 28, 2015. Elijah spoke at the funeral. He saw press from all over the country and the world, and he asked: “You see him now, but did you see him when he lived? Did you see the little boy who sat in the first grade trying to learn to read, but he couldn’t because his body was filled with lead? Did you see him in the fourth grade when he still couldn’t read, and was beginning to get in trouble?” That night Elijah went to Howard University, to give a lecture with Elizabeth Warren, on a Middle Class Prosperity Project. He received a text: “Your city is on fire!” He rushed back to do his best to calm Baltimore. “People were hollering and screaming, throwing rocks, very upset over Freddie Gray.”

At the Taubman Center Elijah told a story of the moment he understood who Freddie Gray was to him. During an interview on CNN he was asked, “How do you deal with these people?” Elijah responded “What people?” The interviewer said, “You know, like Freddie Gray.” Elijah turns to his audience, says: “I’ll never forget it. I had tears running down my cheeks on National TV. And I said ‘I am Freddie Gray. I am the little boy who sat in the classroom probably filled with lead. I am him, who was put in a school system—in the black community we had nine classrooms and one bathroom and about 300 feet away the white school had sixty classrooms and a whole lot of bathrooms… I think of Freddie Gray every day… We have to look at this moment with the fierce urgency of now… When people get to a point where they lose hope there’s a problem. When people are trying to cut off votes, to cut off people’s voices…there’s something wrong with that picture. We all have to speak out… We have a duty to provide our children with a democracy… They’ll take the vote away from African–Americans today. They’ll take it away from Hispanics tomorrow. They’ll take it away from somebody else and the next thing you know you won’t have a democracy.”

Prophet Elijah
The Cup of Elijah
Nothing great has ever been accomplished without passion and patience. Rooted in the same Latin word, “pati,” (to suffer, to endure) passion and patience touch the two poles of the key element in a life that matters: commitment.
—Edward Elias Lowinsky
In the Jewish tradition Elijah is a prophet who stands up to demagogues. He is an angel of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. His work is to protect the needy and the oppressed, to ward off evil. He sees through illusions. At Passover we pour him a cup of wine, and open the door so that he may come to us, bringing his courage and wisdom.

My father, Edward E. Lowinsky, was named Elias (the Latinate form of Elijah) at his birth. The family story is that his mother was concerned about his safety, bearing such a Jewish name in Germany. So he became Edward E. My father had a prophetic temperament, which he passed down to me. He came from a refugee Jewish family—they were illegal aliens. Born in Stuttgart, in 1908, his parents had fled the pogroms in Odessa. My father fled Germany in 1932 for Holland, and then fled Holland in 1938, with his bride, her sisters and parents, headed for America. But the United States was not welcoming Jewish refugees. The family had to stay in Cuba for 20 months until, with false passports—illegal aliens— they arrived in America.

My father never told me about his false passport, or how he became a legal immigrant. The news of his statelessness came long after his death and explained much to me about why my father watched the political scene so intensely, as do I. He called out the dangers he foresaw. His concerns were much like those of Elijah Cummings: racism, anti-Semitism, dangers to the constitution. He wrote thunderous letters to the New York Times when events alarmed him. Often, they were published. He told us children: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” He has been rolling over in his grave, causing earthquakes in my soul, since the election of 2016. He would have loved Elijah Cummings. In the light of Elijah Cumming’s death my father’s spirit—with whom I have had a tumultuous relationship—he was an old school patriarch—has come to me in his most luminous form.
Edward Elias Lowinsky [photo by Nikki Arai]
Our Still Small Voice
We should hear our Elijah in the quiet times, in the morning, when we get discouraged—our Elijah should be our still small voice.
—Bill Clinton
My daughter told me I had to watch Elijah Cummings’ funeral. She said it was deeply moving, and strangely healing in our difficult times. And so it was that Dan and I sat down one evening and began to watch the funeral on YouTube. My daughter was right, as she usually is. It is a long funeral—took three evenings to watch—but engaging and powerful. It filled us with the dramatis personae of the political dramas that have shaped our land for over a generation, and with the spirit of “our Elijah” in the voices and stories of those who knew him well. I can’t do justice to all of the speakers. I’ve chosen a few that illuminate “our Elijah” for me.

Hillary Clinton

I have often marveled at the power of a good memorial—at how much I learn that I never knew about the deceased. Watching this event I marveled also at how much I learned about the speakers—public people I thought I knew well. But I didn’t know that Hillary Clinton could turn into an eloquent Baptist preacher, telling gospel stories about a man who had so deeply influenced her, and supported her in difficult times. She said: “It’s no coincidence that our Elijah shared a name with an Old Testament prophet, whose name meant, in Hebrew, ‘The Lord is My God,’ who used the wisdom and power God gave him to uphold the moral law. Like the prophet our Elijah could call down fire from heaven. Like that Old Testament prophet he stood up against the corrupt leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.”

Bill Clinton and Elijah Cummings

I didn’t know, or had forgotten, how funny and wise Bill Clinton could be. He told a story about being part of a “get out the vote” effort in Elijah’s church, the very church—New Psalmist—which hosted the funeral, shortly before his election to the presidency. He said: “Talk about a lousy deal. I had to follow Elijah Cummings. At least I’m getting up ahead of you, President Obama, today. In my old age I’m the warm up act.” Bill, another gospel speaking preacher, told us that “our Elijah mirrored the life of Isaiah, to whom the Lord said: ‘Who should I send, and who will go for me?’ And Isaiah said: ‘Here Am I, Lord. Send me.’ Elijah Cummings spent a whole life saying ‘Send me.’”

Elijah at the Cave

Bill told the story of the prophet Elijah in a cave, in a lost and troubled time in his life, when he felt his work had been fruitless. “And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and a strong wind rent the mountains…but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a small still voice.” The Lord was in that small still voice. Bill ended his talk advising “We should hear our Elijah in the quiet times, in the morning, when we get discouraged—our Elijah should be our still small voice.”

Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama

Though I know a lot about Nancy Pelosi, our congresswoman from San Francisco and our current Speaker of the House, I didn’t know about her close friendship with “our darling Elijah.” They go way back in their kinship and love of Baltimore. She was raised there in a political family—her brother and father had both been mayors of the city. “Elijah was my Baltimore brother in Congress.” She spoke of the high standard he set for himself. “That’s why I called him the North Star of Congress, our guiding light.” She spoke of his fight against gun violence, and for a bill that would limit the amount people can be charged for prescription drugs—HR3, The Elijah Cummings Low Cost Drug Act.” Write your Congress People!

Kweisi Mfume

I didn’t know much about Kweisi Mfume except that he had been a congressman from Maryland and the head of the NAACP. Turns out he and Elijah had been political buddies since the ‘70s. They had a teasing relationship about who would die first. Kweisi, being three years older, claimed that status. Elijah won the bet. Kweisi said “Elijah Cummings was the twentieth century manifestation of a people who had suffered, endured and survived through centuries of slavery, oppression, depravation, degradation, denial and disprivilege.”

I was moved by his prayerful words: “Let us use this passage to recommit ourselves to sharing Elijah’s dream, also the dream of Martin Luther King and Fanny Lou Hamer, the dream of Dubois, Tubman and Douglas. Also the dream of all of those nameless and faceless sharecroppers of his father’s generation who laid their bodies down on plantations all over this country so that young Elijahs could run across them and get to the Promised Land.”

Barack Obama and Elijah Cummings

I know a lot about Barack Obama. I have missed his calm grace, his thoughtful interiority, his elegant use of language in our nasty rancorous vulgar talk times. What a pleasure to hear and see him speak, using his own eloquent voice to invoke the spirit of Elijah Cummings. Here is some of what he said: “The seed on good soil. Elijah Cummings came from good soil. In this sturdy frame goodness took root. His parents were sharecroppers from the South. Picked tobacco and strawberries, and then sought something better in the city of South Baltimore. Robert worked shifts at a plant and Ruth cleaned other people’s homes. They became parents of seven, preachers to a small flock. I remember I had the pleasure of meeting his mother, Ruth, and she told me she prayed for me everyday, and I knew it was true and I felt better for it. Sometimes people say they’re praying for you and you don’t know…They might be praying about you.” (This was greeted with laughter and applause.) 

Obama went on to speak truth, in his subtle, no drama way, to the bullying and lying spirit of our times. He said: “Being a strong man includes being kind. There’s nothing weak about kindness and compassion…You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect. And Obama reminded us of Elijah’s frequent admonition that our time is too short not to fight for what is true and what is best for America…Elijah has harvested all that he could. And the Lord has now called him home. It now falls on each of us to continue his work.”

Elijah Ascending

A Poem for Our Elijah
The Fierce Urgency of Now
—Elijah Cummings
The Muse came to me in the night like a wrestling angel in the form of Elijah Cummings, in the form of Elias Lowinsky, and insisted I find words for the passion I felt that morning, hearing of Elijah Cummings’ death, for the passion expressed by all the speakers at his funeral, for the passion of his people and my people, words for the “fierce urgency of Now.” She gave me this poem and insisted I send it out into the world. I hope that you who are moved by it will send it on. That is one small thing we can do in 2019.

The Muse came to me in the night like a wrestling angel in the form of Elijah Cummings, in the form of Elias Lowinsky, and insisted I find words for the passion I felt that morning, hearing of Elijah Cummings’ death, for the passion expressed by all the speakers at his funeral, for the passion of his people and my people, words for the “fierce urgency of Now.” She gave me this poem and insisted I send it out into the world. I hope that you who are moved by it will send it on. That is one small thing we can do in 2019.

The Spirit of Elijah Speaks
October 17th, 2019

Open the door      I’m here to haunt    the House
I didn’t mean to leave you all    in the lurch
Covenants broken    The Constitution    under siege
My time has expired      I beg you    guard this moment

I didn’t mean to leave you all    in the lurch
Been signing subpoenas    to the end    of my breath
My time has expired      I beg you    guard this moment
What will you do    to protect    our democracy?

Been signing subpoenas    to the end    of my breath
Was called to earth    to speak truth    to abuse
What will you do    to protect    our democracy?
I come from sharecroppers      from the land    on which our ancestors    were slaves

Was called to earth    to speak truth    to abuse
Became Master of the House    and Chair    of Oversight
I come from sharecroppers      from the land    on which our ancestors    were slaves
Was shown the glory    of the separation    of powers

Became Master of the House    and Chair    of Oversight
Thou shalt not separate children    from parents    seeking asylum
Behold the glory    of the separation    of powers
Thou shalt not arouse the crowd’s    bad blood    high dudgeon
Thou shalt not separate children    in cages    leave them sitting    in feces
We’re better than that
Thou shalt not arouse the crowd’s    bad blood    high dudgeon
Who will speak truth    to the Master    of Mendacity?

We’re better than that
He has slandered    the people    of my home city    Baltimore
Who will speak truth    to the Master    of Mendacity?
You’ve got only    one life     and within you    a small    still    voice

He has slandered    the people    of my home city    Baltimore
The Forefathers warned us      Beware of demagogues
Does he ever listen    to that small    still    voice?
Look in the mirror    poet    that haunt    in your eyes    is the spirit    of your father
This demagogue     this walking catastrophe    has roused me    from the dead
Look in the mirror    America     that haunt in your eyes    is me     your ancestral refugee
Never break your covenant    with Lady Liberty     I beg you      Guard    The Constitution
My name is Elijah      Open the door


Elijah as Fire

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