Love is the only transportation
To where there’s total communication
— from If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me) sung by Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers and written by Homer Banks, Carl Hampton and Ray Jackson
Mavis Staples’ deep, rich voice carries me into a land where there’s “total communication” because of the love that’s present in all of us. Her voice surrounds my heart and calms it, preparing me for a world I would love to see.
I am a child of the 60’s the “peace and love” decade, and this song came of age just after I graduated from college, and close to the ending of the Vietnam War. I have been an educator since I was 21 working with students on the margins of society and education. I am now 71 and looking to find my way to the vision of humanity Mavis is singing about.
As a Black woman, with roots in her church, that vision is deep in her voice – a voice which transforms my current fear and anxiety about the state we find our country in, into tears and a more opened heart. I am ready Mavis, I am ready to go with you to that place where there’s “no economical exploitation, no political domination.” Thank you for singing these words in your way.
Emanuel Pariser
I am a lifelong Maine educator, co-founding The Community School in 1973 when I was 21, and then co-founding the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences in 2011. Helping students find self-respect and self-confidence in a society that often seems to be invested in taking those elements away from them – is my life’s work.
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I read The PIague when I was a junior at Notre Dame, in 1978. I’d been given an assignment to write a paper about the book but had confused deadlines, and I realized at about 6 p.m. one evening that the paper was due at 9 a.m. the next morning – and I hadn’t read a page, had no idea what it was about.
Monks and holy guides of many different faiths agree that each person has their own “grace.” As Thomas Merton writes, “And each way is a grace, a special way is a special grace.”
On the mantel above my fireplace sits a representation of Quan Yin. I keep her there where I can always see her, because she embodies my intention and my spiritual practice as a human being and as a writer.
I lived in my suburban townhouse for nine years before I set foot inside a neighbor’s house. I knew their names and enough for a few minutes of small talk, but after that it felt safer to hurry back inside…
