From the Benches of Oakland: In Loving Memory of Stephen Clark Brown
September 14, 2016
Inscription on a bench at Lake Merritt in Oakland, California:
In Loving Memory of Stephen Clark Brown
He celebrated Oakland and its people
October 1947 – December 2014
Dan Rather, CBS anchor, once asked Mother Teresa what she said during her prayers. She answered, "I listen." So Dan turned the question and asked, "Well then, what does God say?" Â Mother Teresa smiled with confidence and answered, "He listens." For an instant, Dan didn't know what to say. "And if you don't understand that," Mother Teresa added, "I can't explain it to you."
Ear prayers channel to the heart. Ear prayers are the most tender and vulnerable method of prayer.
Hold the intention to truly listen with true love. Learn to love every sound, even the ones that shake internal discord. What happens when prayer means bearing auditory witness to gun shots or violent language?
What to make of the constant internal chatter that only knows ephemeral peace? The blissful utterings of peace emerge from silence. That is where listening to the omnipresent awe-filled mysteries and awful doubts are born, from the lacuna where the divine and human choose to give and receive auditory love.
If Mother Teresa was right, if the human relationship to God is a companionship in listening, what ought to be done with the voice? What if one’s voice is compelled to join the voices of those who may not be listening at all?
From this bench on Lake Merritt, memorialized to Stephen Clark Brown, I hear two drunk men parked in the lot behind me. They made lewd comments to a man about his girlfriend. They holler phrases at two female joggers. Their words thrust sloppily between noxiousness and flattery. I temporarily break the ears’ prayers and ask, “Are you hearing this shit, God?”
Maybe God can break the silence some time to shout back, “Hey, have some fucking respect!”. Or maybe God can hand down some free speech passes so I can tell those jerks what’s up. Surely my presence on the soils of the United States guarantee me safety, protection, and equality before the law to confront rape culture with more than just these ear prayers. What should I do with my voice in such cases, God?
God continues listening with me.
Deep listening has a resonant effect. There are sounds that vibrate through the roots of all notions of existence. These are the vibrations of voices that pulsate without borders.
The moon impends wholeness above the Lake as more sounds come and go. The Doppler Effect of this urban landscape can’t stop and won’t stop. There is an elderly man whose fingers snap a camera, his entire body dedicating itself to a precisely pleasant focus. The steps of a laughing couple accompany jokes about a toilet paper mishap at a party. There’s the crescendo of baggy pants on concrete pavement swishing by with a whirring bicycle. The baggy pants climax with a guttural expulsion of phlegm offered to the Earth. The baggy pants decrescendo towards the car-lined street. All that is left is the mysterious caws of crows perched on a dead tree. The crude beauty of these sounds stirs laughter from my round gut, offering another instrument to the composition of ambient sounds for the night air.
My time is up on the bench of Stephen Clark Brown. I arrived with many questions, and I leave with even more. I thank Stephen for this seat where my ears can pray in celebration of Oakland and its people.
