September 30

University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, Iowa

details coming

I have received several strange emails from my website recently. Here’s one I got from England:

HELLO,

I WILL LIKE TO PLACE AN ORDER FOR 100 COPIES OF THE BELOW BOOK TITTLE BY BILL CLINTON

BOOK TITTLE………MY LIFE
AUTHOR……..BILL CLINTON
FORMAT……….HARD-COVER

PLS DO FORWARDED THE TOTAL COSTS OF 100 COPIES NOW

Until I reached Bill Clinton’s name I was excited. I thought they were ordering 100 copies of Outside the Ark.

Four presentations today at University of Northern Iowa, including two art classes and a community wide event. Tomorrow, another class presentation then back to Grinnell.

September 29-30
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA

October 28

Bolder/Lyons, CO

uncomfirmed

TENTATIVE
September 28
Southeastern Community College
Burlington, IA

September 27 (7pm)
Illinois State University
Normal, IL
University Galleries (Center for Visual Arts 110)

September 26 (7pm)
First Unitarian Church
St. Louis, MO

11 highlights of the the tour so far:

1. Giving my first sermon (Hickory Lutheran Church, Hickory, NC, September 11). I was scared and glad the pulpit was there to hide my shaking legs, however, everyone was very quiet and no one fell asleep. The subject of the readings was reconciliation.
2. Seeing Aunt Carol, Uncle Art, and Lisa (Malaprop’s Bookstore event, Asheville). Felt good to have the work seen and appreciated by folks who remember me as Fifty-five.
3. Re-meeting Hanaan, a Palestinian woman I met last spring at a Women in Black gathering (Knoxville, TN). She was studying in Egypt during the 1967 war and was never allowed to return to Palestine though the rest of her family were there. She’s a great storyteller and one of the most outspoken Muslim women in Knoxville. Her stories are often funny and warm and include someone waking up to their prejudice and ignorance towards Muslims and Arabs. We talked about doing a book together.
4. Listening to Jim Harb talk about the vegetables and flowers in his garden (Knoxville, TN). Jim, an old friend, and one of the hundreds of Harbs of Ramallah living in Knoxville, has flowers and vegetables from all over the world. Eight varieties of tomatoes, including a Lebanese tomato which we ate for breakfast.
5. Hiking with Charlie to Fall Creek Falls (Fall Creek Falls State Park, TN).
6. Eating a Bocca pizza with Pastor Joe Hoffman and Noel Nickel (Asheville, NC).
7. Sharing a story during Children’s Time (First Congregational United Church of Christ, Asheville, NC). First time I told part of the Magic Nation story to kids.
8. Walking with Carol, Flower, and Charlie along the Tennessee River (Knoxville, TN).
9. Sitting and talking with Brenda Bell in her home (Maryville, TN). Brenda just turned 60 last year, quit her job to work in Afghanistan to train teachers in literacy education. She will return in October.
10. Listening to the music at the Nashville Peace Rally (Nashville, TN).
11. (As I write this) talking with Chris Lugo of Nashville IMC about all the places I am headed next (Nashville, TN). He seems to know something about every place I will be presenting. Like that the Mall of America (the largest mall in the US) is in Blooomington, MN. And Focus on the Family is based in Colorado Springs. And Lawrence is the Boulder of Kansas.

I am figuring out what this blog is for and who it is I am writting to.

Last week, I wrote about an event at a bookstore in Asheville, NC. I listed some of the responses to the presentation: sadness, gratefullness, despair, hope, anger… anger directed at our government and anger directed at me. I mentioned that the anger towards me came from a woman who had commented that the presentation was one-sided, that if one were to truely work for peace one needed to also tell the stories of the lives of Israelis (not just of those Israelis working for a just peace, but those suffering from suicide bombers). A couple days after I posted the blog, a Peace Studies program from a college in Iowa dis-invited me. They say they are concerned that the presentation would not be “balanced.” (Had they read the blog? Probably not, but I wondered.) We had already agreed that after my presentaion they would host a panel of different voices. However, in their dis-inviation I was told thay had not found an artist to provide the “other side.” I am surprised that in their minds it needed to be an artist that would offer this “other side.”

How how do we, how do I, get beyond the talk of sides? In what other conflict do we expect one person to tell all stories? And, in what other occupation are we as reluctant to use the word occupation? Or to recognize the difference in power between peoples? I deleted the post. I was concerned I didn’t give enough context to the woman’s argument and that future event hosts would read the blog and get concerned.

Do I need to be more clear on this website about what folks can expect and not expect from the presentation? And I keep clarifying for myself what this is. Stories of Palestinians, of friends, whose lives I want to honor and celebrate and whose deaths I want to mourn. Stories of kids, bakers, teachers, doctors, hairdressers. Stories of hope and creation in the midst of death and destruction. And stories of how some stories hide other stories. So we don’t get to hear about the kids, bakers, teachers, hairdressers.

And the stories themselves change, even when the words remain the same. The paintings and rememberings of the Noah’s Ark story, which begin and end the book and presentation, were painted before the levees broke in New Orleans. Now, when I read about the bodies, of whether Noah looked outside the ark and saw the bodies, something has shifted. We’ve seen the bodies floating in water, if only on tv or the newspaper.

September 24
Anti-war Protest (afternoon)
Peace and Justice Center (evening)
Nashville, TN