#949 Mark & David
Early this past Tuesday morning . . . at least an hour-and-a-half before the alarm clock was set to go off . . . my phone rang. As a rabbi who caters to a mostly senior community (look whose talking: I’ll be 74 in a couple of weeks and they still call me “young man”), I’m always rattled by early-morning phone calls; it usually means someone has passed on or been taken to the hospital. Squinting through one eye, I saw that the incoming call was was coming from my dear, longtime friend Mark (of “Mark and David” fame), who at this time of the year resides “Way Down East” in their summer home in Corea, Maine, (Their winter residence is in Ormond Beach, just about as far north as one can get on Florida’s east coast. My first thought was that something had happened to his mother Phyllis, whom I had first met more than 40 years ago while living at the fabled “Rose Hill” in Cincinnati, Ohio.
But no. Mark wasn’t calling me as either a rabbi or a person engaged in the medical arts. Rather, he was in need of the ear of a fellow political activist. Mark, whom I have written about at some length over the years, was calling to tell me - almost tearfully - that he and his husband David are increasingly worried, and nearing their wit’s end. Why? They both have their health, have no financial concerns and, along with their kitty Monica,” and their tons of friends, live life to the fullest. What could be the cause of their feelings of impending doom? Simply this, in Mark’s words: “The level of intolerance and hatred going on in this country. It’s gotten so spooky and frightening that we have even considered the possibility of moving to Portugal in the hope of escaping all the escalating lunacy.”
Mark and David (more so Mark) aren’t the kind of people who live in life’s shadows; they are “out there” for one and all to see. To a great extent, they are also bipolar opposites. Mark is deeply and obviously Jewish. His family history goes back to 19th century Montgomery, Alabama . . . not the easiest place to be a Jew. David, on the other hand, is a Presbyterian from Indiana. Mark is a giddy combination of a loving, perpetual yenta and social activist; he simply cannot sit back and permit injustice to breath; he must put in his two cents – whether it’s writing an op-ed, organizing a rally, or making tangible contributions of time, talent and treasure. David, on the other hand, is far more laid back; he is a professional violinist who spent decades playing in the same world-class symphony orchestra. David is both the glue and the tonic which fuels Mark’s freneticism. Perhaps it’s their relative bi-polarity which has has provided the bedrock for an incredibly stable partnership/marriage now easily past 40 years. And yet, having been together for more than 40 years, Mark is not like David and David is not like Mark; they are Mark-and-David . . . a single entity.
During our conversation the other morning, Mark got into the specifics of what has been giving him so much inner angst. I am certain that most of us can make the same list:
Donald J. Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, and the entire “Freedom Caucus”;
The utter cowardice of all the elected officials who, while despising him behind closed doors, remain silent in public;
The stupefying growth of anti-Semitism and acts of anti-Semitic terror;
The very danger of being an LBGTQ+ member of society;
Of how so many conservatives have replaced platforms with a plethora of hurtful issues bundled together as “anti-WOKE”;
The very future of Democracy and concomitant apprehension that it is being replaced by fascistic authoritarianism;
That the greatest number of weapons are in the hands of those who support D.J.T
.That outright lies, ludicrous conspiracy theories and utter inanity have all but replaced demonstrable reality in the lives of many.
That for those who are “different,” there are fewer and fewer places to seek safety.
I caught a segment on NPR’s All Things Considered the other day in which the subject was how fewer and fewer people are listening to, watching, or reading the news than just a year ago. Can you blame them? It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish real headlines from fake ones, and real news from sheer propaganda. Those of us who are “perpetual news junkies” somehow get around this by telling ourselves that we - unlike “them” - only consume news from “reliable” sources. But alas, for everyone who gets their news from PBS, National Public Radio, The New York Times, Washington Post and other sources of status, there are tons of folks who “know beyond a shadow of a doubt” that these journalistic behemoths are nothing more, nothing less, then mouthpieces for the “organized radical far left.’ (As a hopefully close and watchful student of American political history, I can tell you that the U.S.A. has never had much of an “organized radical far left.” Even America’s so-called “Communist Conspiracy” as unearthed by the likes of Rep. Martin Dies, Jr., Senator Joseph McCarthy and J.B. Matthews, was far less lethal than - or harmful to - American democracy than the K.K.K. or the John Birch Society. But then again, I - like you - am incapable of getting “true believers” to understand this. It is far better to remain healthy than succumbing to a severely injured brain by banging one’s head against the wall.)
A man like my friend Mark is understandably at his wits’ end; his political and physical malaise (and here I use the term in its medical sense) is not to be pooh-poohed. He is, by both genetic and ethnic background, a member of several endangered groups in early 21st century America:
1. He is a Jew whose roots are not in New York, but rather in the Deep South;
2. He is gay, married to a wonderful man, and not the slightest bit uncomfortable with who he is;
3. He is a progressive political activist who can neither sit still nor keep his mouth shut . . . and thank G-d for that.
A person like Mark can best be summed up by 2 quotes from 2 distinctly different, though deeply memorable people: Winston Churchill and Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.
First, let’s quote Winston Churchill:
“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
The second quote comes from R.F.K., who likely “borrowed” the following thought from George Bernard Shaw:
"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
As a rabbi, I have been trained to listen more than to speak when someone comes with a problem or a question. After listening to Mark for quite some time, I fear that I had not given him an answer as to what he should do . . . or fear. About all I could do was to quote Churchill and Kennedy, and tell him to keep up the good fight.
By nature - and both training and genetics - I am an optimist. I told him that what the world needs are more Marks and Davids, and to keep on maximizing their character strengths while not giving in to the minimalizing weaknesses of others. I reminded him that we are both children of “the Chosen People,” and as such, are here to bring greater health and happiness, safety and sanity to as many as people as possible.
Keep on being yourselves . . .
Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone