As children we're taught not to stare. Staring is rude. It's an invasion of privacy, and if you're caught staring, it's not the other, but your own private little itch of curiosity that's exposed. As Sartre said, "The Other looks at me and as such he has the secret of my being, he knows what I am."

Gazing is different from staring. Staring is hungry; it wants more and more. Distant from something or someone beautiful, different, or deadly, it wants to penetrate that other world and see what happens there. The gaze, however, receives the world before it without demanding anything of what it encounters. It is not looking for any one particular thing, but lets itself be acted upon. It is content to be absorbed.

When I was in Europe  a couple of weeks ago, I could not stop gazing at the sculpture on the façade of Strasbourg Cathedral. On these stone figures, carved in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, you can see expressions of rapture, pity, arrogance, compassion, even humor. Who carved these figures? Why do they wear these expressions? Look at the way that arm is raised beneath the drapery. Is there a religious significance or was the artist perhaps experimenting: Can I carve the drapery so that no one who looks as this statue will ever doubt that there is actually an arm underneath that cloth? Is it truly rapture I perceive, or has time eroded the stone and made it so? I want to live here in this street and gaze at these figures forever. I return in the evening, then late at night. The next morning, before the sun is up, I go out of the hotel to gaze some more. I am softening under the gaze of these figures.

Take a few minutes every day to gaze at something. With practice, your whole being will fall into the act as into a lover's arms.

What messages do we give off with our physical presence in the world and how do we unconsciously respond to the messages we perceive coming from others? Who has power and how is it conveyed?

This was the subject of one of the most powerful workshops I've ever attended, "Power and Privilege," presented by Steve Brown, Toni Saunders, and Cassandra Saunders at Connecting for Change, the  event I attended in New Bedford, MA in October and that I described in this newsletter last month.

Steve is a white man, Toni is an African-American woman, and Cassandra is a young woman with  physical disabilities. They not only intended that we, the participants, should notice these qualities, they emphasized them. Then they preceded to show, not lecture, how perceived differences affect each of our lives in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Toni began by telling a story (or seeming to) in a made-up language. The point was to plunge us into the recognition that we cannot always correctly "hear" the story of others. Then Toni's daughter, Cassandra, a young poet who has cerebral palsy, told her own story about being unheard in every conceivable way. Throughout high school she never had a friend. She was forced to eat lunch over a trash can, since none of her classmates was willing to help her. When she wanted to join a creative writing class, she was at first denied permission, then accused of turning in a story written by her mother. Throughout her life this obviously intelligent, witty, creative young woman has been treated as not just physically but mentally challenged.

Then we participants were asked to get up out of our chairs and hold hands, making a big line that stretched across the room. The facilitators presented a series of statements like: I feel confident that when I go into a store I will be able to shop without being watched. I have never been turned down when I applied to rent an apartment. If you could answer yes, you took a step forward, if no, you stayed back. Quickly, of course, the line became so ragged that people could no longer hold one another's hands. (Personally I felt the statements were geared too much toward race and physical ability and should have included more that related to gender and to other noticeable qualities of physical presence, such as weight or effeminate behavior.) A discussion among leaders and participants followed.

Amazingly enough, although Toni, Steve, and Cassandra have worked together before, this was the first time they have done a workshop together. They should take it on the road and bring it to every school, business, and community center in America! What they managed to do in only an hour and a half was to enable each of us to acknowledge our own advantages and disadvantages and how the way we look precedes us into the world. We were invited to view our private reactions to "otherness" and to face our fear, embarrassment, and discomfort. And these three facilitators did it all with grace, humor, and personal openness, never making anyone feel ashamed.

Cassandra, Toni, and Steve are all involved in the Cape Cod Justice for Youth Collaborative, whose mission is "to advocate for effective solutions that support systemic change in the

juvenile justice system, by amplifying youth." Steve is the Program Coordinator, Toni is on the board, and Cassandra designed the logo. (A website is under construction. For more information about the Cape Cod Justice for Youth Collaborative, contact Steve Brown.)

Photo by Carrie Singletary

When I was in Germany a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine began expounding upon an article she had read that blamed America for Hitler's Holocaust. I surprised myself at how quickly I rose up to refute this idea. It wasn't just that the premise itself is absurd, I was also responding to a reflex to protect what's mine. As the old saying goes, You can criticize your own family, but if anyone else does so, you want to pop them in the jaw.

I have the same reaction when I hear Americans overseas saying derogatory things about this country. They're trying to show the people in the country they're visiting that they are different from, more enlightened than what they imagine is the typical American abroad: someone who talks too much and too loudly, thinks all Swiss cheese comes in slices with little holes, and gets indignant when the natives can't give directions in English. These self-appointed critics mean well, but jibing at their native country has just the opposite effect: it encourages people in other countries to think badly of America and, worse, to rally to the invitation to offer their own negative opinions of us.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my country has plenty of flaws, and serious ones. However, we also have many qualities and achievements to celebrate. A few years ago, at an international gathering of vision quest guides held in Germany, people from each country represented were asked to sit in the middle of the circle and discuss the best qualities of their countries and the worst. People from Germany, Great Britain, South Africa, Switzerland, and America were among those who took part. And what was fascinating was that in every case the negative qualities identified by the citizens turned out to be the shadow side of the positive qualities. That is certainly true of the U.S. With the exception of Native Americans, those of us who live here are split from our ancestral roots, our homelands. Whether our forebears came here because they were seeking religious freedom or a great adventure, or whether they were forced into the migration as slaves, prisoners, or debtors, they had to make their own way in life once they arrived on these shores. This attitude, that an American not only can, but must define his or her own singular path in the world, is both a blessing and a curse for us. It encourages us to think anything is possible, but it makes us forget that we need others, need family. It makes us bold and gives us a sense of entitlement, yet it erodes our sense of compassion for others.

Someone asked me once if I was proud to be an American. After some thought, I said, no, I wasn't proud, but I was enormously grateful. That's why I will continue to defend my country.