St. Louis Public Radio asked our community what we were planning to do going forward after the Grand Jury decision. My answer was included in this piece that featured a photo of the Galilee Arches from our Peace Through Pyramids project with the Jewish/Arab Galilee Circus, this summer, in Israel:
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/reactions-grand-jurys-decision-reflect-diverse-perspectives .
Basically, my answer to what I was going to do in the wake of the Grand Jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson was: “Circus”. I want to bring Circus Harmony’s Peace Through Pyramids program to Ferguson and we are looking for funding to do so. Maybe that seems simplistic. For me, it’s the right answer. Circus is about working together, strength, daring, fearlessness, overcoming and joy, especially joy. It crosses boundaries of race, religion, age, gender and income.
There is a Jewish concept called ‘Tikkun Olam’, generally translated as ‘repairing the world’. I was taught it is our job, as humans, to take the broken pieces of the world and glue them back together. We all use our own glue— some use medicine or music or journalism…I use circus.
As I got ready to write this blog, I looked up Tikkun Olam and was surprised to find this:
“Tikkun olam is not mentioned in the Torah. Its first usage is in the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), where the Rabbis made some changes in Jewish law mipnei tikkun ha-olam ‘for the sake of order in the world’ or even ‘in the interest of public policy’. That is to say, their attempts to standardise practice so it applied fairly to everyone and in all situations.” www.reformjudaism.org/uk
The world is certainly out of order. In Ferguson, in Israel, in Mexico and in too many places around the world. Is circus the answer? No, of course not. Going into Ferguson and teaching children how to stand on each other’s shoulders will not stop racial profiling, economic inequity or people using weapons to solve conflicts. But it might, it just might, make a difference for one person who will inspire others who will impact more…
This week, Sidney Iking Bateman, a Circus Harmony alumnae, is in town before he leaves for Paris and a world tour with a circus show. Here is a young man from North St. Louis whose life was changed because of circus. You can read about him here: http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/11/25/from-north-st-louis-to-world-traveler/#.VHTmXkU3Yas.twitter If you miss him, you can come and see the flying children he is inspiring (shown here in a workshop he gave them on acrobatic hoop-diving: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153618389754041.1073742282.147975014040&type=1&pnref=story).
They’ll be doing shows at City Museum and hopefully soon, you can see some circus in Ferguson.
You have to start somewhere. I start with circus.