Spirit in Action
Books to Heal the World - Buddha's Wife and Quaking
Gabriel Constans is a free lance writer whose newest book is Buddha's Wife, a book that explores different approaches to compassion and the role of women in Buddhism (and much more). Kathryn Erskine is the author of Quaking, set in a post 9-11 community where people have to wrestle with the promise and demons of peace-making in a fearful, war-eager, world, seen through the eyes of a troubled teen.
- Broadcast on:
- 09 Aug 2009
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- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear this one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeade. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream of as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today for Spirit in Action, we're going to speak to two different authors writing powerfully from spiritual roots in an effort to help heal the world. Their respective newest book releases, Our Buddha's Wife, a bit of historical fiction about the role of women in Buddhism by Gabriel Constance, and Quaking, a book aimed at teenage folks, facing difficult questions about being brave and speaking for peace in a post-9/11 war-promoting world. And that's by Catherine Erskine. We'll first go to the phone to visit with Gabriel Constance, author of Buddha's Wife, joining us from Santa Cruz, California. Gabriel, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. - It's my pleasure, thank you for inviting me. - You've got a couple books that have come out this past year, and there's some real exciting material that you're grappling with. Tell me about your history with writing, because you've got a whole bunch of books and other writings that you've done for the past 20 years. - A lot of my writing has revolved around freelance journalist writing for magazines and newspapers around the world and in North America. And then in the last 20 years, I got more focused on writing non-fiction and writing fiction. A lot of my non-fiction books have been around issues related to death, a dying, grief, loss, sexuality, and gender, and the fiction books are two of them. One was a romance novel and then the most recent, which I am very thrilled about and pleased to share with people as Buddha's wife, which is a novel with a lot of historical facts in it, but also very much fiction, the many aspects of the story I made up completely. - I read it about a month ago, Buddha's wife, and it's rather mindful for me of the way that Jewish writing happens. They'll take something that is in the Jewish scriptures and what we call the Old Testament and the rabbis will spin larger stories around that. Did you have the feeling of doing that as you wrote Buddha's wife, were you trying to take the nub that was there, take the historical content, and then add the inspired prose to it? - Yes, absolutely. That's very much how it felt and how it originated. When I first heard that, you know, realized that hardly anything had been written about Yashodara, Buddha's wife. And then I knew little about her. I started doing research to find out what there was. And then when I first did that many years ago, there was little written in English about her. So I had to make up a lot of the story. And in the meantime, I've learned some more. But the essential truths about her later in life becoming a nun and of her compassion and forgiveness and her teaching and the essence of the same things that her husband taught for over 40 years really existed in her as well. And I was shocked when I first heard that, at Harte, who later was known as the Buddha, left Yashodara and their newborn son just two days after he was born in the middle of the night to go find his spiritual truth and find an end to suffering. And I started from that premise and wondered what was life like for her? Was she upset? Was this something that obviously affected and changed the rest of her life? How did her family react to it? She was left with a newborn child who the Buddha also had called Rahula, which means to better or to hold back, which is another interesting aspect of that. So I started the story based on that knowledge and fact that said Harte left his wife and child in the middle of the night and didn't return for seven years. And the rest of the story involves a lot of about their sons of Arna as he's an adult, trying to return and also what things might have been like for Yashodara and the other nuns to follow Buddha because it wasn't easy for them to even be accepted into the order later on, which also is something that a lot of people are not familiar with. - Why this story, why is it important to you? I mean, I have theories of my own, but I think that you are reaching for this story with very much a heart story of your own that was telling you it was important to share this. - Yes, in many ways when I was younger, I always thought that I had to choose between a spiritual life and a family life. And when I was 16 and became a late Buddhist and had just read autobiography of a yogi and be here now in a number of other books that totally changed my life at the time, I was under the impression that I had to make a choice of one or the other. And as I had grown older, I've learned and realized that that is not a back to the can, both can be combined and balanced. But I've always also had a deep interest in how people who have become well known, either because of their spiritual life and teachings or because of other things they've done, such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Hama in Southern India, et cetera, how it affected their family and what, because their families in many respects and many times had no choice on the decisions that their partners made. And even though it may have benefited many, many other people, I was wondered about the turmoil at home and what kind of impact that would have on them. So it's always been a threat that has been running and integrated throughout my life, thoughts about that. - You know, I don't wanna spoil any surprises that people would have by reading the story, but I wanna say that part of the nub from my point of view was this battle, ideological that you were just referring to, between what we might call male principle of truth seeking and female principle of truth seeking that both truths live side by side. That's how I would say it in my own language. What's your feeling about that? Is there this feminine principle of truth, male? Is it fair to connect it with genders? - I believe that there is more similarities than differences, yet we tend to focus on so much of the difference. I think as far as our core and our essence and our feminine and masculine aspects of our personalities and lives and who we are is very, very similar. What becomes so different and is so interesting is culturally and externally the different expectations and hindrances that have been placed upon women and men of how they can or cannot act. But I really believe that as far as our spirit or our essence or whatever name you give it, that that is essentially the same. And that was the other part of this book that I hope came out was that women had just as much experience of what it was like to be enlightened and do no compassion and to know the depth of life as men at the time, but at that time and place in 500 BC and culturally, they weren't allowed to go out and travel or teach. Their expectations were different and Buddha thought he said that women would be the downfall of the order and he did not allow them to join him and be nuns for many years until he was talked into it by his one of his disciples, Ananda. Sometimes people think that that only happened then a long time ago, but in Buddhism also throughout Asia and everywhere else that has spread, up until the last 20 years, 25 years in North America, it has still been predominantly male hierarchical organizations that have run it. Even though there have been a lot of women in the West who have become teachers now, and I think we are used to that here and think that it's like that everywhere, but it's not. - How much of what you're writing about is historical and factual? - I mean, even the stuff that is written about Jesus, which is only 2,000 years ago, and this adds maybe another 500 years onto it, how much of it can we say is very clearly documented or how much of it is perhaps imagined or created, embellished, shall we say, in the same way that you're embellishing from the best historical facts you have. - That is an excellent question, and I wish I had the concrete answer for it. A lot of what has been passed down from generation to generation originally about Buddha, which again, it was predominantly about Siddharthay and the Buddha, and not about the women involved in Buddhism, even though there was some written, especially later on. Most of it was all orally transmitted for many years, and one of the first times I was written down was in the polytext in what's now known as Sri Lanka, and then it has been passed on since then. So many people feel that the oral traditions were very accurately transmitted for many, many years, one person to another and kept fairly intact, and they were based on observations of people that followed the Buddha for over 40 years as you went up and down India teaching, and so there's a lot of people and a lot of references, crop references, that they can associate with stories that were told about things that he said that most people feel and scholars feel are pretty accurate. And in this story, Buddha's wife, which is a fictional novel, but there's probably half of the stories in there, in fact, all of the stories about the Buddha are based on historical facts, as much as is known that they're true. But the circumstances and some of the things that happen to the different individuals in the story are the things that I've changed. I don't know if you could say the history of Buddhism is more accurate than Christianity, if it's fair to say that. My sense is that in many respects, it is because there were so many more people and he taught for so much longer, and it was passed down through a number of people where as far as Christianity, there were less folks, it was written many years later, and there were certain things left in and taken out that weren't allowed to continue. So I don't know if that's the best answer I think I can give. - We're speaking today with Gabriel Constance. He's joining us from Santa Cruz, California. He's an author, but he's much more than that. He's a counselor, and I'd like to get into that a little bit with you, Gabriel. What is your background? 'Cause I have the sense as I read your book, and as I look at just the list of books that you printed, you're not just writing to make money, you're not just writing for fun of it. It seems to me like, if I can be so grandiose as to say this, you're doing your little bit to save the world. So tell me I'm right, tell me I'm wrong, it's okay. Why do you write and why do you choose what you write? - I, a long time ago, have consciously chosen what I write about and the wonderful thing about being a freelance author without having to write for a magazine with stories that they assigned or a new service is that I can choose what I wanna write about. And what's always been an interest to me is how individuals experiences and circumstances in our lives affects the actions that we take and the choices that we make and not just microscopically, but macro-wise also in the greater society. And there's so many times that we don't hear about the transformations that take place after awful things have happened or traumatic things have happened in people's lives or about the hope that comes out of it or the catalyst that took place. Not that you wish anything bad to happen to people, but there's also all these wonderful things that can and do take place as a result. There's also a lot of individuals on this planet that are doing incredible work all over and all the time that assault them hurt about. And those are the people that I really have always wanted to focus on and highlight and bring to more public attention, not just because it feels like the right thing to do, but just because I think it chips the energy of what's happening around us and helps us focus on what is positive as opposed to what's not or what's not working or what is painful or what continues to repeat itself in our lives personally or socially. - And your book "Buddha's Wife" is one example of that. And that's talking about someone 2,500 years ago, but you wrote this past year also a book about a doctor who is doing some of that good work in our lifetimes. - Yes, thanks for asking. I thought this was called "Paging Dr. Left," pride, patriotism, and protest. And that's with Kakoa this publishing. And he was an individual who in our county was one of the first doctors to take a person that had AIDS and it was identified as such. And he was one of the first doctors to continually take AIDS patients when many other doctors were reluctant or refused to. And he educated the community here for many years. He had a biography about his wife when he was much younger. He was in Thailand and in the Air Force is a captain and he was a doctor then as well. And he discovered that the US was illegally bombing Laos and he reported that to superiors and they sort of dismissed it and tried to have him not say anything but he ended up speaking before government committees and he had done things like that in entire life. And so he again, I thought was a very fascinating person who continues to work at the, I believe he's close to 70 now. I know he's in his late 60s and he still is working at the AIDS clinic in Santa Clara and teaching at Stanford Hospital now. - Quite a transformation that he went through but clearly sticking with integrity, seeking truth in this larger picture than usually what we get from our cultural context. So we've got Buddha's wife, we've got "Paging Dr. Left" and if we go backwards in time and I wanna mention everyone, you can find these things via Gabriel's website. It is gogabriel.com. That's his website. You can also find for instance Buddha's wife.com which is about his most current book, but gogabriel.com. You'll find a list of the books and just peruse that list and look at his credentials as a counselor. So one thing I'm gonna ask Gabriel is your background counseling. I think this is an integral step in how you got to this writing. - I think a combination of things have happened throughout my life. I was one of the first individuals in this county to help start a hospice here and I was involved with a hospice in the center for loss and death for a Greek counseling for about 30 years. And I was also, when I was younger, I grew up in Northern California, small lumber community at the time and discovered autobiography, the yogi and some other books. And I was raised and met with this. I became a Buddhist at that time. And so my own spiritual search for truth and how to live life in relationship with people and also discovering what it is that is greater than us at the same time influenced my connection with big transitions in people's lives. Most notably when people die or before they die and also how that affects folks afterwards and came to realize that grief and loss and change and how we react or respond to that is something that's integrated into every aspect of our entire lifespan. - That experience with dealing with grief and loss, did that place some part in your travels to Rwanda? And I want to mention everyone, give me a mile or speak a little bit earlier. And it turns out we've both been to Rwanda and how many people that casually meet one another can say, yeah, I was there last year. Two of my recent programs were interviews with people in Rwanda or that have just been to Rwanda. You have a book, The Skin of Lions, which is based from Rwanda and you've been there. So is it the grief and dealing with that that took you in the direction of Rwanda? - Yes, I was asked by a group that was going to Rwanda, the Association of the Thought Field Therapy and another group called the Rwandan Orphans Project. Based down in San Diego, they'd asked if I could join them to teach some trauma relief techniques at an orphanage. They had been two several times and also providing medical care. We had a whole medical team go with us that time and all the children at the center, which is now called the Rwandan Orphans Project for street children in Kigali, the capital. At the time when we went two and a half years ago, none of the older two and a half children there had ever had a physical checkup. So we had a nurse practitioner with us and a number of other people and provided trauma relief also. And when I was there, I had planned on speaking with many of the children fine 'cause I realized I had never heard of any stories from Rwanda and very few from East Africa in general. And I asked them if they could tell me folk tales and tell me stories that they knew growing up. Now a lot of these children at the center don't have any parents. Their parents were killed during the genocide, which was now 15 years ago, or their parents died from AIDS or other health problems. So they started telling me stories that they remember hearing growing up. Now some of the stories, I'm not sure whether they are things that happened to them and they made into a story or some are actually stories that were passed down from generation to generation. It may be a combination of both, that some of the children's stories are of one type and the others or the other. And also one of the teachers at the center shared her story too. And they all, almost every one of them, which was interesting, almost every one of the folk tales from the children had some moral issue to it. And also there was a fair amount of violence in each of them, which at first I was not that surprised about, and also when you looked at a lot of European folk tales, there's actually a lot of violence in many of them as well. But there's also a lot of hope in them in what the outcome was. So that's how sort of that combined, I was asked to go there and got involved in this, and I've been involved with them now in an advisor to the RwandanOrphansProject.org, which folks could go to. And I've gone back one other time and haven't been able to get back this year but in some ways they feel like my family and I miss them, I want to go again but haven't been able to afford to, so. - So we've got a book that centers on stories from Rwanda. We've got something dealing with Dr. Lef, who's right near County, and we've got Buddha's wife. And the assortment of other books, I'm not gonna go through the whole list because there's too much, but I just will remind people to go to gogabriel.com. And of course you can find that link via my site, which is northernspiritradio.org. I always provide links to the people I visit with and I will also give you the chance to listen again to this program via that site. Again, it's northernspiritradio.org. I'm Mark Helpsmeat, and we're speaking today with Gagriel Constance. He joins us from Santa Cruz, California. We're talking about his book, "Buddha's Wife", but we're also talking about his writing and of course, as always, on spirit in action. We're talking about the religious spiritual background that leads a person to do work, to heal the world, to make it a better place. So, Gagriel, I just wanna ask you, it's flesh out a little bit more your spiritual background. You said you were raised Methodist, you have definitely did not become a Methodist minister because already in your teens, I think you got involved with Buddhist. Tell me a little bit more about those transitions, how they led you, directed you, and where you went on from there. Some of the direction I feel was very spiritually inclined. Some was very down-to-earth, other reasons. I was raised a Methodist, and then when I read a couple books, autobiography of Yokee, and be here now, and then my beginner's mind, I opened up a new door and a new way of consciousness and being that I never thought of before, and now I don't have 16. And the closest place to where I lived was Zen Abbey in Mount Shasta, called Mount Shasta Abbey, and Gio Kennett was the roshi, and she was one of the first women Zen priests ordained in Japan, she was originally from England. So she was my first teacher, and I went there for a number of years and actually got married there, and then moved down to Santa Cruz a couple of years after getting divorced, and moved here and started getting involved with co-workers of Mother Teresa, not because I was Catholic, but because I was very, very impressed with the work that Mother Teresa was doing in India. There was a group, a local group here that was visiting folks that were shut in and taking soup to them every week, and so I got involved with them, and they turned out that a lot of them were Catholic, and I also met a woman at the time, who was Catholic, who had been Jewish, raised Jewish, and cultural Jewish, and she wanted to become Catholic, and her and I got involved, and so I started going to classes and became a Catholic with her and went to Mass for a number of years, and was involved in that group, co-workers of Mother Teresa, after some time after her and I split up, for some reason, my interest in Catholicism seemed to dissipate, so when I look back on it, I wonder how much of that was because of her pulling me in that direction, and how much was a genuine interest in it, and after that, when I started going to Quaker meeting at a Santa Cruz Quaker meeting at a friend's house, which actually is just a few blocks from where I live, what attracted me to Quaker meeting, again, it was the social action and the peace work that may have always done in prisons, against war, for women's rights, against slavery. I was so impressed with the congruent nature of the people who went to the friend's meeting that I kept going for over five years, and at that time, I also became a chaplain at the local hospital, which happened to be a Catholic hospital, but their pastoral care department was run by an ex-priest, a Methodist minister, and a nun in myself, so it was quite a cosmopolitan, religious group that leads me to presence, and presently, I go to a place called Interlife Ministries, which is an omni-faith program that believes in living your life of love and compassion, and putting that into practice on a daily fashion, and that they respect all paths that lead to truth, and that have personal and social transformation. So, wow, I didn't think I could say all that in such a short time, but that's a quick synopsis of many, many years, over 35, 40 years of spiritual travel. - That's quite a long road to travel, a lot of interesting places to visit it. And for 20 years you've been writing, you have a master's in pastoral counseling, you also have a PhD in death education. Now, death education is not something that most of us would consider getting a major, and because it sounds too scary to most people in America, but I think it's actually the reverse. Can you say a little bit about what a PhD in death education is about? - Yes, you hit it right on the head. A lot of times people think, when they first hear about death or grief or loss, they think of how sad and depressing it is, and there is sadness that can surround it. But when you study death and dying, you're really studying about life and living, and it's all about learning how to live life day by day to the fullest, and the thing that I always appreciated about working with hospice and grief and as a chaplain, I always have reminders about what is really important and what I value the most. Even though I was surrounded by that in my studies and my workplace and counseling and individually, and at different times in my own life and family, even then I still forget many times, and just going automatic and then living my life day to day and going on habit. And when I study or remember or pay attention to the finality of our physical existence, and out of all things and all people, and I remember that it doesn't make me feel anxious or sad, it's like a wake up call, and that's why I studied it, and that's why I'm still, in many ways, enmeshed in that world. In many ways, it's like a spiritual practice of reminding me to wake up. - I want to let folks know that we've been speaking today with Gabriel Constance. His website is gogabriel.com, and you can see a lot of information about the books he's written, track them down. The most recent one that we've been talking about was Buddha's wife. Also, you might want to check out The Skin of Lions, which is Stories from Rwanda, and Paging Dr. Luff, Pride, Patriotism, and Protest. All very good books to get you thinking and to help make this world a better place. Thanks so much Gabriel for joining me for Spirit in Action. - Thank you very much, Mark. I really appreciate the taking the time and for your show, and you putting Spirit into action yourself. - That was Gabriel Constance joining us by phone from Santa Cruz, California, and now we'll move to a visit with our second Spirit in Action guest, Catherine Erskine, author of the newly released book, Quaking. The book is aimed at younger audiences and is clearly attempting to bring young people face to face with some big questions, including all the pros and cons of a life of witness and possibly sacrifice in pursuit of peace. Catherine Erskine is here with me today. - Cathy, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. - Thank you for having me, great to be here. - I read your book, I picked it up almost a month ago at a Quaker gathering. I saw it there, I said, this looks like how I gotta read, so I picked up, read it right away at home, pass on my wife, she read it right away at home, very pleased, and I just love finding different novels out there, confronting issues of war, peace, violence. What inspired you to write Quaking? - I think that was as a result of being in the Washington area right after 9/11 and feeling a lot of tension and overreaction to the events that happened and the suspicion that was creeping into our lives. But I just was very disturbed by how quickly we went to that place as a society and how I felt criticized or suspect for being very open and freedom-minded and tolerant. It just was very uncomfortable and a little scary, so I kind of wanted to put it out there because I think that sort of thing could easily happen again, that we have to be mindful and not make snap judgments about each other based on religion or looks or anything else. The Quaker seemed a good, peaceful backdrop for a novel about war and violence, and also perhaps a little bit of my own spiritual search, not having been raised in any particular religion and not being comfortable going to any particular church, but Quakers at least seemed very open and not demanding. So it's right after 9/11, you're living near Washington, D.C. But the fear, it is endemic, it just spreads all over. So how soon did you move actually from the Washington, D.C. area? - It was still a couple of years after that before we moved, but it was more other things like getting away from the Washington area. I wanted a smaller town to raise the kids in smaller schools where the classes weren't 35 kids, but still someplace it had the university and interesting influx of nationalities. So Charlottesville is a nice compromise. - Let's lay out the story of Quaking and the main characters in it. Talk about the main character, the 14-year-old girl who's the chief protagonist or something in the story. - Yes, she's a little bit crusty and prickly. It'd be difficult for her to walk into anyone's life. She's had quite a tough life, so she's built a shell around her and deals with things using sarcasm and not wanting to care about people or get involved. Her goal is to just get out of the system and go on to Canada by herself where she's read that you can take care of yourself at 16. So she's almost there, she's gonna just bite her time and get through it. She knows nothing about Quakers and is not real happy about being dumped with them. And eventually, of course, is fighting Sam and Jessica who are the Quaker couple who were taking her in. And she eventually sees that they're really kind of down-to-earth normal people, not some wacko, fringe religion thing that she was worried about. - Those Quakers have been around for 350 years corrupting people by convincing them for peace. Which is a big theme in the whole book that you're dealing with. - Yeah, it is. Because of all of the violence and all the maths had in her life, of course, the feeling of peace and tolerance and acceptance of people who are a little different or not mainstream was very appealing to her in the end. - In the end, but as I understand in the progress of the story, if what you're used to is violence and craziness around you, and if that's what you're carrying as the image of the world, as Matt, the chief protagonist, the 14-year-old girl, if that's the image you're carrying, then it has to look crazy to be peaceable with respect to the world, right? She does feel that they are unnecessarily putting themselves out there as targets to be demonstrating in favor of peace or even using those words or going to a meeting house. And also it does sort of mess with her head a little bit at first. The way they react to things is just not what she's used to. So it, yeah, takes some getting used to on her part. And then there's another little foster boy in the family who has severe developmental disabilities, who at first she just dismisses. And I have him in there, well, partly for literary reasons to kind of show, he's a symbol of her inability to speak and her inability to develop. And with the love and nurturing from Sam and Jessica, and even a little bit from Matt, he starts to blossom and is able to speak and move around more and more than that, the thing that's kind of masterful. You know, you don't expect it from the blob corner. He has intuitions, he notices things, he sees things that the adults and others are missing. And he calls them into attention there. And so she starts saying, he knows what's going on in me. He's reading me, which you're not supposed to expect from the developmentally delayed person. - Exactly. - So you're talking about violence, demonstrations, getting out protesting, vigilant against the war, all that kind of thing. Are these activities that appeal to you that you participated in? Was your son, who you said he was at a Quaker school, is this something that he's drawn towards, your husband? - I am actually, I hate to admit it, but a chicken. I am very introverted. And so to go out and do something like a demonstration is, that's another step I haven't taken yet. I mean, I've gone to make a big demonstration, but where I'm one of many, many people. But to go to some place and be one of a dozen, I think would be a stretch for me because that really is putting myself out there. I've never been an onstage person or a spotlight person. I guess the way I usually get my point across is in my writing. I don't feel that comfortable in my speaking, but in writing you can keep going back over your words over and over and over until you get it right. (laughs) But I admire people who do that. - I haven't seen in Quaker where she's noticing the bumper sticker having to do with peace on his car has been rammed in his bumper, has been hit there and she's wondering if it's the person that is making a statement who rammed into him. - So in essence, I think you're following in Matt's footsteps. - Yeah. - Because she comes to some real acts of bravery in the book and she's does it out of love, which is a big, you know, it's one thing to protest war out of disagreement with policies or dislike of figureheads of politically or whatever, but it's another thing to do it because of love. And so maybe you're still just trying to find the right love connection to lead you out to be part of a visual demonstration, whatever it is. What were you raised politically or where were you raised? You know, what set the background tone for your life? - Well, I grew up in the Foreign Service, so we moved around a lot and I really enjoyed that. I liked seeing different cultures, living in different cultures. My mom always wanted us to go to the local school and not go to the American bakers. And actually, most countries we were in, we're English speaking. - So what countries are you talking about? - See, I was born in Holland and then we moved to Israel and South Africa and Canada and Scotland twice. Alabama for a year, that was sort of different for us. - That's a foreign country for you, yeah, okay. - So I love that. We were brought up, of course, to be Demure Diplomat's daughters. And so I think-- - Don't call attention to yourself. - Right, right, definitely. I think Matt is my inner 14-year-old finally being able to get out and say the things that I wanted to back then, but I wasn't allowed. So, and as I get older now, it's a lot easier. Just say whatever I want, but it took me a while to get to that point. - I'm not wanting to offend anyone, not want to ruffle any feathers or something. - Is it true that in the foreign service, people are working for Department of State or whatever, the investors, whatever role you're working in, that you're not supposed to have political opinions? Or you're certainly not supposed to let them be known? - Correct, yes. - So did your parents have political opinions that you could speak at home? - Yes, I mean, we were definitely politically liberal family. I remember in Canada, it was during the time of Watergate, and we had been told our house was actually in the same building as the consulate building. We had been told that on Christmas Day, there were gonna be demonstrations in front of the house, and that's when we started our tradition of having gifts on Christmas Eve, so that it would be ready on Christmas Day, because the year before, I guess it'd been bricks thrown through the window and all. So, we were ready for that, but you know, my mom, it was all we could do to hold her back. She said, "I want to be out there demonstrating "against Vietnam and against Nixon," and everything's just so hard to just sit here 'cause those people are right. I don't wanna be here with that stone face of supporting the current American government's views. So, there was conflict because of that, but I guess I certainly absorbed the more democratic liberal political views of my family. - But your mother's hesitation as you're talking about it. I mean, she wants to be doing this. She's been afraid to do it, and finally, there's just enough she can't contain herself anymore. - Well, no, she never went out to demonstrate 'cause that just would not have been right. In fact, at that point, the State Department still, part of my father's rating every year, was based on my mother's performance. So had she done something like that, that would have negatively reflected on his performance evaluation, so. - There's a lot of people, I think, who get like that. You know, I can't make this decision because it'll negatively affect my income possibility. And that's the situation you have in the book with Sam, right? Because he's doing this, his income, it's gonna suffer, but he says, can't not do it, right? - Exactly, exactly, and I so admire people like that. That is such bravery and strength, and I always try and do the right thing, but I always hope that if I'm confronted with something like that, that I will speak out, and definitely do at least what I think is the right thing. Not everyone may agree, but what I think is morally the right thing to do. - If you've just tuned in, I'm speaking with Katherine Erskine, and I would say her name is also Kathy in the human level, but if you're gonna find her looking for the book, Katherine Erskine is the name, and her most recent book is Quaking, but it's not her only book. You're listening to a spirit and action interview, part of Northern Spirit Radio, and you can find all of our interviews and our programs via our website, northernspiritradio.org, and I'm Mark Helpsmith, your host. As I was saying, Katherine, Quaking is your most recent book, but there was another one before that. Abu Basie. - Very good. - Abu Basie, yes. - I learned now to pick titles that people can actually pronounce. - Yeah, people just call it the IB book, you know whatever. When did you live in South Africa? This must have been, it must have hit you. - Yeah, that was when I was very young, but I certainly remember it well, and it was my first school experience, and I also clearly remember when my older sister told me that we weren't African, that we were actually Americans, and I thought she was teasing me, so I went taddled on her to my mother, who said, no, actually, she's right, we're not, and I just, I couldn't get my head around that, because it was all I knew we hadn't lived in the States yet, so to say that I was part of this other country, I just didn't get it, and I felt very at home there. I mean, it's a paradise for kids, you're outside all the time, the scenery, the animals, I mean, it was just beautiful, I loved it. But of course, at the same time, I was there during the time of apartheid, so I remember coming home from school the first day and telling my mom that all the native kids were sick, and she's, what are you talking about? And I explained that there were only white kids at this school, and so she explained apartheid to me, and I just remember thinking-- - To a five or six-year-old we're talking about. - Yes, and I still, I have that picture in my head of what I pictured at the time, which is probably part of what she was saying in order to explain it, this is high podium, with all these old white men in gray suits, with gavels pounding their bench, to say that white children and black children had to go to different schools. And I just, that was my first inkling of, oh my gosh, adults are fallible, my world is coming apart now, because how could they make such a stupid decision? How can I trust anything now? - So what's the theme of the book? I haven't actually read your first book. - It's actually set in a diplomatic family, 'cause I wanted to use an American boy, who goes to South Africa and sees apartheid for himself, and his family is sort of disintegrating around him. So he has to start, it's a coming-of-age story, he has to start making some decisions of how to fend for his younger siblings, and how to deal with this whole Rachel issue. And it has alcoholism and apartheid, and also he has some struggles to deal with, but I wanted to write a book set in South Africa during that time so that people could learn a little bit about what it was like, because American kids don't necessarily know what it was like to live under apartheid, so seeing it through his eyes, and then his mentor being the Zulu servant of the house, who was really more like his friend and teacher against his father's wishes, but it became the father figure for him was important to me to write. Of course it's set in the '60s, and I picked a very turbulent time because of what was happening in the '60s in the '60s, and what was starting to happen in South Africa at the time. I mean, the blacks there had a slogan, "Free in '63." They thought apartheid would be over in '63, you know, 1994 before we had Nelson Mandela as president. So it was a long time coming, and I like to have books that end with hope, and so that was a little hard, because obviously it was a long time between 1968 and the end of apartheid, but at least there's hope at the end of the book. - Even if the tunnel's long. - Right, right. - You're writing, targeting a teenage audience, right? That's who you're trying to address, and you're trying to do this with clearly values-oriented literature. Why are you doing that? Could you sell more books if what you were writing was some pulp romance stuff? Couldn't you make all my money, that way? - Absolutely, yes. - Of course, my husband says a series. Can't you do a series? So they, but I guess it's my soapbox. I guess it's my way of saying what I wanna say and not proselytize, but put these issues out there and let teenagers who wanna think for themselves anyway read it and decide for themselves how they feel about these things. I don't care, obviously you can probably tell my leanings by reading my books, but if a reader doesn't agree, that's fine. Mostly I want people to think, really think about these issues. If you come to a different conclusion, but you've really thought it through, that's fine. But don't just follow the crowd or not think. I think that's probably the worst Sam is to not think. - In quaking, it builds up to the whole climax where Sam, the Michelin man, by the way, the Michelin man, I was resembling that comment. (laughing) - It wasn't a tremendously flattering image that you were painting of these Quakers. I mean, you sure they're nice, wonderful people of sorts, but the description that you gave both Sam and Jessica was not one that made me wanna go out and meet them. You did this on purpose? - Yes, 'cause of course this is seen through Matt's filter. And also I wanted them to not be glamorous people. I wanted the reader to eventually see like Matt did that they're such good, wonderful, kind, human people. And the fact that they're not the most stylish or the coolest people really is superfluous. - You've got a daughter named Keona. And I assume you're trying to pass some of these things on or maybe you're experiencing and learning them from Keona. How's that going? - Well, I think pretty well, she's a good reader of my books. Both of my kids have been good supporters and fans of my books. - But does she give you pointers about improving them? I mean, I would figure that any discerning reader of Keona's age could say, hey mom, if you just did this, it would really capture me much better. - Well, you know, she's been a little young for the, while I was writing the young adult books out of there out now. But my son has been, he's a few years older, so he's read some snippets of manuscripts and given me suggestions or told me what she part is boring and stuff, so they can be very helpful. - Boring, right? - The death knell of every young adult book, right? - Yeah, so I see, you know, maybe Matt's a bit you, maybe Jessica's you in the book. I'm thinking, Jessica is saying to her husband to Sam, saying, maybe you shouldn't do this and kind of getting in league with Matt and saying, maybe we better pull in, not create too many waves. And this sounds like living in the Foreign Service. So who do you identify with more strongly in your book? - I think there's a little bit of me in a lot of my characters, and I'm definitely, you know, Jessica and Matt in Quaking. I really feel for Matt, but I also can see how Jessica would feel about being confronted with this very ornery character, but I love how she handles her. You know, with a lot of, you know, she gets uptight too, but she tends to be very calm and accepting, but not a pushover. You know, Matt has to do her own laundry, help with the dishwasher, things like that. And that's definitely me. I know, I don't let my kids get away with me. (laughing) - Part of the story includes churches getting firebombed attack, graffiti on them, that kind of thing. Attacks coming against, I guess, pro-peace churches. - Right. - Did you actually see that happening in any kind of physical way where you lived? - I think I probably felt it more than saw it, or you heard threats, but things didn't actually materialize, but it was certainly a concern to me, and a worry that people would attack those who just wanted peace. It just seemed so backwards to me. - A little scary, peace people. - Yeah, I know. (laughing) - Well, but it's part of history, peace groups. Anyone saying, no, let's not do war? Get some really vile treatment. You can read Mark Twain, his story, The War Prayer. If you haven't read that one, put it on your list. The War Prayer, Mark Twain, wonderful little short story. He's writing around the time of, I think, the, what's it called, Spanish-American war. He's right around then. He's talking about the people severely going after disapproving of essentially quieting down those pacifists who questioned the war pattern. So, to some degree, some, the same thing you're talking about. But, yeah, you feel like you're told to shut up, and I assume that that's how you felt after 9-1-1. It's like, I'm not, did you, in November, go out and say, "No, we wouldn't shouldn't be going into Afghanistan." Maybe killing isn't the solution. - Yeah, I mean, I would sometimes be with a group and just stupidly assuming that they would all agree, I would, 'cause, you know, I'm not confrontational, I would say, "I know, isn't it ridiculous. "I mean, how stupid to be going. "If we have no business there, could you believe it?" And some people would agree, and other people would just look at me like, I was a little, like, I didn't get it, that there was something wrong with me that I thought, wait, isn't this obvious? I mean, it couldn't just be me. - Why are you writing for teens? Why are you writing for that age group? - I think that's a really critical age. I think all those coming-of-age stories, it's a coming-of-age time, you know, you're questioning so much, you're wanting to know what the rest of the world thinks about things, a rest of the world, other than your parents who have been, you know, raising you and telling you, sort of guiding you in what to believe. You're wanting to start questioning those things and go out and do things yourself on your own, but it's a little scary, and I just wanna put food for thought out there for young people. - And also a sense of hope and comfort, I hope, too. Any people who are going through some tough times with their families or with bullies or whatever they're facing to know that a lot of us have been through that sort of thing, and you do come out the other side. It really, it does get better, even though it may seem really dark at times, it will get better. - Yeah, I tend to think that girls don't deal with bullying, and maybe you can tell me different, you were a girl at one point in your life, maybe you saw the first hand in a way that I, assume it's not there, bullying is pretty much a male prerogative, and most of the time I believe, males bully males, most of the violence that is done is done to males, and it's done by males, so. - I think that's most of it. - Did you experience it at all yourself? - A little bit, but it's not so much physical, it's more emotional bullying when it comes to girls, just leaving people out, telling them or showing them how obviously stupid, or poorly dressed, or whatever it is they are, making fun, teasing, not so much the bullying that does tend to be more boys on boys with the roughness and the beating up, not that so much, there's a little bit of that, but it's mostly more the psychological, nasty, manipulative, hurtful kind of stuff, so I'm not belittling it, but it doesn't tend to be the physical beating up. - It's not as bloody, on the outside. - Right, right. - So you've written a book, you know, you clearly you're not supportive of the war as response to 911, as to the fears about Iraq, I'm assuming. What is the appropriate response? I mean, I'm not expecting you to have all of the answers to the world, but you know, you write a book, then you're responsible for all policy decisions. (laughing) - I wish, I could go in and. (laughing) - No, I mean, I can't say that I know all the answers, but I do know that if we were more open and more educated and more informed, we would do a much better job. I do think under this president we're in a much better place because I think we do need to understand the mentalities of other cultures. And I guess having grown up overseas, I've seen a lot of kind of, you know, a few sort of meaning to be helpful Americanism, but it's really not that helpful because you can't just barge in with your helpfulness and your money and your ideas, nobody wants that. You need to understand a culture, and by that I mean all the different factions. It's not easy, it's not just a culture. And really trying to understand all the different groups and be willing to help them form a society that is best for them, which doesn't necessarily always model our American democracy. I mean, I believe in freedom and obviously no oppression and all but it might not be the exact system that we have in this country. And it seems hard for us to understand that. And of course, when we go over to other countries, our ulterior motive is us. And what are we gonna get out of it? And how will we be harmed if we help this group versus this group? And anytime you're coming from that viewpoint, you're really not doing what's best for that country. You're not asking yourself what's best for that country. It's really what's good for us in the big playing field of the world. I'm not sure that's the way to go about it. - I was thinking that actually you're gonna say that is the appropriate thing. What's good for us, all of us, the entire globe planet, that's the appropriate question I assume. And the idea that there's a them and an us is not right, just because there's this imaginary line called a border of a country. Does that mean a Canadian who lives a mile north of the US-Canadian border is different than someone a mile south of that? I don't think so. - Right, exactly. - And of course, you've haven't lived in those situations. You know the people. Did you grow up speaking the language? I mean, to write a book called A Boo Bazy, is that because you spoke the language that you even knew the word? - Well, I was exposed to the language. I didn't really learn it. My sister was a little older, did at one point was speaking Dutch, Afrikaans, Hebrew, and English at the same time. And I sort of wish we had stayed in, you know, gone to countries where we would've assimilated some other languages. I think for both of us learning a language is relatively easy and I think that's probably because of exposure at a young age, but I unfortunately am not fluent in any other languages. But I do think you learn a lot about a culture from the language, so that is why I did try and learn as much as I could, Kosa and Zulu, just because you get a feel for the culture. - Yeah, but getting that exposure, living in the country, you mentioned in this story A Boo Bazy, which I think means lion, is that right? - Right, right. - That the young man who has this coming of age there, he has a Zulu mentor. Did you have any comparable person in your life there, anyone you could grab on to and say, this is part of my experience? - Oh, yeah, when we lived there, I mean, we had servants and which was very difficult for my mother and she didn't believe in that, but the people that we bought the house from said, but if you don't take them on with the house, then they have no jobs and they can't go back home because they're now like, certified and don't have work back home. So, you know, you're doing the wrong thing if you don't hire them. So, she did, but she would, I mean, there's a scene in the book, which is straight out of my mother, she would cook for them, cook their meals and serve them their meals and they were just like, what are you doing? - This doesn't make sense, how can you serve the servants? - But they were, you know, treated a little differently than a lot of African servants, I believe were and were more part of the family. Their relatives would come and visit and would play with the kids and then actually some neighbors wouldn't let us play with their kids anymore because you played exactly, yeah. - What age did you leave, South Africa? - It was in second grade when I left, so. - Okay, maybe seven or so. - Still a little kid, yeah. - Have you got upcoming projects, other books you're working on? I mean, Quaking just came out relatively recently. - Yeah, and I have one coming out in April next year called Mockingbird, and it's actually, it's a happy topic, but it is aimed at middle grade, which is a sort of eight, nine year olds and it can certainly be used in middle and high school. It's actually inspired partly by the shootings a couple of years ago right here at Virginia Tech. It's about a young girl with Asperger's who has to deal with the death of her brother via school shooting. The reason I did that was he's already dead at the beginning of the novel, so it's a heavy topic, but it was important to show how it affected the whole community, and also important to show how the main character, even though she has Asperger's, could contribute something to the whole community. That I think was important for me to say, and I've had some experience with my daughter from being diagnosed with Asperger's years ago. She has certainly grown and changed a lot, but she did, and to some extent still does, have a different view of the world, and I do believe that if we can be more understanding of everyone's point of view, we can actually learn from each other instead of shutting people out or labeling them as weird or different. That's sort of the theme of the book. - And the name is Mockingbird. - Yes, yes. - Next April, April of 2010. - Right. - How do people find your books, Kathy? - Well, you can go to my website, which is Katherineurskin.com. They're on Amazon or just Google, Quaking, Erskine, and/or Mockingbird. - Mm-hmm, you'll find it. - Yeah. - Thanks so much, Kathy, for joining me for Spirit in Action. - Thanks, Mark. - That was my second Spirit in Action guest today, Katherine Erskine. Her site is Katherineurskin.com. - The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. (upbeat music) ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING]