MANOA Reconciliation

"The ice is melting in the north," writes Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper, Turtle Clan, Onanadaga Nation, in an oration to world leaders that begins this collection. His words are a call for humanity to heal a wound in our relationship to the natural world. They are also a powerful metaphor expressing the fragility and uncertainty of the future in general — the result of global declines in justice, equality, and civility.

In this collection, the editors turn to some of the world's most thoughtful authors — in fiction, essay, poetry, drama, and parable — to ask important questions about the future, to give us moral direction, individual courage, and a map toward reconciliation. In many voices and dialects, they urge us to be attentive and compassionate — somehow, as guest editor Barry Lopez writes, to bring hope to bear on the things that confound us.

Someone will have to make an outline, draw a map and pass it around, with a pencil and an eraser and no thought of ownership. The voices of individual authorship and the duly elected will need to give way to the repositories of community wisdom. For the first time in centuries, wisdom will need to be seated beside intelligence, a second light to cut the deep and unknowable dark.

Where once we might have begun the pursuit of another destiny with more (justifiable) war and additional (reluctant) enforcements of will, with vetted doctrines and the ruthlessness of reason, we might now begin with reconciliation. And with a capacity for reverence. In place of direct confrontation, the humility and unfamiliar courtesy of reconciliation. In place of a single belligerent epistemology and the self-assurance of its promoters, reverence for all that lies beyond human control. In place of indifference, compassion. In place of a brave army, courageous people."

—from Editors’ Note

Guest editor: Barry Lopez is an essayist and fiction writer. His works include Arctic Dreams, for which he received the National Book Award; Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist and recipient of the John Burroughs and Christopher medals; and eight works of fiction, including Light Action in the Caribbean, Field Notes, and Resistance. His essays are collected in two books, Crossing Open Ground and About This Life.

In the cave, our life is just one millimetre of dust. The years of iron and steel and all of recorded history measure just a little more. Beneath and beyond, the deep cave floor extends in long accumulation of human habitation, long before race or history, a million years or more. And for a moment, I see that beyond the brief small breath of our particular dust, the hill continues to flow. Months, years, lifetimes, hundreds of years, thousands of years, tens of hundreds of thousands of years, whatever it takes to heal, the tough joy waits to sprout and leaf and fresh and fur again- swallows calling, returning home.

I can decide that the person who was of the utmost importance in my life, who in a way allowed me to be who I am now, who was the very essence of the illuminating and inspiring teacher, was in fact a monster and that everything he taught me, everything he had encouraged me to love, was corrupt.

I can try to justify his unjustifiable actions and ignore the fact that they led to the torture and death of my friends.

I can accept that Rivadavia was both the good teacher and the collaborator of torturers, and allow that description to stand, like water and fire.

Time—which the aged regard as moving with magical swiftness—moves slowly for the young. For Schöödün and Botaj, time seemed nailed to the ground even though days and nights still took turns coming and going. Each boy was impatient to grow to manhood faster than the other, and their annoyance at the sluggishness of time became a cancer slowly eating away at their insides.



"The ice is melting in the north," writes Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper, Turtle Clan, Onanadaga Nation, in an oration to world leaders that begins this collection. His words are a call for humanity to heal a wound in our relationship to the natural world. They are also a powerful metaphor expressing the fragility and uncertainty of the future in general — the result of global declines in justice, equality, and civility. In this collection, the editors turn to some of the world's most thoughtful authors — in fiction, essay, poetry, drama, and parable — to ask important questions about the future, to give us moral direction, individual courage, and a map toward reconciliation. In many voices and dialects, they urge us to be attentive and compassionate — somehow, as guest editor Barry Lopez writes, to bring hope to bear on the things that confound us. Someone will have to make an outline, draw a map and pass it around, with a pencil and an eraser and no thought of ownership. The voices of individual authorship and the duly elected will need to give way to the repositories of community wisdom. For the first time in centuries, wisdom will need to be seated beside intelligence, a second light to cut the deep and unknowable dark. Where once we might have begun the pursuit of another destiny with more (justifiable) war and additional (reluctant) enforcements of will, with vetted doctrines and the ruthlessness of reason, we might now begin with reconciliation. And with a capacity for reverence. In place of direct confrontation, the humility and unfamiliar courtesy of reconciliation. In place of a single belligerent epistemology and the self-assurance of its promoters, reverence for all that lies beyond human control. In place of indifference, compassion. In place of a brave army, courageous people." —from Editors’ Note Guest editor: Barry Lopez is an essayist and fiction writer. His works include Arctic Dreams, for which he received the National Book Award; Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist and recipient of the John Burroughs and Christopher medals; and eight works of fiction, including Light Action in the Caribbean, Field Notes, and Resistance. His essays are collected in two books, Crossing Open Ground and About This Life. In the cave, our life is just one millimetre of dust. The years of iron and steel and all of recorded history measure just a little more. Beneath and beyond, the deep cave floor extends in long accumulation of human habitation, long before race or history, a million years or more. And for a moment, I see that beyond the brief small breath of our particular dust, the hill continues to flow. Months, years, lifetimes, hundreds of years, thousands of years, tens of hundreds of thousands of years, whatever it takes to heal, the tough joy waits to sprout and leaf and fresh and fur again- swallows calling, returning home. —from Wonderwerk by Julia Martin In my mind, I have three options: I can decide that the person who was of the utmost importance in my life, who in a way allowed me to be who I am now, who was the very essence of the illuminating and inspiring teacher, was in fact a monster and that everything he taught me, everything he had encouraged me to love, was corrupt. I can try to justify his unjustifiable actions and ignore the fact that they led to the torture and death of my friends. I can accept that Rivadavia was both the good teacher and the collaborator of torturers, and allow that description to stand, like water and fire. I don't know which of these options is the right one. —from In Memoriam by Alberto Manguel Time—which the aged regard as moving with magical swiftness—moves slowly for the young. For Schöödün and Botaj, time seemed nailed to the ground even though days and nights still took turns coming and going. Each boy was impatient to grow to manhood faster than the other, and their annoyance at the sluggishness of time became a cancer slowly eating away at their insides. Faithful to the legacy of their fathers, each was burning for revenge. —from The Tamyrs: A Tale of Two Peoples by Galsan Tschinag	Among the contributors to Maps of Reconciliation are the playwright Catherine Filloux; poets Kazuko Shiraishi, Ann Hunkins, Chris Merrill, and Luis H. Francia; fiction writers Yan Lianke, Tony Birch, Wang Ping, Prfaulla Roy, and Galsan Tschinag; and nonfiction writers Julia Martin, Wayne Karlin, and Alberto Manguel. Translators include Chen Zeping, Karen Gernant, John Hood, Katharina Rout, and Yumiko Tsumura. Three dramatic portfolios by photographer Franco Salmoiraghi depict exemplary struggles for reconciliation in Native Hawaiian culture. Accompanying the photographs are short prose pieces by Meleanna Aluli Meyer, John Keolamaka‘ainana Lake, and Mahealani Perez-Wendt. The issue also includes images from the notebook of Hoang Ngoc Dam, a young Vietnamese medic who is one of the subjects of "Wandering Souls," a nonfiction piece by Karlin. His ears rang continuously—the result of a 105-mm shell that had landed in his fighting position and splattered him with the blood of the two sergeants with him—a thin, constant scream in the center of his mind that has never gone away. There were certain images burned into his brain, certain smells seared into his nostrils, certain tastes still on his tongue, and he felt they composed a wall between himself and those who had not seen, felt, smelled, heard what he had. He was afraid that difference made him monstrous. He was afraid that he would turn anyone with whom he truly shared those tastes, those sounds, those sights into himself, and because there were some people he loved and wanted to protect, he remained silent. —from Wandering Souls by Wayne Karlin
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