The Good Behind The Bad

St. Augustine & The Pear Tree

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

It's storytime with Mitch Cheserich. Today The good behind the bad Saint Augustine and the Pear Tree. This year from my birthday I did something. A few things in fact. In recent years I pretended not to care about my birthday. I'm old enough to not want to get any older and have it expressed numerically. Inevitably I end up spending them at home, alone and depressed. Not this year, I told myself. So I lined up a breakfast with a dear friend, a more recent friend made, in Oakland's Chinatown, where we had a Hong Kong omelette, which was not much different than a Western omelet other than more vegetables in it. Not surprising considering Hong Kong was colonized by Great Britain for one hundred fifty six years. Interestingly, the omelet may have its origins in ancient Persia and likely migrated to Western Europe through the Roman Empire. And here I was, having an omelet in Oakland's Chinatown. It was great. That evening I had dinner with three close friends from college at a restaurant overlooking San Francisco's ocean beach, and that too was great. Between breakfast and dinner, I spent the day hiking through Golden Gate Park and planned to sit for a couple of hours at the abandoned cliffhouse that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. But it was one of those late May San Francisco days. Cold as fuck, and I wasn't dressed for it. It rang true the purported Mark Twain quote that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. The editor of Mark Twain's autobiography, published a hundred years after Twain's death, told me on my radio show that there was no evidence Mark Twain ever said that or many quotes often attributed to him. But it's a damn good quote anyways. I ditched the cliffhouse idea knowing the ocean wind would push the cold right through me. Thus I spent most of the afternoon searching for warmer spots in the park, including a prolonged stay in a public restroom where I literally showered underneath the warm air of the hand dryer for a good ten minutes. The machine refused to blow any longer after that. Overall, it was a good birthday, and I plan to do something again next year, and so should you for yours. It's good to mark one's own existence. Two days later I had lunch at a restaurant near the Oakland estuary with friends, including one whose birthday it was, and we celebrated both of our days together. After lunch I gave them a tour of some abandoned spots along the estuary I like to spend time at. The estuary is where the ruins of sunken boats and stolen safes are found. We saw a large bat ray and seal pup swimming in the shallow waters. That was neat, though I'm sure my friends thought it's an odd place to find solace in as I do. Everything is old, decayed, and unwieldy, and is where the weeds reclaim the soil's view of the sun. But as a disabled person who finds it difficult to get where the pristine nature spots are preserved, I take what I can get, where I can get it, and I'm happy to get it. There is a beauty in places, forgotten and decayed, that is not found in places well cared for. I accompanied my friends back to their car and set them on their way, and then I hiked towards downtown via the main street, Broadway, heading home. A few blocks in I see a pack of about ten boys, perhaps between the ages of thirteen and fifteen riding their bicycles on the sidewalk in my direction. I've seen other teenage boys over the years ride their bicycles into a wheelie and come very close to hitting passers by before turning away at the last moment. So I parked my wheelchair right behind a tree in the hopes of avoiding such an encounter. But to no avail. The leader of the pack thrusted his front wheel high into the air and came right at me, his spinning tire coming within a couple of inches of my face before jerking it away. The wind of the coming tire brushed my cheek. Another boy immediately rode by and placed his hand on his chest as to apologize. But the next few boys after that did the same as the first, all coming in succession within an inch or two of my face with their tires in the air before pulling away. I was not hit though, and once they had all passed, they kept going. Physiologically speaking, I felt it. The cortisol was pumping through my blood. I was in a fight or flight mode, but I stayed still. I did not move as it happened. I showed no emotion as it occurred. After it passed, I just moved on. But I felt it. I told myself I could let this ruin what was otherwise a very nice weekend that began with my birthday, or I could not. And I decided not to. I forced a fake laugh at first, as I proceeded up the street towards home. It was really a strained chuckle that eventually settled into a genuine grin, as I remembered the story I learned once of Saint Augustine and the Pear Tree. Saint Augustine of Hippo is likely the most influential figure in Christianity after those who put the Bible together. He lived in the fourth and fifth century AD and is from North Africa. He is largely blamed in today's world for linking Christianity to the shame of sexuality. Augustine had a healthy appetite for sex as a young man, though not unusually so, and he wrote about it with regret later. But historian of Christianity Gary Wills argues this perception of Saint Augustine as punisher of sexual desire and sin is generally unfair, and is an image that was created more by Christian leaders afterwards in medieval times who made sex and sin a cornerstone to the faith. Wills argues Augustine was an eccentric mystic in a monk's gray robe, largely chastised by religious leaders in his own day for his complete personal honesty that he wrote about in a book called Confessions, in an effort to become closer to God. I'm no theologian and I don't know this history well enough to chime in other than to say I like this version of the story, and that's what I'm going with. How I got my hands on Gary Will's biography on Augustine is interesting. Frequently, once I finished work at the radio station in Berkeley in years past, I'd go out with a few colleagues for an afternoon of drinking at a local watering hole. Once I was good and well drunk, I'd visit a local used bookstore nearby, and then go home and pass out. Many mornings I woke up and was surprised by the books I found in my bag, that I hadn't quite remembered buying. I had several shelves of these books alone. Most of them are on ancient history, and one of them was Gary Will's Saint Augustine, and I read it. I would have never had bought it sober. Along with Augustine's writing about his romantic and sexual affairs and confessions, he included an account of when, as a teenager, he plundered a villager's pear tree. He writes that he and his friends late one night raided the tree that was full of the fruit. They did not do it because they wished to eat the pears. They took just one bite from a few and threw the rest to the pigs. It was a plain act of ancient vandalism. He insisted they didn't do it out of need or hunger, but for the simple act of the sin itself. He wrote, It was foul, and I loved it. Confessions is an honest exploration of Augustine's heart. For him, bare honesty is necessary to become closer to God. In a very small way I too try to be honest in my work, not to be closer to God, for I don't believe in God, but to be closer to you. Ultimately, that's what Augustine is doing too, for his God could just read his mind, and yet he chose to write his thoughts down to be read and heard by others. I think he and I would agree that honesty sets the conditions for the intimacy needed to transmit ideas from the heart. In contemplating why he vandalized the pear tree, he reasoned it was simply for doing what was prohibitive, what was not allowed, the freeing nature of the act itself, and the statement of independence it stamped, how teenage boys yearn for such pronouncements of freedom. He gave another reason too that fascinates me the most. The bond he felt with the other teenage boys who were with him. He stated he would not have committed such an act if it wasn't for the involvement of others. Alone, he writes, I could not have done it. I love the companionship of my accomplices with whom I did it. Teenagers year for the companionship and sense of belonging to a group outside of the home. They are forming their new tribe in the modern world. What better way to bond than to be involved in mischievousness? Nothing says more that we are in this together than doing something that can get us all into trouble, a demonstration of putting it all on the line for this new band of brothers. Saint Augustine's story of the pear tree suggests there was a good behind what was otherwise bad, and that was the forming of the bond between these teenagers. For Augustine, friendship is the foundation of a Christian way of life. I'd argue it's the base of every social way of living outside of the family. The formal name of the Quaker movement, just as an example, is the religious society of friends. For Quakers, the idea of friendship reflects an ideal of mutual care, equality, and community. I'm not religious, but I like that. Cognitive scientists say the brain regions involved in impulse control and risk assessment don't fully develop in males until their mid twenties. It's earlier for females. This need for teenage boys to bond, coupled with not yet fully developed risk assessment capabilities, can produce a toxic stew and is exploited in many ways. I suspect this is why young men are recruited to join both the military and gangs, one sanctioned by the state and the other not. The former socially acceptable, but it's largely the same. What better way to bond with your tribe than showing your loyalty by fighting another? Most young men don't commit heinous acts, although most do engage in somewhat risky behavior to impress their peers in forming closer bonds. I did when I was young. If teenage boys are running amok, it's worth asking what other outlets do they have to express what is happening inside. Teenagers have tornadoes spinning wildly in their hearts. How do we ensure they develop naturally while limiting the damage? I don't have kids, and that probably shows here. I don't have the answer, but I'm sure love is involved somewhere. So I thought about Saint Augustine and the pear tree after these teenagers on bicycles passed me by. They were bonding and forming an inner social dynamic and hierarchy by showing who was willing to take the risk in scary me and who was willing to follow. Not all did. Ultimately, I was not hurt, and I took comfort as I continued my walk home, knowing there was a core of good behind the otherwise fucked up thing they did. So I grinned and was thankful for a mostly pleasant birthday weekend.