what happens at the hyphen



 When I was doing the course work for my PhD I learned a remarkable lesson in Social Psychology class with Michelle Fine, one I remind myself of whenever there is a tragic gap, of injustice, discrimination, power, understanding or kindness. 


One day Professor Fine put a series of hyphenated couplets on the blackboard (yes the actual blackboard with chalk!). There was a list: black-white, female-male, old-young, poor-rich, ….


She turned to the class and asked: What happens at the hyphen? 


After much discussion, and confusion, we came to realize that this was a demonstration of binary thinking, something to which we westerners have become acclimated. The hyphen had come to represent a barrier and demarcation of a difference which might not be reconciled or merged. What happens at the hyphen is discrimination. It is a place which is not to be crossed so long as power lies with the privileged side, so long as binary thinking prevails.


It occurs to me that ever since that moment, when some kind of lightbulb went off, I have been intrigued with and eventually committed to challenging the hyphen. I have dedicated my spiritual life to nurturing a contemplative, non-dualistic, was of engaging the world. In short I try when confronted with an apparent deep difference based on hegemonic categories to blur the hyphen, let the categories move toward each other, even embrace.


I have found that this hyphenated space, which so many rely on and strive to maintain its separation, might become a liminal, thin space of possibility. At minimum artificiality based on mere labeling begins to disappear. 


All of the above is then a precursor to my deep and resonant reaction to the poem: Prayer by Faisal Mohyddin:

PRAYER


you cleanse the uncovered

regions of your body

then stand at the foot

of prayer mats facing


the qibla unfasten

your cluttered mind

from the tangible hold of secular

trances bow down


before the cascading

glow of God’s mercy submit

to a centripetal course toward the gates

of a more perfect emptiness


here now

you can plunge into the most secluded

chamber of the soul commune

with your share of the universe’s


initial burst of light eternal light

housed within the lamp of mystery

waiting to be

beheld five times a day


__________________________________________


then stand at the foot

of prayer


That is my favorite part, though the construction of the entirety affords the opportunity to “plunge” into “the most secluded/chamber of the soul.”


The spaces between completions of the verses were at first confusing. I didn’t know whether to read across or up and down? A very similar feeling to encountering a fence in a field, over or under?


Then upon reading from left to right I realized that 1) the pauses were helpful and deepened attention and 2) the words and their meaning were enhanced by the visual artistry of the spaces we were called to engage.


The breaks then were as hyphens or maybe as hyphens could be. The spaces did not divide so much as connect. They added a moment of devotion and attention to how all of this prayer and reverence is related. 


And there it is: relationship! Hyphens might call us to relationship instead of separation. To reexamination and restoration instead of conclusory segregation. 


“to the foot of prayer”


I wonder whether being called to prayer might be like being called to the hyphen of categories and letting them float up and see where the breeze takes them.

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