The Crystal Bowl
by
Mitch Hall
The crystal glass bowl on my desk has fascinated me since childhood. The multifaceted geometrical designs cut symmetrically into its surface are a welter of interlacing mandalas, made of triangles, diamonds, circles, radiating starbursts, dodecaheda, and more. When I rub my fingers over it, it sings a subtle tone. Its two handles suggest ears, or perhaps the two separated halves of a traditional heart-shaped design. Its scalloped top rim evokes waves. It is transparent, so the light shines through it, and depending on the angle of light, it acts like a prism and sparkles in its nooks and crannies with the colors of the rainbow. The rounded empty space inside makes it a receptive vessel for water, flowers, fruits, sweets, or whatever else I choose. Because it is made of glass, it is fragile, yet it has survived in my family through four generations. I think of it as my peace bowl, a token of the hopes for peace and fears of violence that were felt in each generation.
The bowl dates from the middle of the 1800s or earlier. It probably comes from somewhere in Russia. It had belonged to my great-grandmother, Sarah Rabinowitz, who was born in Riga, Latvia in a year that no one living remembers. She and her husband, Jacob, a tailor, fled from the pogroms of the Baltic region to settle in London, England. Their oldest son, whose name no one living remembers, was conscripted into the British army to fight against Germany in World War I. He was killed in action, and Sarah Rabinowitz was shattered, but not her crystal bowl. For the rest of her life, she could never look at pictures of war or talk about it. She and her surviving children left war-torn Europe with hopes for a better life in the United States. They settled in Philadelphia, which they hoped would live up to its name as the city of fraternal love.
When I was a very young child, I used to visit my great-grandmother, who daily fed all the stray cats in her neighborhood and allowed them to come and go from her basement. She had been sensitized to suffering and death, and she wanted to help any creatures she could. She never learned English, so I could not communicate with her in words, but she touched my face with a soft, loving hand, and she smiled kindly at me through her old, tragedy-stricken eyes.
When Sarah died at the age of 92, her children divided up her few possessions, and the crystal bowl was given to my maternal grandmother, Sophie, who had been born in Europe in 1895. I lived with my grandparents, Sophie and Lou. They too were struck and almost shattered by the tragedy of World War II. Their only son, my uncle Ray, enlisted into the U.S. army and went back to the battlefields of Europe from which his family had fled. He was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. A pall hung over our house until a telegram announced the medics had saved him, and he would be returning home. The day he arrived, my grandparents were jubilant. I was only a few years old, and the emotions were overwhelming to me. I hid in the corner behind a china closet from the seemingly enormous man in a uniform who entered the front door with his big duffel bag.
After Sophie’s death, my mom, Ruth, received the crystal bowl in turn. Ruth was born in 1918, the year World War I ended. While in high school, she entered a citywide essay contest sponsored by the American Legion. She wrote an interpretation of the cause of war. I never saw the essay, but she told me her thesis was that greed led to war. She won the contest, and I still have the yellowed, ragged-edged clipping of her picture from the newspaper that showed her receiving the award. My mom feared violence. In her last years, she was dismayed by the news of the escalating violence in this society and throughout the world.
When Ruth died, my stepfather gave me the crystal bowl. Like peace, it is multifaceted and inspiring. Like peace, it is transparent and refracts all the colors of the rainbow, an ancient symbol for peace, and a contemporary one for multicultural tolerance and respect.
Like peace, the crystal bowl is fragile, just as our mortal bodies and minds are. Yet this bowl has endured, as we the living descendants of refugees, conquered peoples, slaves, and workers have endured. Like peace, the bowl can contain beauty. Like us, it is precious only to the few who are near and dear. To others, it may be just an object, a commodity to be sold or discarded without feeling.
In turn, either before or after my death, I want this bowl to be passed on to the fifth and sixth generations after Sarah Rabinowitz. They are my children and grandchildren, and I hope the bowl can be a symbol for them of the precious value of peace. Above all, I hope that they, like it, will endure and survive, and, moreover, that they will thrive and celebrate life in peace.
A few months ago, I experienced a moment of intense feeling that reinforced in me the resolve to make whatever contributions I can to the cause of peace through this writing project, which I had recently begun. I met my second grandson, Elijah, when he was just four days old. I went to the home of my daughter, Amela, and her mate, Ben. They had chosen to do a home birth entirely on their own and prepared for it carefully. It went smoothly. The new parents were radiant, and their baby was so peaceful and beautiful. His nickname throughout the pregnancy was Ume (pronounced YouMe). They invited me to hold Ume, wrapped gently in soft blankets. As I held him at the level of my heart and gazed into his precious face, Ben played the guitar while he and Amela sang the song they had created and sung to Ume from the time he was conceived. Their love came pouring to the baby through the music. I began to weep, feeling a mixture of joy and awe. I was happy that Ume had such loving parents who were united in their love for each other and him. I was happy that my daughter had arrived at this fulfilling and hopeful time in her life. I was aware of how much this baby was utterly dependent on his parent’s protection, of how fragile life is, and of how much violence rages in the outside world. I silently expressed in the energy that flowed through me to my grandson the loving wish that he always be safe and protected and that he grow in good health and fulfill his inborn potentials. He was blessed to be born to parents who truly wanted and cherished him. As I continued to hold him, Ben told me that their landlady, who lived in the same house, said that during the birth she felt a strong, vital energy in the building that she had never felt before, and that in the back garden, she heard the songs of birds such as she had never heard before. When she looked, she saw that the trees were filled with flocks of cardinals, blue jays, robins, and other birds in unprecedented numbers. Could it be they were attracted to the energy of a peaceful, natural birth? I can only raise that question, not answer it. The presence of those birds is to me a reminder of the inter-connectedness of all life on earth and of the needs of all creatures for humans to make peace with themselves, one another, and all species.
Written in the autumn of 2002