In a recent discussion about his memoir-biography, The Book of Mev, theology professor Mark Chmiel compared the experience of creating this collection to the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band-meaning that even though his (and his subject’s) name landed on the cover, hundred of other names and faces lay behind it.
For those who know Chmiel, the analogy isn’t surprising. Both in and out of the classroom, he almost always prefers to do things “with a little help from his friends,” as Paul McCartney sang.
In his popular social justice course, Chmiel asks that students make the same effort to understand each other that they make to understand the subject matter itself. And the two are often one and the same.
Indeed, most students find that the compassion advocated by Chmiel’s course readings comes alive in the little acts of community that crop up throughout the course-the conveying of personal stories, or the sharing of music, poetry or a short walk across campus, to name a few.
The same will be true for those who attend tonight’s Book of Mev reading at 7:00 p.m. in the Knights Room at Pius Library.
Designed to “reflect the polyvocal nature of the book,” as Chmiel put it, the reading will feature seven female students, as well as the author himself.
It will also allow for an intermission during which participants can mingle and share their thoughts with each other.
The story of Chmiel’s late wife, Mev Puleo-a SLU alumna, photojournalist and social justice activist-The Book of Mev is partly an elegy for a woman who died of a brain tumor at the young age of 32, partly a love story told in letters and memories, partly a catalogue of a blossoming life of faith and career in photojournalism told with her photographs and interviews.
Not only a celebration of a beautiful life, this reading, if it is anything like the two that have proceeded it, will be a continuation of the communion that Mev’s legacy demands of those who read her words and view her photographs.
It might seem insignificant to some, but this kind of event is unique even at a place like SLU in that it radiates a compassion stronger than any prejudice, a patience that could cool any anger.
When we think of courageous underdogs, folks like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., often come to mind. Yet in a small way, the little acts of community building we engage in can be just as powerful, can just as completely change the lives of those around us by emiting hope and purpose in a seemingly-bleak world.
Two years ago, Chmiel spent 10 weeks in occupied Palestine. Upon returning to St. Louis, he gave a talk about his experience, in which he invoked John Donne’s famous “Meditation XVII.”
He sounded a single chime on a small bell, then let the tolling fade into the silence of the room.
Then he reminded us: “never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
It’s a lesson that has stuck with me ever since-and one that will surely take me years to comprehend, let alone live.
Yet I have complete faith that each of us can strive to find that part in us that is connected to the larger human family, that part that states, as Donne did, “any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde.”
In short, we can all work in our own ways to fasten the bonds of compassion.
As Mev wrote, “I truly believe that my camera is an instrument of communication that can help build community.”
Most of us won’t be leading any great social movements this afternoon-or anytime soon, for that matter-but we can engage great tasks in little ways, one of which is attending what will surely be an energizing event-this reading that will remind us life is not about a single voice crying out in isolation, a single face floating through unfamiliar crowds, but a chorus whose members complement each other, a congregation of individuals who each mean something special to each other, and to the whole-which, if we look hard enough, encompasses every human being.
