“David and Goliath” is not about a helpless shepherd boy winning against all odds when confronted with a fairy-tale giant. Like Seizing Freedom, “David and Goliath” is a story of desperation, ingenuity, and not playing by a set of bogus rules. It’s a story about creative resistance.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what gives me life. In the book, Sleeping with Bread, the authors explain the title with a familiar story from World War II. The massive bombings in England during the war left many orphans starving in the streets. Those fortunate enough to be found were placed in refugee camps, where they received food, health care, and a safe place to live. But many of the children couldn’t sleep at night. Some tossed and turned, others lay there with anxious eyes always open, even though they were assured and re-assured that they were in good hands. A psychiatrist listened to the children, and discovered that they were afraid if they fell asleep, they might wake up once again homeless and without food. So he came up with an idea. He suggested giving each child a piece of bread to take to bed with them. The children, clutching their bread through the night, slept soundly, knowing that they ate that day and what they held in their hands ensured that they would eat again tomorrow. They were at peace, holding onto what gave them life.
Once, long ago in college, I went through the necessary ritual of dating. On Valentine’s Day my junior year, I received a gift from a young man I had been seeing for several months. He sent me a singing telegram of the song “You Light Up My Life.” I think he meant it to be “our song,” because a month earlier at Christmas, he gave me a spinning musical unicorn plinking out the very same “You Light Up My Life” on a metal cylinder. He was clearly very excited about the Christmas gift, he thought it expressed our relationship perfectly: a brass, horned equine, revolving on itself to strands of Debbie Boone. I accepted my Christmas gift with a bewildered smile, not knowing what to say. The poor boy never realized I absolutely hate the song “You Light Up My Life.”