Altars in the Street

A Neighborhood Fights to Survive
by Melody Ermachild Chavis
(Bell Tower; 253 pps;1994/97)

A friend of mine had told me for months about her favorite pet project-a book written by an incredibly unusual woman, a Buddhist private investigator who helped defend death-row inmates. In her spare time, this persistent woman also put troubled street kids to work in an inner city garden, where many experienced miraculous turnarounds. My friend kept saying, "Finally, here's a book that takes Buddhism off the meditation cushion and into action on the streets, where it's needed most. It shows us all how to walk lightly on the earth while also serving the world."

But I never got around to reading it, until one Sunday morning my friend invited me to hear the author, Melody Ermachild Chavis, read from her book a few blocks from where I live. I entered the bookstore cafe with reluctance, afraid that Melody's story would make me feel guilty about my own sporadic meditation practice and moderate volunteer activities. Later, I left the bookstore in tears, my heart and eyes open to this extraordinary woman living in a rough neighborhood, raising a bunch of kids, who reached down into her soul and the essence of her spiritual belief and did the right thing. I felt the same combination of inspiration and galvanizing anger as I did after reading Sister Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking-except that Melody seemed to go one step further, showing how too many of the young men on death row have made one, often very human, mistake or were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was especially moved by a scene on death row between a young inmate studying Buddhism by mail and Tibetan Rinpoche, who visits his cell to perform a vow ceremony. Also unforgettable are Melody's breathtaking efforts to save her neighborhood from the developing crack industry. Her constant return to the precepts of Buddhism-about which this book teaches volumes-gives her the ability to face and triumph over the saddest, most enraging circumstances. For so many of us who ask, "But how can I help?" this book offers the inspiration and the path.

Linda Loewenthal -- from QPBC Notes