New Blog Home

After months of people telling me I should just ditch iWeb, I finally accepted what I could not change—the limitations of iWeb—and plucked up the courage to change what I could change—my website program. While I was making radical changes, I decided to finally put my blog and my site in the same spot. Please visit eileenflanagan.com/blog and sign up for my new RSS feed. Over there you’ll find a few thoughts on the whole racist swim club controversy. While you’re at it, feel free to poke around the site, offer feedback, or write up something for the new Your Story feature, if you feel moved.

Thanks for sticking with me!

Eileen

Carbon Counting

Before last week’s FGC Gathering, one of the scheduled plenary speakers, Shane Claiborne, challenged the planners to offset the carbon that would be released into the atmosphere as a result of his travel to the event. As many of you know, some people purchase carbon offsets to support initiatives aimed at reducing global warming and to reduce their guilt at contributing to it. So, for example, if you go on a cruise, you can visit Cool Pass to assess the damage and buy what some people call an “indulgence.” Shane’s travel wasn’t offset that way, however. Instead participants in the Gathering were asked to look at their own lifestyles and see if there were ways they could pledge to reduce their carbon footprint in the coming year. Members of Quaker Earthcare Witness hung out in front of the dining hall at lunch and dinner hearing people’s pledges and calculating how much impact they would make, and then putting up yellow sticky notes to show how much we were covering. By the end of the week, the offsets covered all the speakers and Gathering staff, and I believe we made a small dent in the carbon released as a result of 1,300 Quakers from all over traveling to Blacksburg, Virginia. I wish I had taken a picture of all the sticky notes pressed together, demonstrating an impact none of us would have felt acting alone.

I debated through the week what I should pledge. The first time I approached the carbon reduction table, Hollister Knowlton said, “It will be harder for you because you already do a lot,” an assessment I believe was overly kind. It’s true that we own a Prius, live in a small house that’s well insulated, shop at a food co-op, and don’t make our children shower as often as other parents. “You don’t fly that much, which is huge,” pointed out Hollister, though I can’t help wondering if that is because of our virtue or our finances. I suspect that if we could afford it, we might be buying indulgences for fancy vacations, too. I never got around to calculating my carbon footprint this trip, but last time I did it was better than the average American and quite a bit worse than the rest of the world. (See Carbon Footprint by Country.) 

The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t think of ways to reduce my carbon footprint. The problem was thinking of promises I knew I could keep. I thought of giving up chocolate. I already try to buy Fair Trade, but my previous attempts to give up chocolate completely have been deliciously unsuccessful, despite the heartburn it sometimes given me. I thought of giving up all processed or fast food, which would also be good for our health, but the problem is that we usually buy those foods when we are on the road and have hungry kids. I want to make an effort to plan ahead better with healthy snacks for such occasions, but could I really promise that when we drove from Philadelphia to Wisconsin at Thanksgiving that we wouldn’t still stop at Burger King? Likewise, could I promise that I wouldn’t drive over the speed limit on such trips? No, I couldn’t.

The Prius has made me more conscious of my lead foot—I can see that my husband gets better mileage than I do—so I thought about ways I could work on that, without promising more than I could deliver. I suspect that part of the reason my husband gets better mileage is that he doesn’t gun it out of the red lights like I do. (But I’m the one who drives the kids to camp, doctor appointments, and the orthodontist, the defensive part of me protests, and it’s not my fault we’re always running late!) So I’ve been trying to drive more slowly in the city, especially being aware of the quick acceleration habit. It’s been going well, though we have been slightly late to camp most days this week. The other pledge was to turn our hot water heater down below 120. I figured that one would be easy—but I remember it every time I take a shower, though I haven’t managed to remember when I’m in the basement yet. (Not in the house right now, or I’d go do it right now so I could post with a clear conscious.) 

It makes me wonder how the honor system is going for everyone else. Somehow I think going public with my story may help me feel accountable, as I felt a weight of accountability watching Hollister put my sticky note up on the board. We need community see our collective impact. We also need community to support one another in making changes because it doesn't look like the G8 is going to solve this problem for us any time soon.

Bonnie Tinker, Still Opening Hearts

Bonnie Tinker is still teaching that Love Makes a Family, the name of the organization she founded. The mortician who cared for her body in Virginia was moved—both by her condition after being crushed by a trash truck and by the love in the room as he met with her family and a few friends around the death certificate. He collected the usual information—birthday, name of parents, etc.—and then came to the simple, loaded question: “Marital status?” There was a pause among her loved ones. Someone mentioned that she’d had a wedding. Then everyone said firmly, “Married”—which she had been for thirty-two years. The mortician nodded and checked the box. “Spouse’s name,” he asked, using the gender-neutral noun, a gesture appreciated by those present. “Sara Graham,” they answered, and he wrote the name with a nod. It was a simple thing, just writing the truth, but the state of Virginia doesn’t recognize Bonnie and Sara’s marriage, so the mortician’s act was subversive, possibly illegal, and as one observer said, “healing.”

This morning as Friends said goodbye on the last day of the FGC Gathering, they passed this story around the cafeteria, eyes brimming up as they speculated on whether the mortician had ever recognized a same-sex marriage before and whether the truth would really make it onto the printed, official death certificate. They remarked that it seemed significant that Bonnie’s ministry of opening hearts to such families was continuing. “Social change from the grave,” said one Friend.

I suppose it’s the best any of us can hope for, that our ministry continues in some way after we’re gone. Bonnie Tinker sought to open hearts with and to love. The fact that she continues to do so in death seems particularly poignant.

Remembering Bonnie Tinker

I’ve spent the week at Friends General Conference Gathering, leading a workshop on The Wisdom to Know the Difference and connecting with friends from around the country, some of whom I only see at this annual gathering. One such friend, Bonnie Tinker, was killed yesterday at the conference when her bike was run over by a dump truck. The news was delivered to the assembled community in the most sensitive way possible last night, though it forestalled what would have been the question and answer period for Hollister Knowlton’s plenary on changing our lifestyles in order to save the planet. As one of the people who had been sitting on the stage to support Hollister, I found myself after the announcement in a circle of people who were both supporting Hollister and remembering Bonnie, backing up our chairs every few minutes to allow someone else into the circle. Friends described Bonnie’s tireless work for the program Love Makes a Family, which educated people about and advocated for families with gay and lesbian parents. Since that work often brought her into confrontation with people who didn’t share her perspective on the issue, Bonnie’s other passion was teaching people how to communicate across differences in a loving and compassionate way, while still being true to their convictions. Her workshop on this topic will be meeting without her this morning, though it was clear from the workshop participant who joined our circle last night that her teaching has already had a profound impact.

What struck me as we sat around the circle were the connections between Bonnie’s ministry and Hollister’s. Although Hollister has been traveling around the country challenging people to reduce their carbon footprint—telling us, like the prophets of old, that we must change our ways or risk destruction—she somehow manages to deliver this message with love and compassion for those of us who are still driving our cars more than we need, eating more processed food than is good for us or the planet, and burying the knowledge that we could do better but just don’t want to. This work of speaking passionately about issues out of love was a big part of what Bonnie’s life was about, I believe. Perhaps using the skills she taught people, on whatever issues move us, is one way we can honor Bonnie.

The other connection that struck me last night was the clarity about what’s important. When people were remembering Bonnie, no one said, “What a beautiful house she had,” or “What fine clothes.” They remembered her spirit, her dedication, her passion—things that don’t add to one’s carbon footprint. As I try to figure out how to wrap up a workshop on the Serenity Prayer, I’m left with the thought that in addition to grief, the loss of a friend can give us clarity about our priorities and our purpose.

Abundance and Scarcity

Once a year, my friend Melissa Haertsch gets me to write a poem for a poetry/visual art collaboration she organizes. This year's theme is water, and here is this year's result:

Abundance and Scarcity

Lake Seneca is full,

like the septic tank,

so we wash with dribbles

and flush sparingly

while neighbors spray

the suburban carpet

that has replaced wetlands

outside Milwaukee.

Hindus worship the sacred

Ganges polluted by Coke,

as villagers protest

their thirst.

The view from space

reveals undivided blue,

expansive but salty—

the cause of future wars.

Twitter

I was gearing up to write a post about how I haven’t figured out the purpose of Twitter, except we were scrambling to go to the Finger Lakes, where I don’t have regular Internet access. I was going to question the usefulness of hearing when someone I don’t know has gotten up or brushed her teeth. I was going to muse about whether I should be one of those authors who offers preachy advice or simply quotes others’ advice (which somehow feels less preachy). I was going to, but in the days I’ve been without Internet Twitter has become part of the Iranian uprising, and I don’t know what to do other than keep pressing the “refresh” button on the Iran discussion. In the few minutes it’s taken me to type these three and a half sentences, there have been 1028 new posts to the Iran conversation on Twitter. Twitter itself has become a subject for CNN coverage.  The pictures of soldiers confronting protesters reminds me of South Africa, but this dynamic of people in Tennessee and Iceland commenting and sending words of support instantaneously, and people in Iran sending news updates and commentary, it’s just amazing. I’m not sure where it is all going, and I’m still not sure what kind of tweets I want to offer, but it’s not nearly as boring as I feared a week ago.

Rural Ruminations

In Philadelphia, I count as a nature lover. I identify poison ivy for my friends and compost every banana peel. I’ve planted a garden in our postage-stamp-sized lot and occasionally walk in the Wissahickon. But for the past two days we’ve been visiting a friend in Northeastern, Pennsylvania who is making me feel like a total city chick. In addition to two children and a writing business, my friend has 20 something laying hens, a few roosters, a swarm of chicks, three sheep, two dogs, two cats, and a turkey that she purchased to share some kind of immunity with the chickens. (How that happens, I have no idea.) The property around her house includes woods, field, an old orchard, fox, bear, and all kinds of critters, not to mention a great diversity of birds. During our visit, she has casually used more than one farming term that I’ve needed explained. As I sat on a beautiful sheep fleece this morning, she mentioned that she tanned it herself (despite being a vegetarian who doesn’t eat any of her animals and keeps the sheep for fun). “Well, I wasn’t going to throw this beautiful fleece away,” she explained. “And I certainly wasn’t going to FedEx it in an icepack to some Amish guy in Lancaster County to tan it”—which is precisely what I would do if I were ever in possession of a dead sheep and clever enough to think of that.

It’s not just the beauty of this place that’s got me thinking. It’s the intimacy with a particular natural place. This morning we had fresh laid eggs and pancakes with maple syrup made by a man who joined us for breakfast. As we finished one container of maple syrup and began a new one that tasted like the hot toddy I had last night, conversation turned to how the syrup tastes different depending on the particular trees tapped and the weather that season. It reminded me of an NPR story I once heard about how farmers in Ireland know which grazing hills produce the best butter. In Philadelphia, our butter and syrup always taste the same, and I suspect we are poorer for it.

I really have no desire to tan a sheep or tap maple trees, but if I was in danger of romanticizing the rural life, the recent news of extremist violence keeps popping to mind, reminding me that there are hate groups in this area. A good friend, walking with his wife in another part of rural Pennsylvania, recently had the word “nigger” screamed at him, twice, by a young woman in a pickup truck. I remember that story and my friend—who speaks at least five languages and understands culture and world events as well as anyone I know—and I remember why I live in the city. Although I occasionally fantasize about moving back to this area, or one like it, I would miss too much the richness of a diverse culture. I would miss the friends who might not feel safe or welcome around here. I would miss knowing that my kids are growing up with friends of many religions and hues and different types of family structures. Still, when we get home, I’m going to miss the fresh eggs and the view from the porch, not to mention the good people we love who do live here.

My fantasy is to bring these worlds together—to keep our city neighbors, but have a view with less concrete and more green. Maybe there’s a place to live where we could have both, but I haven’t found it yet.

A Friendly Request

I’ve been working on my website lately, trying to give it more content, and I realized I could use some input. For example, I am going to post a page of frequently asked questions about Quakerism, and while I know what some of them are, it would be fun to hear your FAQs (whether you are a Quaker or not). I also have a page of Resources for working against racism which I haven’t developed yet. I’d love to hear the books, movies, and websites most helpful to people doing racial healing work. Finally, I’m trying to figure out how to make my Serenity Prayer page show up in a Google search for the prayer, so I’d especially welcome feedback on the Serenity Prayer page or links to it (should it ever seem appropriate on your own blogs or sites).

Coming from a branch of Quakerism not known for its evangelism, the thought of intentionally trying to reach people is a bit…awkward, but I feel it is something I’m called to do. I’m still trying to figure out the way of doing it that feels in keeping with my values. Offering information that people might find useful seems like something that feels rightly ordered and is also valued by the search engines.

(P.S. Please post suggestions on the blog, unless you have a reason not to be public in them.)

Cleaning for Company

Not long ago we were expecting company, and my husband cleaned the bathroom. Just before the guests arrived I spotted the mop still standing in the bathtub and thought with some irritation, “The reason we clean before company comes is so they’ll think we have a clean house all the time. If you leave the mop out, it’s a big tip off that we only cleaned just now for them.” My next thought was that I’m a much shallower person than I let on.

I’m remembering this today because we have company coming for the second weekend in a row, which means that on this Friday afternoon I have a choice: Blog, for the first time in a week, or make the house just a little cleaner. Obviously I’ve chosen to write, but not without a little anxiety. I find myself wondering what degree of cleaning for company is really motivated out of a desire to create a comfortable atmosphere for our guests vs. the ego’s desire to be seen as having the perfect home. I know it’s a mixture, but the thought about the exposed mop revealed that my motivation is perhaps driven more by ego than true hospitality.

Then there is the internalized sexism that makes me feel that any dust on the piano will reflect poorly on me, a concern my husband clearly doesn’t share. He does share in the housework (and cleaned the bathroom again last night), but he doesn’t share in the psychic burden of seeing what’s undone. I’m sure he doesn’t even realize there is dust on the piano, and even if he did, he wouldn’t think of taking off from work to dust, though I did take some work time today to vacuum and took several hours last week to prepare before my in-laws arrived. Part of it is that I’m the person with the flexible work schedule and the one who chose to be home when the kids get home from school. Part of it is that Saturday is our usual cleaning day, but when we have company we’re likely to be off doing other things, so it’s a matter of doing the routine cleaning early, as much as doing something extra. And part of it really is about being considerate. We don’t have a guest room, so our guest (a Catholic priest) will be staying in our master bedroom while Tom and I try out our new sofabed. Making sure there aren’t bras and tampons lying all over the place lands in the category of basic courtesy.

The struggle for me is knowing where basic courtesy ends and obsessive, perfectionist internalized sexism begins. I think I’m getting better at realizing that I can’t do everything, and if I spend my life worrying what other people will think of me, I won’t have time to do the things I truly feel called to do. And I am clear about being called to write.

Graduation

Yesterday, for the first time, I attended graduation at University of the Arts, where I have taught part-time for the past nine years. I got big hugs from the students I threatened to fail not that long ago, when their papers were perilously late. I watched a few receive diplomas for whom I know it was a particularly difficult journey, like one who had to leave as a freshman six years ago because of money and another whose mother died during finals a few weeks ago. I was sitting next to a good friend, which made it less embarrassing during the many moments I got teary.

University President Sean Buffington gave a speech on the importance of “nerve” for artists and human beings generally that spoke to my condition as a writer. The main commencement address was delivered by Tony award-winning playwright James Lapine, who wrote a play for the occasion, a two-act conversation between Senator Diane Feinstein and her imaginary son on his decision to attend University of the Arts, rather than Princeton or Stanford. It was funny, politically astute, and I suspect more memorable than the address by Katherine Graham at my own commencement.

On the whole, I left the graduation with a spring in my step, not so much as the graduate pictured on the middle of Broad Street, but still feeling inspired to greater nerve and creativity.

(Apologies to the photographer, whom I can’t credit because they weren’t credited on the UArts site.)

Election Day in Philadelphia

I have to confess that I haven't followed today's elections very carefully, so for those readers registered to vote in Philadelphia, I am going to post the following e-mail from friend, well-informed citizen, and member of my meeting, Thomas Taylor:

The polling places are open but empty! Please make sure you get out and vote today: races like District Attorney and Controller will have MAJOR impact on the way our city is run and for whose benefit. Low turnout primaries benefit the tired old Democratic party machine; we can do better than that.

If you have time, you might be interested in reviewing this chart which aggregates the endorsements of verious progressive organizations, newspapers and the Bar Associations:

Also, here are some quick-hit personal recommendations:

District Attorney: Seth Williams. He is a transformational leader, who would greatly change the way the DA system works, including putting prosecutors out into the neighborhoods, and turning away from jail sentences for non-violent drug offenders.

City Controller: Brett Mandel. I don't agree with his outlook on taxation policy, but this is not a policy setting position. As a watchdog over the financial dealings of the many branches of city government, I believe he will do an excellent job.

Superior Court: Anne Lazarus and John Younge.

Common Pleas Judge: Angeles Roca, Dan Anders, Joyce Eubanks, Diane Thompson and Sharon Williams-Losier.

Municipal Court: Dawn Segal, Charles Hayden and Christine Adair.

Please feel free, indeed encouraged, to pass this along.

Thomas Taylor

Thanks, Thomas!

Identity Theft

Marshall Massey (author of the Earth Witness blog) posted on Facebook this morning a reference to Matthew 18: 23-35, a passage about forgiveness in the face of being owed money. Interesting timing since I am trying to sort out my feelings about an unsettling experience yesterday.

I had an appointment with my podiatrist, whose office building gives a discount for the valet parking lot next door. I gave my key to the valet, entered the building, stopped at the bathroom (relevant because it means I was in the building for longer than a minute), and then sat down to wait to be called. I decided to get my health insurance card out while I waited and discovered that my wallet was not in my backpack. Thinking I must have left it in the car, I went back to the parking attendant at the little booth, but they couldn’t find my key, which was my first indication that something was amiss. Another valet helped me look for my car, in which I found the first valet sitting in the driver’s seat with my wallet open on his lap, a credit card in his hand, as well as a piece of paper on which he had written my name, credit card number, expiration date, and security code. When I opened the door and confronted him, he claimed he had found the wallet on the floor and was just going to turn it in. He handed me the wallet and upon my insistence, the paper with my credit information on it (a dry cleaning receipt that had been in the door pocket). I took my wallet and paper and went back into the office, where I discovered that $20 was missing. I came back out and confronted the valet again, to more denials. He tried to make it sound like I was just a suspicious person who was falsely accusing him. Not getting any satisfaction, I went back to the doctor’s office because I didn’t want to miss an appointment that usually takes months to get. I had another appointment after that on the other side of town, which is why I had driven in the first place, so I kept on my original schedule. It didn’t really occur to me to call the police, though almost everyone I’ve spoken to since has said I should have. I should have asked to talk to a manager, too, but that didn’t really occur to me either, especially after a different valet came inside to speak to me. He asked me what had happened and shook his head sympathetically when he saw the paper with my credit card information written on it. He offered me two phone numbers, his and their manager’s, though he also asked to copy the paper with my credit information on it, something I found odd. When I got home I called the police and two officers came by the house to take a report, so at least there is a record of this incident if I have any credit problems in the future. I also notified both my credit card companies and am trying to figure out whom at the Podiatry hospital I should notify.

Although I’ve done the practical things I can to protect my credit, I still feel unsettled this morning. I find myself being mistrustful, double checking that I’ve locked the car door, wondering if the guy who gave me the phone numbers and asked to copy the paper was really trying to be helpful or was somehow “in on it,” and giving me the phone number of someone who wouldn’t really do anything, so I would drop it. I find myself wondering if I should have called the police right away, not so I would get my $20 back, but so this guy wouldn’t do the same thing to someone else–which is where I find myself getting confused about the concept of forgiveness. In the Matthew 18 story, both the men who owed money begged for forgiveness, and the message is clear: we should forgive. But owing money is different than theft, and this guy never asked for forgiveness. What if someone denies wrongdoing and might do the wrong again if unstopped? What is the loving response to a person who denies doing something we witnessed firsthand? I think forgiving in my heart is still appropriate, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get the guy fired, too. I can’t help recalling that some money went missing from my car two years ago–just after my last visit to the podiatrist–and I remember pushing out of my mind my suspicion of the valets, not wanting to falsely accuse them. The memory of that incident makes me wonder if there is systematic theft going on here, which only feeds my mistrust of the man who gave me the phone numbers.

I think of myself as a trusting person. I’m finding the (temporary) loss of that self-identity to be much more disturbing than the loss of $20, though the prospect of the other kind of identity theft is unsettling, too.

Breathe, Laugh

Last night I attended the book launch for Friends Council on Education’s new publication, Tuning In: Mindfulness in Teaching and Learning. I went partly as a university teacher, partly as a parent and former school committee member at a Friends school, and partly to support members of my meeting–Irene McHenry, the book’s editor as well as one of the contributors, and Christie Duncan-Tessmer, a contributing author­. Unlike most book launches, the evening was designed to be experiential. Most of the contributors who spoke directed us in the kinds of exercises teachers might use to introduce mindfulness to their students (or calm themselves down when necessary), such as closing one’s eyes and observing one’s thoughts or following one’s breath. For one exercise, each of us received a gold post-it with four pairs of words: in–out, deep–slow, calm–ease, and here–now. We were directed to use these words along with our breath, thinking “deep” on the inhale, for example, and “slow” on the exhale.

The mindfulness refresher came in handy last night, as both of my kids were having trouble falling asleep. I directed them to follow their breath, and that seemed to help. This morning when we jumped in the car (running late, as usual), they saw the post-it stuck to my dashboard and asked what it meant. I explained how mindfulness was about paying attention to what is happening right now, not worrying about what is going to happen, and how paying attention to one’s breath can help us do that.

“Do you have to use those words?” asked my ten-year-old son.

“No, you can use any words that work for you,” I responded.

Then from the backseat I heard him chant, “Dog–chicken, human-cannibal.”

So, now in addition to a practice to calm me down whenever we’re running late, I have something to think of that will always make me laugh, which is one of the best ways of being present I know.

Magic

I once asked a Harry Potter enthusiast in my Quaker meeting what she liked so much about the series. “The magic,” she replied, as she cleaned up the stacks of dishes in the meeting kitchen. I understand. I’ve often wished I could wave a wand like Mrs. Weasley and have the pots scrub themselves. I’ve been thinking about magic’s appeal lately as my son has gotten into card tricks and making coins disappear. Being asked to pick a card at 6:30 on a Saturday morning does not always endear me to the magical arts, but then I see the glint in my son’s eyes when he pulls off a trick, and we can’t figure out how he did it. There’s something about doing the impossible that has always fascinated us humans.

Last night we took the magic enthusiast to a show at Grasso’s Magic Theatre as a belated birthday present. It’s a tiny, quaint theatre down by the Philadelphia waterfront, in what used to be the fresh produce district. Using his experience as a contractor, the owner, Joe Grasso, converted the old bricks into “Philadelphia's first and only full-time performance venue for magic and the variety arts,” with Houdini posters framed on the walls and trick cards for sale in a glass case next to the Junior Mints. Four different magicians performed to an audience of no more than twenty-five, which meant that a third of us got dragged up to the stage as accomplices at some point or another. We saw birds appear out of scarves, coins change color and shape before our eyes, and a ripped up fifty-dollar bill appear restored inside a grapefruit. I looked over every once in a while to see birthday boy’s eyes widen with a smile.

I confess I winced as one guy ate fire and then appeared to cut off a fifteen-year-old audience member’s hand, even though I knew the trick must be safe. There was that speck of belief that the illusion might be real, which is probably the key to the whole enterprise. We want to believe that it’s possible to pull money out of a grapefruit or play quidditch on a broomstick. We want to believe there are magic trains that go to magic places, which may be why, according to the Wikipedia entry for King’s Cross Station in London, “The Platform 9¾ sign occasionally causes congestion as tourists and Harry Potter fans stop to photograph it or try to push the rest of the luggage trolley through the wall.”

Today I’m wondering how this fascination relates to faith and the way we live in the real world. I scoffed at the Harry Potter critics who claimed the book was unchristian. The whole lesson (it seemed to me) was that love conquers hate and that giving up your life for your friends is more powerful than violence. In fact, I could argue that the Harry Potter series was more in keeping with the teachings of Jesus than the Narnia series (which also included magic), but that would be a long digression. More to the point, for me, is to wonder why so many of us secretly long for unusual powers and what we would do with them if we had them. It’s easy to understand why a ten-year-old boy would enjoy tricking his parents or why a busy mother would want the dishes to wash themselves, but I think there is something deeper. In short, I wonder if we human beings are so far from fulfilling our potential that on some level we sense we are meant for something more. Perhaps this is why The Secret has stayed near the top of the bestseller list for over a hundred weeks. Do we want to believe we are Gods or do we simply want to be as powerful as we could be if we tapped into our best selves? I'm not sure, but last night as we left the little theatre and walked out onto streets littered with broken glass, it occurred to me that there is magic walking on a spring night with my family, and I shouldn't let that escape my eye.

"Best Mom Ever"

Some of you got a kick out of my ice cream cake update on Facebook, so here’s the full confession (Last year's cake pictured):

My son only wanted two things for his birthday: a DSi and an ice cream cake shaped like an M&M. We decided we didn’t want to buy the DSi ($169 electronic devise, though he is allowed to save up for it himself). He was a good sport. Still, that made the ice cream cake seem pretty important, so I was feeling like a mighty lousy mother when I left that till the last minute and then couldn’t find the kind of M&M shaped cake we got last year. I rushed home from the supermarket empty-handed to meet the school bus, brought both the kids to my daughter’s orthodontist appointment, and then to a different supermarket in the hope that they would have the M&M cake. They didn’t. Birthday boy was still being a good sport, so when he picked an ice cream cake a little bigger than we needed for a family of four, I relented, even though I secretly harbored doubts about whether there was room in the freezer since we never ate all the ice cream guests brought for Easter.

Indeed, there wasn’t enough room in the freezer, so after dinner the cake got shoved into the fridge, on top of the box of left-over pizza. I had intended to dig out some freezer space once everyone got settled with their homework, an intention I remembered the next morning when I opened the fridge and found a huge puddle of melted ice cream weighing down the pizza box, “Happy Birthday” still legible. There was a moment when I thought the birthday boy might melt, too, but his sister helped save the day. When I told them that this was a special morning because I was going to let them eat ice cream for breakfast, my daughter grabbed a spoon and started scooping the mess into her mouth with great enthusiasm and smiles. Soon birthday boy realized this was funny, and our family huddled with spoons around the soggy pizza box.

There’s a special pleasure that comes from making lemonade out of lemons, and not just because of the sugar, though I’m sure that helped cheer up my kids. Later that day, I told the story to a friend who declared, “You’re the best mom ever!” Hardly. But every once in awhile I get a glimpse of our family giggling around the pizza box, and I think we’re all doing OK—four people trying to love each other and make the best of life’s little puddles.

P.S.

Today's paper has this piece which fits nicely with yesterday's post.

Our Tomorrow

In honor of tax day, I want to be a contrarian. I want to speak in defense of taxes. No, I’m not thrilled that our money helped bail out AIG, but so far today I’ve seen three public complaints against taxes—one from people on the left and two from people on the right—using April 15 to raise questions about government spending they don’t like. Fair enough. There’s plenty I don’t like, too. But I think in the past decade or so conservatives have succeeded in making “taxes” a dirty word, as if the whole idea of people investing in the common good via our government was just a big scam.

A few things recently have reminded me of the importance of investing in the common good. One was the film “When the Levees Broke,” which I recently rewatched. Although the colossal failure of government regarding Katrina (except for the Coast Guard) might make people cynical about government, to me the film was a reminder that there are things we need our government to provide, such as adequate levees, which the Army Corps of Engineers clearly failed to do. There are things people cannot provide for themselves, like well-maintained highways, fair courts, and emergency relief.

This morning Quaker educator Joan Countryman (whom I interviewed for my book The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change-and When to Let Go) had a “This I Believe” essay on NPR. Best known for her work as Interim Director of Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls, Joan talked about the importance of education and shared how when she was interviewing prospective students for Oprah’s school one South African girl described an education as “my tomorrow.” Education could just as accurately be described as “our tomorrow,” and it’s not one of the things we can count on families to provide for their own children. Although I am well educated myself, I am completely unqualified to teach my daughter science, her favorite subject. To give her the potential to cure a disease someday, I need a trained science teacher to open that door for her. In fact, we all need good teachers, at some time or another—not only the people who taught me and those who teach my children, but those who maybe now are teaching the people who might take care of me someday should I land in a hospital. Most people get their teachers in public school, so investing in public schools seems to me to be a clear case of investing in the public good.

Could our money be invested more wisely? Sure. But when doing my taxes this year, I was glad to see that most of our money was going to the city and the state, where human needs are most likely to be met. I don't mind paying those taxes. It's an investment in our tomorrow.

Transformations

My son will be ten in a few days. As if to drive the point home, he has been listening to Metallica and wearing black nail polish. His sister meanwhile has been teaching me to play poker, which only goes to reinforce the fact that we are in a new phase of family life. I thought about that last weekend as I dug up the flagstones in our tiny back yard and found traces of sand from a long discarded sandbox.

Our yard has had several transformations in the ten and a half years we have lived here. When we first moved in, it was very shady, over-run with ivy of all sorts, and contained a few small animal carcasses, confirming my suspicion that no one had gardened there for years, though the random tulip that popped up in the spring bore witness to the fact that someone once had. Pregnant with my son, I ripped up the weeds and molded the first few feet of land I’ve ever owned into a tidy little shade garden, full of hosta, fern, and bleeding hearts. The shade grass I planted never took, and the turtle sandbox we put in the corner didn’t get used as much as we expected, though my son insisted we keep until it was full of mud and bugs. When the sandbox was finally hosed out and given away, I decided to built a patio and used the remaining sand to level the flagstones. It was back breaking work, I remember, which I did myself because we couldn’t afford to hire someone who knew what they were doing. I also collected as many of the flagstones as possible from a distant friend who bought her property with a random pile of stone strewn on the edge. The stones weighed down the Ford, possibly contributing to its premature demise during my son’s last year of nursery school. I was very proud of that patio, even though it wasn’t quite even, and the stones didn’t match.

Our yard is testament to the fact that nothing stays the same. We got new neighbors a few years back who trimmed their overgrown Mulberry enough so the front of the yard was suddenly sunny. (In the trimming process, a branch fell in our yard, and a few of our flagstones got broken.) That corresponded with the closing of our community garden, so we rescued some raspberries and asparagus and planted them where the striped hosta had been. Last summer the same Mulberry fell across our yard on a clear day, landing on what is now a small forest of raspberry shrubs and reminding me how unpredictable life is. Our partly shady garden was now full sun, so in the fall, I gave away most of the remaining shade plants, which are now popping up in other people’s yards. We never ate on the patio as much as I had hoped, and I’m sure we won’t in the sun, so I’m ripping up the stones—with my son’s help—to finally plant some tomatoes and basil. In the course of digging, I’ve come across the sand, the already decomposing roots of the Mulberry, and the small bone of an animal that most likely died before we arrived. My son likes the digging and is proud that he can lift the flagstone. Both he and the garden remind me that life is constantly changing, even if I don’t see the changes as dramatically in myself. I put my shovel to my little piece of land, but it’s an illusion that I control it. My garden, like my son, has a life of its own, and it’s a wonder to watch it unfold.

Daring Books

I have two brand new books to plug. The first is Who's Your Mama?: The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers As the press release describes, it is a book of “Narratives by a racially and economically diverse group of women, who broaden the traditional notion of motherhood in the United States by discussing their unique experiences and perspectives.” It focuses on topics not usually covered in typical motherhood books, like adoption by a gay couple, raising biracial children, and even the decision to remain childless. It is edited by Yvonne Bynoe, with a foreword by Rebecca Walker (Alice Walker’s daughter) and includes essays by a wide range of women, including my friend Lori Tharps and me. My essay is about how facing my mother’s racism made me look more closely at what my own children were learning about race. I felt compelled to write this essay and was happy that it found a home in this collection, though its publication raises conflicted feelings. I’m hoping it will help other parents think about and discuss how they teach their children about race.

The second book I want to plug is by my friend, Miriam Peskowitz: The Double-Daring Book for Girls Those of you with daughters probably already know about the Daring books. This new version is even more focused on the fun activities kids enjoy, without the nostalgia of the first book. Although I know girls will enjoy having these daring activities explained for them, most of the activities would be just as interesting to boys. For example, I was a “consultant” on the car camping section, which is certainly gender neutral, though another friend gave tips for peeing in the woods that may not be necessary for boys. My daughter loves these books for the ideas they give her. In addition to that, I love to see my friend (who is trained as a feminist religious scholar) raising the standard of popular culture.

Troubles and Hopes

The New York Times brought me to tears this morning, which doesn’t happen very often. I haven’t even been skimming it lately, to tell the truth. Aside from being busy, I haven’t felt the need to read one more article on AIG. But the murder of three police officers in two different incidents at the hands of an IRA faction sent me to the Times and this opinion piece by David Park, which describes how people in Northern Ireland reacted to the possibility of resumed violence:

Across towns and cities people of all traditions assembled to protest in dignified but powerful silence. There was a constant reiteration that what had been achieved could not now be lost, that a peace process, for all its problems, could not be usurped and subverted by the gun.

Park goes on to describe the united condemnation of politicians who a decade or two ago were sworn enemies.

When I visited Belfast in 1982, British soldiers patrolled the Falls, the Catholic neighborhood that was lined with pro-IRA graffiti and sentiment. You could feel the tension—the fear of the young soldiers and the fear and resentment of the few people on the streets. I had gone with a friend from my study abroad program in Dublin, another American of Irish Catholic ancestry. We both had a prurient desire to see “the Troubles” ourselves. We walked up the Falls Road, past the soldiers and the graffiti until we reached a place where we could cut over to Shankill, the Protestant neighborhood that ran parallel to the Falls. Shankill was noticeably more affluent and less tense, despite the cross streets that ended in barbed wire, guarding the no man’s land that separated them from the Falls. When the British army moved into Northern Ireland in 1969 it was supposedly to protect the Catholics from the Protestants, but by 1982, it seemed to be the other way around. The Falls was under siege. I have no trouble understanding why people wouldn’t want to go back.

I met a young man from Belfast a few years ago who thought I was crazy to have taken this walk before he was born, but I never felt unsafe. In fact, I never felt so conspicuously American, gaping at the signs of conflict with my friend as we walked up and down the troubled hill. It was my first experience of being in a place of violent conflict (unless you count West Philadelphia), and there was something moving about being there. A year later I wrote my honor’s thesis comparing the genesis of the IRA with that of the PLO. I’m sure someone could write a thesis today on why the peace process in Northern Ireland has worked better than the one in the Middle East, but what I want to write today is a celebration of the apparent triumph of sanity. I want to celebrate people like John and Diana Lampen, British Quakers who worked for peace in Northern Ireland for many years, and the folks who run the Ulster Project, a program that brings Catholic and Protestant teenagers from Northern Ireland (Ulster) to stay in the United States, where it is easier for them to build relationships than it would be back home. In fact, the young man from Belfast whom I met was staying with good friends who live in Milwaukee. The host teenager, Andrew Pauly, made a video commemorating the experience.

Rewatching Andrew’s video, I’m stuck by the simple importance of building relationships. Young people who would have never met at home—because they went to different schools and lived on different sides of what are now called “peace lines”—got a chance to bond and begin a new history. I can’t help but suspect that some of them were in the crowd at the peace rally last week.

Fast

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged, it’s hard to know where to start. I could write about my spiritual journey with the snow days—one more lesson in accepting the things I cannot change—or the great time I had in New York a few weeks ago to watch my friend Stephanie Smallwood get a prestigious award for her book, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. I could write about Lent and how I’m trying to make it meaningful as a Quaker married to a Catholic, which is kind of related to the snow issue since both remind me that I still need practice letting go of my own desires. But the most powerful reminder I’ve had lately about how much I have to learn about sacrifice has come through a series of emails about a woman who is today ending her 21-day hunger strike to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe.

I visited Zimbabwe twice when I was in the Peace Corps in Botswana in the mid-eighties. At that time, it was the hope of the region. I bought my butter from Zimbabwe to support that country’s developing democracy. And now the people in this rich land are literally starving because of the rule of Robert Mugabe, who last week threw himself a $250,000 birthday bash. Although his electoral rival Morgan Tsangari has finally been appointed as Prime Minister, conditions in the country remain bleak. The New York Times reports that some human rights activists are being released from the torture-filled prisons, but not all. The world really does need to pay attention to this because although there are many brave people in Zimbabwe, they need support to take their country back.

So far, many of the most vocal allies have been South Africans, like Nomboniso Gasa, chair of South Africa’s Commission for Gender Equality and the woman who is ending her water-only hunger strike today (pictured above at the end of her fast). She has been using her fast days to raise awareness of the situation in general, but especially the plight of women, who face the added threat of sexual violence. Before coming to New York this week, she made a video about the conditions faced by Zimbabwe’s many refugees. Nomboniso took over the fast from my friend Kumi Naidoo, the head of CIVICUS, and is passing the relay on to Dumisa Ntsebeza, the third South African in the chain.

You don’t have to fast for 21 days to support the cause. Some are volunteering for short stints. The Save Zimbabwe Now web site implores:

Join the fast and express your solidarity with the estimated five million Zimbabweans who are starving because of the greed, corruption and incompetence of the repressive Zanu-PF regime. The fast represents a wealth of solidarity and commitment from across the globe that policy makers and leaders of Southern Africa will not be able to ignore.

The Save Zimbabwe Now Campaign is driven by a broad collaboration of organisations and movements and has formal support from a wide range of groupings including the South African Council of Churches, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition the Khulumani Support Group, COSATU, the Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum, social movements from across the region, youth and student formations, CIVICUS, ACTION for Conflict Transformation and the National Constitutional Assembly in South Africa. Popular support for the campaign is growing daily as the situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate.

And so we come back to Lent and the practice I need at letting go and sacrifice. My first response to this is that I couldn’t possibly fast because I’m way too busy—and then I remember that Kumi is way busier than I am. I feel lightheaded if I don’t get a mid-morning snack, and then I remember the fact that people in Zimbabwe often go days without food. We will be attending an inter-faith Lenten supper this evening, but the big sacrifice there is that we will only get bread and soup for supper, an amazing array of soups that are hearty and delicious, based on past years. (And I don't have to cook or pay, so really it's a total win for me.) I feel humble just thinking about the commitment of these activists and challenged to think about participating—maybe for a day next week, when I’m on spring break. In the meanwhile, I can help to spread awareness, which is one of the fast’s objectives.

Fit for Freedom

When I was in my twenties, looking for a spiritual home, one of the things that attracted me to the Religious Society of Friends was its history of peace and social justice work. Quakers advocated the abolition of slavery, worked on the Underground Railroad, and supported women’s right to vote. Coming from secular activists circles, Quakers seemed to have the perfect balance of inner peace and concern about the world. That was about eighteen years ago. Since then I’ve realized that we are just as human as everyone else, which is probably not a shock to anyone who has spent much time in a Quaker meeting. Still, some Friends seem to be shocked by the premise of a new release from Quaker Books, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice. The book by Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye argues that we have many myths about ourselves when it comes to our track record on issues concerning race. As the book's web site states, “While there were Friends committed to ending enslavement and post-enslavement injustices, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship reveals that racism has been as insidious, complex, and pervasive among Friends as it has been generally among people of European descent.”

Earlier this week I had the chance to ask Vanessa and Donna about their experiences writing this book, which will hopefully spark much discussion among Friends and beyond. I’m very excited to present my second podcast, which you can listen to by clicking here. (If you have trouble playing it, please leave me a comment here so I know.)

Podcast Experiment

The good news is that I have gotten the edits back from my editor, so the book is really moving along. The bad news is that it is the second week of a semester where I am teaching two classes, and there seem to be an unusually high number of extra-curricular engagements this month, not to mention days when the kids are off from school. (I, for one, am hoping it doesn't snow too much.) So in the interest of trying to stay calm, I am going to take a break from blogging for a few weeks, but not before I announce my very first podcast! I interviewed two of the nine Philadelphia Friends who traveled to India in November. Please click over here to listen to our conversation and to subscribe to future podcasts, if you like that sort of thing. (While you are there, feel free to offer feedback on my newly designed website, which I’m still polishing. I'd also love feedback on the podcast itself.)

Podcasting is an experiment for me. I am going to do at least one more—an interview with the authors of Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice, which is being launched next week in Philadelphia. I’m enthused about that book’s potential to spur a wider conversation among Friends about race, so I’m hoping people will check that interview out when it is posted in a few weeks. If you haven’t already, please consider signing up for the site feed so you will receive a notice when I post here again.

Peace out, as they say.

Teaching

It's the first week of the semester at University of the Arts, which is why I haven't gotten around to blogging. I have about three different projects in the works (including a podcast interview of Quakers who visited India in the fall which will hopefully be posted next week), so it was a bit of a transition to find some shoes that weren't sneakers and dig out the train schedule to make the trek downtown. This semester I am teaching two classes back-to-back, Race at the End of the Twentieth Century and The Age of Apartheid. I've taught the South Africa class three times before and feel pretty confident about the material. The race class was very challenging when I premiered it last spring, but it's hard to know how much of the challenge was the fact that it was a new class and how much was the nature of the subject. So I've been bracing myself for the beginning of the semester a bit, knowing that it could be the thing that pushes my juggling act from a nice steady juggle into the frantic act of a woman with too many balls in the air.

The good news is that it felt great to be back in the classroom. It didn’t hurt that the first day of class was inauguration day. My race class started at 10, so after taking attendance I wanted to show them something that would put this election in historical context. After looking at a few videos, I settled on a clip from the Eyes on the Prize series, episode 5, Mississippi 1964: Is This America? None of the students had ever heard of Medgar Evers, the civil rights advocate who was gunned down in front of his home for encouraging blacks to vote, or the bus loads of Northern college students who went to the South to register voters. The clip we watched included the disappearance of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the three young men whose murders were the basis for the (inaccurate) film Mississippi Burning. After watching the clip, one of the black students said, “I’m from the South, and I didn’t know anything about this.” After explaining that Barack Obama’s election would not have been possible without the campaign for voting rights forty-four years ago, we put on CNN.com’s live broadcast. I could feel the excitement of the crowd on the big screen.

Aside from the long-awaited shift in our foreign policy, the thing I’m feeling good about is the level of interest and enthusiasm among the students for the subjects I’m teaching. As we did a more in depth round of introductions on Friday, many students and in both classes mentioned that they realized there were things they didn’t learn in high school, whether about the Civil Rights Movement or about African history, and they were hungry for this information, particularly but not only the black students. It was a validation of my teaching that erased the ambivalence I was feeling about giving up my writing time. At the end of the Apartheid class on Friday, where we talked about human origins, one young black woman said to me on her way out the door, “I’ve never, ever in my whole life, in all my years of school, heard a teacher say, ‘We all came from Africa originally.’ Thank you. That made my day.”

And she made mine.

Activist Identity

I had a bit of an identity crisis last week. Twice in a row I dismissed an invitation to attend a demonstration, first a counter-demonstration to a group with a web site called “God Hates Fags,” which I will not promote by linking to them, though I have point out that the same people have other web sites called “God Hates America” and “God Hates the World.” (There’s a world map, and you can click on any highlighted country to learn why they think God hates it.) The second counter-demonstration was to the “We Stand with Israel Rally,” which I suspect is a much bigger group than the world-haters. In both cases I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for demonstrating, which made me wonder if it is accurate to keep “activist” as part of my self-description or even what that terms means.

In the case of the first counter-demonstration, which was at a city high school early in the morning, I suspected that the group mobilizing over the Internet was going to give the world-haters (who call themselves a church) more attention than they deserved. If a few extremists show up with signs, it is not news worthy, but I could imagine an organized counter-demonstration getting the whole thing on television. On the other hand, if I were a gay or lesbian student or teacher entering the school that morning, I would be heartened to see the counter-protesters. Hate shouldn’t go unanswered; I just don’t want it advertised. In any case, I couldn’t make that demonstration because I was getting my own kids to school, though it appears my concerns were unfounded. The only reference I could find in Google News was an article in a student paper that described a few homophobes and a larger (but seemingly not enormous) counter-protest that I was glad to hear originated with an alumnus who said that his goal was not to change the minds of the protesters, but to support the students and staff who would have to look at their signs.

The second counter-demonstration was harder to delete because I could have actually fit it into my schedule, though I felt myself resisting. Although it was billed as a counter-demonstration to the group of Israel supporters, it was really a protest against the brutal bombing of Gaza, which is certainly deserving of protest. Like the gay students, if I were a Palestinian I would want to know that people in the world were standing up for me, and this one seemed destined to make it on the news. But there was something about the protest/counter-protest model that just left me feeling empty. I mentioned my dilemma to my husband who said, “I think the best thing you do [in terms of social change] is your writing.” Certainly my writing would have suffered if I had taken the morning to go downtown, but I didn’t mind losing some writing time to work on the Obama campaign or for some racial healing work I spent time on recently. I found myself thinking of a comment made when some of the contributors to The Secret were on Oprah ages ago. Longtime followers of this blog will remember that I have some issues with The Secret, even though I think there is a seed of truth in it. The piece that stuck with me from the Oprah show was when one author said that he would never go to an anti-war march, but he’d be happy to go to a peace march. He asserted that we attract what we focus on, and if we focus on war, we will only have more of it. Although I think this is simplistic, there is something in it that is ringing true.

When I think of the activist events I want to attend, what comes to mind is the annual Interfaith Peace Walk, a wonderful gathering of people from diverse racial, class, and religious backgrounds spending a spring day walking from one congregation to another in a mix of silence, song, and solidarity. That event always has such a positive vibe, and it draws a range of people that most anti-war demonstrations don’t. It also draws connections between violence in our own communities and violence in the world, as opposed to just reacting to the crisis of the day. That’s the other piece I’m trying to think about: it is necessary to stop the immediate violence in Gaza, but the bigger challenge is to build the trust and mutual acceptance necessary to create any kind of lasting peace in the Middle East. I don’t see how standing against the Israel supporters will do that, though one could argue that real reconciliation will never come until Americans stand up to Israel. Still, that seems simplistic, too. Combatants for Peace come to mind as a model of positive peace work, though one that is for people in the region, not US tax-payers like me.

There are many good people grappling with the question of how to promote peace right now in Philadelphia. Although I am not part of the week-long program, I do feel drawn to the intergenerational and interfaith day planned for Saturday, which is also making the connection between peace on our streets and peace in the world. If any readers are participating in the week, I hope you’ll feel free to tell us about it here or post a link.

Social Networking

Meredith Broussard has a funny piece on the Huffington Post this week about why she hasn’t joined Facebook, but I’m here to tell the redeeming Facebook story of the week:

Twenty-two years ago, when I was leaving the Botswana village where I served in the Peace Corps (pictured right), my best friend and neighbor Mmadithapelo told me, “Eileen, I love you, but you are never going to hear from me. I am a terrible correspondent.” It was good she warned me. Although we did exchange letters every few years, I wasn’t disturbed by her long silences, at least not until the letter she sent several years ago that mentioned some vague “troubles.” By then Botswana had the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world, and although the country has done much to combat the disease since then, life expectancy has still plummeted. When my next several letters went unanswered, I assumed the worst and wondered often about Mmadithapelo’s two children, who are a little older than mine.

So along comes Facebook, which has replaced computer solitaire as my favorite time-waster. On a whim I searched for Mmadithapelo and instead found five people with her last name, two of whom identified themselves as being from Botswana, one from the village where I lived. This by itself was amazing, considering that in the eighties my village had no reliable phone service, no paved road, and no electricity (except for a few generators at the clinic, the chief’s house, etc.). I wrote to the two Batswana, unsure of the etiquette of asking if they knew my friend, especially since it seemed likely they were related to her. When I didn’t hear back right away, I assumed the worst again.

Then one morning, as I sat with my laptop at my favorite spot at my favorite Philadelphia coffee shop, I got a friendly email from a young woman on the other side of the world. When I asked about Mmadithapelo, the young woman responded immediately: “She’s my auntie. She stays in Orapa.” Within minutes we had exchanged several messages where I impressed her by remembering a little Setswana (the language), and she promised to get me my friend’s contact info. The exchange pretty much made my week, partly because I am so happy at the prospect of connecting with this particular friend, and partly because it is exciting to link this important phase of my life to all the other phases that normally seem so removed from it.

For me, the amazing thing about Facebook is the linking of the many disparate pieces of the crazy puzzle that has been my life so far. A scroll down my Friends list reminds me of childhood, high school, college, graduate school, Pendle Hill, my kids’ nursery school and grade school, my Quaker community, my Philadelphia writing community, my blogging community, and now my time in the Peace Corps. Not even at my wedding have so many parts of my life been represented in one place. As Meredith points out, there are boundary issues to this social networking stuff (I have a few ex-boyfriends and ex-students on my friends list, which is kind of funny.), but on the whole I’m glad to see the faces of people I care about lined up together, even if they don’t know each other, though it turns out that in many cases they do. I like feeling connected to community. It’s one of the things I learned to value in my village in Botswana.

Move the Center

I still have my Obama sign on the lawn, but not for long. On January 20 I become the loyal opposition. Although I worked for his election and celebrated his victory, I’ve always known that Obama does not share all of my beliefs or priorities. Even more significant, he’s a politician, and successful politicians know how to compromise to get things done. As a watcher of politics, I’ve been impressed with the way he is orchestrating his transition to power, though as a watcher of issues I am aware of the reasons many activists are already disappointed. A few days ago I received an email petition from organic food advocates angry about Obama’s appointment of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture. And then there was the ear-full I got at a New Year’s brunch about Evangelical minister Rick Warren doing the invocation at the inauguration. Warren has a record of homophobia, and gay and lesbian advocates understandably feel betrayed. I heard myself responding, “Obama is smart to govern from the center; it’s just our job to move the center.” So this morning I’m wondering what I meant by that.

By coincidence (if you believe in such things), my husband just sent me a New Yorker article with this picture of author Naomi Klein wearing a “move the center” button, which I swear I didn’t even know existed (photo by Platon). The article is long—I confess I skimmed the pages about Klein’s Marxist grandparents—but makes some interesting points. Round about page 7 Klein talks about her concerns about Obama disappointing a generation that has just now become idealist, though it is clear she doesn’t necessarily approve of idealism anyway. Her main point seems to be that in a crisis there is an opportunity for a political shift. Often the right has taken advantage of such moments, but this time the crisis in world capitalism gives people on the left an ideal opportunity to point out the current system’s failings.

For me, the current moment seems an ideal opportunity to point out the intersection of four issues I care about: economic exploitation, environmental degradation, war, and the spiritual poverty of a culture than elevates consumption of material goods to such a degree. The fact that the recession is doing more to slow climate change than any government policy implemented thus far should give us pause. Can we re-imagine our measures of prosperity so that getting back to consuming much more than we need is not our goal? Can the inter-connectedness of our economies help us appreciate that we are interconnected in other ways, as well, so that we not only don’t need other countries’ oil, but we wouldn’t consider going to war to secure it? These changes would go further than just creating “green jobs,” though I am all for those. But green jobs and windmills that just make next Christmas all about the malls again will be a missed opportunity. Sure it would be nice if Obama articulated a profoundly different vision for our country, but frankly, I’m not expecting it. Such a profound cultural shift will have to rise from the bottom up. It’s ordinary people who create the new normal, and we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Stress Free

Yesterday in my Christmas stocking I found a note from my nine-year-old son promising “a stress free day” as a gift to be redeemed sometime in the coming year. I was really enjoying this promise until my twelve-year-old woke up and proceeded to explain to her brother that “a stress free day” was really more than he could promise. There might be things that happen during my day that he really had no control over. In fact, she pointed out, he hardly had control over himself, let alone my state of mind. All he could really promise was that for one day he would try not to stress me out, which was frankly all I was expecting. (Does this girl know The Wisdom to Know the Difference or what?)

I’m glad my daughter has figured out that we can’t be responsible for someone else’s feelings. It’s a hard lesson and one I am remembering myself this morning as the nine-year-old is questioning if the gifts he got (which were exactly what he asked for) were really what he wanted. I’m remembering Tamar Chansky’s book Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking and the importance of helping children learn resiliency by working out their own issues instead of rushing in to solve them. (“Is it too late to return that game?” I fleetingly ask myself.) Rationally I know that in the long run learning that no game can make him happy will help my son more than returning the one that seems a bit too hard this morning, but the temptation to fix the immediate challenge is still there. It might be different if I thought there was something wrong with the game. The problem, I think, is that the game is different from what my son expected, so shifting his expectations would solve the problem more easily than returning the game, though that doesn’t seem easy to him—or to most of us, I dare say. As the Buddhists point out, letting go of our preconceived notions can take a lifetime, or several.

It reminds me that letting go of expectations is something I still have to work on, too. I have many expectations for 2009, I realize, which might be unfair to that poor little year. I should unwrap the future with an open mind, ready to accept whatever gifts come from it. That attitude would probably help me to live closer to “stress free” every day, so my children don’t think that my stress is their fault or something they can fix. It would also help me to give them a better example, which is probably the best gift I can give them in the end.

Media Distortions

A theme of this blog has been learning to live with less anxiety, so I just have to plug a new article by my friend Meredith Broussard on The Huffington Post about the exaggeration in the media of food allergy deaths. Last time Meredith wrote about this, she got hundreds of irate letters from parents accusing her of wanting to hurt their children, which makes me wonder why we get so invested in our fears. She isn't saying that allergies are not important or that we shouldn't protect our kids. (She is an allergy sufferer and the parent of a very cute toddler, just for the record.) She just wants us to have accurate data and a little perspective. Funny that this is so hard to come by. This morning I brought my daughter to her allergist and asked about an NPR story on asthma drugs that cause more deaths than they prevent. The doctor refrained from rolling his eyes and sighing deeply, but I could tell that was only because he has good social skills. He patiently explained that the media keeps quoting a very flawed study that came out four years ago and presenting it as if it is new news. "They were comparing extremely sick people who weren't taking medicine regularly with patients who were less sick and better managed," he explained. "We need the government to fund a study with better methods before we really know. I don't know why the media keeps stirring this up."

Well, of course, fear gets ratings, even on NPR, I suppose. That's why I'm cutting back on my news consumption again since every other story seems to be about fear: the fears of auto workers, the fears of Miami millionaires and the charities they support, the fears of Indians and Pakistanis... You get the picture. Not that these fears are not real. Of course, they are. It's just a little perspective that's lacking. And speaking of that, there was a story on TV this morning (I can't resist watching when I'm at the gym) on having a "Green Christmas." It featured a guy whose entire house and front lawn were covered with Christmas lights in various shapes and colors. Last year his display cost him about $3,000 dollars in electricity. So how is he becoming "green" this year? He switched to wind energy, which the reporter pointed out could boost his bill to $4,000. Now, I think it is great that network television is finally promoting wind energy, but would it be too much to ask the reporter to point out that other green possibilities include buying LED lights or cutting back on the amount of lights used? During the commercial break there was a message from PECO (our local energy company which now supplies higher priced wind energy). It wished us "a safe, happy, and energy conscious holiday," which really made me laugh. (Maybe it was "energy efficient," not sure.) The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if PECO makes a greater profit off wind and is influencing the news room, the way Meredith alleges that the funders of the allergy studies make money off of selling Epi-pens. Of course, now I could be accused of promoting fear and paranoia myself. I want to be a savvy media consumer, but I don't want to live in fear of media conspiracies. It's always a balance.

Wicked

My daughter has introduced me to the soundtrack of Wicked, and I’m hooked. I haven’t seen the Broadway hit, but I like the challenging messages in the lyrics, starting with the implied questioning of the labels “wicked” and “good” applied to the two main characters. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Wicked is the story of the witches of OZ in their youth—long before Dorothy arrived on the scene. We learn that Glinda “the good witch of the North” cares about being popular more than being good. She is pretty and knows how to tell people what they want to hear. Her roommate Elphaba, in contrast, isn’t afraid to speak up for what she thinks is right, and she isn’t afraid to fly, something that is apparently frowned upon in Oz (as elsewhere). She sees the wizard for the sham he is long before Dorothy, and for speaking an inconvenient Truth to power she gets labeled “wicked.” The fact that she is green, and people in Oz are prejudiced against green witches (as elsewhere), only encourages the Ozians to believe the worst about her and ultimately to blame her for all their city’s problems. The fact that many of the songs are funny reminds me of the power of art to make us think and smile at the same time.

My husband pointed out that the lyrics were written by Stephen Schwartz, the composer for Godspell, which also presented spiritual teachings in a challenging way. In Wicked, shallow values are subtly critiqued in songs like “Popular” and “Dancing through Life,” which advises: “Why invite stress in? Stop studying strife and learn to live ‘the unexamined life.’” But the unexamined life has its problems, of course. Glinda gets everything she has always wanted and proclaims that she “couldn’t be happier,” except that she clearly isn’t. The wizard is acclaimed by Oz and can’t resist the unearned praise: “Where I’m from, we believe all sorts of things that aren’t true,” he explains. “We call it—‘history.’” Elphaba, the character who is true to her self is also the one who sees life most clearly, but there is no glib message that being true to your self leads to happiness any more than being conventional does. “Don’t wish. Don’t start. Wishing only wounds the heart,” Elphaba sings in a line that is either wisely Buddhist or depressingly pessimistic. I’m going with the Buddhist interpretation because it seems that much of the trouble that comes in the story comes from what Buddhists would call “attachment.” 

The part that seems most Quaker about the play is the implication that there is good and bad in everyone, so we shouldn’t write people off or make them scapegoats. Just listening to the soundtrack I noticed the word “good” jump out in phrases like, “I’ll make good,” “goodness knows,” and “thank goodness” which in their context subtly remind us to question what is really good. Near the end Glinda and Elphaba sing to each other, “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better, but because I knew you I have been changed for good,” and we have the sense that the conflict between them really has made them better people. If any one who has actually seen the play wants to correct me, I am certainly open, but just based on the soundtrack, Wicked seems to offer the kind of message I’m glad to have my (almost) twelve-year-old listening to when so much other music encourages the unexamined life. And given the prohibitive price of Broadway tickets, it seems the producers are doing well by questioning good.

Recession Response

This morning on CNN I saw a clip of a Detroit church that had three SUVs up on the altar while the congregation prayed for the recovery of the auto industry. Another mega church called to the altar all the members who needed financial help, and then the congregation raised $50,000 on the spot to help them. I can’t quite imagine either of these things happening in my Quaker meeting. For one thing, if we put three SUVs in our meeting room there would be no room for the people, at least some of whom are praying for the demise of Sports Utility Vehicles anyway. As a congregation, we don’t collect that much more than $50,000 in an average year, and when we do help our members financially, it’s a quiet, confidential process. We do collect canned goods every month for the needy, but with the implied assumption that the needy are a few miles down Germantown Avenue and not among us. Still, the clips got me thinking about what our faith community’s response to the recession might be, or more to the point, what mine might be.

A writer friend whose work is about empowering people told me last week that rather than worrying about the recession, she was thinking of all that she has to offer people in tough economic times. It's a good question, so I’ve been wondering how my work might be “well used,” as Quakers sometimes put it. One of the central messages I try to convey in my writing and workshops is trust—trust in God and trust in one’s own ability to hear and follow God’s guidance. It seems a message especially needed now as people fortunate enough to have them frantically check their IRA balances, despite the fact that getting anxious about your retirement isn’t likely to help anything. News reports harp on job loses and low consumer spending, while people I know have been looking for work and pinching their pennies. It feels a bit smug to say, “Trust. All will be well”--especially to auto workers in Detroit--but it’s the message I’ve been given to share. Of course, trusting doesn’t mean that you sit back and wait for God to type your resume for you. The Wisdom to Know the Difference after all is about doing what you can and letting go of a the rest. A few people have asked me if I’m worried that no one will buy my book (which comes out next fall) because of the economy, but I have a sense that the opposite is true—that my message will be more needed in tough economic times, so I’m trying to practice what I preach.

Of course, it is easy to understand why people get anxious. Another CNN story this morning was about a town that is turning off its Christmas lights in response to the recession, but this reminds me of another message which Quakers have to offer—that old testimony of simplicity, which means many things to many people. To some it means old fashioned frugality, not buying more than you need or can afford, a message that does seem timely, or a bit overdue, to be frank. To some limiting consumption is connected to a concern that our earth cannot sustain the levels of consumption considered “healthy” for a capitalist economy. For these Friends, turning off the Christmas lights and retiring the SUV are signs of progress, not omens of impending disaster. Another take on simplicity is that it is primarily a spiritual practice. Simplifying your life means having your priorities in order—not wasting your time, money, or emotional energy on things that are not essential. It seems to me that all these views of simplicity could be helpful to the country now as we look at our spending priorities, as families and as a country.

And then there is compassion. After initially laughing at the SUVs on the altar, I was humbled to think about the lives of the people in that church and how much they depend on auto industry jobs. Transitioning to a greener economy will be painful for many people, and not necessarily the folks in my congregation, so we shouldn't be too smug about it. It would be nice to think that all our Quaker simplicity gives us more money to share with others, but since we do our charitable giving so discretely, it's hard to know. We also tend to avoid conversations about class and money, so we might not even know what need exists among us.

I want to try to remember to bring canned goods to the collection next month, for I’m sure they are truly needed. But I also want to think about what unique gifts I am called to share and how they might be used. After all, it is supposed to be the season of giving.

Success

On the long drive to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, I read a book that made the time pass quickly: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference). For those who don’t know Gladwell’s work, he is a journalist who takes a big idea and then illustrates it with interesting stories. In the case of Outliers, the idea is that our assumptions about successful people are all wrong. Instead of asking what they are like (how brilliant they are or how hard they worked), we should ask where they are from. No one makes it alone, Gladwell argues. The successful are often smart and hardworking, but they were also the recipients of opportunity, sometimes because of when and where they were born, sometimes because of the values they inherited from their families or an exceptional school. “It is impossible for a hockey player, or Bill Joy, or Robert Oppenheimer, or any other outlier for that matter, to look down from their lofty perch and say with truthfulness, ‘I did this, all by myself,’” he concludes.

I found the anecdotes fascinating, from the reason why so many Korean air planes have crashed to the reason why the smartest man in American couldn’t get through college. But one of the things I appreciated the most was Gladwell’s emphasis on meaningful work:

If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money.

I’ve had a number of experiences recently that have affirmed my own decision to put meaning over profit in my career choices, though I wonder if Gladwell is right that most people would choose being an architect. I seem to know more than a few people who feel stuck in the equivalent of the tollbooth job, and once you have that six-figure income, it is hard to imagine how you could do with less. Harder still when the creative career you desire averages much less than $75,000 a year. Personally, I feel grateful that I lived at Pendle Hill during my transition from full-time job to writer. Not only did I have the support of a spiritual community that values following inner guidance, I had models of people living simply so they wouldn’t need the big salary. They provided a different picture of success, being able to support oneself with meaningful work, which seems to be Gladwell’s implied definition, despite his references to people like Bill Gates.

At its heart, Outliers poses a challenge that goes beyond our individual career decisions. Gladwell asks how many more people might be successful if we expanded opportunity by, say, making every school an excellent school. It’s a good question and makes one think about how we want to measure whether our country is a success.

Information

Last night I read in the Duke alumni magazine that the rise in asthma rates during the last 25 years may have been caused by the folic acid that pregnant women have been taking in their prenatal vitamins. Have I mentioned that my daughter has asthma and possibly my son? And I was one of those dutiful expectant moms who never missed a vitamin. So instead of being able to feel a little righteous indignation that the asthma and our high pharmacy costs were just caused by pollution, now I feel a more complicated mix of emotions, especially after reading that folic acid was added to prenatal vitamins to prevent birth defects, which my children don’t have, thankfully. The possible side effects of folic acid are certainly important for scientists to evaluate, but for me, it’s too late and a little hard to process this news, which isn’t definitive anyway.

I’ve been thinking lately about how much information is good for a person to know. For example, I’m not sure I need to know that one Facebook friend has a cold, another is answering email, and another is visiting churches (or was, whenever she last updated—information I did not absorb). I can’t imagine that anyone cares that I was up early this morning (my own most recent Facebook update). Of course, none of this is news anyone actually has to remember, so it’s easy to read and dismiss. The stuff that is really messing me up is the information that is supposed to stick, like when the kids are due to see the dentist or when the cookie dough fundraising form is due. I have to remember to water the plants and turn down the heat before we leave for Thanksgiving, not to mention stopping the mail and the paper, booking the dog in the kennel, and making sure he is up to date on his shots first. All these little things I’m expected to remember seem to be cluttering the closets of my brain. Recently I realized I had to write a list of online user names and passwords for the ridiculous number of accounts I have because I just can’t keep straight anymore whether the credit card that I pay online has the six letter password or if that was the company from which I purchased my domain name. (I also realized that if I died suddenly, our banking and bill payment history would be a total mystery to my husband.) So I wrote out the list and hid it in a brilliant hiding place that no thief is likely to discover. Except now I have to remember where I hid it whenever I forget a password.

This may have something to do with the aging process, but I have a sneaking suspicion my leaking brain is also a sign of times when our brains are constantly bombarded with stuff we don’t need to retain anyway. Who cares that I know the Nestle’s chocolate chip cookie recipe by heart when I’m sure I could find it online in a click or two. I don’t need to remember many of the things I do remember, like the date Nixon announced his resignation, or the Zulu word for hello. A friend who is a teacher and the parent of an eighth grader remarked that she was more interested in high schools that taught students to think than to memorize information that they could look up anyway. I agree, but as a college teacher myself, I think it is hard to teach people to think outside of a general base of knowledge. It’s not just that my students don’t know names and dates from history; they don’t know the big picture either. In the age of Google, how do we distinguish information from knowledge?

A quick search for the word knowledge shows that there is no agreed on definition of knowledge, but that the word implies something about understanding. It seems to me that knowledge somehow brings more value to our lives than information. It’s the stuff we don’t forget so easily, whether it’s a sense of history’s importance or the knowledge of how a friend is really doing. Maybe that’s why I can’t help glancing at people’s status updates whenever I’m on Facebook, even though most of them are silly. I am happy to know that one friend has finally made it to Zambia, after years of waiting. Another friend is sharing the news of her engagement. This kind of information does seem important because it helps me feel connected to people and helps build community, off line as well as on.

Among the things I don’t want to forget as we prepare for thanksgiving are the many blessings for which I am grateful. Sometimes they slip through my mind as easily as my Target user name, but they are among the things that are worth remembering.

Hope and Hard Work

Between the Phillies winning the World Series and Barack Obama winning the presidency, Philadelphians have been walking around in a mild euphoria. Strangers smile on the street. Supermarket cashiers seem happy. Or at least they did last week. This week the hard realities of the world are creeping back into our consciousness. The Inquirer ran a story Saturday about racist incidents on college campuses since the election, and Mayor Michael Nutter has announced wide-ranging budget cuts that will hit firehouses, libraries, city pools, and services like snow plowing and leaf collection.

Of course most people are focusing on the things that will affect their neighborhood (Our library is safe, but our narrow streets won’t be if they’re not plowed.). But last night I received an email that put all this in a bigger perspective. It was written by Z for Philly Code Pink:

Folks I kid you not. I was just doing some calculations about the cost of the war to Philadelphia residents compared to the city’s projected deficit. Even though I have been doing this kind of calculation for almost 6 years, this time (as happens so often) the result strains my credulity. Please look at this logic and let me know if you see someway I figured this wrong. Cause if I’m right, I don’t know what to do with myself!

1. According to the National Priorities Project, Philadelphia’s share of the total cost of war in Iraq is, in round figures, $2, 100,000,000.

2. The war has been going on since 3/03. I count this to be 68 months of war.

3. I divided $2,100,000,000 by 68 and got ($30,882,353) $31,000,000 per month as the monthly cost of the war in Iraq to Philadelphians.

4. According to the city of Philadelphia Budget Office, the project deficit to the city budget, projected over 5 years is $850,000,000.

5. I divided this by 60 months (5 years) and got ($14,166,667) in round figures, $14,200,000.

6. This leaves me with the comparison.
$31,000,000 Monthly cost to Phila for the war
$14,200,000 Monthly city budget deficit

7. Thus what we pay for the war each month is 2.18 times what we need to cover our budget deficit.

I’m sure some people would question the logic of this equation. After all, city taxes and federal taxes are separate, and we’re just charging the war to future generations anyway. It’s debt, not real money. But as many Americans are discovering, debt is real money, and what we’re willing to run up a tab for says something about our values. Personally, I value books over bombs.

This is all just a reminder that despite my hopes for the Obama administration, I cannot give up my responsibility to continue telling my elected officials what I value. If we want our troops (and money) out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to make that known. While I celebrate the barrier that has been broken, I have to point out what I have always suspected—that the United States would be more willing to elect a black (or biracial) man president before electing a pacifist. Maybe in some future election we will have a pacifist candidate with Obama’s oratory and political skills to test my hypothesis, but for the time being, we must continue to articulate the change we want to see.

Feedback

The 39 comments and 179 responses that C. Wess Daniels got to his recent survey made me appreciate what a dynamic forum the web can be. It’s prompted me to ask for your feedback this week, instead of just spouting my own numerous opinions.

First, the big excitement here this week is that I have received a draft cover of my book, even though it won’t be out until next fall! I love the design the publisher came up with, especially since the book begins with a story about Irish fishermen and ends with a water analogy. I’m posting it here to ask your feedback on the subtitle which the publisher assigned it, to ask if this speaks to you or if you have any better ideas than "Knowing when to Take Action and when to Let Go." (I noticed that the letters got distorted when I saved it, so no need to comment on that if the letters look odd here. The faint background writing is cursive on the real thing.)

I am also going to ask your feedback on another matter. I’ve been wondering if I should rethink this blog, maybe focus on fewer topics, rather than jumping all over, or change to more frequent but briefer posts (like everyone who writes about web traffic recommends). I’m not clear yet, though, so I’m wondering what you all think. What do you like best about this blog? What frustrates you? Do you wish I’d stick to spirituality or do you like that I jump around? Feel free to post with or without your name. I value your feedback. Thanks in advance!

Quaker Poll

I hate to exclude my non-Quaker readers, but over on Gathering In Light there is a poll of how American Quakers from different branches voted in this election. For those who don't know our history, Quakers have had their share of theological splits, and this is an attempt to see how they have affected our politics. I'll link to the results here when they become available. In the meantime, Friends, the poll is open until Monday.

Beautiful Day

In 1994 Nadine Gordimer (the Nobel prize winning South African novelist) wrote an essay about South Africa’s first democratic election entitled “A Beautiful Day, Com,” describing the comaraderie that existed in the long lines as black people waited to cast their first votes, and whites like Gordimer worked the polls in support. The “Com” in the title refers not to a type of domain name, but to the term “comrade,” an affectionate term of address among many South Africans. While no one in Philadelphia was calling each other comrade—despite the McCain campaign’s attempts to convince voters that Obama is a socialist—it certainly is a beautiful day, despite a little rain. It is not the first time black Americans could vote for president, but there is a feeling in the streets that we are turning a corner in our country’s racial history. It’s not so much Obama’s race, it seems to me, as the races of the people his campaign has brought together in such a spirit of good will. Some of the elderly people we drove to the polls remarked that they were glad they had lived to see this day (even before a victor is declared). Here are a few pictures from my day in North Philadelphia.

Listening Hearts

Grounded in God


The Great Emergence

Faith and Practicing Politics

Martin K has had a few interesting posts lately about the mixing of Quakerism and politics. The quotes from nineteenth-century Friends make for an interesting juxtaposition with twenty-first century Friends Twittering during the debates. I haven’t caught up to the Twitter phenomenon myself yet, but I know enough to suspect it’s a sign of how different our world is from that of those Friends who tried so hard to separate themselves from it. Yet, a few things haven’t changed. There is still a considerable gap between our ideals and the values of our culture. For instance, there is no one left in the race who opposes all war, and it is unlikely that the United States will elect someone who takes that position in my lifetime. There is also still a struggle to know how much of our energy to give the world’s concerns. One big difference in the times is that we can now broadcast our struggles widely and quickly, and get almost immediate comments, unlike earlier Quaker writers who published journals, rather than conversations.

I’ve gone back and forth on how much to discuss the election on this blog, partly because, like Martin, I know I have the potential to get “snarky,” and that’s not the purpose of this forum. Partly it’s because I am so ready for this election to be over so that, among other things, my email inbox will become manageable again. I know I’m not the only one. A friend recently confessed her frustration with a work colleague who hasn’t kept up with important paid work because of an election-news obsession. I think people of any century would agree that obsession is unhealthy. Friends would say it takes us away from our focus on God, which was the original idea of simplicity, after all.

With that said, I have to mention a book my husband just lent me, Religion as Poetryby Andrew Greeley, a Catholic priest and prolific writer. Greeley discusses people’s differing images of God and how having a more loving, compassionate image of the Divine makes people more likely to vote Democratic, even after adjusting for other factors, like age, gender, and education level. I haven’t read too much of it yet, but the part I have confirms things I wrote in The Wisdom to Know the Difference about how our image of God affects how we see life. It’s a point also made in George Lakoff’s book on differing political ideologies, and it seems to me part of what is so difficult about discussing these issues across world views. Sometimes when I am speaking to someone who seems to view compassion as a liberal weakness, rather than a fundamental value of Christianity, I just get stuck and don’t know what to say.

We had a town hall meeting for Barack Obama in our mostly white and traditionally Catholic neighborhood last week with the hope of drawing undecided or ambivalent voters. One such older woman raised her hand and asked if it was true that Obama was “mixed up with the Muslims.” Many people rolled their eyes at the question, but the speaker said simply that, no, Obama was a Christian. As the moderator, I tried to add something about it not mattering, but I didn’t feel very articulate, and it just gave the woman the chance to say, “Some of those Muslims are not very nice people,” as if this couldn’t also be said of some Christians, Jews, or Hindus. I’ve been thinking of Colin Powell’s courageous comments on this, and the fact that for me it is also a matter of faith to respect people of other faiths, who after all, were created by the same God, whether they use a different word for God or not. Certainly some of us people of faith are not very nice, and all of us have parts of our history in direct contradiction to the principles we espouse, but I still come out on the side of God’s goodness and human goodness, as well. According to Greeley, my theology is more Catholic than Protestant (though he doesn’t include Quakers in his study) and more Democratic than Republican. I guess it goes to show that faith and politics are not so easy to disentangle, at least not for me in this election cycle.

Retreat

Last week I enjoyed three days of quiet, a rare luxury for a parent. Even more unusual, I had no access to email or the Internet, so whatever David Brooks and Maureen Dowd had to say about the candidates, I missed it. I also missed the ups and downs of the stock market. I didn’t even see the last presidential debate (though I confess I turned on the radio for a few minutes). More difficult, I missed my children, both of whom had colds, which for one can sometimes turn to asthma, so my departure was laden with some guilt. But I have a great husband who believes in spiritual retreats and who had the week off between jobs, so he went away Sunday through Wednesday, when we met at Panera for lunch, switched cars, and sent me north to the guest house where he had been for my own retreat.

I spent two nights in a geodesic dome that was built by some good friends decades ago and which now serves as the guest house on their hundred acre property. The leaves were at their peak, with yellows and pinks jumping out everywhere, but it wasn’t too cold yet to walk without a winter coat and gloves. It was bow and arrow season for deer, and despite being warned, I came upon one hunter sitting in the woods. He reported that there was a bear about, which I was glad to learn after all my solitary hiking. I’ve seen coyote on this property before and didn’t feel very brave about it, but this time I only saw birds and something I couldn’t identify swimming in a pond (about the size of a beaver). More important than any particular species was the feeling of reconnecting with nature which is always good for my spirit. The beauty and quiet, not to mention sleeping in every morning, were rejuvenating.

In addition to massive journal writing (did you hear, it helps you lose weight?) I also read The Call to the Soul by Marjory Zoet Bankson on a friend’s recommendation. It’s a wonderful book about the stages of experiencing a call. Although Bankson labels the categories differently than I do, much of what she says rings true, especially the idea of going through a Risk stage when beginning to act on a call. It was good to be able to just sit down and read a spiritual book, contemplate how it applies to me, journal about it, and never once have to get up to fold the laundry or do anything for anyone else. Still, two days of retreat was really enough, and I would have come home Friday night, if I hadn’t been leading a workshop on discernment Saturday morning at a spot half way between my retreat spot and home. So I spent Friday night in Bethlehem at a beautiful Franciscan retreat center that I found on the Internet. There I saw fox and more beautiful trees and stayed in the hermitage so that I was good and ready to be with people again in time for my workshop and the school fair where I was reunited with my children, who now seem to take my being away in stride.

Both the going away and the coming back are cause for much gratitude.

The Writing Diet

The other day in the library, a title caught my eye The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron. Those of you who read my pamphlet on parenting may remember that I have a conflicted relationship with Cameron’s work. I appreciated much of her bestseller The Artist's Way, but felt that her put-your-creativity-above-everything-else message did not jive well with the early stages of motherhood. Still, her idea that creativity and spirituality are linked rings true to me, so I grabbed the book and put it in our check-out pile, especially after I read the blurb that says that writing may help you lose weight.

I was instantly taken with this idea, not only because I’d like to lose the weight I’ve gained during the past three years, but because it used to be true for me that writing kept me healthy. During the years when my children were young, it was definitely true that I tended to lose weight when I had time to write and tended to gain it when I didn’t. Perhaps this was just because I drink a lot of water when I’m at my computer. Or maybe it was because I’m not easily deterred from my writing time, so it was usually something stressful that was keeping me away, and we know that stress can cause our bodies to store fat. In other words, maybe there was a correlation between writing and losing weight, but it was not causal. On the other hand, maybe Cameron is right. Maybe expressing our creativity does free us from negative emotions that we tend to suppress with potato chips and chocolate. I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and go back to writing “Morning Pages,” stream of consciousness journal entries first thing in the morning (or as near as a mother can manage). It’s kind of like meditating with a pen.

I continue to be interested in the connection between body and spirit. I know my own weight gain correlated with two different things: 1) I decided to try giving up my daily thyroid medicine for a homeopathic treatment (I quit that experiment after gaining 20lbs.); and 2) My mother became ill and then died, and I was her primary care giver. Oh yeah, and there is 3) the fact that I hit my mid-forties, when women often spread into the comfort of middle age. The fact that these three happened simultaneously makes it hard to define the cause, which I suspect is multi-layered anyway. Although I didn’t get enough writing time during the year my mother was sick and the months after her death when I was dealing with her estate, I made up for lost time after that. I’ve written a book, a pamphlet and a weekly blog during the past two years (and taken a daily thyroid pill), so you’d think I’d be looking pretty svelte if Cameron’s theory was all there was to it. Still, I’m realizing that I did gain another few pounds last spring, when I was teaching a course on race, something that was both stressful and which cut into my writing time. And aside from the blog, the writing work I’ve done since June hasn’t been that creative, so it is interesting that I seem to have lost a few pounds since starting the Morning Pages.

Maybe this is more than anyone wants to know about my body issues, but I find it interesting to observe the connections between my emotional state and my physical one. The idea that the body can be an instrument of discernment has been popping up a lot lately (including in Brent Bill’s Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment), which aside from health concerns, is another reason to pay attention to our bodies. Maybe my body is just confirming my sense that I need to write to stay in balance.

Fostering Gratitude

Lately I’ve been feeling annoyed with my children for not being grateful for all they have. I’m pretty sure that I can’t force them to be appreciative and that it’s not helpful to lecture them on the children I taught when I was in the Peace Corps in Africa (“They were lucky to have one pencil, let alone buy three new packs every school year!”) Still, figuring out how to respond isn’t always clear.

I suppose this is on my mind because we just spent a ridiculous amount of money going to Six Flags as an extremely belated birthday present. The child in question had originally wanted an expensive electronic devise. My husband and I agreed that we didn’t want to buy something most likely to be used for violent video games, so we came up with the idea of giving an experience rather than a thing. The experience was supposed to be at Dorney Park, which includes lots of water slides, which everyone in our family enjoys. The child in question was thrilled with this idea and agreed to wait (this was last April) until the weather was warm enough for water slides. Unfortunately a busy summer combined with other complications postponed the trip, so that when we finally got around to planning it in September, we realized that the water slides were closed for the summer. To make a long story short, we agreed to go to Six Flags, which is more expensive and includes the sort of roller-coasters that most forty-six-year-old mothers find unappetizing. After having to postpone a week due to rain, the child in question brought a friend and had a fantastic time and even convinced my husband to go on a ride that looped upside down and twisted a few times. (Dad kept his eyes closed.) Everything was so overpriced, I felt like I was walked around the park sprinkling twenty dollar bills the way a flower girl sprinkles rose petals. Still, we finally came through on the birthday present and had beautiful weather, so I was grateful.

Is it unfair of me to point out that said child never said thank you and in fact started asking for an expensive electronic devise the next day?

God must have known I needed some professional help this morning because just as I was starting this rant, my friend Tamar Chansky showed up in the coffee shop where I’m working. I’ve been meaning to blog about her new book Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking, which includes a section on fostering gratitude in your children. Tamar writes:

Be patient: Just as a sincere apology is worth more than a forced one, it is better to wait for the spontaneous words of true appreciation and concern than to have your child pull a muscle trying to manufacture them on the spot…Researchers have found, perhaps not surprisingly, that forcing gratitude does not yield positive results. Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California found that people who wrote in a gratitude journal once a week were happier than those who wrote three times a week; making it a regular practice but not a chore made the difference.

I found this last bit particularly interesting because our family shares things we are grateful for during our nightly prayer time ritual, and often the expressions do feel rote. The belated-birthday-child usually says, “The four Fs,” which refers to Friends, Family, Food, and Fun, as a matter of habit.

As in most aspects of parenting, I suppose I should focus on leading by example, being grateful myself, rather than trying to force gratitude out of my children. Maybe it would help to think of parenting as a giant roller-coaster ride, full of excitement and occasional screams. That it makes you dizzy is just part of the fun. Right?

Blog Awards

I’ve been given two blog awards recently, which is very flattering. The first came from Natural Mom a few weeks ago. I enjoy her blog Speaking Life and enjoyed meeting her at the Parenting interest group at FGC Gathering this summer. Thank you, Stephanie!

The Brilliante award comes from Jennifer, who writes Tree of Life Musings, which deals with homeschooling, as well as other family issues. Thank you, Jennifer!

Both awards come with the stipulation that you should nominate some other blogs to spread the love, so here are a few you may or may not have heard of that I often find thought provoking:

My American Melting Pot, by a member of my writer’s group, Lori Tharps, who blogs about multicultural parenting issues; Can You Believe? by FUM Quaker Johan Maurer; What Canst Thou Say? by Robin M, whom I also met this summer at Gathering; and Finding Spirituality by a (I dare to predict) soon-to-be member of our meeting.

As for my own writing, it has not been very inspired the last few days. I am trying to stop reading so many emails and articles about the election and sink into Brent Bill’s Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment to help prepare me for a workshop I’m leading this Saturday on that topic. I’m also trying to walk in the woods more and appreciate the early days of autumn in beautiful Fairmount Park.

Links

Everyone is getting so exercised about this election, my inbox has been full of articles, links, and fundraising appeals—and that’s just from my friends, never mind the campaigns and the organizations we support. Here are links to a few things I found thought provoking:

My favorite Republican commentator, New York Times columnist David Brookes writes about “Why Experience Matters” in Tuesday’s opinion piece;

Bob Herbert writes about McCain’s health care plan;

Tim Wise uses the election to illustrate the issue of White Privilege;

and a bunch of doctors question the secrecy surrounding John McCain’s medical records.

On a lighter note, it's not necessarily thought provoking, but I have to throw in the now famous SNL skit.

And then there is this from my friend Signe Wilkinson (copied without permission, but in the faith that she’ll forgive me).

Where is God in all this? Not sure, but I have actually been getting more time recently for prayer and meditation, so I’m not getting as frantic about the ups and downs in the polls as some folks. Generally I feel called to point out issues I think are important and am trying not to get too snide about it (like some folks on both sides).

Quiz

Amid all the emails I've been getting about the election, two different people this week sent me this quiz by Bill Quigley, a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. His intention is to shake up our complacency and make us think about what justice really means on a global scale. See how many questions you can answer correctly:

1. How many deaths are there worldwide each year due to acts of terrorism?

Answer: The US State Department reported there were more than 22,000 deaths from terrorism last year. Over half of those killed or injured were Muslims. Source: Voice of America, May 2, 2008. "Terrorism Deaths Rose in 2007."

2. How many deaths are there worldwide each day due to poverty and malnutrition?

A: About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. Poverty.com - Hunger and World Poverty. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes - one child every five seconds. Bread for the World. Hunger Facts: International.

3. 1n 1965, CEOs in major companies made 24 times more than the average worker. In 1980, CEOs made 40 times more than the average worker. In 2007, CEOs earned how many times more than the average worker?

A: Today's average CEO from a Fortune 500 company makes 364 times an average worker's pay and over 70 times the pay of a four-star Army general. Executive Excess 2007, page 7, jointly published by Institute for Policy Studies and United for Fair Economy, August 29, 2007. The 1965 numbers from State of Working America 2004-2005, Economic Policy Institute.

4. In how many of the more than 3,000 cities and counties in the US can a full-time worker who earns the minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment?

A: In no city or county in the entire USA can a full-time worker who earns minimum wage afford even a one-bedroom rental. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) urges renters not to pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent. HUD also reports the fair market rent for each of the counties and cities in the US. Nationally, in order to rent a two-bedroom apartment, one full-time worker in 2008 must earn $17.32 per hour. In fact, 81 percent of renters live in cities where the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom rental is not even affordable with two minimum-wage jobs. Source: Out of Reach 2007-2008, April 7, 2008, National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

5. In 1968, the minimum wage was $1.65 per hour. How much would the minimum wage be today if it had kept pace with inflation since 1968?

A: Calculated in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, the 1968 minimum wage would have been $9.83 in 2007 dollars. Andrew Tobias, January 16, 2008. The federal minimum wage is $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008, and will be $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009.

6. True or false? People in the United States spend nearly twice as much on pet food as the US government spends on aid to help foreign countries.

A: True. The USA spends $43.4 billion on pet food annually. Source: American Pet Products Manufacturers Association Inc. The USA spent $23.5 billion in official foreign aid in 2006. The US government gave the most of any country in the world in actual dollars. As a percentage of gross national income, the US came in second to last among OECD donor countries and ranked number 20 at 0.18 percent behind Sweden at 1.02 percent and other countries such as Norway, Netherlands, Ireland, United Kingdom, Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and others. This does not count private donations, which, if included, may move the US up as high as sixth. The Index of Global Philanthropy 2008, pages 15-19.

7. How many people in the world live on $2 a day or less?

A: The World Bank reported in August 2008 that 2.6 billion people consume less than $2 a day.

8. How many people in the world do not have electricity?

A: Worldwide, 1.6 billion people do not have electricity and 2.5 billion people use wood, charcoal or animal dung for cooking. United Nations Human Development Report 2007/2008, pages 44-45.

9. People in the US consume 42 kilograms of meat per person per year. How much meat and grain do people in India and China eat?

A: People in the US lead the world in meat consumption at 42 kg per person per year, compared to 1.6 kg in India and 5.9 kg in China. People in the US consume five times the grain (wheat, rice, rye, barley, etc.) as people in India, three times as much as people in China, and twice as much as people in Europe. "THE BLAME GAME: Who is behind the world food price crisis," Oakland Institute, July 2008.

10. How many cars does China have for every 1,000 drivers? India? The US?

A: China has nine cars for every 1,000 drivers. India has 11 cars for every 1,000 drivers. The US has 1,114 cars for every 1,000 drivers. Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, "Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future" (2007).

11. How much grain is needed to fill an SUV tank with ethanol?

A: The grain needed to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a hungry person for a year. Lester Brown, CNN.Money.com, August 16, 2006.

12. According to The Wall Street Journal, the richest one percent of Americans earns what percent of the nation's adjusted gross income? Five percent? Ten percent? Fifteen percent? Twenty percent?

A: "According to the figures, the richest one percent reported 22 percent of the nation's total adjusted gross income in 2006. That is up from 21.2 percent a year earlier, and it is the highest in the 19 years that the IRS has kept strictly comparable figures. The 1988 level was 15.2 percent. Earlier IRS data show the last year the share of income belonging to the top one percent was at such a high level as it was in 2006 was in 1929, but changes in measuring income make a precise comparison difficult." Jesse Drucker, "Richest Americans See Their Income Share Grow," Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2008, page A3.

13. How many people does our government say are homeless in the US on any given day?

A: A total of 754,000 are homeless. About 338,000 homeless people are not in shelters (live on the streets, in cars or in abandoned buildings) and 415,000 are in shelters on any given night. The 2007 US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Annual Homeless Report to Congress, page iii and 23. The population of San Francisco is about 739,000.

14. What percentage of people in homeless shelters are children?

A: HUD reports nearly one in four people in homeless shelters are children 17 or younger. Page iv, the 2007 HUD Annual Homeless Report to Congress.

15. How many veterans are homeless on any given night?

A: Over 100,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. About 18 percent of the adult homeless population are veterans. Page 32, the 2007 HUD Homeless Report. This is about the same population as Green Bay, Wisconsin.

16. The military budget of the United States in 2008 is the largest in the world at $623 billion per year. How much larger is the US military budget than that of China, the second-largest in the world?

A: Ten times. China's military budget is $65 billion. The US military budget is nearly 10 times larger than the second leading military spender. GlobalSecurity.org

17. The US military budget is larger than how many of the countries of the rest of the world combined?

A: The US military budget of $623 billion is larger than the budgets of all the countries in the rest of the world put together. The total global military budget of the rest of the world is $500 billion. Russia's military budget is $50 billion, South Koreas is $21 billion, and Irons is $4.3 billion. GlobalSecurity.org.

18. Over the 28-year history of the Berlin Wall, 287 people perished trying to cross it. How many people have died in the last four years trying to cross the border between Arizona and Mexico?

A: At least 1,268 people have died along the border of Arizona and Mexico since 2004. The Arizona Daily Star keeps track of the reported deaths along the state border, and it reports 214 died in 2004; 241 in 2005, 216 in 2006, 237 in 2007, and 116 as of July 31, 2008. These numbers do not include deaths along the California or Texas borders. The Border Patrol reported that 400 people died in fiscal 2206-2007, while 453 died in 2004-2005 and 494 died in 2004-2005. Source The Associated Press, November 8, 2007.

19. India is ranked second in the world in gun ownership with four guns per 100 people. China is third with third firearms per 100 people. Which country is first and how widespread is gun ownership?

A: The US is first in gun ownership worldwide with 90 guns for every 100 citizens. Laura MacInnis, "US most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people." Reuters, August 28, 2007.

20. What country leads the world in the incarceration of its citizens?

A: The US jails 751 inmates per 100,000 people, the highest rate in the world. Russia is second with 627 per 100,000. England's rate is 151, Germany's is 88 and Japan's is 63. The US has 2.3 million people behind bars, more than any country in the world. Adam Liptak, "Inmate Count in US Dwarfs Other Nations'" New York Times, April 23, 2008.

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More Sexism

Maybe it’s all the talk of sexism in the news (Newsweek’s Anna Quinlen points out that the Republicans have used the word more in the past week than in the past fifty years.), but sexism seems more visible this week. Or may it’s because I’m reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd’s account of how she—a Southern Baptist and member of the select “Gracious Ladies” club—got fed up with all the sexism in her church (and society and marriage) and discovered feminine spirituality.

After a torturously slow journey filled with fear and angst about leaving what is familiar, Kidd ends up with an alter filled with nature imagery and the bare-breasted Minoan Goddess who holds snakes, a renewed and more equal marriage, and a new career as a bestselling author. It’s an interesting read, though somewhat repetitive. I have to say my spiritual journey has been quite different, maybe because I was never in the “Gracious Ladies” club to begin with. No one ever taught me how to pour tea, certainly not my mother who didn’t fit the stereotype of silent, selfless womanhood that Kidd was surrounded by in the South. Instead I was educated by strong, progressive nuns and then Quakers, not to mention the Girl Scouts, who taught me how to start a fire and pitch a tent on a mountain. I did have to find new ways of thinking and talking about God when I reached adulthood and realized that the Lincoln Memorial image of the Divine wasn’t cutting it. Quakerism was an easy solution, with hundreds of years of genderless spiritual imagery. Marrying Tom introduced me to Catholic congregations that intentionally use inclusive language. So I haven’t felt the need to go to Crete to find balance in my spiritual life. In fact, I don’t feel like I’ve experienced that much sexism in my life—until I pause and start adding up the incidents. (Yale and Botswana stand out as the places where I experienced the most.) I don’t feel that I have as much anger to work through as Kidd, though every once in a while I notice something and feel a righteous indignation bubble to the surface. Like Kidd, the desire to protect my daughter can bring out the warrior in me.

For example, two days ago the kids convinced me to let them look in a new Halloween store that had sprung up right next door to the Staples we were visiting. It was the kind of place where you could buy big, rubber, bloody limbs, bloody swords, or fake blood for that matter so you make anything you want bloody. There were life-sized ogres and tombs and…well, you get the picture. My son loved the place, and so did my daughter, though I found myself uneasy as I started noticing how sexist most of the female costumes were. Little girls could choose between being a harem dancer or Hannah Montana, while virtually every costume for an adult woman was sexualized in some way and illustrated with a model in a suggestive pose. There was the usual “Pirate Wench” and a slew of women in what are normally powerful positions (like police officer and soldier), their authority undercut with hemlines way too short to trick-or-treat in October in Pennsylvania. The policewoman looked like she might do more than take you down to the station after she got those handcuffs on.

Now I’m not against having a little fun on Halloween or using it as an excuse to dress in ways that make us feel attractive at a party. But as a mother, I couldn’t help noticing how my daughter’s possibilities were constrained in this store that had scores of stereotypical costumes. White men could be doctors or monsters, while women of all races could be sexual objects and black men could be pimps. (There was also a display with a life-sized lawn ornament that looked disturbingly like a lynching, though the man’s race was hard to say for certain.)

Of course, we don’t have to buy those costumes or buy into those images. My daughter is putting together her own outfit, I’m happy to say. But still those costumes are not random or accidental. They tap into stereotypes that are deep, persistent and more common than most of us want to think about in our busy, everyday lives.

Double Standards

I was going to steer clear of the whole Sarah Palin thing—her children, her gender, and certainly her go-go boots. But I just heard a guest on Radio Times accuse a caller of being “sexist” for saying Palin was a “distraction,” and it’s got me thinking about this whole messy business of naming sexism (which is often unconscious) and how it is different from “playing the gender card.”

I start with two assumptions: 1) There is plenty of sexism left in the world, including among women who have absorbed many of the stereotypes about us; and 2) a great deal of politics is about “spin,” so not every accusation of unfairness you hear during a political campaign is true. With that said, let’s take this little example of the caller and the radio guest, both of whom were women, by the way. Is it sexist to say that Sarah Palin is a distraction (as Arianna Huffington also said on Larry King a few hours later)?

Words carry emotional connotations (as explained in the book I reviewed last post), and many of them tap into unconscious metaphors that we all carry. I would say that the word “distraction” brings to mind other words and phrases, like “trivial,” “less important than,” “dismissible.” These are words that have often been applied to women and their concerns, so I can understand how a female Palin supporter could feel that Palin was being dismissed as unimportant. On the other hand, the VP is always less important than the person at the top of the ticket. Is the word really inappropriate or unfair in this circumstance? The uniqueness of Palin’s story has certainly distracted the press and much of the public from issues like health care and the war, a distraction which, as Huffington points out in her blog, benefits the Republicans. Palin has also diverted attention from John McCain (unless you count the articles questioning his judgment for choosing her at the last minute, with little vetting, and despite the fact that he really wanted Joe Lieberman). Trying to silence debate about these points by crying sexism is unfair and manipulative.

It is not so different from the debates about racially coded language in this election. The question of whether Barack Obama is “unqualified” is another case of a word having two aspects. On the one hand, it taps into stereotypes about black people benefiting from affirmative action and getting advantages they don’t deserve. Some even explicitly suggest that no one would have voted for Obama if it weren’t for his color, a smear that overlooks his great oratory skills, the political acumen that put together a campaign able to beat the Clinton machine, and the fact that most Americans agree with him on the issues, including the occupation of Iraq. On the other hand, it is certainly legitimate to ask about the qualifications of someone who wants the most powerful job in the world, or who wants to be a heartbeat away from it, for that matter. That is why I think the Obama campaign has been wise not to comment on the racial undertone to the word "unqualified" and instead focus on showing Obama as someone who can do the job.

Sometimes there are not two sides to the story, however, as in the recent case of a Republican Congressman calling Obama “uppity,” a word historically applied to any blacks who aimed higher than slave or share-cropper. (In case you don’t know the history, uppity blacks were lynched, a fact not lost on African Americans.) I can imagine a male vice-presidential nominee being called a distraction if his family soap opera ended up on the cover of People Magazine, but I can’t imagine a white candidate being called uppity for attending an Ivy League university and running for president. Was Bush uppity for going to Yale on a legacy, or does the fact that he got bad grades there somehow make him more “like us,” which has suddenly become a qualification for becoming president?

Palin’s supporters are claiming that she is qualified to be president precisely because she is like us, and they are dismissing questions about her resume as “demeaning to women” (as someone did on CNN recently). So let me say clearly that despite whatever sexism I may have internalized over the years, my objections to Palin do not have to do with her gender. Two of the biggest challenges facing our country are global warming and restoring our relations with other countries. I am personally horrified that Palin does not believe humans are contributing to climate change and in fact has one of the worst environmental records I’ve ever heard of. Experience cozying up to big oil is not the kind of experience we need (Been there, done that.). Even more shocking is the fact that she has only been out of the country once and by her own admission hasn’t focused much on the war in Iraq. I’m sure being mayor of a small town would help in some aspects of the job, but not in understanding international relations. I also haven’t heard anything that makes me confident in her ability to restore the constitutional rights that have been stripped in the last eight years. In fact, she was interested in banning books and apparently tried to fire the librarian who told her she couldn't. If she wants to know if that’s constitutional, perhaps she should consult Barack Obama, who was after all the president of the Harvard Law Review (a highly esteemed journal for those uppity constitutional lawyers).

As far as what kind of mother Palin is and how she did as a beauty queen, those are all distractions. Let's get back to the issues.

Political Mind

No, this is not a post on the Democratic National Convention. It’s a review of a very interesting book I read over vacation, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century Politics with an 18th-Century Brain. Author George Lakoff, a Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics, argues that Democrats have long made a strategic mistake by basing their campaigns on the outdated Enlightenment idea that people are rational and that given the facts, they will vote in their self-interest. Instead, Lakoff explains, our thinking is largely unconscious and shaped by emotions, metaphors, and even language. Radical conservatives, he asserts, have used the insights of contemporary cognitive science to shape, not only the way Americans vote, but the way they think about the issues. Progressives, he argues, must get smarter about the way we convey our values or we will lose more than elections.

I found the book particularly helpful in explaining how good people can see issues of morality so differently. He explains “the politics of authority” and “the politics of empathy” as competing modes of thought that co-exist in most of us, though we may tend toward one or another. An authority mindset tends to value self-discipline, obedience, and personal responsibility, while an empathy mindset values responsibility to care for one’s neighbor and the government’s unique ability to protect and empower citizens. His description of these different ways of thinking reminded me of a conversation several years ago with a woman whom I know to be a very good person. She said, “The Democrats just seem so immoral, and I was struck dumb because to me the Republicans seem so immoral. Presumably she was referring to things like Bill Clinton’s lack of self-discipline when it comes to sex, while I was thinking of what I see as a Republican lack of empathy across a range of issues. As the bumper sticker says, “When Clinton lied, no one died.” One thing I hope to take away from this book is a better ability to explain my values in those conversations where we seem to be talking across a chasm.

Lakoff explains that different events, even the repeated use of different words, can prompt our brains to move into one way of thinking or the other. For example, fear triggers the authority mindset, which is why 9/11 boosted Bush’s popularity and helped conservatives achieve so much of their political agenda. It’s not that Republicans are better at dealing with terrorists, but that terror makes people think in ways that favor conservative policies. On the other hand, Hurricane Katrina triggered the empathy of the American people. When the administration was perceived as not being empathetic enough, Bush’s approval dropped, helping the Democrats to regain a majority in Congress, though Lakoff argues they have not been able to use their majority well because they keep accepting conservative “frames” for issues.

Framing means choosing words for an issue that trigger a series of metaphors in the brain. As long as we call the occupation of Iraq part of “the war on terror”, Lakoff asserts, we have lost the argument before we’ve begun. (I’ve always thought this!) Similarly the term “tax relief” assumes that taxes are bad, instead of framing them as an investment in our community and future. One of the issues Lakoff is most concerned about is what he calls “privateering,” the systematic undermining of important government functions and turning them over to profit motivated corporations that are not accountable to the public. It is happening to our public schools, our prisons, our food and drug supervision, and our military in Iraq in the form of companies like Blackwater. By connecting these issues under the word “privateering,” Lakoff suggests we will be better able to argue against the dangers of being governed by corporations.

Although I found this book very interesting and thought provoking, I do have to point out that at points it is a little hard to take. I found the Introduction repetitive and self-congratulatory, while the latter chapters get too much into the details of the history of cognitive science. Still, most of it is very readable and informative. While Lakoff doesn’t talk explicitly about the upcoming presidential race, the implications are clear. A national mood of fear favors the Republicans, while empathy favors the Democrats. And the language we use to talk about the issues matters.

Photos

Still no time to write a review of that book, but here are a few photos of amazingly active whales in Massachusetts and the stunning scenery in Maine.






Trying to savor that summer feel back in Philadelphia.

From the Road

A few interesting things have happened since I last posted. First, my computer died. Hard drive kaput. The good news is that it happened when we were preparing for a week of vacation, during which I wasn't going to use it anyway. I had just enough time to get it to my computer repair guy before leaving town, which is so much better than having it die nine days from now, when the kids go back to school, and I go back to writing.

The other good news is that we've had a wonderful family vacation. Highlights include visiting my half-sister, whom I didn't meet until my thirties, and having my kids meet the cousin they didn't know they had; taking a whale watch cruise with my sister and seeing fifteen whales, two of whom kept breaching; exploring the rocky, exquisite Maine coast; and sitting around the campfire as a family, talking, singing, and solving puzzles.

The Prius, which we kept impressively new-looking for several weeks, now has blue jimmies ground into the backseat and smells like week-old clams. Harry Potter fans who remember in book Seven when Hermione puts a spell on her purse to fit all their camping gear in it will have a picture of me packing nine-days of camping equipment into our small car. When we broke camp yesterday and got all the stuff reloaded, my son called it "a miracle."

On the Quaker front, the kids and I visited Amesbury meeting in Massachusetts on our way north and I am hoping to visit New Haven Meeting this morning before heading home, where I hope to retrieve my fixed computer, post pictures, and report on the very interesting book I've been reading. A teaser till next time...

August Rush (not the film)

It’s August, the month where school seems to be rushing toward us in slow motion. This week we dug out the list of books my daughter was supposed to read over the summer and discovered that she has three “projects” due in less than three weeks, reflecting on three of the books on the list. Unfortunately, the two we had acquired (but not read) have both gone missing, including one from the library. In fact, we’ve spent quite a bit of time looking under the couch for materials from the library lately. It’s one of the hazards of having a summer where we did something different every single week. No routine, no organization. The good news is that I’m not as stressed as I used to get in August when the children were young, and I felt like I might die before nursery school resumed. Now, camp is over, and I will have no writing time until September. But I’ve learned that my creativity is waiting, not dying. September will come. I just need to enjoy this time when I get to be with my children full time. It's a blessing.

Of course, I have my moments. Yesterday I yelled at my kids when they didn’t respond after four polite requests to come eat their lunch. My daughter immediately started coughing—a red in the face, I can’t breathe because of my asthma cough, which she has had distressingly often lately. In fact, after years of having her asthma under control with medication, my daughter and I made our first middle of the night trip to the emergency room in what was technically, but barely, Saturday morning. She couldn’t catch her breath at home, but was fine by the time we got to the hospital, which meant we sat in the freezing waiting room for two hours, and finally got dismissed by a doctor after sunrise (which is when we suspect we lost one of the books). Since then she has been on increased medication and is doing much better, but is clearly not back to normal either. What struck me yesterday was how she coughed immediately after I yelled at her. I know that stress isn’t good for your body, including your breathing. And if I had thought about it, I would have known that being yelled at must be stressful. But seeing her physical response to my emotional state was startling, a very real example of words hurting.

I saw an amazing PBS special this spring, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making us Sick? It talks about the stress caused by social inequality and how that stress affects the body. Based upon scientific research, it shows how the stress of the hospital CEO (who has lots of responsibility, but also lots of power) is actually less harmful to the body than the stress of the hospital janitor (who has to respond to everyone else’s demands without the power to refuse). It was quite compelling and made me think of all kinds of big social issues, but not my children. Yesterday I was suddenly hit with the fact that they, too, are pretty powerless, subject to the demands and moods of an unpredictable mother, who has more power to inflict stress on them than she usually realizes. August is usually a time for me to work on staying calm myself. This year I have an added reason.

Materialism

Yesterday I stumbled on the book The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids by Madeline Levine. This discovery came on the heels of Judith Warner's New York Times piece on $10,000summer camps where the counselors make the kids' beds. My daughter says she'd like to go to such a camp, and my son says I should pay him $5 for a five minute chore so he can buy a computer game. All of this just means it is time for another post about how hard it is to practice simplicity in a materialistic culture.

I haven't read all of Levine's book yet, but the gist seems to be that in her affluent community, and many others like it, children are given so much stuff that they feel empty when they discover that stuff can't make them happy. They also have parents so quick to jump in and solve their problems that they never learn self-reliance, a point that was echoed in an NPR piece last night about a camp where kids get to do truly dangerous things to counterbalance their normally over-protected lives. While our family is clearly not among the most egregious spoilers, all these authors trigger a few fears: Am I doing enough to protect my children from the materialism of our culture? Am I teaching them to be independent?

Recently another Quaker mother asked me what our policy was on video games. She was concerned that her son was being socially isolated by her stand against them and was considering getting him something. I ended up telling the whole long story of how my daughter wanted an iPod Nano (a subject that I've blogged about before, though I don't think I ever told the final resolution) and asked for it for moths and months to the point where she was leaving little notes on our pillows about it. Finally, remembering Sarah's blog comment about listening to our children's wants, we decided on a compromise. Our daughter had already promised not to listen to the iPod excessively or on high volume, so the remaining objection was cost. We agreed that she could buy an iPod Nano herself, but she had to earn at least half the money (rather than using gift money from family). We figured saving up for something you want is a valuable experience. And she did a great job. Not only did she save all her allowance (which we finally started paying as part of this process), she baked cookies on her own to sell on our sidewalk, cleaned part of the basement for an extra payment, and made little friendship bracelets to sell. (In what I found to be an amusing moment, a Friend at Yearly Meeting saw her making the bracelets and asked what worthy cause she was raising money for. My daughter confidently replied that she was raising money to buy an iPod Nano because her parents wouldn't buy her one.) She also did a great job researching prices on the Internet and finding a bargain. Since getting the iPod, she has done a good job of listening in moderation and at moderate volume. A parenting success story, except...

Because we allowed our daughter to save up for something she wanted, of course our son wanted to do the same, and he wanted a DS (a hand-held video game player that needs a $30 game to function). He also did a good job saving, and we found a game acceptable to everyone, but he has quickly mastered it and now wants more $30 games, which is why he is trying to swindle me out of $5 for a five minute chore, to shorten his wait for the next game. He talks about this quite a lot, which is really my biggest problem with it all. I don't want every conversation we have to be a negotiation. I find it quite exhausting, all this boundary setting. And now my daughter mentions a good friend just got a new cell phone, which I can't resist pointing out is what all the unhappy teenagers on the cover of Levine's book are holding.

Maybe I'm exaggerating the size of these questions in our family's life, but they seem to loom large sometimes. The number of pieces in the media recently suggests I'm not alone.

All Sacred

After speculating about the “what if’s” of war prevention last week, I’m now focused on a different kind of what if—the averted tragedy. While sitting at the dining room table with my daughter yesterday afternoon, I literally watched a huge tree limb peel off of the trunk like a band-aid. It stretched from our neighbor’s yard, across our garden fence diagonally, also filling the ally that runs behind the houses and the yard of the third house in the row. It just missed the car of the fourth neighbor. More importantly, there were no kids playing in the ally, as is often the case in summer. There were no cars driving down the ally, no one doing yard work. In short, we were all very lucky. In fact, I had been just about to open our kitchen windows, which would have been sliced off had I not gotten distracted by my daughter’s craft project. As it is, the tree tips are pressed up against the kitchen window like a green shade.

There is something about this sort of surprise that brings life into sharp focus. I could feel my adrenaline as I called the phone and electric companies to figure out which lines were down. Only one neighbor’s phone line is out, and the phone company seems in no hurry to fix it, overwhelmed as they are by all the other phone lines that have been downed by trees this summer. On the bright side, the neighbors have come together, offering help to the woman without a phone. The owners of the tree happen to be away, but that too is a blessing. Had they been here, our kids and theirs would likely have been in the ally.

The spiritual challenge for me this morning is to be present without getting anxious when more things to do suddenly get added to my list. For example, before getting the kids out the door to camp this morning, I was trying to figure out how to get the pictures from my camera onto my computer and then up to a web site that I couldn’t remember my user name for so that they could be seen by my vacationing neighbors. In the midst of it, my daughter wanted a bit of my attention, and my son wanted to discuss the DS games he’d like to own, which was the thing that made me snap at both of them to leave me alone. Afterwards I thought of the play Our Town, which Tom and I saw this summer. In the third act, a woman who has just died gets to come back and observe a day of her life. The other deceased of the town warn her not to do it, but she goes and observes her 12th birthday. She realizes how hurried her mother is, how even in doing the birthday preparations, she isn’t really seeing and appreciating her daughter, who (as the audience knows) won’t be there forever. I bawled through the whole scene; it was much too close to home. So as I speak to the insurance company on the phone tonight—something that really does need to be done—the trick will be to be present to all the needs around me. I’m finding it helpful to remember an interaction this weekend at Pendle Hill, where I was leading an Inquirer’s Weekend (a very good experience, by the way). I needed help with some equipment on Sunday morning, and a staff member went to take care of it right before worship. When I later apologized because she missed worship to help me, she replied, “It’s all sacred.” It was clear she really meant it, and we later talked about the importance of caring for other people with attention and love, even in the mundane details.

I tend to forget that the mundane details are sacred too, but the fallen tree reminds me that appreciating the fragility of life and taking care of life’s little details are both important and need to be integrated.

Imagine

After promoting my friend Signe Wilkinson last blog post, she repaid the favor by sending me this challenge from New York Post writer Ralph Peters:

Please, educate me: In over 5,000 years of more or less recorded history, how many tyrannies have been overthrown by noble sentiments? How many genocides have been averted by reasonable discussions? How many wars have been prevented by Quakers?

“Maybe your blogger fan base would like to mull on this one,” wrote Signe, who later said that most of the other Quakers she sent this to “reacted as if I'd dropped radio active waste on their toes.”

Well, I’m on a plane that was just diverted from Philadelphia to Raleigh/Durham, so I have a few spare minutes to ponder Peters’ questions. I couldn’t find the full article online, but in this quote the author seems to imply two assumptions: Quakers and other peace activists must not have prevented any wars if Peters doesn’t know about them; and if wars have not been prevented in the past, then peace work is pointless or worse. Let’s take these one at a time before acknowledging the valid challenge behind the author’s questions.

First, wars that never happened don’t make headlines, so it’s hard to count them. Still, there have been plenty of times when violent conflict was avoided by wise leaders who did not assume that violence was inevitable. I recently heard a wonderful account of an Archbishop in Sri Lanka who prevented an inter-religious massacre by sending his priests to sit quietly in front of the shops of the people who were about to be attacked. The angry mob, unwilling to attack the motionless priests, turned around and went home. (Citations for this story would be welcome.) In terms of Quaker history, William Penn comes to mind for successfully avoiding war with the Native Americans for seventy years, something no other American colony managed. Penn’s “Holy Experiment,” Pennsylvania, was also spared the witch trials that plagued Massachusetts, as well as the hanging of people of minority faiths that occurred in New England. Many of Penn’s ideas (though not his attitude toward Native Americans) later influenced the US Constitution. Had the value of religious liberty and tolerance not been established by Quakers in Pennsylvania, might our new nation have ended up more like Europe, where much blood has been shed over religion? Who is to say how many wars Penn avoided? There is no way to count what didn’t happen. We can only imagine.

Here are a few other unanswerable questions: What if Gandhi had not lived? What kind of bloodbath might the Indian War for Independence have been? Although it’s impossible to prove, it’s easy to imagine that the alternative to the Gandhi-influenced Indian National Congress would have been something more like the Irish Republican Army or the Mau Mau. For that matter, how much more violence would have occurred during the US civil rights struggle without the influence of Gandhi’s ideas via Quaker Bayard Rustin?

Speaking of the Indian National Congress leads me to its cousin, the African National Congress—an organization that used non-violent tactics from 1913 to 1960, partly influenced by Gandhi’s legacy in South Africa. The fact that the ANC eventually gave up peaceful protest might at first seem to support Ralph Peters’ implication that non-violence is futile, but I disagree. In the end, what saved South Africa from full-scale, bloody civil war was the fact that Mandela and de Klerk both recognized the futility of all the violence that had gone before and chose a different course. Although Quakers were not the major players, their involvement was significant enough to merit a book.

The length of the struggle in South Africa could also be used to argue for the pointlessness of peace work, but again I disagree. Susan B. Anthony never cast a single vote. Does that make her work for suffrage pointless? Were the seventeenth century abolitionists wrong, just because they didn’t live to see slavery’s end? Perhaps future generations will admire the foresight and faithfulness of today’s peace makers the way we admire those abolitionists. Or maybe not.

Despite my belief in being faithful in the face of short-term failure, I have to admit that Ralph Peters does have a point, which may explain the radioactive reaction Signe received when she forwarded his questions. Our many vigils and letters to the editor did not stop George Bush’s reckless plunge into Iraq, and the consequences have been horrendous. So we peacemakers are left with clever bumper stickers and a troubling question: does what we are doing today matter? Or put another way, isn’t it a bad sign that I had to dust off William Penn to find a concrete example of a Quaker who prevented war?

Yes, it is a bad sign, and yes our work still matters, or at least some of it does. I would argue that some of our projects are more effective than others, and that effectiveness is important when the stakes are so high. (See a previous blog post for more on effectiveness.) In general, I am proud of our Quaker organizations, like FCNL, which has been involved in direct discussions with religious leaders in Iran, and AFSC, which continues to use the Eyes Wide Open exhibit to bring home the human cost of war. I’m sure there are also many individuals and meetings doing good work, though from my perspective we average Quakers look pretty demoralized, as if we’ve given up on the hope of being effective and have instead put our hope in a new president (though neither of the major candidates are pacifists). One bumper sticker symbolizes the problem: “Wake me up on 01-20-2009,” says the sticker in large print, with a small, faint qualifier beneath, “if there is anyone left alive.” I don’t know how many Quakers are sporting these, but it doesn’t seem that far off from how many of us feel, myself included. I recall having a button in the eighties that said “Wearing buttons is not enough.” It’s still true, though I can’t quite imagine what would be enough at this point.

Perhaps a failure of imagination is our main problem, both for peace activists and for columnists such as Peters. I often think of the resources that the US government puts into West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy, institutions devoted to training future military leaders. Imagine if the US government devoted equivalent resources to training young people in diplomacy and international conflict resolution. How many wars might such leaders prevent? We can only imagine.

Supporting Each Other

I am basking in the warm glow of community and friendship this week. In the aftermath of Gathering, it has been nice connecting (online and in person) with people I met there. Natural Mom—an online friend who came to my parenting interest group—wrote a wonderful post about how supported she felt there with two children, one of whom had to visit the emergency room. There is nothing like community.

My good feeling about community has continued through the week. Tuesday night I had the second meeting of my support/anchor committee. (This is a Quaker tradition for people who often travel or lead workshops to make sure they are grounded, supported, and held accountable.) I was touched by the effort it took for five women who live in far-flung neighborhoods to meet on a week night, especially for the host and cook. I felt encouraged to offer my skills a little more assertively, rather than just waiting for work to come to me, which is what I have been doing. Stepping out of my comfort zone feels right for where I am right now.

During the course of the evening, someone mentioned that one of our group members, political cartoonist Signe Wilkinson, recently won a prestigious award, but everyone was too discreet to say which one. (She’s already the first woman cartoonist to win a Pulitzer.) Then it came out that Signe is going to be a speaker at a comics convention in San Diego this month where she is billed as “edgy middle-aged white woman humor!” I don’t know how many of you may be in San Diego July 24-25, but any chance to hear Signe is a treat. The fact that this news was slipped into the conversation by someone else made me think about how awkward many of us (women especially?) feel announcing our accomplishments, even to those who would want to hear about them. So for the rest of this post I am going to shamelessly promote my artistic friends, in the conviction that community is about supporting one another and that in a world where crappy creations are often well advertised, it is actually a community service to tell readers about the cool stuff my friends are doing.

My writers group is always a source of inspiration. In the last few months, Lori Tharps (our foundress and “cruise director”) has published her memoir Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain about being a Black American who finds love and some interesting history in Spain; Eleanor Stanford has published The Book of Sleep, a collection of poetry about motherhood and other adventures; Miriam Peskowitz has come out with her sequel The Pocket Daring Book for Girls: Things to Do and Jude Ray has premiered her film Traces of the Trade a documentary about the descendants of the largest slave trading family in the United States and their attempts to grapple with their family’s legacy. In a few months, child psychologist Tamar Chansky's book will be out, Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking: Powerful, Practical Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Resilience, Flexibility, and Happiness, and there is more on the way from this amazing and prolific group of women!

Although finding all those links has worn me out and used up much of my writing time for today, I want to add a few things about my writer’s group. First, we are not a group that gets together to critique each other’s writing, though those types of groups can be very helpful, especially to people starting out. We get together about once a month to support, encourage, and learn from one another. Some nights we just go around the table “checking in” which has been known to take hours. Other nights we have a guest speaker or one of us designated to cover a particular topic of interest to professional writers. Sometimes just hearing other people’s experiences with the publishing world can be helpful and encouraging. And that’s another thing—we are really encouraging of one another, despite a wide range in the kind of work we do and the kind of remuneration we’ve received for it. I’m very grateful to Lori for finding us all and getting us together, though I know some self-interest was at work in it, which is the final point I’d like to make about supporting each other. We each have need of community, as well as something to contribute. If Lori hadn’t realized that being new to town and an extrovert she needed to find other writers to connect with, none of us would have been up to 11:30 last night talking and laughing at Miriam’s house. As Natural Mom implied in her blog post about Gathering, sometimes putting our needs out there helps us to build community.

Gathering

For those of you who don’t know, FGC Gathering is an annual week of Quaker worship, fun and learning that takes place in a different spot every summer. This year it was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a very reasonable train ride from Philadelphia, which my son and I took, along with scores of other Quakers, while my daughter spent her first week at sleep over camp and my husband stayed home with the dog. My son and I arrived home last night after a very full week of multigenerational community. It’s hard to know where to start to blog about it—I heard so many interesting speakers and had so many experiences, so I’ll just share a few that stand out.

One highlight was the Tribe1 performance on Tuesday night. As some of you know, I taught a course on race in the United States last semester that really drained me emotionally. This concert refilled my cup and renewed my commitment to work that brings people together across the lines that divide us. It also reminded me that sometimes music and joy can help us see our oneness much more effectively than lectures or academic articles. Not sure what that means for my future teaching, but the sight of a multi-racial group of Quaker kids on the stage while adults were doing the conga in the aisle filled me with hope and renewed energy.

Another highlight was meeting several bloggers in person. A few organized a blogger dinner, and Chris M took a wonderful picture, which I have been shamelessly and unsuccessfully trying to copy for half an hour on the assumption that he would forgive me as long as I credited him. He also posted links to the blogs of people he met at Gathering, which is helpful because I’m eager to read how everyone else’s week went, especially after meeting them in person.

I also enjoyed leading an interest group on Parenting as a Spiritual Path. Carolyn Schodt from my meeting came as an elder and companion, something I had never asked for before, and I appreciated her loving presence, as well as the perspective of someone whose children are long grown. Some of the parents were in the thick of baby and toddler care, with the same questions I was asking a few years ago, like, “Is this ever going to get easier?” It was good for me to realize that, at least for me, it really has gotten easier. Still, it is always good to connect with other parents and share about our spiritual lives. I had promised the group that I would end early, since everyone had to go pick up kids from Junior Gathering, but after our closing prayer circle, people sat and talked another fifteen minutes, which I took as confirmation that parents appreciate the chance to talk about their struggles with one another. Not sure where this will go from here, but it was a good experience.

One of the most moving parts of Gathering this year for me was the story told by Amanda Kemp during the final performances of the storytelling workshop. She brought to life the famous (to Quakers) story of John Woolman's troubled conscience when, as a young white sales clerk in the seventeenth century, he was asked to write up a bill of sale for a slave. Amanda told the story from the perspective of the slave, Hannah, who prayed for young John during her own sale. Knowing that Woolman went on to become an important abolitionist made the story hopeful and inspiring, rather than depressing. Rereading my description now, I realize I can't quite convey the feeling of it, which is another reminder that art is sometimes more powerful than words.

On a personal level, it was great to see old friends and make a few new ones, including Amanda. My son had a blast as well and wants us to go again next year, which sounds good to me.

Good News

It's been a wonderful week, visiting three different groups of friends, catching up on news, reviewing the year, enjoying nature. From northern Pennsylvania we went to the Finger Lakes, to the clear, cold waters of Skaneateles (pronounced Skinny-atlas). I only mustered the courage to go swimming twice. (Ice water is not my favorite habitat.) My children, of course, felt differently. They have plunged into everything with gusto. My vegetarian, animal-rights-supporting daughter even caught an impressive bass when I wasn't looking. My son has ventured further in the kayak this year, confirming what I wrote last week about the importance of giving them freedom in nature.

I had to push out of my mind the fact that I would have a long To-do list when I arrived home for a day before leaving for FGC Gathering. But so far that is going smoothly. Our Prius arrived as we were driving home yesterday, and the pickup went smoothly. The salesman tells me there is now a six to nine month wait for them, so although ours came a month after it was promised, I guess our timing worked out after all.

Independence

It’s our first full day of vacation away on an old estate that includes an overgrown orchard, a straw bale greenhouse with a grass roof, and a pond. We’re visiting the family we hung out when the girls were babies, and my friend Melissa and I traded a few hours of babysitting so we could each get some writing time. Now, Melissa lives in the country, and between chats and cups of teas, she and I can write simultaneously as our eleven year-old-girls and nine-year-old boys invent skits and plays to amuse themselves. I had to prevent a jousting match, but otherwise they seem quite safe with minimal supervision. The kids even slept alone in a tent last night, while the adults took the house.

In addition to the fun of catching up with an old friend, it’s great to be in a place where I feel safe to let the children roam more freely than they do in a big city with a high crime rate. I’ve been thinking lately of all the things I did alone at eleven and how important that time was in building my confidence and independence. My daughter wouldn’t even consider walking as far alone as I did then, and I wonder if that is my fault, or just a sign of a different time, with twenty-four-hour news to remind us of the risks. My first job as a parent is to protect my children enough so they make it to adulthood, but I’m becoming increasingly aware (as I’ve said before) of my responsibility to prepare them for adulthood. They need freedom, I’m quite sure, to grow into themselves, but they don’t seem to have much of it in our scheduled, urban lives. Yesterday they took a long walk in the woods with their companions, and it wasn’t until bed time that I remembered there were bears.

Part of the joy of being here is the connection with nature. There are frogs out the back door and a blooming dogwood out the front. Our pancakes this morning were made with the eggs the children collected from the chickens last night. My friend’s house is full of plants, pets, and old wood floors, so the inside and the outside don’t seem to be strangers. This morning I sat in a splintered Adirondack chair overlooking the mountains and tried my hand at a poem. Melissa is co-ordinating an art/poetry show, the theme of which is music, so I was given the assignment of writing a poem related to music:

The Dimock Orchestra on a June Morning

The symphony begins with two house wrens,
a bugle duet,
soon joined by the robins
and the yellow throated warbler,
in polyphonic counterpoint,
punctuated by the occasional cat bird
and a distant, unidentifiable piccolo.

The soft wind in the orchard comes in,
a cello,
in a long phrase soon overshadowed
by a bass truck on Rt. 29
that rumbles through four stanzas
while a crow blasts four staccato notes,
waits three measures, then blows again.

In the third movement the French horn enters,
a hen named Jesse,
and the steady drum roll of the tractor up the hill.
As the sun lifts over the dogwood,
it conducts a crescendo,
dynamite in the distant quarry,
the occasional bass drum.

A choir of children’s voices burst onto the lawn,
and upstage the instruments
which continue in relentless harmony,
indifferent to applause.

Privacy

As someone who writes about spirituality, I often find myself telling a story that involves someone else, either because they did or said something illustrative or because my own experience was shaped by them. There are times when I choose not to tell stories that would be funny or interesting because I think to do so might harm a relationship I value. For example, my children got wind of the fact that I was writing about them on this blog and asked me not to say anything that might be embarrassing. Rather than checking with them every time I blog, I find myself avoiding the parenting stories more than I used to. We’re heading into the pre-teen phase, and nearly everything has the potential to be embarrassing, so I just steer clear. I want to keep their trust in the years to come. Still, I continue to write about my own experience as a parent, which is a slightly different topic. Having children continues to challenge me to be a more generous and patient person. Can I speak this truth without infringing on their desire not to be embarrassed by their mother? Is there a conflict between my need to speak my truth and their need to be protected by me?

Sometimes, instead of avoiding a story that involves someone else, I write a draft and then run it by the person, giving them the chance to edit. This is particularly true of people whom I love and want to remain on good terms with, though it obviously won’t work with my mother, who died two years ago. I admit I am less cautious about people I am no longer in touch with, partly because it seems less likely they will be associated with what I write. In these cases, I try to be really vague about the details so that the person is unidentifiable. I know the vague reference has its hazards, though. Once I vaguely mentioned an ex-boyfriend in something that was published. I later learned that someone I know read that paragraph, assumed that I was talking about a friend of hers, and got really offended on his behalf because what I said didn’t seem true to her. Of course it didn’t; it was about someone else! That was a reminder that you can’t help people reading into things. Who knows how many other times someone has misinterpreted something I wrote, and I never heard about it or got the chance to correct their misinterpretation.

Many other writers have grappled with how to write about real people who are part of their lives. Frank McCourt says that he couldn’t write Angela’s Ashes until after his mother Angela had died (and if you read this wonderful book, you’ll understand why). Annie Dillard says she doesn’t say anything about anyone who could possibly sue, which is maybe why she writes so much about turtles and dead deer. Anne Lamont says you can say anything you want about a man, as long as you describe him as having a really small penis so that he won’t want to come forward and claim to recognize himself, though this advice doesn’t do me much good in my two main dilemmas, writing about my children and my Quaker meeting, which I also want to protect, though less fiercely.

I have sometimes read blogs that mention conflicts with other Quakers and wonder how the blog post will affect the relationship. It’s not that I think we should bite our tongues, necessarily. There are struggles within Quakerism that should be written about and behaviors in our meetings that should be challenged. I’m just not sure how fair it is to be specific in a blog post that the subject may or may not read, when what is really needed is a frank conversation. Sometimes when I read a Quaker blogger complain about another Friend’s behavior, I wonder if the person followed “gospel order” and first brought their complaint to the one who caused offense. On the other hand, Friends sharing their dilemmas across yearly meetings can help us see larger patterns that need to be recognized. Those stories about people experiencing racism and classism in our midst seem really important. This morning I’m wondering how other bloggers and writers draw the boundaries for themselves.

I should say that what got me started on this was the recent arrival of my Pendle Hill Pamphlet on parenting, which is mostly about my experience, but which mentions my children. Although I had specifically told them what stories I was telling about them, and they gave their permission for them to be in the pamphlet, one of my children became very upset upon actually seeing it, fearing that one of the stories was too embarrassing. It made me very grateful that I never found a publisher for Imperfect Serenity, the memoir I wrote about parenting young children, and for which this blog was named. I believe I was led to write it—I certainly was compelled to write it, recording my experiences as a parent in scraps of time over several years. But as I started getting rejection letters from publishers it occurred to me that when I started the writing, I couldn’t conceive that the children would ever learn to read. I noticed that the book included many stories about the children that they might find embarrassing, though the real purpose of it was to reflect on the spiritual lessons I was learning as a parent. About two years after I let go of the idea of publishing it, I realized that if I cut out all the quirky stories about them and focused on my spiritual experience, it would be about the size of a Pendle Hill pamphlet. Some other things occurred that made me feel I really was led to write a pamphlet on this topic, and when I did, way opened with remarkable ease.

So, here I was the other day with my upset child, remembering that writing this pamphlet felt like a leading, and yet feeling guilty about the pain I had caused, as well as slightly frustrated because I really had asked permission. After twenty-four hours of processing this, what I’ve decided is not to take down the link to the pamphlet (as I initially considered), but to ask people who read it and who also know us in person to not mention the pamphlet in front of my children. I really don’t think there is anything in there that is harmful to them, but they are at the easily embarrassed age, and I need to recognize that.

If you happen to read it and think you can guess what part upset whom, please don’t. Like the woman who guessed the wrong ex-boyfriend, it’s probably not what you think.

Progress

After years of plodding along with my writing, there are suddenly bits of exciting news. My goal had been to complete a draft of my book by the time school got out, and I am happy to report that I did that and mailed it off Saturday! I’m also happy to say that the Pendle Hill Pamphlet I wrote on parenting as a spiritual journey just came out. It’s so new I haven’t actually seen it yet, but people at Pendle Hill say they have, and I found the picture on the web. Anyone who is interested can buy it for $5 from Pendle Hill. (Chestnut Hillers: You can spare the shipping. I plan to bring some to meeting and part of the proceeds to the meeting). So this is all very exciting, right when my writing time is about to dry up for the summer.

The other big news is that the Prius we ordered is supposedly in Newark, NJ, which is certainly closer than Japan. The thing is, we were told we would have it by the end of May, and it has apparently been stuck in New Jersey since then. The one week delay wasn’t that big of a deal last week. It really has been a lovely five weeks to be without a car. I stayed home more and focused on my writing, didn’t do errands during my writing time, and saved gas. It was also perfect timing since play practice was over (which required some driving on my part). We are in baseball season instead, and we can all walk to baseball. Most days, the kids have been taking the school bus, a habit I think I’d like them to continue next year, and on piano lesson days, they learned to transfer on the public bus. So, there have been many good fruits. But here’s the thing: school just got out Friday, I really hurt my foot, and the gorgeous spring days have turned brutally hot--105 with the heat index today. So suddenly I am stuck with two kids in a house with no air conditioning when it’s too hot to walk far, and my foot hurts anyway. The local public pool isn’t open yet, and it would take us two buses and a hot walk to get there. So what seemed like God’s perfect timing is starting to try my patience. It seems like a good time to remember all those other times when I got impatient with God’s timing, and things worked out for the best after all (which is kind of the story with the Pendle Hill pamphlet, now that I think of it).

Beauty

I’ve been coming to appreciate beauty as a spiritual path, as something that brings people joy and an appreciation of God. However you define feeling “spiritual”—I think of it as the realization of being connected to something greater than ourselves—people find that feeling in different places. I don’t just mean that some people find it in church, while others find it in the meetinghouse or the mosque, though that is also true. I mean that even within traditions people are touched most deeply by different things: scripture, service, solitude, community, silence, music… I’m belatedly realizing that for some people beauty is an important path to transcendence, no matter what their faith background.

Part of what sparked this line of thinking was listening to a friend, an art history major in college, who has a great eye for the visual, like her mother who died recently. My friend talked about how much it meant to her that her mother’s hospice was lovely with beautiful light, because she knew that meant much to her mother, despite her Alzheimer’s. There have been other recent incidents, too, that make me realize that a beautiful room means more to some people than it does to me, so I’m just trying to notice that and be more appreciative.

It’s not that I’ve been against beauty in the past, although I guess I have been against extravagance. I remember nearly twenty years ago, sitting in a Spanish church that seemed to be bursting with gold and expensive decorations and feeling angry that there was so much wealth on display in the this little church while there were so many people hungry in the world. I was on my way home from the Peace Corps in Africa, and Spain was my European stop on the way back to the US. I was newly converted to the cause of social justice and probably a bit too self-righteous. Today I hope I could appreciate the beauty of that little church and the way it has fed many souls, without necessarily forgetting the people who need to be fed literally. Seeing beauty need not blind us to other realities, though it can be a problem if we spend all our money on gold candle sticks.

Speaking of money and beauty, last week we went to the Barnes Foundation to see a collection of art that I’ve been told is valued around six billion dollars. The Barnes collection is in danger of being moved (mostly because of politics and money), so I made an extra effort to soak up the eclectic combinations of color and form that Mr. Barnes put together himself. I especially enjoyed the Cezanne landscapes, though the Renoirs were lovely, too. Still, looking at art is not my most natural act. I have to make a little effort, unlike my friend the art history major who just soaks it up. I realized this when we went outside and walked around the beautiful rose garden and down a small path to an old tea house nestled among the trees and next to a large fish pond. There my heart soared. Even more than the arranged garden, I loved the rocks around the water and the fern amid the trees. Nature is my route to spirituality, I know, though I sometimes forget to spend enough time in such places. I can appreciate the beauty of Renoir’s perfect roses, but in my book, they’ve got nothin’ on the real, imperfect thing.

Gratitude

I used to keep a gratitude journal, a place to record those little blessings that come each day, but which are easy to overlook. Here are a few recent ones that I don't want to forget:

Amtrak, which has been pleasant and prompt the four times I've taken it in the last week, and New York City, which I visited yesterday. I had a lovely lunch in the West Village with my Tarcher editor and my agent. I appreciated good food, good conversation, and a sense that my book is moving forward. Even in the rain, I love walking around Manhattan.

Speaking of rain, it passed over the children's spring concert, which for the first time was held outside. The Pre-K and Kindergarten had collaborated on a song about spring. One group had written the words and the other the music. They were very cute singing on the meetinghouse porch, but the best moment was when they finished the song and the Seventh Grade girls stood up and cheered loudly. Maybe middle schoolers have just gotten a bad name, but I can't help thinking that at most schools Seventh Graders wouldn't give a standing ovation to four and five-year-olds. So the sense of community at my children's school is another thing I want to appreciate.

I also want to appreciate the community spirit at my Quaker meeting. When it rained Friday night, our scheduled barbeque and bonfire became more like a typical potluck, though some hearty souls continued grilling outside, and the kids still got to roast marshmallows. At one point a friend looked at me and said, "This is a great community." It seems especially important to remember and appreciate that after a business meeting that wasn't quite so joyful. Appreciating the joy when we experience it can keep us grounded in the moments when we don't. It's a practice that I need to continue.

Carless

I know it’s a cliché, but be careful what you wish for. I have been fantasizing about getting a Prius lately, mostly so I’ll feel less guilty for all the driving I do, but it didn’t seem justifiable with two cars working. The Toyota Camry, which is the car I primarily drove, had 103,000 miles on it, not to mention a few minor dents and a back seat spaghetti sauce stain a foot in diameter, which is to say it looked like it had some life left in it, but not much resale value. I actually stopped by a Toyota showroom on Thursday, while the Camry was getting an inspection and a new tire next door, but told the salesman my interest in the Prius was just “thinking ahead.” Little did I know the Camry would die two days later, with a brand new inspection sticker on it. The engine was so shot I had to coast down Midvale Avenue with the engine off to get an official diagnosis from a mechanic. When I turned the engine on in order to turn it into the service station, the grimacing mechanic came running out asking, “What happened to that car?” Indeed.

So after two days of calling Toyota dealerships and hearing repeatedly that in the last few weeks, with gas prices soaring, the Prius (both used and new) has been speeding off their lots, we finally ordered one that will be in late May. I’m grateful that the decision is made and that we can actually afford it now. A few years ago a dead engine would have been a much bigger hurdle, as it would be for many families, I know. Still, I couldn’t help feeling that God/the universe was really messing with me. I had been looking forward for months to this time when my university semester was over, but the kids were still in school, so I could just write, write, write, with no distractions. I had this image of total focus and had been trying to clear out possible distractions ahead of time. So here the first morning of my writing month, I had to shop for a car and look into things to do with the old car.

Ah, yes, be careful what you wish for because there is nothing to cut the distractions out of your life like being without the vehicle that made your distractions convenient. Instead of my favorite coffee shop, where I know all the staff and most of the customers, I’ve been forced to work at home or at a walking-distance coffee shop where I don’t know anyone. I can’t have those little chats while I’m getting another drink. I can’t swing by the co-op and pick up a quart of milk or see my acupuncturist in Ambler. It’s been a blessing, much more than an inconvenience. Combined with my ongoing media diet, staying home has meant much more quiet than I usually experience, a real gift as I shift back into writing mode. Plus, it has been a gorgeous week, so that walking around the neighborhood and taking the bus home from piano with the kids has been a pleasure. I’ve been thinking about teaching the kids to be more independent, and May is as nice a time as any to learn how to transfer between two buses. Even though I had been trying to cut back my driving anyway, this week is making me realize that it is not as hard as I thought, though it is also affirming my sense that I’m not ready to live without a car completely. I’m looking forward to the Prius, but enjoying where I am.

News Fast

Some of you may find this hard to believe, but I’m going on a news fast—or at least a news diet. I just can’t take any more of the presidential campaign, Philadelphia’s murder rate, or the price of oil. I was feeling worn out by it all weeks ago, and kept tuning in to hear the latest anyway. But last weekend I lead a retreat on “Listening for God’s Voice” for a group of thirty Lutheran women at a beautiful retreat center near Reading. Although I enjoyed the whole weekend—especially the friendly people and the blooming trees—I especially appreciated the break from email and radio. On the drive home I resisted my usual impulse to turn on NPR and just enjoyed another hour of quiet. Nothing like a weekend of teaching about inward listening to make me practice what I preach.

Monday morning I headed to the gym and felt like my senses were on overload. The overhead lights, the music competing with ten televisions sets on three different stations—it’s a lot to take at 5 am, so I went to the quiet room and did some yoga. When I went back to the gym on Wednesday, I remembered that my headphones were broken, so although I exercised in front of the televisions, I couldn’t hear them. I’ve still turned on the car radio here and there, but I’m trying to break the habit of doing it reflexively. I’ve checked the New York Times headlines that I get emailed each morning, but on my own time, which feels less mentally invasive than getting the news from television or radio. As I said, it’s really a diet more than a fast.

In wondering why I’m so addicted to the news to begin with, I’m remembering one of the weekend retreat participants who said she turned on background noise so she wouldn’t feel alone. I don’t think that’s it for me, though I suspect her reason is not unusual. For myself, I fear that turning off the news means turning my back on all the suffering in the world. Yes, I spend more time at baseball games than peace rallies these days, but I’m still informed. At least I care. I feel this especially when I read about Zimbabwe’s current political crisis, a story which is probably overlooked by many American readers. When I was in the Peace Corps in neighboring Botswana, I enjoyed a few wonderful vacations in Zimbabwe when it was in its post-independence prime. I feel so sad reading about how low the country and its president have sunk, but there is not much I can do about it, except keep informed, even though it’s depressing. I remember times I’ve heard people say that they were refusing to follow the news so it wouldn’t disturb their inner peace, and I felt they were somehow being callus, as if there inner peace would be just fine as long as they didn’t know about the world’s suffering. These days I’m seeing more of their point, but trying to figure out a healthy balance. Perhaps if I had one issue I followed… but I’ve never been a one issue gal.

As usual I come back to the issue of discernment, and timing. I am finishing up my university semester this week and diving back into the book writing. It seems a fitting time to cut back on the external stimulus and clear some mental space, which isn’t necessarily selfish anyway. I remember an article about Buddhist monks who were found to be more compassionate toward those who suffered for the hours they spent in quiet. Of course, I read that in some kind of news magazine.

Show of Unity

Two incidents this weekend left me feeling hopeful about racial reconciliation in Philadelphia, though both had sobering aspects as well.


Saturday we attended a wonderful neighborhood event to reclaim a school mural that had been defaced by racist graffiti. The swastika, racial epithet, and death threat had been covered with grey paint as soon as parents and teachers discovered them on the way to school, but this "Unity" event covered the grey with something more hopeful: colored hand prints by all the people who attended, including students from the mostly black student body, families from the mostly white surrounding neighborhood, the new black mayor who won with an unprecedented and racially mixed majority, and the local white reverend who has been preaching about tolerance from her Presbyterian pulpit. It was a symbolic gathering engaged in a symbolic act, but sometimes symbolism is powerful. I was glad so many people showed up.

Attendance at the event shows that our neighborhood is more committed to tolerance than it was thirty years ago, when my former black neighbor moved here and was greeted with a pipe bomb on his front porch and no community outrage about it. I have a sense, though, that not everyone wants to see the connection between the neighborhood’s history and the recent graffiti. I’ve heard several people comment that “it must have been kids,” as if admitting adults might have done this (as a news report claimed) would make it harder to digest, which it clearly was for many people. A 60 year-old white man, who attended the school himself as a child, was quoted in the paper as saying that race “was such a nonissue when we were 6, 7 and 8.” Well, actually, race was kind of an issue in the United States in the mid-1950s, but it may not have seemed like it to children in East Falls, a community that excluded anyone who wasn’t white for many decades. Still, I’m glad the man was at the event and willing to speak with a reporter. Progress is progress.

That was how I felt Friday night at the Barack Obama rally on Independence Mall. The Philadelphia Inquirer estimated 35,000 people filled the space from the Constitution Center to the Liberty Bell. I was standing near the back and at one point realized that the boards I kept kicking were the traces of George Washington’s old house and the slave quarters that the park service paved over to build a parking lot. When I looked up, I saw snipers on the surrounding roofs, reportedly stationed there because Obama has received so many death threats. Despite these sobering reminders of our past and present, the event was electrifying. I have never seen such a diverse and unified crowd in our city, which is indeed diverse. As I looked around I saw behind me a young white woman with pink hair, in front of me an old black man with white hair, and beside me a group of men who looked liked they were from different corners of Asia. The whole crowd seemed like the kind of diverse ideal usually seen on murals (like the one defaced in East Falls) more often than in real life. Diverse music played on the loud speakers, and at one point a section of the crowd in front of me started doing the Electric Slide in unison. It was just great, even before the main attraction arrived.

As a friend said the next day, it says something about Obama that he can bring together that diverse a crowd. There are many reasons I will be voting for him tomorrow, but the hope of building a cross-racial coalition is one of them.

How Would Jesus Vote?

I haven’t had time to blog this week, but since a picture is worth the length of an average blog post, I’ll simply leave you with my favorite political cartoon of recent weeks by F/friend Signe Wilkinson. To protect artists, her cartoon network web site prevents copying, so please click on this link.

Blogging to Death?

My first reaction to this New York Times article— “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop—was to laugh. None of the Quaker or mother bloggers I know are making money cruising the web at all hours. For me blogging is often just a chance to express myself without worrying if my article length will fit an editor’s preference. But even if the problems the article describes are far removed from the lives of most bloggers, it still raises two serious issues that I can relate to—writers being underpaid and many people being over stressed.

Stress has been a theme here lately, and I have to bring it up again to plug an excellent PBS series Unnatural Causes…is inequality making us sick?. The first episode examined the effects of stress on the body and how understanding stress helps to explain why our life-expectancy correlates so closely to our incomes. The argument is that while the hospital CEO experiences a lot of what we think of as stress, the CEO also has a lot of control over how to handle things, as compared to the janitor, who just has to do what other people tell him to and sometimes has the stress of different people telling him to do different things at the same time. The experience of feeling powerless, the series argues, has profound health effects that also show up in monkeys who get bossed around by other monkeys. I found the monkey studies particularly interesting because all the monkeys had the same diet and environment, so the health problems of the low-ranking monkeys couldn’t just be blamed on eating French fries.

It’s got me thinking about stress and control in my own life. Although I often feel too busy, I realize I have it pretty good in the control department. I can blog today instead of later in the week because I know I will be grading papers after tomorrow. If I finish blogging early, I can go take a walk before picking the kids up from school. Actually, I could go walk without finishing—it’s just my own work ethic that is pushing me, not someone else’s demands, which makes me very lucky compared to the vast majority of working people in the world. Even my teaching job includes a lot of flexibility. For example, I could schedule the paper I’m collecting until after my children’s spring break when I knew I wouldn’t have time to grade. At the moment the thing that feels least in my control is the kids' schedules, though even that I could change if I really wanted to. Megan’s play practice gets out at exactly the same time Luke’s baseball practice starts, in a different neighborhood. If this is my biggest problem, I guess I’m doing OK.

Still, whether my stress is self-created or circumstance created, I need to work on managing it better. My only complaint about the PBS special was that it didn’t tell us how to do that. Some of the statistics it presented were pretty shocking, especially around the health effects of racism, but they were a little light on solutions. So when in doubt, I blog and breathe.

Rewarding Children

A recent Brain, Child debate has me thinking about the pros and cons of rewarding children. Instead of taking the magazine’s pro/con argument format, I want to make some distinctions about when I think rewards make sense and fit my Quaker values.

Both Brain, Child writers acknowledge that life is not always fair or easy, and that children need to learn to deal with it. I agree, which is why I wouldn’t give my child a treat just for accepting a vaccine or some other discomfort, as one of the writers did. I may sound a little heartless, but I worry my children don’t have enough difficulties in their middle class lives and could do with a bit more character building. If they ever have to face a war or an environmental catastrophe (not to mention more common problems, like car accidents and cancer), I want them to have some experience working through difficulties. The further my children get from diapers, and the closer they get to asking for the car keys, the more I see my job as training responsible adults.

It’s in service of training future adults that I like to use rewards, to encourage children to try some new challenge that I think is worth tackling. If it also teaches delayed gratification, so much the better. Recently we used a reward system to get our son to improve his behavior at school. The teacher said he was doing well academically and held his abundant energy in check most of the time, but in times of transition—on the way to recess or gym class—he was prone to go wild and get other children in trouble in the process. He had to maintain two weeks of excellent behavior, as reported by the teacher, in order to get a book he wanted about how to make paper airplanes. The strategy worked: not only did the teacher report a marked improvement in her classroom, but he seemed to be proud of the fact that he could do better than he thought he could. That to me is the real pay off. Now he knows he can do it. When he headed back to school yesterday after spring break, he joked that he might need another reward in order to keep it up, but he did well without one. I have found in the past that breaking a negative pattern with a short-term reward often has long-term results.

My biggest concern about this sort of thing is the fact that so many rewards in our culture are material: a book, a toy, a piece of candy. Most of the time I try to give rewards that have no carbon cost: compliments, hugs, and smiles. Still, we live in a material culture, and as rewards go I felt pretty good about the paper airplane book (until my son worked through my pile of recycled papers and started making all manner of aircraft from the new paper). For his birthday, my son has started asking for a DS, a PCP, or one of several other electronic devises with initials. I’m good with paper airplanes.

Those of you who followed the Christmas gift controversy should know that my daughter continues to want an iPod Nano. This desire has been so persistent (as have her requests) that my husband and I are taking a new approach. We have told her that she can buy one herself, as long as she earns at least half the money (as opposed to just using the gift money she has in the bank). Every spare minute she has been making friendship bracelets to sell, and last week with a friend, she baked chocolate chip cookies and sold them on the sidewalk to passing travelers. I admire her determination and want to encourage it. I also suspect that when she finally gets the iPod she’ll take better care of it than if she had received it in a box at Christmas.

On the making money theme, we finally started a system of chores and allowance. For years my husband has maintained that giving kids allowance was like paying them to be part of the family. The kids have always had a few light chores, but we are now upping the ante. My daughter is taking over the downstairs vacuuming and a few other jobs that could theoretically lighten my load, if all goes well. They will learn to earn money, keep track of it, and lose it if they don’t hold up their end of the bargain. I think those are reasonable life lessons and the kind of rewards and challenges that I face as an adult.

Spring Break Stress

You’d think a week home with the kids wouldn’t be that stressful. Isn’t the purpose of spring break to give everyone a chance to sleep and hang out? It’s not working out that way, however, so I’m going to spend my one and a half hours of free time ranting, I mean reflecting, on why I feel so stressed out.

Well, first of all there is the perennial problem that my teaching spring break does not line up with my children’s spring break, which means I have to scramble for child care for my teaching hours and spend less time preparing than I usually would. I’ve got that pretty well organized, though, so it’s not just that. There are two main problems: I miss having time to write; and the rest of the world is not on spring break, so several things I’ve been looking forward to working on have all arrived just when I don’t have time to give them my full attention. The most exciting is the revised contract from Tarcher for my Wisdom to Know the Difference book. This was preceded by some suggested revisions from an editor who asked to read some of my work as a project for an editing class she is taking, along with some questions she was hoping I could answer, and a gentle query from the Pendle Hill editor about when I would be done looking at her edits of the Pendle Hill pamphlet I recently wrote. All of it is good. In fact, all of it is great, which reminds me that most of the stress I feel I put on myself. None of those things needed to be responded to as quickly as I tried to handle them, except perhaps the e-mailed questions from the person doing our taxes, which sent me to the basement this morning, digging through my mother’s old papers while Luke climbed into a box of toys in the basement and tried to hide under a sled.

My desire to get things done quickly has been showing up especially in response to e-mail. We finally upgraded to DSL, and now my in-box goes to a second page as soon as it reaches a certain number, instead of just getting longer and longer , as it did on my old system. As soon as something gets bumped to the second or third page of my in-box, there is a good chance that I will never remember to do it, so my strategy is to deal with things right away: delete, save, or respond. Only those things that can’t be responded to immediately get to sit in the in-box (including the e-mails that come for my husband, who no longer has work e-mail). It sounds like a simple system—deal with it right away or not at all—but in the real Quaker sense of simplicity, it is not simple at all. It keeps my mine jumping from one thing to the next, and I get pulled off course way too easily. (Just since I’ve been writing this I’ve gotten seven new e-mails, none of which I’m that interested in.) I’m thinking I should unsubscribe to every list I’m on, except that I’ve heard that sometimes unsubscribing gets you on more lists. It’s not that I don’t care about what is happening in Darfur or Antarctica. It’s just that when my time is so short it becomes clear that all these e-mails are pulling me away from my real leading to write. During a regular school week I have time to do both, so the conflict is not so apparent, though it makes me wonder how much more I could write if I stripped all the distractions out of my life.

I discovered a few years ago that I seem to gain weight whenever I don’t get time to write. That is also true this spring break, though I could blame it on the Easter basket I wolfed down or the homemade banana cream pie my neighbor brought over for Easter dinner. It could be that the periods when I don’t get time to write also happen to be stressful times, so the relationship is correlative, but not causal. It could be that I eat more junk when I’m under stress. Despite all these arguments, I still think my body is giving me some message about what I’m supposed to be doing work wise. I’ve been at my computer for less than an hour now, but I feel much calmer than when I sat down. Just getting some of my mental buzz into paragraphs is always therapeutic.

A writer friend recently asked me how I had time to blog. I confess this week I thought about just linking to Barak Obama’s brilliant speech on race, though I’m so late, everyone who is interested has probably read the speech and fifty blog posts about it by now. Also, I didn’t feel like getting a bunch of e-mails from people who don’t like Barak Obama. Maybe in a few months, when my teaching semester is over, I’ll have the mental energy to debate politics, but right now political arguments feel like another thing pulling me “out of my lane,” as my friend Hilary says. For me, blogging is not a distraction when it helps me refocus and fuels my other writing, like a good stretch before a jog. The problem is, now that I’m all warmed up, I have to go pick up the kids! Until I get more writing time next week, this little exercise has made me realize that I need to draw the boundaries of my lane a little tighter—to respond to the editor e-mails, and leave the rest. That way I can spend more of this week enjoying the children, instead of keeping them out of my hair.

Mysterious Ways

This past weekend I got to go on a retreat with fifty-two other Quakers who identify themselves as having some sort of “ministry” or service they feel called to. It was wonderful to be away from daily responsibilities—no laundry, cooking, dishes, or email!—and wonderful to be with so many good people, talking about our spiritual lives. It was also fun to have the space to notice and appreciate serendipity, starting with Friday night.

It was during the opening session that the power went off in the Catholic retreat center we were renting. The irony was that one of the presenters had written a piece ahead of time about how she tends to get overly anxious about leading retreats and compensates by preparing many handouts. In the dark, she was robbed of this crutch, which prompted some reflections on trusting God even, or especially when we can’t see where we are going. The power came back on, but Friends decided to turn off the lights to keep the quiet atmosphere.

During the Friday night session we had two opportunities to pair up and share. It turned out that my two partners, whom I had never met before, were both people who had also worked on issues around race and who became real allies during the weekend. (I met another ally near the end of the retreat.) I felt blessed to meet these Friends and resonated when someone commented that “God works in mysterious ways.”

There were other little mysteries. As I was packing for the trip, I had an intuition to pack my digital tape recorder, just in case I met anyone whom I should interview for my book. On Saturday morning the sense came to me that I should announce my project and ask if there was someone who felt led to be interviewed. I was clear that I didn’t want to just ask for stories about community (the chapter I’m now working on) because I’m sure that group would have had many stories, and I really just wanted people who felt led to respond. As it turned out, no one came forward to be interviewed, and by Saturday night I was wondering why I had had the impulse to make the announcement. Then a woman stopped me and said that I needed to talk to Friends in Durham, North Carolina because they had had an amazing experience of building community through the process of building a new building. She said they had managed to include every person in the meeting and keep their unity through years of planning and were eager to share their experience with other Friends. Now as some of you know, my own meeting has recently approved building a new meeting, so this connection seemed fortuitous. It may or not have anything to do with my book. Maybe that was just the tool God used to make this connection.

Just now when I went online to look up the Durham web site, I found an email from an Irish-American member of our meeting with this link to the story of how a slave became the patron saint of Ireland. It seems fitting to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, not with green pizza (which was on the news this morning), but with an acknowledgment that Patrick’s story is certainly an example of God working in mysterious ways.

Amazing Pictures

To find out what these people are staring at, click on this amazing site by artist Chris Jordan. Someone just sent me the link, and after pouring over the pictures, I couldn't wait to post it.

Anxiety

Someone close to me has been very anxious lately, and it’s got me thinking about anxiety in general. My friend, psychologist and book author Tamar Chansky says that 1 out of 4 people in our culture suffers from anxiety, which might explain why ads like this one for Ativan have gotten so common. It makes one wonder why we seem more anxious than people in previous eras, who arguably had even fewer certainties in their lives. I remember wandering through the upstate Pennsylvania cemetery where my father is buried, reading the tombstones of families from the 1800s who lost children more frequently than I can imagine. Were mothers of that time constantly on edge for the next potential loss, or were they, as I imagine, more fatalistic, less prone to worry about what they could not control? That was certainly true of people in the African village where I served in the Peace Corps in the eighties. One of the things I enjoyed most about that experience was the worry-free atmosphere of Botswana where the Ativan ad would have seemed out of place, not least because there were no billboards, magazine stands, or televisions where I lived.

The role of advertising is one of the things that I think sets our culture apart, and not in a good way. In fact, I can’t help wondering to what extent the Ativan ad, with its darkened North America, promotes the very anxiety its product claims to cure. This, after all, is the strategy of much advertising: make customers anxious about their hair or weight or breath and then offer them a product that will solve the problem they didn’t know they had before the advertising. Political ads often follow the same strategy. Hillary Clinton’s red phone ad comes to mind, with its pictures of vulnerable children sleeping through a dangerous world crisis. The question of which presidential candidate is best prepared to respond to a world crisis is certainly legitimate, but the deliberate fueling of fear seems pretty cynical to me. Of course, the media is no better. Just the ads for the local news—“A new food hazard that could threaten your family: tune in at 11!”—are enough to make me want to reach for a bottle of something soothing.

I am sure anti-anxiety medications have their place and are really helpful to people with chronic anxiety. It’s not the Avitan-takers I have a problem with, but the culture that seems to deliberately promote anxiety. I know I’m not immune from its influence. I’ve started seeing an acupuncturist (first for a recurring cough, and now for my hypothyroid), and every time I see her she tells me, “Relax more” after taking my pulse and looking at my tongue. I’m not sure what she sees in my tongue, but her advise has made me realize that I do cough more when feeling under stress. I know there is a clear relationship between my stress and my heartburn as well, so I have a real physical interest in finding ways to relax, which I know is better for my children (and probably my husband), too.

Much of my own stress is about time and what I feel I need to get done. Last Saturday at an extended meeting for worship held for Quakers who want to worship for hours at a time I heard the message that it was not my outward life I needed to change, but my inward life. The next day I heard John O'Donohue on Speaking of Faith say that stress came from a distorted relationship with time. I need to sit with that idea more, but it does seem to ring true. My task seems to be about trusting God’s time and not being ruled by my to-do list, or even worse, my anxieties about getting through my to-do list.

EcoParenting Continued

Last week’s EcoMoms post got a lot of response (including from a few people who apparently had trouble posting comments), so I’m going to stick with the topic for another week. After all, dissecting the New York Times article allowed me to avoid examining my own practices, which had been my original intention. My basic questions are: how much is each of us is called to do in the face of climate change? And how can we support/challenge each other without spreading the “ecoanxiety” that many of us find unhelpful?

I suppose a starting place is to remember what things in the past have motivated me to reduce my environmental impact. The most dramatic was living in a village in Botswana where I had no electricity, no running water, and no car, yet lived quite happily. I read great novels by kerosene lamp, fetched my water in a bucket on my head (to the great amusement of the village children), and rode my bike to the school where I taught. When I needed to go further, I hitchhiked, like everyone else. Doing laundry by hand was the only hardship, and I confess I hired a local woman to do that for me. After two and a half years, returning to the United States was a difficult transition, especially my summer job working for a caterer where pounds of food were thrown away after every party. I got nicknamed “Mother Teresa” for driving leftovers to a soup kitchen and turning off the water whenever someone left the sink running. I felt very alone during that period. As Martin commented last time, it is easier to do this work in community.

Over the twenty years since that Peace Corps experience, my life has gotten much less simple. I no longer ride my bike to the school where I teach, partly because I’m terrified of Philadelphia traffic, partly because there is a really big hill on the way home, and I’m not that ambitious any more, and partly because I wouldn’t have time after dropping the kids at their school. (The school bus leaves ridiculously early to follow a circuitous route, and my school and the kid’s are several miles away, so I take the train.) I no longer read by kerosene, but I do pay a little extra for renewable energy. I’m sure I use a lot more water now that I don’t bathe out of a basin, but the memory of carrying those buckets of water has stayed with me, so I take shorter showers than most Americans. I hardly ever bathe my kids, so that helps, too. We do compost scraps and recycle what we can, which I don’t find that onerous once you get it organized, but which would still be much easier if our city adopted single stream recycling. (On the plus side, the city gave us our compost bin.) Our house is relatively small and well insulated, but it is still about seven times as large as my unheated hut in Botswana. In short, I can see several ways that we are doing what we can to reduce our environmental impact, but when I think about what else we could do I come up against the tension between what is in my control and what is due to bigger societal forces than I can control alone.

The part of our lives I feel most wasteful is in the realm of transportation. While I take the train to school twice a week, on the days I’m not teaching I mostly drive. I could take the bus to the coffee shop (where I get much more writing done than at home), but the bus schedule is less predictable than the train, and time to write feels like my biggest scarcity. Also, I often shop or do errands on the way back from the coffee shop, and doing that for a family of four by bus doesn't feel very "simple." So what is the best thing to do: take the bus, walk the thirty-five minutes to the coffee shop, or drive and spend the saved time lobbying for increased fuel standards on cars or better public transportation? What is the balance between doing all I can in this area and following what I feel God is leading me to do, finish writing the book I’m working on?

As usual, I come back to the question of discernment. From a purely environmental point of view, the best thing I could have done would be to not have children. But I felt led to have children, and I’m clear that was the right choice. Our carbon footprint is not the only measure of our lives. On the other hand, it is easy to overlook our carbon footprint and toss off our consumption as something we just shouldn’t worry about, as many people I know still do. I wonder what of my driving habits I should be changing and where I just need to let go of the guilt, which I don’t find to be very productive. Unless the guilt is a call to change, which it could be. One of the signs we look for in discernment is peace. I feel peace about having two kids. I feel peace about the size of my house and the length of my showers. Perhaps my discomfort at the amount I drive my car is a nudge I should be paying attention to.

EcoMoms

For some time I’ve been meaning to blog about trying to be an environmentally-conscious family, so I was pleased when The New York Times published “For EcoMoms, Saving Earth Begins at Home.” In many ways, the article itself points to the contradictions and challenges of trying to live simply in the United States.

First, the good news: an increasing number of mothers (as well as fathers and non-parents, in my observation) are talking with each other about how to reduce their impact on the environment. I was heartened to read that in California, mothers are doing this in groups—and not just Quaker committees. The article describes the EcoMom party as the new Tupperware party, a chance for women to gather and talk over a glass of wine. The fact that they are encouraging and challenging each other to make more environmentally friendly choices is great. Any difficult change is easier with peer support, and countering the consumer orientation of our culture is certainly difficult.

The difficulty is reflected in what seems to me a slightly snide tone on the part of the article’s author, Patricia Leigh Brown. Maybe I’m over sensitive, but I hear a hint of mockery in this and other sentences:

Perhaps not since the days of “dishpan hands” has the household been so all-consuming. But instead of gleaming floors and sparkling dishes, the obsession is on installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, buying in bulk and using “smart” power strips that shut off electricity to the espresso machine, microwave, X-Box, VCR, coffee grinder, television and laptop when not in use.

Perhaps Brown is simply worried that changing all the light bulbs is going to fall on the mothers, and she doesn’t want women burdened with any more to feel guilty about. But even more than the reference to “dishpan hands” it is the use of the word “obsession” that feels dismissive. Surely we have moved past the time when environmental activists were seen as hysterics, obsessed with irrational fears. Or maybe this is a stereotype about women. My friend Laura Levitt, a well-respected feminist scholar, just arrived in the coffee shop where I am writing and affirmed my suspicions. “The Times is always dismissive of groups of women,” says Laura. “If a bunch of men were doing it, they would think it was great.”

Of course, it’s possible that the author’s tone isn’t directed at the women at all, but at the lavish consumerism they are attempting to moderate. In the sentence quoted above, there are seven gadgets hooked up to the smart power strip, which is a subtle way of pointing to the contradiction posed by the affluent EcoMoms profiled in the article. The picture of the gathering makes the point as well. These are rich White women in big luxurious houses. Brown explains, “One of the country’s wealthiest places, Marin County, is hardly a hub of voluntary simplicity; its global footprint, according to county statistics, is 27 acres per person, a measure of the estimated amount of land it takes to support each person’s lifestyle (24 is the American average).”

What Brown leaves out are the global statistics that show that most of us are more like the Marin County mothers than we’d like to admit. To put this in a little perspective, here is a graph that shows ecological footprints around the world, in hectares, rather than acres:

The average American footprint is nearly nine times as large as the average African. Given the earth’s limited resources, limiting our consumption can be seen as a matter of justice, as well as survival.

Although this bigger global perspective is missing from the Times piece, and by implication from the Marin County EcoMom meetings, I still think mothers talking about how to reduce their carbon emissions is a good thing, even if it does cause a little "ecoanxiety." (I hadn’t even thought about the dry-erase markers emitting toxins before reading this article, but I don’t feel up to convincing our school to replace the dry-erase markers that every child uses for math.) Instead of the "ecotherapists" referred to in the piece, we need communities where we can challenge and support each other, not in the bitchy way Brown hints at in her article, but in the way John Woolman encouraged his fellow Quakers to give up their slaves, with love. By working together, we can also challenge our politicians to make the policy decisions that will have an even greater impact than any of us can acting alone.

It's the prospect of supportive community that I took out of this article. It's been pretty lonely being the only family on the block that composts, yet in my Quaker meeting I compare myself to some of the single people who live much less wasteful lives than mine, and I am hit with that "ecoanxiety" syndrom. Talking with other parents about what we can reasonably do seems like a good next step. Maybe we can start in the blogosphere so none of us has to drive to another meeting.

Slippery

Nature often gives us spiritual lessons. Last Sunday in meeting someone spoke about the hope she sensed from seeing the sprouting crocuses and blooming witch hazel on her way through the garden. Certainly spring is the season of hope and new life. Falling leaves always remind me of the cyclical nature of things, the need for times of retraction as well as expansion. So today it is slippery out—the sidewalks coated with sleet, snow, and rain—and it seems a fitting reminder of how precarious our walk on this earth is.

I have a good friend whose mother is dying. Four times now the doctors have told her the end was near, only to have her mother rebound. Talking to her reminds me of those unpredictable days near my mother’s end when I couldn’t plan more than an hour at a time. Intellectually I know that life is always unpredictable, that anyone I love could die at any time, but most days I don’t walk around thinking about it. I believe the occasional reminder is healthy; it puts the inconvenience of a slushy day into perspective, as well as the inconvenience of the 24 hour flu.

None of us has caught the flu this year, though I am starting to brace myself. Half of my son’s class has been out in the past few days, as well as a few of my daughter’s friends and one of her teachers. In my college class, the students are taking turns sending fever-induced e-mails that explain their absences. All this sickness has got me writing on the calendar a little less boldly, just in case one of us wakes up with a fever, and I have to scratch whatever I had planned to tend to myself or my children. Last Saturday a mother called to cancel her son’s birthday party due to a 102 fever. Again, such things can happen any time, but February seems to be a month where we get frequent reminders.

It’s nice to hear the political pundits for once admitting that they have no idea what is going to happen. A year ago they seemed so sure they could script this presidential race. I love that the voters aren’t sticking to the script. (Even seemingly unbeatable candidates can slip in the polls.) Like the sprouting crocus, the growing electorate gives me hope. Still, there’s no guarantee things will go the way I want. That’s the reminder of this weather—no guarantees. No guarantee you’ll be able to do something simple, like crossing the street, without landing on your back, which happened yesterday to a friend from the coffee shop. Instead of making me anxious or overly cautious, I want this weather to remind me to be more alert and open to whatever happens next.

Ghosts

I’ve been dreaming about my mother lately, or sometimes about being in her old apartment. In the most dramatic dream I was sitting on her old couch (the one which my grandfather died on) when my mother walked into her living room. I jumped up to greet her, but she evaporated under the white robe she was wearing, sort of like the witch in The Wizard of Oz. In the dream I thought, “At least I still have her couch,” though in waking life I do not. As longtime readers will remember, my mother died just over two years ago. Her couch was one of her many possessions that I gave away because I didn’t have room to keep it, and it wasn’t valuable to anyone but her.

When my mother was dying, I wrote about her regularly on this blog, but since her passing, I haven’t mentioned her much. Life moved on, and the children and my work regained my attention. I was efficient in settling her estate and I thought in settling my grief. I figured I’d had a year to grieve while I was watching her slowly waste away from lung disease. I figured that made it easier when the end finally came. Her prayers were finally answered. She was at peace.

So I’m not sure what it means that I’ve been dreaming about my mother. In many of the dreams I’m just in her apartment. (In one of them I was checking to see if there was enough toilet paper.) All I know is that they are a reminder that she is still part of my life, though usually out of sight, like in the apartment dreams. The dreams also bring a taste of grief, a reminder that I can’t dispose of my feelings as efficiently as I disposed of her furniture. I have to be open to whatever these dreams and feelings are trying to teach me, though I’m still not quite sure what that is.

Yesterday I learned that a good friend’s mother may be dying. It was a reminder of how universal this experience is, the loss of parents. It made me think of all my friends who have lost parents or loved ones in the past few years and how infrequently those losses come up after the initial mourning period where people say things like, “How are you doing?” without needing to explain why they are asking. It makes me want to check in with these friends long after the loss to see how it has changed them, to see if they are haunted, as I sometimes feel, by a loved one’s spirit.

There’s no neat conclusion here, but I guess that is part of the message. I like clear endings, concluding sentences that sum everything up (which is why I labor with such frustration of concluding sentences). But there is no neat end to one’s relationship to a parent. The past is woven into the present and future, albeit in sometimes invisible threads.

Distractions

A writer friend of mine, who is also a very spiritual person, says that whenever life seems to be getting in the way of your writing, consider the possibility that the distractions are there to teach you something you need to learn in order to do the writing. I’m trying to remember that after a week when I didn’t get to write anything, not even blog. Looking back at the events of the week, I can see ways that my friend is right.

For instance, last night we had dinner with a troubled young woman whom I would like to “fix,” though I know I can’t. I can’t undo her rough childhood, her exposure to drugs and alcohol at an early age, or the genes she inherited from her two addictive parents. I can’t prevent her from making foolish financial decisions or questionable relationship ones. But I can sit and listen, which I don’t think many people have ever done for her, and I can pray for her. The irony is that the chapter of the book I was working on before this distracting week was on dealing with other people. There is a section on accepting that we can’t change or control other people (although other sections of the chapter talk about how we can bring out the best in them through things like deep listening). This morning I realized I need a paragraph (at least) on praying for people when there is nothing else to do, and maybe one on how hard it is to listen to someone who is not making much sense. It would have been more efficient if I could have gotten these insights without the four-hour painful dinner and the following sleepless night, but my writing process is usually not that efficient. I have to actually learn things before I can write about them.

I’m hoping the class I am now teaching on “Race at the End of the Twentieth Century” will also enrich my writing work, rather than distract me from it, though this first week of the semester it took up much of my time. Likewise the Quaker work that is coming now that my meeting has approved building a new meetinghouse I’m sure will be educational. I’m less certain what I was supposed to learn from this week’s chipped tooth and the morning I spent at the dentist’s getting a temporary crown. It could be another lesson in patience, though I would have thought I get enough of those as a parent. I guess this week brings me back to my two favorite themes: trust and discernment. I have to trust that if I am on the right path, then everything will work together for some purpose I can’t always see. On the other hand, I have to keep discerning if I am on the right path and not saying yes to too many things that will distract me from the work I am really supposed to be doing.

Hearing and Being Heard

Many years ago I was in the Peace Corps in Botswana, where most people speak Setswana, which I learned better than most Whites, but not fluently. Because I spoke some Setswana, people sometimes assumed that I knew more than I actually did. I remember once when I stopped by the shop near my little round house. One of the women behind the counter told me something in Setswana, and I had to answer, “Ga ke utlwe”—I don’t understand. The woman repeated herself, more loudly this time, but my response was the same. This went on until I felt she was shouting at me, and we were both frustrated. I finally left the store, still not knowing what seemed so urgent to the disappointed woman.

The problem was that Setswana uses the word utlwa to mean both “understand” and “hear.” I could hear the woman fine; I just had no idea what she was talking about. I think Quakers sometimes have a similar problem with language (and maybe not just Quakers). When we talk about hearing each other and feeling heard, we usually mean something other than the literal hearing that can be amplified by a computerized devise in the ear. We do need to speak up, to be mindful of those older Friends in the back benches who have no chance of understanding us if we don’t project a bit more, but that’s not the kind of hearing I’m concerned with here. This morning I’m thinking about how we can better hear with the heart and how we can speak in ways that make us more likely to be heard in that deeper way.

In English we are blessed with a number of words with different connotations. We can listen but not hear, hear but not understand, understand but not agree, or agree but not comply. Hearing with the heart is harder to define. It doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with someone or doing what they want, though it does imply a deep understanding, empathy, and respect. Sometimes when people complain that they haven’t been heard, I sense they are just frustrated that they haven’t gotten their way yet, but more often I think it is because they haven’t yet felt the respect and empathy of their listeners. In my experience, once I feel truly heard—understood, respected, and empathized with—it is easier for me to stop repeating myself, which of course makes it easier to hear what the other person is saying.

I first started thinking about these multiple meanings of the word “hear” when I was living at Pendle Hill fifteen years ago. There were some earnest community members who felt they were “not being heard” on issues of gender equality, so—like the woman in Botswana—they simply kept repeating themselves more vehemently. In the end, some people who hadn’t thought deeply about gender concerns really did hear the pain in their voices, and some wonderful healing and growth took place in pockets of the community. In other parts of the community, however, there was no real understanding. There were many people who were glad at the end of the year to part company with the folks they were tired of listening to. I’m thinking about this experience now as our meeting community is engaged in some difficult discernment. After eight years of threshing sessions, discussions, meetings for worship for business, personal conversations, and called meetings for worship, I have the sense that we still have not totally heard each other. It’s all a bit exhausting, but unlike Pendle Hill, we are not a community that has near fifty per cent turn over at the end of every year. We can’t just wait this out.

I don’t have any solutions, but in Quaker tradition I have some queries, for our meeting members and for others who face similar situations:

Have I spoken my truth as clearly and honestly as I can, trusting that mine is just a piece of a greater Truth?
Have I felt understood and respected by my listeners?
If not, am I called to repeat my message, express it differently, or let it go?
Have I listened deeply to each person in my community, trusting that each holds a piece of a greater Truth?
Have I understood the concerns of each speaker and empathized with them?
If not, why not?
Have I spoken about anyone in my community in ways that disparage their perspective, perhaps making it more difficult for others to hear them with respect?
Have I done my best to help ground the community in the kind of deep speaking and listening that brings us all closer to God?

(For those who are unfamiliar with the Quaker use of queries, these are questions asked not to provoke an immediate or logial answer but to prompt us to examine the issues and our response to them more deeply. Friends often read queries at the beginning of a meeting and then sit in silence and let the questions work in us.)

Teaching Discernment

I’ve been thinking about a comment from two posts ago about trusting the discernment of our children. It seems to bring together two huge and difficult questions: How do we know if someone else is truly listening to God’s guidance? And how do we prepare our children to be adults?

On the first question, it’s hard enough to know if we are really being faithful ourselves; it is so easy to frame our own desires in the language of leading. Early Friends were suspicious of their own desires—to the extreme perhaps, living as they were at a time when anything “natural” seemed suspect—but we’ve gone the other way. We consider our own desires something to pay attention to when discerning God’s leading, which in general, I think is right. However, it is awfully easy to confuse our superficial, insecure, socially conditioned desires with the deep desires of our “true selves,” to use the language of many religious writers.

In Quaker tradition, the community helps to challenge our inclination to fool ourselves. Today we have clearness committees, but in earlier eras I have the sense that Friends challenged each other more regularly, not just when they were asked to serve on a committee. In contrast, today I have the sense that we accept that another person has a leading without much question, unless they happen to run up against our own preconceptions about what God wants. For example, if I announced in meeting that I thought God was leading me to get a BMW, Friends might be suspicious. But if I announced that I felt led to get a Prius, I suspect few would question it, even though it could be a leading or just an attempt to look cool and environmentally hip without really changing my driving habits. (I give this example not to criticize anyone who has a Prius but because I’ve been toying with getting one myself, and I’m not sure where the impulse is coming from.)

Of course, in many ways we are the best ones to question our own motives, if we are willing to challenge ourselves, that is. I know best how I usually feel when I am led, and how I can fool myself when I am not. But the question of how we assess each other’s discernment becomes important when an individual asks the community for support. For example, when Quakers want to be married under the care of a meeting or when they want funds to support a ministry they are carrying out, the community has a role in checking their discernment. We ask questions, listen deeply, and see if what they sense matches up with what we sense.

Perhaps being a parent is like being the member of an oversight or clearness committee, but I think that might be too simple. Parents have to recognize that their children are growing and changing over time, so the guidance and limits they need at four are quite different from what they need at fourteen. And part of our job is to encourage them to listen inwardly for guidance, while we approach clearness committees with adults more or less assuming (sometimes optimistically) that the person we are meeting with already knows what to listen for. Sarah’s question has me thinking about how to develop my children’s discernment more deliberately and what role I play in challenging it.

I just looked up the comment that sparked this train of thought and realized that she never used the word discernment. Here is her wording of the question:

The Quaker perspective is that everyone has some piece of the truth. How do we honor that in our children - truly honor it?

I remember a story I heard when I was living at Pendle Hill many years ago. Fran Taber—who grew up in a rural Quaker community that was more insular and conservative than the world my children experience—shared the memory of being given a piece of candy when she was a girl. She asked her mother if she could have it, and if my memory is correct, her mother said, “What does thou think, Fran?” Being given this important choice herself, Fran took it seriously and decided to save the candy until after dinner.

When I first heard this story, I thought it reflected the idea Sarah was getting at, that everyone has access to truth, including children, and that we need to honor and encourage that in each other. However, when I told this story to the children in our meeting’s First Day School (Quakerspeak for Sunday school), I remember the regular teacher looking at me like I was crazy. I had a sense that the story didn’t make sense in our circumstances where a piece of candy is not a rare treat, but something to be taken for granted. At the time, my own children were quite young, but I felt a sudden concern. How do I give my children the freedom to learn to make decisions for themselves in a culture where McDonalds, Radio Disney, and a myriad of other corporations have marketers paid specifically to shape my children’s tastes? In this culture, especially now with an eight-year-old and an eleven-year-old, I find myself trying to shelter my children more than empowering them. When my daughter says she wants an iPod nano, I suspect it is the advertising and peer pressure at work, rather than her inner truth.

But I’m still left with the question of how to prepare my children for adulthood, when they will need to make their own decisions, not only about consumer choices, but about many other things as well. One of the women I interviewed for my book talked about the fact that when she was raising her children she always kept in mind that she was ultimately preparing them to leave home and live their own lives. It is easy to forget this in the midst of packing lunches and signing permission slips, but there is a truth there that I am becoming more aware of as we approach adolescence. I’d love to hear stories from others about how they are helping prepare their children to live independently, and especially how they help children pay attention to God’s guidance. Please post any wisdom you have to share!

New Hope

It’s a new year, and I have a new haircut, which makes me feel a little lighter. But the real reason I am brimming with hope this morning is that Barack Obama won in Iowa with record turn out, especially among young and new voters. The fact that his victory was sound in a state that is 95 per cent White only adds to my optimism about his prospects in the rest of the country. (For why I am now capitalizing White and Black, read this post.)

Of course Obama’s victory does not mean that racism is a thing of the past, or that the great disparities in wealth and power than exist in our country will disappear if we elect a Black president. It is important that we not buy into that illusion. But it does indeed seem to be a “new day,” as the candidate said, at least in terms of electoral politics. This seems to be confirmed in Philadelphia, which just got a new mayor in a race that broke the old mold of racially divisive elections in our town, ending with a Black man winning with an unprecedented 83% of the vote.. The fact that Michael Nutter will be inaugurated next week—the guy I wanted to vote for from the beginning but was told didn’t have a chance—only adds to my optimism about 2008.

Balancing optimism and realism is tricky business. We can’t forget the real challenges that face both these men, the real and historic problems faced by our city, and our country. But I don’t think people ever find creative solutions without optimism and the hope that things can be better. I’ve always said that the thing that makes Barak Obama different than previous Black candidates for president is not his grooming (Remember Chris Dodd’s stupid comments?), but the fact that he is the first Black candidate to believe he can actually win. This struck me months ago when Obama wrote an editorial for the Irish Edition, a Philadelphia monthly that my mother subscribed to for years. He made a compelling case for why the Irish would appreciate his approach to immigration and other issues, a pitch I don’t think Jesse Jackson ever bothered to make. The article struck me as exceedingly smart, and optimistic.

Perhaps it is Obama’s optimism that propelled him to victory last night. I know I’m sick of feeling hopeless about the world, and I suspect I’m not alone. Although I still have criticisms of The Secret, I think it is basically right in this respect—things will never improve unless we believe they can.

Negotiating

So the good news is that I’ve done of a great job of empowering my daughter to know what she wants and to ask for it. This was one of my goals as the mother of a daughter, and I’ve apparently accomplished it before her eleventh birthday. The bad news is that she is honing her skills negotiating with me, and she’s better at it than I am.

The issue of the day is still her Christmas gift. She’s given up on the iPhone, but has gotten stuck on the iPod nano. Everyday she brings it up and presents cogent counter-arguments to the reasons we’ve told her we’re not buying her one. To my concern that it will separate her from the family and to her father’s concern that those little earphones are bad for your hearing (It’s true. He did some research.), she responds that she won’t listen to it that much or play it that loudly. To our concerns about price, she responds that she only wants this one thing and finds us sales in the newspaper. To our argument that Christmas is not about material gifts, she responds that she knows and parrots back our little lecture about God in the world. So last night I reached the bottom of the argument barrel. I told her that I thought a little disappointment would be good for her soul. Predictably, she rolled her eyes.

Although it sounds lame to an almost eleven-year-old, I think that is truly a reason I won’t get her what she wants. A few other parents have suggested I’m silly, but I just ran into a child psychologist friend who totally agrees. A new member of my writer’s group, Tamar Chansky has written books on children and anxiety and is now writing one on freeing children from negative thinking. Part of what she deals with is teaching children to deal with disappointment with flexibility and resilience so they don’t fall apart every time they don’t get their way. Part of what they need, she argues, is the experience of bouncing back from disappointment, which they will never get if parents always try to shield them from it. When I told her about the iPod nano, she encouraged me to stand firm.

I find myself wondering if this is more of a problem in our middle class American world where my children really don’t have to go without very much. When I was a child I didn’t expect to get every latest thing on the market because I knew my parents couldn’t afford it. Certainly when I was in the Peace Corps in Botswana, my students were happy if they owned their own pen and a pair of shoes. In fact, my students seemed happy much of the time. Although their lives were far from perfect, I suspect they didn’t have near the levels of anxious children as our more materially affluent society.

I also think this is a spiritual dilemma that relates to the book I’m writing, The Wisdom to Know the Difference. (By the way, I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that I’ve found a publisher, Tarcher, which focuses on mind, body spirit issues!) On the one hand, I want my children to grow up trusting the universe, believing that their deepest needs will always be met. I want them to know that what they do matters. (For example, learning to ask for what you want clearly and with good counter-arguments when necessary does make you more likely to get what you want.) On the other hand, I want them to learn to accept that they won’t always get exactly what they want, and that’s OK. The trick is to figure out how to parent in ways that they learn both lessons.

Tamar mentioned the importance of knowing where you’re heading when you set your course. I have to keep reminding myself of the kind of adults I want my children to become, not just the kind of reactions I want on Christmas morning.

***Speaking of Christmas, I will be taking a vacation from blogging and probably won’t post again until early in the New Year. So have a blessed Christmas, Eid, or solstice to you all.

'Tis a Gift

A few days ago a friend who works with low-income students told me that one of her students was sharing Ramen noodles with his siblings this month so that their family could afford Christmas. It was my friend’s impression that they might be saving, not just for a simple gift, but for some higher status electronic item.

This story reminded me of my mother, who always said that Santa was a cruel story to tell poor children. She and my father went bankrupt when I was a baby, so they couldn’t afford nearly as many gifts as the cousins whom we usually visited for Christmas dinner. My mother didn’t want me to believe that I was naughty and they were nice just because I got fewer toys. She also didn’t want me to ever be without healthy food or a good education, so she put her money into that which she thought would nurture me, even when it wasn’t what I most wanted. Coming up on the two-year anniversary of her death, I appreciate my mother’s practical wisdom much more than when I was a child.

It is so difficult to resist the consumer competition that Christmas has become. Even religious people seem to have surrendered. Last night we attended a mass geared for children where the priest told a story about Santa during the homily and in his closing remarks reminded the children that “Santa loves children who are good,” so if they were good, they would “be surprised by what Santa would bring them on Christmas morning.” When afterward I gently suggested that it was really hard for families like ours to keep the focus off the consumerism, the priest nodded in commiseration, not realizing that his remarks contributed to the problem.

I guess I shouldn’t be too aggravated at my daughter for asking (repeatedly) for an iPhone for Christmas. She’s just doing what her culture tells her to do. The question for me is how to swim against the cultural tide without drowning (see last year’s post). I’m pretty sure that giving my children an alternative example will work better than giving speeches. So although I was kind of thinking that I’d like an iPod myself this year, I told Tom not to get me one. Instead I asked for a retreat sometime early in the new year—and a few pairs of warm socks for our trip to Wisconsin. (Like Albus Dumbledore, all I really need is some warm socks.) Tom also wants a retreat, and a shirt to replace the one that just got ripped. The children might not notice or appreciate the example now, but maybe they will in forty years, the way I appreciate my mother’s approach to Christmas now that I’m on the other end of the gift-giving.

In the meantime, Tom and I are trying to figure out how to give them some gifts they can unwrap, but ones that will nurture them more than Ramen noodles.

Searching for God

On a whim this morning I did a Google blog search for “God” and got over 30 million hits. The top results reveal our culture’s conflicted views on the Creator, though I’m not sure they would help a person who was genuinely searching for God. First I clicked on All About God and was greeted with the message, “We have all sinned and deserve God’s judgment.” It’s a well organized, conservative site that attempts to answer serious questions like, “Does God exist?” and “Is the Bible true?” though if I were designing a site to tell people about God, judgment would not be the first thing I’d mention. I started wondering if a more loving image of the Divine was in the top Google results and found God is for Suckers and Joe. My. God. with pictures of Bernadetee Peters, Barak Obama, and an ad for gay dating.

On another lark I figured I’d do an image search of God, just to see what the Internet came up with. I wonder how many people secretly have this image, an old white man, not reaching out to us from a cloud, but with his finger on a button.

What interests me most is how our images of God affect the way we live every day. Scrolling down the list of blogs that mention God I started finding people grappling with the issues of lived faith. One blogger questions if God wants her in church because she has tattoos, even though she knows it is the people in the church making her feel that way, not necessarily God. A religion writer wants to know if God wants us to genetically improve our children, and another post talks about giving from our hearts, referencing Joan of Arcadia, a television show my family loved before it was cancelled. These topics are much more interesting to me than the sites trying to prove or disprove God’s existence. I want to know how my image of God affects what I wear to worship on Sunday morning or what I get my children for Christmas.

As I was perusing the Internet looking for God, a friend came in to the coffee shop where I’m hanging today and starting talking about all the anxieties parents carry, from germ-phobias to the fear of crime. Her ten-year-old is upset by the murder of Washington Red Skins player Sean Taylor. When their family prayed for his family at bed time last night her son asked, “What if there is no God?” My friend sighed, admitting that it was a call to deepen her own faith.

We can’t inoculate kids from doubts any more than we can protect them from every germ. In fact, in my own life, facing my doubts has strengthened my belief in a Higher Power, just as being exposed to germs strengthens our immune system. Turning from the Internet to my friend reminded me that, after several years away from organized religion in my twenties, it was the example of people I respected who drew me back into an active search for God. Today I find spiritual nurture, not in well crafted arguments about God’s existence or judgment, but in the everyday struggles of other people, whether in coffee shops, meetings for worship, or online.

(Note: Out of respect for artists and intellectual copyright, I wanted to link to the original source of the above cartoon, rather than just copy it. However, it has been copied so many places on the Internet already--by both religious and atheistic sites--that I could not locate the orignal source to ask permission or give credit. Thanks cartoonist!)

Faith and Fear

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends. We enjoyed great food and conversation, even some friendly political arguments, without the tension those discussions can cause at family gatherings. Everyone’s children played well together, and at the end of the meal we huddled around a patio fire-pit to toast marshmallows and drink Slibovitz, in honor of our Serbian hostess and her father. It was in the warmth of fluttering flames and full stomachs that the city-dwellers started talking about the spike in crime in our section of the city. This morning that conversation is still heavy in me, like last night’s pecan pie.

There has always been crime in the city. In fact we got robbed twice within our first few months here. But lately the stories have been increasing, like our city’s murder rate during the last few years. One of the guests told of having his new house broken into twice. Other stories rose up. A friend of ours was held up at gun point walking down a street where those sorts of things don’t normally occur. Then, in the same neighborhood, a man was held up while walking his dog. Because he didn’t have any money the robber shot and killed the dog, an incident I’ve heard repeated many times now from different parties. People seem to be talking about the dog more than the police officer who was killed a few weeks ago when he intercepted a man robbing a Dunkin Donuts. I don’t know why a shot dog is talked about more than the 30 murders that took place in our city last month. Is it because it is a more unusual image than a shot person, or simply because it happened in an area my friends and I frequent, and therefore brings the violence closer to home? Surely 30 murders in a month should disturb us more than the death of one dog, but somehow the statistics are hard to grasp, so people repeat the dog story.

I have mixed reactions to these stories. An important part of my faith journey has been about trusting God and not getting hooked by fear. Still, this morning I left the gym half an hour early because I had an irrational need to rush home and check on my sleeping children. (I sometimes find it difficult to distinguish an intuition to protect them from an irrational fear, though when I get a reassuring intuition I always trust it.) Then I felt annoyed with myself for cutting my workout short and wondered if it was last night’s stories that made me feel insecure. Anything can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, but I don’t want to live my life always thinking about worst-case scenarios. I’ll lock my house and my car, but I don’t want to lock my spirit, which I think can happen to people when they get too crime obsessed.

As the parent of a ten-year-old and an eight-year-old, I am becoming increasingly aware of the dual nature of my job. In evolutionary terms I am driven to help them survive long enough to make me a grandmother and hopefully outlive me. But the other side of that job is that I have to teach them to be independent enough to survive without me, and that can only come with a certain amount of freedom. Unfortunately concerns about crime make contemporary parents err on the side of protection, often at the expense of independence. When I was ten, a friend and I often wandered alone through the woods near Valley Green (a city park). I think those early experiences of nature were an important part of my spiritual growth as well as my environmental concern. My daughter has also spent time in the woods, but never alone, which is the only way to really hear the birds and the wind in the trees. I wonder how much she is missing and how far I can let her wander without being irresponsible.

But this is all about me and my family and how the fear of crime affects us. How much worse for the families living in the neighborhoods where the 30 murders took place? I suspect that in those communities, people wouldn’t get so worked up about a dog. I’m still not sure what I can do to help people in those neighborhoods, except to keep remembering that they are my neighbors, as are the young men with guns, including the one who shot the dog. In the end I realize that trust and compassion go hand in hand. It’s not so much that I should walk around the city in denial of what can happen, but that I have to continue seeking that of God in everyone I meet, even if that person is someday a mugger. I’ve heard at least a few stories of that working better than mace, anyway.

This morning a family friend, who is both a teacher of Torah and a social activist, called to wish us a happy Thanksgiving. I asked him how his holiday was and he replied, “We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to still work for.” Amen.

Blogging Dilemmas

Robin M’s latest post on What Can Thou Say raises the question of how people find her blog. She lists funny phrases like “hip devotional” as some of the ways people get referred to her by search engines. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my kids about search engines this summer, when Harry Potter was a regular dinner topic. To illustrate the strange logic of search engines, I guessed that if a person googled “Quaker,” “mother” and “Voldemort” that my blog would probably come up in the top ten. Sure enough, I was #3 at the time, though this morning I’m #1 for that search!

Robin’s question also made me think about the deeper issues of how we connect on the Internet and for what purpose. On Tuesday, my writers group discussed blogging. A few of our members had attended a blogging workshop in New York that was geared for journalists. They came back and reported what they had learned. The main message was to link, link, link, both to other bloggers and to news sources. The NY presenter had described this as “building community” and said that when you blogroll (list other blogs on your blog) you are essentially saying, “These are my people, my community.” On the other hand, he also advised people to link to those they respect but disagree with so that the online community does not become too insular. Of course, there is also self interest at play. Some bloggers are interested in making money from advertising, which means building readership becomes essential. I doubt this is a motivation for any Quaker bloggers, but I know the temptation of feeding ego and public recognition. It sometimes gets twisted up with the real leading I feel to try to reach others through my writing.

For example, at the previous writer’s group meeting, I learned about Technorati a web site that assigns blogs “authority” ratings based on how many people link to them. When I first checked mine I had what seemed like a modest but respectable rating, though when I checked back last week, I was given “no authority.” What? Where had my authority gone? I know there are people who have linked to me recently, so it seems it should have increased. I checked again this morning as I started this post, and now I can’t even find my blog on their site at all. I proved to myself the danger of caring too much about this sort of thing by wasting a ridiculous amount of time looking for myself online, although the point that I wanted to make was that, as a Quaker, I don’t want to confuse real authority with popularity.

Here’s the twist, though: I am entering a phase where I feel God is calling me to be more public in my work, both writing and teaching. I don’t want to “hide my light under a bushel,” as Quakers are sometimes accused of doing, but I’m also not sure how to pursue things like blogrolling, especially with other Quakers when we have a culture that is rightfully suspicious of self-promoters. There seems to be some balance that’s needed here, so as usual I come back to the issue of discernment, listening for God’s leading. I have no doubt that God can use the Internet for God’s purposes as much as any other forum. In fact I recently found my new literary agent through the Internet. When she called to say she wanted to represent me we had a great little chat. Five minutes into it she asked, “So did you know I was a Quaker?” Actually, no, but it was just one of the things that made this connection seem “rightly ordered,” to use the Quaker jargon. Just like in the rest of life, I have to do what I can to connect with others while trusting that God is at work, and it’s not all up to me to figure out alone.

Honesty

I’m in my favorite coffee shop, trying not to hear two women behind me who are having a heated discussion about what it feels like to be listened to. One woman just gave the other some pretty hard feedback, beginning with the phrase, “I’m going to be really honest now.” It makes me realize how unusual it is for friends to challenge each other this way and how rarely I do it.

There have been a few instances lately where I have bit my tongue when I was thinking something pretty critical about another person’s actions. In the interest of discretion, I will be vague about the details. (For those of my readers who are friends or meeting members, I’m not talking about any of you. In fact, it is highly unlikely the people I’m talking about will ever read this, so relax dear reader; this is not about you.) In two of the situations, I was in a position of relative authority where my feedback would have been appropriate, but would have also carried more weight and more potential to harm, or at least bruise egos. What I’m wondering this morning is whether my real motivation in keeping silent was the other person’s best interest or my desire to avoid conflict.

There is part of me that has become more humble over the years. So I think person X is making a mistake. What do I know? And who am I to think it is my job to correct him? If he is making a mistake, isn’t he more likely to learn from his mistakes than from me? Shouldn’t I strive to act like a clearness committee, listening deeply and occasionally asking questions that might help the person hear his own inner wisdom? On the other hand, one of the ways we learn is by receiving honest feedback from other people with different perspectives. Wouldn’t it be more loving to tell X what I really think, rather than nod politely?

I think the key is to look at my own motivations. Am I trying to show off and be the expert, or am I really led to speak honestly for the benefit of others? In the coffee shop discussion behind me, the challenging woman seems concerned about how the other woman is treating a third party, a student. Often I think that is what motivates us to share hard truths, concern about someone else. Yet even then it is often hard. This past summer I overheard someone say something racist and have been angry at myself ever since because I didn’t have the quick wits or courage to interrupt and object.

I once heard someone in a Quaker business meeting say that being Quaker to them meant being “nice.” I shuddered because I knew this person was trying to avoid conflict, and to me, honestly dealing with conflict is essential for us to hear God’s guidance in business meeting. It is essential in many other situations as well. I am reminded of M. Scott Peck’s book A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered which talks about the difference between civility and politeness. Real community, Peck says, has to be built on real honesty. Yet I think the woman who associated Quakers with niceness was not alone. There is a middle-class cultural norm of reserved politeness than sometimes shapes Quaker meetings as much as the real heritage of our faith. Weren't we once known as the “Friends of Truth?”

The two women have just left the coffee shop, their relationship seemingly intact. The man sitting next to me sighed and rolled his eyes, glad that they were finally gone. “Issues,” he said with a raised eyebrow. Maybe, but I suspect many of us have issues we just don’t confront. Although they might have picked a more private spot to do it, the two women were modeling honest communication. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

Singing Truth to Power

This week I attended my first Sinead O’Connor concert, which made me grateful that Quakers got over their historic aversion to music. It reinforced my belief that a good song can help us feel our connection to God and to other people. The fact that O’Connor’s new album is called Theology didn’t hurt, though I think her passionate voice touched my soul as much as the scripture-inspired lyrics.

One song that has stayed with me is called “If You Had a Vineyard,” (which you can listen to for free here). It is based on the story from Isaiah 5 where God compares his people to a vineyard that is producing bad grapes. The most haunting lines, whispered at the end, are God saying, “Oh that my eyes were a fountain of tears that I might weep for my poor people.” Sinead introduced the song by suggesting that God doesn’t like war.

Another song she sang began, “Margaret Thatcher on TV, Shocked by the deaths that took place in Beijing. It seems strange that she should be offended. The same orders are given by her.” Even written here it’s not quite the same as hearing those words sung. It’s the sort of simple truth that rarely appears on op-ed pages, or if it does, it’s buried in a few hundred words and loses the power to surprise. I guess sometimes it’s easier to express a difficult or challenging truth through music. We’re touched in our guts, not just our heads. It reminds me of the role of music in the liberation struggle of South Africa, which pianist Abdullah Ibrahim described as “a revolution in four-part harmony” because songs were such an integral part of politically empowering people.

In fact the same day I went to the concert, I met two South African singers who use their music to touch people through a group called The Peace Train. The leader, Sharon Katz, told me how she was commissioned during South Africa’s first free election in 1994 to write and perform songs in Zulu explaining to people how to vote. It leaves me thinking that we could use some songs about voting in this country, as well as some new peace songs.

Of course I still believe in the power of books and blogs to reach people, but this week I’m appreciating the power of music. Sinead’s ability to belt out a passionate sentiment left me feeling emboldened, wanting to be fearless in the expression of my own voice.

Daily Discernment

I once heard that Quaker teacher Bill Taber didn’t do a single thing before stopping and listening for God’s guidance. Even when he was leading a weekend workshop, he never planned more than a session ahead, stopping at each break to pray for guidance for the next hour’s work. I aspire to be so grounded and trusting, but I’m afraid I’m still learning how to listen to my inner voice when the phone is ringing, the dog barking to go out, and the kids clamoring for help with their homework. This week I’m practicing with the daily decisions around scheduling a busy family.

This weekend, for example, is just ridiculous. My son has a soccer game on Saturday morning, while my daughter has a Middle School Friends activity in the afternoon. I am invited to an art exhibit opening where a poem I wrote will be featured, along with a piece of visual art that was created to accompany it. Both curiosity and ego made me want to go to the exhibit opening, which is being organized by a good friend. Unfortunately, it is a few hours drive, and not even the Pennsylvania mountains in autumn could justify such a long trip, especially since my husband (a hospice social worker) is on call, the kids need chauffeuring, and I have things to do to prepare for my husband’s birthday on Sunday. Once I admitted to myself that my ego was blocking my discernment, I was able to let that one go and erase the exhibit from the family calendar.

Then a trickier dilemma came along. Several of the parents of the Middle School Friends event, which has been planned for some time, realized that dropping our children at the meetinghouse at 1 was going to make us miss the human chain for peace happening at the other end of the city. I got the bright idea that we should take the kids to at least some of the peace march and start the field trip an hour later. One parent offered to drive all the kids from the march to the meetinghouse, but then realized she wasn’t going to be able to do it. Other family plans shifted as well, often when people remembered other commitments they had forgotten. To make a long story short, this dilemma generated scores of e-mail—we were, of course, hitting “reply to all”—as well as a few phone conversations. I felt like John Woolman who chided himself for wasting people’s time in business meeting when he realized he was keeping hundreds of people from starting their journeys home.

From a logical point of view, having Quaker kids go to a peace march made all the sense in the world. But yesterday morning I woke up with a strong sense that I needed to think less and listen more. (This also applied to the question of whether to offer a workshop at FGC Gathering this summer, which I had also been thinking about.) I took the dog for a walk in the predawn rain and felt a strong call to simplify, cutting activities unless they really were spirit led. The result will be one less peace march for my daughter, but I’ve realized she’s more likely to learn peace from having a peaceful mother than from rushing from one end of town to the other with a peace sign dragging behind her.

More Courage

My last post drew a number of comments, some of them criticizing my description of Al Gore as courageous. John Comma suggested Quaker peace activist Tom Fox as a better model. I agree. After reading Tom’s last post from Iraq and some of the 92 comments from supporters, I am in tears. Being willing to risk one’s life for others is certainly the most profound kind of courage. Many people have been inspired by his example.

Most of us are so far from Tom’s level of commitment that I still feel a need to find smaller steps that people can take to develop courage. My friend Hilary Beard, whom I interviewed for my book, gave me this idea. She said that she learned in the corporate world that when you want to do something big and scary, you break it down into tiny steps that seem more manageable. In her case, she felt led to leave her corporate career and pursue writing, but even taking a night time writing course seemed frightening. So one day she brought the phone book to work. That wasn’t too scary. The next day she looked up the numbers of colleges that might offer evening writing courses. That wasn’t too scary. The next day she called and asked for catalogs. Every day she took a tiny step, so that now she is supporting herself as a full-time writer, giving people empowering information instead of selling them stuff they don’t need.

Of course there is a difference between acting on one's own behalf, and acting selflessly, but I am reminded of something Tim O'Brian said in The Things They Carried. Disappointed with himself for not having the courage to oppose the Vietnam War as an adult, he recalled a time when he was cowardly as a child and noted that if you want to develop courage in the big things, you need to start practicing with the little things.

But what about when even a tiny step seems too frightening? Last week I had a conversation with a woman who was irate at the prospect of the president vetoing children’s health care. She approached me and said that because I was “a political person” I should get people to phone the president in protest. I said I agreed with her on the issue and asked whether she had phoned in. She shook her head and laughed in embarrassment. It became clear that, although she felt passionately about the issue, calling a politician to voice her opinion seemed too scary. She wanted someone else to do it.

It would be easy to dismiss her fear as trivial or irrational. After all we are not living in Burma or somewhere where a tiny act of protest could be deadly. John’s comment on my last post was right about many of us living in privilege and relative safety, though I don’t think a lecture on her relative privilege would have helped this person. Frankly, I’m not sure if my encouragement did either, but I’m left with the feeling that many people's lives are paralyzed by fear, even the privileged. Although part of me wants to say, "Oh, give me a break," a deeper part of me feels we need to see each other’s fears with compassion, especially if we hope to create a more courageous culture. I remember once feeling judged in college for not being politically conscious enough. I think that judgment, and my defensive reaction to it, delayed my political consciousness by a few years. There has to be a better way to empower people.

I want to uphold the dramatic examples of courage—Tom Fox, Gandhi, Martin Luther King—but I also want to honor the more mundane examples, a woman quitting a lucrative job to follow her calling, or someone speaking up for the first time. Gandhi, after all, was terrified of public speaking. His autobiography is an inspirational account of small changes leading to dramatic transformation.

Courage

My eight-year-old son loves The Dangerous Book for Boys, which for anyone who has missed it, has been on the bestseller lists for months. It contains lots of old fashioned fun: how to build a go-cart, strategies for playing chess, even quotes by William Shakespeare. There is much to recommend it as an alternative to video games and violent movies, which is a relief since my adventurous son and his Quaker mother often disagree on the ethics of entertainment. I was pleased to find him reading this book with real interest and then scrambling around the house to find materials to make a battery. But last night I came across a section that greatly disappointed me and reminded me how my values are often out of step with the popular culture.

Of course it was the section on famous battles. I should have seen it coming that a book extolling the virtues of masculinity would sooner or later get around to glorifying war. To make matters worse, the battle I decided to read about was a Zulu battle with the British. Given that I am currently teaching a class on South African history, I dug in with interest. It was clear from the first sentence that the authors had a romantic notion of European colonialism, though that word was never mentioned. A boy reading this would have no idea that Europeans were systematically taking African land and resources, destroying their traditional cultures, and setting themselves up to rule out of arrogance and greed. Indeed the whole viewpoint of the story was clearly aligned with the British who were portrayed as heroes for fighting off a horde of wild Zulu (though the fact that the British had guns and the Zulu spears was not explored in depth). The piece ended by extolling the courage of the men on both sides.

Now I’m all for courage. I think we could use more of it in our world, and I’m happy for my son (as well as my daughter) to learn this virtue. I also recognize that many people have shown courage in times of war. My own father was on a ship that was sunk off the coast of Europe during WWII. He spent the night in the water with the Germans shooting at him and still managed to save another man. But I hope and pray that my son won’t ever need this kind of courage, that he finds other ways to prove his manhood.

I was musing on this when I heard that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change. I think Gore has shown the other kind of courage that I want for myself and my children. Granted Gore hasn’t been shot at physically, but he has taken lots of pot-shots, like being called “ozone man” during the 2000 presidential race. I think it took courage for Gore to raise climate change in Congress decades ago, when people thought it was a lark. It took courage to keep talking about it when people expected him to skulk away, like most defeated presidential candidates. Maybe he doesn’t have the courage to give up his big house or his big car, as critics charge, but I could use more courage in the area of personal sacrifice as well. I’m still glad to have his example to hold up next to generals and foot-soldiers.

As for other examples, I’m happy to say that The Daring Book for Girls is coming out soon, written by two friends, Miriam Peskowitz and Andi Buchanan. Given that both these women send their children to Quaker schools, I’m hopeful it won’t be glorifying battles, except maybe those for justice.

Change

Yesterday I had a guest lecturer come to my class on South Africa during Apartheid, a black South African lawyer, here on an exchange program. She spoke eloquently about the changes she’s witnessed during her lifetime, and fielded questions on everything from poverty to the Iraq war. Then, since she had been talking about the constitution, I mentioned how many people were surprised that South Africa’s constitution guarantees equal rights for gays and lesbians, given that they are not accepted in traditional African culture. She became animated, explaining that her Christian upbringing had taught her that homosexuality was wrong, so it was difficult for her when the judge she worked for made her work on that issue when it came to the Constitutional Count (which is like their Supreme Court). She had to listen to the testimonies of people requesting marriage equal to heterosexuals’ and reread the part of the constitution that says people may not be discriminated against on any grounds, including among other things, sexual orientation. “It gave me a little taste of what it must be like to be a white person who is raised to be prejudiced,” she said, explaining her internal conflict. She got the biggest laughs of her talk when she said that some friends had rented Brokeback Mountain without telling her what it was about. She was shocked when the sex scenes started, but found herself crying when one of the men cried. “Wow, it seemed like he really felt love for this other guy!” she said. It was clear she was still conflicted, but that some wall had cracked in her that allowed empathy to flow through.

Her story got me thinking about how much easier it is to change laws than hearts—and that’s not forgetting that it took decades to change the laws in South Africa. But to change a law, all you need is political power. It can happen relatively quickly once the conditions are right. Changing a heart or a mind can happen quickly too, but it’s a more mysterious process. It’s something that can’t be forced. The Civil Rights events that happened fifty years ago, and the conflicts in Jena Louisiana that happened a few weeks ago illustrate this. So do the changes in South Africa, which have been dramatic, though they haven’t eliminated racism. That will take a bit more time.

Sometimes I wonder where I am called to put my energy: to change the objective conditions that cause human suffering, or to change hearts. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact things probably go more smoothly if they shift together, though as a practical matter I have to decide where to put my energy. As a writer and a teacher, I tend toward the heart and mind focus, though the political activist in me doesn’t want to forget laws and institutions.

Several hours after the South African’s talk I met a Buddhist man who told me that when brought down to its most basic level Buddhism says we should stop doing harm first, then start doing good. Only after that should we focus on purifying our thoughts. It’s an interesting perspective. It reminds me that instead of thinking about changing the world I’m called to change myself first, like the South African lawyer who changed herself while working to change her country.

Wonderful Life

Sunday on our way to Quaker meeting for worship, my eight-year-old son began talking about reincarnation and all the different things we could come back as. His imagination had been sparked by the Indian festival we had been to the day before, which included large posters illustrating the concept of karma. After some speculation on whether it would be good to be an animal and how long a soul had to wait to come back again, Luke said that what he really wanted to do was live this life over. “I’d like to live, and then when I get near the end of my life, take a time machine back to the beginning and live my life over again. I could do it again and again.” I accused him of trying to be immortal, like Voldemort in Harry Potter. “No,” he said, he would be OK with dying eventually. “I just want to try making different choices and see how they work out.”

I was still thinking about Luke’s time-machine idea as I settled into silent worship. What choices would I revisit, I wondered. Would it be the obvious turning points that made a difference, like choice of college or major, or the little things, like in the movie Sliding Doors where missing a train changes a woman’s life? And speaking of movies, can we really evaluate our own lives objectively? In It’s a Wonderful Life George Bailey needs an angel to show him how his choices have affected other people, something he could not see on his own. If I were to use a time-machine to test different choices, how could I be sure which outcomes were the best, not just for me, but in the broader sense? Would Martin Luther King, Jr. have chosen the path he did if he had been given the chance to compare it’s ending to a nice quiet pastor’s life?

This line of thinking brought me pretty quickly to the conclusion that I didn’t want to redo any of my choices. I’ve had a sense of God being at work in many of my decisions, even during the times when I wasn’t paying much attention to God. There seems to be something fundamental to my faith about trusting that I’m on the path I’m meant to be on, even if I wander into the woods every once in awhile. I also believe that thinking about other paths too much distracts us from appreciating the view from the path we are on. This was confirmed by an NPR story I heard once that said that people who spend too much time looking at too many options tend to be more dissatisfied after they’ve made a choice because they are still thinking about the other options, whereas people who just make a choice and go with it tend to be more satisfied.

Somewhere during these musings someone in our meeting stood up and gave a message about how God purifies us the way a silversmith purifies silver. (For those unfamiliar with unprogrammed Quaker meeting, we gather in silence to listen for God. If someone feels they have been given a message that they are meant to share, they can stand and speak.) The message, which was similar to this story I just came across, made me think about those times in our lives we might be tempted to avoid but which actually forge us into better people. It confirmed my sense that getting to redo our choices wouldn’t necessarily be a gift.

When I asked Luke if there were any choices he has made so far that he’d like to try changing, he responded that it would be interesting to grow up in a different family, like one with a brother instead of a sister. Later when he and his sister had a fight in the parking lot after meeting, I imagined sibling rivalry as one of the fires God puts us through. I wouldn’t have chosen it, but I have to trust that learning to deal with it is making us all better people.

(For those who remember that I promised not to embarrass my children, I did get their permission for this one.)

Be Good

On Sunday a member of my Quaker meeting gave me an article on blogs about motherhood, which made me realize that I have not blogged on that topic for quite awhile. Partly it is the fact that my children have asked me to stop writing embarrassing things about them, thus taking away my best material. But even if they had not asked, the dilemmas of pre-teens are not for public dissemination (at least not until my daughter gets her own page on Facebook, or something), so I’d like to model discretion. Another reason is that motherhood has gradually gotten easier, mostly, so I have not needed the writing therapy so much. I did snap at Luke Wednesday afternoon when he abandoned his homework to sing the Macarena while kicking the metal dog bowl, but most nights we are all generally well behaved.

It’s a tricky business, how we socialize children. Just now, as I was waiting in line at a coffee shop, wondering what I might say about motherhood, I overheard a mother speaking to her daughter, whom I would guess was about one. The girl made a loud exclamation, and her mother said, “Be good. People are watching.” I flinched. My sympathy for all mothers of young children and my memories of my own missteps kept me from asking the questions that popped to mind: “Is there something ‘bad’ about expressing emotion? Does she only need to be ‘good’ when people are watching? Do you live your life in fear of what people will think of you, and are you sure you want to pass that on to your daughter?” Of course I was sympathetic to what she was consciously trying to do. We should teach our children not to scream in coffee shops and to be considerate of other people. It’s all the unconscious junk we pass along in the way we word things that makes me nervous. Just as I was remembering another conversation I recently overheard about how adults treat female and male babies differently, I heard the mother say, “Be a nice girl,” a phrase with connotations that made me flinch again.

Recently my daughter observed that being an adult seemed harder than being a kid. I felt bad that I’ve given her that impression, probably by snapping when people sing the Macarena and kick the dog bowl instead of doing their homework. I admitted that there is a lot more to think about when you are an adult—Are the kids keeping up on their homework? What are we going to have for dinner, especially now that my daughter wants to be a vegetarian but won’t eat beans? What sort of sexist or other messages am I passing on unconsciously? It is enough to wear a person out—but on the other hand, I told her, there are some ways in which being an adult is easier. “For example,” I said, “now that I’m forty-five, I really don’t care if everybody likes me or what they think of my clothes. I know who my friends are, and I don’t worry about every one else.” She took a deep breath and smiled, “Yeah, that would be nice.” And then she added, “You really don’t care how you look.” Thanks for noticing, Honey.

Another mother recently told me that her seventh grade daughter watches her like a hawk these days, asking, “Why did you do that?” to her every move. In some ways it is sweet and touching, this need girls have to learn to be women from their mothers. In another way it is sobering, the weight of it. It’s like living with a little Oversight Committee, designed to challenge you and keep you honest, one that feels entitled to follow you into the bathroom. “Be good,” a voice says in my head. “People are watching.”