Spring rain

As I near blog entry #150 here at The Back Porch, I am aware that some of the topics I elect to tackle have close connections with other entries written at earlier times.  My intent is not to repeat the same message, but just the same, re-treating an idea that has stuck with me must say something about what I hold valuable.  

Such surely is the case with spring.  

I mean, how can a writer from the Midwest not be impacted by the amazing greens produced this time of year in our ‘blessed to be rainy’ climate?  I have a couple of sibs who travel South every fall to enjoy winter activities in Florida.  Cindy Lou and I have been down to see their lovely winter places, and we both admit, shirtsleeves in January is a fine situation to deal with.  

Still, hanging out up here -- up North -- for winter allows the change of seasons to really get inside a person’s head.  I truly love fall and winter.  Hands down, both are favorite seasons for me.  But by the time leaves fall and autumnal color turns to crunchy brown, we who stay are in for many indoor winter hours that have a tendency to get inside our bones.  No back porch sitting or garden tending. Birds are still pretty good, though. 

It’s always exciting, for me, to see the first flowers of the season blooming.  Crocus, hyacinth, daffodil, spring beauties, dutchman’s breetches -- all first of season blossoms -- are colorful indicators that we’ve made it, that winter has passed. 

But that’s just March and April.  By the time May comes around, hold on to your seats.  I’m talking green coming out of the natural woodwork.  Ferns pop up and unfurl; day lilies erupt into full size, waiting to extend flowers later;  dogwood and forsythia pass blooming and get on with the task of new hard growth; hostas come back from their winter retreat and tower over the leaves left on the beds as water-retaining mulch.  

Such continues to amaze every year. 

The pictures accompanying this image were taken just this morning at our place, which some loyal readers know we like to call Wild Grace, following an entire night of light rain.  And, of course, we slept with the windows open so we could hear the continuing patter of raindrops on the trees just outside our bedroom window.  

Wild grace, indeed.  Wild spring!

Today’s Elder Idea:  Spring also means tending and renewing house plants.  Here’s a poem by Lynne Sharon Schwartz from a recent Writer’s Almanac.   

Repotting

The healthy plant outgrows its pot

the way a healthy child outgrows its clothes. 

Don’t let it suffer constriction.  Spread the Sports 

or Business section of the New York Times 

on the dining room table.  Find a clay pot 

big enough for fresh growth.  In the bottom 

place pebbles and shards from a broken pot for drainage. 

Add handfuls of moist black potting soil, 

digging your hands deep in the bag, rooting 

so the soil gets under your fingernails. 

Using a small spade or butter knife, 

ease the plant out of its old pot with extreme 

care so as not to disturb its wiry roots. 

The plant is naked, suspended from your hand 

like a newborn, roots and clinging soil

exposed.  Treat it gently.  Settle it 

into the center of the new pot, adding soil 

on the sides for support -- who isn’t shaky, 

moving into a new home? 

Pack more soil around the plant, 

tapping it down till you almost reach the rim. 

Flounce the leaves as you would a skirt.  Then water. 

Place the pot back on the shelf in the sunlight. 

Gather the Sports section around the spilled soil

and discard.  Watch your plant flourish. 

You have done a good and necessary deed. 

‘Repotting’ by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

from See You in the Dark.  Curbstone Books, 2012. 

Used here without Ms. Schwartz’s permission.  I hope she doesn’t mind.  

Foreclosed

When I was a kid growing up in Dayton’s Belmont neighborhood, I didn’t know what a vacant house was, let along a foreclosure.  

To be sure, not all neighborhood abodes looked all that good.  Some most certainly could have used a paint job and more yard work, but all the houses I delivered rubber-banded Shopping News papers to every Wednesday had somebody living in them, at least as far as I can remember.  

These days, though, quite a few neighborhood houses I drive by have really tall grass this early May, and upon a closer look, windows without drapes and driveways without cars.  It is obvious that whoever called that place home no longer does.  It doesn’t take long to make an ‘eyesore’ out of such places, either. 

Last Saturday for the Rebuilding Together Dayton annual event, my team worked on a house down the hill from the Veterans Administration compound and tucked back into a rather well-tended neighborhood.  Upon first look, the house appeared pretty tough because most of the exterior paint was removed to expose lots of board feet of bare wood.  Such was the case, though, only because the homeowner had done extensive sanding in anticipation of the paint job.  Be the time we finished on Saturday, even despite a mid-day thunderstorm, much of the exterior had a coat of paint and a whole slough of interior projects completed, including installation of a brand new shower in the bathtub.  

I must admit, the neighborhood where we worked last weekend isn’t one I frequent very often, so as I drove through it while on runs to Lowe’s for something else someone on our team needed to complete a task, I tried to pay attention to what I was seeing.  

So many houses on blocks around the house where we worked looked really good:  grass well tended, nice front porch set-ups, good-looking paint jobs and roofs.  

Still, too often I saw completely derelict buildings with windows not just broken, but complete removed.  Grass, as you might imagine, was three cuts past acceptable already this early in the season.  I can only imagine how discouraged a neighborhood homeowner would feel about having a piece-of-crap house like that just down the street from the property they are trying to keep looking good.  

But I suppose that’s the world we live in now.  A new book by economist Paul Krugman makes it clear that the economy in our world isn’t just in a recession, but a depression.  I don’t know what data he used for that conclusion, but seeing empty, beat-up houses on the same block as well-cared for properties tends to have me believe such an assessment. 

Let me just say that I wish that all who need one had a job that paid enough to keep their neighborhoods looking good.  The stark truth is that that part of Dayton has a closed-down mega-printing operation and more than one shut-down and abandoned General Motors plant.  Jobs those neighbors used to enjoy have since moved on to places like Mexico and China -- away from where personal and family incomes make a local difference. 

All of this pretty much bums me out.  True, there are still good local jobs in Dayton, but not like the ones we used to have.  Now, it seems, all of the good ones require a college education.  The days of graduating from high school -- or dropping out -- and being hired on for a good assembly line job that paid enough to raise a family while leaving enough money for vacations and entertainment, are harder and harder to find.  

I was blessed to be able to afford attending Wright State for enough years to not only graduate with a teaching degree, but to finish with a masters.  Such a difference this has made in my life.  I doubt that many kids from lots of local neighborhoods have the resources to work through post-high school education to achieve the skills necessary to have a successful career these days.  

Seems to me as I drive down streets and witness so many untended yards and vacant houses, it is obvious that way too many families are struggling to make a go of it in this tough and demanding world.  

My heart goes out to so many who have so little and to those who try to do the best they can, despite the limitations brought on by change. 

Today’s Elder Idea:  In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of.  In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of. 

Confucius

Sand lessons

When I was a kid going to Catholic elementary school in Dayton, the only spring break we ever got, as I remember, was Good Friday, Easter Monday, and the somber/happy weekend in between.  

The concept of taking a week off from school or work in the spring of the year to have fun didn’t catch up with me until I was going to college.  And frankly, all spring break really meant then was that I could get a whole week of work in at Rike’s warehouse, my place of part-time employment.  

Even with the advent of my teaching gig in Huber Heights in 1972, spring break didn’t really mean anything more than a week away from teaching kids.  If the truth be told, I didn’t really have any more money to spend on seasonal fun then than I did while in college.   

Not so much with the lovely Cindy Lou, who tells the story of her driving to Florida one spring in her Austin American with a crew of Ohio University girls who loved to play softball.  Can you see it?  Oh, it hurts just to think I didn’t even know her then!    ;-)

In any case, Cindy Lou has loved heading to sunny sand at the very tail end of winter for some time now.  First time she took me along was twenty-odd years ago when I Pricelined five nights at the old Radisson in Fort Walton Beach for 50 bucks a night.  The room wasn’t much, but the setting was terrific.  

By mid-week I could see a change in Cindy.  Her skin had transformed before my eyes.  She came to radiate a warmth that, well, I found downright fascinating.  And sexy, too, I might add. 

So, being the wise man that I am, I determined that we should make a concerted effort to get to Florida every spring break.  While in Fort Walton Beach, we found a condo down the road with a pool and beachfront that rented by the week for a heck of lot of money, but not so much we couldn’t afford it.  The Nautilus became our spring beach place the next few springs.  

With that in mind, about the time Cindy Lou retired, we started talking about the idea of buying a timeshare.  Guaranteed beach time seemed a no-brainer.  My brother and his wife have a couple timeshares, in which they get to spend weeks in cool places a couple times a year.  Joe took us with him once to Williamsburg where we had a lovely time.  Finally, last winter Cindy Lou and I bought our own timeshare.  Which is one heck of long introduction to the whole point of this blog:  

Last week the Cooke Schaefers had our first timeshare week -- at Hilton Head, South Carolina -- and we took along my 91 year-old mother.  

And a good time was had by all!  

The Barony Beach Club, a Marriott Vacation Club property on Hilton Head, was downright amazing.  When we first entered our villa, Cindy Lou stopped in the middle of the living room, soaking in the prolific use of her favorite colors and recognizing how clean things were, and said, ‘This may be the best place I’ve ever stayed in.’  Trust me, it was light years ahead of the Radisson!  

Oh, what a week we had.  I toted the slow-cooker and fired it up for a pork tenderloin one night and a whole chicken another.  My, my.  Amazing stuff.  The girls just crowed about how good things were.  They liked the store-bought peanut butter cream pie, too, and the two half gallons of ice cream! 

The day before we left, Cindy and I decided it was time to get Mother out to the beach for at least a short walk.  We would go at low tide when a solid, very walkable beach -- even with a walker -- appeared right out of the ocean!   Mom agreed, and braving loose sand and unsure footing -- she held on tight -- she made it all the way down to the edge of the ocean.  

As my sister Martha wrote, ‘Sometimes the image speaks for itself.’

I am now a proponent of taking annual spring vacations in warm, sandy places near big water.  Can you tell?  ;-) 

***

On the way to Hilton Head, Mother checked an item off her bucket list with a visit to the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.  One exhibit on marriage there ran a clip from an old late-night television show in which Rev. Graham’s wife, Ruth Bell Graham, was asked if she had ever considered divorcing the often-traveling preacher.   Her response: 

Today’s Elder Idea:   ‘No, I never considered divorce, but I did consider murder!’ 

Howls of laughter followed.  

images:  Hilton Head Island (April 2012)

Sound

If you know me well, you probably know how important recorded music is in my life.  

Ever since I had a paper route when I was a kid, I have spent a share of my earnings, regardless how meager, on an ever-growing collection of recordings.  Learning about pop music via WING radio’s Lou Swanson, Eddie Gale, and Gene ‘By Golly’ Barry, then buying some records, was the hip thing to do in the 1960s.  Whenever we went downtown, we’d walk by the studios on First Street to pick up the weekly top 40 survey and watch the jock behind the picture window spin wax and work his radio magic.  

Later on I graduated to recording music on reel-to-reel tapes.  First it was just albums, or maybe an evening session of ‘Wax Museum’ on WVUD FM.  Soon I realized I could create my own special mixes.  

Not long after, most music migrated to the eminently more portable cassette tape.  Played with those, too.  Then came digital where one listened to a silvery CD spinning away out of sight, inside a drawer, that produced near perfect sound.  No scratches.  Remember?  

Then music uploads onto computers and the ability to burn our own playlists in the CD format.  Find the right songs, mix liberally into a pleasant sequence, burn to CD, share with friends...  Now, of course, there’s iTunes and podcasts and internet streaming and, well, other stuff that even I don’t get.  

I know I’ve written about about my love of recorded music here at The Back Porch before, but today I’d like to focus on the actual listening to music.  

Much of the time, I think, we hear music in the car while conversation and traffic tension make it a challenge to actually listen.  Not optimum, to be sure.  Still, listening to music and riding in cars just kind of go together, you know?

Yes, I listen to music much here in my office while working, but I’ve taken up a new practice of listening to my music collections while reclined in bed.  I’ve got to tell you, I like it a lot. 

At times when I’ve shared one of my playlist collections with friends, I’ve encouraged them to wait to listen until an undisturbed hour is available for a sit in a comfortable chair, in the dark (candle recommended) -- maybe in a headset -- to let the music wash over them.  To me, the congruent message of the whole collection is like explicating a poem:  One listens to find ideas and melodies that dance inside that side of our brain that resounds in music.  Listening to a playlist at the computer with iTunes visualizer playing is pretty hip, too.  

But for me these days, it’s the dark room and sound.  Cindy isn’t so nuts about music and sleep, so I’ve set up the guest room with a couple of decent little speakers placed next to the bed.  I turn things down pretty far, yet high enough to feel the richness of instruments and voices.  I get comfortable and just listen.  In the dark, warm, and in the moment.  As you might imagine, I often fall asleep in the process.  I recommend it.  Works great mid-afternoon.

My newest cool thing is recording my original poetry in a song format that will play with the rest of my music collection.  Now I can insert my poems into collections of meaningful songs.  More on that later.

I do my best to stay grounded in life.  Listening to music in bed is part of that process for me these days.    

Today’s Elder Idea:  Learning about sex from porn is like learning about firearms from action movies.   

from ‘The absurd myths porn teaches us about sex’

Noah Brand and Ozy Frantz

AlterNet / posted 26 March 2012

Big stuff (misc)

Such a time last week for my life and my writing practice.  Let me count the ways... 

On Monday I submitted an essay to a little magazine in Colorado looking for thoughts on what it means in our hearts to help ‘the other.’  Seemed like a good opportunity to revisit our church’s two mission trips to post-Katrina New Orleans five+ years ago, and so I did.

The majority of the dozen or so adults who traveled south to work shared their thoughts about how it felt now, so many years later.  The essay, entitled ‘Katrina’s reach,’ totaled out at 2500 words with my first explaining what we did, then letting those who went tell their stories.  

Then I got word yesterday that the little Crestone magazine, Desert Call, will indeed publish ‘Katrina’s reach’ this summer.  I had also asked about having it published in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio newspaper, and got a ‘yes’ on that, too.  Lots of pictures will be included in both publications. 

**

Most of you are aware, I hope, that I am in the process of writing a book connecting Emily Dickinson to one of my favorite places in the world, Hog Island, Maine, through the work of Mabel Loomis Todd.  It was Mrs. Todd who took on the arduous task of sorting and recopying Emily’s poetry into the three earliest editions that made it to the public between 1890 and 1896.  

Much has been written about Mrs. Todd’s work with Emily’s poetry and letters, while little has been written about her love of Nature.  It was that love that encouraged her to purchase large tracts of Hog Island c. 1909 in order to save it as one of the largest untouched wilderness islands on Maine’s coast.  By 1911, the Todd family had built a rustic family camp where they spent many summers thereafter.

Last week a couple of very special things happened re: my Hog Island project: 

First, I received an email from a woman in New York City who moderates the Facebook page for Jerome Charyn’s book, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson.  ‘LenoreNYC’ and I chatted via email a bit, and then on Sunday she posted links to my Dressy Adventuress blog for all of their 8,000+ readers to follow.  (Deep gulp...)

For the Secret Life... page, see: http://www.facebook.com/SecretLifeOfEmilyDickinson

Scroll down a bit to find the entries about my Dressy Adventuress blog; or find that blog @ http://thedressyadventuress.blogspot.com/

Second, Chris Speh, who spent many summers on Hog Island as guest of Mabel Todd’s daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, gifted my writing project with a great new picture of Mrs. Bingham and a series of remembrances by another Bingham family friend, a woman known in the writing only as Willow.  Thanks so much, Chris!  A handful of Hog Island lovers have read it and have thoroughly enjoyed the observations of life on the island that Willow tells.

My writing on Mrs. Todd’s Hog Island continues...

**

Back when I was a kid, I was smitten with the science fiction genre at a time when the Russians launched Sputnik and the US space program was not yet named NASA. 

As I recall, the book that grabbed me was Robert Heinlein’s Have Space Suit Will Travel (1958), a coming-of-age novel about a kid who just wants to go to the moon.  He gets his big chance in a soap contest, and even though he wins, he loses due to multiple winners with the same answer.  His consolation prize?  A real, working space suit.  Ergo, have spacesuit, will travel.  Sounds a bit like the old Paladin television show, eh?  

What makes this book so engaging is the real science about space travel -- written at a time before anybody ever went up there.  I’ve been taking a few notes on the science and will share copies with grandkids for summer reading.  The book is proving to still be a real favorite of mine.  

**

Do you know about TED, the website?  I encourage you to find it:  http://www.ted.com/index.php

Though TED stands for technology, engineering, and design, speakers they gather to talk to live audiences go off on all kinds of great topics.  Last Friday they posted a brand new lecture by Dr. Brene Brown (University of Houston) from the latest TED conference in Long Beach held earlier this month.  

As far as I know, this is Brown’s third speech with TED in which she focuses on wholehearted living.  For those of us trying to figure out what makes us tick, Brown has some definite ideas based on her years as a behavioral researcher.  Don’t be put off when I tell you her newest TED entry is entitled ‘Listening to shame.’  Cindy and I watched it three times over the weekend, and my guess is we’re not done with it yet.  Great stuff for those of us trying to make sense of our lives.... 

**

And then, of course, it’s really spring!  Noah and I had a great extended look at a pileated woodpecker on our walk at Englewood Reserve on Friday.  Then yesterday I put up the canopy over the back patio for the another season of porch sitting and Nature watching.  I sat out there for a couple hours last evening just to get back in touch with the world of Nature I’ve largely seen only from inside windows since November.  Oh, so grateful! 

I’m telling you, the invitation is open:  come on over for a back porch sit and conversation.  Love to have you!  ;-)

Today’s Elder Idea:  When advised it was time to leave her beloved summer camp on Hog Island behind because of her advanced age, Millicent Bingham wrote, ‘For me it feels more like pulling me up by the tap root, which goes down to the very source of life itself.  This is how I feel about the island...’

in a letter to Chris Speh’s Aunt Gertrude Sorel

21 May 1962

There are others who feel that way, too, Mrs. B....

Choices

Years ago when Cindy Lou and I bought our house, we took out a 30-year fixed mortgage that we hoped we could afford on two teacher salaries.  We did just fine, and continue to do so.  Then about ten years ago, son-in-law Mike, who is in the mortgage business, offered us a 15-year fixed re-financing that would help us reach our goal of actually owning our place sooner.  We took the deal. 

Now we have just under six years of that loan left and I have to tell you, it feels pretty good.  Knowing that we will own our lovely Maefel Lane property before I turn 68 sounds like a real accomplishment to me, even if we did pay close to $150k when we bought it, though we’re told market value now hovers around $120k.  Many homeowners lost much value in their homes through this Great Recession, while so many lost their whole house through foreclosure.  We are grateful and feel very blessed that our losses should prove to be a whole lot less in the big picture.  

Still, our current mortgage was packaged and sold, along with so many others, from one bank to another until our note is currently held by Bank of America.  And I’m not happy about that. 

I hold as a personal belief that where we spend our dollars makes a difference.  I make it a point not to shop at Walmart because of their penchant of buying cheap in China, even at the expense of American workers.  I am offended by the story of Ohio-based Rubbermaid a few years ago notifying Walmart, one of their biggest customers, that price of raw materials had gone up and that the manufacturer needed to raise wholesale prices to break even.  Walmart declined to renegotiate the contract and Rubbermaid went belly up.  To add insult to American injury, the company’s equipment was then sold at auction to a Chinese firm.  

Then there was the story of an Asian electronics manufacturer dumping big screen televisions on the American market below cost.  The sole stateside big screen TV maker went to court to stop the practice.  Walmart waded into the fray, as you might expect.  Who did Walmart support in the litigation?  The Asian manufacturer.  To restate, we steer clear of Walmart whenever possible.

Cindy & I prefer spending locally.  For those faithful readers of The Back Porch, you know that when Cindy and I selected a new car for her a year ago, we picked the Chevy Cruz, which is built in Lordstown, Ohio.  And at this point I suspect my new car, still a few years down the road, is going to be a Honda CRV, another local build assembled in East Liberty, Ohio. 

I am not a fan of Bank of America, the holder of our mortgage.  I can’t give you exact details without doing some reading, but I’ve heard plenty in the news about Bank of America fees and other unsavory practices they enact to squeeze more money out of their customers.  

It further irritates me that we had no choice in the matter.  After our loan was closed, our note went into some kind of mortgage market that ended up with Countrywide, which was then bought by Bank of America.  We turn out to be merely mute payers to a financial institution we don’t like.  

At least until today.  We got a call from Huntington Bank last week who would like to talk to us about taking over our mortgage.  They can beat the BoA interest rate by a couple percentage points and, says Columbus-based Huntington, we can keep the same time schedule to pay off the house even with a payment a bit lower.  

I must admit, the bottom line for me right now is getting our house paid off as soon as possible.  The idea of having no mortgage in six years is truly energizing.  Still, I am unhappy about paying big money to a company I don’t like.  I hope we can keep our money a bit more local with developments later this week.   

Today’s Elder Idea:  Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Steve Jobs

image:  That’s our Maefel place during a snowier winter.  Stop by and see us!  ;-)

Luck

I do my best to try to understand folks who don’t agree with the way I see things.  In this age of political contention 24/7, it can be a bit of a challenge.  

A few weeks ago, Bill Moyers spoke with Jonathan Haidt about the differences between progressive/liberal and conservative philosophies.  Haidt’s new book, The Righteous Mind:  Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, is due out mid-March. 

My biggest take-away from the program was that liberals have a very high interest in compassion for others.  Libertarians, on the other extreme, score very low in that area, mainly because they hold that individual freedoms make one responsible for self.  Ergo, assistance from government is detrimental to personal freedoms.  I read in this morning’s paper that Ron Paul would abolish personal income tax in order to reduce what the government could provide for its citizens.  

Another interesting point is that liberals don’t venerate the structure of business and government as American sacral like the conservatives do.  We’ve all heard the conservative axiom of shrinking government so small you can drown it in a bathtub.  Such would allow business to control the markets without government interference, from their point of view.  

Surely Americans from both sides of the aisle agree that the deficit needs cutting and something has to be done about revenues.  Conservatives, I think, are fine with cutting taxes and reducing revenues, while progressives are more about requiring those who have more to be taxed more so all benefit from this nation’s economic bounty.  Reducing government revenue would help the conservatives shrink government, while more taxes from the rich would allow the liberals to provide a broader safety net and more opportunity for those lower on the economic scale.  

I’ve given a lot of thought to these differences over time, especially since watching the Moyers & Company episode a couple weeks ago.  I most definitely am a liberal, no doubt.  Many of my family and friends?  Not nearly.  I can remember concluding a few winters ago that my brother is a conservative with the attitude that somebody out there might get something they didn’t earn.  A Fox News devotee, he earned his, by God, and everybody else can work hard to get what they deserve, too.

I understand a good work ethic.  I encourage everybody to work hard and find financial success.  Problem is, from my point of view, some of us have a far easier path to success than others.  And that is the point of this blog today:  Luck. 

I surely had no choice about being born a white American, but as one, I grew up in a middle class Midwest suburb with decent schools, little neighborhood violence, two grocery stores within walking distance, and a park three blocks away where my parents could send me to play without worrying about my coming home alive.  That just simply isn’t true for a whole lot of Americans born into poverty who don’t have the capability of moving to a safer place.  So many families are stuck in a cycle of little opportunity that is difficult, if not next to impossible to emerge from.  And now in a country where good paying manufacturing jobs -- that don’t need high priced educations -- are fewer and farther between, conditions seem even harsher for the disadvantaged.

So I can’t help but conclude that I was damned lucky to be given the life I was born into.  Dad worked.  Mom stayed home.  Both provided seven kids a comfortable house with three squares a day.  We all went to Catholic schools, which was another big sacrifice for a one-earner family.  Life was safe.  Life was good. 

For many like me, I’ve taken that advantage and passed it along to my kids.  Both Jenni and Kelly got good educations and wonderful opportunities.  If I had been born poor, I could not have provided what their mother and I gave them.  

Did I earn this good life that I have?  Sure, I worked hard in my career, so in that sense, yes.  But on a much broader scale, I was really lucky.  If my father had been born into a family where he had only his mom to rely on, or he couldn’t find good enough work to clothe and feed seven kids, my life would have been very different.  

So I guess that’s my question to conservatives:  Shouldn’t we take the good luck we’ve had in our successful lives and offer that same opportunity we were blessed with to others who weren’t so lucky?  Sure seems like the compassionate, Christian thing to do, you know?    

***

Lent began yesterday, and for many Christians that means a period of contemplation and prayer about life and death that culminates in the rebirth of Easter.  

I must admit, there have been many lenten seasons when I didn’t do anything special.  I don’t know how it will turn out this year either, since I’m lousy at New Year’s resolutions, but I’d like to try something special.

At my place on the Great Mandela, life is good and I have everything I need.  But do I know the truth about life?  I am going to try to contemplate the question, What do I have to give up to find that someone beneath the cloak?  Like the young man in William Faulkner's short story 'The Bear.'

The Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi tackles such metaphysical issues in his 20,000 some poems, most of which have not yet been translated into English.  But I have a couple copies of Rumi translations gifted by friends that I am going to ponder through.  Should be a good way to reconsider what’s important in my life.  I’ll be addressing The Spirit of the Universe in my meditation. 

Today’s Elder Idea:  Lent provides us with a reality check, where we can step up and look at who we are.  We are invited to journey inward to encounter and confront all that separates us from God.  It is also a time to journey outward to encounter and confront all that causes pain, damage, and separation from others. 

Shannon Ferguson Kelly

for the daily Episcopal Relief & Development Lenten series

For the Jonathan Haidt interview, see: Moyers & Co.

Image lifted from the internet without permission.