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.  

Charley's valentine

A few falls ago in an attempt to celebrate a Friday evening ‘Urban Nights’ event in Dayton, our church, located in the heart of downtown, jumped into the fray and opened our doors to the weekend revelers.  

Restaurants downtown offered dinner and drink specials, bands played on Courthouse Square, while we at Christ Episcopal Church opened for an exhibit from local artists.  In addition, I asked my three poetry writing buddies, affectionately known as Emily’s Boys, to join in the evening’s festivities by offering a poetry reading to interested Urban Nights guests.  

One of the people at church who promoted our engagement in Urban Nights was a retired newspaper guy with the Daily News, Charley Stough.  Charley was a bit of an artist himself, as well as a cartoonist and a writer.  Charley became famous for passing cartoon panels along to kids at church for the sheer joy of it. 

Charley wound up his newspaper career with twenty-eight years of service to the Daily News.  He reported and copy edited in other towns, too, some in the Southwest.  As a young man he worked a stint in Panama with the Peace Corps.  It was there where he met his lovely wife, Alicia. 

In his retirement years, Charley also took on volunteer work at church where he helped local folks with little resources file their income taxes and determine what public assistance was due them.  He was always tickled when he found a bigger refund than somebody thought she’d get, or uncovered some benefit that would make life a bit easier.  A smile were always easy with Charley.  He was one of the few guys who called me Tommy. 

Well, we lost Charley to cancer a few months ago.  He put up a worthy fight for years, but in the end, the disease just proved to be too much.  

I celebrate Charley this Valentine’s Day because of an unexpected pleasure he brought me on that Urban Night’s evening.  Some time while we poets were setting up our stools and figuring out who would read first, Charley stopped by and said he had a poem he’d like to read when we finished our stuff.  As I recall, Charley had a piece of art that went with the poem.  His reading was full of energy and brought a couple of laughs from the poetry lovers.  

I don’t know if this is the poem Charley read that night, but it appears to be the only Stough poem I have in my collection.  And since it speaks so eloquently of love, if a little slant, I offer it to you this Valentine’s Day. 

Thanks, Charley.  We miss you already. 

Today’s Elder Idea:  from Charley Stough

Valentine’s Day  

Love's measurements are usually engineered

In terms of carats.  Or bags from boutique sales.

Someone I know played it by ear

And said, "I love you big as 20 whales."

Sweet as champagne at the finish line, 

Bright as diamonds dipped out by the pail,

A rolling tide of pride runs down your spine

When someone's love comes to you by the whale.

The packaging of passion you too seldom find,

Cetacean squadrons' worth of love, to keep.

Will you take it home? Does the landlord mind?

How many hugs do whales need to make them go to sleep?

When someone says "I love you," don't investigate

How much, how deep, how wide it has to be.

The oceans always bring you honest weight.

All, you get all, everything there is of me.

And when the strength or light or wisdom fails

Just say, "I love you big as 20 whales."

 For more on Charley’s life, see this web page from the American Copy Editors Society:

Remembering Charley Stough

The internet, rationality, & winter birds

Back in the old days when I was just coming of age and calculating the cost of buying my first house, when I considered cost of utilities, I figured electricity, heat, water & sewer, and phone.  

Surely electricity, heat, and water in-and-out are still with us, though for many, telephone cost has shifted from land land to wireless.  We still have a land line at our house, but daughter Kelly has dumped theirs and replaced it with an efficient wireless plan covering a family of four, with everybody issued a phone and an iPad or two tossed in for good measure.  In addition to all that these days, you’d also have to consider television service, too, as a costly but essential home utility. 

Ten years or so ago we dumped dial-up internet service and went high speed.  Back then it seemed only cable was an option.  In the interim, telephone line-based DSL made its advent and at least gave us an option.  When Cindy Lou and I moved back home after our house fire in 2005, DSL seemed the best internet deal around. 

But times have changed.  Last December I realized that our DSL service provided by AT&T was pretty darned slow at times.  Turning to speedtest.net to provide data, I learned that while promised download speeds of up to 5 to 7 Mbs. (that’s mega [millions of] bits/second), there were days I was plumbing only .2 or .5 Mbs.  That, my friend, is pretty pokey.  Still better than dial-up (I think), but slow.   After talking to an AT&T service agent, I was told the problem had to be on our end, because at the very time I called, our service was hitting its low guaranteed mark. 

So it was back to Time Warner cable for us.  This is what I found:  

Translation:  The blue line is our service.  On the left, you can see our AT&T DSL number was holding pretty steady at 5 Mbs for some time, with regular drops in service noted pretty often since mid-December.  (Note, too, the green line:  It reports the global average for high speed internet @ 10 Mbs.)  The big jump you see on the right of the graph denoted our connection to Roadrunner.  Time Warner promised its product at 10 Mbs, but regularly delivers numbers closer to 20 Mbs.  That’s a whole lot better. 

One other consideration:  We were paying AT&T $40/month for our poor service.  Time Warner is currently getting $30 for the much better numbers.  

My point is, be sure you are getting what you pay for.  Check speedtest.net to see if your provider is giving you good internet service.  Everything runs faster at home these days, especially the iPad.

***

I stumbled across a really good Bill Moyers program last week.  If you’re like me, feeling a bit despondent over American politics in an election year, you owe it to yourself to watch this one.  Bill’s guest on Moyers & Company (PBS) was Jonathan Haidt, author of new book entitled, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.  As a guy who likes to understand what’s going on in his country, I found the 45 minutes important to understanding folks who vote the ‘other way.’  Good stuff.   Link:  moyers & company

***

A friend on Facebook mentioned his annual ‘yard list‘ of birds he keeps.  We keep track of all the feathered critters who come our way, mostly to our four winter feeders, but I never recorded an annual list.  

Such is now remedied!  This is who we’ve had so far in 2012 at Wild Grace II:

American goldfinch

white breasted nuthatch

Carolina chickadee

tufted titmouse

Northern cardinal

mourning dove

American robin

house finch 

dark-eyed junco

European starling

red bellied woodpecker

downy woodpecker

white throated sparrow

blue jay

Carolina wren

American crow

cooper’s hawk

house sparrow

yellow bellied sapsucker

hairy woodpecker

pileated woodpecker

No owls yet, but we’re listenin’....

  

Today’s Elder Idea:  Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. 

Frank Lloyd Wright

American architect

Holed-up

Both my older sister and brother have ‘snow-birded’ their way to Florida again this January.  Mike is working pretty hard at the range trying to improve his driver and iron play.  Patty reported Saturday when I called that she was at a community ‘yard sale’ and that the sun was lovely, and, well, she was warm enough to take off her sweatshirt. 

Me?  I’m holed-up in Ohio wishing for some snow, which brings me to some thoughts about winter up here in moderately-cold country.

I must admit, I rather like winter.  Sure, I like to travel out of the cold into the sun when I can, but I really like just being home this time of year and leaning into the season.  

It used to be that I looked forward to snow so Huber Heights City Schools might cancel for the day and Cindy and I could have a bonus day off.  I still look forward to those cancellations, but now checking for Vandalia and Northmont, the districts where my grandkids attend.  Imagining them outside playing in snowfall when they could have been taking a social studies test warms my heart.  There will always be time for tests. 

I’ve noticed this year, too, that I’ve been feeling tired enough to hit the sack much earlier in the evening.  Last week I got to bed by 9:30 a couple of times.  Seems unusual for me, but with darkness settling in by 6 pm, my body must figure the three+ hours of no sun must mean it’s time to turn in.  Such must be the ‘long winter’s nap’ Clement Moore writes about in his popular Christmas poem.  

During this time of year, too, I can’t just head outside to start or continue a yard project.  Last week I tried to split a few logs left from the spruce cut-down last fall.  Yow.  Still pretty damned wet and hard to cut.  Yet, Noah took a small piece and with one swift swing of the ax, had his very first log split!  He was pumped!  The rest of those yard jobs can wait until April.

I’ve spent more time this year sitting at windows peering out into the winter.  I’ve read a bit, watched some video, and listened to plenty of music, but find the sitting and watching nicely meditational.   

A high school classmate, whose work schedule runs circles around mine, advises me she recently fell on Ohio ice and fractured a knee.  She now wonders what this event is supposed to teach her.  A week prior to the accident, she mentioned how she was more tired at the end of the day than she used to be.  She thought maybe she ought to slow down a bit.  Now with the knee break, she has to.  If I know her, she’ll try to find the message contained therein.  

Last Saturday we had an icy weather teaser around these parts:  cold rain turned into sleet.  It didn’t do much for sledding, but the roads sure were nasty.  It was better to set a fire in the stove and settle in for a day best spent inside.  Pretty good football last week, too. 

Overall this year, though, white precipitation has been a let down here.  We’ve gotten plenty of grey skies with lots of rain, but no snow to speak of.  There’s few neighborhood experiences better than taking a walk in a good snowfall.  The silence therein is remarkable.  

Perhaps that’s one of the best things about winter:  the quiet.  A quiet that encourages introspection and a good, long sit.  

Besides, a long, snowy season always makes springtime that much sweeter.  Spending winter where its warmer takes the purgatory out of the new growing season of color and birdsong.  I’d rather earn spring, you know?  

Today’s Elder Idea:  

Winter is the best time
to find out who you are.

Quiet, contemplation time,
away from the rushing world,

cold time, dark time, holed-up
pulled-in time and space

to see that inner landscape,
that place hidden and within.

‘Winter Is the Best Time’ by David Budbill, from While We've Still Got Feet. © Copper Canyon Press, 2005. Reprinted without permission.  

Borrowed from Garrison Keillor’s ‘The Writer’s Almanac’ from the Saturday, 28 January, podcast.  

image:  January 2009:  Brother Mike is preparing for his long-awaited journey south, delayed one day by stinky weather in SW Ohio.  Currently calling Detroit home, he knows now that winters are for golf clubs in Florida!

Norman Rockwell

If you live in the Dayton area and have not been down to the Art Institute to see American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell, I encourage you to go before it’s gone in a couple weeks.  

It is a collection of America, and Americans, right before your very eyes. 

I mention this today because it is a worthwhile exposition, but also because last Thursday when the museum held a poetry night, it was mentioned in the poet bios that this website (The Back Porch blog) was the home of my work on my Mabel Loomis Todd book.  Not so.  

For information on the The Dressy Adventuress:  Mabel Loomis Todd’s Camp Mavooshen on Audubon’s Hog Island, see:  http://thedressyadventuress.blogspot.com/

All the same, thanks for getting this far! 

I was invited to write an ekphrasic poem for the event -- an original piece based on a work of art.  I started by gathering ideas for a poem, or series of poems, but never quite got one finished enough for public consumption.  

Still, about a dozen poets read.  I participated with my writers’ group, Emily’s Boys, by opening the program with a spirited rendition of Walt Whitman’s ‘There was a child went forth.‘  A very nice evening, indeed. 

***

Any number of Rockwell images from the exhibit could accompany this entry today.  I picked ‘Girl at mirror’ just because she moves me so.  Maybe it’s because I have daughters of my own, or because I see an old girlfriend in the face of the young lady.  

I don’t know exactly.  What I do know, however, is that Norman Rockwell’s illustrations had me in tears most of the way through my two times through the exhibit.  

I kept thinking I was seeing my parents and my brothers and sisters in so many images.  I mean, we were everywhere.   I told my 90 year-old mother that she absolutely must let me take her to the exhibit.  I know she’ll be moved as well.  

When analyzing Rockwell’s importance in the canon of American art, one would have to say it is significant because it documents contemporary twentieth century life in America. 

That said, some complain that Rockwell’s work does not show the diversity of Americans -- that it misses so many of who we are.  I suppose that’s a fair criticism, but two of the most moving pieces in the exhibit were based on events from the Civil Rights era.  

Today I would like to celebrate what Rockwell did accomplish.  He succeeded in representing a wide variety of Americans in American pursuits, whether it was a young girl wondering about her blossoming womanhood, or a cop sitting on a bar stool talking to a young boy who thinks he knows enough to run away from home.  

When all is said and done, though, I must say I am drawn to Rockwell’s people:  their faces; their personalities exhibited through pose; the observation of private, personal moments at home; the perfect portraits of Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy.   

In the end, though, I have to say I am particularly drawn to Rockwell’s girls.  How can a guy look at that beautiful kid sitting in front of the mirror and not fall in love?  

Today’s Elder Idea:  I paint life as I like it to be.

Norman Rockwell

Morning

I’ve never been good at new year’s resolutions, so I gave up even trying years ago.  I’m sure somewhere along the way I swore off desserts after 8 pm.  Didn’t work.  Just look at my waistline.  I really do love my ice cream. 

One thing I’ve tried to incorporate in my life over the last decade or so is a regimen of zen meditation.  I’ve gotten started a few times, but after a week or so, I remember, “Oh, yeah.  I was supposed to meditate this morning.  Hmmm.  So it goes, I guess....”  

Still, like coming back to the breath countless times with no fault, no guilt, here I find myself.  I am hoping a little time every morning -- at least every weekday morning -- might help me reconnect with some ground that can keep me focused on my book and, well, life in general.  

I always hope to be doing the right thing.  Last week a friend connected my spiritual style to that of a miner.  “I love how you keep digging and mining for sources of inspiration and support for your own soul/spirit/life.  You are a miner and therefore you will never be at rest,” she wrote.  She went on to say her own miner’s life directs her into “as close a way as I can figure to walking through it all with any kind of integrity.”  I know I’m in good company.

So last week, the first week of January, I began a new practice of morning meditation.  In the hope of getting me focused for the quiet, I adapted a prayer I recently found as my forward for the day.  The original prayer addresses God.  I would rather address the Spirit of the Universe.  

Morning

Spirit of the Universe, I have come into the quiet and stillness of your presence to begin this day, so that out of these meditative moments I may take with me a quiet serenity which will last me through the rough and the smooth of this day’s life. 

I have come to find wisdom; that I may know when to speak, and when to keep silent; when to act, and when to refrain from action. 

I have come to find peace, so that nothing may worry or upset me, all through today. 

I have come to find courage, to be patient not to give up hope, when hopes are long in coming true; to accept disappointment without bitterness and delay without complaint. 

I have come to find love, to listen to your love so that all through today I may love, without being attached, that nothing may make me bitter or unforgiving. 

I have come to begin the day with you, so that I may be able to continue it, and end it with awareness of you. 

And I have come this day, O Spirit, to be real, transparent as a mountain stream, with a heart open and spontaneous as a child. 

Hear this, my morning prayer, for the hope of social justice and for the sake of all in the world.   Amen.

Finding myself sitting in a straight chair at the sliding glass doors that face our back yard, I then reach over and start the timer on my iPod.  I try to find a focal point to get lost in, somewhere out back.  Birds distract me.  But I sit, chin up, listening to my breath, just trying to be present, hoping that if anybody has anything to say, I’ll be able to hear it.  I’ll see how it goes.  

 How does your spiritual life go?  Care to share?  ;-)

Today’s Elder Idea:  The challenge is not to mourn what is lost, or over; nor regret that a good experience has come to an end; but rather to gather up all the pieces and take them with me into the next phase of my praying.  

Suzette Cayless

Order of the Holy Cross Companion

‘Morning’ adapted by and then from Kent Ira Groff  (Associate of Holy Cross) from a prayer found in a Roman Catholic seminary in India.  

image:  I mean, morning, you know?  And busy already.  Photo by Tom Schaefer.  


Sorry, but I can't correct the line just above.  The thought is by Suzette Cayless.

On the trail in 2011

Did I tell you the story of a few of us seeing God on the trail this past summer up in the Sangres?  Noah and I were talking about it again the other day and, well, we’re pretty sure we did.  

It all came up because of the little photo book of our summer expedition that was gifted last week.  All those great pictures told the story of all the stuff we did.  There was Grandma up on horseback.  There were Adel’s deer antlers he found.  There we were on the train.  And yes, we did talk about our UFO sighting.  You kind of had to be there, but it was pretty cool. 

Anyway, the section of the book that got most attention from Noah was that of the hike up the North Crestone Creek trail by just the guys where, as chance would have it, we met God.  We think. 

To get to the trail, we drove up a forest road a couple miles off pavement to a small, creekside national forest camp ground.  We gathered our gear, cached our water, and up the trail we went.  

Within the first thirty minutes, the trail narrowed, but it was evident that it was really just the forest road we had driven up on, which was now gated.  Not too much later, though, the trail cut back onto a mountain side, got a whole lot steeper, and we were truly hiking in Colorado.  The stones, wildflowers, the sound of the North Crestone Creek down below us, the guys up ahead.  It doesn’t get much better than that, I have to tell you.  

We stopped now and then to eat something and comment on the surroundings.  Usually it was Adel and Bruce up front, most often out of sight.  Noah and I pulled up the rear. 

I guess if there is any message to this blog today, it has something to do with my willingness -- fear? -- of heading up forest trails up into the mountains.  

At least that’s what the concrete piece of this is.  The real internal piece, I suspect, is more about my fear of doing other stuff in the world besides hiking where nobody can help you.  

What does that mean?  I don’t know exactly.  Does it mean I have to give more of myself to social justice issues?  Does it mean I have to take more chances as a writer to learn more about what I need to write about?  Does it have something to do with my spiritual salvation?  

Could be.  But back to the hike. 

I am aware of walking Noah too far on the trail to where he has a miserable time.  I am aware, too, of that gnawing in me that I might walk too far, cramp up, and embarrass myself in front of these macho guys.  It was complicated.  Probably more complicated than it needed to be, but there you have it.  We were up on the trail -- 9,000 feet, maybe -- about two hours out.  I was thinking Noah had enough.  We talked and we decided that, yup, that was about it.  We’d catch up with the guys and let ‘em know we were done for the day. 

Not more than a minute later, Bruce came back down the trail to check on us.  He encouraged us to forge ahead with the news of a beautiful vista just ahead.  He knew what buttons to push!  On we went. 

Oh.  And such a vista.  Its picture is my favorite of the trip.   It is the essence of what I had hoped for by bringing boys to the mountains.  As brother John Muir wrote, ‘The clearest way into the Universe, is through a forest wilderness.’  I had recorded that portal with my camera, with two students standing by. 

After a bit of a break and our soaking in the sights, we caught glimpse of a solo hiker coming down the trail from farther up on the mountain.  He was an older white-bearded guy in shorts packing enough that it was evident he had spent at least one night up there.  I wanted so much to hear more. 

I don’t remember much that was said, actually.  I’m sure I pressed him for details of what lakes he had seen.  I’m sure Noah told him who we were.  His parting remark though, as he proceeded down the mountain, would absolutely make our entire day.  

‘There’s a little creek just up the trail, you know, not more than a couple hundred yards,’ he yelled back.  

The creek was, in fact, delightful.  The water was cold on tired, bare feet.  Bruce went downstream a piece and did a full emersion, I think.  We all listened to the water as it bounced over and ground the Sangres into sand.  

Some time after we ate the last trail bar, the identify of the white-bearded one on the trail was questioned.  Who was that guy who turned us on to the best part of our day?  

Who else could it be?  We concluded it had to be God.  There he was, the bearded Godhead floating on a cloud -- caught taking a holiday in Colorado!  We enjoyed that story so much it survived to be told again at Christmas.  Family stuff, indeed.  

So, gentle reader, what is the lesson offered here at the end of 2011?  

Don’t be too afraid of things, I suppose.  For the life of me it sounds just the opposite of what Dorothy told Auntie Em she learned in Oz.  What was it, something like, ‘If you can’t find your heart’s desire here at home, you won’t find it anywhere else because you never really lost it anyway’...?  (I loved the movie but thought that line was preposterously weak.)

Anyway, in 2012 I am going to try to be a little less afraid to do stuff.  Writing, yes.  Bucket list destinations, yes.  Telling people I love them, yes.  Being as honest with myself as I can, yes.  Working for social justice in the world, yes.

Be brave in the new year.  Thanks for reading.  

Today’s Elder Idea:  Don’t be too afraid of things.

your humble blogger

image:  Boys @ 9000 ft.