Corn Soup Social

Door Number 3

2006-05-22T00:10:00.000-04:00

With a nod to Alanis, ironic, isn’t it, that we seem to face our particular fears at some point? The woman whose dread is loneliness finds herself alone; the woman who confides to her sister that her deepest fear is that something would happen to her husband, learns shortly thereafter of his diagnosis with terminal leukemia; the woman who so yearns to be a mother finds she is unable to conceive.

A friend at work recently asked where God was in all this. Is he the fulfiller of fears? Is he the dicing God playing with our lives to relish the irony from afar or testing us with tailor-made trials which dare us to deny his love? Or is God the absentee landlord leaving us to chance and happenstance?

The questions are not new. Thomas Hardy’s Hap comes immediately to mind, asking, "how is it joy lies slain/And why unblooms the best hope ever sewn?"

Hap

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
— Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

More recently, there is a Joni Mitchell song, The Sire of Sorrow, which asks the questions from an embittered Job’s point of view: "Why have you soured and curdled me?/What have I done to you/That you make everything I dread and everything I fear come true? . . . And you let the wicked prosper/You let their children frisk like deer."

In fact, Job faced the loss of everything, including his children, his health, his wealth, his friends, all with his faith in the kindness and perfect goodness of God in tact. He would not, as his wife urged him to do, curse God and die. What did Job understand about God that Joni may not?

Faith answers the questions by turning to the fundamental tenet that God is perfect: perfectly loving, perfectly kind, perfectly merciful, perfectly just, and perfectly benevolent. It is there that faith turns as a starting point to answer any question concerning God’s nature or actions or interactions with His children. Postmodern man says, "If God is just, he wouldn't allow the good to suffer, therefore, God doesn't satisfy my idea of justice, therefore, God isn't just, or, therefore there is none." But the logic fails, in my view.

God cannot be a just God and spare us the vicissitudes of life, thereby depriving us of the very experiences we are alive to have. Life is for learning faith and trust. Therefore, God supports His children in their trials. Sometimes, it seems, He whispers of coming trials to help us get ready. If we are willing to learn, He makes them all those experiences work together for our good. One of many seeming paradoxes of Christianity is that in promising us joy, He does not chart us a course devoid of pain.

I have come to believe that those of us who have realized our great fears were given those fears as preparation for what God knew would come to us in our journeys through life. In this light, those fears are a kind of merciful forewarning, according to the foreknowledge of God, to allow us to develop responses and tools for the coming trials in advance.

We find that we can lift more weight than we thought we could when more weight is placed on the bar. Was it cruelty to teach us that lesson? Or was it responsible parenting that picks us up when we stumble and sets us right, warns of coming dangers, with hands outstretched to cushion the inevitable stumbles to follow as we learn to walk in the Way, the Truth, and the Light.

A Fairer Substance

2006-05-16T23:42:00.000-04:00

"Botanists tell us that the blossom is an evolution of the leaf - but they cannot say just why that particular bud should take from the same air and sunshine a fairer substance, a deeper color, a more permanent existence, and become something at which each passerby pauses, and goes on his way happier for the sight."

--Augusta Hudson writing about her friend Susan for the Booklover in Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose

I spoke in my last post about paradise being a landscape made beautiful by relationships. I have been most fortunate that my life has been populated with friends of stunning warmth and beauty. I have watched friends respond to life's challenges, both internal and external, with grace, and have learned faith. I have watched friends struggle to find their angle of repose, even as they have altered my own by challenging deeply ingrained ideas about myself.

And I know the particular buds that have taken from the same air and sunshine a fairer substance and a deeper color, and have felt humbled to count these as friends.

If, as I believe, one purpose of life is to learn to love our fellow (imperfect) beings, and another is to learn to accept and nurture love from others as we make our imperfect way through life, then certainly I have been especially blessed in the particular set of beings with whom I get to learn and practice these lessons.

Have you ever seen a person's soul shining? I have. C.S. Lewis posited that "it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal."

I am grateful for friends whose divinity shines like diamonds, and who make it easier to see in others, and even in myself.

Another Day in Paradise

2006-05-09T00:28:00.000-04:00

I went into what looked to be a perfectly ordinary bakery a few months ago, and asked the guy behind the counter for some recommendations. He responded with tremendous enthusiasm about the virtues of each of his artesanal breads and the craft and care with which the breads were made. I confess he whipped me into a frenzy of sympathetic enthusiasm both for the products and processes of the bakery. I made my purchases vowing to return soon to sample other offerings.

As I was leaving, some other customers were entering and one politely asked the keeper how he was doing. "Another day in paradise!" he shouted with a mixture of sincerity and playful sarcasm.

The guy loves his job.

I don't tend to label many of my days at work as days in "paradise." In fact, I can think of many days that felt like purgatory or worse. But from time to time, the big picture is clear, and I am pleased to have interesting and challenging opportunities that make me stretch beyond what I thought I could do--or would want to do. For me, a day in paradise at work or anywhere, has little to do with the "what" and much to do with the "who."

Pardise for me is a landscape made beautiful by relationships. Paradise is people I love. Some of whom are kindred spirits, some of whom should be strangers by any measure of geography, culture, religion, politics, or age, but instead are friends.

I also really like it when the good guys win. I am celebrating one of those rare glimpses of justice that reminds me that for most people, passing through a lot of sub-paradisiacal days, every once in a while a really good one comes around.

Expensive Plastic Novelties

2005-12-28T23:36:00.000-05:00

My 8-year old nephew Max has an incisive way of phrasing things. We spent the last week exploring Disneyworld and found ourselves in a Star Wars memorabilia shop. I had walked right past it without seeing it and asked Max how in the world he knew it was even there in the crowds and chaos.

"I can smell expensive plastic novelties from a mile away," he said.

***

Griffin, 6, was eager to get back to his strawberry mousse after an urgent potty-break. "Let's run, Grandma!" he said to my Mom. They grabbed hands and started running back toward the French Patisserie. "Gee, Grandma, you're the fastest old lady I know!"

***

At the beginning of the week, Georgia, 2, was terrified by the characters, even Minnie Mouse. She would wave politely from across the table, but didn't want to be close enough to be caught in the same camera frame with any. On our last day, she had warmed up to them and was even on a whimsical first-name basis with them. "Hi Mick!" she called out casually to Mickey Mouse, and even obliged with a "cheeeese" while posing for pictures with the whole lot.

***

P.S. They say the average person walks 13 miles a day visiting Disneyworld. I think we bested the average by a good bit and I have the blisters to prove it.

Christmas Gifts

2005-12-13T22:27:00.000-05:00

A sweet little 3-year old asked me what I wanted for Christmas tonight. I couldn't come up with anything that can be wrapped in a box or placed under a tree. My life is blessed each day with the immeasurable gift of loving family and friends.

My nephew Griffin, who turns 6 years old today, was recently so swept up in the joy and glow of Christmas that he said his eyes were getting "watery." I feel like my eyes get watery too when I think about the kindnesses shown to me this year by so many. Chief among them is my Heavenly Father, who tailors blessings with so perfect a fit and so fine a cut.

I received a great gift of service from Griffin at Thanksgiving. After he and I had worked hard together to pass a challenging level on a computer game, we decided to take a break and celebrate. He asked if he could peel me a clementine. I knew it was a tender gesture of love as I watched him painstakingly peel the clementine so as to leave none of the undesirable pith. He handed me sections only after holding them to light to see if there were seeds so he could warn me. The clementine was a little salty, given the extra-special handling, but it was made delicious because it was tendered with such love.

I really like this thought from the late President Howard W. Hunter, a former leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints regarding those most precious gifts that can be given to one another:

"Never did the Savior give in expectation of receiving. He gave freely and lovingly, and His gifts were of inestimable value. He gave eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, and legs to the lame; cleanliness to the unclean, wholeness to the infirm, and breath to the lifeless. His gifts were opportunity to the downtrodden, freedom to the oppressed, forgiveness to the repentant, hope to the despairing, and light in the darkness. He gave us His love, His service, and His life. And most important, He gave us and all mortals resurrection, salvation, and eternal life.We should strive to give as He gave. To give of oneself is a holy gift. We give as a remembrance of all the Savior has given.

"This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.

"Christmas is a celebration, and there is no celebration that compares with the realization of its true meaning—with the sudden stirring of the heart that has extended itself unselfishly in the things that matter most.

With love and thanks to all of you who make my life a pleasure. Merry Christmas!

Rosa Parks

2005-11-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

Fitting that Rosa Parks should be given a place of highest honor, the Capitol Rotunda, to lie in state. She is the first woman to be accorded the tribute, though certainly not the first to deserve it.

Her legacy is that each person has moral claim to his or her rightful dignity: whether or not that dignity inherent in each person is recognized by law or custom or other individuals.

Rosa Parks visited Brigham Young University while I was a student there about 13 or 14 years ago. She was elderly, and was not able to speak on the occasion, but as I recall, a family member accompanied her and spoke about her life. I went to see her, to see history really, and was most impressed by the sense of reverence and the vivid dignity that surrounds her. Her brave act of civil disobedience stung the conscience of a guilty society and spurred an earthquake which is still reforming the social landscape for the better, bringing America closer to its promise that all are created equal, endowed with inalienable rights from the Creator, and are entitled to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

*****

I voted yesterday in Virginia's elections. It took me less than three minutes on a fancy-schmancy touch-screen voting machine, and the polling place was at an elementary school about two blocks from my house. I almost didn't go because I was afraid it might be a hassle. And what did it matter anyway? It was just an off-year election.

Last year at election time for the presidential election, my work took me to the Navajo Reservation near Holbrook, Arizona. I saw an elderly Navajo woman collapse after she had walked several miles through the desert to vote.

I also met a very petite white woman who was helping to coordinate the provision of Navajo interpreters. She has been a volunteer since the 60's. She told me about being attacked in Mississippi in clashes where locals violently resented the presence of outsiders seeking to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

I remember seeing images of black South Africans lined up, literally, for blocks, waiting for hours and hours to vote in the first elections after the collapse of apartheid. They elected Nelson Mandela.

And what about the bravery of the Iraqis who have cast a ballot for hope in defiance of tyranny and terror? Who wave ink-stained fingers with pride. Certainly, American soldiers have opened the door to the franchise not only for the Iraqi people, but have safeguarded it these many years for all Americans.

And I'm glad I too am a franchisee.

(cue music: Lee Greenwood, "cause I'm proud to be an American!")

*****

I was more than a little bewildered to hear Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. report recently that he asked President Bush a question about the future of the Voting Rights Act at a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus with the White House. He reports that the President said he wasn't familiar with it, but would look into it.

Not familiar with it? Wasn't he in the National Guard in the south during that whole era? I mean no disrespect, but please, take--or at least feign--an interest if you are the President! A lot of people took a lot of nasty lumps, literally, to get the Civil Rights laws passed and to claim the franchise of equal justice under law. One might even say the Civil War was the launch of the effort.

*****

My job gives me an opportunity to see the fruits of the seeds planted by Lincoln, King and Parks. Sadly, it also gives me a chance to see how much ground is left to be cultivated.

Talent Time

2005-09-27T23:08:00.000-04:00

I often joke that I was late when the talents were being dispersed and I got an odd collection of remnants from the remainder table that were marked down for clearance. I missed out on the singing and dancing--I'm sure they were snapped up right when the doors opened. Nor apparently did they have any left of the "tasteful dress" or "eye for decorating" which would have come in handy. Drawing was gone. Not even painting or decoupage left.

I did, somehow, apparently, pick up a talent for percussion. Not that I've found it particularly useful, although for a short time during junior high I thought maybe I just might join the Go-Go's. Years go by and I don't have an opportunity to touch the drums or a xylophone, but give me the sticks and stand back and prepare to be amazed. I'm not bragging, because it isn't anything that great, but rather, it is just odd.

I can smack a softball way into the outfield. That one has been fun because I don't look the atheletic part, so the opposing team steps forward to anticipate my at-bat and I rather enjoy watching it rip over their heads.

I can also shoot a gun with remarkable accuracy. Had I decided to go into law enforcement or crime, these may have been handy, but in the quiet life I've chosen, I really don't get much call for my uncanny aim.

I've been joking with a colleague at work who says I have a gift for "spin" that it is one of those powers that can be harnassed either for good or evil. Perhaps it is a good thing that I am at this point out of the political realm, although hey, at least this one did make me some nice money while I was a lobbyist.

Some of these remnant talents can be downright annoying. I can usually anticipate what someone is about to say as they are saying it and I have to really stifle myself not to compose the ending of their sentences or thoughts for them. No one enjoys that. It does make me good at the game Password though.

Is it a talent to see multiple points of view at once? Or does it make me unprincipled? I often wish I had a deeper passion for particular points of view and admire those whose fervor provides such clarity to their politics or experience of movies or art. Except as to matters of faith, I have to really work to settle on a single view and even then it is often with a nagging ambivalence. In matters of policy and political debate, I generally find that someone expressing one view simply serves to illuminate in high relief the alternative views for me. You should have seen me trying to fill out my absentee ballot in the last election! It took more than an hour and I found myself going around in mental circles and making phone calls to various friends for their points of view--which tended to drive me to the opposite view--and then back again.

In a related corrollary, I hate when someone asks me what my favorite "insert noun here" is. I don't have a "favorite" color. What on earth would make one color superior to another? I have no reference system of values to apply to colors--either subjective or objective. On movies, I might be able to name a few movies I really like (and some I hated), but to impose an order of rank, why that is impossible! The dialogue in one, the acting in another, the cinematography or plot or characters or combinations thereof...the things are too unlike to be held in the balance one against another.

On some things, like piano, I got a little smidge of talent, but a very limited quantity--perhaps the crumbs that fell from the prodigy table. I maxed out on that ability at about age 11 and I've been playing the same songs at the same level of proficiency in the (ahem! cough!) years since. My Dad likes to say some people have twenty years' of experience and some people have one year of experience twenty times. When it comes to piano, I'm the latter.

The odd collection of talents does make it fun to go to a batting cage. A date once took me target shooting, and because he was so confident in his superior skills, I was really torn about whether to shoot my best or flatter the male ego and miss on purpose. I figured he better know from the start who he is dealing with. Eventually, we were shooting the lid of a tin can. I guess he didn't really go for the Annie Oakley routine. We stayed friends but never went on another date after that.

Mamma Dia! The Kid Rocks

2005-08-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

Just one look and I can hear a bell ring.
One more look and I forget everything.
Mamma Mia! Here I go again...
my, my, how can I resist ya?

He might be only three years old, but my friend Isaac can really rock.

He was disappointed in my ipod's offerings as we ran errands over the last few days because -- no Abba. He kept requesting "Mamma Dia" in particular (which for the unitiated, is the cool guy way to refer to Abba's "Mamma Mia"). At the first opportunity, I quickly corrected the obvious hole in my collection, and it might be the best $.99 I've ever spent.

The next time Isaac buckled into his carseat, I was prepared. I popped in "Mamma Dia." Let's just say I was worried the little guy might bust right through his seatbelt he was rocking so hard. His sweet mop of golden brown curly hair was bouncing with the disco beat in a kind of xylophone-driven frenzy. It was a 3-year old version of headbanger's ball. He was singing along too--his own special lyrical stylings--but singing his sweet little heart out. (Isaac: you and me for karaoke? soon?)

I know the passion only Abba can inspire. At 9 or 10, I begged for the Golden Hits of '77, (not offered in stores, but only available through a special TV offer) but what I was really after of course, was "Dancing Queen." I kind of understand now why on earth my Mom would have said yes. She let me send away for it and I looooved it. Then later when, as every kid does at some point, I succombed to the 10 albums for 1 cent when-you-join-the-club Sunday-paper offer, I seem to recall that there were a few Abba offerings that made it into my collection. Voulez-Vous anyone?

Glad to see the music of Abba lives on its timeless simplicity and infectious glee, inspiring the dance (even buckled-in-a-carseat) in a new generation.

Already Good

2005-08-09T22:36:00.000-04:00

About a year ago, a few of us were sitting around a kitchen table when the conversation meandered to the tv show, "Extreme Makeover" and the plastic surgery craze. As we talked about the easy-breezy 30-minute transformations of looks and attitudes, I joked that hey, I should really apply for the show.

My then 7-year old nephew Max had been listening to the conversation and suddenly perked up. With a look of great concern because he'd missed that I was being sarcastic, he said, "Oh no! Meem, you're already good."

Lucy Kaplansky has a song about the beauty in the eye of her beholder, that plays on the phrase to see the beauty in the soul that looks at others with love. While I've never been accused of being a beauty, as long as I have the confidence and admiration of such a beautiful little soul as Max, I am already good.

Grandpa

2005-07-23T14:25:00.000-04:00

My Grandpa died yesterday. He was 92. He had been sick and was eager to move on to the next stage of life, so I feel happy for him that he is relieved of his burdens and has completed his mission on earth. The scriptures say that when we die, we are taken home to that God who gave us life. His firm faith, which he cultivated throughout his life, is that he has now rejoined his wife, my grandma, his son who preceded him in death, with his parents and friends. He never really knew his mother, because she died during child birth while he was still a young child. I am confident that they are enjoying a joyful reunion after so many years apart.

Like him, I believe that his spirit continues alive and that he is freed from the pains of his body until, through the Savior, he is resurrected and made whole and immortal, never again to taste of death. The Book of Mormon says the mortal shall put on immortality through the Savior, but that during the interim, the spirits of those who have died have rest from the cares of mortality. I also believe that they are busy and continue to work and learn and serve--together-- in their realm.

Grandpa was a hard worker and constantly engaged in the quest to be productive and to be of service to others. He was a beekeeper and served a mission for the church with Grandma to Jamaica in part to share his knowledge of bees and certainly his love for God with others. I remember visiting one summer and he took me to the church welfare farm to work...all day...in the Idaho heat. He was a handyman, electrician, craftsman, and farmer, who loved to can apricots and pears and tomatoes. He always had a kind word for me. I share his faith that we'll see one another again in that place where families and loved ones are reunited.

Grandpa loved poetry. He wrote each of his nearly 100 grandchildren a poem for their birthday for many years. He memorized literally dozens and dozens of poems and had them at the tip of his tongue for any appropriate occasion. On one of my last visits with him, after I was telling him that I work in civil rights enforcement, he recited this poem by James Patrick Kinney to me, perfectly, from memory, with tremendous inflection and feeling in his distinctive and unique scratchy voice.

The Cold Within
Six humans trapped by happenstance in black and bitter cold
Each possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs, the first woman held hers back
For on the faces around the fire
She noticed one was black.

The next man looking 'cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

And the last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

The logs held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within.

Though he endured many difficulties in his life, he was a man of faith, who kindled the fires of kindness and service, warming many others along the way. I'm grateful today for his good life and example, and grateful that he has found peace and rest.

Wrinkle in Time

2005-07-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

I was walking past a mirror the other day and glanced in at myself, to give myself a smile and thumbs-up, naturally. I thought, "oh-oh. I wrote on my face with a pen!" and assumed that at some point during the day, I'd been reckless with an uncapped pen and drawn on my face.

So I licked my thumb and gave the smudge a quick rub. Still there.

On closer examination, to my shock and horror, I realized that in fact, it was no ink at all. It was a wrinkle!

Farewell youth. It was nice knowing ya. Welcome to 38.

Viva Las Vegas, Or, My Life as a Party Pooper

2005-07-16T00:57:00.000-04:00

So I just got back from Las Vegas where temperatures were topping 115 degrees. My hotel room was set at 68.5 however, with the fan on high when I entered. It felt kind of chilly and I had to turn it up. I had never been actually to Las Vegas before only through there on some long ago trips on I-15.

Went for work, not fun, although we managed to squeeze a little bit of recreating into the trip.

I wanted to be game about the whole experience and try to take in what seems to be so much fun to so many other people, but frankly, I couldn't quite get myself past the sense of waste and excess that permeates the place. (I mean the tourism centers.) For example, we went to watch the fountains dance in front of the Bellagio. It was absolutely spectacular! Like nothing I've ever seen, impressive in scale and imagination with the water, the lights and the music.

But. I had a nagging discomfort with the fact that this massive water show, this lake, was plunked--literally--in the middle of the desert. Call me a stick in the mud, but I wasn't sure my momentary entertainment was worth the environmental tradeoffs and the money it must cost to develop and maintain such a thing. My mind went to the people I know in a small village in Mexico who have to carry, bucket by bucket, water to each individual corn and bean stalk hoping it will yield something. I guess I'm uncomfortable with the priorities and distribution of resources and technology that lead us to such excess in the name of entertainment.

I kept trying to dive into the spirit of fun but each time, I looked around and saw what looked to me like a vast waste of electricity to allow people to waste money in the casinos. The spirit of waste and excess was most evident in the ubiquitous buffet. My colleagues insisted we try the Bellagio Buffet, for which we waited in line for about an hour and a half. Once inside, gluttony ensues. Because there are no limits on the food or trips, I noticed people piling their plates high, tasting a few items, then setting aside the plates of food (to be discarded) to go back and try something else. The mountains of food being offered were in effect being transformed into mountains of discarded food. Or, normal, rational human beings were suddenly justifying three and four heaping plates of food as a meal.

Somehow, my mind went to a story I heard years ago on NPR about a famine. A relief agency was delivering bags of rice, but there were not enough to go around. The reporter described the people who did not get the bags as kneeling to collect the fallen individual grains of rice from the dirt hoping to put together a mouthful of food.

He Ain't Heavy

2005-06-22T22:43:00.000-04:00

And the load doesn't weigh me down at all....He ain't heavy, he's my brother.
--lyrics to "He Ain't Heavy", Bobby Scott and Bobby Russell.

Ok. Time to avert any potential black-mailable situations by just getting the truth out there. Having been in Washington for the last 11 years, I have learned that the cover-up is often worse than the crime.

The hidden truth that burdens my soul? Well, let me first say that I have on my ipod what I truly believe is among the finest collections of quality music assembled. Music is a huge part of my daily life and I really don't understand how people make it without it. I need music. I love my ipod and if I lost it, it would really represent the loss of years of collecting and researching and culling a great collection of songs and artists.

But there are a few rather embarassing morsels tucked in between the hip, the cool, the thoughtful, the progressive, the poignant, and the classics. My secret stash of unhip, uncool, trite, fluff lurking in the playlists of my ipod was recently the subject of a blackmail threat, threatening to rip away the veneer of cool and expose me as a sometime sentimentalist.

Now, while I would never (probably) buy the albums associated with some of the songs, the advent of itunes means that for just .99, I can nab a song--mine for the listening whenever, wherever I choose, in the privacy and comfort of my own earphones, for the price of a taco. The relative cheap cost has lead me to make some rash, unfortunate choices, I admit. But some of those rash choices I secretly love.

Here's the thing: "He Ain't Heavy" is pure schmaltz, but I can't help it, there it sits on my ipod. So maybe you can cut me some slack, everyone has their guilty pleasure, right? Um, well, actually, I have both the Hollies version and, are you sitting? The Osmonds. I know, I know. How could I have wrought such a betrayal to those of you my friends who have sought my musical advice, who hold me up as some kind of standard for musical cool? (Ahem. Did you roll your eyes just there? I saw that.) It's a burden that ain't too heavy for me to bear, of course, cause if I'm laden at all, I'm laden with sadness that everyone's heart isn't filled with the gladness of love for cheesy music. I just thought in the interest of full disclosure, you should know. Wait, it gets worse. I actually mist up when the ipod shuffle program brings it up. It is just so touching. Do you know the story?

Check this out: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=1905 . See, with the Depression, Father Flanagan and the orphan boys, and the self-sacrificing older sibling (ok, I just heard both my younger brother and sister guffaw out loud at that and I'm pretty sure there was some more eye-rolling!) how can you help but shed a tear?

Not to worry. Don't lose all faith in my musical taste. I'm trying to track down the Rufus Wainwright version from the Zoolander soundtrack, which of course, would be completely hip as Rufus is in such tremendous vogue of late. I could blare that one with the car windows down. But the Osmonds are definitely an all car windows rolled up, make no eye-contact with neighboring cars affair.

So there you have it. Let no one accuse me of coverup. I'm breaking the cardinal rule of scandal which is: deny, deny, deny. Instead, I choose to embrace, embrace, embrace. At least this particular dark deed. Perhaps more revelations of embarassing ipod moments at some future date. Until then --

The road is long, with many a winding turn
that leads us to who knows where, who knows where.

But I'm strong. Strong enough to carry him.
He ain't heavy (chorus: ahhhh), he's my brother.

So on we go.
His welfare is my concern.
No burden is he to bear, we'll get there.

Can you even stand it? Confess, you are weeping right now, aren't you!

Happy Father's Day

2005-06-19T17:09:00.000-04:00

One thing I love about my Dad is that he is a character. He is a bit eccentric, as I think he would himself have to admit. For example, he collects teeth. He has shark teeth (both loose and in a jaw). He has a lion's tooth. Mom found some odd little envelope of teeth in her jewelry box one day and removed it to some other off-site location. Soon after, Dad came in and asked what had happend to his "grandpappy's teeth." Now, Dad is also che-.., um, frugal. But one time in Mexico we were shopping in the little touristy shops and Dad struck a deal with the shopkeep for a variety pack of animal teeth for some amount that took me aback. But then again, I'm not sure I understand the true value of teeth enough to be objective in tooth pricing.

He is also a collector of words. He can spell absolutely anything and define any word you come across. I think that comes from many years of voracious reading. And he retains what he reads, can take you back to it to show you a particular passage years later. It makes him a very effective orator and it is always a treat to hear him speak and teach.

Much of the focus of his life has been family and faith. When I was nearing the end of my missionary service in Texas, he sent me a letter telling me to keep on task right to the very end: "hoe to the end of your row" he said. He didn't want the promise of whatever would come next to divert my attention from what I was doing there. It is a principle he has modeled very well. That is perhaps part of his love for bees. He has spent many years observing, keeping and nurturing hives of bees. (As he might say it, he is a practicing apiarist.) He admires and emulates their industry and ingenuity.

He is also very musical, with a lovely singing voice, a knack for the harmonica, a small repertoire of songs on the guitar, and one very well-worn "song" on the piano. That sort of pioneer spirit of conservation and thrift may account for his fondness for never retiring a joke as well. Some of those puppies are good and thread-bare, but yet he keeps using and re-using them, determined to keep them in circulation until every last human has heard (at least once) his jokes. Must be genetic, and I'm afraid I have a bit of the joke-recycling gene expressed in my own genetic makeup.

We had a great time a few weeks ago wandering through Epcot Center at Disneyworld. Mom had to attend some meetings however, and during the day it was just me and Dad. I think he really enjoyed the experience, but for him, nothing is really complete that he doesn't share with Mom. All day he kept saying how much Mom would like to see this or that, or asking, wouldn't Mom enjoy this? I think he doubly enjoyed later taking her back to show her the things he found interesting. His enthusiastic love and devout admiration for Mom has been a source of security and a great example for us kids.

He has also worked in civil rights, like me. While people might want to put labels on him, he defies the labels and never labels others. He has worked hard on diversity issues and like his mother before him, has a truly unprejudiced heart open to all kinds of people from the whole variety of human families and experience.

I guess it is a very good thing that I admire so much about him, because he has got some powerfully dominant genes, and I constantly find new ways of seeing him in myself, both in looks and behaviors. Happy Father's Day Dad!

Around Maria's Table

2005-06-12T22:07:00.000-04:00

I've learned some profound truths seated at Maria's dining table. Maria is a friend with a bright mind, a bright heart, and a wealth of wit and wisdom. I have wonderful memories of being seated at her table. Among them, I spent a spiritually rich Christmas Eve there last year. I was talking with a friend who is also a frequent guest at Maria's table and she was saying it is like being in the movie "Babette's Feast" to go to Maria's, her home is so welcoming and her food so beautiful and delicious.

I've met great people seated at Maria's table and made lasting and profound friendships. I've heard the meaning of life and the mysteries of God discussed and debated by people with exceptional minds and depth of spirit. But the thing that is great about Maria's table is how briskly the conversation leaps from coping with death, heartache and loss to whether Melanie Griffith or Andie MacDowell is the worse actress. (I'm firmly in the Andie MacDowell camp, and will not be moved off my position by any force! I need only cite the painful "Green Card" as my opening statement, evidence of my case-in-chief, and closing argument all tidily wrapped in one.) Maria has her folly: she liked "A Walk in the Clouds" with Keanu Reaves, and really, that is just inexcusable. To me, Keanu in that movie is the male equivalent of Andie MacDowell. Cute just ain't enough. I've heard there may have been a secret memo from Rumsfeld approving showing that movie at Gitmo, but they pulled it back ultimately as inhumane.

Maria is also inordinately fond of (read: addicted to) Craigslist, and when the phone rings late at night, I know it is because Maria has just struck a deal for an end table somewhere in the heart of DC and we've got to go into the night to pick it up.

Yesterday, Maria's husband left again for Sri Lanka to work on their tsunami relief project and follow up on the excellent assistance being rendered by their organization. (See www.srilankanhelp.org).

Tonight I had an early co-birthday dinner at Maria's table. Maria cooked a chicken on the grill. Deb made a Williams-Sonoma lemon cake in the shape of a castle (Williams-Sonoma mold) with Williams-Sonoma hot fudge sauce. We talked about life and death, movies and television, relationships and religion. It was good comfort food, good company, good conversation. Makes life a delight.

We talked a little bit about whether we could continue to gather like that at some future time beyond mortal death. I believe that love and friendship and sociality continues beyond death. I believe we are still ourselves when we die and that our spirits continue to live there in much the same way as we do here. I believe this life is patterned after a life we knew before and is a pattern of what will come after. I believe we will join loved ones who go before us and that will have many happy times together. Maria was saying tonight that she never wanted to be an angel with wings, playing a harp. I believe Maria has a destiny of light and life and love beyond all we've imagined here. Maria believes, as do I, that all will be resurrected because the Savior conquered death. That is the hope that is within us.

I also hope to be a guest at Maria's table there, and I'm thrilled to have found a seat there here.

My Brief Career in Showbiz

2005-06-05T23:38:00.000-04:00

I referred earlier to the Corn Soup Socials as one of ways our small congregation worked to raise money to build a new chapel. But that was not our only means for raising cash. Let me just preface this by saying it was the 70's. And being, as it was, the 70's, naturally, we also put together a traveling variety show comprised of members of the congregation.

This was the era of the variety show. Sonny and Cher. Donny and Marie. Captain and Tenille. The Jackson 5. A little music, some sequins, some corny comedy bits and bam! You've got yourself a show! My poor little sister was inconsoloble when Sonny and Cher split. Thankfully, the show bravely continued, but it wasn't the same.

We had our own version of the variety show at the small Mormon congregation on the reservation. There were a lot of actually quite talented people in the group and somehow, in the spirit of Alfalfa and the Our Gang, one day they decided to turn the ragtag group into a show.

I was in the 4-6th grades during this era and I remember covers of the Doobie Brothers. Listen to the Music. Long Train Running. Some of the numbers from Grease. I did a horrid, out of tune version of Hopelessly Devoted at a couple of shows, but for some reason that started dropping off the list of numbers. I remember a song called "Silver Wings" on which I got to sing backup. And a highlight: Linda Rondstadt's It's so Easy to Fall in Love. I sang alto harmony on backup in my blouse on which my Mom sewed green sequins down the seams for panache. "It's so easy. It's so easy. It's so easy. It's so easy. So doggone easy! It's so easy. It's so easy. It's so easy." And I tried my best to dance. Step together. Sway the arms.

As part of the variety offered, we interspersed some "Indian" numbers in there. Naturally, Cher's "Cherokee Woman" was performed, although there were no Cherokee among us. We sort of went with a pan-Indian aesthetic. There was a song about a dream in which all the great chiefs appeared. A song called "Go My Son" which is about the quest for Indian education and was also performed in sign language. There were hoop dancers with flourescent orange painted hoops. Black lighting was big as I recall. (I'm still kind of miffed because I learned to do the hoop dancing but by tradition, that is a male dance and I never got to strut that particular stuff on stage.)

This part just slays me. I actually performed a stand-up comedy routine which I think my Mom "wrote" or at least, plagiarized (sorry Mom--time for the truth to be told!) from Reader's Digests and Art Linkletter. And though these were the pre-Carrot Top days, I also used a few props. I went to Hershey Park one summer and chose one of those "invisible dog" leashes and incorporated into my act. I think the "bit" went something like me walking the invisible dog out and then the dog becoming unruly and running me around the stage and ultimately soiling some part of the stage. Funny, funny stuff kids. Wish you could've seen it.

I don't think my fifth grade teacher found it as funny and I seem to recall my invisible dog being impounded when I tried out that part of the act at school. It was a fun prop while it lasted. And darn it, I committed to the part. I remember walking the dog up the steps of the school bus and back to the seat, letting the (invisible) dog walk over to sniff some of the kids on the bus. What a ham.

Our variety show also had a segment featuring inspirational songs (as if the kid with the invisible dog weren't inspiring enough). That was where I had my big solo. I did a song called "I'm the one who writes my own story." The song has several verses developing the theme that the things we do and say are like lines of the story we are writing. The story of our lives. Then, there is a BIG key change which I think I carried off with the subtlety and finesse of a marching band tuba player.

After the key change came the payoff: "A thing called repentance can wipe out a sentence, a page, or a chapter--or more."

It was a lot of fun. We had one tour which took us to Akron, Ohio for one big night. After the show, some kids about my age asked me for my autograph. They wanted to meet my invisible dog, "what's his name?" "Can I pet him?" "Do you like performing?"

By the end of 6th grade, my fame had faded; the spotlights had gone black. My career in comedy-musical variety had ended. The 80's were beginning. We moved to Utah so my Mom could go to law school.

Now, when I see that chapel--no longer new--but still new to me, I know it was built not only by corn soup and corn bread, and by pie sales. A brick or two of that building was paid for in part by my brief and altogether inglorious career in variety entertainment.

Time Flies

2005-05-30T12:11:00.000-04:00

"Time's fun when you are having flies."
--Kermit the Frog.

It's been a hectic May. I have been traveling for work and have had sporadic access to a computer at best. So for those friends who have inquired as to whether I've given up on my "blog" already, sorry to disappoint, but I guess I'm still littering cyberspace with the occasional drivel. And I'm about due for another installment.

I spent two weeks at a trial advocacy training in South Carolina where we practiced leaping to our feet to assert an objection! and cross-examining witnesses and delivering closing arguments, etc. I learned a lot and met some nice people. It is nice to practice and make lots of embarassing mistakes when no one's real fortunes hang in the balance.

On the nephew news front, I'm very proud to report that Griffin, 5, last saturday approached his Mom with this nugget of wisdom: "Mom, it isn't money that makes you rich, it's love. We have lots of love, so we are really rich." Now, I don't particularly care if he was quoting a cartoon or other movie--a possibility I'll grudgingly acknowledge--(a skill he has honed well), I'll take it. That is just too cute. He is a charming little man, and I'm so glad that his life is so rich in love.

To his growing list of accomplishments, Maxwell has added "Student of the Month" for outstanding integrity at his school. He hasn't disclosed what brave act may have earned him this recognition, but I'm sure he deserves it. He is already, at 8, a man of integrity. (I'm still working on getting the award-winning Arbor Day essay.)

More later when I've had a chance to sort through the mounds of junk mail and do some laundry. I read onetime that people spend several years of their lives in total just reading junk mail, and I determined to defy the statistic. So if you are a mass mailer, please save yourself the stamp, your junk mail is going straight to the trash. I confess that my system isn't perfect though, and I once got dinged for failing to pay a bill for a termite inspection because I assumed it was the most persistent pest services junk mailer ever.

This post may in fact qualify as junk mail in the grand scheme of worthy prose, now that I think about it.

Happy Mother's Day

2005-05-08T12:44:00.000-04:00

My sister and brother and I are among those blessed with the greatest single advantage in the quest for a happy life: an enthusiastically supportive Mom.

She is our most loyal friend and fan, but it is truly a mutual admiration society. She is modest about her own list of accomplishments and her wealth of talents, demurring, as mothers do, but since this is my blog, I get to choose what to write. Today, at the risk of embarassing my decidedly private Mother, I choose to brag on my Mom in this semi-public forum, for mother's day.

She is the smartest person I know--right up there with Dad for candlepower. She is also the hardest worker I know. She can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan, as they say, (and by the way, makes a mean BLT out of it). She did us the great service of teaching us to treat her with respect in word and deed when we were small children, and as we have grown, so has our admiration and respect for her. She is also faithful to truth and principled about all she does.

Her infectious can-do attitude finds her sewing traditional clothing, sorting through complex legal problems, or tackling an electrical problem with equal aplomb. Professionally, she is a no-nonsense judge who manages to temper justice with mercy where appropriate, as you hope a good judge will, and insisting on accountability and respect for the institutions she serves.

She is also a lot of fun, always laughing, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, at our jokes and always fun to pal around with. I like to tell people, for the shock value of it, and because it is true, that my Mom has rifle with a scope with her prescription in it. She moves to the rhythm of her own drummer in a way that has taught the rest of us to enjoy independence of mind and experience.

(aside: History will attest, I really stink at sending cards and gifts. I'm just not much of a planner. I tend to take each day as it comes, and sending cards and gifts requires anticipating events, sometimes weeks in advance, and planning trips to the store and post office and so forth. As a result, holidays and birthdays suddenly arrive without my having planned ahead far enough to send a card and certainly not to have wrapped a gift. So Mom, I do have a mother's day card for you, I just haven't got a stamp and well, it's gonna be late--again. I've often slithered my way out of this perpetual faux pas with this little annual speech, extra schmaltz: "Mom, you know, I like to think that the way I live my life each day is tribute to your superior parenting. Every good thing I do, well, it's all because of you. In that sense, I guess that heck, everyday is mother's day for me. Why trivialize that with a card?" She laughs politely each year and I resolve that I'm gonna go buy a card in April for the following year and get an early birthday gift in the mail while I'm at it.)

I'm grateful for a mother who, in love, has nurtured and cheered and praised and corrected and modeled in great abundance.

NMAI, part I

2005-05-02T23:44:00.000-04:00

The sacred hoop has been restored. The circle is complete. The prophecy [of the reemergence of Native people] has been fulfilled.
--Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell
at the Dedication of the National Museum of the American Indian
Sept. 21, 2004

Last September 21, the National Museum of the American Indian opened in Washington on the National Mall. As part of the festivities on the day of the Museum's dedication, there was a processional of more than 10,000 native people from all around the Nation, and indeed, from all over the Americas.

The procession was a quiet, dignified march of hundreds of tribal groups and friends of Native people from the Washington Monument on a route east to the Museum. I participated with my Mom and Dad and sister as part of the delegation from the Seneca Nation. Mom made--yes, made!--traditional Seneca dresses for the event. It was a beautiful fall day with a perfectly blue autumn sky and the sense of something historic and sacred in the air.

As the procession began, we walked four or five across with other members of the Seneca Nation. I felt a bit self-conscious at first, suddenly made a living float in an Indian parade. I wasn't sure if I should give a Miss Sweet Corn wave to the people lining the route, or smile, or look the stoic part. But as we walked, people began to clap. The clapping was scattered but poignant.

I began to hear and feel in that greeting a sense of gratitude and respect for the miracle of Native survival. People were clapping to say, "we're glad you are still here;" at least, that is the message I was hearing. And really, it is a miracle that in 2005, there still is such a thing as an American Indian.

Despite the concerted efforts of the legislative, executive and military might of the United States, whose official Indian policy until the 1970s was forced assimilation and termination, Indians survive. Tribal identity survives.

There have been many prophecies within both the LDS and the Native American traditions about the dark period that would cloud the history of American Indian people; however, in both traditions, the dark period would be followed by a reemergence spurred by the revitalization of spiritual roots and the desire to seek the Creator. In my own faith, the Creator is patient and kind, and His arms are outstretched still, ever seeking to gather His children, like a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.

Senator Campbell gave voice to the feeling that I had that day. He saw the dedication of the Museum as a symbol of the reemergence of Indian people assuming a place of honor and dignity as contributors, not takers, to the American experience. He looked at the gathered procession and saw prophecy fulfilled, the sacred hoop restored.

In the construction and dedication of the museum, a monument really, I felt that there began a symbol of the long-awaited reciprocity in the relationship between the American people and first Americans. The Museum is a gift from the American people in many ways, but it also a gift from American Indian people to all who visit, a place to highlight and share the culture in its current vitality and vibrant history.

It has the feeling of sacred space and has been described as such by its designers. Unlike other buildings on the National Mall, it is oriented with its entrance from the east, like a kiva. The news media covering the dedication and opening seemed perplexed by the lack of vitriol in the telling of the American Indian stories in the museum itself. "Where is the story of the massacres?" they asked. In one report I saw, the spokesperson asked Tom Brokaw to wait to discuss such issues outside the walls of the museum space, so as to protect the sanctity of the space.

I see the Museum as Indian people's declaration-well, some Indian people anyway-- that we won't be defined merely as victims of history and that the more interesting stories are the stories of the survival of the culture. And that the culture has much to offer if the offering is acknowledged and respected.

On Register

2005-04-25T22:12:00.000-04:00

Never short of opinions, Corn Soup Social bring you a few pointers in re: the fast food experience.

Mom was telling Max and me the other day that she and Dad went to Wendy's for dinner. She was setting the scene by telling us that there was a long, slow line because they had a trainee who was overwhelmed working the cash register.

Max, 8, empathized immediately and had an indignant response: "You should never put a new person on register!! They should wrap burgers or fill french fry cups, but they should never be on register! Geez!"

This tidbit of managerial wisdom from my eight-year-old nephew was right on the money and it was too funny that while he could see it, somehow it had escaped Wendy's management.

I worked "register" and "drive-thru window" and assembled tacos at the Taco Time one summer. Let me tell you, people, it is important to enunciate when ordering "bean" or "meat" burritos. The high quality drive-thru sound system makes everything sound like "I'll have a "mean" or "beat" burrito.

I also recommend that if for some reason you speak spanish you leave your fancy pronunciation at home. I didn't have time to translate your "grrrrr-ahndays" and your "booorrrritos" during the lunch rush. And try, please try, to have some idea of what you want by the time you get to the register. There is no million-dollar prize for ordering precisely the right thing. Its a .79 cent taco or a .99 burrito, not a lifetime commitment.

From the other side of the counter, I've noticed that I have an uncanny knack for being the transitional person with the register tape. It happens to me with startling regularity that the person "on register," as Max says, will say to me: "Just one minute. I've got to change the register tape." Then they fumble and stumble and call over the manager and have to try it three different ways before they can ring me up.

It has happened at gift shops, grocery stores, restaurants of all varieties, wherever there is tape, there I am waiting for it to be changed. I like to think it is because I look like a patient consumer who won't blow my stack at being asked to wait a minute, and so the beleaguered register staff selects me as the wait-victim. I'm not a receipt-saver and I instantly toss all my receipts, so it seems a waste that taken together, I've spent several precious hours of my life waiting to get the receipt tape changed so that I can get a freshly printed receipt to toss.

I call it one of my two odd curses in life. It is the lesser of the two, believe me. The other, far more menacing and serious curse is that whenever I tune a radio to a pop station or find myself where music or muzak may be playing, inevitably, I'll hear Phil Collins. The Phil Collins curse. I cannot abide Phil Collins. So I'm doomed to hear his music whenever I'm tuned to public airwaves.

And more often than not, I'm hearing Phil Collins "singing" Su-su-sudio while waiting for the new person on register to figure out how to change that tape.

A Hush Falls Over the Crowd

2005-04-23T19:47:00.000-04:00

I guess it may be true what they say, it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.

Testing. 1...2...3... Is this thing on? (tap tap) Seashells by the seashore. Testing. Can you hear me?

(crickets chirping)

I can see from the handy counter gizmo in the lower right corner that this site has had at the time of this writing, approximately 130 hits. Yet no one has any comment whatsoever, good or bad? Could they all be accidental hits from people looking for a recipe?

What's wrong guys? Not even the spammers are promoting their goods and services in the guise of comments.

Inane doesn't bother me, as you can clearly tell. Inartful, no problem, as you can surmise. Intelligent comments? I'd take them, as they'd stand out nicely against the foil I've provided for you here. I believe you can comment anonymously if you like. Don't be frightened.

Anybody out there? out there? out there? out there?

Write On Little Man!

2005-04-22T00:29:00.000-04:00

"I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done."
---Steven Wright

My little pal Max called tonight to let me know that his essay about trees for Arbor Day won first prize for the second grade essay contest. He said it was "a dream come true" for him and that he had been invited to a "ceremony" honoring his essay and Arbor Day.

Since he got rolling with speech around 2 years, he has always been a wordsmith. Once he hears a word, he immediately incorporates it into his impressive vocabulary and you hear him using it in sentences and working it into conversation again and again. I'm not ashamed to admit that even with my degrees in the humanities, this second-grader has taught me a number of words. One day he was spinning a yarn about his dream to become a toy repairman and make millions of dollars. "No! Googleplex dollars!" he said, correcting himself.

Me: Googleplex! That is a funny word. Is that word you made up to mean a lot?

Max: No. It is 10 to the 100th power.

Me: Oh.

And on another occasion a few years back (when Max was 4) --

Max: What do whales eat?

Me: They eat little fishies.

Max: What about crill and plankton?

Me: Oh yeah. That too.

We share a trait in that he really gets tickled by language and thinks some words are of themselves hilarious. I'm still amazed that he can manipulate a pencil and form letters and words and spell things, let alone compose prize-winning essays for Arbor Day.

I'll see if I can get the publishing rights and author's permission to post. In the mean time, congratulations Max! Way to be!

Sri Lankan Help

2005-04-21T00:24:00.000-04:00

Please take a look at the link on the right column for Sri Lankan Help, a Tsunami Relief organization started and operated by some friends of mine. They are wonderful, caring people genuinely motivated by love and personal compassion who are making a real difference for many individuals affected by the tsunami in Sri Lanka. They've been providing medicine, school supplies, housing assistance, wheelchairs, and other vital aid, working person by person in concert with local community leaders not just assessing, but meeting, the most urgent needs of several small villages in Sri Lanka.

They traveled to Sri Lanka and have developed a tremendous network of contacts to facilitate very effective assistance on a kind of micro-scale. They can identify and respond to individual needs in ways that large NGOs are too large or too slow to accomplish, at least in the timeframe and on the personal level that Sri Lankan Help has been able to do. Many of the people they met told them that numerous groups had been through "assessing" needs, but few returned with any of the supplies and labor needed. Sri Lankan Help is a small, efficient group working to fill particular needs for particular individuals in Sri Lanka.

They are volunteers who have assumed the overhead (and donated the considerable labor and expertise) for their small organization in order to maximize the effectiveness of donations. Please take particular note of the drawings made by the children in the camps with whom group members played hokey-pokey and did art projects a few months ago. These folks did what most of us hoped was being done by someone, somewhere: they went and cried with devastated parents and listened to the stories of loss and cheered the hearts of mourning children.

The Next Barbara Walters

2005-04-20T00:29:00.000-04:00

My grandpa always encouraged me to go into broadcast journalism with the promise that "somebody will have to replace Barbara Walters one day." I appreciate that he was confident in my ability to be prepared when on some future date, the slot of female broadcaster came open, to step in. Those conversations were probably some 30 years ago, I suppose, and well, I didn't become a broadcaster but as far as I know, Barbara Walters still hasn't cleared out of her chair.

Perhaps he planted a seed in my mind's eye and I recall wanting to become a journalist at some point during the late-elementary, early-junior high era of my life. Mrs. Troutman, my 6th grade teacher, gave me the assignment to go each morning to the principal's office to read a short list of school announcements, (highly) abbreviated news headlines, and a weather report over the school's p.a. system. I don't know who wrote my copy, probably Mrs. Troutman, because it was sitting on my desk waiting for me each morning. I may not have been any threat to Barbara Walters' job security, but I was the voice of the school's morning announcements during the 6th grade.

In particular, I remember one morning reading an announcement that a new pope, Pope John Paul, had been chosen; then within a very short time period, I read that Pope John Paul had died, and then, that another pope, Pope John Paul II, had been chosen. Although I am not Catholic and don't know anything really about papal succession, I always felt a kind of bond with Pope John Paul II because I had been the one to alert the kids at the elementary school of his election in my morning broadcast, and because I was very aware that I was delivering a lot of pope-news that year.

So I watched with some interest the news that Pope John Paul II had taken ill, then that he had died. Now that a successor has been named, I wonder at the intervening years and who might be the voice of that news to the kids at my old elementary school, and where I'll be in 25 years. How quickly time goes by in many ways, and how much like a lifetime ago that seems.

Home

2005-04-16T00:12:00.000-04:00

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
--- John Newton, Amazing Grace

If I were wise, I wouldn't attempt to write anything just now, as I just walked through the door at the end of an absolutely grueling three weeks of work and travel. Not sure I have anything worth saying, but wanted to try to capture my sense of exhaustion and satisfaction and gratitude. Hard work is simultaneously satisfying and exhausting, and I am grateful for it.

Again this week, I've had the honor to meet some amazing people. Among them, I met a young man who fled a civil war in Somalia to live in various refugee camps in Kenya, and eventually found his way to the United States. During his short tenure in the United States so far, he has learned English, earned a degree in business--while juggling multiple minimum wage jobs--and lived for several months in his car after being evicted. He is so proud that his children are in American schools and he spoke at length about his commitment to providing them access to every opportunity America promises for them to develop their gifts. He was carrying several books about how to build a business and spoke with enthusiasm, fervor even, about the principle of hard work that can yield fruit in America like nowhere else. He was a true believer in the American Dream. It was refreshing and energizing to meet him and I share his hope and faith that his hard work will mean opportunities for his children to realize their potential and develop their gifts. I told him I was glad he was in America and that I believe he makes America a better place.

I was moved that his motivation was the happiness and fulfillment of his children. The vision of a better life for the children has provided the inspiration for countless parents to spend their lives doing the work available to them and required of them. I'm speaking both of the paid and the unpaid work that parents are uniquely called upon to perform. It is sometimes humiliating, menial, dangerous or boring and most often unheralded. I admire that the vision that keeps parents going is not their own comfort, but rather that their children might be comfortable, safe and happy and have choices and opportunities, even to choose work that might be simultaneously exhausting and satisfying.

My great-grandmother, Grandma Jake, worked as a maid. She was humble and hard working. I wonder if the people whose homes she cleaned ever caught a glimpse also of the glorious person she was. One generation later, my Grandma was trained, as most Indian girls were at the time, as a "domestic." She worked long hours at a state mental hospital, progressing in responsibility little by little eventually to become a nurse's aide. I wonder if the supervisors who saw the woman changing the sheets in the mental hospital ever caught a glimpse of brilliant mind and vibrant spirit and striking dignity of the woman I knew.

She was determined to send her children to college. Taking an extra shift here and a holiday there, she clung to the vision she and my grandfather shared of opportunity for their children. All became attorneys. I don't know if everyone would consider that a successful outcome for her vision, but what her hard work did realize was choices for her children to choose satisfying paths for their lives and the lives of those of us who follow. Thankfully, she too seized evolving opportunities for interesting, satisfying experiences and became a nurse.

Odd. I started out thinking I wanted to say something about grace, and it appears I've written about works. But, grace has to do with what we have not achieved for ourselves--those mercies granted through the efforts of another. Like the grace of a parent cleaning up messes she has not made, at home, at a hospital, at a hotel, or even while wearing the robes of a judge; all working for the comfort and happiness of her children.

I once met a woman in a rural village in Mexico who had never seen television or read a book. All she knew she learned from conversation, interaction, observation and reflection. I saw how hard she was working--washing her children's clothes in the river, milking goats and making cheese, gathering eggs, grinding corn for masa. She accomplished more in a day than I will ever do. I asked her why she worked so hard every day. She lead me outside her small, dirt-floor, stone home and pointed to a hen. I didn't understand. Then I noticed four tiny beaks peeking out from under the hen's wings. The hen had gathered her chicks under her wings. It is what mamas do, she told me. They take care of their babies. (She also pointed to a sow nursing literally-a hilarious pile-of wiggling piglets!)

I'm grateful for the grace of all those who have carried me under their protective wings so that I can live a life of choices. It is amazing grace. I hope my choices will do honor to those sacrifices.

And I'm glad to be home.

The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

2005-04-09T20:45:00.000-04:00

The truth shall make you free.

I've been traveling for work taking and defending depositions in a contentious lawsuit. It is striking in the course of a few weeks to sit across and sit beside individuals who have each taken an oath to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" and then hear such starkly opposing tales told under that oath.

Certainly time and perspective shape perceptions of what happened, who said what to whom and when, and the nature of the remembered interactions leading to the dispute. But there is a quiet, confident dignity in the truth and those who speak truth as contrasted with the nervous, strained earnestness of those pitching self-interested lies. I suppose practiced liars can attain to a kind of feigned confidence in their lies, but I hope those are the rare exceptions.

I believe that the soul disdains a lie and betrays the liar's efforts to conceal or evade truth. The body rebels against the lie as well. You can see in the emptiness of the eyes, the tense spasms of the muscles, the dry mouth, and the roiling heartburn of the liar that the tower of lies built upon the foundation of lies is a flimsy structure always threatening to collapse upon them.

In a sense deception provides its own punishment: an absence of peace; turmoil. I had a very visible reminder this week that there is peace in truth and that while confidence can be feigned, peace cannot be counterfeited.

I also had a very painful inner ear infection this week. A friend of mine believes the body's dis-ease, or un-ease, is expressed in disease and illness. She said maybe my ear infection was due to hearing the painful experiences of the victims in our lawsuit. Maybe it was hearing the lies--from the other side--that caused me to lose my hearing for a week and my ear to swell shut.

Leap of Faith

2005-03-24T02:37:00.000-05:00

"I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific."
--Lily Tomlin

It is a truism that change is constant, but some changes we have control over and some we don't. For major life changes, like changing jobs or cities, the fear factor is multiplied by the impossible calculus of variables that can't be quantified. Do I stay with the known--the day to day familiarity--and the routine (or rut) of both positives and negatives? Or do I step out into the unknown and risk losing the positives of the known in the hopes the trade will bring richer positives and fewer (perhaps more tolerable) negatives?

I agonized in recent months over a job change which presented just this dilemma. I liked much about my former job: much of the daily work, many of the daily associations. But other aspects of the job made my vision of myself at that job in the future feel increasingly oppressive. That said, staying at the job would mean increasing financial security and freedom, and many rich professional opportunities.

I appreciate that I have choices in life, but I can drive myself around in circles at high speed trying to internalize and weigh the infinite "what-ifs" involved in such a major choice as changing jobs. After all, for me, where I am at work all day and who I am with constitute a significant percentage of my existence. I've never been one to feel defined by what I do, I am definitely not my job--I subscribe more to the "it's what I do to pay for the rest of my (real) life" school of thought. But....what if I left my old job then hated my new job? What if the boss(es) who drove me bonkers on a daily basis at the old job were replaced by ones who made me long for the good old days? What if the new work was boring? Or worse! What if I'm not up to the new challenges?

The fear of regret is a powerful cement binding our feet firmly in place, even while our minds and hearts have an impulse to journey.

We celebrated a going-away lunch today for successful attorney who has decided to quit being a lawyer to go to Hollywood. He is going to work in television production, which has always been a dream for him. He leaves a successful and promising practice, of his own volition, taking a substantial cut in pay and risking the bemusement of others who--feet planted firmly in one (safe) spot--tell his tale with emphasis on the word Hollywood, communicating, without saying, that there is something wildly impractical and innocent and idealistic about the move. But it is a move! And a move toward a dream at that. I wish him well.

I asked colleagues at the lunch what their "Hollywood" might be. What model of dream would they purchase using "the known" as the trade-in? What are yours? What keeps us from pursuing those dreams?

Turns out that the table of (excellent) lawyers where I was sitting was really a table of would-be novelists, chefs, relief missionaries, and photographers. Beside me sat a father whose daughter, a junior in college, has declared herself a sculptor/painter. He seems to be tolerating that choice while nourishing the hope that with maturity, she will revise the plan along more conventional and practical lines. It gave me a new appreciation for the courage and tenacity of folks who stay novelists, chefs, humanitarian workers, photographers, sculptors, actors, and dancers after their junior year in college.

My brother called today to say that he was leaving the law firm of Safe, Stable & Known for a new job. He's not going to Hollywood, he's going to stay in Toledo, but I quizzed him nonetheless about whether he had anticipated (and weighed) this particular risk and that particular unknown. Being, as he is, a mensch, he has weighed the possibilities--in concert and consultation with his wife--and opted to move forward, choosing hope and accepting the inherent risks of change. I hope his courage, his leap of faith, is rewarded and it turns out even better than imagined by the bright hope that propels such a change.

I made the change to the new job in June 2004. It has been more than I hoped it would be, bringing opportunities (and challenges) I could not have imagined for myself. My nightmarish fears and worries have not been realized and thankfully, though short of cash, I'm free of regret.

I can't imagine making such changes without the guidance of an omniscient and loving Father in Heaven. I believe He is much more closely interested in the intimate details, and the grand scheme, of our lives than we credit Him for. I know He has opened the pathways of happiness to me, has blessed me with the power and opportunity to choose how to walk those paths, has provided the guiding Light, and has promised to go before, beside, and behind as a Companion and Protector.

Corn Soup Social

2005-03-19T15:32:00.000-05:00

The first saturday of every month growing up on the Reservation was the Corn Soup Social. People would come from all over and bring their own containers, mason jars or empty milk jugs, to fill with the soup. You could also buy wheels of traditional corn bread wrapped in tin-foil, or people's homemade sandwiches and pies--whole or by the slice--all donated to the cause of the church's building fund.

Corn soup takes a long time to make. You have to start with the right kind of white squaw corn. The corn is dried, then treated with ashes or lye to remove the black "eye" of the kernal. I remember as a young girl helping the crew--at least I thought I was helping--wash and rinse the corn, plunging my whole arms, up past my elbows, into large vats of watery corn. The small black eyes would stick to my arms like freckles. We would rinse until the corn was ready to be spread out on long tables covered with newspaper to dry.

Corn soup might be an acquired taste, I'm not sure, since it has always been part of me. the corn is sort of like hominy, with bits of fatty salt pork and kidney beans added to the grey broth. Corn bread is not the yellow cornmeal cake you're thinking of. It is a little like cornmeal playdough. The squawcorn flour is mixed with kidney beans and shaped into thick wheels and boiled. It is served with butter and salt.

The Corn Soup Social was a project that began on Friday afternoon and continued on through clean-up on Saturday. It was an odd feeling as a kid to be out so late, sometimes through most of the night, with the church to ourselves. But it was a great feeling to be doing something that felt meaningful. (It was not such a great feeling the time I broke out of the main service one Sunday, found my way into a bag of dried corn, folded my dress hem up, filled it with corn, and walked down the hallway feeding imaginary chickens.)

The Corn Soup Social brings together what I think are the great gifts of my multi-faceted heritage. The social, the soup and the bread are traditional--and contemporary--elements of Seneca life. Mom and Dad and Grandma often worked all night, sometimes with others, sometimes alone, their efforts perhaps often unnoticed by anyone else, to be of service to the Church. Sometimes serving God means making soup late at night to help build a new chapel; often serving God best is serving outside the notice or praise of others.

From my Mom, I'm Seneca. She is full; I'm half. From my Dad, I claim the history of the Mormon pioneers. From both, I inherit an interest in truth, in faith, in tradition, in debate, in words and language, and in learning from others.

I'm not sure if I'm more afraid that anyone will ever read the blog or if no one will. This feels like feeding imaginary chickens, tossing out--perhaps wasting--random kernals corn. But if by some chance you are here, welcome. Grab a broom and a mason jar. Maybe we'll have some soup.