Communion Part III

All this thinking about communion has my head in a spin and as you hopefully noticed, I didn't write Part III last week as I had promised. I'm no Biblical scholar by any means but here's the best I could come up with.

The Christian act of communion is based on the Last Supper where Jesus clearly said (or as clearly as we can determine by the witness accounts which have undergone countless re-tellings and re-writings) that the wine represented the "blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many." (Matthew 14:22-24 for example). In some accounts he adds "for the remission of sins." (Matthew 25:25-28).  In the Old Testament there is also mention of the life blood given for atonement. (Leviticus 17:11).

There were several covenants in the Old Testament including those with Abraham (through which God promises to make his people God's people and to make Abraham a conduit for God's blessings), Noah (God promises never again to destroy the world [I guess he knew we could do that on our own], Moses (between God and the Israelites, includs the Ten Commandments), and David (establishes his family as heirs to the throne of the nation of Israel).

The last is the New Covenant which was made through Christ at the Last Supper Seder.The wine is drunk four times at a Seder (to represent the four promises) and it is thought that it was while drinking the third cup (redemption) that he said the words that preceded his death and establish that death as an act to save our souls.

After reading the Bible about the reason that Jesus shared the wine and his new covenant, I'm wondering if I should partake in the future.  I'm thinking that no amount of re-visioning the ritual to make it my own makes it right for me to participate. Because the very basis of the ritual--a belief that I am a sinner who cannot save myself--is contrary to my thoughts these days.

I know I'm flawed.  The divine knows I'm flawed. But I do hold a glimmer of hope that I will redeem myself in tiny ways until I'm the best ME I can be. The basic tenets of the Christian religion--Love God, Love Yourself, and Love Everybody Else (thanks, Al Green!) work for me as a simple guidepost to living. And if I use tools of the faiths like meditation, contemplative prayer, community, works, and studying to move myself along then I'm probably on the right path.

Thanks for reading along as I muddled through.

Communion Part II

(This is a photo of the way sunlight transformed the shadow of a glass.)

Before I go on with my thoughts about communion, I want to point out that all of us believers in a Truth pick and choose.  Even the most Bible-adherent people I know ignore parts of the Old Testament.  I am no different; I have chosen the parts of the Story that work for me, that make me feel I'm on the journey to being the BEST ME I can be.

That being said, here goes:

The minister said that all were welcome at the Table.  No restrictions.  So I felt encouraged to explore over the next few minutes whether I would participate and why.

I do not see myself as a worthless sinner.  I see myself as someone made in the image of the Divine, trying through all spiritual means possible to get to my truest expression of that image.  I study, I meditate, I participate in communities where I can explore my thoughts and goals.

In the past, I had come to think of communion as a way of confessing my sins and starting over. The way I could think of it now was that every time I take the bread and the wine, I make a commitment to continue in my attempts to shed the parts of me that aren't working and nourish the parts that I want to be stronger.

The bread is a symbol of the body of Christ the liturgy says.  If I eat the bread as this symbol, then I become a part of that Body.  I believe that Christ taught us how to live, and so if I take his teachings seriously, make them a part of me, then I will be on the right path. I will also be a part of a larger body of people moving in this direction.

The wine is a symbol of Christ's blood.  Again, by taking this wine, I am making His heart, his life-blood a part of me.

In its broadest sense, the word "communion" means "intimate fellowship." Specific to the church it is a "Christian sacrament in which consecrated bread and wine are consumed as memorials of Christ's death or as symbols for the realization of a spiritual union between Christ and the communicant" (Miriam Webster Dictionary).

"This is the body (and blood) of Christ given for you," the celebrants said as they gave me the bread and wine.  Both of them looked me in the eye and smiled. I felt renewed.

Communion.

Communion Part I

Over the years I've been writing this blog, I've talked a little about my evolutionary spiritual life.  But for those who are relative newcomers, here's my church affiliation in a capsule:  Methodist for fifty-three years, member of the Unity Church for six years, not much going on for two years (although technically still a Unity member).

If I were to break down my spirituality into eras it would look like this:

Jesus Loves Me But God Can Be Really Mean Era (newborn to twelve)

Churches Have Rules and You Have to Obey Them to Get to Heaven Era (Confirmation to eighteen)

Church?  I'll Go to Chapel on Wednesdays and Only Because It's Required Era (Meredith years)

I Sure Hope God Isn't Really Watching Me All the Time Era (young adulthood)

We Need to Go for the Children Era (thirties and forties)

Hmmm.  I Might Need to Rethink This Religion Thing Era (fifty to present day)

Two things have remained important to me through all these years: the music and the community.  I love every song that is ever sung in church and I enjoy the company of fellow travelers on the path to...whatever we're on the path to.

Two things that I have wanted to leave behind are the fact that churches are by necessity businesses and there's a lot of talk and pressure about money, and the image of myself as an unworthy person who is incapable of becoming Christ-like without the 'shedding of blood.'

So now we get to the picture above.  Please try to ignore the good-looking guitar player on the right and look over to the left of the photo where you will see a table laid out for communion.

I've been going to the night service at my old Methodist church (where I was a member for twenty-five years) because I am a great admirer of the guitar player and the Fairmont Gospel Revue, a band that has been playing at that church for about fifteen years.  On this particular Sunday, I was jarred by the presence of The Table.

Next week I'll tell you about my thinking over the next thirty minutes of that service and what I did about my dilemma of whether to take communion or not. Then the week after I'll share some of the research I did about communion so I could better understand the deep roots and evolutionary meaning of it.

Stick around.  I hope it's going to be interesting!

My Hope for Today

Tonight is our Town Meeting on gun violence at Quail Ridge Books and Music.  The above picture is what I'm trying to get my mind to look like:  Peaceful.

As I said at the end of last year, I want to make a difference with respect to violence in society.  One of the things I wanted to do was organize this gathering for tonight.

"You stirred it up," my husband told me the other day when I expressed misgivings about having done it, "and now you have to deal with it."

And he's right. I'm dealing with it and it hasn't been without its challenges.  There have been days--today is one of them--when I wish I hadn't gotten it going. I wish that instead of heading to the bookstore tonight that I could sit and watch the elimination show on The Voice.

I woke up nervous about the program, so I decided to do a ten-minute meditation.  The music was voices, all somewhat discordant that came together to make a very ethereal sound.  Appropriate, I thought at the end of the session.

I'm going to put forth here what I'd like to see happen in the next twelve hours:

1.  During the day, I will continue to affirm that the meeting will be productive, peaceful, and informative.

2.  When I do my introduction, I will set a tone of cooperation, expertise, and empowerment.  

3.  During the questioning of the panelists, they will give the audience food for thought and helpful information.

4.  During the question and answer period, the audience will ask questions that come from their hearts, that they will be resolute but not angry, that they will feel that their voices have been heard.

5.  As people leave the meeting, they will feel satisfied about the information they gave and received and be inspired to take action according to their beliefs.

6.  When I get home tonight, I will feel that I have done something that brought me out of my comfort zone but was very satisfactory.  I will feel confident about putting together another such town meeting that will make a difference in the lives of the people who attend.

7.  The bookstore will be satisfied with the results of the meeting and will want to support my efforts to do it again.

Please give these seven things some attention as you go through your day.  If you can attend, please do.  7:30 tonight at Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh.

A Sense of Safety

I remember calling my dad one day and in the middle of the conversation he got quiet.  I heard him take in a breath and realized he was crying.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's that child, Jessica.  The thought of her buried alive," he said between sobs.

Since the December shootings at Sandy Hook, I've shed a few tears for children I didn't know too. The tornado this week, which killed nine school children, brings back the same image of children huddling in their classrooms and hallways in fear. Also in the recent news is the child who along with her mother and two other women lived a "Room"-like existence.  And the man on trial for the rape and murder of the five-year-old child whose mother sold her to him.

Except for the times I worried about my dad's temper (and snakes and Cuban missiles), I felt safe as a child. I cannot imagine, unless they are completely sheltered from the news, how children today can feel such a sense of things being okay. And as much as I'd like it to be different, events and circumstances that are scary for children aren't going away.

So what can we do?

We can't change the weather, but we can be grateful for compassionate, quick-thinking teachers who saved many children during both the Sandy Hook shooting and the Moore tornado.  We can't be aware of every abusive situation a child finds him- or herself in but we can, as a community, provide and financially support mental health services for families in crisis.  We can thank school counselors, who talk to children and find ways to get them outside assistance and help them help themselves.  We can if at all possible shelter children from the news and violence that is in the media.  When we can't shelter them, we can educate ourselves about how to talk with them about their fears.

Several months of work are coming to fruition this Tuesday, May 28, at Quail Ridge Books and Music.  We have assembled a panel of experts - David Crabtree from WRAL-TV representing the media, Representative David Price, and Dr. Assad Meymandi who will speak for the mental health community, to address some of the causes of violence and how we the public can bring about change. I hope you will join us. Clay Stalnaker and I will moderate.

The impetus for putting this program together was the Sandy Hook incident. But I also want to help re-create a time and place when children felt safe in their schools, in their communities, in their homes.  They deserve this, and those of us with power - the adults - owe it to them to find ways to provide it.

Where I'm From

As I mentioned in an earlier post,  Carol Henderson did a workshop a few weeks ago on "Those Who Shape Us."   We wrote for ten minutes using as a prompt a poem by George Ella Lyon entitled, "Where I'm From."  

I'd like to share what I wrote and invite you to write a few lines in the comment section about where you're from.

            I am from the neighborhood that had the bomb shelter.  It was concrete with shelves full of cardboard pictures of food.  It was a place where the family who bought it would go when the rest of us got nuked by the Cubans and their missiles.  Our crisis.

            I am from the warehouse family where there were cardboard figures—the Jolly Green Giant and Tony the Tiger—figures that we would beg to take home when my dad took us to his office on Saturdays so my mom wouldn’t end up in “Dix Hill.” 

            I am from wood: wooden boats that my great-grandfather gave his fingers for; frames with dogwoods carved by my grandfather; the woods too—way back in the filtered sunlight where we crossed over dead wood, careful of snakes.  Stepped on the log not over it. I still do that today.

            I am from women, three generations of women with only a man or two thrown in for good measure.  I am from mother and aunts and sisters and daughters. Weak women who died early and strong women who could take me out with a look.  Granny.  That look.

            I am from cities with an innate longing for country, for woods and for food not in cardboard boxes and for porches that overlook ponds black as ink where frogs belch into the night and birds make their morning song. I am from a time when I lived in the country and missed the city conveniences.

            I am from walking to school with friends, riding the bus with sixteen-year-old bus drivers, drinking and smoking on the country club golf course, home-made prom dresses, and the Sears Employee Store.

            I am from Christmases with five children who woke up at dawn, from tiny bedrooms and a big basement, from 6:00 dinner and 11:00 curfews. Our house was “Grand Central Station” my mom would say, which meant nothing to me then.

            I am from a time when we all felt safe except from Cubans and their missiles and snakes.

Long Weekend in the Mountains

 Last Wednesday, a friend and I headed up to the NC mountains to do some writing.  On the first day, I used my Gaia IPhone app to choose a card to set the tone for the next few days. Here is the one I drew:

As soon as I saw the symbols, I knew it was the right card.  I would be attending a workshop put on by The Sun Magazine.  The ankh between the trees represents eternal life and plays a role in the fairy tale I would be working on the first part of the week.  And then there was the eye.  Eyes have been showing up for me.  This one signifies healing and protection.  The text on the card identified the background as an "enchanted forest."

We started out on Wednesday and Thursday at the Celo Inn, a B&B halfway between Spruce Pine and Burnsville. 

My room was a north facing room without much light, but it had a desk and a window chair. We had no cell phone or internet service.  It took me a while to get used to not checking my phone. It was nice though, because it allowed me to have uninterrupted writing time in the morning, afternoon, and evening.

Right across the street was a dirt road that went beside a beautiful clear stream.  Each morning, after breakfast at the inn, my friend and I took a walk. Here are some of the things we saw on those walks.

On Friday, the weather continued to be sunny and warm and we started driving toward Wildacres Retreat Center where we were to participate in The Sun Magazine's "Into the Fire" writing weekend. Wildacres sits on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest and is so peaceful and serene.

Saturday morning, the fog rolled in. 

The retreat center's buildings are all made to blend in with the natural surroundings.  This is one of the dorm buildings that also houses the offices.  The rooms were similar to hotel rooms except without television or phones.

                                   
The food was served family style and every meal was creative and delicious.  Fish, chicken, interesting salads plus the regular salad bar - everything was fresh and obviously prepared with thought.

                                      

There were three sessions of classes on Saturday.  I was fortunate to work with our Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti.  He told us to identify our threshold in telling stories that involve friends and family, deciding what would be too hurtful or harmful to others and what is the writer's story that has to be told.  I also took classes with Krista Bremer, a Sun Magazine writer who has a book coming out in a few months, and the very crazy Doug Crandell.  Doug, in contrast to Joseph, told us to tell our stories no matter what, but to try to involve hostile family members through an interview process too complicated to go into here. (I'm linking to their Sun page so you can read some of their essays if you want.)

There were many impromptu moments of grace, including this one when a woman from the workshop went up to the piano and began playing.  That is Sy Safransky, the editor and publisher of The Sun Magazine listening to her.  I enjoyed learning more about him through his interactions with the participants and from his reading from his "Notebook," a regular part of each issue.

The last thing, at the end of the closing session, Angela Winter sang a travel blessing a capella in her haunting voice, then we all got up to drive down the mountain in the fog and rain, to resume our normal lives.

A Detour During the Writing-est Weekend

I wasn't going to write about my mother.  My father either.  I'd written about him continuously since his death almost three years ago.

Eight women met with writer Carol Henderson this weekend for a workshop entitled, "Those Who Shape Us."  For a while after we firmed up the date, I gave some thought to the people who had had influence - both good and bad - on my life.  I wanted it to be a teacher, for instance Mrs. Touchstone who let us have Toastmaster's Club every Friday in high school.  Or Mrs. Daniels, the choir teacher who chose me to be Becky Thatcher even though Susan Morrison should have gotten the part with her far superior voice.  I wanted it to be someone else's parent, like Mrs. Jeffress, who though gruff and no-nonsense, treated me like an adult.  An adult with some sense when I was neither adult nor sensible.  Or one of the parents who led my Girl Scout troop or MYF or a minister in one of the churches I went to.  Maybe it could be an aunt or an uncle or my grandparents.  Even my great-grandparents who adored me.

But not my mother and father.

Finally, as the date approached, I got a kidney stone which took almost three weeks to deal with.  Then I had to get ready for the workshop, and in all the activity I stopped worrying about the person who shaped me.  The day before we were to meet I made a conscious decision just to let go and see who came up.

It was my mother.

It seems that it has taken the death of my father to bring the fullness of the death of my mother to me. We did exercise after exercise (the writing-est workshop I've ever participated in) and every time, she was the central figure.

I was most moved by the next to the last exercise, where we were asked to revise history, to write to an "I wish I had..." prompt.  And I was able to re-vision the last night I saw my mother in a way that broke my heart but also was incredibly healing.

It was an amazing seven hours - eight if you include the delicious meal by my friend, Mark.  I've got a lot to work with and work on, but the hard work was done in a safe place, with other talented writers and one facilitator skilled in helping people deal with their grief.  I didn't know that's where she was going to take me.

.

Empathy is Hard to Come By

My father dealt with bladder cancer a couple of times in his eighties.  I spent quite a bit of time with him during his stays in the hospital and subsequent recoveries. 

One of the things I remember most about these episodes is an expression he would make when I asked him how his doctor's appointments were.  He would pucker his mouth and scrunch up his eyes and go "Shew!"

In that amazing way that the universe has of helping us develop empathy, I've been dealing with a kidney stone for the past couple of weeks.  The stone was a little over a quarter inch and was lodged in my right ureter.  Yesterday, after drinking gallons of water with lemons, eating watermelon and ibuprofen, I finally had it surgically removed.  Now I know what my dad meant by that expression!

There's a very wide gap between sympathy and empathy.  You can only express empathy when you know personally what the other person is going through. Empathy is like the photograph above where it's hard to distinguish between the real rope and the reflection of it in the water. 

When another person is feeling physical or emotional pain, the closest we can come to empathy without actually having the same experience is to put our full attention on their troubles.  Even meditating on it for a short time or inviting them to talk about it and then really listening helps us get closer to knowing their truth.

I'm on the mend now that the stone is gone, but in a way I'm better for having it.  I'll know what someone with similar problems is feeling and will be sensitive to their needs. And if they scrunch up their face when I ask?  Let's just say, I get it!

I did it!

A few days ago I was going through some "stuff" on my desk.  I found a sheet of paper entitled, "Master List."  It is a list of things, written in 2010, that I hoped to accomplish.  Here they are:

Website

Card Sets

Learn some Photoshop

Submit things

Jan's interview

List collectible books

Take negatives to J&W

The list contains something that I checked off quickly - Take negatives to J&W - and things that at the time seemed impossible to undertake - Website, Card Sets, Jan's Interview.

I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment when I realized that as of the day I found it, I had done everything on the list but the interview.

How did I get it all done?  In the beginning, I told myself that I could do all those things.  And I also told myself that one day I would be looking back with a feeling of accomplishment at the list.  So I began to tackle it one thing at a time.

The list of collectible books wasn't all that hard although my daughter's boyfriend, who is a rare book dealer, tells me there aren't many "collectibles" on the shelf!!

The website and card sets required expertise I didn't have.  So I enlisted the help of a friend.  Little by little, we got the site up.

Beginning in January 2011, I started submitting stories.

And over the course of the past three years I've taught myself quite a bit about Photoshop by using it as a photo editor and design tool.

The interview with my friend Jan Phillips, as I said, hasn't been done. She was looking for someone to do an interview to submit to a literary magazine and said that she was going to use someone she saw more often to facilitate the process. I have never done an interview before and this one felt particularly challenging. I was a little relieved when she went elsewhere!

I think it's time to write another master list.  I'm going to do as before and include some things that feel easy and some things that feel impossible.  I hope in 2016, I will find the list and feel good about all that I accomplished!

Easter

For the past couple of days I've felt kind of low. Besides the fact that I've been dealing with a kidney stone, there seemed to be something emotional going on. I think I've figured it out now.

I saw on Facebook where people were going to be with their families for Easter and it hit me that we don't gather in the spring anymore.  Most of the time we would travel to my dad's house, dresses, white socks and shoes bought at Hecht's for the occasion packed in girly suitcases, Easter basket contents either hidden away in the back of the car or purchased with my sisters once we got to Greensboro. We dyed eggs on my dad's kitchen table and the kids hunted for the plastic ones in his back yard.

We would go to one of the churches we went to when I was young, one that my grandmother still attended, or the new-ish church that we joined when I was an adolescent. It was a reunion of sorts, those visits back to the churches, seeing the people my dad's age getting older, their children with children just like mine.

Then we would go back to my dad's house where he had fixed a wonderful lunch.  Other relatives might join us, just as they did at his house at Christmas.


This is the first year I've felt this way and I  know that it's part of the grieving process.  The part where every day gets easier but the holidays are concentrated sadness. I'm grieving not just my dad's death of almost three years ago, but also the loss of this family tradition that he orchestrated. I'm grieving the fact that my daughters are grown and that our time together is now limited to the Christmas holiday and a couple of visits home and to their towns at other times of the year.

I need to start a new tradition for Easter. But this weekend I'll remember the old ones. It's all part of the healing.

The nays have it

Since January 17, 2011, I have sent out my stories ninety-eight times.  I have gotten a "yes" six times.  I have withdrawn stories (because they were accepted elsewhere) three times.  That adds up to eighty-nine rejections.

In a normal week, I get one or maybe two, but last week I got five of them.  One of the rejections was for a story that I really thought would be accepted by a magazine that I really want to be in. I was feeling pretty low.

In our writing group last night, I shared my frustration.  Our teacher was already planning to talk about revision with us. I've heard it again and again: A writer must be good at revision.  A writer must LOVE revision. But I have a deep dark un-writerly secret: I'm just not that into it.

I have a fertile imagination (confirmed by my teacher last night) and write story after story.  I have talent, I think, and a rudimentary understanding of the craft of writing.  I could learn more, no doubt about it. But every time I look at the stack of stories that I have waiting to be turned into something wonderful, I turn away.

Every writer says at one time or another, "Why the heck am I doing this?" And I said that last week.  Why am I wasting time putting these stories on paper if nobody will accept them?  But that is not the question.  The question is why am I birthing these stories and not nurturing them until they're grown?

When I get a rejection, even if it's an automatically generated email, I always write back, saying thanks, re-affirming that I have confidence in my story and will submit it elsewhere, letting them know that I will submit to them again too.  I do believe in my writing, in the stories that bubble up and beg to be written.

So I'm going to make a commitment to revision. I'm going to take each story and groom it until it's the best that it can be.  I'm going to start reading more books about the craft. I'm going to deepen my characters and spruce up the landscapes. I'm going to study subtext so there are more layers to my plots and people.

Otherwise?  What the heck am I writing for?

Pointing Fingers

Michael Moore says in one of his recent emails: 

"....I have a prediction. I believe someone in Newtown, Connecticut – a grieving parent, an upset law enforcement officer, a citizen who has seen enough of this carnage in our country – somebody, someday soon, is going to leak the crime scene photos of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. And when the American people see what bullets from an assault rifle fired at close range do to a little child's body, that's the day the jig will be up for the NRA. It will be the day the debate on gun control will come to an end. There will be nothing left to argue over. It will just be over. And every sane American will demand action.

"Because the real truth is this: We do not want to be confronted with what the actual results of a violent society looks like. Of what a society that starts illegal wars, that executes criminals (or supposed criminals), that strikes or beats one of its women every 15 seconds, and shoots 30 of its own citizens every single day looks like. Oh, no, please – DO NOT MAKE US LOOK AT THAT!"

He goes on to describe what the shooter's gun did to those children.  Horrible beyond comprehension.

I ask you this:  Do we have to look at something like that to know that it's horrible, to realize that we cannot continue to allow young children to be killed either purposely or accidentally by the guns of adults?

I keep having this image of people sitting in a circle.  One represents the media.  Beside that person is a representative of the mental health profession.  Then a teacher, then a parent, a gun-owner.  And at the end is a politician. Each of them is pointing a finger at the person beside them, absolving him- or herself of the responsibility and of taking action.

I say that in the middle of this circle should sit you and me.  And we should go around that circle one by one and ask, "What can we do to make a difference in your arena?"  How can we influence you, Ms. Politician, besides waiting another three or four years until we can vote you out or re-elect you?  How can we help you, Mr. Dad; how can we support you as a parent?  Teacher, what do you need that you're not getting from us? Ms. Movie Producer, what is it going to take for us to convey our dislike of the mounting violence in the media; or if we can't stop it, how can we stop it from being available so readily?  Mr. Therapist, how can we help raise awareness about the things you see that can be changed? Mr. and Ms. Gunowner, what rules do you think are reasonable to protect our children?

On May 28, we're bringing some people together in a town meeting who can hopefully help us ask these hard questions. In doing so, our goal is to have every person walk out of the bookstore armed with tools for change.  

Please stay tuned.  

Spiraling

I've got to get some clarity on a few things. Monday I woke up at four a.m. worrying about my week ahead.  I had lunches and dinners with friends, a program on the bookstore to present to a civic organization, taxes and bills to pay at work, a workshop to get ready for, a women's group meeting, reading to do for a book club presentation.

I walked into the kitchen and started getting a little crazy talking about it all to my husband. I even got off on worrying about what is going to happen to all my stories that are waiting for revision: Is someone going to have to finish them after I die? I asked.  He's mostly calm and objective so he just listened. He didn't say, WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF? or tell me that I was making too much of it all.  His serenity was no match for my madness though.

At work, we met with our computer person and insurance person.  Both of them seemed stressed.  At dinner my friend was talking a mile a minute and that's not really like her.  All day I kept running into people on overload. I wondered if my stress was contagious.

I started thinking about ways I could eliminate the parts of my life that stress me out and increase the time spent on what I love -- writing mostly and getting groups of people together to learn things.

I know the things that take up too much time with not much payback.  I justify them in all sorts of ways but I'm realizing that the bottom line is they aren't making me happy.  As my friend said at dinner the other night, we're too old to be doing things that don't fill us up.

I'm doing the Deepak/Oprah 21-day meditation challenge.  Yesterday I meditated at the end of the day and realized that it helped some. Today I decided to put the meditation first in my day.  We were told that we innately know what is right for us.  I'm going to tap into that intuition for a few weeks and see what floats to the top. Not so deep down I know what those things are.

Thinking About Myself

Things I've been exploring about myself:

1. I've noticed that a lot of times when I'm talking to someone on the phone, we talk over each other.  I think it's me that's the problem.  When someone makes a statement and pauses, I step in.  Nine times out of ten they're not finished -- maybe talking a breath or thinking about what to say next?--but I take the silence as a cue to continue the conversation.  It doesn't happen with everyone, but it happens consistently with several of my friends.

2. When someone talks to me about a situation where I see both sides clearly, I will often take the opposite view from them, playing devil's advocate. By bringing up the opposite viewpoint, I might come across as unsympathetic or even antagonistic.

3.  I am too eager to solve other people's problems.  Again, because the answer seems clear to me, I want to give the person advice.  The other person doesn't always want my advice.  Sometimes, when told that, I will give my advice anyway.

4.  I 'pre-worry' much too often.  What-if statements come up in my conversations at least once or twice a day.

I think being more conscious of my behavior will help me quit doing these things.  Or quit doing them so often.

At sixty-one years old, I thought I'd have it all figured out by now. Shoot, I'm just beginning to be aware. I've got a ways to go before it's all figured out! I'm going to be gentle with myself.

(We are working on our panel discussion about guns, mental health issues and the media...stay tuned!)

A Short Post

Postcard from PostSecret.com website

One of the things I look forward to each week is the new post from PostSecret.  People mail in their secrets on postcards.  I've used quite a few of them as story prompts quite successfully.

This particular card stood out a few weeks ago.  I thought about how often we give others a pardon while beating ourselves up for past mistakes. 

TV: From Problem to Solution

Last night I watched a program on Adam Lanza, the young man who did the Sandy Hook killings. Adam had numerous mental health problems. His mother had guns. Hi mother taught him to shoot guns. He was disenfranchised, moved from school to school, classroom to classroom. He played violent video games. He had few friends. His parents were divorced and he had cut off ties to his father or older brother. In short, he exhibited every warning sign that we're told to look for as parents and educators.

Adam's problems were deep and complicated. The solutions are too, but we have to start somewhere.

Yesterday this article from the LA Times was in our local paper.  Here are a couple of quotes from the article.

"A study conducted by the University of Otago in New Zealand concluded that every extra hour of television watched by children on a weeknight increased by 30 percent the risk of having a criminal conviction by age 26."

"'Young adults who had spent more time watching television during childhood and adolescence were significantly more likely to have a criminal conviction, a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder and more aggressive personality traits compared with those who who viewed less television.'"

The solutions to this problem were simple:

1.  Limit children's television time to two hours or less. (Even this seems excessive to me.)
2.  Limit the programs they watch to educational or non-violent shows.
3.  Make television watching part of the solution (programs that promote positive behavior) rather than the problem.

Maybe these are small early steps that parents can take toward the prevention of violence in at-risk children. It made sense to me.

If you have a child in the home, how do you handle the television?

Most Loved

(I'm posting in-between times this week because I missed last week. I promise to get back on the Wednesday schedule beginning next week.) 

Today I'm sharing the first draft of a piece I wrote today in honor of Valentine's Day.  It's a little longer than my usual post, but I hope you'll stick around to the end. :) 

It's all too easy to think of February 14 as Lovers' Day instead of Day of Love. Maybe my words will inspire you to think of the day when you felt the most loved.

Most Loved

Hopeless.

That word circled my mind as I listened to my friend talk about her love affair with a married man.

On a trip they took to the coast, lying in bed in a hotel room overlooking the ocean, he told her he adored her. 

“He adored me,” she said, her face pink with love, a small smile unable to be contained.  “No one has ever told me they adored me.”

I think now, this week of Valentine’s Day, of the time when I felt most adored.

We sit on a flowered sofa, my great grandparents and I. There is cake; it is my first birthday. My great grandmother stares straight into the camera, a forkful of cake on its way to her mouth. Her head is wrapped in a scarf and the ties hang over her ample bosom. Black socks and shoes angle on the floor over her bare calves. Her glasses reflect the flash of the camera.

My great grandfather and I are the stars of this photograph though. I am leaning into my great grandmother, a smile lighting my face, my hands playing with each other in that way that children have when they’re so excited that even their hands get into the action. My feet are in motion too and there’s a tiny circle around one of them—from the flash? Today with my new-agey spirituality I might say it’s an orb, an energy ball, a symbol of angels or spirits.

My great grandfather leans away from us, pipe in hand, plate with a slice of cake in his lap.  Black suit—his Sunday suit?—over a tie-less white shirt, hair thick and silver. He stares down at me with the most delight. He adores me, his first great granddaughter on her first birthday.

Their last name was Brown and that’s the color I associate with them.  The brown sugar cookies she used to make, the first thing we’d smell when we walked in their house.  The brown walls and floors, worn with many footsteps, a few blackened places still remaining from a fire that caught up in a bedroom.  The brown boats my great-grandfather used to make.  The print in their kitchen of the little girl holding a brown hen that they always used to say was me.

Of course I don’t remember that day of my first birthday.  But in my father’s things we found many jewels, including old negatives.  The photographs must have been long sent to relatives or put in albums or cleaned out of drawers because we never found them.  At the time I was taking a darkroom class. My own attempts at black and white photography were mediocre so I took the old negatives into the darkened concrete room of the community center to discover the treasures they held.  When I put this negative in the light and saw the three of us on the flowered couch I knew that this was no ordinary occasion, not just a birthday, but a moment in time when I was truly loved.

I understand now, looking at the photograph on my desk, the reasons that my friend doesn’t want to give up this feeling of being adored. I feel lonely for the moment captured on the couch, a moment that I cannot remember.  I don’t blame her for wanting to hang on to it, this unabashed admiration of her lover. I can’t tell her to let it go.

She's Kidding, Right?

In one week, this

and this

and this

and these are just crimes that have to do with schools.

There is also this and this.

I could go on.

And today I read this?  Seriously, Kay Hagan? You're on the fence because you might lose your seat in Congress?

We have a chance to influence our Congresswoman. Your voice (and eventually your vote) will matter. This has got to stop.  It's insanity.

Finally, please watch this.

Watching

The year my oldest daughter turned thirteen, these were the top five movies:

Forrest Gump
The Lion King
True Lies
The Santa Clause
The Flintstones

Included in the list of PG-13 movies that year was one about a young boy witnessing a murder involving the Mafia, Sin and Redemption, Ace Ventura, The Shadow.  For the most part, I could tell whether a movie was appropriate for her, and there weren't that many inappropriate movies for a thirteen-year old.

In 2012, the top five movies were:

The Avengers  (Trailer)
The Dark Knight Rises (Trailer)
Hunger Games
Skyfall
One of the Twilight movies

All of the above movies were rated PG-13. I wouldn't have wanted my daughter to see any of them, with the possible exception of Hunger Games.

Parents have a much harder job these days keeping an eye on their children's habits.  The child can be watching a suitable television show, but the commercials are full of violent trailers for movies or later shows.  They can access pornography and violence on the internet; they buy first person shooter video games with their allowances, bypassing any parental oversight.

And the electronic babysitter is easy.  In a home where there is a single parent or two working parents, it is understandable that after fixing dinner, overseeing homework, carpooling to school and sporting events, after a long day at the office, that the parent might want to read or watch television and be alone.  And a quiet occupied kid is a good kid, right?

This is one extreme, the tired parent who just wants to rest at the end of the day and lets their child self-occupy.  What about the parent whose kid stockpiled ammunition and guns in the basement? What the heck is up with that?

We still owe it to our children to parent them as long as they're at home.  We can't let them have all the choices because there are way more bad choices--even in what they watch on TV and do for recreation--than there were when my kids were teenagers.

A friend with two teenage boys said to my husband, "It's not like it was when your kids were young." And she's as right as can be.  It's not. The job of parenting is harder than ever, but it's the job we take when we decide to be parents.

If you are the parent, please weigh in on how you deal with the issue of overseeing your child's movie, computer, and gaming time.  How does your child react to any restrictions you place on him or her? Have you ever taken action in the form of letters of protest to television stations or movie theaters? What affect do you see violence having on your children?

And let us know what kind of support you need from those of us who aren't in that battlefield.  Are there ways we can get behind these issues with you?

Remember: This is a conversation.