Minefields

Several days ago, I witnessed a Caucasian woman, in a professional context, make several personal comments about race. I thought her comments were inappropriate for the circumstance and somewhat gauche. After she left, others (both African American and Caucasian) said that they experienced her comments as offensive and patronizing to African Americans. There was concensus that she had neither spoken with malice nor intent to wound, but, nonetheless, some held her actions in harsh judgment due to her ignorance. It was considered inexcusable that she did not know how her comments would be received and perceived by the persons present; she was responsible for not knowing.

I interact daily with African Americans in my neighborhood, in my church, and in the kinds of work I do. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't blunder in the ways she did, but only because I have a little education regarding some of the issues she alluded to. This education resulted not only from my reading, but also because African American friends have brought certain things to my attention. But prior to learning what I now know, I have committed the same kind of errors this woman made. And it's a given that I will make ignorant comments in the future. Even though I make an effort to increase my understanding, there are still many things of which I'm ignorant.

That's what made the harshness distressing to me. It made me feel like backing off and letting somebody else attempt to restore the brokenness of race relations in our culture. Staying away from the playing field would dramatically reduce my likelihood of committing a serious faux pas, and the risk of being similarly judged. Suddenly, the places where I live, work and worship didn't seem very safe.

But. There's an axiom that rings in my ears: unless one is part of the solution, he or she is part of the problem. It may be unfortunate but it's a reality that learning how to be part of the solution includes risk. It necessitates a willingness to step onto a minefield, never knowing when -- like the woman -- one will trip something buried long ago by folks long gone. The very process of attempting to be a restorer means drawing near enough to risk being judged, and posssibly written off, because one's ignorance is inexcusable.

The danger and devastation in this scenario doesn't have to be. We could agree that co-existing in a minefield isn't a healthy place to live. The minefield was created in the past by other people and we merely inherited it. But the past is gone. The future is uncertain and not yet. This only leaves us the now. It's all we really have to work with.

In the now we could begin shaping a reality of our choosing. One without a minefield. We could discuss what type of future we would like to create and put our heads together to figure out how we could get from where we are to there. But only if we decide together to do it.

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

-- Harriet Tubman, escaped slave, Civil War soldier and abolitionist, 1820-1913

"If"

In honor of my husband's birthday on the 24th of August, I am posting the following poem, penned by Rudyard Kipling in 1895. This particular poem has the distinction of being reprinted in more anthologies than any other. Kipling himself wrote that it had been "anthologised to weariness." Despite the high level of exposure, it's my sweetie's favorite.

I am never quite sure which things will touch him deeply, or why, but this poem, whenever read, never fails. Perhaps it's the sense in which it calls us to be nobler selves.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

[The man in the photo is Kipling, not my husband...]

Can You Believe This Blossom?

These photos appeared in my inbox today. I could only find one word to describe them:

SPECTACULAR

I was so taken with the beauty of these photos of the rare parrot flower from Thailand, that I decided to find out more about them. (How did we survive before search engines?!) The longer I hunted, the more elusive information about this species seemed to become.

Then I came upon a Yahoo group comprised of a bunch of botanist groupies. Because these guys have been searching for a couple of weeks for information about this rare blossom, at least one of the writers was persuaded that the above photos were digitally altered. He sited the odd way the flowers attach to the stem as "evidence".

This jarring discovery left me wondering what I was actually admiring. I concluded that either way -- whether the Almighty Himself is responsible for these gorgeous blooms, or whether it's merely a clever individual with some nifty software -- it was creativity that I was admiring.

[I'll keep checking on this from time to time and will post my findings when I get to the bottom of the Parrot Flower Mystery...]

Here's a Newsworthy Event

Don't you sometimes get frustrated with what the media consider newsworthy and what they do not?

No doubt, your local paper did not publish any of the photos in the gallery at the following link. They weren't in mine. Perhaps this just isn't sensational enough to get coverage. But it ought to. Because the media so often casts young black men as drop-outs, gang members, or other negative stereotypes, we need to make a fuss about events like this.

When I was enrolled in a parenting class a couple of years ago, the teacher gave us a rule of thumb regarding the ratio of positive interactions to negative ones in successful parenting. She said it would take at least three positive interactions with a child to nullify the impact of just one negative interaction. (Other studies I've heard of indicate that the ratio is even higher than three to one.) It doesn't matter if the negative interaction was necessary, perhaps an infraction of a family rule. Irregardless, there will need to be three other positive interactions for that one negative not to have the greater emotional impact.

This rule of thumb hit me right between the eyes, because I had been careless about creating three times as many positive comments as negative ones. It's soooo easy for me to find fault, place blame, and pick, pick, pick. I don't know about you, but it's my default setting. To do otherwise requires awareness, intentionality, and the will to follow through. I struggle to be consistent with this ratio.

If we apply this principle to the image portrayed by the media of young African American males, our culture has a lot of catching up to do. Because there have been so many negatives, we need to be very proactive in broadcasting the "positives" before the balance can begin to tip toward these young men being able to experience a high level of esteem from our society.

Two doors down the street from my house lives a 13 year old African American boy. I want him to think of himself in these terms:

Here is the largest class to ever graduate from Dr. King's alma mater -- the Morehouse College Class of 2006. Enjoy!

I Like Ike ('Cause He's Like Me)

While visiting the Eisenhower Museum on our vacation last month, the following quote by the former president really resonated with me:

"[My paintings were] reports on things that came to my personal attention and seemed interesting."

If you look at the box in the top right corner of this page, you'll see what I mean. I consider this blog my own personal forum for sharing with the world "things that have come to my personal attention and seemed interesting." I have called it "Show and Tell", with a bit more emphasis on tell than show.

President Eisenhower, however, in using the medium of canvas and paint, put a quite a lot more emphasis on show than tell. He was an avid and somewhat prolific painter. Here is a small sampling of "things that came to his personal attention" which he found interesting and considered worthy of reporting on:

The Dog Days Are Officially Over

Yep. August 11th is the official conclusion.

I was going to use the phrase "dog days of summer" the other day and, curiosity getting the best of me, decided to look up the origin of the phrase. To my surprise, it has absolutely nothing to do with our canine friends lazing around and panting heavily during the hottest part of the summer.

The "dog days" are so named because of the conjunction of the Dog Star, Sirius, and the sun in late July. They extend twenty days prior to and twenty days following that occurrence.

And I don't know about where you live, but here in central Missouri, it would spell r-e-l-i-e-f if the conclusion of the "dog days" would usher out the weather we've been having for the past 40 days: since July 3rd, the official commencement of the "dog days", 9 days have topped the 100 degree mark (too HOT!!) and 10 additional days have hit 95 or above. Nineteen days in this 40 day period -- nearly half! -- I would classify as sweltering.

Perhaps now it'll fade to merely HOT. I think I'll wish upon a (Dog) Star...

Johnstown Flood

The topic of antique books came up recently in a conversation and got me thinking about my two "treasures":

The first is a wee 2" x 3" book I found in a box of sewing notions I inherited when my husband's maternal grandmother, an avid quilter, died. It's title: Daily Texts, With Verses of Hymns: Adapted for General Use, and Suited for Every Year.

This tiny cloth-bound devotional book was published by the American Tract Society, but has no copyright year. However, the inscription inside the back cover reads, "Presented to Ralph Fleagle by his Great Aunt Anne Knox, March 24th, 1886." Ralph Fleagle was my husband's great uncle, no doubt a young boy at the time. The book is in excellent shape for being 120 years old and I just love this petite heirloom.

My other antique book was given to me by my dad some time back. I'm guessing he found it at Goodwill, one of his very favorite haunts. This book was published during the same period as my other little antique: Johnstown Horror -- Valley of Death, was copyrighted in 1989, shortly after the events it describes. Dad gave me this particular book because of my special interest in the topic.

For nine years between 1977 and 1986, I lived in small communities close to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. My husband and I visited the Johnstown Flood Museum, drove the flood route from where the dam broke to the railroad bridge where the debris collected (30 acres worth!), and even had dinner with an elderly gentleman who survived the flood as a baby.

Because their town was situated at the fork of the Conemaugh and Stoneycreek Rivers in a valley in the Allegheny Mountains, the residents of Johnstown were accustomed to frequent flooding during heavy rains or rapidly melting snow. The townspeople were already moving their belongings to the second floor of their homes and businesses on May 31st,1989 due to the heavy rainfall that was filling the streets.

But this flood wasn't like the others: human neglect was to blame for the failure of the earthen dam fourteen miles upstream that created Lake Conemaugh, a 2 mile by 1 mile pleasure lake belonging to an elite fishing and hunting club. When the dam gave way, a wall of water was unleashed that engineers have compared to the force of Niagra Falls, cascading down the valley toward the town 450 feet below. In the narrower parts of the valley, the wave rose to a horrific sixty feet high; it travelled at a whopping 40 mph. and was filled with trees, parts of houses and buildings, vehicles, animals and the unthinkable -- people. Several 8.5 ton locomotives were carried nearly a mile!

The Great Johnstown Flood was the worst flood in our nation's history and was the greatest loss of American lives in a single day prior to September 11, 2001 -- 2,209 people lost their lives. It was the first major test of the newly formed Red Cross and it would be a full five years before the town recovered.

Johnstown experienced another significant flood in 1936 which claimed two dozen lives and destroyed or severely damaged over 3,000 buildings. But the Johnstown flood of 1977 is the one I recall personally:

On July 20, 1977, a thunderstorm stalled over Johnstown and its neighboring communities, dropping an incredible 11.82" in a ten-hour period. The National Weather Service has said that a rainfall of 7.32" would precipitate a "once in a thousand years' flood"; this torrential rainfall was enough to cause a "once in 5,000-10,000 years' flood"!

Six dams along along the converging rivers failed because they couldn't handle the overflow; neither could the area communities' sewer systems. Once again, with 128 million gallons of water crashing down the valley, floodwaters rose more than a story high at the center of town. This time the death toll reached 85, with property damage topping $300 million.

My husband had received a job transfer from South Dakota to Pennsylvania and we had just checked into a motel in Altoona, Pennsylvania (about 45 miles northeast of Johnstown) to spend our very first night in the Johnstown area -- July 20th. We would begin house-hunting the next day. During the night, thunder and very heavy rains woke us up, but we went back to sleep never imagining the devastation taking place. The next morning's front page was shocking!

Here's a link to the Johnstown Flood Museum's interesting stories of survivors of the 1989 flood. They are told in a less sensational way than the accounts in my 500+ page antique book. The little bit of research I've done informs me that books of this kind written during the Victorian period were given to a sensational writing style, which explains why it reads something like a National Inquirer story. Nevertheless, the sheer facts about the flood are both mind-boggling and sobering.

A time of catastrophe and tragedy but also a testimony to the triumph of human will.

Ghandi on Significance

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

-- Mahatma Ghandi, 1869-1948

Indian ascetic & nationalist leader

"Enough" Never Said

A few days ago this list captured my attention due to my recent focus on "enough".

There are three things that are never satisfied,
Four never say, "Enough!":

• The grave,
• The barren womb,
• The earth that is not satisfied with water —
• And the fire never says, "Enough!"

-- Proverbs 30:15b-16 NKJV

The grave. Now there's an absolute reality for you. The grave will indeed continue to overtake us humans as long as there continue to be births. It is surely never "satisfied".

I was impressed anew by this reality just days ago. A friend called saying that her daughter didn't wake up that morning. A 43-year life had come to a shockingly abrupt end. Yet, despite this "victory", the grave is still not satisfied. It will call for you and it will call for me. Perhaps not next Monday morning, but inevitably and inexorably, it will call. Because the grave never says "enough".

The barren womb. This proverb was penned in a less sophisticated era when a woman's status tanked if she was unable to produce children. Not so today. Childlessness neither attracts scorn nor relegates a woman to the margins of society. Nevertheless there persists a deep longing in the heart of many, if not most, women to bear children.

In recent decades new strategies have emerged to satisfy the cravings of the barren womb: in vitro fertilization, intra-uterine insemination, fertility drugs, surrogate pregnancies -- women go to great lengths to bear children. And when these strategies fail or become wearisome, many people opt to bring into their hearts and homes a child birthed by someone else.

My husband and I were married four years before we decided to add little people to our household. I suddenly became anxious about being able to conceive. I pleaded with him to assure me that if our efforts proved futile he would consent to adopt a child. Because the barren womb never says "enough".

The earth that is not satisfied with water. Remember those illustrations in our grade school science books? Water evaporating from the oceans, collecting in clouds, falling as rain on land masses, collecting in streams and rivers, and returning once again to the ocean. A cycle perpetuated by the Laws of Nature.

I'm having an close encounter with that cycle this summer. A friend and I are maintaining a landscaping project that we planted in May on our church's property. It includes a flowering crabapple, a dozen shrubs and about a hundred red and pink vinca plants. What we lack in skill and experience we make up for in diligence. You'll see us on average twice a week unrolling and lugging yards and yards and yards of garden hose (the spigot wasn't nearly so far away when we initially made our plan!) to soak the project throughly. Because when it comes to water, the earth never says "enough".

The fire that never says "enough". Once again, I think of science class lessons. And also the public service spots on TV that have inprinted "Stop, drop and roll" on our minds. We understand well that a fire rages until its craving for oxygen is thwarted.

When we lived in western Pennsylvania, we had friends whose rural house caught fire while they were attending a worship service. It was (rather typically) caused by faulty wiring in a bedroom wall, but because no one was home to hear the smoke alarms blare, and neighbors didn't spot the fire until it was going strong, the firefighters arrived to find it in ashes. Their little rancher had been totally consumed. Because the fire never says "enough".

In observing these perpetual realities, the ancient proverb's author visits some primal themes: death, procreation, our planet's life-sustaining essential elements, and the powerful, if sometimes destructive, forces of nature. And I too am here thousands of years later considering these same themes.

It's a wonder to be drawn into the continuum.