My Piece of the Rock

Ways of Seeing

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among human creatures." ~attributed to Abraham Lincoln

When I was teaching English as a second language to adults, part of my teaching philosophy was that the content needed to be relative and relevant to the learners if the language was to be fully embedded in their brains. This approach meant I was constantly evaluating my own teaching to see if I was taking stock of the multiple cultural norms in my classes and putting myself in my students' shoes. This didn't mean I had to adopt these norms and perspectives, but it made my job a heck of a lot easier if I could understand where my students' heads were....what were their pre-conceived notions, what were their prior experiences, what were their fears and expectations? Ways of Seeing was what my college British Lit prof called this approach; it's a guiding principle that's shaped my life for 20+ years.

Which is why I think it makes me so crazy when people, passionate about certain issues and stuck squarely inside their metaphorical boxes, fail to consider the opposite side's point of view. I'm not even talking about big political debates over major ethical issues; I'm talking about good old-fashioned communication and compromise in the relationships in our everyday lives...at home, at work, in our schools, in our communities, in our churches.

Typical of our inward-focused culture, we tend to be so me-centered that when an issue arises...one that makes our hearts pound and our heads ache when we think about the magnitude of our vested interest...we forget how to stop and listen. We forget how to be truly conciliatory. We forget how to be sensitive. We forget how to be completely honest in our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Achieving our own agenda maintains the top spot on our To Do list, and Ways of Seeing tumbles to the bottom, past all of the assumptions we've made about others' perceptions of us and our needs.

Albert Einstein said that in the middle of every diffculty lies an opportunity. How often do we consider that opportunity as a way to work for the greater good in this world? Not often enough, I'm afraid. And if we can't operate this way in our own personal lives, is it any wonder we can't do it on the global scene either?

I wonder what the world would look like if we all adopted Thomas Merton's Ways of Seeing...

"Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything."

A Political Diet Dilemma: The Lesser of Two Evils

Well, I think my husband's cousin has been eavesdropping on us. The phrase "the lesser of two evils" often works its way into our political discussions in this house, especially since we're from the (not so)honest Abe Lincoln state of Illinois. Seems like all politicans, no matter how noble they initially appear, really end up serving only themselves, only their own agenda or only the people they somehow owe.

Cousin Don, however, (and that's Dr. Don Racheter of the Public Interest Institute), offers up the suggestion of a ballot option for NOTA (none of the above). If NOTA "won", a second election would immediately be called in which none of the first election candidates would be allowed to run. Fantastic concept, I'm thinking, although I'm not sure how it would function practically in the real world. Still, food for thought in the belly of "American government" that's starving itself to death with a plethora of junk food and a scarcity of healthy choice candidates.

In Illinois, for instance, I really don't want to choose between folks like DingDong Rod and DumDum Sucker George R. Why can't I fill in the bubble for NOTA when presented with such unhealthy options and then receive a fresh buffet of politicians with an appetite for honesty and true public service?

Because if I had to give a reviewer's star rating to the current political process, I'd have to go with half a star, if that, because if your political dining menu only boasts the lesser of two evils, then it's pretty much a given that dinner is going to be a disaster. I mean, for years, I've been writing in Mickey Mouse or Ross Perot, but how empowering that would be to take my stand and choose NOTA? At least I might, in theory, through the special second election, get a decent candidate elected to the office instead of a cartoon mouse or a dead guy...although no doubt greed and narcicism and indebtedness would quickly and insiduously eat its way through the refreshingly unblemished candidate like a worm through an apple and I'd be stuck with pig slop instead of a 5-star gourmet meal. But hey, it's food for thought, and at least in Illinois, our menu can only improve!

Only When It Is Dark Enough Can You See the Stars

One of the most amazing things about camping is that when you really get out in the country, away from the city and suburban glow, the darkness settles in like velvet, thick and rich and heavy. And only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars, really see the stars. I often forget how celestial the night sky truly is until I step away from my creature comforts and into the wilderness.

So when I saw that phrase over the weekend..."Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars"...it resonated with me, and I went looking for the source. Which brought me to yet another historic American document whose words have shaped our nation's history. I've deleted the author's name from the body and included it only at the end (civics quiz time...can you guess the writer?) Seems to me the passion and power and truth still lie in these words, echoing back from the past into the present once again...

"As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "...which age would you like to live in?" — I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even... watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding — something is happening in our world."

Did you figure it out? Give yourself 5 points if you knew that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was the author. Did you know that he was assassinated the next day? Yet even in the chaos of the 1960's this faithful man saw God at work; he saw believers shining like stars in the darkness. Do those words have truth for Americans in 2009? As a believer who's working to live out that Philippians 2 scripture, I'm trusting that they do.

We the People Are...

Making the grade? (Did you take your Civics Literacy quiz yet?)

Yesterday's We the People post ended with the following questions...Who are "We the People" and in what historic document does that phrase appear. Bonus points for knowing who wrote it.

And the answers are...

A) We the People were the residents of the original 13 colonies in the United States of America.

B) The phrase "We the People" comes from the beginning of the Constitution of the United States and continues...

• "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Award yourself bonus points if you said, "I have no clue who wrote the Constitution" or "It was a mixed bag". According to historian Sol Bloom, nowhere in colonial documents is authorship definitively established. A Committee of Detail presented the first draft in August 1787. Debate continued until a Committee of Style was formed in September 1787. Among those on this new committee were James Madison (4th President and "Father of the Constitution") and Alexander Hamilton (1st Secretary of the Treasury ). Governor Morris of Pennsylvania was also present and is considered primarily responsible for the text in the final version.

Friday Fun Trivia...

1. Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

2. George Washington became the first President on April 30, 1789, even though not all 13 states had ratified (approved) the Constitution.

3. President Washington created the first national Thanksgiving holiday (November 26, 1789) in order for Americans to give thanks for the Constitution.

Who knew? Now you!

We the People

So, in my quest to improve my civic literacy, I thought I'd find out a little more about the American Civic Literacy quiz that I took a week or so ago. The college students surveyed in a related project had to answer 118 questions; however, the generic US adult quiz features just 33. Of those 33, 13 come from previous ISI surveys that were developed by assorted university faculty. Nine were from the US Department of Education's National Association of Educational Progress 12th grade history exam. Six were from the US naturalization (citizenship) test. Two were developed just for this quiz, and three were from the American History/US Government quizzes on www.infoplease.com. (Curious, I took the American History, Part I quiz and did not score as well as I did on the Civic Literacy Exam. Hmmm.)

That seems like a pretty diverse collection of questions. In theory it represents a range of demographics from high school seniors across the country to American college students to immigrants wanting to obtain US citizenship to random people surfing the web. So what does it say that approximately 60% of the survey pool had all graduated high school and had at least some college under their belt, yet 71% of the 2,508 people taking the exam failed? I'm thinking it says that we the people didn't learn what we should have learned along the way.

So, the question for the day is...Who are "we the people" and in what historic document does that phrase appear? Answer on the blog tomorrow. Bonus points if you know who wrote it!

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Civic Literacy

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. That’s the only thing I learned in Economics class senior year in high school. Although I’m ashamed to admit it, I actually slept through Econ on a regular basis, and my extremely laid back teacher never said a word to me (a disservice to us both, no doubt).

Yet good old economics theory once again reared its ugly head when I decided to take the 2008 Civic Literacy Test compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). Feeling like I was back in eighth period Econ or Killer Keller’s US History class, I wondered if I, too, would fail this exam. My concern was justified, since in 2008, almost three-quarters of my fellow Americans who took this test scored a 59.9% or below. Yikes!

 

More shocking, though, was the ISI’s comprehensive study conducted in 2006 and 2007 that determined whether or not 14,000 American college students’ civics knowledge made the grade. It didn’t. In 2007 Yale’s freshmen were tops nationally with a not so stellar average of 68.94%. Things went downhill from there. Whether Ivy League or state U, religious and secular, Midwestern or Southern, it didn’t matter. Scores were equally grim across the board. (You can check out the findings or take the quiz at www.americancivicliteracy.org.) For the ISI, however, these results are a “call to reform” in college course content and degree requirements so that future American university grads will be more informed, and hopefully more involved, citizens.

Because the question that seems to have surfaced is: How can Americans honestly call ourselves U.S. citizens if we have no clue what citizenship means…i.e. what our society’s government is based on, how it functions and why? And what happens as more and more people become less and less knowledgeable of who and what we are as a collective whole? As a writer who loves research and is interested in history, I’m most curious to see where this data will lead as the ISI pursues its call to reform in higher education.

Because I’m thinking the disconnect starts far earlier. I’m pretty sure if I’d taken this same exam back in 1989, I, too, would have scored in the D-F range like the bulk of other college seniors. I’d also be willing to bet that my 20 years of post-college life experience taught me a thing or two about economics in a trial by fire sort of way (saving my grade!). For instance, would I have understood the evolution and progress of a recession as a 20-year old college senior? Doubtful.  But do I now as a parent/homeowner/taxpayer? Heck yes!

However, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste” (United Negro College Fund), and it seems like the American public, from grade school on up, needs a reality check…a history-ality check.  Did you know that we are a government of the people, by the people and for the people (Lincoln, Gettysburg Address) who support life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Jefferson, Declaration of Independence)? Take the quiz, see how you fare and make a habit of stopping by www.writerrae.typepad.com for a little history in the making this year. Resolve to improve your civic literacy in 2009! We’re all in this together.

FreeRice Word Game: Fun=Food

                                                  

FreeRice.com is a web site which tests your word power (or math/chem/art/geography/grammar knowledge) and rewards you with 20 grains of rice for each word or fact you know. However, it's not like you're going to be eating stir fry any time soon. The grains of rice you earn get donated to the UN World Food Program. According to the FreeRice site, the "WFP works around the globe and FreeRice donations are made with no restrictions. This freedom of use allows WFP to apply the donations to countries that need it most, often those that don’t make the headlines in the news, yet where chronic hunger continues unchecked. Often WFP is able to purchase the rice in the very countries where the beneficiaries are located, cutting down on the transport time to reach the hungry and helping to stimulate local economies at the same time.

Here are some examples of where FreeRice rice has been distributed:

• In Bangladesh, to feed 27,000 refugees from Myanmar for two weeks. Please click here to watch FreeRice being distributed in Bangladesh.
• In Cambodia, to provide take-home rations of four kilograms of rice for two months to 13,500 pregnant and nursing women.
• In Uganda, to feed 66,000 school children for a week.
• In Nepal, to feed over 108,000 Bhutanese refugees for three days.
• In Bhutan, to feed 41,000 children for 8 days.
• In Myanmar, to feed 750,000 cyclone affected people for 3 days."

According to the WFP, it takes just over 19,000 grains of rice to feed one person each day, but the good thing is you're not playing alone. Thousands of other people are playing FreeRice right along side you! FreeRice groups also exist on Facebook, MySpace and ThinkMTV. Even when you miss a word, you can play again and your bowl of rice continues to build. (You can also set your own level).

So visit www.freerice.com today and revel in your lexicon in order to procure provender for the impecunious (play games and feed the hungry!).

Spin Me Right Round Like a Record, Baby

I love it when things come full circle, even if it's only to remind me that I've been missing the point. Sometimes I guess I just need that repetition to "get it".

So I've been thinking a lot about the beginnings of my book (that comes out tomorrow in Christian bookstores--woo hoo!) and the editor who I met at one of the first Christian writing conferences I ever attended some 8 years ago who was terribly offended by my book's premise that lay leaders could plan and lead a retreat (as opposed to pastors or professional speakers) and told me in no uncertain terms how this book was a horrible idea and would never fly. That woman absolutely crushed my dreams, yet God had other plans. And, actually, that setback worked for the greater good in the master plan.

So I found it interesting this past week, as I started my search for an agent (again!), that I was circling back to a firm I'd looked at before. It had a name that seemed pretty hip and commercialized yet was very interested in Christian books of all types and for all ages. In reading through their material, I saw a note: We do not represent clients to XX Publisher. This was the very same publisher who had rejected my retreat book idea 8 years ago.

"Ah ha!" I thought. "Maybe this is the firm for me. They're not interested in working with that publisher either." So I sent off my query letter, describing my book and asking if I could send more information (standard procedure).

Yesterday, however, I received a form email back stating that due to the high number of submissions they receive, I would be required to pay a $50 reading fee. For that $50 they would give me a general one paragraph reason for why they would allow me to submit my full manuscript and be considered as a client or why they would pass. Warning bells went off in my head. That's a big no-no in agent land. Everything I read and hear at conferences says that reputable agents do NOT charge reading fees.

I did a little further research on a web site called Preditors and Editors, a resource for writers and other artists looking for representation, that lists all known agents/attorneys/editors and lets you know if they're recommended or not and why. Sure enough, this agent was listed as Not Recommended because he charges fees and has a conflict of interest. A little more digging revealed that the reason his agency does not represent to that particular publisher is because he is the head of that very same publishing house I intersected with early in my Christian writing career. Hmmm...

When will I learn? Maybe now, that I've come full circle. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... (a la Frasier). Knowledge is power!

Advent Conspiracy -- Love It!

When my oldest son was three, I had an epiphany that actually took place during Advent. I'd been working for a church for three years and was deeply immersed in the faith-based roots of Christmas. The constant commercialism of the season had been driving me nuts for a while, and the moment my three-year-old spoke these words, I went off the deep end...

"Mommy, for Christmas I want the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the tv says I should buy it because..." poor little marketing-brainwashed Alex began.

That was it. Something just snapped inside. I couldn't take the World's interpretation of Christmas any longer, and so I committed the ultimate parenting faux pas right then and there. I told Alex there was no Santa and he would not be getting all this garbage that he saw on tv because that wasn't the point of Christmas. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd get three little gifts like the Wise Men brought Jesus, but that was it. So there!"

Now of course, Alex was three, so the real impact of my words was likely lost on him. We had never been over-the-top, Chevy-Chase-Vacation Christmas people, but that year we began the transformation to Christmas Charlie Brown-style, shall we say.

Now, that said, I have always and still do love the animated Christmas specials and make a point to stay home and watch the Grinch and Rudolph and The Year without a Santa Claus (and, of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas). My kids have had their pictures taken with Santa, and we do exchange gifts at Christmas. But it's all on a smaller, simpler scale, and, to me, it feels good.

Because before my epiphany, Christmas did not feel good. I worked like a dog during Advent to make sure the church Christmas pageant was perfect and that the congregation members would all have a wonderful worship experience. Christmas Eve for me meant spending all day at church in preparation for the Family Christmas Eve service at 5:00 p.m., then dragging my husband and two kids off to do a traditional Christmas Eve get together with my side, then trying to make it back to church for the midnight service so I could worship, only to get home at 12:30 a.m. to begin wrapping and finishing baking and stuffing stockings etc. for the morning. No wonder "Christmas" made me crabby.

But the year I had my epiphany, things began to change. I decided to do more homemade gifts and started working on those a little more in advance than, oh say, Christmas Eve. We down-sized our kid and extended family gift-buying habits. I picked out the Christmas decorations from my collection that I treasured and set out only those cherished few (selling most of the rest in a garage sale the next summer). And when people griped to me that they "hated Christmas" and it was "so stressful", I smiled my secret smile and said, "Really? I love this time of year." If they asked why, I told them it was because we made an effort to keep it faith-focused and simple.

I got some strange looks. I got some veiled comments that I was a bad parent because I was depriving my kids of all the Santa-related hype. But overall, I got a sense that this jury of my peers was jealous and secretly craved my inner peace.

Now I can't say I'm a Christmas Puritan. I'm not by a long shot. But 12 years later, I'm still in faith-focused mode. We mainly exchange gifts through Christmas stockings (because I just can't part with that secular tradition) and a family grab bag for just the five of us (we've added a kid since my initial epiphany). Then my husband and I give our three kids one or two very meaningful gifts that we know they will use and love. Our Christmas Eve evening has evolved into a very special, relaxed family ritual (since I no longer work for a church) of worshipping together and then cooking and eating a steak (and veggie burger) meal together and then opening our family gifts together. I love our Charlie Brown/True Meaning of Christmas Christmases. For our family, it works.

So this morning I was thrilled when I discovered a group called Advent Conspiracy. I saw a Facebook friend had joined the FB version, checked out their web site to get more info and fell in love! This is my understanding of Christmas...how to make God-honoring choices with a little tongue-in-cheek humor thrown in at our culture's expense.  Love it! And I think they're going to help me kick it up a notch (or would that be 'take it down a notch'?) this year. Amen!

Whose Truth Is Truest, Part 3

About twenty years ago when I was teaching English as a second language to adults, I discovered that in order for my lessons to be effective they needed to be both relevant and relative to my learners. I still needed to teach them true English, but I needed to do it in ways that made sense to them and were accessible. For most of my adult life, I've found that to be a decent strategy for dealing with the world, except that it seems the world has readily adopted this philosophy, albeit in a mutant form, and is using it to make anything and everything acceptable and palatable. Which is why, I think, I've been exploring the idea of Whose Truth Is Truest and what that means for me, for my Christian walk, for my kids' faith development, for the future of this world.

Of course, tomorrow's election puts that issue front and center.  We have to decide whose truth is truest and vote accordingly. No easy task! I don't think a person can rise to the presidential candidate level of politics and not have compromised some of his/her values, ethics, beliefs, morals and Truth...to some degree...along the way. Even the lesser candidates are beholden to special interest groups/backers and their "support", publicly or privately given. So how do we voters filter out the shades of gray and determine what's black and white? I'm pretty sure I don't have the magic answer, but I do have some food for thought on that subject...

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling the tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." ~Abraham Lincoln

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, he believes to be true." ~Desmosthenes

"Buy the truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction and understanding." Proverbs 23:23

"Reformers who are always compromising have yet to grasp that truth is the only ground on which to stand." ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult." ~George Elliot

"If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it." ~Marcus Aurelius

"In religion the truth shines ahead as a beacon showing us the path; we do not ask to attain it, it is better far that we be permitted to seek." ~Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington in Science and the Unseen World

"Pilate asked, 'Quid est veritas?' (What is truth?) And then some other matter took him in the head, and so up he rose and went his way before he had his answer." ~Lancelot Andrewes in Sermons: Of the Resurrection

"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please--you can never have both." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson in Intellect

"I guess the truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that can happen to you." ~Will Rogers

"Be prepared. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other's spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out." (Ephesians 6:13-18 from The Message translation)