Curing Boxes and Baggage

At first read, this is a heavy and complex piece of writing from artist Anne Truitt. Take a moment and ponder it.

Unless we are very, very careful, we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves. This indifference can be, in its extreme, a form of murder and seems to me a rather common phenomenon. We claim autonomy for ourselves and forget that in so doing we can fall into the tyranny of defining other people as we would like them to be. By focusing on what we choose to acknowledge in them, we impose an insidious control on them. I notice that I have to pay careful attention in order to listen to others with an openness that allows them to be as they are, or as they think themselves to be. The shutters of my mind habitually flip open and click shut, and these little snaps form into patterns I arrange for myself. The opposite of this inattention is love, is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.
--Brain Pickings

Here's the title of the piece on Brain Pickings that includes this phrase:

Compassion, Humility, and How to Cure Our Chronic Self-Righteousness

That leads me to see something very important in the passage that could easily be missed. It is about how each one of us can overcome the tendency to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, a tendency caused by an unwillingness to let go of the past and all the imperfect insights, self-centered interpretations, and putting other people into boxes that limit them while allowing us to be "different from" them.

Okay, that too is more complex than it has to be.

Each of us can tend to maintain our feelings about ourselves by not allowing others to grow and change. We hold on to the old ideas and keep our view of them based on the past.

Last weekend I visited a close high school friend that I haven't been with in person for nearly 45 years. While we have been friends on Facebook for several years, I am sure the images we had of each other were more than colored by our high school relationship. Most likely they were almost totally defined by that 50-year old experience.

We spent the weekend "catching up." It was a combination of reminiscing and letting each other know how we each became the people we are today over these last 50 years. By the end of the weekend the past was more truly the past. I can no longer see him through the eyes of an 18-year old looking at another 18-year old. Neither of us is the person we were then (Thanks be to God, at least as far as my life is concerned!)

Those old images that Truitt mentions above truly do doom us. They doom us to miss the great wonders of growing and changing as well as having the new experiences that keep us stuck in what we like to call "the good, old days," which they were not. They simply were.

This seems to be a time for me to make some of these old connections into new experiences. Tomorrow I will be preaching at the church I served from 1977 - 1984. I have not been there in 30 years. Many people are gone who were part of the church then. The "young people" are no longer young and their children are no longer the age of children. I will be an interesting experience to see the church and my experiences there from a new perspective.

Truitt called this other way of handling the past love. It is the opposite of the inattention that keeps stereotypes, old memories, and our own baggage from stunting our growth and relationships. We are far deeper, wider, and richer than the boxes we put ourselves and others in. I am looking forward to seeing what that means at the church and for me.

Last weekend helped set the tone for me to be able to do that.

More Miles and Miles

I have been a fan of Miles Davis for years. His "understated" style of trumpet playing stood in marked contrast to the screamers like Maynard Ferguson or Doc Severensin. That of course made it okay for a middle-range player like myself to feel like trumpet playing isn't just the high notes.

But reading his autobiography for the first time in the past few weeks, I have come to appreciate even more of his amazing ability and the revolution in jazz he created and took to fruition, even as he was moving on to the next thing- a sign of a truly revolutionary and creative person.

So I went digging for quotes from Miles. Some are from the book. Others from interviews and other places. They give a broad-stroke picture of his thinking and music. They also give some good advice for all of life, not just the music.

Miles saw all that he did as part of the creating:

• I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

He would never be done with it, never resting on what had
happened:

• I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me “a legend”.(…) A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.”

He started playing in the clubs when bebop was new and exciting and young. But he knew that bebop, like everything else, has to keep growing:

• Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn't about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

"There are no wrong notes in jazz" is a truism he brought forward. It's what you do with it:

• If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.

Which leads naturally to:

• Do not fear mistakes - there are none.

All of us are "works in progress." We are never finished growing until we stop- and then we're gone. Find yourself. I would add, keep finding yourself as you evolve.

• Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

Miles Davis
(1926 - 1991)

Hearing the Changes

I heard the surf shift the other afternoon. I was sitting on the balcony overlooking the beach. I was meditating, practicing some mindfulness, with the surf as the background mantra. The surf had been loud and heavy for the past 24 hours. Even now it was loud, still a roar, the water constantly flowing like a perpetual motion machine. The wind had been a little calmer most of the afternoon. I was thinking how complete silence is not necessary for meditation when the power of moving water is behind us.

Suddenly I became aware that it was quieter; the breakers weren’t sounding as loud or as constant; the roar was more distant, a murmur. My first thought was that I had just gotten used to the sound and I’m focusing elsewhere, though still mindful. Or maybe I was heading into the near sleep neverland.

My wife sneezed and it was at it’s normal sound level. I pondered for a brief second and I realized what was happening. I had just heard the surf calm down. I had heard a transition from one state to another. I had heard the color of the sound of the surf change.

I opened my eyes and looked out at the water. The waves had gotten smaller, the breakers hardly making any noise. It had happened within minutes. As I wrote my thoughts down ten or so minutes later the sound continued to decrease. I checked the beach warning flag and it remained calm. I thought maybe I heard a wind shift but that isn’t what occurred. Or was it?

Over the past few weeks I have been paying a little more attention to the water, wind and weather. I have been seeing how winds from one direction can turn the Gulf into a sheet of glass as it pushes the waves back out to deeper water. Or, like the previous 48 hours, a strong south to southeast wind picks up water and moves it for miles, if not hundreds of miles before crashing ashore. It opened me up to being more aware when today I could hear the changes.

That kind of mindfulness is important to life, I realize. It can mean being aware of a friend’s feelings, the emotion in a situation, the right time to keep quiet. It can help us know when and where we may be getting a direction from a Higher Power. Jazz musicians train to hear chord and key changes so they can be better improvisers.

On the balcony the other day I experienced the wonder of being aware- mindful- of changes. By the time I went inside, it was still calm. There is a slight breeze and it is still from the south. A front will be moving in overnight and that no doubt played into the change I heard. The waves remained but were not as commanding as they had been with the flag barely moving and the palms just rustling silently.

An amazing world we live in.

(More) Playing Around the World

What the wonderful people at Playing for Change have started continues to be exciting, enchanting, and downright fun. Here's the song, "La Bamba" played around the world.

Oh- and go here for info on sending in a fan video to accompany this. I might even figure out how to get a trumpet part in there. Mariachi La Bamba. Why not?

Unsurprising Surprises

Like most everything else in the world, we should not necessarily be surprised by what happens when change begins. Just because we plan on the change, try to think through it, even believe we are ready for it, when it comes right down to it, we are clueless about how we will respond.

Or at least we need to be open to be surprised, shocked, enlightened and expecting the black swans we didn't know would happen to us. Last week the black swans came out of their hiding place and I was surprised that I was just like everyone else.

"This is what happens when you move into retirement," my wife said as I couldn't figure out why I was feeling like I was. "It can take months to be ready for this."

"But I was so ready," I wanted to say. "Why is this happening to me?" Yep, that good old fashioned expression of terminal uniqueness. Yep- I'm unique just like everyone else. That means when, even with a year of planning and processing, as the events truly do unfold, you begin to realize that this is really happening.

The times aren't changing- they have changed! It is a whole new world. All the things that move along with this change of movement toward retirement is one of those major life-events that bring to the front all the feelings of loss and grief. It is a time, again, when the passage of time becomes more than real- it is right there in your face. "Look at me! See me! This is real!"

It is as much a step into the unknown as the graduations from high school or college, the new career or new job. Even looking at this move as a "third career" for myself insulates me from some of the underlying issues of mortality, physical ability, health and change.

Then word came that a colleague had died suddenly. He went for a bike ride and collapsed. He is just ahead of me by five years. He is the first of my cohort to die in our older years. Several have died of cancer, AIDS and premature heart attacks. This one is that reminder of reality.

So I have been unfocused, distracted, angry, sad, working harder at staying healthy (bargaining?), depressed and just generally denying things.

I wasn't supposed to do these things. I was supposed to have worked hard so they didn't happen and I could just slide into this whole retirement with no repercussions. In short, I wanted to do it without the pain and the fear, the uncertainty and concerns that always happen.

But here I am anyway. Just like you or anyone else. So w hat do I do about it?

The same thing I have learned how to do over the past 25 years- accept it and move through it. Make the most of what I can do and let life happen. The Serenity Prayer comes to mind, of course:

God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.

But that is only the beginning. It is a deep sense of acceptance that must also be rediscovered anew each day. In order for that we all need to learn to look inside ourselves and be honest about what is happening- and then talk about it. Other people are essential to that process. They call us to be aware- mindful- of who we are and what is happening. Denial is not a healthy place to stay. It gets us stuck in what was instead of what can be.

So for myself, this (re)newed awareness empowers me by pulling me out of where I was into where I can go. That's all I have. That's all any of us has. So take that energy and channel it into hopeful and productive actions.

Let's see how that works.

2013 - Last Call

We come to the end of a year. 

For some reason, probably the new Coen Brothers movie, Inside Llewyn Davis, I was led to these words of one of the few songs that Dave Van Ronk wrote himself. 

Seems fitting for the end of the year, one "last call" for 2013.

And so we've had another night

of poetry and poses,

and each man knows he'll be alone

when the sacred gin mill closes.

And so we'll drink the final glass

each to his joy and sorrow

and hope the numbing drink will last

til opening tomorrow.

And when we stumble back again

like paralytic dancers

each knows the question he must ask

and each man knows the answer.

And so we'll drink the final drink

that cuts the brain in sections

where answers do not signify

and there aren't any questions.

I broke my heart the other day.

It will mend again tomorrow.

If I'd been drunk when I was born

I'd be ignorant of sorrow.

And so we'll drink the final toast

that never can be spoken:

Here's to the heart that is wise enough

to know when it's better off broken.

--Dave Van Ronk

Still Moving Forward

A quick reflection occurred to me earlier this week at work. I am less than three weeks away from the starting transition toward retirement, becoming a part-time supplemental employee instead of full-time. All kinds of emotions continue to happen each day. Excitement and opportunity are at the top, of course. But change is grief-producing. Change is not easy to assimilate, even when planned for and desired. Something is being left behind.

In this case I was sitting in our late afternoon hand-off from one team to another. As one of my colleagues was talking about the group they led and the patients' information I found myself having what I could only describe as an "out-of-body" moment. It as almost as if I was sitting watching something beyond me. I was not connected. I realized that in a few short weeks some of these things will continue to happen- and I won't be around. They will not concern me. They will not make any difference to me- or me to them. On those days when I am working I will have to know some of this, but in the great scheme of things, it won't be about me.

Humbling. It puts things into a perspective that is hard to reconcile at this point.

It was a powerful reminder of the importance of being in today which is the only one where we can have an impact.

Grief

I was aware that I am officially now beginning to grieve the changes that are just 4 weeks away (31 days, actually.) The first real step toward retirement occurs at the end of the work day on December 3. I will no longer be a full-time employee. I knew that this would mean a bunch of changes. But let's be honest, we don't think about those things. We want it to follow a path that has no (or little) disruption. We hope that the time will go by and then one day it will change.

Minimize the pain; deny the loss.

I know it doesn't work that way. Even good and wanted and planned changes will engender grief. We all grieve when things change. They will not be like they used to be.

I have been doing a lot of thinking, reading, talking, planning and networking about the coming changes. I am coming to some good thoughts and foundations for the change. I am excited.

But I am also sad and afraid and somewhat anxious. I would not be normal if I weren't. True, the grief isn't huge and overpowering. But it is there and I have to honor it. It will be the source of energy into the future.

Six Weeks

For the past several months I have been posting periodically about the change in my life that will be starting in December. Six weeks from today will be the first day I will NOT have a "full-time" job since, well, I guess it's about 40 years now. On Wednesday December 4 I will switch to a part-time employee as I make the first step of a transition to "retirement" sometime in the next year.

Pieces of the reality of it have begun to settle in, especially as it is now in that 6-week range. I have been talking with my supervisor about clearing out my office space, taking books home, letting people take some of them, pulling the pictures from the walls. Within a few weeks I will no longer be one of the primary group counselors of the program we have been developing for the past 14 or so months.

Six weeks from today I will not have to get up and go to "work" five days a week. Just two, sometimes three as a supplemental.

Reality, even hoped for and planned for reality, can be scary.

Which is why I have been doing some thinking, planning, talking, praying, coaching. In the midst of this I have been led to a book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years after 50 by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot. In her research and interviewing she discovered the revolutionary cultural shift that has been taking place with those of us who used to be called "Senior Citizens" or, before that, the elderly. In the early years of my generation, the elderly DID include people my current age. The Golden Years were already looking tarnished for many. Come to age 65 and you were ready for the "Old Folks' Home."

Oh, how that has changed!

Even the first stage of this revolution, "Retirement Communities" where older people went to sit and play away their final years away from the distractions of young people (i.e. my generation). Oops. Gerontology is now outdated. We aren't riding into some Sun City Sunset. At least not in the ways many saw it 40 years ago. Yes, many of us are "retiring" from our careers, the jobs or callings that have given us pleasure as well as opportunity. But we want something different now.

We want to continue to be useful, but we want to discover new ways to use what we have been given. We want to continue to explore and dig, and relate and learn new things. We want to right wrongs we gave up working on. We want to leave a legacy while still learning new things. Life is too short to sit around the pool and sip lemonade. Sure we will do that, too. But there are books and stories to be written. There are pictures to take and videos to produce. There are bands to play in and music to be discovered. There are people to be mentor- and people still to mentor us in things we have been waiting for.

In short, life is still happening. Or, in the language we might have used 45 years ago-

Life is a-happenin', man.

No, it doesn't start in six weeks for me. It is just a continuation of a lifelong pursuit of life and all it can offer to me- and then to others.

As always, I'll keep you posted.

What a Strange Concept!

The ongoing debate over gay marriage has certainly hit a new level of discussion. I was listening to the public radio program On Being last evening and caught part of the discussion on the issue. Two things hit me.

First, in the discussion by a person formerly opposed to gay marriage, he made the point that here are these individuals who want IN to an institution that many mainstream Americans seem to want OUT of. And it is the institution that the anti-gay marriage people are trying to protect. What this amounts to, I realized as he talked, is a major cognitive dissonance when what we see and say and believe and want all come into some form of disagreement.

In essence he said that he realized that all the anti-gay marriage talk hadn't done anything to strengthen the institution. Marriage is in trouble, he implied, in spite of all the support it is supposedly getting. Why then are people trying to prevent those who WANT to get married from getting married?

Sidenote: I have been hearing how marriage is in such trouble for as long as I've been married (41 years). Maybe we are just better informed about it. Maybe more people feel free to leave truly bad marriages. Maybe we just are more willing to look around and see that the old institution of marriage was broken and we are in a time of moving it into a new way. I don't know, but it is not a new problem in 2013.

In that may well be the seeds of the change that has been occurring over the last few years. It is a massive change which, as the pundits have been telling us, is an almost unprecedented change in a short time. How does not allowing someone to get married keep marriage safe? So goes strange concept #1.

Second was the idea that most of the time when we are discussing this issue, we are leaving out one small factor. What is at the heart of marriage? What is it all about? Children? Commitment? Societal institutions under fire? Religion?

Nope.

In the end it is about love.

Whatever that means for the individuals, love is the underpinning of marriage. It is the force that brings two people together. And as it grows, it is the glue that surrounds the couple and keeps them going when the original love (or infatuation) begins to wear off. Love goes deeper and forms newer bonds within the relationship.

Love.

What another strange concept. The more we argue about the rights and wrongs of marriage (gay or straight) the more we lose sight of love. And the more we need to be reminded of it and how, in our current situation the government denies the right of love to be officially recognized in a rite of love.

May this strange concept of love not be denied. May it be allowed to blossom and bloom.

Far From My Original Thought

“When one door closes, another opens, but often we look so long at he closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us”. – Helen Keller

It is a quote I have heard often, or at least the first part of it about the closing and opening doors. But I am not sure I have ever heard the last half. And that is where I run into trouble.

Either out of nostalgia, grief, or a dozen other things, I keep wanting to look back. I know I have talked about this part of human nature. You know- the Good Old Days. I have talked about how they were neither good or old. In fact they probably weren't real either. At least not the way we like to remember them, anyway. (A good example might be the way politicians will "remember" their own past statements and successes in a way that doesn't reflect anyone's reality.)

With surgery the other week I have had to face a couple things that are changing. At least from a physical standpoint. I cannot do what I used to do. End of statement. Some of it may only be temporary, but some may last forever. For today I have to take it easy so my surgery can heal. But we learned a couple weeks ago that it is probably NOT a good idea for me to have a backpack when I travel that is loaded down with electronic equipment. That is not good for the back and neck.

So I finally had to agree with my wife that I need to do something different about carrying the laptop and cameras when I travel. Like a bag with wheels instead of the old faithful backpack. But I like the backpack. It keeps my hands free. It gives me a sense of wandering. It helps me continue to think I am young.

All that was the looking at the closed door. It didn't work- and shouldn't. Why not give in and allow a new way of thinking to emerge?

Helen Keller said it best. We cannot look to the open door as long as we mourn the closed one. Or try to recreate it or pretend it is still open. Move on! Live!

Or perhaps more eloquently from Albert Einstein:

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

Ramblings on Change and Grief

Grief can be brought about by many specific things, good or bad. A promotion may be just as filled with grief as losing a job. When things change, for whatever reason, we lose something. Often the security that we build around ourselves, the security that says things will always stay just the way they are.

But, as I have spoken about before, those things come along that can be referred to as "Black Swans." These are the unexpected things. Or perhaps things that are expected but not yet, not at this time, not now- it's too inconvenient at the moment. Black Swans are the bane of our comfort and ease, the antidote (though unwanted) for complacency.

One of the more non-death-related grief inducers is age, simply the passing of time. I have posted, for example, those "xx-Year Memories." They serve as incredible reminders of the passage of time for me. Any posts about events since the mid-1950s are prods to my memory, items of remembrance, moments of recalling how long ago some of those things occurred.

The 45-year Memory from Sunday contained one of those life-changing times of awareness for me- the trial of Adolph Eichmann. As only a 13-year old who had just had his Bar Mitzvah can understand, Eichmann, from thousands of miles away shattered my perception of life.

On the global scale The Holocaust was more than a Black Swan, it was a Black Hole into which history has not yet recovered, if it ever can. It devastated, destroyed a way of thinking about humanity that had been a hallmark of western thought since the Renaissance. In one of the most advanced civilizations, civilized civilization, all those advances were turned to evil. Eichmann's arrest and trial sent (and still sends) shivers up my spine.

But in my little corner of the wilderness of northern Pennsylvania, at the same time (November 1961 - February 1962) my mother was in the hospital, dying rather quickly at age 48 of colon cancer.

While never consciously connected in my mind until now, they both served as events that are unexpected, out of left field, Black Swans. Grief and fear, sadness and confusion got wrapped up in that now distant time. It took years of growth and therapy and personal reflection to outgrow the initial pain of the death of my mother. It took years of study and reflection and spiritual searching to come to some personal understanding of The Holocaust, spurred by the intense understanding that such things can and will happen- but we must do everything humanly possible to stop them.

Even on a local level, where things like abuse and hatred can be as personally devastating as the Holocaust was to the world's self-understanding. When faced with protecting the weak, we must be steadfast. When faced with injustice, we must be willing to stand up. When faced with people of fear we must offer an antidote of hope.

Perhaps years of living (also called aging) allows one to see grief and its consequences and then take the time to review what that means. Black Swans like other things, happen. Then we take the time to allow ourselves to work through it. Change is real, we must work through it, not deny it, discover what we can in living through it.

Memories, good and bad, of change can remind us that we can get through the Black Swans.

Change Your Perspective

There have been days when my normal ability to spin into the positive side of things just falls apart. I get downright frustrated with myself at those moments. Yet I also find myself stuck in the rut of whining and complaining; grumbling and groaning. My co-workers want to kick me in the butt and my wife wants to hit me up the side of the head.

So, with a period of that whining in the past couple weeks I ran across this quote:

Unquestionably, there are sad things in the world right now, even in my life right now, but grumbling doesn't make anything better. In fact, it makes things worse. The Buddha taught, "Every mind moment conditions the next."
— Sylvia Boorstein in It's Easier Than You Think

It makes sense, but it can be tough when you are stuck. the "Yes, but..." syndrome fills in all the blanks and takes over. That usually means it is time to let go. It is time to see how powerless I am in many things and turn it over.

Maybe that's one of the reasons for the weekly Sabbath (to rest) and for us as Christians, the Lord's Day to remember the resurrection that can even happen in my life.

Today.

Music Is Power... Hopefully To The People

the people over at Playing for Change have been making a difference by bringing musicians together digitally from all over the world. Episode 40 in their work brings Bob Marley's Redemption Song to life.



Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom
'Cause it's all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

WWMT?

What would Martin think? I pondered that yesterday on MLK Day. It started when I read online that some doofus said that King would support the war in Afghanistan if he were alive today. My first reaction was nothing short of incredulity. Has this guy ever heard anything about King? Does he even know anything about Gandhi from whom King got his basic understanding of non-violence? Such an awareness would never allow for any moment of belief that Martin would support war as a means of solving problems.

Then my wife and I were watching the news and we began to think what King would think about some of the issues we see and discuss today. Gay rights and gay marriage, for example.

That, of course, is an impossible question to answer. King died 43 years ago. A great deal has changed in the world in 43 years. If you were not around in 1968 it would be hard to understand how much the world has changed. It even seems like ancient history to me- and I was there. Only if one lives through the changes can one change and grow. In 1968, for example, gay rights wasn't even in existence. The Stonewall "Riot" that started the gay movement was over a year in the future when King was killed.

And that's just one issue.

I would like to think that Dr. King would have grown and moved along with the society. I would like to think that he would have seen the importance of applying the non-violent principles and freedoms to the many areas of our lives as a nation. I find it hard to believe he would have become a neo-conservative or non-pacifist.

But we will never know. What we do know is that Dr. King challenged us all to serve and care and reach out to others. He called us to be the America we were founded to be.

And that doesn't change.

Change We Truly Need Way beyond Politics

Mike at Waving or Drowning? posted this important quote a little over a week ago:

Incremental change is usually limited in scope and is often reversible. If the change does not work out, we can always return to the old way. Incremental change usually does not disrupt our past patterns--it is an extension of the past. Most important, during incremental change, we feel we are in control...

Deep change differs from incremental change in that it requires new ways of thinking and behaving. It is change that is major in scope, discontinuous with the past, and generally irreversible. The deep change effort distorts existing patterns of action and involves taking risks. Deep change means surrendering control.

Robert E. Quinn, Deep Change (p. 3)

There are many times when we settle for the incremental change because it is comfortable. In the end, true change that makes an important difference takes the deep risks and actions. I pray that we may all have the courage to accept that kind of change when rooted in compassion and love as shown in Jesus Christ.

Never One Like This One

• The last time my wife and I spent a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without our daughter with us was 29 years ago, in the last month before her birth (and I would argue she was with us in that one, too, but you know what I mean).

I was aware of the changing of life. Another way to say my aging. Time moves on. Sometimes it takes many years- nearly 3 decades in this case. But things change. They do not remain the same. We try to hold on to traditions and rituals since they are bits and pieces of comfort. They treat our brains to pleasure; they remind us of things that are worth remembering. Sometimes we hang on to these things to avoid seeing the changes; sometimes they are part of our denial system.

In any case, more often than not, and sooner or later, the rituals change. People change or move or pass on. It is at a holiday that we become most aware.

• The last time my wife and I spent a Christmas Eve together without going to church- well, it has never happened before.

What an unusual holiday. The big storm playing hide and seek with the Upper Midwest and doing all kinds of weird weather things brought about the cancellation of the church's Christmas Eve Candle Service. It will be tomorrow afternoon at 5:00 so it will be dark enough to enjoy the candlelight. One of the most consistent rituals in our life is Christmas Eve.

That meant that in the 38 Christmases we have had together, this one was totally unlike any we have ever had. There was always church. Then there was always church and family. This time it was just us, sitting at home, watching a movie and then the news and then finally a couple church services.

Christmas morning we slept in then opened our presents for each other. Christmas Day with our daughter was postponed by the storm and will be held next Friday, New Year's Day. So we rested, did wash and dishes, I took a nap, and we went to a movie.

Such is what happens in life, I am discovering. Things never remain the same. No matter what we want or do, change is the constant.

But in its own quiet way, it was still a good Christmas. After all it wasn't about me.

When the Urgent Sets the Agenda

Management/Business guru Seth Godin had another of his amazingly insightful posts a couple weeks ago. Specifically it was about the problem with cable news (of all political persuasions!) Here are a few of them:

1. Focus on the urgent instead of the important.
4. Unwillingness to reverse course and change one's mind.
8. Top down messaging encourages an echo chamber (agree with this edict or change the channel).
12. Unwillingness to review past mistakes in light of history and use those to do better next time.

Now, lest we think this only applies to news organizations like (both) MSNBC and Fox, Seth concludes:

If I wanted to hobble an organization or even a country, I'd wish these twelve traits on them. I wonder if this sounds like the last board meeting you went to...

It reminded me of a situation I heard of last week in another area where the "urgent" became the "important" with no sense of history, mistakes, or new ways of seeing things. From top down comes the edict where those who know the best can give the only right answer. Fear plays a huge part in this that Godin doesn't directly address but is implicit. The more fear we are given the more likely we will go along with it. We feel, and therefore act, as if we have no choice.

It is so easy to be sucked into the almost tornadic cycle that prevents change and instead ends up circling the wagons. It is sad for the organization; it is even sadder for those caught up in its impersonal result.

Things Don't Remain the Same

It's time for the annual Mindset List from Beloit College chronicling the changes in the entering freshman class of 2013. Each year it is a remind of the pace of change that continues to occur in our world. Here are some of the list that caught my attention.

# For these students, Martha Graham, Pan American Airways, Michael Landon, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, The Dallas Times Herald, Gene Roddenberry, and Freddie Mercury have always been dead.
# They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
# Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.
# Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
# Earvin "Magic" Johnson has always been HIV-positive.
# Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.
# Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.
# The KGB has never officially existed.
# They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.
# Bungee jumping has always been socially acceptable.
# The European Union has always existed.
# McDonald's has always been serving Happy Meals in China.
# Condoms have always been advertised on television.
# Cable television systems have always offered telephone service and vice versa.
# Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap.
# The American health care system has always been in critical condition.
# Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves.
# Desperate smokers have always been able to turn to Nicoderm skin patches.
# There has always been a Cartoon Network.
# The nation’s key economic indicator has always been the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
# Their folks could always reach for a Zoloft.
# They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
# Women have always outnumbered men in college.
# We have always watched wars, coups, and police arrests unfold on television in real time.
# Kevin Costner has always been Dancing with Wolves, especially on cable.
# There have always been flat screen televisions.
# Someone has always been asking: “Was Iraq worth a war?”
# Most communities have always had a mega-church.

Evolution or Revolution

Again I was listening to Speaking of Faith and again I was struck by an insight. The guest this week was Xavier Le Pichon who is one of the world's leading geophysicists, and his pioneering research on plate tectonics revolutionized our understanding of how the earth works. He has also spent decades living in community with people and families facing disability and has emerged with a rare perspective on the meaning of humanity — a perspective equally informed by his scientific and personal encounters with fragility as a fundament of vital, evolving systems.

Somewhere along in the show there was discussion on evolution and revolution.

Mr. Le Pichon: Communities which are very strong, very rigid, that do not take into account the weak points of the community, the people who are in difficulty and so on, tends to be communities that do not evolve. And when they evolve, it's generally by a very strong commotion, a revolution, I would call them in French.

Ms. Tippett: You make that distinction between systems that incorporate fragility and evolve and then systems that become rigid and need revolutions to move forward.

Two things jumped out at me in the conversation, or better put, two ideas came to mind. First was the idea of evolution vs revolution. It is an old sermon illustration to contrast the rigid trees that will sway in a wind storm and not break versus those that re overly rigid and tend to crack in those same winds. This week we in the US celebrate a revolution. Probably the first successful and democratic revolution. There was a rigidity in the British monarchy/parliamentary system in 1776 that made revolution the only viable way.

But what probably allowed that revolution to succeed where so many others have not is in the foundation that Le Pinchon described- an awareness and acceptance of fragility. The American Constitution was built on a mixed view of humanity and on the need to take care of the weaker members. They built checks and balances into the Constitution because humans are very fallible and someone had to watch out for sin. But at the same time they were aware that the majority can be overpowering to those who are not.

This is based, of course, on the underlying Anglo-Saxon/Magna Carta society. There was already a semblance of caring and support that the American revolutionaries built on.

For Le Pinchon it all comes down to an understanding of God and society that he first learned in the slums of Calcutta and then in religious communities for handicapped people. The man who discovered plate tectonics then applied the difference between fluidity and rigidity in the earth's plates, went on to live in a powerfully humble way.

Mr. Le Pichon: Human people are not adults in full possession of their means. Human people, it starts with babies, it continues with growing people, it continues with adults, it continues with older people and with great age and people who die. All of that is part of humanity and humanity is not complete if you have some of the spots out.

And the way to build the society is the way to integrate these people in a way in which they can interact and each of them can find out that they have their place, that their life has a meaning, that they are needed by the others. So often I have found, for example, among very old people that they have the impression that they are not useful anymore. You know, nobody needs them. And then they want to go. They want to go. So there is this problem that the society cannot live by itself, if it doesn't recognize that it heterogeneous and highly diverse.

And that the weakest have to get their place in there.

--Link to Transcript