Back to School

The end of summer always feels to me like a combination of "the party's over" and "Let's get this party started." Our thoughts may lag behind while our commitments tug us forward.

I left my book in Hawaii

On a beach in the sand somewhere,

I was suposed to practice my spelling,

But I just couldn't concentrate there.

The oceans whispered, "Come surfing,"

The beaches bechoned, "Come play."

I followed the sound of their voices,

And I threw my spelling away.

For a week I rode the free winds,

As I surfed a wide blue sea;

And the sound of the ocean breathing

Became a part of me.

I'm sorry, Ms. Jones, I forgot it,

On a beach in the sand somewhere,

How I wish that book was remembered, 

And I'd been forgotten there.

              I left My Book in Hawaii

              by Kalli Dakos, Peoms About School

The last days of August are a good time to sort through summer memories looking for gems to carry forward into the renwed energy of fall.
What were some of your highlights?  Do you have a photo or two that you can stick up on a wall or screen near where you work to look over and put yourself back in a "mini-break" of remembered relaxation?

Mine will definately be camp and wedding photos!

Meanwhile, its time to do a fall tune-up: work through through the list of school supplies, set up catch up appointments, straighten the desk (don't forget to add those summer photos or a sea shell or two!)

Is your Head on Nice and Tight?

Do your kneecpas fit just right,

Did you shine up all your skin,

And bring your belly button in?

Have you lost a toe or two

And could your brain be overdue?

Please look in the Lost and Found,

If your ears are not around. 

Students must remember parts,

Be they books for pens or hearts.

How can your school day begin

If you're searching for your chin?

               Is Your Head on Nice and Tight?

               by Kalli Dakos, Poems About School

Is my head on straight?
Have I left space for deep breathes and time for people who matter to me?
Is my soul is good working order?
What arrangements do I need to make for God in my life each day as sunlight shortens?

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to.......
hmmmm,

This weekend brings a change of happy hiking tunes whistling in my head.  Our second "child" (isn't it marvelous how they're still our child even after they're a working professional) will be married on Saturday.  Gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiney day.....
Lots of other families will spend some time back to school shopping for or with their children this weekend.  School's out for summer....turning to the wheels on the bus go round and round.....
While you're out, why not teach your child the buddy system by picking up similar school supplies to send through Church World Service and the United Methodist Economic Ministry in Solon and Salem, ME? Our ingathering is coming up in worship on August 26 when we bless our own children's backpacks as well as these gifts we send.
This is a day of new beginnings....time to believe what love is bringing....our God is making all things new.  Those words are paired with one of our hardest hymns to sing, melodically and thematically (United MEthodist hymnal 383).   But lyricist Brian Wren was helping us sing a new song to the lord with its verses.  Christ is alive and goes before us to show and share what love can do.
How will I, how will you, experience Christ's love in this season?
How will I, how will you, help another experience Christ's love in this season?
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to love we go!

Boxes

As month #2 in Brunswick begins for the Munson household, we are almost out of boxes (woo hoo!) and settled into the parsonage that was so beautifully prepared for us.  The ginger cats have found their favorite corners.  I know where the grocery stores are and the Portland Press Herald now arrives on the doorstep each morning in time for Jeff's sodoku/caffeine fix.  Even the office books are shelved, though don't ask me to put my hands right on any one in particular, order will come later!  Life is good.

VBS message in a beaker

Vacation Bible school was a blast, with energetic/curious/courteous kids (and adults) bringing the church to life.  Worship is joy and people are so patient as I search names and faces in the recesses of my brain.

Jeff Munson's labor of love.

How's your summer going?  Are you finding food for the soul?  In Maine's warmer  months, we're like  squirrels-storing up good energy and nuggets of summer fun that will tide us through long winter days down the road.
      In college, friends in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship taught me about "quiet time," daily moments set aside to spend with God.  These moments fill us with God's goodness and cultivate God's purpose and peace to carry through each day. Camp is a place that reminds me to claim God's promises just as Vacation Bible School is an environment in which many kids come to hear of those pomises for the first time. These times and places are holy ground.  May God bless the ground you find yourself walking this day and fll you with goodness for days to come.  Its a goodness that takes us out of the boxes we sometimes find ourselves caught in!

When are Books more than books?

Maribeth McFaul

Today there's been some chatter about books being just books.  Is the careless disposal of Korans in Afghanistan  just an excuse for pent up anger to break out?  In the west, where books are being replaced by e-readers and even made into altered book art, its really hard for us to imagine that anyone who have this depth of feeling about books.

This is a perfect example of assumptions running past each other, as we talked about on Diversity Day.
We have to listen and use our imaginations which, far from child's play, turns out to be essential tools in diplomacy.

Imagine the most important thing in your life.  It may take a while, and some honesty with ourselves, but all of us have something that is "ultimate," that gives meaning to our lives.
It might be friendship, family members, a particular faith, or set of practices.
Now, imagine that someone treated the person or thing with the utmost disrespect, beating, burning, belittling.  (Have you ever seen someone angry because their mother was direspected?)  Now ramp that up by 1000% and you have an idea of how Muslims feel when a Koran is disrepected.

Most faiths have something that "embodies" the holiest of holies for them.  For Christians it's a person, Jesus.  For Muslims, its the words recorded in the Koran and spoken by believers.

Does this make it right to break out in violent protest?  No.  But it explains why people feel as strongly as they do.  And explains why we need to learn a little more about what we hear in the news.

Why Whitney Houston Matters

I've been struck by the different reactions to Whitney Houston's death, and the accompanying media coverage, that I'm hearing from friends, family, and acquaintances.  Many comments are mornful but others are dismissive.  Why the difference?

Some is old/young or a difference in musical tastes.  Houston was THE crossover artist of my generation.  And even then she never acheived critical acclaim on the same scale as her popularity.  She used that magnificent voice to touch hearts more than heads.
Some is black/white.  It's hard for us in the dominant culture to realize the enormity of her impact. We tend to focus on the struggles (marraige, substance abuse), as though we need to take her down a peg instead of recognizing a common human frailty.
Here are some examples of why I think Whitney Houston matters, whether you like or don't like her music, whether you are offended by or sympathetic to her struggles.  I hope you'll read them through the lens of Black History Month.

Professional Achievement

*Only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits.            

*Second only to Elton John (and only female artist) to receive two number-one “Top Pop Album” Awards.

*In 1985, her “Whitney Houston” debut album was the best selling debut by a female artist.

*”I Will Always Love You” was the best singing single by a female artist in music history.

*The soundtrack from “Body Guard” made Houston the first musician to sell more that a million copies of an album in one week and made her the top female act, number four overall, in the top ten selling albums of all time.

Inspiration

*As a teenager, Houston broke color barriers by modeling on the covers and layouts of mainstream fashion magazines.

*As a young adult, Houston broke color barriers by appearing on popular late night TV shows.

*She refused to appear in any agencies that did business with apartheid South Africa.

*IN the early days of music videos, “How Will I Know” made Houston the first African American woman to be be prominently featured on MTV

*Her stunning and respectful interpretation of the Star Spangled Banner was a unifying force for  the American public at the start of  the first Gulf War and became the top selling song as the second Gulf War broke out.  It created a new standard for interpreting the national anthem.

*Her film roles counteracted stereotypes of African American women.

She is credited with helping to create a new form of Pop music without sexualizing performances as did  other  pioneers of the genre.

*Despite her personal struggles, she was a professional inspiration for many of today’s top female artists of all ethnic backgrounds. 

Whitney Houston's fall from grace scares us.  From most perspectives she had it all:  a good upbringing by loving middle class parents, a church that cultivated her faith, friends who mentored and supported her; professional success that catapulted her to the stratosphere of popular culture and made her a role model for a generation of young women drawn to making the most of their talents in entertainment.  Maybe it's hard to breathe when you soar that far that fast.  It scares us that her faith didn't save her from heartbreak, hardship, or bad choices.  

We can treat her as "the exception that makes the rule" (whether the rule is an assumption about entertainers, african americans, women......) or we can be grateful for her gifts even as we mourn the brokeness and struggle that was exposed. 

Instead of chosing between seeing hers as a life wasted or a life to be celebrated, I'm choosing to see Whitney Houston as a gifted human sister reminding me how precious life is. 

Goal Tending

Have you ever felt like a one armed paper hanger or a multi-tasking mama?  The two share a certain incongruity in the way capacity meets expectation.

Here's a story about goals that needs help writing the ending (post yours as a comment!). 

Once upon a time there was a little boy who dreamed of a precious box.  It shimmered in his mind’s eye:  dark polished wood, carved curves, inset shots of enameled color.

When he closed his eyes at night he could see it, but when he woke in the morning, the box seemed to hover just out of sight.

The little boy sometimes practiced making boxes:  out of cardboard that he found and folded, or bits of wood from crates picked up behind the corner grocery into which he would crookedly pond nails.

His big brother poked fun, good naturedly he thought, at the little boy’s projects, so he learned to hide them away in his closet and chase after the bigger boys’ ball games. 

Still, his dreams brought glimpses of the precious box, even as he was increasingly aware that it was not real.

When it came time to choose a path through school, classes tempted the boy where he cold put his hands on wood, learn to measure and to cut it, how to join pieces, and create hinges. But his father, a handyman at the mill, and his career counselor, urged him to look ahead, toward a profession, which meant a full college prep schedule.  There would always be time for hobbies later, they said.

The boy did his homework, earned his scholarship, and headed to a good college.  Picking up his first semester books, he noticed a display of fine woodworking books. His hands itched a little.  Funny he thought, as he toted his bags down the hall.  In the Student Union, he passed a list of leisure time classes.  There was a picture of a beautiful cherry box, simpler than the one of his boyhood dream, but solid.  He could almost feel it in his hands.  Not now, he thought, but maybe after I get my first semester routine down, he thought to himself.

The dorm was full of new friends and new activities. Soon the boy had season tickets for football, and hockey and had been recruited for rec. baseball.  The guys played cards in the dorm to relax at night, and he had to keep up with his studying in order to stay on track toward his profession, which also took some time to consider.  He settled on business, which seemed like a secure future.

He did everything he was supposed to do. He met a girl, he graduated and joined a company; they married and had children.  His oldest boy spotted a craft kit in a hobby store one day, it was an awkward pine box embellished with wood burning.  “Daddy, can we make that?” his little boy asked. 

“Oh, son, take a good look, It’s just a big chunk of wood. Not worth the time.”  The next time they passed the history museum, The man took his son in to see finely crafted containers of all kinds.  He lingered by the boxes, which raised some kind of echo in him.

“Daddy,” he heard his excited son say, “can we make a box like that!?”

He saw his son pointing to a gleaming walnut chest inlaid with mother of pearl.

 “No, that’s difficult, he answered.” 

“It takes a master craftsman to create something like that.” 

“You could make one, Dad, you can do anything,” declared his confident son declared.

“ I don’t have the time or the skill, son,” the man replied, with a tinge of regret.

“Well then,” his son asked.  “Can we buy one?”  The man thought about it.  His business had done well.  “Yes,” he said. “Yes,” we will find just the right one and buy it.

So they began to search. 

They visited craft shows and shops. 

They met master woodworkers and watched them work. 

The man’s eyes and hands lingered over the tools in the workshops.

They talked about the box they would buy, and the man began to remember the box of his boyhood dreams.  But he couldn’t quite describe it to his son.  And each of the beautiful boxes they saw was different, not like the one that still rested in his heart.

Finally, his son went off to school himself, and their box hunting trips became a fond memory.

The years went by and one day the man, nearing the end of a productive career, found himself short of breathe, experiencing pain, and, in short order, in a hospital bed.  In the deep sleep given so that his body could heal, the man heard a voice asking him if he had any regrets.  He thought of the wife and children he loved and was grateful.  But there is one thing, he thought.  I wish I’d had time to learn how to make that box.

You had a life-time.

Yes, but there were so many goals to reach, I never the opportunity, mused the man.

Every time you imagined it, every time your hand itched, was an opportunity. I even led you to those who could teach you and put the tools at your hand.

How do you want the story to end? 

Managing happiness

A current MIT blog article, "Statisticians Reveal What Makes America Happy," startled me with its emphatic conclusion.  One thing that policymakers ought to be able to agree on is that more work is urgently needed:  the happiness of nations is surely too important to be left to the random forces of chance or to the flawed decision-making processes of politics. 

I agree. 

I just don't think chance or political process are the only two forces at work here.

The study, by researchers Guo and Hu, looked at 2 aspects of human life:  Personal conditions (age, health, marital status, personal income....) and macroeconomic indicators.  "The biggest personal factor in determining hapiness is health, followed by marraige.  Having children reduces happiness.  Children eat up spending money and this increases hardship.

GDP (gross national product) has little influence, but inflation has some.  A 1 percent increase in inflation reduces national happiness levels by about 3.1 percent. Guo and Hu speculate that this is due to reduced buying power. 

The article begs some questions: 

What is "happiness?"

Is it lack of stress.... feeling empowered....or that your living your dream (or the dream someone else laid out for you)?  

Is happiness measured by what I feel at any given moment or by the satisfactions and disatisfactions that build over time?  

In Christian scriptures, greek words that we translate into English as "happy," have more layers of meaning than what we think of as happy.  Makarios is "having a peaceful soul." Enlogimenos means"blessed" and eulogio is "to praise, celebrate, cause to be blessed."

In India yesterday, the Dalai Lama wrapped up the 12 day annual Kalachakra (meaning "time wheel".  This celebration marks the Mahayana Buddhist New Year with renewal. In earlier published words on Compassion he spoke to the notion of happiness:
...individual happiness can contribute in a profound and effective way to the overall improvement of our entire human community.
 
Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister. No matter how new the face or how different the dress and behavior, there is no significant division between us and other people. It is foolish to dwell on external differences, because our basic natures are the same.
 
Ultimately, humanity is one and this small planet is our only home

I don't think that either the Dalai Lama or scripture's authors are talking about the kind of happiness that comes from sufficient descrectionary spending. What they're describing is happiness/blessing that is created by intentional choices that bring our inner life into healthy and productive alignment with life around us and with the creative life that sustains us.
The study's statisicians conclude that improving health is the best thing policy makers could do to increase public happiness. You and I are practical policy makers whose choices affect our own happiness and that of everyone our choices move out to touch.  May there be happiness not only in, but as a result of your choices today!