The politics of what is possible

I've been thinking a lot lately about the politics of doing what you feel called to do, even in the absence of tangible support. I've been thinking about what it means to offer support to others. I've been thinking about my mentors... how they did it with what seemed such effortless grace. I feel clumsy, at best. Double standards, inconsistencies... they seem to be everywhere. I know this -- this shouldn't come as a surprise, but every time I confront them, it still does. I haven't been here long enough to know the whys and wherefores. Nor have I been here long enough to accept them without question.

I've also been thinking about what it means to navigate one's way in a evolving position. It is a blessing to be in a position that is in fact evolving. Sometimes, though, it feels a little like a curse. My mantra when the going gets tough, "I'm good at what I do." And I really do believe that, much of the time. I guess, though, I am finding that how I go about being good at what I do, and what that looks like from setting to the next, is very fluid -- ever changing.

I sat down at the computer with a little more vitriol than I have given voice. Discretion can not be discounted. But, I will say that I am leaving the computer somehow calmer, more collected. I'm still frustrated. I still want to trouble the waters a bit. But right now, at 9:50 pm, it's enough to realize I am tired, weary even. I have not had the best of days. And it's okay to crawl under the covers and try again tomorrow.

Seven on Saturday

1. I cleaned the bathroom this morning. Really well. Elbow grease was involved and everything. Not that cleaning my bathroom is a rare occurence. It's just that there are levels. There's the "company's coming" spruce up, and the "suppose I should really clean the bathroom," and then there's the "I'm feeling industrious for no known reason so I'm really going to clean the bathroom.

2. I think the fact that I wrote about cleaning my bathroom indicates either that I shouldn't be blogging because I really don't have anything of substance to say, or that my life is just really that boring. Which might be why I am blogging in the first place.

3. Tomorrow I will bake cookies with three young women who claim to have never baked cookies from scratch. When I invite someone into my kitchen to bake cookies, there will be no tubs or tubes of store-bought dough involved... that's not how I roll. I'm actually looking forward to it.

4. As a result of #3, tomorrow evening I will likely be cleaning my kitchen. Really well. The "I just had three 19-22 year olds with flour and butter and sugar in here" cleaning. That, I don't look forward to quite as much.

5. I saw The Black Swan this afternoon. So many people told me it was awful. I'm not saying that it was my favorite movie ever, but I did find it compelling. Compelling. I guess that's the word I use when I'm not yet sure what I think about something, yet I somehow suspect that it is worth thinking about. Didn't recognize Winona Ryder at all. Some how she is kind of frozen in time with Edward Scissorhands and Heathers.

6. I found a ladle for my ladle-less soup tureen that I got on clearance at Pottery Barn for next to nothing a few years ago. It was ladle-less, hence the next to nothing. Bonus -- the ladle was only $3.99. Not bad. Not bad at all.

7. Hmmm... I am kind of torn between "See #2" because purchasing a ladle for a soup tureen is kind of lame. But then, the only other thing that I can think to say right now is to exclaim how very glad I am that there is an automated machine where one can by stamps at the post office without having to wait in a ridiculously long line. That is also kind of lame.

Getting an itch...

I have been working with one of our history professors who also teaches sociology (everybody around here has at least two jobs, I am telling you...) on a pilot service learning course. The hope is that it might gain some momentum among other faculty and students, increase our positive presence in the larger community, and expose our students to a very hands on approach to learning. I've known about service learning for nearly 20 years, I suppose... Campus Outreach Opportunity League, Into The Streets, and MUVN and various and sundry other good stuff. I've read about it, considered it, but I've never seen it in action. And I'm excited. I know a handful of the students in the course (which doesn't surprise me) and I feel like I am cultivating a friendship with the professor. It's all good.

I sat in on the class today -- the folks from the mentoring program in the public schools came to give their pitch. The class is held in a classroom in the library. Walking through the main doors, it hit me... a kind of musty smell, kind of old -- I suppose perhaps it is even the smell of paper and ink and years and years of relative silence. I might add, at this point, that I could go into great detail about each and every library in each and every school, college, or university I have ever attended. At Lincoln, we had large pieces of cardboard with colors matching our tote bags -- the cardboard went on the shelf so we knew where to return a book if we decided not to check it out. At Garfield, I was a part of a small group which got to eat lunch in the library... very cool. East Junior and Harding -- nothing to write home about. Mount Union, Purdue, Bucknell, U of Chicago... each had a different character to be sure, but as I said I knew that character inside and out. I had my preferred carrels, favorite tables. I knew the stacks like the back of my hand. Well, maybe not at Purdue. The stacks weren't always the safest places to be and one was wise to let one know you were headed in that direction so a search party could be assembled if need be.

I climbed the steep stairs to get to the classroom and settled into a chair. My friend took attendance (it's the first week of the semester, after all) and launched into a 20 minute lecture about Sociology 101. And the proverbial itching began. I took Soc in college -- liked it well enough. That wasn't it. It was being in a room with fourteen other people who, ostensibly, were working toward a common purpose. It was the sound of pens scratching on paper -- not too many of our students opt for the lap top route for note taking. It was the probing questions and the tentative answers, becoming slightly more sure as the sentences drew on. It's been nearly twelve years since I've been in a classroom. And I miss it.

Visions of a doctorate dance in my head, quite often actually. Then I am rudely interrupted by reality, which says I have bills to pay... and all of the sudden, I am quite weary. To be continued, sooner or later, I am sure...

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I came late to the Chronicles of Narnia. I tried them as a child -- couldn't get into them. I didn't enjoy fantasy all that much, I suppose. The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, by Julie Edwards worked, as did L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Surely the the exceptions to prove the rule. But, something made me revisit them, and once I got started, I couldn't stop. I even broke my most sacred of all rules -- never tell anyone on an airplane what I do. The guy across the aisle when I was flying home for Christmas was carrying a Notre Dame back pack and reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. We had the best conversation I have had in a long while -- even walked to the baggage claim together, still talking.

But, I digress. I went to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader this afternoon. Thoroughly enjoyed it, as well. I have to say, the whole idea of Aslan/God as a lion works much better cinematically for me than it does on the page. Maybe it has something to do with Liam Neeson's voice, as well. It is at once gentle and fierce -- a little volatile. Yet calming and assuring. Accessible and inaccessible all at once. Much like, I think, the way many encounter God. I could of course say more, but I want to shift gears.

I think one of the things I most appreciate about good children's literature, and young adult literature, for that matter, is the fact that it doesn't discount the fact that children and young people have very real problems and concerns. It doesn't sugarcoat the struggles, insisting on an idyllic fantasy. It's messy, and every bit as complex as the grown-up world -- whether most grown-ups will admit as much or not. I wonder if this is perhaps why I wasn't a bigger fan of fantasy as a child. I honestly don't know what I might have done with this story as a child. When Caspian tells Edmund and Aslan that he has been so busy looking for what had been taken from him, he forgot to be thankful for all he had been given... as a child whose father was taken from her entirely too soon, those words would have been very hard to take in. They still are. I get it, but they are still hard. And that's okay. The song that played through the credits -- I was sort of still transfixed, taking it all in -- speaks to the fact that we have been created for so much more than we know. Funny, but I think that we are much more aware of that as children than we are as we grow into who it is we think we are meant to be.

Holiday Greetings...

Yesterday, just under the wire, I wrote my annual holiday greeting for 2010. Christmas is a season. Epiphany was yesterday. It's all good. They aren't in the mail yet. All of the envelopes aren't even stuffed. Nearly. Some have already been delivered electronically.

I don't know that I ever thought I would be one to "indulge" in this newsy practice. I am single. I haven't got any children. I don't do all that much traveling -- just to this or that professional conference and annual visits with a few friends. What could there be to tell? Who would want to hear it? I have nothing against the practice... I enjoying reading those I receive. I will admit, I have long since stopped putting the pictures of "other people's children" on the refrigerator. Love to see them, even keep them... just can't be reminded multiple times a day that my life hasn't quite turned out the way I suppose I always thought it would. That's okay - most of the time. It's lonely -- nearly all of the time. I haven't given up on the idea that there is someone out there for me. I have started to accept that children probably aren't in the cards. Tick tock tick tock. I did bend my rules and put a few pictures of puppies and dogs on the fridge -- even though I don't have one of those, either. But I digress.

I think I wrote my first holiday letter the Christmas following my departure from the first church I served. It made sense. A holiday greeting surely didn't compromise the ethics of making as clean a break as possible with a congregation. I don't know that that ever works all that well, anyway. You figure it out as you go along, I think. I try to be funny. Sometimes, I even attempt to be wise. Whether either attempt proves successful, I will let someone else be the judge.

My list is long. I have a very hard time "cutting" people, scaling back. My list is eclectic. My second grade teacher. My Grandma and Grandpa Brown's next door neighbor in Andover -- and even good friends from Scarsdale. Several of my mom's good friends -- one person she's known since junior high. The mother of a child I used to baby sit -- the "child" is now married. Eek. The boy who I was a co-crossing guard with who moved away when we were in junior high. My elementary and junior high principal. Friends from every school I've ever attended, every job I've ever held... Some of these folks. I hear from. Others, I don't. But I think about them -- as I address each envelope, sign my name. I remember the times we have shared, the plans we once made, the dreams we have known. I think about where they are now, who they are now. I think about someone who taught with my dad. He sent us a card every year, until he passed away himself. He always signed it "With many fond memories..." or something to that effect. I remember how much I wished I too had those fond memories of my dad.

Again, I digress. I write the letter. I send the cards. I crave the connection. I have fond memories of my own. And I hope those who receive my greetings do, too.

Take Two...

So... I'm thinking I'll give this blogging thing another go round. No apologies. No explanations. No caveats.

I don't remember whether it was when I was in high school or college... probably college... but at some point I started writing letters, long letters, to people. Not just to friends from home, or pen pals from childhood, but people I saw every day. People I talked to regularly. Usually it was because something was wrong, and I wanted to talk, but couldn't form the spoken words. Armed with a messy piece of carbon paper, yes carbon paper (so I would always know what I said) I penned at times tortured missives to those closest to me. Or, to those who had at one time been closest to me. It was almost like writing in my journal... only with the possibility of actual conversation, dialogue. I think some of my friends enjoyed it. Others tolerated it. Others ignored it completely. I found it almost exhilarating. On the one hand, it was cathartic -- an opportuntiy to say what I wanted, and needed to say, just the way I wanted to say it. It opened up a space for me to process joy and sadness, frustration, confusion, even rage. It was almost intoxicating. I would let the language spill forth, all over the page and then some. Then, I would fold it up, tape it shut, staple it, put it in an envelope (I was never one to pass notes in school, so I didn't know how to do all of the cool origami folds, oh well) and, yes, drop it in campus mail, slip it under a door, or tack it on a memo board. Or, put a stamp on it and send it to someone I didn't have to see the next day. Depending. And then... I would get a flutter in my stomach. "Did I really do that? Really? Why did I do that?" Granted, some letters had the capacity to get me into much more trouble than others. We won't go there tonight. Point is, I would nearly panic until my phone rang, or there was a knock on the door, or a similar piece of paper awaited in my own mail box. It was wonderful to be heard, if not always understood. I miss that feeling.

Truth be told, I still write those letters. Not all the time. Just sometimes. Sometimes they are e-mails. They generally aren't handwritten anymore. I've given up the carbon paper, opting for photo copies instead. I don't necessarily anticipate a response, as a rule. Truth be told, I suppose that disappoints me. But, it still feels good to write the words I may be afraid to speak.

Maybe this is why I am intrigued by this whole blogging idea. Maybe I still want to be heard -- by whoever will listen. I feel like I do a lot of listening. To a lot of people. Nothing wrong with that -- I tend to think that is a good thing. It's part of what I do. But, maybe the time is coming, maybe the time is here, for me to do a little more speaking.

As I write this, I am listening to one of my favorite, perhaps little known, singers -- Ann Reed. One of her songs that just played, "No Time Like the Present:" ... Notes to you, I'll write 'em down while one of us is not around, let's put 'em in a book that's bound called 'Things that Matter,' Yesterdays the day I thought Would never come and now it's gone Thats how years roll away Tend to what I've planted If I take it all for granted it'll fade..."

And, on that note...