For generations, Americans were known as optimists. We believed that the future would always be better. Today, I don't think we can make that claim as a country. We have lost our faith. Polls showed, during the 1990s, a majority of Americans were pessimistic about their lives improving, even considering the long cycle of growth. In that vein, Americans started seeing a bleak future for their children. The American dream is no longer alive. And that is why, I believe, we have embraced change so effusively. We hunger for the optimism and hope for the future.
The trauma of 9/11 has further undermined our sense of reality and practically addled our brains. We weren't prepared and were so shocked that we have yet to recover. The stress and strain of adjusting to a reality where someone hit us hard, people want to hurt us as a nation, it's a bit much for us, apparently. It has given us great doubt, both self-doubt and doubt of others.
Doubt is a dark place, and creates anger and irrational fear. Doubt also creates anxiety and depression, which make it nearly impossible to experience hope and optimism. Mr. Obama has captured the moral high ground in such a way that we, the people, are experiencing hope once again. What we are experiencing might be considered irrational elation, in fact, considering all the inauguration hoopla. But, in fact, it's a freeing moment of relief from the doubt and trauma-aftermath we have been experiencing for more than 7 years. The shadow of 9/11 has lingered over this nation for far too long.
Naturally, many see ample grounds for skepticism. The first days have been filled with talk and executive orders and it's the beginning of the beginning. For a few moments we can embrace hope and be optimists again. Somehow, Obama has bypassed conventional organizing principles, organized labor, party machines and religion. He has reached out and into the hearts of many, many people. I hope and pray we can put our faith in this man and in his vision and in his strength. So much of our optimism depends on him.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Challenges are real, serious and many . . . they will be met
"Our capacity remains undiminished" and let's "begin again the work of remaking America." Inspiring and galvanizing words. I am touched. I am inspired. Words cannot express the feelings.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
We are Goliath? and lots of other thoughts
Yesterday, I repeated the proverb that pride goes before a fall, and today, in the wee waking moments over coffee and letting the dog out for a run, I contemplated the idea that we are Goliath, we being the West, the U.S. This is, apparently, not a new notion, according to several items that came up on my google search, and it's not entirely new to me, either. But it's still a very scary thought for me. I don't like seeing myself as part of the Goliath team. Yet, I know this is how we are viewed by many people, many of whom live inside the West.
So, I just want to muse on this blog while I think about this notion, thinking out loud so to speak. I don't expect it to all make sense, or even come to a coherent conclusion, but I feel it's necessary to examine this idea. Plus, it dovetails nicely with the other input I got from MSNBC Morning Joe's discussion of Barack Obama. (Can they ever get tired of that subject? They have sliced and diced him 6 ways from Sunday; I like the guy, but really?) I heard Tom Brokaw and some other guy say something catchy about Obama's humility, which I can't for the life of me repeat right now, but essentially, the point was that his background as a child of both Kansas and Kenya set him on the path of centrism, which has been his pattern over the years, including Harvard, to bring everyone around the table.
Okay, that got me thinking, once again, that the election of Obama shows how significant is our national longing for return to a humble approach to global relations. Under all our patterns, and training and traditions and consumerism, and bravado and desire to be the best, underneath all our culture and civilization, there is a strong national, perhaps world, desire to admit that we (the so-called civilized ones) don't, in fact, know it all and we want to be able to sit at the table with the world as human beings, not as super-consumers and Goliaths.
Now, pause for a minute. Anybody who might possibly be reading this, pause and think about the last time you said something humble or admitted fault to your brother, sister, co-worker, mother, father, fellow-student, wife, husband, best friend, child, patient, client, direct report, neighbor, grocer, teller, banker, or waitress. When is the last time? How hard was it? Did you feel weak, if you did? Did you find it impossible to admit fault, if you didn't? Have you ever admitted fault? If you did, did you feel it was a mistake?
Personally, admitting fault is like having a baby; it takes a long period of gestation and a prolonged agonizing period of pain to give birth to an admission of fault. I don't do it well, however, I have done it, and heaven knows, I try. Admitting that I struggle with admitting fault is hard. The bottom line, we don't see the strength in admitting fault, we see and feel the weakness and vulnerability of that position and avoid taking that position. So much of both individual and collective life boils down to avoiding feeling weak and vulnerable. Collectively, a nation does so many things in the name of security, which boils down to not wanting to feel weak and vulnerable. Many extremes of behavior and justified in the name of security, like waterboarding as a prime example, in the ultimate name of security, which is another way of saying, I can't stand feeling weak and vulnerable. Admitting fault is not an act of "security" but it IS the act of a secure being. Metaphorically speaking, it's having a cow, man.
Now, I've brought personal and national security into the picture, which ties back into my post which posits that most of human endeavor is our attempt to bring order out of chaos. Order = security, chaos = uncontrollable forces. See how those two concepts are tied together inextricably? Desiring order and security . . . a human imperative that gives meaning and structure to life and can no more be changed than growing hair all over our body. At what point, however, does this impulse slip into compulsion to bring [our] order and security to everyone, including the world? At what point does it, do we, become like the Philistines, sending their champion every day to the valley to challenge the opponent and to take a stand for our way?
Maybe this analogy is getting stretched too thin. Personal and national security, we can't live without security, right? It's always a good thing to fight those intruders/evil-doers who want to rob us of our security, right? If we're sitting on the best of everything and the world wants a piece, we get to tell everybody how to do things, right? Our way, our western, now democratic, traditions are best, right? And if everyone does it the way we have been doing it for 200 plus years, they will get the things and ways we have, right? Isn't all that unquestionable? Isn't it treason to intimate otherwise?So how can we ever be Goliath? We're the wise and prosperous people who just want to help everyone, right?
Seriously, I'm asking these questions seriously.
At the same time that I pose these questions, I know that civilizations rise and fall, and things fall apart, and Goliath gets beheaded, and the little guy triumphs, and security, well, security must be sought in other ways than the old, traditional ways. History. It happened. I pose questions that are directed at the underpinnings of our assumptions. Hubris tells us that those underpinnings are unquestionable. And humility would tell us that questioning these assumptions are good.
The point I'm coming too, in this roundabout way, is that public dialogue is swinging more toward the questioning, more toward the hope that humility can result in overall good. Posing the question of whether I am faultless and perfect is a good thing. It's a healthy thought. Because, we're not perfect, and we are not secure. This civilization, this system, is not perfect and can never attain perfect security, especially not through external means. If we have enemies on every side, well, let's take a look at ourselves while we fight the good fight.
We are Goliath? If we are, we don't need to keep being Goliath. If we're not Goliath, it doesn't make us David, either.
I don't know how comfortable I am with questioning assumptions which have given me structure and security for ages. But if I don't question, I could easily become Goliath.
So, I just want to muse on this blog while I think about this notion, thinking out loud so to speak. I don't expect it to all make sense, or even come to a coherent conclusion, but I feel it's necessary to examine this idea. Plus, it dovetails nicely with the other input I got from MSNBC Morning Joe's discussion of Barack Obama. (Can they ever get tired of that subject? They have sliced and diced him 6 ways from Sunday; I like the guy, but really?) I heard Tom Brokaw and some other guy say something catchy about Obama's humility, which I can't for the life of me repeat right now, but essentially, the point was that his background as a child of both Kansas and Kenya set him on the path of centrism, which has been his pattern over the years, including Harvard, to bring everyone around the table.
Okay, that got me thinking, once again, that the election of Obama shows how significant is our national longing for return to a humble approach to global relations. Under all our patterns, and training and traditions and consumerism, and bravado and desire to be the best, underneath all our culture and civilization, there is a strong national, perhaps world, desire to admit that we (the so-called civilized ones) don't, in fact, know it all and we want to be able to sit at the table with the world as human beings, not as super-consumers and Goliaths.
Now, pause for a minute. Anybody who might possibly be reading this, pause and think about the last time you said something humble or admitted fault to your brother, sister, co-worker, mother, father, fellow-student, wife, husband, best friend, child, patient, client, direct report, neighbor, grocer, teller, banker, or waitress. When is the last time? How hard was it? Did you feel weak, if you did? Did you find it impossible to admit fault, if you didn't? Have you ever admitted fault? If you did, did you feel it was a mistake?
Personally, admitting fault is like having a baby; it takes a long period of gestation and a prolonged agonizing period of pain to give birth to an admission of fault. I don't do it well, however, I have done it, and heaven knows, I try. Admitting that I struggle with admitting fault is hard. The bottom line, we don't see the strength in admitting fault, we see and feel the weakness and vulnerability of that position and avoid taking that position. So much of both individual and collective life boils down to avoiding feeling weak and vulnerable. Collectively, a nation does so many things in the name of security, which boils down to not wanting to feel weak and vulnerable. Many extremes of behavior and justified in the name of security, like waterboarding as a prime example, in the ultimate name of security, which is another way of saying, I can't stand feeling weak and vulnerable. Admitting fault is not an act of "security" but it IS the act of a secure being. Metaphorically speaking, it's having a cow, man.
Now, I've brought personal and national security into the picture, which ties back into my post which posits that most of human endeavor is our attempt to bring order out of chaos. Order = security, chaos = uncontrollable forces. See how those two concepts are tied together inextricably? Desiring order and security . . . a human imperative that gives meaning and structure to life and can no more be changed than growing hair all over our body. At what point, however, does this impulse slip into compulsion to bring [our] order and security to everyone, including the world? At what point does it, do we, become like the Philistines, sending their champion every day to the valley to challenge the opponent and to take a stand for our way?
Maybe this analogy is getting stretched too thin. Personal and national security, we can't live without security, right? It's always a good thing to fight those intruders/evil-doers who want to rob us of our security, right? If we're sitting on the best of everything and the world wants a piece, we get to tell everybody how to do things, right? Our way, our western, now democratic, traditions are best, right? And if everyone does it the way we have been doing it for 200 plus years, they will get the things and ways we have, right? Isn't all that unquestionable? Isn't it treason to intimate otherwise?So how can we ever be Goliath? We're the wise and prosperous people who just want to help everyone, right?
Seriously, I'm asking these questions seriously.
At the same time that I pose these questions, I know that civilizations rise and fall, and things fall apart, and Goliath gets beheaded, and the little guy triumphs, and security, well, security must be sought in other ways than the old, traditional ways. History. It happened. I pose questions that are directed at the underpinnings of our assumptions. Hubris tells us that those underpinnings are unquestionable. And humility would tell us that questioning these assumptions are good.
The point I'm coming too, in this roundabout way, is that public dialogue is swinging more toward the questioning, more toward the hope that humility can result in overall good. Posing the question of whether I am faultless and perfect is a good thing. It's a healthy thought. Because, we're not perfect, and we are not secure. This civilization, this system, is not perfect and can never attain perfect security, especially not through external means. If we have enemies on every side, well, let's take a look at ourselves while we fight the good fight.
We are Goliath? If we are, we don't need to keep being Goliath. If we're not Goliath, it doesn't make us David, either.
I don't know how comfortable I am with questioning assumptions which have given me structure and security for ages. But if I don't question, I could easily become Goliath.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Chaos and Order: pride goeth before a fall
As a home educator of a 4th grader, when I'm not pulling my hair out with frustration, I am trying to find ways to help bring order out of the natural 4th grader's chaotic view of the world. That attempt often leads me to 5AM rambling thoughts about chaos and order in general, which may or may not make sense, but bear with me as I share some of my musings.
Above images from Yeatsvision.com http://www.yeatsvision.com/Geometry.html
The big picture first: most of human endeavor is an attempt to bring order of out the overwhelming and scary chaos of the universe. We enjoy our games, with rules galore, to such an extent that we can become obsessed and addicted. We pursue our educations and our careers, also pinnacles of attempts to bring order to knowledge and commerce.
As an aside, my 4th grader has asked me persistently since he was a first grader, who invented school? And what punishment did they give that guy?
Back to the big picture: we take the overarching human attempt to create order out of chaos to be noble and praiseworthy to the highest level, since it's self-evident that disorder brings a host of ills; look at those poor "savages" who live in squalor and disease. In general, we call all our human attempts to bring order, "civilization" and see the opposite as barbarous and uncivilized. In fact, there are those who believe that our attempt to overlay reality with human order, civilization, is the source of all good, and believe that unquestioningly. I have to admit personally that I probably can't exist in a world without clocks and calendars and street lights, but I can admit that those constructions are human overlays to the reality of this planet, and are not themselves the actual passage of time or the actual interaction of traffic. I can envision a time or a place without those constructions. I don't say I'm entirely comfortable with that vision, but I know that human civilizations actually do rise and fall, so "things fall apart," thank you Yeats and Achebe.
I worry that there are some of us, high-level decision makers, who take the human constructed order-making activity (I'm intentionally avoiding the word "civilization" because it's loaded with meaning for us all, and I'm trying to step outside the box for a minute) for granted, and assume that all humans embrace order as a basic good. I'm of the opinion, inspired by my 4th grader, that not all humans think order and rules and patterns and traditions and generally-agreed-upon human constructs are really so noble and praiseworthy. There is, within the human psyche of some, a deep resistance to having time patterns and date patterns and education patterns imposed on themselves, even when the full force of their own cultural traditions and history are brought to bear to train them to live and interact within these patterns. The movers and shakers, important decision makers who take civilization (okay, fine) for granted run into this resistance, and I worry that their first response is to declare war on it and feel justified that history will show them to be right and righteous in warring against what they consider evils that threaten out safety and security.
There, I've basically said it overtly so I might as well state this point, but it's hard: Warring on terror and terrorists is warring against those who are resisting having an alien pattern imposed upon them. This seems like it's stating the obvious but as our western civilization juggernaut rolls on through these centuries, resistance should be assumed. How the so-called civilized respond to the resistance becomes extremely important. If we don't ever question or admit that our civilization is merely one way that human beings have attempted to bring order to the chaos of the universe over humankind's tenure on this planet, if we portray ourselves as right and righteous and better merely because we are defending the patterns and traditions of of our western heritage, if we stand on that assumption in self-righteousness with pride and hubris, then we are most likely to continue to inspire suicidal resistance.
My subtitle is pride goeth before a fall, which brings me to the talk of apocalypse and 2012, which is something to consider for a future post, because my time is getting short for posting and I have to bring order, once again, to myself and my 4th grader.
Adding Yeats' poem here seems appropriate. I got the poem from here: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
-end of poem-
From Wikipedia, I learned about gyre : "William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) used the term gyre in some of his poems, the most prominent being The Second Coming (poem). The gyre is two inverted vortexes that overlap quite considerably and they are a visual representation of the coming of a new era (Yates believed this happened every 2000 years). Generally the new era that comes is directly opposite of the era that has just past." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyre_(disambiguation)
Sunkisses and friends
I assisted at a focus group for an activity book called Sunkisses, http://www.lovesunkisses.com/. The focus group consisted for lots of young girls between 4 and 14, I think. They colored away on various pages of the activity book. The distinctive features of the book are the affirmations and the images. Each girl is captioned with a positive statement about herself or her activity. And, most importantly, each girl is featured as being a girl of color who is very comfortable with herself and her body image.
I love the book, I love the images, and I love the messages.
Starla Lewis, the author, has a firm grasp on the identity needs of little girls of color, and I know she will take this and run with it!!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Spicy Collards and Black Eyed Peas
I made this recipe from http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2008/05/spicy-collards-and-black-eyed-pea-soup.html with a few changes and boy! was it Yum-ME!!
I used frozen collards, no bell pepper and no tomato paste. However, I used about a 1/4 cup of Pace Picante Salsa and 1 Tablespoon of Paprika and a Tablespoon of Turmeric, with a teaspoon of my favorite chile powder, since I didn't have chipotle and a smidgen of ginger. I added a teaspoon of wine vinegar at the tend, to perk up the flavor even more. I cooked the greens for about 30 minutes before adding the cooked peas and other ingredients. It was a major hit!! Healthy and tasty, to the max!!
Makes at least 6 servings. Each provides 242 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (4% calories from fat); 16g Protein; 45g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 488mg Sodium; 11g Fiber. Weight Watchers Core/4 Flex Points.
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