Lift Up Your Hearts!

After a rainy day, the weather cleared in time to encourage the trick-or-treaters to come out.  We had more than usual and I was afraid we'd run out of Mounds bars, so a couple of times I gave out one each instead of two.  I needn't have been so parsimonious—the flow dried up at 9:00 as if someone had thrown a switch, and I turned out the porch light at 9:30.

It's an old trick, I fell for it, and I'm glad.

Grocery stores love to put attractive displays in the checkout area, in hopes of luring shoppers to add one or two more items to their carts while waiting.  Albertsons has large displays of fresh, hot French bread, particularly irresistable to those who come to the grocery store on their way home from work.

I rarely give in to the temptation, but today I saw something new:  Nabisco's Honey Maid Gingerbread Graham Crackers.  I recommend you all go to your nearest tempting grocery display and buy some!  It's hard to imagine why anything this good can get away with being called "cracker" rather than "cookie," but hey, at least it's whole wheat.  :)

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (Free Press, 2003)

I must send this book back to the library without a proper review, but it deserves a few comments.  After hearing a friend's summary, I had to find out more.  I'm afraid I was somewhat disappointed, but I think that was more because my friend's summary was so good, causing me to expect more than was there.  I almost, though not quite, would have been as well off with just the summary.  I also might have appreciated it more if I had not already read so many books by Stephen Covey, of which this book reminds me very much.  I think Covey's books are well worthwhile, and this too, but there wasn't as much new as I had expected.

After that buildup, I'm sure you're expecting me to reproduce what my friend said.  Alas, I can't do that, but I will try to cover a couple of points that were especially meaningful to me.

First—and this is a point that needs much more exploring than I can do here—is the power of positive rituals in our lives.  The authors studied top-notch tennis players to try to find what separated the greatest from the great.  Their conclusion was that they were equally skilled at the game; the difference was in how they used the brief moment when they were not actively playing. The really great players, for example, had specific rituals that they went through between points.  What that did for them, the authors discovered, was enable them to rest and recover more than their non-ritualistic opponents.  Both had the same amount of time, but somehow the ritual enabled the greater player to get into recovery mode much more quickly; thus he recovered more fully.  All this in a few seconds between points, but it made a huge difference.

That idea got me thinking about the importance of ritual in general, in a way I hadn't considered before.  I've often felt that the increasing loss of ritual and routine in our casual and hurried society is not good, that we suffer for the loss of regular bedtimes and predictable bedtime procedures, consistent family meals, gestures of respect, holiday customs, liturgy in worship, and so much more.  Now my eyes have been opened to a possible reason for my gut feeling.

Flexibility is important too, but ritual is a kind of lubricant that makes life work better, and more efficiently.  Automating parts of our lives frees energy for more important work.  Certain decisions, once made, can be rested upon and not revisited every night, or every year.  Perhaps rituals work like the "muscle memory" of a musician, in which the muscle is so well trained that it works independently of the brain, and thus much faster than if the movement required conscious thought.

I haven't thought it all through yet, but it's definitely an idea worth pursuing.

The second powerfu idea in The Power of Full Engagement is that we are not only overstressed, we are also understressed.  High performance requires balance in our lives among the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions.  For each we have "muscles," either literal or metaphoric, and with that analogy it's easy to see the harm in both overuse and underuse.  Most of us, the authors found, can reduce stress in some areas by stressing others a little more.  For example, people in high-stress jobs tend to neglect themselves physically, which leads to a downward spiral.  Even though they feel they can't possibly make time for exercise or good nutrition, when they do, they find they improve their lives in all areas.  We speak much about the need to reduce stress in our lives, but paradoxically that may be best achieved by increasing stress in neglected areas.

I'll close with a quote that doesn't fit with either of the above thoughts, but which I love and want to record.

Extrinsic rewards have actually been shown to undermine intrinsic motivation.  Researchers Mark R. Lepper and David R. Green spent time watching nursery school children at play in order to assess what they most enjoyed doing.  Next, they began giving each child a reward each time he or she engaged in the preferred activity.  [I'm fairly certain this is a reference to the work of the University of Rochester's Edward Deci and Richard Ryan.]  Across the board, the children's interest in activiies quickly diminished when they were associated with rewards.  In a second study, adults doing puzzles were rewarded each time they were successful in completing them.  Like the children, their interest in continuing the activity progressively decreased.  Plainly, people can be motivated by material gain and by external praise.  The point is that we feel more passion for and derive more pleasure from doing what we freely choose and most enjoy.

I wasn't one of the ones she "tagged," and I generally think "memes" are generally inane, but Liz over at Smithical posted this one, and I like it, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Five Good Things

Silence  This blessed commodity is very hard to come by these days.  I don't mean total lack of sound so much as freedom from mechanical, manmade sounds and loud sounds in any form.  As I sit here in my office, it is "quiet":  Porter is reading, there is no music, television show, nor telephone conversation to hear.  And yet I am still assailed by noise at significant volume:  the chug of a hard drive, the whirr of a fan, the whine of a monitor.  If I sit on our back porch early enough, I can avoid the noise of pool pumps, air conditioners, and power saws, but the birds, bugs, frogs, and squirrels don't quite drown out the roar of the highway two and a half miles away.  Waiting at the doctor's office, driving down the road, eating at a restaurant, getting one's hair cut, grocery shopping—whatever we do, we are bombarded with sound.  And when was the last time your church allowed any amount of time at all for silent prayer and meditation during a worship service?  At one of ours, we designed a Maundy Thursday service that included a full minute of silence; it seemed an eternity, but was very powerful.  Without silence, we will lose our ability to think deep thoughts.

Hugs  In our sex-obsessed culture, we have forgotten the critical importance of non-sexual physical affection.  Without it, infants "fail to thrive"—they die.  As we grow, we learn to endure that deprivation, but we die inside.  Only young children give their affection freely; perhaps that's why they are so beloved.

Books  Our connection to the Great Conversation, to the past, to the wide world, to worlds of fantasy.  How could we live without books?  Whether a dusty genealogy tome in the library, a delightful novel with a comfortable chair and a cup of tea, or a children's book and a grandchild in my lap, I love books!

Water  Was there ever such a wonderful element?  Cold water, the best drink ever for a thirsty throat; cool water to swim in on a hot day; water for washing away the grit and grime of life; no wonder God endowed this symbol with such rich spiritual significance.

Making Music Together  Music, itself, is a Good Thing, but the miracle of coming together and making music for the joy of it is a Very Great, Powerful, Healing Thing.  With our professional music groups, our concerts, and our CD's, we have access to music of a variety and quality no other era could imagine.  But we have almost lost what it means to make our own music, and that is tragic.

Porter had to get up early this morning for a 7:00 dentist appointment, but that didn't stop him from staying up late last night.  Now his beloved Boston Red Sox have won the World Series twice in his lifetime, which until now few living Red Sox fans could say.  He's been too busy to watch all the games, but he enjoyed a few, especially last night's.

I've been waiting for The Good Shepherds to become available online ever since I read the print version in Christianity Today magazine.  This positive, upbeat story resonates with me in so many ways, it well deserves a post.

[Insert the usual disclaimer here:  This way of life is not for everyone; it not my intention to offend, nor to imply disrespect for other people's life situations, much less push anyone into a lifestyle that is far from mainstream—albeit that it would have been considered normal by most of our ancestors.  But I can't help considering this a very cool life choice indeed.]

I encourage you to read the entire article; it's short, and tells an inspiring story of a small movement to revitalize both declining rural areas and declining family life. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the article:

Once you opt out of the conventional paradigm [of public schooling] and find it satisfying, then you begin searching for other paradigms to opt out of

So we discovered.  If we took baby steps of unconventionality when we decided to become a homeschooling family, our children are now taking full strides, not only in education but also in their approaches to family life, childbirth and childrearing, health and medicine, entrepreneurship, community life, and even running styles!  By no means do I think unconventionality is limited to homeschoolers.  Jon, after all, was not homeschooled, though he thinks in many ways like a homeschooler—if I may be permitted such stereotyping—and his schooling in small-town New Hampshire was unconventional enough, at least when measured against most public school experiences I know of.  Nonetheless, I'm convinced that homeschoolers, having chosen the step outside the mainstream in a big way, are predisposed to thinking unconventionally in other areas.

Scott was skeptical when his wife said that she felt God wanted the family to raise sheep. "Excuse me," Scott replied. "I can't even stand to mow my own yard. What makes you think I'm going to start doing things like that?"

I guess he found out that sheep make pretty good lawn mowers.  :) 

Thirty years ago, 80 percent of all visitors to our farm were hippie, cosmic-worshipping, nirvana earth muffins....Today, 80 percent are Christian homeschoolers.

I've found that the homeschooling, homebirthing, and back-to-earth movements are populated by groups of people that are in many ways radically different from each other; what they have in common is dedication to a particular set of ideas, and the fact that they are even more radically different from mainstream society.

How do I leave my Dilbert cubicle at the end of an expressway...and instead invest in my family, my kids, my community?

Sometimes by combining more mainstream work with farming, like Heather and Jon's friends at Providence Pastures Farm, which is where I first learned the delights of drinking raw milk.  Of course I immediately thought of them when I read the article.  Having a job that can be done primarily from home does help reduce the pressure of trying to make the farm self-sustaining.  I believe that when these folks their motivation was simply to provide healthy food for their children, and the farm lifestyle grew from there.

In our culture today, we've got this mentality that you send your kids off to school to get a good enough education, to get a good enough diploma, to get a good enough job, to pay well enough to work a thousand miles away from home, to accumulate enough money so they can put you in a nursing home when you get old. What I'm looking for is for my grandkids to argue over who gets to spend the day with grandpa.

Amen!  And grandma, too.

Apologies to those of you who are waiting for the story of last weekend's adventures in Sarasota.  That will come, but in the meantime it's been a while since I posted, and I just came upon the essay I wrote for a genealogy contest with the less-than-inspiring title of this post.

The circumstances were interesting, however.  Because the sponsoring organization was Irish, I thought my story might be of interest to them.  Maybe it was, but not enough to win. However, a blog owner can be her own publisher, and since they didn't want it, I'm sharing it here.  :)

Why My Family History Is Important to Me

A few special people develop an interest in history and family early in life.  I was not one of them.  As a child, I was interested in what was close by:  the present, the near future, our immediate family.  Distant things—the past, the future, relatives I didn’t know—impinged little on the circle of my interest.  Most especially and deliberately I was not interested in my ancestry, who my forebears were and where they came from.

A child’s natural self-centeredness played a large part in my lack of interest.  So, too, did a kind of reverse snobbery.  I did not want to be classed with those who bragged that their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, nor with those who joined the Daughters of the American Revolution.  My parents must have had some of the same attitude, because the subject certainly wasn’t of any interest to them, in spite—or because—of the fact that my mother’s grandmother was herself a member of the DAR.

What opened the world of genealogy to me was my college-age daughter's sudden and intense interest in Irish music and dance.  After an exhilarating music seisiún, she would find it disappointing to have no answer to the oft-asked question, "What part of Ireland are your ancestors from?"  As far as any of us knew, she had no Irish ancestors.

But we really didn't know anything at all, so I began to dig, hoping not for gold, but for green.  Lo and behold, there on my mother's side was Robert Henry, born about 1740, in Ireland!  That's all it said on his tombstone, but at least my daughter could claim one Irish ancestor.  In another branch I found Nathan Smith, from County Tyrone, and though I haven't yet found an origin for my Cunninghams and Daughertys, their names give me hope.

Finding Irish ancestors was the goal, but I became hooked on the process.  For someone who loves puzzles as much as I do, genealogy research is more fun than a cup of tea, a new World of Puzzles magazine, and a free afternoon.  The map of my origins now comprises many countries, and each name, city, and date I add is a treasure.

Age and experience have a way of changing one's perspective.  I still have no interest in joining any of the hereditary societies for which I qualify—sometimes many times over—but at last I realize that genealogy is only Honor thy father and thy mother writ large.  Contrary to what I learned in school, history is not dull!  It is the fascinating story of ideas and their consequences worked out in the lives of human beings.  Our people—our ancestors and descendants, whether by blood, adoption, marriage, or some other deep connection—provide our link to that story.  We stand at the point of Now; it is our family that gives us the past and the future as well.

It's been a while since I've posted anything in the RETHINK category, but I was inspired by this article on the differences in chilbirth between the United Kingdom and the United States. As much as I have come to appreciate midwives and the option of home birth, the point of this post is not to tout the British socialized health care system, which I know has significant problems. Nor do I wish to make the all-too-common mistake of assuming that an idea is better just because it's not American—or because it is European—an error which is just as dangerous as its opposite.

What strikes me as so vitally important, especially for Americans who, thanks to the size and historical self-sufficiency of our country, tend to have less contact with other cultures than most educated people, is the great benefit of listening to and exploring other people's views on topics that are so well-ingrained in our own lives we never question them. Ideas that are so much a part of us we imagine anyone who would think otherwise as uncultured, uncivilized, and ignorant: "They do such-and-such because they don't know any better. When they see our way they will know it is best." Most of us wouldn't actually say that, but it's a strong gut reaction. It's a good thing, then for all of us to encounter people who have equally deep-seated feelings that their ways, very different from ours, are superior. Whether we come away from the comparison with our minds changed, or more convinced than ever that we are right, we benefit from the encounter.

Not many people can learn this lesson by living in another culture, as Janet has. But the Internet can be a great eye-opener, and most of us probably have neighbors, co-workers, and church or school friends who would be happy to share a different cultural view.  Not to mention that getting married, even to someone from one's own culture, can be a surprising introduction to the thought that ideas, habits, and customs we take for granted are not necessarily universal. :)

I'm designing a playroom, and have been for years.  I don't ever expect to see it, since (1) our children are grown, and (2) my design takes no account of cost.  Nonetheless it's fun imagining what I'd do if I could, kind of like mentally spending lottery winnings (even though I never buy a ticket).

My playroom would be as much outdoors as it could be while still being usable in all seasons—lots of large windows or sliding glass doors with screens, perhaps, and an indoor/outdoor connection.  The latter could be a door, but wouldn't a tunnel be fun?  There would be a large art/craft section, and music (instruments for playing and a CD player for listening), and a brachiation ladder; well-stocked bookshelves and perhaps a sunken reading pit with comfortable cushions; a timeline all around the room and many maps and pictures on the walls.

The centerpiece of my imagined room has always been a structure of tunnels, ladders, ramps, and steps to encourage crawling, creeping, and climbing.  I was quite excited to discover that such a thing really exists!  However, even if Heather and Jon had room for it, and we could afford it, they wouldn't be getting it for Christmas.  This one was custom-made for a Hong Kong preschool.  Still, maybe the idea will catch on.

I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a man whose children graduated not long ago from our local Catholic schools system.  He mentioned that his son found his college classes much easier than the ones he took in high school.  This man believes that education in the United States in general, and textbooks in particular, have been significantly "dumbed down." As I've written before, I both agree and disagree with that statement.  I find it generally true even though there are notable, marked exceptions.

I'm not one to be overly awed by statistics purporting to show how much better other countries' educational systems are.  It wasn't that long ago that we were sending teams to Japan to discover why their children were learning so much more, yet at the same time the Japanese were sending teams here to learn why American students were so much more creative and innovative.  And yet the signs are screaming like downtown Tokyo, from this tiny preschool to the large population of foreign students on U.S. college campuses, particularly in the hard sciences and engineering:  Other countries take education, effort, and discipline far more seriously than we do.

So far we have survived on our creativity, our intellectual capital, and our tremendous natural and financial resources.  We've also enjoyed political and economic systems that are conducive to innovation and growth.  And we've been lucky.

Would I revamp our educational system to sponsor preschools such as this one all over the country?  No.  But I do wish Americans respected children, valued education, and encouraged self-discipline much more than we do.

And I'm going to keep my eyes open for play structures like that one.

We watched Bridge to Terebithia yesterday, and I've been struggling with what to say about it ever since.  As usual, Porter knew exactly what he liked and didn't like, and had no trouble expressing himself on the issues.  Often I can, too; in fact, I did so easily with the other movie we watched this weekend, the Oscar-winning The Apartment.  (In brief, it started off slowly and the story was unpleasant, but Shirley MacLaine's acting was amazing and powerful.)

Porter didn't like the movie, and I did.  He could be specific, such as his comment that the transitions between real life and the fantasy world did not work for him—unlike his experience with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  But while I could find things to complain of—I didn't like the music; there were some modern attitudes and stereotypes that annoyed me; there was one event the improbability of which was a distraction, even in a movie where reality and fantasy are intertwined—yet in everything that was important I could say little more than, "I liked the story."  Porter's repeated attempts to get something comprehensible out of that statement only frustrated us both.

So the question kept returning—as I was falling asleep, when I awoke, during church, through much of a lovely afternoon picnic—and I think I finally have an answer.  I deliberately avoided reading other people's reviews, though I think I will enjoy them now.  Bear in mind, also, that I have not yet read the book, but am basing my analysis solely on the film.

Film, books, music, and paintings can inspire me in a variety of ways, but the ones that mean the most to me are those of which the attraction I find hardest to explain, because they reach something within me that is beyond rationality.  They touch my imagination as well as my mind, and the imagination will not be explained, only known; if communicated, it can only be to someone whose imagination has been similarly affected.  I've tried to explain this before by saying that my favorite books and movies are those that make me want to be a better person, though that is only touching the hem of the garment, so to speak.

In thinking this through, I realized that this, precisely, is what I like about the Bridge to Terebithia story.  Despite what I had read in previews, despite what I heard in the DVD's "special features" analysis before we turned it off in disgust, this is not this story of a couple of schoolchildren who create a fantasy world as an escape from their real-life troubles.  In Bridge to Terebithia the fantasy world is far more real than everyday life.  The imagination sees truths hidden from ordinary eyes.

It wasn't till well into my ruminations that I realized that the unreality of the film's "real life" setting and characters was deliberate.  The exaggerations and stereotypes are jarring, like a painting with garish, unreal colors, which effectively highlights the question of where reality lies. 

Organizing for Your Brain Type by Lanna Nakone (St. Martin's Press, 2005)

1.  The library finally came through with this book, and I've just started reading it. I'm interested to see where it will go, because I've already been surprised by the quiz. I was sure I'd be a cross between the Harmonizer and the Innovator, but my highest score was Maintainer! Actually, I didn't score high enough in any category to fit well: 15, 11, 14, 10 [Maintainer, Harmonizer, Innovator, Prioritizer] -- and you have to have at least 20 in one category to fit that label. Just like me to defy labels, I guess. Maybe I'll get more insight as I read further.

2.  I just took the sensory preference quiz: Kinesthetic=11, Auditory=9, Visual=4. I'm not too surprised, but wish I could take the more official test you (Heather) took in school, because I know the situation is much more complex than the book's quiz can show. As low as Visual is in some areas -- powers of observation, for example -- I'd much, much rather get information from a book than a lecture, and in some ways (albeit weakly) my memory is photographic -- I'll remember the location on a page spread of a quotation I'm looking, for example. Yet if I've talked with someone for two hours and you later ask me what color dress she was wearing, I'll likely not have a clue....

3.  Although I know Dad [Porter] isn't 100% Maintainer, here's evidence that that Force is strong in him:

With your linear, structured style, you focus on details and develop effective methods that allow you to manage tasks and complete assignments, checking them off one by one. Your work style isn't about speed, but reflects a methodical approach that usually requires uninterrupted time to get the job done. Being slow-paced, deliberate, and sequential, your brain type prefers doing things in a way that can appear to others as somewhat boring. But who cares, you do it right the first time and would rather take the time to be right than [be] the first one done!

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize.  While I don't think well enough of the committee that makes these decisions to be impressed, many others are now suggesting he run for president.  I'll admit I do find him in many ways more attractive than the current Democratic candidates, but I don't think he should join the fray.

Al Gore has an Emmy, an Oscar, and now a Nobel Peace Prize.  He receives a great deal of respect at home and abroad.  He is doing work he enjoys and believes to be important.  In short, he has good cause to be grateful to the Florida Supreme Court.

Should he become president of the United States, he will be trashed, he will be thrashed, he will be heaped with scorn from his enemies for doing too much and from his allies for doing too little.  What's more, no matter what his optimisitic supporters may think, he won't be able to do much good from the Oval Office.  Despite all the rhetoric and wishful thinking from his opponents, George W. Bush did not cause the world's problems, and his departure will not solve them.  In all probability, Al Gore is doing much more to accomplish his goals right where he is than he ever would from the White House.

How many times do I have to be taught that technology, while useful, even delightful at times, is not to be depended on?  I wonder if electronic equipment works better in Switzerland, where trains and trams are so dependable that a three-minute deviation from schedule is a notable occurrence?

Once again, I picked up my PDA to find it had lost everything.  This is the third time that has happened in about a year an a half, and I think it's related to alarms going off repeatedly when I'm not aware of them.  I'd love to shut off the alarms on the handheld device, but I can't do that without removing them from the desktop, which is where I really need them.  But this time surprised me, because last I knew there was still plenty of life in the batteries.

Oh, well—I had a backup and only lost a couple of pieces of data.  It would be helpful if I knew which data I'd lost, but I'll manage.  At least this time I was home and could restore the data quickly—the first time I was on vacation and could do nothing till my return.  That's when I learned to keep key information on paper when I travel!

I don't believe I was aware of the launch of the first Sputnik 50 years ago.  I do remember going outside with my father two and a half years later to watch Echo 1 traverse the sky.  That marked the first of many excursions with him to look at phenomena in the sky:  satellites, lunar and solar eclipses, comets.

The results are mixed.  I remember my father remarking that I was learning much more than he did, by which he chiefly meant that I studied calculus in high school.  His first calculus course was in college, and the only reason he had been exempt from taking trigonometry first was that he had gone to a particularly good high school.  That our children's first calculus experiences were in early high school was due to their previous home education, not the public school system, but their high school does deserve full credit for making it possible for them to complete half a dozen or more college-level classes before they graduated.  There was no Advanced Placement program when my parents were in high school, and in my day it was limited to just a few courses and open to seniors only.  It's undeniable that the 50 years post-Sputnik have expanded our educational opportunities, and many people are graduating from high school with knowledge far advanced from that of previous generations.

And yet....  In general knowledge I could never compete with my father, and neither could my siblings, our children, nor any of our contemporaries.  In history, geography, and literature the gap was especially noticeable, all the more so since by profession he was an engineer.  He was continually astonished at what people didn't know about things he assumed were common knowledge, such as the location of Hudson Bay.  He could recite great quantities of poetry, understand literary references, and converse about history from ancient times to the present.  Some of his knowledge, to be sure, must be credited to his life-long habit of reading books, but I know he learned much of it in school, and even in his love of books he differs from most contemporary students—how many graduate with the habit of reading to sustain their education all their lives?

Technically, of course, today's students are far beyond his knowledge, even though he had a master's degree in physics to supplement his engineering degree.  And yet, even though he would have been lost in most of his daughter's and granddaughter's mechanical engineering courses, his college courses left him with a gut-level, practical knowledge of the behavior of materials lacking in those "who just plug numbers into computer models."

So—is our educational system better than it was pre-Sputnik?  Certainly yes, and definitely no.  We know more in some areas, but are we better educated? For poor, minority and special-needs students (both low- and high-end), opportunites are certainly greater.  But are our children, in general, better off?  Are they graduating with both the skills and the will to continue learning throughout their lives?  Do they have a sound foundation in all basic areas on which to build?  Are they building on that foundation?

Have the changes been worth the cost?

I don't know the answers.

What I do know is that in our home education program we did not give our children a tenth of the education I had hoped for—and yet it rocketed them to the top of their college classes and best of all left them with the desire and ability to continue learning.  If we, doing so little, did so much, why hasn't our educational system done better, with its vast resources, its near-monopoly status, and its strong community, business, and governmental support?

Heather recently reviewed a book called Organizing for Your Brain Type.  According to this article, it might well have been called Organizing for Your Brain.  It seems that "consciencious" people—orderly, dependable, hard-working, goal-oriented, self-disciplined, organized folks—are at significanly less risk of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia as they age.

Autopsies revealed that these people did, in fact, have the kind of brain damage associated with Alzheimer's.  What made the difference, apparently, was their ability to cope despite the damage.

In old age, conscientiousness seems to have to do a lot with the risk of dementia. It’s not that it directly affects the underlying pathology. It seems to affect your ability to tolerate the pathology and maintain normal cognitive function.