Lift Up Your Hearts!

From The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien:

Works fair and wonderful, while still they endure for eyes to see, are their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song.

Here's a warning for those travelling to Canada:

I was prepared for the border agent to ask if we were bringing firearms with us into Canada. I was surprised, but not unduly so, when he asked if we had any alcohol. (Oops. I neglected to tell him about the 2 ounces we had in the first aid kit.) But I was flabbergasted when he asked if we had any knives, including jackknives. It's a good thing we weren't planning a picnic. I'm also glad I had left my larger jackknife behind (prescience?). Fortunately, my Swiss Army keychain with its one-inch blade (which the TSA thinks is dangerous) was allowed to pass the border, but he did examine it thoroughly. I was shocked.

The New York Times story begins like this:

There is a story in the Hebrew Bible that tells of God’s call for the annihilation of the Canaanites, a people who lived in what are now Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian territories thousands of years ago.

“You shall not leave alive anything that breathes,” God said in the passage. “But you shall utterly destroy them.”

But a genetic analysis published on Thursday has found that the ancient population survived that divine call for their extinction, and their descendants live in modern Lebanon.

It's an interesting article. What's frustrating is the implication that there should be anything suprising about the discovery the Canaanites did not die out.

Even a cursory reading of the Old Testament shows that if there is one thing the Israelites did not do, it was wipe out the Canaanites. Some they couldn't defeat, some they deliberately let live, some they were tricked into not destroying. They intermarried freely, despite prohibitions. So if there was a point in bringing up the out-of-context quotation, it's beyond me.

However, it does give me a plot idea for a behind-the-scenes fantasy story, with angels and archangels and "all the company of heaven" working in realms humans know not of, in which it is discovered that among the Canaanites there is a genetic mutation that will lead inevitably to some future, horrific disaster. The Israelites, a small and apparently unimportant tribe, are chosen as earthly agents to be groomed and trained for the job of making sure the mutation dies out, that no trace of that particular DNA is left to be passed into the future. But they fail, and disaster is hurtling towards us....

Happy Birthday to my country-in-law!

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin, 1977)

The Silmarillion had been sitting, unread, on my bookshelves for years, even decades. There's really no excuse. I've been a deeply-committed fan of Tolkien's work ever since high school, when my father's unusually prescient sister and her family gave me the Lord of the Rings trilogy one Christmas. If I had the words to explain how much those stories mean to me, I'd be a paid writer myself.

Since then I've read and loved others of Tolkien's works. The Hobbit is also one of my favorites, of course, and I have a special love for Leaf by Niggle. So why did I avoid The Silmarillion? Probably because it is a posthumous work, created by his son, Christopher Tolkien, from unpublished writings. Posthumus and unpublished works always make me nervous, because, like uncut gems, they lack the beauty and wonder that come from the artist's later efforts. I wonder, too: Would the author be pleased to see his ideas come to light after his death, or would he blush and feel his nakedness exposed?

Be that as it may, I knew I had to dust off this book when I discovered that our 13-year-old grandson had read it before me. I'm glad I did. I think Christopher Tolkien did an admirable job, and I loved learning more of the story that occurs before and around the Lord of the Rings books.

I don't recommend The Silmarillion to everyone, however. Those who have told me they just couldn't get past all the names in LOTR haven't seen anything yet. My head is still spinning. What's more, what I dislike most about the LOTR movies—the emphasis on endless battle scenes, and the lack of the amazing character development present in the books—is in full force here. The Silmarillion reads very much like The Iliad, or some of the Old Testament: lots of names, dry historical facts, and battle after battle, with just enough story to keep you going. It's a treasure trove of gems, but they're uncut, and how I wish Tolkien the elder had been able to give them the polish only he could have done.

— Glad I learned how to sing harmony. Thanks, Mom, for all those choruses of "Found a Peanut" in three parts when I was a kid!

— We had fun singing in the car, didn't we, sweetie? "Found a Peanut," "Make New Friends,"  "Thou Poor Bird" .... happy memories.

— Lots more than these, too ... dozens and dozens ... you would sing the harmony and I would sing the melody ... it trained my mind for hearing the parts and eventually we could switch.

This exchange between a professional backup singer friend and her choir director mother inspired me to write about a question that has been troubling me: Where do today's young children learn to sing in harmony?  They are surrounded by music (of a sort, anyway) in a way my generation never was, whether by choice on their phones or by chance in the shopping mall. But it's passive; where do they learn to sing?

Many of my elementary school classrooms had pianos. (And bless the teachers, we occasionally were allowed to fiddle on them before and after school.) Sometimes the music teacher came in and sang with us, and sometimes the teacher herself led us in singing. Later, but still in elementary school, we could choose to participate in a chorus, where we learned two- and three-part harmony. By the time we were in eighth grade, there were enough boys whose voices had changed to make that four-part.

Does that sound like a swanky private school to you?  It was actually four different public schools in a very small town in upstate New York. (Even back then districts were fond of moving students around.)

My own children had an absolutely fantastic music teacher in elementary school, and she gave them many experiences I never dreamed of. But when it comes to harmony, I had the better deal. They also had a far more amazing high school chorus experience than I did, but I'm talking about younger children: few high school students chose chorus as an option, fewer still if they had not had a great musical experience earlier on.

Our children also gained an incomparable musical education in church, thanks to a choir director who was both a great musician and a great teacher. But for congregational singing, I was much better off than children in most churches since then.

The church we attended when I was young was not, generally, an enlightening experience, and I was glad when we stopped going and I had my Sunday mornings free. But it, too, deserves a lot of credit in my musical education. We sang from the wonderful red Hymnbook published by a group of Reformed and Presbyterian denominations, a hymnbook complete with time and key signatures and four-part harmony for every hymn. Congregational singing was not as peaked in those days as it often is today, and that experience was foundational for my musical life.

Granted, I'm shy enough that I didn't feel at all secure in my singing until after many years of choir experience, and learning to improvise harmony came almost too late. I wish I'd learned more as a child. But I'm beginning to be convinced that, between school and church, I gained a better musical foundation in my tiny New York town than most children receive today.

What has been your musical experience?  Convince me that I'm wrong!

I found these adorable Ariel swim fins at Toys R Us, and couldn't resist them for our mermaid-obsessed granddaughter. They were on sale, and I thought $14 wasn't unreasonable, because—well, because I am a grandmother, I suppose.

At the same time, we needed an auto booster seat for our grandson. I found this cool seat at Walmart. The cost: $13.

A seat designed to keep a child safe costs less than a pair of child's swim fins?  More than 13% less, actually, since there was no sales tax on the car seat.

It could mean that the fins are vastly overpriced, but I prefer to think that the manufacturer and the state are conspiring to put travel safety within everyone's reach. You can spend multiple hundreds of dollars for a child's car seat—but you don't need to.

More from The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien:

He that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead.

From The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien:

Those who will defend authority against rebellion must not themselves rebel.

It's time once again to give thanks for Willis Carrier, who made living in Central Florida something people might actually want to do. My grandparents, who lived two blocks from the beach on the Atlantic Coast, where there was almost always a cooling sea breeze, managed fine without air conditioning, but the center of the state is another matter altogether.

I've written before about the Carrier story: Weathermakers to the World. Today you can read a celebration of the 115th anniversary of that great invention on The Occasional CEO, the author's blog. Item #3 is my favorite:

3. I have a lot of favorite stories from Weathermakers, but this might be the best. It was on a foggy evening in 1903, on a train platform in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ... that Willis Carrier conceived the idea that he could dry-out warm, humid air by passing it through water—specifically, fine droplets of a cold water spray. This spray could create a far larger surface area for condensate than metal pipes, and had the distinct advantages of cleaning the air of dust, and avoiding the nuisance of rusty pipes.

To this day, it's difficult to convince some people that a good way to dry air is to force it through water. 

If you happen to be in Pittsburgh and want to visit the spot of Carrier's famous insight, have a meal at the Grand Concourse Restaurant at Station Square.

That rang a bell, and I checked my records: We had done just that, back in October of 1998, when we passed through Pittsburgh as part of Janet's Grand Circle College Tour. This was also the occasion when we met Heather's friend Jon, who would later become our son-in-law. Desirous of treating the college students to a nice meal, we followed someone's suggestion and ate Sunday brunch at the Grand Concourse. At the time I had no idea of its momentous history.

I was shocked by the high prices—$20 per person—which shows how long ago 1998 really was. Or possibly the cost reflected more on the difference between Pittsburgh and Orlando, in which case I am all the more grateful to Willis Carrier for his work to make Central Florida habitable.

One of my goals for the coming 12 months is to re-read Charles Williams' The Place of the Lion (the only book of his I own), plus one more of his novels. Dorothy Sayers said,

To read only one work of Charles Williams is to find oneself in the presence of a riddle—a riddle fascinating by its romantic colour, its strangeness, its hints of a rich and intricate unknown world just outside the barriers of consciousness; but to read all is to become a free citizen of that world and to find in it a penetrating and illuminating interpretation of the world we know.

I'm pretty sure I won't manage all, but I can at least get past one, which did indeed leave me totally confused the first and second times I read it.

While on amazon.com, perusing offerings such as War in Heaven, Descent into Hell, and All Hallows' Eve, I came upon this:

I'm pretty sure I'll go with one of his more well-known works, but the title does have a certain topical attraction. In actuality, it refers to tarot cards, but why let accuracy get in the way of a joke?

In this classic tale of spirituality, morality, and the occult, a dark plot to murder an unsuspecting Englishman who possesses the world’s rarest tarot deck unleashes uncontrollable elemental forces.

Words of wisdom for parents—and children—from S. D. Smith, author of the beautiful Green Ember series. (My reviews are here: The Green Ember and The Black Star of Kingston; and here: Ember Falls.)

Your family is the most potent art you'll ever be a part of creating.

(With humble gratitude to our children and their families for art that makes my heart sing.)

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan (Simon & Schuster, 2012)

I enjoy reading medical stories, but they carry a risk: it's all too easy for me to look over my shoulder and imagine the patient's symptoms creeping up on me. It's a good thing that anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis is primarily a young person's disease.

This rare and bizarre condition looks for all the world like a severe psychiatric disorder, but occurs when something provokes a person's immune system to attack his brain. What, why, and how are still unknown, but it's usually curable, if caught and treated—a very expensive process—in time. Susannah Cahalan was the 217th person to be diagnosed with this disease, and if she had not been in the right place at the right time, would probably have been committed to a mental hospital for the rest of her shortened life. If she had had his strength, she could easily have played the part of the Gadareme demoniac.

Thanks mostly to being at a great hospital (NYU), and ending up (after several false starts) with just the right doctors, Cahalan made a full recovery. But while anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis and similar brain disorders are now much more likely to be caught than they were in 2009 when Cahalan fell ill, this is still a cautionary tale of the importance of second (or third or fourth) opinions, and of searching for physical causes for abnormal mental conditions. Autism and schizophrenia are just two of the diagnoses that are sometimes erroneously given to patients with these autoimmune disorders. Unfortunately, the specialized tests needed for proper diagnosis are currently too invasive and too expensive to be used routinely.

Brain on Fire is a gripping, well-written, and important book—even if, once again, I found myself regretting the demise of the censor's blue pencil.

A long, long time ago, in a world even my siblings don't remember,  my Girl Scout leader taught us this little song, always sung as a round: 

Make new friends, but keep the old;
One is silver, and the other gold.

Since my time, additional words have been added, definitely not an improvement. I do hope today's Girl Scouts aren't learning it this way; the skin of my mind crawls just reading it. The original two lines are profound and pithy; the addition, simply ... well, here's a verse for you to judge:

Silver is precious, 
Gold is too.
I am precious,
And so are you.

Take that, Gollum.

Which brings me around to the point of this post.

Books are my friends. New books can be silver, but there's true gold in wonderful old books read again and again.

I haven't read The Hobbit since 2014, and I was shocked to discover that the last time I read The Lord of the Rings books was at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. Incredible. My other Tolkien reading goes back to before I started keeping track! As part of my next edition (not yet established) of the 95 by 65 project, I'm including a Tolkien spree, beginning with The Hobbit.

That's where I found these words of wisdom from Gandalf, perfect for those of us who waste valuable sleeping hours fretting about the future.

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Making the Journey from "What Will People Think" to "I Am Enough" by Brené Brown (Gotham Books, 2007)

I have finally completed the current canon of major Brené Brown books for laymen—though I'm certain there will be more.  In keeping with the random pattern laid down by the books' availability at our library, my last book was her first.  I Thought It Was Just Me is the book that started it all (though it was her TED talk that made her famous). My other reviews are here: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, and Rising Strong.  It's probably best to read them in chronological order (I Thought It Was Just Me, The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong), but from my own point of view, I'd prioritize them as The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, I Thought It Was Just Me, then Rising Strong.

I heard somewhere that this book was originally entitled Women and Shame, and that pretty much covers it.  Later, Brown was to study the subject of shame and men, and conclude that the problems and strategies for combating them are the same, though the issues are different. Personally, I don't think the gender divide is as great as she makes it; I'm sure there's a continuum. I identify with some, but far from all, of the major shame issues for women—but also some but not all of the issues for men.

There's more to it, of course, but at its heart, I Thought It Was Just Me is an elaboration on the following truth: Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

Here are some more quotations; as always the bold emphasis is my own.

• Can you use shame or humiliation to change people or behavior?  Yes and no.  Yes, you can try.  In fact, if you really zero in on an exposed vulnerability, you could actually see a very swift behavior change.
• Will the change last? No.
• Will it hurt?  Yes, it's excruciating.
• Will it do any damage?  Yes, it has the potential to scar both the person using shame and the person being shamed.
• Is shame used very often as a way to try to change people?  Yes, every minute of every day.

Often, when we try to shame others or ourselves into changing a behavior, we do so without understanding the differences between shame and guilt.  This is important because guilt can often be a positive motivator of change, while shame typically leads to worse behavior or paralysis.... Guilt and shame are both emotions of self-evaluation; however, that is where the similarities end. ... Shame is about who we are and guilt is about our behaviors.

When I talked to women about the possibility of shame having positive outcomes or serving as a guidepost for good behavior, they made it clear that shame is so overbearing and painful that, regardless of intent, it moved them away from being able to grow, change and respond in any kind of genuine or authentic way.  Guilt, on the other hand, was often a strong motivator for change.

Power-over is a dangerous form of power.  Dr. Robin Smith ... described one of the most insidious forms of power-over as working like this: "I will define who you are and then I'll make you believe that's your own definition."

When I talk about isolation I don't mean feeling lonely or alone.  Jean Baker Miller and Irene Stiver ... have beautifully captured the overwhelming nature of isolation.  They write, "We believe that the most terrifying and destructive feeling that a person can experience is psychological isolation.  This is not the same as being alone.  It is a feeling that one is locked out of the possibility of human connection and of being powerless to change the situation.  In the extreme, psychological isolation can lead to a sense of hopelessness and desperation.  People will do almost anything to escape this combination of condemned isolation and powerlessness." ...

Shame can make us feel desperate.  Reactions to this desperate need to escape form isolation and fear can run the gamut from behavioral issues and acting out to depression, self-injury, eating disorders, addiction, violence and suicide.

Not to mention dangerous peer-dependency.

When we tell our stories, we change the world.  I know that sounds dramatic, but I believe it.  We'll never know how our stories might change someone's life.

Recently I was eating dinner with a friend.  We both had newborns at the time.  She stayed at home with her baby and her toddler, and I was getting ready to go back to work.  She was telling me the terrible sadness she felt about the fact that she and her husband were probably not going to have any more children.  She explained that even though having two young children was overwhelming at times, she had always wanted three or four and that she was really having a difficult time letting go of that vision of a family. ... My response to her was something like "Two is perfect. ... Plus, you could go back to work or graduate school or something." She looked kind of shocked by my reply and stumbled to find the right words.

I can see why her friend was shocked and at a loss for words.  Brown might has well have said, "You're sad because you're hungry and can't afford to buy food?  But you live on the beach—why not eat sand instead?"

At the doctoral level, if someone asked me a question that I couldn't answer, they'd either assume they had asked a bad question or that I was too smart or busy to concern myself with such foolish matters.  One of the perks of earning credentials is gaining permission to know nothing.  This privilege is rarely afforded to those who aren't protected by plaques, titles, certificates or initials strung behind their names.

In my experience, the most serious threat to objectivity is the very belief that "pure objectivity" and "value neutrality" exist. I have greater trust in those who question objectivity and who believe that people, values and experiences influence our research and practice—they are the ones who make the greatest effort to present their opinions in the appropriate context.

I think I've seen the movie Flashdance at least twenty times.  In the 1980's, I wanted to be just like Jennifer Beals's character, Alex. ... Nothing took the mystique out of my secret Flashdance fantasy like showing up to meet friends for dinner and realizing that all six of us had permed hair, headbands and ripped sweatshirts. ... We all wanted to be Alex.

That's an example of the cultural disconnect I often feel with Brown's books.  I can make a connection with many of her ideas, but the culture she takes for granted often leaves me feeling like a being from another planet.  Perhaps the fact that I've never seen Flashdance could be attributed to the age gap, but I can no more imagine my friends—at any stage of life—dressing up to imitate a movie character than I can imagine doing it myself (Hallowe'en excepted).

Interestingly, to be perceived as "trying too hard" was identified as an unwanted characteristic. ... We want perfection, but we don't want to look like we're working for it—we want it to just materialize somehow.

She's speaking of motherhood here, but I first noticed this among musicians, when I learned that "Wow, that's an incredibly difficult piece" is the worst thing you can say after a performance, no matter how much you mean it as a compliment.  The performer's job is to make it look easy.  If you're thinking about how hard it is, they've failed to make you hear the music.  That's true of other professions too: the perfect waiter is the one you hardly notice, the perfect event seems to have produced itself.  I don't believe this attitude is all bad:  we want people to hear the music, not the performer, and to enjoy the event without thinking about how much planning and effort went into it.  We certainly don't want our children going through life worrying about all the trouble they're causing us!  The problems come when we assume that because things look easy, they are easy.  Gratitude, appreciation, and respect are everything.

When we choose growth over perfection, we immediately increase our shame resilience. ... When we believe "we must be this" we ignore who or what we actually are, our capacity and our limitations.  We start from the image of perfection, and of course, from perfection there is nowhere to go but down. ... When our goal is growth and we say, "I'd like to improve this," we start from where and who we are.

In our culture, the fear and shame of being ordinary is very real.  In fact, many of the older women I interviewed spoke about looking back on their lives and grieving for the extraordinary things that would never come to pass.  We seem to measure the value of people's contributions (and sometimes thier entire lives) by their level of public recognition.

Nope.  Not me.  When I grieve, it is much more likely to be about the ordinary things that did not, or will not come to pass.  It never occurred to me to regret not being famous for my cookies, or not turning cookie-making into a successful business.  I save my regrets for lost opportunities to make cookies with my grandchildren.

It's not a good idea to back people into a corner.  Even making a valid point doesn't warrant using shame or intentionally putting someone on the spot in front of other people.

[Quoting one of her correspondents] My faith is a very important part of my life.  I want to feel free to talk about my spiritual beliefs just like people talk about their politics or their social beliefs.  But I can't.  If I even mention the word church, people get offended.  They look at me like I'm crazy and I'm trying to convert them.  I used to have a voice mail message at work that said, "Thanks for calling, have a blessed day." My boss made me erase it because it was "offensive." The people in my office use the "f-word" all day, but they try to make me feel like I'm the outcast because I say "blessed."

It is critical that we catch ourselves doing things well.  If we can acknowledge our strengths, they become tools that can help us meet our goals.

It doesn't take momentous events [to change the culture]—it takes critical mass.  If enough of us make small changes in our lives, we will see big changes.