A God of order — and then there’s me

I desperately need order in my life. I carry around a notebook called “Carol’s Time Management” that contains articles about just that, as if I can learn it by osmosis, and continue to careen through life. And now I’ve come to see that my busyness, my frantic trying to keep up, also serves to help me avoid working through grief. It’s a layer of insulation, and not always a healthy one. “It’s good to be busy,” well-intentioned friends tell me. No, it’s not. Not to this extent. I don’t intend to be any kind of  ‘holic, but as with other addictions, sometimes the thing takes on a life of its own. After all, no one starts drinking with the thought, “You know, I think I’ll become an alcoholic.” So I need to turn from my chaos and overwork, look it square in the face, and then find the quiet place, God helping me.

A fellow blogger and friend (Hi, Lisa) writes about her dream journalling. I’ve done that, too. I keep a quote journal as well, and just now I was looking back through mine for a quote from Anne Lamott on grief, and instead I opened to this one, from W.H. Auden.  Seems fitting.

“We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”

Part of what I have to grieve is the death of illusions. But, dear Lord, I fear the lack of change more than the ruin, so let’s have at the truth.

 

Come let us reason

Last week I finished reading The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Tim Keller. Excellent book. It was a library book — I always start there and only purchase a book if after reading it I decide I must own it. This one I think I’ll buy.

Then last weekend I found a video on YouTube of Tim Keller speaking on the subject at UC-Berkeley. followed by questions from the audience and his replies. It’s worth the 90 minutes it will take you to watch. Actually, I knit through it all. That works, too. You might want to check it out.

Too often we are satisfied with a steady diet of fluff. This is not fluff. It exercises the think muscles. But then, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? I need it — I don’t know about you.

A wise person once said, “Come now, and let us reason together.” Tim Keller does this very well. Truth and love and grace — it seems to be a package deal.

 

Fully alive

It’s hot, my days are usually some shade of chaotic, and I am responsible for raising almost $1 million for a nonprofit social services agency in Elkhart, Indiana this year. This when, according to President Obama on his last visit to our county, we have, even more than most other places in the country, been hit by a perfect economic storm. Oh, and I have no clue what my life will look like in six months – but hoo boy, I am fully alive.

Given the fact that my husband died in December, it feels weird and yet wonderful to say that. Today for the first time in I don’t know how long, I began the day by answering “I’m fantastic!” when people asked how I was. Joy comes in the morning, even after the darkest nights of our souls.

Still, sorrow does sweep in sometimes. Today I also had to say goodby to the development associate who has graced my working days for the last eight months and who is moving on to attend seminary. Her name is Anna Ruth and I honestly don’t know what I will do without her strengths and without the light and warmth and — Anna Ruth-ness — that she’s shed abroad in our office. But the pain of goodbys is also part of being fully alive. It’s part of the deal.

So, onward.

 

Palin: yes!

I ordinarily don’t write on politics, but I gotta tell you, something about this woman John McCain picked for his running mate strikes a chord in me. 

For a long time I’ve been saying we need for normal people to actually have a chance at high office. Not someone with a personal fortune, not a media darling, not a party-line player. Sarah Palin is it, from what I hear. That alone makes my day.

Then I hear that she is into reform, that she’s challenged programs of both major parties, that she and her husband have 5 children, the youngest with Down Syndrome, that she takes the baby to the office with her when necessary. She’s a gutsy woman, old enough to know her own strength and not afraid to use it.

Yes, I need to learn more about her, but so far I’m pumped. No matter how the election turns out, I think the country needs Gov. Palin’s freshness on the scene.

The next few months will be quite a ride.

 

Political conventions: what’s the point?

Denver is beginning to fill up with press and Democrats for the National Convention that starts in a few days. We don’t live there, but two of our children live in the Denver metro area, so we think about how people who live there experience fallout–or spillover, depending on your viewpoint–from the event. Of course it’s an economic boon to the city, but who else benefits? I don’t think the country does any more.

Gone are the days of suspense as we watched the delegates’ rollcall vote. The whole world already knows that Barack Obama and John McCain will vie for the presidency. It looks like Obama may even announce his running mate before the convention. We used to learn that the night after the president was nominated. So what’s the convention all about? The party platform? Obama’s been telling us where he stands on the issues for a whole year already. And now he needs a special venue for his acceptance speech to rehearse it all again. Can’t do it inside. Needs a football stadium. Needs a second set up, second security plan, second everything.

Not that the Republicans will be lowkey, mind you. The Democrats just flash on the screen first.

Does anyone but me think all this money could be better spent where it could make a difference in people’s lives? Who does this serve? Not us. (Well, I guess it makes a difference in Denver hotel and restaurant owners’ and employees’ lives. Ruby Tuesday, for instance is catering at least part of the convention events. Quite a bonanza.)

Does anyone but me think a month or so of campaigning would give us ample time to learn all we need to know about the candidates? How about a cap on spending and time?

Nowhere is it written that it has to be done this way. The fact is, our television coverage probably warped the convention process. Eric Appelman’s article for Democracy in Action makes that point and offers more background into how conventions have changed from real decision-making bodies in the past to what we see today. He also reminds us that a lot happens behind the scenes, during the day, etc. Maybe that’s what the press should show us, then.

By the way, this is Denver’s second political party national convention of the season. The Libertarians met there back in May. Anybody hear about that one?

 

The position-elimination dodge

It’s never happened to me, but it’s pretty common. Just last week I heard of another person who lost her job because her department was restructured and thus her position eliminated.

Here’s how it went down: It’s an HR department that has consisted of one director and one admin assistant, both full time, and one student assistant, very part-time. The new structure adds an “assistant director” (not sure of the actual title), eliminates the full-time admin assistant, keeps the student assistant, and adds a part-time person just for payroll.

I don’t know if the rationale for the restructuring is supposed to be cost-saving, but adding people doesn’t seem a way to save money to me.

A year or so ago we knew someone else who lost his job through “restructuring.” Thing is, before too long that organization decided it might need to start looking for someone new whose job description would look remarkably like the one that had been eliminated. Sigh.

This practice seems less than honest to me. Why not work up the courage to tell someone the real reason you don’t want them around any more? And say it in a tactful, helpful way. Maybe because a person can’t be let go because, well, someone else just doesn’t like you. Or because you’re just not our kind of people.

The result is that the organization looks spineless and manipulative, and the person who loses his or her job gets screwed.

 

Faith or sight?

I’m a big Katharine Hepburn fan. We recently watched one of her classic films, The Rainmaker, costarring Burt Lancaster as a traveling huckster/salesman who promises residents of the parched prairie that he’ll make it rain–for a fee, of course. Based on a play written by Richard Nash, it has themes of pragmatism vs. pursuit of dreams, of faith vs. sight. Reviews I’ve found online treat it as a romantic comedy, or even a “hayseed farce,” but it’s much more.

Living by sight makes for a dried up existence. The most unattractive character in the movie is the totally pragmatic brother, who  thinks he is doing his sister a favor to tell her she is plain and no man will ever want her. He is a critical parent if ever there was one, even to his father. It’s ironic that his name is Noah, because in the Bible Noah believed, against all odds and popular opinion, that rain would come because God had said it would, even when no one around him believed it.

Lancaster’s character, Starbuck, talked fast to convince himself as much as anyone else that he had a gift. The rain he brought was metaphorical as well as physical, faith and hope to answer the drought of spirit.

Faith and sight. When is a dream foolish, and when it is faith? What does living by faith  look like?

The Biblical Noah lived by faith for a lot of years, acting on something very eccentric that God had told him to do. What would you have thought if your neighbor started building a huge boat, saying it was going to rain so much it would flood the earth? You’d think he’d lost his mind. But it happened.

Moses led the Israelites into the desert on the promise that God would lead and provide for all of them, the widow gave Elijah her last bit of food on the promise that he’d multiply it, Abraham believed in the promise of God that from his son would come God’s chosen people, Esther believed that her husband the king would not kill her if she went to see him uninvited — the Bible is crammed with people who did what must have looked pretty foolish and whom most observers would have called unrealistic, dreamers. But they are the examples for a life of faith.

So how can you tell if you’re acting on faith or if you’re being foolish? I don’t have all the answers to this question yet. I struggle sometimes to trust my own judgment. I don’t want to live in a fantasy land — well, from time to time maybe I do — but I don’t want to be faithless, either, and I can’t live in the arid land of the purely realistic. It’s an illusion that that’s the most responsible route.

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.”

When and how do you live by faith? Faith in what?

 

Roots and branches we’ve known and loved

Having found out that someone decided July should be Roots and Branches Month, we can’t pass up commenting, that being the name of our blog and all . . .

Roots and Branches Month is meant to celebrate family trees and encourage genealogy. We do enjoy learning about the people we come from. It helps us know more about ourselves and makes history come alive. But we can think of other roots and branches we know and love, too.

Roots Music. We love the soundtrack from O Brother Where Art Thou. Also The Three Pickers, by Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and Ricky Skaggs. Also Another County, which is The Chieftains with various country and bluegrass artists. And lately, 16 Greatest Hits of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, which probably isn’t old enough to technically qualify as roots music, but it’s related (a branch from the root?) and I’m loving it.

The willow tree at the house where I grew up. I was sad when it blew down in a thunderstorm the summer of 1976. I spent lots of my childhood climbing into its lowest branches. My petite and nimble friend Alice could climb 2/3 of the way to the top, which scared my Dad enough that he forbade me to climb it with friends, fearing one of them would fall and we’d be liable. I loved that tree.

Root vegetables. A baked sweet potato with butter and brown sugar. Fresh red beets, cooked, pickled, and chilled with eggs in the juice. Mmmm…

Etymology and linguistics. What can I say? We’re word nerds. Art’s studied Latin, Spanish, Hebrew, and Greek. I’ve studied Latin and French. Hence without much trying we see the backstories of many words. When a word, or word family, intrigues me, I tend to dissect it. What is its root, what language did it come from, and what does its progenitor word tell me about its meaning? What prefixes or suffixes change it in what ways? F’rinstance, somewhere in my files I have a whole page on the -fuse family: confuse, profuse, infuse, diffuse, suffuse, etc. This kind of research helps me get to the concepts behind the words. It even sparks new ideas. I’m also fascinated in learning how languages have influenced each other and why. I think this all started in my first weeks of high school Latin classes, when I met pater (father) and mater (mother) and my neurons started forming all kinds of happy linguistic synapses. It’s all about making connections.

 

Off Art’s chest . . .

Yo–guys! Cook! (And I’m not talkin’ about burning meat on the grill. So easy a caveman could do that!)

If you’re culinarily challenged, rise above it and at least learn to prepare a genuine man-cooked breakfast of eggs over easy and a couple of slices of fried bread (straight-up toast is for wimps). Throw in a glass of fresh-squeezed OJ, and your wife will renew her vows.

Not to be sexist or anything, but have you noticed how many chefs are guys? I’ve worked a stovetop and oven since I was ten, and if you handle it right, your sweetie will feel totally indulged (well, maybe not totally) when you take over the kitchen. (Don’t forget to do the dishes afterwards . . .)

By the way, every kitchen has a “miracle-worker”: AKA slow-cooker. Start there if you have to. Meat, veggies, broth, and seasonings (go easy here, OK?), and she’ll come home with nothing to do but relax and enjoy.

For you accountants and analysts out there, the ROI is huge. For the rest of you, try it. She’ll love it.

 

Ageism or respect?

Discriminating on the basis of age is illegal in the workplace, but it happens–in both directions, I’m sure. How much better off we’d be if we could get past this prejudice, too, and stop with the stereotypes.

I’ve read several excellent articles in the past few months about integrating generations in the workplace. The best ones counsel recognizing the differences and tapping into the strengths of each. This makes so much more sense to me than one generation disdaining another.

Ana Alvarez-Holmberg writes that “There are currently four generations ‘living’ together” in the workplace, which is pretty remarkable when you think about it.  She gives specific advice about navigating their differences in technological preferences–phone, email, texting, etc.

Fiona Emberton writes about building a team that capitalizes on inter-generational strengths.

Phil Cooke blogs about strategies to maintain a professional edge on the mature side.

What about you? Have you experienced either young or old “ageism”? Any insights into how to enhance communication between texting millenials and their more mature co-workers who prefer face-to-face conversations?