One Small Voice

In preparation for our upcoming Sesame Place trip, we've been listening to lots of music from the show. This is my favorite, for it speaks to me every day....

Every song the

World sings, each

Was once unknown

Somebody felt a song

Inside and wasn't

Afraid to sing alone

If you feel the music

And you sing it clear

And true

Then the world can

Sing with you

One small voice can

Teach the world a song

Start with one small

Voice till another

Sings along

And then you'll feel the

Music growing full and

Sure and strong

One small voice can

Teach the world a song

No tune is too simple

No voice can

Be wrong

Music can come from

Any heart and anyone's

Voice can lead

The song

If you feel the music

And if you believe

The words

Sing and you'll

Be heard

One small voice can

Teach the world a song

Start with one small

Voice till another

Sings along

And then you'll feel the

Music growing full and

Sure and strong

One small voice can

Teach the world a song

Change. Just change.

“For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.” -Henri Nouwen

So.... in a surprising development, I lost a part-time job that did not bring out the best in me. One that constantly forced me to do things that I thought did not help the organization I was working for, and as "just" a paid employee I felt it best not to interfere. The money situation will be tight, until I find more work, but I think that will happen.

I spent a day feeling very down - how had I failed them, what could I have done better/differently, etc. But truly, it was a financial issue plain and simple. Yet, I was surprised even with that knowledge at how my first instinct was to assume I was wrong, inadequate, not "enough".

Today at the beach I was greeted by a refreshing, yet tumultuous sea. As often happens, the waves' crashing and banging matched my mood. I felt I could not center, could not sit quietly, with all that racket. Maybe today the message was that sometimes the racket is okay. Perhaps I don't need every moment to be a "big" experience of value. Maybe just sitting and listening to what the sea had to share with me was enough for today. Because perhaps today I don't need any messages of improvement and enlightenment. Perhaps I should just be doing the sitting, in whatever way it comes to me.

Instead of Making Art

"Most of us spend many hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in enormous stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by millionaire musicians. Instead of making art, we go to admire paintings that brought in the highest bids at the latest auction. We do not run risks acting on our beliefs, but occupy hours each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful action.

This vicarious participation is able to mask, at least temporarily, the underlying emptiness of wasted time. But it is a very pale substitute for attention invested in real challenges. The flow experience that results from the use of skills leads to growth; passive entertainment leads nowhere. Collectively we are wasting each year the equivalent of millions of years of human consciousness. The energy that could be used to focus on complex goals, to provide enjoyable growth, is squandered on patterns of stimulation that only mimic reality."

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Messages when/where you need them....

or... "Where will you be in five years?" - part two.

Still working out the question. Or... it's really the wrong question. The more appropriate, life-affirming, enlightening, accurate question is:

WHO will I be in five years?

I've got at least a shot a the answer to that one. And quite frankly, isn't that the more important angle? I have little control over there wheres and whys of my future - we all make decisions on where we hope to be, even plan to be, but how often are we there in the ways we planned on? And if we do end up exactly where we want to, is that destination based on limited knowledge? I certainly hope five years from now, I'll want more than I have now. Not more stuff, more achievements, more accolades, more projects - just a general need for a more developed sense of self, based on what I do every day.

This was a STUNNING realization for me. I'm sure it was banging around my brain for awhile, but it all became clear in a sudden moment in meeting on Wednesday. Some Friends in Cambridge, speaking to their hopes and fears of how they will ever get through all they see as necessary and asked of them. Living day-to-day through the burdens of the world. True dilemmas and crises, serious issues - how do we cope with them all?

By only attending to what is directly asked of us. I was reminded this week of the words of Thomas R Kelly (written during the build-up to World War II):

Kelly wrote of the “particularization of my responsibility in a world too vast and a lifetime too short for me to carry all responsibilities .... Toward them all we feel kindly, but we are dismissed from active service in most of them .... We cannot die on every cross, nor are we expected to .... The concern oriented life is ordered and organized from within. And we learn to say No as well as Yes by attending to the guidance of inner responsibility.”

Life for me is about choosing "stuff" right now - time with family and help with schooling for Maille, a graduate school path, daily interests and purchases and long-term commitments that are financial and physical. Health issues that are serious and demand my attention. Issues that help me to see the pain of others, and empathize in a way which I am grateful for.

What was I most grateful for this week? A gentle reminder that I have at least, in the last year, discovered a bit more of the emotional space I need, the spiritual guidance that I long to tap into, which surprises me at its effortless appearance when I need it the most. Often, in the expectant waiting of a Quaker meeting. This week, in a meeting of Friends, but not friends. The anonymity made no difference. Their message for me was abundantly clear. Keep calm and steadfast in the struggle to balance those problems of the whole world with the ones that I can address directly. Keep questioning - but not with the heavy heart of great burden, but rather with a lightened curiosity and faith that answers will come when I am ready to hear them.

"...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Rilke

Something Within Me (1993)

In 1985, the administrators of St. Augustine's, a poor Catholic school in the South Bronx where many children were failing miserably at basic academics, tried a new approach. They revamped the curriculum to stress the arts, particularly music. The kids lifted up their instruments and, eventually, their test scores, too. This infectious, inspiring musical documentary by Emma Joan Morris won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

This was great. Nothing I didn't already know, but it was just nice to watch the day-to-day teaching moments that I could relate to. And yes, test scores went up - but the school's improvement and quality of student interactions went way beyond that. I will watch this again right before I embark on my own school adventures in a new school community!

I watched this through netflix - not sure of its current availability.

A child's celebration of folk music [sound recording].

Children of all ages will delight in the simple melodies featured in A Child's Collection of Folk Music. These story-songs are repetitive and eminently singable. Material ranges from traditional twangy banjo numbers like "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" from Folk granddaddy Pete Seeger to the soulful song-in-the-round "Run Molly Run" by contemporary gospel group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Really fun music - Maille loves to sing along already. I run from the canned-pop style of "new" kids songs - I am glad we found this CD at the library, and we will look for more classics soon. I plan on singing many of these with my fall classes at the Barnard School!

It's not about the coffee : leadership principles from a life at Starbucks / Howard Behar, with Janet Goldstein.

"Think like a person of action, and act like a person who thinks"

This book is filled with some wise words. Certainly in the "self-help" category - but there was a time in my life when i took to the genre, so it became a quick read for me. It's all about the people of this organization, as Behar effectively illustrates. I liked this quick read, especially as a reminder of how I like to look at organizations, since I will be teaching in a new one in the fall.

A lot of films (brought to you by netflix)

I can't post separately on each film anymore - too many thanks to netflix. So here's my viewing of the week previous:

Chuck Close: A Portait in Progress
Photographic realist Chuck Close, the creator of groundbreaking portraits, gets the up-close-and-personal treatment in this documentary. Close's artistic vision and method are discussed, as well as his "close call" recovery from a paralytic spinal blood clot that almost ended his career. Avant-garde composer Philip Glass provides the soundtrack.

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
Stanley Kubrick's frequent collaborator and brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, offers a fascinating inside look at the genius behind such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and Dr. Strangelove. Narrated by Tom Cruise, the documentary features interviews with family members as well as colleagues, including Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman, Malcolm McDowell, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and more.

What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann
At home at her Virginia farm, photographer Sally Mann reflects on the controversy surrounding her earlier collections while forging ahead with new work in this intimate portrait of an artist. Also offering insights into the photographer's career are Mann's husband and her now-grown offspring Emmett, Virginia and Jessie, whom Mann famously photographed nude when they were young children in her career-making collection Immediate Family.

War Feels Like War: POV
This film documents the lives of reporters and photographers who circumvent military media control to get access to the real Iraq War. As invading armies sweep into the country, several journalists in Kuwait decide to travel in their wake, risking their lives to discover the true impact of war on civilians. Their frustration, fear and horror are recorded along the way, as are the difficulties they experience returning to normal life back home.

Film School: Season 1:
Meet the Spielbergs and Fellinis of tomorrow in this innovative new documentary series that follows a group of students enrolled in New York University's renowned graduate film program. The show zeroes in on the efforts of four up-and-comers from diverse backgrounds as they labor to craft their first masterpieces. Find out which of these budding amateurs can't hack it -- and who's on their way to cinematic success.

These were all great. And all about process, artistic and otherwise. I'm certainly on a creativity kick these days (and most days). How do we nurture that? What made these people so special, as to want to create and be curious in non-traditional ways in difficult times?

Where oh where.....

do I want to find myself in five years?

I was asked that question yesterday - and I was surprised to have no real idea what the answer might be. I think this might actually in some ways be a good development - as I seem to always be over planned, overworked, overstretching for the next item on the list without enjoying the stops along the way.

This week was pretty challenging for me. I had to say goodbye to some wonderful students and colleagues and parents, without having any real information to give them. Yes, I was moving on to what I perceive as a better job situation for myself and my family, but they had no real time to prepare for that news. Their worlds changed as instantly as mine did.

But back to that question. I pondered it all day - and I think it might also hold a clue to my devotion to/in Quaker meetings as of late. I feel quite often that those Quaker meetings, that break from the life outside, has given me the gift of alternate perceptions. I crave real interactions with people, I have a need to share more of myself (for good or bad, I suppose) with those I am speaking with. In some cases, I now choose not to have what I see as unhealthy, draining interactions. I value smaller efforts - and the efforts, more so than the results.

I'm also a little more aware of where I come from, and how my own history has shaped my perceptions. I struggled greatly this week with joint pain and exhaustion, brought on by stress. Normally ignored by me, but this time I chose to eat well and rest. It helped.

I am still pondering some big decisions - mainly a doctoral program that just keeps popping up no matter how much I flee from it. It would be completed in about 5 years. I may finally be equipped to go back and enjoy that academic process, and mold it to fit the teaching I would like to do in the future, and the goals I'd like to set for myself. I went back again and looked at the requirements - the classes seem more relevant to me know - perhaps in light of new employment where I think (and hope) I will have the room to grow and reflect and have better input in designing the learning.

It's a goal I set for myself long ago, when things were very different for me. I'm still sorting out what has remained, and how I can make my new life fit into that reality too. Some of my health issues may loom large for me, but I think I may just have the ability to work not despite them, not because of them, but just beside them for awhile. It's a new attitude for me - still getting used to sitting patiently and figuring it all out!

The Forever War

by Dexter Filkins

Filkins, foreign correspondent for the New York Times, has covered the struggle against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. He marshals his broad experience to present a wide-ranging view of this struggle, told through a series of intense, vivid, and startling vignettes. Embedded with marines during the struggle for Fallujah, Filkins describes an almost surreal scene of confusion and unvarnished violence. In Kabul, Filkins witnesses the amputation of a pickpocket’s hand, followed by the execution of an accused murderer under the Taliban regime. At a press briefing, a Taliban “minister of information” recites a litany of forbidden activities that is both absurd and terrifying. An interview with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, who bravely fought both the Soviets and the Taliban, is particularly poignant, since he would eventually be assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives. Filkins accompanies Americans searching a Sunni village for insurgents, where their insensitivity probably creates more enemies than they capture. A portrait of the difficulty, complexity, and savagery of a conflict that will be with us for some time. --Jay Freeman

A horrifying look at Iraq and the problems we face there, that don't get talked about much these days. Everyone should read this, if only to be informed about what our country is involved in.

Helvetica

"The life of a designer is a life of fighting--fight against the ugliness, just like a doctor fights against disease. For us visual disease is what we have around and what we try to do is try to cure it somehow, you know, with design."

From Amazon:

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

This film was great, and odd. Perhaps because I had never thought for one moment about type face - but to some people, it is life too.

Chihuly: River of Glass

Dave Chihuly is an incredible artist, and to watch his process is fascinating. This film covers his world wide tour - where he made glass sculptures in glass factories in Ireland, Venice, Mexico, and Finland, and placed them in natural settings. This beautiful documentary shows both his process and his end results.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

This is a fabulous film. I enjoy watching films that give me insight into a world I know nothing about - and this was no exception. There is also intrigue and a hero and a villain and a happy ending. which I will not give away! A glimpse at the competitive world of video gaming. Suprisingly, I would call it a must-see!

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

by Kevin Roose

From Amazon:
In what could be described as religious gonzo journalism, Roose documents his experiences as a student for a semester at Liberty University, the largest Christian fundamentalist university in the United States. Coming from progressive Brown University, the author admits that the transition to Liberty, with its iron-clad attempts at controlling student behavior, came with much anxiety. He trains himself to control his foul language and even begins to pray and study the Bible regularly, much to the bewilderment of his liberal Quaker parents. He suffers his way through a course debunking evolution, but finds enjoyment in a Scripture class. Roose may be young—he's a 19-year-old college sophomore—but he writes like a seasoned veteran and obviously enjoys his work. He quickly makes friends at Liberty, but is naïvely stunned and not a little disgusted by their antigay rhetoric. School founder Rev. Jerry Falwell granted Roose an interview for the student newspaper shortly before the famous evangelical's death in May 2007. "Complicated" is how Roose describes Falwell, which is a good descriptor for his undercover student experience. (Mar.)

This was a great and entertaining read, I learned some things too. Also amusing to see Roose compare Liberty U to his Quaker upbringing.

Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony

A great and informative film about a horrible time in Africa's history.

From Amazon:
The stunning documentary Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony tells the story of protest music in South Africa--but as it does so, it tells the story of the struggle against apartheid itself, for the music and the revolution are inseparable. Through archival footage and interviews with musicians, freedom fighters, and even members of the former government police, Amandla! creates a vivid and powerful portrait of how music was crucial not only to communicating a political message beyond words, but also to the resistance itself--how songs bonded communities, buoyed resistance in the face of bullets and tear gas, and sowed fear in the ruling elite. Part history, part musical exploration, part sheer force of life, Amandla! captures both the sorrow and the triumph of life in South Africa from the 1950s to 1990, when Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress came into power.

Thomas Macy

Thomas Macy was a Puritan of Amesbury initially - but he was persecuted for harboring four Quakers, and later was a settler of Nantucket.

He could now live no Longer in peace, and in the enjoyment of religious freedom, among his own nation; he chose therefore to remove his family to a place unsettled by the whites, to take up his abode among savages, where he could safely imitate the example and obey the precepts of our Saviour, and where religious zeal had not yet discovered a crime in hospitality, nor the refinements of civil law, a punishment for its practice. In the fall of 1659, he embarked in an open boat, with his family and such effects as he could conveniently take with him, and, with the assistance of Edward Starbuck, proceeded along the shore to the westward. When they came to Boston bay, they crossed it, passed round Cape Cod, and extended their course by the shore until they were abreast of the island to the northward; thence they crossed the sound, and landed on Nantucket without accident. Thus we see, that the same persecuting spirit, that drove our forefathers from England, drove Thomas Macy from our forefathers; that _bensame undaunted courage, which enabled them to breast the storm, and dare the wave, in search of a free altar and a safe home, prompted him, in search of the same blessings, to meet the same dangers. He sacrificed his property and his home to his religion; he found both in a remote region hitherto hardily known. His religion, we mean not its name, but its spirit, has been transmitted to the present generation, unsullied by the crime of persecution or by the disgrace of Inhospitality.


I live on Macy Street. Two of those four Quakers he gave shelter to were Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson, who were later hung for being Quakers on Boston Common.

Quaker history is all over. This is GREAT.

Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (2007)

I had no idea that Philip Glass was so personable, so warm, so charming and brilliant, all rolled into one! This is a fascinating look at Glass' life, and how opposite Glass is from the "lonely composer" stereotype. He makes pizza, he plays with his kids.. and oh yeah, he is devoted to his art in his very lifestyle.

"The ideal music for creating emotion" - Errol Morris

A Testament of Devotion

by Thomas R Kelly

I had read excerpts of this in Faith and Practice. I was drawn to the writings. I am drawn to this book. I often keep it in my car for my morning beach walks. Kelly has a way of looking at life that is peaceful, all-knowing, and wise.

Our Quaker Ancestors : Finding Them in Quaker Records

by Ellen and David Berry

A book written to help amateur genealogists doing Quaker research. A great resource for me in its explanation of how Quaker meetings and record keeping has worked.

Quaker Nantucket: The Religious Community Behind the Whaling Empire

by Robert Leach. From Amazon:

The authors provide detailed information about the rise and fall of Nantucket's Quaker community and its whaling industry. If your Nantucket ancestors include family names like Macy, Starbuck, Coffin, Bunker, etc., you'll gain additional perspective on the interconnections between family, religion, and whaling, the "splintering" of the Quaker community, and some reasons for migration off island.

I live on Macy Street - named after Thomas Macy, who lived in Amesbury and went to Nantucket. Also a great history of the real Starbuck family, of Moby Dick fame. This is a great addition to my Quaker history library!

New England Quaker Meetinghouses, Past and Present

Entries on 138 Meetinghouses, historical facts/locations/pictures. Weeks set out to photograph every meetinghouse in New England. A great resource. I would love to visit some of these places myself this summer, and this will be a good start!

The Median Isn't The Message - Gould

In a week when I have seemed overwhelmed, yet again, with medical predictions and statistics and "when will I get sicker?" kind of questioning....

it helps to read this article. Stephen Jay Gould did later die of cancer, but unrelated to the first diagnosis that first led him to write this essay. Excerpted below, but the whole thing deserves a read.

We still carry the historical baggage of a Platonic heritage that seeks sharp essences and definite boundaries. (Thus we hope to find an unambiguous "beginning of life" or "definition of death," although nature often comes to us as irreducible continua.) This Platonic heritage, with its emphasis in clear distinctions and separated immutable entities, leads us to view statistical measures of central tendency wrongly, indeed opposite to the appropriate interpretation in our actual world of variation, shadings, and continua. In short, we view means and medians as the hard "realities," and the variation that permits their calculation as a set of transient and imperfect measurements of this hidden essence. If the median is the reality and variation around the median just a device for its calculation, the "I will probably be dead in eight months" may pass as a reasonable interpretation.

But all evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence. Variation is the hard reality, not a set of imperfect measures for a central tendency. Means and medians are the abstractions. Therefore, I looked at the mesothelioma statistics quite differently - and not only because I am an optimist who tends to see the doughnut instead of the hole, but primarily because I know that variation itself is the reality. I had to place myself amidst the variation.

Of course, my medical distress is chronic, not (hopefully) terminal - so I don't have the sense of urgency at the moment that Gould did. But as I look at all the medical predictions I have been handed, I too doubt the statistics.

Faith and Practice - online

Faith and Practice - NEYM

Happy about this. I do lots of reading, and I must say being able to comment on it here or elsewhere by excerpting and pasting is fabulous. I used to read the Britain Yearly Meeting version online.

Kiwi!

I love this simple video. Not that I'm advocating jumping off any cliffs for anyone... but Kiwi knows that even for a moment, he needs to fly.

NYT. Friedman. Yay for hope.

Do not underestimate what seeds can get planted when American leaders don’t just propagate their values, but visibly live them. Mr. Obama will be speaking at Cairo University. When young Arabs and Muslims see an American president who looks like them, has a name like theirs, has Muslims in his family and comes into their world and speaks the truth, it will be empowering and disturbing at the same time. People will be asking: “Why is this guy who looks like everyone on the street here the head of the free world and we can’t even touch freedom?” You never know where that goes.

From Friedman's column. Yes, we do all need to step up, world!

“ Those who love their country in the light of their love of God, express that love of country by endeavoring to make it respected rather than feared, loved rather than hated. But those who love only their country express that love by trying to make it feared and succeed all too often in making it hated.” Pendle Hill Pamphlet #374, pg. 27


Doing a lot of reading about war this week. Looking with concern at yet more of it. No comments on solutions or even an ability to sort out how I feel right now. The media talking points are grating on me more than usual this week I guess. When I stumbled across this quotation, I wanted to leave it here on the blog.