Un-Celebrating NaNoWriMo

Ever since I first heard about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, I have wanted to participate.  The concept is simple: write your little heart out through the month of November and get the first 50,000-word draft of a novel finished in a month. Last year I decided to give it a shot, except that my "No" part of the word was going to stand for "Nonfiction."

Well, it didn't last. November is a horrible month to write frenetically, in my opinion. We who are in education-careers related can't begin to dream of a November project like this. We need NaNoWriMo in July.

Still, the siren song of NaNoWriMo calls. So I've decided to do a writing project, but it will be my own recipe this next month, my own theme. I don't promise to hit all the days, but I'll hit some, with a goal of posting something daily--a practice I've let lapse since the faithful postings of my first few years of blogging. I've pre-drafted several days' worth of topics, and hope you'll enjoy them. It's been fun.

Here we go.

You Don't Do That!

As was evident in my last post, I tend to dish out lectures. It's not something I'm proud of, and I would hope that as I've gotten older I've given fewer of them. But the truths are these: I have a noticeable justice bone in my body, and I am a teacher. Put the two together, and voila: a lecture issues forth whenever people get out of line, at least if my urges are left unchecked.

So, here's my story.

It was a day off school, Veterans' Day or Memorial Day or some such holiday. I was in my little apartment near the orange grove off Mountain View Street, and had availed myself of a little nap. Perhaps I'd been watching videos or some such activity the night before. In any case, a midday nap for a teacher feels rather decadent.

I woke to the sound of a door closing. Odd, I thought. Someone is in my apartment!

I wasn't fearful. I just wanted to know why someone had entered my little abode. So I got up and went out into the living room/kitchen area to investigate. No one was there.

Hmmm... I knew someone had been in my house. I was sure I hadn't dreamed it. I wandered barefoot out the door and down the path, trying to find that elusive person.

There, in a catering truck parked out under the carports, I found him. A guy was sitting in a truck, and when I walked up to the truck, I saw that he had my purse on his lap and was going through my wallet.

"HEY!!!" I said in full indignation. "That's mine! You give that to me!!!"

And he did. "I thought it was my friend's purse," he said. "I thought it was her apartment."

"You don't just walk into someone's apartment without being invited!" I was incensed. "And you don't just take someone's purse. That's wrong."

"She owed me money," he mumbled.

"I don't care what someone owes you," I lectured. "You do not walk in and help yourself. You don't do that. You ask."  I stopped for a moment, and then delivered my punchline.  "Don't you EVER do that again."  And I stalked off.

No, I did not remember to get his license plate, and no, I didn't call the police.  And yes, everything--all the money, my credit cards, and so on--were still safely in my rescued purse.

Don't mess with an elementary teacher, I'm tellin' ya.

Dear Person Who Stole My Plant

It was my first apartment in southern California, in a large apartment complex bounded by Mountain View Street on one side, the railroad tracks and the dry wash on the next side, and a large orange grove on the side where my ground floor apartment was. It was a little one-bedroom apartment, a nice size with a sliding door out onto a tiny patio right by the path that came in from the carports. Upstairs lived a Mission Aviation Fellowship helicopter pilot who was gone for periods of time as he was preparing to return to Borneo. I didn't know any of my other neighbors.

One day I put my ailing houseplant out on the patio to get a little bit of sunshine. I've never had a very green thumb, and those plants that look a lovely vivid green in the store just seem to get scraggly and brown-edged in my care. But this was back in the time when I was young and idealistic about these things, and I thought perhaps a bit of sunshine would be the great healer of my plant.

Instead, when I next checked on my plant, it was gone.

It was a rude awakening. I could hardly believe that someone would have taken my property. Just walked up to the patio by my apartment and ripped off with it! I was incensed. This was not how life should be, nor how people should behave. My elementary-school teacher fairness-hackles went up on high alert. Someone needed to be told off.

I did have one more plant, and it, too, was needing more sunlight.  So I put it out on the patio with a sign.

Dear Person Who Stole My Plant:  It was mine. You took it. I miss it. I hope you really needed it and it has brought you happiness. Please do not steal this one. 

There, I got that little lecture out of my system. My second plant sat out on the patio for a few days with the sign, and then I brought it in. And that was the end of that.

Jesus Himself Alone

James Tissot's "Jesus goes up alone on a mountain to pray."

"And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone." Matthew17:8

Three disciples--Peter, James and John--had just seen Jesus change into a being of dazzling light in the middle of a dark night on a mountain. To add to the otherworldly experience, they had just heard the voice of God saying, "This is my son, the Beloved. With him I am well pleased; listen to him!" That voice knocked them to the ground, prostrate and panicked, which is the typical response recorded in the Bible for people who actually hear the voice of God in their ears. It was a vivid, overwhelming experience. If you meditate on it, you get swept along in the dark of the mountain, the fright of the light and sound, and the sense that if you were there, you'd have had no idea what on earth was happening.

And then the gospel writer says, "When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone." Deep breath. Calm the nerves. Be still, you beating heart.

But what would it be like, on a dark mountain under the moon and twinkly stars, to see Jesus himself alone? This is not a tame person. This is not a character in a novel. It's not just a picture on a canvas. This is the maker of the world, standing on rock, breathing the air, hair and clothes riffled by the breezes, God in flesh and blood, wearing the skin He designed and enjoying the warmth of the night. Like the disciples, I find that picture of Jesus himself alone to be at once overwhelming, heart-filling and absolutely wonderful. And I want to follow.

They saw no one except Jesus himself alone.  May that be the guide of your day today.

Change

I did a shopping errand this afternoon, and it got me to thinking. In the olden days I would have gone after quite a different-looking shopping list. For my projects and interests, I might have gotten things such as those pictured above: a journal, perfume, a cross-stitch kit, a rotary knife for quilting, and a card to send someone.  

So much has changed. Today's shopping list consisted of two things: foundation for my face, and a headset with a microphone to go with my laptop. I looked at the pile and realized that there was nothing there which I would have, in the past, considered "fun" or something to feed the soul.  And I looked at the latter and realized it was something I would never before have thought to buy. Irrelevant and too tecchie for anything I needed to do.

My ruminations about this afternoon's shopping run are symbolic, really. They get me thinking further:  What has changed in the past ten years in terms of my hobbies and tools?

I don't write by hand in a journal anymore; my journal is a collection of bytes comprising virtual paper stored on my laptop. Greetings for birthdays are either posted on someone's Facebook wall or sent via e-mail. The last time I cross-stitched a bookmark for a friend was five years ago, during a trip to Europe. I don't wear much perfume to work anymore, because some people are allergic to it and I spend so much time with committees in closed rooms. And quilting? It has to be a summer project, if it will happen at all.

So much has changed. Instead of writing articles for publications in magazines that will come out in three months or more, I now publish instantly by blogging and hitting the "publish post" button. And if I'm really, really lucky, a bunch of you will comment within the next 24 hours, making me feel my ideas have been heard, appreciated and have become part of a circle of communication out there. No more waiting for the letters to the editor a few months after my article has come out in that previously-mentioned magazine.

So much has changed. Last night I rented and watched a video, but it was not on VHS or even via a DVD. Nor did I drive the couple of miles up the road to the rental store. I downloaded it to my laptop from iTunes, leaving the TV screen free for Stepson who was watching something else with the wireless headphones on. And that is just the latest mind-blowing change from how my life used to be.

So much has changed. Dictionaries are online, I've navigated my way out of Seattle using the maps in my telephone, and music is playing from my computer. I can make video phone calls by Skype from China to Husband, who teaches his graduate Principalship class face-to-face for five days before taking it online for the rest of the summer. I've begun learning Mandarin Chinese from Rosetta Stone rather than a teacher in a classroom, and it was that task which necessitated the purchase of the headset this afternoon. Husband's flight alerts have been coming over e-mail today, so I know he'll be home on time from his California trip. My latest shopping trip didn't require me to drive the 45 minutes to the nearest shopping center; I ordered clothes online and received the packages on my doorstep.  It is cheap to send back the ones I don't like. I text my administrative assistant from my phone when I'm running late to an appointment. And my colleague across campus instant messages me with a quick question rather than picking up the phone.

I imagine some things won't ever change in my lifetime, like preferring to read a book with paper pages that can be turned physically, and going to the grocery store to select the produce I like. But so much has changed over even the last ten years.  It makes me wonder how it will change again in the next ten. Because surely it will ... change.

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing. --R.D. Laing, Scottish psychiatrist

A Sabbath Stroll

Like to come along on our stroll with us?  I was seeking physical activity and an airing-out of the brain after a very, very difficult week at work. I knew that my favorite walking place in the valley--Mill Creek and Bennington Lake--would do the trick.  And they did.

The whole area is a project of the Army Corps of Engineers, whose aim it was to prevent flooding in the valley and at the same time to protect a place for returning salmon to spawn. The first part of the walk is a paved pathway along Mill Creek, frequented by ducks, a bittern and a great blue heron.  The path itself is regularly traversed by walkers, cyclists and in-line skaters.

On the south side of the creek runs a gravel road providing a nice alternative for walking along Mill Creek and a pathway for horseback riding. It reminded me, watching the riders pass by, of how much I wanted a horse when I was a young girl.  But that is a bit difficult to arrange when you grow up on a tropical island in southeast Asia!

A couple of miles into my walk I arrived at Bennington Lake.  Husband had taken a different route and was to meet me there. The lake lies at the foot of a waterway created to siphon off spring runoff into the valley behind the dam. The lake itself was at the lowest I've ever seen it. Even the overflow tower was completely high and dry, and families and dogs were out walking on the dry mud flats. Nevertheless, it's still a beautiful valley in the rise at the edge of the Blue Mountains.

While I strolled through the parking lot on that end of the trail, I ran into people I knew. It's a hazard and blessing of living in a small community. First there was colleague Don out mountain biking with his lads in the afternoon sunshine.  He wore his typical grin; they wore their typical sour expressions.  Families are funny.

And then there was Sandy, who knew me by name and face and recognized that I wouldn't know her name, so she graciously introduced herself. She told me her daughter is a missionary in north Philippines this year, and commented with a smile that a huge cyclone is heading straight for that area. She was intrigued but not too worried.  Heather is living in a cement house, she said, so she should be okay. They had just skyped the evening before, and Sandy was out here to get photos of the fall colors to e-mail to Heather. I enjoyed her calm, cheery spirit.

While we were talking, Martin and Cheryl drove up with their van-load of kids and their blond poodle. I went to college with them, yea many years ago. We spoke of their kids' schooling, and they asked about my brother.  I met them again on the other side of the lake, walking single file and their second son sporting his quick and friendly grin.

The fall colors are indeed setting in.  Not in full swing, but the tall trees are yellowing, the late afternoon sunshine glowing through the leaves. I love these little stands of trees. While the ryegrass is pretty, it's the trees that feed my forest-hungry eyes on this dry eastern side of the state.

It was along this trail that Husband came sauntering along, and we joined forces for the rest of our walk, readjusting to conversation and the other person's pace.

Above the dry lake bed at a frequent viewing spot, Husband spotted a raptor.  I don't know what kind of bird it was, but it had laid claim to a lovely snag from which to survey its kingdom, or queendom as the case may be.  My friends Jayne and Ruth might be able to name this one. I am not a birder, but I like watching the raptors with their regal poise.

Here's a closer-up view of the bird. I didn't catch a picture of it in flight, although I tried.

It's wonderful that people saw fit to protect this area and make it into a huge natural wilderness with many trails for walking.  Part of the delight of walking in this area is that every corner you come around seems to present you with a completely different kind of vista, from lake, to ryegrass, to forest, to thistle thicket.

We arrived back at the top of Mill Creek, where Husband did me the favor of posing on the picturesque bridge.  A little way upstream the ducks pointed their butts up toward the heavens as they fed on the goodies to be found underwater.

And then we walked down-creek on the graveled side, into the rays of the setting sun.

The sumac is turning red.  The autumn is upon us.

May your week ahead be blessed.

Stairwell Encounter

I was on my way down the stairs the other day, en route from my office to a meeting.  At the bottom of the stairwell was a student standing very still, back to the glass door leading outside.

"How's it going?" I asked cheerfully. In this part of the world that is equivalent to saying, "Hi."

No answer. He didn't look up at me, but kept staring straight ahead.

I finished my descent and as I reached him I asked, "Are you okay?"

"I have focused all my mental faculties on another matter," he said, a deliberate faraway look in his eyes, "and do not wish to shift my thoughts to form an answer to your question."

"Okey dokey," I replied. "Buh-bye." And I headed out the door.

We do get some very strange students.

Treadmill Tip: On That Day Everybody Ate

Our freshman honors program students were reading the book, Terrie told me, and handed me an extra copy so that I could read it, too. The student in her office for advising brightened up and said to me, "I couldn't put it down!"  So I brought home On That Day Everybody Ate and put it on my treadmill book holder to be read during my morning walks.

After reading Zeitoun, a previous recommendation from the avid readers in my part of campus, I had assumed this book would be just as hard-hitting.  Poverty is hard to look at, hunger even harder. You want to turn away and look at something happier, with that childlike sense that "if I don't see it, it's not there." I figured this book would not be an easy one, either. But I found it to be different.

Margaret's story is a gentle one of a quietly growing mission in her heart. After her husband died from an allergic reaction while they were both still in their 30s, she decided to go on a "pilgrimage of reverse mission" to Haiti. It was her attempt to get out of her overwhelming grief and turn outward a bit.  

It was 1999. The trip was organized not as a mission trip, but as a trip to transform the participants. They saw abject poverty, worked in an orphanage, and tended dying women in a hostel run by the Sisters of Charity. Near the end of this difficult and depressing sojourn, Margaret's group conversed with a Catholic priest, Father Gerry, who talked with them about the, history, economy and living conditions of the people of Haiti. As he shared his vision of hope for Haiti sometime in the future, he commented that he had a vision for a food program to meet the needs of the hungry children in his community.

It was a passing wishful comment, but it settled in with Margaret once she was back in the United States and couldn't stop thinking about all she had seen, heard and done. She shared her wish to be of more help with her parents.  Her father, a pastor and president of a church conference, had just received $5000 back from a food pantry that had closed.  He offered to Margaret that they could send that donation to Father Gerry's mission instead. It seemed more than a coincidence.  The food program was underway.

The rest of the book is the simple story of Margaret's experience as she became more involved and bonded to the people of St. Clare's parish, returning to Haiti first with her brother, and then with her son for an entire summer to help with the food program. Margaret organized a nonprofit organization called "What If?" to handle the donations from friends and others who heard of Father Gerry's program. But the book is not about an organization; it's about one woman's journey from grief to service, from devastation to purpose.

I found it to be a quiet book, and yet, as our young college student observed that day in Terrie's office, "I couldn't put it down."  There's something about an honest and simple retelling of falling in love with a mission that grabs the heart.  For readers to whom it has happened, it will resonate with their own experience and bring joy. I would hope that, for those who have not yet experienced that falling-in-love with a community to whom they can give, this will be a compelling invitation.

At the end of Margaret's book, Gabriel, a student who lives in the refectory, tells her that the people of St. Clare's can't give anything back, but that they pray for those who have been so generous as to give to them. The blessings flow both ways.  And that's how it always is, with mission.

Ultimatums, Part 4

My friend Bjorn (not his real name) had a mini-stroke a few weeks ago. Having recently retired, he had been looking forward to some years ahead to enjoy slowing down and simply taking time. He'd spent years and years in the "cycle of professorial scramble," teaching, grading, and mentoring the never-ending stream of precious young adults who each were busy with those tasks of young adulthood: finding their identity, solidifying their beliefs, and developing intimate relationships. Suddenly those stress-free years ahead to spend with friends and family are not quite so clearly outlined. He spoke with me about the experience, about the confusion and fear as he lost control of his arm, and about the frustration as his thinking became fuzzy.

The doctor had given him an ultimatum, he reported. "Change your lifestyle, this very moment. Get regular exercise, get enough sleep, eat right." Bjorn acknowledged that it was a shock to his system. He'd already started the new behaviors when we spoke, just a few days after the precipitating event.

I found myself wondering if he'd stick with it, not because I questioned Bjorn's dedication to the task, but because I know my own weakness. Is it true that there's something about your body suddenly letting you down that gives a strong enough motivation to change and to stick with it? Isn't it a shame when the ultimatum comes late, when you could have done something earlier just by using your brain, your good sense, your will power? Is it not a gift when you actually have a choice to make the change, as compared to dropping dead in your tracks from a heart attack?

I really thought that I was going to get to the end of this set of posts and be able to articulate a profound conclusion about ultimatums being good, or bad, or useful only X circumstances. At this point I'm concluding that it's not quite that simple ... at least not in my world.

Would it not be wonderful if it didn't take ultimatums to make us change our behaviors? After all, ultimatums are typically an approach to behavior change that tend to be sudden, coercive and ugly.

Or is that exactly true? Might there exist "soft ultimatums" that are actually helpful?

In any case, I have a few propositions that I might try out here with the caveat that these deserve to be mulled and accepted or discarded as they have merit. You be the judge.

• It is preferable to invite behavior change in ways that do not require an ultimatum.
• If I consider dishing out an ultimatum, I need to consider carefully my motives. If I gain absolute power over another human being through an ultimatum, that would be one clue that it may not be the right thing to do.
• If handing out an ultimatum, it is wise to consider the long-term collateral impact on not only the giver and the receiver, but also on related bystanders. Is that broader impact really worth it?
• What if the ultimatum doesn't work? Am I willing to live with the alternative? Can I drop it, or will my pride or insistence on "being right" prevent that? Because of my human weakness, if I know myself to tend toward harshness or pride, I should at all costs avoid giving ultimatums, seeking some other method of affecting the other person's behavior.
• When receiving an ultimatum from someone else, I need to be aware of my own propensity to rebel. At such a time it would be wise to consider if the demand for behavior change has merit. If so, I might need to let my pride go for the sake of the merit to be gained by acquiescing to the demand. That puts me back in control of myself, because I am deliberately choosing, not caving in.
• Ultimatums almost always have a chilling effect on relationships, and therefore should be used sparingly. At very least, we should consider the collateral damage, wait, consider potential results and options, consult, wait, and consider again before giving out an ultimatum.

Finally, I think these observations are not the conclusion, although this series ends with this post. Despite the fact that I tend toward a negative view of ultimatums based on my own life experiences, one can't deny that the biblical account shows God giving out ultimatums (and "changing His mind" on some of them). So there must be more to know about the usefulness of giving an ultimatum.  I would be interested in the thoughts of my esteemed readers.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.