Last night my sister and I sang in our family’s church on Glenway Avenue. There isn’t anything novel in the announcement of that performance—we have been singing on Christmas Eve together, without fail, every year since I was 10 and she was 7. If you know about where my age falls, you can do the math, and figure out that this is a tradition that dates back to the era of Watergate in American politics.
Over the years, of course, many variables have affected this set-in-stone performance. There has been a name change in terms of what this church has been called (my family still is not happy about the change in 2004—my father suggested they just call it “The Anything Goes” church) and there have been 7 pastors (by my own count this frosty Christmas morning). There were some years my mother was in the hospital, and one memorable Christmas Eve where doctors allowed her out of the hospital for three hours so she could be bundled up—IV and all—to come to the church and hear us sing. There were years when the hairstyles and the outfits mattered so much more than the song being delivered to the church family. There was the year the church team forgot to turn on the heat, and up until I put my fingers on the keyboard, I kept my hands encased in much-needed gloves.
Ever since my sister got married in 1994 she has made a point of locating songs for Christmas Eve that illumine parts of the Christmas story we might have forgotten—she has made it her mission to act as surrogate pastor and remind us that there are nuggets of wisdom still to be gleaned by the oft-told Christmas story. For years I had chosen semi-flashy pieces designed to show off our vocal skills—then as Elizabeth took hold of the annual song choice (and leave no doubt—she is in charge of choosing!) she chose songs along the lines of Amy Grant’s “Grown-Up Christmas List” that act as beautiful meditations of how we can look into the traditions and stories and find something refreshing, re-invigorating, and re-affirming.
When I got home this year Elizabeth presented me with a song I had never heard, a song entitled, “Not That Far From Bethlehem.” I immediately noted, “Hey, I don’t live that far away from Bethlehem in Jordan! It’s only about 50 miles to Bethlehem!” Elizabeth—as wise mothers often do—nodded in knowing assent. That was partly why she had chosen this song, it fits into the reality of our lives so well these days. I have gone off—left the country—but where I have settled and made a new life—is not very far from the site of the genesis of the Christmas story. That Elizabeth—she is a good one, you know.
Rendering the song last night allows me to think about my life in Jordan—thousands of miles away. I love to go to Mukawir near Madaba in Jordan. It is about a 40-50 minute drive away from KA. At Mukawir stand the ruins of the once-lavish summer palace of our biblical acquaintance King Herod. Archaeologists tell us this was a sumptuous villa with opulent apartments for the royal family. It boasted a Roman bath with hot and cold pools all with a stunning view of the Jordan valley. When you hike there it is possible to close out the 21st century and focus simply on the ancient ruins and the staggering natural views. How interesting to compare Herod’s summer get-away with the Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus—not a castle, but little more than a grotto, or a garage.
The words to song Elizabeth chose offer this refrain:
We’re not that far from Bethlehem—
where all our hope and joy began.
For in our arms we’ll cherish Him.
We’re not that far from Bethlehem
What a wonderful meditation. In the last few weeks here in the United States, I have realized, again, that while I may live thousands of miles away, I am not that far from the love of family and friends. Each day I visit someone, talk to someone, reunite with someone who makes my world meaningful and brighter. I realized yesterday that there has been a preponderance of wonderful activity with people whose names begin with D. Here are just some snapshots of the Four Ds bringing home the meaning of Christmas.
Two weeks ago I spent an afternoon with my mentor, the iconic Doris Jackson. We came to Hackley the same year, 1996, and we reminisce that we bonded on the first day faculty gathered that year. We team-taught a course together in 1999-2000 and have forged one of the best friendships over the years. My KA friend Rehema and I spent the afternoon visiting and feasting on Doris’ legendary potato salad and roasted chicken (seriously, it may just be the best anywhere!). Going to Doris’ house is like soul food on a plate, and soul interaction in the family room. No matter how far away I go, I am not that far from Doris’ love and affection (or watchful eye, she would add!).
When back in town I try and see my friend Debbie—a friendship ignited while we both sang and sweated in the 1980 All Ohio State Fair Youth Choir. This choir is one of my favorite memories of my youth, and while we did not see each other from 1985 until 2005, ever since the 25th anniversary of our choir, Debbie has been a faithful friend. We get together for breakfast, and I bask in the beam of her marvelous smile and wisdom. It is a friendship that has stood the test of time. Seeing Debbie reminds me that I am not that far from the ebullience of youth and the thrill of making new friends.
On Monday of this week my junior high and high school friend Dawn and I had dinner at the “Golden Lamb” in Lebanon, Ohio. Dawn decided that we should take our high school AP History teacher out to this famed establishment—the oldest continuously serving restaurant/inn/pub in Ohio, going back to 1803—as she took us 25 years ago while we were finishing high school. My friendship with Dawn goes back to the U.S. Bicentennial—it is a treat to know and care about someone who has seen you through the seasons since you were 12. Our teacher, the inimitable Jean Michaels, is one of the main reasons I became a teacher—I saw how much she loved her job, and I wanted to do something that offered me the chance to love life in the same way. Mrs. Michaels is a little older these days than the halcyon days of our AP and Dickens class in the early 1980s, but no less feisty, opinionated, funny, or sharp. It was a delightful evening remembering that we are not that far from the days we chose our careers, and started out with high hopes and expectations.
And two nights ago I talked on the phone with a former student, David, from the class of 1998. It has been awhile since we visited, but we re-connected through the miracle of Facebook. David was in my very first class at Hackley, and his enthusiasm, even-handedness, and focused curiosity has always made him a favorite of mine. He has traveled the world, lived in China, is finishing a law degree, but our conversation reminded me I am not that far from the excited moments that have gratified me as a teacher.
The other day I joked about the miracle of Facebook and my sister, ever the insistent mother, reminded me that it is not really a miracle, “Johnny, come on—the ‘miracle of Facebook’?? The birth of Jesus is a miracle, not that you can log on to Facebook!” Yes, you are right Elizabeth, but Facebook is an exciting new way (for me) to reconnect with the message of what Christmas means to me.
However—this is a certainly a week when people celebrate miracles. The Jewish tradition of Hanukkah—the Festival of Lights—commemorates the time when a small amount of oil lasted 8 days and kept the light in the temple from going out. And so this week allows us a chance to think about, what exactly is a miracle? Last Sunday my marvelous Aunt Dot hosted a Griley get-together that dwarfed all others. Our cousin from Charleston, Barbara, joined us for a delightful reunion. Is that a miracle? I guess in December we are prone to hope for miracles. We yearn for them. Deep down most of us believe that darkness can be overcome.
The other day I played my Denison cassette tape of the entirety of Handel’s Messiah. I love so many moments in this beloved classic but when the chorus bursts out with “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” I am overwhelmed by the multi-facets of that glory and our search for glory in general. Such images of wealth and power must have filled the minds of the Hebrews after they heard that prophecy from Isaiah.
The Messiah who showed up, however had different trappings of glory—I guess one could call it the glory of humility. This messiah emerged as a baby who could not eat solid food and depended on an unwed teen-age mother for shelter, food, and love. God’s visit to earth was in an out-of-the-way shelter in a feed trough. Indeed, the event that divides history into two parts may have had more animal than human witnesses! As songwriter Phillips Brooks penned:
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. “O, Little Town of Bethlehem.”
With all my Jewish and Muslim friends I try and look for an ecumenical approach to Christmas, besides the sacred understanding of the birth of the Messiah. And I am not talking about a Santa Claus spin on the holiday or trying to cover up religiosity. I mean—in the birth in Bethlehem, how can we walk away with an ecumenical understanding? Simply put: Jesus’ birth is a reiteration that love came down, and offered vast promise. It is about the power of love to change, and the power of cherishing each other. Christmas offers us that opportunity to turn back to those promises—those hopes and joys, and remind ourselves we should never allow ourselves to be that far from Bethlehem.
We’re not that far from Bethlehem—
where all our hope and joy began.
For in our arms we’ll cherish Him.
We’re not that far from Bethlehem
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Take that—Mr. Wolfe!
I must confess—I have never read Thomas Wolfe’s novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, but the power of that title bangs around my head once in awhile. I mean, for many of us, the title of that tome acts as an urgent cautionary tale.
On one hand—if you have gleaned only a few things about me from reading this blog, you know there is nothing I like more than getting together with old friends. An email or a blog comment from an Enszer is like winning the lottery; lunch with Kate is like sun shining through a gray sky; meeting up with Will (courtesy of the miracle of facebook!) last week after 10 years of missing each other, simply serendipitous.
But that Thomas Wolfe proverb stands tall and rather fierce when the outcome is not so certain, doesn’t it? It is one thing to hear from, or re-connect with, some of the greatest people you know. It is quite another to try and re-create moments from your past, or encounter people who had made life nasty, uncomfortable, or treacherous.
Even without reading the Wolfe novel, I have gleaned that it is about a man who leaves his small town, writes a book that stirs enmity in his hometown, and learns he better not go back to his original environs. I think—again, without the benefit of actually having read the book!—that the message of this writer’s life is that he cannot go home again because nothing ever stays the same. (I know, I should actually read the book before I start peddling what the book portends to represent! But see how we did this as students—we can actually get something out of a book we didn’t read. I remember how I did that as a junior in high school with Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. I have learned, however, that one tends to get so much more out of something if you do experience it yourself!)
Anyway, all of this is to set up some of the angst I endured last week in New York as I faced two prospects in “going home” to my former school Hackley. I had received a computer generated invitation to the annual Harvard Club Hackley Alumni event, an event I loved the 8 times I went as a faculty member. And my dear friend Anne had quietly insisted for months that I should spend a school day at Hackley while on vacation.
I do not want to dwell on it for long—many of you may remember the saga, but more than a thousand days ago my “golden boy” status at Hackley changed and administrators created a far larger problem out of a resolved issue on a school trip. It went from bad to worse, and suffice it to say, you learn who your real friends are in such situations. ‘Nuff said…
And even though I have been back to New York three times since I moved away in the summer of 2007 to head off to Jordan, I had not re-visited the school, a place suffused with such affection for me in my 11 years of service, and with such disappointment at how adults can treat each other. Did I really want to go back?
I have never worked in businesses longer than a summer, so I have no idea how they really work, but in schools, I know it is a strange thing to go back and try and re-create the “magic” you may have had in a previous school. The mood in a school is an ephemeral thing. For one thing, you have no routine, no schedule to follow, no projects in motion, no recent glories in which to bask, no recent axes to grind, and no students with whom you are in the on-going struggle of transformation. I have never wanted to be that guy who skulks in the hallway, buttonholing someone with, ”Hey, remember me? I did that great play. I designed that cool course.”
But Anne kept saying, “You need to go. They need to see how happy you are in Jordan! And besides, people want to see you.” Thomas Wolfe stands there in your mind, the specter of him stroking his chin wondering…
And so I responded affirmatively to the alumni event. This event is always the same Thursday every year, and I knew that with our unusual KA schedule this year affording us a one-time only four-week holiday (we have been told it will not happen again for 33 more years!), I may never get back this alumni event for a long time. What the hay!
I will admit to a little nervousness as I got out of the subway at Bryant Park to walk the five minutes in the rain to the Harvard Club. I had planned that I would arrive at the event at 6:45 and leave at 7:45 so I could make it to the theater (Christy had bought us tickets to Billy Elliot as a Christmas gift). I could do one hour there—no matter what, one hour would be doable. Well, the subway was faster than I predicted, and I arrived at the station at 6:35. Okay, I would just pace in the subway station until 6:40 when I would walk over. I needed to keep to the schedule. I walk over, go in the big crimson doors (remember, it is the Harvard Club, and they love their crimson) a little nervous. Now, I gotta say—I looked darn good! I had worn a suit, shirt, and tie I had bought in Jordan my first month, so I had my new home comforting me a bit. I go in to check my coat, and who do I see—but Taraneh. For those of you not aware of the Khosrowshahi family—well, count it as a personal loss in your life. Sometime find yourself in Westchester county and call up and meet this family. Taraneh takes my arm and says, “Let’s walk in together.” And there we went.
It was a great hour seeing alumni—and before I knew it the time had passed. These were mostly alumni from the classes of 2001-04 and it was like a facebook wall come to life. Yes, better than facebook!
The following morning I am on the train from Manhattan up to Westchester and my day at Hackley. There were some butterflies caught in my stomach, although I really don’t know why. I stayed at Hackley two years after the sufferings in 2005 so I walked those halls all the time when certain adults had already tried to see how much misery I could stand. Two years of great classes and more wonderful students. But as I sat on the train I laughed at how Anne had really convinced me to go to Hackley. She said, rather off-handedly, landing her trump card casually: “Well, Marlene and Flo really want to see you, and you won’t be able to see them otherwise.” Marlene and Flo, two of my staunchest allies and dearest co-workers at Hackley, wanted to see me. Marlene worked in the dining hall and nourished me physically and spiritually, and Flo worked as the receptionist and mail room czarina, and kept me in touch with lovely people. I should go.
At the end of the day someone stopped by Anne’s room and asked me how the day had been. I started to qualify it with, “I guess, it was, well, considering…” and I thought, now that is silly—it was a simple answer: just great.
While I had been touch with a strong contingent of lovely families since I left, and visited with about a dozen of them in the last 18 months, I had forgotten the streams of students I had taught in the 9th grade my last two years. And walking through the hallway, yeah, I felt a little like a 40 year-old rock star with kids shrieking my name and sending hugs and love my way. I had kids come up to me from my two 7th grade study halls I had the last two years, asking if I remembered them, checking on how they were doing in the upper school. I got to spend some time with Diana, my math teacher and life friend, reminiscing about the “salad days” in the late 1990s. And of course, I got to spend time hugging and visiting with both Marlene and Flo.
I was trying to think what I feared the most—was it the shoulder shrugs of former administrators and turncoat faculty, or did I fear ebullient and fake welcomes from them? I did see several former colleagues duck away as they saw me coming down the hall. Who cares! I had heard that someone had told the headmaster that I was coming and he should welcome me back. Good grief. I guess I could do without that empty gesture. But when he did approach me, in the dining hall, he merely said, “I thought you’d have a better tan,” and kept moving. For a moment I thought that should be the title of the blog entry.
It was a day watching Anne help students as they edited their most recent English composition. It was a day envying the mound of lunch meat in the dining hall (when someone asked me what I missed most about Hackley, I almost pointed to that mountain of available turkey and ham!). It was a day reminding myself how great those Hackley kids are—from guys like Will and Andre to ladies like Zoe and Kristin and Adjoa—fondly recalling the excitement in the 9th grade history class, working to release their historical imaginations and help them soar as scholars.
I generally subscribe to the mantra that in life we must be metaphorically moving forward—always forward. But those steps backward can be forgiving and healing and reconciling. I might have spent the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art seeing new exhibits, or tried a bistro that had previously been overlooked. But it was exactly as Anne predicted—it was good, healthy, and rejuvenating to go back and see the legions of people I miss at Hackley. As for the handful who probably grumbled that I was there—who cares! I have a new school that affords me all I want in a school, and students who challenge me and excite me, and faculty whom I cherish.
I have lived in Jordan officially for an entire calendar year now. It has been a good move. Even a wise move. Definitely the right move. And while you cannot exactly slip into your old self and re-live the old times, you can re-tread those steps and enjoy the landscapes once again.
I am home in Cincinnati with my family now, and will be taking a sabbatical from the blog until Christmas Day. Blessings on you.
On one hand—if you have gleaned only a few things about me from reading this blog, you know there is nothing I like more than getting together with old friends. An email or a blog comment from an Enszer is like winning the lottery; lunch with Kate is like sun shining through a gray sky; meeting up with Will (courtesy of the miracle of facebook!) last week after 10 years of missing each other, simply serendipitous.
But that Thomas Wolfe proverb stands tall and rather fierce when the outcome is not so certain, doesn’t it? It is one thing to hear from, or re-connect with, some of the greatest people you know. It is quite another to try and re-create moments from your past, or encounter people who had made life nasty, uncomfortable, or treacherous.
Even without reading the Wolfe novel, I have gleaned that it is about a man who leaves his small town, writes a book that stirs enmity in his hometown, and learns he better not go back to his original environs. I think—again, without the benefit of actually having read the book!—that the message of this writer’s life is that he cannot go home again because nothing ever stays the same. (I know, I should actually read the book before I start peddling what the book portends to represent! But see how we did this as students—we can actually get something out of a book we didn’t read. I remember how I did that as a junior in high school with Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. I have learned, however, that one tends to get so much more out of something if you do experience it yourself!)
Anyway, all of this is to set up some of the angst I endured last week in New York as I faced two prospects in “going home” to my former school Hackley. I had received a computer generated invitation to the annual Harvard Club Hackley Alumni event, an event I loved the 8 times I went as a faculty member. And my dear friend Anne had quietly insisted for months that I should spend a school day at Hackley while on vacation.
I do not want to dwell on it for long—many of you may remember the saga, but more than a thousand days ago my “golden boy” status at Hackley changed and administrators created a far larger problem out of a resolved issue on a school trip. It went from bad to worse, and suffice it to say, you learn who your real friends are in such situations. ‘Nuff said…
And even though I have been back to New York three times since I moved away in the summer of 2007 to head off to Jordan, I had not re-visited the school, a place suffused with such affection for me in my 11 years of service, and with such disappointment at how adults can treat each other. Did I really want to go back?
I have never worked in businesses longer than a summer, so I have no idea how they really work, but in schools, I know it is a strange thing to go back and try and re-create the “magic” you may have had in a previous school. The mood in a school is an ephemeral thing. For one thing, you have no routine, no schedule to follow, no projects in motion, no recent glories in which to bask, no recent axes to grind, and no students with whom you are in the on-going struggle of transformation. I have never wanted to be that guy who skulks in the hallway, buttonholing someone with, ”Hey, remember me? I did that great play. I designed that cool course.”
But Anne kept saying, “You need to go. They need to see how happy you are in Jordan! And besides, people want to see you.” Thomas Wolfe stands there in your mind, the specter of him stroking his chin wondering…
And so I responded affirmatively to the alumni event. This event is always the same Thursday every year, and I knew that with our unusual KA schedule this year affording us a one-time only four-week holiday (we have been told it will not happen again for 33 more years!), I may never get back this alumni event for a long time. What the hay!
I will admit to a little nervousness as I got out of the subway at Bryant Park to walk the five minutes in the rain to the Harvard Club. I had planned that I would arrive at the event at 6:45 and leave at 7:45 so I could make it to the theater (Christy had bought us tickets to Billy Elliot as a Christmas gift). I could do one hour there—no matter what, one hour would be doable. Well, the subway was faster than I predicted, and I arrived at the station at 6:35. Okay, I would just pace in the subway station until 6:40 when I would walk over. I needed to keep to the schedule. I walk over, go in the big crimson doors (remember, it is the Harvard Club, and they love their crimson) a little nervous. Now, I gotta say—I looked darn good! I had worn a suit, shirt, and tie I had bought in Jordan my first month, so I had my new home comforting me a bit. I go in to check my coat, and who do I see—but Taraneh. For those of you not aware of the Khosrowshahi family—well, count it as a personal loss in your life. Sometime find yourself in Westchester county and call up and meet this family. Taraneh takes my arm and says, “Let’s walk in together.” And there we went.
It was a great hour seeing alumni—and before I knew it the time had passed. These were mostly alumni from the classes of 2001-04 and it was like a facebook wall come to life. Yes, better than facebook!
The following morning I am on the train from Manhattan up to Westchester and my day at Hackley. There were some butterflies caught in my stomach, although I really don’t know why. I stayed at Hackley two years after the sufferings in 2005 so I walked those halls all the time when certain adults had already tried to see how much misery I could stand. Two years of great classes and more wonderful students. But as I sat on the train I laughed at how Anne had really convinced me to go to Hackley. She said, rather off-handedly, landing her trump card casually: “Well, Marlene and Flo really want to see you, and you won’t be able to see them otherwise.” Marlene and Flo, two of my staunchest allies and dearest co-workers at Hackley, wanted to see me. Marlene worked in the dining hall and nourished me physically and spiritually, and Flo worked as the receptionist and mail room czarina, and kept me in touch with lovely people. I should go.
At the end of the day someone stopped by Anne’s room and asked me how the day had been. I started to qualify it with, “I guess, it was, well, considering…” and I thought, now that is silly—it was a simple answer: just great.
While I had been touch with a strong contingent of lovely families since I left, and visited with about a dozen of them in the last 18 months, I had forgotten the streams of students I had taught in the 9th grade my last two years. And walking through the hallway, yeah, I felt a little like a 40 year-old rock star with kids shrieking my name and sending hugs and love my way. I had kids come up to me from my two 7th grade study halls I had the last two years, asking if I remembered them, checking on how they were doing in the upper school. I got to spend some time with Diana, my math teacher and life friend, reminiscing about the “salad days” in the late 1990s. And of course, I got to spend time hugging and visiting with both Marlene and Flo.
I was trying to think what I feared the most—was it the shoulder shrugs of former administrators and turncoat faculty, or did I fear ebullient and fake welcomes from them? I did see several former colleagues duck away as they saw me coming down the hall. Who cares! I had heard that someone had told the headmaster that I was coming and he should welcome me back. Good grief. I guess I could do without that empty gesture. But when he did approach me, in the dining hall, he merely said, “I thought you’d have a better tan,” and kept moving. For a moment I thought that should be the title of the blog entry.
It was a day watching Anne help students as they edited their most recent English composition. It was a day envying the mound of lunch meat in the dining hall (when someone asked me what I missed most about Hackley, I almost pointed to that mountain of available turkey and ham!). It was a day reminding myself how great those Hackley kids are—from guys like Will and Andre to ladies like Zoe and Kristin and Adjoa—fondly recalling the excitement in the 9th grade history class, working to release their historical imaginations and help them soar as scholars.
I generally subscribe to the mantra that in life we must be metaphorically moving forward—always forward. But those steps backward can be forgiving and healing and reconciling. I might have spent the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art seeing new exhibits, or tried a bistro that had previously been overlooked. But it was exactly as Anne predicted—it was good, healthy, and rejuvenating to go back and see the legions of people I miss at Hackley. As for the handful who probably grumbled that I was there—who cares! I have a new school that affords me all I want in a school, and students who challenge me and excite me, and faculty whom I cherish.
I have lived in Jordan officially for an entire calendar year now. It has been a good move. Even a wise move. Definitely the right move. And while you cannot exactly slip into your old self and re-live the old times, you can re-tread those steps and enjoy the landscapes once again.
I am home in Cincinnati with my family now, and will be taking a sabbatical from the blog until Christmas Day. Blessings on you.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
My "comfort-food" day
No, this is not an entry about my favorite comfort foods--I did that last December (feel free to check that out if you are interested--mmm mmm good is all I have to say), so I am not that full of repeat episodes. But yesterday was a metaphorical day just like eating that steaming bowl of macaroni-and-cheese-of-your-dreams...the entire day was one dollop after another of comforting, wonderful, nostalgic images, activities, connections and rewards.
I am in New York City right now--rekindling my love affair with this town--and yesterday was just one of those casual days, not too many plans-set-in-stone, and as it turned out, each turn in the day was some re-creation of earlier loves and joys of being in this city.
The first time I spent significant time in New York City was December of 1985, my senior year in college when I came and spent a week with my best friend Steve and our freshman wunderkind Sarah. I adored every second of that visit, and I have spent the last 20-some years dreaming of coming back, planning to come back, and reveling in this often-ludicrously-expensive, sometimes-dirty, and seemingly faceless urban monument. People in Cincinnati have occasionally asked me why I love NYC so much (right here could be a song break: that groovy bridge in the Annie show, "NYC--just got here this morning! Three bucks! Two bags! One me!") and one of the great truths in this love affair is that I have never had to work or secure housing in Manhattan. I came as a starry-eyed tourist, returned as a starry-eyed graduate student with a fellowship and stipend, returned as a suburbanite visiting every weekend the brothels of New York culture. New York, for me, has only been about self-indulgence (well, there was the horrible class trip with Gail in 1988 with the most wretched students imaginable...that was not self-indulgence, but more self-flagellation...but I digress). And yesterday was that juicy burger of a day.
I am staying with my friend Christy on the Upper West side. Christy and I have been attached in some way since 1994. For years on end her apartment was the pied-a-terre I enjoyed as a weekend-getaway from Hackley. After some time on the rocks (cue the Neil Diamond music) we have found our way back to a beautiful, amicable relationship. (Never saw us on the Tyra Banks show, now did you!). I was here when she made the big move to this gorgeous apartment in 2000 and it has always been a place of such happy memories of birthday parties, visiting relatives, and Christmas and Passover parties (Christy is so ecumenical--she will service any religious holiday). Yesterday I started out reading the New York Times. Not on-line, as I do in Jordan, but in my hands, with the glorious newsprint left as a souvenir on my fingertips.
Christy and I walked through Central Park, one of the great havens of the world, and I pretended I had seen the leaves change this autumn, marvelling at the stunning beauty Frederick Law Olmstead bequeathed to us with this park. We arrived at the Temple of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where for so long I visited about once a week. We visited a few old friends (read=paintings) and then joined a tour on Love in Renaissance Italy. We remarked in our snarky way that the Met should not have cut so many gallery talks--too many tourists littering our talks with the art experts. Same old observation as the old days. We visited the exhibit on Philippe de Montebello (the venerable and outgoing head of the Met) looking at the collection the curators created of what had been purchased under his watch in the last 30 years(they chose 300 items of the almost 84,000 items he oversaw acquiring). We especially loved the room of the purchases after 1994 since that was when we descended onto Manhattan.
I then met one of my favorite former students of all time, Joe Canterino, for lunch. But not just anywhere--a place called the "Jewel of India," in mid-town, a scene over the years of other notable meals with dear friends. We caught up, along with his wonderful girlfriend, about life in medical school, and life in Jordan, respectively. Another soupcon of comfort-food life.
I then did something probably a bit odd--I wanted to work out in my old gym, and I wanted to walk around neighborhoods I enjoy visiting, so I combined both desires. I did a "progresive work-out," kind of like the old-fashioned progressive dinner, and I went to four different franchises of NYSC gym, and walked through their four neighborhoods! Yeah, I am sure the work-out was secondary too, but it felt like good multi-tasking, enjoying both.
On my way to the theater I stopped for a slice at my favorite neighborhood pizza joint. Christy and I met to see the latest edition of the stupendous parody, "Forbidden Broadway." This is a show 26 years old, and updated every season or so by one of the most clever men ever to grace the earth. He parodies, digs, and skewers any show that needs the ribbing. I first visited the show back in 1986 with Sarah, and over the years, have gone back 7-8 times. Christy and I laughed heartily at the talented performers sending up some of the most beloved Broadway stars. We noticed one of the four performers from a show we saw in 1997. Another helping, please.
We capped off the evening sauntering over to the famed Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. I had first come to see the tree that visit in 1985, with Sarah and Steve and beloved friend Sharon. It is a magnificent sight, and our visit last night rekindled the memories of other visits to the tree, and New York in December, over the last 20 years. It was a warmish evening, but enough chill in the air to warrant the mammoth tree, the twinkly lights, and hopes of a visit from Santa Claus soon.
We made our way back to the Upper West Side via my favorite form of NYC transportation: the subway. I noticed a sign that I had seen many times before--a sign from the Metropolitan Transit Authority advising subway riders who might become ill on the train. The sign asked that the suddenly infirm inform another passenger or get out at the next stop and approach the stationmaster. Do not, repeat, do not pull the emergency brake, the sign said, as this will only delay aid. Which was all very logical, but for the following proclamation at the bottom of the sign, something along the lines of, "If you are sick, you will not be left alone."
Maybe this is what I like most about New York.
This strikes me as not only kind, not only comforting, but the very epitome of civilization, good government, ethical impulses, etc. Banding together, pooling our resources, not just making trains that move underground, not just making trains that move underground with surprising efficiency at a fair price--but posting on said trains a notification of such surprising compassion and thoughtfulness. I found myself scanning the faces of my fellow passengers, hoping for fainting, obvious fevers, at the very least a sneeze so I could offer one of Christy's many tissues.
At end of the day I commented to Christy how rather haphazardly my day had been of one course after another of old-friends. I then shuffled off to go on-line to Facebook. I have been on Facebook for a grand total of 72 hours, but am enjoying the newness of this communication.
Christy noted that my whole wonderful day had been another old-fashioned kind of enjoyment: face-to-face encounters and not just Facebook.
Ahhhh...but through the miracle of Facebook, I will be meeting up later today with Bobbie Cloud, another dear friend from the Charlotte years, and another helping of my comfort-food!
I am in New York City right now--rekindling my love affair with this town--and yesterday was just one of those casual days, not too many plans-set-in-stone, and as it turned out, each turn in the day was some re-creation of earlier loves and joys of being in this city.
The first time I spent significant time in New York City was December of 1985, my senior year in college when I came and spent a week with my best friend Steve and our freshman wunderkind Sarah. I adored every second of that visit, and I have spent the last 20-some years dreaming of coming back, planning to come back, and reveling in this often-ludicrously-expensive, sometimes-dirty, and seemingly faceless urban monument. People in Cincinnati have occasionally asked me why I love NYC so much (right here could be a song break: that groovy bridge in the Annie show, "NYC--just got here this morning! Three bucks! Two bags! One me!") and one of the great truths in this love affair is that I have never had to work or secure housing in Manhattan. I came as a starry-eyed tourist, returned as a starry-eyed graduate student with a fellowship and stipend, returned as a suburbanite visiting every weekend the brothels of New York culture. New York, for me, has only been about self-indulgence (well, there was the horrible class trip with Gail in 1988 with the most wretched students imaginable...that was not self-indulgence, but more self-flagellation...but I digress). And yesterday was that juicy burger of a day.
I am staying with my friend Christy on the Upper West side. Christy and I have been attached in some way since 1994. For years on end her apartment was the pied-a-terre I enjoyed as a weekend-getaway from Hackley. After some time on the rocks (cue the Neil Diamond music) we have found our way back to a beautiful, amicable relationship. (Never saw us on the Tyra Banks show, now did you!). I was here when she made the big move to this gorgeous apartment in 2000 and it has always been a place of such happy memories of birthday parties, visiting relatives, and Christmas and Passover parties (Christy is so ecumenical--she will service any religious holiday). Yesterday I started out reading the New York Times. Not on-line, as I do in Jordan, but in my hands, with the glorious newsprint left as a souvenir on my fingertips.
Christy and I walked through Central Park, one of the great havens of the world, and I pretended I had seen the leaves change this autumn, marvelling at the stunning beauty Frederick Law Olmstead bequeathed to us with this park. We arrived at the Temple of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where for so long I visited about once a week. We visited a few old friends (read=paintings) and then joined a tour on Love in Renaissance Italy. We remarked in our snarky way that the Met should not have cut so many gallery talks--too many tourists littering our talks with the art experts. Same old observation as the old days. We visited the exhibit on Philippe de Montebello (the venerable and outgoing head of the Met) looking at the collection the curators created of what had been purchased under his watch in the last 30 years(they chose 300 items of the almost 84,000 items he oversaw acquiring). We especially loved the room of the purchases after 1994 since that was when we descended onto Manhattan.
I then met one of my favorite former students of all time, Joe Canterino, for lunch. But not just anywhere--a place called the "Jewel of India," in mid-town, a scene over the years of other notable meals with dear friends. We caught up, along with his wonderful girlfriend, about life in medical school, and life in Jordan, respectively. Another soupcon of comfort-food life.
I then did something probably a bit odd--I wanted to work out in my old gym, and I wanted to walk around neighborhoods I enjoy visiting, so I combined both desires. I did a "progresive work-out," kind of like the old-fashioned progressive dinner, and I went to four different franchises of NYSC gym, and walked through their four neighborhoods! Yeah, I am sure the work-out was secondary too, but it felt like good multi-tasking, enjoying both.
On my way to the theater I stopped for a slice at my favorite neighborhood pizza joint. Christy and I met to see the latest edition of the stupendous parody, "Forbidden Broadway." This is a show 26 years old, and updated every season or so by one of the most clever men ever to grace the earth. He parodies, digs, and skewers any show that needs the ribbing. I first visited the show back in 1986 with Sarah, and over the years, have gone back 7-8 times. Christy and I laughed heartily at the talented performers sending up some of the most beloved Broadway stars. We noticed one of the four performers from a show we saw in 1997. Another helping, please.
We capped off the evening sauntering over to the famed Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. I had first come to see the tree that visit in 1985, with Sarah and Steve and beloved friend Sharon. It is a magnificent sight, and our visit last night rekindled the memories of other visits to the tree, and New York in December, over the last 20 years. It was a warmish evening, but enough chill in the air to warrant the mammoth tree, the twinkly lights, and hopes of a visit from Santa Claus soon.
We made our way back to the Upper West Side via my favorite form of NYC transportation: the subway. I noticed a sign that I had seen many times before--a sign from the Metropolitan Transit Authority advising subway riders who might become ill on the train. The sign asked that the suddenly infirm inform another passenger or get out at the next stop and approach the stationmaster. Do not, repeat, do not pull the emergency brake, the sign said, as this will only delay aid. Which was all very logical, but for the following proclamation at the bottom of the sign, something along the lines of, "If you are sick, you will not be left alone."
Maybe this is what I like most about New York.
This strikes me as not only kind, not only comforting, but the very epitome of civilization, good government, ethical impulses, etc. Banding together, pooling our resources, not just making trains that move underground, not just making trains that move underground with surprising efficiency at a fair price--but posting on said trains a notification of such surprising compassion and thoughtfulness. I found myself scanning the faces of my fellow passengers, hoping for fainting, obvious fevers, at the very least a sneeze so I could offer one of Christy's many tissues.
At end of the day I commented to Christy how rather haphazardly my day had been of one course after another of old-friends. I then shuffled off to go on-line to Facebook. I have been on Facebook for a grand total of 72 hours, but am enjoying the newness of this communication.
Christy noted that my whole wonderful day had been another old-fashioned kind of enjoyment: face-to-face encounters and not just Facebook.
Ahhhh...but through the miracle of Facebook, I will be meeting up later today with Bobbie Cloud, another dear friend from the Charlotte years, and another helping of my comfort-food!
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Wheels On The Bus
The wheels on the bus go round and round
Round and round, round and round
The wheels on the bus go round and round
All through the town.
Remember this song we sang as little children? As we come to the end of the first term of the school year, a ditty as silly as this seems perfectly in tune with my mental state at the moment! I have just finished reading 96 exam essays for AP World History, figuring out grades, and sending the boys from my dormitory home for the holidays.
Due to quirks in the Muslim calendar and the Christian calendar, it turns out KA will enjoy the longest mid-year break it will ever have. The Eid holiday during which the faithful make their pilgrimage to Mecca, has begun, and by the time that period of celebration ends, it would almost have coincided with the Christmas holidays. So we lumped them all together, and here we are—a month-long break. As our headmaster warned us, “this won’t come along together like this for another 33 years.”
By that time, come 2041, I may be retired.
But this song, now on an endless loop in my head (just try and escape it!), also works as a metaphor for the stage in child development infamously labeled, the “terrible twos.” “No one looks forward to the terrible twos,” writes a psychologist on one of the websites associated (I did a google search and it came up with 1.6 million sites!) with the ‘terrible twos.’ As we all know this stage is characterized by toddlers being negative about most things and often stamping feet and shouting “No!”
As my brilliant psychologist friend Sue would remind each of us, the child isn’t trying to be defiant or rebellious on purpose. He is just trying to express his growing independence. Moreover language skills have not been perfected yet.
But we all have to live through this stage fraught with tantrums and testing limits. As we came to this end of our first term, in spite of the many positive and wonderful things about life at KA—it seemed this autumn we had definitely entered a stage in school development that mirrored these notorious “terrible twos.” There have been scenes of antagonism, backbiting, frustration, some employees resigning, negativity and emotional wobbliness. Indeed, the school is in Year #2, and why shouldn’t there be some problems as we adjust to the intermingling of languages, cultures, religions, classes, backgrounds, nations? But there is a gnawing fear sometimes that the wheels have fallen off the bus.
Vision is one of the hardest things to implant or to nurture. Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry, theories of structures or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture—literally a vision—in the minds of those who built them. King Abdullah, in my mind, is certainly a visionary in how he imagined and worked to create this school. But some people do not realize that a school, or any of the aforementioned projects, does not emerge fully complete as Athena did out of Zeus’ head.
And so, at the moment, we are suffering through, aching through the “terrible twos” of a school project. I suppose it is inevitable that with such a heady project hoping to stimulate world peace, that there would be a clash of ideals, and a clash of egos. The limits and tantrums of a small child stretching through the second year of life is mirrored in the struggles at our wonderful school. It also comes at a price trying to find financial aid money so that half of the KA students can be supported and the school can be need- blind. We can look to another verse in the school bus song, reminding us of pressing needs in a time of economic dislocation:
The money on the bus goes "Clink, clink, clink,
Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink"
The money on the bus goes "Clink, clink, clink"
All through the town.
Just this week I suffered through the worst night in the dormitory in my 17 months at KA. Exams had ended Wednesday by 11:00 a.m. and there would be a truncated day on Thursday to return exams—but somehow it escaped all of us to plan anything with the students. So for almost 24 hours there was nothing for them to do. That night, on one of five forays out of my apartment after midnight on a rampage, I encountered one of the nicest students, and I asked him why in the world they were still running around at 3:15 a.m.?!?!?!? He said they felt “entitled” to stay up all night and run around. Just as you want to do with an inconsiderate two-year old, I wanted to shake some sense into him.
So on our last day of the term, yesterday, there was a scarred and defiant attitude, among everybody I think.
Here is where you, the adult, need a time-out. It is not only instructive for the two-year old, but the adults, and the school community as a whole. Here is where we need to seek some wisdom from sage philosophers. I am reminded of writer H.G. Wells, who commented, “Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe.”
This has been an extraordinary fall, with great progress made, but we sometimes gripe about the imperfections. Why isn’t there more money for this, or why can’t we just get past the writing difficulties, why can’t the Americans do this, or why can’t the Jordanians do this??????? BREATHE PEOPLE! We need to look for that moment instead, and it might be a quiet moment, when the door opens and the future comes in. For while there are certainly flaws in this human endeavor, we have touched children’s hearts. If we can reach a child’s heart we can reach the world’s heart.
In the midst of our exam period (seemingly endless!) my dear friend Tiffany initiated a project of charitable giving in the last 12 days, a project enormously successful in giving back to our staff, to a nearby school, sheep for a village, clothes, food, money, and time to help younger students learn to study. One day students were asked to send thank-you notes to teachers if they wanted. It is interesting that one of the kindest notes I received was from that dastardly defiant boy who met me in the hallway night before last refusing to go to bed. His note, in part, reads, “Thank you for making sure I am on the right track and doing things the way they should be done. Thank you for caring. I know it isn’t going to make you rich if you care about us, but you do…”
Oh, the terrible twos! Just when you think you should give up, you see the future, you sense the greatness beyond the exhaustion, beyond the silliness. I looked on-line at the lyrics of our schoolbus song, and there is a cloying last verse:
The mommy on the bus says, "I love you,
I love you, I love you"
The daddy on the bus says, "I love you, too"
All through the town.
So as I profess in my bio, that Yeats quotation that “education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire,” sometimes the kindling is just difficult to assemble and the fire is slow. But just as with every two-year old, we live through that stage, we sing the silly songs, we discipline, we hold our tongue, we hope and we must revel in the madness.
I recently saw that Pete Seeger, that iconic American troubadour, has another album out, commemorating his 89 years on earth. One of his tracks picks up on a theme to which he has devoted his life—trying to urge us to make the world better. Pete Seeger and King Abdullah have a great deal in common, and for those of us fellow lodgers living in this house, we need to keep the faith to survive the stage of “terrible twos” and all the other growing pains in life. Here are the words Pete offers us, hoping we continue to try as hard as we can:
“If This World Survives”
If this world survives,
And every other day I think it might,
In good part it will be
Because of the great souls in our community.
There are a lot of them.
I've seen them walk
In lonely thousands down the city streets,
Or stand in vigils in the rain,
Or turn the handle of a print machine,
Or empty their purses as the plate comes by.
Or gaze into the camera's eye,
And answer the question: ‘Will the world survive?’
And they have said,
’We'll try. We'll try.’
Sunday, November 30, 2008
“Give me lamb any day!”
I try not to use this blog as a bully pulpit from which I vent about all that is wrong or frustrating in the world. Well, wait—I guess I do that sometimes. What I mean to say is, I try not to use the blog as an emotional launch pad, always telling you when I miss something or someone. Oh, wait—I guess color me guilty occasionally about that too. But I hope you don’t think I whine too much. That part I hope is true.
I will indulge in a little bit of whining, or I should say, pining, today.
Last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I missed America a lot. I know it is not my first time to be away from the emotional and gastronomic comforts of Cincinnati on Thanksgiving, but I missed home this week. It felt very acute on Thursday.
Last year, my first year at KA, I spent Thanksgiving in Budapest, Hungary with my divine Denison-era friend Sharon, and my new KA friend, the exquisite Elizabeth. (See last year’s blog entry, “Enjoying The Bridges In Our Lives” if you want a repeat of that episode). This year Elizabeth is in medical school in Chicago, so maybe my pining for her, coupled with a yearning for the American-ness and presence of Thanksgiving, and an ever-present sigh wishing Sharon lived closer created a great big wistful hankering on Thanksgiving Day.
The school didn’t do anything to help our Arab brethren understand what an American Thanksgiving is. There was no explanation of it, and obviously no parades or pageants. But the Dining Hall did prepare a pretty good rendition of a Thanksgiving meal. There was an excellent squash soup (where do they get squash? As ubiquitous as it is in the USA, I can’t find it here) and they had roasted some turkeys.
But it just wasn’t quite right from the get-go. You just wandered in to dinner, like always, since our sit-down meals together are only at lunchtime. So people kinda came and went. There was not an official “start” to the meal. And then when I was in line, I heard complaining from a contingent of Saudi boys. They didn’t like the turkey. They couldn’t believe we had to have this. “Who cares about turkey? I think it tastes strange,” one boy opined, and then another said, “Give me lamb any day!”
Okay—it is time to do more than pine. It is time to whine! I just smiled at them, but in my head I was replying: Listen, I eat your food all the time, and while I like it, there isn’t a lot of variety, you hear? And this is what we eat in AMERICA on this day, and we like it—in fact some of us crave it, you got it? I’m sure in my head I added a “buster” for good measure and explosive punctuation too.
So I take my plate of turkey and sweet potatoes and stuffing (did someone actually suggest to put pickles in the stuffing?? I know stuffing is almost by law supposed to be eccentric, but must it have pickles? And must it be served in little rondelets? Harumph!) and sit down, pulling in closer that cloak of feeling-sorry-for-oneself.
It didn’t send me off the deep end—it just made me miss the gathering at one time, the time-honored traditions, and the comforts and conveniences of American meals.
My colleagues Wendy and Tiffany had sensed that we may need another stab at creating a more-typical Thanksgiving meal, so last week they announced that there would be a potluck for any dorm faculty on Friday evening. They were going to get some turkeys (by the way, very expensive here—about $12 a pound for turkey!!!) and roast them, and they wanted to organize a pot luck so that the essentials were covered, and we could gather in fine American form at a certain time and enjoy the repast.
I decided on two side dishes: one traditional and one a little avante-garde-y. I found corn on the cob at the grocery store (about twice as expensive as buying it in frugal Cincinnati) and while Squanto was not here to help show me how to cook it, there was a feeling of reaching back to the first Thanksgiving meal as I boiled the corn. I decided on a carrot dish with an Indian (the other kind!) glaze of oranges, cumin and cinnamon.
We gathered at Wendy’s house about 6:00 and I walked in—and there it was—that wave of stimuli that excite the olfactory cells—the smell of roasting turkey and all those glorious trimmings. We were in a home—and it just smells better in a home than in a dining hall, and we were gathered around a table cum banquet plank. Someone had made mashed potatoes, and someone had made sweet potato casserole, and someone had made a stuffing our of your dreams (or at least mine) with that traditional sage smell that you think your grandmother had patented.
I can barely keep from grabbing little bits of food (Rehema actually sent me to stand in the corner since little pieces of steaming turkey kept leaping off the platter as Sean carved it and they leapt into my mouth) and I feel like a 10 year old at my grandmother’s house just waiting to dig in.
Just at the moment when I was about to grab a spoon, Wendy asked that we all gather round and hold hands. Oh, yes, of course—the part where we express thanksgiving! I almost forgot that part of the holiday in my rush to get at these food-postcards of yore! There are about 20 of us, and we gather around the heaving table, and Lucy, a new colleague, reads us a piece she has written about her last Thanksgiving in Chile, and her gratitude at being with all of us at KA. She asks us to go around the circle and express some thanks publicly.
It was a memorable moment as each of us shared something—we hadn’t been prepped for this assignment—and it held us in reverence and awe. Some mentioned family, some mentioned this community as a family, and I mentioned my thanksgiving for the capacity to wonder. And even as we finished the circle, we held hands a few seconds longer, simply drinking in the beauty and camaraderie of this moment. I think many of us had missed home a bit more than usual in the last day, and this bonding, both the physical, and the bringing-of-food, had calmed us and comforted us.
Over the next several hours we relaxed, stuffed ourselves, laughed, and let go of some of the aches. I told Wendy that her gravy was spectacular, and that her blueberry crumble dessert tasted like, well, like America.
The following day I was talking with my great friend Fatina, a Jordanian who has lived much of her adult life in Saudi Arabia. I was telling her how great Tiffany’s stuffing was. I told her that the sage in her stuffing was a sensory memory for me—the smell and taste that embodies the holiday season of November and December.
Just like any good historian (which she is!) Fatina explained to me the Arab folklore about sage. While sage in English comes from the Latin word for “to save,” or “to heal,” I learned that in Arabic it has Mary’s name in the word. The Virgin Mary, I inquire?? Fatina explained that Arabs believe that during childbirth Mary chewed on sage, to ease the physical pain. Moreover, the legend goes that Mary chewed sage as she and Joseph fled Herod to Egypt, and that to Mary, no other plant would give such shelter from the storms of life. Fatina, ever the font of wisdom, said that the legend continues that Mary said to the sage: “From now until eternity, you will be the favorite flower of mankind. I give you the power to heal man and save him from death and troubles as you have for me.”
How interesting that in the western world, where the majority are Christians, we don’t know this story about the herb sage. Maybe that is why the Puritans craved the herb; maybe the legendary powers of shelter and healing were taken into consideration as Puritans prepared their meals, pined for home, and struggled to survive and thrive in a New World.
Thus, to paraphrase that Saudi lad: give me sage any day.
I will indulge in a little bit of whining, or I should say, pining, today.
Last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I missed America a lot. I know it is not my first time to be away from the emotional and gastronomic comforts of Cincinnati on Thanksgiving, but I missed home this week. It felt very acute on Thursday.
Last year, my first year at KA, I spent Thanksgiving in Budapest, Hungary with my divine Denison-era friend Sharon, and my new KA friend, the exquisite Elizabeth. (See last year’s blog entry, “Enjoying The Bridges In Our Lives” if you want a repeat of that episode). This year Elizabeth is in medical school in Chicago, so maybe my pining for her, coupled with a yearning for the American-ness and presence of Thanksgiving, and an ever-present sigh wishing Sharon lived closer created a great big wistful hankering on Thanksgiving Day.
The school didn’t do anything to help our Arab brethren understand what an American Thanksgiving is. There was no explanation of it, and obviously no parades or pageants. But the Dining Hall did prepare a pretty good rendition of a Thanksgiving meal. There was an excellent squash soup (where do they get squash? As ubiquitous as it is in the USA, I can’t find it here) and they had roasted some turkeys.
But it just wasn’t quite right from the get-go. You just wandered in to dinner, like always, since our sit-down meals together are only at lunchtime. So people kinda came and went. There was not an official “start” to the meal. And then when I was in line, I heard complaining from a contingent of Saudi boys. They didn’t like the turkey. They couldn’t believe we had to have this. “Who cares about turkey? I think it tastes strange,” one boy opined, and then another said, “Give me lamb any day!”
Okay—it is time to do more than pine. It is time to whine! I just smiled at them, but in my head I was replying: Listen, I eat your food all the time, and while I like it, there isn’t a lot of variety, you hear? And this is what we eat in AMERICA on this day, and we like it—in fact some of us crave it, you got it? I’m sure in my head I added a “buster” for good measure and explosive punctuation too.
So I take my plate of turkey and sweet potatoes and stuffing (did someone actually suggest to put pickles in the stuffing?? I know stuffing is almost by law supposed to be eccentric, but must it have pickles? And must it be served in little rondelets? Harumph!) and sit down, pulling in closer that cloak of feeling-sorry-for-oneself.
It didn’t send me off the deep end—it just made me miss the gathering at one time, the time-honored traditions, and the comforts and conveniences of American meals.
My colleagues Wendy and Tiffany had sensed that we may need another stab at creating a more-typical Thanksgiving meal, so last week they announced that there would be a potluck for any dorm faculty on Friday evening. They were going to get some turkeys (by the way, very expensive here—about $12 a pound for turkey!!!) and roast them, and they wanted to organize a pot luck so that the essentials were covered, and we could gather in fine American form at a certain time and enjoy the repast.
I decided on two side dishes: one traditional and one a little avante-garde-y. I found corn on the cob at the grocery store (about twice as expensive as buying it in frugal Cincinnati) and while Squanto was not here to help show me how to cook it, there was a feeling of reaching back to the first Thanksgiving meal as I boiled the corn. I decided on a carrot dish with an Indian (the other kind!) glaze of oranges, cumin and cinnamon.
We gathered at Wendy’s house about 6:00 and I walked in—and there it was—that wave of stimuli that excite the olfactory cells—the smell of roasting turkey and all those glorious trimmings. We were in a home—and it just smells better in a home than in a dining hall, and we were gathered around a table cum banquet plank. Someone had made mashed potatoes, and someone had made sweet potato casserole, and someone had made a stuffing our of your dreams (or at least mine) with that traditional sage smell that you think your grandmother had patented.
I can barely keep from grabbing little bits of food (Rehema actually sent me to stand in the corner since little pieces of steaming turkey kept leaping off the platter as Sean carved it and they leapt into my mouth) and I feel like a 10 year old at my grandmother’s house just waiting to dig in.
Just at the moment when I was about to grab a spoon, Wendy asked that we all gather round and hold hands. Oh, yes, of course—the part where we express thanksgiving! I almost forgot that part of the holiday in my rush to get at these food-postcards of yore! There are about 20 of us, and we gather around the heaving table, and Lucy, a new colleague, reads us a piece she has written about her last Thanksgiving in Chile, and her gratitude at being with all of us at KA. She asks us to go around the circle and express some thanks publicly.
It was a memorable moment as each of us shared something—we hadn’t been prepped for this assignment—and it held us in reverence and awe. Some mentioned family, some mentioned this community as a family, and I mentioned my thanksgiving for the capacity to wonder. And even as we finished the circle, we held hands a few seconds longer, simply drinking in the beauty and camaraderie of this moment. I think many of us had missed home a bit more than usual in the last day, and this bonding, both the physical, and the bringing-of-food, had calmed us and comforted us.
Over the next several hours we relaxed, stuffed ourselves, laughed, and let go of some of the aches. I told Wendy that her gravy was spectacular, and that her blueberry crumble dessert tasted like, well, like America.
The following day I was talking with my great friend Fatina, a Jordanian who has lived much of her adult life in Saudi Arabia. I was telling her how great Tiffany’s stuffing was. I told her that the sage in her stuffing was a sensory memory for me—the smell and taste that embodies the holiday season of November and December.
Just like any good historian (which she is!) Fatina explained to me the Arab folklore about sage. While sage in English comes from the Latin word for “to save,” or “to heal,” I learned that in Arabic it has Mary’s name in the word. The Virgin Mary, I inquire?? Fatina explained that Arabs believe that during childbirth Mary chewed on sage, to ease the physical pain. Moreover, the legend goes that Mary chewed sage as she and Joseph fled Herod to Egypt, and that to Mary, no other plant would give such shelter from the storms of life. Fatina, ever the font of wisdom, said that the legend continues that Mary said to the sage: “From now until eternity, you will be the favorite flower of mankind. I give you the power to heal man and save him from death and troubles as you have for me.”
How interesting that in the western world, where the majority are Christians, we don’t know this story about the herb sage. Maybe that is why the Puritans craved the herb; maybe the legendary powers of shelter and healing were taken into consideration as Puritans prepared their meals, pined for home, and struggled to survive and thrive in a New World.
Thus, to paraphrase that Saudi lad: give me sage any day.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
“Just Enough Jesus”
Today my mother, Mary Martha Griley Leistler, would have turned 70 years old. That is three score and ten years old.
When I was a little boy, my mother would tell me that God promised us in the Bible a lifespan of “threescore years and ten.” She was a marvelous storyteller, and even when she was explaining simple, or complex, life lessons, they were always wrapped up in a memorable way of story telling. So I have this memory as a child of my mother, rather wistfully, leaning on that promise in Psalm 90:10, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten.”
When my mother turned 50 years old, my father and sister and I had a party for her at one of our favorite eateries, LaRosa’s—not a surprise party, mind you—my mother loved looking forward to parties too much to reduce the party to just those few hours of revelry. And my father welcomed everyone to the celebration of MM’s demi-centennial. He quipped, “I thought of inviting all of Mary Martha’s doctors but there wouldn’t have been room for anyone else!”
In the thirty months since my mother physically left us, it has always been apparent that she would never really leave us. There are so many family stories, so many turns at which I seek and feel her guidance and her inspiration.
In my childhood she came up with a travel game that served us well to kill time and keep we(e) children entertained. We never really had a name for the game, but the idea was to try and stump my mother. She challenged us, as we drove through the fields of Indiana and Illinois on our way to Aunt Helen’s house, to give her any idea, and she could instantly turn it into a Devotion, a meditation on Christian living. Now—it may not seem like a rousing game—I mean is this as exciting as License Plate Bingo???—but again, you had to know my mother to understand how everything about her was exciting, or different, or over-the-top. Concrete images—a mailbox, a dead deer on the side of the road, a leftover wrapper from a Snicker’s bar—no problem! You would yell out your topic, and in a matter of seconds she would say, “Oh that’s a good one," and proceed to offer a 5 minute “instant” devotional about God’s plan for our lives, or our journey with the Lord. As we got older, we offered up more abstract ideas, and again, her brain could instantly transform whatever seemingly random thought into a beautiful, touching meditation on the fruits of the spirit. Our lives were a constant devotion.
Well, last week, I found myself offering up a variation on this game while my friends Nancy, Tessa and Tristan and I were sitting on the balcony of our bungalow by the Red Sea. We had just realized that Christmas vacation was coming soon, and we had an impromptu sing-a-long of Christmas songs. Naturally, since I have this odd competitive streak (again, if you know my mother, you know I come by this naturally) and I wanted to challenge my friends to try and stump them with obscure Christmas carols. They had not heard of “Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella!” (Tristan kept asking, “Who is this woman, Jeanette Isabella, and where has she been??”) nor had they heard of the medieval advent hymn, “Adam Lay a-Bounden” (Thank you WO for that one—I will always win the contest with that one—some people may not know ‘Lo, How a Rose ‘Ere Blooming’ well, but please—“Adam Lay a-Bounden”—anyone, anyone, anyone???
I told my friends that I was thinking of my mother especially this week coming up on her birthday, and I confided the odd childhood devotional game. Nancy especially loved it. She is an ordained minister, and she said she just loved coming up with sermon titles. That was her favorite thing. So we had a little contest. Let's create some interesting sermon titles! Nancy laughed when she thought a great Immaculate Conception sermon title would be, “I just can’t believe a word you are saying, Mary!” I channeled my mother’s instincts and came up with: "Just Enough Jesus." I explained that Christians want a nice, protected life, and don’t want harm, but they don’t really want all the work that comes with being a super-committed Christian—they want just enough Jesus to make the journey easier.
I laughed and thought MM would like that title.
All week that concept of ‘making the journey easier’ reverberated in my head. My mother endured MS for over 45 years. It was never an easy journey. But it is not her arduous life struggles that linger with me now—it is the radiance of her smile, her focus on individual people, her faith that every soul contains a spark from God. Interestingly, last week as I was at Mt. Sinai in Egypt, I remembered the Judaic belief in neshamah—the belief that all the sparks belonging to all the Jews who would ever live were present at Mt. Sinai. It was a heady experience pondering that when one of these sparks is born, it seeks to return to God.
When my family speaks of my mother, it is never with a morbid fixation on her death. I know that death makes many people uncomfortable, but for my family, in reminding ourselves of MM, it is always uplifting. There is such thanks within us that her spark and her soul touched our family. Her influence permeates our actions, our impulses, our struggles. Whenever my father sits at his diner, the imperious Mayor of the Imperial Diner, he is carrying on her work of visiting, and one might even say ministering, to friends and acquaintances. Whenever my sister, who imagines herself as introverted, helms a project at church or her children’s school, she is seeking to be extroverted and meaningful as my mother strove to be. Whenever my brother-in-law gives of his salary, he is remembering her goal of sharing and missions; whenever he laughs that marvelous laugh, he is reminding all of us how MM’s humor and laugh could wipe away hurts and fears. Whenever niece Emma and nephew Jack have something hard to accomplish in school, they are reminded that ‘Momma’ was a hard worker, and very smart—and “don’t we want to be like her?” Whenever I teach a class, I try and emulate her star-power exuberance.
The other day a student asked me how I was people to think so fast and respond to complex essay topics almost instantly. I debated telling them about the devotional game in the car, because surely that has aided me far more than I ever imagined.
My mother planted in me the idea that God had a particular plan for each of us. It is sometimes difficult to discern what the plan is, but my mother believed education was at the heart of it all. Education is at best, provocative and unpredictable. We must go where challenges await us. We must awaken ourselves to be provoked. We must catch the next assignment.
It was only a matter of months after my mother’s death that the article in the New Yorker about KA landed in my lap—literally, from my friends Peter and Anne. In the thirty months since May, 2006, I have often wondered if I would have come to Jordan had my mother lived. I might easily have not even considered it since it is so far from home. But in the 16 months I have been here, sauntering through the Holy Land, I know she would have approved of this challenge. She would have been the first to say that growth and education takes unexpected twists and turns. Take that risk! We think life is going one way, and then ideas and opportunities can grow in the most fantastically unexpected directions.
This idea of a Divine plan, in one word, of course, is providence. I remember in 1989, around Thanksgiving, I was doing a great deal of soul-searching. I hated the history Phd program I had enthusiastically entered at Brown just a few months earlire, and I didn’t know what the direction of my life should be. In a lovely twist of irony, Brown is in the city of Providence. I got to thinking.
I was meant to be a secondary teacher. And I guess I was meant to come to Jordan.
As an innovator, as a pioneer, my mother would have loved everything about this project!
I suppose one could grouse that Mary Martha did not get her “threescore years and ten.” But while she may have physically left us, there are so many ways in which she continues to shape us, encourage us, and help us. Her impact will last far beyond threescore years and ten. God has kept His promise.
Last year, in my Thanksgiving blog entry, I mentioned that sometime in my childhood my mother changed her greeting to people on this day to wish them a “Happy Thanks-living.” Just like any good network show, let me offer a bit of a “repeat” from last year’s blog entry on Thanksgiving: “Of course as a child I thought it was just weird. But as an adult, now more cognizant of her 49 year battle with MS, I plainly see how she embodied an appreciation, a thanks, simply for living, and loving.”
“At my mother’s funeral in 2006 we marveled that on earth she had freely lived her life in the service of God, and now she would eternally bask in the presence of God. How fitting that I can celebrate the lessons of her life every year as Thanksgiving rolls around. Just as the pilgrims celebrated their survival, their thanks-living, we can also offer thanks for the miracles around us.”
A woman as charismatic as Mary Martha deserves a major holiday for remembrance. It is almost as if the poet W.H. Auden had her in mind as he once wrote, “All our thinks should be thanks.””
When I was a little boy, my mother would tell me that God promised us in the Bible a lifespan of “threescore years and ten.” She was a marvelous storyteller, and even when she was explaining simple, or complex, life lessons, they were always wrapped up in a memorable way of story telling. So I have this memory as a child of my mother, rather wistfully, leaning on that promise in Psalm 90:10, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten.”
When my mother turned 50 years old, my father and sister and I had a party for her at one of our favorite eateries, LaRosa’s—not a surprise party, mind you—my mother loved looking forward to parties too much to reduce the party to just those few hours of revelry. And my father welcomed everyone to the celebration of MM’s demi-centennial. He quipped, “I thought of inviting all of Mary Martha’s doctors but there wouldn’t have been room for anyone else!”
In the thirty months since my mother physically left us, it has always been apparent that she would never really leave us. There are so many family stories, so many turns at which I seek and feel her guidance and her inspiration.
In my childhood she came up with a travel game that served us well to kill time and keep we(e) children entertained. We never really had a name for the game, but the idea was to try and stump my mother. She challenged us, as we drove through the fields of Indiana and Illinois on our way to Aunt Helen’s house, to give her any idea, and she could instantly turn it into a Devotion, a meditation on Christian living. Now—it may not seem like a rousing game—I mean is this as exciting as License Plate Bingo???—but again, you had to know my mother to understand how everything about her was exciting, or different, or over-the-top. Concrete images—a mailbox, a dead deer on the side of the road, a leftover wrapper from a Snicker’s bar—no problem! You would yell out your topic, and in a matter of seconds she would say, “Oh that’s a good one," and proceed to offer a 5 minute “instant” devotional about God’s plan for our lives, or our journey with the Lord. As we got older, we offered up more abstract ideas, and again, her brain could instantly transform whatever seemingly random thought into a beautiful, touching meditation on the fruits of the spirit. Our lives were a constant devotion.
Well, last week, I found myself offering up a variation on this game while my friends Nancy, Tessa and Tristan and I were sitting on the balcony of our bungalow by the Red Sea. We had just realized that Christmas vacation was coming soon, and we had an impromptu sing-a-long of Christmas songs. Naturally, since I have this odd competitive streak (again, if you know my mother, you know I come by this naturally) and I wanted to challenge my friends to try and stump them with obscure Christmas carols. They had not heard of “Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella!” (Tristan kept asking, “Who is this woman, Jeanette Isabella, and where has she been??”) nor had they heard of the medieval advent hymn, “Adam Lay a-Bounden” (Thank you WO for that one—I will always win the contest with that one—some people may not know ‘Lo, How a Rose ‘Ere Blooming’ well, but please—“Adam Lay a-Bounden”—anyone, anyone, anyone???
I told my friends that I was thinking of my mother especially this week coming up on her birthday, and I confided the odd childhood devotional game. Nancy especially loved it. She is an ordained minister, and she said she just loved coming up with sermon titles. That was her favorite thing. So we had a little contest. Let's create some interesting sermon titles! Nancy laughed when she thought a great Immaculate Conception sermon title would be, “I just can’t believe a word you are saying, Mary!” I channeled my mother’s instincts and came up with: "Just Enough Jesus." I explained that Christians want a nice, protected life, and don’t want harm, but they don’t really want all the work that comes with being a super-committed Christian—they want just enough Jesus to make the journey easier.
I laughed and thought MM would like that title.
All week that concept of ‘making the journey easier’ reverberated in my head. My mother endured MS for over 45 years. It was never an easy journey. But it is not her arduous life struggles that linger with me now—it is the radiance of her smile, her focus on individual people, her faith that every soul contains a spark from God. Interestingly, last week as I was at Mt. Sinai in Egypt, I remembered the Judaic belief in neshamah—the belief that all the sparks belonging to all the Jews who would ever live were present at Mt. Sinai. It was a heady experience pondering that when one of these sparks is born, it seeks to return to God.
When my family speaks of my mother, it is never with a morbid fixation on her death. I know that death makes many people uncomfortable, but for my family, in reminding ourselves of MM, it is always uplifting. There is such thanks within us that her spark and her soul touched our family. Her influence permeates our actions, our impulses, our struggles. Whenever my father sits at his diner, the imperious Mayor of the Imperial Diner, he is carrying on her work of visiting, and one might even say ministering, to friends and acquaintances. Whenever my sister, who imagines herself as introverted, helms a project at church or her children’s school, she is seeking to be extroverted and meaningful as my mother strove to be. Whenever my brother-in-law gives of his salary, he is remembering her goal of sharing and missions; whenever he laughs that marvelous laugh, he is reminding all of us how MM’s humor and laugh could wipe away hurts and fears. Whenever niece Emma and nephew Jack have something hard to accomplish in school, they are reminded that ‘Momma’ was a hard worker, and very smart—and “don’t we want to be like her?” Whenever I teach a class, I try and emulate her star-power exuberance.
The other day a student asked me how I was people to think so fast and respond to complex essay topics almost instantly. I debated telling them about the devotional game in the car, because surely that has aided me far more than I ever imagined.
My mother planted in me the idea that God had a particular plan for each of us. It is sometimes difficult to discern what the plan is, but my mother believed education was at the heart of it all. Education is at best, provocative and unpredictable. We must go where challenges await us. We must awaken ourselves to be provoked. We must catch the next assignment.
It was only a matter of months after my mother’s death that the article in the New Yorker about KA landed in my lap—literally, from my friends Peter and Anne. In the thirty months since May, 2006, I have often wondered if I would have come to Jordan had my mother lived. I might easily have not even considered it since it is so far from home. But in the 16 months I have been here, sauntering through the Holy Land, I know she would have approved of this challenge. She would have been the first to say that growth and education takes unexpected twists and turns. Take that risk! We think life is going one way, and then ideas and opportunities can grow in the most fantastically unexpected directions.
This idea of a Divine plan, in one word, of course, is providence. I remember in 1989, around Thanksgiving, I was doing a great deal of soul-searching. I hated the history Phd program I had enthusiastically entered at Brown just a few months earlire, and I didn’t know what the direction of my life should be. In a lovely twist of irony, Brown is in the city of Providence. I got to thinking.
I was meant to be a secondary teacher. And I guess I was meant to come to Jordan.
As an innovator, as a pioneer, my mother would have loved everything about this project!
I suppose one could grouse that Mary Martha did not get her “threescore years and ten.” But while she may have physically left us, there are so many ways in which she continues to shape us, encourage us, and help us. Her impact will last far beyond threescore years and ten. God has kept His promise.
Last year, in my Thanksgiving blog entry, I mentioned that sometime in my childhood my mother changed her greeting to people on this day to wish them a “Happy Thanks-living.” Just like any good network show, let me offer a bit of a “repeat” from last year’s blog entry on Thanksgiving: “Of course as a child I thought it was just weird. But as an adult, now more cognizant of her 49 year battle with MS, I plainly see how she embodied an appreciation, a thanks, simply for living, and loving.”
“At my mother’s funeral in 2006 we marveled that on earth she had freely lived her life in the service of God, and now she would eternally bask in the presence of God. How fitting that I can celebrate the lessons of her life every year as Thanksgiving rolls around. Just as the pilgrims celebrated their survival, their thanks-living, we can also offer thanks for the miracles around us.”
A woman as charismatic as Mary Martha deserves a major holiday for remembrance. It is almost as if the poet W.H. Auden had her in mind as he once wrote, “All our thinks should be thanks.””
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Postcard from Sharm el-Sheikh
As I hurriedly packed last week just minutes before leaving for the airport for my weekend getaway on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, I knew immediately what bag I would use for the trip—the sleek, blue, oval weekend bag emblazoned with the “All Ohio State Fair Youth Choir” logo (I am a very proud alum of this organization!). I had won that bag as a prize this past August when I went to Alumni Day at the State Fair, and they had a contest to see which alum had come the furthest to spend the day on the fairgrounds in Columbus, Ohio. My friend Tony had said to me when they first asked, “Wait a minute or two, and then raise your hand.” So someone had proudly announced, “Colorado.” And then one person crowed, “I’m from California!” Tony nodded to me, and I (meekly or cheekily—you decide) raised my hand, and said, “Jordan!” Heads turned, and someone said, “The country?” “Yes, I live in Jordan.” The president of the Alumni Board cheered, “You win—come up here and get your prize!”
So last Wednesday I quickly packed my prize bag as we headed off to the airport to jet off to Egypt for the weekend. Yeah, I know—those last few words were mostly for show-off purposes—jet off to Egypt for the weekend still sounds thrilling even a year after I first did it.
This was a trip with a dual purpose: (1) relax at the popular tourist resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh and (2) become one of the dozens of pilgrims who journey into the Sinai desert to the monastery dedicated to the memory of St. Catherine and Moses. I had in tow a great group of friends: Tristan, a friend and colleague in his 20s (on the trip as we reminisced about television shows he seriously said to me, “I have never heard of Laverne and Shirley, and later when I asked if he knew of Happy Days, he said he had heard once about Fonzie. Ahhhh…the sadness of being born too far removed from the glorious television shows of the 1970s!) was on a trip with a forty-something teacher (that would be me) and Nancy and Tessa, our two ladies of the sixty-something set (the things they were doing in 1968 were exciting to hear about!)
We touched down at 2:00 p.m. in Sharm el-Sheikh—we had ditched a faculty meeting to make the once-a-day 1:00 p.m. flight at the end of the abbreviated school day—whoop-di-doo! The airport in Sharm el-Sheikh—by the way, the cool visitors all call it just Sharm, so Sharm it will be—is designed to look like a great big Bedouin tent. What a great celebration of their indigenous heritage. We secure a taxi and he whisks us about 10 minutes away to our Jaz Belvedere Resort. Our quick journey showed what visionary developers can do: Sharm is not really anything but scrabby scrubby land and rocks and desert-y sand, but somebody imagined that a great resort-opolis could rise from this nothing. We turn into our gated community, and it reminded me immediately of the glorious Hilton Head resorts in South Carolina.
As we check-in, I hold my breath a little. Not about the rooms and the reservations and the Jerry Seinfeld-esque schtik from last week, but about the “all-inclusive” policy of the Resort. I hadn’t told my travel-mates, in case it wasn’t entirely true, but the desk clerk Muhammad (and by the way—seriously like 85% of the men working at the hotel are named Muhammad!) gave us our bracelets and cordially informed us that the hotel is all-inclusive—all the meals are included! Oh my—you know that sent my little German heart all aflutter! I thought the deal was good for just the lodgings—but to have all the meals included!! Wait—Muhammad told us all the drinks and all the snacks we would want are also included!! Can I move in???!
Checked in, unpacked, and moved quickly to the poolside area for a late lunch. The entire complex is designed so that you are never far removed from a spectacular view of the Red Sea (I will say this once—but why in the world is called it “Red”???? It has among the bluest, most intensely Paul-Newman-like-eye blue color anywhere. OK—enough of that. Who cares! The food is all included!!!). In the hotel lobby, by the pool, walking around the bungalow-type rooms, you feel achingly, bracingly, restoratively near the sand and the sparkling water.
As tour director (my group let me be in charge—lucky for them, it might have gotten nasty had we gone to arm-to-arm combat!) we checked out the spa and fitness center, made some reservations for massages, walked on the tawny, golden beach, and re-convened in the Mamluk bar at 7:00 (by the way, isn’t it nice to name the bar after the Mamluks—it gives us a chance to have a quick history lesson: the Mamluks were a medieval caste of former slave-soldiers who eventually created an Islamic sultanate in Egypt, conquering the French along the way, and ruling for about 300 years.)
Tessa comes back with a red wine in her hand, and Tristan with a beer, and my regal Tessa said, “Well done, John-O! Even the wine and beer are free Rrrrrrrrrreally, well done!”
At dinner—in the twilight on the balcony with our buffet never more than 50 feet away, we took in the 75 degree air and sighed. Nancy said, “It feels like we have been on vacation for days! This is marvelous.” It was delightful. We made plans for our pilgrimage the following day.
I arose a little after the sun did—the sun did it much more spectacularly, and with a bold red sky, I might add—and we met our driver at 8:00. Some of us were a little late—you know how I get about punctuality, but Tessa said in an unabashedly imperious tone: “John-O, of course he will wait. After all he is our driver!” We settle in for a ride that is over two hours as we careen through the wadis and red granite mountain peaks of the Sinai peninsula, working our way inland to the middle of Sinai. Nestled at the foot of Mount Sinai is this Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine, considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery in the world. Founded in 527 by Justinian (wait! I just taught about him last week!) the monastery replaced a chapel built by Empress Helena (Constantine’s mum for those at all interested) in 337 on the site where it is believed that Moses saw the Burning Bush (and of course, we marveled more than once that Moses then moved down the road from us here at KA and died). The monks renamed the monastery in the 9th century after some of the brothers claimed to have found the intact body of the famous saint (she of Alexandria and the infamous torture on a spiked wheel—a very popular saint, by the way) on a nearby mountain.
We arrive at the monastery, and it is crowowowowowowowded. At noon there is a service and pilgrims can line up to kiss the relics of St. Cat’s skull and hand. We go through the gate of the monastery (almost all of the walls are from that long-ago 6th century) and queue up to enter the Basilica of the Transfiguration.
I have to say—I have been wanting to go to St. Catherine’s long before I moved to Jordan. The Metropolitan Museum of Art offered a spectacular exhibition of Byzantine art works around the turn of the 21st century and they had secured some icons and art works on loan for the first time in history from St. Catherine’s. I had stared at the photographs and vowed I must get there. Here I was—in this nearly 1500 year-old chapel, with the incense and the pillars bearing Byzantine icons of saints and the mosaics and the line of pilgrims awaiting the spiritual fulfillment of kissing the relic. I watched from the side, and as each pilgrim received a blessing, they also received a ring to wear—a ring that looked like the spiked wheel upon which Catherine was martyred.
Outside the chapel is an enormous thorny evergreen bush, reputedly a descendant of the original Burning Bush (that’s what they say!)from which Moses heard the Lord speak. It is a species not found anywhere else in Egypt. Of course, the photogs are going crazy with the big bush and the tourist mentality. Around the walls protecting the BB there are crevices, and people traditionally write prayers and hopes on slips of paper and stick them into the crevices. Imagine the centuries of pleas and petitions. I did chuckle as I looked at the scene, and right next to the BB is a sign on the ancient wall—a “No Smoking” sign. No smoking? Not next to the BB!!
The other pilgrims all exited, but we insisted to the little old man guard that we had to see the monastery library. It is considered to be second only in importance to the Vatican in terms of Christian manuscripts. We saw some pages from a 4th century Bible, from a 5th century Bible, and a 7th century document called the “patent from Muhammad” in which the Islamic Prophet secured the protection of this monastery from any forces. There were ancient icons, many from the 8th century, which are quite rare since at that time a faction of the Church considered icons heretical and set out to destroy all those art works.
As we left the library, we had the monastery to ourselves—well, not entirely true, we could smell the lunch for the coupla dozen Greek Orthodox monks on site. But the tourist crush was gone, and we could take our time walking through the garden, dense with olive and apricot trees, through the cemetery and back to our driver (guess his name—you probably guessed it was Muhammad! By the way, one of my students told me that a common term/name for a ‘waiter’ in Arabic is ‘hammad,’ since that would most likely be his name anyway!).
We made an important decision. We needed to return to St. Catherine’s. As much as we had hoped to ascend Mt. Sinai, this was not the day. The weather was perfect, but Nancy’s knee is not. It is a nearly 4,000 step climb to the summit of Mt. Sinai, to visit where Moses spent 40 days and nights before receiving the Ten Commandments (the real Moses, not just Charlton Heston in the simulated Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza!). We made a plan to return. One can spend the night at the monastery (those crazy capitalist monks charge $30 for lodging and dinner and breakfast—even cheaper than our great deal at the Jaz Belvedere!) and then most pilgrims climb the mountain at 2:00 a.m. so that you are there for dawn. We will come back in March to complete the pilgrimage.
We speed back to Sharm, and relax for the rest of the weekend, enjoying every bit of the exceptional service, locale, sand, beach chairs, and gorgeous flowers of our hotel. As we wait in the cool Sharm airport, I whip out a bag of sandwiches—all procured from the snack bar at the hotel. Free sandwiches for everyone!
Just the right pick-me-up vacation to get through final exam period this week and next!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Life in a Seinfeld episode…
I have long been a fan of Seinfeld—but beyond the quirky comedic take on the “nothings” of life, the beginning and end of this snarky, New York-y show, act as great bookends for important transitions in my life. When the show debuted (I started from the second episode) back in 1989-90 I was a graduate student at Brown University. When the show came to a “hail-and-farewell” finale in the spring of 1998, I had just assumed the duties as head of the History Department at Hackley School.
From time to time incidents, or conversations, in my life seem to have mirrored episodes, or would-be episodes, of this great navel-gazing show. I remember a lunch at a faculty table circa 1997 when I sat down, noticed a colleague’s inventive sandwich, and quickly went to make one just like the colleague had. I sat back down, and a colleague said pointedly to me, “Lisa was right—you are a food copy-er.” What????? “Whaddya mean, Lisa said—I was a food copy-er????” It didn’t sound flattering, but just because I had repeated a turkey melt sandwich that someone else had, I got labeled a Food Copy-er. And why was Lisa saying this about me???? I commented that we had just stepped through the looking glass and definitely joined a bizarre-o world not unlike Jerry and the gang on the Upper West Side.
Well, the other day, the convoluted plotlines of life not only imitated the structure of a Seinfeld episode—but I actually found myself quoting lines from an episode—and not in an homage kind of way.
First of all, we have a day off this week from school (I think the calendar planners thought this week was American Thanksgiving since we have Thursday off from school, but not next Thursday!) so I planned a little get-away. I corralled three friends, and we wanted to go to the Red Sea resort town, a chi-chi place called Sharm El-Sheikh, or to the cool kids, just “Sharm.” Now I have to get the airline tickets, check on visas, and get a hotel.
American travel websites treat the Middle East vacation spots like step-children, so package deals are hard to come by—so I start looking at the trip in pieces to take care of each stage. I secure the airline tickets, and the travel agent suggests a hotel (“Five Stars,” he says, “Very nice—you’re welcome.” I decide to check on-line for reviews of this suggestion, and discover some of the most ghastly reviews imaginable! One comment was just, “Don’t go to this hotel—whatever you do!” Several dozen other reviews ordered similar salvos. I decided I would take care of the hotel myself.
I have learned that finding hotels in Egypt is a tricky thing—everyone here says, “You can’t trust them—they give everything 5 stars. It means nothing! Be very, very careful. Service can be terrible…” and the diatribe continues. So I go to expedia, and I know where I want us to stay—right in the middle of this beach on this bay. I find a hotel with the word “dreams” in the middle of it…ahhh…perfect. As I try and book the hotel on-line I am trying to get two rooms—Nancy wants a single, but Tristan and Tessa and I will share a suite together. The on-line Big Brother won’t allow me to do a 1 and 3 rooming, so I opt to call the telephone support line. I get a lovely voice on the line, “Hello, this is Carmen. I would like to be your friend and be of service. What is your name?” I tell my new best friend Carmen my name, and give her all my information. She makes the reservation—I just need to check with the other three since it is slightly more expensive than our agreement—and Carmen gives me record locators and all that to complete the reservation.
I check with the fellow travelers—yes, all are agreed about the “Dreams” resort. I call back, and of course, no one has heard of Carmen. Then I give the record locators, and the agent, a new woman named Raya, she says there are no rooms available. I kindly tell her I already have a booking, a reservation made with the lovely Carmen. Raya informs me there are no rooms, and indeed there have not been available rooms for days. I pointedly tell her I have a reservation! The reservation keeps the rooms for me. She says, “Yes, we have the reservation but no rooms.”
And here is when I started quoting from the Seinfeld episode: “The reservation reserves the room. That’s why I made a reservation. That’s what a reservation is for!” Raya replied she knew what reservations were for, and I quoted the script verbatim: “I don’t think you do! Otherwise I would have the rooms! See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.” I couldn’t believe all this 1991 dialogue was pouring out of my mouth!
Raya said she had to speak to her supervisor—just like in the TV show! Raya eventually returned to the line, with the immortal line, just like in the quasi-reality of TV: “I'm sorry, my supervisor says there's nothing we can do.”
Ha! Okay, I went back to the drawing board, found another hotel, and we are staying at the Jaz Belvedere…
But this crazy-twisted-doublespeak continued this week, stretching out this moment. Tessa had a crisis when told she couldn’t enter Egypt without a special visa. She went to the website, and the website certainly made it look like that was poppycock. Tessa had Lubna phone the Egyptian and South African embassies, and they said, yes, she would need a special visa. Tessa got on the line, mentioned the website, and oh, well, I guess if you are going to Sharm, well, I guess, everything is fine.
I am nominated, appointed, dubbed, whatever it is to head a Food Committee since someone felt I had the special skills to speak to the Jordanians about food issues. “John, you will be diplomatic and hold them accountable.” Oh sure—choose the man with about 60 good Arabic words at his disposal!
Then there is a hubbub over a 10th grade history class and some of the readings in class about the rise of Islam. But are the problems real problems or pseudo-problems, and are we teaching theology, or critical thinking skills in history? I meet with people to discuss concerns, and much of the issue is truly over semantics and communication skills and faulty translation in the Arabic to English back to Arabic and back to a form of English. What about what sacred texts say and the divergence of how reality operates? Can we look at prophets and holiness critically, and how do we approach issues of faith along with the frailties of the human condition.
Suddenly, it is not just funny moments and clever quips about “nothing.”
Out of nowhere, I get an invitation from the head of the Mathematics department to have coffee that afternoon at his apartment. My first thought is, Okay, what’s wrong? Have I offended you? The math department? Your family? Your wife? Maybe people actually are disturbed over how a non-Muslim (not me, another American—a very sensible, sensitive young teacher) is presenting the history of the region as a less-chauvinistic view of this part of the world.
No, Yasser just wanted to have coffee. He just wanted to get to know me better.
So, just like how many episodes of Seinfeld end in a coffee shop, the fade-out that afternoon was over some laughter and conversation over coffee.
And the credits rolled…
From time to time incidents, or conversations, in my life seem to have mirrored episodes, or would-be episodes, of this great navel-gazing show. I remember a lunch at a faculty table circa 1997 when I sat down, noticed a colleague’s inventive sandwich, and quickly went to make one just like the colleague had. I sat back down, and a colleague said pointedly to me, “Lisa was right—you are a food copy-er.” What????? “Whaddya mean, Lisa said—I was a food copy-er????” It didn’t sound flattering, but just because I had repeated a turkey melt sandwich that someone else had, I got labeled a Food Copy-er. And why was Lisa saying this about me???? I commented that we had just stepped through the looking glass and definitely joined a bizarre-o world not unlike Jerry and the gang on the Upper West Side.
Well, the other day, the convoluted plotlines of life not only imitated the structure of a Seinfeld episode—but I actually found myself quoting lines from an episode—and not in an homage kind of way.
First of all, we have a day off this week from school (I think the calendar planners thought this week was American Thanksgiving since we have Thursday off from school, but not next Thursday!) so I planned a little get-away. I corralled three friends, and we wanted to go to the Red Sea resort town, a chi-chi place called Sharm El-Sheikh, or to the cool kids, just “Sharm.” Now I have to get the airline tickets, check on visas, and get a hotel.
American travel websites treat the Middle East vacation spots like step-children, so package deals are hard to come by—so I start looking at the trip in pieces to take care of each stage. I secure the airline tickets, and the travel agent suggests a hotel (“Five Stars,” he says, “Very nice—you’re welcome.” I decide to check on-line for reviews of this suggestion, and discover some of the most ghastly reviews imaginable! One comment was just, “Don’t go to this hotel—whatever you do!” Several dozen other reviews ordered similar salvos. I decided I would take care of the hotel myself.
I have learned that finding hotels in Egypt is a tricky thing—everyone here says, “You can’t trust them—they give everything 5 stars. It means nothing! Be very, very careful. Service can be terrible…” and the diatribe continues. So I go to expedia, and I know where I want us to stay—right in the middle of this beach on this bay. I find a hotel with the word “dreams” in the middle of it…ahhh…perfect. As I try and book the hotel on-line I am trying to get two rooms—Nancy wants a single, but Tristan and Tessa and I will share a suite together. The on-line Big Brother won’t allow me to do a 1 and 3 rooming, so I opt to call the telephone support line. I get a lovely voice on the line, “Hello, this is Carmen. I would like to be your friend and be of service. What is your name?” I tell my new best friend Carmen my name, and give her all my information. She makes the reservation—I just need to check with the other three since it is slightly more expensive than our agreement—and Carmen gives me record locators and all that to complete the reservation.
I check with the fellow travelers—yes, all are agreed about the “Dreams” resort. I call back, and of course, no one has heard of Carmen. Then I give the record locators, and the agent, a new woman named Raya, she says there are no rooms available. I kindly tell her I already have a booking, a reservation made with the lovely Carmen. Raya informs me there are no rooms, and indeed there have not been available rooms for days. I pointedly tell her I have a reservation! The reservation keeps the rooms for me. She says, “Yes, we have the reservation but no rooms.”
And here is when I started quoting from the Seinfeld episode: “The reservation reserves the room. That’s why I made a reservation. That’s what a reservation is for!” Raya replied she knew what reservations were for, and I quoted the script verbatim: “I don’t think you do! Otherwise I would have the rooms! See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.” I couldn’t believe all this 1991 dialogue was pouring out of my mouth!
Raya said she had to speak to her supervisor—just like in the TV show! Raya eventually returned to the line, with the immortal line, just like in the quasi-reality of TV: “I'm sorry, my supervisor says there's nothing we can do.”
Ha! Okay, I went back to the drawing board, found another hotel, and we are staying at the Jaz Belvedere…
But this crazy-twisted-doublespeak continued this week, stretching out this moment. Tessa had a crisis when told she couldn’t enter Egypt without a special visa. She went to the website, and the website certainly made it look like that was poppycock. Tessa had Lubna phone the Egyptian and South African embassies, and they said, yes, she would need a special visa. Tessa got on the line, mentioned the website, and oh, well, I guess if you are going to Sharm, well, I guess, everything is fine.
I am nominated, appointed, dubbed, whatever it is to head a Food Committee since someone felt I had the special skills to speak to the Jordanians about food issues. “John, you will be diplomatic and hold them accountable.” Oh sure—choose the man with about 60 good Arabic words at his disposal!
Then there is a hubbub over a 10th grade history class and some of the readings in class about the rise of Islam. But are the problems real problems or pseudo-problems, and are we teaching theology, or critical thinking skills in history? I meet with people to discuss concerns, and much of the issue is truly over semantics and communication skills and faulty translation in the Arabic to English back to Arabic and back to a form of English. What about what sacred texts say and the divergence of how reality operates? Can we look at prophets and holiness critically, and how do we approach issues of faith along with the frailties of the human condition.
Suddenly, it is not just funny moments and clever quips about “nothing.”
Out of nowhere, I get an invitation from the head of the Mathematics department to have coffee that afternoon at his apartment. My first thought is, Okay, what’s wrong? Have I offended you? The math department? Your family? Your wife? Maybe people actually are disturbed over how a non-Muslim (not me, another American—a very sensible, sensitive young teacher) is presenting the history of the region as a less-chauvinistic view of this part of the world.
No, Yasser just wanted to have coffee. He just wanted to get to know me better.
So, just like how many episodes of Seinfeld end in a coffee shop, the fade-out that afternoon was over some laughter and conversation over coffee.
And the credits rolled…
Friday, November 14, 2008
Just Drink the Kool-aid!
Monday was probably the most interesting day this past week.
Monday for me is a day with two long teaching blocks (70 minutes each) and a whole slew of weekly meetings, from Curriculum Committee, Student Life, Admissions Committee, and just about anything else it seems.
I had looked forward all day to an evening of uninterrupted, I don’t know exactly what, but I didn’t have boarding duty, I didn’t have Arabic class—I had no commitments that evening. So maybe I would go to the gym, watch Jon Stewart, maybe even write some long overdue emails or follow through on some phone calls.
Uninterrupted time? In a boarding school? Let’s get serious!
Right about the time that “uninterrupted time” was going to kick in, Greg, my former Hackley student and now Teaching Fellow protégé, came around the corner with two of his students. “These guys need to talk to you,” Greg said. He turned to his young scholars, “What do you want to ask him, guys? Why do we need to study history?”
I even had my magazines in my hand, gym clothes on, as I quickly answered, “It is all about learning to think, and effective reading and writing.” Greg said to me, “I’ll let you talk to them for awhile.” I could see the look of utter disdain on their junior-in-high-school faces.
I wasn’t going to the gym anytime soon. These two young men, rather bruised by a fair-but-tough test from Greg, couldn’t believe Greg cared so much about writing. “Who cares how you write—it’s a history class for God’s sakes,” announced one of the young men. “All you need are a few facts and that’s it! What is the big deal???” he asked incredulously.
Okay, come on in my apartment guys. Let’s talk.
For the next 45 minutes or so, I tried to explain to them about my understanding of the study of history. I tried to be cute at first, talking about Clio, the Greek muse of History, and how we build a house to Clio for our fellow lodgers. They didn’t buy cute. They wanted to know what any of this would ever mean to them, and why Greg couldn’t just give them a few facts and call it a day.
Interesting to note—because you may be wondering—these are both Americans, by the way.
When it was clear they didn’t believe in an esoteric pursuit of knowledge, I went for the jugular—you know, most of the jobs you want require reading and writing. And then there is college—you can’t get by on a ‘few facts’ in the kind of colleges you crave. What about that? It was almost funny, because they acted as if I did not have twenty years of experience, and that recent-Ivy-League-graduate Greg and I were just in league with the Devil.
I was very honest about my philosophy of education: if one only learns facts for a test, then you are learning/teaching only to a narrative of conclusions. Conclusions are pretty much a dead end—here is what happened, and that's it. But if you work towards a different end, you are learning/teaching to a narrative of inquiry. Inquiry is what unlocks all the mysteries of life—how you understand something, how you solve problems. College education is somewhat interested in conclusions, but they are deeply interested in inquiry. That is how the world has evolved is through inquiry.
While these two young men were getting madder at me by the minute, a strange phenomenon was playing out in the background, an almost musical counterpoint to the sturm und drang on the couch. Study Hall hours had begun, and a number of guys kept coming by to check with me about their writing.
The coming up next day my AP World History students had the “opportunity” to write an essay for practice. If they did a credible job on this document-based-question I would drop their lowest quiz grade. I warned them that this DBQ was a tough one, and they hadn’t written a whole DBQ yet, but I told them it was worth the practice.
The funny thing was, so many of the boys were working on this optional, extra-credit writing puzzle. The questioned explored, “What was the role technology played in the development of Eurasian Empires in the Classical Age.” The DBQ had seven documents, things like maps, to a photograph of a Roman aqueduct, to an account from an Indian trader, to a Chinese merchant, to a photograph of a golden belt buckle from a nomadic tribe.
When I give extra credit, I rarely have students complete it—it’s just not worth the effort, I think they think.
But Monday night, a steady stream of boys came by to check on their interpretation of a document, or to test their thesis. All of this while the soundtrack of “I just think it’s all a stupid waste of time” played out in my living room.
In between the essay help, I continued my diatribe with the Yankee doubters. I told them of my class with Dr. Eisenbeis at Denison: “When I went to college I thought most of what I would do is spout facts. I was in one class, a class where 50% of my grade was based on class participation, and there were no facts to spout. I went to the professor and didn't know what to do. The course was a philosophy course about thinking, believing and understanding. There were really no facts at all, but it was about how we react to religion and faith and deeply held personal opinions. The crutch of facts was just gone. It took me a few weeks, many weeks, to see what I even had to do, but eventually I did, and it has made me a better thinker ever since. But I still love the beauty of precise facts, so I became a historian so I can write well and use sterling facts that win my arguments.”
I spoke rather strongly to them that they could either start to embrace these things now, or put it off until college, and maybe they will have faculty caring enough to help them over this hurdle. It is a hurdle that every young scholar faces: how to go from being a successful middle school student (i.e. a student of conclusions) to a successful adult student (i.e. a student of inquiry).
Tarek, one of my AP students, came by with a thesis statement—without a doubt the best thing he had produced all year. He showed it to me—“I’ve worked on this for the last half hour.” Tarek had spent 30 minutes crafting a thesis statement. I wouldn’t have thought I would say those 9 words a few months ago. And it was good. Very good. I sent him off to work on the rest of the essay.
I told the arms-folded nay-sayers: "Look, I don't know your political affiliation, but one of Barack Obama's campaign phrases hits me as a teacher as so important--he speaks of ‘the urgency of now.’ He wants us to realize the vital importance of working on change now, not in a year or a generation, but now. That is why I teach the way I do--the urgency of now. It would be so much easier on me if I just had nice little fact tests--but once you know what colleges demand, and more importantly, how crucial it is to read and write effectively, I would be dishonest, and doing a disservice to just make it easier on me. Therefore, I teach to a narrative of inquiry, and I believe in ‘the urgency of now.’” Even though they didn’t seem very moved, the steady stream of AP students continued—earnestly, even urgently, working on these essays. It was obvious that a number of students had decided to drink the kool-aid.
‘Just Drink the Kool-aid!’ is a phrase that we tossed off very easily this summer at the AP conference I attended. If you remember, that phrase refers back to the bizarre mass suicide of over 900 people at Jonestown, Guyana, thirty years ago this weekend. Jim Jones, the leader, had convinced his followers to drink this Flavor-Aid laced with cyanide, and they gave up their lives. Later the media made this horrible tragedy more manageable by lightening the mood and calling it “kool-aid.” But that is certainly an odd phrase to pop out when making a parallel to education (!).The AP teachers stressed though, you have to have everyone on board to be successful at this AP game. Students, parents, and teachers just have to do what you gotta do to make this AP course, or education work. But here is a good parallel—Jim Jones promised his followers that if they just drank the kool-aid they would all find victory and self-determination.
Many of those AP students had break-throughs this week in their writing. They struggled on a tough essay, but there was a new attitude I sensed—not one of onerous homework assignments, but, dare I say it—an attitude of victory and self-determination.
I hope those other two young men figure it out someday. Why fight your own improvement? Why distance yourself from more effective communication and understanding? Why not just drink the kool-aid?
My page-a-day calendar on Monday had this quotation: “The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.”
Monday for me is a day with two long teaching blocks (70 minutes each) and a whole slew of weekly meetings, from Curriculum Committee, Student Life, Admissions Committee, and just about anything else it seems.
I had looked forward all day to an evening of uninterrupted, I don’t know exactly what, but I didn’t have boarding duty, I didn’t have Arabic class—I had no commitments that evening. So maybe I would go to the gym, watch Jon Stewart, maybe even write some long overdue emails or follow through on some phone calls.
Uninterrupted time? In a boarding school? Let’s get serious!
Right about the time that “uninterrupted time” was going to kick in, Greg, my former Hackley student and now Teaching Fellow protégé, came around the corner with two of his students. “These guys need to talk to you,” Greg said. He turned to his young scholars, “What do you want to ask him, guys? Why do we need to study history?”
I even had my magazines in my hand, gym clothes on, as I quickly answered, “It is all about learning to think, and effective reading and writing.” Greg said to me, “I’ll let you talk to them for awhile.” I could see the look of utter disdain on their junior-in-high-school faces.
I wasn’t going to the gym anytime soon. These two young men, rather bruised by a fair-but-tough test from Greg, couldn’t believe Greg cared so much about writing. “Who cares how you write—it’s a history class for God’s sakes,” announced one of the young men. “All you need are a few facts and that’s it! What is the big deal???” he asked incredulously.
Okay, come on in my apartment guys. Let’s talk.
For the next 45 minutes or so, I tried to explain to them about my understanding of the study of history. I tried to be cute at first, talking about Clio, the Greek muse of History, and how we build a house to Clio for our fellow lodgers. They didn’t buy cute. They wanted to know what any of this would ever mean to them, and why Greg couldn’t just give them a few facts and call it a day.
Interesting to note—because you may be wondering—these are both Americans, by the way.
When it was clear they didn’t believe in an esoteric pursuit of knowledge, I went for the jugular—you know, most of the jobs you want require reading and writing. And then there is college—you can’t get by on a ‘few facts’ in the kind of colleges you crave. What about that? It was almost funny, because they acted as if I did not have twenty years of experience, and that recent-Ivy-League-graduate Greg and I were just in league with the Devil.
I was very honest about my philosophy of education: if one only learns facts for a test, then you are learning/teaching only to a narrative of conclusions. Conclusions are pretty much a dead end—here is what happened, and that's it. But if you work towards a different end, you are learning/teaching to a narrative of inquiry. Inquiry is what unlocks all the mysteries of life—how you understand something, how you solve problems. College education is somewhat interested in conclusions, but they are deeply interested in inquiry. That is how the world has evolved is through inquiry.
While these two young men were getting madder at me by the minute, a strange phenomenon was playing out in the background, an almost musical counterpoint to the sturm und drang on the couch. Study Hall hours had begun, and a number of guys kept coming by to check with me about their writing.
The coming up next day my AP World History students had the “opportunity” to write an essay for practice. If they did a credible job on this document-based-question I would drop their lowest quiz grade. I warned them that this DBQ was a tough one, and they hadn’t written a whole DBQ yet, but I told them it was worth the practice.
The funny thing was, so many of the boys were working on this optional, extra-credit writing puzzle. The questioned explored, “What was the role technology played in the development of Eurasian Empires in the Classical Age.” The DBQ had seven documents, things like maps, to a photograph of a Roman aqueduct, to an account from an Indian trader, to a Chinese merchant, to a photograph of a golden belt buckle from a nomadic tribe.
When I give extra credit, I rarely have students complete it—it’s just not worth the effort, I think they think.
But Monday night, a steady stream of boys came by to check on their interpretation of a document, or to test their thesis. All of this while the soundtrack of “I just think it’s all a stupid waste of time” played out in my living room.
In between the essay help, I continued my diatribe with the Yankee doubters. I told them of my class with Dr. Eisenbeis at Denison: “When I went to college I thought most of what I would do is spout facts. I was in one class, a class where 50% of my grade was based on class participation, and there were no facts to spout. I went to the professor and didn't know what to do. The course was a philosophy course about thinking, believing and understanding. There were really no facts at all, but it was about how we react to religion and faith and deeply held personal opinions. The crutch of facts was just gone. It took me a few weeks, many weeks, to see what I even had to do, but eventually I did, and it has made me a better thinker ever since. But I still love the beauty of precise facts, so I became a historian so I can write well and use sterling facts that win my arguments.”
I spoke rather strongly to them that they could either start to embrace these things now, or put it off until college, and maybe they will have faculty caring enough to help them over this hurdle. It is a hurdle that every young scholar faces: how to go from being a successful middle school student (i.e. a student of conclusions) to a successful adult student (i.e. a student of inquiry).
Tarek, one of my AP students, came by with a thesis statement—without a doubt the best thing he had produced all year. He showed it to me—“I’ve worked on this for the last half hour.” Tarek had spent 30 minutes crafting a thesis statement. I wouldn’t have thought I would say those 9 words a few months ago. And it was good. Very good. I sent him off to work on the rest of the essay.
I told the arms-folded nay-sayers: "Look, I don't know your political affiliation, but one of Barack Obama's campaign phrases hits me as a teacher as so important--he speaks of ‘the urgency of now.’ He wants us to realize the vital importance of working on change now, not in a year or a generation, but now. That is why I teach the way I do--the urgency of now. It would be so much easier on me if I just had nice little fact tests--but once you know what colleges demand, and more importantly, how crucial it is to read and write effectively, I would be dishonest, and doing a disservice to just make it easier on me. Therefore, I teach to a narrative of inquiry, and I believe in ‘the urgency of now.’” Even though they didn’t seem very moved, the steady stream of AP students continued—earnestly, even urgently, working on these essays. It was obvious that a number of students had decided to drink the kool-aid.
‘Just Drink the Kool-aid!’ is a phrase that we tossed off very easily this summer at the AP conference I attended. If you remember, that phrase refers back to the bizarre mass suicide of over 900 people at Jonestown, Guyana, thirty years ago this weekend. Jim Jones, the leader, had convinced his followers to drink this Flavor-Aid laced with cyanide, and they gave up their lives. Later the media made this horrible tragedy more manageable by lightening the mood and calling it “kool-aid.” But that is certainly an odd phrase to pop out when making a parallel to education (!).The AP teachers stressed though, you have to have everyone on board to be successful at this AP game. Students, parents, and teachers just have to do what you gotta do to make this AP course, or education work. But here is a good parallel—Jim Jones promised his followers that if they just drank the kool-aid they would all find victory and self-determination.
Many of those AP students had break-throughs this week in their writing. They struggled on a tough essay, but there was a new attitude I sensed—not one of onerous homework assignments, but, dare I say it—an attitude of victory and self-determination.
I hope those other two young men figure it out someday. Why fight your own improvement? Why distance yourself from more effective communication and understanding? Why not just drink the kool-aid?
My page-a-day calendar on Monday had this quotation: “The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.”
Friday, November 7, 2008
“The right kind of tears"
Oh—I wish you could have been here!
Tuesday night, and all night into Wednesday just past dawn, I wish you could have joined me for the election night returns. It was, as one of my students call things that in the 1980s would have been deemed “awesome,” epic.
I went to the American Embassy party—it was fine and festive. I walked in and there was a huge arch of red, white, and blue balloons. Each table was decked out with balloon donkeys and balloon elephants for the two parties. There were banks of computer screens available to check how the polls and the returns were shaping up. TV screens hung from the ceiling. Hundreds of people there to see how history would take us. The strangest part of the party was a “mock debate” between two people posing as Senators McCain and Obama. Did they really think we wanted to watch imposters mouthing the rhetoric that has over-stimulated us over the last 20 months? Oh well. Then we had a speech from the Ambassador to Jordan (a KA parent) and then a video conference with some scholars and former ambassadors. Frankly, I high-tailed it over to the buffet for the free food—word on the street was that they had mini-hamburgers. The word on the street was mistaken! It was a fine buffet of Arab foods, and as I walked around I noticed more Jordanians than Americans—a little strange since it was a night for the American elections.
I got back to campus after midnight, and I was set to stay up all night. The night wasn’t really going to get interesting until after 2 AM when the eastern-standard time zone polls closed. Several of us hunkered down for the beginning of the calling of the states. It was, of course, slow going for awhile, and then around 4 AM my time, my home state of Ohio was declared as an Obama victory. I still didn’t know what to make of the race, and I looked anxiously toward 5 AM when I was to open up the Dining Hall and see who showed up at this ungodly hour. Would any teen-ager actually show up so early of his or her own volition???
I went over in the dark at 5, and before long, streams of students in their pjs were coming in. I turned on the TV with the 10X8 foot screen, and soon more and more of them were coming in. The pace quickened and there was pulsing energy in the room about when the announcement might be made of Obama’s victory—then all of a sudden, there was this CNN count-down and it came. Just like that. The announcement came that Barack Obama had clinched 270 of the electoral votes.
I wasn’t quite prepared for the flood of emotions in the room at that time. There were about 8 American adults in the room and about 85 KA students. There were 93 of us in this room riveted to the announcement that history had just been made.
And the reactions had nothing to do with policies or ideologies. There was a palpable feeling of joy in the room.
This blog entry is also not about partisan policy or ideology or which “side” won, because at that moment that I watched the election returns here in Jordan with (seriously!) the dawn coming up behind our fancy big-screen TV, it was clear: America had won.
America has won. And from out of nowhere, in the midst of these adolescents cheering this new President’s victory, the adults all dissolved in tears. I think Wendy started it. But then it wasn’t but a second before Tristan, then me, then Nancy, then Peter—oh my, we found these tears rushing down our cheeks.
What were we feeling exactly? Yes, each of us had voted for this candidate, but again, this had little to do with the policy/ideology side of an election. It was so much more. It was about history, about hopes, about missing and loving the United States, it was about a lifetime of watching election returns, about solving problems—I have never felt anything quite like this. For the next hour, maybe more, the urgency of Lee Greenwood’s classic song, “Proud to be an American” soared through my brain.
We waited, as did the rest of the waking world, for the John McCain concession speech, and the emergence of President-elect Obama. The adults in the room ranged from ages 23 to over 60. Earlier that day I had wondered how I would stay awake. I had shot out of bed at 4:20 a.m. so excited I could barely stand it. All day I had been yawning anyway, but I knew I couldn’t miss a moment of this day. I had gone to the gym to read some magazines on the treadmill. One of the magazines was from the pile my father had left from his Jordanian sojourn, a magazine about the National Park Service. I thumbed through it on the treadmill, and came to an article about a new, upcoming park site for the home of Washingtonian Carter Woodson.
Woodson is one of those people who have fallen through the cracks of history. He lived from 1875-1850 and is the first notable chronicler of African-Americans. He never married—too consumed by the study of history, a friend of his once said. He received a Phd from Harvard in 1913, only the second African-American to do so, following only W.E.B. DuBois. And yes, he had been the son of slaves. Woodson worked tirelessly for decades to promote the teaching of “Negro history.” But few people—black or white—cared much. Woodson wrote around 1920: “With most people the race question has been settled. The Negro has been assigned the lowest drudgery as the sphere in which the masses must toil to make a living. Insasmuch as the traducers of the race have “settled” the matter in this fashion, they naturally oppose any effort to change this status.” But by documenting history, and teaching history, Woodson believed he could initiate change.
Here I was watching that beautiful family emerge, and “unsettle” the race question. As the cheering thousands in Chicago’s Grant Park viewed it first-hand—we all witnessed the unfolding of a new age. Martin Luther King Jr. had promised America, “A change is coming,” and now it is here. Wendy turned to me and said, “I am so proud to be an American.” One of the other adults said, “I need to go back to my apartment and just have a good cry. But thank goodness, it’s the right kind of tears.”
All 93 of us were silent as we hung onto every word of Obama’s speech, hearing the echoes of Lincoln and King in the cadences. At the end of the speech our students were on their feet cheering. What were they cheering? I think it was as simple, as un-ideological, as the audacity of possibility. I had a long talk with one Jordanian friend who said, “I envy your country as you get to make history again and again.” Jazi, this kind librarian here called me during the day and said, “Congratulations Mr. John on your hope!” Another friend said, “the America the world loves came back last night—an America that has the capacity to achieve the impossible.”
We witnessed the accession of a black man to serve as President. He will live in the White House and work in the U.S. Capitol building—two venerable structures built, at least in part, by slave labor. The first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, and 389 years later, on November 4, 2008, Virginia, the old capitol of the Confederacy, offered its vote Barck Obama.
After classes on Wednesday, as any good political junkie would do, I watched more television news. I saw the spontaneous, peaceful celebrations in Harlem, Los Angeles, and Howard University (here they traveled the same streets that in 1968 many left burning) rejoicing. But it certainly was not contained to the shores of the United States. One of my most astute and perceptive students, Raja, said to me, “Mr. John the students are acting like it’s our President. He’s talking to Americans.” Yes, that is correct, but look at what this says—there is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, selected as their leader a black man of modest origins, the son of a Muslim. This place, this America, exists. We should not put limitations on possibility or on hope. Even if this is only a fleeting feeling, it allows us to dream, to wonder, to stake a claim.
One great guy, Fawzi, called out, “Mr. John, I want a hug!” I don’t know why he did, but hey, it was that kind of morning. Wendy leaned over to me as we picked up breakfast dishes, “I loved when I looked over and saw you crying. Who knew we would feel like this?” It wasn’t hard—you saw the shots of Jesse Jackson and Colin Powell, their faces relieved, overwhelmed, stunned and thankful.
It is, I suppose, in part a matter of temperament, whether one shouts or weeps at happy transformative moments. But I also think it’s a matter of knowing what has come before. The emotional, historical baggage. Our tired young people joyfully shouting at the TV screen never knew the universe whose passing was marked by Obama’s victory and Jackson’s tears.
This moment of triumph marks the end of such a long period of pain, of indignity and injustice for African-Americans. The election brought the return of a country we thought we’d lost for so long that it was almost forgotten under the accumulated scar tissue of accommodation and acceptance.
For me, this will be the enduring memory of election night 2008: One generation released its emotion. The next looked up confusedly, eager to please and yet unable to comprehend just what the tears were about.
Tuesday night, and all night into Wednesday just past dawn, I wish you could have joined me for the election night returns. It was, as one of my students call things that in the 1980s would have been deemed “awesome,” epic.
I went to the American Embassy party—it was fine and festive. I walked in and there was a huge arch of red, white, and blue balloons. Each table was decked out with balloon donkeys and balloon elephants for the two parties. There were banks of computer screens available to check how the polls and the returns were shaping up. TV screens hung from the ceiling. Hundreds of people there to see how history would take us. The strangest part of the party was a “mock debate” between two people posing as Senators McCain and Obama. Did they really think we wanted to watch imposters mouthing the rhetoric that has over-stimulated us over the last 20 months? Oh well. Then we had a speech from the Ambassador to Jordan (a KA parent) and then a video conference with some scholars and former ambassadors. Frankly, I high-tailed it over to the buffet for the free food—word on the street was that they had mini-hamburgers. The word on the street was mistaken! It was a fine buffet of Arab foods, and as I walked around I noticed more Jordanians than Americans—a little strange since it was a night for the American elections.
I got back to campus after midnight, and I was set to stay up all night. The night wasn’t really going to get interesting until after 2 AM when the eastern-standard time zone polls closed. Several of us hunkered down for the beginning of the calling of the states. It was, of course, slow going for awhile, and then around 4 AM my time, my home state of Ohio was declared as an Obama victory. I still didn’t know what to make of the race, and I looked anxiously toward 5 AM when I was to open up the Dining Hall and see who showed up at this ungodly hour. Would any teen-ager actually show up so early of his or her own volition???
I went over in the dark at 5, and before long, streams of students in their pjs were coming in. I turned on the TV with the 10X8 foot screen, and soon more and more of them were coming in. The pace quickened and there was pulsing energy in the room about when the announcement might be made of Obama’s victory—then all of a sudden, there was this CNN count-down and it came. Just like that. The announcement came that Barack Obama had clinched 270 of the electoral votes.
I wasn’t quite prepared for the flood of emotions in the room at that time. There were about 8 American adults in the room and about 85 KA students. There were 93 of us in this room riveted to the announcement that history had just been made.
And the reactions had nothing to do with policies or ideologies. There was a palpable feeling of joy in the room.
This blog entry is also not about partisan policy or ideology or which “side” won, because at that moment that I watched the election returns here in Jordan with (seriously!) the dawn coming up behind our fancy big-screen TV, it was clear: America had won.
America has won. And from out of nowhere, in the midst of these adolescents cheering this new President’s victory, the adults all dissolved in tears. I think Wendy started it. But then it wasn’t but a second before Tristan, then me, then Nancy, then Peter—oh my, we found these tears rushing down our cheeks.
What were we feeling exactly? Yes, each of us had voted for this candidate, but again, this had little to do with the policy/ideology side of an election. It was so much more. It was about history, about hopes, about missing and loving the United States, it was about a lifetime of watching election returns, about solving problems—I have never felt anything quite like this. For the next hour, maybe more, the urgency of Lee Greenwood’s classic song, “Proud to be an American” soared through my brain.
We waited, as did the rest of the waking world, for the John McCain concession speech, and the emergence of President-elect Obama. The adults in the room ranged from ages 23 to over 60. Earlier that day I had wondered how I would stay awake. I had shot out of bed at 4:20 a.m. so excited I could barely stand it. All day I had been yawning anyway, but I knew I couldn’t miss a moment of this day. I had gone to the gym to read some magazines on the treadmill. One of the magazines was from the pile my father had left from his Jordanian sojourn, a magazine about the National Park Service. I thumbed through it on the treadmill, and came to an article about a new, upcoming park site for the home of Washingtonian Carter Woodson.
Woodson is one of those people who have fallen through the cracks of history. He lived from 1875-1850 and is the first notable chronicler of African-Americans. He never married—too consumed by the study of history, a friend of his once said. He received a Phd from Harvard in 1913, only the second African-American to do so, following only W.E.B. DuBois. And yes, he had been the son of slaves. Woodson worked tirelessly for decades to promote the teaching of “Negro history.” But few people—black or white—cared much. Woodson wrote around 1920: “With most people the race question has been settled. The Negro has been assigned the lowest drudgery as the sphere in which the masses must toil to make a living. Insasmuch as the traducers of the race have “settled” the matter in this fashion, they naturally oppose any effort to change this status.” But by documenting history, and teaching history, Woodson believed he could initiate change.
Here I was watching that beautiful family emerge, and “unsettle” the race question. As the cheering thousands in Chicago’s Grant Park viewed it first-hand—we all witnessed the unfolding of a new age. Martin Luther King Jr. had promised America, “A change is coming,” and now it is here. Wendy turned to me and said, “I am so proud to be an American.” One of the other adults said, “I need to go back to my apartment and just have a good cry. But thank goodness, it’s the right kind of tears.”
All 93 of us were silent as we hung onto every word of Obama’s speech, hearing the echoes of Lincoln and King in the cadences. At the end of the speech our students were on their feet cheering. What were they cheering? I think it was as simple, as un-ideological, as the audacity of possibility. I had a long talk with one Jordanian friend who said, “I envy your country as you get to make history again and again.” Jazi, this kind librarian here called me during the day and said, “Congratulations Mr. John on your hope!” Another friend said, “the America the world loves came back last night—an America that has the capacity to achieve the impossible.”
We witnessed the accession of a black man to serve as President. He will live in the White House and work in the U.S. Capitol building—two venerable structures built, at least in part, by slave labor. The first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, and 389 years later, on November 4, 2008, Virginia, the old capitol of the Confederacy, offered its vote Barck Obama.
After classes on Wednesday, as any good political junkie would do, I watched more television news. I saw the spontaneous, peaceful celebrations in Harlem, Los Angeles, and Howard University (here they traveled the same streets that in 1968 many left burning) rejoicing. But it certainly was not contained to the shores of the United States. One of my most astute and perceptive students, Raja, said to me, “Mr. John the students are acting like it’s our President. He’s talking to Americans.” Yes, that is correct, but look at what this says—there is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, selected as their leader a black man of modest origins, the son of a Muslim. This place, this America, exists. We should not put limitations on possibility or on hope. Even if this is only a fleeting feeling, it allows us to dream, to wonder, to stake a claim.
One great guy, Fawzi, called out, “Mr. John, I want a hug!” I don’t know why he did, but hey, it was that kind of morning. Wendy leaned over to me as we picked up breakfast dishes, “I loved when I looked over and saw you crying. Who knew we would feel like this?” It wasn’t hard—you saw the shots of Jesse Jackson and Colin Powell, their faces relieved, overwhelmed, stunned and thankful.
It is, I suppose, in part a matter of temperament, whether one shouts or weeps at happy transformative moments. But I also think it’s a matter of knowing what has come before. The emotional, historical baggage. Our tired young people joyfully shouting at the TV screen never knew the universe whose passing was marked by Obama’s victory and Jackson’s tears.
This moment of triumph marks the end of such a long period of pain, of indignity and injustice for African-Americans. The election brought the return of a country we thought we’d lost for so long that it was almost forgotten under the accumulated scar tissue of accommodation and acceptance.
For me, this will be the enduring memory of election night 2008: One generation released its emotion. The next looked up confusedly, eager to please and yet unable to comprehend just what the tears were about.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
…conceived in Liberty…
All day my thoughts keep returning to my years in second and third grade.
If you know the history of my childhood, you may remember that I was hit by a car in the second grade, out of school for nearly six months, and lay in a body cast for a season. However, my mother was not about to let me fritter away all that time just lying around and watching television. No! We had to have projects! We had to cultivate interests! So with my public-school-tutor’s help, we created all kinds of ways to read and write the time away while encased in plaster.
My mother asked me in the hospital: “Who would you like to write a biography about?”Keep in mind—I was just beginning to write in cursive, so now when I ponder her query, I think it almost outlandish. But I responded that I would like to write about Abraham Lincoln.
When I returned home to 2460 after six weeks in the hospital, I found my room decked out in all kinds of Lincoln memorabilia so as to stimulate my biographical musings. There was the Lincoln bedspread, the Lincoln portrait on the wall, the Lincoln bust on my nightstand, the Lincoln bookends, and of course, Lincoln Logs on the floor waiting patiently for when I could lounge around effortlessly again. And then there were the picture books, the children’s books—all eager to be devoured so that a junior historian could get to work.
I am remembering the second and third grade today, not just because the anniversary of the accident (just to remind and clarify—I was walking across the street on a walk light on that sleety November morn!) is this week. No, it is in the second and third grade that I have my earliest consciousness of loving history, specifically, the history of the United States, and loving thinking and talking and reading and writing about politics.
When I finally came back to school, I had a book report to offer. So I offered my own biography of Lincoln as my report, and while these were probably meant to be fairly brief reports, I stayed up in front of the class talking about Abraham Lincoln much, much, much longer than was allotted for my time. (Things don’t change—I need bells and whistles and bombs to go off so I stop teaching now, too!). That spring my mother and grandmother took me on pilgrimages to see all the Lincoln sights in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect trip! My poor sister Elizabeth couldn’t imagine a more perfect torture.
What I thrilled to in those days was that phrase in the constitution—“in order to form a more perfect union.” I loved that, and I consumed every book I could find on American history. I memorized the presidents forwards and backwards—seriously, I am that weird, forwards and backwards.
But in the third grade, things got even more exciting for me! I wrote to President Nixon (guess who had that idea? My mother wouldn’t let me rest!) and got a great souvenir book from the White House in the mail. Then there was a presidential election—nothing could be more thrilling! I ran around Westwood Elementary School asking who my peers would vote for—like, you know, if we were 18 and old enough to vote. This one guy, Frank, actually asked me why I cared! I told him—you have to care—it matters! It is what Americans get to do! I did my own tally, and hours before the rest of America learned that Richard Nixon had trounced George McGovern, I knew from those who knew what was going on that he would still be our President.
It was in the third grade that my mother gave me a book of plays, plays about American history. I marvel at the fact that I ever gave other careers a passing thought, since it should have been clear the map destiny had for me in the glovebox. History! Drama! I spent the winters in the indoor playroom at Westwood School casting and directing these plays. Couldn’t have been happier!
Wait—there was something even more monumental around the corner in the spring of the 3rd grade. It turns out that my grandmother was an acquaintance of Charlie Taft, a prominent Cincinnati attorney and politician and, here comes the motherlode—the son of a President! Did I want him to come to my school and talk?!! I would have given up a Lincoln bookend for such a treat!
So on this auspicious day, Mr. Taft came to talk to my class about being a child in the White House in the early part of the 20th century. My mother had contacted the press—she could get someone to do almost anything—and there was a story about a boy who loved history meeting a man who walked through history.
So this morning I woke up about 4:15 a.m. Jordan time—too excited to stay in bed any longer. This political junkie needed to start the day watching the news programs from yesterday in the United States. Election Day! The day we do what America gets to do. Just in case you are wondering—everyone here, it seems, is riveted by what will go on today in America. They ask about it, ask about voting, and muse about the candidates.
In a couple of hours I will go to the American embassy in Amman for a party to watch news reports. (Do you think they will spring for some good food?) Then I will come back about midnight and there is a posse of guys in the dorm who want to watch the returns all night. Then at 5:00 A.M. those who are interested will get up and go to the Dining Hall and eat an early breakfast and watch the reports on a huuuuuuuuuge screen TV. Don’t you just love it!
My mother had been a political scientist in college, and I guess, some of this interest (obsession?) is just genetic. But it is also about growing older and studying America more and appreciating the institutions, the struggles, the changes, the obligations of being American. I remember a comment that my wonderful friend Doris Jackson, the rock, said to our students in our course together on the Civil Rights: “Voting isn’t just a privilege. It isn’t just a right. It is an obligation. You must vote, for people died for that ability to cast their own vote. People died.” Doris does not want us to take our democracy for granted.
As an adult I came back to Abraham Lincoln. I had put him aside for about 15 years pursuing other joys in history. But then I came back as an adult, fascinated, not by the boyhood stories, but by his will, his determination, his melancholy, his ethics, his values, his savvy, his frustrations, his anger, his vision. He is one of my favorite writers, too. I mean look at these phrases: “the mystic chords of memory,” and “better angels of our nature,” and “the father of waters flows unvexed to the sea.”
The myth about the Gettysburg Address is that he wrote it on the back of an envelope on the train, but evidence shows that he had been slaving over it for days, finishing it in the guest room, just a short while before its delivery. He had been very low in the polls at the time, and I imagine he hoped to stave off failure. Let’s remember that this battle had been the bloodiest confrontation in American history, with 51,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or missing after only three days of intense battle. What could he say?
Gary Wills wrote a marvelous book in the last couple decades about the Gettysburg Address, and he explains what happened after Lincoln stopped talking after that very short, 272-word speech: “The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological luggage, that new constitution Lincoln had substituted for the one they brought there with them. They walked off, from those curving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, into a different America.”
Today I think back to drawing Lincoln’s beard with crayon, building dioramas and models of his boyhood cabin with Elmer’s glue and toothpicks. I made stovepipe hats out of construction paper. I memorized the Gettysburg Address.
My new friend Nancy confided that she almost resisted accepting the offer to teach at KA. She said, “I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t be in the United States for this election. I almost turned down this adventure so I could be at home and take it all in.” Instead, Nancy is doing what teachers do—explaining the twisty-turvy Electoral College, teasing out the ideologies of candidates, and talking to non-Americans about what we get to do. We get the chance to see the impact of the United States and our election from thousands of miles away.
Just a little while I called my friend Christy in New York. She, too, got up early today. She said, “Doesn’t it just feel like Christmas? All that excitement and nervousness?”
Today Americans get to do a spectacular thing. And tomorrow, under a “changed sky, a different America” we will write a new chapter in our history.
And whom ever wins, there will be a peaceful transition. Last year, just weeks after I was in Kenya, they had a national election, and for days afterward there was strife and bloodshed in the streets. I can pretty safely bet that won’t happen in the United States this week.
Whichever patriot you support, go stand in line, revel in the proudest moment we have as an American, and make your mark in as Lincoln intoned, “a new birth of freedom.”
My heavens, it is great to be a historian!
If you know the history of my childhood, you may remember that I was hit by a car in the second grade, out of school for nearly six months, and lay in a body cast for a season. However, my mother was not about to let me fritter away all that time just lying around and watching television. No! We had to have projects! We had to cultivate interests! So with my public-school-tutor’s help, we created all kinds of ways to read and write the time away while encased in plaster.
My mother asked me in the hospital: “Who would you like to write a biography about?”Keep in mind—I was just beginning to write in cursive, so now when I ponder her query, I think it almost outlandish. But I responded that I would like to write about Abraham Lincoln.
When I returned home to 2460 after six weeks in the hospital, I found my room decked out in all kinds of Lincoln memorabilia so as to stimulate my biographical musings. There was the Lincoln bedspread, the Lincoln portrait on the wall, the Lincoln bust on my nightstand, the Lincoln bookends, and of course, Lincoln Logs on the floor waiting patiently for when I could lounge around effortlessly again. And then there were the picture books, the children’s books—all eager to be devoured so that a junior historian could get to work.
I am remembering the second and third grade today, not just because the anniversary of the accident (just to remind and clarify—I was walking across the street on a walk light on that sleety November morn!) is this week. No, it is in the second and third grade that I have my earliest consciousness of loving history, specifically, the history of the United States, and loving thinking and talking and reading and writing about politics.
When I finally came back to school, I had a book report to offer. So I offered my own biography of Lincoln as my report, and while these were probably meant to be fairly brief reports, I stayed up in front of the class talking about Abraham Lincoln much, much, much longer than was allotted for my time. (Things don’t change—I need bells and whistles and bombs to go off so I stop teaching now, too!). That spring my mother and grandmother took me on pilgrimages to see all the Lincoln sights in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect trip! My poor sister Elizabeth couldn’t imagine a more perfect torture.
What I thrilled to in those days was that phrase in the constitution—“in order to form a more perfect union.” I loved that, and I consumed every book I could find on American history. I memorized the presidents forwards and backwards—seriously, I am that weird, forwards and backwards.
But in the third grade, things got even more exciting for me! I wrote to President Nixon (guess who had that idea? My mother wouldn’t let me rest!) and got a great souvenir book from the White House in the mail. Then there was a presidential election—nothing could be more thrilling! I ran around Westwood Elementary School asking who my peers would vote for—like, you know, if we were 18 and old enough to vote. This one guy, Frank, actually asked me why I cared! I told him—you have to care—it matters! It is what Americans get to do! I did my own tally, and hours before the rest of America learned that Richard Nixon had trounced George McGovern, I knew from those who knew what was going on that he would still be our President.
It was in the third grade that my mother gave me a book of plays, plays about American history. I marvel at the fact that I ever gave other careers a passing thought, since it should have been clear the map destiny had for me in the glovebox. History! Drama! I spent the winters in the indoor playroom at Westwood School casting and directing these plays. Couldn’t have been happier!
Wait—there was something even more monumental around the corner in the spring of the 3rd grade. It turns out that my grandmother was an acquaintance of Charlie Taft, a prominent Cincinnati attorney and politician and, here comes the motherlode—the son of a President! Did I want him to come to my school and talk?!! I would have given up a Lincoln bookend for such a treat!
So on this auspicious day, Mr. Taft came to talk to my class about being a child in the White House in the early part of the 20th century. My mother had contacted the press—she could get someone to do almost anything—and there was a story about a boy who loved history meeting a man who walked through history.
So this morning I woke up about 4:15 a.m. Jordan time—too excited to stay in bed any longer. This political junkie needed to start the day watching the news programs from yesterday in the United States. Election Day! The day we do what America gets to do. Just in case you are wondering—everyone here, it seems, is riveted by what will go on today in America. They ask about it, ask about voting, and muse about the candidates.
In a couple of hours I will go to the American embassy in Amman for a party to watch news reports. (Do you think they will spring for some good food?) Then I will come back about midnight and there is a posse of guys in the dorm who want to watch the returns all night. Then at 5:00 A.M. those who are interested will get up and go to the Dining Hall and eat an early breakfast and watch the reports on a huuuuuuuuuge screen TV. Don’t you just love it!
My mother had been a political scientist in college, and I guess, some of this interest (obsession?) is just genetic. But it is also about growing older and studying America more and appreciating the institutions, the struggles, the changes, the obligations of being American. I remember a comment that my wonderful friend Doris Jackson, the rock, said to our students in our course together on the Civil Rights: “Voting isn’t just a privilege. It isn’t just a right. It is an obligation. You must vote, for people died for that ability to cast their own vote. People died.” Doris does not want us to take our democracy for granted.
As an adult I came back to Abraham Lincoln. I had put him aside for about 15 years pursuing other joys in history. But then I came back as an adult, fascinated, not by the boyhood stories, but by his will, his determination, his melancholy, his ethics, his values, his savvy, his frustrations, his anger, his vision. He is one of my favorite writers, too. I mean look at these phrases: “the mystic chords of memory,” and “better angels of our nature,” and “the father of waters flows unvexed to the sea.”
The myth about the Gettysburg Address is that he wrote it on the back of an envelope on the train, but evidence shows that he had been slaving over it for days, finishing it in the guest room, just a short while before its delivery. He had been very low in the polls at the time, and I imagine he hoped to stave off failure. Let’s remember that this battle had been the bloodiest confrontation in American history, with 51,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or missing after only three days of intense battle. What could he say?
Gary Wills wrote a marvelous book in the last couple decades about the Gettysburg Address, and he explains what happened after Lincoln stopped talking after that very short, 272-word speech: “The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological luggage, that new constitution Lincoln had substituted for the one they brought there with them. They walked off, from those curving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, into a different America.”
Today I think back to drawing Lincoln’s beard with crayon, building dioramas and models of his boyhood cabin with Elmer’s glue and toothpicks. I made stovepipe hats out of construction paper. I memorized the Gettysburg Address.
My new friend Nancy confided that she almost resisted accepting the offer to teach at KA. She said, “I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t be in the United States for this election. I almost turned down this adventure so I could be at home and take it all in.” Instead, Nancy is doing what teachers do—explaining the twisty-turvy Electoral College, teasing out the ideologies of candidates, and talking to non-Americans about what we get to do. We get the chance to see the impact of the United States and our election from thousands of miles away.
Just a little while I called my friend Christy in New York. She, too, got up early today. She said, “Doesn’t it just feel like Christmas? All that excitement and nervousness?”
Today Americans get to do a spectacular thing. And tomorrow, under a “changed sky, a different America” we will write a new chapter in our history.
And whom ever wins, there will be a peaceful transition. Last year, just weeks after I was in Kenya, they had a national election, and for days afterward there was strife and bloodshed in the streets. I can pretty safely bet that won’t happen in the United States this week.
Whichever patriot you support, go stand in line, revel in the proudest moment we have as an American, and make your mark in as Lincoln intoned, “a new birth of freedom.”
My heavens, it is great to be a historian!
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