The blessings and curses of cohabitation
As a teenager, I found my first real job at Martin-Boyd Christian Home, a Church of Christ retirement community in Chattanooga. The patience, compassion, and work ethic I learned there have had a lasting impact on my life. Imagine my excitement when my own daughter, a 2009 high school graduate, asked me to drive her to Martin-Boyd for a summer job interview.
I was excited to see the changes made over the years. Martin-Boyd has always been an establishment that honors its elderly residents, but now the architecture was updated with beautiful crown molding and individual door frames that give residents a greater sense of dignity and autonomy.
In the center of the elegant sitting room, lively birds flitted about a large glass enclosure, lending their bright colors to the atmosphere. The fattest cat I have ever seen perched on a richly upholstered chair. A sleek tabby weaved his way across the room, turning to rub against the leg of someone’s walker and then pausing for a head scratch.
The familiarity and obvious pleasure the residents feel toward these animals supports what elder care professionals have known for some time: Pets are therapeutic. In fact, when an aging person can no longer live at home, one of the greatest losses may be the loss of their animals. Petting a cat or dog has been shown to lower blood pressure, ease depression, and put a smile on one’s face.
Keeping pets should be source of enjoyment, enhancing the life of both the humans and the animals involved. In our society, we see many examples of harm caused by greed, arrogance, and even mental illness.
From time to time, the news carries a story of a house overrun by pets. Typically we hear about an older woman housing hundreds of cats in a home filled with feces and even a few rotting corpses. Authorities swoop down on the unfortunate woman, charging her with animal cruelty and removing the numerous animals to treat them as victims. But who is really the victim here? Seems to me the cats are in charge, treating their poor “owner” as a slave while they procreate madly. As the old joke goes, dogs have owners but cats have staff.
Then there are the pit bull owners, who may be crazier than the cat ladies. Every time a child is mauled by a savage dog, pit bull apologists rush in to blame the child. Last Friday an eight-year-old Lookout Mountain girl was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after a pit bull attack. The apologists noted that the attack happened in the pit bull’s own yard while he was “defending his territory” from the girl’s small terrier. Although the dog owner had no proof of rabies inoculation, the apologists began their mantra of “Where were this girl’s parents?”
Eight-year-old children are often allowed to walk down the streets of their own neighborhood – particularly when a pet is missing. Chaining a pit bull in the yard is an unsafe practice, just as it would be unsafe to chain a bear or a lion in the yard and then expect children to just stay away. It was a relief to hear that the dog owner called 911 and then shot the animal in the head, unlike other cases where pit bulls have been spirited away from the scene of the crime. In one case, the dog owners hid the offending animal and presented authorities with a similar-looking dog instead.
Pet owners have the responsibility to protect little neighbors from vicious dogs. Chains and ropes do not provide adequate protection, since a child may wander into the animal’s circle. A tall chain-link fence provides better protection. It’s all well and good to say “Children should stay on their own property,” but the reality is that children do not exercise adult judgment. This is why homeowners must put a fence around their swimming pool, rather than just saying “That kid that drowned shouldn’t have been on my property in the first place.”
Many people around the United States love dangerous breeds like pit bulls, and feel perfectly comfortable around them. Other people like to keep poisonous snakes for pets. Those of us who don’t share your affinity simply ask that you keep such pets to yourself. Do not bring them to the park where our little ones are playing. Do not parade them through the local street fair, forcing us to sweep our children away from a mouthful of fangs right at the level of their little faces. Do not leave a dangerous dog unattended on a rope in your yard, where an unsuspecting child may become their next chew toy. Do not assume that just because you consider Killer a loveable, harmless pup, he will ignore the instincts present in every cell of his body.
People and animals can live in harmony. All it takes is a bit of wisdom on the part of human beings.
#
Monday, June 15, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Brand New Packaging!
Southern Baptists attempt to save denomination by going incognito
The webpage of Louisburg Southern Baptist Church reads: “We are still SBC; we still believe in inerrancy; we still cherish our seminaries and mission bodies: We changed our name from Louisburg Southern Baptist Church to Eastside Church of the Cross.”
What happened in Louisburg, Kansas is not an anomaly, but a growing trend.
Wikipedia describes the trend this way: A recent trend (most common among megachurches and those embracing the "seeker movement") is to eliminate "Baptist" from the church name, as it is perceived to be a "barrier" to reaching persons who have negative views of Baptists, whether they be of a different church background or none. These churches typically include the word "Community" or other non-religious or denominational terms in their church name.
Why are the Southern Baptists suddenly reluctant to use their own name? Simply put, it’s a marketing decision. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been embroiled in controversy and declining in membership for the last decade. The longstanding doctrine of church autonomy and personal autonomy (known as soul competency) has been replaced with social and political messages of intolerance and top-down Catholic-style micromanagement.
Take, for example, the issue of women in the pastorate. While the SBC has always had issues with sexism, individual churches were historically allowed to call their own pastors. As a result, many SBC churches were led by women in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
In the year 2000, SBC leadership pulled out all the stops to eliminate these women. Married missionaries were forced to sign a statement recognizing the husbands as the true missionaries while the wives were just their underlings; couples who refused lost their funding. The SBC also stripped female chaplains of endorsement – but only those who were ordained. Although the SBC banned female pastors nine years ago, at this late date the purge continues with attacks on First Baptist Church of Decatur, pastored by Julie Pennington-Russell. FBC Decatur has been warned that unless they fire their pastor, they will be ousted from the Georgia Baptist Convention.
As a response to this religious fascism by the SBC, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) began to grow. The CBF is not a convention like the SBC. Emphasizing the freedom of every church and every individual, the CBF commits not to exercise creedal or papal authority over the network of churches that fund and endorse the organization. Many local churches, including First Baptist Church of Ringgold and First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, split their funding between the two organizations, allowing individual church members to designate which one they prefer to support.
Other churches pulled out of the SBC entirely – including the First Baptist Church of Greenville, S.C., whose founder William B. Johnson was the first president of the SBC in 1845 and is considered the father of the denomination. Pastor Harvey Clemons explained the church’s break with the SBC this way: “After about 150 years of the Southern Baptist Convention having unity in diversity, it's become a fundamentalist organization, more concerned with creedalism and politics, and we're not. When they added the statement to the Baptist Faith and Message about submissive women, it was just one more in a long series of incidents.”
Attempts at reviving the denomination include renaming old churches and misnaming new churches. Locally, north Georgia has seen the emergence of a number of misnamed Baptist churches. The Church at Catoosa may be the largest local SBC church hiding behind a non-denominational name. Although the church readily admits SBC affiliation when asked, the word “Baptist” does not appear on the website.
The newest undercover Baptist church around here is Origin Church, which uses the slogans, “For people who don’t go” and “No perfect people allowed.” Through MySpace and FaceBook, Origin stealthily targets people who have no intention of setting foot inside a Baptist church. Origin meets in the Ringgold Depot, offers free Starbucks coffee and does not use the word Baptist. Affiliation is sketchy, noticeably absent from their literature but not from the pastorate. A quick phone call receives a “yes and no” answer. They have gone back to the original Baptist message (None of us is worthy, but God loves us anyway) even as they ditch the Baptist name.
Is it really revolutionary and forward-thinking to pretend to be someone you’re not? Or, to put it more accurately, is it okay to pretend not to be someone you are? To the church-hunter who has already disavowed the Baptist denomination, it may seem like a bait-and-switch.
What’s wrong with being a Southern Baptist church? As a Nazarene, I could write a bullet list of points on which I strongly disagree with the SBC. Nevertheless, I think Southern Baptists should be proud to be Southern Baptists. If you cannot be proud of your faith, either disavow it or reform it. Don’t pretend to be above it, burying the truth somewhere down in your fine print.
The Bible tells us that by faith, our father Abraham was able to “call the things that were not as though they were.” It never says to call the things that were, as if they weren’t.
What I love best about Baptists is their humility. As a writer with a deep interest in religion and a healthy dose of skepticism, I have criticized many organizations and denominations in print. The Catholics ignore me; apparently I have not made the Pope’s radar. The Mormons threaten my business. The racists threaten my person. The Baptists inevitably respond with, “Wow, you are so right” and “I’m going to preach about this Sunday.”
This humility is what makes Baptists unique in the land. Their religious language for it is “the total depravity of man.” They read the same Bible I read, but their emphasis is a little different. They focus on the distance between God and humans – our complete inability to ever get it right. We can never reach God in the heavens; yet God reached down to us, becoming one of us and dying a sinner’s death.
The Baptist message is beautiful and important. I ask my Baptist friends not to lose sight of who you are, and why we need you. Give up the political agendas that don’t further your mission, but don’t give up your name. Grow out of the antiquated ideas about who is fit for ministry (because your writings teach that no one is fit, save through Christ), but don’t forget your heritage.
If you don’t like how the Baptist denomination is perceived, change the organization instead of the name. Be more inclusive. Get back to your roots and remember that no one is worthy of Christ – not even white, middle class, red-blooded, English-speaking American males who cut their teeth on the church pew. Reclaim the message and the mission that God set before you. Then you can be proud to put the Baptist name back on the signs.
The webpage of Louisburg Southern Baptist Church reads: “We are still SBC; we still believe in inerrancy; we still cherish our seminaries and mission bodies: We changed our name from Louisburg Southern Baptist Church to Eastside Church of the Cross.”
What happened in Louisburg, Kansas is not an anomaly, but a growing trend.
Wikipedia describes the trend this way: A recent trend (most common among megachurches and those embracing the "seeker movement") is to eliminate "Baptist" from the church name, as it is perceived to be a "barrier" to reaching persons who have negative views of Baptists, whether they be of a different church background or none. These churches typically include the word "Community" or other non-religious or denominational terms in their church name.
Why are the Southern Baptists suddenly reluctant to use their own name? Simply put, it’s a marketing decision. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been embroiled in controversy and declining in membership for the last decade. The longstanding doctrine of church autonomy and personal autonomy (known as soul competency) has been replaced with social and political messages of intolerance and top-down Catholic-style micromanagement.
Take, for example, the issue of women in the pastorate. While the SBC has always had issues with sexism, individual churches were historically allowed to call their own pastors. As a result, many SBC churches were led by women in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
In the year 2000, SBC leadership pulled out all the stops to eliminate these women. Married missionaries were forced to sign a statement recognizing the husbands as the true missionaries while the wives were just their underlings; couples who refused lost their funding. The SBC also stripped female chaplains of endorsement – but only those who were ordained. Although the SBC banned female pastors nine years ago, at this late date the purge continues with attacks on First Baptist Church of Decatur, pastored by Julie Pennington-Russell. FBC Decatur has been warned that unless they fire their pastor, they will be ousted from the Georgia Baptist Convention.
As a response to this religious fascism by the SBC, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) began to grow. The CBF is not a convention like the SBC. Emphasizing the freedom of every church and every individual, the CBF commits not to exercise creedal or papal authority over the network of churches that fund and endorse the organization. Many local churches, including First Baptist Church of Ringgold and First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, split their funding between the two organizations, allowing individual church members to designate which one they prefer to support.
Other churches pulled out of the SBC entirely – including the First Baptist Church of Greenville, S.C., whose founder William B. Johnson was the first president of the SBC in 1845 and is considered the father of the denomination. Pastor Harvey Clemons explained the church’s break with the SBC this way: “After about 150 years of the Southern Baptist Convention having unity in diversity, it's become a fundamentalist organization, more concerned with creedalism and politics, and we're not. When they added the statement to the Baptist Faith and Message about submissive women, it was just one more in a long series of incidents.”
Attempts at reviving the denomination include renaming old churches and misnaming new churches. Locally, north Georgia has seen the emergence of a number of misnamed Baptist churches. The Church at Catoosa may be the largest local SBC church hiding behind a non-denominational name. Although the church readily admits SBC affiliation when asked, the word “Baptist” does not appear on the website.
The newest undercover Baptist church around here is Origin Church, which uses the slogans, “For people who don’t go” and “No perfect people allowed.” Through MySpace and FaceBook, Origin stealthily targets people who have no intention of setting foot inside a Baptist church. Origin meets in the Ringgold Depot, offers free Starbucks coffee and does not use the word Baptist. Affiliation is sketchy, noticeably absent from their literature but not from the pastorate. A quick phone call receives a “yes and no” answer. They have gone back to the original Baptist message (None of us is worthy, but God loves us anyway) even as they ditch the Baptist name.
Is it really revolutionary and forward-thinking to pretend to be someone you’re not? Or, to put it more accurately, is it okay to pretend not to be someone you are? To the church-hunter who has already disavowed the Baptist denomination, it may seem like a bait-and-switch.
What’s wrong with being a Southern Baptist church? As a Nazarene, I could write a bullet list of points on which I strongly disagree with the SBC. Nevertheless, I think Southern Baptists should be proud to be Southern Baptists. If you cannot be proud of your faith, either disavow it or reform it. Don’t pretend to be above it, burying the truth somewhere down in your fine print.
The Bible tells us that by faith, our father Abraham was able to “call the things that were not as though they were.” It never says to call the things that were, as if they weren’t.
What I love best about Baptists is their humility. As a writer with a deep interest in religion and a healthy dose of skepticism, I have criticized many organizations and denominations in print. The Catholics ignore me; apparently I have not made the Pope’s radar. The Mormons threaten my business. The racists threaten my person. The Baptists inevitably respond with, “Wow, you are so right” and “I’m going to preach about this Sunday.”
This humility is what makes Baptists unique in the land. Their religious language for it is “the total depravity of man.” They read the same Bible I read, but their emphasis is a little different. They focus on the distance between God and humans – our complete inability to ever get it right. We can never reach God in the heavens; yet God reached down to us, becoming one of us and dying a sinner’s death.
The Baptist message is beautiful and important. I ask my Baptist friends not to lose sight of who you are, and why we need you. Give up the political agendas that don’t further your mission, but don’t give up your name. Grow out of the antiquated ideas about who is fit for ministry (because your writings teach that no one is fit, save through Christ), but don’t forget your heritage.
If you don’t like how the Baptist denomination is perceived, change the organization instead of the name. Be more inclusive. Get back to your roots and remember that no one is worthy of Christ – not even white, middle class, red-blooded, English-speaking American males who cut their teeth on the church pew. Reclaim the message and the mission that God set before you. Then you can be proud to put the Baptist name back on the signs.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Homeschoolers play in the dirt
Addressing the school social worker’s rant
This weekend my grandson came over to the house to play. Almost two years old, little Isaiah has a firmly set mission in life: To find whatever trouble he can, and thoroughly get into it. In our yard, he made a bee-line for the leaky water hose.
“You see what he’s doing?” I asked my daughter.
Moriah shrugged. “It’s just water . . . and mud. He’ll come clean.”
Isaiah picked up the hose and leaned over for a better look, inadvertently squirting himself in the face. He looked up at us, streams of water pouring from his fine blond hair. We were smiling, so he smiled back. He stared at the stream for a moment, and then started lapping at it like a puppy. We laughed while he drenched himself, eventually muddy up to his knees.
According to Catoosa County school social worker Sue Mason, we laughed because we are homeschoolers. We don’t know that children are not supposed to play in the dirt. In her scathing two-part article “My thoughts on homeschooling” and “Homeschooling: the dark side,” Mason presents an alternate reality in which parents homeschool their children just to sleep late and avoid responsibility while their children play in the dirt. I suppose she has never seen all those children on the school playground at recess, playing in the dirt.
I was reluctant to leave the county paper lying around, with columns like these. My teens were really miffed to discover that other homeschooled kids are allowed to sleep late and play in the dirt all day. They had some hard questions about why I made them come to history class at 7:00 a.m. for so many years.
Mason attempts to deflect any objections to her column with the caveat that there are some good homeschool families, and she is not talking about them. Yet, for the length of two articles she goes on about homeschool families who live in trailers, are unemployed, and allow their children to play in the dirt all day long.
In seventeen years of homeschooling, I have never met the homeschool families Mason describes. In fact, Mason’s first homeschool column does not feature a single homeschool family. Instead, she writes about public school parents who cannot make it to school on time, who pay the cable bill but neglect the power bill, and who buy tattoos instead of shoes. If these accusations are drawn from actual cases in our county, Mason should be under fire for printing them in the county paper rather than adhering to confidentiality. If they are not actual scenarios, then they are just lies.
If the stories are true, they are stories of public school parents. When these parents are threatened with court action for their children’s tardies, they remind the county social worker that public education is not mandatory; they can always homeschool their children if they so choose. Mason thinks it is terrible that parents have this freedom and “there is nothing I can do.”
Is it really a bad thing that parents have a way to push back? They are our children, after all. The public school system sometimes behaves like a bureaucratic bully, running over individuals. I have a daughter in public school this year. She's a straight-A high school student working a year ahead of others her age. I still have to stand up for her to get her needs met. I am nice about it, but it goes without saying that if the school system does not offer this brilliant student the opportunities she deserves, they will lose her back to homeschooling.
Homeschooling is not a privilege. Rather, the public school is the one enjoying the privilege of having my talented daughter among their students. Granted, it is not too much to ask that she be to school on time! And she is. But the principle is the same: Families who do not get what they need and want from the public school system have the right to use private or homeschooling instead.
If a particular family needs a different schedule than the public school offers, homeschooling is one way to do that. So long as the child is learning, why should it matter whether classes are held during the morning, afternoon or evening? Learning is organic, and is not really confined to hours or classrooms.What we sometimes forget in this whole discussion is that homeschooling isn't some novel idea. As in the breastfeeding/formula debate, homeschooling IS normal and has been practiced for thousands of years. Sending your kids off to school is the novel idea.
Even today, every parent on the planet homeschools for the first weeks, months or years of the child’s life. We teach our children to walk and talk, processes far more complex than anything learned in grades K-12, and no one suggests that ordinary parents are incapable of teaching their own children to do these things.
The school social worker does not like that public education is not mandatory. Education is mandatory, but not public education. Before homeschooling became popular again, parents did not know they had that option. Parents like the ones she describes (that is, poor) could not afford private education, so they were at the mercy of the public school system. Now, suddenly, parents who are pushed around are pushing back. They are saying, "No, you can't bully me, because the truth is my child doesn't have to be in your school in the first place." And on that score, they are correct.
#
This weekend my grandson came over to the house to play. Almost two years old, little Isaiah has a firmly set mission in life: To find whatever trouble he can, and thoroughly get into it. In our yard, he made a bee-line for the leaky water hose.
“You see what he’s doing?” I asked my daughter.
Moriah shrugged. “It’s just water . . . and mud. He’ll come clean.”
Isaiah picked up the hose and leaned over for a better look, inadvertently squirting himself in the face. He looked up at us, streams of water pouring from his fine blond hair. We were smiling, so he smiled back. He stared at the stream for a moment, and then started lapping at it like a puppy. We laughed while he drenched himself, eventually muddy up to his knees.
According to Catoosa County school social worker Sue Mason, we laughed because we are homeschoolers. We don’t know that children are not supposed to play in the dirt. In her scathing two-part article “My thoughts on homeschooling” and “Homeschooling: the dark side,” Mason presents an alternate reality in which parents homeschool their children just to sleep late and avoid responsibility while their children play in the dirt. I suppose she has never seen all those children on the school playground at recess, playing in the dirt.
I was reluctant to leave the county paper lying around, with columns like these. My teens were really miffed to discover that other homeschooled kids are allowed to sleep late and play in the dirt all day. They had some hard questions about why I made them come to history class at 7:00 a.m. for so many years.
Mason attempts to deflect any objections to her column with the caveat that there are some good homeschool families, and she is not talking about them. Yet, for the length of two articles she goes on about homeschool families who live in trailers, are unemployed, and allow their children to play in the dirt all day long.
In seventeen years of homeschooling, I have never met the homeschool families Mason describes. In fact, Mason’s first homeschool column does not feature a single homeschool family. Instead, she writes about public school parents who cannot make it to school on time, who pay the cable bill but neglect the power bill, and who buy tattoos instead of shoes. If these accusations are drawn from actual cases in our county, Mason should be under fire for printing them in the county paper rather than adhering to confidentiality. If they are not actual scenarios, then they are just lies.
If the stories are true, they are stories of public school parents. When these parents are threatened with court action for their children’s tardies, they remind the county social worker that public education is not mandatory; they can always homeschool their children if they so choose. Mason thinks it is terrible that parents have this freedom and “there is nothing I can do.”
Is it really a bad thing that parents have a way to push back? They are our children, after all. The public school system sometimes behaves like a bureaucratic bully, running over individuals. I have a daughter in public school this year. She's a straight-A high school student working a year ahead of others her age. I still have to stand up for her to get her needs met. I am nice about it, but it goes without saying that if the school system does not offer this brilliant student the opportunities she deserves, they will lose her back to homeschooling.
Homeschooling is not a privilege. Rather, the public school is the one enjoying the privilege of having my talented daughter among their students. Granted, it is not too much to ask that she be to school on time! And she is. But the principle is the same: Families who do not get what they need and want from the public school system have the right to use private or homeschooling instead.
If a particular family needs a different schedule than the public school offers, homeschooling is one way to do that. So long as the child is learning, why should it matter whether classes are held during the morning, afternoon or evening? Learning is organic, and is not really confined to hours or classrooms.What we sometimes forget in this whole discussion is that homeschooling isn't some novel idea. As in the breastfeeding/formula debate, homeschooling IS normal and has been practiced for thousands of years. Sending your kids off to school is the novel idea.
Even today, every parent on the planet homeschools for the first weeks, months or years of the child’s life. We teach our children to walk and talk, processes far more complex than anything learned in grades K-12, and no one suggests that ordinary parents are incapable of teaching their own children to do these things.
The school social worker does not like that public education is not mandatory. Education is mandatory, but not public education. Before homeschooling became popular again, parents did not know they had that option. Parents like the ones she describes (that is, poor) could not afford private education, so they were at the mercy of the public school system. Now, suddenly, parents who are pushed around are pushing back. They are saying, "No, you can't bully me, because the truth is my child doesn't have to be in your school in the first place." And on that score, they are correct.
#
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Changeability
How the curious and the undecided are changing the world
“Did you know that I’m magic?” three-year-old Shana Lee proudly asked her grandmother.
“Magic? What’s your magic power?”
The pixie grinned. “I can change my mind.”
The ability to change one’s mind really is a sort of magic. We are not mere animals, depending on our instincts and a little training to know when to bark, when to bite and when to roll over.
We have choices, and those choices remain to be considered daily. We choose once to take a job, but every day we choose to be there to fulfill it, or to move on to something different. We say “I do” and yet every day offers the opportunity to make good on that promise, to break the vow in secrecy, or to declare a relationship unsalvageable and walk away. We choose our path, but we are rarely locked in.
Human beings must be the only creatures on this planet that have the ability to reinvent themselves. A drug addict gets her head together, finishes her education and interviews for a job. A preacher drives downtown and picks up a male prostitute. An executive swaps his Armani suit for a pair of overalls and fulfills his boyhood dream of farming. A timid, graying couple buys a Harley – and all the black leather to go with it.
We choose who we will be every day. Often we surround ourselves with the resources to enforce those choices, including people who accept and affirm our lifestyle.
In the past, society and geography acted as restraints that guided people to particular paths and lifestyles based on gender or background. A poor boy in a harbor town almost invariably took to the sea. He had few other choices and he didn’t know what they were anyway.
There have always been some who rebelled against the system and left town or chose alternate paths, but for most people the expectations of society provided firm guideposts. Perhaps it was easier, even. There was less to consider.
People today face such a dizzying array of choices, it can be daunting rather than liberating. Ask a classroom of children what they want to be when they grow up, and you’ll hear the standard responses: doctor, lawyer, firefighter, rock star, president. They are still ignorant to the thousands of choices before them.
In the past, young people were encouraged to make early decisions about their lives, jumping on the “college prep” or “vocational” track by the ninth grade. College students all entered with a major. People seemed to know where they are going.
Today’s young people prefer keeping their options open. A popular college major these days is “undecided.” Even high schools have returned to the old idea of presenting a standardized education for all students, allowing the kids to make college decisions during their senior year rather than their freshman year.
Such changeability isn’t just for young people, either. This generation of adult workers, more than any other, remains mobile and independent. We could all list dozens of adults who have changed careers, sought higher education, or launched a business of their own.
We are a generation of risk-takers who like to keep all options open. Previous generations sought a life-time relationship with an employer, hoping to climb to the top of an organization. Today we tend to view our employers as stepping stones toward some other pinnacle. We don’t approach our careers as ladders to be climbed, so much as mountainsides, where reaching the surest foothold or the best scenery may involve climbing sideways rather than upward.
As we apply changeability thinking to other areas of our lives, we find that life is long, and good, and full of possibilities. We can change our stubborn habits, revisit our pasts, restructure our relationships, shore up our personal weaknesses, and pursue our dreams. We can change our lives, and in so doing, we can change the world.
#
“Did you know that I’m magic?” three-year-old Shana Lee proudly asked her grandmother.
“Magic? What’s your magic power?”
The pixie grinned. “I can change my mind.”
The ability to change one’s mind really is a sort of magic. We are not mere animals, depending on our instincts and a little training to know when to bark, when to bite and when to roll over.
We have choices, and those choices remain to be considered daily. We choose once to take a job, but every day we choose to be there to fulfill it, or to move on to something different. We say “I do” and yet every day offers the opportunity to make good on that promise, to break the vow in secrecy, or to declare a relationship unsalvageable and walk away. We choose our path, but we are rarely locked in.
Human beings must be the only creatures on this planet that have the ability to reinvent themselves. A drug addict gets her head together, finishes her education and interviews for a job. A preacher drives downtown and picks up a male prostitute. An executive swaps his Armani suit for a pair of overalls and fulfills his boyhood dream of farming. A timid, graying couple buys a Harley – and all the black leather to go with it.
We choose who we will be every day. Often we surround ourselves with the resources to enforce those choices, including people who accept and affirm our lifestyle.
In the past, society and geography acted as restraints that guided people to particular paths and lifestyles based on gender or background. A poor boy in a harbor town almost invariably took to the sea. He had few other choices and he didn’t know what they were anyway.
There have always been some who rebelled against the system and left town or chose alternate paths, but for most people the expectations of society provided firm guideposts. Perhaps it was easier, even. There was less to consider.
People today face such a dizzying array of choices, it can be daunting rather than liberating. Ask a classroom of children what they want to be when they grow up, and you’ll hear the standard responses: doctor, lawyer, firefighter, rock star, president. They are still ignorant to the thousands of choices before them.
In the past, young people were encouraged to make early decisions about their lives, jumping on the “college prep” or “vocational” track by the ninth grade. College students all entered with a major. People seemed to know where they are going.
Today’s young people prefer keeping their options open. A popular college major these days is “undecided.” Even high schools have returned to the old idea of presenting a standardized education for all students, allowing the kids to make college decisions during their senior year rather than their freshman year.
Such changeability isn’t just for young people, either. This generation of adult workers, more than any other, remains mobile and independent. We could all list dozens of adults who have changed careers, sought higher education, or launched a business of their own.
We are a generation of risk-takers who like to keep all options open. Previous generations sought a life-time relationship with an employer, hoping to climb to the top of an organization. Today we tend to view our employers as stepping stones toward some other pinnacle. We don’t approach our careers as ladders to be climbed, so much as mountainsides, where reaching the surest foothold or the best scenery may involve climbing sideways rather than upward.
As we apply changeability thinking to other areas of our lives, we find that life is long, and good, and full of possibilities. We can change our stubborn habits, revisit our pasts, restructure our relationships, shore up our personal weaknesses, and pursue our dreams. We can change our lives, and in so doing, we can change the world.
#
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Kids Today
Is there hope for the next generation?
Whether we are parents, teachers, or just adults observing teenagers at the mall or the movie theater, it is easy to give in to the sentiment that “kids today” are a real mess, and therefore our society is headed for trouble. Major news carriers have nothing good to say about young people. Drugs are epidemic. The drop-out rate soars. Journalists warn us that young people today not only do not want to wait for marriage; they do not even wait for a date. Dating has supposedly been replaced with “hooking up.” Girls have gone wild. Boys are all drunk or on drugs, or both.
Are we headed for a societal meltdown at the hands of the next generation? I think not.
Sure, I have seen the statistics on teen sex, drop-outs and drugs. I’ve also read about the Sixties and the Seventies, and I remember the Eighties and Nineties quite well. We may give practices a new name, but “hooking up” is not substantially different from “free love” or a “one-night stand.” About half of teens are sexually active, just like before. The drop-out rate is no better, no worse. The teen pregnancy made a small surge during Bush’s administration but has been steadily declining over all. The abortion rate has actually fallen. Teen smoking is at a ten-year low.
As in previous generations, only a portion of young people are engaged in the practices that scare adults to death. CosmoGirl recently shocked the nation by claiming that 1 out of 5 teenagers photograph themselves naked. Nobody mentioned the flipside also revealed by the survey: 4 out of 5 teens refrain from the practice, despite having the means and encountering the same pressure from friends, magazines and billboards. By focusing on the outrageous and the sensational, media outlets create panic. Apparently, that’s what sells papers and keeps viewers watching.
The younger generation is obsessed with computers, cell phones and iPods. It’s true. I finally realized that if I wanted to have a meaningful relationship with my adult daughter, I must add a texting plan to my phone. Calls are neither answered nor returned in this age of instant-everything and thumb typing. Young people are more computer-literate than ever, but we tend to focus on the negative aspects of this. We mutter about English literacy when we read, “How R U?” and fail to recognize that our kids are learning a shorthand that is just as valid as that used by Ham radio operators and telegraphers of old. We’re befuddled when kids get around parental controls, and forget to appreciate their intelligence and ingenuity.
Parents are not the only ones who focus on the negative. Media outlets routinely play up teenage delinquency, even as they ignore millions of American teens who are smart, strong, responsible and ambitious. When have you ever watched a TV special about the millions of teens who use the Internet responsibly to further their education, keep in touch with friends and learn about their world, without putting themselves in harm’s way? Yet it happens every single day.
Condemning next generation is as old as time. Even during the Pax Romana there was great concern about a rising crop of lazy youth who did not understand the value of work or the importance of politics. Maybe it’s a sort of amnesia on the part of adults. We forget what it was like to be young. We remember our hard work to bring up a grade, but not all the homework we missed that put us in that position to begin with. Did we really understand hard work, appreciate money, or have a strong grasp of the reality of consequences of sixteen?
In many ways, this generation is just like any other. There will be slackers who stay home with mom and dad, criminals, and those who feel entitled. There will be leaders and lovers, givers and takers.
If we are honest about our own generation, we have more slackers, drug addicts, welfare bums, and criminals among the adult population than among the teens in our community. Society progresses forward at the behest of a great team of hardworking but ordinary folks, while a few bright leaders show the way. This is how it has always been, and this is how it always will be.
Teenagers I know give me many reasons to hope for a better tomorrow. They write novels, put on plays, sew their own costumes, revive old styles of music, and read Goethe’s Faust just for fun. They jump hurdles, volunteer with disabled children, assist political campaigns, compose music and win scholarships. Many of them are one or two years ahead in their studies.
Amazing teens are all around us, even if their stories don’t make front page. In 2007, a teenage girl became the first female Georgia Fiddle King, putting old timers to shame with her rendition of “I Don’t Love Nobody.” I know a young man who plows with oxen. When his sister was a teenager, she started her own business canning and selling jellies. Just this week, a Ringgold High School student made a perfect 800 on the Math SAT. A few months ago, a middle school student revolutionized solar energy collection, defying generations of scientists who said it could not be done.
As a whole, teens are smarter now than we were back then. They learn more math and science in lower grades. They know more about international issues, and have a greater commitment to problems like global warming. They even know how to program the VCR.
Let’s face it; our children may be smarter than we are. They have a different starting point than we do. Older generations developed the Internet, but these kids were born in the age of Wi-Fi. They cannot imagine a world without those connections, and they will build on them, taking technology farther than we ever dreamed. Their thinking is not tangled in landlines and cable wires. Their world is not linear. While we have reached the edges of our imagination, they have only just begun.
What will the world be like when these young people gain control? It will be global, connected, instant, and intolerant of intolerance. Tomorrow’s entrepreneurs will focus on removing barriers, growing community, and sharing resources. They will create platforms rather than hierarchies.
Tomorrow’s leaders will tackle the problems they inherited from us, including a damaged economy, a ravaged ecology, and a world at war. All those hours spent online and on the cell phone may translate to diplomacy rather than deployment. Unfettered by prejudices, they inhabit a word both larger and smaller than ours. They will succeed where we failed – and they will fail where we succeeded – and all in all, the world will keep spinning.
#
Whether we are parents, teachers, or just adults observing teenagers at the mall or the movie theater, it is easy to give in to the sentiment that “kids today” are a real mess, and therefore our society is headed for trouble. Major news carriers have nothing good to say about young people. Drugs are epidemic. The drop-out rate soars. Journalists warn us that young people today not only do not want to wait for marriage; they do not even wait for a date. Dating has supposedly been replaced with “hooking up.” Girls have gone wild. Boys are all drunk or on drugs, or both.
Are we headed for a societal meltdown at the hands of the next generation? I think not.
Sure, I have seen the statistics on teen sex, drop-outs and drugs. I’ve also read about the Sixties and the Seventies, and I remember the Eighties and Nineties quite well. We may give practices a new name, but “hooking up” is not substantially different from “free love” or a “one-night stand.” About half of teens are sexually active, just like before. The drop-out rate is no better, no worse. The teen pregnancy made a small surge during Bush’s administration but has been steadily declining over all. The abortion rate has actually fallen. Teen smoking is at a ten-year low.
As in previous generations, only a portion of young people are engaged in the practices that scare adults to death. CosmoGirl recently shocked the nation by claiming that 1 out of 5 teenagers photograph themselves naked. Nobody mentioned the flipside also revealed by the survey: 4 out of 5 teens refrain from the practice, despite having the means and encountering the same pressure from friends, magazines and billboards. By focusing on the outrageous and the sensational, media outlets create panic. Apparently, that’s what sells papers and keeps viewers watching.
The younger generation is obsessed with computers, cell phones and iPods. It’s true. I finally realized that if I wanted to have a meaningful relationship with my adult daughter, I must add a texting plan to my phone. Calls are neither answered nor returned in this age of instant-everything and thumb typing. Young people are more computer-literate than ever, but we tend to focus on the negative aspects of this. We mutter about English literacy when we read, “How R U?” and fail to recognize that our kids are learning a shorthand that is just as valid as that used by Ham radio operators and telegraphers of old. We’re befuddled when kids get around parental controls, and forget to appreciate their intelligence and ingenuity.
Parents are not the only ones who focus on the negative. Media outlets routinely play up teenage delinquency, even as they ignore millions of American teens who are smart, strong, responsible and ambitious. When have you ever watched a TV special about the millions of teens who use the Internet responsibly to further their education, keep in touch with friends and learn about their world, without putting themselves in harm’s way? Yet it happens every single day.
Condemning next generation is as old as time. Even during the Pax Romana there was great concern about a rising crop of lazy youth who did not understand the value of work or the importance of politics. Maybe it’s a sort of amnesia on the part of adults. We forget what it was like to be young. We remember our hard work to bring up a grade, but not all the homework we missed that put us in that position to begin with. Did we really understand hard work, appreciate money, or have a strong grasp of the reality of consequences of sixteen?
In many ways, this generation is just like any other. There will be slackers who stay home with mom and dad, criminals, and those who feel entitled. There will be leaders and lovers, givers and takers.
If we are honest about our own generation, we have more slackers, drug addicts, welfare bums, and criminals among the adult population than among the teens in our community. Society progresses forward at the behest of a great team of hardworking but ordinary folks, while a few bright leaders show the way. This is how it has always been, and this is how it always will be.
Teenagers I know give me many reasons to hope for a better tomorrow. They write novels, put on plays, sew their own costumes, revive old styles of music, and read Goethe’s Faust just for fun. They jump hurdles, volunteer with disabled children, assist political campaigns, compose music and win scholarships. Many of them are one or two years ahead in their studies.
Amazing teens are all around us, even if their stories don’t make front page. In 2007, a teenage girl became the first female Georgia Fiddle King, putting old timers to shame with her rendition of “I Don’t Love Nobody.” I know a young man who plows with oxen. When his sister was a teenager, she started her own business canning and selling jellies. Just this week, a Ringgold High School student made a perfect 800 on the Math SAT. A few months ago, a middle school student revolutionized solar energy collection, defying generations of scientists who said it could not be done.
As a whole, teens are smarter now than we were back then. They learn more math and science in lower grades. They know more about international issues, and have a greater commitment to problems like global warming. They even know how to program the VCR.
Let’s face it; our children may be smarter than we are. They have a different starting point than we do. Older generations developed the Internet, but these kids were born in the age of Wi-Fi. They cannot imagine a world without those connections, and they will build on them, taking technology farther than we ever dreamed. Their thinking is not tangled in landlines and cable wires. Their world is not linear. While we have reached the edges of our imagination, they have only just begun.
What will the world be like when these young people gain control? It will be global, connected, instant, and intolerant of intolerance. Tomorrow’s entrepreneurs will focus on removing barriers, growing community, and sharing resources. They will create platforms rather than hierarchies.
Tomorrow’s leaders will tackle the problems they inherited from us, including a damaged economy, a ravaged ecology, and a world at war. All those hours spent online and on the cell phone may translate to diplomacy rather than deployment. Unfettered by prejudices, they inhabit a word both larger and smaller than ours. They will succeed where we failed – and they will fail where we succeeded – and all in all, the world will keep spinning.
#
Monday, March 9, 2009
100 years of celebrating women
Happy International Women's Day!
Determined, feisty suffragettes celebrated the first National Women’s Day one hundred years ago, on February 28, 1909. Within a few years, the observance went global and became International Women’s Day, celebrated around the world on March 8th of every year.
In a host of countries around the world, International Women’s Day is now an official holiday with flowers and small gifts. The United States designates the entire month of March as Women’s History Month. This year, the theme for International Women’s day is “Women and men united to end violence against women and girls.”
The subject has never been more apropos. According to the National Institute of Justice, one in four women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 1.3 million women per year are victims of sexual assault here in the United States, with an annual cost exceeding $5.8 billion per year.
Intimate partner violence recently exploded into the national focus when R&B crooner Chris Brown was arrested for beating, threatening, and choking pop star Rihanna nearly to death. Chat groups and news forums continue to crackle with the usual tired arguments: Why didn’t she leave him before this? Why is she silent now? Do some women want to be abused?
It is an easy thing to state that battered women should leave their partners. Of course they should, if and when they can do so safely. Yet when we focus on the actions or inactions of the victims, we overlook the most important aspect of these cases. Men should not hit women. The epidemic of domestic violence will never be resolved until we stop asking why women are there, and instead begin to ask why some men brutalize those they profess to love.
We are frustrated that Rihanna has not spoken out to repudiate Chris Brown and by extension condemn dating violence. Perhaps we forget that she is only twenty years old, did not ask to be in this situation, and never stated a desire to become the new face of domestic violence. As badly as we may want her to condemn Chris Brown and testify against him, the girl is probably scared to death. A few days ago, this man bit her, punched her, and choked her to the point of passing out. Now he walks around as a free man, simply because he has money. Who can blame his victim for lying low and playing nice?
Unfortunately, the maximum penalty for announcing your intent to kill a woman and then choking her unconscious appears to be four years. And who wants to place bets on whether a wealthy celebrity will receive the maximum sentence? Judging from the OJ fiasco, America will be lucky if Chris Brown is even found guilty.
So many people are calling Rihanna stupid for being with the wrong man. How stupid then is our society to allow over a million women a year to be thus treated, with only a slap on the wrist for those men found guilty of crimes against their own wives and lovers? Here in developed, “civilized” America, women are beaten into submission every day. Over a million women live in fear. Over a million women curb their actions, their words and even their thoughts to avoid retaliation.
We say “They should leave!” and yet society does almost nothing to assist women in leaving safely. 75% of intimate partner murders take place during or after the breakup. Most battered women do leave their abusive partners, but in doing so they encounter enormous risks as well as facing poverty and homelessness and risking the loss of their children.
That doesn’t mean battered women should stay. It means society should assist women in leaving safely. One avenue of assuring women’s safety is to lock up abusers until their obsession has passed. Courts regularly issue restraining orders instead, proving themselves far more “stupid” than the women we love to blame. If a man is willing to ignore a universal taboo against hitting women, will he not also ignore a little piece of paper telling him to stay away? Telling an abuser to stay away from his victim is as effective as telling a wolf to stay away from sheep. She is his prey. He will not stop of his own accord. Neither will he stop simply because she breaks up with him. If we want abusive men to stop attacking women, then we as a society must forcibly stop them. That’s what jails are for.
Those who say Rihanna will die if she goes back to Chris Brown have an excellent point. But she may also die if she breaks up with him, thanks to the low value America puts on the safety of women. For this reason, we have no right to judge Rihanna. While the whole world watches, she is on her own to work this out.
Meanwhile, invisible to the paparazzi and gossip rags, women who are less famous and less wealthy than Rihanna suffer in silence.
Determined, feisty suffragettes celebrated the first National Women’s Day one hundred years ago, on February 28, 1909. Within a few years, the observance went global and became International Women’s Day, celebrated around the world on March 8th of every year.
In a host of countries around the world, International Women’s Day is now an official holiday with flowers and small gifts. The United States designates the entire month of March as Women’s History Month. This year, the theme for International Women’s day is “Women and men united to end violence against women and girls.”
The subject has never been more apropos. According to the National Institute of Justice, one in four women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 1.3 million women per year are victims of sexual assault here in the United States, with an annual cost exceeding $5.8 billion per year.
Intimate partner violence recently exploded into the national focus when R&B crooner Chris Brown was arrested for beating, threatening, and choking pop star Rihanna nearly to death. Chat groups and news forums continue to crackle with the usual tired arguments: Why didn’t she leave him before this? Why is she silent now? Do some women want to be abused?
It is an easy thing to state that battered women should leave their partners. Of course they should, if and when they can do so safely. Yet when we focus on the actions or inactions of the victims, we overlook the most important aspect of these cases. Men should not hit women. The epidemic of domestic violence will never be resolved until we stop asking why women are there, and instead begin to ask why some men brutalize those they profess to love.
We are frustrated that Rihanna has not spoken out to repudiate Chris Brown and by extension condemn dating violence. Perhaps we forget that she is only twenty years old, did not ask to be in this situation, and never stated a desire to become the new face of domestic violence. As badly as we may want her to condemn Chris Brown and testify against him, the girl is probably scared to death. A few days ago, this man bit her, punched her, and choked her to the point of passing out. Now he walks around as a free man, simply because he has money. Who can blame his victim for lying low and playing nice?
Unfortunately, the maximum penalty for announcing your intent to kill a woman and then choking her unconscious appears to be four years. And who wants to place bets on whether a wealthy celebrity will receive the maximum sentence? Judging from the OJ fiasco, America will be lucky if Chris Brown is even found guilty.
So many people are calling Rihanna stupid for being with the wrong man. How stupid then is our society to allow over a million women a year to be thus treated, with only a slap on the wrist for those men found guilty of crimes against their own wives and lovers? Here in developed, “civilized” America, women are beaten into submission every day. Over a million women live in fear. Over a million women curb their actions, their words and even their thoughts to avoid retaliation.
We say “They should leave!” and yet society does almost nothing to assist women in leaving safely. 75% of intimate partner murders take place during or after the breakup. Most battered women do leave their abusive partners, but in doing so they encounter enormous risks as well as facing poverty and homelessness and risking the loss of their children.
That doesn’t mean battered women should stay. It means society should assist women in leaving safely. One avenue of assuring women’s safety is to lock up abusers until their obsession has passed. Courts regularly issue restraining orders instead, proving themselves far more “stupid” than the women we love to blame. If a man is willing to ignore a universal taboo against hitting women, will he not also ignore a little piece of paper telling him to stay away? Telling an abuser to stay away from his victim is as effective as telling a wolf to stay away from sheep. She is his prey. He will not stop of his own accord. Neither will he stop simply because she breaks up with him. If we want abusive men to stop attacking women, then we as a society must forcibly stop them. That’s what jails are for.
Those who say Rihanna will die if she goes back to Chris Brown have an excellent point. But she may also die if she breaks up with him, thanks to the low value America puts on the safety of women. For this reason, we have no right to judge Rihanna. While the whole world watches, she is on her own to work this out.
Meanwhile, invisible to the paparazzi and gossip rags, women who are less famous and less wealthy than Rihanna suffer in silence.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Why I'm still here
And why I’m not alone
I finally took the social networking plunge. I depend daily on Internet searches and email, and obtain most of my news about the world online. Like many people, I haven’t opened a paper phone book in years. I order videos from NetFlix, and watch my favorite TV shows online. And I blog. Of course I blog. Still, I’ve long been hesitant to throw my social fortunes to the winds of MySpace and FaceBook.
In connecting with old friends from high school, the first topic that comes up is often geography. Many of my schoolmates – especially those who showed great promise – have moved to Atlanta or some far-off metropolis to pursue a successful career. Economists and sociologists tell us to expect as much. Bedroom communities like Ringgold, Georgia, simply do not retain most of the talented young people who graduate from their schools. They go off to college and discover they have outgrown their own community. The place they called home does not offer employment opportunities that stimulate their interests and allow them to access (and afford) the lifestyle they became accustomed to at the university.
What is it, then, that holds some of us here when it would seem a relief to pack it up and move away? Some, perhaps, lack motivation. Most of us are just sentimental.
It is that curve in Chickamauga Creek that holds me, like a mother restraining a baby in the crook of her arm. I drive past it more often than not, failing to leave the comfort of my vehicle and my shoes and my dignity. I pledge to stop more often and stand on those wide, flat stones while the ice-cold water runs over the tops of my bare feet – all the while praying the moss doesn’t glide beneath my soles like a banana peel and send me flying backward to land in a splash of green water and lost dignity.
The train, too, holds me here rather than moving me on. I love to hear it thunder past the Depot on an opry night, the great wooden shutter doors trembling in their ancient track. Sometimes the musicians join the rhythm; other times they stop and listen to a mournful solo as the horn blows and the beast moves by. I place my hand flat against the stone walls and feel the pulse of that locomotive roaring northward only a few feet from my fingertips, moving us without taking us away.
I love the old things, like that hodge-podge of tin and wood over by Callaway’s store. I have been looking at that structure my whole life, and it occupies the frame of my existence. Business may take me to the shiny, neoclassic city hall, but my eye is always on that crazy quilt of tin sheets. I’m remembering a hundred indistinguishable Saturdays when my father backed up to their pickup-height loading dock, and familiar men with friendly faces tossed sweet corn into the back of our old Dodge while I went inside to ask a question about my horse or my lamb or my dog.
Yes, it’s really the people who keep me here. I do not want to live in a place where there is no one like Moses in the grocery store. He grins, golden tooth gleaming, and you know right away that a flame burns so brightly in his soul that it could never be snuffed out by bad weather or a squeaky grocery cart wheel. He sings his way through life, blessing everyone who comes near him with what he enthusiastically calls his “black magic.” Just watch sometime and see the shoppers walking into the grocery store tired, cranky and worried about what to make for dinner – then coming out with a lighter step despite the heavy sacks in their hands. Moses is not a bag boy or a grocery worker; he’s the town healer.
My family, too, is here. If I moved away, they would cook me sumptuous dinners on those holidays I breezed in from some far-away metropolis. But who would pick up popsicles and ginger ale when I am sick? Who would teach my son the patient care of tending tomatoes and rounding up cows? What would it mean to him, growing up without the pungent Georgia clay inside the grooves of his soccer cleats?
I suppose we could live someplace exciting. My five-year-old always prays “I wish we lived on the beach and never got sick.” Yet if we did, she would not know the way that wide green creek meanders lazily past our yard, and then ruffles into a hundred giggles before it disappears past the island. I could show her a picture, but somehow it just wouldn’t be the same.
#
I finally took the social networking plunge. I depend daily on Internet searches and email, and obtain most of my news about the world online. Like many people, I haven’t opened a paper phone book in years. I order videos from NetFlix, and watch my favorite TV shows online. And I blog. Of course I blog. Still, I’ve long been hesitant to throw my social fortunes to the winds of MySpace and FaceBook.
In connecting with old friends from high school, the first topic that comes up is often geography. Many of my schoolmates – especially those who showed great promise – have moved to Atlanta or some far-off metropolis to pursue a successful career. Economists and sociologists tell us to expect as much. Bedroom communities like Ringgold, Georgia, simply do not retain most of the talented young people who graduate from their schools. They go off to college and discover they have outgrown their own community. The place they called home does not offer employment opportunities that stimulate their interests and allow them to access (and afford) the lifestyle they became accustomed to at the university.
What is it, then, that holds some of us here when it would seem a relief to pack it up and move away? Some, perhaps, lack motivation. Most of us are just sentimental.
It is that curve in Chickamauga Creek that holds me, like a mother restraining a baby in the crook of her arm. I drive past it more often than not, failing to leave the comfort of my vehicle and my shoes and my dignity. I pledge to stop more often and stand on those wide, flat stones while the ice-cold water runs over the tops of my bare feet – all the while praying the moss doesn’t glide beneath my soles like a banana peel and send me flying backward to land in a splash of green water and lost dignity.
The train, too, holds me here rather than moving me on. I love to hear it thunder past the Depot on an opry night, the great wooden shutter doors trembling in their ancient track. Sometimes the musicians join the rhythm; other times they stop and listen to a mournful solo as the horn blows and the beast moves by. I place my hand flat against the stone walls and feel the pulse of that locomotive roaring northward only a few feet from my fingertips, moving us without taking us away.
I love the old things, like that hodge-podge of tin and wood over by Callaway’s store. I have been looking at that structure my whole life, and it occupies the frame of my existence. Business may take me to the shiny, neoclassic city hall, but my eye is always on that crazy quilt of tin sheets. I’m remembering a hundred indistinguishable Saturdays when my father backed up to their pickup-height loading dock, and familiar men with friendly faces tossed sweet corn into the back of our old Dodge while I went inside to ask a question about my horse or my lamb or my dog.
Yes, it’s really the people who keep me here. I do not want to live in a place where there is no one like Moses in the grocery store. He grins, golden tooth gleaming, and you know right away that a flame burns so brightly in his soul that it could never be snuffed out by bad weather or a squeaky grocery cart wheel. He sings his way through life, blessing everyone who comes near him with what he enthusiastically calls his “black magic.” Just watch sometime and see the shoppers walking into the grocery store tired, cranky and worried about what to make for dinner – then coming out with a lighter step despite the heavy sacks in their hands. Moses is not a bag boy or a grocery worker; he’s the town healer.
My family, too, is here. If I moved away, they would cook me sumptuous dinners on those holidays I breezed in from some far-away metropolis. But who would pick up popsicles and ginger ale when I am sick? Who would teach my son the patient care of tending tomatoes and rounding up cows? What would it mean to him, growing up without the pungent Georgia clay inside the grooves of his soccer cleats?
I suppose we could live someplace exciting. My five-year-old always prays “I wish we lived on the beach and never got sick.” Yet if we did, she would not know the way that wide green creek meanders lazily past our yard, and then ruffles into a hundred giggles before it disappears past the island. I could show her a picture, but somehow it just wouldn’t be the same.
#
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