I found the two Jaques Kelly columns I link to below in the Baltimore Sun. I love Jaques Kelly, and in these two columns, he's writing about a place beloved to my heart, Edmondson Village! I was born and spent the early part of my life in this neighborhood on the western edge of Baltimore City. I adored it. I have such vivid memories of life there, although I was so young. (I wish I had the same clarity of memory today.)
I love to hear people's stories, which is probably why I ended up in a graduate program in English literature and not in something more lucrative, like corporate law (big sigh). Other people jive on following a day by day account of the assault on Iwo Jima or a book on how to make their computer do amazing things, but for me, I love to hear about people. Anyway, if you are interested in a window into my early history (or have your own memories of Edmondson Village), these links paint a picure, and bring back lots of memories:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.kelly13sep13,0,1757154.column.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.ci.kelly20sep20,0,5039697.column.
Of course, I'm all ears to hear other people's memories.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Praying with the Jesuits
"Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits," edited by Michael Harter, includes a guided meditation for examination of one's conscience and I thought over the next few weeks, I'd put some of the questions out there.
First:
What have you loved in your life?
Things tasted:
Looked at:
Smelled:
Heard:
Touched:
These experiences I have cherished:
First:
What have you loved in your life?
Things tasted:
Looked at:
Smelled:
Heard:
Touched:
These experiences I have cherished:
Feeling Blue
I crashed into feeling sad yesterday. Partially, it was a series of small things. I took Will to the doctor for a checkup and while there, in a lovely old bank converted to a medical facility, I saw two terribly obese young woman. For some reason, this overwhelmed me with a sense of how broken this world is, because I know young women aren't supposed to go around so dangerously overweight. They're essentially missing their lives, I thought.
Then the new doctor, whom I like very much, told me about the abused children he sees at a hospital, most of them damaged by their parents. I don't believe any parent starts out wanting to hurt their child, but it happens and of course it's sad.
And then, on the larger scale, there were the news reports of the financial system collapsing, and I couldn't help but wonder how that will affect already overburdened ordinary people.
I know if we're going to experience our positive emotions, we're going to experience our negative emotions. And I know feeling sad --sentiment--will do nothing to solve problems. So I keep on trying. And praying. And trying to do my part, knowing the world isn't going to change overnight and that broken lives can create compassion and do good things.
Then the new doctor, whom I like very much, told me about the abused children he sees at a hospital, most of them damaged by their parents. I don't believe any parent starts out wanting to hurt their child, but it happens and of course it's sad.
And then, on the larger scale, there were the news reports of the financial system collapsing, and I couldn't help but wonder how that will affect already overburdened ordinary people.
I know if we're going to experience our positive emotions, we're going to experience our negative emotions. And I know feeling sad --sentiment--will do nothing to solve problems. So I keep on trying. And praying. And trying to do my part, knowing the world isn't going to change overnight and that broken lives can create compassion and do good things.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Time and Money
I read an interesting article in the May/June edition of Orion magazine. It echoed and updated the themes of Juliet Schor's The Overworked American, which was written in the late 1980s.
The Orion article told how Kellogg's went to a six-hour work day in 1930, the beginning of the Depression, because that way it could employ more people. The company gave people a small wage increase, not enough to cover the loss of hours, but a help. The company ran 4 six-hour shifts. In the 1930s too, there was a Congressional push for a 30-hour work week. It was quashed and the 40-hour week as we know it became the norm.
The 30-hour work week was touted as a way to allow people to spend more time with their families and as participating citizens in a democracy. According to the article, the people who went on the 30-hour work week liked it because of the life balance it afforded them. But after World War II, Kellogg's used attrtition and incentives to lure people to the 40-hour work week. One department (I don't know which one) held out until 1985, when the 30-hour work week was finally abolished by the company.
Since the 1920s, at least, there's been a tension between work, the eco-system and leisure. In the 1920s, industrialists noticed that they could, for instance, manufacture all the cloth people in the U.S. needed in six months. Ditto with many other goods. Thus began the campaign to convince people to overconsume. If you wanted to keep your textile mills operating all year long, you had to convince people they should buy many more clothes than they actually needed. And so it went.
The other alternative would have been for people to work less and have what they needed but not much excess. That did not suit the industrialists, as more units of a product they could make and sell, the more money they made. Although they too could have lived comfortably on less, that was not the mindset that prevailed.
The relentless overconsumption of the last 80-some years, as we know, has created an ecological mess. It's also caused people to lead stressed-out lives with little time for families and friends but with a choking cascade of consumer goods to care for. As we know, there is a whole industry just to deal with "clutter."
My question is: why do we choose this? What could be more family friendly than a 30-hour work week, unless it were a 20-hour work week? We could elect politicians who would make these things law. But we don't.
One interesting fact: the Orion article stated that we have increased our wealth (I forget by what measure) by 30 percent since 1991. In other words, at least in theory, we could work 5.2 hours a day and maintain the standard of living we had in 1991. That was not a deprived time, as I remember. Or, if my own calculations are correct, we could work 4 hours a day and maintain the standard of living we had in 1957, the peak year of "happiness" for Americans, according to some polls. That would mean down scaling our houses from 2000 square feet to 1,200 and going from two cars to one and possibly giving up the dishwasher, but would that be such a terrible trade-off for a sane life?
In the end, this becomes a spiritual question: do we find our joy in things or do we find it in building community and the kingdom of God? We are said to be a Christian nation, but if so, why do we not follow Christianity's leader, Jesus, who said "put first the Kingdom [of God] and the rest [explicitly, he meant the material goods] will be provided." Why don't we believe this? Why have we chosen the material?
The Orion article told how Kellogg's went to a six-hour work day in 1930, the beginning of the Depression, because that way it could employ more people. The company gave people a small wage increase, not enough to cover the loss of hours, but a help. The company ran 4 six-hour shifts. In the 1930s too, there was a Congressional push for a 30-hour work week. It was quashed and the 40-hour week as we know it became the norm.
The 30-hour work week was touted as a way to allow people to spend more time with their families and as participating citizens in a democracy. According to the article, the people who went on the 30-hour work week liked it because of the life balance it afforded them. But after World War II, Kellogg's used attrtition and incentives to lure people to the 40-hour work week. One department (I don't know which one) held out until 1985, when the 30-hour work week was finally abolished by the company.
Since the 1920s, at least, there's been a tension between work, the eco-system and leisure. In the 1920s, industrialists noticed that they could, for instance, manufacture all the cloth people in the U.S. needed in six months. Ditto with many other goods. Thus began the campaign to convince people to overconsume. If you wanted to keep your textile mills operating all year long, you had to convince people they should buy many more clothes than they actually needed. And so it went.
The other alternative would have been for people to work less and have what they needed but not much excess. That did not suit the industrialists, as more units of a product they could make and sell, the more money they made. Although they too could have lived comfortably on less, that was not the mindset that prevailed.
The relentless overconsumption of the last 80-some years, as we know, has created an ecological mess. It's also caused people to lead stressed-out lives with little time for families and friends but with a choking cascade of consumer goods to care for. As we know, there is a whole industry just to deal with "clutter."
My question is: why do we choose this? What could be more family friendly than a 30-hour work week, unless it were a 20-hour work week? We could elect politicians who would make these things law. But we don't.
One interesting fact: the Orion article stated that we have increased our wealth (I forget by what measure) by 30 percent since 1991. In other words, at least in theory, we could work 5.2 hours a day and maintain the standard of living we had in 1991. That was not a deprived time, as I remember. Or, if my own calculations are correct, we could work 4 hours a day and maintain the standard of living we had in 1957, the peak year of "happiness" for Americans, according to some polls. That would mean down scaling our houses from 2000 square feet to 1,200 and going from two cars to one and possibly giving up the dishwasher, but would that be such a terrible trade-off for a sane life?
In the end, this becomes a spiritual question: do we find our joy in things or do we find it in building community and the kingdom of God? We are said to be a Christian nation, but if so, why do we not follow Christianity's leader, Jesus, who said "put first the Kingdom [of God] and the rest [explicitly, he meant the material goods] will be provided." Why don't we believe this? Why have we chosen the material?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Hillary and Sarah
I've been thinking a lot about Hillary and Sarah and the emergence of women at the top tier of politics and how it's happened.
My first thought was, shouldn't Hillary Clinton be running for v.p. and not Sarah Palin?
Whatever your feelings about Hillary, hasn't she done the work? Put in the time? Handshake by handshake and french fry by french fry earned her 18 million votes--which is about 17.9 million votes more than Sarah's ever gotten?
Lately, when I think of Clinton, a Ray Bradbury story pops into my mind. In this story, a group of schoolchildren have grown up on the planet Venus, where it rains and rains. The sun comes out for one hour every seven years. The kids, who've never seen the sun, are excited. Especially one little girl. But she's a target for bullies. They lock her in a closet right before the sun comes out and leave her there until the rain comes out.
Is that how we treat Hilary Clinton? And if so, I wonder why. What did she do that was so wrong? Why does she have to be punished?
Was it that she dared to throw her glove into the presidential ring on her own gumption? Is Palin OK because she waited for an older white male to anoint her as second on the ticket? That she didn't make people uneasy? Is she still safely subordinate? Or has Palin lived in a way that has confounded the opposition?
I think it's about how Hillary and Sarah represent two different generations of feminism (and yes, I will call Palin a feminist). Palin's is the more successful model. And to be honest, perhaps because I'm closer in age to Palin, I'm more aligned to her paradigm.
So what are the paradigms?
The Hillary paradigm is one I've seen over and over again and it seems to be common among women of a certain age. These are women who grew up, roughly, between 1946 and 1956. I used to call it the "brown-haired girl" syndrome but it could probably better be called the "good girl" syndrome. These are the women who play by the rules, do all the right things and are careful, conscientious and goal-oriented. I remember encountering one such woman on my honeymoon, as we took a wagon ride across an elk preserve in freezing weather. When the wagon stopped for questions, this woman, her straight brown hair neatly center parted, earnestly asked question after question about the elk. The rest of us, turning to ice cubes, were shifting and glaring, but for her this was an educational mission, the rules said this was the time to ask questions, and she wanted all the facts.
My dear sister-in-law, a wonderful person, is like this. She was born in the late 1940s--I believe 1948-- and before she went out to do missionary work in Hong Kong, she planned everything with the utmost care. A retired schoolteacher, not only did she get her finances in order, she earned a master's degree in ESL and then a second master's degree in religion (she already had a master's in education) so she would be thoroughly prepared for her second career. Some of us may have rolled our eyes and said to ourselves, you really don't have to do all this, but it's the way she is. It's how I believe a mini-generation of dutiful, well-educated girls was raised. To follow the rules above else, even when you're breaking the rules. I think it's typified in Hillary having only one child. If you are going to play by the rules of the male world, you minimize your liabilities. You minimize your distractions so you can stay scrupulously focused on the straight and narrow path. You don't expect the world to bend around you. Even when you're not conforming, you conform.
Then along comes Sarah, exemplary new generation woman, busting down the walls with glee. She's not breaking the ceilings, she's reconfiguring the floorplan. While I have many differences from her, she comes out of a worldview I better understand, a world in which, as a woman, you make it up as you go along. Of course you have a bunch of kids--it's what you want and you figure it out. The world isn't about a straight trajectory into a male-paradigm career. You don't worry you'll be "derailed," because you know that as a woman you already are derailed. So you drop out to have children (why not?), then look for an opportunity to jump back in when you can. It's about finding the opportunities that wrap around your family life and not vice versa. It's about shooting through the crevices in the rules in order to construct a life on your own terms. It's about exploiting the possibilities that turn up around you rather rigidly adhering to a plan and a protocol that cover all the bases. It's postmodernism versus modernism.
So I wasn't surprised when I read that legislators in the Alaska statehouse wear "Where's Sarah?" buttons because Palin is so often absent from work to be home in Wasilla. I'm not surprised that she's seized opportunities that catapulted her forward rather than plodding along a predictable path. Sadly, as we've seen so graphically in the case of Hillary, the step-by-step method often seems to leave women bereft and betrayed.
Perhaps it's generational, the benefits of seeing the Hillary group's successes and failures, but my life has been much more like Sarah's. I had three children because that's how it happened and I worked work around it. I fell into a second career that wrapped (usually) around my family. I've been fluid about dropping in and out of the work force. I haven't played by the rules. Like Sarah, an intentional faith life, including a radical change in denomination, has been a major part of my life story.
What about you? How have you navigated career, children, life?
My first thought was, shouldn't Hillary Clinton be running for v.p. and not Sarah Palin?
Whatever your feelings about Hillary, hasn't she done the work? Put in the time? Handshake by handshake and french fry by french fry earned her 18 million votes--which is about 17.9 million votes more than Sarah's ever gotten?
Lately, when I think of Clinton, a Ray Bradbury story pops into my mind. In this story, a group of schoolchildren have grown up on the planet Venus, where it rains and rains. The sun comes out for one hour every seven years. The kids, who've never seen the sun, are excited. Especially one little girl. But she's a target for bullies. They lock her in a closet right before the sun comes out and leave her there until the rain comes out.
Is that how we treat Hilary Clinton? And if so, I wonder why. What did she do that was so wrong? Why does she have to be punished?
Was it that she dared to throw her glove into the presidential ring on her own gumption? Is Palin OK because she waited for an older white male to anoint her as second on the ticket? That she didn't make people uneasy? Is she still safely subordinate? Or has Palin lived in a way that has confounded the opposition?
I think it's about how Hillary and Sarah represent two different generations of feminism (and yes, I will call Palin a feminist). Palin's is the more successful model. And to be honest, perhaps because I'm closer in age to Palin, I'm more aligned to her paradigm.
So what are the paradigms?
The Hillary paradigm is one I've seen over and over again and it seems to be common among women of a certain age. These are women who grew up, roughly, between 1946 and 1956. I used to call it the "brown-haired girl" syndrome but it could probably better be called the "good girl" syndrome. These are the women who play by the rules, do all the right things and are careful, conscientious and goal-oriented. I remember encountering one such woman on my honeymoon, as we took a wagon ride across an elk preserve in freezing weather. When the wagon stopped for questions, this woman, her straight brown hair neatly center parted, earnestly asked question after question about the elk. The rest of us, turning to ice cubes, were shifting and glaring, but for her this was an educational mission, the rules said this was the time to ask questions, and she wanted all the facts.
My dear sister-in-law, a wonderful person, is like this. She was born in the late 1940s--I believe 1948-- and before she went out to do missionary work in Hong Kong, she planned everything with the utmost care. A retired schoolteacher, not only did she get her finances in order, she earned a master's degree in ESL and then a second master's degree in religion (she already had a master's in education) so she would be thoroughly prepared for her second career. Some of us may have rolled our eyes and said to ourselves, you really don't have to do all this, but it's the way she is. It's how I believe a mini-generation of dutiful, well-educated girls was raised. To follow the rules above else, even when you're breaking the rules. I think it's typified in Hillary having only one child. If you are going to play by the rules of the male world, you minimize your liabilities. You minimize your distractions so you can stay scrupulously focused on the straight and narrow path. You don't expect the world to bend around you. Even when you're not conforming, you conform.
Then along comes Sarah, exemplary new generation woman, busting down the walls with glee. She's not breaking the ceilings, she's reconfiguring the floorplan. While I have many differences from her, she comes out of a worldview I better understand, a world in which, as a woman, you make it up as you go along. Of course you have a bunch of kids--it's what you want and you figure it out. The world isn't about a straight trajectory into a male-paradigm career. You don't worry you'll be "derailed," because you know that as a woman you already are derailed. So you drop out to have children (why not?), then look for an opportunity to jump back in when you can. It's about finding the opportunities that wrap around your family life and not vice versa. It's about shooting through the crevices in the rules in order to construct a life on your own terms. It's about exploiting the possibilities that turn up around you rather rigidly adhering to a plan and a protocol that cover all the bases. It's postmodernism versus modernism.
So I wasn't surprised when I read that legislators in the Alaska statehouse wear "Where's Sarah?" buttons because Palin is so often absent from work to be home in Wasilla. I'm not surprised that she's seized opportunities that catapulted her forward rather than plodding along a predictable path. Sadly, as we've seen so graphically in the case of Hillary, the step-by-step method often seems to leave women bereft and betrayed.
Perhaps it's generational, the benefits of seeing the Hillary group's successes and failures, but my life has been much more like Sarah's. I had three children because that's how it happened and I worked work around it. I fell into a second career that wrapped (usually) around my family. I've been fluid about dropping in and out of the work force. I haven't played by the rules. Like Sarah, an intentional faith life, including a radical change in denomination, has been a major part of my life story.
What about you? How have you navigated career, children, life?
Friday, September 12, 2008
Blogs and McDonalds
I should have mentioned that I found L.L. Barkat's post on blogging by way of Ted Gossard's blog. The roads we travel! At some point soon, I hope, I'll link to wonderful Ted's blog.
In the meantime, have you read Shawna's post on working at McDonalds on her "Mystics, poets and fools" blog (which you can link to from here)? It's a terrific post. I will be commenting on it when I gather my thoughts, whenever that may be.
In the meantime, have you read Shawna's post on working at McDonalds on her "Mystics, poets and fools" blog (which you can link to from here)? It's a terrific post. I will be commenting on it when I gather my thoughts, whenever that may be.
A writing group and Edward Scissorhands
The new Quaker Writing Group met Sunday afternoon for the first time, convening in Jaya and Molly's apartment.
It made me happy to meet, because of how much I liked the Quaker writing group I left behind in Columbia.
Jaya and Molly's apartment was a pleasant "writing center," with big dormers and old hardwood floors. Jaya made us feta and watermelon salad with lime, lemonade and crackers with cream cheese and pepper jelly. Roger came, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well things went for a first meeting.
Roger and I watched Edward Scissorhands the other night, and I found myself writing about that. It's a movie I think we'd always meant to see, but never had. I loved it. It was good to watch when just settling into a new place.
In the movie, Edward is the creation of a mad scientist who dies before completing his project. Hence, Edward never gets human hands. Instead, he has garden clippers. He's befriended by a warm-hearted suburban woman who comes to his lonely castle selling Avon. She takes him into her home, where he confronts and tries to fit in with suburban culture. The housewives fall in love with him when they see him use his clipper hands to create beautiful topiaries and lovely haircuts. He, in turn, falls in love with his hostess's daughter.
I fell in love with (and simultaneously was repelled by) the fantasy 1960s brilliant pastel suburban homes with their console TVs and expanses of perfectly vacuumed wall-to-wall carpet. They evoked all sorts of memories in me of early childhood.
To move on, the theme of the movie is that the source of our creativity and uniqueness, in Edward's case his scissorhands, is also what wounds others and alienates us from others. When Edward tries to embrace people he cares about, he cuts them, which is what we all do when we try to enter into relationship with other people. So I wondered as I wrote, who do I hurt without wanting to and who hurts me? How do I fit into a new community?
Another question that came up in my writing was "why are we here?" Why have the winds blown us to Barnesville? I'm sure it's not for any reason I anticipated, but I thought about what some of my expectations were and how they align with the reality of being here. Certainly, already, we've experienced events like Nick fracturing his ankle, which never entered into my wildest pre-moving dreams, showing that the reality of lived experience breaks into our plans in all sorts of crazy ways. To other people that might make the world seem random and chaotic, but to me it's proof of the existence of God.
For me, a theme running through this adventure is a Thoreauvian desire to suck the marrow out of life (in Barnesville?), and not to die without having braved life's essentials. OK. That is just a bit grandiose! And I don't know that you need to move to do those things. Or do you? How much does place matter?
It made me happy to meet, because of how much I liked the Quaker writing group I left behind in Columbia.
Jaya and Molly's apartment was a pleasant "writing center," with big dormers and old hardwood floors. Jaya made us feta and watermelon salad with lime, lemonade and crackers with cream cheese and pepper jelly. Roger came, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well things went for a first meeting.
Roger and I watched Edward Scissorhands the other night, and I found myself writing about that. It's a movie I think we'd always meant to see, but never had. I loved it. It was good to watch when just settling into a new place.
In the movie, Edward is the creation of a mad scientist who dies before completing his project. Hence, Edward never gets human hands. Instead, he has garden clippers. He's befriended by a warm-hearted suburban woman who comes to his lonely castle selling Avon. She takes him into her home, where he confronts and tries to fit in with suburban culture. The housewives fall in love with him when they see him use his clipper hands to create beautiful topiaries and lovely haircuts. He, in turn, falls in love with his hostess's daughter.
I fell in love with (and simultaneously was repelled by) the fantasy 1960s brilliant pastel suburban homes with their console TVs and expanses of perfectly vacuumed wall-to-wall carpet. They evoked all sorts of memories in me of early childhood.
To move on, the theme of the movie is that the source of our creativity and uniqueness, in Edward's case his scissorhands, is also what wounds others and alienates us from others. When Edward tries to embrace people he cares about, he cuts them, which is what we all do when we try to enter into relationship with other people. So I wondered as I wrote, who do I hurt without wanting to and who hurts me? How do I fit into a new community?
Another question that came up in my writing was "why are we here?" Why have the winds blown us to Barnesville? I'm sure it's not for any reason I anticipated, but I thought about what some of my expectations were and how they align with the reality of being here. Certainly, already, we've experienced events like Nick fracturing his ankle, which never entered into my wildest pre-moving dreams, showing that the reality of lived experience breaks into our plans in all sorts of crazy ways. To other people that might make the world seem random and chaotic, but to me it's proof of the existence of God.
For me, a theme running through this adventure is a Thoreauvian desire to suck the marrow out of life (in Barnesville?), and not to die without having braved life's essentials. OK. That is just a bit grandiose! And I don't know that you need to move to do those things. Or do you? How much does place matter?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)