Jim Putnam - Thinking Through My Fingers

Thoughts

This morning I read a guest blogger on the Real Live Preacher blog.  RLP wrote yesterday that Sarah Bickle was going to write a guest column, and provided some background.  Sarah Bickle's son  has a brain tumor.  Sarah has been writing a blog about the process since he was diagnosed.

But her blog isn't my topic today.  In her guest post today on RLP, she brings out some very good questions about God and grief.  As she says:

There is a secondary grief, however, that seems to flicker behind our saddest conversations. Questions like, “Why weren’t our prayers answered?” or “Why won’t God make Thomas better?” are unsaid but present.

Those are good questions, ones that theologians have been arguing over for hundreds of years. I don’t have any good answers, but I’ve had a lot of bad ones suggested to me since Thomas became ill. There are a couple theories that I pretty sure are bull-oney:

The bull-oney theories she has experienced are exactly that.  I don't think it's appropriate for me to repeat them.  Go read her guest piece on RLP.  After disposing of them, she presents her own theory, and it is there that I find a connection.

So this is my theory: Death is a mystery. Even for those who believe we’ll meet again in the sky, suffering and death are scary and sad. A thousand years may be a day for God; but for you and me, the space between the difficult now and the glorious hereafter is an awfully long time.

Interestingly, my bravest friends, be they Christian pastors or confirmed heathens, have tended to explain the least. Instead, they have quietly anointed us with their kindnesses. They have prepared meals for us in the presence of our bitter enemy. They are holding our hands as we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Christian or heathen, believer, atheist, or agnostic - there is no separation.  The humanity of each, being available and quietly walking alongside are exactly what is needed.  Mystery and suffering are best faced with friends.

I do not want an arbitrary god who answers some prayers and not others.  Or, one who permits suffering because it is supposed to teach a lesson.  I cannot accept a random god.  But god doesn't have to exist for people to be humane.  There's sufficient reason to be kind without believing that one builds credit in heaven.   The heathen that walks alongside is enough for me.

Tumors and death are a mystery.  Tumors are better solved by science than religion.  The mystery of death can only be postponed.  Searching for answers to the mysteries of life, including death, is a part of being human, and assisting others in their search is another part.  It seems to me that Sarah understands, and has the support of Christian and confirmed heather to help her.  And the best thing those who cling to one of the three theories she recognizes, and names, as bull-oney can do is to step back and examine their concept of God.

Without Depth

For a major portion of today I've been planning our vacation driving trip this summer.  Marrianna and I have decided that $4.00 gasoline isn't going to cancel our plans.  Marrianna has an old friend who lives in Chassell, Michigan.  That's in the upper peninsula, on a peninsula extending into Lake Superior.

Her friend teaches at Michigan Technology University.  He is planning his birthday party for July 4, even though his actual date is sometime in October.  He says that by October access to Chassell may be restricted by weather, meaning snow and cold.  So he is planning a big bash the Fourth weekend, and we want to be there.

Marrianna and I like to drive on our vacations.  Actually, I drive and she navigates.  We almost never drive more than 300 miles in a day.  Since we also only use the super highways and Interstate system as little as possible, preferring the smaller, back roads, it takes us longer but we enjoy it more.

I enjoy planning a trip such as this almost as much as the trip itself.  We will drive up through Michigan's lower peninsula, crossing the Mackinac Straits Bridge and then on to Chassell.  We considered going into Canada and around Lake Huron, coming south across the bridge from Canada, but that would require more time.

Our return will bring us further west, through Wisconsin into Chicago, where we hope to st  op and visit friends.  Then we will go to Paducah, KY, where I want to see the Museum of the American Quilters Society (MAQS).  Note:  If you want to view some beautiful quilts, among the best that have been produced by world quilters, click on that link.  From there, it's through Tennessee into North Carolina, and home.

This evening's news had a brief note that people were cutting back on vacations this year because of fuel costs.  We never even considered it.  It's not that we are trying to stimulate the economy all by ourselves, but we can afford it now, our health allows it, and we want to continue to be ourselves.

This trip is primarily through some small towns, with brief stops in a large one, Chicago.  If anyone would like to offer suggestions of places we should see, email me.

That was my day, along with a visit to the gym for exercise and reading.  There was no golf today.  The course we were scheduled to play closed half due to excess water from yesterday's rains, so we canceled.  I liked having the extra time at home.

Where Has Your Food Been?

Gasoline may be $4.00 a gallon, GWB may be about to start another war, and politicians seem on the money dole of business, but these are less serious than what is happening to our food supply.  Blue Girl has an excellent blog post, from which I've taken this post, entitled "Do you know where your food has been?"

I urge everyone to follow that link and read her post.  Here is an excerpt.

For a while now, a few journalists have been making the case that our return to The Jungle is a fait accompli but the stories don't get much traction, given the American addiction to $.99 double cheeseburgers. Still, the case could be made that they were understating the true, base ugliness of the American meat-based diet.

Let's start with where most meat comes from.

Have you ever heard the term CAFO (pronounced kay-foe)? A CAFO is a Contained Animal Feeding Operation, or, in the common vernacular, a factory farm, and they are not merely monstrously inhumane, they are an environmental nightmare. This is evidenced by data collected in South Missouri in counties where chicken operations supply local processing plants.

In McDonald County, down in the southwest corner, they have CAFOs and processing plants for MoArk, Tyson and Simmons corporations, and every single body of water in the county is contaminated to a sufficient degree that they are all on the impaired water bodies list. Hog operations in the northern part of the state have a similar record of environmental degradation - to the point we have to ask "are you sure that it's worth it?"

<snip>

Lack of genetic diversity  courts famine

Just ask the Irish what can happen when a country relies too heavily on one food staple  that has very little genetic diversity.

As diversity in seed crops dwindles, and Monsanto gradually takes over every facet of seed crop production, to the point that they send investigators acting like Pinkerton thugs to farms owned by people who are not even using their products, demanding records and threatening lawsuits because wind blows pollen beyond property lines and fence rows, the risk of catastrophic famine as a result of the resulting decreased genetic diversity ticks up.

<snip>

Americans aren't likely to suffer, but developing nations are.  Even before those nations went biofuels insane, smoking the crack of a potential " Green OPEC"   and converting all their cereal grains to fuel for cars instead of people, they were getting shafted by big ag.

Read the entire post,  and while you're at her blog, read the preceding post. It is equally damning of big ag, with further details of what companies like Monsanto are doing.

We are being shafted, and are shafting the third world even worse.  These Blue Girl posts should receive a huge audience, and I hope this small blog helps get the word out.

I wish I were smart enough to understand whether the world's populations can be fed without genetically modified food or factory farms.  I don't know how the quantities of food necessary to feed the world's population can be produced, but I am sure that the way it's being done now is both dangerous and not up to the job, and that its primary purpose seems to be to enrich big business.

I believe we may have gone over the tipping point, and are now moving toward a famine in Africa and some other countries beyond anything we've ever seen.  I dislike being such a pessimist, but water resources, and food production are a greater danger to world peace than Iran or Syria getting a nuclear weapon.

Another Quilting Lesson

Marrianna and I just got home from an wonderful evening with friends.  It's late, but I want to get a blog post in before I finish the day.

This morning for almost three hours I worked to correct an error I made on the quilt.  Within that little sentence lies another lesson.  I've always used the woodworker's adage "Measure twice, cut once" when working on the quilt.  And I did that this time too, but I forgot to take into account one very important fact.  As a result, I had to redo a lot of cutting and stitching.

I am attaching a 2 3/8 inch border to the quilt.  Three sides are completed.  The last corner was where I went wrong.  I mitre my corners, which means that at each corner the sides come together with 45 degree cuts.  The other three corners are complete, and look very nice.

Fabric is sewn together with the back on the fabric facing out, good sides in.  The edges are aligned, and then stitched.  I've been working on the third side, approaching the last corner.  I needed to cut the corners to 45 degrees.  I measured twice, and cut once, for each side of the corner.  When I tried to sew them together, the angles were exactly backwards.  I had measured the cuts from the back side of the fabric, and when they are put together only the very tip touches the other side.  The angles slant away from each other.

Naturally, when I saw the error, I had to rip out seams, re-cut, and restitch.  The moral of this story is that measuring twice isn't any help when you're looking at the wrong side of the work.  You can measure as many times as you want; if you're approaching the problem from the wrong perspective, accurate measurement isn't enough.

I think that's a good lesson for living too.

Juvenile Literature

Currently, I am in the middle of reading a trio of books labeled Young Literature in the bookstore.  They are by Jeanne DuPrau, and the series is called Book of Ember.  The first is "The City of Ember" [2004, Yearling, New York] followed by "The People of Sparks". [2005} and "The Prophet of Yonwood" [2007], a prequel.  A fourth is due out September, 2008.

It's an interesting, well told story, and I am enjoying reading them.  As I said, I am about half way through the second.  The impetus for this post, however, is not the story itself.  It is more about how these books became labeled "young reader" literature, and how some people react when an older, senior citizen asks for them in a bookstore.

When I first went into a bookstore, I looked in the science fiction/fantasy section for the books.  None were there, so, I asked the clerk whether the author, Jeanne DuPrau, could be ordered.  She looked in her computer, and then led me to the "young Reader" section.  Two of the books, the first and third were there.  She would order the middle book for me.  Then she asked me how often I read juvenile literature.  I was surprised at the question, but managed to say something like "I read anything that I think is good, regardless of its label."

I recently had a similar experience with a couple of the guys I golf with.  They were very surprised to hear that I had read every one of the Harry Potter series.  I told them that they are good stories, well written, and both my wife and I enjoyed them all.

Yesterday I was in another bookstore.  The clerk was shelving books, and we got to talking about the Star Wars series and associated paraphernalia that goes with it.  She is a Trekkie, and takes extra special care of the Star Wars section of the shelves.  Then we talked about Harry Potter.  Then, I mentioned that I was reading The Books of Ember, and she too asked me how often I read  juvenile literature.  She, it turns out, reads juvenile literature regularly, though she had not read DuPrau.  We talked for a while about how some adults would never even consider reading a book labeled young literature.

I wonder when, perhaps how would be a better word, people become so label conforming.  It's not only in their books, but in many areas of their life.  Good writing is in every genre.  A.A. Milne wrote a lot of children's books, and the lucky person is one that remains transformed at 60 by his words as he was, perhaps more so, at 6.

I hope that I never get so rigid that I cannot read and enjoy "young literature."  A good book can lift me, carrying me to places that don't even exist.  I don't always like them, but invariably I am changed by them.

The List: Love - By My Definition

Love is: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual growth. [M. Scott Peck, "The Road Less Traveled", 1978, Touchstone Books, New York, page 81] as amended by Jim Putnam

With a core by M. Scott Peck, that is my definition of love.  Peck's definition centered on spiritual growth, and I blatantly plagiarized it, though I always try to cite Peck.  I added physical, mental, and emotional.

I've hesitated writing about love because it can mean so many things to people.  It isn't uncommon for a single person to have more than one meaning in daily speech.  Many conflate love with God, but I deliberately try to stay away from associating love with God in any way.  If others want to define whatever deity concept they hold as love, that's their business, but doing so can immediately raise difficult communication barriers.

The most important part of this definition to me is "to extend".  Love is not automatic, there must be some level of extension, of work, for love to exist.  Love doesn't exist unless there is an extension of the self to enable growth.  Moaning about how terrible poverty is and how much we love the poor isn't love until we extend to nurture their growth.  Here, spiritual growth isn't sufficient.  Only when we extend to meet physical needs can we say love exists.

At one time I thought that love was the default for people, and that hate, violence, injustice, - the list could go on - was taught.  I am not so sure now.  I'd certainly like to hold to that, but I've slowly become less sure.  While there's reason to doubt, there is also reason to believe that love is a part of almost all people.  Other corruptions may take precedence in living, but I believe that for most, almost all people, there remains some level of love.  Perhaps that is naive of me, but if so, it's a condition I don't want to lose.

Language is so imprecise.  As I quoted Real Live Preacher last week,  "Words are rusty, jagged, pig-iron tongs fumbling for purchase in the liquid silk of her soul."  Defining love is difficult, but I've tried to give a flavor of what I mean by "Love."

People Watching - Facial Expressions

Marrianna and I did most of our weekly errands today.  We try to organize any need to go into town into one day to save gas and to provide more freedom to do actitivities on other days.  This afternoon, as we completed all our errands, we decided to have a late lunch-early dinner and eat at a local restaurant, skipping our evening meal.

We chose a nice restaurant, convenient to the shopping center we had just visited.  We were seated quickly since it was in-between serving times.  Our table was next to an outside wall, with a window through which we could see other diners in the outside serving area.  Just outside the window were two college age persons, a girl and a guy.

Inveterate people watcher that I am, I watched them all the time they were there, which was long enough that Marrianna and I were about half way through our meal before they left.  I couldn't hear a word that they said, and I'm not able to read lips, so I don't have any idea about their conversation.  The girl had her back to us, so the only part of her face I could see was a profile.  The guy faced us, and his face was very expressive.

After they left, I asked Marrianna whether there had been any studies she knew about facial expressions and meaning.  As a part of the question, I wondered whether facial expressions are culturally independent, or do expressions mean the same across cultures.  Does tightening of muscles around the eye, for example, mean the same in Japan as in Great Britain?

This evening, I did a Google search on "facial expression communication."  The returns answered some of my question, and I can extrapolate to get the rest.  Yes, there have been studies and, extrapolating, facial expressions are to some extent the same across cultures.  For my casual inquiry, this was the site that provided the most information, with links that expand it to provide a great deal of information.  A quick, clean answer is in this paper.  There is also a site that discusses facial expressions for Kismet, a computerized robot.

I'm not conversant enough from one evening's reading to write with any depth on the subject.  I'm not at all sure that I am drawing a correct conclusion from this bit of reading, but there is one aspect I want to touch - the universality of certain facial expressions, anger for instance.  Now I wonder how that came about.  How did the human body become adapted to similarly display anger regardless of culture?

Marrianna tells me that facial recognition skills are weak in children with Asperger Syndrome or are autistic.  They don't recognize facial communication meanings, and, in some cases have to be taught.  I'm not sure what that implies, but it is an interesting piece of information.

A non-sensible side thought:  If aliens looking very similar to, say Star Trek's Vulcans, were to land tomorrow and non-violently make contact, suppose their facial expressions had evolved differently and anger was expressed with a smile, pleasure with red face and tight muscular tone,  what would be our most likely response to their signs of pleasure?

I really enjoyed watching those two young persons this afternoon.  I could not see anything below the upper level of their shoulders.  One time he leaned close to her with an intense look.  I interpreted the tightening of muscles around his eyes as intently, closely, seriously listening and watching her face.  When he spoke, the intensity remained.  There was an almost intimate feeling, felt even from the other side of the window.  It didn't last long, probably less than thirty seconds, but that little tightening of the eyes was what prompted my wonder about facial expression reading.

And now I know a little more about facial expressions.  I know that for various reasons they have been studied, and that other people have asked similar questions to my own.  People watching is not only a pleasure, it is sometimes educational.

The List - Limitless Opportunity

Looking back at The List, written April 2, what I wonder about most if the mood and sense of well-being I must have been in at the time.  I must have been feeling very good, because the items seem to me reflect a viewpoint that life is without trouble, and things on the list a part of every progressive culture.

The sentence introducing the list says "What are some (culturally acquired) properties/traits/skills should every person should possess?"  The parenthetical phrase was inserted  in the midst of compiling the list when I realized that some items I had already listed are not personal traits, but are, if you will, cultural traits, provided to citizens as a part of their cultural membership.

Limitless opportunity is, it seems to me, a cultural trait.  Every culture probably doesn't provide its citizens with a limitless horizon.  In fact, I believe that no culture does so, unfortunately.  Therefore, limitless opportunity must be considered an unattainable goal.  What do, or did, I mean by limitless opportunity?

Any culture that contains racism, sexism, religious strictures, or any other set of overt and covert "rules" to control its population does not have limitless opportunity.  There are, thankfully, some that have more than others, though many more claim unlimited opportunity than actually have it.  And some, like the US, have it for some of our citizens and not for others.

Unlimited opportunity means that only a citizen's personal talents, persistence, and perspiration will restrain him or her from being as successful as possible at whatever endeavor they choose.  There is more to it than that complex sentence.  Along with opportunity must be an educational system that opens doors to the wide horizons, allowing students to visualize themselves as successful in their dreams.

There is the accompanying, balancing item.  Dreams/hope is further down the list, but dreams and their engendered hopes are not much use with opportunity.  I'm not really sure whether the three items are cultural traits, or whether dreams and hope are what create unlimited opportunity, but I know they are both necessary.  In my mind, a responsible society is required to nurture both.

That's as much time as I have this evening.  Comments are encouraged.

Cell Phones and Quilt Memorial

My wife and I got new cell phones yesterday.  The ones we had were about 12 years old, and were beginning to have problems.  So, we decided to get new ones.

We've always been very satisfied with our cell phone carrier, Alltell, so we went into a new, local Alltell store to  see what was available.  The store was so new, having opened only a few days ago and without advertising yet, that no one else had yet discovered it.  We had the single salesperson, who is also the manager/owner, to ourselves.

He showed us several phones that fit our needs.  In fact, even the lowest cost, no features phone was much better than the ones we had.  We didn't go with the lowest cost, but very nearly so.  The salesman had plenty of time, and showed us every thing about the phone.  We were in the shop almost two hours.  Over that time about three other people came in, asked questions, and left.

One interesting side bit about the visit.  The store is looking to hire people.  I'm considering going back and talking with the manager/owner about part time work.  So far, only considering, but it does intrigue me.  That was yesterday.  Instead of writing last evening, I was reading the manual and trying to set the various features of the phone.  Time slipped by, and before I realized the time, it was after 11:30 pm.  That's my excuse.

Today was an interesting day for quilting.  A local man whose wife died recently after a very short illness was establishing a sort of memorial to her.  She has been active in several artistic areas over the years,  She began with quilting, moved to rug hooking, with a smattering of oil painting and ceramics.  In quilting and rug hooking she was exceptionally talented.  One of her quilts is featured in a book by one of America's best known professional hand quilters, Jenny Beyer.

They had lived in Galloway Ridge, the continuing care retirement facility attached to Fearrington.  After her death, he bought a single family home in Fearrington Village.  He intends to make it a memorial to her.  Fearrington rules require that homes be lived in.  He sort of intends to live there part-time, but primarily it is to be a studio for local artists.  Today, he planned to show her work to a series of invited visitors.

He scheduled four one-hour shows.  First the immediate neighbors were invited, then two groups of folk from Galloway Ridge of about 15-20 people each, and then the last hour invited guests.  He wanted someone to be a sort of docent, showing her quilts and explaining their quality, the patterns, and hand work to visitors.  I was contacted and agreed to be the docent for quilts.  There was also a lady there for the rug hooking.

I'm glad I did it.  I'm a good quilter, though not quite at the quality level she was, but I'm no expert on quilting.  Since I was personally impressed with her work, it was fun and interesting explaining her intricate work to others.  In some cases the people knew a little about quilting, a few who knew a lot, but there were some who knew almost nothing, except perhaps that their grand-mother, or old aunt had quilted.  I was surprised how few people thought it unusual that I quilted.

I had forgotten how much four hours of being up, both mentally and physically, takes out of me.  I cam home just after five, and by 5:20 was napping.  That will figure in with any considerations about working part time at Alltell.  I would like the money and being before people, but it is tiring.

I intend to return to more items on "The List" soon, perhaps tomorrow. 

Valzhyna Mort

I wonder how many have ever even heard of Valzhna Mort.  I hadn't before today when I received the
May/June issue of Poets and Writers Magazine.   She is a 26 year old "Belarusian poet whose American debut is infused with the music of her homeland."  {"YOU CANNOT TELL THIS TO ANYBODY", Poets & Writers Magazine, May/June, 2008 issue, page 29.]

I was first caught by a line early in the article.

"As I realized after I moved to the United States, culture and agriculture are very close," says Mort, whose American debut, Factory of Tears, published in April by Copper Canyon Press, features her poems in the original Belarusian along with English translations by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright and his wife, Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright.

Culture and agriculture are very close.  If only more of us realized that truth.  Foods define cultures.  Agriculture is as important in defining culture as music.  What we call "comfort food" indelibly marks our culture, our point of national origin. 

This article is not available on the magazine's web site.  An example of her poetry in both Belarusian and English is in the article, along with several only in English.  The following is the English translation of:

Cry Me A River

her body trapped in a voice
as if it were a cage
and roses thrown on the stage
like pieces of red meat

inhaling - air
exhaling - ocean

the audience is the titanic underwater
brooches and rings
glitter like shoals of fish
she has no choice but to sing
in the cage of a voice
while the tongue
is whipping her gibbous mouth

this is how the pyramids are built
and babylonian gardens planted
don't let her finish
and if she needs you to -
kill for the meat
whose smell she devours

["Cry Me A River" from Factory of Tears by Valzhyna Mort.  Copyright 2008 by Valzhyna Mort,  Published by Copper Canyon Press]

To be honest, I'm not sure I understand that poem, but it grabbed me and wont let go.  However, the title poem from her book is innocent and deliciously political. 

While the Department of Transportation was breaking heels
while the Department of Heart Affairs
was beating hysterically
the Factory of Tears was working night shifts
setting new records
even on holidays.

Here a 26 year old Belarusian poet nicely captures the state of our US.  I may have begun with culture and agriculture but as I settle into the sound of her poetry, I hear the tears of our nation.  That is the power of poetry.