Dear Mrs. Chan

Dear Mrs. Chan,
     You have got it: the kind of love that most people would give anything for.  I can tell you have something special.  Mrs. Chan, you sent that beautiful picture to the newspaper and in so doing you gave the rest of the world and me a peek.  The sun in picture makes it hard to see his handsome face, but he is looking at you with loving eyes and you are radiant with your "too happy for words" smile. He is wearing suspenders, a flower, and a bow tie; so the picture must  have been taken on your wedding day.
      The picture and message are for your first anniversary.  Here is what you wrote for the paper:
"I'm so glad I had you by my side to walk through our ups and downs.  You are a sweet yet strong man that has shown me patience and a love that is Christ-like.  I can't wait to see where our adventures will take us.  The first anniversary gift is paper, so here it is, in the paper."
      Your message tells me you have maturity to understand that there are ups and down in a marriage. You are there for each other through thick and thin.  He has a Christ-like love for you and you know it and you appreciate it.  You have fun together and you understand that life is an adventure.  You have a lot of hope.
      I read your message over and over and even clipped it from the newspaper.  I feel joyful knowing that a beautiful, young couple understands.  I feel happy for you, because of what I saw in you today. I wish I could know you and see how your love will grow and grow.  I would love to see where your adventures will take you.
      Happy Anniversary!

The Essence of Genius

      "I dwell in possibility."
      "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
      Two quotes by two very different authors begin this blog.  One is by Emily Dickinson and one is by Albert Einstein.  I would think that Albert wrote the first and Emily the second, but, of course, I would be wrong.  Both give notice to a force or element of genius more important than just knowing.
       What is genius?  They both had it and both sought to describe it.
       Albert Einstein, though so famous as a scientific thinker, also said, "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." Creative expression is a bit like what he referred to earlier as imagination;only creative expression can be shared.  He understood well that a good teacher does more than just impart knowledge. A good teacher can certainly inspire some elements of genius.
       Emily Dickinson dwelt in the world of creative expression and imagination. Albert Einstein dwelt in the same realm.  Many people have imagination and that has not been awakened. Many people do not reach their potential for creative expression. Are imagination and creative expression the essence of genius or is genius just a great memory for facts?
       Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart said, "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." 
       That expresses well what I think.  A great teacher encourages the passion and love that will stimulate the thirst for knowledge and the imagination that will lead to the joy of creative expression. It is a love of thinking, learning, imagining and expressing that genius has! Love is the essence of genius!
       
       
         

A Packed Lunch

     When I was a child, everyone went to school with a packed lunch.  It was interesting to see what everyone else had in his or her square, metal, cartoon-character lunch box or brown paper bag.  Parents tried to give children  nutritious lunches, but they were not at all nutritious by today's standards.  The usual fare for my lunch was a peanut butter sandwich on white Wonder Bread, a cookie, carrot or celery sticks, and an apple. Then, I bought either white or chocolate milk with the nickel I brought from home.  That was pretty much it from kindergarten through grade twelve.  Sometimes I would get chipped beef with mustard.  I would have loved to have had chips in there, too, but I rarely did.  My mother did not write"mommy love" notes in my lunches as I did for my son; she probably never thought about it, but I knew she loved me.The packed lunch was proof!

      In the cafeteria, lots of kids would finger and touch that bread, make holes in it and make dough balls with bread.  There was a lot of touching,poking and playing with food; especially the bread. 

      In elementary school, we were not allowed to eat until we prayed as a group.  This taught us the importance of being thankful for what we had.  Many of our parents had grown up in the depression or during World War II.  We knew that our food was good and eating with our classmates was great!

      A kindergarten boy I knew, who just happened to be the only black child in a white classroom, had very loving parents in the 1970's.  They were starting to understand  how bad that white bread was and packed his school lunch with rich, whole-grain bread.  He was ridiculed and mocked by the other children, because they thought that only black kids ate that kind of bread.  They had never seen brown bread. (I think the parents gave in on that one, because he got so he did not want to eat in front of the others.)

      Another kindergarten child in the 1970's, who happened to be one of my students with ADD and very sloppy handwriting, started bringing whole-grain bread on his sandwiches. His mother was trying to help  his inattention with a change in diet.  It was hard to respond seriously when he told me he had to eat brown bread to improve his handwriting.

      When I packed my son's lunch in the 1990's, I would never have given him anything but whole-grain bread and there was often a "mommy love" note in the brown bag or lunch box. They had "lunchables" by this time, which, of course, he loved. When he went to middle and high school the mommy notes had to stop. Sometimes he packed and sometimes he bought his lunch. What he ate for lunch was a big deal to me and his father.  Providing the lunch was an act of love, but he would have rather bought his lunch I am sure.

      Now I teach in an urban elementary school and the free breakfasts and lunches given to our students have nothing but white bread in them. The kinds of foods that would have been very unusual treats years ago: pizza, chicken nuggets, burgers, etc. are standard fare for the children, but they still  seem to like them a lot. I hear about the nutritious school lunches, but the only part that is nutritious,in my opinion, is the fruit. 

      The children touch all their food; slather it with condiments; and rip, roll and poke their bread. It is,literally, the breaking of break together.  

      They love lunch time and love to eat with their friends and...their teachers.Everyday students ask me to  eat with them. I wish I could do it all the time, but,maybe, then it would not be so special, if I did. 

      Another thing, that is more special than pizza, chicken nuggets and burgers, and, probably, ranks up there with eating with the teacher is bringing a packed lunch from home.  The delight on my students faces can be matched by little else, when they tell me they "packed" their lunch.  There may be only a few children on any given day that bring a packed lunch.  What a source of pride to bring something prepared by Mom to school in a lunchbox or brown paper bag!  Sometimes the brown paper bag is actually a supplement to the school lunch. Sometimes, when I ask what is in there,I find it is often a very large bag of chips! The favorite at my school are the hot, red chips that get all over your hands,face,and clothes.the red mess seems to be a red badge that you got something out of the ordinary! So much for my romanticizing or fantasizing on the theme of a packed lunch!

Planting a Pumpkin

      It was the first year of our school garden and one of our goals was to get every student into the garden to have the experience of planting something. We had all kinds of interesting seeds to sow.  Pumpkins and watermelons were the favorites of most of the students. One of our school's most successful students told me directly, "This is not my destiny!"  
       Is the idea of working with the soil or working manually beneath us in this day and age? Is the idea of starting at the bottom as old fashioned, as I am?  Is there a reason to learn a business from the ground up?  Is there a reason to learn how to work with your hands or at a seemingly low level at least for some period of time? Is being a "worker" for the less intelligent only?
       One summer, I had the opportunity to clean houses for money.  It was an invaluable experience, because of what I learned. It helped me see how people can be treated if they are considered to be lower than others.  It taught me the value of doing a careful, thorough job and the satisfaction we can gain from  working hard physically. It helped me understand how people organize their homes, lives and how they see others.
       Christ taught us that the greatest among us would be  a servant of all. Christ was not just talking about "starting at the bottom".  He was talking about a way of life and what true leadership would be like. How can we be a wise leaders if we cannot understand what it is like to be at the bottom? At Passover, Christ asks us how can we truly be humble unless we have "washed some one's feet"?
       There are a lot reasons to start at the bottom in any field, but when it comes to farming or gardening, there is so much to be learned and experienced.  Besides the understandings and joy found in the work itself, the reliance on God and the wonder at His creation are essential to the planting,watering, cultivating, and pruning process. (How could anyone who works in a garden be an atheist?)
       My son started a new job doing the thankless job of door to door, commission-only sales.  Of course, this is not my dream for a soon-to-be college graduate, but I know that this experience, like many other things he will do in is life, will teach him the view from the "bottom" and give him more understanding and perspective of how life works.
       Don't we all love Cinderella stories?  The hard-working oppressed young lady with outer and inner beauty was finally recognized by Prince Charming and eventually lived happily ever after.  She never lost her humility and understanding, because she started at the bottom and learned from her experiences.
       If we do not see gardening, cleaning a house, working manually, selling door to door, flipping burgers, "washing feet", serving others or getting dirty, as our "destiny"; perhaps, we just need to get in the garden and plant a pumpkin seed. We can sow it, water it, tend it and watch it. Perhaps, we can stop to reflect on the process, as well.  A pumpkin vine can grow as much as six inches in a single day. ( Everything we do in life should should help us grow!)
       When the pumpkin is ripe and ready, pluck it from the vine and watch it turn into our carriage that will take us to our destiny!  One healthy pumpkin vine may produce 10 to 15 beautiful pumpkins.  If we learn our lessons well at the bottom, we may be given many exciting other choices in life: carriages that will take us to our destiny! (Planting pumpkin may be more than a means to an end: it may be an end in itself.)
       Cinderella, plant a pumpkin and your carriage will await you!  
                                   
 

     

Rebooting

      Our anniversary weekend was just like rebooting a computer.  We could have stayed home.  We would have been alone there, too; but instead, we left our familiar surroundings and together we went somewhere new. Though only two hours away, it was new to us.  The gorgeous, Georgian Manor Inn, a bed and breakfast in Norwalk, Ohio was the most elegant of surroundings.  When we arrived the housekeeper greeted us and showed us around.  The only thing familiar was the person I was with and the clothes in our suitcase.  The town, the home, the furnishings, the sights and the stories were all new.
      That evening after dinner at a local restaurant, we drove to a lovely concert hall in Sandusky, Ohio to hear a world renown mezzo-soprano singing with the Firelands Symphony "Love Songs Through the Ages".  The next day after a superb breakfast and conversation with the innkeepers, we went to the home and museum of Rutherford B. Hayes for a tour and stimulating conversation.  We explored some antique shops and again had dinner at another local restaurant.  We were being inspired!
      The drives we were making to our various destinations gave us a look at Northern Ohio snow.  Not that the snow there is any different than in Central, Ohio; but snow-covered fields and small towns look different that a snow-covered city.  They just do!  Snow always reminds me of a clean slate and that is precisely my point!
     The computer is the same when you reboot it or restart it.  It always is amazing how rebooting works!  Somehow the computer that was slow and inefficient begins to work again and I, for one,do not understand why. Erasing a slate or white board does not mean throwing away the chalk or markers or the board itself. A clean slate makes it possible for the board to be useful once more.  Snow falling on the ground does not change the ground, but seems to give the world a fresh, pure look and does some wonderful things for the future productivity of the land. Going away for a few days together can be renewing for a marriage, family or friendship!  It is like rebooting the computer, erasing the board or covering the ground with snow. Rebooting is simply refreshing, to make fresh once more!
    "If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one of them and buy White Hyacinths to feed my soul."
- Elbert Hubbard  (1856-1915)

                                                                   

Looking Backward

     I consider myself to be forward thinking and I hate to look backward.  It seems to be so counterproductive to a focused, positive and joyful life.  I have known people who used the past as an important player in the games of regret and blame. Why would a forward thinking person looking for joy ever want to look toward the past?
     It has been said that those who do not remember the past (history) are condemned to repeat it. Something that is broken needs to be fixed and someone offended needs to forgive.  Yet how can we do that without drowning in remorse?
     Reflection and meditation are powerful tools to make improvements in life.  What did I do right and what did I do wrong?  How can I make a situation better and find success?
     Today is our twenty-eighth anniversary.  It was a sunny, snowy Saturday in February very much like today that we made those vows to love and honor. I was lying on my bed basking in the sunshine today, when my son came it to talk.  I started telling him about our wedding day.  I told him about the beauty of the day, the details of the story, our hopes and our expectations for out lives.   Somehow it was like pushing the reset button or rebooting (not rebutting) a computer. In revisiting the expectations, I found myself feeling very hopeful and full of joy. Anniversaries, holy days, holidays are like that. We remember the past to reset and  reboot  (not rebut).  Looking back reminds us of who we are and how we can find a joyful future in refocusing.

The Stainless Trough

        This is not a totally joyous subject for me to write about.  I have been taught that wasting food was wrong and cleaning up your plate is a virtue.  I guess no one wanted food scraps in the trash or we thought it was terrible to throw away food when there were starving people in Africa. It is too bad we cannot deliver our extra food somewhere.

        Weight Watchers worked on me and helped me realize that throwing away food could be a good thing. (Of course, choosing smaller portions is the best plan.) Then, there was the strong idea that some of the food that we were not eating was not “food” any way!

        My dad used to light up when he would talk about an “all you can eat” buffet.  Many people I can recall, as far back as the 1960’s, used to consider these dining establishments the pinnacle of pleasure.  I am certain that those who grew up in the Depression would find them an expression of the affluent life.

        I tread lightly.  Now, it is November, 2013 and times have changed.  Thanksgiving is nearly upon us and we as a nation have so much for which to be thankful.  I have never been truly hungry and I just bought a 25 pound turkey for Thanksgiving.

        Last Saturday night, my husband wanted to take me out for dinner.  Now, honestly, I usually pick.  It is not that I always want my way, but that he never has an opinion. I pick the restaurant by default; unless we are with friends and can get someone else to choose.  On this particular night, however, he had a strong opinion and I, biting my tongue, agreed.

        He chose an “all you can eat” buffet of national fame.  It was recently in the papers for hiding food from food inspection.  The initials are G.C. (I have often wondered why it was considered to be “golden” and why people would want to eat at a place where horses were corralled.)   My name for it is Stainless Trough.

        I was hoping that we might have to leave, because there were not many parking spaces. We finally found one, so in we went. It was very crowded that night. 

        You get a tray, if any are available, and silverware, if the pieces you need are available.  You get a drink, if you want one, and pay before you enter.  There are few seasonal decorations, but the most overwhelming sight is people.  People of all shapes and sizes, who were clamoring for plates and getting in lines in six or seven areas for various parts and pieces of a meal, were the overriding view on this occasion. A meal of epic proportions one can eat here; yes, it is an “all you can eat” buffet.

        We were looking very hard to find seats and the only seats to be found were in the furthest corner from the food.  You actually had to walk further to get from our seats to the troughs than any other seats in the establishment. No wonder no one else wanted them.

        The salad bar, taco bar, pizza bar, dessert bar, ice cream bar and hot food bar were totally surrounded by people dipping in all that food.  There were utensils to dip food, but the children and some adults did not see the need to use such items; fingers are easier and faster. I can imagine Melvin Udall, Jack Nicholson’s OCD character in As Good As It Gets, at this place.

         The most popular area was the place for the steak. The steak was cooked to order and bore a label as to how it was prepared.  I can also imagine how some people I know would find it incredible that for $12.99 you can get all the sirloin steak you wanted and all those other meats and fish, too.

         Tread lightly…It must be terribly hard to keep a place clean with all those hungry people.  Tread lightly…I actually had to tread very lightly and watch where I was going, because of the children underfoot and plops of mashed potatoes and pieces of chicken skin on the carpet. There were stacks of used dished and utensils and plates on every table waiting to be picked up. The stainless steel rolling carts holding just washed dishes and silverware were everywhere, but you had to be careful, because some of the melamine dishes just did not look like they had made it through the dishwasher.

         I never liked to go to buffets, because I thought I ate too much and I just did not like to see all that food sitting out there for who knows how long.  I just prefer not to see it all laid out like that. Cleanliness is another issue.  When restaurant food comes out, served to you at a traditional restaurant; some how you have the illusion of cleanliness and freshness, even if not the reality.  On this night, I ate very little.

        My husband had three steaks, lots of mashed potatoes and gravy, all kinds of other items and several dishes of ice cream.  Before we walked out, he left the older woman, who fastidiously, refilled our drinks, a generous tip; then he walked to the ice cream area and got himself an ice cream cone for the road.

        On our way out, he remarked that it was pretty “bad” and “when you have that many people, it is hard to keep it clean”; but he seemed pretty content to me.  My mom used to say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.  (I will write more about that later. Not that I am an expert on men, or anything…)  Tread lightly…

        As for me, an old Danish proverb says it best, “When serving food, first put out the flowers, then putout the food."