Diversity and Unity

Happy Kwanza!  For those not clear about it, Kwanza was created in 1966 by a professor of African Studies, Dr. Maulana Karenga, who stressed the need to preserve, revitalize and promote African American culture.  It is not a religious holiday but a cultural one and thus available to Africans of all religious faiths who are brought together through the rich, ancient and varied common ground of Africa.

While I admit that the blood that pulses in my veins, at least in this current life, would at first appear to be “Caucasian,” before Russia and Czechoslovakia, there was probably Spain and Provence, and before that Israel, but before that… undoubtedly it was Africa.  We all come from Africa if we take a wide enough and long-term-enough perspective.  As a human family we are tasked with respecting and celebrating differences and at the same time also finding unity.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day, a holiday in many countries (but not in the U.S.), is traditionally celebrated on December 26th.  The name derives from the tradition of giving gifts to those less wealthy than one’s self, gifts that were stored in a “Christmas Box” and distributed the day after Christmas.

I have also, probably incorrectly, been told by a Brit or two that Boxing Day was the day you boxed up the presents you got, but didn’t want to keep—or was it a day for boxing up ornaments?

For me, the notion of Boxing Day brings to mind one of my father’s more memorable, albeit unfortunate, parenting strategies.  Admittedly, my brother and I, a scant and rivalrous eighteen months apart, fought an awful lot when we were children.  As a parent I can certainly understand how annoying sibling quarreling can be (although I guess I’m somewhat fortunate that my kids limit their strife to sarcasm and verbal snipes and haven’t fallen to blows in recent memory).  My dad seemed to have his own dark view of sibling relationships (he professed to hate his sister and went for years without speaking to her despite the fact that she lived precisely one block away, on the same street).

Time to put in “kitty brain”

Merry Christmas!

My wife once had a dream; I seem to recall that it was in the midst of much stress, in which she was told to take out her brain and put in kitty brain.  For years that has been code to remind ourselves to chelax, often in the midst of parents falling ill, falling down stairs and even falling into death.

So, whether this Christmas finds you naughty or nice; whether everyone got what he or she wanted or did not; whether family is making you cozy, crazy or sad; please don’t forget to put in kitty brain if it helps.

But before I put in kitty brain, I also want to wish my mom a very happy birthday.

Although my mom shares a birthday with another extreme V.I.P., when I was growing up my mom’s birth was an even a greater mystery than Jesus’ because while we new the date of my mom’s birth, no one ever knew the actual year of birth. 

Twis

 

Twis the day before Christmas and so I thought I would honor one of my favorite parenting heroes—Thomas Coram.  One hundred years before Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, Thomas Coram created the London Foundling Hospital in Lamb’s Conduit Fields, Bloomsbury.

Coram had no children.  He was a ship’s captain and after he retired he was horrified at the way impoverished children fared, often dying, on the streets of London.  The notion of an orphanage was unprecedented at this time.  In order to even try to start a charity, the world’s first incorporated one at that, Coram needed permission of the crown.  The aristocrats he approached initially refused to take an interest in poor children—it was beyond the realm of their thinking to value such kids, despite the epidemic of “foundlings” left to die on doorsteps as destitute mothers lacked means to care for them.

It took years, but Coram finally got one aristocrat on board and then a few more and they eventually appealed to the Queen.  He kicked in his own money, but to raise enough, his artist friends donated works and this marked the first art auction as well as the first time that common folk were able to see paintings by such notables as Hogarth (who famously painted Coram).  At this time there were no art museums and besides church, the only people who were privy to fine art were the wealthy.

Ashes and Diamonds—Santa, Cinderella & Bert

 Around this time of year, at least for children of a certain age, there is a lot of thought about Santa:  is Santa real, how does he get everywhere in the world in one night, how does he get down the chimney, etc.?  While I have no idea about those things (although I suspect that Santa is “real” in the sense that the myth endures), I did want to talk a little bit about the chimney.

Of all the ways that presents and good things might come into one’s life, the chimney would, at first glance, be a bad plan—dirty, likely to be filled with fire, narrow and uninviting.  A chimney is where we turn wood into smoke, and what exits by way of the chimney is of the least value to humans—soot, ash and greenhouse gas.  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the burned down remains of the hearth’s fire would seem to be the end of the road, and yet they mark the scene of a new beginning.

Out of the White: the Red and the Green

It was just around now—a few days before Christmas, only back in the 1960’s, when my father’s holiday office party turned out to be a total bust.  He had planned for everything… except a blizzard.  And so, out of the blinding night snow came my father’s black Lincoln Continental with the rear, backward-opening, “suicide doors,” loaded with the trappings and trimmings of the party that never was.

My brother and I watched, frozen in the force-field of our mom’s trepidation, as Dad, snow clinging to his overcoat, angrily carted in, one after the next, foil-wrapped roast beefs, boxes of cookies and treats, office gift-boxes of cufflinks and tie-clips and, lastly, a charming little dwarf of a Christmas tree, a Charlie Brown number, bedecked with tinsel and some ornaments—I even think it had plug-in lights.

Through a Day Darkly—seeking spirit gold on the Winter Solstice

Happy Winter Solstice.  The day of this post, the darkest of the year, marks the halfway mark in my self-imposed year of blogging mindfully in the service of all our collective children.  Last June 21st, the summer solstice, I decided to step up and try to post something, every day, for a year.  My intention remains as when I set out:  to support you, the reader, to be your best Self, for your own benefit, but especially for the benefit of your “kids” (which can be broadly understood as whatever corner of the world you find is in your care).

Back on the Summer Solstice, I encouraged readers to set an intention for themselves (feel free to consult that post to renew, set or change your own personal intention: http://tiny.cc/q33GZ); while not every post will be of direct interest to every reader, my hope is to show up here and invite the sharing of good wishes and spirit—not just me to you, but reader-to-reader in the trust that it might ripple out and makes a difference, no matter how subtle.  Much of what’s missing in our modern consciousness is the quietude and trust to pick up on the non-tangible, non-measurable effects of simple loving kindness.

Searching for your true self? Check out your kindergarten pictures

While we are born with natural exuberance and the potential for radical authenticity, for better or worse the world works its magic on us and, over years, we become a product of that world.  Yet we often feel lost in this world and unsure about who we really are.  Perhaps we fantasize changing things up, heading out into the forest or the mountains or having a good long time on a beach to chill and discover our true Selves…

Yet in our search for our true and best Selves we might not need to eat, pray and love our way through exotic locales and experiences, but rather simply break out the photo album and take another look at ourselves when we were five.  Even if you don’t have any pictures of those days and the old school yard, try to conjure up your kindergarten self in your mind and meditate on her.

Nerd World Parenting

As a blogger my key goal is to support parents to be their best Selves in the service of all our kids—both as good for our collective world, but also as a way to re-frame and re-think parenting itself as a path to happiness akin to Zen or yoga.

I get feedback on the ideas I put forward in the form of comments, private emails, etc.  I also get a metric of the zeitgeist based on which posts get the most readers.  One thing that surprised me was that my post, “The case for nerds” (http://tiny.cc/QqCYb) is so far the far and away favorite post in terms of number of readers, having gotten twice as many readers at the second most popular post, (“What to say when kids say they hate themselves”: http://tiny.cc/ALydV).

Taken together, this suggests that a lot of parents are concerned about their kids being nerdy and unhappy, but particularly worried about nerdy kids.  “The case for nerds,” encourages parents to embrace being nerdy as potentially liberating as well as good parenting.  Yet, while I realize that even if we parents are mature enough to go ahead and fly our freak flags as nerds or whatever else we might think that we are, we tend to want our kids to be cool—not even cool really, just not the… well, nerd.

Angels in the shadows

A woman I know runs a program to benefit at-risk and underserved kids.  She’s poured heart and soul into the program for nearly two decades, perhaps accruing spiritual wealth but certainly nothing in the way of material reward.

Recently she learned that because of economic woes, the umbrella agency that hosts her program had to abruptly cut it.  Numerous trained volunteers and kids in need were to be left out in the cold.

At first she felt defeated, but then she decided to at least try and raise the thousands of missing dollars by asking friends and family if they could help.  These are tough economic times all around and few people came forward with donations, but they started to add up.  Then a woman made a sizable donation and things were looking up, but the effort stalled.  Could they stay afloat for a couple of months and then shut down?