Why Teach?

Yesterday, I went into work an hour early to tutor two high school special needs students.  The one had a question every once in a while but worked primarily on his own.  The other—we’ll call him Jerry—had filled out a writing web with 11 details about why it is good to be in the “community” group rather than the “compliance” group at the boys’ home where I work.  The details were wonderful, and showed a level of maturity and sophistication you would not expect from a ninth-grade student who functions academically between a first and second grade level, in that all the details were oriented towards the opportunity to serve, learn and grow rather than the self-centered perks that come along with being in the community.  I thought cool, until I turned to his rough draft.  Instead of being about the opportunities that come with being in the community, it was about food—what is delicious and what is not. 

Damn, not again, I thought.  So far, for Jerry, there is no sequence, no connectivity, as you and I understand it, where one thought is linked to another, and details attach to a main idea.  Sure, it’s there somewhere, or that web wouldn’t have demonstrated such sophistication, but it’s not triggered the same as it is for you and I.  Therefore, I spent the next 45 minutes explaining how the web is where you brainstorm your ideas for your rough draft, that they should have something to do with each other, that although they may be apples and oranges, they are not apples and Orangutans, and all the while, he’s interrupting me in a low-level panic, “So, Mr. Steve, this is not right?” and I’m fighting frustration at his focus being on right or wrong.

“Jerry,” don’t worry about that.    Just listen.”

“I can fix, Mr. Steve.  I am a good boy.”

Yes, Jerry.  But you need to relax, slow down, listen.  You have great stuff here—both of these are good—but they don’t connect.  They don’t match.  One is a red sock, one a blue…”

At that moment, I decide, I can’t make him redo the assignment.  It will crush him.  He put his best into both.  He just didn’t grasp one thing leads to another.  Or he did, at the most important level; at the being-human level, he grasped something a lot of CEO’s don’t grasp—that the purpose of life is to serve others and enjoy good food along the way.  But, at the academic level, that whole notion of line upon line, precept upon precept was and usually is lost on Jerry.  I knew I also had to give him his task fast.  Jerry doesn’t like to wait.  He wants to work, to show he’s learning, which to him means doing—something we definitely don’t agree on, but if I can’t get across A should connect to B right now, I’m probably not going to convey the idea that more can be learned in a moment of complete stillness than in a lifetime of doing. 

So, I decide to have him write the rough draft that should go with his web on the community and the web that should go with his rough draft on delicious foods.  Will that get through to him that a web and a rough draft go together?  I won’t know until he turns it in.  Knowing Jerry, I might get something about the joys of sitting on a soft couch as his essay to go with the web on the community, and a web on different facts about China to go with his essay on delicious food.

I would go crazy if I taught only to have success.  Sure, success needs to happen too, or I should find another profession.  But to try to control all the variables that makes up a child’s future, or equally asinine, to try and ignore all those variables—genetics, family, community—is absurd.

This is a dangerous thing to say in education these days, but here it is anyways:  I teach because it blows my mind that Jerry, a ninth grader who operates at a second grade level, knows something most CEO’s don’t—that the purpose of life is to serve others and enjoy delicious food along the way.  And neither Jerry, nor the CEO knows this.  It’s my little secret (at least until now).  I get how profoundly important Jerry is to the human web and others don’t.  He isn’t a burden on society.  He is the jewel, the reason society exists.  Not just Jerry.  Not because he’s “special.”  Just because he is.  All of us, just because we are.

That’s it; that’s why I teach: to participate in children’s lives.  What could be greater than going into work an hour early to hear Jerry say, “Good Morning, Mr. Steve”?—his big jolly body announcing life is good, his big smile screaming it, just in case you don’t get that. 

Of course every teacher knows—especially middle school teachers—you’re more likely to walk down to your classroom and find one or two students sitting on the floor outside, headphones on, hunched over, hair in their eyes, wilted in doom.  And that’s great too.  Perhaps that’s why I love to teach.  Children have an honesty, and integrity about them, that somehow gets lost in most of the adult world.  Sure, sometimes it’s a bit overdramatic.  Doom?  Really?  You probably didn’t even have to make your own bed this morning.  But I prefer that to the make believe adult world where everyone is making progress, where everyone is changing the world around them for the better, this great and glorious march up the ladder towards perfection.

Teaching, if done right, is a profession where every morning you get to go into work and just be.  Kids are open.   They want to experience life outside what they learned at home.  They are hungry for the new.  Because the other teacher in our building is a permaculturist and environmentalist, our students are into all things organic.  Overall, we’re not supposed to play music with lyrics, so I play Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, but also Henry Mancini and Scott Joplin.   I even felt brazen enough to play John Denver (lyrics and all!) and they love it.  They’re always asking, “Who is this, Mr. Steve?”  We even spent twenty or so minutes watching this dude’s joy—and I simply said, “damn, you know you’ve found the right career when it makes you feel like this!”  That was my lesson.  What else could be said?

 

Really, the only reason not to teach is if you are out to rescue lives.  Sure, there may be a few gifted teachers who can carry on that intense passion you see in the movies, who will never give up on a child, who will see them through, who will be successful again and again.  On average there are two of them for every fifty other mere mortals.   The other 48 burn out trying to be that super teacher—and nothing is more dangerous to children than adults who no longer believe and yet act as if they do.   Kids have built in hypocrisy radars, bullshit detectors.  If you need to change a child’s life to bolster your ego, quit.  Become a gardener or a carpenter—something where you have a little more control over the variables.  But if you just want to be—there is a classroom of kids waiting for your example.  Because that is simply something you can’t know at such a young age.  The minute you find clothes you’re comfortable in, you’ve outgrown them.   Being doesn’t come easy, which is what a child needs most—lots of adults who are comfortable in their own skin.  That is the safety they seek.  I exist, I am, and that’s alright.   I am not a freak of nature after all.  Teaching the quadratic equation or how to diagram a complex sentence is only a vehicle to do that—a detractor from the self long enough the self can be found. 

The poet Sam Green, a great teacher of mine, once shared this with me:

My grandfather would take me out fishing, and we’d be out there in his small boat drifting, and he’d say something like, “see that rock over there,” and I’d look, and there’d be something like a moose or a bear, and I’d say, “Grandpa!  Look, a bear!”

He’d say, “Wow!” 

It wasn’t until much later I realized what he was doing.  Now that is teaching.

 

 

The Moment (Individual Worth, Buddhism, Christianity & Let It Be)

I dreamt I had paid my dues:
I had done my research;
I had sat quietly;
I had taken notes,
organized them carefully
and waited patiently--
not minutes,
not hours,
not days,
nor months, nor seasons, nor years,
but decades--yes decades--

and finally that moment came.
I stood, for I knew I had something to say;
I knew it would not be easy;
it never is in a world that talks on incessantly,
but I stood anyway, not because I wanted to.

I would rather have gone fishing,
and I don't fish.
It seems absurd to lure the hungry,
hook them and yank them from the known
out into a dry existence
where their eyes are too big
and their lungs no longer see,
where their tail flaps,
but there is no longer resistance--
the comfort of something pushing back
gently, with ease,
instead one yank out into an unknown
expanse of thinness,
of clarity.

No, fishing is no sport for me.
Let the fish swim happily
in their thick little world
of mirror liquefied
and wrapped around them
like a great quilt--light, shadow,
birth, death, movement distracting them
from the alpine air
above the lid--

Who would want to be a flying fish anyway?--
to arch out into the unknown,
to know sunlight unfiltered,
to soar up into the heavens
above your old home,
and to find everything you once knew
an illusion, to know worlds
stars, galaxies and universes without end
await your discovery.

Yes, fishing is not my sport,
but I knew my time had come,
I gathered my notes--

There was Marla's chin, eleventh grade,
perfect, and she didn't know it.
She talked on about clubbing,
about fake ID, about drunken nights
on McKinney Ave and the West End,
about meeting the members of KISS,
about going back stage, but not about
going under, being violated
by Gene Simons' foreign tongue,
nor blacking out, nor waking up
in an empty hotel suite, stumbling naked
to the bathroom,
clasping her clothes around her
as if she could remember being swaddled,
as if innocence and safety
and love were still garments you could slip into
like blue jeans and a tank top--
how she looked into the mirror and hated
her hair, her eyes, her nose, lips,
especially that chin with such intensity
she reached two perfectly manicured
fingers down the throat, tried
to offer some sort of sacrifice
to that porcelain alter--
The heaves were dry,
she had nothing left to give.
Her chin would remain beautiful,
as would her thick hair and dark eyes
to God, to me, probably many.  Perhaps
even Gene Simmons
saw the very pinpoint of creation,
of unspeakable truth and light
shine up at him as he penetrated her
and placed her forever
on the alter of Mammon,
the electricity of the whole damn universe blinking
for a millisecond, glitch after glitch,
year after year,
millennium after millennium
as small flames snuffed out.

I looked out on a great audience of incessant talking--
young couples and old, from every nation, kindred, tongue,
wine glasses in hand, slurping on pizza
or octopus, draining down Big Gulps
while stuffing mouths with popcorn and crickets,
chattering around the fringes
of their stories,
carefully stepping around
the black holes
that keep their galaxies spinning,
their tails flapping,
their gills pumping,
their eyes wide and metallic
as they navigate
their way the best they can
around the fish bowl.

I whispered, "I too have sinned"
and sat back down.

A man in a white suite, wearing sandals
and bright red socks smiled,
"Well said, brother, well said."

And I swear I saw that light
that once glimpsed
leaves this world a drop
in a sea of glory.

The Affordable Care Act Allows Me to Help Change Teenagers Lives Forever

Three years ago my wife and I decided to quit teaching in Arizona and move to rural Utah where we, with the help of my parents, built a home on my family’s land—90 acres of Juniper and gamble oak with maple and cottonwood running along the two stream beds.

It was a giant leap of faith that we’d be able to secure a means of sustenance in such a rural community, but we prayed about it, and it felt right.

Finding meaningful employment in education was difficult to say the least.  Teaching positions seldom open here, and when they do, competition is fierce, and openings are usually filled with relatives or friends with strong ties to the community.  I have no problem with that.  In communities with such small economic bases, it’s important to provide people already invested in the community with jobs before reaching out to the wider world for individuals who may not even stay.

But, as I had been away since 8^th grade, and as my step-father had been retired for years, it made getting hired very difficult for us.

We eventually were hired at a boy’s home in a near-by community as support staff, and I was hired later as one of the two teachers.

My job requires every bit as much time, ability and energy as a position at a public high school does, except I work year-around, only have three days off (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July) and I don’t receive any benefits, and until recently, I only earned $12.00 an hour.

It sounds awful, but it isn’t.  Instead, it’s incredibly meaningful because the school has a strong program and changes boys’ lives forever.  Not every student finds a better version of themselves.  A few return to lives of substance abuse and crime not long after they are released.  But more than half go on to lead lives that include college, sobriety and respect for themselves and others, something their parents could only dream of prior to treatment. 

And even the kids who fail and return to their former destructive lifestyles experience a year or two of sobriety, clarity and peace, where they move ahead on their academics, and at least for a while begin to build bridges with their family.

What’s not to like about that?  And yet, if it were not for the Affordable Care Act, I would most likely have to quit and find employment elsewhere, which would require my leaving the land and community I love.  I don’t need a lot, but I do need a way to pay medical bills, and the job I have simply doesn’t provide that.

It should.  It’s even owned by a big, international healthcare company.  But the reality is that it doesn’t.  Because the Affordable Healthcare Act subsidizes my healthcare, I can do what I love to do best—help young people find themselves.

And I’m not sure that’s unfair to tax payers.  My job keeps juveniles with severely troubled backgrounds (rape, sexual deviancy, theft, violence, etc.) from becoming incarcerated adults, which costs society far more than what it costs to supplement my healthcare.  And, of course, at least while they are in treatment, my work keeps other tax payers safe.

The lie that is propagated by certain media groups is that everyone who receives government assistance is lazy.  But it’s not true.  Most Americans want to contribute to society.  Because unions have lost their bargaining power, the truth is many meaningful jobs no longer pay a living wage.  As long as that is the case, people like me, need assistance to contribute to society.

And as long as everyone is willing to put their fare share into the system, it works.  Marci and I once made healthy wages and paid a good dose of middle-class taxes, as well as gave a lot to both social programs and struggling individuals in our neighborhood.  I hope we get to that position again, but in the meantime, I’m thankful that the Affordable Care Act allows me to give troubled teens a fresh start on life.  I see the changes in these kids, and know it’s worth it.  I am not a sponge on society, and neither are many others, who because of the current economic inequality in our nation, need assistance with medical expenses.

 

 

Fall Reflection: If your garden is working you during the summer, you are doing something wrong (soil building and chop and drop).

Fall Colors near Mud Puddle, about 5 miles from Dry Creek

Fall is here, as is a cold front.  Low, heavy clouds hang along Sandrock Ridge, White Pine Peak poking his head above them.  Below the clouds, most everything is burnt sienna, with blotches of gold and crimson red.  We had a wet July and August, and the trees are extra vibrant.  So much so, even while dealing with the pain of this infection, I forced myself to get out and see the colors closer than from the sliding-glass door.  Even as close as Dry Creek Canyon is to the house, I had to drive over and take photos from inside the car, but it was worth it.  I also drove up an area known as Mud Puddle, a low, wet saddle filled with Maple, about five miles from here.

Fall colors at Dry Creek, about 200 feet from the house

It takes a while to re-acquaint yourself with a region.  Although we’ve always spent our summers here at Dry Creek, it was our vacation home.  I did plant a few flowers during those breaks, had trees on drip, and kept a nice lawn, but I never got to know the earth again as I did as a child.  It’s hard to explain, but there is a difference between seeing a place and knowing a place.  After you stay put for a while, it’s as if there is some sort of spiritual exchange, where you become part of the place and the place becomes part of you.  You grow into each other.  It’s sad, for so many, career paths have replaced that connection.  Hardly anyone is from anywhere these days.  I don’t think that is meant to be.  For thousands of years local has been a definition of who we are.  True, migration always took place—Europeans uprooted themselves and came to America, east-coasters moved west, but those events took place once or twice in a lifetime, not every three to four years. Even migrant cultures, like the plains Indians, had a territory that they walked and rode seasonally.  Anyway, this is first summer since we moved back where I really felt grounded.  Part of that has to do with finding steady employment that meets our basic financial needs, but most of it just has to do with being here long enough to reacquaint myself with the land.

In fact, I’ve become so grounded, I hardly even leave my garden except to go to work.  I use to spend quite a bit of time on the ATV, riding up the canyon to see the creek, cottonwood, willow and foothills.  Once I got my fish pond and borders in out back, there seemed little reason to venture beyond the back yard, other than to water Marci’s cutting flowers over by the trailer, and to feed the chickens.


This small pond attracts dragon flies, bees, wild turkey, coyotes--and maybe even a mountain lion.



Marci's cutting-flower garden with our house in the background

Everything I needed to enjoy life was right outside the sliding glass doors.  The pond drew dragonflies, bees, wasps ,and wild turkey during the day, and at night coyotes.  I had humming birds, butterflies and tarantulas.  Every day something new had died and gone to seed, and something new was blooming in its place.  It was like watching the show Nature—only live and up close.

Flowers in the vegetable garden--food and color grow well together

That was up until late-July.  Then, the pain from this infection made even my garden out of reach.  Rio and Marci took over most of the watering.  Then, I watched from my recliner.  It wasn’t quite the same.  I could no longer watch the dragon flies hover above the pond—my favorite activity.   But, I could still watch the ever-changing tapestry of color, notice how a sun flower is peaking in the kitchen window, now almost the whole window is a picture of golden blooms, and now—dang they are so tall, the blooms are above the sight of the window!

Jack drinks from a saucer in the garden--even after a summer of no care, the garden has charm.

Yesterday was the first time I’ve really been able to spend any time in my garden in over a month.  Other than watering, it hasn’t been cared for since mid-July: no weeding, no thinning, no pruning.  And it’s still beautiful!  If you plant seed and water, nature takes care of itself.  People who think gardening is too much work don’t know how to garden.  Only lawns enslave their masters.  Gladiolas, black-eyed-susans, marigolds, amaranth, sunflower, tomatoes, zucchini—they just grow!  All you have to do is watch humming birds and butterflies.  Sure, it’s nice to pull that morning glory that’s yanking down that clump of bachelor’s buttons, but it’s not necessary.  Even entangled and pulled askew, they still bloom magnificently.

Sunflowers retain their beauty even after going to seed.

The main thing to do is grow soil.  That’s why my garden was so stingy last year.  I didn’t have enough soil.  This year I did.  It takes a while to grow soil.  My challenge this fall is to get well enough to dump leaves, sticks and horse poop over the dry bones and wilted flesh of this year’s garden.  That, after all is the most important part of gardening.

As I learn more, I’m realizing that the work of gardening takes place in the late fall and early spring.  Summer is the time to kick back, watch and enjoy.  If your garden is working you during the summer, you are doing something wrong.

Enjoy these two videos on soil building, and begin building a soil today that will create a relatively work-free garden next summer.

 

 

Work We Must, But Lunch Is Free: Reflections on a Speech by Hugh Nibley, the Poem "Valentine for Ernest" by Naomi Shihab Nye, the Writing Process, and the Gifts of Life

1. The Challenge

Recently, Irene, a mentor of mine left me the following message on Facebook:

Steve, I remembered this while reading on other topics. I'm really curious to get your thoughts on this. The speech made a deep impression on me at the time it was delivered and I've referred to it now and again over the years. Nibley's ideas were always intriguing -- we were at BYU when he was professor and we were fortunate to take a course from him. The speech is titled "Work We Must, But the Lunch is Free." It's published in a collection of his writings now.

I know enough writers to know that all writers, no matter how large or small their audience, crave personal connection with their readers.  Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Valentine for Ernest" is a perfect example of one writer fulfilling that need for connection:

Though, my audience is small, I’m no exception.  I have no clue why Irene requested my thoughts on Nibley's talk. Maybe I wrote something that made her think I might have some insight.  As Irene is someone I consider a mentor, and far more educated in both temporal and spiritual matters than I am, it is more likely that she is leading me to water, hoping I’ll drink.  Either way, I’m flattered.  Yes, I have a willing audience!  So, I’ll engage. I’m going to respond pretty much the same Nye did, with humility and from the gut.

First, however, I want to deal openly with some doubts I have as to formulating a fitting response.  Although I’m a Mormon with a strong, personal testimony of the gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that testimony is new, and the fact is I have been an inactive member and nonbeliever for much of my life, which means my knowledge of doctrine hasn't developed much beyond that of a sixteen-year-old, when I stopped going to church many, many years ago.

Second, I feel that any value I might have with regards to my religion, is as an outsider.  Intellectually, my culture is not the Mormon culture.  I developed as a thinker in El Paso.  Most of my mentors are do-good Buddhist writers and do-good lawyers working for the rights of migrant farm workers.  I once considered myself an atheist and what moved me most on a spiritual level was nature writing and science written for the masses, such as Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, not scriptures.  I have no mind for the particulars of science, and if it had been my field of study, I would have failed miserably.  But I always have been drawn to the magnificence of creation and have liked science’s non-biased approach:  observe first—then think.  Rather than—force your observations to meet the conditions of what you believe, which is what most of the population does.  That was also my attraction to Buddhism—yes, there is more to life than meets the eye, but what you see now at this moment, the observable world, is the only way into that sacred space.  In short, I’m a Mormon not because I was raised one (though that is true), but simply because I believe.  I think more like someone who is not Mormon.  Enquiry, I’m old friends with.  Belief is a new, intimate, somewhat fragile love.  In Christ, I am truly a newlywed, learning day by day what this new relationship I have with God really means.  Therefore, I’m not really qualified to analyze church doctrine.  I simply haven't put in the hours of field work necessary to qualify my observations as anything other than Lazy-Boy Recliner philosophy.

However, that never stops a writer.  Writing isn't so much about sharing what you know as it is about discovering what you might think along the way.  It is about tapping into an energy and following it to a place of possible inquiry.  It’s about recording the journey of the mind, not about sharing some earth-shattering insight.  So, I’m up for the challenge.  Following a train of thought, no matter how feeble, how flawed, is something I’m good at.

2.       The Two Employers

Hugh H. Nibley begins his argument by retracing the history of modern science from a sure, very doctrinal Darwinian/atheist approach to a more open, less-sure, post-modern approach.  As Nibley is a master of language, as well as the people he quotes, I feel it would be a crime to paraphrase him or his sources, and so instead, I've decided to include key passages and build bridges over any chasms left by what I've cut out. 

The famous geologist Sir Julian Huxley used to go from school to school in the manner of a traveling revivalist, preaching his gospel of evolution: "In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created; it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it including our human selves, mind and soul, as well as brain and body. So did religion." He was fond of reminding his audiences that there is no Santa Claus, and that mature people should give up wishful thinking about such things as gifts and blessings, spiritual or material, bestowed from on high.

The high school youth of my day took great satisfaction in reciting the words of Omar Khayyam: "And that inverted bowl we call the sky, whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, lift not the hands to It for help, for It rolls impotently on as Thou or I." This is, as one eminent commentator on the scientific scene, Hoimar von Ditfurth, puts it, "that 'modern view,' still current today, that the earth with everything in it is dangling in the isolation of a universe whose cold majesty disdains it . . . Deep down we are probably even proud of the detachment with which we accept our 'true' situation. . . . Much of the cynicism and nihilism characteristic of the modern psyche can be traced to this chilling conception."

But within the last decade or so, leaders in scientific research have begun to express the opposite opinion to this, saying that they more than suspect the possibility (1) that the somebody out there cares–i.e., there is direction and purpose to what is going on; and (2) that gifts sent down from above are more than a childish tradition.

He then goes on to include some of the challenges to the strictly Darwinian view, of which I’ll share a couple:

A grand old–timer in biology, the 1937 Nobel Prize winner, Albert Szent–Györgyi, recently wrote:

According to present ideas, this change in the nucleic acid [which determines the nature of protein molecules formed in a cell] is accomplished through random variation. . . . If I were trying to pass a biology examination, I would vigorously support this theory. Yet in my mind I have never been able to accept fully the idea that the adaption and the harmonious building of those complex biological systems, involving simultaneous changes in thousands of genes, are the results of molecular accidents. . . . The probability that all of these genes should have changed together through random variation is practically zero. . . . I have always been seeking some higher organizing principle that is leading the living system toward improvement and adaptation. I know this is biological heresy, . . . e.g., I do not think that the extremely complex speech center of the human brain ... was created by random mutations that happened to improve the chances of survival of individuals. . . . I cannot accept the notion that this capacity arose through random alterations, relying on the survival of the fittest. I believe that some principle must have guided the development toward the kind of speech center that was needed.

More surprising is the story now unfolding as various fields of research combine to give us a picture of gifts being showered upon us from on high–the literal reading of the Santa Claus or Kachina myth. Thus Buckminster Fuller says: "Energies emanating from celestial regions remote from Planet Earth are indeed converging and accumulating in Planet Earth's biosphere ... both as radiation and as matter. "We aboard Earth are receiving gratis just the amount of prime energy wealth, to regenerate biological life on board.... Van Allen belts, . . . the ionosphere, stratosphere and atmosphere all refractively differentiate the radiation frequencies, . . . . separating [them] into a variety of indirect life–sustaining energy transactions." "Vegetation is the prive energy impounder"; from stellar radiation "the biologicals are continually multiplying, their beautiful cellular, molecular, and atomic structurings" which complete the equation.... "Certainly the earth is not the center of the universe," writes von Ditfurth, ". . . but this crowded earth is a focal point in the universe; one of perhaps innumerable places in the cosmos where life and consciousness could flourish. . . . What a concentration of mighty forces upon one more or less tiny point!" Is it possible that someone does have us in mind?

After opening up the possibility that Darwinism/Atheism is not the only world view that can be supported by science, Nibley switches hats from philosopher/observer to  Mormon theologian and builds a case that it is not so much scientific Darwinism, but social Darwinism that is the real threat to Christianity:

As if to counteract these growing heresies, the old Darwinian view is being puffed today for all it is worth in a half dozen prestigious TV documentaries in which we are treated to endless footage of creatures ranging from amoebas, to giant carnivores, stalking, seizing and with concentrated deliberation soberly crunching, munching, swallowing, and ingesting other insects, fishes, birds, and mammals, etc. This, we are told again and again, is the real process by which all things were created. Everything is lunching on everything else, all the time, and that, children, is what makes us what we are; that is the key to progress. And note it well, all these creatures when they are not lunching are hunting for lunch–they all have to work for it: There is no free lunch in the world of nature, the real world. Lunch is the meaning of life, and everything lunches on something else–"Nature red in tooth and claw." Tennyson's happy phrase suited the Victorian mind to perfection. He got the idea from Darwin, as Spencer did his even happier phrase, "survival of the fittest." Darwin gave the blessing of science to men who had been hoping and praying for holy sanction to an otherwise immoral way of life. Malthus had shown that there will never be enough lunch for everybody, and therefore people would have to fight for it; and Ricardo had shown by his Iron Law of Wages that those left behind and gobbled up in the struggle for lunch had no just cause for complaint. Darwin showed that this was an inexorable law of nature by which the race was actually improved; Miall and Spencer made it the cornerstone of the gospel of Free Enterprise–the weaker must fall by the way if the stock is to be improved. This was movingly expressed in J. D. Rockefeller's discourse on the American Beauty Rose, which, he said, "can be produced ... only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. . . . This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working–out of a law of nature and a law of God."

In this divinely appointed game of grabs, to share the lunch–prize would be futile, counter–productive, nay immoral. Since there is not enough to go around, whoever gets his fill must be taking it from others–that is the way the game is played. "In Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, or anywhere else in England," as Brigham Young reported the scene in 1856, workers knew that "their employers would make them do their work for nothing, and then compel them to live on roots and grass if their physical organization could endure it, therefore, says the mechanic, 'If I can get anything out of you I will call it a godsend," and does what he can to rip off the boss. If he gets caught, he is punished, yet he is only playing the same game as his employer.??

Here, Nibley sees two world views as battling for the souls of men.  The first, inspired by Satan, says lunch is limited and must be fought over.  There are only so many resources and some will eat and others will be eaten in this dynamic fight for survival.  In this view, survival of the fittest being natural, competition is the moral choice and capitalism is the purist system:

The first employer offers us lunch, and since lunch is something everybody must have, he is in a powerful position to bargain. He explains that this glorious earth is his private estate, that it all belongs to him to the ends thereof; in particular he owns the mineral rights and the media of exchange, by controlling which he enjoys the willing cooperation of the military, ecclesiastical, and political establishments, and rules with magnificent uproar. He keeps everything under tight control, though, for all the blood and horror–nobody makes any trouble in his world from the rivers to the ends thereof. Well can he ask Adam, "What is it you want?" for he claims to be the God of this World, and the Lord himself grants him the title of Prince of this World. All who are not working for him on his estate he charges with trespassing, including even heavenly messengers, whom he accuses of spying out his vast property with an eye to taking over the whole of it. But he is willing to make a deal if they have money. To have merely sufficient for your needs, however, is not what he has in mind–that would be the equivalent of the free lunch, lamely ignoring the endless possibilities for acquiring power and gain that the place offers; this developer has a vision of unlimited sweep and power?"You can have anything in this world for money!" Beginning, of course, with lunch. Because money is the only thing that will get you lunch–and since everybody must have lunch, that is the secret of his control.

The second view, inspired by God, taught through Christ, says the garden is bountiful and lunch is provided:

So let us go across the road for an interview with the Other Employer. To our surprise, he answers our first question with an emphatic: "Forget about lunch! Don't even give it a thought!" "Take no thought of what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewith ye shall be clothed!" "But what will become of me then?" you ask. Not to worry, "We will preach the gospel to you, and then you will find out that lunch should be the least of your concerns."

3.       A Flash of Inspiration

After establishing the two employers—mammon, who says lunch is limited and we must fight for it, and Christ, who says the garden is full, come and partake of it—Nibley goes on to argue that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have a unique promise from God that binds Him to take care of our temporal needs if we, in exchange, do his spiritual work on earth.  Therefore, counter to logic, members of the church should pursue spiritual goals and leave temporal matters in the hands of God.  This view, of course, is supported well by Christ’s own words in the New Testament.

The Lord gave lunch to the people in the first place simply because they were hungry, they needed it, and he "was moved with compassion" (Matthew 14:14, 15:32). He both fed them and taught them, but the knowledge was worth far more than the food–he told them not to labor for that (John 6:27). When he miraculously produced the lunch, they wanted to accept him as their prophet and king (John 6:14–15), even as the Nephites, who when they had eaten and were filled all burst out in one joyful chorus of praise and thanksgiving (3 Nephi 20:9). Why the excitement? Hadn't they ever eaten dinner before? That had nothing to do with it; what thrilled them was seeing clearly and unmistakably the hand of the Giver, and knowing for themselves exactly where it all comes from and that it can never fail. Now if we ask, who at these love–feasts got the biggest share or ate the most? We at once betray the poverty and absurdity of our own precious work–ethic. Such questions would be nothing short of blasphemous to all present, as if one were to interrupt the ordinances and stop the feast by announcing: "Hold it right there, you people! Don't you know that there is no free lunch?"

The free lunch looms large in the Sermon on the Mount. First the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11); this comes with the understanding, expressed in the same sentence, that in return we are to show the same free and liberal spirit towards each other that he does to all of us: "And forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors." Next comes fasting, a most effective reminder of God's generosity to us and also of our complete dependence on him, a thing to be joyfully acknowledged (Matthew 6:16–18). Then an all–important principle; you cannot have it both ways, you cannot work for both employers, you cannot lay up treasures both on earth and in heaven–you cannot divide your heart between them; for to one master or the other you must give your whole and undivided devotion–both employers demand that, but only one of them can have it (Matthew 6:19–20). You must go one way or the other, there can be no compromise (Matthew 6:22–23). "No man can serve two masters": love and hate cannot be divided up between them, "ye cannot serve God and Mammon," mammon being to this day the regular Hebrew word for business, particularly money and banking (Matthew 6:24). You must not yield to the enticings of that other master, nor let his threat of "no lunch if you leave my employ" intimidate you–you must ignore him and his arguments completely: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet ... what ye shall put on" (Matthew 6:25). All such things are taken care of for God's creatures: "Behold the fowls of the air, ... your heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?" (Matthew 6:26). It was the practice in Sodom and Gomorrah, we are told, to rob all strangers of their money and then let them starve to death because they could not buy food; and the cities' inhabitants would put nets over their trees so that the birds would have no free lunch on their fruit. For Abraham, such meanness, as we have seen, was the last straw, and "he cursed them in the name of his God."

Having both been a recipient of much generosity in past from both my church and the federal government, and then in return having been a generous giver when my circumstances improved greatly when I taught on the Navajo Nation and was surrounded by those in need, I already believe fully in the principal of a free lunch.  My step-father’s mission was preaching in Canada “without purse or script,” which meant that for much of his two-year mission, he lived off the generosity of nonmembers as he preached the gospel.  Every day he and his companion would get up at whatever home they were staying at, have breakfast with the family and then travel the day, preaching, until they found a free bed and meal that night given through the generosity of others, many of whom were extremely poor.  Yet, my dad and his companion seldom went hungry.

Originally, I was going to make this response personal, directly to Irene.  But, I think I might have had a flash of inspiration.  It was short, nothing earth shattering.  Just a still, small voice: the laws of God apply to everyone. 

And so, here’s how I would part from Nibley.  I believe that based on our thoughts and deeds, free lunch is available to everyone.

There was a time in my life when I became very close to becoming homeless.  Without a second-chance offer from my parents, I’m sure that would have happened.  One night, I seriously considered taking my life.  Divine intervention saved me.

However, I was also not living right at the time.  I was drinking and spending money on books to avoid personal problems.  I was drawn to dark places.  Other than crossing the border illegally, I wasn’t living outside the law, but I was participating in every dark deed you can do within the legal limits of the law—which is quite the buffet of bad vibes.

That does not mean I think all destitute are there as a result of their own choices, just as Jews were not in concentration camps because of sins they personally committed.  The consequences of evil aren’t always self-induced.  Often they are induced by others.  Likewise the consequences of breaking the principle of the free-lunch are not always self-induced.  However, they are always a result of the laws of God being broken.  There has, and by design, always will be enough on earth to provide for everyone. Hunger is a man-made phenomenon.  It is not natural, and in a moral society, it must be eradicated for justice to exist.  That is why providing food and health care were central to Christ’s ministry on earth.  He gave us the perfect example on how to create a just society.  We are simply incredibly dull at applying his teachings because we still see justice as an eye for an eye, rather than as a vehicle for transformation.  We want to punish rather than enlighten.  Ultimately, we believe Satan’s message that there is only so much free lunch and only the worthy (biologically speaking or spiritually speaking—depending on your world-view) are invited to the table.  Those without must have done something to deserve their situation.  Christ’s view on the other hand is that no one is worthy—we all fall short—but lunch is provided anyway, providing we as individuals, as societies, as a world, are willing to live generously in return.

4.      The United States of America, 1930s-1960s:  An Example of a Free-Lunch Program on a Massive Scale

Lately, it has occurred to me that the phenomenal growth and power of the United States during the 20th Century (and the lack of that continued trend in the 21st Century) may be a perfect example of the free-lunch principle.

Is it possible the Great Depression is the direct result of our nation blatantly abandoning the principles Christ taught in the New Testament?  Everything that set up the conditions for collapse was rooted in greed of the 1920s:  the unequal distribution of wealth, stock market speculation, land speculation, and overworking the land.  And then everything that fueled the fall was rooted in the belief that lunch is limited:  panic and pulling funds out of the market, panic and pulling funds from banks, fleeing drought-stricken lands, and in the process vacating entire communities, entire counties, great regions of the plains.

And is it equally possible that the greatest boom in the history of this nation, which followed, occurred because we returned to those principles of Christ after being humbled?  First, not only did we not blame the victims of the Depression, we didn't even consider the price tag of relief.  We had faith that if as a nation we pulled together and provided assistance to those most in need, prosperity would follow.  Then when the tyranny arose in Europe, and it looked like the world would be consumed by evil, we pulled together again and were willing make huge sacrifices without a thought as to whether it was economically practical.  Individually, people were willing to ration gas, food, domestic life, and even their lives for the good of the world.  As a nation, we were willing to arm both free Europe and ourselves with no guarantee the enormous cost of war would ever be paid back.  And then after the war, not only were we willing to forgive our enemies, Germany and Japan, but we were willing to invest enormous amounts of money to rebuild them, turning former foes into strong allies.  And how did we do this?  No former economic model--other than that of Christ--suggested this policy.  Our hearts, soul and faith did.  Compassion, not intellect, drove our decisions and prosperity followed.

Where is that trust now?  Have we become such a cowardly nation that we don't believe we can absorb children fleeing poverty and brutality in Central America and give to them a new beginning with family members here in the states?  That shouldn't even come up for debate. 

If there is a God, and if Christ's teachings in the New Testament reflect God's law, it follows a nation that has to debate such matters is destined for a downward spiral until justice is dealt and humility received.  Oddly, it is often those who scream that we are a God-fearing nation the loudest who are in the iron-grip belief that lunch is limited and that the aged and poor can't be provided for without the economy faltering.  The God they believe in is as volatile as the paper they print their trust of him on.  Prosperity comes from openness, generosity and faith--not bowing and worshiping the idol of Capitalism.

5.      What Does Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Valentine for Ernest Mann” Have to Do with All This?

My ability to write poems increased greatly the day I realized that a poem isn't as much something that says something as it is a record of energy.  Most poems when paraphrased reduce to nil.  Try it.  Take your favorite Shakespearean sonnet, paraphrase it, and see what you're left with.  It won't be much.  Rather, it's how the ideas are linked, through images and by sounds that matters.  It's the journey you take to the last line.  But, it's not the idea contained in the last line that matters, but the intellectual distance traveled between the first line and last line.  In short, it's the journey that matters.

"Valentine for Ernest Mann" is a perfect example of this method of writing poetry.  Listen again.  Notice the leaps she makes, how she trusts that we will be able to follow, rhyming ideas through odd connections. 

And yet it works.  We get from "You can't order a poem like a taco" to "once I knew a man who gave his wife / two skunks for a valentine" and onward to...

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us

we find poems. Check your garage, the off sock

in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.

And let me know.

In fact, because of Nye's trust in her ability, and because the energy is right, we make the journey quite easily.  Had she set out to deliver the message in those last lines intellectually, the journey would be far less rich and meaningful.  The thesis statement would predict the arrival.  We'd end up where we knew we were headed all along.  In the process, we wouldn't be in tune with moment, the spectacular connections, twists and turns with each new image, each new vignette, that unfolds before our eyes.

When we put our faith in Christ.... When we believe that as long as we are willing to work, lunch is free... When we are willing to follow the spirit, take whatever lead it gives us... Then will each of our lives unfold like great poems, moment by moment, energy by energy, twisting and turning in miraculously rich ways until we come to an ending (here on earth, anyway) that says more than we ever could have created through a thesis-driven life, where you establish your dream early on and then sacrifice everything to arrive there, only to find out the dream wasn't near as meaningful as the rich and varied life you discarded for it.

6.      How do we individually apply the law of the free-lunch to our lives?

What I'm about to describe here is for me--my thoughts for myself shared with the world.  Intuitively, I know they work, but that doesn't mean I'm successful at applying them.  That's okay.  Life is as much about the journey as it is about the destination.  The only one I feel is required for the free lunch is the first.  You do have to be at least pointed in the right direction, have a committed heart, but everything else can fall into place naturally as one is ready for it.

1.  Decide which plan to follow.  Free lunch is a "thank-you" for having a deep reverence for life and a generous heart.  You cannot dabble in darkness and expect to receive light.  I know this too well from personal experience.  Neither can you hold onto your possessions, nor judge others.  You must be open.  If someone is in need--give.  Not for them, but for yourself.  It is impossible to receive the free-lunch while thinking "What's in it for me?"

2.  Be willing to work and live in the moment.  A poem unfolds one line at a time.  Some poems, like "Valentine for Ernest Mann," begin in the most concrete, pedestrian of places--

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.

Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”

--and then proceed to unfold like roses. 

Be willing to be wherever you're at fully now, but don't let the moment or place define you.    If you are currently living in a 1-room apartment and working at 7-11, live that life well.  Get to know your neighbors.  Talk to customers.  Help them out.  If you are shy, who cares?  Talk and help anyways.  Stumble.  Flounder.  Fall.  People don't mind it.  They actually like it.  It allows them to stumble, flounder and fall themselves.

3. Be receptive to energy.  Don't be prideful.  Allow others to help.  Accept help generously.  Once you are living fully in the moment, opportunities will open.  Some of those opportunities will be good for you.  Others will not.  There is opposition in all things.  Be weary of both the shiny platter and the sure dinner.  Satan trusts that deep down we believe lunch is limited and if we don't act now, we'll lose it; or that lunch is limited and if we act now, we'll lose everything.  Either way, he's got us.  He uses fear to steer us away from opportunity.  But, we can listen to the still, small voice instead and know the difference.

4.  Look for ways to use your talents.  God did not send us here to live lives we were not meant to live.  If crocheting is your gift, enrich the lives of others through that gift.  When possible, make a living out of your gifts, but also remember lunch is not life.  Your bread does not need to define your life.  If the rock band won't pay the bills, find something that will, but don't discard the rock band.  If music is what you love, then music is why you are here.  Play for money if you can; if not play for joy.  But play.  God does not want you to live practically.  He wants you live meaningfully.  Your talents are your unique way to touch the divine.  Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

5.  With every little opportunity that opens, be grateful and give.  Christ promises us lunch, not a buffet.  This will not necessarily lead to wealth or fame, but it will lead to happiness, which is what everyone really wants anyway.

Garden Reflection: Be Not Oblivious to Energy

"Be Not Oblivious to Energy" © Steve Brown, 2014

I’ve been thinking a lot about energy lately.  Perhaps I should start with a garden image.  Picture a slow, bubbling pool below dangling vines and flowers—how the last of the day’s sunlight is rippled and refracted, reflected flowers moving up and down across the waves fanning out in small metal bucket.

That is a type of energy.  A praying mantis makes its way awkwardly across a cement stepping stone until soft, natural ground cover is found.  This is another type of energy.

We tend to think energy doesn’t matter.  Light is energy.  Sound is energy.  Movement is energy.  Stillness is energy.  We are energy.

I’ve become more aware of energy.  For over a month an infection has been living, breathing, working inside me.  Nothing serious, but painful enough to sit down and listen to—often I bowed to its iron grasp.  It seems the antibiotics are finally getting the upper hand—and that too is energy.

We cannot control everything that moves inside us.  We probably should not even try.  A passing sadness may open a new window of understanding.  A moment of giddiness may allow someone into our life that was previously shut out by our walls of protection.

But neither should we be oblivious to energy.  We need not subject ourselves to harm mindlessly.  We do not dance in front of an x-ray machine at a disco just to show off what’s moving inside.

But I wonder if we sometimes don’t do just that—spiritually speaking.  Is what our spirit needs and what we are feeding it in line—or do we feed our spirits not only empty calories, but carcinogens?

When I was younger, I wanted to experience the world wide-open.  I was shy, quiet, guarded— but I put myself in different venues—from strip clubs to poetry readings, behind fast food counters to university classrooms, from the cardboard shanty towns on the outskirts of Juarez to the occasional weekend at a million dollar mansion.  I hoped being in the right place would somehow end my loneliness and isolation.  Perhaps a stripper would take a shine to me.  Perhaps a line of poetry would give me a glimpse into heaven.  Maybe I’d find God in the reflection of a hamburger spatula.

I was searching, but the thing is, I’d never spent enough time analyzing energy. 

It is out there:  dark, sticky.  It is out there: subtly sliding from silver to gray to blue and finally so black you find yourself walking around in your very own personal void.  It is also out there—yellow, gold, white.  It is out also out there--soft spoken, quiet, smiling understanding across the rippling waters of shadow and light that is the self.

The right energy can make a month of pain, not only endurable, but in an inexplicable way, peaceful, as one draws closer to his creator to cope with what otherwise would be unbearable.

But one must choose which energy to let in, which energy to walk away from.  It is a choice, but a choice that must be made.  You cannot subject yourself to darkness and come out unscathed.

Voices are all around.  Energy abounds.

Which of these will I allow to know me well tomorrow?

Temptations.  Fears.  Jealousies.  Doubts.  Humor.  Sympathy.  Divine love.

I hope I choose wisely.

Somebody stepped inside your soul
Somebody stepped inside your soul
Little by little they robbed and stole
Till someone else was in control

--Bono, U2

Intellectual Elitism: And We Wonder Why Our Kids Pick on the Kid with Down Syndrome

I just read the following picture posted on face-book.  I believe its creator, as well as the many people to post it, feels he/she is making a feminist statement.



Too me, it seems, not only are they passing along the age-old sexism by reducing women to simple terms--you're either sexy or intelligent, but not both--but they are also passing along what is perhaps the biggest prejudice of our times:  that somehow you are less human if you are less intelligent.

I work at a boys home that houses a wide variety of students from various social-economic, cultural and geographic backgrounds.  I currently have a twelfth-grade boy who writes academic papers at a college level and creative writing works at a masters level.  Often his reading of literary texts is more sophisticated than mine, and I have to struggle to follow his thoughts, not because they're not sound, but because he quite simply outsmarts me.

And yet, I have seen this same student take pride in being able to put down his peers.  He also came in a junkie and until quite recently everything he did was to seek affirmation of what a wonderful, gifted genius he is.

I have no doubt this student will succeed academically, socially and monetarily in this life.  But, if we can't help him, he will be deplorably unhappy and will make those around him just as unhappy.  He will have lots fans and few friends--not unlike many Hollywood movers and shakers.  In fact, I picture him as a quite successful screen writer strung out on heroin or cocaine.

I hope that doesn't turn out to be the case.  Wow!--is he fun to talk to.  He has great tastes in literature, in music, in art.  But as a person, at least for now, he doesn't really exist.  He lacks humanity, and for whatever reason, right now, is sort of a shell.  People are fluid.  Given the right settings, they can and do change.  So, with his mind, provided he finds God in the bedrock beneath crowded and clumped humanity rather than just more and more nada, he could have an amazing impact on humanity.

However, at the same time, I have a ninth-grade student, who functions intellectually between a first and second grade level.  Teaching him is not as fun.  Often, it's down right frustrating.  I explain the concepts in the simplest terms possible and still it confuses him.  And I'm a writer.  I may suck at everything else.  But one thing I'm good at is explaining.

And yet, he's got a huge heart and is very kind.  He is still a child, and probably always will be, so he is still the center of his universe and wants simple gratifications fulfilled--to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it--but, he would never intentionally hurt others feelings or put others down.  The reason he's in the home is fighting--violently acting out.  I have a good idea much of that rage comes from being teased, for feeling frustrated that he can't understand things like others do, for not being accepted.

How can kids be so cruel? we asks ourselves.  A better question would be, how could they not?  Watch television, read political commentary, follow facebook.   Everything about our society is about one-upping each other in intellect or achievement.  Our society thrives on depicting everyone else as dumb-asses.  Most of stand-up routines are centered, one way or another, around this.

For whatever reasons, my life has provided me with a wide variety of friends.  I know a few writers, artists and intellectuals.  I know many educators.  But, I also have several friends who are short-order cooks, waitresses, and factory workers.

And when it comes to humor--which to me, is one of the highest forms of intelligence--ability to identify injustices and express love and anger, I see very little difference between the college graduate with a masters degree and my friends who barely made it through high school.

In most cases, the more educated people, do lead happier, more productive lives.  But is this happiness due to intellect or just the cultural benefits of being smart in a society sick with intellectual elitism?

White males in the American South in the 1940's and 50's were more satisfied than their black counter parts, but not because they were biologically superior.  Society had selected "white' as a trait preferable to "black" and rewarded or abused individuals based on that criteria.

I wonder if we currently do the same based on education and perceived intellect.

I love to think.  My mind, my creativity, my ability to form thoughts--these give my life meaning. 

But none of that says anything about my worthiness as a human being.  No, that would be much better gaged by my ability to work with the special needs student without getting cross, without letting snide remarks shift my responsibility to educate onto another.

And to be honest, once in a while, I fail miserably at this. 

However, the real measure of a mind is compassion and patience, not I.Q. points, no matter what messages society puts forth.