Weaving Community Right Here and Now

Dear Friends, 

First, a true story that I heard recently from Michael Meade, an elder who teaches about many things related to culture and mentoring. 

Two young men, passionate environmentalist activists, had learned of a native elder who lived in their community. They wanted to visit him and learn from him, so they tried to contact him. He didn’t return phone calls, so after many months they asked a mutual friend to contact him on their behalf. The elder told the mutual friend to tell the young men that before he would visit with them, they first needed to learn to steward the earth’s resources that had already been sacrificed for them. For he had seen their cars, filthy and cluttered, and their home, unkempt and ignored. He sent the message that until they understood their responsibility for those pieces of earth, how could they be ready to save other pieces? 

This story got me thinking about the longing for community that is so often named in our society, and the many ways that people set out to find it. Yet it seems that sometimes in their pursuit of community people skip right over the most accessible and necessary parts, thinking they must do something grand like move to another town, take a course, or start an organization. 

Sure, any of these can be supportive to one seeking community. But what is the parallel here to the environmental activists’ need to first steward their car and home? What are the entry-level, easy, and essential first-steps toward creating the circle of community? What opportunities might we be missing each day? 

The list I’ve begun below looks a bit like what our grandparents might have called good manners. What they truly are is  the glue that holds us to each other. 

So here begins the list of what we can do. These things are just natural ways of humans and we’re doing them all of the time, yet it’s time to shine a light on them because in a society of busy-ness and productivity we run the risk of undervaluing what is simple, free, and always available. 

Very First Steps for Weaving Community Right Here and Now 

1. See People. When we pass anyone on the street, the mall, the coffeeshop, the bike trail, or any public place, we look at them. Greet them. Appreciate them. Even if they are looking at their device. Even if we know they will not seem notice us. Even if we are in a hurry. 

As we do this, we’re re-growing our awareness of what’s moving around us, so that when we are in a public space we’ll notice someone coming our way. Then, we look up so that we can receive or offer eye contact or greeting. We don’t pretend we’re invisible, because we’re not. Our presence is felt and we affect the space we’re in, so we choose to affect it with connection. Some of us remember that this is how it was even 10 years ago...people did not ignore the presence of someone else sharing their space, no matter whether they were friends or strangers. We can easily bring this back, and why wouldn’t we? For if we feel invisible, then we believe it doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do. But when we feel seen and know that we matter, then we have the makings for community. 

A special note about children, teens, and the elderly: Because of our media-driven society, these people have become invisible to many. So we watch out for that in ourselves and resist it. We take special care to acknowledge and befriend children, teens, and elders. It can be especially hard to connect with teens, who are so accustomed to only knowing adults as task masters and judges. We do it anyway. 

2. Learn people’s names. Including cashiers, taxi drivers, secretaries, bank tellers, wait staff, and anyone else. When we can, we learn last names too—for how otherwise will we be able to realize in a year or two that we’re meeting that person’s aunt or child? We learn where they came from too, if we can. That way, someday we could realize that we’re meeting their old neighbor from their hometown. For it is on these small bits of information that we can begin to ask and tell stories, to see how entangled we all are. Entanglement is community. 

Embarrassed to have to ask their name over and over? Me too. But never once have I seen that it actually offends the other person to be asked many times. They appreciate that who they are matters to me, and they give me a pass for not having a perfect memory. It gives them permission to not be perfect either. 

3. Show Gratitude. Everyday we speak the words ‘Thank you’ dozens of times: for someone who opens the door, steps aside, serves us food, and on and on. And it’s just one notch up in effort but oh so feeding of community when we write Thank-You notes and put them in the mail. Not only to our friends and family after holidays, but also to our librarian, our postal clerk, our convenience store clerk, our doctor. If you’ve ever received a thank-you card from someone who wasn’t required to write you, you know how it can change your day or your year. So we feed gratitude to the goodness that others bring, and know that we are feeding a fire that warms all. 

4. Pick up the phone or stop by unannounced. We rediscover spontaneous, unscheduled, informal connecting that is off-screen. There’s a huge difference. We try to do it once each week, or more! 

5. Ask for help when you need it. We all know how much we love to give, but we have to do our part in the equation by also being willing to ask for help. If everyone insists on being self-sufficient, how can we practice our human need to give? So we do our part by letting our own needs show. We let go of the notion that a grown-up would hire the solution for this or that rather than ask friends to help, for that notion is keeping us separate. 

6. Look for ways to give freely. Of course we people in this society need a certain amount of money to live, and of course we must to honor each other’s needs and passions by offering money in exchange for services. But while we are doing that, let’s look for as many ways as we can to simply give of our time and resources, asking nothing in return. We start by noticing all the ways we already do that, and give honor to those! 

7. Show Up. Whether we are a extroverts or introverts, old-timers or a youngsters,  contributors or  witnesses, our presence matters. When we’ve said we’d come and we just don’t show up, our community is diminished. Our absence is felt and noticed. So if circumstances keep us away, we give a call. But most often we just come, even if it’s not wholly convenient. We honor invitations by showing up when we said we would. For how can we be a community unless we each live as though we each mattered to the whole? 

8. Notice and value all of the small and simple ways we build relationships, and believe that they matter to the whole. Going on a walk together, helping out a friend or stranger, sharing a meal, stopping for a spontaneous conversation…these small-seeming things resonate forever in our lives and in the life of our community. By them our souls are forever intertwined, and although we can sometimes look back with amazement to see some specific fruit borne of such an interaction, that’s not the point. We know the moment as its own reward. 

We are always at church, and we are all the congregation as well as the pastors. There is no place but here, no time but now.  We can be forever and hopelessly entangled in community, just by starting here.  

Detention Deficit Disorder

Can't We Do Better? 

My encounter with the best and worst of humanity 

in a visit to the County Jail

The only thing that keeps my eyes open tonight is what I saw today at the Clayton County Jail when I took my Guatemalan friend Jose' to see his friend who is a prisoner there. Even if I had no hands with which to type, I would find a way to tell you this story before I sleep. 
 

Have you met Jose'? He is one of the 9 men who have lived in Decorah since November 2008, brought here by the US government after serving 6 months in as many as 16 different federal prisons following the raid on the Postville meatpacking plant. Jose' has a wife and 4 children at home in Guatemala with whom he speaks each week. They lost their home and land as a result of Jose' being in prison for 6 months; the 'coyote' (human trafficker) who had brought him across the border claimed those things when payments to him ceased. His oldest son, 13-year-old Jaime, died suddenly of unknown causes just 2 months after Jose' was brought to Decorah to serve this additional mandatory year away from his family. Anyone who knows Jose' loves him deeply. He is a devout Christian and practices the generosity, compassion, and faith of Christ throughout his days. You walk away from Jose' feeling in love with the world. You walk away from Jose' wondering if you could somehow be so loving, sure, and humble as he.

Today I called Jose' to ask if he wanted to go on a house tour with me. Jose' is a carpenter and has shown curiosity about our home: the solar panels, the corner cupboard, the wooden ceiling. He says he’s collecting ideas to use back in Guatemala, when he next has a chance to work on the house of some Americans there. I had the idea to take him and a camera around to my friends’ houses, and today looked like the right day for it.

Jose' politely declined. He explained that he had a friend in jail with whom he still had not been able to communicate, and he needed to go visit him.

Of course. I knew about this friend; Jose' had asked me 3 weeks ago to take him to there. I had been unavailable the day he asked, and then had forgotten all about it. I’m going to be honest with you the whole time I write this story: my selfish thought after being reminded about this need of his and the long drive to Elkader was “Darn! I don’t want to drive there! I want to take him on pleasant visits to my friends’ homes!“

But of course I offered to take him there, even as I hoped that he already had another way. I knew from earlier inquiries I’d made to the jail that Jose', as a “convicted felon,” would not be allowed under any circumstances to visit with a prisoner. (All of the people taken in the Postville raid were given that conviction in the mass and fast-track trials. As of May 2009 the supreme court has ruled that it was unconstitutional to convict someone of identity theft unless you can prove that they knowingly used someone else’s social security number, but still those 389 people live as convicted felons.) I knew that he would need someone who was a US citizen to go with him and talk to his friend on his behalf. Someone who spoke Spanish. I’m not the only person that knows Jose' who fits this description, but I was the one on the phone with him, and I saw what I needed to do.

I offered to take him, and he gratefully accepted. I hung up feeling slightly sorry for myself, but also glad for any chance to be around Jose'. The prisoner in the Clayton County Jail might as well have been invisible; I didn’t even have a passing thought of curiosity about him. It was for Jose' that I would go to Elkader.

So today was Saturday, and I was to pick Jose' up at 1:00 for the 50 minute drive to the detention center. Visitation hours at the jail are Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:30-3:30. That’s all. 15 minute phone visits are allowed, with a thick piece of plexiglass between the prisoner and the visitor, allowing for viewing but not touching. Earlier in the day, I had called the jail to double-check that the friend was still there, and they told me that he wasn’t.

Why is it that so many of the people that work in detention centers fit the stereotype for jailers? With apologies to those jailers out there who surely do much better than this, I will tell you that those I’ve experienced are horrifically infatuated with their power over others. They are cruel and cold. Even on the phone, talking to me - in good old English! - they seem to do their utmost to not help, to not allow me to feel like a capable and worthy human being. They act as though I had done something wrong. I can only imagine how they treat the prisoners. When the jailer told me that Jose'’s friend was not there, I asked how I could find out to where he had been moved. She said I couldn’t. I asked again - surely there’s got to be a way to find someone in the prison system, I said. “Wait until he calls you - then he can tell you where he is,” said she. But he has no money, so he can’t make calls! “I can’t help you, she replied.

It is easy to be lost in the US prison system. We have no idea how many are lost there now.

Since we no longer had a destination, I didn’t fret when my translating appointment from the morning bled over to 2:00 in the afternoon. I knew that I would go to Jose' and give him the bad news, and then we would make a plan to start trying to figure out where the friend was. In the cases of many others prisoners, being transferred has meant being taken far away - 3 hours or much more. I hoped we wouldn’t find this to be the case for Jose'’s friend.

At 2:15 I arrived and told him the bad news. He was surprised, and didn’t seem to believe it. We talked some, and I started to second-guess myself. The truth is, though I’ve lived in NE Iowa for 29 years, I don’t get out of Decorah much. I have never been to most of the towns around here, and have never gotten straight which one is in which county, nor where Fayette, Clayton, and Chickasaw counties lie in relation to Winneshiek and Allamakee. The ironic aspect of all that is, it is only since the raid and since I’ve become friends with a number of Guatemalans and Mexicans that I’ve started to finally become familiar with these other towns! All of a sudden there’s a reason to know where Monona lies in relation to Postville, and how far it is from West Union to Fayette. And it matters what town a person is arrested in, for unless its a federal raid, the arrestee will land in the jail of the county within which that town lies. And believe me, if you have friends from Guatemala or Mexico, and it’s the early part of the 21st Century and you’re in America, then you know people who are in prisons and jails. The immigrants are involuntarily contributing to a healthy bottom line for the prison system.

I borrowed Jose'’s phone and started another round of calls to county jails in all these counties, and soon learned that my geographic confusion had indeed goofed me up: I had called the Fayette County jail, but he had been arrested in Monona which is near Fayette but in Clayton County.

By the time I got this sorted out it was 2:30. I asked the jailer on the phone whether we would be allowed to visit just past the 3:30 end time, since we were coming from Decorah and might not get there until 3:30. I received and unequivocal NO. Not one minute past 3:30. Rules are rules.

I hung up and sadly told Jose' that I had goofed, and that his friend IS where Jose' thought, but that now it was too late to get there in time. I told him we’d have to wait until next Saturday (and, I realized, I would be out of town next Saturday, so I would need to help him find another helper). I waited for his response.

He seemed to not understand what I had said. His eyes and his body seemed to be saying “let’s get on the road!” I explained again that we wouldn’t be allowed in after hours, and it would be impossible to find our way there before 3:30. “Unless...,” his eyes somehow caused me to mumble, “...unless you think we can still make it...do you want to try?”

Yes, he did, and so we took off! I knew it was hopeless, but I was willing to do this to show Jose' that I cared about him and also as a weird apology for having goofed up my geography. I drove fast, but I didn’t take any chances passing slow drivers on the narrow county roads. We had a nice chat - about his family, about work, stuff like that. As we approached the jail I asked him what he wanted me to ask his friend. He wanted me to ask him how long he expects to be in; whether they’ve set a court date for him; how we can get him some money; how we could get him a phone card; and to give him these phone numbers so he can call me and a few others once we get him some money.

(Did you know that unless you have money, you can’t call a soul from any county, state, or federal prison? This means that many, many people are lost in the system with no ability to speak with a loved one).

Luckily Jose' knew the way. He had been there once before and remembered the winding way. Why did I imagine it would be in a town, in plain sight? It was hidden away among the cornfields, and Jose' told me that most of them are like this. As we turned into the driveway, I checked the clock: 3:27. By the time we entered the door it would be 3:28. Two minutes until closing time. Though I had come without hope of accomplishing our goal, all of a sudden I chose to do everything I could to make it happen.

We pulled on the door - - locked. We pulled again. We stood there, waiting for it to open. Unbelievably, we expected it to open. But instead a voice came from a speaker, asking what we wanted. I said we had come to visit a prisoner. The voice said the visitation hours were over. Case closed. I said I thought they went to 3:30, and it was only 3:27. I said that we had come from Decorah, and I would take even just those 3 minutes with the prisoner. And then the jailer-woman did something she is probably regretting right now: she let us in. She broke her rules. Who caused her to do it - me, or Jose'? Together we were a force. I feel sure she has never done it before, nor will she do it again. She made sure we knew that we were wrong and late and bad. “I don’t care if you come from Arkansas to see him, you’re not getting in late again.” She was hard and cold.

So Jose' was right. He knew we would make it just in time. Or maybe he didn’t know that, exactly; maybe what he knew was that he had to try, and if he tried then God would see what could be done to help.

They ran my ID through a high-tech machine, and found me to be worthy of entering. (“Does it say that I was incarcerated in the ‘80s for civil disobedience?”, I wanted to ask.) She told me to step over to the second window. I was surprised! How could I have been so naive as to think that there would be a private-seeming conversation, even if it were being secretly listened to by the jailers? But no, there are three little visitation windows, so close together that I imagine it would be hard to hear one’s own loved one through the receiver of the phone if others were also visiting just 2 feet away. And it’s right there in the lobby, where anyone would hear the whole conversation. Not to mention the fact that it’s probably recorded...

I stood there waiting, concerned whether I would be able to remember all my jobs and get them done in the 2 minutes I would have. By now I could see that Jose' was in the siteline of his friend, as there was only 25 feet, plexiglass, and me between them. I wanted to stay out of the way enough to allow them to see each other, and also to convey Jose's concern as well as his questions, and to try to repeat the friend’s answers so Jose' could hear them, and to remember all the answers correctly to report later, and to allow space and time for the friend to convey what he had to say. There was no time or space for butterflies in the tummy. Time to try, that was all.

The prisoner came toward me in his orange and white striped uniform. I have saved his name to tell you now, for it was at this moment of course that he became a real person, a real person that really mattered, someone more than just “Jose'’s friend.” His name is Davi Lopez Chala. An American first name, a second name from Spain, and a last name from his Mayan ancestors. Davi Lopez Chala. Say “Cha-la.” Then say a prayer for him.

He approached, and I swear to you it was as though Jesus himself approached. The look on his face was peaceful, and joyful, and loving. I soon realized that his gaze was fixed behind me, at Jose' who now stood gazing back, with the same joy-and-love looks. This lasted just a moment, and then Davi brought that gaze down to me. I took in all that kindness and appreciation that Davi was sending to Jose'; he treated me like the trusted childhood friend that Jose' is, and I easily returned the connection.

Though I had all those assignments in my head, I also had my manners and my heart with me, and so the first words that came out of my mouth were “How are you, friend?”

His answer was this. His hands and arms made signs of struggle and trouble, and his words did the same. He spoke briefly and quietly about how hard it was; about how he was treated, how nobody would tell him anything about what was happening to him...he mumbled these things quickly, but I had to blink to believe what I heard, because to look at his face, one would think he was gazing at his newborn babe, or some other miracle of God. He radiated peace. His words spoke of struggle, but his face spoke of light and hope.

I want to understand the look in Davi’s eyes. Would I have to be a Guatemalan in order to understand all the layers? If your family and all the generations as far back as anyone remembers have suffered endlessly, are you left with only the options of serenity or self-destruction? Is it a cultural history that brings out that look, that seems to say “I know I am not alone, that God is with me. I cannot hide my suffering, and I don’t need to hide it nor explain it to you, for I know that you too are part of the secret of God’s love.” ? You could also wonder if it’s a half-crazed look, which would be understandable. Whatever it is, you cannot feel separate from other human beings, or, if you are a god-speaking person, from God, when you are in the presence of such a gaze.

I cruised through the other questions and reported the answers loudly into the lobby for Jose'. Another jailer had walked through behind me, and, observing Jose'’s non-verbal interaction with the prisoner, said loudly in English to him that he was not allowed to communicate with the prisoner - but she didn’t stay to watch over him, so the only thing that changed was was that Jose' sat down. He still gave his whole being into Davi’s sight, twisting in his chair to face the window fully and offer gestures of support. Though I couldn’t see it with my eyes, I was aware that there was this heart-communication going on between them as Davi and I spoke.

I unfolded the torn paper on which Jose' had written three phone numbers: his own, and those of two friends in Guatemala. I faced it toward Davi and asked if he had paper and pen. He glanced to either side and said that no, he couldn’t write them down. I felt helpless there, lamely holding in front of me this small but essential piece of information that Jose' wanted to convey. It should have been a simple thing to do, but it would be impossible here and now. For lack of a paper and pencil, but what’s more, for lack of seconds and of the right to ask for what one needed, that part of my job would be left undone. Really, how much did it matter at this point? - for Davi had no way to make calls anyway.

He said that there was another Latino in the jail, the only other person who spoke Spanish. He was from Mexico. He expected to be let out soon, and told Davi that when he got out he would find a lawyer to help Davi. I know about these kinds of stories and intentions; they are good and important, and as often as not they don’t come to much, but you never know what those seeds of hope might bring about instead.

He said that there was one jailer who was kind to him, a woman.

The harsh jailer who had somehow found it in her to let us in stood just a few feet away having a loud conversation though a speaker with one of her co-jailers. To hear Davi through the telephone receiver over her voice, I needed to press my ear into the plastic and I needed to ignore the irritated voice in my head that was noting this, another behavior that seemed designed to take away power and dignity from a prisoner and anyone who cares about one.

Maybe I attracted her attention by thinking bad thoughts about her. She turned and said that time was up. We had talked for approximately 6 minutes. We hurriedly finished our sentences, stood and said goodbye. We took the extra second for a silent sending of love. As I turned toward Jose' to take our leave, I caught the quick gesture Davi sent out to him across the space of the lobby: looking right into Jose'’s eyes with that serene gaze, he pounded twice on his heart with his right fist, then held his two fists together in front of his heart, as though he were holding a branch--and then he broke it. A broken heart. Friend, my heart is breaking.

And then, as I continued that turn away from his broken heart, in the same second I caught a glimpse of Jose', standing straight and looking directly back at Davi: he, too, with serenity and surety in his whole countenance, and his palms together in the form of a prayer, and then lifted up high to God. His fist on his heart, and then the prayer again.

In two seconds it was all over. I had seen this private moment between two life-long friends. One has already known the loneliness and sadness of 6 months in jail, and much more. One is just at the beginning. They are one. What more can we have than this, and our faith in whatever we have faith in?

Before I could even take one more step toward the door the cries ripped through me, bursting out of my mouth with such force than I could not stop them. I heard them and willed myself to stop, but it didn’t happen right away. I desperately did not want this to become a spectacle of me, but the things I had seen and heard, both beautiful and evil, hopeful and hateful, were now over the top. Jose' and I turned toward the door, he dignified in his quiet power and I taking in the last glances at sights and sounds of that terrible place: the plastic window, now vacant; a prisoner in her orange and white stripes, now being led through the inner door; the jailer, who heard my cries and thought - what did she think? Does she hear such cries of anguish all the time? -and Jose'’s kind gesture of consolation as he put an arm around me. I didn’t want to need consoling, by anyone and not by someone who has suffered as Jose' has - but this is the way things go, isn’t it? He is older and wiser than I. We both have our roles to play.

Long ago, I spent 5 days in an Iowa county jail. I had participated in civil disobedience and had a choice to pay my way out of my sentence with $50 or spend 5 days in jail. The choice might seem obvious, unless you are single and childless and wanting to understand more about the underbelly of the world, as I was. And so, though my experience of the jail was utterly distinct from those of Davi and Jose' and all the rest who have no choice and no exit date and precious few people to advocate for them from the outside, I do know a little about how it feels to watch human beings try to strip away other people’s humanity. I do know a little about windowless rooms, and days that start and end in utter sameless, boredom, and tedium. But this was altogether different. This left me feeling socked in the heart, out-of-breath.

Two minutes later it was all over. Jose' and I got into the car and drove toward Postville, where he bought me a coconut drink that is a favorite around there. Driving on toward Decorah,he told me more stories about himself and Davi, and more stories about how one is treated in a jail or prison. “...like a little animal, not a person.” He talked again about his faith in Beautiful God (Diosito Lindo), and how he would not be alive today were it not for all the gifts of God. He believes - because he’s seen it proven true again and again - that when things can’t get any worse, Diosito Lindo will bring something to help you through. He counts his being able to live among and get to know the Gringos of Decorah among one of those gifts.

Of Davi he said: “Davi had a very good job with a local tradesman. He had been taught the trade by the owner of the company, and he was well-liked there. But then everything changed, as it always will for an undocumented worker. One day you’re free and making it, the next day you’re a prisoner or deported. All the days in between, you try to not live in fear of whether this is the day when everything will change.”

“Davi helped me to get to the US - he had already been here for 2 years, and he helped me find a coyote to get me across. When I arrived in Postville, he bought me clothes and food and helped me to find a place to live. When I couldn’t work at ArgiProcessors anymore because my body was in too much pain from working 14+ hour days in the cold of the kill room, he found me a job with him. Eventually I had to go back to Agri because there wasn’t enough work there. He has helped so many people in this way, but no one is reaching back to help him now in his time of need. He is a good person, and a “paizano” - a countryman. I will do whatever I can to help him, until the end. “

Back in Decorah, I invited Jose' to come with me to Matt and Randi’s where we could use the internet and phone to find out how to send Davi a phone card and money. The house was empty; we helped ourselves to some trail mix from the kitchen table and started in. There’s a company called Reliance Telephone through which you can buy minutes for people in the prison system. After many phone calls to customer service, entering my credit card, and printing off the right documents, we had the PIN number for Davi’s electronic phone card. The only way to get him the PIN and the instructions for using it was to send him a letter, so I found some paper and Jose' set about that task. I went looking for an envelope, and not finding one in the house went to neighbors’ houses. I finally found one at the Taxi garage. An hour later we were stamping the envelope and then walked it down to the post office. For me, getting that done was the perfect antidote for the poisonous sadness that had landed since Davi became a real person to me, and since I got a taste of the Clayton County Jail.

We parted at the corner, where he would walk home and I back to Matt and Randi’s to gather my things. He opened his wallet and took out $20 to give me, the amount we had started the Reliance account with. I looked around in my mind for a second wondering what would be more polite, to accept it or not. I accepted it. Then he took out more, for gas; I turned that down. He thanked me deeply and eloquently for the many hours we’d spent that day, and again told me that God would thank me too.

God thanks me every day, and gives me more chances to learn from the beautiful people that are our new neighbors. And God, in the form of Davi and Jose', asks that we not allow people to become lost and forgotten in our jails.

I am truly amazed that we got to see Davi, against so many odds. Did Jose' know it would work out? Of course not - he just knew that we ought to try, that he wanted to try. Did I want to try? No, not really. The fact is, almost every time I receive a call or request to help one of the immigrants, it is inconvenient and I sometimes wish I hadn’t picked up the phone. Doesn’t everyone experience that? -that even for things you know you want to do and also should do, sometimes you wish you be the one to choose when and how? But it doesn't work that way.

I’ve had enough chances now to learn the truth: when I spend time with these people, I always come home richer. There’s nothing better than to keep answering the phone, and keep writing down whatever I can.

                                 **************************************

I am an average Iowa citizen. Middle class, partial college education, business professional for 25 years, now self-employed. Married, mother of two.

Why then do I keep handy a list of the names, addresses, phone numbers, and visitation hours of many county jails in our region? I do not work in the criminal justice system. I am not a prison minister.

It’s because the world has changed since you last looked. If you ever thought that the only people who served time in jail were criminals, you were always wrong and you are even more wrong now. If you ever thought that the only people who served time in county jails were people who have been convicted of a crime, you are so wrong. They wait and wait and wait for their court date, and then often they go back and wait more months.

You just might want to start noting the names, addresses, phone numbers, and visitation hours of regional jails, because if we can lock up immigrants for months to years over unproven crimes, then it is not long before it will be done to someone we know and love.

Maybe you already know that most of these Hispanic immigrants have done nothing wrong, that they have done nothing that our immigration and economic policies have not encouraged and depended on. Maybe you already know that the US prison system locks up more people per capita than any other nation on earth. Did you also know that, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service, over the past 30 years the federal prison population has increased by nearly 790 percent? Today we imprison some 716 people out of every 100,000.

Someday soon you too may have to learn the complicated way to send minutes to an inmate so that they can make collect calls to you, or so that they can buy some supplementary food for the meager rations given them. Someday you will find out what it means to drive hours to spend the allotted 15 minutes with your loved one, looking through a plexiglass, talking into a phone receiver. Someday you will look into his or face and know the effects of months without seeing or feeling the sun.

Someday you may have to learn all of this, and maybe it will be then that you will ask for prison reform. But it may be too late. The new jails will be built, and they will need to be filled. It’s the bottom line. Business is business, and this is the USA.

Let Them Play

I want to ask you to consider doing something radical. It’s something specific. It’s kind of hard, but not so very hard. You can only do it if you are an adult. If you can pull it off, you’ll have a profound effect on many people. 

Remember the times when you were young and your family went to the home of another family to share a meal? Remember how you and the other children dutifully sat at the table only as long as you were required, and when finally dismissed you burst away to play? 

Maybe you went upstairs, downstairs, or outside – anywhere that you could play alone together. What did you do? Maybe you played dress-up, hide-and-seek, kick-the-can, soccer or baseball. Maybe you drew pictures, or romped in the snow or water. You laughed and you no doubt got into arguments. You gathered bouquets and ladybugs, maybe dug up clay and made pots. You showed each other secret places and cool stuff in the house. You looked at books and played board games, you brushed each other’s hair. Sometimes you might have done naughty things: pour paints into the wagon to make soup, open all the band-aids. You lost track of time, you sunk your self into life, and you played. 

 

Now consider what happens these days when you get together in groups with other people. What do the kids most always do? They sit in front of a screen. No matter how you cut it, this is not play. Those children are being robbed of their playtime by the adults who allow and even encourage it.

Oh yes, you may feel that the screen time you grant them is only for special material that you or friends have selected with care. It might be non-violent, or a goofy favorite from your own childhood, or a Disney movie, which somehow is always accepted as fine fare for young minds. It might even be a fascinating documentary; for we consider ourselves smart and cool, and we fancy that the movies we choose are good for the kids, distinct from the trash that others might show. 

You already know that there’s a world of difference between kids playing together and kids sitting passively (or even actively, as in the case of video games) in front of a screen. You already know that kids’ time to play together is essential for their development into mature and whole adults. So guard it! Protect the children’s time to play together. They can’t do it for themselves. You can’t do it yesterday or tomorrow – you have to do it now. If you wait until tomorrow, you’ll see how quickly that turns into never, how all of a sudden the children are grown and you’ve lost your chance to give them time to play together. 

Do you think it’s already too late—that they already have lost the imagination and creativity that is inherent in all children? Trust them. Give them time and space. Whether you are a parent or another adult friend of children, you can use your power for good: wherever children come together, say “no” to technology of all kinds. Watch out—now that they’re used to it, they might try to talk you into a movie as a reward for spending an hour not watching a movie! For all too quickly they have become skilled at negotiating for this vice that they now feel is their birthright. 

We didn’t mean to do this. All of this technology is still very new, and we are just beginning to learn how to use it without letting it use us. We will make mistakes. We will forgive ourselves and start anew.

Children need to live out their wholeness in order to believe in it. They need to discover that they can entertain themselves, that they can communicate and play with their friends. While they’re at it they will build happy memories of a place and people, and then take their turn at protecting and preserving it. This is part of our ancestral tradition of raising community-builders and caring citizens. 

Some generation of adults is going to have to reclaim and protect children’s playtime, and I propose it be yours. See if you can get a clean start in your circle of friends by beginning now with a collective ban on electronic entertainment where children are gathered. Remove it from your group culture. Start with your own home. Be brave. Know that your radical action is part of the preservation of the best of human possibility: to create, to relate, to cooperate, to imagine. To play.

Giant Puffball Day

Liz Rog, Decorah, Iowa

September 24, 2012

It's a mighty good year for puffball mushrooms. Anywhere you go, in the woods or a yard, you are likely to catch a glimpse of a big white volleyball that someone seems to have left outside to ruin. Suddenly you realize that once again you've been tricked by a puffball. All about town there is puffball talk, puffball happiness, puffball advice. Kids point them out to adults, adults tell puffball stories to kids. I have my own puffball story to tell.

My friend Elyse's parents called me the other day to say that they had a mushroom in their back yard and to ask did I want it. This fall our household has already been very well puff-balled. A few days ago Daniel and I even had a disagreement about how much puffball I was drying for winter—imagine it! An argument about the gentle and peaceful puffball!—but since these folks had so kindly called me about their mushroom, I wanted to at least stop by to acknowledge their puffball and thank them for the call.

When I arrived and they pointed through the picture window at the white ball out in their back yard, I squinted and cocked my head, confused...it looked very odd there, in the middle of a mowed lawn, and I couldn't quite get my bearings. Could it be that it was—quite large? Extremely large?

I walked out and beheld the mushroom. As I approached, my step slowed, in awe and humility here before what I now could see was a truly god-sized mushroom, poofing out of the earth like a giant's silky white meringue. I stopped there, feeling called to kneel in reverence. And then my heart jumped up and down inside my happy chest as I pointed, laughed, circled around, and sent out gratitude to the mystery and grace of the world. From that very beginning I felt her aliveness and she became She.

Imagine picking up a mushroom that weighs much more than a newborn baby, round and smooth, 4 feet in circumference. When I gently twisted out of the ground and lifted her to my bosom, I felt my being swell with the honor of her presence. I cradled her and was cradled in the arms of this mystery. This most wild being, born of invisible spores, had somehow managed in the face of drought and backyard mowing not only to grow but to flourish. Fate had then beckoned me there, and so I was given the glad responsibility of going forth with the puffball. I was aware of the temporal nature of this gift—for within a few days she would be shape-changing again. 

I loaded her into the front seat of the car, showing her to some neighbors on the way. Back home I showed her to more neighbors and took many photos so we could share the memory with others, but photography was not feeling at all like an adequate way to share this wonder. You need to smell it, touch it, feel its weight, see its white silkiness, its leathery elephant-skin, its bulbous moonlike craters. So I sent an email invitation to about 110 people, inviting them to a Giant Puffball Party the next night, where they could come see and then eat the biggest one ever seen by anyone I knew. I would also serve kale salad, corn bread, rice and pesto, calendula cookies, and fresh mint water.

I did not tell them, for I did not yet know, that we would also create a celebratory ritual for the mushroom-being. For, good ideas don't always come to us all in one rush; sometimes we start with a simple one, like inviting people to eat together. It's after that that we're  sometimes inspired by that primal part of us that loves to play and to pray, and if we're paying attention we can find ourselves cooking up ideas of which mushrooms, people, and the very cosmos might love to be part.
 

Night came and went. I arose with a plan for the day's chores and started in on it all. The mushroom sat on the counter, in no hurry for the evening's festivities. Meanwhile there were walnuts to dry, tomatoes to pick, lunch to make, letters to write. The puffball-being kept distracting, calling me to her...I found myself stacking a smaller puffball on top of the giant one, and then She became Sheila! You haven't even seen her womanly shape yet: those two bulbous forms that are both her buttocks and her breasts. They are whiter than any human, which makes them both ghostly and angel-like; ethereal, fleeting. I dressed her in scarves and hats. I changed her to a railroad engineer, with a striped hat and a red bandana.

Was it the descendent of the Saami and of my mushroom-foraging Polish grandmother in me that wanted to embrace this puffball so? Was it the mysterious way in which mushrooms connect and remember, reminding this mother of beloved daughters who are on journeys of discovery far from home that we are always connected? Was it the coming Crone in me that loved to celebrate her aging buttocks?

It began to feel odd, playing this way alone (I know you already thought that). How could I share this with others? (And was it the daughter of the park and recreation daughter in me that had to share this play with others?) I gladly abandoned my original plans for the day and turned my attention toward town, where I knew I could find people who would enjoy her. Then thump, thump went my happy heart: this is what I was born for. To give up reasonable plans in favor of tending to my soul and the soul of the world through making connections with a humble and glorious messenger of earth.

I called the middle school to see if a teacher there would like show the mushroom to her class. Yes. I called the newspaper to see if they'd like to take a photo of a sporific entity. Yes. I wrote an email to my group list of 100+ local outdoors people, to tell them the mushroom would be on display at the co-op in the afternoon. I re-invited them all to dinner. Then I was off to town!

All through the halls of the middle school heads turned and smiles erupted as kids and adults beheld the puffball. When the elevator door opened to take me to the second floor, a student in a wheelchair and two teachers looked out at us, first in shock and then in glee. It turns out, carrying around a mushroom is very much like holding a baby, or a ukulele—it is almost impossible for passers-by to not be glad.

Before entering Mrs. Nowak's classroom I set the giant puffball outside the door, with a plan to present it with fanfare in a few minutes. I entered and waited for my turn. A student returning from the bathroom entered after I did and raised his hand with great intensity, insisting that he had something to say to the teacher. “Teacher teacher!,” he announced, pointing at the door with excitement and some trepidation, “There's something....I don't know what it is!....outside....it's big...”

Mrs. Nowak and I exchanged glances, and she assured him it was nothing to worry about, that he would learn soon enough what it was.

I had 3 minutes to make a show of her. I first presented the smaller, every-day sized fall puffball. Then I asked the students for a desk drumroll as I went out the door and fetched the motherlode.....Ta-da!... and then stacked the smaller on top of her, plopped on the railroad hat, tied the red bandana around her neck, and there she was. I did not turn her around to show the back, no I certainly didn't. The students were excited just as kids should be, and for days afterward on the street I was approached by kids and parents who had been part of or heard about those 3 minutes!

When we arrived at the co-op, Pastor Mau sitting there in the deli eating lunch saw the mushroom-woman and helped me to realize that I was presenting the least interesting side of her head—that the smooth round side could be turned in favor of the bubbly side. It looked wrong to me at first, because I was seeing her as related to a snowperson, which I pride myself in making smooth like my daddy taught me. We have a special Polish snow-smoothing technique which I'd be glad to show you. But indeed the other side of her head had a nose of sorts, adequately whimsical and imperfect. Leave it to a spiritual seeker like a pastor to come up with the idea of showing our supposedly imperfect side and calling it just-right.

I didn't intend to stand right next to her the whole time at the co-op, but if you brought your favorite great aunt into a room full of strangers, would you leave her alone to meet everyone? No. That's how I felt, and so I stayed where she was, introducing her, telling what I knew of her story. I felt I was introducing the Queen of the Autumn. I felt 2012 becoming rock-solid the Year of the Puffball. I felt love for my community, who had the eyes to see this simple beauty. Many people had puffball stories to tell. I learned from Brett Mumford that in his experience it is impossible to get dried puffball to accept moisture again, which if it is true would mean Daniel definitely was right the other day about not drying so much. I learned from Jana Klosterboer the method for freezing: fry it up first, and when you take it out to use it, add it right to your dish (don't defrost first) and also it doesn't last longer than a few months in the freezer. Many photos were taken on cellphones, some of which came to my email and others which I saw on Facebook the next day. Julie Berg-Raymond came from the newspaper and took a photo. I invited each person to that evening's puffball dinner. Then I scurried out the door to get ready for the night.

But you don't get out of our town that easily—especially if you've lived here for 32 years as I have and most especially if you are carrying around a giant mushroom. On the way to the car I saw my friend Amy Weldon standing outside the yoga studio in the perfect late-afternoon sun, waiting for yoga class with a smile on her always-radiant face. I was drawn away from my path and toward her, and as I approached it just so happened that the rest of her yoga class was also arriving from all directions, and so there we had a grand introduction in front of the studio. Was it the evening sun, or the all-woman assembly, or their yogic natures? It was brief and big: there was much joy in the air there! 

 

I needed to buy gas for the car and stopped at my favorite gas station, Bob's Standard. Dan and Jeff were in there working, so I ran the puffball in to see them—and oh good, there were a few other customers standing around the counter chatting too, so 4 more people got to see her. Little did I know, on my way in that door someone near the pumps had spotted me and my load, and now came to ask me to come show whatever this thing was to her van full of sisters. Oh yes sister would I!!! Thus began a timeless moment for learning about each other, puffball talk, and family photos taken with me and the mushroom. These women were from all over the country, visiting Decorah for a sister-reunion. Their beautiful, quiet, elderly mother was there too, and I later regretted not having taken the puffball right to her door so she could touch it. Much happiness in that meeting, the stuff world peace is made of.

Finally, home. First things first! Since there would be an unveiling during the ritual, I needed to get her covered before anyone arrived. I put a nail in the ceiling, hung a hanger from that, and a large Indian print from that. The puffball sat on a high stand, an old green wire basket from the Decorah swimming pool in the 50s, inverted with a blue and white gingham checked cloth over it. Underneath the huge hanging veil, she was in her railroad gear.

A small group gathered. Luckily I've been around enough to know that even if you invite a hundred people to what might seem like an irresistibly cool event, you shouldn't expect a lot to make it because if you do you're likely to be disappointed. People are busy and all. Call whatever comes perfect. And so indeed, the perfect number did come—we were 8 of us in all. Jason, Rowan and Saer, Hannah B, Ellen, John S, Daniel, and me. Thank goodness there were two children—for what is what we do worth, if the children aren't there to witness it?

As we waited for the last folks to arrive, we cooked: we chopped huge amounts of garlic for the Puffball, ginger for the kale. Cookies were served pre-dinner, in service to a promise I made when I was a child to the children of the future. Jason opened a big box of wine.

And then the ritual began. It was at once playful and serious. Holy and lowly. We gathered around the kitchen island, with the shrouded puffball in the center.

I named the purpose for our coming together: to offer gratitude to this giant mystery of nature that had been given us. To celebrate the simple beauty of the autumn, and our place in it. I thanked Nancy and Art Cohrs for giving it to us.

We slowly circled around the island holding hands as we sang in a round, to the tune of 'Hey ho, anybody home'

Sisters, brothers, take your time, go slowly

Listen very carefully: simple things are holy...

Then we sang “O male/O le-mama”, a call-and response song from Africa that is mother earth flirting with the humans. Our puffball was quite the flirt! As we got going on this, the unveiling began—and behold, there she was in all her glory. Hoorah and bravo! How lovely! What joy!

I asked John Snyder to read some words he recently wrote down for us, representing his spiritual practice---'Hello,'

hello sky/hello cloud/hello tear/hello fear/hello birds/hello dear/hello heartache/hello thought/hello valley/hello horses/hello clover/hello my love/hello hello

And then we made a poem like that for the mushroom and the autumn, going around the circle 3 times to give each person chances to choose things to say hello to. Hello abundance. Hello buttocks. Hello dinner. Hello wonder. Hello …....when Ellen said “Hello Fun-Gal!” we all knew it was the perfect ending to our poem.

Then I brought out a collection of scarves, belts, necklaces, and my grandma's hats, and we dressed her up. Many times. Ellen was a star at this and I wished this part would never end. John Snyder took a lot of pictures of these creations. Oh she was lovely! And so changeable, yet with that puffball spirit shining through at all times! 

We sang a call-and-response song I'd scribbled on the back of a paper bag on my way into town:

When I was young/I was a spore/flying through the air/down to the ground

When I was young/ I was invisible/no one could see/ all I would be

When I was young/ I was a small one/ shining through thte tall grass/ growin' quietly

And now I'm grown/ a giant puffball/I've come to show you/ all we can be

I am I am/ I am I am/ I am I am/ A giant puffball

I am I am/ I am I am/ I am I am/a sacred being

I am I am/ I am I am/ I am I am/A giant friend

Next, we had the official measuring and weighing. Daniel measured, Jason was notetaker. Saer was the drum roller for each measurement, with John Snyder assisting him.

Circumference: 53”.

Length: 17 ¾ “

Width: 14 ½ “

Height: 9 ½”

Weight: Well...

This part is a little embarrassing to me. I have to be perfectly honest with you. I had weighed her the day before, with a witness and assistant present, and we had come up with over 14#. This is what I reported to all people in town, and to the newspaper. I told them—and this is true—that that is ¾ of the record heaviest puffball weight recorded. And 14# is definitely what it felt like when I was lugging her around the middle school and down Water St and also holding her up for family photos.

Sadly, when we weighed her at the ceremony, we came up with only 10#. How could this be? Jason insists that she could have lost 4# overnight, what with all that surface area. I think his confidence in this theory was affected by the contents (or lack thereof) of his wine glass. I can't believe she could have lost that much moisture in 1 day. My witness for the first weighing, whom I won't name because I don't want to embarrass any more people than necessary here, can't understand it either. It remains a mystery. Please know that I have not tried to deceive or exaggerate. Her bearing and her being need no proof by measure. But as my dear husband would say, sometimes things like that just happen to storytellers.

The last song we sang was written by my friend Laurence Cole:

Oh when we come into our calling

we become bells / calling to everyone else

Oh come, come into your calling

What a good song for finishing our celebration: connecting the ability of the puffball to come so fully into her calling with our own comings-into-callings. May it be so, and always more so.

With that, we removed the head and sliced into her white perfection. Not a squiggly larvae to be found, not one bit of yellow-turning-to-inedible-green. A perfect specimen. We fried her in lots of butter in a huge cast iron skillet. We smeared fried homegrown garlic and salt on each piece, a slab as big as a portabella. We tasted and moaned in delight for she was truly fine. We reveled in being alive, here, communing with earth and each other in this way. Jason told jokes, Daniel told a few of the day's Hometown Taxi stories, I told of the day with Sheila, others told of their days. We laughed and sighed.

                       ***********

I have read that the average puffball produces 7 trillion spores, each a potential puffball. If I understand mushroom botany, this particular puffball—which surely would have produced closer to 25 trillion spores—will, since we picked it, not be spreading herself around in that way.

That's okay. There is puffball abundance this year in NE Iowa. This particular puffball, my lady-friend for a day and a night, the September 24 visitor to our town, leaves a different kind of legacy. Today we can't imagine what that legacy will look like over time, once it is mixed in with all of the other beautiful and good things to which we are giving our attention. But we know that our collective attention to this mystery has spread countless invisible spores into the soils of our lives, just as sunrises and ladybugs and fawns and dragonflies and fiery maples and clear streams always have and always will.

Maybe someday Rowan and Saer will invite my grandchildren to come see a maple sapling that they found, or a nightcrawler, or a dungbeetle. They might sing a song together and sit in silent reverence. By then they may not even recall Giant Puffball Day 2012. But they will surely remember what they were given at birth, what their very bones and soul know and what they are reminded of daily in the woods and the fields where they live:

We are family with this earth and all her beings.

We are each other's fullness.

We are kin.

 

 

Parenting, pt.1

January 26th, 2005

Dear Alicia and Jason,
You have been so kind to me and so generous with your appreciative words for Ida. Of
course, when you give me credit for anything about Ida I want to hasten to say that – as
you will see if you have more than one child – there is so much that they are born to be,
and so much of parenting is simply allowing that person to unfold. But by your comments
you have caused me to look retrospectively at the years when I was a young parent of
young girls and trying to figure out what to do with this huge gift/responsibility/challenge
of being a parent. Looking back this way, long after the days of young children but not
too long after, I realize that I actually do have some opinions about it all. I am going
to share them with you, because I trust that you will take them for what they are: one
person’s experience, based on one person’s perspective on the world. Thank goodness
there are lots of ways to parent well and to live well, else we would all be doomed. Also,
lest you get the impression from reading this that I am the world’s most amazing mother,
I need to tell you right off the bat that I did not do all of the things on this list. Some
of them I lived by, some I meant to live by but only rarely pulled off, and others I only
realized too late. Still, I believe in them all equally.

Promise me that, after reading this, you will never in all your years allow yourself the
thought: “Yikes, here comes Liz with all her parenting opinions! We might be doing
something that she disapproves of - HIDE!"

I’m serious about that promise. Here it is.
“I, the undersigned, understand that Liz believes that there are lots of good ways
to do things, and these are just some random thoughts from an average person. I
will not ever feel judged by her."
(Sign here)____________________________and _____________________________

OK. Now that that's settled, I'll begin…

Some thoughts on Parenting

1. Hold her. Snuggle her at every opportunity. Sing to her. Carry her everywhere
you possibly can.

2. Take her outside to see things. Go on walks, a lot. Not exercise walks (at
least, not all the time), but walks that are for stopping and seeing things, large
and small, of the natural and human world. Try walking in silence sometimes,
only pointing to what you see. Gather treasures, and use them to decorate
the house. Eventually, learn the names of some of the plants, birds, and
insects…Take these walks until you have allowed your lives to get so busy that
there’s no time for them, and then spend the next 20 years trying to reclaim that
time. Alternately, don’t let that happen.

3. Hide or throw away the TV before she is old enough to think of it as part
of everyday life. That would probably be about…now. I am shy to write this,
because it is so radical-sounding and sure there’s a ton of great stuff on the TV
and all, but I honestly can say that I have witnessed a difference between kids
who grew up with and without it. #1, they have a ton more time to explore the
world in and outside of their own minds. #2, you cannot protect children from
all of the negative influences of the TV – gender stereotyping, consumerism,
violence, and did I say consumerism? – even if you are totally vigilant. If watching
TV is normal to her, I guarantee you she will be watching it in places where
you are not there to help make good choices. If she goes to, for example,
grandma’s and the rule is “no TV”, then it’s not a problem that you and your
parents have different ideas about what’s appropriate for a child to watch. Plus,
if it’s understood that she doesn’t watch TV, then your parents will actually play
with her! And read to her! Believe me, breaking the shocking news to people that
she doesn’t watch TV is nothing compared to some of the other society-induced
challenges ahead.

(Eventually, we got a TV for watching videos. We watch about 6 each year,
and it is a very special event for us. We know that there are thousands of
great movies out there to watch, but we can't afford to even try to watch 1% of
them, lest we miss out an each other any more than we already do. Needless
to say, we choose our few videos vary carefully; we require a more detailed
recommendation than “It’s REALLY good!”)

4. You can start sitting with her and looking at books really soon. You know that,
I know. But I have a bone to pick with some of the reading industry here. They
try to sell us reading with the fear factor: fear that our kids won't be brilliant if

we don't follow a certain reading regimen. Defy their competition model! I say,
reading to our kids is not for the purpose of building a brilliant brain; it’s for
having a sweet time together that is about as simple, cozy, relaxing, and non-
consumptive as you could ever ask for. If one thought in terms of building brains,
one might read to her even when it didn’t feel good, or do it with an attitude that
frightened the child. Brain Building Bothers this Broad. Build love, understanding,
memories: something else works on the brains.

Anyway, you can start reading chapter books way earlier than I would have
imagined. By age 3 we were enjoying very simple chapter books – but of course
we never left behind all of the beautiful picture books. Buy a few of your favorites,
for surely they will go out of print, and you don’t want to miss the sweet look
in her eye when she is 10 or 15 and gazes again at those pictures that she
remembers so fondly. She is likely to declare, with a catch in her voice, that
those were beautiful days, "back when she was young", reading those books
together. And that she wants to read those same books to her child.

Someday, perhaps as late as age 9 or 12 but possibly as early as age 5, she will
learn to love to read herself. Don’t rush her, wise parent! Reading together is one
of the sweetest parts of your brief years together, and once she reads to herself
if is harder to find the time to read together. Though not impossible: Ida and I still
have morning snuggles and reading almost every morning of the week.

5. At all times, try not to burden her with that nasty feeling of hurrying that you
might be lugging around with you. I repeat. Do not hurry her. If you let her go her
natural child’s pace, wonders will blossom out of her imagination. Gems will fill
your home. You will have the honor of looking through the open windows of her
eyes into the amazing world of her-ness.

Sometimes you have to hurry, of course. But if you don’t watch out, you’ll be
always hurrying. So make it the rule not to, and then only break it when you must.

6. Don’t let your sweet and loving relatives overdo it with the toys. From the very
beginning, help steer them toward giving things that can be appreciated, and not
become burdens to you and to the ecosystem. They want to give the right gift, but
they may need help: be so brave and kind as to help them to spend their money
well. Offer them catalogs, and also ideas for non-things. We may think that kids
have a God-given need to open things wrapped in thin paper and a bow, but
really we create those children starting at age 1 or 2.

If all else fails, as it surely sometimes will, help her and yourselves by taking
regular trips to the Depot to make donations. Hurry, before she thinks it’s normal
to be surrounded by mountains of plastic.

“Oh no! Liz is knocking at the door! Hurry – stuff the plastic toys in the closet! NO!
Don’t open the closet – she’ll see the T.V!”

7. Keep snuggling. Keep reading. Keep singing. Keep meandering outside. Keep
slowing down.

8. Eventually you will be thinking of getting her together with other children.
Playgroups are nice, but try to keep them small and not overly frequent. It’s not
that I think children should be kept in isolation – not at all! Rather, by being a
part of your life they are often with people of all ages, and that is the very best. A
playgroup of 3- 4 kids that meets once a week will probably be plenty for you and
her both, for a while. Better yet, see if there can be an age range of at least 3-5
years, and things will go even better. And don’t try to get stuff done when those
kids are at your house, or you’ll end up angry. Instead, have the moms or dads
over at the same time, and that will be the best part of the whole day, assuming it
isn’t your little angel who slaps Sylvia on the face.

9. Speaking of getting things done, I hope that you can face reality about your
new-found and permanent loss of time in your new role as a parent sooner than
I did. It took me getting deathly ill before I began to believe it. Have you noticed
yet that the clock now moves faster? Have you told yourself the lie that it's just for
now while she's so young and new? Ah, yes. I remember.

10. Try to always say “yes” to her requests. This sounds ludicrous, I know! But I
stand behind it, and here’s why. If you don’t try to always say “yes”, you will find
yourself most often saying “no”. That’s because, from the perspective of the life
you used to have before children, almost everything she asks for is outrageous. .
A hassle. Utterly unreasonable. Paint? Now? I was just about to do the dishes!
Read? Now? I was just about to check email! Of course there are times when
you have to say no, for sanity or safety, but I submit that a parent should train
her/himself so that the automatic response is “yes” until proven too impractical.
Even then, think twice. You might end up having the time of your life if you just
let go of that straight line thinking you’ve been practicing so long and LIVE A
LITTLE!

One caveat: This practice only works if you keep no junk food in the house and
do not have a TV available.

11. Count on it that these slow, sometimes tedious and uneventful-seeming
days will be among the best days of your entire life. Including falling in love.
Count on it that, too soon, the whirling world that we live in will swoop into your
cozy home, taking you away from each other much too often. Count on it that,
living in Decorah, Iowa, the “educational opportunities” will be so numerous as
to overwhelm you. You’ll have to make some serious choices if you are to stay
sane. And that’s not even including the possibility of attending school – I have no
concept how families make time for that.

12. Speaking of education: my favorite book about home education, available
at the public library, is “The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook”, by
Raymond and Dorothy Moore. I mention it here because I am going to pass
along some of their advice. They say that a child’s “school” week should consist
of 3 parts. One-third should be helping around the house - stirring the batter,
raking, and more as they are ready - all of which she will love to do because it
is side-by-side with you, the most important people in her world, and it is clearly
important and useful work. One-third should be community service - visiting the
seniors, picking up trash, marching on Washington, stuff like that. Finally, one-
third should be “book work”, which the Moores define as anything like reading
together, drawing, doing Lego's…it changes over the years, of course. This last
category is what we proud graduates would call “school”, but the Moores urge us
to let that be child-led for the first years until the child seems to be interested in
more academics, which for many children left to their natural development can be
as late as 9 – 12 years old.

What a refreshing way to think of education! It’s not all about getting as much
information into each little head as possible, but rather it’s about connecting with
the wider world and contributing to it as well. It’s balanced.

13. Practice your spirituality together. Of course you will do that. I just throw
that in here incase I ever give this to anyone else, and also in case you had any
doubts that we were bereft of a spiritual dimension. Ours just doesn’t have a
church building.

14. As you see, I’m imagining little Rowan at an ever older age as I proceed
through these thoughts…

Make it a practice to share with her almost everything about your adult life. It’s
easy to know that you’d share the happy stories of your day, but I would submit
that it is equally important to share the harder stuff. Talk freely at the supper
table about the argument that you had with your friend, and how you felt, and
what you did to get through it and come out feeling better about each other. Or
didn’t. Talk about the man who has mental illness, and what is or isn’t scary
about him, and what it might feel like to be him. Talk about it all, but not in a
didactic manner – you’re just sharing your heart with your family, which happens
to include this small person. Like magic, her presence at such openings of the
heart will call forth in you something more pure and good than you knew you had.
In presenting these stories in a way appropriate for her tender ears, you will start
thinking with her pure heart and find answers that are more loving. She will learn
so much about the real world in this safe and protected way, and before you ever
expected it she will amaze you with her deep understanding of human beings,
their needs, and their strengths. By the time she is 10 she could be your best
counselor, because you have shared with her important information about the
way you MEAN to think and behave. She will hold you to it.

Occasionally, you might – by accident or not – have a spousal argument in front
of her. I am not necessarily recommending or dis-recommending that, but I can
tell you something from experience: her presence will cause you to behave
better, and may even call forth in you some wisdom that you would have shoved
aside for the sake of being right. It’s kind of like arguing in front of God: How
embarrassing!

15. Look to her as your very best, most respected teacher. Offer her that much
respect, and more. It’s easy (most of the time) to do when she’s an infant and
you’re obviously in the presence of a miracle. But practice doing it when she’s a
toddler, and a young girl, and a pre-teen…practice it when she doesn’t seem like
she could possibly be human, she’s so irrational-seeming. And when she’s taking
all of your time and energy. When parents go and gaze lovingly at their peaceful
sleeping child, they might use that moment to remember to practice studenthood
the next day. If you keep thinking that way and expecting the lessons, they
absolutely will come. Don’t miss them!

16. Kids love it when the year rolls around to the same place it was a year ago
and they get to do the same thing they did a year ago. Try to keep track of those
things that you do for holidays or your new family special days, because they
grow more and more special each year that you repeat them. How nice – instead
of wearing yourself out trying to keep on creating new things to do together, you

can do it best by mostly staying with or building on the old! On Memorial Day we
walk to a certain place and have a picnic and read each other poems, wearing
old hats that were my grandma’s. “This is living!” We say.

17. An admittedly radical thought given the world we live in, regarding the time
you spend gathered with other families:
When our kids were small, we would go over to people’s houses and eat, and
the kids would all play dress-up or hide-and-seek or something else they made
up, as the parents sat and chatted. Or we’d go to a meeting or rehearsal, and
the kids would all take care of each other and play together. Nowadays, I’m
very sad to report, wherever we go there’s some stupid adult who’s had the
unfortunate forethought to bring a movie, and by some horrible chance there’s
always a video player handy, and so at these community events the kids do
not play anymore. It is so, so sad. I’m not sure many people even remember
any more that the kids have a grand old time entertaining themselves, and that
incidentally they become better human beings for having interacted in that free-
style, creative manner. Ask anyone whose kids are my kids’ age and they will tell
you I am a nutcase on this matter. I accept the distinction. I realize it is hopeless
for much of this generation, but some generation of parents is going to have to
take their children’s playtime back, and I propose it be yours. See if you can get
a clean start in your circle of friends by beginning NOW with a ban on electronic
entertainment/babysitting when your families are together. Just remove it from
your group culture. Otherwise by the time they're 5 and are begging for movies
all the time, you will all be sorry. The voice of doom has spoken.

18. On Discipline.
Saying “yes” as often as possible doesn’t guarantee a perfectly behaved child.
Your best teacher will have to be disciplined sometimes, but if you do it right it
will not have to happen very often at all. Here are my thoughts:
-You know what’s right. She may or may not be old enough to understand what’s
right in a particular situation, but your intuition will tell you if she is old enough to
learn a different behavior, with or without the understanding. I think of discipline
as helping to show her what behaviors do and don’t work. Ok, right now she’s
not old enough to know to keep quiet at the concert – that’s obvious. But, for
example, at some point she is old enough to learn that if she hits or is mean,
she will be removed from the place where she was enjoying herself. I think that
should begin the first time she does it. Maybe she doesn’t truly understand why
to not be mean, but you owe it to her to show her that that doesn’t work. That’s

hard on her, and even harder on you (speaking for myself, I always HATED to
leave a party early!)

-Never discipline her in front of others. It’s disrespectful of her, and it also robs
you both of an opportunity to talk in an environment that could bring out honest
thoughts and resolutions.

-Believe in her ability to understand the right thing to do, but be really patient
while she figures it out. Hold her, love her, and believe in her. That way, even
if she doesn’t figure it out today, she knows that she is safe in your love no
matter what. Maybe you have to say how angry that thing she did made you
feel, because doggoned it you are – but it’s difficult, when you’re holding her in
your arms or in your gaze, to convey that anger in an intimidating or aggressive
way. You are human, and you are both helping each other. If you’re not on her
side, she is utterly alone. Always be on her side, but give her the gift of endless
opportunities for good behavior – behavior that works in the world.

19. Hold her.
Snuggle her.
Sing to her.
Read with her.
Ramble with her.
Believe her.
Build a new world with her.

You will do these things naturally because you love her. But here’s the
beautiful irony: that these acts so plain and simple are the very heart
and soul of your family, and are the most vital to observe. You’d think
something so important would be painful or distasteful! How fine that these
basic (and free!)practices are what mean the most to a child and a family.

We were made to love these children.

All of my love to you, Alicia, Rowan, and Jason. Welcome to the lucky land
of children.