I chose the one entitled "The Call of the Earthly King Will Help us to Contemplate the Life of the Eternal King," (page 303 in my Penguin Classics, though we were working from a Portuguese translation). Preparing anything "on the road" is a challenge for me. Someone gives me some short-term assignment and a corner of a desk and then says, "Do one of those clever things you do." Then they expect to be able to watch while it all comes together beautifully. That's never how it works for me. I sit for a while and make some notes, then pace around, make some more notes, make tea, do something else - you get the idea. But R. was anxious about this presentation and afraid to mess up, as he didn't get along very well with the dean of the seminary. And my work habits were making him nervous. So I sat and read my copy over and over.
With nowhere to go, I forced myself to make some notes on the main structure of the meditation. Then I put aside my notes and began to draw. I don't draw very well, but I think that there was something about sitting in a damp, drafty office, feeling tired and nervous about how a bunch of seminarians would receive me, wanting dinner, a walk, a sweater and not getting up to get any of them. That something made me draw, and the act of drawing felt as free and rich as it had when I was 10 years old. (Right now those drawings aren't here at home, but I'm hoping to scan them in later on.)
Since then I've used the drawings at my parish on the last Sunday before Advent to lead a meditation for kids. They like the meditation. It's hard to say why, as it has a bit of an edge. Maybe that's what they like about it. Today I am working on making some 3-dimensional materials to tell the story.
The Preamble invites the student to envision, "and here it will be to see with the eyes of the imagination synagogues, towns, and villages where Christ Our Lord went preaching."
As I look at the exercise again in the form in which it appears in Collected Writings, I realize that I spent most of my effort visualizing the Preamble. Perhaps at the time, having been to so many communities that were holding on by a thread, having sat in the heat sometimes and the cold other times, having walked through dirty streets and through fields, perhaps I felt more open to the vision of someone meeting people who worked with their hands and looked for hope.
The vision is a little farther from me today as I sit comfortably at home, and as the parish where I worship contemplates a way to free itself from debt and from architecture that isn't working for us any more. I'm trying to find my way back into the immediacy I felt all four years ago in Porto Alegre.
Posted at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tomorrow I will give this bracelet to my goddaughter, E.. It was a birthday present to me when I was seven. E. had her first birthday a few weeks ago. It'll be a while before she can wear it, and who knows where I'll be then? Most of the charms are from my childhood, except for the hummingbird on the far right and the tag that's under mine, which has my goddaughter's name and date of birth. The jeweler cleaned the bracelet a few weeks ago and attached the new charms, changed the clasp and engraved a new tag. I had him put the tab on the same link as my old one, so that the newer tag would cover the old one.
When the bracelet was given to me, the charms were things that already made sense in my life: Mistress Mary Quite Contrary, the swimmer, the cat, thimble and scissors (even then I was making things out of fabric and thread), and the rollerskates. The people in the jewelry store were very excited to clean and repair the bracelet and to add the hummingbird and the tag.
It will be several years before I know if E. likes the bracelet, but her mom, S., is very excited. Last week S. took E. to visit her birth mother and sent some photos. The pictures show a very pretty woman holding E., with the two of them looking into each other's eyes. S. says the birth mother is at peace with her decision to let S. and her husband adopt E. I wonder how it will all feel to E. when she is older, how E. will define family, how all the links in the chain will fit together.
Posted at 06:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I left the planning board early (10:00 p.m.) last night, as I knew today would be a long day. The upshot of the meeting was that we'll have to make modifications to our design, but the project will still happen. It was recommended that we seek outside facilitation. I've recommended the Public Conversations Project as a resource, but we'll see what happens. It seems to me that we all have a chance to get out of a very destructive process.
As for my job, this academic year has brought interesting work - a lot of it. It's tough on everyone. I work with four courses, one of which is a product development class in the mechanical engineering department. It's very intensive. The second most demanding course is microfluidics, which is all new material for me. The mech e course is complex, but I get what it's about. Microfluidics is way over my head, but it's important that I do well because it was a course that has been held up as an exemplary combination of subject instruction and communication practice. I have several students who are in both classes at the same time, so we are all staggering through this intensity together. Today the microfluidics students had a big paper due, and tomorrow night the mech e class has a big presentation. As I was sitting in lab waiting for students to consult with me about their presentations, I started to check on the microfluidics course site for the papers that were due. There was a commotion in the lab and it became evident that one of the students had collapsed. I realized it was the same student whose paper I was reading on line.
Posted at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
This past Christmas my sister asked what I wanted and I said, A new backpack. She asked whether I wouldn't prefer a computer case or a briefcase or something more sophisticated. So I told her that I needed something that would hold my wallet, laptop, papers for grading (some professors still insist on hardcopy, and I need to print out a 30-page design document for a ship's hull in order to be sure I'm actually reading it), my lunch, the occasional quart of milk and half-dozen apples I pick up on the way home, swim clothes and shampoo,shoes (for when I'm trying to look like an actual adult), and storytelling stuff.
The final category, the storytelling stuff, is the one that sometimes crosses worlds. During the week, I mostly carry around objects that wouldn't get me into much trouble going through airport security. (Except perhaps for the killer shampoo.) But on Sundays I usually carry little figures or model silhouettes of ancient cities, or my best approximation of the Ark of the Covenant (matchbox painted gold mounted on popsicle sticks) - and usually an X-Acto knife, scissors, clay and assorted Sharpies for those last-minute repairs and tweaks. Most of the time I manage to keep all the payloads separate and get the sharp objects out before I have to fly anywhere - though it has been a close call sometimes.
Yesterday morning I found a lump of modeling clay in one of the little pockets. Modeling clay comes in very handy on Sunday mornings. It helped me to hold up the fenceposts when I told the story of the Israelites' Tent of Meeting, and I also used it to great effect when I illustrated passing along the light - with a birthday candle for each child in a pyrex roasting pan. In a crisis, a lump of clay can quiet an upset kid. Yesterday, as I was sitting in my office contemplating my own general crankiness and mortality, I started playing with the lump of clay and made this little cat. (I have told my officemates that she is our Scaremouse, as our building has its share of critters.) Every time I try to make something that actually resembles something from the world around me, I get a disproportionate amount of satisfaction from the results, even if they're not really successful.
Tonight a hearing took place at City Hall regarding our church's plans to tear down our old parish hall (which is a huge firetrap) and, partnering with a developer, build a mixed-use building that would house classrooms and church offices on the ground floor and condos on the upper three floors. It's a scary project, but I don't think it's possible for the parish to do nothing. Right now our old buildings are firetraps, not handicap accessible, and very wasteful to heat. The developer who would build the condos would help finance repairs to the historic sanctuary (which would remain on the site.) I've been dreading the meeting. Last week I talked to a friend who lives on the residential street that abuts our property, and she said that she mostly objects to the attitude of the developer and of our rector. She has felt patronized and dismissed. I held back from saying, "Hey, me too." That conversation actually stopped me from writing to the planning board in support of the project. During this past week I have been turning over in my mind what I wanted to see happen and what was the ethical choice.
As it turned out, the meeting was not as acrimonious as I had feared. We had a good presentation, and the neighbors made valid points. I think the planning board is going to make the developers modify their design before they grant us the variance - which I think would be the equitable solution. For the first time in several weeks I may actually get a good night's sleep.
Posted at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I don't like our church's new rector. There, I've said it. Even though she's a woman. Even though what she preaches from the pulpit isn't anything I disagree with, I don't like her. Perhaps part of the reason why I haven't posted in so long is that until I admit this fact, nothing else I write rings quite true. As I write this, I realize that my likes and dislikes and passions and irritations are just an illusion. On a purely pragmatic, unenlightened level, it's really kind of a bore disliking people. It keeps getting in the way, limiting one's options. Yet I'm still carrying this thing around, and what a wonderful set of fantasies and dramas I'm spinning as a result.
In other news, the work tunnel continues tomorrow. I took today off and slept some and made some phone calls and wrote a long email to a good friend who has Stage 3 cancer. The work tunnel is quite handy, actually. I had forgot how many excuses it provides.
Within all that, some things are still endlessly fascinating. I wish I had taken pictures of The Tent of Meeting I made out of linen and felt scraps, with an Ark of the Covenant made from two matchboxes painted gold and a pair of popsicle sticks. At the 'Tvte I am working with a product development class where the students have to design and prototype a marketable invention. They do elevator speeches and sketch model presentations, and a series of increasingly high-stakes talks throughout the semester. On Wednesdays I work with two sets of students back to back, from 2 in the afternoon until 10 at night, with a two-hour break in the middle. It's exhausting (this particular assignment is only 35% of my job), but exciting to see the results of my work when the students present. Not that it's perfect. But it does make a difference.
Church, on the other hand, is the ultimate dysfunctional family. Friends on the outside ask why I don't leave. But I'm weighing one year of bad against the previous 16 years of good. And then there are the people I would leave behind. A friend who knows me well suggested that shedding all of that would make room for a major transformation in my life. I'm not sure. But Sunday afternoon I watched the Honkfest parade as it passed our church, then went out to lunch with friends and did not talk about church politics and then went for a bike ride and ended up at the SSJE monastery for Evensong. The harmonies that the monks sing are so tight and perfect that the daily office book has a tactful little note asking (basically) that we not sing along unless we know what we are doing. And it's enough to sit still and be transported. At Evensong on Sunday there were three of us women sitting silently in the choir stalls listening to the monks, and at the end I felt purified, as if the incense had gone through me and cleaned out the annoyance. I rode my bicycle along Memorial Drive and a boy about eight years old politely called out, "On your left," and passed me riding with all his might. For a moment, riding with the blue sky and the river and the slanting sun, I could see every leaf on the tree and feel my heart beating and sense my friend with cancer who lives on the Cape and whom I can't get away to visit. But for a moment it was all complete.
Posted at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
No, I wasn't in Brazil. I spent last week in the Work Tunnel. It's been a long time since I've been in a serious work tunnel, not in about 10 years. It was a week of long teaching days and grading homework at night. And then a weekend of church stuff. I'm feeling as if I've eaten half a pound of penny candy - sort of buzzed and yet lethargic.
Two friends of mine have recently been diagnosed with cancer. My most recent mammogram was irregular and I'm going for an ultrasound tomorrow. I haven't told anyone. It's not the sort of thing I discuss with colleagues. I don't want to worry my mom. And there's a kind of institutional concern that I'd get from church folks that I'm not quite ready for.
It's probably nothing, right?
Posted at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
In my years as a technical writer and lecturer, I have amassed lots of anecdotal information about how people learn. Some of it I've gleaned through reading, or in courses or workshop, or from on-the-job experiences such as seeing usability testing done on what I've written. I've also been videotaped while teaching and presenting, and on Sunday mornings when I do storytelling other adults often drop in, observe, and offer questions and suggestions. Until lately, I've assumed that I'm being effective when all of the "customers" leave the appearing satisfied and happy.
Posted at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I suppose that geeks who are geekier than I have figured out how to affix a camera to a bicycle and shoot photos while riding. On the other hand, given the amount of traffic and the fact that this is Greater Boston, it's probably for the best that there's no other choice than to focus on navigating the traffic.
Posted at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Today I worked a three-hour shift and then a five-hour shift on the legislative floor, which meant that because we have to report to the volunteer center half an hour early, my day started at 8:00 and ended around 6:30. At General Convention all manner of legislation gets discussed, amended, and voted on by the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. I was assigned to the House of Deputies, who are the elected representative from the various Episcopal Dioceses. Each diocese elects one member of the clergy and one lay person, and these are known as Deputies, not delegates. The name "delegate" would imply voting on behalf of a constituency, and deputies are instead free to vote their consciences on the various issues. The atmosphere at times is similar to what I've seen on C-Span, and other times there are breaks of various sorts.
Posted at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)