The little black book

Apologies for the paucity of posts this week. Life is getting a little more intense, what with the new part-time job beginning next week.

That means I'm actually going to need to start keeping a calendar, and remember to take a look at it now and again.

And I thought juggling free-lance writing, driving two kids around, looking for a new home and cramming in eating, exercise, time with friends and now and again Godthink made my days pretty full.

Maybe I need to be a little more ambitious? (grin)

Or maybe I need to become a little more organized.

It's easier to imagine including more than mosaic-ing it all together.

How about you? Are you are dreamer or someone who makes lists and needs boundaries?

Will you do it if the you fear you will lose your mind if you dont?

Or do you go ahead and lose your mind?

Gotta go, the dentist is calling. He doesn't seem to find it amusing when I'm five minutes late. When it comes to reform there is no better time, she says wryly, than now.

My global freak-out

Most of the time, we go about our business, grappling with the joys and challenges and griefs close at hand in our circled world. A child has a stomach flu and can't get to school. A spouse got pissed off and left without a normal kiss goodbye. The recycling never made it into the trash cans.

All politics is local, don't they say? And, of course, on the other hand, the personal is the political.

Well, Chile isn't down the road from Glenmoore, unless you extend the meaning of the word "road" to embrace North and South America. But, with profound respect for the immediate grief and horrible loss borne by survivors, I took that earthquake very personally.

And, I submit, perhaps you should, also. And the snow in the South, the earthquake in Haiti, and the wild weather in France. Not to mention this.

We tend to polarize on the right and the left of issues like climate change -- and give in to the many corporate and political interests who would like to see nothing happen. But asking people to make individual decisions in the interest of a healthier environment, while it's great, is by no means enough.

First of all, it's such a Western, first-world concept -- people who are freezing aren't going to care that they need to burn down a tree to stay warm for another day. They might care if someone offers them an alternate way to stay warm.

Second of all, individual choices aren't going to swing the balance back to environmental health. It is going to take a decision by world leaders in places like China (and, of course the US) that a healthy environment is in our political and economic interests.

Climate change skeptics criticize scientists for arrogance in the way they articulate the data on global warming.

Fair enough - And they also attack scientists for making mistakes in a recent global report on science change. But the fact is that these mistakes were essentially irrelevant to the data, which is overwhelmingly on the side of climate change.

And as I stood in the shower last weekend, I shivered. The question seems to be now, not when will the politicians wake up and smell the coffee, but: have we left it too late?

What happens now may be out of our power to fix... and as a mother, I feel like it is time to raise my voice -- for to be silent means to be complicit.

UPDATE: Here's another URL for the methane situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/science/earth/05methane.html?hpw

Another mom on board

I honestly didn't think this day would come -- but I'm thrilled that it has.


I'm joining the "moms who blog" world as a newbie in the Philadelphia Moms blog.



And I almost can't claim to live near Philly!


I am still trying to figure out how the technology works, but I'll keep you posted -- as soon as I post.



I'm excited about working with a group of wonderful women. Philadelphia Moms is an offshot of Silicon Valley moms. These women are incredible, I can tell.



And we all know, as California goes, so goes Pennsylvania. Send us some sunshine!

I tend to be pretty sensitive -- some would argue, overly sensitive. But if I feel that there is a lot of rage in America right now, I'm not the only one. This is my more theological reflection, from Saturday's Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/New Era. Comment away.


Column: Lent is good time to mend some fences


By ELIZABETH, Correspondent
Media Center

Tune in almost anywhere recently, and you get the impression that there are a lot of furious folks in America.
Tea Party protesters and voters from all over the spectrum rail against taxes, the banking bailout and government in general.
Fox News on the one side and MSNBC on the other stoke the flames of populist fury.
There's even a Web site called publicanger.com (subtitle: Stop screaming at your television!)
And then there is this recent commentary, from the blog of well-known Philadelphia Inquirer political columnist Dick Polman, mapping the "incivility death spiral."
First he charts the unholy glee over the cancer and eventual death of Massachusetts senator and liberal lion Edward Kennedy — condemning him to the fires of Hades.
But, as Polman reminds us, self-righteous rage isn't solely a conservative phenomenon.
"Dick Cheney was hospitalized with chest pains yesterday," Polman wrote. The Washington Post put the story on its Web site at 7:31 p.m. Sixteen minutes later, a someone wrote, "I hope he drops dead." Seven minutes after that, somebody wrote, "I just hope they don't desecrate Arlington (National Cemetery) with this piece of carrion." Four minutes after that, somebody wrote, "The devil is calling his boy home."
Now, we can't assume that all those commenting believed in God — although some certainly seemed to be in touch with God's opposite number.
But in a nation in which majorities still tell researchers that they are believers, it is fair to ask: can you harbor this kind of poisonous anger and still term yourself a person of faith?
If the Judeo-Christian Scriptures are to be believed, the answer is — not for long.
The authors of the Bible recognize that humans get angry at one another. Why else would Paul, in Ephesians 4:26, advise the members of the congregation: "do not let the sun go down upon your wrath?"
Where Paul admonishes, Jesus seems pretty black and white, when he says in Matthew 5:22: "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother or sister shall be liable to judgment, whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council and whoever says 'You fool' shall be liable to the hell of fire."
Jesus knew how toxic anger could be — and how dangerous in the world of the early Christians, who were being attacked by persecution from the authorities.
But I have to say that this verse, from Proverbs chapter 14 in the Hebrew Scriptures, is one of my favorites: "He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly."
Maybe this is the folly season.
Believe me, I'm acquainted with those moments of anger — tailgaters are simply fortunate that I can't blow skunk-flavored steam out the rear window.
But when anger starts to take over communities, when people turn on their brothers and sisters rather than taking responsibility for their own behavior, then the fabric of our culture is rent.
In American society, religious people are supposed to improve the culture in which they live, not join the barbarians at the gate.
So it's striking how few religious voices there seem to be, criticizing the current fury and calling for an improvement in our public discourse.
Instead, many denominations serve as poor public models of constructive communities, fractionalized as they are by disputes over sexuality, doctrine and church politics.
There is no time like the present season of Lent for Christians in all denominations to do some spiritual house-cleaning.
For this is a time not only of reflection, but of remorse, and of turning around.
Where have you let anger invade your life? Where have you chosen to escalate hostilities instead of offering forgiveness? Where have you failed to act as a reconciler in your neighborhood, church, mosque or synagogue?
If you put biblical principles of peace-making into practice, you may well see results in your family, your workplace and your congregation.
Bless your "enemy" today.
And maybe, down the line, he or she will become a window, not of rage, but of blessing to others.
What a nice change that would be

Stamp your feet

I'm wondering why there is so much national rage popping up in our media.

It infests a lot of our dialogue on issues from taxes to climate change to health insurance...

Is it the weather?

Global tragedies in Haiti and now in Chile?

Lack of productive work for more than ten percent of our neighbors?

Lack of communal connection abetted by the ability to "connect" here?

The fact that we are fighting two wars?

The cascade of foreclosures?

I don't have an answer (doh). I can understand why troops and under or unemployed folks would be furious. Though that never, nevern never excuses violence.

But what about the rest of us?

Do some of us just need to stop expecting people to figure it all out for us?

Or is there something deeper going on here? I have no idea -- yet it appears that it's easier to have a tantrum than an answer.

Heart of a nation, heart of the world

You don't have to have an American on the podium to be proud.

That's one of the lessons of the figure skating competition, which was really all about heart.

A heart that, tragically, gave out before one mother saw her daughter's Olympic prize-winning dance.

The heart to display technical skill and dramatic fireworks beyond the South Korean champion's apparent wildest expectation.

The heart to skate after a performance that left the audience on its feet, the ice brimming with stuffed animals, and your competitor pretty sure of the gold medal.

And then, of course, the heart of a grieving daughter, who somewhere found the inner strength and profound bravery to turn her tears into something beautiful for all of those who watched.

One of whom, I can't help but believe, was one proud mom.

I can do it myself...

Everyone who has had a child recalls those toddler years, when children push the boundaries of their circumscribed worlds.
Standing up. Bringing a fork brimming with potatoes to one's mouth. Putting on a sneaker.

Each task becomes an occasion for celebration of a kid's mastery over her or his world. And then, of course, there is the illusion that he or she is autonomous. That's one that many adult still bask in until illness or some other crisis challenges it.

I can do it myself, Dad! My fork!

But the fact is, they don't have the experience to know what is safe, and what is not, what they can do, and what might better left to the old folks. That's even one that teens find it hard to grasp. My boyfriend! My car!

Although I'm clearly no longer a toddler (no, I am not) I still sometimes wonder if I'm not taking on jobs that might better be done by others. Not housecleaning, no worries about that. I'll take all the help that I can get. And I paid someone to help me organize my kitchen, living room and bathroom so that when sellers come through they might be able to see themselves living here, rather than a crazy writer lady and her two eccentric kids.

But why won't I let the young man across the street mow my more than an acre of old farmland?

Why do I take such pride in living in a town that many people around Philadelphia simply haven't heard of? Why am do I chuckle inside when the physical therapist says : I know you'll be back, Elizabeth. You push yourself too hard?

Do you have arenas in your own life where you simply don't wish to ask for assistance? Do you still get a cheap thrill out of doing something on your own, when maybe someone could give you a hand?

I dunno why I have this rebel streak. But I did ask a realtor to see if my possible new house has a ghost. Ghosts, you can't control. And what if it was an eerie visitor with an authority problem? I've got all that I can manage with the kids -- and meself.