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At what age do we take responsibility for our actions? When do we become accountable for our decisions? I learned a critical life lesson when I decided to use John Steinbeck’s East of Eden for a class assignment. I was 15. I haven’t forgotten the book – or what it taught me about myself. Brooke Leigh Sheldon.
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The three of us wander aimlessly along the path next to Mission Creek in San Luis Obispo. Surrounded by the gracefully clumsy sounds of tumbling water and the flutter of October’s cool easy breeze ruffling leaves beside me, we amble.
Smiling, I silently remind myself “if I don’t look where I’m going I’m gonna fall on my face”.
We lope across the creek on a set of strategically laid boulders. Conversation is non-stop. The talk between us is fluid, expanding like water between glass.
We stop. I stand. I take it all in. My eyes drink the blue of a fall sky in early afternoon. Above me to the right, people pass on the bridge. The clumpy, thump, clump of each person’s passage echoes within the hollowed trestle of wood and stone. I love that sound.
Suddenly, I’m caught.
A voice is singing. I’m listening. He captivates me.
The depth of his crusty, aged understanding of the poetry he winds fascinates me.
His first song runs through me. The next song flies by me. Then, the song after that hovers all around me. He’s calling. And it’s as if he’s pulling me up the path with each collection of notes he strings together.
“C’mon!” I say to my companions, “I feel compelled to check out this singer.”
Off I am striding to discover the wizened troubadour of mystery who had locked my interest in his lyrical refrains.
I’m tracking the acoustic guitar’s picks and strums, all the while loving the unusual rendition of a song I don’t get to hear often enough, as I hunt my destination. Behind a brick wall atop the path, I round the corner and there he is….
Huh,……
He’s wearing a black golf cap, black shirt and a pair of black of shorts. His shorn hair is white blonde. He’s maybe… what? Twenty-six years old!
He has a smile that speaks tomes about his love of tune and desire to please. He is sweet. He is touchingly vulnerable. The fixed image I had in my head, while down below, of what this balladeer was going to look like made me have to laugh inside, at myself.
He finishes playing that song I know so well.
His vision of it is tender. His voice slips easily into the creases of unresolved hurt and sorrow that this specific love song defines.
He sits on a tall stool on a patio stage facing twenty or so tables filled with a rambling collection of people. Many sit chatting with each other, some are working, while others read or eat. One intriguing woman places her small dog on top of the table and proceeds to converse with it at great length, as she grooms and hand feeds it.
But, all the people, at every table, choose to ignore the gracious songster before them, song after song.
He covers familiar songs. He sings original songs of his own penning. It does not matter. They do not care. They cannot spare the time, the attention, the courtesy, or the kindness to glance his way. Nor can they be bothered to place their hands together to offer him the simple appreciation of applause.
So, the three of us sit listening to a kindly street artiste, deserving of more respect than he is accorded.
And in the halcyon weather along the path next to Mission Creek in San Luis Obispo we drink in the richness of fine song. And we look our minstrel in the eye, we smile at him and we applaud his songs, his talent and his courage.
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I am not Catholic.
Father Damien
Yet I recognize the tremendous honor Pope Benedict XVI bestowed upon Father Damien De Veuster. Catholics
everywhere now recognize Father Damien, canonized on October 11, 2009, as a saint.
But, I am one who has already spent much of my life inspired by the life and work of Father Damien.
If you are unfamiliar with the work of Father Damien, then I am honored to be the one to introduce you to this fine and noble man. He was born in 1840 in Belgium. Growing up he chose a religious life, eventually becoming a Roman Catholic
priest. While offering his energy in service to others he longed to travel and see other lands. Twists of life brought him to the Hawaiian Islands where the scourge of Hansen’s disease, more commonly known as leprosy, was ravaging the native population of the beautiful island chain.
This was a time of increasing global movement. Indigenous people throughout the globe lacked immunity to diseases existent in other parts of the world. They suffered devastatingly high death rates as sailing crews, travelers and traders inadvertently introduced numerous infectious diseases to these previously isolated populations. The Native Hawaiians suffered a similar, tortured fate. Leprosy was one, but the list of diseases included syphilis, influenza, smallpox, even measles, which in the decade of the 1850’s alone killed a full 20% of all the Hawaiian people living on the islands.
But leprosy was different. Today we know a bacterium, treatable with medication, transmits Hansen’s disease. Historically, however, it was not only untreatable, but misunderstanding also caused it to reek with connotations of a “cursed soul” or implications of “a punishment for sin”. The disease was interpreted as a divine judgment cast upon those who required extreme penance by bodily mortification.
Mind you, these were not the views of one single religion or culture. They were perceptions the world over and were, no doubt, born of the quite human tendency to vilify the things we fear. People so feared the severe physiological disfigurements of advanced leprosy that even tiny children with the disease were shunned and stigmatized, perceived as ill of spirit as much as body.
Father Damien saw otherwise.
Father Damien saw other.
Father Damien saw wise.
Hawaiian King Kamehameha V, confronting a public health crisis paramount in its proportions, created a government-funded medical quarantine on the island of Molokai to stem the continuing advance of the disease on the island chain. He assigned the area of Kalaupapa on Molokai to become the point of relocation. Kalaupapa is surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean and cut off from the rest of Molokai by 1600-foot sea cliffs.
Father Damien stepped on the shore of Molokai seven years after its establishment as a “leper colony”.
But Father Damien did not manage Molokai as an isolation ward nor did he view its citizenry as less than.
At the time of his arrival in 1873, the isolated shoreline of the relocation colony had fallen into lawlessness. Damien took it upon himself to begin enforcing basic rules of law. It was an extremely dangerous, but necessary task. Coming to Molokai with the intention to minister to the ill and dying, Damien found and became the truth of himself.
Portrait of Father Damien, attributed to Edward Clifford, 1868, Honolulu Academy of Arts
He dressed ulcerated lesions, built furniture, negotiated disagreements between residents, erected schools. He constructed coffins and houses, dug farm furrows and graves, created sports teams and musical bands. Father Damien created a community.
Where people had resigned themselves to extinction, he generated a desire to live.
Where hope had been abandoned, he instilled quality of life.
Where a waiting room for death had stood, he built a society.
In 1884 Father Damien recognized he had contracted leprosy.
The remaining four and half years of his life were a race to complete the projects of importance to him and the community he had dedicated his service to.
Father Damien was an evocation of true humanity.
Father Damien made his moments count.
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"New Orleans at Dawn" is an 8x10 oil canvas that captures energies collected on my first visit to the historic city on the banks of the Mississippi River.The year was 1972; the beginning of my Sam Cooke’s, “I Know a Change is Gonna Come,” moments. I arrived with my five month old daughter strapped to my back two weeks before Mahalia Jackson’s body arrived for burial. Although it was bitterly cold, it didn’t stop the round the clock celebration of life for the greatest gospel singer of all time. The death of Miss Jackson allowed me to take shelter with the masses from the grief of learning of my own grandmother’s death.... read more...
New Orleans at Dawn by Gale Madyn
Dear James,
There is a place, a space outside of this dark abyss that is speaking to you and offering you a hand. Neither one of us is religious so you know I am not speaking of some dogma based savior. I am speaking of hope, what can be, where this strength you get from your now greets your future and bends it to the possibilities that await you. You cannot see this now, I know. And I am asking you to trust this, this truth. ...read more...
I was talking to a piano student yesterday about practice. Although this is a typical subject frequently and repetitively discussed in piano lessons, this conversation with an adult student was different. She diligently practices. Everyday she goes through her lesson assignments at a certain time, spending at least the suggested amount of time on each component. In spite of her practice regimen, she was not improving; in fact, some techniques and difficult passages in her music were regressing.
How could this be? The answer lies in the idea of practice. In music, as well as other behaviors, habits, interests in life, we are continually practicing. I use and explain this concept when I teach. ...read more
Months ago I stumbled across an organization on Facebook whose mission statement intrigued me. Common Ground News Service wrote it 'works to resolve conflicts by publishing articles that promote mutual understanding, opportunities for dialogue, and constructive criticism.' This enlightened approach made my heart skip beats! I immediately immersed myself in the articles on its wall....(more)
Everywhere you look, all over this country, we are implementing “Zero tolerance” polices for bullying and/or intolerance. Yet the policies are being implemented and ignored. People advocate them and criticize them, demand them and reject them. But “Zero tolerance” can work and does work. Why, then, are there so many examples of it not working?
The other day I was telling my teenage daughter how odd it is (if you think about it -- which I do) that if you are having trouble with some object -- let's say a cell phone that loses it's signal -- it's considered completely normal, perfectly reasonable behavior to curse that object and treat it roughly. You might say something like "You @%&** piece of junk! Why are you doing this to me?!" You might slam it down and push it away from you in disgust. On the other hand, if you were to do the opposite -- thank the object, cradle it lovingly, and appreciate it every time it worked -- well, then people would think you were a complete lunatic. If you overheard a co-worker at their desk saying, "Good morning, dear pen. Thank you for flowing with ink every time I need to write something. I really appreciate you. I can always rely on you," you would think that person had gone completely round the bend. But if you heard that same person muttering obscenities at their slow computer, you would feel that they were just acting as any normal, sane person would if their computer were failing them at a critical moment.click to read more
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Within The Mind’s Eye: An Adventure in Seizing the Moment, an interview with Dr. David Grand
Volunteering for Disaster: Moments Count Interviews American Red Cross Volunteer Ann Smith
On a clear, blue-sky, blue-sea day in Florida, my father and I sat in matching deck chairs overlooking an inland waterway. The early morning calm, the sea taste in the air and the sun’s gentle touch seemed to create an alchemical magic that primed us for an intriguing exchange. 'Hey, Dad,' I said unceremoniously, 'what do you think I’m going to do with my life? I mean, what could I really be good at?' Even as the words escaped my mouth, my mind became entangled with doubt and insecurity.
'The thing you will do better than everyone else,' Dad began, 'is the thing that will come to you so naturally, so easily,' he continued, with a casual flip of his hand, 'that you will write it off as valueless.'
I swiveled to look at him. My brain cued to full attention.....(more)
Studies show that when something is learned by someone once, it is easier for somebody else to learn it again later!
For example, in experiments, untrained rats must learn how to run or swim a maze to get to their food. And that takes them time and experience before they get it right.
But… if the maze has already been learned by many earlier generations of rats from the same strain, the rats learn the maze almost immediately. In fact, in some cases, they’re BORN knowing it and can run it perfectly from birth. Just because a previous generation(s) learned it before them.
If you’ve got no previous ancestors who already did it, you’ve got NO SHORT-CUTS TO FOOD.
This would definitely make me wish for better ancestors.(more)
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