Guiding Words

The late Unitarian Universalist preacher Forrest Church, who led the All Souls congregation in Manhattan for nearly three decades, articulated three guiding principles for life shortly after September 11, 2001. His mantra, as he called it, was simple:

Want what you have;
Do what you can;
Be who you are.

Not necessarily easy to live by, these words nonetheless help me to think each day about how to be in the world.

Mma Ramotswe, the protagonist and lead detective in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, proposes a similar set of guidelines at the end of Book 11, The Double Comfort Safari Club. She tells readers that her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, taught her "almost everything she knew about how to lead a good life":

"Do not complain about your life.
Do not blame others for things that you have brought upon yourself.
Be content with who you are and where you are,
And do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself."

Echoing much of what Forrest Church says, Mma Ramotswe could be his Botswanan counterpart. They both offer wisdom for this Memorial Day, when we honor those whose service to our country reminds us, the living, of the precious gift of life.

For as Forrest Church says, "The purpose of life is to live in such a way, that our lives will prove worth dying for."

The End of the World

I laughed (along with lots of people) at Harold Camping's apocalyptic prediction this week. On Sunday afternoon I told my family I would be leaving them soon, and at 6:00 that night--when the rapture was supposed to start--I said, "I feel like I'm floating." The jokes about these supposed ends of the world are themselves endless.

But then on Tuesday The New York Times ran two articles together: one on Camping's revised prediction that both the rapture and the world's end will arrive now on October 21, and one on the aftermath of the Joplin tornado--the search for the living and the dead. In reading the articles I realized that the monster tornado hit Joplin around the same time that Camping's saved souls were supposed to be ascending to heaven. At around the same time that the rest of us would begin our hell on earth.

Which is exactly what happened in Joplin, Missouri.

We don't need firebrand preachers and Bible-waving soothsayers to remind us that the end of the world arrives every day for someone somewhere on the globe. If we forget, we're quickly reminded by storms or by illness or by death.

If the rapture ever comes, it will surely take all of us for none of us deserves the suffering we endure. It's part of being human.

Red-Eyed Cicadas

Yes, they're back. The 13-year Rip Van Winkles of the South. We haven't seen them since 1998, these red-eyed cicadas, and we each react differently to their arrival: Madeleine finds their din headache-inducing; Miranda does a mean imitation of their dying; Sundance tries to eat every one he can find; Mark and Cassidy seem interested but not obsessive; I kind of like them.

Their music begins in mid-afternoon with a tune that rises and falls in a cadence all its own. Hours pass as they croon their noisy love songs, drowning out lawn mowers and barking dogs. They're everywhere, and there's no mistaking their popping red eyes and glittery gold wings. Pixar would do well to model them for animation.

They'll be gone soon, these creatures of the subterranean world, leaving us to ponder where we were 13 years ago and where we'll be 13 years hence. In the meantime, we'll sit back and listen to their show and wonder how they came to be in this strange and amazing world.

Golden Oldies

Now I know why I've listened to Oldies radio stations all these years that I've driven up and down I95. They take me back to another time I call simply "BC"--Before Cancer.

Thanks to John Lennon, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and Queen for reminding me of the good old days.

A Dog's Life: Cassidy

The importance of being earnest.

Feeling Small?

A story this week on NPR told of a series of tiny earthquakes currently hitting the coast of Maine. Earthquakes in Maine? Interestingly enough, 13,000 years ago--during the last Ice Age--the weight of the ice that crushed the earth in this part of the world was so great that even now, thousands of years later, the crust is still responding to the loss of all that weight when the ice melted. As Robert Marvinney, Director of the Maine Geological Survey explained, "It takes some time for the crust to respond and spring back, and these small earthquakes are a consequence of that."

Hmmm.

Osama bin Laden is killed, Wall Street excesses abound, we go about our busy lives and meanwhile, the earth reminds us that we are merely a footnote in the history of our planet and in the mind-boggling movement of time.

Graduation

The graduation ceremony is over, the robes hung up, and the tassels tossed. Everyone offers advice. Mine is simple:

As you leave childhood and embrace your adult life that lies ahead, hold tight--when you can--to the little you

* who swung with glee among racks of clothes at department stores;

* who danced to the pulsing rhythm of Sertab;

* who searched out crying children at the library;

* who coined the online moniker "gingerbreadwitch";

* and who created worlds of imagination through dress-ups and performances just about every day.

For I believe that when life gets difficult, as it inevitably does, you can find rescue within yourself and from your past. If you can recall what brought delight as a child, you can often get through the darkness.

The future gallops ahead, whether we're ready or not. You're ready, Madeleine. Journey on with hope and expectation.

The Bogeyman

As a child I worried about the bogeyman. If I left my bike outside overnight, the bogeyman might take it. If I walked home in the dark after playing outside, the bogeyman might get me. I never saw him, but he was always there.

It didn't occur to me until this week that an entire nation might fear the same bogeyman. Yet we did. His machinations created the stuff of nightmares: jumping from burning buildings; being buried alive; knowing you're about to crash.

I didn't think much about Osama bin Laden in recent years. But I realize now that he was always there, lingering in the dark. Now that he's gone, though, I wonder what fears will take his place. For when the child learns that there's no bogeyman, she feels relief, yes, but soon learns that danger itself is ever present in ever many forms. Though the devil is gone, evil remains.

Are we safer today than we were before Sunday night? I doubt it. But maybe now that we've gotten the bogeyman and buried him at the bottom of the sea, we can regain the balance and vision we need to move beyond September 11 and its disastrous legacy.

On Millinery

So maybe we disagree about whether or not it was OK for Pippa Middleton to wear white at her sister's wedding (she looked great), and maybe we disagree about whether or not William should wear a wedding band (it's his business). But surely we can agree that the hats in London on Friday were fantastic. Check out this slideshow if you have any doubts--you'll see a sleek and elegant look we simply couldn't pull off.

The millinery on display put to rest the American stereotype of Brits as dowdy and frumpy, consumers of fish and chips. Kind of like the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremonies put to rest the notion of a backwards China. Windows into other countries, these spectacles offer up another side of the countries we think we know. We're xenophobes at heart, and we need these shows from time to time to wake us up.

After all, if you look closely enough, you never know what you might find under someone else's hat.