More than science can say

“Bach gave us God’s Word. Mozart gave us God’s Laughter. Beethoven gave us God’s Fire. God gave us Music that we might pray without words.” – Anonymous

I have learned a lot from science .  It’s the source of most practical knowledge in my life.  Like how to make my tomato plants grow and why the days get shorter in the winter and warmer in the summer.  But science for me is also a source of wonder and awe and even a sense of transcendence and unity.  It is science that supports my conviction that one should never be certain that one is absolutely right.

But some of the most important things I believe, I have not learned from applying the scientific method.  Some things I believe for vastly different reasons, from different kinds of experiences, and with different kinds (as opposed to different levels) of certainty than those which science can offer.  

I’ve learned from poetry to live with ambiguity.  To see beauty along side the ugly, to keep believing when life seems so demonstrably bleak.

I’ve learned from people who have loved me and whom I have loved and who are the base on which my days rest.  Without them, I would not believe I have any worth at all.  They give the unexciting daily routine the meaning that transcends its apparent drudgery.  They are why cooking and cleaning, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn and picking up the kids matter.  They are what makes every day special.

And it is because of music that I believe that, ultimately, life is worth living, that it has some meaning beyond our individual allotted years.  

I think perhaps I have more in common than I first thought with the neighbour I met last week who espouses what I called an “alternative spirituality.”

Sputtering material

Two days ago the Royal Bank of Scotland announced the biggest corporate loss in British history.  It was something like 24 billion pounds sterling which is equal to about 36 million US dollars – a number which for the average person on the street is so gargantuan as to be incomprehensible.

Not so incomprehensible, though, that the average person on the street is not outraged that the British government negotiated a pension for the outgoing chairman who is responsible for leading the bank into this catastrophic hole when the bank had to be bailed out two months ago.

“Fred the Shred,” as he was known because he cut so many jobs during his tenure at the bank, is 50 years old.  For creating this corporate black hole land mark, he has been awarded an annual pension of £700,000 beginning immediately.  That’s more than a million dollars a year to comfort him for having to step down.

Voters are furious, because as a result of the government’s bail out, his pension is now fundamentally being funded by the taxpayer.

The government is claiming (somewhat lamely) that they didn’t realize the pension arrangement was negotiable, and so entered into what seems to be a legally-binding obligation.  At the moment they are reduced to publicly asking Fred the Shred to “do what is right” and give the money back.

Not surprisingly, he says no.

I couldn’t make this up, could I?

100 but not counting

A friend of ours who will be 76 on his next birthday told us the other day that his sisters from Greece and Australia are joining him and a third sister this weekend to celebrate his father’s 100th birthday.  His father has been dead for many decades, but they thought this was a good anniversary to celebrate nonetheless.

On reflection, I thought so too.   Our father, too, has been dead for many decades, but I thought it would be great fun to celebrate our father’s 100th birthday where we all grew up.  Our family has the good fortune of my brother’s family who still live on our original homestead and who seems to make us each and all welcome for weddings, funerals, and assorted birthdays. 

My plan was that we could spend the next three or four years planning to converge in Ohio on the great date. 

Unfortunately I’ve run into an insurmountable barrier.

My Dad was born in 1908.

Alternative alternatives

I met a woman at a dinner party the other night whose views of life are emphatically not my own, but which are nonetheless intriguing.

Eleanor has lived on all five continents, including Africa, Greenland, America, India, and several countries of Europe.  Unlike many people here in Britain, she has not done this as part of a military family, which tends to cacoon its members from a full exposure to the cultures where they are living.  She lived, often with her husband and children, immersed in the culture – living in the same kinds of home they did, eating their foods, adopting their life styles, becoming acquainted with the values and survival strategies of the people there.

Taking strands of the cultures of the many primitive peoples with whom she has lived, she has cobbled together a kind of – well, what shall I call it? – a kind of alternative spirituality.  It involves religious practices, alternative medicine, and a philosophy of life put together in a unique montage.  

She calls herself a psychotherapist and healer, and offers to guide people who are confused and in pain toward enlightenment.  Many people claim that their lives have been transformed as a result of their journey with her.

Fascinating as her life story is, and courageous as some of her struggles seem to be, I personally have to swallow hard.  I neither want nor trust somebody else’s ”enlightenment.”

Not that I can’t learn from the wisdom of others.  I have benefitted immensely and often from their  greater lights.  But don’t give me Right Answers.  I don’t believe them.  Don’t introduce me to The True Way.  I don’t trust it.

I don’t think enlightenment comes easily and it rarely comes quickly.  Above all it doesn’t come from somebody else.  One has to find it for oneself.

The best of times

Some recent research says that it has found that the topsy-turvy life styles so many of us have adopted in modern life isn’t good for us.  Apparently, we should do our thinking jobs between about ten and lunch, go to the gym after four pm, avoid driving after lunch, and make our evening meal comparable to a light snack.  Above all, we should live according to a fairly regular schedule, and abolish shift work.

I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I’m not even sure it would be a good idea.  

I’ve also been reading about the life styles of a tribe living in the Brazilian forest.  They do pretty much what they feel like when they feel like doing it.  They rarely indulge in an uninterrupted night’s sleep, but get odd hours as they feel the need.  The night, for them, is as full as the day.    It seems to suit them fine.  

Besides, research results like this tend to report on what the average person needs, but rarely divulges how many people aren’t actually average.  I, personally, am a night person, while my husband functions better in the very early morning, which means that neither of us is average, but are also different from each other.

On the other hand, maybe if I wrote these posts in the mornings instead of in the late evening, it might raise their intellectual calibre.  But I doubt it.  I suspect it’s too late.  Or too early, as the case may be.

I can no other answer make

The papers have been filled for the last several weeks with lists of the best blogs (from about 200 million worldwide) to soul searching about why we write them.  This is an exercise I engage in about once a year, so it seems a fitting opportunity for my annual introspection.

Why do I keep writing this blog?  It is not for lack of other things to do.  It is somehow intrinsically rewarding for me, but I’m not sure why.  

I do know some obvious reasons which are not why:  it’s not for money, and it’s not to change the world.  The comments and nugget of regular readers are critical to what I get out of it, but I positively flee from doing anything to “increase readership.” 

When I first started this blog, I naively thought I was and would remain anonymous.  That assumption has been totally disabused.  I have been outed by immediate family and friends whom I’ve know for fifty years.  This has changed the content of what I write, since I am aware that I could cause a great deal of pain and confusion by violating the privacy of others.

And yet I blab on.  I think there are two things that keep me going.  One is, like teaching, writing helps me think, to figure things out, to clarify issues, something which I have loved to do since I walked into first grade at St. Joseph’s grade school at the age of six.

And it makes me feel connected.  Supported even.  We’re all in this together – all struggling with the same human problems, asking the same existential questions, finding joy in those we love,  beauty in what we see or hear or learn, wondering if we have the wisdom and strength to face the challenges that our lives throw up.

And so once again, I want to say thank you for being there.  Thank you for reading this.  Thank you for your comments.

As Shakespeare says in Twelfth Night:

but thanks, and thanks,

and ever thanks.

Cents and nonsense

As a general rule, I try to avoid posting You-tube videos as a substitute for writing my own posts here.

But this one is priceless.  No wonder we got into the financial mess we’re in.  The entire world seems to have been run by mathematical geniuses —  who didn’t understand that real money doesn’t necessarily obey the laws of complex equations — for the severely mathematically challenged — who can’t get a grip on the difference between dollars and cents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJ3Oz5JVKs&eurl=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/extramustard/02/17/alice-greczyn-dejuan-blair/index.html

But then, some people in Really Important Positions of Authority (aka RIPAs) think it’s just a matter of opinion.

Trying to figure out what to worry about

The news here today includes a warning by one of England’s central bankers (equivalent to the Fed in the U.S.) that Britain – and presumably most of the world – could be facing a Japan-style recession.  In other words, a downturn that lasts for a decade.

It is almost certain that already most countries will be facing a debt overhang for at least that long.  But that might be the optimistic result.  The really dreadful possibility is that we could be facing mind-boggling debts and still not have economies that are turning over.

The only consensus I can find among the economists, some of whom might actually understand the problem, is that the worst possible thing we can do is to give into protectionism.  ”Buy America,” or “Buy British,” or whatever translation fits the language of your country.  It’s what happened after the depression – America started it with the Snoot-Hawley bill – and it made things much much worse.

So one can only hope that somehow we – and especially America – manages to mostly avoid opening this destructive closed door.

But what if the world does enter into a really prolonged recession/depression?  I doubt that it will signal Armageddon.  But it certainly might lead to increased wars – even major wars very close to home.  Along with political unrest, disease, starvation, violation of human rights, and the rise of totalitarian government.

So I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.  I’m hoping that all those critics of the stimulus package that finally got through the U.S. Congress are wrong, and that it will dig America out of the mess we’re in.

And if America starts moving – this probably sounds chauvinist, but I believe it is true – the rest of the world will be saved from disaster too.

But it’s still not a certain call.

What bees can teach us

I have just read a review of research studying how bees find a new nesting site when their nest gets over-crowded. 

First, scouting bees leave the nest looking for new sites.  When each one finds a potential nest, it returns to the nest and communicates to the rest of the community through a waggle dance, indicating the scout’s opinion of the new possibility.  Then the scouts go out and inspect each other’s sites found and then again go back to the nest, where the assessments of the pros and cons of the site are communicated through a variety of waggles.  This process is repeated and eventually leads to a consensus among all the bees.  Then the swarm then moves home, leaving a smaller colony to continue residence in the original nest.

But does it work?  surprisingly, researchers have found that the best site is almost always the one that is selected – even when there have been only small differences between the “best” and the “almost best.”

The researchers also discovered that if a scout that is very good at finding nesting sites does not share its information with the bee community, the entire swam is at risk of becoming homeless and vulnerable.  

Conversely, if bees just follow a leader bee and do not check out the suggested new site themselves, the chances of choosing an inferior nesting site are greatly increased.  Following the party line is no better for the group than isolated independence.

In other words, the best option is to listen carefully to what other experts say, and then to check out the evidence for oneself before joining the group in reaching a consensus.

Apparently, when he was in the White House, George W Bush did not welcome the expression of opinions that he did not already share.  And several of the bankers whose banks are now more or less owned by the British taxpayer actually fired risk-assessors who told them the bank was taking risks that were dangerous.    

(So just in case the moral of the story isn’t embarrassingly obvious, it’s another reason why intolerance or refusing to listen to people who don’t already agree with us, is so risky.)

Born recyclers

Recycling is considered responsible and virtuous these days, and I can compete with the best in not throwing things into the trash.  But I fear my recycling doesn’t spring from responsible virtue.

I have a sister and a brother who, like me, seem to be born recyclers.  It is important, here to make a distinction between recycling and collecting.  To the untutored eye, they may look suspiciously similar.  But the essence of recycling isn’t to let things lie dormant while they increase in size, if not in value.  The essence of recycling is to find another purpose for the presently defunct item.

It’s the challenge of finding another use for something that is perfectly sound but no longer needed in its present form.  So I have made waste baskets out of lamp shades and the bucket of a broken ice cream maker.  I have made a newspaper rack from an old log carrier, a wood box from an old tv stand, skirts from dresses that are no longer fashionable.  I’ve used wine corks to line plant pots, and egg trays to keep nails and screws in assorted groups.  Etc.  You get the idea.

I am not married to a natural recycler, and so I can’t just slap anything together and call it recycled.  It’s got to look good, fit into the decor, and somehow be useful.   I will admit that being married to Peter has definitely raised my game.

I used to think I was a recycler because I was trying to save money.  But that really isn’t it.  It’s the challenge that I can’t resist.

And as I think about Darwin and the theory of evolution, it does seem to me that quite possibly it is the recyclers who inherit the earth.  Birds build nests out of bits and pieces they pick up here and there.  Man made his first tools out of rocks he (or she) that were laying around, and caves – which weren’t sold in the first place as housing – were our first shelters.

Today recyclers are in great demand for turning our garbage into ev erything from energy to shopping bags, packaging, compressed shelving, and shipping crates.

They are even using recycled material to produce toilet paper.  Now there’s an achievement a born recycler can be proud of.