3/28/2004
The Day Chiand Mia Died
Blot #38
The Day Chiand Mia Died
Laurel Hone, Vice President of Communications at World Vision came to me one day in 1987 with a problem. Dr. Robert Seiple, the President, wanted his name on a book. He didn’t have time to write it so Laurel had hired a ghost writer who had worked for WV before. He had fooled around with the material for a long time and finally produced two chapters that were totally unacceptable.
The book was intended to be inspiring stories about the good things World Vision was doing in the world. I suggested a group of short stories, true but simplified, for the short attention span of the President and the readers. She gave me the material and I wrote several samples. The idea was that Seiple could read the stories, dictate short comments on his thoughts about the part of the work depicted, and together the comments and stories would accomplish the goal.
Laurel liked what I wrote. Seiple apparently did not want to share the credit with an employee or take the time to do his share. Or maybe he just didn’t like what I wrote. Unfortunately, he didn’t make that clear to Laurel until I had written the whole book – 20 stories.
One of the demonstration stories I wrote is still my favorite. It was easy because I had spent time on Demra Island and knew the nurse there, Mary Campbell, quite well.
The Day Chiand Mia Died
On the day Chiand Mia died a lone black bird rose on the stiff morning breeze above the north end of Demra Island. The sun glittered on the speckled brown surface of the Brahmaputra below and glinted dully from the wing he raised as he wheeled and headed upriver to the city. There was nothing on this island to tempt the scavenger.
The little food to be found on Demra was passed out weekly in carefully measured amounts by relief workers. Nothing was spilled. Nothing was wasted. Nothing was ever left over. Week by week thirty-five thousand souls quietly lined up to receive seven days more of life from the hands of strangers.
The day Chiand Mia died a mother on a green hillside above Auckland Harbor took down white curtains in a sunny bedroom. She washed them, ironed them, and hung them back. Someday, she wasn’t sure just when, her daughter would return from halfway around the world. She would come home to rest, or, more likely, to recover from dysentery or malaria, or hepatitis—or something worse. What else could be expected for a lone young nurse among thirty-five thousand refugees on a windswept heap of dirt only a stone’s throw from the end of the world?
The day Chiand Mia died a young Dacca official in the Ministry of Public Works carefully filled his new fountain pen, called for tea and took a thick proposal from the top of a large pile on the shelf behind his desk. They were asking for electricity on Demra. It was a reasonable request.
Technically, this would not be difficult. In fact, it would be one of the easier things that were being asked for the Demra refugees these days. The cost would not be great either—especially considering the benefits to be derived. He wanted to sign, to see the strong black ink flow from the golden point of his pen. It would be something he could feel very good about.
But he hesitated. There was another consideration. Officially, Demra Refugee Camp did not exist. Officially, there were no people on this small island—some had even hoped, unofficially of course, that the 35,000 people who weren’t there would just die quietly and stop embarrassing the Government. Officially, there were no services on this island; no electricity; no water; no sewer; no police; no government; no anything anywhere that would in any way admit to the presence of a community of people. To provide electricity might be to provide official recognition of that which did not exist…this was a complex matter, a weighty decision that, made wrongly, might endanger a young man’s position and his prospects.
He would think about it carefully. He put the cap on his fountain pen and the bulky proposal on the bottom of the pile. He called for more tea. Perhaps things might be different by the time the request once more made it to the top of the pile.
On the day Chiand Mia died another young man in another office sat with the Demra Camp project file. He was reading a purchase order for one hundred boats to be built. There were fish in the river and across its two miles some work to be had in the city. These boats would be the first step on the long road back to dignity and self-sufficiency for the almost forgotten people of Demra.
The day Chiand Mia died a grandmother on a farm in Minnesota sat down at her kitchen table and wrote a check for $100. “For those poor folks in Bangladesh,” she told her husband. He put cream in his morning coffee and went back to his newspaper. She really cared, that was one of the things he had loved about her for 42 years.
On the day Chiand Mia died Mary Campbell rose earlier than usual. For five days she had stopped at the big hospital in the morning on her way to the island and again in the evening on her return. She had seen Chiand rally and then begin to fail. In spite of all the doctors could do, the frail body was no match for the fever that was killing him. Each day was worse.
This morning she arrived just in time to see the last desperate efforts fail. She held his hand and watched him die. She wept with the father beside Chiand’s bed. She was very tired that morning—hepatitis was already gathering strength in her system.
On the day Chiand Mia died his mother swept the dirt floor of their tiny hut on Demra. His sisters carried water from the river to a small patch of vegetables beside the hut. Even as they prayed for Chiand Mia, his father started home from the hospital with the sad news.
On the day Chiand Mia died he was only twelve years old. He had been on the run all his life. He had never owned a real toy, never gone to school, never slept in a bed until the day he came to the big hospital in Dacca.
The Day Chiand Mia Died
Laurel Hone, Vice President of Communications at World Vision came to me one day in 1987 with a problem. Dr. Robert Seiple, the President, wanted his name on a book. He didn’t have time to write it so Laurel had hired a ghost writer who had worked for WV before. He had fooled around with the material for a long time and finally produced two chapters that were totally unacceptable.
The book was intended to be inspiring stories about the good things World Vision was doing in the world. I suggested a group of short stories, true but simplified, for the short attention span of the President and the readers. She gave me the material and I wrote several samples. The idea was that Seiple could read the stories, dictate short comments on his thoughts about the part of the work depicted, and together the comments and stories would accomplish the goal.
Laurel liked what I wrote. Seiple apparently did not want to share the credit with an employee or take the time to do his share. Or maybe he just didn’t like what I wrote. Unfortunately, he didn’t make that clear to Laurel until I had written the whole book – 20 stories.
One of the demonstration stories I wrote is still my favorite. It was easy because I had spent time on Demra Island and knew the nurse there, Mary Campbell, quite well.
The Day Chiand Mia Died
On the day Chiand Mia died a lone black bird rose on the stiff morning breeze above the north end of Demra Island. The sun glittered on the speckled brown surface of the Brahmaputra below and glinted dully from the wing he raised as he wheeled and headed upriver to the city. There was nothing on this island to tempt the scavenger.
The little food to be found on Demra was passed out weekly in carefully measured amounts by relief workers. Nothing was spilled. Nothing was wasted. Nothing was ever left over. Week by week thirty-five thousand souls quietly lined up to receive seven days more of life from the hands of strangers.
The day Chiand Mia died a mother on a green hillside above Auckland Harbor took down white curtains in a sunny bedroom. She washed them, ironed them, and hung them back. Someday, she wasn’t sure just when, her daughter would return from halfway around the world. She would come home to rest, or, more likely, to recover from dysentery or malaria, or hepatitis—or something worse. What else could be expected for a lone young nurse among thirty-five thousand refugees on a windswept heap of dirt only a stone’s throw from the end of the world?
The day Chiand Mia died a young Dacca official in the Ministry of Public Works carefully filled his new fountain pen, called for tea and took a thick proposal from the top of a large pile on the shelf behind his desk. They were asking for electricity on Demra. It was a reasonable request.
Technically, this would not be difficult. In fact, it would be one of the easier things that were being asked for the Demra refugees these days. The cost would not be great either—especially considering the benefits to be derived. He wanted to sign, to see the strong black ink flow from the golden point of his pen. It would be something he could feel very good about.
But he hesitated. There was another consideration. Officially, Demra Refugee Camp did not exist. Officially, there were no people on this small island—some had even hoped, unofficially of course, that the 35,000 people who weren’t there would just die quietly and stop embarrassing the Government. Officially, there were no services on this island; no electricity; no water; no sewer; no police; no government; no anything anywhere that would in any way admit to the presence of a community of people. To provide electricity might be to provide official recognition of that which did not exist…this was a complex matter, a weighty decision that, made wrongly, might endanger a young man’s position and his prospects.
He would think about it carefully. He put the cap on his fountain pen and the bulky proposal on the bottom of the pile. He called for more tea. Perhaps things might be different by the time the request once more made it to the top of the pile.
On the day Chiand Mia died another young man in another office sat with the Demra Camp project file. He was reading a purchase order for one hundred boats to be built. There were fish in the river and across its two miles some work to be had in the city. These boats would be the first step on the long road back to dignity and self-sufficiency for the almost forgotten people of Demra.
The day Chiand Mia died a grandmother on a farm in Minnesota sat down at her kitchen table and wrote a check for $100. “For those poor folks in Bangladesh,” she told her husband. He put cream in his morning coffee and went back to his newspaper. She really cared, that was one of the things he had loved about her for 42 years.
On the day Chiand Mia died Mary Campbell rose earlier than usual. For five days she had stopped at the big hospital in the morning on her way to the island and again in the evening on her return. She had seen Chiand rally and then begin to fail. In spite of all the doctors could do, the frail body was no match for the fever that was killing him. Each day was worse.
This morning she arrived just in time to see the last desperate efforts fail. She held his hand and watched him die. She wept with the father beside Chiand’s bed. She was very tired that morning—hepatitis was already gathering strength in her system.
On the day Chiand Mia died his mother swept the dirt floor of their tiny hut on Demra. His sisters carried water from the river to a small patch of vegetables beside the hut. Even as they prayed for Chiand Mia, his father started home from the hospital with the sad news.
On the day Chiand Mia died he was only twelve years old. He had been on the run all his life. He had never owned a real toy, never gone to school, never slept in a bed until the day he came to the big hospital in Dacca.
3/24/2004
It's A Relief
Blog #37
It’s A Relief
We have ten grandchildren. Three of them are girls. Malena is one of these girls. She will be nine years old this April. I took some minor liberties of form and rhyme to turn the prayer her mother reported into a poem.
IT'S A RELIEF
Malena's Prayer
Thank you God
For Who you are
And thank you too
For all you do
And thank you much
For Good and such -
It's a relief
To know you're Chief!
JS
10.14.03
“Behold, children are a gift from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.”
Psalm 127.3-5
It’s A Relief
We have ten grandchildren. Three of them are girls. Malena is one of these girls. She will be nine years old this April. I took some minor liberties of form and rhyme to turn the prayer her mother reported into a poem.
IT'S A RELIEF
Malena's Prayer
Thank you God
For Who you are
And thank you too
For all you do
And thank you much
For Good and such -
It's a relief
To know you're Chief!
JS
10.14.03
“Behold, children are a gift from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.”
Psalm 127.3-5
3/20/2004
Minor Ecstasies & The Glory Of God
Blog #36
Minor Ecstasies & The Glory of God
The Greek word “doxa” translated “glory” in the New Testament means, “An especially divine quality, the unspoken manifestation of God.” The best working definition I have ever heard is “Glory is the name we give to the sparks that fly when the infinite weight of eternity touches the fragility of time.” I cannot remember where or from whom I heard this but it has been stuck firmly in my mind for years.
In the Old Testament the Hebrew equivalent of doxa is “kabode” which means “splendor or copiousness” coming from a root that means “heavy.” In both cases, the infinite weight of eternity is Jehovah God, the infinite/personal Creator and Sustainer of all that is.
Today we have largely lost our awareness and sensitivity to these sparks. The weight we notice is the weight of a barbarian culture pressing us to conform. This weight is so pervasive and so smothering that we have to work hard at it to see the sparks where eternity rubs up against time. Solitude, silence, contemplation are some of the most feared things in contemporary culture, even among those still holding to some Judeo-Christian values. We mostly prefer our “sparks” tamed and neatly packaged in a small, cheap book from the Family Christian Book and Ticky-Tacky Store.
In “The World In Tune,” E.G. Vining puts it this way;
“Fragments of beauty and truth lie in every path; they need only the receptive eye and the receptive spirit to become the stuff of minor ecstasies.”
In other words; Stop and smell the flowers!
I once wrote a poem about this kind of experience.
SHEKINAH
As I left my work last evening
To slog the clotted freeway home
The sky above Glendora
Was like a pleasure dome.
Great clouds towered in the east
From darkened mountain peaks
Gilded by the sinking sun,
Shot through with golden streaks.
Rising from a parking lot
Against the glowing grey
A hundred soaring seagulls
Were on the wind at play,
They banked and wheeled and tumbled
Stark white against the sky,
An avian Shekinah
To lift the heart and eye.
5/89
062
These sparks are visible to all, not just “religious” folks. The American Poet Sylvia Plath was born in Boston in 1932. Her poetry was confessional. She wrote freely about her own disturbed feelings. She confronted her own psychological states and painful emotions – she let it all hang out. But she didn’t come into her own until she married the English Poet, Ted Hughes. Her deeper creative fountains were opened up and her poetry took on notes of hysteria and psychological torment. The cultural elite loved it, but it all became too much for her. When she had lived in misery only 30 years, she took her own life, leaving her husband and two children to pick up the pieces.
But Sylvia definitely saw the sparks. She described one of these experiences in a poem written in 1956. She was 24 years old.
BLACK ROOK IN RAINY WEATHER
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident
To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.
Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent
Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then—
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent
By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant
Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content
Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.
These two poems have a few of things in common:
-They are both written by sinners
-They both describe a similar experience
-They both represent the experience as a good one, positive
-They both are about birds
How do they differ?
Technically, Black Rook In Rainy Weather is excellent. It is found in many anthologies and college textbooks. Technically Shekinah may be passable but it will win no prizes and appear in no anthologies. However, at the level of the spirit, they differ profoundly.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans of what every man and woman knows:
“…what is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Romans 1.19-20
But human reactions to the truth known by all men differ. Some accept the light, others deny that it exists. Romans 1.18 says these deniers “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” They have the truth but hold it down. (If you would like a book length exposition of the reality and implications of Romans 1.18-20 and 2.15) I highly recommend “What We Can’t Not Know” by J. Budziszewski).
Plath’s poem is a good example of those who know the truth but suppress it. She was a gifted and sensitive person who stumbled across glory but refused to acknowledge the One from Whom the light came. She talked about angels, hallowing, celestial burning, love and miracles without ever acknowledging the Creator of the angels, the Maker of miracles, the One who is Love. She was a prisoner in the cold damp castle of autonomous man, self-condemned to a fruitless search inside herself for meaning and truth.
There are millions today like her. Blindly rushing past the stuff of minor ecstasies, never acknowledging their Source. May they, and we also, be more like Moses who saw a bush burning in the desert and said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” Exodus 3.3
Minor Ecstasies & The Glory of God
The Greek word “doxa” translated “glory” in the New Testament means, “An especially divine quality, the unspoken manifestation of God.” The best working definition I have ever heard is “Glory is the name we give to the sparks that fly when the infinite weight of eternity touches the fragility of time.” I cannot remember where or from whom I heard this but it has been stuck firmly in my mind for years.
In the Old Testament the Hebrew equivalent of doxa is “kabode” which means “splendor or copiousness” coming from a root that means “heavy.” In both cases, the infinite weight of eternity is Jehovah God, the infinite/personal Creator and Sustainer of all that is.
Today we have largely lost our awareness and sensitivity to these sparks. The weight we notice is the weight of a barbarian culture pressing us to conform. This weight is so pervasive and so smothering that we have to work hard at it to see the sparks where eternity rubs up against time. Solitude, silence, contemplation are some of the most feared things in contemporary culture, even among those still holding to some Judeo-Christian values. We mostly prefer our “sparks” tamed and neatly packaged in a small, cheap book from the Family Christian Book and Ticky-Tacky Store.
In “The World In Tune,” E.G. Vining puts it this way;
“Fragments of beauty and truth lie in every path; they need only the receptive eye and the receptive spirit to become the stuff of minor ecstasies.”
In other words; Stop and smell the flowers!
I once wrote a poem about this kind of experience.
SHEKINAH
As I left my work last evening
To slog the clotted freeway home
The sky above Glendora
Was like a pleasure dome.
Great clouds towered in the east
From darkened mountain peaks
Gilded by the sinking sun,
Shot through with golden streaks.
Rising from a parking lot
Against the glowing grey
A hundred soaring seagulls
Were on the wind at play,
They banked and wheeled and tumbled
Stark white against the sky,
An avian Shekinah
To lift the heart and eye.
5/89
062
These sparks are visible to all, not just “religious” folks. The American Poet Sylvia Plath was born in Boston in 1932. Her poetry was confessional. She wrote freely about her own disturbed feelings. She confronted her own psychological states and painful emotions – she let it all hang out. But she didn’t come into her own until she married the English Poet, Ted Hughes. Her deeper creative fountains were opened up and her poetry took on notes of hysteria and psychological torment. The cultural elite loved it, but it all became too much for her. When she had lived in misery only 30 years, she took her own life, leaving her husband and two children to pick up the pieces.
But Sylvia definitely saw the sparks. She described one of these experiences in a poem written in 1956. She was 24 years old.
BLACK ROOK IN RAINY WEATHER
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident
To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.
Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent
Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then—
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent
By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant
Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content
Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.
These two poems have a few of things in common:
-They are both written by sinners
-They both describe a similar experience
-They both represent the experience as a good one, positive
-They both are about birds
How do they differ?
Technically, Black Rook In Rainy Weather is excellent. It is found in many anthologies and college textbooks. Technically Shekinah may be passable but it will win no prizes and appear in no anthologies. However, at the level of the spirit, they differ profoundly.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans of what every man and woman knows:
“…what is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Romans 1.19-20
But human reactions to the truth known by all men differ. Some accept the light, others deny that it exists. Romans 1.18 says these deniers “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” They have the truth but hold it down. (If you would like a book length exposition of the reality and implications of Romans 1.18-20 and 2.15) I highly recommend “What We Can’t Not Know” by J. Budziszewski).
Plath’s poem is a good example of those who know the truth but suppress it. She was a gifted and sensitive person who stumbled across glory but refused to acknowledge the One from Whom the light came. She talked about angels, hallowing, celestial burning, love and miracles without ever acknowledging the Creator of the angels, the Maker of miracles, the One who is Love. She was a prisoner in the cold damp castle of autonomous man, self-condemned to a fruitless search inside herself for meaning and truth.
There are millions today like her. Blindly rushing past the stuff of minor ecstasies, never acknowledging their Source. May they, and we also, be more like Moses who saw a bush burning in the desert and said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” Exodus 3.3
3/14/2004
Cartoon To The Editor #35
We are entering what promises to be a long, nasty campaign - I will do my best not to say much about it, but once in a while I will not be able to resist.
3/13/2004
Memory
Blog #34
Memory
Has anyone ever asked you the question; "What is the earliest thing you recall as a child?" When we get old enough, our heirs and assigns start thinking about the possibility of our not being around anymore and start trying to fill in some blanks in what they know of us. If they are on the ball, they may have interviewed us, taped it and have it stored away somewhere. I wish I had done that with my father. He never said much about his life before I was born. His father was the same - he left the "old country" when he was 18 and never looked back.
I have been thinking about this and it seems that how this question is answered varies depending on a number of things.
My parents were not big picture takers. They did have an old Brownie box camera but they took very few pictures until we started going to Lincoln Lake for two weeks in the summer. There my mother always took one picture of the men - Dad in back, then me in front of him, and then my brother in front of me. We lined up like stair steps in our dark blue wool bathing suits and smiled. I remember a lot more about those summers at the lake, but I was 6 or 7 then. There are a few pictures of me at 1 or 2, but I remember nothing of those times except the pictures.
Had my parents taken a lot of pictures and put them in an album and talked about them as I grew up, I would probably have memories that go back to when I was 2 or 3 years old. I have asked a number of people this question and many do remember back that far but none of them can say for sure whether the memories they have are of the actual events or of pictures and stories about events. My oldest memories seem to all start around five or six years old and are memories of real events, not pictures.
Did you have a happy, tranquil childhood? If you did, you will probably remember few details and few events. The things that will stand out will be intense situations, whether good or bad. Intense emotional experiences have a way of taking root in the mind so they are more easily recovered. Of course, it they are too intense, and bad, they may be buried beyond normal recall.
When I was about six I had a grand scooter. It had big balloon tires and a large platform that three of us could ride at a time if we worked at it. I recall as if it were yesterday the summer noon my Mom called Don Hamilton's Mom and asked her to send me home for lunch. I was a little slow getting going because we were doing something very interesting and Don didn't want me to leave. When I did leave he called me a name I don't remember and as I sailed down the driveway and around the corner onto the sidewalk that led downhill to my house I shouted an answer over my shoulder, I think it was "Go to hell," Which was pretty strong for me.
He yelled something back at me and I yelled something back over my shoulder at him. What I missed was my Dad had come out front to hurry me along to lunch and he heard it all. As I sailed past the front of my house headed for the driveway, he reached out and snatched me off the flying scooter like a railroad mail sack. He spanked me and explained to me that the language I was using was not acceptable, ever! The spanking was not brutal, the lecture was not loud, but the impression was indelible - it was the first time my father had ever spanked me, at least the first time I remember. In fact, it may have been the only time.
I guess my age has something to do with how I answer this question as well.
When I was 25, childhood was not so far away and the memory banks were not so full. Nothing that goes into the mind ever goes away, but as we get older it becomes more difficult to call things up at will. More and more it seems that the intense experiences are the only ones that come back easily. And I think it is usually the good, intense experiences rather than the bad ones.
Then, at some point, maybe 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, the memory begins to decline and what happened many years ago becomes clearer than what happened yesterday or last week. Well before short-term memory begins to weaken and senility begins to creep in, far off events seem to be much clearer and easier to call up than the things in the recent past.
There also develops a gap between a husband and wife's memories of the same event. Allowing for differences of temperament and perspective, things they have lived together get reported by each about the same a year later - but 10 years later the stories have diverged and from then on they get farther and farther apart. There is a real danger in writing one's memoirs while the mate is around to make suggestions. There is also great blessing in the corrections of a mate since two heads are usually better than one.
I'm not quite sure where this is leading except to suggest that those who write should put down something of their history for those who follow because those who follow will someday want to know and usually not have asked in time. Those who don't write but talk should make a tape. And I would urge those who follow to do some asking while those who are getting old still have their wits about them.
If you are tempted to put this chore off a while, remember the last words of H.G. Wells,
"Go away. I'm all right."
Memory
Has anyone ever asked you the question; "What is the earliest thing you recall as a child?" When we get old enough, our heirs and assigns start thinking about the possibility of our not being around anymore and start trying to fill in some blanks in what they know of us. If they are on the ball, they may have interviewed us, taped it and have it stored away somewhere. I wish I had done that with my father. He never said much about his life before I was born. His father was the same - he left the "old country" when he was 18 and never looked back.
I have been thinking about this and it seems that how this question is answered varies depending on a number of things.
My parents were not big picture takers. They did have an old Brownie box camera but they took very few pictures until we started going to Lincoln Lake for two weeks in the summer. There my mother always took one picture of the men - Dad in back, then me in front of him, and then my brother in front of me. We lined up like stair steps in our dark blue wool bathing suits and smiled. I remember a lot more about those summers at the lake, but I was 6 or 7 then. There are a few pictures of me at 1 or 2, but I remember nothing of those times except the pictures.
Had my parents taken a lot of pictures and put them in an album and talked about them as I grew up, I would probably have memories that go back to when I was 2 or 3 years old. I have asked a number of people this question and many do remember back that far but none of them can say for sure whether the memories they have are of the actual events or of pictures and stories about events. My oldest memories seem to all start around five or six years old and are memories of real events, not pictures.
Did you have a happy, tranquil childhood? If you did, you will probably remember few details and few events. The things that will stand out will be intense situations, whether good or bad. Intense emotional experiences have a way of taking root in the mind so they are more easily recovered. Of course, it they are too intense, and bad, they may be buried beyond normal recall.
When I was about six I had a grand scooter. It had big balloon tires and a large platform that three of us could ride at a time if we worked at it. I recall as if it were yesterday the summer noon my Mom called Don Hamilton's Mom and asked her to send me home for lunch. I was a little slow getting going because we were doing something very interesting and Don didn't want me to leave. When I did leave he called me a name I don't remember and as I sailed down the driveway and around the corner onto the sidewalk that led downhill to my house I shouted an answer over my shoulder, I think it was "Go to hell," Which was pretty strong for me.
He yelled something back at me and I yelled something back over my shoulder at him. What I missed was my Dad had come out front to hurry me along to lunch and he heard it all. As I sailed past the front of my house headed for the driveway, he reached out and snatched me off the flying scooter like a railroad mail sack. He spanked me and explained to me that the language I was using was not acceptable, ever! The spanking was not brutal, the lecture was not loud, but the impression was indelible - it was the first time my father had ever spanked me, at least the first time I remember. In fact, it may have been the only time.
I guess my age has something to do with how I answer this question as well.
When I was 25, childhood was not so far away and the memory banks were not so full. Nothing that goes into the mind ever goes away, but as we get older it becomes more difficult to call things up at will. More and more it seems that the intense experiences are the only ones that come back easily. And I think it is usually the good, intense experiences rather than the bad ones.
Then, at some point, maybe 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, the memory begins to decline and what happened many years ago becomes clearer than what happened yesterday or last week. Well before short-term memory begins to weaken and senility begins to creep in, far off events seem to be much clearer and easier to call up than the things in the recent past.
There also develops a gap between a husband and wife's memories of the same event. Allowing for differences of temperament and perspective, things they have lived together get reported by each about the same a year later - but 10 years later the stories have diverged and from then on they get farther and farther apart. There is a real danger in writing one's memoirs while the mate is around to make suggestions. There is also great blessing in the corrections of a mate since two heads are usually better than one.
I'm not quite sure where this is leading except to suggest that those who write should put down something of their history for those who follow because those who follow will someday want to know and usually not have asked in time. Those who don't write but talk should make a tape. And I would urge those who follow to do some asking while those who are getting old still have their wits about them.
If you are tempted to put this chore off a while, remember the last words of H.G. Wells,
"Go away. I'm all right."
3/07/2004
Grumble
Blog #33
Grumble
One thing getting older does is to confirm us in our general nature. My wife worked for some time in a retirement home where elderly Plymouth Brethren were waiting their bus to Glory. Two distinctly different kinds of persons inhabited the place.
Some, who had been cheerful, optimistic, and kind during their younger days, had shriveled down to a friendly smile and a pleasant word. Others, who had been critical, complaining and nasty during their younger days, had shriveled down to nothing but a hollow grumble, sour and distasteful to all who came near. It was Thomas A. Kempis who said, “We are too much holden by our own passions, and too much troubled by transitory things. We seldom overcome even one vice perfectly.”
Most of these seniors seemed consumed with their health and discussed it endlessly. My father-in-law, who is generally cheerful and optimistic, once commented that he was living for the day when he would get through three meals in the retirement home dining room without once hearing the word “cholesterol.” Actually, he needs not to be in a retirement home to be buried in endless talk about bodily functions and difficulties. Just watch an hour of TV and you get the grand tour from erectile dysfunction to bowel dysfunction to social anxiety disorder and limp hair.
I am reminded of a prayer, usually attributed to a 17th Century Nun but actually of unknown origin. It is titled, “Prayer of an Ageing Woman,” but could as well have been called, “Prayer of an Ageing Man.”
___________________________________________________________________________________
Lord, you know better than I know myself that I am growing older, and will some day be old. Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.
Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but you know, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end. Keep my mind from the recital of endless details - give me wings to come to the point.
I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of others' pains. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains - they are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by. Help me to endure them with patience.
I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.
Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint - some of them are so hard to live with - but a sour old woman (or man) is one of the crowning works of the devil.
Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people. And give me, 0 Lord, the grace to tell them so.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Somewhere in one of the Apocryphal Books of Esdras there is a bit of advice, probably intended for those of us who are getting up there in years:
“Now therefore keep thy sorry to thyself and bear with good courage that which hath befallen you.”
Sometimes an old person needs to talk. Too often that old person is neglected and bypassed and ignored by a family too busy and a world moving too fast. If you are a young person, it is a fine thing to make a habit of finding one of these old persons and taking some time to listen. You will bless that old person and you might even learn something – it is thought that age may bring some measure of wisdom. But if you are an old person and are blessed by a young person who listens, remember the Nun’s Prayer and the admonition of Esdras.
________________________________________________________________________
“Grumble not overmuch lest ye become a Grumble.” Jeremias the Recluse
Grumble
One thing getting older does is to confirm us in our general nature. My wife worked for some time in a retirement home where elderly Plymouth Brethren were waiting their bus to Glory. Two distinctly different kinds of persons inhabited the place.
Some, who had been cheerful, optimistic, and kind during their younger days, had shriveled down to a friendly smile and a pleasant word. Others, who had been critical, complaining and nasty during their younger days, had shriveled down to nothing but a hollow grumble, sour and distasteful to all who came near. It was Thomas A. Kempis who said, “We are too much holden by our own passions, and too much troubled by transitory things. We seldom overcome even one vice perfectly.”
Most of these seniors seemed consumed with their health and discussed it endlessly. My father-in-law, who is generally cheerful and optimistic, once commented that he was living for the day when he would get through three meals in the retirement home dining room without once hearing the word “cholesterol.” Actually, he needs not to be in a retirement home to be buried in endless talk about bodily functions and difficulties. Just watch an hour of TV and you get the grand tour from erectile dysfunction to bowel dysfunction to social anxiety disorder and limp hair.
I am reminded of a prayer, usually attributed to a 17th Century Nun but actually of unknown origin. It is titled, “Prayer of an Ageing Woman,” but could as well have been called, “Prayer of an Ageing Man.”
___________________________________________________________________________________
Lord, you know better than I know myself that I am growing older, and will some day be old. Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.
Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but you know, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end. Keep my mind from the recital of endless details - give me wings to come to the point.
I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of others' pains. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains - they are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by. Help me to endure them with patience.
I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.
Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint - some of them are so hard to live with - but a sour old woman (or man) is one of the crowning works of the devil.
Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people. And give me, 0 Lord, the grace to tell them so.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Somewhere in one of the Apocryphal Books of Esdras there is a bit of advice, probably intended for those of us who are getting up there in years:
“Now therefore keep thy sorry to thyself and bear with good courage that which hath befallen you.”
Sometimes an old person needs to talk. Too often that old person is neglected and bypassed and ignored by a family too busy and a world moving too fast. If you are a young person, it is a fine thing to make a habit of finding one of these old persons and taking some time to listen. You will bless that old person and you might even learn something – it is thought that age may bring some measure of wisdom. But if you are an old person and are blessed by a young person who listens, remember the Nun’s Prayer and the admonition of Esdras.
________________________________________________________________________
“Grumble not overmuch lest ye become a Grumble.” Jeremias the Recluse
3/02/2004
Four Arguments
#32 Four Arguments For The Elimination of Television
Sometimes a bargain book can be a real bargain. Some years ago I picked up a new hardcover book for $4 on a scramble table. "Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television" was published in 1978. Its author, Jerry Mander had been successful in the advertising business selling upscale products (Triumph, Land Rover, Paul Masson wines, KLH Audio equipment, etc.,) when he became socially conscious and began to try to sell environmentalism.
One day in an interview with The Wall Street Journal he admitted some conflicting thoughts about selling Land Rovers on Tuesday and criticizing the effect of automobiles on the environment on Thursday. He soon lost the upscale accounts. He became a crusader of sorts but was soon frustrated as he realized that television was not something that could help him in his efforts. He spent a good deal of time studying TV and this book is the record of his conclusions.
If you can find the book, it is well-worth reading, even today, 26 years later. I will briefly summarize his four reasons as a kind of context for the main point of this blog, which is to describe how TV functions to put images in our heads - images that we cannot control, but that often control us.
ARGUMENT ONE: THE MEDIATION OF EXPERIENCE.
"As humans have moved into totally artificial environments, our direct contact with and knowledge of the planet has been snapped. Disconnected, like astronauts floating space, we cannot know up from down or truth from fiction. Conditions are appropriate for the implantation of arbitrary realities. Television is one recent example of this, a serious one, since it greatly accelerates the problem."
"The environment we live in is no longer connected to the planetary processes which brought us all into being. It is solely the product of human mental processes. It is real, but only in the way that a theatrical play or a fun house is real...We are left with no frame of reference untouched by human interpretation...The role of the media in all this is to confirm the validity of the arbitrary world in which we live. The role of television is to project that world, via images, into our heads, all of us at the same time,"
ARGUMENT TWO: THE COLONIZATION OF EXPERIENCE.
"It is no accident that television has been dominated by a handful of corporate powers. Neither is it accidental that television has been used to recreate human beings into a new form that matches the artificial commercial environment. A conspiracy of technological and economic factors made this inevitable and continue to."
"By entering the human being's inner sanctum, our inner wilderness, advertising effectively pulls our feelings up out of ourselves, displays them and sells them back to us like iron from the ground. Our inner feelings are transmogrified into a new form-commodities. We desperately seek to get them back, and pay high prices for the privilege...whenever we buy a product we are paying for the recovery of our own feelings."
"Since the overwhelming majority of Americans are removed from any personal participation in economic processes, we have come to believe in an artificial economic construct propagated by the people who benefit from it and who control the media that explain it to us."
ARGUMENT THREE: THE EFFECTS OF TELEVISION ON HUMAN BEINGS "Television technology produces neuro-physiological responses in people who watch it. It may create illness; it certainly produces confusion and submission to external imagery. Taken together, the effects amount to conditioning for autocratic control."
"The horror of television is that the information goes in but we don't react to it. It goes right into our memory pool and perhaps we do react to it later but we don't know what we are reacting to. When you watch television you are training yourself not to react and so later on, you're doing things without know why you are doing them or where they came from."
ARGUMENT FOUR: THE INHERENT BIASES OF TELEVISION
"Along with the venality of its controllers, the technology of televison predetermines the boundaries of its content. Some information can be conveyed completely, some partially, some not at all. The most effective telecommunications are the gross, simplified linear messages and programs which conveniently fit the purposes of the medium's commercial controllers. Television's highest potential is advertising. This cannot be changed. The bias is inherent in the technology."
THE BOTTOM LINE
When I watch television someone is speaking into my mind and wants me to do something:
-keep watching,
-carry commercial images around in my head,
-buy something that matches one of those images,
-tune in tomorrow.
This diagram is a simplified picture of how television enables this to happen.
The TV screen is made up of 300,000 small red, green and blue phosphorescent metal dots placed inside the glass. These dots glow when bombarded with electrons from a cathode gun. It works very much like fluorescent light except the electron gun scans so that the picture you see is assembled inside your head. There is no picture in the set, simply a series of flickering dots, glowing and darkening sequentially.
The light from these flickering dots enters through your eye and into your sensory memory where your mind assembles it into the pictures it represents. The problem is that your nervous system is only designed to handle 10 flickers per second and these dots flicker at about 30 per second. Soon your mind gets behind the curve. The dots are coming too fast for you to think about them. The stream of images is moving too quickly for your nervous system to recognize, analyze or criticize them. It isn't long before your nervous system gives up the chase and flips a bypass switch. From that point on the images just pour into your mind and lodge in your subconscious.
This is very different from reading. When you read, you go at your own speed. Verbal processing allows you to select that which you will store in long-term memory and that which you will dump into your unconscious. Reading allows the multiple level abstraction that enables your mind to create memories that are readily recoverable. TV viewing does not.
There is no verbal processing-like activity when you watch TV. The images pour in and collect, but they are beyond normal recall. However they are not lost forever. Someday, when you are wandering down the aisle in the supermarket, you will pass something on the shelf you have never bought before. Something will click - it is the sound of the images of that product, waiting inside your head, coming to life and giving you the feeling that you want this, need this, and must buy it.
What is true of commercial products in the small is also true of things like lifestyle and worldview in the large. Day by day the values of the soap opera world are being deposited in the unconscious minds of the viewers. What is unhealthy for an adult is poison for a child. Television is a little like Oxycontin - a dangerous, addictive drug with limited, specific uses.
Sometimes a bargain book can be a real bargain. Some years ago I picked up a new hardcover book for $4 on a scramble table. "Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television" was published in 1978. Its author, Jerry Mander had been successful in the advertising business selling upscale products (Triumph, Land Rover, Paul Masson wines, KLH Audio equipment, etc.,) when he became socially conscious and began to try to sell environmentalism.
One day in an interview with The Wall Street Journal he admitted some conflicting thoughts about selling Land Rovers on Tuesday and criticizing the effect of automobiles on the environment on Thursday. He soon lost the upscale accounts. He became a crusader of sorts but was soon frustrated as he realized that television was not something that could help him in his efforts. He spent a good deal of time studying TV and this book is the record of his conclusions.
If you can find the book, it is well-worth reading, even today, 26 years later. I will briefly summarize his four reasons as a kind of context for the main point of this blog, which is to describe how TV functions to put images in our heads - images that we cannot control, but that often control us.
ARGUMENT ONE: THE MEDIATION OF EXPERIENCE.
"As humans have moved into totally artificial environments, our direct contact with and knowledge of the planet has been snapped. Disconnected, like astronauts floating space, we cannot know up from down or truth from fiction. Conditions are appropriate for the implantation of arbitrary realities. Television is one recent example of this, a serious one, since it greatly accelerates the problem."
"The environment we live in is no longer connected to the planetary processes which brought us all into being. It is solely the product of human mental processes. It is real, but only in the way that a theatrical play or a fun house is real...We are left with no frame of reference untouched by human interpretation...The role of the media in all this is to confirm the validity of the arbitrary world in which we live. The role of television is to project that world, via images, into our heads, all of us at the same time,"
ARGUMENT TWO: THE COLONIZATION OF EXPERIENCE.
"It is no accident that television has been dominated by a handful of corporate powers. Neither is it accidental that television has been used to recreate human beings into a new form that matches the artificial commercial environment. A conspiracy of technological and economic factors made this inevitable and continue to."
"By entering the human being's inner sanctum, our inner wilderness, advertising effectively pulls our feelings up out of ourselves, displays them and sells them back to us like iron from the ground. Our inner feelings are transmogrified into a new form-commodities. We desperately seek to get them back, and pay high prices for the privilege...whenever we buy a product we are paying for the recovery of our own feelings."
"Since the overwhelming majority of Americans are removed from any personal participation in economic processes, we have come to believe in an artificial economic construct propagated by the people who benefit from it and who control the media that explain it to us."
ARGUMENT THREE: THE EFFECTS OF TELEVISION ON HUMAN BEINGS "Television technology produces neuro-physiological responses in people who watch it. It may create illness; it certainly produces confusion and submission to external imagery. Taken together, the effects amount to conditioning for autocratic control."
"The horror of television is that the information goes in but we don't react to it. It goes right into our memory pool and perhaps we do react to it later but we don't know what we are reacting to. When you watch television you are training yourself not to react and so later on, you're doing things without know why you are doing them or where they came from."
ARGUMENT FOUR: THE INHERENT BIASES OF TELEVISION
"Along with the venality of its controllers, the technology of televison predetermines the boundaries of its content. Some information can be conveyed completely, some partially, some not at all. The most effective telecommunications are the gross, simplified linear messages and programs which conveniently fit the purposes of the medium's commercial controllers. Television's highest potential is advertising. This cannot be changed. The bias is inherent in the technology."
THE BOTTOM LINE
When I watch television someone is speaking into my mind and wants me to do something:
-keep watching,
-carry commercial images around in my head,
-buy something that matches one of those images,
-tune in tomorrow.
This diagram is a simplified picture of how television enables this to happen.
The TV screen is made up of 300,000 small red, green and blue phosphorescent metal dots placed inside the glass. These dots glow when bombarded with electrons from a cathode gun. It works very much like fluorescent light except the electron gun scans so that the picture you see is assembled inside your head. There is no picture in the set, simply a series of flickering dots, glowing and darkening sequentially.
The light from these flickering dots enters through your eye and into your sensory memory where your mind assembles it into the pictures it represents. The problem is that your nervous system is only designed to handle 10 flickers per second and these dots flicker at about 30 per second. Soon your mind gets behind the curve. The dots are coming too fast for you to think about them. The stream of images is moving too quickly for your nervous system to recognize, analyze or criticize them. It isn't long before your nervous system gives up the chase and flips a bypass switch. From that point on the images just pour into your mind and lodge in your subconscious.
This is very different from reading. When you read, you go at your own speed. Verbal processing allows you to select that which you will store in long-term memory and that which you will dump into your unconscious. Reading allows the multiple level abstraction that enables your mind to create memories that are readily recoverable. TV viewing does not.
There is no verbal processing-like activity when you watch TV. The images pour in and collect, but they are beyond normal recall. However they are not lost forever. Someday, when you are wandering down the aisle in the supermarket, you will pass something on the shelf you have never bought before. Something will click - it is the sound of the images of that product, waiting inside your head, coming to life and giving you the feeling that you want this, need this, and must buy it.
What is true of commercial products in the small is also true of things like lifestyle and worldview in the large. Day by day the values of the soap opera world are being deposited in the unconscious minds of the viewers. What is unhealthy for an adult is poison for a child. Television is a little like Oxycontin - a dangerous, addictive drug with limited, specific uses.
