CEDARHILL

The Queens of Freeville

I'm reading The Queens of Freeville now and it makes me look forward to every night I can crawl into bed with the author and share her stories and her reflections. Author, Amy Dickinson is THE person who was chosen among thousands to replace the indomitable Ann Landers. This book is her story of growing up in a family of strong women and learning to be her own self-sufficient-single-mother-unit-of-two when her husband left her with a small child. It offers up many moments of truth which echo through my own experience, my mothers life and that of friends and family.

It is heartwarming, laugh out loud funny and sticky. What she says - sticks with you.

Take this passage where she talks about the immediate aftermath of her own father leaving the house.

"it's an old-fashioned notion to even try to maintain one's dignity in the face of outrage, but I watched my mother do her best. Exercising her only marketable skill, she got a job as a typist in an office. She was forty-two and had been a full-time farm wife and mother for twenty-two years. At night she would come home from work and lie down on her bed still wearing her coat, holding her purse across her stomach.

"I just need twenty minutes," she would say. Then she would hoist herself up, walk into the kitchen and start cooking supper. After years of preparing large meals featuring homegrown produce and homemade breads and preserves- always followed by a baked dessert- my mother stepped down to hot dogs served on buns pulled from plastic sleeves, accompanied by potato chips.

My father had limited interest in his children, so there was no question of custody. My mother never pursued him for any sort of financial support- and he didn't offer it.

She simply prevailed. Prevailing is underrated. People have the idea that unless they win, they lose. But sometimes surviving is enough. My mother knew this, and I learned it by watching her.

Yep- Prevailing seems to be a pretty good term these days.

A New Earth by Tolle

"Thought can at best point to the truth, but it never is the truth. That's why Buddhists say

"...The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon."  from my latest book given to me by my friend Ev.

This, of course, flies in the face of truth in advertising which works hard to convince us that the finger pointing.....is indeed the moon. Because we say it. It is so. Politics and Advertising have alot in common it seems.

A writers voice

I picked up the book by Anne Lamott this week "bird by bird" on writing. I loved her recent book "Plan B" and have listed it among my recommends under BookNook; so it was with some assurance that I picked up a book on "writing and life" knowing that it too would include gems. It does. and here is one. It resonates with discussions I've had with friends, strangers and my own head this month.

She is talking about how a writer finds their voice...- but what she says is universal to being human. In the chapter on FINDING YOUR VOICE,she writes:

" A sober friend once said to me, "When I was still drinking, I was a sedated monster. After I got sober, I was just a monster." He told me about the monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are. The secrecy, the obfuscation, the fact that these monsters can only be hinted at, gives us the sense that they must be very bad indeed. but when people let their monsters out for a little onstage interview, it turns out that we've all done or thought the same things, that this is our lot, our condition. We don't end up with a brand on our forehead. Instead, we compare notes. We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in. "

She goes on to talk about true voice, by saying you can't wrap it up in someone Else's experience. That is like wearing another's style. It is never a good fit. And others notice. Maybe, she says you find truth in Samuel Beckett- that we're very much alone and it's all scary and annoying...And the best we can do is hope for a tiny word of encouragement.... Afterall the redemption in Beckett is so small; in the second act of Waiting for Godot, the barren dying twig of a tree has put out a leaf. just one leaf. It's not much; still Beckett didn't commit suicide. He wrote.

Or maybe, she says, truth as you understand it is 180 degrees away- that God is everywhere and we are all where we're supposed to be and more will be revealed one day..."

"...but you can't get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.  We don't have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not to go in to. when we have gone in and looked around for along while, just breathing and finally taking it in- then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home."

DUMPIES

DUMPIES..... Destitute Unprepared Mature People    ....carrying signs "Will Work for Medicine."

consider this: "In 1940 our youths outnumbered our seniors by 9 million. In another 30 years, it is expected that the senior population will grow to 77 million and outnumber our youth by nearly 4 to 1. One out of three seniors will enter a nursing home (at a current cost of $4000/month) and the remaining 2 seniors will find themselves being taken in by family members. When you consider that every measure of disability,dependence,and healthcare expense rise with increasing age, it is noteworth to find that in 2000 there were nearly 5 million 85 year old and over seniors and in another 30 years - 2040- there is expected to be 24 million 85+ oldsters." PP

...And were is the money coming from to support this growing senior population?  In 1940 there used to be 25 workers for every retiree. Today there are TWO workers for every retiree. So while our senior population is growing - our workforce to support them is shrinking. We are making fewer babies, outsourcing more and blocking the immigration flow.LC

As Peterson concludes: "The public resources we have available to pay for elder dependecy are not unlimited. In the long run they cannot exceed what can be raised from taxpayers. They must also leave room for other important national agendas- one of which-national security is also likely to consume a growing share of our economy over the first half of the new century.

(PS: In Arizona we will triple our senior population in the next TEN years alone.)

From:  Pete Petersons book 'Running on Empty- How the Democratic and Republican parties are Bankrupting our future", he outlines the challenges we face in an aging America.

God's Politics

My latest book is by Jim Wallis who has written a book in which he clearly lays out one truth:

                       God is Not a Republican....or a Democrat... 

As he says... "The real theological problem in America today is no longer the Religious Right, but the nationalist religion of the Bush administration, one that confuses the identity of the nation with the church, and God’s purposes with the mission of American empire. America’s foreign policy is more than preemptive; it is theologically presumptuous; not only unilateral, but dangerously messianic; not just arrogant; but rather bordering on the idolatrous and blasphemous. George Bush’s personal faith has prompted a profound self confidence in his “mission” to fight the “axis of evil,” his “call” to becommander-n-chief in the war against terrorism,and his definition of America’s responsibility” to defend the hopes of all mankind”. This is a dangerous mix of bad foreign policy and bad theology.  But the answer to bad theology is not secularism; it is good theology."

................for a link to the book: go to my About page

PS: The Talking Stick now has a new guest author, and the subject is Mining.

Mind over Matter

A favorite book from my shelf of many is "Mind Over Matter- Conversations with the Cosmos" by KC Cole.  She makes the science of quantum physics, String Theory and Black Holes not only understandable - but relevant. I find her writing to be both enlightening,witty and wise. And she does it in "short takes" on complicated scientific stuff. Making it easy for busy people to read a book which will make you go "wowwww"....

Since I talked alittle about Intelligent Design and science in an earlier post, I decided to include this "short take" on Questions from her book...(you can find a link to her book on my About Page)

QUESTIONS..

Why, Why,Why?

Some scientists are as pesky as kids, always wanting to know "Why?"

Why this?Why here?Why now? and who ordered that?

Why is the sky blue? Wh does time flow forward? Why is there a universe at all?

Even the seemingly simplest questions can set them off. Try answering the blue sky question, for example, with the standard explanation: The sky is blue because molecules in the atmosphere scatter the blue wavelengths of sunlight more readily than the redder rays. (The leftover red rays sneak through, reaching us from clear across the Earth at Sunset)

They'll probably just ask: Well, why do the molecules scatter blue more readily than red:

If you answer that (the reason has to do with the wave-length of blue light relative to the size of cluster of air molecules), they'll probably ask: Well, why is light the way it is? and why do air molecules cluster?

In recent years, the physicists'why have gotten more and more outrageous. Twenty years ago, I heard the great MIT physicist Victor Weisskopf lecture a high school class about the "Big bang"- the beginning of the universe. One student asked him what happened before the Big Bang.

Why did it bang?

Weisskopf responded that the "why" of the Big Bang fell outside the realm of science.

..Today, the study of why the Universe banged into existence is a major question in cosmology. ... "The question of the origin of the matter in the Universe is no longer thought to be beyond the range of science" ... and Stephen Hawking has taken the question even farther: Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?........

Cole goes on to explain the new String theory including ten-dimensional space which is being explored by phycisists,cosmologists and others.

But of course,she says, other physicists are asking: Why strings? Why ten-dimensions? 

That's a good thing for science, because asking "why" is just as important to progress as getting an answer. Maybe even more so. As Einstein put it: "The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution."  Weisskopf liked to talk about his old friend and mentor Niels Bohr, the "father" of quantum physics. Comparing Bohr to a present-day Nobel laureate known for his quick wit, Weisskopf remarked that Bohr was a better scientist. The present day physicist, he said, was brilliant. "He had an answer for everything."

But Bohr was the true genius, Weisskopf said, "He had a question for everything."

************

And so science continues to push the bounds of current human understanding.  It seems our religious and political discourse could use alittle old fashioned curiousity. And maybe work on framing better questions - than hammering out pat answers.(OK OK, so I couldn't resist adding commentary. Just know it was mine. Not Coles. She sticks to the cosmos)