Advice to Politicians from Davy Crockett

From David Crockett, Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836).

The more things change…

If your ambition or circumstances compel you to serve your country and earn three dollars a day, by becoming a member of the legislature, you must first publicly avow that the constitution of the state is a shackle upon free and liberal legislation, and is, therefore, of as little use in the present enlightened age as an old almanac of the year in which the instrument was framed.

There is policy in this measure, for by making the constitution a mere dead letter, your headlong proceedings will be attributed to a bold and unshackled mind; whereas, it might otherwise be thought they arose from sheer mulish ignorance.

‘The Government’ has set the example in his [Jackson’s] attack upon the Constitution of the United States, and who should fear to follow where ‘the Government’ leads?”

The Blessing of Cluelessness

I just realized this morning that I was being insulted yesterday.

That is, I felt the interaction was unfair, and that I somehow wasn’t saying the right thing, but I was not aware until today how (basically) rude and provoking the people were being.

In their defense, they may not have realized it either. It might just be in their nature to go for what they perceive as an opening; in which case I’m doubly thankful I was clueless, because that precluded defensiveness on both sides.

Anyway, I mentioned  that life will be getting even busier soon since school will be starting, then added the clarification that we are homeschooling.

“Oh,” says Person-A, “Will Jay be teaching them math?”

“He could,” I said, surprised at the question and not wanting to make Jay look bad by saying he’s not currently planning on doing any of the teaching.

“I was just thinking he ought to be able to,” Person-A finished.

Then (this was my moment of lucidity) I realized Person-A had just insinuated it took an engineer to teach 1st-grade math.

“Are you implying,” I asked, genuinely hoping to embarrass him, “That I can’t teach 6-year-old math?”

Yes, that’s what he was implying.  He didn’t even try to defend himself.

I was surprised, but shrugged it off.  It wasn’t important to me what he thought.

It wasn’t until later that night, thinking again of the leggy Darwin fish on the car in his driveway, and remembering the sign during voting season for the local fellow I wasn’t voting for, that I began to feel something about our interaction wasn’t right.

And then this morning I realized that I had gone into the conversation utterly unprepared.

I had gone to admire a delicious new baby and prattle family small-talk and keep up positive neighborhood relations.

It was not in my mind that I was entering as an ambassador of Christ, and Homeschooling, and Conservative Thought, and Purposeful Parenting.

Lord-willing, that will never happen again.

I acted as though I was a friend among familiars, being sloppy in my explanations and imprecise in my reasons.  In short, I did more to reinforce any (diminished) view they may have of those things I represent than to correct it.

And maybe “it wasn’t that bad,” but the problem is that I didn’t enter as an ambassador, aware of what I represented.  If I’d had the right mentality going in, I know I would have done better (If I’d only know this was a job interview…).

I might have recognized the “playing” of me and my ideas before the next day, and maybe refused to play.  I want to think I’d still not be offended (it never serves a diplomat to be offended), but I could have been more “professional” and less of an airhead.

Again, not that I’m sure I was the opposite extreme, it’s just that I muffed a fine opportunity to muck up their stereotypes.

And I find that disappointing.

All the same, I haven’t yet learned how to respond politely to subtle insults, and it occurs to me that had I fully known what was going on I might have been a poorer representative of Christ than I already was.

I am thankful to have had a “learning experience” than didn’t cost too much, and find a renewed interest in investigating both the history and training of ambassadors.

It’s a study I feel could be beneficial even on a dabbling level.

People don’t understand fairy tales anymore

Here is yet another example of “fairy tales” being misunderstood.

From a local non-profit’s brochure:

If life were a fairy tale, no child would be abused.  The cold reality is that many children in Alaska are abused.

The team…helps provide the support and intervention the child victim and their family need in order… to have a chance to live happily ever after.

No offense intended to this well-meaning agency, but I don’t think anybody who knows traditional tales could claim that a fairy tale world is a safe place.  I’m always frustrated when I see this misconception perpetuated.

I don’t feel personally hurt so much as I feel these agencies (for example) and disillusioned individuals are closing the door on something that could be useful for the wounded children they are seeking to aid, or even themselves.

If humans are convinced they have to work without the power of Christ, I think they shouldn’t rule out any man-made help.  For all that the words of men will never substitute for the work of Christ, I think we can all agree there are words with greater and lesser usefulness. (If only because we have all encountered the less-effective stuff.)

To constantly mock and degrade the concept of fairy tale neutralizes its potential effectiveness.

Where is the harm in letting a beaten or neglected child see herself in the story of Cinderella?  Yes, there is the out-of-vogue reference to being rescued by a male consort, but viewed in the larger circle of folklore one could learn it is relationship, along with faithfulness and perseverance working as the means of freedom– not just finding the “right” guy or being the sweet milksop.

Aren’t those noble elements what we wish for our wounded self or wounded others?  Aren’t those the healthy elements we delight to see the wounded learn?

Eventually I will finish Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment and learn if he’s got an actually useful suggestion for using traditional tales in therapy (it will take someone less-controversial than him, but more dedicated than me to create something systematically usable and coherent).

Tomorrow I’ll share an example of a fairy tale giving me just what I needed.

Trained Antipathies?

I wonder how many of our likes and dislikes are tied directly to what we can and can’t do (or think we can and can’t do).

What if everything we disliked (for example, that game we hate to play) was only because we wern’t good at it?

If I was honest enough to see that, would I go on as I was, or try to change what I can do?

Learning Humor

I *really* don’t want one more more thing to investigate– one more thing to learn– but, like I mentioned a while back, I’ve always wondered if I could learn to be funny(er).

Two examples of my inherently serious nature/demeanor:

  1. When the kids were younger and growing more verbal, one of the girls asked me, “Why is your face angry?”  I realized I was concentrating on something and she couldn’t tell the difference between that and angry.  I tried to soften my expression and excuse it by saying, no, Mother wasn’t mad, it was my “thinking face.”  The explanation obviously sank in because they asked several times over the next few weeks, “Mama, are you thinking again?”
  2. My children have made it quite clear to me that it is the role of men to be “silly.”  Mommies and Grandma’s are most-definitely not silly.  (And, most of the time in this family, they’d be right.  I come by most things naturally.)

I was vaguely troubled by the realization that so much of what we find funny comes out of anger (sarcasm, slapstick, thwarted expectations), so I was both relieved and delighted to come across another example of humor in the book I finished a couple weeks back.

Gladwell used improvisational theatre as an example of topic of instant-processing and discussed what made it successful.

In the course of this discussion he compared improv to basketball– pointing out the parallels of working within a set a rules to know how to respond to the people around– while you want to win ultimately you want to keep the game going.

Actors working together on an improv have to agree to a set of rules before they begin in order for the piece to “work.”

The rule that Gladwell emphasized in particular:  One must accept everything that is offered.  The unnatural state that invariably follows can hardly help being funny.

“Think of something you wouldn’t want to happen to you or to someone you love,” wrote Keith Johnstone, one of the founders of improv theatre.  “Then you will have thought of something worth staging or filming… In life most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action.  All the improvisation teacher has to do is to reverse this skill and he creates very ‘gifted’ improvisers.  Bad improviser block action, often with a high degree of skill.  Good improvisers develop action.”

~

“The humor arises entirely out of how steadfastly the participants adhere to the rule that no suggestion can be denied.”

In those two summaries– essentially by looking cross-genre– I understood better than I ever consciously did before what to do when I’m looking for a story.  I’m not just trying to be a sadist (though that frequently helps), and I’m not strictly looking instantly for conflict (I’ve complained before that feels like a cheep shortcut).

That is, I’m not looking to instantly make it as huge as possible– two immovable forces– because then, despite its hugeness, it will stall.

In reading the book’s examples of following or not-following the rule, I remembered my one semester of high school drama.

I was most-definitely a blocker.  There was only one improv over the whole semester I was in that went well (probably because this rule was never articulated), and that one should have humiliated me, but it didn’t.  It might have been the only time that semester I was in complete “agreement” and had locked-in with my classmates.

In that moment, having “clicked,” I got a taste of why kids will do stupid things for their peers.

~

There was a near-psychic unity of purpose that frightened me just a little: we were dancing on the edge of “inappropriate,” but winning, and I mistrusted myself for being able so easily to align with those whose character I didn’t trust.

It wasn’t until my senior year in high school that I fully “relaxed” enough to see my peers not as subversive tools of an oppositional force but young humans swimming after purpose and focus the same me.  Until that point I felt resistance to them was part of resisting sin.

On some level this makes me sad– that I spent 2 ½ years on high-alert (approaching fear) of my age-mates– but on the other hand I sometimes think that schooled mistrust was what (ultimately) kept me safe until I developed greater discernment.

And so I’m recognizing that my kind of being funny has a lot to do with trust, because until I trust that a situation is “safe” I don’t relinquish control.

Jay and I (like most couples) have our own humor that hinges on things like looks and lines half-spoken or left unsaid.  But invariably they depend on one person taking a fall trusting the other one will catch them.  That sort of mutual dependence feeds itself, growing stronger and deeper the more times it’s proven.

One becomes “ingrown,” perhaps, but that becomes delicious: “your own brand of magic,”

the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to just a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage…

their response and and your performance twinned.

The jokes over the phone.  The memories packed

in the rapid-access file…

(from Perfection Wasted by John Updike)

This is where my (other) favorite kind of humor comes from– for those times when there’s just not enough brain to be witty, but there’s certainly enough heart to play.

Of Roundabouts and Red lights

The number of roundabouts in the United States is growing, despite, apparently, a vehement dislike of them by many Americans.

The arguments in their favor explain their increased use: primarily safety and efficiency of movement as compared to a traditional four-way intersection.

A segment on NPR last month described the main objections as a feeling of being less-safe, this primarily because the *when* to go is dependent on each driver, and varying levels of insecurity will make some drivers more hesitant to enter the circle.

The author in this segment discussing traffic argued that this hesitancy was exactly what made roundabouts more safe than traditional intersections, as everyone has to pay more attention.

A traffic light is nice because we can just go when we’re told.  If we get creamed we know it was the other guy’s fault and everybody agrees with us.  If we get creamed on a roundabout (fairly rare as speeds and angles all inhibit the possibility) it’s invariably our own fault.  And that’s harder to live with.

~

The topics of vaccinations and antibiotics (among others) have become hot topics of debate among modern mothers.  Some decry these artificial interventions as unnecessary and setting their children up for greater problems down the road.

Other mothers cling to them as “life-savers” in both the literal and hyperbolic meanings of the phrase.

Regardless of their leanings, most parents bemoan the sometimes arbitrary guidelines and murky information swirling about these topics, and regret together the lack of consensus.

I suggest that here is a classic application of the roundabout versus stop-light mentality.

Life would be so much simpler if we could just feel safe to trust the green light, but that view of reality assumes that the rest of life will flow according to best-case-scenario.

I do use both debatable examples given here, but I try to use them thoughtfully: antibotics under advisement after waiting, and some vaccinations later than scheduled because my children were under the curve for weight.

I’m one of those “life-saver” moms who has seen too many benefits outweighing the risks, but I have met moms from the other side, and their experiences are no less valid.  This is why we all need to learn to think for ourselves.

I believe some things– maybe most things, though we get tired of the work– are better when they require individual weighing of each situation.  Bad choices (in my experience) are regretted less if they were well-reasoned and seemed sensible ahead of time.  There is at least a small consolation that I didn’t stumble stupid into something.  I earned it.

And where I seek the rest of my consolation is in looking to learn enough from each latest mistake that I won’t repeat it.

Three Revealing Blog posts

Yes, these are political.  And, no, I don’t like it that we don’t have another continent to run away to.

i.e., to get away from having to figure out all this junk between people and ideas.

If you’ll only read one, read the big one.  I don’t really have anything to add to what Sallie says.

Now you know where I stand, if you couldn’t guess before.

In my husband’s words, Obama’s America is not a place I want to live.

Explaining Halloween to (my) Children

As a Christian I have always felt a bit embarrassed about other Christians slamming Halloween for its pagan roots.

Yes, there is good evidence to tie it to old pagan rituals involving human sacrifice or the return of the dead (to visit/haunt the living– whatever you wish to call it) rather than “once to die, and then the judgment.”

The arguments from these people primarily seem to run that Halloween should be rejected because of where it came from (many books and, I imagine, websites, go deeper into the details so I feel no need to here).

But this is a genetic fallacy, and even before I had figured out the name for it, I knew it was faulty thinking, because I’ve only once (and that was just last year) heard a Christian reject Easter for its equally traceable pagan roots.

I’ve floundered every year on how much to let my children participate.

When I had an 8-year-old foster boy, I agreed to take him to his school’s “carnival,” and was relieved when I learned it was canceled because of freezing rain.

We made a costume together for door-to-door trick or treating (to fit *over* the warm clothes– you have to do that in cool places like Alaska), but I firmly guided him away from the gross or mass-inspired (from cartoon characters to Harry Potter) costumes, because I feel those either focus on what is evil or stifle creativity.

In case anybody wonders, or needs the idea, we made a spider: matching sweatpants and shirt (that could be reused in the future) with a pair of stuffed pantyhose sewn on each side with string tying the ankles of the hose to the wrist above it.

8-year-old *loved* it: all the arms had “life” because they were connected to him.

I felt rather clever.

Anyway, what really got me last year (and assured an until-further-notice non-participation) was how an article I read in the paper melded with a section from one of my favorite books (The Perilous Gard).

The timing itself was… precise.  In the morning I read the retailers’ claims that the increasing presence and gruesomeness of Halloween paraphernalia is utterly market driven: “We’re just giving them what they want!”

The same day (while I was making dinner) I listened the the section of the book that was the preparation of a human sacrifice.

It  turned my stomach like it never has before, and I couldn’t imagine any more the “practice” and implications of this gross stuff to be innocent or worth perpetuating.

Here is where the genetic fallacy can have value: it should remind us what was (or should have been) left behind. We shouldn’t forget what it’s like to watch people live in fear– not knowing there was a sure defense from every terror that walked the night on the Feast of the Dead.

Continue reading »

Inoffensive Arguing

I think all of us here know the “rule” about using “I-statements” in arguments and discussions, rather than “you-statements.”

“I feel…” instead of “You’re *wrong*

I knew a guy in college that I once out-argued and he sputtered for a moment before collecting himself and sagely observing, “Well, you are un-wrong in that instance.”

I realized today that there are those for whom refraining from saying You’re wrong is not enough.  These people feel it’s part of the same, basic politeness for me to acknowledge their side has an equal legitimacy; an equal chance of being correct.

And if I’m being *really* polite I might hint the other person’s idea has the tiniest bit of upper hand because I’m less-open minded and perhaps might not notice if I were wrong.

Anyway, there are probably topics where this kind of exchange would be possible.  The problem is, I don’t think it would occur to me to discuss them, because I wouldn’t see them having a lot of significance.

There are things I will “go to the wall” on.  And while I won’t usually say that exact phrase without being asked, I am not going to pretend anything contradictory is of equal importance.  Even to be polite.

Made for Useful Work

Remembering this line of thought I tried to articulate some months ago, I found an excerpt that put a nice bow on it:

I think the feminist movement has denied a good deal of what it is to be a woman by denying the innate desire to be home, raising children. But I also think the church has done the same by denying her desire to work. In reality, the desire to labor productively and to rear children are two halves to the same person.

From Dana Hanley’s article in Home Educating Family magazine.

I appreciated hearing her say about the “Proverbs 31” woman, Her day was not focused on entertainment, nor her children, nor fellowship with other believers. Her day was filled with useful labor, and through her Godly example, her entire family grew spiritually.

We all admire the intelligence of those who think as we do, but I hope that doesn’t negate the validation I felt reading that statement.