Out of the Little Pond

Some people see any communal organization they join as a small, self-enclosed social world with hard boundaries. They tend to transfer their primary experience of community--school--onto their mental model for any other social group, be it a church, a volunteer group, or a club. If they never grew past their need to seek status in a high school community, they may continue to see their communal organization as an arena in which to compete for status. They may not even be aware that they hold a competitive attitude toward their group--their feelings may be subconscious.



Holding this mental model of a community, it's easy to slip into the idea that newcomers are a threat who will push the old people out and take their food--i.e., resources or status. To guard their food, community members who are mentally trapped in the little pond will resist newcomers--again, often without even realizing they're doing so. Sometimes they will even band together in small groups for protection against any newcomer who might cause a change. In the ugliest scenario, they will actively seek to drive out the newcomer, usually by subtle means such as gossip and undermining, but occasionally by more overt challenges.

Leadership in any communal organization can attempt to transform that community's understanding of itself. A healthier community sees itself not as a little pond with hard walls, but more like this:



Or like this:



A healthy community is a group of people who have chosen to swim together in a vast ocean. United by a common purpose, they can go somewhere, instead of piling on top of one another, fighting for crumbs, and turning back on themselves when they hit their imaginary walls.

My theory is that the community members most likely to resist newcomers are usually the ones with the least experience outside the "pond." They haven't had as many opportunities to see the ocean, so the illusion of pondhood is much stronger. The pond is all they know, and all they have, so they will fight to the death for their crumbs.

Instead of fighting back, the best way to help them is probably to show them the ocean.

Because eventually, the goal is to become this:

Teach 'em where you find 'em

I took a few secondary education courses after I finished undergrad work. In those classes, I often heard the saying: "Teach 'em where you find 'em."

Unlike some other popular maxims in contemporary educational circles, this one is actually valuable.

As a novice teacher, it's easy to go into an eleventh-grade English classroom thinking that one's job is to teach eleventh-grade English.

That's not good pedagogy.

Since the death of "tracking" by ability in American education, some teens in the class may be advanced and thus require enriched instruction. Others may be behind (and this, unfortunately, is the more likely scenario in today's classrooms).

When I taught English to high school juniors, I had a few students who should have been in AP classes and a number who were learning disabled. The rest occupied the entire spectrum between those two extremes.

My solution was to teach the class so that it would be interesting enough for the gifted kids, while making the tests and assignments flexible so that almost all of the kids could pass with hard work. Almost all the kids. One of the great injustices of the elimination of tracking and vocational programs is that two or three kids among my one hundred students were bound to get D's and F's because they simply could not handle the material mentally, no matter how far I dropped the bar.

I'll never forget one incredibly sweet boy who sat with me for an hour in a private tutoring session, doing his very, very best to understand the difference between an adjective and an adverb as I tried a number of strategies to teach him. Even in eleventh grade, he simply did not have the abstract thinking capability to master abstract categorization like the basic parts of speech. That boy did not fail my class, which may give you some idea how far I weighted the assignments towards effort instead of achievement. It's not a low-ability student's fault if the powers-that-be have arranged the system for his failure. Not every student should be required to master the same sets of skills; the idea that all students should learn advanced algebra is politically-correct foolishness. But because in America we must pretend that all students are the same, in order to avoid offending anyone, we have damaged students' chances of learning what they need to know.

We cannot track our students by ability, so it is up to each individual teacher to somehow try to educate the widely-varying assortment of students who walk into her classroom each year.

Any teachers who really cares about teaching eventually realizes that the classroom situation may be ineffective and unwieldy, but as the old anecdote goes, you can only save the starfish by throwing them back in the ocean one at a time.

Whether a student requires intellectual challenge, reinforcement of basic concepts, carrot, or stick, the teacher must figure out the need and meet it. During my time in the classroom, I found that the best teachers are those who understand that teaching is a study in human character--that the most important task of a teacher is to discover what makes her student tick. Without that knowledge, no meaningful teaching can occur.

"Teach 'em where you find 'em."

Examen

On Sunday night, I was irritable for about two hours. Some of my friends witnessed this deficiency in patience.

I've been reflecting on that irritability for the last three days. It's not pleasant to examine one's shortcomings.

I could try to explain it away as the product of hormonal fluctuations (ain't it great being a woman?) or blame it on someone else. But the truth is, it's my own weaknesses of character that lead to impatience and sharpness.

I have them. We all have them. Each of us has buttons that can be pushed.

I take some comfort in knowing that my friends extend me more grace than I extend myself. They have probably already forgotten this lapse in gentleness. But that's only fitting. It's not important for them to reflect on it and remember it. It is important for me.

I have gradually become a better person--not perfect, but better--by honestly acknowledging my failings. I still look back on certain past personality traits and behaviors with dismay, but I do not feel ongoing guilt. I know that I am forgiven. I realize that I learned many things the hard way, and that there was a purpose behind every event in my past.

A couple of hours of irritability may seem minor, but examen of minor events like this is what prevents us from more significant destructive behaviors.

Here's a definition of the practice of examen. I like the way that the author emphasizes the encouraging role of examen as well as the less comfortable part:

In his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius urged that all be taught the examen, a daily examination of our deepest feelings and desires. He called these feelings our consolations (what connects us with God, others and ourselves) and desolations (what disconnects us). He believed that God would speak to us through these feelings and desires. It's not surprising that this saint felt so strongly about the examen -- this prayer practice changed him from a wild soldier to a pilgrim walking barefoot to Jerusalem.

The examen helps us:
• Acknowledge sad or painful feelings and hear how God is speaking to us through them.
• Overcome a pessimistic outlook by encouraging us notice the good in each day.
• Tell the truth about who we truly are and what we need, rather than who we think we should be.
• Become aware of seemingly insignificant moments that ultimately can give direction for our lives.

From The Upper Room website

How to Escape the White Witch

My husband recorded the film version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for my daughter. She has already read the book with me, so the movie is fair game.

We were watching one of the early scenes in which the White Witch asks Edmund to get into her sleigh.

My husband asked our daughter: "Would you get into her sleigh?"

My girl: "No."

Husband: "Would you run away as fast as you could?"

My girl: (thoughtfully) "No. I'd trick her by pretending I didn't know she was the White Witch. I'd say, "No thank you."

Words of wisdom for us all. :-)

Public Talk

In my novel, I use four words commonly thought to be impolite. One time each.

The first word comes from the mouth of a salty ex-sailor. He inserts it in the middle of a very compassionate statement. I love the tension between the compassion and the crudeness. I've met very compassionate people who were not genteel!

The three other words that may offend emerge from the mouths of villainous characters. This is a pretty standard device in mainstream fiction; violent people often use aggressive speech.

I am fascinated to see if these moments will remain as they are, should the book be contracted by a major Christian publisher. I used the words because I believe they lend the novel the power of ugly realism. By mainstream standards, they are VERY mild.

Speaking of mainstream standards, I just checked out a popular mainstream historical novel from the library.

It's no wonder a market developed for Christian fiction.

Thw quality of the writing in this novel is very good, compared to the general standard of popular fiction. The research and texture of the historical period are much more detailed and vivid than that of many historical romances.

The sexual content of the novel is relatively tame, by romance standards. Yes, the sex scenes are very explicit, but there are only two of them. I get the feeling the novelist included them only because they are "required" in most mainstream romances. Novelists who like to write sex scenes include a lot more of them in their work.

The barrier that made the novel difficult for me to read was the casual, frequent use of God's name in completely inappropriate circumstances.

It's one thing to watch reality shows in which people constantly exclaim OMG in their astonishment and joy. I find it distracting and annoying because it conflicts with my beliefs, but I'm able to tune it out.

In this novel, however, the disrespectful references to God occur in the middle of sex scenes, in moments of anger, or just completely at random in phrases that are much more disturbing than the simple OMG.

I realize that nonbelievers reading this blog may find this difficult to swallow, or find my feelings completely prudish. Bear with me, please. Imagine how you would feel if someone had saved your life--let's say you were in the World Trade Center when it collapsed, and a firefighter carried you out before returning to lose his life in the final collapse. You probably wouldn't be too happy to read a novel that bashed New York City firefighters at every turn. Or perhaps it's more effective to compare it to a novel in which someone tells lies about your dearly-loved family member. For believers, God is a family member. Certain types of talk about him are the equivalent of foul attacks on "your mama." They make me feel sad.

So, this post inevitably leads to the question of whether my rare uses of mild crude language in my novel are going to offend some people as deeply as this novel offended me. Anything is possible. I respect their sensibilities. But for me, there is a vast difference between crudity and religious disrespect.

What do you think? How much crudity can you take in a novel before you put it down?

Colonial House

I'm halfway through the PBS series Colonial House.

1900 House was pleasant entertainment for the history buff, but Colonial House is much more powerful, in both positive and negative ways.

I have serious objections to the participants who became "colonists" in what was supposed to be a recreation of 1628 circumstances. I disagree with the casting of people who were not willing to abide by the historical realities of 1628.

One family was completely unwilling to attend church services on Sundays. In 1628, they would have been cast out of the colony. Sabbath attendance was civil law. But that family would never have emigrated with this very early group of colonists. The other colonists would not have accepted them as a part of their quest for religious freedom.

I hold the producers responsible for deliberately selecting several people who would not respect the historical authenticity of the experiment. At the same time, I admire the man who played the governor of the colony. A Baptist minister in real life, he eventually refused to institute historically-authentic punishments for Sabbath violations because he feared such punishments might place a higher barrier between these twenty-first century people and their real experience of Christianity. He had to place the reality of the gospel's message of love above the realism of the experiment.

Had this particular group of people actually come over on a boat in 1628, they would have died and their colony would have failed. No question about it. Too many of them were rampant individualists who lacked the communal discipline necessary to work as hard as would have been necessary just to survive in 1628.

Most striking was the lack of true community among the settlers, though the governor did his best to work around the ridiculous inaccuracies created by the casting of the show.

The earliest successful colonies were not "diverse" like today's America. Few people without a shared religious faith could have survived the hardships of settling in a wilderness. Many of us are familiar with the harsh statistics: the early colonists died like flies. Those were people, not numbers. Colonists lost their spouses and children. Some lost their entire families, while suffering from constant cold and borderline starvation. The guilt and regret would have destroyed anyone who had emigrated for earthly reasons.

Jamestown colony was founded in the hope of profit, it's true, but Jamestown essentially failed, and some historians blame that failure in part on the laziness of its settlers!

The groups of pilgrims who had to start from nothing and succeeded were not secular emigrants in search of wealth. The vast majority of the secular emigrants came later, after the religious ones had done the worst of the suffering and dying. (Not that there wasn't plenty of dying to go around, even later in colonial times.)

No, the earliest surviving English colonies were supported by a common faith, and no matter how politically-correct producers may wish to be, they are not creating a meaningful historical show if they cast it with families so opposed to Christianity that they will not attend church services even for the sake of historical accuracy.

As I finish watching the series, I'm very curious to see if anyone will point out that this colony would have failed because of the twenty-first century immaturity and anti-authoritarianism of many of the settlers.

Freedom and Vice

Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six, I was an agnostic, meaning that I did not know if there was any kind of divine force in the universe. I lived my life accordingly, with no absolute moral values, no firm belief in absolute good or evil.

Most of my acquaintances were also agnostics or atheists. During my early twenties, many of us were pretty unhappy, for one reason or another.

When I finally left New York City and returned to my parents' hometown for a while, an old friend invited me to her large church.

There, I witnessed something shocking. People at this church were, on the whole, much happier than me and my friends. Many of those churchgoers radiated an inner peace that was deeply attractive to me, after the angst of twenty-something life in the big city.

I noticed something else, too. Their lives were not as messed up as the lives of the twenty-something crowd in New York. The churchgoers' lives weren't filled with "drama" caused by poor choices in romantic relationships or involuntary behavior under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Those churchgoers had trials, but their trials were not self-inflicted.

As a nonbeliever, I came to a startling realization. Vice was bad for me, and for everyone else who participated in it! That included everything from the minor vices like smoking to the more significant self-destructive habits like drugs or casual sex. Living a clean life according to absolute principles of right and wrong was actually a path more likely to help me avoid sorrow and despair.

For most of human history since the advent of Christ, and especially in the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, believers and non-believers alike were told quite regularly that indulging in vice would bring them sadness and ruin. Conduct books and novels abounded in which young people could see tempters and seducers at work. Young girls were taught that many men might attempt to take advantage of them or lie to them in order to sleep with them. Literature and news sources emphasized the daily struggle of the average person against temptations that could literally ruin their lives.

These public, Christianity-laced teachings were very democratic, because everyone had equal access to them. Rich and poor alike had the chance to hear what the consequences of vice--the wages of sin--would likely be.

Nowadays, our social culture is much less democratic. Many young people never hear that a lifestyle full of vice will be very likely to lead them to deep misery. Even something as cut-and-dried as adultery is no longer understood by the vast majority of people who choose to do it. A tragically-high proportion of first-time adulterers don't realize what they're getting themselves into until it is too late. They simply aren't educated. I don't offer this as an excuse for their behavior, but I do pity them. Many of them will say in retrospect: "If only I had known what it would do to my marriage and my family, I would never have taken that first fatal step."

Back in the olden days, they would have known. Public discourse would have given them a fighting chance of understanding that vice and temptation would take away everything they held dear, and they and their loved ones would never be the same.

If there were one thing I could communicate to non-believing friends today that they could believe without having to convert first, it would be this: scriptural principles are not there to suffocate you into conformity or to blight your life. They are there to help you. And if you look around, you will find that the vast majority of the time, the cultural evidence supports my statement. Once in a blue moon, you'll find someone who has fashioned an imitation of happiness without any attempt to do good, be loyal, or serve others. But for the vast majority, vice brings people down. No matter how they try to make their lives look from the outside.

The Passion Worth A Million Words

I saw this quotation floating around the blogosphere:

“You have to write a million words before you find your voice as a writer." -Henry Miller

Hmm.

There's some truth to it. But I suspect many people would think that means you need to write ten novels of 100,000 words each.

That might be how it worked for some writers, but it's not how it worked for me.

I found my voice about halfway through my first novel. Admittedly, that's because I had written lots of other forms, including drama and rhymed, metered poetry. I had also read the works of great authors until my eyes melted. (You haven't lived until you've read for Ph.D. qualifying exams, an exercise which has driven many poor grad students to strong drink and hysteria.)

But the real shortcut to finding a voice is having something to say.

Developing an authorial voice is difficult because a voice develops from a strong passion. And the fact is, some people who are trying to be writers are only passionate about being writers. They have an image of who they want to be in their minds, and writing is their chosen route to fulfill that image. Often, the idea of being a published author attracts people because they feel it would somehow validate them as creative, smart, and educated.

But the desire to be a "writer" is not what makes a voice. A voice comes from deep, abiding passions and convictions about life itself. If you don't want to reach through that page and seize your reader by the shirt collar, you'll have a hard time developing a voice.

First, you have to figure out what you want your work to DO in the world.

Is your mission entertainment only? Is it witty? Is it light farce? Is your strongest desire to ease people's burdens by just letting them have some pure fun?

Is your mission frightening? Does it explore our darkest visions in order to allow us to face them and overcome our fears? Does it help us understand the nature of evil?

Is it tragic? Does it show us the nature of suffering and the deeper meaning behind it?

Is it heroic? Does it show us what it means to stand up for a cause at any cost?

Is it prophetic? Does it show us a potential future to warn or inspire us to act in the present?

Is it romantic? Does it celebrate the emotional and sexual mysteries of love, allowing us to revisit our youth?

Writing can't be powerful unless it has a mission.

If a writer does not feel passionately about certain subjects and themes, that writer won't ever find a voice. There must be a powerful, driving conviction of some kind, even if an author's conviction is that life is meaningless. Even if an author's mission is laughter.

The High Places

While we were camping recently, our friend suggested that we visit this cool rock formation.

Not only did we visit it--we scaled it, accompanied by our six-year-olds and our dogs.

We didn't go up that sheer rock wall in the above photo, but we had to navigate this ridge in the photo to the right.

I won't lie. I was nervous--very nervous--as we crossed steep and slippery rock faces. I straddled the ledge below my daughter and her friend so that if they slipped, they would fall into me rather than over the edge. I hoped my dog wouldn't pull me off balance and send me shrieking onto the rocks below.

Had I not been with my friends, I never would have done this.

But I'm glad we did.

When we were finally safe on solid ground, I experienced the thrill of accomplishing something I actually did not know we could do. My friend's assumption that we could do it was nerve-wracking and even a little infuriating, but he was right.

That's what friends are for. To push you to be better and go farther than you think you can go. Friends who never push you or pull you along to a higher place aren't good for you.

Snow definitely pulls me along, but I'm thankful for my friends who are a little less literal about it.

:-)

1900 House

I just watched all of the PBS series 1900 House in one fell swoop.

If you haven't seen it, here's the premise. An ordinary, twenty-first century English family agrees to live for three months in true Victorian conditions. They have no indoor toilet, a primitive coal-burning stove, gas lighting, and no shampoo. The mom and her three daughters wear corsets.

I loved this show.

It's funny to see how the family simply refuses to cooperate with certain aspects of Victorian life. For example, the dad refuses to enforce his will as law in the house. He also helps with some housework. Neither of these things is beyond the realm of possibility, as not all Victorian husbands were bound by the most conservative codes of the time.

I'm also surprised that the mom is shocked by her new role as household drudge, and that she feels conscience-bound to "liberate" her maid because she can't stomach making another woman do her work.

Suffragettes who objected to the powerless position of women in the late Victorian period would certainly not insist that women do all their own housework rather than employ maids. That would spell certain death for any kind of female freedom, back in the time of twelve-hour laundry sprees and constant stove maintenance.

The teenaged daughter was most negative about the Victorian experience. She simply could not handle losing her clubbing and her friends. Both she, and to an extent, her mom, viewed the entertainments of the Victorian period as "boring." By contrast, twin daughters Hilary and Ruth were almost always excited and conscious of the joy of this once-in a-lifetime experience.

Here's what mom Joyce had to say about her twin daughters: "It was very topsy-turvy. On many occasions, Hilary and Ruth, my twin daughters, were able to be much more mature and to kind of calm everybody down. It was a very intense experience that's difficult to explain to people. We almost lost those traditional roles, you know: Mum and Dad are in charge, and if anything goes wrong, they'll sort it out. In actual fact, the children were more levelheaded."

As an observer, I thought the behavior of various family members actually reflected their real levels of maturity and dependence on twenty-first century diversions. The twins actually *were* more mature than their mother, and more focused on relationships. Thus, they had no trouble enjoying a slower-paced life in which people played cards, read, and talked instead of gossipping with co-workers, going to pubs, or watching TV.

1900 House suffered from its lack of a society for this pseudo-Victorian family. Had Joyce really been a part of a Victorian neighborhood, she could have crossed the street and talked with her neighbors. One of the ways women survived the drudgery and stress of their lives at that time was by banding together in networks of family and friendship. They also usually attended churches which gave them another social outlet. This family was almost completely isolated, which made their cultural experience inaccurate.

Even with this deficiency, I highly recommend 1900 House for history-lovers. I've seen a few episodes of Frontier House, and someone told me today that there's a colonial one too. I'm off to check it out on Netflix!

Gracious Time

When I lived in England as a pre-teen, our very American family didn't have tea, but our English neighbors did.

Annabel was the mother of that neighboring family; to us, she epitomized gracious English womanhood. She had a kind heart, gardened beautifully, and served her children tea when they came home hungry from school.

Sometimes, we happened to be there when Annabel served tea. Of course, she offered it to us. It was not a fancy, formal affair, as Americans tend to think of "tea," in quotation marks. Instead, it was a little snack, a comfort, a time of relaxation in mid-afternoon. I remember Annabel serving her daughter beans on toast, though tea could also include a pastry or a muffin.

My daughter and I have now decided to have tea every day at three o'clock.

We will use the plates my parents bought in England. Our teacups are the Tiffany Holiday pattern that usually sits lovely and untouched in our china cabinet.

My husband accidentally bought a demitasse cup in the Tiffany pattern when he intended to buy a full-size teacup. That happy accident means that my daughter has a teacup that is just the right size for her little hands.

For our first tea, we had toast cut into little triangles and spread with jam.

I made green tea in a real teakettle that whistled and steamed when it was ready.

We stirred the sugar into our tea and savored our little meal. We talked, and we relaxed. enjoying the moment without hurry. Tea can do that.

It took only ten minutes, but I felt as if our tea created a space in our day that was free and gracious, like Annabel's teatime, like Annabel's garden of wildflowers.

I've found a new way to slow life down, and I'm going to hang on to this one.

Quirky History: Judge Patton, 1839 Pittsburgh

As I research for my novels, I occasionally find surprising or amusing items.

The following passage in italics comes from A History of Allegheny County in the University of Pittsburgh Digital Library. One of the funniest things about the tone of this author is the way he always applies a veneer of positivity to the end of his commentary, no matter how foolish he finds the behavior of a given historical figure. In this excerpt, the author describes Judge Benjamin Patton, who presided over the Allegheny County courts from 1839 to 1850.

In sentencing convicted persons the judge occasionally left a wide chasm between his premises and conclusions.

Smith would be before him, say, convicted a second time of assault and battery. The judge would say to him: "Smith, this is the second time you have been before this court on this charge, and the court is disposed to make an example of you. This thing of wife-beating must be stopped. We let you off easily the first time, but you are not longer entitled to leniency. The sentence of this court is that you pay a fine of five dollars and the costs and stand committed until this sentence be complied with."

Then would follow another victim, convicted for the first time of the same offense. To him, the judge would say: "Jones, you are here for the first time, and we are disposed to be lenient with you, but do not let us catch you here again. The sentence of the court is that you pay a fine of fifty dollars and the costs, and be imprisoned in the county jail for six months."

Query--Did the judge get these sentences transposed in his mind? That would be the easiest explanation. But, aside from all this, the judge was a careful, painstaking, fair and just man, and rose, eventually, to the level of his position.

Camping: A Tail of Suspense

Sorry I've been incommunicado for the past couple of weeks. As my last post explained, I was finishing and editing my novel. Whew! What a relief. Mother-guilt piled up as my daughter patiently endured the frenzy of writing that dominated July. Now I can spend more quality time with her--a good thing, as homeschooling must start up again in about two weeks.

We went camping this month and I experienced two days of no showers, cell phones, or email. It was a great break. We were tent-camping, and on the first night we suffered a paramilitary assault on our camp by raccoons.

At one point, the raccoons pawed at the openings in our tent. This was the scariest moment, when we weren't sure if the intruders might be bears, or even worse, PEOPLE.

Our dog Snow did not make a single peep throughout the march of the raccoons. She remained curled under my blanket, safe from the nippy night air. The only comfort I took in her oblivious doggy sleep was my conclusion that it probably wasn't people pawing at the tent. Snow will usually bark at people.

My husband jumped up and bravely issued forth, gun at the ready. Then he bravely yelled for our other friend to come out of his camper with his gun. (It was about 2 or 3 am.) There was some excuse: when my husband first saw the raccoons, he could only see their eyes, six feet off the ground.

From inside the tent, I heard him say:

"I can see whatever opened our food tote. It's looking at me."

It was as good as a horror movie!

That's when he yelled for reinforcements.

We were all relieved to find out that the mystery invaders were just raccoons who had shimmied up a tree, which is why their gleaming eyes made them look six feet tall.

Any other good camping stories?