Nat

A friend of mine lost his job not long ago, in a layoff. It’s hard for him to talk about without getting angry and sad. Eventually in some conversations he gets around to the question why they didn’t see the value he brought.

I don’t have an answer to his question, and I wish I did. I would like to peer into the future and see what his next job will be, to reassure him that the future is bright, that he will be fine. He doesn’t want to hear that from me, even if it is the truth.

Which brings me to the question: how do you respond to personal difficulties? Do you look for a silver lining, live with your disappointment and try to figure out the cause in something you did or didn’t do?

Here’s a quote from Ben Stein, which I found yesterday and love: “It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated - it is finished when it surrenders.” While I don’t want to preach platitudes to my friend, I believe in Stein’s line. We cannot surrender.

How do you do that in your life? What have you survived?

Today was a study in contrast. While hundreds of thousands of delirious Red Sox fans celebrated the team’s World Series victory at a raucous street parade, my office struggled with some very difficult news. I couldn’t really enjoy the thought of the victory parade, because it seemed frivolous.

This kind of contrast, between joy and sorrow, always raises the question for me how best to retain a sense of well-being when we are challenged with bad news and hardship. While I don’t always have the answer, I have learned to reach for the source of my greatest and most reliable comfort and peace.

For me that is my faith and my family. For you it could be something else, but returning to what always makes me feel better takes me beyond the circumstances in front of me. I think this is why so much of Buddhism focuses on giving up attachments. Being attached leads to suffering. I take from that the need to believe that there are enduring sources of joy. On days when they appear uncertain, I am learning to hang in there and wait for tomorrow.

My wife always makes me feel better after a day like this. She knows that words alone may not comfort me, but her presence always does. I’m hunkered down waiting for the wave to roll over.

I will stop with the baseball after this (probably). Thank you to all of you who are indulging me. But here’s the thing. I waited until I was nearly 40 to see the Red Sox win their first Series, and tonight, just three years later, I was sitting in the stadium in Denver to see them win their second Series in 4 years, in person. Because it was such a tense game, I didn’t really enjoy being there until it was over.

Now, though, all I can think is how happy my father would have been for me that I got to see it happen. He was generous about my love for the Red Sox, switching his childhood allegiances to root for my team, with the love of a convert, I should add. My mother is a big fan now, too. She especially loves Manny Ramirez.

My friends Derek and Karen made this happen for me. I can’t even describe how happy I am. But it feels great.

Flo’s blog page includes a link to purchase the book Writing the Mind Alive by Linda Trichter Metcalf and Tobin Simon. I finally bought the book this week and read most of it on the plane today.

I can’t believe I waited so long or that I had never heard of it before Flo put it up. The authors are former literature professors who have been teaching this writing method since 1982. (See www.Proprioceptivewriting.com.) Their method articulates a writing process that emphasizes learning to hear and transcribe your thoughts in your own voice. They cite other writing process teachers Peter Elbow and Natalie Goldberg, but they emphasize the ability of their approach to provide clarity to you about your life.

I can hardly wait to start. One of the interesting suggestions they make is that you play Baroque music while doing Writes, because its slower movements employ a rhythm that closely mirrors the human heart beat. I’ve already tried this today in the Northwest airport club in Memphis where I have been working between flights. It works like a dream, especially with my great Bose noise-cancelling headphones.

The sudden arrival of a 25-year old writing process method in my life the day after I pledged to start back in on regular writing process typifies the kind of serendipity that Michael has taught me to expect. Another element of the method that I like is the authors’ insistance that 30 minutes’ practice in a day is more than enough to feel its full effects over time. That seems like a very little commitment for the possible payoff of clarity in one’s writing, emotional development, and spiritual progress.

Go figure.

When I am around my friend Renee, I feel that wonderful things are going to happen. Perhaps it’s her quick sense of humor and easygoing affection. Regardless, it’s great fun to be around her.

Some people make me hopeful, because of their sheer determination to make the world a better place. That’s how she is, and the funny thing is that she makes the world a better place just by showing up.

Renee and I were talking about the future and what we would want it to be like. I want many of the typical things: to exercise more regularly, to learn to play a musical instrument, to watch what I eat, and to love what I do. We talked about the fact that all of these desires can be met. None depends on anyone else. The future is liberating.

Another inspiring story from USA Today this morning. Nancy Berry teaches first grade in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and she draws on unusual, experiential learning techniques to instill love of learning, good manners, and curiosity in her pupils. She has an entire area of the classroom devoted to milkweed plants, which free roaming catapillars in the room eat. They eventually become free-flying butterflies.

Her classroom sounds like a thrilling discovery. I loved that she places equal weight on science and writing, and I really loved that she says of her teaching approach that she tries to give five minutes of praise each day to each student. She uses imaginary friends to help teach manners and classroom behavior.

USA Today runs a series on All-USA Teachers, and Ms. Berry certainly stands out as an innovative, loving teacher. Children fortunate enough to have this kind of teacher early (and I had many of them) start life with a great advantage: they tend to see the world as a long series of promising discoveries.

What a way to want to engage with the world. Hats off to Nancy Berry and her “berries.”

(Red Sox win Game 2 in a nail-biter, 2-1. Woo hoo.)

The Red Sox are winning 10-1 in the 5th inning of the first World Series game. (Now it’s 11-1.) This is a dream come true for a Sox fan like me. I’ve thought often over the years about why watching other people play sports makes so many of us happy. I’m not sure I can really explain it, except that it is great fun to see adults do a job that lets them act like kids.

Last Friday, my wife and I went to the Homecoming football game at our local high school. After falling behind 20-6 at the end of the first half and seeming to be out of the game, they came back in the second half thanks to a fumble returned 98 yards for a touchdown and to 150 yards rushing by their star player. They tied with 2 minutes to go and won in overtime. The fans stomped their feet and chanted, and the coaches ran to the players and tackled them to the ground with joy.

Sometimes I think we don’t allow ourselves to play enough, and at least our emphasis on sports reminds us that games are beautiful and that playing them is a good idea.

It’s now 13-1 at the end of the fifth inning. What a way to start.

My “best moment, worst moment” journal exercise was ridiculously easy tonight. My friend Chris called after work to say he had tickets for us to see Game 4 of the World Series this weekend. I’ve been a Red Sox fan since I was 10, and I watch a lot of games with my wife. My father was a huge fan, and one of the great thrills of my life was seeing the Red Sox end their 86-year World Series victory drought in 2004. I watched with my parents in their family room. My father and I both wept for joy, and my mother kept saying, “It’s because I became a fan this year.”

But I’ve never seen them play in a World Series game, and now I will. My wife is a saint to let me break weekend getaway plans with her and my stepdaughter to go. She is so kind to me. And it’s been three years, I think, since I saw my friend’s wife and children in Colorado.

What a thrill this will be. Needless to say, there was no “worst moment” today in my journal.

It is ridiculous how friends can surprise you beyond your wildest hopes and dreams. I am very fortunate.

I have started a new journal exercise: each evening I write about the worst moment of my day, and then I write about the best moment of the day. The idea, when I started this three days ago, was to observe the challenge and start to identify a pattern or think about ways to avoid that kind of moment the next time I confront something like it. The idea for “best moment” was to appreciate the good that comes my way and to recollect how good things are in my life.

An interesting thing happened on yesterday. I couldn’t think of a “worst moment” to record. Of course, if you had forced me to, I could have picked a moment that was worse than all the others, but the point was that a bad moment didn’t easily occur to me.

I’ve tried to draw conclusions, but the obvious one is that, when I knew that I would be reviewing the day later for worst moments, something in my knew to avoid them during the day. What a great lesson that will turn out to be. If merely recalling consciously throughout the day that I am going to have to scrutinize what didn’t go well and try to find some way to avoid or improve upon this experience in the future keeps me from stumbling toward bad experiences, this exercise will prove almost magical.

Either way, I like the discipline. It’s especially wonderful to recall the best thing that happened (last night the Red Sox won a game to take them to their second World Series in four years!). I will keep doing this for awhile.

Today’s Boston Globe carries an AP article about a program for inmates in Missouri prisons to cultivate vegetable gardens. The produce from these gardens is donated to food pantries for the elderly poor in the state. The activity is one of the elements of a program called “restorative justice.” Under this label, which was developed in the 1970s, prisons offer inmates the chance to study the impact of their crimes on crime victims and to find ways to make amends.

In Missouri, several participants grew up on farms, and they are now teaching skills to inner city prisoners while reviving their own interest in producing food. One of the prisoners, James Burton Jr., says of the restorative justice garden, “This is almost like being free here. I like knowing I’m giving to the elderly.” The article goes on to quote a cook at one of the food banks, who says that the produce donation has cut her food costs by a third.

I love projects like these, which encourage people to make amends by doing something good. This program is so practical in meeting two needs at once. It was very inspiring.