Beautiful, Useful Things

            My father made beautiful, useful things with his hands and his tools. As far back as I can remember he had a well-equipped workshop in the garage which included a 1949 Shopsmith, an amazing multiple purpose woodworking tool that could saw, drill, sand, and best of all be a lathe on which he turned many intricate smooth objects like the posts and spindles on my brothers’ bunk beds, table legs, chair legs, candlesticks, and other decorative but useful items for our home.  I liked spending time with him while he worked, especially when he turned some blocky 4 x 4 post into a smoothly rounded, fluted, curving piece of beauty. I loved the smell of sawdust mingled with oil and the faint burning smell as his chisel cut into the swiftly turning block of wood.  I enjoyed the task of using fine sandpaper to further smooth the objects he turned on his lathe, luxuriating in the feel of the wood.

            After thirty years of knowing my father, I should have realized when I asked him drill 9 holes in a block of wood as a makeshift Chanukkiah* for my first Chanukah that he would not pay attention to my instructions, but instead create something incredibly beautiful that violated all traditional Jewish rules for a Chanukkiah.  A Baptist turned Methodist by marriage, my father knew nothing about my adopted religion. I think he wanted me to know that he supported me as I made this major change in my life, unlike my mother who took my conversion as a rejection of her and my childhood.

            I sent my dad (in California) a sketch of a plain, flat, block of wood with nine holes in a row. A few weeks later, I received (in Kentucky) a large box in return. Carefully wrapped in layers of tissue paper and newspaper was a work of art.

My first discovery was that he had chosen to use some of his precious chestnut wood instead of a scrap as I had suggested. The wood had been scavenged in the late 1970’s from his childhood home in Virginia. In the late 19th century before the blight destroyed most of the American chestnut trees, my grandfather had built the family home with chestnut paneling, stairs, railings, doors, molding, and other adornments.

Within the box was a block of wood, but unlike my sketch it had been carefully laminated in half inch layers of decreasing size, creating a double staircase effect with four steps on each side and a ninth platform at the top.  There were nine holes drilled, one in each step.  However, those holes were not for candles, for in the box, individually wrapped were nine perfect wooden cups, each with a stem to sit in the stair-stepped holes. Each cup had been turned separately on the lathe to perfect smoothness. They were all the same size, same diameter, same depth. The bottom of each cup had been curved like fat brandy snifters.  Each of those little wooden cups had to be turned on the lathe separately; checked and rechecked to make sure they were the same diameter, the same height, the same, length stem, so that when set in the stair-step block they would form a perfectly graduated holder for candles rising on both sides to a point in the middle.  I lifted each cup, turned them in my hands feeling the smoothness of the fine wood grain and placed them in the block one by one.

My father had carefully cut green felt and glued it to the bottom of the main block of wood, so that the bottom of it would not scratch or scar any surface it was place on. Then in the center of the bottom, he had left an opening in the felt, and in it he had burnt the words:  To SUE/from DAD/DEC 1981.

Thirty-seven Chanukahs have come and gone. Sometimes I consider getting a “proper” Chanukkiah. Jewish law and tradition say that all the candles in a Menorah or a Chanukkiah should be at the same height, because no day, and no person is more important than another. Also, Jewish law and tradition call for a new candles every night or a total of 44 candles, so most Chanukkiah are designed for small candles less than ¼ inch in diameter and only about 4 inches high. My father designed his candle holder for regular sized candle tapers - 2/3 of an inch in diameter and eight to ten inches in height. The cost of 44 regular sized candles is getting to be a little prohibitive these days even at Walmart.

But in the end, every year I use this cherished gift from my father. It may not meet the standards of Jewish law, but it is still beautiful and a product of love.

______________

*Most people refer to these as Menorahs. However, a Menorah is a seven branched candle stick used in synagogues and homes on the Sabbath. A Chanukkiah is a nine branched or holed candle holders used only for the eight days of Chanukah.

Good-bye Momma, Good-bye Christmas

I'm having a difficult time getting a handle on exactly what I am feeling this week. Several of my good friends who also lost their mothers this past year have expressed deep sadness and a sense of loss especially on Christmas.

I do genuinely miss my mother, and feel sad at her passing, but I also feel a sense of relief that I could finally let go of our three decade long battle over Christmas.  It stopped being my holiday thirty-two years ago when I converted to Judaism, but it continued being a bone of contention between me and my mother.

Our conflict had less to do with religion than with the mother-daughter relationship. My mother, although a life-long Methodist, was what I liked to call a "loyal dissenter." I have so many memories from childhood of my mother whispering commentary in my ear about how various things being spouted by preachers were "not believed by everyone." My mother believed whole-heartedly in God the Father, and thought that Jesus was an important teacher, but she was openly (to me) skeptical about most of the conventional Jesus story from birth to death (or resurrection). She didn't really understand my conversion, but she didn't overtly object to it either. However, she did object, frequently and volubly to my not celebrating Christmas. To her this was my rejection of our family history, but even more so of her as a mother and her efforts each year to create a "real" Christmas experience for her family. Something she felt cheated of in her own early childhood (her own mother was a severe asthmatic and would not allow Christmas trees or greenery around the home).

It is only from a distance that I can see that she did not really enjoy creating these family Christmas. She viewed it as a challenge, to find the right gifts, wrap them appropriately, have the right tree, and fix a perfect dinner.

My memories of the last Christmas that I spent in California with my family (1981) just before I began my conversion process, are dominated by Mom's anxiety about everything being just so. Her anxiety was so great and so grating that my brothers decided to go to a movie (The Life of Brian) during the hours while the turkey was cooking and invited me to come with them. At the time I was just so delighted that my (younger) brothers actually wanted to have me go with them, that I did not think about how our disappearance for two hours was going to increase my mother's frenzy.

For years following my conversion, my mother would actively pump me for details: Was I going to get a tree this year? Why not? Was I going to send cards? Who was I going to send cards to? What would I say in them? Was I going to go Christmas Caroling? Was I going to go to church?

Paradoxically, I never found it unpleasant to spend Christmas with my in-laws, who accepted our religious differences, did not try to change me, and simply welcomed me into their home for a family meal. Sharing another person's celebration is quite different from being pressured to engage in that celebration directly.

I consciously and deliberately avoided going "home" for Christmas for a number of years. I broke down one year (1985) because my first husband had just moved out, and I needed to go home and lick my wounds after the semester was over. It was not a good move. Much of my visit involved a battle with my mother over why I would not go to church on Christmas eve. Now if she'd been asking me to accompany her to church, I might have felt differently about it, but she didn't want to go, she just wanted me to go. I never went at Christmas time again. In 2001 I went for three days from Dec. 20 to Dec. 22 to celebrate my father's 90th birthday, but I would not stay for Christmas.

Our struggle over Christmas only ended with her death this year. Finally there was no one left to make me feel like I had abandoned her, when I stopped celebrating Christmas.

Valentine memories

In 1955, my family moved into the home where my mother still lives. It was at that time a working class, blue collar neighborhood almost entirely composed of young families with small children (the products of the Baby Boom). My mother would have been the only college educated woman in the neighborhood, a former school teacher. Unlike the other mothers who wanted their children out of the house so that they could clean and watch soaps, my mother encouraged the neighborhood children to gather at our (never very clean) house.

She taught all the children of the neighborhood games to play (Red Rover, Simon Says, Red light/Green light, Poor Pussy, Duck-Duck-Goose) and supervised the play; she encouraged arts and crafts and allowed children to run in and out of the house at will. At the time, I thought these were games she'd played growing up. It wasn't until decades later that I realized these were things she'd learned in her teaching courses in college or read about in novels, and that her own childhood had very few games (or other children) in it.

Our first year in the neighborhood, my mother started a Valentine's day tradition of exchanging Valentine's within the neighborhood, with children scurrying about before light, hiding from each other, to drop cards at each others front doors.

She did this by inviting the other children into our home for valentine-making craft activities, providing cut paper doilies, and red construction paper. While we cut and pasted she told about Valentine's traditions, which now I realize she had never practiced, only read about.

From 1956 to 1963 all the children in the neighborhood, exchanged Valentine's in this way. By 1964 the older girls in the neighborhood had reached high school, and were too "grown up" for the practice so it died out.

Etymology of "Christmas"

It's interesting that the earliest record of the use of the term Christ Mass comes more than a millenium after the putative birth of Jesus.

"The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning "Christ's Mass". It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. "Cristes" is from Greek Christos and "mæsse" is from Latin missa (the holy mass). In Greek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century. Hence, Xmas is sometimes used as an abbreviation for Christmas."

-Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

According to the "On-line Etymology Dictionary" Christ Mass was first written as one word around the mid-14th century (1300's).

ta-da! kittens!

Early this morning -- certainly earlier than I got up -- mama Tabitha kitty gave birth to four kittens. I wasn't certain about the fourth one this morning (it's so dark it was camouflage by her tail). But this evening when Tabbie was ready to leave them for a few minutes to scarf down some food, I got a good look and a good photo or two.

Names and personalities will arrive later. Right now they are a tiny mass of light and dark kittenness.

I am quite fascinated by how much genetic programming there is in a mother cat. All by herself, Tabbie, like all normal mothers, found a safe corner (not the nice box I prepared by the way) and gave birth alone. She cut the cords with her teeth, cleaned all the placenta off the kittens, especially their mouth and eyes, and licked them so that they would start breathing and nursing. She ate all the afterbirth as well. Leaving her little nest clean and dry. I had been worrying for days about whether such a small young cat as Tabbie would manage, but genetic programming and instincts came through. Tabbie harbors no dark doubts about her abilities to mother.

Human females have none of these instincts. We have to learn from others what is required to give birth and nourish our babies. In traditional societies girls observed and assisted at births, and had close contract with nursing mothers. The knowledge of mothering was part of daily life. We might question today, how good that traditional knowledge was -- especially in agricultural societies where infant mortality rates were extremely high -- but women in those cultures did not worry about how to be mother. Today, modern societies make knowledge of birth and mothering something that requires formal instruction, and often raises many concerns and anxieties is mothers to be.

My own mother frequently tells me the story of how she cried and cried in the hospital because she was terrified she wouldn't know what to do with me and would hurt me. The 1950's were perhaps an extreme period of isolation and lack of knowledge (with traditional means of learning to be a mother disappearing and little formal instruction to replace it yet) for new mothers, but I have heard other new mothers today express similar, if not quite intense fears.

With all our medical and technological progress, have we lost something we need to retrieve from the past?

Southeast Whitesburg Mural--41 The Big Reveal

Today was the day, the big 20th anniversary celebration and the unveiling of the plaques, the naming of the buildings, the thanking of the donors, and the honoring of the honorees.

Although it was not in the program, the college's president Dr. W. Bruce Ayers asked me to come up and speak. I've known the man for 13 years, and know he likes to do things like that so I'd given at least a few minutes this morning to think about what I might like to say to people, but mostly I spoke what came to me in the moment. I don't entirely remember what I said, but it evidently hit just the right tone, because people kept commenting on it.

There were lots of great moments as people spoke with great emotion about their passion for the college. Our campus exists because a group of dedicated and visionary local people managed to raise a million dollars in donations and pledges in less than one week. Penny Ritter Combs one of stalwarts of this visionary group described clambering up on strip-jobs to get donations from coal companies during that week. The plaque below is a special tribute Penny and her parents Judge James M and Atha Caudill who not only dreamed of a college, but who have continued to work for twenty years to make that dream an on-going reality.



My favorite moment in the ceremony came when a former student of mine, Melanie Watts sang the song "Anyway." Melanie has an extraordinary voice, pure and rich, but she clearly felt this song deeply which made her performance deeply moving. I'd never heard it before, but I can tell you before this day is out I'm going to have a copy of Martina McBride's performance of "Anyway" on my iPod! [The link is to YOUTube video of the McBride performing the song]. The key refrain and guiding idea of the song comes from a poem often attributed to Mother Teresa (because it was inscribed on a wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta), but is actually credited to Kent M. Keith and called The Paradoxical Commandments.

So here is the whole thing, finished, with the plaque in place:



The top photo, while taken with my camera was shot by my colleague Ron Brunty, so I could be in the shot. The other photos are by me.

music for the folk

A great place to hear music for the folk (i.e., true folk music) is at the Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Appalshop which turns 40 this year, got its start through a program called "Community Film Workshops" from the Office of Economic Opportunity in the 1960's. The local youth involved with the program, turned what was suppose to be a job training program into an indigenous expression of mountain culture, which continues to thrive through music, art, film, and theatre. One of the highlights of the year at Appalshop (for 23 years) has been the Seedtime on the Cumberland festival with live music, films, and crafts.

I've probably missed more years than I've attended since I moved to this region 20 years ago. Some years its just been too darned hot; other years I've been ill, or had too much work to do; some years I just forgot until it was over. But I made a concerted effort to go this year, because one of the featured performers was John McCutcheon; McCutcheon is one of the performers who helped ignite my love of bluegrass and traditional folk music of the Appalachian mountains.

My father is from Appalachia, from the tiny hamlet of Troutdale, over in Grayson County, Virginia. Yet despite this fact, and despite having spent a half dozen summers in Troutdale while growing up, I don't remember ever hearing even one bar of traditional mountain music until I wound up at the University of Kentucky in January 1975.

I don't remember the first time I heard traditional music or bluegrass; as both were ubiquitous in Lexington in the mid-1970's. But, I was already familiar with traditional music by July 7, 1977, when I attended a long standing "Old Time Fiddle" convention in Galax, Virginia while I was working on my master thesis research (an historical/ethnographic study of Troutdale). As part of my thesis research I met and interviewed luthier and musician Albert Hash of Whitetop, Virginia, and I had the rare (for a non-musician) pleasure of listening to Albert jamming with a variety of musicians young and old, behind the scenes at the Fiddle contest in Galax.

So I was already well on the hook by the time the winter of 1977-78 rolled around. The winter of 1977-78 was a long cold one, especially in the coal fields of Kentucky and Virginia where one of the longest strikes in UMWA history was unfolding. A concert was held at the University of Kentucky that winter (if memory serves me right in January 78, but it could have been earlier or later) to raise money for striking miners and their families -- and raise awareness.

My reasons for attending were more political than musical -- at least at first. Two performances of the evening stand out in my memory. I have long since forgotten the names of any of the other acts, but I remember in shining detail both John McCutcheon and the all female Reel World String Band (which also still records and performs--sometimes at the Seedtime festival).

McCutcheon, an instrumentalist par excellence, played several different instruments that winter night, but what I remember, what has stayed with me all these years was his performance on the hammer dulcimer. Despite its ancient and venerable history, I had never encountered the hammer dulcimer before that night. The notes of the hammer dulcimer fall sweetly like spring rain, tripping brightly on the ears. The next week I purchased his album "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" (which was produced by June Apple records of Appalshop!). [I just put it on the turntable to provide the right ambiance].

Although it was his performance on the hammer dulcimer that made me a fan in 1977-78, I have since come to appreciate McCutcheon's own formidable song writing skills. This afternoon, he played both traditional pieces and his own compositions, including the "world premier" of a song against strip-mining and mountain top removal that he wrote last night on his way to Whitesburg.

Photo by sgreerpitt, John McCutcheon today, June 13, 2009, at Seedtime on the Cumberland, at the Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky.

Elul 16, 5768

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
have mercy on me, answer me.
In your behalf my heart says:
"Seek my face!"
O Lord, I seek your face."
Psalms 27:7-8.

In Judaism some prayers, such as the Shema, should always be uttered aloud, and other prayer is silent, internal, like the silent Amidah in services. It is not for G-d's ears that prayer is aloud, but our own -- it focuses our own attention on our words, our plea, on our reaching out to touch the source of power, the divine.

One of the traditions of Judaism is that in the beginning G-d created the universe as a material container into which divine light and spirit were poured; but the material container could not contain the G-d's infinite divinity, and ruptured in a great cataclysm, creating the dispersed universe of space and matter that we know. But G-d's light and divinity clung to the shattered shards of the universe. Every molecule, every bit of matter in the Universe (including living beings) carry within the spark of divinity.

Our prayer goes out through that spark of the divine within us, and the answer comes back to us from that spark within. Notice how the Psalm says "In your behalf my heart says..." G-d speaks to us through our own heart, and through the hearts of others that carry that divine spark.

I think that there is no question that G-d hears us and has answers for us. What is questionable is whether or not we can hear that response that vibrates in all of nature, in all the people around us, and in ourselves. We seek G-d's face, yet it is all around us, just waiting to be recognized. Prayer is an opportunity to draw upon the power of the divine that will help us see and recognize G-d's face in all it's manifestations.

Elul 8, 5768

The high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are about T'shuvah -- repentence -- with the attendant promise of renewal and return that true repentance promises.

The medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides wrote that there are three stages of t'shuvah: regret, rejection, and resolution. Today's meditation prompt is from Maimonides' Laws of Repentence 1:1.

"How does one acknowledge sin? One says: I implore you G-d..., Behold, I regret [what I did] and am embarrassed by my deeds. I promise never to repeat this act again."

This does not refer to being embarrassed in front of people -- whether one's family, one's friends, one's coworker -- but embarrassed before God, and before our own inner spark of the divine.
To be embarrassed on has to be aware, to be conscious, to notice error when it occurs. One has to own one's faults.

I have frequently found that it is easier to recognize my past faults, my sins of years gone by, than it is to recognize those of the present moment. But I have been working on this.

Less than rational fears--fears of someone else gaining control over me or my work, of someone else exerting dominance or taking away my ability to make decision, provoke me at times to retaliate or even make preemptive attacks with criticism and complaints.

I am noticing that I am becoming embarrassed (in the sense Maimonides meant) more often and more quickly. Sometimes quickly enough to stay actions that I will regret, but not always. Not always quickly enough to prevent me from sending that rude or critical e-mail, or prevent me from making the hurtful retort, but at least to acknowledge, admit my fault and make amends when possible instead of hanging on (sometimes for years) to my self-justifications and rationalizations.

I read in a blog recently about one family's tradition of "the groundhog" do-over. They got the idea from the movie "Groundhog Day." In this family, when there is something that goes wrong, when someone does something that is unacceptable or offends other family members, and they immediate proclaim a "groundhog" and start over, and do it right. Say, that mom is tired at the end of the work day, and when son comes into the kitchen to inquire about dinner she snaps at him impatiently. Rather than allowing him to slink off hurt, and her to simmer, then regret later what she said, she immediately announces a "groundhog" and has her son replay his entry into the kitchen. Then she greets him the way she feels she should have in the first place. This family discovered that after a while, it became less and less necessary to declare a "groundhog" because they learned to think before speaking and acting and not do or say things that needed amends.

I tried doing a "groundhog" once with my husband, but it seemed awkward and forced -- and I think John thought I was nuts. So instead I'm trying to apply the general principle instead of literally using the technique -- which I think is recognizing and confronting when one has erred, and making amends as soon as possible. I have a long way to go, but I think I'm on the road...

Elul 7, 5768

The last month of the Hebrew year 5768 is Elul, and today is the seventh day of the month of Elul. Spiritually Elul is significant because it leads up to the holiest moments of the Jewish year, Rosh Hashanah (New Years) on the first of Tishrei and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) on the tenth of Tishrei.

Eleven years ago I purchased a guided journal for meditation and reflection during Elul and the first ten days of Tishrei. I've begun that journal three times in the past 11 years, generally running out of steam after 7 to 10 days into the project. This year, I'm going to try to work through the project, using my blog.
In Judaism faith and practices are inextricably intertwined. One important expression of that in Judaism is tikkun olam -- the obligation to engage in repairing the world, making it a better place. Faith and practices are mutually reinforcing, through practice we renew faith.

There are many kinds of practice, some focused inwardly heshbon hanefesh to make an accounting of the soul and prepare us for the outward practice. It is this type of practice we focus on in Elul.

During Elul it is traditional to recite and consider Psalm 27.

The Lord is my light and my help;
whom should I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life,
whom should I dread?
Psalm 27:1
note: all quotes are from the TANAK translated and published by The Jewish Publication Society in 1999 (5759).

My greatest failing and weakness in life is allowing myself to be governed by fear --fear of others, fear of loss of control, fear of fear itself. (See poem in previous post). My fear of being controlled by others, often leads me into hostile and manipulative behaviors. The paradox is that when I act this way, I am not acting freely, but rather am being controlled by my fear.

I foolishly thought that once I got tenure and had security in my livelihood that my fear reactions would subside. But fear had become a habit, a habit that I need to work to eradicate.

things get going

Today was the first day of fall semester classes. Even though I've been working here for 12 years, I still can't quite get used to the idea of starting the fall semester in mid-August; and the public schools here in eastern Kentucky start two weeks before we do.

Growing up in California, school did not begin until after Labor Day. In fact for the first few years of grade school, the school year did not begin until after California Admission Day (marking statehood). My first day of Kindergarten was September 11. This is easy to remember because it is also the day my youngest brother was born, so my mom was in the hospital and my Dad took the day off from work to take me to school (and to be with her in the hospital).

Even the college I went to didn't get the ball rolling until after Labor Day.

The thing is, I think we spent less time in school but learned more. I have opinions about why that is.

The weeks leading up to the first day of classes (today) tend to be pretty hectic. First there are several days of in-service meetings, then there is a week of registration and advising. Between advising students all the faculty work frantically on our course syllabi and first week lessons.

Then there is the photocopying -- lots of it. This year they want to make sure that everyone copies on both sides of the paper -- always a good idea, but this year a budgetary necessity. There was a long line at the photocopier as everyone tried to figure out how to set up two sided copying, collating, and stapling on the new machine.

Rather than haul myself and my papers all the way back upstairs to my office, I ducked into the near by faculty/staff lounge to sit for a while. Here I had the best moments of the day. The entire outside wall of the lounge is windows that look out on the North Fork of the Kentucky River that runs through Whitesburg. It's been a while since it has rained, and the water is fairly shallow. About twenty ducks were feeding at a point were the river narrowed even further by sandbars and gravel. The ducks all faced upstream towards the current and repeatedly dipped their beaks in the water as it flowed over the shallows. Occasionally the ducks would break ranks and regroup themselves, with different ducks getting to work the front of the group. Once in the process of moving and resorting, all twenty were in a single line in the river swimming against the current. Reminded me of the saying about "getting your ducks in a row."

stacking stones

Sometime after February 22 (the day of the memorial for Ken), I noticed a small cairn or stack of stones balanced on the retaining wall along the driveway into the college's parking garage. The cairn has perhaps six or seven stones ranging from perhaps 10" to about 3" perfectly balanced. It has remained there, undisturbed for weeks.

I was reminded immediately of the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of "Stones for Ibarra" (Glenn Close and Keith Carradine), set in a tiny Mexican village, where the villagers stacked stones for commemoration.

The idea of stacking stones for memory/remembrance appears to be common to a variety of cultures. At the end of the film "Schindler's List" the survivors and their families, file past Schindler's grave in Israel and deposit stones.

I do not know why the small cairn was created on the retaining wall or who created it. Perhaps some one was just looking for a convenient place to put stones that had fallen in the drive way. Perhaps, a student, bored between classes used it as a way to pass some idle time. But I like to imagine that some one put it there on purpose. Because it appeared shortly after Ken's death, I imagine it as a tiny memorial to him.