Challenging reading

I am currently reading four non-fiction books at once because I have a huge stack I want to read and am finding it difficult to settle on just one. It is the intellectual equivalent of drinking from a fire hose, which is a phase I go through every now and then. It will pass and then I will not want to read any non-fiction for a while as I digest it all. I know myself well enough by now to understand this is just part of my own peculiar learning process. I ride the wave now and know I won't feel this level of compulsion for an extended time. Part of the problem is that I read a couple of books which I really, really liked and they all had really interesting bibliographies in the back of them. (There are few things I love more than a good bibliography,) Quite a few of those books I put on hold at the library and they all arrived at the same time, so here we are. 

One thing I always find interesting about these little bouts of non-stop reading is that I am usually drawn towards books that I don't necessarily agree with. I find them challenging... in a good way. So, I am going to challenge you as well and share some particularly interesting bits from my reading over the past few days. There is no order other than what book is on the top of the stack next. Happy grappling!

"In biblical tradition, the practice of encounter shows up most often is the practice of hospitality, or philoxenia. Take the word apart and you get philo, from one of the four Greek words for love, and xenia, for stranger. Love of stranger, in other words, which is about as counterintuitive as you can get. For most of us, xenophobia - fear of stranger - comes much more naturally, but in that case scripture is unnatural. According to Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of Great Britain, 'the Hebrew Bible in one verse commands, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' but in no fewer than 36 places commands us to 'love the stranger.' " -from An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor, pp. 96-97

Philoxenia... I've read a lot about Biblical hospitality and I've never come across the Greek for it. I am more than a little love in with it as it so clearly outlines what exactly hospitality really is. And more on the same topic:

"It [philoxenia] is a life-saving practice in a world where religious difference and identity have become more important than anyone could have guessed five years ago. [This was written in 2009, so 13 years to that 5. It hasn't improved.] Turn on the news at virtually any hour and you will hear stories of conflict in which religious identity is key: blue states versus red state in the United States, Sunnis versus Shias in Iraq, Muslims versus Christians in the Sudan, Jew versus Muslims in Israel /Palestine. While I am not equipped to take on the long histories and multiple sources of all these conflicts, I know all about 'versus.'

I know nothing strengthens community like a common enemy. I know that when religious people are feeling overwhelmed by a world with little use for their ancient truths, they can find new meaning by identifying a great evil to oppose. I know that the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are especially vulnerable to the formation of 'oppositional identity,' both because the stories of their struggles with their enemies have been made sacred in their scriptures and because monotheists - one-true-God people - have never wasted much charity on those who do not acknowledge their one true God. 

Here is a law as reliable as gravity: the degree to which we believe our faith is what makes us human is the same degree to which we will question the humanity of those who do not share our faith." -from An Altar in the World, pp. 98-99

It's an idea worth grappling with.

On to something different:

"But these insights [that our perspective on a situation is related to our position in that situation] do not carry over when teachers evaluate students. Teachers are some of the most caring people among us. They are recruited, however, into a system that, in part, is mindless. Tests, grades, and labels are part of the judgmental culture of schools. A child is seen as distracted, for example, rather than as otherwise attracted. From this observer's point of the view, the problem is always seen to lie with the child.

Schools promote this mindless view when we are graded. Our culture has taught that virtually all traits/characteristics/talents follow what is called a 'normal distribution.' That means a small number of us lie at each end of a continuum and have either a lot or a little of something good (for example, smarts or artistic talent) or something bad (aggressive tendencies or learning disabilities). Schools unwittingly confirm these societal expectations by awarding As to those whom they have identified as especially gifted and Ds and Fs to those they have put at the bottom.

Schools generally pay little attention to how, when, and by whom the criteria for grading were chosen. If the criteria were questioned and varied, students' position on the continuum might change. But they are rarely varied. To make matters worse, once we are placed at the tail end of the distribution, social forces work to keep us there, setting us up for a lifetime of success or failure. Our fate as winners, losers, or just average is sealed." -from The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen J. Langer, pp. xvi-xvii

In this book, the author is perhaps even a little bit more 'out there' than even I am as far as educational theory. (If you can imagine that!) But it is true that we can't see the water we are swimming in because even though she obviously find difficulties with the current way of evaluating students, throughout the book at no point does she even consider the possibility that perhaps the issue is not how we evaluate students, but that we evaluate them at all.

A little more:

"Any disability may function as an ability if we are able to view it from a new perspective. When we are mindful, we recognize that the way in which we tend to construct our world is only one construction among many. We might consider reconstructing this world for ourselves whenever it does not fit our abilities or perceived lack of abilities, whenever we feel stunted or less than fully effective. From a mindful perspective, when we are not feeling smart we are not being stupid; rather, we are being sensible from some other perspective. Even when we are feeling brilliant, we still have a lot to learn from those of so-called low intelligence about alternative ways of constructing our world.

The widespread failure to recognize the insights that can be found in all different perspectives may itself constitute a disability. Indeed, those of us who are intelligent enough to be writing and reading about such an abstract concept as intelligence may suffer severely from this disability. Should we continue to teach this disability to our children?" -from The Power of Mindful Learning, p. 134

Once again, a reminder that there is so much more variation in the world than the dichotomy of either/or. It is also good to remember that we can be stuck in our outlook on the world, even when it is doing harm to us. I love the idea of being sensible in a different way. 

Finally, one more. This is a bit longer, though an easier read. (I know, this whole post is long.) But this is perhaps one of the best examples of connected parenting that I have ever read. It is worth your time.

"'Daddy's going to be very angry about this,' my mother said. It was August 1938, at a Catskill Mountains boarding house. One hot Friday afternoon three of us -- 9-year-old city boys -- got to feeling listless. We'd done all the summer-country stuff, caught all the frogs, picked the blueberries and shivered in enough icy river water. What we needed, on this unbearably boring afternoon, was some action.

To consider the options, Artie, Eli and I holed up in the cool of the 'casino,' the little building in which the guests enjoyed nightly bingo games and the occasional traveling magic act.

Gradually, inspiration came: the casino was too new, the wood frame and white sheetrock walls too perfect. We would do it some quiet damage. Leave our anonymous mark on the place, for all time. With, of course, no thought as to the consequences.

We began by picking up a long, wooden bench, running with it like a battering ram, and bashing it into a wall. It left a wonderful hole. But small. So we did it again. And again... 

Afterward the three of us, breathing hard, sweating the sweat of heroes, surveyed our first really big-time damage. The process had been so satisfying we'd gotten carried away. There was hardly a good square of sheetrock left.

Suddenly, before even a tweak of remorse set in, the owner, Mr. Biolos, appeared in the doorway of the building. Furious. And craving justice: When they arrived from the city that night, he-would-tell-our-fathers!

Meantime, he told our mothers. My mother felt that what I had done was so monstrous she would leave my punishment to my father. 'And,' she said, 'Daddy's going to be very angry about this.'

By six o'clock Mr. Biolos was stationed out at the driveway, grimly waiting for the fathers to start showing up. Behind him, the front porch was jammed, like a sold-out bleacher section, with indignant guests. They'd seen the damage to their bingo palace, knew they'd have to endure it in that condition for the rest of the summer. They too craved justice.

As to Artie, Eli, and me, we each found an inconspicuous spot on the porch, a careful distance from the other two but not too far from our respective mothers. And we waited.

Artie's father arrived first. When Mr. Biolos told him the news and showed him the blighted casino, he carefully took off his belt and -- with practiced style -- viciously whipped his screaming son. With the approbation, by the way, of an ugly crowd of once-gentle people.

Eli's father showed up next. He was told and shown and went raving mad, knocking his son off his feet with a slam to the head. As Eli lay crying on the grass, he kicked him on the legs, buttocks and back. When Eli tried to get up he kicked him again.

The crowd muttered: Listen, they should have thought of this before they did the damage. They'll live, don't worry, and I bet they never do that again.

I wondered: What will my father do? He'd never laid a hand on me in my life. I knew about other kids, had seen bruises on certain schoolmates and even heard screams in the evenings from certain houses on my street, but they were those kids, their families, and they why and how of their bruises were, to me, dark abstractions. Until now.

I looked over at my mother. She was upset. Earlier she'd made it clear to me that I had done some special kind of crime. did it mean that beatings were now, suddenly, the new order of the day?

My own father suddenly pulled up in our Chevy, just in time to see Eli's father dragging Eli up the porch steps and into the building. He got out of the car believe, I was sure, that whatever it was all about, Eli must have deserved it. I went dizzy with fear. Mr. Biolos, on a roll, started talking. My father listened, his shirt soaked with perspiration, a damp handkerchief draped around his neck; he never did well in humid weather. I watched him follow Mr. Biolos into the casino. My dad -- strong and principled, hot and bothered -- what was he thinking about all this?

When they emerged, my father looked over at my mother. He mouthed a small 'Hello,' then his eyes found me and stared for a long moment, without expression. I tried to read his eyes, but the left me and went to the crowd, from fact to expectant face.

Then, amazingly, he got into his car and drove away! Nobody, not even my mother, could imagine where he was going.

An hour later he came back. Tied onto the top of his car was a stack of huge sheetrock boards. He got out holding a paper sack with a hammer sticking out of it. Without a word he untied the sheetrock and one by one carried the boards into the casino.

And he didn't come out again that night.

All through my mother's and my silent dinner and for the rest of that Friday evening and long after we had gone to bed, I could hear -- everyone could hear --  the steady bang bang bang bang of my dad's hammer. I pictured him sweating, missing his dinner, missing my mother, getting madder and madder at me. Would tomorrow be the last day of my life? It was 3 A.M. before I finally fell asleep.

The next morning, my father didn't say a single word about the night before. Nor did he show any trace of anger or reproach of any kind. We had a regular day, he, my mother, and I, and, in fact, our usual sweet family weekend.

Was he mad at me? You bet he was. But in a time when many of his generation saw corporal punishment of their children as a God-given right, he knew 'spanking' as beating, and beating as criminal. And that when kids were beaten, they always remembered the pain but often forgot the reason.

I also realized years later that, to him, humiliating me was just as unthinkable. Unlike the fathers of my buddies, he couldn't play into a conspiracy of revenge and spectacle.

But my father had made his point. I never forgot that my vandalism on that August afternoon was outrageous.

And I'll never forget that it was also the day I first understood how deeply I could trust him."

This is by Mel Lazarus, creator of the comic strips "Momma" and "Miss Peach" and a novelist. (from "Angry Fathers," Sunday New York Time, About Men, May 28, 1995) It is quoted in the book Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn, pp 58- 62

What an amazing picture of grace.