The Lessen Plan; TMGI Day 20

I remember wondering, the first time I learned of this, how it was possible that I had somehow made it to 20-years-old without knowing this had happened.

 

It is brilliance.

 

Jane Elliott, in 1968, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, decided it was time to try the experiment she had been considering for some time.  She believed that in order for her 3rd graders to understand the true impact and influence of bigotry, they had to be able to experience it first-hand.  So in her class that day, she explained that blue-eyed people are better than brown-eyed people.   She, this trustworthy authory figure in these 8-year-olds lives, was telling them that blue-eyed children are smarter, behave better, and are generally superior to the brown-eyed.  Blue-eyed children were allowed greater privilige in the class, ranging from extra recess time to greater praise during the lessons.  Conversely, brown-eyed children were admonished from playing with blue-eyed children.  Brown-eyed children were required to wear collars over their clothes so that their brown-eyed status could be identified from far away.  Immediately, the class divided.  Rivalries sprang up.  Insults and mistreatment ensued.  Name calling started and fights on the playground erupted.

 
The next day, Ms. Elliott informed the class that she had been mistaken.  In was the brown-eyed people, in fact, who were superior to blue-eyed people.  Therefore, she instructed the brown-eyed children to remove their collars and place them instead on a blue-eyed student.  Well, they couldn’t snap those collars on to the blue-eyeds fast enough.  These same children who just a day before lamented the unfairness of the situation now gloated and rejoiced in their newfound positions of superiority and privilege.  At the end of the second day, Ms. Elliott discussed with her class their feelings surrounding the experiment.  These children were forced to account for the way they treated each other, and to explain why.  Too young or scared or respectful toward their teacher or naive yet to just lie, they admitted that their disappointing behavior was a result of their feelings of disgust and rejection toward the other kids’ different eye color.  When asked if they thought eye color was a legitimate way of determining one’s worth, they all agreed it wasn’t, and when asked if they’d like to abandon the experiment and return to the normal classroom function, they cheered.  They embraced each other.  They looked as though they had reunited after being apart for a long time.  It had only been 2 days.

 
There is much to write about surrounding Ms. Elliott and her Class Divided.  I am inspired by the kids and their fundamental desire to get along with each other.  I am inspired by the fact that these kids trusted their teacher so implicitly, and were willing to follow her lead, no matter how uneasy it made them.  But above all, I am inspired by Jane Elliott.  That a white woman, in a white school, in Iowa, in the late 1960s, would choose not only to teach about racism, but to do so in such a demonstrative, immersive, emotional way, is amazing.  It is remarkable.  It is Heroic.  I don’t know if her fellow teachers were supportive, or if the school’s administration was supportive.  I don’t know if she even asked them about it before she conducted the experiment that April day in 1968.  Whether encouraged or hindered by the circumstances, she did it.  At one of the most volatile times in the country’s history, she could have chosen instead to insulate herself from having to deal with the racial turmoil – she lived in Iowa, after all – but didn’t.  Understanding that her responsibility to equip these little people for life extended beyond arithmetic and poetry, and that to ignore what was happening at that time would not only be neglectful, it would be a failure on her part.  Whatever her motivation, whatever else COULD have happened, she did this.  She changed these children’s lives.

 
The truth is, we are ALWAYS in need of teachers – of people – like Jane Elliott.  There is no shortage of opportunity for our children to learn how to ostracize, to hate, to bully, to belittle, and to mistreat others based on one’s race, one’s socio-economic standing, one’s sexual orientation, or any of hundreds more pseudo-reasons.  What there does seem to be a shortage of are the Jane Elliotts who are so fiercly committed to addressing these scars, these scourages on our society, on our children, and on us, that they are compelled to create solutions where none make themselves obvious.  She didn’t use fear to advance an agenda, she taught compassion through empathy.  She didn’t preach fire and brimstone, she walked through the experience right along side her students.  She didn’t gloss over, obfuscate, sugar coat, qualify, or temper what she was trying to do, or the circumstances that required it to be done in the first place.

 
Her “Class Divided” exercise taught a lesson to lessen.  To lessen hate, to lessen fear, to lessen complacency.  Please watch part one below, or click HERE, and be inspired.

The Aria Imperative; TMGI Day 19

…because it’s a perfect synergy.  It’s not just the combination of the words and music, but it’s also the SOUND of the words, the way certain syllables can convey more meaning than the words of which they are a part.
…because “nessun dorma” has a gravity that “nobody sleeps” just doesn’t have.  One of those phrases sounds like the beginning of an infomercial for a sleep-aid, and the other one is “nessun dorma.”
…because La Mamma Morta by Humberto Giordano will likely bring you to tears – even if you don’t understand a word of Italian.  (If you look for the song, look for the version sung by Maria Callas.)

The first time I heard opera – really heard it – I was 13.  The building melodic themes, the soaring voices, the depth of emotion in the singers’ voices evoked something I previously hadn’t felt.  Opera had always been boring, impossible to understand, and completely unattainable.  I didn’t know anything about it, and I didn’t really care to.  Honestly, how much occasion does a pre-teen have to consider the complexities of opera?  But that summer night in 1990, I didn’t have to consider anything, I didn’t have to access anything, and I didn’t have to speak Italian.  In the most unexpected and exhilerating way, listening to opera that night felt like it was considering, accessing, and speaking to ME.
Strictly speaking, Pavarotti wasn’t singing an operatic aria, he was singing a song from the early 1900s in an operatic style, but I didn’t know that at the time.  I had no idea what the song was about.  I didn’t understand a lick of Italian, and I had no intention of liking the music.  But there it was, rising, inevitably, out of the speakers of our TV, toward my ears, and into every cell in my body.

The song was wistful, and melancholy.  Pavarotti’s giant bearded face conveyed both a stout resolve, and a sad hopefulness.  The song flutters lightly at the beginning, then builds layers of atmosphere; it peaks and falls back again, gently to the sweet flutter of the beginning.  Then it builds again.  This time the peak is strong and sad, it is rich and saturated with such clear emotion that it almost feels as though we’re listening to a private note, or prayer.  It felt familiar and empowering, but was also intoxicating and exotic.  My brain couldn’t understand a thing, but the spirit of the song sang to my own, and it felt like something was healing and breaking at the same time.
And although the song was clearly a sad one, I didn’t feel sad after the song ended.  On the contrary, I felt a rush of energy, of elation, of a complete and commanding need to hear more, a lot, for a long time.  I discovered Italian. I discovered Puccini and Tosca and Turandot, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, Giordano’s Andrea Chenier, and Verdi and La Traviata.  These stories are filled with sometimes ridiculously funny scenarios, melodramatic betrayals, and the most honest access to sweeping human emotion of any art form.  The people who are masters of this kind of music are bestowed with an ability to sing that goes beyond technical accuracy, that goes beyond perfect execution.  To sing opera is to voice the human condition: often magnified, in superb hyperbole, but accurate and perfect in its irony, its purposeful exaggerations, and its timeless melodies.
Operas and their arias should be recategorized as human imperatives.  Opera can feed your spirit as it fills your ear.  It grants you access to untold millions of people who have long since shuffled off this mortal coil with whom you might not otherwise share anything in common.  Opera can be just as quiet and solitary as it can lead parades and revolutions.  But mostly, it inspires me because it’s quite simply beautiful.

Desert Reign; TMGI Day 18

It’s called creosote.
You know that, right?  The creosote bush releases an oil that has the most distinct, pleasing scent I’ve ever smelled.  It’s what most of us call the smell of “rain” in the desert.  For those of you reading this IN the desert, you absolutely know what I’m writing about, and you likely know that it’s called the creosote.
To those of you reading this who DON’T live in the desert, well, I don’t know what to say.  I mean, you might live on the beach…that’d be pretty great.  White sands right outside your door, views of the ocean, the sound of crashing waves putting you to sleep every night.  That’s not bad.  And the scent at the beach?  Well, that’s gotta be a close second to the creosote…but there are always those days that smell like dead fish, too, and that’s why the second place ranking.  I suppose you could live in the mountains.  I looove the mountains.  Pine trees?  Amazing.  Majestic views, clean air – just clear up that ever-present threat of forest fires, lyme disease, and mudslides, and we’ll be all set.  But to make sure you know to what I’m referring in the beginning of the article, there is something miraculous that happens just before or just after a rainstorm in the desert.  It changes its scent.  It changes its feel.  The air is ionized and the creosote bushes all over the place release an oil that smells something like a cross between a mild eucalyptus and fresh angel laundry.  It’s miraculous.
The desert’s mystical qualities begin with the shapes and types of plant life: scraggly mesquite trees along side spiny succulents, rustic joshua trees sprout up amongst the orange, pink, white, and purple wild flowers; ancient saguaro cacti reach their arms toward heaven while prickly pear cacti spread their spiny paddles low across the ground.  Giant volcanic rock formations and rocky hills jut out of the ground, breaking up the infinite sight lines.  Owls and snakes and hawks and rodents and scorpions and coyotes and lizards all engage in a perpetual death match, all the while having to be on the look out for torrential storms and flash flooding when the monsoon storms blow through….
Which, incidentally, is when the creosote does its magic.
While some see rain as depressing or experience storms as something ranging between inconvenient to terror-inducing, I have the exact opposite reactions.  Desert storms relax me.  They clear my head and give me a sense of calm.  A howling storm can be cleansing, and a deep wet soaking rejuvinates and reenergizes the desert floor.  Claps of thunder echo for miles and announce their immensity and power to every living thing.  Even the most ferocious and feared creatures take shelter out of reverence for the fierce force desert rains yield.
There is an elemental connection I feel to the desert, which very quietly, but very palpably inspires me.  That inspiration borders on the spiritual, however, when the desert whispers its lessons through the white-noise of the falling rain, exclaims its power in flashes and bolts of lightning sizzling through the air, and grabs a hold of us and shakes us out of whatever stupor, stagnation, or stalemate in which we may find ourselves with its booming voice of thunder.  I am simultaneously inspired by the awe and beauty of the rain, and powerless to resist its influence:  when the desert rains, the desert reigns.

Cathedrals of Sound; TMGI Day 17

The first concert I ever went to was Milli Vanilli.
That’s right.

(Inspired yet?)

It was a spectacle, girl, you know it’s true.  The constant running around and scaling of giant scaffolding, in retrospect, was obviously a way of just passing 90 minutes hoping no one would notice that they weren’t, you know, singing.  But opening for them was one of the ubiquitous all-girl singing groups called Seduction, and none other than Young MC himself.  Busting a move was far more fun than blaming anything on the rain.  Obviously, it turned out that seeing Milli Vanilli in concert was more memorable than I had anticipated because mere months later, their fraud was revealed.  I hold great gratitude for the weirdness of that first concert, though…because it served as a contrast to my SECOND concert ever – but more on that in a bit.  That first concert was just the beginning of my concert experiences – the beginning of my watching these practicioners of preformance preach in great cathedrals of sound.

I didn’t see Dave Matthews Band until I was 27, and it was everything I thought it would be.  If you’ve never heard of the band Keane, go buy their album Hopes and Fears to hear soaring Brit alt pop in its purest form.  Better yet, go see them live.  Their concert in the round at a small, local venue ranks easily in my top 5 shows ever.  I’ve seen Andrea Bocelli and Kenny Loggins and Styx…Sheryl Crow in ’94 was really good, and Brian McKnight was fantastic.  There was Vertical Horizon in the mid-2000s, and a somewhat-well-known and totally underrated guy called Freedy Johnston who was so much fun.  George Winston at Gammage Auditorium is simple, happy perfection.  And then there are a few stand-outs who rose a bit above the others listed here so far.  Tori Amos gave a nearly-3-hour, double-grand-piano performance in 1996 that felt like we in the audience were watching her play and sing alone in the theatre.  Also, Luther Vandross in 1997 was so spot-on that I left the arena aware that something remarkable had happened.  And yes, there is a rumor – a RUMOR – that I may have gone to a certain concert by some certain Boys of a certain Backstreet…and it MAY have been much better than I thought it would be.  A L L E G E D L Y.

But even as good as some of these aforementioned concerts were (and allegedly were), there are four artists whom I have seen who are in classes by themselves.  More than just good, or memorable, it feels like I caught these musicians at the peak of their craft, and being witness to that – in ANY walk of life – is absolutely inspiring.

• In 1995, a small group of 5 guys played a catchy, sometimes odd-ball set of about 45 minutes in the basement of the student union at Arizona State.  It was late in the afteroon, and there couldn’t have been more than 25 of us crammed into the small space to watch them play.  From that day to this, Barenaked Ladies has by far been the band I’ve followed most closely.  Their sound can never be confused for anyone else’s, and as an unapologetic lover of words, their lyrics floor me.  And unlike a lot of bands I liked when I was 19, BNL has gotten better over the years.  The music on their first widely released album, Gordon, is totally different in tone than their latest album, All in Good Time – and yet, it sounds as authentically them as any album has.  And can I just say, these guys put on the single most entertaining live show I’ve ever seen.

• I saw Tom Waitts last year.  At the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix.  For 2 hours.  Seeing Tom Waitts live is like all the good parts of going to church.  It’s a religious experience.

• The most impressive concert I’ve ever been to was Springsteen at Gammage Auditorium in 1996.  It was just him, no band, sitting alone on a stool in the middle of the stage, and maybe 2 or 3 guitar changes.  He played for 3 hours.  No break.  It was revelatory.  To that point I had only known his Born in the USA music, but that night in Tempe redefined how I saw him, how I heard him, and what I understood what was possible from people like him – these high priests of songwriting.  It remains the only concert that, when it ended, I walked out of the venue humbled.

• The last indellible mark I’ll write about today was actually the first one I received.  It was at my SECOND concert.  In October of 1992, at Sun Devil Stadium, I saw U2.  It was the Zoo TV tour and Achtung Baby.  It was One and The Joshua Tree.  It was the loudest, brightest, most electric environment I’d ever experienced, or experienced since.  It was Bono who filled that whole space, it was the Edge who on the one hand looks too old to be able to do what he does, and on the other hand is cooler than I ever was or hope to be.  It was in all ways and parts different from and better than my one previous concert.  And at the end of the show, Bono walked down the runway to the smaller stage, just 10-12 rows from our pretty great seats, and with only a heart-beat of drums quietly thumping, began to sing Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.  I’m not even that big a U2 fan, and that song remains the best concert moment I’ve witnessed.  Dressed all in black, signature sunglasses on his face, and reaching octaves in his falsetto that are not human, I was elevated.

Leave a comment on this article, and share your favorite concert experiences – the times that inspired You.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen; TMGI Day 16

Seeing is believing.

This phrase has become increasingly uncomfortable for me of late.  It seems ironic, or oxymoronic.  I think the intended meaning is that if one sees something for themselves, then that thing’s veracity can be verified.  In other words, if I just told you something, you may think I’m lying to you, but if you can see for yourself what I told you, then you know what I said was true.
Did you catch that?
Since you saw it with your own eyes, you KNOW what I said was true.
Sooooo, shouldn’t the saying be, “Seeing is knowing”?
We’ll come back to that in a bit….

Earlier today, one of my clients – a really good-natured, albiet sometimes goofy high school junior – answered the door wearing a left-over eye patch from his pirate Halloween costume.  “Arrrrrgh matey,” he groweled.  I just grinned and shook my head as I walked in, already handicapping in my mind what the chances were that he’d be able to focus at all today.

 

“That’s a good lookin’ patch,” I told him.

 

“I know this,” he nonchalantly replied.  He then proceeded to tell me about how he was bringing the eye patch “back,” as if it used to be a trend in the first place, and that I should get on board with it now so I don’t look like a poser later when everyone else is wearing them.

 

“I’m way ahead of you,” I told him.

 

“What do you mean?” he asked me.

 
I hesitated for just a second.

 
“I wore an eye patch like 7 years ago…who do you think started that trend in the first place?” I asked.  He laughed a little, liking that I was playing along.  But he could also see that I wasn’t just joking, that there was something serious about what I said.

 
“Wait, what do you mean?” He asked through his laugh.

 
I gave him the short version of the story how several years ago, my retina had begun to detach and that I had to have surgery on my eye – while still awake (but heavily drugged) – and how weird the sensation was to see a surgeon cut into your eyeball while still awake, and not really feel much and that the drops I had to put in my eye post-surgery kept my pupil dialated for several weeks and because of that, I had to wear an eye patch whenever I was outside during the day because the light was too intense.

 
“No way!” He thought it was the weirdest thing that I had to be awake during the operation.  He wanted more details and I indulged him for a few more minutes, wanting to encourage and maximize his suddenly expanded attention span.  “Can you see out of that eye still?” he asked.  I assured him that I could, that the surgery was successful, and that within 6 months of the surgery, my vision in that eye was fine.  He seemed pleased with the story, and we pivoted his attention to other, more academic endeavors.

 
What I didn’t tell him was that those 6 months of recovery were rough.  The progress was slow and frustrating…and to suddenly only have use of 1 eye for months was as much a mental adjustment as it was physical.  There were times when I wondered if my vision would ever return to normal, or if this would happen in my other eye too and compromise my vision altogether.  As the weeks wore on, the small, intermittent restlessness of not knowing gnawed at the back of my mind.  The not knowing was almost as hard as the recovery.

 
Then one day, for whatever reason, it just clicked.  For me, during that time when so much was in question, so much was unsure, there were only two things I could do: take care of the physical health of the eye, and think positively about getting better…in other words, abandon the search to “know,” and embrace the capacity to believe.  It wasn’t true that “seeing is believing,” but instead, “believing would lead to seeing.”

 
Believing and knowing are two different things, that I think sometimes get confused.  Seeing isn’t believing, BELIEVING is believing.  Seeing is knowing, and that’s great, but not the same thing as believing.  Belief implies faith, and faith is, to me, the best part of being human.  The capacity for faith – faith in God, faith in medecine, faith in a surgeon’s hand, faith in each other – is a gently magnificent quality that serves purposes both material and ethereal.  Faith is not only what brought me peace of mind as I recovered, but it is also what compells me to believe in and seek the best in those around me.  And while the work we do, the actions we take as a result of that faith inform and honor its meaning and value, the faith itself – especially in the form of devotion to one another – reflects our ever-expanding capacity for good.

 
I am grateful for the capacity to believe, to have faith; and I am inspired by the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

 

 

 

 

Half Grateful, Half Inspired; TMGI Day 15

Today marks the half-way point in my self-declared Month of Gratitude and Inspiration.  And being the half-occasion that it is had me contemplating something all day that I don’t think is always easy to get a hold of…and that is the beauty and inspiration of the incomplete. 

Not to be confused with the procrastinated, with the neglected, or with the lazy.  That’s not at at all what this is.  Where I often find great inspiration is in the “in-between” moments and scenarios.  Like that feeling you get when your favorite song comes on, and you’re really aware that you’re enjoying it, and that it’s only half-way through; or the realization that you’re watching a movie that is much better than you thought it’d be, and you’re only an hour into it; or when you wake up and just feel and know that you’re in your zone, and that although the day may have just begun, you already know there’s nothing you can’t handle that day.

It’s that place before the resolution, before the ending, and before you’re sure how it will all turn out, but are aware of how good it is right now.  It’s the kind of place that is sometimes hard to appreciate in such a results-oriented world.  It’s the place that comes when the ball is in the air, fired toward the catcher’s mitt, but is not yet a ball or a strike, and it’s the football sailing on its long, hail-mary arc toward the end zone, but before any catch is made or missed.  I love the places of “doing” almost more than the answers of “results”:  dinner while it’s cooking, the studying before the exam, the practicing before the recital, the wrapping of the present, the writing of the letter, day #15 out of 30.

What’s even harder to explain is that I find that same value in things that are sometimes difficult, unpleasent, and downright negative.  Something like one might experience in a failed or failing relationship, when one is often left with more questions than answers – more loose ends than understandings.  To me, these loose ends, these unanswered questions are just as important as any answer could be.  This is because without the questions, no answers could even be found.  Without the loose ends, there would be no impetus to seek new ways of tying them up in the future.  It also encourages one to divest themselves of the notion that fairness or justice are things which should automatically happen by default, and instead teaches one to invest themselves in the truth that values of fairness and justice require great, active, and daily cultivation if they are ever to be reified.

This is not to celebrate suffering, not to celebrate failure.  But is IS to celebrate that these things usually have powerful value.  They have transformative influence, and if harnessed and acknowledged with eyes wide open,  then the “not knowing” and the “incomplete” can encourage a kinetic and dynamic process that is a tribute unto itself.  A tribute that engenders an abiding inspiration from the process of things done as much as from the event of their completion; inspiration from the full awareness of the “in-between” moments, of the “half-way” points, and the beauty of the unfinished journey.

It’s a Swing Thing; TMGI Day 14

I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t write a music article until at least the half-way point…because let’s be honest, I could probably make the entire 30-day challenge about music.  I didn’t want to go there too easily.

So, although tomorrow is technically the half-way point to 30 days, my iPod apparently had different plans.  All throughout the day, driving from client to client, I usually have my iPod hard-wired into my car stereo, automatically shuffling through my 5400+ song library.  Well today, for reasons only the iPod gods know, a disproportionate amount of swing music was being randomly selected to play, and powerless against the will of the iPod as I am, I knew today’s article was going to be about Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Cherry Poppin Daddies.

Ok, not about them personally, but their music to be sure.  First, a bit of background.  You know how when you ask most people what kind of music they listen to, most of the time you get the response:  “a little bit of everything”? Well, 99 times out of 100, that turns out not to be true after just a little digging.  Well, I am that 1 out of 100 who LITERALLY listens to every kind of music.  rock, rap, alternative, R & B, folk, classic rock, 50s music, mariachi music, new age, country, classical, instrumentals, show tunes, world music, pop, 80s, disco, hip hop, gospel & religious, punk, bluegrass, and Nina Simone (let’s not pretend we can categorize Nina Simone).  But there are 3 kinds of music that absolutely get to me unlike any others:  Latin music, opera, and swing.

 
Ooooohhhh…swing.

 

I first started listening to swing music when I was in 6th or 7th grade.  Already a novice saxophone player, there was something that was instantly magnetic about the syncopation, the melodies, the “dotted-eighth-and-sixteenth” swing of the rhythms.  The driving engine of the drummers and walking bass lines, the warm bounce of the trombones, the brightness and flare of the trumpets, and the sweet, sweet voices of the unified saxophones.  As my music ability matured, my appreciation for swing did too, and soon I was playing it in my high school 20+ piece show band.  For 4 years, in one form or another, I jumped into love with swing – feet first and head-over-heels.  Playing all over the country, what began to color my understanding of swing beyond the brilliance of the orchestrations was the way so many people, from so many places, found connection to the times and places this music represents.  Couples in their 70s were kids again dancing as we played In The Mood; but in addition to their rejuvination, the music and their dancing also revealed the bond, the connection, the short-hand of the love they shared.  To dance swing well requires not just rhythm or ability, but trust, understanding, a bit of anticipation, and teamwork, and a confidence that can’t be overpowering, and can’t be apologetic.

I knew after years of watching others dance to our music, I wanted to learn how to also.  I HAD to learn how also.  So in college I did.  Finally learning to swing felt like I had finally learned the words my feet had been wanting to say my whole life.  Let me say, to be clear, that I can’t stand snobs when it comes to music and/or dance – you know, people who look down on others who perhaps don’t know something as well as they might.  It bothers me in any circumstance, but in the arts it is somehow even more offensive to me.  That said, I have to admit that I’ve given up trying to explain to those who don’t know swing how and why it’s sooo muuuch fuuun.  Maybe part of it is because in some ways, you have to give yourself over to the music and let it move you – there is a certain amount of mental control you give up over yourself, even as you must be physically more precise than normal.  Maybe because for some people all things “old” somehow means “useless.”  Whatever the reason, if you are someone who doesn’t like or “get” swing, I gently encourage you to give it another shot.  Listen to some music, take a swing class, take a decade and learn the upright bass…you know, whatever works best for you.  Regardless of the form by which you seek it, remember just this:  you don’t have to be good at it to have fun, you just have to have fun doing it to be good.

Sunday School; TMGI Day 13

 

I don’t know if you could do it.

I don’t know if I could do it.

 

And while I absolutely hope that neither of us ever has to find out…what I DO know is that they DID do it.  They didn’t talk about doing it.  They didn’t tell everyone else that THEY should do it…they just did it.  They did it because their world, their beliefs, their authenticity is not a badge of feigned respect, it is not a status symbol, and it is obviously not a convenient excuse used to judge or condem others.  They did the unimaginable.

 

In 2006, a man forced himself into a one-room school house in rural Pennsylvania and took 10 little girls hostage.  After several horrifying minutes, he shot the girls, and then killed himself.  Five girls survived.  Five died.  And just as that shooting rattled the very foundations of that small community, how they responded to the shooting, rattled me to mine.
The main difference between this particular community and any other average American town is that this all happened in an Amish community.  Faced with the murder of their own children, faced with the kind of grotesque violence that few of us can even fathom, these people in this community didn’t put on a show, they didn’t rant or rage against the outside world, they didn’t DO what any number of us would do.  Without thinking, without having to be asked, without blinking, their first instinct was to forgive.
Before their own daughters were buried or out of the hospital, the people in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, PA, reached out to the family of the shooter.  They reached out to comfort his widow and children.  They reached out to his elderly parents and comforted them too.  They didn’t send word of comfort, they didn’t write a letter or mail a card, they went and visited them.  The Amish people of Nickel Mines, PA, held the shooter’s father as he sobbed, and kept a sympathetic vigil over the killer’s wife – seeing them all as vitcims of this horror too.

A fund was established to help the children of the shooter, and around 30 members of the Amish community attended the shooter’s funeral in support of the family left behind.  What’s more, this very private and guarded community invited the widow to attend one of the little girls’ funerals.
These people lead with love.  When times were at their worst, they sought to be their best.  They didn’t just talk about how we “should” forgive, but they offered forgiveness in their own saddness.  They didn’t define their faith by a convenient platitude or condescending tolerance.  Instead, they opened themselves to live what they love and to offer genuine grace amidst their gut-wrenching grief.

With all the talk of “vengeance” and “justice” and “retaliation” and “getting even” in our news, in our conversations, in our beliefs, and in our lives, the people of Nickel Mines may be the last true Christians in America.  Faced with a situation in which nearly everyone in the world would have understood had they responded in anger, incredulity, or hatred, they instead chose to love, to forgive, and to comfort.  They chose to be what they believe to be Christ-like.  They chose to extend mercy.  They reminded us that regardless of our spiritual or religious beliefs, the human capacity to meet and exceed the most trying and unthinkable circumstances is governed not by law or government, not by creed or ideology, but by the singular and personal decision to engage it; not to always BE right, but to always DO right.

I am inspired by these people; but mostly, I’m grateful they exist at all.

Shaving Grace; TMGI Day 12

Today’s gratitude isn’t for something grand or deep or insightful.  Today’s gratitude is for the fact that there is still limited access to a lost art of masculinity from a bygone era.
Today, I’m grateful for the shave.
Now, if you believe what you see on TV or in magazines, all modern men shave in their stainless steel bathrooms with their pristine drugstore shaving products lined up on the counter.  Their quadruple bladed razor always gleems like new, and every shave results in revealing the facial skin of a 19 year-old fashion model.  The reality of the daily shave is actually far less glamourous.

 
While shaving products – especially razors – have gotten far better over the years, and therefore safer, the ceremony of the shave has all but faded.  So, my first acknowledgement of gratitude today is for a better shave at home.  To accomplish this, take a little time – and just a little bit more money – and find a great badger-hair shaving brush.  This brush should come with a stand that holds the brush up off the counter so that it can properly dry between uses.  Badger hair has great properties of being both soft to the touch, but strong enough not to wilt under the weight of a heavy lather and a heavy beard.  Lathering your face with a brush serves two purposes – it helps to lift and stand-up your whiskers so that when you start to shave, you can get a cleaner, closer cut; secondly, it feels great.  The second thing you will need is a shaving mug to hold your lather, and a shaving soap or cream that you mix with warm water in the mug to make your lather.  Proper shaving soap or cream will both lubircate your face for a smoother shave, but it will also help condition your skin too.  Part of the fun is experimenting with what shaving products work best for you.  And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with drugstore shaving gels and foams, they serve a good “everyday” purpose because they’re quick, easy, and serviceable.  A shave with a brush and lather that requires mixing in a shave mug takes a bit more time, but the experience is more than just a bit better.

 
The question of the razor is somewhat trickier.  Let’s be honest: most guys aren’t necessarily trained in the handling of a stone-sharpened straight razor.  We’re 3 generations deep into take-home safety razors encased in grippy, rubberized handles that are everything from battery-powered to self-lubricating.  These razors are fine – some are more than fine.  But like most things – from cars to cooking – manual is better.  For the best do-it-yourself shave, learning how to sharpen and use a straight razor has no equal.  It’s elegant and precise…and the tiny possibility of cutting the hell out of your face makes it more than just a little bit exciting.

 

This brings me to the NON do-it-your-self shave.  There was a time when getting a haircut meant getting a shave too.  I have asked some of my friends and acquaintences if they have ever had a shave from someone else before, and a striking majority said that they hadn’t.
That’s gotta be a crime.
Getting a shave is a beautiful slice of civilization.  It is refined and relaxing, beneficial and an art.  It is sublime.  And let me say that if you have never gotten a shave, do something for yourself and give it a shot.

Here’s what to expect, and why it is enjoying a resurgence.
First, you’ll be reclined in the chair.  Depending on the quality of the establishment and experience of the one shaving you, the back of your head/neck will be cushined while you are lying back.  Next, your face will be wiped with a cool, damp towell as a means of clearing any dirt or debris from your beardy visage.  Once cleaned, a hot, wet towell will be wrapped around your face covering your neck, chin, cheeks, mouth, eyes and forehead.  Your nose will remain uncovered so that you can still breathe.  The purpose of the towell is to open your pores and soften the beard.  Also, it feels great.  After a few minutes, the towell will be removed and your face may or may not be wiped cool again.  Next, warm shaving lather will be dispensed from a specially designed dispenser, and applied to your face.  This will likely be done by hand so that your attendant can learn the shape of your face and the direction your beard grows.  Once lathered, the shave will begin.  First at the neck, up to the jaw-line.  Then the cheeks and sideburns.  Third will be the upper lip, and finally the chin.  Next, your attendant will manually feel for rough spots on your beard that he might have missed, and shave those too.  Once completed, another hot towell will cover your face.  You may not be awake anymore.  After a few minutes, the hot towell is replaced by a cold towel.  This helps to reclose your pores and invigorate you.  With this towell, your face will be cleaned of any leftover shaving lather.  A splash of aftershave will tighten and cool your skin yet again, and a light dusting of talc puts the final, calming touch on the shave. Your attendant should take their time.  Just keep your eyes closed and relax.  You don’t need to help them, and they’ll tell you if you do.  The sensation for the first-timer will be weird.  Since you’ve not been shaved by a single blade before, it might feel uncomfortable initially.  But this will change within a few shaves, if not within a few minutes.  Also, different practitioners are better than others.  I would encourage you to try a few until you find one who best suits your tastes.

His hands are a blur!

My favorite place to get a shave is in New York at the Art of Shaving on Madison Ave.  There are several of these shops all around the country, but the Russian man running that one is an artist.  It’s like I was being shaved by Edward Scissorhands.

A great shave is more than grooming.  It’s as much a sensory experience as the coffee I’ve written about before.  It’s about the arc of the straight razor and sound of it being honed on a leather strop (strap).  It’s the warm lather and long, satisfying drag of the blade across the beard.  It’s the hot, languid towell juxtaposed with the sharp, cool sting of the aftershave.  It’s 20 minutes of grown-up time out.  For me, it is the occasional activity that helps remind me how much better it is to be older; that the angst and restlessness and hesitancy and hypothesising of being young has given way to a knowing acceptance and an earned sense of peace.

Magic Wand-er; TMGI Day 11

When I was 11 years old, my family and I vacationed in San Diego.  At the beginning of the trip, my parents gave each of me and my brothers some spending money for the trip.  At 11, $20 was a fortune.

 
“Spend it wisely,” my parents would tell me.
The possibilites seemed endless.

 
By the end of our week in San Diego, I had $3 left.  I couldn’t even remotely remember on what I spent the first $17, but I was bound and determined to spend that last $3 before we got back in the car for the long drive home.  The final stop on our way out of town was Seaport Village.  We had spent some time there earlier in the week, and my parents wanted to go through again as we left.  I anxiously looked around for a store in which I could divest myself of this fire burning a hole in my pocket.

 
And then I saw it.
My life was changed forever.

 
Near the novelty “left handed” store where I thought I’d spend my money was a shop I hadn’t seen earlier in the week.  It was a magic shop.
I wandered in and looked around.  I didn’t really understand what I was looking at, but I browsed a bit before I finally approached the counter and asked the clerk what I could get for $3.  He grinned and asked me to hold out my hand.  In it, he placed a little foam rabbit, asked me to close my fist around it, and told me a story about how rabbits mate for life and don’t like to be away from one another and since rabbits are best known for hopping, they usually hop to reunite.
“Did you feel that?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say.  “Yes?”
“Open your hand, slowly,” he instructed me.  As I did, the single foam rabbit he had so clearly and obviously placed in my hand were now TWO rabbits!  I felt my heart skip.  What had just happened??  Something appeared in my hand THAT WASN’T THERE MERE SECONDS AGO.  I looked around the store, searching for witnesses to the rodent miracle that just occured in my hand.  Did anybody else see that??  What kind of wizard is this guy??

 

I tried to control my excitement.  I played it 11-year-old cool.
“So…that’s $3?”  I asked him.
“Yes!” he affirmed.
I calmly reached into my pocket, and pulled out three wrinkled one-dollar bills.  I smoothed them on the glass counter, and slid them across to him.  The clerk took my damp money, reached under the counter and brought out a purple and white box with the words “Rabbits Rabbits Everywhere” printed on the lid.  He put the box in a bag and handed it to me.  I wanted to stay and ask him to show me how to do it, I wanted to stay and eat, sleep, and breathe in that shop, I wanted to move in there and forsake things like school and family and friends.  But the only feeling I had stronger than the desire to stay was the fear that the clerk would realize his folly in sellng me this bit of sorcery for a mere 3 dollars, so as much as I wanted to stay, I high-tailed it out of there in the most nonchalant, hurried speed-walk my 11-year-old legs could muster.

 
That was my first experience with magic, but I think it was also my first time being inspired.  I couldn’t wait to learn more, I couldn’t wait to see where this newfound knowledge would lead me.  I was moved to not only learn more but at 11 I distinctly remember feeling that I also wanted to be really good at this rabbit trick too.  So as much as today’s article is about my first experience with inspiration, it is also an article of gratitude for having had this experience so young.  Magic has been a symbol for me over the last 23+ years of exactly that capacity for inspiration that, when all else seems lost, can be found in exacting the impossible.  What began as an intrigue, grew into a hobby, and then a part-time job has now become a mechanism for ad-hoc rejuvination of belief in the seemingly impossible.  Coins and cards and silks and trinkets aren’t just accouterments representative of vaudvillian tradition, they are metaphors for how, when collected in the right order, conjured with the right skill, and coaxed with that perfect mix of persuasion, inspiration can spring forth – even in a flurry of foam rabbits.

Abracadabra.