Bird Droppings July 26, 2023

Direction is needed when speaking of velocity

Over the past long weekend, I worked on several paper ideas, sat in my recliner, dabbled in my yard briefly around the raindrops, and played with my grandkids. But I got thinking back to a party in Pennsylvania that was held nearly fifteen years ago as I pondered and walked about. Our high school class 1967 was a sixtieth-birthday bash celebrating everyone’s coming of age. At that time, numerous graduate school and high school projects kept me home, or I had planned on being there.

It has been nearly fifteen years since I was thrilled to revisit my hometown and surrounding countryside for a class reunion. My wife and I made one side trip to Amish country towards Lancaster, PA. We went to a favorite tourist spot, The Amish Farm and House. I went for the first time nearly sixty years ago on a second-grade field trip. Now the old homestead and farm sit midst malls and shopping centers. One caught my attention as we went on the tour and listened to our guide’s talks on various Amish customs. The Amish traditionally heat the kitchen only. A key thought here is that the Amish use no electricity so heating and light are still old-fashioned.

Within Amish tradition, the family that is together more than apart stays together. The kitchen, especially in the winter, becomes the family room for meals, play, and talks. Kids stay and play while adults work on various projects since most of the house is too cold. An interesting thought is that the Amish are growing in numbers. Yet, by our standards, their lifestyle is hard. Very few leave their families according to statistics, less than two percent, and sadly it is that two percent of the reality shows are based on. This is interesting in the world of divorce and child abandonment that we have today.

“I am always doing things I can’t do; that’s how I get to do them.” Pablo Picasso

I was sitting outside earlier, and it was a bit chilly for this time of year, but the cold snap is riding a front that brought some of the previous rain last week, and with the high humidity, the ninety-degree weather feels much hotter. I was mainly listening to the sounds of morning in my backyard, crickets, although their songs are slower in the chill and damp. Many sounds were similar in the stillness and solitude of early morning both here and in Pennsylvania growing up. A dog, maybe a coyote, is howling in the distance. At our last house, we would be awakened occasionally by train whistles, and it had been over sixteen years since I had heard a train whistle from my doorstep. Although one night outside Macon, while staying at a friend’s house who happened to live along a spur leading to one of Georgia Powers coal-burning plants, I was wide awakened by the coal train whistle and noise about four o’clock one morning. The old house was a rail tender’s house where the occupant would work for the railroad and check water and such on engines as they pulled in.

I have raised the question of our purpose numerous times over the years, and yesterday an email sometime last night got me thinking. A dear friend said four people had raised the issue of their purpose in life recently, and she is now going through a time in her life of seeking purpose. Before I went out, I wrote back to her.

“It is not my purpose, as much as I have a purpose. It is knowing you are significant in each aspect of what you do. Over the years, I always thought I would one day open my eyes and see my purpose. Years ago, a vision, or was it a dream of a giant jigsaw puzzle falling in place, sorted that out for me. I could not see the front of the puzzle, and every time I tried and look, it would turn away, revealing the gray backing. I had to be content to know it was falling in place piece by piece, and each piece was more intricate than the last. You can seek direction in your journey. You have a powerful friend in your faith. Doors will open as they need to. I spent nearly two years sorting out where I was to go, some by working with indigent families and receiving barely enough to cover cell phone and mileage. A door opened in teaching, and even then, I was presented with tests. Five times my name was presented by a principal who wanted me to teach, and four times I was turned down. On September 11, 2001, I was allowed to go back into teaching” Frank Bird in an email to a friend.

I have often used the illustration of a puzzle in my writing and have thrown the word purpose many times. There is an aspect of our journey in which we are directly involved: the direction in which we are facing as we take that next step.

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lays disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” Rachel Carson

I was looking this morning for words dealing with direction, and each time I tried mapping out my thoughts, the word direction came up. My oldest son finished his certification in GIS several years ago. He had been working with an Environmental Science class at the high school, mapping trees and positioning using GPS devices. It is amazing as gadgets get smaller and more accurate; we can map a tree on our planet or a gopher tortoise nest. We are at a point in our technology where we can ascertain that Sumatra moved 20 centimeters in a huge earthquake. My son will take along his GPS for fun as he travels; although he has made several trips to Florida, it has proven it’s worth avoiding hurricane traffic. But often, we have difficulty determining where we are going today, let alone in life.

“The path of least resistance and trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a “pet” notion, and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different.” John Dewey

John Dewey is not the easiest read in the world, and often his thoughts are in details we are not used to. This could be why so many educators struggle with Dewey’s ideas. It is too easy to say he was a communist or socialist and not read that he was perhaps one of the greatest advocates for democracy within education and the nation in modern times. Most recently, I have been reopening Dewey’s works as I work on my dissertation based on his ideas. Teachers often look for an easy fix to a complicated issue. In life, far too many times, we take the easy road. 

“Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdom we’ve learned and create something.” Liz Carpenter

“You don’t have to buy from anyone. You don’t have to work at any particular job. You don’t have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose” Harry Browne.

So many see life as a funnel, a narrowing down rather than a spreading out as they progress. It has been many years since I walked the Appalachian Trail in North Georgia, and hopefully, one day, I will find time to climb the trail again. Often when walking up a mountain, there are switchbacks, a longer path but an easier incline, and you would use them rather than a direct ascent. A switchback is a path that cuts back and forth up the mountain rather than straight up, making the pathway easier. With a heavy pack, a direct route, let alone dangerous, is often impossible.  

“The way to activate the seeds of your creation is by choosing the results you want to create. When you choose, you activate vast human energies and resources, which otherwise go untapped. All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.” Robert Fritz

So often in life, the first step, that door opening, is difficult. When I returned to teaching, I could have stopped at my first rejection. I applied at five or six schools, and at the time, I was not certified, and to get a provisional certification, you have to be employed. That in itself is an interesting paradox. For some reason, a principal thought I might work out and kept pushing, and after four attempts at the school board meetings, I was hired; then he called back; my sister had been hired a day before, who I recommended so that I couldn’t work there now. Then my name did not make a meeting, another effort was defeated, and a third and fourth again. Finally, a teacher had a nervous breakdown and was out indefinitely, and a long-term sub was needed, eventually leading to my teaching position. Allowances were made for my sister, and I started on September 11, 2001. Many months later, when the principal was putting a list together, I was asked what day I started, and I couldn’t remember. I told him it was the week after labor day and a Tuesday because approval was needed on Monday. The first step is rough many times.

“You are the person who has to decide. Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside, you are the person who makes up your mind whether you’ll lead or will linger behind. Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar. Or just be contented to stay where you are.” Edgar A. Guest

“When we acknowledge that all of life is sacred and that each act is an act of choice and therefore sacred, then life is a sacred dance lived consciously each moment. When we live at this level, we participate in the creation of a better world.” Dr. Scout Cloud Lee

Dr. Lee is a motivational speaker, author of twelve books, singer-songwriter, university professor, and, along the way, a cast member of The Survivor series on CBS. She was voted Outstanding Teacher of the Year at Oklahoma State University in 1980 and Oklahoma’s Outstanding Young Woman in America in 1980. In 2002, Lee was honored to carry the Olympic torch exemplifying the theme of “Light the Fire Within.” Perhaps this is a good place to stop today Guest states, “You have to decide,” and Dr. Lee offers, “We participate in the creation of a new world”. I end up with a line from an Aerosmith song, which always seems to fit in.

 “Life is about the journey, not the destination,” Steven Tyler.

Please, my friends, keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts, and always give thanks, namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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