Make a Joyful Noise

For years my yoga teachers have recommended chanting. I own some kirtan CDs, I've attended kirtan sessions at the ashram where I received my yoga training, and I have gone to hear Bhakti Shakti at Studio Be in Boulder. I've always found kirtan enjoyable and beneficial, but my participation has been inconsistent. Chanting alone at home felt dry, and I didn't enjoy hearing the longely sound of my voice.

My family gave me an IPad for my birthday and an ITunes gift card I used to download music for my yoga classes. I've taken to bringing my IPad into my meditation room and chanting along with some of the kirtan.

The effects have been immediate. Hours after I've chanted, the rhythms are still going through my head, and sometimes I burst spontaneously into song as I go about my work! My silent meditations have become deeper and more peaceful. I like to think that's because the kirtan has softened me up that much more.

I especially love Jai Uttal's "Ganesha Sharanam." A small child begins the chant, and I smile every time I hear his sweet little voice. Even a grinch would hear that voice and smile and sing and feel her heart growing nine sizes too big.

Besides Jai Uttal, I also like Deva Premal and Krishna Das. Don't be intimidated by the Sanskrit. If you buy kirtan CDs, the lyrics are printed phonetically on the sleeve. If you use ITunes, there are online kirtan lyrics.

Being Green

This dashing devil is my great-Uncle Gilbert Arts. This pick-up might well have been one he and his brothers kept around for parts.

On the ranch where my grandmother's family settled in the early 1920s, there were several storage sheds near the barnyard where her brothers parked old tractors and pick-ups. To the untrained eye the vehicles were no good to anyone or anything. Out to vehicle pasture.

It was true the guys couldn't bear to throw out anything. After all, they'd lost both parents when they were teenagers during the Depression. It was hard enough scraping enough money together to buy clothes and pay taxes on the place, never mind buying new equipment. They were reducing, recycling and reusing long before it became a slogan. Keeping those old clunkers around served a purpose--they scavenged them for parts. Repair, and re-repair. What made them successful ranchers was their ability to do a lot of things well, maintenance being primary. Their dad had taught them how to work, how things worked and how to fix stuff when it stopped working.

Fifty years later, two of the brothers, Gilbert and Ted, had long since left the ranch. Good old habits die hard. The instinct to fix stuff was just as strong. They went around picking up old lawn mowers people had never tried to fix. They'd haul them back to Gilbert's shop for reconditioning, and they'd sell them or give them away. They'd picked up a cold case from a meat shop that had closed, and Gilbert set about turning it into a greenhouse.

I didn't inherit their mechanical genius, but I did inherit their conservation instincts. I have reinterpreted the instinct to repair, and repair again, as using only what I need.

In August my family and I attended a rally for President Obama at the University of Colorado. As we waited for him to arrive, I struck up a conversation with two students. They were lovely young women whose enthusiasm about their futures in the health care field inspired me and gave me hope.

"I only wish we were leaving things in better shape for you," I said, my eyes filling with tears.

They touched my arm and said, "It's OK. You're doing the best you could."

Maybe I have done the best I could. But it's not OK, and it's certainly not good enough for them, and for my own sons, and all the other young people who are inheriting this scarred, ravaged planet.

Next week I'm attending an Environmental Justice Training sponsored by my denomination, the United Church of Christ. Here's hoping that goodwill and love, though perhaps not enough, is at least something.

Praying for Rain

Gorgeous shot at Dead Horse State Park, Utah

On our way to a family reunion in Yosemite, my husband, kids and I camped at Dead Horse Point near Moab, Utah. Despite the beauty of the painted rock and the gravity-defying geological formations, it’s still in the desert. It’s still a monument to deprivation.

When we arrived at the campground late that afternoon, it was 102 degrees under a cloudless sky. Everywhere we looked, there was more rock than vegetation. The sun had bleached what little grass there was. The only shade available was inside the visitors’ center and the outhouse, or beneath the tarp my husband strung up against the sun.

After we set up camp, we joined a ranger and other campers for a short hiking tour of the area. The temperature had dropped into the low 90s. The ranger reminded us we needed to drink a gallon of water every day to keep adequately hydrated. With an annual average precipitation of less than three inches—compared to Longmont, Colorado, which can expect about fifteen—it’s a wonder there’s enough water for everyone who visits.

Yet in this apparent scarcity, there is grace. I had camped in the desert before, but this time I began to understand why so many holy people retreat to the desert. The desert is always at prayer, because it is always in need of relief. Praying is more natural there.

And the prayers are being answered. A species of mouse has adapted so that it never needs to drink water. It gets all the moisture it needs from the food it eats, also in short, but sufficient, supply. The slick rock is pockmarked with tiny depressions that become oases for the animals when it does rain. As the ranger described them, I thought of angel hands cupped expectantly, waiting to be filled with whatever goodness comes their way.

That night we didn’t bother to put the rainflies on the tents. We needed every whisper of air we could get. As my body worked hard to keep cool, I slept restlessly and worried I wouldn’t be fit for hiking the next day. Around four that morning, a cloud moved over the campground, loosing a fine mist of raindrops. I rolled onto my back to expose my skin to its cool blessing before falling into a deep, grateful sleep. A raven’s fractious call woke me a couple of hours later. Back home I would find it hard to function on so little sleep. Under the desert’s spell, it was enough.

Growing up in the land of plenty, I’m accustomed to a certain amount of excess. I doubt I would ever choose to live in the desert. But I do like to visit. Camping there reminds me that I can stand the discomfort of a little want.

Romney's "Macaca" Moment

Don't  they both take a lovely photo?

Forget about the Duchess of Cambridge's topless photos. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's remarks about how the U.S. is composed of 47 percent freeloader/victims have taken front and center.This is Romney's "Macaca" moment. Get ready for the Obama campaign to play these tapes over and over again until Election Day.

Listening to him speak at a May fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida, I hear a Romney who is fluent and at ease. He appears to believe in what he is saying. Usually when I listen to him speak, I hear the halting sound of someone who is beholden to donors who are basically paying him to stay on script.

As sick to my stomach as the ignorant and contemptuous remarks captured on video make me, I'm glad they're out there. Now they can be debated.

Here's the antidote to the ignorance about what the working poor actually make, courtesy of reported wage statistics and Franci Tartaglino, who compiled them:

A list of workers (who pay 0% in Federal income tax because of the standard deduction on form 1040) and what they make per hour:
Waitress - federal food service minimum wage - $2.13/hr, plus whatever tips people offer
EMT - who scrapes your bloody carcass off the highway - $14.50/hr
Nurses' aides - who keep your grandmother's diaper changed - $9.91/hr
Teenage cashier - subminimum federal wage allowed - $4.25/hr
Food packagers - keeping you E.coli free everyday - $6.37/hr
Lifeguard/ski patrol - watching your kids - $9.09/hr
Garbage Collectors - $15.57/hr
You know who else pays 0% federal income taxes? A large portion of our enlisted military! Starting pay for an enlistee is $18,000/year! 

I wish I could be part of Romney's middle class, who make $200,000 to $250,000. My husband and I are both college educated. He has a masters degree, and I did some postgraduate work. We make less than $200,000, and we pay income taxes and other taxes. I am proud of what we earn and the fact that we're raising two sons on it. I don't feel victimized because I don't meet Mr. Romney's standards for middle-class status, and I don't feel victimized because we pay income taxes and other taxes. We, like many other Americans, believes that's the price of living in a the United States of America, where people believe building a great country is about way more than making sure the wealthiest stay that way and waging wars against enemies. It's about investing in education, health care and ensuring that people can pursue happiness.

2012, not "2016"

In the 80s, I went to see "Roger and Me," Michael Moore's first documentary chronicling General Motors CEO Roger Smith's oversight of the automaker's downsizing, and the subsequent decline of the standard of living for former GM employees. Moore reminded me of Columbo, who played a harmless idiot to disguise that he was onto the criminals. I also liked "Bowling for Columbine," the expose of the National Rifle Association's role in liberalizing gun sales to deadly effect. Moore lost me when he exchanged his rumpled Columbo-ness for being another loudmouth on cable news.

It's the same way I feel about watching MSNBC. While emotionally it makes me feel good to watch people with philosophies similar to mine sticking it to some Tea Party wingnut, I know that what I'm hearing are extremely one-sided opinions. I can't watch Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O'Donnell for very long without feeling queasy and changing the channel.

Because propaganda of any kind makes me physically ill, I have no intention of paying good money to see "2016: Obama's America," the extreme right's version of a Michael Moore documentary. Here's what Daniel Larison, a columnist for the American Conservative (not a fawning guest on Rachel Maddow's show) has to say about Dinesh D'Souza's assessment of President Obama:

"It is hardly necessary to delve deeply into the Kenyan past or trace the roots of anticolonialist thought to discern why Obama, a thoroughly conventional center-left Democrat, favors raising taxes on wealthier people. This is a standard part of the Democratic agenda and has been for the last decade. Having opposed tax cuts for wealthier Americans earlier in the decade, Democrats are continuing to be against them. This is not mystifying. What is a little mystifying is why so many conservative pundits and writers feel the need to construct preposterous, overly-complicated Obama theories to explain what is perfectly obvious and straightforward."

"We Need Better People"

That was a line in a letter to the editor in my local newspaper. Preceding it: "We don't need better gun control laws."

I agree that we need better people. Education is the first thing that leaps to mind. To me, education means giving students multiple pathways to belonging, recognizing that all people have different strengths. Some will be scholars. Others will be athletes, musicians, teachers or entrepreneurs. In an educational setting, there ought to be ways for people to identify their gifts and to go about cultivating them.

The trouble is, there is huge cultural disagreement about how to properly educate our young people. My concern is that disagreements about education is just another thing for us to fight about, and therefore to do nothing about. 

All the fighting about Chick-fil-a and the president's birth certificate and Mitt Romney's tax returns is very confusing. I've always thought Americans are pragmatic people, capable of working toward big public goals while agreeing to disagree about some of the steps along the way. There are some projects that are just too big to solve overnight, and we need to hang in there with each other. Educating our kids to become contributors is one of these big projects. It's time well-invested.

In the meantime, we do need better gun control laws.Tweaking these laws is an exercise in pragmatism. Requiring a waiting period where peoples' backgrounds are checked is something we can do soon. If you're electing yourself to be a gun owner, you're electing yourself to an intrusion of your privacy. If that privacy includes ties to a neo-Nazi hate groups, then so be it. Banning sales of assault weapons would be another. I'd like to see gun sellers tracking how much ammunition they're selling to individuals who live at real addresses, and alerting authorities when a buyer exceeds the limit.

Because if we're really serious about needing better people, we need to make it a lot harder for disturbed people to implement their murderous plans.

Athlete-Champions

Kim Rhode, a skeet athlete, became the first Olympian to win medals in five consecutive appearances at the Games. I didn't see the competition, but I saw an interview with her afterward and was impressed--not a strong enough word--WOWED by the fact that she hit 99 of 100 targets. She's clearly an athlete, but beyond that, she's a champion. She also struck me as a really nice, likeable person, who posts recipes on her blog.

Watching coverage of her on the podium also made me realize how biased I am about what athletes should look like. Ms. Rhode is not ripped. She's got an athlete's reflexes and peripheral vision, and yesterday she proved she's the best in the business.

I watched the women's gymnastic qualifying competition last night, and was impressed--no, WOWED by their strength, grace and precision. When Jordyn Wieber didn't qualify, for the simple reason that each team is limited to two gymnasts in the all-around, though she came in fourth in the overall standings, my mother's heart broke. I so wanted to tell Andrea Joyce to get the microphone out of her face already, and let her go off and have a good cry. In retrospect, the replay showing her toes gripping the balance beam to prevent a fall told me how bad Ms. Wieber wanted it. I'm rooting for her to go for the gold in the individual events and to do everything she can to help her team win.

As strict as gymnastics' rules are, there is still more margin of error for them than there was in yesterday's skeet competition. I noticed form breaks and bobbles and wobbles that were by no means fatal to the overall performances. Who am I to criticize? Balancing in yoga poses is hard enough--I can't imagine balancing on a four-inch-wide beam four feet off the ground while doing flips. . . I thought they were all amazing.

But to hit 99 of 100 targets? That's otherworldly. Ms. Rhode missed one target in the qualifying round, where each athlete aimed for 75 targets. I wonder where in the qualifying competition she missed that one target. To someone who like yours truly who is easily thrown off balance by anything less than perfection, I'm sure in Ms. Rhode's place I would have talked myself into missing some more targets. Because after all, who am I to believe I can be perfect?

That's what separates the champions from the rest of us. Champions are just as flawed as the rest of us, but in that time and that place and that medium they have the will and the preparation to be the best. To put in perspective how big Ms. Rhode's  achievement is, the silver medalist hit 91 targets, while the bronze medalist hit 90.

So bravo to Kim Rhode, bravo to Jordyn Wieber, and bravo to anyone who tries to be the best at anything.