The End of Halloween for Us?

It is now 7:39 pm on Halloween night. The weather is cool, but clear. I have had a carved pumpkin with a battery light inside it on my front porch since 2:30 this afternoon. My porch light is on and there are lights on inside the house. We have had NO trick-or-treaters at the door. I actually saw some kids in costume running down the opposite side of the street around 5:30, but they never came to this side. And, there are school kids on the street - both sides! None of them know us very well, though. We're too old even to hang out with their parents.

I can only assume that Halloween has reached some sort of watershed around here for kids and parents. No more roaming the neighborhood, ringing doorbells of strangers to get candy loot. Even though I can understand it, it makes me sort of sad. How well I remember running around after dark with hundreds of other kids dressed as bums and ghosts (the cheapest costumes, after all) getting a huge bag of candy. Then the real fun - sorting all the Tootsie Rolls from the Three Musketeers from the chintzy suckers, etc. Trading with your siblings for your favorites. It's hard to think that that was more than 50 years ago.

As it is, I might decide that this is the last time I get out my knife and newspapers for a pumpkin, the last time I debate whether to buy a healthier alternative to Hershey bars (nah!), the last time I hang monstery decorations on the front door. There's still time to keep me in the game, kids!

Frederick Buechner, Extraordinary Soul

Since I just finished The Sacred Journey, Buechner's wonderful spiritual autobiography of his early years, I must share a few excerpts that I love. He was born in the same year as my dad, and much of what he tells about his life in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, made me see my dad's early life in a new way.

"God's coming is always unforeseen, I think, and the reason, if I had to guess, is that if he gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before he got there."

"To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world's sake -- even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death -- that little by little we start to come alive."

I'm looking forward to reading the second volume that continues the story at the point where he, at the age of 27, enters Union Theological Seminary in NYC.

Annie Dillard, kindred soul

I read and admired Pilgrim at Tinker Creek years ago, then promptly forgot about it. Decades later, Annie Dillard wrote in a similar vein, For the Time Being, her thoughts about the presence (or absence) of God in various small events and individual tragedies in the world.

These 2 quotes from the latter book struck something in me:

1) Suddenly there is a point where religion becomes laughable. Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious. - Thomas Merton, p. 77

2) As much as anyone, I imagine, I walk in the shadows of faith. - Teilhard de Chardin, p. 146

Hildegarde in my book - and in the news!

I finished the book, God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Journey to the Heart of Medicine, by Victoria Sweet, just in time to be surprised and delighted to hear that soon Hildegarde of Bingen will become an official saint and a doctor of the Church. In her book, an account of Laguna Honda, the USA's last "almshouse" for the poor and destitute in San Francisco, Dr. Sweet, who was one of the medical staff at Laguna Honda, talks about her study of the benefits of "slow medicine" as practiced by medieval healers, such as Hildegarde. She even relates how she used a method of treatment she learned by reading about Hildegarde to heal a woman whose decades of drug abuse had resulted in a complicated health crisis that defeated other doctors.

Slow medicine counts on the use of "Dr. Quiet, Dr. Diet, and Dr. Merryman" - treatment that stresses peace, nutritious and delicious food, comfort and joy - all this over pharmaceuticals, surgeries, and quick release from hospitalization. Health care is moving away from slow medicine, and we will be the poorer and sicker for it.

Hildegarde of Bingen has long been one of my heroes. I love to quote her, " All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all shall be exceedingly well."

First Veggies from the Garden!

Spring is so early here this year. The lilacs are all bloomed out, and they are usually just in time for Mother's Day. The peonies will probably bloom before graduation time at the beginning of June, BUT, I planted cucumbers and tomatoes yesterday when I saw that the weather forecast for the first week of May included 70s and 80s. While I was doing that, I realized that some of the French breakfast radishes (do they really eat radishes for breakfast in France?) were ready! Great on our salad last night, and they're very mild, too - maybe that's why they have the "breakfast" label. Too bad I don't have a picture of the ones we ate, but here's a substitute.

A Revolutionary's Thoughts on Teaching

Graphic novels are one of the favorites in my reading lists. When I checked the library's latest, I found one written by none other than Bill Ayers, of Weather Underground fame. He is now newly retired from the University of Illinois at Chicago where he was a distinguished professor of education. He wrote the book with a graphic artist and it was so interesting, I dropped everything else to finish it in two days. His ideas reminded me of Summerhill, the English school that allowed students to choose their own learning goals.

A few days after I finished the book, I had an hour's drive out to do some grandkids sitting and turned on NPR. A local weekly program of music, lectures, etc., The Paper Machete, was on and Bill Ayers was the guest. He was recounting the dinner he and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, had donated in February 2012 as a raffle item for the Illinois Humanities Council. Instead of getting a measly couple of hundred dollars for a home-cooked dinner for 6 at the Ayers/Dohrn home - as they have gotten for this type of dinner donation for other causes, someone chose to eliminate all other bidders by bidding $2500 - right-wing commentator, Tucker Carlson! Carlson also invited the notorious Andrew Breitbart, who attended the dinner with Ayers and Dohrn just a few weeks before his sudden and unexpected death. Hear what happened at the dinner in the WBEZ podcast, which takes about 15 minutes. Scroll down the page to the podcast arrow. Fascinating.

Ode to Librarians from Red Green

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyy8gYkU2TY#t=3m47s

Don't bother to watch anything after the song is over.