Sleeping bags are usually second-hand during trips, rallyes, campings, distant expeditions and different tourist trips. Depending on the season and the place of departure an appropriate sleeping bag is going. At winter, early-spring or autumn departures sleeping bags taken by participants of the expedition should be fat and warm, appropriately protecting against night coolness. In the summer it is necessary to use lighter sleeping bags providing with the comfortable sleep. There are synthetic and down sleeping bags to choose from. synthetic sleeping bags are filled up with artificial warming material which fibres are empty inside. Sleeping bags of this type don’t provide with so much heat what down, are big and relatively heavy, but not so expensive and difficult in the conservation. They are moreover tough in conditions of the great humidity. down sleeping bags are very warm, light, they provide with greater comfort, however their serious shortcoming is an expensiveness as well as a necessity of frequent going flat, drying and cleaning. As filling up duck’s and goose’s down is in down sleeping bags, in the appropriate relationship between down and small feathers.  The goose down owns more profitable properties, better he is separating and he is keeping the warmth. Covering fabrics are also deciding the functionality of sleeping bags. They must be appropriately strong and having close construction in order to assure for sleeping bags permanence and not to let down filling up get to getting out outside. In sleeping bags also fastenings i.e. locks are important elements. Because largely a permanence of sleeping bags depends on them. Beneath castles thermal slats serving as thermal pads are found. Such slats should not make it difficult to slide locks back or enter his teeth. Chambers warming up which are put in the part allotted to feet are often situated in sleeping bags.

author’s note:

“I praise what is truly alive,
 what longs to be burned to death.”
            —  Goethe
 

PERMANENTLY EVANESCENT

“Evanescent”—
I thought I knew
what the word meant:
glowing, luminescent,
phosphorescent.

One more good word
for states of being
I deeply appreciate.

But no, according
to my dictionary
“evanescent” is vaporous
and will disappear
in a long wisp
twirling slowly upwards
then suddenly gone
into the darkness.

Lao Tzu tells us
the Ancient Sages
were as evanescent
as icicles.  So I guess
they still are

though they’ve disappeared
like the steam rising
from the burning ice—

the vapor mixing glowingly
with my own
warm breath
then lifting to
the luminescent moon.

But even a moon
so solid in the winter’s night
is evanescent: one moment
a full white shadow—
the next, an empty bottle
with a crescent puddle
at the bottom.

But nothing is ever lost—
not even those phosphorous ghosts
of the upper atmosphere
wandering in the cold
among all the abandoned
balloons.

I don’t know
where my better mind goes
during the dust
of the day.  I only know
I’m constantly breathing
and what I exhale
is never lost—

no matter where
the invisible smoke
of my flame goes…

though no longer lit,
no longer aglow
no longer luminescent—

it remains

permanently evanescent.

© 2009, Michael R. Patton
earnest audio
new steps

Burnt Norton

By T.S Eliot

I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

II

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The thrilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
Wtih slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plentitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Dessication of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movememnt; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.

IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
the black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always-
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

You can see stages and versions of this piece all over my website, ’cause I’ve been messing around with this idea of perspective within a travelogue for many months now.  Over the summer, I began reading this clever and creative literary magazine online and submitted what was my best effort of Driving West at the time.  Check it out here, under the “Postcards” division of “Frostwriting” – Driving West.  Browse around a little and see what the magazine has to offer, the website boasts and easy-to-navigate platform, to boot.

The funny thing about publication (as impermanent or as international as it may be) is that is carries some sense of finality.  As if every change to the piece hereafter is a post-production change, an after-the-fact, last-minute tweaking of sorts.  I don’t entirely believe that to be true.  But I also don’t think works should be allowed the freedom to go on forever.  I’m becoming more of an advocate of balance, is that alright?

In this case, I’ll still claim impermanence.  I haven’t taken another deep look into the concept of perspective in travelogue, not to the extent that my full desire for the piece has been flushed out.  But the funny thing about that is: I thought I’d always feel the way I did when I penned the first twenty-seven and a half drafts.  And if you spent time with me these last three years, I might have had you convinced.  I was pretty sure I’d feel this way forever.

Well, publishing doesn’t mean permanency.  I guess that’s all I’m trying to say.  Check out my little publication victory and hopeth me that it’s not the last. 

I’ve just noticed (with a mild sense of guilt that I managed to firmly wrestle to the ground with deft application of rational and positive thinking) that it’s been almost two months since my last posting. Thankfully that has been entirely down to me being rushed off my feet with enjoyable coaching and training projects… a very happy place to be when you’re a freelance consultant in the midst of a recession. As they say… mustn’t grumble!

So forgive me if I gently tug you back into the dim and distant past and re-present our happiness equation: H = S + C + V. We had got to the final letter – V – the variables within our control that impact our day to day happiness level. In my last posting we looked at how events in the past can impact V, whereas in this posting we will look at the impact of our views of the future.

The future looks bright then… or it does if you happen to be an optimist. As Henry Ford once said, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right”. I think it was him anyway.

You can check out your own optimism level on Martin Seligman’s website ‘Authentic Happiness’. You will end up with a report that compares your optimism level with someone of your own age, gender and in your line of work… and you can then see if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore!

In his book ‘Learned Optimism’, Seligman refers to two crucial dimensions called Permanence and Pervasiveness.

Let’s take Permanence first… Eeyores believe that the causes of the bad things that happen to them are permanent and that these bad things will always happen to them; whereas Tiggers see the causes of bad events as being temporary.

So if you forget your partner’s birthday, you might think “oops, I’ve been preoccupied with work this week” (temporary glitch – optimistic) or you might conclude “I’m rubbish at remembering birthdays” (permanent behaviour/character style – pessimistic). As you can see Tiggers move on with the rest of their lives not giving the missed birthday a second thought… while Eeyores gloomily conclude that all birthdays in the future will be potentially forgotten.

Interestingly if we look at good events, your explanatory style swaps over. So if you win the lottery, Tiggers conclude that they are always lucky (permanent), whereas Eeyores might conclude that it was just a lucky day (temporary).

Next up… Pervasiveness! This is the difference between people who can compartmentalise their problems and carry on regardless with the rest of their life, and people whose world comes crashing down if one tiny aspect breaks.

An example would be that Tiggers who fail an exam might conclude that they didn’t study hard enough for that particular exam (specific). Eeyores on the other hand would be more likely to catastrophise the event by thinking that they were useless at taking all exams (universal). Again with good events the explanatory styles for the optimist and pessimist swap over. So if someone at work comes to them for advice and guidance, Tiggers might conclude that they were respected in the organisation as a good mentor (universal); Eeyores however might think that they were only picked out because they happened to know about that particular topic or issue (specific).

So you can see how being a bit of an Eeyore can put you into a pretty helpless state – you will explain bad events in permanent and pervasive ways so your future expectations are lowered and you make mountains out of molehills. And you will dismiss good events as mere fluke and explain them away by being extremely specific. I feel gloomy just writing this!

Much better then to be a Tigger who dismisses bad events as temporary dips, is focused when finding a root cause in order to minimise any spillover into other pursuits, and comes up with permanent and universal explanations when things go well. Or is it?

Well before we get into all of that philosophy stuff, what can Eeyores do about transforming their pessimism to optimism? Seligman recommends that we practise optimism by first becoming aware of our explanatory style and then by challenging pessimistic thinking patterns (in our own heads of course not by having a heated debate with ourselves out loud in a public place). Why? Because the more optimistic you are the happier you will be.

So is it really better to be a Tigger? I do recall an Open University tutorial a couple of years ago when we looked at something similar on our Social Psychology course. We learned that the human psyche is wired to be more optimistic than pessimistic – a self-preservation technique; and that people who have clinical depression are experiencing depressive reality i.e. they really are seeing life for what it is and have a more accurate view of the world.

So what do you think? I do try and be optimistic in my thinking as I believe it gives me a more positive and enjoyable life experience. And if I dwell too much in the land of existential angst, I can get a trifle gloomy. Overall I’ve concluded that being positive is a good thing, as long as there is a healthy dose of realism in there somewhere. Onwards and upwards!

In the cemetery at the Methodist Episcopal Church, McWhorter, Harrison County, West Virginia.

McWhorter, West Virginia

Photographed 25 October 2009

The carving is still there for now, though badly eroded and hidden by lichen. With a large piece of paper and a thick soft crayon you can reveal the story, or at least part of the story, that is still present on this stone. But that won’t be true for many more years; even what is written in stone is ephemeral.

Ashamed

of words unsaid

I whispered sorry

to a stone.

The crisp of leaves

scoffed at my penance

when I walked away

                      alone.

it’s all working out just fine, this is fine.    promise you’ll say if it gets, promise you’ll say if it gets too much. don’t be so scared of corners, don’t be so tired of this life. you drink to laugh, you drink to cry, you wear me in, you wear me.

you’re not always
you’re not always right.

cinema trips &chocolate biscuits, tickets &water &&stripy pyjamas. arguing &looking at photos. gossiping, popcorn &hysterical laughter, when no one else understands. eating cake with five forks. trains journeys to free gigs, buses to &from town, fancy dress parties. loud loud music &chewing gum. reorganising the little things, &putting up postcards. ignoring texts. late night texts. late night swimming. new people, more gigs. leather boots &skinny jeans.

Again, when my cousin had a seizure and had almost died, death became a distinct possibility. I realized that it could come at any moment. At this point though, it was not fear that overtook me but the principle of pointlessness. It seemed as though nothing mattered because the end was the same regardless. It really caused me to think about the impermanence of life, and how one could make it permanent. Although V was not opening chasing everlastingness, the attitude of living for a cause and the “bulletproof-ness” of ideas really was attractive. It also helped, though not totally obliterated, the fear of dying. In some regard, it gave intransience to my existence.

so i sorted things out with him. yes it was stupid, but it still bothered me. i think we’re almost back to where we were.

&it was great to see her, really. the only thing i felt guilty about was the food. i love seeing them all, but i didn’t know what to say about next year; i didn’t want to assume anything.

i really want to be able to stay in that kinda group. not just ’cause of him, although. i genuinely like them, enjoy it all, &it was all the better for not having drink. c’mon sweetie, don’t let me down. that would be perfect. i think it’s raining outside, and my feet are freezing. i’m liking the look of tomorrow, i think i’ll go to bed.

bwzone.wordpress.com

Isaiah 57:15 contains one of the most incredible phrases that a human mind could possiblyunderstand. These few words describe God as “One that inhabiteth eternity.”  Considering the overwhelming significance of these words, let’s investigate what “inhabit” and “eternity” mean.

The Hebrew word translated “eternity” is ad. Ad can be translated “eternity, forever, everlasting, always.”  The English word “inhabit” in Isaiah 57:15 comes from the Hebrew verb shakhan — which can mean “to rest, live in, continue, dwell, settle, inhabit.” The word shakhan gives the impression of comfort and confidence. In various contexts the meaning includes the complete possession, occupation and fulfillment of the object inhabited.

And so, much like the human family abides in, dwells in, continues in and inhabits the earth, the God family rests in, abides in, dwells in, continues in and inhabits eternity!

In the same manner that physical beings can control and comprehend a specific plot of space, spirit beings can control and comprehend an eternity of time. Just as the earth is the arena for all the activities of the human family, eternity is the arena for all the unimaginable activities of the God family.

Grasp the fundamental difference: Just as physical beings employ the vectors of space, spirit beings employ the vectors of time. (This is why God equally speaks of 1000 years as one day and one day as 1000 years — II Peter 3:8.)
Jesus Christ is called the Father of Eternity — which is a way the phrase “the everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6 can be translated. And incredibly, the Bible actually states that human beings have the potential to be like Christ (John 17:22). Like God!

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2).

God says as a son in His family, all will eventually possess, envelop, encompass, occupy and fulfill eternity, in the same manner as they today can physically possess, envelop, encompass, occupy and fulfill a comfortable home or a soft easy chair.

That is a fundamental truth that the religions of this world cannot accept, They are locked into doctrinal disputes which have nothing to do with what Christ actually spoke about; concepts such as going to heaven or hell, the trinity, pagan holidays (Christmas, easter, etc). NONE of these are biblical, yet all of them are universally accepted among Christian denominations.

What is eternity?

Eternity is a long time. Could it get boring?  If it could, it would!  There’s plenty of time available! If boredom would develop — even a little bit — we’d be in deep trouble. Eternity would become a literal hell! As a matter of fact, that is precisely the fate reserved for Satan and his demons — hell — an eternity of boredom: “Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).

If eternity is to be spent gazing blissfully up into God’s face in heaven, or having our every wish immediately fulfilled — as many religions teach — after a few months (or after a few octillion years, it doesn’t really matter). life would get unbearingly boring.  And once life got boring, it would be sickeningly and fiendishly terrifying. Because there would remain nothing but an unending eternity of boredom to come — with death a wonderful but impossible way of escape (see Luke 20:35-38). This would indeed be the ultimate torture.

But our Eternal Father has a better idea. He has designed a plan in which eternity will not grow progressively more boring. But, as unbelievable as it seems, eternity will grow progressively more exciting, more scintillating, and more enjoyable as each eon follows eon.

In Ephesians 2:7 God reveals “that in the ages to come he [God] might chew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 16:11 multiplies this simple but profound concept: “… In thy presence is fulness of joy; at [in] thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

The words “pleasures” and “for evermore” in Psalm 16:11 are somewhat unusual. Note the numerous meanings of each:

“Pleasures” is translated from the Hebrew word naeem meaning: “pleasant, delights, agreeable, lovely, beauty, glory, pleasures.” “Forevermore” is translated from natzach, a Hebrew root which can mean: “forever, perpetuity, permanency, truth, faithful, overseer, entire, perfect, complete, surpass, excellency, glory.”

Now combine them together in your mind’s eye in order to begin to barely approach the really great time that God has in store for us for eternity.

Men are shackled to time

Man is  constantly hounded by time because he does not have life, only a temporary physio-chemical existence. It feels like life because it is all he knows – this limited physical body needs to recharge daily.

God wants us to realize the temporary nature of all things physical – the nature of matter. It’s all in bondage to decay. Everything in us does not want to accept that fact. We don’t want to believe it, despite the evidence.

Do we realize how short and temporary life is? The Bible says we are like a fading flower, like a fleeting shadow. Another analogy is that we are like an alarm clock that is constantly running down to death. We die daily and are one breath away from death. That is why the Bible says our years come to an end in a flash, like a tale told (Ps. 90:5).

There is simply no guarantee that we will see 70-80 years of life and there is no way to predict how long we live either. Compare the days of your life to an hourglass with sand draining from top to bottom. Now imagine the top being opaque and hard to see through. You would have no idea how much time is left. There may be a lot but there may also be very little.

Now consider if you are married and how you feel about your wonderful wife and children. Do you understand that you marriage covenant is a temporary agreement only, until you die? You will see 100% disruption and destruction by death, abandonment, split-up, or old age.

Use time wisely

God tells us to number our days (Ps. 90:12), which is akin to asking God to teach us to understand how short life  really is and how certain it is to come to an end and motivate us to use our time wisely. The better perspective we have with time, the better we will put it to use.

If we are wise with the use of our time on this earth, then God rewards us with rulership in His Kingdom (Math. 25:20-21). Basically, God says if we sue this small amount of time (our life) in a faithful way, He will give us eternity with “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away…” (I Pet. 1:4).

God (through His human servant) then proceeds to explain the contrast between the physical and the spiritual by saying:

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away (I Pet. 1:23-24).

In other words, what is waiting for us has eternal (and very positive and joyful) consequences, while the end of the physical life offers only decay.

The nature of God

Psalm 90:2-4, II Pet. 3:8) shows that to God,a thousand years is as a day and a day as a thousand years. What does that mean?

It is all about our approach to time. Our destiny is to become members of God’s family – with a mind oriented towards eternity.  1000 years can go by as a single day to God. Figures are arbitrary. Paul may well have said one second is as a trillion years.

We can only be in one place at one time, but for God time is multi-dimensional. He can dwell in one moment for as long as He chooses or move one moment to another at will. He is not restricted by time, which is why he can listen to all our prayers at the same time.

In these prayers, true Christians have special access to Christ. But what if  all desire to have access at the same time? The answer is that we will have time without limits. Eternity is not an endless amount of seconds, minutes and hours. It is timelessness – to have all limitations removed.   You can inhabit eternity to have all problems resolved.

Time versus eternity

God puts limitations in the lives of humans so that they have to prioritize. Seek first the kingdom of God to eventually be rulers over many things. Man has to manage his time because he are in bondage to it. And precisely because he is limited to time, he must do all he can with limited resources. Don’t waste a single day. Our body is a temporary tent and we have to make the best use of it (II Cor. 5:1).

We crave permanence and stability – we crave eternity. God has shackled us to decay and we don’t want to think about something not being permanent. How often in this life have old age and death, tragedies and separations disrupted and seemingly obliterated forever the supreme joys of deep family satisfaction and quiet family happiness? One hundred percent of the time!

Every family that has ever existed has eventually been destroyed by death. The death of husband, wife, parents, children, brothers, sisters — whether at premature or elderly ages — is always the most piercing and the most permanent of human tragedies.

Well, the time is coming — soon — when such misery will never again darken the door of any home. And even more fantastically stirring, most members of almost every family in all human history, having been ripped apart by death, will become reunited! And this time they will be forever inseparable.

God’s Word has the answer to death: “… Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (I Cor. 15:54, 55.)

Never again will the corruption of disintegrating change alter the serenity of family life. Never again will separation, disease, old age and death bring that grinding despair known to every human being. This is why verse four of the twenty-first chapter of the book of Revelation is so emotionally stunning:

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

All the epochs of human obituary — in childhood, in youth, in the prime of life, in middle age; all the ways of human death by war, by accident, by disease — will all be eradicated. Full families — your family — will for the first time be really together — grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren. All will be in the prime of their spiritual lives, working, living and enjoying life as a close-knit family, as part of the overall family of God. Forever. And ever.

But this life is just a stepping stone to something far greater. Ps. 36:7 says all will eventually be abundantly satisfied. There will be no death or disease in the World Tomorrow.

Make the best use of all we have and all the time we have. Number our days and soak up all moments. It may be our last opportunity to do so. We are one breath away from death, so this little sliver of time is a gift. Use it to attain eternal life.

I’ve written before about how being a CASA is not depressing or sad.  Doing something, anything, about child abuse and neglect is empowering and it works.

But sometimes, it doesn’t work the way I thought it would.  Sometimes, drug abusing parents don’t go to treatment.  Sometimes, foster homes don’t work out.  Sometimes, technicalities trip up a case.

When I find myself facing an angry parent, dealing with a too  slow moving agency or a child that doesn’t want to look at me let alone talk to me, I bust out my secret weapon: I surrender.

Wait.  What?

You read that right.  I surrender.

I surrender what I cannot control and let Something Bigger Than Me take care of it.  That doesn’t mean I give up.  I continue to control what I can: me.  What I say, what I do and what I stand for stays alive.  But I surrender the frustration.  I surrender the impatience.  I surrender the idea that I can “make” anyone do anything.

And then I get busy doing what I can.

Whether a person believes in God, Allah, Yaweh, Bhagwan, their Ancestors, Shangdi, Something, The Universe or nothing, surrendering can be a peaceful exercise that moves one forward.

Moving forward is what CASAs want.  Moving forward means progress.  Progress gets us closer to permanance for children.  And permanance, a safe and permanent home for every child as soon as possible, is the ultimate goal.

here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.

At the end of the day and at the end of “time” we have nothing to hold on to but ourselves and each other. There is no permanent or even temporary. Eternity is quite honestly the only permanence.

to let that which does not matter truly slide.                                                   
people only know what you tell them.
&the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
i brace myself, ’cause i know it’s going to hurt, but i like to think at least things can’t get any worse.                          
not all those who wander are lost.                              
i’m ready to owe you anything.       
there is rapture on the lonely shore.                                                                      
it was the afternoon of extravagant delight.          
no one’s got it all.      
death is the road to awe.                                         
i’m the hero of the story, don’t need to be saved.
it starts in penzance where the winds are born, &follows the track of this train
i’m gonna run the risk, of being free.

 
rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

I found The Myth of Best Interest in my CASA office’s lending library.

Side Note: How awesome is it that my CASA program has a lending library?!

Authors Jane Malpass and Jane Thompson have a “combined 45 plus years of child welfare experience”.  Malpass is a social work consultant and Thompson is a lawyer.

The first thing that attracted me to the book was it’s subtitle, “Why Good Intentions Are Not Good Enough, A Guide to Casebuilding for Permanence”.  While that is indeed a mouthful, it speaks volumes about the child welfare system and everyone involved in it.  Check out the dedication:

This book is dedicated to the children:

To those we have served as their advocate,

those we have raised as their parents,

and those who still wait for others to see their pain

and to speak on their behalf.

All of these children have taught us so much.

They taught us about the dignity of the human character,

the strength of the human soul, and the

resilience of the human spirit.

This book is dedicated to the children

blessed with loving parents and safe secure homes.

They helped us keep focused on what is possible and right.

This book is also dedicated to the

children who wait in fear and pain.

They help us keep focused on what is still left to be done.

Wow.

If there is one sentence in this book that sums it all up, it’s this one on page 21,

Each time we do something for a child, we do something to that child.

Since I read that particular sentence, I have shared it with other CASAs.  I have found even CASAs that have been “in the business” for many years are struck by the profound meaning in that statement.

Every time a child is removed from their home, changes foster homes, changes schools, changes which relatives they live with, and so on, EVEN when we move the child for his or her own safety, we are creating a loss in that child’s life.  We, as a team working and volunteering in the child welfare environment should never, ever forget that.

So, what is the point?  The point is to work as a team and strive to get things right the first time by “rational decision making” and move from the “theoretical to the practical”.

Learn more at www.casebuilding.com, where you can also buy the book.

In my youth, the cutting-edge in photographic technology was the color Polaroid Land camera. Edwin Land was the inventor of the “self-developing film”, and Polaroid was the company that marketed it and the cameras that used it. I got my first Polaroid “Swinger” color camera in the mid-1960s. Drop-in a roll of film, snap, and then pull the picture out of the camera. Less than a minute later the image magically appeared before your eyes. It was groovy. Polaroid film and cameras have been pretty-much dead since the late 1980s, just as standard light-sensitive film is pretty-much dead now. Digital photography has taken over, even though digital photographs are of lower quality. Why? Well, that brings us to the next old-school media to die.

There is currently a very quiet debate going on all over the world, centered on the issue of paper. On one side are the “paperless world” advocates, claiming there’s nothing paper can do that digital information can’t, and a lot more digital information provides. On the other side are the “material” advocates, who rightly claim that digital information doesn’t actually exist and is therefore not permanent, nor can it be reproduced in electricity’s absence.

Both sides are correct. But when you add-up the two columns, paper will lose for two reasons: cost and convenience.

Paper costs money, because it takes forest management, harvesting, processing, manufacturing, distribution, warehouse storage, and shelf space. It is also large and heavy once archived, so there is another warehousing issue. So the argument is as moot as was the argument against changing from clay and wax tablets to paper. Although paper was the more fragile alternative, it was the more convenient. And convenience is an even larger consideration than cost.

This situation has now extended to almost every aspect of our daily lives: music, video, news, mail, finance, health care, even the ubiquitous phone call – all have become digitally-dependent. The problem here is the world, life itself, is analog. Life is not a stream of discrete numeric values; it is a stream of continuous information – even the energy patterns that make-up the matter in our bodies. Analog means one continuous process happening all the time, with no discernable gaps in the stream of information. This was how everything worked up until the digital age: electricity, electronics, mechanics, and all of nature existed in the analog world.

No more. Digital information is easier to process and store. It’s easier to manipulate an interruptible stream of discrete numbers, thus easier to anlalyze and interpret. It takes less energy. Ultimately it is more cost effective and much, much more convenient. How many songs can you pack into an iPod? Like a gazillion? Back in the days of vinyl records or even CDs even owning that much music would have been impossible – so we had radio to do it for us. Radio is, of course, an analog signal.

So what’s the down-side? There are two big ones. First, digital information is ephemeral, as there is no “stuff” it’s made of. Just as ink marks on paper represent ideas made material, digital information represents ideas made into numbers – there just isn’t any “stuff” it’s attached to. So we now have the concept of “hard copy”, and that, like those old Polariod snapshots, is considered temporary and disposable (consider: my spellcheck does not know the word “Polaroid”).

One good massive electro-magnetic pulse from a massive solar flare or a few well-placed nuclear weapons would wipe-out the information storage of this country (or any and all others). Government and business have done what they can to minimize this risk, but since it hasn’t happened yet no one really knows if their safeguards will work. That’s why the government and banks, etc., still put the really important stuff on paper and hide it in vaults somewhere.

The second downside with digital information is it’s approximate information. It is a series of samples of the analog world, and there is always information lost in conversion from analog to digital. For most applications this isn’t too bad (word processing, for example), but for others there is a noticable effect. This is why CDs and MP3s may sound cleaner than vinyl or tape, but they also sound sterile or incomplete by comparison. With audio it isn’t so much that there is less information (really, old LP records and cassette tape are sampled recordings, too), but what information is missing. Analog recordings aren’t as precisely sampled as digital: that variation in precision is what gives them their “human warmth” that digital can’t reproduce.

When we get to science, to medicine, to recording the contents of the human brain (coming soon to a despotic regime near you), will this approximation be good enough? We’re finding out now. But even if it isn’t, that will not create resistance to the approximate digital world we will all live in before long. Because of those two primary factors of cost and convenience. One day soon there will be no books, no celluloid film, no analog radio signals buzzing through the air, no paper contracts or birth certificates, no newspapers, no analog x-ray images, no telephones (they really aren’t telephones anymore, anyway). Everything will be experienced in an approximate manner, and the only analog signals will be those running through our nervous systems.

And they’re working on that, too.

I visit www.jazz.com. with some regularity, and I’ve even had my own blogposts featured on it.  A good deal of what is posted there is not my thing, but some of the content is fascinating. 

Today I encountered there an article published in the Guardian by the popular British novelist Nick Hornby on the death of record stores.  That isn’t a particularly original observation: everyone who’s bought even one record during the last half-century could write similar articles about the phenomenon. 

Hornby proposes that new pop-music blogs that offer MP3 downloads are the new local record stores, and that the internet has become a global music market.  I can’t say much about the first proposition, because I don’t find twenty-second musical snippets valid enticements to purchase, but the second is surely true.

But this casual pronouncement made me sit up straight:

After my local CD shop closed down, I was getting ready for a musical life that turned in on itself, before dying slowly from malnutrition.  Any piece of music becomes drained of meaning and excitement if you listen too much to it, but a three-minute pop song isn’t going to last you a lifetime.  Popular music needs to keep flowing. If the fresh supplies stop, it’s you that becomes stagnant.

I am enthralled by this terminally short attention span: “Any piece of music becomes drained of meaning and excitement if you listen too much to it.”  This hunger for new sensations clearly isn’t just Hornby’s artistic immaturity; it defines contemporary culture’s glorification of disposable ersatz-Art, novels that exhaust their ingenuity before the reader is well into chapter two; music that bores the listener on the first hearing.  (It all sounds dismayingly like a dystopian restaurant where the food is stale as soon as it leaves the kitchen.)       

I don’t know: I’ve been listening to Lester Young and the 1938 Kansas City Six, to Louis and the Mills Brothers, to Billie Holiday and Count Basie, to the Blue Note Jazzmen . . . for almost forty years now.  And if I were to hear one of their recordings now — even though I could hum along with it, knew the solos and the accents by heart – that music wouldn’t be “drained” for me.  The next time Hornby comes to the US for a book tour, I hope he’ll accept my offer of music that doesn’t grow old.  I’d be glad to share some Teddy Bunn and Bessie Smith records: they should restore him!

The full text of Hornby’s piece can be read at http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/06/nick-hornby-mp3-record-shops

There are those who see change as necessarily virtuous and there are those who see it as necessarily evil. Both of them only see it their way theoretically, in the abstract, because everybody knows that sometimes change is good and sometimes it is bad.

Personally, I’m more disposed to the permanent side of life. I think that’s by habit, because I’m not sure I’m that way by nature, which, for me, is a bit restless and looking for something new.

Yet I’ve come to see that the value of change is in what it preserves.

So I wasn’t real excited about some of the changes we’ve had to make here at CiRCE. Like everybody but Tiffany’s, we’ve felt the impact of this economy and it has forced us to cut every cost we possibly can cut. Regrettably, that has meant I’ve had to release Nancy, whom many of you will remember from the conference.

This was, without a doubt, our best run conference, and that is thanks to Nancy. So I want to express here and publicly how much I appreciate what Nancy did to bring order and stability to the CiRCE operations. I wish her the best, all the best, as she moves into a new chapter in her life.

Another big change is that we have moved our operations home. This was very intimidating to me. We had four rooms, including a good sized office for me, another for Nancy, a reception area, and a large work room.

Now that’s all coming home. My saintly wife actually suggested the idea if my memory serves. She told me to use the living room for my office and the boy’s room for the work area. Since three of our five children moved out during the summer, it became possible.

So now I’m in the process, and it’s very disorienting, of moving my office home. In a way, it’s kind of funny. The work station has been set up in the boys room, but only late last night did we finally break down the bed hiding behind it.

The Salvation Army and Goodwill are coming over for a party on Saturday. We’ve got couches, most of what’s left of the bedroom set I grew up on (mastered Labyrinth on the desk, which always reminds me of my German cousins Mathias and Katrin who introduced me to Labyrinth when my family visited them for Oma and Opa’s 45th anniversary in 76 or 77 and I fell in love with them and they gave me tours of Rottweil and other Black Forest sites), dressers, etc. I envision them dueling over some of it.

If you are local and want anything, let me know before Saturday! It’s all pretty beat up, having endured lots of children.

But while this post inevitably drifts into nostalgia because that’s what I do, that is not it’s point. Rather, my point is to say that in this case at least one of the changes is wonderful. The transition is difficult, but now the CD/DVD duplicator is literally only a few steps away all day every day (unless I’m not here, of course). As a result, we can triple or quadruple our CD production. Which means, in turn, that all of the conference CD sets will be mailed by Tuesday!

That’s saying something. In the past, we’d be lucky to have them out by mid-October. But between David and Katie’s editing work and this move, the whole process has become much more effective. And we’ve sold more CD sets this year than ever before by this point.

In a way, I’m not surprised. From the feedback I’ve received, it seems this was our best conference ever. And no wonder: John Hodges, Andrew Pudewa, Martin Cothran, James Daniels, Debbie Harris, Karen Kern, Leigh Bortins, Leah Lutz, Marcus and Laura Berquist, and Vigen Guroian all talking about, what is for us the most important idea we need to get our heads straight on, nature, and each person humbly presenting ideas for our contemplation… How could it not work? And God blessed it.

I came into this conference convinced before God that it was the most important education conference I’ve ever been involved in or even heard about. I came in with fear and trembling. Some of the things we discussed were not easy to swallow or to absorb (e.g. assessment). Some were incredibly exciting and liberating (e.g. the nature of the child).

But throughout the conference I had a growing sense, and others told me similar thoughts, that something important was happening for those of us who were there. Somehow we were all being changed.

And, sometimes, change is a good thing!

**********************************************************************************************************************

The conference CD’s will be on sale for $97 for about two more weeks. Then they return to their normal price of $147, so if you would like a set and are in a position to get them now, I highly recommend you take the leap while you can save $50 (over 33%). Click HERE to purchase, or HERE for a little more information about the conference.

For those of us who are paid for our words and even those who aspire to the same thing, writing letters may not appear to have the same impact. Yet letters are how we communicate, share our stories and build relationships. While I was leading my Conversation Cafe discussion group recently to explore letters, we discovered that writing letters have a life of their own and a lifelong shelf life – much longer than outdated news articles, feature stories. Letters are not trendy. They are permanent, solid and last a lifetime. We collect letters as precious memories.

Letters offer us  lessons to improve the way we use words regardless of what we are writing.

Letters are deliberate. They are created using a very thoughtful process. We slow down when we are writing a letter to say exactly what we want to express, using language in a different way than we ever use in person.

Letters are alive. Touch our heart in ways nothing else can. Appeal universally to all ages and for many reasons.

Thoughtfulness and sincere language are more important than form. The handwriting or typing does not matter. The thoughtfulness and sincerity expressed by the sender is what touches the heart: a healing touch, comforting thoughts, words of love, congratulations, celebration, or news and information.

Letters are tangible and permanent. They are timeless gifts from the heart, preserving memories and special moments in life. Unlike conversation, we can read them over and over again and feel comforted each time. Letters can guide us and help us make difficult decisions.

Letters create space when we need to communicate when conversation is not practical. Letters from home, to school, from camp, to a special friend who you can only talk to in a letter.

Letters take on new forms of expression when use words, ink and paper that expresses our character.

I invite you to consider your writing as letters to the reader. When you write, is it solid and permanent? What is the purpose? Is it meant to be durable beyond tomorrow’s news? Are you sharing something new, good, bad or an opinion? Are you writing to your reader with language that is awkward or even embarrassing in person?

Finally, practice writing that engages the reader and applies the maximize the benefits and strengths of a letter – this often overlooked and cherished medium.

She sat beside me

and watched me struggle

as I attempted to build

an empire from broken glass and tears

with retaining walls and a moat in defiance

of the tide.  

it will never be strong enough she told me

but there is nothing more you can do

it will soon be gone and I knew that

she was right.

I wiped the sands

of make-believe from my eyes and cheeks

and we sat together and watched the ocean

swallow the kingdom, leaving only wet

clumps of a childhood dream, an illusion

at our feet.  

follow me she said, and I walked with her to the edge

of the water. We stood ankle deep in silt

and broken shells. We stood in the only silence

that can be known on the edge of the water,

the kind of silence where you know

you are not alone

and never can be. We stood together,

worlds apart for what only seemed to be

an eternity.

Gentle swells brought children dancing in the surf

singing and playing the games that children play,

unknowingly conjuring spirits and speaking truths

they have yet to learn

                                          ring around

                                          the rosie

                                                         a pocket

                                                         full

She smiled at me and took my hands in hers

and we splashed and stumbled in circles

once, twice, three times

                                                          ashes

                                                          ashes

We all fall

And I knew it was time to let her go.

I turned away, holding in my hands the remnants

of her that had woven into my fingertips

and walked back up the sand

to my daughter, who was waiting for me

with the ocean in her bucket, waiting to build

sand castles.