In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Years ago, I remember listening to Amy Grant’s newly released Christmas album (still one of my favorites and one to which I can sing all the lyrics of every song!) and being especially taken with “Grown Up Christmas List.” As I prepare for Thanksgiving this year, I’m taking stock and writing a grown-up gratitude wish list with a little help from some friends.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh 

Like Piglet, I may have a Very Small Heart—being just one individual in a world of 8.2 billion—but as I’ve grown up, I’ve marveled at how I can hold a rather large amount of Gratitude. It’s the mystery of a tiny, teacup heart that never overflows, that defies sense with its bottomless wonder. This is the first thing on my grown-up gratitude wish list: that we know the magic of paradox, embracing how big and generous small can be.

“I thank God for my handicaps. For through them, I have found myself, my work and my God.” –Helen Keller 

I’m not often grateful enough for my handicaps. And though I’ve been blessed with good sight and good health, I’ve been handicapped by other things, namely, insecurity and anxiety that have been crippling at times. I’ve been handicapped by a consuming inwardness, a paralyzing compulsion for self-reflection. And self-flagellation. But like Keller, I’ve grown to see how this handicap has led me to deeper faith, deeper peace, and deeper joy. In Gravity and Grace, French philosopher and activist Simone Weil wrote, “Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude.” I’ve been learning to lean into this, to be grateful—in equal measure—for joy and suffering, strength and weakness. So here’s the second thing on my grown-up gratitude wish-list: that we give thanks for our handicaps—seen and unseen—trusting they will give more than they will take from us.

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.” ― Thornton Wilder

As I was walking this morning, I began thinking about my mom’s famous frozen cherry salad, the Thanksgiving tradition she faithfully made with and without nuts, for our family was nearly equally divided in their love or hate for walnuts. In the years since my parents’ deaths, I’ve grieved, sometimes more profoundly and deeply than I might’ve imagined. But I’ve always been grateful, immensely grateful, for their lives. Increasingly, I’m overwhelmed with the power of this gratitude, how its mercies are new every morning. I walk and remember, giving thanks for things as extraordinary as their legacy and as ordinary as frozen cherry salad. The third thing on my grown-up gratitude wish-list is this: that we remember to pay the highest tribute to those we’ve lost through gratitude.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
—e. e. cummings

One morning last week, the fog was heavy enough as I walked that I didn’t see the doe at the water’s edge until she crashed through the cattails and over the pond dam into the timber, her white tail flying into the amazing day. I’m thankful for this doe and for the muskrat who leaves a deep wake that fans across the eastern pond. I’m thankful for hedgeballs the size of fists that lay strewn across my path, for the lime green mystery of them. I’m thankful for the smell of earth and the sound of owls and coyotes. I’m thankful for each dawn that gilds the hills and for the silver-blue berries of cedars. I’m so grateful for this nature preserve, for its leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky. I’m grateful for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes. In her 1981 novel, Tar Baby, Toni Morrison writes: “At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.” This is my fourth wish: that the world’s beauty becomes enough for us and that we respond to it with a resounding yes.

“A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body has been meant and made for the act of kneeling. Sometimes, in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hands before my face.” —Etty Hillesum

Years ago, as I stood singing beside a friend during worship, I felt an overwhelming and unmistakable urge to lie prostrate upon the altar. After the service, my friend confessed he’d felt the same urge. Neither of us acted, but I’ve never forgotten the sense that my body had been meant for this, that my spirit had been ready when my will was not. When I recall this moment, I see how it was born from deep gratitude. I understand the inclination to fall before God as a natural and appropriate response. And I regret not giving in to it. I regret standing stiffly in the pew as I denied the Spirit’s prompting, too concerned about what others might think. That Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish author, should feel such gratitude in the face of her impending death at Auschwitz humbles me. That she could kneel before God, in gratitude and devotion, both shames and inspires me. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, confessed that “[f]or me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.” This is my fifth wish: that in gratitude, we kneel more, for every hour is grace, and embracing this is our first and best response.

“I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds.”
― Stephen King 

The world can, indeed, seem like a very hard desert. We’ve all felt its pricks and pokes. We’ve thirsted and wandered through its dark nights of the soul. But friends who share our joys and bear our suffering are flowers that grow . . . against such high odds. In seasons of drought, they walk with us, and in seasons of bounty, they rejoice with us. I’m profoundly indebted to my friends—past and present—and regard them with such sweet gratitude. My life has been much richer because of them. They’ve shaped and challenged me, encouraged and celebrated me. So, here is my sixth wish: that in the hard deserts of our lives, we nuture friendships that blossom against such high odds.

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” —Elizabeth Gilbert

It’s safe to say that I could never pay back all the people who’ve sustained my life. It’s better I surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity, better I just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as I can. This would be but a small measure of my gratitude, for how could I measure the worth of such sustenance? How could I not be astonished by human generosity? How could I not thank God for the many ways he works through humans, the times when I’m pulled up and forward by beneficent hands? Years ago, when my son, Quinn, was a baby, I strapped him to my chest in a newly purchased baby carrier and headed down the aisles at Target, feeling pleased and proud that I’d discovered a way to shop with two free hands. Until he began to fuss, and I couldn’t extract him from the carrier, which had become a torture chamber—for him and for me. As I stood in the shampoo aisle, sweating and near tears, an elderly gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he might help. Before I could even respond, he lifted Quinn up and out of the carrier with the skill of a seasoned pro and the patience of a saint. I was gobsmacked and couldn’t thank him enough. As he grabbed a bottle of Head and Shoulders from the shelf, he smiled and said, “You’re very welcome, my dear.” I didn’t know this man and never saw him again. But in my book of human generosity, he has a page of his own. And herein lies my seventh wish: that when we’re tempted to surrender to darkness and chaos, we remember the scope of human generosity and give thanks.

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

So, I’ll leave you with the Apostle Paul who says it succinctly and best: In everything give thanks. This is a tall order. Many of us may have scoffed at those bumper sticker slogans that admonish us to develop “an attitude of gratitude.” As we’re running late for work, driving distractedly, and dribbling coffee on our laps, we may have thought, “Not grateful today. Maybe tomorrow.” We may doubt those who give thanks for everything and in every situation, refusing to believe the sincerity of their gratitude. And yet, most of us know individuals who are genuinely grateful, despite—and perhaps because of—the circumstances. To be in their presence is to stand on hallowed ground. Trappist monk and writer, Thomas Merton, claims that “[g]ratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.” So, this is my last grown-up gratitude wish: that we actively grow our gratitude, strengthening it through practice, grounding it in faith, and refining it with wonder.

Wishing you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving.

In gratitude, Shannon

Stourhead, Temple of Apollo, near Mere, Wiltshire

The meaning of a folly is that of a decorative structure that has no practical purpose. It is usually built for purely aesthetic reasons and is often designed to look like a ruined or unfinished building. Follies can take many different forms, from towers and temples to grottos and bridges. They are typically made from a range of materials, including stone, brick, and wood, and are often decorated with carvings, statues, and other ornamental details. —Anglotopia

When architects Louis Sullivan and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe made their architectural statements, “Form follows function” and “Less is more,” they clearly weren’t thinking about follies, which are less about form and function and more about beauty and wonder. For a folly, less is not more; more is more—more whimsy, more history, more ornamentation, more grandeur. In the UK, 1700 of these fantastical structures “built purely for aesthetic reasons” adorn the hillsides, lakes, and gardens of great estates. Architect Daniel Libeskind speaks to the heart of a folly: “Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It’s based on wonder.”

I love architecture. In Europe, I stood gawking at buildings and was frequently separated from my tour group. I couldn’t help it. At every turn, there was another architectural splendor. In Florence, as I stood at the foot of the Duomo, I might’ve died and gone to heaven right there. It was that magnificent. When I first read about follies in a historical novel years ago, I was smitten with these small structures with such big souls. I’d always had a special love for playhouses and “she sheds,” and follies are their grand dames. What they may lack in size, they more than make up for in extravagance and artistry.

We can trace the concept of pleasure pavilions in gardens back to ancient Greece, but it was the British landscape movement of the 18th century that gave birth to follies. The sight of a folly would make “the pulse quicken as a distant tower comes into view at the end of an avenue,” wrote the late architectural historian Gervase Jackson-Stops. In “Follies in the English Landscape” (Britain Express), we learn that the most common types of follies are “belvederes, grottos, obelisks, pagodas, pavilions, towers, pyramids, ruins, arches, fishing pavilions, bridges, hermitages, cascades, and statues.” Although the folly craze began to dwindle at the end of the 18th century, many contend that it never entirely died out, arguing that lawn ornaments, the ever-popular garden gnomes or pink flamingos, could be considered small-scale follies. In the past, while some follies were used as hunting towers and lookouts, today, they’re alive and well, serving as wedding venues, movie locations, and tourist sites.

It may seem insensitive and untimely to write of follies in a time of scarcity and uncertainty. When I consider the excesses of Versailles and its subsequent fate, I understand why any talk of follies—then and now—may seem woefully tone deaf. Who can think of turrets and towers when a pound of hamburger is $7, and the government remains shut down? A folly is a symbol of desire, not need. It trumpets its extravagance. Nestled throughout the estates of great manor houses, a folly is decadent frosting on an already sumptuous cake.

And yet, some follies were constructed as a response to hard times. During the Great Famine of 1845, the Irish government offered economic relief by employing people to build follies. In our own country, the WPA (Works Progress Administration) did much the same by putting people back to work during the Depression. The Rock Garden in Harmon Park (Kearney, Nebraska) was built through a WPA project, approved on September 4, 1936. The Rock Garden remains one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a magical labyrinth of stone paths and waterfalls, ponds laden with lily pads, and in the center, a lighthouse whose staircase winds around its exterior to open onto a balcony from which you can see the garden below. This lighthouse is a folly, a miniature replica of the real deal. And though you can’t enter it from below (the door off the path is always padlocked), as children, we happily climbed the stairs to look out over our kingdom below. The lighthouse’s whimsy fueled our imaginations, and its beauty stirred our hearts. Each time I return to the Rock Garden and climb the lighthouse, I feel the same assurance that the world will right itself and its beauty will sustain us. Perhaps this is the folly’s greatest gift: to throw us a dazzling lifeline as we struggle to keep our heads afloat, to offer us a bonbon as we struggle to put a chicken in our pot.

The world is a difficult place, and follies won’t cure what ails us. But the world is a better place with follies in it. It’s a better place when, if even for a moment, we can be transported by something so fanciful it takes our breath away.

“[There is a] simpler value of the written letter, which is, namely, that reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world.”
― Virginia Evans, The Correspondent 

I recently read Virginia Evans’ wonderful novel, The Correspondent. For most of her life, the 73-year-old protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, has been a correspondent, an unflagging letter writer. On most mornings, one could find Sybil at her writing desk, penning correspondence to her brother and to her best friend, to the president of the local university who’s refused to let her audit a course there, to professional writers Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry whose works she greatly admires, and to her dead son whom she grieves deeply decades after his accidental death. For Sybil, the written letter is not only “one of the original forms of civility in the world,” it is her touchstone, the act that grounds her in the painful and wonderful world.

That novelist Virigina Evans chose to champion letter writing through Sybil and her marvelous letters—sometimes witty, sometimes poignant, and always unflinchingly honest—may be evidence of other “old” forms and practices that are making a comeback. Consider Caitlin Gibson’s Sept. 30th Washington Post article, “Parents are bringing back the landline.” In it, she profiles four close-knit Seattle families who’ve vowed to keep smartphones out of their children’s hands for as long as they can. As Gibson explains, they’ve committed to staying collectively strong and to investigating other means by which their children might communicate and stay connected:

There was strength in that solidarity, says Lauren Zemer, a Seattle-area therapist and mom of two: “We had agreed that we were going to share these values.” But she and her neighbors also wanted their children to feel connected to their peers and to develop a sense of social independence. So in October 2024, when one of the parents heard about a local father who had built a prototype for a kid-specific, adult-controlled landline phone — and had created a waitlist for families who wanted one — Zemer and her friends were ecstatic.

These parents were among the first to purchase the Tin Can, “a Wifi-enabled, curly-corded landline that allows parents to control the hours when it is in use and which phone numbers are approved to call in to (or be called from) the closed network.” These parents claim the Tin Can has been “transformative,” creating a sense of independence in their children and changing the way they communicate. With no screens to distract them, they use their landlines to set up playdates where they actually meet in person to play ball, ride bikes, or build Lego structures. The company reports it has sold “tens of thousands” of Tin Cans in the United States and Canada, and sales have been so overwhelming that the phones are currently back-ordered. The company expects deliveries by December 2025.

The landline’s comeback—and surging popularity—supports the adage: everything old is new again. I confess to having fond memories of the curly-corded landline phone, its ring throughout the house as you ran to pick it up in anticipation that the call might be for you. Our family phone was located centrally in the hallway off our living and dining room, making it challenging to hold private conversations. Just as the Seattle kids use the Tin Can to arrange playdates, we primarily used the phone to make plans to meet—at the ballgame, after school, at the Friday night Youth Center dances—in person. Before cell phones, I called home when I could afford the long-distance charges, eager to hear my parents’ voices and catch up. For years, the landline was my touchstone, and I cherished these calls.

In a January 2025 Hechinger Report article, “Top scholar says evidence for special education inclusion is ‘fundamentally flawed,’” Jill Barshay writes that a Vanderbilt University professor is challenging the prevailing practice of inclusion and those who contend students with disabilities should be educated as much as possible alongside their peers in general education classrooms:

In a paper that reviews more than 50 years of research, Douglas Fuchs of Vanderbilt University and the American Institutes for Research, along with two other researchers, argues that the academic benefits of including students with disabilities in general education classrooms are not settled science despite the fact that numerous studies have found that children with disabilities learn more that way. 

Fuchs conceded that he and fellow researchers aren’t saying the evidence indicates that full inclusion can’t work; rather, they’re saying this evidence is “extremely weak, “fundamentally flawed,” and that “no conclusions can be drawn from the evidence.” Futhermore, he concedes that some—not all—students with disabilities “can and should be in general classrooms.” Even as I write this, I’m aware there will be some educators and parents insensed with Fuch’s arguments, who will insist that inclusion is the right—the only—model for students with disabilities. There will be others, however, who will shake their heads and say, “We could’ve told you this.” To Fuch’s argument that the majority of these students would be better served with intensive insruction in a separate classroom, they will say, “Yup—been saying this for years.” But the practice of placing students in classrooms based on needs and abilities fell out of educational, social, and political favor in the 80s. And now, as educational researchers like Fuch are advocating for older, more traditional practices, these practices will inevitably be presented and marketed as “new.”

In education, everything old is new again. I recall teaching a university instructional methods course for pre-teachers and encountering a chapter in our text entitled, “Grand Conversations.” A new instructional strategy? I thought. As I read, I discovered the entire chapter focused on how to effectively lead whole-class discussions. A new strategy? Nope, it was an old instructional strategy (perhaps the oldest) which had been educationally rebranded. Ask any educator, and they can provide countless examples of this type of rebranding. It’s a slick way to bring back the old “babies” we “threw out with the bathwater.”

As tempting as it may be to argue that everything old should be new again, that old ways and ideas are preferable, and that we’ve been foolish to abandon them, this would be wrong. Some old ways and ideas are better left in the past. Many will argue there are cultural, political, educational, business, and religious practices that, blessedly, have been replaced by newer, better, more humane ones. And there are new technologies we’ve eagerly embraced. As a teacher, I sent up a chorus of hallelujahs when mimeograph machines were replaced by IBM copiers. No more blue-inked fingers which invariably marked my face, streaking my forehead and making me look more like Braveheart than an English teacher. No more typing on carboned paper. No more using razor blades to scrape away my inevitable mistakes. The world changed for the better when the mimeograph was put to pasture. Well, except for the smell of those wet copies coming fresh off the press. Inadvisable as it was, I admit to huffing more than my share of mimeographed copies and hoping this wasn’t doing any real brain damage.

Yes, some things are better left in the past. But others deserve a genuine second chance. I’m still cleaning and saving aluminum foil because my mother did. As a girl, I once asked her why she did this. She explained how during WWII, her mother always saved foil to contribute to the war effort. Should this old practice become new again? For the sake of the environment and to pay homage to those like my grandmother who did her part, why not?

Most of us can name old ideas and practices that merit a second chance. For me, writing letters, using landlines, and creating specialized classrooms and intensive instruction for students with disabilities are just a few things that deserve another look. In a letter to her best friend and life-long correspondent, Virginia Evans’ character Sybil Van Antwerp writes:

You are right about what you said—we are thirty in our hearts, before all the disappointment, all the ways it turned out to be so much more painful than we thought it would be, but then again, it has also been magic. I miss you. Back in late April, and Theodore will accompany me for a visit. You’re the only person left who writes, and I’m grateful.

I want to write a letter like this. I want to be “the only person left who writes” for someone. Through correspondence which is as honest and funny and moving as Sybil’s, I want to pour out my gratitude for another. One could do worse than make this old practice new again.

“I think the possibilities for ChatGPT to remove rote work from the classroom and empower deep learning experiences are exciting.” –Charlotte Dungan, COO of the AI Education Project

I confess that I’ve put off writing this post for months. During those months, I’ve done a lot of reading, thinking, and handwringing. And I confess that I’d never heard of the AI Education Project before I read about it in The Hill, but it doesn’t surprise me that there is such a project. I suspect it’s heavily funded and populated with technological and educational experts eager to push new tools and strategies into our classrooms. Because this is the way of things in education. For the past few decades, we’ve jumped on any new technological bandwagon, confident that this will be the silver bullet, the means by which we’ll raise test scores and compete with educational foes like China, Korea, and Finland. From Promethean boards (which, all too frequently, I’ve discovered being used as expensive screens onto which to project videos) to one-to-one computer initiatives to artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT, educators have been sold a pretty consistent bill of goods: The technology is out there, folks. We need to use it intelligently and responsibly.

I confess this, too: Artificial intelligence is here to stay. That barn door has been opened and won’t be closed soon, if ever. But I’d like us to carefully consider what “responsible” use of this actually means. I’d like us to come to a consensus about this, for it’s a Wild West of policies and practices out there now. This leaves administrators, teachers, students, and parents in an ethical No Man’s Land. Most importantly, this should leave us with crucial considerations: What constitutes “rote work,” and should we expect it from our students? Do we truly value the skills identified in national and state standards, skills like critical reasoning, problem-solving, close reading, drawing conclusions, and using strong evidence to support our claims? Should we expect our students—and our citizenry—to think or not?

If the answer to all of these questions is no, then we can farm out problem-solving, critical reasoning, researching, summarizing, interpreting, writing, and creating to AI. And we can call this “intelligent, responsible use.” If the answer is yes, the problem that educators now face seems insurmountable. In a recent BuzzFeed article, “Teachers Are Revealing Gen Alpha’s ‘Missing Life Skills’ That Were Second Nature To Anyone Who Grew Up In The ’90s, And I’m Honestly Shocked,” staff writers reported the skills teachers lamented their students lacked. These skills included organization, problem-solving, reading, and critical thinking. They also included soft skills, such as being able to ask good questions, advocate and think for oneself, persevere in challenging situations, self-regulate, and simply try. Yet, Damon Beres reports that the “rote work” of which former IBM COO Charlotte Dungan insists AI should remove from classrooms includes “researching a topic by seeking out multiple (human) viewpoints. Strengthening literacy skills by scouring resources for new information. Formulating conclusions by using logic to decipher the resources. Using rhetoric to create persuasive arguments to advance said conclusion.” Herein lies the problem. We apparently don’t agree on what students should be expected to do independently. And we don’t agree on what is “rote work” and what is “essential work.”

In his article, “AI Has Broken High School and College” (Aug. 2025), Atlantic writer Damon Beres writes, “AI has been widely adopted by students and faculty alike, yet the technology has also turned school into a kind of free-for-all.” In this article, he interviewed colleagues Ian Bogost and Lila Shroff , who admitted they were struck by the “normalization” of AI use. Shroff reported that in an article she’d written about K-12 education, three in ten teachers said they used AI weekly. In a recent Forbes article, Dr. Aviva Legett reports findings from a recent survey of college students (two-year, four-year, and graduate students) that “found that 90% of students have used AI academically, with nearly three-quarters saying their usage increased over the past year.” She argues that these findings echo those from a global study by the Digital Education Council that reports “86% of students across 16 countries already incorporate AI into their studies, with more than half using it weekly.” A July Newsweek article reports similar findings:

Quizlet’s 2025 How America Learns report revealed that 85 percent of teachers and students (age 14-22) now use AI in some capacity, marking a substantial increase from 66 percent in 2024. Among students, 89 percent reported using AI for schoolwork, compared to just 77 percent in the previous year.

Clearly, AI use has been “normalized” by a majority of students and an increasing number of educators. I’ve watched this normalization in the high schools I visit as a student teacher supervisor. Math homework? No problem! Just give the problem to AI, and it will solve it quickly. Reading homework? No problem! Just identify the text to AI for a brief, efficient summary. Writing homework? No problem! Just give the writing prompt to AI, and it will generate an essay in the blink of an eye. Research assignment? No problem! Just give the research topic to AI, and it will produce a research essay with multiple sources and accurate citations.

Interestingly, AI search engines don’t always accurately cite sources. In a March 2025 Fortune article, “AI search engines are confidently wrong more than half the time when they cite sources, study finds,” Beatrice Nolan cites a Columbia University study:

That’s according to a study from The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, which tested AI products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search and Google’s Gemini to assess their ability to accurately cite news articles. The analysis probed eight AI systems and found that, collectively, the bots provided incorrect answers to more than 60% of queries.

Researchers also reported that “despite poor results, the AI bots answered queries with ‘alarming confidence,’” and “rarely used any qualifying phrases, such as ‘it appears,’ ‘it’s possible,’ or ‘might.’” Award-winning teacher and former civil rights attorney Joseph R. Murray asks, “Will students think to double-check the AI? We already gave them a green light to coast through their classes.” He worries that giving AI to students who woefully lack content knowledge is like leaving toddlers “unattended in the candy store” (“Think our education system is bad now? Wait ’til AI takes over,” The Hill, 4/05/2025). In response to his question as to whether or not students will fact-check their AI citations and content, the answer is unequivocally no—at least for most students, high school and college, who will neither take the time nor possess the research and critical thinking skills to fact-check anything.

For the past few years, I’ve felt the anguish of teachers who’ve resigned themselves to the fact that almost any work taken out of the classroom will be completed through AI. I’ve heard the legitimate questions they’re asking: Why teach writing or reading, problem-solving or reasoning when students will just use AI? Why should I be held accountable for proficiency in the skills identified in my state standards when my students aren’t independently learning and practicing them? How do I prove that my students have done their own work—and will this even matter to parents and administrators? What is my role as a teacher now?

As a retired English teacher, I’ve tried to imagine what my career would look like now. If I value what I’ve always valued–critical thinking, close reading, thoughtful, well-researched writing— here’s what I’ve concluded: 1) All student writing would have to be completed during class time on paper, as I constantly monitored student progress; 2) All important reading would have to be completed during class time with paper—not digital—texts, again as I walked around the room, continually monitoring “real vs. fake reading”; 3) Despite in-class writing and reading assignments, all evaluation would be fraught with the challenge of determining if it was genuinely “student work”; 4) Consequently, justifying my grading practices would be fraught with student, parent, and administrator challenges. In short, if I wanted to uphold the educational values to which I’d devoted my life and to teach as I’d done for 41 years, I would have to change my practices and policies, resigning myself to the reality of students who constantly worked to “get around” them. All of this makes me sadder than I can say. And it makes me fearful, for it doesn’t require any real prophetic skills to predict how a nation of non-thinkers will ultimately fare.

For years, I’ve read and heard that many tech creators and gurus deliberately send their own children to schools that don’t rely on technology. There are schools like this, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. For most parents and students, their schools rely heavily–some exclusively–on technology. Students read, compute, write, and create on digital devices. With the normalization of AI, they can do even more. Actually, they can do it all. I’ve read of teachers who attempted to outwit AI by creating writing prompts and problems they believed were foolproof. These are valiant, well-intentioned efforts that AI will address with “alarming confidence.” And given the amount of student work most teachers must grade, they’ll inevitably be worn down with AI-generated responses that may not directly address the writing prompt or may not show evidence of math procedures taught in class, but are close enough. And they’ll be worn down with challenges to the authenticity of student work, mandatory parent phone calls, and persistent defenses of grading practices. They’ll just be worn down, exhausted to the point of submission.

Again, I’m painfully aware that AI isn’t going anywhere. Even schools that have adopted stricter cell phone policies can’t truly meet the challenges of AI. Some may argue that these policies are a step in the right direction, and they may be right. Still, although teachers and researchers may lament how students lack perseverance and problem-solving skills, I’ve seen just how diligent and resourceful many students can be when trying to work around school policies and computer firewalls. Some have shown amazing grit and ingenuity. A former colleague once joked, “I only wish these students would apply the same skills to their coursework.” Indeed, if only.

In closing, I’m making a plea for our communities and school boards to address the real concerns of AI. For the sake of our teachers and students, for the greater good of our future citizenry, we’re ethically responsible for carefully studying the impact of AI. And if we want to retain the good teachers we have and recruit quality teachers, we’re responsible for creating clear policies and support regarding AI, addressing the real challenges of widespread student use, and evaluating the efficacy of holding teachers and schools accountable to standards and practices that current AI usage makes virtually impossible to uphold. Above all, we’re responsible for determining whether we truly want our students to think—and think well—or if we’re willing to raise the white flag and concede this to artificial intelligence.

The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand,
Till, chok’d with stench, in loath’d embraces tied,
The ling’ring wretches pin’d away and died.
—Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 8

In his article, “Face to Face with Death” (The Post, June 3, 2024), Tim Brown identifies a particularly heinous form of torture described by the poet Virgil in these lines from The Aeneid. This practice was used by the Etruscans, predecessors of the Romans, and adopted later by the Romans. Brown describes the gruesome nature of this torture:

A living man or woman was tied to a rotting corpse, face to face, mouth to mouth, limb to limb, with an obsessive exactitude in which each part of the body corresponded with its matching putrefying counterpart. Shackled to their rotting double, the man or woman was left to decay. To avoid starvation, the Etruscans continued to feed the victim appropriately. Only once the superficial difference between the corpse and the living body started to rot away through the agency of worms, which bridged the two bodies, establishing a differential continuity between them, did the Etruscans stop feeding the living. Once both the living and the dead had turned black through putrefaction, the Etruscans deemed it appropriate to unshackle the bodies.

I should’ve included a trigger warning at the start of this post, for this is stomach-turning, nightmare-inducing stuff. To be shackled to a corpse and left to decay is unimaginable.

For many, however, this practice may be a fitting—albeit awful—metaphor for the condition in which they find themselves. That is, they may feel as though they’re shackled to dying systems, ideologies, practices, or relationships, and forced to carry these corpses as they navigate their lives. Perhaps they’re shackled to systems, ideologies, practices, or relationships they desperately wish would die. Or perhaps, they’re shackled to what psychiatrist Carl Jung referred to as their shadow selves, the hidden parts of themselves they’ve repressed and denied, too ashamed to reveal them to others. In any case, being bound like this is abhorrent.

Consider the Greek myth of Sisyphus, the king condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill for eternity but never reach the summit. French writer and philosopher Albert Camus regarded Sisyphus as a metaphor for the modern condition: Our lives are meaningless, and being conscious of this meaninglessness is a form of torture. Some may argue that being bound to a boulder (and the act of forever pushing it up a hill) is certainly preferable to being bound to a rotting corpse. And this may be so. Still, by all standards, Sisyphus’ punishment was hellish and eternal.

And consider the Apostle Paul. In his Letter to the Romans, he laments his own shackles:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. [Romans 7: 15-20]

I empathize greatly with Paul, my good intentions shackled to my sinful nature. His words here are my words, his lament, mine. I know what I want to do, but too often I find myself doing what I hate. Like all humans, I’m a carnal, mortal creature, my spiritual self bound to a physical self with a corporeal appetite and a limited shelf life. Face-to-face with the parts of me I wish would die, like Paul, I must confront them daily.

As I said earlier, I suspect most of us find ourselves shackled to something. Regardless of our political, cultural, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, we encounter things that are undesirable, at best, and reprehensible, at worst. We may feel chained to things we despise, corpses which others have forced upon us. And the time we’re destined to be shackled to these corpses is insufferable.

In recent years, I’ve talked with people who shared their belief the world is literally going to hell in a handbasket. They contend the conditions in which we’re living now are worse than ever. This may be true, but I suspect there were those in every age who felt much the same. I understand and empathize with them. And at this point, I confess I might’ve begun my post with this disclaimer: Regrettably, I can offer no original or simple solutions to the challenges we face and the pain we suffer. Still, I might share what others have said and written.

In Gal Beckerman’s article, “Be Like Sisyphus (The Atlantic, Jan. 22, 2025), he recalls Camus’ essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” and is reminded that, for Camus, Sisyphus wasn’t necessarily a tragic figure. Beckerman writes, “he has some power over his existential predicament. Once he grasps his fate—‘the wild and limited universe of man’—Sisyphus discovers a certain freedom he gets to determine whether to face the futility of it all with joy or sorrow.” In the end, Camus maintains that “the struggle itself toward heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Is the struggle towards something better enough to fill our hearts? Is the fight to unshackle ourselves enough to make us happy? Some would argue, yes. Beckerman concedes that this may be a “bleak model for those in lamentation over our current moment.” Yet, he also contends that this model may be appropriate today as we acknowledge “that sense of being cosmically screwed while knowing that finding purpose, and even some kind of hopefulness, is possible in a world that promises nothing.”

There are other models, too. In the book of John, Jesus warns his disciples of the trials they will face when he leaves. He explains that it’s for their good that he dies, so that the Holy Spirit will come, and they will not be alone. In John 16:31-33, we read:

“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

For centuries, Christians, like all people, have encountered the troubles of this world. Following Christ, they’ve sought to live well in this world but not to be of this world. They’ve sought to “take heart,” holding fast to Christ’s promises of salvation and abundant life. They’ve sought to live joyfully despite their circumstances, to find peace and comfort in the midst of suffering. And they’ve found freedom, despite the shackles of their mortal lives.

Some might find the model of “hopeful pessimism” compelling. In her book Hopeful Pessimism, philosopher Mara van der Lught argues that pessimism isn’t the same thing as fatalism. That is, you might believe it’s likely a tornado will destroy your house and take your life, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that it will. According to van der Lught, pessimism is simply “a refusal to believe that progress is a given.” Today, many would argue that progress is definitely not “a given.” In politics, science, education, business, medicine, and culture, they believe we’re losing ground, moving backwards, and conceding what gains we’ve made. Still, van der Lught writes of “radical hope,” which operates in the direst situations, even those in which death seems certain. Czech dissident and later president of his country, Václav Havel, was asked about hope in a 1985 interview, and he said that hope was not a “prognostication” but “an orientation of the spirit.” He explained further by claiming that [Hope is] “not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” Both van der Lught and Havel understand the shackles of pessimism and offer “radical hope.”

Clearly, there are models from other faiths and philosophies for “those in lamentation over our current moment.” I’ve offered a few. Beckerman concludes his Atlantic article by suggesting that “[f]or those who feel dread about America and the world, hopeful pessimism might seem like a thin string to grab on to, but it offers, I think, what might otherwise be called realism without requiring that one abandon the beauty of possibility.” Camus, Christ, van der Lught, and Havel understood this realism. They also understood that though we may be shackled to all kinds of corpses (figuratively speaking), we don’t have to abandon what is good and true. We must not abandon the beautiful possibility that things will improve, and our chains will be broken.

I’ll leave you with the final lines from Dylan Thomas’ poem, “Fern Hill”:

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

“This is why I value that little phrase ‘I don’t know’ so highly. It’s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended.” —Wislawa Szymborska, 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature Lecture

Before IDK and its emoji were ever conceived, Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska championed the virtue of “I don’t know” in her 1996 Nobel Lecture. She had been living the truth of this virtue for decades. For uncertainty and unflagging curiosity may indeed help us fly “on mighty wings,” exploring “the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses.” In her Nobel address, she wrote:

If Isaac Newton had never said to himself ‘I don’t know’, the apples in his little orchard might have dropped to the ground like hailstones and at best he would have stooped to pick them up and gobble them with gusto. Had my compatriot Marie Sklodowska-Curie never said to herself ‘I don’t know’, she probably would have wound up teaching chemistry at some private high school for young ladies from good families, and would have ended her days performing this otherwise perfectly respectable job. But she kept on saying ‘I don’t know’, and these words led her, not just once but twice, to Stockholm, where restless, questing spirits are occasionally rewarded with the Nobel Prize.

Undoubtedly, IDK may drive “restless, questing, spirits” onward toward certainties that benefit humanity in the form of answers and cures, inventions and solutions. It’s often the fuel powering our imagination and will. Szymborska understood this as a woman and a poet. At the beginning of the 20th century, when many poets set out to “shock us with their extravagant dress and eccentric behavior. . . for the sake of public display,” she argued that the real work of IDK happened privately and humbly:

The moment always came when poets had to close the doors behind them, strip off their mantles, fripperies, and other poetic paraphernalia, and confront – silently, patiently awaiting their own selves – the still white sheet of paper. For this is finally what really counts.

I’ve experienced both the terror and delight of “the still white sheet of paper.” As an undergraduate and graduate, I spent hours in the Calvin T. Ryan Library on the University of Nebraska Kearney campus, hunched over a spiral notebook, eking out one wretched sentence after another, only to scratch out most of what I’d written and begin again on another blank page. I knew what I didn’t know, and this knowledge was both a blessing and a curse. It saved me from writing “fripperies” and falling in love with first thoughts, but it also paralyzed me, taunting me with the reality that I may have nothing to say. Much as I longed to, I struggled to take the prevailing advice of writing experts: draft quickly and revise later. Before I’d even finished a thought, I was revising. Early in the writing process, I wrote with the red pen of a critic. It’s a miracle I ever finished a paper or poem. For me, IDK was—and continues to be—both friend and foe.

In the years since my retirement—years I’ve come to call my serious writing years— I’m finding that IDK is more helpful than adversarial. Subscribing to Szymborska’s claim that “Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know,’” I find myself surprisingly inspired. Though my poetic wheelhouse has always been the natural world of the Midwest, I recently began a series of poems about a fictional English manor house and the family who occupy it during the 19th and early 20th centuries. That I don’t know much about English manor houses hasn’t stopped me. Not yet anyway. I’ve created people and rooms, events and histories for a place and people I’ve come to know well. And the best part is this: I don’t know where any of this will lead me. I don’t know if any of these poems will ever see the light of day. I don’t know if they’ll live a brief life, only to be shelved in some unmarked notebook. I don’t know what I don’t know.

And I’m more than o.k. with this, just as Wislawa Szymborska was. For it’s the pursuit of knowing, which is both painful and wonderful, that inspires and culminates in something new:

Poets, if they’re genuine, must also keep repeating “I don’t know.” Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that’s absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their “oeuvre” (a complete body of work). . .

When I asked my poet father one day about revision, prompting him to tell me how many times he generally revised a poem, he answered, “30 times or more—usually more.” As a high school student, I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing, for I’d always envisioned my father and other serious writers as those from whom the right words flowed generously up from some eternal well of beauty and truth. Revising a single work at least 30 times sounded arduous, even painful. Truthfully, it sounded like grunt work. Yet, I’ve come to know the truth of revision, which, as Szymborska claimed, begins “as soon as the final period hits the page.” And I’ve come to embrace that not knowing is essential to trying and to “the consecutive results” of my “self-dissatisfaction,” which will be the body of work I leave behind.

There is also the kinder, gentler side to IDK. Poet Mary Oliver writes, “Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving.” As I’ve aged, increasingly I find myself surrendering to the fact that I don’t know a lot, that I’m “playing at the edges of knowing.” Like Oliver, German spiritual teacher and author Eckart Tolle argues the benefits of IDK, contending that “[s]ometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.” Certainly, there are circumstances when being too comfortable with not knowing may be dangerous and irresponsible. IDK may be an excuse to avoid philosophical, cultural, political, and scientific uncertainties that we should investigate. Still, if we’ve wrestled with these uncertainties and concluded that our struggles have taken us as far as they can, we can take comfort and find refuge in “not knowing.” For a time—maybe forever—we can be content in our pursuit of knowledge, whether it bears fruit or not.

We can admit, too, that an admission of IDK may be temporary. In time and with experience, we may discover what we’ve failed to understand. Years ago, as I was desperately seeking treatment for the migraines that had plagued me for most of my adult life, I recall a conversation with my new doctor. I had asked him about a new migraine drug I’d researched, and he confessed that he didn’t know anything about it. After years of doctors obfuscating and offering glib treatment options, his humility was a wonderful thing. Finally, here was a doctor who knew what he didn’t know—and admitted it. Even better, here was a doctor who promised to follow up, conduct a drug study, and call me when he had answers. Weeks later, he did just that, and his efforts changed my life, giving me more migraine-free days than I could’ve imagined.

And then there is this: “It is much easier to be brave if you do not know everything. And so your mama does not know everything. Neither do I. We know only what we need to know.” These words are from Lois Lowry’s Holocaust novel, Number the Stars. In every age when conflict and uncertainty threatened to undo all that was good and true, some have managed to power on, marching forward to the adage: We know only what we need to know. This may sound foolish, blindingly naive, and short-sighted. It may read as a refusal to confront the horrors of war and poverty, a refusal to stand firm against evil. But I only have to imagine myself in such situations to understand the truth of Lowry’s words here. I only have to consider how many navigate today’s world with only the knowledge necessary for that day and that circumstance. For them, for us, IDK may be less an admission of weakness than of bravery.

There are many, many things I don’t know, and I’ll never know. Some of these things will trouble me to the edge of frustration and despair; others will inspire me, sweeping me onto the “still white sheet” of paper and life. Perhaps we need a second emoji choice: an IDK with the face of wonder and contentment. This would be an emoji I could get behind.

photo by Collyn Ware

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. —W. B. Yeats, “The Stolen Child”

The world, as Yeats declares, is “more full of weeping” than a child can understand—than a child should understand. And even at the cusp of adolescence, my grandson, Griffin, has yet to fully cross that inevitable threshold to understanding. There are so many moments when he is still that bare-chested little boy in a straw hat stirring the water with a stick, that sweet child who flings my front door open and exclaims, “I’m here! What are we doing today?” Too soon, he will leave this child behind. But not this summer, not today. Today, we have the “waters and the wild,” the magic of each new day, which breaks golden and true.

A few weeks before Griff’s 12th birthday, we stood at the edge of the pond in a small cove where bluegill spawn and school. As he looked into the water, he turned to me and said, “This is so beautiful.” Tears sprang to my eyes. We stood in silence for several moments watching the fish. We’ve shared so many moments like this during his 12 years. Griff sees the uncommon beauty in the most common things. He will stop to marvel at uniquely shaped rocks on the road. He will find the one red, ripe strawberry in a patch and eat it before he leaves the garden. He will uncap and smell any scented candle or bottle of cologne, his sense of smell always active and finely tuned. He will wax nostalgic about holiday memories and family traditions. From the moment I first held him, he captured my heart and recaptures it daily.

“Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies,” writes American lyrical poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Or when people die, their deaths are so removed they don’t wholly register. In Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Indian Camp,” a boy about Griff’s age makes a trip with his physician father across the lake to the Indian camp where a woman is in labor and needs assistance. The woman’s husband has been injured and lies in the bunk above her. Unable to help, he has listened to her screams for hours and, in a final act of desperation, takes his own life. The boy, Nick, witnesses this death and the cesarean section his father performs without an anesthetic. In the final lines of the story, Hemingway tells us that Nick rests against his father as they row back across the lake toward home, quite certain that he will never die. When one is very old or when the circumstances of one’s death are so foreign and so unnatural (a suicide at an Indian camp), it’s understandable that children may believe they will never die. Death is a distant galaxy. It might be glimpsed through a high-powered telescope, but its presence is a suggestion, not a cruel reality.

The child in Griff believes I can easily sprint across the lawn to retrieve the baseballs he’s hit. In the kingdom of his childhood, I will be forever young—or young enough to stave off infirmity and death. At 12, however, he’s begun to see the slower, less able me. When I didn’t move quickly enough and took a wiffle ball to the chest last week, he gasped. “Are you o.k., Grandma? I’m so sorry—are you o.k.?” Of course, I was o.k. I can still take a wiffle ball to the chest and stay in the game. But it was his quick concern that struck me. In that moment, I could see the shadow that crossed his face, the understanding that I was older now, that I would die. And even as I wished I could wipe away the shadow, he squared up at the plate and hit a ball deep into our neighbor’s yard. Smiling, I said, “That was a great hit.” Grinning, he replied, “I just love the sound the ball makes when it connects with the bat like that, don’t you?” And I knew that for tonight at least, we could both live happily in the kingdom of his childhood.

In her novel, The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy writes, “Childhood tiptoed out. Silence slid in like a bolt.” This is the painful thing about the loss of childhood: it often comes with silence that slides in “like a bolt.” I want to hold on to the noisy Griff, the boy who talks your ear off and shouts as he leaps off the edge into the pool. When he was young and wanted to be a bull rider, he used to flail around the room, throwing his right arm in the air, whooping and hollering as I counted off 8 seconds. Then he’d collapse in a sweaty heap on the rug, panting and looking up expectantly as I announced, “Griffin Ware riding Red Rock, a new world record!” If anything, I don’t want Griff’s childhood to tiptoe out. I want it to go with whooping and hollering, to make a noisy last stand.

For every child, I suspect there is a parent or grandparent who wishes they could delay the onset of adulthood. It’s an unrealistic but universal wish. We consider the adult world our children must navigate, and we hold fast to those last days of innocence. In his novel, All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy writes:

He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they’d have no heart to start at all.

I’m afraid it’s just this: we suspect if our children knew the truths of adult life, they’d “have no heart to start at all.” We chuckle when kids declare they will grow up to be professional athletes, rock stars, and billionaires. Let them dream, we say. We want them to imagine the lives they want to live. Yet, we also want them to have the heart to grow up and take on the real responsibilities and challenges of adulthood. If we send mixed messages, we confess it’s with the best intentions.

Griff just returned from a minor league baseball game. For a day, he had a VIP experience as he lived his dream. He spent time in the dugout, took photos with players, and came home with a signed jersey and too many memories to count. Like many boys his age, he can see himself taking the field and hitting the winning run in a championship game. The dream of becoming a professional baseball player is still alive and flourishing, even as the painful reality of its unlikelihood lurks in the dugout. I want Griff to have the heart to dream these dreams for as long as he can. And then I want him to have the heart to embrace new dreams as he moves into adulthood.

In truth, I could say so much more about this boy who’s blessed my life. I know that the day is coming when he won’t ask his grandma to pitch wiffle balls or ride around with him in our UTV. I know that he will soon experience a world that’s “full of weeping,” a world in which death abounds. This day will come soon enough. Until then, I will live happily with him in the kingdom of childhood. Neither of us can imagine a better place to be.

may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living —e. e. cummings “may my heart always be open to little”

Several years ago, my Philadelphia daughter and I were drinking coffee one summer morning when she turned to me and said, “Is this what you do?” “What? I asked. “Drink a morning coffee?” She shook her head and pointed out the wall of dining room windows to four bird feeders well-stocked with black-oil sunflower seeds. As I watched birds swoop in from the timber, I said, “Well, yes, this is what I do. I’m a bird person.”

I have a thing for all birds, but especially small, blue birds. A bluebird or indigo bunting sighting can make my day. I’ve been known to creep around the edge of our timber like a crazy woman, eyes peeled and breath held, in search of an indigo bunting I can hear but not yet see. I’ve been known to make a dead stop in the middle of a trail, believing that if I stand there long enough, a bunting or bluebird will simply appear. And when an indigo bunting visited one of our bird feeders last year (a first! a miracle!), I crawled on my knees through the dining room, crouching low under the windows—much to the amusement of my family—in hopes of getting an even closer look at it. Biologist and bird artist Julie Zickefoose claims, “[t]he presence of a single bird can change everything for one who appreciates them.” Although I’ve yet to see another indigo bunting on our feeders, I’ve lived in wonder of this single sighting, transfixed as a shaft of sunlight ignited a blue so brilliant, it defied words.

“Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone’s horizon sweeps someone else’s. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much,” writes Gregory Maguire in his novel, Out of Oz. This may be what I love most about birds. The way they navigate the world at the “margins,” “on the edge of things.” In my father’s Jottings Towards an Autobiography, he writes, “I have always been like Thoreau, preferring broad margins between myself and others.” I learned to love birds from my dad. And I grew to love the “broad margins” that allow me to notice the small but infinitely valuable things on the edges. As I walked this morning at the nature preserve and heard the distinctive song of the indigo bunting, I looked high into the trees, searching the uppermost edges of their silhouettes to find a lone bunting perched at the very top of a cedar. He was singing at the edge where earth meets sky. I might’ve missed him if I hadn’t learned that treasure lies at the margins.

And I might’ve missed him if I hadn’t learned to live by the words of American naturalist John Burroughs: “If you want to see birds, you must have birds in your heart.” I walk and watch with expectation, with confidence. Because I have birds in my heart. Because I walk without earbuds, listening. “In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence,” writes Irish essayist Robert Lynd. To see birds, you must hear them. To hear them, you must be quiet. In this season of my life, I’m learning to relish silence. I’ve always valued solitude, but I’ve discovered an intimacy with the natural world that only comes, I believe, from “becoming a part of the silence.” Birds have much to teach me, and I’m still learning.

I’m learning more, too, about the ways birds inspire us. Burroughs understood their particular significance to writers:

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.

For eight years, I’ve had a blue parakeet named Billy. He lost his partner two years ago, and several months ago, he lost his ability to fly. As I worked in the kitchen one day, I heard a thump and was horrified to see that Billy had plunged from his perch at the top of the cage to the bottom, where he scrambled to right himself, his wings flared awkwardly to each side for balance. But what happened next amazed me. He used his beak to climb up the cage and positioned himself, once again, on his favorite perch. Since then, he plummets to the cage floor several times a day, but he always makes the laborious climb back up to the top. The first time this happened, I thought he had days, maybe hours to live. But Billy is a force of nature; he’s “large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic” and refuses to let his age and handicap dampen his spirits. He sings in the mornings, his voice more tremulous now but joyful nonetheless. As a poet—and a 70-year-old—Billy has become for me a symbol of the kind of joyful perseverance and “buoyancy” I seek.

Last week, on my 70th birthday, as I was rounding the trail by the turtle pond, I spotted an indigo bunting in the cattails about ten feet ahead of me. For a few glorious seconds, it stayed there, letting the sun catch its iridescence. This must be a sign, I thought. Hours later, as I looked out my kitchen window to the new purple martin house my husband recently built, lo and behold, not one, but two male bluebirds were perched on top. This has to be a sign, I thought.

A sign of what? Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I really have no idea. I just like the fact that several small, blue birds showed up for my birthday. And so, as I enter a new decade in my life, I’m amazed, again, at the great mystery of the natural world, how it welcomes you, and as poet Mary Oliver writes, announces “your place in the family of things.”

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
― Mary Oliver (Dreamwork, 1986)

Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others—it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it. —Yo-Yo Ma

As track season comes to an end, I’ve hung up my running shoes. Figuratively—not literally. As a nearly 70-year-old, I’m certainly not in competition form, and it’s been a few years since I ran more than the 50 yards from my house to my daughter’s. I remember my running days, though, and my muscles remember. They remember how it felt to explode from the starting blocks, to make up distance on the first curve, to lengthen my strides on the backstretch, and to run the final curve of the 400 meters into a headwind. They remember the slap of a baton into my palm and the urgent lean across the finish line. In her novel, Dearly, Margaret Atwood writes: You’ll be here but not here, a muscle memory, like hanging a hat on a hook that’s not there any longer. This is it exactly. Unbeknownst to the spectators around me, for years, I’ve been running races from my stadium seat. I’ve been there with them, but not there at all. My muscle memory transports me to the many track meets—high school and collegiate—where I braced myself against the wind, set my starting blocks, and flew down the track.

As we learn and practice a skill, our brains create neural pathways and connections controlling the associated muscles. The more we practice, the more efficient these connections become. Muscle memory, then, is more about brain-building than actual muscle-building. Athletes, musicians, and other professionals testify to how they’ve improved their performance as they’ve strengthened the neural connections created from repetition. I haven’t played the piano for decades, but my fingers still remember how to play the major scales. When I first began taking lessons in elementary school, I often practiced these scales in bed at night, moving my fingers across my percale pillow case as if it were a keyboard, deftly tucking my thumb under my middle finger when I reached F to continue the C major scale. Even though I haven’t practiced or played for years, the neural connections are still there. If I were to sit down at a piano today, I’d be no virtuoso, but my muscle memory would carry me through the scales, one note, one finger at a time.

As we age, muscle memory is both wonderful and awful. Our synapses twitch, our neurons fire, and our muscles remember the way. For a few glorious moments, we feel as though we still have it. We could still run 400 meters in under 60 seconds, no problem. We could still turn a perfect cartwheel, easy peasy. We could still march and play an entire band show, bring it on. For these moments, we remember how it feels to rely on muscle memory. And then, we’re reminded our muscles aren’t what they used to be. Years ago, when my best friend and I chaperoned a group of teenage boys to a Christian music festival, they kept encouraging her to crowd surf. “Do it!” they said. “You know you want to! Just fall back and let yourself be carried along.” For a moment, we both could remember the freedom, how it feels to fall back and float above the heads of concert-goers. Until I broke the reverie with caution. “You really don’t want to break bones and face orthopedic surgery,” I warned. “I speak from experience—don’t do it. You don’t want to be pinned and screwed back together.” Age often does this. It rides in with common sense and caution. It tames a moment of wild glory into a lap dog.

Regardless of our age and muscle condition, however, we can take heart. In her book, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, Krista Tippett tells us that “hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory.” I like this notion of practicing a virtue until it becomes spiritual muscle memory. To do this, you don’t have to have a strong core or biceps. You can do this even if you can no longer play your favorite recital piece or make a lay-up. This is a different kind of muscle memory, neither dependent on age nor physical ability. And consider the smorgasbord of virtues from which you can choose: hope, gratitude, humility, generosity, compassion. Fill your plate, and then go back for seconds. Create new neural pathways and practice until habit becomes spiritual muscle memory.

Some might argue that today, more than ever, a healthy diet of virtues would go a long way toward creating and sustaining a better world. They might argue—and rightfully so—that this is easier said than done, though. It’s likely we all remember the pain and tedium of practicing the same skills again and again. I recall the hours I spent running my fingers through scales when I desperately wanted to play from my Jackson 5 Greatest Hits book for piano beginners. I’m reminded of the hours I spent with relay partners, running through handoffs long after our teammates had gone to the locker rooms. The proverbial words of coaches and teachers still ring true: No pain, no gain. Trusting that temporary pain and tedium will ultimately benefit us, we muscle on through challenging practices.

Whether we’re creating muscle memory or spiritual muscle memory, there’s always a cost. Despite my best intentions, I often struggle to greet the day with gratitude or hope. It doesn’t come easily. The neural pathways I counted on one day are weak—or nonexistent—the next. The spiritual muscle memory I’d previously trusted is gone. When this happens, it’s back to the scales. When my spiritual muscle memory fails me, it’s back to repeated practice. This may take the form of prayer, meditation, or guided reading. I’m reminded of Mother Teresa’s decades-long struggle to feel the presence of God. And yet, she rose each day, and faithfully served India’s most neglected populations, trusting in the God she could neither feel nor see. Through these seasons of darkness, she moved through each day, fully trusting her spiritual muscle memory.

American cellist Yo-Yo Ma reminds us that “your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.” I can imagine myself doing a passable cartwheel, but truthfully, I’m not going to risk it. It could, likely would, end badly. But spiritual muscle memory is another matter. And Yo-Yo Ma reminds us there’s good news. For even when, perhaps especially when, we fail to practice the virtues we’d like to live, we can imagine ourselves practicing them. We can rise each day and imagine moving through the hours with hope, gratitude, generosity, and humility. We can build—or rebuild—these neural pathways by first imagining them. And then? Well, we can trust where our imaginations will take us.