Gracyn, photo by her mother

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?    Dr. Seuss            

In a couple weeks, my granddaughter, Gracyn, will officially become a teenager. As only Dr. Seuss can so perfectly put it: the time has flewn–and, I suppose it goes without saying, much too soon.

It’s been years since I spent hours on my knees as we played with her Dora the Explorer doll house or imagined lavish mermaid tales as she took “recreational” baths. And though my knees are older and I don’t get up as quickly or gracefully, I’d gladly spend the hours on my knees again just to relive some of the most intimate moments we’ve shared over the years. I’d haul out all the slime-making ingredients and equipment, decorate my home with lovingly crafted homemade holiday decorations, plan special “welcome home”parties for Aunt Megan, buy live Easter bunnies (which reproduced, literally, like rabbits) and assume care of them, and carefully buckle April (a life-sized baby doll that people often mistook for a real baby) into my car for town trips. I’d do it all again, for I know that it’s gotten late too soon.

I’d go back to the antique store where she’d hidden the Cabbage Patch doll she desperately wanted so well that it took me 20 minutes of serious looking before I spied a corner of its ruffled dress peeking out from behind a row of assorted toys. She’d talked about it for days, the days leading up to her brother’s birth. She should have it, I thought, as I recalled–decades earlier–queuing in a Target parking lot before dawn with other faithful (crazy?) mothers who’d waited for hours to get one of the Cabbage Patch dolls from the new shipment rumored to arrive. The 20 minutes spent strolling around the antique store in air-conditioned comfort was nothing when I remembered my frozen feet and layers of clothing. Yes, she should have a baby to care for as her mother would soon bring home a new baby brother to care for, I reasoned. And so, each day we visited the hospital, her own baby lovingly diapered and dressed for the day, her four-year-old hand in mine as we navigated the elevator to the maternity floor.

I’d go back to the crowded school gymnasium where she stood with her third-grade classmates during an event in which they’d dressed up as famous figures and had prepared to tell visitors all about them. Nervously, she stood there in blonde ringlets, patent leather Mary Jane shoes, and a blue baby doll dress. “I’m Shirley Temple, Grandma,” she proudly announced and then rattled off the biographical facts she’d memorized. She was spectacular, if I do say so. Yet I struggled to stay in the moment, for I could feel how time pressed in and on, how the days of ringlets and Mary Janes would pass all too soon.

I’d go back to the many, many times when she wore her heart gloriously, painfully on her sleeve. Before the impending teenage years of cool indifference, there have been years of tearful goodbyes when she’d already begun to grieve the temporary loss of family and friends. There have been years when she lived vicariously through movie characters whose suffering she felt deeply. I worried (and continue to worry) about protecting her heart from all those people and things that would trample it. Because I would keep this heart just as it is, keep time and the world at bay.

In her novel, Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult writes:

Whether it is conscious or not, you eventually make the decision to divide your life in half—before and after—with loss being that tight bubble in the middle. You can move around in spite of it; you can laugh and smile and carry on with your life, but all it takes is one slow range of motion, a doubling over to be fully aware of the empty space at your center.

For most parents and grandparents, there is a certain before and after as their children and grandchildren pass from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to adulthood, from adulthood to old age. And as Picoult writes, we often experience loss as a tight bubble in the middle. Even when we know that such passage is inevitable and, in the long run, good, we may still have moments when we double over at the full awareness of this loss. The day that we donated the Dora doll house to Goodwill was one of those days. I bagged up all the plastic figures, the house and furniture and drove it 10 miles to the donation site. For years, it had occupied the shelf in our dining-room-turned-toy-room. For years, we’d added to our doll family as we found new figures we just had to have. For years, we’d created a family history for these figures, one rich with births and marriages, vacations and holidays. For years, the plastic horse-drawn carriage had made trips around the room, and the family van (with the horn that really honked and the missing door) had been packed with the chosen few. These were the before years, and at times, remembering them can be like a gut punch.

I have no doubts that there will be glorious after years during which, God willing, I’ll witness Gracyn’s passage into adulthood–and perhaps into motherhood. And as I watch this transformation, I’m sure that I’ll once again think: How did it get so late so soon?

Atrium, Biltmore Mansion, Asheville, NC

To be genteel is to be polite, refined, or respectable, often in an affected or ostentatious way. We may like to think that a pretentious display of superiority and wealth is a remnant of bygone eras and best left to old-monied folks like the Astors and the Du Ponts or new-monied folks like the Vanderbilts or the Rockefellers who jewelled 5th Avenue in New York City with glorious mansions and elegant soirées during the Gilded Age. We may like to believe that such a show of excess is repulsive, a flamboyant snub to all those who would never grace their marbled halls. And yet, many of us consumed the award-winning PBS Masterpiece series, Dowton Abbey and are currently binging the second season of Netflix’s Bridgerton, as well as impatiently waiting for the next episode of HBO’s The Gilded Age and PBS Masterpiece’s Sanditon. In truth, we appear to be fascinated with gentility. We can’t get enough of the satin gowns and kid gloves, the chaperoned strolls in manicured gardens. Ostentatious as this world may be, there’s something about the manners and the extravagance that we tune in for, season after season.

The world of the Gilded Age genteel was a world in which valets and ladies’ maids were essential. No self-respecting men or women would have been expected to dress themselves. Given the quantity and fit of their clothing items, it would have been largely impossible. Corsets and bustles, buttons upon buttons, gloves that were literally made to fit like a second skin–all of these required an able-bodied valet or ladies’ maid, an individual with nimble fingers and some serious upper body strength. We marvel at the ladies’ maids who dutifully brushed (100 strokes at least) the unpinned hair of their ladies, who unlaced and unbuttoned their extravagant gowns, who removed their satin slippers and–finger by finger–their custom-made gloves. Dressing and undressing were productions not to be rushed or taken lightly. Today, we can pull on a pair of elastic waist sweat pants and slip a t-shirt over our head with one hand. All in a matter of seconds and without fuss. None of us can probably imagine our dressing or undressing ever being seriously considered for a television audience’s delight.

Nor can we imagine our meals, our conversations with friends, our social gatherings as being of much interest to a larger audience. We’ve taken informal to a new and much-relaxed level. When I was working, I recall our high school dress code actually specifying–no joke–that pajamas and slippers were not appropriate school attire. We also had to clarify how much skin could show through jeans that were so ripped that it was a wonder they maintained any structure at all. Perhaps there is something in us that longs for structure–if not in our own clothing and manners, then in those we can read about and view.

Perhaps, in spite of the social levelling that has occurred in the last century, we’re closet gentility. That is, maybe there are those of us who imagine ourselves appearing, behaving, and speaking finely. Maybe we imagine sipping tea poured from a sterling silver tea service into bone china cups instead of slurping it from a Starbucks to-go cup. Maybe we can see ourselves carefully weighing our words and politely listening in conversation rather than dashing off a text message or Instagram post. Maybe, just maybe, we can imagine a nicer, gentler version of ourselves.

Clearly, there was a tarnished underside to the Gilded Age. This was an age in which there were many corrupt industrialists, bankers and politicians whose greed exploited the working class. These robber barons and financiers often held more power than politicians during this time. And this was a period of tenements and sweat shops, 12-hour working days and increasing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Viewers see little of this in the television series and films that profile the genteel because this, of course, brings us perilously too close to the ugliness of the real world–then and now.

There are those, then, who would argue that this gentility is really nothing but an emperor-with-no-clothes, a puffed-up, polished version of the lives of a favored few. And this is largely true. Still, I think it’s the lovelier aspects of the age we long for: the manners of regency courtship, the magnificent architecture and craftsmanship of the family estates, the teas and balls and coronations. We yearn for subtle grace, even if it’s only an imaginary veneer which lies over a cold, brash world.

In reading Denise Kiernan’s The Last Castle, a saga of the Vanderbilt family and the buidling of Biltmore Estate, I learned that in 1926, Thomas Beer nicknamed the 1890s as the Mauve Decade. While attempting to find an artificial way to make quinine, William Henry Perkins inadvertently discovered an aniline dye which resulted in mauve, a color so popular that it became a signature hue for an entire decade. Mauve is not quite plum, not quite rose, a rich yet muted color perfectly suited for the clothing and homes of the genteel.

I thought a lot about this and began wondering what color would best describe the current decade. I could think of many suitable colors, but none of them possesed the subtle, understated gentility of mauve. As a matter of fact, when I looked at my grandchildren’s big box of Crayola crayons, I found colors with names like laser lemon and electric lime. These don’t seem like colors with manners but rather colors with attitude which scream their presence. We have a considerable presence of such attitude today. It manifests itself in all sorts of unrefined ways (like an Academy award winning actor slapping and cursing a comedic host on national television). And maybe this is the biggest reason we thirst for the best of gentility: we simply want a respite from all that is not genteel.

photo by Collyn Ware

It is photography itself that creates the illusion of innocence. Its ironies of frozen narrative lend to its subjects an apparent unawareness that they will change or die. It is the future they are innocent of.
― Ian McEwan, Black Dogs

Perhaps novelist Ian McEwan is right. Perhaps we love the medium of photography because it offers us the gift of frozen narrative, of an illusion of innocence. When our memories begin to fade, when our rotting, ripening world crushes in upon us with all its death and disease, when we find ourselves waking with more dread than hope, a single photograph can remind us of a time of permanence and immortality. It can return us to a snowy field at dusk, to a boy who spreads his arms to the world as if to say: Here I am. Right here in the center of everything where the future kneels before me, a bright, expectant promise. Right here where the moon is my subject, where the darkness, a futile foe, will ever cower at the edges of my life.

One of the greatest joys of my life is living vicariously through my grandson’s exuberant innocence. When he talks of riding bulls professionally on the rodeo circuit, I’m all in. When he speculates about the color of Bugatti he will buy when he gets his driver’s licence, I can see it. When he announces that these past few 50-degree days have been nice enough to fill the pool, I’m smelling the sunscreen and feeling the heat. When he asks if we should make a leprechaun trap again this year, I’m already considering the supplies we’ll need. Of course, these days will not last. At eight, he’s undoubtedly older than many who’ve already lost the innocence that continues to buoy him through his days. And I’m grateful for this innocence. For, as Pablo Picasso said, it takes a very long time to become young, and I find that I’m just coming into my own through him.

I realize that the life expectancy of innocence is often largely dependent upon circumstances. Poverty, instability, disease, violence and war can snuff out innocence before it really ever begins. For children in such circumstances, there may be no photographs that freeze a narrative worth preserving. There may be no photgraphs at all. Innocence may have briefly flickered, only to be extinguished by the loss of family, home, or country.

But I am one of the fortunate. As a Baby Boomer, I grew up after the Depression and World Wars and before 9/11 and Covid. I grew up in relative peace and prosperity, an era during which innocence could live a comfortable and long life. I was 14 when I discovered hypocrisy among my peers who’d cheated their way through our church’s confirmation class only to stand later among the confirmed as the congregation smiled and applauded. I remember feeling truly shocked, my innocence decidedly beginning to unravel. Still, I had a good run while it lasted. When my innocence truly gave way to a growing sense of worldliness, it happened naturally, gradually, and without calamity.

Today, it often seems as though we want to rush innocence’s demise. We want our children to enter kindergarten with several years of reading and math under their little belts. We want our middle school students to chart career paths and plan their adult lives. We want our high school students to graduate with both high school diplomas and two-year college degrees, so that they might potentially begin law or medical school at age 19. It goes without saying that innocence struggles to survive when the academic stakes and cultural expectations are so high so soon. In such an environment, it must necessarily die young.

As a high school English teacher, I taught dual-credit courses in composition, speech, and literature. In the beginning, I had 16 out of 112 students in my school. At the end of my career, nearly 2/3 of the senior class took dual-credit college courses. Although many of these students were ready enough academically, many weren’t ready socially and emotionally. Some admitted that they just wanted to enjoy their senior year: by participating in sports and other activities, by hanging out with friends they would soon leave behind when they left for college, and by resting in the comfort of a school and home environment they knew and trusted. Without saying as much, they were admitting that they weren’t really ready and didn’t relish the rigor of college courses. At that time, parents paid college tuition–fully or partially–for their students’ enrollment in these courses. Because of this, I felt it was my moral and professional duty to advise such students not to enroll in college courses while they were in high school. After all, I reasoned, they had the time and the opportunity to take these same courses during theirr freshman year at college. Years later, however, these courses became free (hence the increased enrollment), and these same arguments largely fell on deaf ears. Even if students weren’t mature enough or academically ready to handle college courses, parents and counselors argued that they should take them because they were free, because their peers were taking them, and because they’d be left behind if they didn’t.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that we would rush children and teens through childhood and innocence and fix their eyes more quickly on adulthood. It’s true that in centuries past, teens left school early (if they attended at all), married, and began adult lives at the age of 13 or 14. And it’s true that even as children, they were often expected to work at home if the family was to survive. But as a Boomer, I never knew this hardship; as Americans, we generally don’t know this hardship today. One might argue that, in light of the fact that people live much longer today, we should ask ourselves some tough questions: Why should we rush childhood and the innocence that should–for a time, at least–accompany it? What do really stand to gain in encouraging more young people to graduate and enter the workforce early? As we rush our youth to adulthood, are we prepared to give them more and more adult privileges and responsibilities?

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.

As insignificant as it may seem, I do remember how my world shifted when I realized my classmates had lied and cheated. And I remember a similar situation when one of my students discovered her peers had copied answers from her test paper. She came to me, crying. Can you believe it, Mrs. Vesely? They were my friends, and they used me! My student and I were both teens when the truths of life began to rear their painful heads. But what if we’d been children? And what if our 6 or 8-year-old worlds hadn’t just shifted but shattered? Would we have had the courage to face our futures, the heart to start at all? Would we have become painfully aware, as children, that we’d never become bull riders or figure skaters, that leprechaun traps and cookies for Santa were just the fictional figments of someone’s foolish imagination, that the world was never–not even once–ours for the taking? Would our innocence have died, as writer Joan Didion claims, when we were stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself?

Perhaps it’s time to remind ourselves of how precious little time we spend as innocents and of the consequences of further reducing that time. It all might start with taping a single photograph to our refrigerators or bathroom mirrors. A photograph that freezes a narrative of what-might-be, a confidence in the world which appears to be, at that moment, ripe for the picking. A photograph of a boy or girl with arms flung wide in bright, expectant promise.

As a child, I always teared up as the Lassie theme song opened each weekly episode. Today, I tear up each time I hear stories or see images from Ukraine. I long for the days when I cried for Timmy and Lassie, who, in spite of 25 minutes of conflict and danger, would ultimately find safety and comfort in the final minutes of each episode. This is the beauty of a fictional television program where a happy ending can be guaranteed. Not so with life. And certainly not so with war.

The images bombard us daily: a 40-mile convoy of Russian supply vehicles pushing its way towards Kyiv; train plaforms crowded with women and children waiting to be taken across the border to safety; shells of bombed buildings and remnants of vehicles abandoned on streets; Ukranian ex-pats returning to fight for their country; volunteers from neighboring countries waiting to welcome Ukranian refugees with blankets, hot food, and hugs. The news stories profile courage and loss from those who are fleeing and those who are staying.

As this tragedy unfolds and as Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleads NATO to enact a no-fly zone over Ukraine, consider the repeated response. No, because we can’t risk a potential World War III. No, because we believe that taking this action would result in even more death and destruction. No, because Ukraine is not a NATO ally. Although I’m painfully aware of the political and moral complexity of this issue and the real risk of taking any action that may further enrage and embolden Vladamir Putin, I’m also painfully aware of how I might feel if I were a Ukranian who saw my country, my home, and my life slipping away with each passing hour. I can only imagine how I might feel as I considered arguments that may appear utilitarian, at best, and indifferent, at worst.

When we justify the morally right action to be one that produces the most good, this is generally regarded as utiltarianism. That is, according to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [i]n the language of utilitarians, we should choose the option that “maximizes utility,” i.e. that action or policy that produces the largest amount of good. Many of you may remember the life boat or bomb shelter exercises from psychology or sociology courses. You’re given a list with descriptions of a small group of individuals and a particular scenario. The world is being destroyed (by war, by environmental catastrophe, etc.), and you have a lifeboat that will take you away from destruction to a place where you can potentially start over, build a new life and possibly a new world. Your life boat, however, will hold only 12 people. Whom do you choose to save? Or a nuclear attack is imminent, and your bomb shelter can only hold 15 people, the last people on earth, the last hope for beginning again in the aftermath of disaster. Whom do you choose to save? The purpose of the entire exercise was to examine how you chose the individuals responsible for beginning again and populating the earth, the individuals most worthy of being saved.

Conversations were often heated and went something like this: Of course, you must keep the physician. He may be 78-years-old and suffer from a heart condition, but he has invaluable medical expertise and experience. No, absolutely not! You can’t afford to keep anyone that old with health problems, even if he is a doctor! You can’t possibly justify choosing him and leaving a healthy 20-year-old male behind just because he isn’t medically trained. Choices were most often made from and encouraged by utility: who will potentially offer the most good for the greatest number of people?

These hypothetical exercises bothered me then, but they pale in comparison to today’s real-life scenario of whom-to-save. I watch the news and find myself thinking: Will the world really stand by and watch Russia destroy an entire nation? Will we sacrifice one nation for the greater good? As I said before, I understand the moral weight of this issue and our responses to it. There are no easy answers. There are no actions that don’t carry considerable risks and tragic consequences. As much as I can try to imagine what the Ukranian people and its leaders are feeling, I also try to imagine what NATO leaders are feeling as they consider what to do–and what not to do. It goes without saying that I would not want to be in their positions and pray for their wisdom.

As a Christian, I find that I’m often plagued and confused by the whole notion of utility. In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, when a shepherd with a flock of 100 sheep loses a single sheep, he leaves the 99 to search for it. Utility would dictate that the shepherd stay with the flock, ensuring safety for the greatest number of sheep. Yet, Jesus relays the incredible worth of one lost sheep, the immeasurable value of one sinner, lost but now found. Time and again, Christ reminds me of this as he stops to minister to or heal one person in a crowd, an action that invariably frustrates his disciples who are intent to get on with the real work for the greater good. Time after time, he demonstrates the worth of a single, flawed and broken human being. In light of Christ’s words and actions, I admit that I’m truly struggling as I enter this Lenten season. As a Christian, how should I regard utility towards the Ukrainian crisis? Towards any such crisis?

Polish professor and economist Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski has written that the phrase for the greater good always precedes the greatest evil. I suspect that there are many, like me, who question if this is always true. Still, I wonder what Wisniewski is thinking as he watches thousands of Ukranian refugees pour into his country across a border which may increasingly seem to be a tenuous line between safety and destruction, good and evil. I wonder if he waits in fear for that border to close, leaving the remaining Ukranian survivors imprisoned in their Russian-occupied homeland. I wonder if he struggles with NATO’s pledge to militarily defend all of its members (but not Ukraine) even when the threat of nuclear war is imminent. I wonder if he’s puzzled by the apparent greater good paradox: we justify not taking military action in Ukraine for the greater good, but we pledge to take military action to defend our NATO allies–also for the greater good.

As always, I don’t profess to have answers, and I’m not rushing to advise NATO leaders on the best course of action. I’ve blessedly lived my life without much real threat of nuclear war. There’s no price I can ever put on this safety. But my gratitude must live alongside my anguish, and the moral tension between the two is especially palpable these days. I kneel in my own Gethsemane praying that the cup may be taken–from Ukraine and the world–but trusting ultimately that not my will but Yours be done.

Long before Custer died at the Little Bighorn, the myth of the Last Stand already had a strong pull on human emotions, and on the way we like to remember history. The variations are endless — from the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae to Davy Crockett at the Alamo— but they all tell the story of a brave and intractable hero leading his tiny band against a numberless foe. Even though the odds are overwhelming, the hero and his followers fight on nobly to the end and are slaughtered to a man. In defeat the hero of the Last Stand achieves the greatest of victories, since he will be remembered for all time.
― Nathaniel Philbrick, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Big Horn

Last stand is a term we use to describe an individual or group that defends their position or cause in the face of overwhelming odds. In battle, these defensive forces usually lose many members or are completely destroyed, even though they may kill many of their opponents. In other situations, a last stand may not require a sacrifice of life or limb, but it may require a sacrifice of reputation, position, or relationship. To make a last stand is a defining, a watershed moment; it requires one to choose loss, at best, or death, at worst.

So why do it? Though the sacrifice is great, many decide to make a last stand when they realize that the benefits of fighting–physically or otherwise–outweigh the benefits of retreating or surrendering. As historical writer Nathaniel Philbrick explains, “even though the odds are overwhelming, the hero and his followers fight on nobly to the end” in hopes that their sacrifice will be remembered and that their cause will be realized. And though we read about celebrated last stands, I’m sure that we couldn’t begin to count those who’ve unceremoniously made last stands in trenches and rice paddies, in factories and boardrooms, in streets and homes. Authors and directors may not bring their stories to life through books and films, but their sacrifices, too, are notable.

Martin Luther King, Jr. writes that [t]he ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Perhaps this goes without saying. Still, an awestruck world watches an unshaven Volodymyr Zelensky pledging to stay in-country, standing in the streets of Kyiv announcing that “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.” As Russian forces attack his nation, we marvel at a leader who matter of factly states that the world most likely won’t see him again. Zelensky leads an exceptional last stand that many of his fellow Ukranians have embraced, vowing to defend their country and to leave a legacy of freedom and courage to their children and generations to come. This is a last stand playing out for us in real time as images of Ukranian citizens assembling Molotov cocktails flood our screens and stories of defiant heroes emerge daily.

Even as I write this, I hardly know what to say. In part, this is because I never imagined that I’d have to witness such a last stand. When nations are at war, their leaders are usually whisked away to safety, in hopes that they might one day safely return and resume their leadership. A leader who refuses to leave is the stuff myths are made of, the fire that ignites the best in us. As the Russian incursion continues, I’ve tried to imagine myself as a Ukranian devoted to preserving my country and my freedom. I’d like to think I’d be willing to make a last stand in the face of these overwhelming odds, that I’d be willing to stay in my city and take up arms. And as I’ve watched Russian citizens take to the streets in protest, I’d like to think I’d be willing to risk arrest (or worse) to make my voice heard. I’d like to think that, even if I faltered at making a last stand, I would at least take a stand for my convictions.

But would I? From the comfort and safety of my American home, I can daydream all I want about the heroic actions I would take, but I’ve never experienced anything remotely like this. Honestly, like many Americans, I’ve often lapsed into complacency, taking my safety and freedom for granted. The closest I’ve come to making a last stand occurred when I once thought I might lose my teaching position because of my convictions. I didn’t. But even if I had, my sacrifice never once involved my safety or freedom. I have no point of personal reference for such a sacrifice, and this is why I can only imagine what I’d do and live vicariously through the stories I read and hear.

And yet, this is something. American novelist William Faulkner writes: I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem with decency and self-respect and whatever courage is demanded, is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from. When we stand with those who are taking a stand and those who are making a last stand, we might begin to identify what it is that we truly believe and what sacrifices we’d be willing to make. And we can stand with our brothers and sisters in Ukraine and Russia by offering our resources and prayers, by writing the stories of those who continue to demonstrate that they’ve very clear about what they believe and what they’re willing to sacrifice for their beliefs. Ultimately, we can be grateful that we won’t have to make a last stand in order to show our love and solidarity.

In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists.
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland

Valentine’s Day blew into the high school in a tsunami of red and pink bouquets, waves upon waves of roses, life-sized Teddy bears, and heart-shaped boxes laden with assorted fine chocolates. The storm, which started as soon as the first school bell rang, ultimately came to rest on long tables that lined the back wall of the cafeteria. It was a bounty to behold. Needless to say, little learning took place on Valentine’s Day, and the custodians were left with the aftermath of the storm: classrooms and hallways strewn with crushed petals, candy wrappers, and ribbons.

There were those who left school with their arms and hearts full. And, sadly, there were those who left empty-handed, those whom the storm had simply ravaged, not blessed. As I watched them leave for the day, I wanted to wind the clock back, to return them to their elementary classrooms where their Valentine’s boxes–soon to be filled with cards and candies–sat in neat rows of construction-paper creations on the windowsill. I wanted them to feel the possibilities of an empty box, the mystery of what could be.

As novelist Jhumpa Lahiri writes, we live in a world of diminishing mystery. We know so many things, and what we don’t know, we’re confident that we’ll know very soon. We’ve grown to expect answers and explanations for everything. Most often, we’re not disappointed. But the unknown persists in an empty box; it teases us with all sorts of pleasures and, for a time, suspends us in hope.

Even as a child, the box was the thing for me. More than the bounty of Valentine’s cards, candy, and gum, I took the greatest pleasure in imagining what my Valentine’s box would hold. What types of Valentines had my friends chosen for me? Would they be store-bought or homemade? Would there be candy taped to the back? Would there be a handwritten message or just a name? For the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, I marveled in the mysterious unknown.

In her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd writes:

I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it.

For many of us, mystery probably does hide behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days. Often, we’re much too focused on what is to give much thought to what could be. To retrieve our faith in mystery, we’d probably have to turn the clock way back to childhood where it was shining brightly more days than not.

A few nights ago, my grandson, Griffin, came over. When I asked him what he wanted to do, he said, “Can we do those experiments? You know, the kind where we see what happens when we put different things in water?” From the time he was a toddler, Griff has loved water. We’ve filled the kitchen sink, the bathtub, the largest mixing bowl–you name it, and we’ve filled it. He’s floated things, sunk things, mixed and colored things. Suffice it to say, we’ve experimented with water. A lot.

And so, I filled the bowl with water and watched as he went straight to the candy jar where there was an assortment of Jolly Ranchers. “I’m going to try just the orange ones first,” he said as he sorted out the red and blue ones. Amused, I chuckled because he’s tried this “experiment” so many times that I’ve lost count. But happy, I smiled because he relishes the unknown, the possibility that this time might be different, that this time might result in something wholly unexpected and miraculous. It didn’t. After much stirring, the water eventually assumed a puny orange tint–as it always has–and he dumped it out. Still, it wasn’t about the results but about those moments of mystery that a bowl of water, like an empty box, presents.

19th century Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson claims that the unknown always seems sublime. We know that, for some, this isn’t always so. As adults, we know that the unknown can often seem frightening, confusing, and depressing. As adults, we might stand in front of our Valentine’s boxes with trepidation, fearing the dark possibility that we’ve received no Valentines at all. For us, life often tarnishes the bright mystery of an empty box.

Still, even as we plow through our poor, browbeat days, mystery is shining brightly even when we don’t know it. To know it, we need good mentors. And we probably need look no farther than the nearest child who, for a glorious season, lives in a world where mystery abounds in something as simple as a bowl of water or an empty box.

The public, which has been wrong before and is wrong now, can accept only demons and angels on the stage.
― Theophille Gautier

“Use a qualifier,” I advised. “When you write animals, you imply all of them. You’re implying that all animals used in medical research are protected by local and state laws and guidelines.” I was conferencing with a student who was arguing for animal use in scientific and commercial testing. There was not a single qualifier to be found in her entire paper. No most, many, some, few. No 50%, 25%, less than 10%. It had never occurred to her to use a qualifier, and when I suggested it, her face fell. I didn’t have to ask her what was wrong. Her face revealed her fears that using qualifiers would weaken her argument. I could almost see her struggle play out in a Faustian way: an angelic absolute on her right shoulder and a demonic qualifer on her left, each battling for control. All or some?

Whether we’re explicit (and use all) or implicit (and suggest all), we speak with authority. There’s something emotionally satisfying about making authoritative pronouncements that apply to all of something, for there’s no gray area to contend with, no exceptions or complexities. Using absolutes is inclusive, which is a good thing, right? All includes every single individual or thing in a given group. Whether we’re praising or criticizing, no one or nothing is excluded when we speak absolutely.

Today, as I listen to a host of controversies play out on social media and in the news, I often feel as though I should take up my red teacher’s pen and begin marking the absolute language I see and hear. I want to pull people aside and conference with them. Did you really mean all progressives when you said progressives? Did you really mean all conservatives when you said conservatives? Did you really mean all politicians, all teachers, all athletes, all police officers, all technology, all sports, all corporations? Undoubtedly, many (a qualifier!) who’ve used absolute language would prefer not to conference with me. They might, instead, prefer to circle their wagons against the exceptions that lurk in the wilderness.

I understand that some people use absolute language with good intentions. They seek to encourage, to compliment, and to ensure that everyone feels included. Throughout my life, I’ve often had superiors who said things like: You’re doing a great job. You’re working hard to make this a great place. You’re going the extra mile, and it shows. They addressed their employees and delivered these words without qualifying them. My workplaces weren’t exceptional, nor were those of us who worked there. I’d venture to say that many workplaces (perhaps most, not all) are like mine. Clearly, not everyone does a great job, works hard, and goes the extra mile. In fact, there are generally few who do. Consider an exceptional employee. How would he feel to be praised as part of an entire staff? How would she feel knowing that her employer regarded her work performance as no different than any other? What would motivate an exceptional employee to distinguish himself or herself from others?

Qualifiers refuse to generalize or stereotype. When two paths diverge in the woods, they take the harder path, the one that demands discernment and reflection. This is probably why they’re not very popular. Who wants the harder, less traveled path?

Theophille Gautier, a 19th century French poet and critic, understood that we can often accept only angels and demons on the stage. That is, on the public stage, we often speak without qualifying, preferring the absolute. For example, today some are insensed by those who insist that controversial books should be banned or removed from school curricula and school libraries. In righteous indignation, they’ve identified the troublemakers (controlling, ultra-conservative parent groups), the books they seek to ban (primarily those with profanity, sexuality and exploration of gender identity), and have declared an absolute position: controversial books shouldn’t be banned or removed.

Yet, consider the Mukilteo School District in Washington state where the school board recently voted to remove To Kill a Mockingbird from their ninth-grade curriculum. This was at the request of staff members who argued that “the novel marginalized characters of color, celebrated ‘white saviorhood’ and used racial slurs dozens of times without addressing their derogatory nature.” This decision came from teachers and school board members, not parents, and the book removed was a classic novel whose primary theme has nothing to do with sexuality or exploration of gender identity. Can the issue of whether to ban or remove books be answered with an absolute yes or no? Are those who want to keep controversial books angels and those who want to ban and remove them demons? Whether you agree with the Mukilteo School District’s decision or not, it does reveal the complexity of this issue. And this issue is just one of many such complex issues.

Speaking of To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee’s protagonist Scout becomes 26-year-old Jean Louise in her follow-up novel, Go Set a Watchman. Jean Louise wrestles with her conscience after she sees her father and hero, Atticus, at a racist town meeting. Throughout the novel, as she continues to struggle with her father’s beliefs and the changing world, she says:

I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.

Jean Louise wants a watchman who can draw a line down the middle and distinguish what is true and good from what is not. She wants what most of us do, I think. And though there are times and circumstances when clear, absolute lines can–and must–be drawn, there are also times and circumstances when they can’t and mustn’t. In these cases, we must rely on the discernment of the humble, yet invaluable, qualifiers. I’ll be watching and listening for them, in hopes of retiring my red pen.

“Often, the story of an artifact’s journey is more remarkable than the object itself.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider’s Guide to Loving Museums

Provenance is the history or source of something. Most often, the word is used in reference to valued objects, pieces of art work or literature. It’s the work of those who buy and sell fine art, antiques, and manuscripts to determine the provenance of each piece, for its value is dependent on its authenticity. Imagine investing in a Francis Cook Mahogany Bombé Slant-Front Desk (c. 1770) for a cool $698,500 only to discover it’s really a clever reproduction (c. 1975). As an antiques dealer, you’d have a lot of egg on your face (and a reputation to repair).

As Mackenzie Finklea claims, however, it’s truly the story of an artifact’s journey that may become more remarkable than the object itself. For the story opens portals into the past where we may enter the lives and times which shape our heritage. And how do you begin to put a price on this?

As a teen, I recall watching my mother clean a piece of used aluminum foil and fold it into a neat square which she tucked in the drawer beside the stove. I’d seen her do this countless times before and had unthinkingly registered it as the thing to do. Years later–and after I’d salvaged many pieces of aluminum foil in my own kitchen–I asked my mother why we did this. Why save pieces of aluminum foil, when in truth, we were only saving pennies? Over coffee at her table, she explained that she saved because her mother and grandmother did, because aluminum was scarce and rationed during the Depression and both World Wars.

Here is the provenance then: from times of want and the lives of women who’d persevered, women who made up the rich heritage of my family to me, a century later, a woman who’s experienced little real want. In the face of their trials, what have I persevered? How have I suffered want? Yet, I devotedly continue the practice of the women before me. And knowing the origin and history of this practice has made me more convicted to continue it. To abandon it would be to break the family chain of remarkable women who passionately made do.

And snow ice cream, that delectable concoction of snow, sugar and vanilla! My father’s love of snow ice cream began as a boy in his own family. Years later, he hauled in bowls heaped with snow to his eager children who waited at the kitchen table. Over the years, we modified the recipe, most notably by adding food coloring to give our treat some extra flair. My mother drew the line at using yellow food coloring, though, because she was always more than a little leery about where my dad had actually gotten the snow.

Today, his granddaughter makes snow ice cream for his great-grandchildren. And though the ice cream is still as good as we remember, it’s the story of the banned yellow food coloring that’s even better. It’s knowing that his great-grandchildren remember and love a man they’d had such little time with. The provenance of snow ice cream is a gift that keeps on giving.

Of course, like most families, we have heirlooms–pieces of furniture, china, art–that carry their own provenance, and some, their own actual monetary worth. I have one grandmother’s pink Depression glass cake plate and the other grandmother’s blue crystal powder box. My siblings, too, have pieces rich in family history. Those pieces that mean the most to us are those whose provenance includes an experience: baking, fishing, eating holiday meals, spending summer vacations with grandparents. When we look at these pieces, we journey back to those relationships and experiences which have immeasureably shaped our lives.

In my last post, I quoted from Robert Frost’s poem, “Birches.” He writes that swinging on birch branches is good both going and coming back. So it is in the sanctuary of provenance. It’s good to go back to the origin of a thing or experience, to understand and appreciate it. But it’s also good to come back, bringing this knowledge and appreciation with you, hoping to push it solidly into the future where it might continue to encourage and shape those who will inherit it.

Provenance

Why do you do this?
my daughter asks.

I’m wiping clean a piece of used aluminum foil,
then folding it into a neat square 
to be stacked with others in the drawer near the stove.
My hands know the way
and make quick work of it.
My heart, too, knows the way
as I remember the words of my mother 

who saves foil still—
as if this is a lesson all must learn,
as if the economy of the world rests on this.

Why do you do this?
As a girl, I asked my mother 
when she patted shiny squares of foil where they sat—
as they always had—
beside assorted pencils and pens, a box of sandwich bags 
and a new roll of aluminum foil,
round and royal, nestled on a throne 
of hot pads.

To make do, she says.

And she tells me of the years 
her mother and grandmother suffered 
though the Depression and both World Wars. 

So, today, I tell my daughter:
We do this because your grandmother and great-grandmother
and great-great-grandmother did this,
because in a world of throw-aways, 
we remember a world of want,
because to make do
is to honor the women we love.

She looks out the window to the yard
as if the lean years wait there, 
crouched and urgent, in feed sack aprons.

And when she turns,
taking the foil into her own small hands,
she holds it like a prayer,
a provenance to live for. 

Shannon Vesely

I’d like to get away from earth awhile/ And then come back to it and begin over.
― Robert Frost “Birches”

As the polar vortex seizes the Midwest once again, frost reigns. Baby, it’s cold out there seems a wholly insufficient chorus for days when the wind chill never even breaks zero. Yet, as we hunker down and begin to count the days until spring, we might take solace in and wisdom from another Frost–Robert, that is.

I’m an unabashed fan of Robert Frost. My first real encounter with him was during music class in sixth-grade when we sang a musical version of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Even today, I can sing it and can hear the twelve-year-old voices (tethered to some semblance of tune with Miss Daniel’s magical pitch pipe) that filled the room at Park Elementary School. Whose woods these are, I think I know. . .

I had more serious encounters with Frost as an English major and poet in the 70s when the predominant culture and craft of poetry was free verse, a form that some poets and critics argued was, in reality, formless. Frost himself was no fan of free verse poetry, which, he claimed, was much like playing tennis without a net. Then–and now–I’ve straddled the prosodic line between traditional and free verse forms. I like both. I see and hear the craft of both. In my world, they live companionably in a space which respects and loves each for what it is.

But it’s the marriage of Frost’s delight and wisdom that might warm our souls as we bluster through these frigid weeks. In his poem, “Birches,” he writes of a boy who learns to ride birch trees which have been glazed with ice and bent to the frozen earth below. A “swinger of birches,” the boy “flung outward, feet first, with a swish,/ Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.” And when he’s “weary of considerations,” and “life is too much like a pathless wood,” he wishes that he just might escape it all by leaving earth for heaven. As the Omicron strain of Covid ravages our communities, I’m guessing that there are a lot of folks who’d like to “get away from earth awhile/And then come back to it to begin over.” If a cosmic do-over were possible, most of us would probably take it.

And yet, the boy’s joy in riding the birch trees towards heaven lands in Frost’s final wisdom:

Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

As an 18-year-old who couldn’t imagine leaving Earth which was absolutely “the right place for love,” I first read these lines in my freshman composition course. Today, as a seasoned 66-year-old, I cling to the wisdom of escape and return, the glorious awareness that “one could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” Escape comes in many forms for us, some more healthy and positive than others. But it comes as a balm to our earth-weary souls for times such as this. It’s redemptive but temporary, Frost argues, for the “coming back” is necessary for us mortals. As I look out my window to the timber beyond, I can imagine “both going and coming back,” and, for today, this enough.

As the world seems to spin out of control–at least, out of our individual control–we also might take solace in these words from Robert Frost:

We can make a little order where we are, and then the big sweep of history on which we can have no effect doesn’t overwhelm us. We do it with colors, with a garden, with the furnishings of a room, or with sounds and words. We make a little form, and we gain composure.

Why not “make a little order where we are”? Sound advice for those of us who often feel the chaos pressing in. To “gain composure” through the small ways we order our lives–through baking or bird-watching or woodworking or scrapbooking–is truly something. Perhaps, in truth, it’s everything. For Frost (and for me), “Every poem is a momentary stay against the confusion of the world.” But he understood that it isn’t the means of holding back the chaos, but the fact that we each find our own “little order” in something. When I’m writing or walking the country roads, I make my own order, one word and one step at a time.

I’ll leave you with this, a diamond in Frost’s jewel box of wisdom:

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

Whether I escape and come back or create a little order in a world of chaos, life goes on. There’s something comforting about this promise, for even when we’ve had dark days, a new, perhaps brighter (and warmer?) one, comes on its heels. Frost was a realist but still an optimist. Though he claimed to be one “acquainted with the night,” he was also a “swinger of birches,” momentarily escaping the darkness but always returning to the light. One could do worse.

Sinister (Merriam Webster Dictionary)

1: singularly evil or productive of evil

2: accompanied by or leading to disaster

3: presaging ill fortune or trouble

Sinister is clearly not a word that occurs naturally or frequently in everyday speech. It’s an exceptional word, a hushed-voice, dim-the-lights kind of word that raises the hairs on our arms, an Edgar Allen Poe inspired word that ushers us into the dark unknown. It conjures up silhouettes of terrifying figures that hold the road and tyrannize our dreams.

As exceptional as this word may be, I’ve seen it twice in the past few days: in Iowa Senator Jake’s Chapman’s claims regarding education and media influence and in Princeton Professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s claims concerning classical education. Although both men use the same word, they speak from diametrically opposed perspectives and worldviews. Which begs the all-important question: sinister according to whom?

In her Des Moines Register opinion piece, Reka Bashu states that Chapman made what may be “the most inappropriate allegation you’ll ever hear from a public official” when he accused members of media and education of having “a sinister agenda to normalize sexually deviant behavior against our children, including pedophilia and incest.” According to Chapman, “some teachers are disguising sexually obscene material as desired subject matter and profess it has artistic and literary value.” In addition, he stated that members of our media “wish to confuse, misguide, and deceive us, calling what is good evil and evil good.”

Chapman expressed a concern that others have aired in school board meetings, local elections, and through social media. Specifically, those who share Chapman’s perspective raise questions and concerns regarding school library books and school curricula with themes that include gender identity and sexuality. Although Senator Chapman’s remarks have drawn the ire of many educators and media representatives who argue that the only sinister agenda is his and that of likeminded folks, there are also many who share his perspective on what is sinister and evil. If you were to ask these individuals to answer the question, sinister according to whom, they’d undoubtedly respond with a resounding: according to us, those who want to protect and promote what is good.

In Thomas Chatterton Williams’ recent article in The Atlantic, “The Battle Between Ideas and Identity,” he cites Rachel Posner’s article in The New York Times Magazine in which she discusses Princeton Professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s mission “to save classics from whiteness.” Padilla explains that he “cringes” as he thinks back to his youth when he desired to be “transformed by the classical tradition.” He rues the tradition that introduced him to a formative textbook, How People Live in Ancient Greece and Rome, an experience which he now declares to be “a sinister encounter.” In his interview with Posner, he admitted that he isn’t proud of the fact that a classical education brought him out of poverty. “Claiming dignity within this sytem of structural oppression,” he said, “requires full buy-in into its logic valuation” and that he won’t “praise the architects of that trauma as having done right by you at the end.”

Although Professor Padilla Peralta’s criticism of a classical education and Great Books curriculum have angered those who find value in them, there are many who share his perspective that perpetuating this tradition is sinister. If you were to ask these people the question, sinister according to whom, they’d likewise respond with a resounding: according to us, those who seek to protect and promote what is good.

This is a dilemma, indeed. One group’s sinister is the other group’s good. Each group speaks passionately for its members. Each group advocates for the common good and sees clear, unmoveable fault lines between sinister and good. Each group has noble intentions, for the education and well-being of our citizens are at stake.

It goes without saying that social media is ablaze with comments and accusations from those who righteously denounce sinister agendas. The fervor and certainty of these posts are very similar, but the content and perspective are very different. When worldviews vary so greatly, who decides what’s sinister and what’s good? And who decides what the common good is?

To a great degree, I realize that I’m beating a dead horse. These educational questions are the same questions we’ve raised–and continue to raise–politically and culturally. We’ve been tossing them around for decades, each side lobbing rhetorical grenades at the other. We’ve been drawing and redrawing fault lines, defining and redefining what is right and good. Which brings us where, exactly?

I hope that it might at least bring us to the painful, but necessary, admission that we don’t–and most likely, won’t ever–share a wholly common perspective and definition of good and evil. I also hope that we might seriously consider a difficult question: When one group’s evil is another’s good, how do we proceed in making policy, deciding curriculum, and generally navigating our world?

In Farewell Waltz, Czech novelist Milan Kundera writes:

What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will.

Kundera’s claim that those driven to sinister occupations (or perhaps sinister agendas) are motivated by the desire for order is insightful, I think. Historically, one group’s good has always been another group’s sinister. Perhaps all groups have been driven, at least to some degree, by their desire to create order where they see chaos, to create a world in which everything goes well.

At this point, a truly wise writer would conclude with solutions and answers to the questions I’ve raised. Forgive me. I’m not that wise writer. I can, however, leave you with this. When worldviews vary so greatly, we must continue to ask when–and if–we can justifiably compromise. We must truthfully count the costs: of conceding, of compromising, and of refusing to compromise. And always, we must intentionally seek to understand those we believe hold sinister agendas.