Needs--everyone's got them...

Is it a weakness to need?

Here's what Donna Kauffman said in my most recent read of hers, although an old book, The Legend MacKinnon:
"She felt warm all the way to her bones. And tended to in a way she'd never been made to feel...no one ever had paid her a great deal of attention because she hadn't let them. To her, needing was a weakness and she wielded her independence like a sword and her self-sufficiency like a battle shield.

"Perhaps that had been her mistake. Perhaps needing wasn't the weakness. Maybe pretending you didn't have needs, or needed someone other than yourself to fulfill them was the real weakness."

I talked with a male friend about how it is that men ever choose to get married and why. What causes a man, or a self-sufficient and independent woman, to make a commitment of this size and importance when it is no longer about procreation. He thought it was about being sure there was someone secure for sex--that you didn't have to keep asking and sorting that out. Another friend, also male, said that the woman always chooses,and once a woman has chosen, the commitment/marriage eliminates that repeated risk-taking for a man. We all have needs from the most basic food/shelter/water to belonging, pleasure, fulfillment. And we have those as individuals as well as humanity.

In the book, Ripples of Hope the speech of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper of May 1866 says a lot to me (and I hope to you, fellow peacemakers):
"We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul."

1866--2006, and we are still struggling to learn that we need each other and only in that interdependence where we hold up in love those who are weakest, sharing our strength, not crushing with our strength, not destroying individuals or whole peoples, only then will we know peace.

We need peace. It isn't weak to need. Five years ago, we watched such destruction as America had not known. We need peace.

On Labor Day: What is work to you?

Over the past year, I've been struggling to define the value of work in my life. For years, I have worked in a very compulsive manner--lots of long and late hours, bringing work home, staying at work until the wee hours, working weekends. I usually worked at least two jobs--one full-time and one part-time, sometimes related, sometimes not.

I decided to stop working so much. Not because I had to, although it certainly didn't help my health, former marriages, or my relationship with my now-grown kids. Not because I was told to--I just stopped putting work first in my life, before everything. It's taking a while to really end the need, the compulsion, but I'm doing better.

And I love what I do. As a librarian I get a tremendous variety in the work and, because I work in public libraries, I can and usually do feel that I'm investing my time in the betterment of society. I make a contribution.

I found, though, that I wasn't feeling like I made enough of a contribution. The more I worked, the less of a contribution I felt I made. And I have been spending this last year sorting out the source of that discontent. I know, for example, that I am "called"--I wrote down my purpose a long time ago and I attempt to live it, albeit not always successfully. My purpose, as I've identified it, is to glorify God and be the hands of Jesus in this world showing his love and peace. Sometimes I fail miserably, sometimes I succeed gloriously.

Tonight, after a ten-day vacation when I worked very little (that's what a vacation is, right? to work only a little?), I am having my usual tomorrow is work day jitters. I am dwelling on the importance, the value, of work in my life--in our human existence.

There's L. P. Jones, in the September 2, 2006 sermon at First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham: "Vocation extends the ministry of Jesus. Each of our tasks is holy to God, can be pleasing to God, ordained by God. The world is the orchard of God. We are the fruit. It is not that we bear the fruit--we are God's fruit." And as L. P. continued, he asked, can we smell the aroma of an orchard full of apples here in this world?

George Guidall, in a talk to area librarians, about recording audio books: "The professional is someone who loves what they do, even when they don't love doing it."

Dana Stabenow in the mystery A Grave Denied, wrote: "A lot of people aren't lucky enough to find that one thing they're good at. But if you do, I think you should do it. Practice it. Make a living at it, if you can. Make a difference, if you can."

I'm not alone in this dwelling on "work." Tonight, lots of people, young and old, are contemplating their work of the next day. Students here in Michigan will return to school and some will begin school. If they're like my kids, they may not sleep tonight, or not sleep well, concerned that they don't know how to read or do math yet and they're just starting kindergarten. This school thing can be a tough job for them, especially that first year.

Some, like Will, formerly a favorite server at a local restaurant, who joined the Army just four weeks ago, or Dan, who is starting West Point, have surviving the next day on their minds--and then surviving where the military will choose to use them most effectively. They volunteered to make the military their work, protecting my freedom and yours.

Some labor tonight, even on this Labor Day holiday, because health emergencies--physical and mental--don't take holidays.

And far too many people in this country and around the world, want nothing more than to work productively, earn a living wage--enough to feed, clothe, shelter, and keep healthy themselves and their families--and don't have that option for whatever reason.

Work can be the noose around the neck, the "golden handcuffs" binding you to a better retirement, or the opportunity to express the very best of intention, the greatest kindness, the real-life hands of Jesus in this world--what is work to you?

I know what I want to make it--however I spend tomorrow. And maybe tomorrow, intention will become expression and a reality that makes a difference.

Murder Mystery Dinner Theater Train Trip

Tonight, for my birthday celebration, I took the Murder Mystery Dinner Theater Train out of Blissfield, MI. This was yet one more experience on my "Things I've Always Wanted to Do" list. When I reserved my spot, I was asked if this was a special occasion and I acknowledged that it was to celebrate my birthday.

I thought the trip to Blissfield would take four hours--it took me two. I walked around town a bit, had coffee and pie (I've always wanted to do that!) in the busiest restaurant in town, and read my latest book, another by Donna Kauffman "The Legend MacKinnon."

At 6, I and my fellow travelers boarded the train. It holds about 64 passengers and we were nearly full--I think three empty seats. I was seated at a table with a young couple, engaged, I believe. My seat had not only the place card with my surname, but also a three-balloon bouquet and a coffee cup filled with candy and a pen labeled "The Old Road."

The tracks were laid in 1836 and the conductor shared a history of bankruptcy and mergers that led to the short-line operation of today with both passenger and freight moving along the rails.

I watched the food being loaded--from the Legacy golf club down the road, and it turned out to be very very good.

The mystery was fun--the actors seemed to enjoy themselves and had an excellent knack for knowing which folks would handle "interacting" and which to leave alone.

The couple with whom I shared the three-hour meal seemed to be struggling to maintain pleasantries. taciturn is one word I thought might describe the woman. Her one statement/question to me the entire time was "You're here alone?" I thought the absence of a body in the chair next to me for the first 30 minutes of the trip was probably sufficient information.

I was delighted to give eye contact to our actors, use the servers' names when they served us, to laugh, clap, and sing along whenever the opportunity arose, to truly enjoy the song sung just for me (Summertime Blues) by one of the actor/entertainers, to revel in 60-some people singing Happy Birthday to me and to the 90-year-old Ruth, also celebrating her birthday, and to make a wish and blow out the candle on the dessert delivered while I was waiting for the restroom, the candle of which was relit for me by a young woman at a neighboring table.

If I were to do this again, I think the one thing I might do differently would be to assure myself a full table of three more folks I know...

Tonight I learned there are worse things than being as shy as I am such as being unpleasant instead. I learned, or rather remembered, that being in a relationship that is full of negativity and strain is worse than being alone. I was reminded, again, that there is someone for everyone--short men with tall women, ebullient, wise-cracking men with sweet kindly women, 30- and 35-year anniversaries in couples that don't seem to match in so many ways yet seem to have magic glue. And, perhaps, some of the best birthday gifts we receive are the ones we give ourselves--another year with the willingness and open-mindedness to learn, forgiveness for our own mistakes, allowing ourselves to receive kindnesses from strangers with grace, and recognition of the blessings, material and spiritual, that come in odd little packages.

like an "Old Road" coffee cup with candy and a pen inside and three balloons tied on.