Margin

Over this Winter break (it was quite a bit longer than a Christmas break) I worked to get rid of excess stuff. Ultimately five leaf bags went elsewhere as well as several bags of trash. An increase of at least ten pounds ended up being the deciding factor for many of my skirts and pants. An infestation of some sort of white fungus decided the fate of some of my plants. I organized other categories of belongings and labeled rubbermaids for ready access when a need could arise. Recognizing the fact that I am uncertain of where I may up living/working/teaching in the next year, I do not wish to get rid of supplies that I will then be repurchasing in the next months. (This week starting teaching I, of course, found a use for one sewing project that was in those leaf bags.)

While I was sorting through containers of things I listened to Richard Swenson’s Margin on audio CD. The premise of the book is built on the Dr. Swenson’s knowledge of his patients - their physical ailments, stress, and its relationship to their overextended lives. This overextension of resources and energy is a phenomenon primarily experienced by industrial nations and defines living life without margin. While situations in my past have taught me my own limits concerning work and class loads I currently have much opportunity to reduce my possession load. I have desired a life of simplicity (dreams of chickens in the yard) but this had not translated to better management of how much I have and hoard. I had operated more on the assumption that good stewardship would mean spending money efficiently as possible – utilizing second hand stores, clearance sales (can’t beat buying shirts for a buck), and hand making things rather than recognizing I have what I need and stemming the influx. I think it is apparent that I still have more than I need in the fact that I have one body and multiple pairs of jeans. I think my remaining wardrobe will remain for the possibility of needing to be able to dress to teach. I cannot, in this country, hold a teaching position without decent clothes.

But Dr. Swenson’s book is not about getting rid of everything. It is about carefully evaluating values, energy levels, resources and not attempting to live life beyond the limits of the printed page. In this analogy, I think it is that our relationship with God is not the element of our lives that is at the top of the page or in the position of number one priority. It is that our God and relationship to Him are the page itself. He is all that supports and defines each sentence of our existence. Swenson points out that without margin life is cluttered, stressful, draining, and possibly harmful. It is also clear that excess time at work or energy spent managing belongings can impede opportunities to engage in the gifts of life that ‘matter’. Swenson encourages authentic relationships, availability for service, and resting in God.

I don’t know if multi-tasking: cleaning out stuff while listening to audio books is in alignment with the philosophy, but I found it to be good encouragement. I am quite aware that I have already accumulated more than I may ever need. I have more cross-stitch patterns than I could complete in two lifetimes. But now, if my lifetime would cross the path of another’s lifetime who would be interested in some of ‘my’ cross-stitch patterns – they can have ‘em. The only chance that I think I’ve got for remotely accepting the same philosophy regarding my books is the fact that we have a very good library system.

(These chickens are pets. They live online at GotPetsOnline. I fear if I were to actually have chickens, they would also be pets - which isn't very cost effective.)

Three Cups of Tea

The church that I attend holds 'Mission Mixers' for missionaries to give updates of what they have been doing. Prior to the latest one, in which the missionary would be speaking about time spent in Pakistan, I decided to read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The subtitle of the book reads, 'One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time'. This, of course, is the selling point for the book. The story as related, does not tell of Mortenson making this his quest and then setting out to do it. It was, that as an expression of extreme gratitude to the people of mountain village in Pakistan, Mortensen promised to build them as school. He didn't say he would do so to fight terrorism, but simply because they needed one. As the project grew and schools were built it become more apparent that education in any form could counteract the reliance of the village students on the madrassa schools of the Taliban. These schools were built to be taught by Pakistani teachers, teaching Pakistani culture and religion, but not militant Islam. In this the students were granted, with and through their educations, choice. In the years following the fall of the towers, Mortenson does strongly advocate for education as “one prong of a two prong attack on the ‘war on terror’". He points out if the same amount of money were poured into the education systems of Pakistan and Afghanistan that the effects would be lasting. It is argued that the current methods being used to attempt to fight the terrorists are creating more animosity as well as uniting and deepening the resolve and hatred of those who were already opposed to America. We are, in fact, ensuring the survival of the roots of the enemy. The other fact pointed out is that the war efforts are obliterating the opportunities for those who are not involved in militant/fundamentalist efforts. Schools are leveled and business wiped out. Many choose to fight for the Taliban because they are offered the only paycheck, option, or future available.

I didn't finish the book before the Mission Mixer. I was (and am) I bit unsure of asking the missionary what he thought/thinks of the war. It is a loaded question and posed to someone who has walked through the mine fields of that area, it seemed more than politically incorrect. But it did leave me thinking of what do I think of the war. More so it left me thinking about education and the choices that are made available with an education. These choices go far beyond career opportunities to the basic choices of existence. Without any way to attain information other than what is handed to you by those who hold the information there is no way to consider options. This considering of options and then being free to make choices based on these options provide some of the foundational principles of being human. It is here that human rights are violated and in ways that I cannot even comprehend. I understand that there are limitations to the information that I can gather. I cannot see the world not through my 'lenses' - my worldview. I cannot know all the facts of any situation, but I can read. I can gather as many facts as I can gather. I can know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I don't have enough information. I can know that there is a more complete picture available because I have been exposed to portions of that picture. Flipside, I know that literacy and education are not the only way that a person may gather information and learn to critically think, but I would think that they certainly do help and are the way for most of us.

I learned a bit more about Pakistan and Afghanistan. I think the most memorable is that the vehicles are often decorated in bright pictures, paintings, and plastic flowers (?). It would seem that is a more of a universal practice than I had known. Perhaps America's efforts to get rid of graffiti are anti-cultural and ought to be embraced and celebrated as artwork and the expressions of a people. But that is probably beside the point.
The 'bad guys' that America are attempting to fight are not all the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan or Iraq or Iran. They are a few - who took their educations seriously enough to learn to fly a plane. But it only takes one right (wrong) negative to completely undo all the positive. If the "true enemy is ignorance", (p.310) education will continue to be an important weapon in the war against that negative.

So many books, so little time

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was dating a guy. The first time that we went out with his friends we had all been sitting eating for a while and he left the table to go wherever. Left with his friends I expected the questions or comments that wouldn't be voiced in his presence. While I was sitting there still working on cold French fries, the good ol' boy sitting across the table from me stated, 'Man, you do eat slow.' I don't know if I attempted to 'defend' myself, but all I could've said is that I always have. I have often smiled to think that as I was expecting deep, revealing tidbits about the nature of this budding relationship, I learned that my leisurely eating pace had made an impression worth telling one's friends about.
I still eat slow.
Attempting to make comments about the books that I have read has resulted in reading through a couple of books (several if audio books count) before remotely thinking about what I would want to say about the first. I could present thoughts half-chewed, but that seems as polite as speaking with one's mouth full. But, perhaps in the effort to say anything at all that is precisely what must be done. I would only ask for the consideration for it to be recognized that 'I'm not done chewing'. On most issues and topics it has seemed that I may never be done chewing, but that seems a bit overwhelming, and with the chewing analogy - gross.
Since the first entry to the 'literary pursuits' blog I have cleaned up book pile #4.5 and fish tank #2.5. Several boxes of books have been catalogued and made ready for storage and some of the piles of books have found homes in the bookshelf - where they loom over my head while I type, reminding me of all that is yet to be considered, chewed, and digested.
Enough of the analogy. The point was....
that maybe there shouldn't have been an analogy.

The Reasoning

As part of the process of organizing my life I am considering organizing my blog as well. I am a rampant book-starter and a periodic book-finisher. But started, or finished - I gain much from reading. This semester's completion of my courses required for my degree is leaving me feeling much at a loss as to where to process all this literary information. I will not have my professors as a rapt audience, sounding board, or opportunity for critique. I will not have my paper-writing process to hash through information and find the possible holes in my own arguments. And for all this I am sad.

I am determined that this aspect of my education will continue. There are books in piles about my room, stacked like cairns pointing toward great knowledge and truth. (Most importantly stacked out of the walkways.) Pile #4.5, sitting in front of fish tank #2.5 consists of The Fountainhead, Jesus Among the Other Gods, The Bro's K, Soul Survivor, The Evidential Power of Beauty, 1 Dead in the Attic, Essays of Montaigne, Cold Mountain, The Portable Library of Conrad, and the Once and Future King. Sitting off to the side to keep from blocking the poor beta altogether are Sherlock Holmes: The Short Stories, Walk on Water, The Universe Next Door, and Irresistible Revolution. The books that I get at the library are those that I am most likely to complete -- I will have to return them, so the limited time provides the necessary pressure to persist to the end.

With more than adequate resources of books started, stopped, set down, piled upon, and lost in the glorious abundance of literature or even the fraction of it that is stacked about my room I will endeavor to write about reading. In all honesty I feel I have not practiced this type of writing (if it is a type) as much as I have chemistry lab results or observational notes of classroom experience. But as there is much to gain and learn in process, the process and its inherent bumblings and stumblings will hopefully be deemed worthwhile.

(I will change out that fish tank water - he does have a bubbler and therefore some oxygen in there)