A Different Kind of Fiber Art

Our church first experimented with a prayer loom for Holy Week, specifically with our Maundy Thursday service.  I had thought we might do more with it in the months that followed, but we didn't.  Happily the prayer loom was just fine left all alone.

Last month, I moved it to the arts and crafts area of VBS.  It looked like this, with the Holy Week prayer stands still there:

We had four groups of elementary school children come through the arts and crafts room last Thursday.  With each, I explained the concepts of prayer and talking to God, and how the strands of yarn represented our prayers.  The children were eager to choose their yarn and start weaving:

I talked about how we could write people's names on strips of cloth or tags of paper and weave them in.  A few children did that.

One group wove one strand of yarn and went to painting with watercolors.  One group spent the whole time weaving.  One group had some of the children interested in the loom for the whole time while the others painted.  At the end of the night, the loom was significantly fuller.

I have now moved the prayer loom and the basket of yarn to the back of the sanctuary, with a sign (which I borrowed from this site) that invites everyone to weave more prayers:

 This morning, I will have time to go to the back of the sanctuary to see if more people have added to the loom.

I also wonder if this kind of experience could be utilized in non-spiritual aspects.  Is there a place for this kind of loom in writing classrooms?  Hmm.  I plan to think about that piece more in months to come.

Why Not Use Nuclear Weapons?

I was rather aghast to hear that Donald Trump had asked why we couldn't use nuclear weapons--after all, we have them, so why not use them?

I realize that I've spent more time thinking about nuclear weapons than the average person, but can he really not understand?  Or is this more bluster?

He should read John Hersey's Hiroshima, which began life as a nonfiction piece in The New Yorker. In the summer of 1985, I read obsessively about nuclear weapons, both their genesis and their current status, and Hiroshima was one of the books I read. Best book of that summer? War Day, by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, a sobering piece of fiction about life in the U.S. after a massive nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union; it's still a compelling read. I remember Hersey's book as being elegaic in its depiction of the lost city and the suffering of the people.

Either book would instruct Trump in the ways that nuclear weapons disrupt regular life far and wide in a way that most weapons don't.  The bombs used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki were small by today's standards--but what damage they did!  The effects of that bomb obliterated much of Hiroshima--and vaporized some of it.  There were reports of people fused into pavement and glass--or just vanished, with a trace remaining at the pavement.  The reports of the survivors who walked miles in search of help or water are grim.  And many of those survivors would die of the effects of radiation in the coming years.

Through the years, I've seen many a documentary about the rush to build nuclear weapons, about the uncertainty of what would happen with those first tests and explosions--would the very atmosphere around the planet dissolve?  I have yet to see any footage of scientists who wondered what might happen to civilians on the ground when these bombs exploded.

I've lived long enough to see history being made to know that the choices can be fairly ghastly.  In this case, far better to develop the weapons before the Germans. I know many people who believe that the use of these bombs helped avoid more years of grueling battles that would have left us with even more dead--one could argue that the sacrifice of the populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were worth the avoidance of more years of war and that loss of life.

I've also done enough reading and thinking about pacifist approaches to wonder if there might not have been another way if we had acted much earlier.

On this day in 1945, nuclear weapons were first used in war, and so far, we haven't used them in war again.  We have been lucky that nuclear weapons are so complicated and pose such a health risk in terms of radiation that terrorists have stayed away from them.

Let us do all that we have in our power to do to make sure that these weapons are not used again.

Try the Simple Approach

Several weeks ago, our spin class teacher had a very simple approach to our class.  We would climb for six minutes, go fast for 20 seconds, and then recover for three minutes.  Then we'd do it again, cycle after cycle, until class was over.

Some teachers have more complicated routines.  For example, we might climb switchback style, adding gears and pedaling for 30 seconds, taking off gears and pedaling, adding one here, taking off two there.  I like those routines because they keep calling me back to the moment, reminding me to be present.

But when we did our streamlined routine several weeks ago, I was reminded of the benefit of a simple approach.  When it was time to climb, I added as much gear as I could stand and pumped away.  When it was time to speed, I took much of the gear off and went as fast as I could.  We didn't worry about the music--although I like a routine matched to the beat of the music, the beat of any particular song seemed less important that day.

As I think about that approach and the satisfying workout that I had that day, I wonder if we could adopt a similar approach to other areas of life.  I think about my creative work, about all the various projects I have going at any given time.  Would I better off if I simply worked on poems?

I think of our approach to teaching Composition, which I've taught in a variety of ways.  I think one of the less successful ways is to say, "O.K. this week we're writing a process essay.  Next week, we'll write an argumentative essay.  Let's move on to a research essay."  I would rather have a stripped down approach:  tell me what's interesting to you this week.

Of course, the danger to this approach is that students don't always know how to approach that kind of essay.  Or they choose a topic that really needs research.  Or the choosing of the topic takes so much time that there's no time left to polish the writing.

The other lesson to come out of the simple approach to spin class is to remember that one single approach would never satisfy most of us for long.  It's a nice change of pace, but I wouldn't want it day after day.

It's a good tool to have in our toolboxes, as we approach much of life.  If I'm feeling frustrated, in teaching, in creative life, I'll try to remember to focus on just one aspect, for at least a little time.

Poetry Thursday: Nancy Drew as Teacher

It's early August, which would have still been high summer during my youth, but in these days of high stakes testing, many schools are starting earlier, which means these are the waning days of summer.

I originally thought I'd have my chapbooks at the beginning of summer, but there's been an 8 week delay, and it won't surprise me if the delay stretches longer.

It won't be a bad thing to have an autumn release of my chapbook.  I need to start to think about doing a few readings perhaps, or having a party here or there.  My younger self might have already done the planning and the organizing.  My older self says, "See how it all works out--I had no readings scheduled, and so I can wait to plan readings until I have the books in hand."  I've done pre-release readings hoping that people would buy books, and no one did.

As I sent out e-mails to let pre-release purchasers know of the delay, my thoughts returned to the poems in the chapbook, and since teachers head back to school down here a week from Monday, let me post my Nancy Drew as teacher poem to cheer up your Thursday.




Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Pre-Drop Outs

Nancy Drew decides she needs new
mysteries to solve, so she returns
to school, to mold young minds.

Long ago, in between cracking cases
involving diaries or letters or maps and solving
secrets in attics and towers, she got a teaching
certificate, as ambitious women did in those days.
Now she calls the school board to see
how she might be of use.

Her credentials, old and out of date,
don't prevent her from taking charge
of the most hopeless classrooms,
the students on a layover
on their journey to juvenile court.

Given tattered textbooks and worksheets without
answer keys, Nancy Drew adopts
a different approach.  As always, she calls
on her friends.

Bess runs a bakeshop, so she teaches
the students to cook, a retro home-ec
approach.  Nancy Drew's feminist critics
would not approve, but this generation
of students, raised on cooking shows, responds
with rare enthusiasm.

Nancy Drew believes in fresh air and sunshine,
so she recruits her friend George, a marine
biologist, for ideas.  George leads
field trips to various ecosystems:
swamp walks and snorkeling and soon
some of the students are ready
for college-track science classes.

These clues to a better future don't prevent
some of her students from sneaking
away to explore more ancient secrets.
She tries to keep them focused on the future,
but she remembers Ned Nickerson
and those cars now considered classics.

She thinks Of Ned in the roadster,
and later, her love confined to the hospital bed,
immune from rescue, unable to hear
her whispered pleas.

She kisses the old locket always worn
around her neck and writes the day's lesson
plan on the white board.  At the end
of the day, she erases the smeared
lines from the board to leave a blank
space to be filled again in the morning.

Swaths of Time and Writing in the Margins

Yesterday, a colleague and friend asked me how I made money on my forthcoming chapbook, especially since we had been talking about publication delays (for those of you wondering where your chapbook is, the delay will be at least 8 weeks, which would be later in August--and I won't be surprised if it's a bit longer than that).

Well, the truth is that I may not make any money on this chapbook.  I do get some copies as part of my publication deal.  And I could buy additional copies at half price, which would mean I'd make roughly $6 per copy, if I sold them.

Clearly I will not be leaving my day job.  And I'm grateful to have this day job, along with my part-time jobs teaching online.

I was talking to the same friend about her jewelry making, which she's had time to do with reduced teaching this summer; suddenly she has swaths of time that she didn't have during the first part of the year.  She's setting up an Etsy site and seeing what happens.  We talked about how to price her work.  If she thinks about how much she spent on the supplies, she may price herself out of the market.  I would be encouraged to sell pieces so that I wouldn't have to store them--and she has a smaller house the way that I do.

Over lunch, I talked with a different friend about post-teaching jobs.  I talked about being a spiritual director, which she has no interest in, so I asked her about her creativity work.  Right now she's had some opportunities that she's had to pass up because she's got a very full teaching schedule.

I've thought of taking some classes and getting some certifications while I'm still employed at my current job.  But I don't have time to do a lot of the activities I'd like to do now.  When would I fit in coursework?

My spouse and I have often commented that in our lives we seem to have money or time--and when we have time, we don't always have the money to enjoy some of the activities we'd like to explore.

I wish that I could end with some pithy suggestions, with the big reveal that I've discovered a way of balancing it all.  I have no pithy suggestions, no big reveal.

I do have a plan for August.  I have been feeling a bit of despair over having several stories in my head with very little time at home to write.  I have noticed that there are days when I might be able to write a bit at the office--some people take smoking breaks still, so why shouldn't I take a fiction writing break?  I'll write one or two stories while at home, and I'll work on a different story when I'm at work.  At the end of August, we'll see if I've written more than I would have with my only write fiction on the home computer approach.

You Are Living in a Poem

On Sunday, I heard a great interview with Naomi Shahib Nye on the radio show On Being.  She says that she writes "You Are Living in a Poem" on the board of any room she's in:

"I just came back from Japan a month ago, and in every classroom, I would just write on the board, 'You are living in a poem.' And then I would write other things just relating to whatever we were doing in that class. But I found the students very intrigued by discussing that. 'What do you mean, we’re living in a poem?” Or, “When? All the time, or just when someone talks about poetry?' And I’d say, 'No, when you think, when you’re in a very quiet place, when you’re remembering, when you’re savoring an image, when you’re allowing your mind calmly to leap from one thought to another, that’s a poem. That’s what a poem does.' And they liked that."

I love her approach to life--which includes writing:  "One thing I’ve tried to say to groups over the years, groups of all ages, is that writing things down, whatever you’re writing down, even if you’re writing something sad or hard, usually you feel better after you do it. Somehow, you’re given a sense of, 'OK, this mood, this sorrow I’m feeling, this trouble I’m in, I’ve given it shape. It’s got a shape on the page now. So I can stand back, I can look at it, I can think about it a little differently. What do I do now?' And very rarely do you hear anyone say they write things down and feel worse."

She reminds us that it need not take a lot of time:  "And I think many people are encouraged to think you could write that little and still gain something from it. That you don’t have to be spending an hour and a half to three hours to five hours a day writing to have a meaningful experience with it. It’s a very immediate experience. You can sit down and write three sentences. How long does that take? Three minutes. Five minutes. And be giving yourself a very rare gift of listening to yourself, just finding out when you go back and look at what you wrote. And how many times we think, 'Oh, I would never have remembered that if I hadn’t written it down.'”


Go here to listen to the show or read the transcript.

July: The Writer's Report

Periodically I like to do a writer's check in.  It help keeps me honest both here in real time, and later, when I tend to castigate myself for what I didn't get done--and then I look back and realize that I actually did better than what I think.

Let me remember that July was a month with special challenges:  more online teaching duties, more administrator work to do with 7 new hires, a back going into spasms, and Vacation Bible School.

But with all the challenges, I still managed to get writing done:

--I wrote a few poems, along with some false starts.

--I have started writing 2 short stories, and I have another one in my head.  I've been thinking about the complete collection, and I went back to some of the other stories to make some revisions.

--I sent some poem packets out into the world, even though July is not a great time for making submissions, as many journals aren't reading in the summer.

--My friend and I have gotten back to our Purgatory project.

--I continued blogging faithfully.

Here we are, launching into August.  My writing goals will stay the same--but I also need to think about September, where I'd like to step up the pace on some projects, particularly in submitting.  I want to start sending out some of these stories that will make my Activists at 50 collection--it would be wonderful to generate publishing interest in the collection as I bring it to fruition.