New Years Resolution

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine preached a terrific sermon (which you can listen to here), drawing from the book The Art of Possibility. One of the authors, Benjamin Zander, teaches a class on Interpretation at the New England Conservatory. He starts each class by announcing that every student will get an A. The only requirement is that each student write a letter, dated the following May, that tells in as much detail as possible what will have changed in them because of this class.

The students may, if they wish, mention specific goals reached or competitions won. "But," I tell them, "I am especially interested in the person you will have become by next May. I am interested in the attitude, feelings, and worldview of that person who will have done all she wished to do or become everything he wanted to be."

When the class was asked a few weeks later how they felt about this, one student from Taiwan responded this way:

In Taiwan, I was Number 68 out of 70 student. I come to Boston and Mr. Zander says I am an A. Very confusing. I walk about, three weeks, very confused. I am Number 68, but Mr. Zander says I am an A student...I am Number 68, but Mr. Zander says I am an A. One day I discover much happier A than Number 68. So I decide I am an A.

In her sermon, my friend preached that this is the essence of the gospel: you have the A. How are you different because of it?

After all the moaning I did yesterday about my strange decade, I realize I'm still trying to decide that I am an A. Not because of any goals or achievements, but because of the person I am becoming. I think it's going to take me a while to believe it, but I also think it's true. The A is a given; now what will happen as a result?

My resolution is not to live up to the A, but to relax into it, trust it's there, and see where it leads me. I'm looking forward to continuing to explore that with you.

Happy new year, and blessings for 2010.

Quote of the Day

...the only status that you could fail to achieve is the status quo. The only thing, the only failure in life was not to make the effort to change our station.

Jon Stewart in his remarks about Bruce Springsteen in the Kennedy Center Honors. This part was unfortunately left out of what was broadcast, but it was part of Backstreets News. (And thanks to uberfan, Molly, who found this.)

The sentiment seems apt for the start of a new year and a new decade.

Here's the expurgated version of Stewart's presentation, which is still wonderful:

My unsettled decade

I was thinking back over the aughts the other day. There's the headline news version of this crazy decade, of course, but I was thinking about what it was like for me personally. And I realized it was incredibly unsettled.

Let's start with the living arrangements. I realized, upon consideration, that I have lived in 12 places since 2000. When writing my Christmas cards this year, I noted that I have moved 5 times in the last 2 years. I lived in three states (California, Ohio, and for one summer, Washington state) and two countries (Uganda, natch). My longest stint was in a dreadful apartment from which I did not move because I kept expecting to move to something more permanent. That didn't happen until I was laid off, which in many ways was the best thing to happen to me. (It got me out of that apartment for one thing.)

Then I started thinking about work. Of the past 10 years, less than half was spent in full-time employment, in three separate jobs. I was employed part-time for about three of those years, was unemployed for a total of one year (in two separate stints), and was a student for 1 1/2 years at the very beginning of the decade. I'm actually amazed I'm in financially as sound a situation as I am, especially given I'm living in California, but I know that's largely due to the generosity of family, friends, and church.

With all of that, I was starting to feel very depressed about wasting 10 years of my life. But then a Facebook friend, looking at my blog the other day, commented that I was very impressive. I couldn't imagine what he was talking about. But there it is, over in the "about me" column: I was a Kiva fellow in Uganda, and I'm the managing director of a non-profit, which I guess does sound impressive. Then I realized I also got a graduate degree, did a couple of triathlons, and started a college chaplaincy. If you look at it that way, it was a really good decade.

If there's one thing I've learned from obits it's that a life that looks impressive in summary takes an awful long time to live. And if there's one thing I've learned from cemeteries it's that your accomplishments don't remember you.

I'm not sure, summing up, whether it was a good decade or a bad decade for me. It was what it was. How was it for you? Personally, I'm happy it's over. I'm looking forward to a new decade and curious to see what happens. I'm hoping for something more stable. But you never know.

Persimmon bread update

I finally made the persimmon bread and I have to say it was a disappointment. Not bad. No, nothing wrong with it. There just wasn't anything distinctive about it. It didn't taste like persimmon bread. It tastes like...bread. Your generic quick bread with cinnamon and nutmeg. And there's nothing wrong with that. I was just hoping for something that said, "I am an exotic and delicious bread made with a fruit you don't find just anywhere."

If I do make it again, I think I would put in dried cranberries. But make no mistake, if I make it again, it is entirely because I need to do something with the tons of persimmons on the tree in the backyard. I mean, look at that thing. What do you do with all those persimmons?

My Top 10 list of 2009

I spent a lot of yesterday poring over the Top 10 Everything of 2009 lists on Time.com. This is entirely Jan Edmiston's fault over at A Church for Starving Artists who lured me in with the Top 10 political cartoons, and then suddenly Sunday was gone. And still no persimmon bread.

The thing that's weird for me is I really can't remember what things were notable in 2009 and not other years. That makes my top 10 list very limited, but here it is:

Laura's Top 10 list of favorite things that I can remember doing/reading/hearing/seeing/occurring during 2009

1) Best restaurant I ate at: Eggheads in Fort Bragg, where I had lunch after church at St. Michael's each Sunday

2) Best non-fiction book I read: The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose about his year posing as an Evangelical Christian at Liberty University.

3) Best fiction I read: I read a lot of Emma Lathen mysteries and just loved them. None of that fancy-schmancy prize winning contemporary fiction for me. So what if they weren't published in 2009. Or in this millennium even. They are still pertinent today. And well-written always.

4) Best movie I saw: Herb & Dorothy, a documentary about unexpected NYC art collectors. It was such a treat.

5) Favorite blogger I followed: Ta-Nehisi Coates, as you might have guessed. He makes me think, and I do like that. Here's a post that I particularly liked from earlier this year.

6) Best audio I heard: This American Life had hands down the best, clearest reporting on the recession and health insurance among other lighter fare, such as this episode on 24 hours at a rest area in New York State. Which is three things, but they're all friggin' awesome.

7) Best TV show I saw: continues to be The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

8) Coolest place I visited: Forest Lawn Memorial Park in L.A.

9) Biggest new time-waster: Twitter. 'nuff said. Though learning how to set up an RSS feed didn't help any.

10) And finally: Biggest personal accomplishment, 2009: Growing hollyhocks from seed. Seriously, I'm very pleased about that. It's going to be hard to beat that in 2010.

And now on to the persimmon bread.

Sunday funnies

From the fabulous folks at Improv Everywhere



Find the rest of the story here.

Doyenne of the Diaphanous

It's been a while since I've pulled out an obit for your reading pleasure and here, just in time for Boxing Day, is a beauty: Alice Schiller, Impresaria of Striptease!

Oh, it's so good.

Mrs. Schiller, who by her niece’s account never drank or smoked or swore, had not set out to own a supper club in which performers left the stage vastly lighter than when they came on. But for nearly two decades, from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, she reigned gamely as a doyenne of the diaphanous, owning and operating the Pink Pussycat with her husband, Harry.

And then,

The club was also internationally famous for its attached institution of higher learning, the Pink Pussycat College of Strip Tease, familiarly called the Navel Academy of the West

which taught classes like “The History and Theory of the Striptease,” “The Psychology of Inhibitions,” “Applied Sensual Communication” and “Dynamic Mammary, Navel and Pelvis Rotation.”

Just excellent!

Merry Christmas to you.