I had the pleasure of talking with children’s author and illustrator, Kevin Scott Collier via email regarding blogs, life, kids, God. In the course of it I had a chance to visit his blog. His entries on being a father, losing a father, gaining an unexpected friend in a convalescent home, have real heart. There is also a link to a very rich homepage. There you can see the many many books he’s illustrated or written, along with the many authors he’s worked with, including his wife, Kristen Collier. To visit the home page, just click on the link at the top of his blog. Enjoy!
Archive for February, 2008
The Post – About That Whole “Mad” Thing
February 9, 2008Just a note on a Saturday before grocery shopping.
I kept pondering yesterday’s post about giving a gift when you’re angry. All day long thoughts ran through my head, even in the shower last night. I suppose that’s the mark of a good spiritual master and his words, the mark of a good writer in general – whether he’s right or wrong, whether you agree or disagree, it makes you think. Kind of like Voltaire’s quote about judging a man by his questions rather than by his answers. The answers aren’t as important as stopping to ask the questions.
So questions ran through my mind all day and night about Thich Nhat Hanh’s quote to give a gift to defuse anger and reconnect with a loved one or friend. Like I said yesterday, I know it can work, and has many times. However, like the Buddha’s approach to life – the Middle Path, which means to go to neither one extreme nor the other – there is more to this subject. There is the context of the relationship and the nature of the disagreement.
This approach can work in relationships where love and respect exists, and both are committed to resolving differences. This approach certainly won’t work in abusive relationships. It won’t work when negotiating with another group or country who seeks destruction. Or maybe it does, except it’s the nature of the gift that changes. In those situations what might be needed is true compassion, the kind that draws a line and says this behavior is not acceptable. I am not the doormat. Even Thich Nhat Hanh, who was exiled from his native country of Vietnam until very recently, did not try to approach those bent on killing him with a gift. Instead, he offered the “gift” of continuing to work with love in the world, even love for his enemies, and followed his own path.
Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, wrote about “idiot compassion” in her book, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. She said:
” . . . idiot compassion . . . is when we avoid conflict and protect our good image by being kind when we should say a definite “no.” Compassion doesn’t imply only trying to be good. When we find ourselves in an aggressive relationship, we need to set clear boundaries. The kindest thing we can do for everyone concerned is to know when to say “enough.”
Her teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said that idiot compassion refers to the tendency of spiritual practitioners to give people what they want as opposed to what they need, all in the name of being nice and compassionate.
When your screaming toddler wants ice cream all the time or your surly teenager wants to stay out all night, idiot compassion would be to give in. To offer those things as gifts for peace, is not love.
I am curious about the context of yesterday’s statements by Thich Nhat Hanh, so curious, in fact, I need to read the rest of this book. I need to hear more about what this man of peace says about Anger, and how to cool its flames. I went to my old friend, Amazon.com, and in seconds with the click of a few buttons, I have a copy of his book winging its way here. My appetite is whetted. I need to know more.
Perhaps yesterday’s piece did its job. It made me ask questions.
Coming up in the future – I have this older book about American authors at home. It shows pictures of various authors in their workspace. I’m always curious about how people set up the area in which they create. I look at myself and realize I don’t just have a writer’s room, but a writer’s house. I’m a migratory writer and my projects have taken over ROOMS and WALLS and the GARAGE. I am like this bacteria I used to identify years ago when I worked in a microbiology lab: Proteus mirabilis. It starts out as one single round colony on an agar plate. Then it stealthily sends out microscopic “colonizing parties.” In a few hours the wavy swarm of the Proteus colony has overrun everything else on the plate. It does have the positive quality that when you lift the plate, it smells like chocolate cake, but still, it takes over everything. So…coming up – Proteus mirabilis – my approach to living the writing life at home.
The Gift
February 9, 2008Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year 2007
(based on votes from visitors to their Web site)
To find out, click on: http://www.m-w.com/info/07words.htm
The Gift
February 8, 2008“Kindness”
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes any sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
The Post – When You’re Mad, Give a Gift?
February 8, 2008Yesterday morning’s reading for my online spirituality course with Thich Nhat Hanh was counter-intuitive to say the least. Some might read it and say “in your dreams.” Others might look at it and say, “That’s manipulative.” But I read it, and in spite of myself, I really did understand it. In fact, I’ve felt it happen now and then.
His words:
“There may be times when you are angry with someone, and you try everything you can to transform your anger, but nothing seems to work. In this case, the Buddha proposes that you give the other person a present. It sounds childish, but it is very effective. When we’re angry with someone, we want to hurt them. Giving them a present changes that into wanting to make them happy. So, when you are angry with someone, send him a present. After you have sent it, you will stop being angry with him. It’s very simple, and it always works.
Don’t wait until you get angry to go and buy the present. When you feel very grateful, when you feel you love him or her so much, then go and buy the present right away. But don’t send it; don’t give it to the other person yet. Keep it. You may have the luxury of having two or three presents stored secretly in your drawer. Later, when you feel angry, take one out and deliver it. It is very effective. The Buddha was very smart.”
Thich Nhat Hanh in Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames
Now at first thought, the idea of giving someone a gift when you want to throttle them, seems impossible, even laughable. Maybe something that blows up? But a real, honest-to-goodness gift? I don’t think so.
And the other person might think: “What’s this? You trying to make me feel guilty and manipulate me into liking you again? You’ve got hopes. Now I’m even angrier at you for pulling this!”
Yet, all skepticism aside, I know what he means and hard as it can be at that moment, it’s true. And it’s not childish. Child-like maybe. A big difference which I’ll mention below.
There have been times when I was angry with my husband and all sense of love and remembering “why I married him” evaporated into fantasies of how best to wring his neck. I’m sure he felt the same way. Revenge plots, not gift ideas, were the order of the day. Yet even in that moment there was that small voice that said “Do you love him?” And of course, the answer deep down was , “Yessss. I love him.” And the voice would answer, “Then if you love him, you cannot act that way.”
I’d remember that if something were to suddenly threaten him, I’d be right there by his side to protect or help him. I’d also remember the many good things shared, times his love saved me, the times things he did just melted my heart. The moment of capitulation would soon follow.
The moment of capitulation when trying to “hold your grudge” is the moment when you want to hate, but instead you remember and feel even a tiny inkling of your love. You feel frustrated with the Universe, for sure. My thoughts would run something like: “I really wanted my pound of flesh and instead, here’s the Universe deflating a good rage.” You feel the struggle of “But I’m mad at him,” versus “He’s my friend and I hate this. Can we just get back to being friends?”
The times that I’ve tried the counter-intuitive approach and gave in to the part that loves, it was like a crack in the dam of anger. By offering even just some tidbit of a compliment, or telling him something like “I’m really upset because I love you and I hate being at odds with you,” it was the thing that started to bring us both back to center. By refraining from revenge and instead remembering the love, by trusting to kindness instead of attacking, it made “space” for things to change. It became safe for both of us to leave our entrenched, polarized fortresses, hold up a flag of truce, meet in the middle, and discuss terms of surrender. And by the way, surrender is not “losing.” It’s “yielding” to a greater good. It’s the meeting of two to make something bigger and better than either one of us . . . or our egos.
I liked Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea to have a few gifts around, and to buy them when you are feeling those warm loving emotions for that person. The feelings will be stored in those gifts. When you take them out during anger, those objects release the good feelings back to you. What you stored in them – goodwill, love, the reminder that there are still good things between you – is like money in the bank you can withdraw at that moment. They are the tangible evidence that love existed, and they are the catalysts that start the process of softening the anger.
So perhaps it’s not so strange an idea after all, if you can just swallow the ego. I can see where it can bring things back from the brink. The gifts can be small – even a funny or loving card, just something that captures what is shared in the good moments. And it’s the lesson we can learn from kids.
If you watch kids play, one minute they’re fighting, two minutes later they’re friends again. Somebody picks up their marbles and runs home. A few minutes later they’re calling to ask if you can come over to play. Kids have the ability to live in the moment, not store up hostilities. They clear the air and move on. That’s probably what Thich Nhat Hanh meant by childish. I prefer the term “child-like” though. Childish can imply selfish, insensitive, immature. Child-like implies the best of being young – the ability to flow with things, to have an open mind, to be in the moment, to find awe in even the simplest things. Jesus said that we had to become like the little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I believe He meant the same thing as Thich Nhat Hanh.
In any event, one thing I do concur with for sure: The gifts should be bought when happy. I’d hate to see what I’d come home with during rage. 🙂
The Post – Reflections on a Belted Kingfisher
February 7, 2008The first time I saw the belted kingfisher, I nearly missed him.
It was that brief time in the early morning when the pond and woods behind us are still shrouded in night’s shadows. The sun hasn’t yet come up and the view is mostly dark silhouettes that blend together against the steel-gray mirrored surface of the pond. It’s the time of day when nothing is quite what it seems.
In the pond, there is this large tree trunk that lies on its side, a casualty of Hurricane Fran in 1996 when the wind snapped a large oak tree into three chunks and threw the largest one into the pond. It has remained there since, a gift to the wildlife. Everybody hangs out there, from spiders, fish and ants, to hawks, muskrats (at the same time no less), and ducks. It is the inter-species resting place, the sunning spot for 10 or 12 turtles, and the staging area for birds fishing in the pond.
On this particular morning I looked out, my eyes barely open, at the odd collection of shapes and shadows in the backyard. You couldn’t make out anything clearly. I think if an elephant had been out there, you might just have mistaken it for fog. As my eye skimmed the pond’s surface, I noticed this shape – rather clearly defined, which is why it caught my eye. It looked almost like a bird.
Being a bird-watcher, I immediately woke right up and looked closer. It was the image of a bird, perfectly outlined on the water. But where was the bird? I didn’t see one anywhere. I dug out the binoculars and scanned the area until finally I could make out a similar shape on the tree trunk right above the water. It had blended so well into the darks of the woods behind it, you could barely make it out. I never would have seen it if I hadn’t noticed its reflection in the pond.
It was a belted kingfisher. He is a maniacal-looking bird. He’s got a white ring around his neck that makes it look like he had been leashed, but escaped. His blue-gray feathers stick straight up out of his head like he stuck his foot in an electrical outlet. He has large wild eyes and a fishing technique that would do the Three Stooges proud. Essentially, he jumps up, flaps his wings, then flings himself at the water. He doesn’t so much dive as plows in a full body flop, through the surface of the pond. He’s effective – he always comes up with a fish – but he gets failing grades for aesthetics.
I see him out there a lot now, especially now that I know what to look for. And it’s usually on those foggy mornings.
It occurred to me that life can be like that. There are gifts or important truths, understandings, that we often don’t see. They blend into the background fabric of our lives, and we overlook them unless something reflects them back at us and they catch our eye. Without that moment, we’d never know they were there.
I think the thing I keep in mind now is that Belted Kingfisher rule: When something catches your eye in life’s fog, take the time to look because some things in life can only be seen on reflection. You never know. It might be a gift.
The Gift
February 7, 2008
“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
PS Since I love skies, I will serve up this kind of “daily bread” from time to time.
The Gift
February 6, 2008An interesting interview with an agent:
Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of fiction for young readers and a faculty member at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults offers an interview with agent Emily Van Beek of Pippin Properties on her blog:
<<http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2008/02/agent-interview-emily-van-beek-of.html>>
Some tidbits from the article to give a taste of the whole:
“At Pippin the bar is set high. We strive to live and work by the following philosophy:
–The world owes you nothing. You owe the world your best work. And this can be painful at times (especially when it means telling a writer that their work isn’t there yet, that a particular story isn’t ready for submission, that s/he needs to try again). Even the best of the best need to write and rewrite.”
In response to the question: What do you look for in a prospective client?
“We look for passion and dedication. We look for a writer who is willing to work really hard. Someone who can keep the goal in sight when we ask for the eighth revision. We are looking for ingenuity. We’re looking for voices that stay with us.”
The Post – As Promised, What Photography Teaches You About Writing
February 6, 2008As I mentioned earlier, photographing fiddler crabs helped me to “be one with them.” Armed with the heart of a crab, maybe I can get that across in the book.
In a broader sense, there are some similarities between the arts of photography and writing:
1) Narrow the topic:
The viewfinder of a camera sets the limits on how much you can fit in the picture. A photo is a one-moment slice of an event. You can’t show everything, so you have to choose. What will you focus on?
Good writing, especially essays and short pieces, needs limits too. Start with too broad a topic and the piece runs too long, lacks focus and depth, and leaves the reader wondering it’s about. You can’t say everything, so you have to choose what you will say. Choose a specific slant and give the reader depth for that one topic.
2) Composition – Create the Scene:
Part of the art in a good photograph is its composition. What did you include and why? How did you choose to portray it? What angle was it shot from? Lighting? Shadows? Contrast?
In a good story, “show don’t tell” is done with scenes. You’re the director. How will you set it up? Who will be in it and who will be left out? Why? What will they say and do? What are they holding? Wearing? Where are they? Is it frigid or tropical? Are they scared or serene?
3) Detail is the life of the creation:
The camera’s eye doesn’t miss much and often sees more details than the photographer did when taking the shot. The details that show up in the picture bring it alive, especially in things like still life and macro photography. The details ARE the photo.
In writing, specifics are the spice that creates the picture. Something doesn’t smell good, it has a licorice herbal aroma that wafts through the sunlit cottage and makes you salivate with anticipation. Something doesn’t feel rough and hurt you, it has a gritty surface that grinds against the tender flesh of your palm until it strips the skin raw and bloody. Specifics create the image.
4) Deliver the vision:
You can see the image you want in your mind’s eye, but if you can’t work the camera, all you’ll get is a dark blur. Master the technology.
The most amazing story may run through your mind. Yet if what appears on paper lacks organization, moves too slowly, leaves out needed plot points, has poor sentence structure, bloated dialogue, or no sensory details, no one will get it. Master your craft.
5) Know what you want to say:
A photograph may be wordless, but it will still speak to the viewer if the photographer knows what he’s looking for.
In writing, you may have a 500-page novel but you still need to be able to sum it up in a line or two. If you can’t do that, you don’t know what your story is about.
In the future, 10 or so things an oil painting taught me about the writing process. Stay tuned.
Soul Mosaic 