Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Thanksgiving Day is a tradition that Abraham Lincoln established for his own reasons more than a century ago, reasons that have little, or perhaps nothing, to do with the reasons we continue to celebrate this feasting day today.
While one might think there would be little to argue over, after all, what could possibly be more American than a day dedicated to food and the eating of it, there have been the little controversies over the years that make the history of the day interesting. But for most people, Thanksgiving Day is a holiday thoughtlessly entered into, a day for sanctioned gluttony, of both food and football, and a day for family.
My family, both growing up and now, are not the kind of families that make Thanksgiving Day interesting. While some families have fights and arguments and there is a lot of drama, excitement is not something that my own family does all that well.
We are more the low key type, where an argument usually takes about three words, and the strongest epithet we can come up with is, "Whatever." [You would be surprised how much emotion you can pack into that one little word.] We aren't Norman Rockwell, but we aren't the Osbornes, either. The only argument that will probably be heard around here today is which movie we will watch this evening while we consume tasty leftovers, and even that will be half hearted.
Thanksgiving is a time to enjoy seeing my college aged son for the first time since he left in August, and inevitably, his oldest friends, as well. Although I must say, I simply cannot, for the life of me, comprehend why his homecoming has to be accompanied by the creation of hundreds of egg rolls in my kitchen the night before Thanksgiving, half of which are still occupying space in my fridge where the leftovers should be going later today. I mean, really? Whatever. [See how well that works?]
Of course, I should probably be happy that he is at home, spending time with us, since a lot of college students come home and aren't really seen again until they are asking for gas money to return to school. You have to wonder where they are getting their food and shower, but I digress.
Thanksgiving Day is also the day of the big Christmas push. I am not talking about the push in the stores to make sure all Christmas decorations are up, and the shilling of Santa is off and running. Frankly, if there really were a Santa, I think he would be appalled at what he has become - the spokesperson for every product under the sun for a month of the year, all in the name of making a buck. Wasn't the whole point that Santa brought you something unexpected as a gift? No cost?
I also experience that push in my own home, as my lovely daughter gears up for the holiday gifting season by getting her list of desired items in order. Indeed, this year she has created a beautiful Excel spread sheet, complete with clickable links, so I can see and experience her list live and in color. She is always a thoughtful girl, so she has even included pricing and location, just to make it really easy for me.
Her main item of desire this year is yet another pet, this time a bunny rabbit, which she believes she needs to keep as a companion in her room, which is apparently lonely with only a Betta fish named Taffy to keep her company. Somehow, I do not see a bunny and a Jack Russell Terrier in the same household ending well, but I suppose it's barely possible it could work.
It seems my daughter has, in fact, inherited a few traits from me, first and foremost, a love of animals that surpasses the reasonable, which causes her to want every animal in her own personal zoo. You'll have to stay tuned for the final decision on that one, since she isn't going to live at home forever, and that bunny has a rather long life span. Somehow, I do not see this ending well for me, either.
We have Thanksgiving traditions at our house, just like everyone else. Among other things, I enjoy decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving Day, swinging into the holiday spirit, so to speak. We put up the pretty decorations, and transform the house from the ordinary into something much more than itself, and suddenly, you start to feel the magic that is the Christmas season.
I have recently read a couple of articles on the fast forwarding of Christmas, and whether this might not be a bad idea, overall. I noticed even Nordstrom's, that ultimate in trendy spending, has put its well shod shoe down on the Christmas push. I learned they have refused to decorate their stores or start celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving has been appropriately recognized, apparently a consumerism bastion of sanity in the midst of mall world. Who knew? I laud that impulse, though, and if I could afford to do so, I would spend all my clothing dollars in their store, just to reward them for their sanity stance.
I would have to postulate that we are not better off for having a longer Christmas season. One of the things that makes Christmas so special is the very limited time offer that it is. It is the ultimate in short term thinking, the holiday that rushes past before we can even catch our breath. We barely have time to get used to the decorations and the colors and the fantasy that is being weaved before we suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, find ourselves walking into church to sing the age old carols that welcome the real Christ into our celebration.
Thanksgiving Day is too often overlooked, shoved aside by a retail world which seems to sell the idea that if there isn't buying and giving involved, it's not a real holiday. I think, on the contrary, that Thanksgiving Day, much like the Fourth of July, is a real festival day, the old fashioned kind that celebrates family and our good fortune to have been born in this wonderful country.
Whether you are financially wealthy or indigent, if you were born in the United States of America, or if you live here honestly and with the sanction of the government, anything is possible for you. I have seen people move from homeless shelter to home ownership in just a few years. You can come from nothing and become President. You can start a small business, although the IRS will surely be looking right over your shoulder on that one, and can go from no one to someone. I don't believe it was an accident that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were Americans, because I think that creative, pioneering spirit that led our ancestors to these shores, and kept them pushing into the unknown, is somehow instilled into every citizen.
We are a country with so much wealth, we are able to argue about whether, and how much of it, should be redistributed to those who are less fortunate. We are a country with so much goodness, we try to feed the world and solve its problems, even when there are no answers. We have marvelous resources, both natural and human, and we consistently put them to use to make our world a better place, even if we disagree on what that means in detail.
Although there is certainly poverty in this country, we are also a people of great compassion, and donate in amounts that are simply breathtaking. When I do my voluneteering for Community LINC, rehabbing an apartment for a homeless family trying to escape their circumstances, I am always overwhelmed by the generosity of people who want to give. The last time we did that work, we received so much bounty that we have shelves of goods left over, which we are saving for another family, because it was too generous, and we need to spread the wealth around.
Even the homeless will have a feast today, I hope, because in this country of ridiculous bounty, no one should be without on this day of food and family. I am thankful, and grateful, to be living in a country where the poor are looked upon with compassion, and we do to the least of them what we would wish for ourselves.
There are many times that I find myself complaining about the misfortunes in my own life. But today, Thanksgiving Day, I find my mind wandering across the globe to a place where there would be gratitude for the ability to simply put enough food on the table, and there would be no need to choose which child will eat today. I can go to the bank, and as long as I have put money in, I can take it out, while in other places, they have to stand in line each day to receive pennies back for the dollars deposited.
There is a place in this world where inflation is so extreme, it is measured in the millions of percent, while we complain about single digit inflation that makes the luxuries a little more costly for us. We complain about the price of gas, while people in other parts of the world do not even have bicycles.
Today, on Thanksgiving Day 2008, I look in the paper and realize how very, very blessed I have been. I reflect on the reality that I could have been born across the world, on the continent that is rightly called The Dark Continent, not because of skin color, but because of the lack of development and the lack of law and order and the lack of basic needs being met.
While they have a wealth of natural resources that should have made the continent a world leader, instead it is a world shame - a constant reminder that anarchy is the road to ruin, and that self-interest will destroy all opportunity. I am thankful today that I have been given the birth right of being a United States citizen, a passport into a club so exclusive that people the world over die for the opportunity to join.
On a more personal scale, I am also thankful for the things that everyone in this country will also give thanks for today - my wonderful family, the roof over my head, my lovely warm bed to sleep in every night. I have a decent opportunity to make a living doing an honest day's work, [if I can ever figure out what I want to be when I grow up, anyway,] I have food on the table, and clothes on our backs, and a future to look forward to in which good things may happen. In the end, if you have those things, you have everything you need. And for that, I am thankful.
Most important of all, I'm thankful I wasn't born a turkey (although I have been called that a time or two, I must admit.) I am thankful I will be the one eating, and not the one being eaten today.
Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and yours, from me and mine!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Seasons....
There is a lovely passage in Ecclesiastes that talks about the changes time induces in the pageant of a human life.
Simon and Garfunkel aside, there is a lot of truth in those words, a truth that I see more clearly as time passes, and I approach that season of life known as middle age. [Yes, I am approaching mid-life, I am most emphatically not already there. I refuse to admit that at 48, I am already on the downhill slope. All right, I will acknowledge that I may be teetering awkwardly on the precipice, but I will not go down without a fight.]
If the 20's are a time to accumulate, the 40's seem to be a time to disperse. Over the last few years, I have begun economizing on everything. I have cut back on snacks. I don't really buy bottled water any more. I try to purchase only what we absolutely need. Lack of financial where-with-all has certainly been an imperative to that tighter spending, of course, but I think I was heading there, anyway, because it has come pretty easily to me.
I realized, like a light bulb going on in my head a few years ago, that there is a limit to the amount of "stuff" a person needs in a lifetime. I think I may be reaching the saturation point in my own life, because where it used to be fun to acquire, right now, more stuff is starting to sound like more work. The more you have, the more you have to put away, or find a space for, or do something with. I'm too tired, too packed, too overwhelmed, to find space for more stuff that I don't really need.
It used to be kind of fun to receive an invitation to a home party where something will be sold. There was entertainment value in the challenge of finding something for myself that I could justify on the basis of need. These days, I view those party invitations with skepticism and dismay. I have enough tupperware to throw three parties. I have pampered my inner chef until it's well done. I have bejeweled myself and my daughter like royalty. The candles flaming around my home are the remnants of a poorly made decision more years ago than I care to admit. [I will just say that when you pay that much for a candle, you want to get your money's worth out of it, so you don't want to just burn it up. Ah, the irony of it all.]
I am just no longer in acquiring mode, it seems. I have reached belonging saturation, and there is simply no more need, to say nothing of room in my house, for additional stuff. In fact, I have aggressively gone through my possessions recently to winnow out the unneeded items, ruthlessly whittling down the wants from the needs and passing them to a charitable organization that may have more use for them.
I hasten to say that this does not mean that I no longer have anything that is important to me, that everything is on the block and up for grabs. I have some precious items that are priceless to me, and couldn't be replaced for any amount of money, even if they don't look all that valuable to someone else's eyes. And there are certainly things I would like to have that are not currently under my ownership, too.
But for the most part, the things I want now are not the flashy little things that you want in your 20's, the things that you work so hard to acquire so that you can show the world how successful you are. When you are 20, it's all about quantity, it seems, whether you are talking about friends or possessions. It's a race to see who can get the most, and the winner is the one with the most of everything.
My true wish list consists of boring fare these days. At 40, I am not looking for flashy clothes or the latest hairstyle. Instead, I desperately need new carpeting for my living room and I would love to install hardwood floors in my dining room. Of course, there is obviously no point, with a cat and two dogs who feel free to vomit on any piece of carpeting not covered by a piece of furniture. In fact, they seem to prefer the areas that are right out in the middle of the floor, if you want to know the truth.
I would love to replace the doors and windows in my house, because the ones I have leak air like a sieve, and rot out more often than I can keep up with them. I would replace them with vinyl exterior windows, so that I would never again have to deal with a rotted sill or a rotted frame, thus saving me hours of grief and a lot of money in the long run.
I would like to replace my roof, which is 13 years old and probably not going to last forever, or even much longer. I would like to have the house repainted, because I hate the color, and want to make a change. I would like to buy a new fridge, one that is more functional, and which would actually hold enough food for the three of us.
Those are not the exciting things we put on our wish list to Santa. The season of childhood is magical, and Santa is the biggest purveyor of the glittering fairy dust thrown into the eyes of children. When I was growing up, I didn't really believe in Santa, because that was not the way my parents presented him to me. I have no regrets about that, I raised my own children the same way. There is a reason for that particular season, and it is not to have an overweight stranger bringing presents through the chimney. I probably don't really get, at a gut level, what Santa means to children, because he never meant that to me. But Christmas is still magical to me, even with too much to do, and the magic mostly shoved onto the back burner along with everything else.
When I make out my Christmas list, those things won't be on it. They are my heart of heart wishes, the things I wish I had the money to buy, the things that I would spend my lottery win on, if I participated. But it's not the season of my life to make those changes, it seems, so instead, I will focus on the smaller objectives, and ask the Santa's in my life for things that are reasonable and attainable, and hopefully frivolous and fun as well.
My daughter asked me the other day what I wanted for Christmas, and before I could respond, she said, "Don't say nothing, because you know we are all going to get you something, so it might as well be something you want." How to explain to a 16 year old that I already have everything I want? Anything more is almost too much, so bountiful has God been to me in the seasons I have experienced so far.
But this changing of the seasons goes deeper than just the material belongings we can see and touch, the tangibles that we treasure and insure and lose sleep over. There are seasons in our relationships as well, and as we pass through the various stages in our life journey, we pick up and drop off a wide variety of people for different reasons at different times.
In talking with several close friends recently, I have realized that I am not the only one who is aware of this change. Many of them agreed that this seems to be the time of life in which we look at the relationships in our lives, and make decisions about their importance to us, and for the first time, we let some go because we are just not in the same place in our lives any more.
That is not a statement about the people themselves. They are, for the most part, wonderful people, who were once very close to our hearts, but who, for a variety of reasons, are now in a different place in our circle, and we in theirs. Sometimes you move, and realize the affinity was one of proximity more than actual affection, so you allow that relationship to fade as naturally as the sun will set in the Western sky. Sometimes you have a sharp disagreement about something so dear to your heart that you simply cannot overlook the breach. Sometimes there is an overstepping of boundaries so profound that it cannot be overcome. And sometimes, the relationship is simply no longer reflective of who you are or what is important to you, and it fades like the pictures in an old album - cherished, valued, important, but real in memory only.
I have learned that the 40's are a busy time of life. For most women that age, their children are in high school and college, so they find themselves in the work force and trying to catch up with the time, and co-workers, that have rushed past them. They do the difficult double duty of being full time mothers while still being productive full time workers who climb the ladder of employment success. You have endless rounds of activities, which require enormous amounts of time and effort, squeezed in when you aren't busy doing everything you normally do for everyone else. Your sense of yourself gets lost, at least temporarily, because you are simply too busy living everyone else's lives at that moment.
During the hustle and bustle, it seems that it is all too easy to lose track of old friends, and even near ones, sometimes. You don't usually mean for it to happen, but one day, you realize, when you make out your Christmas card list or you look through a photo album, that you haven't seen someone in a very long time, maybe years, and you aren't even sure where they are in their lives any more.
A week or so ago, my Bible study group discussed this very issue, in the context of the Bible study for this month. It is a sensation that was familiar to every woman in the room, each of us, I think, recalling a relationship from the past that had faded away for one reason or another.
We are, our intrepid little group, a mixed bunch. At 48, I am the youngest, and am fortunate enough to learn what is in store for me first hand from the varied wisdom of everyone else. We are in the various seasons of life, like everyone, with some being grandmothers with grandchildren not much younger than the youngest child we have amongst us. Yet we have more commonalities than differences, and although we have a wide array of personalities, no two of us are anything alike, we do benefit from and vicariously enjoy life through each other's eyes. And we have the opportunity to learn from each other, as well.
And so it was, when we talked about the seasons of friendship, that one of those women told a tale from her own life that reminded us all of the one thing about the seasons that is most important. She told how she and her husband had best friends, with whom they did many things and spent a lot of time.
The friends moved to another city, and they slowly drifted apart, until one day, she spotted her friend in town on a visit, and the friend hadn't even called to tell her they were there. How hurtful, how evident, that the friendship had lost it's way, and the demise had already occurred unannounced.
But there was a happy ending after all, because the couple moved back to town, they slowly reconnected, and found that they did, indeed, have as much in common as they always had, and they are, once again, the closest of friends. The storyteller made it clear that the loss went both ways, and that the reunion did as well, but the real lesson is that in the hustle and bustle of life, sometimes we do drop a ball or two, and it can roll away.
But as long as you know where the wall is, as long as the ball eventually stops rolling, you don't have to chase it to find it again. Sometimes, you just have to wait for it to stop rolling, and then you can walk over and pick it up.
If there is someone you have lost - a friendship gone wrong, a relationship that has taken a wrong turn - remember that in the course of life, the seasons change. You never know, one day you may find yourselves in each other's paths once again, exploring the new season together.
To every thing there is a season,
And a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
And a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Simon and Garfunkel aside, there is a lot of truth in those words, a truth that I see more clearly as time passes, and I approach that season of life known as middle age. [Yes, I am approaching mid-life, I am most emphatically not already there. I refuse to admit that at 48, I am already on the downhill slope. All right, I will acknowledge that I may be teetering awkwardly on the precipice, but I will not go down without a fight.]
If the 20's are a time to accumulate, the 40's seem to be a time to disperse. Over the last few years, I have begun economizing on everything. I have cut back on snacks. I don't really buy bottled water any more. I try to purchase only what we absolutely need. Lack of financial where-with-all has certainly been an imperative to that tighter spending, of course, but I think I was heading there, anyway, because it has come pretty easily to me.
I realized, like a light bulb going on in my head a few years ago, that there is a limit to the amount of "stuff" a person needs in a lifetime. I think I may be reaching the saturation point in my own life, because where it used to be fun to acquire, right now, more stuff is starting to sound like more work. The more you have, the more you have to put away, or find a space for, or do something with. I'm too tired, too packed, too overwhelmed, to find space for more stuff that I don't really need.
It used to be kind of fun to receive an invitation to a home party where something will be sold. There was entertainment value in the challenge of finding something for myself that I could justify on the basis of need. These days, I view those party invitations with skepticism and dismay. I have enough tupperware to throw three parties. I have pampered my inner chef until it's well done. I have bejeweled myself and my daughter like royalty. The candles flaming around my home are the remnants of a poorly made decision more years ago than I care to admit. [I will just say that when you pay that much for a candle, you want to get your money's worth out of it, so you don't want to just burn it up. Ah, the irony of it all.]
I am just no longer in acquiring mode, it seems. I have reached belonging saturation, and there is simply no more need, to say nothing of room in my house, for additional stuff. In fact, I have aggressively gone through my possessions recently to winnow out the unneeded items, ruthlessly whittling down the wants from the needs and passing them to a charitable organization that may have more use for them.
I hasten to say that this does not mean that I no longer have anything that is important to me, that everything is on the block and up for grabs. I have some precious items that are priceless to me, and couldn't be replaced for any amount of money, even if they don't look all that valuable to someone else's eyes. And there are certainly things I would like to have that are not currently under my ownership, too.
But for the most part, the things I want now are not the flashy little things that you want in your 20's, the things that you work so hard to acquire so that you can show the world how successful you are. When you are 20, it's all about quantity, it seems, whether you are talking about friends or possessions. It's a race to see who can get the most, and the winner is the one with the most of everything.
My true wish list consists of boring fare these days. At 40, I am not looking for flashy clothes or the latest hairstyle. Instead, I desperately need new carpeting for my living room and I would love to install hardwood floors in my dining room. Of course, there is obviously no point, with a cat and two dogs who feel free to vomit on any piece of carpeting not covered by a piece of furniture. In fact, they seem to prefer the areas that are right out in the middle of the floor, if you want to know the truth.
I would love to replace the doors and windows in my house, because the ones I have leak air like a sieve, and rot out more often than I can keep up with them. I would replace them with vinyl exterior windows, so that I would never again have to deal with a rotted sill or a rotted frame, thus saving me hours of grief and a lot of money in the long run.
I would like to replace my roof, which is 13 years old and probably not going to last forever, or even much longer. I would like to have the house repainted, because I hate the color, and want to make a change. I would like to buy a new fridge, one that is more functional, and which would actually hold enough food for the three of us.
Those are not the exciting things we put on our wish list to Santa. The season of childhood is magical, and Santa is the biggest purveyor of the glittering fairy dust thrown into the eyes of children. When I was growing up, I didn't really believe in Santa, because that was not the way my parents presented him to me. I have no regrets about that, I raised my own children the same way. There is a reason for that particular season, and it is not to have an overweight stranger bringing presents through the chimney. I probably don't really get, at a gut level, what Santa means to children, because he never meant that to me. But Christmas is still magical to me, even with too much to do, and the magic mostly shoved onto the back burner along with everything else.
When I make out my Christmas list, those things won't be on it. They are my heart of heart wishes, the things I wish I had the money to buy, the things that I would spend my lottery win on, if I participated. But it's not the season of my life to make those changes, it seems, so instead, I will focus on the smaller objectives, and ask the Santa's in my life for things that are reasonable and attainable, and hopefully frivolous and fun as well.
My daughter asked me the other day what I wanted for Christmas, and before I could respond, she said, "Don't say nothing, because you know we are all going to get you something, so it might as well be something you want." How to explain to a 16 year old that I already have everything I want? Anything more is almost too much, so bountiful has God been to me in the seasons I have experienced so far.
But this changing of the seasons goes deeper than just the material belongings we can see and touch, the tangibles that we treasure and insure and lose sleep over. There are seasons in our relationships as well, and as we pass through the various stages in our life journey, we pick up and drop off a wide variety of people for different reasons at different times.
In talking with several close friends recently, I have realized that I am not the only one who is aware of this change. Many of them agreed that this seems to be the time of life in which we look at the relationships in our lives, and make decisions about their importance to us, and for the first time, we let some go because we are just not in the same place in our lives any more.
That is not a statement about the people themselves. They are, for the most part, wonderful people, who were once very close to our hearts, but who, for a variety of reasons, are now in a different place in our circle, and we in theirs. Sometimes you move, and realize the affinity was one of proximity more than actual affection, so you allow that relationship to fade as naturally as the sun will set in the Western sky. Sometimes you have a sharp disagreement about something so dear to your heart that you simply cannot overlook the breach. Sometimes there is an overstepping of boundaries so profound that it cannot be overcome. And sometimes, the relationship is simply no longer reflective of who you are or what is important to you, and it fades like the pictures in an old album - cherished, valued, important, but real in memory only.
I have learned that the 40's are a busy time of life. For most women that age, their children are in high school and college, so they find themselves in the work force and trying to catch up with the time, and co-workers, that have rushed past them. They do the difficult double duty of being full time mothers while still being productive full time workers who climb the ladder of employment success. You have endless rounds of activities, which require enormous amounts of time and effort, squeezed in when you aren't busy doing everything you normally do for everyone else. Your sense of yourself gets lost, at least temporarily, because you are simply too busy living everyone else's lives at that moment.
During the hustle and bustle, it seems that it is all too easy to lose track of old friends, and even near ones, sometimes. You don't usually mean for it to happen, but one day, you realize, when you make out your Christmas card list or you look through a photo album, that you haven't seen someone in a very long time, maybe years, and you aren't even sure where they are in their lives any more.
A week or so ago, my Bible study group discussed this very issue, in the context of the Bible study for this month. It is a sensation that was familiar to every woman in the room, each of us, I think, recalling a relationship from the past that had faded away for one reason or another.
We are, our intrepid little group, a mixed bunch. At 48, I am the youngest, and am fortunate enough to learn what is in store for me first hand from the varied wisdom of everyone else. We are in the various seasons of life, like everyone, with some being grandmothers with grandchildren not much younger than the youngest child we have amongst us. Yet we have more commonalities than differences, and although we have a wide array of personalities, no two of us are anything alike, we do benefit from and vicariously enjoy life through each other's eyes. And we have the opportunity to learn from each other, as well.
And so it was, when we talked about the seasons of friendship, that one of those women told a tale from her own life that reminded us all of the one thing about the seasons that is most important. She told how she and her husband had best friends, with whom they did many things and spent a lot of time.
The friends moved to another city, and they slowly drifted apart, until one day, she spotted her friend in town on a visit, and the friend hadn't even called to tell her they were there. How hurtful, how evident, that the friendship had lost it's way, and the demise had already occurred unannounced.
But there was a happy ending after all, because the couple moved back to town, they slowly reconnected, and found that they did, indeed, have as much in common as they always had, and they are, once again, the closest of friends. The storyteller made it clear that the loss went both ways, and that the reunion did as well, but the real lesson is that in the hustle and bustle of life, sometimes we do drop a ball or two, and it can roll away.
But as long as you know where the wall is, as long as the ball eventually stops rolling, you don't have to chase it to find it again. Sometimes, you just have to wait for it to stop rolling, and then you can walk over and pick it up.
If there is someone you have lost - a friendship gone wrong, a relationship that has taken a wrong turn - remember that in the course of life, the seasons change. You never know, one day you may find yourselves in each other's paths once again, exploring the new season together.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Living democracy
Over the last few days, I have had a rare and unique opportunity to see democracy in its purest form at work. I have watched an ill considered, and ultimately ill fated, decision get redrawn in the face of an unprecedented outpouring of support for the side of justice and righteousness. I believe the cause is won, for today, at least, and the people have prevailed. But it was too close, and a heart-rending sign of the dog-eat-dog times in which we live.
The action was set in a little burg by the name of Manhattan, Kansas, a lovely rural city in central Kansas which is the home of Kansas State University, my son's alma mater. Or it will be, if he can ever bring himself to graduate. Personally, I stopped holding my breath on that one when I realized I was beginning to look like Violet Beauregarde. (Roald Dahl. Library time. Seriously. Lay the computer down and step away from the keyboard. Wikipedia does NOT know all.)
Everyone believes their university or college is the best. It's human of us to believe that the college selection which we made so thoughtlessly at 17 or 18 was the best, nay, the only, decision we could possibly have made. But in the case of KSU, I will share with you that I am proud to be a KSU parent, and I feel that the money I have shoveled in that direction for the past five years is money very well spent.
But over the last few days, I have been disheartened, disturbed, disconcerted, disbelieving, and finally, relieved, by the threatened loss of funding to the KSU marching band, and by extension, the entire music, program. The band, with currently the lowest funded budget in the Big XII, has historically been paid for with funds by the student activities fees. These fees are generated at tuition time, and are set aside to fund the various activities around campus which are for the benefit of the students at the university. Whether or not this is the right way to fund the university marching band is a point for another discussion. They have been funded this way for many years, and that is how KSU had handled it, so that is what the band was forced to work with.
And, in my opinion, there is plenty of justification for the idea that the students should help to pay for the marching band's funding. They are the face of KSU in our area, and frequently are the featured activity in recruitment videos and brochures and on the school calendar and other promotional items. In addition, not only do they pump up the crowds at the football and basketball home games, providing school spirit and sometimes the largest part of the fan base as well, they also draw the national camera on KSU by their antics and performance when the action on the field or the court is temporarily halted.
Finally, and in my opinion, most importantly, the KSU music department hosts a variety of marching festivals, band and strings clinics, orchestras and wind ensembles from around the state of Kansas every year. These events are not only valuable to the students who come and learn from our advanced college performers, but are an enormous recruitment boon to the university itself.
Tens of thousands of students have selected KSU over the years because they attended a music event in high school or even middle school, and found the environs of the small town university to be irresistible. No other department on campus makes this kind of large scale opportunity available to middle and high school students around the state, and the importance of these events to the KSU community simply cannot be quantified.
Last Tuesday night, the student run senate committee in charge of the allocation of student fees, paid by every student who attends KSU, including the students in the KSUMB and the music department as a whole, and which amount to millions of dollars of funding per year, made the decision, 15-0, to eliminate band funding from their budget over the next two years. (They keep referring to it as three years, but the reality is they were making a small cut for next year, cutting it in half for the year after, and then, nothing. To me, that's two years, and far too short of a time to come up with reasonable alternatives to save the program.)
Adam called me, naturally very distressed about the situation. While we were on the phone over the succeeding hours, we watched a grass-roots democratic movement be born.
It was a fascinating, frustrating, and ultimately gratifying effort on the part of the passionate band students, who not only lost their funding, but lost it in a slap in the face way which dismissed their value to the university itself. They were told they weren't important enough to merit the funding, that the band should throw a fundraiser to get it's money and support itself, that KSU students don't benefit from the KSU Marching Band, and that they were on their own.
Major university marching bands cannot hold a bake sale to fund their programs. They have some limited fundraisers, of course, but like other students, they cannot devote their time to fundraising full time. They are students, in one of the most costly and time consuming programs on campus, and by and large, like most of the students at KSU, come from lower middle class income families who cannot afford to support the band on their own. In addition, they must keep up with their academic rigors elsewhere, as well, to maintain their GPA and keep their outside scholarships and majors on track. Most of them work, in addition to their school and band commitments, leaving time a precious, and slim, commodity.
The marching band is the face and the spirit of every university on game day when the players are not on the field or the court, providing entertainment and enthusiasm to keep the crowd and the team spirits high. Which, especially lately, is a rather large job at KSU, I would add.
One of the more amusing anecdotes I have heard during this conflagration has been about the previous, and much loved KSU, football coach, Bill Snyder. Upon his arrival in Manhattan, he evidently felt the band was too noisy, perhaps a distraction to the crowd. He insisted they be moved from the center of the student section to the end zone, to get them out of the way.
At the next game, he realized that the crowd was not in the game, there was little cheering or enthusiasm being displayed, and the band, although they gamely played on, were not able to inspire and incite the expected school spirit for which they are so well known. I imagine it is obvious where they have been proudly located since that day.
It was a strong indication of just how important that marching band is to the overall event. He realized immediately that you don't mess with success, and restored them to their rightful place in the crowd. Where, I might add, you will find them each and every game, regardless of whether the team does well or poorly, and no matter if the student section is full or empty.
There are many unrecognized expenses associated with their role. The uniforms are expensive and in constant need of repair. They are there before the football team finishes their steak dinner and even gets to the stadium, and they are still there when everyone else has gone home to party and celebrate or commiserate. There are instruments that must be purchased, which give the marching band their full range, but which also enable students throughout the music department to experience instrumentation to which they would otherwise never have exposure, and which are as vital to their education as a Bunsen burner is to the chemist.
The music program at KSU has drawn in thousands of future teachers over the years, and they must be exposed to a full variety of instrumentation in order to go out and teach kids not only in Kansas, but throughout the country. The KSU music education program is one of the fastest growing programs in the U.S., and is rapidly gaining a reputation for national excellence, something of which the student run senate was apparently either unaware, or about which they simply did not care.
The KSUMB travels to one away game every two years, the game at the University of Kansas, their in-state rival, for which they pay their own way. When they travel else wise, for example, the symphony band tours they take each year, they pay their own way, either through fundraising or in cash straight out of their family's pockets. They are representing the university every bit as much as the football or basketball teams as they travel around the world, but they must do it on their own and their family's dime, not for the money, or even the glory, but to bring the arts to people around the world who otherwise would never have the opportunity to see a symphony or marching band in person and have that experience.
The band festivals and clinics and other events held throughout the year aren't free, either. The cost to bring high school students into the university is high, but the exposure for KSU is invaluable, and the resulting student tuition which is being paid out by students who make their college decision at those events cannot be bought for any price.
In response to this shocking public de-funding of their program, the marching band students, all 380 of them, were immediately galvanized into action. They began a facebook group, and it is now, on Saturday morning, over 8600 members and still growing. They have exhorted their family and friends and other students and alumni to help save the band, and they have contacted everyone and anyone who they believe will help their cause. There is an online petition they are hoping will ultimately reach 15,000 signatures, and they are also attending student senate meetings and the committee hearings to present their case, and their cause.
The result, within a tumultuous 48 hours, was that the KSU administration, athletic director, band director, head of the music department, and the head of alumni relations, not to mention the Dean of Students who is, at this moment, at the height of his recruiting season, (and you thought YOU had a bad week,) called a meeting with the student senate leaders to hammer out a new funding agreement that will take the band into the future, hopefully with more secure funding that will not be at the mercy of a student group that doesn't understand the value of their marching band to the university at large.
The administration was cyber assaulted with thousands of calls and e-mails from unhappy alumni, parents, and potential students, as well as their current students, which made the matter one of essential urgency. The alumni, in particular, made clear it was too important to take the chance on a student run group that doesn't have it's eye on the main ball. The marching band, and the music program at large, which has been the least funded band in the Big XII, (the nearest funded band has more than twice the amount of funding per year, in fact, and does less with it in terms of educational outreach,) will now be funded by a combination of sources which will ensure that this will never again be an issue to distract from the KSU image in the public eye.
I was fascinated to watch the facebook group develop and take shape, to read the hundreds and hundreds of comments from students, parents, and alums alike, and to see how the marching band used this technology to make their case, and to win the day. It was a true sign of how very, very different the world is now from when I was building Heath-kit computers back in my college days.
Back then, the cost of long distance, and the cost of postage to spread the word, would have been almost more than an already underfunded student organization could have overcome. But today, with the internet, unlimited long distance, facebook, and, I think, the love of students for the university they once attended, (and the support of the alums was absolutely invaluable, I believe, perhaps even the crucial element, in fact,) getting 8500 people in a group is, while still quite an achievement, a much less complicated process than it would have been 25 years ago.
I was most gratified, I think, by the number of student athletes who recognized the value of the band support at their events, and who have stepped up to say that the band must march on. It is rare that the athletes are given the opportunity to come to the aid of the students who are integral, yet often seen as peripheral, to their contests of skill and strength.
But there is a larger, and I believe, even more fundamental point at issue here, which is something that I sincerely hope will not be overlooked amidst the celebrations and the planning and the jubilation over the saving of the KSUMB. I think no one should miss the point that when funding cuts are made, it is always, every time, the arts which suffer first.
Kansas State University is a liberal arts university, yet the first cut that was made was to the arts. How can this be? How can we, as a nation, show so little respect for the life pursuits that produced a da Vinci, a Beethoven, a Mozart, or a Nureyev, and still consider ourselves people of culture and discernment? Educated? Civilized?
But that is exactly what happens, time and time again. When the cut was made, they did not cut their funding to the athletic department, which they give over $400,000 a year for a cost buy down of season tickets for the students, to ensure that the athletic events are well attended. In fact, the athletic department receives, in one way or another, over $1.5 million a year in student fees, the single largest expenditure in the budget, higher even than the student union. There was no suggestion of cuts to them, despite the fact that far less than half of the students purchase season tickets, and less than that ever set foot in the re center, for which student fees are paying for renovations currently under way.
Student Publications, at that same meeting, asked for an additional 7% in funding for the coming year, and didn't get turned down cold, despite the calls of the legislature to cut all spending by 7% this upcoming year. While I am personally beholden to SP for providing my opinionated son an opportunity to vent about whatever is annoying him on a weekly basis in a column that is published in the KSU daily paper, The Collegian, I am reasonably sure that every student on campus is probably not benefiting personally from the experience of having that paper available to them. (And let me say again, I AM grateful that he is given an outlet for his cynicism besides a phone call to me.)
The list of items which are funded by student fees is vast, amounting to millions of dollars a year. This is not to imply, in any way, that the funding of any group is not justified. On the contrary, all are worthy of our support. The entire point of a liberal arts education is to be exposed, whether or not you choose to partake, in the widest possible variety of experiences, to broaden and expand your perspective, to enable you to see more than one side of an issue, to ensure that you are a well rounded human being when you emerge at the end of your four, or five, or six years of university life.
But unfortunately, the reality is, when funding cuts come, the first item on the chopping block in most educational environments, be it elementary, secondary, or post-secondary, will be the music program, one of the premiere arts in that very same liberal arts education we hold up as the ultimate in academic experience. I think we, as a society, have not only underfunded, but undervalued, the contribution of the arts to our lives. We have dismissed them as ephemeral, inconsequential, trivialities, when in fact, the exact opposite is the case.
It is well documented that the various arts provide far more than a simple diversion in our busy lives. To give one example, there is a very strong correlation between music and post-secondary graduation rates. Across the board, the highest graduation rate for any group on campus is typically the marching band, which boasts almost a 100% rate of graduation within five years for its student members. Those students hail from every college and department in the university; not even half of them are actually music majors.
Music students have some of the highest achieving majors on campus, including physics, pre-med, chemistry, math, and engineering, affecting and leading students in every single department. Their experiences in marching band help prepare them to be leaders of companies, creative entrepreneurs, inventors of new technology, and solid citizens. When you read the list of super achievers in the history of our nation, many of them were once members of their alma mater's marching band, and it is not by accident. The lessons you learn in group participation and leadership and solidarity are life lessons as well, and serve them effectively in their future pursuits.
In addition, by grade point average, you will find the music students in any school at any level to be the top students in the school. The orchestra, the symphony band, the marching band, and other musical ensembles are smart and successful. This is not a coincidence, I believe, since studies have clearly shown that kids who participate in music have higher IQ's and are more successful overall than the general student population. I do not know whether music makes kids smarter, or whether smart kids are drawn to music and the arts, but the correlation is irrefutable, and the link is direct.
I believe that the same would be true for other artistic pursuits, as the dedication and talents that lead to being a dancer or an actor or a writer are not limited to the learning environment, but a life lesson in success. The arts are not just about eye or ear candy - they teach strategies for life accomplishment. We all want our children to be successful, we tell them money doesn't buy happiness, but then we also remind them it doesn't hurt. But money does not buy life satisfaction, and the beauty given to our world by those who pursue the arts cannot be replaced with nickels and dimes.
We, as a society, have failed ourselves and our future generations when we shirk our responsibility to fund the arts. Even in dire times, when money is tight and budgets need crunching, the arts must remain a vital part of our educational system. The world is a far more beautiful place because of the creative artists among us. Let us not fail our future citizens by depriving them of the best that our generations have to offer.
Fund the arts, and let the band play on.
The action was set in a little burg by the name of Manhattan, Kansas, a lovely rural city in central Kansas which is the home of Kansas State University, my son's alma mater. Or it will be, if he can ever bring himself to graduate. Personally, I stopped holding my breath on that one when I realized I was beginning to look like Violet Beauregarde. (Roald Dahl. Library time. Seriously. Lay the computer down and step away from the keyboard. Wikipedia does NOT know all.)
Everyone believes their university or college is the best. It's human of us to believe that the college selection which we made so thoughtlessly at 17 or 18 was the best, nay, the only, decision we could possibly have made. But in the case of KSU, I will share with you that I am proud to be a KSU parent, and I feel that the money I have shoveled in that direction for the past five years is money very well spent.
But over the last few days, I have been disheartened, disturbed, disconcerted, disbelieving, and finally, relieved, by the threatened loss of funding to the KSU marching band, and by extension, the entire music, program. The band, with currently the lowest funded budget in the Big XII, has historically been paid for with funds by the student activities fees. These fees are generated at tuition time, and are set aside to fund the various activities around campus which are for the benefit of the students at the university. Whether or not this is the right way to fund the university marching band is a point for another discussion. They have been funded this way for many years, and that is how KSU had handled it, so that is what the band was forced to work with.
And, in my opinion, there is plenty of justification for the idea that the students should help to pay for the marching band's funding. They are the face of KSU in our area, and frequently are the featured activity in recruitment videos and brochures and on the school calendar and other promotional items. In addition, not only do they pump up the crowds at the football and basketball home games, providing school spirit and sometimes the largest part of the fan base as well, they also draw the national camera on KSU by their antics and performance when the action on the field or the court is temporarily halted.
Finally, and in my opinion, most importantly, the KSU music department hosts a variety of marching festivals, band and strings clinics, orchestras and wind ensembles from around the state of Kansas every year. These events are not only valuable to the students who come and learn from our advanced college performers, but are an enormous recruitment boon to the university itself.
Tens of thousands of students have selected KSU over the years because they attended a music event in high school or even middle school, and found the environs of the small town university to be irresistible. No other department on campus makes this kind of large scale opportunity available to middle and high school students around the state, and the importance of these events to the KSU community simply cannot be quantified.
Last Tuesday night, the student run senate committee in charge of the allocation of student fees, paid by every student who attends KSU, including the students in the KSUMB and the music department as a whole, and which amount to millions of dollars of funding per year, made the decision, 15-0, to eliminate band funding from their budget over the next two years. (They keep referring to it as three years, but the reality is they were making a small cut for next year, cutting it in half for the year after, and then, nothing. To me, that's two years, and far too short of a time to come up with reasonable alternatives to save the program.)
Adam called me, naturally very distressed about the situation. While we were on the phone over the succeeding hours, we watched a grass-roots democratic movement be born.
It was a fascinating, frustrating, and ultimately gratifying effort on the part of the passionate band students, who not only lost their funding, but lost it in a slap in the face way which dismissed their value to the university itself. They were told they weren't important enough to merit the funding, that the band should throw a fundraiser to get it's money and support itself, that KSU students don't benefit from the KSU Marching Band, and that they were on their own.
Major university marching bands cannot hold a bake sale to fund their programs. They have some limited fundraisers, of course, but like other students, they cannot devote their time to fundraising full time. They are students, in one of the most costly and time consuming programs on campus, and by and large, like most of the students at KSU, come from lower middle class income families who cannot afford to support the band on their own. In addition, they must keep up with their academic rigors elsewhere, as well, to maintain their GPA and keep their outside scholarships and majors on track. Most of them work, in addition to their school and band commitments, leaving time a precious, and slim, commodity.
The marching band is the face and the spirit of every university on game day when the players are not on the field or the court, providing entertainment and enthusiasm to keep the crowd and the team spirits high. Which, especially lately, is a rather large job at KSU, I would add.
One of the more amusing anecdotes I have heard during this conflagration has been about the previous, and much loved KSU, football coach, Bill Snyder. Upon his arrival in Manhattan, he evidently felt the band was too noisy, perhaps a distraction to the crowd. He insisted they be moved from the center of the student section to the end zone, to get them out of the way.
At the next game, he realized that the crowd was not in the game, there was little cheering or enthusiasm being displayed, and the band, although they gamely played on, were not able to inspire and incite the expected school spirit for which they are so well known. I imagine it is obvious where they have been proudly located since that day.
It was a strong indication of just how important that marching band is to the overall event. He realized immediately that you don't mess with success, and restored them to their rightful place in the crowd. Where, I might add, you will find them each and every game, regardless of whether the team does well or poorly, and no matter if the student section is full or empty.
There are many unrecognized expenses associated with their role. The uniforms are expensive and in constant need of repair. They are there before the football team finishes their steak dinner and even gets to the stadium, and they are still there when everyone else has gone home to party and celebrate or commiserate. There are instruments that must be purchased, which give the marching band their full range, but which also enable students throughout the music department to experience instrumentation to which they would otherwise never have exposure, and which are as vital to their education as a Bunsen burner is to the chemist.
The music program at KSU has drawn in thousands of future teachers over the years, and they must be exposed to a full variety of instrumentation in order to go out and teach kids not only in Kansas, but throughout the country. The KSU music education program is one of the fastest growing programs in the U.S., and is rapidly gaining a reputation for national excellence, something of which the student run senate was apparently either unaware, or about which they simply did not care.
The KSUMB travels to one away game every two years, the game at the University of Kansas, their in-state rival, for which they pay their own way. When they travel else wise, for example, the symphony band tours they take each year, they pay their own way, either through fundraising or in cash straight out of their family's pockets. They are representing the university every bit as much as the football or basketball teams as they travel around the world, but they must do it on their own and their family's dime, not for the money, or even the glory, but to bring the arts to people around the world who otherwise would never have the opportunity to see a symphony or marching band in person and have that experience.
The band festivals and clinics and other events held throughout the year aren't free, either. The cost to bring high school students into the university is high, but the exposure for KSU is invaluable, and the resulting student tuition which is being paid out by students who make their college decision at those events cannot be bought for any price.
In response to this shocking public de-funding of their program, the marching band students, all 380 of them, were immediately galvanized into action. They began a facebook group, and it is now, on Saturday morning, over 8600 members and still growing. They have exhorted their family and friends and other students and alumni to help save the band, and they have contacted everyone and anyone who they believe will help their cause. There is an online petition they are hoping will ultimately reach 15,000 signatures, and they are also attending student senate meetings and the committee hearings to present their case, and their cause.
The result, within a tumultuous 48 hours, was that the KSU administration, athletic director, band director, head of the music department, and the head of alumni relations, not to mention the Dean of Students who is, at this moment, at the height of his recruiting season, (and you thought YOU had a bad week,) called a meeting with the student senate leaders to hammer out a new funding agreement that will take the band into the future, hopefully with more secure funding that will not be at the mercy of a student group that doesn't understand the value of their marching band to the university at large.
The administration was cyber assaulted with thousands of calls and e-mails from unhappy alumni, parents, and potential students, as well as their current students, which made the matter one of essential urgency. The alumni, in particular, made clear it was too important to take the chance on a student run group that doesn't have it's eye on the main ball. The marching band, and the music program at large, which has been the least funded band in the Big XII, (the nearest funded band has more than twice the amount of funding per year, in fact, and does less with it in terms of educational outreach,) will now be funded by a combination of sources which will ensure that this will never again be an issue to distract from the KSU image in the public eye.
I was fascinated to watch the facebook group develop and take shape, to read the hundreds and hundreds of comments from students, parents, and alums alike, and to see how the marching band used this technology to make their case, and to win the day. It was a true sign of how very, very different the world is now from when I was building Heath-kit computers back in my college days.
Back then, the cost of long distance, and the cost of postage to spread the word, would have been almost more than an already underfunded student organization could have overcome. But today, with the internet, unlimited long distance, facebook, and, I think, the love of students for the university they once attended, (and the support of the alums was absolutely invaluable, I believe, perhaps even the crucial element, in fact,) getting 8500 people in a group is, while still quite an achievement, a much less complicated process than it would have been 25 years ago.
I was most gratified, I think, by the number of student athletes who recognized the value of the band support at their events, and who have stepped up to say that the band must march on. It is rare that the athletes are given the opportunity to come to the aid of the students who are integral, yet often seen as peripheral, to their contests of skill and strength.
But there is a larger, and I believe, even more fundamental point at issue here, which is something that I sincerely hope will not be overlooked amidst the celebrations and the planning and the jubilation over the saving of the KSUMB. I think no one should miss the point that when funding cuts are made, it is always, every time, the arts which suffer first.
Kansas State University is a liberal arts university, yet the first cut that was made was to the arts. How can this be? How can we, as a nation, show so little respect for the life pursuits that produced a da Vinci, a Beethoven, a Mozart, or a Nureyev, and still consider ourselves people of culture and discernment? Educated? Civilized?
But that is exactly what happens, time and time again. When the cut was made, they did not cut their funding to the athletic department, which they give over $400,000 a year for a cost buy down of season tickets for the students, to ensure that the athletic events are well attended. In fact, the athletic department receives, in one way or another, over $1.5 million a year in student fees, the single largest expenditure in the budget, higher even than the student union. There was no suggestion of cuts to them, despite the fact that far less than half of the students purchase season tickets, and less than that ever set foot in the re center, for which student fees are paying for renovations currently under way.
Student Publications, at that same meeting, asked for an additional 7% in funding for the coming year, and didn't get turned down cold, despite the calls of the legislature to cut all spending by 7% this upcoming year. While I am personally beholden to SP for providing my opinionated son an opportunity to vent about whatever is annoying him on a weekly basis in a column that is published in the KSU daily paper, The Collegian, I am reasonably sure that every student on campus is probably not benefiting personally from the experience of having that paper available to them. (And let me say again, I AM grateful that he is given an outlet for his cynicism besides a phone call to me.)
The list of items which are funded by student fees is vast, amounting to millions of dollars a year. This is not to imply, in any way, that the funding of any group is not justified. On the contrary, all are worthy of our support. The entire point of a liberal arts education is to be exposed, whether or not you choose to partake, in the widest possible variety of experiences, to broaden and expand your perspective, to enable you to see more than one side of an issue, to ensure that you are a well rounded human being when you emerge at the end of your four, or five, or six years of university life.
But unfortunately, the reality is, when funding cuts come, the first item on the chopping block in most educational environments, be it elementary, secondary, or post-secondary, will be the music program, one of the premiere arts in that very same liberal arts education we hold up as the ultimate in academic experience. I think we, as a society, have not only underfunded, but undervalued, the contribution of the arts to our lives. We have dismissed them as ephemeral, inconsequential, trivialities, when in fact, the exact opposite is the case.
It is well documented that the various arts provide far more than a simple diversion in our busy lives. To give one example, there is a very strong correlation between music and post-secondary graduation rates. Across the board, the highest graduation rate for any group on campus is typically the marching band, which boasts almost a 100% rate of graduation within five years for its student members. Those students hail from every college and department in the university; not even half of them are actually music majors.
Music students have some of the highest achieving majors on campus, including physics, pre-med, chemistry, math, and engineering, affecting and leading students in every single department. Their experiences in marching band help prepare them to be leaders of companies, creative entrepreneurs, inventors of new technology, and solid citizens. When you read the list of super achievers in the history of our nation, many of them were once members of their alma mater's marching band, and it is not by accident. The lessons you learn in group participation and leadership and solidarity are life lessons as well, and serve them effectively in their future pursuits.
In addition, by grade point average, you will find the music students in any school at any level to be the top students in the school. The orchestra, the symphony band, the marching band, and other musical ensembles are smart and successful. This is not a coincidence, I believe, since studies have clearly shown that kids who participate in music have higher IQ's and are more successful overall than the general student population. I do not know whether music makes kids smarter, or whether smart kids are drawn to music and the arts, but the correlation is irrefutable, and the link is direct.
I believe that the same would be true for other artistic pursuits, as the dedication and talents that lead to being a dancer or an actor or a writer are not limited to the learning environment, but a life lesson in success. The arts are not just about eye or ear candy - they teach strategies for life accomplishment. We all want our children to be successful, we tell them money doesn't buy happiness, but then we also remind them it doesn't hurt. But money does not buy life satisfaction, and the beauty given to our world by those who pursue the arts cannot be replaced with nickels and dimes.
We, as a society, have failed ourselves and our future generations when we shirk our responsibility to fund the arts. Even in dire times, when money is tight and budgets need crunching, the arts must remain a vital part of our educational system. The world is a far more beautiful place because of the creative artists among us. Let us not fail our future citizens by depriving them of the best that our generations have to offer.
Fund the arts, and let the band play on.
Petition site
If you are interested in the funding of the arts, and in reading the online petition to save the band, you can go to the online petition site to see what other people think about the KSU marching band, as well as the music program as a whole. I know I speak for every student in the KSU music department when I say they would appreciate your support.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/savetheksubands
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/savetheksubands
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Charity begins at home....
Last night I had the opportunity to attend a fundraising dinner for a community organization with which I have been sometimes joyfully, sometimes frustratedly, but always blessedly associated for quite a few years. For a long time, the biggest part of my association consisted of writing a check at church and dropping it in the offering plate, to be accounted for and passed on without really having to think much about it. It was easy and made me feel good, and community organizations always need funds, so it was a win/win for everyone. I had given of my blessings to others, I had forwarded my bounty to the less fortunate, and I felt that I had, in a small way, made a difference.
Then, a few years ago, when time was in greater supply than money, I got involved on a more personal level by volunteering my time and talents, giving myself in a practical way to a cause that I believe in and think is worth supporting. The organization is called Community LINC (Living In New Community was the original name, until some copyright issues came into play, long story, anyway....) and they work with homeless families to put them on the road to success.
The Community LINC program is not, by any standard, an easy path. While people are pulled out of homelessness and given fully stocked apartments and a lot of other help is offered, they have a contract they must fulfill, with the organization, and ultimately, with themselves. They have an imperative to change, to evolve, to make themselves better people, and it is not optional, because the very foundation of the LINC program is making more effective choices, and teaching children good life choices, so that they will never find themselves in the midst of disaster like that again.
There are, sadly, a fair number of failures in the program, which means they drop out of the rigorous course they must follow, and they are asked to leave. The most difficult part, for the staff, is knowing that when they go, the children will once again be homeless, without stability or even a place to lay their heads. But it is not against the law to be homeless in America, and you cannot save a family that will not save itself, no matter how much you may want to.
Resources are, for these organizations, extremely limited. They do not have nationally funded budgets, supported year after year by huge corporations who use it as a way to blunt the impact on their bottom line, and as a way to present themselves as model citizens in their communities.
These small charities who work in the urban core making a direct impact on families in dire straights are, for the most part, shoestring operations, making a budget that barely exists stretch to unbelievable lengths. They spend the better part of their administrative days begging for money from everyone with whom they come into contact. So when you are faced with a family who cannot or will not follow the path set out for them, the one that will allow them to lift themselves from the poverty, you must cut the tie in order to try and save the next family who is willing to do what they must to succeed. It is a harsh reality, and a heart-breaking one as well, but it is the only choice, when your resources are barely enough to fund the basics.
The desire to work at a place like Community LINC is a labor of love, something that comes from the heart, because the success feeds something inside the soul that cannot be bought any other way. When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he was not talking about superficial matters. He was talking about loving them enough to brave being rebuffed, and to come back and try again. He was talking about pulling people from the precipice and giving them the chance to make good, not only for themselves, but for their children. He was talking about giving people who have no chance the opportunity for something better by sharing what we have with those who have nothing at all. That is what the staff faces on a daily basis, and while not a lucrative calling, it is a fulfilling one.
I am fond of saying that if Jesus were on earth today, he would not be found in my suburban neighborhood, or in my multi-million dollar church building. I believe I would find Him at 39th and Troost, where C-LINC is to be found, amongst the people for whom he openly acknowledged he came to earth - the sinners, the outcasts, the hopeless. People, whom but for the grace of God, could be me.
My volunteer work at C-LINC is of a practical nature. I help, once or twice a year, to refurbish the apartments that families move into when they arrive, ready to work at changing their lives. It is an almost insurmountable task, at times, because the buildings are ancient, and, as should be expected, not in a part of town where maintenance is the norm. Rehabbing one of these apartments is much more than painting a wall or washing a floor. We tear things down, pull things apart, rebuild and redo and install new, in order to make a difference, not for the moment, but hopefully for the long term, to gift not once, but over and over again, the families that will live there.
The buildings themselves were a sort of gift several years ago, and it was a huge, but very expensive undertaking to move from the temporary place they had worked out of previously into this permanent location. There are six buildings, in a row, on Troost Avenue, which, for people who live around me, is known primarily for the crime rate, not it's upscale housing. If there is a murder in Kansas City, it is, unfortunately, all too often in the area of Troost where these apartments are located. It is a gang culture, a world of violence and fear that mostly reigns down there, and the C-LINC housing is a stalwart in the midst of the chaos that is all around it.
That is not meant to overstate the situation, because there are good things happening there as well. There is a sort of urban renewal occuring in that area, one which, I believe, may have been fueled, at least in part, by the good work being done by community organizations such as C-LINC who have invested not only in that area, but in the people who live there.
These buildings were purchased by C-LINC for $1 each from a generous person who also probably wanted to unload them, thus fulfilling two needs at once. They needed to be gutted, at the very least, and probably should have been torn down and started over. But C-LINC doesn't have those kinds of resources available, so instead, they have taken every volunteer and donation and rebuilt and rehabbed and revitalized their little bit of the ghetto. It is anything but a perfect world, and we would be kidding ourselves to imagine that buildings which were too old to rehab 25 years ago are in decent shape today, no matter how many bandaids we may have applied.
The roofs all leak on and off. The stairways were decrepit, although a group of older men from my church who have taken to calling themselves The Atonement Carpenters has been gradually rebuilding them, and they are now in much better condition than they were. The walls all need repair, the basements are a dungeon, the flooring is a disaster - you get the idea. Most of the people I know wouldn't consider these apartments premium housing, but when you come from a homeless shelter with your children, you have a different perspective on what constitutes the minimum basic requirements.
The Carpenters are handymen from all walks of life who are, for the most part, retired, and once a week they come down to C-LINC to work on whatever need is most urgently pressing at that moment. They fix roofs, they mud walls, they repair and rehab and rework to make things livable for the people who inhabit these apartments and call them home. They donate not only their time and talents, but are unsung heroes who donate their money and their materials as well, and in much larger measure than almost anyone realizes, in order to leave this world a better place for their having been here.
There have also been some incredible donations from people around the city that have made a huge difference for the people there. Heating and cooling systems replaced. New windows have been installed. A children's center has been built. Computers are donated, books are donated, towels and kitchenware and furniture and other items are given by people from all over the city who want to participate in some way in the renewal of lives.
I have had people ask me, when in the midst of a month long project, why I would go down there day after day to work, and worry that it is too dangerous or that I might get hurt physically or emotionally. My honest, my only, answer is that it is where the need is greatest, so that is where I am called to be. You cannot take people out of their element and expect them to succeed. Instead, you have to light the candle in the darkness, and hope that by so doing, they will light a few more along their path, and thus, enlighten that world from within.
The families that enter the world of C-LINC are entering a different way of life, one which most of them have never known. They predominantly come from single parent families who have never known security, and for whom life has been a struggle since they were born. The point of the program to which they must adhere is not to simply lift them out of poverty for the time being, but to give them the tools to lift themselves up and stay there, a much harder, and much bigger, job, both for them, and for those whose mission it is to serve them.
They are provided with housing, and must attend classes in parenting, drug counseling, alcohol counseling, Al-Anon or mental health counseling for whatever issues they are experiencing, and weekly budgeting classes. They must attend school with an end goal, such as earning their GED, or find some kind of work, and the children must attend school and maintain certain grades and standards as well.
This is a family program, and every member of the family must actively participate and pull their weight. While there is support and aid for everyone in many different age-appropriate ways, in the end, the onus is on them to succeed, and they will be allowed to fail if that is what they are striving for. C-LINC is not a free ride for anyone, and if you succeed and reach graduation, it is because you have done the work to put yourself in a position to succeed in life.
The most impressive part of the program, to me, is the required savings that they enforce during weekly budgeting sessions. Most of the families come into the program unemployed, most of the adults do not have even a high school diploma, and they are in a pattern of hopelessness and despair that perpetuates their poor decision making.
Once they enter the program, the first thing they must do is to establish a savings account, and half of their weekly income, from whatever source it is received, must be put away in that account. No matter how pressing their bills, no matter if there is a birthday or something else for which they need money, they must put away that 50% before they can have any money to meet their immediate needs.
While you may feel that with housing and utilities already paid for, this would not be so difficult, you also have to remember that most of them have no money at all. They must buy food and supplies and the basics of life. Even if they ultimately are eligible for welfare, and in Missouri, those payments are not much, they still start out with nothing, and it is hard for them to put away half that money for a future that is unknown.
Part of the problem for most of these families is that the future has never been secure, so they think in short term mode all the time. There is no reason to put something aside for a future that will never come, especially when the needs are so great right now. But what they learn over time is that their future depends on what they do now. It is a change, not just in how they use their money, but in how they live their lives.
When they watch their bank account grow, they also see their future adding up. That money will be used for a down payment on rent, or even a home. It will pay for education or a car to get to work. It is small, by most people's standards, and adds up very slowly. But in the end, if they stick with the program, they will have enough to get a solid re-start in a life, a second chance built not on the goodness of strangers, but on their own hard work and willingness to make the necessary changes.
There are a lot of failures, of course. People do not change easily, and it is all too common to be sucked back into the cycle of poverty and despair that brought you there in the first place. There are many families who begin the program believing in the possiblities, but who, over time, simply lose their drive under the influence of negativity outside their own walls.
But there are spectacular successes as well, and it is for them that the faithful continue to work and volunteer and hope and pray and give. It is for those who believe in themselves enough to make the leap into a new way of thinking that we go down to 39th and Troost for a day or a week or a month to try and make a difference. Every life that we help to turn around is a candle that has been lit, and whose light shines far beyond the apartment that family inhabits. Our families inspire their families and their friends. If our families can do it, so can others. It is in that inspiration that hope is born, that change occurs, that the cycle is interrupted and hopefully broken for good.
Last night, at this fundraiser, attended primarily by people who have more money than time, and who gave of what they have with incredible generosity, we were allowed a brief picture inside the life of a person helped through their support. We were shown a powerful video, entirely unscripted, of a resident of C-LINC seeing her apartment for the very first time. It would be impossible to be unmoved by the experience, and most people wiped away a tear or two by the end.
I had the extraordinary privilege of being present on the occasion of the making of the video, because the apartment that she received was one that I had worked on, and we were still putting the finishing touches to the place when the very young woman arrived with her little boy. Although my heart is, I hope, always in the right place when I do that work, I do not do it for any recognition at all and have never expected any, I was given a tremendous gift by being allowed to participate unexpectedly in that moment when she saw the apartment into which I poured so much of my own heart and hard work.
She began to sob, loudly and unabashedly at the front door, and continued as she moved throughout the apartment, seeing what we had done for her. Her face lit up as she saw all that she was being given, and her most memorable words were that she had never lived in a place that was so beautiful. It is not, by the standards of most of the people I know, anything special - it is, on the contrary, a pretty minimal, basic place to live, but to her, it was a mansion of great worth, and she showed us how she valued it in her face and her actions and her words.
Her other memorable statement, one which I will never forget, because it was the promise I most value from her, was that, "I just don't know how to thank them enough but just to do right for myself." She gifted me with her gratitude, and it is the greatest gift a person can receive.
It is easy to get gifts from those we love, and who love us. It is a simple matter to write a check, or to hand over our used belongings that we no longer want. But it goes against my Minnesota upbringing to receive the recognition and the gratitude that I received that day. It was a life changing moment for me, when I was forced, by surprise, to accept her emotional thank you, and to confront, in that visceral way, the deep impact that we can have on someone we don't even know.
In our country today, there is a lot of talk about the poor, and meeting needs, but most people have never had a chance to put a face to the poverty, to put a real human being into the picture. It is a vague someone out there, not really associated with us, that is being affected, and it's easy to talk clinically about fault and responsibility and solution provision.
Today, for a few moments, I want to share with you the gift of gratitude that I received. I hope that you will know, whatever you do, however you do it, wherever you give, while you can't save everyone, it is worth saving the one. Whatever gift you share, whatever organization fulfills the mission for you, whether it be money or time or talents, know that it God's work you are doing, and that you are the embodiement of God to those whose lives you are changing. You are fulfilling the words of Jesus, when he said that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, also.
Jesus talked about leaving the 99 sheep to find the one. Please follow this link to see what one of his missing sheep really looks like.
http://www.communitylinc.org/Home/ClientsStory.htm
Then, a few years ago, when time was in greater supply than money, I got involved on a more personal level by volunteering my time and talents, giving myself in a practical way to a cause that I believe in and think is worth supporting. The organization is called Community LINC (Living In New Community was the original name, until some copyright issues came into play, long story, anyway....) and they work with homeless families to put them on the road to success.
The Community LINC program is not, by any standard, an easy path. While people are pulled out of homelessness and given fully stocked apartments and a lot of other help is offered, they have a contract they must fulfill, with the organization, and ultimately, with themselves. They have an imperative to change, to evolve, to make themselves better people, and it is not optional, because the very foundation of the LINC program is making more effective choices, and teaching children good life choices, so that they will never find themselves in the midst of disaster like that again.
There are, sadly, a fair number of failures in the program, which means they drop out of the rigorous course they must follow, and they are asked to leave. The most difficult part, for the staff, is knowing that when they go, the children will once again be homeless, without stability or even a place to lay their heads. But it is not against the law to be homeless in America, and you cannot save a family that will not save itself, no matter how much you may want to.
Resources are, for these organizations, extremely limited. They do not have nationally funded budgets, supported year after year by huge corporations who use it as a way to blunt the impact on their bottom line, and as a way to present themselves as model citizens in their communities.
These small charities who work in the urban core making a direct impact on families in dire straights are, for the most part, shoestring operations, making a budget that barely exists stretch to unbelievable lengths. They spend the better part of their administrative days begging for money from everyone with whom they come into contact. So when you are faced with a family who cannot or will not follow the path set out for them, the one that will allow them to lift themselves from the poverty, you must cut the tie in order to try and save the next family who is willing to do what they must to succeed. It is a harsh reality, and a heart-breaking one as well, but it is the only choice, when your resources are barely enough to fund the basics.
The desire to work at a place like Community LINC is a labor of love, something that comes from the heart, because the success feeds something inside the soul that cannot be bought any other way. When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he was not talking about superficial matters. He was talking about loving them enough to brave being rebuffed, and to come back and try again. He was talking about pulling people from the precipice and giving them the chance to make good, not only for themselves, but for their children. He was talking about giving people who have no chance the opportunity for something better by sharing what we have with those who have nothing at all. That is what the staff faces on a daily basis, and while not a lucrative calling, it is a fulfilling one.
I am fond of saying that if Jesus were on earth today, he would not be found in my suburban neighborhood, or in my multi-million dollar church building. I believe I would find Him at 39th and Troost, where C-LINC is to be found, amongst the people for whom he openly acknowledged he came to earth - the sinners, the outcasts, the hopeless. People, whom but for the grace of God, could be me.
My volunteer work at C-LINC is of a practical nature. I help, once or twice a year, to refurbish the apartments that families move into when they arrive, ready to work at changing their lives. It is an almost insurmountable task, at times, because the buildings are ancient, and, as should be expected, not in a part of town where maintenance is the norm. Rehabbing one of these apartments is much more than painting a wall or washing a floor. We tear things down, pull things apart, rebuild and redo and install new, in order to make a difference, not for the moment, but hopefully for the long term, to gift not once, but over and over again, the families that will live there.
The buildings themselves were a sort of gift several years ago, and it was a huge, but very expensive undertaking to move from the temporary place they had worked out of previously into this permanent location. There are six buildings, in a row, on Troost Avenue, which, for people who live around me, is known primarily for the crime rate, not it's upscale housing. If there is a murder in Kansas City, it is, unfortunately, all too often in the area of Troost where these apartments are located. It is a gang culture, a world of violence and fear that mostly reigns down there, and the C-LINC housing is a stalwart in the midst of the chaos that is all around it.
That is not meant to overstate the situation, because there are good things happening there as well. There is a sort of urban renewal occuring in that area, one which, I believe, may have been fueled, at least in part, by the good work being done by community organizations such as C-LINC who have invested not only in that area, but in the people who live there.
These buildings were purchased by C-LINC for $1 each from a generous person who also probably wanted to unload them, thus fulfilling two needs at once. They needed to be gutted, at the very least, and probably should have been torn down and started over. But C-LINC doesn't have those kinds of resources available, so instead, they have taken every volunteer and donation and rebuilt and rehabbed and revitalized their little bit of the ghetto. It is anything but a perfect world, and we would be kidding ourselves to imagine that buildings which were too old to rehab 25 years ago are in decent shape today, no matter how many bandaids we may have applied.
The roofs all leak on and off. The stairways were decrepit, although a group of older men from my church who have taken to calling themselves The Atonement Carpenters has been gradually rebuilding them, and they are now in much better condition than they were. The walls all need repair, the basements are a dungeon, the flooring is a disaster - you get the idea. Most of the people I know wouldn't consider these apartments premium housing, but when you come from a homeless shelter with your children, you have a different perspective on what constitutes the minimum basic requirements.
The Carpenters are handymen from all walks of life who are, for the most part, retired, and once a week they come down to C-LINC to work on whatever need is most urgently pressing at that moment. They fix roofs, they mud walls, they repair and rehab and rework to make things livable for the people who inhabit these apartments and call them home. They donate not only their time and talents, but are unsung heroes who donate their money and their materials as well, and in much larger measure than almost anyone realizes, in order to leave this world a better place for their having been here.
There have also been some incredible donations from people around the city that have made a huge difference for the people there. Heating and cooling systems replaced. New windows have been installed. A children's center has been built. Computers are donated, books are donated, towels and kitchenware and furniture and other items are given by people from all over the city who want to participate in some way in the renewal of lives.
I have had people ask me, when in the midst of a month long project, why I would go down there day after day to work, and worry that it is too dangerous or that I might get hurt physically or emotionally. My honest, my only, answer is that it is where the need is greatest, so that is where I am called to be. You cannot take people out of their element and expect them to succeed. Instead, you have to light the candle in the darkness, and hope that by so doing, they will light a few more along their path, and thus, enlighten that world from within.
The families that enter the world of C-LINC are entering a different way of life, one which most of them have never known. They predominantly come from single parent families who have never known security, and for whom life has been a struggle since they were born. The point of the program to which they must adhere is not to simply lift them out of poverty for the time being, but to give them the tools to lift themselves up and stay there, a much harder, and much bigger, job, both for them, and for those whose mission it is to serve them.
They are provided with housing, and must attend classes in parenting, drug counseling, alcohol counseling, Al-Anon or mental health counseling for whatever issues they are experiencing, and weekly budgeting classes. They must attend school with an end goal, such as earning their GED, or find some kind of work, and the children must attend school and maintain certain grades and standards as well.
This is a family program, and every member of the family must actively participate and pull their weight. While there is support and aid for everyone in many different age-appropriate ways, in the end, the onus is on them to succeed, and they will be allowed to fail if that is what they are striving for. C-LINC is not a free ride for anyone, and if you succeed and reach graduation, it is because you have done the work to put yourself in a position to succeed in life.
The most impressive part of the program, to me, is the required savings that they enforce during weekly budgeting sessions. Most of the families come into the program unemployed, most of the adults do not have even a high school diploma, and they are in a pattern of hopelessness and despair that perpetuates their poor decision making.
Once they enter the program, the first thing they must do is to establish a savings account, and half of their weekly income, from whatever source it is received, must be put away in that account. No matter how pressing their bills, no matter if there is a birthday or something else for which they need money, they must put away that 50% before they can have any money to meet their immediate needs.
While you may feel that with housing and utilities already paid for, this would not be so difficult, you also have to remember that most of them have no money at all. They must buy food and supplies and the basics of life. Even if they ultimately are eligible for welfare, and in Missouri, those payments are not much, they still start out with nothing, and it is hard for them to put away half that money for a future that is unknown.
Part of the problem for most of these families is that the future has never been secure, so they think in short term mode all the time. There is no reason to put something aside for a future that will never come, especially when the needs are so great right now. But what they learn over time is that their future depends on what they do now. It is a change, not just in how they use their money, but in how they live their lives.
When they watch their bank account grow, they also see their future adding up. That money will be used for a down payment on rent, or even a home. It will pay for education or a car to get to work. It is small, by most people's standards, and adds up very slowly. But in the end, if they stick with the program, they will have enough to get a solid re-start in a life, a second chance built not on the goodness of strangers, but on their own hard work and willingness to make the necessary changes.
There are a lot of failures, of course. People do not change easily, and it is all too common to be sucked back into the cycle of poverty and despair that brought you there in the first place. There are many families who begin the program believing in the possiblities, but who, over time, simply lose their drive under the influence of negativity outside their own walls.
But there are spectacular successes as well, and it is for them that the faithful continue to work and volunteer and hope and pray and give. It is for those who believe in themselves enough to make the leap into a new way of thinking that we go down to 39th and Troost for a day or a week or a month to try and make a difference. Every life that we help to turn around is a candle that has been lit, and whose light shines far beyond the apartment that family inhabits. Our families inspire their families and their friends. If our families can do it, so can others. It is in that inspiration that hope is born, that change occurs, that the cycle is interrupted and hopefully broken for good.
Last night, at this fundraiser, attended primarily by people who have more money than time, and who gave of what they have with incredible generosity, we were allowed a brief picture inside the life of a person helped through their support. We were shown a powerful video, entirely unscripted, of a resident of C-LINC seeing her apartment for the very first time. It would be impossible to be unmoved by the experience, and most people wiped away a tear or two by the end.
I had the extraordinary privilege of being present on the occasion of the making of the video, because the apartment that she received was one that I had worked on, and we were still putting the finishing touches to the place when the very young woman arrived with her little boy. Although my heart is, I hope, always in the right place when I do that work, I do not do it for any recognition at all and have never expected any, I was given a tremendous gift by being allowed to participate unexpectedly in that moment when she saw the apartment into which I poured so much of my own heart and hard work.
She began to sob, loudly and unabashedly at the front door, and continued as she moved throughout the apartment, seeing what we had done for her. Her face lit up as she saw all that she was being given, and her most memorable words were that she had never lived in a place that was so beautiful. It is not, by the standards of most of the people I know, anything special - it is, on the contrary, a pretty minimal, basic place to live, but to her, it was a mansion of great worth, and she showed us how she valued it in her face and her actions and her words.
Her other memorable statement, one which I will never forget, because it was the promise I most value from her, was that, "I just don't know how to thank them enough but just to do right for myself." She gifted me with her gratitude, and it is the greatest gift a person can receive.
It is easy to get gifts from those we love, and who love us. It is a simple matter to write a check, or to hand over our used belongings that we no longer want. But it goes against my Minnesota upbringing to receive the recognition and the gratitude that I received that day. It was a life changing moment for me, when I was forced, by surprise, to accept her emotional thank you, and to confront, in that visceral way, the deep impact that we can have on someone we don't even know.
In our country today, there is a lot of talk about the poor, and meeting needs, but most people have never had a chance to put a face to the poverty, to put a real human being into the picture. It is a vague someone out there, not really associated with us, that is being affected, and it's easy to talk clinically about fault and responsibility and solution provision.
Today, for a few moments, I want to share with you the gift of gratitude that I received. I hope that you will know, whatever you do, however you do it, wherever you give, while you can't save everyone, it is worth saving the one. Whatever gift you share, whatever organization fulfills the mission for you, whether it be money or time or talents, know that it God's work you are doing, and that you are the embodiement of God to those whose lives you are changing. You are fulfilling the words of Jesus, when he said that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, also.
Jesus talked about leaving the 99 sheep to find the one. Please follow this link to see what one of his missing sheep really looks like.
http://www.communitylinc.org/Home/ClientsStory.htm
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