The First Note

As a social work teacher I am always looking for ways to inspire students. So it was that Sunday morning I was thinking about how much the practice of social work has changed over the years. For one thing there has been a major shift in emphasis from art to science. This trend echoes society as a whole, where the industrial revolution has brought about an increasing emphasis on what we can know through our senses (what is observable and measurable, for example), to the neglect of what is heartfelt and soulful -- the spiritual, you might say.

There's nothing wrong with science: we need to know if our methods actually work. It's just that science needs to be combined with the ability to make spiritual connections with others.

It got me to remembering the heroes who inspired me as a young social worker. There was Charlotte Towle, who wrote about what all of us need in order to live with dignity as human beings. Her book was called Common Human Needs. She believed the government had a responsibility to ensure that everyone had access to basic necessities. (She would, for example, support universal health care were she around today.) While an inspiration within our profession, she came under suspicion of being a communist during the McCarthy era. The government not only ceased publication of her book, but destroyed the remaining copies. So much for free speech.

I also recalled Felix Biestek who spoke of seven human needs in The Casework Relationship. They were:

• to be treated as an individual
• to express feelings
• to get sympathetic responses to problems
• to be recognized as a person of worth
• to not be judged
• to make one's own choices and decisions
• to keep secrets about oneself

Beautiful! When we honor these needs, we make spiritual connections with others. What Charlotte Towle and Felix Biestek taught was that good science is nothing without concern for the relationship. And true concern for the relationship honors these needs.

I recall the following story. As his students were just beginning to play their musical piece, Pablo Casals shouted, "Stop! The first note has no life!" In relationships, compassion is the first note.


Copyright starfishdoc 2009

What's Worth Doing?

Here is my favorite "zen" question:

What is it that you are not doing
while you are busy doing
what it is you are doing?

I like this saying for at least two reasons. The first is that I made it up myself! The second is that when I reflect upon it from time to time, it helps me tweak my priorities.... and I'm needing to tweak right now.

As you have noticed, I have been posting less frequently. What I have not been doing (writing a post each week) is because of what I am doing (teaching three social work classes at USM).

Both pursuits are extremely important to me; and yet, at times I find myself torn and wishing I could spend lots more time doing both. (I've also not been quilting, but let's not even go there!) Since my students are my newest readers as well as my current responsibility, I write today's post for them. It's about priorities.

On the first day of class, their faces were as bright and shiny as the blank pages of their new notebooks. But now, with pages of scribbled notes they may not be able to decipher at exam time, they appear to be asking:

"What am I doing here?"
"What's this all for?"
And above all, "What am I missing out on while I'm doing this?"

In other words, the realization of the enormous commitment they have made to becoming professional social workers has hit them hard.

All of us, students or not, face the challenge of what's worth doing. The greatest struggles arise when two or more vital pursuits compete for our limited time and energy.

The usual advice - to "examine and adjust your priorities" - never works for me. It suggests that if you were to examine your heart, you'd see that one priority has more weight than another. But my heart holds dear many people and many pursuits. It would be a Solomon's choice to pick one.

When two or more pursuits are equally compelling in your life (and I believe that this is often the case), you need to understand how the two are related: how they complement and inform one another. When you do that, you are less likely to feel that you are stealing from one to do the other. When I write, my teaching improves. When I teach, my writing improves. When I'm doing one, I don't have to feel guilty about not doing the other because, in a way, I'm doing both.

Now that may sound like compromising the quality of both endeavors. But my thinking is guided by something William James once said:

"The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it."

Applying that principle, teaching and writing are both worth doing. And I don't believe that James meant spending your life doing some one thing that would make you famous or for which statues would be built in your honor. You see, he also said:

"I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions, and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets..."

So, I think I'll tend to my rootlets. Maybe one of them will lead me back to quilting.

Copyright 2008 starfishdoc

Landscapes

It was the perfect weekend for a foliage trip. Blue skies and sunshine. Cool, comfortable temperatures. We went off to spend an overnight with friends in Southwest Harbor, and spent Saturday sightseeing in Acadia National Park. The park roads were busy with hikers, bikers, and campers - everyone out enjoying the beautiful scenery offered by Cadillac Mountain and the surrounding area.

The views throughout Acadia are breathtaking, as you can see. Ocean, mountains, lakes, trails - whatever your idea of natural beauty, you're likely to find it here. That's not to say that Acadia is the only place to find such majesty. There are wonders of nature all over our country and all around the world.

There are so many different ways people relate to such beauty. As I was standing at the summit of Cadillac Mountain, I overheard a man say to his friends, "Okay, we've seen it. Now how about some tea and popovers?" (He was referring to Jordan Pond House, a favorite park restaurant, where popovers are the house specialty.) I've got nothing against popovers, mind you. In fact, I had myself a couple that day, too. My issue with him is it seemed that all he felt he needed to do was to check the box that said "caught the view from Cadillac" and he was done. Now, that's aesthetic appreciation at its lowest rung!


I suspect that most of the folks there were more in "communing with nature" mode: trying to take in and appreciate the awesomeness of nature in all her glory and connect to it in a personal way.


For me, the beauty around me reminded me of something Eckhart Tolle said. "Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you." In other words, it is the landscape within not the landscape without that counts.

When you really understand that, you don't need to go anywhere. You carry the beauty of the world in which we live deep within your own soul. Ultimately, the exploration of our inner landscape is what leads us to understand one another, because it is there that we discover how much we are the same entity. Places like Acadia simply serve to remind us of that.

Copyright starfishdoc 2008

Abundance

I’m sitting at a picnic table at the edge of the sea. It’s a beautiful sunny day, sweetened by the songs of finches and the scent of lilacs and beach roses. The gulls are splashing in the pools that form at low tide. From where I sit I can see the markers for more than forty lobster traps.

A dozen common eiders swim toward shore in a row so straight they put the Rockettes to shame. This is Pemaquid Point, one of perhaps a hundred peninsulas that decorate the Maine coastline like fringe on a flapper’s dress. I am surrounded by abundance.

I owe this glorious experience to the generosity of a prosperous friend who is renting this cottage and has given it to me for the week. Chris is the embodiment of my favorite word - abundance. The more money he makes, the more he gives away to other people. The more money he makes, the more he does for others.

Now, you may think, well sure, he has money so he can afford to be generous. But that’s where you’d be mistaken. Chris is not generous because he has money; he’s generous because that’s who he is. It is his nature. Embedded in his character is the spirit of abundance, the expression of which is generosity. People like Chris always have a sense that there's plenty to go around. They are human cornucopias.

Sadly, we all know wealthy people who’d never give a nickel to a beggar. But hoarding has never led to happiness. My friend Chris is always smiling, and his joyous disposition is contagious.

Abundance is an attitude. It’s not about money or even material goods necessarily. It’s about sharing, giving away, whatever it is you have to offer. It comes from knowing that we all have gifts that someone else needs, and there’s no better way to feel connected to other people and to the planet itself than to share your gifts.

Thanks Chris for being who you are.

Copyright 2008 starfishdoc

Being with My People

Throughout my life, I've done most things alone: not by choice, but by default. Usually it was because I wanted to pursue something that no one else had much interest in.

About eight years ago I decided to take up the accordion. (Spare me the accordion jokes. I've heard them all.) For the most part, I am self taught (oh, the horror) and play alone, unless D talks me into playing out in public with him. When I bought my first new accordion a few years later, a friend told me about an annual accordion and concertina festival in western Massachusetts. D insisted that we go.

It was late September. We got lost trying to find Bucksteep Manor, the home of the Northeast Squeeze-In. (I don't make this stuff up!) Even the local police and mail carriers in Washington, MA couldn't help us. No one seemed to know that there was an accordion festival in town. (It's odd that such a boisterous instrument tends to be played by introverts who don't want you to know where they are.) Finally, we found someone who told us that the entrance to Bucksteep would be on our right, when we came to a flat-roofed church.

We finally arrived at the winding driveway of the campgrounds, and followed it uphill, approaching the main lodge from the side. It wasn't until we came around the corner that we saw the wide front porch, spilling over with close to a hundred accordion players. (Scared yet?)

Though strangers all, it was easy to fall into a comfort zone with one another based on our shared love of the accordion and the desire to play together; which we did in small groups and workshops, culminating in an all-accordion orchestra piece we played at the Saturday night concert.

D has never let me forget what came out of my mouth that day. I swear it came directly from my unconscious and shot out my mouth with no editing:

"I'm with my people!"

You see, no matter how self-directed and self-sufficient a person is, each of us needs to make connections. It's relationships that validate us. It's relationships that make us feel cared about. It's relationships that make us whole. It's relationships that keep us sane. (Well, sometimes they make us crazy, I'll admit.)

Since moving to Maine, making connections has been a lot of hard work. No one has come knocking at my door to say "be my friend." All the legwork's been on my part, and sometimes it's exhausting. But it is necessary. I have no tolerance for people who say, "I have no friends." That's a statement usually made by people who think relationships fall into your lap. They don't. You must seek them out. Sometimes you'll be rejected. But it's so important to your mental health that you must keep trying.

A year later, I returned to the Squeeze-In and won the limerick contest. A small tribute to connections,my poem goes like this:

If you're looking for reeds by the heap-full,
Come to Bucksteep, with chapel, no steeple,
With each pull and each squeeze,
You can play all you please,
And best of all, be with your people.




copyright 2008 starfishdoc



Here's a picture of my favorite accordion.