All downhill from here?

Did you ever have a grown up in your life tell you, after graduation or a significant birthday, that it was all down hill from here? I mean, what is that? What kind of message is that to give someone during a moment of celebration?

Celebrations need to be savored. Those are moments we don't get back. Whether it's graduation, a new baby, a wedding, a holiday, your birthday, or just Tuesday with your family, we don't get that time back - ever. And yet, the older we get, the less we celebrate. Hmm. Seems kind of backwards to me.

Let's think about this. A baby's first birthday is a big deal. Of course it is. Parents have a special cake for the baby to literally dig into, and probably spend too much money on a bigger cake for everyone else that no one eats because they don't need the calories. They invite all of their friends over who stand around and watch the baby tear into this aptly named 'smash cake' and coo and gurgle and speak infant. All the while, the child has no clue what's going on. This pattern gets repeated for years until the entire 5th grade ends up having a slumber party at your house complete with a space walk in the back yard and pancakes for 30 the next morning. And on it goes until one day you turn around and YOU are the one that's 30. Or 40. Or 65. And the last thing you believe you want to do is celebrate with your friends and/or family. A quiet evening at home will do just fine.

What?

We finally have a clue and we quit. It's not convenient. It takes up too much time. We don't want to put anyone out. It's just another day.

Well, I don't know about you but I think that's just nuts. Have you watched the news lately? As I write this another round of killer tornadoes are ripping apart lives and property in parts of Oklahoma and Missouri, as a chunk of the Deep South is still sifting thru debris from the last bunch. Hurricane season starts in 10 days, and frankly, the idea of that already makes my stomach hurt. A mother is finally on trial for allegedly killing her 2 year old. There are lives that are in turmoil because they honestly thought the world was ending last Saturday and they walked away from family and jobs at the direction of a radio engineer who is beginning to sound like a GPS after a wrong turn (re-calculating, re-calculating...).

Ladies and gentleman - we may not get another day. It simply is not a guarantee. The time to celebrate is now. Now that we are old enough to appreciate what it is that we're celebrating.

Now don't get me wrong. I do believe we should celebrate our children's birthdays. Those rituals are important and necessary. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with a quiet evening at home or making adjustments in holidays as families change and friends drop in and out of our lives. Believe me, no one contemplates where their life is, has been, or is going to more than I do. God-willing, in few months, I'll hit that 40 number. Single, living in apartment, and sitting behind a desk on Dauphin Island is certainly not where I expected to be at this point. If nothing changes between now and then (and we make it past the new projected end of the world...re-calculating...) - I'll probably contemplate and deal with a range of emotion leading up to November 18, and more on November 19 - but ON that day I hope to be celebrating with the people I love the most.  At least celebrating making it to 40 and having a new chance and a new decade to make changes where needed and appreciate even more the blessings I have in my life.

This week two of my cousins graduated from high school. One of them wrote a note describing his day as the 'end of the introduction of (their) story'. I kinda love that. The end of the introduction. Which means Chapter 1 is about to start. Definitely a time to celebrate, and I hope both Drew and Will blow the roof off their respective towns. Tomorrow is my brother's 34th birthday. He's spending a quiet night at home. And that's ok - it's been a very busy month. But first, some of us will gather for lunch and some fun and a little celebration of the day this remarkable young man came into our lives and made it richer and more beautiful than we could have ever imagined.

You see, it's never inconvenient to celebrate. It isn't just another day. It doesn't take too much time. You aren't putting anyone out. And it is NOT downhill from here. It's a starting point. Everytime. Take the joy and energy of each celebration and use it to walk forward, looking back only when needed, taking what we've learned and experienced and making it to the next celebration stronger, more able to handle the down times in between, and able to recognize that no celebration is a small one - not even if it's just Tuesday with the family. Each one becomes more precious as life gets busier, we get older, and the world gets scarier. They are not to be taken for granted.

And for heaven's sake...don't quit.

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."
                                                                      - Oprah Winfrey

Magic

It's 10:30 a.m. on a Friday. I'm on vacation. I've been basically awake since 4 a.m. Reason? To witness the wedding of Prince William of Wales and his bride, Catherine Middleton. The dress was stunning, the bride was beautiful, the groom handsome as ever. The trumpets sounded. The music was spectacular. Even the sun came out - and if you've ever been to London you know that's a fairly rare occurance. Now, why did I and millions of others wake up before the sun to witness the wedding of a young couple whom we do not know and will probably never meet? Well, I can't speak for the millions, but I can speak for me.

Part of it is because I, along with the world, have watched William grow up. I rose early to watch his parents marry. I wept with him when his mother died. I watched him become a man and take on more and more responsibility as the man who will be King. I smile when he smiles because he looks so much like Diana and has so many of her traits and passions. Today, I admire the fact that with all of the nods to tradition and order and responsibility that they did this their way, down to leaving the palace driving themselves - in a decorated convertible with balloons waving off the back and a sign that read "Just Wed" over the license plate. It completely took the crowd and the media off guard. Kind of reminds me of a young princess that died to soon.

But here's the real reason. I still need to believe in magic. I don't think I'm alone in this. The world is a dark, scary place and if we allow ourselves to get bogged down in nothing but dark and scary we become cynical and mean.

Wednesday of this week was a simply awful day in the state of Alabama and across the South. Over 120 tornadoes touched down in the worst outbreak this country has seen in 30 years. In Tuscaloosa and Birmingham twisters the size of those we see in the Plains ripped a destructive path thru highly populated areas. Neighborhoods are gone. People are dead. It's dark and sad and just horrible. Across this country and around the world people are struggling to make ends meet. Gas prices are too high. Unemployment is rampant. Weather related destruction and death are seemingly more common, or at least more widely reported. Nothing's easy. It would be so simple to pull the shades down at the end of the day and crawl into bed believing in nothing and expecting nothing to ever change. But if that's what we allow ourselves to believe, honestly, why get up the next day at all?

When times are tough, it's not the time to stop believing in magic - it's the time to start looking for it. Whether it's the baptism of a baby, or the laughter of a 2 year old during his first real Easter egg hunt, or the helping hand of a stranger when you've lost everything. Maybe it's your family around the dinner table. Maybe it's a sunrise. Maybe it's an empty tomb. Maybe - just maybe - it's in the faces of two young people as they take vows to love, honor, and cherish  - and then turn and face forever with hope and excitement and a few nerves.

Some are already tearing them down. Some are only talking about how much it cost. Some are already making bets about how long it will last. How ugly. How sad. I can't walk thru life that way, and I don't know why anyone would want to.

So, I'm going to start my day. I'm going to get in my currently un-air conditioned car and pay entirely too much to fill it up and then I'm going to drive 2+ hours in that very hot car. But at the end of that journey, I'll be sitting on the front porch of my sister's house, probably with a cold drink in my hand, and that makes all of the other stuff worth it.

My wish, on this day when a young woman married her handsome Prince and became a Princess, is that we all stop focusing on the dark and start recognizing and rejoicing in the magic that surrounds us daily. It's the thing that gives us hope, and makes the dark not so scary.

No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true

Paper Clips

We are so busy with our lives and so inundated with bad news these days that most moments simply pass right by without a thought or a notice.  This fact makes the moments that are so unexpected and so powerful  they stick that much more precious. And you just never know what shape they will take.

A few months ago my dad introduced me to a documentary called "Paper Clips". Since that introduction, I've watched the film twice and been in several conversations about it. The story is of  a small Tennessee coal mining town that underwent a sort of awakening about 10 years ago and has been forever changed. Whitwell, Tennessee is a town of about 1600 hundred people. They are mostly white, mostly protestant, and until this project, most likely set in their ways without much thought of the diversity of the world around them. Following a teacher's conference, the assistant principal of the middle school came back with an idea that the students in the 8th grade should have an opportunity to study the Holocaust, believing that it would be the ideal way to introduce them to a different culture and faith, one that none of them had ever been exposed to. When the students began learning about the 6 million Jews that were killed in the concentration camps during WWII, one student wondered aloud about what 6 million looked like - what did such a large number actually look like. The principal encouraged the kids to find something they could collect 6 million of so they could have an idea of the magnitude of such a number. As you've probably guessed, the item was paper clips. Now, I'm not going to tell you what happens from here (get the film - watch it - and then watch it again) except to say that the project took on a life of it's own, and 10 years later a permanent memorial to the project still stands at the new Whitwell Middle School and has forever changed the attitudes and opened the eyes of this little backroads, coal mining, Tennessee town.

My mom and dad recently had an opportunity to visit the memorial during a trip to Sewanee, which is not far up the road from Whitwell. They did not get up to it as it's on the grounds of the new school, which was closed for Spring Break., but dad said that even the sight of it from a distance was moving. But perhaps more moving was his description of the woman from Whitwell who met him on the street near the old middle school, the original location of the memorial. I bet you have a picture of her in your mind already - and you'd be right - driving an old pickup that was splattered with the dirt of honest country roads,  - but bright eyes and a smile that said 'welcome' - a startling gesture in a world when where most strangers are met with caution. She updated my parents on the new school and the new location for the memorial and all the teachers and community leaders that spearheaded the original project. Dad shared with her that he's involved with a Jewish - Christian dialogue group in Mobile. She responded, with tears in her eyes, "that must be so wonderful." That's how deeply this project has changed this town - and it all started with a question - and an opportunity.

I wonder what would happen if everytime we saw a need or an opportunity to make things better - we took it head on like the community of Whitwell, Tennessee did with this project.  Can you imagine? What if all of the abandoned buildings became community centers with job skills training and after school programs. All the vacant lots became basketball courts for pickup games and a volunteer gave his or her time to kids with nothing to do between the hours of 3-6, which is when most kids get into trouble.  What if all the land and subdivision developers set aside two lots in each neighborhood and instead of building houses, they built a playground and installed picnic tables, so that people came out of their houses and got to know their neighbors - and the idea of neighbors helping raise the children came back into vogue - and crime went down because we were are looking out for each other. What if, instead of walking over the empty can on the street, we picked it up and found a trash can, or better yet, a recycling bin. What if, instead of giving into to hate and cynism and apathy, we educated ourselves on our differences, and discovered just how many similarities actually exist between different cultures, different races, different faiths. What if, no matter who told you not to speak the truth, or told you to be quiet unless given permission to talk, that you just kept getting louder until you made a difference? What if everytime a spark was created, we grabbed the billow to make it burn hotter instead of putting it out? That's how moments happen. It's how change is created. It's how a difference is made in the way we live our lives for the better. We never know where these opportunities are going to go if we don't give them a chance to take root and grow. Some will falter - and others will forever change a community, or a nation, or a world.

For more information on Whitwell, Tennessee and the Paper Clips Project go to http://www.whitwellmiddleschool.org/ and look for the Holocaust project link. The memorial is available for viewing year round. If school isn't open, just stop by the police station. They'll let you in.

Watching the world wake up from history

The world changed today.

For the last 18 days the world has watched as the people of Egypt, mostly young folks, have flowed into the streets in mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for the resignation of their President. For many of the protestors, President Mubarak is the only leader they have ever known. That's hard to fathom for us as Americans. Watching this whole experinence has made me even more grateful that we have a peaceful transfer of power between our Presidents and other public officials. Despite our differences, we rarely feel the need to take to the streets in order to be heard. We simply cast a different ballot at the next election.

I was a freshman in college in the fall of 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. I remember watching with awe and excitement as the people of a divided nation walked across thru the gate without fear of arrest or death. Some of them saw family for the first time. Some scaled the wall and popped champagne. Some started playing music on top of the wall. All over Berlin people took to the streets in celebration. I also remember a generation or two older than I worried about what a unified Germany would mean. Their memories of that single country included the rise of Hitler and the horrors that followed and the rule of Communism. Suddenly, as we watched on network and some cable television, we saw a revolution of sorts and rejoiced with cautious optisim. Tonight we watch again, on television, the internet, facebook, and Twitter, with the same questions of what this means for Egypt, the Middle East, the United States, and the rest of the world. As I write this, some 12+ hours since the announcement that Mubarak had resigned, the celebration continues in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria.

So, why do we 'take to the streets'? In good times and bad, people seem to go outside. It's interesting. I've grown up hearing stories of sit-ins and peace rallies during the 60s. During the build-up to the war in Iraq, people gathered to protest the war or support the troops. In 1992, when a judge acquited police officers in the Rodney King trial, the streets of LA errupted in violence and flames as the citizens of South Central expressed their rage in the only way they knew how. After 9/11 there was a night when everyone was asked to go out on their porches and light a candle. When our favorite team wins a championship, we gather for celebration, usually with a parade or pep-rally. I remember the night the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl. I called my sister in New Orleans who said that block parties were spontaneously breaking out all over the place. The French Quarter was teaming with people. I could hear fireworks, yells, and honking horns in the background. I also remember the night President Obama was elected. I called my brother who told me he and a group of friends were standing outside drinking champage and celebrating. And for the last 18 days, the people of Egypt have gone outside and said in one voice that they were staying as long as it took. Yesterday, when it looked as if Mubarak was digging in and not leaving, even more people came out to join the throng of people already at Liberation Square. And finally, this morning when the resignation was announced, I think all of Cairo went outside.

I asked myself 'why do we do this?". Tonight, on CNN, I think I heard the answer. I mean, I get the whole being together, thing. But I heard a young Egyptian being interviewed as the sun rose over Cairo, and he talked about walking across the bridge that leads into the city. He described the scene and the people and the noise. He then got a little choked up as he described the children dancing in the street and chanting "hold your head up - we are Egyptians". He walked along that bridge in his country - now changed forever - and observed his human family celebrating together. That's what it comes down to. The human family celebrating, protesting, raging, exisiting - together.

The scenes of the dancing, the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the make-shift food tents, the flags and banners -are all stunning images of a people who, yesterday, felt that they had no voice, and today, have finally been heard. May God be with them as they rejoice and move carefully into the future.

Jesus Christ is raging,
Raging in the streets,
Where injustice spirals
And real hope retreats.
Listen, Lord Jesus,
I am angry too.
In the Kingdom’s causes
Let me rage with you.

Jesus Christ is healing,
Healing in the streets;
Curing those who suffer,
Touching those he greets.
Listen, Lord Jesus,
I have pity too.
Let my care be active,
Healing just like you.

Jesus Christ is dancing,
Dancing in the streets,
Where each sign of hatred
He, with love, defeats.
Listen, Lord Jesus,
I should triumph too.
On suspicion’s graveyard
Let me dance with you.