Blog2023-04-02T15:07:49+00:00

Imperfect Serenity

I began this blog in 2005 while I was taking care of two young children and my dying mother, so the title, Imperfect Serenity, referred to my struggle to stay spiritually grounded during a difficult time. Eventually the title came to include my experiences in eco-justice activism, anti-racism work, and book publicity.

August10, 2010

An Inspiration

By |August 10th, 2010|Categories: Spirituality, Writing|1 Comment

Some of you have heard me say that it was pregnancy that inspired me to write The Wisdom to Know the Difference. That's mostly true, but the other thing that got me thinking about the Serenity Prayer was a 60 Minutes episode about Richard Leakey. This deleted bit of the book is one of the first things I wrote, though I later cut it, partly because I found out that Leakey was a more controversial and complex figure than I originally realized, and also because there were so many interesting people whom I got to interview myself. Still, I find his story intriguing: Discerning what we can and cannot change is one of life’s great challenges. Too often we waste energy complaining about problems that are [...]

August5, 2010

Dramatic Social Change

By |August 5th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|1 Comment

In honor of the California Supreme Court decision on marriage equality, here's an excerpt from my interview with a Rabbi from the Reconstructionist tradition: “I guess I haven’t really found an issue that I believe I couldn’t change if I found like minded people and worked with them,” says Rabbi Erin Hirsh, who describes herself as “profoundly optimistic.” She notes that her own relatively small branch of Judaism has had helped to change the norms of Judaism as a whole. “Within the Jewish community, Reconstructionists created the Bat Mitzvah ceremony, and now our girls take it for granted,” she notes . “We ordained the first woman. We allowed gays and lesbians into the seminary from the day it opened, and then we ordained gay and [...]

August4, 2010

Expecting Respect

By |August 4th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

Here's another story that didn't make it into the book (due out in paperback in less than a month!): Joan noted that the self-respect her parents taught her affects how she is treated. I observed this dynamic myself once when I went to the hospital with my seventy-year-old mother, who was having a diagnostic procedure. She was terrified because the last time she’d had this test she had gotten violently ill from the anesthesia. I assured her there were different kinds of anesthesia available and that if the doctors knew she had gotten sick the last time they would be better able to help her, but she feared that voicing her concerns would be pushy. Finally I convinced her to let me speak to the [...]

July30, 2010

Hermione’s Wisdom

By |July 30th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|2 Comments

Attempting to control other people's behavior usually backfires. I love the example of Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. When Professor Umbridge (the consummate control freak) forbids students to read a magazine interview with Harry, his wise friend Hermione just smiles: "Don't you see? Umbridge just guaranteed that every student in the school will read it!" In my observation, this literary example reflects how people really behave. My mother, a life-long Roman Catholic, had no interest in the bestselling DaVinci Code until the Vatican told Catholics not to read it. My mother who was in bed and on hospice responded, "Get me a copy of that book." About two thousand years ago, the Roman philosopher Cicero identified Six Mistakes of [...]

July27, 2010

The Power of Granola

By |July 27th, 2010|Categories: Nonviolent Direct Action|0 Comments

Thanks to Justamere Tree Farm Blog for this pictureThis story didn't make it into the book, but I've always loved it. The facts came from the Yale alumni magazine, though the interpretation is my own: We live in a culture that values being tough and scorns those who are seen as naïve. But it is not naïve to look for the best in people. It really works, often better than defensive battling. One example comes from Yale University during the turbulent days of the Vietnam War. In May 1970, the Black Panther Party called for a large march in New Haven, home of Yale, while provocative leaders like Abbie Hoffman vowed to burn Yale down. The threat didn't seem idle. A month earlier there had [...]

July23, 2010

Poverty Continued…

By |July 23rd, 2010|Categories: Racism|0 Comments

Wallis' point about many of us not living with the poor was illustrated one night several years ago by my perceptive daughter. We were celebrating Lent, the forty days before Easter, when many Christians fast or give up some comfort, while trying to practice a heightened concern for the poor. We had decided to eat a simple meal once a week and donate the money we saved to Catholic Relief Services, which provided a small cardboard rice bowl and simple recipes from around the world for this purpose. One night when I was coaxing my five-year-old to try rice and black beans she asked, "Why can't we eat what we want and just give the poor people our rice and beans if they like this [...]

July20, 2010

The Poor You Shall Have with You

By |July 20th, 2010|Categories: Spirituality|0 Comments

My Quaker meeting recently had a session where we shared some of our experiences with money. Dealing with poverty–our own or other people's–was one of the themes that emerged. Afterward someone asked me what I thought of a famous Gospel quote about the poor. As it turns out, I have a few paragraphs about that which got cut from the book, so here's another deleted scene: Sometimes the things that need to be changed don’t affect us directly, making us unlikely to do anything about them unless we feel connected to those who do need help. Evangelical minister Jim Wallis makes this point, talking about Christians in the United States who do not live with people who are poor. Author of God's Politics: Why the [...]

July15, 2010

What Voice Shall We Listen To?

By |July 15th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|3 Comments

Here's another story from Sophie's interview that didn't make it into the book. Sophie had been previously described as a petit white woman with blond hair and blue eyes: I recall another story Sophie told me once before she was ill. One night she was walking to her car on a dark city path in a neighborhood with a high crime rate. Sophie, who was in her sixties at the time, grew nervous when she heard footsteps. Then she heard a voice inside her say, "Turn around and go talk to the person behind you." Sophie turned and walked back toward a tall, young black man. As soon as she spoke to him, the fear left her. "Excuse me," Sophie said in her high, soft [...]

July12, 2010

Sophie’s Story

By |July 12th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

Those of you who have read The Wisdom to Know the Difference may remember Sophie, who thought she was dying of leukemia and then had a remarkable full recovery after coming to complete peace. Well, here's a piece of her interview that never made it into the book, even though I was very touched by this story: Near the end of our interview, Sophie told me with some urgency that there was one more story she had to share. She had been visiting her grandchildren when her two youngest granddaughters, ages five and six, pulled her aside in secret. The six-year-old sat her down and said, "We know that you're going to die soon, Grammy." "You do?" Sophie asked, astonished because the girls had not [...]

July8, 2010

Rant about Culture

By |July 8th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

As promised last time, I've been reading the "cuts" file from The Wisdom to Know the Difference, looking for things that feel worth saying, even though they didn't make it into the book. I've noticed that I did a lot of ranting about our culture early on, which got scaled back as I revised. Here's a taste: Our culture discourages us from the practices that help us to connect to our inner guidance. The gym music blares, the doctor’s office television is always on, our senses are constantly being stimulated. Our schedules are full of soccer games and PTA meetings, not to mention commuting to work that is often unsatisfactory. We come home and try to tune out the stress by watching “reality” shows about [...]

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