Word Power

I did this a while ago for a St. Olaf College "Chapel Talk".   The college has a daily chapel service, just twenty minutes or so, with a couple of hymns, a reading from scripture, and sort of homily by a member of the community. They ask for twelve minutes and it can be more difficult than you might think. Anyway, I tell folks I'll do it when they absolutely can't find anyone else, and this past April that was true one day. I'm a deist at best these days, but I try to see what I believe the really nice things are about all faith traditions, so it's even  more challenging for me sometimes. 

I think this is pretty topical these days:

Our perpetual election season is going full blast right now, and people are using language in new, interesting, and sometimes scary ways, so I’ve been thinking about words a lot recently.

Words are powerful, and it is way too easy to throw them around without imagining all of the ways they can be heard.  I cannot attribute this quote, it’s from an old NBA coach as far as I know. “I was miserable as a coach until I realized it didn’t matter what I said, the only thing that mattered is what they heard.” 

In the current political environment it is clear that the candidates are being pretty careful about making sure they throw in words that will be heard even if the context is babble.  We can all think of some of these pretty quickly, but this is apolitical and so you’ll have to think of your own examples.

Maybe it’s sort of like the old “Far Side” cartoon where we learn what cats hear and what dogs hear. Cats hear, “blah, blah, blah, blah.” Dogs hear, “blah, blah, blah, Trixie!!!” If we have to be anything I guess I’m happier being a dog than a cat, but I promise to try to get the context too.

A local blogger recently wrote a post about a story that had appeared in the Twin Cities newspapers. The original story was about a Tibetan Buddhist family in St. Paul whose young son was recently identified as an incarnate Lama.

The blogger’s post characterized the belief and the situation as “goofy”. I thought it was a really nice story about a family circumstance that none of us could even imagine. 

As I get older, if not exactly more mature, I try to rise to the bait less and less over inconsequential things. At the same time, I’ve been trying to be more responsive to consequential things. Things of importance to me.  

This one hit me sort of hard and so I did rise and go after the bait, posting a comment that asked something like, “Who are any of us to characterize the tenets of an important spiritual tradition and world culture as goofy?”

  

 That started off an interesting set of exchanges with other readers and the writer.  Some folks tried to offer reasonable observations about the nature of various faith traditions, others argued that because reincarnation can’t be proved it is sketchier than Christian beliefs, which are of course all proven because they are in the bible. 

The off-handed use of the word goofy in this context is what’s important about this to me, but I should share that the final exchange asserted that I should feel lucky Martin Luther thought the Roman Catholics were goofy, or I wouldn’t have a pretty good job at St. Olaf College today. 

I’ll leave you to judge which of these ideas is goofy!

There were many ways to respond to that one, and I wrote a few out, but thankfully came to my senses and didn’t push send on any.  I would have said that I was pretty sure that Martin Luther, Jan Huss, and others probably weren’t thinking in light hearted terms during their phases of the reformation.

Huss in particular didn’t have any fun.

Kent Nerburn is a writer from Bemidji Minnesota, who has been active over time working with people on the Red Lake Ojibway reservation. He got some notoriety in Indian Country through a history project he did with Red Lake kids. This experience led him, through a series of circumstances, to write “Neither Wolf Nor Dog, On Forgotten Roads With an Indian Elder”. Forgotten Roads is a biography, maybe a biographical novel of sorts, about a Lakota elder known to us only as

Dan.

Dan had written little notes to his creator nearly every day for much of his life, and reached out to Nerburn to see if he’d help put them into book form.  Dan had been a sort of normal guy, not a chief or other leader, but thought long and deeply about life and wanted his work and ideas to be shared with young people.

There is a very important section in which Dan is trying to explain to Nerburn how white Americans’ use of words and language negatively impacted his people.  Like most reservation kids in that day, Dan went off to a boarding school with no English. They went to class the first day, the teacher spoke English, and they just had to figure it out.

Dan speaking to Nerburn:

I remember how funny it sounded when I first heard it.  The teacher could talk for an hour and not even stop. She could talk about anything. She didn’t need to move her hands, even.  She just talked. Some days I would sit and watch her just to see all of the words she said.  One other boy once told me he thought she said as many words in a day as there were stars in the sky. I never forgot that.

When I learned English I realized it was a trick. You could use it to say the same thing a hundred ways.  What was important to Indian people was saying something the best way. In English you had to learn to say things a hundred ways. I never heard anything like it. I still watch white people talk and I’m surprised at all the words. Sometimes they will say the same thing over and over and over in different ways.   

They are like a hunter who rushes all over the forest hoping to bump in to something instead of sitting quietly until he can capture it.”

Dan goes on to an elegant description of the way language in general, and some words in particular, were used to the detriment of Indian people, but I’ll go on to a concluding idea:

“We didn’t see the big ideas behind the words you used.  We didn’t see that you had to name everything to make it exist, and that the name you gave something made it what it was. You named us savages, so were savages.  Without even knowing it, you made us who we are in your minds by the words you used.  I hope you will learn to be more careful with your words. Our children don’t know the old language so well, so it is your English that is giving them the world. Right now some of the ideas in your words are wrong. They are giving our children and yours the world in a wrong way

There was on old man who told me when I was a boy that I should look at words like beautiful stones. He said that I should lift each one and look at it from all sides before I used it. Then I would respect it.

I think he gave me good advice. Those words are like stones. Even if they are very beautiful, if you throw them without thinking, they can hurt someone.”

Language was also a huge issue in Jesus’ time and he was probably conversant in two if not three languages. It’s hard to imagine doing his work while dealing with all of the subtleties of multiple languages. Nevertheless, maybe no one used language so well before or since. In a day where we constantly see the short hand for What Would Jesus Do, it’s good to really think about that when we see things that disturb us.

Jesus, for instance, would not thoughtlessly throw a stone at a Buddhist family simply for believing differently than our mainstream.  I believe Jesus would confront that kind of behavior, and rebuke the stone thrower.

Words are powerful and can really hurt, but let’s not forgot the good that they can do in the world as well. What could you say to someone today to make a difference? What beautiful words could you use to describe another human or another group of people?

I recently came across a simple prompt: “Write the message you deeply long to receive.” I love this sentiment, and whether the message is written or spoken aloud, I encourage you to share some beautiful stones today.

The Old Man Down the Road to Sturgis

I waited maybe 35 years before taking the motorcycle plunge. I'd wanted one pretty much my entire life.  I had friends in high school who rammed around on Honda 90s, then moved up to Honda Dreams and Scramblers. I rode around on those sometimes but couldn't think about it at the time. Easy Rider came out and that was it, the fire was going. Off to college where a friend had a Triumph Bonneville that ramped everything way up. Other guys in Winona were getting into Harleys and Indians, and then choppers.

Working in NW Iowa one summer a friend of a friend was a guy who'd been badly broken up in a car wreck, and spent a year working on a crazy Harley chopper from a body cast.  He didn't want anything to be easy, and his left leg was wrecked anyway, so he had a suicide shifter on this thing. Being crazy, he and another friend sat me on this thing and said, "Go".  I'd never seen a foot operated clutch or stick shifter on a bike, let alone tried!

You can imagine that didn't go so well but nothing got broken, on me or the bike.

Anyway, long years later Leslie sort of reluctantly went along with my folly and I got my first Harley, a 2006 Sportster Custom 1200. I loved that thing and would love to have been able to keep it instead trading when I moved up to a brand new 2008 Street Glide, supposedly the sportier of the Electra Glides. Really I picked the SG because it was more stripped down and easier to keep relatively clean. That's an issue since I'm in the "ride it, don't rub it" gang.

I ride most every day the weather allows, and I rode in everyone of the past 12 months. Even in the worse weather years I won't put it away until after Thanksgiving, and I probably get it back out sometime or other most Februarys.

It's hard to say what is so captivating about these things. Certainly the whole, Get your motors running, head out on the highway...thing. 

I've come to believe there are two kinds of guys. Those who are on their Harleys, and those who aren't yet.  Of course the other side of that is that there are two kinds of guys with Harleys.  Those who have wrecked, and those who haven't wrecked yet. 

Luckily - in the weirdest way - I've wrecked and so hopefully have it out of the way without too much damage (to me anyway). My sporty got sort of rolled up into a ball, and when my thighs blew through the bars they were bent all all the way around, each side 180 degrees, so that they were crossed completely. I have actual dents in my quads still and that was over six years ago.

The next day I walked into the Harley store and they let me back in the shop where my ride was up on a lift with four guys standing around poking at it. They turned around and saw me and couldn't believe I was on foot. Leslie exhibited the most ridiculous level of understanding I could have ever imagined, and I'm still on two wheelers six years later!

Last winter a friend at work asked if I'd be interested in going out to the Sturgis Rally as he and family and friends go most years, but his spouse wouldn't be this year. I said sure, even though I had no big desire to ever do it, but it was so cool that he invited me that I didn't think I should pass it up.  Leslie practically insisted I had to do it, so I was off.  

Right before we left an important conflict developed for me and Dave Amy, the friend, rearranged a bunch of reservations to make it still happen.  We headed out on the Thursday prior to the start, arrived Friday after two easy days, some beers and pizzas, and a nice night's sleep in Pierre SD.  Friday we had great steaks and prime rib in Custer. Saturday we went in to Sturgis and rode all over the Black Hills, including the Custer State Park wildlife loop in the early evening. Sunday we did the big rides, Needles Highway and Spearfish Canyon and had a blast.

       

Beautiful downtown Sturgis SD, this is a day before the rally officially starts. I never really thought about doing any of the big rallys. Except for for rock and roll, crowds aren't my thing at all. It turns out that folks flock to the Hills earlier and earlier and things are really cooking a week ahead and a week after these days.

  

 Dave Amy and I taking pictures of each other on The Needles Highway. We had to stop so I could catch my breath after holding it for too long. "Highway" is loosely used in this case. It's maybe 16 feet wide total with plenty of steep downhill 180 degree turns that zip right around and send you back up the same 9-10 degree slope you just came down, but with only about 200 bikes per minute coming at you and untold thousands behind. I was very happy my peeps didn't ever have to wait for me, and that I never held up those behind.

 My baby back in the driveway in Northfield. We did over 1,600 miles, including 620 in one day on the way home. No problems at all on the long day. It was surprisingly easy and we were safe the whole way.

We saw one bad wreck on I-90 on our long day home, and indications of a couple while in the Hills as entries to some of the roads at intersections were blocked off for rescue folks. I think three people were killed during our time out there. It's really terrible and literally makes me weep that folks get hurt during what should be their coolest of times.  I saw all kinds of numbers about how many people were out there and still coming. The miles people ride related to the rally add up to very many millions, so I'm not sure the injuries are more than might be expected for that many miles anywhere, but it's still hard to think about.

We met really cool, nice, folks everywhere, and the big lesson for everyone else is that no books should judged by their covers!  

Sustainability #1

As part of my work in higher education facilities management over the past thirty plus years I get involved in all sorts of sustainability issues. A myriad of technical things are involved certainly, but I worry that we are losing sight of the conceptual and if that's so we can quickly screw up the ways we think about the technical.

The upper midwest family farm, between the late 1800s up to maybe WWII, may have been “our” most sustainable living model. In this case, “our” is us – the immigrant population. This model couldn’t support a huge population, but if we’d stuck with it, there probably wouldn’t be so many of us either!

Many earlier Americans lived more sustainably, although that thinking can tend to be too romantic. The mysterious disappearance of the Anasazi is probably not so mysterious; it’s likely that their lifestyle overcame the local biosphere’s ability to support it when stressed by drought and so on. 

In spite of that, the Navajo have lived on much the same land for centuries, I think because they have a really “outside the (or at least, our) box” idea about what’s needed. If you’ve ever driven through the Four Corners, and so across much of the huge Navajo Reservation, you’ve seen really little, maybe sort of dilapidated homes, off in the distance, where – from inside our box – it doesn’t seem reasonable to live. Traditional Navajo work to live with the concept of “Beauty”. I can’t possibly truly understand this, not having grownup with it, but I think that being in a state of Beauty means that one is in harmony with their setting, themselves, and their neighbors. When this state of harmony exists, a person just doesn’t need a lot of material to be well.

There’s a Minnesota writer I like named Kent Nerburn who has done a lot of work with folks on the Red Lake reservation over time (he lives in Bemidji). I found an interview with him some time back and something he said hit me hard.

Interviewer: “Do you think Native Americans have something important to teach us? If so, can you somehow express what it is?”

Kent Nerburn:

“Own less stuff. Listen to the land. Care for family. Be as responsible to your past as to the future. Value honor as highly as freedom, and know that there are some bondages that are good. Recognize that the spiritual lives in the funkiest corners of your daily life as well as in the most elevated places of your search for God. Stop thinking that you're hot shit.”

He wrote my favorite non-fiction book, Neither Wolf Nor dog, On Forgotten Roads With an Indian Elder. There’s not a good way to explain this book; if you know it, you also know what I mean. Even though the people are Lakota and not Navajo, as you read this you’ll start to understand both the idea of Beauty and where the quote comes from. As the adventure unfolded, I found myself first wondering what on earth this well meaning but naïve new American was thinking attempting to do the project in place, and at the end wondering why he would go back where he’d been.

I recommend Neither Wolf Nor Dog to every person concerned about the ways we live in the world – it will get you thinking about what you believe you need versus what is truly needed to live in the beautiful place.