Family

Spring Theory

In today’s culture, we tend to separate education from stories. Music is considered peripheral, and singing seems irrelevant. Meals are outside the classroom and considered a break from learning. Family, especially multi-generational and extended kin, have nothing to do with conventional school. Encouraging the youngest to ask questions, much less playing hide and seek in the middle of a lesson, would be considered the exception, not the rule. Staying up late, still singing, is usually discouraged.

 

Yet, these are some of the elements of the Passover Seder that are not only enjoyed by people (of all faiths), but have the best features of real education. Pedagogically speaking, the Passover Seder is educational excellence. It is orderly (seder means order), but engaging and fun. There are a series of actions/activities with explanations and several interpretations that encourage thinking and doing. Food as symbol is central to the Seder. There is a special centerpiece–the seder plate– which has odd samples of a variety of foods that one would probably not eat otherwise, alone, much less in even odder combinations. It is part of what makes the night “unlike any other night”. Doing an unusual exercise (and explaining it), and perhaps adding a song, often leads to better information retention. Engaging with the story is the first level of pedagogy. Learning continues at all levels, through action and inquiry, critical discussion, laughter and singing.

 

Culturally, the Seder has resonated beyond strict religious observance to Spring ritual that reminds us of our personal and cultural “narrow straits” (the literal translation of the hebrew word for Egypt)–of constricted opportunities, narrow-mindedness, limited movement– and celebrates liberation from oppression. Slavery and oppression are human tragedies that are sadly not completely relegated to history. Natural plagues and severe weather force us to reconsider our lives and our interactions with the natural world. What may be Supernatural in the stories, resonates because we can connect to the natural world.

 

The lesson of good pedagogy is not specific to any single religion, nor is it even religious in nature. In fact, it’s the opposite. It is the understanding of the nature of learning that makes many religious rituals highly effective. To be clear, I am not suggesting that any religious rituals belong anywhere in our schools or public spaces (or government spaces). I am noting some characteristics that make learning effective and layered, and can be employed in non-religious domains.

 

The process of educating can not be limited to cramming test questions and sample choices and then bubbling them in. Many people confuse facts with truth, or have trouble distinguishing fact from opinion, often without realizing their confusion. Verbiage gets used as a mask for depth. True education liberates us from the narrow straits–whatever and wherever their origins. It expands our abilities to solve problems, rather than merely lay blame or recreate limiting or even oppressive conditions. Many so-called educated people can recite facts and tell stories, but thinking beyond one’s own experience and narrow confines, and applying an array of knowledge from various contexts, distinguishes the well-educated from those who have a more rudimentary education. Education is actually a creative endeavor, that engages and arouses curiosity and inquiry. Lessons are learned not merely from disaster,(in fact, they are all too often not learned from disaster), but also from reengaging in stories and questions and cultural remnants; from expanding our narrow straits, and including an array of sensory experiences to enhance our learning. It’s all part of truly educating.

 

So, in this time of Spring cleaning, and religious holidays celebrating liberation from oppression and rebirth and renewal, reconsider education as a creative endeavor requiring an array of approaches and experiences . Engagement and inquiry are necessary for learning and evolving. Our narrow spaces expand, and we can be liberated, and liberate others, through creative activity.

Emptynessed

From the moments of my children’s births, parenting has always been love. There has been such warmth and joy amid times that were frustrating and anxiety producing. Sometimes scary; sometimes maddening; sometimes hurtful. It has always been truly unconditional, and the most profound love.

I never wanted to be the imposing parent or the martyr. I have been both,despite my better intentions. Being mindful of my children’s proclivities, I wanted to encourage their strengths and find ways to have them strengthen their weaknesses, and ensure that they would become caring,thoughtful,responsible,giving adults. I can’t ensure anything, but I am optimistic. They live in a sub-culture that shares those values, even if those standards aren’t always revealed to the parents.

When they each left for college, it was bittersweet. It was time. Some parents stay tethered and feel as though they must communicate constantly and know all about their emerging adult children’s lives. I confess to having mixed emotions about that. Despite wanting to hear more about their lives, I respect their independence, and have always been amazed by their independent streaks. The kids have embarked upon their own journeys, and those college years were a transition time for them, as well as for us parents.  We have branched out as adults, but as parents, we have not stopped thinking about our kids, and find them endlessly interesting. We know that this is not the case for them.

We adjusted quite well to the empty nest. It was our time again, while they were having their times. We could focus even more on work and community and other projects, as well as our relationship, and our adult concerns could just be dealt with, rather than having to choreograph around the kids (sometimes unsuccessfully). When the kids would come home, there was a bit of readjustment. The unconscious habits of childhood and adolescence were instantly triggered–in both parents and children. Although more tempered and measured than during adolescence, there was still that sort of semi-trustful listening (or non-listening) that existed as an undercurrent. It was a habitual listening (or non-listening) that had yet to be fully transformed. Despite the facts that each of us has been working and learning and evolving, as a family we were on auto-pilot.

It is natural and common to experience this awkward stage. Parental roles are dramatically different at this stage, but so too are the emerging adult children’s roles. They may be oblivious to their parents’ lives, but their parents not only have an empty nest, but also an emptiness. Parents need their children. My need for my children is beyond ego; it stems from my heart and soul. It is basic and profound love. When the ego needs, it is anxiety producing. When the soul needs, it is the experience of love (and the emptiness that accompanies absence). I have been feeling empty-nessed. It is not the need to have the nest filled up, but to have my heart filled up. When I think of their absence I feel empty-nessed. When I think of them, not what they are doing or the distance, but just as people, the people I adore most, my heart swells and the emptiness fills with love. It is from this state that relationships can flourish and we can evolve. More than filling an empty nest, having space for the totality of the person–pure love–the emptynessed becomes transformed.

Going Upstairs Backwards

There’s nothing like pain to make us aware of our habits. Spasms redirect our attention to clenched muscles that seem to control us, rather than the other way around. Shooting, stabbing, burning, stinging, throbbing, aching,  hurting, sore…pain. Sometimes mere discomfort distracts us from our automatic lives, and asks us to pay attention. Agony is overwhelming, and suffering is more chronic misery. But the regular discomforts often steal our focus and energies, and ask us to do something different. With a different focus, we may adjust our posture or stance, or where we sit and how we proceed.

This is true of any sort of pain. Physical, emotional, psychological, existential pain asks us to attend to the sensation. We often get stuck when confronted with pain. Too often we compensate with unintended consequences. Sometimes we  consciously ignore the signals, as though giving in to a toddler’s temper tantrum will reinforce the tendency for eruptions. It is often hard to know how to deal with discomforts and pain so that they are  not reinforced or cause other damage. Some people wallow, others martyr, most numb themselves. Dealing with discomfort and pain as a lesson, is often reduced to avoidance.

Over the last 10.5 months, while strengthening myself physically, and taking the time to better manage my physical health, I decided to write. With no timeline in mind, or even a  roadmap or GPS, I wanted to experiment in a way that I had never attempted before, and create conversations. Forever committed to strengthening parenting and family life, education, Culture and culture, and healthy homes, schools and communities, I learned that I could be  critical  while optimistic. Moreover, I could learn from everyday discomforts and sometimes pain and even agony, both my own and societal, that there are always lessons. In looking back over the essays that span less than a year, I am reminded of political events and societal changes that, for some, were painful or uncomfortable . Some moments have been liberating culminations of long, painful battles that now demand societal realignment. Some moments seem to be flare ups of old wounds or negative habits. Time seems to move more quickly than it used to as we are exposed to so much more information at lightening speed, and it is easy to forget moments that affected us–that gave us opportunities to not merely get over the pain, but to learn from it. In reflecting upon the last 10.5 months, I am amazed at what is possible in less than a year. Some pain is chronic; some acute. Discomforts are inevitable, but as we redirect our focus and energies, and adjust our postures and stances, and even where we sit and how we proceed, we may not only mitigate some pain, but move ourselves further ahead in ways that we may not have even considered.

With a recent flare of back trouble, I have been having immense pain sitting and in many positions. Walking up the stairs has been another difficulty. This is not a new situation, but like most aches and pains (and worse), the situation flares from time to time. This time, I decided to try walking up the stairs backwards. It takes me a little longer (not much) and at first I needed more support. But I get up the stairs now! With fewer spasms! Of course looking back one sees how far one has gone, but more than that, sometimes looking at where we were and how we held ourselves and then tweaking it, allows us to be in a better, more comfortable and healthier position to elevate ourselves.

Guys’ Guise

Timothy Egan wrote an op-ed in today’s New York Times (January, 17, 2014) offering a thoughtful response to Brit Hume’s recent comment that Chris Christie is merely a “Guy’s Guy”–an apparently endangered species.

You may have heard Brit Hume, that is, Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume of Fox News, refer to Governor Christie’s problem. It’s not that he’s arrogant, paranoid, testy, bullying or too blunt for the P.C. culture. It’s just that he’s an “old fashioned guy’s guy” in a “feminized” world — an endangered species adrift on a floe of mush….

…He said, “By which I mean that men today have learned the lesson the hard way that if you act like a kind of an old-fashioned guy’s guy, you’re in constant danger of slipping out and saying something that’s going to get you in trouble and make you look like a sexist or make you look like you seem thuggish or whatever.”

I appreciate Egan’s clarification and answer to a particular concept of masculinity (which  Brit Hume, et al. equate with strength):

If you say something that genuinely offends women, it’s not because you’re a brawny dude, speaking freely, or even standing up to the culture patrol. It’s because you’re insensitive to people in general — the daughters, wives and mothers of many a manly man. Or, at the least, it’s because you’re outdated, like showing up for work at a tech company with a cellphone the size of a shoebox.

What has been missing from the discussion, however, is the subtext that being “feminine” or our supposedly “feminized” culture is an insult. “Masculinity”, whether defined by Brit Hume, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, or articulated through Chris Christie, Phil Robertson (of Duck Dynasty fame), Sarah Palin, or many others who seem to defy the laconic male icon of yesteryear, seems to refer to a particular paradigm that they conflate not merely with gender, but with strength and superiority. Calling someone “a fag” or a behavior “gay” is meant to be insulting in this crowd. Small mindedness, is somehow rebranded as assuredness and strength. In this crowd, it’s bully for the bullies! Shooting from the hip is preferable to being hip–which, to the “Guys”, is just a feminized subculture of spineless socialists. In that universe, there is not a ying-yang balance of energies that we call masculine and feminine, each with attributes valuable to the health of humanity. It’s right and wrong (wrong = left, feminized); strong and weak; makers and takers. These are the masculine and feminine types of that world. In that world of “Guys and Dolls”, guys play with dolls.

The guys’ guise is feigning strength and security through righteous impasse. They not only feel threatened, and reject even their own possible evolution, much less the evolution of culture, (not to mention nature), but suggest that that which they describe as feminine is what undermines them. The ideals of strength and honor are not gender specific. Moreover, gender is beyond biology. It is a cultural construct, and like it or not, cultures evolve.

Our job as parents and educators and citizens is to build a better society and a healthier culture that elevates and broadens. Under the guys’ guise, being a loudmouth or intimidating is just being a guy, and guys are now victims of this henpecked culture. The guys’ guise is not really political (although it could easily be construed as such). It’s cultural. There are small minded people everywhere, and thugs and trolls left and right. Strength is not a guy issue. It is not the same as intransigence. Flexibility is not a gender issue. The habits of mind (and culture) that include thought, reason, consideration, reflection, flexibility, appreciation and expansion build strength. That’s not a guy thing, despite the guys’ guise.

Target

Yesterday, the revelation that over 40 million people may have been hacked at Target over the last few weeks was stunning and terrifying. I suspect that Target wasn’t the only target. I would not be surprised to learn that other stores were also targeted. Certainly the holiday shopping season (the fifth season from Thanksgiving to just after New Year’s) is the perfect time to breach a retailer’s system. Of course, it’s not just the retailer who is ruined. Millions of lives are, at best, disrupted. For some, the impact may be horrific, especially at this time of year.

It is easy to feel paranoid these days. So much seems out of our control. To be up to speed (which is quite fast), one must surrender to more and more channels and networks, further and further removed from an original action, that through incredible technology, allows actions and transactions to occur instantaneously. We tend to forget that because so much of our transactions are instantaneous, that there is actually a network out there–wherever there is. It feels immediate and therefore gives us the sense of interaction. Or maybe we are just more willing to surrender to what seems so much easier than waiting. We feel like we can accomplish so much more than we used to. But, there are daily reminders of nefariousness. It is easy to feel like a target.

Like terrorism, cyber hacking seems to prey on obvious targets through innocent civilians who are merely living their lives. It is cruel and terrifying, and after each incident, we redouble our efforts to create better protection. But the fear and paranoia lingers as we increase safety measures. There is a sense that we are always targets.

When we are able to put aside the threats of terrorism and hacking, we worry that we are being targeted by the NSA, or advertisers, or even by political ideologues. It seems as though we are targeted by anyone and everyone. While some target us for our potential business or donations, others target us as “the other”, and therefore the problem: teachers; unions; single parents; poverty stricken; Wall Streeter; drug addicted; super wealthy; politician; left; right; religious; atheist; ……You are either with us or against us. Marketers seek their target audiences. We target others and get targeted by others all the time.

While it is easy to be concerned about nefarious targeting and the fear of being an innocent victim, I am actually more concerned about the prosaic targeting that is part of our culture and constantly exhibited by individuals regardless of beliefs or station in life. We live in echo chambers. It is tribal. We seem more focused on targeting frustrations at others than on working through problems, integrating different components. Yes, compromising.  The holidays may be a time to reflect upon targets. We like New Year’s resolutions as they redirect our attention toward personal improvement (usually not at the affect of others). When we target others, we diminish them. They become one dimensional. When we include others–even differing opinions and ways–the target shifts toward building; toward more dimensions.

2013 was a year of many difficulties that became compounded by targeting individuals or agencies for blame, rather than acknowledging what (or who) was problematic and  focusing on improvement.  We had plenty of target practice this year, perfecting the aim with our weaponry, literally and figuratively.  We can aim for much better–changing the old targets. There is so much that we can’t control–or rather–there is only so much that we can control. We can choose new targets that do not diminish. The narrow targets, those that are from a single point of view, diminish. This holiday season, when we try to take a break from our troubles and  enjoy our families and some peace, we can redirect and begin a new target practice. Don’t target others. Aim positively. Happy Holidays!

Making Change

What do cashiers have to do with The March on Washington? It’s probably not what you think.

As a child, I was regularly asked to walk to the neighborhood market a few blocks away to get some groceries for my mother. The grocers knew my family, along with many others in the neighborhood. Still, my mother taught me to always check the receipt (and give it to her), and she taught me how to make change. If the items totaled $17.45 and I gave the grocer (or cashier) $20.00, I had to know how much change I should get back.

As a young child, mental math (as we used to call it) was not my forte. In early elementary school we were taught math facts. We were drilled with flash cards. It was basic memorization of addition and subtraction, and then, multiplication tables, soon to be followed by short division flash cards. As one who never had a flair for remembering numbers or dates, or memorization at all, this mental math approach was arduous and mostly problematic for me. Yes, I did force myself to learn elemental math facts, but I was utterly turned off and avoided whatever I could. At least I did learn the basics. I learned that I had to subtract: $20.00-$17.45= $2.55.

But subtracting in my head (especially when I was quite young) was likely to lead to careless errors. So, my mother taught me how to make change. Essentially, she was teaching me that I could add instead of subtract. I remember struggling with the concept because I didn’t get that I was merely doing addition instead of subtraction. It just seemed like a magic trick that it all added up. Then, when I got the concept of counting back change from the total to the amount I gave, it was no longer like a magic trick–just magic in the way that something perfect seems magical.

Flash forward several years, and cash registers become calculators. Cashiers no longer  need to do anything but make sure that if the cash register says $2.55 change,  they can count the correct bills and coins. They do not have to figure out the change. For a generation now, cashiers have not had to do any math beyond counting what they are told to provide. On the occasions when I do make cash purchases, I am always dumbfounded that cashiers don’t (and often can’t) make change. They can’t figure the difference. There’s no human agency in making change; no critical thinking. I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much if cash registers are more efficient calculators than the people who use them, but I wonder about this ability (or lack thereof) to make change.

For me, the process of making change resonated more than merely knowing the numbers. That has always been true for me. It struck me this week as we have been commemorating the 50th anniversary of The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,  that while August 28, 1963 marks the historic date, the processes of change inform how we make change. Noting the differences from where we started to where we are now is not sufficient if we are to be the ones who make change. We must understand the processes of change–of additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions, and miscalculations.

The March on Washington 50 years ago was historic for many reasons. Of course, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream ” speech was pivotal, and remarkable, and truly one of the greatest pieces of oration in our history; but the peaceful participation by so many was equally historic and inspiring. Everyone who rallied at the mall in Washington was participating in making change, and inspired so many others to become agents of change. It is easy to just take the change that others make. It is easy to allow changes to be dictated by technology. It is more important, though, to be able to make change.

Two Thousand and Thirteen

A couple of weeks ago, I caught the AFI Life Achievement Award 2013: A Tribute to Mel Brooks. It was a warm and funny salute to the master of mishugas, Mel Brooks. It’s fitting to throw in a few yiddishisms when mentioning Mel Brooks, as he knew how to tickle a funny bone with his gravelly voice and “old world” syntax, which in many ways, “normalized” or assimilated ethnic and linguistic differences. One of the beautiful aspects of our evolving American society is inclusion. While many lament the loss of the “good old days”, I am grateful that we have a richer and more vibrant  American culture as we include so many previously discrete, self-identifying ethnic symbols, foods, music, and words, and share in globalization and becoming more cosmopolitan. In this day and age, Maureen Dowd and Mel Brooks can both use the word mishugas (craziness). There’s plenty of craziness to go around!

Watching the film clips from those Mel Brooks movies, and listening to so many colleagues, young and old, with whom Mr. Brooks worked and inspired, it was impossible not to notice the societal changes (and thus, comedic changes) over many years.  Even in today’s world, Mel Brooks’ brand of humor still tickled. I’m not sure if I was reveling in the comedy or the nostalgia. Perhaps both.

This morning, for no apparent reason, (although maybe my Mel Brooks nostalgia was lingering unconsciously), I recalled a favorite album I had as a kid, 2000 and Thirteen. It was a sequel to the hilarious 2000 Year Old Man–a sketch (and album) with Carl Reiner as an interviewer, asking the 2000 year old man (Mel Brooks) what life was like back in the day. Way back in the day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRWF86lPvA0&list=PLf9dnbdesgTvxR4-t-N_ChGUso58B0o3K

(Although the link says The 2000 Year Old Man, it is in fact from the album 2000 and Thirteen.)

How different we are in 2013. We have expanded our concepts of gender and marriage, (along with other cultural concepts) and although the movement toward inclusion is still met with fears of loss and misunderstanding, which often manifest in cruelty, we are nonetheless forging ahead in a world that would not have been recognizable when 2000 and Thirteen was released (1973). We still struggle with education and employment; with balancing work and home; with affordable health care; with violence, and other political, economic, and societal challenges, but many of these issues are human issues–not race or ethnic, male or female, gay or straight. Many of the cultural constructs of gender (and sexuality) that were the stuff of comedy in the middle of the last century, have evolved. We have a much more ethnically diverse society now in 2013, and we have a more global approach to living. It is a beginning, even in 2013. We continue to bump into old patterns and close mindedness mixed with fear and hate.  And, we must figure out how to manage when there are those who seek destruction. We’ve come a long way, but we’re still learning and evolving in 2013.

But then there’s Mel Brooks. His mocking of Hitler and Frankenstein and all movie genres as they included monsters or evil doers, was his revenge. Comedy was his weapon. That is not to say that he (or we) should not take threats or acts of evil seriously. We must. But being able to mock evil (monsters and destructive ideas) weakens the hold that evil has on us. From Jonathan Swift to Stephen Colbert, satire is more than humorous defense. It awakens us and reminds us of our values and of structures of power. We may laugh, but we may then get to work on humanity.

During the AFI tribute to Mel Brooks, Cloris Leachman, who was not only funny and graceful, gave Brooks what I thought was the ultimate compliment. She called him a mensch. In Yiddish, a mensch ( literally, human being) means “a person of integrity and honor.” I would add that “honor” is not at the expense of anyone else. That’s really what it’s all about. Regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, economic situation, title, education, ability, etc……just be a mensch! Forty years have elapsed between 2000 and Thirteen and 2013. We’ve made plenty of progress in many domains, but there is tremendous room for creating a society of mensches, regardless of one’s origins.

Live and Let Die

When you were young and your heart was an open book 

You used to say live and let live 

(You know you did, you know you did you know you did) 

But if this ever changing world in which we live in 

Makes you give in and cry 

Say live and let die 

What was originally the theme song to the  James Bond movie “Live and Let Die” in 1973  has more recently become not only a subculture in American society, but law in several states.

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html

Under the Stand Your Ground law, a person who feels threatened has no obligation to retreat.

(Live and let die) 

Live and let die 

(Live and let die) 

Until recent years, the duty to retreat helped  define what “reasonable” threat meant. Stand Your Ground was seen as an extension of The Castle Doctrine, which allowed people who are threatened in their own homes to stand their ground in their own homes and defend themselves without having to flee their homes. Thus, with Stand Your Ground laws, the concept applied to one’s home has been extended, as long as one is engaged in legal activity.

What does it matter to ya 

When you got a job to do 

You gotta do it well 

You gotta give the other fellow hell 

But standing one’s ground, which of course has it’s place in certain contexts, has become a distorted cultural attitude across the country, as much as an atrocious law leading to the tragic death of an unarmed teen, Trayvon Martin, in the Zimmerman case.  We have stopped considering unintended consequences of behavior, speech, politics and laws.

You used to say live and let live 

(You know you did, you know you did you know you did) 

But if this ever changing world in which we live in 

Makes you give in and cry.

When did we become a culture of “Live and Let Die” ?

Sir Paul McCartney:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK2hKzZss5Y

Leisure Suits

I was born in 1963, just before Camelot was obliterated. By the time I started grade school, sartorial splendor was becoming a thing of the past.  In the 70s, countering the culture largely meant wearing informal, poorly made, unflattering, and often, just ugly clothes.  Changing one’s appearances was meant to denote changing  one’s attitudes. Relaxed fit clothing (before we called a particular style of jeans “relaxed fit”) was supposed to reflect greater freedom, fewer constraints, undoing structures of culture, and a more casual attitude. Adults were uptight; youths were tuning in, turning on and dropping out, which meant building a new harmonious society. Imagine. Then came those horrific Leisure Suits. Even then, I thought they were hideous and silly. The worst part was that Leisure Suits were for dressing up. They didn’t look comfortable or flattering, and came to represent a cheap, synthetic, and middling culture; a culture that was apathetic and confused, low brow and lazy.

A generation later, our children have grown up with a more robust culture. While access to information and communication has been revolutionized in the last generation, there has also been a renaissance of leisure activities and accoutrements. The leisure business is enormous, and people invest great time and money into leisure activities. This has been a terrific boon over the last generation, not only economically, but culturally. Pursuing a leisure activity such as a sport or art is productive. For years I have cautioned parents about over scheduling their children. Children (and adults) need unscheduled free time, but pursuing a hobby or activity (beyond looking at a screen) on a regular basis can provide skills that may go beyond the activity.

When we find a leisure activity that suits us, we strengthen ourselves and can expand. There are all kinds of attributes to all sorts of sports and arts, but the activities themselves often become metaphors for us. I was a great swimmer as a young child, and enjoyed the competence and strength I felt in the water. Many  years later in college, I swam every morning, as it felt like the only way my thoughts could flow in order to write papers. I hardly go to the pool for a swim these days, but I’m very much a swimmer in other ways, and yes, still a lifeguard of sorts. I tend to dive into whatever I pursue. Somehow, I’ve been able to stay afloat, treading from time to time, but mostly propelling myself forward using all my muscles, along the surface of the tide. I was well suited to swimming, and swimming suits me.

Those who are well suited to their work are often quite successful. It’s not always easy to find work that suits us. We often think of work as effort, and leisure as effortless, but there can be joyful effort in both work and play.  Leisure activities are not only ways to  have fun, unwind and relax, but are often ways in which we can more fully realize ourselves and develop our strengths to use in various capacities.  Leisure suits!

If Memory Serves….

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day, celebrated today, the last Monday in May, is observed in remembrance of those who died in service to our country. More accurately, Memorial Day is a national holiday recognizing military personnel who died during war. For many, the memorial aspect is secondary to the barbeques  and pool openings and retail bargains and the unofficial commencement of summer. For others, Memorial Day is about patriotism. For them it is literally about their loved ones being wrapped in the flag.

Decoration Day was initially a day set aside to place flowers or other decorations on the graves of Civil War soldiers. It was not a national holiday at the outset, and Northern states observed Decoration Day on a different day from Southern states. After WW1, the nation as a whole began to commemorate soldiers who died in war, and Memorial Day has become a tragic tradition that unites us in loss, as so many have died in so many wars,with the expectation that there will always be more.

Unlike the Civil War, or even the World Wars , Korea and Vietnam, today the country acknowledges those lost in wars, but many citizens have not experienced the loss personally. Military families are no longer all families. But service should be in all families. Whether or not it is military service, perhaps we can use this Memorial Day to consider service in its myriad possibilities for bettering our communities and our country.

Many people give their lives to service. They may not lose their lives to service, but find that in serving others, they are creating better communities. We need to consider these acts of national pride as well. In addition to military personnel, police and firefighters have chosen careers that put themselves in harm’s way in service to our communities. We should remember them. We should acknowledge them. We should be more connected to those members in our communities who service us. Teachers service us. No, they do not risk life or limb except in unusual circumstances, but the choice to teach kids is in service to our communities and to our nation. We have begun to encourage young people to serve–not just militarily, but in numerous ways in their communities. This Memorial Day, as some decorate graves of fallen soldiers, and others fire up the grill, let us consider the prospect that the term servicemen or servicewomen need not be limited to the military. If memory serves, then let us all be servicemen and servicewomen. Let us give more of our lives without losing them to violence in the name of freedom.