Today, like most Saturday mornings, I sit in my Starbucks beginning shortly after it opens at 6 AM - after all, I get up during the week at 4, and it is hard to sleep late even if I wanted to.
Regular readers know I am wont to peruse various publications to see if there is writing I believe worth calling to the attention of others, or to which I wish to offer my reactions. I also might comment on events of the date, and particularly on Saturdays to reflect upon the experience of teaching.
This morning I have no singular focus. There are elements of all of my normal practices, but perhaps something less well defined.
If you choose to keep reading, you might be able to understand a bit of why moral issues concern me.
Then again, you might decide these are simply the mental bloviations of a self-obsessed narcissist.
Don't say you were not warned.
Three dates concern me this morning. Next Thursday will be my 10th anniversary as a registered member of Daily Kos. Thus I have been thinking about what I might post then, and what my participation here over the course of a decade has meant to me. I also wonder what that participation may have meant to others. Because I have people who will at least glance at what I post, I often ponder my responsibility for my words, even as I also weigh the time and effort of my participation here against other things that could be done with both - including sometimes just lying still and letting one of our cats crawl all over me.
December 29 will be our 28th wedding anniversary. It will occur almost exactly 11 months after we learned that my wife Leaves on the Current had cancer. We are still both learning from the experience of the disease, which is an ongoing process. I am reminded of a lesson I should have learned long ago from some spiritual writing we both value, that of Lady Julian of Norwich, of how an illness can be a great teacher.
And today? On this date in 1799 George Washington passed away at his beloved farm, Mount Vernon. He was 67 - the age I am now. Being reminded of that today brought be up short. Had he not stepped down after two terms he would have died in office. Yet the presidency was far less demanding then as compared to the impact it has upon those who hold the office in our time - anyone who doubts what I have just written need merely look at pictures of our 44th President when he ran for the office and now, less than a full year into his second term. The job ages you.
By contrast, I look at myself. To be sure, I can see the wear and tear - I am missing some teeth, the hair is thinner, receding in front, and I no longer have the 28" waist and 8% body fat I had when I turned 20 while in the Marine Corps. Still, despite the thinning gray hair and other signs of wear and tear in the half century since I exited high school, the hours I spend each day with adolescents is part of what keeps me young - few people even take me for being in my 60s, and I heard my wife telling a high school classmate on the phone that while I am almost 11 years older I have far more energy than does she.
That energy is a gift.
My concern is how I use that, or any other gift I might have.
Before you accuse me of being self-centered in this, let me explain: I ponder myself and my own experience as well as what I observe of others in large part to be better able to serve others - as teacher, counselor, support.
You will note one word not in that last paragraph - "friend." I have attended several events recently where I realized that I have friendly acquaintances, including people who do care for me, but for whatever reason - largely my own failing - I do not have many friendships. Which reminds me of lines from my favorite Shakespearean Sonnet
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
I think historians would say that Washington could look back on his life and justifiably feel that he had given more to those around him than he had taken for himself.
I admire him, although not as much as I do Lincoln, perhaps because his melancholia is reminiscent of my own battles with depression. Also, Lincoln was a man to whom words mattered greatly as a means of influencing others. As one who was not a skilled writer for most of my life, when my words (spoken or written) make a difference to others I feel not only less isolated, but as if there is somewhat more value to my existence.
Yet I am not, in Howard Gardner's terminology, primarily or even strongly verbal linguistic. I am off the charts musical-rhythmic. I mention this because I use my personal disconnect to demonstrate to my students that just because something does not come naturally or easily to one is not a barrier to becoming skilled at it.
Which for some reason reminds me of a Biblical text, from Paul of Tarsus, in 1st Corinthians Chapter 19:
19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
My understanding of this is not as Paul intended, in his efforts to win people to follow Jesus. That is not my concern. Rather, it is that to help people understand and accept themselves I have to in some way be able to enter into their world, into their frame of reference.
This is a question of relationship, which to me underlies effective teaching.
Which is why it is odd that I live an existence in which I am somewhat outside of the normal web of friendships. And yet it is not, because it also enables me to more easily bridge some gaps because of my lack of attachment, at least, if I am willing to trust my instincts on this.
I have one absolute friendship - my relationship with Leaves on the Current is far deeper than love, as odd as that might seem. We have had our rocky periods as spouses, including within the year before we found out about her illness. One thing I quickly realized that the commitment was so great that even had we separated I would have been back in a heartbeat once I knew she was ill.
And understanding that helps me understand that perhaps I am not as bereft of friendship as I think. I know my own instinct to turn to be there for friends is an essential part of who I am. And I have no doubt of the willingness of others to act similarly towards me, if I would let down my barriers and let them. I encountered this in the past few days. As a favor I was driving the woman who served as my wife's care-giver / companion after she returned home from her stem cell transplant, to yoga classes. This is essential to her well-being. As we approached the site of the yoga studio, I felt very ill - party physical partly emotional partly spiritual. She did not hesitate, and offered to forgo the yoga class for which she had already paid to stay with me if I needed or simply wanted her to. I thanked her for her generosity, but chose in this case to simply sit quietly with a small cup of tea for about 20 minutes until I felt strong enough to drive home.
So what is the point of all these words?
I reflect. Sometimes with words, like this. Sometimes wordlessly - perhaps listening to music, sometimes just sitting without thoughts and allowing the sounds, sights and smells of where I am to bathe me in my interconnectedness with the world of which I am a part, even if often I feel I am in it but not off it.
I look up - I have seen a few of the familiar Saturday morning faces. There is one man who comes in twice each Saturday morning, before and after the regular basketball game he and a batch of other men in the 50s and 60s have at a nearby private school each week. There is a man who comes in early with one or both of his small children, full of energy, so that his wife can come in. The retired lawyer who usually sits outside with his poodle unless it is bitterly cold, today as on occasion joined by wife his still working physician wife. There are, as always, others I do not remember having previously seen.
There are the ever changing roster of employees - some have been here several years, some only several weeks.
And I sit, with my computer - reading, writing, reflecting, observing.
I am of the age of George Washington when he passed away, after a long and distinguished career.
I am not George Washington.
I am far from distinguished, but that does not matter.
My task is to be the best Ken Bernstein I can be. To some degree, what that is will be my choice.
It is in understanding that, in pursuing that, that I am of the most value to my students, or to those who choose to read and ponder words I offer.
I have a dear friend, an important elected official, who is being treated for a serious cancer. We regularly exchange emails. She has served as a support for my wife in her own illness.
Each time I receive an email from this official now, she ends it with the same three words:
Life is good!
I have been enriched beyond my wildest imagination in the experiences I have had in my life.
Life should be good - for everyone.
That it is not is part of what fuels what I do
- teaching
- writing
- political advocacy
and as a teacher of government, I remember the natural rights to which are we are supposed to be endowed - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I do not read those as defining people solely by their economic value or purpose, but neither do I believe they should be denied economic value for what they contribute to society.
It is a Saturday morning.
We have one week of school until the winter break.
I will see half of my students twice, the other half three times this week, on our A day - B day schedule.
My week is already planned.
I have no papers to correct.
I can take the time to reflect, to ponder, to be still if I choose.
For me, life is good.
For me, the question is how to I help it be good for others?
Peace.