Miraculous recoveries

I was all set to link to an article in the Calendar section of today's LA Times, when, lo and behold, not only do you have to register to read the articles, you now have to pay to read the Calendar articles online if you're not already an LA Times' subscriber. This is quite annoying because I buy the paper when I have time—and want—to read it so paper doesn't accumulate unnecessarily. (I finally figured out how to link to the story without actually going there, in case you're an LA Times' or Calendar Online subscriber.)

Instead I'll just quote an excerpt from the (paper) article "Going Solo in a Man's World." Jennifer Leitham (who played at our Easter service this year) said this about playing jazz bass:

A lot of the fear has left me. I don't care what people think. If you screw up, you screw up. It's been said jazz is a series of miraculous recoveries. And you work yourself back out of it.

The soil of the Spirit

The invitation to prayer each Sunday in this green Pentecost season begins:

Growing in the soil of the Spirit, let us pray for the church, the world, and all who seek the richness of life in God.

What a wonderful metaphor of the spiritual—and every day—life. But perhaps "growing in the soil of the Spirit" is more than a metaphor.

I picked up Soul Gardening: Cultivating the Good Life by Terry Hershey today, a contemplative book on the seduction of gardening and gardening's cure of the soul.

You are compelled to meander, if only in the garden of your mind. Better yet, the process demands putting your hands in the soil, letting the sun sedate your disquiet and warm your face, feeling your lungs fill with the honeyed sweetness of winter jasmine, or the rambling rector rose, watching a red-tailed hawk surf the currents, savoring the chamomile scent of crushed cedar leaves, allowing the garden to render its power and magic. In a world where we are enamored with image, it is in the garden we are slowly weaned off our steady diet of the spectacular, and the "real story," in order to revel in the daily, the ineffable, the sacred, the surprising. In other words, the garden is a place where it feels good to be alive. (pp. 12-13)

Hershey writes of his move to gardening and writing from a successful career as a preacher.

[T]here is no doubt that I was a success. The bigger the church, the bigger the crowd. The bigger the crowd, the greater the applause. . . .

[But] [t]o find success doesn't necessarily mean that you gain health. . . .

I did not set out to find answers, health, the good life, or even God. In fact, I did not "set out" at all. I knew only that my soul felt malnourished. Then one day I found myself in the garden, and quite without fanfare, the journey began.

Soul gardening is not a cause-and-effect proposal. It happens when you least expect it, germinating when the ground is fertile and primed. (pp. 13-14)

The Sacred Balance

I just watched an interview with David Suzuki by Bill Moyers on NOW. Very sobering and inspiring. Starting on Wednesday, a 4-part series by David Suzuki, "The Sacred Balance: A Vision of Humanity's Place in Nature," will be shown on PBS.

Ideaphoria

Dervala's post on Myers-Briggs types reminded me of a series of aptitude tests I took through the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation a few years ago. (Click here to go directly to their website.) The program was started in the 1920s at GE and is now a separate, non-profit organization.

Here's a description from their website of the aptitude tests:

Aptitudes are natural talents, special abilities for doing, or learning to do, certain kinds of things. Manual dexterity, musical ability, spatial visualization, and memory for numbers are examples of such aptitudes. In a comprehensive battery of tests available only through the Foundation, these and many other aptitudes are measured. These measured traits are highly stable over long-term periods. . . .

You will be asked to do a wide variety of tasks during the program, such as assembling blocks, remembering numbers, solving puzzles, and listening to simple tunes. Paper and pencil tests are kept to a minimum. Many of our tests are given individually; some are given in a small class setting using audio-visual equipment.

It is important to understand what our aptitude measurements are not, for there are many different kinds of tests and testing programs other than those offered by the Foundation.

• Unlike an IQ score, which is of little value in career selection, your aptitude test results form a pattern showing your various strengths and weaknesses. Two people can have identical IQ scores but very different aptitude patterns.
  
  
• Our tests do not consist of questions. It is too easy to answer a question as you feel inclined at the moment, or as you feel it ought to be answered. You learn very little new information about yourself after having answered in this fashion.
  
  
• Aptitudes are not interests, and unlike aptitudes, interests can change. For that reason, if your interests don't correspond with your aptitudes, we encourage you to develop new interests that match your natural abilities.

The Foundation also emphasizes the importance of vocabulary acquisition, which is not an aptitude but is important for many endeavors.

I scored highest in Ideaphoria, "the ability to produce a flow of ideas." (They stress they do not measure the quality of the ideas!) I also scored high in Inductive Reasoning, "the ability to reason from the particular to the general, to form a logical conclusion from scattered facts." My lowest scores were in Finger and Tweezer Dexterity, so I hope I never have to make a living assembling electronics—and aren't you glad I didn't become a surgeon? The person administering the tests was amazed that I enjoy handwork, but I realize now I probably enjoy it at a slower pace than others.

All this to say, part of the reason I spend so much time online is that the web is a marvelous place to make connections and feed my brain. And my weblog provides a space to dump all those ideas rattling around in my head (again, with no guarantees as to quality of content or whether I ever DO anything with the ideas).

I would recommend the Foundation testing, although it is a bit expensive. It can be helpful to those thinking about vocational options. The website lists the locations of the Foundation offices.

Gardening therapy

Yesterday's WSJ (paid subscription required) ran this article, "The Leafy Green Road to Good Mental Health: New Science Points to Benefits of Weeding, Watering Gardens" by Michael Waldholz.

Common sense and experience tell us that hiking in the wild or working in a garden can be emotionally restorative. Now, scientists are beginning to understand why: Gardening -- or simply observing a lush landscape -- holds a powerful ability to promote measurable improvements in mental and even physical health. . . .

One study published in June found that people who were exposed to nature recovered from stress more quickly than others who weren't; what's more, the positive effects took hold within just a few minutes. Dr. Ulrich's research has showed that hospitalized patients whose windows looked out at landscape scenery recovered from surgery more quickly than those without such access. Other studies have found that simply viewing a garden or another natural vista can quickly reduce blood pressure and pulse rate and can even increase brain activity that controls mood-lifting feelings.

A growing body of evidence suggests that humans are hard-wired not just to enjoy a pleasant view of nature, but to actually exploit it, much like a drug, to relax and refresh after a stressful experience. Our earliest ancestors, Dr. Ulrich theorizes, likely needed a way to swiftly recover from a traumatic experience such as a hunt, a battle or an attack from a wild animal. "You can imagine that those who could look out at the open savannah, seeing its safety and tranquility, and quickly feel calm but also alert to their environment would likely have a survival benefit over others," Dr. Ulrich says. . . .

"The gardens of the ancient Egyptian nobility, the walled gardens of Persian settlements in Mesopotamia, and the gardens of merchants in medieval Chinese cities indicate that early urban peoples went to considerable lengths to maintain contact with nature," according to Texas A&M's Dr. Ulrich. More recently, Harvard zoologist Edward O. Wilson has written extensively on this natural affinity, which he calls "biophilia" and defines as a partly genetic tendency by humans to respond positively to nature.

The latest research and writings are serving as the intellectual basis for the relatively new practice of horticultural therapy. Practitioners say their experience shows that gardening can have an especially beneficial mental-health impact because it provides a sense of control, a psychological counter to stress and anxiety. This is especially important for patients who are recovering from stroke or other traumas or are learning to live with a physical or mental disability, says Teresia Hazen, who oversees horticulture-therapy programs for Legacy Health System in Portland, Ore.

Once again, the old ways, bolstered by new science of course, are being taken seriously.

People get ready

This morning on the way into work I listened to a story on NPR about the song by Curtis Mayfield, "People Get Ready," that is part of civil rights' history here in the U.S. I first heard about the song earlier this year when I was asked to play it for a funeral. I appreciated today's NPR segment and learning more about the song's history and influence. On the NPR story site linked above, there are excerpts of various singers' renditions of the song. What an inspirational way to start the day!

Buying books

[Written Sunday, August 24, 2003, St Bartholomew's Day]

I was given a gift certificate (well, electronic credit-card type thing) to Borders in payment for playing at a wedding yesterday. A gift certificate that obligates me to buy books (or music) is much more exciting than a plain old check. . . .So this afternoon, in a bit of a downward spiraling state of mind, I went to Borders, partly as a salve for my mood and partly for the air conditioning.

First, I surveyed the knitting books, which were in a more orderly state than usual. Not seeing anything I'd not seen before that interested me much, I headed over to the Farming/Ecology/Nature shelves. I found a book and author I'd not heard of before, You Can Go Home Again: Adventures of a Contrary Life by Gene Logsdon, a story of living fairly self-sufficiently on a farm. The Wendell Berry endorsement on the back cover got me leafing through the book. The author's early training to become a monk intrigued me, as well as his attraction to Martin Luther's understanding of the Eucharist versus what he was being taught at a Catholic school.

Then I read these sentences at the beginning of Chapter 6:

More than anything else, the degree of satisfaction to be gained from a life rooted in home depends on the strength of one's conviction that there is nothing better down the road. Betterment comes from within a person, not from within geography. But I believe that had I not left home for a while, I would not have been completely convinced of that.

I tucked the book under my arm and headed upstairs to the Religion/Inspiration section. Browsing that section in Borders is quite different than browsing religious books at a Catholic or evangelical or New Age or Episcopal or Judaica bookstore. At Borders, the "Inspiration" books are all jumbled together—Rumi next to T. D. Jakes next to Henri J. M. Nouwen.

I zoomed in on Nouwen because an excerpt from his writings had been printed on the wedding program cover yesterday. I have some of Nouwen's books but none of his journals.

The blurb on the back of The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey begins:

When Henri Nouwen left the world of academe and headed for the village of Trosly in France, he sought a place that would lead him "closer to the heart of God." Arriving at the L'Arche community in Trosly, he felt as if he had finally "come home."

So I have some thinking to do on what it means to "come home." Even the paper I've been working on (forever) is about the experience of coming home after being in exile. (Also, both Logsdon and Nouwen left academia, Logsdon before he finished his Ph.D. but Nouwen after a long teaching career.)

Nouwen's journal entries begin in mid-August. I stopped at the entry for August 24 in which Nouwen muses on the Gospel reading for the feast of St Bartholomew. My pastor, too, chose the readings for St Bartholomew's Day rather than the option of the 11th Sunday after Pentecost readings. More on John 1:43-51 another time.

[Edit 8/24/03: I was just over at Lisa B-K's website and saw that she is reading The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon. Then I saw she has a picture of him, which I'd seen on her site before, in the right-hand column. So why didn't I recognize his name when I saw his book in the bookstore yesterday??]