Archive for teaching children
Gratitude? Why Bother!
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s really easy to be grateful when the day is sunny, there’s money in your pocket and there’s no life drama going on. In fact, when everything is going well it’s also really easy to forget to be grateful! Maybe we learn our best lessons about the usefulness of gratitude when things are perfectly awful. Let me tell you what I mean.
There was a time when my life was pretty harsh and hard. We lived in a very cold climate in an uninsulated farm house that was heated with a wood stove, and kept our canned goods in the refrigerator so they wouldn’t freeze. These were the times when there were withdrawals from the food bank and ‘living high on the hog’ meant you found a pig to ride. Since I had three children and was expecting my fourth, I couldn’t afford the luxury of a bad attitude either! During that dark, cold winter I found gratitude was the best way to alter my own mood and therefore positively affect the whole family. It became my most important job!
I started a gratitude list on the refrigerator to remind myself of what I had to be grateful for especially during this low place in life. [It’s really difficult to think of things to be grateful for when you feel so desperate and low.] Of course I wrote on it: my children, my health, the sunshine, wood for the stove, and friends. I also added music, laughter, family, nature, and a roof over our head. Then I hit ‘pay dirt’! These were the items that really gave feeling and meaning to the term gratitude. For us it could be summed up by mentioning a full refrigerator and a hot shower!
As our home changed over the decades, and our fortunes waxed and waned, there was always a list on the refrigerator to remind me of the amazing number of things we had to be grateful for. There was also a list of music that lifted my spirits, movies that made us laugh, and things that felt really good – like a long soak in the tub or a specific author. Years later when I talked about this to my grown kids, asked them whether they had thought of us as being poor, I was very grateful to hear: “I knew we didn’t have much money, but I never felt poor.”
And that, my friends, is good enough. A good attitude is always available if you want to turn your depressing thoughts into productive thoughts. It is an act of will, a determined shift in the inner dialogue; it is available to everyone. It brings you health and laughter and good feelings even when you don’t have health insurance or gas for the car. It turns a supper of pancakes and popcorn into a party instead of it being the only food in the house.
As Viktor Frankl wrote about so eloquently in “Man’s Search For Meaning”, even in the awfulness of the concentration camps, attitude was the one thing the Nazi’s could not control. This was always controlled in the hearts and minds of each individual. [For the most amazing example of this, see the film “Life is Beautiful”.]
So take heart! Focus on what brings you joy, laughter, delight, and beauty. These are a more certain ‘coin of the realm’ than any money in the bank. When that bank fails, if your heart is full, you can freely move on to the next best thing. This is the finest lesson a child can learn! With gratitude and a good attitude, there is always hope.
Elder Wisdom
Posted by: | CommentsLooking back over the last 50-60 years I am astonished by all the deep changes in the way we live. The information available from us older folks on how to do simple everyday things is encyclopedic and in fact foreign to most of our current Western urban/suburban society. All the people that live in a place where electricity goes out for a week at a time will still know most of this. Most of the rest of us may not have the skills we need to be fine under those circumstances. This leads me to suggest dusting off some old skills and hooking up with people who do know how to live well unplugged.
Moving to a farm as a child gave me the basic experiences of doing it all at home. The farm still had an outhouse, a wood burning cook stove, a parlor stove, a hand pump, a dug well, and a smoke house (the tightest building on the place). Even though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, this was one of the most profound times of basic learning I experienced. Those lessons don’t go away. They are in my body as physical memories. When ever I am placed in a situation where I need to access this information, it is there. Sometimes I can’t remember it in my head, but when asked about it or placed in a similar situation, I am triggered into total recall. This rises from my body, not my mind…like riding a bike.
This knowledge is safety and security. When you know how to prepare food from scratch, sew on a button or make a garment, create a shelter, tell time with a compass or tell direction with a watch, gather food and build a fire, you feel safer in the world. Knowing that each basic item we have can help make something else is useful. The old game of “What would you want to take with you to have on a deserted island?” is a good thought experiment! Actual hands on experience is even more valuable.
Here’s a suggestion for this year and all the years to come: learn something basic every month. If you had one match, how do you make sure you could start a fire? What are the basic skills, the rock bottom ideas that could sustain you if you were tossed out into this world naked? Interesting thought! What would you put in a backpack if you had to leave your home in 10 minutes and never go back?
My first idea? Look for others. Then comes: Trust Life, trust Spirit, be in the moment and remain aware. Allow your instincts to lead you, and when all else seems too weird to manage, make food. “Stone Soup” really works! When you follow the thread of ‘OK, what’s next?’ everything will flow from that. Staying present and in the moment keeps all the ‘What If’s’ at bay.
In these Change Times the idea of only focusing on what’s next and putting all your energy in that moment by moment experience will free you and keep all the negative worry thoughts out of the picture. You are only responsible for NOW, so just make that the very best possible now, and keep on keeping on. In tough times the only thing you have total control over is your attitude. Make it a good one! I start my day with five excellent words such as : Love, Joy, Abundance, Gratitude, and Peace. I refer to these every time I get into downer thoughts. Believe it or not, this improves my life day by day. It just takes willingness to turn your thoughts to something else! And this is also the very basics of living well – no matter what!
If nothing else comes to mind, sing a good old song that lifts you up and connects you to others. “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream…”
Simple Tools
Posted by: | CommentsIn a world full of technology and complex equipment it is easy to forget about the simplicity of the machines and tools we used during most of our history. I was reminded of this recently at a friends home. She had a bolt on her sliding door that went up into the door frame to keep it secure. I had a hard time figuring it out because I was looking for a button to push, a spring to release, and it was a simple push it up, pull it down mechanism! This started me thinking of all the gadgets and gizmos we now find ordinary that have replaced many of the simple mechanical tools we used to use. This could be trouble if we need to go back to a simpler world.
When I lived in various country settings where the power regularly went out for a week or two in winter, the phone was not connected to electrical power. It still worked as long as the phone lines were up, even if the power lines were down. Those folks that were without a wood stove or fireplace could use a barbecue grill to cook on and everyone had an outhouse just in case. I’m not suggesting going to that extent here as many of us are on central water and sewer service which will still work without power.
However these thoughts lead me to consider some very basic ideas. We typically have a first aid kit somewhere in the house and car; what about a mechanical, simple tool kit as well? Could this be as simple as a screwdriver, a hammer, some rope and string, wire, a sharp utility knife and waterproof matches? I would add a hatchet, a shovel, and pliers; someone else would have other things that were important. The key to this kit is simple basic tools that lend themselves to many uses.
We were taught the basics of physics in elementary school – levers, pulleys, inclined planes, screws, and the strength and utility of basic geometric shapes. This is really useful information upon which the rest of the mechanics we use today is founded. I’m glad to be grounded in these basic ways to get work done. Maybe the old game of what you would want to have on a deserted island is a great place to start, only make it a backpack!
So here’s the game for the winter: What would you want in a backpack that you can carry with you? Nothing can be dependent on batteries, electricity, or external service. And a question: Is a solar powered backpack a ‘simple’ tool? What other things that are new technology fit into this model? Have fun and enjoy!
