Month: November 2016

Winter has settled in at our house in Hawaii. (I can hear you snickering at the concept!) The World Series is over, and it is two-and-one-half months until pitchers and catchers report to Spring training.

Judy and I have been looking at the hundreds of slides Mom had at her house. There were slides from the 1940s to the 1970s. Family vacations, contacts with friends, cute pictures of one or or of Mom’s kids at various stages of our growing up (amazingly equal in number per child!): the photos chronicled important parts of Mom’s life.

People of a Certain Age, a word of encouragement: if you have saved pictures of your life, look at them occasionally. It is a way to meet again your former self.

Judy noted that, in a significant number of slides, I was dressed in a baseball uniform. Early me wore gray and red, a store-bought uni. Later me got the white with red trim of my Little League team in Seattle and the white with blue trim of the Mission Hills Realty Giants in San Diego. Apparently, my love of baseball has lasted more than 65 years!

So, as you might expect, as a lifelong fan of the game, I watched the World Series this year. Dear reader, if your eyes glaze over at the mention of baseball specifically or athletics in general, bear with me. My purpose is not to persuade you regarding the beauty of the choreography of defensive plays as a ball is hit or the romanticism of a game where, as George Carlin once noted, the purpose is to move through green fields to go home.

No, the seven games played between the Chicago Cubs , who had not won a championship in 108 years, and the Cleveland Indians, owners of the second-longest title drought—since 1948, the year after I was born—offer the chance to reflect on some things.

First, baseball is a game. The people who play it and the people who watch it should be having the fun playing a game implies, all the tense moments notwithstanding. And, a game is not real life in the sense that war, pestilence, poverty or injustice present themselves to us as real life.

It is a diversion. Thank heavens for diversions! The intensity of the news this fall demanded a time out, a chance to think about something else. This urgency to take a breather is manifested in the pictures we have seen of children playing soccer in a refugee camp or the Christmas Eve soccer game in December 1914 between men of the German and Allied armies. A machine that does not offload pressure is apt to explode.

Second, baseball and its World Series are rituals. The older I get, the more I appreciate ritual. Every November, Americans are encouraged by an annual holiday to give thanks. Every July, American excitement over independence explodes in fireworks. On January 20 every four years, we transfer political power peacefully in a sacred, secular moment.

Rituals connect us, to the past and, one hopes, to the future. Reminding ourselves that we are only small parts of a continuous story is healthy.

Third, this Series itself. As Scott Simon observed on NPR, the Cubs come from a city where more than 600 people have been murdered in 2016, and the Indians are from a city one-third the size of the city when they won the Series in 1948. The teams were bright lights in less bright settings, cities where there were reasons for discouragement.

The excitement of a seven game Series with the final game marked by dramatic ebbs and flows, decided in the end by only one run, gave the residents of both cities, rich and poor, black, brown and white, educated or not, the opportunity to cheer for teams of ballplayers who gave their best efforts to win the game. In that could be found moments of civic pride.

The Series even provided a particular opportunity for humor about God. At a critical juncture in the game, when the momentum had shifted to the favor of the Indians, it began to rain. The delay of the game was a scant twenty minutes but enough to blunt the momentum. Wags observed that God was clearly a Cubs’ fan.

The baseball world has changed because the Cubs won. Their triumph won’t solve the problem of homelessness or income inequality. But it does take away a staple from baseball; those “lovable losers,” the Cubs, defiantly proclaiming, after placing fourth, fifth or tenth, “wait ‘til next year.”

In that there is a ray of hope. “Next year” has come for the Cubs. They are the champs. What other impossibilities can be overcome?

And, winter at the Hawaii White House (the benign daily temperatures notwithstanding) will end when Spring training comes again.

I don’t think I will go out and buy a baseball uniform to celebrate. I have pictures.

 

Daniel E. White

November 28, 2016

 

As Judy’s plane descended into San Diego, she was aware of a dad talking to his little boy about the process of landing. Perhaps this was the boy’s first flight, and explaining about the plane slowing down and then hitting the ground with its tires would reassure the youngster. Dad made brief comments as the plane came closer and closer to touchdown. Finally, everyone felt the wheels hit the tarmac.

“He did it, Daddy. He did it,” squealed the boy, clapping his hands with delight.

I have liked the Sinatra song “My Way” for years. Unfortunately, the words, my way, have been co-opted in a phrase not meant to be positive—my way or the highway! However, I find satisfaction in words that reinforce my feelings of accomplishment and self-value. This, despite the fact that, for me and for most of us, our “way” has been aided time and again by mentors, parents, spouses, friends, etc.

But, whatever any of us does reflects the uniqueness of our individual capacities and humanity. My way is not, and never could be, exactly your way.

These days, it is the verb that stands out for me. I did it. Not I thought about it. I acted.

 My recent work with Ed.D. students at the University of Hawaii has promoted my further thought about action. The program seeks to prepare students for “leadership in social justice.” That emphasis piqued my curiosity about notions of social justice. So I read a little.

How social justice has been defined and understood has varied. A consistent thread, however, is the necessity of social action. To value ideas about equality and upholding the dignity of each individual means little if not accompanied by action. Acting on one’s belief: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, as well as secular theorists about social justice, echo each other on this point.

A favorite verse in the Bible (one used by two Presidents as they swore the oath of office) stipulates three requirements set down by Jehovah. The first is to do justly. Understanding what that means has filled books of philosophy and religious teaching. But the verb is clear. Do.

People of a Certain Age, is not the best way to understand what a person believes to look at what that person does?

You can tell me you are willing to take risks, try new things. My friend who, in her 70s, skydives shows me that she does.

You can tell me about the importance of offering aid to help the people of Haiti who have suffered devastation through earthquakes and hurricanes. My friends’ son has gone to Haiti to serve those in need; he has shown me.

You can tell me what you believe, and I might be impressed. You can show me what you have done, your values in action, and I will believe you.

Teddy Roosevelt once said that the man (read “person” in 2016) to be admired was not the critic or the spectator but the one in the arena. Nike has sold millions of shoes urging people to “just do it.”

If only doing was that easy!

You and I are blessed and burdened by capacities to think and feel. It is usually good for us to think before we act. Can we not also think our way out of worthwhile action because we worry that the costs are too high or the outcomes too unpredictable?

Feelings, too, affect doing. If fear is the default feeling, cannot fear of rejection or criticism or injury check action? Which of us chooses to stand out in a crowd to stand up for something we value? And then backs that up with action?

As a part of a booklet for student leaders, Dr. Kent M. Keith, in 1968, wrote “The Paradoxical Commandments.” The first line of each commandment states the challenge. The second line, in various ways, says “do it anyway.” The last commandment, for example, is “Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world your best anyway.”

Finding the will to do, to act in the face of whatever dangers or hurdles there might be, including those in one’s own mind, is an act of courage. There are among us people who perform daily acts of courage. Veterans Day reminds us of one such group.

You can question my courage, but one thing I probably will not do is to jump out of a plane. I bear an inbred fear of moving at high speed toward the ground and no special reason to overcome that fear.

I wonder if the pilot on Judy’s plane, even with all the training and experience, has the same fear. Did that pilot, when the plane rolled to a stop on the runway, say quietly, “I did it?” Aren’t we lucky that, as we move through our lives “our way,” there are pilots to land our planes?

Daniel E. White

November 14, 2016