I sent this email to about a dozen colleagues.
I like following trends at the Pew Research Center.
If you get a little time – 20 mins. – it’s worth it to watch this – Tom Rosenstiel on “The Future of News” from NPR.
He says a lot of what I’ve been thinking about journalism. It’s especially relevant for those of us doing media for the United Methodist Church.
News is immediate, brief, interactive, unbundled, diffuse, browsed, international, community-based.
When we stayed in Chautauqua last summer, my sister pointed out a hydrangea and remarked, “Probably, that perennial has bloomed here every summer for more than 100 years.” Indeed, in Chautauqua, gardens, people, and ideas have blossomed for a very long time. Like a perennial, Chautauqua sprouts, grows, ages, appears to die, then blooms again.
History
When Chautauqua Institution was founded in 1874 by several Methodists, their aim was to encourage Christians to engage with the world in a rigorous and intellectual way. This spiritual, learning and arts center in Western New York was a response to the era’s histrionic emotionalism exhibited at evangelical meetings.
Chautauqua became a movement. From its inception as a place to engage Sunday School teachers in substantive Bible studies, it has become what it is today — a mecca for people of faith who seek to deepen their understanding of life’s meaning through religion, the arts, culture, and the humanities.
It’s hard to imagine that at one point most U.S. citizens knew about or had attended Chautauqua or one of its events. In 1924, its peak year, the traveling Chautauqua circuit visited 10,000 communities and more than 40 million people attended Chautauqua programs.
As an ecumenical and interfaith institute, Chautauqua continues to stand for “earnestness and breadth of vision and it is again becoming a leader in meeting the new religious needs of today.” (From an article entitled, “Aggressive Christianity at Chautauqua,” in the weekly Chautauqua newsmagazine written August 23, 1913.)
Tens of thousands of people continue to visit Chautauqua during its nine-week summer season. In 2009, I was one of those thousands of Chautauquans looking for rest, revitalization, and religious reconnection.
Fenton Deaconess Home
When I mention to friends, even church friends, that I had a great time in Chautauqua last summer, most of them stare at me blankly. None of my friends had heard of Chautauqua. So I’ve taken it upon myself to spread the word.
I learned about Chautauqua Institution when I worked in the finance department of the Women’s Division about six years ago. I learned the Women’s Division owns two summer homes there: the Fenton Memorial Deaconess Home and The United Methodist Missionary Vacation Home.
I longed to visit, but the photos in the brochure did not show any children. Among my three children, not one is a shrinking violet. However, Marva Usher-Kerr, fellow staff, encouraged me to visit with kids in tow. Since then, my children have grown up a little (even though I told them not to). Last spring, Becky Louter, deaconess office, also nudged me to make a pilgrimage to Chautauqua. The kids and I could stay in the deaconess home.
I reasoned that my kids might be ready. So as part of my professional leave from Global Ministries in the summer of ’09, my sister and I spent a week at Chautauqua. We took over the Fenton Deaconess Home with our combined six children between the ages of 6 and 12. Almost all of us had a single room at the Fenton Home.
The registration letter recommends a donation to the Fenton Home of about $39/day a person. The Fenton Home has six single rooms and one double room. The cost was well worth it! However, deaconesses can stay in the home and receive a free gate pass. (The gate fee to enter the institution is pricey, about $354 for the week. There are fees for parking and for the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, too.)
My 9-year old twin daughters had never before slept in single rooms. They showed their maturity by making their beds and tidying up their cozy rooms every day, tucking their stuffed animals under the white bedspreads.
Penny Krug was the deaconess hostess at the red-brick home. She and her lovable husband, Charlie, were completely unfazed by our little brood. Penny provided good company, delicious lunches and breakfasts, a beautiful (and tidy!) home to share, and the daily newspaper with our coffee at breakfast-time.
One day we were all excited at breakfast to discover that my six-year old nephew Joey’s picture appeared in the newspaper. There he was, eating cake, celebrating the birthday of the Chautauqua Symphony.
The Fenton Deaconess Home is located near Thunder Bridge, so called because bikes rumble over the bridge. Next summer (and I do hope to make it back) I will try to bring bikes. But I won’t need to bring bike locks. No one locks their bikes at Chautauqua. The trees near the Fenton Home were eminently huggable. I hugged the trees and smelled the flowers every day.
We made good use of the tennis and basketball courts and playground near our home. We made lots of friends on the playground, including a Brazilian missionary family. At a women’s ministry luncheon I met Dean Maxine Beach from Drew Theological University. The chaplain for the week was Rev. Barbara Lundblad, who officiated at my marriage 14 years ago.
Classes, Lectures & Kids’ Clubs
The week was a chance to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Chautauqua offers almost any kind of class that one can imagine. I had considered joining a women’s sharing circle, a digital photography class or a history of Chautauqua architecture survey. But I settled on two standbys: watercolor painting and non-fiction writing.
After my morning art class, I met my sister for the lecture at the 7,000 seat ampitheater. The theme for the week was, “What Makes Us Moral: An Abrahamic Perspective.” The first lecture was given by Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate, author, and survivor of a Nazi Concentration Camp.
Other lecturers at various venues that week included: Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Church, Harvey Cox of Harvard University, Dr. Leila Nadya Sadat of the International Criminal Court, Dr. Robert Michael Franklin of Morehouse University, Dr. Ralph Williams from the University of Michigan; and Dr. Michael Gazzaniga from the Center for the Study of the Mind, University of California.
While we listened to the morning lectures, our children attended the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, the oldest daycamp in the country.
On the first day of day camp, I asked my oldest, “What did you do today?”
“We went sailing,” my son answered. A first!
Other activities with the children included: juggling by the Gizmo Guys; a Star Trek movie at the cinema; the Bat Chat, a scientific discussion on bats; a Pas de Deux ballet from the North Carolina; and a comedy performance by Jason Alexander.
One rainy day we jumped into the indoor YMCA-like community center pool. We left the small-town life one night to eat at a nearby Italian restaurant. Most other nights we ate at the snack bar near the town center by the Bestor Plaza fountain. One night we dined at Hurlbut United Methodist Church for an old-fashioned Thanksgiving feast. There, we kept our young server very busy. Little Joey traded his bright green pistachio pie for a gooey cherry pie.
Going Back
Towards the end of the week, my sister and I found ourselves listening to a lecture on discernment while doing a jigsaw puzzle on the wide porch of the Methodist Home, another United Methodist residence. I felt we’d come home. We chatted with the friendly hostess, Karen Douds and her husband Bob Douds.
While we did attend many lectures and activities in Chautauqua, this memory of sitting on the porch, just hanging out with my sister was a highlight. It felt right, like we were pieces in the big puzzle. We fit in. Even with our kids, we had become like those perennial flowers, blooming in Chautauqua.
To learn more about the Chautauqua Institution, visit their website at: http://www.ciweb.org/
I’ve been thinking about thinking… about
mind
character
commitment
community
Especially I’ve been wondering What makes for community? When I was on my sabbatical I was often thrust into community – at Chautauqua, Alliance Francaise, Taize. At times, I had no choice. I had to go along and get along.
Yes, I am resilience, but I, like everyone, can be uncomfortable moving out of my comfort zone.
I just heard a lecture on critical thinking from the headmaster of Riverdale Country school. He is particularly brilliant. here’s his blog.
http://rcsblog.com/headmaster/
One point Dominic made was that schools are not there simply to have students regurgitate facts but to learn to be
global
service minded
inclusive
healthy
I believe we are called to do this too in our work.
That rather than judging students or coworkers merely on academics, we could look at each other’s capacity for curiosity, zest, self control (delayed gratification), gratitude, hope/optimism, and social intelligence.
Perhaps then we could find the brilliance of one another.
On Saturday, I ran to the end of the 70th Street pier in Riverside Park. As I passed the kayak launch site, empty now, I wished that I could see that harbor seal again. The one with the one droopy whisker and the big black eyes.
About a year ago, Max, the doorman, told me a seal was hanging out at the boat basin. At dusk, I took the kids to see it. Our photo didn’t turn out, but there it was at the boat basin. The next week it was at the kayak launch site. It was yawning and stretching. Just lookin’ around.
We dialed 3-1-1. The animal rescue or marine biology people (or whomever 3-1-1 connected us to) said they would not come rescue it, because – from what we described, it was healthy.
After all, it was a harbor seal in a harbor. No matter that the harbor was the Hudson River.
On my weekend run this time, the only wildlife I saw were squirrels, ducks, and, I’m not sure they count – dogs. I didn’t even see one of the red-tailed hawks near the 80th street playground. They’re so vast you’d think they could swoop down and, with their talons, grab a toddler.
The best part of running in New York City is the wildlife. And when you run again, you remember.
WUK8XEF8JMDN
I ran with Hayden on the newly-paved Camp Dudley Road past the school house. We ran down towards the Stable Inn.
The field of wildflowers was all gone.
The best part of the run was the several dozen woodpeckers – small, fluffy, industrious – in a flock on the spindley trees of Lake Shore Road. One dive-bombed us, letting us know, “This is our world! Beat it! Aren’t you city folk? Get on back to your city!”
We did. Or at least walked back up to our house. We walked up the Old Dug Road.
Our toes got wet. After all, when you run through a field where wildflowers once grew and woodpeckers now rule, you are going to have to pay. It is a small price in discomort but there is a big pay off too.
The pay off is in knowing that there are places in this world that are not ruled by humans, there are places where woodpeckers rule.
Living in New York City, I thought I’d seen it all but I hadn’t. Not until 1995 when I went to the Beijing women’s conference, the largest gathering of women in history.
So many women – so many ages, races, ethnicities – all of us, trying to make the world a better place.
I went with my comedy partner, Emmy Gay. We performed street theater outside of the Once and Future Pavilion, the technology tent. We called ourselves the Ebony and Ivory of Stand Up Comedy.
Before we left, we produced and performed comedy fundraisers at places like Surf Reality to piece together enough money to pay the deposit for our trip.
The day I left, I kissed my new husband good bye. “I’ll send you a postcard,” I promised.
But I did better than that.
I sent missives to my husband, not through snail mail, as we’ve come to call the handwritten form, but a new form of communication I discovered in China: email.
From the Apple tent, I emailed my tech-savvy father in Florida who then faxed the email to Chris, my Luddite husband who was working at the Depot, the family summer stock theater in upstate New York.
I felt like a wartime reporter, dashing off important, breathless, and newsy missives:
I heard Aung San Suu address the SRO crowd from her house arrest in Burma! I simultaneously translated her words into French for a woman from the Congo.
I saw Betty Friedan!
I met Hilary Clinton and Pat Schroeder and they encouraged me and women from all over to run for elected office! They told us not to be afraid of politics.
When I returned to New York, I sold video footage that I’d shot and articles I’d written. I covered the cost of the trip which was about $2,000. But the experience was, as they say, priceless.
The kind of women I met and the commitment and creativity they had inspired me. They broke barriers of what women looked like; what women could do. Life was more varied than I could ever have imagined from my sheltered life on the Upper West Side of New York City.
When I was at the conference, I occasionally saw a middle-aged woman with her daughter. I wondered if the ruggedness of the experience – the long flight, the rain, the mud – was too hard on a girl. At the time, my husband and I were trying to have a child. I wanted a daughter desperately.
I am now a middle-aged woman with daughters of my own. I wonder if I could or would take my daughters to a UN women’s world conference.
I hope in their lives my daughters have the kind of experience that I had. I hope that my girls will learn of the beauty and power of women in all their diversity, the intelligence of women, the good will and sisterhood of women from many countries, the vast array of possibilities for women and girls.
And I also hope that they have someone nice at home waiting for them – mother, father, sister, brother, husband, partner, son, daughter, or friend – eager to hear of their adventures; read their emails; forward them on.
I hope that my daughters and son will travel the world to make friends and promote peace. Then, of course, I hope they come home, safe and sound, enlarged by the world, as I have been – that they, like me, will be made bigger as they see the world grow smaller.
Today I finished my YA novel with the fabulous and fun NaNoWriMo. I wrote 50,000 words in less than a month. I’m proud of myself. I actually cried when I finished. I was relieved and happy. But now I’m feeling untethered. That’s good. I think..
On Sunday, I ran with one of my 10 year olds and also my 12 year old.
My number one son kept telling me to take longer strides. My daughter kept stopping to stare at the Hudson. Note to self: Run alone next time!
The only time we were all at the same pace was at the counter of the Korean deli at 72nd and West End where we stopped for juice, gatorade, bagels, and sliced mangoes. We really enjoyed the run at that moment – the moment the run was over. We then sat together in front of the statue of Eleanour Roosevelt at Riverside and 72nd.
I thought running would be a good way to bond with children. Now I think that sitting on a bench together is a good way too.
I greatly appreciate your letter and your compassion.
I do agree with you, personally. In the article, I was asked the stance
of the UMC on this matter.
I reported what the UMC states regarding marriage. Although I may
differ with the official church position on some matters (including its
views on homosexuality), as a staff member of an agency of the church, I
am obligated to share what I believe the position of the UMC is. And as
such, in the interview, that is what was reported.
I am hopeful that the UM Committee on Older Adult Ministries will
address this issue and bring some form of legislation/resolution to the
next General Conference.
In the meantime, please know that I, too, am sympathetic and
compassionate; but, sometimes, official church policy does not always
reflect our sense of compassion.
Again, please know that I appreciate your letter very much, and I, too,
wrestle with these and other issues that impact the spiritual well-being
of older adults.
If I can be of further help, please let me know.
Grace and peace,
R.G.
Oh it is so hard. Here is me whining. It’s too hard. What am I doing? I wanted to finish the 2,000 words every day before noon. And sat with my notebook at the kitchen table, writing before the kids had to get up. They were late for school and complaining of sore throats. I might’ve written 500 words…
And now I’m at work and have to do work-type writing. Ah well, the solution is always – MORE COFFEE. 2,060 words done, 47,940 to go…
100 Days of Poems and Pics 