Category: Seeking Common Ground

More specifically, baseball during COVID. I grew up on baseball. When I was in elementary school in the 1960’s, baseball was the sport American boys had in common. I am pleased and proud that girls now enjoy “America’s Pass Time” as well.

Every single one of us dreamed of someday playing major league baseball and being a World Series hero. Maybe it was hitting the walk-off home run in a deciding game 7, making the game saving catch, striking out the last opposition batter. Whatever it was, we all shared that dream together. We didn’t always talk about it, but we all knew what we wanted to do when we grew up.

Well, it’s now 2020 and our playing days are over. For that matter our kids playing days are over, save for those slow pitch softball teams that some of us belong to. But, those dreams never go away. Today they are being lived by a new generation of young boys and girls. The dreams of playing in the “Big Leagues” are now theirs.

I’m inspired to write about this now because the American baseball season ended yesterday as the World Series (not the World Baseball Classic which really is the world series of baseball) of this difficult and trying year of 2020 was decided.

“My” team, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the series in six games over a young and exciting Tampa Bay Rays team. I watched the players, manager, coaches and families celebrate on the field as you would expect them to celebrate during a viral pandemic.

But, underneath those masks were those school boys who, 10-15 years ago, were like me in the 1960’s. Kids with a dream of one day being a hero on the biggest stage in baseball.

This World Series is special. We needed this. We needed this sense of connection to the normal. We needed to see these men go out and play this little boys game with the same joy and unbridled enthusiasm that they played with when they were little boys not that long ago.

They brought me joy. They brought me happiness. They brought me hope for next season. Yes, there will be a next season and next season will be better than ever.

One last thought. The post game celebration for the winning Dodgers and their fans (including me at home). I watched the celebration as braodcast by several different news organizations. Each one had it’s own take and angle on what it looks and sounds like to be a champion.

But, what stood out to me were the names of the backs of their uniforms. Hernandez, Urias, Jansen, Betts, Kelly, Floro, Rios, Gonzales, Kershaw, Roberts. They were a diverse community of human beings coming from many different countries, socio economic groups, races and beliefs. But there they were as a unified group. Smiling, laughing, hugging (yes, even hugging) and enjoying this common moment of celebration together reminding me that we are indeed more alike than we are different.

So, there are lessons to be learned from sports. Many of you probably don’t look at the Sports Pages (I date myself because you find those in newspapers although. I guess you’ll also find them on Web Sites). Sports offers us a chance to be those little kids again, all with a common dream and a color blind eye.

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

Unitarian Minister Theodore Parker

Barack Obama used these words often, including at his inaugural speech on January 20, 2009. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used these words in a speech given at the National Cathedral on March 31, 1968 titled “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution.” Listen to the full speech here.

Professor Clayborn, a professor of history at Stanford University, discusses this quote in an NPR interview with Melissa Block on “All Things Considered.”

This quote has been used many times over the last nearly two centuries. The quote is attributed to the Unitarian Abolitionist Minister, Rev. Theodore H. Parker in a sermon that he gave in 1853.

Wherever the words came from, they ring true for me today. In the face of great darkness, know that through it all justice will prevail. I believe that.

October 15, 2020

In the words of Stacy Horn, author of “Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing With Others,” singing is “when musical vibrations move through you, altering your physical and emotional landscape.”

And you don’t have to be what is considered “good” at sining to enjoy the rewards of singing. In Horn’s words “singing is like the infusion of the perfect tranquilizer, the kind that both soothes your nerves and elevates your spirits.”

Science supports Horn’s claim. I feel good when I sing because of the release of hormones called Endorphins. You will too. These endorphins are associated with feelings of pleasure. Research also shows that another hormone, Oxytocin, is released during singing. Oxytocin enhances feelings of trust and bonding.

Another recent study cited by Horn tries to make the case that “music evolved as a tool of social living.” So, the pleasure that comes from singing together is our “evolutionary reward” for coming together in communities instead of remaining isolated cave dwellers.

So, as we sing together today, next week and in the weeks, months and years to come, hold this in your heart: When you sing, wherever it may be, you celebrate the community. When we sing, we sing as one and we sing together.

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

I couldn’t sleep last night.  My mind would not quiet down.  Why?  Seeds of doubt about the results of the upcoming election would not leave me alone and I was unable to meditate them away.

But, quiet them I must.  Along with my liberal and progressive kindred spirits, I need to let go of the idea that if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t win the presidency this November, that our Democracy is doomed to a downward death spiral toward a totalitarian Oligarchy similar to the one in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Surely it will not be a step in the right direction towards true American greatness should the Republican Party control the White House for the next four years.  Yet, neither will it be a terminal event in the history of our republic.  

This is where I turn to history.  Historians remind us that there was life before us and that there will be life after us.  Historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and John Meacham remind us of that.  It is stories from the past that bring me solace and comfort in this dark time.  Meacham’s book “The Soul of America,” focuses on several events in the presidential history of the United States.  Any of these events could easily have been interpreted to be “the end of life as we know it.”

History shows us that Americans and American institutions are quite resilient. Even when it seems that our current times can get no darker, there exists at least one lone vibrating photon of light energy to show us the way.

My efforts to elect a new president and change the balance of power in the Senate over to the Democrats will not in any way waiver.  I am writing personal letters to “reluctant” voters through the non-partisan organization Vote Forward.  I am selectively donating money to candidates up and down the ballot.  I proudly display an “I Believe…” yard sign in the front yard and I remind myself and others with a sidewalk chalk message that says “Stay Focused, Black Lives Matter.”

But, what I have resolved  is that my personal happiness and hopefulness will not depend on a larger collective decision that I cannot control.  As the Serenity Prayer reads:  “God grant me the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things that I can’t change and the wisdom to know the difference.”

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Coping with the Upcoming American Election

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October 1, 2020 

A Brief History of theVictory Garden

When my school district announced that it was shutting down operations on March 13, 2020  in response to the COVID-19, my very first response was:  “Wow, two weeks of unexpected vacation.  We can go somewhere.  Maybe camping at Yosemite.  Then it hit me.  You’re not supposed to go travelling around.  It would spread the virus.  That’s the point.”

Well, now what was I supposed to do with my time. Part of my time from March 23-June 5 was spent learning the new term “Distance Learning” along with my Sixth Grade Science and PE students at Cabrillo Middle School.  That was about four hours of my Monday-Friday time.  What about the rest?

I can’t really go anywhere.  At that point, I didn’t feel like I could even leave the house.  Being in California, I now feel free to take neighborhood walks, go to the grocery store (with my mask on), ride my bicycle and other basic activities that restored some small sense of normalcy.

Most of the time, however, was spent in and around my house.  That wasn’t too bad.  I had the companionship of my wife and two cats.  And, the yard.  The pleasant sensation of sitting in the yard, front and back. The birds and squirrels, the willow trees and roses , the succulents. What’s so good about that?  Well, I rediscovered something that I had learned from my father.  The power of the garden.

My father was an avid gardener.  He loved growing things.  Our suburban home in Visalia, CA in the heart of the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley.  The house took up a good portion of the 6,000 square feet of land owned by my Dad and the bank.  But, whatever was not taken up by the house was dedicated to growing plants.  Some of them were ornamental, they were there because they were pretty.  A good deal more of the yard was devoted to growing plants that produced things that we could eat.  We had lettuce, mustard greens, carrots, potatoes, onions and blackberry vines along the back fence.  We had a plum tree with several varieties of plums, an apricot tree, a grapefruit tree, an orange tree, a tangerine tree and a White Kadota fig tree.  We even had a small grass lawn in the front.

When you read the story about Victory Gardens in the link at the top of this page, you’ll begin to understand why I took up gardening during the COVID-19 pandemic.  My garden is not anywhere close to what my father did, but in several grow bags, a couple of wooden planter boxes, a self watering pot and a couple of non-self watering pots, I created my own garden.  My garden included (and still does to this date) several varieties of tomatoes, a lemon cucumber, green bell peppers, three wonderfully productive Sweet Basil plants (enjoyed by neighbors as well), a small eggplant variety that produced (is still producing) small eggplants that are great on those you bake pizzas that need a little more pizzazz.

The thought that what I and many Americans were doing with our yards was creating Victory Gardens really just hit me this past week.  These gardens are providing us with food, but they are also helping to raise our spirits.  Each one of us doing our part to defeat the COVID-19 in our own personal way provides a feeling of community and support that we have so badly needed during our extended Zoom-a-Thon.

The challenges didn’t end with a new virus.  Then came the fires on the west coast and floods in the Gulf and Eastern states.  A presidential election season that has added unnecessary stress on top of the natural phenomenon that we were already dealing with.  Yet, for me at least, the idea that my garden is helping not only me, but my family, friends and neighbors through some hard times is very gratifying for me and gives me hope.

Carry on.