What Are Old People For?

I had an compelling conversation on just this subject with one of my student assistants regarding the treatment of elders in his native culture. He is from Eritrea. I listened with interest as he explained to me the approach his culture has to the older and the elderly and some of his young perspective on this influence in his life. In listening, I realized that this subject that I have been trying to work into my interior conversations of late on the value of aging is more than a solitary dialogue. In my student's case, he was raised by his Grandparents and knew nothing of an alternative perspective until he came to the States. His frustration in Africa was, understandably, never being allowed to openly disagree with an elder. When he came to this country, he was shocked by the conversations that reflected a total lack of respect that his American relatives engaged in. The culture shock has receded but this reconciliation continues in him as he is caught between two worlds. It continues in me too as I expressed to him my frustrations in the culture expecting me to be more matronly than I feel and having to meet that expectation of my age in order to illicit respect. The conversation sort of faded away between us as the work at hand encroached on our conversation. Still, I found myself spinning in a tiny eddy of our exchange.

Thursday I came to reading my daily dose of Time Goes By and was introduced to the geriatrician, Dr. Bill Thomas. He is the author of "What Are Old People For?" and ChangingAging.org as well as being the creator of Eden Alternative and he was making an intelligent and compassionate appeal to Oprah Winfrey to consider what her influence in pitching constant youth has on the aging population of America.

I like to poke fun of Oprah Winfrey along with many others. She seems to get a little suckered by her own PR sometimes and she's an easy target. I too get a glimpse of my own folly of self perception and I am made fun of, too, for far less success and joy than Oprah has created in people's lives. Just walking across the room can illicit any number of mostly unconscious judgments from my girth to my odd hair. I cannot help but have sympathy for Oprah or anyone who is older, in this way. Bottom line, when it comes to the mass media, Winfrey wields a tremendous influence of the perspectives of millions of Americans who, right or wrong, turn to her as an authority on everything from nail polish to Hospice Care. It just is. I think Dr. Thomas does a pretty good job of appealing to, what I consider is essential in Winfrey: her strength of character and ability to grow into new and interesting thought and action.



Granted just because my wondering what old people are good for doesn't make it interesting but the thought that there are unused resources of life-giving, life-supporting and life-enhancing abilities at our fingertips in the cumulative wisdom of the our older years that no one can get to because we are building Club Meds on the river Denile, simple breaks my heart. Especially when I realize that that high rise is going to completely block my view of a satisfying end of my life and cast me and millions of others into it's shadow until we draw our final breath.

In reflecting on my conversation, I realize that my young student assistant needs to have frustration in not being able to openly argue with an elder. He cannot yet see how this has strengthened him. The young cannot understand that this frustration has an actual function that manifests in their adult life to hone a strength in temperament. It creates a stronger adult presence and an ability to fuse thought and action in life. It gives one enough self reflection to temper one's belief in ones own PR. The elders carry the depth of intention and love from the roots of the family to the young, new growth. It is essential and spiritual and cannot be recognized for what it is when we are new to the world. I didn't get to tell him that and I wonder what he would have heard, if I did. We were called away as there is a Club Med with a picture book view of the horizon we are busy building.

Picture: Filimon Ghilbretinsae preforming a traditional dance from his country, Eretria, at Western WashingtonUniversity's AfroCaribbean Club Celebration (and also displaying the fact that, no matter where you are from, everyone has a little bit o'Elvis in their soul!)

Love your MOTHER!

We have many Mothers. No one knows this better than women - especially women who have given birth or realized children in their lives because as soon as this happens (in reality or in a spiritual sense) there is a keen awareness that we are not and will never be "alone". Many women have come before us. We are but spawn, essentially, of an accumulated experience of women. Like Chief Seattle stated,

"The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth"

...so it is with our Mothers. We sometimes refer to the Earth as our Mother. Replace the words The Earth with the Our Mother in the quote above and you begin to feel the weight of it. My word of the year is value. In these terms, I find myself contemplating the value of all of our Mothers these days.

I can hardly turn a blind eye to the opportunity these times are offering at every bend for our reinventing the economy. Not with a word like "value" wending it's way into my daily thoughts. So lets take a look at what we commonly buy for our Mothers on Mother's Day, shall we? Florist flowers and potted plants that have been genetically altered to last 48 hours longer than the plant you bought last year. A dinner at a restaurant, perhaps? There are any number of things that might be a tradition. I want to explore outside that tradition here for a moment and look at the bigger picture.

We all are beginning to understand that we have a responsibility to learn new ways to get where we are going, whether it is opting to taking a bus or biking downtown or sending a message that actually speaks from our hearts. I am thinking now of gift giving - shopping, if you will - that is an act of supporting Motherhood while honoring our sisters and womankind and, while we are it, the earth as well. Shopping as a political act?

As I stated in a previous post, I blew through Portland town in March and had the good fortune to visit with my friend Kristi Jo Lewis. KJ is a new mother of a beautiful baby girl and the creator of a business that she shares with her sister and associates called Global Sistergoods. KJ is a woman of conscience and when she imagined her ideal job she did so with her compassion for women of the world and alternative ways of economics firmly in mind. Recognize a woman's talent, support it and let her support her family. Yes she can! ...and she did. Basically KJ and Global Sistergoods fences finely crafted goods made from artisans who are Mothers and Sisters themselves....are you following where this is going?

From "About Us":
Global Sistergoods was founded in 2006 by two sisters, Beth Kapsch and Kristi Jo (KJ) Lewis, who combined their professional backgrounds in living wage issues, international development, public policy and women's equality and their personal love of beautiful, handmade goods to create this marketplace for women artisans from around the world.

We provide a living wage to economically disadvantaged women in fragile economies by supporting entrepreneurship, self-reliance and microenterprise development through fair trade. We partner with international non-government organizations who provide resources to women, governmental trade associations who support women's economic empowerment, women's cooperatives/collectives, and individual women artisans. We sustain traditional craftmaking techniques, provide high-quality products and educate consumers about women's issues in the countries our partner artisans live in.

I am suggesting you take a few minutes and take a look at what Global Sistergoods is offering. I'm suggesting, as well, that we all begin to realize that our spending habits are essentially a political act. When one trades with Global Sistergoods, this is what happens: You get a superior gift for your Mom made by women who are Mothers and you support a woman who is supporting her family. When you choose to trade with conscience, perhaps forgoing the florist's forced attempt at beauty, you are supporting much more than some strange person 1000 of miles away. You are engaging in an alternative way of doing business that gets you what you want while supporting the people that you want to help.

Kristi Jo and her sister are people who are dreaming of a better way and giving birth to it everyday. Love your Mother and hold your sister close. They just might be able to show us how to heal our economy by trading in new, alternative and exciting ways. These are brave and intelligent women who are teaching a new meaning of value. I am learning that conscious action coupled with value has a strange and powerful positive implication, while tacit in its employ, it is dynamic in its execution. Making a conscious choice is one of those things that requires doing to understand. I'm suggesting you try it and see how it feels.

The best way to spend time with your Mother on her day is to sit with her and ask her who she is on her own terms. Perhaps go for a walk with her or enjoy the outdoor market with locally supported goods on display. Or even go to an independently owned bistro for lunch. Whatever you choose to do make it an active choice with intention and love at it's core...like a Mother's love.

Photo credit: blawk359

Let us converse about the elephant in the room

I wish I had someone to talk to in conversation about all the turmoil that everyone is experiencing in the room, in the workplace, at the University and in the country. It is a load.

I have just finished reading a book I wish my co-workers would read and we could join in conversation about. The book is called, "Crossing the Unknown Sea; Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity". If I hadn't stumbled upon David Whyte's work through the back door of my own personal troubled voyage, I would run like hell from that title myself, likewise I don't suspect many will be thrilled at the prospect of reading it. I urge you to move past that because I must say that it has helped me immensely to understand - if ever so slightly - how I might have an opportunity to play a positive role in these horrendous changes that are underfoot. After ordering the title through ILL, I got 30 pages into it and knew I had to go buy my own copy if I was going to make it through these "interesting times" at work and in the world at large. It resonates quite loudly within me to seek some sense of this situation to which I have opted for. Finding a place to stand and function at one's best abilities seems to be the order of the day at work. At least for me, I am finding a welcome if tenuous solitary grip within these writings. It occurred to me this morning that others at work might also find strength here.

It is the business of poets to live and examine the edges of things and when a poet with the vision and scope of David Whyte says the game has changed forever for business, I have to pay attention. I am reading something everyone senses, of course, and he goes one step further. He gives tools for facing disease, the unknown and really, really bad weather endemic to these types of changes that we all feel are coming but really do not know how to acknowledge well. We are on the threshold of what will be and hurling towards the essence of our work in a very different work world from whence we entered. In this book, I realize, if we take the time to understand the language of these changes, we can move this troubled situation from invisible ideas onto welcoming and sustainable shores. It is a journey we could do better with wise council. I haven't found better than Whyte:

"In order to get a real conversation with the world you have to drop artificial language, you have to drop politics, and you have to drop an environment based on fear and hiding. People must be encouraged not only to know their craft, their products, their work and the people they serve, but to know a little of themselves. In order to respond to the world of wants, they must know something of what they want themselves. Just as importantly they must know what they do not want. They must also look at their inherited fears around conversation, particularly the conversation about their own gifts. This personal conversation can be very frightening but it is an increasingly necessary one, especially for those who have any leadership role in the organization."

If you have already read it or you read it as a result of this posting, I would be interested in your thoughts.

"Good work is grateful surprise." ~D.W.

...and why not?

What is right with the world?

I received an interesting video feed from my friend, singer-songwriter, Esther Golton, today . She shared a clip that she found and I think I may be dropping the baton here if I don't share it in light of the Trust Workshop that was attended yesterday.


My co-workers and myself were treated to the consciousness raising experience of Janet Ott, writer, speaker and relationship coach yesterday. The focus was on issues of trust. One of the many things that Janet spoke about was our relationship to our stories or our perceptions of what we are seeing and how it is seen through a series of choices we make in how we look at it. This video clip that Esther sent seems particularly relevant in light of this subject. I feel compelled to share it.


It is a preview called Celebrate what is right with the world, by DeWitt Jones, photographer for the National Geographic. In it he shares his process of learning to see things differently and I found it quite illustrative of what happens when we trust to take something one step further and alter the perspective. The revelation one tiny twist of perspective can manifest can be quite astounding. I think it is interesting too that Mr. DeWitt comments that:

"...it's a national sacrilege to throw away a Geographic because it celebrates what is right with the world and nobody wants to throw that away."

When I heard him say that, I realized he could have been talking about libraries just as easily as National Geographic Magazine. I don't think our culture wants to throw out libraries either because libraries, too, celebrate what is right with the world.


The video is about 22 minutes long and I don't think you will regret taking the break in such good company.