HARK!

FOR THE MOST PART I was a pretty good attention-payer. Occasionally, a teacher or other authority figure would ask, “Are you paying attention?” It was a legitimate question. I’m a daydreamer. A blank stare off into space could cause someone to question if a daydreamer is paying attention.

HADDI’S SNOWPERSONS CREATIONS

That’s a weird figure of speech, isn’t it: paying attention? I did a bit of research to see if I could find an origin; not much luck. It almost sounds like a currency of courtesy. Let’s say one of your grandchildren is going into deep detail about how she solved the Wordle puzzle in three guesses and why it took you six. Out of respect for this grandchild, and her uncanny ability to solve word puzzles, you pay her with respect by giving her your attention. [This is the grandchild who can’t watch “Wheel of Fortune” without losing her mind, yelling the puzzle answer at the TV while questioning the intelligence of the players, “These people are adults! How can they not see the answer?!”]

Grandkids want even more than our full and undivided attention. I use an email address from time to time that is a line I've heard often from them: hey.pops.hey@gmail.com. If someone sends me an email using that address, I can't help but pay attention.

Attention-paying is obviously a trait we want to develop in our young. It’s essential to civil discourse which is drying up and blowing away in our current culture. There’s a risk though. What parent hasn’t had one of those experiences where you discover that your child WAS paying attention when it might have been better if they weren’t. Here’s one of my favorite anecdotes:

True story. Dear friends of ours told me this story about an event at their church. This is one of those churches where a brave pastor calls the little children to the front of the church for a “children’s sermon”. One Sunday morning the pastor welcomed the kids. A little girl asked the pastor what he thought of her new dress. “It’s lovely!” he said. And, she replied, “Thank you. My Mom says it’s a real bitch to iron.”

If you’re a pastor, PAY ATTENTION. What she was saying is, “Please study hard, make every word of your sermon count, don’t waste our time. We’ve made effort and sacrifices to be here.” At least that’s my interpretation; sometimes paying attention allows us to read between the lines.

Paying attention seems grueling sometimes. Now we’re supposed to “pay attention to our bodies”, we’re supposed to stay “weather-aware”, we’re supposed to be vigilant of scammers and scoundrels. Look both ways before you cross the street. There are parking bumpers hiding in the cold, wet, wintry night. Pay attention or you could trip over one and be left wondering if your ribs will ever be the same again.

It’s tiring and it seems so inner-focused. Maybe that’s why it’s so difficult to pay attention to those around us, we’ve nothing left to pay. Our attention capacity is at a deficit or overdrawn. How about us? Is anyone paying attention to us?

I’ve decided it’s impossible to bankrupt your attention capacity because paying attention can be energizing, fulfilling, even life-giving. Let me offer a few examples: I have friends who are amazing photographers, technically and aesthetically. It is like their visual radar is on all the time. They see lighting, perspective, subtility, color, depth of field, composition in a way us mere-mortals don’t. It’s the same with musicians and poets. They hear melodies, harmonies, and feel rhythms. They understand life in moods, modes, points and counterpoints.

As a hobby-writer I have discovered I pay attention more, and deeper when I'm in a writing groove. I'm always questioning: what's behind that, why is it, when, where, ifs, ands, and buts. Discovery is so exhilarating and it happens when we're paying attention.

“If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.” — Oscar Wilde

Our Grand-Girl, Nora, is an attention-payer. Not only does she listen with the curiousity of an old woman sitting under the hair dryer at the beauty shoppe, she will stare a hole, picking up quirky body language, nuance and stuff.

NORA. PAYING INTENSE ATTENTION.

There's a coffee house in our town that Nora and I visit from time to time. One day we were sitting enjoying coffee and hot cocoa. She carried her mug to a sofa in the corner and sat, looking, studying. Then she moved to the window seat and tried it out. Then she moved to a table toward the back where students were sitting with laptops open, staring at their phones.

Finally, she returned to our table and offered this:

"I really like the aestetics of this place. Karlee (her oldest sister, the one with her own bedroom), has good aestetics. Harper (her next oldest sister, with whom she shares a bedroom), thinks that when Karlee goes to college she's going to get her bedroom. I told her that when Karlee goes to college she's going to pack up all of her aestetics and take them with her."

I didn't say anything. I just paid attention. That's what she wanted: my attention, not an opinion or comment, just attention.

These days you might hear a certain song playing. I'm not talking about that Mariah Carey song. We're likely to hear that one several times a day. The one I'm talking about says, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".

Hark is a word that means pay attention. This song is about a story, recorded in Luke chapter 2 of the Bible:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

On earth peace and good will. Yes, please. In the midst of the season, the busy-ness, the chaos. I need to remind myself to pay attention. Friday we went to Hinton to watch three of the Grands in the school Christmas program. I paid attention and it was beautiful. After the program, Haddi, the oldest Grand-Girl of our Hinton crew wanted to show me what she's been making. (She is an amazing maker.) She showed me a box of little snowpeople she's made from socks she stuffs with rice. The picture above is two of her collection. She explained how she makes them and her marketing strategies. I paid attention and was so proud of her.

My Christmas wish for and yours: go out there and do some harking!

WAX ON; WAX OFF

This is not political, it's not personal. I hope it's practical, and if it's prophetic; so be it.

Remember when The Beach Boys gave us this:

When some loud braggart tries to put me down
And says his school is great
I tell him right away
"Now what's the matter buddy
Ain't you heard of my school
It's number one in the state"
So be true to your school now
Just like you would to your girl or guy
Be true to your school now
And let your colors fly
Be true to your school

My personal experience with loud braggarts was to give them my lunch money and hope for the best. I'm still haunted by the memory of a couple of bullies at Jenks Elementary School.

This time I'm taking them on.

We had the privilege of being a part of a small community for many years. Our boys grew up there and now some of our grandkids are too. We are so happy for them and for an on-going connection there.

There is a greek word that you might hear at church. It's koinonia. It means fellowship, community, communion. In some communities it is palpable. I hope you've experienced it. It is a beautiful thing and we will miss it as church attendance wains and our lives become more separated and segregated. As our communication happens in text messages and "social" media, our human connections will weaken.

There is a place of community in towns, and neighborhoods that has been and can still be a place where ties are bound, where you can "let your colors fly." It is our public schools. Think I'm exaggerating? Watch what happens to a town when its school and churches close. The local public school is often the hub, the cultural catalyst, the pulse.

There are those in the political races right now who would say I am misguided and ignorant, accusing me of using scare tactics to sway voters. They would be wrong: I don't have that kind of influence. But, my message is true and urgent. Our public schools are essential to our culture, to our communities, to our koinonia. There is an attack on our public schools that is wrapped in false virtue, high-mindedness, and an arrogant claim to know deep spiritual truths. They believe that our teachers and local education leaders are too stupid or driven by an evil agenda to the point where THEY need to step in and take control. They want us to believe that public education is subpar and fraught with immorality and therefore a danger. Their solution: take public money and give it to unaccountable institutions under the guise of "parental choice".

Hold on. I'm not anti- private schools, christian schools or home schools. I have dear friends who have chosen one of these options for their kids for a variety of reasons. It's their choice, and it has been the best one. I also know of kids who have come from church schools and home schools who have been cheated of proper educational opportunities. I know that can also happen in public schools. This, though, is about state government meddling in local affairs and diverting public money.

Our kids, our grandkids, our communities and towns need our schools--our public schools. We need the school carnivals, the bake sales, the school plays, the band and choir, we need Friday night football and Monday afternoon softball. We need the lifeblood of education and socialization. We need the job opportunities for aspiring teachers. We need the gifted people who teach and lead in our schools to also teach and lead in our communities.

OUR OLDEST GRAND-GIRL, KARLEE, BEING TRUE TO HER SCHOOL

I'm not naive, or a fear-monger, and I'm not going to be bullied by Ryan Walters' doomsday message for public education. His platform in the run for State Superintendent is built from scare tactics. He's afraid our kids will read "The Outsiders" or "To Kill A Mockingbird". I'M AFRAID THEY WON'T!

He loves to talk about “critical race theory.” My guess is he couldn't explain it if he had to. It's just a trigger for him to use in speeches to fire up people who don't understand it and won't take the time to. And, there's his threat that if you don't elect him there will be a "boy" trying to play on your daughter's soccer team. If we go down this crazy path that the likes of Walters are blazing, our daughters won't have a soccer team to play on. He and his ilk love to talk about "woke". He doesn't understand that either. It is time to wake up.

He reminds me of those revivalists that used to travel from church to church with sermons meant to scare the hell out of kids. As the old saying goes: their message held kids over hell like a wiener on a stick. Don't let Ryan do that. I'm sure he's a nice young man; as I said, this isn't personal. I know he has an (R) after his name. I know he's endorsed by the governor and beholden to him. He's hoping to ride that R and that relationship into a position he's not prepared for, and for which he has a wrongheaded vision and questionable business practices.* As I said this isn't political it's practical.

I worked in youth ministry longer than Walters has been alive. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that kids are much smarter and more resilient than we credit them for. Let's focus on strengthening families, giving teachers the support and resources they need to offer the best and bring out the best. Let's work as communities to sustain the values that have served us.

BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL!

---

*From Wikipedia: On May 2, 2022, The Frontier and Oklahoma Watch reported on a United States Department of Education report which found the “Bridge the Gap” program Walters oversaw was implemented with few safeguards to prevent fraud or abuse and that federal auditors were investigating the distribution of COVID-19 relief money through the program.

On May 11, Oklahoma House of Representatives Democrats called on Governor Stitt to call for Walters resignation. The Governor's office responded "Secretary Walters is doing a great job fighting for parents’ right to be in charge of their child’s education and advocating for funding students, not government-controlled systems.” (In other words, according to Stitt: local school boards can't be trusted.)

Later in May, Oklahoma newspapers reported that while working as Secretary of Education, Walters remained Executive Director of “Every Kid Counts Oklahoma,” an Oklahoma education non-profit. Walters was paid approximately $120,000 a year by “Every Kid Counts Oklahoma” compared to his state salary of $40,000. The Frontier and Oklahoma Watch reported that “Every Kid Counts Oklahoma” was funded by national school privatization advocates and charter school expansion advocates, such as the Walton Family Foundation and another group founded by Charles Koch. (In other words, Walters serves at the behest of special interest groups rather than in the best interests of our schools and communities.)

The parentheticals are mine. --Pops.

PAUSE

THERE'S A PLACE where time stands still; or so I thought. Maybe I was just trying to will the clock and the calendar to slow down.

BROOKE AND JEREMIAH; KYLE AND MALACHI ON THE FERRIS WHEEL AT THE HINTON FAIR

There seems to be an age at which we grow more nostalgic. For me it was somewhere around 17. Could be that wasn't nostalgia; more of a youthful sentimentality (if there is such a thing.) Now though at 70-something, I long for a place of nostalgia, a return to the good old days when even in politics most everyone agreed with the admonition to Richard M. Nixon: Don't let the screen door on the back porch of the White House hit you in the rear end on your way out, as he resigned in 1974.

I long for those halcyon days when it was clear the best music ever was being created: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Neal Young, Carole King, Stephen Stills, Jimi Hendrix, Grace Slick, Dolly Parton, Marvin Gaye, Jimmy Webb, Paul Simon, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis... just to mention a few.

Sorry. I drifted off into that sweet place a few decades back, driving up and down Peoria Ave on a Friday night with Crosby, Stills and Nash playing "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" on the 8-Track. I'm back to the future now.

We need a place where we can pause every now and then, but those places where time will slow or pause are harder to find these days, or so it seems to me. When we do get to pause though we can glimpse what is important: our shared humanity, hopefulness, possibilities, joy and a peaceful moment or two. It happens waiting in line to ride the merry-go-round, or Ferris wheel. It happens sharing a funnel cake, just pulled from the grease, served on a dixie paper plate, covered in powered sugar, or blowing on a too-hot corn dog, while listening to the whistle of the little red train coming out of the tunnel.

I realize that even while watching children ride the little kiddie cars, or trying to pop balloons with darts that I'm not a child any more. Still; the pause works, because the emotions are the same, the feelings of glee when winning a prize, the terror of getting on the Tilt-A-Whirl seen in the faces of the young are still real.

I've been listening a lot lately to a song by Switchfoot called "Beloved". Here's verse 3:

The questions that we're too afraid to ask
'Cause the present is the future of the past
'Cause the river is the same, but moving fast lately
And maybe every other is a we
Maybe differences are easier to see
Than a family we are that's underneath, maybe
I start to recognize that I need you
Like you need me

For a few hours in the hot, dusty midway of the Hinton Free Fair, we were all just there to live in the glow of the colored lights and happy sounds. Differences be damned. I'm off to find the homemade ice cream stand.

THERE'S LABOR THEN THERE'S TEACHING

IT SOUNDS HARD. But, we do it because after-all, Labor Omnia Vincit! Right!? That's Oklahoma's official motto. Did you know that? Did you know this:

Labor omnia vincit or Labor omnia vincit improbus is a Latin phrase meaning "Work conquers all". The phrase is adapted from Virgil's Georgics, Book I, lines 145–6: ...Labor omnia vicit / improbus ("Steady work overcame all things"). The poem was written in support of Augustus Caesar's "Back to the land" policy, aimed at encouraging more Romans to become farmers. The actual meaning of the phrase can be obtained as the following: "anything can be achieved if proper work is applied". --borrowed from Wikipedia.

This Labor Day, 2022, I'm offering my appreciation and support to TEACHERS; this year especially because they are back at work, putting the pieces together after the quarantine quake, where remote-learning proved that without our teachers our kid's "education" might suggest that remote-learning is an oxymoron--kind of like football coach/social studies teacher. Just kidding coach. Yessir, I will drop and give you twenty, sir.

Further, [Hey look Ms. Osborn, I used further rather than farther] in addition to teaching in a classroom with a few more promising-young sponges than that classroom should have, in spite of the fact that she will fork over her own funds for classroom supplies because our politicians have a stranglehold on the purse strings. Oh, and because of shortages, Mr. Teacher will also have to drive the bus and then go to work at Home Depot to make ends meet.

Inherent in the idea of Labor as I picture it, there is this thing called: duty. Teachers have to do a lot extra of that--duty. Hall, lunchroom, recess, the craziness of the car line; it's their duty.

Last week, in a school near here as the end drew near, the elementary principal received word that there was an old man in an Hawaiian shirt, shorts and Birkenstocks standing out front. So she snapped into duty, going outside to confront him.

Her: "Can I help you sir?"

Old Man: "I'm here to pick up some little girls."

Her: "Any in particular?"

Old Man: "Harper and Nora and Karlee."

Her: "You must be Pops. You should be in the car line."

I turned to look at the car line which now stretched beyond the horizon.

Her: "Come to my office."

Me: (mumbling under my breath) "Oh crap!"

Nothing has ever gone well for me in my many trips to a principal's office.

What happened next is a blur. A lady at the front desk, a student aid and Dr. Smith, the principal, spoke together in a sort of code and the next thing I knew the girls were in the car explaining to me how I had done everything wrong. "Hey, that's how I roll," I explained.

AND NOW? What are we doing to teachers? Apparently we're swallowing some storyline concocted by the far-right-wing-nut-job-lunatic-fringe, that teachers are conspiring and conniving to poison young minds. I swear if I see one more fundamentalist soldier threatening to burn books like "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle, or worse yet, threatening a librarian or teacher for having that book on their shelf, well...

I don't want my vocal support of teachers here in this humble blog to be just words. I'll admit that as a student back in the day I wasn't a dream student or teacher's delight, but I've changed (although if I'm ever called on again to pick grandkids up from school, I'm not going to use what life I have left waiting in that dang pickup line). I want to show my support for you and the high ideal that Labor Omnia Vincit.

Here's what I have to offer:

Do you need a cold refreshing beverage at the end of the teaching day after the last of your little einsteins gets on the bus? I'm happy to make a run to Sonic, Braums, Starbucks to get you something--my treat.

Do you need something for your classroom? Let me buy it.

Do you need a testing monitor for state testing day? If I can, I'll be there. I actually have experience in that area and can pass a background check with flying colors.

Do you need someone to come to your class that you can point to and tell your students that if they don't do their homework this is how they might end up? Scare them straight!

I will also do this:

I will campaign hard for Jena Nelson for Oklahoma's State Superintendent. I will do what I can to make sure Ryan Walters' quest to damage public education and go after teachers like some baseless witch hunt ends in November.

I will campaign hard for Joy for Governor. It would be so refreshing to have a leader who values public education.

Oh, let me add: I know many people who have chosen the homeschool path and done so beautifully. Good for you, but I'm not going to Sonic to buy you a cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper at the end of the day. You're on your own.