Rescue Fantasies Become Reality

For anyone who has experienced rescue fantasies, Have You Found Her by Janice Erlbaum, a daily journal writer, offers a true story of a rescuer who learns and grows from her experiences. This engaging second memoir of Erlbaum’s, invites readers to investigate her first book, Girlbomb, a story of her own struggles as a teenage runaway.

In Have You Found Her, a non-fiction thriller, Erlbaum relates her efforts to repay a debt of gratitude by volunteering at the same youth shelter that helped her when she was a homeless teen. In the course of her work as the “bead lady” who shows up every Wednesday to teach the girls how to make their own jewelry, she quickly learns to how reach the girls at the shelter. Giving them something to do allows the girls to open up to her at their own pace without Erlbaum becoming intrusive in their lives.

An honest storyteller, Erlbaum shows how she struggles with the shelter’s rules to maintain distance designed to protect the girls and herself from getting too involved in each others’ lives. From the start, she routinely breaks each rule as she becomes more engaged, develops favorites, and soon becomes attached to Samantha (Sam), a girl whose life parallels her own.

A writer who understands that dialogue moves the action along, Erlbaum shows the ups and downs of supporting Sam, being overwhelmed by Sam, being manipulated by Sam, feeling threatened by Sam, having compassion for Sam, and embracing Sam as she struggles with a variety of illnesses including a possible AIDS diagnosis.

At the same time, Erlbaum weaves in her love for Bill, the first man to love her in a humanly healthy way, her own addiction to pot, and her struggles with relationships within her family. Managing all these branches in the story without being sappy or preachy, Erlbaum shows how relationships can grow and thrive.

Using her own ambivalence toward the significant people in her life, Erlbaum chronicles her fear of having honest dialogue with others while demonstrating how her attempts at dialogue keep the relationships healthy and intact.

As Erlbaum builds suspense page by page, the reader must stay engaged to the end to find out who will survive these relationships, and who will ultimately survive as Erlbaum depicts her characters’ metamorphoses from being needy to experiencing autonomy. Although the book gives readers an inside look at the life of a rescuer, it also is a “how-to” for showing how helping others results in personal growth and how relationships grow through compassion, support, mutual understanding, and respect.

Book info: Erlbaum, Janice. Have You Found Her. New York: Villard, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-8129-7457-7.

Season for Nonviolence Opening

Today marks the opening of A Season for Nonviolence inspired by the nonviolent actions of Mahatma Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and César Chávez. These great men, as ordinary people, at different ages, educational backgrounds, and life conditions, exhibited courageous acts during their lives that inspire us. Gandhi, King and Chávez all practiced nonviolent strategies in order to accomplish virtually insurmountable tasks – Gandhi to free the Indian and South African people from government oppression, King to free the African Americans from social oppression, and Chávez to free the farm workers from economic oppression.
These three men didn’t just create nonviolent resistance from the air. They had many teachings and philosophies that influenced them.
One influence, Henry David Thoreau 19th c. at age 29 was jailed because he protested against slavery by refusing to pay taxes. Gandhi later adopted Thoreau’s views on passive resistance.
Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi, a lawyer, (19th c.) When he was thirty-six he called for civil disobedience against repressive government laws in S. Africa. When he was sixty-one, he defied British government’s tax on salt in India by marching more than two hundred miles to the sea to teach Indians how to make their own salt mobilizing millions of Indians to follow his example. Women also influenced Gandhi. He said, “I learned the lesson of nonviolence from my wife.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, an ordained minister. (20th c.) When he was nineteen, he attended a lecture on the life and teachings of Gandhi. When he was twenty-seven, at the ending of the Montgomery Bus boycott, he taught reconciliation when he said, “As we go back to the buses let us be loving enough to turn an enemy into a friend.” When he was thirty-two, he visited India with his wife to learn about Gandhi. He became convinced that nonviolence is the most powerful tool for social change. He also appreciated the contributions of women to social change. He said, “I am indebted to my wife Coretta, without whose love, sacrifices, and loyalty neither life nor work would bring fulfillment. She has given me words of consolation when I needed them…”
César Chávez, a farm worker, (20th c.) was born on a small farm near Yuma, Arizona that his grandfather homesteaded in the 1880's. At age ten, life began as a migrant farm worker when his father lost the land during the Depression. Together with thousands of displaced families, the Chávez family migrated throughout the Southwest, laboring in fields and vineyards. Chávez left school after the eighth grade to help support his family. When he was twenty-three, Chávez coordinated voter registration drives and battled racial and economic discrimination in California and Arizona following the nonviolent actions exhibited by Gandhi and King.
Hampton Roads Network for Nonviolence sponsors A Season for Nonviolence each year to focus educational and media attention on the philosophy of attaining peace through nonviolent action as demonstrated by Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and César Chávez. A Season for Nonviolence was co-founded by Arun and Sunanda Gandhi of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence and a group of ten ministers forming the Leadership Council of The Association for Global New Thought. You can find more information about the Season for Nonviolence at their website, www.agnt.org.
No matter the age, education or economic background, Gandhi, King, and Chávez set an example of nonviolent action for us to follow. Robert F. Kennedy (20th c.) summed it up by saying, “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
From 19th century philosophers to 21st century ordinary people, the movement for nonviolent social change continues. Each of our efforts, being ripples of hope, will transform our society to one of equality, justice and peace.

Lemons

I read an article by Todd R. Nelson in The Christian Science Monitor about using lemons to help people recognize strength in diversity. Lemons. Lemonade. Lemon meringue pie. Lemon squares. Lemon juice and olive oil to pass gallstones. Lemons all look the same, but upon examining them closely, they each have unique identifiable characteristics. What’s the point? The point is that even though we are all humans, we each have unique, identifiable characteristics. We all look different, but inside each of us is something rare and special.

So how does that relate to dialogue in conflict situations? When we are face-to-face with another person, sometimes we only see the characteristics. Like all lemons are yellow, so we see all men as a certain way or all women as a certain way - or all Jews, or people of color or a particular religion. We respond to them according to our beliefs, rather than to the unique characteristics within them that often elude us.

So we say, “Ugh! That lemon is sour,” or “Ugh! That person is annoying.” When we add a little sugar or oil to the lemon we have lemonade or salad dressing. When we add a little compassion and consideration toward a person, we have a funny, intelligent, courageous person to count as a friend.

The Perils of Innocence in America

Having grown up in suburb of Buffalo next door to Lackawanna and being an advocate for peace and justice, a book about the Lackawanna Six jumped off the shelf into my hands. And once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down. Reading more like a good mystery than the well-researched investigative reporting that it reflected, this book kept me intrigued and reading well past my regular bedtime.

Dina Temple-Raston, National Public Radio’s FBI correspondent and critically acclaimed, award-winning author of several books including Justice in the Grass, In Defense of Our America (with Anthony D. Romero) and A Death in Texas, gave this extraordinary accounting of the lives of six American Muslim twenty-somethings who never in their wildest dreams considered where a trip to Pakistan would lead them.

Temple-Raston created suspense as she sketched the characters, showing their immaturity, restlessness, and strong family ties to their Yemeni heritage. She moved the narrative along with short chapters, action, suspense, and intrigue. Her extensive investigations included traveling to Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Knowledge of FBI practices, as well as her ability to gain trust in order to extract information from the most reluctant witness, makes the reader feel like a welcome guest where formerly no one had ever visited.

Temple-Reston painted these alleged terrorists from the perspective of humanity and naiveté. Their travels to Pakistan before 9/11/01 led them to a nightmare during the era after 9/11 when government policies and procedures defied logic and justice. Photos of the six, the neighborhood where they lived, and scenes from Yemen including boys studying at a madrasa added to the interest and authenticity of the book.

The Jihad Next Door – The Lackawanna Six and Rough Justice in the Age of Terror by Dina Temple-Raston
Published in 2007 by PublicAffairs, Special Markets Department, Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut St., Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103
ISBN-10: 1-58648-4036
ISBN-13: 978-1-58648-403-3
List Price: $26.00

I hosted my first house party.

I hosted my first MoveOn house party. Although I felt a little nervous because I didn’t know the people who signed up, I managed to get through the day. I had a hard time concentrating at work, but when I finished, I tidyied up the house in about twenty minutes, said my evening prayers, and fixed my dinner. I thought I felt pretty calm, but laughed at myself when cleaning up the kitchen, I dumped the compost into the recycling bin!

When everything was ready, I sat down to read the paper while I waited. Just then someone knocked on the door. It was Jack, my first and only guest. One guest had called and said she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to share whatever she had with us. The other guest cut herself while preparing dinner, but was on her way when a long train at the RR tracks cut her off and she didn’t want to interrupt us after we had already started.

So Jack and I watched the very helpful video, listened to our questions being answered in a webcast and then practiced earning media contacts through giving our pitches. It went very smoothly, we learned a lot about working with the media, and I made a new friend. I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to host a MoveOn house party.

Taking a small leap over fear

Yesterday, I signed up to host a media training party for the Center for Progressive Leadership Action Network. At first I felt like I was sitting on a seesaw arguing with myself.

I thought, “I could do this.”

Then I thought, “No, it will be too much work.”

"Don't be silly. The house is fairly clean. All I have to do is wash the dishes and empty the trash."

Then, "What if someone scary shows up?"

“But it might be fun to meet new people and I could learn about how to talk to the media.”

So I went to the web page and started filling out the application form – a simple name, address, phone number and email address. But I didn’t submit it. I closed the window and went back to my work. But I didn’t delete the email invitation, because I thought I might want to reconsider.

Later that day, I decided that I would do it. I filled out the form, checked it twice to make sure I didn’t omit anything and clicked “Submit.”

Next thing I knew, I received an email inviting me to the training that evening at 9 pm. I had another meeting to go to, but it was supposed to end at 8:30, so I thought I could make it. I got home at 8:56 and dialed the call-in number for the training. After introducing myself and listening to the host, Jeremy, lead the meeting, I felt happy that I had decided to make the commitment and confident that I could host the training for my guests.

Now I’m just waiting for my guests to register and show up on the designated evening.

Easing the Crossing from Life to Death

When I picked up this book in the library, I thought it had to do with communicating with the departed, but I soon realized that this uplifting book focused on the reality of having a final conversation with the dying. After reading it, I found my own conversations changed as a result. Each chapter gently leads the reader to new discoveries about herself and the universality of dying that transcends culture, religious beliefs, and the degree of emotional health found in families and friendships.

Authors Maureen P. Keeley, PhD, and Julie M. Yingling, PhD, both experienced the death of loved ones and related the final conversations that eased them through the pain of these separations. Through their own experience and interviews with others, they investigated the phenomenon of final conversations and produced this encouraging book filled with stories by many people. This book will help others through this difficult transition and provide guidance on how we can facilitate these dialogues with our dying friends and relatives.

Keeley and Yingling acknowledge that our experiences with death and dying have changed in the last century since medical advances and specialized care means that most people will die in the hospital rather than at home. This prevents us from learning about death and dying in a natural setting as we grow up. We have lost the learning experiences that could have taught us how to talk to loved-ones in the final months or hours. Final Conversations: Helping the Living and the Dying Talk to Each Other provides us with the examples we need to challenge our fears and develop the courage to face the dying with love, compassion, and even forgiveness.

Keeley and Yingling, both instructors in communication for over forty-five combined years, interviewed scores of people to collect their stories of their final conversations. Mothers, children, spouses, grandchildren, and friends of the dying contributed their stories of their own personal transformation through final conversations in an effort to help others discover ways to communicate that lead to peace, reconciliation, and love.

In my own experience, my father died when I was nineteen while I was away at college. This traumatic event led to a lasting depression that I struggled with for years. Just reading this book enabled me to remember the time a month before he died when my dad came to visit me during parents’ weekend and took me soaring on a glider. I realized as I read this book that we had a nonverbal final conversation that I thought I had missed. At the end of that perfect day, my dad, who was not a demonstrative person, pulled up in front of my dorm and stopped the car. He looked straight ahead, pipe in his mouth, waiting for me to get out of the car. I looked at him, took the pipe out of his mouth and kissed him goodbye. Now I understand that this was our final conversation. His gift to me was the time we spent together. My gift to him was the kiss.

Presently, my eighty-seven year old mother is vigorous and active, but I realize that every time I see her, it may be the last. Often I struggle with knowing what to say to her or how to react to her sometimes-prickly criticism of me. Yesterday, after reading Final Conversations: Helping the Living and the Dying Talk to Each Other, I went to visit her and reminded myself to “Pay attention!” We had a lovely time together visiting, reminiscing and enjoying each other’s company. Reading this book enabled me to treasure the precious moments with my mother rather than getting mired in the petty irritations that have no relation to the big picture of our love for each other.

So whether someone is struggling with a loved one’s impending death or losses that have occurred in the past, this gentle book will guide them through the experience with suggestions on how to create an opportunity to have a conversation, overcome angry feelings from the past, or simply embrace the dying and help them cross to the other side.

Book info: Keeley, Maureen P., PhD, and Julie M. Yingling, PhD. Final Conversations: Helping the Living and the Dying Talk to Each Other. Acton, MA, VanderWyk and Burnham, 2007.