There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain on anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

–Isaac Asimov                                                                                                                            

Tom Nichols uses these words from Isaac Asimov, American writer and professor of biochemistry, to open the first chapter of his book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters (Oxford University Press, 2017). A cult of ignorance in our nation? A common credo that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge? Ouch. Harsh words, indeed. But they are words which echo Nichols’ fear that “the death of expertise actually threatens to reverse the gains of years of knowledge among people who now assume they know more than they actually do.” This reversal, Nichols argues, “is a threat to the material and civic well-being of citizens in a democracy.”

Ignorance may be a constant thread that has woven its way through our lives, but Nichols argues that there is a new sort of Declaration of Independence, one that would likely make the Founding Fathers weep:

no longer do we hold these truths to be self-evident, we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren’t true. All things are knowable and every opinion on any subject is as good as any other.

In my first year of college teaching, I recall a class period during which I was giving instructions regarding an upcoming essay assignment. As I finished, a hand in the back shot up. I called on the young man who asked about how this essay would be graded because, he explained, everyone’s opinion and interpretation is uniquely theirs and just as good as anyone else’s, so everyone should get an A, right? At that point in my career, I was young and naive enough that I failed to see that he wasn’t joking. I probably chuckled. In fact, I may have guffawed. Until I realized that he was quite serious, and there were 24 sets of expectant eyes upon me. Inquiring minds really did want to know. So, I launched into my best explanation of why all opinions are not equal. My students looked at me through narrowed eyes and pinched lips. Clearly, I wasn’t preaching to the choir.

That was 40 years and a lifetime ago. This same argument–that all opinions are equal–has metastasized into something much larger and more dangerious than a grade on a college composition. For Nichols argues that “[w]hen students become valued clients instead of learners, they gain a great deal of self-esteem, but precious little knowledge,” and as a result, they fail to develop “the habits of critical thinking that would allow them to continue to learn and to evaluate the kinds of complex issues on which they will have to deliberate and vote as citizens.”

I’ve seen this firsthand in my own schools and classrooms, and I’m witnessing this on a larger scale through the eyes of friends, former colleagues, and family members who are growing weary of keeping up the good fight. In fact, recently I’ve read five articles from reputable journals in which their authors report on the demise of English majors (and other humanities majors) across the nation. The reason? These majors aren’t practical, their critics contend. After all, what do you do with an English major besides teach? What’s the cost/benefit ratio for investing in such majors? Isn’t it time for universities to replace these majors with other more vocational ones, ones that offer graduates a better chance of securing gainful employment? Those experts defending the humanities’ majors argue that these courses, in particular, have historically helped prepare students to become better humans, better citizens, better thinkers, better voters. And those who teach English, then, have born–and continue to bear–a great and necessary responsibility for developing these types of citizens. But as teachers and experts in the humanities, Nichols laments, we resent them and believe they must be wrong simply because they’re experts, members of an exclusive elite and educated group. Who are they to insist that the humanities are invaluable to a democratic society? What makes their research and insight so special? You should read what a guy I read on the Internet said about how worthless the humanities are . . .

In the past year, I’ve seen a kind of willful ignorance dominate a whole host of meetings and gatherings. Much of it comes from an inability and/or an unwillingness to listen closely enough to even entertain what someone else is saying. This is often confirmation bias at its best–or worst. That is, people come with their minds made up on any given issue or policy, and if they listen to others, it’s only to those who confirm what they already believe. Sadly, this reminds me of what children often do when they don’t want to hear something: they stick their fingers in their ears and repeat–loudly–I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you. I’ve witnessed people roll their eyes, talk over and shout down others, fiddle on their phones when others talk, and even grab their coats and storm out. It matters little what issue or what forum it is in which it’s being discussed (I use this word generously because there’s not often any genuine discussion). I spent my professional life trying to convict students that they have a moral and ethical responsibility to listen with open ears, even, and especially to, their opponents. So much for adults who model this responsibility. Tragically, the joke is on those of us who continue to believe that there is much to be gained from careful, respectful listening to those who just might know more than we do.

Nichols addresses this kind of willful ignorance in his book. He writes about the blind spot that people may have when it comes to their own abilities and inabilities:

And some of us, as indelicate as it might be to say it, are not intelligent enough to know when we’re wrong, no matter how good our intentions. Just as we are not all equally able to carry a tune or draw a straight line, many people simply cannot recognize the gaps in their own knowledge or understand their own inability to construct a logical argument.

How can I really understand the gaps in my own knowledge and the flaws in my own logic if I’m unwilling to admit that there are others–experts in their fields even–who have studied something and, as a result of their study, know more than I do? In short, I can’t. And herein lies the problem which is ultimately one of misplaced pride. Nichols goes so far as to call it narcissism. He argues that “there is a self-righteousness and fury to this new rejection of expertise.” We’ve all seen this play out nationally on political, cultural, educational, and social stages. There are those who not only dismiss expertise; they mock it, shout it down, and mercilessly shame it. Fury is not too strong a word to describe this kind of rejection. Wimp that I am, I confess that I’ve often had to turn off the television or turn away from the Internet because, even in the comfort of my own home, I cower under the weight of such fury.

In 1835, French observer, Alexis de Tocqueville commented on the nature of the American mind by contending that each American appeals only to the individual effort of his own understanding.  To elaborate on this statement, Nichols states that Tocqueville speculated that this distrust of expertise and intellectual authority was founded “in the nature of American democracy.” Nichols also cites political scientist Richard Hoftstadter who confirms this particular kind of American individualism:

In the original American populist dream, the omnicompetence of the common man was fundamental and indispensable. It was believed that he could, without much special preparation, pursue the professions and run the government.

Hofstadter wrote this in 1963. I suspect he might say that that this populist dream has grown too big for its britches, that given the nature and complexity of the issues we face today, we must prepare ourselves extremely well if we are to succeed in our professions and government. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone must be an expert on everything. Even if we wanted to and were willing to devote hours to study, we couldn’t realistically develop expertise on more than a few things. We can, however, be willing and wise enough to defer to those who are experts and to carefully weigh differing expert accounts before drawing conclusions. We can and must know our own limitations and accept the responsibility for continued learning. We must do much more than confirm our biases, satistfying as this may be. And, difficult as it may be, we must admit that we face a staggering rise of willful ignorance that threatens our democracy.

My ignorance is not just as good as your knowledge. Asimov accurately identifies this as a false notion that has produced a cult of ignorance. We live in precarious times in which all sorts of groups are vying for power and dominance, claiming that they know best and, as such, should make decisions and policies. We live in a democracy, which guarantees that all of these groups must have a voice. I continue to pray, however, that these voices will be cultivated with expert and sufficient knowledge, sound reason, and respect. At the very least, I pray that we’ll collectively remove our fingers from our ears and take heed: the children are watching.

To mourn is to be eaten alive with homesickness for that person.
― Olive Ann Burns

This is my family home: 611 West 27th Street, Kearney, NE. This is the house where my mom made a real home for us, the place where, even now, I return to as a refuge; where both my dad and mom spent their final days; where my siblings and I shared so many moments which have become inextricably bound to this house.

Upon leaving after each visit to my family home, my mom and dad would stand at the curb, watching and waving until I turned the corner and couldn’t see them any longer. I am homesick for these waving parents. I am homesick for the respite they gave me from the busyness of my life as mother and teacher. I am homesick for their unflagging belief in me, for the hours of unadulterated love. Most of all, as I mourn both their losses, I am utterly homesick for them. American author Olive Ann Burns understands well the mourning which eats you alive with homesickness–not so much for a place but for a person.

In his 1982 novella, The Breathing Method, Stephen King writes:

Homesickness is not always a vague, nostalgic, almost beautiful emotion, although that is somehow the way we always seem to picture it in our mind. It can be a terribly keen blade, not just a sickness in metaphor but in fact as well. It can change the way one looks at the world; the faces one sees in the street look not just indifferent but ugly….perhaps even malignant. Homesickness is a real sickness- the ache of the uprooted plant.

The notion that homesickness can be a terribly keen blade is not lost on those of us who grieve. Although I confess to moments of nostalgia, an almost beautiful emotion, there are just as many moments during which the terrible keen blade of grief slices through me. Deftly, decisively, it flays the hour, spilling the guts of all the pain I’ve stuffed inside. This is the terrible side of homesickness which often comes upon me quickly and without warning. Of course, I know that my experience is not unique, that all those who grieve feel the blade of homesickness in some way and to some extent. Still, those who grieve also understand the individual and solitary nature of their homesickness. This is a path they must ultimately walk alone, aching as uprooted plants.

Homesickness, however individual, is also born from emotions which are fundamentally deeper and more universal. Author Anna Quindlen describes the homesickness she experienced after the death of her mother:

[After my mother died, I had a feeling that was] not unlike the homesickness that always filled me for the first few days when I went to stay at my grandparents’ house, and even, I was stunned to discover, during the first few months of my freshman year at college. It was not really the home my mother had made that I yearned for. But I was sick in my soul for that greater meaning of home that we understand most purely when we are children, when it is a metaphor for all possible feelings of security, of safety, of what is predictable, gentle and good in life.

I like this so much. For me–and I suspect for my siblings– my family home in Kearney, NE is truly representative of all possible feelings of security, of safety, of what is predictable, gentle and good in life. In this place, we held glorious celebrations: birthdays, holidays, Friday nights of popcorn before the television. In this place, we laughed together, long and hard, sharing the kinds of family jokes that live happily in your soul for years to come. In this place, we cried without shame, bearing our greatest fears and failures, releasing them into the safe and gentle arms of family. In this place, we grew up, testing the waters of convictions and dreams. As such, I realize that, in truth, I’m most soul-sick for the greater meaning of home.

One of my favorite childhood characters, Winnie the Pooh, exclaimed “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” As I left Kearney last weekend, I felt lucky, indeed, to mourn so hard for my parents and my family home. Such is the nature of my grief: that from its cold earth springs an insistent joy which blooms, season after season, pushing its way into the light. In The Return of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien writes:

Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It’ll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields… and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?

Yes, I remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo. And yes, I can feel the coming spring and taste the first strawberries. I’m homesick for all of it, and for this, I’m more grateful than I can say.

I know I shall be homesick for you... Even in heaven. (Beth March to her family on her impending death)
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

--for my sisters
Dear Louisa May Alcott,

In waking and sleeping, 
I can’t stop wondering if my mother—
just one month dead—
is as homesick for me as I am for her. 

For I am Beth,
as I am all your little women:
homesick in death and in life.

Do you see how I stand at the edge of my hours, 
homesick for what has been
and what will be?

Do you see how I am forever walking
through my mother’s door where,
cat on lap, she is always there,
filling me well beyond the measure of my worth?

So, who will fill me now?
Who will keep the happy home of all my days?

Who will purple my meadow with wild lupine
and hang a clear, wide sky of hope above me?
And who will be my plumb line, keeping taut
these loose ends flapping feebly in the wind?

Louisa, I am homesick for things I can’t yet name.

But this, I know:

     How in the center of all these nameless things, 
     my mother holds court,
     all her little women at her feet, 
     each content to know there’s nowhere else
     they’d rather be. 

Sometimes you need things rather than just thoughts.
― Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Decades before author and journalist Patrick Ness argued for the necessity of things, American poet William Carlos Williams (I still can’t get my head wrapped around parents who would name their son William Williams) wrote that there are “no ideas but in things.” This line from his 1927 poem, Paterson, became a kind of credo for 20th century poetry. That is, he argued for a “direct treatment of the thing,” a contrast and reaction to the 18th and 19th century writers’ affinity to symbolism and abstraction. Ground an idea in the concrete, Williams contended, rather than float it, untethered, into abstraction.

For years as I taught modern poetry, I sought to help students understand this notion: that all abstractions are built upon concrete foundations; that what we know and feel stems from our experiences with the sensory world. It goes without saying that we learn to understand “hot” as children by directly experiencing it–generally after we’ve been warned not to do so. For the word “hot” is an abstraction that only carries real meaning once we’ve experienced it, that is, once we’ve felt it. “Hot” lives first in things–in steaming mugs of hot chocolate and bowls of soup ladeled right from the pot, on stove tops and radiators–before it lives as an idea. Both Ness and Williams understood this.

For years before my mom died, she urged her children and grandchildren to take things of family and sentimental value home with them. She didn’t push these things on us; rather she gently urged them out the door and into new homes. We all have pieces we cherish of the Welch and Zorn legacy in our own homes. Now as we prepare our family home for sale, once again, we look to the things that have defined every room, those things that carry so many experiences and memories with them. And as we’ve encouraged our children to find these things that hold such experiences and memories in them, I’ve often been surprised at their choices.

One of my nieces wanted the little white clock that lived on the ledge in the upstairs bathroom for decades. It’s not antique, nor has it been passed down from either my mom’s or dad’s families. But for her, it’s a glorious reminder of all the times she spent at her grandparents’ house and slept in an upstairs bedroom. Or take my nephew’s choice: the carved wooden bowl that sat on the coffee table for years. Underneath its lid, one could find real treasure: peanut M & Ms, holiday candy, assorted treats. Every grandkid undoubtedly has fond memories of asking–begging–for permission to sample the goods in the wooden candy bowl, which never disappointed.

For years, my mom collected and painted Goofus glass. In the early 20th century, this pressed glass was decorated with unfired enamel paint by several popular glass factories. Over the years, we’ve all been gifted pieces of Goofus glass: bowls and plates, vases and trays. In the whole world of vintage glassware, it’s worth relatively little. To us, however, it’s priceless, for it testifies to the many hours that my mom spent repainting it, lovingly restoring each piece to the glory she believed that it deserved.

The paperweight on the desk in the den, the countless trophies from decades of homing pigeon races, the bevy of small cobalt blue glass birds, the gallery of family photos in the upstairs’ hallway and scattered throughout the bedrooms, the blonde cedar chest, the books (a legion of books!). the envelopes of letters (love letters from my dad, letters from family and friends), the dining room table around which we sat for some of the best hours of our lives–these are, I know, simply things. If all of them were to disappear, we would still remember the memories they carry. Still, as vivid as these memories are, sometimes you just need the real thing. Sometimes, you need to pick it up, to run your fingers along its edges and over its surface, to hold it solidly in your hands.

As we gather for my mom’s memorial service this weekend, we will all gather at our family home once again. My sisters and I will encourage those who haven’t found their own special thing to select one. Our memories may be abstract ideas that live in our heads and hearts, but how well they first live in things. Now and in the years to come, we need these things. These are memories with skin on, so to speak; these are the concrete objects through which the Welch and Zorn legacy will live on.

Marcia Lee Welch

January 10, 1943-February 2, 2023

How can you measure the worth of a life? Over the course of his lifetime, my father wrote love letters and tucked birthday and anniversary poems into the corner of my mother’s vanity mirror. But from the very start of their courtship, he knew that even his finest words could never begin to bear witness to the remarkable life force of Marcia Lee Welch. He knew this, and I know this, too. For I’ve carried my finest words in my heart and have written them into letters, cards, poems and blog posts for decades. For days now, I’ve begun this post with fits and starts, and words fail me.

But my father once claimed that “Words have no other choice. They have to risk space.” And so I begin, allowing my words to risk space.

For as long as I can remember, I told my mom–in conversation and in writing–that I wanted to be the woman she was when I grew up. Of course, I’m still growing up, still hoping to become that woman in the years I have left. In my brighter moments, I find bits and pieces of my mom in me in ordinary ways. I clean and fold pieces of used aluminum foil and stack them neatly in the drawer next to the stove, just as she did (and her mother before her did). I continue to argue that her frozen cherry salad is much better with nuts, just as she did (while she graciously served a nut-free salad as well). I say–much to the chagrin of my family and former students–things like, “Well, don’t get your blood in a bubble” (something she regularly said and that’s always stuck with me). Like her, I haven’t yet met a cat I didn’t like–and couldn’t love. A frozen coke from McDonalds is the right drink for all occasions, and a cookie that disappoints with raisins instead of chocolate chips is just wrong.

Sharing my mom’s love of a good chocolate chip cookie is one thing, but sharing the other attributes that made her who she was is quite another. Whereas my dad lived his life on a rather public stage–in classrooms and auditoriums, through published words and speeches–my mom lived on a more intimate, domestic stage where her primary focus was her family and her neighbors, She hosted neighborhood coffee parties, held holiday teas for our Park School teachers, provided beds and meals for visiting poets, foreign exchange students, and friends-of-friends. One of my treasured memories is our family living room filled to capacity with my son’s UNK football buddies, some sprawled on the floor sleeping off their food comas. When an Iowa community college student of mine was considering a four-year college to attend, he remembered how I’d spoken about my family and the university in Kearney, NE. “I’ve decided to attend UNK and play tennis there,” he announced one day. I gave him my mom and dad’s address and phone number, and the rest is history. My mom offered him a home-away-from-home during his college years and corresponded with him up until weeks before her death. He is one of countless others whom my mom adopted into a family that grew gloriously larger and more diverse over time.

A couple of years ago, I discovered that my mom and dad had hosted poet Mary Oliver in their home. I couldn’t imagine the winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize sleeping in my former bedroom and eating around our family dining room table. Stunned, I asked, “What was she like?” My mom simply smiled and said, “She was one of our favorites, a really humble and genuine person.” In truth, my mom treated all who crossed her door as if they’d won the Pulitzer Prize. She listened with intensity, convincing you that she heard you, that her time was wholly yours. When you left her presence or hung up the phone, you always felt as though you’d been understood and loved. You felt like a million bucks.

When my mom’s health confined her to her home, she continued to host a steady stream of family, neighbors, and visitors. I suspect most of us came with the same hope: that we could offer our love and leave with some of hers to sustain us until the next visit. She was the consumate cheerleader and advocate for all those who needed an encouraging word or nudge towards their dreams. When you left her house, you walked with a real spring in your step, and the world opened itself as an oyster before you. From her maroon recliner, her outreach was just as powerful and wide as my dad’s. Each day, she Facebook messaged countless people all over the country. When she began to keep me informed about the health and circumstances of some of my former high school friends, I once asked her how she knew these things. “I message them,” she said. Astonished, I responded, “I didn’t know that you knew how to do that on your iPad.” And she gave me a look as if to say, “But of course! It’s the 21st century, after all!”

Over the course of her lifetime, she became my dad’s first and best reader. When he’d finally revised a poem to his liking, he’d give it to her and wait expectedly for her response. After my dad died, she became my first and best reader, too. Packing up some things from my family home last week, I found scrapbooks of all the writing I’d sent her, Inside were many pieces I didn’t even remember that I’d written. But there they were, lovingly archived in homemade scrapbooks. Each time my mom would tell me that she could hear my dad in my poems, that my imagery reminded her so much of his, I wept in gratitude.

For her parents and sister, her husband and children, her grandchildren and extended family, her neighbors and friends, Marcia Welch was undeniably one of God’s greatest gifts. For 89 years, she was His hands and feet on earth, offering love and comfort to so many. For 89 years, the world was simply a better place because she was in it. Undoubtedly, there is much heavenly rejoicing as she stands before God who welcomes her, saying, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

So, how can I measure the worth of my mom’s life? In the end, I really can’t. But I can live out my days grateful of the many ways she’s loved and changed and touched me. I can pour myself out into others as she did. And I can risk space, courageously using my words and deeds to make the world a better place while I’m in it.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.
― James Baldwin

Like Baldwin, books have been the primary means through which I’ve walked a mile in others’ shoes. To the extent that a willing reader can experience the pain and heartbreak of others, real and fictional, I have. That is, I’ve given myself over to the stories of those whose trials and failures moved me beyond the walls of my own sensibilities and self-consciousness and into worlds I would only experience through books. And yet, as Baldwin contends, even as a young reader, I realized that the very things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive. I remember closing a book and thinking You, too? Yes, you, too.

Reading became a primary means through which I learned empathy. I lived vicariously through thousands of characters, sharing their joys, their disappointments, their conflicts and pain. In the process, I pushed myself through complex text and remarkably beautiful–and often challenging–language. For most of my life, I’ve been an empath-in-training who’s become increasingly grateful for my rich, literary training ground.

In her article, “Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound” (The Guardian, 2018), Maryanne Wolf writes: When the reading brain skims texts, we don’t have time to grasp complexity, to understand another’s feelings or to perceive beauty. We need a new literacy for the digital age. Wolf, a neuroscientist, researches the reading brain and its influence on the development of some of our primary intellectual and affective processes. She studies the effect on analysis and inference, critical reasoning, empathy, perspective-taking, and the development of insight. Her conclusions are disturbing. She explains that we are not born readers but rather, we need an effective reading environment in which to become good readers. We will adapt, she claims, to the demands of this environment. Currently, however, the dominant digital environment promotes processes that are fast, geared toward multi-tasking, and designed for large volumes of information. And the result, she contends, is that less attention and time will be allocated to slower, time-demanding deep reading processes, like inference, critical analysis and empathy, all of which are indispensable to learning at any age.

In the past few years, I’ve had many conversations with fellow English teachers about the “state of reading” in our schools. Many have confessed that administrators have encouraged (or demanded) that they replace classical texts, which are traditionally challenging and complex, with lighter, more “relevant” choices. Never mind that these classical texts provide us with some of the most valuable insights into human nature. Never mind that the language of these texts–albeit challenging–is exquisitely well-crafted. Never mind that these themes and plots have stood the test of time. Students don’t like them, the powers-that-be argue. They’re too hard, too long, too old.

In her article, Maryanne Wolf cites English literature scholar and teacher, Mark Edmundson, who laments how many college students avoid courses in which they’ll be expected to read the classic literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. These students, he claims, don’t have the patience to read such texts. Wolf argues that we should be less concerned with students’ “cognitive impatience” however than by what may underlie it: the potential inability of large numbers of students to read with a level of critical analysis sufficient to comprehend the complexity of thought and argument found in more demanding texts, whether in literature and science in college, or in wills, contracts and the deliberately confusing public referendum questions citizens encounter in the voting booth.

Wolf refers to another researcher, Ziming Liu from San Jose State University, who states that what passes for reading today is often skimming or word-spotting and browsing through the text. When readers skim, they aren’t taking the time or using the skills necessary for deep-reading processes. And failing to spend this time or use these skills, they often struggle or fail to understand complexity, empathize with others, perceive beauty, and generate their own thoughts.

Many of us undoubtedly made New Years’ resolutions to improve our health, to get into better shape. Use it or lose it, we profess as we uncover our treadmills and elliptical machines from under the clothes we’ve hung there to dry. Wolf explains that the same adage is true in neuroscience. This is good news when it applies to reading, she says, for we can recover what we’ve lost (or are losing). We can once again begin to use those reading muscles necessary for deep-reading. She argues that this recovery doesn’t mean that we must reject the digital medium and embrace only the traditional, print medium. Instead, she proposes a new kind of brain: a “bi-literate” reading brain capable of the deepest forms of thought in either digital or traditional mediums. She explains that this issue can’t, and shouldn’t be, reduced to a print vs. digital reading. The most pressing “collateral damage” is [t]he subtle atrophy of critical analysis and empathy that should concern us all.

Recently, I talked with an English teacher who was nearly reduced to tears as she confessed her failure to make her students care. They’d been studying the Armenian and Rwandan genocides when a student interrupted her to ask, Why should we care about any of this? Why, indeed. I suppose one could attempt to explain this away by arguing that adolescents are often ego-centered, happily sheltered in their own world of friends, pleasures, and concerns. Still, I remember the first time I read about and saw an image of Auschwitz. In an instant, I was sleeping four to a wooden bunk, head shorn, the cries and ragged breaths of fellow prisoners filling the room. In an instant, I was contemplating my impending death and fearing that my family members would suffer the same fate. In an instant, I felt my world become so small, so tenuous, that a single crust of bread was life-giving. And I wasn’t alone as I watched the faces of my classmates. Certainly, there were some students who may have been unable or unwilling to empathize, but there were more who were. Then again, when I was in 8th grade, there were no cell phones, no computers or I-pads, no digital medium of any sort. And what I was asked to read in 8th grade was challenging, even by high school standards today.

I’m sure that I didn’t understood all that I read, but I worked at it enough to understand much of it. As I became a better reader, more importantly, I became aware of what it meant to be a better human being and to create a better world. I thought critically about what I’d read, and I felt those things that the best writers believed should torment me because they were the very things that had tormented, and continued to torment, all humans. To the teachers who demanded that I read complex texts and to the authors of these texts, I owe so very much.

When I took the leap, I had faith I would find a net; Instead, I learned I could fly. — John Calvin

Weeks ago, I gave into curiosity and clicked on a sky diving video that popped up on my Facebook feed. As you can imagine, I’ve since been deluged with similar videos of men and women bungee jumping, skydiving, cliff diving, base jumping–people leaping from places so incredibly high that even the videos terrify me. Most of these people smile with abandon as they leap from mountains, planes, and buildings. They simply let go and give themselves to the air.

Granted, some of these thrill seekers were outfitted with harnesses (and parachutes, of course), but many took to the air with wind suits or nothing at all. Years ago–when I was a young 54–I joined my daughter in a tandem paragliding adventure in the Swiss Alps. After the tram took our professional paragliding partners and us straight up the mountain, we reached a point where we had to get out and continue the trek on foot. When we finally reached the spot where we’d be outfitted with harnesses and bound to our partners, I was so oxygen deprived at that point that I remember thinking that death would be merciful. So when my partner told me to begin running down the mountain, I did. Within yards, we were airborne, gliding through the cold, clear air of the Alps just ourside of Interlaken. Sometimes I think back to this eventful day and can’t believe that I actually leapt off a mountain with nothing but manmade wings–and a partner who appeared skilled, healthy, and wholly intact. I did scrutinize him for evidence of past injuries before I got into the tram!

Truth be told, for much of my life, I haven’t thrown caution to the wind unless there was a strong net–or two or three–ready and able to catch me if I fell. My paragliding adventure was an anomaly, a freak departure from the common sense and persistent worry that had always influenced my decision-making. On that day, however, I ran when my partner told me to, I pulled my legs up when he told me to, and I gave into the incredible sensation of flying.

John Calvin, a pastor and reformer during the Protestant Reformation, never leapt from a mountain or plane. Still, he knew much about leaping. As a man of faith, his leaps were spiritual as he literally let go and let God. As a pastor and theologian, Calvin believed that we are wholly dependent upon God’s free grace which can help recover our original relationship with God before the Fall. This process he referred to as “quickening.” To begin this process of recovery, we must make the proverbial leap of faith.

I recall a difficult conversation with a biology colleague years ago during which he tried desperately to school me in the true account of creation. For over an hour, I listened as he brought forth biological evidence to support his claims of evolution. Finally, I interjected and said, “I understand and wholly agree with your examples of micro-evolution, changes within a species. But what I want to know is where did the original matter come from? Before the Big Bang, what was the source of the matter that exploded?” He began again to bombard me with even more examples of evolution within species until I asked again, “Where did the matter come from? Using a scientific explanation, help me understand the source of this matter.” Frustrated, he threw up his hands and said, “You don’t understand! We don’t start there!” Oh, but I did understand that he didn’t start there. I knew that his explanation of creation began with the premise that matter already existed. Because we’d been at it for close to two hours by this time, I brought the conversation to a close by leaving him with this: “Everyone takes a leap of faith to explain the universe’s creation. You take a leap of faith to assume that matter existed at the very beginning, that something came from nothing. I take a leap of faith to believe that God not only gave us matter but shaped the universe, that something came from a Creator.” I could’ve pointed out that his scientific explanation of creation–of something coming from nothing–was about as unscientific as you could get, but I was tired and hungry. We parted amicably and walked to the faculty parking lot, spent.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, we might take a moment to ponder our own leaps of faith. Many of us tend to look to all sorts of nets to catch us from our loneliness, worry, and despair: possessions, money, work, and people. Trusting that these nets will catch us, we are more prone to leap, to put our faith into those people and things that have always been our safety nets. But Elizabeth, Mary, and Joseph took unimaginable leaps towards God, trusting that, in spite of their extraordinary circumstances, He was the only net they would ever need. They leapt, and oh, how they flew!

Have a blessed Christmas!

This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. –Neil Armstrong

Since Neil Armstrong broadcast these famous words from the moon at 10:56 p.m. on July 20, 1969, most of us who are old enough to remember may have associated big leaps with space travel, moon suits, and inhospitable-looking, cratered landscapes. As the world watched, Armstrong planted his left foot onto the lunar surface, and the rest was history. There was, however, some discussion of what Armstrong actually said. I’ve heard many misquote him saying This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Some later questioned whether or not Armstrong meant, and should have said, one small step for a man–not man, in general. Armstrong claimed that he did say a man, and a computer programmer Peter Shann Ford found the missing “a” with his software in 2006. A 2013 study confirmed this finding. Armstrong was keenly aware that his step as a single human being was a step for all humanity. His courageous big leap onto the moon continues to influence and inspire us today.

What can a single individual with courage accomplish? There are far too many examples to convince even those of little faith that one human can change the world. Take Mary’s betrothed, Joseph, for example. Here was a simple man, a carpenter who spent his days working with his hands. Even a simple man, however, had his reputation to consider. Even a simple man would’ve known the shame that a fiancée carrying another’s child would bring. Even a simple man could see how terribly and painfully stories like this play out.

Some may argue that anyone who leaps into parenthood must be a brave individual, for parenting is not for the faint of heart. I remember the moment that my mother pulled away from our home after the birth of my daughter. She’d come to help for several days, making meals, taking a night feeding so I could sleep, and offering the wisdom that only a veteran parent can offer. As she pulled away, I stood at the screen door and began to cry even before she’d driven 100 yards. How was I supposed to do this without her? What if I made a mistake or didn’t know what to do? I cowered in the face of parenting and imagined all sorts of terrible scenarios in which I failed to keep my daugher safe, fed, and happy. I was not brave–not by any sense of the word. Undoubtedly, many have had similar fears as they brought their babies home and began their lives as parents.

Still, one could–and should–argue that Joseph’s leap into parenthood was a gargantuan leap that required the kind of courage we only read about and see on movie screens. He could’ve quietly broken his engagement to Mary and left her pregnant and without a husband. For the Jews, betrothal was serious business, a pledge made one year before marriage that required a writ of divorce to break it. Joseph might’ve chosen to publicly break his pledge, for believing Mary to be pregnant with another man’s child would’ve given him just cause. Breaking this pledge, however, might’ve condemned Mary to death. But an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying: Joseph, son of David, Do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit [Matthew 1:20]. Waking, Joseph made a big leap, pledging his life as a husband and an earthly father to the Son of God.

There are so many unknowns in parenthood. No matter how much we’ve planned, how proactive we believe we’ve been, and how committed we’ve been to fulfilling our roles well, things happen. A child falls from the top bunk where we dutifully secured a safety rail; a child with a peanut allergy unknowingly eats a treat made with peanut butter; a teen skids off the road driving home during her first winter storm; a young adult loses his first love to another. Each day, parents all over the world wake and take a deep breath, praying for their children’s safety and happiness. For many parents, it often takes courage just to get out of bed. But imagine the courage it would take to rise each morning as the earthly parent to God’s son. Imagine the host of unknowns Joseph faced daily. Imagine his fear in the face of his own limitations as a mere mortal.

Like Mary, however, Joseph leapt bravely into parenthood with the assurance of God’s love. Though Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind is genuinely impressive, it pales in comparison to this simple man’s courageous leap. Sheltered in a stable in Bethlehem, Joseph gazed into his infant son’s face and understood that, in his earthly arms, he cradled the Messiah who’d come to change the world.

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore. . . Edgar Allen Poe (“The Raven”)

Opening with a line from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “The Raven,” may be a strange way to begin a post about Mary, the mother of Jesus. But Poe’s narrator understands that stillness and mystery are necessary bedfellows. To still your heart as you encounter mystery is the best, perhaps the only, response. Even as a teenager, Mary refused to run in the face of mystery. Though she was understandably frightened and confused at the sight of the angel Gabriel, she listened as he revealed the destiny that would not only change her life but ours:

 “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob orever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” [Luke 1: 30-33]

Brazilian novelist and lyricist Paulo Coelho contends that [w]e have to stop and be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery. And Mary did just this. She stood humbly in the face of the greatest mystery of all–a virgin who would bear the son of God–and stilled her heart, proclaiming: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” At the time she uttered these words, many historians believe that Mary was most likely between 12 and 14 years old. A babe herself, Mary gave herself wholly to this mystery, embracing her role as handmaid of the Lord.

We may believe ourselves to be mystery people, but in truth, we’re generally logic people bent on rational explanations and solid answers. If something seems too good or too strange to be true, we argue that it undoubtedly is. In the face of mystery, we often become rational, turning to science as authority. For to embrace mystery as Mary did requires a big leap out of ourselves and beyond reason. The young woman in this photo throws herself into the air, trusting that she will hang suspended above the earth, magnificently held in the mystery of the moment. She has faith that, for a time, her leap will defy reason and explanation. She leaps into the air, proclaiming let it be to me.

Author and theologian Frederick Buechner believes that [r]eligion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage. In a traditional sense, a pilgrimage is a journey taken into an unknown or sacred place in search of wisdom and transformation. An encounter with mystery, as Buechner maintains, is a summons to begin that journey, which may be physical and/or spiritual. Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, separating themselves geographically from their home and families. Their greater journey, however, is spiritual as they leave behind the selves and lives they’d imagined and step boldly into God’s love and assurance. Their pilgrimage is one that changed the world.

In my own life, I’ve stood in the face of mystery many times. Clearly, my encounters have been small and personal when compared to Mary’s. Still, there have been times when I’ve known things before they happened, when, beyond explanation, I saw in remarkable clarity how things would play out. This mystery occurred first when I was a teenager, and thus began my lifelong pilgrimage. On the night my father died, I went to bed, only to wake an hour later, certain that I should go to him. As my sister and mother slept, I walked to the hospital bed where my father had spent his final weeks and knew, even before I touched his hand, that he’d died. In the presence of this mystery–his soul having departed and the peace that passes all understanding washing over us–my heart was still.

Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers. Thus writes author Ray Bradbury. As we search for answers, we often slog our way forward, one logical, purposeful yard at a time. But when mysteries abound, we often leap, becoming servants to something, to someone bigger than ourselves. We leap, trusting in the sacred pilgrimage from reason to faith.

The Leap

When twilight eases into the tall grass
and the air groans under its own weight,
a girl leaps,
and there on the windless meadow hangs suspended 
above the foxtail and bushclover. 

And the leap--
call it abandon, call it rapture—
splits the plane of possibility.
Arms and legs take the evening by wing,
while gravity lies spent and breathless,
completely undone.

Such an extravagant offering:
the height and breadth of mystery,
this kinder air.

photo by Collyn Ware

A wounded deer leaps the highest. –Emily Dickinson

Barren. What a wound this word inflicts! Though I’ve been blessed to mother four children, I will always bear the scars of infertility. Like Elizabeth–a Levite, wife of Zacharias, a priest–I have known the longing of a barren woman. But unlike Elizabeth, my longing was relatively short-lived, for 19 months after adopting my daughter, Megan, I became pregnant with my daugher, Collyn, followed 15 months later, with my daughter, Marinne. Elizabeth’s longing for a child spanned decades; she became an old woman whose barrenness followed her well beyond child-bearing age.

Every time I look at this photo, I’m struck with the utter abandon with which this young woman throws herself into the air, her head and arms thrown back, defying gravity. This is, indeed, a big leap. Yet, aren’t all big leaps made with such abandon, often with the pain of one who’s been wounded and casts her longing away in hopes that it will find favor with God, the holy One who can breathe life into it?

In Luke 1: 6, we read that Elizabeth and her husband, Zachariah, were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. Bad things happen to good people. Suffering comes to the righteous and blameless. Early in my infertility, I was desperate to find a logical explanation for my condition. For months, I believed that I was quite possibly being punished, and the conditions of my punishment were barrenness. Infertility is a lonely business, for even today, a stigma surrounds it. Infertile women often don’t share their pain, believing their condition to be shameful, a mark of their inadequacy, a consequence of their sinfulness. Elizabeth’s story gloriously testifies to the foolishness of such thinking and to the blessing of God’s timing. For God sent the angel Gabriel to Zachariah to announce that Elizabeth would finally bear a child even though she was well beyond child-bearing age. After years of patiently, faithfully waiting, Elizabeth would bear a son, John the Baptist, the prophet who would proclaim Jesus as the promised Messiah.

When a pregnant Mary comes to visit her, Elizabeth welcomes her cousin in spite of the shame of Mary’s supposed “illegitimate” child. As she opens her arms to embrace Mary, her own baby leaps inside her womb, and she is immediately filled with the Holy Spirit. In Luke 1: 42-45 we read of Elizabeth’s great joy as she greets Mary:

 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.  Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Elizabeth’s story is often understandably overshadowed by Mary’s. She may have been a wounded deer for most of her life, suffering the stigma and hopelessness of being unable to bear a child, but she, like her cousin Mary, makes a great leap into the arms of hope. And the fruits of this leap come miraculously in both her own child, John, and her Savior, Jesus. Elizabeth proclaims that she is favored, for the mother of her Lord stands in her presence.

I suppose that one might make the argument that, for most of us, greeting each day requires a big leap into hope. Hope that we might find favor with God, that our longing might be fulfilled, that our deepest desires might be met. Hope that we might literally make it through another day, that we might put one foot in front of the other and plow through whatever circumstances befall us. Hope that the world might become a kinder, gentler place, restored with beauty and grace. Hope that the Holy Spirit might inhabit us, too, filling our hearts with peace and assurance. Yes, one might make the argument that living requires magnificent leaps into the hope necessary to sustain us.

And one might argue that the wounded often leap the highest, that they offer themselves wholly, feeling as though they have little to lose, for hope is their last resort. I think if Elizabeth were here to counsel us, though, she’d say that hope is our first, best resort. She’d remind us that when we leap with abandon into the arms of God, this is a life-giving leap. Although our lives are filled with seasons of big leaps, Advent, especially, beckons us to make a big leap from the darkness into the light, from the pain of our wounds into grace.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
― W.B. Yeats

I know, he said, his face uncommonly solemn. Griffin nodded towards his elves, artfully clothed and arranged with their arctic pets on the coffee table in his living room. Oh, sweet boy, I thought, and for a moment, my words caught in my throat as I struggled for the right thing to say. For I knew how much he loved these elves, how, over the years, he’d painstakingly written letters to them requesting permission to touch them (forbidden in the world of Elf on the Shelf) and for them to return throughout the year (because he missed them so). I knew how the magic burned bright and true in these little elves and how its passing signalled a end to an era. Of course, I knew it must end, as the magic of all childhood fantasies generally ends. But just as with my children, I couldn’t help but wish for one more season in which all things seem possible. In the end, I said nothing but pulled him in for a hug.

 Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef, writes American novelist Tom Robbins. I think Robbins is on to something here. How do you put into words the wonder, the absolute glory of magic? Even as I attempt to write this post, I’m painfully aware that I may be trying to finesse mystery and enchantment with a sledge hammer. Still, I’ve convinced myself, one must try. Because although we pull out all the stops during Christmas, dressing our homes and lives with the magic of the season, we tend to pack it away with the ornaments we stow in our attics. We ring in the New Year with resolutions about all sorts of practical things: health, time management, budgets and relationships. Out with wonder and in with self-improvement. So, I’ve convinced myself that even though my attempts to promote magic may be artless and oafish, they aren’t misguided. When it comes to the art of magic appreciation, most grownups are amateurs.

Oh, I know that keeping the magic of elves (and other things) alive is not for the faint of heart. It requires planning. It takes creativity. It often means rising earlier or staying up later. In short, it’s work. I’ve heard parents complain that such work is just one more holiday obligation, one that compounds their already large list of things to do before December 24th. But I’ve seen friends create incredible elf tableaus from household things: elves skiing down bannisters, swimming in bowls of marshmallows, ziplining from light fixtures. There is much magic at work in the creation of these tableaus. Worth the time and work? Those of us who are big fans of magic will respond with a hearty yes it is! After all, as Tom Robbins argues, [d]isbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business, and no one wants that.

In his novel, A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett writes that [i]t’s still magic even if you know how it’s done. Years after I learned the truth about Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny–after I understood how it’s done–I held fast to their magic. I still do. In his famous editorial, “Is There a Santa Claus?”, Francis Pharsellus Church responded to Virginia, an 8-year old who really wanted to know if Santa Claus was real. Church concluded his response with these words:

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. [The Sun, Sept. 21, 1897]

We may know how it’s done and may tear it apart to see what makes it work, but Church reminds us that there is nothing else real and abiding but the unseen world which no one can tear apart. Thank God, he claims, the magic lives forever!

Frances Hodgson Burnett offers some sage advice in her children’s classic, The Secret Garden:

Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world . . . but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.

This sounds like the kind of experiment I can get behind. When I forget what magic is like or how to make it happen, I can just say nice things are going to happen until I can actually make them happen. And if I can’t make them happen? Well, there will be a lot of magic in all the proclaiming and hoping. One of my granddaughter’s favorite authors, Kate DiCamillo, believes that hope and magic are probably connected. I have an unusually active imagination and a generous capacity for hope, so I begin my experiment with optimism.

On the evening that Griffin revealed to me that he knew about the elves, I gave him the elf clothes and the elf pet that I’d previously planned to smuggle into his house. Even armed with newfound awareness, he was excited to dress his elves in their new duds and place their new pet in the menagerie. As he worked, he said: Grandma, I just thought you should know that I know the elves came from my mom and dad’s closet–not the North Pole. Thank goodness it’s just the elves and not Santa! Ain’t that the truth!