For this year’s Library of Congress Book Festival in September, the theme was “Open a Book, Open the World.” This really resonated with me as that was the maxim of my grandfather’s world as well. As children, he always encouraged us to read. He told us if we could read, there was nothing we could not learn to do; the world would always be open.
FARM SCHOOL MODEL
My grandfather was so right. He grew up in an era of large families. Schools were few and far between, so a tutor was employed to teach the children. My great grandfather employed a Cambridge graduate to teach his children. He also built a schoolroom on the farm, so the neighborhood children also were able to benefit. Based on the model of learning he had undergone, my grandfather taught us. He would make us look up words in the dictionary, learn what they meant and how to spell them. He would make us collect wildflowers and herbs and bring them back to the house, where we had to look through reference books to find them to identify them, and so my love of books was born.
As a foundation pupil at the local school, the headmaster did not have time to teach us because of his other duties, so we were told to take books out of the stockroom, sit under the trees, and read. Our class was probably the most educated that year as we read our way through the entire stockroom! I am thinking of today’s children with online learning; the world is open to them at the push of a few buttons. For many, reading a book is a real challenge; it is not something they enjoy. Is it too easy to access knowledge? Do they find it harder to discern what to read? Are the options too many? I don’t know what the answer is as I have struggled with my grandchildren getting them to enjoy reading as I had done.
For me, there was nothing more enjoyable than taking a book, something to eat, climb a tree and enjoy the world I was reading about undisturbed. I lived in these worlds. They opened my eyes to the possibilities outside of a small town in a small country. I longed to travel the world, see the places I read about, experience the different cultures and foods, meet new people, and have adventures. An exciting world lay outside my immediate boundaries, but I could enjoy it vicariously through the books I was reading. Later I set about enjoying these adventures in reality when I became an adult.
I was thrilled when the Library of Congress, one of the most extensive Libraries in the world, chose their theme, “Open a Book, Open the World.” I would love someone to tell me how to inspire young people again to enjoy the worlds within two covers. Modern children have so many more privileges than generations before them and have access to more knowledge that will help them advance in the world than previous generations. How do we help them understand that nothing can stop them from reaching their potential once they can read?
I would love to hear stories of how books have inspired you to have adventures or go on to achieve things you would not have been able to do without that knowledge or inspiration. Books can help you learn new ways of interacting with the world, spiritually and emotionally too. I found the King James Version of the Bible almost a foreign language and hard to understand. Modern translations have helped simplify and interpret Scriptures in a more understandable way for the modern reader, without detracting from the truth but enhancing it, making it easier to apply to twenty first century life. Devotional books make it easier to connect with God through inspiring stories and prayers.
Thank you to the Library of Congress for once again reminding us that Books are our Passport to the world, both seen and unseen, real and imagined, past, present, and future worlds. Time to get down to the Library and find what is new on the Shelves!
It is International Older People’s Day, and I wanted to highlight a few of the difficulties that older people and their families must contend with. This past year has seen the death of several older members of my family. This has been especially hard for our far-flung family, who have been scattered over the face of the globe. I know we are not the only family who has had to deal with this, as thousands of other immigrants will testify.
BENEFITS OF TECHNOLOGY
Elderly man with cup of tea in his community. Photo dvdTang
Modern technology has been excellent in enabling families to remain connected, especially in times of trial. I have attended funeral services in South Africa, United Kingdom, and New Zealand while still here in the USA. Although this was such a boon, I still could not visit, hug, touch or say my own farewells. Distance, time, cost, and COVID protocols prevented that.
ELDER INCAPACITY DISADVANTAGES
Elderly woman reading her Bible. photo DvdTang
Yet there was also something else, my family member’s lack of capacity through dementia to engage with technology or even know who I was. Many older persons are frail and incapacitated in different ways. I was not able to attend my own mother’s funeral a few years back. I had not been able to have a meaningful conversation with her for several years due to her lack of capacity to see, hear, or engage with even a phone call. When I said goodbye as I left the country, I knew it would be the last time I saw her and made my farewell as meaningful as possible.
INHUMANE IMMIGRATION POLICIES
Arts and Crafts afternoon in Community. Photo DvdTang
This is the price our African Diaspora generation had had to pay when we were scattered after politics destroyed our home country and we no longer felt safe or could survive there. It is also the story I have heard from many other immigrants from other countries who have had to flee. They have had to leave the elderly behind, as their new countries make it nigh on impossible to bring an older person with them. They then have to survive in their new country and send funds back home to care for their elderly. Good care that can be bought to provide for our elderly cannot replace the loving family that left them behind. These are some of the tough choices that must be made for survival in a disrupted world.
ACCESSIBILITY AND SAFETY IN THE DIGITIZED WORLD
Enjoying a tea break during the Craft afternoon. photo DvdTang
How great if technology was affordable and easy to use and sufficient safety measures put in place to help the elderly remain connected to their families, even if they are elsewhere, but this just does not help at all when a person’s capacity has diminished. Families have to work so hard and such long hours to take care of themselves, there is often little time or energy left over to contact and chat with their elderly, leaving the void that scammers are aware of. Older people are also targets of scammers, knowing their vulnerability and loneliness. Older people can still contribute to the economy if they can continue working at a pace more suited to their capacity. Here is where the digital world can make a positive difference if older people can learn to thrive with their digital skills, communicate, and access help when required.
What is the solution? Not more technology, but better immigration policies that allow families to stay together. Affordable housing with sufficient space for three generations to live together. Housing for life, built with adaptions that can assist in keeping both the elderly and the children safe during the parents’ workday. The cost of housing is so high that both people must work, even second jobs, leaving very little time for taking care of their elderly, which should have been a priority. Policies that are detrimental to family life, insufficient vacation time off, low wages. Lack of recognition for educational and professional status received in another country, expensive healthcare, just to name a few.
Can technology provide the basic needs of all people? Will society thrive, and the elderly have their needs met by technology? Their primary need for care, safety, and security will be met by belonging to their families and neighborhoods. Technology can assist in that but not replace the personal touch and care that is needed to thrive. Technology does not have a value system; it is merely a tool. Until we value people, provide the care, they require and keep family units together by allowing the elderly to emigrate with their children. No technology will replace the family and neighborhood system of ‘loving your neighbor as yourself.’ For society and families to thrive, adequate and affordable housing with a balanced work/lifestyle and connected community is required.
SPIRITUAL LAWS
Old lady praying. Photo DvdTang
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” (Ephesians 6:2) To see what real community and specialized care for the elderly can look like visit Pilgrim Friend Society #UNIDOP2021
A trip across the wide-open spaces and deserts of Utah and Arizona and the mountains and nature of Colorado helped to clear the patterns and cobwebs of old thoughts of the past year. Sometimes all we need to move forward is a fresh perspective. This family trip, after a year of being shut-in with little opportunity to travel, was what was needed to give fresh ideas and impetus to my planning for next year’s work and creative efforts. Watch this space as the plans evolve!
Desert Scene, Utah
CHANGE TAKES TIME
As I looked out at the vast open plains with only dry scrubby bushes here and there, I wondered what it must have been like for the Israelites to wander through the wilderness for forty years, not reaching their Promised Land. What would their perspective on God’s promise have looked like? Day after day, they trekked their families and herds hoping to find water to sustain their flocks and themselves. They sat wearily by their campfires at night using up the last of the manna for that day. Tomorrow morning they would be up again early to collect the manna. Same old routine year in and year out. This last year has certainly taught me about the mundaneness of the same old routines, when you get stuck in your head.
EVENTS MOVE US FORWARD
At times like this it is good to be reminded that God is still at work. In Isaiah 43 , He says “See I am doing a new thing.” Like geological processes are slow, sometimes we just need to know that God is still working even though we can’t see it. He said, “I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” Providing water requires an ‘event’, be it a rainstorm or snow in the winter, the impetus of the volume and the flow create the stream and makes a way. The manna collected daily with the dew in the morning was sufficient to sustain life for the Israelites, but not enough to thrive. We need ‘events’ to give us new perspectives to help move us forward. We get stuck in our old ways, living in ‘auto’ mode, not really having to challenge, or thinking or ways of doing things. An ‘event’ like COVID had the desired effect of waking us all up to having to do things differently.
DO NOT DWELL ON THE PAST
The passage in Isaiah 43, tells us to ‘forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” That is really what must happen for us to move forward and create new ways of doing things, responding to challenges, and relating to God and one another. How easy it is to fall back into old patterns, if we don’t cultivate new patterns and sustain them. What was God’s plan for the Israelites? He rescued them from oppression in Egypt to go to the Promised Land where they were to become His chosen people who could proclaim His praises and become a kingdom of priests, ushering in God’s Kingdom on earth. What would our perspective on God’s Kingdom on earth look like?
WE ALL CONTRIBUTE TO CHANGE OVER TIME
Did that happen? Not right then, but it still forged the way forward to when Christ would come to complete God’s redemption plan for all the people and nations of the world. Remember the geological processes – it takes a very long time. As I looked up at the steep rockfaces of the buttes and the weathered surfaces of the rocks where wind and rain had cut through the softer layers. How long had they been standing there? Perhaps we could look at life from the perspective of God’s agents of change. Our lives are like the wind and rain, each one slowly working out the plans God has for our lives, doing the tasks He had planned for us long ago, so that over time we each contribute to wearing down the old ways of thinking and culture. Eventually, God’s kingdom will come on earth.
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight [a]in the desert A highway for our God.4 Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3
OUR RESPONSE TO CATACLYSMIC EVENTS
As the last quarter of this year approaches, lets us ask God for a fresh perspective on living out our mundane days. Refresh our vision for the approaching year to see new ways of looking, doing and being, that are part of His redemptive work of making all things new. “Now it springs up: do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” It is God at work we are merely some of the agencies He uses besides the elements and cataclysmic events. It is our responses to those cataclysmic events that will be used by God to wear down the old and create the new.
The timeless, fortress-like, face of the rock
Leaving the mountains and desert behind, I returned to the city with fresh vision and hope for the future. As the Psalmist said in Psalm 121 “I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” My perspective had changed. We are not alone in this struggle through life with its complexities and problems. The God of the mountains is still our God who is asking for our co-operation as agencies of change in this time frame we have been born into.
I was reminded of a song by Bonzo Dog called the “Canyons of your Mind,” on a recent trip to Utah and Arizona. I was so inspired by the majesty and grandeur of God’s design in the raw. Creation at its best, where you can see nature at work. The landscape tells the geological story of time with the many-colored layers of rock, the massive buttes that stand sentinel over the land. The mighty Colorado and San Juan rivers thread their way through the Canyons cutting deeply into the rock layers every year. Looking at the San Juan River at Gooseneck, set me thinking about the canyons of your mind. I could see how like a brain this landscape could look like as the river wound through deep horseshoe bends, similar to the indentations that cover a human brain.
Five things that Canyons and the Human brain have in common.
1. Canyonsstart small, gathers debris along the way
A Canyon starts as a tiny rivulet. Water flows after a storm and gathers at the lowest point. The force of the water gradually moves the soil, which it pushes further downstream with any rocks and debris in its path making its way to the sea. It gets deeper and deeper as it flows as it is joined by other runoff along the way until it either ends in a lake or exits into the ocean. Every year and every season, the water cuts deeper and makes a significant impact that keeps the river flowing along its course. The rocky banks, mostly unyielding, make it more challenging to change the path as it stays within the parameters cut into the surrounding soil and rocks.
A child is born with a fast-growing brain; it has a primitive survival brain that tells it to cry when it needs food and care, that continues to develop with other survival skills. It also starts to create pathways as it learns different things, motor skills, and communication skills. It knows when it gets hurt. Often this is repeated until it learns, all the time making impressions in its brain. A child’s brain grows the fastest between ages birth and five years old. These layers get embedded first and make the most significant impact on how the child views its environment. Are the cries ignored, are its need for warmth and love met as it learns to survive outside of its mother’s body? Is the child spoken to and taught social skills?
As the seasons move on, new layers of silt, debris, and rocks are added to the riverbed. There will be years of drought when the river is nothing more than a bed of stones and sand marking its course. Events like excessive drought will dry it up, and the mud will have open dry cracks. There may be excessive rain or floods in another season, forcing the collected debris further down the river. The force of the water can bring new rock, mud, and even topsoil from the surrounding land as it furiously churns before depositing its load further down the river. These times of flooding can cause a redirection in the course of the river if it is not too deep, or it may start making new tributaries. The old course may fill with the silt and debris deposited so redirecting the flow of water.
There is substantial evidence to suggest experiences between birth and the age of five have significant impacts on outcomes later in life. In fact, children’s experiences and strengths at the age of three can often be used to effectively predict health, happiness, and other successes in adulthood. “
As the child grows, learns new skills, has unique experiences, each season will add further growth to the brain. Events like new schools, new people, harmful events, hospital visits, harsh punishments, and abandonment will mark their groove. A child’s brain is primed to learn critical thinking and emotional maturity between ages three and five. If a child has been neglected or harmed in the former seasons, its primitive adaptive behavior will start to manifest. Often called ‘acting out,’ especially when new siblings are introduced. Or it will begin to form new adaptive behaviors to its environment and how it perceives its world. Every experience will leave its impression on the brain, reinforcing the child’s belief system. The child’s brain is trusting. If it knows it will be protected, the child will dare to push its boundaries because it feels safe. This is healthy because it will feel happy to explore its world and not be afraid of it. On the other hand, if the child is fearful of exploring, the primitive survival skills will become more ingrained as the child believes his world is unsafe.
Year after year, century after century, the river cuts its course through the rocks, perhaps altering its course a little in the flatter parts of the landscape, but the deeper and steeper the sides of the riverbed and canyon, the more difficult it is to change its course. Wind, rain, ice, snow, sunshine, gravity, and vegetation all have a part to play in the landscape, leaving pockmarks, fallen boulders, isolated buttes, and scars along the course of the river as it snakes its way through the canyon bottom.
As the child matures into an adult and its brain completes development, most of its belief system is ingrained. Children will have been taught or learned about their family’s value system, faith, and culture. The foundational beliefs around God, love, provision, reward, punishment, and role are well ingrained and used as reference points in making judgments and adjustments to their life situations, whatever they happen to be. This mindset will continue to be their compass unless they actively decide to change it. Usually, spiritual direction, counseling, therapy, or psychology will help them learn new ways to think. This is on an individual level.
Debris lying on top of a sandstone boulder
4.Cataclysmic, life-lifechanging events can change the face of a canyon
Cataclysmic events can change the whole course of the river. Looking at the upended rocks and vertical or inclined sedimentary layers of the landscape in Utah, a cataclysmic geological event or events changed its landscape. Earthquakes, fault fractures, volcanic action, and moving of the tectonic plates, climate change all these things in which nature is in control, change what was, and a new geologic era was born.
It often takes a personal or community cataclysmic event to change or force people to change their mindsets and regrow neural pathways in different areas to survive and move on, as their old manner of adaptation no longer serves them. This could be a severe accident with physical injury, divorce, widowhood with emotional injury, war, or other trauma or life-changing event. This can be really hard for some people as the primitive brain continues to operate as it did when it was formed as a child. Our society also gets reshaped each time we have a cataclysmic event, like the current COVID, 9/11, and social unrest. We all have to find ways to adapt to this and one another.
The Colorado River flows through uplifted sedimentary layers from a cataclysmic event
5. Time, or Timeless, the canyons are evidence of a good Creator
The landscape remains. Looking up at the canyons in Utah, they are beautiful, rugged, timeless, and a challenge to survival at the same time. They are a reminder of the Creator, our God who formed the earth from the beginning and declared it good. Psalm 104 tells the story of the canyons “You placed the world on its foundation, so it would never be moved. You clothed the earth with floods of water, water that covered even the mountains. At your command, the water fled; at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away. Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed. Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth.” NLT
The perspective of timelessness gazing at layer after layer of canyons and buttes
The above passage in Psalm 104 also reflects part of the musings of Job’s friends at his suffering. Yet, God vindicated Job for keeping his faith in a good God amid his pain and trials. When He prayed for his friends who were discouraging in the least, his fortunes were restored, and the second half of his life was more blessed than the first half. God was the one who created us, our brains, and the intricate way they function. He gave breath and life to our bodies and knows us intimately. Are we able to hold onto the goodness of God in cataclysmic events in our life? This often will make us revisit our belief system around God. If this was faulty and we don’t believe in His goodness, it is difficult to adapt to life-changing events.
The Canyons of Utah are a gift from God. They teach us from nature about His goodness even in the cataclysmic events of life that change our landscapes forever.
Amazon Fores Photo by David Riaño Cortés on Pexels.com
In welcoming you to my world this week I want to talk about the country I would most like to visit. I have always wanted to visit Brazil and see the Amazon. I have visited many countries in my lifetime, from the northern reaches of the icy, beautiful Scandinavian countries to the southernmost tip of Africa and Australia. I have seen the wonders of Europe; visited France, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands. I have been through the romantic scenery painted by poets and artists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In the east, I have seen exotic orchids in Singapore and Hong Kong and traveled around Australia. Born in Africa, I have visited most of the countries in Southern Africa. In the west, I now live in the USA and have visited Canada and several states. So, that leaves South America to be discovered.
But the country I really want to visit is a country that has found the secret to living in the Kingdom of God, where people love one another, have compassion for the sick, weary, downcast, and outcasts. The Kingdom that brings hope and healing to those suffering from trauma and brokenness.
The country I really want to visit is a country that has found the secret to living in the Kingdom of God, where people love one another, have compassion for the sick, weary, downcast, and outcasts. The Kingdom that brings hope and healing to those suffering from trauma and brokenness.
How wonderful it would be if that Tree of Life, whose leaves bring healing to the nations, could be in the Amazon Forest and that the River of Life that flows from the Throne of God was the Amazon. In a country where so many indigenous tears have been shed and the blood of missionaries spilled wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Kingdom of God was to be found there!
“Leaves for the healing of the nations”
Jesus said how hard it was for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God, and it should be entered with the trust of little children. Perhaps our capitalistic and western viewpoints have clouded our vision of the Kingdom of God. Is it time to revisit the teachings of Jesus and look through a new lens focused on His love and compassion for mankind? What country would the Kingdom of God look like then?
