Contemplify Nonrequired Reading List Email for November 30, 2017
Contemplify Nonrequired Reading List Email for November 30, 2017
The November NonRequired Reading List
Fellow Contemplatives,
My latest purchase was a few old pieces of pipe and a chunk of wood hanging from fishing line. We now have wind chimes outside our front door. All of the pieces of the chimes have been reclaimed from their previous use or, more likely, perceived unusability. They have that New Mexico earthy shine to them. Our neighbor who crafted it repeatedly told me to let him know if we ever needed it adjusted, fixed or replaced. No other purchase in recent memory has made me happier. It was artfully constructed with care and with the materials at hand. My ponderings in this NonRequired Reading List circle around and through this wind chime; it came from a place, was crafted with attention, and rings with the sounds of hospitality.
Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society by Harlan Hubbard (Get it at the Public Library or Amazon)
Have you ever dreamed about giving up the bustle of the technocratic grind for a life on the fringe of society? Perhaps your heart has been quickened by those oft quoted words of Henry David Thoreau, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined” (It stirs me just to type them). If Thoreau’s time at Walden Pond is the tuning fork for the self-reliant and simple life in Americana lore, I propose that the lives of Harlan and Anna Hubbard harmonize those pursuits in ways ol Thoreau could only wistfully idealize. In their early forties, Anna and Harlan built a shantyboat that would become their floating home for 8 years as they drifted down the Ohio River, living off the food they grew, foraged, or caught along the way. Then, they transitioned from life on the river to life by the river. They built a barn-like house, planted patches of gardens, raised goats, roasted nuts, fished the river, and by the light of oil lamps played piano and violin duets. Payne Hollow takes the poetics of Thoreau and puts skin on it. Harlan and Anna embodied a way of living they knew full well was fleeting under the seduction of unbridled technological advances towards the ‘easy life’. The rhythm of the Hubbards’ life haunts my comfortable yet hectic lifestyle. Harlan writes this in regards to their way of life:
Is this selfish? No. The selfish man wants more than his share, a higher seat at the table than he is entitled to. One strong enough to stand by himself is not attracted by the prizes which the world offers. He has his own values, receives other rewards, for which there is no competition. Instead of trying to make everyone alike, the state and society should encourage individualism. Individuals will never be too numerous; in fact, they are becoming harder to find. (p.163)
The Hubbards were not individualistic in the strident way we have come to think of it (the current dull breed of ‘individualism’ is simply rampant consumerism masquerading as individualism). The Hubbards’ individualism was founded on a deep sense of personal agency freely expressed in their communion with the Ohio River, one another, and their neighbors. They found a freedom that could neither be bought or sold, only cultivated and loved. One cannot put Payne Hollow down without questioning their own lifestyle and practices. The more curious minds will play in the fields of wonder, taking inspiration from the Hubbards on how they too can go confidently in the direction of their dreams and incarnate the life they have imagined.
(Morgan Atkinson, a friend of Contemplify, made a lovely documentary about the Hubbards that you can get here).
‘A Lazy Person’s Guide to Happiness’ by James Hamblin (The Atlantic)
‘How to be happy’ is a common cliche for books, articles, and podcasts these days. The advice usually comes with a sticker price or requires happiness-building practices that feel like a full-time job. This article is a tad different. The focus is on Dan Buettner who is known for his engaging data-driven 2008 book, Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. Buettner has written another book, The Blue Zones of Happiness, that utilizes a similar data heavy approach to happiness that includes stories which exemplify the data points. (Quick aside, I read The Blue Zones of Happiness, but found the latter half dragged on a bit too much to whole-heartedly recommend it here, hence this article).
While reading this, I found myself recalling a helpful mantra I learned while studying theology - context rules interpretation. Buettner is quick to point out that where you live is a key indicator to your happiness. In other words, the context you find yourself in is the lens in which you see your happiness (the Hubbards knew this instinctively). You might be rolling your eyes right about now with this obvious observation. But did you know that people who live by water are about 10% more likely to be happy than those who don’t? Or that you are statistically happier if you have a sidewalk in front of your house? Buettner has taken this study to heart and has put into practice the lessons he’s learned from this longitudinal study.
Here is one takeaway from Buettner if you want cultivate more happiness in your life without reading his book or the article, “Humor has a measurable impact on daily happiness. So find funny friends. Or at least friends who think you’re funny.”
On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality by Phil Christman (The Hedgehog Review: Vol. 19 No. 3)
Likely an obvious point to the reader by this juncture, but these days I have my mind on place and the places we call home. What draws us to leave a place? Make a home? What impact does a place have on us? Or our identity? I hail from the Midwest (Minnesota to be exact), and often think of myself as embodying the Midwestern soul. The type of soul that cherishes a late night lake swim under the stars on a balmy summer evening, or is invigorated by the frozen air in the hollows of February, or shoveling the driveway with a neighbor just as another snowfall descends upon you. Phil Christman shares his own nostalgia regarding his Midwestern upbringing, but repeatedly returns to the question - what is the Midwestern identity? The lazy badges that have been pinned on the Midwest, ‘flyover country’ or ‘America’s breadbasket’ are generic enough to hold no meaning, and yet...that is the exact point. Christman points out how this lack of verifiable identity has allowed us Midwesterners to think of ourselves as normal.
We think of ourselves as basic Americans, with no further qualification. “The West, South, and East all have clear stories,” as Katy Rossing puts it. But in the Midwest, we don’t. We’re free. And that is our story.
Normalcy is the Midwestern faux shield, for when you pop the hood you see the inner angst of folks trying to squeeze into the mythical ‘breadbasket’ mold or harboring a sense of outright alienation that makes them question their supposed Midwestern normality. I chuckled more than once and grimaced more than twice reading this article. Christman holds up the mirror to my Midwestern fantasy and I see my home region that valued and educated me, also woefully entrenched it’s damned biases and repression in me too. And yet I know this is the way life is handed to us. We are unconsciously shaped by the dice roll of place and consciously shaped through cultivation of attention. His words ratcheted up my already steady appreciation for the beauty and brokenness of a place--it’s a Midwestern field of wonder and potential.
Christman closes with his own romp through that field of dreams:
Every human is a vast set of unexpressed possibilities. And I never feel this to be truer than when I drive through the Midwest, looking at all the towns that could, on paper, have been my town, all the lives that, on paper, could have been my life. The factories are shuttered, the climate is changing, the towns are dying. My freedom so to drive is afforded, in part, by my whiteness. I know all this, and when I drive, now, and look at those towns, those lives, I try to maintain a kind of double consciousness, or double vision—the Midwest as an America not yet achieved; the Midwest as an America soaked in the same old American sins. But I cannot convince myself that the promise the place still seems to hold, the promise of flatness, of the freedom of anonymity, of being anywhere and nowhere at once, is a lie all the way through. Instead, I find myself daydreaming—there is no sky so conducive to daydreaming—of a Midwest that makes, and keeps, these promises to everybody.
And then I arrive at the house that, out of all these little houses, by some inconceivable coincidence, happens to be mine. I park the car. I check the mail. I pet the cat. I ready myself for bed. I can’t stay up too late. Between the Midwest that exists and the other Midwest, the utopic no-place that I dream of, is hard work enough for a life.
‘Every human is a vast set of unexpressed possibilities’. That line will stick with me, for it brings me both joy and deep grief.
Contemplify Update
The three most recent episodes of Contemplify…
Episode 044: Enlightenment Through Endarkment, or Bumbling Our Way to Possible Magic with Teddy Macker (Author of ‘This World’)
Episode 043: Teddy Macker Reads “A Poem For My Daughter” (Author of ‘This World’)
Episode 042: Be Open to the Unexpected and Find Pure Presence with Tracy Cochran (Editor at Parabola Magazine)
(Available at iTunes, Stitcher, Podbean, Overcast, Google Play or Contemplify.com)
Thank you for your eyes and ears around the Contemplify basecamp, whether you are seeking new reads via the NonRequired Reading List or reflecting on the conversations from recent guests on kindling the examined life. You energize this salty dog to keep my own conversation with mystery, and my place within it, alive and well.
Listen well + read often,
Paul
P.S. Jim Forest, friend of Contemplify, just released his new book, At Play in the Lions' Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan if you are interested in digging into the life of a contemplative activist!
P.P.S. For the folk music (or dish washing) fans out there, this is my favorite song to do the dishes to this Fall season.