We Are More Alike Than Different. That's A Very Good Thing.

"I note the obvious differences

between each sort and type,

but we are more alike, my friends,

than we are unalike."

            --Maya Angelou, "Human Family", 1990

Once a year, sometimes in the spring, sometimes in the summer, I pack up my bags and purchase a plane ticket and travel to an exotic place, a faraway land of fascinating natives people and odd customs, of stark geography and mysterious foods. 

Minnesota. 

Yup, the North Star state. For the geographically challenged, it's 1,377 miles due northwest of the Bay State, a 21 hour drive if you are up for an epic road trip. Bordered by Canada, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas, I've visited this corner of God's Creation for 24 years, spent more time here than in any other place, save for my New England home. At first I came because good friends moved there, but later? I fell in love with the place: its people, its natural beauty, its differentness in comparison to where I come from.

When I tell folks I'm headed to the Twin Cities for my yearly pilgrimage, the response from my northeastern brethren is predictable.  "That's where it snows a lot and is wicked cold, right? Where Mary Tyler Moore had her TV show? Where we fly over to get to the rest of the country?"  Ask folks from there what they envision in Boston and they respond with similar stereotypes. "That's where folks pahk the cah in Hahvad yahd!  Where everyone is always in such a darn hurry, maybe even a bit full of themselves." (Minnesotans always offer that last opinion very politely.)

Those responses reflect a larger bias, a knee jerk response as humans to "the other" and "other" places. When we think of a place, not close but far away, not familiar but foreign, we can easily focus upon what is different in "here" versus "there". What separates and not what unites.  What makes one place cozy and comfy and another place weird and even off putting. That blind spot is not just about the land of 10,000 lakes versus the home of the bean and the cod. 

In a place like America, we seem to revel in these geographic judgments.  And so northerners stereotype southerners as Confederate flag waving, pick up driving, moonshine drinking yahoos and southerners depict northerners as snooty, elitist, big city, latte drinking, Volvo driving liberals. Folks in the Bible Belt wonder what's up with Godless New England and Yankees view those folks down south as Bible thumping intolerants.        

Our current political climate has made these harsh opinions even sharper.  Some, not content to demonize folks who are "different" in just the good old U.S.A., now take their cruel stereotypes even further. So immigrants from far away are not strangers to be welcomed but thugs to be stopped at the border. Nations that once were our friends are now foes who threaten a xenophobic vision of America, as always and forever first.

Which is really sad. Because if you believe that God or some power greater than humankind made and shaped this beautiful world, you have to admit that the Creator made it pretty darn diverse. Even intentionally diverse.  An amazing kaleidoscope of peoples and places, faiths and cultures, ideologies and histories. 

Maybe "different" is good. Maybe different is actually supposed to teach and not threaten us.  Maybe underneath all of our perceived and real differences is the miracle that finally, we are all much more alike than divergent and we all share one common home.  In this nation. In our world. Then our shared hope is clear: to get along respectfully while honoring our differences. If we don't keep working towards that goal, I think we are in very deep trouble.

That's why I keep coming back to Minnesota. Because at Kay's Country Kitchen in Saint Joseph I can get Tater Tots as a side dish at every single meal. Because "Minnesota Nice" is not a myth, but in fact, a reality. Because I really need to hear "You betcha!" at least once during my visit.  Because this place and these people are different than me and just like me too.  Thank God.

The diverse world awaits. Take the plunge. Go and explore somewhere, anywhere, but the place you call home.  It will be different. It will be God blessed.  And if you go to Kay's, make sure and get the Tater Tots.

All Work, No Play? No Thanks.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."          --proverb, 1659

America: let's admit it and tell the truth about a not so secret "secret" that too often defines how much we enjoy life. Or don't. We work too much. Way too much.  And when it comes to play and playing? Well, we play, have fun, chill out, decompress, vacation, get away, rest from our labors much too little.  Just look at the rest of the world, who seem so much better at having a good time than we "nose to the grindstone" American workers. 

Eighty five point eight percent of American men and 66.5 percent of American women work more than 40 hours per week, among the highest numbers in the industrialized world . Add up all those extra hours and overtime and we end up working 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers. 

Sacre bleu! 

Don't even get me started on how we Americans labor so much more than our French friends, who while we grab a soggy bagel on the frenzied rush to work? They get to slow down and eat a fresh baked croissant in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on a warm spring morning in Paris, all while humming a jaunty tune, as accordion music plays in the background.. 

Ahhhh....

Yes, that's hyperbolic and yet there is some truth to it. Like that the French are among the majority of western countries that mandate for every worker at least 20 paid days off per year.  In France you get a whole month off to play! In the U.S. we average just 13 vacation days per year and I'll bet chances are good that you don't always take all of your days off.  Do you?

I'm not anti-work. We all need to work: to make money, to support our loved ones, to find fulfillment, to make a difference, to be creative, to make a home, to raise our kids. Most days I like the work I do and many days I absolutely love it.  But what I always need to remind myself is that I am not my work.  I do work but finally it does not define my essence, who I am, and who God makes me to be.

God makes us not just to toil away but to take regular Sabbaths too.  "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy," the Lord said to Moses, in the fifth of God's ten commandments.  And so Christians and Jews and Muslims: we all are invited to claim at least a weekly Sabbath, true rest from work. That's what we are supposed to do.  That means no weekend emails or work texts. No sneaking into the office.  No working on a project after the kids have gone to bed. 

Because God knows (and I suspect we do too) that all work and no play does make you and I and all the other overworked Americans dull and tired and cranky and spent.  The more we work the less precious time we have for family, for faith, for fun, for friends, for sure.  Heck if our President plays golf every weekend, can't we at least take a little more time for ourselves too? Claim a hobby. Sing in a choir.  Create art. Build furniture. Play trivia. Plant a garden. Cook like a master chef.  Ride your bike.  Volunteer to help those in need.

And just play. PLAY!

Not as the exception to your rule of work but as a necessary balance in this life, something to keep you sane and to nurture your soul. The wisest folks I know are the ones who both know both how to work and how to play.  They also tend to be the happiest too.  And not all of them are from France either.

What will you do this day, this weekend, this summer, to play? So I dare you. Put down the briefcase. Shut off the phone. Close the laptop.  Punch the time clock and don't look back.  Because while work might seem endless, life is limited. We've only got so many days left to take a Sabbath. Who wants this as an epitaph on our gravestones: "I wish I had worked more." 

I wish to play more.  That's my prayer today.  Go ahead. Enjoy a croissant and take a break from work, work that can wait. But life? It waits for no one.

Amazon HQ In Boston? Return to Sender.

"In economics the majority is always wrong."             
--John Kenneth Galbraith, economist

Get primed for Amazon because it just might be showing up on Boston's front stoop very soon and this smiling package contains within it growth unimaginable.   

For Amazon might choose our fair city of Boston as the site for its future second headquarters. The Hub is one of twenty North American finalist cities in Amazon's competition to build one behemoth of a project. Imagine this: 50,000 new jobs, $5 billion in construction spending, and $38 billion dollars in direct and indirect investment in our metropolitan area.

Ka-ching! Wowsa! Talk about growth!

The even better news is that our little slice of paradise is more than ready to absorb such gargantuan growth. Land is plentiful and cheap. Housing is readily available and modestly priced. Our roads and bridges and transportation infrastructure can absorb all of those tens of thousands of extra people and cars and subway and train riders.   Our state and city governments have plenty of extra cash to offer Amazon generous tax breaks and incentives.    

Oops. Correction. I was thinking of Hartford or Worcester or Springfield, not Boston.  

I know that's a bad joke. But what's not so funny is the notion that the city and the rest of us in the greater Boston area could actually digest such an Amazonian growth shock and not pay for it in a diminished quality of shared life if the Amazon juggernaut rolls into town. 

To be anti-growth is not a real popular stance these days. Not with scores of cranes dotting the city skyline. Not with unemployment in the Bay State standing at 3.5 percent, the lowest rate in eighteen years. Not with house values skyrocketing at a pace unheard of since the boom of fifteen years ago. Homes go on the market one day and immediately frenzied buyers desperately jockey to outbid and overbid each other. 

To not be in favor of growth is positively un-American. Both political parties in D.C. and Boston instead scramble to build, to drill, to develop, to cut taxes, to expand, and to always grow, grow, GROW.  Do whatever it takes to push an already healthy economy to even greater heights.  But what's never talked about in such fevered fantasies about infinite economic growth is the huge price to pay in the quality of communal life when growth is gospel; when growth trumps all else; when growth is the sacred golden calf we all worship.           

If you are one of hundreds of thousands of folks who drive or "T" or train into the city daily, you know what a disaster it already is, the hours, the days you spend in wall to wall traffic or waiting for non-existent subway cars to arrive. If you are middle or lower class or poor, you know how expensive it already is to try and find a decent affordable place to call home anywhere inside the Route 495 belt. According to a recent Inc. magazine article, Boston is the seventh most expensive area in the United States. To live "comfortably" a Bostonian needs an income of at least $89,000.  To rent costs on average almost $2,900 a month.  Where are folks coming up with all of this money? Or not?

Here's an economic heresy to consider. Growth is not always good.  Growth not managed smartly and wisely harms the place being grown, and can easily change it for the worse, not the better. Growth unfettered can cause the basic systems of life--schools, infrastructure, housing, health care--to break down, even collapse under the weight of overgrowth.   

So count me among the tiny minority of folks who aren't excitedly jumping on the Amazon bandwagon.  Instead Amazon: why not build in Detroit or Cleveland or any other struggling place in the United States, a city and region that could actually use an economic boost?  That would actually prosper and grow smartly with the delivery of such an unprecedented influx of jobs and money and hope?  I've no doubt that such metropolitan areas would embrace you with wide open arms.

But in Boston?  Send back the Amazon parcel. Return to sender.  This is one delivery we just can't afford to accept.

             

    

 

When We Are Long Gone, How Will We Be Remembered?

"Every person has a legacy. You may not know what your impact is, and it may not be something that you can write on your tombstone, but every person has an impact on this world."            
   --Dara Horn, American novelist

I wish I could eavesdrop at my own funeral. 

Yup, I know that's kind of morbid.  And no, I'm not planning on exiting this mortal plane anytime soon. God willing I've still got lots of life left in me at 57. 

Yet what a revelation it would be to listen in, as the people who love and know me while I live on this earth, one day in the future gather together and talk about the person I was. The life I led in the years I was given by my God. I wonder what they'll say, what I'll be remembered for, what my legacy will be.

Legacy.  That's what every single human being leaves behind in death: paupers and princes, the famous and the infamous, the anonymous and the big shot.  Legacy is the spiritual echo of our limited time on planet earth. We all will depart to some "undiscovered country", in the words of William Shakespeare, but even in our ending, we will leave a wake in the sea of human existence.  Some ripple that moves outward, declaring, "He was here. She was here." 

The world will be different, changed, for one soul having lived.

This week the New York Times reported on the legacy of a woman named Sylvia Bloom, a 96 year old you'd never expect to leave some great legacy. Bloom actually died in 2016, having worked as a legal secretary at a New York city law firm for 67 years.  That is a noteworthy legacy if only for longevity. But other than her employment record, Bloom lived an ordinary life.  Born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents, she grew up in the Depression, married a city firefighter, had no children and lived a modest life in a tidy rent-controlled apartment.  Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to merit more than a short obituary in the back pages of the newspaper.

Yet Bloom left behind a great fortune, $9 million, all steadily saved and invested over years and years and years, by a quiet soul who most days got to work by way of a city bus.  The real legacy is what Bloom did with her money. She bequeathed $8.2 million of it to charity, more than $6 million to the Henry Street Settlement, a Lower East side of Manhattan social service agency, founded in 1893.  Their historic mission is to serve the underserved: the poor, children at risk, seniors, the homeless, domestic abuse survivors and the unemployed. The kind of folks we might imagine won't have much of a legacy because of the hardness of life for them. Unless someone helps, like Bloom, with her legacy.  Her gift will underwrite college scholarships for needy students, for a very long, long, long time. 

Now that's a legacy.

Most of us won't come close to leaving behind such a generous gift as Bloom's.  We won't be remembered as a best selling author or a politician who served with honor or a celebrity whose star shone so bright.  Yet each day you and I are accumulating a legacy, the legacy of our one life. 

It is built in small increments, in acts of kindness and decency, in living with integrity, in being a faithful spouse, a loving Mom or Dad, a loyal employee, a trusted friend, a welcoming neighbor, or an engaged citizen.  It's being created in the causes that we support with our time, in the ways we make this world better: by having faith in God, or coaching a kid's Little League team, or standing up for the powerless, or being so grateful that we generously make our financial gifts to places like Henry Street Settlement.

All these tiny acts of goodness add up to the legacy of a really good life.

Or not.  Legacies cut both ways. So we might also be remembered for the grudges that we held or the folks we did not stand by in fidelity, or the hard heartedness with which we lived, or our greed in keeping everything to ourselves and for ourselves. We imagine we win because we had the most toys. At our passing we could be recalled as cynical or faithless, ruthless or mean, self-centered or self-indulgent.

Legacy is finally up to each of us. It grows daily in how live and move through this precious God-given life. Legacy teaches us that although we can't take it with us, we can leave behind goodness and a world made better because we lived.  The choice is ours'. 

How will we be remembered?