Throwing Books Away

More than a few times in the past several years I have tried to trim down the number of books I own.
Space is limited now in this house where my wife and I live, and I am reconciled to selling, trading, or giving away a large percentage of my substantial library.  Her collection of books is also substantial, and I see no evidence she is likely to clear out shelf space for my books.

I remember hearing a visiting speaker at Davidson College tell us in the 1950's:  "Very few of you will read more than four books a year after you graduate from college."  He went on doing his best to inspire us and stimulate us to continue and expand our reading after college.  I took up the challenge.  My first several years out of college, I must have I read about a hundred books a year.   I sought out especially those authors whose books had been banned -- D. H. Lawrence, Colin Wilson, Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, James Joyce, Anais Nin.

Reading became my most enduring hobby.  My library grew and grew, and I took great pleasure in arranging my books carefully on the shelves every time I moved to a new residence.    And I moved often - taking positions in schools, universities, and educational programs in Tennessee, Minnesota,
Texas, Ontario, Santa Barbara, and western North Carolina.

Today I am facing again the odious task of drastically reducing the size of my library.  I spent all day yesterday hauling boxes of books to a used bookstore in downtown Asheville.  Going through each book in each box, I had to decide which ones to hold back and which ones to let go.  It put me to the test.   It was downright painful.  Here are a few of the books I simply could not let go of:

Biography of Erik Erikson
Poems of Robert Frost
Poems of W. H. Auden
Book on the History of Outward Bound
Books by Parker Palmer

And this process got me to thinking about books that really stick in my mind and that
I would like to re-read in the years ahead:

Look Homeward Angel by  Thomas Wolfe
The New Testament (and probably the Old Testament as well)
Autobiography of Clarence Darrow
Naturalist by E. O. Wilson
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray
Three Lives for Mississippi by William Bradford Huie
The Last Puritan by George Santayana
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
The Farther Reaches of Human Nature by Abraham Maslow
The Sands of Karakorum by James Ramsay Ullman
In and Out of the Garbage Pail by Fritz Perls
Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Each of the books on this "working list of my all-time favorites" have touched me at a deep level.  And if anyone is reading this, I welcome hearing from you and seeing your list of favorites.  If I hear from you, I doubt I will be able to resist running out to Malaprops, our wonderful hometown bookstore here in Asheville, to purchase a few books from your list -- and that will bring a temporary halt to my library-shrinking project.   In that event, I will simply accept the consequences -- and if necessary start a pile under my desk, or under our bed, or in the closet.    Let me hear from you!

Yearning for serenity, I find myself today wondering how you know it when you have it.   And what does it mean "to be serene"?  Is it the cessation of all desire?  Is it constant inner joy?  Is it ecstasy?  Is it
fulfillment?   Or is it simply a feeling of being on balance and always ready for the next surprising challenge?  I could define it in many ways.  Right now on this day -- December 2, 2012 -- I will say only this:  there are still mountains to climb but I do not feel desperate to climb them.  In fact, I can feel myself letting go and looking back more than seeking out new challenges.  I have had my share of adventures - in the wilderness, in family life, in organizations - and I expect to have many more.  But I am admitting to myself that I do not feel the need to go out searching for them.   They will come to me in due time, I am sure of that.  And I feel ready.    I feel more on balance than I have for a long time.
At age 75, I think to myself:  "Well, John, it's about time!"

Building with Habitat for Humanity in Romania

Jaan and I have just returned from nearly three weeks in Europe where we joined eleven other Americans volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to help construct two duplexes which will ultimately provide housing for four deserving families in rural Romania.   We worked hard with eleven other American volunteers in Radauti, a small village in the northeast corner of Romania not far from the Ukrainian border.

Under excellent supervision by our English-speaking Romanian Habitat Hosts we scraped and sanded and painted walls for about 8 hours each day - working alongside several of the Romanian family members who will soon have new homes.  We walked about a mile and a half from our lodging in Radauti to the worksite each day - passing and waving at friendly Romanians going about their daily lives.   Wearing face masks and eye goggles on the job site, we looked like people from mars.  It felt very good to be there, to engage in good physical work, and to experience the culture as worker-volunteers -- not merely as tourists passing through.  The work was hot and sweaty and demanding.

The spirit and camaraderie among us kept us going.  We rested our weary bones at night in comfortable lodging in Radauti where we were well fed and treated with magnificent hospitality by the Romanian Habitat staff.

On our two days off we were taken on buses into the rural countryside to visit historic 'painted monasteries' which dot the region -- and to spend time at an orphanage operated by nuns in the Orthodox Church.   On one evening our hosts treated us to a special presentation of Romanian folk dancing in full costume, demonstrating genuine pride in their traditions which have survived over centuries despite waves of invasions from all sides.

All in all Jaan and I found the entire experience in Romania to be very meaningful, very rewarding.  One of my best memories will be the playful times with children who lived in homes surrounding our worksite.  During breaks I was able to collect a half dozen children around me in the nearby fields.  Using sign language and pantomime, I was able to entice them into silly games -- circling up and counting potatoes, follow the leader, and more.  Great fun!

After our time in Radauti, Jaan and I took a 6-hour train ride to Bucharest.  We moved across the rolling Romanian countryside which reminded us of western North Carolina.  (The movie "Cold Mountain" was actually filmed in the Romanian countryside.)  We spent one night near the airport to re-group and rest up.  The next day we flew to Berlin for two days of touring -- the Berlin Museum, Checkpoint Charlie, remnants of The Wall, the Brandenburg Gate.  I thoroughly enjoyed speaking German in my halting way (had two years of German in college) and felt very much at home in Berlin which I first visited as a 22 year old college graduate hitching across Europe in 1960.    Jaan loved learning about the history of Berlin and was very impressed with the Berlin Museum itself. And she loved riding through the famous park in the middle of the City -- similar to New York's Central Park but even better preserved.

From Berlin we flew to Prague where we thoroughly enjoyed walking and taking in the atmosphere. We visited the Old City, the Jewish Cemetary, the Castle, and the famous Square where Vaclev Havel (one of my heroes) was once cheered as the authority of the Communists crumbled in the late 1980's.

Jaan flew home from Prague and I continued on to Krakow, Poland, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  This city is simply charming, ancient, and beautiful.   Jaan and I are likely to return when the time is right.   I made the pilgrimage from Krakow to Auschwitz and Birkenau where I saw first hand the place where approximately a million Jews, gypsies, and others perished.  I had prepared well for this visit by reading and re-reading Viktor Frankl, Palo Levi, and Elie Weisel - each of whom passed through Auschwitz and survived to tell the world about it.    I will write more about Auschwitz on another occasion.  Man's inhumanity is for me a topic of never-ending interest.    William Butler Yeats wrote: "The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity."    Our humanity requires us to confront the polarities - and to embrace the higher possibilities with the moral courage of Vaclev Havel, Frankl, Levi, Weisel, and yes even Schindler whose wiliness in saving Jewish lives was strange and remarkable.  

On Being Homeless

Being homeless is hard to imagine for those of us who have always enjoyed a roof over our heads, a comfortable bed to sleep in, hot and cold running water on demand, plenty of food in the refrigerator, a car in the garage, and a supermarket within easy driving distance.   In recent weeks, I have made it my business to visit a few homeless shelters where hundreds of men and women wander in and out on a daily basis here in Asheville, North Carolina.   I have special admiration for the professionals and volunteers who operate these shelters and do what they can to provide food, clothing, a warm shower, guidance, and encouragement to a veritable army of rootless people of all ages and backgrounds.

Once long ago I participated in an Urban Outward Bound course in Atlanta, Georgia, where we were working to establish ongoing programs for inner city youth.  (In that endeavor we were successful and Atlanta Outward Bound thrives today.)  This course was designed by our Atlanta Outward Bound staff members so that instructors from the North Carolina Outward Bound mountain base camps could get a taste of urban realities and the formidable challenges of surviving in the urban jungle.  As director of the School, I jumped in with both feet to be in a small group of veteran OB backpackers, paddlers, and rock jocks -- under the supervision of street-savvy Atlanta instructors who accompanied us through four days and nights of homelessness in downtown Atlanta.    It was a memorable experience.

The ground rules were straightforward and clear:  (1) Stick together at all times.  (2)  Remain within the defined boundaries of Downtown Atlanta.  (3) Be safe, creative, and respectful of all whom you meet.   We were given $5.00 as "group money" for the four days.  

We survived those four days and four nights wandering the streets of Downtown Atlanta in early September.   We slept in public parks and on side streets and sometimes huddled up around small fires with other homeless vagabonds.  We heard their stories and shared bites of food with each other.  At times we argued and nearly split apart as a group over petty decisions.  We shivered a bit in the cool air at night (no tents).  Just after midnight one evening we visited the emergency room at Grady Hospital where people in agony (drug overdose, knife wounds, broken bones, moaning victims of human cruelty and violence) waited in long lines of wheel chairs and stretchers for treatment.    Dante's Inferno.

On the third night, I started panhandling in front of the movie theaters right on Peachtree Street.  With
scrubby beard and dirty clothes, I presented my paper cup in front of well-dressed men and women and asked simply:  "Could you help a man buy a sandwich?"   "Honey, give the man some money," wives would say to their husbands.  Most gave me a quick brush-off.   I touched enough hearts to raise about $20 in nickels, quarters, and dollar bills rather quickly -- enough to feed my entire group hamburgers and coffee at midnight in Downtown Atlanta -- ah, what a treat!   We also had some success that night asking street markets if they could spare any apples, grapes, or bananas that were not likely to remain on the shelf the next day.  

We kept up our morale rather well, everything considered.  We made all decisions by consensus as our instructors stood by observing.  The last night we circled up about 2 am in a slow drizzling rain -- all of us dog tired, irritable, half awake, emotionally drained, and chastened by our experiences -- to deal with whether or not to "give up" and ask the instructors to abort the exercise and take us home for a hot shower and warm bed.   "We've learned enough, it's silly to go on," one would say.   "But this is why we came in the first place, isn't it -- to stick it out, know by experience what homelessness feels like just for four days and nights?"  Locked into our decision-making norm, we debated all night long in the effort to reach consensus.   Our fanatical commitment to "group process" seemed to our savvy urban mentors a form of Outward Bound craziness.   We argued, listened, debated, argued more, processed, and tangled all night until finally we resorted to the ultimate OB sin - we voted!  The vote was 6 to 5 in favor of toughing it out and seeing things all the way through, completing the last night of the exercise.

We broke the circle and began to wander around in an altered state from standing up all night in intense debate.   As we began to survey our surroundings and our situation, some looked up and noticed that night was already over, dawn was breaking, and the new day (our last in the urban jungle) had arrived!    As we became aware that we had processed all night long when we might have simply crashed in a homeless shelter, we broke out laughing hebephrenically at our own craziness.  Our urban instructor/ mentors just shook their heads at us saying:  "You mountain Outward Bound types -- y'all are crazy for sure.  You stood out here all night in the rain when you could have been asleep in a warm bed.  You guys better go back to the mountains!"

Homeless people are not merely going through an exercise.  Our experience in Atlanta as adventurous idealists may have been a noble effort to put ourselves in the shoes of others in order to awaken empathy and understanding.  Experiential exercises whether in urban or wilderness environments can be powerful, creative, and lasting.   The ethical question, however, is whether you bring back energy and commitment and become substantially engaged in ways that make a real difference for those who are truly without homes and hope.  Volunteers with Habitat for Humanity make a real difference as do professionals and volunteers at places like Homeward Bound in my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina.    These folks deserve our gratitude and respect.   They have found an avenue into authentic engagement in addressing one of America's most intractable problems.   There is plenty of room for more of us to follow their example.

Denver Bailey on "the wisdom of the earth and goodness of the soul"

Dear Friends:

In recent days I've had lots of conversations with my friend, Denver Bailey, who has been wandering the land without a permanent home since he was 15.  A few months ago he landed in Asheville, plays his banjo on the downtown square from time to time, takes landscaping and handyman jobs where he can find them.  These days he is in high demand as many of my friends are calling on him for yard work, pruning, mulching, gardening, rock work, clean-up jobs, and runs to the landfill.   He is saving up his money to buy a truck so he can launch a real business and get a roof over his head.

Denver is now 26 -- thoughtful, articulate, and full of wisdom.   He believes the struggle to survive itself has given him strength and understanding.  Today he told me:  "The only way to know your strength is to struggle, brother man.  Last ten years of my life taught me to appreciate every day, take nothing for granted.  It makes a man humble -- and very respectful of the food and water going into his body."

No trace of bitterness in this man, none.

"I've known kindness, sir," he continues, "I've been fed and sheltered and taken in out of the rain more times than I can remember."

I ask him how he came by his values and attitudes.  He says:  "A man ain't worth nothing but his name brother man.  If a man has good morals, good values, he puts out good vibes to the universe, and he will be provided for.  We can’t take anything with us when we go.  What we have left in this life is for the next generation.  You can quote the Bible, you can look under a rock. It all breaks down to this:  we were given to this earth to take care of it."

"You're a deep thinker."

"I am not just one person, sir.  I am the collective.  If it weren’t for the fellows before us, there would be no us.  We would have no knowledge.  We would not have the understanding we have.  Everything we have today we have those in the past to thank for.   We have to pass on that knowledge and the wisdom of the earth and the goodness of the soul to help the young to grow up strong and wise instead of weak and foolish.

"Are you optimistic about where we're headed?"

Fact is, brother man, we are living in a cess pool of filth of our own making.  Every day we burn more oil, we are taking food out of our mouths.  The earth will cleanse itself, will wash itself clean someday.  Not in my day, but it will happen.  History repeats itself.  The mistakes we’ve made, we are doomed to repeat them.  That’s understood."

"Denver, I can't decide whether you're an Old Testament Prophet, a wandering minstrel, or Buddha re-incarnated."

"All I can tell you," he says, "is that when a man has nothing, he realizes what his needs are.   Simplicity – food, shelter, ability to warm himself, that’s all he needs.  If a man has never really had comfort, then a rock is comfortable for a pillow.  I can remember times walking in the woods as the sun peaks through the clouds rolling over and running my fingers through the tall grass, and I remember washing my face in the morning dew."

"You're a poet, Denver."

After a long pause, I ask Denver if he minds being interviewed like this.  "Don't mind at all, sir.  If you get famous by interviewing me -- just give me a cut.  And if I get famous -- I’ll give you a cut!"

At that we both break down laughing.  "Sounds like a deal to me, brother man," I say.  And we shake on it.  

Outward Bound at the Organizational Crossroads

Having spent much of my life within the Outward Bound movement, I am paying attention now as the national Outward Bound organization goes through a comprehensive re-evaluation of its structure and mission.  

About ten years ago, the national Outward Bound president, John Read, spearheaded the move to consolidate all the Outward Bound Schools into one management system.   The rationale was to achieve economies of scale, efficiency and consistency, unified marketing and fundraising, and a top-down leadership structure.  This required collapsing the Boards of most of the previously semi-autonomous Schools (Hurricane Island Outward Bound in Maine,  Voyageur Outward Bound in Minnesota, Colorado Outward Bound School based in Denver, and  Pacific Crest Outward Bound based in Oregon.)  In short, the goal was to run National Outward Bound like a corporation.    Call it streamlining.  Call it corporatizing.   Call it what you will.

The Schools which elected to continue to operate outside of this Consolidated System were the North Carolina Outward Bound School, Thompson Island Outward Bound School (Boston), and the New York City Outward Bound Center.    

Today a new national Outward Bound President finds himself facing the question whether to jettison the Consolidated System and go back to re-structure the system around "regional delivery units" with names like Outward Bound Northeast, Outward Bound Midwest, Outward Bound West, and Outward Bound South.   Information reaching me from various Outward Bound friends suggests that the Consolidated System of the past decade is now widely perceived as an abysmal failure:  declining enrollments, declining financial strength, base camp closings, and loss of momentum across the board.   As former executive director of the North Carolina Outward Bound School and one who cares deeply about the role of Outward Bound in our culture, I am not a neutral observer.   I made my bias against the Consolidation Strategy well known in a memo I wrote to the NCOBS Board in October of 2002.  I wrote then and I believe now:

"Consolidation in theory always looks attractive because it promises to equalize services, rationalize procedures, and effect savings. The reality proves to have unintended consequences."

"Despite the lure of bigness, the countervailing principle -- 'Small is beautiful' -- is screaming for attention, has merit.  It makes sense to locate authority on the turf where the service takes place."

"Real teamwork can only exist at the place where the services are delivered.  The teamwork at the national level can only be a kind of virtual teamwork -- because there are no clients, no ropes courses, no instructors.  Administrators removed from the action make for pseudo-teams."

"How are you going to attract strong, capable people to engage meaningfully with and give generously to the schools if they have little or no authority?"

        

The North Carolina Outward Bound School elected to keep its charter to operate semi-autonomously -- largely outside the framework of the consolidated system.  Today at NCOBS staff morale is very high, enrollment trends are positive, the endowment is growing, and fundraising is strong.   I sense that in these perilous times the "NCOBS Model" is in some ways the envy of the system - along with Thompson Island and the New York Outward Bound Center. To the degree this is true, I believe it has to do primarily with the fact that NCOBS board members and staff have a deep feeling of pride in and loyalty towards the School. It belongs to them.  They own what happens to it and are deeply, personally committed to its spirit, mission, history, and viability.  They feel connected to each other as a community. They will sacrifice for the School, go the extra mile, pursue impossible dreams.  Local control, local pride, control over one's own destiny.  NCOBS is a community not a corporation.

NCOBS has emerged as the lighthouse for the system.  All the sophisticated corporate theories in the world cannot buy what NCOBS has achieved through the love, blood, sweat and tears of deeply loyal board and staff members pulling together through good and bad times to keep the ship floating high in the water.  It is a beautiful thing to see.  The fact that NCOBS has a former field instructor now serving with great effectiveness as Chairperson of the Board speaks volumes about the family spirit and ethos of the the North Carolina Outward Bound School.

Outward Bound must be run in a thoroughly business-like manner but it is not a for-profit business and it is not a manufacturing process.  Outward Bound is a "people-making endeavor" and has more in common with philosophers, poets, and artists than with accountants, manufacturers and assembly line engineers.  The most fruitful way to manage Outward Bound as an organization is to stay passionately mission-focused and to draw on the intelligence, good will, and generous spirit of caring trustees and friends to insure financial health, strong scholarship support for deserving youth, and solid financial planning and tracking.  And this is what has been going on at NCOBS for a very long time, so it seems to me.   One spirited, successful OB School is demonstrating that consolidation of the Outward Bound Schools made sense only in the abstract.  It hasn't worked.  Now the pendulum must swing back to embrace this wisdom:  "Regionalism - thinking and acting based on those factors which connect us economically, ecologically, and geographically - is the future of this country."  Corporatizing of Outward Bound has to be dismantled.  

Outward Bound has to do whatever it takes now to put the spiritual air back in the tires of the national system.   Achieving this is the path to financial viability.  Some understand this, some don't.  No spirit, no financial viability.  Outward Bound is not a supermarket chain.  It is an idealistic, mission-driven, value-based movement, and that is what has drawn so many wonderful people to it all over the world.  They are the ones who will sustain it.

There are lessons to be learned from Outward Bound's organizational issues -- lessons which therapeutic boarding schools and residential treatment centers nation-wide should be heeding as the trend towards consolidation continues at a steady pace.

          

"I'd rather work than beg!"

Dear Friends:  


After purchasing a dis-assembled storage shed and having it loaded into my van, I began to worry about how I would handle getting the 250 pound over-sized box unloaded when I got home.  As I approached an intersection and slowed for the red light, I spotted a very tall, thin young man on the sidewalk holding a sign up for all to read:  "I'd rather work than beg."   He reminded me of Ichibod Crane.  Taking notice of his honest face and confident manner, I acted on impulse, honked and waved at him.  I pulled into an open parking area at a service station, and he came running up with his hand held out and said:  "I'm ready to work, brother.  I'd rather work than beg, and I am a very hard worker."   We shook hands and I told him to "hop in."


One week later Denver is still working for and with me, and I have found a new friend.  He has a ferocious work ethic, a great spirit, and a marvelous sense of humor.   We worked and sweated together side by side to assemble the shed - laughing and talking all the way.   The next day he mulched the entire yard around my house, cleaned out brush, re-organized my garden, moved heavy stones from place to place, laid a stone walkway, trimmed shrubbery, and more.   He's been back every day now for about five days.  


Denver is about 26 years old, very strong, and has a work ethic like you rarely see these days.  He goes at any job I give him with relish.    My neighbors on each side have already taken notice and asked Denver if he will work for them after he finishes with me.   I find myself hoping I can launch this young man in the landscaping business - starting right here in this neighborhood.


Denver tells stories of his childhood growing up in a coal-mining town in eastern Kentucky.  He is amazingly articulate and succinct in his story-telling, and he peppers every other sentence with folk wisdom and sayings that knock me on the side of the head.  "Denver, where did you get all that wisdom," I ask.  "Well, brother man," he responds, "I been on my own a long time, had no choice about that, and I learn something from everywhere I go.  I walked across this country twice, sure did, and I tell you a man learns a lot when he gets off the main highways and makes his way across this country."  I believe him.


This morning I made him a big breakfast with eggs, ham, grits, biscuits, orange juice and coffee and we sat together eating and chatting under the big oak tree in my back yard.  


"How you feeling today, Denver?" I asked.


"Been better, been worse, but still smiling," he replied.


"Are you in good health all the time?"


"Well, I got some hurtin' in the back, but I don't slow down.  Weakness is just pain leaving the body!"


We kept chewing and savoring our eggs and grits for a minute before I said:  "Denver, you are quite a guy and you have an amazing work ethic.  I think word will spread fast and you'll find a lot of yard and
handyman work around these parts."


He responded immediately:  "A man is only worth his name, brother man.  I can walk in any store in Hazard, Kentucky, where I grew up, and I'd be related to somebody.  And there'd be somebody in there would say something bad about the Baileys -- all of 'em in my family were bootleggers and outlaws.  I didn't choose my bloodline but I do carry the clan name with me, that's a fact.  Those folks - my Papaw, Granny, Mama, and Daddy -- I just left all of 'em behind and hit the road when I was 15.  They'll be fighting amongst themselves the rest of their days, I reckon -- like the Hatfields and the McCoys.  I don't want no more of all that, so I hit the road."  


Musing on this outburst of authentic disclosure, I finally muttered:  "Well, all I know is you are one helluva good worker and you can figure out how to do almost anything."


"I do what it takes.  I'll sing for my supper and click my heels for a nickel, but I won't beg.  I like to stay busy doing things.  My daddy was a carpenter, Mama was a cake decorator.  Guess that's how I got my artistic flare.   Got my daddy's good looks and Mama's wit, I guess.  Past few days I been working on making a simple banjo out of a turtle shell, like to show it to you when I finish, might even sing something for you."


I say:  "Denver, did you ever think about joining the military?"


"Got to be honest with you, brother man, I did think about it but decided I got a soul but I'm not a soldier.  If I ever got called, I'd go, but I'm not voluntarily putting myself out on the battlefield for no reason."


I find myself very grateful Denver and I crossed paths.  I admire his attitude and work ethic, and genuinely respect the way he is making his way in the world.   He is full of humor and wisdom, and I will have more to share about this indefatigable free spirit with a big heart and a remarkable outlook on life.  Meanwhile, I hope he keeps calling me "brother man".   That's a label I want to live up to!