President Trump is inspiring my daughter to read

Youngest Daughter is not yet a fan of reading. She'll get there in time, but for right now it's more fun for her to watch a short show, play a game, or draw than it is to read a storybook.

On Wednesday evening. she asked if she could watch something on Netflix. I want her to practice her reading at least, so I use shows as a carrot.

"You have to read a book first," I told her.

"Do I have to?" she asked in that way that is common to 7-year-olds.

"Which president do you want to be like, President Obama or President Trump?" I asked her.

"President Obama," she said.

"Which president do you think reads more?"

She didn't even argue. She just went, picked up a stack of books, and started reading.

I think I found a bright side to the Trump presidency.



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Psst! I totally stole this from Brucker.

Forgiveness is a Struggle

I've been having a hard time with forgiveness lately. I'm sorry, did I say lately? It's been a problem for years. More than a decade, even.

Fourteen-and-a-half years ago, my wife and I opened our home to a foster child. At the age when our own daughter could climb stairs, feed herself, draw pictures with crayons or pencils, and communicate her thoughts with laughter, tears and words; Isaac could barely stand, much less walk. His vocabulary consisted of wordless but excited moaning, and he had no idea how to play. (He could sit still for TV, though. His parents taught him to do that extremely well.)

We didn't do this alone, though. I was from Pittsburgh and my wife was from Tuscon, Ariz., but we did have the support of our church, a community of believers we had been a part of since we came to the area. As one they stood before God and swore an oath to support us as we took this child into our hearts, and to support not just us, but also another couple who were offering their home his sister.

Isaac's problems were worse than we initially realized, but for those first few months things went gloriously. One of the women in our church was a licensed social worker, and at the beginning she and her husband handled arrangements for supervised visits. They gave us support in other ways too, as she gave us perspective, explained state regulations and even offered advice on how to engage a 2-year-old who was used to being ignored.

Isaac's mother had started coming to our church several weeks before the state removed the children from her custody, and Carla had difficulty understanding boundaries; so other friends ran interference for us. And everyone expressed great enthusiasm for what we were doing. If shouldering the burden of caring for someone else's abused child is Paradise, then that winter was Eden.

The serpent had arrived in Eden by springtime. The pastor our church had hired a year previously was showing his colors, as he used his pulpit to manipulate, to bully and to control. As quickly as he had drawn new congregants in his first several months, he was now driving people away, and as they went, our support network unraveled.

The social worker and her husband disappeared from the scene first. Then other people began to realize that they were overextended, and they began to pull back as well. We couldn't. There was a child depending on us.

My wife bore the worst of it. In addition to the extra attention Isaac needed, we had to care for our own daughter and there was a second child on the way. Harder still, I had started a job that spring that demanded more than 50 hours a week, including almost all day Monday and Tuesday. I could get relief by going off and working in the garden, but for my wife, Eden became a cage with iron bars.

She tried to get help. She called people from the church and asked them to watch our daughter for an hour or two just so she could attend a medical appointment. They told her no.

Time went on, and soon it became evident that Isaac was returning to his birth parents. We watched as the progress he had made in our home was torn up by the roots and thrown out. If our church was grieving with us, we couldn't tell. By midsummer, the church had all but fallen apart, and the people who had sworn to be with us were nowhere to be seen.

Isaac had come into our lives with a great deal of fanfare, but when it came time for him to depart we were almost completely alone. When I came home from work at two in the morning and found my daughter sitting at the stop of the stairs crying because her brother wasn't around, I was there to comfort her.

When the quiet and the grief overwhelmed with a depth too profound for words, the community I had believed would be with me, was gone.

So I say this to my old church: You screwed up, big time.

These people had sworn before God that they would be there for us throughout the entire time we fostered. They sang our praises, and told us how our faith inspired theirs. When we lost Isaac, they were nowhere to be found. We didn't even get a lousy sympathy card. One person when I saw her barely a month later actually told me to get over it.

Those last two really hurt. Fifteen years later, and forgiveness is still a struggle.


Copyright 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Tragedy strikes in choice of font for school bake sale

Yesterday Middle Daughter made fliers for a Student Council-run bake sale. Using ComicSans.

I can't help but wonder where I went wrong. If I were a better father, this never would have happened.

'Anthem'

Like many other students entering high school in the fall, Oldest Daughter has a list of books she is supposed to read this fall.

As I suspect is true for many of her peers, one of the books on her summer reading list is "Anthem." Written by Ayn Rand, “Anthem” is a hymn to the importance of the individual, set in a dystopic future where individual choice and even individual identity have all but been eradicated . The protagonist is a man named Equality 7-2521, although he later chooses the name Prometheus, because he hopes to return the spark of individual value to a world that has lost it.

“Anthem” is Rand's first work to advance her Objectivist philosophy, which grew in large part as a response to the Bolshevik Revolution during her childhood, and her family's ensuing loss of wealth and comfort. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, her family had enjoyed a comfortable existence in Russia. That all came to an end afterward.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the dystopia in "Anthem" is a grotesquerie of collectivism. In the course of the story, Equality 7-2521 recounts the various sins he commits: a desire to learn and to understand the world, rather than being content with being a street sweeper, the job that was assigned for him by the committee; singing and being happy, because everyone is already happy in this dystopic paradise, and he should not presume to be happier than his fellows; feeling and friendship and love for specific people, because that means he favors some people over others; and of course, being taller and healthier than others, because difference is wrong.

In that sense, "Anthem" has an empowering message for teens and other young readers who may feel social pressure from their own peers to be something other than what they want to be, or to do things that don't interest them. It is a good thing for people to pursue their own dreams, forget their own identities, and conform to others' expectations for themselves, rather than to forge their own identities and pursue the things that interest them.

But one of the things that irks me about Rand's philosophy, especially as I've seen it applied by libertarians in recent years, is that it rejects the notion of responsibility to one another. (Equality 7-2521 is pretty clear on this point in Chapter 11.)

The other thing is that, particularly in books like "Atlas Shrugged," Rand inverts the order of the world and claims despite all logic that it is the wealthy and the powerful who are oppressed and exploited by society, and not the people whose hard work makes their success and fortune possible.

In order for a society to truly function and not come apart at the seams in a generation, it is necessary for us to respect the inherent worth we have as human beings created in the Imago Dei, something Equality 7-2521 explicitly and repeatedly rejects in his grand-sounding but ultimately self-serving essays at the end of the book.

Ironically, as  Equality 7-2521 becomes the the first of Rand's characters to espouse this worldview, he claims for himself the name "Prometheus." Unlike Rand's sympathetic but ultimately unlikeable hero, the original Prometheus was driven by compassion for others and a concern for their welfare that came before his own.

By bringing fire from Olympus to Earth, Prometheus earned the ire of Zeus and for a thousand years was tormented daily by an eagle that came to tear out his liver, which would regrow every night so that he could suffer anew in the morning.

Which Prometheus would you say is the better, and more moral role model?



Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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broken hearts and lost love

My daughter's heart got broken yesterday.

I've been watching the past several weeks as she has fallen in love, and it really has been a sight to see. It started out as a mild curiosity that I unwittingly encouraged. I've known the object of her affection longer than she has, and when I've spoken of it, I have spoken only with the utmost regard and respect. That was enough. Her curiosity got the better of her before long, and she decided to check things out.

It was love at first sight.

Rachel is only 10, maybe a little young for a book the size and depth of "Les Misérables," but I've learned to trust my children's judgment on what they're capable of. Every morning for the past month, I have watched as she walks into school, the book tucked under one arm.

The sight of Rachel lugging an unabridged hardback copy of "Les Misérables" around the school quickly became iconic. Staff who never had her for a class asked me what book she was reading that was bigger than she was. They were amazed to hear not only that she would tackle a book so epic but also that she understood it.

And understand it she did. As she read, Rachel got caught up in the story. She groaned with good humor when she read Victor Hugo's 52-page essay on the Battle of Waterloo that is as fascinating as it is irrelevant to the story. (Just wait until you get to the chapter on the sewers, I told her.) She grieved for Fantine, hated the impassioned coldness of Javert, loathed the Thenardiers, and loved that brisk autumn evening when Valjean came to rescue Cosette.

Her experience with "Les Misérables" came to a cruel and premature end on Friday. When I arrived at the school to pick her up, I found Rachel distraught and almost in tears. "Les Misérables" was gone. She had left the book in its accustomed place during the school day, and now it was gone. She and the teacher had checked around the classroom and around the school, but they couldn't find it anywhere.

At first I thought she was upset because she had lost a book of mine, and I tried to console her. "It's all right," I told her, and I meant it. "I bought it 20 years ago at a used bookstore for seven bucks. It's not like it's your great-grandfather's second-edition copy of 'Moby Dick.' If it doesn't show up, we can find a new one."

Later, I realized how badly I had misread the situation. To me, "Les Misérables" was a book, a phenomenal book even; but to Rachel, reading it was a nearly religious experience. We could find another copy of the book, even the same edition, but it wouldn't be the same.

This wasn't just a book that Rachel had fallen in love with; it was a book that she had fallen into. The dust jacket was battered and worn, its edges frayed from being carted around every day for a month. For weeks she had taken every moment she could spare, and she had spent them all on reading that book. She had discovered the humanity of every character she had encountered, and established a connection with each one. Like the Velveteen rabbit, this book had become real.

And then it had disappeared. It was brutal. I had bought the book, but on Friday afternoon I realized that it wasn't mine anymore. Rachel had established a claim on the book and loved it right from under me. It's her book, through and through.

There is another possibility, though I prefer not to think about it. It's possible that one of the other students took it, out of spite. Every school has bullies, and Rachel has had problems with a few classmates over the past year.

But everyone in that school knows how much Ruth has been enjoying that book, and the thought that someone could be so deliberately cruel to another child is one I hate.



Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Introducing One Thousand Blank White Cards to the Homeschoolers

You have an hour to go with a group of homeschoolers, and the kids have already played Nomic twice. What do you do? You play One Thousand Blank White Cards, of course!

Like Nomic, One Thousand Blank White Cards is a game that seems tailor-made for homeschoolers. Originating in Madison, Wisc., One Thousand Blank White Cards is a game that provides a basic game structure but otherwise allows the players to create the rules as they go. In this case, they do so by filling in blank cards with whatever sort of action, illustration, penalty or other play that they want.

Aside from the creative aspects, the game is fairly basic. Play begins to the dealer's left and continues clockwise, with each person playing a card on either herself or another player, although players are allowed to respond to others' play with further cards. You're allowed to create, alter and even destroy cards however you want, and you can even create cards that evoke the spirit of other card games.

Another group I played One Thousand Blank White Cards with, for instance, saw cards arise with things like "Lose 50 Points If You Don't Have a Water Card." This immediately led to someone creating a "Water" card worth 20 points, and that in turn to a third, "Anti-Water" card. The potential for silliness abounds.

I introduced the game today to Oldest Daughter's logic club after we had completed the day's exercises in critical thinking. I handed each of the students five completely blank cards, explained the basic rules, and let them indulge themselves. Once they had completed their cards, I shuffled the deck, mixed in a few more blank cards, and dealt the first hand.

We played this last weekend at a friend's house, and since everyone playing was in her mid-30s or later, the cards were silly but tilted toward the witty. We had a few cards that said things like "Swap cards with the person on your left" and "Trade places with someone else," but the majority said things like "Sing a Happy Song About Leprosy" and "Tell a Story About Your Teddy Bear." (I interrupted that one with a card that said, simply, "Shut up.")

Play today reflected the age of the players accordingly. They created a lot of cards that involved mildly humiliating or annoying tasks like "Crawl Like a Worm for a Minute" and "Hop Up and Down Until the Game Ends." (I saved that player after a few seconds with a card that read, simply, "Game Over.")

There were a number of cards that referred to specific players, like "Give Card to Joe," which led to some creative arguments among players as to which card should be given to Joe, that card or another one.

The phenomenon I found most interesting was the way players began creating cards to adapt their playing strategies to one another. Fifteen minutes into the game, there were cards being played that read in part "Play Right Away," thus allowing them to interrupt on someone else's turn; or "Card May Not Be Edited," so the player could be guaranteed her way. (Unfortunately for her, someone else played an Override card that allowed the card to be edited anyway.)

The game was a hit, mostly because the kids kept making one another do silly or embarrassing things. I am curious how things would have gone had someone played my card "Elves Attack Your Village. Lose 50 Points," especially since I always add nifty illustrations to my cards, but no one played that, so we never got to see whether a game would develop with points as a goal, or around a fantasy theme.

The game broke up when everybody had to go home, but I sent the kids packing with starter decks that consisted of the cards that they had created and the cards that were specific to them. (I have no use for a card that says "Mourn Billy's Lost Dignity," for instance, since there are no Billys in my family, though Billy's family may use it at some point.)

As they left, one of the moms told me that Nomic has been spreading. Not only has her family played it, she's seen her children teaching their other friends how to play it as well.

And now they have something else to share.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Introducing needless complexity into Nomic

For those who are keeping track of these things, we continued to play Nomic today at our homeschooling logic club.

Nomic is a game of self-governance, created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber. Like any other folk game, there are a number of variants, but the version I am most familiar with and taught to the children begins with exactly one rule: that it takes a two-thirds majority to change the rules. We played the game last week, and even though I was introducing it to a group of preteens, the game was very well received.

We continued our previous session, and though we passed fewer rules this time than previously, we still had a good time. The new rules passed are as follows.

21. Firstly, if Billy is not present, then the writer must go first. For purposes of Rule 11, the computer counts as paper and the person operating the computer counts as the writer. Secondly, if a rule is proposed, it must be voted on unless the person proposing the rule decides to withdraw it. Thirdly, the turn changes to the next person once the vote has been cast. (This rule represents an interesting development in how the kids were viewing the game. They realized that, according to Rule 5, Billy should go first -- but Billy was absent that day. Additionally, since I had transcribed the rules to the computer and they weren't using pen and ink, they had to confront an unexpected shortcoming of their rules by redefining their terms. But most significantly, this is a rule that addresses multiple, unrelated problems at the same time. That's a huge leap in complexity.)

22. Rules pass by a simple majority. (They were doing the math and realized three-fifths might not always be easy if we didn't have five players.)

23. Turn passes by the roll of a die, rather than to the next person in the circle. (My idea. I keep trying to give the game more unexpected twists and changes, to keep people on their toes.)

24. You cannot have a turn three times in a row, no matter how the die rolls. (Oldest Daughter's suggestion. She had proposed the turn limit last week, but her effort failed when everyone favored the idea of turns rotating clockwise instead.)

25. Rules 2 5, and 7 do not go into effect until quarter past three. (I inject more chaos. Note that only two rules have been passed since my last turn. This is due in part to the X factor introduced by the roll of the die, but also because it was becoming harder to reach consensus on what rules to make, now that the basic fairness issues had been resolved.)

26. E____'s father does not have to vote on any of her rules. (There were a couple failed efforts to pass rules between Rule 25 and this one. Ironically, I was able to get my daughter's blank-check support for this rule by telling her I would support the next rule she proposed.)

27. David Diez and Mary (Joe's mother) may join the game; also, Rule 25 is no longer in effect. (The kids all thought Rule 26 was funny, but they also agreed with my daughter that it was a sneaky sort of thing to do.)

28. (I called for a vote on this rule before Joe could propose anything. The vote passed 5-1.)

The game was a hit the second week in a row, but at this point, I have no plans to continue it. Next time we meet, we will play a similar game a friend of mine in California has introduced me to, called 1,000 Blank White Cards. It looks interesting.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Introducing a group of homeschoolers to Nomic

When you have four children at your house for two hours, and only one hour of planned activities, what do you do? You play Nomic, of course!

Created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber, Nomic is an exercise in self-governance, quite literally. It begins with only one rule, that it takes a two-thirds majority to change the rules. Given that I was introducing it to a group of preteens who for months had been ending their weekly logic class with games like Munchkin and Pandemic, I wasn't sure if this game would fly, but it was very well received.

The game is still in its early stages of development, but it has the potential to become a major lesson in consensus-building, compromise, and parliamentary procedure -- in short, it's an interesting hands-on lesson in how government works A quick overview of the rules will reveal that the kids for the most part so far have been concerned with being fair and giving everyone a chance to be heard.

Nomic is one of those games you hear about, and tuck away for the appropriate time to play. I had heard about it in 1997 from one of my wife's classmates in college. A friend of mine ran a game on Delphi Forums several years ago, but the nature of the forum made it hard for the game to advance much. When I started homeschooling Oldest Daughter two years ago, I knew I'd have to introduce it to some other kids someday.

Someday was Friday. We played for about an hour, amid a lot of laughter and merriment, without rolling a single die, moving a single token around a board, or playing a single card.

The kids had so much fun that they want to continue the game the next time we meet. I'm wondering how long it will take them to realize that they can introduce more complex rules, and even start making deals with other players to gain support for personally favored rules; or how long it will take them to start arguing over what exactly a rule means, and trying to initiate massive reforms to simplify the rule structure.

I'm also wondering if the game will at some point progress beyond merely passing rules. One adult, after hearing about the game, immediately grasped its potential for a drinking game. (That one, at least, I hope does not occur to the kids for some time to come.)


The rules:

0. A two-thirds majority is required to change the rules.

1. A three-fifths majority is needed to change the rules. (They added this because they wanted me to participate, and thought that a simple majority would be easier than a two-thirds supermajority. Interestingly, they made the rule specify a "three-fifths majority," instead of a "simple majority," which could have implications down the road, should the group increase in size a few people.)

2. Isaac has to write the new rules. (That was my suggestion. The rule immediately passed, 4-1, with Isaac casting the lone dissenting vote.)

3. We have to discuss all rules before they are made.

4. We cannot eat Joe. (The club is about developing logic and critical thinking skills. An hour earlier, I had illustrated false connections with the statements "Pigs exist. Joe exists. Therefore, Joe is a pig." Now as I was asking the kids if they wanted anything for a snack, I mentioned that we had bacon, and let my eyes linger meaningfully over Joe.)

5. We will vote on Billy's rule first. (I had proposed a rule that we take turns suggesting rules. While this was on the table, Oldest Daughter suggested limiting the number of rules anyone could introduce to three in a row. Billy in turn suggested that we vote on my rule before Oldest Daughter's, since mine had been suggested first. Since the rules failed to specify an order for how to entertain multiple motions, it was decided we should vote first on Billy's proposal to vote on my proposed rule. Ironically, this meant that we voted on Billy's rule second, but I didn't want to muddy the waters even further, so I kept that observation to myself.)

6. We vote on the first rule that was proposed (This is where they started introducing a sense of order to how the game would work; up until this point, it had been a free-for-all.)

7. We take turns proposing new rules, going in a circle.

8. The first person to propose a rule is Billy, and we go clockwise.

9. You can change your rule that you are proposing before it is voted on.

10. Every five minutes we switch seats. (This was my idea. I wanted to show the kids that we could make the game about more than just changing rules.)

11. The writer is the person in the chair in front of the paper. (This was Isaac's idea. Poor boy had been writing down rules for about 20 minutes. He was a good sport about it, though.)

12. Whenever a rule is passed, we must clap three times. (One of the kids had started to see the potential the game has for more than just passing rules.)

13. When a rule is suggested, the person on the left calls the end of the discussion -- unless the person on the left is the writer, in which case it is the person on the right. (Here is their first effort to ensure that every proposal gets fair consideration. I plan to demonstrate the flaw in this rule next week, by calling for a vote as soon as the rule is suggested, before anyone has a chance to discuss it.)

14. All rules must be numbered.

15. If your parent has come, you can go. (One of the other parents had come to collect her son and two other boys. I pointed out that there was no provision for people to leave yet.)

16. Amend Rule 15 to say "ride." (This came after I pointed out that under our rules, only Billy could leave, since Joe and Isaac's moms hadn't come for them -- just their ride.)

17. Anyone who breaks the rules must squawk like a chicken. (We realized that no one had been clapping when rules were passed, in clear violation of Rule 12. So here we have our first attempt at enforcement with consequences.)

18. The writer will set the timer.

19. We stop the game when the first person leaves.

20. When you forget to clap, you must take the writer's seat. If multiple people forget to clap, the last one to touch their nose is the one to take the writer's seat. If you forget to clap and you are in the writer's seat, then you cannot switch when the timer goes off.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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The Great School Trip Musket Fight

I know I shouldn't, but sometimes it's just too much fun not to play with my kids' heads.

Middle Daughter today came home from a field trip to the state capital where she visited some Revolutionary War barracks and saw a demonstration of front-loading muskets, including how to load and discharge them, by an actor in period costume.

"Did you get to fire the musket?" I asked her.

"No," she said as if that were a silly question.

"Oh," I said, sounding disappointed on her behalf. "When I went there with Evangeline three years ago, we all got to take turns loading and firing the muskets."

Her eyes went wide. "Everybody?"

"Everyone," I assured her. "Even the adults."

Rachel turned this over for a moment, and decided that there just hadn't been enough muskets to go around this year. After all, her class had taken the tour with students from another school, while the tour I'd been on three years ago was just for the charter school. A moment later we joined Evangeline, and I told her that her sister hadn't been able to fire the musket this year.

"Did we get to?" Evangeline asked.

"Oh sure," I said casually. "Don't you remember? They split us up into two sides, one for the British and one for the Revolutionaries, and we shot muskets at one another."

"With real bullets?" There was no skepticism in Evangeline's voice, just idle curiosity.

"No, muskets didn't use bullets, they use those round musket balls, remember?" I said. "They said there was no danger of anyone getting hurt, since muskets have such a limited range and don't aim that well either."

There was silence while the girls pondered this. Their younger sister Alex ran around on the wood chips of the school playground, while the last lingering students either finally were picked up or were herded inside by their teachers.

"I guess someone must have got hurt by accident, and they had to stop letting kids do that,," Evangeline finally said. You could hear the disappointment in her voice, not only for her sister, but for all the other students whom the state would no longer allow the unfettered joys of firing front-loading muskets at their classmates during field trips to state parks. Government bureaucrats can be so joyless and petty.

We got into the car and drove away, and soon the afternoon was filled with other activities like homework, karate class, and play practice, but as I tucked Rachel into bed, I discovered how the day's disappointment still lingered below the surface.

"Dad," she said, after I had given her a goodnight kiss. "I bet they just bought better muskets than they used to have."

I gave one of those who-knows shrugs that fathers are famous for, to concede that she might be right. The state's always ruining perfectly good activities by upgrading their equipment. Why not get new muskets too?

"Could be," I said, and I turned off the lights.

I just wish I could be there tomorrow when her classmates hear about all the great activities they missed.



Copyright © 2011 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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A pirate looks at 39

In about six more hours, the sun will set on my 39th birthday.

As milemarkers go, 39 isn't one of the big ones. For one thing, it doesn't end in zero like many landmark ages and anniversaries. And while it does lie at the very cusp of middle age, it's not an age particularly noted for anything.

At 16, I got my first driver's license. At 18, I received legal recognition as an adult. When she was 25, Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne and ultimately became one of the best-loved and most powerful monarchs of England. At the age of 33, Alexander the Great had lain the foundations for what eventually would become modern Western civilization. But 39? That one's noteworthy only for being a year short of 40.

And that's essentially how I feel right now: that I'm staring down the barrel of 40 years old, and in another year it's going to blow my head off.

Six years ago, when I turned 33, I observed how nice it would be on my deathbed to quip that I had missed the best years of my career because I had spent them all with my children. Well, mission accomplished: Five years ago, I grabbed my career by its halter and led it to a place behind the stable, where I shot and killed it. Only, recently, I woke up and found its head on the pillow next to me.

Looking back I don't feel that I have much cause for regret. The past five years have been spent almost exclusively in the company of two children whom I have taught to read, whose scraped knees I have kissed, whose laughter has given me wings and whose razor-sharp tears have stripped me to the bone. I have sung with them, danced in their company, delighted in their artwork, and learned some of the most poignant and important lessons of love and life at their feet.

For their sake, I have served three years on the school board. For love of them, I have walked around in public with bows in my hair. I have scheduled my days around taking them to school, to the doctor's office, to friends' houses, and to art and ballet lessons. I have carried them on my shoulders, in my arms, and upon my back. Most of all I have carried them in my heart with such an earnestness that it has hurt.

I've received no salary for this new career, save in the only currency my children know: the tireless love and affection that they shower upon me.

It has been almost enough.

I only started to appreciate how much my career change to stay-at-home dad has cost me last Thursday, when I was talking to a friend. Only a few years older than I, Sonja is in the midst of a mid-life career change, to art history. She had just been offered an entry-level position, and she was thrilled. As she put it, it was difficult enough to compete with twentysomethings while she was in her 40s. There would be no way to start over again in her 50s.

There was a time when the world was an oyster with unlimited potential that I could crack with my good right hand. Now I am uncomfortably aware that a crocodile has eaten my right hand, and if I listen, I can hear the ticking of the clock that tells me the crocodile is coming back for the rest.

I have at most five, maybe six, years to begin my next career in earnest. Anything beyond that, and the odds stacked against my success will increase steadily with each year. So what's it going to be? Will I return to teaching? Will I return to writing news and feature stories, to magazines, or to editing and teaching other writers their wordcraft? I've done all of those, and I've done them well. On days when my neck doesn't feel the pinch of the blue monster, I am confident I can do them again.

Or maybe I should do something new. I could turn my blog into something with meaning and purpose that stretches beyond my fancy of the day, I could found an arts magazine with the local focus that I understand so well, or I could turn my full attention to my fledgling public relations business and make a living on that.

Whatever it is, I had better decide soon. That crocodile loved the taste of my hand, and he's definitely coming back for more.

What I really want, my driving passion, is not just to be a writer, but to be an author as well. The stories I can tell, the stories I need to tell, are stories that can inspire laughter, tears, longing and regret. Stories are the vehicle I use to teach the great truths that I have learned, and I want desperately to do nothing more than to take the sacred space at the head of my classroom and begin to teach.

Now, nearly five years after I left the workforce to spend more time with my children and complete the great novel that has been my ambition since middle school, I can safely say that I have spent more time with my children. The great novel, like many of my other children, lies gasping for breath in a pauper's field while I concoct excuse after excuse for not working to save it.

Three years ago, I wrote about my experience with cancer and the uncomfortable reminder it brought of my own mortality and how badly I had done on completing my life's most important work. Now three years later, I am shamed once again by how little I have changed. Age, like cancer once did, is awakening me to how briefly the candle flickers upon the stage before it disappears in a wisp of smoke.

If God is gracious, and if I am wise enough to accept that grace, I know that I can write and publish a few books in the years that lie before me, and I can give birth to many of the stories that have gestated within my mind all these years. I may even enjoy that moderate success that other writers have found, where they are not really household names, but they do enjoy a loyal following.

Whether I succeed or fail as a writer in large part depends on forces that are hardly mine to command, but I have seen the past 39 years that God prefers it when we give him something – anything – to work with.

In another 30 years, or 40 if I am lucky, I will ring down the curtain as everyone before me has done, and will exit the stage while younger performers put on their shows. When that day comes and the critics take stock of my life's work, I want to stand behind all my children and proudly say, “See what I have done with what I was given. I have been here, and I have mattered; not a thing has been wasted.”

That would be a good life.



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lower the shields and prepare for transport

Maybe I should take Eowyn to see the new "Star Trek" movie; I think she'd find it very accessible.

In many ways, she's like the Enterprise herself. Get into a talk with her, and if her long-range sensors pick up something getting too close, she raises her shields immediately. Get in closer and it's all power to the forward shields, launch decoys, or whatever it takes to keep you from getting in a position to harm the ship. And if she determines you're a real menace, she'll shut down all nonessential systems and float dead in space like Kirk had the Enterprise do in "Balance of Terror."

Is there someone there? the Romulan crew wonders. Or is it a faulty sensor reading?

But every now and then it's possible to fly in close enough that you get inside the shields. You can see the dents and dings the ship has taken from its years of flying at warp speed, scan for metal fatigue where Klingon warbirds have struck with their disruptors, and even beam a landing party aboard.

It's a rare treat to walk the corridors of Eowyn's starship, but it's more satisfying than anything Paramount has produced for its franchise.

Today Eowyn let me aboard. She let me walk the corridors, visit engineering, and even gave me a seat on the bridge.  Put in non-Trek terms, this is a Big Deal. Essentially, Eowyn let me into the sacred grove as a sign of how much she trusts me not to desecrate it.

I walked carefully.

Eowyn and I were taking a walk while Ruth was at ballet, and discussion turned to hanging out with friends. Eowyn rarely does this, so I wasn't surprised when she made a silly remark to divert me. All power to the forward shields, Mr. Scott.

"You know," I said. "I've noticed that whenever the conversation gets uncomfortable, you make a silly remark. It's like this is you" -- I held up a clenched hand -- "and if someone gets too close, you try to keep them out here" -- I waved a safe distance away with my other hand. "Am I right?"

"Maybe," she said. But I could tell that I had nailed it. After all, it's not like I don't know where she learned this behavior. She has learned well.

But she has also learned over the past nine years that she can trust me when she wants to. And for some reason, she decided this time to trust me. To extend the Star Trek metaphor, she lowered her shields and allowed me to beam over, and while I was on board, we talked.

"I'm just kind of used to being alone," she said.

"Alone, or lonely?" I asked. She didn't answer, which was answer enough. "I see you alone too, and it tears me up inside, because I know how lonely you feel."

"It's okay," she said. "I'm kind of used to it."

And that, I pointed out, is one of the strangest things about human nature: We get used to anything, and tell ourselves that it's all right and even normal. I reminded her that the Bible tells us that Adam once had an easy time with his work. He would plant crops, and they would grow as easy as anything. It was work, but it was work that he could enjoy. But after the Fall, it didn't come as easy as it used to. Work became toil, weeds grew among his crops, and sometimes animals would eat his crops before he did.

"I'm sure Adam got used to living like that, but if he had a choice, which do you think he would have rather had: that life, or the one he and Eve used to have in Eden?"

"The one they used to have," Eowyn said.

So we talked some more about friends, and how sometimes you meet someone and she becomes one of your best friends almost immediately; and sometimes you meet someone, and you like her but she doesn't like you; and sometimes you meet someone and it takes a while to become friends, and you have to work at it, by talking with them, and hanging out with them, and getting to know one another.

"And sometimes that's risky, because sometimes you get hurt," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," I said, "sometimes someone will do something that hurts you. They don't mean to, but it does, and you need to forgive them. And sometimes they won't do something that you thought they should, and that hurts too, and you need to forgive them."

"And sometimes they go away."

Aha.

"Eowyn," I said. "I miss him too."

Of course it's not just Christian. It's Gabe and Kyra, two of her best friends from preschool whom we used to see regularly, except Gabe moved away, and Kyra's family didn't fully reciprocate our efforts to build and maintain the relationship. It's also Cassie, the older sister of one of Ruth's preschool friends, whom Eowyn got to know, but whose parents also didn't fully reciprocate our efforts to maintain the friendships.

And of course it's also the entire stinking third grade at school, when Eowyn was thrust into a classroom with none of her friends, and was barred from sitting with her friends at lunchtime because of some petty administrative need for control during the one time the kids have each day to be themselves.

But we talked. We talked for a good 30 or 40 minutes, sometimes on a bench, sometimes squatting in the parking lot. We talked about how there are a lot of people in her classroom and on her softball team who like her, we talked about the need to talk to friends and to reach out to people we like so that we can become friends, and we talked about how there's only so much that I can do as her father, and she needs to do the rest herself.

We talked a long time, and when we were done, I knew she had been crying, though she didn't want me to see the tears that had gathered on her nose.

We talked, and before we had dinner she called one of her friends and invited her to come over on Monday after school.

I'm trying, Lord. It's not easy, but I'm doing my best.



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Good night, moon

Today I liquefied my brain and removed it through a hole I had drilled in my skull, then filled the skull cavity with epoxy. Well, no, not really, but that's about what it felt like.

What actually happened is that I chaperoned a field trip with Rachel's class to the State Theater, where we saw a dramatic performance of "Runaway Bunny" and "Good Night Moon," both by Margaret Wise Brown. These are pretty basic bedtime stories, only 34 pages each, aimed at essentially preverbal preschoolers.

If you're thinking "What an incredible idea! I'll bet this was a really innovative reinterpretation of the books, bringing out the latent drama in a child who feels suffocated by his mother's all-consuming desire to thwart his independence, and his Gilgamesh-like desire to demonstrate his worthiness of immortality by resisting the beguiles of sleep," then you are thinking exactly what never occurred to me.

Alas, it also never occurred to the good folks at Mermaid Theatre, who turned two 34-page children's bedtime stories into two 34-minute children's plays with lullaby music and some clever puppeteering, in a very dark theater. No interpretive dance, no music numbers, no dialogue, no Avenue Q. Just puppet rabbits that hop, fly or sail, depending; a couple of cat puppets; and a mouse puppet that runs around. And a bunch of adults who quietly fade off to sleep while the kids watch the show.

Well, the kids enjoyed it, at least. But I remember thinking, as I drifted off, "I spent $27 so Rachel and I could watch this?"

But of course that's not why I spent that money. While we watched the show, I put my arm into Rachel's seat, and she let me wrap it around her waist. She moved closer to me, and I felt her warm little body snuggle against mine, and I thought, This is money well spent.


Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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To absent friends

Last Tuesday as we were eating dinner, Evangeline told me that she does not want to move away from Nova Bastille.

There are no plans to move, but she was not to be put lightly aside. She does not want to leave. She has a school here, she has friends here, and it is, after all, the only home she knows. It soon became evident that she's concerned that we'll have to move because neither I nor her mother is having much luck finding full-time work here in Iowa. The economy is in the tank, and while it doesn't seem to be falling faster, she's concerned we may have to relocate to find a job.

Moving's rough, especially when you're a kid. It's not just the disruption to your life, it's having to start all over. It's having no one, because you've lost all your friends.

Like her father, Evangeline is not a person to make friends at the drop of a hat. She judges people carefully before she commits, and when she decides someone is a friend, she locks onto them for good. Evangeline feels friendship deeply. Losing a friend means having a piece of your heart torn away, and feeling your life flow out that hole every day.

I was reminded recently of this when I came across my friend Erzsébet on Facebook. She and I met in 1993, when she came to Haiti on a short-term missions trip with STEM Ministries.  We bonded quickly. She and another team member joined me and another of the resident missionaries for card games in the evening on our grilled porch, we hung out and talked on the roof of the missions base while parts of the city electric grid turned on and off, and we talked around some of the troubled dynamics that sprang up between the team and the resident missionaries. (I also tormented her ruthlessly with a large plastic tarantula my brother had sent me, at every chance I got.)

In Haiti, we relied on a private service to bring us our mail.  Letters were a godsend, a reminder that people back home still thought about us from time to time and cared enough to let us know. Maybe two weeks after she had returned to the States, Erzsébet surprised me with a long, hand-written letter, beginning a relationship that was to last for five years. We continued writing back and forth, and when I returned to the United States, we switched to e-mail and to weekly phone conversations that could run for hours.

I'm fairly certain that Erzsébet's mom, who had been on the missions trip with her daughter, had high hopes for our relationship. Those hopes never came to fruition. Shortly after I got married in 1998, Erzsébet and I lost touch. I tried calling her about two years ago, but the phone number I had was no good, and I couldn't find a new one.

I have thought of her plenty the past 10 years, if not every day then certainly every week, at times with a soul-ache that is numbing in its intensity. We were close enough, I think, that if we were to connect again, especially in person, things would slide back into place and the years, like this too, too sullied flesh, would melt and resolve themselves into a dew.

I've told Evangeline that when we love someone, whether a friend or a family member, we remove a piece of our soul and give it to them to care for, to remember us, and to stay connected with us. I saw Erzsébet's profile recently on Facebook, and I stared at her picture in wonder, recalling some of the conversations we had shared and the letters we had written and read. I could feel my soul crying out for its missing piece, and I wondered if hers ever feels that same longing.

Sometimes that ache overwhelms me because of the number of friends I've lost track of. There is Brian VanWyhe, the English teacher I worked with at Cradle of Life Christian School, who became my closest friend in Haiti; and Dan Kramer, another close friend who joined STEM the same time I did and whose wedding I foolishly did not attend.

There are other people, including some who live right here in the Bastilles, whom we lost track of after our old church disintegrated. I wonder how we can bear to give our hearts to our friends, when we value friendship so lightly that we let it go over a paltry argument, a failed church, or even over nothing at all.

Evangeline is fearful of losing friends if we have to move, though neither her mother nor I have said we are actively considering such a course of action. That is the edge of a razor I would do anything to spare her, but I know that ultimately she will feel it one day, and it will cut her deeply.



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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The healing faith of a child

God shows up in some astonishing ways when we're opening to seeing him.

Like many children, my daughter Evangeline has plenty of stuffed animals, none of which has mattered much at all to her. That changed when her grandmother died. Suddenly, Evangeline bonded with a handmade stuffed rabbit that she has had since she was born, whom she calls Cinderabbit. Evangeline has slept with Cinderabbit every night since Grandma's funeral, and for a while she took her everywhere she went as well.

As my close, personal friend Rykie once observed about the divine love that shone through her own imaginary friends, so I have seen with Evangeline and Cinderabbit. Cinderabbit demands nothing in return from Evangeline for the comfort she gives. She stays as close as Evangeline wants, loves her unconditionally, and listens to the moans and sighs Evangeline doesn't know the words to express.

She is the very expression of God's love in my daughter's life, and couldn't be any more real if her coat were made of velveteen.



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Fred Gipson's 'Old Yeller,' and grief

"Your mother told me about the dog" remains one of the best, most understated lines I've ever read in a children's book.

The line comes from "Old Yeller," one of the best stories ever told in the English language about a boy and his dog. The book is set in Texas, not long after the Civil War. The boy's name is Travis, his little brother's name is Arliss; and the dog comes into their lives while the father is on a cattle drive up north. Even if you've never read the book, you probably know what happens to the dog, and what Travis' mother told his father once he returned from the cattle drive.

It was something of a surprise to me that my daughter didn't cry when Travis had to shoot the dog, but then she does internalize a lot of her grief and then express it through other ways, particularly in art.

When we lost Isaac, she took to drawing with a passion she hadn't shown in months. When we attended her grandmother's funeral, Evangeline merely grew very quiet when it was time to scatter her ashes, and said nothing at all on the subject until a few hours later, when she finally broached the subject with me in private.

She inadvertently has reminded me of something my close, personal friend Rykie once said, about God reaching out to children through their imaginary friends.

Until her grandmother died, none of Evangeline's stuffed animals mattered much at all to her. Then, suddenly, she bonded to a handmade stuffed rabbit she had had since she was born, whom she calls Cinderabbit. Evangeline has slept with Cinderabbit every night since Grandma's funeral, and for a while took her everywhere she went as well.

As Rykie observed with her own imaginary friends, so I have seen with Evangeline and Cinderabbit. Cinderabbit demands nothing in return from Evangeline for the comfort she gives. She stays as close as Evangeline wants, loves her unconditionally, and listens to the moans and sighs Evangeline doesn't know the words to express.

She couldn't be any more real if her coat were made of velveteen.


* She isn't a John Wayne fan, either.



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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the legacy of Pete Seeger

For much of this afternoon, Evangeline has been singing an adjusted protest song from the 1960s:

If you love your Uncle Sam,
Support your troops in Iraq.
Bring 'em home --
Bring 'em home.

The song has its origins with Pete Seeger, who popularized it during the Vietnam War, but it came to us via Bruce Springsteen in "The Seeger Sessions." Evangeline is finding that she favors the music of the 1960s, so naturally she loves this song.

She also has decided that one of her goals this trimester -- students at the charter school get to individualize their course of study -- is to write and perform a song of her own composition.

I got ten bucks says it's a protest song about something at the school, in the footsteps of Arlo Guthrie, who wrote his first protest song in fifth grade, about a math test.

'the sword in the stone'

Evangeline has been reading "The Sword in the Stone," by T.H. White, which (as its title would imply) is about King Arthur.

I snagged the book for her a few days ago on PaperbackSwap.com in one of those absolutely perfect bits of fathering. Evangeline hadn't requested the book, but I felt she should read it, so I got it. White's treatment of Arthur, which he continues in "The Once and Future King," is one of my favorite renderings of the legend.

"The Sword in the Stone" shows White at his finest, creatively speaking. His depiction of life in the Forest Savage and of Arthur's entire childhood with Sir Ector and Kay is entirely his, and it's filled with such attention to detail and wry wit that I figure it's bound to launch in her the same lifelong love of Arthurian lore that I've had, but at an earlier start.

I've read her Tennyson's "The Coming of Arthur," and she's read a few of those kiddie storybooks that purport to be about Arthur but really say nothing particularly Arthurian, but this is the real thing.

It starts around the time Arthur is around seven or eight, still unaware of his parentage, and living in the care of Sir Ector. The book is riddled with memorable characters like Sir Grummore and King Pellinore, what; charming buffoons like the sergeant-at-arms with his heaving chest and the nurse who fusses over everyone; and (of course) Merlyn.

During the course of the book, Merlyn teaches Arthur by changing him into animals, all with an eye on the day when Arthur will be crowned king and will have the chance to inaugurate a golden age where Might fights for Right, rather than making right.

"The Once and Future King" was White's treatise on pacifism, as well as his exploration of the triumphs and failings of government, and you see a lot of this in "The Sword in the Stone." Arthur has a miserable time among the ants who are preparing for war; and falls in love with life among the geese, for whom war is a completely foreign concept. (Both stories appropriated from White's final and least impressive Arthurian work, "The Book of Merlyn.")

Every experience Arthur has as animal also shows him the danger of the mighty, such as the pike who tries to eat him in Sir Ector's moat, or mad Cully who nearly pins him with his talons when Arthur overnights as a merlin with the other raptors. (Probably my favorite passage in the book.)

Evangeline's not as far as all that. She just got to the part where Arthur has met Madam Mim in the Forest Savage and is looking at an untimely end if Merlyn doesn't show up. Which, of course, he will.

So it's off to a good start. If she enjoys this book as much as she seems to be so far, I suppose I'll have to let read "The Once and Future King," and then lend her my copy of Steinbeck's rendition, not to mention Geoffrey of Monmouth and old Sir Thomas Mallory too. And then there's my "Camelot" soundtrack ...



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Psst! I totally stole this from Brucker.

the problem with teaching children

The problem with teaching children is that they learn, and often it is not convenient for us that they do so.

I have been teaching the girls for some time now that it's important to conserve. Turn off the lights when you're not using them, take shorter showers, reduce what you use, reuse it in new and interesting ways, recycle things, and compost. You can call it being green, living in the balance, or living sustainably, but it boils down to common sense. It saves money and natural resources.

So tonight as we walked past the neighbor's house, the girls stopped to look at what he's throwing out. It's an old vanity sink, sans the sink. Nice, solid wood. There were a few holes where the pipes went, but for the most part it's pretty decent wood. My daughters saw potential at once.

"You know, dad," the younger child says. "You could make a dollhouse with this wood."

I have to stop teaching my kids things.

hell just froze over

Despite my earlier kvetching, I have beaten the system at its own game once again.

The cutoff date for first grade in our school district is Oct. 15. In order to begin first grade, you had to have been born at least six years ago by Oct. 15. If you were later than that, you need to wait until next year before you can enroll. Rachel was born Oct. 30, too late for this year.

Well, despite being born two weeks too late to enter first grade this year, Rachel has been approved for first grade this year, owing to her course of education at home the past year. This comes despite the many assurances I have received over the years that no one ever gets an exception from a school district's cutoff date, not never, not no how.

Teachers and administrators alike at the charter school are amazed that I pulled it off.

That fluttering sound you hear is pigs flying.

my neural synapses fuse

At the library today as I practiced language skills with the girls, I managed not only to be outdone by the girls but also to lose what meager skills I have in any language.

After we returned the books that were due today, Evangeline and I started practicing our Esperanto. It works like this: I read her a word, and she gives me the Esperanto equivelant. Then I use the word in a sentence, and she has to translate the sentence. If I ask her a question, she has to answer me in Esperanto. (This has all sorts of insidious purposes. Besides teaching her the language, I pass on subversive ideas, like Bonaj demandoj ne havas facilajn respondojn. "Good questions don't have easy answers.")

So we're on a roll, going back and forth, and then suddenly Rachel interjects a translation on her own. An accurate one.

I have given her virtually no instruction in Esperanto. She's drilled me on some of my vocabulary, and she's heard me make simple requests in Esperanto, but otherwise it's stuff she's overheard me explaining to her fratino or she's picked up from our impromptu conversations.

So my brain pops the clutch over that one. I wrestle it back into gear, and then suddenly Evangeline starts correcting my grammar. "You forgot to add the -N!" she wails. (It's true. I keep forgetting to add the -N for the accusative case.)

Then I realize that while I'm using words I've learned from the more advanced lessons that Evangeline hasn't reached, she is having no trouble following me. Demandi is an infinitive; theoretically, all Evangeline should know is the verb forms. In practice, she's already converted it into a noun, demando/n, and doing the same with other verbs.

I used to be ahead of her, mostly because I am the teacher, and so I need to understand it if I'm going to teach her. I now realize that my vocabulary is slightly larger, probably because I'm already bilingual and know a smattering of French and Spanish to boot, but she is rapidly eclipsing whatever advantage I have. Her brain is wired right now for language acquisition, while for me it's work.

So much work that my language center finally seized up and stopped working completely. We were having a little back-and-forth in Esperanto when I said, "Jodia estas los compleanos de your grandfather."

The girls looked at me like I made no sense. Which I didn't -- in four different languages. I had mashed them all together into one coherent statement that made sense only to me.