Boaz's Mom

It seems in reading the Bible that many of its key figures were marginalized in one way or another: Moses was adopted by an Egyptian princess, Joseph was hated by his many brothers, Esau was cheated out of his birthright by his brother Jacob, among many examples. Even Jesus was born to a young Hebrew girl who was without a husband initially. The latest example occurred when I was reading from my daily devotional book the other day in the book of Ruth. I guess I had always wondered why Boaz was so kind to a foreign woman who was in his fields of wheat without permission. Boaz was the one who instructed his workers to let wheat intentionally fall as they threshed it so that Ruth could gather enough to feed herself and her mother-in-law Naomi. Ruth was definitely marginalized, but then again, so was Boaz from the beginning of his life no doubt.

Boaz's mother was Rahab, a harlot. She was the one mentioned in the book of Joshua who assisted the Hebrew spies in their quest for the Promised Land by hanging a scarlet cord outside her window as a signal. As a harlot, she would have no doubted been quite marginalized by the proper wives and mothers of her culture. As the mother of Boaz, she would have been shunned by the other women in her attempt to rear him properly. Perhaps it was this marginalization of Boaz and his mom that gave him the empathy for another woman similarly without country or friends.

The irony, of course, and the end of the story is that Ruth and Boaz married each other. But there's more: Rahab was one of a very few women listed in Matthew 1 as an ancestor of Christ. God indeed is the God of mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

The Death of Civility

I don't know whether it's just the summertime (again record heat and drought in most of the United States) or what, but I am beginning to believe that civility toward others is dead. Just a few examples from the recent news will suffice to make my case. This week we heard of the Little League mom who was threatening the coach--so much so it's going to court. Even my grandson's Little League team is not immune from such drama since one of the parents was thrown out of the game not once but twice this season. Also, who can forget the video footage outside the Casey Anthony trial with both men and women engaging in physical violence (one man is in a choke hold by another)? This scuffle evidently was over someone trying to cut in line for a spectator seat. My favorite example concerns two women in a Trader Joe's store fighting over the last package of frozen tofu Thai food. One was an opera singer and the other, I believe, was a TV personality.

Surely there must be a better way to solve conflicts other than resorting to fisticuffs. I believe reality shows have surely been an influence on our poor behavior. For years, audiences have been watching the Jerry Springer, Maury Povich type of TV shows where people shout each other down and physically assault each other. Even though some shows don't actually have these types of behaviors, the verbal smack downs are just as damaging as guests talk over each others' points. Should there not be some rules of behavior in reality? Do ratings usurp civility?

Gail Sheehy and Me

In regard to Gail Sheehy and me, we have traveled down the same paths for years. She, of course, is the well-known author of Passages published a number of years ago, and I--well, I am simply a follower of her ideas on developmental life stages. Some thirty years ago I was a graduate student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville seeking an idea upon which to write my dissertation. My classes in higher education focused on developmental life stages as presented in Sheehy's research but also that of Daniel Levinson and Roger Gould, among others. I knew that Sheehy was just a few years older than I, so in some ways I felt as if we were sisters on this walk through the labyrinth of life. Now I know we are.

Last week I had an opportunity to hear Gail Sheehy speak as part of a program in Springdale, Arkansas, on aging. Her focus has now shifted from the early twenties and onward of one's life where the energy is spent getting an education, breaking away from one's parents, and establishing a career. Usually there is also a love interest followed by marriage and children. The years quickly march into the forties where one is now more thoughtful regarding the goals in life: Have I reached my career goal? Is there life after 40? How can I give back to society? Sheehy is now lecturing on the latter part of life, especially the task of caregiving to a spouse who's ill. Her own husband battled cancer for a number of years before his death recently.

While it might be depressing for some to reflect upon how quickly life goes, for Gail Sheehy and me, it is just a fact of life. We can even appreciate the joys of aging and its challenges ahead. Sheehy has at least made the life stages understandable and given us the knowledge that we are not alone.

Adolescents in Wartime

I have been inundated lately with images of adolescents in war from both my reading and my film experiences. The movie Winter in Wartime, set in World War II in the Netherlands, revealed the conflict of a young adolescent boy. The boy disliked his father's seeming acquiescence to the Nazi occupiers while he admired his uncle's seeming involvement in the resistance movement. When he has an opportunity to choose sides with his discovery of an injured Allied pilot near his home, he does so and eventually assists the pilot to safety. In the process, he becomes a man quickly. The novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak also features a young protagonist who befriends a neighbor girl and is killed, while sleeping, in a bombing raid. In the film White Material, a story about a civil war in an African country, we see young boys armed with machetes. Even in our own newscasts recently, we are beginning to hear of young boys who are just twelve years old being armed with guns, and that is a frightening reality, not fiction.

I try to imagine what it would be like here in America to put children at such risk at such an early age. My granddaughter who's twelve spends her summer days at the pool with her friends and many of her nights at her girlfriends' houses watching movies and endlessly texting others. Her adulthood will come soon enough, and these days will later be prefaced in her conversations with, "Back in the day . . . . " After growing up too fast myself as a child with an alcoholic father, a clinically depressed mother, and a broken home, I am happy that my grandchildren have peace obviously, but I worry about the millions of children who are experiencing the stresses of war today in Syria, Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries. What will their future be?

Highlighting Anthony Weiner's Packages

Just about all that can be said on the Anthony Weiner debacle has been said in the past few weeks. America watched as the denials came early that Weiner's Facebook account had been hacked and that the semi-nude pictures of him sent to young women were not his. After ten days or so of interviews and constant questions, Weiner issued a press statement that, indeed, he did send the pictures. Now he has resigned from Congress. As a literature teacher for most of my career, the situational ironies are strong.

For one who had been the dramatic center (and screamer) for Democratic party issues for years, Weiner found himself the dramatic center of ridicule by women and jokes by the late night comedians. The incident seems to dismiss the idea once and for all that Jewish males are repressed. The notion of using Bill and Hillary Clinton as confidantes (after all they have been through with Bill's sexual escapades) is startling. Talking dirty on the camera while family pictures are in the background of the shot is just plain wrong. Just when one thinks an easy divorce would definitely be plausible for the Weiners, the announcement comes through that his wife is pregnant. I am sure Weiner's thrill of "highlighting his package" is now diminished.

If that news isn't enough, we now learn about the retirement "package" worth $1.2 million that now awaits Weiner. I taught over twenty years at a university, and my retirement was worth less than l/10 of that amount. The argument, of course, is that Weiner was not charged with a crime, and he deserves a nice package for his service to the country. I somehow doubt American taxpayers feel the same way.

Winter and Springtime With Leo

It's been popular in recent years for many people to write their bucket lists, in other words everything they would still like to do before they die. I am no exception. Even though I have taught Russian literature at my university three times in the past, I have never completely read Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. That is until now.

Of course, it's always daunting to begin reading a novel that is not only so famous in the world of literature but is also so long--1358 pages in my edition. At the beginning of the New Year, I had hoped that one year would be long enough for me to complete my task; I am happy to report that it took just twenty-two weeks. I found the novel to be everything all the critics of the past had found it to be: simply a spectacular chronicle of love and war during the Napoleonic period of European history.

Since the novel is universal in scope, all of the major themes of two-hundred years ago still abound today. There are young men, Andrey and Pierre, who are always idealistic at the beginning of war and hope to make a name for themselves through heroic acts of valor. There are emperors like Napoleon and Alexander who fight wars for seemingly no reason as they march their soldiers from West to East and then from East to West. There are old leaders who listen to the advice of many of their officers but follow none of it. There are beautiful women like Natasha who somehow turn into slovenly, dominate women after marriage. There are the inevitable questions raised regarding our mission in life and the question of free will vs. fate. There are questions to God regarding the suffering that takes place as one moves through life. Near the end of the novel, Tolstoy concludes, "Life is everything. Life is God. Everything is in flux and movement, and this flux is God. . . . To love life is to love God. The hardest and the most blessed thing is to love this life even in suffering, innocent suffering."

In spite of its daunting, weighty appearance, I highly recommend this novel to those seeking to reflect upon the big issues of life which are also quite weighty themselves.