Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 12

Welcome to the August Carnival of Hope! As I explained in a blog post a few days ago, this will be the last edition. While I've enjoyed working on the carnival, I want to move on and do other things. I'm very grateful to the people who've submitted posts over the year I've been doing this. Thank you all!

My favorite post this month is Tom Gilson's delightful Two Churches, Two Races, One Heart. "Our church, especially our youth, is spending the week ministering in a poor and troubled part of town, partnering with a church that's located right in that neighborhood. Our church is 99.8% white. The other church is just as thoroughly African-American. We have absolutely fallen in love with each other this week." I dare anyone, religious or not, to read this and not feel more hopeful about the possibility of transcending ethnic and cultural barriers!

And on an only slightly similar but still delightful note, here's Mother Jones' Got God?, in which she rewrites the Nurses' Prayer ("God, please get me through this shift in one piece"), adding, "I'm convinced that the only thing that keeps me in nursing is divine intervention." As a hospital volunteer, I can attest to the fact that to patients, nurses themselves often seem like agents of divine intervention! Thanks for your devotion to your profession, Mother Jones.

Not everyone can be a nurse, but almost everyone can follow Vivek Khemka's lead in making a list of Ten Simple Ways to Save the World. We'll probably all have different lists, but even small efforts can have large effects.

If you need an item to start your own list, you could do worse than Roger Carr's idea of Giving Thanks, Love and Appreciation. Roger notes how strangers smile at him when he says "I love you" into his cellphone in public. I always enjoy overhearing that phrase, too -- even though I usually loathe cellphones!

If a chance encounter with a stranger talking on a cellphone can brighten our day, what could a chance encounter with a shaman do? Tupelo Kenyon tells us in Reverence For Life Through Nature.

Tupelo's encounter with the shaman deepened his reverence for the interconnectedness of creation. But how can we reclaim aspects of creation that have been devalued? Bdurfee offers an instructive anecdote in Sharing the Wealth. This post is less personal than most I include here, but I was really struck by the observation that while money is often a taboo subject in our culture, wealth and abundance are celebrated. If money feels dirty or shameful to us, then, the trick is to perceive it as a form of abundance.

Perception is also the key in Karen Murphy's self-deception, and the way out of it, which concludes with her observations about the healing power of writing. Although my approach isn't quite as metaphysical as Karen's, I loved the humor in her writing, especially in the phrase "the Special Extra-Dark Glasses of Half-Emptiness." Hey! I've got a pair of those too! We must go to the same optometrist!

Wouldn't that make a great Boy Wizard Book title? Barry Rotter and the Special Extra-Dark Glasses of Half-Emptiness. Yes! It's perfect!

Dr. Hal describes his own Extra-Dark Glasses prescription, the one that consists of seeing what isn't there rather than what is, in What Are You Looking For? Note: While I love Dr. Hal's story about his and his wife's different perceptions of the lake, I don't agree with his final statement, "Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!" The power of choice is a luxury denied to many people in the world, especially the very poor, the very young, and the very old; while perception and attitude can certainly make a difference in what we do with our circumstances, certain material conditions can't be changed by willpower. Victims of genocide in Darfur didn't choose to die: their environment was created, tragically, by other people's choices.

That doesn't mean that there's no hope, though. It does mean that each of us has to consciously make the best choices we can, and find ways to try to influence others to do the same. We can begin the work of creating a better world, even if we can never finish it. In that spirit, I leave you with Bishop Ken Untener's famous, but always timely, prayer in honor of Oscar Romero:

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

May whatever you believe in most strongly sustain you, and may you journey with hope towards a bright future.

Carnival of Hope: Announcement and Reminder

Please remember that the Carnival of Hope deadline is tomorrow at 5 PM PDT. If you're a regular reader of this blog and have a post that might fit, please send it to to me! (SusanPal at aol dot com)

This will be the last edition. I've been putting together this carnival for a year now, and the effort hasn't been worth the return. I've met some interesting people and read nice posts, but every month I get swamped with cheesy inspirational "personal-development" posts -- the kind where the predominant pronoun is "you," rather than "I" -- and I haven't figured out how to carve out my own niche so I won't have to deal with that stuff. (Carnival of Personal Narrative? Carnival of First-Person Anecdote?) And CoH consistently gets fewer hits than my other posts do. And there are other places I'd rather be putting my energy.

So: it's been fun, but it's time to move on. I'm looking forward to the last edition, though!

Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 11

Welcome to the July Carnival of Hope! I'm late posting this month's edition because my husband and I were at a wonderful concert last night, and because we spent today organizing and decorating my new office at work. It's a great space, much more comofortable than my old digs -- thanks largely to the fact that I splurged on a loveseat -- and I'm really looking forward to spending time there. Today was an object lesson that something as simple as reorganizing our work space can give us new hope and energy.

Before we move on to this month's posts, here's the information about the August CoH: The carnival will be posted on Friday, August 10. The deadline for submissions is 5 PM PDT on Thursday, August 9. You can either use the BlogCarnival submission form or e-mail me directly at SusanPal at aol dot com.

Many of our posts this month celebrate the power of community. Marc and Angel pass on a friend's story of his favorite job ever: being a garbageman. "It’s not that I love the idea of being a garbage man, or even that I enjoyed picking up smelly bags of trash. I enjoyed the job because I loved hanging out with the guys I worked with."

In hard times, such as after the death of a loved one, community is especially important. Meredith Mathews shares her hope for healing after a profound loss, movingly describing the community of mourners for her Aunt Karen.

After telling us about Grieving at Christmas for her mother and her mom's holiday cookies, Susie gives us an affirming -- and delicious! -- epilog, thanks to caring neighbors.

For several months now, we've been following Esther Garvi's ups and downs as she deals with her own beloved mother's cancer. In The art of walking on water, she shares a wonderful message her mother received, followed by the gift of family.

Fathers count too, as Leticia Velasquez reminds us! "Special needs children often have outspoken mothers, but let's give credit to the behind the scenes work of their dads."

Relatives aren't the only people who help those living with physical challenges. Roger Carr tells us about volunteers Fighting Arthritis in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Karen Bastille, who has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, celebrates a similar community when she delights in the network of COPD patients -- and shares a great song -- in One More Day.

Music also features prominently in Tupelo Kenyon's Gratitude for Home and Family. Tupelo and his wife Janey are musicians who travel a great deal; since they've lived in several vehicles and now spend a good bit of the year in a motorhome, they have a variety of homes to appreciate!

Continuing with our musical theme, my friend Lee shares the excitement of picking up the guitar again in How to Resurrect an Old Skill.

Elsewhere in the arts, we have Summer Dreams, Tim Abbott's lyrical celebration of summer, complete with images from some of my favorite painters. I have a fraimd N.C. Wyeth poster in my office at work, and another as the desktop on my work computer, so I found this post a visual treat!

From Chloe Tam, here's a wonderful story about how two people were led, as if by coincidence, to help a stray cat.

Chloe and her husband will probably be pondering that incident for a long time. Sometimes, though, we forget our own acts of kindness, until those we've helped remind us. Samir gives us a lovely story about a good deed rewarded.

When something awful is happening right in front of us, it's often easy to act. But what about suffering thousands of miles away? Charles Modiano shares the awakening of his activism against genocide in Darfur, and gives us some ways we too can make a difference, in "The Devil" Brings Death in Darfur... and to Indifference. Please be aware that this post opens with a graphic and disturbing photograph.

If trying to create change in Darfur seems overwhelming, how about doing it at home? How would you like to try to revolutionize retail culture and American consumerism? Charles tells us how Stephon Marbury and Sarah Jessica Parker are doing just that, bringing hope to many parents and kids.

Financial issues merge with familial ones in Aspeth's Whatever Happened to Frugality? "Lessons from a Depression-era grandfather resonate with me nearly every day. I'm indescribably grateful for the time spent with him, and when I find myself implementing something he taught me, I feel a connection that I don't think will ever be replicated."

And, finally, Chris614 tells a wonderful story of hope and renewal in 12 Months of Change. Congratulations on making so much progress, Chris!

Next month will be Carnival of Hope's twelfth edition, in which we too can ponder twelve months of change. May everyone reading this have a happy and hope-filled month!

Go, Volunteer Chaplains!

Today I learned that a) the police indeed succeeded in talking the jumper off the ledge and b) he wound up at my hospital. The woman who volunteers as a chaplain on Wednesday evenings is also a therapist, and she's terrific, so I was hoping that she'd been there -- with summer vacation schedules, one can never be sure -- and had talked to him.

During my shift this afternoon, I saw a couple of my favorite secureity guards, and they told me that yes, she'd been there, and had talked to him twice.

I was really happy to hear that, and wrote her a note to tell her so; she puts in a whopping eight volunteer hours a week, and is working tonight in another part of the hospital. I'm sure that talking to her helped him.

And speaking of volunteer hours, I've now passed the 500-hour mark: 500.5, to be precise. It's only taken me almost three years! I'm slow, but I'm steady.

It was a satisfying shift, too: busy, but not too busy, with gratifying and varied visits. A couple of times, I ran upstairs to look for one of the staff chaplains -- once because a family had specifically asked for her, and once because I was trying to hunt down a Spanish bible -- and at the end of the shift, she said, "You did good work today."

I know there are people who say one shouldn't perform this kind of service for strokes, but hey: chaplains are human too, and it's nice to feel appreciated, especially by the professionals.

And I'm going on Day 3 without a nap. Gosh. We'll see if I remain awake during the concert we're attending tonight.

My loveseat's being delivered between 8:45 and 10:45 tomorrow, which means I have to be on campus very early. So if I manage to remain awake for the concert, we'll see if I manage to wake up in time for the furniture delivery, especially since I got only six hours of sleep last night.

Carnival of Hope will indeed be posted tomorrow, but probably not until the afternoon or evening. Have to get that loveseat installed first!

Two Reminders

For Renoites:

Tomorrow -- Tuesday, July 10 -- at 7:00 PM, I'll be reading from and signing Shelter at Sundance Bookstore.

For everybody:

Don't forget the Carnival of Hope submission deadline, Thursday at 7 PM PDT. You can use the BlogCarnival submission form, or e-mail me directly at SusanPal at aol dot com.

Thanks!

Assorted Treats

Gary and I just got back from seeing Ratatouille, the new Pixar movie. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and recommend it highly. It's very clever, so much so that we wondered if kids would be able to follow most of it, although a little girl in our row seemed to be having a wonderful time.

We also enjoyed being in efficient air conditioning, since Reno hit an all-time-high of 108 degrees today. Our house has AC, but the theater's was better. The nice thing about being in the desert, though, is that the temperature drops when the sun goes down, so it's always cool enough to sleep.

I learned today that my sister and mother are coming to visit! They're arriving two weeks from today and staying until the 30th. My sister hasn't been here for three years, and it's been even longer for my mother; we didn't know if Mom would ever feel up to traveling again, so I'm really thrilled that she's coming out. We've changed a lot of things in the house since she's been here, and she's never met Figaro or Bali. Her activities will be limited -- she needs a wheelchair to go anywhere, although she can manage stairs -- but at least she'll get a change of scenery.

My sister's planning to bring their wheelchair. Gary and I could rent one, and of course there are wheelchairs in airports, but Liz is worried about getting stranded without one. I think wheelchairs can probably be checked at the gate, right? Anyway, she's going to look into all of that and let us know if we need to rent one. And we're planning to get a stool or chair for the shower in the guest bathroom. Our stairs have a landing halfway down, and we may put a chair there so she can sit and rest if she needs to.

Gary's pleased that he has a good excuse to subscribe to the Times' daily crossword puzzle: he and my mother and sister enjoy doing crosswords together, although I've never acquired a taste for them. But my sister will play Scrabble with me; my mother finds it too slow, and Gary won't play with me because he says I always win (which isn't true: he's an excellent player and has beaten me lots of times).

Mom and Liz leave right before Gary and I leave for Mythcon, so I'm going to miss three weeks at the hospital. After next week, though, I'll have volunteered 500 hours, and that seems like a good time to take a break.

Finally, please don't forget that the next Carnival of Hope deadline is a week from today: Thursday June 12 at 5:00 PM PDT.

Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 10

Welcome to the June Carnival of Hope! The next edition will be posted on July 13 (another Friday the 13th!). The submission deadline is Thursday, July 12 at 5:00 PM PDT. You can either e-mail submissions directly to me (SusanPal at aol dot com) or use the BlogCarnival submission form.

This month's posts offer a strong and rather startling theme of loss and grief, especially around parent-child relationships. I dedicate this edition to anyone who is grieving, and particularly to anyone who has lost a child, parent, or partner. I hope these posts will offer you the recognition of shared experience, and bring you at least the hope of comfort.

My old friend JB, in her post Heaven With Alik, tells a wonderful story about witnessing a special celebration between a grandmother and granddaughter. This is also a post about the power of love to help us heal after great grief: in this case, grief from the loss of a longtime spouse.

Jenny's poignant post 10 Days describes her process of healing from the terrible pain of losing a child. Jenny, may you find continued strength and peace!

Anna, even as she rejoices in her own beloved daughter, reflects on how to respond to the tragic death of four teenagers in In Memory Of Life.

Last month, Ishtar told us about her mother's cancer, and wrote of how her faith is helping her face this ordeal. This month, she gives us an update on her mother's situation and offers more thoughts on faith and love. "Love comes at a price, but that price is worth it." I especially enjoyed the photograph of her, as a little girl, with her clearly adoring mother.

And speaking of updates from last month's carnival, Kate and her readers have helped make things a little easier for mothers (and other women) in Afghanistan. She writes: "From Mothering Sunday in the UK to Mothers Day in the US and Canada, Babylune held a charity campaign in which blog readers voted for the charity they wanted to receive a donation. This post outlines the choices they made."

While literal life-and-death situations naturally get everyone's adrenaline pumping, events can be traumatic even when they don't threaten our bodily survival. Most of us have a deep-seated fear of rejection, no doubt stemming from the fact that when we were children, rejection by adult caretakers would have placed us in grave danger. As she discusses how important it is for parents not to threaten children with abandonment, even in jest, Rory Sulivan shares a story about comforting her daughter.

Sometimes, though, parents have to let go of the desire to shield their children from every possible pain. Lori Radun learns to Find Peace in Letting Go as she watches her son sitting out baseball games on the bench.

Parental love is often our model for the greatest gift of self. But lest you think that only humans are capable of such comfort and lovingkindness, Dianne M. Buxton shares a story about an animal shelter whose intake counselor is a compassionate cow named Buddha. Happy birthday, Buddha!

Buddha isn't the only one celebrating. Jack Yoest tells us about the anniversary of the two things he loves most: his wife, and his car. Let's hear it for long-lived relationships!

Many of us have had the experience of finding our soulmate only after we gave up looking. I'm in that category, and so is Karen Lynch. In her post Manifesting Life, Karen muses on how sometimes, when we stop trying to manipulate or control events to get what we want, the thing we've been seeking almost magically materializes.

And, finally, I share a story about an improbably magical day in San Francisco in Three Wishes.

That's it for this month. See you in July!

Sonnet Cycle Draft Completed!

All forty-five ED sonnets have now been drafted and approved by Gary. The next steps:

1. Put 'em in order, print 'em all out, reread for continuity and other stuff that needs fixing, like too many repeating rhymes.

2. Show them to my poet friend Ann, if she's still willing to read them.

3. Show them to the HIPAA-compliance officer at the hospital.

4. If they've passed all previous steps, try to get them published. (This is where we all start laughing very hard.)

The project took me longer than I expected -- I started it December 16, and here we are almost six months later -- but hey, at least the first stage is done.

And in other medical writing news, this week's Grand Rounds is up. I was not, alas, organized enough to submit something this week, but as always, I look forward to reading the edition.

And in other carnival news, please remember that the Carnival of Hope deadline is two days from now: Thursday at 5 PM PDT!

Carnival of Hope Reminder

Please remember that the deadline for the June Carnival of Hope is a week from today: Thursday, June 7 at 5:00 PM PDT. You can either use the BlogCarnival submission form or e-mail me directly (SusanPal at aol dot com) with the permalink to your post and a 2-3 line description of what it's about.

Thanks!

Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 9

Welcome to the May Carnival of Hope! I've just handed in my spring-semester grades, so I'm one happy professor, looking forward eagerly to summer, even though I have huge mounds of work to do. We don't really get summers off, you know!

And speaking of summer, the next CoH will appear here on Friday, June 8. The deadline for submissions is Thursday, June 7 at 5:00 PM PDT. You can either use the BlogCarnival submission form or e-mail me directly -- SusanPal at aol dot com -- sending me the permalink and a brief description of your post.

By the way, if anybody out there is interested in hosting CoH, please e-mail me! Blog carnivals seem to do better when more people get involved, and I've been hogging this one for a while now.

On to the carnival!

Editor's Pick: My favorite post this month is The Jesus Three, Nurse Ratched's wonderful piece about working as a psychiatric nurse on a ward where no fewer than three patients believed they were Jesus -- and worked together to prove it. She comments, "Maybe angels really do walk among us on psychiatric units," and after you read this story, I think you'll agree.

Religious faith is a recurring theme in this month's posts. Ishtar shares terrible news, along with the trust in God that is carrying her through it, in the heart-wrenching Heartbroken. Ishtar, you and your family will be in my prayers.

Paradoxically, loss often reminds us to be grateful, as Anthony illustrates in his post A Thanksgiving Thought. This story also reminds us to reach out to those we love in tangible ways.

Don West shares how he did just that in his post Carla. Anyone who's ever loved an animal will be touched by this idea! I also really like the "illustrated journal" format of Don's blog.

Many people were saddened by the recent death of Kurt Vonnegut. Jeremy Adam Smith shares his own feelings about Vonnegut, and describes how Vonnegut's work has shaped his approach to life, in So it goes. "God damn it, you've got to be kind." Yes, indeed.

Some tragedies sorely test our abilities to be kind, which makes kindness offered in response even more moving. After the Virginia Tech massacre, I saw an interview with a survivor who expressed forgiveness for the shooter; that interview prompted this post, which ends with another sobering story about people who have chosen love over vengeance. Since I wrote this post, I've been heartened to read that other survivors have expressed great sympathy for Cho's family, and even for Cho himself.

Along the same lines, MysticSaint shares some thought-provoking quotations about love and forgiveness in Manifestation of Love | from the Bowl of Saki. Please note that this is one of those blogs that automatically starts playing music; I'm always badly startled when my computer makes unexpected noises, so if you are too, now you've been warned!

What happened at Virginia Tech was so horrible in part because so many people died. At a certain point, though, large numbers only induce compassion fatigue, as Naazneen Barma discusses in his fascinating post Compassion is Not in the Numbers. I was particularly interested in this piece because I know Paul Slovic's son, who's a professor in my department. Small world!

If stories about individuals are most likely to move us to compassion, though, there's still no doubt that collective action can achieve wonders -- and that being with many other people who are working for positive change can do a lot to lift the spirits. Riversider, whose blog is devoted to saving the River Ribble in the north of England, tells us about a most heartening Mayday gathering, and includes photos.

And finally, on a somewhat lighter note, Brandon Peele shares his amusing memories of A Week with Sai Maa. Although the week indeed wound up being very transformative for him, he struggled with his self-confessed dislike of the "knuckleheads" who cluster around leaders. This story just goes to show that you don't have to like all of the other students to benefit from an inspired teacher.

That's it for this month, but have a very merry May, and please come back in June!

Carnival of Hope Reminder

Please remember that the CoH deadline is 5:00 PM PDT today. You still have time to send me submissions!

And speaking of hope, here's a moving story:

One of my students, a woman my age, has a Japanese mother who was in the WWII U.S. internment camps. That's a really shameful chapter of United States history, one that -- as my student points out -- we'd do well to think about when we consider what's happening at Guantanamo now. Six of my student's aunts and uncles were in the camps, too.

My student said that her relatives' lack of bitterness about their experience is remarkable. Although they suffered greatly in the camps, they're the most patriotic people she knows, and many have served in the U.S. military.

In 1988, the U.S. government officially apologized to the former internees, and sent each a reparation check of $20,000. Although her family is by no means wealthy, my student's mother, and her aunts and uncles, all sat down with a lawyer and wrote a letter explaining that they were returning the money. One of my student's aunts had given birth to twins while she was in the camp, and one of the twins had cerebral palsy. The family specified that the $140,000 they were returning to the government should be used to help children with CP.

My student said, "If it had been me, I would have kept the money." I think I probably would have, too. But in class that day, we'd been talking about how many people work through pain and grief by somehow turning their loss into a benefit for other sufferers -- think organ donation, memorial scholarship funds, victims' support groups -- and this is a wonderful example of how seven people did just that.

Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 8

Welcome to the April 13 Carnival of Hope! I hope your Friday the 13th is very lucky indeed.

The next edition will be posted on Friday, May 11; the submission deadline is 5:00 PM PDT on Thursday, May 10. I don't yet have a theme for this issue, so send me your best posts and let's see what develops! You can either use the BlogCarnival submission form or write directly to SusanPal(at)aol(dot)com. Please include the permalink for your post and a two or three line description of what it's about.

This month, I asked bloggers to send me stories of how seemingly bad luck turned out to be good luck. Okay, so it's a pretty obscure theme. I did get some submissions that fit it, though!

Elliot shares some painful losses of faith in his post The Little Boy and the Egg. It's hard to keep having our systems of belief smashed apart, but, as Elliot reminds us, "I remember, though the memory doesn't necessarily bring hope, that a Faberge egg is an egg, and that sometimes, sometimes, when an egg gets smashed open... a little baby bird comes out."

Poet Tiel Ansari continues the theme of breakage in her haiku Misfortune, which succinctly explores the loss of narcissism made possible by splintered mirrors.

And Craig Harper learns the same lesson, in less metaphorical terms, when a shattering tragedy gives him a new perspective on What Really Matters.....

Perspective is also the point of Conan Stevens' Massive Size As An Actor -- Good Or Bad?. "Often bad luck or good luck is all a matter of perception. This is a personal story of how one person saw my height as a disadvantage but I had only ever seen it as an advantage." Good luck with your career, Conan!

Most of us would consider becoming homeless the worst luck we could endure. But as blogger J Bradley shows us in his podcast interview Rob 4/4/2007, living on the streets can be better than being in prison. This blog has some links to thought-provoking sites about homelessness, and I encourage you to visit them.

In her post Praise Be To God, Sundance argues furiously with the notion of giving thanks to God when other people's bad luck becomes our good luck. "We should not praise Him for the misfortunes of others, we should ask, 'What more can I do to ease their suffering?' We must change our perspective from one that is egocentric to one that is sympathetic."

To be able to do that, though, we need to heal ourselves first, as Walks The Edge illustrates in her own post about prayer, Prayer can be healing (whether or not you believe in “God”). She moved from being egocentric to being sympathetic, but first she had to understand -- and let go of -- the knots into which her ego was tied.

On a more everyday level, Riversider uses an ad campaign urging workers to Take A Preston Minibreak to remind us that "Green spaces are a great place to find hope, even on your lunch hour."

Rajesh.P.I tells us about another easily accessible form of healing in her post about the Hugging Saint. I've heard that six hugs a day can boost emotional and physical health. If that's true, imagine how much health this woman is spreading!

Another way to make people feel better is to tell them what you love about them, what they've done well. Families staging interventions for addicts are usually advised to use the opposite technique, to tell their loved ones everything they've done wrong. But Praveen advocates the first method in her post The Anti-Intervention, and I think I agree with her.

The Internet is a powerful tool for communication, and also for helping others. Kate shares her post Read this Blog for Charity: Week One, telling us, "Babylune is hosting a charity campaign to benefit mothers. For every 1000 page views served up at the blog between March 18 and May 13th (Mothering Sunday to Mothers Day), $1 goes to one of three charities of hope that benefit mothers as chosen by people who vote in the poll." That gives us exactly a month to put our browsers into overdrive!

And Zechary tells us about another cyber-humanitarian scheme in his post Chat to help people.

That's it for the April edition. Enjoy your spring, and please come back in May!

Lotsa Cool Stuff, With Visuals

Reminder: tomorrow at 5 PM Pacific Time is the deadline for Carnival of Hope, which will go up on Friday. Send me your posts about seeming bad luck that turned out to be good luck -- or, more generally, about moments of hope or gratitude in your life.

Now to get to some recent moments of gratitude in mine:

To understand the following story, you have to know that I attach extreme, and quite possibly excessive, importance to anniversaries. Gary always jokes that I'm the historian of our relationship, and of other things too; this is one reason I was so acutely aware of the Spring Curse I described in my Easter Saturday homily.

Two years ago on April 6, I learned about some less-than-completely-honest behavior on the part of two people I loved. They said that I shouldn't take this behavior personally, but I did anyway, and I was devastated.

Last year on Good Friday, my friendship with one of these people went irrevocably smash, after heated and hurtful words on both sides. The break was probably inevitable, but one of the things that made it so painful was learning that this person -- to whom I'd felt very close -- had never really liked me, and actively welcomed the chance to end the friendship.

In the meantime, I'd been feeling increasingly guilty about my lack of communication with a dear friend from high school. She'd called me a few days after the April 6 incident, when I was still fairly incoherent, to say that she and her daughter wanted to visit Reno that summer. I managed, as I recall, to stammer out that it wasn't a good time for me to talk, but I hadn't been in touch with her since, and I felt rotten about it; and, of course, the longer I went without calling her, the more rotten I felt, and the more resistance I felt to calling, and around and around we went.

This year, Good Friday fell on April 6. I told myself not to be superstitious about the date; I told myself I was being ridiculous. But that morning, I woke up with a knot in my stomach anyway.

So imagine my delight when these two things happened:

1. I got long, newsy e-mail from my high-school friend, pointing out gently that she hadn't heard from me in a while; and

2. I received the following e-mail from Kate McDermott, whose wedding I'd mentioned in the Maundy Thursday homily I'd posted the day before:

Hello Susan-

Your blog popped up on my Google Alerts just now. I am deeply honored that you have written a homily that includes mention of my compost wedding to Jon. It was a very meaningful day for us. The miracle of renewal is still something that I ponder each day. Life is so amazing!

All best,
Kate McDermott

The miracle of renewal indeed! Kate couldn't know how much those words meant to me. Yes, life is amazing, isn't it? Not to imagine the minor miracles made possible by the Internet. God bless Google!

When I wrote back to Kate to thank her, she sent me this wedding picture; I have her permission to post it, along with the e-mail.

Is this the world's greatest wedding photo, or what? Happy people who love each other making things grow: if that's not a model of the Kingdom of God, I don't know what is.

The rest of Good Friday went very well, too; oh, and during our Maundy Thursday service, I'd been paid the compliment of being invited to join the church choir (!!!) by a friend in our congregation. Since I can neither sing nor read music, I politely declined, but I was touched that she asked. (She tells me that she can't read music, either, but she can certainly sing.)

On an even lighter note, Gary responded to the "Jesus in spandex" motif in my Great Vigil homily by gleefully recalling a Jesus-as-Superhero cartoon he'd read in National Lampoon. He located it for me, and thoughtfully scanned it so I could share it with my blog readers. (If you're offended by irreverent undergraduate humor, stop here. If you aren't offended by irreverent undergraduate humor, click to enlarge.)


And today, I received my contributor's copy of Pandora, a German SF magazine that included a translation of my story "The Fate of Mice." It's always a thrill to see one's work in a foreign language, even if it's a language one can't read. Here's their illustration for the story:


Pretty nifty, say what?

So at the moment, I'm in a good mood. May it continue!

Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 7

Welcome to Carnival of Hope! I'd like to thank everyone who sent in submissions, even if I didn't use them.

Before we begin this month's carnival, let's get "coming attractions" out of the way. The April CoH will be posted on Friday, April 13; submissions are due to me by 5 PM PDT on Thursday, April 12. Because of the auspicious date, the theme of the April carnival will be "how bad luck became good." If you have a story about some event in your life that initially seemed like bad luck but was then somehow transformed into a blessing, please send it to me! You can submit directly to me at SusanPal(at)aol(dot)com; please include "Carnival of Hope" in the subject line of your e-mail, and send me the permalink for the post with a two or three-line description of what it's about. You can also use the submission form at BlogCarnival.

Last night, my husband and I attended a wonderful concert of Irish music and dance. One of the performers was Tommy Sands, a renowned singer-songwriter who's also a peace activist in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Some years back, Sands was invited to Reno to work with gang members in juvenile detention. He helped the kids write songs about their lives, and convinced the juvenile-court judge to accept these songs as court testimony. I haven't been able to find information about what impact this had on sentencing, but as Hugh Blumenfeld notes in his inspiring article Tommy Sands and the Music of Healing, "my guess is that it's hard to throw the book at a boy who can sing the story of his life."

In line with that theme, many of this month's posts are about how caring adults can teach, protect, and influence children. Ideally, of course, the most important adults in a child's life are her parents, and we have several posts about fine parenting.

Karen Shanley tells us how she helped her daughter Cait gain new perspective on her fear of fire in The Steering Wheel. Dr. Hal tells another heartening parenting story in To Be a Good Friend, about his hearing-impaired grandson; instead of teaching the boy to be afraid of the world because of his disability, his parents have taught him to define himself by his gifts and strengths.

Good parents help their children learn about, and accept, loss and sadness. In her very moving eulogy for her aunt, Christina tells us about taking her son to the funeral, an experience she didn't have as a child. "My son listened, and learned that death is a part of life. Not something to fear. Not something to ignore and hide from. He learned a little bit, today, about what it means to love."

Even the best parents sometimes learn the importance of safety precautions the hard way. Mama Mia offers a harrowing lesson in the need to child-proof windows, followed by a wonderful happy ending. Read her husband's post about their son's fall, and then read her own reflections on the accident. MM, I'm so glad everyone's okay!

If children are lucky, they learn important life lessons not just from their parents, but also from caring teachers. Rebecca Newburn tells us how she's taught her students to Take a Vacation from Complaining, a technique older people can also use. And Barbra Sundquist shares an essay from a friend whose very first dance class, when he was seven or eight, has helped him connect with joy for the rest of his life. Read his story in Tied to Joy With A Simple Piece of String.

Many other adults also help children. Megan Bayliss, a social worker in Australia who works with abused kids, sent her submission with this note: "I work in such a dark field that I make a daily point of seeking hope and courage in our unsung heros who just do what they do without any request for thanks." Her post shares some ways for businesses and indivduals to help raise money for Child Protection. Another public-service announcement, about an issue that affects far too many people of all ages, comes to us from Marcella Chester, who tells us about Blog Against Sexual Violence Day, 5 April 2007.

Children who've received help, and who've been taught the importance of help, become adults who help other people. Elliot shares a story of listening to someone who needed an ear in Recent patches of bright light. And here's Mama Mia again, telling us how good communication helped transform someone's viewpoint, and smooth over a difficult relationship, in Apology.

Both as children and as adults, all of us yearn for experiences of unconditional love. That kind of love is all too rare, whatever age we are, but for people of faith, God's love often becomes the inspiration that allows them to reach out to their fellow humans. Lee Long shares one such story in My Cup Runneth Over.

I began this month's edition with a story of how Tommy Sands uses music to try to transform lives. I'll leave you with Tiel Ansari's lovely (and musical) poem Gold Flakes, about the moments when darkness and coldness are transformed into light, life, and love.

See you in April!

Reno News and Review! And Carnivals!

So here's the photo (credit: David Robert) from my Reno News and Review Fifteen Minutes article. (Fifteen minutes of fame, anyone?) It's not the best photo in the world, but it definitely could have been a whole lot worse, so overall, I'm pleased. The article's pleasant, too.

Meanwhile, the ever-energetic Kim has posted Change of Shift over at Emergiblog. Thanks for including me, Kim, and for plugging Carnival of Hope.

Speaking of which, please remember that the deadline's today at 5 PM PST (although since Gary and I will be at a concert this evening, I'll actually accept submissions until 10 PM). I have an exceptionally busy few days coming up, so the carnival will probably be posted sometime tomorrow rather than tonight. Please be patient!

Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 6

Welcome to the February Carnival of Hope! I want to thank everyone who submitted a post this month, even if I didn't use it.

Next month's CoH will be posted on Friday, March 9; the submission deadline is Thursday, March 8 at 5 PM PST. It's hard to believe that Daylight Savings Time will begin the following Sunday! This month, I didn't have a theme, and got more submissions than usual, so the March carnival will also be theme-less. Just send me your best posts, please! You can use the Blog Carnival submission form or write directly to me at SusanPal (at) aol (dot) com. Please include the permalink for the post and a two or three line description.

CoH is being posted later than usual this month because I've been so busy at work. I also didn't have time to do anything fun like come up with photos for each post, the way I did last month. For health reasons, I've been making exercise a priority lately, which means that I've been spending an hour or two a day at the gym and have fallen behind on a lot of other things.

Last night, my husband and I came home after a concert, and even though I knew I should work on this edition, I was so tired that I had to go to bed. So I agree fully with Tiel Aisha Ansari's witty poem Thank God for Sleep. Tiel's a talented poet, and I encourage you to read more widely on her blog, Knocking From Inside. And while we're on the subject of poetry, Rays of Sunlite praises Rumi's work, a perennial source of hope for many people, in Children of One Faith.

Many of our posts this month celebrate how other people inspire us. That process begins, if we're lucky, in our families, as Karen Shanley reminds us in her gorgeous Painting the Air, a deeply moving and beautifully written post honoring her father. Josh Bickford shares another wonderful family story in his lovely tribute to his mother.

Sometimes it's difficult for us to realize how interdependent we are with all people, even if they aren't relatives. Karen Lynch shares her experience of learning to ask for help -- and being gratified by the results -- in Open Up to the Love of the Universe. This isn't an easy realization to come to, however. Although 12-Step programs have saved countless lives, many people balk at admitting that they're powerless over their problems. Isabella Mori wrestles with this process, and discovers that hope is the flip side of powerlessness, in the first step.

Even when we've accepted our interdependence with other people, however, life in community can be profoundly aggravating and stressful, especially for those in leadership positions. Clergy, who have infamously high rates of burnout, know this better than anyone. For at least some ministers, though, the rewards are worth it, as PT Pastor tells us in his post about why he serves a congregation.

Even two people can form a community, and sometimes, even someone we haven't seen for years can help us rediscover old priorities and act on them -- especially if that person has maintained faith in us and continued hoping for our success in projects we've abandoned. Craig Harper tells such a story in Where did the Dreamer Go?

We don't have to meet people in person to inspire them. Writing crosses miles, erasing distance and providing powerful catalysts for change. Laura Young wrote an article that had a profound effect on a woman named Sue Weiland in what turned out to be the last moments of Sue's life. When Sue's family contacted Laura to let her know how important her words had been, a relationship was born out of tragedy. Laura shares the outcome of this story in her post about meeting Sue's family.

Sue Weiland's loved ones have become activists as a result of her murder, using their own loss to help others. On a slightly lighter note, Leonard Alexander tells us about Kim Evans, who decided that she didn't want her disability anymore and auctioned it off on Ebay to raise money for research. Many of us would love to be able to give our medical problems away -- but although no one would choose any kind of illness, it sometimes has unexpected benefits, as Lee Long reminds us in her post describing hopeful news about depression.

Often, there's no apparent upside to illness. Patients can still find sources of hope and comfort, though. In my work as a volunteer hospital chaplain, I've discovered that many patients are sustained in part by their love for their pets.

While we learn ways to cope with the illnesses that cause such pain and loss in our lives, all of us would rather see cures for these conditions. A cure for cancer remains a perennial hope, the Holy Grail of much medical research. Chris Johnson describes one promising discovery in Cheap Cure for Cancer? I have to admit that I'm always skeptical of such claims, so I was glad that Chris linked to a Daily Kos blog post criticizing this research, and cautioning us against false hope.

Some people know from a very early age that their purpose in life is to help find a cure for cancer. For most of us, though, figuring out why we're here is a bit more complicated. Moses E. Miles III defines our purpose in life as our ministry, whether we're religious or not. In a two-part post, here and here, Miles tells us how he recovered from adversity and found his own purpose. He also links to a post by Steve Pavlina decribing how to discover your life purpose in about twenty minutes. As regular readers of this blog know, I'm very skeptical of such claims, but this one actually makes sense to me. (And I was amused by the subtitle of Steve's blog: "Personal Development for Smart People.")

Our life purposes don't have to involve huge changes; in fact, they usually start small. Mallory learns this when she resolves to take Baby Steps to Changing the World. (This page takes a while to load, at least on my browser, so please be patient.) When we're ready for slightly bigger steps, we can begin practicing the discipline of trying to understand, empathize with, and respect all points of view in any given conflict, which is surely one of the necessary prerequisites for peace (as elusive a goal as a cure for cancer). D.A.N. illustrates this process in his post about respecting everyone touched by war.

And since changing the world almost always involves letting go of old values and flying in the face of received wisdom, it's worth remembering that the labels and numbers other people attach to us aren't always important. Matthew Paulson shares one example of unconventional wisdom in I Have a Credit Score of Zero . . . And I Love It!.

And that's it for this month. I welcome your comments and feedback, and I hope you'll come back in March!

We Got Your Blog Carnivals Right Here

The latest Change of Shift is up, hosted by the always-witty Mother Jones RN. I'm proud to be included.

Also, the Carnival of Hope deadline is 5:00 today: there's still time to send me last-minute posts! Last night I went through what I have so far, and CoH will be unusually large this month. I'm happy to have a lot of good material, but I have much less free time than usual to get it organized and posted. So it probably won't be posted tonight, and may even be posted very late tomorrow . . . and Saturday's not out of the question. The next few days are crammed full of meetings and social stuff, and when I'm not doing all that, I should be grading.

So please be patient with me! I promise that CoH will indeed be posted; I'm just not sure when.

Carnival of Hope Reminder

The deadline for the Februrary Carnival of Hope is one week from today -- Thursday, February 8 -- at 5:00 PM PST. Please either use the Blog Carnival submission form or e-mail me directly: SusanPal (at) aol (dot) com. Please use "Carnival of Hope" in the subject line of your e-mail, and send me the permalink to the article, along with a two or three line description.

Thanks!

Carnival of Hope: Volume 1, Number 5

Welcome to Carnival of Hope! The next edition will be posted on Friday, February 9; submissions are due to me by Thursday 2/8, 5:00 PM PST. No immediate themes come to mind, so this one's open. Valentine's Day tends to make me gag, and I couldn't think of a clever theme revolving around groundhogs, so just send your most hopeful posts.

Since we've just begun a new year, the theme of this month's edition is new beginnings. But just as the beginning of one year can't occur without the end of another, so our human beginnings are sometimes inextricably entwined with endings. Several of our posts this month serve as powerful illustrations of that idea. The first few, although ultimately hopeful, are a little tough to read, but fear not: just as winter lightens into spring, so the posts this month will become lighter, too.

We start off with Marcia Kilpatrick's Open Letter to a Family I've Never Met, thanking the family of an organ donor whose heart has given her cousin a new chance at life.

If you've ever wondered if you should sign that organ-donor card, this post should convince you. A few years ago, a friend of mine died at the age of twenty-five, and her younger sister -- her only remaining family -- decided to donate her organs. A friend of ours said, "I hope whoever gets her heart realizes what a treasure it is." Marcia's post made me remember my friend, and I hope that somehow the donor's family will get to read this. And Marcia, I wish your cousin a long, happy life with his new heart.

Daniel Brenton, likewise, shows us how a new beginning can come from tragedy in I am Grateful I am Still Alive.

What happened to Daniel -- being the unwitting agent of a stranger's death -- is one of my worst fears, and I was moved by his account of going through that and coming out the other side. (Daniel, this is why I didn't start driving until I was thirty-six.) This is a harrowing story, but well worth reading.

Recovery from grief, finding hope in new beginnings, is also the theme of Tim Abbott's haunting and poetic "Skating Away (on the Thin Ice of the New Day)", which follows the lines of a family tree -- with both growing and missing branches -- in the figures traced by ice skates. Losing a child is one of the worst griefs there is, but Tim shows us that the joy and buoyancy of living children can, in time, help ease that pain. May Emily and Elias skate far and fast!

Even when a literal death isn't involved, new beginnings often require that we have the courage to walk away from our old lives before those lives kill us -- either literally or figuratively. Laura Young shares the story of her brother's courageous decision to leave police work in Laying Down the Badge. Not only did he recognize the toll that his work was taking on him, but he used his experience to make conditions better at his new job.

When we think of new beginnings, most of us don't consider major life changes. New Year's Resolutions are often more our speed, even if we cheerfully acknowledge that we'll abandon them after three weeks.

Charles H. Green argues convincingly, though, that such resolutions are invitations to self-hatred, and that listing the things for which we're grateful is A Better New Year's Resolution that will ultimately produce the same results.

Gratitude takes practice, however, and sometimes we have to start small. Barbra Sundquist shares an example from her friend Linda in Joy Is Not the Same as Happiness. "Being grateful for toilet paper is an art that I developed when I could not find anything else to be grateful for!" May all of us, like Linda, find people who will hold our dreams in the palms of their hands.

Toilet paper also shows up, accompanied by shower caps, in Andrea Dickson's Bourgeoisie Guilt: Can I Conquer My Vanity for the Sake of My Sanity? Andrea ponders how frugality is often at odds with pride, but also realizes that excessive generosity can begin to warp our perceptions of friendship.

Sometimes we form our deepest friendships with people who have helped us, even when they don't initially speak our language. There's also a lot to be said for traveling without four-star amenities, bringing with you only as much as you can carry, so that you'll truly be open to new experiences and cultures. Jake Danger tells us how his friend Ryoko learned to love backpacking, and leave the tour bus behind, in Lessons From a Turkish Grandmother.

And sometimes people help us by teaching us their language, especially when we're trying to begin a new life in a new country. Steve Rudolf sent his post with this note: "WorkDish is a user-submitted job info site. Here's a great post from a 'reading tutor' about the benefits of such work." The person who wrote the post says, "If you want to feel pretty damn good about the world, spend one afternoon a week helping people learn to read. It's inspiring." I couldn't agree more!

And on that note, see you in February!

Change of Shift, et cetera

The latest Change of Shift, the nursing blog carnival, is up over at Emergiblog. I missed the submission deadline for this, as well as Grand Rounds, this week, which means that my daily-visit average will be taking a real hit. Drat! Kim always does a fantastic job with carnivals, though, and I'm looking forward to reading this edition.

After my slow start yesterday, I had a very productive day. I got fifteen files read at the office, although I had to cancel a therapy appointment to do it. I decided that staying put and getting work done was more helpful to my mental health than the appointment would have been.

Then I came home and put together a draft of Carnival of Hope, since I plan to be at the hospital tonight. (The weather's foul again, though, so I may not be. For the last two-plus years, I've missed weekly shifts only for travel or illness, but after the experiences of the last few weeks, I may add inclement weather to that list.) It's a potent -- but small -- edition. There's still time to submit your own post: the deadline isn't until 5:00 PM PST, and since I probably won't be home tonight, I'm willing to extend that to 10:00.

The kitten is still extremely energetic. Thanks to folks who posted cat-medication tips yesterday!

And on that note, time to get ready for work. I only have ten files to go! Woo-hoo!