Category: Observations

Joy and the rose–Advent themes.   With the rose the eternal symbol for love and  faith.  Here is a recording of Michael Praetorius’ anthem by the Harvard Glee Club.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sNuXNcNdnM)

Roses abundant on Sunday.

Early Saturday morning December 8^th, 1984  Bucky Sebastian and Mary Beth Doyle, two NCUA colleagues, came by to give me a ride to Dulles Airport.  We were going to Las Vegas for the largest credit union conference ever.

All state and federal examiners were together initially, then joined by over 2,000 credit union folk. It was a big deal, a capstone event, for celebrating a new era of credit union success.

Mary Ann had asked her mother, Barbara Ballmer, to come and help out with our two teenagers for the week I would be away.  She got up, made  breakfast and talked with Bucky and Mary Beth when they stopped in.

Late that night, December 9^th, the phone woke me in my Las Vegas hotel room. Mary Ann had died at Sibley hospital.  Her 4 ½ year battle with breast cancer was over.

We never talked about death.  I felt that was like giving in to the struggle.  She knew how sick she was, but never complained.  Her dad was a doctor. He died before I knew Mary Ann.  He had sent her away when his cancer was near the end.

Twenty years earlier, in April 1964, she wrote him when learning of his situation:  “Pop, take care of yourself and keep your chin up.  Cancer seems like a dreadful thing, but I maintain if there is a will, there is a way. I know you won’t let this get you down if you can possible help it.

I admire you and love you not only because you are my father but because of everything you have done and that you stand for.   My ultimate goal in life is to be able to live up to all that you have taught me and do and contribute in my own way as you are doing in yours.”  And she did.

In her own quiet way Mary Ann had prepared us for this event.   All the Christmas shopping and wrapping was done.  The new bikes for the girls were hidden in the garage.   Presents had been sent to my parents, her sister and brother, and great grandma Filson.  She had baked a half dozen of her favorite dark molasses fruit cake, wrapped the loaves in cheese cloth with rum, to age until they could be given as gifts.

Lara had just made the varsity basketball team as a freshman in high school.  Alix was doing morning swim workouts and playing piano and singing in chorus.  Both had run in the YMCA’s Thanksgiving Turkey trot.  We watched.

The Christmas tree was up with stockings on the fireplace mantel.  The new wallpaper in the hallway was finished and the laundry room cleaned and painted. Her Japanese inspired garden in the back yard was planted to have some color all year round. This was the time for the very deep red finger leaf  maple and red berries on the nandina.

Signs and sounds of the season were all around.  I was upset the world went on as normal when I just felt a deep black hole.  Only later did I learn that Ed Callahan, NCUA Chairman, had opened the national conference with a moment of silence for Mary Ann.

One conversation  I remember that December night was talking on the phone with Lara who assured me that everything was OK. Mary Ann, she said, was with her Father.

The first of two Memorial services was December 17th at Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church.  The second was in Wilmette, from where we moved to Bethesda three years earlier.  The minister at both was Wally Moore who had known the Ballmer family when he was in Midland, MI and had gone to McCormick Seminary with my dad. He was the minister at First Presbyterian when we walked into the Wilmette church in the winter of 1974.  His life had been intwined with both of our families.

He described Mary Ann’s unique skill of creating order and beauty in all aspects of living, including house and garden.  He talked of her deep relationships forged out of concern meeting need.  A person described her as one of “God’s green thumbs” who even though when life was ebbing away, could reach out to others and affirm life in them.

In the mid summer of 1983 or ’84, a stranger came to our door. He was a young French student traveling around America as a tourist.  His local contact for the Washington area had been lost.  All his belongings were in his backpack.

Mary Ann invited him in.  We shared our meals, helped with errands as he rested up.  He continued on several days later.  That fall when he returned to France he wrote Mary Ann several letters about his journey, what he was doing now, and thanks.

Wally Moore closed his remarks saying, Mary Ann understood mercy, compassion and forgiveness. . .qualities which make it possible for us to believe.  In Advent, we ask what will our blessing be?  We will be blessed by that blessing which Mary Ann received and in which she believed—that the only gift we have to give in this world is ourselves.

Glimpses of Mary Ann before returning to America

Mary Ann and I lived in three countries prior to settling down in America.

She got a job at Dow Chemical, in London, so she could be near when I was at Oxford.  She is at the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square in this 1967 photo.

We moved to Japan when I was assigned to USS Windham County, LST-1170, home ported at Yokosuka Naval base.  She took the two children to play on the beach in Hayama where we lived the first 15 months with a Japanese family’s quarters while I was deployed. That’s Mt Fuji in the background hovering like a cloud.

That three years was followed by another sojourn in Sydney, Australia where I worked for the First National Bank of Chicago.  Here they feed a joey, young kangaroo.

She made a home in every country in which we lived filled with lasting friendships.

I am sending donations to  the following 501C3’s organizations this Giving Tuesday.

While the demands for charitable giving may seem endless, identifying special circumstances or organizations in need today, is an expression of gratitude.  Gratitude makes us human.

Music Mission Kiev

Founded in the early 1990’s by a Presbyterian choir director, the intent was to introduce forbidden choral classics of the Western repertoire to the classically trained musicians upon Ukrainian independence from the former Soviet Union.

The group performed the first Messiah concert ever in Ukraine.

Their mission expanded to offer care for widows and orphans and bible studies.

Their efforts today are literally on the front lines.  One orphanage was occupied by Russian troops until liberation.

Their funding request today is: On Tuesday we will raise $21,600 for Ukrainian soldiers suffering from PTSD and brain injuries.

$21,600 will provide a year’s supply of medicine for at least 40 soldiers as follows:

$1,800 — Supplies 40 soldiers with treatment for 1 month.
$540 — Support 1 soldier’s treatment for 1 year.
$270 — Support 1 soldier’s treatment for 6 months.

Contact infor:  Music Mission Kiev PO Box 161849, Altamonte Springs, FL 32716.  Phone:   407-699-7172.     

Their most recent concert recorded in late October in Kiev during the missile attacks, can be viewed here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ALGRrXRJQ)

Next City

My second donation is to Next City a journalistic effort to recognize  initiatives to make urban environments more livable.

Their writers focus on case studies which address some of the most important challenges of urban life.  Their Partners for the Common Good series highlights CDFI funding initiatives such as this black owned wine and jazz club in Grand Rapids, MI.

Another example is the 15 minute neighborhood app that helps anyone see if the essential services are available within  a short walk.  The app’s concept  is simple:

The ability to find what you need to live daily within a 15-minute walk is one of the “secret sauces” that make cities great places to live. That’s why I found the news that a digital mapping and location software developer created an app that could tell users whether their neighborhood cleared the bar and what they had access to in minutes so fascinating.

Next City’s mailing address is:

One of the most unusual recordings of Bach’s Christmas oratorio, Magnificat, is this by the Harvard University Memorial Church choir in 2001.

Recorded virtually, it is possible to watch simultaneously every soloist, the conductor and every member of the orchestra as individuals-and to hear their collective performance.

A joyous wonderful experience, visually and musically.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQqmtUgttm8)

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Written and offered by Dr. Colleen Hanycz on 1/25/21 at the “Introduction to the Xavier Community” event upon her selection as the 35th president of Xavier University

“Before I begin, I would like to offer a brief prayer of thanksgiving that I have relied upon heavily, especially throughout the past year as we have suffered as a community, and as a nation, and as a world, in so many ways:”

Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.

Loving Creator,
We asked for strength, and you gave us difficulties to make us strong.
We asked for wisdom, and you gave us problems to solve.
We asked for prosperity, and you gave us purpose and brains to use.
We asked for courage, and you gave us fears to overcome.
We asked for patience, and you gave us situations where we were forced to wait.
We asked for love, and you gave us troubled people to help.
We asked for justice, and you called us to be just and to lead with integrity.
Lord, we have received nothing that we asked for or wanted.
And yet, we received everything that we needed.
For this, we give thanks.

A Family Gathers Once Again

The national Thanksgiving holiday is a time of community and family gatherings.  Local 5K and 10K turkey trot fun-runs, watching Macy’s parade in NYC-or on TV, rivalry football games, black Friday retail sales, children traveling from school or work to go home, new editorial or historical opinions on the Pilgrims and native Americans, and of course the feasting.  Familiar recipes prepared once a year.  Everyone sitting around a common table  grateful for this pause in life’s hectic doings–just to be together.

Religious services are still offered which in the secular context of today’s Thanksgiving events recall the holiday’s roots.

It was Lincoln who issued an 1863 proclamation calling on Americans to “set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving,” partly to celebrate victories in the then-raging Civil War.

Lincoln’s action came  three months after Union Army victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and at a time in which ultimate triumph appeared in sight.

Reading the words illustrates the power of belief in a time of civil conflict; and shared gratitude for the blessings of life.  A reminder of the “gracious gifts” that give the holiday its special meaning still today.

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.

Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

Temperature fell to 34 degrees last night.

A Gerber Daisy, the last flower of summer.

Camelia, the first flowers of fall.

Finished putting 5 allium, 15 tulips, 25 crocus and numerous hyacinth bulbs until the rain came.  Still over a 100 tulips and daffodils to plant before the first freeze.

From Scott Galloway:

“The undoing of many powerful people is that they enter a hermetically sealed bubble of fake friends. Enablers, not people concerned with their well-being. When the Elon-Twitter debacle started this spring, I wrote a post about power.

“My thesis: Power, unchecked, is a psychological intoxicant. OK, this isn’t so much a thesis, as it’s scientifically proven. Research shows power causes us to downplay potential risk, magnify potential rewards, and act more precipitously on our instincts. In other words, you lose your ability to self-regulate; you need others to do it for you. . .”

The solution: Every day, every one of us needs to ask ourselves an important question: Who keeps it real for me? Who will push back, who will tell me I’m wrong … who will save me from myself and the psychosis that’s led to so many successful people’s fall from grace. ”

Example: Ed Callahan had Bucky Sebastian as his “wingman” in work and life.