Midlife Meditation

On the list of ideas that aren't new is graphics depicting human development from infant to elder. Just Google it. What has been is what will be,      and what has been done is what will be done;      there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9) Newness is the burden of youth. (Me) I can remember having the illusion of originality. I had it as a musician, a writer, a seminarian, a preacher: the sense that what I was doing was new, unique, never before created or experienced. This song I was writing was unlike anything ever composed before, this sermon was looking at this verse from a brand new angle, this editorial was revealing the truth that no one had ever put in words before, this paper was synthesizing theology and aesthetics as no thinker ever had. And as far as my own knowledge was concerned, I was right about these things: I had never encountered these ideas before. At times, the reception to what I had created s...

I wish it was as simple as that. The alternating gender seating arrangement probably dates back to the earliest days of coeducational primary schools. It exploits the developmental tendency of young children to prefer playmates and conversation partners of their own gender and, frequently, to be repelled to some degree by children of the other gender. Separate Dina from Denise, and put Dina next to Dean and Denise next to Dennis, and you break up two sources of classroom disruption. Standardize the arrangement across the classroom, and when it's time for students to listen to the teacher, there should be no auditory distractions at all. In an ideal social matrix, with all boys alike and all girls alike, all problems of classroom management could be solved by this simple tool. But as I implied in the opening sentence, it's not that simple, for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, the same-gender preference of children is a tendency, not a given. At every age, t...

We all know who they are. They're the children whose names we learn first. Sometimes it's on the first day, when they're wearing stickers to identify them. Sometimes it's not until we're on bus duty, and they've got a special tag on their backpacks because that's how we distinguish kindergartners from the rest of the school and make sure they get on the right buses or in the right cars. Sometimes we get it from a classmate of the child who pulls on our shirt to tattle: "Brian's hitting." If it's just an off day, that may not be enough to sear Brian's name into our memory bank. But if it's par for Brian's course, if we're going to be repeatedly using his name and not to praise him for what a lovely child he's being, then that's a name we'll remember for a good long time. These are the standout children, the children who, years after I've moved on from whatever school they were at, a still remember with a...

It's a museum of medieval art, most of it religious, in a building cobbled together from pieces of ancient European monasteries. And it's located in Manhattan. I've heard of The Cloisters before, but never understood what people were talking about. When they tried describing the place, I was skeptical: during my two years in Europe, I visited many authentically ancient churches, and church architecture remains one of my interests, even as I have left clergy life behind. When one has been to cathedrals in York, Dublin, Munich, and Rome, to name just a few I visited, even the oldest American churches feel juvenile. But The Cloisters did not disappoint. The organizers of this collection of pieces wisely chose specificity over broadness. Tapestries, altar pieces, reliquaries, stained glass, chalices, patens, tombs, prayer books: everything on display came from 12th to 15th century churches. In the paintings and sculptures, one can see European knowledge of the human form...

Play is the work of children--Albert Adler, Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, Carl Orff? It's been attributed to many luminaries. I associate it most with Montessori and Orff, educators whose philosophy centered on the idea that there is no better way to learn than through play. Walk through an elementary school anywhere in the United States, and you'll see this philosophy being played out. Children learn math through colorful manipulatives, play word games to improve their reading and writing skills, do puzzles to master facts in science and history. This was not always the case: when Montessori introduced her playful hands-on method, most formal education was lecture and memorization. Teachers were severe, misbehaving children were routinely spanked, and the old cliche of the dunce in the corner could be found in many a classroom. Harsh methods for a harsh time: children were still seen as resources, employable on farms and in factories, and education was for th...