Winter in Nashville

Winter in Nashville has officially ended, and with it, this blog is coming to a close. Ahh but the next chapter, for those who are interested, can be followed here. The Eikon Project begins!  Below is a parting thought. Choose to believe something different.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.â€?

To my first class,the 6/7th Graders of East Academy:

Our time together is coming to an end.  But this is not goodbye.  This is thank you.  You will forever be special.  You are The First.  You have played an amazing role in shaping who I am becoming as a teacher.  Thank you.  Don't forget that you are Eikons, and so is everyone around you.  Don't forget to think.  Don't forget PEMDAS and This is why I'm hot. Keep a paperclip nearby.  And don't ever stop pursuing your personal legend.  I dedicate this short video to you.  I love you.

Mr. Shanklin

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/XUfH-BEBMoY" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I’ve been contemplating my goodbye to Fido for about four months now.  I even went back to work there on Sundays, just so I could hang out with everyone a few more times.  I thought of a lot of different poetic, creative, meaningful things to do, but none of them seemed to fit.  How do you say goodbye to the most amazing group of people you have ever spent time with? 

You don’t.

I may not see you as frequently, some of you maybe never again.  But I will never say goodbye.  Fido will live on with me forever.  You taught me so much, all of which I will never forget. 

Check out this link to some pics I took from my last few weeks there.  These are just a few of the amazing people.  There are so many who have moved on, but who have taken some of Fido with them too. 

Thank you again John, Gillie, Tom, Jamie, Leslie, Pete, Giles, Eli, Matt in the Navy, George, Bree, Khalil, Lauren, Matt, Anitra, Irwin, Pete, Chris, Jenn, Bryan, Julie, Libby, Amos, Carolyn, Tia, Lyndee, Britt, Jeff Grant, Gibb, Woodward, Matt who left the weed out, my dish partners, JoEllen, Adam, Asher, this is like winning an Oscar because you leave people out and you really don’t want to but you are nervous and the music starts playing…

Keep love alive Fido!

Choose to believe something different.

“God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.” Jewish proverb

This morning, my two daughters and I got up early to make breakfast in bed for my wife.  My youngest daughter Ellie, who we call LaLa, refused to get out of bed.  When asked why, her response…”Why does it have to be Mother’s Day?  Why can’t it be LaLa Day and someone can make me breakfast in bed.’ 

She’s only 4.  I remember asking my Dad a similar question when I was a kid.  His response…”Everyday is kid’s day.”  I thought that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard.  Until I had kids.  I told Ellie the exact same thing.  And that maybe in a few days we would make her some breakfast in bed.  But today was Mommy’s special day.  I spent the rest of the day thinking about this whole Mother’s Day thing.  I did a little research on the history, of the holiday, which statistics say is the busiest restaurant day of the year.  We love you Mom.  We are going out to eat.  Anyway…

I appreciate the idea of a Mother’s Day.  There are very few people who get their own day.  Fathers get one.  Veterans, George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr, St. Patrick and St. Valentine, Secretaries, I mean Administrative Professionals, I think bosses get one too, Jesus gets two days, which is probably appropriate. 

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that just a day, and a trip out to eat?  Let’s think about this.  The title of Mother is one of the greatest, most significant titles that a human could hold.  A Mother should be able to sign her name with some type of title abbreviation before or after, for example my wife should sign Elizabeth Shanklin Mthr. or Mthr. Elizabeth Shanklin.  It is way more prestigious than Dr., Phd. or whatever else you could have by your name.  I’m serious.  First of all, only half of the population is even eligible to carry the title.  And then in order to receive the title, you must allow your body to completely transform itself for nine months, and then experience intense excrutiating pain as a rite of passage.  That’s just the beginning.  You are then responsible for the care of the world’s most valuable resource, a child.  The title of Mother means that you must assume the role of shaping a life, or several lives.  Dr Phil said that the position of full time mother is the equivalent of two full time jobs.  All with no pay and little or no training.  Are you kidding me?  Imagine Mr. White Collar showing up for his first day at his corporate job.  He walks into his bosses office and is told he will just have to go figure his job out, to trust his instincts, and will be required to work 80 hours a week.  And for this he will recieve no financial compensation.  No way that would fly.  So why is the sinlge most important job any one human could possibly have, taken for granted so much?

To my wife, my mom, my sisters, you are doing the most important thing you could do with your life.  I know our culture communicates otherwise.  There is no price tag that you can place on what you are doing.  Although I am sure you would gladly accept six figures and two weeks paid vacation for your efforts.  Thank you for what you do, for what you have done.  You are the greatest hope for making the world a better place.

Choose to believe something different.

Check this out: 

 6.5 Million. 

 It’s something we are doing at the school where I currently teach.  Help us out if you can! 

One of the things I wanted to do before we left Nashville was see at concert at Ryman Auditorium.  The Ryman Auditorium is this big, old church, with the pews still in it, the one time home of The Grand Ole Opry.  It is a legendary music venue.  It’s very simple and basic, with not much in the way of extras.  It’s just the musicians and a little lighting.  The music and the songs are the focus.  So, you can’t just go see anyone perform at The Ryman.  It has to be someone who’s musical abilities shine in that type of setting, who can be at their best in the stripped down environment.  Norah Jones fit that description for my wife and I, so, last night, my wife and I went to the Norah Jones concert at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville. 

Ever since moving to Nashville, Elizabeth and I have both had to work.  Due to our committment to have one of us always at home with our kids, our work schedules have been a little crazy.  One of us worked at night, the other one in the mornings.  The evening of the Norah Jones concert was the third night in a row that Elizabeth and I had been able to be together.  When you have a schedule like we’ve had, it takes a night or two to get reacquainted with one another, to catch up on what has happened the last few days.  But by then, it’s time for us to go back to work again.  To have three nights in a row, is like magic.  I’m not sure when the last time was that this has happened.  It’s that third night where you get past the catching up, the reacquainting and you are really able to connect with one another.  We didn’t plan it this way, it just kind of worked out, that we could be together, arms around each other, in the third row of the Ryman Auditorium soaking up the sweet sounds of Norah Jones. 

Her first song was Come Away With Me, and as the words left the stage and entered my mind, I was hit with a realization.  I love my wife.  Our life since living in Nashville has been this giant mix of stressful situations, emotional struggles of growing, heartbreaking glimpses of our true selves.  Yet, my wife sits here with me, leaning her head on my shoulder at a Norah Jones concert at the Ryman Auditorium.  A peace flows through me, that our relationship has survived this Winter in Nashville, and a foundation of lasting love has been established.  Leaving all that we knew and were familiar with and coming to Nashville was risky.  Our relationship could have been shattered to pieces.  But here we are at the Ryman Auditorium, in Nashville, Tennessee, listening to Norah Jones, as she helps us to celebrate our journey. 

Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song

Come away with me on a bus
Come away with me where they can’t tempt us
With their lies

I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows
knee kigh
So won’t you try to come

Come away with me and we’ll kiss
On a mountain top
Come away with me
And I’ll never stop loving you

And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I’m safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me

Dear Friend,

It’s been some time since we have spoken.  Time has allowed for clarity of perception.  I believe the saying is, that hindsight is 20-20.  My heart breaks with the understanding that I now have.  You were stuck.  The agony you must have faced every night, as you lay in bed, wanting peace, wanting rest.  It’s an agony felt by many, but this version is more powerful as it uses the guilt of religion to freeze you, to keep you from breaking free.

You wanted your small start-up to be successful.  You put alot of hours and emotion into it.  You wanted it to succeed because you wanted it to make a difference.  You needed it to succeed because your mortgage, your medical bills, your family depended on it.  The duty of man to provide for his family.  No one can blame a man for assuming his natural role.  Unfortunately, you tried to assume it in an unnatural way.  Ever since the Israelites begged God for a King, man has wanted to be ruled over by man.  It’s not the way it was meant to be.  But it is the system that our American church follows.  It has become an honorable profession to rule over man in an American church.  A profession that you committed yourself to.  And one that doesn’t always pay well.  Which leads us back to man’s natural role of providing for his family.  Our natural duty eventually becomes the stronger motivator for our choices.  When forced to choose, the choice that keeps the family provided for will usually win.  And it did for you.  Honorably so.  It doesn’t even seem fair.  It isn’t really.  Man wasn’t ever intended to make a living this way.  But it is the current system.  The current system sucks.

Godspeed,

Choose to believe something different. 

 ”You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates.  Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do.  Save that authroity for God, let Him tell you what to do.  No one else should carry the tilte of Father, you have only one Father, and he’s in Heaven.  And don’t let people manuever you into taking charge of them.  There is only one Life-Leader for you and them…Christ.”

Matthew 23: 8-10 (read all of 23 to grasp the greater context)

   

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. . . . You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.

Angela Carter (1940 - 1992)

I’ve tried to compile a list of all the books I’ve read in the last three years.  In trying to change my perspective on life, I devoured books.  Anything that might help shape, form, inspire, challenge.  From fiction, to sociology, to trying to understand who Jesus really is…here’s the list, in my own, not so scientific system of organization.  As I look through it, there is definitely a thread of trying to grasp a deeper, broader, less white middle class conservative Republican way of understanding God, that runs through this list.  There is much more to be read and much more to learn. 

The World is Flat

Tuesday’s With Morrie

The Wedding

The Alchemist

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop - A History of the Hip Hop Nation

Social Problems:  A Critical Approach

The Barbarian Way

Velvet Elvis

Making Room for Life

Till We Have Faces

Here’s To Hindsight

Let Your Life Speak

The Glittering Image

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance

In Search of God Knows What

The Razor’s Edge

Total Money Makeover

Bowling Alone

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Good to Great

Savage Inequalities

Divine Conspiracy

Moneyball

The Hobbit

Three Nights in August

The Slaughterhouse Five

Freakonomics

Excavating Jesus

 Our time in Nashville is quickly coming to a close.  Our season here is ending, for lots of reasons, that all add up to the fact that sometimes, you just know, kind of like you know when spring is coming and winter is ending, there are signs, clues, hints, of the change in seasons.  We have been experiencing these signs, clues, hints, in our own lives and they all are pointing us at moving forward, back to Fort Wayne.  We knew we would only be here for a season, and we didn’t know how long it would last.  I must admit, I had hoped it would last longer, but when seasons change, you can’t really stop it, you can only embrace it, and celebrate the season you have just come through. 

Up until this point, this blog has been a collection of stories, quotes, quips that communicate the change in perspective I have gone through.  Change is hard.  Hence the title, “Winter in Nashville.”  It’s very easy to generalize about people when you live in isolation from the rest of the world.  So much of our time here has been about leaving that isolation.  Through this process, I have been able to meet and have relationships with some very amazing people, people who have taught me the fallacy of those generalizations, and that in the end, the one truth I can hang on to is that love always wins.      

As this season ends, I find myself being very reflective, and sentimental.  We put our house on the market last week, symbolizing the beginning of the goodbye.  The remaining entries in this blog will be dedicated to that goodbye, to the people and places who have made this three year expereince one that I will never forget. 

So here’s to all of you, and thanks for helping me through Winter in Nashville. 

Choosing to believe something different has been my little catchphrase for this blog.  It represents the journey that I am on, to take a closer look at the things that I believe and ask why I believe them, to investigate further the values and “truths” of conservative white middle class culture.  These are values and truths that my culture has passed on to me and until the last three years, I have generally accepted without much thought.

One of the topics I have been thinking alot about, and have commented on before, (White Middle Class) is race. 

In the last few days, my friend Ariah has started a conversation about Hip Hop on his Blog, I’ve been reading a book called “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.  The History of the Hip Hop Generation“, we watched a movie about Ruby Bridges, and I took a final for my Sociology class, where I had to comment on racism in America.  It all collided together to create this “grand revelation.”  One that I’d like to share.  

Recently, a friend and I were engaged in a conversation regarding the “blacks� that he supervised at his job.  He made a blanket statement that most of them were lazy but couldn’t be fired because of anti-

discrimination laws.  I consider my friend to be intelligent, so I was very surprised by this comment.  The next half hour felt like an episode of “All in the Familyâ€? with me playing the son-in-law and my friend starring as Archie Bunker.  I refer to this conversation as a reference point for my ”revelation.”   

It’s only been forty years, one generation, since it was legal, and preferred, to discriminate against minorities, mainly blacks.  The law of the land holds great power with many of our nation’s citizens, so much power, that we can allow it to do the thinking for us about what is right and what is wrong.  It’s only been forty years since not hiring a black person simply because of their skin was legal, and encouraged.  It’s only been forty years since a black person could be denied admissions to college, or sold a house, or kept out of a restaurant or a store, simply because they were black.  A great injustice has been done in that the law said discrimination and racism were okay.  This planted in our psyche that what was being done was right and too few people chose to think for themselves and say and act otherwise.  Unfortunately, it is very hard to erase something that has been planted in the psyche of the masses.  It takes a desire, and then great effort.  This is something that my friend has not taken the energy to do.  I finished the conversation by asking him what if African-American’s (a term that irritates him) would have arrived on the American scene in a different way.  I then pointed out to him that his perspective is being shaped by the ideas of a few egomaniacal rich white men who a few hundred years ago, stole humans from their homes and forced them to work for nothing.  We are shaped, often unknowingly, by the ideas of the past.  When will we choose to believe something different?