Today, on this day of thanks, I'm reflecting on the joy I derive in mental agility. The delight I take in whimsy. While my overall constitution has been diminished by my five-year battle with multiple myeloma, my mental acumen has remained surprisingly untouched, and for that I am unalterably grateful.

So let me take you on a little journey I've been dwelling on…

The Joy of J

This past week I have had occasion to reflect on the power of simple words, comprised only of the consonant J and vowels (it's not a long list):

Jo

This, of course, is my daughter. Born Josefa, she has long preferred to be called Jo. On Monday she reached a particular geeky milestone (which likely would have gone unnoticed if I didn't call it to her attention): she turned exactly one-third of a century old: 33 years and four months. It seemed worth celebrating to me. Who has too much joy in their lives these days? I admonished her to go out and celebrate by thirds (not by half) and I'm confidant that she did.

Ja

While I'm basically a human mongrel (if you pay heed to the analysis 23 and Me) I'm more German than anything else, and have always had an affinity for German culture. I took three years of Deutsch in high school, but never lived there and never became fluent. Nonetheless, everyone knows that "Ja" is yes, and I've tried to live a life of affirmation (where it behooves one to try to say to "yes" as often as possible—life just works better for everyone that way). The life of ja.

Juju

Years ago, I lived at Sandhill (1988-95) with Julia Reed (from Big Lake MN). She was a dear friend and one-time intimate partner during that stretch. While our lives drifted apart when she left the community in the mid-90s, we reconnected when I landed in Duluth, while she's been living in St Paul. She found out about my cancer and visited me in the spring of 2016 during the annual Smelt Festival in Duluth (full of puppetry, parade, and goofball costumes). It's held in May and loosely corresponds to the annual smelt run on nearby rivers (where you can scoop up the little darlings in pots). For a northern culture that's desperate for a change in the seasons, it's often the first day that Duluthians come out of hibernation in numbers, and spirits abound (in both senses).

She and her partner Shari have been regular visitors to Duluth ever since (I think they'd come even if I didn't live here) but they always stop by for a visit, which I cherish. Based on a childhood appellation, she went by the moniker Juju at Sandhill, and I still call her that today.

Jeju

Years ago (2008) I conducted a facilitation training in Atlanta and when my partner (Mayana) and I lingered an extra day we used most of it to visit a Korean day spa called Jeju, and enjoyed a magical recuperative time. I have never been to anything like it before or since. For one fee, you can enjoy up to 24 hours on the premises, choosing from among saunas, hot tubs, massages (for an extra fee), light Asian cuisine offered on site al a carte, or meditation in salt domes. What a mix!

Although I don't have that many occasions to visit Atlanta, a return to Jeju, and another day of pampered relaxation, is still on my radar.

• • •

So those are the oddities that have drawn the lottery number in my brain for receiving special attention for thanks this week. I knew you'd want to know.

Giving Thanks 2014

Thanksgiving isn't until tomorrow, but I'm starting early. Let me count the ways that I'm thankful.

1. After 29 days on the road, I was thankful to wake up in my own bed this morning. Not only is it good being next to my wife for the first time in a month, but my sore back is weary of the strain of travel. I'm hoping that a week of R&R at home will ease the pain and accelerate my slow healing.

2. This weekend celebrates the completion of Ma'ikwe's and my first year of living together, which we're enjoying every bit as much as we'd hoped we would. While it was sad for me leaving Sandhill, I'm happy with my choice.

3. I enjoyed taking the last leg of my train ride home last night—from Chicago to Quincy aboard the Illinois Zephyr—with my stepson, Jibran, who is joining us for his first break since starting college last August. It was fun hearing him describe all the new things he's been exposed to the last three months and see how much he's thriving. I was concerned about his going to a rigorous academic school (Shimer College) a year ahead of his age cohort and with no time spent with peers through his high school years (he was tutored at home), but I needn't have been. It's clear he was ready.

The most satisfying piece for me was his disappointment that his fellow freshmen are not (yet) that accomplished at listening carefully to what those who disagree with them have to say. Learning how to think and how to listen are not necessarily skills picked up prior to college, but Jibran, apparently, had a good start.

4. I just completed as solid a stretch of work as I've ever had. Bad back and all, over the course of four weeks I worked every weekend: three with cohousing groups and a fourth at the NASCO Institute (Nov 7-9), where I conducted a pair of workshops. Satisfyingly, everything went well. Woohoo!

5. My Amtrak travel has been extensive enough that I just reached Select status for 2105. That means expedited reservation service, three passes to the first class lounge in Chicago or DC when I'm traveling coach, three free upgrades to Business Class on intermediate-distance trains, and a 25% bump on tier qualifying points for next year. As someone committed to train as his preferred mode of transportation, this cornucopia of amenities and bonuses is a blessing.

6. I'm also thankful for a major life change that's just ahead. At the fall FIC organizational meetings (held Oct 23-26) the Board agreed—at my request—to move forward with shifting me out of the center of things. Though I've been happily up to my eyeballs with Fellowship affairs ever since it was launched in 1987, it's time for a change. We'll be dividing my current job into two parts: Development Director (DD) and Executive Director (ED). 

We have completed an overhaul of the DD job description and are poised to start the search for candidates soon. In addition, we have a promising ED candidate already in hand. With luck, by the end of next year I'll have turned over both roles to worthy, younger successors without a glitch.

I'm pleased to be making these changes from a position of strength. While I expect to continue to play a supportive role in the Fellowship for some time to come (after all, I represent an incredible wealth of personal relationships that cannot be transferred as easily as a Vulcan mind meld), it's time to bring in fresh horses.

While I'm simplifying my life, I'm not sailing off into the sunset. There will still be plenty for me to do as I redistribute my time among the four remaining never-a-dull-moment major interests in my life: my marriage, my cooperative group consulting, my teaching, and my writing.

• • •

So I'm sitting at my desk at home, thankful for a great deal. All of this and I've got roast turkey with dressing, mashed potatoes with giblet gravy, orange-cranberry sauce, homemade minced meat pie, Famous wafers and whipped cream, and spiked eggnog directly on the horizon—which I'll be consuming with consummate enjoyment amidst family and friends. 

How much better can it get?

Giving Thanks

I know that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, but I'm going to start early. 

I'm chugging inbound on the eastbound Southwest Chief, having boarded in the wee hours of Tuesday in Kingman AZ. I was awakened in the pre-dawn of eastern KS this morning as they stuffed the empty seats with heading-home-for-the-holidays passengers at Topeka and Lawrence. That means I have four hours until I'll be collected at the Art Deco Amtrak depot in La Plata MO—just enough time to jot down (well, peck down) all that I'm thankful for in the final hours of my four-week road trip.

—Home 
I'm thankful for the home that I am returning to. On a basic level, homelessness is a serious societal ill, symptomatic of the inevitable consequences of our winners-and-losers competitive culture. As a road warrior who travels mainly by train, I get to see more than my share of the not-so-pretty sides of cities and the people for whom the American dream has become a nightmare. I was raised with plenty of privilege and advantage and I've been able to parlay those into a life that works pretty well.

On a deeper level, home is more than just a roof over my head: a) it's a place on Earth where I have sunk deep roots, and where I have found a strong sense of Spirit, even though I didn't know I was looking for it; b) it's a community where I have established deep personal connections with fellow travelers in the social change business; and c) it's served as a living foundation from which I operate as a cooperative process consultant—my work is grounded in the reality of my life experience much more than any books I've read or workshops I've attended.

In many ways, connection to place has crept up on me. It was not the way I was raised, and I stumbled upon its preciousness as the years went by and I accreted in my psyche the natural rhythms of my community's farm in northeast Missouri as season followed season, year after year. This is a profound gift that I discovered in spite of my slash and burn cultural conditioning.

—Wife
I'm thankful for my intimate partner, who loves me profoundly and pushes us to be all that we can be—on stage as public figures, on the couch, at the stove, and in the bedroom. (There's a reason that the kitchen sink is a metaphor for everything—and the goddess only knows we've spent our share of time there, talking about how to build it, how to get water to it, and how frequently to clean the dishes. There's an amazing amount of domestic dynamics that revolve around the kitchen sink.) 

We have been a couple for eight years now, and we've worked our love harder in our eighth year than in any of the previous seven. For one thing, most of this past year we've been doing couples counseling, getting help looking at the parts we've rather not see. I'm telling you, a good marriage (and why settle for anything less?) is not for the feint of heart, and our relationship is a work in progress if there ever was one. All together, I feel blessed and I return home eager to begin our grand experiment in maintaining a single household for the first time.

—Paid Work That Aligns with My Values
I'm thankful for my parents who instilled in me a strong sense of self—as a person who could be all that he could be. While my choices confused my mother and confounded my father (who was hoping he was raising a midshipman of industry who would grow up to be a captain), I've found my place in a life centered around community with a minimal amount of wandering in the wilderness. It was from my upbringing that I learned to be risk tolerant, from which I derived the courage to insist that I make a living from activities that embodied my values and which satisfied my soul, not just my wallet.

Whenever I encounter people who are weary of their jobs, or peers who turn longingly toward retirement, I realize how fortunate I have been. I still get up each day looking forward to speaking at the next conference, facilitating the next thorny meeting, or crafting the next report. People pay me to do what I love and are happy with the bargain. Is that a good life, or what?

—Service Work That Aligns with My Growth Path
I'm thankful for my work in a second way also. More than being consonant with my values, my work is also the way I try to be a social change agent. Rather than heart work that I do on the side as a volunteer, as a community builder (though I know my way around a hammer and trowel, I mean this more in the sense of social sustainability than bricks and mortar) I've made it my business to place the creation of cooperative culture at the very center of my life. And the way I know that's a good choice for me is that my work regularly results in my getting up close and personal with my blind spots and human frailties—often in a spectacularly public way! I figure that when your service path coincides with your growth path it's a cosmic affirmation.

—Living in Interesting Times
I'm thankful for all the amazing opportunities there exist for doing good in the world at this time of flux. While today's global reality (peak oil, climate change, population pressures on water supplies, economic instability) translates into a general malaise of uncertainty and anxiety—and that's no fun, especially for those craving stability—it also creates openings for reexamination and experimentation where there were few before. We live in a time that's rife with possibilities. Though all seeds won't sprout and some fields will be overtaken by weeds, I find it an exhilarating time in which to be cultivating new culture.

—Friends
I'm thankful for the amazing wealth of people who know and care about me, and who open up their hearts for me to be there for them in return. As John Donne succinctly pointed out four centuries ago, no man is an island, and I am buoyed by the archipelago of my myriad close relationships. This was poignantly brought home to me in July when Ma'ikwe was ready to throw in the towel on our marriage, and I struggled to come to grips with what my life would be like with the center blown out of it. Slowly, I realized that I would be fine. While my relationship with Ma'ikwe remains precious to me, I had a good life before her and all of the elements of that would remain if she left. I remembered that I am not an island and that even in emotional free fall I could expect my friends to be there to help break my fall.

—Grown Children
I'm thankful for my two adult children, Ceilee and Jo, who both take responsibility for their own happiness and for their commitments. They know how to work hard, and how to take into account how their behavior affects those around them. Most of all, I'm thankful that we love each other, that we freely acknowledge that love, that we make time for one another, and that we enjoy each other's company. No sooner does one visit end than I am looking forward to the next.

—Family
I'm thankful for my four siblings, all of whom cultivate the scared garden of familial relations. Though we don't see each other often, we are there at times of need and celebration. Two months ago I visited my youngest sister in Toronto. Two months from now I'll see my brother in Fairhope AL. Blood ties are the long waves of relationship, where the currents are deepest and steadiest. This is not so much about a mind meld or an alignment of values. Rather, it's about a common history and the shared water of our earliest memories. It's recognizing and honoring bonds that is operates on a visceral level. I am thankful that we all know that.

—Wholesome Food
I'm thankful for living in a community that has a core commitment to growing and processing its own food. It's not possible to eat any better than we do. Though I did not move to community because of food, it turns out that I love working with food and didn't know it! I am grateful that my community has a spiritual connection to raising and consuming organic food. It is integral to our symbiotic connection to our land, which we interact with on a daily basis. We feed our land and it feeds us, body and soul.

—Health
I'm thankful for a body and mind that still work pretty good at 64—which is a good thing given all that I ask of them. The older I get, the more I've lost friends and acquaintances who have had their health (or luck) run out. Increasingly, these people are younger than me and I have occasion to be thankful for the good cards I have been dealt. It is up to me to honor that gift by playing them well.

—Books
I'm thankful for being able to read and for the existence of more good pieces of writing than I will ever be able to get to in one lifetime. I'll never run out of good material to read, and I still buy books faster than I read them. Some of this is the chance to be exposed to new thinking. Some is enjoyment of a well-crafted story. Some is appreciation of word crafting (which is not the same thing as a good plot—J K Rowling is a terrific story teller, but a wooden wordsmith; Charles Dickens was superb at both; Ambrose Bierce was so trenchant and clever that he could make a dictionary good reading).

—Blogging
I'm thankful for the excuse to pause every three days and reflect on what's happening around me, and for the chance to practice my craft as a writer (striving ever to be more like Bierce, though perhaps less acerbic). I have tried at various times in my life to maintain a journal, but was never able to manifest sufficient discipline until I began this blog six years ago. While I have sometimes been successful with an epistolary approximation (when investing in a particular relationship at a distance), these would invariably peter out after some months.

In this format I have chanced upon just the right mix of public service and private inquiry to sustain my interest. Although my primary inspiration for starting this blog was public service, it's proven to be such a personal benefit that I would probably continue it even if no one read it—it's been that much fun and helpful in clarifying my thinking. Today, if someone casually asks how I've been, I can generally swamp their boat by simply giving them the URL to this blog.

—Coffee
Finally, I'm thankful for my favorite way to start the day (other than sex). I prefer French roast, brewed strong enough to put hair on your forehead, balanced with a generous glug of half and half, which neutralizes the acid while preserving the essential bitterness that I crave. It's my only non-negotiable when clients hire me to work with their group.

Where there is life there is coffee
Where there is coffee there is life
We all worship the brown bean
Body of the God Caffeine