Two out of three ain’t bad

I had three major goals for the day:

1. Work on grades (it would be too much to expect they’d get finished today, but I wanted to make a good dent in them).

2. Post to this blog (I need to do the Community School blog eventually, but that wasn’t on today’s list).

3. Get some real exercise.

I’ll get the exercise tomorrow. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to go for a run. If I’m even luckier, the run won’t suck like the last one did. Stay tuned!

I walked

Last week, I walked away from something I love very much, both personally and professionally. It hurt a lot, and I am carrying a fair amount of anger and resentment around right now (although I’ve managed to let a lot go the last couple of days, which is why I’m able to write about it).

I resigned from athletics at my school. As you may know, for the last 7 years, I’ve been my school’s athletic director as well as its varsity soccer coach. Both of these positions have been self-created (I was asked initially by our executive director if I’d be interested in building a soccer program, and I created the AD position to support that work). I was given the freedom initially to make the work my own, and I did just that. It started with soccer, which in my tenure went from being an afterthought with just 8 students involved in its first incarnation to a championship co-ed team with more than 30 students at tryouts this past year. I grew our ultimate Frisbee program next, which was originally started by a student (she graduated, and I rolled it forward). Then I added cross-country, and helped started a league for all these sports to play in so the students had the opportunity to interact with other schools like us. Things were developing quite well, and the students were responding to it with high interest and involvement, despite their long school days and high academic expectations.

It all started to change when the administration unilaterally decided (over my objection) that XC wouldn’t be allowed to continue after the first coach left, but it really started going downhill when we had a change of leadership two years ago. It reached a point this year where I got tired of being told, in essence, that the work of expanding our offerings would no longer be supported.

It’s more complicated than that, but to make a long story short, I said that, if it’s going to mean that be subject to the whims of 3 separate administrators, none of whom has an abiding interest in what I'm doing, and any one of whom can unilaterally quash years worth of work simply by saying "Well, *I'm* not approving it," (which is what happened last week) then they could have it back.

I'll fight tooth and nail for a lot of things, but a situation like that is just not worth it.

The thing that makes this painful, though, is not the job. The job was never what it was about. It’s the fact that I won’t get to continue working with students I have built quality relationships with. It hurts that my school’s new administration team, out of its newfound need to piss on everything, has poisoned the one thing that allowed me to nurture those relationships outside of the classroom—and that I really can’t say anything about it without endangering my full-time job (which now feels a lot more like a job).

I met with the kids from my soccer team to tell them the news face-to-face. That was tough. They asked a lot of questions: Was soccer going to continue? Would the administration advertise the coaching and AD jobs, or would they let it all die. What about the league? What could *they* do? I had to tell them I don’t have any answers, except to say that they should talk to the administration. The thing is (and I had a hard time not telling the kids this) that the administration has worked very hard to assert itself as a hierarchical power in the last couple of years and, by their actions, are intimating they’ve got a plan, a plan that does not seem to include athletics.

It certainly will not include athletics with me as part of it.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks

I’ve needed to take some time. I feel better tonight than I’ve felt in a while, though, so that’s good. I’ll catch you up over the next few days. For now, I’m just glad to have the emotional energy to write this.

Monday Randomness (including last week’s randomness)

The snow has melted of my athletic fields, so we can begin to clean them up for the spring sports classes. On the main field, we have some work to do to repair damage from someone’s stupidity. They did donuts on the frozen turf back in the early part of the winter, and the ruts are deep in spots. I’m organizing a community work day involving the ultimate teams, my spring sports classes and the youth soccer group that uses our fields in the spring. Hopefully we’ll get everything filled in and smoothed out by the time the grass starts to grow. This has happened 4 times since we moved to this property. The simple solution is to put a fence up, but fences are costly. So, until the $10,000 comes around, I’ll keep organizing work days.

Finally, after 3 years of trying, I was able to get my administration to approve a budget that allows us to offer softball as a competitive sport. It doesn’t cost the school anything to offer it, under the plan I developed. Student fees pay the costs, and I was able to get costs reduced to a point where the financial risk was agreeable to the suits. I’m really happy! The kids deserve to have it. The next sports project: Basketball (which will be a real challenge, given that we don’t have a gymnasium at my school).

This week is hell week for the school’s musical, HAiR. The list of students who will be at the University (where the show is going on) is nearly 1/3 of the school. What do you expect from a performing arts based school, right? As you might expect, though, the effect on the academic program is sizable. To lessen this, I frontload my classes. I give a lot of stuff weeks ahead so that the students can coast past the week without worrying about missing new material. Those students who are actually in my classes will work on the assignments, play learning games and do research. I’m just there to help them keep moving forward.

Next week, the MCAS test starts. My 8th and 10th graders (80% of my students this year) will be taking the English part of the test over three days in the middle of the week. Another reason to frontload. I won’t even be in the classroom for the mornings that week. I’ll be proctoring the test, so what few students I have who actually go to class will report to a study hall. Oh, boy!

I’m nearly finished with a project I’d been playing with for over a year. I had a burst of creativity, and just rode the wave for as long as I could. It’s an RPG mechanic. A what? A roleplaying game mechanic. Go ahead. Roll your eyes. It’s ok. If you’re a gamer, you’d understand. I still have some fine points to work out, and then Caleb and I will playtest it over the next little while. If it works, I’ll use it for the stories we do here at the house. If it works well, maybe I’ll make it public.

I’ve written to my graduate professors to get feedback on the work I did for my seminar last fall. I’m curious to know if it’s worth spending more time with.

I went swimming this morning for the first time in two weeks. 8/10 mile in 31 minutes. I’ll take it.

By dose is stupped

I thing I hab ad idfectiod id by sinuses. There’s greed stuff comink out and I can’d breathe ad all through by dose. I thing I’b goink to call the clinic lader. I should see a dogtor. Baybe they can gib me ad adtibiotic or somethink.

GACK! I deed a tissue.

Hermione Screamed

We have a longstanding “drinking game” with regard to Harry Potter stories. It started back with the second movie, when we noticed that Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) had a marked tendency to flair her nose when she was overacting. We thought when we saw it in the first movie as often as we did that it was a fluke. We discovered in the sequel that this was not the case. It evolved into a game. Whenever someone noticed she was flaring her nostrils, they would say, “Drink,” and the rest of the room would toss back whatever beverage they had in hand. It’s worth noting that it is rarely alcohol in our house, but that doesn’t stop us. You just drink what you have. If you don’t have anything, you can pretend.

When we started reading the early books in the series to the girls, the game was expanded to include scenes in the books where Hermione was being overly dramatic (of which, if you’ve read the books, you know there are a fair number). We spend time each night reading to the girls and, while we were working our way through the first two books, the reader would occasionally be interrupted by the phrase, “Drink” from one of the adults in the room. It was sort of an inside joke. We didn’t think the kids understood it.

The women of the house went to see a local high school’s version of Beauty and the Beast, and they brought with them Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They wanted to finish the book that day so they could watch the movie in the evening (tradition dictates that we read a book first, then watch the movie). They arrive at the theater with a fair amount of time to kill, so Wifeness is reading the last few chapters. One of the chapters at the end of the book bears the name of this post.

When Wifeness read it, without looking up or skipping a beat, NiNi said, “Drink.”

Our last president’s legacy lives on

Wayfarer House woke up this morning at its usual Sunday pace. SiSi, ever the early riser, was first to poke her head out of the bedroom and see what was going on. I was already in the kitchen, coffee in hand, laptop whizzing happily away on some task. Mama comes out a little while later. Nieve, the resident slugabed, is next to surface, her hair looking like she should have dreads, and then Karla appears. Karla often gets up last in the house, but avoids the term slugabed fully because she still needs to sleep a lot to keep her energy up. We will, for the purposes of this story, ignore the presence of Wheeler, who came up last night to go to the movies with the guys, but who slept through everything I’m about to describe.

It is often the way of things that Sunday is called a Day of Domestica, and we plan over breakfast what needs to get done, when, and by whom. Today was particularly full. We had dishes and housecleaning from last night that didn’t get done, we have grocery shopping, we have laundry and, at shortly after 12 noon, we need to head upcountry for Katie’s birthday party. It’s 9:30 by the time the scones are baked and we have a plan: I will deal with the outside stuff (i.e. the two grocery stops) and Wifeness, Karla and the girls will do the inside stuff. OK. Ready? Break!

Fast forward to 11:30. The plan is progressing well. The shopping is done. The dishwasher and clotheswasher are loaded. The kids’ bedroom is clean. The living room and kitchen are clean. Eric is still sleeping (I said I was ignoring him, didn’t I), so we can’t run the vacuum, but that’s ok. There’ll be time tomorrow to do that before Kimmie arrives for dinner. Not bad, if we do say so ourselves.

Suzanne has gone downstairs to the basement to move the laundry along, and Karla and I are in the kitchen, chatting. Karla asks, apropos of something we were discussing, “When is Daylight Savings Time?”

Then all the bells and lights went off in my head.

“AWWWW!!!”

She looked confused for a second, then realized what the problem was as I flipped the switch on the kitchen clock to move it forward an hour. CLICK. Now, instead of 11:30 (meaning we’re doing well), it’s 12:30 (and we’ve just made ourselves late and panicky).

Frick on a brick with a stick! We threw shoes on the children, pushed them out the door and squealed off, spraying road sand as we went.

We never used to forget DST. We had a perfectly functional system in place before it was changed. It was great. Life was easy.

See, we have a lot of timepieces in the house, and most of them are set to change to DST automatically. They were purchased back when the dates for DST were expected to be consistent, and no one ever considered that a president would go along and spuriously change them. We bought clocks that would change on their own so they would remind us to change the other clocks in the house and check the computers and thermostat timers and all the rest of the myriad things that need to be adjusted. Now, none of the automatic timepieces in the house change at the right time. They all have to be changed manually. Worse than that, they all have to be changed back again when their internal chips tell them it’s the right time for DST.

I’m willing to accept that we forgot to change the clocks before we went to bed, but I’m not taking 100% of the liability for having DST slip our minds.

That’s on you, George Bush II.

3 hours of my life I can’t get back...

...and all to be made to feel inferior in my manhood.

A bunch of us went to go see Watchmen this evening. Was it supposed to be a black comedy? It gets points for being faithful to the idea, but it drug on faaaaaar too long in waaaaaay too many parts.

I’m glad I have X-Men Origins to look forward to.

I'm working on posts of substance, but they're not ready. You'll have to deal with superficial drivel in the meantime. Sorry!

10 Things Tuesday: Thoughts in my head right this minute

1. I am so very done with winter! I need warm weather, like, RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

2. I am so very tired, and achey, too. I don’t know why. It’s not like I’m doing a whole hell of a lot.

3. I’m looking forward to going out to see Watchmen this weekend with Caleb, Matt, Karla (if she’s up to it) and possibly Wheeler. Mmmm! Theater popcorn!

4. Coconut rum does not go as well with orange juice as it does pineapple juice. That fact is in no way preventing me from drinking it, however.

5. Why is it that, no matter how many times I proofread and review a crossword puzzle for use in my class, I cannot seem to make one without an error?

6. Lori and Jorge sent an email today. It seems they’re hanging in there, but things are tenuous. I am nervous for them, and I wish there were room here. I would love to be able to offer these very good people shelter from this bitch of a recession.

7. Two of my students were in a car crash Monday, of the rollover variety. Amazingly, they were both in school today and walking around. That’s what airbags and seatbelts will do for you. Now they just need to figure out ways to keep the car itself from being totaled.

8. My mom (and maybe my dad) will be coming to visit soon! They said they wanted to wait until the end of June, when, in the words of my mother, “It’s not ass-freezing cold.” They live on the Gulf coast.

9. I really want to work on the next piece of the marriage postings, but I just don’t have the constitution for it right now. I also need to post to the Community School blog. Maybe this weekend…?

10. The trash and recycling are both ready to go out tomorrow, but I don’t think I’m going to get up tomorrow at 5:30 to do it (on my way to the pool). I think I just want to sleep in.

Webcomics as expressions of self

Karla called to me from the other room last night, “Check your email!”

I looked. The message from her read, “I think that this comic was written just for Wifeness.”



I chuckled. My wife has been accused tongue-in-cheek on occasion of illegal use language outside her demographic.

Then came the other shoe.

“This one is SO you!”



I laughed so hard I almost dropped my laptop.

I guess I shouldn’t ask anyone if they want to play Scrabble now, should I?

Today was about correspondence

Over the past week, I’ve received a great deal of mail, both e- and snail-, that needed some attention. I got most of it replied to today. What’s left I can do tomorrow, since there’s no way in hell we’re having school (there’s a foot of snow coming our way).

The letters I got had a lot of news—most of it good. Here’s a sampling of what other people in the worldwide Wayfarer Community are up to:

Jennie is back from Chile, and will finish school at the University of California this June. She also agreed to correspond with one of my current students who is doing her Exhibition on what life is like in a foreign country from an American point of view.

Kimmie is in nursing school locally now (she was in the Czech Republic not too long ago), and she was finally able to find a free day to come to Wayfarer House for dinner.

Dani and baby Jackson will be in the area in a week or two from upstate NY, and will hopefully be able to stop by. We haven’t seen them since she and Joe got married (I can’t even believe it’s been 3 years!), and we’re excited to meet the little one.

I found out that there are two new babies in our universe as of just a couple of months ago. Jen had a boy in early December--after a marathon labor that ended in a C-section. All is well in Texas now, though. “A” (she’s been “A” since the first day we met in college) gave birth to a baby girl in January, as well. I’m still getting the scoop on this because it came totally out of the blue. Last I knew, “A” was in Africa. Now she’s back in Florida, she’s got a guy and she’s got a baby! See? This is what happens when you don’t keep up on your correspondence.

Kestrel wrote from San Francisco recently to say she absolutely loves the city, and that her internship is going well. Ruth says the same of Miami, where she’s been at school. Sadly, Ruth and Andres had to dial down their romance to “friendship” for the time being (Ruth’s mom, who is a bit of a control freak hit the roof when she found out she had a boyfriend).

I still need to reach out to Webster, who was supposed to come for New Year’s, but whom we haven’t seen in forever, Sandi and Jeff, and Mutti and Vatti up in Vermont. We saw Wheeler this past week (he comes up every couple of weeks or so to visit Karla and be accosted by NiNi), so I don’t need to write to him--although I do need to see if he wants to go with some of us to see Watchmen next weekend. I’ll fit this in between throwing the kids outside to play in the snow and the lesson planning that will still be waiting for me tomorrow.

“‘Treehouse Club’ worked for me!”

Today, like every Friday, my students have an exam.

The topic this week--regular verb conjugations.

Remember those from your days of high school foreign language classes? I didn’t think so.

Don’t feel bad. Most of the non-foreign-language-speaking crowd can’t do it once they leave school. It’s what keeps the college instructors in a job.

Anyway, I decided several years ago that I really needed to find a way to get people to understand the mechanics of conjugation without making it seem all grammar-y. I know, I know. Grammar-y isn’t a word. Stay focused for chrissake! I spent quite a while thinking about how to teach an essential, inherently boring, element of grammar in a way that helps teenagers get the concept so they can actually use it to string sentences together? After a little trial and error, I decided to go with the greatest strength of the Wayfarer methodology of instructional practice.

I told them a story.

The abridged version of this story is given below. In class, I draw this out with effects and drama, and it always seems to capture their attention. Good stories should do that.

“When I was a kid, there was this tree that was next to a cliff. One day, you and I decided to build a treehouse in the tree. The one we built originally had one level, but we decided to build a second level so we each had our own floor. In reality, the treehouse didn’t last very long (for reasons that should be obvious based on the construction data you’ve been given), but the idea was a good one and we were kids, so there you are.

I got to be the President of the Treehouse Club. Why? Well, it was my wood, my hammer and nails (ok, it was my dad’s but let’s not worry about the details), and it was my power cord being used to provide power to the television (see picture below). As president, I get to have the top floor of the treehouse, and I get the television and the foosball table (not illustrated for reasons of pure laziness).”


I point to one student. “Congratulations, Pat, you have been appointed Vice-President of the Treehouse Club. You get the second, lower level and with it, all the magazines, board games and the portable radio.

You’ll notice that the treehouse is built more to one side of the tree than the other. We could only build out so far on the cliff side, so we thought it would be a good idea to add extra space on the other to make up for it (Frank Lloyd Wright would have given us points for originality). On the cliff side, the treehouse was only big enough for one person to fit. I put my presidential suite on that side, on my floor of the treehouse. You did the same with your vice-presidential suite.

We made a few basic rules shortly after we finished the treehouse. We said that we could only go onto each other’s level if the other were there with us (this was to prevent unauthorized use of the television or theft of the board games). We could invite people up into the treehouse, but only to our own levels. Furthermore, no one was allowed into the treehouse unless we were there.”

At this point, there is usually some argument about whether this story has any basis in reality at all, or whether the rules were as inane as they sounded. There is also some discussion about how cool treehouses (and treehouse clubs) are, and how, if we had a treehouse at our school, we could have class in it. It always takes a minute to get the focus back.

I tell them that we’re only halfway through the story, and that this part is being used in part to set up the next part.

Would you like to hear it? You’re already this far into the post, you may as well finish.

“Let us imagine now that we’re fully moved into this treehouse. We have cable and wireless Internet, and all the modern amenities. Let us further imagine that we have saved our money and we intend to use it to buy a new verb. That’s right—a verb. Since we have Internet, we can order it online from amazon.com (the central clearinghouse for all verbs online) and qualify for free shipping and a discount on all future purchases. It comes in 3-5 business days in its distinctive cardboard packaging.

We open the package to discover the verb and a whole host of attachments. Oooo! We like attachments! The verb happens to come with one already on it so, if we want to do something different, we have to take that one off, then put on the one for whomever is going to play with the verb.

If I’m playing with the verb, I’m going to play with it in my suite. Same with you. If we have friends up, we need to move to the bigger side of the treehouse, so everyone has room. We didn’t have a particular rule about loaning out the verb to other people, so this could be done. If only one person were to play with it, though, he or she has to do so next to the cliff by the tree.”

I realize I’ve gone on for quite a while with this elaborate storytelling, so I’ll cut it short to say that it’s all designed to explain a couple of things about conjugation. First, it settles the issue of hierarchy in French and Spanish (something that we don’t deal with in English, which makes the concept confusing). Second, it makes clear the mechanics of conjugation (which are invisible for us in English since almost all our verb forms are the same in any given tense).

The lesson goes on from this foundation. I show them how to unpack their verbs and make them match whomever is using them. I remind them of the basic idea of the treehouse: It’s better the higher up you go. This helps them to know how to figure out which ending is used when the subject of a sentence they’re making is complex, with lots of persons (“John, my friends, you and I…”).

End result: My students love this unit! I get a lot of positive feedback about it from them because they feel like they understand it right off the bat, and they can use it in their writing (which is getting more complex by the day). All this confidence showed on their exams, too. Of the 63 kids who took it today, about half earned Mastery Credit (90% or better, more or less) and only 3 had to retake the exam entirely (which means they didn’t come anywhere near passing it).

I’m proud of them. I’m also pleased when my unusual approaches to language learning work for them.

So very tired...

The last couple of days have really worn me out.

I'm going to bed and watch Samurai Jack, Season 1, on DVD on my laptop.

I'll try to post tomorrow while my students are taking their exam.

It'll be a pretty quiet day, I hope.

My resolve is weak

A Chips Ahoy® cookie contains 90 calories (½ from fat), addording to the label. An entire container of them (23 cookies, on average) would, therefore, contain nearly 2,100 calories. That's over 1,000 from fat, all of which I will happily eat today if someone doesn’t come take them off my desk.

10 Things Tuesday—Exhibitions

My students submitted the preliminary proposals for their Exhibition projects for my classes. Each of these will be composed of a formal research paper (5-7 pgs) and a Demonstration Element that allows them to creatively share what they’ve studied. They get a class period to present their topic of study to their classmates and involve them in an activity that helps them directly (and, if all goes well, creatively) learn something specific about it. Each year I get a wide range of topics, but I also usually have French as well as Spanish classes. This year, because I’m only teaching Spanish, I was expecting a narrow list, but I was surprised. Here are the ones that stood out, among the 48 different topics my students proposed to study:

1. The work and inspiration of the architect Antoni Gaudi. The student who proposed this has an idea working about how to help students to understand that creative inspiration can come from anywhere, and she’s thinking about demonstrating how Gaudi came upon the idea for La Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona.

2. Learning the Flamenco. There were two proposals for this topic in different classes, but in the one of note, the student is choosing to study the dance from an instructor over the course of the semester. She’s thinking about creating a short choreographed piece to share with the class, then teach them a few steps. If she completes what she proposed, she’ll qualify for Honors Credit because of the amount of time outside of class she’ll have spent in “research”.

3. Cervantes, Don Quixote and Spanish literature. I regularly see research proposals on Don Quixote, but this one will explore not the story, per se, but its influence on other works and other authors. The Demonstration Element is still under construction, so this topic may get tweaked before its approved, but I liked the original approach to an entirely too familiar topic.

4. Bolivia, through the eyes of a pen-pal. Most pen-pal based Exhibitions fail because the correspondence never materializes. In this one, though, there’s already some history between the student and her pen-pal. She’s going to research in detail where her pen-pal lives and what life is like, but her real work is to learn how to use technology to write in Spanish at a much more advanced level than what she’s practically able to manage on her own in class.

5. The Spears of Twilight. The student is reading the 1997 book by Philippe Descola, and wants to explore the discovery of indigenous peoples in Central and South America. I’m going to encourage her to look at what Descola did as an experienced anthropologist and compare it to what the conquistadors did in the 1600s. She’s still working on a Demo Element.

6. What it means to be Taína. The student with this proposal identifies strongly with her Puerto Rican heritage, and wants to explore who the Taíno really were, what the term “Taína” means today and why she should be proud of where she comes from. She wants to encourage others to think about issues of respect for heritage.

7. The work of Picasso. I get art proposals every year, but far more in French than Spanish (because of Impressionism). Lots of my students have heard about Picasso, but few no anything of substance. This proposal will do a good job of educating them on the basics of the artist and his work, then provide them a chance to create their own works based on his techniques.

8. Spanish Cinema. This student wants to learn more about what makes the cinema of Spain unique. She came to this topic after watching Penelope Cruz accept her Oscar, and her curiosity was piqued about what she didn’t know. She’s thinking about doing a mini film festival, using clips from a variety of Spanish films and directors.

9. The Inca. Of the three major pre-Columbian civilizations, the Inca are the least popular, when it comes to Exhibition topics. I’m looking forward to this one for that reason alone.

10. The instruments of Latin music. This proposal involves an exploration of the many and varied instruments that are used in traditional Latin music. The student will, as part of his demonstration, bring several of the more unique ones for students to learn about and teach them how to use them in concert to create music together.

I’m thinking about asking some of my students if they’d like to be considered as submissions for the Coalition of Essential School’s National Exhibition Month event. It’s early, but I think several of these have real promise. What do you think?

I tell people they wouldn't believe what goes on in my classes...

I let a student take this candid photo for this year's yearbook. I don't know if it made the cut, but I remember saying at the time that I didn't think anyone would understand it.


Do you understand it? I didn't think so. There's a lot that goes on in my classroom that you really have to be there to fully experience.

It looks like they're learning something, though, right? Right??

Last day of February vacation

I hit the ground running tomorrow. I have a pile of material to push through in my classes before MCAS week steals my students and turns them into walking zombies. Today, though, we’re in a bit of a holding pattern. There is snow advancing (4”-8”), and the timing of it makes planning the day a little awkward. I think we’ve got it figured out but for the actual snow removal, but there is still some question as to whether Community Meal is on for tonight. Maeve and Caleb had plans to go upcountry originally, but they may cancel, which would mean they’d be here and we’d do dinner for the whole house. Not a big deal, but it helps to know how many egg noodles to put in the soup.

This is the first week of Wifeness’ reduced paycheck, so I’m on guard to keep our grocery bill under $150 this week. This shouldn’t be hard since we don’t need a whole lot of perishables and there is plenty of meat stocked in the freezer downstairs. We’ll need to do some planning about how to keep costs down in the long term, though,

I don’t know if we can afford the lump-sum payment for a farm share this year, but it would help keep food costs down. We’ll also need to pay closer attention to our little garden plot this year than we’ve done in years past. We eat a lot of salad, especially during the summer months, and every little bit we grow is several dollars we don’t spend. It’s not hard. It just requires attention that we’re not used to giving.

What things are you doing to save money?

Marriage: Part 2

In this portion of my exploration of marriage, I’d like to put the six initial findings of my research to work, to see how they relate to the two major sides of the same-sex marriage issue in the United States.


Finding 1: The historical record supports marriage as first and primarily an institution designed to protect property and resolve matters of inheritance and lineage.

This standing is firmly upheld in today’s civil marriage laws. All other things aside for the moment, the legal code relative to marriage has clearly evolved to settle as unequivocally as possible the questions of property and inheritance. Most of the 1,400 legal and economic benefits and protections recognized by the state and federal governments involve matters of property and inheritance, and cannot be privately contracted. Only in a civil marriage contract are they recognized as valid.

Based on this, there is no standing for the point that our country’s view of marriage was founded on religious principles. This further argues that the contention that a marriage contract is a legal entity designed to discourage parties from dissolving their unions is untenable. This was certainly not the case initially, although a new type of marriage contract, a covenant marriage, provides for just such a distinction in today’s world.

Finding 2: The recognition of marriage in western Europe (where American marriage practices evolved) has a basis in Common Era history as a religious institution (and even earlier in Judaic practice), but at no point in the historical record is there evidence to support the contention that marriage was viewed primarily as a religious commitment by the general population.

The popularity of churches as a locale for marriage ceremonies notwithstanding, nowhere in the literature could I find statistical evidence to suggest that, however closely tied Americans as a whole may feel to their religious practice, their entrance into a marriage is predicated upon that commitment. Quite to the contrary, the rise of marriage dissolution in the U.S. in recent years as a result of the availability of no-fault divorce would suggest strongly that issues other than religious commitment are at work. The hesitancy of the general public to embrace the concept of covenant marriage (for reasons of its religious overtones) also evidences the fact that religion is not a primary impetus for marriage in our society currently.

Finding 3: Although we accept governmental oversight of marriage as the norm in modern society, its original involvement was the result of attempts to restore the institution to its standing as an informal social arrangement.

The American government’s interest in using its control of marriage as a tool to promote its own ends is well documented, and it must be conceded that marriage law has not been equally granted in my nation’s history. Yet, it has nonetheless been recognized and upheld as a key freedom under the U.S. Constitution [1]. This finding strongly supports the contention that marriage, as a long recognized private and personal contract, is fundamentally tied to all other discussions regarding civil rights.

Finding 4: American marriage tradition was based popularly not on a religious model, but a secular one.

The traditions we observe in weddings may be deeply rooted in religious observance, but these should not be confused with the very secular manner in which we approach the business of creating and dissolving marriages. This serves to underscore the point that marriage, as a social contract, has no foundation to be viewed through the lens of religion in the current discussion about same-sex marriage.

Finding 5: Although there is precedent in Roman times for the recognition of same-sex relationships as a form of marriage, there does not appear to be explicit mention of the validity of such relationships in later writings, religious or secular, in the Common Era.

I need to defer on certain aspects of this point until I’ve done more research, but even absent that information, it nonetheless adds strength to the argument that marriage, as a word, has, throughout history, had the accepted definition described below.

Finding 6: Writings on marriage, when viewed in context, are clearly based on a long accepted colloquial definition of the term as referring to unions between men and women, although there is no particular mention of the term as restrictive to one man and one woman alone.

Despite marriage’s possible origins as a polygamous arrangement, since the beginning of the Common Era, there has been little attempt to use the term “marriage” alone to describe social unions other than those between a single man and woman. That a host of other terms abound to describe a great many variants of human relationships (many of which are narrowly defined types of social unions) is testimony to the fact that the term “marriage”, when used on its own, is popularly held to be distinct and special.

The rapid semantic change of a term, especially one that has a specific, time-honored implication like “marriage”, carries with it a host of problems, not the least of which is confusion in what the term really means in current oral and written usage. Legal and administrative uses of a word, especially, require rigid forms of standardization to prevent misinterpretation over time. This issue is not the primary objection of those concerned with the perceived usurpation of the term “marriage”, but it is certainly one that bears consideration in a global discussion about how to create a functional paradigm of marriage that all sides can take ownership of.


CONCLUSIONS

The following conclusions are based on what I have uncovered so far:

1. Although marriage is integrally connected to religion in our minds because of the traditions and perceived sanctity of the institution, it is not, practically speaking, religion that motivates us to seek such unions, nor is religion a primary influence over how marriages are viewed socially, politically or legally. That is not to say that discussions about marriage reform should ignore the input of religion; rather, it is that religion should not be the lens through which we examine the issue.

2. The right to marry is a fundamental freedom in the United States, and has standing as such both by virtue of its extensive history and modern constitutional interpretation. Like other rights, however, exactly which constituencies in American society are given such freedoms has evolved over time. We should not lose sight of this fact in discussing how to include all Americans equally in the freedoms and opportunities of our society.

3. The term “marriage” is a specific term with far-reaching significance for all segments of society. Its meaning cannot be broadened without confusing what has been said and written about it in the past, or without complicating the discussion of how to create an inclusive model of social union that meets the needs of all Americans.

In the next post, I want to look at what these three conclusions mean in the context of gay marriage, specifically, and how we as a country might begin to think about ways to approach that particular discussion.

[1]“The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.” [HERE]

The Universe gets points for trying

The triathlon is about to start. I’m there, on the beach, in the transition area when, suddenly, I realize I don’t have any bottled water. And where are my running shoes? Oh, no! OK. Don’t panic. Go get the water first, I tell myself. I rush off to the convenience store. Damn it! They don’t have any I can find. All they have are sports drinks. And the line at the cash register is really long! Ugh! There’s a moment of indecision when I hear the start gun go off. I rush to the window and I can see heads bobbing in the surf. My group is in the water! I’ve missed the start!

[POP!]

My eyes snap open and I jerk up from the pillow. I realize there’s no need to panic. It was just a dream. My heart is pounding, but I bring it down to normal with some deep breathing. It takes a moment or two of focus, and I’m feeling calm and ready to get up and do my laps at the pool. I look at my watch.

Aw, crap! It’s 5:50! I’ve missed my time! If I’m not out the door by 5:45, I can’t get in my laps before I have to be home to get ready for the day.

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Dear Universe,

Thank you for trying to help. Can we work together to create a dream for these occasions in which I’m arriving ON TIME? That’d be a big help.

Sincerely,

Wayfarer

Today SiSi, NiNi and I…

Chillaxed on the grownup bed reading and writing until 10am.

Had toast for breakfast from bread Karla made last night. She’ll need to make more this weekend.

Found clothes we needed in one of the four baskets of unfolded laundry in the living room.

Talked about how, if you get frustrated with something, it’s better to leave it be and come back to it than it is to “drama” (this is a new word in the Wayfarer House dictionary—see below).

Built a snowman out back, and then moved it to the front of the house by reconstructing it on a saucer sled.

Enjoyed the smell of pipe smoke.

Played “Knights in Hawaii with Non-Fiction Television” (featuring Hermione Granger) with Legos®. No, really.

Made hamburger patties with a mold made from a cream cheese container (they came out just the right size for the buns).

Thanked Karla for running the tubbyshower and cleanup routine.

Watched Star Wars.

Went to bed tired. It was a good day.


Dra•ma [drah-muh] (no alternate pronunciation) verb, -ed, -ing.

1. To create, by means of excessive and hyberbolic actions, words and sounds (esp. sniveling), a sense that an event, situation or circumstance is more severe and/or desperate than is actually the case.

2. To employ obvious and intentional exaggerations with the specific intent of garnering sympathy for an event, situation or circumstance well within the control of the individual to resolve.