“Go West, Young Man, Go West!” were the famous words written by Horace Greeley in support of Manifest Destiny. For Pacific Child, this is a difficult calling, because we have been born and bred in the west. So for Pacific Child, our most recent calling is to “Go East!”
I am thrilled to announce that Pacific Child is opening its first office in the Midwest, which to us in California is really the East. Deb Ewen Miller, who has shepherded our Eureka, California office so brilliantly in the last several years, will be running our first office in Duluth, Minnesota. We hope to serve the entire Minnesota area out of this office.
As we embark on our Easterly expansion, I want to thank Deb Miller for her extraordinary work among the redwoods of Northern California. We are truly blessed to have her continue her work with PCFA, and brave the bitter winters, in Minnesota.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Lifelong Learning
There was a phrase I heard constantly throughout my childhood. In the Bronx accent I usually heard it, it sounded like this: “You live and you loyn.” Translation: You live and you learn. It was most often uttered as a way of comforting someone when something happened that wasn’t quite right, kind of like, well, you won’t make that mistake again and it will be alright.
But, as is typical with phrases that hang around for a lifetime, there was a lot more to it than that. Do we, in fact, “live and learn”?
In “The Once and Future King,” T.H. White writes (through the character of Merlyn):
The best thing for being sad… is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins,… you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.
For many of us, the product of our education system in the U.S. is to see learning as a chore. It is something we have to do to go from here to there, like an uncomfortable bus ride over pot-holed streets. But in Merlyn’s comforting words learning takes a different form. It is a kind of therapy, a comfort and a solace. It is to some degree a place away from the hectic world of business and rumor, but it is also a powerful tool with which to engage life. Perhaps most importantly it is an antidote to “fear and distrust.” Learning, the pursuit of the truth, guided by a moral compass, leads to compassionate understanding and is a powerful weapon against those “evil lunatics” who, in reality, fail to understand or see the deeper truths.
But, as is typical with phrases that hang around for a lifetime, there was a lot more to it than that. Do we, in fact, “live and learn”?
In “The Once and Future King,” T.H. White writes (through the character of Merlyn):
The best thing for being sad… is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins,… you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.
For many of us, the product of our education system in the U.S. is to see learning as a chore. It is something we have to do to go from here to there, like an uncomfortable bus ride over pot-holed streets. But in Merlyn’s comforting words learning takes a different form. It is a kind of therapy, a comfort and a solace. It is to some degree a place away from the hectic world of business and rumor, but it is also a powerful tool with which to engage life. Perhaps most importantly it is an antidote to “fear and distrust.” Learning, the pursuit of the truth, guided by a moral compass, leads to compassionate understanding and is a powerful weapon against those “evil lunatics” who, in reality, fail to understand or see the deeper truths.
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