Time sits on the far side of Christmas and just shy of the new year and I've given myself today to catch up on the little things. My older sister and her husband left for the States this morning and my little sister and her boyfriend are relaxing downstairs before spending one last day in Derry tomorrow. So after all of the site seeing, catch-up conversations, Christmas pudding (a traditional Irish holiday dessert which is a heavy, sweet raisin bread covered in custard), shopping excursions, pub visits, and castle explorations, it was time to "have a lie-in" (sleep-in), eat things like spaghetti and pancakes and devote some time to the simple things.
I cannot say that I had any particular expectations for my first Christmas away from Pennsylvania. However, I was excited to experience "home" away from home by having my sisters here with me. Jenae made this extra special by bringing some of our traditional Christmas ornaments with her, including my favorite Santa boot ornament that I've had since I was three. It is hanging on my fake, freely obtained, heavily lighted and gorgeous tree downstairs. She also brought a Christmas story book that we've read since childhood. It was always Bri's favorite and her husband, Joel, gave us all a fantastic reading Christmas morning in a way that only a skilled third grade teacher can. Everything shuts down in Derry on Christmas for the entire day. No movie theaters open at night, no restaurants, not even a pub. Which was great, except for the fact that in the rush of buying ingredients to make Christmas cookies the day before we had forgotten to really consider Christmas dinner. Jenae whipped together a homemade pizza so good no one really missed the ham and turkey anyways. Truth be told, the chocolate was not in short order either, which helped.
Speaking of Christmas cookies, I was unaware that the tasty little morsels fall into an American tradition, or at least, it is definitely not traditionally Irish. So, we three sisters got busy and whipped together plates filled with chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels, and mini shoo-fly pies for good measure and delivered them to Kevin's family and my host Rotary counselor. Smash hit:)
I noticed two wee things about Christmas in Ireland that can be considered fun little cultural tidbits. First of all, Christmas crackers are little merrymaking toys that often accompany Christmas dinners and events. They are not edible but rather look like a toilet-paper roll wrapped in Christmas paper and tied at each end with a festive ribbon. The idea is that you give your neighbor sitting beside you one end and pull the other end and then--POP! The cracker breaks and inside contains a colorful paper crown, a little toy and perhaps a joke (in the flavor of those you would find on a popsickle stick). Most people put on the little paper crown and continue to enjoy lunch, or whatever it may be that people are doing. I thoroughly enjoyed this display, particularly at the Irish Rotary functions where the dresscode is typically a business suit and tie.
Secondly, December 26th is an official holiday. In the UK and Northern Ireland it is called Boxing Day and in the Republic of Ireland, St. Stephen's day. We asked several people what the name means and why it is celebrated. The first people we asked didn't really know, but smiled as if it was the first time they had ever considered the question. We suspected it had nothing to do with the Muhammed Ali's of the world and more to do with some tradition involving boxes, although that seemed obvious. Our inclination was correct. Boxing day was coined when people gave a "Christmas box" (presents) to less materially fortunate members of society. Today, it is a day where many people give a Christmas box to employees or friends on the day after Christmas. Hence, the name Boxing day. In Ireland and other countries, St. Stephen's day honors the first Christian martyr.
So, these things and more added to our first Christmas outside the USA. We learned very quickly that transportation, business opening hours, and museums call it a day with the rest of us which is refreshing and frustrating all at the same time. Although my time with my sisters, Joel and Drew was spent exploring the city and surrounding sites, cooking, shopping, driving and touring, the best part for me was being able to share with them my "Irish" life here and connect my worlds, so to speak. Equally, it was nice to hear about their lives in person and not through email or a Skype connection.
What a fantastic memory to hold for the rest of our lives. If we live to see our 60's and 70's, we can say, "Hey remember the time we spent Christmas in Ireland and stormed castles and ancient forts on seacliffs and baked 'American' cookies for the Derry locals?"
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Term Papers (thankfully in a completed and turned in state)
I'm finally starting to get excited about the Christmas festivities and focusing on my sisters and their husband and boyfriend coming to Derry this week. The turned in and completed state of my term papers as of 10:15 a.m. on this very day has a large part to do with that. Freedom!
So, after thousands of pages read and hours upon hours of compiling...el finito! I have had some very interesting conversations in the past month or so surrounding these topics and if you are in any way interested, I will be happy to send the pdf. versions to you, although in truth, the bibliographies will likely be more useful! And, by the way, does anyone know how to post PDF's to a blog?
The are the titles and introductions to my work this term.
Nonviolence: Challenging Negative Perceptions and Exploring Future Possibilities
War is not a biological necessity, but rather a social invention, according to the Seville Statement on Violence issued in 1986 by the social and biological scientists at the UNESCO conference in Seville, Spain. Nor is war inherent to the human species, according to psychologist Steven Kull (1984, p.55). Berger and Luukman (1971) argue that all social knowledge and institutions (including warfare) are a social construction. A study done in the 1940’s by Sorokin concluded that war in itself was not inevitable, but was becoming more lethal over time. (cited in Boulding E., 2000, p. 26). Yet individuals and nation states still participate in war, political violence, and destructive conflict with the belief or assumption that violence presents the only viable option to achieving an end.
Nonviolence and peaceful cultures have existed for millennia in every continent and continue to challenge the accepted view that violence and war are biologically, socially or politically inevitable. Nonviolent action can be a powerful and effective practice for eliciting positive social and political change. The focus of this paper is to identify negative perceptions about nonviolence, address the lack of historical education about nonviolence, and pose general practices for a nonviolent campaign.
For the purpose of clarifying vague terms, nonviolence and nonviolent direct action in this paper are meant to imply the vigorous commitment to “peace by peaceful means” as defined by Galtung and popularly attributed to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., but are not meant to imply (or exclude) a moral and religious imperative. The concept of peace in this paper exceeds the definition of simply the absence of violence, but should be considered to be “nonviolent and creative conflict transformation” (Galtung, 1996, p. 9) with an emphasis on building and preserving political, economic, and social rights . The words success and failure typically refer to whether or not the explicit goals of the resistant group (violent or nonviolent) were met. Although this strict and dichotomous definition does not recognize that partial successes and failures are present in every violent and nonviolent conflict, success and failure will be regarded as either principally achieving or failing to reach the defined goal of the struggle.
*As a little tid-bit for the Pennsylvania crowd, did you know that our state was an experiment in nonviolence initially, one of the only communities to establish working and friendly relationships with the Native American population? Or that it was NOT named for William Penn (a Quaker) as we are taught in school, but rather for his father who was the accomplished and celebrated Sir Admiral William Penn?
Storytelling: A Bottom-up approach to truth-recovery and social change in Northern Ireland
The ancient practice of storytelling engages both the teller and the listener in a dialogue that creates a space to understand or imagine different facets of life. Modern Western thought traditionally revered scientific thought as the ultimate form of valid knowledge but regarded storytelling and other experiences that involve emotions, creativity or imagination with little academic, business, or psychological utility. However, stories are increasingly used in the improvement of collaborative relationships in organizations as well as psychotherapy (Garcia-Lorenzo, Nolas, and de Zeeuw, 2008, and Hibbert, McInnes, and Huxham, 2008) and in post-conflict truth recovery and social change processes. This paper seeks to address the reasons why storytelling is a beneficial bottom-up truth recovery process, identify different types of storytelling initiatives in Northern Ireland, provide basic storytelling methodologies, address broad challenges and explore ways that storytelling can create a new narrative for future generations.
In the post-violent era of conflict in Northern Ireland, ushered in by the Belfast Agreement of 1998, storytelling has been recognized as an effective bottom-up approach to truth recovery, healing, reconciliation, historical record, and dealing with the past . Janet Senehi (2002, p. 54) claims that through stories, we visit, interpret, mourn and treasure the past. Storytelling is a process in which memory and truth are expressed, heard, and recorded and individual and collective awareness is uncovered. Such claims are legitimized as both academics and local citizens recognize that stories “tell us not only who we are but who we have been and where we should be” (Rappaport, 2000, p. 796). As society continues to confront the vestiges of protracted violent conflict by creating new narratives about what happened and continues to happen in Northern Ireland, “it is very clear that these stories not only exist but they have powerful effects on human behavior.” (Rappaport, 1995, p. 796) With proper methodology processes in place and support from the local community, storytelling can be a very meaningful and significant bottom-up truth recovery process and agent for social change.
So....a thesis topic? Still contemplating my options...but after Christmas! For now, I am off to my host Rotary club's Christmas lunch.
So, after thousands of pages read and hours upon hours of compiling...el finito! I have had some very interesting conversations in the past month or so surrounding these topics and if you are in any way interested, I will be happy to send the pdf. versions to you, although in truth, the bibliographies will likely be more useful! And, by the way, does anyone know how to post PDF's to a blog?
The are the titles and introductions to my work this term.
Nonviolence: Challenging Negative Perceptions and Exploring Future Possibilities
War is not a biological necessity, but rather a social invention, according to the Seville Statement on Violence issued in 1986 by the social and biological scientists at the UNESCO conference in Seville, Spain. Nor is war inherent to the human species, according to psychologist Steven Kull (1984, p.55). Berger and Luukman (1971) argue that all social knowledge and institutions (including warfare) are a social construction. A study done in the 1940’s by Sorokin concluded that war in itself was not inevitable, but was becoming more lethal over time. (cited in Boulding E., 2000, p. 26). Yet individuals and nation states still participate in war, political violence, and destructive conflict with the belief or assumption that violence presents the only viable option to achieving an end.
Nonviolence and peaceful cultures have existed for millennia in every continent and continue to challenge the accepted view that violence and war are biologically, socially or politically inevitable. Nonviolent action can be a powerful and effective practice for eliciting positive social and political change. The focus of this paper is to identify negative perceptions about nonviolence, address the lack of historical education about nonviolence, and pose general practices for a nonviolent campaign.
For the purpose of clarifying vague terms, nonviolence and nonviolent direct action in this paper are meant to imply the vigorous commitment to “peace by peaceful means” as defined by Galtung and popularly attributed to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., but are not meant to imply (or exclude) a moral and religious imperative. The concept of peace in this paper exceeds the definition of simply the absence of violence, but should be considered to be “nonviolent and creative conflict transformation” (Galtung, 1996, p. 9) with an emphasis on building and preserving political, economic, and social rights . The words success and failure typically refer to whether or not the explicit goals of the resistant group (violent or nonviolent) were met. Although this strict and dichotomous definition does not recognize that partial successes and failures are present in every violent and nonviolent conflict, success and failure will be regarded as either principally achieving or failing to reach the defined goal of the struggle.
*As a little tid-bit for the Pennsylvania crowd, did you know that our state was an experiment in nonviolence initially, one of the only communities to establish working and friendly relationships with the Native American population? Or that it was NOT named for William Penn (a Quaker) as we are taught in school, but rather for his father who was the accomplished and celebrated Sir Admiral William Penn?
Storytelling: A Bottom-up approach to truth-recovery and social change in Northern Ireland
The ancient practice of storytelling engages both the teller and the listener in a dialogue that creates a space to understand or imagine different facets of life. Modern Western thought traditionally revered scientific thought as the ultimate form of valid knowledge but regarded storytelling and other experiences that involve emotions, creativity or imagination with little academic, business, or psychological utility. However, stories are increasingly used in the improvement of collaborative relationships in organizations as well as psychotherapy (Garcia-Lorenzo, Nolas, and de Zeeuw, 2008, and Hibbert, McInnes, and Huxham, 2008) and in post-conflict truth recovery and social change processes. This paper seeks to address the reasons why storytelling is a beneficial bottom-up truth recovery process, identify different types of storytelling initiatives in Northern Ireland, provide basic storytelling methodologies, address broad challenges and explore ways that storytelling can create a new narrative for future generations.
In the post-violent era of conflict in Northern Ireland, ushered in by the Belfast Agreement of 1998, storytelling has been recognized as an effective bottom-up approach to truth recovery, healing, reconciliation, historical record, and dealing with the past . Janet Senehi (2002, p. 54) claims that through stories, we visit, interpret, mourn and treasure the past. Storytelling is a process in which memory and truth are expressed, heard, and recorded and individual and collective awareness is uncovered. Such claims are legitimized as both academics and local citizens recognize that stories “tell us not only who we are but who we have been and where we should be” (Rappaport, 2000, p. 796). As society continues to confront the vestiges of protracted violent conflict by creating new narratives about what happened and continues to happen in Northern Ireland, “it is very clear that these stories not only exist but they have powerful effects on human behavior.” (Rappaport, 1995, p. 796) With proper methodology processes in place and support from the local community, storytelling can be a very meaningful and significant bottom-up truth recovery process and agent for social change.
So....a thesis topic? Still contemplating my options...but after Christmas! For now, I am off to my host Rotary club's Christmas lunch.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Gone
Look at you out to make a deal
You try to be appealing but you lose your appeal
And what about those shoes you’re in today
They’ll do no good
On the bridges you burnt along the way
I was reading the newspaper on Sunday afternoon, thinking fondly of how my sisters and I used to scramble for the Parade magazine and comics buried deep in the Sunday News, but only after my father gave us his permission to touch the sacred Sunday paper. Mid-reverie, I came across an article that stopped me in my tracks and made me feel honestly ashamed and grieved.
"A Wal-Mart worker was killed on Friday when hundreds of shoppers surged into a Long Island, New York, store. Customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said. The store, in Valley Stream on Long Island, closed for several hours before reopening."
A disgrace. An absolute disgrace. Someone lost their life because enough people were willing to literally trample a human being to death to score one of the first legendary roll-back prices of Wal-Mart. I am ashamed because the stampede was not a strange, isolated incident. It was a symptom of a larger evil. Greed and selfishness fueled by a give-me give-me more society. I wonder how many other people recognized this when they read that article, or whether people just turned the page shaking their head at those horrible, irresponsible shoppers. See, I wasn't in that line but I know that I have contributed to that evil when I complain about being scant when I have more than I could ask for right in front of me. Or by turning down an opportunity to share generously with others in order to save a meager amount. Or by being a wasteful and lazy consumer. The death and injurites that occurred in the Wal-Mart entrance was a glimpse into the ugly reality further down the road of ungratefulness, greed, and selfish consumerism. We all play a part and in the wake of this tragedy, we should also identify and renounce the ways and extents to which we perpetuate this sickness.
On the day after Thanksgiving. It was a black Friday, indeed.
In a more positive light, I celebrated Thanksgiving with several of the other U.S. Americans in my program as well as my Irish boyfriend, Kevin, and several of our international classmates from Hungary, Japan, Columbia and the UK. Yours truly roasted the bird to a practiced perfection, and everyone else contributed tasty side dishes and pies. (Of which I am still enjoying today!) We post-poned the event until Saturday, given that we had class on Thursday and work Friday morning. No Macy's day parade or biological family. But we had good food, good wine, good conversation, and a great time that night. We all shared about our family traditions and even circled up and shared something we were each thankful for. I gave thanks that night and would now like to blog-thank the people who have invested in me and given me life opportunities, for my family, and for present company as well as my dinner company.
I appreciated this gathering and the continuation of a tradition that I have unintentionally created for myself. I have not been home to my "real" family for a Thanksgiving meal in 5 years. Every year since, I have hosted or helped plan a Thanksgiving for the U.S. American stragglers (others who could not be with their families) and international friends as well. Even though I always miss my Mom, Dad, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and even our golden retrievers a bit more on Thanksgiving day, the past 5 celebrations of thanks have enriched me in so many ways.
I am humbled by the way that people come together and share about their lives over a good meal. We are meant to give thanks....often, in private, in public, in our actions. We are meant to share our time, possessions, and humanity with each other. We are meant to listen and not just hear, but really listen to each other. We should laugh together and support each other through hard, awkward, or sad times.
During the first couple of weeks that Kevin and I started dating, we were having a conversation and he said, "You know, Bob Marley said what good is it if you gain the whole world and forfeit your soul?" I smiled and then laughed, and said, "Well...I think Jesus said that but either way, that's absolutely true." Then we both laughed. But he, (Jesus, Kevin, and maybe even Bob Marley) are right. You might save a few bucks here and there or find a steal of a deal on Black Friday at Wal-Mart, but who are you killing in the process? Yourself?
You’re willing to sell anything
Gone with your herd
Leave your footprints
And we’ll shame them with our words
Gone people
All careless and consumed
Gone
Gone going
Gone everything
Gone give a damn
Gone be the birds if they don’t want to sing
Gone people
All awkward with their things
Gone
~Jack Johnson, excerpt from "Gone"
You try to be appealing but you lose your appeal
And what about those shoes you’re in today
They’ll do no good
On the bridges you burnt along the way
I was reading the newspaper on Sunday afternoon, thinking fondly of how my sisters and I used to scramble for the Parade magazine and comics buried deep in the Sunday News, but only after my father gave us his permission to touch the sacred Sunday paper. Mid-reverie, I came across an article that stopped me in my tracks and made me feel honestly ashamed and grieved.
"A Wal-Mart worker was killed on Friday when hundreds of shoppers surged into a Long Island, New York, store. Customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said. The store, in Valley Stream on Long Island, closed for several hours before reopening."
A disgrace. An absolute disgrace. Someone lost their life because enough people were willing to literally trample a human being to death to score one of the first legendary roll-back prices of Wal-Mart. I am ashamed because the stampede was not a strange, isolated incident. It was a symptom of a larger evil. Greed and selfishness fueled by a give-me give-me more society. I wonder how many other people recognized this when they read that article, or whether people just turned the page shaking their head at those horrible, irresponsible shoppers. See, I wasn't in that line but I know that I have contributed to that evil when I complain about being scant when I have more than I could ask for right in front of me. Or by turning down an opportunity to share generously with others in order to save a meager amount. Or by being a wasteful and lazy consumer. The death and injurites that occurred in the Wal-Mart entrance was a glimpse into the ugly reality further down the road of ungratefulness, greed, and selfish consumerism. We all play a part and in the wake of this tragedy, we should also identify and renounce the ways and extents to which we perpetuate this sickness.
On the day after Thanksgiving. It was a black Friday, indeed.
In a more positive light, I celebrated Thanksgiving with several of the other U.S. Americans in my program as well as my Irish boyfriend, Kevin, and several of our international classmates from Hungary, Japan, Columbia and the UK. Yours truly roasted the bird to a practiced perfection, and everyone else contributed tasty side dishes and pies. (Of which I am still enjoying today!) We post-poned the event until Saturday, given that we had class on Thursday and work Friday morning. No Macy's day parade or biological family. But we had good food, good wine, good conversation, and a great time that night. We all shared about our family traditions and even circled up and shared something we were each thankful for. I gave thanks that night and would now like to blog-thank the people who have invested in me and given me life opportunities, for my family, and for present company as well as my dinner company.
I appreciated this gathering and the continuation of a tradition that I have unintentionally created for myself. I have not been home to my "real" family for a Thanksgiving meal in 5 years. Every year since, I have hosted or helped plan a Thanksgiving for the U.S. American stragglers (others who could not be with their families) and international friends as well. Even though I always miss my Mom, Dad, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and even our golden retrievers a bit more on Thanksgiving day, the past 5 celebrations of thanks have enriched me in so many ways.
I am humbled by the way that people come together and share about their lives over a good meal. We are meant to give thanks....often, in private, in public, in our actions. We are meant to share our time, possessions, and humanity with each other. We are meant to listen and not just hear, but really listen to each other. We should laugh together and support each other through hard, awkward, or sad times.
During the first couple of weeks that Kevin and I started dating, we were having a conversation and he said, "You know, Bob Marley said what good is it if you gain the whole world and forfeit your soul?" I smiled and then laughed, and said, "Well...I think Jesus said that but either way, that's absolutely true." Then we both laughed. But he, (Jesus, Kevin, and maybe even Bob Marley) are right. You might save a few bucks here and there or find a steal of a deal on Black Friday at Wal-Mart, but who are you killing in the process? Yourself?
You’re willing to sell anything
Gone with your herd
Leave your footprints
And we’ll shame them with our words
Gone people
All careless and consumed
Gone
Gone going
Gone everything
Gone give a damn
Gone be the birds if they don’t want to sing
Gone people
All awkward with their things
Gone
~Jack Johnson, excerpt from "Gone"
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