Review: The Sea Around Us

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The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson. New York: Open Road Media, 2011 (first published 1951).

Summary: A survey of what is known about the oceans– including their beginnings, the dynamics of currents, tides and waves, the topography of the oceans, the life within, and our own relationship with this dominant feature of our planet.

Rachel Carson is probably best known for her book Silent Spring (reviewed here) on the environmental impacts of pesticides, notably DDT, that led to its eventual banning. However, it was The Sea Around Us, published eleven years earlier that brought Carson to national attention as a science writer. It sold over a million copies, won a National Book Award and was a New York Times bestseller.

Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth’s surface and account for 97 percent of the water on the planet. At points, oceans covered much of North America between the Appalachians and the Rockies and have left their traces to this day. Carson tells the story of oceans, mixing the latest scientific data available to her with a lyrical account of this most salient feature of our planet. Consider this passage about sedimentation:

“When I think of the floor of the deep sea, the single, overwhelming fact that possesses my imagination is the accumulation of sediments. I see the steady, unremitting, downward drift of materials from above, flake upon flake, layer upon layer–a drift that has continued for hundreds of millions of years, that will go on as long as there are seas and continents.

“For the sediments are the materials of the most stupendous ‘snowfall’ the earth has ever seen. It began when the first rains fell on the barren rocks and set in motion the forces of erosion. It was accelerated when living creatures developed in the surface waters and the discarded little shells of lime or silica that had encased them in life began to drift downward to the bottom.  Silently, endlessly, with the deliberation of earth processes that can afford to be slow because they have so much time for completion, the accumulation of the sediments has proceeded. So little in a year, or in a human lifetime, but so enormous an amount in the life of earth and sea.”

With her writing, what sounds like a dull subject, sedimentation, takes on wonder as it is likened to an unremitting snowfall. It is a skill we see over and over in her work as she takes facts and explains them in a way that captures the imagination.

The Sea Around Us introduces us to oceanography from its account of the beginnings of the oceans on a cooling planet to the inhabitants of the seas on the ocean surface and in the dark depths (I found her discussion of squid, and their ubiquity especially fascinating). She explores the seasonal cycles of life, the topography of the ocean floor, the formation of volcanic islands (and their disappearances), and the evidence of historic rises and falls of the oceans, which in the past, and likely in the future, will inundate much of North America, as well as other coastal and low areas around the world. Even when she wrote, oceans were rising and glacial melts were in process, but in her time this was still seen as merely a cyclical occurrence, unrelated to human causes. Whatever you think about these things, one thing she makes clear–significant areas where humans make a home will be under water some day. The only questions are “how soon?” and “how will we prepare for that day?”

She explores the movements of the oceans, from wave actions to tidal patterns to the vast sea currents that circulate around the globe. The final part of her work considers the impacts of the oceans on our lives, from providing us life-giving salt to functioning as the earth’s thermostat (she emphasizes the incredible heat storage capacities of the ocean and how significant a one degree rise in ocean temperature can be), and finally our human quest to sail, circumnavigate, and explore the depths of the sea.

Those who associate Carson with environmental activism will be surprised at the lack of advocacy in this book. What one encounters instead is description that captures the imagination and awakens us to the wonder that surrounds us. And perhaps this is as vital as any advocacy, because we must first love and deeply care for that for which we advocate. Carson opens our eyes to the wonder of what we might sometimes take for granted and deepens the love many of us have for the sight and sound of waves, the smell of sea air, the delight we take in the creatures of the deep and the awe we have of the power of “the sea around us.”

Review: Bottom of the Ninth

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Bottom of the Ninth, Michael Shapiro. New York: Times Books, 2009.

Summary: The story of how two legendary figures, Branch Rickey and Casey Stengel, attempted but failed in schemes to transform the game of baseball.

When I first picked up this book, my attention was arrested by the front cover photograph. It shows a group of fans on a high vantage point overlooking a baseball park. I studied it more closely and wondered if the ballpark was Forbes Field, where I’d caught a game as a kid. It was indeed! It turns out that this was a famous photograph taken by George Silk from the top of the Tower of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh at the moment Bill Mazeroski’s bottom of the ninth home run won the 1960 World Series for Pittsburgh, defeating Casey Stengel’s Yankees, and ultimately Stengel himself who was “resigned” by the Yankee owners. This ended Stengel’s tenure as the “managerial genius” of a string of pennant and World Champion Yankee teams.

This was also a moment of defeat and vindication for Branch Rickey, who weeks earlier saw his dream of a third major league, the Continental League, die. He envisioned a league of young, talented players, not yet as polished as the other two leagues, but on parity with each other, and in time with the rest of the majors. Eight cities would get teams, some, like Bob Howsam’s Denver, for the first time, and some like Bill Shea’s New York gaining a new team for those it had lost. Oddly, Pittsburgh’s victory vindicated at least part of Rickey’s vision, because he had helped assemble the core of the championship team, including Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente.

Michael Shapiro weaves together the narratives of these two men over the three years preceding October 1960. I will grant that both are interesting subjects, but I could not see how Stengel was trying to transform baseball, other than to leave his mark as a shrewd manager. It felt to me that Shapiro needed Stengel to inject a baseball element into a book concerned with Rickey’s attempts to recruit prospective owners and through suasion and legal maneuvering to win over existing league owners to the idea. Much of this involved negotiations, personal meetings, and public relations, not the most interesting material narratively.

Still, both stories demonstrate the power of owners zealous to protect their own financial interests, even when this was not in the best interests of the game. Del Webb and Dan Topping, as Yankee owners figure large in both stories. Walter O’Malley, who took the Dodgers from Brooklyn to L.A., denied Webb the opportunity to build Chavez Ravine, and was concerned to protect and expand his own TV earnings, exemplified the spirit of the owners. Ultimately, they block the new league by luring Bill Shea, who was seeking a team for New York (after whom Shea Stadium was named) and three other prospective owners with the lure of expansion franchises, which generally spent the rest of the sixties at the bottom of the standings.

Shapiro cites the experience of the American Football League as an example of what could have happened if Rickey’s dream had been allowed to come to fruition. The league teams developed rapidly, played with competitive parity, and eventually merged with the NFL, injecting new life into pro-football, which surpassed baseball in viewership during this period.

Shapiro’s book makes an interesting read, especially as he recounts the 1960 World Series, Stengel’s fateful pitching choices, his choice to pull Clete Boyer early in the Series and the fateful seventh game. Likewise, Rickey’s vision to transform baseball and the missed opportunity is fascinating to ponder. However, Shapiro’s interweaving of Rickey and Stengel only makes sense as an attempt to spice up Rickey’s story with some baseball, and one of baseball’s most colorful managers, not as a story of two men trying to “save baseball from itself” as the subtitle asserts.

 

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Holy Name Church and School

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Photo courtesy of Tom Balog

I learned recently through a post on a Youngstown Facebook group by Tom Balog that the Holy Name of Jesus Church is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. This brought back many memories because Holy Name served as the parish for many of the families in my neighborhood and many of the kids I grew up with.

The Holy Name of Jesus Church is located at 613 N. Lakeview Ave., at the corner of Midland. During most of my growing up years, Interstate 680 separated our neighborhood and the portion of N. Lakeview one block east of us from the church. But many of my Catholic friends talked about going to Mass, taking CCD classes, confirmations and more at Holy Name. My earliest exposure to Holy Name was going to the church festivals held there every summer, enjoying the good food, rides, and games of “skill”, all of which made money for the parish. Even though I was not a member, I made my contribution!

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Photo from 50th Jubilee Yearbook, 1966 (courtesy of Tom Balog)

In junior high and high school, I met a number of students who came from Holy Name School, across the street from the church. It seemed that a number of those in my classes were among the best students in the class. We always heard that the threat was that if you didn’t behave, you could always be sent to public schools!

The Holy Name of Jesus Church was established in 1916 to serve the Slovak Catholic families who moved into the Steelton area of the lower West Side. From a history published for the 75th anniversary celebration, I learned that the parish’s first priest was Father J.A. Stipanovic, a Croat who came from Chicago and quickly learned Slovak to serve the parish! The cornerstone of the church was laid November 5, 1916, and while the building was under construction, the parish met in a former barroom owned by a Jewish landlord. Father Stipanovic was succeeded by Fathers Dubosh and Kocis. Father, later Monsignor Kocis, oversaw the construction of Holy Name School, beginning in 1926 and completed in 1927, and also expansion of the church rectory. Monsignor Kocis died in January 1952.

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Holy Name School, from 50th Jubilee Yearbook, 1966 (photo courtesy of Tom Balog)

He undertook a remodeling of the church during his last years that included a mosaic of Christ the Teacher, stained glass windows telling the story of Christ, a Carrara marble main altar, and Stations of the Cross ceramic statuary of which the molds were broken after their completion so they could not be duplicated. When Bishop Emmet Walsh dedicated the renovation in 1953 he called Holy Name “the gem of the Youngstown diocese” and his “little cathedral.” Though I was not a Catholic, in high school I would sometimes slip into the church when it was open but no mass was occurring, just to sit in the quiet, to take in the magnificence of the building, and the sense of wonder and mystery I rarely had seen elsewhere. I can understand Bishop Walsh’s comments.

Monsignor Stephen Begalla served the parish during the time I and my contemporaries were growing up, until Father Franko took over in 1968 upon Monsignor Begalla’s retirement. He served until 1989. In more recent years as parish numbers declined, the school was closed and sold, and the church became part of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, consisting of three churches: Holy Name of Jesus, St. Matthias, and Sts. Cyril and Methodius, all of which serve the Slovak Catholic community in Youngstown. Currently, Mass is held at Holy Name at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday.

Holy Name, and the other churches of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish grew up with the working class neighborhoods near the mills and other related industries, serving those of Slovak heritage who moved into these neighborhoods. With the changing demographics of the neighborhoods and the consolidation of the parish one wonders about the future of the churches which served the families of so many people we grew up with. Perhaps they will re-conceive their mission in light of the needs of the current residents in what were formerly their parish boundaries. Whatever may be, I want to extend my own congratulations to Holy Name of Jesus Church on its 100th anniversary for serving the spiritual, social, and educational needs of generations in the area in which I grew up.

Boh ti žehnaj (God bless you)!

Can’t We Just Get This Over With?

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absentee-ballot-envelopeAll of us who are registered voters in Ohio received applications this week in the mail for absentee ballots for the November election. And with this application came the thought, “why not just get that ballot, vote and be done with this thing?” Except, this won’t end the barrage of mail, phone, and TV advertising and news coverage of the candidates. Not until November 8.

I wonder how many other Americans feel as I do that this electoral process has gone on far too long. These candidates were already prominent in the media over a year ago. Since late spring at least, it has been clear who were the party nominees. And given the media attention, it seems that you would have to be living under a rock not to have a sense of who these people are and what they stand for. I suspect most of us, if we were planning to vote, knew who we were voting for months ago.

Traditionally, presidential campaigns began after Labor Day and were waged seriously for two months. Primary campaigns in the spring of election year went on for about four months, January to May. Most began campaigning in earnest just before that, then took a break until the conventions, and then began in earnest at Labor Day. I think this probably makes sense in a country as large as ours. Now it is not unheard of for a candidate to start running nearly two years ahead.

I’ve seen estimates that at least $5 billion dollars will be spent on the presidential campaign alone. While the Citizens United ruling considers the spending and advertising of PACs constitutionally protected free speech, it just strikes me as an insane waste of money, and mostly disinformation. It is also fascinating how wealthy interests can speak much louder. And this doesn’t take into consideration all the spending on other campaigns.

I seriously don’t think we will see campaign finance reform any time soon. But a shorter electoral process might lessen the amounts of money needed to sustain campaigns over such a long period. And it would have mercy on us poor voters, especially in swing states like Ohio. I seriously wonder if it would make sense to set some legal boundaries on when campaigns can begin on a public basis. It seems to me that it would make sense to keep them to the year in which the vote will take place.

The one advantage of voting absentee is that it permits me to turn my attention elsewhere. But one reason I can see for waiting until election day is, having been thoroughly acquainted with our presidential candidates, I can use the time to focus on down ballot candidates and issues, including the state and local elections that may be just as consequential. How often, for example, do we really examine the qualifications of local judicial candidates? Yet our local court systems are foundational to our justice system.

Well, thanks for letting me ramble. At least you didn’t have to listen to me as long as you have to listen to our candidates!

 

Discovering “Literary Hub”

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Screenshot of Literary Hub from September 7, 2016 (without feature banner)

I discovered Literary Hub yesterday when I wrote about Mario Vargas Llosa’s new book, Notes on the Death of a Culture. I’ve had lots of fun looking around the website, which Literary Hub describes the purpose of as follows:

 

Literary Hub is an organizing principle in the service of literary culture, a single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life. There is more great literary content online than ever before, but it is scattered, easily lost—with the help of its editorial partners, Lit Hub is a site readers can rely on for smart, engaged, entertaining writing about all things books. Each day—alongside original content and exclusive excerpts—Literary Hub is proud to showcase an editorial feature from one of its many partners from across the literary spectrum: publishers big and small, journals, bookstores, and non-profits.

Following this description is an impressive list of partners including a number of major publishers, booksellers, and review journals. One could probably spend an enjoyable evening just clicking through the links of all the partners!

The home page is topped by a graphic banner highlighting current top literary stories on the site. Presently these include “Writing a Novel Limited to the 483 Words Spoken to Ophelia,” “How a Self-Published Writer of Gay Erotica Beat Sci-fi’s Sad Puppies at Their Own Game,” “Death is Actually Very Funny: A Last Conversation with Max Ritvo,” “Mario Vargas Llosa: How Global Entertainment Killed Culture” (from which yesterday’s post was inspired), and “On Writing, Parenthood and Trying to Stay a Little Wild.” Probably something there will grab your attention, if not all.

In the left column, you can click on excerpts of recently released books, a good way to sample before you buy. The center column highlights a few other feature stories. The right column highlights “Lit Hub Daily”, featuring on September 7:

Across the top of the page, you also have a menu which duplicates some of these items. From left to right you have:

  • Bookmarks: Clicking this takes you to visual representations of bookcovers of current books with a bookmark containing a “grade” based on an “average” of at least three reviews. Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth received an A+. On the other hand Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am only rated a C+. You can click on the cover to go to a page that includes relevant excerpts of reviews with a link to the full review. Highlighted are new books, most reviewed books and best reviewed. You may also search a number of categories of books listed on the right side of the page.
  • Features: This includes a fuller list of featured articles. Since I’ve spent some time interviewing booksellers, I liked “Interview with a Bookstore: Carmichael’s Books.”
  • Excerpts: Similar to “Features”, this expands the list of excerpts from books from the few highlighted on the home page. Good feature. I read one from a book with an intriguing title. Decided the title was more intriguing than the excerpt.
  • Bookshelf includes the covers of books mentioned in articles in Literary Hub. Clicking on the cover will take you to the article. Mousing over it shows you a box telling you what article or articles the book is mentioned in. These include everything from new books to classics like Ivan Illych.
  • Lit Hub Daily is collection of the best of the literary internet collected daily. This one sounded interesting:
    • Why the man behind “Born to Run” is also “a born memoirist.” Dave Kamp profiles Bruce Springsteen ahead of his 500-page memoir. | Vanity Fair
  • The last is the already mentioned About page. In addition to the glorious collection of links to publishers, booksellers, and review journals is a link at the bottom to the “masthead” for Literary Hub.

While of course I hope that for those reading this that Bob on Books will be a kind of “literary hub,” I have to admit that I appreciated the quality of writing, the variety of features, and the breadth of content from across the literary landscape brought together on Literary Hub. I’ve bookmarked it and look forward to returning. Now, if they can just get an app for that…

Are We Witnessing the Death of a Culture?

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notes-on-the-death-of-a-cultureNobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, thinks so, and makes this contention in a new book, Notes on the Death of a Culture. I have not read the book but came across this excerpt today on Literary Hub. Llosa’s basic contention is that global entertainment culture has basically destroyed any intellectual, literary high culture, except as tourist spots for those who want to get their culture creds. He defines “entertainment culture” as a culture whose only value is profit.

What this article left me wondering is why entertainment is the only thing we value, whether it is in music videos, manga, or opiates. My wife and I have pondered why people give themselves over to such powerful addictive drugs, and the risk of fatal overdoses. All I can come up with is that we have become a culture that is living by the axiom of “let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” And if that is the case, then indeed, we are witnessing the death of a culture. And it won’t matter who we elect as president.

Llosa is concerned that we no longer value great art, music, literature and the cultivation of the intellect that led to careful, reasoned discourse. My observation is that people need a reason to value goodness, truth and beauty. Telling them they should do so, particularly when mass culture offers such cheap and quick thrills, is just not going to cut it. What is it that makes us defer instant gratification for the hard work of dissecting a careful argument, of meditatively studying a great work of art, of penetrating the depths of a beautiful but complex piece of music? What is it that drives us to devote our lives to producing such works, or other cultural artifacts of distinctive excellence?

I wonder if at the root of it all is a deep sense of hope that what we are doing matters, and will matter long after our physical death. And I wonder whether the notion that we live on in our work is enough. Woody Allen dispelled that long ago for me in the movie Interiors, when a character remarks after a death, in response to this sentiment, “what does that matter when you are dead?”

Llosa comments on T.S. Eliot, whose sense of the life of a culture was that it was bound up with religious faith. And what religious faith (in Eliot’s case as well as my own, Christianity) offers is hope. Why else would we care for the pursuit of goodness, truth, and beauty, the quest for the transcendent if there is nothing to be transcended. Can a culture exist without hope? And we witness this in our political campaigns, whether they promise expanded employment, or simply to make us “great” again. In the turn to mass entertainment and to narcotizing our pain, aren’t we admitting that none of these chimeras of hope is enough?

People in many quarters are dismissive of religion today, and Christianity in particular. And yet isn’t it the hope of life everlasting, and the consciousness of a reckoning of one’s life that drove the cathedral builders, the great artists, the founders of universities, composers like Bach, and many great writers? From whence did ideas of the rule of law, even over kings come from? Isn’t this what also drove people like newly sainted Mother Teresa to leave the comforts of home for the streets of Calcutta (Kolkata)? If we dismiss religious faith, what will we put in its place to give life to our culture, and hope that is meaningful for the many?

Review: No Place for Abuse

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No Place for Abuse

No Place for Abuse (2nd ed.), Catherine Clark Kroeger & Nancy Nason-Clark. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2010.

Summary: Written for Christian communities, this work chronicles the extent of domestic violence and abuse, the presence and factors that contribute to domestic violence in households in our churches, relevant biblical texts that address domestic violence, and steps church leaders can take to address domestic violence in their midst.

Perhaps the most sobering portion of this book is the twenty plus pages that document the extent and prevalence of domestic violence, much of it against women, throughout the world. More sobering yet is that the authors show how domestic violence also occurs in churches, sometimes aided by a cloak of silence and cover-ups rather than constructive pastoral care and congregational leadership that brings this issue to light and makes utterly clear the unacceptability of any form of abuse against men or women among those claiming to be disciples of Jesus.

The authors show how much time pastors engaged in pastoral counseling spend addressing issues of abuse. They also delineate in an early chapter both unhelpful attitudes that allow violence to continue, and steps pastors and leaders can take to become aware, to provide support and shelter, and to educate their congregations including their youth (who need to understand the dangers of abuse in dating).

The authors move beyond description to discuss the biblical texts that make clear that violence against marital partners is unacceptable. They also discuss passages around marriage and divorce that sometimes make it more difficult than it already is for victims of domestic violence to seek help and safety. Often the idolization and idealization of marriage and family pressures victims to remain in dangerous situations, sometimes at the tragic cost of their lives.

There is also frank material about both repentance and forgiveness, the possibility of behavioral change by abusers, and yet a realistic acknowledgement that many abusers continue to abuse. What is most important, it seems to me in this work, is that it doesn’t “heal wounds lightly” and yet addresses how forgiveness (while acknowledging the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation) may be healing for victims. It acknowledges that abusers may need to live with the consequences of broken relationships and submit themselves to accountability in the Christian community.

The concluding chapters summarize the important steps churches can take to address domestic violence and the authors commend the RAVE Project (Religion and Violence E-learning) website (www.theraveproject.org) as a resource both for victims and for churches. The final chapter includes a tour of the site (which still seems to basically be set up on the lines described in the book, although not very mobile-friendly).

In addition to the book serving as a primer for churches who want to counteract domestic violence, the book seeks to bridge the gap between social work and theology on this issue, beginning with the authors, one a seminary professor and the other a sociologist. They argue eloquently that the silence in many churches around these issues needs to be broken:

“Many voices declare that the church has caused men to be violent toward their wives or at least provided fertile soil for men’s mistreatment of power within their families. They argue that since the church is part of the problem, it cannot be part of the solution. Thus when violence against women is being discussed, God’s people are seldom consulted. Since we speak out so infrequently about violence, our collective voice is hardly ever heard on this issue. Generally speaking, leaders in religious organizations and those involved in community pastoral care are rarely invited to participate at the secular consultation table. The silence of our churches and our leaders is often interpreted in the public square as complicity with violent acts.” (p. 19)

It is troubling to me to observe in the time since this book was published that much of the discussion in the church has been around gender roles, and gender and sexual identity while the scourge of violence, mostly against women, continues, accompanied by our silence. It is troubling to me that our loudest and most consistent voices against this evil are not from within but outside the church, because this represents the abandonment of a distinctive mark of Christian communities from the very earliest days of Christianity, where the victims of violence and abandonment were protected, sheltered, cared and advocated for. In calling attention to this book, I hope some church leaders, both in this country and elsewhere, will pick up the book, visit the RAVE Project website, and consider how their congregations might become “no places for abuse.”

 

Review: Banker to the Poor

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Banker to the Poor

Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus. New York: Public Affairs, 2003.

Summary: Yunus’ personal account of developing micro-lending and the Grameen Bank to help lift the rural poor out of poverty by providing the small loans they needed to develop their own small businesses.

How often does it happen that a person has an epiphany, a revelatory moment that changes their lives? For Muhammad Yunus, brought up in a merchant family, and as a Fulbright scholar representing the “best and brightest” of a Bengali elite that would achieve independence in Bangladesh, the future looked promising. Returning to Chittagong, he became chair of the university’s economics department. Then came studies of the really poor in Jobra, a village near the university, and the day that he realized that 42 stool makers lacked the resources they needed to buy raw materials, tallied up the need and discovered that all they lacked was $27, which he promptly lent them himself.

At the time, banks would not give loans in such small amounts, and moneylenders charged usuri0us rates that only drove them deeper into debt. And so Yunus conceived the idea of micro-lending. In this book, we follow the narrative of the development of the Grameen (“rural”) Bank from the initial pilot project to expansion to neighboring villages and the eventual chartering of the bank. He recounts the development of its innovative lending practices (for example, no collateral, no lengthy applications, weekly payments on loans) and the conviction that the poor had the initiative and character to both develop businesses and pay back loans (typically Grameen-style banks had repayment rates between 98 and 100 percent). He describes the organization of borrowers into groups of five who all must pass a test before receiving their loans, who hold each other accountable for loan repayment without being liable for non-payments, and the setting aside of additional funds in a group loan fund, against emergencies. These groups actually acquire an ownership stake in the bank. Underlying all this is a basic trust in the borrowers, along with good structures that help with financial development.

Along the way, Yunus describes the cultural and business challenges that had to be overcome. What is striking is the gentle persistence of Yunus and an ability both to respect and creatively engage existing institutions and cultures, whether it is working out a charter for his bank, or dealing with male objections to women borrowing. One is also taken with his vision for the poorest of the poor, who he believes simply need the resources to help themselves. It is obvious that he infuses that vision in his staff, who often pass up better jobs because of the social mission of Grameen.

The latter part of the book describes the extension of Grameen Bank ideas to other nations, including the poorest of the poor in the United States. It is humorous to see how hosts in this country would bring to Yunus small business people who needed loans, when Yunus wanted to meet with the poorest of the poor, those who didn’t have businesses, but simply an idea of what they could do to support themselves if they had the money to get started.

The book concludes with Yunus’ account of the development of various Grameen enterprises (including village phones, telecommunications, textiles and fisheries), the roll-out of Grameen II, further developing Grameen’s principles, and a final chapter on his passionate endorsement of the Millenium Development Goals to eradicate poverty, particularly among the bottom twenty percent of the world’s poor.

While Yunus talks about setbacks and challenges, most of these have to do with, or are attributed to external factors. It seems we hear almost exclusively of success stories and not much of failures or organizational mistakes. The book makes a strong case for the promise of micro-lending, but doesn’t explore the limitations or other factors in economic development. Perhaps that would distract from the story he is trying to tell but a greater place for discussion of these matters would give less the sense of micro-lending as a panacea rather than as a useful practice.

The book ends in 2003. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. In 2011, the Bangladeshi government forced Yunus to resign his post at Grameen Bank due to age (he was 72). In 2013, the government passed the Grameen Bank Act, allowing it to make rules for any aspect of bank operations. Whether the Grameen Bank will continue to serve the poorest of the poor as it was conceived to do thus is an open question. What is clear however is that Yunus developed a model of micro-lending to the poorest of the poor, built on belief in their initiative and trust that they will repay, that has contributed to growing self-sufficiency for many individuals and economic development in many settings of poverty with lessons applicable throughout the world. In an era increasingly concerned about “helping that hurts” this account offers a model of “helping that helps” worthy of our attention.

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Washington School

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Mahoning Youngstown Washington

Washington School. Source unknown, reproduced from Old Ohio Schools website: http://www.oldohioschools.com/mahoning_county.htm (no attribution given)

Labor Day marked not only the end of summer but the beginning of a new school year. I grew up on North Portland Avenue on the lower West side. For my first seven years of school (1959-1966), this meant walking down the street to Washington School, at the corner of North Portland and Oakwood Avenue. My mom bought our house while my dad was in the service during World War II and she and her father chose it to be near the school.

Washington School was an old building even when I started school. The original part of the building was built c.1912 with possible additions in 1914 and somewhere around 1918-1920 when longtime superintendent of schools N. H. Chaney retired (from whom Chaney High School got its name). At that time, there was a twenty room addition in process. The building formed a giant L and my hunch is that the side facing N. Portland was built first. The east-west wing connecting to the south end of the wing on Portland was probably built later. There was a drive or alley between the school and houses on Portland and Lakeview Avenues.

Like so many of these old school buildings, Washington had big windows, high ceilings, wood floors in the classrooms and steam heat that heated classrooms through radiators. No doubt there were huge amounts of asbestos and lead paint (how did we survive?). There were two floors of classrooms. The school office was just inside the front entrance off of Portland. There was a basement with a cafeteria. What I most remember about the basement was the PTA Bazaars that were held there every year. When I was young I looked forward to those bazaars because they sold small toys, candy and would also have prizes.

School assemblies and class pictures would take place in the auditorium which was way down in the sub-basement. It seemed like we would descend endless flights of stairs whenever there were one of these functions. I think this was also one of the places we would go for civil defense drills (this was the era of the Cuban missile crisis).

The playground was located on the inside of the “L” filling the space bounded by Oakwood and North Lakeview. The playground and the sides of the building bordering it looked out over the steel mills as well as an entrance ramp to I-680 off of Oakwood, once this was built. Many of us might look at those mills and think of fathers or relatives who worked there or of the expectation at the time that someday we might work there. I still have memories of dodge ball, kick ball and all the other games we played. In the summers, my friends and I would play baseball there, until we had matured to the point that we were constantly knocking the ball onto Oakwood or the freeway.

What I most remember is all of the teachers I had and the foundation of a good education they gave me. Kindergarten was Mrs. McDermott. I missed about half of that year due to repeated illness, until I had my tonsils out. First and second grade were Mrs. Smith who could be stern but really cared and recognized even then that I loved to read. Third grade was Mrs Fusek. Between her and the school nurse they figured out that I was seriously near-sighted and needed glasses. Miss Adamiak was my fourth grade teacher. I particularly remember her love of science, and sitting in her classroom in November of 1963 when the announcement came over the PA that President Kennedy had been shot. Mrs. Vidis was our fifth grade teacher. She was strict and tough and when she saw I was being lazy pushed me to work harder and up to my ability. In sixth grade, I had Mrs. Welch, who was somewhat thin and wispy but could control a class of rambunctious pre-teens. For some reason what I most remember of that year was a unit we did on the United Nations.

Miss Stage was the principle during much of the time I was at Washington. She was a formidable gray-haired woman and you didn’t want to be sent to the office. Discipline was strict, you walked in lines to cafeterias and bathrooms but under it all, I had the sense of having teachers who really cared about teaching us and giving us what we would need to succeed in life. I also remember Mr Kollar, the custodian, who kept the heat on in that old school and kept it spotless. That must have been hard work!

The site where Washington School once stood is now a gently sloping field. In 1964, there were 26,000 baby boom students in Youngstown schools. With declining enrollments, Washington School was closed sometime around the early 1980’s, and I believe the students who would have attended there were sent to West Elementary or Stambaugh. For a time there was talk of it being turned into apartments but I suspect the costs would have been prohibitive. The windows were broken and boarded up. For a time, it continued to serve as the neighborhood precinct as a room off of Oakwood was opened for voting. Finally, the heating became unreliable and that, too, ended and the building was torn down, like a number of other schools.

While I was saddened to see the school go, I understood. Times had changed. It was too expensive to operate with inefficient heat and other problems. One could dwell on this, but I prefer to remember the good teachers, the classmates, and experiences that made this a good place when I was there.

Review: After College

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After College

After College, Erica Young Reitz. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016.

Summary: A faith-oriented guide to navigating the transition from college to early adulthood, exploring issues of faith, relationships, community, work, calling and finances.

Much has been made about the loss of faith that sometimes occurs among youth who go to college. Less attention is given to the deepening of faith of others or the spiritual awakening of some that occurs during college. Even less have there been good discussions of how believing students navigate the transition to post-collegiate early adulthood. Until now.

Erica Young Reitz, who has led the Senior EXIT program, a senior year college transition program at Penn State, has given us a kind of roadmap describing the transitions post-collegians face, and what it means to live faithfully to Christ in a new situation. In her introduction, she writes:

“Leaving the gates of university life often comes with the expectation that we’re ready for what’s on the other side. But what does readiness even mean? Some students feel ready in September of their senior year (get me out of here!) while others—who may actually be more equipped for the “real world” than they realize—dread college coming to a close. In the scurry of résumé preparations and job applications, it’s easy to reduce readiness to our emotions about entering adulthood or to a list of key items necessary for life on our own.”

The first part of the book explores what faithfulness to Christ looks like in this new situation. She explores what it is like to go, like Abraham, with God into the unknown. She considers our expectations of “normal” and whether these have room for adversity, in which we might experience taking up the cross in new ways. She explores the big question of discerning God’s will, especially when faced with a myriad of choices.

Part two then explores what faithfulness looks like in community. She honestly discusses finding new friends post-college and the challenge to become hospitable people. She talks about finding a church, with some helpful material for those who have experienced different forms of abuse in their church experience. She talks about the diversity of people we will encounter and going out of our comfort zones. She gives very practical counsel on the matter of parents and moving from dependence through independence to a healthy form of interdependence. She candidly discusses dating, sex, and marriage, post-college. I especially appreciated her practical counsel about not living together while saving up for the storybook wedding, which seems to be the narrative of many young couples.

The final part of the book concerns living out our calling faithfully in the world. She includes chapters on stewarding every area of life for the kingdom, dealing with the realities of the workplace, and our handling of finances. She offers a very practical discussion of workplace realities and what it might practically mean to “bless” our co-workers. In the area of finance, she offers helpful resources including a budget planning sheet and challenges the assumption that it is necessary to take on large car loans and consumer debt, freeing one to use more resources for kingdom aspirations.

The book is informative without being preachy, using a number of stories while also giving very practical tips. Reitz helps people understand how this period is a kind of liminal space that may feel disorienting or painful, and how to live as a person of faith in this time. Each chapter concludes with “Going Deeper” questions that could be used individually or in a group discussing the book. There are passages for scripture study as well as a few additional relevant books suggested.

This is a great gift for graduating students. Even better, it would make a great discussion resource for a semester discussion with a group of seniors. The issues Reitz raises also raise important questions for those of us working in collegiate ministry. Are we waiting until senior years to talk about things like the will of God, community, work and calling, money and sexuality? We probably talk about sexuality before then, but what about the others? Are we simply mentoring students for our mission on campus or also for their mission in life? After College is a great resource to help students navigate this crucial transition from the former to the latter.