Perfect

With all the craziness in the world – the wars and ever-present political upheaval, the economic hardships and social disagreements – it seems selfish to focus on the self. Who has the right (or the spiritual band-width) to focus on the individual when the whole world is going to hell in the often mentioned but never sighted hand-basket? While banding together and acting as a unit seems like the appropriate course – all hands on deck and all that – units are comprised of individuals. If we all rise or go down together, surely we must recognize that the ‘all’ is made up of tiny bits of ‘me’.

And not just the ‘me’ that goes to the supermarket, funds a retirement plan, complains about the potholes, snarls at the local news, has babies, wonders where the dreams went, and waits for the end times. No, the ‘me’ that came into the world with some kind of purpose and personal power – assuming that such a ‘me-being’ could perceive its own light.

So what about all the individuals that make up ‘us’ – that is, make the world go round, spawn the wars and economic schemes and personal disagreements that flow down all those dark rivers to the seas of discontent, that care about me and mine and maybe the tribe if it makes sense (that is, profits) me and mine? What about all the individuals who focus on beauty and clothes, bank accounts and jewels, affiliations and social status, race and creed? What about all the down-trodden who have not yet realized that they aren’t going to get a break – ever – regardless of what the teacher said in elementary school?

What about the kids who are bullied because they are attracted to someone of the same sex, or a different religion or race? What about all the teachers who want to be able to support their families by teaching other people’s kids? What about all steel workers who saw their parents raise their families on a living wage, only to be told that ‘outcome’ is now nothing more than a dream? What about all the artists, poets, musicians, comedians, lecturers, and philosophers who found a spark within, nurtured it, committed to it, only to be told that the new economic reality has no room for their gifts?

What about the lovers who seek someone – anyone – to share a life, a heart, a meal, a morning, only to be dissuaded by the drive for physical perfection and emotional disengagement? What about the spiritualists who are laughed at for believing that there must be something more than material scorecards?

What about the children? What about the children who believe that we know everything? That we are the fonts of wisdom, the lights that illuminate the roads they travel, that we are the leaders who know what is important and right, that we will never harm them or lead them astray, that we are the protectors of the good?

What about the children?

And. what about us?

We are given lives. And while we think they are given without strings attached, these lives come with reinforced spider webs attached. Do do do. Be be be. Act act act. Feel feel feel. Ignore, fail, compromise, lie down. Expectations. Biases. Fears. Hatreds. Preferences. Bargains. We are wrapped in cocoons that circumscribe our lives. We do not even know or feel when these attachments affix themselves. And we want to be so strong. We want to be so good and right. We want to fulfill. We want to resist the darkness. We want to be perfect.

But we can’t.

We can’t because we don’t know. We can’t because we don’t see. We don’t know that nothing is perfect. We don’t see that nothing is perfect unless we accept ourselves. Until we accept ourselves. Until we look into our own personal mirrors, into our own personal eyes, into our own personal souls, and decide to be content with what we see staring back at our own perfect selves.

Because the only perfection is the light that shines within.

In the Heart of Light and Shadows

“I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything
I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

                                             -- Anne Frank

I dunno, Anne.

As a child of the 60’s, I thought so too. Sure, I was aware of evil in the world. People who stole and murdered. People who took advantage of the weak and unfortunate. People who refused to extend the hand of friendship (let alone love) because the color of the other’s skin, or the tenets of his religion, or the country her grandparents immigrated from did not match theirs. I knew there were dark-hearted people who created shadows in America.

But there were also those who carried a light that shone from within their own hearts. There were the church folk and their God who said that we should love one another. And there were the musicians who sang on the radio urging us to “love one another right now.” And there were people in the streets who not only danced, but reached out a hand in friendship. Who wouldn’t be told who to love. Who started soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Who marched for the rights of people who weren’t members of their own tribe, and who taught at schools that weren’t in their own neighborhood. Who cried when the bad men killed people who wore a different skin color. These were the people who hoped and loved, who worked for a better day, and who stood up against the shadows in men’s hearts.

And these people are still in the world, carrying the light simply because it’s righteous and joyous.

But shadows still spread long and hard in the hearts of too many of us. Too many still hate – yes hate, not misunderstand, not mistrust, but hate – those who do not resemble them, who believe differently, who travel from another country to pursue the same dream (some of) our ancestors dreamt. Some who still hate those who want a piece of the pie we say is ours. And too many are willing to march and scream, and spit and snarl, and burn and kill, because they truly believe that those “other people” hate them too. Not because of what they’ve done, but simply because of who they and who those others are. It’s only natural, no?

So, I dunno, Anne. I don’t know if we are really good at heart. I don’t know if we are really bad at heart either. Maybe, just as sun and rain are good in the right proportions, just as tools and guns are only evil when you misuse them, and just as speech and literature can inspire or incite, we are good and evil in the same proportion and in the same manner that we spread the light or welcome the shadows. And, while maybe it is all just part of the ebb and flow of the human condition, I wonder if we can help each other now by shining a light into a shadow when we happen across it, rather than stepping in, and letting the darkness tint our better selves. Because Anne Frank also said: “I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.”

We are not trapped in an attic, hiding from the shadowed hearts. We can carry a light in our hearts into the sunshine of now.

The Art of Misbehaving

newyorkjet.com

The Jet's win over the Patriots this evening reminded me of a point of conflict embedded in human nature. We battle against bad behavior, but sometimes we can't help smirking when the bad boys triumph.


Prior to the game, the Jets, led by irrepressible coach Rex Ryan, got into the faces of the New England Patriots, trashed-talking about their ability to conquer the  golden boys of winter. Fans and press alike tsk-tsked the team's antics as bad form, unseemly, and guaranteed to augur a humiliating defeat. For good measure, the Patriots stoically disciplined their own Wes Welker for similar poor conduct, sending a clear message that they would not tolerate such unsportsmanlike behavior.


I recall when my hometown Eagles taunted the Patriots before the Superbowl. They were also roundly criticized, but, unlike Ryan, they bowed to that criticism, conceding that trash-talk had no place within a civilized game like football. Maybe there was also a bit of fear that the Eagles' bravado would rile an already worthy opponent, inflaming it into an unstoppable force.  The Eagles lost, but I always wondered if they would have stood a better chance had they reared up and claimed their right to talk smack in a game that is roundly recognized as a war simulation.

Because, the Jets stood way up on their hind legs, got in the faces of their opponent, backed each other up in the face of disapproval, and won. They embraced their bravado and made it a necessary ingredient to their victory.

Sure, their is a bright line between acting up and criminal offenses, because there's a difference between conduct that annoys (excessive end-zone celebrations anyone?) and conduct that harms (helmet-to-helmet - ugh!). But, maybe we need to test the limits more often in this free society of ours. Maybe we need to question more regulations and tenets and decrees. Maybe we need to toss off the sheep's clothing that swaddles us. Maybe, in a society increasingly weighed down by rules of conduct for which no one can remember the genesis, what we need is a little more misbehavin'.

Sturm and Drang

Philadelphia Mural Arts Project BRIDGE Mural (47th and Chestnut Street)

I find myself sighing a lot recently. Yes, so dramatic, but so necessary, so relevant, so purge-pregnant.

Sigh ...

So much upheaval in the world – shall we label it from the way back: Sturm and Drang? That resistance? That recalcitrance? That unwillingness to reach across the societal divide that originates within our own selves?

Surely, it has always been this way. But every time I ask someone: “Has life/politics/culture/religion/society always been this dramatic, this full of opposition and resistance?” she replies: “No, I have never seen things this out of sorts.”

Wars? Sure. Class, race, ethnic, political friction? Certainly. Intellectualism vs. down-home common sense? You betcha. I want guns; you want organic garlic. Yeah, man.  We are at war with each other -- on account of rain. The individual irritants spread like a virus of discontent to families and affiliations and groups and societies and nations until the whole world is off balance – off-balance to the extent that there must be organized forces committed to the propagation of chaos. Something is pushing the unbalanced down a rabbit hole to that place where souls forget who they are.

Seriously, there are forces in the world that would rather say: “Damned it all to hell – with buckshot!” than: “Ohhhh, maybe I’m w-r-o-n-g.” There are those who pray for Armageddon, who believe sometimes you have to destroy something to save it; who truly think the enemy is MONSTROUS and incapable of humanity.

Not like us.

There are some who believe that the enemy is blocking the road to all that is good, and right, and deserved in life. Hell, if not for all those damned black hats, life would be a golden bowl of cherries! But, no one stops to think that maybe the enemy views us in the same black light. No one considers that we are the black hats in the hearts and minds of our enemies. Us and them. Light and dark. Up and down. Like in that old Pogo comic strip: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

But, what if when we saw the other guy struggling on the street, or read the account of someone’s life spiraling down, or suffered some indignity at the hands of a stranger, we resisted thinking: “Glad it’s not me,” or “Probably deserved,” or “Screw you and the horse you road in on!” and instead wondered: “Do I have the capacity to grasp his situation?” or better yet: “Can I help? At all?”

What if, them became us and vice versa. What if dark became light, the strange became familiar, and enemy became less than and closer to friend? What if all that resistance and complaining and shouting dissolved into dust on a table. And, what if we sat at that table, and looked across into the eyes of our brother?

Got Hope?

Sigh.

I am an eternal, unapologetic optimist.

Oh, my faith can be shaken when enough dark clouds move in. I can see the evil in people, and the best-laid plan gone awry. I don't sit in the dirt on the prairie, refusing to acknowledge that the wheels have gone off the wagon. I get it. Bad shit happens. Sometimes bad shit happens for an extended period of time - centuries even of ill intent, unfairness, exploitation and down-right evil. And for some pretty suspect reasons, if you ask me.


But, call me Pollyanna because it doesn't take more than a whisper-thin ray of light shining through the dark clouds before I see a path to the good. Hope bubbles to the surface, the wind fills the sails, and we got a ballgame folks. Go Team Light!


So, I must be feeling a bit out of sorts, this morning because I am not feeling the light about Sudan's upcoming vote for independence. Today, the mostly Christian people of Southern Sudan are voting to secede from the mostly Muslim northern seat of power in a bid for independence and dignity. But, there are masses of billowing, roiling dark clouds in the sky over that African nation, and I am having a hard time locating that sliver of light.


Here is yet another people taken over and reorganized by a steady stream of invaders. A people blocked from development by a government eager to maintain control of oil. A people persecuted and tortured by their own government -- featuring an administration that denies providing material support to the gangs and slavers who happen to fall on the right side of the power and religious divide. A people who watch their sons forced to join an enemy army and kill or be killed, and who watch their daughters be raped. 

And, we in the US and other western nations say we support this independence movement, but is it freedom or oil that drives us? I fear it is the latter. And, when your rich uncle offers to protect you from abusive parents while fingering the family silver you have to wonder why he stopped by. So, I am having a difficult time imagining how a sliver of light can find a space to shine in Sudan.


But maybe the Southern Sudanese have enough vision for hope. Over the next 6 days, they will participate in their vote for independence. They will brave tricks and threats (or acts) of violence, and vote for the right to chart their own national course. I hope they succeed. Then I hope they are able to hold off the coup-mongers and the First World predatory lenders and the all-purpose corrupt and faithless long enough to build a foundation from which to grow a nation.

I hope the light shines bright and strong to part the darkness. 

Early Morning Snow

I swear I didn't plan it this way. I just wanted to take a day off to hang out with my Mom.

Now the snow is falling this early Friday morning. 
 
And since we, the people of Southeastern PA simply cannot remember how to drive in the snow from one storm to the next, the first sirens are wailing. 
And the plows are running to and fro.

And my neighbor is cursing in that mild way of his.

And the snow keeps falling as if no one has anywhere to go.

And me? I will drink my coffee, munch on a pumpkin muffin, and wait for the morning rush to pass ... 

So Much Air

Photo: Swedish Yogini

My, but we’re a big-winded species.

From the first man who expressed himself with a look or grunt or drawing in the dirt, we have embraced communication as the holy faculty of humanity. Our ability to communicate allows us to share information, establish relationships, to build community and develop culture. It supports our survival and drives prosperity. Freedom of expression is the cherished liberty of the lucky, and one of the first casualties of the disenfranchised. To possess the capacity to express oneself and to be understood is a blessing.

But, God, sometimes we don’t know when to shut up.

It doesn’t matter if it is a cave painting (did you really need to draw 17 horses?) or email (I don’t care-delete. I don’t care-delete. I don’t care …), we have so much to say, and want everyone to hear it. Of course it’s important. Of course y’all want to know. And, as the channels become more sophisticated and less labor intensive, we have the opportunity to go tell it on the mountain. Loudly.

How many people will see my cave painting? Five? Okay, I’ll draw a dozen more telling it over the fire. Wouldn’t it be terrific if I turned it into a poem? More entertaining with a Greek chorus? I could cut a wider swathe with a printing press – Think of the numbers! Teletype, email, discussion board, blog – Facebook! My God, it’s Communication Nirvana! And, they’ll tell their friends – a thousand mountaintops!

So much talk. So much opinion. So much air. And not all for the good.

We educate, but we also gossip. We enlighten one moment and mislead the next. We manipulate and flatter, castigate and condemn. We assassinate characters as often as we redeem them. We lie. We read about the best and the worst of us. And, guess which we find the most compelling? We know what’s constructive and destructive in what we say. We say it anyway.

And in our net-centric, smartphone-enabled world, we say it farther and faster than ever before. We’re surrounded. To all the paper that ever was, add all the transmissions from radio and television, plus all the e-communication created in the last hour, and you have to make a real effort to evade the voices clamoring for attention.

But you can do it if you want to. Just disconnect. Yes, dis - connect. It’s an act of will against that human imperative to commune, but go for it. Go for a walk in the cold, dark night. Just you and the voice in your head. Tell it to shut up. Look up to the sky where the stars sparkle around the first sliver of the new moon. Resist the urge to comment. Exhale. Watch your breathe rise in a cloud of silent smoke and disappear into thin air.

New-ness

It's 2011.
Another New Year.
Another chance to start anew.

We say our goodbyes to the old year like an friend - or enemy - departing on a train headed west.

We breathe. We tell ourselves that now is the time for a fresh start. Time to give up bad habits. To cultivate good ones. To make friends. To embrace family. To be more productive, more healthy, more loving and giving. To be the better/stronger/faster 'us' we've always wanted to be. The calendar turns over, and here is one more opportunity to reinvent ourselves.

But aren't those opportunities always with us?

Every time we wake up, aren't we starting anew in some sense? Every time we leave the house, step forward, begin something, every time we pause and reconsider, aren't we reinventing some portion of ourselves, our lives, our world views?

That is, if we want to.

If we want to, we can make a habit of examining the old, keeping the valuable, and shedding the outmoded like dry skin. Over and over again, we can look at each day and step and meeting on the road as an opportunity for new-ness. Almost as if we had a sun to rise every 24 hours, awakening us with a fresh new morning, we too can rise with the expectation that at some time during this day there will be a chance to experience something new.

Tough prospect, this constant review and reinvention, huh? Who has the time and energy - or inclination - for that?

But yesterday, you said, you said, you said: "It's a New Year for a New Me!"

So why is January 2nd less new-worthy than January 1st?

Blessed Christmas to You

Christmas Eve is my favorite time of the season.

The malls are closed. The traffic has eased. Luminaries line the curbs of well-tended neighborhoods. The churches are filled with the glow of candlelight. The bouncy radio and television Christmas jingles -- accompaniment to all the frantic shopping and baking and wrapping -- give way to the pensive, poignant carols and hymns that always lead to ...

Silent Night.
Holy night.
Son of God.
Love's Pure light ...

Whatever you believe, whatever you hold dear, here's a free night of the quiet soul.

Enjoy.

And Merry Christmas to You.

Criminal Intent

I was seven years old when I committed my first felony.

Okay, maybe it was only a misdemeanor.

I blame Mrs. Weinstein, my second grade teacher. Her dislike for me was evident even to my young mind, and who can resist acting out in the face of such disapproval?

Okay, maybe her disapproval started after my crime. I can’t quite recall. I am, however, quite certain that I was at least a little misunderstood, and could have used a bit more monitoring in those early years.

It was Sunday, and I always did my homework Sunday evenings, but this particular Sunday, my parents decided to visit relatives. In those days, I remember us visiting relatives quite often. Later, those visits tapered off. Maybe it was a consequence of my crime.

Okay, maybe it was because a slew of relatives died around that time. I am certain, however, that no one consulted me about visiting relatives. Or about the state of my homework. To be honest, I am not sure if such queries would have done much good, since I remember feeling quite surprised – and chagrined – to realize, upon returning home at bedtime, that I had not done my homework. And, it was due in the morning. And now I couldn’t do it, because it was bedtime. I was not lazy, mind you. It was bedtime, and I was not mistress of the clock.

There it was then: the genesis of my crime.

To appear at school without my homework was unthinkable (testament to my sense of responsibility and work ethic), so I put on my thinking cap and what I thunk up was the need for a note. You know – that golden chit. That get out of anything without a scratch card. That ticket to the mystical land of unaccountability. A note excusing the easily excusable. I could not do my homework at my regularly scheduled time, because I was visiting relatives.

Okay, not sick, troubled, or otherwise imperiled relatives. But this was America! The land of baseball! Apple pie! Station wagon trips to visit relatives!

Okay, we didn’t have a station wagon, but the rest of the story held a teaspoon of water. Who wouldn’t accept such an excuse?

I cannot remember why I decided against asking my parents to write that bullet-proof excuse note. I cannot remember why I thought it was a good idea to write it myself. I do recall being unable to find a pen. Or a pencil. I did find a pad of my mother’s Memo from Frances Rivers customized green note paper. And a crayon. A green crayon.

I practiced writing that note quite diligently, well past my bedtime. See, it’s hard work creating a reasonable reproduction of your mother’s writing and signature in green crayon. Especially when you are just learning to write in cursive. At some point, I convinced myself that my efforts looked authentic.

Okay, I became sleepy and convinced myself that my efforts looked authentic enough.

The next morning, Mrs. Weinstein called for the homework. I trotted up to her, smiled and said, “I have a note.” I recall handing it to her with a bit of a flourish. My teacher opened it, read it, and told me to return to my seat. She did not look at me. The rest of the school day passed uneventfully.

That afternoon, my neighbor Debbie and I skipped home. It was a beautiful spring day, and we had Wednesday Bible Study with Mrs. Carbo. Mrs. Carbo was a warm, heavyset woman with cotton white hair who favored floral print dresses. She was earnest without being simpering, and pious without being overbearing. All of the kids went to bible study whether they adhered to Christian concepts in their daily lives or not. I recall it being more than simply something to do.

We ran gaily into my house to deposit our books. And, found my mother and father seated at the dining room table. In our double income family, it was rare for both my parents to be home at the same time in the afternoon, but there they were, sitting together at the dining room table. Staring at me.

“Debbie, Felicia cannot go to Bible study. You’ll have to go without her.”

Not go to Bible study? What the hell? Debbie did the what-did-you-do? eye roll and left the way she came.

Seems Mrs. Weinstein’s calm acceptance of my forged note was a ruse. She wasted no time ratting me out to my parents as soon as I was out of earshot. I’ll bet it was the scandal of the teacher’s lounge.

So, I was confined to quarters without the benefit of clergy. Come to think of it, why would one deny a sinner exposure to the Lord and all his redemptive influences? Would not a better course have been to rehabilitate me with more religion? This is the same faulty logic that punishes misbehaving, under-achieving students by denying them extra-curricular activities. If they are not performing in school, wouldn’t it be better to rehabilitate them within structured programs than to loose them onto the unmonitored streets of temptation?

Okay, I don’t recall an extended confinement. And, I got to keep the crayon.

What kind of lesson is that?

Hunter's Moon

I see the moon and the moon sees me, Under the shade of the collibah tree. I say to the moon that shines on me: Shine on the one I love.



My Mother used to sing that to me.
In fact, she would sing it to me tonight with very little provocation.
Moms are like that.
The moon - just another mother - is like that.
Talk all you want about reflected light.
She shines.
With very little provocation.

A Breath of Bliss

Have you ever experienced a momentary sense of bliss? As if you passed over a ley line, or brushed against a barrier between worlds, or something magical brushed by you – only for an instant – then moved on?

I feel such every once in a while. I felt it this evening. A brief sensation when it seems everything converges to create a sense of right-ness, right now. Always I am driving, and I get this feeling that I just passed something wholly good, and meant for me in particular. A sweet pause, that lingers, captured by inadequate memory. I have no idea what this good is. No thought or action brings it on. I have nothing with which to predict it, or attempt to reproduce it. There are no markers with which to identify the cause. It is invisible and silent and non-manifest. And, yet it gently triggers ever sense simultaneously.

I have come to recognize the ghost of a scent, a taste, a sense of pressure. And, it produces a breath of well being that is just passing by as it registers. Then it is gone, and it is so remarkable that I cannot mourn its passing.

Perhaps it is a coincidence of firing synapses and air pressure. Or a dream teasing from the sub-conscious. Or spirits playing tag.

Whatever it is, it is only for a moment. Then gone. And, I am left in bliss.

Good News Story

"If it bleeds, it leads."

That is the mantra of news.

We humans love drama, and drama all too frequently equals blood, horror, and bad circumstances that cannot be fully absorbed by the average guy or gal. We "tsk" and cover our eyes (forgive those who peek expectantly through their fingers, please). We saddle up and rally around the down-trodden whilst gossiping about their victimization and distress. We do our civic duty and wait for things to fall apart. We are the light-seekers who peer into the darkness. We are the audience for the blood-thirsty 6:00 local news. And it is the body counts that make us so high.

Then that damned good news comes along, and we don't know what to do with ourselves.

Do we celebrate the happy outcome? Sure! Yea! Another one for the good guys! Or do we crouch under the weight of our baser instincts and move on, looking for the next disaster, grousing that the body count is low?

Well, allow me to pummel you with this smiley-faced balloon:

There's this dude in Florida named James King. A girl who attended his former church went missing, and he decided to enter the alligator-infested swamps of Winter Springs, FL to find her, armed only with his bible, water, snacks, toilet paper, and a GPS-enabled phone. She was missing for FOUR DAYS. He found her, bug-bitten, dehydrated, but otherwise unharmed. He called the authorities, and brought her back to her grateful family.

Now in this disgusting social climate, we are a suspicious lot. So, James King was questioned by a dutiful police force to ensure that he was a hero, not a perpetrator. Do your recall a time when we took our heroes at face value? Well that time is not today. James King, however, is apparently a king among men, because he raised no red flags. He is a bona fide hero. Good for him.

Now I don't care what his politics are, or what his religion is (James King reported that while he searched, he recited the Bible verse that reads: "Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don't lean on your own understanding. And, he will direct your path.").

This man didn't have to do anything related to the girl from his church. He could have gone to breakfast, watched a game on TV, read a book, worked a crossword puzzle. Instead he went looking for a lost 11-year-old girl with Aspberger's, and found her. Alive.

"There she was, sitting on a log," he said, "looking expectantly, like, 'You're finally here.'"

How is it possible to have a better day than that?

Well, At Least We Did Not Shoot the Children.

Oh, wait ....

View Wikileaks video: http://www.collateralmurder.com/

I get it.

I know with certainty that without the brave men and women who are willing to stand watch on the wall against all aggressors, to travel thousands of miles to keep the wolves from our shores, to protect our way of life, to protect our freedom and treasure, to sacrifice blood and limb and soul ...

Without the stout-hearted individuals who answered the call to war, we would be lost. Soft targets in a dark, ever-dangerous world.

But, when these fine, brave men and women travel overseas to pick up a gun, launch a helicopter, and police an area, they take on more than the risk of life and limb, more than training and duty. They take on the responsibility for not just their lives and culture, but that of the innocents who travel within the fogs of war.

I can not imagine the pressure. I cannot image the day-in-day out twitched-muscle fear of soldiers who must measure each mission, each step, each minute in units of survival-units, waiting of the next ditch or block or citizen to be the end of everything he or she has lived for.

But, see? That just makes it more important to do the right thing. We come over here/over there with messages of freedom and justice and unmitigated rightness. Well, if we are going to take on that glowing mantle, then we have to glow.

Being stressed out, or tired out, or bored, vengeful, scared, or rationalized, or preemptive, or in need of one damned moment of humorous respite -- none of that justifies brutality or carelessness or collateral anything.

Hell no, I haven't been to war (unless you count Thanksgiving dinner), and I do not know what it is like when every act or step could be my life. That does not excuse me, just as it does not excuse you from recognizing right from wrong.

The Magic of Good Mojo

Tribune Photo by
Heather Charles

Optimism.

That bright spring light of the mind and soul. That boon from god that allows us to get up every morning, to hope for a better day, a better vision, a better apple, car, job, song, story, life. Optimism, even when leaning flat against reality, lets us believe that in the end, EVERY LITTLE THING is gonna be all right. Truly. In spite of everything else.

In spite of the darkness that lurks along our paths. In spite of the sadness, fear, hatred, anger that brushes against us. In spite of all those helpless days and hopeless feelings. In spite of all the things we think we could resist outright, if only we were stronger, smarter, better, prettier, more talented, more MORE.

Well, you have to know one thing: optimism goes a long way toward setting the stage for triumph. Just believing in something - preferably your own self - is a shield of courage that protects you as your dare to take that first step of the journey toward whatever new day that has grabbed your imagination.

And when optimism is mixed with a dream and a plan and willing people who know how to help you mix and bake your personal recipe? People who know how to buck you up when the shadows stretch across the path? Well hell. Suddenly, you find yourself much further down the road than your first dreams ever led you to believe was possible.

So, this month, Chicago's Urban Prep Academy announced that every single member of the school's first senior class - 107 of them - had been accepted to college. Young men who came from destitution and swaddled futures. Young men who had hardly dared to dream of much of anything. Young men who doubted that academic success was in their future. Young men who entered the school unable to read at their grade-level.

Now, you can sniff at the uniforms and complain about the demands and other trappings of a highly controlled environment. But before you do, you should ask the graduating seniors if the jackets and ties, the gender segregation, the extended school days, the constant messages commanding FOCUSFOCUSFOCUS, the extra English credits, and the long commutes were at all worth it. Ask them if the ability to call everyone they know to shout, "I got in!" was worth it. Ask them if forcing the shadows on the road to retreat in shame was worth it.

Class of 2010: Go on with your bad selves.