Chautauqua 2013

 Photo of 2" arm-wrestlers almost hidden in the ferns of a garden.

 This is the last posting about Chautauqua until the summer of 2013.  Postings in September will be about Russia.

Chautauqua 2013

Week One — June 22–28

Our Elegant Universe

In the Beginning
Chautauqua opens the 2013 Season with an exploration into the wonders of the cosmos. What theories are leading thinkers wrestling with, and how do they inform our understanding of space and time? Where do they disagree? We’ll hear from pioneering scientists, deep space explorers and others who pursue answers to the most basic questions of existence.

Week Two — June 29–July 5

The Next Greatest Generation

 Religion and Spirituality

What are the values of the young and socially aware, and how do they compare with those of older generations? How do young people interact with their elders? In a week of Fourth of July family gatherings, we explore how age affects our worldview. With 25 percent of the global population under 25, how do young people affect policy and effect change in America and worldwide?

Week Three — July 6–12

America, 1863

Emancipation: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
As our country continues its sesquicentennial commemoration of the American Civil War, we’ll look again at its legacy in the context of a most pivotal year in United States history. Which key battles turned the war in the Union’s favor? What is Lincoln’s legacy? What was the meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation? And what was it like to live in 1863 America?

Week Four — July 13–19

Markets and Morals: Reimagining the Social Contract

Markets and Morals
Have we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society? Should everything be for sale? Informed by Michael Sandel’s new book What Money Can’t Buy, this week we’ll ask whether there are moral limits to markets with regard to all spheres of our lives — medicine, education, government, law, art, culture, sports, even family life and personal relations. We’ll also consider competing ideas about the proper balance of the public and private sectors, and how that balance fluctuates between social obligation and fiscal sustainability.

Week Five — July 20–26

The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness
What is happiness and why, as Jefferson proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, is it one of our inalienable rights to pursue it? Lectures this week explore the science of happiness, what makes a happy life and how the U.S. is different from the rest of the world in that regard. Is there still such a thing as American optimism?

Week Six — July 27–Aug. 2

Crime and Punishment

Restorative Justice
What constitutes a crime and what is the appropriate punishment? What is the purpose of incarceration? Who deserves a second chance? Who decides? This week, we focus on the state of our criminal justice system — what works, what doesn’t, how effective it is and how it compares to others around the world.

Week Seven — Aug. 3–9

Diplomacy

Religion, Culture and Diplomacy
Why is diplomacy important and how does the United States carry it out? Our expert lecturers this week will explore the interaction between diplomacy, nation building, foreign aid, national security, military power and espionage. How do presidents choose who represents America abroad? What are our recent diplomatic triumphs and failures, and how will they inform future efforts?

Week Eight — Aug. 10–16

Turkey: Model for the Middle East?

Turkey: Crossroads of Many Faiths
At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Turkey has played an essential role in the history of the western world as a seat of power in the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Now a secular, democratic state with a large Muslim population, Turkey occupies a key geopolitical position in terms of energy and trade. This week we’ll examine Turkey’s history, culture, internal and external politics, and relations with its eight neighbors, including Iran and Iraq.

Week Nine — Aug. 17–23

Health Care: Reform and Innovation

Faith, Hope and Healing
With the 2012 election behind us and as we begin to feel the effects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, what is the state and the future of health care in the United States? This week, Chautauqua will invite successful reformers and practitioners to share their insights. What innovations in science, technology, policy and procedure will contribute to a future where all Americans have access to affordable, effective health care?


Benjamin Franklin and the Prius at Chautauqua

Sorry, I don't have a photo of Benjamin Franklin and the Prius.  I'll say something about them shortly... The photo here is of the Chautauqua Belle, one of only four steam-powered paddle boats left in the United States.  Once there were hundreds of such boats on Lake Chautauqua, ferrying food and passengers and supplies to places poorly served by roads.  The Chautauqua Belle is today a pleasure boat, taking passengers from the tiny town of Mayville to the even smaller town of Chautauqua, New York.

The story of Benjamin Franklin and the Prius starts near Bestor Plaza in Chautauqua.  One day I was strolling along the Brick Walk, which is the major thoroughfare in Chautauqua.  I passed a gentleman sitting at the outdoor cafe, and observed that beside him was a book entitled Benjamin Franklin and the Prius.  I did a double-take, which got noticed.  The man said that if I had a few moments, he would tell me about the book.  I was intrigued, so I sat down.

The man introduced himself as the author, Stanford Beebe.  He said he was giving away the book for a simple promise to read the book (204 pp) and write him an appraisal.  The book is a novel in which Benjamin Franklin, visiting the 21st Century, proposes a method to increase the number of women and minorities in the House of Representatives.  The method, Beebe says, is Constitutional, according to a 1968 Yale Law Review article.

Flipping through the pages, I felt that reading the book wouldn't be painful, and might even be interesting.  Well, I sealed the deal with Mr. Beebe and have started reading the book, which he wrote in 2007.  I haven't gotten very far, but I want to highlight a particular passage, where Sally is talking to Bently.  Sally says, "I'm not a computer person, and all this talk about the internet is Greek to me.  I guess it's the in thing..."  Sally's eyes were fixed on the laptop screen.  "It's amazing, all of it just coming out of the air, like it was here in the room all the time."

Sally is not an elderly woman; she's a Ph.D. student.  Memo to self:  When I write the Great American Novel, I need to watch out for comments on technology which may soon sound dated.

An element of re-creation for me is reading, and so reading an assortment of things was part of daily life for me at Chautauqua.  At home I like having classical music playing on the radio.  At Chautauqua I got something better.  Several times I had the opportunity to sit in the amphitheater and read while the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra ran through the music for the evening program.  If I were queen of some country I'm sure that I'd order the royal symphony to play for me every day at 2:00 pm.

One book that I haven't started, but am very much looking forward to reading, is by Eboo Patel, Sacred Ground -- Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America.  This is the young man's third book.  I regret not getting an autographed copy.  Oh, well.  At least I have a first edition.  As one reviewer said of this former Rhodes scholar, "Patel probes like a professor, inspires like a preacher, and writes like a poet."

Benjamin Franklin and Eboo Patel.  I have some interesting reading ahead. 

Busi-ness and Re-creation

The scene pictured here is an important part of Chautauqua Institution.  It is a scale model of Palestine, with the Jordan River running through it.  (Off to the left is Lake Chautauqua, which for this landscape model represents the Mediterranean Sea.)

Chautauqua was founded in 1874 as Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly.  It was at a time when college education was rare for ordinary folks, yet there was a hunger for learning.  Two Methodist Church leaders envisioned Chautauqua as a place where dedicated Sunday School teachers could receive some education in a place that would provide "vacation learning."  From the early days Chautauqua was ecumenical, with a program that ranged over academic subjects, music, art, and physical education.  Chautauqua was a leader in early distance learning, forming the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, which to this day features a four-year correspondence course that is quite rigorous.

The founders of Chautauqua had their sights on a societal problem that they thought they could address:  How best to use leisure time and avoid the growing availability of idle pastimes.  

At Chautauqua in 2012 I found new meaning to the terms BUSINESS and RECREATION.  Busy-ness or busi-ness can be consuming activity.  Although we are at leisure, people at Chautauqua are busy.  The calendar of daily offerings is more than one person can handle.  As we pick and choose among activities, we each experience Chautauqua a different way.  Recreation is also different.  At Chautauqua I find re-creation, renewal.  

Re-creation is also possible at home, and I'm going to try it.  I'm also going to remember something I saw on a bumper sticker, something which is emblematic of the Chautauquan concerns of faith and thought.  The bumper sticker said:

                             DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.

Eboo Patel at Chautauqua

Is this what Eboo Patel looks like?  What is an Eboo Patel?

Before this week I had never heard of Eboo Patel. I'm going to repeat the name "Eboo Patel" many times in this post in the hopes that readers will remember Eboo Patel...

The clay figures pictured above are near the Hall of Philosophy at Chautauqua, where Eboo Patel spoke this week  Eboo Patel is a young man who some people here imagine could be the first Muslim president of the United States.  He is over 35, I think. But he has a problem with his birth certificate.  It says that he was born in India.

It's deceptively simple to label Eboo Patel. He's a moderate Muslim. He's an American. He's a Muslim-American who says, "I realized that it was precisely because of America's glaring imperfections that I should seek to participate in its progress, carve a place in its promise, and play a role in its possibility. And at its heart and at its best, America was (and is) about pluralism."

 
You get the idea. That's the message. Now let me tell you about the man.

Eboo Patel is mesmerizing as a speaker. At his talk at Chautauqua the man sitting next to me said afterwards, "I came only because my wife wanted me to. I read in the newspaper about the theme of his talk, and it sounded like Kum-ba-ya to me. Yadda yadda yadda. I knew what he was going to say. Boy was I wrong! I hung on his every word!"

That man and I joined the entire audience in giving Eboo Patel a standing ovation -- the first I recall in ten years of attending afternoon lectures in the Hall of Philosophy at Chautauqua.

Patel told the story of the recent swearing into office of the first Muslim in Congress, Keith Ellison. There was a big brouhaha about the fact that he wanted to be sworn in using the Quoran. He surprised quite a few people by borrowing from the Library of Congress a copy of the Quoran that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

Patel noted proudly that both President Obama and President Bush had hosted in the White House the Iftar dinner, the meal that breaks the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. But the very first White House Iftar was held long ago -- by Thomas Jefferson.

To see a video of Eboo Patel go to his website, www.ifyc.org

Boy Dolls at Chautauqua

The ten dolls pictured above are ones I turned in today to Susan McKee, the founder of Women4Women_Knitting4Peace.   Susan had the audacious idea a few years ago that knitting might promote peace -- as she envisioned, "one stitch at a time."

In 2004, Susan remembers, Sister Joan Chittister was a speaker at Chautauqua.  Sister Joan asserted that peace will never happen until women get involved in dramatic new ways.  I heard Sister Joan also, and found her interesting.  Susan found her words transformative.

That year Susan was knitting a prayer shawl for a friend. She thought about knitting prayer shawls for women she didn't know, women trapped in conflict areas. From that thought Women4Women_Knitting4Peace was born, formalized in 2006.

Before I met Susan I came across a woman at a Chautauqua event who was knitting while waiting for the event to start. She was making Peace Pal dolls, she said. Hmmm... I had once made a lumpy sweater, and so I knew how to knit, sort of  The little dolls looked easier than a sweater, so I decided to give it a go.

The little dolls and other handmade items usually get into the hands of children in far-away places through the auspices of medical missionaries and others with personal connections. Last year some of them went to a school in Rwanda.  The children there had been orphaned by barbarous conflict. And the students in this particular school were all deaf. About 15 percent of the students had an additional crushing burden:  they were labeled CHH, responsible for "Child-Headed Household."

How important is a doll to a child with such burdens?  Hard to say. But Susan has found that the Peace Pals are important to the medical missionaries and others who carry them.  Regretting that they  cannot meet all the needs they encounter, they  are happy to see that they can bring joy to a child who gets to pick out his very own Peace Pal.

As Susan says on the website www.knitting4peace.org , "We are crafting peace and justice one stitch at a time. Committed to the well-being of women and children we may never meet, we plant seeds of hope for a future we may never see."

In just six years the program has reached 45 countries. The website says that 21,586 items have been produced. With my contribution, delivered today, that number goes up to 21,596.

A Day Without Time at Chautauqua

At Chautauqua it is possible to immerse yourself in 19th century life as completely as you want. Victorian style houses line streets that are devoid of cars. The bell tower sounds Westminster chimes every 15 minutes-- and I decided that for a day I would do without a wristwatch, I would not look at a clock, and I would not turn on my cell phone. I would listen to the bells to tell me the time.

Westminster chimes are in four parts. At a quarter past the hour the first part is played. At half past the hour the first and second parts are played. At quarter to the hour three parts chime. On the hour all four parts sound, plus the gong of the hour.  Knowing time within 15minutes is sufficient for the way of life here.

I made it to the 9:15 AM service okay, and I got to the 10:45 AM lecture. But during the 12:15 PM organ concert I lost any sense of time because I couldn't hear the bell tower.

Actually, for much of the day I heard things I hadn't paid attention to before.  While listening for the Westminster chimes I heard the laughter of children playing... The soft swoosh of a bicycle passing by...

Did I ever lose track of time?  Well, yes. And I have a confession to make:  although I did without my wristwatch and iPhone, TV and radio, I did sneak a peek at my iPad.  To be without Internet is asking too much. I'm not in a penal colony, I'm at Chautauqua -- a place with the perfect blend of the 19th, 20th,  and 21 st centuries. 

Contemplative Photography at Chautauqua

Yesterday I took a workshop in "contemplative photography." 
Our instructor said that we were to get away from "conceptual photography" about people, places, or things, and be open to an awareness of textures and colors.  Now, no one has ever accused me of being artistic, and so I wasn't sure how well I'd do in this.  I did learn something, however, and I'd like to pass it on.  It is an observation by professional photographer Dorothy Lange: 

"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."