The Holiday Season 2009

There is an argument to be made that home is where you are, wherever that is. When you visit a place with an open and welcoming spirit, you can make it your own, for however long you are there. We start our Christmas letter in this way because 2009 has been a year in which we have made many places our temporary home, where nearly every month we were traveling to visit friends and relatives, to relax, and to see new places.

Since our children now live in two places: Eagan, Minnesota, and Washington, DC, those are two of our regular destinations. Indeed, we started the year with a visit to Washington, not only to see our son, Chris, his wife, Jaime, our little granddaughter, Maddie, and our daughter, Lindsay, but also to attend, along with about 2 million of our not closest friends, the inauguration of our new president, Barack Obama. We will remember it as spending about seven hours in the cold, but also as a celebration of our country’s election of a leader who has the ability to inspire us not unlike JFK inspired us when we were young.

In February we abandoned the cold of Madison for about three weeks with our now annual trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. An indulgence to be sure, but the weather, the beach, relaxing with a good book around the pool, the warmth of the Mexican people, and enjoying the company of new friends, makes this place a magnet that we cannot resist. And so we don’t, nor will we in 2010. If you need to contact us in February of next year, return e-mails will be sent from there.

I think the most memorable travel of 2009 for us was spending 20 days in The Netherlands in July. We participated in a home exchange, turning our home over to another family as we took up residence in Dordrecht, one of the oldest Dutch cities, not far from Rotterdam. Holland is a small country, and you can easily take the train to many cities and after seeing the sites be home for dinner. So we visited places like Delft, Rotterdam, The Hague, Maastricht, Utrecht, Gouda, Bruges in Belgium, and more. We visited European friends and had some who visited us while we were there, and we had a place for them to stay—our Dordrecht home. The final three days, we spent in Amsterdam partaking of its canal walks, museums, and restaurants.

During our time there, we visited some art museums with more masterpieces in one room than most museums have in their entire collection. Of course, everywhere there are canals and bicycles and buildings from the 1600s and picturesque views just waiting for John to take pictures of, and he did a lot of that. Home exchange is a great way to visit a country, and it substantially reduces the cost. We are fortunate to have had this opportunity and the good sense to take advantage of it. Flying back through Minneapolis, we were there just in time for our granddaughter Amber’s fourth birthday party and finally back home in Madison.

Not too long after arriving home in early August, we were off to Washington again for Maddie’s first birthday and how much fun that was. She is in the picture that accompanies this letter on her mommy Jaime’s lap and sitting next to her cousins, Amber and Kyle. While in Washington, we try to see whatever the current exhibit is at the National Gallery, and if Congress is in session, to attend whatever Senate hearing looks interesting.

In September, it was off to southern Utah to visit John’s mom and his sister, Caralee and her husband, Jimmie. We were not aware of the beauty of this part of our country, and it is no exaggeration to say it is simply stunning. In one week during our visit, we went to Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Thank goodness for digital photography because John couldn’t take pictures fast enough. Because we were in the west, we took the opportunity to split up, Nancy to California to visit family and friends and John to Oregon to do the same. Finally back in Wisconsin for a few weeks before yet another trip to California in October for our niece’s wedding and a visit with friends in the Palm Springs area.

And then to Minneapolis for grandson Kyle’s second birthday. Back in Madison, we happily welcomed our entire family for Thanksgiving, during which time the picture on the card was taken. Interwoven during and between this travel, John kept CWL going with five new titles in the Briefcase Books series, with more to come in 2010. Maybe he is semi-retired and maybe not—he hasn’t figured that out. And Nancy managed to keep up with her volunteer activities.

So on to 2010, a new grandchild in June, and making a home where we find it, sharing our times with friends and family and having yet more adventures—we know we’re not near done with those, and we hope you’re not, either.

Happy Holidays and Happy 2010

John and Nancy Woods

Human Nature and Our Instinct to Help Others

In a widely e-mailed article in the New York Times, We May Be Born With an Urge to Help, I submitted the following comment, which was posted at the end of the article.

My take on this comes from this basic premise: the brain cannot abstract itself out from the world in which it exists. There are only two things that have meaning to us as thinking beings: relationships and processes (and process is about how relationships change through time in a purposeful manner). To make sense of ourselves is to make sense of how we are related to and part of the world. The self is quite literally the sum of our relationships to the world. To look out for that world is to look out for ourselves. To harm that world is to harm ourselves. There is a lot of pain and misery in the world because many people are not aware of this fact of our human nature.

That there are negative consequences to doing ill to others and the world in which we exist affirms the premise laid out above. That there are positive consequences when we look out for our world also affirms this premise. Just consider when you felt best about yourself. I can almost guarantee it's when you have been generous, kind, compassionate, and helpful to someone else or made some kind of contribution that makes the world a better place. Now think about those times when what you've done causes you to feel anxious, unhappy, or nervous. It's almost always when we have exploited others in some way. These feelings are the body's way of providing feedback on when you have done something either good or bad to yourself.

It's not that children have a tendency to help others. It's that in doing so they naturally feel better about themselves. That’s built in to our nature. To the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" My response would be "No, I am my own keeper, but this means I am my brother's keeper." Why? Because when we look out for that of which we are a part, we look out for ourselves. It really is as simple as that. And when things don’t work out as we expect, we can learn from the experience and do better next time. You can read more more about some of these ideas at www.cwlpub.com/brain.htm.

Does the Peace Corps Really Matter?

John Coyne at the site Peace Corps Worldwide asks, “Does the Peace Corps really matter?” The following is my reply.

Does the Peace Corps matter? I can say it matters to me. I remember in the middle of my second year thinking how meaningful this experience was to me personally. I was really enjoying myself and for one of the first times in my life really felt good about myself and what I was involved in and the people I was involved with. That’s when I decided to extend for a third year. Why leave something after two years when you’re just really getting good at it?

The point is that the Peace Corps is an organization that gives people a chance to make a difference, each person in his or her own way, in a place where what we do actually makes a difference. In a way, the Peace Corps isn’t the people who make it up. It’s really that each person is an individual Peace Corps and this organization is just the umbrella that makes this possible.

The work we do as PCVs does help the countries in which we serve. But there is something else going on as well. It’s the relationships we form among our fellow human beings in other countries that I think make the longest lasting difference. We Americans have our own culture, with all its strengths and weaknesses, just as is true of cultures across the globe.

What the Peace Corps allows, for a very small investment, given the return, is the connection between people of different cultures to learn about and from one another, to grasp our shared humanity, and from the American perspective, to add value in the country in which we work, while broadening our personal understanding of the world and ourselves at the same time.

It’s pretty amazing that we have this organization whose most important result is opening people up to one another. If that isn’t the foundation for peace, I don’t know what is. And in that sense, the Peace Corps is well named, indeed.

If this seems a bit idealistic, well, it’s how I feel, and it reflects my experience of serving three years in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia. I think it also captures my son’s experience of spending two years as a PCV in Kazakhstan.

My Health Insurance Rant

I got this e-mail from Senator Russ Feingold asking my opinion about upcoming health care legislation in Congress. Well, I let it all hang out:

I have been in business for myself since 1992. From 1992 to 1999, my wife, who has a degree from the University of California, Berkeley, kept a job that she was way overqualified for mainly for benefits for she and I and our younger daughter. Finally, revenues from my business reached a point where we could afford health care ourselves, expensive as it was.

However, several years before 1999, my wife had a bout with sarcoidosis, and the first time we applied to GHC, the plan that worked best for us, we were turned down because of this preexisting condition. However, because we were friends with an influential doctor who worked for GHC, he intervened on our behalf, and we were accepted.

However, the charges every year went up by double digits, and by 2008, the last year we were on this plan before joining Medicare, our price for two adults who seldom went to the doctor, was $1,175 a month, with a $30 co-pay and no drug coverage. If we had continued through 2008, our total outlay for that year for two healthy adults would have been $14,100. And I am sure it would have cost more in 2009.

Small business people and individuals basically get taken to the cleaners by our current system. I have long favored single-payer health care. That is essentially what Medicare is, and it seems to be working fine. In fact, let those Republicans who are screaming about public insurance consider doing away with Medicare, and see how quickly they are not reelected.

I think we need universal health care. Health care is not a privilege but a right in a civilized, developed country. My own belief is the cost of health insurance in this country could be greatly reduced by having a single-payer system that reduces the overhead of insurance companies, who spend way too much time figuring out what not to cover rather than simply being there for people when insurance is needed.

Also, for those Republicans who think our taxes would go up dramatically, I say, what do you think that $14,100 I would have paid in 2008 to GHC is? If that is not the same as a tax, I don't know what it is. I am sure I would have paid less for a public plan.

It seems we are not mature or realistic enough politically to go for a single payer system, but I believe that a public plan is important. And if the Republicans don't want to go along, I say do it through what I believe is called "reconciliation," where you don't need 60 votes to close debate and pass a new piece of legislation. I say do not let the ideologically bound Republicans stand in the way this time.

Finally, one other thing: Connecting health insurance to employment is crazy. In this current economic debacle, people aren't just losing their jobs, they're losing the health insurance as well. That doesn't make any sense. Imagine if that were you.

And yet one more thing: If health insurance is not connected to employment, this would free people to go to the kind of work they want to do without fear of losing their insurance. It would open the door to more contract employment and freelance work. It would make the workplace more efficient because people would be engaged in the work for which they are best suited, rather than just jobs that provide those vital benefits. Far too many people take jobs they don't like or that are not consistent with their skills simply for health insurance. That's a terrible state of affairs.

Senator Feingold, I hope you get a chance to read this. Health care has been an issue for me for a long time. Let's fix it this time.

Susan Boyle and Our Tears

I have been reflecting on why, no matter how many times I view the video of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent, it brings tears to my eyes and to nearly all who see it. First of all, let’s dispense with the cliché you can’t judge a book by its cover. I’m kind of tired of reading that in the various comments people have made after watching Susan. Like all clichés, it is a crutch for not looking deeper at what’s going on.

The feeling I get when I watch this video is not different from what I have experienced when I have teared up watching a movie that has a particularly poignant scene in which the real goodness of a character comes through. Think of Sydney Carton who sacrifices himself for his friend at the end of A Tale of Two Cities or Rick saying goodbye to Ilsa Lund at the end of Casablanca.

In all of these situations, and especially when we watch and listen to that sweet powerful voice of Susan Boyle, a regular person who simply believes in herself, we experience that tightening in our chest, the goose bumps, and the tears that slide down our cheeks. I think this feeling is called forth when we witness the emergence of the most admirable parts of our shared humanity when we least expect it.

Susan and the best writers, along with the actors who portray the characters they create, touch us in ways that remind us of the simple grace that we each possess but seldom experience. In those moments we forget the superficiality and the defensiveness that pervades our everyday interactions. And the relief of that releases an emotional response that is pure joy.

The voice of Susan Boyle is a wonder, but it is connected to a regular person—not someone we have already recognized as special, and that is what truly touches us. We discover that she is indeed special, and maybe I am, as well. Barbra Streisand also sings beautifully, and we listen for the pure enjoyment of hearing her music, yet it usually doesn’t bring tears to our eyes.

We may think we are responding to the authenticity and innocence of Susan and her singing, but at a deeper level, we are experiencing our own authenticity that she, completely unintentionally, has awakened in us.

As I write this, there have been about 27 million views of her video in less than a week. If this doesn’t speak to a longing for simplicity and honesty in our lives, I don’t know what does. Maybe that cliché “don’t judge a book by its cover” does apply, but we are not just speaking of Susan, but ourselves as well.