Making sense of it all

    I think I'm like a lot of older people, at least in this way: I'd like to look back on my life and see a pattern, a trajectory. And I'd like to think that it all leads to something, that I have accomplished something, that I have made some contribution toward making this world a better place.  (I guess it's time to stop saying, "I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.")

    What have I accomplished?

• After too many years of education, at a point where all the future I saw was sitting in dusty archives writing scholarly volumes, I escaped by joining the Peace Corps.  So for two years I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bangkok, Thailand. I've got a draft of a book about that -- with pictures.  I think I had a good influence on some of the people around me -- I helped a bunch of kids become fluent in English (but were they able to stay fluent after I left?), and I may have caused some of the adults I worked with to look at the world in a broader way.  But the more important effect was on me.  I saw poverty and political powerlessness, and I saw American aid programs that accomplished very little because their administrators didn't understand the culture they were working in.  I saw how complicated it is to try to improve the well-being of poor people.
  

• I spent four years as a counselor in program called Project Opportunity in a low-income disadvantaged junior high school.  Not much writing has come out of that experience, but it has undoubtedly shaped many of my attitudes. Recently I've gotten back in touch with some of the "kids" who were in that program -- they're all in their 50s now -- and I've been astounded to learn that everyone I talked with was absolutely emphatic that this program had changed their lives in a major way.  So this experience -- of then and now -- is inspiring me to work to revive something like this program and to work with other efforts to reduce school drop-outs.  See the bottom of this page for more.
  

• I've been an English teacher.  I could write a very non-mainstream book about grammar (and perhaps will) -- but would you really want to read it? Could it outsell Eats, Shoots, and Leaves?
  

• I've designed, set up, run, and evaluated job-training programs.
  

• I've run a home-repair business -- done carpentry, painting, plumbing -- put on roofs -- finally established working with windows, particularly old window units with sash-weights and puttied-in glass, as an uncontested area of expertise.  (I was working with windows before I ever saw a computer.)
  

• I have -- for over a decade -- taught groups of senior citizens how to tell their stories so that grandchildren -- and others -- will want to read them.  This experience led to the book Tell Your Story.
  

• I've managed an apartment building for low-income elderly (and thereafter, for a full decade -- almost as long as the old ladies I knew were still living there --  my wife and I went there weekly to visit many of the tenants).
  

• I'm an amateur Biblical scholar, specializing in Historical Jesus Studies.  (Who was Jesus really, and what did he really teach?)  This has led to several books (now available for purchase). An objective look at the evidence -- mostly in the Gospels themselves -- makes it clear that the message of the historical Jesus -- even as presented in the Gospels -- was quite different from what the church has always taught, and that most of what we consider the teachings of Jesus probably did not originate with Jesus himself. Information  
  

• I've led Course in Miracles study groups.    
  

• I've dealt with the challenges of being a mature single (hence You & Me: a book about relationships). (Sometimes the maturity may have been questionable.)
  

• The experience of co-managing (with my now ex-wife) an apartment building for low-income elderly led me a decade of homeowner-association management, from which I recently retired
  

• I continue to be interested in languages.  In junior high I took French and Latin.  In college and grad school I took lots of German, which eventually led to an exchange year in Hamburg -- and fluency (lost and regained several times over the decades).  Background in several languages led to my selection for Peace Corps service in Bangkok (on the theory that Thai is extremely difficult and best learned by those already fluent in several languages). Prior to a vacation in Italy a few years back, I learned enough Italian to read signs and newspapers, and even to write notes in Italian to the non-English-speaking nuns who ran the convent where we stayed -- but a long way from enough to engage in conversation.  And now in preparation for a trip to Hungary, I have been working on mastering Hungarian grammar and have amassed a large Hungarian vocabulary -- but again am a long way from conversational ability.
  

• Kay and I have both become ordained and now work with couples to plan the wedding service they want.  We perform 25-30 weddings a year, and have done about 200 over the last nine years.  In case you missed it on the way in, here's a link to the part of the website that presents our very non-traditional approach to weddings.
  

• Coming almost full-circle, after getting back in touch with former Project Opportunity participants, most of whom are living evidence of the effect of the program on their lives, I realize that --as long as some 30% of young people fail even to complete high school -- something like Project Opportunity needs to be revived.  I'm currently exploring a variety of programs for at-risk youth in the Durham area, and I am now on the board of a mentoring program called Movement of Youth. My hope is that a renewed Project Opportunity can be funded as an additional activity of Movement of Youth, and that this -- along with other successful programs -- can in future years be expanded to additional schools and additional communities.  The big challenge is of course funding.  School systems -- and the governmental units that fund them -- have difficulty believing that keeping kids from failing can be a money-saving investment (much less that it needs to be done whether or not it saves money).  Here is a brochure I wrote to describe the project then and my hopes for its revival now.