January: In and Out, Back and Forward, Endings and Beginnings

January. Thanks to the collision of Percy Jackson (as in The Lightning Thief), Xena (as in "Warrior Princess") and social studies (as in the 6th grade curriculum on the Ancient World) with my daughter's imagination, January's relationship to the Roman god Janus is one of our current topics of conversation.

Janus: the Roman god of doorways and gates, beginnings and endings, and decisions. He was quite popular back in the day and his distinctive head (with two faces, one looking back, one looking forward) appears frequently on ancient coins and carvings. In our time, he also shows up in the name of a door manufacturer and a family of mutual funds.

Doors, decisions, financial questions, endings and beginnings are such January things. Doors open to welcome company, closed against biting winds. Year-end tax issues, charitable contributions, decisions on the benefits package from an employer, New Year's resolutions.

And another year older, both ourselves and the ones we love.

I did some looking back this fall. I asked my mother about a specific group of pictures taken by my father's parents on a trip to his home town in Georgia. She brought out what she had.

I didn't find the pictures I was looking for. I found something I needed: pictures of smiles. Smiles I was not around to witness, was to young to notice or had forgotten in the more recent years when they were thin on the ground.

I found a picture of my grandfather taken in the early days of his life with my grandmother. They must have been traveling, for a car features prominently in the background. A boyish joy radiates from the sepia image, even though he was 31 when they married. By the time I knew him, he was imposing and sometimes stern in the way of grandparents born in the first decade of the 20th century. It was hard to imagine him being young, being something other than the upright head of the family I remember from childhood, or the quiet gentleman courteously stepping aside for his rushing children and grandchildren as the world changed and his mind began to fail him. But there it was, in that picture.

I found pictures of my grandfather's beloved baby sister. She never married but lived quite a life. Pictures of friends - oh, I wish I knew how to be the friend she was. Photographs from trips to England and Italy, and to visit us. I had known how much fun she was to be with, but had been was too young to notice the beauty and confidence of a woman who had gone after what she wanted. I noticed it now because old age stole the confidence and left her with only depression and memories of depression. This sad person was the one at the top of my memory stack. It was good to be set straight.

And I found a picture of my grandmother, the woman who made by grandfather grin like a boy. She was a loving grandmother, but not the warm and fuzzy type. The box of toys she kept for us was very small and unimaginative (to my mind). She had high expectations and was hard to please. I remembered proper, grandmotherly smiles, not laughter. But my mother had snapped a picture that told a different story. There she is, at the head of the children's table one Christmas, beaming at us and laughing with us over something extremely funny.

It is a crying shame that the evils of the present can work back and eat at the love and joy that used to be. It's not that there was no pain or heartbreak, because there was. Even (maybe especially) humans that love each other can do horrible things to one another. But to remember only the bad isn't healthy.

My heart is lighter now. Looking back gave me these smiling faces to replace the weary, even blank shadows of later photographs. I have my family back in a way I never thought possible. And I have perspective that sends me forward in peace.

Healthy heart. Moving forward. Peace. January.

*****

Check out my blog at http://steppingbacklookingcloser.blogspot.com/ to leave a comment or find past columns.

(Cleveland Post, January 5, 2012)

 

Christmas Peace (Cleveland Post, December 1, 2011)

I opened the cabinet door to put away the plastic container, only to have five other lids cascade onto my head. Argghhhhhhhh! Why, in the season that points to that time when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, am I not given a reprieve from gravity, an arguably similar natural law that stands in the way of my household peace and harmony?

And why does it bother me now, when it was just something I dealt with in the preceding eleven months of the year?

Deep breath. Count to ten. Perspective. Patience, patience.

This may be the message we need to hear this time of year, but in order to hear it you pretty much have to go into seclusion, turn off the radio, television, web, phone, and have somebody else sort the mail.

*****

Given the condition of my kitchen cabinets, it may seem odd that Martha Stewart is a hero of mine. She has made a successful career of taking homemaking and homekeeping as the serious charge it is. It is work, sometimes even drudgery, but done for people you love and with the understanding that it will make life run more smoothly. As I tell my children, we clean bathrooms because we like clean bathrooms, not because we like cleaning them.

I bet Martha Stewart isn't hit with an avalanche of plastic lids when she opens a cabinet. And that is as it should be: she has accepted the fallen (gravitationally and otherwise) nature of the world, created systems to meet it head on and committed to implementing them. Perfect, no. But organization can head off the bad words and snitty moods by limiting the damage when the unexpected occurs. This is particularly helpful during the holidays. Assuming, of course, that "organize" actually gets checked off one's to-do list.

*****

It is absurd, all this craziness around Christmas. After all, this baby Jesus grew up to be the one who said to another Martha, "You worry too much."

According to the Gospels of Luke and John, Jesus was a friend of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. He often stayed at their home in Bethany. One day, he arrived with his disciples and Martha went straight to work. Mary didn't. She followed the other disciples and settled in to listen to Jesus teach.

I think most of us can imagine the hurt, the bitterness, the frustration Martha felt. Here she wants everything to be nice for Jesus and his disciples, and Mary has screwed it up by refusing to help.

Not one to take such things lying down, Martha goes to Jesus and demands he make Mary help her in the kitchen. But Jesus says something like "Martha! Chill! We came for the conversation and company, not to be waited on. We can eat any time. Mary gets that."

Oh, the women's Bible study discussions that story brings up! They don't want to argue with Jesus, but, really, doesn't he realize that for folks to eat work must be done? Just like a man!

I like to think he added something akin to "Come join us, Martha. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are really all we need," but Luke's gospel doesn't record that.

What it does say is that worry, hurt, anger, and lack of balance are nothing new. It says that all of us - even women - need to realign our priorities from time to time to make sure we are getting the things that nourish the spirit as well as the body. And in the wondrously screwy way of humanity, that might mean some of us need to get up from the desk and cook something delicious for someone special.

*****

The booby-trapped cabinets convict me of being more like Mary than Martha. I intend to sort them out but the time gets away from me. Kind of the way folks intend to share the Christmas spirit all through the year and start shopping early so they have time to enjoy the season.

We think we can catch up to all of it, the housekeeping and the kindness, in a month. There is something ominous about blowing this particular deadline, that justifies a short temper.

Deep breaths. Patience. Sleep. Perspective.

The cabinets can wait. The deadline is more than met if my children remember love as laughter and fun and peace, not stress, not impatience. That is no small contribution towards peace on earth, good will towards men.

Family Holidays (Cleveland Post, November 17, 2011)

With the holidays on the way, I have been thinking about family and cooking and hospitality. And Joe Lee's thirty odd relatives bedded down in a mill house. The tale of that visit, as recorded in a recent "My Southern Expressions" column, has stuck with me and peeps out when I encounter Thanksgiving-themed ads and articles.

Magazines and advertisements are full of perfectly roasted turkeys and recipes for cranberry and pumpkin treats. Costco has had peppermint bark for over a month. Carpet cleaning and furniture are on sale to help fix up the house in preparation for all the guests.

I also read somewhere that real estate experts say that new houses are shrinking, down from over 2,500 square feet to a little over 2,100 square feet. You could fit at least two mill houses in one of the new ones, if not three. To reduce the square footage, they are getting rid of living rooms, formal dining rooms and mud rooms. I'd give a lot for a mud room.

(For those unfamiliar with mill houses: In the early days of industrialization in North Carolina, building a cotton mill meant building houses for the workers, as there were no towns with a housing market large enough to accommodate them. Mill houses were small, but often - when they were new - a lot nicer than what the mill hands were used to.).

We've got bigger houses now, but you don't hear of folks being as hospitable as Joe's family. Relatives over the age of twelve sleeping on the floor, well, there is just something unseemly about that. And these days, we are more likely to strengthen families ties by keeping a safe distance.

We make jokes about our families, or at least laugh hard enough at the comedians to keep them coming. Not all the jokes are heartwarming.

Troubled family questions keep the advice columnists in business: "Dear Addy, My sister has invited our father for Thanksgiving and he wants to bring the hussy who ruined our family and our mother says she won't come if he does. Help!" Tragic, comic, all at one time.

There is something special about immediate family, but that is also where any problems tend to reside. And even if there are no problems, the mix can get stale. Same folks, same jokes. The smaller the family, the fewer opportunities to hide or change the subject.

Even the turkey and pumpkin pie get old, if the number of recipes for new twists on old favorites that appear this time of year are any indication. So, maybe folks should take an idea from the cooks: add some new ingredients, rearrange the old ones.

It is amazing the change one new adult guest can work on a family gathering. For one thing, it adds new topics of conversation. For another, it can make people mind their manners, and reduce the chance of family laundry getting drug out. And if it doesn't, it might change the fireworks. But sometimes it changes the whole dynamic and fond memories are made.

If you've got thirty relatives, there are lots of conversations and stories - and opportunities to avoid the painful ones. But it's hard to rustle up that many relatives these days. Even if you have them and you love them, the chances they live close enough to come for Thanksgiving are likely slim. (Yet we do travel - Thanksgiving is the worst --oops, I mean busiest --travel time of the year).

I wonder if food only appears to be the center of Thanksgiving because its the one thing we have control over. We may be able to influence the other things for which we are grateful--family, friends, employment--but they are not under our control. That is why they are called blessings.

So, if the holidays have gotten predictable or problematic, maybe the thing to do is to invite some new "ingredients". My mom has this year and I am looking forward to it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The Home Team (Cleveland Post, September 22, 2011)

Sometime in our first year of marriage, my husband gave me the most wonderful gift.

I was on my high horse about something, something that seemed important at the time. I proceeded to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that I was going to do what I was going to do. My tone said quite plainly that he had just better like it because I would fight for it if necessary.

When I stopped to catch my breath, he looked at me, a little puzzled, and said, "I am on your side, you know."

That shut my mouth.

Courtship being over, I had assumed I would face opposition. I expected my judgment to be questioned. I expected a preemptive strike to expose as-yet-to-be-identified threats to him or his honor lying hidden in my idea. Such was my experience.

Not his. His default assumption was that I would look after his interests no less than I would look after my own. There was no opposition. He trusted me. Wow.

On the one hand, this should be a "Well, duh!" moment. After all, marriage is supposed to be about two becoming one, "gettin' hitched" to pull as a team.

But as I got to thinking about it, I realized how loudly the teamwork message got drowned out in popular culture. Marital conflict is fertile ground for comedy, and comedy sells way better than earnest romance.

It is, after all, 'the battle of the sexes." On TV, it was Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, Fred and Wilma Flintstone, Archie and Edith Bunker. The battle grinds on in the long-running comic strips, like Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey.

Sneakiness was a key plot element. One spouse was always trying to get away with something behind the other's back. I guess children can relate to wanting something they are told they can't have, presumably by someone who knows best.

Cartoons taught me that the wife always had a frying pan with which to beat her husband over the head when he came home late. The animated clanging and warping of the frying pan was hilarious. So, when my oldest brother and I played house, I procured my mother's 10" cast iron frying pan to use as demonstrated on TV. No, I never actually hit him with it. At least, I don't think I did. If I did, it wasn't that hard.

Marriage stereotypes show up in advertising, too. There are the ads where the wife saves the oblivious husband from a trip to the store and nasty computer viruses, or the dad only gets his family's attention when he buys them new phones.

Then there are the ones about money, where the wife comes home from a shopping spree, hidden by all the packages. These female fiscal irresponsibilities are often pitched as payback for the male transgressions: new, cool, expensive, unnecessary, and (if the guy's on a roll) totally useless gadget.

Over and over again, on television and on the radio. They are meant to sell products to adults, but they unconsciously convey ideas to children. And they wouldn't work if they didn't hold an element of truth.

Selfishness. Suspicion. Distrust. Superiority. There was no doubt that Ricky and Lucy loved each other, but for some reason, love didn't lead to trust. And it sure didn't lead Ricky to help Lucy pursue her dreams.

"I'm on your side." Wow.

Recently, I have realized this is an important message for children to hear, too. There is a parent-child version of the conflict. With the start of school, we've been going through a difficult spell. The first couple of weeks it seemed like every conversation, every reminder turned into a battle.

Son: "I want to wear my camo shorts on Friday."

Mama: "Okay, put them in the laundry so I can wash them."

Son: "Gahhhhhhhhh! I hate putting things in the laundry! That's too hard! Why do I have to everything?"

Poor kid. Precious time taken up with things he hates to do, no time to do the stuff he wants to do. It's enough to make a child think the whole world is against him.

Realizing this, I took him aside one afternoon and reminded him that I was, in fact, on his side. And I pointed out how my reminders and discipline were there to help him learn how to make time and space to do the stuff he wanted to do.

I don't know if he heard me. I'll keep trying.

I Spy (from the Cleveland Post June 16, 2011)

Summer vacation is here! Time to pack the young 'uns in the car and hit the road for adventure, fun and a visit to Grandma's.

And to while away the time, a challenging game of "I Spy," the most life-shaping game I ever played.

I was not always very good at it. In fact, I was routinely whomped by my oldest brother, never mind that he was two years younger than I.

That boy had the keenest eyesight of anyone I have ever known. "I spy something blue" never referred to something so obvious as the sky. Oh, no. More likely it was the tiny blue dot indicating 'cooling' on the air conditioning control on the dash of the car. It was maddening.

His most impressive feat occurred after our "I spy" days had past. We were driving along a country highway and passed an overgrown back yard with a tarp-covered lump up against the fence. The lump had an exposed tail light that caught his eye. That was enough for him to ID it as a 1966 Dodge Charger, without letting up on the accelerator.

His eye didn't just catch mechanical details. Even as a kid, he was a gifted naturalist. Shark's teeth seemed to materialize on the beach exclusively before his eyes, even though my eyes scanned the same stretch of sand. Wading through the creek together, he could pick out frogs and lizards from the vegetation they sought for protection. Literally close enough to bite me, I would never have seen them if he hadn't pointed them out.

He'd show me, and then I would see. Don't just look for the frog but for the places the frog likes to be. I would keep that in mind and look some more, but by then he'd be on to something else: while I was looking for frogs, he'd have spotted a crayfish. I could not keep up.

But I wanted to. Rivalry is not the only thread binding sibling relationships. Yes, I wanted to hold my own in "I Spy" and find as many sharks' teeth on the beach. But there was more to it than that. Our relationship made his curiosity contagious and gave his interests clout. My attachment to him meant his interests had a claim on me.

I see this in my own children. My son isn't particularly fond of horses but he knows his sister is and so keeps an eye out on her behalf. Similarly, she doesn't like trains but he does and so she notices rail cars on a siding and can be counted on to make disdainful remarks about Thomas merchandise they see in a store (he has outgrown Thomas, you see, and doesn't like to be reminded of his childish past).

This kind of relationship changes how you see the world. Not only does it expand the number of things you see when you look, it broadens the nature of those things. The search for wildlife comes to include the search for signs of wildlife.

But even before that, it modifies your attitude. Yours is not the only self on your mind as you peer out at the world. If that other self sees the world differently, that will change what you see. That is the first step away from accepting the world as described by others and towards letting world reveal itself to you.

Even as a kid, I was a heavy reader, so this was a big (if unnoticed) step. To fairy tales, fantasy and history (fiction and non), I added muscle cars and fishing and bluegrass (that one took a while) and various branches of marine science.

Interestingly, bluegrass lead me to my husband. We have been adding to each other's perspective for a number of years now.

So, if you find yourself stuck in the car on a long trip, try a game of "I spy" to pass the time. It could change your life.

Playgrounds for Grown-ups! (from the Cleveland Post, May 5, 2011)

Stepping Back, Looking Closer: Playgrounds for Grown-ups!

by

K. S. Volcjak

I was wrestling with this week's column when my daughter came home with a language arts assignment: Describe the perfect playground.

We brainstormed.

I ditched my topic for hers.

Playgrounds. Wouldn't it be awesome to have play equipment sturdy enough for grown-ups to play on it with their children?

Think about it!

Have you been to a modern playground? They are so cool! They get my imagination going.

I spent many a recess on the Muscle Man at our elementary school. Three parallel bars, about waist high on a fourth grader, lead back to a more enclosed area. Horizontal bars, for doing flips, connected the parallel bars to two "walls" of galvanized pipe. The pipe was spaced like the rungs of a ladder, rose on either side, and gave access to two fireman's polls. The back "wall" consisted of a long stretch of monkey bars. I suppose it could have been a fort, but, looking back, boot camp obstacle course is what comes to mind. That may have had something to do with my 6th grade teacher, who was a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps and sent us across those monkey bars every morning to keep us in shape.

But the newer play equipment speaks to my imagination. Rope ladders lead to platforms constructed to look like the decks of sailing ships (including the ship's wheel, ropes and pulleys). Swinging bridges connect to towers which provide access to serious slides or even zip lines. Adventure beckons.

I don't think I would have had the nerve to try a zip line when I was a child. And I had a particular fear of swinging bridges because on TV they usually came with steaming jungles, snakes in the trees, rotten boards and jagged rocks far below.

But now - let me at 'em!

Alas, I am not 12 or under.

Wouldn't it be fun to go on Indiana Jones adventures with your children, across those bridges or down those zip lines? Or race up the rope ladder to go a-pirating? Think of the stories we'd have to tell.

Think of the exercise we'd get.

A few years ago, my husband built a play set in the back yard: ladder, fort, slide, swings. I insisted that the swings be sturdy enough for an adult. I'm glad I did. Nothing like swinging to lift your mood, soothe your spirit. Robert Louis Stevenson put it beautifully:

"How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

"Til I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside--

'Til I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown -

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!"

Healing Times (From the Cleveland Post, April 21, 2011)

Stepping Back, Looking Closer:

Healing Times

by K. S. Volcjak

There's nothing like a good illness to put things in perspective. Some of my fondest memories are rooted in times of sickness. Weird, I know.

The first incidence occurred when I was in high school. Mono was going around my circle of friends and I got it. Considering the mythology that surrounds mono in high school, that was something of an accomplishment for someone who hadn't had a real date until that fall.

But heartbreak goes along with first dates. Regular school attendance requires you to see the object and cause of that heartbreak on a daily basis. Mono got me out of that for six weeks.

For six weeks, I stayed home. My parents' business was run out of our house, which allowed my mom to give just the right amount of attention to a sick teenager. We kept each other company. I slept, read, and kept up with my homework on an "as you feel up to it" basis. As I began to mend, my mom and I did things together: cooking, sewing, running errands. It was winter, and I remember sitting next to the fire in the quiet, snow-brightened sunshine of our living room. No worries. It was wonderful.

Then there was the time I was in college. I was working, pledging a service fraternity, getting into real engineering courses, had a term paper to finish. I came down with bronchitis. I couldn't stay in our apartment because I couldn't breathe there: my roommate had a dog and the house was covered in dog hair. I ended up in the old Clark Infirmary at N.C. State. They told me school would have to wait and put me to bed. With the doctor's official permission, the anxieties collapsed and I slept for three days. When I did wake, there was a nice nurse to give me medicine with ginger ale or Coca Cola, just like my mother did when I was little. All that was missing was the sweet aroma of paregoric.

I wasn't sick when I went to the hospital to have my children, but they were both C-sections, so I wasn't rushed in and rushed out. It was restful because the boundaries were clear: my job was to take care of myself and my baby. The bright, uncluttered room allowed me a vacation from the million tasks waiting for me at home.

That is not to say all illnesses are like this: There was the time I got the chicken pox. I was five and it was the weekend my parents were hosting a big party. It was quite an event, for my parents never had big parties. So, while my brother got to run around with friends and eat potato chips and dip to his heart's content, I had to stay at my grandmother's. She treated me like a princess, but it still wasn't fair.

A few weeks ago, our life was interupted by another time of healing. This time, it was my daughter who was in the hospital (and who got to do the actual resting). Nothing tragic, or even particularly scary (thanks to an observant grandmother who picked up on the symptoms early). We are all well. But we were brought up short, detoured from our normal worries.

A life full of people you love, worthy responsibilities, engrossing interests, and enough drudgery to keep you grounded is a good thing. But there is never enough time for all of it and so choices must be made. I usually feel I could have done better if I had just tried harder.

For me, there is something restful in having those choices taken away. All the foolish fault-finding is burned away in the glaring truth "Nothing else matters right now."

What mattered was reading aloud from a favorite book and making up silly tongue-twisters with my daughter while waiting in the ER. What was important was snuggling together and watching movies, knitting our scarves and cooking omelets. What could wait until she was better were the day to day things, like school work. The body healed and the soul did, too.

It rained a lot that week, but I hope my daughter remembers those days as warm and bright and peaceful.

Home Economics (From the Cleveland Post, February 10, 2011)

Stepping Back, Looking Closer:

Home Economics

by K. S. Volcjak

I have always cooked for my family. That's what my mother did: breakfast, packed lunch, supper. Plenty of vegetables. Mostly from from scratch. When you learn to do it that way, and learn to do it before you learn to think about it, it's just as easy heating up prepared food. And usually much tastier.

Did I mention it's also much cheaper? Thrift is important to me. As a stay-at-home mom, I don't bring in any money so my contribution our financial well-being is to spend what goes out wisely. Between watching the budget and watching our waistlines, we don't eat out much.

Cooking is a big part of my job. Not something I hate (most of the time), not something I love (most of the time). It is interesting: cooking is, after all, the most common form of domestic chemical engineering. I take a professional interest in at least knowing how to do it well and troubleshooting the causes of less than perfect outcomes (I believe I've mentioned I am absent-minded?).

But for the most part, cooking just is. Like laundry, although a bit more creative. It gets old. Quotidian.

Some time in my daughter's first years, I sat down to a meal at a church supper and realized I was profoundly grateful for this food that I had had nothing to do with preparing. I didn't select the menu, I didn't shop for the ingredients, I didn't cook it, I didn't even have to set the table. All I had to do was eat it with thanksgiving.

I would gladly have helped clean up the kitchen in gratitude.

It's not the cooking that's the hard part of providing meals. The hard part is figuring out what to cook, pinning down what four people are at least close to being 'in the mood for.' Finding something that corresponds to my time, budget and energy level. And that is relatively healthy. And then having to do this days in advance of the actual meal.

Over and over and over again. With long stretches of not getting it quite right.

My dearly beloved husband is not usually much help here. He can't think about supper when he's not hungry and shows no interest in developing that skill. Bless him, he does eat whatever I put in front of him (he's even learning to eat collards!).

Which brings me to this bit of advice: You think you are being flexible and helpful answering cheerfully "What ever you want to fix" in response to "Honey, any suggestions for supper?" No no no no no no no! She's not asking for your preference. She's asking for ideas! Any ideas! Help her out!(Note: Please feel free to rearrange pronouns as appropriate).

Which brings me to the magazines in the check out line at the grocery store. Being something of a tomboy and growing up in the midst of the women's lib debate, they were not something I had much interest in. I liked to sew and do crafts and play dress-up, as part of my desire to live in 'the olden days' when life was exciting. In contrast, their articles were humdrum, trivial, safe.

I have grown to understand 'humdrum' in a new light. Anton Chekhov said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."

I have also developed a different take on those magazines. How many women picked up those magazines, not because they were satisfied with safety and triviality or were dying to find out the 'in' nail colors for the new fashion season, but because they were desperate for something new to fix for supper?

*****

One evening last week, my daughter asked, "What's for supper?"

"Chicken and dumplings," I replied.

"That sounds good!"

An enthusiastic response to my choice of menu. I got it right. Life is good.

© 2011 by Kathleen S. Volcjak

Goodwill, Will Good (From the Cleveland Post, December 30, 2010)

"Good Will. Will Good"

By K. S. Volcjak

Goodwill. It is a Christmas word, but it has been rattling around in my head since my son had to memorize the Law of the Pack to earn his Bobcat Badge in Cub Scouts earlier this fall. 'The Cub Scout gives goodwill' is the last line in the Law of the Pack.

It stuck in my head because 'gives goodwill' is an awkward way of putting it. 'Goodwill' is a thing, but 'will' is an action. How do you give an action?

Yeah, I know I'm over-thinking this. They're first graders.

But it bugged me.

In search of clarity, I Googled the definition of 'goodwill.'

Would you believe the first hits listed had to do with money? "Goodwill: An intangible asset which provides a competitive advantage, such as a strong brand, reputation, or high employee morale. In an acquisition, goodwill appears on the balance sheet of the acquirer in the amount by which the purchase price exceeds the net tangible assets of the acquired company." (from investorwords.com).

More to the point, Merriam-Webster.com defined goodwill as "A kindly feeling of approval or support; benevolent interest or concern." 'Support' is helpful, but 'feeling' and 'approval' most definitely are not. The great struggles of humanity often include reconciling 'feeling' with 'will' or 'The Right Thing To Do'.

(As in: I knew I should joyfully thank my grandmother for the vest she lovingly crocheted to be my Christmas gift, but the ugly colors drained my joy and challenged my will. I loved her, so I thanked her the best I could.)

I played around with the definitions and the word and the sentence. 'Love' is a thing and an action, similar to 'goodwill.' But we say "I love," not "I give love." So "The Cub Scout wills --good?"

This is a step forward, for me. Still, how to explain it to a first grader?

I tried some examples out in imaginary conversations with my son. "Well, when somebody on your team makes a mistake, you encourage them to do better next time because you know they did their best."

"But Mom, what if he didn't do his best? What if he was goofing off?"

I swear children are born lawyers. "Well,...." I think a moment. "Okay, how about this. You are lining up at school and the guy behind you bumps you with his lunch box. When he says it was an accident, you believe him. That is giving goodwill."

"But Mom, Lily Lovenote is behind me in line and she always bumps me with her lunch box on purpose and she doesn't mean it when says it was an accident."

Children have no grasp of the hypothetical. You'd think I'd remember this by now.

On the other hand, sometimes I give up too soon. I tried again.

"How do you know she always does it on purpose?"

"Because she usually has this smirk on her face."

"Usually?"

"Well, there was that one time when Tylersaurus Rex bumped into the whole back of the line and made her bump into me. Fall on me, actually."

'On purpose' or accident. Mean or clumsy. Liar or not. Here is a clue, a place to start.

"Okay." I said. "Do you want Lily to get in trouble for something she didn't do?"

"No."

"Giving goodwill means that you want things to be fair even for people who make you mad sometimes."

"I guess."

It's a start.

Goodwill. Will good. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (including staying out of the way!). "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." The circle grows, as it must for those who ponder the words and listen to the angels, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men."