Here’s a story about stories to lift your spirits.  Did you know there is a “neuroscience of stories”?  Experts in the fields of psychology and neurology are looking at what happens to the human brain when we are told a story.   How does the brain react to this form of verbal communication, particularly when stories are told to a group?  The results affirm something Core Virtues teachers have long intuited: the telling of stories creates a bond, and puts the student audience “on the same wavelength.”  That facilitates communication and promotes harmonious interaction in the classroom.  “It gives us a common language,” one teacher told me. 

We are now learning that this sense of “being on the same wavelength” when you listen to a good story, is literally true.  Research scientists at Princeton University, led by Professor Uri Hasson, want to understand when our “cortical activity” is idiosyncratic (unique to individuals or to subgroups) and when are our responses are shared. Are there times when brain activity synchronizes, facilitating communication? Or is human brain activity largely idiosyncratic? At Professor Hasson’s lab, they’ve been investigating this for years, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and intracranial EEG (iEEG) recording to chart brain activity. 

​April fifteenth is Corrie ten Boom's (1892-1983) one-hundred-twenty-seventh birthday.  She had something to forgive. During World War II, the middle-aged Dutch watchmaker was imprisoned at Ravensbruck concentration camp. Corrie was not Jewish, but for nearly two years, she and her family had hidden Jewish refugees from Nazi occupiers. When the ten Booms were betrayed by a Dutch informant, the S.S. carted the family off to prison, where shortly thereafter, her father died. Corrie and her sister Betsie were sent to the horrific Ravensbruck camp for women, where sadistic guards, starvation, disease, slave labor, and the gas chamber constituted daily life.  Betsie, abused and mocked by guards, died in the camp. In December 1944, Corrie was released--the result of a clerical error.   Buoyed by her faith, Corrie ten Boom spent the rest of her life reflecting on and writing about the meaning of her experience, and speaking about the importance of forgiveness. 

That’s true:  the quality of mercy is not strained, and droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.  It always feels that way to the recipient of mercy, anyway.  We perceive mercy as an unmerited gift from above, and we tend to see the heroically merciful (Buddha, Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa) as superhuman:  mild, meek, beyond anger, and detached from the things of this world.  Maybe that’s the reason “mercy” is so hard to cultivate.  We know we should be merciful, but who actually wants to be meek and mild, passionless and detached?   
 
Yet the heroes/heroines we feature this month—those who showed compassion to the wrongdoer or the weak—are anything but mild, aloof and remote individuals.  They are technicolor human beings with passions, energetically engaged in the world, and specifically engaged in service to those in need.

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world
and moral courage so rare.” - Mark Twain
 
Mark Twain’s words from the nineteenth century resonate today.  We live in an age when extreme sports (sky-diving, bungee jumping, snow-boarding, kite-surfing, wake-boarding, to name a few) have soared in popularity, as has the audience for “survivor” style dramas.  We celebrate those who push themselves beyond “safe” in high-risk feats that demand great physical courage.  One thinks, for example, of President George Herbert Walker Bush skydiving on his 90th birthday.  We admire him.  We celebrate physical prowess at the Olympics and elsewhere.  We celebrate it doubly when extraordinary physical courage combines with commitment to others on the battlefield, when brave men and women risk their lives to save others. Medals of Honor herald their sacrifice.

“I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents I want,” young Sally writes to Santa Claus in the TV classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. “Please note the size and color of each item, and send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself. Just send money. How about tens and twenties?”

Every December, millions tune in to watch Charlie Brown struggle to find the true meaning of Christmas. The program is a holiday favorite partly because it tackles a problem we all know to be true. Too often, this time of year seems to be all about getting gifts and putting up decorations. Santa Claus, with his bottomless sack of toys, becomes the symbol-in-chief for a month-long shopping fest.

​If you’re searching for the real Christmas spirit, take a look at Saint Nicholas, the Christian bishop who lived during the fourth century in what is now Turkey, and whose name we associate so much with Santa Claus.

There is an old story about Nicholas and his remarkable generosity. When he was a young man living in his hometown of Patara, word reached him that a nearby family had fallen on hard times. The desperate parents were too poor to provide dowries so that their three daughters could marry. They decided that the only way to keep their children from starving was to sell them into servitude.

Nicholas put a few gold coins he had inherited into a small bag and, one night when the family was sleeping, tossed it through a window into their home. It was enough money to provide a dowry for the oldest daughter, who was soon married.

When Nicholas saw the effects of his gift, he returned and tossed another bag of gold through the window so the second daughter could be married. When he came several nights later with a third bag, the tearful father was waiting to see who their secret benefactor was. Nicholas begged him not to tell anyone, but his act of generosity set him on the path to becoming the world’s most famous gift giver.

Nicholas was a man of God who worked tirelessly for his flock. But the most remarkable part of his story comes after his death. People began to tell stories about the bishop and his power to change people’s hearts. Because all the good he did was a kind of miracle, they told stories of the miraculous—stories of a man who could accomplish things no ordinary person could.

One old tale tells of Nicholas when he was living in the town of Myra, on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, during a time of severe famine. Hearing that some ships carrying grain from Alexandria to Constantinople had stopped off at Myra’s port, he hurried to ask the captains to sell some of their cargo. “We can’t,” they told him. “If we arrive in Constantinople with less than a full hold, we must answer for it.”

Nicholas led them through Myra’s streets to show them the desperate people. “Trust in God,” he said. “Look into your hearts and do what you know to be right.”

The captains talked it over and decided to unload a portion of their grain. They sailed off knowing they would have some explaining to do in Constantinople. And yet, the story goes, when they reached port, they were astounded to find just as much grain in their holds as when they had left Alexandria.

Such are the stories of Nicholas that have come down to us through the centuries. With time, he became known as the Wonderworker. He was an international phenomenon in the Old World. By the end of the fifteenth century, more than 2,500 churches, monasteries, hospitals, schools, and works of art had been dedicated to him in Western Europe.

His reputation suffered during the Reformation, when Protestants turned against traditions surrounding the saints. The most zealous reformers took hammers to sculptures of Nicholas and other saints. They smashed stained-glass windows depicting their deeds. Pages containing lives of the saints were used to polish boots or wrap fish.

Nicholas was driven from many churches, but he could not be driven from people’s hearts. Over the centuries, something extraordinary happened. He moved into homes and became a hero of the hearth.

In America, of course, he transformed into the champion bringer of gifts. Those three bags of gold became Santa’s sack of toys. Yes, Santa Claus (whose name comes from Sinterklass, the Dutch name for Saint Nicholas) is sometimes overexposed and exploited. At his best, though, he stands for virtues that Saint Nicholas championed: generosity, selflessness, largeness of spirit.

​So if we’re looking for models of generosity, let’s not forget the original Saint Nick. Santa Claus, in a very real sense, is the manifestation of his decision to give to others. May the good old bishop help us remember and keep the true spirit of Christmas.
 
 
Bill Bennett is the author of a new edition of The True Saint Nicholas: Why He Matters to Christmas (Howard Books, 2018).

​Last month, my husband and I hiked the Camino in Spain.  The thousand-year-old pilgrimage road is a lot like life.  Parts are densely forested, only a pinprick of light visible through an arcade of trees.  Some sections stretch flat and open, an easy day’s hike.  Others are uphill – old Roman roads so rocky, muddy, and slick that to lift your gaze from the stones ahead invites a fall. Then there are summits that afford mountain views over vineyards, olive groves, and ultimately, the verdant pastures of Galicia. Glorious heights that allow you to look back and marvel at it all.  Awash in gratitude.

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Thomas Alva Edison 

“I know of no genius, but the genius
​of hard work.”
J.M.W. Turner

What does the Romantic artist of turbulent seas share with the American inventor of the lightbulb?  A common appreciation of why and how they succeeded.  Widely acclaimed in their lifetimes as “pure genius,” the two trailblazers begged to differ: their most inspired creations, they insisted, were not attributable to boundless talent, but to relentless effort, hard work, and willingness to return to the drawing board. 
 
In the case of English painter J.M.W. Turner, “back to the drawing board” was a way of life.  A prodigy by age 10, he left behind more than 30,000 drawings and sketches for his over 550 oils and 2,000 watercolor paintings.  By contrast Thomas Edison was a late-bloomer, whose childhood bout with scarlet fever impaired his hearing from an early age and who struggled in school.  But “the Wizard of Menlo Park” is credited with more than a thousand patented inventions (among them the light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera) and founding fourteen companies.  Edison (like Turner) attributed his successes to his eighteen-hour days and the fact that he did not resent dead-ends. “I have not failed seven hundred times,” he insisted with his work on the lightbulb. “I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work… I will find the way that will work.”  And he did.
 
Until recently we might have considered Turner’s and Edison’s shared insight just personal opinion.  Weren’t talent and aptitude the real key?  But University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth has provided empirical evidence for the truth of their claims. Her work on “grit” shows that effort (perseverance) and attitude (passion) trump talent and socio-economic background as a predictor of success.  When she was growing up, Duckworth’s father often commented: “You know, you’re no genius.”  After she won the MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes called “the genius grant,” for her work on character development and human flourishing, he didn’t eat his words. 
 
Why? Because Duckworth’s work showed that success and accomplishment derive from effort, attitude, and driving passion more than brilliance and privilege.  Key to attitude, Duckworth found, was the understanding that failure is a step on the path to knowledge, and helps us learn. That understanding allows students to persevere.  Duckworth’s work also showed that “gritty” qualities could be acquired and enhanced.  Check out her fascinating work at angeladuckworth.com and see her TED talk there too. 
 
In October, as students hunker down to serious study, some may grow discouraged that they are not (oh darn….) geniuses, and that academic success does not come easily.  For every child who quickly cracks the language code and reads at age six, there are dozens more who struggle to make sense of squiggles on the page.  For every student who aces timed math drills and lives for the spelling bee, there are countless others, who panic and blank. Our job as teachers is not just to introduce children to new content and skills, but to help strengthen their spirit and ensure that kids do not lose heart.
 
This month we’ve showcased many books that celebrate the efforts of those who’ve faced great obstacles, and pushed themselves hard to overcome each one.   Patricia Polacco’s picture book account of her own battle with dyslexia (Thank You, Mr. Falker), Dawn Fitzgerald’s account of Lincoln’s sculptress Vinnie Ream, and Marty Kaminsky’s anthology of “Uncommon Champions:  Fifteen Athletes Who Battled Back” are three such inspirational works. They remind us that human beings can reach deep within, keep-a-going, and that the old saying “practice makes perfect” is not just a hackneyed phrase, but an empirical reality.  

One of the world’s greatest story tellers, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) wrote a famous version of a folktale that exists in several countries and cultures around the world.  It is called “The Old Grandfather and His Little Grandson.”  It is the story of people losing respect for another person and how a child helps them see their error and regain respect.
 
The grandfather had become very old. His legs would not carry him, his eyes could not see, his ears could not hear, and he was toothless. When he ate, bits of food sometimes dropped out of his mouth. His son and his son’s wife no longer allowed him to eat with them at the table. He had to eat his meals in the corner near the stove.  One day they gave him his food in a bowl. He tried to move the bowl closer; it fell to the floor and broke. His daughter-in-law scolded him. She told him that he spoiled everything in the house and broke their dishes, and she said that from now on he would get his food in a wooden dish. The old man sighed and said nothing.  A few days later, the old man’s son and his wife were sitting in their hut, resting and watching their little boy playing on the floor. They saw him putting together something out of small pieces of wood. His father asked him, “What are you making, Misha?” The little grandson said, “I’m making a wooden bucket. When you and Mama get old, I’ll feed you out of this wooden dish.”
The young peasant and his wife looked at each other and tears filled their eyes. They were ashamed because they had treated the old grandfather so meanly, and from that day they again let the old man eat with them at the table and took better care of him.
 
Respect is a virtue, a habit which is central to human happiness.  The core meaning of the word “respect” is to give something or someone particular attention and consideration.  To respect someone means you recognize that he or she is important and deserves to be treated well.  Like each of us, that person has a mind and human feelings.
 
In our story, the mother and father lost “sight” of the old man.  Gradually, they forgot that he was person and began treating him as if he hardly existed.  Just “something” that irritated and got in their way.  In effect, they stopped “seeing” the old man.  By trying to make a wooden bowl, the type a dog would eat from, the boy’s actions shocked his parents into recognizing how they had lost “sight” for the old man and had stripped him of the respect he deserved.
 
Clearly, the old man had gradually came to annoy his son and daughter-in-law.  The respect they once had for him was overtaken by their feelings of frustration and exasperation.  It is very natural in life to develop feeling toward people who appear to be getting in the way of what we want.  Or people that we just don’t like.  Such feelings can become habits, habits which blind us from seeing deeper into others and denying them the respect that is due them.
 
It is easy to respect people we like, people we like to be around and people who like us.  People who have the virtue of respect have done the often-hard work of, first, understanding the essential value of all people, and, second, acting in a “respectful” manner toward others.  However, understanding without action is empty.  It was not enough for the boy’s parents to recognize that they had lost respect for the old man.   They took the action-step to correct their mean behavior and bring him back to the family table.  Respect needs action.
 
One final point.  The virtue of respect looks in two directions.  It looks outward and it looks inward.  Our story is about outward respect and the boy’s parents seeing their outward lack of respect and correcting it.  There is, also, respect for ourselves.  Many people over the course of time lower their regard for themselves and what they can and should be.  They get disappointed with how they are living their lives.  They lose sight of what they are capable of becoming.  They come to “dislike” and disrespect themselves.  Having lost sight of the respect they should have for themselves, it is so easy to lose respect for those around them.
 
Reading great stories, both from history and in fiction, puts us in contact with examples of people living virtuous lives.  We see examples of people who have formed good habits and treat those around them with the respect they deserve.  Read well, these stories can be a major source of inspiration for us to be all we can be. 
 
Edmund Burke, (1729-1797) a famous Irish statesman, summed up the power that human example can have on us this way: “Example is the school of mankind.”

-Kevin Ryan

       “Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen, to music, play a sport.”      Pope Francis
     
      Here we stand on the shore of summer, a time for leisure or “sacred idleness,” as philosophers have described it. We take a break from formal schooling, though we do not take a break from learning or virtue.  How marvelous that the Greek word for leisure – skole – became the basis of our word school.  It is a splendid reminder that we are educated and grow wiser not simply from our labors, but from our leisure: all of it --  the outdoor activities that lift our hearts, the family picnics and outings, the trips we take, the books we devour, the poetry, concerts, and works of art that inspire us, and the engrossing conversations with long-neglected friends.
       This summer, whether your leisure is spent by the shore, on the sea, in the mountains, at a lake, or in your own hometown, we hope you’ll allow leisure to become your school, a time of rest and inspiration. “There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature,” Henry David Thoreau reminds us. Thoreau also reminds us that “a broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book… Observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.”  That is, of course, unless your leisure is a Road Trip!