Andy Smallman

“The Book of Qualities” is one of my all-time favorite books and one I regularly recommend. J. Ruth Gendler, the author, personifies human characteristics, both in words and in many cases with a drawing. For instance, about patience she writes:

“Patience wears my grandmother’s filigree earrings. She bakes marvelous dark bread. She has beautiful hands. She carries great sacks of peace and purses filled with small treasures. You don’t notice her right away in a crowd, but suddenly you see her all at once, and then she is so beautiful you wonder why you never saw her before.”

Wonderful, yes?

I like to periodically pick up my ragged copy, in which I’ve written notes, and open to a random page. Something meaningful always takes place.

Today’s Question: What’s a book that you often return to?

I just read about this new book called “Emotional Equations” by Chip Conley, the premise of which is that certain emotional truths can be reduced to simple equations. For instance, Conley suggests that Joy = Love – Fear. It’s a pretty cool concept, one that appeals to both my emotional and logical sides. I ordered the book.

Having done so, I found a link on Facebook to a contest in which the winner is flown to San Francisco to have dinner with Conley. Having come up with an equation years ago that I use with PSCS students to help them not compare themselves to others, I entered. Here’s my equation and entry explanation:

Me/Me = You/You
As the director of an innovative middle & high school I often try to help my students not compare themselves to others but to themselves. For instance, I see a student interested in learning the guitar get disillusioned when he compares himself to a friend who has played for years. As a result, he gives up. But if he saw his ability compared to his ability is the same as his friend’s ability compared to his friend’s ability, he may have the motivation to practice.

Today’s photo comes from a wedding ceremony I performed a few years back. Now a wedding, that’s a pretty good emotional equation, right? Although maybe not in the form Conley uses…

Today’s Question: What’s your emotional equation?

I’ve always loved this picture from the summer of 2009. That’s Chloe with her laptop, Skyping with her good friend Alex. What makes this Skype session extra special is that Chloe was on a sailboat in Canadian waters, no electricity or phone lines in sight, and Alex was in South America. I had paid a few bucks for a satellite Internet connection on the sailboat so Chloe could chat with Alex. She was thrilled, as I hope this picture shows.

When you stop and think about it, it’s pretty darn incredible, bordering on the miraculous. A person on a boat in Canada is having a live video conversation with her boyfriend in South America. It’s George Jetson-like, just the kind of thing that it seems we were dreaming about when I was a kid. Video phone calls. Right.

Today’s Question: What technological advance makes the greatest impression on you?

I still have a fair amount of records. You know, music on vinyl that you play on something called a turntable. I set it up this afternoon to digitize some of my Harry Chapin records, which got me appreciating him all again. That lead me to YouTube where I found this homemade animation of his song “Flowers Are Red.”

As Ella has gotten older I’ve shared with her many of my favorite “Harry” songs, my all-time favorite being “Mr. Tanner,” a song that can sometimes bring tears to my eyes. I’m pleased to say that Ella now, on her own, will sometimes listen to Harry Chapin. In honor of that, I include this photo of Ella (and Melinda), taken on her 15th birthday in a French restaurant.

Today’s Question: What is a song that can move you to tears?

Tomorrow morning Chloe heads back to college after having been home for 2 1/2 weeks. It’s been wonderful having her home, of course, and we are a little sorry to see her leaving. We are also excited for her to be back at school, as much as she enjoys it and as much as the time is right in her life for her to be in college.

With her departure I think it’s fair to say that the 2011 holidays are coming to an end for us. Yeah, we’ve been back at school since last Tuesday and our Christmas tree has been down for almost two weeks. But having Chloe home helped extend the holiday a good week into 2012.

Today’s picture comes from a family lunch we took today, the 4 of us heading out for Indian food, Chloe’s perpetual request. It hit the spot just right. And we had to have lunch be our farewell meal together since Chloe had a babysitting job lined up tonight. In fact, smart girl that she is, she had a lot of babysitting jobs over her break.

Today’s Question: What marks the end of the holiday season for you?

Not too long ago I learned of the legend of the Lamed-Vov. The lamedvovnik are 36 righteous people in the world whose job it is to carry the weight of human suffering. No one knows who they are, including the lamedvovnik themselves. Not knowing makes it important for all of us to behave as if WE might be one of the lamedvovnik AND to treat others as if they might be. Why? Because if there are less than 36 lamedvovnik, the world will collapse.

Taking this story to heart creates a new awareness for me. I have a significant responsibility, as do we all, to treat people with compassion, understanding and empathy. What if I am one of the lamedvovnik? What if the bus driver, the baker, or the old man slowly crossing the street in front of me is a member? Thinking this way, it is important I do my part to behave thoughtfully and with kindness, which begins with my smallest actions. When I behave with kindness, I plant positive seeds.

The picture I’m using here is of Melinda’s grandfather, Les Stangl. It was taken a year or two before he died, probably in 2004 or 2005.

Today’s Question: Who did you treat with kindness today?

I’ve been using eBay since 1997, most recently to collect DVDs released as part of the Spiritual Cinema Circle. Not too long ago, a woman posted several that I was missing, all at reasonable “Buy it Now” prices. I snatched them up, one by one, a total of 9 individual purchases, each with its own shipping price. Within a couple of hours I had been refunded $10 by the seller who, while under no obligation to do this, recognized it was silly for me to pay individual shipping costs when the disks could be packaged and sent together. I wrote her a note of appreciation and mentioned the other DVDs I was missing. This was her response to me:

“Hi Andy…I believe deeply that what is given with clear intention and a grateful heart will return a thousand-fold. Spiritual Cinema Circle 2009 Volume 11 featuring “The Shift” with Wayne Dyer will be mailed to you tomorrow via First Class Mail and you should have it in days as my gift to you. Be blessed and know that your kindness created this reality of receiving a gift. And I am enriched by the opportunity of receiving your payment and then giving a gift to you as well.”

Wow!

Today’s photo is an old one. That’s Ella, probably 10 years ago, at our home computer at the time, a Mac Cube.

Today’s Question: What kind thing has a stranger done for you?

This photo is of one of many “kindness cards” made by a group of PSCS students back in December. The students were part of an activity I was facilitating and wanted to complete a no-cost act of kindness. They decided to make these cards and place them randomly in library books in a nearby public library. This particular one struck me as apt today. It matches this message I received this afternoon from Johnny’s mom, written soon after he came out of brain surgery:

It’s all good! Yay! Johnny is safe and sound. He will be in the hospital for a few days observation to make sure there aren’t any blood clots, and then a month of recuperation and he is good to dance.”

Johnny is a dancer, you see.

Note the message on the card. It doesn’t just say have a good day. It says have a really good day.

Today’s Question: What makes for a REALLY good day?

Without Johnny Spangler there would likely be no kindness classes.

Many, many years ago, when Johnny was a pre-teen student of mine at a local elementary school, he lamented the fact that most of what he heard on the news was bad or negative news. He vowed to change that and started the Good News Newspaper. A year later he was one of the founding students at PSCS and in response to his continued interest in hearing about positive things, the first kindness class was born.

I just learned tonight that Johnny has a small brain tumor and is being operated on tomorrow morning. His prognosis is excellent, the location of the tumor being accessible and not appearing to invoke any long-term damage. This is good news.

In fact, given the nausea, dizziness and headaches Johnny has been experiencing, he took the diagnosis of a brain tumor as good news. “Now we know what to do,” his mother told me he said.

I’m counting on more good news coming tomorrow.

By the way, today’s photo is from 1995 and was taken on the last day of the first year of PSCS. Johnny is third from the left in the multi-colored shirt.

Today’s “Question:” Share some good news with us.

What’s better? To give or to receive? Since both are necessary for either to happen, in some ways they are the same thing, right, just like a coin has two sides? Aren’t quite sure what I mean? Take a look at this video and I bet you’ll come away thinking that Lucas received quite a bit in his giving.

In the spirit of this blog’s history I’m including this photo from Ella’s birthday two weeks ago. The Bertails in Nantes sent her a little gift. I caught Ella just after she had opened the card Christine had made her. Click on it to enlarge it and get a better view.

Today’s Question: When have you given something and in the process gotten something in return?