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Written by the iconic Stan Lee, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is a must-have book for Marvel fans and anyone looking to draw their first comic strip. Stan Lee, the Mighty Man from Marvel, and John Buscema, active and adventuresome artist behind the Silver Surfer, Conan the Barbarian, the Mighty Thor and Spider-Man, have collaborated on this comics compendium: an encycl Written by the iconic Stan Lee, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is a must-have book for Marvel fans and anyone looking to draw their
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Written by the iconic Stan Lee, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is a must-have book for Marvel fans and anyone looking to draw their first comic strip. Stan Lee, the Mighty Man from Marvel, and John Buscema, active and adventuresome artist behind the Silver Surfer, Conan the Barbarian, the Mighty Thor and Spider-Man, have collaborated on this comics compendium: an encycl Written by the iconic Stan Lee, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is a must-have book for Marvel fans and anyone looking to draw their first comic strip. Stan Lee, the Mighty Man from Marvel, and John Buscema, active and adventuresome artist behind the Silver Surfer, Conan the Barbarian, the Mighty Thor and Spider-Man, have collaborated on this comics compendium: an encyclopedia of information for creating your own superhero comic strips. Using artwork from Marvel comics as primary examples, Buscema graphically illustrates the hitherto mysterious methods of comic art. Stan Lee's pithy prose gives able assistance and advice to the apprentice artist. Bursting with Buscema's magnificent illustrations and Lee's laudable word-magic, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way belongs in the library of everyone who has ever wanted to illustrate his or her own comic strip.
25 review for How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way
Meredith – Apr 07, 2009
This is a very good little figure drawing book. I teach art in high school and have had all sorts of students buy it after seeing it in my class, but it would be appropriate for kids from late elementary up. I keep several copies of it out on TAKS testing days and kids with little to no drawing experience will happily follow the step by step to draw Spidey, but is is not just a step to step book. There is real, accurate, and practical advice about how to master the figure for more serious beginn This is a very good little figure drawing book. I teach art in high school and have had all sorts of students buy it after seeing it in my class, but it would be appropriate for kids from late elementary up. I keep several copies of it out on TAKS testing days and kids with little to no drawing experience will happily follow the step by step to draw Spidey, but is is not just a step to step book. There is real, accurate, and practical advice about how to master the figure for more serious beginners. My first figure drawing prof in college recommended this book to college level beginners. I have not found a better $13 figure drawing book - though it used to be $7. Most libraries have it and I can usually find a few copies at the used book store. Written for beginners where some of the later marvel drawing books assume you know a good deal. Much more content than most of the manga drawing books.
J.G. Keely – Oct 23, 2007
Classic instruction which started many artists on that long path (I bought a used copy, myself, as a child). Combine with a little Loomis, Hogarth, and some figure drawing and you are on your way to being a real talent.This is pretty much an introduction to the Marvel 'house style' at the time, but certainly still applicable. My Suggested Readings in Comics Classic instruction which started many artists on that long path (I bought a used copy, myself, as a child). Combine with a little Loomis, Hogarth, and some figure drawing and you are on your way to being a real talent.This is pretty much an introduction to the Marvel 'house style' at the time, but certainly still applicable. My Suggested Readings in Comics
Johnny Atomic – Aug 04, 2011
When I was young, every little boy I knew wanted to draw comics (these days many little girls do too, and that's awesome) but I had a serious advantage over all of them. I was the only kid on my block with a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel WayIt is nearly impossible to write a book that touches upon all the essential aspects of a given art field in any relevant way. Yet, somehow Stan Lee brings us just that. It doesn't stop with proper tools, formulas, and methods. It even approaches profe When I was young, every little boy I knew wanted to draw comics (these days many little girls do too, and that's awesome) but I had a serious advantage over all of them. I was the only kid on my block with a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel WayIt is nearly impossible to write a book that touches upon all the essential aspects of a given art field in any relevant way. Yet, somehow Stan Lee brings us just that. It doesn't stop with proper tools, formulas, and methods. It even approaches professionalism and best practices. All of this without going over your head, or talking down to the audience. The coolest thing about HTDCTMW is It's really a book about visual story telling that happens to use the comic book idiom. Pacing, mood, dynamism, framing, composition, it's all there along with a glossary of industry terms, list of materials and constructive anatomy methods, that are still as relevant today as they were in 1977. If you have children or young relatives who show the spark of talent for the entertainment art fields of story boarding, concept art/design, or sequential art of any kind, this is the book for them. If you want to pick up a book of sound advice and technique basics, over and over again and just be reminded of how fun illustration really is, this book is for you. Notes: With regard to anatomy; this book only deals with idealized figure construction, but that's fine because it was intended for a young audience that might find life drawing techniques both confining and tedious. It is just a primer, after all. HTDCTMW is not perfect, but it is perfect at what it does.
Manveer – Apr 05, 2016
Was kinda surprised to bump into this book on GR while adding comics. I remember reading this, or rather looking through it when I was a little kid. Almost eight years ago. The thing is, I was a creative bastard back then. I used to draw stuff, build stuff, do stuff. I had tons of weird hobbies that I really really miss now. A lonely awkward kid living in a world of his own imagination. Life used to be good. God, I wanna relive those days.This book brought back memories of those days. Reminded m Was kinda surprised to bump into this book on GR while adding comics. I remember reading this, or rather looking through it when I was a little kid. Almost eight years ago. The thing is, I was a creative bastard back then. I used to draw stuff, build stuff, do stuff. I had tons of weird hobbies that I really really miss now. A lonely awkward kid living in a world of his own imagination. Life used to be good. God, I wanna relive those days.This book brought back memories of those days. Reminded me that I actually used to draw. I do remember loving this book. I even created a couple of my own comic strips. Might have been pathetic, but the fact the I created them cheers me up. I should have the superheros I tried drawing lying somewhere around at home. So here's a generous five stars, if only for the nostalgic feels.
Cullen – Feb 09, 2008
I wanted to be an artist as a kid, and I have folder after folder of my haphazardly drawn monsters and spaceships and superheroes. This book was my ultimate reference work, and I carried the old blue hardback (the cover had been lost early on) around with me everywhere. While I never attained my goal of comic artistry, I still have a copy (now paperback) of the book on my shelf. It's a nice resource for anyone interested in comics, whether you can draw like John Romita ... or if stick figures ar I wanted to be an artist as a kid, and I have folder after folder of my haphazardly drawn monsters and spaceships and superheroes. This book was my ultimate reference work, and I carried the old blue hardback (the cover had been lost early on) around with me everywhere. While I never attained my goal of comic artistry, I still have a copy (now paperback) of the book on my shelf. It's a nice resource for anyone interested in comics, whether you can draw like John Romita ... or if stick figures are your cup of tea.
John Majerle – Nov 12, 2018
Excellent instruction by the master.R.I.P., Stan :-(
Jamest. – Jul 06, 2012
As long as I can recall, I always loved art. As a child and teenager my favorite art was the comic book. I devoured them! As I could draw a little I thought becoming a comic book arist would be the greatest. I picked up this volume and found it to be a pretty good book on a lot of drawing essentials. It really taught me a lot about figure drawing in particular. Sure some of the prose is bombastic in typical Stan Lee style, but the lessons in the book are clear, concise, and important principles. As long as I can recall, I always loved art. As a child and teenager my favorite art was the comic book. I devoured them! As I could draw a little I thought becoming a comic book arist would be the greatest. I picked up this volume and found it to be a pretty good book on a lot of drawing essentials. It really taught me a lot about figure drawing in particular. Sure some of the prose is bombastic in typical Stan Lee style, but the lessons in the book are clear, concise, and important principles. Eventually my style changed and I moved away from comic book art. However you can still see the influence of comic books and this guide in my work today. I still believe that artists working in comics are some of the finest around: the imagination needed to fill panel after panel, the sheer volume of the work they must produce, and the ability to tale a compelling story through drawing alone. All that makes me rank them with the best!
Steven – Feb 22, 2009
I loved and devoured this book when I was a kid (in the original edition). Alas, my drawing skills never quite developed and I put more energy into the stories than into the drawings. Still, it was a step on the path to making me an author, and I still think Buscema was one of the strongest draftsmen Marvel ever had.
Eric – Jul 01, 2009
For good or ill, this book taught me how to draw figures. Over the years I kept going back to it and trying again, getting farther and gaining confidence. We'll see if it ever culminates in an actual printed comic of my own :) I'm sure it will, even if I'm 80 years old, sitting on the back porch, still holding onto the dream. For good or ill, this book taught me how to draw figures. Over the years I kept going back to it and trying again, getting farther and gaining confidence. We'll see if it ever culminates in an actual printed comic of my own :) I'm sure it will, even if I'm 80 years old, sitting on the back porch, still holding onto the dream.
Johnflynch – Aug 19, 2008
uhhhh.... no, Marvel artists study ANATOMY before making it up with bubbles on sticks. copying other artists' renderings is a vital part of learning to draw, but that alone will not get you working for Marvel and is not how to draw "the Marvel way" uhhhh.... no, Marvel artists study ANATOMY before making it up with bubbles on sticks. copying other artists' renderings is a vital part of learning to draw, but that alone will not get you working for Marvel and is not how to draw "the Marvel way"
Stephen Theaker – Feb 19, 2009
This got me drawing again for the first time since primary school, mainly by pointing out a few basic things I'd somehow never known - for one thing that drawings are things you can build, rather than just putting pencil to paper and creating masterpieces on the spot. This got me drawing again for the first time since primary school, mainly by pointing out a few basic things I'd somehow never known - for one thing that drawings are things you can build, rather than just putting pencil to paper and creating masterpieces on the spot.
Bill – Apr 15, 2011
When I was in seventh grade, I studied this book from cover to cover and improved my drawing and visual storytelling skills dramatically. It was great then and remains so- John Buscema was an absolutely brilliant comics artist.
Bee – May 17, 2012
Easily the best How to Draw book I've read. Lays everything out in an easy to digest manner... And back in the 90s when I read it, you really could see the difference with the Marvel style (not so much now though) Easily the best How to Draw book I've read. Lays everything out in an easy to digest manner... And back in the 90s when I read it, you really could see the difference with the Marvel style (not so much now though)
J.M. Giovine – Jun 23, 2015
Obviously, this isn't a lecture as well, more like a practicing-tip guide for the comicbook artist to develop and improve the talent, getting the way that Marvel does it's work (at least, in the golden years) and it's narrated by Stan Lee himself. It doesn't get any better than that. Obviously, this isn't a lecture as well, more like a practicing-tip guide for the comicbook artist to develop and improve the talent, getting the way that Marvel does it's work (at least, in the golden years) and it's narrated by Stan Lee himself. It doesn't get any better than that.
Eric Dubay – Jun 08, 2020
This is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn figure drawing or has aspirations in any field of art
Antonella Vigliarolo – Nov 15, 2019
I expected better and I expected more from the way the book was presented.I am an illustration student and I got this on amazon in the hope it would awake the memory of my 'anatomy and perspective for comics' class and take me a bit deeper.No such thing. The book stays superficial with more images than explanations and it does not go past the bare bones. Perspective was barely mentioned in the chapter dedicated to it. The most useful part was on the proportions to respect when sketching a face.I I expected better and I expected more from the way the book was presented.I am an illustration student and I got this on amazon in the hope it would awake the memory of my 'anatomy and perspective for comics' class and take me a bit deeper.No such thing. The book stays superficial with more images than explanations and it does not go past the bare bones. Perspective was barely mentioned in the chapter dedicated to it. The most useful part was on the proportions to respect when sketching a face.It can work for you as introduction if you are completely extraneous to the subject, but even like that, you can find more complete books as instruction material.I had the barest introduction to the subject and I was pretty unhappy with this, so I can imagine the reaction of someone more knowledgeable. Or even someone who anticipated to actually learn to draw Marvel-style.
Altoro – Jun 07, 2020
This is not a book on how to draw Marvel heroes, but there are plenty of useful tips and advice on how to compose your artwork to make it look in the style of Marvel comics from how they go about posing their heroes to how they direct a readers focus on the page. I found the most useful sections to myself were their action section and inking section. The big Stan Lee helped me see that my poses weren't as exaggerated as they could be to portray heroic action and that I need to work on varying th This is not a book on how to draw Marvel heroes, but there are plenty of useful tips and advice on how to compose your artwork to make it look in the style of Marvel comics from how they go about posing their heroes to how they direct a readers focus on the page. I found the most useful sections to myself were their action section and inking section. The big Stan Lee helped me see that my poses weren't as exaggerated as they could be to portray heroic action and that I need to work on varying the thickness of lines when inking. Worth a read if you're an aspiring artist interested in what sets Marvel apart from others. I didn't give it 5 stars because I would've loved more information because I'm greedy like that but I plan on checking out his Master Class book which seems to have more information in it.
Beth – Aug 07, 2017
I'll come back to this one day - 3*I would never have bought myself this book but my mam got it for me and I couldn't leave it so I had to have a go.I'm definitely better at drawing because of this book but it is so time-consuming and I honestly don't gave the time for this. I really don't - balancing two jobs is hard enough! I'm annoyed that Black Widow's not there because really I wanted to draw her as part of my gift for a birthday present for a friend but I can't and I don't even have the sk I'll come back to this one day - 3*I would never have bought myself this book but my mam got it for me and I couldn't leave it so I had to have a go.I'm definitely better at drawing because of this book but it is so time-consuming and I honestly don't gave the time for this. I really don't - balancing two jobs is hard enough! I'm annoyed that Black Widow's not there because really I wanted to draw her as part of my gift for a birthday present for a friend but I can't and I don't even have the skills to do it. This book jumps from step 1-9 and for a novice (like myself), its too hard. I don't have any skills and this book doesn't take that into account.So yeah. A little annoyed and frustrated.
Debra Hahn – Dec 26, 2021
If you want to learn how to draw comics the right way. Then this is your book todo it with. It takes you from understanding the human body, to blocking it in.Then drawing in the details and shading. Then perspective techniques, on toShading, and back ground. Then on to story line, and on to designing your own characters. A great book, that takes you from Start to finnish. A must have forbeginning Comic drawers to to more advanced artists. It also works as a greatreference book too, like I do.Deb If you want to learn how to draw comics the right way. Then this is your book todo it with. It takes you from understanding the human body, to blocking it in.Then drawing in the details and shading. Then perspective techniques, on toShading, and back ground. Then on to story line, and on to designing your own characters. A great book, that takes you from Start to finnish. A must have forbeginning Comic drawers to to more advanced artists. It also works as a greatreference book too, like I do.Debra Hahn
Mark – Dec 02, 2020
I love Marvel Comics. I have the artistic ability of a shrub.That doesn't take any of the joy away from reading along and imagining all of the wonderful figures that I could draw. If I could draw.I love Stan Lee's voice, how he talks right to the reader, from every Marvel Soapbox to every introduction to every little thing. His welcome inclusion felt uniquely personal yet made me feel a part of something bigger.Thank you for the joy. I love Marvel Comics. I have the artistic ability of a shrub.That doesn't take any of the joy away from reading along and imagining all of the wonderful figures that I could draw. If I could draw.I love Stan Lee's voice, how he talks right to the reader, from every Marvel Soapbox to every introduction to every little thing. His welcome inclusion felt uniquely personal yet made me feel a part of something bigger.Thank you for the joy.
Marco – Aug 12, 2021
This is more for beginners, breaking down different stages of art production for comic books; some very basic drawing advice, some a bit more advanced, concerning page layout and panel design, and some analysis of published material as examples.At its size the book cannot offer more than an overview (and the sheer amount of art examples makes it a very quick read), but it does provide a start (and a list of suggestions to follow up) that is well worth its price as an introductory "How To." This is more for beginners, breaking down different stages of art production for comic books; some very basic drawing advice, some a bit more advanced, concerning page layout and panel design, and some analysis of published material as examples.At its size the book cannot offer more than an overview (and the sheer amount of art examples makes it a very quick read), but it does provide a start (and a list of suggestions to follow up) that is well worth its price as an introductory "How To."
Aelys – Dec 12, 2020
This is a classic essentiel for illustrating action scènes comic book style.Written by a pioneer in his craft, it teaches hiw to give your character scenes powerful visual impact. Not a course in art by itself. Best to use with other instruction. Students will need to look elsewhere to learn anatomy, perspective, composition, story telling.
Mike – Oct 16, 2021
This book is over 40 years old and it is still relevant today. I first came across this book when I was twelve years old and it shaped me as an artist for the rest of my life. Don't let the name fool you. This book contains foundational information for anyone who wants to improve their art wether its comic books, illustration, or fine art. This book is over 40 years old and it is still relevant today. I first came across this book when I was twelve years old and it shaped me as an artist for the rest of my life. Don't let the name fool you. This book contains foundational information for anyone who wants to improve their art wether its comic books, illustration, or fine art.
Andrew Yeager – Feb 19, 2019
It is a great read for graphic comic artists that prefer the old-school techniques of paper, penciling, and inking by hand. It is co-written by one of the greatest comic book writers and editors of all time.
Friso – Aug 03, 2021
It covers all the steps and necessary skills to create a comic book. Now I just need to practice a lot to become good at it. It also recommends books in its bibliography that go deeper into the individual skills needed to draw for comics, such as figure drawing and composition
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Tag: Rabbinic Literature
Mary, Mary, who are you? – part 1
Tags: Miriam, Rabbinic Literature
On another forum lately there has appeared the question of why there are so many Marys in the gospels and why Jesus' mother is given that name. With the partial exception of Jesus' mother, they have no significant plot function at all. They appear then disappear with no obvious narrative role. What's going on? These questions have arisen coincidentally at a time when I have returned to exploring the gospels as midrash, that is, as writings similar to the Jewish technique of creating new stories by rearranging passages from here and there in their Scriptures. So with the above questions in mind — why is Jesus' mother named Mary and why so many Marys in the gospels — consider some of the early Jewish beliefs about Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron. The stories as we know them all post-date the gospels.
This post is part one.
Prophet and leader of Israel
Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron's sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing. – Exodus 15:20
Miriam and Aaron began to speak . . . "Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?" they asked. "Hasn't he also spoken through us?" – Numbers 12:1-2
I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam. – Micah 6:4
Ancient Dura Europos Synagogue fresco of Moses being drawn from the Nile.
As a prophet, Miriam was said to have predicted that the saviour of the people of Israel would be born to Amram and Jochebed, her parents.
When Pharaoh issued his decree to slay all newborn male children of the Hebrews, Amram, said to be a leading figure among the Israelites, announced that it would be better to divorce his wife to ensure Pharaoh's will could not be carried out. The rest of the Israelite men followed his example and divorced their wives. Miriam, his daughter, was outraged against her father and sharply chastised him for neglecting his higher duty to God and the future of Israel: a saviour to deliver them had yet to be born, after all. More specifically, Miriam prophesied that her mother would give birth to a saviour who would rescue them all from Egypt.
Amram was humbled and remarried his wife. Meanwhile, God had restored Jochebed to her youthful state so she was, in effect, a virgin when she remarried her husband.
And a man went from the house of Levi" (Exod. 2:1). Where did he go? Rabbi Yehudah son of Zevinah said: He followed the advice of his daughter. A tannaitic source states: Amram was the greatest man of his generation. When evil Pharaoh decreed: "Every son that is born shall be thrown into the river" (Exod. 1:22), he said: We are toiling in vain. He got up and divorced his wife. They all got up and divorced their wives. His daughter said to him: Father, your decree is harsher than Pharaoh's, for Pharaoh decreed only concerning the males, and you have decreed concerning the males and the females; Pharaoh decreed only in this world, and you, in this world and for the world to come; evil Pharaoh—perhaps his decree shall be fulfilled, perhaps it shall not be fulfilled, but you are righteous—certainly your decree shall be fulfilled. . . . He got up and brought back his wife. They all got up and brought back their wives. . . . (Sotah 12b)
. . . . —is it possible that she [Jochebed] was a hundred thirty years old and it calls her a daughter [young girl]? . . . Rabbi Yehudah said: Because signs of youth were generated in her. (Sotah 12a)
Then when Moses was born, Amram kissed his daughter in gratitude that her prophecy had been fulfilled. But when Moses was placed in the river Amram lost heart and slapped her on the head for prophesying falsely.
And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took.. . ." (Exod. 15:20). The sister of Aaron, and not the sister of Moses? . . . : This teaches us that she used to prophesy when she was the sister of Aaron and say: In the future my mother will give birth to a son who will redeem Israel. And when Moses was born the entire house was filled with light. Her father stood and kissed her on the head. He said: My daughter, your prophecy has been fulfilled. And when they threw him into the river, her father stood and slapped her on the head. He said to her: My daughter, where is your prophecy? And thus it is written: "And his sister stood from afar in order to know what would be done to him" (Exod. 2:4)—to know what would come of her prophecy. (Sotah 12b-13a)
Yet Miriam did not lose faith and "stood afar off" watching over Moses to ensure his safety. We know how it ended. Miriam managed to retrieve Moses from the Egyptian princess so that his own mother could nurse him.
Miriam is, therefore, the one who prophesied the birth of the saviour of Israel, the one who forbade her father to divorce his wife (or at least to remarry her), the one who protected Moses and ensured his entry into the world. (Similarities and overlaps with any other Christian narrative are surely entirely coincidental.)
God rewarded Miriam for her courage and faithfulness: she was to become the ancestress of the kingship of Israel.
Ancestor of David
The full midrashic explanation of how Miriam is hidden behind several names in 1 Chronicles is a doozy: Miriam was deserted by men but married "for the right reasons" by Caleb, and changed her appearance, etc. And Caleb the son of Hezron begot [through] the woman Azubah and [through] Jerioth, and these are her sons: Jesher and Shobab and Ardon" (1 Chron. 2:18). . . . Azubah is Miriam. And why was she called Azubah? Because everyone left her at the beginning. "Begot"—but he was married to her! Rabbi Yohanan said: Whoever marries a woman for a higher purpose, the text considers it as if he begot her. "Jerioth"—because her face resembled curtains. "And these are her sons"—do not read "her sons," but "her builders." .. . "And Ashhur the father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah" (2 Chron. 4:5). Ashhur is Caleb. And why was he called Ashhur? Because his face turned black from fasting. "The father of"— because he became like a father to her. "Tekoa"—because he dedicated his heart to his father in heaven. "Had two wives"—Miriam became like two women. "Helah and Naarah"—not Helah and Naarah, but in the beginning she was sickly, and afterward she was youthful. (Sotah 11b-12a)
In the Talmud (Sotah 11b) it is explained that the names used in I Chronicles (2:18) for Caleb's wives Azubah and Ephrath are one or the other a pseudonym for Miriam. — Moshe Reiss, p. 190 n.13
Caleb son of Hezron had children by his wife Azubah (and by Jerioth). These were her sons: Jesher, Shobab and Ardon. When Azubah died, Caleb married Ephrath, who bore him Hur. Hur was the father of Uri, and Uri the father of Bezalel. — 1 Chronicles 2:18-20
To return to that Sotah 11b passage cited by Moshe Reiss, here is the relevant section:
David, who also comes from Miriam, as it is written: "And Azubah," the wife of Caleb, "died, and Caleb took to him Ephrath, who bore him Hur" (I Chronicles 2:19) and, as will be explained further, Ephrath is Miriam. And it is written: "David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah" (I Samuel 17:12). Therefore, he was a descendant of Miriam.
The midrashic explanation goes back to the opening chapters of Exodus and the story of the two midwives who delivered the Israelite babies. Pharaoh, again we know the story, ordered the midwives to kill every newborn male but the midwives responded by pleading that the Israelite women were popping them out so fast that it was impossible to reach any of them in time to kill the infant. God was pleased so we read,
And it came to pass, since the midwives feared God, He made houses for them — Exod. 1:21
You don't know what "made houses" means? Did God come down and make them each a bungalow? Rabbis debated the mystery line, too. One of those midwives, you guessed it, was Miriam albeit by another name. Miriam's cipher was Puah (Exodus 1:15), the reasons offered being many: one, she cooed at the babies (pu pu…); another, that the word suggesting weeping and wailing over the threat to Moses' life; yet another drawing upon an indication that the word meant defiant resistance, her attitude against Pharaoh. (By this time you will not be the least surprised to learn that the other midwife was Miriam's mother, Jochebed, but we'll leave that explanation aside for now.)
So back to the reward:
Rav and Shmuel disagree. One said: Priestly houses, and one said: Royal houses. According to him who said priestly houses, this refers to Aaron and Moses, and according to him who said royal houses, David also came from Miriam, as it is written: "And Azubah died, and Caleb took Ephrath, and she bore Hur to him" (1 Chron. 2:19). And it is written: "And David was the son of that Ephrathite . . ." (1 Sam. 17:12). — Sotah 11b
And so it was.
Mother of a martyr
Josephus writes that Hur, the one who, with Aaron, held up Moses' hands to defeat the Amalekites (Exodus 17:10-13), was Miriam's husband (Antiquities III, 2, 4) but another view appears in later rabbinic literature: Miriam was the mother of Hur. From this perspective, we re-read 1 Chronicles 2 (quoted above) and notice that Hur was said to be the son of Caleb and Ephrath, the alternative name for Miriam.
Hur was said to be murdered by the worshippers of the Golden Calf. Here is one of the rabbinical passages explaining what happened:
When Moses had gone up [Mount Sinai], he had agreed with Israel to come down at the end of forty days. When he delayed coming down, all Israel came together to the elders. . . . They said to them, Moses agreed with us that he would come down in forty days. Now here it is forty days and he has not come down. And in addition, six hours more [have passed] . . . yet we do not know what has happened to him. So (in the words of Exod. 32:1 cont.) 'Arise and make a god for us.'" When [the elders] heard that, [the elders] said to them, "Why are you angering Him, you for whom He performed all the miracles and wonders?" [But] they did not heed them and killed them. Then because Hur had stood . . . up to them with harsh words, they . . . rose up against him and killed him [as well]. Then all of Israel gathered around Aaron . . . — Midrash Tanchuma 3
And so they threatened Aaron unless he made the golden calf.
Grandmother of craftsman of the Tabernacle
Following the genealogy of the tradition above, Bezalel, "filled with the spirit", the skilled craftsman responsible for all the decoration and furnishings of the Tabernacle, was the grandson of Miriam.
Then the Lord said to Moses, "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. . . . — Exodus 31:1-5
We can't prove a connection but it is interesting to wonder here about Jesus, son of Mary, a carpenter and builder of the church which in Christian literature was symbolized by the Tabernacle and Temple.
Miriam's Well Illuminated Manuscript: Hagadot.com
Miriam's well
Again in Midrash Tanchuma Buber Bamidbar 2, we see that the rock that miraculously supplied water for Israel accompanied Israel in the wilderness because of Miriam. When Miriam died the same rock ceased to supply water. The original narrative may not have had any cause-effect relationship in mind but rabbis did see one. One of the functions of midrash was, after all, to create new narratives that tied adjacent episodes in the Bible. We are aware that biblical narratives tend to be collections of many smaller units strung together "like beads on a string" and so were the rabbis. Midrash was one imaginative way they had of making more coherent links between these beads but the links had to draw upon selected words or oddities in the texts to tie them together. Here is a midrashic explanation that tied the death of Miriam with the next episode that began with the Israelites complaining about lack of water:
. . . as stated (in Micah 6:4): AND I SENT MOSES, AARON, AND MIRIAM BEFORE YOU. Thus through their merit, Israel was sustained. The manna was through the merit of Moses. [You yourself know that it is so. When Moses passed away, what is written (in Josh. 5:12)? THE MANNA CEASED ON THE NEXT DAY (i.e., the day after Moses died).] The clouds of glory through the merit of Aaron. You yourself know that it is so. When Aaron passed away, what is written (in Numb. 21:4)? BUT THE TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE GREW SHORT ON THE WAY, because the sun was shining down upon them (without a cloud cover). And the well through the merit of Miriam, since it is stated (in Numb. 20:1-2): BUT MIRIAM DIED THERE. NOW THE CONGREGATION HAD NO WATER. And how was [the well] constructed? Like a kind of rock. It rolled along and came with them on the journeys. When the standards came to rest and the Tabernacle arose, the rock would come and settle down in the court of the Tent of Meeting. Then the princes would stand beside it and say (in the words of Numb. 21:17): RISE UP, O WELL; and the well would rise up.
To be finished in the next post.
Reiss, Moshe. "Miriam Rediscovered." Jewish Bible Quarterly 38, no. 3 (2010): 183–90.
Steinmetz, Devora. "A Portrait of Miriam in Rabbinic Midrash." Prooftexts 8, no. 1 (1988): 35–65.
Author Neil GodfreyPosted on 2021-10-07 10:31:41 GMT+0000 Categories Biblical Studies, Old TestamentTags Miriam, Rabbinic Literature3 Comments on Mary, Mary, who are you? – part 1
Symbolic Characters #3: Mary, Personification of the Jewish People, "Re-Virgined"
Filed under: Biblical Studies, Intertestamental History and Thought, Messiahs and messianism, New Testament, Old Testament
Tags: Charbonnel: Jesus Christ sublime figure de papier, Rabbinic Literature
Continuing the series on Nanine Charbonnel's Jésus-Christ, sublime figure de paper . . . .
After this post I will pause from addressing NC's book for a little while because I want to get a firm grasp of the next section before posting, and I think it is a very critical section, one that addresses the formation of the figure of Jesus in the gospels.
Here we continue the theme of suggesting what collective groups different individual persons in the gospels represent. The key takeaway is that there are reasons to think that certain names stand for larger entities, e.g. John the Baptist represents the Prophets of the "Old Testament" pointing to Jesus, the twelve disciples represent the foundation of the "new Israel" or Church, and so forth. In this post we have a look at the virgin mother of Jesus.
On "Twelve disciples" as the foundation of a "new Israel": I have tended to think that the idea of the Twelve Disciples as a foundation of the Church was a second-century attempt to rebut Marcionism (i.e., the belief that Paul alone was the one true apostolic founder of the church). If so, the Gospel of Mark which arguably depicts Peter and the Twelve as failures (see Ted Weeden), was in some sympathy with Marcionism, but the later gospels with their positive spin on the Twelve stand in opposition to Marcionism; if so, they would have been authored closer to the mid-second century. Perhaps even the Gospel of Mark was written as an attempt to denounce attempts to establish a certain "orthodoxy" on the myth of The Twelve as opposed to Paul.
Other Vridar posts on the Cana miracle are by Tim Widowfield:
How John Used the Synoptics: The First Temptation vs. The First Sign
John's Wedding at Cana — Chronicle or Parable?
Mary and the Cana Wedding
Again we notice evidence of symbolism in a gospel story. We have a wedding narrative consisting of inversions of passages in the Jewish Scriptures. Other figurative language in the gospels leads us to see this wedding as a representation of an end-time event, a successful marriage to supplant the failed marriage of "old Israel" with Yahweh.
The following table blends parts of what I read in both Charbonnel and Mergui's books:
Jn 2:1 On the third day, Hosea 6:2 "After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. (i.e. a New Creation)
a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee The Wedding = the covenant of Yahweh with his people Israel;
Galilee = the land of gentiles. (Isaiah 9:1)
Cana = from late Hebrew qanah meaning to acquire, to gain, to possess (c.f. Cain)
The scene represents the end time wedding of the enlarged Israel that includes gentiles.
Jesus' mother was there The mother is also the people, the bride (Isaiah 22)
2:2 and Jesus [= YHWH who Saves] and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. The messiah is the husband of his people (Jer. 31:3)
2:3 the wine was gone,
"They have no more wine." The wine is the Word or Law of Yahweh (Prov. 9:5; compare Ps. 73:10 where "waters" = word of Yahweh).
The old wine thus suggests the first (Mosaic) Law.
The words of the mother of Jesus, or the old Israel, contains a recollection of the rebellion of Israel with its complaining to God of what they lacked, or rebellion against the law. This may explain Jesus' distant response.
2:4 "Woman" = Eve (Genesis 2:23)
2:5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." = the text of Genesis 41:55 — "Go to Joseph and do what he tells you." (Jesus is the new Joseph who has come to feed his people.)
Obedience leads to a new wine, one that is much better — the new Law that replaces the old.
2:6 Nearby stood six stone water jars Six is the number of incompleteness: we are on the cusp of the last days.
The purification jars are filled with water (for purification of the Jews) but wine replaces mere water of purification
2:8 Then he told them, "Now draw some out" The messiah brings new wine: Joel 3:18; Isaiah 25:6; Hosea 14:7
Virgin Mothers of Moses and Jesus
Jochebad was said to be 130 years old when she gave birth to Moses. (Pedro Américo: Misés e Jocabed, Wikimedia Commons)
Keep in mind that NC is not merely saying that gospel characters are symbolic. The point is much richer than that. The figures and actions are constructed in dialogue with (and with the use of) extracts from the Hebrew Bible. This is their midrashic nature.
NC shares an idea from Armand Abécassis (who has set out his own case for the Gospels of Luke and Matthew being a form of Jewish midrash on the Old Testament) in which the gospels have engaged with a rabbinical view of their time that Moses was born of a virgin. Again, we find the clues in the later writings of the Talmud and suspect the claim that they represented very early traditions may have some factual basis.
Exodus 2:1-2 (NKJV)
And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months.
In the Babylonian Talmud's Sotah 12a we read that Amram and Jochebad, the parents-to-be of Moses, divorced when learning of Pharaoh's decree that all male children of Hebrew marriages would be killed. Their daughter Miriam, however, advised Amram that he had been wrong to put her away and to take her back and remarry her.
At this time Jochebad was 130 years old. In several ways Jochebad was seen to represent the entire body of Israel. Though conceived outside Egypt she was born to Levi in Egypt, so her life had spanned the entire time of Israel in Egypt, and her actions were reported to and followed by all of Israel. Just as Egypt, a representative of the pagan nations, carried within its own womb the hope of her salvation, that is Israel, so Jochebad, bore in her womb the future liberator of Israel. The fact that she was taken back by her husband who had decided not to have any more relations with her is interpreted by the Jewish tradition as the symbolization of the renewal of the community.
Now when Jochebad was restored to Amram God performed a remarkable miracle. He changed her back to a young maiden, a virgin even. Continue reading "Symbolic Characters #3: Mary, Personification of the Jewish People, "Re-Virgined""
Author Neil GodfreyPosted on 2020-04-24 03:35:27 GMT+0000 2020-12-08 11:27:46 GMT+0000 Categories Biblical Studies, Intertestamental History and Thought, Messiahs and messianism, New Testament, Old TestamentTags Charbonnel: Jesus Christ sublime figure de papier, Rabbinic Literature9 Comments on Symbolic Characters #3: Mary, Personification of the Jewish People, "Re-Virgined"
Messiahs, Midrash and Mythemes — more comparisons with the Gospels
Filed under: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Biblical Studies, Messiahs and messianism, New Testament
Tags: Claude Lévi-Strauss, Gospel, Gospels and Acts (Canonical), Hasan-Rokem: Web of Life, Jewish Messianism, Lamentations Rabbah, Midrash, Rabbinic Literature
6th August: expanded "the trial" comparison into "The face to face confrontation of secular and religious leaders"
Comparing other rabbinic midrash with the Gospels
In my previous post I covered Galit Hasan-Rokem's comparisons of some early Christian and rabbinic midrash. In this post I comment on Hasan-Rokem's discussions of other tales in the midrash of Lamentations Rabbah and draw my own comparisons with the Gospels.
Claude Lévi-Strauss: Image via Wikipedia
The second rabbinic story of a Messiah discussed by Hasan-Rokem is one about the death of "King Messiah" Bar Kochba. Here the messiah is the villain. (Rabbinic sources subsequently referred to him as Bar Kozeba, Son of Lies.) I think there are a number of interesting plot and motif similarities here, just as there are between the messiah birth narratives of the Christian and rabbinic literature and that were detailed in the previous post. But what makes the overlaps interesting is considering an explanation for them through the constructs of anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. If this turns out to be an invalid process, invalidly applied, fair enough. But let's see what it might possibly suggest till then.
The midrashic tale is found in full (and re-edited) in the last half of the post titled Birth and Death of the Messiah: Two Jewish Midrash Tales (and have since copied it again at the end of this post, too.)
First, the common elements. I can see about 20. Some are more "distinctly defining" attributes that signal a common idea than others: #10 and #17 are surely tell-tale (DNA-linking) ones. Continue reading "Messiahs, Midrash and Mythemes — more comparisons with the Gospels"
Author Neil GodfreyPosted on 2011-08-05 23:40:35 GMT+0000 2019-10-08 04:44:43 GMT+0000 Categories Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Biblical Studies, Messiahs and messianism, New TestamentTags Claude Lévi-Strauss, Gospel, Gospels and Acts (Canonical), Hasan-Rokem: Web of Life, Jewish Messianism, Lamentations Rabbah, Midrash, Rabbinic LiteratureLeave a comment on Messiahs, Midrash and Mythemes — more comparisons with the Gospels
Birth and Death of the Messiah: Two Jewish Midrash Tales
Filed under: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Biblical Studies, Messiahs and messianism
Tags: Galit Hasan-Rokem, Hasan-Rokem: Web of Life, Midrash, Rabbinic Literature
Galit Hasan Rokem: Image via Wikipedia
A Jewish professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Galit Hasan-Rokem, has argued that the Gospels grew out of a Jewish folklore-midrashic tradition. The Gospels are not written as folklore so there are obvious differences. And midrash has a variety of applications, but in general it is a Jewish approach interpretations of the scriptures that can be applied to a number of different literary genres with different purposes and for different audiences. The intent is to inject new meanings into scriptures, often by applying them to newly created stories or new experiences within the Jewish communities.
So the distinctive feature of midrash is a weaving of passages from scripture into stories or commentaries (or other) to explore new meanings for them. I will discuss the nature of midrash more fully in a future post, and will include one of the best explanations/definitions of it that I can find — a small passage by James L. Kugel in his book, In Potiphar's House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts. This will show more explicitly the extent to which the Gospels have been influenced by Jewish midrashic thought and style.
Thomas L. Brodie wrote a small book demonstrating the way the Gospels structured much of their narratives of Jesus around the stories of Elijah and Elisha, but did not like to use the word midrash. The reason was not because midrash was wrong, but because it was too general to be particularly useful. The gospels needed a narrower definition to capture their nature. But clearly the midrashic ways of Jewish writing are found throughout the Gospels.
Rather than discuss midrash as it was known to ancient Jews and the specific similarities with many features in both the Gospels and epistles of Paul, I will just post "on record" two examples of midrashic literature applied to the folklore genre. They are from Galit Hasan-Rokem's final chapter in Web Of Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature in which she discusses three midrashic tales about the Messiah.
This way I will have something online that I can refer to when I do discuss the topic in a little more depth. But remember the following are midrash at work in folklore tales. The Gospels are not the same genre as folklore, but we do find the same midrashic features in them, i.e., retelling old scripture passages and biblical stories in new ways.
Birth of the Messiah Continue reading "Birth and Death of the Messiah: Two Jewish Midrash Tales"
Author Neil GodfreyPosted on 2011-07-22 23:33:41 GMT+0000 2019-10-08 05:24:37 GMT+0000 Categories Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Biblical Studies, Messiahs and messianismTags Galit Hasan-Rokem, Hasan-Rokem: Web of Life, Midrash, Rabbinic Literature7 Comments on Birth and Death of the Messiah: Two Jewish Midrash Tales

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


20 We have therefore appointed you today to be high priest of your nation; you are to be called the King's Friend, and you are to look after our interests and preserve friendship with us." He also sent him a purple robe and a crown of gold.
10:20 : 1 Mc 2:18.
89 He sent him a gold buckle, such as is usually given to King's Kinsmen;[a] he also gave him Ekron and all its territory as a possession.
10:89 Kinsmen: a rank higher than Chief Friends.


text:
Home Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Politics
German officials were so alarmed by Trump's conversations with Angela Merkel that they took extra steps to make sure they stayed secret, according to a CNN report
Lauren Frias
President Donald Trump's phone conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel were "so unusual" that German officials were prompted to keep them under wraps, the journalist Carl Bernstein reported Monday in an investigation for CNN.
Sources told CNN that Trump disparaged Merkel in a "very aggressive" manner, calling her "stupid" and accusing her of "being in the pocket of the Russians."
"He's toughest [in the phone calls] with those he looks at as weaklings and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with," a source told CNN.
Though extraordinary measures were taken in response to Trump's conversations with Merkel, the German chancellor took the US president's comments "like water off a duck's back," a source told CNN.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
German officials were so alarmed by President Donald Trump's "very aggressive" conversations with Chancellor Angela Merkel that they kept their calls secret, sources told CNN.
In calls with the German chancellor, Trump bullied and disparaged Merkel in a "near-sadistic" fashion, according to the CNN report by Carl Bernstein, the longtime journalist known for his reporting on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post.
"Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: He called her 'stupid,' and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians," unnamed sources told CNN, adding: "He's toughest [in the phone calls] with those he looks at as weaklings and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with."
A group of officials assigned to monitor Merkel's calls with Trump also shrank, leaving "just a small circle of people who are involved and the reason, the main reason, is that they are indeed problematic," a German official told CNN.
The official added that Trump's conversations with Merkel were deemed "so unusual" that extra steps were taken to keep the calls secret.
Though extraordinary measures were taken in response to Trump's conversations with Merkel, the German chancellor took the US president's comments "like water off a duck's back," a source told CNN, adding that she responded to his disparaging remarks by stating facts.
"President Trump is a world-class negotiator who has consistently furthered America's interests on the world stage," the White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews told Business Insider in a statement in response to the CNN report. "From negotiating the phase-one China deal and the USMCA to NATO allies contributing more and defeating ISIS, President Trump has shown his ability to advance America's strategic interests."
A spokesperson from the German government declined to comment in response to the CNN report.
The CNN report went on to suggest that Trump's behavior extended to other female world leaders including Theresa May, the UK prime minister until 2019. The US president's behavior was described as "humiliating and bullying" to May, after he called her a "fool" when it came to foreign- and public-policy decisions, one source told CNN.
"He'd get agitated about something with Theresa May, then he'd get nasty with her on the phone call," one source said. "It's the same interaction in every setting — coronavirus or Brexit — with just no filter applied."
NOW WATCH: 6 times Trump contradicted public officials about the coronavirus pandemic
Angela Merkel Donald Trump Theresa May


Wondering about the value of individual silent reading during the school day? Meet Claudia Swisher (known as "Swish" to her students), who teaches in Oklahoma. Swisher is in her 36th year of teaching: three states, all twelve grades and nearly a dozen different assignments. She now spends her entire day teaching a class called "Reading for Pleasure."
[NF] You have what seems like the world's greatest teaching job to me: reading and more reading. How and why was your reading class created, and how did it grow?
[CS] I'm an English teacher, school librarian, and reading specialist. I was trained by professors who believed whole language was the way to best reach struggling adolescent readers, not more phonics or worksheets. Even in remedial classes, I used a lot of SSR with some kind of written response.
We were changing high school configurations and schedules, requiring kids to take eight classes a semester. We needed electives, and my "dream elective" was Reading for Pleasure. I teach the class full time. Once a student takes it, s/he is usually interested in taking it again. I fought for the right for students to repeat the class for credit, and many kids do. It's also used as an alternative for remedial reading for a small group of ninth graders who haven't yet reached the magic 8th grade reading level, which kids in OK must demonstrate in order to get a driver's permit. We find those kids, and plunk them into R4P. They are not happy--but most of them take the class again as upperclassmen as a self-chosen elective.
[NF] In this era of strict, standardized test-based "accountability," has there been pushback against the idea of high school students simply reading for an hour a day? How do you address that?
[CS] None at my school. I've done presentations around the state, and that's one of the first things principals will talk about. I have my kids regularly reflect on their own growth and test scores. Kids who take the ACT tell me they are able to sit and read the selections more quickly, staying focused as they read. Kids started taking the class in hopes of raising their ACT scores before I even thought of that as a recruiting tool.
This class has affected the literacy climate of the school-- library circulation is up, and those assigned English novels actually get read! My seniors are working on the books they'll write their senior papers over.
[NF] Because we're Goodreads partners, I know that you read a lot of young adult books. Do you genuinely enjoy reading young adult literature? Any authors or trends in YA that stand out as particularly worthy or groundbreaking--or harmful?
[CS] Great question! I've always read YA lit - Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, Student Nurse. (laughing) My mother thought I should be reading "good" books. Her books! The library bookmobile stopped literally right in front of my house all summer. I am proof that wide, indiscriminate, "undisciplined" reading is not harmful. I read comic books, too.
I read with my students every day. When I ask them to read, I read. My rule is when I'm reading with students in class, I must only read books that someone recommended to me. I read it, they watch me laugh and cry (yes, I cry in class!), then someone else gets the book. I don't think there are harmful YA books, but some are better than others. I don't mind a kid reading "pulpy" YA books-- as we read more widely, we begin to see what's quality and what's not.
I see Harry Potter books as "gateway drugs" to more serious fantasy: Tolkien, Herbert, Card. If I can get a kid reading "Twilight," maybe I can move her into literary fiction and classics. There's a short YA novel called "Peak" about a boy who attempts to climb Mr. Everest. I read that with my kids, then recommended "Into Thin Air" (Jon Krakauer), about his real-life climb. YA is about storytelling, about young adults seeing themselves and their struggles reflected in print. Kids can see they're not alone in this world.
[NF] How would you describe the difference between young adult literature, quality fiction and "the classics?" What value do these genres offer to high school students? And what about the canon--the books we were all compelled to read in high school? Still relevant?
[CS] One of the strengths of my class is that students aren't forced to only read one kind of book--but they are forced to read books. Students won't really strengthen their reading skills by reading short selections like magazines. Books make them work through the initial confusion of the first chapters, live with the ambiguity of not knowing who the good guy is, not understanding every word, not stopping! If my students read on, they learn the whole is greater than the parts. The difference between genres is intended audience, plus reading levels, length and complexity. Kids will start with YA, and become interested and motivated to read serious adult work. My students read best sellers, literary fiction, nonfiction, and classics. I encourage them to read their assigned books in class and write about them. I can help them read--and respond as reader first; then their English teachers can help them analyze as student of literature.
YA is a path for alliterate teens who haven't read for pleasure since elementary school. If I can't convince them to find some kind of pleasure in reading, then they won't read anything. Literary fiction and nonfiction are the prize for working through YA and realizing you're smarter than you thought, and you want more. Sometimes it's a hard sell.
As a student, I struggled through some of the classics I was assigned. I probably only read half--I was one of those good students who could get enough context within the class discussion to look like I'd read the books. As a teacher, I despaired when kids didn't love "Animal Farm" as much as I did. I wanted them to cry with me as I read "To Kill a Mockingbird."
I've watched kids get angry, resentful and lose confidence in their ability to read when we give them these books. Kelly Gallagher wrote a magnificent book called "Readicide" that challenged teachers to think about the fact we over teach novels, giving kids 30-page packets of worksheets, or under teach by never telling them what they should be caring about. I get to respond to their ideas, to tell them how I felt as a reader about Gatsby's death, or Victor Frankenstein's abandonment of his creature. You'd be surprised at the number of times the kids will bring up symbolism or thematic connections on their own. When we give them time, and an appreciative audience for their reflections, they bloom.
One second-semester senior made it his goal to read (in R4P) all the books he'd been assigned in English classes, and hadn't actually read: "Catcher in the Rye," "All Quiet on the Western Front, " etc.. He loved them! Take away the sledge hammer of the grades, give them time to read and an audience for their reflections, and you've got an independent reader.
[NF] Given the lure of image-based media and 140-character communication, how do you get "wired" teenagers to sustain the old-fashioned narrative reading of books?
[CS] Kids who are avid readers enter middle school and get distracted by friends, social lives, technology, sports. It doesn't take long, then it's just easier NOT to read. I know they're reading online and texting, but short bursts don't allow interactions with story, with ambiguity, with suspense. Kids are surrounded by text, but it may not be helping build stronger, more responsive, discriminating readers.
If I tell them I value their reading, and then I surf the web, what's the message?? I think this is the reason some attempts at this kind of class fail: teachers see it as another planning period. We build up stamina slowly; some of my kids haven't sat still to read in a long time. And we write. I give them those sentence starter-prompts we've all seen for years. Everybody writes. Kids turn in their Reading Logs, and I read and respond to everything the kids write. I respond as a reader--the way you and I would talk about books.
I encourage students to share opinions, reflections, predictions, questions. Sometimes I have students find a quote from their book, copy it into their Log and respond. It's crucial that they know I read every word they write, and know I'll respond. They learn they're writing for an interested audience, and their logs get stronger throughout the semester.
I've read enough that I can offer suggestions at the beginning of the semester with types of books that are usually motivating- high interest plots. I know the books with teen drama, vampires, dragons, and lots of coming of age novels, sports books, gang books. My first job is to get kids reading something. They don't have to finish a book that isn't interesting, or is on the wrong "level" for them, although I don't do any formal assessment of reading levels. Finding that first book is huge. I tell kids I'll keep throwing books at them until one sticks. When I find that first book, I can find five more like it. Choice is key.
Kids aren't limited to fiction. One boy read nothing but technical computer manuals all semester...for pleasure! And he parlayed that interest into an IT job that he loves. On their end of semester evaluation, they often talk about how relaxing this class is; I think they value the opportunity to slow down and read. No distractions, no worksheets. I've watched many kids get into that flow that Csikszentmihalyi describes. That's what I'm aiming for: that moment when every student is literally in flow - lost in his or her book, unaware of time passing or anyone else in the room.
[NF] What did I miss?
[CS] In every class I'll have the entire range of abilities, ELL, LD to AP, kids who use wheelchairs and listen to books on tape. Since every student reads his or her own book, the class naturally differentiates itself. Some kids are there because they want to be--they're avid readers and love the idea of getting credit. Many used to love reading and know they need to get back into the habit. Some kids are there to strengthen their skills for the ACT or for college. Some are there because their special ed teacher put them in. It's truly the most democratic class in school--druggies next to cheerleaders next to Goths next to band nerds.
One kid wrote a note to me saying he took the class to goof off, and to disrupt. But then he looked around for who might join him in his mayhem and realized in horror...everyone was reading! I tell kids I know some of them have never used the words "reading" and "pleasure" in the same sentence before, but to give me a chance. Most do.
Goodreads and Facebook have extended my teaching back to former students who are now adults. I get book recommendations every week from former students. I'm having a ball.
[NF] Quick! List Claudia Swisher's three desert island books.
[CS] "To Kill a Mockingbird" - I read that book every year and I cry every time. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak-- so many layers. And "The Courage to Teach"-- so I'd be ready to go back to teaching when I got off the island!


"Be." by Bryan Thomas. Winter 2002. TheHiddenCity.com. Underground arts. Albany, New York.
One weekend in the fall of 1999, Bryan was left alone in an apartment somewhere in Albany with nothing except a guitar, a tube of black lipstick, a video camera, and a bottle of wine. This is what happened.


Abstract: Supply chain optimization is one of the key components for the effective management of a company with a complex manufacturing process and distribution network. Companies with a global presence in particular are motivated to optimize their distribution plans in order to keep their operating costs low and competitive. Changing condition in the global market and volatile energy prices increase the need for an automatic decision and optimization tool. In recent years, many techniques and applications have been proposed to address the problem of supply chain optimization. However, such techniques are often too problemspecific or too knowledge-intensive to be implemented as in-expensive, and easy-to-use computer system. The effort required to implement an optimization system for a new instance of the problem appears to be quite significant. The development process necessitates the involvement of expert personnel and the level of automation is low. The aim of this project is to develop a set of strategies capable of increasing the level of automation when developing a new optimization system. An increased level of automation is achieved by focusing on three areas: multi-objective optimization, optimization algorithm usability, and optimization model design. A literature review highlighted the great level of interest for the problem of multiobjective optimization in the research community. However, the review emphasized a lack of standardization in the area and insufficient understanding of the relationship between multi-objective strategies and problems. Experts in the area of optimization and artificial intelligence are interested in improving the usability of the most recent optimization algorithms. They stated the concern that the large number of variants and parameters, which characterizes such algorithms, affect their potential applicability in real-world environments. Such characteristics are seen as the root cause for the low success of the most recent optimization algorithms in industrial applications. Crucial task for the development of an optimization system is the design of the optimization model. Such task is one of the most complex in the development process, however, it is still performed mostly manually. The importance and the complexity of the task strongly suggest the development of tools to aid the design of optimization models. In order to address such challenges, first the problem of multi-objective optimization is considered and the most widely adopted techniques to solve it are identified. Such techniques are analyzed and described in details to increase the level of standardization in the area. Empirical evidences are highlighted to suggest what type of relationship exists between strategies and problem instances. Regarding the optimization algorithm, a classification method is proposed to improve its usability and computational requirement by automatically tuning one of its key parameters, the termination condition. The algorithm understands the problem complexity and automatically assigns the best termination condition to minimize runtime. The runtime of the optimization system has been reduced by more than 60%. Arguably, the usability of the algorithm has been improved as well, as one of the key configuration tasks can now be completed automatically. Finally, a system is presented to aid the definition of the optimization model through regression analysis. The purpose of the method is to gather as much knowledge about the problem as possible so that the task of the optimization model definition requires a lower user involvement. The application of the proposed algorithm is estimated that could have saved almost 1000 man-weeks to complete the project. The developed strategies have been applied to the problem of Caterpillar's global supply chain optimization. This thesis describes also the process of developing an optimization system for Caterpillar and highlights the challenges and research opportunities identified while undertaking this work. This thesis describes the optimization model designed for Caterpillar's supply chain and the implementation details of the Ant Colony System, the algorithm selected to optimize the supply chain. The system is now used to design the distribution plans of more than 7,000 products. The system improved Caterpillar's marginal profit on such products by a factor of 4.6% on average.


Aspiro prepared business simplification concepts, RfP and supported selection of the suppliers. Through the implementation phase as part of Program Management covered main PGO activities.
In Slovak Telekom, Aspiro delivered Program management services, PMO Management and prepared the organization of the RaSi Programme. The goal of the RaSi Programme was changing / streamlining the processes, reduction of the product portfolio and simplification of IT architecture of Slovak Telekom in BSS/OSS domains.
We worked with Aspiro and its staff for over 4 years, whereby we received exceptional professional services in the areas which were contracted.
I am happy that I was able to utilize their knowledge in areas of methodology and program support in order to manage this large transformation program which helps Slovak Telekom to achieve its operational and strategic targets of the future.
Slovak Telekom is the largest multimedia operator in Slovakia with long time experiences and a responsible approach to business.
By merging Slovak Telekom, a.s. and T-Mobile Slovensko, a.s. a universal operator was created, which offers the benefits of a complex solution provided from one source to home and corporate customers. Slovak Telekom is member of Deutsche Telekom Group and in 2016 it has created joint organisational structure with T-Mobile Czech Republic to enable closer cross boarder cooperation in the group.
The company also brings international know-how, innovative solutions and the newest technology trends to the Slovak market.


text:
World of beauty
Tips from wedding professionals
Features of the national costume
Quentin J. Lewis.
Leave a Comment on Features of the national costume
#Costume, #Features, #National
Ukrainian embroidered shirts at the peak of popularity not only in our country, but throughout the advanced fashion world. But even our most fashionable and curious patriots do not really know about their history. "Can an embroidered shirt be obscene?" We were surprised, rummaging through the archives. How not to be mistaken about the national costume, read the material 23:59.
"Putting on a vintage shirt with a belt simply looks beautiful, but in fact it is identical to if we went out in shorts and a bra: a shirt is the lower part of the costume," – during the preparation of the "Outflows" project for the upcoming Ukrainian Fashion Week has many interesting stories. The storytellers are Maria Kvitka, an ideologist at the Center for Costume History and an employee of the Archaeological Museum of Ukraine, and Lyudmila Klimuk, artistic director of the workshop for the reconstruction of national clothing "Noble Odyag". They are responsible for showing authentic clothing that will take place as part of the Outflows project.
The project itself is a simultaneous tribute to two trends. Global: during shows, any respected capital organizes an exhibition related to the topic – one or more Fashion Houses (worth recalling a string from Lanvin, Prada and Schiaparelli, Dries van Noten, Madame Gres, Alexander McQueen), or a historical costume – such as the recently opened "Shine and Poverty" in the Paris Museum d'Orsay, dedicated to the ladies of half the world. And the local trend: for the past two years, talk about national motifs in clothes has been conducted in Ukraine with Otell jealousy. "Outflows" is a curatorial project, reflection on the theme of an important, but unfamiliar to the general public ethnic color. The curator Marina Shcherbenko is responsible for the subtlety in reflecting the national in contemporary art, and the professionals with museum training are responsible for the authenticity.
"It's important for us to show how to wear a traditional shirt correctly — complete with a different set of things, a base and a belt, jewelry and a hat," says Maria Kvitka. On October 18, 15 female and 5 male traditional "mills" were assembled to display the "Costume History Center", speaking in modern language – bows, from ten regions of Ukraine.
It is worth starting a conversation with historians, so after a while the national costume seems like an ideal sacred text: there is an abyss of meaning behind any decor and line. Embroidery is a charm, and it is done along the fence line on the hem, sleeve, neck and cut seams on the yoke or neckline – wherever the protective cover of clothing is interrupted. Hats are a marker of social status: wreaths in traditional culture were worn only by unmarried girls, as well as by their flowers. Poppy – so generally only during mourning – it was believed that this flower grows where blood was shed. The red color of embroidery is contraindicated during fasting: those who dared to wear bright things were called "a trick, like a sore." And by their colored shirts they identified either the "elder brother" or the nomads – in Ukrainian villages they used unpainted unbleached, in fact – pale gray canvas.
However, the main sore point of museum workers is cross-stitch, which overshadowed other traditional techniques of incredible beauty. Ironically, the cross is the most fashionable, but not the most indicative figure for the Ukrainian tradition, if you look at it in a historical perspective. He appeared at the end of the 19th century and at the same time gained loud popularity. Fashion for him began after the distribution of leaflets of soap "Brokar and Co" – the company of Henry Brokar, author of "The Empress's Favorite Bouquet" (after which he turned these spirits into "Red Moscow"). Owning city dwellers were fond of needlework. To win their hearts, the perfumer added leaflets with a printed matrix of colorful cross-stitch to his soap. Simplicity of execution provided him with popularity. A light motive supplanted the more complex ones, while in the Ukrainian tradition about 250 traditional embroidery stitches are known. It took months to work for many, for example, Western Ukrainian shirts with tightly "clogged" sleeves were embroidered all winter four hands. Experts were already squealing at the anger of the day. The well-known ethnographer Olena Pchilka, the mother of Lesya Ukrainka, in the preface to the collection of authentic Ukrainian patterns of 1867, wrote about "ungodly roses and lapati leaves" that make "from the sleeves, even from the back, the shmatka is yogosok Moscow gauze, the most dumb relish." Nothing seems to have changed since then. On the one hand – the tears of museum workers invisible to the world, on the other – an understandable human desire not to bother, but to be in the subject. The latter, by the way, explains the success of the March11 project, which was launched by the publisher of Playing Fashion magazine Robert Mishchenko: pale copies of the premium Vyshyvanka by Vita Kin find their consumer who craves the wildly popular vyshyvanka.
True, something has changed. Marketers talk about the evolution of consumption: being customer conscious is more fashionable and more correct than spontaneous. In an ideal world, everyone began to understand, for example, balamutes (river pearls) and kersetka (a flared vest with tucks on the back), to distinguish travel copies of shirts from originals, designers of any profile together took up and figured out how to convert tradition into modern understandable objects and things, and the "Outflows" were extended for the season, because the line stood on them, circling the Mystetskyi Arsenal twice.
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More of the action as Latics collected another crucial point in the bid to stay in the Sky Bet Championship, with Reece James on target from the penalty spot for his third goal of the season. The league's leading goal scorer Teemu Pukki equalised for the Canaries, before Leon Clarke saw a goal chalked off in second half stoppage time.
Extended Highlights: Wigan Athletic 1 Norwich City 1.
Subscribe to iFollow Latics for just £4.49 a month and get 10 minutes of extended match action from every Latics game, plus full-match replays.
Extended highlights from Sunday's 1-1 draw with Sky Bet Championship leaders Norwich City are now available for iFollow Latics subscribers!
If you weren't at the game at the DW Stadium or simply want to watch it again in depth, we have ten minutes of extended action available to iFollow Latics subscribers. For just £4.49 a month, you will get extended highlights of every game, audio commentary and more!
Latics held by Sky Bet Championship leaders Norwich City at the DW Stadium.


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Darci Lynne Farmer performance on AGT: The Champions 2019 on 14th January 2019: Hello every once here we are with the awesome individual performances of contestants on Americas Got Talent: The Champions 2019 premiere. AGT: The Champions 2019 Episode 2 already out on 14th January 2019. And today we will see 10 performances out of which One Contestant will get golden Buzzer on AGT Champions Episode 2. Today we are showing you Americas Got Talent: The Champions 2019 full episode and individual performance as well. Don't Forget to Vote Darci Lynne on AGT The Champions 2019 Voting Live 14 January 2019.
Now if we talk about Darci Lynne. Everyone knows her after AGT 2017 Season 12. She was the winner of AGT Season 12. She comes on the stage of AGT: The Champions 2019 with her bunny and she does a great act and sings Ventriloquist with her bunny. All the Audiences and judges impressed by her performance. Watch the full performance of her on AGT: The Champions 2019 Below.
An American ventriloquist from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma got more popular after America's Got Talent Season 12. As of this day, we have all the updates on Darci Lynne performance on AGT the Champions 2019. Darci is famous for her amazing act ventriloquist with puppets. After winning AGT Season 12 she was performed in may show. Darci Lynne has performed in AGT: The Champions 2019. Once we will get an update on Darci Lynne's Performance on AGT: The Champions 2019 we will update here.
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Now available online: Proceedings from Conference, "Ingestion of Lead from Spent Ammunition: Implications for Wildlife and Humans"
Research on the effects and risks of lead exposure from spent bullet fragments and shot is now available online.
The documents are proceedings from the conference, "Ingestion of Lead from Spent Ammunition: Implications for Wildlife and Humans," convened 12-15 May 2008, by The Peregrine Fund, Boise State University, Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine, and the US Geological Survey. The conference for the first time brought together professionals in wildlife and human health to share information on the toxic effects of this source of lead contamination.
Conference attendees offered a relatively easy solution: switch to non-lead bullets and shot. Such ammunition is available in most popular calibers and is considered by many hunters to be as good as or better than traditional lead ammunition. Experts said manufacturers will respond to demand, thus solving the problem.


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Parenting, Love, Loss
Posted on May 21, 2019 April 25, 2021 by Aaron Denham
First thing Monday morning Joe intercepted me. He exclaimed I had to visit an infant he saw over the weekend.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"A child," he replied. "It's not good, I can't explain it. You just have to see it." I didn't press him. We hurried to a small village next to Sirigu. Word spread. People said it was a spirit child.
The Nankani mother emerged from the traditional women's room limping and carrying a child wrapped in a bundle to protect him from the wind, believed to be carrying spiritual and physical causes of sickness. A grandmother came out to help her and ensure he kept covered and soon returned to seclusion. Apoka, the mother, told us the child's name was Azampana, a generic name used until the child is older. She brought him closer and removed the careful layers of Dutch wax cloth around him.
Azampana had bilateral cleft pallet and spina bifida. His obstructed, labored wheezing was loud and upsetting. His eyes were swollen shut.
Joe told me to photograph him. We needed documentation. I hesitated before capturing three photos of his face. Joe then asked Apoka to flip Azampana over to show the infected opening at the base of his spine.
"How old is he?" I asked family members.
"He's eight days old today," someone responded. When we were finished looking, Apoka covered him and slipped away to her room.
"What causes this?" I asked.
"Actually, I cannot tell," said the family head. "It's the first time I've seen something like this."
Another man remarked, "I think it could be sickness. Maybe the woman got an infection when she was pregnant and through it [the sickness] the child has those deformities."
"Is it a spirit child?"
"No. There are no misfortunes in the house."
The parents were stoic. The local nurse was not optimistic. She taught Apoka how to feed Azampana with a spoon since breastfeeding was impossible. It is hard to keep the utensils clean, she said. She was reluctant to help the family, and I got the sense she felt that anything adding to her heavy responsibilities was a waste of time. He would not survive. Even if surgery was available, the nurse said, they must wait several months before they can operate on him. What would happen in the meantime? More infection? Malaria?
In developed contexts, the surgeries and services needed for Azampana are routine. The likelihood of survival is over 90%. In Northern Ghana, such a child has little chance. This inequality is one of the more appalling failures of humanity.
The following day Joe and I took Apoka and Azampana to the hospital. We felt the need to do something. A physician from a British charity and two local doctors happened by and stopped to examine him. We chatted and they admitted Apoka and Azampana into the maternity ward to stabilize him, treat the infection, and consider transferring the child to a hospital in Accra for the required surgeries. The British doctor was positive his charity would fund the expenses. Hope propelled Apoka. After mother and son were in the hospital's care, we returned to Sirigu.
Two days later, Joe and I were in a group meeting in the shade outside his office. We noticed Azampana's father standing in the distance. He approached the periphery and waited for us. He explained that he received a message delivered a few hours earlier saying the child had died. He was well-composed considering the loss. The Nankani discourage overt expressions of profound emotions in this setting. I offered to bring Azampana's remains and Apoka home that afternoon. The father voiced his appreciation.
There is diversity in how Nankani parents respond to child misfortune, illness, or disability. Much of my work focuses on families that view sick or disabled children as spirits sent from the bush to cause misfortune and kill family members. I show how parents, when confronted with a chronically ill or disabled child, react with fear and aggression, and do not mourn their child's death. I've written less of "common" deaths of children destined for the house. When a child identified as a part of the family dies, parents experience and express a set of responses that can appear to be, to outsiders, either familiar, unexpected, or both.
It's easy to construe parental fatalism, stoicism, or impassivity as a lack of concern or love for a child. Too often we interpret common human experiences of parenting, love, and death as universal. We think it's natural that parents will always love their children. This is not always the case. A few decades of research have cautioned against universalizing parental sentiments. Sometimes what we consider natural comes from assumptions and research based on wealthy, white, and industrialized societies.[i] In the 1970s, Maria Piers, a psychologist who worked with poor mothers, showed how infanticide, child maltreatment, and neglect were consequences of the underdevelopment of women and the oppression, emotional starvation, and negative life experiences of mothers. Not that maternal love does not exist, Piers argued. Rather, a range of social problems interfere with the motherly drive. In Death without Weeping, Nancy Scheper-Hughes contradicted universal maternal scripts by showing how love and maternal practices around the selective neglect of infants without a "knack for life" were socially and culturally produced.
Human responses to critical life events are complex, involving interactions between our biology and a range of impinging contextual forces, cultural and moral worlds, and internal dynamics.
Taken for granted, and less discussed, are the meanings behind people's affects and expressions and, in this case, the nuances behind the words and behaviors surrounding child mortality. The terms used to define and describe love or loss are difficult to interpret across cultures or even between individuals sharing a culture. The experiences, bases, and objects of affection and attachment can differ from one person or group to the next. That leaves us with the question: what are we talking about when we talk about love?[ii]
I think a challenging task as an ethnographer involves interpreting people's experiences and emotions. This is not just a translation problem; it is semantic and moral. When speaking with families who lost a child, I needed to shed my assumptions and expectations associated with love and other constructs. It was an interview with Anaba, a father of a deceased toddler, that challenged my interpretations. I asked him how he felt about the death. He was sad and distraught. But when I probed, Anaba described how his distress was not around the death of a unique family member or losing a close attachment. It was in the unrecoverable loss of his family's efforts for the child. Anaba mourned his investment; it took emotional precedence. An American psychologist remarked that he seemed like a psychopath. He wasn't. Anaba was empathetic, loving, and generous with the children in the household. He fit the local model for being an ideal father. He suffered over the child, but the object of his loss differed from Western expectations.
Anaba's clarification helped me realize that if parents said they were sad and mourning a loss, I still misunderstood what made up their experience of sadness, what their suffering indexed, and what dimensions of the loss, if any, they were mourning.
Some Nankani mothers' expressions were familiar—they said they loved the child and grieved the lost attachment. But many mothers explained how their emotional response centered on the useless suffering involved in carrying, birthing, and raising a child that dies. Some acknowledged both sentiments. Men also bemoaned the unseen or spiritual reasons for the child's departure, instead of the child herself. Was witchcraft responsible? Both mothers and fathers lamented the loss of a future—their child could have become an important person, even the president of Ghana.
A set of cultural practices shaping relationships, care(giving), and attachment can partially explain their responses. The Nankani prioritize reciprocity and define and live relationships in terms of exchange. Being human, becoming a person, attaching to a relative, and strengthening one's status is not a given or a priori. Individuals cultivate these throughout their life by engaging in forms of economic and social exchange. When children reciprocate, they establish and strengthen their bond with family members. Parents anticipate the day when resources and affection flow both directions.
When I first encountered Azampana's family, I expected them to be impassive or even looking for ways to be free of the child. I had seen this in similar circumstances. But their response to his condition differed from other families.
There was confusion when Joe and I arrived at the hospital. After a thorough search, we could not find Apoka. The nurses claimed ignorance, saying they didn't know where she was, but Azampana's body was still at the hospital. They would not let us take his body until we paid the bill and had a doctor sign the death certificate. One was not available until the next day, so I phoned the doctor I met earlier in the week. We stumbled through the bureaucracy, paid, and returned to the nurses' station to claim the body and find Apoka. We searched again but Apoka was nowhere to be found and neither was Azampana. The nurses then sent us to the morgue.
We walked behind the hospital, near its boundary, and approached the well-kept house of the mortuary man.[iii] He was shirtless, plump, and had an authoritative presence. The master of the dead is an unenviable position. It's one that requires, like the traditional village gravediggers, protective medicine and the right disposition. A green monkey (a Chlorocebus) sat on a log near him and the other visitors. This was fitting. We greeted the mortuary man and the others. I made to shake hands with his monkey. He grabbed my finger and yanked me toward his spot in the shade, sharp monkey teeth bared. I shook free and jumped back. "Asshole monkey," I muttered. Everyone laughed. Only then I noticed the ample buffer around him.
The mortuary man said that he didn't remember seeing a baby arriving that day, but we better search the morgue to make sure.
A dissection table was near the entrance, its channels set to enable fluids to flow to the drains. Counters and refrigerators in various states of repair lined the walls. "Maybe you can identify him," he said. He unlocked the chains and opened the stainless-steel doors to a compartment containing several rows of body-length shelves. I glanced over the ten bodies stacked inches apart. He extended a few of the racks. Most were young and middle-aged women. He approached another cooler. "Some have been here for weeks," he said. "Their families are arguing and still trying to arrange the burial." Azampana was not there but my eyes were seized by the bodies of two other newborns, wrapped in scraps of cloth, limbs drawn in, resting on the breasts of their mothers. I couldn't look away. The image forever rendered the sterile mortality statistics tangible in my mind.
We again returned to the nurses' station and pieced together what happened. After Azampana had died, Apoka refused to surrender him. Hospital regulations would not allow her to take the body home until she paid her bill. Apoka had little money and no phone. The nurses left her alone with Azampana for a brief time, but later she remained inconsolable, refusing to concede, clutching the body to her chest. They eventually let her take Azampana home knowing we would pay her bill. Although the nurses covering for Apoka sent us across the hospital in a wild search, I admired their cunning.
After she left the hospital, Apoka wrapped Azampana onto her back and carried him to the central taxi stand to find a minibus going to Sirigu. After two hours—with frequent stops on rough, dusty roads—she walked the final hour home alone.
I try to imagine what Apoka was experiencing while in the hospital, refusing to surrender her child to the morgue and the afterlife. I wonder about her journey home. Did the others on the crowded bus notice her baby? Did she hide what happened? What did Apoka think of the mothers and children present? Did anyone try to strike up a conversation? What did she say?
The family buried Azampana the next evening after sundown on the edge of the farm near their compound. The internment was brief. His mother and father remained placid. Perhaps they struggled to hold back their tears.
Sometimes families bury infants in a semi-domesticated or a transitional place like farms, trash heaps, and other locations between home and the wilds of the bush. Burying the child here—instead of beneath an old household with established family members—ensures regeneration. Their remains will transform into something productive. Burial locations are not indicative of how a family feels for the child. Neither is the parent's extent of expressed emotion.
A stoic presentation does not mean parents are callous. To cry after the death of a child will interfere with its passage to the afterlife.[iv] If the mother or father weep during the burial, the child enters a cycle of return. It will be reborn to its mother only to die again.
The questions surrounding universal parental love and responses to loss are not an all or nothing, either/or calculus. Family reactions are diverse and dynamic. Sometimes we recognize experiences of loss like Apoka's. We project our feelings or empathize with her suffering and refusal to surrender her boy. Another parent's experience can strike familiar or unexpected sentiments within us. A death with or without weeping. But for reasons sometimes different from what we imagine.
Want more? Spirit Children: Illness, Poverty, and Infanticide is available. Read other essays here.
[i] See Henrich et al.'s collection of work discussing WEIRD societies (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic).
[ii] The similarity to Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is intentional.
[iii] I never learned his name. Everyone just referred to him as the Mortuary Man.
[iv] See Nations & Rebhum's Angels with Wet Wings Won't Fly (1988). Countering Scheper-Hughes' research in N.E. Brazil and her book Death without Weeping, they describe how mothers are discouraged from crying upon the death of a child and how this behavior cannot be interpreted as maternal detachment.
Posted in Reflections, StoriesTagged Child Health, Childhood, Death, Ghana, Maternal Health, Parenthood, Poverty, Spirit Child
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1 thought on "Parenting, Love, Loss"
InktoSerenity	 July 20, 20198:47 am	 Reply
So sad =( thank you for sharing these stories, I am so engrossed in their culture and how others live