Month: May 2009

faith, New York City, religion

My Year of Hopefulness – One tiny step toward faith

Christa Avampato

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” ~ Matthew 18:20

I stopped going to church a long time ago. I felt let down by organized religion, constrained and burdened by being called a sinner no matter how good I was. I found faith on my yoga mat, in nature, in people – no church-going required. Lately, I’ve felt the need to find a place where I can go to be only with my spirituality, to feel that I am close to something divine, a place big enough to store my troubles while I sort them out.

Tonight, I stopped by the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine because it’s beautiful and I like the way the choir sounds. I went to the 4:00 Evensong. They didn’t sound quite as good as they did during their rehearsal last week, though I still felt some kind of comfort being there with other people who were also there to listen to the music. I was able to pray and ask for help and strength for the coming week, and felt lighter when I left than when I entered.

Just outside the cathedral, the white peacock that lives on the grounds was strutting around the church green. I had previously only seen him from a distance. He’s beautiful, with a long, flowing tail, and a crown of slight feathers. I whistled a very soft whistle, and to my surprise he came running toward me.

A woman next to me, looking at the peacock, asked, “?Como se dice en ingles?”

I speak a tiny bit of Spanish and replied, “peacock.”

“!cómo extraño! En español, decimos pavo.” (How weird. In Spanish, we say “pavo”.)

I nodded, not knowing what else to say and a little embarrassed by my very limited Spanish vocabulary (which ironically I was working on just a few hours prior to my visit to the Cathedral.)

She continued, “Que la iglesia no es hermosa? Es como en el cielo existe.” (Isn’t the church beautiful? It’s like Heaven in there.)

I agreed with her, “Sí. Es como el cielo.”

I wondered how she knew what Heaven looked like. She seemed a little kooky and I was reminded of that show Touched by an Angel that I used to watch with my mom when I was a kid. The woman smiled and left me alone with the peacock.

I don’t know if this is the start of a new chapter of faith for me. I do know that it was nice to be in the presence of something larger than my own existence for a while, a place that gave me a small glimpse of what Heaven might be like.

change, dreams, imagination, social change

My Year of Hopefulness – The World We Live In

Christa Avampato

“Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.” ~ Frances Moore Lappe

This is one of the best quotes I’ve read in a long time. Think about the hundreds, even thousands of small choices we make every day. Where to shop, how to commute to work, where to live, work, and play, how to treat strangers and co-workers and family members and friends, where and how we spend our time and with whom. Every one of those choices has an impact on the world, and therefore shapes it.

It’s easy to feel that we’re so small and that the problems in our world are so large that we couldn’t possibly make a difference with our daily choices. The truth is we make a difference with every step without even knowing it. We have so much ability to change our existence and the existence of those around us. We do it every day; we’re already impacting the world right now, so why not recognize that and make the choices that lead us toward making the world the kind of place we want to be?

art, history, New York City

My Year of Hopefulness – Camilo Jose Vergara

Christa Avampato

Today, I ventured over to the New-York Historical Society, a museum next door to the American Museum of Natural History. It is dedicated to history and story telling, particularly those stories that involve New York City. There is a beautiful photography exhibit by Camilo Jose Vergara currently on display, Harlem in Transition, 1970 – 2009. The exhibit depicts Vergara’s 4 decades of photographing Harlem. He began taking pictures on his lunch breaks from a large advertising agency located on Park Avenue. He often went back to visit the same sites over 40 years to document the change and transformation, and plenty of change has taken place in that neighborhood.

The roller coaster ride of Harlem is very apparent in the collection. From beautiful buildings, dilapidated, and rebuilt even beyond their original splendor to the images of people who arrived in the neighborhood and left one way or another, it is a story of rising, falling, and rising again. It covers places of worship and commerce, the art and politics, the people and addresses that are distinctly Harlem. It makes no apologies or excuses, nor does it forgive or forget. It simply and honestly tells the story of Harlem.

What struck me most about the photographs is the color that radiates from them. There’s a photo that depicts the urban gardening that used to be in Harlem and another showing the graffiti used to warn residents of the harm drugs and drug dealing bring into the neighborhood. There are photos of statues of prominent black Americans that instill pride and inspire everyone who walks by them. There are birds-eye views of the grand boulevards and photos of life on the streets as if we are seeing the scenes at ground level.

This exhibit takes us north from the Historical Society into that neighborhood, that mindset. It shows us the struggles and triumphs of Harlem residents, past and present. Vergara says of this collection, “This urban documentation project breaks with the ways historians, planners and other scholars traditionally approach urban space. My method of documentation is based on presenting sequences and networks of images to tell how Harlem evolved and what it gained and lost in the process. The premise behind all the work that I do is that 100 pictures are one hundred times more powerful than one picture. The more you track something, the deeper and more eloquently it speaks.”

And eloquence is the best descriptor of this exhibit and the proud people who share its story. It’s on view now through July 12, 2009 at the New-York Historical Society. To see more of Vargara’s work, visit his website: http://invinciblecities.camden.rutgers.edu/intro.html

family, friendship, happiness, learning, New York City, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Small moments

Christa Avampato
Lately, I’ve been trying a trick on the subway to make my commute to and from work more enjoyable. Trains are packed during rush hour and invariably I end up next to someone with some annoying habit. This morning, it was this woman who was obsessively turning the pages of the newspaper and folding it over, covering the pages of the book I was reading. I normally would have gotten very irritated with this woman. Instead, I looked at this as an opportunity for character study.

I stopped reading my book and just studied this woman. What was she wearing? How is her hair done? What part of that paper is she actually reading? Then when I got to work, I wrote down everything I could remember about her, along with some ideas for a backstory of who that woman is, what she does, and where she’s going. Eventually, she’ll turn up in some piece of writing I do. This trick is honing my observation skills, and reminds me of how much I love being a writer – every moment and inertaction, good, bad, or indifferent, has potential to be material.

I’m learning that life isn’t about the big moments, it’s about the many small ones that comprise every one of our days. My life is about my subway ride to work, my lunch time walks with my friend, Jamie. It’s about seeing my friends for dinners and movies. It’s about being on skype with my niece, Lorelei, and having her recognize my face. It’s about the books and blogs I read, the person I give directions to as they pass by me on the street. It’s about buying my groceries, and calling my mom, and getting a coffee as I walk around my neighborhood. It’s about laughing with my sister, Weez, and enjoying the warmth of sun on my face on a Sunday afternoon.

And this ‘little moment philosphophy’ is true of writing as much as it is true of life. I’ve often longed for a time when I am writing as if some great voice from beyond is speaking to me, and every word I write shows up on the page as if it were meant to be there. The truth is writing, for me, is a daily grind. I sit down and look at a very blank page every day. I sometimes sit down and have no idea what to write about or how to phrase my thoughts coherently. What matters is that I show up and keep trying. Every day, my only goal in my writing and in my life is to get just a little bit better than I was yesterday. Somedays I do a brilliant job of this and other days I fall short. On average I’m making small amounts of progress.

I’m learning that small, steady progress is much better that huge leaps forward and backwards. There’s a lot to be learned and explored during small moments. They’re my favorite parts of relationships and friendships; they’re always the things in my life that I treasure most.

Sometimes people ask me “what’s your greatest accomplishment” or “what’s your greatest failure”. I don’t have any greatest anythings. I have a lot of small things I love and cherish, I’ve had a lifetime of moments that taught me something, and when you add up all of those small things, their collective power is extraordinary. And I wouldn’t trade those thousands of small moments for a handful of aha’s, no matter how great those aha’s are. Small moments, and lots of them, suit me just fine.

fate, happiness

My Year of Hopefulness: You get more of what you already have

Christa Avampato

I’ve recently been reading the work of Gretchen Rubin, a lawyer turned writer and happiness researcher. She started a blog call The Happiness Project in preparation for her book of the same name that is due to hit shelves in January 2010. Because of my own interest in the subject, I’ve started following her writing regularly.

Last week, Gretchen published a post about life’s cruel truth: you get more of what you already have. It got me thinking about how we always want something our of reach, something that’s different than what we have, though not necessarily better. And it’s never enough. We want more money, more notoriety, more free time, more love, more, more, more. As Gretchen points out, though we keep striving for something new and different, we end up with more of what we’ve got.

Luckily, this principle can work in our favor as well. I’ve found this year that by seeking out something hopeful every day, I’m finding much more hope than I ever thought I’d have. Once I had a little bit, I was able to gather more. I’d notice hope all around me, just by the being more aware of its presence. It’s always been there – I just wasn’t paying attention. It’s lmost as if a little hope is a magnet for more hope. Happiness, love, friendship, luck, and karma work this way, too.

Turn the tables, and we’ll find just as many examples that work against us. Anger begets anger. Sadness begets sadness. And so on for things like frustration and disappointment.

So the choice is ours for the making: do we want to feel hope or despair? What is it that we want to attract to our lives? It is possible to think ourselves into luck and good fortune. It’s just as easy to turn the tables and make a mess of our lives. Yes there are always outside influences beyond our control, but our lives are largely what we make of them.

One of my mom’s childhood friends tells a great story about a trip she and my mom took to New Orleans when they were in their early 20’s. A fortune teller on the corner asked them if they’d like to have their fortunes read to them. Without missing a beat, my mom responded, nicely, “No thanks. I make my own fortune.” That statement holds more truth for all of us than we realize.

music, New York City

My Year of Hopefulness – The NY Philharmonic at Saint John the Divine

Christa Avampato

When I was at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on Saturday, I noticed that the NY Philharmonic was playing a free concert at the Cathedral on Memorial Day. On Memorial Day I ventured up there around 7pm and was shocked at the line that wound all the way down 110th street to the East as far as I could see. The Cathedral’s big, but it’s not that big so I cut my losses and headed for the sculpture garden where I could sit in the grass, take off my shoes, read my book for an hour, and enjoy the music as the sun set.

I was one of the first people to arrive in the sculpture garden, though it filled up quickly. I looked around to see that everything I love about New York was on that lawn with me: the diversity of color, race, creed, age, social-economic level, and orientation. Men and women, families, friends, and single people, several languages all rising at once as we all waited for the main event. Though we couldn’t see the show, we were well aware when David Robertson, the conductor for the evening, took the stage. The applause was thunderous.

I marveled that I should be so lucky to be in a city where this kind of event was free, practically held in my own backyard. It was comforting to see the cares of the world melt from people’s faces, to see them lay down in the grass, staring up at the stars that started gathering, focusing all of their attention on the music. For that hour that the Philharmonic played, I couldn’t think about anything except each note as it whizzed by me with so much emotion and passion. It has been a long time since I stopped thinking about any cares and worries – I was grateful for the break.

The concert reminded me of how much we need art and music in our lives – how critical it is to our happiness, health, and well-being. I used to make my living working in the arts, and on occasion I miss it. I miss being part of something that takes us to another world. Thankfully, there are organizations like the Philharmonic that can transport us all away from our lives, even for just a little while. The only requirement is that we show up and listen with an open mind and open heart.

The image above features Maestro Lorin Maazel as he conducts the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2006 in New York. (Stephen Chernin/Associated Press)

choices, health, social media, technology

My Year of Hopefulness – Mayo Clinic & Social Media

Christa Avampato

Incorporating the world of social media into an existing business can be challenging. And scary. You want to get involved and building community, but where do you start? How do you start? Which tools and materials are the most relevant for a specific business? The number of choices is overwhelming and growing all the time.

If you have a start-up, it’s easier to bake social media plans right into the initial marketing and communications strategy. Established businesses have a tougher time — they’ve made significant investments in brand building and customer loyalty that didn’t involve social media. A few efforts in social media that lack authenticity and the business will be hung out to dry by every power that exists in social media land.

I was tooling around on slideshare recently and found a presentation by Mayo Clinic that described their journey into the uncertain world of social media. With a brand this powerful and with so much debate swirling about patient privacy, Mayo Clinic took a risk by testing social media’s potential to increase their impact and reach. A few of the key points touched upon in the presentation are key for any business interested in a similar pursuit and they’re good reminders for all of us whenever we take on a large project in unfamiliar territory:

1.) Start small. Mayo Clinic could have came into the world of social media guns a-blazin’, hopping on to every social media service available. They didn’t. They first assembled a space on their website that tracked all of the stories about them showing up in traditional media, and gave people a way to respond to those stories through comments on their own site. The branded this site ‘Medical Edge’. Smart – they got a lot of great feedback and leveraged written material that already existed.

2.) Use what’s free and available from others first rather than building your own platform from scratch. Mayo Clinic took advantage of the iTune platform to first create radio mp3s. Then it graduated to podcasts, more and longer podcasts, and then eventually built its own platform at podcasts.mayoclinic.org. Rather than jumping right in and building their own platform, they wanted to see if there was even any interest in this type of material and they experimented with length and topics. Might as well learn on someone else’s platform before you build your own.

3.) Use what works. For some organizations, a blog and a Twitter account are the best vehicles for building community. Others find that Facebook Groups work really well for them. For Mayo Clinic, it’s videos. That shared experience by real people who are a part of the Mayo Clinic global community provided the most bang for the buck. And with a Flip video camera, the interviews became very easy to record, edit, and post – first to YouTube and then to their own sharing platform at sharing.mayoclinic.org.

These small tips added up to big impact for Mayo Clinic, an established brand that found a way to make social media work for them by taking small steps forward. They are flourishing in the world of social media and can be found participating in multiple outlets. They went slowly, and took the time to discover which path suited them best. It’s a wonderful framework to consider. Find it at http://www.slideshare.net/LeeAase/mayo-clinic-best-of-blogwell09

books, change, movie, play, theatre

My Year of Hopefulness – A Life in Three Acts

Christa Avampato

With such beautiful weather in New York today, I headed to the park to continue reading Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. At the start of chapter 16, Michael Davis opens with the line “sometimes life in like the movies, a story in 3 acts.” I’ve been thinking about that line, particularly with respect to my post from yesterday about being in a state of flux with a dash of confusion.

Davis reminded me that in act 2, there is always a series of challenges that the protagonist has to work through. I wonder now at the ripe old age of 33 if I’m at the tail end of the first act or have just entered the second act of my life. This slight act of separation, some might call it delusion, helped me think a little more clearly today. I’m able at this moment to step away from my life a bit, and just observe what’s happening in context of a broader set of possible outcomes.

It also helps to know that in every great story there are always twists and turns, that few if any read like fairy tales of sweetness and light. There are fairy tale moments, though they tend to not be the ones that are the most interesting or insightful. The trade-off for learning and insight is often a bit of struggle and discomfort. It involves rising when all we feel like doing is laying low. It asks us to be greater spirits than we believe we can be.

Surviving and thriving through act 2 requires us to take a deep breathe, several if necessary, put our heads down, and get to work, on ourselves and on the exterior circumstances that effect us so that we can sail into act 3, riding high, wiser and more certain of our direction. It helps if our co-stars, friends and family, can help us – a protagonist rarely appears in act 3 triumphant as an island. Guides and assistance often appear as the plot lines intertwine with growing complications, exactly when we need them.

A story takes a while to unravel, to reveal itself to the audience, and to the protagonist. There will be moments of confusion and tough choices to make. It’s all part of the drama and the comedy; it’s all part of life.

career, economy, faith, fear, health, job, religion

My Year of Hopefulness – Cathedral of Saint John the Divine

Christa Avampato

Yesterday, I found myself leaving the emergency room of St. Luke’s Hospital. I had developed a “subconjunctival hemorrhage” and a slight amount of “petechiae”. This is a fancy way of saying a very small blood vessel popped in my left eye and I had a few tiny red freckles around both of my eyes. I was panicked that I was experiencing the beginning of a very serious medical condition. Turns out that all of my blood work and diagnostic tests came back completely normal. I’ll just look a little weird for a week or so.

I called my mom to update her and let her know that nothing was seriously wrong with me. I wandered down the street, into the children’s sculpture garden of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. As I was explaining to my mom that I was just fine, I found myself tearing up. Maybe they were tears of relief, or fear, or maybe it was frustration with the week I had just finished. Over the past few days I have discovered many more of my friends have lost their jobs. I’m beginning to wonder how I’ve been so fortunate to escape that situation in this economy. I work very hard, though not any harder than my friends who have been let go from their positions. I’m beginning to think that luck has a lot to do with it.

I sat in that sculpture garden for about 20 minutes and had a good cry. The sun had come out, the wind was blowing, and I felt lost. I’m worried about the uncertainty we’re all facing, despite the fact that I have managed uncertainty so many times before. I feel like the ground is shifting beneath our economy, and there is no sign of it settling down any time soon. I was angry for my friends who have been let go from their jobs – hard working, talented people who were seen as a line item on a company’s excel spreadsheet, an expense rather than a resource and an investment. I felt shaken.

I had never really looked at that giant sculpture next to Saint John the Divine. It’s a collaborative piece of work based on Noah’s Ark and the triumph of good over evil. The Cathedral has been closed for some time for renovations and recently re-opened. I was weary from my hospital visit though felt drawn into that incredible cathedral. I wandered in and it was nearly empty. The choir was practicing and I felt drawn to sit in the center of the space, letting that beautiful music wrap around me like a warm hug. Though I am not a religious person, I felt that God was very close to me at that moment, that he knew what I was going through, and wanted to help.

I let my eyes tear up again, I was cemented to that seat, transfixed by the music. After a little while I got up and walked around the edge of the cathedral, stopping to look at each of the small chapels. The light shone through them so brilliantly. I had never seen stained glass that colorful and perfect. By the time the choir stopped, I got to The Poet’s Corner, a small area that pays tributes to literary greats such as Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Gertrude Stein. They each had their names and birth date engraved into a stone, along with a quote they famously wrote.

One quote particularly caught my attention. Theodore Roethke said, “I learn by going where I have to go.” I thought about this quote all the way home. It reminded me that I have places I need to be, where I’ve committed to be, and there are things for me to learn there and to take somewhere else. Today, I just need to do what I have to do. The acts of hope and faith are a daily process. Just keep showing up.

The image above can be found here.

business, economy, friendship, harmony, leadership, stress, work

My Year of Hopefulness – Harmonious Work Environments

Christa Avampato

I love to talk and on occasion someone says something to me that’s so striking that I cannot let it pass without writing about it. A friend of mine recently had her supervisor tell her that she creates a work environment that is too harmonious. I was so stunned by this comment that all I could do was laugh. And once that laughter subsided, I found the very core of this comment to be highly disturbing.

The American workplace right now, particularly in large corporations, is a tough place to be every day. Layoff rounds seem never ending and are referred to with a dizzying array of synonyms: “right-sizing”, “restructuring”, “displacement”, “down-scaling”, and the list goes on. At the end of the day a lot of very talented, bright, dedicated high performers are losing their jobs. Morale is low and bad behaviors abound as a result of fear, angst, and disappointment.

Layer all of these bad sentiments into my friend’s situation. Despite the fact that morale is very low at her company and the environment there is like a pressure cooker these days, she has found a way to bring some sense of harmony to her team and her projects. And the feedback to her is she creates too much harmony?! If she were ineffective at her job and unable to get anything done, I could possibly understand the feedback though that is not at all the case. She’s one of the highest performers in her department, due in large part to her ability to create winning strategies that are widely supported by others.

By saying please and thank you, and recognizing the hard work of her team she is being criticized by her boss who is unable to create any kind of good will due to his bad attitude and propensity for bullying. With all the anxiety in the world, we should welcome the contributions of people who can restore a sense of order and calm, particularly in the workplace. In the case of harmony, there can’t be too much of a good thing.