my little girl

Most of my parenting discussion on this blog occurred in the first few years I was a parent, so it was heavily weighted to a discussion of our son, NJ.  Once our daughter, CD, came along I either did not have as much time to post, or the experiences were similar to what I had already posted.  It would be a mistake for me to progress too many years without acknowledging the impact she has had on our family and how truly unique a girl she is, though.

Last month CD turned five years old.  Five years ago when she came along was a very scary time for me.  The economy was headed down the tubes faster than I thought possible and I felt it threatened my job as much as anyone's, I was trying to wrap up my degree program, and we were trying to figure out how to manage both NJ's and CD's needs.  NJ was very jealous of the time and attention that CD required, and so he went into a six-month-long (or longer) melancholy stage where he was very moody.  CD on the other hand, required more effort and interrupted more of our sleep as a baby than NJ had.  She was not born into easy times.  I never regretted having CD, but I did question our wisdom in thinking we could manage everything that was on our plates at the time.

Fast forward five years and we cannot imagine our family without CD.  She is very intelligent, has an incredible personality, and (not to place too much importance on looks) is a very pretty girl.  But most of all she is undeniably unique.  In a house full of introverts she is the one who wants to go out and do things.  In a house full of less imposing individuals she leaves her mark wherever she goes.  In a family full of people who want to observe she likes to perform.  In a family that is largely inactive she has energy and spunk.

Of course, all of this coupled with her ornery nature causes her to require a bit more hands-on parenting than NJ did at the same age.  There is no doubt that she is worth the effort, though.

pumpkin season

Photo by: Danielle Scott

One of the primary seasonal flavors of October and November is pumpkin.  Not only do pumpkin pies appear, but everything from ice cream to bread to coffee is sold with pumpkin flavoring.

I wouldn't say I don't like pumpkin and the things made from pumpkins.  I actually do.  For example, a properly made pumpkin pie can be quite good.  I would say that I have never had anything with pumpkin flavoring that wouldn't taste better with a more traditional and less seasonal flavoring, though.

For example, I think pumpkin bread is perfectly fine.  I'd actually prefer banana bread or zucchini bread, though.  Note that this comes from someone who does not like bananas or zucchinis.  Pumpkin flavored ice cream is okay, but even in autumn I'd prefer vanilla.  I can definitely enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie, but I like most other types of pie far better with a few very specific exceptions.  Give me apple, cherry, or blueberry over pumpkin any day.

I understand that a big part of the appeal is the same sort of appeal that certain foods have at Christmas time.  It's not necessarily the flavor that is desirable, but rather the atmosphere that it creates.  It's a way for a person to get their mind into the season, and it can be more pleasurable for the person who loves autumn.  Even so, I'm always a little perplexed with the excitement that pumpkin flavored things garners with a lot of people.  Pumpkin just isn't a flavor I can get excited about.

So, I'm interested.  Do your tastes align with mine, or do you get excited about pumpkin season?  If you get excited about pumpkin season is it more about the flavor or about the season itself?

900

Sandro Botticelli's Chart of Hell

This is my 900th post, and I have a tradition of posting something somewhat related to the number on round number posts like this.  The last time I posted on 800 area code phone numbers and the concept of "free."  While the obvious choice would be to post on 900 numbers this time around I am going to take a different, more convoluted, and slightly more serious direction with this post.

About twelve years ago I read a translation of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, which was his depiction of Hell, as well as his Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paradiso (Heaven or Paradise).  The way this is tenuously related to 900 is that Dante's depiction of Hell was that it was a gigantic hole in the ground, and that there were nine (not nine hundred, but I already said this was tenuous) rings that formed the hole, and the closer to the center rings you got the deeper into the hole you were.  Each ring was devoted to specific types of sinners, and so the less bad sinners were tormented on the outer rings while the serious sinners were tormented worse in the inner rings.

I have had a lot of contemplations about Inferno ever since I read it, but I never took the opportunity fully articulate them until now, so this is my chance.

The first thing a person notices when reading Inferno is that Dante had enemies and he enjoyed imagining them suffer.  He fills his Hell with people he personally knew, or who were opposed in some way to Dante (or his city-state), and details in what way those people will suffer that is related to the way they sinned.  He also fills his Hell with historical figures that most people agreed were deserving of punishment (the worst reserved for Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot).  If Dante had a beef with you there was a pretty good chance you were going to end up somewhere in his literary torture fantasy.

The second thing that sticks out to me is how appealing a depiction, woefully inaccurate or not, of Hell is.  Put bluntly, Purgatorio and Paradiso were boring.  Inferno was interesting if only for the creativity with which Dante imagined people's eternal demise.  On further thought, isn't a perfect reflection of human nature?  The idea of being perfected and moving toward Paradise makes for a boring read, but detail how sinners are justly tortured and I can't put the book down.

The third thing that sticks out to me is how damaging the book is to a real belief in Hell.  I have heard multiple people say the opposite.  Interest in Inferno will make people wonder if there really is a Hell, I've heard.  To me, the stories are so specific yet so limited within a human mindset that it feels (and is) contrived.  Hell is real, but it is not something that we can conceive of more than we can conceive of Heaven.  To force a detailed depiction that makes some physical sense to our feeble minds is to make it sound more like a fairy tale than reality.  I couldn't believe that Hell was real if I were forced to accept even 10% of the depiction that Dante presents.

Finally, this trilogy of books is absolute proof that people did not believe the earth was flat in the years prior to Columbus' initial voyage to the Americas.  Typically, when people correctly note that people in Medieval times did not believe that the earth was flat, they point to the writings of the ancient Greeks which note that a flat earth would not allow for ships to sink into the horizon to disappear, and that they would instead just disappear into a tiny speck at a large distance away.  If the 500 B.C. Greeks knew, the 1492 A.D. Portuguese did as well.  I look to Dante instead, who lived about two hundred years before Columbus' voyages.

The reason that Dante presented Hell as a hole in the ground was that he imagined that Hell would be a void in the earth left when Satan was cast down from God's presence and struck the earth like a massive high-speed asteroid.  Dante further surmised that on the other side of the world would be a huge mountain created by land upended from the creation of the hole that was Hell.  This mountain would be Purgatory, and it would rise up into the heavens and be the gateway into Paradise.

So, in summary, Dante's Hell is a hole in the ground caused by Satan striking the earth with incredible force. Also, Purgatory is a mountain on the other side of the earth, which was created by that same force.  This is not a story conceived by someone who believes in a flat earth.  It is a story conceived by someone without a great deal of knowledge of physics or astronomy, however, so there is that.  I just believe that we need to remember that not every belief from an earlier time period is completely ridiculous.  I may have brought harm to that point by mentioning Dante's description of Purgatory as a mountain leading to Paradise, though.

kids these days

I've heard several people near my age make negative observations about younger generations.  I'm talking about the typical, "Kids these days just don't have to go through what we did," to, "Those lazy Millennials don't know how to hold down a job."  I don't understand when I hear this.  A mere decade or two ago people were saying this about this individual and his or her generation, but now he or she is willing to forget that and do the same to a younger generation?

I may have shared this before, but one incident from my teenage years that has stuck with me was an interaction I had with someone when I was working in a grocery store.  One of the jobs that needed to be done some nights was to vacuum up the carpet in the main entryway, and that night this was one of my responsibilities.  A guy who was probably in his fifties walked by and asked if I ever vacuumed at home.  I acknowledged that I sometimes did, and he responded that he thought I was lying.  He had three or four kids and none of them ever vacuumed at home.  Then he made some comment about kids today being lazy and walked out with a demeanor that indicated he had made the point he intended to make.

Obviously, this guy was not representative of fifty-something-year-old guys.  He was obviously bothered about something else that was happening in his life (or had already happened) and found this an easy situation to—well, I'm still not sure how to properly finish that sentence.  I had more than my share of faults, and it was true that I was not keen on doing chores, but vacuuming is about the easiest of the chores there are to complete.  I couldn't believe that he singled me out on that one specifically.  If you're going to call me lazy call me out for a chore that there's a solid chance that I don't actually do.

I actually didn't take it too personally.  I had a solid reputation around the store as a hard worker so I didn't need this guy's validation.  I did get irritated that he would judge my entire generation so quickly, however.  What bothered me the most was that he did not see that what he said was more an indictment on his ability to parent than it was on my generation.  I personally worked with both hard workers and sluggards in my age range in that store already, so I knew both existed.  Even then I figured that, if this guy's experience with teenagers had been exclusively bad, his problem was probably with the man in the mirror.

If I am ever tempted to make generalizations about people in another generation as I age, either older or younger, I always remember that guy walking out of the grocery store attempting to give a seventeen-year-old kid what-for.  Is what I have to say about kids these days (or maybe about septuagenarians these days) going to sound like that man's words?  If so, is that an opinion worth holding, let alone sharing?

I will sometimes point out something about my kids' childhoods that makes theirs easier than mine.  I will with regularity note that I don't get music/humor/movies that is popular (or was popular) in specific decades.  I will often have a hard time connecting with people from specific generations.  However, I will not make sweeping statements about people of a certain age.  I will not do it now, in twenty years, or in fifty years.  This is something that I am committing to now, and it is a standard that I expect to hold myself to forever.  As such, I will always be a little uncomfortable when I hear others making those statements in my company.

the real facebook temptation

Facebook is a constant siren.  Not just to check everyone's statuses, though that is tempting too.  No, Facebook constantly taunts me to jump into debates that will ultimately be meaningless.

It comes at me from all angles.  I see absurdities in all sorts of bold positions that people take, but my fatal flaw is that I don't usually see the absurdities in my own positions.  "Of course that's a ludicrous position to take," I think as I start whipping out a brilliantly witty remark at my friend's (or worse, a friend of my friend's) expense.  Then, I usually (and thankfully) realize that maybe I shouldn't comment like that.  At first it's usually out of concern for the obvious faux pas, but then it starts impossibly sinking in that maybe I'm also somewhat wrong.  Maybe my comment isn't as bulletproof as I am imagining it to be, impossible as it seems right now.

Many times I have dialed myself back in time to avoid being, if only temporarily, yet one more idiot shouting an opinion on Facebook.^*  While I do not always feel in my gut it is the right decision at the time I always feel that it was a day or two later.  Sometimes with my bolder friends I don't dial myself back as much as I should.  The only times that I don't feel bad about that later are when I was correcting obvious and egregious doctrinal errors from a proclaiming Christian.  That caveat scenario doesn't happen too often.

So, why is that temptation always there?  I know better.  I just don't know better in the moment.

^* I'll always be an idiot shouting an opinion here. 

inevitable failure

One of the main topics in the news lately has been the troubled roll-out of the healthcare.gov website that is the main portal for people in the thirty-six states that did not create portals of their own. Amid all of the grandstanding, excuses, and political showmanship from both the Right and the Left on this I have one question that keeps coming up in my mind. Wasn't this to be expected with a major website roll-out?

I understand as I am reading news reports that most people have not been a part of a major IT roll-out like the healthcare.gov website.  A significant minority of the population has, though, and the news reports are notably silent on the inevitability of these outages which should be obvious to anyone who has taken part in them.  Simply put, large IT projects with immovable release dates, extraordinary load requirements, and multiple complex inputs do not usually roll out successfully on the first try.  Many times I have seen roll-outs pushed back months due to unforeseen circumstances, and with a complex roll-out it is almost guaranteed that something unforeseen will occur.

As I have been reading over the last year about the impending go-live date for the website I was always inwardly thankful that I was not involved with what was obviously going to be a failed release.  The idea that major bugs would be addressed, security and load testing completed, and all of the unforeseeable issues that plague any roll-out by a very public unchangeable date was absurd.

While there will be calls for heads to roll, and many probably will, this whole thing smacks of a misunderstanding of how major websites are rolled out.  Few of the people sacked or called out publicly will have deserved it.  This was a failure in the planning stages of the project, and it will be the implementers who take the heat.  That is typically how the project blame game works.

If there is a lesson to be learned it is that something like this should be slowly phased in, lessons learned, then changes made based on those lessons.  The website target date should have been July so that necessary changes could be made when the roll-out inevitably failed.  Those running the project could have crowd-sourced the testing process and had individual volunteers try to overload and break the system, then used that feedback to know which issues needed addressing.  Also, to reduce load, the thirty-six states portals could have been phased in week-by-week.

That's just me being an armchair IT guy, though.

sports praise

As a full disclosure before I get into this I want to note that there are a handful of famous athletes that I look up to, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite with what I am about to say.  One justification for this is that in most cases I do not admire an individual simply for his athletic ability.

Women are judged by their appearance, and men are judged by what they accomplish.  Neither of these are right, but both will be the way things are for a long while.

I have been astonished by the number of people I have seen lately who have gone out of their way to lavish praise on specific sports players in ways that they might not do the same for a Joe nobody.  This has been especially noticeable with Mariano Rivera retiring, Peyton Manning having a career year, and a lot of people wanting to compare Michael Jordan to LeBron James as of late.  While the players praised play at a level that indeed requires incredible dedication, I have to believe this praise is somewhat absurd.

Are any of these people ever going to hear most of the accolades bestowed upon them?  They'll hear a tiny percentage of it for sure, but is there any real value in arguing about who the best basketball player in recent history is or waxing eloquently over a quarterback who impresses you?  Ultimately, it is pontificating about arbitrary information that does not meaningfully affect anyone in earshot.

I have been thinking about this due to the value statement I opened this post with.  Those sports figures are valued because of what they have accomplished (and may still accomplish) through their physical and mental abilities, as well as their willingness to train, and due to the efforts of countless coaches.  Does that change their value as people, though?  Is Peyton Manning worth more than a gas station attendant because one has accomplished a lot in the sports field and the other works a low-prestige job?  Would I be as excited to have the gas station worker's signature or autograph as Manning's?

I am sure that the allure of celebrity is relevant in every culture, but I believe in the West we especially look up to sports figures because we value individual accomplishment in men.  While you have to have won the genetic lottery to have a chance at being a professional athlete, you also typically have to have a strong work ethic to succeed.  Since everyone knows that great effort is necessary to perform at that level it makes those sorts of celebrities admirable.

The same sort of thing happens with women as well, but in regard to appearance.  As an example, Marylin Monroe gets quoted a fair bit, but few would have originally cared about her were it not for her appearance.

My real point is simply that I wonder if the human tendency to praise celebrities more than everyday people points to a deeper issue that we as humans do not know how to value ourselves or others appropriately.  There are some really valuable people in low places, and athletic ability and looks seems like a lousy measure for determining how valuable they really are.

80/20

I have often heard the 80/20 rule referenced in several different contexts, and mostly where most work is voluntary, but especially in church.  Twenty percent of the congregants do eighty percent of the work I've been told many times.  This may be true, but I think there's more to it.  I think my own personal experiences in college mirror what causes the 80/20 phenomena.


Partly due to a scholarship I had, partly due to a sense that I would need school activities on a resume one day, and partly due to a need I had at the time to feel important, I became overly involved on campus.  I had a work-study job, as many did, but was also involved with student government, residence hall government, leadership in my dorm floor, a weekly weather report for the school newspaper, and a few other things, all while maintaining a serious relationship with Golden.  For a while I did not know how to tell someone, "no," if they wanted me to contribute effort to something.  One specific semester I was in danger of losing my largest school scholarship when my GPA slipped simply because I was at my physical limit of what I could do.  I learned a lot about priorities during those years.

After that experience of being close to burnout for an extended period of time I became more willing turn down activities.  As an ardent introvert, I have struggled with where the line is and so have gone through busy and non-busy stretches.

I see the same behavior at work in church and in other volunteer situations.  It is not that twenty percent of the people are doing eighty percent of the work.  It is that twenty percent of the people are doing the work right now, and a huge portion of the other people are actively removing themselves from activities after having been burned out by being part of the twenty percent at some time in the past.  For whatever reason, volunteer situations cause people to get overworked when they have volunteered, and somehow encourage the view that, "I've put in my time."

Right now I feel on the busier side at church since I teach a class and do a few other things, but I have actively resisted a few different opportunities, and I suspect that I will actively resist others.  I know others who were very involved, got burned out, and completely and utterly removed themselves from teaching and administrative responsibilities as a result.  Maybe if I don't try to do too much I will not feel like I need a sabbatical from all responsibility in short order.

Perhaps organizations that rely on volunteers could learn from this and manage their resources more effectively so that the 80/20 rule doesn't have to continue being a thing.

in a handbasket

"Do not say, 'Why were the old days better than these?' For it is not wise to ask such questions." — Ecclesiastes 7:10

One pet peeve I have is to listen to people go off about how society is going downhill, especially when it is presented in a church setting.  This is not an annoyance because I think society is in great shape, but rather because it presents an idealized view of where society has come from. A person talking like this is frequently encouraging his or her audience to adopt the social rules of a bygone era rather than encouraging the audience to truly look to Christ.  Prayer is encouraged and the speaker may state that our society's only hope is to turn to Christ, but my experience is that what the speaker interprets as turning to Christ and what the Bible indicates as becoming a slave to Christ as two different things.

I have mentioned the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) when I discussed a similar topic before, but this is a very instructive story here as well.  In that parable a person who everyone of the time would have viewed as a saint prays thanks to God that he was not put in the circumstances of the obviously sinful tax collector.  I can imagine sermons at the local synagogue rightfully decrying the sins of people who call themselves Jews who aggressively take from their own people while working in conjunction with a pagan empire.

"Our modern world is becoming more and more sinful," someone might point out, "because we cannot even trust those trained by our own rabbis in the Law of the one true God to treat their own brothers fairly.  Can you believe how horrible the world has become?  Can you believe how wretched tax collectors are who dare to number themselves among Abraham's children?"  Such a statement would be true on its face, and I can imagine the audience getting worked into a fervor.  The speech would endear the speaker to most of the audience, because it would build solidarity and would make the audience feel a bit righteous for not being one of those sinners benefiting from his selfish actions.

The key to this parable that Jesus taught, though, was that the person who focused on his own righteousness and others' sins was not justified, but the tax collector who was painfully aware of his sin and approached God with humility was justified.  The sins of Pharisee in the story were not forgiven, but the sins of the tax collector were.  Isn't focusing today on the evils of the times rather than the evils of my own nature doing the same thing that the Pharisee did in the parable?  Does not that sort of speech or sermon sound more dangerous than beneficial when viewed from this perspective?

On a related note, most of the people who talk about how bad things have gotten get their facts wrong, and that is a big part of what bothers me.  Some forms of crime have increased in recent years, but most violent crimes, property crimes, and many other various types of crime have been on a steady downswing in the United States since the early 90s.  A chart on the FBI website indicates that this trend, in violent crime at least, has continued through recent years.  All this does is validate my primary point that, while people are sinners in need of a Savior today, people have always been sinners in need of a Savior.  The times are evil, but the times have always been evil.

love at first sight

I watched Warm Bodies this past weekend.  I did not love or hate the movie.  It was interesting enough.  The movie was a love-conquers-all zombie flick regarding the transformation of zombies back into something more resembling living humans.  That's not really a spoiler, as that's the selling point of the movie's trailer.  Also, the plot is directly influenced by Romeo and Juliet to the point that the main characters are named, "R," and, "Julie."

The storyline relies more on the power of relational love than most other movies with a romantic bent that I have seen.  It's love that drives the zombies' change after all (also in the trailer).  Part of that relational love thing was something that annoys me in most love-conquers-all stories—that initial romantic puppy love is the powerful love that conquers all.  In the movie it is not only puppy love that drives the change, but the main plot follows what I consider a puppy love relationship.

I know it seems only lightly related, but as long as I can remember a common question in movies and TV shows has been whether a character believes in love at first sight.  Frequently, some character's arc then sends them through a love-at-first-sight scenario.  In Warm Bodies, there is a love-at-first-sight scenario, but the writers built in some rules for how zombies work to make it not really love at first sight even though it totally is.

I have long wondered at the appeal of love at first sight for two reasons.

1. It seems like a lot to throw into a (potential) relationship way too early.  Love—real love—is wonderful, but also burdensome.  Real love involves willingness to sacrifice even when sacrifice is not reciprocated.  It is selfless.  That's a huge deal.  People are human, and being in a real romantic love situation before you have any idea what that person's strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and flaws are is a recipe for pain and disillusionment.  Will you choose to sacrificially love someone if you find that your life goals and priorities conflict?  Is that willingness something you want based solely on initial physical attraction?
2. Since loving at first sight implies severely limited knowledge of the other person does this mean that the person who idealizes love at first sight is attracted to people who make impulsive and unwise relationship decisions?

My guess is that the people who dream of love at first sight are not actually thinking about love when they dream.  I suspect that most people who long for love at first sight fall into one of the two following categories.

1. They want a serious relationship rather than a casual one so bad that they dream of someone skipping the important initial stages of the relationship.  Those initial stages of the relationship are the part where each person finds out about the good and the bad things about the other before putting their heart on the line.  Maybe this person does not figure that he or she will get past that stage if it is not short-circuited?
2. They want the self-esteem boost that comes from the knowledge that they are so hot they can cause someone else to stop thinking rationally.

Now, there are things that I do believe in at first sight.  I think strong physical attraction (mutual or otherwise) can appear at first sight.  Disgust or disdain can occur at first sight.  Intrigue frequently occurs at first sight.  Most frequently, I believe that indifference occurs at first sight.  One thing that I do not believe ever occurs at first sight, however, is true love.

instagram novelty

For a while now there have been two jokes about Instagram pictures that have really been circulating long enough to become very tired by this point.

1. Too many people use the sepia filter and crop their pictures to make them look like they came from the 60s or 70s.
2. Too many people take pictures of their meals. This one isn't limited to Instagram, but it's a recurring joke.

I don't use Instagram, though I could see myself using it at a different stage in life.  I'm certainly not intending to pick on the people who use Instagram just because they are the sort of people who use Instagram.  However, since almost everyone who uses the service knows of these two tired jokes or should have noticed that the novelty of these two actions has worn off, what I don't get is why I still see pictures that fall into one of these two categories on my Facebook feed.  I won't begrudge the urge to use those features on occasion, but I see both with regularity.

I used to think the same thing in the late 90s and early 2000s when someone put too many actions in their PowerPoint presentations or used Comic Sans anywhere.  It screamed, "Guess who just started using MS Office for the first time."  Only this feels like people aren't distinguishing that the features and behaviors have the most value when they are used as infrequent novelties rather than the normal way of doing things.

As an example, taking a picture of your meal makes a lot of sense when your meal is novel.  As "novel" implies, this is truly rare.  Are you eating the face part of the food?  Snap a picture and post it, because I don't see that every day!  Is there a finger floating in your soup?  Post that picture so that I can say I saw it before the lawsuit happened!  Has this happened ten times, and you've posted pictures of the last nine?  In this case it's not novel any more.  Did you make a salad for yourself without anything particularly special in it and want to post a picture to brag about your salad-making skills or the fact that you're eating healthy?  Honestly, it isn't a deep secret that most people simply don't care. It just comes across as a cry for help.

open office design

A design and architecture firm recently performed a survey to illustrate the problem with open office designs.  The conclusion was that these sorts of office configurations, where cubicle walls are either very short or non-existent, make it difficult for employees to focus due to noise and visual distractions. While that firm has obvious reasons to want to encourage businesses to change their employee workspace layout, this is sort of a no-brainer conclusion, and makes me wonder why open offices are popular.  The article mentions a new and large open office being built for Facebook employees with the implication that this is the popular thing to do now.

The driving force for this sort of layout are cost and improved collaboration, but I do not believe that these benefits come near to outweighing the costs.  I do agree with the idea that the ability to collaborate is a good thing, but is it so bad that someone would have to walk a few steps to do that?  Is gaining that ten seconds worth losing the ability to escape distractions long enough to complete something?  Is the space and materials cost savings worth a less productive and more frustrated worker?

Many years ago in one of my less enjoyable roles I worked in what was essentially a large cube or bullpen with eighteen other people.  This arrangement lasted about nine months, and I do remember accomplishing things during that time, but I also remember not being able to focus on the task at hand.  It was a noisy environment, and at any given time there could be two or three speakerphone conversations going on at once.  Given how stressful the job was, there were frequently people tossing a ball or something else of the sort to let off some steam.  The nature of the job did not reward focus as much as speed and efficiency, though, so maybe that open office made sense there.

Now, I am very happy to work in more of an enclosed space.  In fact, even when I was in a bona-fide cube that was a welcome relief.  I like anything that gets rid of my distractions and let me focus on the task at hand.

milestones

Apart from this past week being the 237^th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence it also marks two other anniversaries, one joyous and one sad.  I am amazed that at what I still consider a young age there are so many milestones that I notice every year of significant things that happened.  Births, deaths, weddings, and all sorts of other things.  Every part of the calendar beckons to memories that are not all of that long-past.

This makes me wonder what milestones are ahead.  Are they largely going to be good?  How difficult will the bad ones be, and who will feel the brunt of the pain?  Is there something that I should be doing at this stage of life to appreciate what I have or to appropriately set up the good milestones?

know-it-all

I struggle with when to correct people online.  This has been exacerbated in the last few years by Facebook.  When is the right time and wrong time to correct friends, family, and acquaintances on factual or grammatical errors?

Generally speaking, I don't correct people on politics.  There have been some noteworthy exceptions where I have called someone out on what I thought was a blatant error, but I do not look back on those incidents with pride.  Even then, those incidents have been very few and far between. Like most people I generally bite my tongue and move on when I see political statements that I believe are based on errors.

I correct grammar and spelling even less than I call people out on political issues, but I regularly notice specific errors that annoy me.  The most annoying errors are the ones I find in my own typing.  Some grammatical and spelling errors drive me more crazy than political errors do.

The issue that snags me the most, and far more than politics or grammar, are rumors that have been discredited elsewhere.  As an example, a few months ago a couple of my Facebook friends who do not know each other posted information like what is detailed here to their feeds.  I tried to resist pointing out the mistake, but I knew it would bother me more than most errors since might damage the ability of specific non-profits to do their jobs.

The problem I have is there is no good way to correct someone without coming off like an arrogant know-it-all.  The very act of correcting someone is blatantly telling them that they are wrong and you are right, which causes most people to get defensive and feel like you are attempting to assert your superiority in some way over them.  I don't like it when others correct me, even when I know deep-down that I am in the wrong.  I don't expect anyone else to be different.

I need to learn to better differentiate the situations where correction is called for.

it's been a while

Few things make me happier than an empty schedule.  Also, few things frustrate me more than a full schedule.  When there has been a gap in blog posts that almost always means that I have had a full schedule, so obviously we have been busy over the last couple of months.  I am currently trying to figure out how I should respond to this.

Should we just accept that schedules are going to be busy and there is nothing we can do about it?  Should I feel bad if the kids are not involved with an organized sport or activity?  How many times is too many to decline going to social events?  Is it wrong to claim to be an agoraphobic and never leave the house again?

I know there are extremes and I should not let all of my introverted tendencies dictate all of my actions.  I do enjoy down time at home, though.

motorcycle accident

I just learned the husband of one of the people who regularly attends our Sunday school class died in a motorcycle accident a few hours ago.  This in itself is sad, but the fact that this man is a father with young children makes it especially sad.  The family is definitely going to need a lot of prayer and encouragement, so please remember them in your prayers.

I know a lot of good dads who ride motorcycles, and I definitely understand the appeal.  They must be a blast to ride because they look fun.  This isn't a judgment on dads who ride motorcycles.  However, I have personally heard of so many situations where dads have died in a bad motorcycle accident and left behind families who needed them. So, I do question the wisdom of dads with young children doing things like biking.  The dangers seem so senseless.  Based on what I am seeing online, I think my opinion is in the minority.

Again, please remember this family in prayer.  There is no way this is going to be anything but difficult.

ten years

I randomly have a few milestones on Cinco de Mayo.  One is that thirteen years ago I graduated college on that day.  Another is that ten years ago I started working for my current employer.  In modern times that is an eternity.  In contrast, it was twelve years ago Tuesday that I started my job before that.  The difference between ten years and two is pretty significant.

I do not have any real insights on that.  I don't like wandering from job to job or from town to town, and I've been pretty clear about that.  It is amazing in my mind that I could be anywhere that long.  I never lived more than five years in one town as a kid, so being in one area with one employer for double-digits years seems different, even though it has been my life for a while.

However, since I work in the ever-changing Tech Industry who knows what tomorrow holds.

source of the dream

While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him."
- Matthew 27:19

Since we just concluded Holy Week and have had focus on the events surrounding the Crucifixion and Resurrection, something new occurred to me.  Why did Pilate's wife have her dream?  I have always assumed that the dream came from God, but of the possible reasons that I can think of for the dream the most likely scenario in my opinion is the one in which it came from Satan.

Possibility #1: God was removing Pilate's excuse for condemning Christ

God knew that what was prophesied would come true, and that Pilate would condemn Christ to crucifixion.  It is conceivable that he was given every opportunity to not condemn Christ, even though he was always destined to make the choice that he made, so that he would have no excuse on the day of judgment.

Possibility #2: God was providing validation for Christ to those who would hear of the dream later

It could be argued that if news of the dream and Pilate's and his wife's conversation got out that it could serve as validation for Christ once news started circulating about the empty tomb.  This could be a counter-point to the assertion that the disciples knocked out trained Roman guards, rolled a boulder from away from the mouth of the tomb, stole Christ's body, and disposed of it without witnesses.

Possibility #3: Satan was using this as a last-ditch effort to stop the proceedings that would end with Christ justifying our sins.

Think about it a moment.  In the spiritual realm who really would want the Crucifixion to be stopped?  God purposefully pushed the plan forward as this was His avenue to offer salvation to an undeserving race.  God was not going to keep the Crucifixion from occurring.

Satan, however, appears in the Gospels to operate under the assumption that he can change God's plan.  He throws temptations at Christ as if that is something he has a chance of being successful at (Matthew 4:1-11).  His demons attempted to out Jesus as the Christ before the appointed time (Luke 4:41).  He is even the direct source of Peter's famous rejection of Christ (Luke 22:31-32).  Why wouldn't Satan use whatever tools were at his disposal, minimal as they may have been, in an attempt to block the events that would cause Christ to pay the price for our sin?

the one who is loved

At any given time I have a few open thoughts and questions about Scripture in my mind, and so when I read Scripture I am more attuned to those thoughts and questions than I might have been prior.  As an example, I have been more attuned as of late to passages that appear to imply that we do or do not have a choice in our justification due to the fact that it is a topic that a friend of mine has pushed to the fore lately.  If I am consistently and objectively reading Scripture and I have kept specific issues at the top of my mind my belief is that those passages that support or do not support that position should jump out at me.  However, It is not my intent to talk about resistible or irresistible grace today, but rather about love.

A few years ago I noticed that all of the passages that I could recall about love in the Bible presented it in terms of sacrifice or humility.  So, for the last few years as I have read I have paid attention to what the Bible says about love, and thus far I have only seen that perspective confirmed.  There are certainly times when sacrifice is not the obvious focus, but it's amazing how often it's an unavoidable theme.  This is true from the love Boaz shows to Ruth (Ruth 4) to the love Hosea shows to Gomer (Hosea 3) to the love I mentioned in my previous post that Christ showed to us (Romans 5).  It is even true in the love that husbands are supposed to show their wives, as Christ's sacrificial love is the example that Paul uses as a template in his instructions to husbands (Ephesians 5).

This addresses something seemingly minor issue that bugged me since I was a kid.  John was known for referring to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved.  Factual or not, I always thought this sounded prideful and not fitting for Scripture.  Now, when I view this through the perspective of sacrifice I do not see this as a prideful statement, though.

Luke 7:36-47 illuminates this a bit more for me now, though it flips who is showing love.

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

As an aside, when I read this a few months ago in Sunday School I could not get through it without choking down some (many) tears, because this image is so beautiful.  The town prostitute who knows she is scum shows more love to God than a pious religious leader, and the reason is that she knows how wretched she is while he wrongly supposes he has little that needs forgiven.  If there is not a better illustration of who the true Gospel should and does appeal to I have not heard it.

To take this from another perspective that is on my main topic, there is much love where there is much sacrifice and where there is much forgiveness.  Where the woman above passage showed love in response and proportion to Christ's sacrificial love, the love that John received from Christ was great because it was in response to his own sinfulness.  So, saying that Christ loved him much was saying that he had a lot bad in his heart that Christ had to sacrifice to atone in him.  Christ's love is proportional to the natural darkness of our own hearts.  That being the case, I am a man who Christ loves very much as well.  I know how voluminous the darkness in my heart is that needs to be forgiven.

gift selections

I am approaching my ten-year anniversary in my current place of employment.  Where did the time go?  Because of this anniversary I received an email from HR indicating that I can choose an award from a list, which is managed by a vendor, to commemorate the occasion.

Traditionally, companies have given employees watches, and there are some on the list, as well as some jewelry.  Hardly anyone wears watches any more, including me, so I am happy I have a choice of something other than a watch.  I do have some questions about whoever chooses the available options for these prizes, though.  They seem to be targeting a specific type of person.

Apart from jewelry and watches I can choose from golf equipment, a wine cellar, a few electronics options, etc.  My sense is that the items on the list either reflect the tastes of one or two people tasked with selecting items, or that they are meant to be targeted to some upper-middle-class stereotype of a golfer who likes mechanical watches and enjoys the occasional wine.

I am certainly not complaining or attempting to look a gift horse in the mouth.  I'll appreciate the telescope that I selected when I get it.  I especially appreciate what this signifies—that I have had consistent employment for such a long period of time.  I am just intrigued by what the process must have been in selecting items to commemorate that time.

despicable me

A school shooter who killed three people in Ohio has been in the news due to the fact that he wore a shirt with the word "killer" on it, then laughed at, cursed, and flipped off a court room containing the families of his victims.  There are scant few things I can imagine that could be more painful and galling.

However, thinking back to my post on forgiveness from a few years ago, even these actions pale in comparison to how disgusting my sinful nature is to God in His holiness.  When Paul writes about Christ dying for us when we were yet sinners, that is not much unlike if one of the aforementioned family members voluntarily gave up his or her life to save that despicable killer who took his son, or her brother, or his grandson, or her nephew.

In my own humanity, if I were in the families' position I would not be capable of forgiving the man.  It just would not be possible, even though this is what we are instructed to do in Scripture.  I would have to hope that God would grant me the grace to allow me to forgive where I would not be able to under my own power.  That would be my one and only hope.  I pray these families are granted that same grace and peace that I would hope for.  I simply cannot imagine how horrifying being in that situation would be.

bully for you

One opinion that I see every once in a while is that school bullies eventually get their due.  I think the assumption is that they're more likely to end up in prison, or at least have personality issues that keep them from being accepted in the business world.  I don't know if only a few people think this or many do, but it's ridiculous upon reflection.  Sure, some bullies do end up in prison or with issues that keep them from getting good jobs.  Most of the traits that allow people to gain a social upper hand in the school social world certainly don't do the opposite elsewhere, however.  When people complain about office politics, for example, what else are they really complaining about other than that other people are using bully-style tactics.

In my job I interact with a lot of people working for a lot of different companies.  As a result, I see a lot of different styles of management.  Some that show up occasionally are those that integrate elements of bullying.  Honestly, bullying employees to just below the threshold of what HR considers abuse can be an effective short-term motivator.  I cannot be the only person who has observed this.  It seems to be the basis for most executive's actions on Dilbert (but interestingly, not the pointy haired boss). 

What I do not understand is the need to pretend that bullies do not succeed.  Generally speaking, they do quite well.  Being willing to take actions that hurt others for your own gain is very effective in most social structures, and business is no different.  Sure, there are caveats to bullying your coworkers and employees, but there are caveats to behaving altruistically as well.

Certainly, this fact does not make bully tactics acceptable for those under Christ.  My main hope is that we can be honest and acknowledge that bullies do not always get their just deserts in this lifetime.  Some of what kids learn in school is that manipulating the system for your own gain at others' expense often works.

all that jazz

For one reason or another, one data point that some people have determined is valuable in determining whether someone else is intelligent or has artistic taste is what that person's opinion of Jazz music is.  If you can appreciate Jazz it somehow establishes that your brain works in ways that are superior to normal brains in certain functions.  Perhaps this is true, but if that is the case I cannot count myself among those superior thinkers.  I simply do not like Jazz music.

The reasons for my disinterest in Jazz are numerous and detailed below.

Jazz is played in 7th chords.  I do not generally like 7th chords.  An example of what I am talking about is below.



Jazz focuses on improvisation.  This shows up both in the instrumentals and in "scat," which most people know is the "boop-diddy-bebop" that some singers throw into the improvisational sections of songs.  All of this improvisation sounds random, as it is supposed to.  I think this randomness and unpredictability is appealing to a lot of people, but it does not do anything for me.

One of the main instruments utilized in Jazz is the saxophone, and for reasons that I cannot currently articulate, this is one of my least favorite instruments.  I think I have a weird mental association with the instrument because I largely find saxophone music to either be depressing or boring.

Finally, and probably more importantly, Jazz is different from most other forms of music in that there is little or no focus on resolution.  Most music follows a pattern of question and answer.  Two or more musical phrases will be put together where the first phrase or group of phrases builds tension, like a question in verbal communication, and the final phrase will resolve the tension by concluding on a note or chord that answers the previous question.  So, where most music sounds to my mind like a question and response, Jazz sounds to me like a run-on sentence that, even for its length, never completes its thought.

I am sure that a lot of my distaste has to do with the fact that I have not put enough effort into understanding Jazz to appreciate it.  I do think that I have some valid perspectives for an art form that is intended to be subjective anyway, though.  Sometimes people are just not wired to be able to enjoy specific things.

bodily privacy

I apologize in advance to anyone who is paranoid about being watched.  If so, don't read the rest of this post.  I'm serious.  This is about a prediction I am making that might make some such people uncomfortable.

I had a shocking realization recently.  I certainly hope that I am wrong, but I think that at some point in the future there are going to be unclothed pictures of pretty much everyone stored somewhere publicly accessible.  This isn't because I think that everyone is going to be an exhibitionist in the future, but simply due to technological advancement.

As a minor, slightly unrelated example of how fast privacy is going away, a couple of weeks ago a picture of NJ showed up on my Facebook news feed, except it was not a picture of NJ.  It was a picture of one of my Facebook friends taken and posted by someone he knows and with whom I am not friends on Facebook.  He just happened to be in the same restaurant we were in earlier that day, and NJ was simply in the background of the picture.  Just think of all of the people in the background of the pictures you have taken.  You're probably in just as many picture backgrounds as well, so there is pretty strong documentation of most places that you have been in public if the faces in the pictures could be properly indexed and searched.  Usually, that is not a big deal, but in some situations it may be.

I have long suspected that privacy as we think of it will become infeasible to maintain at some point in the future.  It is also easy to see in social media that a lot of people are very comfortable exposing specific aspects of themselves that society has traditionally deemed private.  Most of my contemplation to this point has centered around the privacy of thought rather than bodily privacy, however it makes sense that if we lose one we will lose the other.  If there are cameras everywhere to catch conversations and facial expressions, there will be cameras everywhere to undo other sorts of privacy as well.  These cameras might catch things inadvertently or intentionally, but the result is still the same that privacy will be violated.

The one thing I can think of that might strike down my predictions is that I can also consider is that anti-filming or camera detection technology will advance at the same pace, and that businesses and governments that manage public restrooms and changing areas invest in those technologies.  This will means that individuals will have to be diligent, and the question is whether that level of diligence is realistic.

As an extra consequence of this prediction, I believe that any companies that currently hold patents on technology to detect and/or disable hidden cameras will probably make a killing in the not-so-horribly-distant future.  Well, at least that is my paranoid prediction.  Hopefully, I am wrong about all of this, or I am at least wrong about how far in the future this reality is.

pride & prejudice

For Golden's birthday we watched Pride & Prejudice.  The version we saw was the two-hour one with Keira Knightley rather than the the five-hour one with Colin Firth.  Obviously, the book and the movies were not made with me mind, so my opinions on the story are probably of little consequence.  Also, I can only truly comment on the shorter movie because I have never seen the longer one, and I gave up on the book four chapters in the one time I attempted reading it.

Back when I attempted to read the book it was because I had been told it offered insight into a woman's mind, and I am always interested in understanding how others think.  It took me little time to realize that I was not capable of discerning what insight was available. There was too much about the story that was supposed to resonate with the audience that failed to resonate with me simply because I am missing the part of the brain that is supposed to resonate.  Also, I couldn't keep the sisters' names straight.

One thing about the movie that perplexed me a bit was how much of the story was intended to be social commentary of the society in which Jane Austin lived.  Elizabeth, The main character, is largely defined by how much she is not like her off-kilter family members on one side and the members of proper high society on the other.  At least in the movie, is Elizabeth supposed to be the character with modern sensibilities surrounded by people who are at least a little bit off-center, or is she simply supposed to be a participant in her environment who actually does fit in just like everyone else?

This idea of social commentary stuck out to me because I think that one of the greatest appeals to the story to modern women is that it hearkens to a time that many find easy to idealize.  If the story is actually supposed to negatively reflect certain aspects of that time period that is an interesting contrast the people who on some level wish they lived in that time period.

Like everyone I have my own escapist entertainment as well, so I am not one to judge.

the volcano sisters

Lately, the kids have really gotten into the TV show called The Backyardigans.  I am enjoying this because it has long been one of my favorite kids' shows.

The idea of the show is that five kids play in their back yards, and whatever storyline they imagine up during play time is the story for the show.  They play pretty much any characters a kid could think up from pirates to spies to traveling polka musicians.

One specific episode sticks out as a favorite, though, because I think it is so illustrative of a lot of relationships I have witnessed (and most assuredly not my own).  This is the episode entitled "The Legend of the Volcano Sisters."

In this episode the two girls play the Volcano Sisters who control the volcano on an island, and the boys play the Luau Brothers who are planning a luau on the island.  The girls announce that they are unhappy and announce that the volcano will go off if the boys are unable to address this.  Not wanting their luau ruined the boys run off, sure that the girls want something grand.

One boy climbs up a mountain to find the giant Very Heavy Tiki Mask on Tiki Mountain and brings that to the girls.  They announce that this is not what they want.  The next boy swims into the ocean to grab the Shiniest Pearl and brings that to the girls.  They reject this gift as well.  This point of the story is summed up in the song "Huka Pele," and this whole sequence is why I love this episode.  To see the guys running around clueless while the girls make demands is simply hilarious to me.  Finally, the last boy presents his idea of what the girls want.

The final boy brings a flower to the girls and asks them if they would like to come to join them for the luau.  Of course, this final boy actually did figure out what the girls wanted.  They were not looking for some spectacular gift.  They just wanted to be included.

There is probably more I can say, but I will leave it at that.  I truly just love this whole scenario from the episode.

manure cake

This builds off my recent post about the dreadful sinful state of every member of humanity, though it is not necessarily intended to be a "part two" in a series.

I have heard an illustration about sin multiple places that bugs me.  It goes something like this.

Imagine I were to make a cake for you.  The best cake you could imagine.  It would be moist, full of chocolate, and delectable in every aspect save one.  That cake would have just a little bit of horse or cow manure in it.  Not much at all in comparison to the cake, really.  There's a good chance you'd barely even taste the manure.  Would you still want the cake?

The person presenting the illustration typically goes on to note that this is how we should view "little sins."  Justifications that they are not a big deal is similar to stating that the manure in the cake is not a big deal because it is only a little bit of manure.

My objections to this illustration are below.

We sin because we are sinners

The illustration does not typically encourage introspection as to the source of sin.  If the source of sin is not addressed, all we're really doing in a best-case scenario is window dressing.  The form this often takes is in enforcing a specific social code that is called a moral code, but that is not always strictly Biblical.

There should be more poop than cake

If the cake represents the good things a person does and the manure the bad things a person does, then the cake should be mostly manure no matter the person.  Paul compared his lifetime of law-keeping and maintaining good standing within Judaism on the same level as dung, or "rubbish" (Phil 3:8).  While we are not under the law, law itself is still the perfect measuring stick that proves our sinfulness.  If any good action should be considered delicious cake to God, wouldn't keeping His law be at the top of the list?  If Paul's good deeds should be considered feces, so should everyone else's.

This is important because the illustration betrays a misconception that the illustration teller has.  This is that the typical Christian is mostly sanctified and really just needs a few social faux pas issues addressed rather than a complete overhaul.  Most of us All of us will still need a near-complete overhaul by the time we die.

This implies that our role is to make ourselves perfect for God

I cannot emphasize enough that if I have to make myself good for God's sake I will fail.  There has only ever been one good person on this earth, and it is not me.  It is not ever going to be me in this life, either.  Not by a long shot.

If I believe that I have to make myself perfect for God but literally cannot do this, what do you suppose the end result of this path will be?  I see one of two possibilities.  Either I will become embittered and fearful as I see sin in everything while always hating myself for not sizing up, or I will adopt a permissive doctrine on sin because God wouldn't send me on an impossible task.  With the first possibility I will get burned out and possibly give up on God.  With the second possibility I will lose sight of my sin nature, which is a symptom that I lack justification.

This puts us at odds with God's intent to be the one to change us

My responsibility is to not willingly offer the parts of my body to sin (Rom 6:12-13) and to live up to the level of my sanctification (Phil 3:15-16).  The actual changing of my being into something more like God has to be performed by God.

This focuses attention on certain sins while completely ignoring others

This illustration is typically used to address quibbles about social faux pas "sins" rather than affronts to God.  As an example, this approach ultimately makes it look like God cares more about whether I use a four-letter word than if I sacrifice for a brother in need, while Scripture focuses significantly more on the latter than the former.

Clarification: Sin is bad

I do want to note that I am not belittling sin or implying that it is no big deal.  Sin is a reflection of a deeply flawed individual, and it ultimately needs to be addressed.  What I am saying is that the cow patty cake illustration does nothing to truly deal with the sin, and by implying that we are responsible for making ourselves perfect the illustration sends the audience down a path that leads to destruction rather than salvation.  Our salvation and our ultimate perfection is in Christ, and Christ offers the only path to address sin.

Addressing a potential objection

One potential response to my assertion that it is not our role to make ourselves perfect for God is Romans 12:1, presented below from the NIV and bolded to emphasize the potential objection.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship."

Paul appears to be telling his audience that they need to make themselves perfect and present themselves to God when read without context, doesn't he?  Not only that, it looks like we cannot worship properly without doing this as well.  Context paints a slightly different picture, though.

The most obvious contextual clue about what this verse is stating is in the very next verse (emphasis mine).

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

While there is certainly action that is expected from us in this passage, it is clear in this verse where perfection comes from.  We are not presenting our bodies to God as perfect.  We are not transforming ourselves.  We are presenting our bodies to God as sacrifices to be ultimately be transformed into something perfect.  By God.  This fits into Paul's earlier statements in Romans (6:16) that we are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness.  We might have some say in our path, but we can't in ourselves do anything to make ourselves less sinful (or less slaves to the sin nature).

I have a couple of other points from the context that contradict the idea that we are supposed to make ourselves perfect which I present below.

1. The sentence in Romans 12:1 begins with the word, "therefore." This implies that the verse is in response to something from the preceding verses, and Paul is clear that that something is God's mercy.  Paul has just completed talking about both the Jews' and the Gentiles' rebellion against God, and how this ultimately leads to God's mercy toward both (11:30-31).  Presenting your bodies is therefore an act of someone who has already received (or is receiving) God's mercy and, even in the most law-based of theologies, should not presently need to prove something to God.
    
2. In the "Doxology" passage that is typically seen as the conclusion of the thoughts from the first half of Romans Paul makes clear that we cannot give God anything (11:35).  This means that we cannot offer God perfection, as that would certainly qualify as a gift to Him.  The verse reads as follows and is the perfect conclusion to this piece.

"Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"

Definitely not me!

six-word stories

Ernest Hemmingway once wrote the following six-word story on a challenge.

"For sale: baby shoes, never used."

The six word story sounds like a conquerable challenge to be sure, but this example illustrates what is involved for a good submission.  How do you place so much back story into so few words?  The sentence has to be structured in a way that pushes the reader to fill in the blanks, and in this case most of the blanks are filled in and they are all sad.  In Hemmingway's story, the classified ad device perfectly trims what would otherwise be sentences to six words.  Honestly, seven words would be orders of magnitude easier.

A few I thought of, but don't quite provide the back story depth that Hemmingway was able to generate are below.  Like Hemmingway's example, they are mostly a bit dark.  That's more indicative to what makes an interesting story than how dark my thinking is, though.

"Meet John, my twin half-brother."
"We danced under mushroom cloud lighting."
"Mute button broke. Now seeking employment."
"Neighbor found dead after eight weeks."
"She got Draco in the divorce."
"Vegetarian salad, please. Also, steak. Rare."
"Eviction: three days. Death in four."
"My love concurred all. Couldn't disagree."
"Not interested in interest. Soon bankrupt."
"She was a rock. He paper."
"Pyrrhic victory. Opponent's suffering exceeds mine."
"He on one knee. She gone."
"Doppelganger not the evil twin. Surprise!"
"One sacrifice required: everything. Now complete."

There are some decent submissions here, and most are far beyond what I have written. Do you have any ideas for a six-word story?

source of humility

We have been going over the parables of Jesus in Sunday School for the last several months, and something struck me recently.  A large number of them turn on a specific character being unable to accept his own unworthiness.  I have mentioned this before in the parable of the unmerciful servant, but it shows up in other parables as well.  In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) the primary point is that the Pharisee is not justified because he does not see his own sin.  In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) the older son is representative of people who wrongly believed themselves righteous.  Jesus' illustration of the plank in one's eye (Matt 7:1-6) is also a perfect illustration of the error of attempting to assist others in their errors while ignoring your own issues.

Two things spring to mind regarding this.  First, if Jesus gave so much air time to the danger of thinking ourselves more holy than we ought, this should probably be an important topic for training.

Second, I don't know that I have heard many sermons that focus strongly on the fact that we are all treacherous sinners in desperate need of salvation.  I don't mean to say that I have never heard it said that we all need Christ, because I certainly have.  It has always been as a minor supporting step leading to some other point, though.  As such, I believe that it is easy for a proclaiming Christian to dangerously underestimate the level of evil exists in his or her being that necessitates Christ's justification and sanctifying work.  Since so much important stuff relies on having a proportional understanding of our sinfulness, I think this is a dangerous position to find ourselves.

In the parable of the unmerciful servant we learn that forgiveness to others is necessary through a proper perspective of the unpayable debt we have been forgiven.  In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector we learn that the person who believes himself good in contrast to an obvious sinner is simply not justified (scary indeed!).  In the parable of the prodigal son Jesus leaves the story open at the end, but we know that most of those who the older son represented rejected Christ.  In the plank in one's eye passage we learn that we cannot help others with their issues if we are unaware of our own.

My sense is that a large percentage of the mistakes that modern Christians make, and that have resulted in non-Christians having a wrong idea about what Christianity is, springs from thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought.  We are horrific sinners saved by grace, and whose sanctification is far from complete.  If Paul was the chief of sinners I am too.  I have no room for moral superiority or boasting.

Isn't the personal humility that comes with this foundational principle of the Gospel what makes the grace offered in the Gospel such good news?  I am undeserving scum who far falls short of the mark, but God in His love and mercy offers me salvation anyway.

parenting a princess

Our daughter Cd likes princesses.  A lot.  It's hard to blame her.  At least half of the entertainment targeted toward girls her age features the protagonist in a princess role (or a girl seeking to be a princess through marriage in Cinderella's case).  Of course she is going to latch onto the fact that the female protagonists that she likes all tend to have one specific role.  I am not sure how I am supposed to feel about things like this that the kids like.

In this case, part of my complication comes from the fact that I don't truly know what the appeal of princesses is to a girl.  I understand the draw that a boy has to superheroes or sports figures because I understand pretty much all of the fundamental needs and desires those roles fulfill in boys.  While I may have some good guesses, I don't truly understand the fundamental needs and desires that are being addressed through the princess character.  Is it being pretty and wearing pretty clothes?  Is it being special, because the princess is so important?  Is it being sophisticated (which I predictably misspelled until my spell-checker caught it)?  Is it the idea of being able to have all of your desires and whims be catered to?  Is it about having the power to be able to care for those who you care about?

With the superhero character I understand the positives and negatives.  Superheroes tend to be characters of action in a black and white world, and that action is violent with little repercussion due to hidden identity, so aggression glorified is the biggest danger.  A secondary danger is that the superhero fantasy validates the view that athletic ability (through genes or through military experiment gone awry) is the basis of a man's value.  The basic superhero fantasy is that by being able to do the things the superhero does you earn respect from others and self-respect you might not otherwise have.  Also, younger boys may not get this, but the fantasy extends to being a shortcut to proving your worth to a girl (be it your own equivalent of Mary Jane, Lois Lane, or Rachel Dawes).  I feel I can parent around these and other elements of the superhero character fairly easily, since I generally understand them.

However, the princess character is sort of giving me fits.  Is a princess a noble character, and is it noble to want to be a princess?  Is CD going to learn the right lessons from a typical Disney (or similar) princess character, or is she going to pick up bad traits?  Will she learn from the very stupid decisions the characters often make, or will she learn that those stupid paths are correct?  Will she learn that a lot of the guys these girls fall for in the movies are generally the types to be avoided?  Will she fantasize too much about being in a situation where others live to cater to her desires, or learn that she needs to take responsibility for a lot of the things in her life?  Will the fact that these characters are impossibly proportioned lead to body issues?  I know that I am probably over-thinking this, and I do not want CD to miss out on experiences that other girls her age have.  I just know less than I don't know about what girls get out of the princess fantasy, and that makes me uncomfortable.

access to amusement

When I was a kid I mostly lived in rural areas and did not have a lot of disposable income, so I did not go to places like Chuck E. Cheese's, zoos, or amusement parks in general much.  We did go to some to be sure, but the opportunity to do this much was not there.  Small towns do have other things to offer, like bowling, soccer leagues, the Shriner's circus, and city pools, so I still did well.

It's in contrast to this that I notice that our kids have gotten to experience a lot of the things I would have dreamed of as a kid.  They have gotten to experience multiple amusement parks, zoos, pumpkin patches, because the opportunity was there.  In fact, we have already purchased season tickets to Silver Dollar City for the upcoming year.  This past weekend they got to visit the KC Legoland Discovery Center and the KC Sea Life Aquarium, which are two more things that are simply not accessible to a lot of kids.  Based on what I see on Facebook, though, I suspect that we do fewer events like this than the average family.

It is this contrast that is making me wonder, do kids do more things like this that back twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago?  When you were a kid did you go to amusement parks much (more than once a year)?  Did you visit zoos much or fairs, or Chuck E. Cheese's, or other such things?  Were there other things you did more that offset modern amusements that weren't available to you?

I'm not one to complain that kids these days have it too easy, because each generation is faced with it's own unique challenges, and there will always be individual kids in each generation that have to face enormous hardships.  I am wondering if the difference I am noticing is age-related, money-related, city-versus-rural-background-related, or something else entirely, though.

the basis of faith

What is the basis of your faith?  If you believe in God, why?  If you trust in God, why?  Is the reasoning you tell yourself or others the real reason?  Do you know?

I have thought long and hard about this a lot over the last few years.  I hear people talk about trusting in God because He has cared for them in difficult times.  What if God appeared to disappear and times got harder?  I have heard people point to specific scientific or philosophical rationales for God's existence or care.  What if those rationales were disproved?  I have heard people refer to past miraculous experiences as the basis for their faith, but what if those experiences were proved to be hoaxes or the product of people in suggestible conditions?

I will say that if there is a physical rationale that I personally give for my belief and trust in God it is that Scripture's description of our sinful natures explains humanity to me better than anything else, and every study that I hear on human nature reaffirms my view that we are deeply-flawed, selfish beings who have to resort to vanity and pride in order to behave well.  We are in dire need of a savior if there really are such things as holiness and judgment.  This is probably not the proper basis of my faith, though.

My earlier questions are important for a few reasons.  First, perspectives change as we age.  We see the foolishness in past opinions and approaches.  What is a basis of faith now may be a reason for abandoning the faith later in life.  Second, and much more important, is faith that is dependent on some earthly thing really the sort of faith that Scripture talks about?  I don't think it is.

Any person who has been to more than a handful of church services in his or her life will at some point have heard a sermon on the Hebrews 11 hall of faith.  Apart from Gideon, who it may be argued based his faith on water and wool, everyone else listed in the chapter believed in God and trusted Him just because.

For a long while I did not think there was such a thing as blind faith.  If God was God, I reasoned, we would not be able to look far before He was obvious.  I have somewhat flipped my thinking on that now, though.  I now believe that faith is a gift from God in that He is obvious on some level to those He gifts with faith.  He is not obvious to those who either are not looking for the real Him, or to those to whom He has not revealed Himself. I don't think that this obviousness is available in any other way than as something He bestows on us.  I think this faith from God is sturdy enough to withstand the doubts that other forms of "faith" ultimately lead to.

This all is not a philosophy that I am entirely comfortable with.  I like to be in control, and this cedes control to God.  This also opens me to the possibility of looking stupid because I am following something other than my ability to reason.  I can't generate the faith I need by rationalizing why God is real, trustworthy, or good, because my human rationalizations will eventually lead to making it appear that God is not any of those things.  But how does one go about asking for faith from another, or rather The Other?  Do I really want to go through the things that create and strengthen true faith?  How do I know the faith I have is not a delusion?

a-little-too-late ads

I recently purchased some wireless headphones to use with our upstairs television with some Amazon gift cards I received for Christmas.  They are working out well for their purpose, so that means that I will not need to look for wireless headphones for a while.  Don't tell Amazon that, though, because now I see ads for headphones when I am on Amazon.

This is not the first time I started getting ads for a product specifically after I purchased that product.  The same thing happened after I purchased a Roku this summer.  For a while after I made the purchase a huge percentage of the ads I saw was for a Roku.  I must have done a Google search for Roku or something like that to get those ads.

It always feels like those ads are going to waste.  It should not matter to me since it is money that I am not going to spend, and I am not funding the advertising campaign anyway, but I do not like waste.

Have you noticed the same thing with any of the bigger ticket items that things that you purchased recently?  Do you see ads for products that you purchased recently, so you will not be in the market for that item for a while?

unique as a snowflake

Any time anyone wants to talk about how important or unique each person is there is one metaphor and one metaphor only that is utilized to make the point. Of all of the trillions and trillions of snowflakes that have ever formed, all of them are unique. If they're unique, aren't you as well? There is one thing about that whole discussion that always bothered me, though.  How did they know for sure?  No one has compared anywhere near enough snowflakes to know that two are not identical.  Sure, at the molecular level it would make sense that no two snowflakes are identical, but on a molecular level no two of anything big enough for humans to see with the naked eye is identical.

Recently, I started getting curious about this metaphor and went searching, sort of expecting this to be more of a legend than truth.  It was in that search that I came across an article in National Geographic that indicated that it is probably true that no snowflakes are or have been alike.  There is obviously no real way to prove this, but there are enough factors at play that it is unlikely that two flakes ever formed enough in the same way to create two identical snowflakes.

The question I have, though, is why does this metaphor matter so much.  Why is the relative uniqueness of miniature bits of frozen water mean anything to our own uniqueness?  Why does the fact that a snowflake freezes in different ways under different factors make me as a person any more valuable or special?  Ultimately, why do we care?

The answer is probably that people are grasping at what we all hope for.  We want to be important, special, significant, one-of-a-kind.  If God created each snowflake differently, that same process must be at work in us.

Truth be told, though, it does not matter.  We are not snowflakes.  While we are unique, that is not what makes us significant.  While a person's uniqueness may make him or her feel more significant, I do not see that this truly does make them more significant.  If I had a twin that was identical to me in every way, would that make me less valuable as a person?

Really, any significance we have comes from our Creator rather than whatever about us happens to be different from the norm.  So maybe I am a unique snowflake.  Maybe I'm not.  In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter very much.