family tree

I think everyone is interested in where they came from, but I've been much more in the years since we had kids.  Through the diligent work of various family members in researching, and the efforts of my mom in putting that research together in one place, I've learned a lot about different branches of my family tree that I did not know before.

One branch that I knew very little about bothered me quite a bit because it is the branch that my surname comes from.  I have always known my paternal grandfather father's name, but didn't know anything about him.  Furthermore, my dad only had limited contact with that side of the family when he was a kid, and so it felt like the source of my name ended with that one individual that I knew nothing about.

It's amazing how learning one or two small details about a person can fill in a lot of facts that you don't already know.  I recently discovered further information about this great-grandfather that makes his life seem both tragic and fascinating, but the details are minimal.

First, I found out that my great-grandfather was his father's fifteenth child to his third wife.  Both of his parents died before he was a teenager, so he was raised by a sister.  His father had been a devout Quaker, but I don't know if the family's faith or just the era in which they lived more influenced why he kept remarrying after his wives died and having more kids.

My understanding is that my great-grandfather was irreligious for most or all of his life--a seeming oddity in southwestern Missouri in the early 1900s--and I wonder if he blamed his father's faith for being without parents at a reasonably early age.  While most kids were expected to take on adult responsibilities at an earlier age in those days, I have to wonder how that affected him.  He would have had to grow up fast.

Second, I found out that my great-grandmother (my paternal grandfather's mother) died eighteen years prior to my great-grandfather.  This calls to mind something that my mind does every time I'm at a cemetery.  I look at the gaps between when spouses died and I imagine what their lives were like when they were together, then what sort of life the surviving spouse had afterward.  I know it's morbid, but I can't not do it.

I asked my dad what he knew about his grandfather's life during those eighteen years, and he said he lived alone in a very small house near the Missouri/Oklahoma border with a dog.  I asked if he were a reader, and my dad didn't recall that he was.  What does a person do for eighteen years without someone else around?  Nowadays, I can imagine being able to get on by yourself with TV, the Internet, etc.  However, I cannot imagine a life of that sort of solitude and minimal outside stimuli.

So, with a few additional data points that I have learned in the last few months I have generated quite a vision of how one of my ancestors lived.  It's a sad vision, but it's far more significant than a name on a line in a tree.

shutdown

"Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin." - Deut 24:14-15

"Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty." - James 5:4
---

This isn't intended to be extremely political, despite the topic.  It's simply meant to be a doctrinal assertion.  In the moment it's going to come across as political, however.  While in any given situation this might target one party or government leader or another, there's no saying that the next situation won't involve the opposite party.

My assertion is simply that shutting down the government in the way it has been done recently very clearly violates Scripture.  There are probably extreme situations where a government shutdown is the least sinful course, but those situations are limited.  They certainly are not at play here.

I've been in an awkward place on this issue.  I think it's important to acknowledge in the church that this is a sin, while it is also important not to get overtly political in a church setting.  So, I keep to myself what I see as public sin by other believers.  I feel like there's an unspoken obligation in church to make a stand in calling certain sins sin, but also a similar obligation not to take a stance on other sins because some people in the church disagree that they are sins for one reason or another.  Clearly, if they are sins then this is a problem.

In reading the passages above, I don't know how a Christian can justify taking a public position that making government employees work without pay isn't sin.  I don't know how a Christian government leader could ignore Scripture to force people to work without timely pay.

The natural defense a person might raise is that this is a different situation because it's addressing rich land owners exploiting their workers, but that's a semantic difference more than anything.  It's looking for a loophole to lawyer out of God's instruction.  These instructions/condemnations come from the fact that certain people exploit others, and this puts them at odds with God.  Shutting down the government does the same thing, so it should follow that this puts the people who cause the shutdown at odds with God.  If Scripture is true, doesn't this mean that the cries of unpaid laborers are reaching God, and that those responsible for the shutdown are ultimately under God's judgment?

That this shutdown and previous ones have involved individuals who claim Christianity should be seen as tarnishing our faith.  To counter this more church leaders should be speaking about this situation in terms of its sinfulness.  While I understand the motivation of doing something like shutting down the government as a negotiation tactic, believers should have a high standard for people who claim to represent them as Christians in the public sphere.  For one, those representatives should abide by the Scripture they say they proclaim.

crooked, or all in my mind?

Last week I saw a guy with a level making marks on the glass door in front of another office on our floor at work.  He was talking to someone else about how he hoped it turned out okay.  Later, either the that day or the next, I noticed the name of a small tax accounting firm on the door.  What jumps out is that I think it's crooked, but it may also be something that's in my head.

What I find odd is that when I look at the words on the door they look level in absolute terms.  Each letter looks the same distance from the top or bottom of the door.  However, the text immediately gives me the impression that one side is higher than the other.  I wouldn't bet money that the text is truly not level, but I can't look at it without that being my first reaction.

I'm thrown off by the fact that the door faces the hallway at an angle, and with it being glass it could be that objects behind the text in the office behind it give the illusion of the text being crooked when it is actually straight.  Is that a thing?

I feel bad that this is what I think every single time I see that door.  The job was either almost perfect, or it was perfect while being undone by an optical illusion.  However, all I can see is what looks like a flaw.

All of this is to say, I don't think I could take the stress of having a job where I place words on glass.  I'd never think my work looked right.

resolutions

It's a new year, and so a lot of people are making resolutions.  I have mentioned at least twice already (time 1, time 2) that I don't like New Year's resolutions.  I've been a little embarrassed this year by how irritated I am by people making resolutions in the new year specifically.  It shouldn't matter to me whether others make or brake resolutions.  It's none of my business.  However, when I hear someone making a resolution it just bugs me.  I've finally figured out why.

I actually have a great deal of respect for people who make resolutions and stick to them.  I know that making fundamental changes to one's lifestyle for the long term is something that requires planning, determination, and sacrifice.  Therefore, rather than me disliking resolutions because I don't like people resolving to do things, the real reason I dislike New Year's resolutions is that deep down I think that there are some people who make resolutions without counting the cost ahead of time, and doing so besmirches something which is sacred.

Everyone has things that they need to improve about themselves.  They could improve their health, or they could improve their relationships with others, or they could improve their educational or career prospects, et al.  I know that I have a plethora of flaws I could focus attention to.  Furthermore, we all embark on self-improvement projects that we later learn are more involved than we originally realized, even when we planned and actually did put in the effort.  Everyone who consistently tries at least occasionally sees failure.  I'm not judging these sorts of failures.

What bothers me is that there is a human tendency to get excited about starting things, often without a true intention of seeing them through.  If someone loudly announces that they're doing x, y, or z in the new year and by the middle of February it's but a distant memory, it makes me think that this person likes taking credit for things without working for them.  It makes me not trust them.

I am realizing as I get older that the two qualities I most admire in others is trustworthiness and an objective view of the world, because if those qualities exist in another person I know I can trust to get a fair shake from that person even if we butt heads.

In this situation, I don't trust people who give their word that they're going to change something, then give up early in the process.  If they gave up early on something that they claimed mattered to them, then what else have they given their word on that they're going to go back on when the going is tough?  I will view all commitments made by that person as matters of convenience rather than true commitments to follow through.

Also, seeing someone make a resolution without counting the true cost makes me wonder if I can trust that person's judgment on other things.  If a person says, "I'm not going to each sugar in the new year," without thinking through all of the times they're going to have to turn down a cookie, a slice of cake, or a piece of chocolate, it makes me think that I can't trust their understanding of reality.  It makes me think that they live in their own world with its own subjective rules.

If I'm being fair, I should judge myself on this last standard.  I made an unrealistic resolution years back about being less neurotic.  I have gradually done so, but not due to a resolution, or even a concrete plan that I put together.  So, I did not objectively assess that resolution before announcing it on this blog.

Finally, I do want to clarify that I am not demanding that people bend to my will on this.  This is about soul-searching that I have done about my revulsion of most New Year's resolutions.  Ultimately, my opinion doesn't matter for how anyone else decides to improve themselves.  I'm just working through why I react in the way that I do to these things.

Update (Jan 4, 2019):

I contemplated this further last night and have tweaked my view a bit.  I think the issue is less with individual people making resolutions than with the societal pressure some people feel to make a resolution in a way that leads to failure.  So, rather than taking such a judgmental tone, I should be taking a more sympathetic tone.

I apologize regarding the tone.  Again, I'm working through why I think like I do here.

There are better ways to achieve goals than to announce a resolution to friends with minimal planning.  The following has worked for me.  I'm sure there are other ways as well, but I can only speak to what works for me.

1. Set two goals: One modest and easily achievable, and one aggressive.  Target the modest one, but keep the aggressive one in your back pocket in case the modest one turns out to be too modest.
2. Research how other people have been successful achieving similar goals. Use this to develop a strategy for how to achieve your modest goal.
3. Break down the steps necessary to achieve the modest goal in the long term.  Baby steps are best.
4. Determine what you're willing and capable of committing to the effort.
5. Enact your plan, taking all of this into account.
6. Be flexible and adjust the plan based on the lessons learned through the process.