talking politics with kids

In the past few years I have worked with the children's ministry in our church more than in previous years.  One thing that I have noticed is that there are specific people who insert their political beliefs into their lessons.  In at least one case this is because the person's political and religious identities are tightly linked, so that's where his mind goes when teaching about a virtue or a vice.

There isn't a great line regarding what is inappropriate to discuss with other people's children, but as I progress as a parent I am starting to believe that any political discussion with elementary-aged children who are not your kids or grand kids is unwise.  Certainly, teachers should teach history, government, civics, etc.  However, that should be the limit.  The downsides of pushing your political worldview on someone else's kid are stronger than the positives.

Much of my opinion comes from the fact that adults don't usually have the requisite humility to discuss political issue appropriately even with other adults.  Most political discussion involves first characterizing people who disagree with you as bad or stupid rather than having valid concerns.  This is wrong, but it is typical.  Speaking to kids like this only teaches them to approach things in a similar way.

Furthermore, I'm shocked that adults think that kids' parents might want someone else teaching them their political worldviews.  Even in an environment where most people believe a certain way there are some who will not.  It is more important rather than less important not to isolate those kids and make them feel like they don't belong.

I remember people talking politics to me and around me as a kid, and it did not occur to me at the time how inappropriate those conversations were.  I've since had several moments as an adult where I realized, "Hey, that adult shouldn't have made the child me believe that conspiracy theory," or "Wow, now that I can articulate what was happening at the time I can't believe that adult slandered that politician to me that way."

For what it's worth, in my experience people with both right-leaning and left-leaning viewpoints felt the freedom to push their opinions.  So, this is an adult thing rather than a right or left thing.

My kids are not as interested in politics as I was at their ages, however I do have an approach I take when a political topic is raised.  I always emphasize that when we have a specific political belief that does not mean that people who disagree with us are bad or stupid.  I am willing to tell them what I think of a specific issue if they want to discuss it, though.

For reference, most of the political questions I've fielded in the last few years have fallen in one of two buckets.

• "I've heard a lot of people say that President Trump is mean.  Is that true?"
• "A lot of people don't like President Trump.  Why is that?"

Sometimes I wish I was raising kids in a different era.  I'd much rather be discussing political issues than politicians' tactics and dispositions.

age

Over the summer I turned forty.  I genuinely don't feel forty.  I think that's going to be a theme every time I turn a new age.  Where'd my twenties go?  I can't be out of my thirties already!  I'm sure that fifty is the new twenty-five!

I've had a lot of observations about getting older, but three have been on my mind lately.

First, I've been weirded out by the number of times I've seen someone my age or younger who my mind has registered as old.  Just in the past day I saw someone wearing a shirt declaring "Established in 1979," who I did not think looked my age, even though he was clearly born in the same year.  This is very much vanity from someone who likes to think he isn't vain.  "I can't possibly look that age, right?!"

Second, while I see more overall growth in my life, it feels slower.  I mean this in the sense that old dogs can learn new tricks, and can possibly learn them better, but it takes longer than when the dog was younger.  When I look at the things I've learned and improved on in the last five years it's a numerically shorter list than from the five year period from when I turned fifteen to when I turned twenty.  I feel like a have a better grasp on that shorter list and that it includes a lot more soft skills, though.

I don't know if this is something anyone else experiences, but I'm not intimidated to learn a lot of things that used to intimidate me.  However, there is a real limit that I see to how quickly I can progress on a given skill-set or cache of knowledge.

Third, I have also noticed that in some respects age is a minor super power in the same way that working the same job for years on end is.  Some people are naturally wise and see how certain bad choices will go badly.  Some people are just old enough to have seen this rodeo before and know from experience that certain bad choices will go badly.  It's odd to see someone do or say something that I might have thought was a good idea years ago, but to immediately know what a mistake it was.  Some of that is just that it's easy to see things as a super power when you used to be thoroughly clueless.  I'd like to think that age does bring a level of maturity as well, though.

Here's to another decade which will undoubtedly conclude with my flabbergasted exclamation of, "Where did my forties go!"

1000

After nearly fourteen years, this is my 1000th article on this blog.  Since another word for thousand is "grand" I've compiled a few "grand" facts.

• "Grand" originally came from the French "grant."  Then, as now, it meant large or powerful. [source]
• The name for the 100 grand bar (originally, the $100,000 bar) was inspired by the popularity of quiz shows in the 1950s. [source]
• The Grand Slam tournament in tennis, which is a sport I hardly know anything about, includes four events across three continents. [source]
• Alex Rodriguez set the major league baseball record for grand slams with an astounding twenty-five during his career.  This is one of those records that requires both individual skill and the fortune to have teammates who put you in a situation where a grand slam is a possibility. [source]
• While a Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming was founded in 1929, the current park includes large portions of land that were donated years later by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. [source]
• The Republican moniker "G.O.P." now stands for "Grand Old Party."  However, it originally stood for "Gallant Old Party." [source]
• On average, two or three people die from falling into the Grand Canyon every year.  However, since millions of people visit a year it has to be considered a safe place to visit, statistically speaking.  That said, I would be uptight about the possibility if we visited it with our kids. [source]
• Gerald Ford grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  He holds the distinction of being the only U.S. president to hold the office without having been elected either president or vice president. [source]
• There is a World War II power station underneath Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, New York.  It was placed there to protect it from German sabotage during the war. [source]
• The first piano created was a grand piano by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Italy in the late 1600s or early 1700s.  It was originally known as the "pianoforte," which means "soft" and "strong."  It differed from the harpsichord before it in that you could modulate the volume of the instrument based on how forcefully or lightly you struck the keys. [source]
• The "grand theft" in "grand theft auto" refers to the fact that what is being stolen is valuable.  "Petty theft" refers to the theft of less valuable items. [source]

lessons at the mechanic

When I was at the mechanic a few days ago waiting to have the brake pads battery replaced on my car I noticed that there wasn't really a way to avoid hearing chatter around me.  I especially heard the conversations that other people had with the representative from the dealership who were explaining what they found wrong with their cars.

One man was told that he needed to replace his tires with a set that cost $800, but he declined to do so due to the lack of funds.  An older lady was told she needed to replace her battery, and was confused that it wasn't covered by her warranty.  Another man was informed that he had nails in two different tires, but that the fix was cheap and quick.

As a parent, it occurred to me that these are the sort of situations that I need to be training my kids to handle one day.

In the example of the first man, if you have a car or anything else that is expensive it will cost money to maintain.  Failing to budget for those expenses leads to inevitable unpleasant surprises.  I never really appreciated that at a younger age, and I certainly didn't maintain my vehicles as well a decade and a half ago as I do now.  We have had some unpleasant surprises over the years related to the cars.

In the example of the older woman, my initial reaction was to think that of course the battery is not under the car's warranty.  However, that is not necessarily an intuitive fact to know.  Why is the alternator something that would be under warranty (which the representative explained to the lady) but the battery isn't?  I know it's because the battery is guaranteed to need to be replaced, but an older lady may not understand this.  The kids need to understand that the stuff that is covered by warranty is almost always the stuff that is least likely to need to be replaced.  Warranties are useful, but they are also frequently written so that you still have to pay to fix the thing under warranty.

In the example of the last man, sometimes what sounds like bad news may actually be good news.  Had he not discovered the nails he may have had to replace the tires, but he was able to get them plugged cheaply.  Don't always expect bad news, and appreciate the good news when you get it.

The sorts of things you need to understand to manage in life aren't always what you learn in school.  It's hard as a parent to remember that there are lessons to learn everywhere.

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.

the last jedi

It's been a while since I watched The Last Jedi, but in the aftermath I was surprised by the starkly different takes people had on it.  I didn't hear too many people say they thought it was so-so.  I either heard people defend it as a great movie or point out that it was too far a departure from previous movies.

I recall hearing about online activity in reaction against the movie, but that's somewhat expected.  A lot of people treat the Star Wars universe as holy and untouchable, and so if a movie departs from what some fans would want to see some will react online.  Apparently, at least some of that online reaction was from Russian trolls, however.  So, this makes me wonder if the movie was actually more well-liked than I perceived before.

For my own part, I enjoyed almost everything about the movie that people complained about.

[Spoiler Alert!]

• Rey turns out not to have important parents?  Neither did Anakin, and that just reinforces that the hero can come from anywhere.  This is one I expect to be reversed in future movies, anyway.
• The diversion to the casino planet was a dead end?  We need some of those in our stories to increase the value of the strategies that aren't dead ends.
• Luke projecting himself across the universe feels like a bit too much?  There are probably twenty other force-related scenes in the other movies that one could make that argument against.
• Major characters are killed off too quickly?  Probably so, but it was gutsy to do that as well.
• Luke is a different type of character in this movie than how he ended Return of the Jedi?  I think his arc between the movies is fascinating because idealism to cynicism to realism to redemption is a compelling and realistic path.

I certainly expect that the director of this movie will not be doing another Star Wars movie because he painted future directors into too many corners with this one, but that's Disney's problem rather than mine.  I also think there were some scenes that were just weird (like Luke milking that animal), but overall that movie was potentially my favorite Star Wars movie thus far.

I fully respect that a lot of people aren't fond of this addition to the franchise.  It does make sense to feel this way because the movie goes in a different direction from previous Star Wars movies.  It could feel like the film is disloyal to the franchise in a way.  I just enjoyed the movie enough not to see it as doing some sort of damage to the universe of the prior films.

right vs left

My biggest complaint about political coverage in the media doesn't have much to do with a right or a left slant.  Instead, it's about nomenclature.  I believe that American political journalism has done its audience a great disservice in throwing around phrases like, "far-right", "far-left", "moderate", "conservative", "liberal", etc.  This bothers me, not because labels are somehow wrong, but rather because it implies a continuum that I believe to be entirely contrived.

If you ask the average Joe (or Jane) on the street about politics in the United States they would probably describe a continuum going from very conservative on one side to very liberal on the other.  In the last presidential election a lot of people saw the last four major party political candidates in the following way.

[Most Liberal]
Sanders
Clinton
Trump
Cruz
[Most Conservative]

If someone considered themselves conservative they'd probably consider Trump the moderate and Clinton and Sanders extremists.  If they considered themselves liberal (or progressive) they' probably consider Cruz and Trump extremists and Clinton as a moderate (or a sell-out if they were pro-Sanders).  Regardless, their view would be focused on where the politician fell on the spectrum, and subsequently who is the closest on the spectrum to them personally.* Thing is, none of this is really the best way to understand political viewpoints, and my personal observation is that it leads to bad things.

American politics, and politics in general, is really just a collection of buckets of special interests.  The phrase "special interests" is often used disparagingly, and sometimes with good reason, but there is nothing inherently evil with a special interest.  Ask that same general person on the street what their views are on various political issues and they're probably going to care deeply about a small number of them and more or less toe the party line on the rest.  If the party line changes on these periphery issues their position will change as well.  They may not even realize it.

So, I would assume that a typical person possibly has two or three issues that they care deeply about, and those issues place them in a special interest bucket (or possibly a small number of buckets).  Over time a feedback loop is formed where more people from one side of the supposed continuum end up in a specific bucket, or some high profile voice for the bucket happens to advocate for one side of the continuum over the other, and this causes people in the bucket to identify with that side of the completely contrived continuum.  It could be either end of the continuum or somewhere in the middle.  Someone who would otherwise have opinions for different issues all over the continuum decides that, since I'm a [Conservative/Progressive/Moderate/Etc] I should take this view on this issue because that's the view of my people.

I see some negative consequences to this.  They include the following.

1. Many people of all political persuasions don't look at any issues objectively, and even issues that they don't otherwise care much about.  They investigate an issue from the perspective of where they are on the continuum.  I've seen it and I've done it.
2. Many people believe they have to agree with people near them on the continuum on all issues.  That's just silly.  For one, there shouldn't be any shame in taking the position that I won't hold a position on an issue until I've had the opportunity to gather enough facts about it.  I've certainly held political opinions before I had enough facts to understand whether they were wise opinions.
3. Many people are skeptical of news sources that are from a different place on the continuum but are overly credulous of news sources in the same location on the continuum.  While it runs counter to human nature, the time we should be the most skeptical is when we agree with everything we're hearing.  I know very much the urge to tune into people who I know will tell me what I want to hear.
4. When many people identify people who are near them on the spectrum they overlook flaws in their logic and flaws in their character because they're on the same team.  I've made excuses for scoundrels on many occasions because I agreed with them, and that's a behavior I see across the board.  This year is like most, where there are multiple people from both parties who will win their elections even in the middle of ridiculous legal and ethical scandals.
5. Most importantly, when many people claim territory on the political spectrum they frequently declare themselves enemies of people who are elsewhere on the spectrum.  Everyone who isn't near me on the political spectrum must be intellectually or morally deficient.  I've been there for sure.

For my part, my motivation for this post is that over time I have realized that I don't belong anywhere on a political continuum.  I believed I did for a long time, and maybe I did in some contrived way.  I don't now, though.

Pick a politician and I almost certainly agree with them on at least one issue and disagree with them on at least one issue.  Maybe the issues I agree with them on are inconsequential enough that I'm not in their bucket, but I can still find an area of agreement.  The buckets you could place me in are all over the place.  Furthermore, like most politicians, my positions on some major issues have shifted over time as well in various directions, and some will continue to shift.  Most people would call this being a Moderate, but I don't hold a lot of the positions that I would expect a true Moderate to hold, so that leaves me believing the concept of a political continuum is woefully inadequate.

It may sound like I am saying that people should be like me, but that would be reading my intentions in reverse.  I believe that, deep down, the majority of people actually are like me.  They may claim a specific political identity, but that's just for maybe two or three issues that place them in a bucket rather than on a continuum.

I believe that if you forced people to explain their political beliefs on a variety of issues without resorting to platitudes and talking points, and forced them to acknowledge the issues they don't really hold a firm position on, you'd find a majority of people who don't fit comfortably on the continuum.  You'd find that everyone is all over the map on the various issues that they actually hold informed opinions on, and you'd also find that people don't care about a lot of issues they claim to that identifies them on one side or the other.  I believe that most Americans are more alike politically than they are different, but most just don't realize it.  We're not all that different, you, I, and most everyone else in this country.

* I'll add that if the person you were asking was a Libertarian they might describe a quadrant instead of a continuum, but the concept is still the same--just with an extra dimension. 

fight

I've done a lot of posting about, "When I was a kid," in the past few months.  This is one more, but with the twist of it being about what I didn't do when I was a kid.

A few weeks ago I heard another man around my age who I generally like and respect make a blanket statement about guys from our generation that doesn't describe me, and I'm not sure if that's because he's the odd one or I am.  The comment was went something to the effect of, "When I was a kid I'd fight on the playground with another boy, and afterward we'd be great friends.  I got a lot of my best friends today that way."  He stated this like it was a universal male experience and went on to make the point that this is one way in which men and women are naturally different.

I wrestled with friends a lot, and I got into arguments with one of my friends on a regular basis, but I never got into a true physical fight with anyone in either childhood or adulthood.  I'm sure that some of that comes down to parenting, and some comes down to the fact that I had a smaller than average build through most of childhood, but I never thought of fighting being the norm for boys.  I recall seeing boys on rare occasions "fight," if you could call it that, but I recall seeing many more boys stay to the sidelines in those "fights."

I do recall seeing several TV shows try to teach the lesson of physically standing up to bullies, but that always struck me (pun intended) as bad advice for the following reasons.

1. It's naive to assume that bullies are cowards who will back down to a smaller kid standing up to them.  Even if they are cowards, they'll be incentivized to make an example of anyone who stands up to them.
2. It's naive to think that when adults actually show up to deal with the situation that they'll understand that you were simply, "defending yourself."
3. It's naive to think that getting into a real fight won't lead to serious injuries that will be painful and take a while to address.
4. It's naive to think that a weapon won't get used in a real fight.

The advice always struck me as a roundabout means of victim blaming.  It allows for people to complain about the way these situations are handled today, because back in my day we understood that it was the victim's responsibility to stand up for themselves.  Fortunately, I didn't really have a lot of situations where this was applicable, but I always intended to back down from any fight as long as the fight wasn't about protecting someone.

Before our kids went into elementary school I had very genuine fears of them having to deal with bullying, and especially of NJ being in situations where someone wants to fight with him.  That sort of situation didn't appear in elementary school that I am aware of, and now he is going to an online school so it isn't likely to appear in the future.  Some of that is situational, and some of that is because society has changed.  I'm actually very happy that the cultural mindset has shifted on this topic.  Unless it's an absolute necessity, fighting is stupid.

unthinkable

I'm frequently guarded about the standards I use to determine whether a movie is appropriate to watch or not.  Most things that make a movie appropriate or inappropriate are inherently subjective.  So, if I refuse to watch something that doesn't mean that I condemn others who watch it.  Likewise, I don't want others to condemn me for deeming something acceptable that they personally find inappropriate to watch.

On-screen violence is one issue that a lot of people find inappropriate.  This is difficult because while I genuinely dislike seeing violence in movies--I never watch a movie excited to see realistic violence--it is often necessary to make the point of the movie.  One oft-cited example is The Passion of the Christ.  Another example that I want to consider here today because it touches on a topic currently in the news is a movie called Unthinkable.

The reason for my lead-in to this is that I'm hesitant to acknowledge that I've watched Unthinkable or to recommend it to others because it's violent in a genuinely disturbing way.  Much like The Passion of the Christ, it is not enjoyable to watch, but it is important in the issue and questions it presents.  I have no desire to re-watch either of these movies, though I consider both to be extremely important works that have affected me in a positive way.

The protagonist in the movie is an FBI agent played by Carrie-Anne Moss, and she is told to oversee the work of an interrogator played by Samuel L. Jackson.  He's attempting to extract information from a terrorist who claims to have planted bombs in major cities.  We're meant to work through the moral trade-offs involved with enhanced interrogation through the decisions that Moss' character is forced to make.  Throughout the movie, she constantly has to decide whether to allow the torture we're witnessing to continue and escalate further or potentially allow thousands to millions to die in a nuclear incident.  Some of the questions forced on the audience follow.

• Is there a way to weigh the moral values of torture against the life that would be lost without it?
• Is a little bit of torture okay if it saves lives?
• Is more extreme torture okay if it saves lives?
• Is there ever a point where the actions necessary to save lives are so unthinkable (hence the movie's name) that it's preferable not to take them?
• *Spoiler (highlight to reveal)* Is it acceptable to torture an innocent if that could save lives? *Spoiler*

Based on the above bullets, suffice to say this isn't a date movie.

The reason I "like" (not enjoy) this movie is that I didn't believe it forced the audience to believe one way or the other on torture.  Where 24* or Zero Dark Thirty* may extol the effectiveness of torture, or where Rendition* may present it as something that will be abused, my take on Unthinkable was that the movie intended for audiences to simply understand the trade-off for taking either a pro- or anti-torture position**.  I didn't finish the movie believing that being for or against torture was an easy choice.  I finished the movie believing that every option in such situations is a bad option, and the real question is determine which the least bad option is***.

So, I'm sort of recommending the movie without recommending it in the same way I would do so with The Passion of the Christ.  If you're not up to watching a violent and disturbing movie don't watch this.  If you could stomach Mel Gibson's movie, though, and want to see a movie that handles the subject of torture against terrorism in an unflinching and honest light, it is worth a consideration.

* I actually have only watched a little bit of 24, and none of Zero Dark Thirty or Rendition.  You can discredit my opinion related to those movies if you like, since I'm only going off second-hand information.

** Full disclosure, I have been anti-torture for a few years now after having believed for a while that it was an acceptable trade-off to stopping acts of terrorism.  This being said, I am genuinely torn on some of the moral conundrums certain scenarios present.

*** I do also think I should acknowledge that one criticism I've seen of the movie is  that it may actually be slanted pro-torture. There is real dispute as to whether torture is effective in getting accurate information from individuals, and while this is somewhat addressed in the movie, the audience may still walk away thinking that torture is more effective than it is.

actually healthier dust

Sorry for the length of this post.  My health routine has sort of taken over my life, so there's a lot I want to report.  No one is under any obligation to read this entire thing.

As should be obvious, I have had the longest hiatus from posting to this blog since I opened it.  This wasn't intentional, but was a direct result of my exercise routine and church teaching prep cutting into the spare time I would have had to post.

I did want to report back in on how my healthier lifestyle is progressing.

When I started this exercise routine I wasn't extremely excited about it because I had real doubts that I would be able to stick with it, and to me it was worse to start and give up than not to start at all.  I still have those concerns because it's an extraordinary challenge to squeeze my routine in, but I have stuck with it.  I don't know if I'll be still doing this in a few years, but my mindset right now is that nothing I'm doing now is worth it if I don't stick with it over the long haul.

One thing that changed since I last posted is that I did actually start watching what I eat.  I didn't at first because I didn't want to commit to more than I could stick to.  However, in March I determined to try modifying my diet because I felt like if I'm already exercising hard I should do what I can to see good and more speedy results.  I started using the app Lose It! to keep track of what I eat, and I've been a real stickler to keep on top of it.  This has actually helped me stick with the exercise routine because it's undeniable now that there's a benefit to what I'm doing.

At this point, the benefit I can see is having lost about 35 pounds and somewhere between three and four inches of belly fat (belly-button level).  My body fat levels have gone from somewhere in the 25% to 28% range to 20% or 21%.  I know my VO2Max (how much oxygen your lungs can take in) is improved too because I can breathe better when exercising, but I don't know how to measure that.  All of this is gravy (hmmmmm... gravy), however.  My real goal is to lower my triglycerides and LDL cholesterol, and I won't have a reading on those until my next annual doctor's appointment in January.

I've had a few observations along the way.

• Most of the diet challenge was finding foods I'm happy to regularly snack on at night.  For now I've settled on a rotation of apples, celery, pickles, oranges, and carrot sticks.  I'm convinced that this is the change that has effected my health the most.
• Early on, I'd occasionally still be hungry come time to go to bed, but I rarely am any more.
• I still snack on cereal and cheese and crackers occasionally.  The difference is that it is more sparing, and I'm careful to limit the amount of milk I swallow with the cereal.  I remember my great aunt telling me that I should use all of the milk that I poured into my cereal when I was a kid, but I believe now that advice made more sense when she was a child during the Great Depression than it does today.
• I used to make peanut butter and jelly regularly just because it was easy.  I very rarely do that any more because it's a high-calorie food.
• If I'm ahead in my calorie count for the day, I absolutely splurge on some food I'm craving.  There are two reasons for this.  One is that eating too few calories negatively affects metabolism.  The other is that there's a great psychological benefit to being able to regularly eat higher calorie foods when I'm ahead for the day.
• I track calories because those are quantifiable, but I'm coming to believe the calories matter less than that I'm eating more fruits and non-starchy vegetables.
• I personally avoid diet and fat-free foods and beverages.  I used to drink Diet Pepsi, so I cast no judgment on those who use those.  In fact, if you like the taste it might make sense.  Whatever research I've been able to find on those products has made me doubt that diet and fat-free foods are beneficial, however.
• My weight loss has been reasonably steady at around a pound a week (maybe a little more) throughout this whole process.  Everything I'm reading indicates that you don't want to lose more than two pounds a week.
• Just in the last few weeks I've started watching videos from NutritionFacts.org.  They basically just walk through what the research says about different dietary habits, and it's extremely interesting.  I'd recommend it for anyone who's interested in improving their health through (possibly minor) dietary changes, such as consuming a few more nuts a day or eating brown rather than white rice.
• I never dreamed I'd be the sort to look into supplements because that's the world of snake oil salesmen and bodybuilders.  In fact some research indicates that vitamin supplements have a negative affect on peoples' health.  However, I just ordered creatine supplements for the first time because the effects that specific supplement has on the body align with my personal health goals (namely, I'm targeting18%-ish body fat).  It's a whole new world for me.
• Even after exercising for this long it's still obvious that my body has not been gifted with endurance or the ability to get a runner's high.  Maybe it's because running is not part of my routine?
• I'm actually amazed at the number of minor things that these life changes have helped with (example), and I've also discovered some things that I didn't realize were an issue that I still need to put a plan together to address.
• I have never once exercised in a gym, and I don't ever expect to have a gym membership because I don't have time to go.  If my exercising relied on me going to the gym, I wouldn't exercise at all.  Everything I'm doing right now is from a FitnessBlender YouTube video in my living room.

So, lest anyone make the mistake of thinking I'm doing anything extraordinary, the following is the routine I've been doing.

When I first started out I was very out of shape, so I just rotated through the following routines, exercising five or six times a week until I started seeing some improvements.  Mind you, they felt very slow in coming, but I did start to see them after a few weeks.

Then, I started working in some resistance exercises into my routine because I had read that it was important to have a mix of cardio and resistance to lower LDL cholesterol.

As I improved I slowly started working in more challenging and/or targeted routines and dropping old routines.  Right now I have a five-day rotation that I typically go through in a week.

Day 1: Abs/Core (The hardest of all days)

Day 2: Tabata Style HIIT Aerobics

Day 3: Arms and Legs

Day 4: Beginner HIIT Aerobics

Day 5: Total Body Workout

I'm constantly reassessing this, so there will be changes in the future.  I still have a lot of room for improving how challenging my cardio routines are, and I need to start stepping up my weights on "resistance" days.  For now this is what I'm doing, though: about 140 minutes of exercise a week plus some watching what I eat.

Golden sometimes joins me in my exercising as well.    Those are fun days.

song of songs

FYI, the topic below is somewhat adult in nature, but it is Biblical.

Along with teaching Sunday School, I also alternate with someone else teaching a men's class at church.  I could take the easy way out with video series, and I am leaving myself open to the possibility in the future, but I have been doing expository teaching through different books of the Bible.

What I hate teaching (or sitting through a lesson on) the most is something that everyone in the room already knows.  If I know a passage or a topic has been taught repetitively and I don't have something new to bring to the table, I really don't enjoy teaching the lesson.  Because of this, I am drawn to teaching things that others have not focused on, for one reason or another.

All of this is to say that I decided a while back to teach the Song of Songs in the men's class.  I used two books in planning my lessons (The Song of Solomon: An Invitation to Intimacy by O'Donnell and Exalting Jesus in the Song of Songs by Akin and Platt). I am going to be wrapping up the series in early August, and so have pretty much gotten through the entire book.  I have included some thoughts I have about teaching the book below.

• I never appreciated the true spiritual value of the Song.  Marriage represents the Church and Christ, and so the quality of union we have with our spouse reflects how we value the relationship between Christ and the Church.  The purpose of the Song is to celebrate and promote Godly marriage that properly reflects the relationship between God and His people.
• I never appreciated the context and target audience of the Song.  This is probably a song (or series of songs) meant to be sung at a wedding celebration, and targeted to unmarried girls.  One can imagine singers taking the roles of husband and wife, and a choir of girls singing the "friends" parts.  Who the target audience is explains a lot of the content in the book, not the least of which are the three commands in the Song to not forfeit one's virginity too quickly.
• I did not appreciate that reading this song literally is a relatively recent approach.  For centuries commentators assumed that the book is a metaphor for God and the Church or God and Israel.  The Song couldn't be about intimacy between a married couple because that would degrade the Holy Scripture.  This is a perspective that seems laughable today, and it is a ridiculous position, but it was the de facto position of all of Christianity and Judaism for over a millennium.
• Some weeks were flat-out awkward because my sources assumed that if something could be describing a very intimate part of the body or intimate action that was probably the correct interpretation.
• I used to have a real problem with the Song because I believed that the man in the Song was Solomon.  One of my sources (Akin/Platt) believes that this is true, but my other source (O'Donnell) believes that Solomon is only introduces for comparison purposes.  This is appealing for a few reasons, one of which is that it solves the very difficult challenge with the book that the Song does not describe a polygamist's marriage.  This would conflict with the mutual ownership that the woman expresses throughout the Song (Song 2:16; 6:3; 7:10), as well as with the fact that polygamy was not God's perfect ideal for marriage.  I agree with O'Donnell that Song of Songs is written by Solomon to describe a different, idealized couple.
• I did not realize that the Song was written very much with the intent of praising the value of virginity.  Apart from the commands to wait for love in the Song, there are a couple of clear indications that the woman (This song is targeted to girls) saved herself for marriage.  First, in the honeymoon chapter her husband refers to her body as a locked garden and a sealed fountain, indicating that she has closed herself off from men until this time (Song 4:12).  Second, in the conclusion the woman describes herself as a wall in comparison to a door, which likely establishes her virginity because a wall is not entered but a door is (Song 8:10).

The most practical lesson I have gotten from teaching Song of Songs is that a husband has a responsibility to praise his wife's beauty to her frequently and in detail, and see her as his standard for beauty, Likewise, a wife has a responsibility to periodically make herself physically available to her husband.  Those points sum up about half of the book.

I am looking forward to being done with this series.  That is less about the awkwardness of the topic and more about the time I have to spend in preparing these lessons.  I'm ready for a less-involved series.

boredom

When I was seven I remember wondering how I would ever outgrow Sesame Street.  I knew it would happen.  I could see that my parents, and other adults for that matter, only had a passing interest in it, but for the life of me I could not grasp what would change about me such that the show would no longer hold my interest.

A few years later my parents worked for a school on an Indian reservation (no one--even Native people--ever called it a "Native American reservation" in my recollection) they used to have a week of sermons at the school called spiritual emphasis week.  Something that those who have not spent much time on a reservation might not know is that time has a different meaning there.  Starting and ending times for a lot of events on the reservation are more generalizations than rules, and so many of the sermons would go hours long.  I distinctly remember sitting through a two-hour (or three-hour... they did occasionally go that long) sermon at nine years old wondering what would change about me for me to be as interested as my parents appeared to be in the sermon's contents.

Even today, I am often struck by how some forms of entertainment that others genuinely enjoy are painfully boring to me, and how many things that deeply fascinate me hold no interest in most anyone else.  What is it that drives fascination and boredom?  That question has been in my mind for at least the last thirty years.

I think there are three things that cause things to be boring.

1. Something is too simple.

Why do I find most kids' entertainment boring?  Easy, it's because there's nothing unexpected or engaging in it.  Bar none, if a children's show or movie is entertaining to me it is because something has been added to it that goes beyond it's primary audience.

2. Something is too complicated.

Many subjects are boring to me merely because I don't even possess the knowledge necessary knowledge to know how to be engaged.  By definition, it is difficult for me to provide good examples because the moment I have enough insight to cite an example I have stepped toward the issue not being so complicated. I do suspect that this is the main reason I am bored by much of what is considered high literature.

3 (or 2b). It doesn't speak to my experiences in life or the needs I have that drive me.

This is sort of like #2, but the reason for lacking understanding is not due to how complicated the issue is, but rather my not being equipped with fundamental background to appreciate the thing.

The best example I have of boredom from a lack of fundamental understanding is Pride and Prejudice.  I tried very hard to care about the book and the movie about ten years ago, but I just couldn't.  I lost interest in the book about four chapters in, and I could not connect with the characters on the most basic of levels simply because I had no fundamental understanding of what drove the main character.  I even got the sense that the things I sort of understood about the main character I understood wrong.

One of my pet peeves is when I am expected to enjoy something when I do not have the underlying drives or experiences that lend value to that thing.  I suspect that most other people feel similarly.

So, in order for something not to be boring to a person it has to reside in their window of knowledge where it isn't too dumbed-down to drive engagement or too complicated to make sense.  It has to also have some basis in the audience's experience and fundamental needs.

So, what do you think?  Are there other things that cause things to be boring?  Have you been as fascinated with this as I, or do you find this whole line of thinking boring in and of itself?  What is so boring to you it is painful?

the plans I have for you

"...For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." — Jeremiah 29:11

Something that I am not proud of is that I judge people who claim that Jeremiah 29:11 is one of their favorite verses.  In case you were not aware, this verse makes it into a lot of peoples' favorites lists.  I do make an exception for people who can provide some context for the verse, but few people who understand the context would choose this as a favorite passage.  While I know that I am right about the interpretation of the verse, I am sure I am not approaching this with the necessary love and respect, and this is what embarrasses me.

There are a few reasons that people pick favorite verses.  The reason to pick this specific verse always struck me as looking for reassurance in the Scripture rather than looking for the truth.  If I want to believe that God has plans to prosper me I'm going to be motivated to latch onto this verse, and if I am not the type to verify things I will not notice that the verse is saying almost the complete opposite of the popular interpretation for that verse.

In the previous chapter the false prophet Hananiah had predicted that the Jews would leave Babylon within two years.  After Hananiah's prophecy God informed Jeremiah that this was a false prophecy, and so Jeremiah told Hananiah that he would die for persuading the nation "to trust in lies."  True to Jeremiah's word, Hananiah died in the middle of that year.

After all of this occurred, Jeremiah wrote a letter to the exiles in Babylon, and Jeremiah 29 contains the content of that letter.  The letter opens with the command to the exiles to settle down and make the best life they can in Babylon because they will be there seventy years.  The vast majority of the people reading that letter would die in Babylon having never seen Jerusalem again.  However, to reassure the people that God's promise to Abraham would remain true, Jeremiah included some long term encouragements to the people about how God would not forget His promise for His chosen people.

A lot of people read, "I know the plans I have for you," to mean, "I have a special plan for you individually."  Then, they read the rest of the verse as an encouragement that they will prosper and not be harmed.  To read the verse in this way is to trust in lies as Hananiah had caused Israel to do in the previous chapter.  The plans that God has for "you" are the plans that He has for the nation that He chose as His people.  They are not plans for individuals receiving the letter since most or all of them would be dead before any of those plans would see fruition.

In the interest of consistency with other Scripture, can you imagine some of the people described near the end of the faith chapter (Hebrews 11) being perplexed at God while bad things were happening to them?  I certainly can.

• Verse 35: "God, I was about to be tortured and I gave in because being harmed is not part of your plan. I hope it does not impact my resurrection that I denied you."
• Verse 37: "God, it is taking some effort, but I have faith that that large saw those men are holding is not going to harm me."
• Verse 37: "God, this shabby goatskin I have is not a designer brand.  That Gucci camel fur would go a ways toward your promise to prosper me."
• Verse 38: "God, I and my family woke up in a hole in the ground today just like yesterday and the day before.  Where are those plans to prosper me you promised in Jeremiah?  How about—oh, I don't know—a small starter home in the suburbs to get things started?"

I do not want to imply that Scripture offers no encouragement to the believer.  It does offer encouragement.  It is just that most of the comforts and reassurances that we are promised are not promised for this life.  If you absolutely must have an encouraging passage whose interpretation does not violate its context and make a false promise I suppose the following passage will meet most of these requirements.  Well, it meets the requirements as long as you understand that "rest" indicates salvation rather than physical rest.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." — Matthew 11:28-30

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?