White Christmas

It snowed today! HUGE flakes!
Merry Christmas!

Measles for Christmas

Christmas has been a hit so far! I love this holiday. My kids had so much fun opening presents and I loved the looks on their faces when they opened some of their favorites. We talked last night about the reasons we open presents and I tried to convey to them the joy of giving in addition to the joy of getting. Some of them definitely got the message. Some of them definitely didn't. :)

We had an early Christmas present yesterday. Our youngest woke up covered in red spots and they're worse today. We think she has the measles. Hooray! Merry Christmas! They don't seem to be bothering her too much yet, but I think it's funny that she got such a unique illness at such a perfect time.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! Merry Christmas, everyone!

What Makes Women Beautiful?

I think women are beautiful! It wasn't until after God created Eve that He claimed His work was done. He had created a lot of beautiful things, but Eve was the last, sort of His crowning achievement. Maybe He was trying to make up for that man He created. No offense to Adam; I'm sure he was a pretty fantastic man. I just think men are ugly. Woman might be thought of as God's magnum opus, created just before His final declaration that His creation was "good."

What Makes Women Beautiful?

So what is it about women that makes them so beautiful? This is a question I have been thinking about lately, but haven't quite been able to figure out yet. I can certainly understand why God would think His work was done after making a woman. I just don't understand intellectually what I find so beautiful about them. So like any good scientist, I've been studying the question. Here's what I've come up with so far.

Being a man, I find beauty in a woman's physical shape and appearance. The one unifying element that seems to make their different aspects beautiful to me is "softness." I'm not sure that's the right word, though, so here's a few more: smooth, gentle, nurturing. Some of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen are of my wife carrying a child in her womb or breastfeeding one of our children. But there's something about the softness of the female form, the curves, the fullness of form, that make a woman's body attractive to me. Long, soft hair, soft facial features, soft, full lips - those all work. With this question in mind, I have been looking at women around me that strike me as beautiful and I keep coming back to the word "soft."

Harsh features aren't beautiful to me and those usually belong to men. It's the harshness, the sharp lines, the hard forms of developed muscle that seem to be made to help a man face the physical challenges of the world and protect his family from danger and want. Those features aren't attractive to me at all. From what my wife tells me, those are some of the things about men that she finds attractive. Kind of cool how it all works out.

So I know that's not a very complete answer, but I'm still working on it. Studying the "what" of beauty is a good start, but I don't really understand intellectually why I think those features are beautiful. But let me take a stab at it from a different angle.

Why Are Women Beautiful?

Women want to be loved and adored. Their beauty might be nature's way of securing for themselves a fulfillment of these natural desires. Likewise, men want to be respected and admired. Taken to unhealthy extremes, women prostitute themselves in order to receive a counterfeit adoration and men become tyrants to obtain a counterfeit respect. Unfortunately, these counterfeits can't satisfy our real cravings. It's only in a healthy, committed relationship where a woman lovingly submits to her husband (a sign of respect) and the husband loves his wife and cares for her as his most precious possession that both can have their needs fully met (see Ephesians 5:22,25).

So then the question becomes - why do we seem to have these natural desires? What purpose do they fulfill? So far, my only answer is that maybe the complementary nature of the male and female desires serves to bring two people together in unity. If relationships, friendship, and love are sufficient "final causes," then perhaps this justifies the beauty of women in fulfilling one of life's objectives.

What do you think?

Roller Skating

We went roller skating yesterday and had SO much fun! My three oldest tried it out and although they have tried it a couple of times before, they've never done it enough to really get the hang of it. They were pretty off balance for a while, but they started to get the hang of it and by the time we left, they were able to get around the rink really well by themselves. Number three had a harder time than the other two, but he was determined and he kept working at it until he got to be pretty confident skating by himself. He got pretty creative in the way he got around, using the walls, practicing on the carpet, and sitting on his skates while pushing himself along with his hands. I was really proud of him. Our youngest played on a playground next to the rink and had a lot of fun too.

Emily and I really enjoyed watching all of them learn a new skill. It was great to see them smiling as they got the hang of it. I skated with them and helped coach them a little in the beginning and once they got the hang of it, my job was to sneak up on them while they skated and startle them. I had a GREAT time! I love spending time with my family.

Christmas Break

I worked crazy hours last week so I could wrap up some projects enough to walk away from them for a while. I decided to take off two weeks of work this Christmas and enjoy some time with my family. I really need it. Work has been really consuming lately.

So I've been relaxing with my family since last Saturday and it has been great! We've got lots of plans. We're hoping to go swimming, roller skating, and maybe ice skating. We're going to go play at one of those indoor warehouse-size places that house all kinds of huge inflatable toys like the slide in the picture below. We might go bowling and we are definitely going to camp out one night in the living room, have popcorn, watch a movie, and sleep on the couches/floors. We've done that a few times in the past and even though we don't always sleep all that great, it's a lot of fun.

I did all of my shopping online this year, so I didn't face any of the shopping madness. I don't watch TV, so no stupid commercials to ruin the holiday spirit. My kids want to buy or make a few more gifts for each other, but other than that, I think we're just about set. We still have to wrap presents, but I enjoy doing that, especially if Emily and I do it together. So I think we're about ready for Christmas and I'm enjoying the break without any of the holiday stress.

There is a small piece of work that I haven't quite left behind, though. I've been spending an hour or two each day preparing for my class next semester. I've taught in lots of different venues, including filling in for a colleague of mine in his college course, but I've never taught my own full semester-long course before. I get to do that next month and I'm really excited! I've written a syllabus, course outline, two homework assignments, and most of my material for the first three lectures. I've also solved the first homework set, so I know it's structured right. I don't know why, but I'm really enjoying this preparation and the fact that I do it willingly while I'm on vacation is a really good sign. I think I'm going to enjoy teaching next semester.

In the meantime, I'm piddling around with this course preparation stuff and enjoying the rest of my time reading, relaxing, blogging, and playing with my wife and kids. I hope your Christmas is as wonderful as mine is shaping up to be. Have a Merry Christmas! And God bless you.

Truth vs. Relationships

I was thinking this morning about the petty arguments we get into sometimes. I was thinking about the advice I've heard now and then - something about "it's more important to be happy than to be right." There are a lot of variations on that theme, but the basic idea is that you recognize when you're in the middle of such an argument that even if you're right, pushing the point may damage the relationship between the two people arguing, negatively affecting the happiness of both. The implication seems to be that we should sacrifice truth for the welfare of relationships. I've never quite been able to swallow that implication because I care too much about truth. G.E. Moore claimed that the greatest ethic goods were personal relationships and aesthetic appreciation ... followed by truth. But as much as I value relationships and beauty, I'm going to disagree with Moore's rankings.

It's not that the truth is unimportant. Maybe the issue is a minor one and the truth really doesn't matter that much, but no matter how big or small, truth is important. Ceasing to argue about something does not mean you don't care about the truth, but rather, you don't care whether the other person recognizes the truth. A simple debate where the participants are respectful, not argumentative, can be a really healthy thing and can help both sides get a little closer to the truth if they approach the debate with humility. But an argument usually means that both sides are becoming passionate enough about the debate that things become contentious. That kind of environment isn't usually conducive to learning new truth and it can also damage the relationship. So stepping away from an argument doesn't mean you care less about the truth, but that you care less about convincing someone else of the truth (or of obtaining it yourself) than you care about the health of the relationship. Let things cool down; and chances are, there will be another opportunity to have a healthy debate and get a little better acquainted with truth.

Being The Best

My third child was recognized yesterday at school for being the only child in his grade to run 10 laps around the school track in 12 minutes (the equivalent of about 1.5 miles from what I understand). This happened late September. Apparently his PE coach made a big deal out of it in front of the entire school and said that in all his years of coaching, my son is the first child of that grade to have ever done that in the fall. Wow! Kind of cool to be the best at something, huh?

My second child was also given an award yesterday for being in the top five runners of her grade. I'm really proud of both of them. They have worked hard and are doing really well. And it's great that they're being recognized for their success. But you know who I'm really proud of? My oldest. He has worked really hard at running for several years and has never been as successful as these other two. But he hasn't been jealous or mean-spirited. In fact, he's been really supportive of both of his siblings and he cheers them on! He may not be as gifted in that area of his life as the other two, but to me, he has succeeded at something far more important. He has figured out how to be kind, loving, and supportive even when his hopes for success are superseded by someone other than himself. Even more remarkable in this case since the "other" is a younger sibling.

I think it has helped his self confidence to be recognized for something quite different. If he felt like a failure, he might not be so supportive. But his confidence has been boosted by him being recognized in October as the best reader in the school. And I think that has helped him to avoid any petty jealousy he might have felt in seeing his siblings be recognized for achievements that he has worked so hard for during the last few years.

I think we all want to feel that we are important and very often, we base our sense of self-importance on external valuations. How fast we can run, how much weight we can lift, how smart we are ... but none of these are really self-made abilities. We can nurture them, sure, but some people are naturally gifted with certain abilities that help them achieve such things and others aren't. So, can we really feel like we're better people because we achieve in something that is really facilitated by gifts given to us by God at birth? If God blessed me to be more intelligent than others, does that make me better than them? Can I really base my sense of self worth on something that had nothing to do with any choice of mine?

Perhaps far better is to base our sense of worth are the choices we make such as how we treat others. That is something that truly comes from our own will and power and is not dependent on God for His gifts. This is especially true when we don't FEEL like treating others kindly, but we do it anyway because it's the right thing to do. I'm grateful that my children are tasting the fruits of success and worldly praise, but I'm even more grateful that they're finding success in more important areas and I hope they can feel the praise of God for those good choices they're making in the way they treat others. I feel really blessed to have such great kids.

Gulliver's Travels and Texting

In Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver meets some scholars in an academy full of crazy schemes for the betterment of mankind. One was "a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health, as well as brevity. For it is plain, that every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of our lungs by corrosion, and, consequently, contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, 'that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express a particular business they are to discourse on.' And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people."

In our day, thanks to the miracles of technology, the common people have submitted. We now have texting.

Uncle Nino

Emily and I watched a movie this week called 'Uncle Nino.' It's about a man from Italy who travels to America to visit his nephew, Robert Micelli, and his wife and children. His primary purpose is to visit the grave of his brother, but he spends a couple of weeks with Robert whom he hasn't seen since Robert was a child. The contrast between Nino's life in Italy and the Micellis' life in Illinois is pretty amusing.

Nino is shown first in a beautiful little Italian village leisurely feeding himself and his dogs on the morning of his trip. He takes his suitcases out of his house to wait for a friend to pick him up and spends some time in his nice clothes gardening while he waits. On arriving at their destination, the friend asks Nino where his hat is. Realizing he forgot it at home, the friend gives him the hat he's wearing. The Micellis are shown next and they can't seem to slow down. The father is working hard to obtain a promotion; the mother is busy running errands and trying to keep her family together; the children have issues with school and home; and no one has time for each other ... or for Uncle Nino.

Somehow, Nino gets to know the family in spite of their lifestyle and helps them draw closer together. It's a really sweet story and too complicated to summarize so briefly, but hopefully that gives you a an idea of what it's about. I highly recommend it. It's a feel-good movie with all around good morals.

One of the basic messages, of course, is SLOW DOWN!! Life's too short to be so fast-paced. To really enjoy it, we need to focus on the things that matter most. Here's an easy example - 'family is more valuable than money' - according to a fortune cookie I got about 8 years ago. I keep it in my wallet just to remind myself.

And if family is more important than money, then a lot of us in America should probably work a little less and spend more time with our families. Of course that would necessarily mean less money. And that would mean we should be content with less. Henry David Thoreau was a good example of frugality. Thoreau's friend Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of him: "He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them himself." Maybe we should rethink our definition of 'rich'.

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau himself tells us in 'Walden', "we live meanly, like ants; .... Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. .... Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. .... The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast."

Interesting when you think about the state of the world economy and the calls for government measures of austerity throughout Europe. Shouldn't we the people, who have lived so high for so long on borrowed money, lead the way in scaling back our own needs and wants? Couldn't we take a lesson from Thoreau and simplify our lives? Wouldn't it be worth it to slow down a little and focus on the things that are most important - even if that means we have to sacrifice some of the things that we love, but that are less important?

Gandhi, recognizing his country's addiction to the luxuries of Great Britain, preached simplicity and austerity ... and he lived by his words. He was among the upper caste in India's social structure. He was educated as a barrister in England and could have had a relatively luxurious life. But his addiction to truth required that he search for his purpose in life and that he live a life of integrity according to the truths that he found. And this search led him to live a very simple life. Hard to argue with the wisdom of a man like Gandhi.

I'm not as brave as Thoreau and Gandhi, but I am willing to scale back my material wants if that's what my family needs. I loved the movie 'Uncle Nino' for that message of proper priorities. And I wish I had the courage to scale back even more. But for now, I will try to keep a balance in my life and remember that no matter what, nothing is worth the sacrifice of peace in my home and happiness in the lives of my wife and children.

Nicholas Nickleby, the book

I recently finished reading Charles Dickens' 'Nicholas Nickleby'. My wife and I watched a movie adaptation of the book a while back and it was so good! It inspired me to want to read some of Dickens' work ... and what better way to start than with the story that first impressed me?

Portrait of Charles Dickens

The book was great and I found the movie was pretty faithful to the original - about as faithful as time constraints would allow. The story is a moral tale about, among other things, the effect of character and the tendency of good character to yield happiness and bad character to yield misery. Dickens may be stretching plausibility now and then by putting circumstances together that link the cause and effect so closely in time, but I like his emphasis on the inevitability of such an outcome. I agree with his moral conclusions and I think his storytelling is masterful! He may be the greatest genius of an author of the English language I have ever read.

It's interesting that the very thing I appreciated about his novel seems to be the thing he later reconsidered and revised. Maybe not revised ... expanded. 'Nicholas Nickleby' focuses on two main characters, Nicholas (the good guy) and his uncle Ralph (the bad guy). Ralph is a man whose sole aim in life is the acquisition of wealth. He is clever and ruthless and quite successful in carrying out his objective. This morning, I read a talk by Elder Richard G. Scott in which he says something that reminded me of Ralph. He says, "A clever individual without foundation principles can at times acquire, temporarily, impressive accomplishments. Yet that attainment is like a sand castle. When the test of character comes, it crumbles, often taking others with it."

Ralph has no guiding principles other than wealth accumulation. Anything it takes to achieve that end is well within his moral sphere. His end is a miserable one. I won't ruin the story for you by telling you how it ends, but Ralph 'gets what he deserves,' I guess. Unfortunately, we don't get much of a glimpse into what made Ralph the kind of man he is. We get a little hint of a cause, but it's not sufficient for us to really enter into Ralph's character and feel sympathy for him. This is what I believe Dickens later revised or expanded upon in his novel four or five years later called 'A Christmas Carol'.

I don't know what Dickens was thinking, but I imagine he looked at the novel he had written (and possibly others - I don't know) and wondered whether there was any redemption for a man like Ralph. In a spirit of greater liberality, he explores that question in the character of Ebeneezer Scrooge, an equally ruthless man bent upon acquiring wealth at the expense of anything else of value in life. I love that Dickens revisited this type of miserly character and found redemption by allowing such a man to recognize his own depravity, explore his past to find the cause of his current state, and rekindle whatever virtue he had as a child and a young man to become a beneficent, liberal man. His ending is much happier than it would have been if he had not altered his character for the better.

Dickens doesn't step away from the correlation between joy and a virtuous life, but in his later work, he acknowledges the possibility for an evil character to change. Considering that we're all a mix of good and evil, it's a good thing we have the ability to change. We usually can't undo the evil we have inflicted on others, but there seems to be sufficient grace from heaven to compensate if we'll just change our hearts and our actions. I really enjoyed 'Nickleby,' but I also appreciate the more liberal message of 'A Christmas Carol' and its application for me personally.

Decapitated!

Number three woke me up early this morning to tell me he had a bad dream.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I had a bad dream."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie. Tell me what happened."

"Well, there was a bad knight and you told me to run away and he chopped off your head and started chasing me."

[Ouch!]

"I'm sorry, pal! Why don't you try to think about something happy and see if you can get back to sleep."

That's all it took because I didn't hear from him again, but it got me thinking. As young as he is, he looks to me as his ultimate protector. Nobody is stronger than dad. When he sees someone chop off my head and start chasing him down, he knows he's in trouble! Imagine the panic he must have felt in his dream. Poor guy.

He'll find out one day just how weak his dad really is, but for now, I'll offer him a false sense of security. And I'll try not to get my head chopped off anymore.

A Beautiful Metaphor

There is an ancient Greek myth found in Plato's 'Symposium' of the origin of man and human love. It's possible Plato made it up, but it seems like it could have more ancient origins. Plato's character Aristophanes describes how mankind was once a larger version of himself, with four arms, four legs, two faces, etc. When mankind became rebellious and sought to overthrow the gods themselves, Zeus split them down the middle and had Apollo reform them to be male and female. And it seems that these half-human two-legged creatures spend the rest of their lives searching for their other half.

There is more to the myth that reflects Greek culture and society, but my description above is the part of the story I'm interested in.

I think it's a beautiful metaphor for love. Something inside a man seems to long for something feminine to make him complete. I'm not a woman, but from my experience with them, they seem to likewise long for something masculine to make them complete. When we each find such a thing (or rather such a person), we have the potential to become something much greater than the single sex creature we were born as. I don't pretend to understand it, but there is something holy about the union of the male and the female. And I mean that in a more profound way than simply sexual. The sexual union is a symbol of the more complete union that's needed to make sex meaningful. When we are truly united with a beautiful person of the opposite sex, I think we have begun to achieve our full potential as children of God.

I recognize that not all men feel masculine and not all women feel feminine. And perhaps this is part of what lies behind homosexual tendencies. However, I think by and large, most men long for something feminine outside themselves to make themselves complete. And most women long for something masculine to make them complete. It's not my intention to take on the topic of homosexuality in this post, but I guess it's worth mentioning because it is part of the metaphor that Aristophanes proposes and is one of the shades of Greek culture that influences the myth.

The myth is somewhat similar to the story in Genesis of Eve being formed from the rib of Adam. Whether symbolic or literal, this story seems to teach the idea that the female originated from the male in some fashion and that 'a man [should] leave his father and his mother and ... cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh' (Gen 2:24). It's interesting that this verse comes immediately after the story of Eve being fashioned from the rib. Once separated, it seems that the focus of male and female should be to reunite and stay together. Kind of a cool idea.

The Peter Principle

Years ago, a colleague introduced me to a book called "The Peter Principle" in which the author tries to explain why so much incompetence exists in business and in other spheres of life. The basic idea is that people, after obtaining a professional position, will succeed if they are well suited to the job and will be rather incompetent if they're not. Those who succeed are viewed as capable of taking on additional responsibility and are often promoted to new responsibilities. If they are well suited to these, they will succeed in their new position and likely be promoted again after some period of time. At some point, they will eventually encounter a position in which they will not perform well and they will have been promoted beyond their level of competence.

The book is quite humorous and a salve for those who are annoyed with incompetence and office politics. But it's a dark humor and, although I saw the truth behind the 'principle,' I was unhappy with the negative aspects of human nature that the author emphasizes.

I've been thinking about this 'principle' again lately and I think there's a lot of value in what the author says in a positive sense. His conclusion is negative because he assumes that peoples' skills and interests remain static. But the tendency for us to promote those who succeed doesn't have to end in stagnation. If the purpose of life is centered around growth and development, then the process of 'The Peter Principle' is a really useful one for making life meaningful. When we encounter responsibilities that seem overwhelming to us, that can present us with an opportunity to grow rather than being an impassable obstacle.

If we find ourselves in a position of being promoted to our 'level of incompetence', rather than looking at the situation grimly and thinking we have nothing left to offer the world (as Peter would have us believe), maybe we can look at that as an opportunity to become more capable by struggling to overcome the challenge. The struggle itself can be a lot of fun and the feeling of success very satisfying.

A couple years ago, I wondered whether I had become a victim of the Peter Principle. I knew I wasn't competent for the job I had inherited, but I was somewhat hopeful I would figure it out. I became pretty despondent occasionally, thinking that perhaps this just wasn't for me, but I never gave up trying to do my best and, with some help from a few colleagues, I found myself growing into my new role and now, instead of feeling overwhelmed all the time, I find myself in a position that gives me more satisfaction than any other job I've ever had. Part of the joy I find in my job is the constant challenge it offers me and I feel like I'm learning and growing all the time. But now, that constant challenge isn't overwhelming because I've found a model for success and I no longer feel like I'm drowning all the time.

I think the Peter Principle is a valid process that reflects some aspects of human group behavior, but by making an incorrect assumption, it arrives at a very negative conclusion that serves no real purpose except to explain the reason for incompetence. I've decided the principle is actually a positive thing because of the opportunity it gives us for growth. When I see incompetence around me, I will try to start looking at the source of that incompetence, a person, with an attitude of hope - that they are at a crossroads and, if they work hard and make good choices, they will become a better, more capable human being than they are now.

Maybe the Peter Principle of one of God's ways of helping us to become like Him.

The Scarlet Pimpernel, the Weather, and the Economy

I read 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' last week and came across the following passage near the beginning of the book:

"It do seem more like April than September, don't it?" continued Mr. Hempseed, dolefully, as a shower of raindrops fell with a sizzle upon the fire.

"Aye! that it do," assented the worthy host, "but then what can you 'xpect, Mr. 'Empseed, I says, with sich a government as we've got?"

"Mr. Hempseed shook his head with an infinity of wisdom, tempered by deeply-rooted mistrust of the British climate and the British government."

This seemed like such an appropriate passage to read just after the elections. It's such an obviously ridiculous correlation drawn here between government policy and the weather. It made me think of the correlation we often draw between government policy and the state of the economy. I have no doubt that bad policy can hamper prosperity and good policy can encourage it, but we tend to lay all the blame and/or praise at the feet of the ruling political party. The truth, I believe, is much more complicated.

Policy, if it does have an impact on the economy, may not make a visible impact right away. It might take years for some effects to be seen. That makes it really difficult to scientifically dissect the impact of individual policy decisions ... maybe impossible in some cases. That means that the mess of one era may have been created jointly by decisions made over the course of multiple Congresses and multiple Presidential administrations. Blaming or praising the current government for the current state of affairs is very short sighted.

I'm no economist and I would quickly get in over my head if I started arguing my viewpoints in too much detail, but in addition to that problem of latency, I also believe that our elected officials have much less influence over the economy than the unelected officials of the Federal Reserve, which, as I understand it, is neither 'Federal' nor associated with any type of 'Reserve'. But even those officials don't wield as much power as we'd like to think they do.

Our national market is made up of millions of individuals making individual choices every single day. That is far too complicated a system to be 'controlled' by such a small group within that system. We, as participants in the market, are the ones with the most power, though we're a terribly unorganized force. Failing to recognize our own power and placing the blame on someone else makes us feel good, but it also takes away our power to change anything.

I'm a big fan of the Austrian school of economics and though I don't think they have all the answers, I am convinced that they have the beginnings of the right formula for a perpetually healthy economy, though natural booms and busts will always be with us. The formula is based on freedom, but it must also include virtue, which I'm not going to define right now, but I might clarify that someday.

Having said that, I would prefer to see the government stop meddling in the economy and "leave us alone", as the French phrase "laissez-faire" implies, but even if they don't, we are the ones who have the true power over the economy. Let's do what we can to encourage government to do what we think is best for the economy, but having done that, let's then turn our attention to our own lives and do all in our power to improve our own situation and the situation of those around us.

And let's try to stop blaming the ruling government for everything that goes wrong, whether that be the economy ... or the weather.

Lead Me

I came across a song recently that really made me think as a dad. We have a lot of demands on our time and energy, but the most important priorities should be our wife and children. Probably more important than that should be our relationship with God, but as far as earthly things, our families are number one. This song seems to challenge me to be the best husband and father I can be. I like the words he uses and thought I would share my thoughts about the song with the world.

I think women and children need their husbands/fathers to be strong, firm, and unwavering and they want to be able to rely on that strength. Firmness doesn't mean we lead like tyrants, but we can lead with firmness and love while respecting their freedom. I haven't figured out how to do that yet; I just believe it's possible ... and necessary. I really like the artist's emphasis on that aspect of our 'job' and his assertion that he's incapable of doing it alone. Me too, pal. If you're a father, take a few minutes to listen and let me know what you think.

The Idiot

I just finished reading Dostoyevsky's 'The Idiot'. I enjoyed a lot of it; Dostoyevsky has a way of pulling you in to another person's mind. I love how he describes unnatural states of mind like dream sequences or temporary madness. He has some fascinating descriptions of death and executions, which he seems to dwell on in some of his works because of an experience he had being condemned to death for 'political' crimes at a fairly young age. At the last minute, he was reprieved, but the experience left a big impression on him - go figure - that is seen in some of his writing.

Anyway, a lot of cool ideas, a lot of interesting philosophical discussions, but I started to get bored with the themes after a while. It seemed like the book could have been half as long and served its purpose well. If you decide to read it and you stop halfway through, read the Cliff Notes version and you won't have missed much, in my opinion.

The main theme of the book is the depiction of a truly honest, good man. The hero of the story, Prince Muishkin (or Myshkin), is a man who cares nothing about gossip, status, wealth, or anything that typical societies value. He cares about people. He cares about their feelings. He cares about their happiness. And he cares about ideas. He's extremely intelligent, but has epilepsy and as his fits are coming on, he starts to act like an idiot. But that isn't really the reason for the title. He is given the title of 'idiot' because, in the eyes of the world, his simplicity, altruism, apathy for social forms and sincere expressions make him seem stupid. And if you were a slave to the social norms of 19th century Russia, he would have seemed like an idiot to you. Perhaps some of us, being slaves to 21st century social norms, would consider good men and women around us to be idiots for similar reasons ...

The first half of the book really makes the hero shine and seems to present the theme that a good, simple man can triumph in spite of his ignorance and/or apathy for 'the way things are done.' The theme seems to be that a good man will succeed because of virtue and the strength of his kindness, graciousness, sincerity, humility, etc.

The second half of the book (roughly) takes a bit of a turn. I think Dostoyevsky was trying to make the case that in the end, such a virtuous man will ultimately be exploited by others and fail because he is fundamentally at odds with his society. Sort of like the idea that in an unjust society, the only proper place for a just man is prison. There is something to that idea, but in general, I had a hard time swallowing the theme because of his portrayal of the circumstances and I got bored with the repetitions of his arguments to that effect. Muishkin ultimately fails, not because he is too good, but because he focuses on some of the wrong things. He fails because, in his simplicity, he remains ignorant of certain facts and refuses to see the importance of at least recognizing certain social constructs whether or not he chooses to adopt them himself. He also continually forgives others without considering that it may be wise to be cautious to avoid being exploited repeatedly. In the end, Muishkin ends badly, but I think Dostoyevsky's hero was ill formed. The truly good man does not have to be willfully ignorant of certain evils. The good man simply has to choose the good when faced with evil. The hero is created well in the first half of the book, but I much prefer Dostoyevsky's heroes in Brothers Karamazov.

I'm glad I read the book, but for the sake of posterity, I think a student would be better off reading 'Brothers Karamazov' and 'Crime and Punishment' and leaving 'The Idiot' alone. With those first two works, you get all of Dostoyevsky's brilliance, his amazing descriptions of strange mental states, his philosophy (though more fully developed in Karamazov), and a host of characters, both good and evil, that encompass almost everything 'The Idiot' can offer. There is, however, no other character quite like Prince Muishkin. If you haven't read it, you might try reading the first part just to get a taste of how Dostoyevsky viewed the ideal good man ... at least at one point in his life. It's definitely an interesting and worthy character sketch, but I'm glad he changed his mind later. I think Alyosha Karamazov is a much more worthy hero.

Running, Part Deux

My oldest three ran a mile race this evening. Here are their times in order of age, oldest to youngest:
8:56
10:45
8:47

Wow, that third child can move fast! I think they all did great! I actually think their times could have been faster, but there was a lot of slow moving at the beginning because of the large number of children racing. The second child was running with a friend and I think that slowed her down even more.

My wife also ran a 5K race and did really well! It was her second run and she came really close to her first time, but she actually went a bit slower to stay with a friend, so she felt like she improved. Interesting that that happened with both my girls tonight. They sacrificed their times for social interaction. My boys and I would never have thought to do something like that.

Women are Beautiful

Walt Whitman wrote a poem entitled 'Beautiful Women' that reads:

Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
The young are beautiful - but the old are more beautiful than the young.

Since reading that a few weeks ago, I've been watching women around me a little more closely. I've been noticing their delicate forms, the way they move just a little more gracefully than I do, the way their smaller, smoother frames compare to the bulky, jagged, awkward frames of men. I've been noticing my wife and as I watch her develop wrinkles and other little signs of age, I think what a story those signs tell of a life given to building a family, serving people around her, and trying to lift up instead of tear down. She has always been physically beautiful in my opinion and, though she still has room for growth, she grows more beautiful in other ways every day. She is more beautiful on the inside than when I first met her and the wrinkles tell a story of a beauty that can't readily be seen. But I see it. And because I see it, she looks more physically beautiful to me than ever before. I wonder if that's sort of what Whitman saw.

Earlier this week, I was riding a bus and in the seat across the aisle from me, I saw an older couple, maybe in their 60s. The man had his arm around his wife's shoulders and they were leaning toward one another. They looked happy together. I stole a few glances at the woman's face. It looked a little worn out, skin sagging, but her eyes were bright. Her face seemed to radiate something that no amount of make-up or fashion could mimic. That old woman looked absolutely beautiful.

Portrait of Virginia McKenna

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature,
But beautiful old people are works of art."
-Author Unknown

Seeing beautiful women like that, young or old, is as refreshing to me as watching a sunrise or sitting by a quiet lake. Men just don't have that effect on me. In fact, men are just bulky, awkward, and ugly. I really don't see what women see in men, but I'm glad they see something valuable. I'm glad my wife sees something redeeming in me that makes her want to stick around. And I'm thankful she lets me admire her beauty without being self conscious about it. It's refreshing and fulfilling. I really think our nature requires both male and female to feel complete. That's my experience and while I can't claim it to be universal, I'm fairly confident it is.

Adam called his wife's name 'Eve' because she was the mother of all living (Gen 3:20). The Hebrew word for Eve here was 'Ḥawwāh' or 'Khavah', meaning 'source of life'. Adam treasured this companion God gave him immediately and recognized her as a source of life, naming her accordingly. Women are beautiful treasures, gifts from God, and they have a unique gift that allows them to participate much more closely than men in the process of creating new life. What a miracle to be part of that process and to be married to a beautiful woman who allowed me to take part in it with her. Thank God for beautiful women.

My New Toy

Emily bought me an early Christmas present and gave it to me this week. Thanks to some great salesmanship from friend and colleague, Matt, I got excited about spending some money on a new toy. I love to read, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me to want Amazon's new Kindle. Emily bought me the 3G version.

I've been playing around with it for a couple of days and already have about 45 books and a few samples. Everything I have has been free, but I'm looking at getting a few multi-volume works for a buck or two a piece. It's amazing how much stuff is out there for almost nothing when there's no more copyright. And I don't read much modern literature, so I've been looking at the classics.

Here are some of the authors I've downloaded so far:
G.K. Chesterton
Howard Pyle
William Shakespeare
Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
Leo Tolstoy
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Homer
Plasto
Aristotle
Cicero
Robert Frost
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Jonathan Swift
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Thomas Paine
Benjamin Franklin
Louisa May Alcott
Karl Marx
Albert Einstein
H.A. Lorentz
Alexandre Dumas
Niccolo Machiavelli
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Gaston Leroux
Sun Tzu
Confucius

How much wisdom of different ages and cultures did I just download for free? That Kindle is an amazing device! I am having so much fun with it already. I've read some of the works already, but the vast majority of them are new to me and I'm thrilled I got them for free and now I have a whole library of books in a little device that's physically smaller than the print version of any single book in the collection.

I'm going to be doing quite a bit of traveling in the near future, so Emily was sweet enough to buy it for me before Christmas so I could enjoy it on a few long flights. Thanks Emily! You are so nice to me.

And thanks to Matt for selling me on the Kindle. I think I owe you a commission, pal. Good luck getting it from me, though. :) And to all of you who have been thinking of getting a Kindle and this post pushed you over the edge ... Merry Christmas. I'm not ever planning to make money off this blog, so enjoy your new Kindle and you can thank me later.

Armies

My oldest just shared one of his favorite jokes:

Q: Where do Kings keep their armies?
A: In their sleevies!

Cute, huh?

Overworked

I've been focused too much on work lately. Business has been great and although I much prefer that to the alternative, it sure makes it difficult to balance other priorities.

Thankfully my children have been very understanding and supportive. We've had some time on weekends to play and although the work week gets very long, they seem to be ok with it as long as I wrestle with them, tickle them, and play with them on Saturday and Sunday and occasionally on weekday evenings when possible. My kids are so fun to play with.

And Emily is a gem. She has been so supportive of all the time I've spent away from her lately and really sweet to welcome me home with a smile and a kiss every night instead of a guilt trip. Thanks, pretty lady. Remind me to pay you back later.

Business goes in cycles. This crazy period won't last forever. I just need to keep my focus on the important things and fight through the busy time.

School Board Meeting

Emily and I took our oldest son to a school board meeting last night. He was presented an award for being one of the top readers in his school. The district uses a computer-based testing system to evaluate how well the students have understood the material in various books they read. Depending on how well they do on the test, how difficult the book is judged to be, and their current age/grade, they are assigned a certain number of points for each test they pass. My son read all of the Harry Potter books over the summer and since they were judged to be several grade levels above my son's current grade, he scored big points on each of those tests. That series gave him a big head start, but he didn't stop there. He reads all the time and just keeps racking up the points. The superintendent presented awards to the top four students based on the points they had earned so far during the year.

My son received a certificate stating he had about 230 points. Apparently he was the top scorer; the second student had about 140 points! Wow. I think it's great that he has learned to read so well and he loves it so much! I don't think there's any academic skill more valuable at his age and I think it's great he has embraced it so well.

Swimming

For about the last twelve months, I have been swimming pretty regularly to try to get back in shape. After several years of a full schedule including work, school, family, and other stuff, I was a mess physically. I used to swim in High School and although I was never very fast, it's nice to have that background to help me feel comfortable enough to make swimming a regular workout. It's great because it works just about every muscle in my body and stresses my heart and lungs at the same time. I'm still not a great swimmer, but I love the way it works my body and I love the way I feel after I'm done.

One of the things I never got used to as a teenager was the lack of air. Swimming long distances always forced me to take a breath every other stroke because I never felt like I had enough oxygen to keep my muscles moving if I didn't. The oxygen problem got worse when I learned to do flip turns because there were stretches of time at each end of the pool when I didn't get any oxygen as I flipped, pushed off from the wall, and kicked under water as far as my momentum would take me.

For the last year, I have been avoiding flip turns because of that problem. But my lung capacity seems to be improving with time and this last week, I did flip turns during the entire workout. It sure hurt my lungs, but it felt really good afterward! I don't have a racing suit, just a regular swimsuit with drag, but it works. In 30 minutes, I'm able to swim as much as 1500 yards, though I don't always do that. Last week, with flip turns wearing me out and a few sprints, I swam 1200 yards in 30 minutes. I'd like to swim for 45 or 60 minutes, but it's tough with my schedule right now.

I love that I'm getting stronger. I love that my endurance for physical activity has increased dramatically. I love the way I feel when I'm (sort of) fit. I love being able to see my distance go up, my times go down, my strokes improve, all that good stuff. That kind of growth is really satisfying to me.

Run!

My third child ran about 1.5 miles this week at school in about 12 minutes. That's about an 8 minute mile. For a boy his age, that is pretty amazing! This is the same child who figured out how to ride a bike without any instruction. I don't want to pigeonhole any of my children, but I can't help but think this child is going to be very athletic.

His PE teacher was so amazed that he called him into his office after the run and gave him a free T-shirt. Apparently, no one his age ever runs so far in the allotted time. Pretty cool, huh?

Priestcraft and Idolatry

The LDS Church has a rather unique definition of the term 'priestcraft'. A Book of Mormon prophet named Nephi tells us, "priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world" (2 Nephi 26:29). Sometimes people with good intentions see the value they can offer to others with their wisdom, faith, or other gifts God has given them, allow pride to creep in, and begin to set themselves up as a light to others. Rather than walk by the light of God, they begin to walk after their own light and fulfill the words of Isaiah: "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow." (Isaiah 50:11).

On the flip side, we may look up to leaders, whether political, religious, or whatever, and allow their influence to displace the influence of God as the primary influence in our lives. If we look up to someone so much that we become dependent on them in a moral, religious, intellectual, or other similar way, we may be in danger of allowing our regard for them to displace our worship of God. If anyone becomes more important to us than God, we have probably fallen into the trap of idolatry. God told Moses: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). God didn't say that because He needs our worship to feel validated. He said it for our benefit. We need to look to Him in order to find truth, joy, and all that good stuff He offers us.

It occurred to me recently that priestcraft and idolatry are two sides of the same coin. On the one side, priestcraft is setting yourself up to be a god to someone else. On the other side, idolatry is looking up to someone as if they were God. Either one of these is harmful to all parties involved. Priestcraft may exist without idolatry (in which case, the priestcraft is unsuccessful and the would-be 'priest' probably ends up frustrated or clueless) and idolatry may exist without priestcraft (maybe a more common occurrence), but when they are combined, I think they tend to reinforce each other and all parties involved may go down in a spiral of pride and destruction.

I'm afraid both priestcraft and idolatry are alive and well in our world today. Though we don't bow down before statues of stone, golden calves, or other man-made deities, many of us do worship the works of our own hands (or the works of others). We may worship cars, jewelry, fancy clothes, or other status symbols. We may worship wealth, power, fame, prestige, praise, honor, etc. Or we may feel a sense of comfortable pride that we avoid all these things and yet still fail to keep our focus on the one Being who can teach us all truth and guide us into happiness and joy. Perhaps we worship leaders, whether political, religious, scientific, or otherwise. If our number one priority isn't God, we have probably fallen into the trap of idolatry. And if we seek to displace God in the life of someone else, perhaps someone who looks up to us, even our spouse or our own children, we are doing them and ourselves no favors. Idolatry and priestcraft sever us from the most important relationship in our lives. They can kill us spiritually. And yet I am convinced that they are very common.

Hold My Heart

I heard a beautiful song on the radio this morning. I think I had heard it before, but this time, I listened to the lyrics. The chorus really got to me:

One tear in the driving rain
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the Maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?

One life, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If you're everything you say you are
Would you come close and hold my heart?

Excellence

One of my employer's organizational values is 'Excellence'. I've never thought much about it until recently, but I've realized it's a very important value to me personally. I have been expressing the concept to myself as: 'if I'm going to spend my time and energy doing something, I might as well do it well ... or at least give it my best.' If I'm going to go to work 40 or so hours a week, that's a significant investment of my time, and I might as well do the best I can during the time that I'm there. If I don't, what the heck am I doing there? If I'm going to be a husband and father, going to all that work to build a relationship with a wonderful woman and working hard to create and nurture new life with her, I might as well do the best I can with those relationships and, during the time I'm with them, give my best to them. If I'm going to participate in church, community, school, or other volunteer activities, I might as well do the best I can in planning, organizing, executing, and enjoying those activities. When I don't give these and other areas of my life the best I can offer, what is the point in investing my time and energy in them? If I do less than my best, those activities tend to become empty and meaningless and I would be better off dropping them from my life altogether.

So, here's one of the things that's been near the front of my mind for several years now - especially since many of those years have been so crowded with responsibilities. If we divide our time and energy among too many activities, we won't have enough invested in any of them to make any of them successful. We won't have achieved 'critical mass' in any area to make sparks fly and make magic happen. If that happens, we're in danger of having a totally meaningless existence since we can't do our best in any of the areas with which we engage. Once again, we're better off dropping a few things and investing enough in the remaining activities to make most or all of them successful. Otherwise, what the heck are we doing playing around with them in the first place?

On the flip side, if we focus all our energies on very few tasks, we may do them exceptionally well, to the point of being obsessed with perfection, and waste our resources when they could have had a broader impact. I've experienced both of these extremes and I have to say I am much happier and feel more fulfilled when I can find that balance of 'excellence' between the extremes of spreading myself so thin that I fail and focusing so narrowly that I become obsessed with perfection.

Can We Have Christmas Again Sometime?

I watched a move tonight with my kids. My two girls were sitting on my lap near the end; I love that they love to snuggle with me. Someone in the movie mentioned 'Christmas' and my youngest whispered to me:

"We had a Christmas before."

"That's right, sweetie. We had a Christmas once. Did you like Christmas?"

"Yeah, I liked Christmas. Daddy, can we have Christmas again sometime?"

I promised her that we'd have it again soon. My other daughter overheard and informed her sister that we'd have Christmas in three months. The little one seemed happy with that answer. Those kids say the sweetest things sometimes.

Of course, after a cute conversation like that, Christmas is on my mind now. I LOVE Christmas time! I love the feelings that seem to be shared by so many people around that time of year. Something about that time is more peaceful and pleasant than normal. At least it feels that way until we're bombarded by advertisements and messages that tell us that Christmas isn't Christmas unless we spend a lot of money. And that made me think of a song that I think helps put things in the right perspective.

It might be a little too early to be talking like this, but I love Christmas and I'm ok with celebrating it in September. I hope you are too. Enjoy.

Question Everything

I think it's important to routinely re-evaluate our assumptions, ideas, beliefs, etc. How much of what you believe is really true? One of the reasons I have a problem with dogma of any kind, whether religious, scientific, or otherwise, is that it tends to preclude debate. Having a principle or doctrine settled means that you can't question it. I think we're much better off questioning everything.

I've seen dogma kill genuine inquiry that could have led to growth and a greater understanding of truth. I've seen it happen in religion, including my own. I've seen it happen in science when scientific theories become so entrenched that no one dares to challenge them. Usually this happens when pundits, journalists, politicians, teachers, or someone else grabs a theory that suits an agenda they're trying to push and tries to stifle debate by relying on the sacrosanct nature of a particular 'theory' of science and the scientific 'experts' who say that's the way it is. This is especially unfortunate because one of the basic tenets of modern scientific inquiry is the importance of challenging theories. Sometimes scientists become arrogant enough to become closed-minded to challenges to their own pet theories, but in my experience, they are often more apt to open their minds to all possibilities and refuse to allow their science to put on the cloak of religion.

I used to be much more dogmatic and closed-minded than I am now. I think the challenges of life eventually knocked me out of my stupor and forced me to reconcile what I believed with what I observed and experienced. One really powerful catalyst for this change inside me was experiencing the death of a friend. I think death makes us question a lot of things. When I was 18, Scott, one of my best friends, was killed in a car crash. I had seen him only a few days before in a musical 'The Secret Garden' in which he played Dickon. The play, oddly enough, deals a lot with death and Dickon is one character that brings a lot of life and joy onto the stage as some of the characters are mourning the loss of loved ones. I received a phone call in the middle of the night a few days after I had seen him telling me he had died. Some friends of mine and I attended his funeral later that week. It was a wonderful funeral and I felt a strong impression that Scott was all right, he was still around, and wanted all of us to be happy. I believed many things at the time that should have been sufficient to comfort me after losing him. In spite of all of this, I was torn up inside. Years later, I read C.S. Lewis' 'A Grief Observed' and found a friend in Lewis who wasn't afraid to share his grief and his attendant doubts with the world. I had an awful time too and I found myself in subsequent months re-examining many of my own beliefs, trying to come to terms with the loss of one of my best friends.

Death makes us question things. But so does any difficult time. A few years ago, faced with one of the darkest times in my life, I realized that there were inconsistencies in my belief system. I know of no good way to create a belief system from scratch that is guaranteed to be in line with truth, but I do know a good way to find out whether a given belief system is true. If it's not self consistent, it can't be true. Truth can't contradict itself. It took me years to discover it, but the dark times brought me to the realization that my beliefs contradicted themselves in fundamental ways. Thank God for challenges. And may I never be so blessed again. I was forced to open my mind to the possibility that I had been dreadfully wrong all my life about my most basic and treasured beliefs.

Choosing to question everything is a scary proposition. I found that stepping out on a limb like that required courage, but I came to the point of feeling like my integrity was at stake and I couldn't live like that. I had to examine everything, even my most basic beliefs, and question the value of them. As I examined this structure of faith I had built up over the years, I found that a lot of foundational building blocks had holes in them. I was afraid to tear it all down and start over because I didn't know what I would have at the end. But I did it because I felt I had no choice. I had to maintain my integrity even if that meant abandoning things I had held dear all my life. I ultimately made the decision that I would refuse to be comforted by a false position and I would find the truth no matter what it cost me.

After going through this process to a large extent (and I don't think the process will ever really end because I'm constantly evaluating and re-evaluating things I know and believe based on new experiences and new information), I described some of my experience to a friend. He gave me some really sage advice that I kind of wished I had had at the beginning of my experience, but in hindsight, perhaps would have alleviated my struggles too much and made them less meaningful. He told me that it might be natural to be afraid to do that kind of self-examination, but that fear was probably unnecessary - because in the end, the truth I found probably wouldn't be that much different than what I had believed in the first place. I was stunned because that is exactly what I had discovered. My beliefs didn't change radically, but they did change in fundamental and important ways. Many things I had believed simply had to be tweaked a little to bring them in line with a self-consistent philosophy and worldview. I came to appreciate the complexities of human reasoning and the importance of searching out truth for oneself. I don't believe that all truth is relative, but I do believe that each person has to find his/her own way to obtain it. Relying on an expert or a leader just isn't sufficient. Experts and leaders are humans too.

One of my church's early leaders, Brigham Young, in 1862 said some very appropriate things related to the concept of being open-minded and questioning everything in a religious context. On one occasion, he said, "The great masses of the people neither think nor act for themselves. ... I see too much of this gross ignorance among this chosen people of God."

On another occasion, "What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not."

Which brings up one last important point - don't think you're smart enough to find the truth all by yourself. While questioning everything, seek wisdom from God. Ask Him humbly and sincerely for help in understanding. He is the only source of truth I have found to be infallible.

Walt Whitman

I've been reading Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' in recent months. It's slow going; you can't digest Whitman too quickly. He has an incredible gift for expression. He makes beauty and emotion and passion for life come alive. His work is truly beautiful. Here are some examples I read tonight.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Roaming in Thought
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.

Beautiful Women
Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
The young are beautiful - but the old are more beautiful than the young.

Thought
Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who do not believe in men.

O Me! O Life!
O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here - that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

I Sit and Look Out
I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame,
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done,
I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate,
I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer of young women,
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, I see these sights on the earth,
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd to preserve the lives of the rest,
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these - all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour
Hast never come to thee an hour,
A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth?
These eager business aims - books, politics, art, amours,
To utter nothingness?

PhD

A year ago, I received my Ph.D. in electrical engineering. It took me six years to complete while I was working full-time. I'm still not sure how I did it that fast. I feel very blessed to have completed it as quickly as I did.

I've been reflecting recently how nice it is to be done. I have time with my family, time to myself, time to exercise, study, play, ... and blog. Most of all, I feel a great sense of freedom without, what my boss used to call, that 'monkey on my back'. It demanded so much of my attention and energy that everything else in my life suffered. It was a wonderful growing experience for me to get my Ph.D. that way and I am so grateful for all that I learned struggling through those years, but I would NEVER do it again. :)

If you're thinking about getting a degree while you have a family, especially if you have to work full-time, think hard about what it will demand from you. Maybe it's the right choice - I know it was for me. But it will most likely be harder than you imagined. That reminds me of something my wife's doctor said when she told him she wanted to give birth naturally. "It's going to hurt much worse than you think." He was right.

Behind the Times

I realized the other day that I'm getting old. And it's not because I looked in the mirror. I sat there thinking of how I am stuck in the 90s, maybe the first decade of the new millennium - how do you say that? Am I stuck in the 2000s? Or the 00s?

Anyway, I'm so old that my main medium of electronic communication is email! I don't twitter; I don't facebook; I don't text; and I don't care. I have started a blog, but that might also brand me an old fogie. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to send letters in the mail. That's a good sign, but I'm still woefully behind.

I don't own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod. I don't even own a generic MP3 player. I use CDs!!! The good news on that front is that I threw away my old cassette tapes when I bought a new car this year because that old car had the last cassette player we owned that worked. Whew!

I don't ever expect to catch up with the times. Like my grandmother, who was stuck in the 50s and refused to ever buy a touch tone phone (she only ever owned rotary phones), I will probably forever be stuck in the 90s. When email and blogs are relics of the past, they will be my only lifeline to communicate with others. I do have a faint hope of retaining the archaic ability of talking. Perhaps, when email and blogs go away, I can fall back on that.

100 Years

I came across this song '100 Years' by Five for Fighting on pandora.com. I had heard it before, but it really caught my attention that time. I got the sheet music and I've been playing and singing it for my family lately. I'm working on my falsetto - it doesn't sound quite as nice as his yet ...



This guy is great. His has a musical style I really like, his lyrics are thoughtful, even poetic, and his videos are really cool. This one has some cool effects that make the lyrics come alive.

Two Useful Perspectives on Life

A few years ago, I began to imagine what my life would be like without my wife. Our relationship may not be perfect, but on the whole, it's been a really positive thing for both of us. There have ups and downs that have lasted for years and ups and downs that last for only days or even hours. But even in the down times, I think we would both agree that it has been a positive thing for us. At times, the positive lay simply in the growth that came from the struggle. Or maybe we just learned what NOT to do. But most of the time, it has been a source of joy and comfort in the midst of external struggles.

So, imagining my life without Emily is not a happy thought. But for various reasons, I made it very real for myself a few years ago. What if my life with Emily ended tomorrow? What if we had a month left together? What if we had a year? What would we do with that remaining time? Let's just pretend we knew one of us was going to die and we had a fixed time together. Maybe we even knew how long that time would be. Would we do anything differently? Would we talk differently to one another? Are there activities we would do in that situation that we aren't doing now? If so, why are we not doing them?

Now, most of the time, I imagined Emily dying because that seemed to be the more difficult situation for me, but imagining either one was interesting. It's odd to say that in imagining losing Emily and working through this possibility mentally, I went through some grief that, while unfounded, was very real to me. I imagined what it would be like to lose her. I imagined the feelings inside me as I attended her funeral. I imagined how I would pay tribute to her while grieving together with my children. I imagined what it would take for me to support my family financially. I imagined how I would help my children through their grief.

Does this experiment of mine sound morbid to you? It seemed morbid to me at times, but I'll tell you some good things that came from it. Ever since I got married, I have been afraid of the possibility of losing my wife whenever I have taken time to think about it. Having worked through all of this in my mind, I'm not afraid of that anymore. I got over my own fear of death long before I got over the fear of losing Emily. I'm happy to say that, while I don't desire either my death or hers, I'm not afraid of either one happening. Casting out that fear and others like it has left a very peaceful and confident feeling in their place.

It's also not an unrealistic perspective. I have been reminded of the reality of death in recent weeks as two friends of mine have lost family members. I know a little of how that feels. As a teenager, I lost one of my best friends in a car accident. It tore me up inside and it took months for me to heal. I fell deeply in love with my wife and I came to realize that losing her would be one of the hardest things I have ever dealt with. Losing my friend years ago was a terribly difficult experience. Losing my wife would be worse. Hopefully God won't demand that of me anytime soon, but if He does, I think I'm a little better prepared than I was before I went through this thought experiment.

I found that by thinking about life as if it was always about to end, I was able to examine a lot of the things I did and change them. Petty things that used to seem important suddenly didn't seem very important when I imagined the most important relationship in my life might be snatched away from me tomorrow. By looking at life as if it would end tomorrow ... or maybe today, I was able to treat Emily (and others) in a way that reflected how I would want things to end. Many things became more positive for me because I was always imagining that the actions I take or the words I speak at any moment could be the last they ever see or hear from me. There's one useful perspective on life - imaging it will end soon.

A second perspective I have found useful is imagining the opposite. Imagine it will go on forever. There are times when I picture Emily and I going on forever just as we are now. I don't really want that because change is one of the things I value in life, but the value I see in that perspective is in balancing the morbid perspective. There's obvious value in imagining that every word you say might be your last. But if you're only thinking about the imminence of death, you'll never make plans for the future. Imagining that life will go on forever allows me to step back and say, 'ok, life could end tomorrow, but imagining it will go on forever, where do I want to be in a year ... in five years ... in twenty five years?' The long-term perspective helps me make plans for the future and helps me to find a balance in the care I give to immediate actions as well as long-term ones.

Does that make any sense?

Teaching

I've had a lot of opportunities to teach lately. Here are some examples. Yesterday, I taught two recitation sections of a college class. It was so much fun! I'm slated to teach a few hours of a professional short course next month. I taught part of a short course once a few years ago and I really enjoyed it, so I think it will be great to do it again. I'm hoping we can do it more often. Starting in January, I'll be teaching a college class two or three times a week during spring semester. I've also had several opportunities to do some volunteer teaching in my church lately. I love to teach and all of these opportunities have been coming at me recently. It has been wonderful.

It's hard to explain exactly why I love teaching, but it's very satisfying to me. I invest a part of myself in the class and offer that piece of me to my students. It's very satisfying when the students find value in what I'm offering to them and I love the feeling I get when I watch someone's eyes light up with new understanding. That's a lot of fun. It's also extremely useful to me personally to teach a concept to someone else because it requires that I think the concept through thoroughly and present it in a way that makes it accessible to someone or a group of people based on my evaluation of their background and current understanding. That process of examining the concept and presenting it to someone else helps cement the concept in my own mind and makes it much more my own.

I have a similar experience when I write. A part of me floats out of my soul and into my writing, which I offer to the world. One medium through which I offer myself is this blog. I also find that the process of organizing my thoughts enough to write them is illuminating in a way that's similar to the thought process I have to go through in order to teach something. Writing is, I suppose, one mechanism by which we can teach. Maybe that's one of the reasons I enjoy this blog. I don't, however, view this blog as solely a teaching tool. It just has some of the same advantages that teaching has. It's more a medium through which I can express myself and solidify my thinking.

The only frustrating thing is that sometimes I seek feedback to see if I'm connecting with my students and all I get are blank stares and silence. That happened a couple of times yesterday. When it happens, I just forge ahead hoping that what I'm offering is of value to the students. With feedback, it works better, but it's still fun without it.

I'm enjoying this blog and I'll keep writing whether I get feedback or not because of the value I find in doing it. Some of you have offered feedback on my blog through the comments section, by email, or in person. Thank you. If you're interested enough to be reading this, please consider telling me what you think of my writing, my ideas, or anything else on your mind. Writing is still fun without it, but feedback makes it more satisfying somehow.