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?