Holier-Than-Thou Badges

Perhaps you have a few. Such badges are common where one's interest-at-hand is different from the general population. Here are some examples of Holier-Than-Thou badges, plus an entirely-too-sarcastic-and-exaggerated-and-thus-purely-hypothetical blurb from a hypothetical holder of such a badge. The bolded indicates the Holier-Than-Thou badge.

• Point-and-shoot cameras vs. SLRs (single lens reflex)
  "Ha, good luck taking any sort of professional grade pictures with that little thing. Do you even know how to change your aperture settings? I would choke if I had to use a point-and-shoot" And further within the photography realm...



• Manual focusing vs. auto focusing lenses
  "Have fun with your precious auto focus in low light conditions, while my $500,000 focusing screen and vintage f/0.4 lens gets it perfect every time. I could never go back to auto focus."



• Making your own computers vs. buying pre-assembled computers from Dell, HP, etc.
  "My computer is so much more powerful per dollar because I didn't have to pay myself $90/hr for labor. I would choke if I had to buy an assembled computer."



• Linux vs. Windows
  "Bow before me, mortals, I am so cool because I use Linux, death to everything Windows. BTW I am non-conformist for the sake of non-conformity.
"


• Traditional board games vs. Euro/German style board games
  "I'd much rather push wooden cubes around in a non-confrontational manner than bleed you dry in Monopoly."



• Store-bought vs. home-grown vegetables
  "The vegetables from our yard are so much higher in vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant content than your store-bought vegetables. Have fun dying of cancer."

The next few get a bit more relateable to any readers we still have left, mostly because I have/had personal experience with computers, cameras, and gardening and can't think of any others. And BTW, there is a point to this post besides being a vent or a rant; I shall put it after the list which follows.

• Homeschooling vs. institutional schooling
  "My homeschooler read Cicero's Greatest Hits in its original Greek, translated Swaziland's constitution into Latin for fun during his free time, and built a particle accelerator in his closet and has collected 153g of antimatter so far. What does your public schooler do with his time?"



• Cloth diapers vs. disposable
  "Cloth diapers are better for you, better for baby, better for life, and a prerequisite to enter Heaven."



• Avoiding trans-fats vs. Not
  "Avoiding trans-fats is better for you, better for the world, and a prerequisite to enter Heaven."



• Having many children vs. Not
  "I guess those people just don't view children as God's blessings."



• Grinding your own grain vs. white flour or store-bought whole wheat flour
  "You don't grind your own wheat? No wonder you're fat and diabetic."



• Backyard eggs vs. store bought
  "I guess those people just don't view fresh eggs as God's blessings. Oh, and backyard eggs are a prerequisite for entering Heaven."



• Natural childbirth vs. Not
  "BLARGH epidural anesthesia now, methamphetamine I.V. later."

In recent years, I have become much more sensitive to exhuding a Holier-Than-Thou attitude in my writing, speech, and actions. In discussing the topic with Harmony, both of us agree that our miscarriages and fertility woes were a big catalyst in changing the way we presented ourselves. For the duration of this blog post, I will refer to the period before miscarriages and fertility as BM&I, for "Before Miscarriages and Infertility."

BM&I, it was always my (our?) intention to have more children at this point in our marriage. After all, having lots of children is an indicator of God's blessing on a married couple living in holy matrimony, and we were pretty good people, right? Well. Then June 19, 2007 happened and our lives were never the same again. October 15, 2007 happened and set in stone that our thinking would never go back to BM&I mentality.

Miscarriages and infertility dampened our self-righteous tendencies quite a bit. Pregnancies and children were no longer Holier-Than-Thou badges to be smuggly flaunted, they were more like "oh-my-goodness-what-you-have-is-SUCH-a-blessing,if-you-had-any-idea-what-it's-like-to-not-be-able-to-have-that-you-would-spend-the-rest-of-your-life-cherishing-it/her/him." Viable pregnancies were something to be maddeningly but cautiously nervously grateful for, not casually addressed as "oh another blessing here and on the way, sweet, let's see how many tons of tomatoes we got today."

We discovered that, hey, you know, it doesn't quite feel great to hear people on blogs or blog comments boasting of God's blessings and their family size and implying that smaller families were that way because they actively rejected the blessings, in light of what had just happened. And I'm sure these people (I honestly do not remember any specific instances anymore) did not intend to come off that way, but that's the way I read things during that time. Losing hope for our "Has Many Children" badge humbled us in that area, as well as all the others. If it was that unpleasant to hear self-righteousness in one area, then it must be unpleasant in others as well. After all, who wants to feel like they are being condescended and condemned because of their choice of gardening philosophy or where they get their eggs?

I wish we had not had to endure the post-BM&I period, but good came of it. This is how life is, though - God gives us trials to help refine our character. I cringe to think what my thoughts might be if we'd had a honeymoon baby and easy children born at 1 year intervals after that. "Well anyone who rejects God's blessings shouldn't cry about it when they have difficult children. Well those people [who might have untold fertility issues or whatever, none of your business] obviously are rejecting God's blessings...I mean their first daughter is 2 and the mom isn't pregnant yet..??" You get the idea. Post BM&I, there's a greatly reduced (but still non-zero, as we are sinners) probability that such presumptuous thoughts will cross our minds.

In the end, all of these Holier-Than-Thou badges might come to us. I would, of course, welcome having many children, which is the Holier-Than-Thou badge which has proven most elusive to us. But perhaps God thought that it would be better for us to take the long route there, so that we could be fully grateful for what God has given us, with much less self-righteousness than if He'd given the blessings to us right away. But even if He chooses not to give us any more children, at least we'll be much less likely to be self-righteous, Holier-Than-Thou bags of hot air.

Thoughts about Proverbs 30:7-9

I quoted the passage in a previous post concerning being content with little, and here are a few more thoughts I thought warranted their own post.

These are a few verses which I find come to mind more times than statistically insignificant:

7Two things I asked of You,
Do not refuse me before I die:
8Keep deception and lies far from me,
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion,
9That I not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the LORD?"
Or that I not be in want and steal,
And profane the name of my God.

I don't know why, but these verses stuck with me ever since the first time I read them, which was I-don't-know-when, probably during the college years. I suppose the purpose of this brief post is to write/"talk" "out loud" to figure it out.

One of the reasons is that I perceive it as a very down-to-earth and understandable passage. No premillenial, preterist eschatology or transubstantial this-or-that. The writer is able to sympathize with the condition of someone in need, of someone who's tempted to steal in order to fulfill his (or presumably extending to his family's) needs. With a couple of very important exceptions, the Bible is filled with all sorts of imperfect people living life in imperfect ways and thinking imperfect thoughts. With good reason, as I believe is illustrated in this passage, since we imperfect humans are much better able to empathize with fellow imperfect humans.

Another reason I like it is that it seems that it's fine to not take a voluntary vow of poverty, in being a Christian. God does not call us all to be either very rich or very poor. In fact, this passage would imply that it's dangerous to be at either extreme. I do find it comforting that I am not necessarily called to take my family and live in a cardboard box ;)

On the other hand, living in (one of?) the wealthiest nation(s) in the world, it is also a stern warning not to forget God in the pursuit of or the wallowing-in of riches. I also talked about this more in the aforementioned post I linked to at the top.

Being Content with Little

Recently, we had a missionary preacher at our church to speak about his experiences and stir up interest for a Vacation Bible School that would be happening in Jamaica in July. Among other things, he had a long set of Powerpoint slides detailing pictures and experiences while doing foreign missionary work.

A couple of items stood out most to me, and those would be mentions of droves of people being baptized at once or coming from afar to attend services; and mentions of people living in sub-poverty conditions (by American standards) yet being content with what they had. After thinking about it for a bit, I do not think these two items (enthusiasm for the Gospel + contentment despite poverty) are independent.

One particular anecdote stood out to me. He recounted his experience with a Jamaican women with 6 children, 2 of whom she had not given birth to. He showed a picture of her hut, which consisted of scrap lumber, plywood, and sheet metal, probably scavenged from wherever she could find it. Obviously there were no utilities / luxuries such as running water, electricity, climate control. Yet he also showed a picture of a handwritten sign she had in her house, which said something along the lines of "Thank You God for providing for all my needs."

At this point, it's quite appropriate to mention Proverbs 30:7-9, one of my favorites. Usually when I am asked to say the prayer before the offering/contribution, I make some mention of the principle(s) in this passage:

7Two things I asked of You,
Do not refuse me before I die:
8Keep deception and lies far from me,
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion,
9That I not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the LORD?"
Or that I not be in want and steal,
And profane the name of my God.

That particular Sunday, on the way home, we had a conversation about why we seemed to hear such stories (foreign/third world people flocking to hear the message) from missionaries but never as much from people living in industrialized countries. We theorized a couple of reasons. People in such countries: 1) have grown up exposed to less-than-optimal representations of what they think is Christianity, thus growing calloused to the true Gospel, 2) have the "riches" spoken of in verse 8, thus not really feeling a need to add piety on top of their shopping list. After all, we are all too busy making money to go to church and think a few spiritual thoughts every now and then. And let's not forget Matthew 19:23-24:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

We are no doubt "rich" here in America. Our grocery stores are always stocked, our pantries just as much, gas prices are reasonable even if they have risen recently, we have nice cars, and our houses are comparatively gigantic. Most of us, fully including me, have no idea what it is like to be truly poor. Thus, as Christians, we must be careful to be content with what we have (or much less) and not covet more and more that we don't truly need. There are more important things in life than stuff.

Why Parents Think Their Children Are So Smart

I would guess that it has something to do with the fact that when they first met their children, the ability to support one's own head was considered a milestone far off in the future. The child came into the world being able to do basically 2 or 3 things. Think of it as being that any positive number is infinitely greater than 0.

Now, I have no explanation for why parents think their own children are the most beautiful children in the world, because I have seen some pretty not-beautiful babies and children. Such a thing can only be explained as a feeling/thought that is divinely placed ;)

Does anyone have better theories?

"Muslim First, Then American"

I have read that Major Nidal Hasan (the Fort Hood guy, for anyone who lives in a cave, in which case that means your cave has internet access, which is really cool..) considered himself a Muslim first, American second.

Would I be classified as a dangerous individual then, since I am a Christian first, American second? After all, I am an alien and stranger to this world, and my first allegiance is to God. (then again, I do not seek to do violence against anybody, so maybe the government would not consider me a threat) Indeed, I believe this should be the view of any devout Christian. I don't believe that being a Christian (or Muslim, or Mormon, etc...) above all else automatically makes someone a dangerous person.

In searching for the phrase "muslim first then american," I came across this interesting blog post from September 2006. It's from a blog called Muslims For a Safe America, and the particular post shows the results of a survey of 307 American citizen Muslims who were attending an Islamic Society of North American conference. Here's one of the interesting questions:

Do you consider yourself to be a Muslim first, an American first, or both equally?
MUSLIM FIRST 214 (70%)
AMERICAN FIRST 4 (1%)
BOTH EQUALLY 86 (28%)
DID NOT ANSWER 3 (1%)

Well, I got news for people who are outraged over this Muslim-first-American-second bit. If this surveyed group is at all representative of the general Muslim population, then an overwhelming majority of Muslims consider themselves Muslims first, Americans second.

Then again, Major Hasan was in the military, otherwise known as the blow-stuff-up arm of the United States government. It seems to me that anyone who voluntarily joins the U.S. military ought to do so partly out of a desire to keep Americans safe, and at least not harbor terroristic ideologies.

Here are some more interesting results from the survey:
Did Muslims hijack planes and fly them into buildings on 9/11?
YES 117 (38%)
NO 139 (45%)
DID NOT ANSWER 51 (17%)

This one is puzzling, and would've been nice if the people answering "NO" had a chance to explain their answers. Is it that they do not believe that the hijackers were not true Muslims, or is it that they believe that blonde haired blue eyed John Smiths were the real hijackers and the media is in on a big conspiracy to cover up that fact?

If you learned about a plot by Muslims to attack targets inside America, would you tell law enforcement authorities?
YES 234 (76%)
NO 39 (13%)
DID NOT ANSWER 34 (11%)

While I'm glad that 76% would notify authorities, it's a bit unsettling that 13% would not. Then there are the 11% of the surveyed who did not answer this question. What would they do? Why did they not answer? Fear of retribution from other Muslims, due to being a snitch? Or fear of answering the question because their answer was "no"?

Why Does Linguini Exist?

Really, what is the point of linguini? You want round noodles? You got spaghetti. You want flat noodles? Let me introduce you to fettuccine. What can linguini do that spaghetti or fettuccine can't?

Someone just got lazy one day while making fettuccine (crushed spaghetti) and said "I don't feel like squashing as much today, I'll invent something called linguini and then my laziness can be disguised as a revolutionary new product."

Friends and Common Interests

For some time now, I have noticed that most of the people we have invite to our house are people with whom we share a number of common values/items. Although I can't recall specifics, I do remember that at least one point in my life, church leadership poo-poo'ed on spending lots of time with people who you had lots of things in common with. But is that so wrong?

Inevitably, someone will say "well you shouldn't let your other relationships suffer at the expense of your really good friends," or "you shouldn't ONLY spend time with those people." Equally inevitably, I will say, "I didn't say that."
If I recall correctly, in the whole time that we have had our house, the only people we have invited over are church friends, family, or friends who we used to go to church with. Out of the invitees who currently attend our church, all but one of those couples have been homeschoolers or future homeschoolers. It's just who we gravitate towards. After all, if you attend our church, and homeschool, then it's probably pretty certain that we share a LOT of the same values. Even without the homeschooling characteristics, I would guess that many people in our church share many similar views.

I'm sure it's very possible to have friends with whom I share very very little in common - these would be people who I just enjoy their company. I can think of one college classmate who was like this. But even with this guy, I shared some common ground. He was a physics major as well, and we had similar senses of humor. I believe he was liberal, and by that I mean truly liberal in the sense of the word, instead of lefty communist liberal.

But think about it. Someone who is the complete opposite of you in every way possible while still being homo sapien. Your hair color is different, your life outlook is different, your chief deity is different; you eat health food, she eats fast food every meal; you are handsome/beautiful, she looks like the offspring of an angler fish and a greasy rag; he puts the toilet paper on so the end comes over the top, you like it to come from the bottom (you are strange); she squeezes the tube from the middle, you squeeze from the bottom (consequently, you rock); you think Dumb and Dumber is a prized piece of cinematic artwork, he thinks it's the dumbest movie ever made; you know Han shot first, he thinks Greedo shot first (in which case, you are right). The list of differences can stretch for miles or kilometers.

Do any of you have friends who share none of your values or interests?

(In the interest of full disclosure, I don't think I can be friends with anyone who believes that Greedo shot first)

Baby Shower Etiquette

Dear Miss Manners and Gentle Readers of this Blog,

My mom is, understandably, very excited about her new grandbaby and has gone completely crazy buying baby clothes. She has been so generous that our drawers are already full and we have started resorting to packing away larger clothes in the closet. And between her, my sister, and a very generous friend at church, we now have nearly all the essentials we need for this baby (crib, car seat, swing, bouncer, bath, high chair, boppy...). The only essentials we are lacking are cloth diapers.

I would love to have a devoted cloth diaper shower, but my friends are likely to want to buy a gift in person rather than online. Almost all cloth diapers must be purchased online, early enough to ship to the buyer before the shower. How can I politely encourage my friends to buy what I need and refrain from buying cute baby clothes and disposable diapers ("just in case you decide you don't like cloth") without making them feel inconvenienced by a cloth diaper shower?

And if they do buy me disposable diapers that I do not plan to use and clothing that couldn't possibly fit into our drawers, is it too impolite to return those items to the store provided I send the gift giver a nice thank-you card?

Sincerely Yours,
Harmony

The Definition of Insanity

For whatever reason, the following phrase popped into my mind the other day: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Next time someone says that to you, you can tell them that that is not true. The true dictionary definitions of insanity are as follow:
1. the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind.
2. Law. such unsoundness of mind as affects legal responsibility or capacity.
3. Psychiatry. (formerly) psychosis.
4. extreme folly; senselessness; foolhardiness.

I looked up the phrase in question, and apparently it is a quotation of Albert Einstein. Fitting, because Einstein was never too comfortable with the idea of an inherently probabilistic (i.e. inherently random) quantum interactions.

Actually, if you think about it, there are some things where you can do the same thing over and over again and expect to get different results. Flipping coins and rolling dice come to mind.

Puzzling Rebels

Rebellious and/or wild young people. Or just young people who are sort of "out there" in more ways than the average young person. You probably know a few of them yourself.

Compared to their decidedly more average peers, I have observed that a higher percentage of these RWYP seem to go into the military. This does not make much sense to me. "I'm rebellious and I'm wild and I don't like other people telling me what to do and I resent authorities. So I'm going to join the military, where people are always telling me what to do and where I'll likely always have authorities over me."

Here are some of my theories. (I mean absolutely no offense to past/present/future military personnel or families thereof. I really can't figure it out though.)

• They want to see the world?


• They know they need to get a semblance of discipline and order in their lives?


• It's a job from which they won't likely get rejected?


• They want to "make a difference?"


• They want to prove how tough they are?


• They want to handle guns and kill people legally?

Perhaps you are, were, knew, or know one of these RWYP. If so, please enlighten me.

Small Town Life and Family History

For a few days this week, Harmony and I took her maternal grandmother up to Virginia for the funeral of one of her grandmother's cousins. Much of Harmony's family originates from a tiny town called Ivor, and that's where we were. I met lots of third cousins, second cousins, removed cousins, etc. etc. etc.

This was a new experience for me. On TV, I have heard of towns where one does not need to lock doors. Ivor is one of those towns. I personally experienced that when the deceased cousin's family left early for the visitation and left the house to us, with no key. We just left the lights on and departed when we needed to.

The more interesting part of the trip was family history. Harmony's grandmother grew up in Ivor. These were times when most of your neighbors were related to you somehow. These were times when street names had actual meaning; many of them were named for people that her grandmother actually knew. We got commentary on most of the houses we passed on the road: some sort of cousin or uncle or aunt or friend had lived at this-or-that house. It was quite interesting.

The best part was when we got a tour of the house that grandmother's mother grew up in. It's still there, and it's been slightly modernized, but the house is largely the same house. To give you an idea of how long that property's been there, there were actually slave quarters. They were separate buildings close to the house, with little insulation. Still standing, but not habitable anymore. Aside from school trips and recreations, I had never seen something like that before. There's just something fascinating about walking in and being somewhere where you have a real connection to history.

History is much more interesting when you have a personal connection to it (even if you are merely married in to the connection). Sure, it would be interesting to inherit old Bibles. Even better would be to inherit old Bibles that were actually used by ancestors. Walking through old houses is fine and dandy. Even better is walking through old houses that your ancestors built, lived in, worked in, and came in to at the end of a hard day's work.

I don't get that much with my Korean family. Most of my extended family resides many thousands of miles away, so I rarely hear talk of the old days. I don't think my parents have many heirlooms in the house, if any. If those still exist, they are in Korea. One of these days I will have to ask my parents about family history and the like. In the mean time, I am glad to have married into a family whose roots are but a day's drive away.

No Cable? Yes Please

A couple of days ago, we were on the way to church and listening to the radio. Someone mentioned a large sum of money, like $250 billion or so. We marveled at how much money that was, and that it was probably more money than any normal person would know what to do with. So we started counting ways we would buy if we were trying to spend it all. Obligatory talk of building a dream home (wrap-around porch and a good basement are "necessities" in our dream home), building a mountain cabin, good speakers for sound system, flat screen TV....cable TV?

<aside>
Allow me to save face for a minute, for after all, "Riches we heed not." These things we named are NOT things that we constantly drool over and aspire towards as our life goals. We were just trying to figure out how on earth we could spend $250 billion if we absolutely had to. Like, if someone were held a gun to our heads and said "Spend." (but not that severe)
</aside>

No, when we got to cable TV, neither of us had any desire to subscribe. This is not to say that we don't enjoy a few TV shows every now and then. We liked, and still do like, Mythbusters, although we haven't watched an episode in about a year. And well, uh...I must sheepishly admit that I'm hooked on the Terminator TV series. So much for shunning popular culture, huh? That is the first show since Star Trek Voyager (which ended in May 2001) that I watch on a weekly basis.

I just don't feel like I need cable anymore. Even when we go to houses that do have cable, we don't feel the urge to catch up on cable TV shows, like we did when we first got married and no longer had cable. It would be a waste of money for us too, since we would pay for all these channels and only watch about...3 or 4 of them. Two of those would probably be ESPN and ESPN2.

I am not saying that having cable is immoral. Cable is what you make of it. In fact, you don't even need cable to watch lots of TV. I watch Terminator through the rabbit ears. Plenty of other popular shows are available on broadcast television, such as American Idol or Dancing with the Stars (or whatever else is popular right now, I don't really know). TV can be immoral depending on what you watch, or it can be a fairly neutral factor in your life. It can potentially also be a fattening factor in your life too. We try to minimize its effect on our life.

What about you? Can you ditch the cable? Do you feel like you "need" cable? How many shows or channels do you watch? Or have you already ditched it?

Humans are Inherently Unreliable

...so don't rely on them. You can scarcely hope to control the actions of any person. But hope only goes so far. The person you can best control is yourself, so do your best to ensure that you don't come upon failure.

Sometimes you're waiting for a phone call. The importance doesn't matter; it varies from as important as "I found a kidney donor, you can keep your's," to "I'll call before I come over." Person X is late to lunch, sending ripples through your schedule which result in a fast food dinner, grumpy moods, and late bedtimes. Ever really needed someone to pull through for you in crunch time, and that person never came through?

The collection of Old Testament quotations in Romans 3:10-18 state that humans are fallen and sinful. Now, just because someone lets you down doesn't mean that he did it on purpose. Perhaps it was an honest mistake. Or perhaps it was due to laziness or sloth. On the other side, you must realize that everyone else is just as busy or busier than you are, and that you are not everyone else's first priority. Thinking so is the sin of pride. The fallen-ness and sinful-ness of humans reaches both the let-downer and let-downee as well.

Although I've only experienced 25 years of life, plenty of people have let me down and have not kept their word on various items. My point is that as far as it concerns you, do not hang your life's plans (figurative hyperbole) on the word of another person. You will be let down. As I said before, the person you can best control is yourself, so take your own measures to eliminate the consequences of human failure.

Some examples:

• Don't rely on the I'm-coming-over-now phone call as a reminder to start your house cleaning - do it ahead of time.


• Don't rely on people to be on time - build some fudge time into your schedule or don't schedule things so close to one another.


• A related one is not to rely on people to be good judges of times, e.g. "It'll only take me 10 minutes to finish" but it ends up taking 30 minutes. Joe or Sally says 10 minutes. Joe and Sally are chronically late people. Multiply their estimates by 2 or 3.


• Don't rely on people to call you when they say they will - if it's something very important, you call them.


• Related to that one is when you're trying to get services from a business. You sit back and wait, trusting that they will get to your request ASAP. They are a busy business and the squeaky wheel gets the grease or the oil or whatever the saying is. Be pushy, otherwise you are on the bottom of the pile.

Of course, there are people who are very good about integrity and keeping their word. Those people are a breath of fresh air. A Christian should seek to be like that, for a Christian's yes should be yes and no should be no; there should be no need to say things like "I swear I will do this for you." From a Christian, "I will" or "I won't" should give you all the reassurance you need.

This is not to say that I hate everyone who lets me down. As aforementioned, I know that I am not the center of everyone else's universe. As a Christian, I try to extend grace whenever I am able, because God gives grace to me on a immensely or infinitley larger scale. I know that I will let people down (although I'll try not to), and I hope they will extend grace to me as well.

What do you think? Do you agree with what I've said? Am I too jaded? Care to share any examples of inherently unreliable humans in your life?

What Everyone Else is Doing: 9/11 Post

I usually balk at doing something that everyone else is doing, but here is my 9/11 blog post. You've probably read a billion of these sorts of recollections and are tired of them by now. I don't expect anyone that doesn't know me in person to read this whole thing. And I promise I won't be offended if you pass over "another one of those 9/11 blog posts." In case you, for some reason, want to read another one, here you go.

Have you ever talked to anyone who doesn't remember what they were doing that day? I find it quite interesting how you probably wouldn't be able to recall with clarity the events of 9/10/2001, but 9/11/2001 is ingrained in consciousness. That said, here is what was going on in my life.

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It was my freshman year of college. Since it was a Tuesday, I think the only thing on my plate for the day was Calculus I recitation and history later at 3 or 4-ish. In the morning, I went to the registrar's office to see if I could drop my 2 credit history class (since I had found out that I might not need it) while still remaining a full time student (full-time is >= 12 credits, and dropping history would've dropped me to 11 credits). I think I was talking to a secretary who had a radio on, and I heard that someone had crashed a plane into the World Trade Center.

That night, I went to sleep declaring to myself that 9/11/2001 was the worst day in American history.

I thought it might've been a radio station joke, since they pull these sorts of pranks and stunts sometimes. I asked if it was a joke, and I think she stated that she didn't know. Thoughts filled my head on what had to have gone wrong for someone to accidentally crash a plane into a skyscraper. Then I heard that a second plane had hit. A bit slow on the uptake, I found myself wondering what an astronomically large coincidence that was.

I never did drop that history class.

There are gaps in my memory between walking out of the registrar's office and then being glued to the TV all day. I have a mental image of walking past the football stadium in a dazed manner...I remember that upon reaching my floor, one of my neighbors asked if I'd heard that the Pentagon had been bombed. Although I don't recall for sure, I'd hope that at this point, I would've started to get suspicious that these weren't just unplanned, unfortunate accidents.

As I mentioned before, I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV. Perhaps the first half of the day was spent in shock and denial. When I watched the towers collapse, I think I said aloud "This has got to be some sort of orchestrated stunt. These things do not happen in real life. They only happen in the movies. You've got to be kidding me." I waited for the news anchors to burst out laughing and say "Joke's on you!" but that never happened.

That night, I went to sleep declaring to myself that 9/11/2001 was the worst day in American history.

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Feel free to post your recollections, if you wish. Do you know of anyone (besides young children) who doesn't remember their circumstances on that day?

Disorganized, Semi-Related Vignettes on Government

What follows was once an attempt at a cohesive, well-meshed, well-crafted blog post, but eventually decayed into random paragraphical vignettes which are only vaguely related to their immediate neighbors. Consider yourself warned that this is not the best example of my writing composition abilities.

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"Submission" seems to be a dirty word in today's vernacular. But in fact, I consider it an important factor that facilitates an orderly society.

Are we, as citizens, free to do as we choose? To a certain extent. We are bound by laws, such as the law against killing people (unless you're sanctioned by the state), or the law against keeping donkeys in bathtubs (if you're from Georgia). Whatever your reasons for following laws, the fact remains that you are in submission to something, whether it's your own moral code (for you relativists out there), the Bible, or merely submission to the law itself.

Although the military has the most physical power and could make an attempt to rule by force, it chooses to defer to civilian authority. Civilians are the ones who direct the military; in turn, the U.S. constitution is what gives civilians the authority to do so. If the military did not choose to submit to the constitution and defer leadership to civilian authority, this society would degrade one of rule by power. Do what they say or they'll shoot you. Sic semper tyrannis, I'd hope.

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This portion inspired by comment #2 by JDavidB on the Common Room post on Government Nannies.

So the constitution is the ultimate law of the land, and it submits to no one. But wait, no it's not, and no it doesn't. It's the mob that is the law of the land. In case you have forgotten your civics, elected lawmakers (put in office by citizenry) can amend the constitution and, in fact, have done so many times. As long as you have a good sizable majority, the mob decides what is right and what is wrong. You'd better hope that the mob has some semblance of morality. Or that your views line up with the majority's.

(Christians cannot and should not assume that their views will line up with the world's.)

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Of course, most people in the western world would balk at the idea that democracy is not the most divinely perfect form of government (started by the equally divine Greeks), as JDavidB states in aforementioned comment #2. (There is sarcasm in that last sentence, you know) So what is the right form of earthly government? I have no answer to that, and have no obligation to answer that, because my primary citizenship is in heaven. I am not here to fix earthly governments. Per Luke 4:6-7 (and a host of others), the world is Satan's, and so it figures that nations fight each other (each one thinking its motives are a right and a good and a joyful thing), that powerful states rise and fall, and that governments always turn corrupt.

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Anyways, I'm not a scholar of government or anything, so don't take this post too seriously. Unless I say so, or unless you agree (bwahahha). I think I'm done now.

Time With "The Guys"

...or time with "friends"...or lack thereof.

For the married people in the audience tonight: how important to you is time with friends? For the wives, this would be time spent with "me and my girlfriends." For the husbands, this is commonly referred to as "time spent chilling with the guys." For the purpose of this post, such activities preclude one half of the marital corps.

I suppose I should add some further restrictions on the circumstances. How important is time with friends if you could be spending that time with your spouse? (I have no problem with Harmony visiting and being visited by friends from church during the daytime while I'm not there anyways.)

I ask this question because of some "hanging out" that Harmony, Luna, and I did recently with one of my good friends from college (who was also the Best Man (tm) in our wedding). Somewhere in the course of the hangout, he made mention that if/when he were married, he'd still "have to" exercise his option to have time with the fellas. Since I've been married, I've never felt the urge to exercise this option. Especially when I think of my time this way: On average, I spend the majority of my waking hours away from my family :P I wake up around 6 AM and get home around 5 PM. We start getting ready for bed at about 8 or so, and I usually fall asleep between 9:30 and 10.

If I regularly spent time with "the guys," cut out a good portion of time that could've been spent with my wife. Unless it's a special occasion, every once in a while, or unless Harmony can come along, it's just not really that worth-it to me. I firmly believe that spending time with my wife is one of the most important interpersonal activities I do on this earth (aside from things like, say, performing CPR on a cardiac-arrested child. Luna says "and feeding me!"). When I get off work, I look forward to seeing my wife and dog. When we have children, I imagine the desire for home will only increase. I imagine that my desire to "hang out with the (nigh non-existent) guys" will decrease even further.

We go to a church where there's only one other young married couple within 5 years mean age of us. All other people, married or not (especially married with children), are busy with their own lives. In my life, "the guys" do not exist. They are not there. They have not been there for at least 1.5 years. They even started getting phased out of my life back when my relationship with Harmony was blossoming. I don't know if it's a bad thing that I never initiate hanging-out-time with other men in my church, but those men are just as busy (if not busier) than I am, and just as likely to decline a regular hanging-out-time.

So I don't really have "friends" or "buddies" anymore. Not like I did in college. But I'm okay with that. Is that so wrong? At-large culture would probably tell me that I need to "get out more and socialize." Not that I care about what at-large culture has to say about socialization, amen homeschoolers?. At-large culture seems to say that I'm weird if I spend most of my time at home, with my family.

To sum things up in bullet points:

• I grant that spending time with friends is important...


• ...but nowhere near as important as spending time with your spouse.


• For me, spending time with friends is fine...


• ...especially if we can do it as a family...


• ...or if I can do it while Harmony is otherwise occupied or away from home.

What do the older married people have to say about this? And by older, I mean anyone who's been married longer than we have.

True Reading Comprehension

I venture to say that true reading comprehension comes when you have sufficient knowledge of history, current events, politics, your own experiences...basically, when one can understand context. Not for all books, but for many of them.

Beware, young knave; there is more to books than what is written on the pages.

As the readers know, we have been on a quest to become well-read, for our own sake and for our future children's sake (since we will never put our children in public schools if we can help it). I've begun to wonder about much a little urchin can truly comprehend when reading such classics.

The first book I read in this quest was Animal Farm, which is a satirical allegory of Soviet communism/totalitarianism. If I had read this book any time before, say, early 2006, I would not have understood it as well as I did last month. In elementary school, this book would been nothing to me except a bunch of talking animals on a farm. But beware, young knave; there is more to books than what is written on the pages. I knew little-to-nothing about systems of government. In middle school, I might perhaps have taken away the message to be suspicious of authority. In high school and college, I might have understood more of the message of the book.

However, only in last month's reading would I have "got" the message fairly in full. Why? My theory is because we are, for the most part, on our own now. I have more at stake in the matter (like taxes and providing for my family), so I pay more attention to government, economics, history, and current events, among other things. No doubt when I have more life experience 10 years later, I'll reread some of these books and say "I never would've understood the full message when I was 25."

How to get a youngling to truly comprehend the depth of what he's reading? I don't know. Foster an interest in the society in which they live, cultivate interest in history, ...stuff like that. To some extent, I suppose it's not possible for a child to comprehend on an adult's level. I imagine the maturity's not there, and even if you have an extremely precocious and mature child, there's the whole life experience and being-out-on-your-own factor. But what do I know? We have not been parents yet. I could be totally wrong on all this. (you will let me know, right?)

Now that I think about it, this post applies to any book that makes any sort of commentary on...well...anything. Hmm. That only means about...almost every book ever written. Good luck!

Of course, it's not only classics that benefit from a sufficient knowledge of context. For example, I am fond of some of Michael Crichton's novels. The first one I read was Jurassic Park, and that was in 6th grade. (what did I know back then?) I probably only took note of the parts where people were either 1) killing dinosaurs, 2) running away from dinosaurs, or 3) being eaten by dinosaurs. I reread it back in March and found it to be a much more enjoyable read, since now I had sufficient math/science knowledge to understand Ian Malcolm's ramblings about chaos theory and nonlinear systems.

What do you have to say about it? Any parents/adults that would like to add to the discussion?

Authenticity of Eaglet Sermon Illustration

For those readers who attend church, you have most likely heard the sermons that use eagles as similes or metaphors. They usually mention how baby eagles (eaglets) learn to fly. Supposedly, the mother eagle takes the eaglet out for a flight, then drops the eaglet. The mother will, of course, catch the eaglet before it hits the ground. Eventually, the eaglet will learn to fly, but only because it's outside its "comfort zone," right? (if heard in a sermon, cue the transition to Christian application)

Recently, I began to wonder whether this actually process actually occurred in nature. Or perhaps it was just an embellishment of the truth?

When I search for phrases like "eaglet learn to fly drop," most of the results are Christian websites using the aforementioned metaphor, or similar ones. I ignored most of those and looked at a number of non-religious, just-the-facts-ma'am eagle websites. I do not recall that any of these sites made any mention of parent eagles dropping eaglets while on a flight. Snopes.com had nothing to say about this particular subject, although it does debunk another inspirational/motivational story wherein eagles supposedly mangle themselves in order to extend their lifespans.

Concerning how eaglets learn to fly:
Baby Birds of Minnesota — March - April 1994:

The time when the chicks leave the nest is called fledging. A bald eagle chick practices flapping its wings in the nest atop a tall pine. Next it tries beating its wings into the wind and taking short hops above the nest. One day, a big gust of wind catches the bird's open wings and whisks it away. The parents follow the young eagle on its first flight.

American Bald Eagle:

Baby eagles grow very fast; they start learning to fly when they are only 2 months old! This can be a very dangerous time for an eaglet, and many will end up on the ground. The parents will usually feed a grounded eaglet, but if the youngster is not able to fly soon, it may get eaten by a predator. If everything goes right, the eaglets are ready to leave the nest and hunt alone when they are 4-6 months old.

Channel Islands Live - Eagle FAQ:

The eaglet will take its first flight all by itself. Although an eaglet has been watching its parents fly from the nest for several months, instinct will take over for its first flight. The eaglet will do lots of wing exercises and will take short practice flights across the nest to develop muscle strength. Typically for its first flight, an eaglet will fly to a nearby branch or land on the ground.

The Eagle Nature Foundation:

The wing fluttering becomes stronger as the young eagles grow. Soon they hop about the nest flapping their wings as the begging gesture, unconsciously, becomes a wing strengthing exercise. The bolder and more restless move to the rim of the nest and soon into the supporting branches.

Finally the boldest eaglet will make up its mind to try its wings in earnest. The others will soon follow. To stimulate their young to fly, the adults have been feeding them less and spending more time away from the nest. They may also fly by with food in their talons to tempt the hesitant young to follow.

At first, the fledglings make only short flights from the nest.

Also keep in mind that the term "eagle," without any modifiers, is a very broad term. There are many different kinds of eagles. Who knows? Some particular species of eagles might actually do the whole dropping-the-eaglet thing. Perhaps parent eagles might push the eaglets out, but I found no mention on eagle sites about dropping-the-eaglet-while-flying.

I am not opposed to using colorful real-life metaphors to help illuminate sermon points. I am, however, slightly annoyed at embellishing the truth or using urban-legends-taken-at-face-value in sermons. A Christian should be truthful in all things, and should examine such widely used and accepted metaphors before using them in lessons. (or maybe I'm making too big of a deal out of nothing)

Have you heard this illustration before? Have you ever seen a documentary that showed this sort of behavior? If you have, please let me know.

Quick To Hear, Slow To Speak

James 1:19-20

19 This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

As I continue to experience more and more of life, I realize how wise these verses are. During the past year, we've been through our share of hardships. Lots of people said lots of words to us. And lots of those words didn't help at all. The hypothetical person saying "It could be worse," for instance.

For example, if you Google the phrase "miscarriage what not to say," you will get lots of different lists. Some of the things on those lists have been said to us. Out of the things that have been said, some of them really didn't help, others were just in one ear and out the other. Very few, if any, lines actually did help us feel better. In fact, some actually appear on both Do's/Don't's of different lists. I'm trying to point out that saying things will not necessarily help mend wounds quicker...I know it's a bit cliché, but sometimes time is the only thing that can help.

When I'm confronted with someone who's going through a tough time, my first thoughts are "what can I say to help this person?" And then I would guess that I would probably race around in my mind, looking for something, then say it. This, of course, is not the right way. It's a knee jerk reaction, and one should seek to suppress the knee jerk.

In fact, what you find to say might seem very helpful. But as I've seen on those lists-of-things-not-to-say, what I think could be helpful could actually be a very wrong thing to say. It really doesn't matter what you yourself think is helpful. After all, you are not seeking to help yourself, are you? You're seeking to help the other person. So I implore you to give the overnight treatment to your spoken lines to a grieving person: sleep on it, think about it, Google it (?), and if it seems fine the next time you speak to the person, maybe it's okay to say. In my experience with grief, there is very little good that can come from trying to talk the griever into a better state. (I know I just said almost the exact same thing last paragraph, but I wanted to say it again.)

So what do you say then? For us, hearing that people would pray for us usually did help us feel a bit better. You can hardly go wrong with prayer. And if you're not the praying type, then I don't know what you can say ;)

<aside>
(Pagan or areligious phrases like "I'll light a candle for you" or "I'm sending good thoughts your way" peeve me.)
</aside>

Let's also examine the third part of the underlined portion. I usually hear the first two quoted together, but it's less often that I hear the third portion. This whole phrase should apply to all parties. So while the person hearing the grief should be quick to hear and slow to speak, I myself need to be slow to anger, if the listener says something stupid. The need to slow your anger will differ, depending on your temperament; my first reaction to most grief-like adversity is anger (accompanied by desires to rend flesh and torch houses...or not. Rar) , and wifey usually reacts first with sadness. I need to be slow to anger towards those who have wronged me, those who have said stupid things, those who are in a better situation than me, and God. I suppose I should also be slow to anger towards varmints who think our garden is a 24/7 salad buffet.

This post mainly dealt with James 1:19-20 in grieving situations, but obviously it applies to other areas as well. You'd be hard-pressed to go wrong while heeding the wisdom in these verses.

Blogging about Blogging

Let's get philosophical: why do we blog?

Rather, why do I blog? Because I have things to say, and I'm not too shy that I can't put it up here for anyone to see. (and if I am too shy, I don't put it up here.) I've had things to say for a long time. I have been writing stuff and putting it on the internet since high school, although much of that is lost. I like getting feedback on the ideas that I put into electronic text.

I must admit that I have lots of fun reading what other people say about what we write. I love getting comments. Blogging, for me, wouldn't be as fun if I knew that only family members ever read it. This is not to say that my sole reason for posting is to illicit comments, but it makes it more fun. Blogs allow us to interact with other similarly minded people that we would otherwise not be able to. Or not similarly minded people too, like our resident nemesis Sara, whom we appreciate comments from, although we may vehemently disagree on a great many thing. Such comments keep us on our toes and force us to clarify, and plug any gaping holes in our arguments and tirades.

Blogging also provides a way to get personal without getting too personal. It's a strange medium, really. What we say on here is not the most personal that we get, but parts of it are more personal than we usually get in more usual and casual settings, like random "hi-how-are-you-i'm-fine" church fellowship. Now, invite us over for dinner (please?), and you might get the more personal tidbits, or you might not, depending on where conversations go.

That's why I blog; why do you blog?